#made the terrible mistake of drawing the robe patterns by hand

[theboyanachr0nism]

Portrait of the Great Khan and Lady Shin

[dirt-cup-draco]

Hermione x Reader - Luck

Hi love! Could you do a Hermione x reader where you and Harry are best friends and it’s set in the half blood prince where he gets the Felix felicis and you beg him to give it you to give you confidence to ask out Hermione

Harry Potter, the chosen one, was pouting at you like he was eleven years old again. “I earned this!” He argued as you motioned to his felix felicis, begging him to let you have it.

“Please!” You scoffed. “The only reason you were able to brew the draught of living death is because you have that cheat sheet of a potions book. All I’m saying is you cheated and I’m in need of some luck,” 

“Give me a good reason why you need this more than I do,” Harry challenged and you groaned.

“You know why Potter,” 

“I don’t see what you are so worried about!” Harry shrugged, walking with you as you shoved your hands deep into your robes pockets. You were terribly embarrassed. 

“That she’ll say no? Or that she’ll hate me?” You provided some perfectly good evidence as to why you were worried, no, terrified. Hermione Granger had been your friend since third year. You hadn’t really noticed her before, outside of her frequently getting into some sort of mess with Harry, but then she had just blossomed and you hadn’t had eyes for anyone since. 

You loved being Hermione’s friend but there was nothing you hated more than being her friend. It was a word that left a sour taste in your mouth. The word itself didn’t properly express what you and Hermione were. You were confidants, she was the brains and the beauty and you were the reminder that she couldn’t balance the entire world on her shoulders no matter how hard she tried. You were the explosive and impulsive and she was the conscience that made you think twice. She was the other half of you, the better half of you and you loved her.

You loved her more than love was and you wanted nothing more than for her to feel the same. You woke up every day and she was on your mind with her slightly crooked teeth and frizzy hair and bright eyes. You went to bed every night and she was there at the back of your eyelids as you drifted in to blissful dreams. 

“You know that she won’t ever hate you, you’re her best friend Y/N, even more than Ron and I,” Harry admitted to you as you stood in the hall, chatting before your next class started. 

“But that’s the problem, I’m her best friend and she will only ever feel that way about me,” 

“Then why do you need the potion? If Hermione isn’t in love with you, luck won’t fix it. Talk to her,” Harry insisted and his blunt words stung but you knew they were true. This was for you to handle yourself.

“I hate it when you’re right,” 

“I’m always right,” 

“Fuck off,” 

--

“You wanted to speak with me?” Hermione asked as she arrived in the courtyard, her arms wrapped tight around her middle as a breeze blew through the fabric of her sweater and chilled her. Her eyes were sharp and they scanned every inch of your nervous face as you gnawed on your lip, wringing your hands red. “Is something wrong?” 

You shook your head as she sat on the fountain’s ledge beside you, her hand falling to your knee, her thumb stroking a relaxing pattern over your jeans. “I’m good!” Your voice wavered but you tried to sound convincing. “It’s not a bad talk, or well it doesn’t have to be, I’m really hoping it’s not bad I was just-” 

“Y/N, petal, calm down,” Hermione laughed, your familiar nickname spilling from her lips and warming you up. You took some pride in it as well knowing that she wasn’t fond of nicknames or pet names, she would rather address someone as they were and leave the fluff out but you were the exception. It gave you hope. 

“Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind,” You sighed, looking at Hermione with sad and honest eyes. 

“Well, what is it? I’m here to help,” She encouraged, squeezing your knee affectionately and drawing a half smile from your bruised lips. You always had chewed on it as a nervous habit. 

“I really like someone, and I want them to know how I feel because every second they don’t know I feel like I’m suffocating because it’s always on the tip of my tongue whenever I see them. Hell, I tried taking Harry’s felix felicis potion early to help confessing my feelings to this person,” You admitted. “I feel like I need them to know but I also know that I can’t ruin my friendship with them,” 

Hermione listened intently, as if your problems were the most important in the world. She may have a full plate with school and studying but she always made time for you, no matter what. “What would you do?” You asked, looking for guidance as you picked at the loose string at the hem of your sleeve. 

“They sound very important to you,” Hermione’s was quiet, almost too quiet. She nearly sounded sad yet her face gave away nothing. Maybe you were only imaging the dejected tone in her voice. “If it were me, I would want them to know no matter what.”

Hermione felt a bit bad, you were looking for advice and she was lying through her teeth. She was in the same predicament yet she hadn’t told you how she felt about you, how she had felt about you for some time. She was a hypocrite but it seemed her feelings were for naught as you talking about someone else. 

“Okay,” You nodded, taking a steadying breath and standing. Hermione jumped up and grabbed your wrist. 

“A-are you going to tell them?” She asked, trying to come off as curious, or maybe excited. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling so it made it hard to act like she was happy about your crush on another person. 

You smiled a little and nodded. “Yeah, I want to. You are right, no matter what I have to come clean-”

“When are you going to tell them? And where?” Hermione questioned, trying to draw it out so you couldn’t confess to anyone tonight. It was quickly becoming too late and you’d have to wait until tomorrow and surely by then she would have a plan on how to keep you from dating someone else because whoever it was, was sure to love you. But not as much as I do, a bitter part of her said.

You chuckled lightly, intertwining your fingers. “Well, I am trying to tell them but they keep interrupting me,” You found yourself saying as your heart picked up speed, hoping you came across cool even when you were felt everything but that. “No matter what happens, you are my best friend Hermione Granger. I just need you to know that I love you,” 

She gripped your hands tightly, not quite sure she was believing what she was hearing. Her mind momentarily short circuited. “Are you daft?! You asked Harry for his felix felicis to tell me you loved me?” Was the first thing out your mouth and you nodded in confusion, not sure if that was a rejection or not. “You don’t need luck to get me Y/N, I feel the same about you!” 

Your expression now mirrored hers, surprised but giddy. You couldn’t mistake the joy that was written on your faces. “Then go with me to Hogsmeade next weekend?” 

“I’ll go anywhere with you, petal,” Hermione smiled, courageously making the first move and kissing your cheek sweetly. 

“The feeling is mutual,” You confirmed, the weight of your feelings now gone as you and Hermione bid each other a good night, even if you were both too excited for your upcoming date to sleep. 

[stolenkungfu]

High Society

Is it still regicide if you kill the reanimated shell of a King? They put him on the funeral pyre, surrounded by the soldiers we had brought back from the watchtower, all set to burn together, something close to a man of the people, even in death, it seems. A funeral shared with his soldiers. It’s almost equitable. Almost honest.

And then the king’s half-burned, reanimated hand reach out of the fire and grabbed at the priest delivering the sermon, so we leapt into action, the four of us producing various instruments of death from beneath our robes and charging into the fray.

Daggers and darts flew from my hands, thudding unerringly into the dessicated knight and the poison-bloated King, even as Mara and Wood engaged them in close combat. Verwyn flung witticisms towards our assembled foes, as she seems wont to do, even against undead, unthinking enemies. It seemed to have an effect, and one stumbled towards her, fists raised, so I slipped in, spear in hand, to provide some help.

It should have been over in an instant.

Up on the central dais where the king and the paladin stood, Wood slipped away, shifting his form into some strange, two-legged lizard, great and terrible, and he pounced upon another undead soldier, a furious flurry of claws and teeth.

Mara held her own line, and made short work of the King from beyond the Grave, laying his body to the rest his soul likely deserved.

That’s when I noticed the aura.

Every axe-blow, every swing of her heavy blade had Mara entwined in electricity, a seeming gift from Torun, the stormlord. The lightning arced from her hand, outward and struck, singing and burning and adding the cloying scent of a thunderstorm to the bouquet that was burning, rotted flesh that already wafted throughout the chamber.

I don’t know how she stood it, up there, alone, fighting off the stench and far too many monsters.

Verwyn’s rapier tore through the foe we were fighting, and any other enemy, that would have been it, but the beast remained fighting. I flung my spear into the dessicated Paladin Mara was dueling and thought to finish off our enemy with a perfunctory snap kick, but it remained standing.

Blow after strong blow Verwyn and I rained upon the monster, far more than any creature, even and undead, should be willing to endure.

I thought to cry out to Joan for some assistance, with her twin blades.

But she was nowhere to be seen. That damn’ fool of a woman had run off on her own again, lured away from the funeral by a vision of her lover, leading her away. I didn’t know that then, though. Just now. Whomever opposed the secular regency here in Karnac, they know of Joan, of Joan’s lover, and are, I assume, a dab hand at illusions.

And Joan is an idiot easily led by the nose. Like a dog on a scent.

Verwyn finally slew the foe in front of us, well after I bruised my knuckles upon its skull. Each blow being more than enough. Each one should have felled it, each one failed.

The dessicated Paladin fell, and I zipped across the room to the last enemy still ambulatory, landing an open-palm strike on the thing’s abdomen and spilling its guts across the stones, causing it to collapse into a pool of rotten, poisoned flesh.

We were quickly ushered away from the scene of the carnage, brought down to one of the Saint's chambers to speak with them -- to be interrogated as toour dealings with the blasphemy that had just transpired. Not long after this, Joan joined us, ranting about some sort of sealed door, and of bandits in the castle, slain by her hands. There was no blood on her, though. No blood on her blades or her fingers or her wrists.

We were debriefed by one of the Saints -- apparently, that’s what the religious council that now rules over this city calls themselves, believing themselves to be appointees that speak directly to and with a God.

I think they’re mad, and I tried to tell them this as... diplomatically as possible.

I don’t think the message got through, much less diplomatically.

Great, now I’m on the short list for the Thieve’s Guild and the God-botherers who rule over this city without regard for the people below them.

Eventually, Joan demanded to be let into some door which hadn't been opened in centuries. The Saint told us that it was a peace offering from the Dwarves, back when the city was founded, and she demanded to be let in. The bandits she saw were after it and her lover had slipped inside. Must have slipped inside. It was the only thing at the end of the long tunnel.

And so, we were granted permission to delve within.

I spent a while on the door, poking and prodding at it with the tools of the trade, trying to prise out its secrets, before, out of the blue, Mara stepped forward and lifted a locket from around her neck -- the light of Torun radiating from it. She pressed it into a small depression and the door clicked open.

We descended into the darkness, and Verwyn stole back to warn the council that the door was opened. I think I heard fear in her voice.

A pressure plate slid underneath Woods’ feet, and torches along the long, featureless hallway suddenly sprung to life.

I cautioned my fellows to be silent, and reached out around them, bringing the shadows of the noise they were making to the forefront. I stole their clumsy steps and replaced them with poise and grace -- and we moved down the hallways, sweeping the whole thing for traps as we went -- like the ghosts of last breaths.

I felt invisible, even surrounded by light and flame.

The door on the far end of the hall creaked open at the lightest touch, and we found ourselves in a massive forge-chamber, empty put for statues and suits of armour and a still-roiling forge. somehow burning hot after centuries without workmen. We spread out, examining the place, and I found myself draw to the tools at the far end of the chamber, held in the air by statues of dwarven smiths. A book lay out in front of them and, eager to test the properties of the molten metal churning in the forge, I lifted a rod from one of the statue’s hands.

That was a mistake.

The armour sprung to life and fell upon us with an ancient, concentrated fury. Our own friendly armour -- the Wood that Walks -- shifted fluidly into the form of a great direwolf and Mara slid easily astride him and they, in a co-ordinated team, set to destroying the two armours they fought together. Joan was caught up in her own duel with the animated armour, her swords weaving intricate patterns of bladework.

The suit nearest me rammed into me, and I spit up blood, stealing the air back before it could escape my lungs and returned the favour.

Our duals lasted for several seconds, Mara and Wood together, a symphony of reckless axe-attacks, lightning, fur and fang. Joan was caught in the intricate parry and thrust with her own animated foe and I flung the rod away, where it landed perfectly back within the statue’s hands. The would have been cool had I planned it that way. I jabbed my spear forth. It glanced harmlessly off the armour’s chest and I, in a panic, dealt a fading blow to it as I pulled away, struck with an idea how to make short work of the animate metal. The construct struck me for the effort, practically slamming me across the dwarven cobblestones, a swirl of blood left behind me, I kept up the fighting retreat, hoping to lure the construct to the forge, hoping to dip it within,a nd set it to melting.

I was feeling woozy. With just a few blows, I could still feel the blood leaving me, dripping from me and into the molten metal underneath.

The armour didn’t follow me, instead choosing to refocus on Joan.Joan who, as far as I could tell, was also having a bad time.

Wood and Mara had already defeated one of their antagonists and were splitting, leaving Mara behind to deal with the straggler and Woods moving to reposition to let the pressure off Joan.

They passed close to the forge and their form shifted again, melting into the stone-and-tree guise they wore when not in an animal’s skin. There was no grace in that shift, and Wood sprawled across the floor.

The area around the forge was warded against magic, it seemed, which would be why the suit didn’t follow me.

I faded in besides Joan and dealt a ringing blow against an armour’s steel hide, which slammed into me for my efforts. I caught the blow on my forearms, which screamed in protests. I could feel my bones groan beneath my flesh. With a surge of will and determination, I drew my tip of my qiang through the metal, sheering it apart and feeling the burst of magic animating it ring through me.\

I implored Joan to pull back to the anti-magic field where it was safe before doing so myself. She refused to follow suit, digging in her heels and continuing to stand her ground, fighting the magicked armour. In a last-ditch desperation attempt, I threw my spear at it, which sunk into the inner curves of the thing’s front breast plate by way of a gap between helm and backplate.

Woods leapt through the air, shifting back into giant wlf-form mid-air and wrapped his jaws around my spear’s haft, craning their mighty neck, and slamming the animated armour to the ground, just barely over a line of gold inlaid on the floor.

The armour paused, unmoving, the magic animating it suprsesed.

Mara ended it, her axe coming down in a rage and splitting the backplate in two, and the pressure of magic washed over us again. The armour fallen silent.

But just to make sure, I grabbed the helm and tossed it into the forge.

All was quiet for a while and, whilst I learned my back against the hot dwarven sonework, clearing my head and willing my muscles and bones to work properly, regardless of the excuriating pain the had just gone through, the others searched the room.

Wood and Mara whispered to each other in a way I could not overhear about the Dwarven book that had been laid out in front of the statues and Joan absently played with a trap she’d discovered on the only new door out of there, trying her best to not look as bloody and tired and exhausted as she was.

Eventually, I ended up jamming the gears to prevent her from hurting herself.

The room turned out to be a dead end. It would have been a treasure trove once, a dwarven armoury filled with weapons and armour or the finest craftsmanship, but time makes fools of even ancient dwarven smiths, it seems, and most of it was rusted beyond repair. We salvaged what we could, though, netting a handful of gemstones, a backplate fitted for Woods and a brand nw, two-handed maul for Mara’s greedy hands.

I took the forge-tools the statues were holding, confident that no more guardians would seek to end us for such a thing.

We finally convinced Joan there was nothing for her, here. No sign of her lover, and we left. Back to the highbrow inn we’d been staying at. This time, however, it didn’t seem to be bought out for our benefit, and a slim few patrons had filled the place out.

None of them seemed to keen on talking to the street rat of a skinny half-ork, though.

So here I am. With a stiff drink and stiffer muscles.

Writing. Alone with my mounting feeling of inadequacy. I’ve never been beaten so throughly before. What is wrong with me?

I guess I’ll go to bed now that the old’ journal is filled out. Good night?