#like his daemon definitely turns into a snake at one point but that’s not who he is yknow

[brimstone-cowboy]

God I love daemon aus, rotating them for Karate Kid/Cobra Kai

[sugutoad]

matchup trade for @coffeebooksrain18 !

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON MATCHUP

Significant Other

”I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where” — Pablo Neruda

I ship you with… Prince Aemond Targaryen — the one-eyed prince and the rider of the largest dragon. Before I had even reached your type, Aemond was the biggest contender. While Aemond is opposite to you in many ways, I believe that you have a similar bite in you that would keep him on his toes. Most people don’t speak up to the Prince when they aren’t happy with his actions ( not even his Mother who he holds so dear to his heart), but you spoke what was on your mind, not even wavering for a split second under his sharp gaze.  He will laugh with you and praise you so much whenever you feel conscious about yourself (not to mention, you don’t have to ever worry about any one pointing out any of your flaws when Aemond is standing right behind you). He is the definition of ‘dangerous, but has a soft spot for you”! I can put in any words on how perfect he is for you. Aemond brings out a new side to him as you do for him. 

RUNNER UP: JACERYS VELARYON AND DAEMON TARGARYEN

HEAD CANONS

Aemond is his mother’s boy. His youngest brother, Daeron, had been sent to squire in OldTown, leaving Aemond as his mother's youngest ( it is quite obvious that that spot does not belong to his eldest brother. Whenever his mother looks at her eldest son, all she can see is her stolen girlhood). So when his mother had told him to marry you, his mother’s ward, he spent no time arguing against her. At least he knew you. Being sent to King’s Landing at a young age, Queen Alicent took you in as her ward, sheltering you and providing you a home. Your earliest memory of the one-eyed prince was back to when… well, when he wasn’t one-eyed. He had been a shy little boy who was all but 7 name days old ( a year younger than you), who had been clutching onto his mother’s skirt. A part of him hated that you stole his mother away. The second you arrived, his mother’s attention was fixed on you. But that hatred turned into something else, something more profound he didn’t know what to call (some would call it love, while others would call it pure obsession) when you had defended when he had lost his right eye. During the wedding night, he felt dirty. He was 13 all over again when Aegon took him to seek the pleasures of the finest whore houses, as, of course, any good brother would. Once noticing his hesitation, you simply kissed him goodnight and flipped to the side. This truly made him appreciate you. You never made him do anything he did not want to. You were so patient with him. 

Oh, but do not fret! Aemond quickly warmed to you. You are after all his closest friend and it didn’t take much for him to feel true affection towards you. Sometimes he isn’t the best at showing his affection through words, but rather actions. While you would be reading a book he recommended to you ( the two of you are absolutely huge book nerds who have discussions that last hours about a single book), he would be behind you, one arm snaking around your neck and the other either holding you hand tightly or resting on your thighs. His head would be buried in your neck, softly nipping at the skin while whispering how you were made for him. That you are his and his only. He is a man who hides all his feelings behind false composure, bottling up every thought and every feeling. And it is only with you when he can curl and let it all out. 

You give to people. You give and give, pouring out your golden bleeding heart to all those near and dear. Aemond is a Targeryen. Like the very base of his house, his purpose had always been to take what he felt was his. He takes and takes until there is nothing left to destroy. And he had always been surrounded by people who would give to him. That was one of the perks he loved as a Prince, second son or not. People were always providing for him and giving him things to be in his favour ( he later figured that he was tired of being given things on a silver platter, preferring to take like his elder brother’s namesake ) But when you gave him something of your heart's purity, he was stunned for a second before regaining his false composure. And for the first time in a year, he put his heart and soul in a gift to give you back (his mother does NOT count!). The best part had been your reaction when you received the present, a smile dancing across your lips as you let out a small chuckle underneath your breath. No, scratch that. The best part has been when you looked up at him and kissed his cheek!

Aemond is a man of many Skills. He may have been born the second son, but he is a philosopher, a swordsman, a dragon rider (may I remind you of the biggest dragon) and a historian. I do not think music was something that ever intrigued him as a kid. ‘How will this even help me in life? I can not use it to fight nor use it to do politics!’ That is exactly what Aemond would say when his mother asked if he wanted to learn the harp from her. He did not want to learn music, but that did not mean he shared no love for it. Sometimes when he would be walking on and about the endless halls of the Red Keep, he would hear a soft melody with the music of a harp playing. He would always stop and smile on the inside. Who else would sound like that or play like that, but you? Once he heard you swear a bit too loudly after messing up a cord. He came into the room, leaning on the door frame. ‘I thought a proper lady should not be going on with such… foul language, m’lady?’

Vhagar is his pride. He does not go a day without bragging about his she-dragon and her size. Though you had never seen Vhagar, you came across Syrax once as a child and she was big! Oh how wrong you had been. Your heart had almost stopped when Aemond presented Vhagar. It did not get better at all! Aemond asked you to join him for a ride and you let out a yelp when Vhagar flew off in the air with a draconic screech, tightening your arms around Aemond’s waist (a victory for Aemond!)

Ship Tropes

She was sunshine (You) x I was midnight rain (Aemond)

Absolutely dangerous and cold (Aemond) x Their soft spot (You)

Loves physical touch (You) x Touch starved (Aemond)

Ship Songs

Me And the Devil by Soap&Skin

Shrike by Hozier

‘ THE SUN OF WINTER’

You belong to House Karstark. Ok, I understand you must be so confused right now. But your warm nature yet also this colder facade reminded me of the Northern families. An even bonus is that you lived in a Ranch away from most people, similar to how the North always keeps to itself. But House Stark did not settle in with me. I wanted more of a power imbalance between you and Aemond and House Karstark just stuck! And you have this warm vibe that I have mentioned before that is somewhere hidden between a colder demeanour. And what are the words of House Karstark? ‘The sun of winter’! Basically the warmth in all this coldness and that just fits you so poetically.  

BACKSTORY

‘Born to Lord Bjorn Karstark and Lady Lucinda Manderly, Rhyla Karstark ( Since Westerosi names are different then our own, I think the name Riley would turn into Rhyla) was the youngest of her four siblings. The Northerns would later report her parent’s fondness for their youngest daughter to Maester Eustace. The girl was a bright one with a smile on her face, truly ‘The Sun Of Winter’, her father’s house name. Unlike her siblings who possessed their father’s darker curl as opposed to her mother’s blonde lock, Rhyla had inherited a light shade of brown. The little girl was her cousin, Cregan Stark the future Lord of Winterfell, closest playmate. Once the girl had reached her 7th name day, Lady Lucinda sent her youngest daughter under the ward ship of her second cousin, Queen Alicent Hightower. Rhyla was dotted on by the Green Queen and her second son grew a fondness for her that the bards would still sing up and past to the reign of King Aegon iii’

DRAGON

When Viserys took his children, his lady wife and her ward to Dragonstone, he had told his children that they could claim any dragon if they were bold enough to do so. While her friends had gone off to find their dragons (Prince Aegon had claimed Sunfyre the Golden that day and mere hours later, his sister claimed the Might Dreamfyre who had last been ridden by Queen Rhaena. Prince Aemond had been left dragonless) 10 year old Rhyla wandered off by herself until she met Vermithor, a mighty dragon ridden once by the Wise King. (I chose this dragon for you because it contrasts so much! Imagine your sweeter self with this grumpy old dragon who hates everyone, but he somehow chose you! King Jaeharys is rolling in his grave because a non-Targayen claimed his dragon.)

 RELATIONSHIPS 

HELAENA TARGARYEN is your best friend. When you came to Ward for Alicent, she was a girl your age and two of you instantly clicked. You are this person who knows of people’s boundaries and Helaena appreciates that so much! Not many people really understand, but you do. The two of you were playmates and would share beds with one another as children. I am also a firm believer she was your first kiss because the two of you wanted to know how it felt!

ALICENT HIGHTOWER is the closest thing you have to a mother. She could never really touch or talk to her own daughter so she almost took you as your own, sharing a deep fondness for you. You are her second cousin’s daughter, making you blood. Instead of going to her kids and looking after them, she puts most of her love in you and Aemond. She also paired you with her son after learning your affection for him. 

CREGAN STARK is your cousin from your Father’s side. The two of you were raised as children side by side and many had expected that there would be an engagement between you. Afterall, marrying cousins to one another in Winterfell was the norm. The boy had been so sad when you left for King’s Landing, but he promised that when you come back, he will marry you! (His heart was broken when he heard of your and Aemond’s marriage)

LUCERYS STRONG is someone you aren’t fond of. While he was an adorable child, the bitter part of you began to hate him when he took out Aemond’s eye. And everyone was blaming Aemond? That made your blood boil. While a part of you was sad from his death, a voice at the back of your head was rejoicing. 

AEGON TARGARYEN definitely flirted with you when you were younger before he decided that he should let his younger brother have a chance. The two of you often argue with one another, but end up laughing it off. And the arguments are also really silly! It’s usually you calling him lazy or a whore and him defending himself in a mocking manner. 

[thunderthighsxd001]

Warning ⚠️: Spoilers and some NSFW content ahead.

///This is a House of the Dragon fanfic. I only own Alyssa Targaryen ll and Phoenix. Those are my OCs I don't take any credit for any pictures used. I don't own any other characters in this story. Credit goes to the original creator.

Summary: Lady Laena Velaryon, has passed away. The entire family is gathering to mourn and say goodbye to a beloved family member. Some unexpected twists and turns are sure to follow.

_______________________________________________

Part 2

It was in the wee hours of the morning when the news arrived about. Lady Laena Velaryon's death the royal family is now set to leave for Driftmark. The following day Alyssa, couldn't believe what she was hearing at first. It felt like it was only yesterday. Lady Laena Velaryon, married Prince Daemon Targaryen and left for Pentos. Even though in truth it has been a few years. Lady Laena, was such a kind woman. Daughter to Lord Corlys Velaryon the Sea snake and Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen who never was. She was also the younger sister to Laenor Velaryon. Who is currently married to her older half sister Rhaenyra. The day passed by in a blur all the castles staff were busy getting all the preparations ready for when the royal family leaves the following day.

The smell of the sea filled Queen Alicent Hightower's nose. As she stood on the side of the boat looking out onto the water. Her husband King Viserys, her second son Aemond Targaryen, Otto Hightower and Cole. All accompanied her on the same ship. A golden dragon with pink membrane wings flew past the boat. This is Sunfyre, Prince Aegon Targaryen ll's dragon. His golden scales seemed to sparkle and shimmer in the sunlight. Dreamfyre, circled around the ship a few times this is Helaena's dragon. A beautiful blue dragon she was currently the largest of the greens side. (Aemond hasn't claimed Vhagar) Last but definitely not least is a large bright red dragon, Phoenix. The mount of Princess Alyssa Targaryen ll. Aemond, tried his best to ignore his siblings. He is still upset about not having his own dragon.

It didn't take long for the royal family to arrive at Driftmark. Sunfyre, Dreamfyre and Phoenix, flew around the large castle finding a place to land and relax. Once landed Alyssa, and her siblings were greeted by Lady Rhaena Targaryen and her sister Lady Baela Targaryen. Much like Aemond, Rhaena has yet to claim a dragon of her own. She is hoping to get the chance to claim Vhagar, soon. As she was Lady Laena's dragon who was her mother. "I'm so sorry for your loss." Alyssa Targaryen ll, told the two girls. Wrapping the two in a tight hug in hopes to bring them comfort.

During the funeral ceremony Alyssa, stayed close to Rhaena and Baela, along with her sister Helaena. Who were soon joined by Jace and Luke. At one point Helaena, was crouched on the floor. Holding a couple of bugs. "Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black. Dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread." She muttered over and over again using a seashell to crush a few of the bugs in her hands.

Prince Aegon Targaryen: "We have nothing in common." He said looking at his Helaena, his father King Viserys Targaryen. Has decided to wed Aegon with his sister Helaena together. This is a common occurrence within the Targaryen's keeping the blood of the dragon pure.

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "She is our sister."

Prince Aegon Targaryen: "You marry her, then."

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "I would perform my duty, if mother had only betrothed us." His eyes looked over at Alyssa, when saying this. Who had been with those bastard nephews since they arrived. Rhaena and Baela, were also with them. Aemond, wouldn't admit it out loud he has always admired his youngest sister. She was probably one of the few members of his household. To actually stop and consider him. Was kind to him, listening to Aemond when he was ignored by his own mother Alicent. Sometimes sticking up for him when the teasing got too out of hand.

Prince Aegon Targaryen: "If only."

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "It would strengthen the family. Keep our Valyrian blood pure." He said not taking his eyes off of Alyssa.

Prince Aegon Targaryen: "She is an idiot."

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "She is your future queen." The young Prince snapped at Aegon. Finally looking away from his other sister who is now following Jace, Luke and the two girls down to the beach.

Prince Aegon Targaryen: "We actually do have one thing in common. We both fancy creatures with very long legs."

Out in the distance the largest current dragon in the realm was laying mourning the loss of her rider, Leana. Vhagar, is a great big large green dragon she is old and slow. But can still pack a punch when needed. Lady Rhaena, plans to claim the massive she dragon for herself. Waiting for when the time was right to do so.

Down on the beach away from view Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen, were claiming each other. (😏)

"What on earth does he think he's doing!?" Lady Baela Targaryen, called out. Getting the attention of Jace, Luke, Rhaena and Alyssa. It was late at night when the group noticed Vhagar, flying around as if trying to shake something off. Aemond, held on as tight as his little fingers would allow. The pair flew over the water and around Driftmark a few times.

Lady Rhaena Targaryen: "Vhagar is my mother's dragon!" She was absolutely hurt and mad she just lost her mother's dragon.

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "Your mother's dead. And Vhagar has a new rider now." The young Prince said feeling extremely proud of himself. He just claimed the biggest dragon in the known world currently.

Lady Rhaena Targaryen: "She was mine to claim."

Prince Aemond Targaryen: "Then you should've claimed her! Maybe your cousins can find you a pig to ride. It would suit you." Which ended up in a fight between Aemond, Jace and Luke causing Luke, to lose control and stab Aemond in the eye. Causing the adults to come and intervene. Pulling the two boys apart. "Come at me again and I'll feed you to my dragon!" Prince Aemond threatened Luke.

The Maester did all that he could to stitch up Aemond's eye. He'll be permanently blind in one eye now and will forever show a scar. This caused Queen Alicent Hightower, to become extremely angry. She demands something to be done about this. "An eye for an eye" King Viserys Targaryen, did his best to try and deescalate the situation. This only made Alicent, even more angrier.

Which soon turned into a scuffle between Rhaenyra and Alicent.

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: "You've gone too far." She said struggling with all her might to fight off Alicent Hightower.

Queen Alicent Hightower: "I? What have I done but what was expected of me? Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law. While you flout all to do as you please." Clearly still angry and jealous about how her life up until now has played out.

King Viserys I Targaryen: "Alicent, let her go!" The King demanded.

Queen Alicent Hightower: "Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It's trampled under your pretty foot again".

Ser Otto Hightower: "Release the blade, Alicent." The hand of the King commanded.

Queen Alicent Hightower: "And now you take my son's eye, and to even that, you feel entitled."

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: "Exhausting, wasn't it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness."

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: "But now they see you as you are." The princess whispered to her once childhood best friend.

To everyone's horror Alicent, cuts Rhaenyra's hand with the dagger. The Maester, rushed over to stitch up the princess's hand.

"Do not mourn me, Mother. It was a fair exchange. I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon." Aemond said to his mother still feeling pretty proud of himself......

The following day Vhagar, is seen taking off into the sky. With her newest rider Aemond, joining his other siblings in the sky flying back to Kings Landing.

[elenothar]

For the WiP titles meme, I'd love to know more about:

Tomb Sirens

Wu Xie & Xiao Hua

Academic Colleagues fic

wu xie birthday week

Forest Weilan

I'm cheating a bit because I know about several of those already. XD

And if you don't want to do all of these, you can pick however many you want. ;D

Only half the list, huh ;D

I'll do brief bits on all of them, let's see...

Tomb Sirens

Not much written for this, though I'm still invested in the idea. Another installment of my ace!Wu Xie agenda, this time featuring tomb critters that seduce with their voice, and only Wu Xie being unaffected and for once getting to save Xiaoge and Pangzi both.

Wu Xie & Xiao Hua

Post heihua movie, Wu Xie and Xiao Hua getting into (and themselves out of, because they can both be terrifying) some trouble

It’s not every day that Wu Xie gets a message from Hei Xiazi that’s not a terrible joke or an even more terrible meme.               Keep an eye on Hua-er for me, will you? The contents of the message, on the other hand, aren’t very surprising. They might both deny it until they’re blue in the face, but Hei Xiazi and Xiao Hua have soft spots for each other a mile wide, and Wu Xie should know. He’s caught them sneaking off for a quick fuck often enough, and besides only people deeply invested in each other can attain that level of personalised bitchiness interspersed with over-the-top protective gestures. Again, Wu Xie should know.

Academic Colleagues fic

That one was a bit of a vague idea, but I wanted (surprise, surprise), to write some more about Shen Wei and Dragon City University, post canon.

These days, Shen Wei keeps his office door open out of sheer stubbornness, overlooking the frequent invasions of people who have no business at the university in order to keep being as approachable as possible to the spooked student body. Which is how he hears Zhang Ruonan, recently returned from her sabbatical looking rather healthier than when he’s last seen her, say loud and clear: “Oh, you’re looking for Professor Shen’s office? You’re in the wrong building, I’m afraid.” She then proceeds to give very detailed directions to a storage closet in the maths faculty building halfway across campus, and a female voice thanks her for her trouble. When Zhang Ruonan appears in his office a minute later, looking rather self-satisfied, Shen Wei raises a brow. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Zhang Ruonan says. “You don’t need any more reporters haranguing you.”

wu xie birthday week

ignoring the fact that this was meant for wu xie's birthday last year just general tomb shenanigans, vaguely inspired by daemons

“Xiaoge,” Pangzi said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as if to avoid spooking someone – ok, so maybe Wu Xie was a little spooked at this point, but still, rude – “are you seeing what I’m seeing?” “Hm.” That was definitely Xiaoge’s assenting, which begged the question – what exactly was it that they were seeing? Slowly, he turned his head to the right, expecting a monster maybe, or a heap of treasure, or the entrance to a side chamber they’d overlooked earlier. He very much did not expect to find himself face to face with a hovering, translucent in a kind of glittery way… snake? Furry snake with gem-like eyes in disturbingly familiar shading of brown? He might have to give the other two a pass for staring because Wu Xie was also staring.

Forest Weilan

Just me marrying my thing for trees with my thing for Guardian, featuring Shen Wei getting stuck in a tree (not that I got there yet in the writing).

In retrospect, they probably shouldn’t have split up. Nothing good ever comes from splitting up, particularly when it comes to Shen Wei’s propensity to seek out trouble. Shen Wei, incidentally, says the same about Zhao Yunlan, but really, only one of them keeps ending up tied to pillars in various places as soon as he goes off alone. It had seemed the logical thing to do at the time. They’d been asked to help find a missing snake tribe kid (well, Shen Wei had been asked, because he can cover a lot of ground with his portals and Zhao Yunlan had invited himself along). Zhu Hong had been pretty certain there was no foul play involved, just a curious youngster who’d strayed too far into the woods, probably frightened out of his wits by now. Normally the Yashou would handle the matter themselves, but lately they’ve been making an effort at increased cooperation.

WIP titles here

[cogcltrcorn]

me, a man who has not read A Word of the "his dark materials" series: I think I should figure out what daemons tvc characters would have

this is an open discussion. I will need to hear y'alls input on this.

so. I have started with lestat. and I present, for your consideration: the evillest golden retriever. ever.

my argumentation:

handsome

blonde

ok and now seriously

a hunting animal

look. "lelio", the kind kid that was obsessed with proving himself useful by providing for his family, the happy-go-lucky amateur actor, definitely had a big nice dog as a daemon. what happened later is. a different story

sidenote: obsessed with inserting this daemon into the whole wolf-hunting sequence and the subsequent depressive episode. lestat mentions that when he was lying in bed afterwards he felt cold because he was usually sleeping with dogs. here it's marginally better because he would still be lying in bed with a dog but also WORSE because. that's the only one that survived. it's that more obvious how lonely he is.

obsessed with the concept of a "puppy love" turning into something entirely different. an evil golden retriever has the same uncanny valley effect as lestat himself, I think

Louis: A falcon

arguments:

look. I am at a point where I just look at some of these pictures and see jacob anderson. this is just hashtag him you know. he has the vibes

also a hunting animal!!!

this:

they eat small animals, mostly rodents (giggling violently)

just. look. it's him

With Claudia it's difficult. on one hand, I really want her to have a canine as well, for some good old mother-daughter parallels. but also. she just isn't. my thoughts on her are:

1) A Burmese Python

this is vibes based. also. love the idea of her having a fuck-off giant snake. works great for all versions of claudia. amc claudia would wear her as a boa.

also a carnivore, but not a hunting animal!!! because!!! you see!!!! despite everything!!!! both lestat and louis will always be more tame/human than her!!!!! because they had actual time to grow up!!!!! and live as humans!!!!! unlike her!!!!

not particularly related to the snake form specifically but love the idea of both louis and lestat being Extremely slow to pick up on the fact that the daemon has settled. like they would probably go "hey why won't you change into something smaller" for a full 3 months before they fucking COMPREHEND

2) a black footed cat

I like this option less (because the fuckoff giant snake is simply more fun) but. it's the smallest and also deadliest feline in the world. this is very much hashtag her

kind of draws a parallel to gabrielle (who. should clearly have a lioness. this is just common sense)

so. yeah. those are my Thoughts. as I've mentioned above, Gabrielle clearly has a lioness (going insane about Gabrielle having the mane that the lioness doesn't.......), also I think Nicki should also have some sort of bird... (maybe a carrion crow?) and I am thinking some sort of canine for armand as well. a maned wolf? don't know. anyway. give me your thoughts!!!! I am going insane!!!

[theskywaslookingback]

tma fic recs please ? 🤲🏽

Oooooo yes! I never get asks like this, thank you!

[my tumblr fic recs tag is here for browsing]

I had to put it under a cut because it got...entirely too long barely half an hour into making it, sorry.

Under 5k

means of cartharsis by orphan_account [G] [965]

“You’d think – you’d that at this point nightmares would be second nature for me, hm?” Martin says, forcing a smile even as he tugs the blanket tighter around his trembling shoulders.

It’s meant to be a bit funny. Instead of laughing, though, Jon frowns.

“No,” he says simply, and matter-of-factly wipes the moisture from Martin’s cheeks with a tissue like he’s a crying child.

A Proper Sleepover by Goodluckdetective (scorpiantales) [T] [1.4k]

In a different world, one where Elias is not waiting for them outside the Lonely, everyone has a chance to savor a moment of respite. As much as they can get these days. If only to talk about things that long need to be spoken.

“Basira says we should all sleep in the same room tonight,” Jon says without looking up. “Safer. So we can keep an eye out for intruders and also each other.”

“So we’re having a proper sleepover then?”

Jon scoffs. “Technically we’ve been having a proper one for months.”

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Martin wants Jon to hold his hand. Martin doesn't want Jon to hold his hand.

It's complicated.

all the other ways by AptlyNamed [G] [2.2k]

Jon loses his first soul mark when he is eight years old.

a palace from ruin by bibliocratic [G] [2.2k]

"What're you sorry for?” Martin asks.

“I should have asked,” Jon says finally. “I'd never.... you were always so private about him, so I mean, at first I wasn't sure he was even yours, but then – when you, when you went with Peter, and I – he was so small, and I thought he was h-half-dead. S-so I picked him up and I carried him. And I'm sorry.”

interiors by doomcountry [T] [2.7k]

In the doorway, he fumbles with his keys. Their sound is loud in the silent stairwell. You don’t remember getting here.

searching for a light (for a right) by Kalgalen [T] [2.7k]

Some people make the mistake of assuming he's naive about sex, for the simple reason he hasn't dated in a while. Tim has called him a prude, at one point, and implied that he was somehow afraid of the intimacy required by the act; he wasn’t entirely wrong, but this definitely isn’t the reason for Jon's disinterest and general bafflement toward what most people seemed to consider as "what makes them human".

Jon simply hasn't found the right person. That is all it is: high standards, and a reticence to let people in.

(In which Jon finds out society is wrong about what a romantic relationship should be.)

how to plant a garden in rocky soil by treeprince [T] [2.9k]

Sometimes you just need a good pair of hands to work out all the kinks in your life.

Good thing Martin has two.

A Weather In The Flesh by cuttooth [G] [3k]

"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."

*

Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.

I'll bring the motion by callmearctus [T] [3.1k]

A long series of kidnappings and international flights leaves its own special mark on someone. Before the Unknowing, Jon is a mess.

Martin helps.

A Bread Made In Heaven by Againstme [G] [3.3k]

Martin moves over and watches how his boyfriend handles the dough. He's awkward with it, tentative and gentle, as if he's scared of hurting it somehow.

"Is this, uh, am I doing this right?" Jon asks, still slowly stretching out the dough and folding it onto itself.

"Well," he says shifting closer to Jon again, "you could be applying more pressure. Here, let me help you out, dear."

Martin moves fully behind Jon, and reaches around him, putting his hands on top of his boyfriend's. Jon inhales sharply, but doesn't say anything else, just lets Martin's hand rest on top of his.

Martin's hands are bigger, but not big enough to entirely envelop the other's hands, and Jon's hands are much, much warmer than his own are. To see what they're doing, Martin moves his head to look over Jon's shoulder. Though he can't see his boyfriend's face from this angle, he can see how it is slowly growing red at the edge of his vision. He decides not to tease him on it, instead content with letting a smile spread across his face and slowly guiding their joined hands in the proper motion.

Or, Martin teaches Jon how to make bread.

stumbling and spinning by lady_mab [G] [3.3k]

“Things happened,” Jon says demurely, trying to untangle Gerry’s fingers, but it only results in him getting pulled in so Gerry can kiss him properly. “It’s not all that bad.”

“I suppose not,” Gerry says with a sigh, sitting back upright. “You somehow managed to snag an incredible boyfriend out of it.”

It takes a solid few seconds before realization clicks in Martin’s brain. “You mean me?” [...]

“You have to admit, Jon has great tastes,” Gerry teases.

nothing sweeter than local honey by beeclaws [T] [3.4k]

So Tim is content, one arm leaned into the spray, waiting for the water to warm, enjoying the feeling of homecoming underneath the gentle fuzz of jetlag, when he hears gasping, panicked breaths coming from the other room.

Tim and Jon, in the aftermath, relearning how to be okay.

When Words are Inadequate by Mugatu [T] [3.8k]

Meals and the preparation of are, for want of a better word, informative. Fact gathering. A place where they can fill in the gaps of their knowledge of the other.

Jon cooks for Martin, and they learn more about each other.

go softly by doomcountry [T] [4k]

And there is nothing else besides this.

Imago by cuttooth [T] [4k]

“Jon?” he asks tentatively, tightening his grip around the poker as it slips against his sweaty palm. The antennae twitch, and suddenly Martin knows that it’s Jon, the knowledge sliding into his mind in a surge of desperate affection, the same profound love he felt that first time he truly saw Jon in the fog of the Lonely.

“Oh,” he whispers. “It really is you.”

*

Jon changes, but he’s still the same to Martin.

shoreline by bibliocratic [G] [4.1k]

“Martin," Tim says kindly, tipsily, only mildly slurring. "Dearest, dearest Martin. You're wankered, babe. Last train to Stockwell fucked off hours ago because it is now piss off o'clock in the morning, and there's a sofa with your exact name on it at my place. Thought you said you wanted some handsome fellow to take you back to his tonight?”

Or: The OG Archive crew go drinking, Martin comes out, and gets some well deserved TLC. In that order.

get your epitaph right by bibliocratic [G] [4.2k]

Martin's daemon has tried on the shape of dogs and lizards and snakes and horses, and even – once, when he was younger and Mum took him to the seaside, a fish.

Martin's never seen his soul in the dressing of a spider before.

i've known the warmth of your doorways by beeclaws [T] [4.2k]

'I’m always in pain, Jon wants to say, even as he dismisses the thought as melodramatic. Between his growing collection of old wounds and scar tissue, the supernatural hunger for statements that hasn’t been truly satiated in months, and the unpredictable aches and strains his body threw off day by day long before he ever set foot in the Institute, some level of pain and discomfort follows Jon wherever he goes now. He is used to being in pain. He’s not used to someone holding his hand as he suffers through it.'

Jon catalogs the comforts he receives, and wonders how long he will be allowed to keep them.

lay down your weary head by Zykaben [T] [4.6k]

Jon has been running himself ragged, searching for every scrap of information he can possibly find about the Unknowing. He's exhausted and sleep-deprived but he can't bring himself to take a break, not now.

Luckily, Tim and Martin are there to make sure that their boyfriend gets the care and rest he needs.

only the sweetest words remain by bluejayblueskies [T] [4.6k]

This isn't how things are supposed to go, right? Jon remembers those ratty paperbacks from the charity shops, dime-a-dozen romance novels with broken bindings and yellowing pages and words that spoke of love and passion and sexuality in prose that was more than a bit too mature for someone whose age hadn’t yet reached double digits. Stolen glances turn into dinner dates turn into passionate kisses turn into…

Well, he’d never actually read those parts of the books, because it had all seemed so deeply uncomfortable and gross. But he got the picture.

Or, Jonathan Sims, on being loved

5k-20k

and they keep not letting go by Marianne_Dashwood [G] [5k]

It’s an electric feeling, something strange and new and familiar all at once, even though he has been holding Martin’s hand for most of the day. His stomach swoops, like he is standing on the edge of the precipice of realisation and staring into the void of unknowing. But at the same time, he does know. In this instant of contact between them, the last few years of cups of tea and small smiles and momentary glances, of panic and fear and only feeling safe with Martin’s solid presence in the room, despite his paranoia, rush into him, and oh, oh oh.

ready to call this love by yewgrove [G] [5.6k]

How is Martin supposed to tell Jon that he panicked, stupidly, when the lovely old lady down the village asked him what they were doing in this part of the world? Got the shopping! Oh, by the way, we're married now! Whole village thinks we're on our honeymoon, hope you don't mind!

Prenons-nous la main by luftballons99 [T] [6k]

They still haven't talked about it, any of it, not even to pass the time on the long train ride to Scotland. Instead, Martin fell asleep in the seat next to him, pressed into his side from shoulder to knee, and Jon thought about love confessions and verb tense and how the two fit together when you think you're dying.

or: Good cows, mediocre poetry, and other crucial topics of discussion.

This Must Be The Place by cuttooth [T] [6k]

“You said – you said we were going home,” Martin says softly.

“I did,” says Jon, and is grateful that Martin doesn’t comment on him calling the Archives home. “I – I don’t really know where to go. I, uh, I don’t have a flat anymore, I don’t think. We could find a hotel?”

“Let’s go to my place,” says Martin. His hand squeezes Jon’s, more gently than before. Most importantly, Jon notes, he doesn’t let go.

*

Jon and Martin go home for a little while.

Small Things, Simple Acts by ZaliaChimera [T] [6.6k]

Even after leaving London, Jon and Martin are not free, not really. Maybe they never will be.

But for now they can be themselves, and maybe in the end, that's enough.

house by tomatoes [G] [9k]

Martin can take care of himself.

roses, roses, roses by acetheticallyy (judesstfrancis) [T] [9.3k]

Rose scented laundry detergent. Running into Jon in the breakroom. Running into Jon on his way back to his desk. Rose scented detergent. Running into Jon. Roses. Jon. Roses, roses, roses.

a deeply annoying child by ajkal2 [G] [9.6k]

Jon is hiding under the desk.

----

There's a child in the Archives, who shouldn't be there.

Inseparable by voiceless_terror [T] [10.3k]

“You can stay.” The voice interrupts his internal panic, and he looks over to find Jon studiously avoiding his gaze, staring hard at a neighboring bush. Martin wonders what caused his sudden change of heart. “But you have to sit on the other side. And don’t talk to me.”

Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood meet as children. Some things change, others do not.

i'm almost me again, you're almost you by gruhukens [G] [12k]

After a second Jon steps in towards him, close enough that Martin flinches, but all Jon does is put two fingers under his chin with his free hand and raise it until Martin can’t duck away. Jon has never touched him so casually before – at least, not until today, and it raises a lot of thoughts and feelings that Martin is trying very hard not to process.

Much like a lot of other things that have happened, he thinks. Not that it’s horrible or terrifying or numbing like everything else has been: it’s just another thing on the list of things he doesn’t have the capacity to deal with.

---

In the wake of the Lonely, there's a lot that Martin doesn't really want to think about.

hello my old heart by firebirdsuite [T] [15.8k]

Peter’s wrong, of course. When it’s all over, Martin does still want to tell Jon everything. It’s just—well, there’s a few things they need to work through first before they can get there.

Martin and Jon find each other again in Scotland.

Over 20k

The Kindness of Strangers by TheOestofOCs [M] [23k]

It was easier to treat Jon like a monster when he wasn’t shivering against his back, brokenly humming—wait, was that…

“Are you trying to do ‘Hey, Jude’?” Tim demanded.

Jon stopped, stiffening. “Mm hrmh mm mmh hm,” he said defensively.

“You really can’t hold a tune, can you, boss?”

*

It was just an ordinary walk to a restaurant. Tim had insisted that if they were going to talk, there would be no tape recorders or weird Archives ghosts listening in. A bit of fresh air wouldn’t kill him, Tim had said. What could go wrong?

By the time Jon spots the white delivery van, it’s much too late.

The Stranger kidnaps Jon. Tim comes along for the ride.

Misjudged by ShastaFirecracker [T] [36.5k]

Martin's been a longtime listener of What the Ghost, so when Georgie gives a shoutout to her flatmate's Twitch channel during a Q&A, he checks it out - only to discover that her flatmate is also his most terrifying coworker at his new job. The first time they crossed paths, Jon yelled at him for incompetence. But on the streams, Martin sees an entirely different person - someone fun and relaxed, engaging and unfairly attractive. Over time, Martin begins to find that Jon buried inside his dour, awkward coworker. He also learns to live with the fact that his crush is painfully one-sided... or is it?

if we make it through the night everyone is gonna hear us (Series) by skvadern [Ratings Vary] [42.4k]

In which Sasha survives the NotThem (with a little help from a certain Distortion) and she and Jon spend s2 working together to try and make sense of everything that's happening to them. It goes...interestingly

the garden of forking paths by bibliocratic [T] [49.7k]

Whatever he had predicted might happen, Jon wasn't expecting to survive upon demolishing the Panopticon. He certainly wasn't expecting to be rescued.

Instead, he wakes up in an alternative universe where he's never been the Archivist, and Martin Blackwood doesn't exist.

Martin Blackwood wakes up somewhere else entirely.

it's only forever by lady_mab [T] [50.9k]

“The castle at the center of the labyrinth,” Jon breathes, recalling again the words from one of the past conversations with Martin. “He’s there.”

“Turn back, Jonathan,” the Goblin King says, and Jon is surprised to hear a slight edge of desperation in the tone. “Turn back before it’s too late.”

“I can’t,” Jon answers with the same tone. “You know that I can’t.”

The Goblin King’s grin is gone completely, and he regards Jon with a degree of pity before that melts into resignation.

Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey [T] [53.3k]

"Who the hell are you?" Jon could feel his hands shaking. The man laughed, taking a step forward and raising a hand to point at him. "I'm you, from the future!" he said, then swayed, eyes going unfocused, and collapsed to the floor in a dead faint. -------- Post-season-four Jon and Martin time travel back to the season one Archives.

A Home For What Loves You by TheWrongShop [T] [151k]

It was completely fine that Jon was following up on this very normal, non-supernatural statement at midnight on a Friday. He was going to find nothing at all, and then he was going to go home and sleep for fourteen straight hours and feel absolutely no qualms about moving case #0150409 directly into the filing cabinet marked "discredited".

Or; Jon and Martin end up investigating Carlos Vittery's basement and finding the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss together.

RATED E *MINORS DNI*

A Look And A Voice by cuttooth [E] [6.9k]

“Do you want to have sex with me?” Jon asks bluntly, and for a second Martin can’t breathe.

“It - it doesn’t matter what I - ” he begins valiantly, before Jon interrupts him.

“Because I want to have sex with you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if you think it’s for the wrong reasons. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions. The only thing that matters is if you want to as well.”

*

Martin meets a guy in a bar and takes him home.

Warms The Coldest Night by cuttooth [E] [11k]

"Flame that warms the coldest night Bring to us the waxing Light, Be with us on Solstice Night." Gypsy - Bring Back The Light

There is mistletoe hanging in the doorway to the Archives when Jon gets in.

Curiosity by ShastaFirecracker [E] [11.6k]

“You know that conversation we had the other day about how one of the most important things for queer youth to learn is that it's okay to change their minds, because identity and self-discovery are always fluid?”

Behind him, Martin slipped oven mitts over his hands and pulled open the oven door. The scent of garlic and rosemary flooded the kitchen. “Yeah?” he said.

“I, um... I'd like to revisit the topic of sex.”

At the Interim (Series) by Rend_Herring [E] [41k]

A Measure Outside the Lines and The Residuum

triptych (Series) by Stacicity [E] [44.9k]

A collection of Jon/Tim/Martin fics

a steady hand, a delicate man by callmearctus [E] [52.8k]

Martin is the proprietor and manager of a very discrete and fairly exclusive brothel situated between Belgravia and Chelsea. Blackwood House excels at special requests and pleasing any client.

Except for Jon, who probably has never been pleased a day in his entire life.

Despite that, he still comes back. It eventually begs the question: how do you solve a problem like Jon Sims?

[in-tua-deep]

Daemon AU? Yes PLEASE!

I will give u the pre-canon material exploring Five and his daemon’s relationship ;3c 

---

Pancha prefers small forms. Five never knows for certain why, and when he asks her she just tilts her head and shrugs at him because she doesn’t know what to say, either.

She likes being a hummingbird, flitting around Five’s head and hovering in front of his face before nesting in his hair. She likes being a mouse, scurrying up Five’s arm and tucking herself into the pocket on the front of his blazer.  She likes being a rabbit, feet thumping against the floor as she zoomed around the room at top speed.

Five never knows, or maybe just never vocalizes why the representation of his soul prefers to be small. 

But when Reginald Hargreeves gives him scathing performance reviews, his cane clicking against the floor in time with the soft clicking of Aryia’s claws as they look down their noses, as Five stands with his back straight and proud while - 

While Pancha curls up tight in his pocket, a mouse biting the end of her own tail so that she would not whimper aloud. They know then, even if they never voice it aloud. The reason that Pancha prefers to stay small.

---

The thing that people learn early is to watch daemons. Not directly, that would be rude, but to keep them in the corner of your eye and observe. Daemons are the representation of a person’s soul after all, and souls can’t lie. 

If someone is nervous, their daemon will shuffle anxiously. If someone is angry, their daemon will puff up in fury. When someone is scared, their daemon will cringe and cower. It’s easy to spot a liar in a world where the heart lays outside of the body.

Five’s very good at lying with his own body. He stands up straight and proud. He bares his teeth in furious smiles, licking blood from his lips and refusing to back down. He speaks loudly, with purpose, with challenge in his voice and in his words. Five is hard-headed. Five is disobedient. Five is an unruly little monster.

Pancha shifts into a hummingbird, because everyone knows hummingbirds flit around to keep aloft. It doesn’t look like nervous energy when it’s for a purpose. Pancha shifts into an australian tiger beetle, because they don’t have lips to draw back in wordless snarls. Pancha shifts into a gerbil and hides in Five’s pockets, because what you don’t see cannot betray you.

They call her adaptable, laugh when their siblings’ daemons begin to settle. They tolerate the speculation about who is going to settle next and what they will become.

They both dread the day Pancha will settle, even if they don’t say anything to one another. They don’t address the fact that she changes from one form to another, cycling through dozens within the space of a day even though their siblings stick to perhaps three. They don’t talk about the buzz under their skin that drives Pancha racing around their room at top speed until they crash on the bed panting together with something clawing desperately inside their soul. 

They don’t talk about a lot of things, but they don’t need to. They’re two halves of the same whole. 

---

Luther snaps at Five for cheating, for running ahead on a mission. They’re twelve, and Andromeda looks down on Pancha with something cold in her eyes and says, “Of course they can’t obey. They’re still unsettled.”

She says it like an insult, lip drawing back to show off too sharp teeth, says it like it’s something for Five to be ashamed of. Says it like what she’s really saying is that Five is a child. Like they aren’t all twelve-years-old and just settling into their own skins. 

She says it like it’s Five’s fault that Pancha can flit through forms like she can’t shed them fast enough. Even as Andromeda speaks, Pancha is a bat, is a wren, is landing on Five’s shoulder as a sugar glider, is curling around his neck as a ferret.

She says it like it’s his fault that he’s twelve-years-old and his daemon is unsettled. Like half the twelve-year-olds running around aren’t doing so with daemons just as unsettled as his. 

(Five read once, in a book, that trauma can make daemons settle earlier. There are so many cases of children as young as nine, seven, six with daemons tiny and scared and permanent.

The same book mentioned that abused children’s daemons often fell into one of two categories: large predators, to protect themselves and bare their teeth and intimidate any who try and hurt them. And the small ones, who are tiny and scared and do their best to be beneath notice.

Luther and Diego’s daemons are large, with teeth that can tear flesh and muscles beneath their skin.

Pancha likes to take small forms. Five doesn’t think about it too much.)

Five curls his lip and snarls back at Andromeda in a way that he never does when they’re in front of cameras, because etiquette says that people don’t talk to other people’s daemons, “If you weren’t so slow then maybe I wouldn’t have had to go in alone.”

Pancha shifts from a ferret to a squirrel to a kangaroo rat. The others are used to her rapid changes, but they also mean that they can’t pin down Five’s mood based on his daemon’s body language. She’s shifting too rapidly for that, clawing down his jacket as a hispid cotton mouse and settling into his arms as a pika, as a pygmy rabbit, as a stoat.

“Maybe I should hear a rumor about everyone calming down.” Allison threatens, her hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently. Amraphel is wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf, lazily flicking his tongue out.

(Allison has been of ill temper and short of patience ever since Raph settled a month ago. The whole house had heard her shouting about it, and none had dared to address it when they came down to dinner with Raph draped over the back of the chair instead of his customary place in Allison’s lap. 

Raph and Allison haven’t sat properly together since he settled, and no one talks about it.)

But Allison’s words settle Andromeda and Luther, both of them backing up in a way they wouldn’t for any other sibling. 

Pancha is a bush baby now, climbing up to Five’s shoulder and tugging lightly on the hair behind his ear. 

Five holds his hands behind his back and twists his fingers together to the point of pain.

“No need for that.” Pancha says, voice clear and level and almost haughty. “They’re only jealous they can’t be as adaptable as us.”

Luther snarls and lunges forward, only to be blocked by a bristling Andromeda. “They’re not worth it.” She growls, low and deep in her chest with flashes of white teeth. Luther and his daemon try so hard to be respectable, to be cool and aloof like their father and his daemon. It’s almost sad, really.

Pancha is a manipur bush rat, scurrying to Five’s other shoulder. Five untwists his hands from behind his back and reaches up to grab her when she shifts into a black jackrabbit. 

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Five says, with all his twelve-year-old wit, “Your face isn’t worth it.”

The black eye he sports for three weeks is, in fact, worth it.

---

Pancha is the last one left unsettled. It shouldn’t bother them, they don’t even really want Pancha to settle, but it does in some terrible inexplicable way.

Pancha flits between forms, and none of them feel right.

“We’re obviously going to be something that can jump properly.” Five muses, tapping a pencil against a little black notebook as he thinks. “You said the kangaroo mouse didn’t feel right?”

“Nothing will feel right until the moment we settle.” Pancha points out, flicking the tail of her current ginger-tabby-cat form back and forth, “Val was definitely a wolf a few times before she settled.”

“Yeah, well, I’m like 90% sure Val settled out of pure competitive spirit.” Five dismisses rolling his eyes. 

Valencia had settled two hours before Andromeda had, and has lorded it over the other daemon ever since. Diego still preens about how he was the first of the siblings to settle before even Luther.

(Five kind of wants to tell them both that Tamaya settled a week before Valencia and Andromeda both. No one noticed because Ben hadn’t brought it up, and Tamaya had always favored hiding to confrontation. Instead, Tamaya ‘officially’ settled around three days after their siblings.)

“I’m probably not going to be a big animal.” Pancha says, her claws pricking into his skin through his pajama top as she leans against his shoulder to peer at his list. “You can cross kangaroo off.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t be sure?” Five says, eyebrow raised.

Pancha just stares at him blankly. He stares back. Pancha shifts into a Florida king snake.

“Not having eyelids is cheating.” Five scowls, crossing his arms.

Pancha easily swaps into a possum, shaking out her fur. “It wasn’t cheating, it was adapting.” She tosses his words back in his face, “Besides. You thought I could be a kangaroo.”

Five grudgingly crosses an entry out. “Well why are you a possum now?”

Pancha shrugs as well as she can as a possum. “Dunno. It’s a marsupial or whatever, isn’t it? Besides, I’m sort of digging the fingerless gloves aesthetic.” She offers a foot out for Five to inspect.

“You look like you just climbed out of a trash can.” Five informs her.

“No, that was last night.” Pancha shoots back, shifting into a pine marten to crawl into Five’s lap and bat at his notebook. He just holds the notebook a little bit higher, making her huff in irritation. 

“Dad really needs to feed us more.”

Pancha nuzzles against Five’s stomach as comfortingly as she can, even though she can feel the slight pang of hunger gnawing at her belly as well as he can. Their power takes so much out of them sometimes, it’s difficult to justify taking more to a man who sees them as an experiment instead of a person.

“I could turn into a tiger and eat Aryia.” Pancha offers, shifting into an otter and making another grab for the notebook that Five easily avoids.

“You don’t like taking big forms.” Five dismisses easily, as though it’s nothing. As though it isn’t something they don’t discuss between them.

Pancha is silent for a few minutes, and even Five stops scribbling away as he waits for her response.

Finally she says, very carefully, “Just because I don’t like to, doesn’t mean I can’t.”

They both are silent after that, Five lowering his arms to curl around Pancha’s latest form in something just a little bit too loose to call a hug. 

“It’s safer.” Pancha whispers, breaking the silence between them, “I don’t know why, but it’s safer this way. Smaller daemons - they aren’t looked at as closely. When a tiger daemon bristles, people pay attention. When a mouse daemon bristles, no one even notices.”

“Is my soul really mouse shaped?” Five huffs a laugh, but they both know that he wouldn’t be disappointed in her being a mouse so much as he would her being trapped a mouse.

Pancha nudges at his chin with her broad muscular head, “Hey, don’t knock mice. They’re survivors. Practically anywhere you go, you’ll find mice. Inside, outside, they know how to get around.”

Five hums, dropping his notebook on the bed and bringing his hands up to run them through Pancha’s fur.

“Maybe we should be something with a beak.” Pancha whispers, knowing that Five will hear her no matter how softly she speaks. “No one bothers to look at bird daemon expressions, either.”

“Maybe you’ll be a swan, able to break someone’s arm and look pretty while doing it.” 

Pancha snorts, “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you. Vicious representation of our soul, that.” 

Instead of saying anything more, Pancha shifts from an otter into a meerkat. She curls into a tight little ball in Five’s lap.

“Not this one either, then?” Five says with a smile.

“Shut up.” Is Pancha’s intelligent response. “Next time you ask, I’m going to bite you.”

---

The moment they figure out what they can, theoretically, do, the buzzing under their skins gets louder than ever.

“Ask dad again, please.” Pancha begs, shifting from a budgie to a canary to a superb fairy wren as she flits about close to the ceiling of their room.

“You ask Aryia!” Five shoots back, bouncing lightly on the top of his bed even though it’s sort of childish. If anyone comes in though, he’ll just say he was trying to catch Pancha and they’d probably believe it.

Pancha turns into a magpie and immediately tries to divebomb Five in irritation, who stands there unimpressed and she’s forced to veer back towards the ceiling or crash into him. “You know she’s a mythic bitch!”

“And you think dad isn’t?” Five asks incredulously, bouncing a little more frantically.

“You don’t get lectures on how you’re -” Pancha flies to the floor and shifts into an impressive rendition of a marble fox identical to their father’s daemon, “Still unsettled Pancha, honestly, I expected better of you. Why can’t you be like the others, you’re so unruly and disheveled and I have no idea why dear old Reggie didn’t do away with you long ago -”

Five is cackling, his bouncing having come to a stop so he could slap a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter at Pancha’s, frankly, spot on impression of their father’s daemon.

Pancha grins, shifting from a fox into a jack russell terrier and jumping on the bed with Five. “Spot on, wasn’t I?”

“Absolutely impeccable.” Five manages, sticking his nose haughtily in the air, “Why, I almost thought our dearest Aryia was in the room with us!”

Pancha nips at his heels, making him flop down onto the bed with her automatically. The shift in weight and position makes them both bounce a few times before they settle down. They’re still buzzing with energy though, even sitting still.

“I bet time travel would fix us.” Pancha says finally, voice strangely serious in the face of their previous jostling and cheer.

“We aren’t broken.” Five says equally seriously, watching as Pancha shifts into a grey collared chipmunk, then a harvest mouse, and then an antelope jackrabbit. She uses that form’s legs to launch herself from the bed to the desk across the room and back again. 

“There’s something wrong with us, Five.” Pancha corrects him fiercely, clawing up his arm as a pallid bat to his shoulder. “The others weren’t like this. We’re thirteen, now. Statistically, we should have settled by now. Or - or slowed down at least.”

Now she’s a margay, precariously balanced on his shoulder with her tail whipping into his face. Five brings up a hand to gently grasp at the twitching appendage, “The average is twelve to fourteen, technically.” He corrects her gently, “We practically just turned thirteen, we have time.”

Pancha hisses, hopping down off his shoulders in the form of a mongoose. “If we just - we have to try, Five. Can’t you feel it?”

Five bops her gently over the head, half scolding. “Of course I can, I’m you aren’t I?”

The buzz under their skin gets stronger by the day, and Pancha hasn’t been able to hold a form for longer than five or ten minutes in almost a year. It takes more effort not to jump than it does to actually jump, these days. Pancha shifts into a brush rabbit and levels him with an unimpressed look.

Five heaves a sigh, foot bouncing against the floorboards as though Pancha has transferred her nervous energy to him. “You know what dad’s gonna say, anyway.” He brings a hand to his chest and put on a nasally fancy tone, “Maybe we can revisit this topic when you’ve matured a bit, Number Five.”

Pancha gnashes her teeth together as a beaver. “You know what that’s code for.”

Five’s look is just as bitter as his daemon’s tone. He does know. Everyone knows. It’s a whole thing - people have weird ideas about what it means to settle. That it means, in some weird way, that it’s a transition into adulthood and responsibility.

How many hospital dramas and detective shows make it a point to draw attention to a child actor’s shifting daemon? How many true crime shows have grieving parents wailing about how the daughter or son wasn’t even settled yet, as though it might have been less of a tragedy if the kid’s daemon had been permanently stuck as a woodchuck. How many courtroom dramas have dismissed eyewitness testimony on the basis of the kid isn’t even settled yet.

Five and Pancha thinks it’s stupid, the emphasis put on settling. Thinks it’s dumb that he’s somehow considered less mature than a nine-year-old with a settled hedgehog daemon, even though he’s thirteen. But his age doesn’t matter. Just his daemon’s settled status. 

“What if time travel fixes us.” Pancha proposes again, fluttering over to the desk in the form of a cardinal. “What if it helps. What if it’s what we need to - ”

Settle, she doesn’t say. Because to settle is to know yourself, and they don’t even know they extent of their powers.

Five shakes his hands out, blue sparks flying down his wrists as he does so. Anything to try and get the buzz out from under his skin. 

“I’ll ask dad again tomorrow.” Five says finally, “And if he says no - ”

“Then we do it anyway.” Pancha is a coyote, lips pulled back in a wordless snarl before blue lightning runs down her form and she’s suddenly pressed against Five’s side.

“Then we do it anyway.” Five confirms, grim.

---

Time travel does not fix them.

Time travel breaks them.

They stand in the rubble of the end of the world, howling for their family with something that tastes like desperation on their lips, and no one answers. Dust swirls across the ground, glittering and gruesome as the smoke chokes the air from their lungs.

They claw through ruin until they find what they’re looking for, until Five shoves a piece of debris off of a face that belongs to a wrist with a black umbrella inked upon it, dark and final.

He finds Luther. He finds Allison, finds Diego, finds Klaus. He does not find their daemons.

Pancha is a falcon, is a racoon, is a wolf howling desperately into the crackling air, hoping, praying for an answer. But the only thing they hear are the quiet roar and crackles of the fires and their own footfalls.

It’s eerily quiet, at the end of the world. There’s no movie soundtrack, or screams, or howling winds. It’s just the pops of distant fires and the sound of rock across rock as their feet dislodge pieces of the wreckage.

“We can fix this.” Five says feverishly, “We have to go back.”

“It’s not working.” Pancha grits her teeth, pushing and pushing and pushing against the wall of their powers. It’s about as useful as trying to break down a brick wall with her shoulder.

“We’ll make it work.” Five vows, “We’ll go back. We’ll save them all.”

Pancha nods, equally grim and equally serious. 

“What we need,” Pancha says slowly, sounding out each word. She has Five’s full attention on her, “Is an equation.”

Math isn’t something they technically need anymore. It’s a crutch from their younger days, something that soothes them and calms them and helps them focus. They can jump without it, their brain doing most equations automatically.

But when they’d first been figuring out their limits on distance, when they’d first figured out the differences between jumping in water and jumping in air - they’d used math. When they were figuring out time travel was possible, they’d looked at the math.

“Okay.” Five says, breathy and small and scared, “Okay.”

---

They don’t figure out until a week in that the buzzing under their skin is - not gone, but lesser somehow. 

In their defense, they have a lot bigger things to worry about.

Five is scooping cold spaghetti-o’s directly into his mouth with a spoon he’d buffed against his shirt when he finally looks at Pancha and realizes that she’s been a barbary macaque for… hours now. She has a box of children’s sidewalk chalk by her side and is concentrating fiercely on writing while Five takes a break.

“Pancha - ” Five starts, and then finds himself at a loss for words when she looks up at him. 

“Hmm?” She asks absently, little monkey face still scrunched up in concentration. Five can’t help but wonder when the last time Pancha stayed in one form long enough for him to pick up proper expressions from her face.

“...Never mind.” Five says, and watches Pancha turn back to her work. 

They have more important things to worry about now anyway.

---

“This is a bad idea.” Pancha informs him, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth as she pants in the scorching heat. She’s a dingo today, has started experimenting with bigger and bigger forms.

(Five is seventeen-years-old. She still hasn’t settled.)

“We’re literally starving to death, Pan.” Five says dryly gripping bright packaging between thumb and forefinger like he would prefer not to be touching it himself, thanks. “Look, I definitely remember something about these things never going off.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” Pancha frowns, “But then again, I don’t know enough about twinkies to dispute it.”

They both look at the innocent little treat that Five has managed to unearth from inside of what looks like it used to be a child’s backpack. They don’t think about the child the backpack might have belonged to.

“Don’t those things have like, cream in them or something?” Pancha asks doubtfully, leaning forward to sniff the treat suspiciously, “Pretty sure anything with dairy in it went off like, years ago.”

“They’re like, 90% preservatives probably.” Five says, bringing it closer to his face so he can sniff it as well. “What do you think?”

“I think this is a terrible idea.” Pancha shrugs, which looks strange with a Dingo’s shoulders, “But then again, we are starving to death. Not sure we can afford to be picky.”

“We also can’t really afford to be sick.” Five points out sensibly. 

They both take another pause to consider the twinkie. 

“We’re so going to regret this.” Pancha sighs, laying down and putting her head on her paws. “But hey, if we die, we die.”

“We’re not going to die.” Five scolds her, peeling open the twinkie finally and giving it a distrustful look, “We totally aren’t going to regret this. Power of positive thinking, right?”

They absolutely regret it.

They don’t die, though.

---

The bright side of Pancha being unsettled is that she’s actually very useful in the apocalypse. She can take on the form of an elephant, acting as a one-daemon construction crew to clear out debris when they need a place to stay. She can run through the rubble as a mouse, squeezing through cracks in search of anything useful.

She takes the form of a chameleon, snagging insects from the air and offering them to Five when his skin starts looks paper thin and his ribs stick out prominently. 

Pancha lays in the body of a tiger, curled around her human to protect him from the cold nip of the night air. The weather is turning, and soon enough there will probably be snow on the ground.

“We’re twenty-one this year.” Pancha says quietly.

Five hums, fingers twisted into her fur. “Five more years and then we’ll have officially been here longer than we were there.” 

“Doesn’t matter how long it takes us.” Pancha says, squeezing her paws around his shoulders in warning, “We’re going to get back to them.”

Neither of them are sure they really believe it anymore, but oh how they want to.

They let the silence sit for a while between them before Five speaks up with a snort, “Not this one then?”

The question is almost an old joke at this point. Thirteen was a late bloomer. Sixteen was maybe-we-should-get-you-checked-out territory. Twenty-one was practically unheard of.

Pancha gives him a punishing lick with her sandpaper tongue over his forehead, making Five squawk with outrage. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, idiot.”

“You know, calling me an idiot is really only calling yourself an idiot.” Five bites back, but they both know he’s not really offended. If he was, he wouldn’t still be cuddled into Pancha’s fur. Even their arguments are performative these days. 

“I can call you scruffy without offending myself, I suppose.” Pancha says dryly, “What is wrong with your face.”

“If you can find a good razor kit in the apocalypse then be my guest.” Five says grumpily, but he ruins it by nuzzling his face into Pancha’s chest fur making her huff with laughter.

Pancha squishes him closer, mindful of her big paws and powerful muscles. But even in this form - her hip bones are too prominent and her ribs can easily be felt through her fur. They’ll go out scavenging again tomorrow, but for tonight they can just… lay here. Bask in one another’s company. 

“Stop thinking so much.” Five draws his head back a little to sleepily scold his daemon, “You’re going to keep us both up.”

“Shut up then.” Pancha shoots back.

“Night, Pancha.” Five’s words are muffled against her fur, but she hears him loud and clear.

“Night, Five.” Pancha says softly.

---

Pancha hops tentatively through the first snow of the season, her white fur blending in well. “Five,” She says, not sure how she’s planning on following up.

“I know.” Five says quietly, reaching down to pick her up. She rubs her face under his chin comfortingly, feeling the scratch of his beard across her fur. “Happy birthday to us, I guess.”

“Twenty-six.” Pancha whispers.

“It was - it was 2019, right?” Five asks suddenly, “When the apocalypse happened?”

“April 1st, 2019.” Pancha confirms solemnly.

Five hums. “They’d have been, what, thirty?”

“It was still April.” Pancha corrects, shaking her head gently, “Our birthday is in October. They’d have still been twenty-nine.”

Five is very quiet for a long time, and Pancha keeps her own silence as they trudge through the wasteland. They’ve been doing a little better food-wise recently. They’ve discovered that while Five doesn’t get much out of Pancha eating, they get something out of it. She’s taken to wearing herbivorous forms and munching on grass and other plantlife where she can. The coming winter may make that trickier, though.

“If we go back before we hit thirty, we’d be about the same age.” Five says finally.

Pancha hums in agreement.

“But - ” Five hesitates, “We have to go back to, to before Ben dies, right?”

“They were what, sixteen?” Pancha taps at Five’s chest in a request to be put down, which he readily complies with. “Maybe we could get them out. Be the responsible adult.”

Five snorts, “Adopt our siblings?”

Pancha grins, “Hey, don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy the hell out of bossing Luther and Andromeda around.”

“We’ll see who’s the kid then.” Five chuckles before they both fall silent.

After all, Luther’s entire thing about Five being a brat was because - well. Pancha silently shifts into a husky with thick fur, coming over to nudge at Five’s leg as they walk side by side.

“We never really talked about what we’d do about - about me once we get back.” Pancha says carefully, warily.

They don’t need to change like they used to. Don’t shift between forms with the blink of an eye. They’re more solid now, Pancha tends to take a form for hours or entire days now unless she finds another form more useful to their current situation.

But they aren’t settled.

Five offers her a strained smile, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Maybe if we get back, it’ll fix us.” Pancha offers, but her voice is soft and a little bit wistful. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying any more than Five does. They already travelled down that road before, and look where it got them.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Five repeats firmly, before his face softens a little bit, “Happy birthday, Pancha.”

“Happy birthday, Five.”

---

“Do you remember how old we are now?” Five whispers, his hair and his beard have gotten streaked with grey. Pancha’s not exactly a spring chicken herself anymore, allowing Five to card his fingers through the feathers in her wing and straighten them out.

“Too old.” Pancha complains, “What’s the point in keeping track anyway? It’s not like we know what day it is.”

“We should probably keep track in general.” Five sounds amused, “Gotta remember how far to go back after all.”

“Fuck it.” Pancha declares, nipping at Five’s fingers when he’s a tad rough with a tender spot, “Just overshoot. Either we’ll pop out when the family are babies, and we can just steal everyone, or we don’t and bam we’re right on track.”

“You’re suddenly finding a motherly bone in your body, somewhere?” Five removes his hands from her wings to brush them off on his pants. Pancha gives them an experimental flap or two. “I, for one, could not be paid enough to deal with a baby Diego. Can you imagine?”

“He’d have fantastic aim when he’d throw his toys at you.” Pancha snickers.

“Can you imagine baby Allison?” Five demands, and they look at each other for a heartbeat before they both break down into laughter.

“Oh my god,” Pancha gasps, burying her face into her own wing, “Can you imagine what she’d rumor? Everyday would be Disney world day and she would be the prettiest princess of all.”

“Ruling the world with an iron fist and a sparkly tiara.” Five manages to get out, his own face buried in his hands as he wheezes.

“Klaus would be right next to her, tiara and all.”

“Fuck you’re right.” Five laughs, a deep belly laugh they neither of them hear very much these days, “There would be so much glitter.”

That statement makes Pancha dissolve into giggles again where she was just getting control of herself. 

“If we ever get back, I’m going to buy both of them the sparkliest tiaras available. No, wait. Gonna buy the whole family a bunch of those little kid birthday tiaras, and never explain why.” Five declares, grinning, “They’d be so confused.”

“When.” Pancha corrects, and the mood suddenly turns serious. “When we get back.”

Five doesn’t apologize, doesn’t sputter or claim it was just an error of speech. He just inclines his head a little bit and says, “Right. When we get back.”

---

They’re old and broken and creaky and tired when their endless days of bouncing math off of each other and testing at the boundary of the blue that stays frustratingly solid to them changes.

Five’s hair is entirely grey now, and his beard is long and scraggly where he hasn’t taken a knife to it in a while. 

Pancha is a european hare and she’s the one that first senses danger.

The thing about living in the apocalypse, is that it’s quiet. There’s no hum of electric lights. There’s no brawls between stray cats or dogs. There’s no squirrels or rats or mice scurrying around. 

So when Pancha’s sensitive ears pick up the sound of footsteps she feels such an intense sense of - of something that it makes Five drop his chalk and swing around to look at her with alarm.

She’s glad her form today is swift, because she’s across their little ‘camp’ in seconds and in his arms, clawing her way up to his shoulder to press her mouth to his ear, “There’s something out there.” She whispers, somehow terrified and she doesn’t know why.

To his credit, Five doesn’t even hesitate despite the impossibility of her words. He scoops her under one arm and turns and picks up the gun (they don’t talk about why they have a gun) with the other. He turns around and points it at - 

A woman. They both freeze like deer in headlights.

“Hello!” The woman calls, picking her way down the debris in high heeled shoes.

“Five.” Pancha swallows, making her human look at her, “Five, where’s her daemon.”

Five’s head whips back around, and they both stare. It’s entirely possible that the woman’s daemon is just small, just out of sight and out of mind. It’s even possible that she’s a witch, and her daemon is off gallivanting about.

But Pancha can feel a scream trapped behind her teeth, feel her ears go back as she fights the urge to run run run away from this terrifying woman who tastes of empty empty empty. Something is wrong. 

She can see the way Five’s fingers tremble as the sense of wrong wrong wrong reverberates through their bond. 

“Who the hell are you!” Five snarls out, and Pancha takes the opportunity to squirm and wriggle so that she’s balanced precariously on Five’s shoulder, freeing up his other hand to steady the gun.

“I’m here to help.” The woman says brightly, still picking her way towards them.

“Five.” Pancha whimpers, and as she feels her paws tremble she watches his hands go still and steady.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just put a bullet through your head right now.” Five raises the gun further, but the woman doesn’t even hesitate. 

“Because,” The woman says, smiling a carefree smile as she adjusts her hat and pulls her sunglasses from her face. “Then you wouldn’t hear the offer I’m about to make you.”

Five and Pancha are more tense than they’ve ever been before in their lives, and considering some of their childhood missions - that’s saying a lot.

“Which would be rather tragic given your…” The woman looks around and even though she doesn’t look disgusted the implication is there anyway which makes them both bristle, “...Current circumstances. I work for an organization called the Commission. We are tasked with the preservation of the time continuum through manipulation and removals. 

“Why are you telling us this.” Five manages to grit out, never letting his gun drop.

The woman just looks at him like he’s a child and she’s disappointed he asked such an obvious question.

“I’ve come to offer you a job, Number Five.” She says simply. 

They don’t miss the way she only offered the job to him, not to Pancha. 

There’s a lot after that. The woman explains that she wants to hire him - them - to, to eliminate threats to time caused by humanity’s free will. She tells him that her organization has had their eye on him. That he has potential. That Five can retire with a pension plan for the low low price of his soul.

Well, he’s paraphrasing. 

She at least allows him a moment of privacy to discuss things with his daemon, telling him that she will be back in an hour to pick him up and that he should take the time to gather what possessions he wishes to take with him. She seems awfully confident he will take her deal.

“She doesn’t have a daemon.” Pancha shudders against him, “She’s so empty inside. She scares me, Five.”

“I know.” Five says, smoothing his hands over her fur comfortingly, “But - Pan, the chance to get out. If they know how to properly time travel - ”

“Then we can finally get out of here.” Pancha says softly, longingly. “It’s been so long, Five.”

“I know.” He whispers. 

“She wants us to kill for her.” Pancha tells him, “Removing the problems - she just wants us to become an assassin. She wants us to be a weapon.”

“Would we kill to get our siblings back?” Five asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. They both know that they’d probably let the world burn all over again if only it meant saving the people most important to them. 

“We’d have food.” Pancha offers finally, “If it’s a job, we’ll have money. No more scavenging. We could focus more time on, on - you know.”

Five nods solemnly, “So, do we take the job?”

A shudder ripples through Pancha’s body, “What about me, Five?”

“What about you?” Five asks, brow furrowing.

“I’m not normal.” Pancha states tightly, watching Five’s face light up in comprehension. It’s been a long time since they discussed Pancha’s ability to shift. After so many years, it almost seems normal. “She’s already seen me as a hare. So do I just - pretend to be a hare?”

Five bites his lip, “Just until we figure out how to get back.”

They both know that’s not a real answer. They both have no idea what they’re going to do when they show up, old and decrepit and still unsettled. 

“She can’t know.” Five says, because at least that much is certain. “She doesn’t have a daemon. She can’t know.”

Pancha sighs, but they both already know what their choice is going to be. “Okay. Okay let’s become assassins.”

---

They’re in a hotel room, and Pancha shifts a few times just to prove she can. She likes being a hare, but sometimes it just gets itchy. Wrong. Sometimes she needs wings, or fangs, or something. 

She feels like she needs fangs a lot around the Handler. Or like she needs to be something small, like a mouse and curl up in Five’s pockets again to hide away. Usually she just hides behind Five and lets him deal with the woman, which is perhaps unfair of her but Five hasn’t protested yet.

(Actually, Pancha doesn’t speak to anybody. Not after the doctor and his capuchin daemon looked entirely scandalized when she addressed him instead of his daemon. Apparently missing out on socialization for an estimated forty-five years led to… some not so great manners.)

Five methodically cleans his gun as Pancha shifts from a lion to a gazelle to a pallas cat and back into a hare to jump onto the bed with him. 

“Today?” She asks him.

He looks up at her and frowns, his hands pausing.

“Something feels different. More right.”

Five tilts his head a little bit in though and then nods. He’s been quiet, since they got back. When they’re alone together at least. The opposite of Pancha. Sometimes she wonders if they’re just switching off, the way they do when it comes to shows of emotion sometimes. 

Pancha crawls into his lap, nudging at his hands until they put the gun aside and bury themselves in her fur. 

“We’re going to save the world, Five.” She says, projecting as much confidence as she can into her voice, as much confidence as she can into him. “We’re going to save them all.”

Five’s hands tremble in her fur, and they both politely pretend that they don’t.

“You aren’t going to do this alone, because you have me. We’re a team.” She cranes her head back so she can offer him a smile, “Team Adaptable, right?”

“Right.” Five rasps out, touching the silver patches in her fur. 

And then they get up, and move out. They’re on a mission now.

[ridiasfangirlings]

Daemon Soulmate AU 1 - Everyone has daemons (His Dark Materials), but people interpret romantic compatibility by what kind of daemon you have. The closer they are to being the same species, the better the match is. Like it's a given in this world that you date within the pool of your own daemon's animal class (mammal pair w/ mammals, birds w/ birds, reptile w/ reptiles, etc.) as a bare minimum. A lot of the best matches are from the same animal family (canine, feline, etc.).

Sarumi being Sarumi, I imagine they would not have daemons that match in any way at all, and in fact they'd probably end up with something completely incompatible but they end up together anyway. When the two of them meet as kids their daemons haven't settled yet and so they're constantly changing and often in sync at times – I imagine before meeting Yata Fushimi's daemon probably tended to switch between things like venomous snakes or scorpions, anything prickly that discourages being touched, where Yata's just tends to change between a variety of the normal furry mammals and a lot of birds. When they become friends though their daemons will often start to change into similar creatures, like Yata will have a crow and Fushimi will have a raven, or Yata gets a cheetah cub and Fushimi gets a small snow leopard. Yata thinks this means that they're definitely soulmates, waiting for when their daemons settle and that will prove that the two of them are supposed to be together. Fushimi is more cautious, because he doesn't entirely believe in soulmates and he notices enough differences in their daemons even now to put him on edge (meanwhile Niki's daemon is probably some kind of awful asshole of an animal, like a wasp or a Canadian goose or something and Fushimi just keeps thinking what if his daemon settles that way too).

Eventually they join Homra and imagine that's when Yata's daemon settles, which turns out to be just another thing that makes Fushimi hate Homra. Mikoto has a lion, of course, and imagine most of the other Homra guys have either some kind of big cat or pack animal predator (with the exception of Totsuka of course, who has a cute little sheep that hangs around him all day looking chill). Yata ends up with something high energy but pack-oriented, like imagine him with an African wild dog or something and Yata thinks it's really cool, like look he has a predator just like Mikoto-san and his daemon is even an animal that runs in packs, the same as lions do. Yata doesn't say it out loud but he's hoping that Fushimi will end up with something similar too, to prove that they're soulmates. Meanwhile Fushimi's aware that his daemon has been settling in bird and reptile shapes more often and that just makes him certain that there's no way he and Misaki are soulmates and that he may as well cut things off now.

Once Fushimi joins Scepter 4 his daemon finally settles as some kind of venomous reptile, like imagine he ends up with like a viper and figures of course, just the kind of daemon a traitor should have. It's also nothing like Misaki's daemon and he tells himself that he's fine with that, it's not like he needs to match Misaki and anyway who cares about Yata and his stupid wild dog. Scepter 4's daemons I imagine being a lot more varied than Homra's though they also tend to be largely social animals. Fushimi also gets to see his first 'matched set' of daemons at Scepter 4 too, like imagine Akiyama and Benzai have matching cat daemons and Fushimi finds himself looking at them sometimes and wondering about it, about when their daemons settled and what they thought when it happened. Munakata meanwhile has like some kind of rare peacock which is magnificent and probably the sort of daemon that almost no one else has. The peacock basically lives to torment Mikoto's lion and Fushimi at some point finds himself wondering out loud, about how impossible it would be for Munakata to find his soulmate. Munakata just smiles mysteriously and says he wonders if that is so, some people might say that it is the differences in our souls which make a match rather than the similarities (Fushimi tries to ignore the implication but then post-ROK after he and Yata have made up he remembers it again, looking at Yata's wild dog fast asleep with Fushimi's snake curled up beside it, and thinks maybe there is more to soulmates after all).

[poorshadowspaintedqueens]

Oh no, hope you and your dog are a lot better now! Loved your answer about ot3s. If you would, would you talk about the friendships and relationships between women that you’d like to see more of (feel free to talk more about the Laena/Rhaenyra side of Laena/Daemon/Rhaenyra relationship if you want and the minor characters who you think could be read as trans/NB).🎅 Shatterstone (:

Yes, thank you! She’s all finished with her surgery and is at least behaving like her usual self (bothering the other dogs, demanding extra food), so it looks like she’s recovering pretty well.

The main thing we learn about Laena and Rhaenyra’s relationship from The Rogue Prince (reiterated in Fire & Blood) is that the two of them were definitely close after Laena’s marriage to Daemon but I like to think their relationship dated instead from their childhood. Driftmark and Dragonstone are not far from one another, especially for dragonriders.

Rhaenyra became a dragonrider when she was seven and Laena claimed Vhagar before she turned twelve, which suggests that both girls may have claimed their dragons around the same time, c. 104 AC. My headcanon is that after the Great Council of 101, Aemma Arryn made overtures to Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was, to see about mending the tensions between the two branches of the family. Part of that involved Rhaenyra and Laena spending more time together, and the two hit it off. Rhaenyra is, at this point, the heir to the heir to the throne, but everyone just assumes it’ll be another version of Rhaena and Jaehaerys, and Viserys and Aemma will have a son sooner or later. Except, of course, Aemma dies the very next year (poor Aemma; another member of the Dead Ladies Club in every sense of the word).

I love the idea of Rhaenys being a mentor of sorts to Rhaenyra, especially since she becomes a dragonrider at such a young age, only shortly before her mother dies. (I’d need to check to be sure, but I feel like she might be one of the youngest?)

Gyldayn being Gyldayn, we don’t get any sense of Rhaenyra’s household or her education. What we do know is that the reign of Viserys I has come to represent the height of Targaryen power and splendour, so I at least think it’s worth embracing that. If we assume that Viserys intended for Rhaenyra to succeed him after Aemma’s death (and I think we can safely assume that from his actions and later inactions), he would have seen that she was educated like a young prince. I wonder if Maester Gerardys was her childhood maester, for instance.

Gyldayn does mention that Laena was “untroubled��� by the loss of her chance to be queen in 105 AC when Viserys chooses to marry Alicent Hightower, and she’s compared at several points to her father the Sea Snake. I headcanon Laena as someone who has zero interest in politics or the Iron Throne. She wants to fly her dragon to the ends of the earth, to be another Elissa Farman except in the air instead of on the sea.

As far as the actual ship goes, I definitely imagine it as friends-to-lovers happening very slowly over an extremely long period of time. Rhaenyra and Laena are unquestionably loyal to one another long before they discover they have romantic feelings for one another. Especially given Rhaenyra’s position at court and how much opposition she faces, being able to trust her ladies-in-waiting is paramount.

Honestly, though, what I love about Laena and Rhaenyra is that they are one of the FEW women in F&B who are not actively working against one another. And while it’s a bit cliché to then end up shipping them, my favourite ships are the ones where the characters are constantly learning from one another and complementing one another. I just love the idea of Laena and Rhaenyra always protecting each other even when the succession situation is trying to turn them into rivals.

Which means, of course, that Laena’s death is completely devastating. I do imagine Rhaenyra immediately taking in Laena’s two daughters (even leaving aside her marriage to Daemon, which is a whole other thing) and doing her best to raise them as she thinks Laena would have wanted. And I totally believe that she spent the rest of her life missing Laena, her oldest friend and her first love.

[myrmidryad]

We're Waking Up Slow (⛰️🔬), Common Tongue (🎭🎢), Animal Matters (⭐☀️)

For We’re Waking Up Slow:

⛰️-  What was the hardest part?

I think keeping Alex’s internal thoughts and mental progress consistent with what he canonically knew at that point, and making his thought process make sense. Because I was definitely really inspired various meta posts and tags (shoutout to @ober-affen-geil, @chasingshhadows, and @irolltwenties) but I wanted to make it all make sense in a fic setting.

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right? 

Exactly halfway through, when Michael stands in front of Alex, who’s seated, and Alex lets his forehead rest on Michael’s stomach and they touch each other really, really gently, and Alex kind of wants to cry a little bit.

For Common Tongue:

🎭- What was the feeling or mood you were going for?

Hot and a little bit frantic and desperate. The way Alex has sex with Michael in his trailer, freaks out and runs away, and then jerks off twice more back at the cabin while imagining Michael because that’s just the effect Michael has on him, but then there’s always that chaser of fear because he can’t stop remembering what happened the last time he and Michael were caught together.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

I don’t think so.

For Animal Matters:

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of? 

Reworking the scene where Alex and Michael talk at the junkyard to include their daemons, and Alex and Mihiliz both freaking aout when Laithe shows off her and Michael’s alien range and her disappearing trick. It’s hard to know how effective that sort of thing is to any readers who haven’t read HDM, because the daemon stuff is so specific, but I liked it.

☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?

All the daemon choices, ofc, especially Alex and Michael’s, but OOOH BOY you asked and I am going to talk about all of them!!!! Talk about opening a can of worms, prepare yourself, I am about to go in deep.

I wanted Michael to have a monkey right away, because a daemon with hands shows off Michael’s drive to physically build and create with his hands, and how adaptable and clever he is. Barbary macaques are very social, with lifelong family bonds. They’re medium sized, not too big to ride on a human being or small enough to be unthreatening. I also knew about Barbary macaques already as the only monkey that lives in Europe, specifically in Gibralter - they’ve adapted really well to an urban (alien) environment. It’s not native to the states or New Mexico, like Michael isn’t, but it’s sandy coloured and I imagine it would blend in well enough. I also picked up a headcanon from my favourite daemon fic ever, He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian, which is a HDM/WTNV fusion, and one of the best things I’ve ever read, ever, period, that monkey daemons have a reputation for being cunning and not very nice, and that matches up with Michael’s reputation as a bad boy.

I decided on Alex having a snake pretty easily too, but it took a while to settle on the exact type. It had to be native to the states (I have feelings about people’s daemons settling as animals native to their home regions), and I think I decided I wanted it to be dark pretty early on too. Something outwardly unobtrusive, easy to underestimate and overlook, something very good at being patient and lying in wait for a long time before striking with deadly accuracy. Snakes are solitary animals, and Alex is someone who guards his privacy and independence incredibly fiercely. I also have feelings about Alex’s feelings about settling as a snake, particularly wrt his family and obviously his father. I believe Jesse Manes is the sort of person who would be displeased for any of his sons to settle as anything but a predator animal, and I think Alex would have mixed feelings about fulfilling that expectation - relief at not inviting ridicule or retribution, but not exactly uncomplicated pleasure because he doesn’t like doing anything that pleases his dad. But he does love Mihiliz, and her form. Then there’s the other issue of his mother’s side of the family - snakes are one of several animals that are considered bad by the Apache, so I imagine that snake daemons would be uncommon to nonexistent among the Mescalero. By settling as a snake, Alex thinks he’s cut himself off from that side of his heritage, possibly for good, and at the very least marked himself as a very obvious outsider to it. Settling as a snake would also, for this reason, be something that would please his father, as a very visible proof of Alex’s rejection of his mother’s influence. Whether that’s true or not, Alex would have Issues about it for sure.

The other daemons had a bit less thought put into them, but I LOVE thinking about what people’s daemons would be, so I still considered each one. I wanted Kyle to have a daemon that could be absolutely hellish when he was a bully teenager, but then present as very friendly and sweet when he’s turned over a new leaf as an adult. Weasels and other mustolids can be unbelievably violent and vicious and can take down prey many times their own size, even when they themselves look tiny and cute.

I wanted Max to have a dog daemon right away, because he’s a loyal man, and he’s appointed himself a guard dog of sorts by joining the police force. He just gives me seriously dog vibes. I wanted him to have a distinctive dog though, definitely handsome, and again, not native to New Mexico but with colouration that sort of blends in. Max really wants to be a normal guy, but he can’t pretend his way out of what he really is. I also chose a pharaoh hound as a nod to his royal nature in the OG series, even if that isn’t the route RNM is taking.

Isobel is the one who gave me the most trouble, and I’m still not entirely sure about my choice of daemon for her. She has a Costa’s hummingbird daemon, which is native to New Mexico as a representation of how much better she blends in than her brothers, and how much more comfortable she is doing so - at least in most of season one. I knew I wanted her to have a bird with very pretty feathers, and the Costa’s hummingbird has these really gorgeous iridescent purple neck feathers. I’m now thinking though that I should have given her something with a more violent edge, because I think Isobel is definitely capable of violently protecting what she considers hers (her family). I think I maybe went on the aesthetic too much for her.

I picked an Abert’s squirrel for Liz because again, I wanted her to have a daemon species native to her home, and I thought a squirrel suited her in terms of how quick and clever they are, and like Michael’s monkey, a squirrel has a degree of paw dexterity a lot of other animals don’t have. They’re cute, but they’re territorial, and they can be violent on occasion.

Maria has a gray fox to reflect her resourcefulness and ability to survive through seriously tough times. It’s another New Mexico native, and it has a very cool ability to climb trees with cat-like agility.

Jesse has a wolf for a couple of reasons, one of them being pure intimidation. Check out how big a grey wolf is in real life - they are fucking huge, and having a wolf-shaped soul shows what a relentless hunter Jesse is. Wolves are great animals and they get a bad rep in folklore as being big and bad, but I believe daemons can reflect those attitudes as well. Wolves are incredible pack hunters, and Jesse is all about the pack and the family and the legacy of that. I also believe he sees himself as a necessary guard dog of humanity, and a wolf reflects that. I don’t know what his other two sons have settled as, but I decided on Flint having a coyote easily - a lesser wolf, in a sense, smaller and more solitary, but just as good at hunting and tracking and working as part of a team.

It never came up in Animal Matters, but I also decided on a black panther for Rosa (tough, mysterious, solitary, once native to Mexico, would very much stand out in a place like Roswell) and an alien bird that resembled a motmot bird for Noah.

[moodforanime]

Naruto/ BNHA Daemon AU

Y'all so I was looking through some Narutp posts when this idea popped up: if Naruto and BNHA characters would have daemons, what would they look and be like?

For those who aren't accustomed with the idea of daemon, it comes from Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials (amazing books btw, totally reccomend them), where one's soul lives separated from the body under the form of an animal.

As a kid, the daemon (soul) can change their form as an animal as they please, but when the kid hits puberty and starts to mature, their daemon eventually settles to one, definite form. Also, the daemon is normally the opposite gender than their owner/body, but it sometimes (quite rare, though) happens that the daemon is the same gender as the body.

So, after literal weeks that added a month and a half of brainstorming, may I present you, (drum roll) an daemon AU!

Naruto

Naruto: I think his daemon would be a toad. What kind of toad, probably one similar to Gamambunta? Or the smaller frog, one of Gamambunta's sons. He's also one of those rare cases where the human and the daemon are the same gender. His daemon would be pretty reckless (especially when Naruto was young), but he would grow much more mature, especially in the time skip between Naruto and Naruto Shippuden.

Sasuke: A Falcon. Definitely a Falcon named Risa. Risa's a pretty wise, sarcastic falcon with an ironical sense of humour. When they were young, Risa always imited Itachi's daemon's form, a weasel, but after the incident, Risa refused to turn into a weasel for a very long time.

Sakura: A slug named Shou. Shou's a rather kind daemon with an adventurous spirit. While Sakura studied or read, Shou always liked to attack her about spending too much time stuck in one spot. They eventually came on better terms regarding the topic later in the story.

Orochimaru: This is probably easy to guess, but his daemon is, indeed a snake. A cobra named Arisu. She's very intelligent and has a particular skill in being a charming talker. Her and Orochimaru's minds are very alike.

Kakashi: Definitely a dog named Hikaru. Just like Naruto, Kakashi's daemon is a boy, just like him. Hikaru is one of those dogs that aren't very big, but not small, either. In the middle. Being one of those exceptions where the human and the daemon are of the same gender, it worried Sakumo at first, making him think that maybe Kakashi will have trouble talking to girls, or have any other problems but since no such problem arised, Sakumo relaxed a little. (Just a little, though) Hikaru is very bright and calm, and was very open to friendships when Kakashi was little, but things changed after Sakumo's death.

Sakumo: His daemon would be a silver wolf named Mizuki. She's a very calm daemon that likes deep talks. She often helped Sakumo recover mentally after some rather gruesome missions. Sadly, she couldn't help him and talk him out of his depression after that mission where he broke the rules.

Boku no Hero Academia

Izuku: I think that Izuku's daemon would be a weasel. She's very kind and very intelligent. She sometimes teases Izuku about being so shy, especially around girls.

Uraraka: A cat. Definitely a cat. A white cat with a few large orange, brown and black spots on his back and head and with soft fur. While enjoying a nice challenge, Akio can be reserved and very thoughtful of his own actions. He does his best to guide Uraraka to do the right choices, but she doesn't always have the patience to listen to his seemingly endless lectures that can have excruciating detail.

Bakugou: His daemon is a Komodo Dragon. She's a little more calm than Bakugo, but she definitely has the same competing spirit as her human. She once brought up the idea to try and make peace with Deku since he's becoming strong and he could be a very good ally in the future, but Bakugou brushed it off, calling her 'stupid'. She never brought it up again (not loudly. She would sometimes think about it and Bakugou knows it. She just never said it out loud) and to be fair, Bakugou truly regretted being so rude towards his daemon.

Todoroki Shouto: A white weasel, much to many people's surprise and to his father's dissapointment. She's rather calm and kind, and supports Shouto into creating bonds with people.

All Might: A bald eagle, no cap. She's very smart and energetic, and knows when to be serious. Yet, sometimes, during a very serious matter, she likes to crack a joke in order to lighten the mood.

Sir Nighteye: An owl. The two are both males. The owl, Errol, is the equivalent of an endless abyss of jokes. He knows all kinds of jokes that he tells Sir Nighteye in order to lighten up his mood. He has a particularly good memory, memorizing details that Nighteye missed. He often helps him understand better the foreshadwings that Sir Nighteye sees when he use his Quirk.

Present Mic: A cockatoo. She's very loud and an electric ball of energy that inspired Hizashi when he chose his haircut. She also brought up the idea of starting a radio station.

Endeavour: A lioness. She's particularly proud, but more down-to-earth than her human. She made a few attempts of eating All Might's daemon when she or Endeavour felt angry and jealous towards All Might. She wasn't abusive towards Shouto or Endeavour's other kids, but she's always been particularly strict. The Todoroki daemons know not to mess with her.

Mirio: A monkey. She and Mirio are very alike, making themselves a great pair- they're both a bit reckless sometimes, but very good hearts and lots of positivity.

Tamaki: A raven. She never looked down on Tamaki for being shy, but she often made remarks on it, and insisted that if he didn't do something about his attitude, he'll end up alone, with no friends, and people will pity him. That's why Tamaki is more sensible towards comments from others.

Nejire: A blue bird. He's very brave and daring, helping Nejire grow emotionally and mentally very well. He's very straight to the point towards Nejire and wouldn't hesitate to pick a fight with other daemons if they or their owners are rude to Nejire.

Aizawa: A black cat. To be honest, he was very happy when he saw that someone had the same daemon as him, Uraraka, that is. The reasoning behind why Aizawa is always sleep deprived and sleeps lots during the day is quite simple- because his demon's settled for a cat form for more than a decade, Aizawa couldn't help but pick up some habits.

[kemetic-dreams]

                                           HEAVEN & HELL

By Nora Amrani September, 1998

Most religions preach about heaven and hell, and how those who either do or do not believe in one thing or another will inevitably end up in one of these two places. What are hell and heaven? Are they real? Where are they? And who gets to go where?

Christianized Hell is portrayed as such a real and frightening place filled with monsters and Satan, where one is punished for their sins and suffers eternally. There is no way out. Oh, you know the pictures that have been painted by Dali and other artists depicting the burning pit where those not worthy of being recognized or loved by God are tossed, abandoned and tortured. Damned for eternity.

Heaven, on the other hand, is supposed to be eternal bliss. And only the very worthy end up in Heaven. With the stringent demands made on humans to be everything but human, (never mind seeing human as divine) while being constantly reminded that they are sinful and unworthy of heaven, heaven must be very under-populated. In fact, with all those rules to be met, I can't imagine one person being successfully led through those pearly gates! Can you? (No, not even Mother Theresa - she believed that she was less than divine, herself.)

FUN WITH ETYMOLOGY

Hell and heaven are very dramatically presented, aren't they? But do we even know what these words mean? Could it be we have all been fed non-sequiturs for centuries to the point where we no longer remember what these words really mean, therefore we live in constant confusion (like the Tower of Babel) because we don't properly use our language? Wow - just imagine what that does to our communcations on all levels with one another!

Hell: Prepare yourselves for a possible shock: The word 'hel' means 'light.' It also means 'earth.' Check your Germanic dictionaries if you don't believe me. In fact, check many languages and find the meaning of the word 'hell.' Some will say it means 'cover.' If hell is such a negative place, then why do we refer to the sun, who gives us life, warmth and nurtures us, as 'helios?" Perhaps the thought of diving into the sun would be hell, itself. Maybe that's how it all originated? But, realistically, you wouldn't even make it that close without first disintegrating. Ah, but then you'd become pure energy, pure light, just like the sun, itself! Your real essence, in other words. Why, we even used to worship* gods representing the sun's energy - Ra, ApolIo, for example. So, why would it be something to be feared and avoided, at all costs?

A 'demon in hell' can also be called a 'genius in the light.' Demon, or daemon, has conflicting meanings. It can mean our inner genius, divinity or genie. It is a word sharing the same root thing as 'diamond!' Some dictionaries say demons are inferior divinity or evil spirits. How can they be both? Both divine, genius and evil? Think about it. Do they not cancel one another out? Or, can we put all under one divine umbrella? What definitions have you been taught?

The horns on the devil are also used to depict great divine light emanating through the individual. Same thing was shown with Hathor, Moses, White Buffalo Woman. It is a positive symbol of higher consciousness and knowledge, not evil.

Devil comes from the Sanskrit world meaning 'deva,' which relates to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. Were you taught that Satan means adversary or plotter? 'Adverse' meaning 'to turn towards?' After Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory the conquerers miraculously transformed the Hindu gods into devils! So, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils.

If we look at the pattern of religious manipulation through language, the word "daemon" was changed into having a evil implication. "It was just more Christian propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character," as one scholar explains. This old ploy cunningly used good timing to coincide with the burning of millions of books; books which had they not been burned would have allowed people to see the truth of how they were being lied to. And the word 'evil' actually comes from the same root as the word 'apple,' which is 'upfel.' Who decided that apples were evil? The apple itself isn't evil.

Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky explains that Judaism talks of "Satan/devil," but it sees Satan as "...an agent of God, testing the sincerity of man's deeds, the strength of his convictions, and the stamina of his moral fiber. Although this so-called devil seems to entice man to do wrong, he is not inherently an evil being. Rather, he is conducting a "sting" operation; overtly enticing to bad, but in reality working for God. A cursory reading of the beginning of Job conveys that message: God sends out Satan to test Job's righteousness. Just as a dentist or doctor tests the firmness of a bone or flesh by probing it, just as the army tests the integrity and trustworthiness of its intelligence agents by tempting them, so too does God test man. A test reveals the inner worthiness of a person's deeds, demonstrating what they are really made of."

Heaven: Could this word come from 'heave' - meaning to toss, lift or raise? Those lofty ideas. No doubt it does. And what about 'heavy,' meaning 'weighty.' This can get to be lots of fun, eh? 'Ven' means 'air.' 'Ven' can also be 'van,' which means 'sail,' 'wing,' 'basket,' and it can be a shovel used in testing ore; and of course, it now means a type of large vehicle capable of transporting many people. The more accurate root of "heaven" comes from "haven." The word "heaven" also has its roots in Hebrew in "ha'shamayim," which means "the skies," " high places." Maybe you can come up with some other meanings for it. See the conflicts over and over in modern language?

Worship...another interesting word. "War" means literally "war," or "where," and "ship" meaning a "state" or "condition." The word religion is interesting, too. "Re" means "back," or "again," or even "in reference to." "Legion" is "a body of infantry in the ancient Roman army"; or "vast host." Re-legion. Armies of God in a war ship? Is religion about war? Or hosts of God?

Now that the brief etymology portion is over, let's get into the other areas of what these words have come to mean to a great many people in the religious and social sense. In fact, they have come to dictate and control much of our beliefs and lives.

AN ANCIENT STORY OF THE FALLEN ANGELS

The ideas of Satan and fallen angels are our own planetary collective consciousness' idea of viewing things negatively. One explanation is that it represents the fall of ourselves into this dimension of materiality and polarity, forgetting our divine selves and our spirituality. Satan is backwards for "natas" - which later became "nahash" the serpent. So, what everyone THOUGHT was evil, is actually the opposite. That term is related to the Sirian-Anunnaki being, Enki, in the following:

The archetypal, mythological concept of fallen angels originated approximately 450,000 years ago when the last of the extraterrestrial beings from a satellite planet named Nibiru, known on Earth as the Anunnaki, (a group of Lyran off-shoots who stemmed from one of their more infamous members, Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna, etc.), had their final expedition to Earth and, in a sense, left one group "stranded" here. Since the Anunnaki were known as "the gods," and these "gods" came from the heavens and were seen as being angels because of their amazing abilities and longevity. There were conficts between the Anunnaki themselves. Nefilim, or "those who came down," is another way of talking about this group of the Anunnaki. Some of the Anunnaki wanted humans to see them as God and did not honor free will. For this they were punished and expelled from certain galactic federations. This is where the idea of the fallen angels originally came from and various accounts of it are found in the Bahgavad Gita, the bibles and other cultural origin stories.

Enki was known as the serpent of wisdom, healing and life who had a great hand in creation, the waters of life (sperm, DNA, etc.) i.e., the Garden of Eden. Enki was frequently humanity's supporter. Biblical writers called the healing serpent Nehushtan. The Hebrew word for serpent is "nahash." The root of the word are the Hebrew letters Nun, Het and Shin, which means "to guess." This was translated into other languages as "satan," which some say mean "enemy," or "adversary."

Enki's identity, as Lord of Earth or In Earth (EN.KI), and EA (whose house is water) is reflected in other names, as well: Adonai, Aton, Aten, Adom, Adam, Amen. (Linguistic paleontology is a marvelous and vast area for proving these connections.) The name EARTH also comes from EA/Enki. Actually, the name "human" can be traced to Enki (a.k.a. EA) and his half-sister and wife, the chief geneticist Ninti (the mother goddess of all life). HU is a transliteration of the ancient Sumerian EA (Grimms' law of interchangeable letters and sounds). HU was also Horus, by the way. So a human is an EAman.

In India, the "nagas" were the serpent gods/goddesses. In the Americas there was Quetzlcoatl (Enki/Thoth). The entire world has worshipped the serpent for its wisdom, but ironically, it was not really about snakes at all - unless you feel you have to "guess" what a snake is up to! Why was the snake chosen? For its cleverness, ability to survive in the harshest of environments, and again, its shape resembling the flow of energy up the spine - to the crown chakra, and the third eye. And perhaps because it naturally instilled a bit of caution or awe in people. Was Enki really a snake? No, not literally.

THE REALITY

Both heaven and hell are places created with those of like mind and emotions - thoughts and feelings so intense that it creates a vortex of bioelectomagnetic energy so concentrated that it densifies and materializes. This material form can be ectoplasmic or physical. It takes on the form of the creator's beliefs. This form resonates with like energies, drawing them to one another. (Like attracts like.) This, then, creates a larger vortex of the same energy. And it keeps growing and building and desiring it's life to be continually fed. This, then, becomes a real gathering place.

Yes, heaven does exist. But it is a very complex dimension with many options. Many people experience it with the smell of flowers, with music, and always with lots of love. There is a gathering place for souls getting ready to make their transition from their physical form into spirit, and for those who have just crossed over. There are healing rooms. There are educational rooms. It offers freedom of choice to wherever your soul wants to learn and you plan your next move there.

Hell actually is a dimension of energy that is created by self-judgement and condemnation, ergo punishment. Its essence is fear and forgetfulness of love and light. It's energy contains fear, anger, powerlessness, (including guilt, martyrdom, pain, sadness), and it is a very difficult place from which to escape because it builds on itself. It is a very sad and dark place and even though there are many souls there, it feels so lonely. Ironically, the fear of being in what people believe to be hell may actually create that kind of hell, itself.

In the case of "hell," the only way these energies can be nourished is by having more of the same energy filling it up, adding more fuel to the fire. In order to stay alive it seeks out its food in many ways. Finding a weakness, such as addiction, within a person to attach itself to is one way. Attaching to the little bit of belief in that individual it can use for its own survival. And it can also be utilized by people performing certain rituals to get a life force that can be manipulated and directed. You see, the life force, the energy, never dies. It changes form, and its form can be intentionally changed. These energies will seek out others and build on itself unless we become conscious of them and choose to release them through other avenues. There are ways out of hell, but it often requires help from the other dimensions helping a soul remember love and personal empowerment, choice, freedom.

Be it heaven or hell, we create our reality through our experiences, our thoughts, beliefs, imagination, words, and our desire, and will. One way we can become conscious of how and what we create is through meditation, or going within and contacting the God within ourselves. We always have the choice whether to create our own heaven or hell wherever we are. And that creation begins nowhere else except from within ourselves.

[echoes-of-the-clockwork]

Book Two: Famine (Prompto x Reader) Chapter Sixteen

"You really think this is gonna work?" Gladio questioned as he parked his truck in Lestallum. They hopped out of the vehicle and glanced around at the darkness surrounding them.

"Trust me, it will. Seeing a defenseless woman walking down the road all by herself will definitely grab a cultist's attention. We better make this quick before Prompto gets here. I've a feeling he's not far behind."

(Y/n) began trekking down the highway past the boarded up gas station before Gladio stopped her. "Hold on. You don't exactly strike me as a damsel in that outfit. In that, you look like you could whip anyone's ass. Not to mention, you do."

"It's not like I carry a spare outfit around. Maybe Iris can sell me some clothes. I know she's selling them in town."

"I've got you covered." Gladio scavenges through his truck and pulled out a set of clothing.

(Y/n) eyed the outfit mysteriously, eyes slightly narrowed. "What're you doing with women's clothing?"

"It's one of Iris' old outfits. By the looks of it, you two might be the same size. Try 'em on." He handed her the clothes and she went to other side of the truck to change. Gladio kept watch, ensuring no one was passing by and watching them.

Famine changed into the outfit swiftly, noting the areas where the clothes were a little snug. She tugged on the hem of the skirt, pulling it down to just a couple of inches above her knees. "Why does it have to be short?"

"You done?" Gladio's gruff voice questioned.

"Yeah, but this skirt is ridiculously short..."

"You look great," he smirked when he saw her in the outfit. "Prompto would be having a field day if he saw you in this. Then again, he really likes your clothes."

"Oh, really? Why's that?"

"He loves the way your legs look," the brute chuckled.

"I'll have to tease him later," (Y/n) grinned. "If he's not too angry with me."

"There's no way in hell he could stay mad at you. This is Prompto we're talkin' about." Gladio glanced down the road, staring at the daemons in the far distance. "You ready for this?"

"Let's just make this quick," Famine sighed.

"Take this." The amber-eyed man handed her an earpiece. "I'll be listening the entire time. Just try not to give away the fact that you could kick their ass. You'll scare 'em off."

"I know, I know. If there's an issue I might have to use my blade for some... persuasion." (Y/n) walked down the road until she could no longer see Lestallum. She used her flashlight to light her way, hoping the next car to pass would be a cultist's. She rubbed her exposed arms, the frigid breeze nipping at her skin and causing goosebumps. "Why does it have to be chilly? I'm practically naked right now..."

The Horseman continued her trek down the road until the low humming of an engine caught her attention. She turned around and saw a car coming her way. It slowed down next to her and the man behind the wheel rolled down the window to speak to her. "Y'know it's dangerous out here, right?"

(Y/n) was tempted to make a snarky comment but held her tongue and acted as innocent as possible. "My car broke down a few miles down the road. I'm not familiar with this region. Where is the nearest town?" She placed her hands behind her back, summoning her blade. The Sword of Judgement could tell if someone was lying. If the man was going to lie to her, she'd know.

"The nearest town is just a few more miles down the road," he pointed in the opposite direction of Lestallum.

Lies

The sword whispered inside her head. She gripped her blade tightly and stepped back from the car. "Thanks. Guess I'll be on my way, then."

"Hey, hold on!" The man exited the vehicle and stood in her way with his arms outstretched to block her from walking around him. "Let me give you a ride. The daemons around these parts are quite dangerous."

"Really?" She asked while feigning a sense of hope. "I'd appreciate it."

Suddenly, another vehicle came speeding towards them. When (Y/n) saw the confusion on the man's face, she knew it wasn't another cultist.

The truck slammed on brakes and the person behind the wheel jumped out of the vehicle and stormed over. Famine's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water as she saw her boyfriend walk around the truck and speed-walk over to her, placing himself in between her and the stranger. She dispelled her blade as she took a few steps back.

Prompto placed his hands on the girl's shoulders and pushed her back and away from the man. He released his hold on her and turned toward the stranger, forcing a smile. "I've got our car working. We don't need your help."

"She didn't mention a "we"." The man turned his gaze back to (Y/n). "Do you know this man?"

"Yeah," she spoke the truth. "He's my-"

"Husband!" Prompto shouted before she could finish. He snakes an arm around her waist and pulls her into a side hug, kissing her on the cheek.

The stranger glanced at the Horseman's left hand, his eyes narrowing. "I don't see a ring."

"It's not like there's a place for us to get proper rings," Famine sneered, glaring at the man. "Now, if you'll-"

The sound of numerous roaring engines silenced the couple and the stranger. Several cars were speeding towards them down the road. They surrounded the trio, blocking their escape route. Prompto conjured his pistol and tightened his arm around (Y/n)'s waist as several people exited the vehicles.

"(Y/n), what's goin' on?" Gladio asked through the earpiece when he heard myriads of unfamiliar voices.

"Trouble..." She muttered. Regardless of their intents, she refused to raise her blade against another human.

The man that offered his help wasn't fazed by the group of people surrounding them. "Two for the price of one," he grinned. "I'd say that's the best we've done today."

Prompto fired a warning shot by an approaching man's feet, glaring daggers at him. They stepped back as the group closed in.

One woman among the group tossed something toward them and it exploded. A cloud of smoke surrounded the couple, causing them to cough and their eyes to water.

(Y/n) was forcefully yanked away from Prompto by her hair. She yelped in pain and before she could summon the strength to break free, she felt a prick in the side of her neck. "W-What was...?" Her voice was weak and trailed off. Then, she felt her entire body go numb and her eyes roll into the back of her head. Her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground when the person who grabbed her released his grip on her golden locks. She lost consciousness a few seconds after hitting the ground.

Prompto immediately searched the fog for (Y/n), but two men grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back, forcing him to drop his handgun. He struggled against their grasp and tried to kick them, but he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck before being knocked out.

The couple was unconscious and failed to hear Gladio's desperate cries over the earpiece. Even though he wasn't receiving a response, he could hear the people that ambushed them. "Throw 'em in one of the trunks. We'll deal with them properly once we get back to the base."

The convoy of cultists tossed Prompto's and (Y/n)'s bodies into one of the trunks and drove off.

<----------<<<<<<<<<<

(Y/n) groaned as her eyes fluttered open. When she tried to move her arms or legs, she realized she couldn't feel or move her limbs. Moving her head slightly, she saw she was strapped in the same device she had found Prompto trapped in when searching for him in Zegnautus Keep. Unlike the one he was locked in, this one was lined with sharp needles across the back. They pierced her skin, drawing small droplets of blood every few seconds.

"Nice to see you're finally awake," a man said as he walked into the dimly-lit room. "We accidentally gave you an overdose. But luckily, you're immortal."

Famine recognized him as the one who offered her a ride. "And how'd you deduce that? I seriously doubt you could tell at a glimpse."

"We've our ways." He circled around her like a vulture eyeing its next meal. His eyes raked across her entire body, his hands clasped behind his back. "Should I call you (Y/n) or Famine?"

"Your choice," she sneered.

"I kinda like calling you "Famine" more than your real name. Hope that doesn't bother you. Gotta make you a little comfortable... somehow."

"I've never raised my blade against a human before. You might be the first, though," she responds in a snarky tone.

"You won't be raising your blade or using your magic anytime soon. Y'see, the device your strapped in is a gift from someone who knows you quite well. The needles embedded in your skin are laced with a paralysis agent no human could survive. Once again, thank the Six you're immortal. Now, about-"

"Blah, blah, blah. My cult is this, my cult is that. Trust me, I've heard it all," she taunts. "And you're a former hunter. You should really ditch the tags, Kael. Someone might recognize you. Then again, all your friends are probably a part of this deranged cult."

"For someone who's in no position to make snarky comebacks, you're just firing away. No wonder that hunter loves you so much. He's been screaming for you for the past two hours."

"Prompto," she gasped.

"He'll make a fine sacrifice. With only a few more, the ritual will be complete and King Aeshema will rise and punish those he deems who are not worthy."

(Y/n) chuckled at his words. "Do you really think that silly ritual you read from a fairytale will work? And even if it did, I happen to know the daemon king himself. You're sorely mistaken if you think he will kill anyone, especially humans."

"Guess we'll see if you're high and mighty once the ritual is complete. Once it is, a certain someone wants you to himself." Kael glanced once more at the Horseman before leaving. "You better get comfortable. You're gonna be here for a while."

The door slammed behind the cult leader and the girl smirked. "We'll see about that..."

<---------<<<<<<<<<

"Where is she?!" Prompto yelled at the man and woman guarding the cell he was trapped in. He tried shooting the bars and the lock, but the metal didn't bend or warp in any direction. He never pointed his gun at people and refused to shoot the guards on duty. It would also prove to be fruitless since neither of them posses the key to the cell.

"You've been shouting since you woke up!" The man snarled, glaring daggers at the boy. "Shut the hell up just for a few minutes, blondie!"

The woman standing next to him glanced through the steel bars at the sharpshooter. "Are you really married to a Horseman? I always though they were just a scary fairytale people told to frighten others."

Prompto didn't answer, gripping the bars in his hands and leaning his forehead against them. He stared at the door adjacent from his cell, waiting for the leader of the cult to make an appearance.

Waiting impatiently, the marksman listened to the two guards as they chatted back and forth.

"What the hell does Kael plan to accomplish with a Horseman? We're just lucky that weirdo gave us what we needed to contain her or we'd all be dead right now," the woman said. Then, her eyes widened in fear. "Wait... There's four of them. What if the other three come to rescue her?"

"Don't know, don't care. Whatever shit he's got planned, it better work," the man hissed. "And I wouldn't worry about the other Horsemen. That stranger said they went their separate ways."

Suddenly, the door to the cell block flew open and the leader of the Creed of Aeshema stepped through. He sauntered over to the cell, crossing his arms as he smirked at Prompto. "You're a lucky guy. How the hell did you get a girl like her?"

The blonde only replied with a death glare. He clenched and unclenched his fists, tempted to grab Kael and pound him to a bloody pulp through the bars.

"So you'll shout for the woman you love for hours, but not talk to the person who could end her suffering?" He scoffed.

"How did you know?" Prompto asked, his tone low and brimming with hatred.

"What-that she's a Horseman? Some weirdo told us who she was, gave us a picture, and a device to restrain her. He didn't give us his name, though," Kael casually responds.

"All we know is he has velvet hair, amber eyes, and a weird sense of fashion," the man on duty said.

Prompto's eyes widened in fear and bewilderment. "Ardyn..."

"He didn't give us any specifics-only to capture Famine."

"That doesn't matter now," Kael huffs. "You'll be dead in a few hours and Famine'll be transported to gods know where."

"If you think-!" Prompto bellowed, but he was interrupted.

"Ah, ah! We're done here. I just might take you to see her before your execution," the leader chuckled darkly before leaving.

"I'm done standing here," the man sneered once Kael was out of earshot. "You leavin' or planning to stay and watch him for the next two hours?"

"Hell no!" The woman barked. "I've got better things to do."

The two guards left and Prompto summoned his pistol again. He searched around the small cell and found nothing useful. When he patted his pocket, he felt something round. Pulling it out, he realized it was the summoning orb. "I completely forgot I had this..." He tried to call upon (Y/n), but she didn't appear. Huffing in annoyance, he went to dispel his weapon but stopped when an idea struck him. "Maybe I can...?"

The sharpshooter held the orb in one hand and raised his weapon to aim it at the lock. As he prayed his plan would work, he felt the palm he was holding the orb in burning. Pulling the trigger of the gun, a bullet enshrouded in fire pierced through the lock and melted the metal. "Yes!" He cheered just above a whisper. When the burning sensation increased, he hissed and accidentally dropped the artifact. "Hot! Hot! Hot!"

He quickly blew on his palm before poking the orb by his foot to see if it still was hot to the touch. Luckily it wasn't and he placed it back into his pocket before storming out of the cell block.

Once outside, Prompto looked around with wide eyes. "I know this place."

The Creed of Aeshema's base is Fort Vaullerey. Once an imperial base was now home to the daemon worshipping cult. He snuck through the fort, noting how many people were part of the cult. He dove behind a few crates when two men wielding guns were heading straight for him. Peering over the crates, he found an exit and escaped.

A little ways down the road, Prompto stopped and turned to face Fort Vaullerey. He gripped his pistol in his hand, jaw muscles tightening. "I'll come back for you, (Y/n). Just hold on 'til then."

[fenweak]

Below the cut are 91 fics that feature Jonny and Patrick as creatures that lurk and prey (and snuggle) in the night. From wolfverses to fluffy animal transformations to love/sex magic. I've had such a great time re-reading all of these, as this pairing has been graced by so many amazing authors. Happy reading and happy Halloween!

★ are personal faves

Demons

a dainty dish to set before the king by mockturtletale ★ - demon!Kaner

But then the clocks strike midnight - clocks plural - and that’s weird as fuck, because the year is 2013 and Jonathan Toews doesn’t own any clocks that make that noise. He doesn’t own any clocks that make noise period.

Crossroad Blues by activevirtues- demon!Kaner

In which the demon Patrick Kane gives Jonathan Toews everything he's ever wanted.

Feathers by MJBadger - demon!Kaner, angel!Jonny

Not that Patrick has been snagging many souls or causing much in the way of mischief, lately. He supposes he should go out at some point and play a bit of catch-up. He assumes Jonny's been hanging out on park benches and saving jackasses left and right.

In which Jonny is an angel, and Patrick is a lazy demon.

Sweet and Tender Hooligan (or the post-apocalyptic au) by jezziejay - demon!Kaner

In which Kaner is a daemon of chaos, and Jonny is just trying to hold onto his city. Dystopian universe. Dark. Dark characterisation. A little TW, a litte GoT, and a little Patrick Ness. 

Together Burning Bright - demon!Jonny

Four times Jonny tried to eat Patrick's soul, and the one time he couldn't.

The Creek by mullsandmutts - demon!Kaner, angel!Jonny

Jonathan is a literal angel. Patrick is a literal demon (but with a sweet and kind heart -- it's complicated, okay?). They meet where their worlds are divided and existence might never be the same

Going West - not gonna spoil it but i love it

Jonathan finds the boy along the outskirts of a town market, chained to a post. There's a bronze armband clasped tightly on his forearm, winding around it like a snake, and he stares sullenly at the ground, heedless of Jonathan's gaze, while his toe traces patterns in the dust.

"I want him," Jonathan says to the vendor, pointing.

That's a lie.

Constant as a Northern Star - demon-hunter!Jonny, Pat is his safekeeper

The term "preux" was first used in the scripture that would become known as the Treaty of Avignon [signed in 1156, copies of the original - which was destroyed in the Siege of Harfleur in 1418 - are stored in Prague and Trondheim], marking not only the beginning of the working relationship between vampires and preux but also the use of a term to distinguish the preux from ordinary hunters.

(Or: Jonathan is a good fighter (it doesn't get more AU than this), Patrick waits for him,hates it and is a BAMF no matter the circumstances. Sharpy knows everything but doesn'tbetray anyone's secrets. He's a vampire, he has morals.)

Soulless by ice_hot_13 - demon!Jonny

Jonny used to have a soul.

Vampires

where the wild things are series by liketheroad - twilight AU

Seeing Johnny skate, Patrick realizes two things at the same time. One, Johnny is an incredibly gifted, terrifying hockey player, and two, Patrick is completely and irredeemably gay for him. Also, he’s definitely a vampire, but whatever, Patrick doesn’t really give a shit about that part. (Twilight AU)

Provenance by fourfreedoms ★ - vampire!Jonny  | sorta sequel here

“I uh, didn’t think it would be done so fast,” Patrick said when he arrived. Jonathan stared at him. “Done? You insult me. A good suit, at a lackluster slapdash minimum, needs three-fittings. You’ll be in here for four, I assure you.”

true blood chatfic by doctor_denmark - vampire!Jonny | not fic but still cute

So, sometimes hockey blogs say that Jonathan Toews's playoff fail-beard makes him look like a "victorian era vampire" (repeatedly), and when this happens, I start telling myself about the True Blood au, where Toews is the first vampire to play in the NHL, and Patrick Kane is the deeply closeted hockey player who falls in love with him. Then horrible enablers let me chat-fic at them for hours, and I end up with about 8,000 words, which is 9 times more than i managed on my thesis today.

I'm putting it here, because the world needs to witness my folly.

nature of the immortal being by Mayhem10 - vampire!Kaner

“Wait,” interrupts Jonathan, finally registering Patrick’s rant. “What exactly are you allergic to?”

Patrick waves dismissively. “You know, the usual.”

(In which Patrick is the worst vampire ever and Jonathan grows his own garlic.)

Sealed With A Kiss - (butt)vampire!Kaner

Five minutes after Coach Q explains to his new team that Patrick is indeed a supernatural creature of the night, he’s hustled into the corridor by his cute as hell new captain.

“An ass-eating vampire?” Jonathan asks.

“It’s not like I had a choice,” Patrick says, defensively.

bloodlust - vampire!Kaner 

One Time Patrick Kane Didn’t Drink From Jonathan Toews and Five Times He Did (also known as Vampire Kaner)

so say, what are you waiting for? by nuuclears - vamp!Jonny

“But are you even into this?” Patrick asks, biting his lip at how vulnerable it comes out.

Jonny straightens up fully and stares at him, hands full of gatorade bottles forgotten at his sides. “Kaner, it’s blood,” Jonny tells him incredulously, and ok, a valid point, Patrick does have some idea of how vampires get about blood, but still. It’s not like they’re just drinking from everyone either.

“And,” Jonny says, and blows out a harsh breath of air that he doesn’t even need. “And it’s you,” he admits, like it costs him something.

vampire!kaner AU by allthebros

He comes back to himself with Jonny’s blood in his mouth.

Werewolves 

All Practise and No Play by james - were!Kaner

Sometimes Tazer thinks it's like herding puppies. Actually, no, he thinks that all the time.

by the throat by liketheroad

The one where they're werewolves growing up in Manitoba.

Catalyst - were!Jonny

Full moon’s coming.

It’s about a week out, but even if they didn’t all keep a careful calendar of it, Patrick would know it just by looking at Johnny. Patrick’s known a few werewolves before, some distant family, and Johnny’s got all the hypervigilant aggression he’s used to seeing from them, but what they direct at others—bristling when people get too close, snapping when they’re provoked, showing teeth—Johnny turns inward.

fight or run, you're just getting older (podfic available by AshesandGhost) - were!Kaner 

Contrary to popular belief, weres don't actually need alphas. Patrick never had one, since he's the only person in his family with the gene, and his parents didn't push him into finding one. Alphas make their betas better; they keep them calm and level, they support them, they guide them. Without an alpha, betas are perfectly fine. They're just better with one.

Instincts (podfic available by exmanhater)

They don’t talk about what happens during the moon; and they don’t talk about how Patrick drives over sometimes to curl up on the couch and put his head in Johnny’s lap, jittery all over until he gets the anchoring weight of Johnny’s hand on the back of his neck; and they don’t talk about how Johnny calls him some nights and says, “Come over,” and Patrick does, because Johnny’s head is pounding with the need to get Patrick where he can see him, breathe in the scent of him, know he’s there and well. If they don’t talk about it they can just keep having whatever they need from each other; and that’s what they’ll do, because Johnny is Patrick’s alpha and Patrick needs him to be that for him.

For Johnny, it’s always been more.

I've Got A Feeling (I Hope You're Feeling It Too) by aohatsu - highschool werewolves AU!

When Patrick met Jonny for the first time, it was because they'd both just been picked for the same hockey team. When Patrick netted his first goal during practice, Jonny skated over to give him a congratulatory hug and, well, it's not like he didn't sometimes shift on accident, when he was excited or happy, but it hadn't happened at practice in ages.

Not Passive but Aggressive by reserve

Patrick Kane is a shitty werewolf; Jonathan Toews loves him anyway.

sun sweet berries of the earth series by gasmsinc -  were!jonny, forest spirit!kaner

There is a spirit living in Patrick State Park.

“Listen,” says Jonny. “I didn’t mean to step on your crown.”

The spirit’s bottom lip wobbles.

What If The Storm Ends ★

Here’s how it goes: Pat was out at a club, got bitten by a wolf—wtf?—got yelled at by Abby Sharp, woke up naked on her kitchen table, spent the day hiding in an IHOP, played the most aggressive game of hockey in his career and got mob-bossed off the ice by Sidney Crosby who, for the record, was surprisingly terrifying.

That was Tuesday.

wolf like me by gasmsinc ★ - were!Jonny

When Patrick had imagined his eighteenth birth year celebrations, he hadn’t imagined them taking place in a fortress a thousand miles away from home, surrounded by a people who were only his by marriage, while sitting next to a husband he barely knew.

He had imagined celebrating in Paelford Castle, right there in the great hall where his family had held every celebration, surrounded by the servants and nobles he had known his entire life, his parents and sisters on either side of him. He hadn’t imagined celebrating his eighteenth birth year on his wedding day, either.

Wolfverse by linsky - were!Patrick

Patrick has two goals for himself when he comes to Chicago: Win the Stanley Cup. And don’t let anyone find out he’s a wolf.

Ghost

Transcendence by ice_hot_13 - ghost!Jonny

Jonny shows up at midnight to play at the rink, and Patrick doesn't know who he is, what he's doing, or how the hell he even gets into the building, but Patrick still can't stay away.

If You Like It, Then You Should've Put A Ring On It - stepquietly

Tazer haunts Patrick through his TV and keeps threatening to kill him. And Kaner makes jokes about how Tazer lives at the bottom of a well and still uses a VCR. (The Ring AU crack!fic)

feel your heart beating as clearly as my own - ghost!Jonny

[He still doesn't get enough sleep most nights, and even though Jonny's there, he's notreally there, and he spends a lot of time sitting on the couch staring out the window,Jonny's hand clenched around his, like he's not sure what else to do.]

Jonny dies. Then he starts bothering Patrick.

the ghost & mr. kane - ghost!Jonny

"Uh," he starts. "You--if you're robbing me, you're not doing a great job of it."

"I'm not--I live here!"

"No you don't," says Patrick, dumb. "I live here."

"Yeah, I'm--I'm--I do too."

It snaps together for Patrick, suddenly--the guy's weird muttonchops, his suit, the way he disappeared and reappeared. "You're my ghost?" he asks. Just for confirmation, you know.

"Yes," his ghost says, glowering and still rusty-voiced.

as the ominous others

defrost, debauch, destroy by psocoptera (podfic by exmanhater)  ★ - ???

Beneath the ice, dread things lie dreaming. Or listening to One Direction, whatever.

thy hair soft-lifed by the winnowng wind by forochel ★ - leprechaun!Kaner

He made sure to lay out two saucers, one of spiked milk and one of pure whisky, that night; it was the closest to an apology he could think of.

Anatomy of a Hybrid series by maccabird_23 (abandoned WIP) - magical hybrid AU

Professional sports were chock-full of wolf and dragon hybrids; littered with adept humans but lean on the fairer hybrid. Most elves stayed to the more delicate athletics. Ballet and figure skating being the few sports they excelled at. Elves definitely didn’t play hockey. + Pat was many things but dumb wasn’t one of them. He knew how his teammates looked at him when he got worked up or even worst, turned on. He felt it deep in his gut and couldn’t control as the excitement, anger or arousal blossomed on his skin. Sparks of red and blue taking off from the tips of his pointy ears when he was happy. Deep reds gathering like coal along his scales when he was upset. His lips turning blistering silver before settling on frostbite red whenever he looked at Jonny.

bare those teeth to me please, man-eater - selkie!Jonny

 the one where johnny is a selkie, and patrick is the fisherman's son who loves him.

1988 selkie AU by allthebros - selkie!Jonny

They never give their skin willingly, his grandpa told him. You gotta either steal it and hide it away where they can’t find it, cause, believe it, first chance they got, they’re gone–doesn’t matter if they love you or if they have kids, they love and want the sea more. Or you gotta let them have their skin and let them go once the tryst is over. They don’t stay land-locked by choice, though they can still be happy and love like we do.

Patrick’s grandpa was a wise man, which is why it takes him more than a moment to understand what Jonathan is saying. “Take it, Patrick,” he repeats, his seal-skin all folded up between his strong hands. “I wanna stay.”

But You're So Magnetic by forochel - veela!Kaner 

Kaner comes into his veela heritage on his 24th birthday. Shenanigans and surprise feelings ensue.

call it magic by thundersquall ★ - faerie!Patrick

“It’s the faerie blood in me,” Patrick explains.

Jonny is just not equipped to deal with this shit.

OR, on March 17, Patrick turns into a faerie.

(Can't Help) Faun'in in Love by Miss_Psychotic - faun!Kaner 

When Jonathan is 12, he meets a boy named Kaner.

Crest and Break by hatrickane - mer!Kaner

 Kaner’s life in the deep is more than fulfilling - even despite his fascination with the fisherman who floats on the surface. He knows he has to keep his obsession a secret from the other Merfolk - but no banishment, magic, or legend is going keep him from getting closer to those kind eyes.

Friend Like Me by hatrickane ★ - genie!Jonny

 It wasn’t as beautiful as most oil lamps, Patrick surmised. It was a little stained, the ceramic chipped in places, but a meticulously crafted leaf sat nestled at the open mouth and Kaner dragged his fingertips over it.

It was warm, and he wanted it. Even without knowing what was inside.

First Frost by SimoneClouseau ★ - faerie (unseelie!Jonny)  

When he makes it to the party they ask him where he disappeared to an hour ago and Patrick stares back at them.

“What do you mean an hour?” he says. “It’s been ten minutes.”

Sharpy starts laughing. “Fine, don’t tell us.”

Patrick thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s going insane.

Patrick ends up somewhere he shouldn't be, and Jonathan is forced to claim him to save his life.

I want to meet the kind of folks I've never met by pistol_red - mer!Jonny

In which Johnny is tangled in a net and Patrick is the merman who saves him.

kiss the boy by gasmsinc - mer!kaner

The fish’s head is submerged completely under water. The only thing sticking out is the curve of its back, but Jonny can finally see why it’s stuck: there’s a fishing net hooked on a part of the rock.

It’s then that the fish decides to move again. Its tail thrashes back and forth wildly, and in its panic the fish bangs its broken fin right into the rock. A series of air bubbles pop up to Jonny’s right, but he doesn’t have time to acknowledge how weird that is, because three seconds after the bubbles, a boy’s head pops out of the water.

Jonny yells.

My Heart's in the Sea - Samantha_Holmes - mer!Jonny

When a mermaid named Jonathan saves a prince named Patrick from drowning, little did they know that their lives would be intertwined forever.

Animal Transformations

After Forever After by hockeyhawk ★ - angry frog!Jonny

One moment there was a captain. Next moment there was a frog. Someone has to step up, apparently it's Kaner.

The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All by forochel - hedgehog kaner

It’s a little known fact that the Kane family are in possession of a genetic quirk — an x-linked recessive gene — that basically boils down to this: Kaner turns into a hedgehog one day and gets stuck.

An Experiment In Hedgehog Physics by exmanhater - hedgehog!Kaner

Hedgehog!Kaner has the best ideas.

Hedgehog!Kaner series by altri_uccelli ★  - hedgehog!Kaner

Uhhhh, hedgehog Kaner in Switzerland.

+

Jon brings him up to his neck, cuddling him against the skin of his throat. He’s always done that, way back before everything. Even though it prickles, even though it gives him a light rash sometimes, he just likes Kaner there.

“Been awhile,” he whispers again.

+ A collection of ficlets and tagfic in the hedgehog!Kaner 'verse.

Better Off With You by tictactoews - hedgehog!Jonny 

Tazer has always seemed prickly on the outside, but he takes it to a whole new level when he turns into an actual hedgehog and becomes dependent on Patrick's care.

Changing on the Fly by mermaid - pitbull!Kaner

"Where's Kaner?" Jonny asks. "Where did this pit bull come from?" Duncs chews on his lip. "Uh, see, there's actually only one answer to both those questions."

Still muzzy with sleep, Jonny blinks at the guys. "So, like – Kaner got me a dog? And sent you two here to deliver it?"

"No," Sharpy says. "No, Kaner is the dog."

Duck Tales - duck!Jonny

“I think he needs floaties.”

Patrick resists the strong urge he gets to slam his head against the wall. “Kaner. He’s aduck; I don’t think they make floaties for them. What kind of duck can’t swim?”

“The kind that are magically transformed hockey players?” Kaner suggests and damn it, hehas a point.

Gone to the Dogs - puppy!Jonny

Jonathan Toews turns into a puppy. Then some other stuff happens.

Hooked on a Feeling (podfic available by exmanhater) - pug!Jonny

The one where Patrick is not exactly Bella Swan and Jonathan is definitely not Sparkly Whatshisname.

OR, THE WERE-PUG AU.

Into Each Life Some Rain Will Fall Like Cat Piss on Your Shoes by james - cat!Kaner

Johnny is waiting for Patrick to get home from Switzerland. What he gets is a surprise.

Slip the Jesses, My Love by flitterflutterfly - literally a hawk!Jonny

Jonny’s gets turned into a hawk and the only one he lets hold him is Patrick

The Cat Crept In by Celly1995 - kitten!kaner

Jonny's not entirely sure why he needed to get back to Chicago so urgently, because he *definitely* doesn't want to admit to himself that he's missing Patrick. But it's just as well he did come home, because Patrick's... not himself.

the skies are not cloudy - buffalo!Jonny

In which Jonathan Toews can turn into a buffalo, and Patrick Kane is the idiot in love with him.

Through the Looking Glass - puppy!Jonny, kitten!Kaner

The fic where Tazer becomes a puppy and Kaner turns into a kitten, but Sharpy still doesn't see any difference in how they behave.

To push a frozen rope - kitten!Kaner

It's just another day in the Blackhawks locker room when Patrick Kane decides to turn into a puppy.

you come around and the armor falls by altri_uccelli - puppy!Jonny

Patrick's in bed when he hears it, and at first it sounds like a peep that a phone might make, but then it happens again, elongated like a whine. His only theory is that it's a mouse, caught somewhere, and if Jonny's going to make a nuisance of himself by staying when he's not invited, he can damn well take care of this.

Bonus: IGAL 'verse by svmadelyn has an amazing tumblr tag that has ficlets and tag!fics with puppy!Tazer and doggo kids. Warning cuteness overload

Love & Sex & Magic

#1 Crush - sex magic

Patrick shows up at his and Jonny's hotel room under the influence of sex magic. 5000 words of porn ensues.

caring is creepy by liketheroad ★ - truth magic

When he gets out of the shower Johnny stares at him like Kaner’s the best thing he’s ever seen, which weirds Kaner out even more than the rest of this situation, because what, not even Johnny’s eyes can lie, now? This is some fucked up shit. Fucking Canucks fans, seriously.

 In which Tazer is truth whammied by a Canucks fan and it turns out he has a lot of feelings. Mostly about Kaner. But also about bacon.

Changing the Rules of the Game by Herwhereabouts - magic powers

Tazer has a concussion and is desperate to get better, while Kaner has healing powers he is unaware he possesses. Much drama ensues.

still into you by altri_uccelli - gender transformation

It's not even 12 hours after Jonny discovers he's a girl that he's sprawled on an itchy sofa, biting on his fist and being eaten out by Patrick Kane. He can't believe that a day exists in which having oral sex with Kaner, his oldest friend on the team and frequently a pain in his ass, is not the weirdest thing to happen.

A Handy Guide To Making You Feel Good by fourfreedoms and joyfulseeker - gender transformation

When it had first happened, body melting into this new form right there in front of all the guys, he’d demanded an answer from Jonny. “Did you see this coming?” A five first times fic.

+ “Um…” Patrick says, staring at the water beading down over the curve of one breast and along his taut stomach.

“What?” Jonny asks, furrowing his brows.

Patrick finally gets the chance to lend a helping hand.

Hanging on a Moment of Truth - sex magic

As it turns out, the weird sex magic is the least of Kaner's problems.

i mingle with divinity by mockturtletale - lucky sex magic

“Hey,” Patrick says, putting his hand on Jonny’s thigh, feeling giving, “It’s totally us. You and me, we’re golden when our boners touch. It’s just what happens after that’s unnatural or whatever.”

roving eye ravenous by toomanyhometowns ★ - possession

He opened his mouth to start talking and blinked.

So Deep in My Heart (That You're Really a Part of Me) by kiwoa - bodyswap

"No way," Jonny says, and he slowly turns his - Kaner's - head from side to side, watching the muscles in his face and neck shift. He licks his lips; it tastes wrong. His left wrist feels too stiff and his legs and stomach look too skinny and his hair still itches, damnit. Jonny scratches the back of his neck with nails that are too long and uncomfortably ragged.

"Okay," he says slowly. "Okay, this is not good."

Symptomatic by snapple_jax - sex magic

“What, like it’s hard?” Jonny parrots along with Elle Woods. He side-eyes Patrick, fully prepared for the gleeful chirp about how he knew Jonny loved this movie all along.

Only Pat’s turned an alarming shade of red before scurrying to the bathroom, blanket trailing behind since he couldn’t untangle himself fast enough.

the gift of obedience - obedience magic

Patrick will be fine without Jonny. Really. All he has to do is track down Lucinda and get her to break the spell. He doesn’t even have to liberate an oppressed magical species or find true love along the way.

The Hug Offensive by ingenius - magic powers

When he's five, Patrick figures out that he has a super power. He thinks it's awesome.

under your skin by hazel - bodyswap

Patrick goes to bed that night in Tazer’s guest room. It’s not the first time he’s slept there, but it’s the first time he’s tried to sleep in Tazer’s body. His legs want to kick out weirdly into the corners of the bed, and his head can’t find a comfortable position on the pillow. He drops off eventually anyway, worn from the current of rage he’s been carrying around all day and the constant slow rhythm of Tazer’s heartbeat, drumming in his chest like a cage.

yours and/or mine by demotu - bodyswap

Jonny shows Patrick how it works. And by "it", I mean his dick. Jonny's, but temporarily Patrick's.

love is a contact sport by hazel and mermaid ★ - soul bond

"And the tragic reality of Patrick's life is that even though they broke up over a year ago, he and Johnny still play beautiful hockey together."

A high school AU, featuring dream-fish, bad movie dates, and a little bit of magic.

glory days by liketheroad - soul bond

He never expected his destiny to involve anything but hockey, never thought it would show up in flip flops, but when Patrick smiles at him across the locker room, quick and surprised, Johnny lets his priorities shift and change without a hint of reluctance or regret.

22 by aohatsu ★- soulmate

There’s no other explanation. His soulmate must have turned twenty-two yesterday.

more magical Realism and fantasy

say it with flowers by hazel ★

GOOD WORK, YOUNG HAWK, the oak tree outside his building booms once the season’s over, and Patrick smiles sleepily in its direction.

He's never been sure how the trees of Chicago know about hockey—trees hear a lot, but it's not like he's ever stopped in a public park to ask one about it.

The Purity Myth by downjune ★

Patrick Kane is a unicorn—the ferocious, foul-mouthed, man-hating kind.

these are the fables on my street by Fahye ★

Patrick makes a fucking superhuman effort, sweeps up the mess of his emotions, and stashes his incipient freakout about all of this somewhere in the back of his mind where he can have it later. When Jonny's back in the driver's seat, and Patrick's had a chance to bring up the whole blowjobs-and-beach-walks issue. Focused on the win, that's Patrick Kane.

Custos by hatrickane

The legend goes as this: The Sorcerer of Mount Custos, the guardian, serves as the protector of the farmfolk.

Patrick thinks it's bullshit.

I have as much soul as you (and full as much heart) by Mayhem10

Jonathan Toews was born with only half a heart. He didn't know that the other half existed, let alone that it was held by some irritating American named Patrick Kane.

A Magical Realism AU

May your past be the sound by elareine

After that, Jonny set some rules for himself.

1. No using his power for himself. That just looked like a slippery slope to him. Helping others was fine, though. 2. Consequently, no manipulating the outcome of a game, no matter how badly he wished to change the way he’d played. That would be unfair and undermine any victories. 3. No relationships with teammates. Not related to the time travel thing, but important enough to include in this list. Just because he could turn back time didn’t mean he had to create any more opportunities for a giant clusterfuck than necessary.

(Five times Jonny travelled back in time, one time he couldn't, and one time he chose not to.)

Like a Leaf That's Caught In the Tide by Frosting50

For more than 200 years the Toews men have been blamed for everything that’s ever gone wrong in the town of Pumpkin Hollow. Or the Practical Magic AU no one asked for.

bring it if you really want it by staraflur

It starts like this:

Well, okay, Patrick has no idea how it actually starts. But as pertains to him (in other words, the important part), it goes a little something like so: America, being a nation composed in large part of a melting pot of immigrants who may or may not have taken over land already owned by others using less-than-savory means, doesn’t have much of a magical national identity. Much less a magical continental identity. There’s no grand heritage going back thousands of years. Magical families home-schooled all their kids until, like, the 1800’s, and tough for the muggle-born, apparently. Hopefully you got noticed by someone who knew what to do with you before you got burned at the stake. Since you probably can’t control your powers, sport.

forget met (not) by hippietoews

“You're remembering him, aren't you?" Pat asks. Jon hums quietly.

After the battle with Pitch, Jon never talked about his memories. He didn't share anything about his previous life with the other Guardians. He knows that they have memories of their own previous lives, but they seem so unattached to them now.

Who they are now is what matters.

Long Way Home by tictactoews

Jonathan Toews is a young heir to the Winnipeg castle and estate, but this comfortable and sheltered life is not what he really wants. When circumstances force him to join a group of Grey Wardens - warriors dedicated to defend the world against monstrous enemies - Jonathan finds a new life and new friends, including two runaways from the neighboring country of Orlais, an old friend who's now back in his life, and a rogue elf who will come to mean more to Jonathan than he ever expected anyone could.

Dragon Age AU. No prior knowledge of the game necessary to read this story.Spoilers (if any) for Origins and Awakening.No spoilers for Inquisition.

the times i spent with you

"Pat plays Quidditch because not playing feels like dying. It's just that simple." Quidditch AU

through the mirrored maze

Jonathan's relationship with his daemon is different from anyone else's.

together again for the very first time by draftingletters

Like, seriously, this is the great fucking irony of Kaner’s life. You’d think it’d be pretty awesome, having powers of prophecy and all that, but all the dreams that end up coming true are so hideously fucking boring. It’s the perfectly natural normal dreams his brain spits out that are fucked up. The kind where he plays for the Ducks, or is a professional florist, or a neon green elephant. Or banging Tazer.

the walls kept tumbling down (in the city that we loved) series by altri_uccelli 

“Patrick wonders idly what Toews' daemon is; something like a python, maybe, or a bird of prey. It would just figure if it were a hawk, Patrick thinks in disgust; he's already starting to hate Toews a little so he tries to dial it back. Then he notices a big cat—some kind of, like, mountain lion—sitting well apart from the other daemons. It's watching the ice intently, and if Patrick had anyone to bet with, he knows where he'd put his money.”

+ fighting dragon remix ★ by altri_uccelli

A month ago, Jon thinks: a month ago he hadn't even heard of daemons, hadn't yet had his life turned upside down by a talking otter and a boy with dimples and the smoothest skin he'd ever touched and secrets held close behind long-lashed blue eyes.

world enough and time

The effect is instantaneous: Jonathan jerks forwards, gasping, and over the white-noise screaming his eyes are wide and frightened and fiercely alive. In that instant Patrick thinks, clear as a bell, god, he’s gorgeous. Fuck. (A Pushing Daisies AU.)

For fic inquires. Rec me a fic? Happy reading!

[dotshiiki]

CoL, chpt 16

XVI: ANNABETH

The odds were definitely not in their favour.

Annabeth had heard that line somewhere—she vaguely recalled some movie everyone had been crazy about last summer—and it definitely applied to their situation now.

Still, like she'd said to Percy, they'd faced these monsters before (albeit not all at once) and she'd been in plenty of impossible fights. Three against three hundred on the Williamsburg Bridge came to mind. Though that was with an invulnerable Percy.

He was definitely not invulnerable now.

But she hadn't come all this way only to fail this close to the Doors of Death. Piper and the others had promised to get the Doors to them, and they had done so. Annabeth had promised they'd be there to meet the Doors, and so they would.

Now your ingenuity will be called upon yet again. It will be up to you to ensure the pattern no longer repeats.

Annabeth hadn't yet figured out what the daemon meant. She did know how to craft a quick battle strategy, though.

'We need to spread them out!' she yelled to the others. 'Divide them so they can't concentrate their attacks!'

'I'll take the birds,' said Will. 'Time for a rematch.'

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out the loudest, shrillest taxicab whistle Annabeth had ever heard him produce. She could practically see its vibrations ripple through the air. Nearly all the Stymphalian birds fell to the ground in shock. So did half the monsters.

'Holy hippocampi,' said Percy, rubbing his ears. 'I bet you never have trouble getting a cab downtown.'

'Don't waste it,' Thalia ordered. 'Attack!' In a flurry of gold and silver arrows, she and Will made short work of the birds.

'We will take the big ones,' Bob said with a decisive sweep of his broom. He barrelled towards the tallest monster: Hyperion, blazing in bright gold. Small Bob bounded alongside him and together they ripped through an entire pack of Gegenees on their way. The ogres wailed as they went from being six-armed giants to total amputees.

Damasen launched himself at Kampê as she came swooping in, spitting a stream of ancient Minoan that didn't sound like praise for Will's virtuoso whistling. Foul-smelling acid splattered the ground beneath them. The red giant's beefy arms closed around Kampê's multi-headed waist and tackled her to the ground. He wrestled her as if she were the Maeonian drakon he'd slain daily for thousands of years.

The monsters, once their eardrums had recovered from their shock, came at them in earnest. There were so many of them! Laistrygonians hurled fireballs from across the valley. Dracaenae slithered over the bumpy ridges with their teeth bared. Gryphons dive-bombed them from the air.

A hydra thundered towards Annabeth, acid shooting from at least five heads. One of the steaming jets sizzled over her and she barely ducked in time. She ran, dodging more corrosive missiles while trying to find her footing on the undulating terrain.

A swollen, pulsing vein caught her foot and tripped her. Annabeth face-planted—which turned out to be fortunate when the air burst into flame where her head had been a split second ago. A giant with skin that looked like it had been painted with Cheez Whiz let out a satisfied burp.

Annabeth scrambled to her feet. She was caught between the hydra and Cacus the fire-breather. Great. One monster could liquefy her; the other could fry her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw flashes of the battle raging in the valley. Nico was locked in combat with a manticore. Will shot down a nest of basilisks swarming him. She didn't see Percy, but she heard him yelling, 'You want a fight? Come and get it, then, Bull-Head!' The army of monsters were keeping her friends so busy, she couldn't count on back-up anytime soon.

'How'd you like to be cooked, demigod?' Cacus sniggered. 'Fried? Barbecued?' He opened his mouth to deliver another spurt of fire. At the same time, one hydra head bore down on her. Acid glistened green on its pointed teeth.

Annabeth swung her sword and sliced off its head. She dove out of the way of Cacus's flaming breath. It hit the hydra right in its stump.

With an angry howl, the hydra turned its remaining heads towards Cacus.

'It was an accident!' Cacus protested. A river of acid engulfed him. When it cleared, all Annabeth could make of him was an orange lump of smoking Cacus-and-cheese.

'Goddamn Canadians!' Percy cursed as he ran by, pelted by fireballs from the Laistrygonians.

'Over here!' Annabeth hollered at him.

One look and Percy understood. He swerved and turned around to run at the hydra. The Laistrygonians' fireballs soared into a pack of telekhines and vaporised them.

'Missed me again!' he taunted the Laistrygonians. 'You guys suck at dodgeball!'

Annabeth decapitated two more hydra heads; Percy took care of the others. Right on cue, the Laistrygonians' missiles slammed into the stumps and sealed them off. The hydra flopped to the ground and disintegrated.

'Nice one!' Percy yelled. He jabbed at the ground and directed a Stygian spray at the Laistrygonians. They howled as it pelted them in the eyes. Annabeth and Percy took the chance to stab them in the back.

Five more monsters down. What was it now, fifty to go?

They turned their attention back to the battle. Damasen had won his fight with Kampê and now had the giant Antaeus in a headlock. Bob was holding his own against three enemies at once: he lambasted the bear twins, Agrius and Oreius, with his broom like they were naughty children, pausing only to poke the Cyclops Polyphemus in the eye with the spear end. Meanwhile, an army of hellhounds had turned on the gryphons, directed by Nico and his Stygian sword. The Clazmonian sow weaved crazily among them; Annabeth was stunned to see Thalia on its back, clinging tightly with her knees as she fired a quick succession of arrows into a coven of empousai. Small Bob snarled as he grappled with the Nemean Lion. The latter's mouth opened wide to bite the sabre-tooth tiger's head off, but Will shot an arrow straight into its maw.

A deafening clang reverberated through the air. The Doors of Death had reached the ground at last. The monsters' battle line—what remained of it, anyway—broke as those who weren't currently engaged in a fight raced hungrily towards it.

'No!' Annabeth cried. 'We have to get there first!'

Percy took her hand and they scrambled over the bumps and ridges of the heart. They weren't going to make it; the monsters were closer. Already the first of them had reached the silver-panelled elevator. The triple-torso-ed giant Geryon lassoed a ranch rope to one side of its black frame, securing it to the ground. Lashing down the other side was the lizard-like old waterbed salesman, Procrustes. Annabeth's wrists smarted at the mere memory of those ropes stretching her out once upon a time.

A trio of snake-headed ladies in gaudy flower prints rushed for the Doors. One of them had a flimsy scarf wrapped around her face, bandit-style, except it had a gap for her fanged mouth rather than her eyes.

The silver panels slid open, but before Medusa and her sisters could get in, a fat woman with thick snake coils in place of legs tried to slide ahead of them.

'No cutsies!' cried one of the Gorgons, shoving Echidna out of her way. 'We got here first!'

'Show some respect for your elders!' Echidna chided.

'Elders? Pah! Who made you older?'

Geryon tied off his ranch rope and inserted himself between the squabbling ladies and the Doors. 'Just who was doing all the work here, then? What didja think, the Doors just lash themselves down, huh?'

'Oh, right, take all the credit, you old cowherd,' snapped Procrustes.

'Shu up, Crusty.'

'It's big enough for all of us!' Medusa shouted. 'As long as someone stays to hold the button.'

'You can stay—you've already got your finger on it!'

Thank the gods for monster squabbles. Their bickering over who had to hold the Doors for the others gave Annabeth and Percy a chance to catch up. Percy broke up the argument by opening up a fountain in the monsters' midst. Jets of Tartarus river water shot out in all directions like a lawn sprinkler. Crusty got a blast of Lethe and wandered away, looking dazed. Geryon cursed as he was doused by liquid fire. A shower of Cocytus set the two Gorgons weeping. Echidna screamed as she was hit by Stygian water. Medusa snatched her scarf away from her face and flung it aside, where it lay sizzling in acidic Acheron.

'Look away!' Annabeth cried.

'Don't worry, I got this!' Thalia galloped up, still on the back of the Clazmonian sow. Her arrows flew straight and true, slamming through all three of Geryon's chests at once. She leapt off the pig just before it ploughed into the remaining monsters at the Doors. They scattered like skittles toppled by a bowling ball. Thalia activated her shield, Aegis, and thrust it at Medusa.

The Gorgon reared back in shock. Possibly the sight of her own ugly face was too distressing for her. Annabeth wondered if she'd actually looked in a mirror before.

Percy reacted first. Riptide came swinging down on Medusa's neck for the second time in history.

'Percy, look out!' Annabeth ran her sword through one of the Gorgons, but the other one gored him with her tusk. 'Percy!'

Blood poured from his arm. He swung Riptide anyway. 'Die, Beano!'

'It's Steno!' cried the monster in outrage, before exploding in a cloud of sulphurous mist.

'I'm okay!' Percy gasped, clutching at his injured arm. 'Get the Doors!'

Thalia got there first and jammed her fist on the button. 'How's this thing work?'

'Not yet!' Annabeth said. 'The Doors will close if you hold it down.' She jammed her foot in between the silver panels to hold them open. 'And then someone—one of us has to—' Her voice caught in her throat. This was it—the final hurdle, and the one she had not yet found a solution to. All the way through Tartarus, she'd been so focused on surviving each step that she hadn't thought ahead enough to the inevitable problem at the end.

'Hold the button for twelve minutes.' Echidna's glare was pure venom. The Styx fountain had left pock marks on her cheeks. 'Not that any of you will have the chance to—aghhh!' A red-boulder-sized fist slammed into her out of nowhere and she reeled back.

'Hello, sister.' Damasen's voice was almost pleasant. 'It's been a while.'

'You man-loving fool,' Echidna snarled. 'Do you think you're a match for me? I am the mother of monsters!'

Damasen didn't dignify this with a response. He simply grabbed Echidna by the tail and swung her around like a lasso. Her shrill scream pierced the air, then cut off abruptly when Damasen released her and she sailed right into the Gryphon-hellhound melée. The mother of monsters disappeared into their whirl of teeth, fangs, and claws.

'Get to the doors!' Damasen bellowed.

Will and Nico limped towards them with their arms around each other's shoulders. Annabeth couldn't tell which of the pair was supporting the other. Bob and his cat ran up to help them along. The monsters that were left followed hot on their heels.

Before they could close the distance, a fissure opened in the ground. Thalia threw up her shield, probably anticipating another deadly fountain.

What rose from the earth was worse: a young man with sandy hair and a long claw scar running diagonally down his right cheek.

Annabeth's breath caught in her throat. She heard her own voice come out in a strange, foreign whimper.

'It can't be,' Thalia whispered. 'Why—how can he be here?'

Luke turned to Percy and addressed him directly. 'Don't you see, Percy? This is your journey. You came to Tartarus to find yourself. And here I am.' His voice, high, cold, and cruel, emanated from the air rather than from his mouth. It seemed to be cobbled together from harsh whispers, dragged with great effort from the furthest corners of Tartarus.

'No—you're not—I'm not—' Percy threw his hands up to ward Luke away.

No, not Luke. Kronos.

But that couldn't be right. Kronos was supposed to be fractured into so many pieces that he could never reform at all, let alone take Luke's form.

Then again, Bob and Damasen were supposed to be decorations on Tartarus's armour, their souls lost to Chaos. Annabeth had already seen so many impossible things down here. What was one more?

'What did you think you would find at the heart of Tartarus, Percy Jackson? All these monster—' Kronos spread his hands, although the monster army was already mostly decimated, and what remained of it edged away from the Titan. 'Me.' He crossed his arms over his chest and appraised them with eyes of gold steel. 'All part of who you are. Who are you, in the end? What are you?'

Ghostly shades danced in the space between them like a movie on fast-forward. It was Eris and Chaos and the Caves of Night all over again, dredging up the worst acts of a man's life through the lens of fear and hate. It was The Life and Times of Percy Jackson, starring Luke Castellan—no, starring Kronos!Luke, or maybe it should be Kronos!Percy. In this version, Percy's power was completely unchecked, greater and more terrible than he'd ever been.

Toilets exploded, only in this blast, everything collapsed—Clarisse was buried in the Camp Half-Blood outhouse; the Argo II blew apart and sank; his and Annabeth's apartment crumbled into rubble. Earth and sea shook in a wild frenzy—Mount St Helens erupted into a sky of ash; hurricanes ravaged Manhattan. Water burst from the orifices of fossilised shells, but also living creatures—monsters, though Annabeth could easily imagine them to be humans, too, and it was not water that spouted from their ears and mouths.

The worst part: none of it was accidental, the slips of a young demigod unaware of the true extent of his powers. This was the unrestricted madness of a man fully cognisant of the damage he could do and wreaking it intentionally on his enemies. This Percy stood calmly in the centre of each scene of devastation, orchestrating the chaos with calculated malice.

It settled into a final, still frame that settled over Percy himself, superimposing frosty golden eyes and a dangerous expression onto his face. Kronos!Percy's lip curled in a cruel, satisfied smile. The most terrifying part was that this look was not completely foreign to Annabeth. This was the Percy who had choked Akhlys in her own poison, slayed Arachne without a trace of remorse, and vowed a terrible vengeance upon Gaia.

Riptide trembled in Percy's hands, so violently that Annabeth feared he would drop the sword at any moment. It was this small gesture of fear that reminded her that the Percy standing next to her was real and complicated—a whole person with a dark side that he struggled to control.

And for better or worse, he was her whole person. He always had been.

She reached over and closed her fingers over his.

'Percy,' she whispered. 'Percy, you're not him.'

'I'm no different,' he said miserably. Dark shadows swam in the haunted seas of his eyes. 'I've done terrible things. I turned into a—a monster. Like Luke.'

Annabeth cupped his face in her hands, the way Piper had once done to force reason back into her scattered mind. She made Percy look straight at her. 'You listen to me, Seaweed Brain. You never went as far as Luke. And even if you did—Luke chose right in the end. You know that. You were there. Don't let Kronos get into your head!'

Percy's expression cleared. 'Annabeth,' he said. 'You're right.'

'Of course I am.'

'No.' The deep rumble of Bob's voice boomed across the valley. 'Not Kronos. You are not my brother!'

Small Bob leapt onto Kronos's back, claws outstretched. In Luke's form, Kronos should have been flattened when the sabre-toothed tiger pounced, but he remained upright, shaking furiously in an attempt to dislodge the enormous cat from his back. Small Bob held fast, his claws digging into Kronos's skin.

Kronos howled with pain, but it wasn't the inchoate cry of a tenaciously reforming Titan, or even a human scream. It was deep and full and reverberating, shaking the ground itself and causing the scarlet clouds to thicken like congealed blood.

Bob swiped at Kronos with his broom. The spear point should have cut through Kronos's body. Instead, Kronos spun like a top, and both broom and cat were sucked into a whirlwind that seemed to be all gnashing teeth and flashing blades. When it settled, he was no longer Luke nor Kronos, but the armoured vortex of Tartarus himself.

'My cat!' Bob cried. Silver tears glinted angrily in the corners of his luminescent eyes.

'A pest,' boomed Tartarus. 'Exterminated now. Like you all will be shortly.' He surveyed them with his swirling abyss of a face. 'Mortals,' he chortled. 'Such malleable minds. How far can they stretch before you break?' Between his massive purple claws was something mangled and unspeakable. He dragged it out like an elastic band, longer and longer until it broke with an ominous snap. 'Perhaps I will keep you alive for a while longer to find out.'

'No thanks,' Percy said, as if Tartarus's last mind game hadn't twisted him up inside at all. 'Our heads are a no-stretching zone.'

'Yeah,' Annabeth added, trying to sound braver than she felt. 'We've handled everything your little universe threw at us.'

Damasen caught Annabeth's eye and shook his head as if to say, stop, let me handle this. He stepped forward. 'Really, Father, playing with demigods? Has your life gotten so mundane?'

'You!' Tartarus's eyes narrowed. 'I will destroy you. Like I did before. You and your pesky Titan friend. And this time, I will swat your demigod pets, too.'

'Yes, well, that didn't go so well last time, did it?' Damasen said. 'Because here we are again.'

With that, he lunged at his father. The air around Tartarus buzzed and shimmered like he was trying to revert to an unbridled vacuum, but Damasen's strong grasp held Tartarus's physical form in place. Bob leapt over the fissure and landed a square punch to Tartarus's head. His knuckles came away bleeding, but grim satisfaction flooded his face.

Together, the Titan and the giant wrestled Tartarus back from the Doors, giving Will and Nico the chance to cross the fissure and join the others. Will and Nico hobbled straight into the lift and collapsed on the floor, clearly wiped out by their previous fights. Thalia, standing with one foot blocking the door, drew her bow and took aim.

'I can't get a clear shot,' she said. 'Do you think they can take him out? What happens to Tartarus if, well, Tartarus is killed?'

'They won't be able to,' Annabeth said. She watched Damasen and Bob grapple with Tartarus, torn between running to help and the knowledge that she'd be more likely to accidentally stab her friends than to contribute to the fight.

Tartarus's initial shock at being jumped by the two deities had worn off. He was actually laughing, almost playfully, as they rolled around in a blur of flailing limbs, like a father roughhousing with his kids.

'This is it, then, isn't it?' Thalia asked. 'Someone has to stay and—and send the rest of you home.' She slung her bow over her back and went to the elevator button.

'Oh no, you don't,' Percy said. 'I'm sending you all back. No, don't start Wise Girl.' He held a finger to Annabeth's lips, stalling her protest. 'I was the one who dragged you all down here.'

Annabeth shook her head fiercely and said, 'We chose to come.'

'I can't leave anyone behind!' Percy insisted. 'Not again.' His eyes flickered to the trio of fighters. 'I have to stay with them. But you guys can have a chance. I can hold it for twelve minutes. Please—'

'We're not leaving you,' Thalia snarled. 'Why do you think we came in the first place?'

Damasen gave a colossal roar and slammed Tartarus so hard, he skidded back five feet. The earth shuddered and the fissure in the ground widened. Damasen pushed Bob away from the fight, yelling something Annabeth couldn't hear. Bob broke away and ran back to the Doors.

'Friends! I will press the button!'

'Bob, no!' Percy said. 'I owe you from last time.'

'We owe you from last time,' Annabeth corrected.

Bob nudged Thalia out of the way and took her place at the button. 'This is how it was,' he said simply, with a brief glance at Damasen, locked in battle with Tartarus.

'But—'

Bob looked at them sadly. 'Patterns repeat,' he said. 'Stories don't change after all. Perhaps it is simply our fate. For us, escaping this place is an impossible thing.'

'No!' Annabeth refused to believe it. 'You've already done the impossible. You escaped Chaos. You won't be stuck repeating the same pattern as before.'

Stuck.

The answer came to her in one brilliant flash, as clear as the lightning that streaked down with the Doors.

'Get in the lift,' she ordered. 'All of you.'

'Annabeth, no,' Percy said, his eyes wide. He thought she meant to stay behind with Damasen. 'You can't do this.'

Thalia must have thought the same thing. 'We won't let you! If someone needs to stay—' She gulped and looked at her hands. 'If someone needs to stay,' she repeated more firmly, 'it should be me.'

Annabeth cut her off before she could argue further. 'Don't worry,' she told them. 'I have a plan.'

'Annabeth…'

'Trust me.' She gave Thalia and Percy a shove towards the elevator. 'Hold the door and wait for me.'

She sheathed her sword and ran towards Damasen and Tartarus, shouting for the giant to come back. The cat-hair gloves she had woven earlier were still in her pocket, along with the ball of spider silk. She pulled the gloves on and fingered the ball. It was tiny. Would it be enough?

Against all odds, Damasen forced Tartarus into the fissure. For one insane, hopeful moment, Annabeth thought he had won. But then she saw one hooked claw emerge. Tartarus would be climbing out any second, angrier and more dangerous than ever.

'What are you doing?' Damasen growled. 'I sent Bob to help—'

'I need the silk,' Annabeth gasped. 'From Arachne's web. You wound it on a stick—'

Damasen pulled the thin branch he'd used to de-lint them from the inside of his shirt.

'I can get us all out,' Annabeth said. 'Bring that, and come with me.'

Damasen's eyes narrowed. 'I trust you, Annabeth Chase,' he said, and it was a mandate as well as an affirmation.

Together, they sprinted for the Doors. 'Cut the ropes!' she ordered. 'Everyone, get in!'

She didn't look to see if they obeyed. Tartarus had hauled himself out of the fissure. Each footstep he took towards them drew splintered scars in the ground. Annabeth grabbed the stick of Arachne's web from Damasen. She attached the strands of her own ball to it.

'Playtime's over,' Tartarus growled at Damasen. 'Glad to see you aren't entirely useless at fighting. But this game is getting monotonous.'

'Fight me, then!' Annabeth challenged.

Tartarus's laugh sounded like the chorus of a firing squad. 'You? As easy as swatting a gnat, puny demigod.' To prove it, he flicked his gnarled hand at her the way you would shoo a pesky fly.

This was the moment she had to get absolutely right. Annabeth feinted to the right, in front of the elevator button. Tartarus's hand came up to smack her and she flung the skeins of Arachne's sticky silk between them.

'It would hold fast even the most powerful god,' Arachne had said. 'I defy any of them to escape its pull!' Annabeth was counting on that now.

The silk connected with Tartarus's fingers just before he slapped the spot where her head had just been, and landed on the silver button. Annabeth fell to the ground, her heart racing at her narrow escape.

But she'd done it.

The Doors of Death began to close.

Tartarus tried to pull his hand away. Annabeth saw confusion flicker across his face when the silk held fast. Rage was hot on its heels, but she didn't stop to watch. She picked herself up and dashed for the Doors.

For one terrifying moment, she thought she was going to miss it, that the panels would slam shut and leave her behind to face the incensed god she'd just tricked. But of course her friends would never let that happen. Percy stood in the centre of the Doors, reaching out both hands to her. He pulled her safely into the elevator, into the circle of his arms.

The Doors slid shut, catching the end of her ponytail in it. It didn't matter. She was inside. They were all inside.

Bob and Damasen shouldered one panel each, holding them firmly shut. The elevator began its rattling, earth-shaking ascent. A tinny voice from an invisible speaker crooned absurdly about taking chances and jumping off the edge.

Annabeth's pulse wouldn't slow down. She'd taken an insane gamble. If she had miscalculated, if Arachne's silk didn't hold, if Tartarus was just too powerful…well, then they would die here in this elevator, lost in the limbo of whatever happened when the button was not held for twelve minutes. She would have forfeited all their lives for the chance that all of them could make it out.

But if it worked…

If it worked, nobody would be left behind.

The seconds dragged by with nothing to mark them except her own furious heartbeat. The elevator shuddered like it might jerk them all into a million pieces at any moment.

Just a little longer, just one more minute. She repeated it like a prayer in her head, as if the mantra could buy them the twelve minutes they needed. Her eyes locked arbitrarily on the silver sweat beading on Bob's forehead as he and Damasen held the Doors in place. It rolled off the bridge of the Titan's nose and splashed to the floor, inches from Annabeth's own face. She must have sunk to her knees at some point, although she couldn't recall when. The air in the elevator had a crushing weight to it, like the number of molecules in it was multiplying and expanding into all the available space.

Annabeth had read about scuba divers who rose to the surface too quickly, rupturing their lungs when the air pressure changed too abruptly. It probably felt something like this—the swell of her chest as her lungs fought with the outside air to expel carbon dioxide; the dizzying pinch in her back of her nasal passages; the thundering of blood in her ears.

'Thirty seconds,' Bob murmured.

She didn't think she'd last ten. Bob was nothing but silver spots dancing in a sea of black. Percy's arms had fallen away from her. She couldn't pinpoint the moment they had gone slack.

Annabeth wasn't entirely sure she didn't dream the soft ding. The world became a kaleidoscope of sound and colour. A flash of light reflecting off glass. Someone's strangled yelp. A single calf-brown eye. Bob's soothing rumble: 'We are friends!'

Soft hands brushed the hair from her forehead. Someone tipped a glass against her lips. Annabeth's mouth, expecting liquid fire, tried to object, but the nectar that slipped down her throat instead was tart, sweet, and refreshing, like ice-cold cherry lemonade on a hot summer's day.

Her eyes flew open.

'Thank the gods!' said Piper.

It took Annabeth a moment to adjust to the scene. They were in a large cavern so dark that made her think at first that they hadn't left Tartarus after all. The only light came from the headlamps that Piper and the others wore, flashing bright beams like aerial spotlights off the cave walls whenever they moved.

Bob and Damasen stood by the Doors with their hands held above their heads in a gesture of surrender. Facing them were Jason, Frank, and Tyson, all armed and ready for a fight.

'Stop!' Annabeth called to them. 'Don't hurt Bob and Damasen—they got us out!'

'They're—oh,' Frank said. Jason lowered his gladius.

'We are friends!' Bob said again.

'Friends?' Tyson asked. He hadn't relaxed his grip on his club.

'Yeah,' Percy croaked. Grover was crouched next to him, supporting his shoulders. 'Hey, G-man.' He craned his head to look at Tyson. 'You okay, Big Guy?'

Tyson dropped his club and tackled Percy in a bear hug. 'You are okay, brother!'

'Ow—yeah—ribs, Tyson—'

'We came to save you!' Tyson announced proudly. 'Leo made a good ship! It breathes fire!'

Leo looked up from where he was helping Will regain consciousness and aimed an air-fist-bump towards Tyson. 'Festus is versatile, mi amigo.'

'And we found Death and made him send his Doors to you,' Tyson continued.

Annabeth noticed the slender figure then, standing slightly apart from the others with his arms crossed. She had never seen Thanatos before, and she was struck by how finely chiselled his pale face was. She didn't know what she expected Death to look like, but it was a little disconcerting to find that he was actually, well, hot.

Frank went over to him as Reyna and Hazel pulled Thalia and Nico from the elevator, leaving it empty.

'Thank you,' he said to Thanatos.

Thanatos inclined his head slightly. 'I trust the debt is repaid,' he said, arching one elegant eyebrow.

Frank nodded solemnly. Thanatos's eyes drifted to Frank's breast pocket. His lips quirked in what might have been a smile. Then he and the Doors disappeared.

'Where are we?' Annabeth asked.

'Kilauea,' Piper said. 'In Hawaii.'

'What?'

'Correct me if I'm wrong,' said Percy, 'but isn't Hawaii, like, an island? Where' the beaches and palm trees?'

'It's a volcanic island—a whole lot of them, in fact,' Jason said. 'We're inside a lava tube.'

Percy made a face. 'You're telling me we're inside a volcano? Great. The last time I was in one of these—'

'Stop complaining, Fish Boy,' Jason said. 'Would you rather we left you in Tartarus?'

'Don't know what you're complaining about, anyway,' Leo said. 'Volcanoes are awesome!'

'Good for forges,' Tyson agreed.

Hazel coughed discreetly. 'Ahem. Kazumura Cave is also the deepest cave in America. We figured the furthest underground we could get, the better our chances of projecting the Doors into Tartarus. This was easier than going all the way to Epirus.'

'Good call,' Nico said, coming round at the same time that Grover muttered, 'Of course it had to be underground.'

'Thanks, guys,' Annabeth said. The warmth spreading through her might be a side effect of the nectar Piper had fed her, but she thought it was more than that. They'd escaped Tartarus. Her friends had come through for them on this end—and she hadn't expected to find all eight of them banding together from the four corners of the country. For a girl who'd grown up believing herself unwanted, the reminder that she did have a family she could count on would never cease to be an incredible gift.

And now she had two more people—Titan, giant, whatever—to add to that expanding family.

Annabeth got to her feet and held out her hands to Bob and Damasen.

'You were right, Annabeth Chase,' Damasen said. 'And you wrote us a new fate.'

Bob's grin was so wide, it practically split his face in two. He pulled her into a hug, and then did the same with every other demigod, even the ones he'd only just met.

'Hawaii,' he mused.

'Sun, stars, and sky,' Percy told him encouragingly.

'It's in the west,' Nico added.

Bob laughed. 'I have not been Lord of the West for a very long time, friend Nico. But this is good.'

'Which way do we go?' Damasen asked.

'We can leave together,' Annabeth said, but Damasen shook his head.

'We will make our own paths now, Annabeth Chase. You have given us that gift.' He looked like he quite relished the idea.

'Down that tunnel,' Jason said, pointing. 'That's the way we came.'

Bob nodded. 'Farewell, friends!' he said. 'The sky is waiting.'

He took Damasen's hand and together, the Titan and the giant loped off up the tunnel.

Annabeth wasn't sure how the people of Kilauea would feel about two immortal beings joining their community, but the Mist would probably take care of that.

She put her arm around Percy and looked at all her friends.

'Let's go home,' she said.

No, this is not the end. Two more chapters to come! But yes, the story is wrapping up. Hope you've all been enjoying the ride!

Continue to chapter 17 | Back to content page

[cupnoodle-queen]

CHASING SUNS: Chapter 6 Flesh Wounds

1,837 words FINA-FUCKING-LY, MY DUDES. Sheesh. 

The naga hunt was located near the Disc of Cauthess, the impact site of a meteorite from generations ago. More than once Cam considered turning the truck around, after all the drive was a long one, but then her side would flare up as flashbacks of Gladio and Steph rapid-fire assaulted her concentration and she’d give it more gas, reaching speeds well over the posted limit. Not like anyone would pull her over.

Self preservation was absent tonight. Cam knew somewhere in the deep recess of her psyche that what she was taking on could result in major injury; getting killed was also in the cards. Regardless, she had to do this. Even if it offered her tormented mind a moment’s release, it was enough.

Cam pulled over at the dead end of the access road and scanned through the flyer again, the flashlight held between her teeth. She plotted out a route using the map on her phone, shouldered her ammo pack and headed out into the endless night.

Fucking woman has a lead foot, Gladio thought as he pushed the Jeep to its limits, the boxy vehicle whipping around tight turns so hard he had to lean upright to counter the steer. He’d only caught sight of her taillights further back, and even then they were blurry at best. There was also another key issue; He didn’t know the exact location. Sure he’d review the hunt details before, considered starting a hunting party to go claim the bounty, but the specifics were foggy. All he could recall was that it nested near the Disc, but at which side? There was a gravelled access road to the south that didn’t appear on most map sites. His gut instinct told him she’d probably never known about the unmarked path, so he turned off onto the main exit.

The wrong exit.

Cam wove through the brambles and dead foliage, startled by the absolute silence that made the crack and snapping of twigs under her boots almost deafening. She could just make out an end to the treeline up ahead, an open field on the other side. She checked her phone’s GPS; it was close.

Having reached the edge of the small clearing she skirted the perimeter and checked for any telltale signs of the daemonic snake. A thick fog hung low in the air, a miasma of foreboding and warning. The long-since dead grass lay flat against the earth in spots, curving patterns cutting through sections leaving random tufts in patches. It had definitely come through here.

Checking her six, she withdrew her pistols, safety off.

Gladio reached the end of the road, concern creasing his forehead as he rounded the last turn. Lady luck missed role call; her truck was nowhere to be found. Still he pulled up to the dead-end street sign, killed the ignition and got out.

His hearing wasn’t top notch but after several seconds of silence, six consecutive gunshots echoed in the distance to the south, closer to the Disk. After a pause, another five shots, and then…

A horrifying scream cut the darkness, female and brimming with pain. Then silence.

NO-

Gladio panicked and bolted back to the Jeep, pulse frantic in his head as he threw the driver’s side door open and was driving off before he shut it, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he whipped the Jeep around, his soulmate marking seared to the bone.

As expected when he reached the end of the access road, her truck lay abandoned on the shoulder. He pulled up behind it and all but leaped from the vehicle, taking off headstrong into the trees without forethought. It was too goddamn quiet. His insides did back flips and he began to second-guess his sense of direction. He had no indication where she was, only a scream from across the forest to go on. Yet at the same time, he knew exactly where to go, the path leading towards the edge of the woods. He could make out an open space up ahead.

Gladio entered the clearing and the world stopped moving.

Several yards away, Cam’s body lay in a crumpled crescent facing away from him, motionless. Still.

His knees faltered, feeling like the ground was giving way to swallow him whole. It might as well have for the sight before him was shattering his soul, his sanity, slivers of his being spilled between the cracks, out of reach. The edges of his vision greyed out and the sun at his hip hardwired pain to his chest, like connecting to a car battery.

He approached her, each step daggers to his heart as he neared her broken form, the person assigned to him by the Astrals, this stranger who he’d let go on for far too long not knowing a thing about, all because he was afraid, afraid of the unknown, afraid of caring, afraid of who he was...He cursed himself as he hunched down to turn her over on her back, leaning her shoulders against his thighs.

Her face was expressionless, tranquil, save for the angry vertical red gash spanning above her left brow straight down her cheek, abruptly ending at the soft edge of her jawline. Blood mixed with tears and smeared in the socket corner of her eye and Gladio lifted a hand to wipe it away, as gentle as he could muster with his calloused fingertips.

Without warning her eyes flicked open, lashes brushing his digits as two pools of molten copper knocked the breath from his lungs. In this proximity of her being, her soul, her life...Like finding the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle you started ages ago and left out, too invested to disassemble it and start over until that piece turned up where you least expected it to.

The corners of her mouth twitched upwards into the slightest smile possible against her tawny, chapped lips.

For the first time in twenty-five years of life, his heart skipped a beat.

Weakness was not an option, despite how easily her stare induced it. “Just what do you think you were doing?” He growled, a pang of regret in is throat as her smile disappeared in an instant.

Though not impart from his tone, as her eyes flicked from his to the side, fear shrinking her pupils. Her jaw quivered as she whispered. “Behind you...”

He could sense it, the movement, the shift in the air. Gladio froze in place. Sure enough the telltale hisssss curdled his blood. He had to act fast, think later. He leaned forward and hooked an arm under Cam’s legs and another around her back, hoisting her up. She winced but didn’t protest. The hiss from behind grew louder, more animated.

One shot, that’s all he had. It was this or their lives.

Gladio inhaled, gripped Cam close, and launched up into a sprint towards the trees. The naga roared with enough guttural force to make the ground tremor as it made pursuit of its prey. A viscous, hot liquid spat at him and Gladio changed course slightly, veering more to the left to avoid the assault of venomous acid. Cam locked her arms around his neck, clutching to him for dear life, her head tucked into his chest.

A whooshing sound caught Gladio off guard and he turned his head, but the incoming tail whip from the naga swept and disconnected his feet from the ground and they fell hard, Cam rolling her shoulder in the process. She cursed through her teeth as she scrambled back, the naga setting it’s sights on Gladio, who had his back turned. Cam located one of her pistols and flicked the safety off, aimed for the naga’s face, and fired, over and over.

The naga reeled back in response, it’s agonizing throes shaking the trees surrounding the clearing. Cam became the primary target. Good, she thought, better me than him.

Cam reached into her ammo pack...one clip left. She must have lost some in the scuffle. Shit.

The naga was rearing back, fangs exposed and poised to attack, preparing for the kill.

Not today. Not yet.

She unlocked the spent clip, slammed the ammo in the chamber, took a deep breath and emptied her weapon into the daemon’s face.

All ten rounds pierced through the naga’s right eye, one right after the other in perfect succession. It jerked, brain riddled with lead, swayed drunkenly to the side before its body slammed into the earth, the last seconds of life twitching out violently.

She did it. She’d downed one of the most difficult hunts possible, thanks to a little luck and fierce aim. Cam blinked, still trying to convince herself the beast was dead yet there it was, slumped over in the dead grass, its pockmarked humanoid face spilling blood. Without hesitation, she pulled out her phone, took a few pictures of her kill for good measure and slid it in her back pocket.

Gladio seemed at a loss for words. He exhaled, turning over to stand upright above her. “Stupid, dumb luck,” he finally mused, admonishment in his tone. “Could’a gotten yourself killed!”

Despite his words, he held out a hand for Cam to take. She pursed her lips; he was raining on her parade. She took his hand and he pulled her up without any effort.

The draw was back with a vengeance, almost impossible to resist. It didn’t help that he was so close, that he hadn’t let go of her hand yet. His skin was hot, she could almost feel their pulses synch into rhythm -

Gladio dropped her grasp, his arm jerking back as if he touched a hot stove element. Before she could question it, he pointed to the left side of her face. “You’re bleeding, we gotta get you back and have Dino look at it.”

Cam frowned, gently testing the gouged skin. It stung. “That bad?”

“Probably need stitches.”

“Great.”

When they got back to the vehicles, Gladio stepped in front of her and barred access to the driver’s side of Greyson’s truck. “Excuse me?”

He shook his head. “Nuh uh. You aren’t driving with a fucked up eye. Not safe.”

“My eye is fine,” Cam groaned. Why’d he have to make this difficult? “It’s only a flesh wound.”

Gladio scoffed, crossing his muscular arms. “Not the first time I’ve heard someone say that…”

“Pardon?”

“Nevermind,” He moved passed her towards his Jeep. “You’re coming with me. I don’t trust your word and I’d rather not pull you from a wrecked vehicle. Only get one life saving per day.”

Cam chuckled dryly. “That so? Well this isn’t my truck, so you’ll have to figure out how to get it back to HQ.”

“If the doc clears you, I’ll bring you back here to pick it up myself.” His tone was sincere; he’d follow through.

Sighing, Cam ensured the truck was locked before circling around the passenger’s side of the Jeep and hopped in as Gladio turned the ignition.

“Buckle up, naga slayer.”