#like- it took me!! THREE DAYS!!!!! to finish fourth wing

[nexus-nebulae]

ok but the fact that we've been reading AND FINISHING multiple books recently....... the world is healing

[lqveharrington]

Golden Snitch | D.M.

summary: You don’t tell Draco what you’re dressing up as, and when he sees you, he can’t help but be enamored.

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

includes: kissing, underage drinking, talks of sex, cursing

a/n: holding a poll for a similar imagine but a different character! (will post the other imagine in two days and poll in three!)

Halloween was a big thing at Hogwarts. Each house held their own parties and own costume competitions; There would be snacks — courtesy of the kitchen elves — and drinks smuggled in from home or Hogsmeade. It was one of the best nights throughout the school year.

From your fourth year to your very last, you enjoyed every single second. Of course, you were dressed differently every year in hopes to win the costume contests. You were the Corpse Bride, then Dorothy, then a pirate. But this year, you chose something a little closer to Hogwarts itself.

“You know we have to get down there now if you want to be in the competition, right?” Pansy flicked her hair back and adjusted her Cher outfit.

You huffed and finished the last bits of gold adorning your cheeks. You loved Pansy, you really did, but jesus, she was a stickler to rules and schedules sometimes.

“Look, I’m done now.” You dust your hands off and arrange your golden wings to be more presentable. “How do I look?”

“Hot.” Her eyes roamed over your body and winked at you. “Draco will totally drool.”

You send her an amused smile before rushing out the dorm hand in hand. When you got to the Slytherin common room, everyone and everything was already upbeat. The lights had been dimmed even more and green lights were casted all around. The floor was sticky in spilt drinks and the room reeked of sex.

"Let's go get drinks!" Pansy shouted over the loud music and elbowed her way through the mass of Slytherin students, gagging when one couple was getting too intimate on the dance floor. "I am so happy you and Draco have boundaries!"

You roll your eyes at her and grab a plastic cup, filling it with firewhisky and downing it fast enough to forget what Pansy had said. She gave you an unimpressed look and took her own shot.

After joining the infamous costume contest and winning, mingling with the others and downing more drinks, a fifth year finally announced the arrival of the Slytherin Prince himself. And the party only got rowdier from there.

The second the blonde stepped into the common room, drinks were shoved into his hands; A courtesy of Blaise. Draco made his way over to the group of seventh years he deemed his friends since childhood before his eyes landed on you.

His eyes roamed across your body. From the golden makeup adorning your gorgeous face to the golden dress that hugged your curves and accentuated them, it was like he fell in love all over again. He watched you down another drink and shook his head in amusement. You looked so confident and happy and excited and ethereal in what you wore that he wanted to keep you all to himself.

“Well, what do we have here?” His free hand found its way to the curve of your hip and pulled you close to him, smirking when your eyes get blown wide at his sudden presence. “You look ravishing.”

“I know. I won the competition like always.” You brag as you murmur and wrap a hand around his tie, softly tugging on it so you could meet his lips without needing to strain. “And who are you supposed to be?”

“James Bond.” He pulled you even closer, wanting to be completely flush against you. “But I should’ve worn my Quidditch uniform because I believe I have my eye on the golden snitch.”

The smile that graced your lips practically emits warmth when you realize Draco knew what you were. “You should probably keep your sight on her because she’s not straying far.”

“Better not.” He planted a mind searing kiss to your lips and thumbed the costume, parting when he felt how rough it was. “Your dress feels uncomfortable to the touch, love. It’s not real gold, is it?”

“No, not all of it. Daddy wouldn’t let me get one.” You sigh as you lean your head on his chest and hiccup when he pats your ass softly at the remark.

Draco could practically see the flashing signs around you saying how plastered you were, and it was truly entertaining at the most. He knew you were drunk when you flaunted your father’s money around, which you typically never do. He finished his cup before tossing it somewhere, holding your hip with two hands now.

You look up at him at the movement, wide eyes only reflecting your pupils. “What?”

“Nothing, love. Just admiring.” He scanned your body once more and planted a kiss to the top of your head. “How many drinks have you had so far?”

You shrug and gasp when someone poured a fresh round right behind Draco. “Let’s go get some more!”

He shook his head and locked his arms behind you, “No more for you. You are so fucking drunk.”

“I am not!” You huff and almost stomp your golden heel on the ground like a spoiled child. “Blaise and Pansy are! They’re practically fucking behind you!”

Draco pursed his lips and pulled you away from the center of the common room. It was funny how only during Halloween you would be more drunk than he was. Any other time, he would be absolutely plastered and ready to throw you over his shoulder for some quality time in the bedroom. Besides, he was also drunk, but not as drunk as you were at the moment.

“Hey—!” You whine and stumble up the staircase to his dorm. “Where are we going?”

“You’re done for tonight, my love.” He opened his shared dorm and quickly shut it behind him, quieting the room from the loud mass of music and people downstairs.

You blink at the sudden quietude and look up at him with eyes that made him want to abandon everything and take you there. Draco cleared his throat and adjusted himself, rubbing his palms against his eyes.

“Let’s get you changed into comfortable clothing, yeah?” He dug through his clothes to find a sweater and guided you toward the bathroom, flicking the light on.

“Draco?” You mumble as he sat you down on the counter and pulled your golden pumps off. “Draco.”

“Yes, baby?” He look up at you from his kneeled position, eyes equally blown wide. “What is it?”

You blink again and just watch him for a little longer, keeping eye contact with the blonde. Even in your intoxicated state you still found time to admire him.

“Nothing.” You sent him a cheeky smile at his expression, taking off your golden wings and handing them to him.

He stood from his spot and kissed your shoulder, “Do you wanna shower or go straight to bed?”

“Bed.” You yawn.

Draco hummed and helped your stand, slowly removing your dress and replacing it with his quidditch sweater. You smiled tiredly and leaned your body against his when he began wiping the makeup off your face, playing with the end of his tie.

“You remembered.” You murmur sleepily, blindly reaching for your toothbrush you kept in the boys dorm.

“I’ve been doing this for two years straight, I think I would know.” He handed you your toothbrush and toothpaste before removing the rest of your makeup and golden pins from your hair. “There.”

“Thank you.” You spoke with your toothbrush still in your mouth and leaned against the counter as Draco moved around you to change.

When you were both settled into bed, you wanted to just fall asleep right then and there, but you still had one thing to do. Your body was practically on top of his when you thought of it, your head rested on his bare shoulder.

“Draco?” You murmur and trace hearts on his chest, splaying your hand over his beating heart.

“Yeah?” He tilted his head over to you, resting his cheek on the top of your head.

“Happy third year anniversary.” You smile softly and fiddle with the promise ring he got you years ago.

“Happy anniversary, my love.” He hugged you tighter, head now buried in your shoulder and neck. “Thank you for being amazing.”

You kiss his cheek and sigh, “I love you.”

“I love you more than you could ever know.” Draco murmured and kissed you properly. “Cheers to three years.”

©lqveharrington - all rights reserved. do not copy, translate or share my work on other media platforms

[catboyfelixer]

I Hope You’ll Always Be My Guardian Angel | Lee Felix

Pairing: Felix x GN!Reader Summary: Felix is a guardian angel-in-training, and you’re his last assignment before he can graduate. Genre: Fluff, Humor Notes: Jeongin also makes an appearance in this <3

All Felix could hear was pencils on paper scribbling away, students flipping to the back of the test that he had finished half an hour ago. This was not his first rodeo. This wasn’t even his second rodeo. But every time he failed his in-person assessment, he had to come back and do the written test all over again.

All he wanted to do escape the white walls, floors, uniforms, furniture, everything, and get back to Earth. The only other color in the room were the black numbers on the white clock, ticking agonizingly slow. Normally he would drift off into daydreams about his next assignment on Earth to pass the time. But lately those daydreams would turn into embarrassing memories of failing his exams on Earth and dread about failing them all over again.

At least he wasn’t alone. Most of his classmates had passed on their first try, but Jeongin being here too made him feel a bit better. He was asleep on the desk next to Felix’s, drooling a bit on the test. He always looks peaceful, even smiling in his sleep. Felix wishes he could be this laid-back about failing as many times as they have. Whenever Felix has doubts about ever graduating, Jeongin throws an arm around him and tells him they’ll make it eventually, even if it takes a hundred years. Hopefully they’ll both pass this time, and join their friends as full-fledged guardian angels.

The instructor rings the chimes, playing a melodic tune to signal the end of the exam. Felix shakes Jeongin awake, and they get ready to find out who they’ll be assigned to for the next two weeks.

You slammed the door to your apartment as you walked in, and dropped your bag on the ground. The loud thud didn't startle you, and you didn't care about all your textbooks splaying out. Who cares about the tripping hazard.

Yeah, it was one of those days.

First, you spilled coffee on your new shirt. You were too far from home to change and you were running late for class anyway.

Second, none of your group had anything prepared for their parts in the group project. Nothing! They had two weeks to do literally anything. You'll have to bring this up to the professor before the presentation tomorrow.

Third, your laptop just completely died during your last class of the day. All the notes you took- gone.

Fourth, you banged your elbow on the door frame on the way out of class. Maybe you would've been calm if it was only three things. But come on.

You're lucky nothing happened on the way home, who knows if you would've lost your mind.

You hear a knock at the door. After a brief pause, there are two more louder knocks.

Fifth, someone's at your door. On your bad day.

You mentally compose yourself, taking a deep breath before walking to the door.

When you open it, you're blinded by bright lights enveloping a figure in the hallway. You cover your eyes and hear a voice.

"Oh, sorry. Let me turn that down." The figure reaches up and turns down the light coming from the halo on his head.

...

...Halo?

You look back, and see a man dressed in all white from head to toe. He has shoulder length blonde hair, what seems to be a halo floating on top of his head, and a pair of translucent wings behind him.

"Um... Be not afraid?" he says, tilting his head as if he's the one confused here.

You just stare at him blankly. Why is there a man dressed like an angel at your door.

He sticks out his hand, hoping for a handshake. When you just continue staring at him in bewilderment, he clears his throat and tries again.

"Hello, my name is Felix and I'll be your guardian angel for the next two weeks." The way he says it is stilted, as if he's practiced saying this beforehand.

"What?" is all you manage to say at first. This is so completely bizarre.

"I've never been good at this part. Can I come in? It'll be easier to explain if I can sit down and read my cue cards," he explains, already walking past you and into the living room behind you. He trips on the bag you left on the floor and stumbles into a side table, knocking over a potted plant.

Sixth.

He stands up, wipes the dirt off his pants, and continues walking like nothing happened. He sits down on the old black leather couch your parents gave you and some cue cards appear in his hands out of thin air.

He flips through them, nodding at each card before they magically disappear when he's finished reading them. Looking up at you, he smiles and pats the couch next to him, which you ignore.

"Like I said, my name is Felix and I'm in training to be a guardian angel. You're my assignment for my exam. Nice to meet you!" He puts out his hand for you to shake again, and this time you hesitantly take up the offer.

"Ok, let me get this straight. Guardian angels exist. Ok. I guess this might as well happen," you start, finally taking a seat across from him, "But why only two weeks? Do I just... not get a guardian angel after that?"

"Don't worry, you didn't have one before this and you were just fine, right?"

Considering the day you just had, that's debatable.

"Why does an angel need to take an exam? Aren't you, like, just born knowing how to angel?"

"No, that's silly. And also, I wasn't born," he says, not elaborating on why that's silly or how angels are made.

"I wasn't born either," you lie. You shouldn't be the only one caught off guard today.

"Oh, that's interesting," he responds. He pulls out a notepad and a pencil and writes that down. Did he... believe you?

Somehow you find that endearing. Just a little bit.

"Oh yeah, I have more cue cards to get through."

He follows behind you on your walk to the grocery store like a puppy. Every so often he yells out "BE CAREFUL!" just before you step on a rock.

"WATCH OUT!"

He pulls you towards him, wrapping his arms around your waist and tucking his chin in the crook of your neck. He's unexpectedly warm, warmer than any person you've been in an embrace with. Are angels known to be warm? You'll have to look that up later. You subconsciously lean into him, and against your own will, you notice your heart beating harder in your chest.

You look around, expecting a bike to be barreling towards you or something, but he points to the ground where a squirrel runs by your feet. When it's gone, he lets you go, and the warmth retreats too. You turn around to question him, but he starts talking first.

"Phew, that could've been dangerous, good thing I was here," he says. He wipes some non-existent sweat off his forehead and gives you a thumbs up.

"There's no way that would've been dangerous," you start, but he's too busy mentally patting himself on the back for a job well done. He doesn't hear you at all.

You sigh, and you guess this is what your life will be like for the next two weeks.

When you get to the store, no one seems to notice the wings or the halo. But what they do notice is the kindhearted guy helping the little old lady get some organic cereal off the top shelf, and the pretty boy making funny faces at a crying baby to calm her down. You definitely notice the cute way he furrows his brow while reading the shopping list, making sure you didn't forget anything. And how he offers to carry the heavy bags for you when you finish paying. He's lifting an entire bag of flour under one arm, and two more reusable shopping bags with his other hand. He's kind of... nice to have around, you think.

You don't think about his pretty face or his toned arms carrying your groceries, not at all.

The two of you walk home, side-by-side. Your thoughts wander to what happens after. Will he go inside the apartment again? Where is he living while on Earth. He's not expecting to stay the night, is he? You just met him. Then again, he is your guardian angel. If anything, it's probably better to have him close by. Just in case. You turn to ask him where he's staying, but he suddenly stops in his tracks and stares past you, further down the street. He squints to see something, and then a big goofy smile spreads across his face.

You look, and there's two men in the distance. One is just a regular dude eating a hotdog. The other guy... is another angel. He's wearing the same all white outfit as Felix, and there's a halo floating above him emitting a soft light.

"Jeongin!" he calls out, and when the angel turns, his translucent wings catch the light of his halo and become barely visible.

'Jeongin' smiles brightly and waves in your direction. Felix drops your groceries and jogs to catch up with his friend. They do a complicated handshake and start talking, which would be cool if you weren't left with all the heavy bags on the ground.

Above you, you hear a man shout 'Mamma mia!' and when you look up, a giant black blur falls out of a balcony.

A crash roars through the street, followed by a perfect C major chord, and when Felix turns around there's a broken grand piano where you once stood.

"Ah.... shoot."

The last thing Felix sees before being teleported away is the man next to Jeongin falling over after choking on his hot dog.

A moment later, and Felix is back in a very familiar room. White walls, white carpet, a white couch and a white coffee table greet him once again. He takes a seat, and Jeongin appears in the room too.

"I lasted longer this time!" Jeongin exclaims, punching his fist in the air as a show of victory.

"By literally half a second."

"Still counts," Jeongin responds, and Felix rolls his eyes.

"So what happened to your guy?"

"I think the hotdog was bad, I don't know," Jeongin says, scratching his chin. "He got it from back of some guys car. Maybe food poisoning."

The sound of the door swinging open grabs their attention, and they watch as their principal walks in.

"How can there already be two people back, the exam just start- oh"

Principal Park sighs as he looks at the two students in his office. Of course it's these two again. He adjusts his glasses and addresses them.

"You both know the drill, be back for the written test in two weeks," he says, and leaves them alone in the lobby again.

Felix stands up to leave, and a familiar phrase escapes his lips.

"You know, I'm starting to think we might not be good at this."

Jeongin wraps his arm around Felix's shoulder, and says the same thing he always does when doubt creeps in.

"This was just a test round! Next time is the real deal. We'll get it for sure!"

And with that, they leave to prepare for their next exam, memories of their latest failure already being buried away.

[puckpocketed]

“wouldn’t it be cute if you formatted all your gif descriptions the same way” -> I’m breaking down the doors of the california digital newspaper collection with my teeth to find the broadcast date for this documentary -> omg irbe mention <3 -> THEYRE BEATING HIS ASS IN THE PAPERS pipeline is so real and true and beautiful. to me. I love how san jose sharks reportage has never once been regular !!!

highlight from "Irbe struggles, Sharks bomb: double-headed goalkeeper falls flat" By Mark Kreidler for McClatchy News Service. Originally published in The Santa Cruz Sentinel, Volume 137, Page 14, 9 May 1994.

In bold text are my favourite parts. And for future reference, I truly hope Askarov tortures us the same way Irbe did to Sharks Fans of Yore <3

The San Jose Sharks are one man, goalie Arturs Irbe. Arturs Irbe is two players, the courageous, risk-taking shotstopper and the loon In the teal jersey whose neck keeps snapping backward as hockey pucks fly past. Tough combo, the Irbe-Irbe split. And there is your Sharks season, in a wildly frustrating capsule. He was at it again at the San Jose Arena on Sunday, Irbe the evil twin, the sequel. Two days after posting an efficient 5-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead in the teams' National Hockey League second-round playoff series, the Latvian with the generous heart didn't make it out of the second period alive in a mortifying 8-3 defeat. Pucks flew past with a shocking frequency, and they came from everywhere, and they went everywhere, but mostly in. At the end of the second 20-minute set, Toronto had a 6-1 lead, and only a fan base as enthusiastic as the Sharks' would have stayed to the bitter finish, a loss that had "midseason throwaway" smeared all over it.

Even Irbe didn't stick around. Pulled by Coach Kevin Constantine in favor of Jimmy Waite at the start of the third, the goalie had had plenty of time to review the carnage by the time he emerged from a long, long shower. Verdict? "We lose, we lose bad." Ever so true. In playoff life, the Sharks are precisely as they represented through a 33-35-16 regular season: Up and down like the employees' elevator at work, and about as much fun to watch on the downside. And while the routine played decently through the first round, with a seven-game decision against Detroit, the Maple Leafs are nobody's idea of the collapsible Red Wings. Enter Irbe, who knows he is going to have to raise his game to keep San Jose in this playoff. Detroit was one thing, the Red Wings sputtering and misfiring just often enough to give the Sharks and their goalie second life, to say nothing of third and fourth life.

The Leafs? Call them somewhat less forgiving. They took control Sunday by beating up Irbe's teammates, crowding the net, blocking Irbe's view on at least three of the six goals they hung on him. Doug Gilmour just ate them up all the long day. All in all, noncompetitive. "All in all," said Sharks center Todd Elik, "awful." "You can't blame it on Artie," teammate Jamie Baker said. "He didn't have a whole lot of help in front of him. It was a group effort, us getting blown out." But the Sharks are Irbe, for better and, occasionally, for demonstrably worse. He certainly got no help on this day, but then Irbe is the kind of player who rarely helps himself. Seldom has a goalie put so much pressure on himself by leaving the net with such maddening frequency. Irbe's tendency to roam after loose pucks behind the net, out to challenge an oncoming shooter always runs the risk of costing the Sharks a cheap goal, and so it was in Game 4.

A 1-0 Toronto lead in the opening period became 2-0 at least partly because Irbe, regarded as one of the better-skating goalies in the league, left his goal during a wild scramble on one shot and then was prevented by the alert Leafs from getting back into position in time to stop Mike Eastwood's chipper. Two became three a couple of minutes later on a Dave Andreychuk slap shot, a total San Jose defensive breakdown; and after that, Constantine said, "the field of the game was changed." Translation: "We had to open up our offense," Elik said, "and we're just no good at it." That is how games become routs, and how goalies become goats. Irbe, hailed all season as the man who kept the Sharks competitive on nights they otherwise might not be, had no defense against the Toronto attack. He wasn't even close. "Way too many goals for me to say it was all lucky bounces," Irbe said. "I'm fine now. I'm relaxed, calmed down from it … But I have never been happy with my play in the playoffs. I cannot be satisfied with this." This message brought to you by Irbe the Evil. Come Tuesday, Game 5, the other fellow, the -one so depended upon, could fit in quite nicely with a San Jose plan to stay competitive because, as everybody following this team knows by now, there is never any telling what tomorrow brings.

[tj-dragonblade]

Fanfic Tag Game

Tagged by @softest-punk and @landwriter, thank you both!

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 133

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? I will break 400K with the next thing I post (unless it is somehow less than 401 words lol) Also, this would require actually focusing on something to finish it

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Sandman (technically, Dreamling). Previously? MCU, Naruto, Saiyuki, and Gundam Wing

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Overall (these are from my Naruto days and more than ten years old): Delayed (or, Why Kakashi Is Never On Time) (GaiKaka) at 3963 Past the Limits (KakaNaru) at 1272 Affirmation (KakaNaru) at 1022 Worth It (KakaIru) at 1005 Vigil (GaaNaru) at 843 (It kills me that I am Just Not That Into Kakashi and yet he's fucked his way into four of my top five, lol)Current fandom tops, just for fun (all of which are at most a year-plus-change in age) Use Your Words at 443 Insatiable at 398 Fluffbruary Fills (2023) at 375 In the Morning Light at 318 Built For You at 308

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, generally! I am still catching up on Fluffbruary comments, much to my chagrin

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Going aaaallllll the way back to Gundam Wing, I did a songfic where I implied a breakup until the final-line reveal that the character had gasp actually died. There may be a couple other angst-based pieces in my catalog, but that I think is the Most(tm).

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most everything I write is a happy ending, when there's any semblance of plot involved. Uh. The Umbrella Boys AU had a wedding; maybe that counts? Either that or the Thessaly breakup fic with all the hurt-comfort pining that finally resolves into requited realization.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Never have, would like to keep it that way.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? The good kind *eyebrow waggle*

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I have…three, that could be counted as crossovers, and one that's a proper fusion. None of them are particularly crazy. Duo and Wufei did Naruto roleplay in the bedroom. Kakashi and Naruto took on Princess Bride's fire swamp. Gojyo and Hakkai acquired Jiipu from Count D and his pet shop with a complete disregard for the fourth wall. Maybe that one, then, though it's more crack than crazy-crossover. Hob wearing the Wavemother's Robe is not enough of anything to count as a crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of, no

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! I don't recall which ones but I've had requests to translate to Chinese, to Russian, and I think Spanish as well? Possibly French also. My memory is shit. Je suis désolé.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? Yeah, a friend and I co-wrote a couple back in GW and it was…fun? At the time? It started as me helping her with the smut portion of a thing she was doing and turned into a cowrite with a sequel. Not the sort of thing I'd have written on my own, and definitely not now twenty years later with my current kink preferences

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? …yeah, that's not a thing I can answer. Whichever I'm fixated on is inevitably my favorite at the time but once the fixation fades, I still have so much love for each of them.

15. What’s a fic you’d like to finish but don’t think you ever will? Oh my god there are so many. But there are two-three unfinished drafts for ThorBruce fic that I really—see, my MCU fandom experience soured so fast I did not have my usual three-year run of productive ficwriting and the ideas I was working on probably could have been finished were that not the case. I would still love to finish them but the motivation (let alone the time) is just not there.

16. What are your writing strengths? I take great pride in my smut, and I like to think I'm good at it. Painting pictures with my words? Maybe character voice, in certain cases.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot. Stories with plot and progression and chapters and such. Follow-through to finish pieces that don't get done in the initial burst of focus.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic? If I had a need for it at some point, I would want to consult a native speaker to ensure correct translation and I would include the translation in footnotes etc. But it would have to be some really specific reason that the foreign language was needed/integral to some story device to not just indicate via some other means (e.g., '"xyz," he said, in perfect French', use of italics, etc) that a different language is in use.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Gundam Wing. If we don't count the 'DS9 novel idea' that I recall making notes on in my journal back in high school, or any of the Mary Sue DS9 thoughts I would also journal about. None of that was ever 'actual writing' nor did I have anywhere I would have shared it in '96.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Again. How'm I supposed to pick? Ugh. Let's see, fandom by fandom. Gundam Wing…no, nothing there is a favorite. Saiyuki…When the Chips Are Down. Comedy gen-fic based on a tidbit of fandom lore is not something I manage terribly often but I am quite pleased with this one; Jiipu's pov always delights me and I'm proud of all the voice work here also. Naruto…maybe Seized? Sai POV is one of my strengths and I think it came through really well in that one. MCU…Carpe Diem, I'm very pleased with character voices in that one. Sandman…I remain very fond of the Drunken Confessions Fluffbruary 2023 fic and the Car and Cutoffs one might be my favorite smutfic. So far.

If you'd like to do this, please take my passive tag this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks.

[abstractdiagram]

I’ve reformatted chapter four three times now to get it to Ao3 with my italics intact. I’m not going through it a fourth time. So stuff for Harry thinking to himself should be italicized but I’m not doing it here. Please see Ao3 for correctness. That being said. Holy forking shirtballs! This one is loooooooong. But we leave the hospital and meet more people and use more magic. So yay!!

Love you darlins!!!! Leave me comments and kudos so I keep wanting to write for people!

Chapter 4

It took three days for Dippet to get in touch with Harry, which pissed him off slightly. It wasn’t that the hospital wasn’t nice. The food was decent once they let him have any; they’d started so slowly with what he could have “‘cause, ye ‘aven’ been eatin’ in four months an’ yer body don’ likely know what t’ do wi’ food, ye ken?” The nurses were nice enough - Meranda especially took extra time with him and the older night nurse made sure to refill his water and check in on him she her shift started before “leaving you to your rest dear.”

It was Thursday night and Meranda had told him it’d be a colder one so he was tucked in under his blankets on his side with his long legs curled up. The tap-tap-tap on the window first registered as Aunt Petunia’s thud-thud-thudding on his cupboard door and he groggily hunkered under his pillow. Tap-tap-tap. “It’s too early for breakfast” he muttered. Finally the owl outside let out a short but loud and frustrated HOOT before he startled awake. His wand was in his hand before he finished sitting up and he huffed when he saw the feathered silhouette. It held its leg up as if to say “take the damn thing and let me go hunt you wholloping great tosser.” Or maybe that was just Harry’s mood after waiting for so long and dreaming that he was back under the stairs.

The window opened, surprisingly. Maybe because I’m in a storage room? No hospital he knew, including St. Mungo’s had windows that could open at any rate. “I don’t have any treats. I’m sorry. But this is a muggle hospital and I’m a patient. They’re not generally equipped for owls.” Harry untied the letter and the owl fluffed itself indignantly before taking off. The light whap of its wing against his head telling Harry without doubt that the owl was displeased. “Oh, sod off you feathery git!” The owl, though out of sight, was not too distant to hoot back with a distinct air of “bite me, magic boy.”

Great. Arguing with and losing to an owl. Just great. Harry closed the window, turned on the bedside lamp and settled to read. The script was a spidery slant written on parchment with the Hogwarts crest and motto across the top.

“Dear Mr. Shelby,

We must say, we were quite shocked to receive a corporeal Patronus from so great a distance sent by such an as-yet-unknown and young wizard. As such we took our time to do our due diligence in researching you and your circumstances before reaching out in response.

We are saddened to learn of your situation - we send deep condolences for your losses - and wish to express the reassurance that had we been aware of your family’s entrance to the country we would have extended a thorough and warm welcome. As it is, we wish to extend to you this welcome at this time.

Please note that a representative will be making himself known to you and the Muggle Caregivers at Whitchurch on September 22nd, 1944 at ten in the morning. Also be advised that you should have your things ready to depart. The representative will be bringing you to Wizarding London to the Ministry of Magic for evaluation and planning for the future. This is not a formal matter, but a way to assess your needs and what help can be provided in what ways.

We look forward to joining you and our representative at the Ministry on September 22nd.

Sincerely,

Headmaster Armando Dippet”

The 22nd. Today. I’ll be getting out of here today! Harry was excited by this aspect but also newly worried. He’d expected to be whisked away right to Hogwarts given his age and orphan status but this letter made it seem like he’d have to answer questions and complete evaluations before perhaps never even setting foot in the school. Well then. He’d just have to play along and give the answers that would get him to Hogwarts.

Why he wanted to go back to the castle so badly he wasn’t entirely sure. Mostly to help himself become grounded in this new body and new time frame in a familiar setting. Maybe a bit to put off having to re-enter adulthood in what was admittedly a semi-daunting situation. But mostly to reorient himself and get a better grip on his new life he told himself.

When Meranda came in early that morning he told her that he’d be leaving. She was shocked and concerned, “Bu’ ‘Arry, ye’ve no’ got yer strength back! And where’d ye be goin’ wi’ who?” He felt guilty about lying to her but the story he wove about a distant relative discovering him and coming to take him to a hospital nearer his family members - helped a tad by a Confundus charm that he felt absolutely gutted to have had to do - mollified her quickly and she gave him a long hug. She left soon after to fetch him some toast and he winced when she bounced her shoulder off the door frame as she went. “Oops!” She laughed to herself as she walked down the hall. “Didn’ see tha’ comin’ did I?”

When ten o’clock came he was wearing grey trousers that were too big at the waist and a white cotton undershirt that Meranda promised had “been washed enou’ ye can’ tell they were a right mess when ye came in.” -Dudley’s duds all over again these pants are. Ah well. It’s better than meeting a representative in an arseless hospital drape.

A double knock sounded and the door opened. Harry’s jaw almost dropped but he schooled himself into lesser shock as the man entered.

���Professor Albus Dumbledore, pleased to meet you Nathaniel.” He was so much younger than Dumbledore Harry knew. This Dumbledore had greying hair and beard but not nearly as long. And he wasn’t dressed in robes but a smart muggle suit. He shook his head to jostle his brain into gear before extending a hand to meet the one Dumbledore was extending as he crossed the small room.

“Nice to m-meet you professor. But you can call me ‘Harry’ please. Sir. From my middle name.”

“Right, right my boy. Harry then. Well. Have you gathered your things?” He looked around expectantly.

Harry raised the paper bag containing the wands and other things he’d yet to properly go through. “Here sir. Not much I’m afraid.”

“Ah; of course of course. Well. We will have time to remedy that when we get to London. Here, drink this up. And this one too.” He pulled first one potion vial and then a second from the suit coat pockets.

Harry took them without hesitation; he trusted Dumbledore not to poison him. He caught the bemused look in the older man’s eyes as he gulped them down though. He supposed he had just showed some quality or characteristic that would surely be tucked away and evaluated by that brilliant mind and he winced inwardly. He probably should have been more wary. After all, he was supposed to have no idea who this man was, much less trust anything from a Wizarding world he was not supposed to be very familiar with. Too late now. As it turned out it was a variation of a Pepperup potion and a Strengthening Solution. Harry felt instantly less fatigued and much more able to face the coming ministry interrogation.

“Thank you sir.” Harry was ready. He stood and crammed his feet into the shoes Meranda had brought. “My brother’s. ‘E… well. ‘E don’ need ‘em and ye do, righ’?” Her momentarily melancholy made her eyes glossy with tears and he realized that her brother must have also died in the muggle war. Before he could say anything she had chirped brightly that she’d be back to see him off and hurried out the door.

He grabbed his bag and Dumbledore led the way out into the hall. It felt odd to be walking and he knew he probably shouldn’t be able to do so yet without the vials he had been given. Thank Merlin for magic.

They stopped at a desk that sat at the junction of three hallways and Dr. Basil tottered around it to shake Harry’s hand. He didn’t seem too perturbed by Harry’s newfound strength. In fact, Harry was almost sure he heard the doctor mumble “Goodbye Daniel” instead of “Nathaniel” and he cast a side-eye at Dumbledore who was picking through a small dish of wrapped taffies.

They were almost out the door before rapid footsteps behind them made Harry pause. When he turned he smiled to see Meranda headed his way. She had a small knapsack with her and she pushed it into his hands. “I nipped down ‘ome on m’ break. ‘Ts no’ much bu’ is more than ye ‘ad. Don’ open it ‘ere. ‘M no’ sposed t’ give th’ patients things, ye ken?” Harry took closed the distance between them and wrapped her in a hug. She was shorter than him and rested her cheek briefly to his chest. “‘M no’ sposed t’ do tha’ neither.” She said when she pulled away.” She smiled at him and took two backwards steps away before turning from them, calling over his shoulder. “Lovely t’ ‘ave met ye ‘Arry! Keep gettin’ well, yeah?”

He had to wipe his eyes as he too turned back and, settling the knapsack’s strap over his shoulder he started back to the exit. Dumbledore watched quietly and said, “You’ve made a friend. Lovely young woman, I’m sure.”

“Yes sir. She is.” He spoke quietly and stared down at the floor. Less than a week he’d known her but he knew she’d be in his memories forever.

Once they stepped out into the blustery morning Dumbledore took the lead. They headed for the car park and Harry momentarily wondered if he had driven a muggle car to pick Harry up. He was quickly dissolved of that notion when they stepped around a corner to an unobserved patch of grass. Fumbling through his pockets Dumbledore muttered to himself, “now where did that portkey go… where is it.. aha!” He pulled a paper clip from his trousers. “Now, you hold this tight. We took a bit longer to exit than I had planned so any second now we’ll be - oh ho!” The hook-behind-navel feeling yanked into him and the hospital and grounds spun away.

They popped to in an alley full of bins of rubbish, startling a scraggly tabby cat that bolted under an upturned carton. Harry didn’t stumble, long ago having got used to portkey travel. Again, Dumbledore seemed to be filing that information away somewhere.

“This way my boy.” Dumbledore strolled down the alley in his suit and shined shoes looking for all the world like he was entering an office and not traipsing through old cabbage leaves and detritus. They stopped at the corner of the alley. There was a half brick wall here, jagged and showing that it hadn’t -always- been a half wall but part of a building. A wooden door was hanging crookedly ajar in its frame and Harry could see that there was nothing on the other side of it but an empty room. Without hesitation Dumbledore clapped a hand on his shoulder and led them through the door and into

“The Ministry of Magic! We have a meeting with a few minor officials to settle what will be done with your situation. This way.” Harry followed the hand still on his shoulder. He didn’t see anything familiar; it was too crowded and it was noisy and he was moving too fast until they stood before the golden grille of the lifts. “Minister Spencer-Moon, of course, won’t be part of this little meeting. Just myself, the headmaster of Hogwarts, whom you seem to know of, and maybe two or three others from different departments invested in keeping Wizarding youth out of harms way.”

Harry almost snorted. Out of harm’s way. That’s rich considering what happened to Nathaniel and his family. And what happened at Hogwarts every year I attended. And how the Dursley’s treated me while I was there. And Tom Riddle’s whole existence. And Circe knows how many dozens or hundreds of others they don’t and never will know of.

When the lift stopped they got out into a hallway he’d never seen before. There was less foot traffic here and it was quieter. They entered a room a few doors down and everyone rose to shake Harry’s hand.

“Headmaster Armando Dippet of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.” introduced himself first before sitting at the far end of the table.

A squat witch with a crooked smile was next. “Dorietta Thomas. I’m from the Introduction and Reintegration department. I’ll be assessing what type of help you may need to get settled into your new world.” She sat to the left side.

A very tall, painfully skinny middle-aged man with a wheezy voice shook Harry’s hand next. “Ignatious Hornwald.” He gave no title or clue as to what he was there for but Harry shivered as the man stepped away and took his seat on the right, nearest the back corner as he could get. An Unspeakable maybe? Why?

Last but not least was a woman who sounded like what he imagined a poodle would sound like if it could talk. French accented and almost a barking voice. As kind as he was sure she was trying to be, it still sounded like an irritated dog was yapping at him. She was “Belinda Strongholm. I’m just taking notes.” When she sat she rested her hands on a stack of blank parchment and readied her quill and ink. She sat on the same side as Mr. Hornwald had, but much closer to Harry, almost as if she didn’t want to be near the skeletal man. When Dumbledore took his seat next to Dorietta, Harry was left at the last spot at the head of the table.

He sat and tried to not squirm uncomfortably. He may look seventeen but he was a twenty-five year old Auror and these men and women didn’t scare him. Ri-ight they don’t.

“Mr. Shelby -“ Professor Dippet started.

“Harry please. Just Harry.” He interjected. He wasn’t sure he could sit through the whole meeting being called “Mr. Shelby.”

“Harry. If you could please state your name and date of birth?”

Belinda’s quill scritched quietly as he recited “Nathaniel Harrison Shelby. January 3rd, 1927. And before you ask: my mother and father and I lived in Cardiff. We were surprised when shelling from the muggle war came to town. They were killed. I was found and taken to a muggle hospital in Cardiff where I have remained unconscious since May until a few days ago.” He looked at each of them in turn as he spoke but avoided meeting the eyes of Mr. Hornwald. He felt an odd slow skittering sensation in his mind. Like a spider trying to tickle its way into his brain. Harry threw up his Occlumency shields at once. He’d been practicing for years, both during and after his school years. Once his teacher no longer actively hated him, he found that he was quite good at sussing out when Legillimency was being directed at him and blocking it out. Hornwald sat back abruptly but minutely in his chair and Harry knew he was right - the man was Unspeakable and probably there to ascertain how much, if any, threat Harry posed. Harry sent a brief smirk towards the man. No, you don’t. Not to me.

No one else seemed to notice and Dippet carried on.

“How is it that you have never been to Hogwarts, or any other wizarding school, given your age?”

Harry paused a moment, listening to the memory whisper. “I was homeschooled. We moved around too often and my folks were adamant that I could learn as much as I needed with a mixed muggle and wizard education. I attended muggle schools throughout the years, sporadically but I did well enough that were I so inclined I could have graduated secondary school. I am proficient enough in the areas of magic that my parents always said were ‘main curriculum’ for testing students.” Here he injected his own ideas on the matter. “Having been unconscious for months, and waking up to no home, no immediate family and no prospects in either the muggle or Wizarding world I reached out to Professor – Headmaster I mean - Dippet as his was a name I had heard from my parents in passing as being someone of note and ability to ‘help sort things out’ as it were.”

Belinda took down his every word. Dorietta looked misty-eyed at his semi-sob story, as did Dippet. Hornwald and Dumbledore stared at him as if waiting for The Truth or some such was to be forthcoming. Harry resisted the urge to smirk again.

Dorietta spoke but her voice was thick and she had to cough a little to clear it. “Ha- *cough* Harry. You’ve been exposed to various magics throughout your childhood and teens as you say. Do you have a wand and is it present?”

He reached a hand under his shirt to pull his holly wand from his waistband. Dumbledore looked surprised, perhaps thinking he had stored it in the bag that now sat on the floor at his feet with the knapsack Meranda had given him. But Harry hadn’t been without his wand within reach more than a handful of times in years, the most recent exception being that he was, oh, say, in a coma.

“I do. Eleven inches, holly and phoenix feather. I’ve had it as long as I can remember.” He fibbed the last bit but no one seemed to notice.

“If I may see it dear?” She held a hand out and he looked at it reproachfully. “Only for a moment. And I won’t do anything untoward. I merely wish to make sure it is of working order.”

Stiffly, he placed the wand in her hand. She ran through a few spells causing sparks and stars and water to pour out and then making Belinda’s inkwell dance. Belinda slapped a hand to it and her nostrils flared at Dorietta.

“Fine fine. One more spell…” She concentrated and a tiny wispy blue stag half emerged from the wand tip. She was using Priori Incantatem. Shitballs what spells did I do before that? He was worried that a stunning spell or shield charm would pop up next, thinking of his Auror moments. Or what if it channels Nathaniel’s last spells? What had he been up to? But a new trickle of water and some confetti came next instead. Spells from his birthday party. The wand remembered.

Dorietta chuckled and passed it back to Harry who’s visible relief at having it back made Dumbledore squint and Hornwald twitch.

“Could you perhaps show us how you produced the water, Harry?”

He nodded. “May I, Ms. Strongholm?” He motioned to her no-longer-dancing inkwell and she slid it to him, confused. With a soft spell he transfigured it into an empty pitcher. “Aguamenti.” Water poured into it from his wand. When the pitcher was full he carefully made a swish and flick motion. “Wingardium Leviosa.” The full pitcher rose a foot off the table. “I could make it dance but I’m afraid it would spill.” He lowered his wand and the pitcher landed with a small thump. Another spell and the pitcher was gone; Belinda’s now very-full inkwell sat in its place.

“Remarkable!” Everyone was staring at him now. Dorietta was beaming. She turned to Headmaster Dippet. “I’m sure with a little help and a few weeks he’d be ready to start his seventh year at Hogwarts!”

Dumbledore hmmmed softly but Dippet was nodding slowly.

“Perhaps. We need to discuss this as a group.” Dumbledore interjected, now watching Mr. Hornwald’s expression.

Harry wasn’t surprised when they dismissed him, asking him to please wait in the hall for a few moments. He was pretty sure he’d secured a spot in Hogwarts, at least on a trial basis. He was very sure that Dumbledore was wary of him and once the Unspeakable spoke about Harry shutting down his Legillimancy the old wizard would trust him even less. It hurt in some ways to know that they wouldn’t be so close as they had been years ago. At the same time though he had to remember all he had learned about Dumbledore and the plans and fibs and mistrusts after he had died and how maybe they’d never been as close as Harry had wanted to believe. It lessened the sting somewhat. It would be what it would be and this time he would live for himself and not as The Boy Who Lived until it was convenient for the greater good.

Harry leaned back against the wall and waited.

[books-with-shriya]

Book Reads and TBR for February 💗!!

Hey Guys!! Sorry for literally being absent for like forever...but I'm back, and I swear that I'm going to try to be more consistent now! Anyway, I wanted to share the books I've read in the past couple of months and my tbr for February!!

My Reads:

The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: Surprisingly, I read a lot of my tbr and this book was one of the books on it! I know there were mixed reviews and some people really hated it, but I goddamn loved it! Literally, this book was to die for. Ngl the first two or three chapters are a bit slow but it gets soo much better after so its completely worth it. Also can we just take a second for this immaculate enemies to lovers..absolute perfection. Also the amount of times I had to put down the book after the male mc said something and literally squealed....anyways I would rate it a 4.5/5 stars :)))

Foul Heart Hunstman by Chloe Gong: LOVED!!! I fell in love with the first book, also I just love all of Chloe Gong's writing, just absolute masterpieces. And I knew as soon as the second book came out that I was gonna love it just as much, and I did! The plot was beautifully executed, the characters are just so well written, AND we get some new but old characters !!! I just loved every second of this book and it just made me so happy to finish this series. 5/5 stars

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen: This was one of the first memoirs that I've read, and for it being the first one this was actually pretty good. It was a pretty short read, and it was still interesting. Overall just a good story and it feels nice to read something that's not fiction in a while. I really loved reading about the main character's experiences in this book, I would rate it a 4/5 stars for a memoir.

Powerless by Lauren Roberts: OOOH, I loved this book sooo much!! Another great enemies to lovers!!! This book had Hunger Games and like Red Queen esq vibes to it but I was completely fine since I completely adore both of those series, the plot was so well written, the characters were also interesting and so were the side characters. The trope was also executed so well, and it made me so happy to see well-written enemies to lovers !! Can you tell I've been in an enemies to lovers trope vibe lately reading-wise?? Loved it, and would rate it a 4.5/5, and I'm excited for the second book !!

Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls: Another memoir!! This one was actually better than the first one I read for me. I felt like I enjoyed the storyline of this a lot more. This storyline was very interesting and it really changed my perspective about some things in general, also a reality check :). Overall, I really just loved this book and I finished it in two nights cuz I was just so invested!! 4.5/5 for my second memoir!

The Way I Am Now by Amber Smith: OMG THIS BOOK ACTUALLY MADE ME SO HAPPY!! Ifykyk, The Way I Used to Be is an absolute rollercoaster and made me an emotional wreck. But this sequel healed all those cracks that the first book made. I was so happy to see Eden finally get what she deserved and just her happy and actually living in the longest time...don't wanna spoil anything.. Overall this book just made me so happy and I finished it in a day cuz I just couldn't wait to see how it ended!! 5/5 cuz it holds a special place in my heart <3

One of Us is Back by Karen McManus: UM...ya ngl this book was not it.. Don't get me wrong, I loved the first two books like the plot and characters were amazing, and the mystery aspect was good too, and when I heard that a third book was being released, I was like YAY cuz I loved the series. But this book was just so underwhelming. It took me like 4 days to finish cuz I was dragging myself through the book almost. I just didn't really like the plot, there were some good twists but it was just meh. I feel like the series would have just been better without this book, but that's just my opinion. 🤷‍♀️ I would rate it a 2.5/5.

MY TBR FOR FEBRUARY !!!

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon: Ya this is still on my tbr.. prob has been for a solid three months, but I finally out a hold on it in my public library so yayyy. Still, Im very excited to read this book and I just can't wait!

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros: Yall already know I was gonna put this on by Tbr after reading Fourth Wing 😭😭! I just have no words..I can't wait to get my hands on this stupid book, like I'm so excited!!! I just know I'm gonna love it based on my interaction with the first book and I'm also invested for the next 3 books after cuz apparently its a 5 book series..and might become a TV show!! But also idk if its even gonna pan out, cuz Ive been waiting for that Red Queen tv show for a fat minute now..

Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard: My literal queen has finally published the last book in her trilogy of Realm Breaker and damn am I excited!! I own all of her books so Im excited to finally add this one to my collection and also can we just take a minute for how stunning her covers always our..love the royalty of it. Im just really really excited for this book and I already know Im gonna love it!!

Anyways guys that's it for now, sorry this was a long one but I did wanna put a lot of stuff out for the months that I missed!! I swear I'm gonna try to stay consistent so hopefully, y'all see me later this week or early next week!! 💗💗

~Shriya :)

[endlessly-cursed]

Bringing Good Tidings, Part Three: New Year Upon Ye

A/N: After 80 years, I finally finished the third part! This one's my second fave, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Bon apetit!

Summary: After today's victory, it's time to party! Let's hope that nobody else comes to rue the day.

Word Count: 1.2k

Rating: T

OCs featured: Lachlann Doherty ( @hphmmatthewluther ) Mathilde Coventry ( @camillejeaneshphm ) Frederick of Kent ( @that-scouse-wizard )

Taglist: @catohphm @gaygryffindorgal @magicallymalted

First Part - Second Part - Third Part - Fourth Part

The moment the foe had been vanquished, the king declared that the party must go on, and everybody, feeling relieved, had no trouble whatsoever on carrying on. A dance started, and everyone’s spirits were over the roof. Henriette smiled, watching her children play tag among them.

Fred appeared behind her, radiating hi usual warmth, kissing her cheek “You were wonderful out there, my love.”

“It was mostly Mr. Doherty.”

“No, it was not.”

She spun around and pecked him “Sneak away with me.”

Henriette blinked “Now?”

“Yes. I’ve missed you, and we won’t have a moment later. Please?”

“But we can’t leave the children unattended!”

Fred was about to concede when a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time reassured them “I’d be happy to watch them for you, my lady.”

The marriage whipped their heads to see a red head that they hadn’t seen in ten years “Go,” she insisted “your children will be in my care. Two hours shall suffice.”

Not taking chances, Fred whisked his wife away to another wing, one reserved for the royal family’s friends and lovers. The moment they were away from earshot, Freddie kissed Henriette fervently, picking her up “Geirmund!” She gasped, giggling like a silly teenager.

Their laughs were muffled after Fred opened the first door he spotted and closed it behind him, throwing his wife to bed, his shirt already on the floor “You heard our friend. We’ve got around two hours. Best to make them count.”

Henriette chuckled “Shut up and take me already.”

They rolled in the sheets, basking into the beautiful, stolen moment between them.

Brunhilda stood watch of Lady Henriette’s children, observing the merry scene in front of her, alongside keeping an eye on her own children. She chuckled, seeing how a clumsy little Louis tried to learn to dance from Dayana, who was already as graceful as herself.

However, the moment she saw a familiar blond hair, she froze “Come on, Sissy!” The little girl who greatly resembled her Mathilde cried “Before Sam spots us!”

Her heart hammered. They were here. She discreetly looked around the ballroom, and spotted Lachlann Doherty chatting with a duke, visibly bored by his hunting habits, perhaps. He looked up, and quickly spotted her. He had gotten taller, had gained muscle, grown his hair and the innocence in his beautiful eyes were gone, now replaced with sage and that fierceness that had beguiled her enough to give herself to him before her wedding. Excusing himself, he approached her, and she bowed “Mr. Doherty.”

“Bruna,” he marvelled “you haven’t aged a day. You look… as beautiful as I remember.”

“You have turned into a handsome man as well.”

He smiled “I’m glad my new look pleases you.”

She bit her lip “You always aimed to please.”

“That I do.”

They stood there, silent and processing the fact that she was here, before his eyes. He cleared his throat, washing away his last memory of her “Where is your husband? Again solving world hunger by himself?”

She bit a chuckle “Unfortunately, my dear husband has a stomachal issue.”

“Ah. How unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate indeed.”

A soft tune started playing, and Lam stretched out his hand “Dance with me.”

“What about your wife?”

“We shall greet her afterwards. She’s been asking about you.”

She gingerly took his hand and started dancing, as if ten years hadn’t gone by. It was a rather intimate tune, and often their hands grazed, their eyes never wavering from the other, as if the world ceased to exist. To finish, he spun her around and gently set her to the floor, their gazes still on one another. She was wearing a beautiful green dress, and her hair was up and visible by her thin veil, which didn’t conceal much of her powerful red.

Both clearing their throats, they abandoned the dancefloor and went towards Lady Mathilde, who had a baby Felix in her arms, cooing. Bruna’s heart melted at the sight. She was a formidable mother.

Mathilde looked up and brightened up “Bruna, Cherie!” She greeted her warmly, beaming. “Look at you, you don’t look a day over five and twenty!”

“You flatter me, dear.”

Just then, Dayana, Matilda and Louis came running, probably finishing playing tag. They stopped at the sight of their mother and quickly came by her side “Lord Lachlann, Lady Mathilde, these are my children; Dayana, Matilda and Louis.”

They all bowed and Mathilde’s gaze rested upon redheaded, little Matilda. Then, she looked at Bruna with fondness in her eyes “Are you the Mathilde I was named after, ma’am?”

“It seems I am.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet my namesake.”

Mathilde beamed and kissed her cheek “And I am happy that such a beauty was named after me.”

Matilda smiled bashfully and hid behind her mother’s skirt.

“You have lovely children, my lady.” Lachlann spoke.

“Thank you, my lord, they are my pride and joy.”

Lachlann beckoned his own children to come and introduced his to Bruna “These are my own; Caitlin, Sam, Simone and Fèlix.”

“Is she the Lady Bruna you always talk about, papa?”

Bruna raised her eyebrows and Lachlann cleared his throat “Yes, Caitlin, she is.” He gave her a look and she quickly took the hint.

“Ahem, well, we should let our children carry on playing! Dayana, darling, do keep your new friends entertained, and include the Dohertys to your playdate?”

“Yay!” Louis cheered “More friends!”

The eight of them ran off to where Henriette’s children had been playing. Lachlann and Mathilde shared a look before she offered “It seems like dinner will be ready soon. Would you like to sit with us and catch up?”

Bruna smiled genuinely “I’d love nothing more. I want to hear all about your adventures!”

Henriette and Frederick were cuddling, relishing on the passionate moment they had just shared. Looking at the direction of the sun, Frederick sighed “We ought to get going. Dinner shall be ready soon, and we’ve been away for a while.”

“As long as you tell me where did you throw off my stockings again.”

Fred smirked “Too focused on kissing you to remember,”

She playfully shoved him “You’re terrible!”

Both got dressed hastily and Henriette saw something move within the trees. She frowned.

“My love? The gong just rang. We have to move now, or else we’ll raise a few eyebrows.”

She shook it off “Right.”

They entered the room a few minutes before the monarchs and sighed in relief, sitting right where they had been assigned. She spotted Lady Brunhilda and smiled at her as a thank you, and saw her cozy in the table with Lord Lachlann and Lady Mathilde. She hoped to repay the favour soon.

The monarchs were announced and the usual protocol was made, and all started to dine and converse, talking about this morning. But Henriette had a feeling. Something was about to happen, she was sure. This day was far from over. Somehow, she knew.

Like clockwork, the doors slammed open, and a figure that they didn’t expect came to greet them, a malicious smile on its face. She looked at Betwixt, who was as shocked.

“Helloooooo, children! Guess who has misbehaved!”

A noble lady pointed at the monster and cried out “The Krampus!” Before fainting with shock.

“Shit.” Said Fred before readying his weapon. 

[onyxolay]

Heyyyyy so I just realized I’ve explained on here HOW Lucas met Archie, but for those who don’t know here’s a summery: After Lucas was banished from the Heavens Zeus set him on one last mission, and that mission was to stay at Waldas Mansion for three months watching Walda because she had dabbled in some dark magic she wasn’t supposed too. Lucas was also told to be the Gaurdian Angel of a little illager named Archie. Lucas took the job and Went to Waldas mansion. Now, I haven’t explained What HAPPENED when Lucas and Archie met so this is what this story is! Hope you like it!

Archie and Thord were in the library Reading, well, Archie was trying to read; Thord kept on teasing him and taking his books. While Thord was dangling a book over Archies head when Walda called them down to the main entrance.

When Thord and Archie got to the stairs they noticed the whole tribe gathered around a Human, but not any human that Archie and Thord had ever seen. This “human” had fluffy blonde hair with Wolf ears and Tail that matched the color of the boys hair. He also had Shiny teal wings that caught Archies eye immediately.

As Archie was admiring this Strange creature at the front of the mansion he hears Thord chuckle and a growl from behind him, Archie turns around and Sees A vindicator named Braxton looking at Archie with a furious death stare. He raised his axe and chased Archie right into the stomach of the Creature he had been admitting jsut a minute earlier.

“Oh! You alright buddy?” The creature looked down at Archie, Who was now teary eyed, trying his best at an apology. “I-I- I’m so sorry- I didn’t mean to-“

To everyone’s surprise, The creature Pulled Archie closer to him for a hug. Archies eyes went wide, he wasn’t used to this kind of affection, so when the creature did that he started to cry. Now it was The creatures turn to have their eyes go wide. “Oh-! Do you not like touch? I’m so sorry!” “N-no…! It’s okay really! I just…don’t, get hugs often…” “awww well I’m sorry about that…Oh! My goodness where are my manners, I’m Lucas! what’s your name kiddo?” Lucas held his hand out for a handshake, Archie shook the angels hand nervously and replied: “I-I’m Archie, and I’m 23..w-why are you being so nice to me..?” “Because that’s what your supposed to do when you meet someone!” “Oh..hehe, right…” Lucas looked into the little illagers eyes fora moment…and for a spilt second he could see his son..Andy..Lucas shook his head and smiled at Archie, “Say Archie…Do you maybe, wanna be friends?” “I-I-…Yes! Of course!” “Haha! Amazing!”

Lucas hugged Archie again, Archie happily returned the hug. Archie ran to his room, when he got on his bed he Squealed into his pillow, he couldn’t believe it! A hug AND a Friend? in one day?! He sure was lucky! Archie read some books he was able to get his hands on until it was around 10:34 PM at night. Archie had just finished one of his favorite books again for the fourth time when he heard a knock at his bedroom door. “Hello..?” Lucas peaked his head through the door. “Hey buddy! Ummm- so I have no place to sleep in here- so uh- I was wondering if I could possibly bunk with you..?” Archie thought for a minute, he decided having a roommate would be pretty fun! Archie replied: “you know what? Sure! Your my first ever friend anyways, come on in!” Lucas chuckled, “Your first ever friend? Know way.” Lucas sat on Archie’s bed with him. “Nope! Not lying!” Archie hugged Lucas and Lucas rubbed Archie’s head, a soft noise of comfort came through the smaller illagers lips. “Awww! You sound super adorable!” Archie blushed, “I- thank you-“

Lucas laughed at the smaller one next to him, “So! Any questions? Anything you wanna know? I imagine the scenario of Something that wasn’t an illager staying here for a long period of time may be confusing to you.” “Actually yes- what are you??? And why are you here?” Lucas laughed and patted Archie’s back, “I’m glad you asked! First off, I am A Demi-god! I take the form of a Demi-human! I am a golden retriever wolf mix!” Archie’s mouth dropped. “I-I’m sorry…DEMI-GOD?!” “Mhm! That’s right! I was sent Here to look after Walda and make sure she doesn’t dabble in anymore dark magic, AND! Be your guardian Angel!” Archie looked at Lucas wide eyed. “M-me?? You, A guardian Angel, for ME?!” “Got that right! It’s my job to protect you!” “O-oh wow Hehe…that’s pretty cool!” “Damn right it is..!”

The wolf yawned, then laid down next to Archie on the wall side of the bed. Archie laid down too, getting both of them under the covers. “Y-you wouldn’t mind if I fell asleep here would ya..? Hehe-“ Archie giggled in response. “Tsk- na, I’m fine with it! It’s pretty dark anyways! Goodnight Lucas!” Archie closes his eyes and faces out to his room. Lucas pulls Archie in close and puts his wing over him to for protection and fell asleep. Before Archie officially tapped out for the night he blushed at the feeling of the demi-god cuddling him, with a red face he whispered: “Omg omg Omg Omg…!” He then took a few deep breaths and fell asleep…

Hey, I’ll update this at some point. There’s obviously more to the story, I’m gonna update soon, I’m just loosing some Motivation. I jsut hope you like what you’ve read so far!

[ineffable-rohese]

Hi there!! Thanks for the tag! What can you share about "Anna/Zira"?

Hope all your writing goes incredibly well!

Oh, gosh! It's actually the first GO fic I started, way back in August! And I wrote most of it and then had second thoughts about it and it has languished. It's a post S2 Ineffable Wives fix it that was supposed to be smutty but then the whole plot got in the way? The premise (which is the big thing I have the second thoughts about) is that Crowley can't handle looking at himself in the mirror and decides to changes things up and take on a female presentation. Heaven sucks, but eventually Aziraphale figures out how to spy on Crowley (who has managed to find somthing like a life for herself without him), and eventually they manage to communicate. Owls are involved. Also pigeons. And a fox. There's a lot of animals. Anyway, I don't know if I'll ever actually finish or publish it, but here's a scene that made me giggle while writing it and someone else should get to enjoy this mental image.

Context: In an opening scene, Crowley was drunk and pissed and threw the Eagle statue out the plate glass windows of his flat without bothering to open the windows. Then he took a 3-day nap.

Soundtrack: The Ride of the Valkyries

Excerpt

Crowley stumbled out of the bedroom to a chaos of wings and feathers and for a moment, he thought he was still dreaming, in a nightmare he never wanted to leave, the one where he and the angel clung together as they Fell together, tumbling, bodies and wings entwined, hurtling toward oblivion. 

Slowly, the actual, horrifying situation resolved itself in front of him. There was a pigeon perched on the Maltese falcon. From the evidence, it wasn't the first to do so. Pigeons were busy ruining the upholstery of the throne and milling about the hall. A plump white and tan pigeon stared at him from where it had built a nest on the statue of The Triumph of Evil. 

“Grraangh!” The demon lunged at it, arms waving. The startled bird flew directly at his head, barely missing his flailing arms, before settling on the desk. While Crowley had appreciated Hitchcock films on a professional level, he was not pleased to be living in one of them. He’d only gotten up because his body had protested sleeping in skinny jeans, and he figured while he was up he’d stretch and maybe find a bottle of something before passing out for another week or three. There wasn’t really anything else to do, anyway.

He hadn’t considered the consequences of not doing something about a large section of shattered glass wall while living on the fourth storey in London. The consequences quickly made themselves evident when he felt something wet and slimy under his bare foot.

“Nnnggaaaahh,” he bellowed, chasing the flock of pigeons round and around the flat. It took him a full two minutes of ineffectual shouting, waving, glaring, and threatening before he miracled a birdseed feast on the balcony. There was a mass exodus, the white and tan pigeon giving him what he could have sworn was a knowing look before following its fellows out. A few more waves up the hand, and his flat was more or less back to normal. He didn’t have the heart to remove the nest.

[theheelerbooklifereads]

It took me about 55 days of reading Iron Flame and I have finally finished!

I will not summarize Iron Flame due to Fourth Wing spoilers, but I will say it picks up right off where Fourth Wing ended.

First of all, Iron Flame in my opinion still falls under the category of romantasy, but I feel like this installment heavily skirts towards high fantasy. With this on edging more on higher fantasy, it has reminded me of the reason why I love fantasy so much. For majority of reading Iron Flame, I ended up tabbing and annotating the book (towards the end I stopped because tabbing and annotating with a broken wrist is a real pain) and I found that this book has so much more world building.

For the first chunk of the book, I spent so much time wanting to chuck my book across the room whenever a certain new character showed up. You know how many of us hate Dain? Well, let's just say Dain is more of a delight compared to the new character named Varrish.

Fourth Wing had me loving Tairn and his snark, but Iron Flame had me loving Adarana more. With her being in her adolescent phase, she was constantly challenging everyone, snarky, defiant, curious, angry, and well to summarize-she really embodies and nails the whole teenager phase. I was totally here for the grumpy, old man Tairn and defiant, teenage Adarana dynamic.

Xaden and Violet were great and their relationship is continuing to grow as they learn to trust one another. I find their relationship to be pretty real with having to learn trust, respect, and how to be vulnerable in a relationship.

I had so many theories running wild that I would write on sticky notes in my book. Some were right, some were in the ballpark, and some of them were utterly wrong. I kept hearing how shocking the ending is and while I found it to be an oh crap moment, I was not left in shock and I think that is because I knew beforehand it was something big, so I was prepared. Plus, there is a storyline from a popular book series from the mid 2000s that reminded of the direction of where that storyline is going.

Overall, Iron Flame was so good and I loved it more than Fourth Wing (even though I loved Fourth Wing a lot) since this was more high stakes, more world building, discovery of secrets/the world/the characters individually/relationships.

I am really looking forward to book three.

[animeboye]

New Dragon’s World Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Sarah’s Past That night, the small town lay in ruin. Its entire population, gone in the blink of an eye.  Buildings lay in ruin, some almost completely destroyed. Several homes were lit ablaze as the ashes rose into the air. Near the front of the town were the bodies of four of its residents. Three of them so badly burnt that no one would be able to make out who they were. The fourth person was impaled by Alex, eventually bleeding to death, the last thing he saw being all those from his town being taken away. He lay in a pool of his own blood as he slowly…painfully died… Elsewhere in town, the sounds of triumphant laughter could be heard. The dragons who were responsible for the town’s destruction celebrated triumphantly as they raided the town bar, drinking their share of alcohol. As soon as they had finished a bottle, they would just break it against the wall afterward. And yet, no matter how much they drank, they still felt fine. While they celebrated, Girido hopped up onto the bar and started kicking the empty beer bottles every which way, some of them nearly hitting Saulstrance and the other dragons. “Watch it, you moron!” Eig’nia exclaimed. Rikai ran behind the bar and began to guzzle down all the beer that was stored under the bar. “WHOOHOO!” Rikai cheered happily as he smashed the bottles as soon as he was done with them. Meanwhile, Alex and Jake waited outside next to a small store that had not been destroyed. Their attention was focused on the bar as Saulstrance and the other dragons partied. “Sounds like they’re having fun.” Alex stated. “Yeah…” Jake replied in a melancholy tone. “What’s wrong, Jake?” Alex asked with a hint of concern.

“It’s just…I wonder if what we’re doing is right. I mean Dad said that it was, but Dad can be wrong sometimes, right? ” Jake replied. “Are you kidding, Jake?! Of course it’s right! He promised us that when he ruled this world, he would make it so half-dragons like us weren’t discriminated against!” Exclaimed Alex. Alex continued. “Me and you, we both know how it feels. People have treated us like crap just because we have dragon blood in us. Saulstrance once told me people fear what they don’t understand. They hate us because they’re scared of us. If this world becomes Saulstrance’s kingdom, he can make it so that people don’t hate us anymore!” “Re-really?”  Jake asked, a gleam of light in his eyes. Alex nodded. “Think about it, Jake. When we’re on top of the world, then people will have to respect us! So let’s try to make Saulstrance’s…I mean Dad’s dream come true.” Alex smiled as he extended his hand to Jake. Jake hesitated for a second, still somewhat unsure. It was as Alex had said. The two of them had both dealt with discrimination because of their being half-breeds. At that moment, Jake remembered when he was in kindergarten. How he and another boy were very close friends. One day, after school, Jake had told his friend he had something cool he wanted to show him. They went behind the school where no one could see them. Jake closed his eyes as his wings and tail revealed themselves from his clothes. He turned around to see his friend both awestruck and grinning. “That’s not all!” Little Jake exclaimed in a happy tone. He closed his eyes once more and took a deep breath. But just as he exhaled, he heard his friend scream in pain. He jolted his eyes open to find his friend on the ground, crying in pain, his stomach badly burnt. Jake had no idea what had happened. Shaking, he walked up to his friend. The other boy’s eyes widened in horror as he began to flail around uncontrollably. “Stay away from me, you monster!!!” The boy cried out. His cries only got louder as eventually, students and teachers headed to the back of the school. Shutting his eyes quickly, Jake’s wings and tail retreated into his body just as the teachers and students made their way over to them. Everyone gasped in shock. “Jake, what did you do to him?!” One of the teachers exclaimed, her voice trembling. “But I - - I didn’t…” “Someone call an ambulance!” Another teacher called out. Jake kneeled on the ground. Tears began to flow from his eyes. “You’re bad.” A girl said to him. “You coulda killed him!!” A slightly older boy exclaimed. Jake sat down and lowered his head as he continued to cry. Eventually, the ambulance had come for his friend. As they raised him up onto the stretcher, Jake ran over to him and continually apologized until they got him into the ambulance. As they shut the doors, Jake heard his friend say one final thing to him: “I hate you. We weren’t ever friends.” Jake just watched as the ambulance rode off. Tears streamed down his face.  Just then, he heard someone walking towards him… “Jake! Earth to Jake!” Alex called out. Jake looked over at Alex who still had his hand out in front of him. Without saying a word, Jake shook Alex’s hand, showing Alex that he would help the boy realize Saulstrance’s goals. With that, they saw the dragons making their way out of the bar. They ran over to them as they discussed what to do next. “Well we’ve already conquered one fraction of this world.” Eig’nia stated. “Yeah, but the world is huge! We haven’t even started yet!” Alex replied. “All in good time, Alex. All in good time.” Saulstrance said. “So where to next?” Asked Rikai. “We should try for a place that has more humans! This wasn’t even somewhat difficult.” Girido said, disappointed. “Tackling a big city right away will only bring unnecessary attention to us. If we start with a town like this one that has a small population, then gradually make our way up to the bigger cities, that will only raise our chances of conquering this world.” Saulstrance explained. As Saulstrance went over the plan, Theian looked up to the sky, a look of uncertainty on his face. “Theian. You need to listen too.” Saulstrance called out, breaking Theian’s concentration. Saulstrance continued. “Now, to achieve our goals, we’ll need to take it one step at a time. If we were to attack a big city right away, it would put the humans at alarm long before we could even acquire a good number of them. So starting with a town with a relatively small population will allow us to come closer to our goal long before the rest of the world comes to know about us.” As Saulstrance went over the plan, Theian began to think to himself. He pondered over wether or not the choice he had made was the best one. If Angela…if his mom were still alive, what would she think of all this? Theian remembered overhearing Titus tell Girido about how Angela never had any hatred or discriminatory thoughts towards humans. Deep down, Theian realized that if his mother had seen him now, she would be severally disappointed in him. He wanted to try and make things right. The only question was…how…? Elsewhere, in the dragon realm, Drake sat outside his grandparents’ cave. He looked into the night sky, wondering how things were back home. He hoped everyone was Ok. “Drake…” His grandmother said. “You should be sleeping. You have a big day tomorrow.” “I know…” Drake sighed. “I’m just worried…” His grandmother walked up to him and took a seat at his side. “Worried about fighting?” She asked. “Yeah…” She lowered her head and rubbed it against Drake’s, showing love and affection. “Don’t worry, my grandson. If things get rough for you, you can count on Grandpa and Grandma to help you out.” Drake smiled, wrapping his arms around his grandmother’s snout. “Thanks, Grandma.” Drake followed his grandma back into the cave, but not before catching one last look at the sky. Having his Grandma reassure him they would be there for him made the boy a little happier. With hope in his heart, he walked back to the cave and fell asleep next to his grandparents, their tails around him, giving him a sense of security. Night came and went. Hours passed by like minutes and before Titus and friends knew it, it was morning. That morning, Titus sat at the table as he usually would. He ate a piece of toast while he skimmed through parts of Saulstrance’s diary.  He read to himself the page where Saulstrance wrote about Drake in his head. “What’s that?” Sarah asked as she brought some breakfast to the table. “Saulstrance’s journal. Sarah, come check out this page…He mentions Drake in it.” Sarah’s eyes widened in shock. She set her food down and took a look at the diary. She read it aloud, carefully studying each word as she did. “That’s sick!” Sarah exclaimed. “How could he be happy that Drake pushed his own son?!” “He may also try to do something to Drake.” Titus added. “Was THIS why you wanted Drake to stay behind?!” Sarah exclaimed. “Part of it…” Replied Titus. Sarah went back into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. “This is bad.”  Sarah said. Sarah turned to Titus. “What do we do? Should we bring him with us?” She asked in a panicked tone. Titus was unsure of how to respond. He knew Drake was strong. But he also knew bringing Drake with them would be putting him in danger. On top of that, Titus knew Drake wouldn’t allow them to leave him behind. With that, Titus let out a sigh and gave Sarah his answer. “…We’ll bring Drake with us…” “Titus!” Sarah gasped. “Sarah, you have no idea how grown up Drake has become since this started.  I know you’re worried for him. I am too. But Drake… He’s gone through just as much as I have, maybe even more than I have.  Yeah, he’s a little kid. Yeah, he makes mistakes. But whenever he and I are together, I see a fierce determination in him and a desire to always try his best. He knows Saulstrance and those other dragons might try and use him to get to me, yet…he still wants to go with us. He’s really brave…Braver than I was at his age.” “I know. But I can’t help but worry.” Sarah replied. “There’s nothing wrong with worrying about him. I do too. But I also know Drake is growing up. One day, he’ll go to college, then probably marry and have kids of his own. “ Sarah didn’t respond. Her look of concern had become a look of sadness. “Drake believes in me. I want to show him that I believe in him. What about you, Sarah? Can you believe in Drake?” Titus asked. For a brief moment, Sarah was silent. Neither she or Titus said anything. Titus just stood there, looking at his wife. Finally, Sarah replied. “Yes…” Titus wrapped his arms around Sarah and gave her a big hug. Likewise, Sarah did the same. After the discussion about Drake, they finished their breakfast and called all their friends together.  Ben, Jessie, Kyle, Jackie, Lucas and his boys were all accounted for. All except Drake and his grandparents. After a short while, a knock was heard at the door. As Titus answered the door, Drake ran in, giving his mother and father both a big hug. “Was he a handful?” Titus asked his parents. “Not at all. He was very well behaved.” Titus’ dad smiled. Everyone gathered in the living room. Titus stood in front of them. He took a deep breath. “Well guys. This is it. The day’s finally here… If any of you are thinking of backing out, now’s the chance. Because after we head out, there’s no going back.” Lucas just laughed. “Come ON, Titus! You think we’d back out after all that’s happened between us?” “Luke’s right, Uncle Titus. No matter what happens, we’re all in this together. Till the end!” Kyle exclaimed. “I’m sticking with you, Titus. We’ll beat Saulstrance and his men then return home…all of us.” Ben added. “Even if you’re a different species than me and Kyle, you’re still my uncle! I’m ready. No matter what happens, we WILL win!” Said Jackie. With a smile on his face, Titus nodded in agreement. Their words of encouragement moved Titus deeply. He never thought much of it but this made him realize just how lucky he was to have met them. Had he stayed in the dragon realm, he would have never had as many friends as he did now. “This is it, guys. We’re going to stop Saulstrance, save this world and finally allow Ben’s parents and Angela to be at peace.” All at once, everyone shouted in agreement with Titus. They got together all the things they had prepared for the trip and headed outside. “So I guess Drake’s coming anyway?” Ben asked. “Yeah…I’d feel bad if we didn’t bring him. Besides, he wouldn’t settle for a “no” anyway.” Titus replied. Just as the gang was storing things in the trunk of their cars, they heard a boy call out Drake’s name. They turned around, noticing that Drake’s entire class had come to see them off! “Ms. Thermacker! Everyone!” Drake exclaimed. “Crystal called all of us and told us you would be leaving today! So we just had to come say goodbye while we could!” Another boy explained. “Drake, we know you can beat up those bad guys cause you’re so cool!” A girl from his class exclaimed. “Drake, you and Sean be careful. When you both come back, we’ll have a weeklong pizza party in celebration. Just a little something to look forward to.” Drake’s teacher smiled. Drake sniffled, as if he was about to cry. “Thanks, guys! I promise I’ll come back! And tell Crystal that I’ll be thinking of her!!” Drake got into his father’s car while Sean got into his dad’s van. Titus had suggested earlier that it would probably be best to take only two cars along for the ride so as not to attract too much attention. As they drove off, Drake looked back one last time to see his entire class cheering for him. He rolled down the window and waved to them as they continued to chant his name. “You have some really great friends, Drake.” Titus said proudly. Drake smiled. “I do, don’t I?” Some time had passed. Hardly a single word was uttered as they drove on. “It’s awfully quiet.” Sarah pointed out. “I guess the tension is getting to us.” Jackie remarked. “Well then what should we talk about?” Kyle asked. “Well there is something I’ve been thinking about lately.” Sarah stated. “Titus, what is it like? I mean, being a dragon and all.” Sarah’s question took Titus by surprise. They had known each other since they were kids and in all the time they had spent together, he only recalled her asking him the same question one other time. “As a dragon, you have a longer lifespan than we do, right? Eventually you’ll outlive all of us, maybe even Drake…” At the mention of his name, Drake’s attention turned from watching the houses go by to his parents. “I never put much thought into it. I don’t know what I would do. I mean it sounds great having a longer lifespan but how can you enjoy it when you have no one to enjoy it with? I guess part of me hopes that when my time comes, it’ll be at the same time as the rest of you.” “I know what you mean, Uncle Titus. I mean we’re all here now but…” Jackie sighed, the conversation making her feel a little sad. “…Even then, it’s still a really lonely feeling.” After the conversation, the family remained quiet. Sarah watched out the window as more houses past by. Just then, they drove by a park. The sight of it caught Sarah’s eye as she rose her head, a look of shock on her face. “Titus, stop the car!” Sarah exclaimed. “What? Why?” Titus asked. “Just do it!” As the two card came to a screeching halt, Sarah stepped out and walked towards the park. “Titus, what’s going on?” Lucas called out. Titus shrugged his shoulders. Sarah looked around the park, her eyes widened. “This park…” She said to herself. “Mom, what’s wrong?” Drake asked with worry. “Titus…everyone, this park is…” “It’s what?” Jessie asked. “I grew up in this park.” Sarah said. The gang had a puzzled look on their face. “In? Don’t you mean around this park?” Lucas asked, correcting Sarah. “No. This was where I came after my parents died.” Sarah pointed over to the swings. “I remember, when I was only five years old, I used to sit on those swings, hoping someone would come and welcome me into their home.” Just then, Sarah heard a voice call her name. She jolted around, gasping at the sight of the man standing before her. The man wore a dark blue coat that appeared used and beat up. He had brown hair and deep blue eyes. “Rick!” She exclaimed. “Rick? Who’s Rick?” Titus asked. Sarah ran up to the man now known as Rick and hugged him tightly, tears falling from her eyes. “Rick, I never thought I’d see you again!” She cried. She quickly dried her tears and turned to her friends and family. “Guys, I would like to introduce you to my big brother, Rick.” “BROTHER?! You have a brother, Sarah?!” Lucas exclaimed in shock. “Well we aren’t siblings by blood but I still consider Sarah my little sister.” Rick smiled. “Rick was an orphan just like me. His parents abandoned him…” “Hey, mom, how did you and Rick meet?” Drake asked. Rick smiled. “Mom?” “Rick, this is my son.” “Nice to meet you! I’m Drake!” Drake smiled, extending his arm out. “Nice to meet you too.” Rick smiled back as he shook Drake’s hand. “And this is my husband, Titus.” Rick walked over to Titus. “I’m honored to meet you, sir.” Rick smiled once more. Titus nodded back, not saying a word.  Sarah looked at her husband, confused as to why he wouldn’t say anything to Rick. “You wanted to know how your mom and I met?” Rick asked. Titus growled under his breath. “Say something?” Sarah asked her husband. “Nuh-no…” Titus replied. “Anyway, it was just a few days after my parents abandoned me. I was only eight years old at the time. I was trying to find my way back home, not knowing that my parents had intentionally left me behind. I didn’t know how far I had walked but somehow, I came upon this small park. I remembered watching the other children swinging and playing with their parents keeping a watchful eye on them. It made me feel sad. Even angry.” “Then what happened?” Ben asked. “With nowhere else to go, I kept coming back to this same spot, day after day. As each day passed, so did my hopes that my parents would return and come pick me up. Eventually I had given up on them ever coming back for me.” “I’m- - so sorry…” Jessie said. “After what was probably my 50th time coming here, I came across this little girl. She was sitting by herself on the swings. She was really small. She wore these small green overalls and little shoes with her name on them…Sarah.” Rick continued. “That day, I sat by the picnic table and watched her. She didn’t move.  She never played with the other children. All she did was sit silently on that swing, as if she was waiting for someone to take her home with them.” Titus and the others were in shock. They knew Sarah was an orphan but they didn’t think that she had it just that rough… “As soon as everyone was gone, I got up and walked over to the little girl, asking her where her parents were. She tearfully told me that they were gone and that she wanted someone to adopt her. I noticed that she was wearing a sign she had tied around her neck. I asked her what it said. She told me it said…” “Please adopt me…” Sarah added, in a melancholy tone. “Yes… When I looked at the sign, all there was were squiggles. She said she thought the adults were ignoring her because they hated her. Feeling bad for her, I promised the little girl that I would become her big brother and take care of her.” “It was Rick who taught me how to write, how to read, he even taught me how to draw.” Sarah said. “For eight years, we grew up on the streets, stealing what little food we could. By the time Sarah was twelve, she left me a note, thanking me for taking care of her. She also wrote that she didn’t want to be a burden on me anymore so she was going to try to make it on her own. Worried, I looked everywhere for her. At all our usual hanging spots, even at the park where we first met. But I had no luck. Time passed and eventually, I was adopted into a loving family. Even though I had new siblings, I still always wondered what had happened to Sarah.” “I’m sorry, Rick…” Sarah said, feeling guilty. Rick hugged Sarah tightly. “I’m just glad you’re alright.” “I never thought Aunt Sarah’s life was that horrible…” Kyle said. “Mom…?” Drake asked. “I’m okay, Drake. You don’t need to worry.” “So where are you and your family headed?” Rick asked. “You heard about what happened at the mall, right?” Sarah asked. Rick nodded. “We’re going after the ones who destroyed it. Their leader put me and my husband through a lot of pain when we were kids.” Sarah explained. “Surely you’re not serious! Those guys are- -wait!” Rick said as he was remembering something. “Those two they found in the rubble, the man and the boy, they can’t be you two, right?” Rick asked, pointing at Titus and Drake. “Yeah! We fought ‘em once, and…they almost killed us.” Drake said. “You guys are nuts!” Rick exclaimed. Titus turned around and headed for the cars. “Well it was nice talking to you, Rick, but we gotta get going. We got us a world to save, you see and - -“ “Actually, I was wondering…I know this isn’t right of me to ask but…could I come with you guys? Please?” Rick asked. Titus sighed to himself. “I really don’t think- -“ “Sure you can!” Sarah interrupted. “RIGHT…Titus?” She finished in an annoyed tone. “…Sure…” With that, everyone headed back to the cars. As they walked, Titus turned to Rick. He felt himself starting to grow angry. Just why was it that Titus didn’t like Rick? Catching all this, Sarah walked up to her husband and pulled him over to the car.

[hangezoeenthusiast]

Papa

Part 2 Part 3

let me know if you wanna be tagged please. this will be a series

fem!daughter!reader

word count: 1,855

person: c!schlatt, c!quackity, c!karl, c!sapnap

warnings: parents, cursing, yelling, orphans, cigars and alcohol mention (btw these are the warnings for now)

synopsis: you were loved, you were cherished, then someone left, and other people replaced that person, and you didn't like that.

-

Your biological parents threw you out of their home because they couldn't care for you. You were at least at the brink of 2 years old when this happened. They put you in a little stroller and took you to an orphanage. "Miss Jessica's Home For Orphans", it was a stupid place, but the place got you fed, and clothed.

On some fortunate day, you were going to get adopted. Quackity his name was. He came in, and asked for kids 2-6. "Those ages are easy to maintain", he thought in his head. He was contemplating whether or not to get a child of his own. He was lonely, no one to love, no one to care for. So Miss Jessica called everyone 2-6 years old to come.

With help from a older person, everyone 2-6 came downstairs. Quackity looked at everyone, and wondered which child he would bring home. Then he looked at you. you looked so adorable, so cute. He asked you, "Hey kid, what's your name." "I'm Y/n, how are you." you smiled at him with barely any teeth. He pulled you gently off to the side, "Hey kiddo, do you want to come with me to my house?" "Yes Mr." you answer.

You were glad to go to Quackity's house, you never had any love from anyone.

-

(Spongebob theme) 8 years later

You were 10 years old, living happily with Quackity. 8 years ago, he came to the orphanage and picked you up, ever since, you were showered with love and care. But there was one thing, you never called Quackity dad. You would just call him Alex or Quackity.

“Hey Quackity, what’s for lunch?”

“Ummm, some pizza with wings, buffalo right?”

“Yeah.”

Quackity felt bad, you never and did call him by dad, or any parental name. “Hey kid, can i talk to you about something.”

You put down your water, “Yeah, what’s up?” “So lately I’ve noticing that you have been calling me by my name?”

“Are you uncomfortable with me using your name.” you asked. “No, no, but it’s kinda weird, since, yaknow, I adopted you, and I’m a parental figure in your life, so maybe if you would call me dad or another parental name that would be cool?”

“Ohh, the only reason I was calling you by your name because I thought you were uncomfy with me calling you dad?”

“Oh thank goodness, I thought I did something wrong.” he sighed out.

"Could I possibly call you papa, since you-" he cut you off by hugging you. He squeezed his arms around you really hard, 'YES, YES, ANYTHING."

So after that, you would call him papa or dad, and sometimes use his real name.

-

6 years later, you were 16. The election happened, the calling out of the votes, Coconut2020 coming in fourth, which was last, who was lead by Fundy and Nihachu, Schlatt2020 coming in third, lead by Jschlatt, Swag2020 coming in second, lead by Quackity who is your papa and Georgenotfound, and Pog2020 coming in first lead by Tommyinnit, Wilbur Soot, and Tubbo. Also the sudden announcement of Schlatt2020 and Swag2020 polling votes, and the speech by Schlatt stating that Wilbur Soot and Tommyinnit were no longer citizens of L'Manberg now turned Manberg.

You were surprised, you didn't know that your father with add his votes with Schlatt's. So immediately after Wilbur and Tommy got banned from Manberg, Quackity and Schlatt called you and Tubbo up to the stage. "HEY YOU TWO, COME UP HERE." Schlatt yelled at you both. You both were reluctant to go, Schlatt was scary, his ram-horned self.

"It's ok Y/n, you're ok." your father told you. You stiffly went up the stage with Tubbo. "Tubbo, I want you to be the Secretary of State, and Y/n, I want you to be the First Lady, since your dad is the Vice-President." Schlatt demanded you both to be.

You didn't really want to be in a position of power. You were happy with living with Quackity, in L'Manberg, with no place of authority over anyone.

"Are you sure Schlatt, I mean, I suck at authority." said Tubbo. "Yes, I'm sure, I'm totally sure."

-

You were doing some paperwork for Schlatt when Tubbo came into your office, "Y/n, Schlatt and Quackity want you in their office."

"Ok, I need to finish this paperwork for Punz, he needs-"

"They said it's urgent."

"Fineee." you got up from your chair, "Thanks Tubbo, by the way, can you finish the paperwork, if you aren't busy."

"Yeah sure Y/n, just hurry up, they are really acting crazy in there." he jokingly stated. "Trust me, they're doing nothing."

You went out of your office, and walked all the way to Schlatt's. There, you found Quackity and Schlatt sitting together, talking about some random presidental shit. "Hey, what you guys needed me for?" you asked. You were desperate to go back to your office, still not used to this place. "We need to tell you something." they synchronized.

"Okkk, so what?"

"Umm, well Y/n, meet your new dad." you gaped at Quackity, then Schlatt repeatedly.

"NOPE."

"NEVER."

"WHY HIM."

"HE SUCKS ASS."

"HE SMELLS LIKE CIGARS AND ALCOHOL, WHY WOULD YOU WANNA DATE SOMEONE WHO SMELLS LIKE THAT."

You rambled on and on until Quackity covered your mouth to stop your obsequent talking, "Calm down mi quierda, first of all, it's not your choice, he makes me happy, I make him happy, and lastly, he smells great."

"YEAH I DO, YOU TELL HER BABE, I DON’T STINK." Schlatt yelled across the room.

“But why him, like there is multiple other people who is better than him.” you whined.

“Ok kid, I like, no love him, he loves me, why can’t you be happy with that.” Schlatt told you irritated.

“But-”

“No buts, just please be supporting of us, please mi amor?”

“Fine, doesn’t mean I like it.”

-

After that little argument you had with Schlatt and Quackity, you finished leftover paperwork so there wouldn’t be a pile of it when you came back to the office the next day.

You heard a knock on the door, and told them to come in. To your surprise, annoyingly, it was Schlatt, holding up your favorite hamburger from McDonalds. “Hey kid, what you doing?” he asked you.

You didn’t respond to him, trying to stay silent and finish the paperwork. “Your dad told me your favorite meal from McDonald’s, yaknow, as a present I guess.”

You still ignored him. "Kid, I know you don't like me, I wouldn't like me either if I found out my dad was dating-" you interrupted him, "It's not that, I want dad to be happy, it's YOU, you don't deserve his love. Do you understand Schlatt?"

He put his hand on your knee, "I know, I don't deserve him, I'm not trying to replace anyone in your life, I just want to make Quackity and possibly you happy."

You blankly looked at him, "Ok, that was a good statement, but if you hurt dad, I will make sure you live the rest of your life feeling like shit."

"We got a deal kid, you accept this partnership between me and your dad, and I'll won't break his heart, deal?"

You shook his hand, "Deal Schlatt."

-

"Hey kid, we're going out to a date, you want anything from outside?" Schlatt knocked on your door to your room. You were reading your favorite book when Schlatt interrupted your reading process, "Nah, have a good date."

You were kinda accepting Schaltt dating Quackity. You didn't like their PDA though. It was absolutely digusting, but it made your father happy. "Hey babe, what you doing in here?" Quackity appeared at the frame of your door. "Nothing, just talking to little ol' Y/n, isn't that right?"

"Yes, don't call me that though." "Ok then, you ready babe?" asked Schlatt. "Yeah, Y/n, don't do anything stupid while me and Schlatt are gone." You rolled your eyes, "I'm not going to do anything stupid papa, just have a great night with Jcum." "HEY, DON'T CALL ME JCUM."

"Love you both." you got back into your book, not knowing that the both of them were shocked.

Those three little words got both of them gaping at you. You didn't like Schlatt from the beginning, and you were saying to him "love you"? "What did you just say mi amor?" "I said love you both." you didn't know that those words were significant to Schlatt.

He wanted your approval of dating Quackity, since you are his only daughter. "HOLY SHIT, YOU SAID LOVE YOU TO ME, TO ME." Schlatt leaped with joy. "Don't take it too serious Jschlatt, you kinda warmed up to me these past weeks." you smirked.

He walked to your bed, and hugged you with all his might.

"Schlatt."

"What are you doing?"

"You are squeezing me too tight."

"I can't breath right now, let go of me."

You squeezed out, he was crushing all the oxygen out of your body, "Sorry, Y/n." he shyly spoke, rubbing the back of his neck. "Schlatt, we have had a lot of arguments, I didn't like you, still kinda don't right now, but you are actually a good person, and I actually, not fakely, approve you to date my dad."

Schlatt ran out your room screaming repeatedly, "YES, LET'S GOOO."

-

Quackity was out doing some random things for Schlatt, while you were cooking Schlatt's favorite food. Since last week you declared that you were actually ok with their relationship, you actually got comfortable with Jschlatt being near you.

It was a teasing relationship, you guys making fun of each other when the other did something wrong. To kinda celebrate the event, you were making food. You heard the door open, and there Schlatt was in his presidential suit. "Hey Schlatt, what's up?" you questioned while mixing the pasta in the pot.

He took of his jacket, shoes, and tie, looking stressed, "Nothing kid, just stresed out" "About what?" "Tubbo needs a lot of items to get something for me, but I don't have them." he sighed. "What does he need?" "He needs stupid netherite, the only thing I don't have in hand." "I actually have some, I could give it to Tubbo." you stated. "Thanks kiddo." "No problem Schlatt."

"Anyways, food is going to be ready in an hour."

"Thanks, I'll be in my room."

"Ok dad." He stopped in his tracks, "What did you just say to me." "What do you mean?" "Y-you just called me dad." he stumbled on his words with unbelief lacing them.

You smiled over your shoulder, "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, who knows?" "You actually consider me to be your dad?"

"Well yeah, you're nice to me and papa, you take care of me, you love me, so why not?"

He hugged you from behind, "Thanks kiddo, I'll receive this announcemet with honor," he jokingly stated. "No problemo dad, just go take a shower, you stink." "NEVER." he wrapped his arms around you as much as he could.

(This is the end of this first part, this is my first time making a series, let me know what you think)

[sunder-soul]

first of all your work is AMAZING- like damn that smut? 👀 but anyway- i’ve had this concept for awhile imagine that reader was the one who made the design for the dark mark for tom riddle? like y/n is an artist and likes to draw, paint, all that jazz, and she saw the symbol in like her dreams or something and decided to draw it. and then tommy boy sees it and takes a liking to it like, “...i could use that-“ i don’t if this is a weird ask or not but i thought it was interesting. 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

So this has been in my inbox for so long bc I just couldn’t crack how I wanted to tackle it and then yesterday BOOM I had an idea so here I am!! Hope you enjoy  💖

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. 

Consume

Summary: Reader looks into Tom Riddle’s tea leaves on an unlucky day in Divination. Something looks back.

Word count: 1.5k

Content warning: none.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

You’ve heard of the domino effect before, but never has it been so grimly demonstrated to you than in that exact moment standing in front of the entire Divination classroom with the only spare seat left opposite Tom bloody Riddle.

It started (or at least, as far as you can tell) an entire week earlier when you’d walked in on Ophelia Greengrass sobbing in the fourth-floor girl’s bathroom during second period. Up until then you’d not spoken more than half a dozen words to Ophelia across your entire time at Hogwarts, but it had felt wrong not to say anything – and as it turned out, Ophelia had been in dire need of someone saying something to her. She’d been dating Lestrange for a little over three months and by the sounds of it things were not going well.

So of course you’d comforted her as best you could but it was hardly surprising when she tentatively approached again you the next day, and the next, and the next, and then every single day for an entire week there had been a new horror story until yesterday you’d finally had enough and told her that she should break up with him.

That, of course, was why he’d confronted you in the corridor that morning on the way to Charms, angrily accusing you of losing him his girlfriend. And that was why you and Lestrange had been caught by Peeves with a watering can full of Bulbadox juice brandished gleefully in his spindly hands.

Which was how you both ended up in the hospital wing for the entirety of first period, Lestrange with boils all over his face and down his back, and you with them on your hands from where you’d managed to shield yourself.

You’d left Lestrange behind complaining loudly as the matron peeled back his school shirt, sprinting all the way up to the Divination tower at breakneck speed, throwing the trapdoor to the classroom open and scrambling inside, the trapdoor falling shut behind you, the very final domino.

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” you gasp as you spin around to face her. “Peeves caught me and Lestrange!”

The class snickers.

“That’s quite alright, quite alright…” Cassandra Trelawney says, deep and ringing, “we have not yet started, take a seat with Mr Riddle and we shall begin…”

You freeze. Riddle…?

That’s when it hits you.

Lestrange always sat with Riddle in Divination.

And you’re so late that everyone else already has partners.

You turn to see Tom Riddle sitting at the back of the room looking at you with a polite but blank expression on his face. The class giggles again. The vast majority of Hogwarts students are at least somewhat in love with Riddle – beautiful, intelligent, polite Riddle, orphaned and poor but refined and successful. Better yet he barely speaks to anyone, leaving a lot of empty space of endless possibility for people to fill in with their personal daydreams.

He scares you.

Those horrible boys that hang around him remind you of flies hanging around rotting meat. And if they’re the flies, that makes Riddle…

You grit your teeth and step forward, weaving between the other tables and snickering students to take your seat, dropping your bag to the floor and eyeing the tea set on the small table apprehensively.

“Begin your readings!” Trelawney calls.

You frown and turn to Riddle questioningly. “We’re doing tea leaves?”

“Tasseography,” he corrects smoothly, leaning forward and picking up the burnished copper pot with one hand and pouring steaming tea into the little china cup in front of him.

You blink at him silently. There’s something manufactured about his face that you can’t put your finger on.

“Shall I go first or would you like to?” Riddle asks casually, pouring you a cup, too.

“I don’t mind,” you mumble, looking away.

Riddle sets the pot down and picks up his cup in long, elegant fingers, lifting it to his lips. “The instructions are on page seventy-nine,” he says after taking a sip, looking around the room disinterestedly.

You pull out your book and find the right chapter and scan the first few paragraphs as Riddle finishes his tea, sipping absently at your own, and by the time he finally hands you his cup your heart rate has finally returned to normal from running up eight flights of stairs.

“You have a scattered-type formation,” you say, checking it against the diagram on your page, “and it’s north-west oriented.”

“Mhmm,” Riddle says noncommittedly, his dark eyes level on the parchment before him as he takes notes.

You lean forward over Riddle’s cup and frown as you compare it to the pictures in the book. “That looks like shepherd’s crook,” you say, pointing to a cluster shaped like a pinched hook, “which means… either the responsibility to protect, or the exertion of power and authority over a group of people.”

Riddle scoffs very lightly, his lips curling into a slight smirk as he continues to write.

Something about it had clearly struck a chord with him, but you pointedly train your eyes back on your book. “Oh,” you frown, checking his cup again. “Or it’s the old glyph for seven.”

Riddle stops writing. You look up curiously at the sudden lack of his quill scratching evenly on his parchment to find him perfectly still, his eyes on your face. “Seven?” he repeats, tone distinct.

You nod and push your book around to show him. “The number seven used to be drawn like that, too.”

Riddle’s eyes drop to the page and linger there for a moment before he resumes taking his notes – though his expression is much more preoccupied than before.

But something in Riddle’s cup has caught your eye. Beside the shepherd’s crook/number seven is a lump of tea leaves so distinct in form that it’s almost comical – the round of the cranium, the square of a mandible, and gaps in the leaves to indicate two eye sockets.

“Oh,” you say in surprise, pulling your book back around. “Wow, that’s pretty clearly a…”

You trail off, frowning. You’ve noticed the tea leaves below it, the long twisting trail that leads directly into the skull’s mouth. A cold, creeping feeling is curling in your stomach as something about the image before you seems to move, you can almost see the thing writhing, it almost looks like a…

“How are we going?” Trelawney asks, suddenly right beside you.

You jump, looking up at her in panic. “Fine,” you say quickly.

She lifts her brows, assessing you thoughtfully. “Hmm,” she says, before glancing at Riddle. “And you?”

“Fine,” Riddle echoes smoothly. But he’s not looking at Trelawney.

He’s looking at you.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

The image worms into your thoughts like a deep root, twisting into places you don’t expect to find it and spreading itself out more and more. The dreams are first, and then the nightmares, and finally the night terrors. The skull hovers before you, its pitch, hollow eyes bore into you, the snake coiling endlessly with its fangs yawning wide.

Something about it is cold and evil, some sort of strange perversion of an ouroboros, the eternal snake broken by the skull’s mouth.

Consuming it.

“What is that?”

Your head snaps up from your parchment feeling like you’ve just been jolted awake from a deep sleep, and it takes you a second to process the sight of Tom Riddle before you, his eyes fixed attentively on the parchment strewn on top of the essay you’re supposed to be writing.

He’d caught you drawing it for the hundredth time.

“Nothing,” you say hastily, sliding it away under a book. “Just a doodle.”

Riddle’s eyes flick to yours. There’s a cold rigidity to his expression that you don’t like. It’s a coldness that feels horribly familiar.

For a moment you almost think he’s going to force you to show him, but after a long moment Riddle looks away and he’s gone, disappearing off further into the library. You exhale in relief and pull out the parchment again.

Drawing it made the thoughts go away for a bit, like manifesting the horrible thing distracted it from its need to live in your head. You lift your quill and carefully write a single word next to the skull.

Consume.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

The parchment goes missing the next day.

You never prove that he took it, never even mention it to him, but Riddle’s eyes have a cold glimmer to them when he catches your eye in Divination next, the smallest curl to his lips like he’s daring you to bring it up.

The dreams abruptly stop.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

When you see it next, it’s in a photo on the front page of the Daily Prophet beneath a terrified headline, a spectre hovering just like it had in your nightmares at school years prior. Except this time it’s real. This time it’s above the burning remains of the family home of a prominent Muggle-born politician and Voldemort’s name is a shadow on everyone’s lips.

You stare at it on the page, the snake writhing in ink, the black, hollow eyes of the skull, and you think about Tom Riddle’s cold smile watching you from across the classroom, his manufactured beauty, the boys that hung around him like flies around rotten meat.

He’s named it the Dark Mark.

[magic-missle-blog]

Ghost division 2 – The belly of the beast

2nd story in what will hopefully be a series. Roughly 6k words. Hope you enjoy

:readmore:

Four missiles streaked through the darkness of space from the canadation destroyer as it smashed through the human battle group.

The warship TDF Glasgow rocked as a missile impacted the hull. Point defence had taken out three others but the fourth slammed into the starboard side.

“Damage report!” the captain shouted as he swivelled his command chair to face the tactical officer.

“The hull plating is scorched and buckled, but no internal damage. We were lucky.” The tactical officer replied, shouting to be heard over the various alarms and beeps in the small bridge.

“We cant rely on luck. If we get hit again its your head!” The captain growled. His hair was cut close to his scalp and a sheen of sweat reflected in the bright yellow light on his dark skin.

Tactical officer Rotchford nodded. Her brow furrowed as she quickly typed into her console. “don’t worry I’m on it, I’ve analysed the firing pattern and I can probably take out most of the missiles, its those fucking fighters and energy weapons I cant do a thing about.”

Just as she finished speaking a swarm of small locust shaped fighters buzzed passed the ship, pelting the armour with energy weapons.

Turrets tracked the fighters, spitting hypersonic tungsten shells. One of the Canidation fighters exploded, the rest of the group took evasive action and continued on the attack run through the human fleet.

The ship rocked again and various alarms clamoured for attention. Lights on the bridge flickered.

Captain Conroy nodded and straightened his uniform. He brought up a tactical display on the console built into his chair.

Five Canidation warships had engaged the fleet of seven Terran defence force destroyers and the humans were loosing badly. The Canidations had the firepower and faster ships. Fighters swarmed over the fleet firing kinetic weapons and lasers, some with great effect.

He watched as another of the fleet exploded. That was the second ship they had lost. The battle had been raging for what felt like hours but in reality it was only 30 minutes. The Canidations had dropped out of hyperspace in this remote system to ambush a Human supply run. The freighters had escaped unharmed but the escort fleet couldn’t leave, not without leaving this Canidation battle group free reign to attack other convoys.

“Shit. That was the Newcastle!” the first officer said “Fleet captain Broadie…he was a good man”

The computer screamed out a proximity warning as another salvo of missiles streaked towards them, but true to her word the tactical officers new point defence programme took them all out. She returned fire with the main cannon as the destroyer elegantly swung around, scoring a direct hit to the Canidations engines. The insectoid ship vented atmosphere and appeared to lose power as running lights flickered out and the ship drifted

The other enemy ships moved towards the remaining fleet.

“Scan that ship, is it dead?” Conroy commanded the science officer as the warship rocked under more impacts

“yeah it appears… Fuck” the science officer said as his console went dark and the lights cut out.

A few moments later the ships emergency power kicked in and the lights came back on, but dull red colour. His console lit up. “ yeah its dead. I think. Scans are all over the place.”

Conroy nodded, as the most senior officer left in the tattered fleet he assumed command.. “signal the fleet. Lets get the fuck out of here...but slowly, I want to draw them away from that damaged ship.” He plotted a course that would take them deep into the Oort cloud of this system.

The remaining ships of the Terran defence force broke off the engagement and retreated. Caught by surprise at the sudden change in tactics, The Canidations stopped dead, recalled the fighters then followed, slowly gaining ground on the slower terran warships.

Glancing at his command console captain Conroy opened fleet wide comms. Signalling the other commanders he said “Listen up people. Once we are in that cloud drop sensor decoys try to buy me some time . I’m going to double back and capture that ship.”

The crew looked at him in astonishment

“Damn” said the first officer. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”

************************************

The war against the Canidations had been raging for 3 months, and the Terran empire was losing.

The Canidations ships were more advanced, and they had the numbers. The only saving grace is that the Canidations were fighting two other larger empires. Humanity, as a relatively new race to the galactic stage, hadn’t been seen as a concern. Almost an afterthought.

No one knew why the war started. Canidations were a reclusive species. They had no trade with the wider galactic community, no embassies, no contact at all. No one really even knew if “Canidation” was their species name. They stayed in their home systems, A group of a dozen or so stars a few light years around the Canadathon, their home world.

A decade ago the Canidations has blasted out of their home system with an over powering military force and attacked a neighbouring world without warning. Everything was a viable target to them and they didn’t take prisoners…or at least they didn’t keep them alive for long.

For ten long years they attacked and destroyed any neighbouring species, expanding their empire. The first races, unused to galactic warfare on such a scale had fallen quickly. Other species had tried to build up their own military force but simply didn’t have the infrastructure in place and couldn’t come close to the Canidations speed of production. It seemed like for every Canidation ship that fell two more would take its place.

The Canidations were an insectoid race, they looked like an unholy amalgamation of a spiders body with a praying mantis torso, like an insect centaur. They didn’t seem to capture any world they won, they destroyed it. Left it a lifeless husk, took any easily accessible resources then moved on like locusts. Maybe they would be back to terraform it later, maybe not. No one knew.

The destruction on such a scale seemed senseless, and completely alien. Not even the best human generals, phycologists or philosophers could come up with a reason for this carnage.

What was known was they had a lot of ships. More than every other military in this region of space combined. They had been building up for decades and it seemed like now was the time to unleash their might.

******************************

The Glasgow had ducked behind a dwarf planet in the Oort cloud and waiting while the remaining fleet had drawn the Canidations away, then used a risky in system jump to get back quickly to the battlefield. They had scanned for survivors of the destroyed Terran ships but unfortunately found plenty of debris but no life signs.

TDF Glasgow slowly drew up alongside the crippled Canidation vessel, comms jammers at full power blocking any communication from the hulk. It had been few hours since the shot had crippled the Bug ship, but it was still drifting without any main power, its engines dark and cooling.

It looked like reserve power had kicked in and there was several Canidations on the main hull close to the breach in what looked like dark space suits, although it could have been their flesh. Conroy didn’t know enough about the species to tell. It was obvious the Canidations were trying to repair the damage.

The insectoid ship was large, at least half again as big as the Glasgow and followed an unorthodox design. It was nothing like the sleek Terran ships, whose lines were reminiscent of the war planes that fought in earth’s skies in the 20th century. Human ships were long and sleek, with swept back retractable wings protruding from the mid section to allow atmosphere flight when fully extended. Canidation was bulky, and looked like a flattened pinecone and close range scans showed it be highly modular.

The bridge appeared to be at on top of the bulky front section. Conroy guessed below this would be weapons, crew quarters and the like. Engineering and the ships drive core, and sub light engines must be located in the tapering end. Cannons clustered around the front with turrets in two rows along the top and bottom of the ship.

Conroy assumed there would be about 60 or so crew on board. Terran destroyers had a crew of 30 plus 10 marines. Not good odds Conroy thought.

“Easy to build, quick to swap different sections out if needed” Science officer McCallum said as he looked over the data.

Conroy nodded to Commander Paulson, the first office. “Pauly, get a boarding party ready. Find any intel you can get your hands on but don’t take any stupid risks. Focus on engineering, medical, ship deployments, shit we can find to kill these things.” Looking at McCallum “what do they need?”

McCallum brought up all the information he had on Canidations, which wasn’t a lot.

“Scans show gravity and life support is still active and the ship has atmosphere, although I use the term loosely. Their air is made up of 30% oxygen, 15% Co2, 10% Hydrogen sulphide, the rest is nitrogen, water vapour and trace gasses. Average temperature is roughly 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 70%. Gravity is low, roughly 0.6G. So basically your walking into a hot sweaty hellhole that’ll smell like Satan’s ass. Enjoy” he finished with a laugh.

Paulson looked at the captain “Gee thanks Boss, you give me all the best jobs. Breathing units all round then.” He saluted as he left the bridge.

“Mac…what killed this ship? Did we get a lucky shot?”

McCallum looked over his reading for a few moments. “Yeah, very lucky. Looks like there is a weakness around the main engine core on this ship. Plasma exhaust has weakened the hull armour in a small area right above the main power linkage, its little better than paper. Must be a design flaw…if that shot had hit even a few meters on either side it wouldn’t have made a dent.”

Rotchford laughed. “luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure skill.”

She grinned

Conroy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah if you say so” he said grinning. Conroy didn’t mind a bit of banter with the bridge crew. He felt it build camaraderie and they all worked better as a result.

Turning to Macallum he said

“Deep scan this bitch, I see what else you can find, anything that’ll give us an edge.”

From over the other side of the bridge the tactical offer said “Captain, I think I’ve found something too. The missiles on the ship are armed.”

Conroy looked over “So?”

Rotchford brushing her brown bangs that had escaped from the severe bun on her head said “Our missiles auto arm a second after launch to prevent any accidents, these appear to pre arm before launch, Probably as soon as they find a hostile ship. Once direct hit could detonate the entire missile battery. The armour is thick but the launch tubes are vulnerable . “

“Comms” Conroy said excitedly “Tight beam the rest of the fleet and let them know what we’ve found…might give them an edge.”

Turning back to tactical

“Why would they do that?”

Rotchford shrugged. “not sure. It does mean the missiles can be fired much closer then we can shoot. Out missiles travel so fast that by the time they arm they’re a couple of hundred kilometres away, makes them useless for close engagements. By pre-arming them they get around that problem. Makes it almost impossible to shoot them down when the bugs get in close.”

Minutes passed slowly. Soon the boarding party was on board a small ship to ship shuttle and on route to dock with the crippled ship.

The shuttle did a quick fly over the damaged section and fired small arms at the Canidations working on the damaged hull, Killing the repair team. The aliens magnetic grips kept the bodies stuck to the hull like bugs splattered by a windscreen.

McCallum looked up “I’ve found something else captain, it wont help us now but I think we can take advantage of it.”

He put his display on the main screen, All eyes turned to it.

“I thought about using some kind of plasma weapon to weaken the armour of the whole ship, and that’ll probably work, we don’t use plasma tech, but I’m sure the weapons experts back home can build something.” He took a breath “Anyway, that got me thinking, Plasma is basically really hot ionized gas. Its expelled as exhausts right away as too much heat inside the ship it bad. As you know its almost impossible to loose heat in space, so we use active cooling systems to…”

Conroy interrupted before McCallum could go into a lecture on the finer points of starship heat management. “Get to the point”

Mccallum looked sheepish “Sorry sir, anyway, the Canidations seem to use radiator panels, they’re well armoured but vulnerable to excessive heat. A focussed laser beam could overload them. If they cant loose heat they’ll cook inside the ships.”

“Well done Mac, get everything we’ve found so far and bundle the data ready for transmission back to HQ”

Minutes dragged as Mccallum compiled the data.

Everyone was on eggshells, watching the boarding shuttle latch on to the Canidation hull and begin cutting through. Tactical constantly scanning for any Canidation ships that might be inbound. Conroy wondered how the rest of the fleet was fairing. The TDF ships were more manoeuvrable than the larger Canidation warships, so as long as they kept in a dense part of the Oort cloud, dodging comets and dwarf planets then the TDF ships should have an advantage.

*****************************

Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was tense. Paulson looked over the assembled combat team. All had breathing units over their lower faces. The units would filter out the harmful gasses and reduce the oxygen pressure to something breathable, but as they weren’t full space suits or fully sealed Paulson knew the stench would get through, he grinned inwardly he hadn’t told the team what the Canidation air was like, he wanted to see the reactions.

The ten member boarding team all had dark grey combat armour, and each carried a small side arm and a combat knife. Eight also carried an assault rifle with enough ammo to take on a small army, the other two combat engineers carried various tools and computer equipment. Their mission was to hack into any systems they could find and mine it for data.

The shuttle bumped into the hull and latched on. A magnetic tube made an air tight seal around the hatch. It opened to show a sold hull. The engineers immediately started cutting to gain access. It was slow going. Armour that can withstand heavy ship weapons wont easily fail to small plasma torches.

Sargent Waltham stepped up next to Paulson. “We’re ready to go” She said coolly.

Paulson nodded. “Get in and secure the area. Set up fire lines kill anything that’s got more than two legs.” He said to Waltham.

She was tall, blonde, very pretty in hard way. People, especially men, tended to underestimate her due to her looks, thinking she was just a made up barbie doll. Paulson had thought the same thing once, until she kicked his ass in hand to hand training. The first round he went easy on her and he was flat on his back in 5 seconds. The second round he went all out, and to his credit, he managed to last a full 7 seconds before she had him pined, face pressed against the floor and his left arm twisted up his back. Waltham, like all the other,s had earned her place in the combat team, but unlike the men she had to continually prove she deserved to be there. This constant striving for perfection had made her one of the best solders Paulson had ever worked with.

The thick hull armour fell inwards with a heavy thunk. The sound echoed around the shuttle. The stench of rotten eggs filler the small enclosed space and everyone wrinkled their noses.

“For fucks sake… is this ship full of farts?” Jones, the lead combat engineer said.

Paulson grinned. “Ok move out. Slow and steady, I don’t want any fuck ups.”

The team moved slowly into the alien vessel. The interior was dark, smelly and hot, lighting was a deep red that cast odd shadows. Paulson didn’t know if this was normal or if it was due to low power.

Waltham took her place first in line as the engineers cleared the hull and opened a portal to the interior of the ship. She directed one of her team , Ramerez, a young marine on his first away mission , hang back and guard the shuttle just encase they needed to make a quick exit.

Ramerez took position just inside the the shuttle door, he pulled a couple of boxes containing emergency supplies across the entrance and dug in.

The rest of the team followed her lead, with Paulson acting as rear guard, scanning the corridor behind him with a quick practiced eye.

One of the marines whispered in a low voice “damn, this is weird.”

“what is? Looks like a normal ship corridor to me” Paulson said

“sir...that’s what I mean. I expected...well dirt..or tunnels like that old movie ‘Aliens’. You know, the one where the dildo bursts out of some guys chest and all these Marines hunt it down? I mean they’re bugs for Christ’s sake..but this just looks normal.”

Paulson shook his head.“Lay off the old horror flicks. Keep it together”.

Looking at a handheld scanner Jones said “looks like there might be a room down the corridor to the right, I’m reading power spikes, it could be a place I can hack into there systems.”

The team crept inward, the low gravity giving them a bounce to their steps. They were searching for a room with a computer access, but all the could see were long featureless corridors. The came to a junction and as they passed a blast of plasma energy almost took Walthams head off. She Pulled back just in time, lightning quick reflexes saving her life. As it was the plasma shot singed her combat helmet.

Risking another blast, Waltham popped her head around then quickly pulled it back. Three Canidations waited around the corner, plasma rifles at the ready for another shot.

Pulling a flashbang from her belt she leaned out and expertly tossed he weapon into the centre of the group, a second later a loud BANG and a FLASH of bright light lit up the corridor. She could hear a smattering of legs as the Canidations fell back. Her and two of her team ran around keeping low and opened fire. The sound of the assault rifles sounded odd in the dense air. the Canidations tried to return fire but there shots went wide, scorching the metal bulkheads, obviously still blinded by the light. The skirmish was over quickly.

The team crept up slowly to the dead aliens. One in the was headless. Its body twitched, a dark yellow fluid pumping from its neck. The other two were still. Red faceted eyes that took up most of the head were dull and lifeless. Mandibles closed tighter than a vice.

Bullets had ripped the skinny top part of one in half, and the others larger thorax between the spiders-like legs was riddled and leaking the same yellow fluid.

The team looked at the corpses, they were…creepy. They unnerved the humans just looking at them. Jones knelt down and pointed something out. “Look, this one has a couple of cybernetic legs. That one has a cybernetic head…That’s so weird. Gives me the creeps.”

Paulson looked. “Why weird?”

“Think of what this means. They use medical tech to repair wounds. Replace missing limbs like we do. You don’t think of bugs caring for individuals I guess. I assumed they would be like a hive, like ants or termites just mindless soldier’s, disposable and replaceable. Maybe they’re more than that.“

One of the other marines, Patel a tall solid build man with a cold gaze said in a whisper “They’re like spiders, I fucking hate spiders. Normal spiders are bad enough but these are super sized fuckers with guns. “

He shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Taking one last place at the dead Canadation he walked slowly past, rifle ready for another attack.

As the team moved on one of the corpses stood up with a clatter. It swiped at a passing trooper with its upper limbs, razor sharp claws sliced across his face and chest, cutting flesh and the scoring deep cuts on his combat armour. He fell back shocked. The headless alien thrashed about, seemingly attracted to the noise the shocked humans made. It tried to reach for another one but a burst of fire from Waltham’s rifle tore through its thorax . the alien twitched again then fell back. She crept up, gun ready and kicked the corpse. No reaction. It was truly dead.

Patel looked a mess, his face had been cut to the bone, but he’d live. Two others helped bandage him up.

“fucking fuckitty fucking spiders! “ he shouted and kicked the corpse, holding his wounded face and blood soaked bandages.

“get back to the shuttle” Waltham commanded him.

He nodded, his face screwed up in pain, The bandages soaking with blood. He got to his feet and headed back the way he came.

Paulson looked at jones “What the fuck?”

Jones shrugged “I’m no medical expert, but I guess a head shot wont kill them. Maybe they keep their brains in there ass or something, I guess the head is just for eating and seeing.” Pointing to the Canidation with the cybernetic head “Maybe loosing the head for them is just like loosing an eye for us? Or maybe they’re like cockroaches. We should drag these things back to the shuttle. Medical back at HQ would have a field day.”

Paulson nodded “team, forget headshots, aim for the centre mass.” He directed a couple of team member to take the most intact body back to the shuttle “Keep it under guard…just in case”

The diminished team made there way deeper into the ship. Paulson was aware of the time he was taking, he knew The Glasgow couldn’t wait forever, but he wanted more than a few dead bugs. Soon they came across an empty room. The door was closed but a kick and a shove and it slid back into the wall. The team entered. Looking around, there was a lot of electronics that Paulson couldn’t guess the function off. Jones quickly set up his scanner. Pulling open a panel he found circuit boards. After quick scan he attached a lead from his scanner to one of the chips.

“If i can hack this, this should give me access” he worked quickly The rest of the team took up positions around the door. Paulson moved to the back of the room and signalled Waltham.

“thoughts? He said after she walked over

Waltham shrugged “they don’t seem too tough. Decent weapons though.“ she pointed to the plasma rifle she’d captured.

“hows things between you two?” he nodded to Jones

Relationships were against regulations but as long as it was discreet no one really minded. It could be lonely in deep space.

Waltham smiled. “he’s sweet, like a puppy. Always eager to please. But utterly fearless too. He could be a great soilder, but likes his gizmos too much.”

“Yeah jones is a good one.” Paulson agreed. He’s been friends with jones for years. They grew up in the same town went to the same high school, and went through training together.

Minutes ticked by. Jones had attached a large data cube to his scanner. He came over to the pair while the data downloaded “. I can copy the full ships hard drive. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not a lot of data, mainly seems to be the ships opperating system. Seems pretty basic. I did find something interesting though, I found ship schematic. We’re not far from a path to fire control. Its down the end of that corridor out there. “

Paulson thought for a second. “no, we have enough we need to get back”

Just as he said that his communicator beeped. It was the shuttle “Sir, get back here we need to go! A Canidation warship is on approach, ETA 7 minutes!”

“Ok people pack your shit up, we need to get out of here! Double time!”

The team grabbed there gear and quickly made there way back into the corridor. Several canidations ran down the steel hallway, the hack had triggered some kind of security protocol. These Canidations didn t have weapons but they moved so fast in the lower gravity that the quickly closed the distance, soon it was a melee, claw against fist.

****************

Alarms cried out for attention on the bridge of the Glasgow. A Canidation warship was closing in.

“eta?” asked Conroy. His calm voice a counterpoint to the frantic activity on the bridge.

“roughly 7 minutes until weapons range. I’ve contacted the shuttle”. maccalum replied.

Conroy nodded. Looking at the helmsman her said “keep that bug ship in between us. We’re smaller and so keep us in its shadow and hopefully they won’t get a weapons lock.”

Nodding, through helmsman fired up the thrusters.

“’ll try time get a target lock on the missile batteries.” Rotchford reported as she programmed the ships turrets.

Captain Conroy starred at the main screen, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his command seat.

Paulson tried to get a clear shot as a canidaton reared up on its four rear legs. It brought its full weight down on Waltham. Its mandibles opened and snapped closed right over her head. Only her quick thinking and combat helmet saved her from decapitation. She ducked her head and trusting the hardened carbon nanotube and ceramic construction she head-butted the bug right in its open mouth. Mandibles crunched against the helm. The force of through blow and the weight of the bug staggered her for a second, but years of hand to hand training came to her and with a twist and a flick she grabbed the alien and slammed it against the bulkhead. The lower gravity and adrenaline giving her almost superhuman strength.

Her combat knife flashed on the low light as she stabbed the mantis like torso. There was resistance then with a crunch she forced the blade through the carapace. The bug shuddered and wrenched. Flailing its limbs then it was still.

The skirmish was over as quickly as it started. Looking around Paulson shouted “sound off”

A chorus of voices said “here” or “i’m good”

A few troopers took minor injuries but no fatalities.

They sprinted down the corridor. The sound of gunfire brought them up short. The bugs were trying to capture the shuttle. Paulson knew if they lost that they were dead.

A scream echoed down the steel corridor. One of his men had fallen. Canidations pressed on.

“We need a distraction” Paulson shouted to Waltham over the blaring alarms.

“i have an idea. Hold here for a few seconds”

With that she sprinted back the way she came. Moments later an explosion rocked the ship. The lights and gravity cut out, then seconds later they came back on. The unprepared soilders hit the ground but were quickly back on there feet, the Canidations were not as lucky, they were a tangle of legs and claws further down the corridor.

Seizing his chance, Paulson shouting a battle cry and his boarding party fell in the bugs from behind. The battle was short and brutal but they pushed through just as Waltham returned. Her hair was burned and armour scorched.

“What the fuck did you do?” shouted Paulson

“I overloaded that plasma rifle and tossed it in the fire control room. I think we need to get out of here, that room is burning and it’s right next to the missiles”

Once everyone was on board the hatch slammed shut and the shuttle detached then raced back to the Glasgow, just as another explosion ripped through the Canidation warship. A series of smaller explosion’s rocked the ship them with a blast like a supernova the power core blew up. The shuttle was caught in the fireball but escaped with minor damage.

Paulson looked at his and bruised team as the shuttle pilot plotted a course back to the Glasgow.

Paulson pushed one of the Canidation corpses to the side, making down room in the small shuttle. He sat next to the body of a young man, almost a boy. Ramerez. It was his first tour, he was 18 and fresh out of boot camp. Ramerez had taken a plasma blast to the chest. His armour was burned through. Mercifully he had been killed instantly.

************

Conroy watched as the Canidation ship exploded. The shuttle streaked towards the hanger.

“well... shit” he said “get the shuttle on board and get ready to bug out”

calls of “aye” and “yessir” Echoed around the bridge..

The Canidation warship closed in, spitting fire and death at the Glasgow. Point defence destroyed the incoming missiles but the ship rocked from impacts

The Glasgow returned fire, turrets pounded the underside of the Canidation ship as it passed overhead passing through the expanding could of gas and debris.

The helmsman kept a steady course until the shuttle was back in then started evasive manoeuvres, he would have to hold the ship steady for a few moments to allow the hyperdrive to spin up, but the Canidation ship was not making it easy.

“Shuttle is on board. Prepare for Jump in 3...2...1...”

The ship lurched to the side and spun almost 90 degrees, crew members were thrown around the bridge like sticks caught in a hurricane. Alarms blared.

The main lights were down, red emergency lamps cast an eerie glow. Groans came from the crew

Rochford pulled herself back into her seat. Blood running from a head wound. She checked her console “sir..the hyperdrive core has been hit. We’re venting plasma and atmosphere...main power is down. Weapons down....the Canidations are coming around for another pass...”

Before Conroy could respond an explosion tore through the bridge as a missile impacted the armour surrounding the command center.

A ceiling panel that had been knocked loose earlier in the fight fell with a resounding crash pinning Conroy to his command chair and knocking him unconscious. Bones snapped under the force of the impact.

Rochford as the most senior officer left standing opened ship wide Comms “all hands. This is commander rochford. The captain is incapacitated abandon ship. I repeat abandon ship”

She moved as quickly as she could to try to help Conroy, Macallum was at his side trying to move the panel. “mac..leave him. We need to go...” she grabbed his arm “come on...move it soldier” macallum looked at the damaged viewscreen. The Canidation ship was baring down. Any second now it’s main cannons would finish the job. They were out of time.

White hot plasma blasts leaped from the Canidation vessel tearing across the cold black darkness. Promising death to the Glasgow.

A flash and a massive lurch pulled maccalum and Rotchford off their feet, but it wasn’t a weapon impact. It was the lurch of a gravity field forming a few miles away as a ship dropped out of hyperdrive.

A dangerous and potentially fatal move – a single miscalculation could have dropped the new ship right on top of them - but it saved the Glasgow. The rest of the fleet, the few ships that remained had jumped back to help. The TDF New York had jumped In front of the plasma blasts. Taking the hit that would have finished the Glasgow off. It opened up with its main cannons, rail guns blasting the armour above the Canidations missile batteries. Another Terran defence force ship TDF Cardiff jumped in behind and opened up on the bugs with everything it had. The Canidation vessel was powerful, but it couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of the vengeful human warships.

Explosion and explosion, hit after hit. The Canidations withered under the combined firepower and with a final flash it vanished as it’s fusion plant exploded.

The TDF Glasgows communication system beeped for attention. Maccalum moved slowly across

“This is captain Yoshimoyo on the New York. Prepare to receive medic and engineering teams. Your information won us the day Glasgow. All Canidation vessels have been destroyed. This is the first human victory in this war...”

“This is science officer McCallum. “thanks for the help. That was a risky move I owe your helmsman a beer. Captain Conroy has been injured. We don’t know how bad, the ship has taken heavy damage.

*****************

Weeks later Captain Conroy stood in front of admiral Wong.

Conroy had spent most of the time unconscious. His injuries sever, but with advanced medical skill, talented doctors and a dash of luck he had made a full recovery.

“Captain” the admiral began “I’m glad to see you’re back on your feet. I’ve out an official commendation for yourself and your entire crew. The information you fought so hard for will prove invaluable in this conflict”

Wong continued “The data contained ship specifications, technical manuals, training documents and recent fleet movements. With that information we’ve managed to push the Canidations back in a number of theatres , you and your crew have saved thousands of human lives. We all owe you a debt captain.”

“Thank you sir...i'm eager to get back to the Glasgow sir, to get back in the fight.”

The admiral shook his head

“I’m afraid not Conroy. The Glasgow was heavily damaged and will require months of repairs and refit. We can’t have a seasoned crew out of action for so long. You and your crew are being reassigned.”

Wong passed a pad to the captain

“Our newest, most powerful warship. The TDF Lucifer. You’ll be part of a task force – the ghost division. The Canidations are throwing more and more ships against us, and while we’ve slowed the advance to a crawl we are still loosing. You’ll go behind enemy lines and fight a guerrilla war. Do everything you can to bring the bugs down. Everything is a viable target, including the Canidation homeworld. Teach them to fear the wraith of Earth.”

End

[startanewdream]

All the time with you

Lily was avoiding him.

Which would be nothing new to James except they were dating for two weeks now and she was his girlfriend - she had said yes when he’d asked her, twice, so James was sure if that - and James had thought everything was fine between them.

It seemed like that when he’d meet her for breakfast - she had kissed him softly on the lips, her eyes closed a second longer when they broke apart as if she was still savouring that kiss and she had beamed at him. They had gone together to Potions class, but then, in the middle of class, when her potion was brewing, she had withdrawn suddenly, edgy on her spot, and she had briefly talked with Professor Slugnorn before vanishing her potion and abandoning class.

That was it. She had left with barely a wave to him, just telling him she would see him later.

But she wasn’t in the Common Room in their next free period and she hadn’t showed up for lunch either. None of her friends seemed to know where she was, which meant James had to resort to search for her in the Marauder’s Map.

‘That’s a little bit stalker, don’t you think?’, Sirius asked, his eyebrows raised and a smirk on his face. He always thought it was amusing when James freaked out about Lily as if he could see something James was blind to.

‘I am worried’, James said, very reasonable. Lily was missing - maybe something had happened, maybe she was in the Hospital Wing, maybe she had met someone who was far more interesting than James and…

Well, maybe he was overreacting a little.

But finding Lily was easy - her dot was still on her bed, alone.

On the one place James couldn’t get to her.

‘Oh, Merlin. This is bad’.

‘What is bad?’ Sirius asked, coming to sit on James’ bed and following James’ trembling finger on the Map. ‘She is in her dormitory’.

‘I can’t go there - don’t you see what that means? She is avoiding me’.

Sirius blinked, not impressed.

‘I think she is avoiding everyone, Prongs’.

It could be, but not everyone was her very concerned boyfriend.

‘Probably she was just tired and took advantage of Slug’s love for her to drop out of the class’.

‘That’s it, Lily loves Potions. She wouldn’t leave class unless there was a reason’.

‘Tired, like I said. Aren’t you two overworking to finish that Christmas event?’

James nodded, hoping there wasn’t any guilt showing up on his face. Sure, the Christmas event was one of the things the Heads had to organize, but he and Lily were taking way longer that it was needed just because they had been too entertained with each other in the past two weeks - it turned out that the Prefect’s Room was empty if all Prefects were out in patrol rounds and it turned that James and Lily were responsible for defining those rounds.

All in all, they were taking weeks to do something that they could have finished in two nights - but it provided them a nice excuse to all these moments together.

‘Yeah, maybe’.

‘Just relax, Prongs’.

He wished he could, but Lily didn’t show up for Charms either - another of her favourite classes - so, under his friends’ amused looks, he went to talk to Mary McDonald, asking if she could ask Lily to meet him.

‘Sure, James’, she said, giving him a funny look. ‘But I think she just wants to be alone’.

‘Do you know what’s wrong?’, he asked, biting his lips. Alone, Mary had said. Alone sounded bad.

‘Oh, it’s just - you know what? I will talk to her and we’ll see’.

That sounded ominous too. He nodded, quiet.

There was another free period that afternoon after Double Charms. They stayed in the Common Room, and James was supposedly finishing an essay, but his head kept turning to the stairs to the girl’s dormitories.

‘You are going to break your neck, Prongs’, Remus noted when James turned once more after hearing steps on the stairs, but it was just two Second Year girls that had come down.

‘I am fine’, he said stiffly.

‘No, you are not’, Sirius disagreed, reaching over to grab the parchment James had been writing on. ‘You got back to doodling “L.E”’.

‘It’s short for Law of Elvendork’, James said. ‘The theory that says every object can be turned into another as long as the elements are proportionally observed during the transformation’.

‘You are making this up’.

‘I am making this up’, James conceded, ignoring Sirius’ look. ‘I am just - I wish there was some way of going upstairs -’

‘I know’, Sirius said, a grimace on his face. That was the only thing they had never managed to accomplish in their seven years at Hogwarts. ‘Maybe we can restart that project - did we try the Confundus Charm on the stairs?’

‘Fourth year’, Peter answered him, without raising his eyes from his essay.

‘How about our animagus form? If -’

‘First thing we did on Fifth Year’.

‘Polyjuice Potion?’

‘We tried to brew on Third Year’, now Peter glanced at Sirius, shaking his head. ‘I looked like Anne MacMillan for three days!’

‘Oh, well, she was pretty’.

‘I had half her body. The left part of her body. I had to hide it for three days!’

James almost smiled at the memory.

‘Half of you was pretty then’, he said to Peter, who rolled his eyes. Then James sighed. ‘Well, I can’t finish this essay today, so I will - Lily!’

He raised immediately, a hand grabbing his own hair nervously as Lily came down the stairs. Her face was pale and she smiled at him when she saw him, but there was something restrained on her smile.

James thought she looked like she was really uncomfortable with something.

‘Hi, guys’, she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. ‘Can I talk to you, James?’

When he nodded, quiet and still, she raised her eyebrows a little bit. ‘Alone, I meant’.

‘Oh, sure’, he said, looking around for a quiet place, but Lily surprised him going in the direction of the boy’s dormitory. He glanced around, finding his friends equally surprised, and followed her upstairs.

Lily didn’t turn to him until they reached the top of the tower. There, she looked around the room - James was grateful that the house-elves had cleaned up their mess, because the room looked decent - before turning to him.

She wasn’t smiling. That didn’t look good.

James felt something pressing his chest, putting all pieces together in a puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted to finish - Lily avoiding him, the grimace on her face, the way she was closing her eyes now and then as if to steel herself to do something and her request that they would talk alone, in a place no one could witness their break up -

‘Which one is your bed?’, she asked, stopping his reverie. James blinked, confused, and pointed to the nearest bed. Lily nodded. ‘Control your thoughts, okay?’, she said, sitting on his bed. ‘But lay here with me’.

There had been a considerable number of scenarios that James had imagined Lily on his bed, but on the verge of her breaking up with him was not one of them.

‘I think I prefer to stand up, Lily’, he said slowly.

‘We can’t do it with you like that’, Lily answered him as if it were obvious. ‘Just come here, please, James’.

He frowned, unsure, but he sat on the other side of his bed. Lily looked at him as if James was missing something very important, and when he didn’t move, she sighed.

‘Are you mad at me?’, she asked, sounding tired. ‘I am sorry I went away without -’

‘I thought you were mad with me!’, James interrupted her, shocked. She looked confused.

‘Why would I be mad at you?’

‘Because - yes? What else would you break up with me?’

‘Break up? Did you take that Essence of Insanity in class today?’

‘If you are not breaking up - why did you call me?’

‘Oh’, she blushed, the sweetest shade of pink colouring her face and James imagined he could feel the heat coming from her body. ‘I wanted to cuddle’.

‘... cuddle?’

‘Yeah, you know’, she put her legs on the bed and he saw she had taken out her shoes. Lily laid on the pillows next to him, her hand supporting her head. ‘Mary told me you were worried about me and I thought - instead of being miserable alone in bed, I could be here with you’.

‘You wanted to be miserable with me?’, he asked, but there was a shadow of a grin on his lips now. He took off his own shoes, lying in the bed too, and Lily nestled against his chest, closing her eyes.

‘It’s really hard to be miserable next to you’, she assured him, pressing herself more against him and inspiring heavily. ‘You smell so nice’.

With her lying so close to him, the scent of her shampoo so strong and intoxicating, James thought he could say the same about her.

But he just raised his hand to touch her hair, combing it softly, watching the strands of dark red hair. ‘Lily? Are you ok?’

‘I am, it’s just -’, she paused, unsure. ‘It’s cramps’.

‘Cramps?’, James repeated, confused, and then he opened his eyes. ‘Oooh’.

‘Yeah, sorry about oversharing’.

‘What? No, I - well, I want to know when you are not feeling well or - I mean - can I do anything to help?’

James tried to think of whatever he knew about female biology. His father had explained some things to him a few years ago and he understood the basics, but he hadn’t been paying attention very much if he was honest. Female body looked much more complicated than his.

‘You can keep hugging me’, she whispered and he pressed himself closer to her. 'Sorry about scaring you today. I just wanted to suffer alone'.

'Don't. I mean, I'd rather you don't suffer but - if you must - I am always available for some cuddling'.

She raised her head a little to place a kiss on his neck that gave him goosebumps all over his body.

'I will keep this is mind', she told him warmly. Then Lily sighed. ‘It’s been a while since I have this crisis… I usually take my potions the day before, but - well, I was a little bit distracted yesterday’.

She broke away just enough to wink at him and James suddenly remembered exactly what they had been doing last night on that empty Prefect’s Room - how he had pressed her against the door of the room, his mouth exploring her neck and any exposed skin there, how Lily had moaned softly and how that had driven him crazy -

‘James?’, she called him and he realized he must have drifted off in the memories, judging by how his body was reacting too quickly. He turned slightly, urging his mind to stop recollecting that moment. ‘Maybe now is not the moment?’, she added, a knowing smile on her lips.

‘Sorry’, he said, feeling his neck reddening. James forced himself to focus on the present. ‘I will help you remember next month’, he promised. ‘No distraction, Marauder’s honour’.

‘Maybe just a little distraction’, Lily said, winking at him again. He laughed softly, kissing her forehead, and she rested her head under his chin. ‘I will pay attention next month, don’t worry - I mean, you don’t need to know my cycle, James -’

‘Nonsense’, he said lightly. ‘I already know Remus’, what’s one more?’

She let out an amused laugh, the one that was James' favourite.

‘Well, wait until you experience my mood swings’.

‘PMS? Is that real?’

‘Very real’, she assured him. ‘I may need to hide again -’

‘I hope you don’t’, he whispered, massaging her neck now. ‘I meant it when I said I want to be there with you’.

‘I may get really stressed’, Lily warned him. ‘Like I may want to throw things - it’s better if you are not close’.

‘I have very good reflexes’.

‘Or I may get really sad and cry, and you’ll think it’s because of you, but it’s not’.

‘Then I will give you chocolate’, he promised. ‘Chocolate is the solution for everything’.

Another laugh; James smiled to himself, satisfied with her reaction. Discovering her reactions to him was really his favourite part of the last two weeks of dating her.

‘Well, you can’t go wrong with chocolate’, Lily agreed. ‘And this massage is really good too’.

‘Oh, I have magic fingers’, he teased. ‘I can show you’.

‘James…’

‘I meant a massage in the back, Lily’, he said innocently, and she chuckled once more, not believing him much. ‘Here’.

He sat more upright, helping Lily’s head on a pillow next to him, and started rubbing the base of her neck and then her shoulders, feeling the tension on her muscles and letting it guide him.

‘Hmmm’, she sighed. ‘That’s actually good’.

‘See? Magic fingers’. He kept rubbing her back, feeling her relaxing under his touch. He beamed - even after two weeks of them going out, there was still that disbelief in knowing Lily fancied him back and trusted him and wanted to be with him. ‘So, those mood swings - care to tell me beforehand?’

‘Oh, you’ll notice’, she said distractedly. ‘Two weeks from now probably’.

‘So - two weeks ago you were in one of them?’

‘I guess’.

‘Then our date and all that snogging later - just one mood change?’

‘Oh, it certainly changed my mood’, Lily said, turning her head in his direction and he was relieved to see her green eyes sparkling. ‘There were some hormones involved in kissing you, but I promise you none of them were fleeting’.

‘I’m glad to know’, he answered, grinning too. ‘Or else we would kiss just one week of the month’.

‘That would mean three miserable weeks’.

James laughed. Lily watched him, a smile on her lips that died when she closed her eyes, grimacing.

‘Are you in pain?’, he asked, worried.

‘It’ll pass, just some more minutes for the potion to take effect again’.

He laid down again, this time with her back for him, and Lily curled up against him. He put a hand under her head, careful to entwine his hands with hers.

‘You are so warm’, she whispered.

‘Is that bad?’

‘No, it’s good. I might nap though’.

‘You can - I’ll wake you up later for dinner’.

She sighed softly.

‘Thanks, James - I know this is not how you imagined us being in your bed’.

Her voice was heavier now with sleep, though he could hear her teasing. James let out a soft laugh, kissing the top of her head, and hugging her closer. Lily was quite warm for him too; there was something very cozy in being next to her like that, even if all they were doing was just cuddling together.

He thought of sharing nights with her where they would just do this - lay together, his arms around her, quiet and serene, and somehow those nights looked as appealing as the most creative nights he could dream of.

‘You are wrong, you know’, he whispered, but she didn’t move and James thought she had fallen asleep. ‘I want to be with you in every way’.

And he closed his eyes, letting her warmth and perfume lull him into a quiet sleep too.