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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years

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Where Time Takes Us

Destination - Part 1

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Watch the home while she is off to war

The Slumber King versus the rearing boar

Awake, arise, do not be blind

To tales and destinies entwined

In the world we said that we would leave behind

— excerpt from folk song, The World Behind, writer unknown, dated back to the Era of Myth

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6 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days before the Hyrule Castle Slaughter, the Akkala Citadel Massacre, the slaying of the Champions, the death of the hero, and the rise of Calamity Ganon...

Her job ends on doomsday.

She should be working, and truly she wanted to, but circumstances had led her to walk towards the echoing laughter.

Already trying to prepare the quip she would throw back at them, (as undoubtedly they’d complain about her being late again), the researcher weaved through the familiar roads of West Castle Town. Most of the houses were dark, with the only light source coming from the occasional flickering lantern, and the pale complexion of the midnight moon. Needless to say, it made the warm glow of The Adequate’s Tavern stand out all the more as she approached.

Another roar of laughter and shouts escaped from an open window on the south side of the pub. The bags under her eyes curved with her smile as she recognized one of the voices. She absentmindedly traced her fingers along the outer walls of the tavern as she walked, loose chips of faded blue paint falling to the pavement below. The wooden sign above the door creaked with its askew weight. The Adequate’s Tavern was printed in bold, blue letters atop a faded yellow outline. The missing e’s and t’s gave evidence to the building’s true quality.

Pushing open the door, the researcher was met with a swirl of familiar scents, ranging from alcohol, apples, bread, and leather, along with a smokiness coming from the fireplace near the back of the bar.

Closing the door behind her, she walked through the entrance, passing under a wooden overhang, and alongside a long, stone-slated bar counter. She overheard a conversation between the barkeep and a waiter.

“Yes, they’re here again, so get out there already!”

“The scientists?” the waiter asked.

The man started shoving her towards the storage door behind the bar. “Yes, yes, now hurry up and stock up on that apple cider. I’ve already turned four full pitchers from the three of them, and the fourth is no doubt on the way. We can turn a bigger profit from those kids than any random alcoholic that stumbles in here tonight!”

The waiter disappeared into the back, and the barkeep was left muttering by the counter. Chuckling to herself, the researcher moved away, starting to search for the scientists in question. Other than a single, beige wall that separated the edge of the bar with a support beam in the middle of the room, the pub was very open and lively. Square and circular tables were littered across the floor in mismatched patterns, ranging from oak brown to birch white. Clearly, aesthetic was not the centerpoint of the place.

She walked about the pub, scanning the faces of the men and women alike who crowded by the booths and tables. The tavern mainly housed a sea of Hylians, who let out the occasional drunken laugh, or hearty chuckle. It was a miracle she could hear her thoughts at all, as the air was rich with the sound of clattering dishware and the patter of dancing feet, as in a small corner to the left was a semi-circle stage housing a small band. A Hylian man with umber dark skin, much like her own, blew away at a Lurelin-made, seashell harmonica. To his left, a blonde woman extended her arm in quick and elegant strokes with a bow and fiddle. Two others struck away on small drums and bells, and the playful gig they performed had gotten several people up from their feet to dance for Hylia knows how long. The music wasn’t terrible, but she had heard better, from a certain Sheikah in particular...

As if fate had read her thoughts, she finally caught sight of her friends.

It hindsight, it was easy enough to expect the bard to be at the table closest to the stage. Yet, it was probably the three heads of cloud white, Sheikah hair that gave them away the quickest. A young teenage boy sat across a square table from two other Sheikah, a boy and a girl. He was looking at nothing in particular, as he plucked away at his lute, presumably tuning it. Wrapped around his head was a small cluster of green wooden beads, woven with brown string. They dotted like a line of stars in his fluffy, white hair, alternating between pine and sage shades. The knot tying the strings and beads around his head hung loosely like vines just by his right ear. He was just asking to look like a starstruck, homeless traveler, if it weren’t for the bright red cape pinned across his shoulders. The golden, Hyrulean emblem holding the crimson cloth together signified his status as an important worker of the palace. Although, no one would be surprised that this thin, skinny teenager was a bard and court poet, and not a royal knight.

Suddenly, the bard looked up and met her gaze, a pair of warm, red eyes catching the light of familiarity. He patted the empty seat next to him and said something to the other two Sheikah in front of him. One of them looked back, a young man with storm wild hair that seemed to part like lightning. He had a beige, long sleeve coat over a red tunic, as was the classic Sheikah style. However, the style of his white jacket told of his rank as a scientist. With chocolate eyes and a contagious grin, he nudged the girl next to him and fake coughed.

The young woman wore roughly the same outfit, although she had a navy blue skirt and boots compared to the other guy’s black pants and shoes. Her eyes were also red, albeit, with a more striking scarlet color, compared to the other boy’s warmer wine shade. Looking back, she adjusted her bright, Sheikah red, round, sparkly, diamond decorated glasses, complete with white accents that matched her hair. It was pulled in a messy bun, a hairstyle that her close friends knew was less for looks, and more for practical purposes, as supposedly, “the stupid strands always find ways to bother my eyes. No, stop, I don’t need a comb! My eyeballs are just sensitive, okay?”

Pivoting past a waiter, the researcher finally moved closer to the trio, brushing her curly dark hair above her shoulders as she prepared for the sarcasm to begin.

The stormy eyed scientist spoke first.

“Purah, Purah! Is that...a ghost I see? It looks like Adello, but I feel like I haven’t seen her in a century, I surely thought her dead! Am I being…haunted?”

Purah turned in her seat and gave a fake gasp. She adjusted her red rimmed glasses at the sight of her. “You’re right, Robbie! I’ve heard about these spirits. They only come at midnight under a full moon, and they appear when you have friends that don’t know how to time manage and haunt you by coming to your birthday party with their terrible fashion sense 45 minutes late!” She clapped her hands along with the syllables of “45 minutes” to let her point be known.

Robbie awed at Adello in sarcastic wonder, and the boy across from him exhaled out of his nose with a smile.

Adello put a hand on her hip. “Save your breath, I was just working a bit overtime on the Divine Beast sketches. You know, work? For the jobs that we all have? So we can pay our taxes and shit? Unfortunately, not all of us have fancy salaries Mrs. Royal Scientist.”

Purah turned to Robbie, pulling down her glasses and looking at him sternly. “See, this is another trait of these kinds of spirits. They’re cursed to only say excuses for eternity.”

He shook his head. “Coupled with the fact that their fashion only ever consists of one color? Truly, a terrible fate for a ghost indeed.”

Adello narrowed her eyes. Smoothing out her juniper colored tunic, she said, “Okay, first off, green is a great color on me, it pairs well with my skin tone. You’re both just blind, no wonder you need glasses.” Purah put a hand on her chest dramatically, but she continued. “Plus, I’d really rather not get fired since that ceremony thing with those Champions is tomorrow and, as you all know, I just got that promotion.”

The researcher propped a black leather boot up on the empty chair by the table, flipping her jet black hair dramatically. “How does it feel to be in the presence of someone with an actual on-the-field career?”

Purah stuck out her tongue, and Robbie cupped his hands and booed. However, the boy sitting on the other side of the fourseated table gave a celebratory strum of his lute, giving Adello’s pose a bright background flourish with a few upbeat chords.

She winked. “Thank you Zimiri, at least someone can recognize skill.” The bard gave a little bow with his head, grinning. “A few chords is all it takes to enhance a dramatic, late night entrance.”

Adello chuckled, finally sitting down in the empty seat beside him. The old oaken chair and floor creaked under the new weight. Robbie let out a huff.

“You kids need to learn to respect your elders.” He announced the word “respect” with the tip of his tongue. The researcher rolled her eyes.

“Ah yes, a whole one year gap between us. What astounding age and experience that these elders emit.” She gestured at Robbie and Purah with a sweep of her arm.

“Uh, excuse me, but I believe in my case it’s now double that. A whole two years, my dear, naive child. For as of 4 hours ago, I now emit the knowledge of an existence spanning two decades!” Now it was his turn to pose dramatically, pointing towards the ceiling.

Everyone at the table groaned, turning to occupy themselves with something else. Purah started writing in her journal which she pulled out from her satchel, and Adello started to become very interested with the ceiling. Zimiri continued to pluck nothings on his lute.

Robbies crossed his arms, his white long sleeves folding across the Sheikah red shirt underneath. “Oh I see! So when Adello brags, she gets a musical accompaniment, but when I do it, it’s suddenly annoying and embarrassing?”

Adello smirked to herself, and answered, “Yep, that’s how it goes!”

“Alright, you don’t get to speak, Miss I-don’t-know-how-to-be-punctuation!”

Purah promptly smacked Robbie over the head with a pen.

“Hey! W—”

“The word is punctual, you idiot.”

Robbie slumped his shoulders and made a face. He tapped his thumb and fingers together, mimicking the opening and closing of a mouth while he muttered mockingly in Purah’s tone under his breath.

Purah finished off a note in her journal before turning to the rest of the table. “Alright Adello, time to catch up. We’ve been playing ‘Till You Spill and I’ve already got some juicy stuff in here!”

Turning the pages of her journal towards Adello, she gave a chaotic grin. “Last round, Zimiri revealed that he once got teary eyed in front of the King himself after reading a poem about clouds.”

Zimiri raised his hands in defense. “Look, the clouds were an analogy for lost childhood innocence and I got choked up with that author’s amazing choice of imagery and descriptions, okay?”

Purah pointed her pen at him to hush, and continued. “Of course, him being a sentimental dork isn’t anything new, so he lost that round to Robbie who revealed the identity of his first crush.”

Zimiri muttered something about the game being rigged towards the birthday boy, but Adello talked over him, excitedly.

“Ooohhhh? Robbie?? Who are they?” She propped up her elbows and cradled her chin in her hands, excited at the prospect of more embarrassing information she could hang over his head.

He mumbled, looking to Purah for assistance, but she only cupped a hand over her ear, waiting for him to respond. “You all fuckin—” he sighed, “it’s…she’s…c-ch…” he avoided everyone’s gaze, “her name is...Cherry…”

Adello gasped, gleefully. “That girl from your old university?? The writer you hung out with!?”

Purah beamed, shaking Robbie’s shoulders excitedly. “I know right???” She loosened her grip and allowed him to wiggle out of her grasp for a moment. “Oh sweetie, campus days may be long gone for all of us prodigies and geniuses,” she flipped a few strands of her white hair with a turn of her head, “but I’m sure you’ll get her someday. You just gotta turn up the charm, find a way to woo with words. I’m sure writers love that.” Purah pulled down her glasses and gave a forced wink at him.

Adello tried to hold her tongue to no avail. “Pffft. Yeah, you can try wooing her with your punctuation.” This got a snicker out of Purah, and caused the birthday boy to blush furiously and slump further in his seat. Zimiri finally spoke up.

“Now, now, let’s all play nice. We don’t need to pester him further about it, he did win the round after all.”

“Uh, yeah. Speaking of the game, you still need to drink up, mister.” Purah slid a tan brown cup of apple cider towards him, the translucent contents sloshing around like muck in a gutter.

He leaned on the back two legs of his chair. “Isn’t it punishment enough to smell it? The cider isn’t even near my face and my mouth is already burning.”

She shrugged. “Them's the rules of ‘Till You Spill. Your secret sucked, so swig!”

The poet groaned, but complied. Tipping the cup towards his lips, Zimiri took a hearty slurp of the cider, much to everyone’s amusement. It felt like hot, molten copper mixed with old apple skins. How could something both burn and freeze your throat at the same time? He let out a gag, to which Adello patted him on the back with a short laugh.

Raising his posture, Robbie crowed, “When we finally have Zimiri’s birthday maybe then we’ll actually upgrade to the alcohol.”

Adello raised an eyebrow. “Uh, right, because the upgrade from disorientingly strong, smelly apple cider, is you two being flat out drunk. Right...”

Purah slammed both her fists down with pride, letting the cups and pitchers slosh a few amber colored drops onto the worn wooden table. “Bold of you to assume I’d drink at all, considering I’ve never lost a round! Mwahaha!” She blew a raspberry at her. “This tongue is apple free, baby.”

She gestured with her pinky and index finger at Zimiri and Adello. “Now, you two! The late combatant and the latest loser shall spill next. Give us your juicy gossip!!”

The bard, still reeling from his drink, leaned back in his chair and gave a nod toward Adello. “Ladies first?”

While she wasn’t undefeated in this drinking game, she sure as hell was playing to win. Especially since somebody needed to knock that smug expression off of Purah’s face. Adello thought to herself quickly.

Zimiri, no doubt, is probably gonna say something self-deprecating again, as he’s too nice to actually reveal anything embarrassing about anyone else. So...I just need to say something unexpected and interesting...perhaps something embarrassing about...hmm, I’ve already exhausted all my info about those cushy nobles and guards in past rounds…

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “The princess has a secret stuffed animal collection.” Seeing the light in her co-workers’ eyes twinkle, Adello knew she had chosen her words well. Purah leaned in. “Ooh? And how did you come across this juicy piece of information?” She rested her chin on an arm with an innocent smile.

“When I sent my application for the new job a few weeks ago, I gave it to the princess directly. It was late at night, and I bumped into her as she just left her room. The door was cracked open for a few seconds, before some royal, pompous guard slammed it right in my face. Yet, it wasn’t before I saw the pile of,” she counted on her fingers, “cow, sheep, bird, dog, and several horse stuffed animals piled high by her big, blue bed. I bet if I peeked for just a few more moments I could have found enough to pin her as a true horse girl.”

Robbie shrugged his shoulders, unconsciously rapping the table with his finger. “Well, speaking as a horse guy myself, I can attest to the fact that the childhood horse obsession phase never leaves, so I find Princess Zelda’s collection quite admirable.” He gave a nod towards Zimiri. “Either way, it’ll be tough to top that, Zim. Cute, yet slightly concerning, fact about our future queen? Quite the competition. Shall I signal the waiter for a refill now?”

Zimiri plucked a few more strings from his lute, before finally setting it down on the floor. He tilted his head, playfully. The string with sage green beads seemed to sway with the tavern’s music, and he spoke with a glint in his eyes. “Well, I might be faced with impending failure and ultimate defeat, but hells if I’m not one to try instead of mope.”

He combed his fingers through his messy, white hair, pondering his next choice of words. Fiddling with the beads and strings wrapped around it, he thought out loud.

“Let’s see...to top out on an embarrassing fact about a respected princess...it's natural to combat it with something...personal? That always seems to be the more valuable information in this game…” Adello shook her head. He was playing right into her hand.

“Well...Robbie won last round with the identity of Cherry...so, how about I dish out something similar. See, I’ve...uh…” he rubbed the back of his neck, “Oh! Well. Court poet, shrine researcher, the job gets you close with the princess...kinda...I’d like to think we’re close anyhow…” He mumbled the last part of his sentence and let out a short cough. Then, he went back to fiddling with his short, messy hair.

“So… ever since I moved into the castle, When did my mom move… five years now? I’ve, uh… had a crush on... Zelda…” He gave an uncertain grin, and raised the palm of his hands as if to ask, “well?”

At first he was met with silence. In his head, he started to celebrate the victory of his first ‘Till You Spill round in literal months. That was until he was met with groans and pitiful mutters.

“Oh Zimiri,” Purah sighed, “I was rooting for you too.” Seeing the bewilderment creep onto the poet’s face, Robbie answered the question before it even escaped his lips. “Literally everyone here knew that bud, it’s not a secret.”

The bard started to sputter, moving his hands in wild, questioning motions.

“But? Wha— I? You!? Didn’t you— I… W-Well I mean, I know Adello knew, I told her years ago, but you guys—”

“Oh my gods. Zimiri, you literally talk about her all the time, you’re totally in love. Given that we’re also the recipients of your long spiels and ballads about how ‘intelligent and thoughtful and amazing Zelda is,’” Purah said the words to mimic the tone of Zimiri’s honey sweet voice, “it’s exceptionally, extremely, very, very obvious.”

“R-Recognizing a person’s positive traits doesn’t instantly mean in love!”

The royal scientist leaned across the table and patted his head. “Right, but you also started attempting love songs a coincidental 2 weeks after starting your job of shrine research with her. Your eyes are already red, so whenever she passes by it’s like your pupils magically form into adoring hearts. Try to stay away from poker, it’s for your own good.”

Zimiri continued to sputter, his cheeks becoming roser by the second. Robbie turned to Purah. “So, all in favour of finding Adello’s spill better than Zimiri’s?” The two of them raised their hands in unison. “Alright buddy, secret sucked, so swig! WAITER PLEASE!”

Adello watched as the same woman she had seen near the bar earlier made her way to the table. Picking up a pitcher, she poured out a fresh cup of Adequate’s Apple Cider. The four of them had been here so many times, they didn’t even need to verbally ask for the order.

Before he could even start to reach for the cup, Adello snatched it out of the way. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll do one for you, Zimiri. These two monsters have already tore you to shreds, and I’m sure I need a punishment anyway for coming in so late.”

He started to protest, but after catching the look in her dark, iron eyes, he relented. “Well, I thank you for your generosity.” The other two, however, were not as compliant.

Purah cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling, “Booooo... Boo to pity! Boo to generosity!” Robbie mimicked her.

“Yeah you have to respect your elders’ wishes. We demand blood! Suffering!”

Adello cracked her neck for show, before downing her glass of cider in a few gulps. The stench and tingling sensation seemed to stick to the sides of her throat. It would take more than water to clear that out. “Adequate” was being very generous when describing its quality.

“Mmmm. The cider’s weirdly salty tonight, I think your attitudes got mixed in here.”

Purah blew another raspberry at her.

They played for a few more rounds, the clatter of cups and breaths of laughter decorating the hours. Much to everyone’s distaste, Purah continued her winning streak, getting by with unbeatable information about the King, royal guards, and one embarrassing anecdote about how her little sister, Impa, had caught her writing an interesting letter to the “local archery hunk.”

Yet, Purah laughed along with the rest of them, the eyes behind her red rimmed glasses held no shame, which Adello envied. Of course that sort of attitude would make you a master at this game. Robbie and Adello attempted to team up and be biased towards Purah in an effort to get her to lose, but either Zimiri didn’t take the hint, or he just really liked playing fair which wasn’t exactly out of character, even if it meant more drinks for him.

Suddenly, a bell towards the back of the pub rang, signifying the end of the band’s gig. The dancing paused, as people gave their thanks, varying from politie applause to drunken yelps. Robbie then rapped the table with his hands, excitedly.

“You know what else tonight needs? Some amazing music, eh Zimiri?” He bounced his eyebrows up and down at him, and gestured towards the lute leaning on one of the table legs.

“I don’t know,” Zimiri replied, “I’ve only a part-time hire for the weekend rush hours, and I wouldn’t want to blindly get on stage and sing without being given permission.”

Adello scoffed. “Uh, are you kidding? The owner would love for you to play without paying you. Haven’t you heard the talk around town? The Adequate’s Tavern: Home of alright food and acceptable ale, but an outstanding bard!”

He fiddled with the string in his hair again. “Oh yeah? I’d love to meet him someday.” At this, Adello clicked her tongue and promptly shoved him out of his chair with her hip.

He laughed to himself as he stumbled aback. “Alright, alright, but only because the birthday tyrant requested it.” Robbie clapped his hands in a “chop-chop” fashion, to truly signify his role as the newly dubbed tyrant.

Suddenly, Zimiri perked his head. Stepping back towards the table, he reached for his cup. “Oh wait, I just lost that round. I still need to drink my—”

Adello grabbed the cup right out of his hands. She tipped it 180 degrees and let the cider spill completely onto the wooden floor. He hopped back, and Purah let out a surprised yelp, saying something about letting the stench seep into the floorboards. Robbie just started to laugh, wildly. Noticing the small commotion, a few other guests looked back at them and started to snicker to themselves.

Setting the cup back on the table, the researcher said, “Great, now you don’t need to ruin your voice any longer. Now get up there and one-up the last band.”

The bard pushed his chair under the table. Picking up his lute as he stood and faced Adello, a charming smile on his face. “Heh, well. My singing voice is grateful. I suppose now I’m in debt to comply.” He gave a curt bow.

Robbie clapped his hands again. “Great, great. Now quit the manners and let’s go already! I still have to order the cake pie!”

Both of the girls rolled their eyes in unison. Zimiri shrugged and started to walk through the small crowd of standing Hylians, and towards the small stage.

A few of the regulars who recognized him let out whoops and whistles, yelling out “Bard!” or “More music!” in support. It seemed that no one really knew his name, but it was nice enough to know that even working here part time would grant you the honor of being recognized by a bunch of random folk. One confused patron, who only associated him with “z” yelled out “Yeah, Zelda!” before promptly slumping under the table. Looking around, a blonde girl caught his eye, as it seemed she was staring at him. He waved, and her cheeks, much to Zimiri’s confusion, turned pink at his gaze and she turned to her friends who started giggling.

Moving past the last of the Hylians with an, “excuse me, sorry!” he finally stepped on the stage. The bard pulled up a small stool to the stage, leaning against it. Most of the folks continued to whoop in approval, seemingly eager for another chance to start dancing. Even the barkeep clapped his hands, probably excited at the thought of a free gig.

I guess, if no one is stopping me…

It was a rowdy bunch, but not a new one. Zimiri had played for these kinds of audiences before.

“I see that quite a few people are itching for a new tune. So, uh, any requests?” he announced as he strum a chord on his lute.

A mass of different voices bounced around the tavern, requests ranging from The Babbler’s Jig, Misko’s Tale, The Eldin Bluffs, and Can I Get More Ale? Although, Zimiri wasn’t quite familiar with the chords of that last song.

He couldn’t stop himself from being biased towards the request of a certain dark skinned girl to his left.

“The World Behind!” Adello said. “Enough with those new ballads, I demand a classic!”

Robbie pumped an arm in the air. “Yes!” he shouted. “I second that! So is my decree as birthday tyrant!”

The bard smiled, preparing the fingering on the neck of his lute. He turned towards the audience. “Well, I’m afraid I have no choice but to heed to such authority.” He began to pluck the beginning notes, tapping a tempo with his boot against the stage. “Now then, a beat, if you all would be so kind?”

The tavern chattered in approval, before piping down. There probably weren't more than 30 people, but the beat they made was definitely sufficient. The sound of stomping, banging mugs, and clapping filled the room. The tempo didn’t even need much adjusting, as The World Behind was pretty familiar around Castle Town. The beat was like a child pretending to be a marching soldier, unconcerned and playful.

Zimiri’s smile widened. A lively crowd indeed, this will do nicely.

With that, he started to sing. His silvery voice echoed across the tavern, as he closed his eyes and began to play.

The boys have gone out to the wishing well

Will they come back? Oh only time will tell

A rupee for a life refined

But time and dreams never align

So tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

Many of the guests had started to dance again, while the rest continued the beat of the song. As Zimiri plucked rapid notes on his lute, he heard a supporting holler from Purah. Next to her, Robbie was slamming his fist to the beat, clearly enjoying himself.

Have you seen the soldiers’ drinking ale?

They wish to sing along with nightingales

To dance on home with songs and rhymes

To banish all the fears from mind

Yes tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

Another pause between the verses, and the bard played the “decorative” rapid notes in between. He didn’t mean to seem like he was showing off, but Adello would attest to the fact that this happened whenever he got too into the music. Looking towards her, Zimiri saw her give a double thumbs up.

Of beasts and men and all atrocities

The damn-ed fate, she owns all that you see

To a better day of new design

Forgot about the gods divine

Oh tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

At this point, some of the guests were singing along, though not to the point of overpowering his own alluring voice. Laughter rang out around the warmly lit room once again. Zimiri looked out at the dancing patrons and smiling guests, grinning at the feeling in his chest this brought. He continued the last verse.

Watch the home while—

“HEY!”

The sudden gruff voice startled the bard to the point where he nearly slipped off the stage.

Lumbering through the double doors, three guards entered the tavern. The one in front, who had interrupted the music, wore a typical knight’s outfit, the same as his male and female coworkers behind him. However, the black hooded cape he wore atop his metal armour swayed with every step he took across the floor, his supposed rank silencing the room.

Well, mostly, silenced the room. A few ticked off guests were booing, groaning, and mocking him for ruining the entertainment.

“Oh would you lot shut up for 2 seconds?!” he said, his voice booming across the tavern. “Listen, I’ll be blunt. I gotta give two messages for this establishment.”

The guests shook their heads, mumbling. Their booing and insults continued, but their volume quieted, it was too early to be getting cross with a couple of knights. Even Zimiri quietly slipped off the stage back towards his friends so as not to be at the end of the knight’s intimidating voice.

The female guard behind the knight handed him a slip of parchment. Unfolding it, the guard cleared his throat.

“Firstly, your music and pounding is disturbing the noblemen next door. He’s staying at the inn or something and wants you to, quote,” he read from the paper, “quit the mindless thumping, for Castle Town is a place of serenity and peace, not of nonsense jigs and banging.”

The groaning and insults started up again; the man gave a shrug, stating something about how he was just following orders.

Adello couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “HA! Well, with an attitude like that, this’ll probably be the first and only time he’s been banged— he should be grateful.”

The room exploded into a mess of laughter and whoops. Even the guard smirked to himself, but attempted to hide it with a shake of his head, saying “Watch the mouth, girl.” Although, his stern tone wasn’t in it.

After a second, he cleared his throat again. With a stomp of his boot he regained the pub's attention, the laughter suffocated out.

“Now, we’re also here looking for a Dr. Robbie Kimura? I received word they might be around here?”

With the attention now towards a single table, most of the guests went back to their idle banter. A few waiters nodded their head towards the table in the back, and the man caught sight of three, white haired teenagers, who were sitting with the dark haired girl who had quipped out earlier.

The scientists turned around too late, in an effort to avoid the knight’s gaze. “Gee, what a bunch of snitches,” Robbie mumbled. The three guards started to walk over to the table.

“Dr...Robbie?”

“Who’s asking?” Robbie squinted with his dark brown eyes.

“Doctor? Really? Is this some kind of prank? You and your friends don’t even look old enough to drink.”

He scoffed. “Okay, first, yes I am a doctor! I didn’t fly through all those courses over four years just to be called, ‘Mr.’ And secondly, I’ll have you know that I am a ripe 20 years of age today, and I’m here drinking expired apple juice with my associates. So take that, pal!”

Beside him, Purah gave a proud nod in agreement. Zimiri started to wave politely at the guard, but Adello grabbed his arm before he could finish the movement. The guard was a bit unsettled with the way that girl was glaring at him. What was some random Hylian doing hanging out with a bunch of Sheikah anyway?

“Right, well, look here, son. Some curious aristo-brat snuck into the courtyard and caused one of those flying, metal Sheikah things to fall apart. My boss said that it was your prototype so you should come back and clean it up before something explodes, and possibly give a sincere apology to the meddling kid who got a few scratches.”

Robbie threw his hands in the air, exasperated. “You’re really gonna pull me out of a birthday just so I can go apologize to a spoiled kid for breaking in and ruining my Guardian?”

“If it lets me keep my job, then yeah.”

Robbie mumbled something about not getting a slice of the apple cake pie.

Suddenly, Adello got up and pushed her chair in, smoothing out the belt around her tunic as she walked towards them.

“Ah yes, well, thank you my dear assistant for the assessment but I’m capable of taking it from here.”

The guard raised a bushy, black eyebrow. “Sorry, wha—”

“You said you only wanted Dr. Robbie? Well great job, you found them. Now let’s get going, I need to finish up a new design anyway.”

“You’re...Robbie? You’re a... clearly not—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have had my mother consult you for your opinion before I was given my name.”

This time, the guard didn’t smile along with her quip. “This is not the time for—”

She held up a finger to silence him, and glared at the three guards with her iron eyes.

“Look, I’m not a nobody. I’m more than capable of fixing up the guardian and any other disasters you might have left lying around the castle grounds. If I’m feeling generous, maybe I’ll even lick the kid’s boots, it’s not my first time dealing with this, alrighty?”

The knights looked at each other, quizzically. The researcher crossed her arms.

“You’re still following your precious orders, aren't you? How would you know what Dr. Robbie looks like? You can’t be faulted for not knowing someone you never met. So, you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

The blonde man behind the gruff, black caped guard, whispered something to his female coworker. Her gaze switched between the girl and the man. Still seeing the uncertainty in their eyes, Adello leaned closer to the knight and lowered her voice. “Come on, have a little heart, it’s his birthday.”

A beat of silence sat, only filled by the mild mumbling and chatter of the tavern. Finally, the guard let out a sigh.

“Alrighty Dr. Kimura. I’ll help escort you to the site.”

Robbie started to protest, but Adello quickly silenced him with a wink. The guard turned towards the rest of the room, yelling, “The rest of you, the sun is gonna rise in a few hours so save your rioting for then! Am I clear?”

The patrons just responded with stupid groans and half-hearted agreements. They started walking towards the door. The female guard started to put a hand on Adello’s shoulder, but she brushed it off, saying something along the lines of “I can walk on my own two feet, thank you very much.”

Purah turned in her seat. “I’ll save a slice of cake pie for you!” Adello turned her head and responded with a two fingered salute, before disappearing out the door with the guards.

The tension in the tavern was almost immediately cleared, the moment the knights left. Most of the people went back to their normal conversational volume, and the waiters began to patter about with more confidence. However, Zimiri slumped in his seat, letting out a sigh.

“Why does she always do things like that?”

Robbie fiddled with the edge of his cup, tracing his finger around the rim. “Well, you know her. Undermining authority? Check. Insults and quips? Check.”

Robbie continued to list off more traits, but it faded out of Zimiri’s ear. Always jumping onto other’s burdens. Ah, that idiot. I bet she hasn’t slept for the last two days.

Purah suddenly piped up, taking out her pen and rapping it against the table. “Alright you two, let’s not let the sacrifice be in vain. Pool your rupees, we’re getting Robbie the fancy cake pie.”

The clatter of a few red and blue rupees echoed on the wooden table, although Zimiri knocked Robbie’s share aside, saying how the birthday tyrant shouldn’t have to pitch in. Purah turned in her chair and started to wave her hand, in order to get the attention of a waiter. The bard watched as a woman with a tray started to walk over to the table. Then, he turned to Robbie.

“So what should we do while we wait?” Zimiri asked. Robbie stroked his chin, looking around the room.

“I think...the people could still use some music.”

Looking out at the crowd, Zimiri noticed how the guards' interference had really dampened the atmosphere. The warm and lively laughter that was present just a few moments earlier was now replaced with more monotone chatter.

He nodded his head in agreement, putting on a charming smile. The place needed a new pick-me-up, did it?

Well, what else is a bard for?

Stepping back onto the stage, he strummed an open chord, double checking the tuning. The whooping and clapping started to return, much to his delight. Plucking a familiar melody, the warm feeling in his stomach returned as he watched the new smiles that started to fill the room. However, before he began to sing, Zimiri first focused on craning his neck to look out a window, trying to catch a glimpse of a certain girl in the night.

It seemed the moon and sun were balanced on the edge of the world. The night had started to submerge behind the walls of West Castle Town, with only the brightest stars still perched upon the ink of the navy blue sky. The silver lining of greying clouds just barely glowed from the faint light of the day, still trying to break out of the eastern waters.

Adello’s footsteps echoed through the cobblestone streets, but she could barely hear it against the shifting of metal plates from the guards in front of her.

The gruff man looked back, scratching his peach fuzzed chin as he spoke. “Listen, if you finish your work quick I might be able to escort you back here.”

Adello shook her head. She turned to retrieve a journal from the pouch on her belt, opening its pages as an excuse to avoid his gaze. “No, it’s fine. I still have some more work I should be finishing up at home anyhow.”

“You...live at the castle?”

“Mmm.”

The guard took her blunt response as a sign to not continue with the niceties, much to Adello’s relief. Looking up, she gazed at the looming castle. Its towers were like mountain peaks, sitting above the blurred silhouettes of the buildings of Castle Town.

Taking out a bit of charcoal, she started to sketch its outline on a fresh page in her journal. While she only had one color, she tried to capture the shadows and lighting that cascaded on one side of the castle to the other.

The female guard slowed her step, starting to walk alongside the researcher.

“Already working?”

Adello didn’t look up from her journal. “Uh… you could say that.”

She laughed. “Well you best hope you know what you’re doing. This kid’s father has been yelling at Her Highness all night. Supposedly because she’s helping to lead Sheikah research, so everyone associated with guardians is at fault.”

Adello finished up the tower of Princess Zelda’s study in her sketch. She smiled to herself at the finished work. It was one of her better pieces. Putting the journal away, she turned back to the guard and scoffed. “Is that so?”

The guard hummed a yes, her blonde braid swaying to each side as she walked. “Apparently, the kid is the son of some visiting nobleman from the East Post. It’d be in your best interest to apologize profusely if you still wanna walk around alive.”

Adello shook her head. She didn’t know it then, but looking back, many moons from now, she would laugh at the irony of her response.

��I’d rather die.”

#botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda botw #loz botw #botw fanfiction #where time takes us #botw oc #adello #zimiri

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chaeryybomb · 4 years

Text

JUNE COMEBACKS REVIEW

BLACKPINK: HOW YOU LIKE THAT

ngl I’m kinda sad bc a lot of y’all don’t like the song ;-; but I can’t do anything about it since it’s your opinion so

but I hope that people know the difference between hating and giving criticism saying the song sucks and that it’s trash music is straight up music

I can get why people are disappointed with the song since everyone wanted almost the same thing, “jennie getting a rap part”, “jisoo saying blackpink in your area” and a high note from rosé

personally I really like the song, to me it’s not the same as dddd and ktl tbh I think it’s different

plus I kinda expected it to be like that bc their songs usually follow that yg style ya know the only songs I say that don’t follow that stereotypical yg style is “love scenario”, “stay” and AKMU’s songs

i mean if you compare the song with other yg artists song, they all have the same vibe to it because of the “yg style” we always say

the song also gives me nct and skz vibes too, like specifically “punch” and “side effects” bc of the heavy edm and also bc their songs has been called noise before dhshd

but enough of that

I really like how the song starts calmly in the beginning and then it starts to be more aggressive

also I like the fact that each of the girls get a chance to say “how you like that”

lisa’s rap????? y e s

personally I feel like this time it had more of a fairer distribution, including lines and center parts

like jisoo actually gets some center parts in the dance break and chorus

i also really like the outfits this era, especially the modernized hanboks! though I have mix feelings about the pink wig dhshdh

speaking of hair, jennie!! she fucking dyed her hair!!!

and rosé is no longer blonde dhsjdj

the parts I found weird is when rosé says “look up in the sky it’s a bird it’s a plane” i have no idea how that fits in the song so

and the “dumdudurum” part at the end, it sounds out of place, like especially after it the song ends

i also think that this is their best choreography! right next to don’t know what to do

overall, I really like the song, if you don’t it’s fine! hylt has the most aesthetic mv’s I’ve seen and the outfits are so much better and it has been said that BLACKPINK’s old stylist left the company in January no not maeng

lisa’s fur coat outfit reminds me of yeji’s outfit in wannabe

would I say that hylt is their best song? no, I think playing with fire was their best song but it’s not a terrible song either

another I like is jisoo owning this era, say what you want, hylt is Jisoo’s era period.

STRAY KIDS: GOD’S MENU

what even is a concept anymore

we all thought it was going to be some street racer concept

buT NO

it’s a kung fu panda concept dhshdh

felix!!! my baby has lines !!!!

his demonic voice is bACK

hyunjin’s blond hair 😭😭

what the fUCK

the way he tied it up in a ponytail, like sir that is diSRESPECTFUL he really is jaebum’s son huh

okay okay on to the song

it honestly shocked me so much, like the rap parts were so aggressive like and the vocals are kinda angelic???

i really really like the pre-chorus, seungmin’s voice is just so !!!!! i also like seungmin+i.n’s little duet after felix’s part

spEAKING OF FELIX’S PART

“looking like a chef I’m a five star Michelin” bro that part is lowkey demonic looking in the dance

like mans pulled his knees up and put his hands through them while looking directly at you

does that not look demonic to you??? my friend said it reminded her of a spider dhshdhr

also the “dududu” part instantly reminded me of bp’s dddd dhshd like can someone edit a part of bp going “oh wait till I do when I hit you with that” and cuts to skz “DUDUDU”

the fact that no one has done it yet astounishes me

also what the fuck is that chain thing on Chan’s face, who put it there and why dhshd

bless whoever gave changbin dual contacts lens

AND WHO GAVE JEONGIN SLEEVELESS SHIRTS WHO ALLOWED THAT DHSHD

at first I found the choreography a bit funny bc they added like cooking gestures to it dhshd, like stirring the pot in the chorus but my favorite part of the dance is changbin’s part

the entire album was a bop okay, the fact that “god’s menu” wasn’t even the title track and they decided to change it, the fact that jyp has so much TRUST in bang chan also we get to see chan and sana being best friends uwu

“pacemaker” is literally “my pace” 2020 ver dhshd it even has the “nananana” part!

my favorites from the album is “TA”, “blueprint” and “haven”!!

also “easy”,,,, chan what did u do that it can’t be performed in shows

TWICE: MORE & MORE

wow girl groups are really being criticized this month huh

if y’all don’t know what happened with twice, a lot of people are criticizing twice for not singing live during their encore stages

a lot of them are especially going after momo

I’ve watched their encore stages and I don’t know why people are saying they sound bad???? maybe they need a better vocal coach but the fact that people are taking advantages of the situation just to hate on them smh

a n y w a y s

the song definitely gives a whole lot of “dtna” vibes bc of the tropical concept, its like “dtna” but the mature version

if “dance the night away” had an older sister, it would be “more & more”

also I really like the eve & adam concept, “more & more” is also another “creepy”ish song that is hidden behind a catchy tune, like “yes or yes” where ppl think it’s a cute song but the lyrics says otherwise

okay actually writing this out, it’s mv has “dtna” vibe but the song is so much like “yes or yes”

if you read the lyrics, the girls are basically saying that “no matter how hard you try to hide, you’re going to be mine again”

even in dahyun’s rap she says “I’m naturally selfish, I’m sorry if you didn’t know” and “you will fall for me, you can’t say no no”

it’s almost the same as her part in “yes or yes” where she says “there is no letters n and o” dhshdh sorry this becam a whole theory

back the real song review, I’m so glad that momo got a dance break! I think that this is their fairest line distribution yet. jeongyeon got her lines, dubchaeng got their rap parts and momo has a lot of center parts!!

and the girls look so much happier during their promotions especially tzuyu! she was smiling so much, maybe it’s because mina is with them and I’m so happy they get to perform as nine again

i really like their choreography and the part where they do the chest bounce is really satisfying idk why dhsdh

plus jeongyeon got better outfits this era cough feel special era cough

overall, I really like this comeback and it’s nice that nayeon got the high notes this time instead of jihyo

IZ*ONE: SECRET STORY OF THE SWAN

oh boy this is definitely my favorite song of this month

it’s so much different than their other songs!!!

and there’s so much to go on about!

wonyoung, minju, sakura and hyewon literally improved so much. im so proud of them !!!

hyewon, nako and sakua getting to sing the chorus??? y e s

chaeyena rap parts????? y e s

chaeyeon getting a dance break AND a high note???? Y E S

my favorite parts is eunbi+chaewon pre chorus wow I have a thing for pre choruses don’t I dhsh

i will say that this song vies the girls the chance to show how much they’ve improved throughout the eras, especially the j-line and visual line since a lot of people said they didn’t belong in izone

wonyoung and yujin's expressions are really on point as well

and yena's hip move dhshdhs

it's also rlly cute how eunbi throws confetti at her part dhshd

it’s refreshing to see how the girls improved

unfortunately, izone will be disbanding this year ;-; this is why I never liked the produce series

but we do have some ideas what will happen to the members though, we all know yena will be added into everglow, i having a feeling that eunbi and chaeyeon will be debuting as a soloist, they have so much potential plus the radiate chungha energy

nako, hitomi and sakura would most likely return to Japan, although I see sakura staying in korea to pursue an acting career and hitomi as a producer since she wrote some of izone’s songs

yuri might debut as a solo or debut in a new girl group as main vocalists, the same goes for chaewon

i see minju and hyewon going into acting careers and CF contracts, the same as kang mina, especially since minju is now an mc for music core

whereas for wonyoung and yujin, their both still young so I think they’ll finish school before re-debuting in groups plus yujin will be attending sopa

especially wonyoung, we all know that she’s actually really smart and is good at academics, i also think she might do modeling work, she fits the criteria

i also kinda see yujin pursuing an acting career because she will be in the theatre and film department in sopa. unless starship is going to debut a new girl group, I hope that yujin can debut as a soloist instead

WEKI MEKI: OOPSY

*inhales*

LUCY AND LUA FINALLY GETTING THE LINES THEY D E S E R V E D

I’m so happy dhshdhhs

also lua fits the short hairstyle so much, I’ve literally fallen for her help I can’t get up

as much as I love yoojung, it’s nice to see lucy rapping

the song is very catchy, I especially like rina’s part in the second verse of the song

i also love the “wolf & hunter” concept for the album

like the pictures were very beautiful, I also like how they use white for the wolves and black for the hunters, it’s like painting the hunters at the bad guys and the wolves as the good guys

I am in love with Lucy, Lua and Sei’s “nonono” part in the chorus

and the choreography for the chorus too

as much as I love elly’s blue hair, she slays in black hair dhshd I

I really love their outftis this era, i like how it’s all pants for the girls too

my favorite outfits are the black outfits from the gif

overall, this is definitely their fairest line distribution cough tika taka and dazzle dazzle cough

NATURE: GIRLS

this is my second favorite song of the month

I love the whole horror concept and I also like the fact that they released the uncensored version of the mv

it’s give the song much more of the horror vibe

I’m new to Nature and as far as I know, a member is stuck in China and another member sat out due to an injury. please correct me if I’m wrong

the outfits might be simple, but it fits so right with the song, I prefer the white dresses over the black ones

it kinda gives out the feeling that the girls are like asylum patients ya know, whereas the black dresses gives out that the girls are rich daughters that were sent away

I really like LU and Haru’s parts

the dance is also kinda a simple but it looks great!

overall, I hope that Nature will do this concept again, actually I hope to see more groups do this kind of concepts more

WAYV: TURN BACK TIME

did this comeback scare me? yes yes it did

bro the teasers were so scARY

yangyang was literally laughing like a mANIAC

MANS WAS IN AN ASYLUM OKAY

their teasers gave me so much suicide squad vibes

also, why the fuck were 4/7 members not wearing shiRTS

sm do you have a shirt shortage??? I’m sure nctzens are more than happy to donate some shirts to you

okay anyways, I’ve always liked wayv’s sci-fi concept, I don’t know if the mv’s are connected or not but I think they are

“take off” is them basically flying away from earth and they landed in space in “moonwalk” and it seems they have been captured in “turn back time”

very inch resting dhshd

listen, I may be chinese but I can’t understand 70% of the song because of how fast it goES

so with that saying, yANGYANG DID NOT COME TO PLAY

his rap was amazing !!!! he is definitely one of sm’s best rappers along with taeyong and mark

my favorite part is lucas and hendery’s rap parts and then it switches to xiaojun and yangyang + kun, ten and xiaojun getting highnotes

the dance break is so satisfying to watch too

“stop, rewind, turn back time” and “5432” part is so satisfying

also I’m really impressed with how fast LabelV responded when fans pointed out that some of the outfits had offensive phrases in them, they took the time to edit it out of the teasers and the mv, cheers to them

also! i find it funny that wayv released the Korean version of “turn back time” but all of us were much more shocked at the fact that Ten got another cat dhshd

SEVENTEEN: LEFT & RIGHT

first of all, dokyeom looks so gOOD IN THE MV

second of all, vernon and wonwoo’s “hana dul set” will forever be iconic

third, seungcheol is back 😭😭

just like twice, they get to perform as 13 again dhsjdsn

AND THEY LOOK SO HAPPY DURING THIS ERA TOO

LIKE HAVE YOU SEEN WONWOO?? HE’S SUCH A SMILEY BABY with his orange mic dhshd

also if y’all don’t have tiktok, svt has been doing the “left & right” with so many other idols including chungha and apink’s naeun!

haha joshua hong and wen junhui being real disrespectful with those sleeveless shirts

bonus point we got svt x nct china line + mark and joshua interaction at music bank

their choreography looks so fun too dhshd

the entire comeback is so cute and colorful

my favorite parts are vernon and seungcheol’s rap parts

also vernon be rocking that greaser style

their new album is so versatile, like, “fearless”, “left & right”, “kidult” and “my my”?? who’s doing it like seventeen

i love their new songs so much especially “kidult”

overall, I really really love this comeback

WJSN: BUTTERFLY

I couldn’t find a group scene gif pls forgive me

let me say, I am absolutely in love with the concept, the outfit concept for this is so creative, I don’t know if any other groups have done it before but !!

their outfits evovle like a butterfly!!

at first, the outfits were plain pastel colours but they slowly become more detailed and colourful throughout the stages, like a caterpillar to a butterfly!

center yeoreum!!!

and dayoung looks so pretty in short hair 🥺

and again, as far as I know, the Chinese members are in China, two of them are apart of the Chinese group Rocket Girl and I think Chengxiao recently returned to Korea

I really like their ending pose where their hands are in the butterfly gesture and the “wings” are slowly flapping

and how their arms represent their wings during the chorus

by far one of the moor creative comebacks in my opinion

also, it’s nice to hear soobin doing the high note instead of yeonjung, let yeonjung rest her voice once in a while ya know

SUNMI: PPORAPPIPAM

THE QUEEN IS BACKKK

also wonder girls reunion uwu

the teaser gave me so much "barbie: island princess" vibes so the entire mv was not what I expected

at all

the mv literally describes sunmi a lot, she basically does whatever the fuck she wants like when she posted that pic of jyp on instagram dhshdhs

it’s so funny especially the scene where sunmi is wearing the teletubbies head

and at the end when she wakes up and goes back to sleep is just a mood lmao

something about the song really gives me a lot of “siren” vibes but happier???

i really like the way she pronounces “pporappipam” it took me one week to finally pronounced it dhshd

idk why but I really like the instrumental, especially the intro, it’s very melancholic

also she wears converse while performing the song bc she has to step on the dancers at one part !!

speaking of that part, it’s so cool!!! the way she climbs up the dancers like stairs and then she just trust-falls into their arms

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luvknow · 6 years

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how to tame a prince | seo changbin

genre: dragon prince!changbin x fem researcher!reader | fantasy/royal au ; enemies-to-lovers ; swearing summary: you travel the world collecting data so you could write your thesis on your favorite creatures - dragons. at the last leg of your journey, you accidentally fall asleep in a dragon’s cave owned by a nearby kingdom and are kidnapped by their prince, seo changbin. after getting permission to study there from the king, changbin refuses to leave you alone with his precious dragons and you develop an unlikely relationship. wc: 11.6k

Your very first memory as a wee little kid was when you were waiting impatiently in bed for one of your parents to come and read you a bedtime story. Your library was filled with infinite amounts of educational, but kid-friendly books just for you. Your father was the one who filled bookcases upon bookcases of those books because he knew the second you were born that your mind craved infinite knowledge. And he was right! You loved reading the shelves in your name because they held words that your school was too afraid to say. In fact, you got in trouble a lot simply because you said those words.

Witches, trolls, spirits, goblins, ghouls, magic, you name it, you read it, you said it and the school was not very happy with neither you nor your parents. But that’s ok, because your parents didn’t care for what the stuck up old hags said, anyways. They weren’t going to be those parents who hid their child from the vast unknowns of the world because they were trying to ‘protect’ you - they wanted to show you the unknowns. They’d take the scolding for as long as they can - as long as that little fire that burned for knowledge was still lit in your heart, then they had nothing to worry about.

No one expected any less from the famous apothecary family.

You were maybe ten by the time you read about dragons. Ten was a sensitive and impressionable age for most kids, but keep in mind that you’ve read about nearly every large carnivorous creature to exist by then. The largest was a griffin (or was it a hippogriff?), but even to you, a lion-horse-eagle with talons and wings didn’t impress you much. So when you came across the mighty dragons, you were hooked.

Some were monocolored, some were multi, some had wings with no legs, and some had legs but could still fly, wasn’t that marvelous!? Dragons were all over the world in infinite flavors with infinite purposes unknown to ordinary humans like you, but that’s what attracted you to them - they were a species of infinite possibilities.

Dragons were a complete mystery not only to you, but to the world. Aside from the tamers that lived in the mountains, the forests, and in between, no one really knew about them outside of a very select handful of good academic papers and books and whatever the professors were hiding from the world. So you took it upon yourself to do God’s work and research about dragons yourself. There has to be some kid out there who was just as curious as you were, right? And what do they have for resources? Old scrolls and beat-up books. You couldn’t recall exactly when in your childhood you decided to write your thesis on dragons, but you guessed it was somewhere between when your parents got their first shipment in of pitch black dragon’s blood and when you saw a patient burst in with a poisonous bite on his thigh.

“What happened?” a younger you asked, yelling over the bloody murder-screaming patient.

“This man was in the forest hunting and accidentally shot an arrow through a baby dragon. Let’s just say the mother wasn’t too happy about his presence,” your mother giggled. “Now I have to use all of the dragon blood from our last shipment to pour over this nasty wound along with a huge dollop of our magic creme. Will you get the gauze for me?”

You obeyed and handed her the roll. She cut long enough to wrap around and cover the wound and cut up a smaller piece to ball up and stuff in the patient’s mouth.

“Ah, much better,” your mother sighed when the screaming subsided. “Suck it up, will ya?”

After that intriguing encounter, you read about dragon’s blood and its purposes for the whole week.

You spent all your free time until you graduated secondary school reading about the creatures of the world. Your grades would slip up here and there because you failed to read the current literature assignment or the chapter in calculus, but you eventually graduated and thank God for that, right? Your parents were exhausted after nearly fifteen years of parent-teacher conferences. Now you could read about, write about, and talk about dragons as much as you pleased. They were the center of your childhood and now they were going to be the center of your world.

When it was time for you to leave the nest, your parents didn’t shed any tears. Rather, they couldn’t stop themselves from grinning because they were so incredibly proud of their curious child.

“Where will you go?” your mother asked.

“To every dragon habitat I can find. They say the dragons that inhabit the forests and guard the streams and lakes are the most um, temperamental, so I'll start there.”

“Just don’t be a stranger, ok?” As you nodded, she pulled something from her pocket - a little black vial tied to a long leather string. She looped it over your head and let the glass dangle and shine like a jewel. “It’s dragon’s blood. But only use it during a lifesaving emergency, do you understand? Don’t be stupid with this! This was very expensive…”

“Yes, mom…”

“And don’t waste it on some stupid stranger! Make sure you save that for you and you only -!”

“Yes, mom…!”

“Take this also,” your father said, handing you an apple-sized glass jar with a dark green creme in it. You never noticed your parents had an affinity for dark things, but then again you grew up in a shop painted pitch black your entire life, so you never cared to notice.

“Magic creme?” you asked.

“For not-so emergency emergencies. Who knows what kind of nasty stuff is out there that we don’t know about! This could save your life one day, too.”

You placed the jar carefully inside your bag that was stuffed with only the essentials. You had tons of notebooks, pens, clothes, some snacks, miscellaneous things, and lots of money all packed up. With the dragon’s blood around your neck and a jar of magic creme, you were all set to go.

You set off to a deep forest about seven days travel away - quite the distance for your first location, but luckily the locals in every passing town were super helpful. They all pointed you in the right direction without asking for a single coin, and you think it’s because they think you’re doing them the favor of slaying a dragon rather than study it because they all warned you about the tamers.

“Be careful while travellin’!” A farmer warned. “Them dragon tamers don’t take a liking to slayers. Can’t imagine why! Ha!”

“Oh, I’m not -”

“You should hurry! You don’t wanna be stuck in the forest when it’s dark. That’s when the goblins come out.”

On your way in, you wrote and took note of everything you could see. The height of the canopy, the types of fruits and flowers, the shape of the leaves, the sizes of the rocks - literally everything! You even taped a couple of leaves into your notebook as both a reference and a souvenir. They made your notes look cute.

A couple of hours passed since you’ve been sitting on a rock by a pond that totally looked like one that a dragon would drink out of but alas, nothing even remotely close to a dragon showed up!

Just as you were about to give up and go back to your inn for the night, the leaves of the forest danced with the sudden strong gust of the wind. The moon was shining without a cloud in the sky, but then a long figure shadowed the light and the forest was almost pitch black if it wasn’t for your campfire.

“What an enormous creature, huh?” a gentle voice noted. From the shadows of the trees, an older woman stepped out into the moonlight with a kind smile on her face, amused by your dropped jaw. “First time seeing a dragon?”

“Can you tell?”

“Oh, yeah. Wanna take a closer look?”

“Really!?”

“Of course! You gotta study them somehow, right?”

That night you learned that both dragons and their tamers were naturally intuitive like that. Did you really look so much like a researcher?

Your first encounter with a dragon was absolutely terrifying. When you read about them being huge, you never thought they’d be this huge! But size didn’t define her personality a single bit. This dragon was a gentle giant and you were lucky that she was your first study subject. Her scales were gorgeous shades of blue and you’re devastated that you’ll never be able to capture a color so unique that it didn’t have a proper name. For days you drew, pet, fed, studied, and talked to her until you got all the information you wanted. Who knew leaving your first dragon subject would be this hard?

“Where are you off to next?” your tamer trainer asked.

“I don’t know, to be honest. Do you have any suggestions?”

“I think you should head to the waters and then the mountains. You’ll hit the mountains first, but get through them as fast as you can.”

“Why?”

“Those dragons are not one to be reckoned with. You need to build your experience with other dragons first - you know, get the hang of meeting different personalities. The dragons of the river are much more forgiving than the ones of the mountains. Also the mountain tamers are assholes.”

“Is that so?” you chuckled.

“Yeah, fuck those guys! They think they're the shit just because they’re high in altitude, can weather the worst conditions, and have the toughest dragons to tame. So smug, that group… Be on your tiptoes when you travel through there.”

When you left the following morning, you took heed to her advice and traveled through the valleys of the mountains straight to the rushing rivers that lead to a waterfall that dropped for miles. It appeared to be an ordinary river. At the top of the river, not much was seen besides foamy waters. But after a days trip down to the bottom, you saw an oasis. The waters were crystal clear and chilling which was very refreshing to drink after all the walking and climbing. At the pond where the river ended was a school of koi fish of different colors and patterns. Legend had it that koi who can swim up the waterfall turn into a dragon - at least that’s what your books said. And maybe they were true, especially when you watched for hours how some koi were able to climb a short ways up. But it’d be another thousand years until another koi-dragon would be born.

The newest dragon was golden. He was an excited and ambitious serpent with claws and a head of a lion. Though intimidating with his beady eyes and long whiskers, he was friendly the moment he noticed you weren’t a hunter. Again, it was crazy how dragons had an intuition about people just from looking at you for a couple of minutes. This lone dragon appeared without a tamer, playing with you for only a quick moment, though it was enough for you to write down everything you had about him. As quickly as he came, he disappeared up the waterfall to where only the Gods knew.

In the span of two dragons, you filled out nearly an entire notebook already! You hoped to fill out a million more.

And that’s what you did. You spent years and years travelling the globe to all corners with trees and bodies of water. But not the mountains - not yet, at least. You weren’t ready for that. You spent those years studying dragons who all kind of looked similar. Many were serpent-like with snakeish bodies, heavy heads with long whiskers. You haven’t encountered any four-legged-type yet, which was what you assumed to find in the mountains. Guess you saved the best for last, huh?

You were down to your last set of recently-bought notebooks by the time you reached the mountains. You hoped the village had some for purchase and you could send the ones in your bag back to your parents to read. They were your biggest fans when it came to your books and for that, you were thankful.

It's cold in the mountains when you arrived. It was still daylight, but the snow was barely tolerable when gusts of wind flew in your face. You figured a storm was brewing as the sun began to set and set up camp in a conveniently-placed cave. The cave was huge, ginormous even, and obviously way too big for any human to create. But you were way too tired to question it - even the rocks were comfortable to you, that’s how tired you were! And it seemed like no one inhabited it at the moment, so for now, you'd be safe.

The crackle of your campfire was the white noise that helped you fall asleep. You were knocked out dead the whole night that you didn’t even notice you were getting kidnapped.

“What the -” you said, struggling to wake up from all the noise. A bunch of black leather and fur-cladded people surrounded you. An angry looking one, who you assumed was the leader, snatched your backpack. “Hey, give that back!”

When you lunged forward to take your bag, a red-hot dragon roared behind him deep inside the cave and you fell to your knees before your captors in fear and amusement. With wide eyes, you ignored the people robbing you of your only belongings and watched the creature breathe a hot, white fire. He was a full-grown adult, you could already tell. With wings of a bat, clean ruby scales, and a body of a serpent, you’ve never seen a dragon more beautiful. You took mental notes of every detail and hoped these people would give you your books back soon before you forgot.

Tight metal shackles were being cuffed on your wrists when you snapped out of your daze. One man pulled you roughly to your feet and made you look at their leader right in the eyes.

Ah, he’s a bit… short… for a leader…

“Who are you,” he demanded sternly.

“I’m a researcher,” you answered honestly. “I research dragons.”

“Is that what you do before you kill them?”

“N-No, I would never -!”

“Then what the fuck were you doing in his cave?” he sneered, referring to the fire-breather behind him.

“I didn’t know it was his cave.”

“You just happened to stumble in, is that it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess -”

“Bull fucking shit.”

“It’s not! If you’d just let me get a word in, I can explain -!”

“Take them away.”

“Wait what, away where? Hey, where are we going!?”

“You’ll see.”

The leader’s henchmen dragged you through the snow all the way back to their village miles away. Though seemingly mountain folk, they actually lived in the valleys where the temperature was much warmer that even flowers bloomed from the soil. The dragons must have been the ones who inhabited the mountains.

All of the townspeople dressed like your captors - decked out in leathers and furs, charcoal lining their eyes decoratively, and silver jewelry that showed off their social status. As you were cuffed and exposed for everyone in the village to see, you side-glanced the leader. His ears were bejeweled with dangling drops of silver and ear shell cuffs so shiny that they were blinding. His fingers held some heavy metal, too, some encrusted with rubies and garnets. The aesthetic of these people, though a bit bold, was quite stylish, even if it was just a palette of silvers, blacks, and reds.

The leader shot you a sharp glare.

“Staring is rude,” he sneered.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who cared for manners,” you scoffed back.

“Do you know what I do with strangers who stare too long?” You didn’t answer. “I gauge their eyes out with a melon scooper.”

You let him win that round.

You were taken to a castle at the edge of the town whose walls could be seen the second you stepped foot in the valley. Its architecture was intimidating, which was quite fitting for such an, um, unique people, but it was beautiful nonetheless. You couldn’t wait to be locked up in there until you died.

The following events were a blur as they all lead you to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what. A torture chamber? A dungeon maybe? You hoped the dungeon or wherever you were going at least had a dragon to guard the door.

You entered a grand room where the King and Queen sat on their black thrones. Finally, you'd get to talk to the true leaders of the village, not this shrimpy delinquent who threatened to melon ball your eyes out and his buff henchmen who did his dirty work. Maybe you could at least get a word in with mature adults. How dare they capture you without letting you explain! Although your captors looked angry when they first saw you in their cave, the King and Queen didn’t seem as disgusted.

“What is this?” The King asked with genuine curiosity.

“We found her sleeping in Jin’s cave.” Ah, so Jin was the dragon’s name! A handsome name for a handsome dragon.

“Was she doing anything else…?”

“No… but she might’ve if we didn’t catch her.”

“Hand me the bag.”

The small man handed your backpack over to the King. He inspected it and was surprised to see that nothing else was found other than your essentials and notebooks, which was what you were trying to explain to your captors in the first place. The King flipped through your notes and you couldn’t help but burn a deep pink. No one besides your parents have read your notes and you felt embarrassed and exposed seeing someone squint at them like they were judging every sentence you wrote.

“These are very thorough,” he commented. “What exactly do you do?”

“I research dragons for this thesis I’m writing.”

“A thesis?”

“Yes! Hopefully to become a book one day. I-I swear I don’t kill dragons!”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“I don’t have any weapons on me. I’m completely defenseless! And theoretically speaking, even if I could slay a dragon, wouldn’t you think I would have fought back from being captured? All your people captured me unscathed. Also, do you really think that I could slay a dragon and come out alive?”

Your captor hated to admit that you were right, but you had a point there. Even so, he refused to let you get away with sleeping in Jin's cave.

"Fine then. You're free to research for your thesis."

"What!?" the leader shrieked. "But Father -"

"And you, Changbin, are to leave them unbothered. I shouldn't have to waste my time on something as pointless as this. Both of you - all of you - get out of my sight."

The henchmen left without question, followed by the King and Queen, and finally their guards. It was you and the leader named Changbin left alone and you couldn't leave until you were unshackled and had your belongings. The boy stayed glued in his place as if he couldn't believe that his father let a complete stranger get so close to his precious dragons! Honestly, if you were in his place, you'd think the same thing.

Changbin shot you another glare. "Are you going to move or will I have to drag you out the same way you came in?"

"I'll gladly leave once you take these things off of me."

Reluctantly, though quickly, he strutted to you and unlocked your wrists with a key. As you stood up and dusted yourself off, your bag was shoved harshly to your chest nearly knocking the wind out of you.

You can smell his cologne as he leaned in. "I'm watching you," he threatened.

You held in your breath so you wouldn't seem afraid. Was it working? How was it that you could muster the courage to stand in front of dragons but a measly prince who smelled nice made you nervous?

"Be my guest," you replied back nonchalantly.

A soft 'tch' was heard before he stormed out of the room to finish his stuck-up princely duties, or whatever. Everything was still in your bag, including the magic creme you still had plenty of left, so you were thankful for that. Now that you're in the clear to study as much as you could about the four-legged-dragons, it seemed like your only obstacle now was Changbin. Even if he kept his promise about keeping an eye on you, you just prayed that he wouldn't get in the way.

Now to find an inn far away from the castle...

You rented a room at an inn at the very edge of the village closest to the path that would lead you back to Jin's cave. It was still afternoon by the time you settled in and you had time to buy more notebooks, some food, and most importantly proper clothing. Rumor has it that the weather's going to be unbearable the next few weeks and who knows how long you'll be here? So you bought whatever you could to stay warm and boy, did you look like a local. Black and fur wasn't your style, but you looked good in it, so you couldn't complain. Fur made you look fancy.

You set out for the cave as soon as you were finished with your errands. Four-legged fire breathers were most active in the nighttime and you weren't going to waste a single day out here. You wanted to spend as much time as you could studying not only Jin, but the other dragons that guarded this village. You hoped that the other tamers were nicer than Changbin because the likelihood of him letting you study Jin without a problem didn't seem very high.

As you entered the same cave just after the sun was setting, you saw someone made it to Jin before you. Guess Changbin wasn't going to let you study Jin problem-free afterall. He sat on a rock in front of his relaxed dragon as if he was waiting for you. The moment the echo of your footsteps could be heard throughout the cave, the dragon's eyes snapped wide open like a snake. Sharp, long flames shot up from his flaring red nostrils, dangerously close to the unbothered boy.

"You're late," he sneered.

"For what?"

"His feeding."

Changbin stood up from his rock and ushered the abnormally-calm dragon to follow him towards you. The cave shook every time Jin took a step and if you thought he was huge from afar, well he was ginormous up close. You didn't notice you unconsciously took steps back until you reached the outside of his cave.

"How was I supposed to know it was his feeding time?" you pouted.

"Some 'dragon researcher' you are if you don’t know a dragon’s dinner time."

The boy brushed your shoulder as he passed by and you're ashamed you let him, but you figured it'd be smart to let Jin pass by first. He took a quick whiff at you as he passed and you took his disinterest in you as a good sign. Maybe that meant he liked you? The other dragons you encountered usually expressed that they liked you, but you'll figure this out later. For now, as you followed them, you'd take mental notes of Jin's appearance, like how the blue-ish tint of the moonlight made his scales reflect back the slightest purple.

You followed the Prince all the way back down to a vast farm filled with cows and goats, exactly where you hoped to not end up. The animals were munching on the plush green grass but you were too distracted by Jin’s hungry growling to enjoy the peaceful scene. Changbin looked back at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Got your fancy notebook ready?" he asked, but didn't let you answer.

He held his hand out to the openness of the farm and Jin happily flew towards his meals. Really you should have been terrified that this large beast mercilessly chewed up livestock, but God, was this fascinating! Jin was the type of dragon who had fun with his meals, tossing them up in the air and catching them whole as opposed to not wasting any time and just eating like a 'normal' dragon. It was almost like he was a dragon pup, but maybe he was just a pup at heart.

Changbin looked annoyed that you were enjoying this. "You can't seriously be entertained by this."

"Some dragon researcher I'd be if I didn't enjoy this," you muttered, not taking your eyes off of the red beast and your notebook.

"You're not normal, are you?"

"Really, what's normal these days? Also no, I read a lot of books when I was younger."

"You look like a bookworm."

"Thank you." The oh-so high and mighty Prince scoffed at your remark. "You don't like that I'm here, do you? Or rather you don’t like me at all."

"What gave it away." He made sure to make it sound like a condescending statement rather than a curious question.

You closed your notebook for now and focused on Changbin, who can't seem to keep his eyes off of you even when he was trying to be insulting. Were you that interesting to him, or something? "But why? Is it just me, or are you like this with all of your visitors?"

He walked up to you - more like strutted, in all his leather and bejeweled glory - until you could smell his cologne again. There's a bit of playfulness on his lips once he stopped in front of you and you're starting to think that he's enjoying the back-and-forth dialogue you two share. Could it be that he likes the company and that he’s just teasing you? Then, his pointer finger grazed your collarbone, sending bursts of chills across your skin. He hooked his finger around the strap of your necklace and pulled out the vial of blood that you hid in your shirt.

He tugged forward so your faces were close and your breath hitched in your throat. "I don't like you because you claim to love dragons, yet you wear their blood on your neck like a trophy," he seethed.

“How did you know?”

“You reek of it.”

"It’s not like I slayed the dragon -"

"If Jin were to kill someone right now and I wore their blood around my neck, does that make me any less barbaric?"

"Does their blood have the healing properties of a God?"

Changbin dropped his hold on your neck and rolled his eyes, heading back over to his precious beast. "You're barbaric," he yelled into the night.

"As a traveller far from home, I need this! Not all of us have your luxuriously stagnant lifestyle as royalty!"

"No, but I can't imagine a life with apothecary parents was quite difficult."

He called over his rubied dragon who flew to him in a heartbeat. Though having just eaten a ton of livestock, the blood from eating blended in with his scales, and for that you were grateful. Jin still doesn't seem to mind your presence and Changbin took notice of it right away. Yet another reason to be annoyed with you - he was never this welcoming to strangers! Some guardian dragon...

You're still in shock about how he knew about your parents. He was almost too intuitive. "How did you know that?"

"Dragon's blood is the world's rarest commodity. Only the best apothecaries can get a hold of that stuff. Lucky you."

Jin flew up into the air, swirling gusts of wind all around you and Changbin, nearly lifting you and the remaining livestock off of your feet but the Prince was already used to this. Once he was airborne, the mighty beast flew back the way that you came, high into the mountains to either go back into his cave or play in the night sky.

Changbin was already heading back towards the village in the valleys when you were done doodling in awe. You had to run to catch up to him - what kind of Prince leaves a guest in the middle of a dark field unattended!?

"Do you ever fly with him?" you asked, trying to break the tense silence.

Changbin nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Just for fun, or…?”

“Sometimes for fun, sometimes for errands.”

“How is it?”

“How is it?” he repeated, cocking his brow. How has a dragon researcher not flown yet? “It’s indescribable.”

“Can you try describing it?”

“Why don’t you just ride one and see how it feels?”

“Do I look like I know how to fly a fifty-ton beast?”

The Prince halted just before entering the village and turned to look at you incredulously. “Do you know how to do anything with dragons besides just standing there and watching them?”

Embarrassed, you scratched your head. “Not really…”

He shook his head disapprovingly. “Not only are you barbaric, you’re hopeless.”

Changbin walked away, leaving you to on your own to walk to your inn.

“Asshole,” you muttered.

You really did not want to see Changbin multiple days in a row for however long you were going to be there. Instead, you asked the locals to see where other dragons’ caves were in the mountains. At first they thought you were a slayer in disguise, but then they realized you were just bat-shit crazy after you told them you were a plain researcher who enjoyed making a living out of your passion. Regardless, they told you where the other two caves were hidden. It was incredible that there were only three dragons in total for such a vast mountain range, but it seemed like that was all they needed.

Halfway up the mountains towards the second dragon’s cave, you realized that maybe you under dressed for the occasion, even as the sun was still out and shining. Multiple pelts of fur was enough to keep your body warm, but you failed to purchase a damn scarf to cover your face from the icy winds. But you couldn’t turn back now! You came too far already.

Just as you were mentally cursing yourself, you felt a snowball hit the back of your head.

“Ow! What the fuck!?” you screamed. You didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Changbin.

“How unladylike of you to swear,” he teased.

“How unprincely of you to harass a lady!”

“‘Harass’, relax it’s just snow. And ‘unprincely’ isn’t a word.”

“How about I call you ignoble instead.”

“Hey,” he said threateningly, pointing a finger at you. “Don’t call me that, you barbarian.”

You didn’t care for his name calling as you turned around and continued walking towards the cave. You can hear Changbin’s footsteps behind you. As if the day could not get any worse, the snow thrown at your face began to melt and trickle down your neck and chest, making you feel cold, uncomfortable, and shivering so hard that even the Prince started to feel bad for you.

You felt a long wad of fleece being draped over your face messily on purpose. The kind and chivalrous Prince just gave you his scarf! Oh, lucky you.

“What is this for?” you asked.

“You’re an idiot for not dressing properly for the mountains.”

“Sorry that I don’t live near mountains...”

“It’s common knowledge. That’s my favorite scarf by the way, so don’t get it dirty.”

Today marked the day that Changbin showed an emotion other than disgust towards you. You even wrote it down in your notebook.

He walked ahead of you the rest of the way and you weren’t sure if he was leading you or because he didn’t want to stand next to you. You followed anyways, knowing that you’d be completely lost without him otherwise. It was a wonder how you made it up this far without him to begin with. But you probably would have found your way eventually, right? Why did he have to babysit you! And how did he know when you were leaving to go every time!? But if you really thought about it, if you had dragons of your own, you’d act the exact same way - no one would ever lay a hand on your babies.

The second cave was just as open as Jin’s, but no dragon could be seen in the shallow parts of the entrance. Unlike Jin’s cave, torches lit with fire were stuck on the walls and led you so deep inside that you couldn’t even see the end.

You stopped in your place. This was kind of spooky, wasn’t it? What if this was where you’d die? What if Changbin was leading you to some satanic ritual where they tied you up like a boar and the dragon would cook you up like a pot roast for dinner and -

“The hell are you standing there for?” Changbin’s voice echoed. “Are you scared, or something?”

“Uh… or something,” you replied shakily. “Where are we going?”

“Do you think I’m going to kidnap you again?” A playful smirk grew on his lips.

“It wouldn’t be unlikely.”

“She’s all the way in the back for a reason. See for yourself.”

Reluctantly and with your guard up, you followed him to the back of the cave. The cave was so deep into the mountains that the torches stopped somewhere in between and Changbin had to grab the last one hung up and lead the way. While you took notes on the cave depth, Changbin waited impatiently for you to catch up.

“It’s just a cave, what do you even need to take notes on?”

“Jin’s cave was nothing like this one. I have to take note of everything and anything - that’s what researchers do, after all.”

“Doesn’t that take a long time?”

“Oh, it takes forever! But I don’t mind.” There’s a content smile on your lips that has Changbin wondering what kind of weirdo he got stuck with. You’re interesting though, and you can hold an intelligent conversation, so he can’t complain about being bored at least. “You don’t have to keep waiting for me. I won’t try to escape, I swear.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“You’re worried about something?”

“It gets really dark in here. You’ll get lost if I leave you behind.”

“Hm, sounds like you’re worried about me ~”

“If I lose you and you die, my ass is next because my Father will think I’m the reason behind it. Can’t have the King thinking that, now can I?” Changbin ignored your pouty lips and kept moving forward. “Hurry up, we’re almost there.”

Luckily, he was right. At the very end of the cave was a huge, courtyard-sized nest with a tired pitch black dragon napping inside. Her scales were so matte black that even the fire that circled the walls didn’t reflect. You could see her spine rise and fall as she slept peacefully. For a quick moment, Changbin smiled at your dreamy eyes, but then quickly frowned again before walking around the nest to the sweet spot.

“Where are you going!?” you whispered harshly, hoping not to wake up the dragon. “Don’t leave me here!”

“Shut up and come look.”

Even from a distance, you could see Changbin gently smiling and you’re not sure whether you were more curious or frightened by it. Regardless, you tiptoed over to your enemy to take a peak at what he’s smiling at and you nearly burst into tears.

“Holy shit, dragon eggs…” you whispered. Under the ginormous black dragon was a handful of equally-black eggs.

“They’re due soon. Happens only once every thousand years, you know?”

“Of course I know.” It was too hard to hold in your grin as you doodled the masterpiece in front of you. “Does she sleep all the time?”

“She’s practically hibernating until they hatch.”

“Incredible! What’s her name?”

“We never gave her a formal one. We kind of just call her Queenie. She’s my mother’s dragon.”

You watched Changbin stare at the beautiful dragon fondly. He was kind of cute when he wasn’t glaring at you. “Do you like her a lot?”

“Mm. Jin may be mine, but Queenie’s my favorite. Don’t tell him that, though.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Prince.”

Changbin let you do your thing and waited for you to write down all the details you needed. Since she was just sleeping, you didn’t have much to write down, but you wanted to draw as much detail as you could for this picture. Your previous ones hadn’t been so detailed because the dragons were constantly moving, but now you had the time to do so.

You knew Changbin was watching over your shoulder when you could smell his cologne. He was so close that even bits of hair tickled your cheeks. You tugged your notebook to your chest.

“What do you want?” you asked suspiciously.

“You’re actually really good at that.”

“Is that a surprise?”

He shrugged. “Kind of. Let me see.”

“What, no!”

“As Prince, I order you to let me see.”

“You’re not my Prince!”

Your whining was useless because he was able to snatch your notebook away with just a few tricks. You were too embarrassed to try to fight and take it back as he was already flipping through all the pages you had on both Jin and Queenie for the next several minutes. You felt so vulnerable now that not only the King has seen your work, but now the Prince, too.

“They’re messy, I know, b-but it’s just a draft! I plan on writing harder copies later.”

“They’re fine,” he said, handing you back your book. “If your notes weren’t messy, I’d question your methods. And you’re surprisingly literate with your words.”

“Gee, thanks,” you deadpanned.

“I’d like to read your other notebooks sometime.”

“Really? Why -”

“That’s an order.”

“Again, not my Prince!”

His cologne gets stronger the more you’re able to smell it. It’s like he’s sewing the scent into your brain. “When you’re in my village, I am your only Prince. Is that clear, _____?”

Oh, no - he finally figured out your name and it sounded chilling coming from his lips. You didn’t react or say a word as he brushed passed with a triumphant smirk. It was then when you let out a sigh of relief. What the hell was his deal!? Did he hate you? Did he just like teasing you? Or was he actually beginning to tolerate you? Like you even?

When you exited the cave still dazed from seeing dragon eggs for the first time, Changbin grabbed your arm so you stop.

“Do you want your scarf back?” you asked.

“When you go see the last dragon, come find me.”

“Why, so you can babysit me again?”

“Yes.” The sternness in his voice and his furrowed brows let you know that he wasn’t playing around. “The last one’s not like the other two. There’s a reason his cave is the farthest away.”

“Which is?”

“He has a really bad temper and has trust issues. He only trusts my Father.”

“So loyal.”

“That’s one way to put it.” He squeezed your arm lightly, like he knew something bad was going to happen regardless. “Promise you’ll find me before you go.”

You nodded sincerely. “I promise.”

“Good.” And he took off ahead again, hoping the redness on his cheeks would subside.

You wrote this moment down in your notebook.

You spent the next several cave visits studying the Prince and Queen dragons with the Prince himself. Not only were you not ready to see the Mighty dragon yet, but you also thought you didn’t get enough info on the other two. You insisted that you could go on your own to both caves, but Changbin’s reasons for not leaving you alone were 1) he trusted no one near Jin and 2) he trusted no one near the eggs. But didn’t he know by now that you were completely harmless?

“‘Trust no one’ is my motto and I always keep my word,” he said when you told him that you could be trusted for the hundredth time.

“Didn’t the King say to leave me unbothered? And don’t you have to follow the King’s orders? So aren’t you breaking your word to the King by keeping your word to your motto?”

“Like I’d actually listen to my Father.”

“You’re telling me that you never listen to the King...”

“Not when he’s wrong.”

“Wow, you’re such a rebel.”

While you would write down and doodle in your notebook, you let Changbin read your past works that you had on hand just as he asked. You remember spending the entire night before skimming through them and seeing if any of them were too dumb or didn’t have enough fancy words but you honestly couldn’t tell which notes were good or bad. You were so nervous for him to read them that you lost a lot of sleep, but you could really use some criticism that wasn’t from your parents, so you hoped this was worth it.

Instead of Jin feasting on livestock, Changbin told him to fly off, hunt on his own, and bring back whatever he caught for you to see.

“You think we can afford to feed a dragon livestock everyday?” Changbin scoffed. “We may be rich, but not that rich.”

“Quit scolding me, I’m here to learn for a reason,” you pouted.

“Speaking of,” he paused and held out his hand to you. “I believe I ordered some notebooks.”

“You get one notebook for now.”

Changbin gladly took the one you gave him and carefully read in silence. You tried patiently waiting and editing your notes until Jin to returned, but you kept on getting distracted by the Prince’s hums of either approval or disapproval - it was itching at you that you couldn’t tell.

You tried to peak over his shoulder to see what he was reading. You smelled like the flowers from the shop in the village.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

“Your study titled Hydra At the Edge of the World,” he replied, not looking up from your notebook. “It’s actually fascinating.”

“You really think so?”

He nodded. “I haven’t read much on other species of dragons so this is all new to me.”

“Some dragon tamer you are,” you teased, but Changbin wasn’t having it when he shot you a sharp glare you were so used to. “I’m kidding!”

“How many notebooks have you filled?”

“I don’t know to be honest. Fifty maybe?”

“You have fifty whole notebooks filled? Jeez, how long have you been doing this?”

“A few years. By now I thought I’d have a system when it came to note-taking, but I find that the fastest and easiest way is to write like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“I noticed,” he mumbled. “I expect to read all of them, by the way.”

“All of them!? You want me to ask my parents to ship the rest back to you, Your Highness?”

“That’s an order.” You don’t even bother to fight back. Rather you couldn’t stop the wide grin forming on your lips. “What’s wrong with you face?”

“You inadvertently said that you like my work ~”

“Shut up, I did not.”

“Let’s pretend that you did.”

You eventually finished editing your notes and you and Changbin ended up sitting on the grass next to each other. While you watched the sun set behind the mountains, the Prince finished up one whole notebook and clamped it shut. For a long while, you both shared this moment together in silence. No bickering, no teasing, no awkwardness - just pure peace. Out of all the places you’ve visited, you must admit that nothing was as beautiful as the sun setting beyond the snowcaps.

“He normally doesn’t take this long,” Changbin said. “He must be trying to impress you.”

“Little ol’ me?”

“He tends to do that for people he likes.”

“That’s so cute! Did you teach him to do that?”

“What makes you think I’d teach him something so pointless?”

“You seem like someone who’d try to impress someone you like.”

“You don’t know me,” he muttered.

“I really don’t. You’re confusing.”

“Good.”

“You haven’t tried to go all out for some hot Princess or your suitors or something?”

“No. I don’t need to do anything - I’m already impressing.”

“Ha!” you scoffed too loudly. “I don’t know about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll admit you give lasting impressions. Like you kidnapped me, threatened me, won’t leave me alone, but I wouldn’t say you’re impressing…”

“I’m the Prince and heir of the only Dragon Kingdom left on this planet! I own a dragon, for fuck’s sake! I’m also sexy!”

“Mm, not so sure about that last one.”

“I should throw you in the dungeon.”

For the first time, Changbin got an earful of your light laughter. His father would often describe his mother’s laugh as sweet as syrup and for once he can understand what the King meant. Your laughter, mixed with the sight of the stars, was almost too sweet. Changbin didn’t know what to do.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he scolded.

“I can’t help that you’re funny for once.”

“Ok, Miss Professor. If you don’t think I’m impressing, what makes you so special?”

“Nothing really,” you answered honestly. “I’m quite ordinary.”

“You’ve traveled the world, studied over fifty dragons, and carry dragon’s blood on your neck and you’re telling me you think you’re ordinary?”

“Do you think I’m fascinating, Your Highness? It seems you answered your own question.”

Changbin bit his lip as punishment for saying too much. He needed to watch his words around you more because knowing you, you’d use them against him in a heartbeat. He changed the subject.

“Do you like travelling the world?” he asked.

“Yes and no. Yes because I met some amazing dragons and people, but also no because I miss home.”

“What was it like? All the travelling, I mean.”

“Incredible. A bit lonely, but incredible. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. There’s so much out there that’s yet to be discovered, you know? And I’m doing some of that discovering! It’s a wild place out here.” Changbin hummed. “Do you travel often?”

He shook his head. “Almost never.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I only ever travel for marriage contract reasons.”

“Ah…” Somehow, you’re disappointed. Maybe disappointed wasn’t the right word. “Are you engaged?”

“No, thankfully. We travel to meet the royal families, but it never works out. Their intentions for our dragons are for war and that’s not what they’re raised for. And marrying for contract is so old fashioned. Isn’t it supposed to be about love, or some bullshit?”

“Do you wanna fall in love, Prince ~?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“How romantic ~!”

“Shut up.”

“All jokes aside, I’m sure you’ll get to travel for joy one day. Maybe even with the love of your life ~” you continued to tease heavily as you poked his arms.

“Stop it!”

Just in time, Jin swooped in with his catch of the night in his mouth. Like an excited puppy showing you the toy he fetched, he dropped an entire tree a ways in front of you. Jin’s eyes glistened proudly as he waited for someone’s approval.

“Whoa…” you gasped, quickly scribbling this down in your notebook.

Changbin on the other hand sighed tiredly as if he experienced this too many times before. “Good job, Jin,” he said robotically. “You better throw that away.”

Jin let out a purr or content growl of some sorts and once again flew away with the tree stump. Just past the village, he dropped off the tree like it was garbage and flew beyond the valleys as if he was flying to find where the sun had gone.

“Sorry about that. He usually brings home his catch and eats it in front of me. Guess he really was trying to impress you.”

“I’m definitely impressed all right.” You turned your notebook around to show the embarrassed Prince your drawing of a happy Jin with his tree. “What a scene, huh?”

“Mm. Cute.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said get up, I wanna go home.”

Sourly, though with a smile on your lips, you followed the grumpy Prince back to the village. By the time you arrived, it seemed that the townspeople had packed up their shops for the night and went home to their families. Had you and Changbin really been out for that long?

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“I can walk back by myself.”

“It’s that inn isn’t it?” You followed Changbin’s finger pointing to the building not too far behind you.

“How did you…?”

“It’s the farthest from the castle. Figured you wouldn’t want to see my face often for however long you’re staying.”

“You’re smart.”

A smug Changbin led you the couple blocks down in front of your inn. Before you headed inside, you turned to him to say goodnight, but he interjected.

“There’s a festival in a couple of days,” he said. “It’s to celebrate the birth of the dragon eggs. She’ll fly and carry her eggs to a special nest on the field. The whole village participates.”

“Whoa, really!?” you gasped, eyes sparkling. “I’ve never been to an egg hatching or a dragon festival.”

“I’ll pick you up at 6:00pm.”

“You want to go with me?” You could feel your cheeks blush deeply. Aren’t festivals like a couple thing?

“That’s not what I said,” he mumbled. Before you could tease him directly about it, he was already walking back to the castle. “Don’t be late.”

“Goodnight, Changbin!” you called out.

He liked how you said his name. “Goodnight, _____.”

Between your last study session with Changbin and the day of the festival, you took the time to study the townspeople as they prepared for the egg hatching. It was total chaos, in the most organized way, as everyone scurried around the village to hang all of the flowers, baked all of the goods, and cooked only the finest cuts of meat. It was a colorful festival, despite Queenie and her babies being completely black, but the contrast would a beautiful sight to see. Beyond the town, in the fields where you and Changbin would wait for Jin to finish eating, the area was scattered with the same flowers in the shape of a circle. Sort of like they were preparing for a ritual. Candles and tiny flames joined the flowers so everyone could get a clear look.

You suddenly felt under dressed for the occasion, or at least under accessorized, so you bought a few things in town to spice up your look a bit. Somehow you knew the whole village knew about how much you and Changbin have been hanging out since you arrived by both the teasing looks you received from the men in town and the sour ones the ladies gave you. Did Changbin post that he was picking you up at six all over town, or something?

You continued to walk around town and enjoy the festive atmosphere in your get up because you weren’t going to wait at the inn until Changbin picked you up like some cheap date. Your time alone without having to worry about the quality of your notes or whether or not Changbin was just tricking you and waiting for the right moment to kidnap you again was the most peace you had since you left home on your journey. But it was quickly interrupted when someone harshly bumped into you.

“Ow! What the -!”

“Swearing is unladylike ~” Changbin teased.

“Yeah? Shut the fu -”

He shoved one of those yummy fish pastries filled with chocolate into your mouth to shut you up. If it was any other person, you’re sure you’d be biting their head off, but you can’t do that to the Prince in public, right? Besides, the bread was really good, so you can’t complain.

“I thought you were going to pick me up at six?” you asked.

“I wasn’t on my way to pick you up just now.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Can’t a Prince walk around the festival in peace?”

“Don’t snap at me when you’re the one who bumped into me!”

The Prince only shrugged, not really caring to argue. Were you supposed to follow him or leave him alone? You wished he’d be a little more transparent with you, just a little. But as you decided to follow him, it seemed that he didn’t mind your presence, anyways, so you just stayed with him. You hadn’t gotten a good look at what he was wearing until now. Normally, his clothes were almost all black, with the exception of his tan fur and silver chains. Tonight, though, he still wore all black and the finest leather money can buy along with some royal purple handkerchief thingies and some other pieces of clothing you couldn’t name. His rings and jewelry were still rubies and silver, but tonight they were bigger and better.

“You don’t wear a crown or a robe or have a bejeweled cane with you to bring to these events?” you mocked.

“No… At least not until I’m King. Why, do I look bad?” he asked, genuinely curious about what you thought about his ensemble.

“You look good,” you answered honestly. “Noble, but modest. Purple and red really suit you.”

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly then cleared his throat. “You look… different.”

Oh, God. Have boys always been this stupid? “I bought some stuff in the market today. I thought I should look a little nice for this occasion.”

“I mean for once you don’t look like a total nerd who studies for twenty hours a day. So I guess you look nice,” he muttered.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” you teased, leaning in closer. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“I’m not saying it again.” In an instant, everyone around you started to carefully jog or speed walk towards the open field. “It must be almost time.”

You and Changbin got lost in the sea of people running like a school of fish swimming in a stream. There were moments when you’d lose sight of the Prince and you were a bit scared, but as if he read your mind, he found his way to you and grabbed your hand. Like in those fairy tales your father read to you as a kid, time seemed to move in slow motion when your hand was in his. His hands were cold - only fitting for someone like him - but they were soft, and you found yourself laughing as you continued to run. By the time you reached the circle of people, you were out of breath and his hands were warm. Naturally, the people opened up the circle to let their Prince in. After the chaos of running and weaving, you both made it to the center of the circle where the King, the Queen, and a mother dragon with her hatching babies were. Changbin still kept his hold on you.

The sea of people were far away from Queenie to give them some space. Every so often, she would wiggle and move about because her eggs would. When she knew it was time, she removed herself from the makeshift nest and waited patiently with the townspeople for all four of them to hatch. Pieces of black eggshells would pop off here and there and each time Changbin could feel you grip onto his hand a little tighter.

“You’re cutting off my blood flow,” he said.

Immediately, you let go. “Sorry! I’m just so excited! This is incredible!!”

“It is.”

The entire village was silent when the first baby made her grand entrance. She used her wings to break open the shell to reveal her healthy self and then hopped her way towards her mother. The village erupted in loud cheers and cries, rooting for the other three to hurry and break free, too. You joined in with the crowd like you were watching a joust and Changbin couldn’t help but think you were kind of adorable. He didn’t hold back his smile when you caught him looking.

“What?” you screamed over the crowd.

“Nothing,” he told you. “Don’t look at me, you’re missing it.”

When you turned to look, the other three began to wiggle in their shells and crack the surface. The second baby wasn’t quite as black - you’d argue that he was a dark blue (“Are you out of your mind, he’s totally black!” “Your Highness, with all due respect, you’re an idiot. He’s midnight blue!”). The third one watched his older sister. Truly, the first three were all as extraordinary as each other, but none could outdo their youngest sister. She was a moonlight white.

The townspeople are hushed silent at the sight of the youngest pearl. She was incredibly beautiful, a starking contrast against her siblings and mother. You tried your best to hold back your tears, but when the mother rejoined her babies, you couldn’t help it. They chirped and chittered as they attempted to fly for the very first time. Number one had it down as if she hadn’t just been born and led the way while two and three followed. Precious little pearl struggled a bit, but after mom gave her a little nudge, she was up and flying with the rest of them.

“Why are you crying?”

Changbin looked at you quite concerned. Well, maybe concerned wasn’t the right word - it was more of a ‘what the fuck was happening’ kind of expression. He was never good with feelings and stuff, but you already knew that.

“I don’t know! It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?”

Even through your tears, your smile was still as bright as the setting sun. Your true, passionate love for dragons was glowing golden tonight, and Changbin couldn’t believe that he ever doubted you for a second. Though you were smiling, he didn’t like seeing you cry, even if they were happy tears. He held a hand up to your cheek and lightly brushed away the tears.

“Stop crying,” he said sternly.

“S-Sorry. I get a little emotional when it comes to dragons. Can you tell?”

“I had no idea.”

You took advantage of the moment and dared to grab Changbin’s hand once more. When he didn’t pull away, you took it as a good sign and went a step further. For the remainder of the festival, until the rays of the sun could no longer be seen, you held the Prince’s hand and rested your head on his shoulder. Then His Highness did the unthinkable by resting his cheek on your head.

“Are you starting to like me, Prince?”

“In your dreams, Professor.”

“I’ll get you to admit it one day.”

“Try me.”

Changbin found himself at your doorstep so often that you were so quick to dismiss it and it all felt normal. Whether it be while studying the dragons or simply walking through the village, you spent almost every day the His Highness. At first, the stares and glares were hard to ignore, but when Changbin returned the gesture, the townspeople pretended to not know you at all. What a gentleman, right?

“Just say that you like me, Changbin.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Come on, I don’t even mean it like that, you know! Just admit that your judgement was wrong, that you apologize for kidnapping me, and that you’re begging on your knees for my forgiveness. It’s not that hard.”

“I’m not apologizing for being protective of my dragons.”

“Ok, fair enough. But I didn’t deserve such a forceful kidnapping.”

“I agree, but I’m still not apologizing.”

“You are impossible.”

It was all fun and games until you asked to see the last dragon. Changbin thought - hoped - he’d never have to see that day.

“You’re ready to see him? Finally,” he said.

“Yeah. I figured I can’t stay in your Kingdom forever, right?”

There’s a touch of sadness in your tone but Changbin didn’t question it. “Right.”

When you were ready to set off for the farthest cave in the mountains, You made sure to dress properly and even doubled up on the furs. With your notebooks packed, blood on your neck, and magic cream on hand, you were ready to see the Mighty Dragon.

“You look ridiculous,” Changbin teased.

“You told me I was under dressed last time! You’re so hard to satisfy… And coming from the man who strictly wears leather? Please.”

“Hey, the leather is so I can fly, ok? The scales don’t tear it up as easily as other fabrics!”

The cave was so far that it took almost half a day to arrive there. The cave wasn’t that special - it was neither too deep nor too shallow, neither too dark nor did it lack light. It was the ideal cave for a dragon.

Before entering, Changbin held his arm out to block you from entering.

“Stay behind me. He doesn’t like strangers.”

You nodded slowly, too afraid to speak. You kept your distance from the prince as he led you to the biggest dragon you’ve ever seen. Right in the center of the cave was a large, emerald green, sleeping dragon. The most striking feature about him was that he had whiskers that looked like they were made of gold. Needless to say, you were terrified of the Mighty Beast. So terrified that you couldn’t even buck up the courage to take notes.

As if he could smell your fear, his beady eyes snapped open and all you saw was black. No depth, not reflection, no emotion. Just black.

A loud, piercing screech comes out of the serpent’s mouth that vibrated the entire range. You’re sure there was an avalanche happening somewhere. His eyes seemed to ignore Changbin, who tried blocking you with his body, but it was no use. The dragon only saw you, an intruder.

Rising from ashes, he got up from his sleeping position and looked like he was ready to attack.

“It’s ok,” Changbin said, trying to ease the dragon’s nerves.

It was no use. In a second, the cave went up in flames. Uncontrolled, random balls of fire shot in any and every direction and if you and Changbin didn’t get out fast, you’d be mixed in with the ashes that flew with the wind.

“Get down!”

Changbin pushed you to the stone floor and all of your belongings went flying. Your snacks, the notebooks, and the magic creme were lost somewhere at the edge of the cave that you’d hope to find later. For now, you needed to focus on making sure Changbin was ok as he hovered over you with fire just centimeters behind him.

The Mighty Dragon let out one last screech before his grande finale.

“Ah, fuck!”

Changbin pulled his arm to his chest and you saw that the leather that once covered it had been completely burned off along with his skin. His arm was scorching like cooked meat and you can only imagine how much pain he’s in.

“Ch-Changbin…!”

All of the fire subsided. The snow that was once there evaporated and the cave was now completely dry. The Emerald Serpent no longer had any interest in either of you and flew out of the cave to only God knows where. The only thing that could be heard were your quiet sobs that echoed in the cave.

The Prince was still on top of you, shielding your body, not saying a word.

“Changbin…?”

“Hm?”

The boy rolled off of you and laid on the cold stone floor right next to you. His breathing was heavy, but all that mattered to you was that he was breathing. As you turned to look at him, Changbin was already looking at you.

“Are you ok?” he asked you.

“I-I think so. You…?”

The cocky Prince held up his flaming red arm as if it was nothing. “Yeah. Normal dragon tamer things.”

“Holy shit… Oh, my creme!”

Your legs were weak for whatever reason. Was your body too terrified to move? You struggled to crawl to the jar of creme that was now half empty and made your way back to an exhausted Prince who kept his eyes shut.

“Take your shirt off.”

“I’m fine.”

“Changbin, please,” you begged.

He couldn’t seem to resist your worried tone, so he did as he was told, even if it meant freezing for a little while. After peeling all of his layers, you were left with a Prince in a sleeveless shirt and a gnarly burn all because he was protecting you. You took hold of his burned arm and slathered your parents’ magic creme made for occasions like this.

“Ah, cold ~” he whined cutely.

“S-Sorry,” you sniffled.

Changbin’s eyes snapped to get a good look at your face since you entered the cave. You were crying. You were worried about him. And you were blaming yourself. You didn’t even notice the burn mark you had on your own cheek.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Why are you crying?”

“You got burned because of me.”

“I get burned all the time.” After you finished putting the creme on, he turned show you his shoulder blades that had tiny little burn stripes like a tiger. “This was from the Mother dragon. I got a little too close to the eggs once. And this one,” he showed you one on his rib cage. “From Jin when I first got him. Now I have one from each of them. I should be thanking you.”

He was able to crack a weak smile from you, but even then the tears kept on falling. He really shouldn’t be grinning at the sight of you crying, but you were just too cute. Did you care about him that much?

His hand cupped one the cheek with the burn mark and wiped away the tears.

“Stop crying.”

And you did. “Ok.”

“Give me that creme.” When you handed it to him, he took a small dollop and smeared it on your cheek. “Did you even know you got burned, Professor?”

“Really? Is it bad?”

“No, but it makes you look bad ass. You should take care of yourself once in a while, you know?” he teased. “What is this stuff anyways?”

“My parents made this magic creme that only they have the recipe for. It’s supposed to work on almost everything.”

“An apothecary’s magic creme? That’s the strong shit. No wonder my arm feels better.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m fine. Let’s just go back, ok? Before he comes back.”

Changbin helped you pack up your fallen belongings and guided you home in the cold. You developed a newfound appreciation for the cold. Around the halfway point, the brave Prince dared to hold your hand.

“Stop thinking about it,” he said, referring to his arm.

“You’re so bossy.”

“I don’t like seeing you this way. I also don’t know how to be nice, so… this is the best you’ll get.”

On the way back, you talk about anything and everything that didn’t involve dragons or fire. You learned that Changbin was skilled in jousting, loved to cook, and had a soft spot for the farm animals. He learned all about your parents, your fascination with other creatures, and all things about plant life. You always joked about him not liking you but you somehow still believed he did, and now that he revealed to you deeper layers of himself, it really seemed like he liked you. Even if it was just a little bit, you saw it as an accomplishment.

You were finally back in the village fields come night time. The Kingdom wasn’t totally asleep, but it was peaceful quiet.

“Can I ask you something?” he began as you walked towards the inn. “What’s your plan now?”

“Now? To sleep, of course.”

“No, I mean… You’ve seen all three dragons. You saw the birth of four. Are you done here?”

“You mean am I leaving?”

He nodded. You needed a moment to think about that because honestly, you haven’t thought about when you’d be leaving or when you’d be done here. And you’ve traveled to pretty much everywhere… Where else could you go?

“I could leave if I wanted to. You know, I’ve traveled to every corner of the world in just a few years. I’ve seen many dragons, but none were ever like yours. I guess I could compile all my notes into a proper thesis. Get my book going.” Changbin adored the proud smile on your lips. “I think I’ll do that.”

“Do it here.”

“Here? What do you -?”

“I mean don’t leave.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said that when he saw your cocky smirk. “You’re saying you want me to stay ~?”

“Yes.”

“Because you like me ~?”

“Because you promised I’d read your other notebooks. You need them for your thesis right? Ship them here. I’ll help you write it. I can get you a proper study and room in the castle and get you out of that inn.”

“Wow, a room at the Grande Castle!? You must really like me, Prince.”

“Maybe.” He took advantage of his hold on your hand and pulled you close to him, loving the sound of your giggle. He wrapped his arms around your waist to prevent you from escaping. “Just a little.”

“Enough to kiss me?”

“Do you want me to kiss you, Professor?”

“Don’t turn this on me!”

“Say it and I will.”

“Ugh, I hate you… Kiss me.”

His lips were cold but soft, just like him.

#changbin #seo changbin #skz #stray kids #skz changbin #stray kids changbin #skz scenarios #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #fantasy au #dragon au #royal au #HEHEHEH #it's like..... 2k of back story im sorry

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secretshinigami · 5 years

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Masterlist of Spring Roulette 2020

Thank you everyone for giving this a go. It was a fun round and all gifts are now posted. We will return to our regular method of matching in our next exchange and we look forward to your participation.

Here is a compiled list of everyone’s prompts from this round – thank you for letting us post them, and we hope you guys enjoy them! If you use a prompt, please let us know and we’ll reblog your piece!

Prompts are organized by their submitter, so feel free to ctrl+f to find character-specific prompts.

theallknowingowlagain

Girls’ night with Sachiko and Sayu

Five times Beyond Birthday lost to A, and one time he came out on top

Office AU

A date with Naomi and Raye

What L sees in the dark

L as an actual frog, Light as whatever animal you prefer

hazblogs

Naomi Misora and BB have a fun time looking for clues for the LABB murders, with cheeky banter and Naomi getting a little attached to Beyond

L wins AU, where Light never recovers his memories, but Misa did (following canon). explore how L, knowing that Light is Kira but being unable to either prove it without making Light a criminal, deals with the whole "Light is Kira but he doesn't remember it" situation

Mello is a witch and Near is a vampire he's been hunting for a long time - maybe to discover that he was chasing the wrong target all along

Mello and Near hugging, if possible in casual clothes

Light's mind-shelter, the place in his head he retreats to when the pressure of being Kira becomes too much and he starts to doubt (extremely early in the manga or post L's death)

Naomi Misora and L wearing traditional japanese yukatas at a summer festival

missmomentss

Beyond Birthday going a blind date with A

L meeting Beyond Birthday for the first time

Misa and L have a sleepover party

A switched roles with Beyond Birthday

Sayu is Kira

Mello meeting Beyond Birthday in prison

almostsane-things

DN cast goes to college together, has some unfortunate roommate matches, hijinx ensue

The Kira case from Sayu or Sachiko's POV

AU where Soichiro actually dies from the heart attack he had in the first arc and Light is accused of murdering his dad.

Lowlightprimed AU: The fight between B and L at Wammy's house at the end of the first arc (BBAL)

Lidner and Misora go on an undercover mission on Halloween

Near in harajuku fashion(s), creatively dyed hair is a plus

Beyond Birthday dressed as Winnie the Pooh and eating jam out of a honey-pot.

Mourning the death of various DN characters (Who gets large crowds? Who gets one or two heartfelt mourners? Who gets mourned by no one at all?)

Fake dating sim screenshot featuring character of your choice

beyondplusultra

Wammy House-era Near, Mello, and Matt trying to give L something for Valentine's Day.

The origin of the "Dear Mello" photograph.

Mikami being catfished by Beyond Birthday.

Anything involving Mello, Matt, and Near hanging out (as friends, romantically, or with one of them third-wheeling is fine).

Sayu giving Light his obligatory Valentine's chocolate at his grave.

Light surrounded by chibi versions of the other Kiras, who are clambering over one another to try and be the first to give him their chocolate.

jeepersjeevas

(Anyone!) Person A comes home during a blizzard covered in snow and all grumpy. Person B warms them up with their pj’s and cuddles

Matt/Mello: They get into a heated argument over something trivial in canon. They say some pretty harsh stuff to each other, but make up later

Wammy’s Kids: In which they all sneak out one night to go to the drug store. Upon discovering they’ve forgotten their money they decide to shoplift, using B as their distraction.

B and Matt as best friends post-timeskip

L hardcore crushing on Misa, and she lowkey liking him back (canon)

Makeshift boyband in someone’s garage. Löded Diper vibes. B’s lead singer

jeevas-exe

mello & matt but they have magical powers au

fem!light and takada but one of them borrows a book and doesn't return it so they have to find each other au

canon-compliant character study on sayu, post-canon (when Light dies); pre-canon L first getting into the kira case

au where Light and L become accidental roommates because SOMEONE forgot to pay rent

canon-compliant Mello and Matt find each other between the explosion and the ending

Light and L in some ugly fashion, like dads-on-vacation-in-Florida fashion

Naomi Misora with lots of tattoos!

Rem and Ryuk in human form, with some punk fashion

complicatedmerary

Light and Sayu bake a cake for a birthday surprise party for either parent (Soichiro or Sachiko) of your choice. A lot of family silliness and sibling bickering.

Light and Misa's first official romantic date was a disaster. While it does not shake Misa's devotion, her feelings are hurt.

Death Note is a reality TV show. Yes, there's still a Kira to be caught, but cameras are now involved! The more dramatic, the better!

Mikami and Takada walking side by side out in the winter.

L meeting Wedy and Aiber for the first time.

Demegawa being pampered like the king he believes he is.

babelfell

Reverse!Noel AU (Noel by TzviaAriella): Light won, and threw Near in the cage meant for himself. It's been three years since his victory, and he's starting to get lonely; he goes down to taunt Near. (NOT SHIPPY. Disgusting rivals only, thank u).

Terrace House AU (or 'we all are strangers and have to live together' reality show AU) with the Death Note cast.

Pirate!AU. L is the captain of the ship, and Light is his first mate and plotting a mutiny with his most 'trusted' crew: Takada and Mikami. It's all going well until Misa hears about the plot and wants in...

Light/Near dating sim CG.

Beach Episode feat. Light and Mikami getting iced drinks under an umbrella.

Kiyomi Takada and/or Teru Mikami in a kimono, having tea alone or with one another.

Anonymous

A holiday at Wammy's House (could be Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's day, etc)

Raye and Naomi's first date

LABB beach episode

Older Light braiding Near's very long hair

Naomi and cats

Spider-Man meme but it's L (from the anime/manga) and L (from the 2015 tv drama)

In a no!kira world, both fem!L and fem!light have a crush on misa. how do they try to impress her?

Beyond Birthday “accidentally” (its totally on purpose, he just doesn’t want to admit it) gets involved with the Kira case, and he and Misa become friends while they both annoy light.

Light Yagami wakes up in his teenage bedroom after he died at the Yellow Box warehouse. He still has all his memories, and it’s exactly one day before he originally found the death note.

The Kira case ended years ago, the Wammy’s House is shut down. Only very few of the original Wammy’s kids are still in touch with each other. Linda hasn’t talked to anyone from Wammy’s in years. One day, Near knocks on the front door of her atelier in LA.

Light Yagami is for whatever reason a Wammy’s kid. (Pre-canon, so not even LABB has happened yet, and we’re ignoring the timeline, so L, Light, Beyond, and the other Wammy’s kids (Near, mello, matt, linda) are all the same age.) Chaos ensues.

Fantasy!AU. The noble knight Light Yagami was tasked with slaying the “evil” monster Ryuk. On his journey through a fantasy land while trying to find and defeat the beast he meets many people, like the cutesy goth witch Misa Amane, the baker’s son L Lawliet (Watari’s the baker) and his twin Beyond Birthday, or the group of 4 students from a wealthy orphanage (Wammy’s House is the orphanage, Linda, Matt, Mello, and Near are the students).

Misa posing, while Linda is painting her.

Misa, L, and Light in modern fashion (Misa as an egirl, what fashion L & light wear is ur choice!!)

Misa’s reaction after she used the death note for the first time, viewed through the shinigami eyes. (Maybe she’d also have some blood on her clothes)

An interaction of Mello and Near pre-canon when they were still in Wammy’s House.

A drawing of the characters mentioned the fantasy!au fanfic prompt, goofing off. (doesn’t have to be all characters, just choose the ones you wanna draw!!)

Misa Amane sitting in a Wammy’s House foyer with the Wammy’s kids (Near, Mello, Matt, Linda). They’re all the same age, Misa’s also a Wammy’s kid.

Several years post-canon, Near decides to (or has to because circumstances) tell Sachiko and Sayu the truth about Light.

Pre-canon Light and Yamamoto hanging out at an arcade, being early 2000s teens in peace.

Actor AU. Light is a young Japanese actor getting his first Hollywood role under L, a notoriously difficult director who never shows his face. (Not Lawlight, other ships welcome.)

Near and Light playing a piano duet.

Naomi kicking ass in her wedding dress in a Kill Bill-esque fashion.

Ryuk trying to play Switch and struggling to use the Joycons with his huge hands, to Light's amusement.

#death note #prompt list #Spring Roulette 2020

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zer0pm · 5 years

Text

No Name (6/?)

A/N: Thanks again to everyone that has been sticking with this story so far. I know the build is slow, but I’m hoping that it’ll be all worth it once more intimate scenes with V come into play ;) Right now, we’re covering the scenes from the game so hope everyone that has already played likes revisiting the poison tree.

Pairing: V x Fem!Reader

The reader along with V and the rest of Dante’s crew approach the Qliphoth, a demon tree that grows in the underworld and has sprouted directly in the middle of Red Grave City.

In all of my years, I’ve never seen anything like this.

A gargantuan tree- No. Even that word didn’t feel like it was enough to paint the sheer size of this massive phenomenon. You were straining your neck just trying to look out for the top of it as its girth pierces through the clouds above. From what you can tell, this wasn’t even all of it as it appears its roots dig far below the city.

V: “And it grew both day and night, ‘til it bore an apple bright.”

V, who was beside you the entire way, was reading from his book. You gather that he is a man who prefers poetry over the spectacle that has the passerby around you both look over the tree in awe and anxious anticipation.

You: “What is this thing?”

V: “The Qliphoth. It is a tree that grows in the underworld.”

The underworld... It is true that demons have found ways to steal themselves into the world of mortals, but to have some of this scale come from that same place, it sent a terrible feeling across your spine.

You: “And how did it spread to here?”

Dante: “Doesn’t matter.”

The both of you turn around to see Dante with two ladies who were following him in tow, the three of them with very large weapons on their backs.

Dante: “We go in. Kill the bastard behind this, get out, tree is gone. Then Imma reward myself with an extra large pizza, end of story.”

You roll your eyes. There he goes again. Ever since V revealed the name of the target, Dante has been especially dismissive, hardly speaking a word and even then, it was curt and rude. The man chased you out of the office to speak with V. He was showing the not-so-attractive side of him that you recognized when he meant serious business, but there was something in the way that he acted towards this particular mission that made you wonder about the whole thing. Who is Vergil? And what is his connection to Dante? What is his connection to V? It seems that neither men are pressed to answer that for you, so for now you have set your questions aside. You greet the two women beside Dante. The petite brunette smiles at you while the statuesque blonde nods in acknowledgement.

Dante: “Alright, Mr. Poetry. My backup. As you requested. Meet Trish.”

His thumb points towards the blonde who had her hand on her hip and acknowledged you and V with a curt nod.

Dante: “And Lady. You two have something in common. She has a fake name too.”

The brunette throws a murderous glare at Dante immediately. The look she wore was almost hilarious.

Dante: “And you already know Neff.”

V: “Neff?”

You: “It’s uh...a nickname. From back in my devil hunting days.”

Lady: “She was pretty good at her job. Probably better than Dante.”

Dante: “I heard that.”

The smaller woman giggles, strutting past the group to approach the tree. Trish follows, her arms crossed. As she passes, she turns her head slightly.

Trish: “You look better.”

You: “I feel better.”

Trish: “Good. I hope then that this job will not take us long.”

Without waiting for your answer, Trish continues onward. Dante lingers in front of you and V for a moment, his eyes on you entirely. There is a thin line on his lips in place of where his trademark smirk would usually be, his eyes wincing a tad to a slight glare.

Dante: “You really were good at your job.”

You: “...I know.”

Memories of your time as part of his crew comes back to you and it took every ounce of your willpower to shove it back to the recesses of your mind. What happened back then has long past now and had no bearing to the present. Dante looked like he wanted to say more, his mouth hung open indicating this before shutting it completely. With a grunt, he joins Lady and Trish towards the entrance of the Qliphoth. Now it was just you and V.

V: “I have the impression that there is some unfinished business between you and Dante.”

You: “Nope, business absolutely finished. We just went our separate ways after my last job, is all.”

V: “Separated on good terms?”

You: “It ended in a way where, if needed, I can do what needs to be done and he can do what needs to be done and no one would question the integrity of our work.”

Your tone came off a little more harshly than intended, as V was visibly taken aback. He seems to ponder over your words carefully just as well as you tactfully stringed them together. You hoped that it was enough to hint that you didn’t want to talk about it and was grateful that he changed the topic, disarming you with a familiar smile.

V: “It was unexpected, you know, seeing you. I had wished to visit you once more before reaching the tree.”

You: “You said that in your note this morning. I didn’t know if you meant it at the time or was just being polite.”

V: “A bit of both.”

You both share a light laugh between you. It brought you back to yesterday, the night when you two talked for a bit and shared dinner together.

V: “I also didn’t expect you to not only be a devil hunter, but an acqaintance of the devil hunter I was looking to recruit for this arduous task.”

You shrugged.

You: “You didn’t ask. Honestly, didn’t expect to see you so soon too, and employing Dante of all people.”

V: “Yes, suppose the expression “small world” would apply here.”

You: “You can say that again.”

V: “Suppose the expression-”

You: “V!”

You didn’t mean to, but him teasing you caused you to lightly smack him on the arm, earning from him a mischievously chuckle whose sound spread to your own lips.

You: “V... It’s so weird calling you that. Where did it even come from?”

The book in his hand closed and he offers it for you to look. On the cover of the hard bound poetry collection he carried was a giant gold “V” in the middle of delicate gold designs.

V: “Gather you can surmise the inspiration.”

You: “Aha, must be a really good read. This design is beautiful.”

A thought came to your mind.

You: “You didn’t mug a guy for this one, did you?”

A light-hearted laugh fills the air around you and it stirred you pleasantly inside knowing that the sound belonged to none other than V.

V: “If you must know, I came across this book legitimately. It belongs to me, I was merely retrieving it.”

You: “That’s what you were doing this morning?”

V: “Among other things.”

You noted how V was lost in his reading in the way to the Qliphoth, speaking only when spoken to. With the way he kept the book on his person and worked the length of each page with those green eyes intently, you knew that the man not only had an affinity for poetry, but the book itself held sentimental value to him.

You: “You should read a few lines to me. Slaying demons isn’t the prettiest of jobs, but...maybe some classical influence might add a little finesse to it. What do you say?”

The man smiles at your suggestion, watching you admire his book with genuine interest in your eyes, catching how you were skimming across every detail in tandem with your fingertips. He was tempted to read another passage aloud to you as requested, to gauge your reaction and, with a sliver of hopeful expectations, to see if you genuinely enjoyed the written arts as well. It would please him greatly if it were so. V dashed the fantasy when he remembered where he was standing and why.

V: “Another time, perhaps. We have a more pressing engagement.”

This made you frown, you looked away from the book to engage V directly. Your expression returns to that of a professional.

You: “Right.”

He turns to face you completely, looking down at you with those green eyes of his. Despite his youthful features, the way V speaks, his movements, his eyes- all depict that of an old soul. It made you want to learn more about him. You made a silent vow to ask him if he would concede to this after the job despite what he just said, suggesting that perhaps you two can form some sort of bond when all was said and done. For now, however, he was right. You had a job to do. Looking back towards the demon tree, you already gauge that scaling the thing was going to be a long evening.

You: “Let’s go kill some demons.”

He hums in agreement and follows behind you as you both walked to rejoin Dante, Lady, and Trish. You did not know what awaited you within but was determined to meet it. As everyone said before, you were damn good at your job. Devil hunting is in your blood, afterall.

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four-loose-screws · 5 years

Text

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 7 Part 4

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

T/N: Chapter 7′s title completely spoils one of the big events of the chapter, so I won’t be putting it in my tumblr posts like I usually do. You can check out the Google Doc, where I could hide it. Highlight the Table of Contents page to see it. In the event that this is your first experience with FE4′s plot, read the title after Chapter 7 Part 3. Those who have played FE4, it is of course nothing you don’t already know.

———————————

Chapter 7

Part 4

Text under cut for spoilers.

Sigurd's army stopped at Augusty Castle to rest.

Waiting there for Sigurd was the news of Deirdre's disappearance.

Shanan managed to explain what had happened through his tears. "I asked everyone, but no one saw her leave the castle. I thought she was in her room, so I left for a bit, and when I came back, she was gone! I'm so sorry, I swore I'd protect her…"

"And Seliph? What about Seliph!?"

"He's okay. There's always been someone with him since it happened…"

"I see… Thank goodness for that. It's not your fault, Shanan. Don't worry about it any longer. I'll look for her."

"But I wish I'd stayed with them the whole time! I'm so sorry, Sigurd…"

Sigurd asked everyone who'd been at the castle what happened, just to be sure, but Shanan had been right. It was as if she'd disappeared from within her room. He couldn't imagine she'd chosen to leave on her own.

'Someone must have kidnapped her.' He thought while looking around her room. 'But who would take her, and why?'

He had a feeling that an evil presence was at work here.

The next day, he received the news that Eldigan had been executed.

The news of two tragedies at once of course brought him down, and he said to Oifey, "What have I been fighting for? My beloved wife disappeared, and even Eldigan is dead. It's all my fault."

"Sigurd, whatever you do, don't blame yourself. We should work to make Eldigan's dying wish come true, and return peace to Augustria right away."

"You're right. I'm sorry for saying such a thing to you. The one standing in the way of peace is Chagall. We must also avenge Eldigan. Let's tell everyone the news, then announce that we’ll deploy in the morning."

The next day, while preparing to deploy, they received word that pirates were attacking Madino Castle.

"Perfect timing! We can take out all the people harming the citizens at once!" Sigurd said, and after consulting with Oifey, organized a rescue unit to go to Madino.

Though Beowulf still forbade it, Lachesis chose to march on the front line in the attack on Silvali Castle.

When she saw the first line of enemy defense, she rushed ahead and lead the army in their attack. By the time Beowulf realized what she'd done, she'd already killed her first enemy.

'Eldie!' Her sword cut through a knight's armor.

At the same time, he thrust his lance at her. However, she predicted his movements, and he moved slowly, so she was able to just barely dodge his lance and attack again.

The knight screamed and fell on his back.

Not even a second later, Beowulf made his horse jump, then he slayed the enemy next to her.

Now sure that there were no other dangers around her, Lachesis stabbed her sword through the knight's throat. 'Eldie!'

"Lachesis, you pass!"

When he called out to her, she finally realized who it was that had defeated the enemy next to her.

"That’s how desperation feels. You may fight however you like. But remember, there is never a guarantee that you’ll win.”

“I understand, Beowulf…” She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

“Good. Eldigan gave his life to teach you that. Well, I’m going on ahead. Let’s meet up again later.” Beowulf said, then galloped off to catch back up with the cavalry unit.

‘Eldie… I’ll do as you asked. I won’t die. When I stabbed that enemy and watched him writhe, I learned just what death is. No… I learned what life is. I will live, Eldie!’

Most of the soldiers guarding Silvali Castle were Eldigan’s Cross Knights, so once Sigurd’s army broke through the first line, they faced almost no opposition.

The moment Sigurd burst into the castle, Chagall threw down his sword. “I call a cease-fire! I believe that you’re serious about your promise. I vow not to fight until Grannvale withdraws from Augustria!”

“Do you have any idea what Eldigan died for!?” Sigurd screamed, glaring straight into Chagall’s eyes.

“I-I do! I’m sorry! I surrender! I surrender, so please…”

“I would never accept your surrender! I’m here to avenge Eldigan!”

“Wait, please! I’ll do whatever you want!” Chagall pleaded, falling to his hands and knees and clasping his hands together.

“Eldigan!” Sigurd screamed as hard as he could, and brought his sword down.

The area surrounding the Bragi Tower was completely deserted, as people had stopped going on pilgrimages because of the war.

Claud and Tailtiu entered the tower and climbed up the spiral staircase that hugged the wall.

Along the way, Claud explained the meaning of the paintings of Maera’s life on the walls.

In the middle of the top floor was an intricately carved platform, and atop it floated the Valkyrie Staff.

“Wow, it’s so beautiful!” Tailtiu breathed. “May I touch it, Father?”

“Yes, go ahead. However, it will touch back…”

She gingerly extended her hand. However, around the staff was a barrier, so she could not touch it. “Oh I see, that’s what you meant!”

“Yes, that’s what I was referring to. The visitors to this tower may be on pilgrimages, but some of them still have impure hearts.” When Claud reached out for the staff, the gem set upon the tip began to glow. He was able to grab it easily. Once he had it, he said to Tailtiu, “I’m sorry, but I must ask you to wait downstairs. I need to be alone while I pray.”

“Wow, what a mean rule!”

“It’s not mean… It’s in place because the truth is always terrifying. Most average people cannot comprehend that fear.”

“I don’t really get it…”

“That doesn’t make it any less true. Now please…”

“I at least understand what you’re asking! I’ll be waiting, so try not to take too long!”

Once Tailtiu had left, Claud sat on the floor, held up the staff with both hands, and began to pray.

After a few moments, the gem began to emit a faint light.

The light gradually brightened, and the gem grew until it covered his entire field of vision, then finally showed him a moving image.

The image showed him the truth of Prince Kurt’s assassination.

As the inheritor to the staff, he watched in indifference.

The gem continued its projection.

The image gradually changed, until it finally became clear that the gem was starting to show him the future.

It was a very grim future that shook Claud’s heart. He tried to maintain his indifference, but could no longer do it.

‘Is this really what should happen?’ He thought, then the projection vanished.

When he snapped back to reality, he realized that he was breathing very hard, and covered in sweat.

He wiped away the sweat, calmed his breathing, then began to pray again.

The gem got bigger and bigger, until it began to show him another projection.

Since he knew what he would see this time, he was able to maintain his composure.

The projection concluded with the Battle of Balhalla.

Then, suddenly, it stopped once more.

‘What should I do?’

He thought back to the very beginning of the projection. Not once had the staff shown him what his part in any of it was.

‘The staff knew very well that I cannot do anything about what is to happen.’

But, according to what he’d been taught about the staff, it was supposed to provide some sort of guide for him.

‘If I don’t know, then I must think it over once more.’ Claud thought, then stood up.

He went to put it back in its place, but then changed his mind. ‘There are many things that are about to happen. I’ll keep it in my possession.’

He walked down the stairs with the Valkyrie Staff in hand.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he didn’t see Tailtiu anywhere.

He went outside, and saw her looking out at the sea, where the sun was setting.

She did not react, continuing to stare, even as he got closer to her.

“What’s wrong, Tailtiu?”

She gasped and whirled around. “Oh, Father! You scared me!” She said and wrapped her arms around him.

“What happened?”

“Our boat’s gone! I think pirates took it!”

“Really? That is quite troubling. If we don’t have a boat… Well, then, we have no choice but to go home by land.” Claud said, in the same tone as ever.

Tailtiu looked up at him. “You’re not scared, Father?”

“Me? No, not really… There are things that happen in this world that we can do nothing about.”

‘A missing boat is nothing in comparison with what’s about to happen.’ He thought, but knew that he could not say aloud.

After conquering Silvali Castle, Sigurd went straight to Madino.

He had to face the battle before him, and tried to forget about all that had happened.

The defense unit at Madino Castle was small, so while they put up a fight at first, once the rest of Sigurd’s army arrived and they saw the true size of it, the tides began to turn.

When a section of the castle wall crumbled, the pirates started to flee.

“Don’t any of you run away! Keep fighting!” Pizarl, who was leading them, screamed over and over at the top of his lungs.

Arden sauntered up to him.

“You dare to challenge me!?” Pizarl took a step forward and threw himself into swinging his axe. However, Arden dodged it very swiftly for someone wearing heavy armor, then stabbed a killing blow through the pirate’s abdomen.

With their leader gone, the pirates were defeated. The remaining crew members fled to their boats docked on the shore, and rowed back to their ships.

They left behind several boats and a large number of corpses.

They soon raised the flags of their three ships, and slowly disappeared.

They appeared to be returning to one of the islands.

‘Now peace has finally been returned to Augustria!’ Sigurd thought, and breathed a sigh of relief.

However, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Erinys flew in from the south and landed her pegasus next to him.

Shanan was the first to dismount, rolling off the pegasus and onto the ground. He was holding Seliph tightly in his arms. “We’re in trouble, Sigurd! The Grannvalian Army is attacking!”

“Huh? Grannvalian Army is doing what?”

“Erinys saw them! She decided to take Seliph to safety first, so she carried us here!”

“Then we have to send reinforcements right away…”

“No, you don’t understand what’s going on!” Erinys jumped off her pegasus and said.

“Their numbers are endless, and they’re marching straight towards Augusty! We can’t possibly hold them off, so I told everyone in Augusty to run away as quickly as they could. The castle should be empty now.”

“How long will it take the enemy to get there?”

“About one day.”

“And if they hurry along at the same pace to Madino, it will take them three days to reach here…”

‘We have until then to do something.’ Sigurd bit his lip. ‘But what should we do? If we decide to run, the sea is all we have in front of us.’

The man leading the Grannvalian Army was Lombard of House Dozel.

He was the only person to claim he’d witnessed Prince Kurt’s assasination.

When Lombard returned to Balhalla, he went to King Azmur straight away and testified.

“One night, when we were camping in the desert, I saw Duke Byron and Duke Ring invite Prince Kurt to go somewhere with them, and the prince left his tent and went with them.

“I was suspicious of what they were doing, so followed them. Duke Byron and Duke Ring were carrying torches, but I didn’t bring one with me, so they didn’t realize I was following them.

“We walked for about twenty minutes, I believe. Then, at the bottom of a sand dune, suddenly, one of the torches dropped lower. I heard the prince scream “What are you doing!?” and nothing else.

“My instincts told me they’d done something to hurt him, so I screamed, “Prince Kurt, what happened!? Everyone’s going to come help you!” I was alone, but wanted to make it sound like I had a large group of people with me.

“This time, both torches dropped lower. It looked like they were trying to run away, so I chased after them. Then, I saw Prince Kurt lying on the ground. Tragically, he’d already stopped breathing by then. The wound was a stab wound to the chest, caused by a sword. The others who saw his body can also confirm this. Byron and Ring never returned to their tents.”

No other witnesses stepped forward, so Dukes Byron and Ring were accused of assassinating Prince Kurt, and the order was given to arrest Sigurd.

Lombard went to his soldiers and ordered them, “Capture the traitor, Sigurd! Kill anyone who disobeyed His Majesty’s orders! Do not hesitate, even against the women! Kill them all!”

#fire emblem #fe #fe4 #genealogy of the holy war #nintendo #super nintendo #snes #famicom #super famicom #japan #japanese #translation #novel #light novel #fe4 suzuki novelization translation

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thecursedvaultchild · 5 years

Text

Year 5 - The Vault (Part 2)

Looking between the various limbs of her friends, Summer saw Rakepick. Standing near the door. With a smirk that could put the trickiest fox to shame. “None of you are going into that room. I was here first.”

Merula sounded shaken. “Madam Rakepick…?”

“But we all transported in together—” Charlie’s explanation of why that didn’t make any logical sense was quickly put off by Bill’s wheeze.

“Not now, Charlie…”

Summer pushed herself onto her knees, glaring up at her. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. You came here. Years ago. With my brother.”

“Clever, Charn. But not clever enough. Yes, I’ve been to the Cursed Vaults before. With Jacob. And Peter Pettigrew, too. I was working with both of them. Same plan, same Portkey.” Rakepick crossed her arms and had the audacity to look annoyed. “But that power-hungry Pettigrew lost his nerve as soon as he saw the Horntail…Transported out with the portrait and went into hiding, leaving your brother and me to die.”

Blood pounded through her head. She glared up at the woman she had trusted. “So my brother is dead.” She hated the thought, hated how her voice cracked, hated this wretched witch.

She examined her gloved nails, truly an act of petty condescension. “We distracted the dragon for as long as we could. Long enough for your brother to use his Legilimency abilities to open the door. Only a Legilimens can unlock the treasures within this Cursed Vault.”

“And you knew this all along,” spat Summer.

“Of course. It’s why I needed your brother. And why I needed you.”

Bill also got to his knees. “Why did you need the rest of us?”

“Dragon bait.” She chuckled. “Jacob and I alone weren’t able to defeat the dragon so I knew I’d need more students. I figured together you’d slay the dragon. Or die trying. It’s why I held Miss Charn back from approaching the door first. I couldn’t risk putting my key to the door on the front line of a dragon battle.”

“Funny. It happened anyway. I took the dragon on myself. I guess you must be a pretty pathetic witch if you need to recruit children to do your dirty work.”

“Quite the contrary. The rest of you ‘curse-breakers?’ Collateral damage, I’m afraid. Entirely expendable to me.”

Out of nowhere, Bill rushed Rakepick, but she casually blasted him back.

“Bill!” The younger Weasley pulled him onto his lap.

“I’m all right, Charlie…”

“Where is my brother?! What happened to him, you vile fiend!”

“Manners, Miss Charn. He opened the door but we hadn’t defeated the dragon as you did, only held it off. So the Portrait Curse was never broken. The dragon was trapped once again in a portrait…And so was Jacob.”

“In there? With the Hungarian Horntail?”

“No, in another portrait. In the room beyond that door…"

A sob escaped her body. Jacob was alive. Of course he was, he had to be! He was just trapped inside a portrait this whole time. She had to save him. But how with Rakepick blocking the entrance…?

Rage flashing across her features, she charged Rakepick.

“Petrifius Totalus!”

But with a wand flick, her wand hit nothing and she too was sent flying back.

“First, Bill. Then you. I just told you…none of you are going into that room.”

“I have to save Jacob! You! You just left my brother trapped here in a portrait for all this time!”

“Is that all you ever think of, Miss Charn? Your brother who abandoned you and left a legacy to haunt you for the rest of your days? You really are a Slytherin.

“I had no choice but to leave him. I touched the column in the room, but it didn’t unlock any treasure. It transported me out and into the Forbidden Forest. I don’t know why. I suppose with the dragon still in play and the curse unbroken, the treasure was still untouchable. With no Portkey and no clue as to what rock Pettigrew crawled under, I had no way of returning here. Until I found my back into Hogwarts and found you.”

Summer was going to tear this witch apart alive.

“You could’ve tried to save him!”

“I’m afraid finding my way back into the vault and its treasure took up all of my time. You know how it is,” she purred. “You’re obsessed with the Cursed Vaults, too.”

That hit deep. Was she into this to save people, like Beatrice and Jacob? Or was it the thrill?

“I was trying to break curses and find my brother, not find some stupid mystery treasure!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Miss Charn.

“As I said, I was transported out of here against my will so I had no choice but to leave Jacob behind. But if I did have a choice…I would have left him here to rot anyway.”

“HE TRUSTED YOU, YOU SELFISH WITCH!”

“So did all of you at one point or another. The good news is, I won’t sentence you to a fate as long and grueling as Jacob’s…You’ve outlived your usefulness so I’ll kill you all now—”

For once, Rakepick was cut off instead of doing the cutting off. Summer looked over to see Merula had shot a nonverbal spell at her. Rakepick flinched back but the stalked forward with the grace of a fox that had cornered its prey.

“Crucio!”

To Summer’s horror, Merula began to thrash around on the ground, writhing, screaming in pure agony. It was awful, awful. The fox didn’t even look bothered, as if she was squashing a bug instead of torturing the girl that had looked up to her as if she were the sun.

“You wanted to learn how to cast Crucio, Miss Snyde…Are you taking notes?”

Merula’s screams continued.

“We have to stop Rakepick!” Summer pushed herself back to her feet, drawing her wand.

“Expelliarmus!”

The spell was nonchalantly blocked. Summer cursed under her breath. Why had she not started practicing nonverbal spells yet?

Her heart leapt along with the three Gryffindor boys as they jumped up and entered the fray alongside her. She couldn’t ask for better friends. Maybe Ben really was becoming more brave. And less irritating.

But their spells also just bounced off her Shield Charm.

“It’s not working!” shouted Ben.

“She’s too strong!” agreed Charlie.

“Keep at it! We can’t let her win!” Bill sounded furious.

Merula screamed again. “Whyyyy?!”

“Why? I owe you no explanation or apology. Remember what I once told you? ‘Never apologize for doing what you know in your heart that you absolutely must do, Merula.’ You thanked me for the advice, you needy little witch! At least Azkaban is giving your parents a well-deserved break from you.”

Merula screamed.

“You heart is as foul and black as the hell you came from, fiend! You can burn in it too, for all I care!” Summer shot a Confringo at her but she merely deflected it again.

With an almost bored expression, Rakepick turned her head towards her. “I’m under orders from my associates that one of your dreadfully dull friends has to die this year. Why not Merula? She thinks she’s my favorite? Is she anyone’s?” Like the mad witch she was, she actually cackled.

“Bill, I’ve just thought of something,” Summer whispered. “Keep on Rakepick…Then go with all you’ve got on my count of three.”

“You’ve got it, Summer.”

Well, Snape said one day I’d need to use this against her. Guess he was right. Typical.

“One…two…THREE!” Summer chucked the bottle of Garroting Gas and it exploded at her feet.

As the gas swirled around her, Rakepick began gasping for air. For the first time, Summer saw genuine, unadulterated fear in her eyes. And Summer loved it.

The boys attacked her and this time their spells all hit, throwing her backwards.

Summer raised her wand to cast one more spell. A curse, actually. She said it just softly enough that the boys wouldn’t hear but with all the ferocity of a dragon. “Sectumsempra.” Rakepick began to convulse and blood slowly starting spilling out of her. A tingling sensation rushed through Summer’s veins and pleasure swelled in her chest. She could’ve purred. The cat had finally snagged down the tail feathers of the two-faced crow. And it was so, so satisfying

“That’s for Merula and my brother and everyone you’ve hurt, you witch!”

“This isn’t the end! You won’t stop ‘R’—we’re too powerful! I will get to the final Cursed Vault before you! The treasure will belong to ‘R’!” Glaring up at Summer, she vanished.

“What? Where’d she go?”

“Disapparated, I guess? She told us this vault was off school grounds.”

Summer ignored them and the spot where Rakepick had been just moments before. “Merula! Merula, it’s okay. it’s over. Rakepick’s gone. You’re safe.” She knelt and picked up the other girl’s body, hugging her tightly.

Merula was trembling like a baby bird. It wrenched Summer’s heart. Sure, Merula could be obnoxious and cruel at times and they weren’t exactly the best of friends, but seeing her like this? She didn’t deserve this.

“Your brother…” Her voice was faint. “Go to your brother…”

Summer looked over at the door. Her brother…Jacob…

“Go, Summer.” Bill put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got her. Go save Jacob.”

She nodded, gently passing her over to Bill. Charlie crouched down beside him while Ben remained watchful behind them.

Slowly, she walked towards the door. Jacob was just beyond in that room.

She climbed into the portrait.

First thing she noticed was the overwhelming amount of paintings. Portraits everywhere. All shapes and sizes, covering the walls, all the way up and up. Wizards, knights, even arbitrary landscapes! She had to find the one Jacob was trapped in. She hoped it wasn’t another painting with a dragon. Why were there so many?

She carefully started circling the room, checking every portrait. Nothing. And all the occupants were watching her with way too much interest. Except one.

One had a figure with their back to her. They appeared to have their head in their hands and they had given up on the world. Such a forlorn figure…As she got closer, the more sure she was it was him. It had to be. Her heart told her it must be so, it must be the brother she loved. The brother she followed and broke rules for and nearly died for. It had to be him. At the portrait, she tried to reach for him, but could only put her hand against it. The figure seemed to notice a disturbance. They got up and walked forward, steps long and heavy. Exhaustion seeped out of them. Stepping into the light, he placed his hand on hers in the painting.

“Hey, Pip.”

Jacob. He was different but it was him no doubt. He’d gotten paler. His frame was gaunt, heavy clothes hanging loosely around him. His hair was long now, silver like hers. Though darker. It flopped limply across his sunken eyes. Those familiar blue eyes. She’d know them anywhere.

“Jacob.”

“It’s good to see you. And that you got past the dragon alive. If you could just let me out…” His eyes moved towards the column in the center.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him as she slowly backed up and touched it. The portrait blazed with light. It nearly blinded her, but she squinted against it. As the magic fell away, he fell out of the frame. And she rushed to catch him.

“JACOB!”

She grabbed a hold of him and he of her. And the two newly reunited siblings sunk down to their knees, clutching each other like they’d never let go. Her face burrowed into his chest. His chin rested on her head. Her body heaved with every sob, fingers tight. Tears dropped onto her hair. He held her tighter. Everything she had done for the past five years had led to this moment, to finding her brother. All her emotions came bubbling out as she cried into his shirt. She felt she was a little kid again. Like when Jacob comforted her after their mum confiscated the Cornish Pixie she had kept in a jar and grown rather attached to. Or that time they had fought over whatever silly thing but he still slipped into her room that night, pretending she was the one afraid of thunderstorms instead of him and sleeping cuddled up together. Or them playing in the garden and accidentally eating the wrong kind of berries and ended up sick for a week. Oh, how she had missed him and he had missed her. And here they were. They were together again.

“Oh, Summer. I’m so sorry.”

“You should be, you big dummy.”

“I already said it, Pip, what more do you want from me?” His voice was faintly teasing.

“Don’t get stuck in anymore cursed situations I’ve got to break.”

He chuckled. “I’ll try. But no promises.”

She pulled back a bit, resting on her heels as she just looked at him. Jacob. He was here. Alive! It seemed almost too good to be true. Her grip tightened even more. It felt like a hazy dream that she’d lose forever if she let go. So many years without him. Years of desperately trying to find him, heeding the faint words he spoke to her. She saw herself almost going mad with obsession trying to find him. If he left her grasp…

“I missed you so much. And still with the nickname?”

“Well, you may have gotten taller, but you’re still a pipsqueak next to me.” His voice softened. “And… I missed you too. Trust me, I wasn’t intending to get trapped in a portrait for five years. I always planned on coming back for you.”

“I never stopped looking for you.”

“Yeah, what took you so long?”

She shot him a look.

He laughed. “Yeah, I know. I was really hard to find.”

“You’re in a place most people don’t believe exists, Jacob.”

“Fair point.”

He looped a finger around one of her silver locks, examining it. “You must have gone through a lot to get here…you even were cursed by the ice like me.”

“I’ve been haunted by you ever since you left. I guess I also followed in your footsteps, stepped into your shoes. All to find you.” She chuckled. “So much so that the Ministry has a file on me and concern on my rogue Curse-Breaking.”

“Wow. Did you steal my reputation entirely?”

“No. Mum still wishes she had you helping her in the gardens as her Number One Assistant. It’s a miracle I haven’t killed everything in the school Greenhouses yet.” She locked onto his bluer-than-green eyes. “There’s so much I want to tell you, Jakey. And so much you need to tell me. All the rumors, surely they can’t be true. I’ve always believed in you.”

He pulled her back into a hug. “Thank you. For not giving up on me.”

“I’d never. You’re my big brother.

“But you still have some explaining to do. I’ve become an Animagus and a prefect and got a year-long detention. I have fought dementors, acromantulas, and a flipping Hungarian Horntail. I have nearly died to come and find you and the dragon wasn’t even trying to kill me the most, it was ‘R,’ and you owe me—”

“Wait! ‘R’? You know about them?” His eyes were wild and he seemed to instantly age the five years he missed in the portrait.

“They’ve been after me for years, keep trying to kill me or one of my friends. Rakepick just did the latest attempt—”

He suddenly snarled and a shadow came across his face that made him look more animal than human. She quietly wondered if he too had become an Animagus or…had been bitten.

“Rakepick? You know her? That awful witch?”

Her eyes darkened. “She tricked us all, even when I had my suspicions. She manipulated me, tortured one of my friends, and left you behind. She got away. I Sectumsempra her before she Apparated though. Hope it hurts. She deserves it.”

He shook her shoulders rather violently. “She just Apparated? Right now?!”

“Yeah…”

“I have to leave. Now!” He shot up, going for his wand. “This is exactly what I didn’t want…”

Before he could cast anything, his wand flew out of his hand. And ended up in Summer’s. She was glaring with tears in her eyes, her own wand pointed at him. “No. You aren’t leaving me again.”

“Summer, I wanted to protect you and the family from ‘R’—”

“Take me with you. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’ve done so much over the years to find you. I’m a powerful witch now. We can take on Rakepick together. Whatever it takes, even if I have to Avada Kedavra every one of their agents myself.”

“YOU’RE FIFTEEN! THIS IS MY FIGHT, NOT YOURS, SUMMER GWYNDOLYN CHARN!”

“YOU’RE MY BROTHER, JACOB ASTER CHARN! YOUR FIGHT IS MY FIGHT!”

“GO BACK HOME!” He breathed rapidly, staring at her. “Go home, Pip. I’m supposed to protect you, not lead you to your death. ‘R’ was supposed to stay away from you. I’ve got to go stop them from getting the treasure! Don’t you understand?!”

He tried to grab her shoulders again but she held her wand against his throat.

“Don’t leave me again.” The plea was quiet but desperate.

“I’ve got to go. You know how it is. Slytherins use whatever means necessary to achieve their own ends.”

And while she wasn’t looking, he snatched his wand from her grasp and spun away.

“I’m sorry, but I have to do this. I love you. We’ll find each other again. Be safe.” He paused before he Apparated away. “Don’t tell Mum.”

And with that, Summer was left alone once again by her brother, sobbing.

Fin.

#hogwarts mystery #hogwartsmystery #hphm jacob #jacob's sibling #summer charn #ben copper #bill weasley #charlie weasley #merula snyde #madam rakepick #rakepick #patricia rakepick #hphm year 5 #hphm #the cursed vault

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sheikah · 6 years

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A rant no one asked for about the potential for a bad ending to s8:

Every time I see an interview or serious discussion about the ending to GoT, it’s cryptic and ominous as fuck. While sometimes we can attribute this to cast members being sad about closing this chapter of their lives, there is still room to interpret most comments as a negative view of the ending itself--something that will upset the audience, divide them, stir up controversy, make people cry, etc.

This is immediately followed by general panic and rampant speculation from the fandom, usually that our faves are going to die. For the past year, I’ve combated this by trying to stick to my guns about the ending being overall good, saying that my interpretation of a “bittersweet” ending is not a tragic ending. After all, that’s how GRRM has characterized his ending before.

But now even I’m starting to doubt. Yes, people can mislead fans deliberately in interviews. We’ve seen it happen again and again prior to past seasons. But I don’t feel that same vibe this time. There’s this common denominator among all of the interviews and comments about the ending--that it’s “fitting” of the series, or how it “had to be” this way, etc etc. In other words, an ending in-keeping with the general tone that we’ve seen on GoT over the past several years, with the implication that it’s a hard pill to swallow, but there’s no other way.

THAT is what has me finally giving into the panic that others feel. Because just like everyone else, I know that the thing that first made GoT famous and set it apart, the thing that made it water-cooler-conversation fodder all over the world, was its ability to shock us. I mean really shock us. By “us” I mean the GA--mostly non-book readers who were totally fucking floored by things like Ned’s death, the Red Wedding, etc. When these sorts of shocking, utterly tragic deaths happened, I would see reviews or critiques of the show mentioning how brave or ballsy it was to be that subversive, to see the heroes killed off so brutally. It was praised.

So when people say that the ending is going to be the fitting ending for GoT, even characterizing it as what “had” to be, something “brave” on the part of the writers, I am starting to agree that this spells doom for our heroes.

And that’s fucking stupid.

Being subversive is all well and good, but there needs to be a point.

I’ve seen people defend the idea of a tragic ending by reciting that stupid Ramsay Bolton line: “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.” Basically they’re saying that since most of the show thus far has been unhappy, the ending should be the same.

Fuck that. I think it’s the opposite. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the reason the whole entire world is still obsessed with GoT years later is not its shock value. It’s also not the titties, or the violence, or the blockbuster-film-caliber effects and battle scenes. It’s the characters. We love these characters. We’re obsessed with this characters. We cry for these characters. We analyze them and draw them and paint them and write about them. Why would we want to see them all destroyed?

People are so compelled by GoT not because it massacres its cast of characters, but because the audience is so desperate and eager to see it all come full circle. We haven’t ever seen characters on a television show suffer as hard for as long as we’ve seen the characters on GoT suffer. So people keep watching, hanging off the edge of their seats, tweeting and live blogging and crying and ranting because we’re waiting for the payoff.

We can tolerate what happened to Ned because we eventually saw Joffrey die horribly. We can stand knowing that monsters like Meryn Trant exist because heroes like Arya are there to stand in their way. We can sit through Cersei’s horrific walk of atonement because we know that she destroyed the religious fanatics who were tearing the country apart. We face the seemingly hopeless war with the White Walkers because Daenerys Targaryen has dragons and the courage to ride them.

We keep tuning in again and again, getting kicked while we’re down, and getting back up to watch our faves suffer. We do it because we’re waiting for the Dream of Spring to come true.

So stop accepting this line of bullshit that we like GoT because it’s crazy and shocking and upsetting, and that the brave, fitting ending would be equally crazy, shocking, and upsetting. No. Absolutely fucking not.

The brave, fitting ending would be to spare the little girl who suffered alone and afraid in the Dothraki Sea, the girl who grew up to return home in a blaze of glory to claim her birthright and save her kingdom. The brave, fitting ending would give that same girl a life and the family that she thinks is lost to her forever. To let a woman be the one riding the dragons and slaying the monsters, and not taking her life in exchange for her hard work.

The brave, fitting ending would be to let the bastard boy who literally died defending his people find a future worth living for, so that he can be grateful for his second chance.

The brave, fitting ending would be to let the deadly assassin with a heart of gold build her own wolf pack with the people who’ve helped her and loved her along her journey.

The brave, fitting ending would let the dwarf who was mocked and looked down on all his life find a way to make his mark on the world like he’s always wanted, to be remembered for his wits and his judgment and his advice. It would let him find love with someone who isn’t going to betray him.

And as for “paying attention?” Anyone paying attention should know that like literally all stories, there has to be unhappiness along the way. It’s called conflict, and not a single story can be told without it. The only difference between GoT and a long list of other popular stories is that its conflicts are always serious--life or death--for every character. But like any other story, that conflict still needs a resolution.

If everyone dies, what happens in the resolution of GoT? What is the takeaway for the audience in the final moments of the denouement? As millions of people all over the world sit on their couches watching the last frames of the biggest television show of all time, what is the message that GRRM and D&D want those viewers to understand? That the human race is flawed? We already know that. That we’re all doomed? How revolutionary. That hope is ephemeral and redemption isn’t guaranteed to anyone? That no matter how hard you try or how much you toil, there are just some obstacles that even the world’s greatest heroes can’t overcome? Why?

I don’t accept that. Not for a minute. Why would GRRM’s LIFE’S WORK amount to that? And what message would D&D be delivering to their viewers, now, in 2018, when the world is already facing the challenges of climate change, when the United States--their own country--is divided and conflicted and uncertain, seeing decades of progress at risk under the current administration? WHAT IS THE POINT if their ending just shows that no matter how hard you try to fight corruption, no matter how long you strive to protect others, it will never be enough?

GRRM is not William Shakespeare. And while ASOIAF clearly draws some inspiration from him, it’s not a tragedy or history play meant to liken world leaders to tragic figures from Greek myth or romanticize suffering to placate the peasant class. There is literally no reason for a nihilistic ending and if we get one, I’m going to L O S E I T.

Anyway, this was inspired by similar sentiments from @muttpeeta and @yocalio. At least we’re suffering together, ladies.

#negativity #i guess #game of thrones #got #sorry for the rant #but actually no i'm tired #so tired

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a-storytellers-shared-dream · 6 years

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Esther wanted to feed this killer to Leviel, he deserved to suffer. But she also needed information from this beast. There was another fae child out there, enslaved, and maybe he’d know how Esther could find her. Afterwards….

She sat in the dirt and spoke to the children, walking them through the process to find the light. She spoke as someone who had a lot of practice doing this. It took calming each child down first. Helping them let go of their anger. It wasn’t so much forgiving their killer as it was learning to let the anger just flow away from them.

Soon even she could see the tunnel, though it didn’t call her - not much, at least. Though it’s pull was stronger than usual. It did call the children though. Even though it was like a wordless song, somehow one got the impression that it was calling the children’s names. Like a grandma calling children to come inside for some freshly baked cookies yet at the same time there was a festive air to the melody calling them, a carnival sound. One could practically smell the popcorn and feel the stickiness of cotton candy. She encouraged each child to head towards the light. Tears shining on her face and a longing look in her eyes.

When she was done, when the last child was gone she turned to the others. “I need a month’s worth of sleep, but we need to find the girl who was with his partner. We need to save her too. We need information from this pile of shit.” She motioned to the killer, refusing to even think of him as a human being

anymore.

Jamison looked over at 4. “Ready when you are” 4 smiled and said “alright then” He closed his eyes as his earring glowed a luminous yellow hue. His body became coated in bright blue energy. The ground beneath them took on the image of a round clock face as he said “Time, let your power flow through me and into this land. Let us go back and allow it to be renewed to what it once was as this Returner’s power flows through this second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year.” Stopping he looked at Jamison and said “It’s all ready for you” Clutching his necklace Jamison stepped into the middle of the clock. He could have returned the land without 4’s aid like he would normally have done but he also knew that he wasn’t working with full energy at the moment either. Instinctively he had been returning his body to its previous state before he fought with the monster that masked itself as a human. He knew his body wouldn’t return fully because he was going to be focusing that energy into the land and ridding it of the taint. Knowing this he decided it would be far wiser to use a combination of energies instead of just his own. After all aid isn’t something you normally got in this line of work. So whenever it came you thanked your lucky stars and accepted the aid.That is if you were wise in anycase. Clearing his mind he looked out at the field to get a sense of how it once was. *I bet this place used to be some happy families home or something. Reduced to the use of a sick monster. I sure hope he didn’t kill them too.* Shaking such thoughts out of his head so he wouldn’t be distracted he grasped his chain and focused his energy into it humming out a tune to raise his energies vibrations. Moving his right hand back from the shield it grew larger until it was the size of a tower shield. It had an emerald face backed by silver and steel. The shield had numerous symbols across it that glowed and Jamison lifted it with ease of having done it for so long. He filled himself with the power from the circle and as his own power interwove itself with 4’s clock in. Opening his eyes he could see the land how it once was. The freshness of it, even the house how it used to be, he could feel the crisp autumn air and he could sense how the energies were once open and wild. He was right about there being a magical highway here. *Huh I wonder if the person who built this house knew that or if they just felt like this was a good place to build one* He didn’t want to return the whole house though. They would need to go through the attic to see what else they could find out about the monster, whoever had the half other child, and whomever else he was working with. When he saw the right time to return the land to which was around two years prior he stopped. “Agrin ol saliden” He whispered as slammed the bottom of the shield into the ground. The ground shook and a wave of green energy went through it and around the area. To an observer it looked as if everything was being moved backwards. Once fallen trees rose once more, the boards on the house vanished replaced by a home with a new paint job, and most of all the taint vanished. Letting the returning travel out into the surrounding land for a bit he finally stopped once he felt as if it was fully completed. He lifted his shield and walked out of the clock his shield becoming a necklace once more.

“Nicely done Jamison. But I didn’t expect anything less of you.” 4 said clapping his hands the clock face disappeared and his clock earring stopped glowing so much. “I was glad for the assistance 4.” Jamison said. Looking over at Ms. Vitjiko and 4:30 with the Other child. Turning around he glanced at the conspiracies of ravens still hanging around the house and in the trees. *So they are still keeping an eye on us.* he mused. It made sense since after all they did have their Prince which was reason enough for their vested interest in them. Although these seemed to be simple ravens he knew that behind those gazes there was someone watching. He may not have known who but he did know that for now they meant them no ill will. Turning he walked over to Ms. Vitjiko “How are you holding up Ms. Vitjiko? Do you need to eat something for your blood sugar? I have food in the car but if you don’t feel as if you can stomach anything at the moment I can understand that after everything you’ve seen this evening” He glanced at the monster writhing in pain on the ground begging for someone to help him. He just shook his head and focused back of the Other child just in time to see him sit up.

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Leviel could hear someone calling to him as he was being drowned in tainted waters. He fought and tried to keep himself afloat but everytime he was able to pull up some force kept pulling him further down. *I must needs find a way to escape the waters least I be drowned in the taint and who knows what will happen to me or how it will affect my people from now on* As far as he could see there was a teether that was keeping him from being completely drowned for now but how long would that last? It was not like he wasn’t without power but with all of it being currently infused with the taint he couldn’t do much with it. And then there was the voice. It was singing and he knew it was a fae song although he didn’t know the singer he could feel the arsa draiochta or forsa ealain that flowed through the song. Slowly he could feel the changes in the waves as the water became thick, steady and warm to the touch, almost as if he was bathing in freshly spilled blood which was a pleasant sensation. He felt his power flowing freely from the taint. *Well it is best that I awaken and meet my savior's then. After all I will owe them a boon. I hope they aren’t from the light court least I be made to seem as if a fool for my folly*

With little effort Leviel opened his eyes only to see the fresh night sky. *Only a few more hours until the dawn* he mused. After all being in the mortal realm was the first time he had seen daylight. In his home it was perpetually night. He brought his senses to what was happening around him. He could hear someone talking and he could sense that someone was close to him. To close for his tastes. And he felt as if he was laying on some manner of cloth. He also knew that he was in a bubble of someone else’s draiochta. He sat up and looked to face who was closest to him first.

His blue and black eyes met those of another and he was not surprised to see that she was fae like him. Although she looked to be ten years of age Leviel knew that she was far older than he was but he could tell that she was one of the courtless fae. He had always wondered about them and why they chose to live that way but he assumed it was because of a freedom aspect. Although you wouldn’t have the protection of a court to back you up if problems should arise you still didn’t have to answer to anyone. He didn’t see anything wrong with it. “Salutations Prince. I am glad you are well. I am called 4:30.” When she didn’t say anything else Leviel smiled his sharp teeth showing. “I believe a thanks and a boon is needed for you then 4:30 for the assistance. It would have taken a lot longer time then I would like to admit to stop the taint from claiming my life.” He glanced around and noticed the surrounding area looked different from how he had once seen it and the area was free of the taint as well. 4:30 blinked at him slowly “It was freely given.” Leviel raised his eyes to that. After all anyone in the courts would be clamoring to get a boon from a fae noble let alone one of his station. But he wouldn’t question that. After all her reasons were her own and she needn’t share them with him. “So what brings an unaffiliated court fae out here? Was it just because of me or was there some other reason?” he queried “No it was because of the whole situation with you and Ms. Esther Vijiko as well. Now I must ask you Prince did you slay the attacker that tried to kill Ms. Vijiko?” Leviel would have loved to toy with this answer but since the woman had saved his life he wasn’t going to. “Yes I did kill him. What of it?” The girl pulled out a phone just one different from the one Esther showed him and stated pressing the things on it. “Did you know that by killing that man you have caused discord in the Nosferatu clans?” Leviel looked at the woman and started laughing with mirth “Did it? I’m so pleased by that. That’s what the blood leeches get.” The woman stared at him for a moment reached out and slapped him across the face. Leviel was so surprised that he didn’t know what to think for a moment. *Did she just TOUCH me? SLAP me?!!* He turned back swiftly to her ready to say something scathing but the look on her face stopped him cold. He knew this feeling, that welled up in the pit of his stomach, knew it intimately in fact and he didn’t like it at all. “You should best consider your actions for the future Prince. You are not in the Fae realm any longer and you are alone without escort. I know you are the Prince of the dark court and as such has probably never been told what to do by anyone save your Queen mother but the mortal realm is vicious and repercussions happen for every action. You are extremely powerful but you are far from the strongest person who walks this Earth. Take that slap as a reminder that you will have consequences for every action you take for good or ill. Take heed of the actions of the people around you tonight who risked themselves to save you. Do these things and you will be a ruler to be truly respected” Saying that she stood up and walked away. Her bubble of energy fading from around him. Quietly and humbled he considered her words still surprised a bit that he had been slapped but he was no longer angry about that. *For some reason I feel as if I disappointed her and I know I should not care but I do for some reason. It as if my mother said she was disappointed with me. It hurts more than the slap.* Looking up he watched her walk away and to another jovial looking man. *Who is that woman?* he wondered.

#jamisings #oc rp #Esther&Leviel

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deathsteel · 3 years

Text

This Ain’t a Scene Its a Goddamn Drag Race

A RuPaul Drag Race AU ft your favorite gay angel and bisexual himbo

~Part One~

“It’s starting!” he called, wiggling deeper into his usual spot on the couch as he pulled the afghan his brother had knitted for him tighter over his shoulders. “You’re gonna miss it!”

The commercial on the screen ended and the familiar logo for the show flashed across the screen.

“Previously on Drag Race…”

“Goddamnit, we have a DVR,” the other man said, skidding into the room with a gigantic bowl of popcorn in his hands. He flopped down and tugged on the corner of the afghan until the first man relinquished a corner of it to him. “You coulda paused it. Did you start the recording? I told your brother we’d record it.”

“Yes, I’m recording it,” the first man sighed, reaching over to snag some popcorn. “It’s not like we didn’t already see all this happen anyway.”

“It’s all in the editing, gummy bear.” the smaller man snarked right back as the intro segment went through its familiar rigamarole on the screen before them. “Now, shush up.”

The other man grumbled in reply, but smiled around his pilfered popcorn.

Holly Cummunion didn’t bother to hide her smile when she waggled her fingertips at Maura Less as she was sashaying away. She knew the camera would catch her acting like a shady bitch, which wouldn’t win her the crown for Miss Congeniality, but she couldn’t help celebrating the fall of the two-faced monster that was ‘Destraura’. The fact that the other contestant leaving would make Tasha happy too was just an unintended consequence.

“Ladies,” Gabby Reale called, garnering the attention of the five remaining contestants after Maura had finally dragged her saggy ass off of the runway. “I hope you take the judges' critiques to heart going forward. You’re my final five, so if you’re still thinking that less is more, well...”

Gabby ended the subtle dig at the eliminated contestant with a coy twist of her shoulders that made the sequins on her deep red ball gown sparkle.

Holly swallowed hard as she remembered that she had been critiqued heavily by the guest judge for not wearing enough makeup to cover her five o’clock shadow and nodded along solemnly with the other queens. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been in the bottom two, at this point even the littlest things could mean you were lip syncing for your life.

“And remember, if you can’t love yourself then how in the hell are you gonna love anybody else? Can I get an ay-men?!” Gabby recited, raising her hand up like Sister Mary Clarence feeling the holy spirit move her.

“Ay-men!” Holly recited along with the other girls, waiting for Gabby’s call of “Now let the music play!” before rushing over to gather Kim Chi close to her in a celebratory hug.

“Girl you slayed it!” Holly whispered in her ear, referring to the lip sync battle that the other queen had just won against Maura Less. They’d sung Britney Spears’ Toxic, which was poetic because Maura had been bragging about her Britney skills the whole damn competition, even done a passable impersonation in the Snatch Game.

Kim just showed her teeth and pulled Holly out onto the runway to dance with her, filming the scene that would play with the end credits of the episode when it aired on T.V. She didn’t have to force a smile as she danced, despite how tired she was, after all she was one step closer to becoming America’s next drag superstar.

The quintet made it back to the workroom to find ‘You betta werk, E! #Destraura4Lyfe’ scrawled on the mirror in bright pink lipstick. Holly just rolled her eyes at that because no surprise there, trust Maura to be a fucking troll to the bitter end.

“Well it’s sweet she left us all personal messages,” Kim said sarcastically, snagging up the spray bottle of glass cleaner that had been left on the workspace for her and spraying it liberally over Maura’s parting words. “Bye, bye bye, bitch.”

The other four queens watched in relative silence as Kim finished her task; Dianne Tawank started fidgeting with the tape that was holding up her strapless dress and Holly couldn’t wait to kick off her heels even if wandering around the workroom in her hose would ruin them.

“Sorry your incestuous little clique got broken up, Momma,” Tasha Salad drawled in Eva Destruction’s direction as the other queen watched Kim’s cleaning with a despondent look on her face. “Guess you’ll have to groom another kitten to play with.”

“I’m not your ‘Momma’, Potato,” Eva Destruction snapped, using the derivative nickname that she and Maura had been calling Tasha behind her back since the beginning of the competition.

Holly was pretty sure it was the first time the other queen had heard it used to her face because Tasha’s mouth dropped open in pretty genuine looking shock before her expression morphed into fury.

“Just being respectful to my elders,” Tasha retorted, glancing over at the now clean mirror before storming towards her area of the work room that held her wigs and gowns and many, many trunks of shoes. “But I guess the opera gloves are coming off, Evil.”

Dianne snorted into her hand and rolled her eyes at the other two queens before she dismissed them both and started gingerly tugging at the tape on her dress so that she could take it off. Though her chest was waxed, the other queen still winced as she rolled her skin tight purple dress down her body; revealing angry red marks from the tape, painted on cleavage, padding attached to the inner lining of her dress, and a toned body that Holly couldn’t help but spare a glance at as she moved towards her own makeup kit that held her cold cream near the mirror.

She’d been single for almost five years, she was fucking allowed to look. Dianne just winked at her in the reflection of the mirror before she swanned over to her where her wig styling head was and started tugging at the edges of her ginger, lace-front wig.

“Oh, can’t we all just get along, girls?” Holly asked Kim rhetorically, earning a girlish giggle from her as she bounced around in her platform heels causing the tutu she was wearing to flutter prettily.

Holly presumed the other queen was running on leftover adrenaline from her near-miss with elimination, but her excess energy could also be due to the fact that Kim was about ten years younger than her. God, she made her feel old.

“What-ever,” Eva scoffed, kicking her heels off without a care to the fact that one of the size 13s almost caught Kim in her shin. “You can’t even be bothered to scrape off that sandpaper on your chin so excuse me if I don’t think you’re the best person to be leading a kumbaya drum circle.”

“Just cause I live on the west coast,” Holly replied evenly, leaning in close to the mirror so she could start smearing cold cream over her jawline. “Doesn’t mean I’m a hippie, so fuck you. And my jaw may be rough, but at least it doesn’t rub as bad as watching my girlfriend get sent home by a teenager. Does it, Mother-dear?”

“Bitch, what’d I just say?” Eva started, rounding quickly on Holly until the older queen was looming menacingly behind her in the mirror.

“Now, now, ladies,” Dianne chided in her clipped British accent as she shimmied the rest of her way out of her dress; draping it carefully over a dress form before she started scratching her painted nails through her short blonde hair that had gotten flattened to her head with sweat while under her wig. “Can you please save your bickering for tomorrow? When I’m hungover enough from celebrating my win to tune you all out?”

There was a tense silence that Dianne must have taken as agreement because the queen just nodded to herself and started tugging the hip padding out of her tights. Holly focused her own attention on getting off as much of her makeup as she could for now and then started the arduous task of getting her own tight, structured dress off without ripping out the boning in the bodice; that shit was a bitch to fix and her fingers already hurt from helping Kim stitch herself into her own dress for the evening.

Within half an hour the five glamourous women who had entered the workroom had been defrocked down to the five average, gay men that made up their cores. It wasn’t until one of the show’s production assistants was going around to remove their microphones for the evening and the cameras were shut off that one of them spoke up.

“Anyone down for pizza tonight?” Kevin asked, scratching at a stray smear of his bright green eyeshadow that had somehow ended up on the back of his hand. “My treat?”

“I’m in,” Castiel replied, earning a quick smile from the short Asian man as the group began to head out of the studio; back to the hotel rooms that were their home away from home for the time that they were filming the show. “Balthazar?”

“As long as I can drink as well,” the British expat replied, twitching with the collar of the leather jacket he was wearing over a tight Henley as they emerged into the brisk evening that was San Francisco in early November.

Balthazar always seemed to be dressed to impressed even though when off camera the contestants spent most of their time playing cards in their hotel, forbidden to go out for even a nightcap by their contracts and an ever watchful security team. They also couldn’t have cell phones, web access, watch the news, or have any contact whatsoever with their family and friends; which was a whole separate bitch in and of itself.

One thing that all of the contestants had agreed on though was that their rooms had great mini bars, an even better porn selection, and more than enough take-out menus to suit every possible taste.

“Well, jailbait can’t drink any of it,” Raphael answered in a bored tone as he picked at his chipping nail polish. The other man looked up when his remark was met with silence and it was then he saw the scathing look that Castiel and Balthazar were giving him as Kevin blushed down at his feet. “Whaaaat? You bitches know I’m joking.”

“It’s fine,” Kevin muttered, flinching when Luc shouldered impatiently past him to climb into the backseat of one of the black town cars that was waiting for them at the curb. “You want pizza, Luc?”

“Fuck your pizza,” Luc growled back, his eyes noticeably red-rimmed. “Can we go now?”

The four men looked meaningfully at each other, but it was Castiel that broke first; letting out a deep sigh before he pulled his old college hoodie tighter around himself and climbed into the empty seat beside Luc. Kevin, Raphael and Balthazar would take the other car, unwilling to ride with the sullen man since his friend had just been sent home.

Castiel suspected (and apparently others did too) that the pair were more than ‘just friends’, but since romantic relationships between contestants were forbidden they had kept mum about Luc and Michael’s closeness while in front of the producers; allowing them to think it was a harmless clique that had formed as they tended to do on reality shows. But it was obvious by how upset the other man was, sniffling into the cuffs of his long sleeved red shirt, that something more had definitely been going on between the two queens.

“I put him in drag for the first time,” Luc said, breaking the heavy silence that had settled between them on the short drive from the studio to the hotel.

“Are you going to be okay?” Castiel questioned, unable to hide his concern for the other man, even though it smacked of an overreaction. Hell, it's not like Michael had died or anything; just gone back to New York for a while.

“Bite me, cum-stain,” Luc replied and Castiel rolled his eyes at the unimaginative nickname.

He was willing to bet money that that particular gem had been Michael’s idea of a parting shot; not $100,000 of course, but at least a tenner or something. Castiel was pretty certain either way that he’d win it back.

#Fic writing #destiel fanfiction #spn fanfiction #rpdr au #gd drag race

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years

Text

Where Time Takes Us

Hey all! I’m almost done with Chapter One of a fic I’m working on, so in the mean time, why not have a quick teaser?

Eventually I’m gonna also post the full thing on AO3 so the format is better, and it’s also gonna have zelink and some revali stuff in the future...although I’m mainly gonna focus on character growth and arcs than the romance. All in all, when I’m done you’ll have to read it for yourself. In the mean time..

Enjoy!

Where Time Takes Us 6905 words (of like...15k it’s a teaser ok)

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Watch the home while she is off to war

The Slumber King versus the rearing boar

Awake, arise, do not be blind

To tales and destinies entwined

In the world we said that we would leave behind

- - - - - - - - - -

6 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days before the Hyrule Castle Slaughter, the Akkala Citadel Massacre, the slaying of the Champions, the death of the hero, and the rise of Calamity Ganon

She was supposed to work until whenever doomsday struck, and truly she wanted to, but circumstances led her to walk towards the echoing laughter.

Already trying to prepare the quip she would throw back at them (as undoubtedly they’d complain about her being late again) the researcher weaved through the familiar roads of West Castle Town. Most of the houses were dark, with the only light source coming from the occasional flickering lantern, and the pale complexion of the midnight moon. Needless to say, it made the warm glow of The Adequate’s Tavern stand out all the more as she approached.

Another roar of laughter and shouts escaped from an open window on the south side of the pub. The bags under her eyes curved with her smile as she recognized one of the voices. She absentmindedly traced her fingers along the outer walls of the tavern as she walked, loose chips of faded blue paint falling to the pavement below. The wooden sign above the door creaked with its askew weight. “The Adequate’s Tavern” was printed in bold, blue letters atop a faded yellow outline. The missing e’s and t’s gave evidence to the building’s true quality.

“Yes, they’re here again, so get out there already!”

“The scientists?” the waiter asked.

The waiter disappeared into the back and the barkeep was left muttering by the counter. Chuckling to herself, the researcher moved away, starting to search for the scientists in question. Other than a single, beige wall that separated the edge of the bar with a support beam in the middle of the room, the pub was very open and lively. Square and circular tables were littered across the floor in mismatched patterns, ranging from oak brown to birch white. Clearly, aesthetic was not the centerpoint of the place.

As if fate had read her thoughts, she finally caught sight of her friends.

The young woman wore roughly the same outfit, although she had a navy blue skirt and boots compared to the other guy’s black pants and shoes. Her eyes were also red, albeit, with a more striking scarlet color, compared to the other boy’s warmer wine shade. Looking back, she adjusted her bright, Sheikah red, round, sparkly, diamond decorated glasses, complete with white accents that matched her hair. It was pulled in a messy bun, a hairstyle that her close friends knew was less for looks, and more for practical purposes, as supposedly “the stupid strands always find ways to bother my eyes. No, stop, I don’t need a comb! My eyeballs are just sensitive, OK?”

Pivoting past a waiter, the researcher finally moved closer to the trio, brushing her curly dark hair above her shoulders as she prepared for the sarcasm to begin.

The stormy eyed scientist spoke first.

“Purah, Purah! Is that...a ghost I see? It looks like Adello, but I feel like I haven’t seen her in a century, I surely thought her dead! Am I being…haunted?”

Robbie awed at Adello in sarcastic wonder, and the boy across from him exhaled out of his nose with a smile.

Purah turned to Robbie, pulling down her glasses and looking at him sternly. “See, this is another trait of these kinds of spirits. They’re cursed to only say excuses for eternity.”

He shook his head. “Coupled with the fact that their fashion only ever consists of one color? Truly, a terrible fate for a ghost indeed.”

Adello narrowed her eyes. Smoothing out her juniper colored tunic, she said, “Ok first off, green is a great color on me, it pairs well with my skin tone. You’re both just blind, no wonder you need glasses.” Purah put a hand on her chest dramatically, but she continued. “Plus, I’d really rather not get fired since that ceremony thing with those Champions is tomorrow and, as you all know, I just got that promotion.”

Adello chuckled, finally sitting down in the empty seat beside him. The old oaken chair and floor creaked under the new weight. Robbie let out a huff.

“You kids need to learn to respect your elders.” He announced the word “respect” with the tip of his tongue. The researcher rolled her eyes.

“Ah yes, a whole one year gap between us. What astounding age and experience that these elders emit.” She gestured at Robbie and Purah with a sweep of her arm.

“Uh excuse me, but I believe in my case it’s now double that. A whole two years, my dear, naive child. For as of 4 hours ago, I now emit the knowledge of an existence spanning two decades!” Now it was his turn to pose dramatically, pointing towards the ceiling.

Adello smirked to herself, and answered, “Yep, that’s how it goes!”

“Alright you don’t get to speak Miss I-don’t-know-how-to-be-punctuation!”

Purah promptly smacked Robbie over the head with a pen.

“Hey! W—”

“The word is punctual you idiot.”

Robbie slumped his shoulders and made a face. He tapped his thumb and fingers together, mimicking the opening and closing of a mouth while he muttered mockingly in Purah’s tone under his breath.

Turning the pages of her journal towards Adello, she gave a chaotic grin. “Last round, Zimiri revealed that he once got teary eyed in front of the King himself after reading a poem about clouds.”

Zimiri raised his hands in defense. “Look, the clouds were an analogy for lost childhood innocence and I got choked up with that author’s amazing choice of imagery and descriptions, OK?”

Purah pointed her pen at him to hush, and continued. “Of course, him being a sentimental dork isn’t anything new, so he lost that round to Robbie who revealed the identity of his first crush.”

Zimiri muttered something about the game being rigged towards the birthday boy, but Adello talked over him, excitedly.

“Ooohhhh? Robbie?? Who are they?” She propped up her elbows and cradled her chin in her hands, excited at the prospect of more embarrassing information she could hang over his head.

He mumbled, looking to Purah for assistance, but she only cupped a hand over her ear, waiting for him to respond. “You all fuckin—” he sighed, “it’s…she’s...c-ch…” he avoided everyone’s gaze, “her name is...Cherry…”

Adello gasped, gleefully. “That girl from your old university?? The writer you hung out with!?”

Purah beamed, shaking Robbie’s shoulders excitedly. “I know right???” She loosened her grip and allowed him to wiggle out of her grasp for a moment. “Oh sweetie, campus days may be long gone for all of us prodigies and geniuses,” she flipped a few strands of her white hair with a turn of her head, “but I’m sure you’ll get her someday. You just gotta turn up the charm, find a way to woo with words. I’m sure writers’ love that.” Purah pulled down her glasses and gave a forced wink at him.

“Now, now, let’s all play nice. We don’t need to pester him further about it, he did win the round after all.”

“Uh, yeah. Speaking of the game, you still need to drink up mister.” Purah slid a tan brown cup of apple cider towards him, the translucent contents sloshing around like muck in a gutter.

He leaned on the back two legs of his chair. “Isn’t it punishment enough to smell it? The cider isn’t even near my face and my mouth is already burning.”

She shrugged. “Them's the rules of ‘Till You Spill. Your secret sucked, so swig!”

Raising his posture, Robbie crowed, “When we finally have Zimiri’s birthday maybe then we’ll actually upgrade to the alcohol.”

Adello raised an eyebrow. “Uh, right, because the upgrade from disorientingly strong, smelly apple cider, is you two being flat out drunk. Right...”

Purah slammed both her fists down with pride, letting the cups and pitchers slosh a few, amber colored drops onto the worn wooden table. “Bold of you to assume I’d drink at all, considering I’ve never lost a round! Mwahaha!” She blew a raspberry at her. “This tongue is apple free, baby.”

She gestured with her pinky and index finger at Zimiri and Adello. “Now, you two! The late combatant and the latest loser shall spill next. Give us your juicy gossip!!”

The bard, still reeling from his drink, leaned back in his chair and gave a nod toward Adello. “Ladies first?”

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “The princess has a secret stuffed animal collection.” Seeing the light in her co-workers’ eyes twinkle, Adello knew she had chosen her words well. Purah leaned in. “OOoh? And how did you come across this juicy piece of information?” She rested her chin on an arm with an innocent smile.

“When I sent my application for the new job a few weeks ago, I gave it to the princess directly. It was late at night, and I bumped into her as she just left her room. The door was cracked open for a few seconds, before some royal, pompous guard slammed it right in my face. Yet, it wasn’t before I saw the pile of,” she counted on her fingers, “cow, sheep, bird, dog, and several horse stuffed animals piled high by her big, blue bed. I bet if I peaked for just a few more moments I could have found enough to pin her as a true horse girl.”

He combed his fingers through his messy, white hair, pondering his next choice of words. Fiddling with the beads and strings wrapped around it, he thought out loud.

“So… ever since I moved into the castle. When did my mom come here… five years now? I’ve, uh… had a crush on... Zelda…” He gave an uncertain grin, and raised the palm of his hands as if to ask, “well?”

At first he was met with silence. In his head, he started to celebrate the victory of his first ‘Till You Spill round in literal months. That was until he was met with groans and pitiful mutters.

The bard started to sputter, moving his hands in wild, questioning motions.

“But? Wha— I? You!? Didn’t you— I… W-well I mean, I know Adello knew, I told her years ago, but you guys—”

“R-recognizing a person’s positive traits doesn’t instantly mean in love!”

Zimri continued to sputter, his cheeks becoming roser by the second. Robbie turned to Purah. “So, all in favour of finding Adello’s spill better than Zimri’s?” The two of them raised their hands in unison. “Alright buddy, secret sucked, so swig! WAITER PLEASE!”

Before he could even start to reach for the cup, Adello snatched it out of the way. “Nah, it’s ok. I’ll do one for you, Zimiri. These two monsters have already tore you to shreds, and I’m sure I need a punishment anyway for coming in so late.”

He started to protest, but after catching the look in her dark, iron eyes, he relented. “Well, I thank you for your generosity.” The other two, however, were not as compliant.

Purah cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling, “Booooo... Boo to pity! Boo to generosity!” Robbie mimicked her.

“Yeah you have to respect your elders’ wishes. We demand blood! Suffering!”

“Mmmm. The cider’s weirdly salty tonight, I think your attitudes got mixed in here.”

Purah blew another rasberry at her.

“You know what else tonight needs? Some amazing music, eh Zimiri?” He bounced his eyebrows up and down at him, and gestured towards the lute leaning on one of the table legs.

“I don’t know,” Zimiri replied, “I’ve only a part-time hire for the weekend rush hours, and I wouldn’t want to blindly get on stage and sing without being given permission.”

He fiddled with the string in his hair again. “Oh yeah? I’d love to meet him someday.” At this, Adello clicked her tongue and promptly shoved him out of his chair with her hip.

Suddenly, Zimiri perked his head. Stepping back towards the table, he reached for his cup. “Oh wait, I just lost that round. I still need to drink my—”

Setting the cup back on the table, the researcher said, “Great, now you don’t need to ruin your voice any longer. Now get up there and one-up the last band.”

Robbie clapped his hands again. “Great, great. Now quit the manners and let’s go already! I still have to order the cake pie!”

Both of the girls rolled their eyes in unison. Zimiri shrugged and started to walk through the small crowd of standing Hylians, and towards the small stage.

I guess, if no one is stopping me…

It was a rowdy bunch, but not a new one. Zimiri had played for these kinds of audiences before.

“I see that quite a few people are itching for a new tune. So, uh, any requests?” he announced as he strum a chord on his lute.

He couldn’t stop himself from being biased towards the request of a certain dark skinned girl to his left.

“The World Behind!” Adello said. “Enough with those new ballads, I demand a classic!”

Robbie pumped an arm in the air. “Yes!” he shouted. “I second that! So is my decree as birthday tyrant!”

Zimiri’s smile widened. A lively crowd indeed, this will do nicely.

With that, he started to sing. His silvery voice echoed across the tavern, as he closed his eyes and began to play.

The boys have gone out to the wishing well

Will they come back? Oh only time will tell

A rupee for a life refined

But time and dreams never align

So tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

Have you seen the soldiers’ drinking ale?

They wish to sing along with nightingales

To dance on home with songs and rhymes

To banish all the fears from mind

Yes tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

Of beasts and men and all atrocities

The damn-ed fate, she owns all that you see

To a better day of new design

Forgot about the gods divine

Oh tell the world we’ll leave it all behind

Watch the home while—

“HEY!”

The sudden gruff voice startled the bard to the point where he nearly slipped off the stage.

Well, mostly, silenced the room. A few ticked off guests were booing, groaning, and mocking him for ruining the entertainment.

“Oh would you lot shut up for 2 seconds?!” he said, his voice booming across the tavern. “Listen, I’ll be blunt. I gotta give two messages for this establishment.”

The female guard behind the knight handed him a slip of parchment. Unfolding it, the guard cleared his throat.

“Firstly, you’re music and pounding is disturbing the noblemen next door. He’s staying at the inn or something and wants you to quote,” he read from the paper, “quit the mindless thumping, for Castle Town is a place of serenity and peace, not of nonsense jigs and banging.”

The groaning and insults started up again, the man gave a shrug, stating something about how he was just following orders.

Adello couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “HA! Well, with an attitude like that, this’ll probably be the first and only time he’s been banged, he should be grateful.”

The room exploded into a mess of laughter and whoops. Even the guard smirked to himself, but attempted to hide it with a shake of his head, saying “Watch the mouth girl.” Although, his stern tone wasn’t in it.

After a second, he cleared his throat again. With a stomp of his boot regained the pub's attention, the laughter suffocated out.

“Now, we’re also here looking for a Dr. Robbie Kimura? I received word they might be around here?”

The scientists turned around too late, in an effort to avoid the knight’s gaze. “Gee, what a bunch of snitches,” Robbie mumbled. The three guards started to walk over to the table.

“Dr...Robbie?”

“Who’s asking?” Robbie squinted with his dark brown eyes.

“Is this some kind of prank? You and your friends don’t even look old enough to drink.”

He scoffed. “Ok, first, yes I am a doctor! I didn’t fly through all those courses over four years just to be called, ‘Mr.’ And secondly, I’ll have you know that I am a ripe 20 years of age today, and I’m here drinking expired apple juice with my associates. So take that, pal!”

Beside him, Purah gave a proud nod in agreement. Zimiri started to wave at the guards, but Adello grabbed his arm before he could finish the movement. The guard was a bit unsettled with the way that girl was glaring at him. What was some random Hylian doing hanging out with a bunch of Sheikah anyway?

“Right, well look here son. Some curious aristo-brat snuck into the courtyard and caused one of those flying, metal Sheikah things to fall apart. My boss said that it was your prototype so you should come back and clean it up before something explodes, and possibly give a sincere apology to the meddling kid who got a few scratches.”

Robbie threw his hands in the air, exasperated. “You’re really gonna pull me out of a birthday just so I can go apologize to a spoiled kid for breaking in and ruining my Guardian?”

��If it let’s me keep my job, then yeah.”

Robbie mumbled something about not getting a slice of the apple cake pie.

Suddenly, Adello got up and pushed her chair in, smoothing out the belt around her tunic as she walked towards them.

“Ah yes, well thank you my dear assistant for the assessment but I’m capable of taking it from here.”

The guard raised a bushy, black eyebrow. “Sorry wha-”

“You said you only wanted Dr. Robbie? Well great job, you found them. Now let’s get going, I need to finish up a new design anyway.”

“You’re...Robbie? You’re a... clearly not—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have had my mother consult you for your opinion before I was given my name.”

This time, the guard didn’t smile along with her quip. “This is not the time for—”

She held up a finger to silence him, and glared at the three guards with her iron eyes.

The knights looked at each other, quizzically. The researcher crossed her arms.

A beat of silence sat, only filled by the mild mumbling and chatter of the tavern. Finally, the guard let out a sigh.

“Alrighty Dr. Kimura. I’ll help escort you to the site.”

The patrons just responded with stupid groans, and half-hearted agreements. They started walking towards the door. The female guard started to put a hand on Adello’s shoulder, but she brushed it off, saying something along the lines of “I can walk on my own two feet, thank you very much.”

Purah turned in her seat. “I’ll save a slice of cake pie for you!” Adello turned her head and responded with a two fingered salute, before disappearing out the door with the guards.

“Why does she always do things like that?”

Robbie fiddled with the edge of his cup, tracing his finger around the rim. “Well, you know her. Undermining authority? Check. Insults and quips? Check.”

Robbie continued to list off more traits, but it faded out of Zimiri’s ear. Always jumping onto other’s burdens. Ah, that idiot. I bet she hasn’t slept for the last two days.

Purah suddenly piped up, taking out her pen and rapping it against the table. “Alright you too, let’s not let the sacrifice be in vain. Pool your rupees, we’re getting Robbie the fancy cake pie.”

The clatter of a few red and blue rupees echoed on the wooden table, although Zimri knocked Robbie’s share aside, saying how the birthday tyrant shouldn’t have to pitch in. Purah turned in her chair and started to wave her hand, in order to get the attention of a waiter. The bard watched as a woman with a tray started to walk over to the table. Then, he turned to Robbie.

“So what should we do while we wait?” Zimiri asked. Robbie stroked his chin, looking around the room.

“I think...the people could still use some music.”

He nodded his head in agreement, putting on a charming smile. The place needed a new pick-me-up, did it?

Well, what else is a musician for?

Adello’s footsteps echoed through the cobblestone streets, but she could barely hear it against the shifting of metal plates from the guards in front of her.

The gruff man looked back, scratching his peach fuzzed chin as he spoke. “Listen, if you finish your work quick I might be able to escort you back here.”

“You...live at the castle?”

“Mmm.”

The female guard slowed her step, starting to walk alongside the researcher.

“Already working?”

Adello didn’t look up from her journal. “Uh… you could say that.”

She laughed. “Well you best hope you know what you’re doing. This kid’s father has been yelling at her highness all night. Supposedly because she’s helping to lead Sheikah research, so everyone associated with guardians is at fault.”

The guard hummed a yes. “Apparently, the kid is the son of some visiting nobleman from the East Post. It’d be in your best interest to apologize profusely if you still wanna walk around alive.”

Adello shook her head. She didn’t know it then, but looking back, many moons from now, she would laugh at the irony of her response.

“I’d rather die.”

#botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda botw #loz botw #botw fanfiction #purah #purah botw #robbie #robbie botw #zimiri #zimiri botw #adello #adello botw #botw oc #where time takes us

27 notes · View notes

jvj246018 · 4 years

Text

Next day

I pull my aching body from the comfort of my sheets and strat rummaging through my chest of draws settling in an oversized plane black t shirt and faded blue skinny jeans it was going to be a long day she knew it just by the feel of the morning after pulling on her flat riding boots on and grabbing a black jacket and her purple handbag/ back pack its one of those multi functional / compasidy bag that can hold literally everything perfect for my slaying gear and of cause my school supplies.

Grabbing my mobile placing it in my bag and quickly doing my make-up just light done to hide the bags under my eyes and the fact that I slept for literally 3 hours.

Then I head down to the kitchen where I hear Aunt Jenna toast I can make toast

Elena : it's all about the coffee aunt Jenna

Jeremy: is there coffee

Me : there's always coffee.

Oh aunt jenna have you forgotten about your meeting thing?

Jenna : that's at crap now...

Me : Go will be fine right guys

Jeremy huh .

Elena: of cause we will be.

Oh Nicki are you coming to school with me and Bonnie or making your own way?

Me : if it's cool with Bonnie I'd like a lift

Elena : I'll tell her it's both of us then.

Me : cool thanks .

In Bonnie's car.

Bonnie : so my Grams is telling me that I'm a psychic.

Me : maybe you are?

Bonnie : really not you too .Elena hey elena back in the car ..

Elena : oh god I did it again didn't I.

Me : its okay Elena we get it

Elena : you were saying that ?

Bonnie: that I'm physics now.

Elena : then product something somethings about me.

Bonnie : I see ..

Crack ..

Me : was that a bird ?

Elena : uhm.

Bonnie : yeah it was like a bird I'm so sorry guys.

Elena : it's okay we can't be freaked out by cars forever.

Bonnie: I predict that this year will be kick ass and all the sad and dark times are over and you two will be beyond happy.

Then we get back on the road and arrive at the school when Bonnie starts again.

Bonnie: total lack of male reliastate , oh wow look at the shower curtin..

That's where I choose to stop listening I don't like ragging on people's cloths it's not cool regardless of weather they appear to be wearing a shower curtin that's their perogative.

I'm pulled from my thoughts by Elenas whine he hates me.

Bonnie : that's not hate thats you dumped me and I'm to cool to show it but secretly I'm listening to air supply's latest hits .

Me : she's right he doesn't hate you.

Maybe you are psychic?

Bonnie : umhum.

Wait who's that ?

Elena : all I see is back.

Bonnie : that's a hot back, I'm scencing seattle he and he plays a guitar

Me : not gonna drop this are you.

Bonnie: nope I'm pretty much going to run it into the ground.

Care: oh my god Elena Nicki your here how are you, how are they are they good

Me : yes we're fine

Elena : much better.

Care : you poor things she says as she breezes past us into her other friends.

Elena : no comment.

The bell rings and we all go off to class I sit second left at the back because Tanner didn't want me helping Elena in class so here I sit the new guy is in front of me and there fore behind Elena. Tanner called on Elena and Bonnie and the new guy jumped to there rescue just as I was about to, I'm kinda glad because i was too tired to play the Knight in shining armor today, he even rubbed Tanners face in it. Harsh considering he was just trying to make them pay attention but it's was nice enough of him I think he's trying to let Elena know he's interested witch she already knows. But he might not know that so I'll give him some credit but you know I can't get this feeling that he's... there's something not right he feels old. He feels like Angle but different too he's the same and yet not. Deciding to shake that thought away since he's new and I'm supposed to be in class not in slayer mode not that I'm ever out of it but he's knew deciding I'll text Wilson see if he knows anything.

Its probably just my elevated paranoia but still.

I look down at my phone send a quick text and head to my next class without waiting for Elena since I'm in art next.

She has French on the opposite side of the school.

So I sit in my class drawing on to my canvas over the dry paint to draw a silhouette of the moon that I will paint later .

There's a few stems of trees too that will have leaves when I find my natural sponge.

I'm pulled from my thoughts by a text from Caroline.

Have you spoken to the new guy ?

I send her back a message No.

And continue as I ignore my phone after putting it on silent.

To continue the project scenary views the moon is the view from my window I have a picture to prove it.

My teacher loves that I work in the style of Bob Ross. So she's okay with me using it alot.

All in all I like this class it's a lesson where I don't have to hide just got to be me that's it.

The rest of the day went really quickly since I had double art and pe last. I found myself walking home to avoid the Stephen talk.

I also wanted to stop in to see Wilson see if he turned up anything.

Oh boy did he ever.

Inside Wilson's spacious but cluttered apartment he is sat at his desk I'm opposite him reading his ansesters diary on the Salvetor brothers. Getting frustrated I lean back into his blue arm chair using a ribbon as my book mark.

Wilson: Stephen is a ripper, a ripper that forces himself to eat animal blood to survive according to my ancestor he's actually a good guy when he's on the waggon.

But his brother Damon he's a peace of work. And determined to make Stephen suffer.

Me : grate. Anything else I should know ?

Wilson : not yet but if I find more I'll tell you.

Me : this is just grate Stephen is vampire that may aswell have a drug addiction and he brings his brother that takes glee in murder and all things that vampires reval in.

Wilson : you may have to kill them.

Me : yes only problem Stephen is Elenas new thing.

Ugh this will be hard.

Wilson : your going to need to cast a protection charm.

Me : grate how do I do that? I don't have a spell book the things I taught my self were just academy's that kept happening I learned to control them

Wilson : here, taking the offered book I check the index .

Chaper 5 page 156780. Right .

So herbs holy water vervain talismans will that work on them they are of a witch made line.

Wilson : humm yes just pay attention to the making talismans really understand what you want them to do.

Me : right okay what do I use ?

Wilson : stones crystals metal wood just about anything really.

Me : okay where's that book on stones and what there for?

As if he predicted it he handed it to me then he sat with me and we found the one that will make it so they have to be invited in every time they leave and come back.

With that in mind she started digging through the crystals making sure to have them represent an angle since they are strong representation of a protector.

Carful to choose the representation stone tigers eye for Jeremy, Lapis lazuli for Elena , strawberry quartz for Jenna and amethyst for me. I figure I'm lucky that he keeps these things he's abit of a pack rat.i smile as I think this.

Then I made one for the house to be kept by the front door and it had all 4 stones in it each one is made from stones and steel for durability.

Then Wilson drove me home and thanked me for all my help with the restoration of old books.

Jenna might know but Elena and Jer don't so secrets to be kept.

After hanging the houses talisman up then I had jenna her one I attached them to the keys jenna nodded understanding and then I give Elena and Jer theirs and they thank me Jer likes his and Elena dose too its nice.

I never hide the supernatural I just don't come right out and tell them either.

They would never believe me.

And Elena would want to help but that would probably get one or both of us killed. They know I believe in this stuff and they think I'm mad for it. One day they'll know I hope but for now I'll just be the crazy sister.

Pulled from my thoughts by a text from Carebear or Caroline depends who you ask.

You better be coming to the back to schools bash .

I text back

Yes I am I'm just debating on an outfit I'm thinking riding boots to below my knee thermal leggings black boots navy leggings black dress top.

And a leather jacked .

She beeps back no the swishy floral top I gave you for your last birthday.

Laughing at her since she's grate at this kind of thing I pull on the top she demanded I use, and then the rest of the outfit.

Pulling it back off placing it to one side I think I'll just wear it all day tomorrow that way no big change and frees me up but care would kill me so my burgundy long top in place of the floral top for school.

Same purple bag I take for everything always be prepared.

Then I did a cleansing to keep out the vampires that Elena might end up inviting in, but she they won't be able to get in and out as they please.

I love Care but her need to be popular is suffercating its why we don't have the whole BFF thing going we are but out of the lime light I'm the one she can just be herself with not even Bonnie can claim to have that.

We have sleep overs monthly and she catches up on everything and in-between Elena tells me her self absorbed versions care is definitely the more trust worthy for gossip but you need to take her exaggeration with a pinch of salt.

With that last thought Nicki found herself headed out to patrol. She just hoped that she wouldn't have to slay Stephen tonight that would be a major downer.

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klaudiafmp · 4 years

Text

Star Trek

I have never actually seen Star Trek, I mean I saw some clips here and there, know what it looks like and what some of the main characters are and roughly the plot but I never fully watched it and there is just way too much of it for me to know where to even start. I assume the TV show from the 60′s but Im not sure if most people actually got into it then or through the reboot that happened few years back. Anyway I know that it has some really cool looking aliens in it so intead of writing a review I’ll just have a look at some alien species from within star trek.

Cheron

First appearance Star Trek: The Original Series “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969)

“When we first met the Cheron, there was only two members of this species left: Bele (played by the Riddler, the great Frank Gorshin) and Lokai. Bele was hunting Lokai whom Bele deemed a traitor after the planet Cheron was wiped out due to centuries of racial wars.

Apparently, some Cheron were black on the left and white on the right while other members of this advanced species possessed the opposite skin alignment. Due to this difference, the entire population — save Lokai and Bele — were eradicated. Bele hijacked the Enterprise and used his vast array of mental capabilities to hunt for Lokai.

The whole opposite was a thinly veiled, but powerful allusion to the destructive potential and sheer idiocy of racism — a message as powerful today as it was in the ’60s. Of course, you know I’m going to say that Mego made a Cheron doll, a toy I treasured in my childhood and called Oreo Man.”

See I like this species because of how simple it looks, like lets be honest it’s literally two dudes with their faces painted black and white straight through the middle. I like how they also explain that there was a lot of stigma beteen the members of the same species based on which side of their face is white and which is black to the point where the entire race killed each other off because of it, bit over the top but makes the point I guess.

“The inhabitants of Cheron were an extremely long-lived race; one representative of them was reputed to have pursued another such representative, an accused criminal from among his people, across the Milky Way Galaxy for over 50,000 years. Unfortunately, the species destroyed itself in a civil war caused by racism. There were only two known survivors by 2268, who the crew of the USS Enterprise believed would ultimately kill each other due to their hate.”

Species 8472

First Appearance: “Star Trek: Voyager” Part 1 (1997)

“Species 8472 existed in an extra-dimensional bit of hell known as fluidic space. When the Borg discovered the fluidic dimension, the ever deadly race of cybernetic killers busted through the dimensions and attempted to assimilate Species 8472. 8472 was having none of that and fought back, creating weapons that could slay the Borg with ease. In fact, 8472 was able to destroy the Borg Cubes in seconds. (Man, that’s like taking down the Death Star with a single bullet.) Sadly, Species 8472 also took out many innocent Delta Quadrant planets, which forced the crew of Voyager to get involved.

The Borg and Voyager had to form an unlikely alliance to drive Species 8472 back to fluidic space. 8472 was one of the closet things Trek fans ever got to Lovecraft-like cosmic horrors, as even the Borg could not stand up to these waling nightmares. This species appeared a few more times on Voyager until Captain Janeway was able to broker a peace with these terrors that exist behind the fabric of time and space.”

I like this species because although it does have an overall humanoid looking body unlike most Star Trek species it does actually look alien rather than space human. I like how they want to make them creepy and from what I’ve seen they are always kept in shadows, and I also like how much taller they are compared to people just to add to that creepy factor. I want to make the aliens in my story kind of similar to how these guys look. But instead of being kept in shade they will just be a really dark grey or pitch black colour. And I also wanted to make them really tall just like this species but Species 8472 looks really buff and muscly to be honest meanwhile I want my aliens to be tall and slender.

Tholians

First appearance: Star Trek: The Original Series “The Tholian Web” (1968)

“Get a load of these psychedelic xenophobes. Yeah, the Tholians might look like a funky black light album cover come to life, but, really, they are brutal, territorial, hateful, and will do anything to keep other species out of Tholian territory. But, hey, they are known for the punctuality, so take heart in the fact that, when they kill you, it’ll be done in a timely fashion.

The Tholians cruise around their sector of space in geometric rainbow ships, making the aesthetic of the race more Yes album cover and less cool space despots. The Tholians first encountered the crew of the Enterprise when the USS Defiant flew too close to Tholian space.

Always protective of their borders, the Tholians phased the Defiant out of real space and into an interspace dimension. Kirk himself was phased out of time and space (for Shatner, it wouldn’t be the first or last time this happened), but Spock and the Enterprise were able to get their captain back and pimp-slap the Tholians.

The Enterprise under Jonathan Archer also ran afoul of these crystalline killers. The Tholians are a great example that in space, threats can come in any shape and even rainbows can kill you.”

“In 2152, the Tholians made an unusual move; they traveled far beyond their territory and actively sought to possess a 31st century Earth vessel discovered by the United Earth starship Enterprise NX-01, under the command of Jonathan Archer. Four Tholian ships intercepted and disabled the combat cruiser Tal'Kir, while it waited to rendezvous with Enterprise. They, in turn, attacked and defeated a Suliban fleet that was in pursuit of the arriving Earth ship. They then successfully removed the pod from Enterprise's possession, only to have the pod return to its proper time moments later. “

I like how original this species looks. I never seen an alien species in any media before that only communicates through technology with other species because they are too scared to actually go out and talk to them while at the same time be ready to anihilate anyone that crosses into their territory. I think it’s a quite good contrast of fearing something but not hesitating to defend yourself from it, it’s like the entire species represents both sides of the fight or flight concept.

Jem’Hadar

First appearance: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “The Jem’Hadar” (1994)

“One of the greatest and most efficiently deadly militaries the galaxy have ever seen, the foot soldiers of the Dominion — the Jem’Hadar — are also one of the more tragic species that can be found in the Trekverse.

Jem’Hadar reach maturity in the span of about three days. They are genetically programmed to be the perfect galactic foot soldier by their masters, the Vorta. To insure control, the Vorta have withheld an essential enzyme from the Jem’Hadar genetic makeup. This enzyme is supplied to the Jem’Hadar in the form of The White, a liquid that the Jem’Hadar has filtered into their systems through a tube in their necks. Essentially, Jem’Hadar are drug-addicted soldiers unleashed upon the galaxy.

The Jem’Hadar were the main Dominion force that laid siege to Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War and were nearly unstoppable. The need for The White was a religion to the Jem’Hadar, who became one of the most feared species in any quadrant.

Jem’Hadar are incredibly resilient and possess keen minds that help them plan for battles. Despite all this, most Jem’Hadar die very young due to the fact that they are essentially cannon fodder for the Dominion. Yet, the Jem’Hadar value duty and loyalty above all else as they embrace their lot as pawns of the Dominion. All for The White.”

I really like how this species looks beause from what I read they are bred soldiers so just thinking about the amount of masks and make up that got put into I don’t know even a dozen of these guys is quite astonishing. I like how they made them look like lizards as well with horns and scales it immediately tells the viewer through visuals that the Jem’Hadar are probably a fighter type. Also I like the decision to make them blue in colour which I assume was intentional because it serves two roles, first they are lizards s they are coldbooded making sense why blue is the color they go for and second the fact they are coldblooded could be viewed as a metaphor for the fact that they are soldiers that are bred to kill which kind of rounds up this species. I also would like to compare them to the Clone Troopers from star wars because the backstory for the Jem’hadar is literally the same as for the clones, they are both genetically made and bred to be soldiers for a war where thousands of them die but they still remain loyal to the cause. But there is a major difference that I feel star trek didn’t look too far into, as Jem’hadar are said to grow up in 3 days and ready to serve meanwhile the clones do age in double the speed of a normal human but they spend their youth training to be soldiers which makes them more believable in my opinion.

Andorians

First appearance: Star Trek: The Original Series “Journey to Babel” (1968)

“The Andorians are an aggressive yet advanced race that was one of the first alien races that formed the original Federation of Planets with humanity.

The Andorians have distinctive blue skin, white hair, and two protruding antennae. The blue skinned humanoids have an advanced armada and a long history of conflict with the Vulcans. This conflict was put aside as Andorians entered into the Federation and, with it, decades of peace. But peace wasn’t easy, as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, in which Federation Captain Archer and Andorian Captain Thy’lek Shran developed an adversarial relationship that, thankfully, culminated in a friendship based on mutual respect.

The Andorians are more than a bit xenophobic as they refer to humans and Vulcans as “pink skins” and have a long standing mistrust of everything not Andorian. In fact, the Andorians don’t even trust their offshoot race, the very rarely encountered, white-skinned, psychic Aenar.

Enterprise is a bit unfairly-maligned by some Trekkers, but it will always be the show that took the Andorians from background characters to a narratively-explored race with deep contradictions. Of course, I need to mention that the Andorian was also one of the final Trek dolls Mego produced. It is very sparkly.”

I thought this species was kind of funny in design. They are supposed to be taken really seriously from what I read and the look on that guys face in the picture and are a very agressive and violent species meanwhie their design supports none of that. They have a very cold yet welcoming colour palette and are rocking a white afro with antenas on top of it, like I’m sorry and I know their species is kind of about prejudice but how can they be taken seriously if they dress like knights in space and look like they came back from an 80′s halloween party?

Jaylah

First appearance: Star Treck Beyond (2016)

“Years prior to her encounter with the USS Enterprise crew, Jaylah and her family, like many before them, were attacked by Krall and imprisoned on Altamid. Jaylah and her family quickly realized that people were routinely taken from Krall's holding cells and killed, so they decided to attempt escape. During the attempt, Jaylah and her father were confronted by Krall's subordinate Manas. Jaylah's father stayed behind to hold off Manas, buying Jaylah time to flee at the cost of his own life. Jaylah discovered the derelict hulk of the Freedom-class USS Franklin and made her home in it. She hid it using holographic technology and set up multiple defensive traps in the surrounding area. Inside the vessel, she discovered a music player, from which she particularly liked music featuring "beats and shouting". She also learned how to speak English from the ship's records. In time, Jaylah became a formidable warrior, skilled in martial arts and in wielding a quarterstaff that doubled as a rifle.”

I feel there isn’t much information about her species because the entire species is literally named after this character and it’s a relativly new character as well so I assume no actual canon explenation exists for her species as of yet. But I do really like how she looks. She has an identical colour scheme to the cheron species I looked at but its executed so much better here with very cool looking face tatoos / markings that make her look actually interesting unlike the cherons that are literally dudes with their faces painted different colour on each side. She kind of reminds me of Darth Maul from star wars with the face markings but there they look so interesting like theres just something about that cold white with deep navy blue tinted black on top of it that just catches the eye more. I also like her eye contacts, I don’t know why I just feel the yellow eyes just complete the look nicely.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Jaylah

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cheron_native

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-trek-the-50-best-alien-races/

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