#nine foot is TALL. big big dragon

[akwolfgrl]

LFT 30

Luffy had lost the cool smoke trail, but he did at least recognize where he currently was. He headed straight for the old man's bar from yesterday. He would just have to find what he was looking for later. He opened the door and walked inside. The old guy from yesterday was sweeping the floors. He looked up when Luffy walked in.

“Oh your back I see,”

“I told you I would be!” Luffy hopped up onto the same bra stool from yesterday. “Got any more cool stories for me?” He asked excitedly.

“Hmm I might have a good one,” The old man put away his broom and went behind the bar to pour two glasses. “This pirate hasn't been heard from in nine years, him and his whole crew vanished without a trace, it's said his kicks where so powerful he could cursh bloder and leave his foot prints in steal. His name came from the blood that would cover his boots after he was done. The Red Leg Zeff,”

“Oh! I know him! He has a peg leg, a tall funny hat and a long mustache, his kicks hurt almost as much as Sanjis,” But Sanji and Nami hurt him more because they loved him. Just like with his grandpa's fists of love. “He has a funny shaped boat! It's shaped like a fish, and it's a reastrunt, but it's kinda broken right now,” Luffy drank the milk the guy poured for him. “Tell me more!” He could always tell Sanji the stories later, and he could add his own details.

“Huh, well, there are rumors that he fled the grand line after kicking a celestial dragons head clean off his body, but there other rumors that it was an admiral and threw his chest,”

Luffy leaned forward eager to here more.

<>

Smoker entered the rundown gold Roger bar. Raoul, the old man who owned, looked up from behind the bar.

“Ugh, so it's you,” He looked away upset.

“Now that's no way to treat a customer, especially your only one,” Smoker teased the man.

“Why don't you cut the crap? You just wana see me close this place down,” Raoul snapped at him.

“You don't have a right to be angry with me,” Smoker informed him as he took a seat at the bar. “I didn't turn all the pirates around here into cowereds. That was all them,” Raoul ignored him and went to do stuff behind the bar, and his back turned to him. “They are just too weak to go against me, how can they survive the grandline if they can't even go up against me,” Smoker knew he was strong but he was also aware that he was nothing compared to the admirals and the vice admirals. He noticed two glasses on the bar. “Well isn't that nice? You had a customer other me after all,” Smoker didn't hate the old man. He felt pity for the guy. “I think I'd like a taste of rum old man,”

“I don't have any for you,” That finally provoked a response. Smoker ignored him and used the smoke from his cigar to grab the bottle from himself.

“Don't be such a bastard. After all, today is a very special day,” Raoul paused in whatever he was doing. Smoker pulled the cork out of the bottle. “Don't you think?” He asked retochily, taking a swig from the bottle. He could feel some of drip down his chin and neck. “Good stuff,” Raoul had good quality booze.

Shortly after getting lost in memories of Gold Rogers execution and young marine brust therw the door.

“Hey, here's the new water poster put where people can see it,” Smoker turned to look at the young man. He dropped his paper to suilt him. “Captain Smoker, my apologies, sir!” He had seen a flash of yellow as the paper fluttered to the ground.

“Huh?” He got off his stool and went to pick up the new poster it was a picture of a young teen with a big grin on his face and a familler hat. “That's a starwhat. That kid from earlier was Monkey D Luffy,” Pirates are getting younger every year, not just him getting older. He couldn't be more than sixteen or seventeen. He had the same name as Vice Admiral Garp. It seemed like Garp had torbles with his kin doing the exact opposite of becoming a marine. Smoker knew exactly where to find this Luffy, the executious platform.

[xenomorphee3]

Another flashback to the Recoms and Spider on the Sea Dragon

Snippet from my Chapter 18 : ) Details at the bottom.

[ Flashback to Miles, Spider and the recoms on the Sea Dragon]

It was evening on the Sea Dragon ship. The atmosphere was cheery and drunk, for most on board, since they had just killed a Tulkun. Their skipper got the biggest percentage of the value of the amrita of course, and the RDA took a massive chunk right off the top, but the workers did get bonuses for each Tulkun killed. So they were celebrating. Lyle, Prager, Z-Dog, Ja, and Lopez were taking in the party-like atmosphere of the ship’s cafeteria. Mansk had no interest in said atmosphere though and was actually tending to the banshees on the forward deck, feeding them fish that they asked the ship to skim up in some nets after the dead Tulkun was dropped back into the water. Spider was helping him in silence– still affected by the hunt. Mansk appreciated the company.

Beers were going around in celebration of their hunt. A woman, one of the sub pilots, stood up on a table and looked at some other sub pilots and said, “Thanks for the beer, guys. Better luck next time,” and the gathering crowd of personnel laughed. Though the recoms weren’t really celebrating anything, and didn’t have any strong feelings either way about the hunt, they didn’t have anything to do at that moment and it was better than their dank, noisy, storage space turned into sleeping quarters in the hull of the ship. So they sat on some tables against the wall in the back of the cafeteria, about the only “seats” that could fit them and shared in some beers, chatting amongst themselves.

A drunken sailor then came up to Z-Dog who was sitting on a table, back leaning against the wall and said, “Hey… I like your tattoos,” she looked at this small man up and down with her arms crossed, popped a bubblegum bubble and said “Thanks,” indifferently. The man then said, “What? Think I can’t handle a big blue girl?” To which Prager abruptly stood up, towering over the man, his head practically touching the ceiling and said, “Why don’t you head back on over there, pal?” Z-Dog now grinning at the man’s look of fear at the nine foot tall blue alien imposingly standing in front of him. He stumbled on some words and then staggered back over to a group of CET-OPS guys who were laughing at him. Like they sent him over to the recoms on a dare.

Prager sat back down. Z-Dog winked at him. Prager smiled. Lopez spoke and said, “Damn, how many beers do we need to feel drunk?? This is like my fourth. It’s like I’m drinking water.” 

Ja said, “Why don’t you try butt-chugging it, bro?” The recoms all laughed. 

Lyle was a little more non-talkative than usual though. Prager tapped him in the arm and said, “What’s up, Wainfleet?” Lyle had seen the Tulkun hunt as it was happening in the bridge and he wasn’t overly enthused by the experience. Seeing the baby alien whale trying to nuzzle its dead mother awake actually bothered him a little bit, but he wasn’t about to let the other recoms know that, especially given that he outranked them. “Ah yeah dude, I’m good… Hey let’s go disturb Mansk’s peace, I’m sure he’d love to see us.” The recoms giggled and left the cafeteria to go help tend to their banshees.

Miles was up on the deck of the bridge. Looking out over the nighttime ocean. He was frustratedly thinking about why Sully hasn’t revealed himself yet. The coward. He really ordered the killing of this fucking alien whale to try to draw him out. He was hopeful it was going to work, but he didn’t feel great about it. He didn’t feel great about any of it. Burning down villages and threatening their leaders. Sully was a coward, his running away and refusal to answer for his crimes, putting innocent folks at risk. God he wanted nothing more than to drive his knife or a bullet through his skull. Soon. Dr. Garvin suddenly emerged onto the deck from the bridge, an open beer in his hand. Miles looked back at him over his shoulder then sighed and looked forward. Why does this science puke want to talk to me?

Garvin came up next to Miles and leaned against the railing to his left. The two stood there in silence for a bit, Miles wondering why this scientist was out here with him.

Garvin then spoke and said, “You know I discovered amrita?” a tone of regret in his voice.

Miles looked down to him and stared with a curious expression. Garvin looked at up then continued, gazing back out into the ocean. “Discovered it in a dissection of a dead Tulkun that that washed up on shore. Learned of its anti-aging properties by applying it to an organism, just a… Pandoran bug whose life cycle is less than two days.” He took a drink of his beer. “It lived indefinitely until I cut off the amrita supply. I just uploaded my findings in my log as usual. Noted its anti-aging properties.” Garvin sighed. Miles’s ears leaned back. Garvin looked up to him and gave a sad smile.

“RDA then developed the entire CET-OPS program around my work. Immediately got clearance to apply amrita to humans. They actually asked me if I wanted to be the lead scientist.” Garvin chuckled and took a big gulp of his beer.

Miles was silent. They both just stared back out into the ocean. Suddenly, Spider emerged from the bridge onto the deck behind Miles and Garvin. Miles could smell that he smelled of fish from feeding the banshees. Miles asked, a little downcast, “What are you doing here, kid? Go to bed.”

Spider paused and asked, “Can I ask you something?” 

“What?” Miles asked, tired.

“So like… money.” Spider asked inquisitively. Miles and Garvin held a look on Spider. Spider continued, “Scoresby said they’re killing the Tulkun for money. I thought money was... Why do this for it?” Spider asked with a tone that was the deepest expression of, I don’t understand .

Miles looked at Spider with a profound look about him. The innocence of the question not being lost on him. He figured it made sense that the science pukes and Na’vi he was raised with didn’t stop to teach him basic human economics. Garvin started to chuckle, drunk, and gave Spider a look like, yeah, great question, kid. Miles pulled his lips back, and spoke, solemnly. “Money gets people what they want. And many people will do anything to get what they want.”

Garvin said, “Cheers.” and threw his empty glass beer bottle over the deck.

Spider had a dejected look about him. Miles slowly walked to Spider, bent down in front of him and put his huge hand on his shoulder and gripped him gently and smiled. He then attempted to offer some fatherly wisdom.

“Some chase the material things, kid. But make no mistake, it’s not the only thing that drives people.” Spider looked at him and tightened his lips together. Miles, still on his one knee, gave him a gentle expression and said, “So, you helped feed the banshees?”

“Yeah.” Spider replied, still a little bummed.

“With who?” Miles asked.

“Mansk.” Spider responded nonchalantly.

“Ah. Bet you both had some riveting conversation, huh?” Miles said sarcastically. 

Spider grinned, shrugged, and said with a chuckle, “I think he’d rather talk to the banshees.”

Miles smiled and said, “I bet you’re right about that. Alright, now get outta here. You stink like fish, kid.” Spider tried to hide a smile

[ Flashforward to the Marines and Zu in Bridgehead City]

Interested in the rest of this story? Check out "A New Mission" on Ao3! Leave me Kudos <3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/44672200/chapters/112389745

[prokopetz]

"But don't they also gush over the Adversary and the Spectre and the Razor" well, of course – the Voice of the Smitten is nothing if not open-minded. The difference is, singing the praises of a nine-foot-tall dragon lady or a vaguely humanoid mass of screaming knives is respectable, at least from the perspective of the image the Voice of the Smitten is insistently trying to project. Not in a million years would they willingly admit to so pedestrian a preference as big boobs. Like, I want you to imagine that conversation as exactly as you're able.

I think my favourite subtle joke in Slay the Princess is how the Voice of the Smitten loudly insists they're all about pure devotion and courtly love, then in all of their spotlight chapters the Princess has visibly bigger boobs. Like, we see you, buddy.

[invictarre-archive]

I’ve already shown this to @hibiscan​, but I feel like we kinda lose sight of how big leon’s charizard is. like

[alliebriggsart]

“Mephistopheles, The Arch Devil of Baator”

You may have seen this handsome devil floating around the reddit/twitter sphere last year, and he has finally made his way here.

Re-Introductions might be in order. Hi my name is Allie! I am a fantasy artist that loves painting dragons and women with claws, horns, and thorns. Plus, the occassional devious devil.

I joined Tumblr in 2011 to bear witness to my college years and the works I created in school. (You can view the times of old for now... until I feel like making all those posts private.) Now, with everything happening on Twitter, it only felt right to get this page up and running again. I worry about the changes that will come. I had so many opportunities come from Twitter. So many things I don’t think could have happened without the ttrpg community there and the random happenstance of discoverability.

I wish only good things for every artist on Twitter. No matter what happens.

--------

Hints of Mephisto exist in our campaign, which is what originally drew me into creating my own design. Mephisto had a completely different description in AD&D than in the newer editions or even Pathfinder. Something about the ice of Cania and the encompassing detail of blue was a big part of the imagery that I latched onto. No repeat of the red alien beast from the Star Trek movie that was last minute placed into a frosty terrain.

AD&D Monster Manual II description."Mephistopheles is a nine foot tall, blue-black humanoid with handsome, yet diabolical features. He has huge muscles that befit his great strength, and his speech is whispering wind. His wings, horns, and talons are deep blue and his scales are sooty black. His eyes are pale blue with red irises and pupils."

Other lore describes him as a paranoid individual. Always questioning the loyalty of his cohorts, for he himself is constantly trying to reach Asmodeus' throne, which means others could be aiming to covet his place in the Nine Hells. The tendency to show charm and control has been described as a façade, well maintained when present at court but otherwise short fused and quick to lash out when alone or dealing independently with others. Daddy... sorry.

Of course... here he is taking on the visage of something much more charming and devilish than his true form.

[copycatsymphony]

💫 Toy Story type AU!

// Meme

First off, Domestic Electronics is basically that, but everyone knows they're alive (if you want a 4 inch tall Tarn and "kid's toy" Whirl, and miniature Cyclonus/Tailgate and Chromedone/Rewind, please, god, read this fic.) It's my comfort fic whenever I feel like shit and includes everything that happens in the comics but if all transformers were less than a foot tall and were appliances.

Anyway! My headcanons for this -

1. Soundwave as a little sentient toy would immediately smack every other non-transformer toy into line. He doesn't give a shit if his kid sees that he's alive, who would even believe a nine year old that his toy is alive and talks? No one, that's who.

2. Soundwave, as a toy, should still play music. Tiny radio that can be transformed into a boombox. Or maybe he plays the cassettes? Ravage's cassettes plays pop music and he hates it. Refuses to talk about it and will maul other toys with no hesitation. Parents always think he's possessed or "encourages evil" as a toy.

3. If Soundwave likes his owner (and their taste in music) he's the perfect little transformer. May harass any cats in the house, though, or tame and ride your dog like a mighty dragon rider but with less cool and more drool.

4. I like to think of a big toy store, and with all the toys alive after hours - a pack of Soundwaves. Think about it. They're their own cult, they drag the Blasters of the store and lock them in the glass cases, and then go stalk the Cosmos aisle. After a certain reissue of Megatron toys, the Soundwave aisle joins up with the Prowl aisle to rage war against the Megatrons.

5. Always make sure to buy your Soundwave with all of his optional accessories (the cassettes) or else you'll find out toys are alive pretty damn quick. In other words: a 5 inch toy will wake you up at 3 am pointing a salad fork at your eye.

Be glad he can't lift the knives out of the knife block.

[ninjakitten1699]

Tallest OCs?

Well for the most part it’s my Serpentine Women that are actually currently the tallest.

I had the idea that like real life snakes they’d be bigger than their men and lore wise I think it was meant to counter their men’s strength and with that they’d find their match in combat like Amazonian women so they’d make stronger, healthier snakelets. (which was the most inspiration I took for the Serpentine women)

Melusine would be seven feet while her husband, Knucker, a Constrictai man is perhaps around five feet (closer to a human height) and Belladonna was eight feet tall (almost nine cause Anacondrai are a big ass snakes and she was big as fuck too) but she isn’t alive anymore so she doesn’t count now. (Rip to a legend.)

I would’ve went with my Dragon Samurai women but they took on human appearances so they don’t count either. (The humanoid dragons though would’ve been nine foot but again they don’t count since they don’t necessarily appear.)

I just thought about something…

I just want to test something 👀

by OCs I mean current tallest ones

also tell me why (lore wise and why you chose it) in the notes

@clownpallete @yourlocaltiredartist @iamblehtastic @pinkzombieprincess @ihavewritersblockbutinreallife @archivqst @shadow-von-vamp @thecardinalsin07 @mirabilismayhem @ghostytoad @leafypants

[lisinfleur]

Mistletoe, broke a toe

The request:

Author’s Notes | I hope your toe is better, love. And I hope you can forgive me for taking so long to post this one. :) Universe | Vikings Pairing | Hvitserk x Reader Info | Modern AU, prepared for the Patron’s Holiday Event Words | 806 ⁑ Warnings: Mention to broken bones and pain, cursing.

"FUCKING SHIT!"

It was the last thing everyone in the house had heard before the sound of a big thing falling called everyone to the living room.

What was supposed to be an amazing night for everyone in your family ended up with you being taken to the hospital by your best friend and guest of the night: since Hvitserk was your guest, your older brother almost pushed on him the task to take you to the closest E.R. to take a look on that awfully twisted toe you had on your foot, aching like hell, swelling faster than a party balloon, and going more purple than the wine they were probably enjoying without you at the moment.

Instead, you were sitting on a stretcher as the nurse was placing some more plaster over the boot you had gained as a gift for the night: a broken toe out of the moment the ladder you were using fell down over your foot, cracking your bone in two.

Hvitserk was sitting beside you, messing up with his phone, probably mourning the bunch of fresh and delicious food he wouldn't dig in because of you. Shit... You've heard him speaking about the feasts of Yule and Christmas all the time!

"I'm sorry," you mumbled, catching his attention.

Stupid you...

"What? Y/N, come on. You broke a toe, girl. This hurts as fuck. I should be the one asking you to forgive me for not helping you with whatever made you go upon that ladder." he said, smiling at you.

Your sweet puppy boy. Always smiling, happy, chewing something or making you feel good whenever he was around.

When would you be strong and brave enough to face your fears and tell him the truth?

"Mistletoe," you mumbled, catching his attention.

"What?" he asked. "But you reach the doorstep. Why the ladder then?"

"I wanted it to be taller than..." You swallowed up, blushing. "I didn't want the person I wanted to catch to be able to see the mistletoe before it was already over his head ok?"

"Oh," he said, for one second seeming to be sad.

Sad?

That shadow inside Hvitserk's eyes caught you completely.

Why was he sad about that?

"He must be a tall man, then," he mumbled with that strange tone.

Why was he sounding so disappointed?

"He... Is. But... He would never kiss me," you continued.

Trying to gather the courage, making some rounds, almost begging all the gods in the universe for him to see what was hidden behind your shyness.

"The mistletoe was a trap... To earn a kiss he wouldn't be able to deny," you finished.

"Then he's a fool," Hvitserk shot back so quickly and so full of conviction that you almost said he was jealous of you setting a trap to catch a kiss from someone.

You crossed your arms, looking at him.

"Can I know why would he be a fool, Hvitserk?"

You wanted to hear it, maybe to understand why your friend was so annoyed by that conversation - although you knew exactly it was Hvitserk who you were talking about.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said, looking at you. "Any man that needs to fall on a trap to give you a kiss is an idiot."

You smiled. But tried to keep your posture.

Maybe that was your chance. His confusion somehow was making it easier for you.

"Oh, you think, Hvitserk? Why do you think like this?" you instigated.

"Oh, fuck, Y/N! You're fucking gorgeous! And beyond this, you're an amazing person. If I was this guy and I had the chance? I wouldn't think twice."

You blushed from your head to your broken toe.

"T... Then I don't have to climb ladders and hide mistletoe where you can't see anymore, I suppose..." You spat.

Trying to say what you wanted without saying. Blushing like never before.

"What?" he looked at you. "Me?" Hvitserk said, pointing his chest.

And all you could do was nod. Your face blazing red.

He laughed. That lovely chuckle you liked so much.

"Seriously?"

"Stop it, Hvitserk! You're making me red!" you complained.

"Babe... If you wanted me to kiss you, you just had to ask," he said, leaning to touch your chin with his fingers before gently kissing your lips.

Slow and softly, his taste invaded your mouth as he asked permission to explore it with his tongue dancing against yours, melting you in his arms and almost making you forget the pain in your foot.

When the kiss was over, Hvitserk smiled against your lips.

"See... no need to break a toe for a kiss," he joked.

"Haha..." You faked, gaining a smile from him when you joked back, "That's good, cause I only have nine toes remaining and well... I don't think nine kisses would be enough".

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[katelynn-a-fan]

An Eve to Remember

This is my gift of @destinys-dragon. I’ve had creative block for nearly a whole month... I cranked out more than half of this today in 4ish hours so I’m glad to finally be able to gift this to you. I picked one of your more complicated prompts (I think) to write, but I did it!

Ao3

Summary: Thomas Sanders is trying to get a good nights rest for Christmas the next day, but a confusing appearance in his own mind leads him down a different path to... his own living room? Not everything's the same in his mind but by golly he is going to help his Sides the best he can to make sure that that night is the best Christmas (eve) they've had yet.

Parings: LAMP and Dukeciet/Demus

Word count: 4902 / 4.9k

Warning: Disorientation, slightly disturbing visuals, (passionate) Kissing, 

Thomas took a few experimental blinks as the heady feeling of drowsiness slowly ebbed away. His hand sluggishly rubbed his brow, insistent on kneading the fuzziness in his head out. Maybe then he could remember exactly how he got there.

Where am I?

His eyes very, very slowly adjusted to surroundings as his hands skirted across the tile-

The… tile… under him?

Why is there tile under me? That shouldn't be there unless I’m-

“Oh, you’re finally here!” His own voice called out from above him, but that wasn’t something unknown to him. What was unknown to him is how he got to where he was at that moment.

Thomas craned his neck towards the familiar pair of Warby Parker glasses and the soft gray and light blue blur of Patton. Another agonizing blinks passed before Thomas’s eyes finally resolved Patton’s face and his… blue and grey Christmas sweater? Even with the different attire, Patton’s signature grin was just as wide as always.

“Huh… hey Patton… Um…” Thomas bit his lip, his eyes glancing at various features around him. Sticking his hand out, Patton’s grin dipped a few millimeters as Thomas accepted Patton’s hand. Quickly pulling him up, Patton smoothed his thumb over Thomas’s knuckles. 

“Yes, Thomas?” 

He lingered his gaze around the clear space he was in, the short hallway of his own apartment. His gaze scoured every inch of the space, and everything about it just screamed: Different! 

“This… isn’t my actual apartment.”

Smile tilting sideways on his face, Patton wrapped his hands fully around Thomas’s.

“Of course it isn’t, silly! You’re asleep right now!”

Thomas’s hands flexed a little between Patton’s hands.

“I am? I’ve never done this before though- Been here with you guys before, I mean.”

Gently turning his hands, Patton made his grip into a proper handhold and began to lead Thomas down the much, much longer than usual corridor.

Laughing slightly Patton turned back to Thomas with a very sly twinkle in his eye.

“Oh you have, you just don’t remember afterwards-”

“Wait what-”

“Daddy! You left me alone with the cookies and nothing to fuck and I got myself dirty!” 

Thomas jumped as he finally rounded the nonsensical corner into his dream kitchen. Remus was standing on the counter with a fair amount of beige matter spattering his outfit, hair, and even his moustache. 

Letting go of Thomas’s hand finally, Patton grabbed a rag and quickly dampened it in the sink before tossing it up to Remus. Immediately snatching it out of the air, Remus bounced on the balls of his feet before sitting on the counter instead and swinging his legs as he cleaned himself off.

“Here you go! I’m surprised you didn’t set the kitchen on fire like last time.”

Hands pausing on his face, Remus’s legs quickly stopped swinging as Remus’s eyes went wide and he pushed his bottom lip out in a pout.

“I only make a mess when I’m not actually making something! That time I wasn’t even cooking anything.”

Placing a hand on Remus’s shoulder, Patton squeezed Remus’s shoulder.

“Hey, I believe you. It’s not everyday we do this. I’m sorry I assumed-”

Remus brushed off Patton’s hand from his shoulder after a moment, but grabbed it just before it was too far. 

“Nah I’m kidding about being mad, dear Daddy! Fires are just one of the hazards of being me!” 

Making eye contact, Patton smiled at Remus once again.

“Well that’s good! Thomas is here, though I think you knew that already.”

A smirk immediately plastered onto Remus’s face as he glanced over to where Thomas had been shifting from foot to foot in the kitchen entrance. 

“Ah, our resident Thomas the Dank Engine! Have you ever had dreams of sugar dicks dancing through your head?”

Thomas’s smile slowly turned wooden as a bitter taste invaded his mouth at Remus’s words. Skin crawling slightly, Thomas swallowed down a small lump in his throat before he managed to reply. 

I just want something wholesome. I don’t want to be thinking of that when I’m watching my parents or when I myself open presents.

“Uh, no…?”

“Well you just might have some after tonight!” Cackling, Remus stood back up on the counter before impossibly scurrying up the cupboards. The ceiling stretched impossibly high and out so that Remus slowly became just a pair of eyes in a dark cavern above the kitchen. Luckily, the moment didn’t last long and just as fast, Remus was scrambling down the cupboards once again to sit on the counter beside Patton.

Patton’s expression didn’t betray anything other than acute disinterest, however his hands silently tumbled over each other for a few moments.

“Well, Thomas, come here! We’re baking everything for the others!” Waving his hand invitingly, Patton gestured also to the oven where the oven light revealed a tray of cookies, a full blown turkey, a slab of ham, as well as some other things that managed to fill the impossibly big oven.

Thomas finally stepped forward.

Nose twitching a little, Thomas was suddenly bombarded with the strong smell of cookies.

“Whoa! This kitchen smells like the perfect Christmas, Pat!”

Chuckling, Patton wrapped his arms around Thomas in a quick hug.

“Well that’s the idea, kiddo!”

Squinting, he followed Patton with his eyes as Patton stepped back, the sensation of Patton’s embrace lingering on his skin.

“Did you just sneak in that hug because you ever get to in my videos? That hug seemed very targeted.”

Cheeks quickly turning pink, Patton nearly ducked his head away as he stepped back against the sink.

“That may be part of the reason.”

At that moment, the words embroidered on Patton and Remus' sweater finally revealed themselves.

Patton’s predictably read: Feliz Navi Dad and a Happy Blue Year.

But Remus’s was nearly illegible as the chaos of neon green on black made it almost unreadable, eventually, the words came together to spell out: I’m theTrashman and I’ll have all your wrapping paper.

Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but a sound in the short distance caught his attention instead. He turned towards the source, over the counter and surely into the living room, but was met with the strangely comforting void of black beyond it.

“What’s happening in the living room? And why can’t I see it?”

Glancing fleetingly at the black void, Patton bounced over to Thomas.

“Oh that’s just your mind doing it’s thing. Not everything in this mind kitchen is going to be exactly the same, and sometimes when something’s changed, it just becomes blank space. It’s nice.” Patton gestured past Thomas towards the other direction both of them came from. “By the way, it’s not just us who’re here, everyone else is down the hall. You don’t have to stay talking with us. We still have a bit to do anyways.”

Eyes widening, Thomas whipped around towards the entrance of the kitchen and strained his ears towards the faint sounds from down the hall Thomas hadn’t been paying any attention to until now.

“There’s more to this place?”

A sparkle in his eyes had Patton’s smile widening and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Yes! And you can go wherever you want. This is your head after all.”

Thomas took an initial step towards the edge of the kitchen before he turned around and gave both a fleeting look and a comforting smile before he stepped out of the kitchen with a wave.

Just like the hallway from the entrance, the space between the hallway and the living room was strange, even the sounds were farther than they should’ve been.

The slightly harsher light from the overhead kitchen light slowly faded to something much more muted and pleasant as Thomas treaded carefully down the short end of the hallway to where the sounds of the other were coming from.

Shoulders the slightest bit hunched, Thomas tentatively peeked out from the corner of the hallway where it opened up into the living room. With a gasp, Thomas nearly fell into the living room at the sight that lay before him.

The space was definitely recognizable as his apartment, yet somehow completely different. Instead of the smaller dimensions of his real apartment, the living room was now a much larger open space full of architecture reminiscent of a log cabin. 

The staircase was still there, but was made of the more rustic wood like everything else. Something completely and entirely new was the roaring fire in a fireplace below the TV that was mounted above it instead of being in the corner like usual.

Not only that, but everything was also decorated to the nines in Christmas decorations, tinsel strung on the mantle very delicately and securely, a wreath on some of the posts, and the main attraction, the Christmas tree twinkling in the dim firelight.

As for the others, they were hovering near the Christmas tree. Logan was closest to Thomas, back to Thomas as he faced everyone else. Janus was hunched over the very bottom of the tree, placing a golden ornament among the gold and silver ornaments near the bottom of the tree.

Thomas frowned, his hands coming to clasp in front of him as his eyes fell on Virgil and Roman.

Virgil was swaying as he sat upon Roman’s shoulders. Reaching up, he hesitated at each little sway to put the purple colored ornament near the top of the very tall tree. 

As a particularly violent sway sent both of them nearly off balance, Thomas nearly bolted forward to catch them, but Logan simply took a step towards them and pushed gently at a specific part of Roman’s back. The gesture was so subtle that Roman didn’t even pause as he laughed, securing Virgil on his shoulders without a glance backwards at Logan.

Even Roman didn’t notice, Thomas had, and he smiled at Logan as he came back to a different spot, but just as far away as the previous spot from the tree.

Something unusually tense in Logan’s back has Thomas’s feet immediately bringing him up beside Logan.

Thomas placed a hand on Logan’s arm once he was close enough. However, Logan quickly began to step to the side, but Thomas’s grip remained, halting Logan as soon as he began to move.

Neither of them said anything, a simple nod passing between them before the simultaneously turned back to watch Virgil and Roman’s antics.

“They are somehow so careful and yet so reckless. I can’t understand them sometimes.”

“Do they know they could’ve just conjured a ladder to do this?”

Turning to Thomas, Logan leveled a single eyebrow at Thomas, his expression still neutral.

“Sure, but then we wouldn’t get to see this… entertaining display.”

A slight upturn of Logan’s lips and a dusting of pick on his cheeks had Thomas looking back to the teetering disaster waiting to happen. Then back at Roman and Virgil. Then back at Logan.

A smile of Thomas’s own blossomed on his face.

Even the message on Logan’s dark blue and black sweater emphasized the moment, showing the periodic table with elements labeled Cu, Ti, E, all highlighted.

But Thomas didn’t address that as Logan subtly moved his hands behind his back, the edge of an object in his hand peeking out for a split second

“What is that in your hand? I see you hiding it.”

Bringing his hands farther away from Thomas with the offending item, Logan’s Adam’s apple bobbed conspicuously before Logan cleared his throat and spoke.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Mouth popping open, Thomas’s mouth was open in the ghost of a word before he froze, his face falling as his eyes darted back and forth a bit. Straightening his back, Thomas closed his mouth before placing a subtle, comforting hand on Logan’s shoulder.

“Oh, I suppose it’s a secret? Well then I won’t spoil it. Wouldn’t want to force your hand,” Thomas lightly tapped his pointer finger to his lips with a small smirk on his face. “I won’t keep you from whatever you’re doing.”

And with that, Thomas gave Logan a wink and stepped over to where Janus was still half bent over the tree.

“Hey Janus.”

Janus glanced up with his usual impassive expression, but the moment he met Thomas’s eyes, Janus’s face immediately melted into the smallest of smiles. The moment didn’t last long, a look from Janus returned by Thomas.

“Ah our creator. My humblest greetings.”

“I’m not your creator Janus. You are as much a part of me as I am in this place.”

“And yet, each of us here are so incredibly different. All thanks to you.”

Thomas’s cheeks heated rapidly, though his level expression suggested he was trying not to acknowledge that fact.

“Whatever.”

Both of them turned as Roman and Virgil began to exclaim, something about going too fast, lost in the flurry of limbs as they once again began to fall, but this time righted themselves completely unaided.

They each took a few moments, muttering words only each other could hear before Roman’s eyes turned to the bottom of the tree and the most incredulous sound imaginable came from his lips.

“Why must you defy everything I planned for this tree Mr. Slick and Grinchy?”

Crouching down, Janus made no effort to reply or react at all at first. He completed the gesture of placing the ornament and standing back up before his eyes even flickered to Roman in the slightest.

“Society is an illusion and so is perfect beauty or aesthetic.”

Roman frowned, huffing as he crossed his arms. 

“I may not understand what exactly that means, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re wrong about that! The ornaments should be evenly distributed across the tree instead of all of those ornaments being at the bottom.”

However, despite the passionate speech, Janus’s expression remained neutral, a yawn that appeared 100% genuine only adding to the message.

“Well, when you finally conjure that ladder, I’ll be happy to place some of these nearer to the top.”

Roman’s gasp this time was devoid of all it’s incredulousness this time, his eyes bugging out as he gently slapped his head with his hand the best he could while holding onto Virgil.

“It’s not often I say this, but… Mr. Humbug, you’re righ-”

“It’s time!” Thomas jumped, turning around to Patton’s head sticking out from the hallway. They made eye contact and Patton jerked his head back in the direction of the hall.

“Hey Thomas, some help with the drinks, Remus and I got the food.”

Rubbing his jaw, Thomas glanced back at Janus and Roman, their quick glances toward each other making Thomas’s breath catch. 

“Sure Pat, I’m coming…”

Sending one last glance back at the trio with an apologetic smile, Thomas turned and walked past Patton back into the kitchen where the steaming mugs of hot cocoa sat for Thomas to bring. Remus already had a platter of pristine Christmas cookies and a full ham and a turkey and- 

Eyes bugging out once again, Thomas’s eyes were locked onto Remus as he went down the hall with the entire contents of the oven carried in his 6 total hands. 

Patton, on the other hand, had only two side dishes in his hands as he passed Thomas. Nodding towards the steaming mugs, Patton stepped back towards the living room.

“Just grab the trays, everything’s lighter here than you would expect, so you won’t have to much to handle.”

Opening his mouth, Thomas’s words died on his lips once again as Patton disappeared around the corner, leaving Thomas to his duty of bringing the drinks.

Thankfully, just as Patton said, the trays were exponentially lighter than they looked with 3-4 mugs on each of them. So Thomas easily picked up and brough the mugs back down the hallway. 

But everything came to a sudden halt when Thomas stepped back into the living room.

He had to have been gone less than a minute, but the whole atmosphere in the living room had drastically shifted from a slight Christmas feel to full blown nostalgia Christmastime feeling. The tree had every inch covered in ornaments now, the fire was roaring somehow more than before and everyone was seated comfortably on the many couches that faced the TV with plates and utensils a plenty.

It took all Thomas’s effort not to drop both those dang platters as his feet almost instantaneously rooted him to the spot as his mouth dropped open at how fast everything had suddenly come together.

“Thomas- snrk- You okay there?” Virgil’s smug voice came from one of the furthest couches, Virgil sitting on the arm of the couch, but slowly sinking down towards the proper place.

Jolting, Thomas abruptly cleared his throat and nodded as his eyes continued to take in the living room, his voice not at all convincing.

“Uh, yes? Uh….no? I think… this is just… wow.”

Each of Sides looked to one another, a similar expression of wide open eyes at how awed Thomas sounded. They had done that. Only Janus managed not to look bothered, but by the way Remus rolled his eyes in Janus’s direction, there was more than meets the eye under the impassive half smile Janus had managed to pull off.

Soon, however, Thomas was stepping forward once again, not yet completely over the sight, but recovered enough that he could mostly properly function again.

Without a word, Thomas handed everyone a drink according to the cups, each of them the sides usual colors with an animal design/theme. 

The last one left on the tray for Thomas was a chaotic blend of all of them, cutesy animals and a rainbow design.

“Oh… I love that. It’s perfect.”

Patton, who was sitting comfortably with Logan on a couch, leaned over the arm of their couch and patted Roman’s arm as best he could on the other couch.

“See, I told you he’d love it.”

And with that, all of them dug in, the hum of conversation washing over Thomas as he got what he wanted from each of the platters.

It was like only an instant had passed when Roman finally bolted up, bouncin on his toes in all his excitement.

“Is everyone done? Because if we are, then it’s time for presents!”

Presents went by just as fast as each of the Sides revealed their presents for each other.

Logan was first with a scrapbook for Patton of all the memories from the preparations, each of them laughing and preparing the day as well as some sneakily hidden shots from the meal. He even took a picture of Patton’s completely awed look, instructing Patton to turn to the last page to see the very picture already in the book. 

It probably took five minutes for Patton to stop borderline choking Logan with a hug, and even more than that for Patton to stop crying happy tears into Logan’s Christmas sweater. 

Patton’s present was for Janus. 

Janus was leaning just slightly away from the present as he opened it, ready for something disappointing, perhaps. But instead a moment of pure joy flashed across Janus’s face as he opened it. Sure, his expression immediately hid that that moment had even existed, but every Side had watched him, so there was no hiding it.

Inside Janus’s present was everything a cold-blooded, snake themed side would want, a snake plushie and onesie as well as a heated and weighted blanket. 

Still, with Janus’s blatant slip, he still schooled his expression as he extracted each from the packaging.

Janus had Virgil.

Thomas and Logan had frowned at the small package Virgil had been handed by Janus, aas did Virgil himself. 

But Virgil was more curious than anything, as even though Janus was one to play tricks, this small package was small enough it was likely not to be one.

What nobody expected was the utter ear-piercing squeal that came from Virgil after a moment of gazing at his unwrapped present.

“How? You found an exclusive version of-”

“I know you love MCR, and found that, as luck would have it, in the recesses of Thomas’s mind. It helps to be a bit more experienced with all things not conscious. I-”

In a surprising move for everyone, Virgil cut Janus’s ramble short with a slamming hug.

There weren’t nearly as many tears as Patton’s reaction to his gift, but if there were a few tears that leaked into Janus’s sweater, Janus made no comment as Virgil finally pulled back, sheeks red as the reality of what he had just done sunk in.

Virgil had presents for both of the twins, a thing of slime that looked like sewage and other fun things for Remus and a set of copic markers for Roman.

Remus was immediate in unveiling his slime and beginning to play with it, but Roman was hesitant. 

“I have plenty of markers, virgil, not that I am ungrateful for them, but what led you to this as my gift.”

Virgil tensed just ever so slightly before pushing a piece of paper in front of Roman.

“Just try them, idiot.”

Roman once again huffed in annoyance.

“Alright, Panic at the Disco.”

Roman tried out each of the colors, but soon found the paper to be too small for testing them out, and eventually, the color ran over each other, but when they did, Roman completely froze.

In all Roman’s time, he had never had markers that actually blended when you layered them. And that’s when it clicked in Roman’s expression, eyes widening like everyone else’s had when they opened their presents.

This time, of all times, Roman instantly apologized, nearly giving the markers back as his increasingly reddening face sunk deeper into his sweater. It wasn’t until Logan announced his own present was next that Roman had the courage to emerge, still rosy cheeked, but less so.

To complete the circle of gifts, the twins had Logan’s present. And they took their time in handing to Logan, as if what was inside was fragile or important.

Logan treated the gift the same, taking great care in unwrapping the gift before staring down at the gift of a very important looking notebook.

Without having to be asked, both of the twins wove a tale of watching Logan struggle to create a good schedule for Thomas, even clashing with Roman himself. But Remus was the one who continued, talking about how he had garnered some information from the non-conscious part of Thomas’s brain on how to tap into it to cement an idea or plan.

The notebook, when written in, would cement whatever idea was in it into Thomas’s mind, bring it to the forefront without completely intruding. It was the perfect thing to help Thomas listen to Logan more.

Thomas should’ve been more outraged that Logan had to have something like this to even be listened to, but his own logic had always been overshadowed by feelings at times. It was the best thing he could do to go over to Logan and hug him when he saw the tension in Logan’s body and the refusal to meet Thomas’s eyes.

The instant Thomas wrapped his arms around Logan, his body stiffened even more before just as quickly completely melting into Thomas completely. Fingers running through Logan’s hair, Thomas whispered out quiet assurances.

“No, don’t you dare feel guilty about not being heard. You shouldn't have to be ‘tempted’ to make me listen ‘against my will.’ You are a part of me that I need to listen to, and I trust you enough to allow this greater power over me. If I didn’t want this, my creativity- creavtivities wouldn’t have made this for you.”

That was enough to stop the slight shivering as Logan pulled back with uncharacteristically soft and vulnerable eyes, wide and awe-filled.

“Really?” Logan’s voice was barely a breath.

“Really.” Thomas echoed, squeezing Logan gently before letting go and sitting back beside him.

Still keeping Logan in the corner of his eye, Thomas turned to Remus and Roman who were still in front of them with a mischievous glint in their eyes.

“Now, each of you check your pockets now,” Both of them snapped in unison as Roman spoke. “You should find something new there.”

With varying levels of excitement and wariness each of them reached into their pockets to produce a jagged piece of something. When the twins were met with blank stare at the reason for these gifts, neither of them faltered.

“Each of you, gather around the coffee table and place your piece down, we have ours as well.”

Eyebrow raised, Thomas obliged, as did the rest of the Sides after. As each of them placed their piece on the table, the idea slowly came into shape, though as always it was Logan’s face to light up first in realization.

“Now each of you arrange your pieces the best you can to create a complete shape, there is only one way these pieces fit together, but we’ll let you figure it out.”

It only took a moment for each of their voices to vy to be heard, only Logan holding his tongue as he had likely already figured it out and a stern but gentle glare from Roman to not ruin it for everyone. Roman did pointedly glance at the notebook he and Remus had just given him, permission to slyly get back at Roman is however he saw fit in what he guided Thomas towards.

Surprisingly, it was Patton who first exclaimed the solution.

“Oh that’s so cute! It’s a star!”

Judging by the grumbles that arose from Janus, he might have been close to that solution himself, but was beaten to the punch by Patton’s exclamation.

“You got it! This our gift to all of you.”

In any case, after that the 7 of them arranged their pieces  so that the star design appeared. Thomas’s pink piece was at the top, with Virgi’s purple and Roman’s red sitting beside it. For now, the star was devoid of orange, but full of the rest of the sides neon yellows, lush greens and two distinct peaceful blues. 

The star was still a 5 pointed star, which made the piece placement a little more complicated, but eventually they were able to press the pieces together. When they did the star flashed brightly before suddenly zooming out of everyone’s grip and alighting on the tree.

Once the star was in its place, snow suddenly began to fall from the ceiling silently. Even Remus and Roman’s mouth fell open as the first flakes settled onto them.

Each of the Sides and Thomas gazed up at least once to try to find where they were coming from, but they just appeared a few inches from the ceiling and fell down to them. 

Even with the mystery, all of them slowly succumbed to the urge to enjoy the indoor snow. Whether it was trying to catch a flake with their tongue or immediately catching as much snow in one place to attempt a snowball, the formality of the gift giving was completely gone and replaced with the unbridle fun of playing in the snow.

“Wait… where… Where did that mistletoe come from? We never put that up.” Virgil pointed to a sprig of mistletoe above where Janus and Remus were gathering snow, Janus gathering most of it while Remus made balls of snow.

Both Janus and Remus looked up in unison, eyeing the sprig before looking at each other.

“I don’t care, come here Jani-bear. I want to get steamy enough that the snow starts melting.”

Even Thomas rolled his eyes at the pet name and the cheesy line, but couldn’t help fawning over Janus’s reaction.

Face turning bright red, it was Janus who took the initiative to pull Remus’s collar and kiss him. Responding in kind after a moment to recover, Remus responded by mouthing into the kiss just as passionately.

A gasp from behind Thomas had him turning to yet another sprig of mistletoe, this time above the four other sides, each of them turning red as they turned their face up to it. 

Surprisingly, Patton was the first to place a quick kiss on Logan’s lips, with Roman just behind him sweeping Virgil into a kiss of his own.

Thomas's chest filled with warmth as he watched his sides kiss each other, their love an extension of his own self love. The sensation filled him outwards from his chest up to his head and down to the tip of his toes.

It wasn’t until he was staggering, though, that it hit him that maybe the warmth wasn’t just love, that the blanket he didn’t exactly remember wrapping around himself was warming him up pleasantly as well.

Eyes dropping, Thomas made it to the couch, lying down to answer the call of his mind, the warm embrace of sleep ever stronger on him.

A familiar voice echoed softly in his head just at the cusp of sleep

“This is our present for you, Thomas, a pleasant dream by our sides enjoying Christmas together.”

The picture of his Sides’ concerned faces hovering over him faded as the pleasant feelings of the night carried him off into proper, joy filled dreams.

Thomas smiled, nuzzling into his pillow, asleep and content.

[monstersandmaw]

Embers - male dragon shifter x reader, Part Thirteen (sfw)

Hey folks - sorry I didn’t post it yesterday. Here it is, at 6.30am on a Saturday for you instead! And we finally get a glimpse of Mikaeïl in his... bigger form too...

Next week is our final chapter! I can’t believe it! Thank you so much to those of you who’ve let me know you’re enjoying it, and to those of you who have reminded me (on more than one occasion!!) that Friday means Embers day, and where the hell is the story, Ghosti!! haha.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve

Mikaeïl’s request that you ‘bring something warm to wear’ for your weekend with him confused and mystified the hell out of you. Added to that, he absolutely refused to give you any more information about it, so you found yourself driving over to his house with a number of different jumpers and coats packed, and a knot of anxious tension in your stomach.

It didn’t help that he’d texted you before you’d set off to say, ‘When you get here, come round the side of the house to the back terrace.’ And that had been it.

So, dutifully, you followed the gravel path around the side of his huge, sandstone, ancestral mansion, and emerged onto the upper lawns.

At the sight that greeted you, your fingers lost their strength and you dropped your weekend-bag to the ground.

Standing on the lawn, resting his huge, coppery wing on the thumb joint like a bat, was a gleaming wyvern. Large, perhaps thirty foot tall when he drew his head up to its full height, with metallic scales the same colour as those you’d seen on his human body, ranging from bright copper to tarnished bronze and even gold along the crest of his back, Mikaeïl was stunning.

Drawn by the movement of your arrival, he watched you fall still and stare openly at him, though a soft, familiar, low-frequency rumbling pervaded the whole garden, and the sound of it stirred you back to life.

Leaving your bag where it lay abandoned on the sunny gravel path, you walked over to him with awe etched onto your face, and breathed, “Mikaeïl?”

The wyvern nodded once, slowly, golden eyes glinting.

“Can you talk when you’re like this?” you asked as you continued to approach him.

“I can talk,” he said, though his voice was different. It still had all the delicate enunciation of the Mikaeïl you knew, but it was richer, far more sonorous, and much deeper.

When you were standing beside him, you raised your palm, barely noticing the trembling excitement in your fingers, and pressed it gently against his cool scales.

He lowered his head and sank his body to the ground, lying down for you like a colossal dog while you just explored the miraculous strangeness of his incredible body. “You’re so beautiful…” you whispered. Two horns curved back over his head, the same ruby-red, flecked with gold, that you knew from his other form, only they were so much larger like this.

“God, Mikaeïl,” you chuckled in wonderment. “You are just so beautiful…” He was; fabergé looked like they could have taken inspiration from him for one of their unbelievable creations.

If wyverns could blush, you suspected Mikaeïl might well have done. As it was, his nostrils flared, and his head shied away slightly, showing off the beautiful array of spikes at the edges of his jaw and head, and he rumbled something again more deeply. In response, you put your palm on his deep chest and felt the vibrations of it shiver through you.

Suddenly, the penny dropped about the clothing, and your eyes went wide. “Mikaeïl… when you said to bring warm stuff to wear… You’re not… We’re… We’re not going to…”

A slow, deep laugh rolled out of him and he shifted his weight slightly, drawing your eye from his glimmering scales - each one like hand-hammered bronze - down to his clawed hind feet and the tip of his wing which rested on a single, massive, taloned thumb. While you waited for his reply, your fingers wandered to the leathery, sunset-yellow membrane of his wing, right near the knuckle which propped him up, and a shudder ran through him, all the way to his barbed tail.

“Sensitive?” you murmured with a wry smile.

“Mmm,” he rumbled, lowering his head and slowly, luxuriantly, inhaling the scent of your skin right by your neck. “How do you feel about going for a short flight?” he asked softly.

“Honestly…?” you said breathlessly, “I have no idea. I’ve never, uh… flown before. I mean, not like that…”

“Test flight?” he asked.

“Please tell me that you don’t have spines on your back because I’m not sitting on that and trying to cling on…”

Mikaeïl laughed his rich, deep laugh and said, “Take a closer look at the junction of my neck and shoulders…”

He rolled slightly towards you but still you couldn’t see the top of his back properly, so in the end he had to help you up with his wing like a leg-up onto a horse. His back was smooth for perhaps a foot and a half between the end of his sinuous neck and the start of his back - the perfect space for someone to sit. You ran your hand over the space and he shivered again.  

“It’s like it was made for someone to sit here,” you commented.

“Not quite,” he said dryly, “But my family were royal guards, a thousand years ago - which is why we have three forms: human, half human, and this. We have been known to carry royalty into battle or over long distances…”

“Royalty,” you cooed as he lowered you back to the ground. “Nice… You sure I’m worthy? I’ve never even sat on a motorbike, let alone a wyvern…”

Again, Mikaeïl laughed at your sense of humour, and nuzzled his nose affectionately against your stomach while you rubbed his forehead. His head was as big as a small couch and it was going to take some getting used to, but he was so damned gorgeous that you could hardly process the fact that this magnificent creature was the Mikaeïl you’d come to know.

“Put on a coat to keep warm while we fly, and I’ll take you for a little trial run… if you like. You don’t have to though…”

“You’ve got something else planned though, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But it’s alright if you don’t want to fly there.”

“No, let’s try it,” you said, as you scuttled back to your bag and dug out the warmest coat you had. You imagined that with the wind rushing past you, even on such a sunny day, it would be cold.

And you were right.

You clambered warily onto his back, settling yourself in the smooth crook of his shoulders, nestled at the base of his neck and the start of his hugely muscular wings. Conveniently, he had two large horn-like spikes at the base of his neck, to which you clung for dear life as he began to flap his wings, trying to get some lift. You clamped your thighs around him as tightly as you could and leaned forward, honestly terrified.

“I won’t let you hurt yourself,” he promised and then you lurched upwards into the sky.

The ground rushed away beneath you and he continued to rise in jerky movements that made your stomach churn and drop each time. Eventually he had climbed as high as the roof of the mansion, and began to glide, the canvas of his great wings spread to catch the air, and you tried hard not to lose your breakfast all over his beautiful scales.

Mikaeïl did one lap of the parkland of his property and then began to descend gradually, spiralling down until the ground rushed up to meet you and he landed with a jolt that his body absorbed before it could throw you from your tenuous position atop his back.

“Alright?” he asked nervously, tilting his head to one side to see you out of the corner of his golden eye.

Taking a moment to catch your breath, with your heart still pounding in your ears, you nodded and swallowed. “Yeah,” you croaked. It had felt like a rollercoaster ride, only much, much wilder. “That was… amazing…!”

His laugh rippled through you and he said, “Why don’t you stow your bag in the conservatory, and if you could lock up, that would be amazing. Then if you’re alright with it, I want to take you somewhere a little further away.”

You nodded, slithering and landing weak-kneed on the grass beside him.  “Come here first,” you said, crooking your finger and beckoning his head closer.

He obliged, curious and amusedly wary, and when his muzzle was level with your face, you took his smooth, leathery head in your hands and kissed him squarely on the tip of his nose. His laugh came out as a warm blast of air through his nostrils, ruffling your hair, and you laughed too as he closed his eyes for a moment, clearly enjoying the closeness and the contact.

Nudging you playfully away after a minute or so, he rumbled happily, the sound halfway between an alligator and an elephant, only much deeper and louder, and you trotted off to do as he requested.

Once back, you ran your hands over his shoulder and chest again, letting the deep, appreciative sounds thrum through you, and watching as he closed his eyes again in pleasure. “You’re going to cause trouble if you keep touching me like that,” he said eventually. “And then I won’t be able to fly.”

“Not decently, anyway,” you grinned and he shook his head, laughter dancing in his yellow eyes.

“Get back on board and we’ll go before you render me incapable of flight altogether.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” you asked coyly and were met with a snarl that held no danger.

“Get. On.” he said but the fierceness of his tone was ruined by the laugh that bubbled out of him immediately afterwards.

“Fine,” you pouted, and clambered back on his back the same way you’d done before.  

With a final glance up at you, those eyes turned serious and he said, “Are you ready? Comfortable?”

“Yeah. How long will we be in the air?”

“About twenty minutes,” he said. “You let me know if you need me to land though, alright?”

You nodded, and he turned his attention away from you, hind claws gripping the earth as his great leathery wings, the colour of saffron, began to beat again, and he lifted skywards once again.

To be concluded next week...

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[artificialqueens]

It's Nice to Have a Friend, Chapter One (Branjie) - Holtzmanns

Dreams are a little bit less scary and unknown with some company there. Or at least, a girl with yellow hair who is two years older than Vanessa and lives in Canada and is her best friend in the entire world.

Soulmates au.

(read on ao3) | word count: 4537

AN: So I really enjoyed writing that first soulmates au, and really wanted to write another one. This one came a bit out of left field, but I hope you enjoy. The next chapter of level up is on it’s way as well, promise. Thank you guys so much for all the support and comments on it, it makes me so happy. And tell me what you think about this one, too!

Thank you Writ for betaing and being the best ever <3

Vanessa is four and she can’t sleep in her big kid bed. Not when it gives her nightmares.

That has to be the reason, because her mom isn’t there, and her mom makes the nightmares go away when she reads her bedtime stories and Vanessa dreams of the stories instead. But sleeping in a big kid bed means that she doesn’t have her mom to kiss her forehead and tell her everything is going to be okay because they’re not in the same room anymore, not when she has to share with Alexis.

Alexis is seven, which seems so very old because she’s all the way in second grade and Vanessa’s only in kindergarten, with a teacher named Miss Kayla who lets them paint with their fingers and race cars around the classroom. But Alexis says that Vanessa’s in classes for babies, because Alexis is learning about division and reading chapter books without any pictures at all.

But Vanessa likes Miss Kayla. She likes going to school in the mornings.

She just doesn’t like having to go to sleep the night before.

Vanessa pulls the covers up to her nose before closing her eyes, because maybe her blanket will be like a shield and protect her from the scary monsters. And it works, for a little bit, because that night Vanessa dreams that she has her own pet dragon whose name is Rocky, and Vanessa can ride on his back and fly but then Rocky turns into a bad guy who wants to shoot his fire at her and she has to wake up, it has to be a nightmare-

But then Rocky is sprayed with water. By a firehose and a firetruck and a firefighter who’s a girl like her except she has yellow hair, while Vanessa’s is brown.

The girl rides away in her firetruck before Vanessa can say anything and Rocky is nice again, and maybe her dream isn’t so scary anymore. And when Vanessa wakes up the next morning, it’s in her own bed and not in her mom’s, because she didn’t have to crawl in her mom’s bed to scare the bad dreams away.

Alexis is wrong. Vanessa is a big kid.

Vanessa’s dreams are sometimes still scary but sometimes they’re nice, because she gets to be a princess and wear a sparkly dress or she gets her very own puppy which she wants more than anything in the world, even though her mom says they’re too much work. She doesn’t see the girl again, not even when her dreams have wild butterflies and unicorns and Vanessa’s sure that the girl would like them, too. Sometimes Vanessa’s dreams have large crowds and she swears that if she stands on her tippy-toes she sees that flash of yellow hair, but then she blinks and the girl vanishes almost like magic.

Maybe the girl in her dreams has special powers.

It’s the night before Vanessa’s birthday, and Vanessa sees her again in her dream when she’s climbing a mountain, and it’s really tall, but Vanessa’s in a huge parka, the kind that she sees on TV that they don’t have in Tampa. It’s keeping her warm, but the fluffy hood is getting in her eyes and she has to push it down when she sees a girl ahead of her that looks all too familiar.

“Hey! You!”

Vanessa’s never called out to her in a dream before. The girl’s been too fast, just a little out of her reach but now she’s here, and Vanessa’s going to take her change.

The yellow braids freeze, snowflakes sticking to them like glitter, and Vanessa’s never seen snow in real life, but part of her wonders if it sparkles just like this. Vanessa nearly trips on her feet to catch up because maybe the girl’s going to run away, and then Vanessa’s going to be alone again.

Vanessa gulps when she catches up because the girl is tall, and she’s barely reaching the girl’s shoulder. She’s the shortest in her class but she’s faster than all of the boys, so it doesn’t bother her, but this girl is looking down at her and maybe Vanessa’s made a mistake, but there’s only one way to find out.

“Hi.”

The girl is biting her lip, her eyes wide and part of Vanessa wonders why the girl is scared when she’s already fought monsters and climbed mountains in her dreams. She’s strong.

“Hi.” The girl whispers back, and Vanessa almost doesn’t hear her over the wind that’s blowing the snow around their heads like confetti.

Vanessa sticks out a hand, mitten and all, because her mom always tells her to shake hands with new people and be polite. “My name is Nessa. It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

She’s going to be five. A whole year older, and she almost can’t believe it because five seems old.  

“I’m Brooke.” The girl mumbles, and Vanessa almost wants to tell her to speak up and use her outside voice since they’re climbing a mountain, after all. “How old are you gonna be?”

“Five.” Vanessa is proud as she says it, because five is big. Five is grown up.

Except the girl wrinkles her nose. “You’re only five? You’re a baby!”

“Am not!” Vanessa’s not . “How old are you, then?”

“I’m seven.” The girl’s smile makes it look like she’s bragging and Vanessa wants to huff a little.

Five is still cool.

And Vanessa has the perfect comeback. “You’re a grandma.”

“Am not!” The girl’s mouth drops open, and it’s the perfect opportunity for Vanessa to grab some snow and make a snowball and throw it at her, just like she’s seen people do on TV.

If only Florida could have snow, too.

The girl lets out a shriek, grabbing a handful of snow of her own and Vanessa turns on her heels and runs before the snowball can get her, except that she runs off the edge of the mountain, and-

She wakes up in her own bed.

Vanessa’s heart is still pounding and her forehead is a little sweaty, because her room isn’t as cold as the mountain from her dream and when she looks out the window, she sees grass and a palm tree and not snow and icicles.

Maybe she can ask her mom to go on vacation and see snow someday.

Vanessa is six and Brooke is her best friend, and everyone else thinks she’s imaginary, but they’re wrong.

Maybe Brooke is only in her dreams, but Vanessa held her hand when they crossed a bridge in the clouds, and ran her fingers along the feathers of Brooke’s wings when they both got to be fairies and have magic powers. Brooke makes dreams a little less scary, a little less unknown. Sometimes they face monsters but Brooke is always there, and they always defeat them together.

Sometimes, the dreams aren’t exciting at all. Sometimes, the two of them are sitting on Vanessa’s bed and Brooke’s telling her about school and dance and how she wants to be a ballerina, and Vanessa loves to listen. Because Brooke says she’s from Canada, and Vanessa knows Canada is cold and she wonders how different it is from Tampa. She wants to hear all about Brooke’s life because Brooke is the most interesting person she’s ever met. And she’s in the third grade, too.

Vanessa tells Brooke about first grade and about how they have to pay attention now, and learn math and it’s hard to sit still at a desk for so long, but recess is fun and she is still the fastest one in her class. She likes to run and feel the wind and leave everyone else in the dust.

“I’m glad you grab my hand and never leave me behind. I’m slow at running.” Brooke traces her fingers along the flowers that adorn Vanessa’s sheets, outlining the petals.

Vanessa makes a face. “I can’t leave you behind, silly. Besides, if I grab your hand you get as fast as me.”

Brooke sighs. “I wish that would happen outside of dreams, too.”

Vanessa doesn’t mind her early bedtime. Sure, a boy in her class was bragging about getting to stay up until eleven, but the earlier Vanessa sleeps, the earlier she can see Brooke and go on adventures with her.

Sometimes she gets to her dreams before Brooke does, and she has to wait around and count some sheep until Brooke’s yellow ponytail pops up along with a waving hand. Sometimes Brooke is waiting for her, grinning and bouncing on her feet and ready to go. Brooke is the constant in her life when they have to move to Miami and live in a new house and Vanessa has to start at a new school in the middle of the year. The kids are mean, and one girl teased her for getting mad when another girl stole her scrunchie, and all Vanessa wants is to be able to go back.

“I hate Miami.” Vanessa grumbles one night to Brooke, when they’re traipsing through a rainforest and Vanessa’s sure that there are dinosaurs around, too.

Brooke ducks when a monkey swings past them. “Doesn’t Miami have beaches? Beaches are cool.”

“Tampa has beaches, too. And my friends. And my old room.”

Vanessa doesn’t understand why they can’t just move back, why Vanessa’s mom couldn’t stay at her old job. Why they had to leave. But she’s glad Brooke’s still with her in her dreams, that she didn’t get left behind in Tampa, too. Vanessa’s not sure how she’d survive that.

“I wish I was at your new school. I could be your friend there.” Brooke reaches out to grab her hand as they cross a small stream, and Vanessa doesn’t want her to let go.

Vanessa is nine, almost ten, and she’s not a baby, no matter what Alexis says.

“People in their double digits don’t have imaginary friends. Only babies do.” Alexis’ snicker makes Vanessa want to stomp her foot, wipe the smirk off of her sister’s face.

“Brooke’s not imaginary, she’s real! She’s just in my dreams.” Vanessa grumbles, because she’s right, she knows she’s right.

Brooke is real. Brooke tells her about her life and family and school and about living in Canada, and how can any of that be imaginary?

“There’s nothing wrong with being creative, darling.” Her mom’s attempt at being reassuring makes Vanessa scowl more, because she knows that her mom doesn’t believe her either. Never has.

“She’s real. Why don’t you two ever listen to me?” Vanessa crosses her arms, trying to keep her foot from kicking the side of the table no matter how much she wants to.

Her mom shoots her a warning look. “Nessa.”

Unlike usual, Vanessa doesn’t feel the need to be quiet. She’s too grumpy. “I’m just saying.”

Alexis shrugs. “It’s weird. Having an imaginary friend is weird-”

“She’s not imaginary-”

“-Especially when you talk about her so much. Don’t you ever dream about anything else?”

“Shut it, Alexis!” Vanessa growls, letting go of her fork which clangs against her plate. She tries to scoot her chair back, storm off from the table, but the stink eye from her mom tells her that it’s safer to stay where she is.

Alexis doesn’t get it. Vanessa hates the way she says Brooke isn’t real and makes fun of her. Sure, Alexis is her sister, but why doesn’t she ever just listen?

No one ever listens to Vanessa, even if she’s loud. Except Brooke.

Brooke always listens.

That night in Vanessa’s dream they’re in a mall that she’s never been to before, but Brooke says it’s the mall that’s near her house. The mall that she’d gone to earlier during that day because her mom had said that she was outgrowing her clothes and her pants were getting too short.

They buy soft serve cones from Dairy Queen, the kind dipped in chocolate and Brooke gets some ice cream on her nose that Vanessa wipes off for her with her sleeve. Brooke’s telling her about her friends and Vanessa doesn’t know if seventh grade is going to be the way Brooke describes it in a couple years, but she’s not sure if she’s looking forward to it.

“So Jess says that we all have to have crushes on boys. She says she has a crush on Mitchell and Ashley says she has a crush on Josh and Emily says she has a crush on Andrew, and today at lunch they asked me who I had a crush on, ‘cause they said that everyone has crushes.” Brooke licks the ice cream that’s about to drip off of her cone, catching it just in time.

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “So, do you have a crush on anyone?”

As far as Vanessa’s aware, boys still have cooties. They pick their noses and fart loudly and laugh because of it. But hey, maybe that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in seventh grade. Have crushes.

Brooke makes a face. “Gross. The boys in my class always try to snap all the girls’ bra straps and all they talk about is hockey. But when my friends asked me, I panicked and said the first name that came into my brain, and that’s only ‘cause he was walking by at recess.”

Vanessa can’t hold back her giggle. “Sneaky.”

“I was super convincing.” Brooke says, unable to hold her laughing back either before she lets out a sigh. “I just don’t get it. Why they all have crushes on boys. Recess was more fun when we got to play soccer and four-square instead of talk about them all the time.”

“Come to my school. We still play tag and basketball and soccer and everything,” Vanessa pauses, “but maybe that’s ‘cause I’m only in fifth grade. I wonder if I’ll have to talk about boys in seventh grade.”

Vanessa hopes not. She prefers her recesses with Silky and Kiki and she’s never had best friends outside of Brooke until this year, but Silky and Kiki make her laugh and Silky yelled at her old bullies from second grade a few months ago. School is feeling okay again.

She wonders if Silky and Kiki will want to talk about boys when all of them are twelve like Brooke.

Vanessa is thirteen and a boy asks her to slow dance at graduation, but she doesn’t really get butterflies in her stomach the way that characters in romantic movies say they do.

She tells Brooke about it that night, in her dream. They’re on a beach and Vanessa’s wearing the purple bathing suit that she’d begged her mom to buy her a few days ago, but her mom had said no. At least she gets to wear it in dreamland.

Brooke’s in a bathing suit too, with little polka dots on it and heart shaped sunglasses balancing on the bridge of her nose. She’s squinting while looking over at Vanessa, because the sun is too bright but Vanessa likes it.

“Have you ever gotten butterflies? How do you know when you have them?” Vanessa shouldn’t be this distressed over it, really. It’s just that she had expected more at the time.

The movies make a slow dance look all sweet and romantic, but all Vanessa could think about at the time was the fact that the boy smelled way too much like Axe and how it made her nose wrinkle. Plus the boy had been sweating buckets, and Vanessa really just wanted to go back to dancing all silly with Silky and Kiki.

Brooke shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe we’re just weird ‘cause we don’t have them.” She pauses, her breathing catching in her throat for a second in a way that makes Vanessa raise an eyebrow. “Can I tell you a secret? Though you can’t tell anyone about it.”

Vanessa scoots closer, as if they’re not the only ones on the beach for miles around. “What?”

“I kissed a boy last week.” Brooke whispers, her eyes shifty and Vanessa almost screeches, climbing up onto her feet.

“What?! Really?” Vanessa can’t help the way her mouth drops open, because Brooke’s kissed a boy and she only just told Vanessa now, and why is her stomach feeling kind of weird?

Brooke’s cheeks are bright red, and Vanessa doesn’t miss the way she slouches a little. “Maybe. I didn’t say anything ‘cause I didn’t like it, though. It was weird. All my friends have already had their first kisses and I thought I should just get it over with, but…it was slimy.”

“Slimy?” Vanessa lets out a guffaw because gross, and Brooke’s giggling too, though she doesn’t know why her heart feels like it’s turning over in her chest a little bit.

Brooke shrugs. “But back to the point, I didn’t feel any butterflies either. Even though Ashley and Jess and Nicole all said they had butterflies on their first kiss.”

“Okay, good. Well, not good ‘cause you didn’t have butterflies, but good ‘cause I didn’t have butterflies with a boy either. Even though slow dancing and kissing aren’t the same thing.”

Their two year age difference has always made it feel like Brooke is just a step ahead, setting a path that Vanessa will inevitably follow. She wonders what her first kiss will be like. If it’s anything like Brooke’s was? Slimy. But she hopes not.

Vanessa can’t get the vision of Brooke kissing someone out of her mind for the next few days, and part of her feels guilty about it, though she doesn’t know why. Did the boy kiss Brooke first? Or did she kiss him? Did she really not like it the way that she said she didn’t?

It’s all too confusing.

Vanessa saves her thoughts about the kiss for the daytime, when she’s bored in class or is trying to avoid her homework. She’s able to push her feelings about the kiss away, though, in her dreams. Because she has more important things to do with Brooke, like skydiving and fighting dragons and even creating a girl group and becoming pop stars.

Except one night, before they can even start their adventure, Brooke’s waiting for Vanessa and looking like she’s about to burst.

“Finally! You’re here!” Brooke’s feet are tapping on the dirt ground of the giant greenhouse that the dream is currently set in, their heads surrounded by butterflies and flowers painting the glass walls with bright colours.

Vanessa gives Brooke a onceover, and the way she’s almost squealing with excitement must mean that it’s something big. “What? Is this dream super cool or something?”

“No! I mean, it seems like it, but no. I have news.” Brooke takes a deep breath and her eyes widen, and maybe she’s getting cold feet because she’s gulping and Vanessa pokes her shoulder.

“What? Tell me.”

Brooke’s eyes are excited yet nervous, and nothing can prepare Vanessa for the words that next leave her mouth.

“I’m coming to Miami.”

Brooke rushes through her explanation while Vanessa’s jaw is on the ground, because what? Miami? Brooke’s coming to her city and she’s going to be near her in person and…

Not just in their dreams?

“So I dance, right, and we travel for competitions and I decided to audition for the competitive team this year even though normally I don’t, but I wanted to, and one of the competitions is in Miami, actually in Miami, and I made the team and I’m in enough dances that I’ll be able to come, and maybe it’s too much and maybe you don’t want to meet in person and I’d get that, ‘cause it’s different in the dreams but I was just thinking, maybe, maybe we could?” Brooke gasps in a breath at the end of her sentence, and Vanessa gets it, she really does, because she can’t breathe right now either, not if Brooke’s going to be in the same place as her, and it’s not going to be a dream.

“You’re not playing a joke on me, are you? You’re not pulling my leg?” Because who knows, maybe Brooke is, Vanessa has a right to be suspicious. Maybe it’s not true.

The laugh that leaves Brooke’s mouth is a little incredulous as she shakes her head. “No, I’m really coming to Florida, promise. It’s in five weeks. They’re booking plane tickets and hotel rooms and everything.”

Five weeks.

Five weeks and Brooke’s going to be in front of her, living and breathing and they’re going to be awake. Not in a dream. Brooke’s coming to Miami for a dance competition and Brooke wants to meet her, for real.

It’s really going to happen.

They don’t go on an adventure that night, not with so much to talk about. So many plans to make for the weekend that Brooke’s going to be here, snatching time where they can when she’s not competing. They sit on the floor of the greenhouse, tracing patterns in the dirt and watching the leaves grow and blossom around them with their colours vivid and bright and warming Vanessa’s heart, and she never wants to leave.

Vanessa may be thirteen and may find waking up in the mornings difficult, but today she’s up before her alarm clock rings because she can’t stay asleep for another minute.

Not when Brooke abruptly leaves their dream that night because she has to wake up to catch her flight, not when Vanessa’s going to meet her today.

She’s meeting Brooke today.

Not just in dreams, not for a fleeting moment before the two of them wake up in their own respective beds.

Brooke is coming to Miami, and it’s all good and dandy because Vanessa’s figured out a plan. She’s not taking the bus to school today, no. Instead, she’s already scoured bus routes and discovered that she needs to transfer between buses approximately three times to make it to the convention centre and hotel that Brooke will be at. It’s a long commute, but it’s doable. She can head out in the morning and spend a few hours with Brooke and make it back home before dinner.

Her mom leaves for work after yelling a goodbye, and Vanessa takes the opportunity to scamper out of bed, grab the landline phone in the kitchen. She puts on her best fake voice when the school secretary answers the phone.

“Hi, yes, Vanessa’s sick, real sick, my poor baby can’t even get up and so she has to stay home today. I think I’ll even have to stay home from work today to take care of her.”

Vanessa’s mom is easy to imitate, but maybe that’s because everyone tells Vanessa that she’s a complete copy of her. She’s just playing herself as a grown up.

It’s good enough for the secretary to buy it, hook line and sinker.

Vanessa’s knee bounces in the aisle as the bus lumbers between stops because it’s hard to stay still at a time like this, when all that stands between her and Brooke is a series of bus routes. She’s crossing the city on her own and sure, she’s thirteen and she can take the bus by herself but this feels different, unprecedented. New.

She knows she’s impulsive because she’s been told as much, by teachers and her mom and it doesn’t bother her, the fact that they can’t keep up with how fast her mind wants to make decisions. But this one is unbelievable, even for her. Her best friend in the entire world is in the city, and the only reason she knows that is because of a dream.

It gives a new meaning to the phrase ‘follow your dreams’, Vanessa supposes.

Deep down, Vanessa knows that it’s real. She’s not losing her mind or listening to voices because Brooke is real, and she knows too much about Brooke’s life and existence than her subconscious would ever be able to conjure up on its own. But worry, a tiny, small bit of worry, grabs a megaphone in the back of her brain and makes itself known.

Maybe there isn’t a dance convention at all. Maybe Vanessa is really, truly losing her marbles and going for no reason because she’s made it all up, because there’s no way a recurring figure in her dreams can actually exist when she’s awake.

The voice gets louder and louder with every bus transfer, every step that she takes when she finally reaches her stop and the convention center comes into view, and there’s people everywhere in the building’s lobby but there’s also girls her age and some younger and some older and they have stage makeup and high buns and maybe, just maybe, she’s not crazy and Brooke is here somewhere and-

“Nessa! ”

-and Vanessa gets it now.

The movies. The way that the two main characters have their eyes meet in a crowd and get swept off their feet and have their movie moment. When all the songs make sense, when everything feels correct and right and the way that it should be.

Her stomach is flipping and she’s going to burst and how does her face fit so perfectly in the curve of Brooke’s neck? Brooke’s arms are around her and squeezing her tight and Vanessa’s sure that her feet aren’t actually touching the ground anymore, not with Brooke spinning her around and around and around.

The question that she’d asked Brooke all those months ago, about butterflies - Vanessa knows now what they’re supposed to feel like. It’s the pumping of her heart in her chest that’s getting faster and faster, and the way Brooke’s staring at her with an expression of awe, as if Brooke herself isn’t the most wonderful person that Vanessa’s ever encountered in her entire life.

Part of Vanessa doesn’t want to let go when Brooke puts her down because she’s here, Brooke’s actually here and they were right, both of them were right.

This is real. They’re real. Brooke’s her best friend and she’s been her best friend since they were kids, and now she’s here and in the flesh and getting glitter on Vanessa’s clothes from her sparkly hairspray that’s keeping her high bun in place.

Vanessa’s thirteen but she feels like she’s lived life a few times over, and in a way she has, in her dreams with Brooke. They’ve fought monsters and learned how to fly and told each other absolutely everything about their lives, what makes each other tick. Brooke knows her secrets and knows how to make her laugh when she’s sad and her hugs in real life are just as comforting as they are in their dreams.

“You’re here.” Brooke breathes out, and the way her hand reaches out to touch Vanessa’s shoulder makes sense, because part of Vanessa wants to check if this is really happening, too.

“We both are.”

Vanessa puts her hand on top of Brooke’s, giving it a little squeeze and she never, ever wants to have to let go. They’re resting on a tipping point between their dreams and their awake states but Vanessa doesn’t want to pinch herself and accidentally wake up, not when they both deserve to have this reality last forever.

[bluezey]

Inside Onward - Perils

After a bit of a strange hiatus with that whole real life and “sell your story to Pixar” thing with my mom and her friends, we finally get back to the story with chapter nine.  And if you know the story of Onward as much as I do, prepare your heart, as we’re gonna hit a landmine full of feels starting with this chapter onward.

Btdubs, can’t legally sell the story to Pixar, they don’t accept outside works. Oh well, just gotta hope at least one employee is reading it and enjoying it.  (crosses fingers) please be Pete Docter and Dan Scanlon, please be Pete Docter and Dan Scanlon...

Joy gave a big stretch and a long yawn as he awoke from his sleep on the couch.  As he rose to his feet, Sadness next to him groggily sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  Disgust and Anger were next to awaken as Joy approached the console, noticing Fear jumping from left to right and back again, messing with the controls. Confused, Joy looked up at the screen, still blank, still clarifying that Ian is asleep.  “What’s going on?” Joy asked.

Fear finally let go of a lever before twisting a few dials.  “I dunno.  Everything was peaceful, then Ian’s equilibrium went haywire.”  Fear pointed to Ian’s vitals, specifically the equilibrium display that should show Ian at perfect balance is swinging back and forth, showing sleeping Ian is being shaken by something.

Sadness eyed the screen, appearing to show signs of light, as if Ian’s eyes were trying to stay closed, but beginning to open.  “I think Ian is waking up.”

“Is that what interrupted my beauty rest?” Disgust huffed.

The emotions gave a starting yelp as the screen lit up, Ian’s vision just a blur of colors as he rolled off of the wooden bench and onto the van floor.

“Yay, Ian’s up!” Joy cheered.

“Is he hurt?” Fear cried out, checking his vitals.  “That was quite a spill!”

As Ian climbed up onto his knees, he caught sight of his Dad, complete in his disguise, lying on the floor.  It appeared when Ian was rolled out of his sleep, he rolled into his Dad.  He felt Dad’s foot pat the top of Ian’s head. “Yeah, I’m still here, Dad,” Ian chuckled as he brushed the foot off his head.

“Ew, who knows what gross things Dad stepped in,” Disgust gagged.

“Forget that,” Fear said, still grabbing controls in a poor attempt to keep Ian’s balance.  “What’s shaking Guinevere?”

“We’re in a van,” Anger replied.

“But Guinevere’s shocks were never this bad,” Fear added.

Ian finally made his way to the front of the van, his eyes squinted as he saw the bright light of the morning sun pour through the windshield.  Barley was at the wheel, happily greeting Ian and Dad with, “Well, good morrow, Lightfoot men.  Welcome to the Path of Peril.”

“Not much of a path,” Ian thought aloud, eyeing the remains of a dirt trail barely visible under the overgrowth of grass and rocks.

“Here, let me help,” Joy told Fear as he stepped in, grabbing controls to help Ian keep balance.

“Yeah, they don’t do any paving around here,” Barley commented. “So heads up, we could run into anything.  A centicore, a wolf dragon, a gelatinous cube…”

Ian laughed to himself. “Okay, what’s a gelatinous cube?”

Barley explained, “It’s a giant green cube that instantly disintegrates anything it touches.”

Joy was laughing by how absurd the very idea sounded, but Fear was all around shaken to his core. “Di-di-di-disintegrates? Anything??”

“Oh please,” Joy told Fear, “Nobody’s disintegrating-“

“BRAKE!!” Anger, Sadness and Disgust shouted, pointing at the screen.  Fear immediately screamed while simultaneously slamming his hand down on a big button.

“We’re not going to run into- OH STOP!!” Ian interrupted himself with his loud shout.  Barley immediately slammed on the brakes, Guinevere immediately screeched to a halt, her front tires mere inches from the edge of the sharp steep cliff.

“…. Are we dead?” Fear finally squeaked, finally opening his eyes.

After finally peeling their faces off the windshield, Ian and Barley stepped out of Guinevere. They both approached the cliff, each taking careful steps as they approached closer to the edge.  Ian couldn’t help it and looked straight down into the sharp drop into darkness below.  “What is this?”

“Bottomless pit,” Barley replied, in both seriousness and caution.  “Whatever falls in there, falls forever.”

Just as he spoke that, Ian and Barley caught sight of Dad blindly walking towards the edge of the bottomless pit.  Ian stretched his arm out to stop him, but only knocked off the fake top half. Thankfully, Barley quickly caught the real bottom half of Dad by the waist and pulled him away from the cliff.

“The top half isn’t real, you idiot!” Anger shouted into Fear’s face, causing the purple emotion to wince.

As Ian walked Dad back into the van, Barley caught sight of a large object still standing tall on the other side.  “Hey Ian, check it out!  This is an ancient drawbridge.  We lower that bad boy, and we are on our way to Raven’s Point.”  As Ian returned to the edge of the pit, Barley instructed, “Look around for a lever.”

“Okay, lever, no problem,” Fear thought aloud, as he began to scan the area within Ian’s eyesight.

Sadness noticed something and pointed with a frown.  “Uh, guys?”

Fear looked where Sadness pointed… to the far distant other side of the bottomless pit.  “Ooh, problem.”

“Found it,” Ian announced nervously.  “But, it’s on the other side.”

“Relax,” Joy told the other emotions.  “We have magic, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Fear sighed as he put a command in on the console.

Ian took a relaxing breath as he took up his staff.  “Okay, I got this… aloft elevar!”  A bright flash of light shot out of the staff, but fizzled out into thin air halfway across the pit.

The emotions unanimously tilted their heads to the side in confusion.  “Huh?”

Barley couldn’t help but laugh.  “You can’t cast a levitation spell that far away!  It’s got like a fifteen meter enchanting radius!”

“How were we supposed to know that?” Anger yelled, stomping up to the console.

Joy flew in and stood between Anger and the console.  “No no, we don’t need Ian to be angry yet.”

“Emphasis on yet,” Disgust muttered.

“What we need is a trust bridge,” Barley suggested.  “It’s a spell that makes a magic bridge that you can walk across.  Just say, ‘bridgrigar invisia.’”  Barley stepped back, gladly giving Ian room to cast the spell.

“Wait, you want us to do it now?” Fear asked aloud.

“Just do it,” Disgust ordered, stamping his foot.

Fear stepped back defensively.  “Okay.” He stepped towards the console and took the controls.

Ian took his stance at the edge of the pit, pointing his staff forward.  “Bridgrigar invisia!” he proclaimed.

Fear peeled his hands slowly off the controls as he eyed the screen in confusion.  “Where’s the bridge?” he asked aloud, the other emotions also loudly questioning what’s happening.  They could see the console glowing in a lustrous blue aura, much like the one nestled in the prongs of the staff, but that’s it.

Ian was completely puzzled. “It didn’t work.”

“No, the spell’s still going,” Barley explained, pointing to the ball of blue light nesting within the twisting branches of the staff.  “You won’t know if the spell worked until you step on it.”

“Step on what?” Fear asked in unison with Ian.

“If you believe the bridge is there, then it’s there,” Barley explained further.

“But it’s not,” Ian stated.

“Well, not with that attitude,” Barley replied.

In a crazed panic, Fear started barking at the other emotions.  “Is he serious?  Is he for real serious?  Is this for real?  This can’t be- he can’t be serious!”  Fear slammed his hands down on the console.

“I’m not gonna step out onto nothing!” Ian exclaimed, eyes wide in complete and utter fear.

Barley paused a moment in thought, then his face lit up as if one of his wild ideas slipped into his head. He ran off towards the back of Guinevere and threw the back doors open, leaving Ian alone to stare into the deep pit, stone solid at his feet while his arms trembled in fright.

Fear still had his hands planted firmly on the console, his body trembling so furiously purple particles beginning to pop off of his form.  Cautiously, Joy began to step forward, gently speaking, “Okay, okay, breathe. Breathe, relax.”

“I can’t relax,” Fear interrupted, hanging his head as his whole body hunched over the console in a desperate attempt to protect it.  “I can’t relax, I can’t relax.  There’s nothing to relax about!”

Disgust rolled his eyes. “He’s having a break down again.”

“Shut up!” Fear turned, standing firmly in place, arms wide apart as his fingers clung to the edge of the console that his purple knuckles were turning white.  Disgust tensed up as she looked back with his eyes wide in shock. “Of course I’m having a break down!” Fear shouted, frustration and trembling fear in his voice.  “It’s my job to keep Ian safe!  If I don’t do my job, Ian will die!  And now… now I have to walk Ian off a cliff to his death??!”

The emotions were still in stunned silence.  They’ve seen Fear snap before, even break down before, but never to such a magnitude as this.  After an awkward silent passed, Joy finally sheepishly said, “Only if the spell fails.”

“Of course it’s gonna fail, Joy!” Fear shouted at her, causing Joy to jump back.  “There’s nothing to walk on but the sweet embrace of Ian’s eternal fall to his torturous unending end!”

“Ian!” Barley’s voice called out.

Fear slumped his strained face into his hands in defeat.  “Oh, sweet Shamblefoot, now what?” he muttered in exasperation before turning back to the console.

Ian was broken out of his terrified trance when he felt Barley tie a thick rope around his waist. He looked over his shoulder to see his brother tie the other end of the long rope around a small boulder nearby and give it a few tugs to make sure it was tight.

Joy approached the console as she looked up at the screen.  “Ohh, I see what he’s doing.”

“So do I,” Fear added in disbelief.  “And I don’t like it.”

“And now we have a rope,” Barley said.  “But you’re not gonna need it.”

“I WANT THE ROPE!!” Ian and Fear shouted in unison.

“Okay,” Barley continued, “I’m just saying, you’re not gonna need the rope because I know you can make that bridge.”  With that, Barley gave an encouraging slap to Ian’s shoulder, perhaps a little too hard as Ian was pushed forward a bit with a grunt.  Ian stood at the edge of the cliff, feet frozen to the ground, looking down into the endless abyss in fright.

Fear body shivered with fright as he stared up into the screen.  Joy took the moment to step forward and place a soft hand on Fear’s shoulder, but even that was enough to make him jump.  “Hey,” she still said softly, looking into Fear’s eyes.  “You can do this.”

Once he body loosened a bit, Fear attempted to nod.  “I can do this… I can do this…” His words were quiet, hesitant, but he still attempted to believe them as he took his hands and placed them on the console.

Ian lifted his staff outward, loosening his foot from the ground and stretching it out over the edge of the cliff.  His foot visibly shaking, Ian tried to close his eyes and focus.  Once he felt he believed enough, he stepped forward.  

Simultaneously and instantaneously, both the aura enveloping the console and within the staff disappeared, and Ian was falling into the pit.

Ian screamed in terror, only outmatched by Fear’s screams echoing through Headquarters.  Even when the rope grew taught, stopping Ian’s fall, Ian and Fear were still believing that it was the end for them.

“I told you!  I told you!” Fear cried, clinging to the console for dear life.  “I can’t do it!  I can’t do it!  And now we’re done for!”

“I’m dying!  I’m dying!” Ian cried, clinging to his staff for dear life.  “I’m dead! I’m dead!  I’m dead!  My life is over!”

“I got you!” Barley’s voice called out as Ian was pulled up by the rope.

“Hey hey hey! Fear!  Fear!” Joy’s voice rang through Fear’s head, but Fear was too far gone to respond.

“I got this!” Anger peeled Fear off the console and gave him a hard smack across the face.  Fear spun a few times before falling onto the console in a daze.  He listlessly lifted himself off the console so he was merely leaning over it, only held up by his arms, while trying to get his bearings.

“Get yourself together, Fear!” Disgust snapped.

“I can’t!” Fear yelled.

“You have to, Fear,” Joy told Fear.  “You need to protect Ian during the spell.”

“It’s easier to protect him when he’s on the ground!” Fear shouted.

“Well that’s not an option!” Anger screamed.

“YES IT IS!!” Fear screamed back at him.

“Everyone, stop!!” Joy shouted before grabbing Fear by the shoulders and looking him in the eyes. “Fear, listen to me.  Ian needs you.”

“I know, but-“ Fear sputtered.

“Ian can’t do this without you,” Joy stated.

“I know, but-“

“No buts.”

“But-“

As the two emotions went back and forth, Barley pulled Ian back to the top of the cliff and bear hugged him tightly into his arms.  He lifted Ian out of the pit and back onto the ground, letting the stiff and terrified Ian stand on his own two legs, gasping in fear.

“Okay, you fell,” Barley said in his encouraging tone.  “Now, was that so bad?”

“YES!!” Fear shouted as he turned to the screen.

“YES!!” Ian shouted as he turned to Barley.

“Are you still alive?” Barley asked firmly.

Fear opened his mouth to respond, but paused.  Joy leaned against the console, giving Fear a positive yet smug grin.  Feeling defeated, Fear narrowed his eyes and sighed a groan before tapping a button on the console.

Ian sighed an admitted, “Yes.”

“Okay, so now you know the worst that could happen,” Barley explained, “so there’s nothing to be scared of, right?”

Ian gave a soft nod and a quiet, “Right,” while glancing back unassuredly at the pit.

Joy pulled his hand back from the console as Fear was shaking his head back and forth.  “No, no no, no, this makes no sense at all.”

“Look, Barley believes in Ian,” Joy said softly but firmly.  “And I believe in you.”

“But I don’t believe a bridge is there,” Fear replied, “especially when it’s not there!”

“I do.”  Joy smiled as he stood next to Fear at the console. “So, let’s try it again, but together. I’ll believe in Ian-“

“I believe in Ian,” Fear clarified. “I just don’t believe in me- BRIDGE!  BRIDGE!  I don’t believe the BRIDGE is there!”

Joy placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.  “Then I’ll believe the bridge is there,” he clarified with Fear.  “You focus on Ian’s steps, and get him safely to the other side.”

Fear finally nodded. “Okay… okay…”

Barley held onto the rope as Ian held up his staff.  Ian pointed his staff outward and proclaimed again, “Bridgrigar invisia!”  The blue aura of magic appeared within the prongs of the staff again, but Ian could only see empty space over an endless drop into the abyss.  Fear could see the console wrapped in the magical aura, but his hands were shaking as he gripped the two big levers in front of him, Ian’s arms began to tremble.

“Hey,” Barley stated to Ian. “You can do this.”

Fear began to shake his head again.  Ian can do it, but he can’t, which means Ian’ can’t.

“Hey,” Joy almost whispered to Fear, an encouraging optimistic smile on his face.  “The sooner we’re on the other side, the sooner we get to Dad.”

That was barely enough for Fear to stop shaking his head and give a nod instead.  He gripped the left lever as Ian held his left foot out over the pit.  Fear took a deep breath, closed his eyes, Ian took a deep breath, and Fear pushed the lever forward.

Ian lowered his left foot, feeling it plant firmly onto solid ground.  Ian opened up his eyes, and so did Fear, both seeing the solid ground was an aura of magic, just big enough to hold Ian’s foot in the air.

Joy sprang with excitement. “You did it!  We did it!  Ian did it!” The other emotions were in a quiet awe as Fear exhaled a nervous laugh.

The Lightfoot brothers shared a congratulatory laugh with each other when they realized the spell worked. Feeling confident, Ian took another step forward.  Instead of solid, however, Ian stepped on air, causing him to lose his balance.

The emotions gave a unified, shocked scream as Barley pulled back on the rope, pulling Ian back into his balance on just one foot.  “Believe with every step,” Barley instructed.

“Got that, Joy?” Fear told Joy.

“I’m on it,” Joy said as he held a button down on the console.  “You keep focus.  And, you can believe in yourself too.”

“Ian, you mean, Ian,” Fear quickly corrected.

Joy winked.  “Right.”

Fear swallowed his nerves, took a deep breath and pushed the left lever forward.  Ian took another step.  Fear pushed the right lever forward, Ian took a step.  They began to alternate, left, right, left, right.  Ian began to laugh a little in disbelief, thanks to Joy.  But Fear began to laugh in disbelief all because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“You still got me right?” Ian called out to Barley, looking at his steps over the bottomless pit.

“I still got you!” Barley called back, pumping his fist in the air joyfully.  “Woo hoo!  Ian Lightfoot is fearless!”

“He’s not fearless,” Joy commented, pressing a few more buttons on the console.  “He’s got the best Fear, right Fear?”

Fear chuckled, “Yeah, he does.”

Ian couldn’t help but laugh, watching as he stepped over nothing, practically defying gravity. “This is amazing!”

“Yeah, but just keep going!” Barley shouted out to him.  “Don’t look back!  Just straight ahead!”

Nervous Fear was feeling less of his nerves as he couldn’t help but laugh along with positive Joy. “I can’t believe this is happening, but here we are.”

“Ian’s doing it,” Joy almost sang with a smile, “and so are you!”

Ian had a smile forming on his face as well.  “You still got the rope, right?” Ian asked Barley, not looking back.

“Yeah, I got it!” Barley replied.

Giving into her optimistic, playful side, Joy fiddled with a few switches, dials and other controls, making the console yellow glow shine brighter than its purple glow.

“I am not afraid!” Ian declared into the skies above him.  “Oh man, I can stay out here all day,” he said, taking his next few steps in a silly, playful manner.

Fear laughed as he said, “Come on, Ian’s not like that.”

“No,” Joy admitted with a shrug and a smile, “But he can be.”

The other emotions watched and laughed along with the sight onscreen.  “I could get used to this Iandore,” Disgust thought aloud to Anger.

“Yeah, this one’s kinda cool,” Anger grinned.

Fear kept at the controls, but he was distracted a bit by the very thought of those words.  The new Iandore.  Heh, guess he’s on the right track.

“Okay, but keep moving!” Barley shouted out to Ian.  “We got to see dad, remember?”

“Hey, dad!  This last step is for you!”  Ian proudly turned around to see his dad as he took that last step on the air.  Instead, his eyes caught Barley holding the rope.

Holding the rope.

Holding the untied rope.

Holding the untied rope that’s not tied to Ian!

Ian’s face fell in horror. The magic fizzled from the staff and the console in a soul shattering pop.  Ian fell.

“AHH!!” the other emotions shouted in horror.

“NOO!!” Acting faster than he ever could, Fear slammed his hand hard on a button.

Ian quickly grabbed onto the rock wall, thankfully catching his grip on a rock barely jutting out from below the ledge.  After finding his hold with his feet, Ian managed to use all his strength to hoist himself onto the ledge.  With his life depending on it, Ian climbed onto the top of the cliff, and never stopped until he was standing on solid ground.

Now that he was sure Ian was safe, and had Ian pull the lever to lower the drawbridge, Fear let go of the console, and let himself faint limply onto the ground.

When Fear finally came to, all he could see was the ceiling and hear the sounds of the emotions celebrating.  Fear felt himself getting lifted up off the couch and into Joy’s arms.  “We did it!  We did it!  We did it!” Joy cheered.

“We did?” Fear asked, almost blankly, still coming to his senses.

Ian was still staring blankly ahead, clinging to the lever in one hand and his staff in the other, the only movements he made was when he took deep breaths.  After driving across the drawbridge, Barley leaped out of the car and raced up to Ian, grabbing him from behind in a big hug and lifting him in the air.  “Oh wow, that was amazing!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s Barley!” Joy cheered as the emotions raced back to the console.

Hearing Barley’s voice snapped Fear back to his senses.  He shook his head before racing back up to the console.  “Hold it!” he ordered, holding out one arm while slamming his other hand down on a button.

“How long… was the rope gone?” Ian asked, still in shock.

“Oh, for like the second half of it,” Barley casually replied.

“WHAT??” Fear shrieked, before slamming his hand down on another button.

“I needed that rope,” Ian stated.

“Oh,” Barley replied. “But did you?”

Fear was about to slam his hand on another button, but paused. His eyes grew wide, having no response for that, because it was so… true.  Ian crossed the trust bridge.  Ian didn’t have the safety rope.  And he didn’t die.  Well, he almost did.  But, Fear saved him.  Fear helped him cross the trust bridge, and he saved him when they lost their faith. Fear couldn’t help it when Ian looked into the bottomless pit, he had to look too.  That empty eternal void could have been their grave, Ian’s grave.  But, Fear kept Ian safe.  And Joy helped him keep confident enough to cross the bridge.

“Hey, Ian.”  Fear lost his train of thought when he heard Barley’s voice.  Ian turned to his brother, seeing him pointing up at a raven statue over the archway of the drawbridge.  “Look, it’s a raven statue.  The clue said Raven’s Point.”

Ian nodded, unsure where this was going.  “Yeah, the mountain.”

“But maybe it wasn’t the mountain.  Maybe it was follow where the raven is pointing.”  Following his gut, Barley stepped back until he was standing under the raven, clasped his hands together in a mildly dramatic manner, and lowered his pointed fingers straight ahead.  He gave a shout of excitement when he caught sight of another raven statue in a field straight ahead.  “Ha ha! It’s another raven!”

Ian was in disbelief, and the emotions jaws unanimously dropped in awe.

“That one could be pointing to another raven,” Barley explained through his excitement, “all the way to the gem!”

“No way,” Disgust whispered awestruck, as Fear leaned forward onto the console, resting his hands on a few random controls.

Ian thought to himself, “I had us going the wrong way.”

“Well I told ya!  My gut knows where to go, don’t ya boy?” Barley laughed to himself as he shook his belly while pretending it was talking back to him.

When Fear finally processed what was happening, he asked the others, “Are we really gonna do this?”

“Do what?” Joy asked non chalantly.

“Follow a more random clue than following a mountain?” Fear asked.

There was a moment of quiet before Sadness spoke up, “He was right about believing in ourselves. Until we didn’t, at least.”

“And he seems to have an idea about what’s going on,” Disgust added, “more than we do.”

Fear turned to Anger. “What about you?”

Anger looked up at Fear, gripped his fists as he looked the emotion down and up, as if he was sizing Fear up more than thinking about Barley.  It was enough to make Fear think that Anger’s nod in agreement may be a bit biased.

“Don’t worry, dad,” Barley boasted, tossing the car keys in his hand.  “Guinevere will have us to the raven in no time.”

The emotions gave a slight relieving chuckle at Barley, but the moment quickly faded when they heard a sound rapidly approaching the brothers.  “Are those sirens?” Joy asked.

“For Feldar’s sake, I hope not,” Fear cursed as that shiver crept back up his spine.

Ian stepped back as a police car sped by and braked to a halt, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. As the dust settled, Colt Bronco squeezed his way out of the small door of the patrol car.  Once he was on his hooves, he stared the two brothers down through his mirrored sunglasses.  “You boys are in trouble big time,” Colt told them sternly.

“Trouble?” Fear whimpered, his nerve crinkling at the very thought.

Barley quickly explained, “No no no, Colt, we found a spell!  If we finish it before sunset, we get to see our father.”  To further explain, Barley tore the decoy top half off of Dad’s disguise, showing the real half is just nothing but sentient legs.

Colt bucked back in shock as he gave a startled yelp.  “Your mom did say you boys had a strange… family issue going on,” Colt replied, taking off his sunglasses to get a good look at what he’s seeing, “and this is… definitely strange… but no, dangit, I’m not gonna let you upset your mother anymore. Now get back in your vehicle, I’m escorting you home.”

“Home?” Joy gasped. “But that’s the opposite way to the gem!”

“We’ve come so far,” Disgust stated. “We can’t just give up.”

“This isn’t fair!” Anger snapped.

The tears began to swell in Sadness’s eyes.  “Oh no. Ian’ll never see dad.”

“No, no way,” Barley replied defiantly.

Fear was in the middle of the group of emotions, all bickering, all complaining, all worried. And, they were all right.  Ian’s come so far, in both the journey and as himself.  But, what can they do?  And when their next road block is an actual cop?

“I’m giving you until the count of three,” Colt warned.

Ian quickly snagged the keys from Barley’s hands.  “Okay. We’ll go.”

“Ian?” Barley looked at Ian in quiet disbelief, just as the emotions looked at Fear at the console.

Fear pressed the button on the console again.  “He’s a police officer,” he told Barley, then headed back to the van.

The emotions watched as Fear guided Ian into the driver’s seat of the van, Ian turned the key in the ignition and just sat there, looking straight ahead, taking deep quiet breaths. The emotions shouldn’t be surprised that Fear would give up, or even take over without asking the others what they thought.  It was Fear placing Ian in the driver’s seat, of an idling Guinevere no less, that had them dumbfounded of what’s going on inside his own head.  They noticed as Fear was just standing there, staring ahead at the screen, taking deep quiet breaths.  He too had the same vacant, unsure look as Ian had.

Barley climbed into the passenger seat and faced Ian.  “What are you doing?”

Joy finally broke the silence.  “What are you doing?”

Staring ahead, Ian quietly replied, “I don’t know.”

Staring ahead, Fear quietly told the other emotions, “I don’t know.”

Fear slammed his hand on a large button, Ian slammed his foot hard down on the gas pedal.  Like a wild steed, Guinevere went bolting off into the open fields ahead, away from the cops.

The emotions unanimously gasped.  They couldn’t believe what they were seeing!  Their gazes darted from the screen to the console and back again, almost a dozen times, and they still didn’t believe it!  They thought they knew Fear since the day Ian was born, he would never do anything so thoughtless, so reckless, so… why is he doing something so thoughtless and reckless?

“Fear, you’re getting Ian in trouble!” Joy shouted.  “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know!” Fear shouted back, terror on his face as he kept at the controls, frantically inputting commands.  “I just need to get Ian somewhere safe!  He needs to see his dad!”

Joy looked a little amazed as he finally figured out what Fear was doing.  “Ooh.”

Barley laughed with excitement as he pumped his fist in the air outside the passenger window.  “Ha ha!  Ian Lightfoot, breaking the rules!”

Even with his hands on the wheel and his foot on the gas, Ian still couldn’t believe this.  “I can’t believe I’m running from the cops!”

“No you’re not,” Barley assured him.  “You’re running from mom’s boyfriend.”

Ian looked away from the sight of Colt’s patrol car in the rear view mirror… to see half a dozen patrol cars approaching them from up ahead.  The emotions unanimously gave a shout of shock.

“Okay, now you’re running from the cops,” a shocked Barley told an equally shocked Ian.

“What do I do?  What do I do?” Fear shouted in a panic, trying to focus on the controls.

“Just do what you’re doing!” Joy shouted over Fear’s chaos.

“I don’t know what I’m doing!!” Fear screamed, losing focus.

“Move over!”  Anger shoved Fear out of the way and started pressing buttons and turning dials.  Outside, Ian turned the wheel sharply to the right, barreling through a rotten wood fence and off the unpaven road completely.  Fear was still in a panic as the cops kept their pursuit, appearing to catch up.

“Look!  Over there!” Disgust called out over the chaos, pointing at a raven statue in the distance.  Together, both Fear and Disgust leaped forward and slammed their hands on the same sequence of controls.

“Hold on!” Ian shouted as he cut the wheel hard, skidding Guinevere over some sharp twists and turns. The Lightfoot brothers held on, everything outside the windshield a blur until Ian finally straightened out. Guinevere was now on a gravel trail up a mountainside, with the cops further away from their tail.

Joy jumped with enough joy that a flurry of yellow particles puffed off of him.  “Ha ha!  That was amazing!  Ian did something amazing!”

“He did?  He did!” Fear cheered with the other emotions.

“Yeah!  Way to go, Guinevere!” Ian cheered, patting the dashboard of the van.

The celebration was short lived as the gravel path was blocked by a guard rail and a road closed sign blocking a sharp drop off a cliff.  The brothers gasped as Fear grabbed both large levels and pulled back, making Ian slam the breaks hard, causing Guinevere to screech to a halt.  Ian backed up and turned Guinevere around, but stopped when they saw the distant cop cars coming up fast.  The boys were trapped.

With the excitement and chaos dying fast, Fear managed to snap back into reality, and slowly pull his trembling hands off the controls.  “Oh no… no no no no no no no, what have I done?”

Ian climbed out of the van and ran to a stop a few feet ahead of Guinevere.  “Oh no, what did I do?  I shouldn’t have driven away.”

Barley approached him, wizard staff in hand and leaving their Dad to blindly step out of the van. “No, no that was great!” Barley encouraged Ian.  Acting fast, Barley shoved the staff into Ian’s hands.  Then, he pointed up to a stack of boulders balancing on a ridge over an expanse of the gravel path between them and the oncoming cops.  “Block the road with those boulders.”

“What? How?” Ian asked in shock and confusion.

Barley defiantly replied, “Arcane Lightning.”

“What??” the emotions gasped.

“But you said that’s the hardest spell!” Ian told Barley.

“You are ready,” Barley stated firmly to his brother, looking him dead in the eyes.  “The decree states ‘To make lightning strike with ease, one must follow all decrees.’  You have to do everything.  Speak from your Heart’s Fire.  Trust yourself.  Focus. All of it.”

“Are we seriously going to do this?” Fear shouted in fright and shock.

“I got it!” Joy raced back to the console while holding a purple memory orb from the night before. He peeked inside the orb to get a good look of that memory of Ian looking at the Arcane Lightning page for one brief moment.  “It says… ‘Voltar Thundasir.’”

Fear gulped.  “I guess so,” he whimpered as he gripped the controls.

“Wait.”  Joy stood next to Fear and gripped the controls as well. “I trust.  You focus.”

Fear stammered, “R-right.”

Ian pointed the staff upward, straight at the pile of boulders.  “Voltar Thundasir.”  The air between the three prongs sparked, but fizzled just as quickly.

“Heart’s Fire.  Anger, get in here!” Joy called out to Anger. Anger cracked his knuckles and took the controls as well.

“Voltar Thundasir.” Again, a crackle, but nothing.

“Everyone!”  Joy called out as Disgust and Sadness took their places at the controls.  “Ian needs our help!”

“Voltar Thundasir.”  The staff crackled and sparked, until a small bolt of lightning connected between the prongs.

Joy perked up when he heard the soft zolting sound continue to grow.  “It’s working… everyone hold on!”  Around the emotions, little particles of energy began to appear, and the air seemed to gradually fill with electrical static.

Ian was groaning through the struggle.  He tried to ignore the sirens and focus on the spell.  He tried to ignore his doubts and listen to his Heart’s Fire.  He tried to ignore his fears and trust himself.

The third was easier said than done.  Fear was seeing the spell working, the console light up with golden light.  He saw how everyone was focused on helping Ian. Fear was trying to focus too… but he couldn’t.  He knew Ian could do it, he had no doubt in his mind… so it must have been him.  It must be him.  Fear must be doubting himself!  After these short hours, after all he and Ian’s been through, he’s still doubting himself? He’s still doubting Ian?  What’s wrong with him??

As Fear was firmly engulfed in his fears, he released his hands from the console and backed away.

Ian pulled away his staff in frustration, before he ended up gasping in frustration and guilt in himself. “I can’t… I can’t do it…”

The emotions looked up from the console and looked back at Fear, who fell to his knees on the floor. Joy was the first to run to him.  “Fear!”  Joy slid to a stop and knelt down next to Fear.  “Fear, what’s wrong?”

Fear was a shaking, trembling mess.  Purple particles were shivering off his form as he tucked his hands under his arms.  “I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…” was all he could mumble as his nerve unculred and drooped down his back.

“He’s doing it again,” Anger snarled.  “I knew this would happen!”

“We were doing so good,” Disgust pouted, stomping his foot into the ground.

“Guys, not now,” Joy almost whispered to Anger and Disgust before going back to comforting Fear.  “Come on Fear, you can do this.  Ian needs you.”

“I know… I know… I just… I just…”

Sadness wiped a tear from his eye before he looked up from the emotions and noticed Dad Island lit up.

“I’m not going to see you, dad,” Ian whispered, tears beginning to pool in his eyes as he lowered his head in shame.  “And it’s all my fault.”

Sadness approached the console, feeling drawn by Ian’s depression.  He placed a hand on the console, just the touch of a button caused a cascade of a couple of blue memory orbs into Ian’s short term memory.  But the familiar sound of an engine whinnying back to life caused Sadness to pull his hand back, as well as catch the attention of the other emotions.

Ian looked up and turned back, seeing Barley in the driver’s seat of Guinevere.  “What are you doing?” he asked softly.

Barley said not a word. He quietly plugged in an old cassette tape into the dashboard, turned up the volume, and gave the dashboard one last loving brush of his hand.  As the valorious music played on, Barley left the car in park, picked up a stone and placed it on the gas pedal.  Guinevere roared with energy, like a stallion ready to escape its pen, as Barley adjusted the steering wheel, aiming his mighty steed at just the right target. He put the van in drive, and gave Guinevere one last pat on the rear bumper as she drove straight forward.

The emotions gathered around the console in a hushed awe, their eyes as wide as Ian’s, as they saw Guinevere figuratively gallop to her destiny.  Then literally as her rear tire popped into a bumpy flat, but she still kept going.  Guinevere shot over a ramp like rock, causing her to soar and slam headlong into the pile of boulders.  In one avalanche, Guinevere and the boulders fell, blocking the road, blocking the cops. Guinevere performed her heroic duty, but was buried under the pile of boulders in her final task.

Headquarters was so silent you could hear a particle flutter softly down to the floor.  The emotions were still processing the valiant deed Barley had done, and they still couldn’t believe it.

“Barley just did that?” Joy softly asked.

Fear quietly asked, “Why would he do that?”

Barley solemnly picked up a small gem shaped tail light that managed to fall off Guinevere in her sacrificial quest.  All Ian could do was stand and watch.

Barley took a deep exhale. “It was just a beat up old van,” Barley quietly responded to Ian’s unspoken question.  He tucked the last remnant of his mighty steed into his vest pocket.  “Come on. We gotta go.”

With Barley leading Dad by the leash, and Ian carrying his staff, the two climbed down the rocky cliffside, crossed the grassy field towards the raven statue, and continued their journey on foot.

[loubuggins]

The Dragon Prince

Rayllum ~ Rating: T

Fluff, fluff, and more fluff

Home was a hard word to describe at this point in his life. If he were being honest with himself, he never really had a permanent example of what home was for him. His parents had lived in the village that surrounded the royal grounds of Katolis when he was born. The small house they lived in was nothing more than a vague memory to him now. Then he recalled the day he and his Mom moved into the castle not long after the passing of his father. What a big difference that had been.

The stone walls of the castle always made the empty halls and large rooms feel cold, and despite the constant presence of guards, the castle still felt lonely. His mother was kept busy with her new responsibilities as both a queen and an expectant mother to the kingdom's heir. His new father was distant, even in his free time. The only kids he ever had a chance to play with anymore were older than him and were not the best company to have. The oldest of the siblings, a blonde boy with a big ego, was always more interested in the physically demanding games, such as sword sparring or horse races. The boy’s younger sister was easier to spend time with, but at times unnerved the young prince with her obsession with dark magic. It wasn’t until his baby brother was born that he had a more constant companion, but even then, he still never felt quite at home.

Then his life changed forever the night he came face to face with an Elven assassin and her long, silver blades. The place he thought was meant to be his home turned into a place of lies and death. When he had left the castle behind on that fateful night, he thought he would someday return, but in his heart he knew...it was never to be his home.

During his quest to return the dragon prince to his home in Xadia, he encountered many new places he had never known before. Even when he was just a village boy, he had never stepped foot outside of the Katolis capital. Nor had he ever experienced a place as magical as Xadia. He will never forget his first day walking through a dense forest of wonders after barely escaping a fiery demise by the likes of a bitter old dragon.

The constant sounds of humming bugs, chirping birds, and other creatures shifting through the canopy were an odd mixture of relaxing and exciting. He remembers all the colors too, of the trees and the flowers, even the ground. Everything made the cube in his hand glow in every direction. He could feel the magic flowing between every living thing. It felt like the moments just before lightning struck.

He knew right away that Xadia was a place he could spend many of his years in. Just for the pleasure to explore and learn from the mysterious land. But could this land of magic truly be his home?

The thought had not occurred to him until just now, several years since his first steps into this strange new world. The young mage closed his eyes as he allowed himself to soak in his surroundings. He was back in the Moonshadow Forest, only this time he found himself lying in the soft grass of the Adoraburr patch. He had one arm bent up behind his head that he used as a pillow. His face was pointed up toward the sky as he enjoyed the warmth of the summer sun. There was an occasional breeze that carried the sweet smells and sounds of the melodaisies that grew nearby. He took long and deep breaths to take it all in.

He could feel the gentle movements of the adoraburrs rolling around in the tall grass. Their small, round bodies brushing against his pant legs or his torso every now and then. They were a comforting presence in a place that had become so familiar to him. But what pleasured him most was the elf woman that laid at his side. Her head occupied his free arm as she lounged beside him in the meadow. She had been the last to speak, but now she remained silent as she too relaxed in the peaceful place she loved so much.

He peaked open his eyes and glanced over to her. She was so content as she snoozed beside him. In an act of boldness, he found his hand gravitating toward her hair. The only thing softer than the plush little creatures of the field was the silver strand of hair that slid between his fingers. Finer than silk and longer than the blades of grass that outlined their bodies. He let each long strand slip through his fingers and gently massaged the base of her horns. He heard her hum in approval and he smirked despite himself. He was proud of his ability to bring her even the simplest of pleasures.

“What are you planning over there?” He heard her question and he smiled even wider at the unique sound of her voice.

He glanced down to meet her suspicious, but amused gaze. “Just enjoying the company.” He answered back with equal amusement.

“Hum, well don’t enjoy it too much.” She warned with a glint of mischief in her violet eyes. “We have to be back soon. Ethari is making lunch for us and I rather you not start somethin’ you can’t finish.”

She ended her jib with a playful wink, but her suggestive statement brought a deep blush to the mage’s cheeks. Though they had been together for several years now and have moved well into the most intimate step in their relationship, the girl had greatly misinterpreted his intentions.

“I wasn’t trying to start anything, you dirty-minded elf.” He teased as he shifted his weight and now laid on his side, facing her. She let out a laugh as she copied him so that her face met his.

“Oh please, you always start playin’ with me horns and me hair when you want to start somethin’.”

“I don’t always!” He tried to defend himself, but she quickly shot him down with a look that read ‘don’t even try to deny it.’

“Okay maybe.” He relented. “But I swear this time that was not on my mind.”

Her face softened but this time her eyes filled with curiosity. “Then what was on your mind?” She asked him gently. She knew that her silly prince was ever the over-thinker, so whatever was plaguing his thoughts, she hoped she could be the voice of reason.

The smile on his lips faltered at her question and his emerald eyes dropped to the ground between them. This caused her own grin to vanish as she looked upon him with concern.

“Callum?” She pressed, her voice laced with worry.

Realizing his mistake, the boy pulled his gaze back up to meet hers. He managed to flash her a small grin and watched her visibly relax at the gesture. “I was just thinking...about home.” He finally admitted, but tried to make his words sound nonchalant.

The elf frowned anyway. “Are ya homesick?” She asked, not even bothering to hide the surprise in her voice. “We were just in Katolis for ya birthday and Queen Zubeia is expectin’ us back by the half-moon.”

Callum shook his head. “No no, I’m not missing Katolis. I mean, I love visiting my brother and our friends, but I don’t miss the castle. Quite the opposite actually.”

Now his girlfriend’s brows knitted in confusion, but she waited for him to elaborate.

“I’m not missing home, Rayla. I think, for the first time, I actually feel at home.”

Her pointed ears perked up at this. “But I thought Katolis was ya home?”

The prince looked at her thoughtfully. “Katolis is where I’m from, but it never felt like where I belonged.”

Slowly, he inched his hand toward one of her own and intertwined their nine fingers together. He moved her hand slightly closer to him and rubbed small circles over her knuckles with his thumb.

“I was thinking about Xadia and about everything it comes with. The magic, the creatures, the history…” he paused to give her hand a loving squeeze, “...and you.”

They both blushed this time, but neither looked away as Callum continued. “And I realized that this, this place and this moment, right here with you. This is where I belong. This,” he lifted her hand and brought it to his chest, “is my home.” He finished his confession by placing a tender kiss onto the back of her hand.

Rayla’s blush darkened and her eyes began to shimmer with budding tears, but she did her best to blink them away. She yanked her hand out of his grip and shook her head.

“Sappy Prince.” She half-heartedly chastised as she turned around to hide her face from him. She curled herself into a ball with her back facing toward him. Callum chuckled at her sudden shyness, but did not allow her off the hook that easily. Instead he scooted closer and wrapped his bare arm around her waist, pulling her toward him so that his chest pressed into her back and their legs tangled together.

When she did not try to move away from him, he leaned forward and placed a lingering kiss on her cheek.

“You’re my home, Rayla.” He whispered into her ear. His breath warming her neck and sending a shiver down her spine. He leaned back down into the grass, but continued to hold her in his embrace. For a long pause they each stayed quiet, before Callum finally caught the sound of her hushed voice.

“And you’re my home too.”

[tenleaguesbeneath]

There are a lot of, like, setting-building things in Awakening that I want to push on in ways the setting doesn’t support. Which might mean rewriting aspects of the plot, or exploring what comes after.

Like, Vigil’s Keep was once built to hold a signal fire when Tevinter ships showed up. But some of the details for the setup for the final battle seem to imply that the city of Amaranthine is not within sight of the Vigil, even from its highest towers

Also the layout of the city map as a level doesn’t track with how it fits in on the world map, nor with the city’s description as having a very large natural deep-water port (like, where are the docks? also, since apparently almost every city has one, where is the alienage or why isn’t there one?)

Which only makes it even more strange because that’s the natural Tevinter landing site just as it was the Orlesian one. I mean I guess the Avvars could have had separate scouts watching for Tevinter ships coming to shore, then returning to the Vigil or lighting their own signal fires to relay that warning inland

On another point, the “castle at the foot of a cliff” map layout, while it keeps your bailey conveniently on one side of the map and it also gives some truly breathtaking views, is absolutely silly for 1) a place where you light signal fires to warn people inland, and 2) defensibility. I’m going to forgive that for game design reasons, though

The other thing is that losing the road through the Wending Wood makes it impossible to supply the city. Which if it’s such a good port, supplying the city by sea should be trivial. I’m going to assume that “they lost the path and that made it impossible to supply the city” was a simplification told by someone who doesn’t understand anything about logistics; perhaps they took a lot of cargo in by sea, but most of it had to be sold inland. Without the land routes to sell their goods, they don’t have the draw for the ships they’re used to.

I can actually do some math on my intuition regarding sight lines from the Vigil, under the cut

The Vigil is built on a hillside; the foot of the keep is maybe 5 stories above the gatehouse. The tallest tower of the keep itself looks to be another maybe nine stories up. Let’s assume 8 feet to a story, being somewhat more cramped than how Dragon Age actually uses space, and we’re looking at something about 110′ tall. Wikipedia has the distance to the horizon in miles as 1.22 sqrt(height in feet), relative to whatever the underlying in-between area you’re looking at is. So if the underlying terrain is level with the Vigil’s gatehouse, the Vigil can see the ground out to 12 miles (a more-than-respectable distance for something within the same county, which an arling seems roughly equivalent to. Four leagues, which means four hours’ march on foot). If you want to see something else, you can add the horizon distances together, using the height of the thing you’re looking at below the part that you need to see (this would make sense with a diagram, but basically the horizon here is the ground, which you want to get above so you can see past it. The lower part of the target brings it above the ground as well). For, say, a 30-foot gatehouse, let’s say you need 14 feet of its height to wave signal flags (you probably don’t; a person could stand on the gatehouse and wave flags in semaphore if they had to, but this is a conservative estimate). So that gives you almost five miles extra. If you wanted to get a message from Amaranthine to the Vigil by signal flags (i.e. instantly as long as someone’s watching), then the architecture that they both are shown to have is capable of doing this directly at a distance of up to 17 miles (a day’s march on foot if you’re moving an army), assuming that the trip inland from the port of Amaranthine is not uphill (if it is, the range is longer)

This assumes an earth-sized planet. This visible distance goes with the square root of the planetary radius; one which is half earth-radius would have a horizon eight and a half miles away from the Vigil (about three hours easy walk), and semaphore range down to 12 miles. A quarter earth radius would exactly halve the original numbers.

Next I’d have to get out a ruler and compare things on the map of Ferelden from Origins to the map of Amaranthine from Awakening to work out how big they are. It’s established that the trip from Redcliffe to the Circle Tower takes about a day each way (the map has you going the long way around the lake, but I’m gonna be charitable and assume the one-day time estimate involves a boat), and that moving an army from Redcliffe to Denerim takes more than two days, but not much more with a forced march. So with those numbers, unless the planet is tiny, the Vigil should be able to see, like, the entire arling and possibly into Highever. That’s why you build a giant tower on a hill, after all, and makes it worthy of the name “The Vigil”.

I’m not counting the lack of a flag-signalling system as a plot hole. As far as I know, nobody in Thedas has invented semaphore yet. Nor do they seem to have carrier pigeons, which are even longer-range (pigeons exist, according to Shale, though, but there aren’t any carrier pigeon references that I’ve seen) That seems like the kind of thing that someone might invent in response to a small city getting swallowed up by a sneak attack that the keep that’s supposed to be protecting it doesn’t even find out about until the second wave of

[ft-dads-au]

Birthday Wish

A big thank you to @watcher-ofthe-sky​ for letting us use her fanart of Igneel’s scarf! 

Natsu Day 2020 Pairing(s): Natsu & Erza, Natsu & Gildarts A collaboration by @mdelpin​ and @oryu404​ 

AO3  | FF.Net

Summary: When Natsu wakes up on his birthday he has a simple wish: to spend a nice day with Erza and his father.

July 7, 2003

Natsu felt the warmth of the sun's early rays trickling through his bedroom window, signaling the start of a new day, but he ignored it, choosing to keep his eyes closed. Today was his birthday, but he had no idea what to expect.

Every year since he could remember, his parents would come into his bedroom on his birthday to wake him up. His father would sing Happy Birthday in Fiorean, and then he'd launch into renditions of birthday songs from his native Alvarez. Natsu had never really understood the words themselves, but he'd always enjoyed it regardless. It had always been one of his favorite parts of the day, and he found himself hoping for it, even though he knew that with his mother gone, it was unlikely.

Everything had changed since she'd died last August. His dad - who had always had a joke or a funny story at the ready - was now sad pretty much all the time. Whenever he wasn't at work, he spent most of his time sitting in an armchair and staring off into space.

His older sister Erza was doing her best to fill the void created by their mom's absence. She'd been learning how to cook, do laundry, and all the other chores their mom used to take care of. There was no more time for games or pretend, leaving Natsu feeling adrift. He tried to do as much as he could, helping out with the chores and attempting to put a smile on his dad's face, but nothing seemed to change.

Regardless, Natsu had always been a bit of an optimist, so he remained in his bed with his eyes closed.

Wishing.

Waiting.

Allowing himself the barest flicker of hope that his dad would walk into his room at any moment.

He wanted today to be a good day. He didn't even care about presents, although, of course, that would be nice. The only thing he craved this year was to have a nice day with his dad and sister. So he waited and waited and waited some more until the heat underneath the covers became stifling, and he had no choice but to admit that his dad wasn't going to come.

Trying not to let that affect him, Natsu got up, making his bed to keep Erza from having to do it. He decided to go to him instead. Maybe if he asked nicely, his dad would still do it. He rushed through brushing his teeth, thinking about the words he would say. Stepping out of the bathroom and into the hallway, he walked to his father's bedroom, working up his courage as he got nearer.

But he never got the chance as Erza came out of their father's bedroom and closed the door behind her, standing in front of it with a face Natsu had come to recognize. Erza was disappointed. Still, she smiled brightly when her gaze fell on him.

"There you are! I was getting ready to come get you!" she exclaimed, her voice too cheerful, her smile too quick for him to trust that everything was okay, "Happy Birthday, I can't believe you're nine already!"

As she led him away from the room and down the stairs, she chattered nonstop about everything they were going to do to celebrate. Natsu looked back at the door, an unexplainable sense of dread coming over him at the sight.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting at the breakfast nook, staring at a huge breakfast of pancakes and bacon.

"Isn't dad coming to eat?"

"Nah, he was tired, maybe he'll feel up to it later," Erza muttered in between bites, her eyes fixed on the pancakes on her plate.

"Okay," Natsu shrugged and dug in, it wouldn't be the first time that had happened.

They cleared the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher for later.

"Would you like your present?" Erza asked shyly.

"You didn't have to get me anything," Natsu replied, but his grin was enough to show he sure as hell didn't mind.

Erza rolled her eyes at him, grabbing some sort of wrapped cylinder from the coat closet at the foot of the stairs and shoving it at him.

Whatever it was, Natsu could tell she was really excited about it, reminding him of other birthdays. "It's not another dragon onesie, is it?" he teased, unwrapping the present as slowly as he could manage, knowing that it would drive her crazy.

He didn't last long, his curiosity and excitement overriding his need to be a brat, and soon he was looking at a foam practice sword like the ones that Erza used in her lessons.

"Wow! This is awesome!" Natsu moved it from arm to arm getting a feel for its weight, and soon he began making practice slashes.

"Wanna spar?" Erza asked, grabbing one of her swords from the same closet and pointing it at him.

"Sure!"

She taught him the basics, enough for them to play around, pretending to be pirates fighting over treasure. Their squeals of laughter getting louder and louder until Natsu had to ask, "Shouldn't we be quieter?"

"Oh, yeah," Erza agreed, but rather than being quiet, she stopped altogether. "We should get started on your cake."

Natsu followed her into the kitchen, "You're gonna let me help?!"

"Well yeah, Mom taught you all her tricks. We want it to be a yummy cake, don't we?"

Natsu nodded eagerly, "It's not hard, I'll show you!"

They worked together until they were both satisfied with the results, giggling at their batter covered faces. They cleaned up while the cake baked, with Erza fixing them sandwiches while they waited.

The cake came out looking pretty nice, and they set about making frosting, with Erza determined it needed to be pink to match his hair, although she had also pulled out some strawberries from the refrigerator to decorate the top.

It had been a great day, but there was still something missing, something he desperately wanted. He couldn't help thinking that as much fun as they'd had Erza had kept him busy every moment of the day, almost as if she were trying to keep him away from their dad. And shouldn't he have come down to eat at least? They'd had two meals already, and unlike at breakfast when there had been plenty of food for all three of them, Erza had only made sandwiches for the two of them.

That sense of foreboding came back even stronger as he wondered what Erza was trying to keep him from. So while she was putting frosting on the cake, he snuck away, wanting to find out what was going on and hoping desperately that all that was wrong was that his dad was hungover again.

He had reached the stairs when there was a knocking at the door. Natsu was surprised to see Erza answer, they weren't supposed to do that without an adult present.

Two people came in, one was a policewoman, the other a tall man who was studying Erza and him as well.

"Are you kids alright?" the policewoman asked his sister.

"Yes, we're fine," Erza sounded polite like she always did with adults, but all Natsu could do was watch in fascination and dread.

"Is there an adult here with you?"

Erza remained silent, and it was clear that she was struggling with what to say.

"Of course there is!" Natsu yelled, full of indignation at the implication, "Our dad is upstairs."

It was Erza's flinch that did it. Every single doubt he'd had that day returned full force, and no matter how much he struggled to quiet it, it wouldn't go away.

He had to go upstairs, needed to show these people that they could go wherever they came from because his dad was right there. And soon, he would come downstairs and sing him Happy Birthday, and they would eat the cake that Natsu and Erza had made together.

"Son, you need to come with us," the policewoman said, earning a glare from the other man.

"You don't need to do anything yet," the other man assured him, "My name is Gildarts Clive, I am a social worker from the Magnolia Department of Social Services. I've been sent here to make sure that you are safe and that there is someone here to take care of you. That's all."

He smiled at both of them, and Natsu relaxed slightly, "Now, what are your names?"

"I'm Erza Dragneel, and that's my little brother, Natsu," Erza answered for both of them, her voice sounding wooden, and just like when they were eating pancakes that morning, she wouldn't look at him.

"Tell you what, Natsu," Gildarts walked towards him slowly, holding both his hands in front of him, "Why don't you and I go upstairs to talk to your dad, and if he's there like you say, then we'll go right away, okay?"

Natsu thought it over and nodded, that sounded reasonable enough.

"If he isn't up there, though, I'm going to help you pick out some things, and we'll take you to stay somewhere safe until he returns."

That part not so much, but Natsu was sure he had nothing to worry about, so he once again nodded in agreement.

"Good man," Gildarts smiled and gestured at Natsu to lead the way to his father's room, following him up the stairs.

Natsu stood in front of the door, but he couldn't seem to make his hand move to open it. Gildarts knocked on it and waited for an answer. When none came, he called out.

"Mr. Dragneel, this is Gildarts Clive from the Magnolia Department of Social Services, if you're in there, I need you to answer me."

They both waited in tense silence, but once again, there was nothing, only the quiet sound of Erza crying as the policewoman asked her lots of questions.

"Alright, Mr. Dragneel, I'm going to have to open this door. I apologize for the intrusion," Gildarts peered down at Natsu as if waiting for his approval.

He must have done something for Gildarts was opening the door, and Natsu rushed in wishing to hear his father complain, but Erza's tears had been enough for him to realize what he would find. His father wasn't there. The black and white checkered scarf he always wore sat neatly folded on the bed, along with a gift-wrapped box and a card.

Natsu found he couldn't move, and as much as he hated to feel Gildarts' gaze on him, he was almost grateful when the man picked him up and sat him on the bed before inspecting his father's closet and bathroom.

"It looks like those are for you," Gildarts prodded, sitting next to him, "Don't you want to open them?"

He shook his head, "Not before he sings me Happy Birthday."

"It's your birthday today?"

Gildarts studied him again before sighing, "Why don't you show me to your room? I'll help you get some things together. We don't know where your dad is right now, but we'll leave a note downstairs and a card. If he comes back-"

"He's going to come back!" Natsu screamed, making Gildarts startle.

"Sorry, my bad, when he comes back, we'll have a talk with him and get this all sorted out, okay?"

Natsu could hear Erza coming up the stairs, the policewoman following close behind, and when they passed his room to get to hers, he wanted so much to be angry with her for keeping this from him. But he couldn't. She must have been upset too, but she'd spent all day trying to make his birthday the absolute best she could given what she'd known. How could he fault her for that?

Natsu followed Gildarts to his room, watching listlessly as he packed some of his clothes into a bag. He let his eyes wander over his walls, which were covered with posters of dragons of all kinds. Models he'd built with his dad over the years sat on his bookcase, all vestiges of happier times.

His throat felt like it had a weight on it, but still, he didn't cry. Just took everything in and wondered what had happened. How did everything go so wrong in such a short time? It wasn't that long ago that he'd had a mother who had loved him and a father who - hadn't needed to be found.

Natsu refused to believe that he was gone for good. This wasn't the first time he'd left for a couple of days. He always came back, bringing presents and apologizing for his absence, and then everything would be better for a few days.

Natsu had no idea where his father went during these times, but they seemed to do him good, and that's all that mattered to him. That's what this was, he was sure of it. And with that thought, he relaxed. He'd just have to make sure he was here when his father came back.

Natsu understood this wasn't a fight he could win. He had no choice but to go with these people, but that didn't mean he had to stay.

Once Gildarts was done, he offered him his hand, and Natsu took it, allowing himself to be led.

"Are you sure you don't want to open that present, kid?" Gildarts asked him again.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Alright, but at least take this," Gildarts left him in the hallway and Natsu waited patiently, confused when he saw the social worker holding his father's scarf, "It might make you feel better in a strange place."

Natsu doubted it, but he nodded and let Gildarts wrap it around his neck. He'd just give it back to his dad when he saw him.

Erza came out of her room with a bag of her own. She searched his eyes and then hid behind her bangs, "I'm so sorry, Natsu. I had to."

"It's okay," he assured her, and wanting to let her know how much he appreciated everything she'd done for him, he added, "I had fun today, thank you."

For some reason he didn't get that seemed to make her cry again. Gildarts walked over to her, whispering some words that Natsu didn't catch, but they seemed to make her feel better.

They were led out of their home and placed in the back of a vehicle. Gildarts had grabbed the cake and brought it along with them, but Natsu didn’t want it anymore. Erza seemed afraid, but Natsu wasn't worried. Everything would be fine as soon as their dad came back.

He was sure of it.

0-0

Gildarts had been right about one thing, wearing his father’s scarf did make him feel better. It reassured him whenever they were moved from house to house and he wore it all the time. Natsu didn’t feel at home anywhere, and soon he closed himself off to everyone but Erza and Gildarts. No matter how nice the people were, and sometimes they were, they weren’t his parents and he wanted no part of them.

For two years, he stubbornly ran away from every foster family social services placed him and Erza. It made no difference to him how far away it was, he would make his way back to Magnolia, returning to their real home, determined that his father would come back for them.

He'd fought anyone who said any different, including Gildarts, who had been on the receiving end of his anger more than once.

He was the one who would invariably come and drag Natsu back to his foster home, always managing to keep him out of trouble. It did nothing to lessen Natsu's determination, and no matter how much Erza begged him to stop, he couldn't let it go.

Until the night Makarov Dreyar had shown up in Gildarts' stead.

He introduced himself as Gildarts' father and explained that Gildarts had gone back into the military. He would no longer be able to protect Natsu from the consequences of his constant rule-breaking, so he'd made arrangements for his parents to become their new foster parents.

Makarov even promised to bring Natsu to the house whenever he wanted, as long as he promised to stop sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Natsu wanted to fight, to say that the only home he needed was right behind him, but he had to admit he was drained. The news that he wouldn't even have Gildarts anymore hit him hard. As much as he fought with the social worker, he couldn’t deny that he'd taken a liking to him. Gildarts had been a steady presence in his life, always willing to listen and Natsu had enjoyed the time he got to spend with him, even when he was in trouble.

Now he’d abandoned Natsu as well. But he knew that wasn't exactly fair. Gildarts had left, and it did hurt, but he’d made sure that in his absence, Natsu and Erza were taken care of by someone he trusted. Something their own father hadn't done.

And that's when Natsu remembered Erza's words the day they had been taken away, the apology he'd thought was for lying to him about their dad's absence. For not being able to give him the birthday he'd hoped for.

I'm so sorry, Natsu. I had to.

It had been Erza who had called Social Services on them.

Now that he thought about it, she hadn't acted at all surprised when they had shown up at their door. The realization dismayed him, but he knew in his heart that it was the truth. And he had to wonder why she’d done it.

Erza was not one to give up easily. She must have somehow recognized that Igneel wasn't coming back from wherever he went this time. Or maybe she just accepted that she couldn't take care of them on her own anymore. Either way, she had made the tough decision to ask for help, to ensure that they were cared for, just like Gildarts had.

Erza had accepted the truth two years ago, and Natsu realized that maybe it was time he did too.

If Igneel hadn't come back to them yet, it was quite likely he never would.

Erza had given them a chance at another life, and now Gildarts had offered them a home with his own family. But all Natsu had accomplished with his denial was to hurt himself and put them at risk of being separated. He didn’t want to do that anymore.

Natsu finally let himself cry for all the things he'd lost while Makarov comforted him as best he could.

"So, do we have a deal?" Makarov asked when Natsu was done.

“Yeah,” he sniffled, “There’s just something I want to get from inside.”

Makarov flashed him an approving grin and fished around in his pocket, extracting the house key and presenting it to him, “Gildarts hoped you’d say that.”

[bkdk-n-tasty]

The Dragon Lord and his family

I’M SORRY YOU GUYS!! I’m weak to my yesterday’s prompt and continued it; kinda like how I did the first two days ♥ 

A BIG WARNING; cause I know some people don’t like it, there is mpreg via magic in this!

Day 4: Autumn / Family / Comfort / Mission / Reunion

"Look! There's papa and Makki!" The small voice chimed behind Izuku's head causing the green-haired boy to laugh. Izuku squeezed the small pudgy legs that overlaid his shoulder and down his chest as he was carrying his younger child to meet up with his husband and the older of their twins.

"Yeah, they look like they're coming down for a landing too," Izuku hummed happily in return. It was crazy to believe he'd been with Katsuki for roughly five years and already had a growing family. It wasn't an easy ride that was for sure, there had been plenty and plenty of bumps in their road. Izuku had a lot to learn about being a leader, he'd always had been an adventurer but had that caring nature that definitely helped him fall into the new role. The hardest part had been the shift between him believing he was just a 'consort' to being Katsuki's equal.

That change was a lot of work, he had to prove himself through challenges and trials for him to prove himself to the people. Honestly, that was something that intrigued Izuku a lot, that the people had a say in their leaders and even their leaders' mates. Anyone could challenge or put a trial up for Izuku, and somehow he managed to prove himself. Though it definitely helped that Katsuki supported him through it all, but he also had Denki and Eijiro's support. Those two had been supportive since the start and they'd probably given him the easiest of trials just to show their support. With Katsuki's right-hand man and his mate approval, a lot of others had followed their lead.

Katsuki stayed in the air as their child landed, though it wasn't graceful it wasn't the worse landing they'd seen Makki do. Makki fumbled once on the ground but after a few moments, he stood back up, trying to mimic the way Katsuki stood proudly in his dragon form. Makki's scales were forest green but still bore his father's ruby red eyes. Katsuki, on the other hand, landed gracefully next to Makki, thumping on the ground to the point it nearly shook Izuku but he stayed upright. The much large dragon gently nosed at the smaller, letting out a loud rumble that oddly sounded a lot like a purr.

"Papa! Makki!" Riku chimed, flapping his arms towards his twin. Izuku had expected Riku to be jealous at the very least towards the fact his twin could change forms but he didn't seem that upset. Izuku easily pluck Riku off his shoulders, he watched the smaller boy race towards his brother. Riku, he was a spitting image of his papa with the spikey blonde hair, sharp eyes, and features, the only resemblance to his momma was the green eyes and splash of freckles across his cheeks.

Katsuki glanced towards the small four years old come racing towards him and Makki, even in this form Izuku could see the smile in his eyes. He was proud of the boys, he showered his children in a lot of love and adoration. He practically paraded their children through the village, well he had done that with Izuku when they had gotten pregnant. Eventually, though the red gaze fell on Izuku as the younger man waddled towards him.

"You look handsome as ever love," Izuku murmured softly for only Katsuki's ears as he reached up and softly placed his hand along Katsuki's cheek, softly running his palm down the scales down his neck. Katsuki's dragon form was much more fitting to the larger than life personality. He stood almost seven feet tall when he stood up straight, Izuku could only pet him like this when he practically slouched, where else from head to tail tip he was almost nine feet long. His scales were a gorgeous mixture of golden yellow and brilliant ruby red. He truly matched the dragon of legends, the mythical king that all children heard stories of when they were young and safe in their homes.

Makki had a similar design though it was emerald green instead of the golden colors. Makki was much smaller than his father, which was obviously due to age. The young dragon had just past the five-foot mark, Izuku didn't know how he felt about his child almost taller than himself already. But at least when Makki was in his human form he was just as short as his brother.

"You did so good Makki," Izuku praised the smaller dragon, wrapping his arms around the neck of the dragon as best as he could in his pregnant state. "You'll be just like your father in no time," Izuku laughed as he leaned back, cupping his son's cheeks as he looked him over. "When you shift I will have to bandage your wrists, that landing looked slightly rough but you're definitely getting better." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the dragon's forehead. "Lunch is ready, so you two need to shift soon or Riku and I are going to eat all the food," Izuku said with a slight singsong voice.

With that Izuku let go of the boy's cheeks and turned, grasping hold of the chubby hand of his other four-year-old. The pair headed up the side of the mountain to where it topped off into a beautiful field of wildflowers and much greener grass he'd seen in any forest floor. It was a small oasis that Katsuki had offered to Izuku, a place he could unwind and feel like he was still in the wild green world that Izuku had always loved. It was a beautiful gift that his mate gave to him, and it was then expanded to his twins and their future babies.

"Did you mean it, momma? I can eat all the food if they don't come?" Riku asked bright-eyed when he flopped into the flowers, making Izuku giggle.

"Mmm, maybe but you don't have to worry. Those two will come in no time," Izuku said as he placed his basket full of food down in the grassy area. He carefully sat down next to the basket, it was becoming increasingly hard to maneuver without help. After the first two Izuku had sworn he'd never carry more children after how tender and sore his body had become while pregnant. But the magic did help, it help give the two children and thankfully helped deliver their babies. But of course, he was weak to Katsuki begging and pleading, 'wanting to give their twins younger siblings'.

It probably only took ten minutes for Katsuki to show up with Makki on his shoulders. Makki was just as cute as his twin, of course, Izuku thought they both were cuter than sin. Makki had softer features like his momma, soft pudgy cheeks and uncontrollable forest green hair but he had Katsuki's pretty red eyes. The small boy was just as loud as his twin, very vocal about seeing his twin and momma.

"Momma! Riku! Did you see me flying?" Makki beamed proudly. Katsuki swung Makki off his shoulders and gently placed him down to let him run towards the others. The Dragon Lord strutted towards his family, he looked more like a doting father and husband than a scary Dragon Lord that so many were afraid of. It made Izuku giggle to himself as he hugged his son before cupping his cheeks.

"You did wonderful baby," Izuku praised before Riku practically tackled his brother. The twins were content blabbering to each other in their own little world, in that way only twins seemed to do. Izuku looked up just in time to watch Katsuki sit down behind him. Easily Izuku leaned back against Katsuki's broad chest, enjoying the heat from his mate's body. Dragons always tended to run hotter and honestly that was a good thing during the cooler months, though the mountain range never hit extreme colds which Izuku thought was odd in a region like this but didn't question it a lot.

"You're doing really good as a father," Izuku hummed proudly, though he melted into purrs as his mate started to rub gently against either side of his pregnant stomach. Katsuki was so keen on his mate's needs that sometimes it scared Izuku, but he was grateful more than anything.

"Mm, did you have doubts?" Katsuki teased as he pressed a loving kiss to Izuku's mating mark on his throat.

"Of course not," Izuku sighed happily, "I was just worried that we started having babies before my trials seemed to be over."

Katsuki chuckled but nodded, "Yeah but you proved your right as my mate. I knew you would do wonderfully, I had all my faith in you." Izuku smiled at Katsuki's sweet words, he tilted his head so he could press a kiss to Katsuki's jaw.

Nothing honestly could beat this scene. A lovely autumn noon with the twins playing in the flowers, his mate showing him love he had always dreamed about. Izuku had the family he always wanted but never thought he'd get it in real life, but after finding his soul mate he was given everything under the sun.