#my mother is worrying herself to death and ignoring literally everyone else’s existence because of my brother

[kissed-by-miserae]

Life is just so fucking AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[aquafaith]

My lengthy, angry ACOSF rant review.

Spoilers, TW for mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

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I loved ACOTAR. I still love ACOTAR. I always will love ACOTAR. But every book afterwards made me give up more and more. ACOMAF romanticized an abusive relationship and assassinated characters for the author's convenience. ACOWAR was a bunch of boring and inconsequential death scares. ACOFAS was all-round dreadful. And each book kept shitting on and pushing away Lucien for no reason.

I'd like to preface this by saying I hated Nesta too. I hated the way she treated Feyre in ACOTAR especially, and I wasn't even too excited for this book because I wasn't that keen on Nesta as a character.

Nesta's POV and her backstory changed my perspective. It does not excuse her actions. All Nesta stans can hold these characters accountable for what they do - trauma is a reason, not an excuse. I, and many others, sided with Nesta because of the way she's treated by everyone else in this book. Also, if you're going to hate Nesta for not teaching Feyre how to read and letting her hunt at fourteen, (which I did, and are very valid things to hate), AT LEAST hold Elain accountable too.

This book. This fucking book.

Shall we start with the intervention? Feyre on her little power trip thinks that her boyfriend that hates Nesta and Nesta hates back, Nesta's ex-best friend, and her possible mate who she never talks to should be at this stupid fucking intervention??? Excuse me???

Remember in ACOMAF when Feyre wouldn't shut up about how rich Rhysand is? Feyre literally has four or five houses and is always talking about how much jewelry and lingerie she can afford because Rhysand is so rich??? Well, Nesta has a few shots. So you know what Feyre does? Humiliates Nesta at this "intervention", TEARS DOWN HER HOME, and forces her to go to the Illyrian training camp.

That was the god awful premise for this book.

Did you think Elain wasn't there because she was against the "intervention"? Nope! She was packing Nesta's belongings without permission.

Remember in ACOMAF when it's made a big fucking deal that locking up a traumatised woman is extremely damaging? Well, when Nesta decides she doesn't want to be in Illyria, Feyre locks her in the House of Wind. Nesta can't fly, so her only way of leaving is down the TEN THOUSAND STEPS, that Feyre KNOWS Nesta isn't capable of climbing.

Feyre's pregnant. In ACOFAS she randomly decided that she wanted a baby to remember Rhysand by if he dies. Which doesn't make any sense because they made that stupid fucking death pact in ACOWAR. It's just SJM superimposing her pregnancy onto her early 20's protagonist. Ignoring the fact that Feyre isn't ready for a baby and Rhysand CERTAINLY isn't, and with a war just ended and another looming and so much trauma and a DEATH PACT are all such horrible circumstances to bring a child into, Feyre is already pregnant. Remember when SJM made a big deal about Fae babies being so hard to conceive, and Feyre said in ACOFAS they wouldn't have to worry for a long time because it can take years to conceive your first Fae child? Well it's been no more than 3 or 4 months and Feyre's already pregnant. Yep.

Also the birth will kill her. Because of course it will. Rhysand KNEW this, and still agreed to try for a baby.

There's no solution. Abortions don't exist for some stupid reason, and a C section would apparently kill Feyre?

(Wasn't this book supposed to be about Nessian?)

In ACOWAR, Cassian was on the battlefield with his entrails around his knees. Someone had to literally hold his guts in for him, and he's fine, but you're telling me a C section would kill Feyre?

Don't worry, this is just setting up the AWFUL ending to this book.

ACOSF amounts to Nesta being gaslit into believing her abusers are right. Her friends and family slut shame her and shame her for her lifestyle constantly. Cassian says it took him decades to work through some of his trauma, and he tried to drink and fuck it away too, but suddenly when Nesta does so it's heinous? Nesta's barely twenty five and she's expected to cope better than these ancient immortals.

Hell, didn't SJM write ACOMAF? Nobody expected Feyre to pick herself up so quickly. The IC (excluding Rhysand) respected her boundaries for the most part and understood when it was grief, trauma, and turmoil that made her angry, sad, want to be left alone, etc. But that's all forgotten here.

Amren also compares Nesta to the people in, and says she belongs in, The Court of Nightmares. You know, the murderers, abusers and rapists? This innocent woman who had a few shots and a bit of sex is on par with them, apparently!

The sex scenes.

SJM is scared to say vagina so she says sex.

She says seed to mean semen.

Apparently the word cunt turns SJM on. I just found Cassian saying that kinda cringe because I'm Bri'ish so the word cunt really isn't a big deal.

Back to the baby killing Feyre, because this is definitely what we all wanted from this book as indicated by the change in covers and format and title... Rhysand decides not to tell Feyre. He tells her friends and family, and tells them not to tell her.

SJM loves sweeping Rhysand's abuse from the first book under the rug and claiming it's always about Feyre's choice... where is that here, MAAS? WHERE IS IT?

Anyway, when Nesta rightfully decides to tell Feyre (although it is kind of out of spite), Rhysand threatens to kill Nesta.

And I believed him. With the way he treats his """mAtE tHaT hE lOvEs sO mUcH""" and all the people he's mindlessly killed before, do you really think he wouldn't kill the person who gave Feyre an inch of autonomy?

So what does Cassian do? His lover who he cares deeply about and suspects is his mate has received a death threat from tHe mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lORd iN hIsToRy.

Cassian simply gets Nesta out of the court.

EXCUSE ME?

He doesn't breathe ONE word to Rhysand about this. This Illyrian WARRIOR who fought with his GUTS HANGING OUT didn't dare step up to the hIGh lOrD who he considers his brother and sparrs and fights with all the time?

Cassian literally does nothing.

Was it not Rhysand himself who said Mated males are dangerous? Can kill anyone who looks at their mate? Can be dangerous simply leaving the house? Rhys and Feyre both pull the Mate card to justify their bad actions on the other's behalf... and Cassian just tried to get Nesta out of the court?

Also, this High King bullshit.

I swear to fucking god, if SJM DARES to make this abusive, power-tripping, mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lOrD eVEr, husband-insert of hers hIgH kInG, I will fight her in the street.

My beloved Lucien is in this book. Only for him to be used and shat on.

I really liked it when he calmed Cassian down with just a look though. Yes please fox man.

Helion is also in this book. Nothing to do with Lucien.

Eris is also in this book. ERIS. Lucien's eldest brother. The same one who abused him for years, but according to SJM he's slightly better, because at least he didn't agree to kill Lucien's lover. He betrayed his daddy that one time, therefore Eris is good. Y'know, the same Eris who abused Mor? Left her laying on the Autumn Court border with a nail in her womb? Well SJM is going back on her own canon to redeem yet ANOTHER abusive male, while continuing to demonize Tamlin for things he only happened to do when SJM decided the villain from the first book was sexy.

Nesta and Cassian are Mates.

Remember when Mates were supposed to be a rare and sacred thing? Now SJM dishes them out like Oprah.

I don't want these characters to be mates. I want to see them slowly fall in love. But SJM is incapable of writing that so she forces them together with the mAtInG bOnD. That's literally the only basis for most of these relationships, Feysand especially.

The only relationship where the bond would make sense is between Helion and The Lady of Autumn. Who still isn't named. But I will die on the hill that they're mates, I can feel it between them.

I wanted someone to die in this book. I predicted that it would either be Helion or Tarquin, but Tarquin isn't even in this one.

And the ending.

SJM can't write a decent climax, so she kills both Feyre and Rhysand for the second time. Yep.

The baby is being born which stupidly kills Feyre, and thankfully takes Rhysand with them.

Nesta decides to save them. Bad choice. But she decides to save them! Because she's so powerful and she ATE THE CONTENTS OF THE CAULDRON and she's CONNECTED TO THE MOTHER.

Do you know what happens.

Nesta loses her powers.

NESTA.

LOSES.

HER.

POWERS.

The powers we've hardly seen, the powers that were briefly mentioned and used ONCE in ACOWAR, then we saw like two flashes of in this book? They're GONE now. GONE SO NESTA CAN SAVE HER ABUSIVE SISTER AND ABUSIVE HUSBAND WHO ABUSES THEM BOTH.

Nesta is just an Amren now. They both fought for their powers, and had to give them up to save people who didn't deserve it. Now they're anticlimactically trapped in powerless bodies.

Also, and I can't BELIEVE I didn't originally include this - do you know what else Nesta TRADED HER POWERS FOR?

Illyrian anatomy so she can carry Cassian's baby one day.

EXCUSE ME?

I am so fucking SICK TO DEATH of the narrative that every woman needs a man and children to be happy. SJM clearly loves this because she's literally only keeping Amren and Nesta alive now to be sex objects to their partners and nothing else seeing as their POWERS WERE RIPPED AWAY FROM THEM, and now NESTA TRADED THOSE POWERS TO HAVE A BABY SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WANTS? Nesta does NOT strike me as a motherly type. She's the wine aunt, she and Cassian are the couple that go on holiday a lot and and babysit their nieces and nephews, but nope. Nesta HAS to have children.

The Feysand baby is called Nyx. That's just so underwhelming, you go from these huge, multiple syllable names like Amarantha and Morrigan and Lucien to Nyx? I get it's supposed to be unique but it's not even meaningful. It's just more shit-flavoured icing on the hAHa nIgHt uWu cake. I prefer Renesmée.

Nesta is wrong somehow. She says she's sorry as she's saving them. FOR WHAT? For being a little rude to Feyre as all sisters are? And rightfully hating your sister's abuser?

Oh yeah, remember in ACOWAR when Nesta took care of a comatose, starving Elain for months? Elain is randomly okay now because she takes care of her mental health the stereotypical way of baking cakes, and not drinking and fucking, which she shames Netsa for.

Remember the slut shaming, demeaning comments that the whole iNnEr cIrClE made about Nesta? They all expect apologies from her. For some reason.

Nesta has done nothing wrong. She coped with her trauma and minded her business in her own ways, and she's expected to apologise to the people who control and emotionally abuse her.

Nothing that any of these characters did to Nesta is right. Nesta wasn't okay at the end, this wasn't Nesta's healing story. This is Nesta being shamed and degraded until she submits.

Oh I can't believe I forgot to write this in my first draft of this review, do you know how Nesta "overcomes" her grief about her Father's death and her conflicting feelings about him and his life and her guilt? When she visits his grave for the first time, she takes Nyx.

NYX.

She holds NYX up to the grave and talks about how it's his grandson.

GO AWAY YOU STUPID DEMON BABY THIS IS NOT YOUR BOOK.

Speaking of, it's revealed that Nesta was abused by her mother and grandmother in this book? Something we were all looking forward to is seeing more of the Archeron's mother seeing as Feyre was so young when she died, but... nope. She gets a few vague mentions, and this newly revealed abuse is entirely glossed over. Nesta was also actively groomed by an older man at 14. But SJM glosses over this because of course she does.

Finally, the bonus chapters.

My edition came with a bonus chapter from Feyre's POV. It was pointless and I hated it.

There's another bonus chapter from Azriel's POV. Once I'd finished this book, he was one of the few characters I still harboured a shred of respect for.

Then I read his bonus chapter.

This exists to purely objectify Elain.

Whether you ship Elain with Azriel, or Lucien, or neither, this chapter is disgusting. He thinks about her coming on his tounge, and other things simply just to please him.

He then dares to suggest that "the Cauldron picked wrong" in choosing Lucien as Elain's mate?

No Azriel, SJM picked RIGHT in not giving each Archeron sister a bAt bOy.

Rhysand does the only right thing he's ever done by telling Azriel to stay away from Elain, but then he has to ruin it by clarifying that it's only so they can manipulate and use Lucien more.

Oh, and Azriel wants to kill Lucien.

Need I remind you that Lucien respects Azriel? Lucien is another victim of the Night Court's needless, baseless torment, and Azriel is no exception.

Lucien stays well out of Elain's way because she makes it clear that she's not interested in a mate, but Azriel wants to kill him simply for being her mate.

Lucien has done nothing. And I mean literally NOTHING to warrant any of this treatment. From the bAt bOyS, from Feyre, from his family, from SJM, from the deluded part of this fandom that think he's done wrong. NOTHING.

All I liked about this book was the Lucien scenes (which is a given), ((although I hated the way everyone talks about him behind his back)), Nesta's relationship with the house, Emerie and Gwyn, the evidence that Gwynriel is endgame and subsequently Elucien, and the book love. Everything else was horrible. Oh, and Nesta hates Rhysand. I love that for her, because everyone else bows at his feet.

Oh yeah, when Nesta DARES suggest that Rhysand is an "arrogant, preening asshole" which I think is a compliment, Cassian can't take Rhys' cock out of his mouth for one second, and has to get mad at her for having an opinion. Don't even get me started on Azriel in that scene.

If each book after ACOTAR made me slowly give up, this book made me give up altogether. I cannot go on to support this victim-blaming, abuse-forgiving, misogynistic series. I've given up on SJM, and the only characters I care about anyone are Lucien, Nesta, Helion, and Tarquin. I'll continue to read this series to see if SJM redeems herself, but I'll be downloading them for free. I'm not giving this piece of shit any more of my money.

I hope we don't get the Lucien book. I don't want her to slaughter my fox in the way she slaughtered LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE.

Thanks for listening.

Edit: I put the review on Goodreads!

[papa-rhys]

Thoughts on Jack and His Borderline Personality Disorder and How It Shows Through His Behaviour - Because I Cannot Stop Analysing Things That Ultimately Aren’t Important

Symptoms/behaviours under the cut because holy hell this guy has a lot of them. Like, honey, are you okay?

Okay, so I’m pretty sure I can trace Jack’s BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) back to his grandmother. His mum abandoned him, which shows a reckless/irresponsible behaviour and her mum had fits of rage that didn’t correlate at all with the trigger (ie; drowning Jack’s cat because he didn’t make his bed). So I think he has a family history of it, with both his mother and grandmother having BPD and passing it down to him.

Either way, Jack definitely has it. In fact, he’s a textbook case of it.

Impulsivity

Spending sprees: he bought a pony made of diamonds because he was bored and throws money at all kinds of ventures to keep him occupied and because he wants to. I really don’t know how else to describe this one lol. He bought a pony. Made of diamonds. Because he could.

Gambling: won some of the things on his trophy shelf through poker and owns an entire casino. Hunting the Vaults themselves were a huge gamble too, especially the first two, since he wasn’t truly sure that they existed. He was prepared to sacrifice a lot in order to come out on top in both his career and his social standing. All in all, he’s reckless.

Binge eating: he doesn’t even like pretzels, but still eats them because he’s either bored or stressed. Talks about food quite a bit in conversation, too, especially his cravings.

Substance abuse: admits to being high on uppers for the duration of the pre sequel (and his time on Elpis as a whole) and tells further anecdotes about drugs and getting high in tftbl.

Promiscuity/unsafe sex: nothing about having sex with Nisha is safe lol. But in all seriousness, there’s no way to prove this one. He does strike me as the reckless sex sort though. No proof, just 7 years of knowing him as a character.

Emotional instability

Inappropriate trigger response: he strangles a man to death for simply mentioning his wife, stabs Lilith for talking about Angel, and tries to kill Rhys for not being sure about his grand plan (more on this later). His response to triggers is disproportionate, often resulting in extreme anger over small things that don’t warrant that intense of a reaction. He gets big angry about almost everything; there’s no middle ground. His reaction is never really “you’re annoying me a lot” or “don’t talk about that, I don’t like it.” His reaction to almost everything is “oh my god I will murder your first born child how dare you-”

Quickly changing mood: aside from being prone to fits of rage at the flick of a switch, Jack also flicks back to “normal” pretty quickly, too. He flips between telling you to kill yourself after surviving the train and then talks casually about his day. He’ll be filled with rage after Angel’s death and then suddenly he’s laughing about you jumping into lava and having fun tricking you into visiting his grandmother. He can be intensely angry or sorrowful one moment and then nonchalant and sociable the next. His moods don’t last very long.

Idolisation/devaluation

Jack does this with numerous people across the games, but the two shining examples are Moxxi and Rhys; Rhys being the most notable. He idolises Moxxi, complimenting her on how attractive she is and how smart she is and including her in his circle of close friends/teammates. Then the inevitable happens and she lets him down and he instantly changes his opinion on her as if he’d never thought she was good to begin with. The same happens with Rhys. Throughout tftbl, Jack is best friends with Rhys and seems to form a one-sided connection with him where he idolises him and thinks they’re going to be best friends for ever and that they’re the perfect team. You cannot make him mad at you in tftbl (trust me, I’ve tried). He’s encouraging to Rhys the whole way through, like they’re brothers. Then the second Rhys displays doubts about something Jack is passionate about, Jack reacts violently and completely devalues Rhys, claiming him to be his mortal enemy and trying to kill him. People with BPD do this often. They have strong convictions and have a tendency to feel betrayed by people who go against those convictions. Jack does this regularly and it leads to the breakup of a lot of his relationships.

Paranoia

He vented a room full of scientists into space, just in case. I mean, that pretty much sums it up, really. Jack is under a lot of stress at this point in the game and stress-induced paranoia is a particularly difficult symptom of BPD. With him already feeling the pressure, the mention of a possible mole is a huge trigger for Jack. Especially since he’s reeling from the recent betrayal from a friend. His brain is already working over time, planting uneasy feelings of distrust and being unsafe. So when he’s presented with the idea from an outside source, he runs with it. Betrayal goes on to become a big button to push in Jack’s life to the extent that he actively betrays people before they get a chance to betray him (ie; killing Wilhelm). Paranoia feeds into a lot of Jack’s bad decisions, particularly in the pre sequel era.

Delusion

Jack wasn’t lying when he told us that he’s the hero. He absolutely was not the hero at all, but he wasn’t lying about it. Because lying about something implies that you know it’s not true, and Jack genuinely believes he’s a good person. The best person, in fact. It’s not a lie because in his mind, it’s the god given truth. He’s massively delusional, even before the events of the pre sequel. He’ll spout all the cheesy 80s movie lines about saving the moon and being the hero and he thinks he’s the protagonist of his own big adventure. We know that’s not what’s happening, but Jack doesn’t see it that way. Another delusion is the idea he has about how much everyone loves him. He thinks Moxxi is obsessed with him and he thinks Angel is being forced to work against him. He cannot conceive of a world in which people don’t like him or agree with him. Because why wouldn’t they agree with him? He’s the hero. Everybody loves the hero...

Intense but unstable relationships

Moxxi, Angel, Lilith, the Vault Hunter; I could go on. Jack’s relationships with people are volatile and rocky, even when they’re seemingly on the same side like with Moxxi or even Nisha (who he forms a tight bond with very quickly). People with BPD feel all emotions intensely, which causes a roller coaster. Jack really likes Moxxi, but then he doesn’t want to talk to her, but then he wants her on the team, but then he gets mad at her for calling him a pet name and beign friendly, and then he’s telling her she’s sexy, and then he’s cursing her, and then he’s hanging pictures of her in his casino. It’s the same with Angel - he subjects her to physical torture, then he loves her, then he’s mad at her for helping the Vault Hunter, then he’s doting on her, then he’s manipulating her, then he’s grieving for her. Everything is a whirlwind.

Distorted self-image

Oh boy. Jack has this physically and mentally. Mentally in the sense that he thinks he’s a good person when he actions are abhorrent and also because he’s massively insecure. BPD often comes with a lack of identity, which causes insecurity to begin with. Throw that in a pot alongside some childhood abuse, betrayal, work place bullying, and grief, and you got yourself a big pot of insecurity soup. Put plainly, Jack doesn’t really know who he is at his baseline. His personality and interests and ideas and needs all change on an hourly basis. He morphs to suit his circumstances. He can be open, honest and down to earth when he’s trying to trick Rhys. He can be full of worry and desperation when he needs you to head to grandma’s house. He can be cunning and clever when he’s tricking you into killing Wilhelm. He can be fatherly, he can be nasty, he can be torturous, he can be laid back, he can be clever, he can be ignorant, he can be sheepish, he can be cocky. He’s everyone and no one all at once and this probably leaves him feeling very hollow and empty; which is another symptom of BPD. In the physical sense, Jack issues with self image are pretty clear. He wears a face over his face to hide his face. Yup. And he does this because he thinks he’s disgracefully ugly. This scar he’s so vehemently protective of is something that defines his whole persona going forward. He literally claims himself as Handsome Jack, forcing people to adhere to the idea that he’s so attractive that it should be his title. Even though he doesn’t feel that way and does everything he can to hide the real him. He thinks he’s hideous and he struggles between loving himself and hating himself because of it.

Fear of abandonment

Aaaand here we are at the crux of the problem. BPD boils down to the intense fear of abandonment and this is probably what guides Jack for most of his life. His father died, his mother literally abandoned him, his grandmother neglected him, his first wife died, second wife left, girlfriend and friends betrayed him, and daughter killed herself to get away from him. Abandonment is practically coded into Jack’s DNA at this point and every time it happens, it confirms his fears more. He clings to Moxxi after she betrays him - taking her ideas to try and rile her up and even going as far as to recreate her entire bar in his casino because he wants to keep her presence around. He fights tooth and claw against Angel’s rebellion, begging both her and you to stop what you’re doing and leave. The only time he begs you is when he’s facing perceived abandonment, that’s how strong the fear is. His final words to Angel are “I’ll still forgive you.” Jack isn’t a forgiving man by any stretch, but he’ll say anything he has to in order to prevent her from leaving him. He’ll stalk people, he’ll manipulate them, he’ll lie to them or keep them physically locked up - all to prevent them from abandoning him. The worst possible thing that could happen to Jack is that, and we see the spiral he slips into after Angel. After Moxxi. After the Meriff. After his wife. He can’t bare the thought of someone leaving him and he’ll do anything and everything to prevent his fears becoming a reality.

So yeah! There it is, I finally got around to posting it lol. There’s probably a lot more little details that I’ve forgotten, but I cannot think of them right now. I’ll probably update if I think of any more! The tl;dr is that almost all of Jack’s behaviour can be linked to massively untreated BPD. He needed meds and therapy, but he didn’t get them and he spiralled as a result.

[maybedefinitely404]

Day 2: Roceit

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 2: There is a timer that counts down to when you will meet your soulmate

Content warning: vague neglectful/bad home life mentions, liquor store mention (no drinking), implied past parental death.

Word count: 2.6k

When they first met, they didn’t like each other. Would they go so far as to say they hated each other? Probably not. But it was no secret that Roman and Janus didn’t get along, even if they traveled in a mutual friend group. If the two interacted at all, it was in snide remarks and gripes that had everyone else in the group groaning in annoyance. They just wanted five minutes of peace, that’s all. Just five minutes.

Roman was too preppy, Janus said. He was loud and abrasive and presumptuous and arrogant, an annoying theatre boy with too much energy. Other’s feelings came second to his dramatic and overplayed grievances. 

Janus was too self centered, Roman retorted. He was untrustworthy and creepy and a compulsive liar, a loner with a mysterious backstory. Everything about him was kept hidden under a mask of indifference.

These things were true to some extent, but the group still loved them both too much to reject either one. So they both stayed, bothered by the other’s presence and unwilling to admit that maybe they disliked the other because they were so similar. They were both extravagant and theatrical and burdened with concealed insecurities, points that all of the rest of the group brought up regularly and they both vehemently denied. 

It all changed one morning during school, on a regular Wednesday with average weather after an uneventful English class, when Roman got overly excited at the cast list for the newest show being put up and dropped his art bag. Without a second of hesitation, Janus crouched to help him collect the supplies that had flown across the hallway. That was when Roman’s sleeve slid up, as he was reaching for a paint pen that had rolled up against a locker, and Janus nearly choked.

00:00

He blurted out his accusation before he could stop himself.

“You said you haven’t met your soulmate! And you call me secretive?”

Roman snarled almost animalistically, covering his completed timer back up and grabbing the now full bag off the ground.

“If you must know, my timer’s always been like that. I don’t know when it ran out; too young to remember. I don’t even know if it was ever counting down in the first place. Defective.” He flicked the numbers on his wrist.

“Does anyone else know?”

Roman narrowed his eyes at the uncharacteristic sympathy in Janus’ voice. “Just Remus.”

“Why haven’t you told them?”

“Why all the questions, Fibber on the Roof? Since when do you care about anything I do?”

Janus was quiet, breathing out a frustrated breath before folding down the bottom of his gloves, the same gloves that Roman taunted daily for making him look like every single Disney villain, the same gloves that made Roman turn to the rest of the group and insist that the guy was hiding something. Turns out he was right.

“My timer’s out too. I was too young to remember as well.”

Roman wasn’t able to respond, and Janus was surprisingly relieved. The silent solidarity in the other’s eyes was enough of an olive branch, just another thing they had in common. It was a pain the others didn’t understand, a frustration that couldn’t be fixed. So if from that point on, the bickering lessened and they finally allowed their shared interests to overlap, they surely wouldn’t be the ones to bring it up.  

That’s how they found themselves, almost half a year later, sitting on the swings of a musty playground near Janus’ house, watching the sunset in an unspoken agreement to put off going back until absolutely necessary. It was just another thing they had in common; shitty home life. They didn’t talk about it much, because they knew how much it sucked to discuss, so they let the facts stand at the forefront and the nitty gritty emotions and smaller mental repercussions stay healthily buried. What did it matter? Their parents were awful, ‘nuff said. 

“I just think it’s ridiculous, the amount of time he spent writing it.”

“He wrote and composed an entire play single handedly, J! Not a single word of it is dialogue, and it all rhymes! You try doing that in seven years.”

“I’m just saying, doesn’t it come to the point where you have to admit it’s too much work? Did he even know for a fact it would be successful?”

“He made it work, didn’t he? That’s what faith is for.”

“I wouldn’t have done it.”

“That’s what makes Lin Manuel Miranda a god, and you, a worm.” 

Janus gasped and raised a mock hand to his chest, drawing a loud laugh from Roman. While the shorter of the two still wore his gloves daily, the other had slowly gained the confidence to wear short sleeves and display his empty timer, though god help the fool who asked him anything about it. The conversation with the group had gone well, though Jan hadn’t admitted that his situation was the same. They hadn’t known him as long, and they both agreed that it was a sensitive topic. Roman didn’t push him. 

“The sun’s setting.”

“I had no idea,” Janus smirked, although the implications of the fast approaching darkness made a pit settle in his stomach.

“We don’t have to leave yet. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I don’t really get in trouble that often,” The shorter murmured, kicking his feet in the dust under him, “She’s more just... forgetful. Ignorant. I’m not even sure she fully knows I exist all the time.”

Roman raised an eyebrow at the first bit of information he’d learned about Janus’ home life, besides knowing it was just ‘bad’. He was debating between quietly prodding him to continue or to just let it sit when Janus made the choice for him.

“The other day she asked me to go to the liquor store for her and literally didn’t believe me when I said I’m only eighteen. Then again, she’s forgotten my birthday for the last, what, ten years? So I guess she just lost track, got ahead of herself. I don’t know.”

“When’s your birthday?” It was the only response Roman could think of. 

“August seventh,” He whispered, almost like it was a dark secret he was scared to admit.

“Wait, actually?”

Janus turned to him, eyebrows furrowed, “Yeah?”

“You’re joking. This is a joke, right?”

“I can probably find my birth certificate if you need proof. Why are you losing your shit?”

“That’s my birthday too!” 

Janus matched Roman’s face splitting grin with one of his own, his worries slipping away. They’d all been irrational anyways, so good riddance. He quickly settled his face into a more neutral one, the unusual expression hurting his cheeks. A calm air settled between them as their eyes locked, almost in a trance, before Janus snapped out of it and turned his attention to the pink hues of the dimming sky.

“What are the chances?”

There was a lot Roman didn’t know about the newest member of the friend group, he realized after dropping Janus off at home and starting the walk back to his. Usually he’d pop in his earbuds, taking the longest back roads and detours to put off arriving even more, but today his head was lost in his thoughts. What else didn’t he know about the blond boy he was so infatuated with?

Two weeks later, Janus edged the front door of his house open, calling out a tentative “Mom?” before pushing it open all the way and pulling Roman in. There was no answer through the empty halls so he yanked the taller boy upstairs, praying that his mom wasn’t home instead of just ignoring his call. It wasn’t until he shut his bedroom door and leaned heavily against it did he remember to breathe, meeting Roman’s eyes shakily.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it. Parent’s are…”

“Yeah. It’s better if she doesn’t know you’re here.”

Roman nodded, finally looking around the room. One wall was completely adorned with old records, some cracked in places or missing pieces entirely. He found himself drawn to it, running a finger down the closest one to him as Janus collapsed on his bed, ruffling the yellow blanket beneath him. He took a moment to pull off his gloves, revealing his soulmark, a secret that only Roman had the honor of seeing. An old jukebox stood proudly in the corner, covered in a fine layer of dust.

“You definitely have an aesthetic,” Roman hummed, taking notes on the implications of the dust and not approaching the old machine. If Janus didn’t touch it, neither should he. Instead he sat down at the other’s desk, spinning himself lazily in the chair.

“It was all my dad’s old stuff. He loved music and antiques a lot. The record player was his, too.” 

He followed Janus’ gaze and nodded, overly tempted to take one of the records from the wall and trying to play it, but knowing that would only end badly. The record player was covered in the same thin sheet of dust. 

“Holy Hera, is that a baby picture of you?” His mind, apparently unable to stay on one topic for more than ten seconds, had decided to focus on the framed picture on the bedside table. He crossed the room and sat next to Janus on the bed, leaning closer to the photo but not daring to touch it. He inspected the woman, who could only be Janus’ mother, holding the tiny bundle and smiling weakly at the camera, her eyes tired and hair tied in a messy bun.

“Yeah,” Janus rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “That’s the only picture I have with her. She hates cameras, always said she was self conscious and shit. It sucks that the only one I have, I don’t even remember taking.”

Roman knew he should respond to the surprisingly vulnerable statement, but his eyes had zeroed onto the still slightly slimy, wrinkly baby in the photo. Its little fists were tucked against his face, eyes closed peacefully, a moment of bliss that time forgot. That’s not what caught his attention, though. He squinted, edging just that much closer to the photo.

“You were born at Jacob Banks Memorial Hospital? I thought you lived in Chicago before you moved out here.” The tiny golden embroidery in the edge of the blanket was just focused enough to make out, as if he didn’t have an identical blanket at home, stashed under his bed in a box of other memories that were too special to throw away. He’d run his finger over the stitching a hundred times, reread the words and committed the blanket to memory, just for that high of simple childhood. And now, here was Janus as a baby, swaddled in the same blanket.

From the same hospital.

From the same day.

“Yeah. My parents were visiting relatives in town when my mom went into early labor. We didn’t end up actually moving here until a couple years ago.” Janus didn’t seem to notice the gears turning in Roman’s head as he reached forward, plucking the picture off the table and bringing it closer to his face. He tapped the glass, just above baby Janus’ arms.

“Right there, my timer. It’s just a few minutes left. I met my soulmate as a baby and no one cared enough to check who it was.”

“Janus.”

“I called the hospital as soon as I was old enough to comprehend, but they said they couldn’t help me. Didn’t have a record of anything to do with soulmates. Some help, huh.”

“Janus!”

“What? I’m trying to be melodramatic, Roman.”

“That’s the same hospital I was born in.”

“Okay? It’s the only one in town, I’m not overly surprised-” The lightbulb went off, and his head jerked up. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.”

They both were quiet for a moment, like the whole house was holding it’s breath, before Janus finally spoke, his voice a choked whisper. “Imagine with me, if you will,” he murmured, taking the picture and inspecting it closely. Not so much for sake of searching for details he wouldn’t have missed the hundreds of hours he spent inspecting the photo, more so just to avoid looking at the person beside him. “Two babies, born in the same place on the same day, put into the same small hospital nursery. They see each other, and click, their timers are out. Except both their parents don’t give a flying rat’s ass-”

“And so they never realize they met, and live their entire lives shrouded in mystery,” Roman finished quietly, suddenly terrified of the new ice they were walking on. 

“Hypothetically, of course.”

His head snapped up and the spell was broken, meeting Janus’ pale eyes and jumping to his feet, flapping his hands to dispel his nervous energy. “Okay. Okay! That could… that could make sense! All signs point that way, right?” He began to pace the length of Janus’ room, head tilted towards the ceiling, “And I mean, god, I’ve liked you for how long now? So I’m definitely not upset!”

“You’ve what?”

“Alright, so we can call the hospital, or go there, or something! I’m sure they can tell us how many babies were born that day, that doesn’t seem like confidential information, right? And if it was just us three, you, me, and Remus, then that’ll settle it!”

“Wait, no, Roman, stop!”

Janus launched himself at Roman before he could click the call button on the Google search of the hospital, already dedicated to his plan. He ripped the phone from his grasp and tossed it onto the bed after pressing the power button, grabbing Roman’s hands tightly.

“Jan, what the hell? That’s the only way we’re going to know for sure if we’re-”

“But what if we’re not?!”

The two settled into silence after the outburst, searching each other’s faces intently. They both shared scared expressions, eyes wide with excitement and nervousness, the possibility of years worth of questions finally being answered. The promise that their two soulmarks weren’t dysfunctional, weren’t broken, and fate that had led them together one way or another. 

But what if they weren’t?

“What if it’s a coincidence? What if you find out that your mom checked out before mine even got there, or our paths never could have crossed, or there were twenty babies born that day and there’s no sure way to know that we are each other’s soulmates? What if you find out that your soulmark said two years and mine ran out with someone else completely?”

“You’re starting to sound like Virgil,” Roman said quietly, almost fondly, a gentle smile tugging at his lips.

“Roman, if you’re my soulmate, I’d be elated,” Janus’ hushed tone matched his, “But I don’t know what I’ll do if I build my hope and then find out it’s not true.” They were quiet again, and Janus was suddenly hyper aware that he was still holding Roman’s hands, a furious blush rising to his cheeks. He fought the urge to look away, look anywhere other than Roman’s bright eyes, because this was the closest they’d ever been and he was scared one flinch might break the charm they were in. 

“We don’t have to check,” the taller whispered, “If you are, I’m content just… believing it.”

“You always were a cheesy romantic.” The phrase was meant to be cutting, but the uncontainable grin across his face greatly lessened its impact.

“I’m a Disney lover, what can I say?”

Janus snorted, dropping his head on to Roman’s shoulder, his heart nearly stopping altogether when the taller boy wrapped his arms around him and pulled them a step closer together. “So we’re agreeing on this? That we’re soulmates?” His voice was muffled against Roman’s shirt.

“As far as I’m concerned, yes. Fuck the system, right?”

“Overthrow the government. Commit arson in the name of anarchy. Society is a prison.”

“Dramatic, and that’s coming from me,” Roman drawled, rocking them back and forth slowly, dancing to unheard music, “Hey, Janus?”

“Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” 

[alonely-dreamer]

Dangerous Creatures | Chapter 35: Dangerous Opportunities

Summary: Mackenzie, Elijah and Klaus keep busy in New-Orleans...

Pairing: Elijah x OC

Words: 2856

A/N: Please, note that I am French so there might be some mistakes here and there.

Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23: Part 1 | Chapter 23: Part 2 | Chapter 23: Part 3 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 (Part 1) | Chapter 25 (Part 2) | Chapter 25 (Part 3) | Chapter 26 (Part 1) | Chapter 26 (Part 2 & 3) | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32  | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34

I made Marcel everything that he is.

I treated him like a son.

And when my father chased me and my family from New-Orleans a hundred years ago we believed Marcel was killed.

We each mourned him in our own way.

Yet, when I returned, I found not only had he survived… he had thrived.

Instead of seeking us out, instead of sticking together as one, he made a choice, to take everything my family had built and make it his own.

Now he is living in our home.

He is sleeping in our beds.

The letter ‘M’ he stamps everywhere… it’s not for Marcel.

It’s for Mikaelson.

I want it all back.

And if I have to push him out to get it, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

 ***

 Mackenzie’s giggles filled the room. “Stop it,” she kept repeating, but she didn’t mean it, and he knew that. They had started new games together, some even new to Elijah, as if Mackenzie was his muse inspiring him dirty little games he’d only play with her. It was innocent, at first, but soon, Mackenzie became more comfortable with him, more confident, and the stains of blood on the white bed sheets were so common now the compelled staff knew to change them almost every day. The implications of their activities only made them want each other more. Mackenzie, because she knew the effect her blood had on him, and Elijah, because he would never experience anything like this with anyone else other than her. Sure, he knew he would never love anyone the way he loved Mackenzie, but it wasn’t just about love. And that was something that made Mackenzie feel powerful. That was the reason why, sometimes, she refused to take his blood after they were done. So that she’d keep the marks. So that he knew they were there. His marks on her body. Claiming her. And she loved the way it made him feel when he saw them too.

While Mackenzie and Elijah were enjoying what both Katherine and Rebekah had called their ‘honeymoon period’, Hayley wished for death. Well, maybe not literally. But she did pretty much hate her life, and she didn’t have faith that it would get better in the next eighteen years. She was uncomfortable in every way. Not only was she pregnant with the world’s most hated supernatural creature, but her future baby’s father also was a total psychopath who didn’t see her as anything more than an incubator for his miracle baby. He had forbidden her from leaving the house where he left her to rot every day. Every day, she was left with a couple acting not unlike two hormonal teenagers around the house, in other words, alone, alone with dusty books she had no intention of reading, and a TV remote giving her access to hundreds of channels she wasn’t interested in watching at all. In other words, days passed and stayed the same, aside from the rising heat, and growing belly.

To make matters worse, when Elijah wasn’t busy eating his girlfriend (in every sense of the word), he turned into an over-protective grandpa, building the nursery from scratch, making sure she had vitamin, protein, everything a pregnant woman needs according to What To Expect When You’re Expecting, which she wouldn’t be surprised to find on his nightstand. Not only did it make her uncomfortable, and even more irritable, but it made Mackenzie self-conscious and sad, not matter how hard she was trying to hide it.

At first, Hayley thought it was jealousy. But Mackenzie was better than that. And she had no bad intentions towards Hayley, or feelings, on the contrary. After they had made sure Marcel’s secret weapon, whatever it was, could not detect Mackenzie’s powers, they had unlinked Hayley to Sophie, making the witches regret their whole plan to bring the Originals back in town, giving them enormous doubts about whether they would still go on with the plan to dethrone Marcel or not. Of course, Klaus was a threat to them now, after all they had done. Kidnapping Hayley, using his child to blackmail him… The witches were scared, and now, they had bigger problems than Marcel, and the witch community of New-Orleans was starting to turn against Sophie, who had insisted her sister’s plan would work. But Klaus didn’t attack the witches. No, Klaus was still in a suspiciously good mood. Aside from keeping Hayley locked up in the house, he was pleasant with his brother, he was pleasant with Mackenzie, and he was pleasant with Hayley, to whom his nickname little wolf had stuck. He wasn’t acting like a future father, by any means. He didn’t check on Hayley’s health, never asked how she felt or if she needed anything. He didn’t spend any time in the nursery, helping Elijah, or didn’t even talk baby names with his future baby’s mother, not that anyone had expected that from him. No. Klaus spent all his time with Marcel, and they were seemingly getting along great, greater than great, in fact, as if they were the best of friends who weren’t hiding deadly secrets from each other.

Hayley had started to worry about his behavior. What if he really enjoyed spending time with Marcel? What if he just wanted to get back at the witches? What if he didn’t care? What if… all the bad things Klaus could do, that she could think of, or even scarier, that she couldn’t even imagine. However, her worries were put to rest one day, as Klaus came back home one night with a newly made vampire named Josh.

“Josh here,” he had told them, “will be my eyes and ears. My joker, my…”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Hayley had interrupted him. “He’s your spy.”

Klaus had gotten to Josh before Marcel even had the chance to put him under vervain. The vampire was compelled thoroughly by the Original hybrid and will be the key to taking Marcel down.

Though the existence of Josh was a relief for everyone, neither his brother nor his girlfriend trusted him in any way. Not when he was in such a good mood. He was plotting something, and they had a feeling it was nothing good, for anyone.

 ***

 Mackenzie caressed Elijah’s hair, her thoughts wandering back to earlier that day, when he had taken her to one of his favorite places in New-Orleans, a once peaceful beautiful park that was now a crowded and loud playground. She sighed, moving slightly but enough for Elijah to let a drop of blood slide down on Mackenzie’s neck. It drew a red line on her slightly tanned skin and the drop came to rest down her cleavage. She ignored it, she knew he’d take care of it later. Though the maids would have to change the sheets again in the morning.

She had almost forgotten his mouth buried in her neck, his free hand moving up and down her arm, as they were lying naked in their bed, resting from their long day of exploring the city Elijah had missed so much for the past century. He drank from her, her blood, the most delicious in the entire world, like she was the Fountain of Youth herself and he was the only one who got to drink from her, the only one who had that privilege, because he was the one who had discovered her. He had been there first, explored and found her and now she was his and only his and that thought would never cease to amaze him, to make him feel like the luckiest man in the world. But right now, Mackenzie felt everything but lucky, as she was haunted by a picture that would not leave her mind. A picture of his face in that park. And the look that said it all, even though he would never say it aloud, perhaps because he didn’t know it himself. A look she knew well now as it kept coming back, every time he looked at Hayley, every time he talked about the baby, about what Klaus should be doing but wasn’t, about everything he was doing in his brother’s place. It saddened him, perhaps unknowingly, and it saddened her as she knew she could never give that to him. In truth, no one could give that to him. But as powerful as she was, she felt she should be able to do anything, and everything she could do, but that.

He was content, lying in her arms, her hand in his hair, her blood in his throat, just enjoying the moment, enjoying her. But that was not the only reason why the question took him by surprise.

“Do you want kids?”

He froze, puzzled by the question. It surprised him, not only because it seemingly came out of nowhere, but mostly because he had buried that question and that answer a long time ago deep inside of him. So deep, in fact, that it was a hidden part of him, like an obvious take away of his very existence, of every single one of his actions. So deep, that the answer was practically engraved on his bones, carved onto his heart, like an invisible dormant pain that he would never let himself feel or remember. An immortal curse that could not be enchanted away and that will torment him for the rest of his eternity. Why that question? Why here, why now?

He slowly and gently retracted his teeth from her vein, licked the blood that escaped from the wound, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop it from bleeding as he moved away and looked up at her. She had asked the question so quietly, like a whisper, like a spell echoing in his head, losing itself in time, making his bones quiver like an earthquake would make a house shake. That question had been asked and answered centuries ago. That choice had been made for him centuries ago. That choice had been taken away from him centuries ago.

She was looking away but turned towards him as he sat up and pulled the duvet to cover them. Not because they were cold, but because the time for their adult activities was obviously over. Now, they had to have another kind of adult conversation.

“I can’t have children, you know that.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Mackenzie…”

“Do you? Want children of your own?”

“It doesn’t matter if I do. I can’t.”

“I know you do,” she said quietly, once again looking away, staring at that spot that didn’t exist.

“Where is this coming from?”

She shrugged. “Same place your regret is coming from…”

“I have no regret,” he replied, confused.

“You regret not being able to have children.”

“That is hardly anyone’s fault but my parents, and they are dead. There is no one to blame, though blame wouldn’t lead us anywhere.”

Her hand found his arm and her fingers caressed his skin as if touching him would fix everything.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know… I just thought… it’s unfair Klaus gets to have a child and you don’t. He clearly has no interest in it. But you do.”

“My interest in Hayley’s pregnancy doesn’t go beyond anything an uncle wouldn’t do. Though, I am no ordinary uncle.”

“This is no ordinary family.”

“And that is why your question has no answer, my love.”

She looked back at him. He rarely used such words in front of other people, but when they were alone, when they were being intimate, he called her all sorts of sweet words. ‘My love’ being the sweetest. ‘My love’ was the answer. It meant ‘don’t ask’, ‘it’s okay’, ‘I get it’, ‘I love you too’.

 ***

 Klaus’ face tired of his never-ending smiling. However, he was motivated. Nothing would stop him from reaching his goal. Nothing ever could. And certainly not a stupid smile.

He couldn’t tell which was louder, the screams or the music, however, he had stopped caring. He was tired and annoyed, and he wanted to leave this wretched court of amateurs as soon as possible. Marcel called himself a King and had forged himself a throne, but he was just some tyrant wannabe, a little boy in a paper crown running around with his friends, bullying the weakest kids on the playground. Though he would never reproach Marcel from banishing the werewolves from the Quarter or stopping the witches from doing magic, everything that had allowed him to get to that point he had stolen from him, and that fact was like wood to a fireplace, it kept his immortal rage burning.

Perch on the balcony above the party, Klaus and Marcel stood like Kings in a court of horrors, watching their nobles feast on the buffet. Though Klaus was too old to enjoy such an obvious and basic vampire party, he had to give Marcel a nod of approval every once in a while, to keep things civil. He was bored out of his mind and had run out of things to talk about with his ‘friend’. Fortunately, Marcel had a surprise for his sire.

“I’m hosting a party.”

“Yes, you are,” the hybrid nodded, making the vampire laugh.

“No. I mean, I’m planning a party, in two days. It’s a charity dinner for some… I don’t know, charitable organization for the city.”

“I didn’t take you for the charitable type,” Klaus teased.

“Well, I got a reputation to uphold,” he replied with an amused smile. “It’s mostly an excuse to see Camille again, though.”

“Who? Ah, the bartender.”

“Yeah, the bartender,” he chuckled. “It’s a fancy dinner, just your brother’s type of things.”

“You’re inviting Elijah?” Klaus raised an eyebrow, surprised Marcel would want to be anywhere near his brother.

“Right, and his witch girlfriend, you know, what’s her name…”

“Mackenzie.”

“That’s right. She’s a funny little thing,” he said as he smiled at his sire accusatorily. “She’s not afraid of you.”

“Ah, she’s been through a lot.”

“Do you mean you?”

They laughed.

“I admit, I may have been less than cordial to her… more than once.”

“It’s a miracle Elijah lets you go anywhere near her.”

Klaus knew what Marcel was doing, where this was going. He had been working at it slowly, but not as subtly, for a while now. Marcel wanted Elijah gone, out of his city, no matter how, no matter what it took. He figured Klaus was his best shot, and usually he would have been correct, but not now, not anymore. If anything happened to Elijah, Mackenzie would destroy the whole city, hell, the entire state. No, Klaus had one goal, and he wasn’t going to let Marcel distract him from it.

“It’s different with her. If I kill her, he’ll stop at nothing to take me down, and I’ve tired of our little wars. The last one lasted a century and almost killed me.”

“Ah, let him have his fun. She’s mortal, they’re fleeting little things.”

Klaus chuckled, though not because he found the obvious threat funny, but the mere thought of Marcel going after Mackenzie made him want to laugh. He’d pay to see it, if only it wouldn’t result in Marcel’s certain death.

“Not this one. This one is here to stay.”

Marcel frowned and looked at the hybrid with curiosity. “You actually mean that.”

“She’s a Mikaelson, Marcel,” he nodded as he put his hand on the King’s shoulder. “You know what happens when you go after a Mikaelson.”

Marcel laughed. “Hey, I’m just talking, no harm meant, no harm meant.”

“She’d kill you before you even had a chance to see it coming.”

“See, that’s my problem,” Marcel grimaced. “Witches aren’t allowed to do magic here, and I don’t think she’s understood that.”

“What? Your secret weapon’s been shining bright recently?”

Marcel laughed as he shook his head. “No, nothing like that. It’s the attitude, Klaus. Elijah… he doesn’t respect my authority here. And neither does she.”

“Then why invite them, then? They’re happy enough on their own. Trust me, they’re unbearable to be around right now. They’re so… in love,” he said, disgust visible all over his face, making Marcel laugh whole-heartedly.

“You were never one for sentiment.”

“Right then,” Klaus sighed. “I’ll let them know.”

“I appreciate that, brother.”

Marcel tapped him twice on the shoulder before he moved towards the middle of the balcony, where he’d be best seen from downstairs, to make his usual speech. The words never changed. “Have fun”, “don’t kill too many of them”, and last but not least:

“And no matter what you do, no matter how good she smells or how pretty she looks, leave the barefoot blonde alone!”

That last part they all said together like a chant, like it was a joke. But when Marcel explained the meaning to Klaus the first night, he learnt he wasn’t joking in the least. He had puzzled out all the tiny bits of information Marcel could give him, and the hybrid knew it was no joke indeed.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

what did the chickadee and phoenix say to the hybrid?

this was supposed to be a short snippet,,,,,,, anyway, Lydia meets the Maitlands but make it the ~wing au~

----------------------------------------

  “Greeting ghosts,” Said the strange little fledging that entered the attic. “I am Lydia Deetz. Do not be afraid.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of us?” Barbara asked.

  “Because you aren’t scary,” Lydia said. “I mean, look at me in comparison.” She spread her sagging wings (did she ever lift them?), and Barbara realized there were four of them. “I’m probably the freakiest thing to ever walk among the avians. You got competition.”

Realization dawned on Barbara, but Adam got to it first.

  “You’re a hybrid!” Her husband yelled, nearly flinging his sheet right off of him when he pointed to Lydia.

  “Adam!” Barbara scolded.

  “No, it’s okay,” Lydia said. “I prefer the term ‘hybrid’ over ‘mutant’ and ‘monster.’”

  “I was gonna say it’s rude to point,” Barbara said, pushing Adam’s hand down.

  “Ah,” Lydia nodded. “But yes. I am a hybrid. In the blood. Unfortunately.”

She spread her wings in a mock bow to them, and Barbara could see veins of white riddling the insides of the upper pair. She then winced, fangs flashing in the dim attic light when she grimaced in obvious pain, and let her wings go limp. They landed in a heap on the ground, strewn out like scraps of ruined cloth.

  “Are you alright?” Barbara asked worriedly, feeling a flash of maternal instincts zip through her like lightning.

  “Fine,” Lydia answered before the question could completely leave Barbara’s mouth, as if it were normal for her to brush off her discomfort when around other people. She shuffled her feet and tilted her head at Barbara and Adam. “Why are you in sheets?”

  “We were trying to scare you,” Adam told her.

  “You’re not doing a very good job,” Lydia said. “What do you look like under there? Are you horribly disfigured?” Her shoulders lifted, but her big bat ears remained completely drooped. “Are you like me? May I see?”

Barbara and Adam took off their sheets. Lydia’s expression dimmed.

  “Oh,” Lydia seemed disappointed. “You’re pureblooded.” She sniffed. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Adam said. “I’m Adam, this is Barbara.”

  “Oh, woah,” Lydia’s eyes dilated hugely, like a cat that just saw its owner’s foot move under the blankets. “You’re so shiny.”

Barbara blinked, then realized Lydia was talking about her. Even in death, her feathers continued to glow like fire. She extended one of her wings to Lydia.

  “You can touch them, if you’d like.”

Lydia looked up at her in shock. “Really? You’re not afraid of me, like, contaminating you?”

  “No...”

  “Or infecting you with my ‘dirty blood’?”

  “No.”

  “Or ripping your wings out of your back like I’m a feral WingEater because I’m jealous of how pretty and normal you are and want to ruin all purebreds in an envious rage?”

  “No! Do people really say that stuff to you?!”

Lydia actually laughed. “Wow, you really haven’t met a hybrid before.” She shuffled her feet. “But-- I can really touch them?”

Barbara smiled warmly at her. “Of course, sweetheart.” She nudged her wing closer. “Go on. I promise I don’t have Drop Feather Fever.”

  “Even if you did, I don’t have feathers!” Lydia said, then reached out and brushed Barbara’s wing. Her touch was light and gentle, as if she were worried she may hurt her new friend, and her short, stubby claws tickled against the skin beneath the feathers. “Wow... They’re so soft! And warm!”

  “Yup!” Adam strode over, looking proud. “You, little bat-moth, are looking at a real Phoenix Avem! WAIT--”

Lydia leapt backwards and the mane of yellow-orange flannel moth fur around her neck and chest bristled like a startled cat.

  “YOU CAN SEE US?!” Adam yelled.

It was only then that Barbara realized that Lydia shouldn’t have been able to see her or Adam. She had been so distracted by the adorable fledgling that it hadn’t dawned on her at all.

  “Uhh,” Lydia’s fur settled. “Yeah?”

  “But we were told that the living ignore the strange and usual,” Adam said.

  “Well, perhaps it’s because I, myself, am strange and unusual,” Lydia said. “Also all of my internal organs are purple and I can’t have a period due to a ‘compromised reproductive system caused by faulty genetics,’ so I’m not exactly very far from the boat you’re rocking in.”

  “Trust me, sweetie, the no period thing is a blessing,” Barbara said.

  “Everything else is a curse, though,” Lydia said with a sad smile.

Barbara frowned at that, but before she could press on what she meant, Adam stepped in.

  “Okay, well, since you can see us, do you mind leaving and never coming back?”

  “Adam!” Barbara flared. She thought of not seeing this little girl again, and it made a cold pit open up inside of her and she couldn’t really explain why.

  “Not her,” Adam said quickly. “Her family!”

Lydia scoffed. “We’re not a family.” She sounded a touch offended. “We’re father, daughter, and Delia.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Barbara inquired, “Your mother, she...?”

Just when Barbara thought Lydia’s ears couldn’t droop any further, they somehow got even lower.

  “She... She’s dead...”

Adam grimaced. Barbara’s wings tensed against her back for bringing such a traumatic experience up.

The good news, though, was that the role of mother was up for the taking. And since Lydia clearly felt anything but a parental bond with that Delia woman, Barbara knew it was at good as hers.

She could feel the mammary feathers and nesting season hormones coming in already! Literally. She imprinted on Lydia when she touched her wing. That was her chick now.

  “Oh, honey,” Barbara murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Lydia shook her head, making her ears slap around her face. She gazed around the attic with sparkling eyes, as if she were holding back tears.

  “She would have loved this place,” Lydia said. “She was Vesper! Which, you know, explains,” She gestured to herself. “She would call me her ‘weird little moon,’ but it was never in a mean way. And we used to have our own little full moon festivals so I would grow up with proper Vesper traditions and culture! We would hang up all the blankets in the house on the trees and make these forts that we would burrow in and watch the moon from. She taught me how to properly pray to Valtiel and everything! And we would do the moon dances on the ground because I can’t fly, but she made the effort to learn how to for me. We couldn’t actually go to the festivals, though, because,” She gestured again. “She worried about me all the time and didn’t let me do a lot of things, but what we did do was amazing.” She then blinked out of her daze and shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bore you talking about my mom.”

  “No, it’s okay!” Barbara assured her. “We don’t mind!”

  “Really?” Lydia tilted her head and her ears flopped over with the movement. “‘Cause my dad never wants me to talk about her. It’s basically against the law in the house. Among many things.” She raised her wings slightly and did a voice that was apparently supposed to be her cicada Cimex father, “‘Lydia, no talking about your mom! Lydia, no eating bugs, it’s weird and basically cannibalism! Lydia, no coming around me because even though I say I’m trying to change my views of you I still see you as an unrepentant monster who I fear will eat my throat out while I’m sleeping and it makes me guilty not because the way I think of you but because I fear of what you’ll do to society and I was the one who brought you into the world to wreak suck destruction on civilization!’”

Barbara and Adam stared at her in shock.

  “Dads, am I right?”

  “That’s…very concerning,” Adam said.

Lydia shrugged nonchalantly. “Everything about my existence is concerning, so…” Her face then scrunched up and she pressed her floppy ears against the sides of her head like she was trying to keep out a noise that Barbara and Adam’s Avem ears couldn’t pick up. “Oh, ow. Stop worrying so loudly! I’m okay! I’m, like, basically immune to it at this point!”

Barbara and Adam both blinked in confusion, but then Barbara understood.

  “You’re a mind reader.”

Lydia pulled her hands away and smiled slightly. “In the flesh.”

Barbara wondered what that was like--

  “It’s pretty cool, actually.”

--to hear everyone’s thoughts, all the different ways they thought about you and judged you, possibly pretending they liked you when really they hated your guts.

  “When you put it like that…”

  “You surprise me more and more, Lydia,” Adam said.

  “Better than scaring you,” Lydia said. “You guys are really cool. I like you. You’re probably the best thing about this stupid house.”

  “This house is not stupid!” Adam blustered. He grabbed Lydia by the shoulders, making them lurch and the moth fur bristle, and spun her around to him so he could scold her. “It’s a classic Victiorian-- OWW!!!”

Adam ripped away from Lydia as if he had touched fire, while Lydia shrunk away, instinctively wrapping her wings around herself. Adam shook his hands in the air while flapping his wings in obvious distress. 

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! What HAPPENED?” Adam yelped.

  “Sorry,” Lydia whispered. 

  “Are you okay?” Barbara asked her husband. He splayed his hands open for her, and she winced when she saw angry red blisters starting to form all across his palms. “Oh.”

  “It isn’t lethal!” Lydia said, and she sounded very meek compared to the snarky girl that had been talking a few seconds before. “Well, I don’t think it is… But you’re dead, so it’s okay! The pain will go away within a few hours!”

  “HOURS?!” Adam squawked, as if he were a parrot and not a chickadee. He made a woeful noise. “Just cut my hands off!”

Lydia’s ears drooped even lower. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Maitland. I should have told you.”

  “That your really soft fur is EVIL?” Adam said, and Barbara knew he was playing with Lydia, now. However, the little fledgling didn’t seem to realize because she still looked anxious.

  “It’s-- I take after the moth my Cimex side is from. A southern flannel. The worms have venomous hairs, so…” Lydia fluffed her collar of fur. “I do, too. And they sting pretty badly. But not all the time! Only when I bristle them. Thank the goddesses.” She shuffled her feet. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” Adam assured her. “A little blistering never hurt anyone. Oh, look, boils! Wonderful!” He laughed. “It builds character!”

Lydia cracked a small smile at that. When her nervousness didn’t recede, Barbara opened one wing to her, beckoning her to come closer. After a moment of shock and delight, gauging if it were a trap, Lydia skittered over and burrowed herself into Barbara’s feathers.

She fit perfectly. 

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Ten: Ethnic Food ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Of Monsters and Men ] [ AO3 Link ]

Well...today’s the day. While she knows, in truth, there’s no avoiding what she’s about to do...Hinata still takes a sliver of comfort in knowing that she can, at least, make peace with it.

The last several months have been the oddest of her life. Being saved from one vampire by another, befriending said savior vampire, and slowly finding herself more and more familiar with a world so few know exist.

Of course...Hinata has known about monsters - or as they prefer to be called, Nightwalkers - for most of her life. Her mother’s bloodline, tracing all the way back to the ancient miko who claimed to speak to gods, makes her neither human nor monster. A strange in-between that most nowadays call witches.

Try as she might to ignore her lineage, ignore her nature...it came to find her in the end.

And now, her rare, thought-extinct powers have attracted unwanted attention in the form of her dear friend’s employer and coven leader, Madara. He’s made her a deal she can’t refuse. Not because the reward is tempting...but because to say no is almost certainly a death wish.

She tells herself that, so long as she has Sasuke to rely on, she can get through this. While she’s a complete novice with her abilities, Madara seems convinced they can grow, and she can master them...all for him to use against his enemies.

So, given she has little choice, Hinata has decided to give her answer: she’ll work for him as needed. Otherwise...she just hopes she can keep some semblance of normalcy.

Which is why, once she’s made her peace, she texts Sasuke.

Want to get some dinner?

Hopefully it sounds casual enough. Because according to Madara, Sasuke’s protective inclinations toward her have been born out of a growing affection. And while Hinata cares for him greatly...she just has too much on her mind to sit and puzzle out her feelings. She’s never really dated anyone...never really been in love. Had crushes, but was never bold enough to act upon them.

...and is it wise to pair with a Nightwalker, given what she is? She’s not human...but she’s not vampire, either.

...she’ll think about it later.

Thankfully, his reply is swift...and cuts right to the point.

Made up your mind?

The words earn a small smile and a soft snort.

Yes. Not that there was much to think about, huh?

...true enough. The usual place?

Mhm.

Be there in ten.

Reading the last message, Hinata idly runs the pad of her thumb over the cracks in her mobile’s screen. She really needs to replace it...just her luck she was grabbed when it was in her hand, dropped to the parking lot asphalt. But at least it still works...she’ll put it off a little longer.

Mind still eddying with thoughts, Hinata makes her way to their typical meeting place: her favorite little eatery she discovered while going to university. It’s more traditional in style, quaint, and just what she likes.

And, as usual, Sasuke beats her there.

“Car or feet this time?” she asks with a small smile.

“Feet. Couldn’t find my keys.”

“Showoff,” Hinata gently chides, letting him open the door for her. “But at least you’re still a gentleman.”

“Only for you. To everyone else, I’m an asshole.”

“C-consider me flattered, then.”

“You should be.”

That earns another laugh, the pair of them guided to a cozy corner table. Sitting with a relieved sigh, Hinata takes a moment to glance out the window beside her. The night life of her city plays out beyond the panes, all seeming so...normal. It’s funny how much her perspective has changed since she met the man now sitting across from her. How much more...aware she feels. She knows she still has much to learn when it comes to those like her companion...but to think that so many people are completely blind to a world just over their shoulder...it’s odd.

“Hinata?”

“Hm?”

“You spaced out there for a second.”

“Oh...s-sorry.”

Sasuke studies her face, dark eyes flickering over her features. “...you all right?”

“Mhm. I’ve just been doing a lot of...thinking lately.”

“Good thinking, or bad thinking?”

“Just...thinking. Not really good or bad.”

“Objective, then.”

“...yeah.”

“Speaking of...I’m honestly blown away by how well you’re handling all of this, y’know.”

That earns a blink. “...really?”

“Yeah. Sure, you’re not human...and you’ve been aware of us most of your life. But that’s not exactly a guarantee for understanding or keeping calm in the face of everything you’ve got going on.”

“...I guess I just...d-do my best to look and move forward. I don’t know...maybe it is weird, but I just feel...calm. I know there’s danger, but...for some reason, it doesn’t bother me.”

His brow furrows, clearly not quite comprehending.

Hinata takes a moment to think, trying to figure out a way to explain. “...I think...it’s because I know I’m not facing it alone. Because I know you’re there to protect me.”

Sasuke’s face goes slack with surprise.

In turn, she gives a small smile. “...hungry?”

“...uh...yeah, sure. This place only got traditional food, or is there anything, like...ethnic?”

“M-mostly traditional…? I always get the same thing, so...I guess I’m n-not the one to ask,” she replies with a small laugh into the cuff of her jacket sleeve. “Though...n-now that you mention it, that reminds me of a question I’ve always meant to ask you.”

“...okay. What held you back?”

“Mostly I just forget, but...I guess I’m not sure if it’s, um...offensive…?”

Sasuke can’t help a snort. “Trust me...I doubt anything that passes through your mind could offend me. Hit me with it.”

“Well...your kind need blood to survive...right?”

“Yeah. It varies a bit from person to person, but typically we can’t go more than about three days without before we start getting...dangerous. We usually try to get about half a liter a day, but some skip around, depending on their schedule.”

“...oh! I...didn’t know it was that strict.”

“Mhm. So, was that your question?”

“Well, partly. I’ve obviously seen you eat food, but...is that n-necessary for...someone like you?”

“What, regular food? Oh, yeah. See, uh…” He hesitates, gathering his thoughts. “The ‘needs’ of Nightwalkers are typically sort of...additional beyond the typical. Like...fiction often depicts us as undead, but that’s nowhere near true. I have a heartbeat, my blood pumps, my gut functions...I still need food, water, rest, and all that like anything else alive. I just need blood on top of that to satisfy and sort of...alleviate what makes me a...what I am.”

“Ohhh…”

“...you thought that would offend me?”

“W-well, I just...I honestly thought you...didn’t need to eat,” Hinata replies, tone quite sheepish. “And I don’t like making assumptions about people, let alone an entirely different...type of people. S-sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Some species have it a lot easier than others. For example, most bestial lines - like...harpies, werewolves, nagas - they don’t really have a need like we do? There’s is more like...an instinct. You could, in a way, think of their brains as having two halves. A more human-like half, and the animal half. And suppressing the animal half for too long can make them...irritable. Or even affect their mental health. Some have mastered it and live almost completely like humans. But for most, they have to have breaks where they take their beast forms and live a little. Otherwise they’d go mad.

“But with the humanoid sorts, ours are usually more...conditional. Typically, it’s something that feeds off of another creature. My kind need blood - any kind will do, but humans are just the...best suited? It’s hard to explain. And like succubi and incubi need sexual energy. Sirens crave giving people pain, or even killing them...but most are satisfied just by being heard and adored. Stuff like that.”

At the mention of the middle sort, Hinata can’t help but go light pink. “I...I see. Do...do witches have any conditions like that?”

“Not that I know of, but...with how rare your kind became there for a while, a lot of information about you has probably been lost. Have you ever felt like there’s something nagging at you? Something you need to...do, or eat, or...whatever?”

“I don’t...think so.”

Sasuke leans his elbow atop the table, considering her as he rests his chin in a hand. “...it’s funny, but...no one really knows the origins of those like us. Nightwalkers, and witches - Twilightwalkers. Some say we evolved from humans, others say we’re cursed, but no one really knows for sure where we came from. But your kind seem to be a kind of...middle ground between us and humans. The way I’ve heard it put is that Nightwalkers are those with power to alter themselves...and witches have the power to alter what’s around them. Humans can do neither, at least...not the way we can.”

“That...makes a lot of sense. But I wonder if there’s any way to find out where our roots r-really lie.”

“No idea. But that’s more the sort of stuff my brother likes to puzzle over. I’m more of an ‘in the now’ sort of guy. My roots don’t really offer much in terms of effects here and now for me. Might be neat to know, but it doesn’t really do anything for me.”

“I think I’d like to know,” Hinata muses. “I already know s-so little about what I am...maybe it would shed some light. But I guess I don’t have much means to find out.”

“Yeah...we’ll get you figured out. Soon enough you’ll be the strongest witch in Japan.”

“I might be the only witch in Japan,” Hinata rebukes with a giggle.

“...you have a fair point. But still...you’ve clearly got talent, given how you managed to influence me, even with no training and in a state of panic. That’s promising.”

“I’ll t-take that as a compliment!”

Sasuke manages a grin as a server finally finds them, apologizing for the wait. “No worries. We’re night folk,” he assures her smoothly, giving Hinata a none-too-subtle wink.

She just snorts.

“Well...we’ll get you a full stomach, and then go have a little chat with Madara,” Sasuke then offers, sobering them both slightly. “There might be some paperwork to get you legally tied into everything, but...overall we shouldn’t have to be there long. Unless he decides to ramble on about what you’ll be doing. Hopefully he’ll save that for another night.”

“Yeah, I’d...prefer that, honestly.” She’d almost let herself forget why she’s really here. One last little outing with her full freedom before finding herself in Madara’s claws.

“...it’ll be fine,” Sasuke then assures her softly. “Like you said: I’ll be there to protect you.”

“...thank you, Sasuke.”

                                                              .oOo.

     (This is a sequel to days 35, 44, 52, 80, 82, 105, 115, 133, 159, 162, 188, 193, 289, 298, and 307!)       First of all, let me just apologize for falling yet another day behind: yesterday was super stressful, so I took my typical evening time to work on another fic. By the time that was done, I was in a lot of pain from my broken teeth, and just...called it a night. And odds are, the rest of the year is going to be VERY busy for me, so...I might very well fall further behind rather than catch up, though I REALLY hope I can do so before next year. But I won't hold my breath. Once things are more...finalized, I'll clue you guys in more. Just...please be patient with me, I'm doing my best ;w;      ANYWAY. Onto the actual fic!      This was a very...odd prompt, lol - hence it mostly just being a passing phrase, which I sometimes just...have to do when the prompt is weird xD I had a joke I was going to have Sasuke make to tie into it, but...upon further thought, I wasn't sure if it would be too crass, so...I tossed the idea. Instead, we have just some angst-laced fluff between them on Hinata's last day (well...night) of freedom. Things are going to get...interesting from here on.      I might tie in some old RP plots, and honestly might save more of this verse for a proper fic...? I'm not sure how I want to do that, as it might make more sense to do a "rewrite" from the beginning, since this method has been a bit...disjointed. We'll see. But as I've said before. any longer fics I want to do after this challenge will be after a pretty hefty break. I love this challenge, but WHOO has it been a burnout, lol - at least there's less than two months left. I love it, but...I need a break. Especially since Life is ramping up as we near the end.      ANYWAY, I'm...majorly rambling, so I'll stop there! Thanks, as always, for reading...and all of your support and patience <3

[theworkofxanderking]

The Originals: Bad Blood (Alternative Season 5)

Episode 9: 731 Days

Warnings: I do not own the original content to “The Originals”, “The Vampire Diaries” or “Legacies” or any of the characters from the television shows.

15 plus, displays of Violence, Gore, Torture, M/M, F/M, F/F.

Day 14

Rebekah had Augustus tied to a cross in Saint Charles Church located within the ghost town turned prison world Helton his body heavily bleeding and cut and bruised in several places while Rebekah taunted him with a knife she was holding as Nathaniel walked into the church.

“You do realize you’re just going to torture him to death and then the day will repeat itself and he’ll be alive again.” Nathaniel told her while walking towards her.

“True but then I’d literally have nothing else to do.” Rebekah responded before plunging her knife into Augustus’ chest causing him to scream in pain. “I am curious to why a church has so much torture equipment.”

“In fairness Rebekah you turn everything into a weapon.” Nathaniel replied while ignoring his father’s screams.

“We’ve been here for two weeks now and your yet to tell me anything about this little town of yours.” Rebekah said to him as she pulled her knife out of Augustus’ chest and slit his throat causing him to bleed out within seconds and silencing his screams in the process. “I’m beginning to work this place out for myself slowly, but it would be far easier if you just told me.”

“This place used to be a home a long time ago until it wasn’t.” Nathaniel admitted clearly hiding something from his friend.

“A clearly satanic church, a rundown hotel which we are forced to call home and woods which whisper. This is not a normal town is it?” Rebekah asked. “What’s in the woods? The spirits of your zombie friends.”

“Woods which whisper if only you could hear yourself Rebekah.” Nathaniel scoffed. “It’s just a normal town that got abandoned like many other towns.”

“I will find out what your hiding Nathaniel and for your sake it better not be another Malus witch or a long-lost bloody sibling of mine.” Rebekah stated making her intentions clear.

Day 182

It had been half a year since Nathaniel, Rebekah and Augustus first found themselves trapped within the ghost town of Helton and luckily for Augustus Rebekah’s attentions switched from torturing him to uncovering the secrets of the town in which her friend Nathaniel and her brother Henrik once called home.

She knew there was something especially eery to Helton some reason to why it had become a ghost town in those six months she researched in the rundown library, scoured the woods endlessly and turned every abandoned home upside down numerous times but it wasn’t until she went deep within the woods that she uncovered something she never knew existed within the ghost town she had been forced to call her home.

Rebekah went deep into the woods deeper than before until she came to the end of the woods and found herself staring at a small farm with an even smaller home on the land instantly sending her chills down her back and that was before Augustus walked out the front door of the farm home.

“182.” He shouted at her as he began walking towards her and her towards him.

“What the bloody hell are you shouting about?” She asked him while continuing to look around the abandoned farm.

“182 days it took you to finally find this place.” Augustus replied to her. “I had you finding it sooner, but those woods do tend to play tricks on the mind.”

“What is this place anyway?” Rebekah quizzed the Malus witch.

“You really do know nothing about this place.” Augustus responded with a laugh. “You can’t blame my son he gets his distrust from me.”

“He gets it from running from you for a thousand years.” Rebekah snapped at him.

“This little farm is my home or at least at one stage in my life it was my home although it wasn’t here when Nathaniel lived here or at least the second time he lived here.” Augustus revealed to her before out of nowhere Rebekah and Augustus found themselves in the woods once again. “And I guess it’s gone once again.”

“What the bloody hell is with this town?” Rebekah asked while looking around the woods in confusion. “I thought we’re cut off from all magic.”

“We’re not talking about magic when it comes to this place we’re talking about pain, loss, rage and death the four most powerful forces in the world.” Augustus revealed. “Helton really puts the ghost in ghost town the land itself is cursed by the blood of my wife.”

“The Other Side is gone how is that even possible?” Rebekah quizzed knowing the answers would just make her more confused.

“This is where I murdered my betrothed and it’s also the land in which several terrible acts were committed not just by me but by your brother and my son. I may have cursed this land, but they made sure the curse was never broken.” Augustus explained to her. “My wife was a powerful witch who feared her own death at my hands and bound herself to this land before I killed her only, she didn’t just bind herself she bound everyone who died to this land for centuries.”

“So, this place is freaking haunted by a curse that’s not broken by the whole no magic deal?” Rebekah asked.

“It may have started as a spell, but it grew into something far worse it grew into Malus.” Augustus admitted. “This town is the source to our power this is where the Malus witches were slaughtered by me after my wife’s death and this is where they remained. Malus was only meant to be a magic opposite to nature to keep a balance however I manipulated it to my own gain to possess unseen power but now there’s no magic in place draining the land we are left with just ghosts very angry ghosts.”

“The whispering woods are the spirits of people you killed.” Rebekah realized.

“People myself, Henrik and Nathaniel all killed yes although mostly me.” Augustus revealed to the original vampire turned human by their prison.

“Why are you telling me all this?” She asked clearly not trusting of a man she believed was more monster than man.

“Without magic I am as human as you are and since you’ve stopped torturing me…” Augustus began to say.

“You’re lonely,” Rebekah scoffed while rolling her eyes. “Imagine how lonely it would be on the run for a thousand years.”

“Imagine how lonely it would be being possessed by darkness for a thousand years.” Augustus told her and, in that moment,, Rebekah began to see a man within the monster who had made her friend’s life hell for so long a man within the monster who had made his own son’s life hell for most of his life.

Day 243

8 months had passed in Helton and things weren’t getting any better for the three remaining residents Rebekah Mikaelson had managed to form a wedge between herself and Nathaniel due to her newfound and reluctant alliance with his father Augustus but despite how much she long to repair her fractured friendship she wanted to return to her family more and Nathaniel wasn’t willing to help leave this prison he had helped create for them all.

Nathaniel Malin would’ve loved to leave Helton behind and find Henrik once again, but he knew that would mean allowing his father back out into the world and that was not an option for him. He knew if they remained within the ghost town his father nor himself would cause anymore harm and that they’d both be free from the darkness that lured their lives. That never stopped him worrying about the man he claimed as his son but deep down he had faith in Elijah being able to save Henrik from himself.

Augustus Malin was a story that witches told their children in the night a tale of too much power leading to destruction of oneself. He was considered a monster and rightly, so the man killed his coven, murdered his own wife and hunted his own son for a thousand years all in the name of claiming more power. However, without that magic, without the darkness corrupting his very soul he was just a man who did terrible things which now weighed heavy on his soul. Augustus sought out redemption but neither Nathaniel nor Rebekah were going to give that to him easily.

Nathaniel sat on his rocking chair with a blanket around him outside of his run down cabin that was placed just before the Helton woods as he watched the flames burn on the large bonfire he had built when he noticed his father Augustus walking towards his home.

“Unless you’re here to provide yourself as kindling for my fire then I suggest you walk straight back around.” Nathaniel warned him.

“I proposed to your mother around a bonfire just like this one.” Augustus revealed to him.

“You don’t get to mention her name you lost that right when you killed her.” Nathaniel snapped at his father as he stood up to face him.

“She was a remarkable woman, stubborn, brave and fearless just like you.” Augustus continued while walking closer towards his son.

“Oh, I was filled with fear for a thousand years wondering each day if it was my last if my father was going to kill me.” Nathaniel admitted to him. “You took my mother from me and then you took my life from me. My entire existence has been outrunning you and nothing else.”

“I’m not using this as an excuse of any kind but once the Malus takes a hold as you know there’s this undeniable darkness that consumes you. I didn’t have that darkness before I killed my own wife nor my coven on this very land however I was consumed by it by the time I began hunting you.” Augustus told his son. “How else do you think a baby managed to escape me? Because I let you go to a witch who hid you from me knowing one day, I would no longer feel that love and only the darkness.”

“So, what? You expect me to be grateful because you couldn’t kill me as a baby?” Nathaniel snapped.

“You have a million reasons to hate me for the rest of eternity Nathaniel and no-one would ever blame you, but I have a million reasons why I love you my son.” Augustus explained to the son he had spent most of his life hunting. “You lost your mother at my hands, then you lost the family that raised you and spent your life on the run and yet you still managed to love you still managed to find yourself some form of family.”

“Because I’d never allow you to beat me.” Nathaniel replied with pure hatred in his eyes for his father.

“I admire that more than you could ever imagine even when I had no emotions, I admired that.” Augustus told him. “I wish I could rewrite our history; I wish I could stop myself from killing your mother and my coven. Your mother truly was remarkable just like you.”

“Then why kill her?” Nathaniel asked with tears forming in her eyes. “Why on earth would you kill her?”

“She was a Malus witch too, a beautiful raven-haired woman with skin so pale it was like it had never been touched by sun, her lips blood red. Her name was Clara.” Augustus said while revealing Nathaniel’s mother’s name to his son for the first time. “She had a vision of well I guess me becoming the monster I am today and she wanted to run with you I never meant to kill her but I was fighting to keep you and one thing lead to another and…”

“You killed her.” Nathaniel said as her voice began to break. “She was your first taste of Malus power.”

“And from then on I needed more and more until it consumed me.” Augustus admitted much to his own disgust and his son’s horror.

Day 365

An entire year had passed, and Rebekah was still trapped in Helton alongside warring father and son Augustus and Nathaniel although a lot had changed in four months.

Rebekah had found her friendship with Nathaniel fully restored which was far from easy considering she did kill him that one time but risking eternity in a prison world for him proved to be quite the deal breaker even if Nathaniel didn’t like her growing friendship with the man who murdered his mother and tried to kill him.

Rebekah was still adamant there was a key, trick or loophole in which she would find that would lead her out of the ghost town once and for all refusing to give up on her family and striking up an unlikely friendship with Augustus in the process.

Augustus was far from the monster he once was he showed care for Rebekah and a longing for reconciliation with his son although Rebekah denied her care for him out of respect to Nathaniel who avoided his father like a plague and in a small town like Helton his avoidance was rather impressive.

Augustus without Malus was just a normal man who had done monstrous things and although neither Rebekah nor Nathaniel would admit it, they had begun to see the man within the monster.

Nathaniel stood in front of the rundown Helton Hotel within the town center of Helton looking at the building with a sense of reminiscence the building clearly meaning a lot to him with a history running deep into his heart.

“Out of all the places I catch you lurking around here this bloody hotel tends to be your number one spot.” Rebekah said to him while walking up to him from behind having walked from the direction leading towards the Helton woods.

“And I always find you either coming in or out of the woods.” Nathaniel replied while turning to face his friend. “How many times has it led you there?”

“A few times not before it kicks me out it tends to kick Augustus out too; I figure you’re the one it wants to visit not us.” Rebekah revealed to him.

“I know I’m a Malus witch and with that comes a certain level of macabre but even I am not willing to visit the scene of my mother’s murder at the hands of my own father.” Nathaniel admitted.

“Trust me I understand that,” Rebekah replied before looking at the hotel. “So, what’s the deal with this place? I know your big on secrets but one little slip up is hardly going to be the undoing of this bloody prison world.”

“The hotel once belonged to me in one of my many attempts to live a human life,” Nathaniel said with a sigh of sadness. “I didn’t know the land was cursed at first or that it was the town in which so many of my kind were slaughtered by my father.”

“What happened here why was this place abandoned?” Rebekah quizzed him.

“It wasn’t abandoned the townspeople still reside here they just reside among the dead.” Nathaniel explained to her. “I was under the illusion Henrik and I could live a normal life here my worshipers told me of a land my father never dared step foot and so we moved here. I was genuinely happy here running this little hotel and dealing with the miserable townsfolk but like it does so many times disaster struck as Henrik’s darkness grew stronger.”

“He slaughtered the entire town I guess mass murdering really does run in the family.” Rebekah responded.

“Not all some survived his violent outburst but I couldn’t let them escape Helton flee and then spread word of what had happened after all we were in hiding so I murdered the remaining survivors and buried their bodies in the woods with a cloaking spell.” Nathaniel revealed. “It was big story back then how an entire town vanished from out of sight becoming something of an urban legend until it started to slip from people’s minds. Ironic how I made them disappear and now we’ve disappeared with the town itself.”

Day 425

Two months had passed since Nathaniel’s bloody revelation to Rebekah and their friendship had grown stronger than ever because of it.

Rebekah revealed her loves and losses over the years to him while he admitted he had only ever loved one man truly and that was her brother Klaus Mikaelson. She told him of the near calls and horrors of her own father hunting her while Nathaniel shared his own father horror stories. Rebekah complained about the many struggles of being Klaus, Elijah and Kol’s sister for a thousand years while Nathaniel admitted to the burden of playing father to the mass murdering Henrik.

It was as if a thousand years had never passed and Rebekah and Nathaniel were as close now as they were back in their human years if not closer. However, Nathaniel remained distant from his father until one day he went deep into the woods.

Nathaniel was reluctant at first but after many conversations with Rebekah he decided to go into the woods and continued to roam until he found himself out of the woods and on to the run-down farm that Rebekah and his father had previously visited.

He had no memory of the place in which he was born and yet he felt a connection to the place as he walked towards the farmhouse he began having flashbacks of a woman running across the field holding a baby covered in cloth the woman looking terrified while trying to soothe her crying child only for Augustus to appear as if from out of nowhere right in front of her.

“If only I saw the monster within the man sooner.” The woman said to Nathaniel as she appeared in front of him and was no longer in his flashbacks.

“Mum,” Nathaniel said to her as tears formed in his eyes. “How is this even possible? This place is free from magic I had a powerful witch see to it myself.”

“The afterlife holds a very different magic to that of witches.” She revealed to him. “As to why I’m here instead of finding some peace well that answer lies within my own blame. I’m trapped here for as long as your father walks this earth because of a spell I was foolish enough to believe would help me be around for you somehow.”

“I always wondered what you would look like what you would be like if you regretted having me.” He cried. “I mean it’s because of me that you died if you weren’t trying to save me you would never have died that way.”

“Oh, my darling Nathaniel you hold no blame in any of this you were just a baby born to a cruel world filled with malice.” She explained to her son. “If I knew what your father would become if I knew what giving birth to you would lead to I’d do it all over again because you got to live and that’s all a mother wants for their child.”

“But I’ve not lived mother not really I’ve spent centuries on the run longing for a life but never really getting one because of him.” Nathaniel admitted. “And now I’m trapped here forever but at least I’m finally reunited with you.”

“You’re not trapped here forever,” Clara revealed to her son while placing her hand on his cheek to comfort him in his time of need. “There’s always a loophole when it comes to any spell and it just so happens, I know how you and your friend can leave this place behind forever and finally get to live your life however you choose.”

“How?” Nathaniel asked clearly eager to know the answer.

“The spell was created to hold your father and therefore can be broken by his death.” Clara made clear to him.

“But Rebekah killed him a bunch of times and he just came back the next day.” Nathaniel told his mother.

“A Malus witch can only truly be killed by a Malus witch they made sure of long before even your father’s and my time.” Clara confessed. “For you and Rebekah to be rid of this town and be free you’re going to need to kill your father.”

Day 547

The First year in Helton had been and gone and Rebekah, Nathaniel and Augustus were nearing their second with only six months to go.

Rebekah had found ways to pass the time she spent in this ghost town turned prison world as her reluctant bond with Augustus took an unexpected passionate turn beginning a sordid affair they both knew to keep hidden from Nathaniel knowing he’d feel betrayed for many reasons; one being Rebekah was his only friend and another being Augustus was well Augustus.

Augustus knew Rebekah had no feelings for him and he had none for her but their time together they both cherished making them feel anything other than completely and utterly alone.

Nathaniel was not one for helping anyone feeling less lonely having struggled in recent months after being told by the spirit of his mother he had to kill his father which surprisingly to him he had found himself not wanting to do. His hatred for the man had dwindled as he started to see him as another victim of the all-consuming Malus which he too possessed.

Nathaniel felt guilty towards his mother for not particularly wanted to kill the man who murdered her, furious with his father for making himself more human to him and even more guilty towards Rebekah knowing how much she wanted to be reunited with her family but not willing to make the sacrifice needed for her family reunion this time around.

Rebekah climbed off Augustus’ naked body before falling to the floor of the abandoned church, so she was lying next to him with nothing but a sheet covering their sweaty naked bodies having quite clearly just having sex.

“I can’t quite decide whether torturing you or sleeping with you is more enjoyable.” Rebekah joked before kissing Augustus passionately. “Definitely the torture part.”

“Well I certainly prefer one to the other however both don’t require much sleeping.” Augustus said with a smirk before kissing Rebekah once more.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Rebekah groaned as Augustus began kissing her neck. “Nathaniel is going to kill us both.”

Day 730

Two years had officially gone by and Helton was still the only place Rebekah, Augustus and Nathaniel called home unable or unwilling on Nathaniel’s part to break the curse that kept them in the ghost town turned prison world.

Nathaniel had grown rather fond of the peace and quiet and took his time to read several books from what remained of Helton’s library and would often attempt Rebekah’s hand at reading some literature leading to a book club of sorts being formed between the two and Nathaniel quickly noticed Rebekah’s only genre of literature she had any interest in was that of romance perfectly fitting for the girl who normally fell in love too easily.

Nathaniel sat on a bench just outside the decaying building which was one a store within the town center while reading “Wuthering Heights” the book itself looking as old as when it was first released in 1847 which is when Nathaniel more than likely purchased this book.  He was so engrossed within the story he hadn’t noticed his father Augustus walking up the street towards him until it was too late, and Augustus was in front of him.

“I’d be careful about seeking out all consuming passions they tend to consume you in ways not written in books.” Augustus said to him as Nathaniel closed his book and stood up to face his father.

“Ironic that the king of consumption wants to advise me on that particular topic.” Nathaniel replied coldly.

“Your snaps are getting less sharp my son either your growing lazy or your starting to hate me less.” Augustus responded with a smile.

“Don’t worry father my hate for you grows stronger with every day that goes by.” Nathaniel said to his father, a statement which neither of them believed.

Their altercation was quickly interrupted when they saw Rebekah walk past them holding a sledgehammer looking like a furious woman on a mission forcing them both to follow her in a quest to find out what she was up to.

Nathaniel and Augustus continued to follow Rebekah step for step right through the town center and towards the road leaving Helton knowing she couldn’t be trying to leave having given up with this method within the first weeks of being trapped there.

They continued to follow Rebekah right up to the Helton graffiti-ed sign with nothing behind it but woods and forestry before she began screaming frantically as she wielded the sledgehammer at the sign multiple times leaving the sign dented in the process before Nathaniel and Augustus managed to walk over to her, Augustus taking the sledgehammer off the furious Mikaelson woman.

“I hate it here!” She screamed. “I hate this miserable little ghost town; I hate the infuriating spirits who never bloody show themselves. I hate everything about this god forsaken town, and I want the hell out right now!”

“I know how to break the spell.” Augustus reluctantly admitted.

“You do?” Nathaniel asked, shocked to know he wasn’t the only one with the answer.

“Are you serious?” Rebekah questioned while attempting to pull herself together after her recent outburst. “Well do tell us.”

“The spell can only be broken by Nathaniel he has to kill me.” Augustus revealed much to Rebekah and Nathaniel’s shock.

Day 731

“Are you sure about this?” Nathaniel asked his father while he held a knife in his hand as the two of them and Rebekah stood within the ever-moving Helton Farm, the same farm in which Augustus had taken the life of Nathaniel’s mother.

“I took a magic once known only as opposite to nature our witches drew from death which is a natural process. I took that magic and I bastardized it to make myself more powerful at first, I only wanted to keep you but once I got a taste of true death I became addicted and therefore created the Malus in which we practice. I cursed this land by my own actions, I took your mother, your coven and your family.” Augustus admitted to his son. “It’s only right that my permanent death will not only free you to live a wonderful life but will restore the natural balance well and truly.”

“I’ve been running from you for so wrong I lost count of how many times I wished you dead and now I’m struggling to do the deed.” Nathaniel replied as tears formed in both his and his father’s eyes. “I do not blame you for the all-consuming darkness that consumed you, but I do thank you for your sacrifice. I wish you had a chance to be my father.”

“I do too,” Augustus revealed making tears form in Rebekah’s eyes. “I may have never been a father to you, but you have always been the most amazing son I could ever have asked for.”

Nathaniel lifted his hand that was holding the knife before cutting his father’s neck open with it harshly and quickly forcing him to fall to the ground and bleed out as tears fell down Nathaniel’s cheeks. Before Rebekah had a chance to comfort her grieving friend both her and Rebekah found themselves on a dead-end road with nothing but trees and forestry behind them.

The exact same spot in which Hope, Klaus and Bonnie stood two years and one day ago.

“Nathaniel,” Rebekah shouted as she looked down to see her belly which had what looked like at least a six-month pregnancy bump. “What the bloody hell?”

[vide0-nasties]

on the alabaster stones

2.9k words, arthur morgan/f!oc, sfw: arthur morgan and wildwood bordelon prepare for their ramshackle, spur-of-the-moment wedding. spoiler-heavy, specifically for chapter 5: saint denis and on.

It’s a funeral as much as a wedding, Wildwood straightening his collar-length hair pushing it from his face. Her eyes are bloodshot, brimming, and she sniffles and sighs in effort to keep herself composed.

Her hands shake, and Arthur is sorry for it. He catches them and kisses them when he can. When she tucks a yellow wildflower into the breast pocket on his vest. When she tucks a purple one behind his ear. He brings her knuckles to his lips, and speaks against her skin without meeting her eyes, “Actin’ like you’re laying me out for burial, Perdie.”

Calls her by the name her mother kept gentle in her cupped hands. Snags her, tugs the thread of history between them to still her hands and catch her eyes.

“I’m makin’ peace being your widow,” she tells him, voice deep and dark as the bottom of a dry well. Her skin is pink under the evening sun, her freckles a pretty chestnut against it all. “There’s coming a fuckin’ reckoning, and chances are I won’t get to bury you. I want to do you right, even if it’s right now.”

He’s dying—by bullet or his vengeful lungs—and he’s leaving her behind. The way things are going—the way she is acting—he will go first, but she won’t be trailing far behind him.

The train station is off a ways, Monroe and Calderón farther away from it then they are now. Arthur’s chest burns through every searing breath. He is being very careful now not to cough near her. He will not damn her if he can help it.

He worries for her, for everyone, but for her especially. Now, and in the future. He does not want her to be alone. Gets too sharp when she’s alone too long.

Her hands smell green from picking flowers, smell like gun oil and cordite from the shootout.

“I want you to go with John and Abigail after,” he says. “Take our horses, go do something decent.”

She gives him an empty look, as if she wants to fight him on this, just can’t figure out how. There’s been two plans ever since the return from Guarma and the diagnosis, forking in the road where he either lives or dies. The fork where he lives gets dimmer and more overgrown, less navigable with time and every mounting tragedy and fuck-up.

“It’s all our faults,” she sighs instead, letting him hold her hand to his chest, rubbing the side her thumb his own. “We all done killed ourselves, sprintin’ blind into the darkness, tryin’ to chase an endless summer that never existed.”

“Yeah, we just about did,” he agrees. Every death was senseless, every death was brought upon themselves. Greed and wantonness and recklessness. And now they’re almost all too far gone to escape the sink.

He worries. He worries.

“Are you going to be okay?” Part of him regrets asking. Part of him wants to hurt, the part that sees Wood for how low she’s been cast.

Thin and gaunt in her dirty shirt, wearing boots stolen off a soldier’s corpse, her rust-colored hair shorn shorter than any of them’s ever seen, and her seams literally fraying. The once rich embroidery on the lapels of her vest comes unsewn, blurring and ruining the original detail of the work. They used to be dripping poppies and willow switches on plum corduroy. Now it is a field of loose silk threads.

Her right eye, blind and milky, surrounded by angry, red scars that have yet to settle into her skin.

“I’m gonna live, even if it ain’t gonna be a happy life,” she admits. “It’s a bridge to burn if I reach it.”

Arthur can’t stand the defeat weighing her upper body down, like her arms and shoulders are too heavy to lift. Wood has never been accused of being an optimist, but she’d never faced her death with ‘when’ or 'if,’ only a faint, morbid curiosity. As if death was a thing that happened only to other people, and she was sure ponderous how life leaving the body felt.

A concept in the abstract. An animal’s understanding.

The first words he’d ever heard from her were screamed with the deepest offense he’d ever heard taken. “YOU can’t kill ME!” screeched almost eighteen years ago at the chicken-necked sheriff escorting her to the hanging rope for attempted murder, grand larceny, and horse theft. Disgusted that this lowly little lawman thought he could get his hands on her pelt for a trophy.

Little no-named outlaw. They all were, back then. Bunch of losers and wash-outs and orphans stuck on an ideal. Still are, in a way.

And, ah, fuck, it gets him laughing. She was pretty lamb-necked back then, herself, and the horse she’d stolen liked to eat meat and was renamed for the equine prince of hell.

“Perdie, we’re blowing up the bridge,” he says, feigning wide-eyed ignorance and misunderstanding in the face of her confusion. “I mean, if you wanna come with me and Johnny, all’s you gotta do is ask.”

He can only grin when her blank look slides fast into a sneer, trying half-heartedly to take her hand back. “Fais  pas ça! Arrête ça—bastard, little boy-child, tryin'a make a fool of me,” she tries to snap through her cackling. Even with her crows feet, even with the elastic lines hugging her mouth, she looks so young. He wishes things had happened differently.

He squeezes her hand, takes a step forward, then another, following her insincere retreat. “Never—I wouldn’t never,” he protests, reaching for her other arm as he smears a mockery of contrition over his expression.

“Enough, couillon,” she snorts, wearing her dimple and missing tooth out for his benefit. She swats away his arm without sting and sighs. Looks a little less close to crying. “Got a cleaner shirt in your saddlebag? And a dabber? Want this blood of my face, me.”

Finally, he lets go of her, but she tangles their fingers for the duration of their slow fall. “Sure, something’s clean enough. That blue one, I think, but it's  better torn up for rags.”

“Love that shirt.”

“I know you do. Wouldn’t surprise me none if you wore it til it fell apart on your back.”

Wood mutters to herself in that French of hers—the Cajun kind she spoke before she knew English, that she forgot with the blow to the head that turned her like spun-dime heads-or-tails from Perdita to Wildwood, and learned again—as she strips out of her layers. With her vest, shirt, and chemise thrown over the seat of his saddle, he gets a good look at the livid bruises cropping up on her ribs and the points of her hips.

But he refocuses—he knows he’s not a specimen of health, himself, right now—and concentrates on the ocean of freckles that turn her shoulders and elbows orange-brown, and that he knows her knees are almost as colorful. He concentrates on his shirt sliding over her arms, down her torso, too-too big but comfortable, and how he thinks she looks fine and lovely in that shade of blue.

He reminds himself to make sure that shirt is in her saddlebag if he feels like the end-all-be-all shit is about to go down. His buck skin jacket, too. Whatever he owns is hers, anyway.

“Hey, Wood?” he calls, using his thumb nail to scratch his adam’s apple, then drops his hand to his gun belt. When she looks over her shoulder—her left, now always her left—he shifts his weight and does his damnedest to make eye contact, though he ends up looking at her feet like a chastised dog. “I love you, is all. Just wanted to say that.”

“…I know you do, Arthur Morgan. I love you, too. Got a powerful love on for you."  

"Still don’t understand why,” he chuckles, a little bittersweet, “but I guess I’m luckier for your poor judgement.”

He can hear the frown in her voice, all the scars left on her through the years, “Ain’t neither'a us been loved any right kinda way, cher.”

If he tries to swallow that sentiment, he will choke to death on it. Too big, too many sharp edges. But fortune continues to favor him, because she  finishes up doing her borrowed buttons and does an about-face, hands on her hips. “You got them rings, boug?”

He does, and pats his satchel to show her. Pleased enough, she motions him closer, wetting an old bandana with water from her canteen. When he’s close enough to feel the warmth come off his Fox Trotter, smell the soap oil off her tack, he loads his repeater and shotgun back into the saddle scabbards. He pushes out of his shotgun coat after he’s slung the satchel’s strap over the saddle horn, layers it over Wood’s clothes already on the seat.

“Aw, Penny, thank you,” he croons, scratching her croup over her meaty haunches, watching her chew the bit and let her head droop. “Get treated like a clothesline and still actin’ like a proper lady.”

“She’s a good lil pony,” Wood agrees, “makes me feel awful for still missin’ Boadicea.”

“Penny ain’t little,” he says, half-offended, letting Wood strip him of his gloves and roll his shirtsleeves to the elbow. “Ain’t no pony either.”

Wood carefully takes the flower from behind his ear and flicks it back into the grass waving and rolling around their shins, maybe having decided she no longer preferred it, and keeps his hair pushed back with one hand as she begins to wipe the grime from his forehead.

The water is cool against his face, and, without his layers, he can feel the breeze that much better against his skin. He tries to keep from thinking about the way his body just look, how his face must look—bone and gristle and bruises and nothing else—feeling goosebumps prickle over his forearms.

“I know,” Wood hums. “Just miss Boadi, is all. Big ol’ beef steak, lazy as all kinds'a hell. But that’s just 'cause you spoiled her big ass. That’s your bad habit: spoilin’ things what love you, not disciplinin’ things what love you.”

“I…I dunno.” He can’t accuse her of being wrong. Boadicae had been fat and happy and slow until hell broke loose and he had to call on her for action, then she would drop her head and go to work like the devil’d lit a fire under her belly. Even Copper had never learned sit, drop, or stay, but he’d been loyal and unceasingly soft-mouthed and docile.

Isaac…

Arthur almost retreats from the memory. He’d seen so little of the boy through his short life. It felt wrong to tell him no for any reason. Eliza told him it made her feel like a villain when he showed up with a pack of chocolate bars and picture books and whatever little somethings had caught his eye. She hadn’t been unkind about it, either.

Said it with a peeved sort of fondness that told the intrusion was easily tolerated—even a little welcomed—because it would be forgotten a few days after he made himself gone again.

But, hell, even with Wood, he’d gone and inundated her in their new, short time. A saddle from the trapper, an Algernon Wasp hat and a corset, jewelry. Paid for their Saint Denis dinners, bought her ammo and a Litchfield repeater. He loves her, he needs her to know that, and he can’t figure a way to show better.

But she gave it back. Reciprocated. Cooked for him, took him dancing, killed them that tried to kill him first. Held him and made room for him and roared to silence rooms for his voice to be heard. Touched him and gentled him and tugged him outta the dark when he’d wanted to stay there.

She stole him a horse, one of the best he’s ever had.

The wind hits his face and dries to cool, clean sheen on his skin, making him shiver. It picks up his hair, and Wood’s, and in the dying light they both look a little golden.

She opens the collar of his shirt to clean his neck and chest, then moves to his forearms and hands. She pays extra attention to his fingers, the nail beds.

“What was I? Probably nineteen or twenty, when I told you I loved you that first time?”

“Yeah. 'Bout right. Made me that nice dinner.” Salmon seared in cast iron, crispy and drowning in butter and fresh pepper and lemon grass.

“Just askin’, 'cause I’d been sitting around with this picture of you in my head. Been down around Wyoming, saw that wild little scrub pony while we was getting, I dunno, something for camp. All hushed, you told me to watch, and you just walked right up to her, all slow and quiet. Started petting her, had her eating from your hand.”

He doesn’t remember that. They’re’ve been so many horses since then, wild or otherwise. It makes him ache he can’t remember her memory.

“It just crushed me. I never fell in love like that. And you looked a lot like you do now, with the sun going down behind your hair, giving you a halo. Like you one'a them saints in the cathedral glass, or like Mary holding a lamb.”

She sighs and wrings out the bandana, satisfied enough with his cleanliness. “Was always something holy 'bout you. Above and below and the middle of the world’s rot and distemper. Thought you were meant and due a different life than this the one we got.”

She re-wets the bandana and cleans herself up, with only a fraction of the gentleness she’d used on him. It is quick, and efficient, and if he sees her hands work over the quarter of her face with the blind eye a little rougher, a little more fearful, he says nothing.

“Uh, one night,” he starts, not understanding where he wants to go with this confession, “you were dancing with Dee, after he got you carrying Louis. And then you lost Louis not much later, and Dee left…I loved you, and I was real angry at the world for a long time about that happening to you. I was angry at myself. If I hadn’t left you that first time, you might not’ve been hurt like that.”

Already sober and sad, it gets worse. She’s dressing him for burial and marriage, both. Doing it now because she might not get to later. “You keep losing people, Wood. It ain’t right.”

“I have them a little while before I lose them. This life is short, and at the end of it there ain’t nothing but a dreamless dark-everlasting. Rather taste ash than nothin’ at all.”

Arthur feels a finality in those words, a hammer cocked on a pistol, aimed down at some un-bowed head. Rather taste ash than nothing at all. Looking back at a wreckage of a life, and pinpointing glitter of better times in the debris.

“I hate that I didn’t marry you the day we met,” he laughs, shaking his head.

“Would’ve been hard, what with that rope on my neck, and all them bullets flying. Y'all boys always knew how to brew a shitstorm,” she snorts back. “And, 'sides, we’re jumpin’ the broom now. Better late, et cet'ra.”

Speak of the devil, and he doth appear, or the saying goes, and Wood roots through his satchel to retrieve the little silk bag with their rings. Cleaned and refitted by a jeweler in Saint Denis, briefly abandoned during the catacylsmic exodus to Guarma, and used through the years in countless scams, they were familiar and, frankly, worth as much as a tin nickel outside of sentiment.

But they were emblematic, and they are theirs. Cheap yellow gold, fitted with that fraudulent hunk of green glass Margaret had passed off for a priceless emerald, polished to a spit-shine. History, old and new, something she could hopefully wear both pieces of after the inevitable comes to pass.

They marry as the sun dips fat and slow below the horizon, with only a mouthful of promises passed between them. They kiss, and they kiss, and they keep kissing, pressed close and shivering against each other’s bodies.

It makes Arthur hope and hurt and want to see the world that comes after this private apocalypse. The one where guns are put in the ground, where they spend their lives decently, atoning for the blood they cannot possibly wash from their hands.

Where the dreamless dark-everlasting is met with him hand-in-hand with the woman he’d spent his life with, and not kneeling head un-bowed facing down the barrel of divine retribution’s revolver.

“The world gonna remember the good you left in it, Arthur,” Wildwood Morgan tells him, her arms wrapped tight around his waist, “I’m thankful for having seen you rise into it.”

[verona-mira]

Myth angst drabble?

This… became a monster…

And I am not even sure that it counts as Angst. Or is still a drabble. Is something of this size still a drabble?

Despite everyplan made in his mind and prepared in the real world, Myth couldn’t helphimself from searching the princess out after he finally managed to secure aposition inside the palace, barely three months after the rebellion. Even a waybetter position than he had previously hoped to ever achieve, looking at his visiblyyoung age. But then people seemed to have difficulties to really place his ageand he highly doubted that the king would have intentionally put enough trustinto a barely twenty-year-old to name him adviser.

But here hewas, wandering the hallways openly again, the glamour keeping people fromrecognizing him and no (literally) cursed traitor around to educate themotherwise. He would have loved to fell the betrayer, but the onslaught of multipleopponents had been… problematic. Even with the queen being the Bearer, theother side had help by a Bearer as well. At least no one of the opponents hadever learned the value of a good poison or a sneak attack. Well, if they had,he would have more than a few barely healed wounds and still hurting scars.

Well, he wasalive and already working on implementing the return of the queen by being inthe palace and guarding the Crystallum. It wouldn’t do if someone stumbled overit after all. A pity, he couldn’t move it somewhere else.

As it was,gossip around the maids told him quickly where to go. They were pretty keen onavoiding the teen, who was actively sad about the supposed demise of her mother,and exchanged information whenever the princess moved somewhere else.

The gardensweren’t a bad place for introductions. The weather was nice and the royalgardens were beautiful enough that taking a look at them as a newcomer wouldn’tbe too out of place.

She was… surprisinglysmall.

Myth blinkedin surprise at seeing her. Well, she was in her teens and still growing and itwasn’t as if had ever been close to her, so gauging her size had never been onhis mind. But she was looking quite small regarding how scared the servantswere of her, curled up onto herself, looking at a bunch of blooming roses, hiddenby a few hedges.

Knees pulled upto her chin wasn’t quite proper either, especially with her sitting on a bench,but then, who was he to judge? It had taken him a few days to just scratchtogether the will to move through the pain of being wounded and all alone againand he knew the queen was alive, ifnot breathing at the moment.

Maybe he hadmade some kind of noise he wasn’t aware of, but suddenly the girl turned aroundand looked at him, just for a moment a startled expression on her face, beforeit all cut off from her face, promptly jerking into a more proper position.

“Goodafternoon, your Highness. I am Mythros. I just joined your father’s court,” hecalmly introduced himself, bowing and choosing not to comment on what he had justseen.

The princessgave him a cold look. “If father wants something from me, he can tell me sohimself,” she replied coolly.

Well, look atthat. Looked like the king’s ‘disfavour’ for his daughter wasn’t just extravagatedrumours. He kept his smile in place. “Oh, I didn’t speak with him today, yet. Ijust saw you here and thought introductions were in order. I am going to spend most of my time in thepalace after all,” he said, keeping his voice light and body posture untense,to not project any indication of aggression. People could be set off by thestrangest things and there was no reason to agitate her.

There was ashort bout of silence, while she continued to focus him with a cold look fullof scrutiny. Healthy outlook. She didn’t know him after all and he had justintroduced himself as a member of her father’s political court.

“You justintroduced himself. What else do you want?” she finally asked, “No one is stayinglonger than they have to.” Oh really? “Quite rude of them,” he commentedlightly, “Etiquette dedicates to at least bid someone goodbye before leaving.Especially after introductions. Social rules would indicate to wait for beingdischarged, if there is no business to attend to.” And promptly made a point ofnot bidding his goodbyes, still smiling.

The confusionflickering over her face was honest and quickly smothered under self-control. Almostcute how she glared at him. Almost like her mother, but that was like comparinga kitten to a full-grown tiger. And she hadn’t access to her claws yet.

“And you’reoh so nice,” she skewered him with aneven colder look, “Are you really going stand there until I tell you to leave?”Her voice dripped with disbelieve.

Myth decidedon a gamble.

“Your mother wasquite thorough to impress the proper behaviour into me, so I wouldn’t be an embarrassment,if she ever chose to introduce me to court herself.”

The princesshad turned to look at the roses again. At his words, her head whipped aroundback to him.

“You… knewmother?” there was something strange in her voice and it suddenly occurred toMyth that with Waltz gone from the picture, the king distant and the servantsterrified, there would have been no one at all willing to get close to her.

“She was myteacher. When I was a bit younger than you know, she took a look at me anddecided that I was worth some of her time,” he replied, making sure to keep hisvoice calm and even. There was no reason to agitate her. No reason to scare hereither. And if he was the one to tell her, when everyone else was so insistenton keeping her ignorant…

The princessfrowned. “A teacher for what? What was mother teaching you, that she couldn’tjust hand over to others?”

Stepping abit closer, so the hedges would completely hide him from view of servants passingby, Myth laid a hand onto the stone restricting the water of a fountain. Asmall push and glittering ice started to spread in patterns, stretching awayfrom his hand and reaching the water, creating a glittering sheet of ice.

“Your mother,princess, was teaching me magic.”

Oh, how easyit had been in the end, to gain her trust. And he didn’t need to weave lies either!Just wording the information carefully.

“Oh, yes, therehad been another apprentice, but he ran off, no idea, where he is.”

And it wasall the king’s fault! It would have been so much more difficult, if he couldsee past hair colour and talk withhis daughter.

As it was, hedid not, kept his distance, eyes sad, but also fearful and when he finally gotover himself, worry joined the fear, etching itself into his face with frownsand heavy thoughts, because -oh the surprise- his daughter did not miraculouslyforget him ignoring her very existence for months without end.

On anothermatter, Myth had managed to establish himself in court, starting to slip hisown twist of things into decisions made or not made. It was ridiculous how trustingthe king was towards him. Did the man even remember that a year ago some ofthese people had haggled with the queen and he hadn’t even been here for a fullyear?

Or maybe itsimply never occurred to him that people may have taken advantage of the queen’srule to further their own power. If he was informed right, the late king hadn’tallowed the monarch much involvement before his death. The man had waited witharranging a ball for his son until the back then Crown Prince was twenty! Twoyears after reaching majority!

Well, heshould count himself lucky that the man was more inexperienced than incompetent.But some of the noises in court regarding the princess… Some wanted her in somefar away estate and for the king to remarry for a ‘proper’ heir. Just his luckthat the king was still pinning after his ‘true love’. No risk there then fornow.

Something theprincess asked most for when they were alone (mostly hidden by the hedges ofthe gardens) were displays of magic.

Myth obliged,because a familiarity with magic wasn’t a bad thing for the future Bearer. Itwouldn’t do for her to be scared of her own skills.

Small sculpturesof ice, all sharp edges and pointy ends, glittering in the sun light. Thornyvines grabbing a tree trunk as if choking the live out of it and crumbling toashes, leaving deep gorges in the bark. Mist rolling together into forms foolingthe mind, by looking similar to forms that may trick the eyes…

It was precious how fascinated she was byeverything. How she lit up at the spark of magics, eager to see more. And itwas their secret.

Theirs alone.

There wouldbe no problem resurrecting his queen, it seemed.

Hell knew,what Alcaster was trying to pull by assigning a guard do to the princess.Especially his own son. Not that there was any doubt about the young man’sskills, but a father assigning his own son to spend time around the crownprincess?

Please, whydidn’t the man put up placates proclaiming his intentions of playing matchmaker?

Fritzgeraldwas… friendly. Genuinely so. It was baffling.

He was alsodutiful and just as easy to drive off like holding a bone and trying to driveaway a starved dog.

He was alsopolite and almost impossible to ditch, despite the princess being known for notleaving the palace.

The new presencehad the side effect his familiarity with the princess being ‘discovered’.

Not that theyhad tried to hide it. They just…tended to visit the gardens at the same time and weren’t even hiding that. Whenpeople were too blind to pay attention that wasn’t their fault.

But no oneseemed to know what to make from it, especially the king, who suddenly gotsmacked into his face that -yes- his daughter was willing to spend time with atleast one living person. It had also had the consequence that he was promptlydelegated to be the go between to the man and his daughter.

Oh, how blindthe man was… Myth wondered what his face would be like, when he learned of thefull story behind everything.

There was apainting of the queen in the hallway. It was surprising that no one had takenit down, yet, but maybe the king simply didn’t want to explain to his daughter thereasons for that.

As it was,the cold green eyes looked down at him and he found himself wondering. Whatwould be his reward in the end? She had promised to reward him…

He took inthe way he hair fell into her face and framed it and how her eyes werecuttingly cold.

“It’s apretty painting, isn’t it?” the princess asked next to him and he turned tolook at her, watching her hair move in a breeze trailing through the hallway. Goldeneyes turned to him, looking at him -and only him, wasn’t that strange?- and hesmiled. “Yes. It’s really a good sight,” he told the just sixteen-year-old,taking in how her lips twitched for a moment, as if she was fighting back a smile.

How curious…was that really due to him?

Court wasalways moving. Someone gained money, lost it, gained favour, fortune, influenceand wasted it on lies and pretending to be saints.

Always movingit was not always clear, who was sending which messenger, but the messengers alwaysknew who they needed to talk to and how. And in this case beyond closed doors.

A quite luckycase for him, he noted, taking in the mangled body and how the blood had splattered.His self-control seemed to have loosened. He hadn’t even taken the time for properinterrogations. Myth pondered how to best dispose of the remains, beforedeciding to move the parts closer together and keep the door looked via magicuntil dusk. Some empty bottles of fine a bit too close to the fireplace, justnext to the body and there shouldn’t be too many questions.

And while thecould go and run around trying to identify the man, he would have the time tolook into who may be stupid enough to think he could be pressured or bribed intoharming his precious princess. That wouldn’t do at all.

The palacewas still reeling from the fire and the dead body weeks later, when the kingannounced the newest hair-raising decision.

Myth ponderedwhat to do for a few days. The king knewhe had found the right woman, a widow now herself, with children of her own.

Arranging anaccident now would be… high profile, even with magic.

The girl hadno place in court, open and cheery and way too easily manipulated. The nobleswouldn’t like her, but love her easy to control mindset. Show her one personhurt by a law and she would forget how the laws befitted the wider population.But the peasants would love her…

The boy was almostlaughable easy to deal with. Myth wouldn’t even need to lift a finger. Huntingthe witch down that cursed him gave him somany juicy details he promptly proceeded to share with his princess. Encroachingonto her space permanently, just toimpress one little peasant girl? They would never be friends…

Well, he couldstill arrange for something, if it proved necessary. Too many deaths closetogether would be suspicious…

The weddingwas a grand thing, like any official royal event.

The bride waseven pretty nice to look at.

The CrownPrincess was sixteen, growing into her body and looking just as breath taking,dress carefully tailored to not outshine the bride.

Emelaigne wasnot even looking half as regal, no matter how pretty her dress was. But then,her tutor for etiquette had met a very… unfortunate end by falling down astaircase (not that anyone had told the girl that) and as such there had beenno one to instruct her on proper behaviour. As such, she chattered away with noblegirls her age, not even noticing or knowing how much of an embarrassment shewas.

She didn’t evenhave the self-control to at least pretend to not be trying to look atFritzgerald whenever possible.

Well, it wasn’tas if he had much room to talk there, he could admit that much to himself. Hestill made sure to get a good look at the king’s face when the man saw himdancing with his daughter, twirling her around skilfully to the music among theother couples, revelling in the way how he got to hold her close.

It was a deliciouslook. The man almost stumbled over his own feet. Pity, that the other nobleshad been too dumbfounded by the sight of the ice princess dancing, to catch sightof the scene.

And the kingdidn’t want to make a scene at his own wedding and let it be.

A few moremonths passed and a new routine slowly settled in with the new addition to thepalace life. Myth wasn’t that enthusiastic about it. The new princess was stubbornlytrying to befriend her stepsister and seemed to have decided that he was theperfect person to get information about what she liked.

How to tell achatterbox that a person liked quiet company…

Pity that shewasn’t the mute one. Her brother knew at least some manners.

But then shewas so dense and naive, that the nobles weren’t really keen on her becoming crownprincess at all anymore, no matter how easily influenced she was. Just as well.Kept him from needing to get rid of more people, to keep the coast clear for hisprincess. No need to let rivalries fester after all.

As it was,they would need to live with their meetings getting interrupted by Fritz, whowas still set on the fact that she needed protection inside the palace, Emelaigne,who tried to befriend them and Fritz at the same time, and Rod, who wastrailing after his sister.

Myth reallydidn’t like how they intruded onto his time with his princess. She was his. Even if the queen would never allowit…

Strange, howhe hadn’t thought about her in some time…

His princess becameseventeen and the king, encouraged by his daughter suffering through thecompany of the new family members, tried to involve himself again by throwingher a party.

Myth took noteof the different young male nobles attending, strutting around like peacock,decked out in fancy clothing and made their introductions.

Mentally hestarted making a list, adding a name whenever eyes trailed lower than hisprincess face.

Death… wouldbe too attention grabbing. The list was getting too long for that. But a brush with death? Just a scare and a fewscars? No one died, no attention…

And maybe afew rumours about whores, illegal doings and a few other things… there wasalways some dirt to dig up.

Well, outsideof the guy daring to push himself into her personal space like that, afterhaving the gall to get drunk halfway through.

He rescuedhis princess from the trash and made sure that he was looked up in a room faraway from the festivities.

The kiss shestole from him just before retiring for the night was… surprising. Elating.

…Addicting.

She was his. And his alone!

The screamswhen the maids found a mangled body in the kennels of the hunting dogs was musicto his ears.

The king wasat least not completely blind, going from the looks the man threw him when hethought Myth wasn’t noticing it.

Thoughtfuland worried at the same time the man seemed to weight something.

Weeks passedwith the man not doing anything at all and truthfully, Myth was not sure, whatto do, if the man proved problematic. It was difficult to dispose of a king,especially of one well liked. Startling his horse during his parades would beeasy enough, but that wouldn’t ensure that he fell and broke his neck.

And the mankept doing nothing! Not even talking to anyone!

The eighteenthbirthday slowly crawled closer and Myth was… not sure what to feel.

The princesshad learned about what her mother been years ago -also about the possibility offreeing her- but they had never really talked about her role in the war. AndMyth really liked the kisses andhaving attention all to himself…

And then onemorning he woke up and his precious princess was gone!

Gone from him,from the palace and no one was remembering her!

He didn’tcount the worried looks he got thrown, tearing through the hallway without talkingto anyone before settling in the garden where they normally met.

Only Fritzand Emelaigne were there.

That wouldn’tdo.

Someone was going to suffer.

Days passed. Weeks passed and he couldn’t find her!

It wasdifficult enough to control himself, when people called Emelaigne crownprincess. The ball was an insult in itself and he made sure, to dispose of thenew tutor as well, just like the second one got caught up in an unfortunateaccident. The third one was left alone, but it had been calming to let some ofthe pressure bleed of.

And thenthere was suddenly a red headed maid with Emelaigne at the garden space and Mythhad been so surprised by it andEmelaigne -sweet, obvious, naive Emelaigne- had been surprised and ecstaticthat the two knew each other.

Myth took inthe wide-eyed look of the prince and knew he couldn’t allow the boy to leavethe palace with this information. Tragic, but accidents happen.

Well… hesurvived the fall from the staircase. Keeping him from waking up then.Everything else would be too obvious.

The drama ofthe accident was -ironically- enough to push the ball closer, people pushing tofurther the line of succession with only Emelaigne left and no other alternatives.

The girl was slowlybreaking under the pressure, but that wasn’t his problem. Emelaigne occupied bythe preparations allowed him more time with his princess, who told him allabout what happened.

The LucisBearer, Delora and the traitor thought, they could lay hand on his princess?

Time to… dealwith them.

With care.

The ballhappened a week before Lucette’s eighteenth birthday and Alcaster proved to bethe person trying to wrench the throne from the rightful bloodline.

Myth slippedaway with Lucette, her father stubbornly trying to do the ‘right thing’ and ‘honour’.

A week of hiding,of being alone with her and all the sinful pleasures he got her to give in to…

He wouldn’tgive that up. Not even for his queen.

And, oh, hissweet princess agreed… and she would be queen one day as well. He should startcalling her by the title.

Time to adjustplans even further.

Mind runninghigh, Myth started ‘leaking’ information.

On the dawningof her eighteenth birthday they sneaked into the secret passage to where theCrystallum was hiding.

Oh, if his princessknew of all the things he had arranged.

He madehimself scarce during the freeing and made sure that every other pawn wouldmeet their timely end.

Hildyr dealt withAlcaster quickly enough, three hours into her resurrection, not even sparing aglance at her late husband beheaded in front of the throne, whose blood wasfresh enough that the beheading was quite recent.

Alcaster musthave thought that would endear him to his queen.

The queenstruck Alcaster down, just in time for Delora, the other Bearer and the traitorto turn up -the later still cursed to his delight- and he made a show ofstepping out of the shadows and taking the glamour of, letting them shout andflail and magic clash- and fail.

He wanted tolaugh at the sight of their faces crumble when they noticed.

The witchdown and fading, the fairy dying as well and the traitor staring at him, redeyes wide and terrified and trying to scramble away from him in fear, when hestepped closer.

When he wasthe only one alive, Myth made his next move.

Hildyr neversaw the icicle killing her.

And Waltzdidn’t get to ask questions about anything either.

Looking atthe mess the throne room was, Myth let out a sight. There was a clean-upnecessary.

But first hewould need to look for his princess.

The coronationto place three weeks after her birthday, her face impassive and stoic.

Myth smiled,standing right next to her, not having bothered to reapply the glamour, throwingpeople in for a loop.

Emelaigne wasclinging to Fritz and her mother, the woman looking pale, eyes empty. No dangerfrom there.

Rod had fadedaway just before the birthday; his curse having caught up with him.

There were afew people coming out of the woodwork already, trying to gain favours. Well, atleast the prince of Brugundia was easy to deal with. One broken curse for animproved political connection was good enough, especially with the recenttumult in the politics.

Well, at leastthe nobles couldn’t haunt his queen about the line of succession.

Not thatanyone had dared to comment, when the first orders for the preparations of a weddinghad gone out.

[searchforthescars]

Litany - Ch. 11/12

Y’all owe @bombshellsandbluebells for editing this and y’all owe both Megan and @maskingtapepoetree for talking me out of deleting this fic and my Ao3 account when things were Bad for the past few months. They’re not Good yet, but they’re getting better.

Thank you to @commanderanya, @daisytachi, @doortotomorrow and everyone else that took the time to reach out to me when I was struggling. I’m really bad at asking for, and accepting help, but know the sentiment was not lost on me and is both humbling and appreciated <3

If you’re still around, I’d love to hear what you think of this. If not, don’t worry. 

Also on Ao3

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back. I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man against a black sky prickled with small lights.

Murphy would like to pretend he’s not spiraling, but unfortunately, that isn’t much of an option right now.

Raven is noticing. So is Monty, though he doesn’t say anything, and so is Octavia, which means Bellamy knows. Luna figures it out soon after, and, because Lexa isn’t an idiot, she realizes too. Jasper and Emori are the only two in their group of friends - save for Zeke, who doesn’t know any better, and Costia, who stays out of it - who have no idea.

He likes it that way, if he’s honest. He doesn’t have the energy to explain that the thrill of Emori’s return has worn off, and with that disappearance has come the old familiar fears that he will be alone forever, that no one will ever really want him, that it will always be better to be alone then to have another person leave. That fear only intensifies every time Emori inserts herself into Raven’s conversations, joins Monty and Jasper on the quest to steal his kitchen knives, studies with Octavia and Lexa. She’s a perfect puzzle piece, and he’s a jagged piece of glass trying to fit.

Somehow, despite his downward trajectory, he manages to pass all his finals, and the whole house celebrates that no one failed out of college with a raucous night of drinking and terrible movies. For once, Murphy doesn’t participate in the former, although he does sit through the latter.

“You don’t want any?” Emori asks during a break between movies, taking a tiny sip of the ungodly alcoholic concoction Jasper made for her. The Christmas lights Raven put up the morning after Thanksgiving sparkle in her eyes.

Murphy shakes his head. “I’m good.”

Emori puts her cup down on the coffee table and inspects the contents. “Maybe I should take a page from your book,” she says. “This doesn’t look totally safe.”

“It probably isn’t,” Murphy says. He tries for a casual tone, but it falls flat. Worry flits through Emori’s eyes. Let it go, he pleads with her silently, but he knows better, knows that she won’t drop something as small as a shift in his tone.

Sure enough, she stands up. “Let’s go outside,” she says, catching his hand as she steps past him and tugging him out the door.

There’s a thin layer of frost on the concrete blocks that serve as Raven’s back patio. Murphy scuffs his shoes on the pavement, disrupting the delicate pattern of crystals. Emori wraps her arms around her torso - a gesture that means she’s cold, insecure or both, Murphy’s come to realize - and looks up at him. “What’s wrong, John?”

He expects her confrontation to be accusing, not soft, and he’s so taken aback by the care in her eyes that he forgets to answer for a moment. There’s still time to back out, he tells himself. There’s still time to repair the cracks in his own psyche without dragging her down with him.

When he answers her, it’s with a feeble, “Nothing.”

Emori scoffs a little. “Bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say?” He’s not angry. He just sounds like it. He doesn’t really feel much these days.

He pictures her standing in the kitchen with Raven, laughing with Monty and Harper, cautiously allowing Bellamy and Echo to help her move the furniture in her room so her bed is against the window. She invited him into every one of those spaces, but something always held him back. Something always keeps him from what he wants. Raven would say it’s himself. He would argue it’s his own failures as a human being.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Emori says. Her eyes plead with him.

The closer you get to the others, the farther you’ll get from me, is what he wants to say. “I’m thinking it’s cold as balls out here,” is what he actually says.

Emori scoffs again, this time with frustration. “Ever since I came back, you’ve been-” She starts a little bit, looks him up and down with a quick flick of her eyes. “Is it me? Did I do something to-”

Murphy cuts her off because he loves her, even as he knows he’s losing her. “No. It’s not you.”

She nods, squares her shoulders as if to steady herself. “Then what?”

Of course she won’t let it go. “Just fucking let it go already,” he snaps, and Emori recoils as if he’s struck her. “Go back inside to your friends.” He spits the last word.

“They’re your friends too.” She says it defiantly, stepping closer so they’re almost literally nose-to-nose. “What’s going on with you, John?”

“You know what,” he says, because what the hell, he’s numb anyway, and he’s not even drunk. How much could this hurt? “Maybe it is you. Maybe I’m just pissed off that you came back and just...just took over, like everything is fine.”

Emori looks stung. Murphy knows he should care, but all he can concentrate on is how, for the first time in months, he feels something. “John, what-”

“You can’t take everything away,” he tells her. He’s not drunk, but he feels like he is. He’s hot, then cold, and the whole world is tilting on its axis. “You can’t take over me and Raven and the house and-”

“You’re jealous.” Her statement makes him stop cold. There are tears sparkling in her eyes. “You’re jealous.”

“Damn right. Everyone likes you, and you left. I don’t even have that, and I’ve been here the whole time.”

Emori’s mouth snaps shut. She turns on her heel and stalks inside. In the time it takes for him to catch his breath, a cold wave of fear that has nothing to do with the weather washes over him.

“Shit!” he shouts into the darkness before bursting back through the kitchen door.

“She went upstairs,” Raven says from the living room. Murphy wastes no time in following her. “J, what-?”

He ignores her. He takes the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over the top stair, and all but careens down the hall and into her bedroom.

The door is open. Emori’s standing in the middle of her room, her hands over her face, her shoulders trembling. From where he’s standing, it looks like she’s sinking her teeth into one of the smaller fingers of her left hand.

“Hey,” he whispers, or tries to. His voice sounds like gravel. “Emori. Stop. Don’t do that.”

“What the hell do you care?” she snarls, turning to him. One of her fingers has teeth marks in it. Murphy sees them when her hand falls to her side. “Get out, John.”

“Emori-”

“NO!” She shouts, actually screams, and Murphy hears the entire house fall silent at once. Costia’s barely-there footsteps on the stairs, followed by Raven’s laborious ones, don’t deter him from meeting Emori’s eyes. “Get OUT!”

She takes a step toward him and, automatically, he flinches. “Emori, why-”

“You don’t get to say that to me!” she hisses. Her voice is livid, but her hands are trembling. “You don’t get to stand there and tell me that I deserve how you’re treating me just because I’m making a home for myself and you’re still punishing yourself for things you can’t let go.”

“That’s not-”

She shakes her head. “Yes. It is. Think, John. You know that’s why.” She scoffs. “You’re just like him. Neither of you really want me to have this.”

“Have what?” All of a sudden, Murphy remembers her standing in a park, flinching as her brother tells her she’ll never have a future. The memory stabs him in the gut. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Emori whispers. “Oh.”

They regard one another for a long moment. Murphy can hear the rustle of Costia’s skirt and Raven’s uneven breathing. They’re both standing in the doorway, he guesses, or at least, waiting on the other side of it.

“Get right with yourself,” Emori says finally. Her voice cracks. “Then come back to me.”

She turns away. It feels like a door is slamming shut. He wants to rewind time and undo what he said on the patio, but that won’t heal the wound that’s been festering in him far longer than he’d care to admit.

He leaves the room. He goes into his own and lets the tears stinging his eyes fall.

He has a choice. The choice is simple, but the emotions they evoke are not. He can either burrow into his inadequacy or he can allow Emori, Raven and whatever forces exist outside of him to pull him kicking and screaming into the right side of humanity.

“You’re an idiot,” Octavia succinctly informs him as he makes breakfast twelve mornings after his fight with Emori.

Case in point.

Raven throws a spatula at her from across the kitchen, nearly hitting Murphy in the side of the head in the process. “What?” Octavia protests. “He is!”

“This is bigger than Emori,” Luna says sagely from the armchair in the living room. Murphy turns to glare at her over his shoulder. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m not incriminating myself,” Murphy says drily, swiveling on his bar stool to face Raven, who’s raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“It is, though,” she murmurs. Octavia is across the room now, so only he can hear her. Briefly, his mind flashes back to high school, when he and Raven would mouth words through one of their kitchen windows, silently asking if the other one was okay, or if they needed rescuing from their mother.

Murphy’s eyes flit to the window over the kitchen sink. The cinder block he used to stand on in middle school is long gone, but he swears he can see echoes of his face, aging over time, always worried about his best friend, always wondering if this would be the night she starved to death.

“Why do you still live here?” he asks suddenly, seeking a distraction, and also truthful answers. “After all the shit your mom put you through here, why didn’t you just offload the house?”

Raven looks taken-aback. “It wasn’t worth it,” she says after a moment. “There’s a bedroom on the first floor, the place was paid for, and it was near college and town. I didn’t want to leave. Plus,” she gestures around the room, “you guys.”

“Even after…” Murphy trails off, the implication of her mother’s death hanging there like a weighted curtain.

Raven sighs. “Yeah.” She shrugs. “Mom isn’t here anymore. I do what I want.”

Murphy can’t fathom that kind of actualization. If the tables were turned and he was still at his parents’ house, he thinks he would’ve burned the whole place down.

He hears a tiny creak on the stairs and turns just in time to see a piece of Emori’s green jacket disappear into the shadows. He wants to follow her. His hands ache for her. He balls them into fists, studies the calendar on the fridge, the one that announced her impending arrival what feels like months ago, just for something to do.

Then, he sees it. Emori Moves Out. There, three weeks away, right before the start of the semester, written innocuously in small red letters.

“What the hell?” he asks, then says it louder when he can’t hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears. “What the hell, Raven?”

“What?” She seems confused, a little irritated, until she follows his gaze. “Oh.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” Murphy sounds stung, petulant even.

Raven’s eyes are sad when she looks at him. “It wasn’t mine to tell.” 

When Murphy knocks on Emori’s door, he doesn’t expect her to answer. When she does, he’s surprised to feel his mouth go dry.

“You’re moving out,” is all he says after a moment of her staring at him, eyebrow raised, waiting for whatever he thought was important enough to say.

It dawns on him that she probably isn’t hoping for an apology. That hurts him more than anything.

“Yes,” she answers, softly. “I don’t think I should be here anymore.”

She moves to close the door. Murphy reaches for her wrist before she can. “Please,” he whispers, eyes stinging, heart aching. “Please don’t go.”

Her eyes widen. She stares at the place where they touch when she says, “Why? All I do is take everything away, apparently.”

Her voice holds equal parts venom and exhaustion. Murphy doesn’t let go of her arm. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. A tear falls over his cheek and lands on his arm. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“No,” she murmurs, looking up at him. Just like the first time they met, he’s trapped by her eyes. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Can I convince you to stay?”

She sighs. “No. But you can show me why I should.”

He tries. He puts away the paralysis and comfort that accompany his self-destructive desires, and he tries. For her, because he doesn’t want her to leave, he tries.

He forces himself into a routine. Wake up at eight, do housework and help Raven, cook lunch, read a little, watch a movie with Octavia, help Bellamy with dinner. The surprise on Emori’s face when she realizes he’s in a practiced habit of doing things, of playing nice and working hard, is worth it.

“That’s not why you should be doing this,” Luna informs him on Christmas Eve morning. She slept over last night, or so Murphy thinks - he can’t keep straight who Raven’s fucking, and it doesn’t really matter as long as they don’t cheat like that fucker Finn - and she looks more comfortable sipping from his chipped blue coffee mug than he ever did. “You should be doing this for you.”

“You and your masters in psychology can shove it,” he grumbles, even as he spoons scrambled eggs onto three plates and hands one to Luna. “Reyes! Breakfast!”

Raven appears in the kitchen with a clatter and a litany of curses. Her brace strap is caught on a metal rivet. Before Murphy can divest himself of the plates, Emori appears at Raven’s side, speeding down from the stairs and skidding into the kitchen on sock feet.

“I got it,” Emori grunts, disentangling Raven and patting her on the back. “You’re good.”

“Thanks,” Raven sighs, shoving hair out of her face. “I probably could go without it but-“

“No!” Luna, Murphy and Emori all say in unison. Luna laughs shortly. Murphy and Emori exchange awkward glances.

“What?” Raven is either genuinely oblivious or a damn good actress. “Listen, I fell that one time.”

“And you broke half the plates in the kitchen!” Octavia exclaims, sweeping into the kitchen with her arms full of laundry. “We’re still using Bellamy’s.”

“I asked for a new plate set for Christmas,” Raven grumbles to Octavia’s back. As Octavia loads the washing machine, Raven reaches above her to grab a laundry basket from the shelf and thrust it into Octava’s line of sight. “Use this.”

Octavia swats her hand away. “Is this what adulting has come to?” she asks dramatically. “Asking for practical things as gifts? When did we get so boring?”

“Speak for yourself,” Raven says magnanimously. “I am full of adventure and surprises.”

Murphy snorts, as any best friend would, but his mind and eyes are on Emori, on the way her eyes sparkle with amusement as she looks from Raven to Octavia and back again. The subtle shifts of time have been kind to her; the shadows under her eyes are lighter and the glimmer in them is brighter. Her smiles - the best thing about her, in his opinion - no longer hold sadness behind their bared teeth.

“When are we getting our Christmas tree?” Monty asks, breaking Murphy out of his thoughts.

“Are we getting one?” Raven asks, confused. Octavia crosses the kitchen to the cupboards and grabs her mug. Luna, probably sensing the conversation no longer applies to her, reaches for her bag and starts reading a textbook. Emori picks at a scab on her arm. Monty just blinks, confused. “Hello?”

“Gee, Reyes, I don’t know,” Murphy says finally. “Would you like to get a Christmas tree?”

“I want a Christmas tree,” Emori says softly.

Murphy, Octavia and Monty go get a Christmas tree.

“How did you say we do this again?” Octavia shouts in the general direction of her phone. Only her legs stick out from under the tree they’re attempting to set up in Raven’s living room. The sight would be comical, Murphy thinks, except for the fact that he’s not looking much better; he’s covered in pine needles and sap, and his arm hurts from bracing the tree that none of them can figure out how to set in the base.

“Are you sure it’s in all the way?” Bellamy’s tinny voice asks from Octavia’s phone speakers.

“No!” Octavia yells. “That’s why we called you!”

Murphy cracks a smile at the sigh Bellamy heaves. “I’m going to be there in two minutes. Hold on.”

Octavia extracts herself from the tree and brushes pine needles from her hair. Murphy makes a big show of switching the tree’s weight from one arm to the other. Octavia rolls her eyes. “Better make it a minute,” she says into the phone. “Murphy’s holding up the tree until we can screw it into the base. You know he can’t handle more than five pounds.”

“Hey!” Murphy protests as Bellamy laughs. Octavia relieves him of his tree-holding duties and Murphy escapes upstairs to his room before the younger Blake can convince him to help her a second time. The first time was a rookie mistake

He’s at a loss for what to do in his spare time. His old habit of knocking on Emori’s door tugs at his hands, but he pulls away after a moment of staring at the worn brown wood like a pining idiot. Instead, he goes into his own room - leaving the door open in a moment that lacks his usual paranoia - and flings his closet door open.

“What are you doing?” he hears Emori ask him as he rifles through the mounds of papers, clothes and books shoved into the dark corners of the closet.

“Looking for something,” he responds, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest at the sound of Emori’s voice. It’s low, a little cautious, but not angry. He’ll take it. “What’s up?

“You bought me a tree.” It’s a statement, said with carefulness and a little bit of wonder.

Murphy extricates himself, rocks back on his heels, and looks at her. “Well, it’s for everyone but… yeah. Of course we did.”

She frowns. “That’s not an ‘of course’,” she says.

“It is for us.”

After a moment, Murphy looks behind him. The item he seeks is in plain view, for once. “Aha,” he mutters, pulling the heavy cookbook from the shadows.

Emori frowns again. “A cookbook?”

“My dad’s,” Murphy says, touching the stained, worn cover. “All the best recipes are in here. He changed a lot of them. I don’t really go by the book anymore; just his handwriting.”

Emori holds out her bigger hand and lets him take it to hoist himself to his feet. When she moves to pull her hand away, he holds it a little tighter. “You’re not covering it up.”

She shakes her head. “I… I wanted to try it.”

Murphy gives it a gentle squeeze, feeling a deep sort of affection surge through him at the feeling of her tough skin against his. “I’m proud of you.” The words grate on his throat. He hopes she hears the I’m trying underneath.

It’s not his place to say. He thinks about it after the fact and feels relieved when she doesn’t punch him for it.

“Thanks,” is all she says, with a soft smile. Then she tilts her head to look over his shoulder. “Your closet is a mess.”

Murphy looks back at it, at the piles of books and papers spilling out and the mess of dirty laundry on his floor. “Yeah,” he says with a short laugh. “I guess you could say that.”

“I am saying that.” Emori steps around him and kneels down in front of the open doors. “Do you need these?” she asks, scooping up a pile of papers.

“You don’t have to-”

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “We don’t have anything better to do. Now come on; do you need these or not?”

Murphy sits beside her and together they sort through his mess, one dirty article of clothing and wrecked piece of paper at a time. Emori finds an old photo album that used to belong to Murphy’s mother and flips through it, smiling at Murphy’s first birthday picture and touching his parents’ wedding photo with the fused fingers of her left hand.

“Your mom looks beautiful,” she murmurs, tracing the fall of the wedding veil with a careful hand. “They look happy.”

Murphy pointedly avoids looking at the picture. “They were,” he says gruffly, clearing his throat. His eyes flit to the cookbook on the floor near his foot. “For a while, anyway.”

“What happened?” Emori asks softly. “I mean, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

Murphy shakes his head. This isn’t a piece of him he cares about, not like his abandonment issues and his valleys and mountains. This is the way life was. “He died. He had bad lungs, I guess. Caught the flu from me, but he didn’t get better. He got worse and he died. Mom blamed me, started drinking and died from that.”

It sounds callous, but he thinks he’ll lose his mind if he goes too far back to those times. Ontari had come onto the scene about three months before his mother died. She got him out of the house and the few times when she was kind were good enough for him. Looking back, he was probably just grateful that no one was hitting him. When she made him do something much more damaging, he didn’t mind; he owed her, he reasoned. He owed her for making her put up with him.

Emori frowns softly. “I’m still sorry.”

Murphy shrugs. “At least, when they were both alive, they loved me. And each other.”

Emori nods and goes back to the photo album. Murphy knows better than to believe she’s let the subject drop. She’ll think about it and come back minutes, hours or even days later with another thought, a strange observation, some perspective he never even entertained. It’s who she is.

He loves that about her.

Emori sets the book aside without another comment and goes back to the closet. She pulls out two shirts - both of them wrinkled and stiff - and scrunches up her nose. “John! It’s like you’re in high school!”

Murphy rolls his eyes at her, then yelps when she throws the, admittedly, very dirty laundry at him. “Hey!”

“Get a clothes hamper!” She laughs when he tries to fling a shirt back at her, but only succeeds in smacking himself in the face with it. “I lived on the street for three years, and even I know a hamper is a better solution than this!”

Murphy decides not to touch on the whole “living-on-the-street” thing. Instead, he reaches for the laundry basket of clothes he still hasn’t folded, dumps the clean clothes on the floor and throws his dirty shirts inside. “Happy?”

Emori eyes the clean clothes on the floor, then blinks at him. “You haven’t folded your laundry either?”

“Good behavior comes in small portions,” Murphy snarks, a little bit of truth coloring the frail joke. Emori merely hums and scoots over to start folding his socks.

Is it a little weird to see the girl you possibly love folding your underwear? Yeah. But Murphy doesn’t mind, not when the faint sunlight from the window dances over her hand and she sees him watching. She gives him a tiny smile and rolls his socks into neat balls.

They sit like that for a while in comfortable silence until his closet is organized and his clothes are put away, and then Bellamy breaks the quiet by shouting a litany of curses as what is presumably the tree creaks and crashes its way to the floor.

Murphy and Emori laugh the whole way downstairs, and laugh even harder as Bellamy lays there, on the floor, arms sticking out from either side of a mass of pine needles.

Eventually Bellamy rights the tree. Raven gripes endlessly about the fact that Jasper and Monty’s roomba (“We’re not calling it Stabby!”) was better than a regular vacuum at getting the pine needles out of the carpet, and Lexa and Octavia appear mere seconds after the cleanup ends with arms full of wrapped presents.

“Have you been hiding those this whole time?” Bellamy asks, scratching the back of his neck. When Octavia nods cheerfully, he rolls his eyes. “Of course you have.”

“Can Costia come over to open presents with us?” Lexa asks. When Raven gives her a thumbs-up, Lexa whacks Bellamy on the back. “You should come and bring your hot girlfriend.”

“You have a hot girlfriend too,” Bellamy points out, the wry twist of his mouth emphasizing how awkward it is for him to say the phrase. Murphy is sure he finds it objectifying. “But if Raven doesn’t mind…”

“Everyone can bring someone for all I care,” Raven says casually. “If they can fit, they can sit.”

“Like a cat,” Monty says from the kitchen. Raven doesn’t dignify that with a response.

Murphy looks over at Emori, who’s holding a tiny glass ornament in her hands, presumably plucked from one of the boxes on the couch, which are full of Christmas decorations from Raven’s attic. It’s a small crystal ornament, heavy and solid, with beautiful etchings and a tiny red ribbon to hang it by. Murphy thinks it was a gift from Raven’s grandparents to her mother. Oh well. No love lost there, clearly.

Emori tucks it back in the box after a minute. When she turns her back, Murphy pulls it out of the box and casually crosses over to the dining room table, where Emori’s jacket is draped over a chair. He reaches for it, then remembers he’s trying to do better.

Raven is sitting on a stool in the kitchen, going through his cookbook. “Your dad has surprisingly neat handwriting,” she tells him when he approaches her, the crystal cool in his hands.

Murphy holds up the ornament. “Can I give this to her?” he asks Raven in a low voice.

Raven cocks an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“She likes it.”

Raven’s eyes shift. They go hard, then questioning, then soft. “Sure.” She shrugs. “Mom never really liked it anyway.”

Murphy tucks it into Emori’s jacket pocket. The pride in Raven’s eyes is unmistakable. For the first time in a long while, he lets himself be proud too.

[sage-nebula]

Okay, so after the commentary I made last season despite being in Japan at the time (how I miss that), I feel like I have to say something about this season, so:

In a nutshell:

This show has been racist for a long, long time, but they really amped it up this season. Between Acxa telling Zethrid that mixed race people like them just have to “let go of their anger” over everyone in the fucking universe discriminating against them and just deal with it, to the fact that the one version of Voltron where Princess Allura is a woman of color also happens to be the only version of Voltron where:

She doesn’t end up with the male lead, but is instead given to the comic relief Nice Guy because he’s “good at winning prizes” and

is killed off for real The racism in this show surpassed even my expectations, and my expectations were pretty low considering crew and cast likes to casually toss around the word “half-breed” like it’s nothing. Allura was made to sacrifice and suffer time, and time, and time again. Each time it was supposedly in the name of showing how selfless she is, and yet not only was she never justly rewarded for all that she went through, but the fact that a dark-skinned girl is made to be the sacrificial lamb for everyone else and is supposed to do so with a smile ties into some pretty racist tropes about how black girls are expected to take on the burdens of others. I’m not black myself so I’m not an expert on any of this, and apologies if I’m speaking out of turn here, but to me this entire thing smacks of racism and I have a strong feeling that Allura wouldn’t have had to go through all this nonsense had she been white as she was in previous iterations. And also? It says a whole helluva lot that Dreamworks refused to allow them to kill off Shiro, a light skinned man (because yes, he’s Japanese, but his skin is still pale), but they were perfectly okay with Allura, a dark-skinned black girl getting the ax. Hmm. Hmmmmmm. Colorism, thy name is Dreamworks.

One of the few parts I actually did watch were the Lotor flashbacks in ep 2. I enjoyed them immensely despite how heartbreaking they were. What I’ve enjoyed significantly less is the sheer amount of people who are somehow just now realizing that Lotor was an abuse survivor at the hands of Zarkon, Honerva, and Dayak. Where was this common sense when you were all vilifying him and calling him a sociopathic monster? We’ve known that Lotor’s true goals were peace and that he was a sympathetic person all along. I’m not impressed by people who only just now realize that Lotor was deserving of sympathy. If you didn’t appreciate him at his “the universe can no longer doubt our strength; each ally gained only makes us stronger” then you don’t deserve him at his, “please, father, I’ll do as you say, please don’t punish the people for my actions.” 

That said, JDS and LM continued their proud tradition of spitting in the face of abuse survivors, because even though they actually showed on-screen that Lotor was abused in his childhood by both his parents and his governess, they later “redeemed” said parents (because of course Haggar wouldn’t have abused Lotor had she known he was her son! no mother would ever!! those of us with abusive mothers are making it up, so says virtually every piece of media out there!!) and had Lotor go to “happily” live with them in the afterlife or whatever the hell that was. I’ll admit, I didn’t actually watch that part, I’ve just read spoilers and seen caps, and I’m furious about it. It doesn’t surprise me, given the “abuse survivors will turn out exactly like their abusers (evil) unless they have a good parental figure to steer them right” garbage they’ve spewed previously, but it still goddamn hurts and I’m so angry they did Lotor like this, again. (And also that they left the girls still on the “he used us omg” bent, when no, he didn’t. Complete garbage and nonsense.

I’m glad Ezor and Zethrid were un-buried. It’s also great that Shiro got to be married on-screen with a kiss between him and his love (whose name is apparently Curtis?). This is the first time we’ve had a mlm couple in a children’s cartoon like this, so it’s monumental and I’ll acknowledge that. However:

Zethrid, as can be expected, was written absolutely terribly. It was proven in season six that the girls would just go wherever the plot demanded they go and had no real characters or arcs of their own, so it’s not surprising, but the fact that they turned her into a complete yandere who wanted to pull a murder-suicide (death by cop style) because her girlfriend broke up with her is a travesty and disservice to her character, especially since earlier seasons showed how thoughtful she could be (such as how and when she decided to turn on Lotor: “Sorry, sir. It’s nothing personal”). 

I think they were supposed to be dead originally, but this was a last minute reversal done after the backlash last season. I also think the only reason why those two are together is because a.) Narti died, b.) Acxa joined the Paladins sooner and had a bond with Keith, and therefore, c.) They were the only two of Lotor’s original squad left on their own for a while. a.k.a., Pair the Spares.

Shiro never got any time to develop with his love interest. It’s still representation and representation is important, particularly when it’s unambiguous representation like this (and I wonder if they added this as a response to last season’s backlash as well), but it still sucks they couldn’t develop this relationship on-screen, and proves that they should have never killed Adam to begin with. If they had truly planned Shiro to be the LGBTQA rep from the start, then how his love story should have gone is:

When Shiro and Keith talk outside of the shack in s1e1, one of the first questions out of Shiro’s mouth is, “How’s Adam?” Whether they broke up prior to Kerberos or not, they were once so close they were going to be married. Shiro was away for a year and some change. There’s no way he shouldn’t have been wondering how Adam was doing.

When Shiro had his whole “you’re not worthy of being a paladin” breakdown with Sendak, since that whole thing is coming from his head, one of the things thrown at him should have been “how could Adam have ever loved you?” to cement the fact, way back in season one, that Adam and Shiro loved each other and that this relationship was still an emotional point for Shiro.

Keep mentioning Adam throughout the remaining before-Earth seasons. Little things like Shiro mentioning that he and Adam saw potential in Keith; Keith getting frustrated at one point and saying that Adam didn’t deserve Shiro, and Shiro quietly saying that Keith doesn’t understand, there was more going on than that. Someone flirting with Shiro and Shiro turning him down and, when asked why, he said there’s someone else he needs to move on from first, et cetera. Or even, since we have to do the clone plot that I just remembered, have Keith mention Adam at some point and Shireplica doesn’t react and that twigs Keith’s attention that something’s wrong.

When squad returns to Earth, Shiro and Adam reunite. Adam runs in for a hug, but then stops himself and goes for a handshake instead. He’s near tears. Says it’s so good to see Shiro again. Shiro is awkward, hesitant, but says that yeah, it is. Adam asks if they can talk privately later. Shiro says yes.

Adam apologizes for the things he said before Shiro left for Kerberos. He apologizes for not acknowledging how important Shiro’s dreams were, explains that he was hurt and that his pain and worry made him angry, but he’s regretted all that he said for the past several years. Shiro accepts the apology, and also apologizes for not acknowledging Adam’s own feelings more, for the life they could have had, for not being open to seeing where Adam was coming from. Both apologies accepted, they sit in silence for a moment until Shiro makes a half-hearted joke, saying, “Well, you said you wouldn’t wait for me, so who’s the lucky guy?” Adam just smiles a little, though he looks hesitant as well, and says, “He’s sitting right beside me.”

From that point forward it may or may not be ambiguous if Shiro and Adam are back together or not (probably wouldn’t be right away, but at least old wounds are cleared away). Adam plays a bigger role in the story, and doesn’t get killed off. He ends up joining the crew of the Atlas.

In the epilogue, Adam and Shiro get married. They kiss. Fin. It would have been that easy, but instead of actually allowing a mlm romance to happen on screen, they went with this instead. Which, again, it’s representation regardless and it’s a nice thing that it exists, but it would have been so easy to make it better, and they did this instead. Smh.

On a related note, it’s not queerbait if one character is explicitly stated to have raised the other in canon, they’re referred to as brothers (both from their perspective and others’) multiple times in canon, and you’re even shown that one met the other when one was a young child and the other was an adult. Ship it all you want, ignore canon in your fanworks all you want, but you can’t cry bait when you get “thank you for raising him to be the man he is today” in canon dialogue and it’s not denied by any of the characters in question (but rather is accepted), particularly not in a show aimed at kids that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. That’s not bait. That would be like if someone said “this is a red velvet cupcake” and you took it from them, ate it, and then got mad that it wasn’t funfetti. You weren’t baited. That ship sank in s6 along with every single Lotor ship to ever exist. That’s just the way it be.

I’m glad Kolivan made it through that entire hellscape alive. Gods bless my man Kolivan.

Literally none of them even really tried to stop Allura from sacrificing herself, though. In the very end, Team Voltron proves once and for all that they’re all terrible friends who have no chemistry as a team and no real bond. Eight seasons and they couldn’t even give anyone that, smh.

I still can’t believe that after all that they made Altean Lance canon.

Final thoughts:

VLD is trash, it has always been trash, I’m shocked it took everyone so long to catch up but I’m glad you’ve all made it here, and now we’re all free from this godawful nightmare and can put it behind us forever. Also, one more thing:

Do not reblog this post or so help me I’ll delete the post and block you. I do NOT want discourse over this. I just wanted to put my thoughts down since I felt that, after I commented on the fiasco last time, I should do it now as well. If you try to start Discourse™ about any of this or act like little demons, I’ll just block you straight off, thanks.

[shidoukanae]

Here’s a probably unpopular opinion I’ve grudgingly held for a long time: Ema and Aoi’s relationship has wasted potential. 

Now, this isn’t me speaking as an Altarshipping fan because, while I do love EmaxAoi, I’m well-aware how Aoi’s and Ema’s relationship is actually more “sisters” or “mother-daughter” than it is “girlfriends who kick ass”. I have no issue with those dynamics at all. Rather, I love them.

What I don’t love is how fast the show progresses it.

From episodes 1-25, Ema and Aoi’s relationship is actually the epitome of subtle but good. You have this really weird dynamic where-in Ema knows of Aoi’s brother and apparently Aoi herself while, on the flip side, Aoi literally knows shit about Ema. It’s a really unique dynamic, especially considering Ema knows a lot more about Aoi than Aoi does herself.

Starting from episode 8, we can see a hint that Ema knows Aoi potentially as she watches over Blue Angel vs. Playmaker when she really should’ve been doing that earlier with Go vs. Playmaker. Considering she was hired to watch Playmaker before Go’s match with him and yet only shows up in the background of Blue Angel’s match, it suggests Ema has been kind of “watching” Aoi for reasons unknown.

When they meet “face” to face in episode 16, it’s under the unique circumstances of Ghost Girl knowing that Blue Angel is watching her. Ghost Girl hints that she knows who Blue Angel is by not only immediately identifying her in an alternate form, but also by proceeding to grant Blue Angel’s unsaid wishes as if she understands what Aoi wants. Aoi, on the other hand, not knowing who this woman is, is rightfully cautious despite obviously agreeing to Ghost Girl’s plans.

Fast-forward to episode 25, the last good episode regarding Aoi’s-Ema’s relationship, and we have this really cool dynamic going on. Ema appears before Aoi and gives Aoi a talk that only knowingly pushes her into action but also shows just how much Ema knows about her. With Aoi, on the other hand (and as I would like to point out), there’s this simmering anger at Ghost Girl, a loathing at being told what to do by the woman. Aoi clearly is frustrated and upset at “Ghost Girl’s” scolding despite the fact that, later, said scolding is probably what pushes Aoi to defeat Vyra.

This all said, the relationship here could have been grown and nurtured in a very meaningful way but it honestly fell flat. The next time we see any mention of the Ema-Aoi relationship is episode 32 (as well as in her vs. Spectre battle). But, the mentioning of their relationship is very...odd and rushed.

Namely, Aoi is worried over Ghost Girl being dead.

Now, let me explain why that’s just fucking terrible.

For one: Aoi doesn’t even know Ghost Girl. Outside of two meetings that only lasted about ten minutes total, she literally doesn’t know shit about this woman or has reason to care about her. If you met a literal stranger in your life who just happens to know your mom for ten minutes, you’re likely not going to immediately go “oh, gee, I sure am horribly shocked that this person I only knew for a tiny bit of my life got killed”. 

For another: the last time Aoi saw Ghost Girl, she was pissed about their talk immediately after. She berates Ema’s words to her in her mind, thinking that Ema had treated her like a child. Literally between episode 25 and episode 32, Aoi isn’t shown to feel anything but anger and frustration at how Ghost Girl had given her a talk on “taking responsibility”.

There is zero transition between “God this woman is arrogant for telling me off” and “oh no this woman I was annoyed at is now dead”. Instead, there’s just this lack of explanation and a sudden need for a suspension of disbelief to think that Aoi is realistically worried about Ema all of a sudden.

Worse yet, this could easily be ignored if season 2 instead addressed the vague elephant in the room: the fact that Aoi actually kind of owes Ema because Ema’s talk pushed her to confront her demons through Vyra. I can ignore the Tower of Hanoi arc because, in the traditional YGO fashion, of course the heroine is going to worry over the death of someone “important” to the show (because Akira, the only other person who knows Ema exists, clear isn’t going to do it himself). However, when season 2 rolls around, it’s kind of honestly a mess.

We go from Aoi being pissed and suspicious of Ghost Girl TO worried about the death of a stranger TO “yeah, sure, I’m willing to work with her and get along with her super easily despite the fact I literally don’t get along with literally EVERYONE ELSE”. It just feels really, really, really rushed in the character relationship department. Like, Aoi - an isolated girl who doesn’t trust anyone who she even suspects will use her for her brother - really all of a sudden wants to trust Ema to the point of happily working alongside her? 

And, yes, I realize her brother put her up to this but for the amount of camaraderie and open-ness Aoi shows to working alongside Ema, it sure feels forced. I love Ema and Aoi’s relationship, really, I do, but the lengths to which they leaped between episode 25 to episode 32 in developing their relationship feels honestly so artificial I wonder why they didn’t bother waiting until season 2 to potentially flesh it out so much better. 

[atopearth]

Higurashi When They Cry Part 3: Ch 3 Tatarigoroshi-hen

I guess this one will focus on Satoko and her past relationship with her brother Satoshi that is missing. I’ve always been curious about that so I’m hyped. But Satoko really is kind and sweet despite her expected trap making skills lmao. Lucky she saved Keiichi from burning his house down omg, I was so scared for him lol. Btw, Chie-sensei the curry maniac is so pretty and cuteee omgg!! She doesn’t look scary but danggg lol!

As someone with two brothers, seeing how much Satoko misses her brother and sees her brother in Keiichi really makes me teary. My brothers are really important to me as well so the thought of them disappearing would probably make me feel really lonely as well. Even if Keiichi is like a replacement brother, he’s a good and sweet one. 💯 approved!

Their club games are literally the best, that baseball game was so funny and cool, especially the way Satoko called him out making him misunderstand that they were in a physical fight and needed help lmaoo. So hilarious that Kameda’s weakness was that he has a secret guilty pleasure in eating desserts because he’s into sullying pretty things with his sportsman exterior HAHAHA. What kind of fetish is this?!😂😂 Coach Irie is such a good guy though, only if you take his random inappropriate jokes as jokes though haha. I thought it was really kind of him to want to give the best to Satoko and even have the intention to adopt her but be unable to since he’s not married.

Think I read somewhere that Shion was Satoshi’s girlfriend so I wasn’t very surprised but I guess this is another reason for her dislike of Hinamizawa and not living there or going there often? Rena and her obsession with Oyashiro-sama’s curse is as scary as ever. With a bit more context this time, it seems like Satoshi may have thought about escaping Hinamizawa and that’s what angered Oyashiro-sama and Rena seems to have experienced this firsthand… She said she begged for forgiveness and that’s why she was saved or spared or something… I wonder what happened to Rena… Did she try to run away once upon a time? Satoshi doesn’t seem like the type to abandon Satoko so he’s probably dead I guess… But whaat, is Satoko’s dad actually still alive and he even had a lover?? As the leaders of the faction that was all for the dam project, he was actually spared? Doesn’t seem like Mion and them to allow him to live though…

Why does Ooishi seem so evil or malicious or something in this one…? He literally grabbed Keiichi and hurt him.. but Ooishi being Oyashiro-sama’s servant and that he decides that the sacrifices for the curse every year? That’s a new theory.. Oh my mistake, the one with a lover is the uncle?? And he’s back… And preventing Satoko from going to school… Keiichi is such an asshole and so mean to Mion. He’s not the only one that cares about Satoko but he pushes the responsibility of saving her on to her as if it’s her fault that Satoko is in pain. He’s so naive and ridiculous to think that he can just say all this to Mion and make her cry when he’s not even doing anything to help Satoko either! I’m glad Rena shouted at him, he totally deserved it😡😡

I guess you can understand why Satoko blames herself for Satoshi’s disappearance. He’s always been a good brother protecting her after all, and she was the one who reported the child abuse and in turn made her aunt and uncle abuse them even more due to the report. There was nothing wrong with her relying on her older brother but I guess since she’s older now, she also knows that it must have been painful for him to take everything on himself. So her hope that if she becomes more mature and deals with this problem herself, her brother will come back is logical.. tbh Keiichi this time around is very infuriating because he keeps on thinking that just because people aren’t reacting as badly as him towards Satoko’s situation that they don’t care as much or aren’t as desperate. It’s like who does he think he is, what puts him on that high horse, seriously. Everyone cares and worries in their own different ways and he’s constantly judging and thinking of them as lesser than him in terms of this mentality and it just makes me want to hit him, because they’re trying to think of ways to make the situation more positive for Satoko but he just rains on their parade because they’re being “happy”. 

Seriously, how would Satoko feel if they always looked at her with sad eyes of pity and concern all the time, she’d feel so inadequate, embarrassed and even more sad! Gahhhh! He’s so emotional and not helping the problem at all! If it helped I’d be all for it but it really doesn’t and just makes it harder for everyone that’s trying to help the situation so it really makes me angry! If I was Mion, I would have snapped at him already because the way he treats her just makes me so protective of her especially since she always apologises to him when it’s not even her fault! So what if she’s got housekeepers dude, Satoko’s guardian is her uncle because he’s a blood relative and so it’s not a money problem at all. He really needs to keep his emotions in check omg. It was so cruel of Keiichi to tell Mion to choose Satoko’s uncle to be the sacrifice for Oyashiro-sama’s curse just because he heard that she’s the head of the Sonozaki family. I’m aware of how desperate he is towards trying to save Satoko but, he was literally accusing her of being a murderer, a serial killer and the mastermind of everything with no evidence or anything, just ignorance I guess. He really didn’t consider Mion’s feelings at all and that angers me. He’s always hurting her when she’s so kind. He doesn’t think about anyone else’s feelings!

But wow, I never thought that Satoko’s actually had many “dads” since her mother remarried once and had many de facto partners, and that Satoko played malicious pranks on them to the point that they couldn’t stand Satoko. I guess she wanted attention from her mother and she thought the existence of this father was stopping that so she never really accepted any of them and kept up this behaviour… She’s an emotionally hurt child but I can’t help but sympathise with some of them to an extent since Satoko’s pranks can go quite far tbh… It seems that there was the theory that Satoko purposely hurt herself so she could chase her stepfather out with the child welfare people… And she really did lie about it so this theory was actually true… Which is why the second time they were called, they were wary of it and wanted to wait and see how the situation goes..

To see Satoko break down so badly and hurt Keiichi so badly (physically and emotionally) was daunting. Kinda glad Rena shouted at him when he kept talking when it was obvious that he was scaring Satoko with his existence as a guy probably. But I guess what I feared seems to have begun to happen. Keiichi is losing it and thinking of how to kill Satoko’s uncle. I wonder if Oyashiro-sama’s curse is actually some supernatural being taking in the vulnerable emotions of those who are really mad etc and exacerbating that and thus leading to the death of those they hate? And then they get eaten by the supernatural being themselves and that’s why they disappear?

So, in a sense, the reason Keiichi’s family moved was because of him. He was a special kid that was “smart” in that he was quick to pick up things and go beyond the expectations of his teachers, but that kinda made him get a big head I guess and he slowly lost his normal social life with others. And as others do, the parents decided to move somewhere to help change the environment and hopefully he can start anew happily somewhere else. But I honestly didn’t think Keiichi would really go through with the murder of Satoko’s uncle. I really enjoyed the entire deliberation he had over the whole thing though and his previous annoying actions made it easier to believe that he was capable of doing this. It felt very real because of how detailed his thought process was and how understandable his thoughts were, which is also what made it so uncomfortable as well. Because really, it showed how easy it could be to kill another person as long as you plan it, have the intention and go through with it. This time, Keiichi didn’t go to the festival so I’m curious about what happens in this game. I’ve read manga and books where the closest person to the victim ends up killing the perpetrator, and it always makes me feel so sad to see it happen, because they’re all ordinary people who wanted to protect the victim so much…so much that to an extent, they went insane from the trauma. It’s just so devastating…

The possiblity of Takano killing Tomitake…never occurred to me. I guess it was because they always seemed like they were dating so I never thought she’d ever kill him, I mean.. What could be the reason? And who kills Takano every time if she is the one who supposedly killed Tomitake? Unless Keiichi actually has another personality or something and so even though he was exhausted, he ended up killing Takano as well~ although I could imagine Mion or someone killing Takano to protect Keiichi. But what? Keiichi was at the festival, just like he was in the other games? Does that mean the worlds are connected?? One disappears and one dies… Did Takano disappear or die? If one Keiichi disappeared and we’re left with this one that killed Satoko’s uncle.. Is he actually a demon and not Keiichi? As expected, the uncle is actually not dead though. Does that mean, somehow Keiichi has gone into a different timeline after killing the uncle? Different world?

I feel sorry for Keiichi that Irie thinks he’s crazy after he told him how he shouldn’t have been at the festival but everyone else said he was, and that he killed the uncle. But you really can’t blame Irie, considering Keiichi’s past actions with how emotional he was over Satoko and everything, tbh I’m not even sure that just because I’m reading this from his perspective that he really did kill the uncle or whether his hatred was just so magnified to such an extent with his helplessness towards Satoko that he thought he killed the uncle when he really didn’t. The missing baseball bat etc could have been moved by him when he’s in a dazed state or whatever as well, just like in the first game when he killed Mion and Rena after he turned crazy. Keiichi has always been the scariest when pushed to the limits after all… Maybe Satoshi really did the same thing as Keiichi, maybe he did beat the aunt to death to protect Satoko, maybe Satoshi and him are as similar as they keep saying in this game and the previous ones.. Maybe he’s just Satoshi with brown hair hahahaha.

Is it true that whoever Keiichi wishes for to die, they’ll die? Irie didn’t believe his story and was cursed, so he died? Ooishi kept hitting him with mud when Keiichi tried to dig up that hole where the body should have been and was cursed by Keiichi, so he died? I’m glad Satoko’s okay though, she was literally bathing in boiling hot water for one whole night, I’m surprised she’s still alive and conscious tbh. But, I can’t believe Rika is dead and killed in the way the Hinamizawa torture would go, with her stomach cut open and her bowels and organs taken out. Poor Rika, how cruel… So, Satoko snuck in that ritual storehouse when she was a kid and broke one of those cages making it hit into an image of Oyashiro-sama as she ran away and Rika got blamed for it.. so Satoko thinks that everything crazy that has happened, her parents dying, her brother disappearing, her aunt beaten to death, Rika dying, Keiichi killing her uncle, everything is all because of Oyashiro-sama’s curse of killing the people closest to you first and then you last. Is the curse real, or is the curse as real as they believe it to be, I wonder? Satoko really can’t help but think that Keiichi has been possessed huh?

But to think that his wish that this cursed version of Hinamizawa would disappear would actually make everyone besides him disappear from this world through toxic volcanic gas… I guess this was an ending where Keiichi survived huh? Not that living is any better though. He lived long enough to torment him until his eventual death. Yeah, that’s not nice at all.

Btw, the all cast review session is always so great, I’d recommend watching them for every game, this one was especially great and funny hahaha! I mean it’s so true that Tomitake is like a newscaster, his death is always the announcement that Higurashi will be going into the second half which is darker hahaha! They always so calmly analyse how they died etc and stuff like that, it’s so interesting! Kinda interested that Shion will be the main character for Meakashi, I really like her just like many others do XD

Overall, I enjoyed this game as much as the others but I do admit that Keiichi frustrated me at times and it was a bit draggy about the depressing things, sigh but it was really good. I guess it just made me sad to read it every time, rather than scared lol. Gotta say the killing part was a highlight and a very interesting turn to the series. Can’t wait to play the next one~~

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

Strive Pt. 14

{PART 1} {PART 2} {PART 3} {PART 4} {PART 5} {PART 6} {PART 7} {PART 8} {PART 9} {PART 10} {PART 11} {PART 12} {PART 13}

Pair: Tomarry

Rating: M-E(depends)

Tags: Mild Language, Homosexuality, Sexism, Obsessed Tom, Time-Travel/Dimension-Travel, Teacher/Student, Eventual Romance, Teacher-Harry, Grey!Harry, MoD(sort of), Death!being,

NOTE: One of my many headcanons is that the Diary Horcrux was improperly made. Since the Basilisk was the one that killed Myrtle, as she doesn’t understand Parseltongue and can’t actually know what was said, there is no proof that Tom Riddle actually told the snake to kill her. He took credit for it and used it as a murder requirement for the Horcrux ritual, but there was no dialogue or order given to our knowledge.

So, Tom did the ritual without a fractured soul(because he didn’t personally murder Myrtle) and ended up ripping his soul in half which caused immense damage to his sanity. It would then explain why he went crazy so fast if the very first one was done incorrectly. And that’s the plot used in this fic.

Professor Potter sighed and removed his glasses, setting them on the desk and folding his fingers beneath his chin. He proceeded to stare Tom down evenly, green eyes flashing ominously. "Albus decided to inform me, 'for my protection' apparently, that you are a Parselmouth. He heavily implied that you are the Heir of Slytherin and that you are the cause for what happened a couple of years ago with the Chamber of Secrets."

Tom would never admit to stiffening. He liked to pretend that he was not worried or scared of what Professor Potter thought of him. He didn't care, even though he really did in a way. And it was so pathetic, that he, Tom Marvolo Riddle, would be so fixated on a single person's opinion of him. He didn't give a bleeding damn what Dumbledore thought, so why was Potter any different?

Because he treats you fairly, came a whispered voice in his mind. Because he doesn't single students out and actually treats everyone the same. Because he doesn't pity you. Because he is different than everyone else in your life.

"Just because Albus is right, doesn't mean there is proof against you, and trying to manipulate someone's view of you was foolish of him. I haven't let myself be tricked like that in a long time and I refuse to let it happen again. I can determine for myself what you are like, through my own experiences with you."

His left eye twitched only just a little bit. He kept a straight face though it was like his body was caught between the need to either frown or smile. Potter wanted to judge based on their interactions and not by Dumbledore's bias. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, sir." Admit nothing. That was usually the Slytherin mentality.

Potter shrugged, his unearthly green eyes flashing with hidden knowledge. "It's obvious that an Acromantula didn't kill Myrtle Warren. They consume their prey differently, and there was not one mark on the girl that came from a creature. Besides, anyone with a brain knows that only one creature can petrify its prey, and that is a Basilisk. Had she been lucky enough to look into it's 'great big yellow eyes' as she described to me, through another object like a mirror or a puddle, she wouldn't have died and would have just been frozen."

Professor Potter had actually spoken to Myrtle Warren's ghost. He asked her what had killed her and she described the Basilisk's eyes perfectly. A sinking feeling was settling in Tom's stomach. He didn't like how familiar he was becoming with it.

The professor leaned back in his seat and waved his hand twice. A dark book levitated off his bookshelf and opened for him, hovering in front of his almost disinterested face. His eyes roved over the page. "A Basilisk in the school wouldn't make sense normally, if one of the Founders wasn't a Parselmouth. However, each of the Founders placed a creature of their choosing to protect the school. Godric had a dragon that some fool in the 1200s killed for its hide, Rowena had a Sphinx that was sent back to Egypt in the 1600s, and Helga had a Phoenix that seems to have befriended Albus, and goes by the name of Fawkes.

"Anyway, only those of Slytherin's blood can control the Basilisk, as the book states. Which would mean you as you are a descendant of the line through the Gaunts."

Tom's eyes stared intently at the book that he did not know the name of. He had never see any book like it before, so he knew it wasn't from the Hogwarts Library. He never knew that any of the other Founders had creatures in the castle at some point. Perhaps it was a Potter Family artifact? And how had Potter known that he was related to the Gaunt Family? After all, Tom could have just been an unexpected relation that came from a splintered off line of Salazar's.

"Sir, where did you get that book? I've never seen such information in any books about Hogwarts and I made sure to extensively study the history of the school as well as our community." For my own gain, he neglected to add. It was obvious enough for him to not have to mention it.

Potter smiled, and the book slowly floated toward Tom, until he could literally pluck it out of the air. It was strangely soft, and the covering on it was unfamiliar to him. The size was larger than any tome he had ever encountered, and much heavier. Even the parchment was foreign to him. It was so… strangely brittle and solid all at once.

"My friend Mortimer helped me acquire that book. He had the knowledge of its existence and we went and fetched it from its old holding place. Normal magicals wouldn't even be able to read it however, because its author held knowledge of a specific language that is rare in this side of the world and is only connected to one family over here."

Tom turned the book over, opening up to the very first page. All of a sudden, the odd squiggles on the page righted themselves and the words SALAZAR SLYTHERIN stood out in large blocky calligraphy. His ancestor had written the book in his hands. He's written it in Parseltongue?

"Parselscript," clarified Potter, as if knowing exactly what Tom was thinking.

Parseltongue had a written form.

He frowned when he realised. "Professor, you speak Parseltongue as well?" Were they related? Was that why the man knew of his mother and knew that he was a Gaunt? Was he a cousin or something? He didn't look anything like Morfin did. And his surname was Potter.

Were they perhaps brothers and Tom's mother had a relationship with a Potter who then took Harry away? From what he'd learned of the Gaunts, they weren't a family anyone wanted to align themselves with. It would be social suicide, especially for a Potter who was of the Light side.

"Tom, what do you know of the Gaunt Family?" asked Professor Potter, sitting back in his chair as if this was not the most confusing and revealing conversation of Tom's life. "Do you know anything beyond you being Salazar's possible second to last descendant?"

'Possible'?

Knowing it was pointless to lie when he would get nothing from it in this situation, Tom shook his head. "There isn't much about the Gaunt Family beyond them squandering their former wealth and inbreeding too much just to keep themselves 'pure'." He sneered the last word, disgusted at the thought of performing any type of sexual acts with relatives. Especially with how their looks apparently degenerated overs the centuries. He couldn't understand the desire.

The Defence professor nodded and leaned forward until his elbows could rest on the desk. "In the 1600s, Rionach Gaunt broke off from the family and married William Sayre, who shared her ideals about being kind to Muggles."

Tom's upper lip rose in a sneer, but Potter ignored it.

"Their daughter Isolt, was a brilliant little witch, but ended up losing her parents to a fire. Her mother's estranged sister Gormlaith Gaunt 'found her' and 'raised her' with dubious teachings and under Dark Magic to force her compliance and isolation for years. Isolt eventually learned that Gormlaith murdered her parents and had kidnapped her, and came to resent her. She was refused any chance to attend Hogwarts, because Gormlaith didn't like it, and spun tales of why it was supposedly terrible. She decided to teach Isolt all the Dark Arts she knew instead."

Was everyone that Tom was related to, somehow a bloody moron? How could Hogwarts be horrible in any way? Sure, there were some fools here and there and Dumbledore surely tainted the air with his existence, but he would not be around always, and Tom had growing plans to make things follow his way of thinking in the future.

"Isolt learned enough magic by the time she was twelve, to successfully steal her aunt's wand and escape. She fled to England and disguised herself as a Muggle boy, who then sneaked onto the Mayflower that was headed for the New World. Long story short, she met the natives of the land, befriended some magical creatures, and ended up creating the first magical school in the states, which is called Ilvermorny."

Tom's jaw actually dropped. A descendent of Salazar Slytherin founded one of the other large magical schools in the world? And no one thought that the Founder of said school was evil or bent on world domination?

"If you want more information, I have a book that is a copy of her own bibliography. I had to go directly to Ilvermorny and be put through many tests to get it, but I do have it. It'll tell you more about Gormlaith and the Gaunts. You'll be interested to know that the wand that she stole from her aunt was once Salazar's wand. And in the end, she buried it in the ground within Ilvermorny, and it sprouted a large Snakewood tree that has magical properties that are said to heal anything if any part of it is consumed."

Isolt Sayre was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin. She never received a Hogwarts education and was only taught the Dark Arts. She went on to build the most powerful magical school in North America. And no one thought terribly of her? They didn't think she was a Dark Lady? And Salazar Slytherin, who was considered evil by most of Hogwarts for the past several centuries, had a wand that would basically be a Healer's dream come true?

"Isolt is recognised as a heroine in magical America, Tom. And her descendants are spread across the world due to traveling. I'm even distantly related to her through my mother, oddly enough. And through my father, I am distantly related to you because the Potters and Gaunts came from the same line, which are the Peverells, and many Gaunts married into the Potters way back when."

The Necromancer Three. Tom knew about them as much as anyone in Britain would. The family itself wasn't important until the three brothers supposedly created some of the most powerful magical artifacts in history. Then they drew enough attention to themselves and their craft. And they became history. Their rise and fall was described in many children's books.

Potter was nodding. "Cadmus, the middle brother, sired an unwanted daughter who changed her name when she fled his old village. She didn't want to be found and have the stain of her being a bastard following her everywhere. She became the first Gaunt, and settled down with a young and impressionable wizard from the Slytherin Line, who was angry for not being the first born and not getting the privileges of the first born. When the Slytherin Family died out a century later, the Gaunts were glad to let people know of their connection to Salazar."

"And which brother are you directly related to, professor?" asked Tom. Nothing ever said Antioch had sired children, but since he hadn't known Cadmus had any, how would he know?

"Ignotus, and even more distantly, Cadmus. Ignotus moved away from the bad reputations of his brothers and started his own family, passing down secrets and slowly changing the family name over the centuries. Peverell, Povrell, Povell, Potell, Pottel, Potter. Ironically, there are some Gaunts who married into my direct Potter branch and one of Isolt Sayer's children was my mother's some form of great-grandmother from the 1800s, which would explain the Parseltongue."

He had a distant relation who wasn't a bumbling fool. It was like a breath of fresh air in some ways, while in others, it made him a little annoyed. Why wait until now to say anything to Tom about it?

Also…

"How did you know my mother sold the Slytherin Locket?" He still couldn't understand that. That had not been explained yet. Potter had given answers to things he didn't even ask, but neglected to answer the one thing he wanted to know the most.

Potter sighed for the umpteenth time. "Mr. Borgin isn't very good at keeping secrets and it only took some persuasion when I inquired about it. Add on the fact that only one Marvolo ever attended Hogwarts, and it was Marvolo Gaunt, who had only one daughter and one son. Marvolo and Morfin had made a reputation in the magical papers as 'Possible Threats to the Statute of Secrecy' since both had been fined multiple times for casting magic on the Muggles in Little Hangleton. The daughter Merope, was the only one with a clean slate and according to the dwellers of said village, she disappeared around the time you were born, with a muggle aristocrat sharing your exact name. He returned months later, without her, and was screaming about witchcraft and love potions. It really wasn't hard to put together once everything was listed."

Tom's breathing calmed slowly. His professor had actually done some studying instead of being like Dumbledore and just accusing him of unfounded things. He researched and compiled all the evidence he had. And he wasn't treating Tom like a monster despite Tom basically admitting that yes, he was behind the Chamber fiasco.

He didn't come out and directly say it, but his questions and answers gave it away. And still Potter was being fair.

"Myrtle was a mistake," he found himself explaining, and wanting to be consumed by Fiendfyre on the spot. The look on Potter's face was of obvious surprise, but it didn't make him feel any better.

Tom bit his bottom lip for a second, before continuing. "Her death wasn't deliberate. I was simply trying to scare the students. No one actually got hurt or died, despite the bloody messages on the walls. Myrtle was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was the one who found her and it was only because the Basilisk called out to me from the lavatory. I then had to skillfully redirect some students in hopes of them finding her instead, which one of them finally did. Said student was even Myrtle's frequent bully, so it only seemed right."

He didn't send the Basilisk to kill her. He hadn't even been there when the death occurred.

"I did find it strange how they actually carried her body off," said Professor Potter, a look of confusion on his face. "Basilisks consume their prey whole, unlike Acromantula who like to draw out their feasting time so the innards can deliquesce. There shouldn't have been a body, and if you had murdered her, you would have hidden the evidence so as not to have any leads that could trace back to you."

Exactly. Tom was much better at plotting. He'd killed Tom Riddle Sr. and his parents, with Morfin's wand. And he worked some incredible magic to implicate Morfin in the scenario. He would never leave such proof behind, no matter what.

But… just because Tom didn't order it specifically, didn't mean he wasn't partially responsible. After all, he had reworked the wards on the Chamber and the lavatory, which allowed the Basilisk to open the entrances and exits with its own Parseltongue. So the Basilisk came out for another chance to explore the castle under Tom's watch, only to literally kill a student the moment it slithered from the hole beneath the sinks.

As the serpent was under Tom's orders to make such rounds about the castle, he was to blame in a sense. And when he finally learned of the ritual required to make a Horcrux a week later, he used that as his 'murder' requirement to complete the ritual. And now Tom had two Horcruxes.

So yes, it was his fault in a way, but Myrtle would not have been his choice. He would have much preferred Eldrid Avery. Because what good would it do him to pick on the pathetic and weak? Myrtle had nothing when she was alive, but seeing Avery dead and unable to bother him any longer, would have been ideal. After all, Tom targeted those who wronged him in some way, and there was no satisfaction in proving how great he was over a trampled mouse.

Eldrid acted as if he was Merlin's gift to Slytherin, and Tom would have gladly put the other in his place. In fact, he was considering using him as his next Horcrux sacrifice.

While none too fond of Muggles nor how he'd been treated for everyone assuming he was a Muggleborn, he didn't care too much. Those unworthy to be in Hogwarts would have fled upon the opening of the Chamber, and since several had actually transferred out, the school was in fact free of their taint. And no, not all were Muggleborn. Tom simply hated those who worked against him. They were removed first and foremost.

"In conclusion to this hour long discussion," said Professor Potter as he glanced up at the clock on the wall, "let's put it all out there. You are the Heir of Slytherin. We both are Parselmouths thanks to Gaunt ancestry in our lines. We're both Halfbloods who are related to the Peverells. Your mother was named Merope and she was wandering about London on her own in December of 1925 and only got ten Galleons for the Slytherin Locket. You were born at Wools' Orphanage at the end of the month and grew up there. Albus was the one to visit you. Albus doesn't like you at all and is trying very hard to ruin your reputation among others. And it would behoove to refrain from using anything but Light magic in the coming weeks."

At Tom's frown, the man shrugged. "We're dealing with Albus Dumbledore, who has many awards already and a good portion of the Light people in his pocket, no matter what the papers say of his actions. He can and will convince someone to investigate you or me if he feels threatened. A proper diagnostic scan on a wand - that is taught to the Aurors - only shows the last one hundred castings. Practice the Patronus Charm a lot just to cover yourself even further."

And just as some of his questions had been answered, he was left with dozens more. How did his professor know about the training that Aurors went through? Was he formerly an Auror? And why was he so against Albus Dumbledore when half of Britain worshiped the man? Other than gossip, Dumbledore didn't come across as an annoying person upon first meeting, so what could have put Potter off to the man?

"You may borrow that book, though I would see it returned in the state it is currently in," said Potter, drawing his attention back to the present. Yes, the book that Tom was holding was still open. The book written by Salazar Slytherin.

Realising that this was the time for him to depart, Tom stood and closed the book gently. He then slipped it into his expanded bag and gave a small bow.

"Thank you, sir." An expression that was directed at more situations than just the book lending.

The green-eyed man waved his gratitude away. "It's only right that you learn about Salazar from his own writing. Take care of the locket. Perhaps you can get a portrait of yourself put in there."

Potter would not give him away. The man had already known everything and hadn't said a word to anybody. It was strangely comforting to know that. To know that there was an adult - and he used the term lightly since they were near each other in age - who was decent and could actually be trusted to be honest and relatively impartial.

He knew that Professor Potter would do his job, and that was good enough. And when he admitted to having a hand in Myrtle's death, the man hadn't glared at him. He didn't regard Tom with disgust. He simply accepted the answer for what it was and moved on.

It was nice… to have someone that didn't fear him. It was nice to not feel that telltale sign of nausea around someone. Potter was someone that treated him well, not because Tom threatened him into compliance, or because he wanted to get on Tom's good side. The man was just genuinely kind to everyone. Except perhaps Dumbledore, though the old fool deserved if it he kept trying to enforce his opinions and views on everyone he met.

It was halfway back to his dorm that Tom realised something else. Potter's Dueling Club was starting soon. He had to work on his Patronus even more if he wanted to impress the man and the class. A happy thought or memory strong enough to power such a spell.

He blinked for a moment, and in a moment of intense thought, he lifted his wand. "Expecto Patronum."

In the darkness of the dungeon corridor, Tom Marvolo Riddle was witness to the brightness of the very first corporeal Patronus he'd ever summon. It was a large, writhing serpent covered in odd markings. It reminded him very much of Professor Potter's Patronus, which shouldn't surprise him, since it was a thought of the man himself that had fueled the charm.

Tom smiled, enjoying the sight and the proof of his own ability. He felt a little giddy actually.

It was… nice.

A/N: I’m glad to see this chapter finished. 3500+words. Tom did the charm! Harry’s POV is coming in chapter 16, so be prepared.

[rtmsyoo]

character questionnaire // sunny

tl;dr // sunny is... not all that sad but also... kinda sad... this got away from me... tw: emotional abuse tw, parental neglect tw, death tw, drugs tw, misgendering tw

BASICS

full name: sunyoung yoo ( SUN (善) - goodness; virtuous / YOUNG (英) - flower / YOO (劉) - family name without any meaning but in Hanja, it can also mean ‘to kill or destroy’ )

nicknames: sunny, artemis

age: 22 (turning 23 this year)

birthday/zodiac sign: september 5th 1994 / virgo

height: 6′1 because someone drank their milk before bed every night and did their jumps and stretches, though this may be subject to change if tiny boy bastien asks for an inch or two. can’t even begin to tell you how much of an advantage it was in all the sports she joined

tattoos/piercings: her ears are pierced but the only pair of earrings she owns are cookie monster ones and even those, she doesn’t really wear much or at all; this armband tattoo on her upper right arm with the hangul letters of her name written on the inside;  this tattoo on her lower arm but the big star is replaced by a sun (the sun being apollo and because apollo he is the light of sunny’s life; the moon as sunny; julian as the planet that orbits the two and because it’s adorable like he is; the lightning bolt as morpheus cause they came into her life unexpectedly and they are just as deadly but just as beautiful to witness); this tattoo wrapping around her right wrist she both because loves animals and also in memory of her old dog brandy rip you were a good bitch; the words ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’ tattooed on the inside of her feet because they were the instructions repeatedly told her in all of the sports she participated in and also what helped get her through her anxiety; honestly she would love to have more done but those are the only ones for now

FAVORITES

sound: wind whistling through the grass and leaves. she really feels the most peaceful when she’s lying on her back in a field, staring up at the sky; day or night, it doesn’t matter, she typically starts when the sun is still high and ends with the moon already up among the stars anyway. sunny loves being barefoot on the grass and feeling it between her toes. if she ever does get around to leaving new york, she would love for it to be somewhere with a lot of space for her to run and hide in, and lot more grass for her to press her ear close to and pretend that they’re singing a song. she also loves any sound any animal makes and will turn to putty whenever tiny puppies yip up at her

color: black, green, yellow. black is more of a personal preference, it’s almost always present in any ensemble she’s in. green relies on constancy: it’s there in her favorite places. yellow because she feels it a part of who she is: sunny, sun, brightness.

person: @apollokarlsson​ how you doin’? @jullybeans​ @metamorpheus​ HIT ME WITH THAT FOUND FAMILY TROPE SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS I DON’T CARE

memory: being introduced to apollo. now, she knows that she was a little too young that the details of her memory may not be exactly accurate, but her emotions during and about it are so visceral that she’s convinced there’s really no other version of what happened other than how she remembers it. there was such a beautiful glow about apollo that day, sunny could’ve sworn they were an angel, a halo hovering above their head. this was at the height of her solitude too: her mother had abandoned her, her father worked and was absent more than ever, so that may have contributed to it, but the fact that apollo was quick to take her hand, quick to be a sibling that she never really thought or imagined she would have. a part of her had worried that it was all just for show, that the moment their father and their stepmother left, apollo would switch gears and be someone intimidating - the age gap between them certainly didn’t help - but the kindness that was shown that day never faltered and that really did make life at home so much bearable for sunny. in the blink of an eye, it didn’t matter that none of her athletic accomplishments ever amount to anything for her parents - when apollo saw the trophies and the medals that littered her room, the pride in their eyes more than compensated for it and motivated her to do even better. everything felt that much easier and brighter so when apollo’s problems started catching up to them, it was also the toughest and saddest memory of hers to watch that halo dip into dimness

place: please refer to favorite sound. sunny also loves being in their apartment when both apollo and julian are there, she just loves watching the three of them exist around each other, playful and happy, as though they don’t exist in a world where they’re surrounded by so much danger and misery. if someone had told her before when they were still only dealing to julian that he would end up living with them, sunny would’ve scoffed and said ‘........... okay guy’ but now it’s like. was it ever not like this? simply imagining the alternate reality where julian never moved in and apollo was taken away, leaving her all by herself, well... it’s not fun. her room can also fit in here. it’s sparsely decorated and she also impulsively bought a privacy pop tent that she uses when she’s in a particularly bad mood and wants to - literally and figuratively - black it all out.

vice: does “running to cross the street because she saw someone walking their dog and just had to pet it” count as a vice? she drinks very limitedly to the point where it often feels like the first time again when she finally does, she doesn’t do drugs and she doesn’t smoke - her father did and it was a habit that she hated suffering through when they were together. it’s possible that she does have the vice of being in denial. sunny has the tendency to ignore her problems in favor of being more optimistic and lighthearted, and it has resulted in this slow bubbling of anger inside her that she comes to let out through her athletic pursuits: if you see her aggressively running full pelt down an oval, music blaring through her headphone and her teeth grit. and if she invites you to play soccer with her with her eyebrows furrowed, don’t say yes. if red cards are a thing during friendlies, sunny would be down for the count three times over. it’s tough for her to address the darker issues that cloud her life, opting to let them sort themselves out. when apollo left and it was just her and julian in the apartment, all the unsaid things hovered between them until julian slowly started showing signs that he was going to stand by her through that difficult time. truth be told, sunny had half thought he would want to leave, distance himself from their misfortune, but he stood by her through her ‘i don’t want to talk to anyone or do anything’ phase. when things don’t get solved on their own, sunny just believes in letting it all die down and be forgotten.

HAVE THEY EVER…

been in love: nah. the only time that she’s ever been “romantically involved” with someone was with one of her past teammates in swimming. they were the two most intense members of the team so they trained with each other the most, pushed each other in every race, and somehow, without their even planning it, naturally fell into hanging out with each other afterward, aimlessly wandering the city or catching a movie. it never was explicitly defined, though sunny knew that it was most likely because they didn’t have anyone else to be with. they carried the semblance of being close friends, even had sleepovers some nights and kissed a number of times, but after graduation, it all was still unspoken and they simply parted ways. they still text sometimes, she knows that the other went on to continue swimming, playing for university of georgia. if being in love is something that sunny is capable of or something that she allows herself to be, it may not happen anytime soon

done drugs: only weed, never to excess and very rarely. it’s the remnants of her athletic career during her school years: she’d followed the strict instructions to take care of her body to a tee, so she never really went through that adolescent phase of trying things for the first time with a group of friends, carrying that through to her life after. it was only after she left home and moved in with apollo and dionysus did she get to really be around drugs, but even then she hesitated and was only convinced because she was told it would help with her anxiety. she did terribly with smoking a blunt - she didn’t seal it properly at all and it all came undone when she tried to take a hit; after she fixed it, she then pulled on it too long and gave herself a coughing fit - so pot brownies it is! whoever thought to combine chocolate and weed should obviously be given the nobel prize

killed someone: no, though sunny does acknowledge that she’s probably (read: definitely) capable of it, and has at times felt a certain build up of rage deep within her when it comes to certain people or certain issues. she’s not naive enough to think that it’s beyond her... or anyone, she knows that everyone has that point or that topic where they can just snap, but she does like to think of herself still leaning towards the side of the Universal Good where killing is bad all the time. not that that’s stopped her from trying to learn how to hold and use a gun from morpheus, but that doesn’t instantly mean that she’s going to shoot it or that she’s going to swing a fist. self defense will always be her primary motivation when it comes to this topic... for now. (wink wink nudge nudge future hitman sunny yoo)

betrayed someone’s trust: being able to betray someone’s trust would entail that she forms a lot of connections to begin with, and sunny doesn’t really have that. all the people in her youth were merely passing - teammates, schoolmates, acquaintances - and none of them gave her their full trust to begin with, for betrayal to even be an option. of the handful of people that do reside in her life now, sunny has never once thought of going against them or turning her back on them. once they’ve made it through the difficult phase of becoming close and important to her, she latches on and becomes dangerously selfless and sacrificing for their sake. 

had their heart broken: romantically, not really. sunny has never formed that kind of attachment towards someone before. in general though, yes. she can still distinctly remember the first time that she came home with a trophy in hand, still clad in her sweaty track suit and medals slung around her neck. it was easy to forget how painful it had been for her to turn to the stands, searching for their familiar faces and finding none, but in the throes of victory, sunny was quick to forget that. and she shouldn’t have, she really should have taken that as a sign and not expected more. when the three of them sat down to dinner together - one of the rare times that they did, another reason that the occasion should have been a happy one - she’d eagerly presented the trophy to her mother, who barely glanced at it before passing it on, the cogs in her mind turning to come up with a comment. her father looked at the trophy and asked her ‘was there any prize money?’ which caught her by surprise, only able to reply no after a minute of gathering herself. that’s when he told her that it wasn’t really a win if they just gave her a trophy: what good was a trophy? just something to look at, something to show, she couldn’t get anything out of it. then her mother hit her with admonishments: how it would mess up her body, make her look like a man, make her lose her appeal to potential suitors. sunny not only didn’t bother defending herself, but she also apologized and took the trophy back, keeping it by her bedside table for only her to see. in the years following, she never came to expect anything out of them anymore, and any recognition she received were stacked up in her bedroom closet.

lost someone: (tw death) the closest that sunny has come to death is through some of her schoolmates getting into a drunken accident and one of them passing away, there isn’t enough numbers in her family for her to really be able to lose someone with a sense of finality. perhaps the only person that she’s ever really lost - though she doesn’t know if it’s permanently, the woman does have the tendency to flit in and out of people’s lives and steal parts of it with her bUT WHO’S BITTER NOT SUNNY - is her mother, and that isn’t even something that she mourns about (or maybe she’s sad about it but, if you refer to her vice, she’s deeply in denial about it too). for her to lose that relationship means that there was even one to begin with, and though it’s something of a feat for her to think that her mother decided to keep her after her father got her pregnant, that doesn’t really mean that much of anything came afterward, that was the extent of her mother’s maternal instincts. if she goes by gut instinct, sunny is convinced that after her mother ditched a while back without a word of goodbye, she’s likely out of the state or maybe even out of the country, but that doesn’t stop her from worrying that the two of them might cross paths one of these days, especially when she’s near and around the hospital where her mother worked. she could go in and inquire, know for sure, but there’s not really much of a motivation in there for her since she doesn’t see any benefit in knowing. there’s also, of course, apollo, but that’s not really a loss so much as a temporary absence. sunny always knew they’d come back, she just wished that the sweetness of being reunited wasn’t soured by the fact that apollo left at all when they promised they never would.

DO THEY…

have any pets:  she adopted a rescue dog when she was eight years old - an eight month old golden retriever she named brandy because ‘brandy you’re a fine girl’ was stuck in her head that week after hearing her father singing to it - under very sketchy circumstances involving forged signatures, saved up allowances and intense guilt tripping after the attendant mistook her for a little boy and she hammed up being offended by it. they were together for twelve years, the dog serving as her closest companion when she still lived with her parents. brandy has since been gone due to old age (if you say to or around her that brandy died, you will get punched on the arm so hard) for a few months over two years now and though sunny would love nothing more than to have another one soon, she’s still recovering from the loss. also has a pet turtle named tommy and a hamster named hal. she likes to make them race sometimes and forces them to hang out with each other. hal doesn’t like it but tommy doesn’t seem to mind. she doesn’t believe in the idea of ‘pet names’ because it makes her feel like she’s separating herself from her pets when she truly views them as family. it’s a pet peeve, pun intended... get it? pet peeve? it’s funny, i’m brilliant, donate money to my paypal

have a family they still talk to: does apollo count? this is mostly a no, and it’s largely because of her own volition. her mother disappeared on her years ago and though sunny knows where she works (worked? in case she’s transferred hospitals since then) and could very easily track her down, it’s not something that she’s ever felt up to doing - leaving home when she did was one of the most freeing experiences she has ever had, and to reacquaint herself with a woman who made her feel more and more suffocated with each passing year feels like a huge step backward that she doesn’t really need or want to take. there are no more hard feelings within her, sure, but it doesn’t mean that forging a relationship is on her to-do list. her father, on the other hand, does still reach out to her, trying to start small talk only to be cut off by her because, oddly enough, it’s with him that she does still harbor some resentment towards. their relationship was only a step above the one with her mother, but it was still something better, yet when she left, he didn’t seem to have made much of an effort to get her back and that stung. he tries to engage her about the most banal shit like the weather or news, tries to tell her what he’s doing and how his day was, but sunny has no time for it: if he’s not going to address the big issue between them, there’s no point in letting him back into her life.

have a best friend: just one??? what kind of weak person... without a doubt, apollo is the one who knows her best, perhaps even knows her better than she knows herself, which is a cliche that she doesn’t want to subscribe to but has to because it just fits. when it comes to her sibling, it’s impossible for sunny to hold their decisions against them, even though time and time again they’ve hurt. and it’s not that it hurts her but that it hurts apollo, and the most that she can do is voice her concern softly, be careful not to seem demanding or controlling, but she can’t make apollo’s choices for them. sometimes she doesn’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that she seems to be able to forgive her sibling anything, but the one thing she does know for uncertain is that her heart holds a love for the other deeper than she ever thought herself capable of feeling, and it scares her sometimes, especially right now when she can’t determine if their relationship can weather the storm it’s currently under. other than apollo, julian is a close second, someone who got to see her be weak and didn’t push. to be honest, when they initially met, sunny didn’t know what to think of the guy: he seemed as much bad news as apollo used to be, but he was funny, he didn’t overstep, and he cared in his own little way. after apollo left and it was just the two of them in the apartment, sunny was more withdrawn than ever but julian never gave up on her and she genuinely thinks, in some way, he really did save her. and then there’s morpheis. HOO BOY WHAT TO SAY. they just.. jumped at her, completely unexpected, and quickly stole a part of her heart. were they initially tasked to kill her if she messed up? sure, but now that’s just a funny story they can tell people who ask them how the hell the two of them met... and a lot of people do seem to want to, considering how odd a pair they make. between sunny’s piercing glare and morpheus’ intimidating stature though, nobody really tries to, but that makes it all the more better. the two of them exist in this bubble, this world, where somehow it’s easier to be vulnerable, something that sunny doesn’t really want to be anymore. though it’s clear to her that they suffered through so much more than she has (and probably ever will, though if she could, it would be great to have the ability to wipe away the grief from their face), for some reason she can’t grasp, their soul feels kindred to hers. she loves apollo and julian, but her relationship with morpheus is something that’s a little more open, a little more honest, and a little more liable to break her should it ever turn against her.

want to get married and/or have kids: so far, what sunny has seen of marriage isn’t really all that pretty, but she always knew that her parents’ arrangement was more of the exception than the rule. marriage is... daunting. she doesn’t really see it as something that she necessarily has to do, and if there comes a time that she does find someone that she feels she can spend the rest of her life with, then she simply would, wedding or no. if they ask her to tie the knot, then she would, but not for any want of hers. kids? they’re... nice. they’re a nice concept. she really feels like she’s too young to think about this right now, she doesn’t even think so much about getting into a relationship, let alone sleeping with someone for another someone to form inside her. though she does think that she’s the kind of person to prefer adoption over having kids of her own: it isn’t really an equal comparison, but she loves her pets as though they were her own children, and they’re all rescue. she knows the feeling of being unwanted, of being an impulse decision eventually regretted, and kids? who feel that same thing, only worse because they were actually abandoned by their parents? if she could help with that, she would. sunny has a fondness for babies more than she does for little kids, but she does love the way that their minds work and would, if it’s possible, rather be in conversation with them than most adults since they can be so banal and double edged

want to leave: leave new olympus? she’d be lying if she said that she hasn’t considered it, and really, when she signed up to be a part of it, sunny always thought that it would be something temporary and that one of these days, she’ll just drop off of it. syrus knew just what to say, just how to challenge her to get her in of her own volition, but two years later, she still stands with them and holds such a soft spot for a lot of the other members. she’d thought they would be dismissive of her, that her young age would be considered a strike against her, but after that first hurdle of proving herself, they have been nothing if not supportive, with some even offering to teach her a thing or two. sure, they’re not trying to teach her the best things, but it’s a nice gesture at its core nevertheless. with apollo holding no alliance, sunny knows that her own is tied to that: if apollo asks her to leave, she would honestly consider it, but only on the condition that if she leaves, they leave this world for good, because that makes it easier for her to sleep at night, knowing that they’re separate from a world that could be so tempting to apollo’s demons. if she leaves, they go the straight and narrow. but these people have become family to her, the thought of leaving morpheus all by himself, not having their late night conversations where she pulls him back from the edge or indulges his drunken ramblings... there’s also syrus making some offers of help and, if she was being really honest with herself, sunny has become attached to these people, much more than she knows or realizes.

THIS OR THAT?

phone call or text: text, definitely. there’s something very satisfying for sunny to just not have to think of what to say and what tone to say it with, not to mention that she’s not entirely the best at maintaining a conversation too. at least when it comes to text, she has the option of being an accidental ignorer... you know, the kind of person who leaves you on read and then comes back two days later with ‘sorry for the late reply, i had a dentist appointment’? she annoyingly does that, but has also reached the point where she doesn’t even come up with excuses anymore and just straight up says she didn’t feel like replying. she’s also a very liberal user of emojis as a way to end a conversation or to respond to a conversation that she doesn’t really want prolonged and will be That Person who texts ‘... ok’ to annoy someone. only the people closest to her bother to call her and only to them does she hold long (or at least longer than she’d usually care for) conversations with over the phone. she’s not the best talker, but she makes sure to breathe unto the receiver so they can sense that she’s there at least, and that she’s listening and commiserating. sometimes it’s really all she can do

wealth or loyalty: loyalty. somewhat ironically suits her home life really, her father was wealthy but horribly disloyal, and it painted this picture for her of what wealth does to people: it makes them complacent, it makes them arrogant, it makes them dismissive, and none of these are traits that sunny want with the people she associates with or with herself. she’s never been someone who’s materialistic anyhow, minimalist almost to a fault, and what they do have now is enough for her. true, when she first left home, there was a slight shock in how different life was on the other side of the veil, but it lasted only a second because it was the people that she left home for anyway: for apollo, for julian, for the little home life that they’d built together as a ragtag group, quasi-family full of misfits and degenerates. 

love or lust: love. that isn’t to say that she’s a bleeding heart romantic or has ever felt something akin to that level of attachment for someone before, but sunny knows that lust isn’t something that she necessarily feels intensely, she’s never felt that very primal need to be with someone in that way nor does she gauge people based on how much she’d like to be with them or not. how can she prefer something that she isn’t even sure she can feel? that’s not to say that she hasn’t entertained the notion or that she isn’t aware of how powerful an act it can be, especially for those who do it well, but she does somewhat still subscribe to the idea that it’s something that’s reserved for intimate relationships, which is why she’s still a virgin and not really chomping at the bit to change that

5 friends or 100 acquaintances: five friends. because she’s already filled up three of the slots, so that’s convenient, lol. she’s relatively private, and the idea of a hundred or so people knowing who she is, knowing just enough about her to cross the line from stranger to acquaintances, leaves a bad taste in her mouth. she likens herself to a gust of wind in how fleeting she is: after the necessary moment of interaction, if she doesn’t really want a connection to go further, she just ends it, so friendships are long, hard work for her, which justifies how she can allow them to know about her, to be close to her. 

summer or winter: no preference, really. she loves getting to wear her tank tops or going jogging and hiking during the summer just as much as she loves burrowing under the covers or wearing her puffy coats and pretending she’s a penguin during the winter. she understands that a lot of people don’t really like the sweltering heat because of how much it makes them sweat, but her past athletic career mostly entailed that, it’s something that she’s taken in her stride. and who doesn’t love the way that snow makes it possible for you to fuck up and slip on the ground but not crack your head open on the sidewalk because there’s a pile of snow there? its not really such a polarizing topic for her and one that she barely pays attention to; it doesn’t really matter whether she likes one more than the other, they’re both still going to keep coming back, might as well make the most of both

OTHERS:

wanted plots/connections: will come up with one soon maybe or just plot with everyone idk