#one stamp for the yellow body another for the purple eyes and legs and a third for the black outline

[thelemonsnek]

[id: a photo of a shiny joltik painted using stamps on black fabric. It is very simplistic, consisting of a solid yellow body broken up only by a single black outline around the head, and purple eyes and feet. End id]

Stamp making :)) plotting :)) thought it'd be fun to use a shiny joltik for testing

Bonus tests below the cut!

[id: two photos of joltiks painted using stamps, both on napkins. The first joltik is plain yellow outlined in black by hand. The second photo is of a joltik done purely with stamps, and is identical to the joltik in the photo above the cut. End id]

[deedah]

hey me! Wouldn’t it be cool if the abstracted characters of TADC were sent to another land or area of the map where they were half-abstracted??

(Abstracted characters btw)

“New, New Home..”

[FnFcLOAD//: Pomni_POV ]

⚠️⚠️Warning⚠️⚠️

Swearing (it is bleeped)

Very long

D E P R E S S I O N

((PS: this AU is called the ‘Khlash AU’))

WORD COUNT- 4674

Pomni reached out her hands as she scrambled to open a drawer as she pulled out the drawer and fell on her knees. She scrambled to pick up a red marker as she started to write all along the walls ‘EXIT’. Her room was a mess, she had completely destroyed it. It looked like a rabid beast had been in it.

Over and over along the walls of her room the word ‘EXIT’ eventually infiltrated her mind, and made questions from the back of her brain come into full clearness of her eyes.

‘Did it even matter?’

“Why do I even exist?’

‘Why didn’t the circus pick someone else?’

‘Do the others even like me?’

‘What’s the point if I’m going to expire and be replaced?’

‘Should I be dead?’

“STOP!” Pomni yelled at the top of her lungs as she slammed her red and blue fists against her wall.

Tears rolled down her face as she turned around and slumped against her wall.

She looked around her room to see Exit Doors appear from thin air. All around her, they demanded attention from her.

She felt a jab of pain in her hand as more tears rolled down her face, and even more doors appeared along her walls. 

A rainbow light emitted from her hand as she looked down at it to see..

Her arm breaking and bending as a thick spiky goo with rainbow eyes appear over her arm.

The glitching goo took over her body as she felt the worst pain she had felt in her whole life, before and during the circus.

It had already taken her whole body, all that was left was her mouth and one eye.

“..I’m sorry….” She whispered as the spiky goo took her over, and plunged her into complete darkness.

A few seconds later, she kept feeling jabs of pain everywhere as she started to experience.. strange ‘visions’.

(To get the best visual explanation, please refer to the KAUFMO animated fan-prequel on YouTube. Time stamp- 8:40 to 9:40)

Pomni reached out with her hands as she fell near multiple shapes as she tried to grab something, anything.

She did eventually flip herself over to where she was falling face first into the abstracted void she was in.

She fell and fell, until she came up to a multicolored portal looking thing as covered her eyes and plunged right through it.

Pomni grunted as she lifted herself up off the ground and looked around. She was on a floating dark purple circle as the ‘sky’ had multicolored little stars that spun around in circles.

Mirrors floated around the area and little squares floating in space that lead to more and more floating purple circle area’s.

Pomni slowly got up as she walked up to a mirror.

Everything hurt.

She felt like she was on fire, eternally..

When she eventually got up to one of the gold lined mirrors, she looked into the peering glass to see her jester avatar on the other side.. but.. instead of her normal red, blue, and gold colors, in some areas of her body she still had the black ink with rainbow eyes on some parts of her jester hat, her left arm, and part of her right leg.

Her left eye was neon red with a yellow pupil while the right one was a neon teal with a purple pupil.

“Wha..” she mumbled as she touched her face like she did when she first saw her avatar back in the circus.

“Where am I..?” She asked herself as she stepped back from the mirror.

“I thought I…” she looked at her left black hand, “I did.. so why am I not.. dead..?” She didn't even know the answer to her own question.

As she calmed down, she took a closer look at the scenery around her. The sky was like a purple night sky with the multicolored ‘stars’ that pop like the sun off the purple sky. The circle bases that floated in the air like nothing were dark, dark purple that looked to have a carpet texture on them.

Colorful wooden blocks or spheres floated like jumping blocks in between each circle island. The ‘spawn’ island was just filled with mirrors that made a dome around the island.

“M-maybe I can find someone else right..?” Pomni asked herself as she walked up to the first jump from the island to the first block.

“I can’t be the only one here..” she told herself as she looked down below the black and island.

Her eyes were met with a void of pitch black that seemed to never end.

Her eyes became scribbles as she looked back up and backed away from the edge. “Don’t fall, Pomni.. you’ve already gone through enough..” she told herself as she thought about the others.

She prayed to god that Ragatha wasn’t the one to find her after she abstracted. She couldn’t imagine Ragatha going through that pain again like that.. ‘Kofmau’ did to her the first day Pomni appeared in the circus.

Pomni was about to jump, when a migraine hit her like a bullet. She gripped her head as she closed her eyes and started to cry out in pain.

Pomni felt her vision glitch out as she was taken away from that strange land, and was put into some dark area that had rainbow lights in it that kept changing.

Pomni looked around to see she was backstage where they got ready for their song performance for Caine.

Pomni also noticed that she heard cries and pleas from beneath her. When she looked down, she saw an awe to familiar face..

Ragatha.

“Please.. Pomni…” Ragatha said as she lifted an arm in front of her face to try and protect her.

Pomni immediately backed away and crouched as she looked away from the rag doll.

She’s always been so nice to me.. Pomni thought, and this is how I repay her..?

“P-Pomni..?” Ragatha said as she sat up. Pomni, in the abracted form she was in with eyes that pleaded for the rag doll to accept her apology.

“Are.. are you in there..?” Ragatha asked as she stood up and took a step closer to Pomni.

Pomni started to freak out and make out desperate calls as she tried to use her body language to make Ragatha back away.

“Hey hey! It’s ok Pomni!” Ragatha said as she held out her hands. 

Pomni used her head to push Ragatha farther away from her.

“P-Pomni! It’s me!” Ragatha said as she held onto Pomni’s head as she looked the beast into its many eyes.

“Pomni! Calm down!” Ragatha yelled. Ragatha barely ever yelled. She only did when Jax was acting like an a(boink!)hole.

Pomni immediately focused all her eyes onto the rag doll as the monster layed down.

“Hey.. Pomni.. if you're still in there” Ragatha started as the curtains started to slowly lift up.

Pomni turned away from the light as she felt herself slipping as the enraged monster came back out. 

“Pomni, listen! I don’t have much time so I’ll say this last thing..!” Ragatha said as she turned Pomni away from the light, 

“I forgive you..”

Ragatha and Pomni leaned in for a hug the best they could..

Then light then poured in and caused the abstracted Pomni to become feral again.

Pomni was able to throw Ragatha far away off the stage as the abstracted monster faced Caine and the burning light.

The light ripped Pomni away from reality.

And when she went back into her half-abstracted body in the weird dimension, Pomni fainted and fell back. 

Though the last thing she felt was two hands catching her from underneath her arms.

“Poor girl.. all alone. And abstracted for god's sake.” A deep, male voice said in the distance as a female voice responded to him.

“I know.. thank the lord I was able to catch her before she fell down and hurt herself more.” The female voice said as she kept on talking, “must have had that ‘return-memory’ that I got after I abstracted and somehow got into the pillow fort with Kinger. You know what I’m talking about, right Rett?”

“Yeah I do..” ‘Rett’ replied, “and that’s the only explanation we have so that’s what I’m going for at least.”

Pomni groaned and lifted her head as she sat up on what felt like an actually comfortable pillow and a blanket that fell off her.

“Huh..?” She groaned as her eyes adjusted and she noticed that she was in a large tent that had many sleeping bags and pillows scattered about inside of it.

She also noticed that there was a mirror in the tent as well. The mirror was like the ones that were on the first island that Pomni teleported into through that rainbow portal she fell through.

Pomni slowly got up and walked to the mirror quietly as she gazed at herself one more time.

Still was half-abstracted..

 “Great..” she accidentally said out loud. She quickly covered her mouth with her hands as she slowly turned to the opening of the tent, which was thankfully closed.

She gave a relieved sigh.. until a little orange and green worm smuggled its way in. Pomni noticed that the worm was also half abstracted as well. They had one teal eye with a yellow pupil, while its right eye was pink with a green pupil. And it just had a random placement of the abstract eyes and black goo over its body. And shockingly, it looked to be half Pomni’s size.

“She’s awake!” It called out with what sounded to be a stuffy voice, like they were sick. Pomni stared at the worm with hollow eyes as it kept yelling out that she was awake.

“Queenie! She’s awake!” It yelled out again.

“All right! I hear you Wriggle! You don’t have to shout! We are not deaf..” the female voice answered.

Pomni heard footsteps getting closer and closer to the opening of the tent. The jester started to back away as two white gloves hands opened the dull pink curtains that closed off the tent.

Pomni thought it was Kinger for a second, then she noticed that this chess piece looked to be the queen one. Plus, this person had a red coat and brown wood skin..? Was it skin..? 

Who knows.. Pomni answered in her mind.

“Hello sweetie..” the queen chess piece said. She walked in the tent as she let go of the curtain. Pomni saw that one of her eyes was yellow with a teal pupil while her other is pink with a yellow pupil. She had the black goo-like-ink  around her head and behind one of her eyes. And for some reason, she had no other places with the goo and the abstracted eyes. 

“I know..” she said calmly as she shuffled a little closer to Pomni.

“It’s very confusing, the predicament you're in right now.. trust me.” She promised Pomni. Pomni looked down at her hand that had the goo over it along with the eyes.

When the jester looked up, the chess piece had already walked up close to Pomni as they held their white hand out to Pomni.

“Wanna meet everyone else?” She asked the jester, “it’ll help explain what’s going on..”

The chess piece put a hand behind Pomni’s back as she slowly pushed her forward.

“My name is Queenie, dear..” ‘Queenie’ said as she looked down at the jester, “What’s yours?”

“P..” Pomni started, then cut herself off.

“It’s ok dear,” Queenie started, “I may be half abstracted, but I assure you I am not aggressive, no one here is.” The Queen explained as Pomni got the guts to quickly say her name.

“Pomni..”

Queenie looked down at the jester, “What was that dear..?” She asked.

“My.. my name’s Pomni..”

Queenie’s multicolored eyes lit up as she crossed her fingers over one another, held her own hands, and lifted them up to where her cheek would be. “That’s a beautiful name, Pomni!”

“Yeah..” Pomni said as Queenie used her non connected hands to open the curtains of the tent.

Outside was barely any brighter as it was in the tent. The dark purple sky was still spinning as the rainbow stars followed it along like the game, follow-the-leader.

“Everyone..!” Queenie started as Pomni faced 6.. no, 7 people. And they all were half abstracted like her.

“This is Pomni..! Our newest member of the Khlash!” Queenie explained as Pomni smiled awkwardly and waved to the others. She looked back to Pomni with sorrowful eyes, “Welcome to your new, new home..!”

Pomni wrapped her head around what she said, “New, new home..

“How long did you last?” A huge pink giant with one red and blue eye. He also had the extra eyes and black goo on his back, right arm, and along his left foot.

“Blonk!!” Queenie yelled as her eyes and body language looked like she was mad. “You know that’s so rude to say! Poor girl probably went through so much!” 

Queenie put her hands on Pomni’s shoulders and pulled her in closer. “For that f(boink!)n comment, you can go get Able..” she demanded while Blonk’s eyes widened.

“Queenie! He’s like 8 islands away from us!” Blonk tried to use excuses.

“I don’t care! You did this when Kaufmo showed up as well, same idiotic comment, same consequence. Better get a move on..”

Blonk grumbled as he muttered words under his breath, and walked towards more jumping blocks that lead to another island. Blonk had pink fuzzy skin while his thin legs were a teal color. Of course he had extra eyes and the black goo as well as everyone else in this strange place.

Pomni noticed that this island also had pillars that had silk fabric hanging down from it, then all the silk met in the mills as it just hung above the middle of the island as a chandelier hung from the middle where the silk met. As well as Utah Teapots floating in the air, like when her and Gummigoo glitched out of bounds back in the Candy Kingdom.

Then, something clicked in her mind as she replayed what Queenie said to Blonk.

“Kaufmo..?” Pomni said as she looked around for the red, white, blue, and gold clown that she saw abstracted on the first spray she arrived at the circus.

Everyone looked at Pomni as she stepped forward and as Queenie let go of her.

“Kaufmo..?” She asked again as she tried to look through the people. Eventually, they split apart, leaving the clown avatar right in front of Pomni. 

“H-how do you know me..?” Kaufmo asked as he stepped closer. He started to walk in circles around Pomni as he must have tried to figure out if he knew her.

“You don’t know me.. you had Abstracted the first day I arrived at the circus.” Pomni explained, “Me, Jax, and R..” she remembered her ‘Return-memory’. “Ragatha, had gone to check on you after I received my name.

“Then we found you abstracted, you attacked Ragatha, Jax and I ran away, I distracted you with monkeys, then Caine put you into the cellar.” Once Pomni finished, Kaufmo knelt down on his knees as Pomni got a good look at him.

He had the black goo around almost half of his body, but his right hand was the only exception to the goo. His stick eyes were still black, but he had around 5 extra eyes on the goo.

“I.. am so sorry for what I caused on your first day..” he apologized. Pomni wrapped her head around what he said, and slowly nodded.

Kaufmo put a hand on Pomni’s shoulder. “Just, tell me. How is Jax doing..?” He asked

Pomni gave him a discombobulated look,

 “W h a t ?”

Kaufmo laughed. “How’s Jax doing?” He asked again, “Me and him were best friends, I helped him when he first arrived at the circus. And even helped him find new ways to cope.. until he found a new his own way and started to act like a jerk..” Kaufmo looked down at the ground as he sniffled and looked back up, “so? Is he any better?”

Pomni looked at the other abstracted members, she wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t even know who Jax was.

“Well.. he is still a jerk. He messed with me a lot when I first arrived. And he pushed Gangle around, shoves centipedes into Ragtha’s room, call’s Kinger names, and yanks Zooble pieces out of her body to use as a back scratcher.

Kaufmo’s face changed from happy, to looking in disbelief.

He sighed, “I knew he’d get worse.” He muttered as he pulled away from Pomni and sat on his knees, “what did he say at my funeral…? If I even got one..”

“Oh! You did! But.. he didn’t show up.” Kaufmo slumped after Pomni said that, “But! The others said beautiful things about you at your funeral. I have wanted to meet you for a long time!” She said as she laid her hands on his, “now I have..” she smiled as he returned it with a heartwarming smile.

“That’s nice Pomni..” he said as he stood up straight.

‘Thump!’

Pomni and the other members look to their right to see Blonk be teleported out of thin air as he landed on the ground with a loud boom.

Then right beside him appeared a knock-off Caine that wore a blue tuxedo instead of the red one, and had a white, gloved hand for a head with two eyes on the palm and a floating black and blue hat above the thumb. One eye color was pink while the other was gold.

“Alright,” the knock-off Caine said, “who abstracted?” He said as he dusted himself off and summoned his white and blue caine.

Queenie stepped up, “Able, this is Pomni. She just abstracted earlier today, meaning..”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it toots!” He said snappy as he floated right in front of Pomni as he grabbed her face by her cheeks and chin.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head as blue code started to appear around Pomni and Abel.

Abel eventually let go of Pomni as he floated right beside Queenie.

“25 years old, worked for the company, and doesn't have a great mental state.” Abel said.

“Wha..?” Pomni said as she stepped forward a bit, “How do you know that?!” She said a little loudly.

“Easy f(splat!)er” he said as a bar appeared beneath his eyes, but this time, instead of Caine’s head on it, it was Abel's. “I just looked through your memories.. aannndd I’m already bored!” He yelled, “you get a request, or you could call it a wish I guess, when a person first arrives in Khlash. Here are the rules, I cannot make you not half abstracted, I cannot bring you back to the circus, and I cannot bring a friend here from the circus.”

“Take as long as you need..” Queenie said calmly.

“Don’t do that.” Abel said snarky as Queenie gave him the death stare, “I have a date with my bed and sleep, so hurry up.”

“Oh.. ok..?” Pomni said as she thought long and hard.

Then something popped in her mind.

“So, Abel, right?” She asked as he nodded, “ok, you said you can’t bring a ‘friend’ from the circus in this ‘Khlash’..”

“Yes..?” He said in annoyance.

“But what about an.. NPC..?” She asked as she shrugged and a wobbly smile appeared on her face.

Abel’s eyes widened as he sat up straight in the air and tapped his nonexistent chin with his white, gloved finger. “I actually have no clue. Most people just ask to see their circus friends one last time, I’ve actually never had any other request..” he thought on the subject as Pomni and the other’s awaited his answer. 

“I can try, I guess.” He said as he shrugged and lifted his hands as blue code made a dome around Pomni and Abel. The dome seemed to push everyone else out so it was only the jester and the ringmaster of this land.

He turned to a blue keyboard with a search engine above it. He tilted his head to look at Pomni.

“Imma need a name of this NPC, and what adventure you met them on.” He said as he kept looking at Pomni.

“Oh.. um.. His name is Gummigoo, and he was on the Candy Carrier Chaos adventure.” Pomni gave Abel the information that he needed as he typed it up like she was checking a bill at the bank.

“Is he a gummy crocodile that is yellow and green with white eyes and a cowboy hat?” Abel asked Pomni as he turned the search engine to Pomni’s eyes.

“Yes! That’s him!” Pomni said eagerly.

“Alright,” Abel said as he looked around the area on the screen. “Looks like I can bring him back, do you want him with memories or not?”

“With!” Pomni yelled, when Abel gave her a funny look, she apologized, “Sorry.. just, excited…”

Abel sighed and muttered, “I’ll never get these stupid humans..” under his breath.

Pomni rolled her eyes as Abel made all the code disappear.

“Al right! Everyone back away!” Abel commanded as he lifted his hands and blue pixels appeared and orbited his hands.

“You sure this is what you want?” Abel turned his hand head to Pomni to get one final consent.

“Yes,” she said plainly.

“All right, one gummy alligator coming right up.” Abel waved his hands around as the blue code went far away from him and started to form Gummigoo from the legs up. Once the code finished, Gummigoo was in his A-pose like when him and Pomni glitched through the map and he found out he wasn’t real.

Be ready Pomni.. She thought, you're about to see the first person who understood you in this.. circus..

Abel snapped his fingers and Gummigoo fell down on the ground in a lying position.

Gummigoo grumbled as he grabbed his head.

“Gummigoo..?” Pomni said quietly.

He grumbled again, “Lad’s I told ya’ not to wake me up-“ he stopped when he opened his white eyes, and saw Pomni’s legs.

He immediately shot up off the ground as he caught his hat from falling off. He stared at Pomni with hollow, wide eyes.

“P-Pom Pom..?” He finally said.

“Unfortunately..!” she said as she opened her arms as she awaited the hug.

“POMNI!” Gummigoo yelled at the top of his nonexistent lungs and grabbed Pomni from underneath her arms as he slung her around in the air. He did eventually pull her into a tight bear hug.

“Missed you too..!” Pomni said as she struggled to breath. 

“Oh, sorry Pom Pom.. I kindaa forgot how strong I was..” Gummigoo said as they just smiled at each other.

But then, suddenly, Gummigoo’s eyes went hollow as he looked at Pomni’s state.

“What happened to you Pom Pom..?” He said as he kept turning her around as he saw her extra abstracted eyes and the black ink-like-goo around parts of her body.

Then Gummigoo looked around at where they were, “Crikey.. where even are we Pomni..?”

“Heh..” she laughed as she tried to keep it in, “it’s a lot to explain.. but I promise, nothing can take us apart now..”

[ ERROR//: ERROR ]

[ CLASSIFIEDINFO//: DO_NOT_CONTINUE ]

[EXTRALOAD//: Ragatha_POV ]

Ragatha looked where the cellar hole was. She kept staring at the floor as she hugged her knees up to her chest. It was night time.. the night after Pomni abstracted. They had already had her funeral, but Ragatha left early and went to where the cellar was in the circus.

Ragatha had found abtracted Pomni in her room. She had gone to check on the jester due to the screaming that she heard.. but, she was too late..

Pomni turned into a raging beast already..

Ragatha had that little moment with Pomni when she got her mind back for a minute.

She kept replaying those moments in her head.

Ragatha ran from Pomni in the hallway, then chased her until they both got behind the stage where Pomni had pinned Ragatha to the ground. Then, Pomni got her mind back and they had their little moment of clarity before the curtains opened and Pomni threw Ragatha off the stage.

While Caine faced Pomni, Zooble, Gangle, and Kinger helped Ragtha up with Jax watching from behind them. 

Pomni, now with no mind, rushed towards Caine, but the ringmaster easily picked the abstraction up, opened the cellar, and dropped Pomni in.

“NO!” Ragtha yelled as she ran to the cellar hole and reached her hand down in the hole for Pomni to grab ahold of.

“Ragtha!” Zooble yelled as Ragatha felt ribbons and hands pull her back so Caine could close the hole.

Now, ever since lunchtime, Ragtha has been staring at where the cellar opening was.

She wished it could have been her.. 

Why Pomni of anyone?!

SHE WAS BRAND NEW!

SHE HAD A WHOLE F(boink!)N LIFE AHEAD OF HER!

WHY COULD IT HAVE BEEN ME-

“Dolly..?” A voice said from behind Ragatha. When the rag doll looked back, she saw a familiar purple rabbit with yellow hands and eyes, and a pink overalls.

“Go away..” Ragatha mumbled as she turned back to where the cellar opening was and buried her face in her arms. “I don’t want to hear your sh(splat!)t jokes..”

Jax was taken back by Ragtha’s swearing. The sweet and optimistic girl barely ever swore.

“No.. your obviously depressed by Pomni..” Jax said as he slowly got down beside Ragatha and criss-crossed closely, but not too close, to her.

“I know how it feels.. Rags..” he said quietly. Ragatha turned her one eye to look at him.

“After Kaufmo abstracted.. that night of the funeral, I couldn’t stop crying in my room.. he had helped me when I first appeared in the circus.. and I just turned my back on him and acted like a jerk to him..

“Now he’s gone.. and I’ll never get to say the most important words I wished I had said to him..” Jax sniffled and wiped away one tear, “I’m sorry…” his voice started to break.

Jax sucked it in a bit and turned to Ragatha, who was now looking at the ground again.

 “Listen.. I didn’t expect it either. She seemed to be adjusting, but I guess it got too much for her” Jax said as Ragatha hugged herself tighter.

“I know this is out of character for me not to be a jerk.. and I have no clue where Pom is now.. but I’m sure she’s still thinking about you. She pushed you away to protect you from Caine… and herself..”

Jax scooted closer to Ragatha, “I’m sure she’s thinking about you right now.. and how she wishes she can be with you again..”

Ragatha had been quiet for a while, so Jax peaked at her face to see her crying.

Jax sighed “Come’ere” he said as he stretched his arms out wide.

“What..?” Ragatha said as her voice kept breaking.

“Listen, I’m giving you comfort right now. I will be changing my mind in 3.. 2- AAÆÆH OK!” Jax yelled as Ragtha pretty much fell right on Jax’s chest.

He slowly wrapped his long arms around the rag doll as he began to rub her head.

He hummed a song someone used to sing to him in the real world before the circus, if only he knew their name..

“What’cha singin..?” Ragatha asked sleepily.

Jax chuckled. “It’s called Rag Dolly. Thought it fitted perfectly with your avatar..”

Ragatha laughed as she fought to keep her eyes open, “yeah.. it.. doess…” and Ragatha was out.

Jax smiled and laughed a bit as he gently picked the rag doll up and carried her to her room.

Once he laid her on her red and blue quilted bed, he turned to walk away when a soft hand grabbed his wrist lightly.

He looked down to see Ragatha, still asleep, smiling as she slowly breathed in and out.

“…Stayy…..” Ragatha slurred.

“Heh, all right Doll Face, but just this once..” Jax whispered as he sat down beside Ragatha’s bed, and fell asleep while holding the rag doll's hand in his own..

[ronaldanthony4]

I’ve created another digital artwork, and, as usual, it’s a fan art. This time, I’ve drawn a character who’s close to my heart—BJ, the lively yellow Protoceratops from Barney & Friends. Now, some people might not remember him as clearly as Barney himself, but to me, BJ is every bit as memorable. His unique character and vibrant appearance always stood out in the colourful world of Barney, and I thought he’d be the perfect addition to my fan art collection.

BJ is a seven-year-old dinosaur, full of energy and mischief. Every time I watched him on Barney & Friends, I felt like his spirit brought an extra spark to the show. His design is so distinct—he’s a bright yellow Protoceratops, which, as many of you know, is a dinosaur with a distinctive frill and beak. BJ’s frill is large and adorned with purple spots, which are scattered all over his body as well. I made sure to capture those spots in my artwork, dotting them around his arms, legs, and even his cheeks. They add such personality to his look, almost like a hint of freckles, and they make him feel even more real and alive.

Of course, no picture of BJ would be complete without his iconic red baseball cap. It’s such a classic part of his look—worn backwards, with a tuft of hair peeking out right in front. I like to think that hair tuft is BJ’s way of showing he’s just a little bit rebellious, a little bit cooler than your average seven-year-old dinosaur. His red cap, like his character, is bold and bright, a colour that stands out and draws attention. I made sure to add shading to his cap to give it depth and realism, and the little tuft of hair just beneath it is a personal touch I had fun drawing. It adds a softness to his otherwise sturdy, dinosaur look, and makes him appear even more endearing.

BJ’s red and white sneakers are another trademark part of his outfit, and I had a lot of fun illustrating those. They’re chunky, with oversized white laces that stand out against the bright red of the shoes. In the show, his shoes always gave him a sporty look, which makes sense since BJ is always on the move. Whether he’s playing a game, riding his scooter, or just running around, those sneakers are practically made for adventure. In my artwork, I paid extra attention to those details—adding little highlights and shadows to make the sneakers look realistic, as though you could almost reach out and touch them.

But BJ’s personality is what really brings the character to life. I tried to capture his playful expression—his eyes wide and full of curiosity, a friendly smile on his face. BJ has always had this slightly mischievous look about him, like he’s ready to jump into the next game or come up with a fun idea. Drawing his facial expression was one of the most enjoyable parts of the process. I wanted to show that spark, that hint of energy that he carries with him everywhere. His eyes are a warm shade of brown, with little highlights to make them look alive. It’s amazing how much character you can bring out with just a few details in the eyes and mouth.

There’s a lot more to BJ than just his appearance, though. He was named after Sheryl Leach’s father, Billy Joe “B.J.” Stamps, as a way of honouring him. From what I understand, B.J. Stamps was a significant influence on Sheryl Leach, and this naming choice was a heartfelt memorial to him after he passed away near the end of Barney & Friends’ first season. Originally, his name was spelled with periods as “B.J.”, but eventually, they simplified it to just BJ. This change helped avoid the inevitable questions from young fans about what the letters stood for. And now, in the latest series, "Barney’s World," they’ve gone even further and evolved his name to Billy. It’s a thoughtful progression, almost as if the character himself is growing up.

BJ is more than just a friend to Barney—he’s part of a little family of friends that makes the show so special. He’s the older brother of Baby Bop, a role he takes seriously in his own charming way. He calls her “Sissy” most of the time, which I think is adorable. It’s a sibling nickname that shows his affection, though on rare occasions, he’ll use her actual name. It’s these little details that make their relationship feel genuine and relatable. Even though they’re dinosaurs from the imagination of children, BJ and Baby Bop have this real sibling bond that makes them feel like part of our own families.

Then there’s his cousin, Riff, who’s also his best friend. The dynamic between BJ and Riff is a lot of fun—they share a lot of interests, especially when it comes to music. Riff, as you might know, is all about music and rhythm, and BJ loves the drums. BJ players drum in his rock band, BJ and the Rockets. BJ is often seen with his drumsticks, tapping out rhythms and adding his own beat to any situation. I imagine him as the kind of kid who can’t resist tapping on any surface he finds, always creating a beat, always adding a bit of music to life.

When I look back at BJ’s character in Barney & Friends, what really stands out is his boundless energy and his love for sports. BJ is the kind of dinosaur who’s always moving, always ready for the next game or adventure. Whether it’s baseball, basketball, or soccer, BJ throws himself into every sport with enthusiasm. He’s never met a sport he didn’t like, and I think that makes him relatable to a lot of kids watching the show. Sports are a way for BJ to express himself, to channel all that energy into something fun and constructive. In my artwork, I tried to capture that sense of movement, that readiness to leap into action at any moment.

One of my favourite aspects of BJ’s character is his superhero alter-ego, Captain Pickles. It’s a playful side of him that shows his imagination and his love for a good adventure. The name “Captain Pickles” is a nod to his favourite snack, pickles, which I think is such a quirky and charming detail. Every time BJ pretends to be Captain Pickles, he’s showing us the power of imagination, of transforming yourself into something brave and heroic. Drawing BJ made me think of how much fun he’d be having as Captain Pickles, zooming around and saving the day in his own playful way.

BJ’s enthusiasm and impulsive nature make him a bit of a handful sometimes, but that’s part of what makes him so loveable. He’s the type of character who doesn’t always think things through, who acts first and thinks later. But he’s also quick to apologise and make things right. He cares deeply about his friends and family and is always ready to help, even if he might get himself into a bit of trouble along the way. This combination of impulsiveness and kindness is something I wanted to reflect in his expression—he’s not perfect, but he’s genuine, and that’s what makes him such a beloved character.

Creating this fan art of BJ was more than just a drawing exercise; it was a chance to reconnect with a character who represents so many good memories. In every line and colour, I tried to bring out his personality, to show not just what he looks like but who he is. BJ might be a character from a children’s show, but he has layers, and there’s a lot to appreciate about him. His bravery, his curiosity, his love for fun and adventure—they’re all qualities that make him someone to look up to, even as a dinosaur in a child’s imagination.

As I finished the artwork, adding the final touches and shading, I felt a sense of satisfaction. BJ looked back at me from the screen, his bright yellow frill spotted with purple, his cap tilted just right, and that friendly, slightly mischievous smile on his face. It felt like he was ready to jump out of the picture and go on his next adventure. And maybe that’s the magic of BJ and characters like him—they make you feel like there’s always another game to play, another mystery to solve, another friend to help.

In the end, creating this piece reminded me of why I love drawing characters like BJ. They’re simple, but they’re also deeply meaningful. They bring out the best in us, reminding us of the joy of imagination and the importance of friendship. BJ is more than just a yellow dinosaur with a red cap and sneakers; he’s a symbol of everything fun and innocent about childhood. And as long as we have characters like him, there will always be a reason to celebrate imagination, kindness, and the magic of being a kid.

[villainousshakespeare]

Bobby’s Playdate Part 2

Part 1

The pandemic is keeping Tom idling in London by himself. One positive is that wearing the mask helps him avoid recognition, allowing him to wander in the park with his dog, Bobby. On one of their walks, Bobby becomes smitten with a dog named Lulu and Tom is equally enchanted by her human. Can the Hiddleston men manage to find a way to see the lovely ladies again?

Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Chapter 2 of4

Rated M - Pandemic, Fluff, Quarantine, Masks, Adorable Puppies, Meet Cute, Second Part May (will) Contain Smut

@yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @hopelessromanticspoonie @wine-and-whines @arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @devilish–doll @enchantedbyhiddles @hiddlesholic @i-do-not-fangirl-i-fanwoman @kellatron55 @ladyoftheteaandblood @latent-thoughts @gorgeous1974 @maryxglz @myoxisbroken @nuggsmum @nildespirandum @pedeka @redfoxwritesstuff @sinfully-lustful-darling @vodka-and-some-sass @wrathkitty @kingtwhiddleston @wolfsmom1 @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @dangertoozmanykids101 @bookworm-christina @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @amwolowicz @delightfulheartdream @frostbitten-written @what-a-flammable-heart @tom-hlover @nonsensicalobsessions @myraiswack @loki-yoursaviourishere, from-hel-i-with-love, @sweetsigyn, @fictiondoesitbetter, @ms-cellanies @evieplease @viviennes-tears @turniptitaness @cynic-spirit @spooky1980 @ghostypau @viviennes-tears @lady-loki-ren

I am so sorry I took so long to update this! First I was distracted by a super busy week, and then I decided to rework what I had in store for it. It took a while to redo, but I have decided to make it a 4 part story. Hope you enjoy, and that the wait was worth it!

The day had started out like every other since the lock down began. Leia had slept late, having no where to go. A cold, wet kiss on her nose from Lulu woke her up when the pup could no longer wait to be let out and grumbling she had taken her out for a quick walk up and down the block. After two cups of coffee and some melon, Leia had realized that after three months of enforced solitude, both she and her dog had gotten decidedly surly. It was time to get out, even if it was only to the local park.

Lulu’s excitement when she took out the little pink and white checked dress had been enough to put a smile on Leia’s face. Really, the small dog was a ridiculous creature, but she could be such a bundle of sunshine. After they were both outfitted – Lulu in her dress and Leia in a comfy outfit and mask, they made their way to the nearby park, enjoying a leisurely stroll around the newly green paths. She wished that Lulu was not too timid to play in the dog run, but after spending a year in the shelter the poor thing was terrified of other dogs.

That was why she was so surprised when Lulu’s tale began to wag excitedly. Normally she would have been cowering and whimpering in fear at the sound of another dog approaching, but for once her reaction was completely different. She jumped up from where she had been snuggling on Leia’s lap and perked up her ears, tongue lolling out happily. When the chocolate spaniel came trotting around the bend, she even jumped of Leia and strained at the leash to meet him.

Keeping a tight hold on Lulu’s leash, Leia let her eyes travel up the lead attached to the strange dog. It was quite a long trip, as it happened, past a pair of long legs in torn jogging pants, a faded shirt that would once have been bright blue, and a plain black mask until she got to a set of smiling blue eyes that made her heart stop.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, “I promise he is completely friendly.”

She had known who he was instantly, of course. No face mask could disguise those cheek bones, the copper curls that brushed his collar, or the baby blues that had sent a million fan girls swooning. If she had had any doubts, one word from that sinful voice, a verbal caress of polite friendliness, would have stamped it out. She had seen almost all of his movies, after all, and quite a number of his promotional appearances as well.

“It’s okay, so is she,” she replied struggling to keep her voice normal and grateful for the mask that hid her stunned initial gape. “You know, she’s usually quite shy, but she seems to like him! May I pet him?”

And then Tom Hiddleston –  The Tom Hiddleston! – had sat down on the bench next to her while she petted Bobby and struck up a casual conversation! She had kept her eyes on the pups at first, afraid that if she looked at him, he would see the excitement and intimidation in her eyes. He introduced himself, needlessly, of course, and she gave him her name in a kind of daze. She realized that he had only provided his first name and had the quick flash of insight that he might be enjoying the idea of anonymity. If that were the case, she would not want to spoil it for him by gushing. Uncertain of what to do, she let the obvious joke about her name lead her to mentioning Marvel characters. That way, she decided, he would have a segue to talking about his career should he want to. When he let it slide and quickly changed the subject, she decided that her assumption must have been correct.

Which was absolutely fine with her! She was sitting and talking to Tom Hiddleston! While she would, of course, love to pick his brain about Loki, or Shakespeare, or any of a dozen projects, she was more than happy to listen to him discuss his dog in that proud pappa voice. By the time she had told him the story behind Lulu’s dress excitement she was reasonably settled and could actually manage to look him in the eye without blushing.

She had met a few famous people in her time as a London tour guide, and many of them had been a colossal let down. Tom was not one of them. He was everything she had ever imagined or hoped he would be. Kind, funny, clever, a little prone to talk on about any subject he happened on, but in all a delightful conversation partner. She was disappointed but not surprised when he had to leave, but she didn’t want to be too greedy; it was already one of the most magical afternoons of his life. When he mentioned running into them again, she almost squealed with excitement, just barely managing to keep her face impassive.

Thus began a fairy tale of month for Leia and Lulu. After two days of rain, during which she was certain he would forget all about her, they had found the boys again at the same spot. Leia half wondered if she were simply dreaming, but if so, she had no desire to wake up. They met up with Tom and Bobby most days, walking for hours sometimes as they discussed London, their childhoods, school. She learned quickly that he changed the subject instinctively whenever anything came up that might lead to his career. She could respect that. It must be hard, she thought, being always in the public eye. For her own part, Leia tacitly decided to keep the subject of her book a secret. After all, a fantasy story based on Norse Mythology, with Loki playing a leading role, was bound to bring up the sort of conversation he obviously wished to avoid.

As time went on, she began to forget he was a movie star and just think of him as her friend, insane as that struck her when she stopped to look at it. Oh, she was still absurdly attracted to him, but it was no longer for his stunning character portrayals or teasing banter with interviewers. No, the teasing banter she was interested in now was much more personal for her. He was delightful company, unfailingly polite, quick with a wickedly funny comment or a profound musing on life. In short, Leia was well and truly smitten. Hopelessly, she thought with a sigh.

When he invited her to his home, she could barely believe it. A casual acquaintance in the park was one thing, a dinner chez Hiddleston was completely different. She knew it was in large part for the sake of the puppies, and that was fine. Lulu was as besotted with Bobby as Leia was with Tom, only in this case it was obviously mutual. Leia would just have to be careful to guard her heart. She was not a part of his real life, and she needed to remember that, even if they never discussed it.

***

Bobby started barking seconds before the buzzer rang, his tail wagging back and forth at a frantic pace. Tom, scarcely less excited, gave a quick glance in the mirror before slipping on his mask and opening the door.

Leia stood on his doorstep looking even more lovely than usual. Her simple leggings and long tee had been replaced by a pretty, floral sundress in shades of red and yellow and her hair, usually tied up or back, was long and curling about her shoulders. Tom swallowed and tried to keep his eyes from doing too obvious an up and down of her body. It was difficult, considering the shape of her legs and amount of them showing. Lulu’s yip drew his eyes down to her, and he saw that she was dressed in a purple polka dotted number for the evening, her hair sporting several sparkly clips to keep her braids from coming undone.

“Hi, welcome!” he greeted them, straining to keep Bobby from leaping out the door. “Won’t you come in?”

“Thanks,” she smiled with her eyes as he ushered her inside.

“You found the place alright?”

“Your directions were perfect,” she assured him, glancing around at his newly bare entryway. “It’s quite the posh street you live on! I don’t think I’ve ever been into one of these houses.”

“Oh, it’s just like any other home,” he said modestly, feeling stupid as he did. His house had an electronic gate (that he had left unlocked for her) and a private surveillance system. He knew it was not the usual home. “I can give you a tour later if you like.”

“I’d love that. Whatever you have cooking smells delicious!”

“Thanks. I’ll have to check on it in a bit. For now, though, why don’t we go out back? I have some drinks chilling.”

He gestured for her to proceed him and subtly steered her past the kitchen and living room and out the sliding glass doors into the back. The yard was pretty, a nice square plot with flowers growing along the fence on three sides and one large tree giving shade. A table with four chairs and a grill stood on a little stone area, and Tom had set it up with a selection of glasses for beer, wine, and mixed drinks. A pitcher of iced water stood next to a bottle of dry rose in an ice bucket, and another small bucket contained iced beers.

“Here you go, Bobby,” he unleashed the spaniel who instantly tore off around the yard, looking for his favorite toy. “Why don’t you two have a nice frolic.”

“Oh Lulu, this will be fun!” Leia cooed to her pup, also removing her dog’s leash.

As the little dog scampered off after Bobby, Tom took a deep breath and turned to her owner. Now was the moment he had been waiting for.

“I suppose since we are alone and outside and all… as long as we stay six feet apart… would you mind?” he gestured towards his mask.

“Not at all. Oh, and I got my negative test results back. I have a copy on my phone if you want to see them!” she offered.

“No need, I trust you,” he was quick to assure her. “I got mine as well.”

It was strange – until a few months ago he would have felt tremendously awkward wearing a mask around another person. Even when he had needed to wear one for a few scenes in Only Lovers Left Alive it had seemed tremendously cumbersome and rather silly. Now though, Tom realized that he could not remember the last time he had been around another person without one. There was something shockingly intimate in the act of taking it off in front of Leia, and he found himself feeling almost shy. Blushing a bit, he unhooked the straps from around his ears and took the fabric from in front of his mouth, setting it on one of the chairs.

His eyes fastened on her as she reached up to do the same, the red mask peeling away to reveal a small bow of a mouth, pink lips curved in a slight smile. Her chin was slightly pointed and had a cute little half dimple to one side. Smile lines were just barely visible and added to the appeal of her face. It was a very kissable mouth, he decided.

“Hi,” he said, rather fatuously, face breaking into a sheepish grin. “I’m Tom.”

“Hi Tom,” she smiled back, and his heart skipped a beat. “I’m Leia.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, until he cleared his throat and pointed to a chair.

“Please, have a seat,” he managed to say. “As you see, I have wine, beer, water, or I could make you a cocktail if you’d rather. Or lemonade if you prefer a soft drink…” he realized he was babbling and cut himself off.

“Wine would be nice,” she said, sitting down and crossing one long leg over the other, giving him a lovely glimpse of her thigh.

“Right, wine it is,” he said, uncorking the bottle and grabbing a glass. “I hope it’s alright. My sister loves this brand, she brought it when she was here last, and it is better than anything I would have known to get.”

“Not a wine guy?” she asked, accepting the glass from him.

“Oh, I like a good hearty red with a steak now and then, and I will definitely have some with dinner tonight – I hope you like Italian, by the way – but for casual drinking, I’m more of a beer or scotch fan myself.”

While he prattled on Tom opened up one of the beers and poured it into a pint glass. When the foam had gone down a bit, he raised the glass and tilted it towards her.

“To deepening new friendships,” he dared to say, eyes finding hers.

They clinked their glasses, and he took a long sip of the hoppy beverage, hoping he hadn’t over stepped.

“To embracing human interaction!” she added. “Selectively, of course.”

Well, she obviously didn’t recognize him. That was a relief. He had been half worried that she would shriek, or become tongue tied, or worse. It was remarkable to him how many women seemed to have extreme reactions to meeting him. He was so ordinary! Just an overgrown ginger kid from Wimbledon. It wasn’t like they were meet Daniel Day Lewis for god’s sake. On the other hand, he couldn’t help feeling the tiniest twinge of disappointment. He worked hard at his job, after all, and was proud of the reputation he had developed and of the work he had done. It was strange, with how up on everything Leia always seemed, that she didn’t have any knowledge of Marvel at least, or The Night Manager. Still, some people didn’t watch a lot of movies and TV, or if they did it was more intellectual fare.

They both leaned back in their chairs and watched the dogs play chase back and forth. Tom found his eyes drifting back to her, staring at her mouth. He had never realized just how much a person’s mouth said about them. Leia’s smiled as a default, giving her a more youthful look than she had when it was covered. There was something fresh and approachable about her that he was drawn to.

The conversation was light and easy. Neither of them had been doing much of anything lately, so they resorted to telling older stories from their childhoods. Tom was amused to think of Leia playing with her friends, insisting that no, she wanted to be Han Solo despite what her thoughtless parents had named her. Tom, of course, had wanted to play all of the characters, and delighted her with his spot-on Darth Vadar and Grand Moff Tarkin impressions.

“You were a terror, weren’t you?” she laughed as he described bossing his sister about the correct way to make the light saber noises.

“A bit, yeah,” he admitted. “Emma and Sarah would probably say more than a bit. They had it coming though.”

“I’m sure they would agree with that, too,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s not my fault they couldn’t take direction,” he grinned. “I’m sure you would have made an excellent Han Solo. With the proper lessons.”

“Perhaps you can make me your student after dinner, if we have enough wine,” she suggested.

He knew she meant it innocently enough, but he felt a blush creep up his cheeks at the image her words planted in his mind. Leia in a schoolgirl outfit, bent over his desk flashing through his brain was enough to make him reach for his beer and gulp down more than was advisable. She seemed to realize after a moment, as she too reached for her glass and took a long swallow.

Lulu chose that moment to break away from where they had been digging around the tree and came running over to them, something grimy hanging from her mouth.

“What have you got there, peanut?” Leia sked, sounding a bit relieved.

“She seems to have unearthed one of Bobby’s treasures,” Tom smiled, glad of the distraction himself.

“Here, princess, you want me to throw it for you?”

Leia held out her hand and she happily dropped the toy into it. Tom looked at the toy and felt his jaw go slack and his eyes frantic. It was Loki. Of course it was. One of Bobby’s favorite toys, naturally, given to him during the lead up to one of the movies, the thick ropes of green and gold formed a long God of Mischief chew toy/tug of war combo, complete with horns. Tom licked his lips, glancing quickly at Leia, only to see that she was smiling down at her fluffy pup.

“Oh, Lulu, Look! It’s just like yours, only a bit more loved,” she said with a laugh. “Good girl, saving the handsome prince from a shallow grave. Loki never stays dead for long!”

With another laugh she took the toy and threw it across the yard, Lulu and Bobby both quickly scampering off after it. Tom gaped at her, uncertain what to say.

“You must have a lot of those,” she commented off handedly.

“You… you know?” he stammered.

“Know what?”

“Who I am?” it sounded stupid and conceited to his own ears.

“Well, I hope so since I’m in your home.”

“No, I mean you know what I do for a living,” he ground out, feeling like an utter ass.

“Of course,” she told him, quirking her lips.

“Since when?” he choked out.

“Since the first day. You’re not exactly easy to mistake, Tom.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I figured it must get old, people falling all over themselves around you, treating you like you’re not even human.”

“Yeah. Yeah it does.”

“So I took my cue from you.”

“I see,” he was completely flummoxed. “And you have a Loki toy? For Lulu, I mean?”

“Of course, he’s our favorite! Poor, misunderstood boy. You know, I am glad I have the opportunity to tell you now how good you are. And not just as Loki. You were breath taking in Betrayal.”

“You saw Betrayal?”

“Twice. Stunning work.”

He knew his mouth was opening and closing stupidly, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. She had known, all this time. She had been humoring him by not talking about it. He was not entirely sure how to feel about that.

“Tom is everything alright?” she asked, sounding concerned.

“Was that why you talked to me?” he heard himself asking. “Why you agreed to come over? Because I am famous?”

“No,” she said slowly. “I came over because you asked, and because I like you. Yes, I was a bit star struck at first, but I got past it. Are you angry? I just assumed you realized.”

“No. No, I didn’t. I… I should go check on dinner.”

“Tom, really, are you okay?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Be right back.”

Turning tail, he fled into the house, mind in complete turmoil at the new turn of events.

[gothighunicorntolerance]

In League With Dragons- chapter two

This Is Fine!

Read the full fic on AO3!

Nico realized now just how disheveled he looked; blood smeared on his face from the blow he had taken to his nose much earlier in the day, his fingernails were torn and bleeding, his cracked glasses sat askew over his face, and his hair was hopelessly tangled from the relentless wind. 

    “Who is thisss?” A yellow dragon stepped forward, drawing out the ‘s’ in his words, his long forked tongue flitting between two long fangs. The yellow dragon looked somehow like a snake to Nico as he had gotten wings and short, stubby legs glued to his long body.

    “Janus, dear, this is Nico,” Logan said, speaking in his slow and deliberate manner. 

    “Right, yeah, um, hi,” Nico stared at the yellow dragon, attempting to tame his wild hair into something presentable. He tried to take his eyes off the dragon, but his gaze was drawn to the dragon’s most striking feature, a long scar that ran down the left side of his face, disfiguring the bright scales and clouding a green eye that differed from his golden-brown right eye.

    “Yesss, jussst throw my name around, Logan. Who are you?” 

    “I found him!” Thomas interjected. “And Logan said he can come with us, because everyone else in his city wants to kill him!”

    Thomas might have saved Nico from yet another agonizing introduction, but his sentence created an uproar among the dragons… literally. The vibrant red one rose on his hind legs and stamped the ground.

    Thomas took Nico’s hand and gave a reassuring squeeze before dragging him in front of the dragons and beginning to speak in a series of grunts that Nico couldn’t understand but he was sure the dragons did, as they began to roar at Thomas in what seemed to be an argument.

    It had never occured to Nico that the dragons might have a language of their own, let alone one a human could learn to speak! He clapped his hands over his ears to block out the roaring. Despite what Logan said, Nico couldn’t shake the feeling that the roars and grunts and huffs meant something bad.

    From watching the back-and-forth conversations, Nico gathered that Thomas, Logan, the light blue dragon, and the red dragon were on one side, while the yellow one- Janus, the bright acid-green dragon, and the purple one were on the other side. He watched the purple dragon, the smallest one in the group, shift from side to side as he talked. 

What, exactly, Janus’s team was arguing for, Nico wasn’t sure. He just hoped that Logan’s side won, as he knew they were for letting him stay. 

    After what felt like an eternity, Thomas turned back to Nico with a smile. “Good news! You can stay for real! You just have to not cause trouble, like Janus said.”

    Nico opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by Logan, who gave a sharp “tut!”

    “It appears my sons have forgotten their manners,” Logan huffed, his tail swishing back and forth in annoyance. “Introduce yourselves, please.”

    The bright red dragon immediately bounded over and arched his back almost into a bow. 

    “Hi! I’m Roman, I have fire-breath, and I’m better than Remus!”

    “Nu-uh!” The acid-green one shoved Roman out of the way. “I’m Remus, I’m better than Roman, and I’m older than him! And-“

    “Boys!” Logan scolded. Immediately, the two stopped bickering and stood straight as a rod.

    “Sorry, dad,” They said in unison.

    “I apologize on their behalf, as well,” Logan told Nico, shooting a glance at the two. “The twins are a rambunctious lot. Patton, say hello.” 

    “Hello!” The light blue one smiled, drawing back his lips into a smile. “Hey, Nico, I want to make a lizard joke, but I don’t want to let it drag-on!”

    Nico stared for a second, then laughed. How strange his life had suddenly turned today! That dragons could talk and even tell jokes, that he had met a man who lived with the dragons like he was one himself. 

    The last one, a small purple dragon, was about the same height as Nico, making him by far the smallest dragon in the group. Where the others obviously took after Logan, with their big, muscular builds, the purple one looked far more like Janus. 

    The dragon muttered something Nico couldn’t quite make out. 

    “Speak up, dear,” Janus prompted, lifting his wings and putting it over the purple dragon.

    “My name is Virgil!” He sighed. “Ugh, I hate interactions.” 

    Nico nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything, just watched as the dragons milled about. He finally had the opportunity to take a deep breath and watch, which was exactly what he did. 

    The group of dragons; surely there had to be a specific name for a group of them, like how there was a flock of birds or a pack of wolves, Nico thought- had begun to make their settlement at the base of a mountain, with a valley containing a swath of trees in front of them and a rocky cliffside high above them. 

    As the sunset began to cast the cliff’s shadow over Nico, he felt an odd sense of familiarity. Looking up at the cliffside, he could tell now that it was not just gray- there were black specks scattered in the rock, almost a gradient, and where three jagged marks had been gouged into the stone Nico could see the multicolored, almost shimmering inside of a boulder. He wouldn’t have been surprised at all if those jagged marks had been made by a dragon’s talon swiping into the mountain. 

    Then Nico realized what was so familiar- this was the same mountain he could see from the tiny window in his crowded house when the sky was just right and the wind blew in just the right way that he could catch a glimpse of the towering stone so far away, the lone peak usually hidden behind a veil of fog.

    When he was younger, he used to wonder what it would be like to stand on top of the mountain, to climb up the boulders as high as he could and touch the clouds. He used to think he might have been able to see his house from the top, but looking out, Nico could only see a sea of the green tops of trees, only ending at the shores of a dark lake that he knew from the very few times he ventured out of his home.

    But now that he knew what it was like, he found himself almost arguing against himself. One one hand, the sensation that he was constantly about to fall had been terrifying, but he also knew that anything that awaited him back at home would be far worse than whatever he would find staying with the dragons.

    He sat on the hard stone ground with his back against a scrawny tree, its leaves sparse, as he watched the sun as it finished setting behind the horizon. He sat there in silence for a good while as the moon rose before looking over at Thomas.

    “What are you making?” Nico asked, following Thomas’s busy hands, where he sat with his back against Logan’s side, whose slow, even breathing gave away that he was in a deep, comfortable sleep. 

    “Oh, this?” Thomas held up his project. “I’m knitting some gloves! My old ones got too torn up, so I need some more before it gets super cold. Gloves are pretty quick, especially the way I make them, so I’ll probably be able to do a lot more winter clothes. And I can make some for you, too!”

    Nico looked down at his own hands and realized just how cold he felt, unused to being in the open woods at night. Nico pulled his knees to his chest, wondering how Thomas was so used to all of this- he knew the answer, of course, but Nico was still wrapping his mind around… well, everything. 

    “I’m going to finish this glove’s finger, then I’m going to sleep. You’re absolutely welcome to share with me, you know,” Thomas told him, not looking up from his project. “I’m almost done, just a couple more rounds.” 

    Nico nodded despite knowing that Thomas wasn’t looking at him. 

    A few minutes later, Thomas gestured for Nico to come over. “Help me spread this out,” he handed Nico two corners of an undyed cotton square, much larger than Nico’s own bed, back in the small, cramped room he had back home, and despite how much he complained when he still lived with his family, he began to miss them, suddenly realizing that he might never see them again, that they might never know what truly happened to him. 

    Nico shook his head, clearing his thoughts, as he lay out the cloth a few feet away from Logan. “Now come here, we can share the blanket and sleep next to each other.” 

    Thomas sat down and tugged Nico’s arm so that he sat down, too, right next to him. Then Thomas rummaged through a large leather bag that Janus had carried around his neck, big enough to be a hammock for the both of them, and produced a large threadbare blanket made of knit squares stitched together that he threw over both of them. 

    “Now lay down, I promise it’s not as uncomfortable as you think!”

    Nico looked up to the sky and let out a soft gasp. “I’ve never seen the stars like this before. They’re beautiful.” 

    “What do you mean you’ve never seen them like this?” Thomas tilted his head to the side in questioning. 

    “Well,” Nico tried to explain. “The village I live in- used to live in now, I guess, Ember’s Valley. There were nets above the streets. I could never just look up at the sky and see everything. I only got small slices of the sky between the nets.” 

    “What? Why would you need nets?”

    “To keep the dragons out, I suppose. I don’t know for sure- someone hit me every time I asked why, and they only ever told me “because that’s the way things are.””

    Thomas’s hand flew to his mouth. “That’s- that’s horrible. I can’t imagine that… living under a net. I’d feel so… trapped.”

    Nico shook his head and looked away from Thomas. “That’s the way things were.”

    A beat of silence followed before Nico spoke again. “Can I ask you a question?” 

    “Of course! Go ahead,” Thomas nodded.

    “Have you always been out here? With Logan and Janus and everyone else, just living with dragons?”

    Thomas thought for a moment, then replied, “For almost as long as I can remember, yes. It’s always been me and them. They’re my family.”

“Almost as long as you can remember?”

“Yup. The only thing I remember before finding my family- or they found me, it could go either way- was the woman, I assume she was my mom, she told me to sit down beneath this big tree and to not move until she came back, but she never did.”

It was Nico’s turn to gasp. “And what- what did you do until they found you? Did you really just sit there for days?”

Thomas just continued to stare up at the unobstructed stars. “It was a long time ago, so I really don’t remember much, but I talked to the tree quite a bit. It was a nice enough tree, it gave me some cover, but I realize now it was pretty glad to get rid of me!”

“Wait- you- you talked to a tree?”   

    “Well, yeah. Why?”

    “That’s- that’s not something everyone can do! Can you do anything else?” Nico sat up and looked at Thomas, who was becoming stranger by the second. 

    “Sure! Sometimes I ask plants to grow for me, like in the winter the trees are super nice and grow a little hut out of their branches for me, and sometimes cotton will let me pick it if I promise to spread its seeds, and I always do. Let me tell ya, cotton is by far the best! If you ever need a friend, cotton is it. it does take forever to dry though.”

    “Thomas, you have magic!”

    “Well, yeah, of course I do! Everyone in my family does! Most dragons have magic, so most people do, too, right?”

    “No! I’ve- I’ve never even met a person with magic! People having magic is not a common thing! At all!”

    “Woah, really?” Thomas sat up. “So you’re saying that most people can’t talk to plants? That’s… that’s so weird! Everything must be so- I guess quiet all the time, right?”

    “I never thought about it before. But… you probably shouldn’t tell people you can do this. It could turn out really bad, you know? I’ve heard stories about cities who turned out all their Casters into the wild, and others who are forced to work for the city’s ruler, or… or just plain executed.”

    Thomas visibly paled. “Yeah, I don’t think- got it. I’ll make sure I keep that a secret the next time I see people.” 

    It shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did. “You actually see people? I mean, you’re not the only human you’ve ever seen?”

    Thomas chuckled. “No, no. Every once in a while Logan drops me off on the outskirts of a human city so I can purchase things I can’t make. Apparently dragon scales are super valuable or something, so I just give a couple scales they’ve shed to some guy who will give me coins for it, and then I give coins to other people and they give me some things I need. Like shoes or metal pots or sometimes yarn when I can’t spin my own fast enough. It’s probably almost time to make another stop to a city, actually!” 

    “Do you think… maybe I could go with you on your next stop?”

    “Yeah, absolutely! That’ll be the next time we see a nice-enough looking one, so maybe a few days. Now come on, you look exhausted. Relax, lay down.”

    Now that Thomas pointed it out, Nico really did feel tired. He had been running the entire day on the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and now felt like his limbs were too heavy to move even another step. 

    So he nodded and lay down, taking his cracked glasses off and clutching them to his chest. He couldn’t decide which side to sleep on- to face Logan or face Thomas, both a little bit terrifying, Logan because of the obvious fact that he was a dragon and could quite possibly crush Nico in his sleep, and Thomas because he didn’t know how weird it would be to face him and stare at him until Nico fell asleep. So he settled with one arm behind his head, almost shoulder to shoulder with Thomas, and lay looking up at the undivided stars, watching the faint twinkling of the pink and yellow pinpricks of light until his eyes closed and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

tagging: @ts-storytime @theimprobabledreamersworld @edupunkn00b

[aquaticstyles]

the five senses

hello everyone! while a separate 13k fic is in the works, as promised, here is a lil 2k piece i miraculously came up with at midnight. as always, feedback is happily welcomed!!! happy reading lovies x 

it's been five months since it ended.

you should hate him. you should utterly and fascinatingly despise him. you should hate the way he looked, the way he felt, the way he tasted, the way he smelled, and the way the sounded. you should forget him—rip every page, crumple him up, and strike a match.

key word: should.

but you don't hate him. you couldn't if you tried. you are utterly and fascinatingly still wrapped around his perfect, ring-encircled fingers. you love the way he looked, the way he felt, the way he tasted, the way he smelled, the way he sounded. you can't forget him, no matter how much you want to. his ink is still scattered in the novels of your memories, proving to be permanent and stubborn as you try desperately to put fire to its pools.

you are still utterly and fascinatingly not over him.

and you suppose that is why your mind has chosen to drift off to candy land, marshmallow puff trees and gooey caramel lakes, visions of him swimming around, around, and around.

and you also suppose that you shouldn't be thinking of him while another man touches your skin.

key word: shouldn't.

but you can't help it. not when you're reminded of just how differently harry captured your senses and locked them away in the thumping of his chest, throwing away the key.

sight

you can still see him.

his dimples popping, inviting you to curl up inside one of them for just a moment, bunny teeth displayed in an ear to ear grin when he sees you, his lover, his everything, finally in 3D again, because boy oh boy pixelated facetime does not do you justice.

those two endless forests of green paired with wispy eyelashes, billboards for his every emotion, reeling you in and casting you back over and over and over again.

that body of his that makes you positively drool—fresh out of the shower, a towel hanging dangerously low on his hips, those ferns that if you had it your way, would never be covered, tempting your eyes to what's below, other markings of ink scattered across a toned bicep, chest, thigh, an endless coloring book for you and only you to paint with your lips, diamond water droplets clinging onto tanned, sun-kissed skin, mimicking your fingers as they slide down the tight muscles, ridges and valleys, of his back, the velvet, rose scrunchie of yours that he has claimed as his own cozying up around those stubborn, chestnut curls atop his head, the ones that cause eyes to roll and skin to furrow between his brows because "they're always in my fuckin' way."

the way he looks when he's napping in the summer heat after taking a refreshing dip in the pool—cheek smushed against a lawn chair, causing his bubble-gum pink lips to pucker unintentionally, begging for a slow, lazy, warm kiss, a van gogh masterpiece of bright blues, oranges, yellows, reds, whites, greens, browns, swirling together in his canvas, those green forests peacefully hidden as his pure, innocent relaxation melts into a scene of serenity before you (you're guilty of laying directly on top of him one too many times, pressing your cheek against the warm expanse of his back and sneaking in a cat nap as well).

how he looks when he enters a room, especially those rooms with a stage and thousands of fans bubbling over with excitement, confidence and swagger exuding from his pores as the spotlights hit him in all the right places, bouncing off the numerous gems and glitter of that night's glamorous get-up. then later the way he looks as his face twists in pleasure during a post-show-adrenaline-rush-dressing-room-quickie.

his reflection in the mirror of your vanity as you do your makeup, broad shoulders leant up against the doorframe, watching you as you carefully add sparkles here and powder there, the glint of curiosity and pure infatuation in his eye, his fingers toying with the smirk on his lips when you meticulously swipe on your favorite his favorite red lipstick, knowing good and well that once he's finished with you there won't be a single trace of crimson left on your lips.

you can see all of him, from the tufts of hair you love to tug and pull and sink your hands into, to the perfect slope of his nose, the sharp pinch of his jawline, his cute ears you poke fun at much to his annoyance, his tongue darting out to wet his perfect, perfect lips, his neck that always seems readily accessible to leave bites and red stains along, the ship stamped on his bicep, his abdomen that isn't too tight or too soft under your touch, just right, the happy trails leading to that one part of him that leaves you aching for days, his thighs, all the way down to his toe permanently labeled "Big."

touch

you can still feel him.

the tips of his calloused fingers tracing down your spine, a valley of goosebumps following in their tracks, a sea of comfort washing over you. fingers intertwined between yours, squeezing your palm, fresh autumn air and central park and new coats and steaming, black coffee. fingers fanned out across your thigh, splashes of pastel purple polish on cuticles and knuckles (he was shaking too much from laughing at something on twitter like an avocado in a top hat or a dog in gucci loafers). fingers following directions on a well-traveled map, tracing over the outline of your chapped lips, up to the apples of your rosy cheeks, to your temples, and entangling into long locks of tangled hair, braiding, massaging and scratching when you've had a tough day, exhausted, hypnotized, harry.

lips against your ear, hushed whispers meant for only you in the midst of a thundering crowd (one too many neat tequilas and risky texts), cold rings sneaking underneath your shirt and spanning out against a piping hot back, the vibrations from the bass thumping beneath you joined by the organ in your chest, sweaty palms and shaky knees as rivers of suggestions flood from his earth to yours, promises that will be proven true later in seductive, blue moonlight.

his sudsy chest cuddled snugly behind your back, sinking beneath bubbles of lavender and rose because he couldn't just pick one scent, your missing puzzle piece, pruny fingers tracing shapes onto your knee beneath the water, vibrations from his giggles when you mistakenly guessed the shape as a dinosaur (it was a banana), warm puffs of breath against your neck, sopping scrunchies stacked on the ledge next to a half empty bottle of red, lips painting across your shoulder down your arm to your fingertips coating you in bright yellow, affection, admiration, addiction.

the prickles of the new addition to his face scratching up against you in the most agonizingly amazing way as his face buries between your thighs, the magic of that mouth of his, pixie dust, an arched back, an eager tongue accompanied by glistening, cherry lips, pleadings of "never shave again."

him buried inside you in the early hours of the morning, legs anchored around his waist, miles and miles of his soft, tanned skin washing against your own, nails digging into the toned ridges of his back, chestnut locks falling onto a sweaty forehead, scorching lips dancing over every inch of you over and over until he reaches that one spot, moans and exhales and crumpled sheets, your temple resting on a swallow, fingertips tracing a lone butterfly, clutching onto the cold metal of a cross, lazy smiles, bed head, halfway closed eyelids, a tranced daze basking in fresh, crisp sunlight.

taste

you can still taste him.

the bitter taste of whiskey coating his tongue as it encircles your own in the back of a taxi, wrinkled suit jackets and bunched up satin, fingers toying with buttons and zippers, giggles when his nose bumps against yours carelessly, a clouded drunken haze of city lights and sparkling sequins.

minty toothpaste covered lips smushing against yours because he just "couldn't wait," spearmint, foamy smiles wiped away on plush towels.

juice from a ripe watermelon dribbling down his chin and leaving a sugary path along his exposed neck and chest, glistening in the afternoon, summer heat, lapped up teasingly by your tongue, causing widened eyes and a harsh gulp, the reflection of heart shaped sunglasses rippling in a crystal clear pool.

a warm cup of coffee sitting on your bedside table, placed there by your lover before he leaves for a run, waiting for you in the early morning glow of your bedroom, the scent from a fresh pot still lingering in the air, the steaming liquid slowly cascading down your throat during his absence.

coconut chapstick coating his lips, stolen from your side of the vanity, even though he has countless of tubes himself he claims using yours "is more moisturizing" when in reality he just likes keeping a part of you with him at all times.

saltwater droplets clinging onto his skin, coating your lips as you leave trails of kisses along his chest and sunburnt cheeks, awaking him from his nap in the shade, waves crashing behind you, seagulls chirping and trying to steal crisps, low grumblings of "what's this fo?" accompanied by a dimple and a smirk ("just cause").

smell

you can still smell him.

the candle burning in his dressing room on tour, the one you bought him that you immediately recognize when you visit him for the first time since he left, a warm batch of butterflies brewing in your tummy when you notice the almost completely burnt through wick, apples and cinnamon.

his detergent, leaving your clothes coated in a fresh linen scent because "no way yeh leaving mine with laundry to do, love" a pair of his boxers that he knows you love to wear folded neatly on top of the rest of your belongings and sent off with a pillowy peck to your lips and promises of "see you tomorrow."

his body wash and hair product duplicates in your shower, dancing with daisies in the steam surrounding him, persisting in the small, tiled space for most of the week, even in his vacancy. sometimes you'll accidentally on purpose grab his bottle of shampoo with your eyes closed, using more than intended (harry goes through shampoo much quicker now).

the diffuser in his bedroom, spewing out vapors of a eucalyptus blend he ordered online after extensive research ("it helps with clear breathin' and relaxation"), another scent that can only be described as pure harry, later encompassing your abode as well due to your incessant claims of how much you love it (one night you came home from work to a perfectly wrapped package on the foot of your bed, a diffuser and the same eucalyptus blend hidden inside).

his cologne perched on your dresser, tom ford, tobacco vanille, harry in a bottle, sneakily spritzed on your sweatshirt when he's not looking (he notices every time), lingering on your pillow case, his purple robe hanging next to yours, and your hand towels, tokens of him dolloped throughout your apartment, a tornado of familiarity swirling you into his galaxy. the same scent filling your nose as it buries into his neck, arms wrapped around him in an ages-long bear hug, his cheek resting against the top of your head, the soft fibers of his sweater tickling your skin.

sound

you can still hear him.

the warm drip of his honey voice in the early hours of the morning, raspy and deep from his slumber, pooling in the pit of your stomach growing thick and heavy until releasing with moans and whispers lost in the rising sun.

that laugh of his that doesn't bubble up often, the one you cause more than anyone else, buckets of giggles that leaves behind tears, crinkled eyes, and hands over tummies.

his thick accent that repolishes itself after he's made a trip to london, mumbles of "bugger," "oi love," "rubbish," and your favorite, "absobloodylutely" leaving his cherry lips more often than he realizes.

his moans. your favorite kind is when you're riding him, locked in a sweaty, pulsating embrace—twisting here and turning there and doing the things you know drive him absolutely mad—those moans that erupt from deep inside him and uncharacteristically replace his typical, filthy language because you're doing him so good that he's left speechless in a heap of tangled limbs and panting breaths.

his voice as it echoes in the acoustics of the shower, the soft patter of the water serving as his own orchestra, notes belonging to rock anthems of the 70s or sometimes his own verses that have been freshly inked in his worn-in journal (occasionally you'll record him singing the new ones—unbeknownst to him—to listen to when he's away for too long).

the clinking of his rings together when he's in full-on discussion mode—using his hands as he elaborately details a story of his childhood or a conversation he had with jeff today or why he thinks salsa shouldn't go in the fridge or the reason behind this lyric and that chord progression.

his keys clanking against the ceramic dish by the door, the sweetest symphony to your ears because he's home.

and finally, the sound of those three words—smooth as butter rolling off his tongue effortlessly, a hurricane crashing and splashing against you, three strings lifting you off your feet and soaring into the clouds, green eyes and rosy cheeks pulling your heart strings, sweet sugar crystals floating from his lips to yours—"i love you."

physically, he's gone, probably off writing another album, undoubtedly doing much better than you are. maybe he's even moved on, cuddled up into another woman's side, whispering things in her ear, tangled up in her sheets.

but in every other way imaginable, he's still with you.

five senses, five million memories.

[babbushka]

Open Heaven’s Gates

Ancient Emperor!Kylo Ren x Goddess!Reader x KOR

3.2k - Content Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy/pregnant!reader; Graphic descriptions of violence and gore against a minor character (mutilation, torture, human sacrifice); NSFW (gangbang, double penetration, blow jobs, hand jobs) 

Dedicated to the very patient @safarigirlsp​, thank you for inspiring this oneshot! 

Available on AO3 

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

It is the darkest hour of night, in your temple.

The window to the heavens has been opened wide, and as Kylo looks up through the marble pillars, as he casts his gaze towards the stars and sees how brightly they shine, he feels a shudder of divinity rush through his body.

Clothed in nothing but jewelry made of gold and precious stones, he opens his blood-slicked palms to the pitch-black sky. It is the darkest hour, and yet the Empire is wide awake, has filled this temple to the brim. The lamps are all lit, flickering flares of warm yellow light cast stark shadows across the walls of your temple, across a thousand faces. Citizens are quiet as they watch, as they bare witness to the events which are about to take place, the sacrifice which must be made.  

They too are watching, they are listening, the Goddesses.

They watch, and they wait. 

Kylo will not disappoint them.

Kylo kneels before the statue made of marble which he has come to worship. As crimson drips down his back from lashes he’s carved himself, he prays – until the touch of your soft fingers brushes across his shoulders, and his eyes snap open.

“I can feel it.” You hum, your hands fully cupping his shoulders, massaging the muscles there. He is so tense, a low hiss of air puffs out of his lungs while you tip his head back to rest against your pregnant stomach. He regards you, beautiful as ever even though you are upside down, as you ask, “Are you ready?”

For a moment, Kylo is lost in your eyes. There is a knowing depth there, something ancient and new all at once, a millennia of knowledge behind fresh irises. Through you and you alone, the Goddesses speak, and through you and you alone, may they be appeased.

“I’m always ready for you.” Kylo bites at his bottom lip, before coming to his full height and facing you. He relishes in the way you have to crane your neck to look up at him, he loves how you love to look at him. Kylo does not break eye contact with you as he raises his blooded fingers to your cheek and shouts loudly so that all may hear, “Bring him in!”

A dozen of the high guard rush the temple, carrying high above their heads a bound and gagged man. They throw him to the floor with little elegance or grace, not that he is deserving of any. This man is one that Kylo recognizes as one of the lower guards. He is of middle age, his eyes an unnerving shade of blue. They are bloodshot red, a sign that he has been crying. Let him cry, Kylo scoffs to himself, a thought that you seem to echo as you appraise him.

“Stand tall, pig.” Kylo’s voice is booming, commanding, deep as it rings through the temple. “Stand before your fellow citizens of my kingdom and hold your chin high, let them see who is to be sacrificed tonight.”

“I – please, your majesty – please -- !” The ex-guard scrambles to his feet to the best of his ability, and though he is tied by ropes and chains, he manages to his feet.

The empire casts judgement down onto him, for they have been told of his crimes, they have been told of his violence and cruelty against the innocent women in this village. They shout and spit from their seats, jeers and boos and hisses, rage restrained only by Kylo’s hand.

They have no sympathy for this man.

Neither do you.

“Begging will do nothing for you now.” You give him your most stone-faced glare, and before the ex-guard can even reply, Kylo has his teeth bared.

“Look upon the scum which walks among us.” He bellows, back bleeding steadily from where he has given himself the ceremonial lashes. The Empire is in a trance at his words, they are bloodthirsty, they seek violence. “Cast your eyes down to him, so that he may be filled with shame for the actions he has committed.”

The shoutsjeersbooshisses only increase in volume, as the citizens play their part for this ritual.

“Kneel!” Kylo procures a long blade from a small table which has been set up for the evening’s events. He slices the back of this sacrifice’s kneecaps, and down he goes with a guttural scream as blood streams from the wounds. “Kneel before the glory of the Goddess who stands before you.”

You are shocked and offended, when the sacrifice turns his gaze towards you. Those eyes are too blue, blue but blank. This is not a man who is sorry for his actions, but rather a man who is fearful of the punishment which comes with getting caught.

“How dare you look at her as if you are worthy of her visage.” Kylo catches him once again, for Kylo did not say he may look at you.

With the very same blade, Kylo carves deep gashes into the man’s skull. His strong thighs hold the man steady as those blue eyes are ripped torn sheared away from the writhing thrashing screaming body below him. The citizens cheer, they applaud and clap their hands, stamp their feet, whistle.

Chest heaving, naked body stained deep red with blood, Kylo holds the eyes out to you for your inspection.

Blue, too blue. You hate them.

“It is time.” You nod.

You kneel underneath the portal to the heavens, that window which has been carved from the roof of your temple. Kylo is slightly behind you, for he never dares to be ahead of you in any way, he is far too reverent, he adores you, worships you too strongly to put himself ahead.

“O heavenly bodies above us, hear our plea,” Your voice is loud and clear, and all silence themselves to hear you. “Take this man as a sign of our devotion, may the blood that spills echo that of our enemies. We offer him to you, one of our own for one of theirs.”

“An eye for an eye.” Kylo gets up then, places the eyes in a small basket on the altar, the statue of you which stretches far up into the air, nearly touches the Goddesses themselves.

He turns back to the blinded man, stabs the blade through his chest and plunges his hand inside the wound, tears out the man’s still beating heart as he screams and screams and screams. You wonder when the shock will kill him, when he will be silenced forever more.

“Pulse for pulse.” Kylo shakes with rage, blood splattered in beautiful arcs across his cheek, spattering up the scar which bisects his face. The heart in his hand stills, and he places the organ in another small basket next to the eyes.

Kylo passes you the blade, and you slit the sacrifice’s throat and wrists. He bleeds out onto the marble tile flooring, hemorrhaging, voids where his eyes should be black and red. It brings you great satisfaction to see him suffer this way, after he put the women of your care, of your Empire through so much suffering himself.

“I invite the people to rip this man limb from limb, a display of our power and a vision of victory! Show the Goddesses what we intend to inflict upon our enemies.” Kylo finally allows the citizens to pour onto the temple floor from their seats. “Come down and steal the last breaths of life from he who I may not give the dignity of calling a man.”

You grin, and with a small golden bowl which has been set on that very same small table, you pool up some of the blood that gushes from the wounds on the sacrifice. Handing the bowl to Kylo, your fingers brush against one another, and you can only smile wider.  

“Follow me.” You whisper.

As if he were in a trance, Kylo walks behind you, hot on your heels, never wanting to be so far from you. You lead him through a back door behind the statue, his hands soaked with crimson, trickling and streaming down his arms, dripping in little spots on the floor. The citizens behind you are in a frenzy, the sound of cracking snapping bones and happy cheers masquerading that of the door closing.

It is like another world in here, in this back room.

Kylo performs many rituals with you here, bloody and clean alike. A thousand candles are lit against the circular wall, the ceremonial bed is freshly made with clean linen sheets. With the door closed this way, the noises from beyond the walls are muffled. You release a deep breath, and Kylo trains his eyes on you, on your magnificence.

Standing in place are the Knights of Ren. Five large men, naked aside from the helmets they wear and jewelry which adorns their body. You do not acknowledge them, though you know they are there, your thighs already clenching because you know why they are there.

And oh, you cannot wait.

“Undress her.” Kylo orders, and softly, slowly, they do as they are told.

You do not wear much, a single layer of fabric draped beautifully, intricately across your shoulders. A belt made of braided gold is unclasped from your waist, and the Knights are reverent, their heads bowed, as they lift the rich purple silk away from you. Their hands are like ghosts, barely there and yet your skin turns to flame in their wake.

Kylo walks around and around you, keeps close to the curved walls. He appraises you, takes your pregnant body in. The harvest ritual had been a success, the Goddesses had blessed you with a child – that had been a success, and Kylo was determined for this to be a success as well.

The Knights caress you, worship you the way Kylo worships you. You smile at him, at Kylo, where you know he is hiding in the shadows of the candles.

“Lie down, beloved.” Kylo instructs, and before you can take so much as one step, the Knights are there with their arms around you.

Lifting you off the floor, they carry your naked body to the bed. Though this is a sacred space, a blessed space, your feet are too precious to touch the floor. You allow yourself to be laid down, the bed soft and comfortable, sheets cool to your overheated skin.

Kylo steps forward then, the golden bowl in his hands. He has a paintbrush, and your thighs quiver, legs falling open for him as he comes closer to the bed.

Even strokes decorate your flesh with the blood, as he writes across your skin.

Kylo is methodical, careful, as he dips the end of the brush into the bowl and soaks the fibers through, smearing it in intricate letters and sigils.

It is a prayer for victory, one that he hopes by adorning your body with, it’ll be even louder heard up in the heavens above.

“My body is their body,” Your eyes slip closed, remaining as still as possible while Kylo decorates you with the calligraphy. Your voice is not barely above a whisper, but it sounds so loud in this small room. “Revere me as you revere them, pleasure me so they may be pleased.”

The brush tickles your arms, the secret parts of your sides, your large round stomach, your soft thighs, the arch of your foot. He spells it out in the languages of old, the ones only you and he and the stars know. You are divine, you are sacred, and he takes his time to get these words right, these sigils must be drawn perfectly, or else this will have been for naught.

“Pleasure me, and be pleased.” You say again, this permission being given to them all, to the Knights.

They are hesitant for just a moment, because they know Kylo will kill them with one wrong move. They may be the most elite warriors and his most trusted guards, but they are replaceable, expendable. Everyone was, everyone aside from you.

With their helmets on, you do not know who is who. One of the men climbs onto the bed, you sit up to make room for him on the narrow mattress. He lifts you so that you straddle his hips, sinking down onto his cock with ease. You had spent the day getting prepared by your husband, he who had made sweet and passionate love to you to warm you up, stretch you pleasantly so that you might take these men with ease.

“Ohh, yes,” You sigh, settling down onto it.

Leaning against the chest of the knight underneath you, a second one climbs onto the bed and moves forward, hooks his arms underneath your knees and bends them up so that he can sink his cock into your pussy alongside his partner.

“Yes – more, I want more.” You moan, your head tipping back and eyes closing. The stretch is unbelievable, and your ribcage expands as he shallowly thrusts himself inside, his cock working alongside that of the knight underneath you.

A third kneels over your chest rubs the head of his cock against your tongue. You take a deep breath through your nose and he pushes his dick down your throat in slow little thrusts that have your throat stretching around him. Kylo’s much bigger, and you’ve swallowed him with ease, you are not so concerned about this man’s.

“Be careful with her.” Kylo demands of the knight down your throat, and you hum around the length which is stuffed in your mouth, hum in thanks.

The final two men each claim one of your breasts into their mouths, guiding your hands to their hard erections to jerk them off as they crowd against you on either side of the mattress.

“Good.” Kylo says, as he watches these men take you.

You know he’ll have his turn with you, he’ll have the final turn, the only turn that matters. But you need to be properly fucked out, blissed out of your mind, overstimulated, and this is the fastest way to accomplish that goal.

It very quickly becomes overwhelming, the pleasure from all sides, all avenues. You drool all over yourself as the cock in your mouth fucks your skull, hard hard hard and fast, tears hot and stinging the corners of your eyes. Your pussy is stretched and hot, wet and slick, so slick that the sound of their dicks rubbing against one another inside of you fills the room loudly.

“Feel this, Goddesses above.” Kylo whispers as he comes to the top of the bed, his hands warm and wet with blood cupping your cheeks where you rest on the shoulder of the knight below you, that shoulder acting as a pillow for your beautiful head. “Feel how full she is, all for you, everything for you.”

Hands are all over you, they’re all over, bending you and moving you in ways that give you more pleasure, give them a deeper better angle so that you might cry out for the Goddesses to hear. Your stomach is rubbed, caressed, the bump which juts out beautifully is lavished with attention. They rub the blood into your skin, smear the sigils and the letters which Kylo so carefully painted – but this is the point, the purpose, and they do their job well.

As do you, your hips widening for the pounding they give you, the muscles under your breasts flexing as your nipples are sucked and pinched and licked, your throat relaxing and tightening as need be. The grunts and groans and sighs and moans above you make your clit throb, and you don’t know how many fingers there are, pressing and rubbing and smacking at it for your body to shake and tremble the way it does.

“Good girl,” Kylo whispers still, hands cupping caressing stroking your cheeks, your jaw, as your mouth is stretched wide to be fucked, “Beautiful girl, bring us to victory.”

Like this you are reduced to nothing more than the sensations of pleasure. Your body sings, chants, begs and pleads for more more more, and they give it to you. Hands and dicks and tongues and teeth are all over you, marking you, giving you what you desire. Your limbs shake and shudder violently as your nerves grow alight, as sparks fly behind your eyelids.

Your back arches and you come with a shattering orgasm, you come so hard that your jaw moves to snap shut, and the knight in your throat must pull out quickly so he isn’t severely injured.

“Ohhh!” You shout, your vocal cords free, gasping in breaths quickly and harshly, your back arched and your toes curled, your entire body trembling as you shout, “Kylo! I want you Kylo.”

At once, the bodies which have surrounded you are pulled away. They are all still hard, no one but you has come yet, just as is intended. They leave the room to give you both privacy, and to take care of themselves alone.

No one is dared allowed to come inside you, no one but Kylo – and even he feels unworthy as he rests you softly, sweetly on your back, pushes his cock inside your aching throbbing drenched pussy.

“I want you to come in me.” You wail, hiccup around his lips as he kisses you, as his tongue wriggles hot and wet against yours.

He holds you steady as he thrusts evenly into you, your legs wracked with tremors as he smears the last of the blood. You are gorgeous, divine, glowing from the inside out, your eyes rolled back into your head, all knowing, all seeing.

And then, just then, as his hand is placed on your stomach, he feels something move inside you. A kick, he thinks, the gentle nudge of life that he himself has helped you to conceive, and before he even knows what’s happening he is doubled over you, collapsing as he comes hard.  

“Thank you,” He whispers, as his cock throbs and tears stream down from his eyes. He does not know to whom he sends his thanks, all he knows is that he hopes they hear him, so he says it again and again, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Your breathing is beginning to even out, even as your body shivers and jolts from pleasure. Kylo’s hand drops to your clit and he swirls little zig-zags and circles, pinches and presses at it, wanting to keep you in bliss, wanting to keep you warm and wet and filled with come.

“Win this war for me.” You say, words slurred from how drunk off the pleasure you are. “Win for me, for our Empire. For our son.”

“It’s a boy?” Kylo wrenches his salt-stung eyes open to stare at you imploringly, pleadingly.

Your eyes are lidded heavily, but you grin wide and that grin is dazzling in the light of the candles. Kylo has not cared one way or the other, he will love this child just the same no matter how they come, but the knowledge of a prince fills him with such joy he cannot help but weep.

“Win, and return to me to find out.” You tuck his sweaty hair behind his ears with a pleasure weak hand, and Kylo hopes beyond hope that what you have done together tonight will be more than enough, to secure such a victory, to open heaven’s gates.

[amjustagirl]

Chapters:  one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Masterlist link here

AO3 link here

Summary:

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears echoes of birdsong in her laughter, her songs to the gods in the wind.

Wordcount: 1.9k

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

Pro tip: Italics denote scenes in Akaashi’s dreams / past.  

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

But then his dreams start to take a dark turn, though he doesn’t notice it at the start. 

There is light dancing on the edge of his eyelids, and when he blinks he finds himself in a field of never-ending gold.  ‘You’re obsessed with flowers ’ he teases her, leaning on his hands to allow the breeze to ruffle his hair and whisper long lost secrets in his ear. 

‘But they’re so pretty. It’s like they were put on this earth by the gods to remind us that life can be beautiful, after all.’

‘Now who’s being poetic, hm?’ 

‘Don’t tease! I’ll give you a more prosaic reason then. I’ve loved flowers ever since I worked for a florist after mum died to earn a little money on the side and ended up falling in love with the look on people’s faces when they buy flowers for themselves and the people they love. ’

‘Why don’t I see you work at the florist shop then? ’ He frowns, thinking of the bustling, cosy little shop in the town square owned by Hana-chan’s mom. 

‘It didn’t work out’, she says simply. ‘Well, never mind that. Just shush and bask in the sun, let the sky gods weave rainbows into your dreams’. 

Her words linger in his mind, and he foolishly finds himself searching for rainbows in the sky the next day.

‘Listen to the sky, Keiji ’, she calls, her laughter like birdsong. ‘ Do you think the wind will answer our prayers today?’ 

‘You answer my question first ’, he grumbles. ‘Hana-chan cornered me at school to scream at me to mind my own business again. Does that have anything to do with the bruises I saw on your arm last week? What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into when I’m not around? ’ 

‘Nosy, nosy Keiji  ’, she teases, and he knows she’s just deflecting his concerns again. ‘You’re just overthinking things again’. 

‘Promise me you’ll be careful’, he pleads.  ‘Promise me you’re not doing anything stupid‘. 

‘Stop worrying, silly boy, I promise I’ll be fine’, she murmurs, her voice lost in the wind. 

‘You need to tell me what’s going on, you can’t go on like this at this rate’ , he hears himself say, desperation laced in his words. 

He looks down. There is a tapestry of mottled bruises and angry welts on her arms, paint strokes of yellow and blue and purple and red that is gut-wrenching in the violence it implies.

‘It’s not my secret to tell, Keiji’ , she says, unwavering.  

He wakes up, the pit in his stomach slowly filling up with dread. His dreams are turning out to be less like a shojo manga, more like a thriller that he suspects will give its protagonist a terrible end. 

'Have you been a good friend to Hana-chan these days? ’ the man asks, an unfriendly smile playing on his lips. 

Akaashi (or rather, him in her – though she’s in here somewhere too so it’s a little confusing) frowns, but accepts the box of vegetables and eggs held out to him anyway.  ‘I suppose’, he answers, the load heavy in his arms, and the man seems to accept his response, humming an offbeat tune. 

‘Well, I hope you can keep a secret, sweet girl’  the man laughs, tossing his cigarette butt on the grass before walking away. Sparks smoulder in the dry grass, and Akaashi hurries to balance the box on his hip before stamping them out. 

‘That’s Hana-chan’s father, Nakamura-san ’, she tells him, voice strained. ‘I need you to act normal around him, got that?’ 

‘Might need you to find me the definition for your normal’  he says drily. ‘That word’s lost its meaning to me these days ’. 

He hears her chuckle, but she doesn’t sound amused. 

Hana-chan corners him when he’s in her body and he’s stupid enough not to notice the fist that swings his way. 

‘I told you, you little creep’, she snarls, her nails digging into his arms.  ‘I told you to stay the fuck away from me, but did you listen? No! I saw you last night, creeping around my family’s house with that stupid phone of yours – did you really think I wouldn’t notice you? I’m warning you to stay away or I will fucking end you, got that? ’ 

And she spits in his face, and he’s still left trying to make sense of the sting of cold liquid on his cheek when burning hands shove down the stairs. Concrete and human flesh clashes, the victor already predetermined, his body wracked with pain as he lands heavily, face down on the floor. 

‘Last warning to stay away, you creep’, she shrieks before turning on her heel. There are no other students in the deserted hallway – not that anyone would come to help, not from his experience.  

‘Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to piece your secrets together myself?’ he demands, when he scrapes himself off the floor, body aching from bruises in full bloom. 

He can hear her breathe a sigh.  ‘It’s a long story’ , she finally says. 

‘Right now, all I have is time’ he answers drily. ‘Try me ’. 

So she tells him about taking a part time job with Hana’s mom, the town’s florist for some extra cash. She tells him about the noises she hears whenever Hana’s mom steps out of the store, faint echoes of  whimpers and sobs and broken cries for help, and how she puts two and two together when she sees the bruises on her classmate’s arms and legs. Her voice shakes when she tells him what she saw when she stole upstairs towards Hana’s bedroom one cloudy afternoon, how Hana’s dad gets off on hurting his teenage daughter, how she tried to report what she saw -  but who’d believe the words of a teenage girl over the town mayor .

‘And now he’s taking it out on Hana-chan, which is why she hates me but I’m not going to let him stop me’, she tells him stubbornly and he can hear his past self gulp.

‘Are you insane? You shouldn’t get yourself involved. Tell someone, anyone. If you continue like this, you’re going to get yourself killed at this rate’. 

‘Stop being a worrywart, Keiji! ’ she laughs, but the sound is hollow. ‘I’ll be fine, I promise’. 

She’s back at the forest shrine, holding her hands together in prayer. The mangled remains of dandelions lie beside her knees, decapitated flower maidens sacrificed for wishes that they both know won’t ever come true. 

‘I told you no one will listen to me, Keiji’, she cries, her face buried in her hands. ‘They all think I’m a little child who’s making up stories for attention ’. 

‘There’s nothing you can do unless you have a record of it. Just keep your head down, or he’ll come after you next. How many times have I told you not to set yourself on fire to keep others warm? ’ 

Her head shoots up, and a feral grin ignites like wildfire on her face. ‘That’s brilliant, Keiji! ’ 

‘Wait no - that wasn’t meant to encourage you – that was meant to be metaphorical!’

‘If it all works out, it’s because of you! ’ she runs off, throwing her head back as she laughs, challenging the wind to catch her if it dares, before disappearing further into the woods. 

‘You have got to be kidding me  ’ he groans, kicking off the blankets to stare at his or well, her legs in horror. Dried blood is still caked into the deepest scrapes on her legs, and he can feel the ache from the bruises deep in his bones. ‘What on earth did you do?’  

‘I may or may not have slipped when I was scaling Hana’s drainpipe’ . 

He can feel the vein in his temple start to throb.  ‘You what?’ he bites out. 

‘They didn’t see me, I swear!’  

He groans in despair this time, dropping his head in his hands. What is he supposed to do with someone so ridiculously obstinate?

‘If anything happens – ‘ she begins to say but he cuts her off before she can complete her sentence. 

‘You promised me you wouldn’t do anything remotely risky and I refuse to let you put yourself in danger again. ’

She sighs, and worry flickers like a flame in his heart. 

‘Fine – just. If anything happens – ‘ 

‘Which it won’t, not on my watch’ , he tells her firmly. 

The smell of smouldering ash hits his nostrils. 

His eyes fly awake. He’s back in the old wooden house again, but he chases his curiosity to the front yard, where he finds the letterbox razed to the ground. 

‘A warning to stay out of his business ’, he hears her say, her voice determined.  ‘But I’m not going to be spooked just by that. ’

‘You promised to be careful’ he shouts, properly angry this time. ‘Look at what you’ve done! ’. 

‘I refuse to be a bystander to his madness’, she screams back. ‘I'd be tarred by his sins if I choose to do nothing about them. ’

His shirt is soaked in cold sweat when he stumbles out of bed, slapping his palms against his face to reassure himself that he’s not back in the dreamscape. 

‘It’s not real. It can’t be real’, he tells his reflection firmly, but his mirror self only stares back at him. 

In the morning, he skips class to make a trip back home, intent on leaving the  omamori  where it belongs, back in his childhood bedroom, so he can look forward to adulthood without these  ridiculous dreams clouding his way. He stops by the florist on the way, as is his usual practice these days. 

‘Flowers for your mother?’ the florist asks, when she opens the shutters to greet him, her first customer of the day. 

‘Yes’, he answers shortly, and on an impulse he adds (because he needs something to fill the newly empty space on his desk) - ‘and maybe  a houseplant. Something that’s relatively easy to take care of would do the trick.’

She hums in thought, fingers busy tying ribbons in the bunch of yellow roses for his mother. He doesn’t need to ask to know that the baby’s breath she includes is on the house. 

‘What about rosemary?’ she suggests. 

‘For remembrance?’ he asks, wrinkling his nose at the reference to Hamlet. The sudden thought of poor, mad Ophelia, floating dead in a stream, water lilies in her hair hits a chord that’s a little too jarring. ‘Um. Maybe a cactus might be better instead.’

He wonders if he’s imagining things, but he catches a flash of disappointment on her face before she replies easily - ‘sure!’, bending down to pull out a grumpy looking bulb full of thorns. Then she waves him off, his purchases packed in a neat brown bag. ‘Please come again!’ 

The cactus replaces the omamori, sitting neatly on his desk. It refuses to die even when he forgets to water it for weeks at a time. 

Taglist: 

@bongofrito

@forgetou @animeflower26   @kageyamakock @underrated-fruit-tarts-official

[thicctails]

Summer of Whump Day 7 [Storms/Sunburns]

Okay so we’re just gonna be a day behind alright everyone? Anyways have a longer fic to compensate.

Ω

 Omega smiled as she watched Pillow walk around her room with her doll perched on his back. The salamander had, for the past three weeks, stayed by her side, keeping her company while she recovered. His presence was a welcome one, seeing how tense the ship had become. Something had offset the usual harmony of their group, but no one would tell Omega what. Whenever she asked someone, they’d just give her a smile that she could tell was fake and told her “not to worry about it”.

 From her little tucked away corner, she could observe the ship’s other occupants. Echo and Tech were doing what they had been doing ever since they had gotten on the ship, which was just barely tolerating each other’s existence. The two squadmates stayed as far away as possible from each other, which made it difficult to do group activities. Before the ‘something’ had happened, she’d used to help them make (mostly) edible meals every third night. She’d enjoyed learning about the chemistry of cooking and how different flavors went together. It had been her bonding time with them, and she missed it.

 Hunter was cleaning his blaster and Wrecker was, to her concern, sleeping again. He’d been doing that a lot recently, and it bothered her to think that he was in pain for most of the day. She herself wasn’t feeling too great, nearly dying from a landslide did that to you, but she couldn’t imagine feeling like this all the time. How he managed to still smile at her, she’d never know. She wished that she could help him somehow.

 A light bulb went off over her head, and she reached towards a small pile of datapads that she was always trying to add to. There was a datapad about the local wildlife and plants on the planet that they were on in the pile somewhere. Tech had given it to her when they had been staying in the medical centre, the two of them bored out of their minds. Shuffling through the pile, she easily plucked out the one she wanted. Patting the space beside her, she began to scroll through the information on Scarif’s plant life. Pillow waddled over to her side, his head leaning on her knee. He’d grown in size a bit, but not enough to where it was really noticeable. She only noticed it because Pillow spent most of his time with her.

 “There! That’s what we need, Pillow.” She said, showing her companion the image she was looking at. It was a bright yellow flower with purple-tipped petals. The description said that it was often used to treat migraines.

 “Come on Pillow, let’s go see if we can find some of these flowers. It’ll help Wrecker feel better, and, between you and me?” She leaned down and whispered to the amphibian. “I’m getting really tired of being in the same ship as everyone else right now.”

 Pillow huffed in agreement and crawled onto her shoulders, draping himself around her neck like an exotic feather boa. Making no effort to conceal her leaving but also not drawing attention to herself, Omega made her way to the ship’s exit. Her leg wasn’t exactly pleased with the movement, but she put aside her discomfort. Checking the datapad for the general location of the flowers, she and Pillow set off into the tropical forest.

  Meanwhile, inside the Havoc Marauder…

  Tech rubbed at his eyes, tired of reading through an endless slog of rumors and unfounded reports of Jedi sightings. His efforts had not gone completely unrewarded, as multiple sources had cautiously whispered about a Jedi having been glimpsed on a distant moon. Selrahc Eluos, that is what they said her name was. It wasn’t much, but they would be unlikely to find much else.

 “Hunter,” He called, getting the brooding clone’s attention, “I may have found something.”

 Hunter didn’t look too pleased with Tech’s announcement but came over anyways.

 “There have been reports of a Jedi hiding out on a remote moon called Una Vere. Of course, seeing as how these reports exist, she wont be there long.” He explained, turning in his seat to look at Hunter.

 “Hmm. How long will it take us to get there?” He half muttered the question.

 “About a day at lightspeed. We’ll need to leave right away.” Tech stood and began to input the coordinates.

 “Are you at least going to tell her?”

 Echo’s voice caused the two clones to pause. Their squadmate was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed in displeasure.

 “We don’t even know if the Jedi will still be there when we arrive, and I don’t want to upset her before I absolutely have to.” Hunter replied.

 “You coward. You’re not even going to give her the chance to voice her opinion on this?” Echo’s voice was venomous, and Hunter knew that he had tread carefully here, lest another fight break out.

 “Echo, this is for her own good. She’ll be happier with someone who can help her with her Force abilities.” He said, his voice gentle.

 “The abilities that we don’t even know she has?” Echo countered.

 “Oh, open your eyes Echo! It’s obvious she’s not a normal clone.” Tech snapped.

 “We’re not normal clones!” Echo shouted back.

 “You know what I mean! She doesn’t belong with us!”

 “Yeah? Well I’m starting to think that I don’t belong with you either!”

 “Maybe you don’t!”

 “ENOUGH!” Hunter’s yell was thunderous. “I am sick and tired of you two arguing!”

 “Well you know what? I think I’m sick and tired of you. Both of you. Give me a call when you’ve figured out how to stop being such a moronic, child-abandoning nerf herders!” Echo threw his arms up into the air and stormed out of the ship, growling under his breath.

 A soft crunch made him pause and look down. There were… picked flowers on the ground? He recognized them; they grew on vines nearby and could be used to help treat headaches and migraines. How had they gotten here?

 Wait…

 He scanned around the ground, terror welling up in him when he spotted small footprints around the ship’s exit. He ran back into the ship, ignoring Hunter and Tech’s confused yells. He made his way up to Omega’s room, hoping that, for once, things would go right for them.

 The small space was empty, no sign of Omega or Pillow being there at all.

 “Kriff!” He yelled, sprinting as best he can on his still healing leg back the way he had came. Before he can make it, however, Hunter catches his prosthetic arm.

 “What’s wrong?” He might be angry, but his brotherly instincts stamp down the smoldering emotion for the time being.

 “Omega’s not here. I think she heard us arguing.” He says as he pulls away. His anger hasn’t been calmed, and it mixes easily into his worry.

 Hunter goes pale. “Shit.” He curses, stepping back as Echo disappears from sight.

 “Mnh, wha’s goin’ on?”

 Wrecker rubs his eyes as he half sits up in his bunk. He looks to Hunter for answers.

 “We were having an argument about, well, you know what, and it seems like Omega came around when we were exploding at each other, and now she’s gone.” Hunter explained as he started to get his gear on.

 “Oh no!” Hunter’s words woke Wrecker right up, and the burly man joined Hunter in getting into his armor.

 “What’s going on? Why are you getting your armor on?” Tech appeared in the doorway, his cheeks still flush from the argument.

 “Omega heard us arguing and ran off. Echo’s going after her, but I don’t want him re-injuring his leg. He’s mad, and that means he wont be thinking straight.” Hunter said, putting his helmet on.

 “Oh Maker.” Tech said, covering his mouth with a hand. In an instant, his hateful words hit him in the face like a blaster bolt. He hadn’t meant anything that he’d said, he’d just wanted to hurt Echo, which made him feel like the lowliest scum.

 Grabbing his own armor, he made a mental promise to apologize to Echo. Actually, he’d need to apologize to Omega too, considering the fact that what he had said, out of context, could be and likely had been taken entirely the wrong way. Thinking about the argument made his chest hurt and his stomach twist, but he didn’t try and find some way to resolve himself of guilt. The feelings were everything he deserved.

   Pillow stared sadly as Warm One cried, her face streaming with tears as she ran. He didn’t blame her for crying, the words she had heard would bring any fledgling to tears. The other members of her pack had been steadily growing more and more tense and angry, especially Shiny Eyes and Grey Arm. Ever since Warm One and Shiny Eyes had recovered from their accident, the air had become sour with displeasure, sadness, anger, and building resentment. It was not a good environment for someone like Warm One, and he had wanted nothing more than to take her out of their flying metal den. Today, he’d gotten his wish, but at a terrible price.

 The adult humans had said terrible things! They were going to leave Warm One all alone! They were supposed to protect her, not abandon her! She had seen them as family, and until now, he’d thought they felt the same. Clearly, he’d been wrong. Well, perhaps not about all of them. Grey Arm had been very loud when he had been yelling at Half Skull and Shiny Eyes; he had wanted Warm One to stay. He wasn’t sure about Strong One, the human’s thoughts and feelings were often muddled by pain, but he hadn’t argued like Grey Arm had, so he certainly wasn’t in Pillow’s good graces.

 Pillow felt a pressure begin to build up inside his chest. A storm was coming. Normally, he’d be overjoyed at the prospect of rain; it had been so long since he’d experienced a good rainstorm, but Warm One had nothing to protect her from the rain and wind, which meant that they had a problem.

 He felt a flash of frustration run through his small body. Before his imprisonment on that barren, icy wasteland, he had possessed a beautiful, strong pair of wings. If he had them now, he could shield Warm One from the storm. Force, he could carry her above it, show her the world the way he had once seen it. He resented his captors for chaining him up and leaving him on that damnable planet to die, but he also understood why they did. He had not been a kind creature, and the names people had given him were accurate. The Great Sky Scourge, The White Beast, Death’s Shadow. All fitting. All horrible.

 But Warm One had never seen him as any of those things. She had given him a new name, Pillow, the human word for a squishy, soft, white thing that they slept on. He felt honored to be given such a name, because to him, it was a chance to start over. He’d been weakened by the lack of food, reduced to his larval state once again, but now that he had her, he’d have the chance to regain his former glory and use it to do good. They’d do it together. If her pack was too stupid to see her Light, he’d take care of her, just as she had taken care of him.

 All he had to do was wait until it was time to metamorphosize. And, of course, keep both her and himself safe from this storm.

 Suddenly, he was no longer around her neck. He landed in the mud, sliding a few feet away. Once he’d blinked away the mud, he realized that Warm One had tripped! He called out to her, running as fast as he could back to her as raindrops began to fall around them. He nudged her, helping her up. He missed the once incredible strength he used to have.

 Warm One picked him up as she stood, her face turning red where she had hit the ground. Her eyes were red, and tears still dripped down her face. He crooned sadly, trying to send comforting feelings over their bond. She had created the bond without meaning too on the day they met, and while he didn’t like being able to feel her pain, it was useful in moments like these.

 “Oh Pillow, wh-why don’t they want me? What did I-I do wrong?” She cried, hugging him to her chest. “I-I thought- I loved-” She sobbed even harder, not being able to finish her sentence.

 “No!” He cried, nuzzling her. “It’s not you! They are being stupid! The most stupid!”

 She didn’t understand him, of course, but she felt his feelings, and that was enough to get him a brief, watery smile. She sniffed and looked around, unsure of where to go. She considered following the path, but ultimately decided to go off into the tropical brush. Pillow wound himself around her neck again, keeping an eye out for any danger. The rain was growing stronger, and they’d need shelter soon.

  After about 20 minutes of running and stumbling, Warm One spotted a cave on the face of a cliff. She managed to get them up there, collapsing once they were inside. Pillow shook off the water that clung to his skin before returning to Warm One. She was wet and kind of cold, but not like she had been when they had still been on his planetary prison. If he kept her warm, she’d be okay.

 She was leaning against the wall, curling up into a small ball. He wiggled his way into her lap and buried into her stomach, purring softly. He remembered his mother purring to settle him and his clutchmates, so he figured it was worth a shot.

 She laughed quietly, and he felt amusement cross the bond. He smiles at that, settling down to sleep.

     Omega slowly opened her eyes, rubbing the sleep out of them. She went to stretch, but found herself spinning. With a yelp, she waved her arms about, trying to right herself. Her surroundings had changed completely. What had previously been a damp cave was now a void of neutral blues and purples. Occasionally, she would see a flicker of light appear.

 “You’re here!”

 A voice suddenly rang out from all around her, sounding like every voice ever spoken and at the same time, only one person. Omega shrunk back in fear, unable to tell where the voice was coming from.

 “Oh, don’t be frightened! I’m just so excited to finally be able to talk to one of my children!” The voice said, almost sounding sheepish.

 “Who- who are you? Where are you?” Omega squeaked.

 “I am known as the Force, little star. I am everywhere.” The voice explained.

 “You’re… what?” Omega held her head, the information making her brain hurt.

 “I know its a lot, and I wouldn’t usually be this direct, but I haven’t gotten the chance to truly talk to one of my children in so long! Even my brightest star could only feel my presence, and he has become so dim lately…” The Force sounded… sad.

 “Your brightest star?” Omega asked, crossing her legs.

 “Yes. I created him from stardust, love, and the wildness of nature itself. He was wonderful, and he would have saved them all, but he was taught to suppress his feelings and push down his troubles. He loved so strongly, at that made it hard for him to let go. In the end, a poison in human form snuffed out his Light, throwing him into the Dark.” The formless presence became somber, and Omega could feel its sadness.

 “But you,” It said suddenly, the sadness being replaced with cautious hope, “I can still save you. I did not create you, that wonderful honor was taken from me, but I can see your Light, little star. It is new and bright and shining, just as his was long ago. What’s better, I can truly, wholly speak to you, even if it’s just in dreamstate.”

 “I don’t understand. I’m not a Jedi, so why are you interested in me?” Omega asked.

 “Jedi is a recent concept, at least to me. Sith is the same. They are often people who have gone too far into the Light or the Dark, and have become blind to the Balance. Any living thing can have a strong connection with me. It just so happens that you were created with that exact purpose.” The Force explained.

 “What does that mean? What can I do?” Omega questioned, not sure how to process this.

 “That depends on you, little star. Many of my children use their abilities to help people, heal them, or create bonds that will last a lifetime and beyond. However, you can also use it to harm others, to defend yourself and your loved ones, or simply hurt them because you want to. That path is a slippery slope, however, and I must ask that you be careful with how you use your anger.” The Force’s voice was soft, but held a note of warning.

 “I will be, I promise.” Omega said, not wanting to do something that could really hurt someone.

 “Don’t fear your anger, my wondrous child. Sometimes, anger is necessary. Control is the key.” The Force explained, and Omega nodded.

 “Okay, okay I think I understand a bit now.” She said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Um, if I’ve always been able to communicate with you, why did you only just start talking to me now?”

 “The stress of your life recently has been keeping you closed off from me. Today, your mental walls broke.”

 “Oh.” Omega felt her heart sink at the thought of what had happened earlier. She’d just come back from collecting the flowers, which had actually been quite close by, only to hear shouting coming from within the ship. She’d heard Tech  angrily say that she didn’t belong with them, but not much else beyond that, as she had turned and ran almost immediately.

 “You believe that they hate you.” It wasn’t a question, but Omega nodded anyways.

 “I can understand why, but you have it all wrong, little star. They love you. They love you so much that I don’t even believe my most Darkness-blinded children could tear you away from them.”

 Omega blinked away tears that had begun to form, her confusion nearly palpable.

 “They have figured out that you have a connection to me. Some of them believe that you would be better off under the care of a Jedi. They worry that they will not be good enough for you.” Omega feels a ripple of annoyance go through her, although it is not her own. “Sometimes my children can be a bit ignorant, and because they do not share a connection like we do, I cannot tell them this. The Jedi ruined my brightest star, my Anakin. They seek peace and order, but life is not meant to be peaceful or controlled. Life is chaos, wild and free. That is what many of my children fail to understand. To walk the path of the Jedi is to practically shun life itself, and the Sith are even worse. They actively destroy life, disrupting the balance. I want you as far away from that mess as possible.”

 “So, they do want me? I didn’t do anything wrong?” Omega questioned.

 “No, starlight. You’ve made their lives better. I can feel their worry for you right now, they are terrified to lose you.” The Force then began to expand, and suddenly Omega was struck with wave after wave of worry and grief. She bared her teeth in sympathy.

 “I know that they care for you, but they must learn that they are your chosen family. Not the Jedi, not another family, them. Until they fall asleep, let them worry. Let them experience what life will be like if they break the still fragile bond that you all share. I will find a way to make a connection with them.”

 Omega wasn’t sure she liked that plan. “I don’t want them to suffer, and I don’t want to be apart from them! Isn’t there something else we could do?”

 The Force seemed to consider her request. “Perhaps, but you will have to find a way to convince them that this is my will.”

 Omega put a hand on her chin, thinking. “Can you control the weather?”

 “I have some sway over certain aspects.”

 “Okay, I’ve got an idea…”

     “OMEGA!”

 Echo’s throat felt raw, the muscles sore from him screaming to be heard over the roaring storm winds. He ignored the pain. He had to find her.

 “OMEGA, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

 “Echo?”

 Echo fixed his expression into a glare as he turned. The other members of the Bad Batch emerged from the storm-darkened jungle, their armor slick with rain.

 “What are you lot doing out here?” He snapped.

 “Looking for you and Omega. Echo, you’re hurt. Go back to the ship.” It was Hunter who spoke first. Echo, still hurt from earlier, looked disdainfully at the other man.

 “No. I’m finding Omega, and I’m not going anywhere until I know she’s safe. Now get out of here before you scare her off again.” He said coldly, wincing as he put weight on his injured leg.

 “Echo, please. You can’t stay out here, you’ll get sick.” Tech said, stepping forward.

 “Like you care! You made your feelings perfectly clear back there.” Echo turned away from the group, his eyes becoming a bit wet as his hurt feelings threatened to spill out. “We’re not batchmates. You don’t have to pretend to like me. Once I find Omega, you’ll never have to see me again.”

 “Echo, no!” Tech’s voice hitched in panic. “You’re my brother, batchmate or not, I still love you! I’m so sorry for the things I said earlier. I was angry and I knew they would hurt and I said them anyways because I was being an inconsiderate jackass. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but please don’t make me watch another one of my brothers die. We’ve lost so many already, and we’re going to loose so many more, but I don’t think I could handle it if you were one of them.”

 Tears pooled in Tech’s eyes underneath his helmet, and his heart strained to cope with the stress his wild emotions were causing. Echo was still for a minute, then slowly turned around, his eyes wide, but free of anger.

 “Y’mean it?” His voice was quiet and small, and it reminded Tech so much of the nights they’d spent comforting Hunter and Crosshair when they were much younger. Their enhanced traits made the darkness of the room scary sometimes, and despite the fact that he was the youngest of his batch, he’d been comforting them right alongside Wrecker.

 Tech nodded, and in the moment he had been temporarily blinded by a flash of lightning, Echo had crossed the distance and pulled Tech into a hug. Tech froze up for a split second, before wrapping his arms around Echo. Hunter and Wrecker were there in an instant, joining in on the moment of affection.

 “’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have yelled at you an’ Hunter.” Echo mumbled.

 “No, we were being stupid and sneaky about things. I already knew how miserable that made her, and yet I wanted to send her away anyways. We all want what’s best for Omega, but leaving her with someone else isn’t an idea I should have entertained.” Tech replied.

 “Thank the Maker! I thought I was actually going to have to do go with its plan.”

 The Bad Batch members separated and turned towards the forest beside them. Omega stepped out of the brush, an agitated Pillow sitting on her rain-soaked head. The amphibian seemed to be displeased by their very existence. She smiled weakly.

 “Omega!” The group shouted happily. The young girl rushed into Echo’s waiting arms, pressing her head into his chest. She shivered as powerful emotions welled up inside her, her still red eyes becoming wet again.

 “Oh adiik, vi're olar. Vi're olar.” Echo’s voice was full of relief and warmth and comfort,  and even if Omega couldn’t really understand what his words meant, she felt their soothing nature.

 “Omega, I’m so, so sorry for what I said earlier. We never wanted to leave you, we just-” Omega managed to get a hand free and waved Tech off.

 “You wanted to take me to a Jedi so that I could learn to use the Force, I know.” She said, smiling at him. “I know you worry about me, but please don’t ever think that I’ll be better of anywhere besides with all of you. I love you guys.”

 Tech blinked, stunned. The other clones shared his confusion and his surprise.

 “W-we love you too, and we’re sorry we didn’t tell you that before, but how did you know about the Jedi?” Hunter asked, kneeling down to be eye level with Omega. He resisted the urge to pull her into a protective hug when he saw her shiver.

 “I’ll show you! Here, hold Pillow. Careful, though. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t forgiven you yet.” Omega said, handing the amphibian over. Pillow growled at Hunter, baring his teeth.

 “Okay, watch this.” She said, cupping her hands around her mouth. “HEY FORCE! STRIKE TWO TREES WITH LIGHTNING IF WE JUST HAD A DREAM CONVERSATION!”

 In an instant, two trees on either side of Omega were set ablaze by twin bolts of lightning. Hunter grabbed Omega on instinct and pulled her away from the burning plants, the rest of his brothers backing up rapidly.

 “Woah!” Wrecker shouted, his hands flying up into the air.

 Echo stared awestruck at the trees, then at a grinning Omega.

 “What the hell was that?” He asked.

 “The Force! Turns out I can talk to it.” She explained.

 “You spoke with… the Force?” Hunter said slowly. “Like, the Force that the Jedi use?”

 “Yep! It was really happy to have someone to talk to.” Omega chirped.

 “Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. That’s normal. That’s completely normal and totally not something that makes me really wish general Kenobi was here.” Echo said, pressing his hands together. “The Force can talk to you, and you can talk to it. Cool. Cool.”

 “It wanted me to stay hidden for a bit because I think it’s mad at the Jedi for something and it wanted to talk to you guys when you fell asleep, but I thought that was really mean, so I asked if we could do something else to convince you not to bring me to a Jedi. But you didn’t even need to be convinced!” Omega added, shivering again. This time, Hunter did bring her against his chest as he stood, Pillow making his way onto Omega’s neck.

 “I’m glad we worked things out. I don’t like the idea of leaving you out here until we fell asleep.” Wrecker said, his face becoming illuminated by another flash of lightning.

 “Yeah, I think I would’a had some choice words for the Force if you’d gone through with that plan.” Echo agreed, rubbing his arms.

“We can talk about the Force being an less than agreeable later. Right now we have two very wet and very cold-looking squadmates who are going to catch their deaths out here.” Tech fretted, ushering the group back towards the ship. The clones laughed and began walking back through the storm, their hearts much lighter and their hope as high as ever.

         Somewhere, on a distant planet, an inhibitor chip reactivates.

[robbyrobinson]

GODS AWAKEN: CHAPTER 27

The mad emperor dashed at Camila at lightning speed faster than her eyes could perceive. Huge gashes were torn into Camila’s clothes from the razor-sharp teeth of Belos’s suckers. Camila desperately tugged at her attire to withdraw more parchment paper.

“You have gotten heinously slow throughout the years haven’t you, daughter?” Belos snickered.

Ignoring him, the middle-aged mother successfully discards a glyph from her shirt and slams it on Belos’ hideous face. He was propelled further away. Camila, with the parchment still in her hand, held it out defiantly. On the paper was a sketch of waves representing wind.

“Wind spell,” she stated in a matter-of-fact way.

Belos chuckled. “But your mind is as sharp as ever.”

Belos lifted himself off the ground with his abdominal tentacles and reclaimed his staff. He raised it skyward summoning a rumbling quake underneath the ground of the coliseum. The force underneath shifted its motion and erupted out of the ground sending dust and rocks in the air. The beast possessed a huge gaping maw fixated into a permanent scream and beady yellow eyes. It lunged towards the mother in relentless speed.

Camila grabbed another parchment from the spot between her chest and slammed it on the ground to activate it. She hadn’t foreseen any possible method of getting out of the way of the rampaging worm and even if she did, its frame was too colossal. The worm dipped down claiming the mother with its mouth and taking out a large chunk of the ground.

“How unfortunate,” Belos noted.

As he looked at the worm again, he was taken aback. Red flames flickered out of the sides of the worm’s body and burned it from the inside out. Belos flicked his finger uprooting roots from the ground to restrain his daughter. Brown, hickory roots wrapped around her waist and limbs slamming her with savage force. Belos waltzed towards her holding his hands out again. This time, the illusion of an axe was levitating above his head.

With swift motion, Belos clutched the axe and brought it down.

Camila breaks the root wrapped around her waist and rolled over. A swishing sound droned out and before Camila knew it, a small segment of her front hair was sliced away falling to the ground before her. Camila sighed in relief.

The brown-haired girl grimaced and pulled her wrists together breaking the roots between her hands. She ducked again when Belos brought the axe back down.

“Hold still, miscreant, it will only last a second.”

Camila rolled over thrashing her leg out. Her foot hit the handle of the axe and sent it sky high. The axe materialized before the two.

Another parchment paper rolled out this time Camila hit it with her foot. A wall of ice grew from the ground slicing off Belos’s tentacles.

“Gah!”

The Emperor’s weird alien blood dripped from the stumps of the tentacles and corroded the soil. “Not bad; a minor scrape nonetheless.”

New fleshy tentacles sprung from the stumps hissing and writhing towards the human woman. They opened their blood red maws showing off their razor teeth gnashing and clicking like needles. They shot at Camila again this time managing to make a hit on her.

Camila was knocked to the ground again. The papers were scattered all over. The middle-aged mother reached out her hand to grab one, but Belos’s staff stamped down on her exposed palm.

“Ugh!”

Belos laughed to himself again. Like before, his ribs scraped against each other as he laughed and wheezed. Gunk fell out of his mouth as his hold over his staff began to falter. “End of the line.”

Back at the laboratory, Luz and the gang finished up on their stockpiling of glyphs. Luz made a dash down the stairs to marvel at her work. “Do you think that should be enough?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s blow this joint,” Eda noted.

Luz looked around the laboratory again seeing all the boxes containing the enchanted armor. She grimaced still sensing the screaming emanating from the armors’ metal shells.

“Are you okay, kid?” Eda asked.

“Belos had created those suits out of the broken souls of witches; if we’re really doing this, I feel we should give some peace to the poor things.”

Eda scratched her chin. She sighed deeply. “Eh, fine.”

Eda entered her house casually throwing aside any of the unconscious bodies of the guards. There was a crashing sound and a few mini explosions, but the Owl Lady returned holding a few flasks.

“Edalyn, what are those?” Lilith asked concerned “and what is that purple substance inside of it?”

“The seeds of some poppy plant that I got from the swamp; just grind em up and light a match and voila...a magic bomb.”

She passed the flasks – about six in total – and also gave them a stick to grind the seeds into a powdery substance.

“Make sure to completely grind them otherwise the explosion fails.”

They pressed down hard on the seeds and scraped the smaller pieces counterclockwise until they were soft as feathers. “Typically takes about ten seconds to completely pulverize them.”

After the task was over, they poured the powder in a long trail leading towards the entrance. “Oh, so this is like gunpowder,” Luz said.

“Yes, Luz, it’s like ‘gunpowder’.”

Luz took one last look at the laboratory to soak in the knowledge of what she was about to do.

“You still want to do this, Luz?” King asked.

Luz nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Luz took a parchment paper containing the fire glyph placing it on top of the trail of powder. Gently pressing it, a small flame started and completely consumed the paper. As the flame grew larger it quickened its pace eating away at the powder. The trail of powder would ultimately come to an end once it connected with the crates containing the statues. Another trail led towards the portal machine and quickly ignited a large fire.

“We should leave now.”

Luz and the team met up with Amity and her siblings and dashed further down the halls. Large walls of fire licked at the powder seeking more to consume and destroy. The flames rose higher and higher now reaching the stairs.

Belos now had his hand wrapped tightly on Camila’s hair. Tugging it, he lifted his fist. Lightning flickered from his fingers. “It is a shame that you have driven me to this point.”

Camila scowled at him. “Enough with this talk. Do your worst.”

“With pleasure.”

Before he could strike Camila with the full brunt of his electricity, he was caught off guard by a sudden tremor.

“What in the-?”

A cloud of smoke spewed from his palace blasting chunks of debris skyward. The ground shook again at the further destruction. The explosion sent a wavelength leveling half of the palace and bringing the final nail in the coffin towards his laboratory.

Belos dropped to his knees. “This can’t be...how?”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Camila beginning to collect herself. He made a grab for his staff, but Camila batted it away.

“This cannot be how this all ends.”

Belos stood up and growled showing his large, inhuman teeth that were sharpened and crooked. His tentacles flailed around in disbelief. “My plan has failed.”

“What plan?” Camila asked “you already failed to execute me like you wanted.”

Belos turned and grit his teeth together. “That was only a small sample of my revenge.”

Camila raised an eyebrow.

“I had served the Isles for fifty years all for one purpose: when my master escaped from his prison, I asked him to destroy your world. But I saw that if I were to have summoned the Outer Gods to the Isles...”

“What that you’d become one?” Camila interrupted.

This elicited a shrill chuckle from the Emperor. “Close, but no cigar: when the gods would arrive from the portal, I would steal their powers and become all-powerful.”

“But what of your master’s plans?”

“I don’t care one lick about Nyarlathotep’s whole goal of destroying the Isles and recreating it in his image. It should be ME and me alone who could bend and mold the Isles to my liking. Once I became a god of my own design, I would turn on my master and kill him.”

“Oh, you mean with this?”

An irregular, bizarrely angled instrument sliced into Emperor Belos’s chest and ripped through his wicked heart. Belos coughed up purple pus which dripped down his chest. Belos wheezed in agony and turned around with bulging eyes. He saw the Black Pharaoh standing behind him holding the other half of the instrument in his hands.

“L-Lord...” Belos coughed again. His lungs were filling with his own blood.

“If you really wanted to kill me, you shouldn’t have shouted your plan out loud.”

“B-But...how...?”

“Don’t act like I did not know your true allegiances. You planned this for a long time ever since I noted that you had your own agency.”

Belos wabbled to his knees. His life was painfully draining out and flooding the ground.

“After all, I switched out the Shining Trapezohedron with a decoy after all.”

Nyarlathotep crossed his arms and looked down at his servant. Belos slipped off the instrument and laid sprawled on the ground. He covered his chest with his hand to placate the internal bleeding. “Please, master, give me another chance.”

“Oh, so now you’re being a loyal servant?” Nyarlathotep said rolling his eyes.

A dark mass descended from the Crawling Chaos’ body and became two dimensional as it slithered on the ground. Belos’s shadow grew larger from the waning sun and seemingly was trying to flee from the mass of Nyarlathotep’s shadow.

The shadow produced long, spindly fingers and grabbed onto Belos’s leg. Emperor Belos’s physical body was tossed on the ground and dragged alongside his shadow’s leg. Belos was pulled closer towards Nyarlathotep’s body.

“No, master please! If you do this, I will lose my personality. The very fabric of my being will cease to be.”

Belos clutched his tentacle appendages on the opposite sides of his body and jammed them tightly in the ground. “I’m sorry...please, please have mercy!”

Nyarlathotep’s shadow was that of a fisherman’s rod. It nudged the shadow’s leg a few times and loosened its grip. About two seconds later, enough time for Belos to relax, Nyarlathotep’s shadow tugged again, tighter this time and pulled Belos further.

“Have mercy!!”

Belos disappeared underneath Nyarlathotep’s garment. And it was then that the Emperor’s rule over the Boiling Isles came to an end for whatever made Belos himself was stripped away from him making him become nothing more but a memory. Camila shivered unsure of what to do or say.

Nyarlathotep smiled wickedly. “Let the game begin.”

[gaiyofanfiction]

Twisted Karnival - Chapter 2

Stray Kids x Reader

Horror/Thriller/Drama

Twisted Circus!AU

A/N: Ahh thank you so much on the feedback! It’s starting to get a little bit darker, so I hope you guys are ready! Hehe. Enjoy! ~Liz

Warnings: Mentions of seduction and kidnapping. Possibly more in the future. We also write for 0t9, so Woojin is going to be in this series.

Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and in no way represents the idols of Stray kids or JYP.

~~~

[Before Reading, check out the Masterlist and profile boards for each member HERE.]

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“Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls! The show will begin in ten minutes! Please be sure to get your hands stamped so you can quickly make your way to your seats! Trust me, this is NOT something you want to miss!” 

As the announcement rang through the loud-speakers, everyone rushed in a wild fashion towards the tent. Your friend grabbed your arm, pulling you into the large crowd. You pulled back slightly feeling a bit claustrophobic, but proceeded to follow the large crowd towards the tent entrance. The crowd moved fiercely, rushing towards the giant tent. You tugged back slightly feeling uncomfortable around all these pushing strangers. Your friend proceeded to pull you along as her eyes wandered the surrounding grounds. “Omg Y/N! A petting zoo!” Your eyes quickly shifted as your arm was jerked to the right. You looked back at the pushing load of people, feeling a sigh of relief. “A...petting zoo? Like.. for little kids?” You looked up at the sign and then noticed a few different cages lined up behind a small enclosed fence. “So? We are here to enjoy ourselves!” Your friend tugged your arm once more, quickly releasing it as she rushed the bunny cage. You roll your eyes and sighed. Your eyes slowly closed as the surrounding sound cluttered your mind. Suddenly, a man's voice fell over your ears. 

“Chaotic, isn’t it?” Startled, you jumped forward, prepping your fists for battle. The man laughed, brushing his dark brown locks back. You stood in silence looking over the gorgeous man before you.

“Speechless? Hehe don’t worry cutie, I get it all the time. Do you like animals?” His brow twitched as he looked towards the presented creatures. You slowly turned the same direction. 

“I...I do. My friend wanted to come over here before the show. And I’m not even sure if you’re even open or not… s...sir.” You rambled on quickly quieting your words from embarrassment. The man chuckled once more.

“It’s alright, don’t worry about it. My act isn’t for a while, so I sit out here and show off my pets. And please, call me Minho.” You gulped heavily on the knot in your throat as you notice a giant orange tiger slowly approaching the man in front of you. Your eyes widened with panic.

“Ahh! Sh-shouldn’t he be in a cage, or s-something?!” The man burst into laughter as he slowly bent down to meet face to face with the beast. “SHE is allowed to roam the grounds. She’s my faithful companion and does whatever her…" his eyes flicker to you for a second, an unreadable look behind his eyes. "...Master tells her to do.” He turns his attention back to the animal and nuzzled his face along the neck of the tiger's. You stood there in complete shock.

“I-is that safe?” You stammered as he rose to his feet. His hand rested against the top of the tigers head. “Trust me my dear…” He gently grabbed a hold of your hand, gently pressing it against the beast fur. It was so soft. The man smirked heavily noticing the stamp along your hand as a heavy shiver fell over your body. You paused for a moment as the shiver fell over your arm and down the center of your spine. 

“See…? She’s harmless... when I tell her to be.” He chuckled lowly. You continued to pet the side of the beast, feeling almost at ease. 

“You’re right. She’s so...tame.” 

“Well, anyone can be tamed my dear.” You pulled your hand from the tigers back as you slowly backed into your friend. 

“Come on y/n! We have three minutes left until the show starts!” The man stood proudly next to his companion as he waved farewell. You slowly looked back at the man whose eyes flashed a quick shade of yellow as your friend moved you into the crowd of people. You shook your head, feeling slight confusion. 

“Umm...I just realized, where are we even supposed to sit? Those tickets didn’t have seat numbers did they?” Your friend ignores your question trying to keep up with everyone.

“Hey!” you shrieked, startling your friend.

“Huh? What’s up?” she smiled nervously pushing through the massive crowd of people.

“Where are we supposed to sit?” Before your friend was able to speak, Felix popped out of nowhere, sitting on top of the edge of the tent roof, swinging his leg back and forth. Your friend’s eyes widened.

“You’re able to sit wherever you want, my dear. But I would sit as close as possible. It’s the best way to enjoy the show.” Felix smirked heavily, tilting his head back as the lights began to flash over the tent. Your friend’s jaw slowly fell in awe as Felix winked in your direction. His eyes glowed for a split second, leaving you speechless as your friend drug you inside. “Hehe… she’s a cutie isn’t she?” Felix asked as Woojin slowly appeared from behind the giant light. “She is…You did very well this time Felix. I’ll be sure to see to your reward after the show.” An evil smile played over Felix’s lips as he jumped to his feet. 

“A reward is only good if she’s involved.” He licked his lips flipping backwards off the edge and onto his feet. In the tent, as your friend proceeded to push you through the crowd, you noticed her eyes were set on the first row center of the nearest section. Your eyes widened as you pushed your feet against the floor for friction. 

“Come...on! Those seats are wide open! It would be the best seat in the house!” Your friend screamed, tugging against my arm. 

“No… that is WAY too close. What’s wrong with a normal seat?” Your friend huffed heavily, ripping you from your spot, dragging you once more.

“The cute guy said that the closest seats were the best ones to watch the show.” Sighing, you allowed her to drag you to the seats. You hesitantly sat down on the bench behind you, looking around the arrangement in the arena. 

“Wow. It looks like it’s going to be quite the show for sure.” Your eyes wandered, noticing the high wire ranging from one end of the arena to another, ramps aligned along the floor, and rings that stood center.

As your eyes continued to wander, you notice a handsome dark red headed man. He was holding a box of snacks as he sends a crooked smile your way.

“Welcome, lovelies. The name's Seungmin. What can I get for you tonight?” Your friends jaw slowly fell as she gazed over the man.

“H-holy mot…” You quickly covered your friends mouth, smiling nervously at the handsome man.

“We don’t want anything. Thank you, though.” You struggled to keep your friend from bursting out. The man continued to smile as a chuckle fell from his lips.

“Are you sure? What kind of show would a circus be without a popcorn? Or even just a small snack to enjoy?” His eyes narrowed to your hand resting over your friend’s lips. He chuckled once more reaching a single hand into the box.

“Here actually. These are on me tonight.” Your eyes watched as his hand extended, holding two single bags of freshly popped popcorn. You slowly reached forward taking the two bags. You looked over the man's smile, quickly moving your hand and grabbing a five dollar bill from your bag.

“Here. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” You reached out, the man slowly engulfing his hand over yours as a cold shiver rolled down your spine. You looked up to catch the soft purple hue leaving his eyes. Another smile rolled over his lips as he slowly drew his hand back and nodded his head, bowing slightly.

“Don’t worry. I won’t be getting into any trouble tonight. Please, enjoy the show ladies.” He bit his lip slightly turning his back to walk towards more people. You watched in silence for a moment noticing his bright smile towards the crowd. He seemed pretty respectful and very nice looking. ‘What would a guy like that be doing in a circus?’

“Oh my god, this place is full of hot guys!” Your friend shouted, upsetting the crowd around us. You shook your head lightly as the sound of drums filled the air. The room grew dim and the crowd burst into cheers.

“Laaaaaadies and Gentlemen! Are you ready?!” A man's voice rang throughout the arena causing the crowd to scream out.  “I can’t hear you! I said… ARE YOU READY?!” The man shouted once more as the crowd jumped to their feet, screaming loudly. Your friend jumped up, bouncing in her spot as she screamed out.

The crowd continued to scream and holler. You pressed your fingers to your ears as a giant spotlight fell over the middle of the ring revealing another tall, handsome black haired man. He wore a fitted matching black suit, white under cuffs, and silver accents on the jacket. 

“Hello to you all! I am Woojin, and please allow me to Welcome you to the Twisted Karnival!” The crowd cheered once more as the smile grew over the announcers lips. He scanned over the crowd, hiding a devilish smirk behind his mic. As the crowd roared, several of the performers entered the arena. Their smiles lit up the room. 

“Look at them! My GOD, they are so cute!” Your friend squealed pushing against the metal barricade. Your eyes scanned over the performers recognizing a few of them. The performers all got into their respectful positions, head bowed as another body slowly entered the arena.

The room fell dark leaving the crowd in wonder. Suddenly, another spotlight fell over a man with wavy blonde hair. His head slowly rose as another spotlight fell over him. Your eyes narrowed recognizing the man. 

“Y/N look! It’s the ringleader from earlier!” You nodded your head, silently watching the show as the people around you proceeded to scream after each said word.

“Looks like we have a full crowd tonight! I don’t think I’ve seen a packed house in a while! This makes me…" A smirk falls over his lips. "Very happy.” He grabbed the hat from the top of his head, bowing towards the crowd. The crowd cheers at his words. As he straightens up, he speaks again. "My name is Chan and I will be your ringleader for this evening! And now, it is time to start our show!"

Suddenly, music rings out and the performer's parade around the ring. You watch in awe as you see their most handsome performers walking, waving to the crowd. You see some you met earlier, Minho with his tigress, Hyunjin in his leggings and tight fit shirt, Jisung with a helmet tucked under his arm. Some of the performers you don't yet recognize, but boy, are they some of the most handsome men you've ever seen.

Out of earshot, Woojin subtly leans closer to Chan, his eyes on you. "That's her, the one Felix thinks is the one." He continues waving to the crowd but his mind elsewhere.

Chan nods, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Appears so. I saw the stamp and I can feel her soul. It's… incredible." His eyes also wander to you, seeing your amazed expression. His eyes flash red, licking his lips, his grin menacing. "I cannot wait til she's all ours."

[flora-jimin]

Rescue Me

25 Days of Christmas: A BTS Anthology Masterlist

Pairing: ReaderX Jihope

WC: 3k+

Genres: NSFW, Fluff, Mild Angst, Winter Fairy AU, Fantasy

Summary:  This wasn’t the wisest of choices, venturing deep into a forest like this, forbidden to you. But you had to see if the stories you were told when you were a child were true, of a land of human-like creatures who had long since become one with nature. But curiosity killed the cat, as they say. When your knees finally hit the snow and you blacked out, you didn’t expect to wake back up. Fortunately, you’ve ventured into the land of unexpected.

Warnings: Near Death and smut, that’s about it, lovelies.

“In this land, full of wonder, people are one with nature, Y/n.”

Your eyes lit up, full of wonder as your mother flipped through the pages of an old book. She rocked gently in her chair, kissing the top of your head as her finger ran over the old pages. It was Christmas morning, the snowflake pendant your mother gave you situated around your neck as you listened to her words. 

“This is where you belong, my little snow angel.” She cooed, pointing to the page with the small princess, surrounded by snow and small animals. 

“Amongst the snow fairies. Deep in the forest, one with nature. When you get older, I have hope you’ll return. To where you belong, my sweet little snow fairy.”

-

“This is a stupid idea.” 

It was probably the 100th time you uttered those words today. Your cheeks were cold despite the scarf you had pulled up to your face. You took a moment, stopping as you surveyed your surroundings. 

It had been years since your mother last read that story to you, and the picture book was a graduation gift she gave to you, along with enough money to travel to celebrate your new freedom from college. 

“It’s time, Y/n. Go out and find them. They’ll tell you everything you need to know.” was the last thing she said to you before she kissed your head and pushed the book into your hands. 

Now here you were, trekking through the snow in boots that definitely weren’t made for this type of trip, in a forest closed to the public in the winter months due to heavy volumes of snow and low visibility that made rescues in the event of emergencies a near impossibility.

So again, this was a stupid ass idea.

No one knew you were here. You weren't even supposed to be here, and as you felt the cold creep into your bones, your shivering much too strong to ignore, you realized your curiosity may have lead you to a terrible situation much too late to turn back from. 

You looked around you, frowning as you saw another pine tree identical to every other one around you, feeling the strength in your legs finally give out, falling into the snow with a weak sound. 

Dots crossed your vision before everything went black.

-x-

"Are you sure she's going to be alright?"

"Yeah! We got her some sweaters and blankets-"

You groan, faintly hearing voices above you. Before you could pinpoint what-or who-they were, they halted, and you had a hand on your head, followed by two on your cheeks. 

"Hello? Are you okay?"

You crack your eyes open, brows furrowing as you look up to see a man looking down at you. He was frowning, concern clear on his face, but the moment he saw you look up, he smiled wide, reminding you of a heart. 

"You're awake! Things were pretty rough there for a bit." He examined your face a bit closer than necessary and the man behind him cleared his throat, tilting his head.

"She's a human, Hoseok. She can't understand Fae." He told him quietly.

'Hoseok' looked crestfallen at the revelation, but you finally sat up, speaking quietly. 

"I can understand you both just fine." You mutter, gently pushing Hoseok’s hands away from your face as you pushed yourself back away from him and the other man. They both looked at you in surprise, eyes wide. 

“Wait, you can understand us?” 

“Yes? Am I not supposed to be able to understand you?”

“We’re fairies. We speak Fae. You were found in the forest from the outside by our familiars, so we assumed you were a human.” Hoseok explained, scratching the back of his head. You stared at him and the other man for a long time before you swallowed thickly, suddenly fully alert. 

“Fairies. You two are...fairies.”

“Yes. That’s Hoseok, and my name is Jimin. Who are you? Where is your familiar?” the smaller man cut in, kneeling in front of you. You opened your mouth to tell him you didn’t have one when something yellow jumped on top of his head. Your eyes drifted up to the yellow blob and it looked at you curiously, it’s floppy ears drooping down past it’s head as it stared at you. 

After a beat of silence, it stuck it’s tongue out. 

“Chim?”

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” You flung yourself back, looking at the dog like creature. It startled and toppled off of Jimin’s head, rolling down into his arms before it began crying, bringing its hands? Paws? Up to its face. 

“Woah! Relax, you’re going to scare them! This is Chimmy, my familiar.” Jimin explained, cooing gently to Chimmy. You pursed your lips at the creature, noticing something sniffing at your arm. When you looked down, you saw a small creature the size of a toddler with a purple body and a blue horse mask on. When it noticed you looking at it, it pressed it’s heart shaped nose to your arm, something followed by a smooching sound. 

A warm feeling spread through your body as you smiled, reaching down to pet the small creature. 

“Oh...they’re kinda cute…” You mused, looking over at Jimin’s familiar to wave the small yellow dog over to you. They perked and shuffled out of his lap, hesitantly waddling over to you before allowing you to pet their head. 

“I’m sorry I scared you, little one.” You apologized, smiling when Chimmy crawled into your lap, wiggling their feet happily. 

“This is so weird. She can understand us, so she has to be a fairy, but she has no familiar. And that necklace…” 

That caught your attention, and you looked back at the men in the room, eyes narrowing when it dawned on you that your clothes had been changed. 

“You...did you look at me naked?”

Both of them looked at you with wide eyes, putting their hands up defensively. 

“No! We just used a spell to change your clothes because the ones you had on were wet and caked in snow. I guess since you don’t have a familiar, you didn’t have full protection from the cold. That was dangerous, you know, coming into this forest in the middle of a snowstorm without a familiar. You might actually be a human…” Hoseok trailed off when there was a knock on the door. All attention turned towards it and Hoseok put a hand on his hip. 

“Mang, can you open the door? I called Namjoon and the others to see what we should do.” 

The purple and blue horse familiar nodded eagerly, hopping out of your lap to run full speed to the door, jumping up to grab the handle. When it opened, a tall dimpled man walked in first with a blue koala clinging to his shoulder, seemingly sleeping. He was followed by a broad shouldered man and his alpaca eating...a churro, a smaller man with sleepy eyes with a cookie familiar the size of a Pomeranian on his head, and two energetic men, one with a pink bunny with a peculiar eyebrow and the other with a heart shaped alien familiar with long, spotted arms. 

“Ah, you must be the person we found in the snow. Are you alright?” the dimpled man inquired. You nodded, running your hand over the top of Chimmy’s head as the five newcomers introduced themselves and their familiars. 

“So...I’m in the land of fairies-”

“Snow fairies.” Tae added happily. 

“Right. Snow fairies, and because I can understand you, I must be a fairy too. I just...don’t have a familiar. And because of it...I’m not a full fairy?” You summarized everything they had told you in the past half an hour. You were met with an array of nods and your shoulders slumped as you looked down at your lap, smiling when Cooky bumped your cheek with their ear. 

“Can I see? The rest of the town, that is?” You inquire, squeezing the small rabbit in a hug as you looked up. Jimin was the first to move, extending a hand to you. You pushed yourself off of the wooden mats on the floor, looking around for your shoes as Jimin took your hand. 

“You don’t need them, just wait.” Hoseok told you, smiling as you all walked outside of the house. You noticed the ground below you felt soft, but it wasn’t cold at all. Curious, you ground your heel into the snow, smiling at the soft, almost cotton like feel of it as the other men and their familiars filtered out as well. 

They walked you through the snow, animatedly telling you of the town’s inhabitants and how you were the first person in a while that had came in from the outside. 

“You can only enter this place when it’s snowing hard outside. Seeing how we found you, I’m guessing it’s not an easy journey to get here. You were still two or so miles away from this place.” Jimin explained once you all had sat down near a lake. Hoseok took his spot at the other side of you.

“That would do it...the forest on the outside has been closed off to the public when it snows. I snuck in because my mother always told me fairytales of this place and she told me to come find it.” You idly fingered the snowflake necklace around your neck, looking out as the familiars skated across the surface of the frozen lake. 

“Do you want to go back? We can see if it’s still snowing and-”

“No. No, I wanna stay here. I want to see why my mother wanted me to come here so bad. If I’m a fairy, I have to find my familiar, too.” You looked down at your lap, smiling as Mang played with your hands, stamping their heart shaped nose against your palms every now and then. 

Jimin and Hoseok exchanged a look before smiling. 

-6 Months Later-

Getting accustomed to the snow fairies happened much faster than you expected. They were all kind and welcoming, showing you how they got by and how certain jobs were distributed between them. 

Because of your lack of powers, you nominated yourself as a caretaker of newborn familiars, hoping you would find one for you amongst all of the glittering eggs. Hoseok and Jimin were always right there to help you, too, teaching you to care for the familiars until they could be set out into the world to pair with their fairies.

You set a small snow fox familiar to bed and turned around, smiling as you walked directly into Hoseok’s arms, your cheeks growing hot as he pressed a small kiss to your lips before pulling away and sending you a sunshine smile. Before you could tease him for the cheesy move, there was a knock on the door to the nursery and both of you turned to find Jimin standing in the doorway, brow arched. 

“Do I get sappy kisses too or…?”

Ah, yes. Over the months, while getting you settled in, you somehow found yourself falling for both men. At first it was something that terrified you to no end, especially after finding out soon after you arrived that they were already together, but one long late night talk with Yoongi and you found out the fairies were a very loving and accepting race. 

Poly relationships amongst them weren’t an uncommon thing, and you were spared the awkward experience of trying to subtly see if they were interested in you when Jimin asked you out over dinner one evening. 

You sauntered over to the man, kissing him as well as you smiled. 

“C’mon, all the babies are asleep for tonight. We should head home.” You suggested, letting Chimmy climb up your leg. You held them as the three of you walked out of the nursery. 

“How long do you think it’s going to be until I get a familiar?” You mused, watching Hoseok and Jimin swing Mang gently to and fro between them as they held their hand. 

“It something that has to happen naturally. You’ll find a familiar and be a full fairy in no time, just you wait!” Jimin happily encouraged you. You sighed slightly, smiling as you approached your shared home, kissing the top of Chimmy’s head. 

“Even if I don’t become a full fairy, I think I’m okay with how things are.” You mutter as you put the small dog down once you were inside. 

“I live in a beautiful house with two beautiful partners, and I love Mang and Chimmy as if they were my own familiars. I’m grateful for what I have.”

Your boyfriends exchanged a look with one another before smiling wide, closing the door behind them. 

“I’m positive it’s just around the corner, Y/n. Especially with that attitude. Just wait, you’ll see.” Hoseok chirped as he and Jimin headed to the kitchen to start cooking. 

-x-

You smiled, letting your dress fall to the bathroom floor as you stepped into the shower, wrapping your arms around Jimin. He kissed you gently, though it melted into much more in no time, with you pressing your breasts against his chest as the warm water beat down on you. 

"I'm glad you stayed with us." He whispered against your lips, cupping your cheek gently. You pressed your face into his hand, nodding.

"I feel like I belong."

"You do belong, Y/n." Hobi's voice cut in and you felt him slot himself in right behind you, kissing up your neck. You sighed, baring your neck to them both as they switched between kissing and leaving lovebites on your skin.

"You'll stay with us, right?" 

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you now.” You nodded, turning to seal your lips against Hoseok’s. Jimin moved his mouth down to your breasts, gently rolling one of your nipples between his fingers while he closed his plump lips around the other. 

“We should-ahh-we should move to the bedroom.” You suggest, whimpering when Hoseok reached around, his hand between your legs, rubbing your core ever so slightly. He chuckled behind you, his lips near your ear as he rubbed you gently. 

“You sure, Y/n? I think we should play a little more in here.” He urged, his other hand caressing your ass cheek. You blush and looked forward to Jimin for some form of help, but he only chuckled lowly, moving up to kiss you again as Hoseok slid a finger into you. 

You moan against his lips, pressing yourself fully to him as Hoseok kissed up your spine, muttering gentle praise and compliments to you. It didn’t take long for you to break your kiss with Jimin, moaning shakily as Hoseok slid another in to join the first, slowly stretching you apart with extra care. 

“H-Hobi, go faster, please…” You whine, blushing as Jimin moved past your shoulder, kissing Hoseok as the older man obliged, curling his fingers before thrusting them in and out of you. The water had gotten cold before you felt a third finger enter you. 

“I-I’m close-” You whimper, squeezing Jimin’s shoulders tight as he and Hoseok continued to kiss each other. Your words were enough to get their attention as Hoseok eased them out of you, smiling when you whined between them. 

“No whining, baby girl. We should make sure you’re comfortable, right?” Jimin teased. Before you could complain, he picked you up, carrying you out of the shower. Hoseok trailed behind you after he turned the shower off, sending you a small smile as you looked over Jimin’s shoulder at him. You shyly smile back, feeling heat creep up to your ears, 

This wasn’t the first time you had made love, but every time you did, the boys always looked at you with such caring and gentle gazes, it never failed to make you feel appreciated and loved. 

They took their time drying off with you and soon the three of you were back to it, with you between both Hoseok and Jimin, with Hoseok’s fingers back inside of you and both of them paying attention to your sensitive nubs.

One tangle of limbs later and Jimin was the first to actually enter you, holding you tight as Hoseok prepped him, watching your expression over the smaller man’s shoulder. 

“You look so beautiful like this, Y/n.” At this point, you couldn’t tell which one of them had praised you as you focused on the feeling of Jimin’s hips rolling down, thrusting in and out of you as you clung to him. Hoseok wasn’t far behind, kissing the base of Jimin’s spine as he thrusted into him. 

Jimin whined low, dropping his head between your neck and shoulder as his hips stuttered. You purred, running your hand through his hair as Hoseok wasted no time, setting a quick pace behind you, his hands on Jimin’s slender waist. 

“Don’t stop now, Jimin. Y/n sounded so close before.” Hoseok politely urged, smiling as Jimin trembled and shakily raised himself up, looking down into your eyes as he continued his pace from before. 

The three of you didn’t last long after that, with you coming undone first, followed by Jimin and Hoseok. 

“You guys are heavy.” You complain lightly, swatting at Jimin’s chest when he collapsed on top of you after Hoseok came shortly after him. You were met with kisses and Hoseok tossing a leg over you both despite your playful protests. 

You all settled in, and at some point Mang and Chimmy joined the cuddle pile, sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed. 

-Epilogue-

You frowned, holding up the two toned egg at the bottom of the basket in the nursery. Normally, familiar eggs hatched within days of them being produced, but this one had been in your care for over three weeks. 

Still. Unmoving. 

You sat down, hugging the egg to you as you rocked gently. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t give up on you, little one. You’ll be a wonderful familiar for someone, okay?” You pet the top of it, blinking when you felt something inside move. Your lips parted as a crack appeared on the side. 

“H-Hobi! Jimin!” You called, gasping as the egg shook more aggressively. The two ran into the room, eyes wide as the egg continued to shake and crack. You set it down, stepping back as it finally cracked in half, the two different color sides of the egg falling away to reveal a small gray and white familiar with peculiar eyes. 

“Oh! Hello!” You knelt down, smiling at the newborn. 

“My name is, Y/n. Who are you?”

“...Van.” The little familiar chirped before they looked at your necklace. They perked, bouncing eagerly until they flew up into your face, tilting their head. 

“I think you got yourself a familiar, Y/n.” Jimin chuckled, watching as your necklace gleamed at the same time as Van’s eyes. You look up in surprise before holding your palm out. You snapped your fingers experimentally, gasping in surprise when a small swirl of snow appeared above your hand. 

“Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m a full fairy!” You cheered, picking Van up excitedly. It was hard to tell what they were feeling with their expression, but if the way they hugged you tight was anything to go by, they were excited to be paired with you. 

“See? I knew it would work out.” Hoseok cheered, tossing a hand over your shoulder. You wiped away a happy tear, kissing the top of Van’s head as you left the nursery, fingers laced with them both as Chimmy and Mang rode on their respective owner’s heads. Van flew over you all, twirling and spinning until you looked up, noticing it was drawing a snowflake in the sky, along with a small stylized picture of your face. 

You may not have expected to wake up again when your knees hit that snow all those months ago. But thankfully, you ventured into a land of unexpected wonders and the moment you were saved, you started a new chapter in your life. 

You squeezed Hoseok and Jimin’s hands tighter, your heart fluttering as the three of you walked with your familiars, three winter fairies in the gentle powder snow.

[kaetastic]

ISLAND BOYS

pairing: Duncan Shepherd X Jim Mason X Michael Langdon X Reader

summary: flowers, fishes, boats.

warning: soft kisses, fluff :D

word count: 1.6k+

note: i took all those three words from a children’s books for learning colors and ended up getting those lol, i wanted something with the foursome yay ❤️

“Wooohooo!” An echo of a voice rung through her ears, her nose scrunched at the disturbance. Rays of light caress her cheeks with soft brushing, breezes of the wind welcomed itself- taking the open door that stood ajar as a sign of a free entrance. It whispers and sings into her ear, hairs bulged up. She shivered. Tugging the thin blanket closer to her, snuggling her face into the sheer fabric in hopes of finding warmth. The enticing fragrance of her lovers lingered on the blanket. She let out a whine as the persistent light bugged her slumber, prodding her eyelids with pinches.

Her feet shuffled to get to a warmer side to proceed with her sleep, but it was one of those things- once you wake up, you can’t go back to sleep. She groaned in her head, rolling her eyes at the out of sync co-operation of her body. Rolling to her back, the pain that stabbed her was agonizing. Memories of last night playing in her head like a movie. The corners of her lips quirked up. The birch wooden ceiling stared down at her, the canopy of the bed draped over to cover the sides. She lolled her head to take a quick glimpse at the time. A smile playing on her lips when the small clock that rested on the end table ticked, the other items around it scattered messily.

The obvious lavish watch twinkled towards her eyes, the diamonds that were embedded into the expensive watch gleamed with content; belonging to Duncan. She remembered the day he bought it. And it wasn’t good. His reason for purchasing it was- “Because it was cheap!” And how could she forget her callback that she would think about every so often. “Couple of hundred thousand dollars is cheap?!”

And besides it was a glass jar of uniquely shaped seashells, a quick hobby Jim found himself indulging in. Resting behind all of them was Michael’s little book he would carry everywhere and anywhere, it would be an understatement to say it was important- the right word would be, an essential. She would always see him jotting down notes and scribbling on the pages; all she knew was it was for his company. 

She pushed her body with all the energy she had in her, a small sigh leaving her lips at the thought of having to stand up. Her arms stretched to the air, she twisted her shoulder- heaving another heavy sigh as she plopped her hand, eyes batting to adjust to the beaming light, “MICHAEL LOOK AT THIS!” She snapped her head to the direction of the voice. She smiled at the sound of one of her lover.

Glancing down, the thin blanket puddled around her, displaying her bare chest, the stamps and smearing of purple marks of love painted on her skin, it created a pathway as it all interlocked with one another. She remembered the pleasure of waves from the night before, tracing her finger over the hickies. Each lover has their own techniques. The most prominent ones were made by Michael. He would always be the one to mark her, loving the way it would display on her skin.

Tugging on the blanket, she pulled it with ease. She wrapped it around her body  The wooden floors creaked as she applies pressure, the light movements causing an echo of sound; the dragging of muffled fabric trailed on the floor. 

Halting in her walk, her eyes glazed over the breathtaking view; gradients of yellows and oranges printed onto the sky, tall-standing yet crooked trees added colour to the sandy island. 

She hugged herself tighter, the breezy wind blowing onto her as it whispers secrets into her ears as it overlaps melodies with the brushing of leaves and crashing of the soft waves. The air smells like salty tears, filling the ocean. A genuine and content grin running from one ear to the other as she watched the scene. A sight she would always cherish and hold close to her heart. Duncan who seemed to be originally submerged in water was dripping wet, in his hands- he held a couple of fish on a string. The swimming shorts were exotic, orange with blue rope-like string to hold it in place. Michael sat on the bench, humming as he shakes his legs in concentration; he twists and curls flowers, his tongue poking out in concentration. He already succeeded in making a flower crown, he wishes to make one for each of his lovers. The only one who seemed to be louder than the ocean was Jim. His smooth and fluent movements on the boat definitely impressed her, he was a quick learner.

Jim tilted the boat, paddling as he screamed at the top of his lungs, happy as water splashes onto his face. His grin was the replica of a kid getting his present for Christmas. Her fingers curled, leaning her head to rest on the doorframe as she watches her lovers.

Duncan huffed, throwing the fishes on the wooden table with a splat, sweat dripped from his forehead- Michael’s head snapped up with furrowed eyebrows, before looking back down to glance at the dead fish, Michael poked it, frowning.  He nudged the fish away, its mouth nearly touching his perfectly made crowns. Duncan shrugged his shoulders, craning his head to face the settling sun- who painted the sky with smears of hues of orange and yellows; he raised his arm, stretching it at the strains. Duncan’s eyes landed on the figure that stood at the front door.

Michael noted the charming grin, he followed the line of his view, another smile beaming to Y/N as they spotted their lover. The sight of her in their blankets caused an explosion of an irresistible feeling. Pacing towards her, Duncan grabbed her cheeks in his hands, “Good morning sleepyhead.” He placed a tender kiss on her forehead, his eyes shut tight as he lets the moment linger before pulling away to stare at her; admiring her eye that he loved so much.

“I don’t think its morning anymore.” He chuckled at her true statement, he shook his head as he pulled her into a tight hug. Inhaling deeply, he shoved his head in the crook of her neck, taking in the scent that embedded the blanket.

“Come.” Holding the blanket with one arm, Duncan pulled her as their fingers interlaced. Walking down a handful of stairs, Y/N’s feet were comforted by the warm sand. Applying littlest of pressure caused her feet to sink in, before stopping in front of Michael.

“Last night tired you out?” Michael smirked as she took a seat on the bench, watching him as he twirled the flowers; trying her best to ignore the smell of the fish.

She tilted her head in disbelief, not knowing if the question was rhetorical or sarcastic, “It was eight rounds.” The two men let out a boisterous laugh. Jim jumped out of the boat as soon as it rested on the land, the strings of laughter rang through his ears, catching his attention.

“Hey babes.” Y/N’s head snapped to face the owner of the voice.

“Jimmy!” Realizing he was heading her way, arms wide open for a hug, the smirk he wore gave away his plans he thought was hidden. Beads of water cascading down his hair that flopped to one side dripped beads of water. “Oh no you don’t,”

A shriek left her lips as the cold freezing water sip through the thin blanket, the icy touch definitely woke her up. Jim let out a mischievous laugh at her perfect reaction he wanted; her attempt to run away was hilarious. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her up- twirling around in the air. She slapped his hands, trying her best to not laugh- it was amusing but the water felt a whole lot like revenge for the prank she committed. But it failed, she lets go of the suppressed laughter, joining with him. A frown clashing with the happiness that zapped through her once she realized he was leading her away from her two lovers, and to the water. “JIM!”

Her head rested on Duncan’s shoulders, hugging his arms; she wore a smile at the warmth that radiated from the campfire. The cosiness and comfort created a bubble around them, they only hoped no one poked it. The frigid air of the freezing night flew around, heat from the fire reflected from their glossy eyes; orange flames lighting the dark night. It crackled as it danced, in a broken rhythm like a broken record. Jim crouched close to the campfire, poking it with sticks. Somehow entertained by the sight as it diminishes before roaring with anger once again. No matter how many times Michael warned him and scolded him, it was useless as he would never listen- Jim was naturally stubborn. He threw the wooden stick, one end already charcoal dark. With tied hair in a ponytail, Michael shakes his head- threads of hair brushing his face. He huffed, annoyed at the disturbance even though he was just trying to enjoy the moment.  

Jim’s head snapped up to take a glance at each of his lovers, a genuine grin smeared on his lips. Warmth sizzled in his stomach. Was this a dream? Before he knew it, the words fell off his lips, “You’re my world.” Everyone’s eyes watched as Jim played a smile, his eyes not wavering away from the fire. They glanced at one another, smiling as if the world had nothing against them. If only they could stay at the same moment… a bit longer.

[biillyhargroves]

Could you do another “Hopper adopts Billy” prompt? Maybe him on the mend?

empty your sadness (linked to the kids aren’t alright)(fic requests open)

Jim Hopper can handle a lot of things.

He can handle pulling over friends and locking up neighbors for disorderly conduct. He can deal with lost children tugging on his uniform shirts or grabbing for a sleeve of frozen Eggo waffles in the woods; he can deal with his adopted daughter dating a boy he semi-approves and he can deal with Joyce reminding him, time and time again, that the boy is harmless and he should let the kids be. And if Jim Hopper can deal with daughters and girlfriends and duties and could-be step-sons with their relationship problems and puberty, certainly he can handle the nightmares of a seventeen-year-old boy. This is what Jim tells himself when he finds Billy Hargrove, breath ragged and body writhing, on his couch. 

There is a note on the fridge that tells Jim he is alone: El is at the Byers house for a movie night with Will and Max. There is a message on the answering machine from Joyce, confirming the note tacked down with a Radio Shack magnet. Hi, Hop. El is here. I know she left a note, but I just wanted you to know she’ll probably be spending the night. We’ll all see you tomorrow. There was a pause, and then a small, Love you that almost got trapped under static. Jim listens, and he tries to let Billy’s labored breathing fade into the background, but when the machine shut off and the silence returned he heard the tiniest of whines escape the kid’s lips. Jim sighs. He thinks about the beer he’d been longing for, untouched and waiting in the fridge, and then he abandons it. 

“Billy?” he says, stepping back into the living room. In the three minutes that Jim had spent checking his messages, Billy has managed to kick his blankets to the floor. There is a thick sheen of sweat covering his face and soaking through his white shirt. His hair is plastered to his forehead and his mouth moves around words that come out as soft and pained whimpers. He flinches at the sound of his name, but he doesn’t wake up. 

“Hey, kid,” Jim says, He leans over the back of the couch and grabs Billy’s shoulder. Billy jerks away from him, nearly falling off the edge of the couch, but Jim holds onto him. “Hey, wake up,” Jim says. 

He shakes Billy, but this only agitates the kid more. He throws out an arm and, in his escape, this time he does fall. He clamors to the floor, shocked awake by the impact, heart in his throat as he scrambles to his feet. 

His eyes are unfocused and watery, and he is clearly on the defense. His shoulders are squared, muscles flexed, and Jim would even say he looked ready for a fight if he didn’t appear so damn pathetic. 

“Billy?” Jim asks cautiously, and Billy backs away from him. He isn’t looking where he’s going and his legs buckle when they strike the coffee table. He staggers, but catches himself, and not once do his eyes leave Jim. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and Jim thinks he sees the kid’s hands shaking as clenches and unclenches his fists. “Hey, hey, hey,” Jim says. He takes a cautious step forward and Billy ducks away from him, arms drawn up defensively.

“Hey,” Jim says. “You’re okay. You were having a bad dream.” He pauses to gauge Billy’s reaction, and the only read he can get is confused. Billy stares at him, his eyes darting between Jim’s hands and his face. He is listening, but Jim’s words don’t seem to be sinking deep enough. His breath is still ragged and labored. “Do you know where you are?” Jim asks him, and Billy finally dares to look around the room. When he looks back to Jim, something has changed. There is more clarity- clarity and, Jim thinks, anger. “Billy,” Jim says. 

Billy says nothing. He runs a hand through his hair and drops his gaze to the floor. He is working something out, though Jim doesn’t know exactly what. 

It has been three weeks since Neil Hargrove’s arrest, and Jim doesn’t think the kid has slept a wink- not really, not restfully, not in the way that he needs. There are deep circles like bruises stamped in purple under his eyes. His real bruises, the ones that are documented- in much worse condition -by Polaroids taking for evidence, are turning yellow and green at the edges. Some of them have even faded completely, and in their wake Jim can see the faint scars a savage man left on his son’s body. The sight of them makes his blood boil. 

But the kid has been asked enough questions- When did this start? (“It’s always happened,” Billy had mumbled.) Did you ever tell anyone? (”No,” Billy had said.) Why not? (”No one was going to help,” Billy had answered. “He made sure of it.”). He’s had doctors poke and prod at him, x-rays to show the fault-lines where his father once broke his bones then told the ER doctors that Billy had had a bad accident at football practice. He’s recounted stories of shoulders popping out of place and tinnitus from his head once rebounding off the wall like a kid’s rubber ball. No wonder he’s having nightmares. Jim thinks he would, too. 

“Billy,” Jim says again. Billy’s chin jerks up. He looks at Jim, and there is a tear slipping down his red cheek. Jim thinks about going towards him, but when he sees Billy tense at his first step he stops himself. “Do you want me to stay, or leave you alone?” Jim asks him. Billy looks even more confused than before, and Jim realizes he’s never been offered a choice. “I’m having a drink. You can come in the kitchen or stay here. Your move.” 

Jim leaves him, and he goes for that coveted beer. He’s cracking open the tab and sitting at the table when Billy emerges in the doorway, looking warily into the room. Jim sips his beer and motions toward the chair across from him. Billy hesitates, then steps a bare foot onto the tile. He pads into the room and drops into the seat. Jim swallows, then asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?” Billy asks, trying to sound menacing or angry or intimidating but coming off as merely exhausted. 

“The dream,” Jim says. He keeps his tone nonchalant. He can hear Joyce in his head, her voice on a broken-record loop. Don’t push him. He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need you hounding him. He needs you to be there. He needs you. 

“No,” Billy says eventually. Jim hums a response. He finishes his beer in silence, Billy sitting quietly across from him and digging at the grooves in the wood table with a fingernail. He tenses when Jim rises, shoulders up and spine and rigid and ready to strike. It occurs to Jim that Billy has lived his whole live on the defense, never knowing when the next hit was going to come but always needing to be ready to take it. He is more mindful of his movements as he tosses his beer can and retrieves a second. He also grabs one of El’s Cokes for Billy, and he sets it gently in front of the kid before returning to his seat. Billy stays coiled until Jim is sipping at his PBR, and then he reaches for the soda can and pops the tab open. Silence settles again, and Jim lets it. He watches the kid as he slowly starts to unwind. 

"Well,” Jim says when his second beer is gone. “I’m turning in. Unless you want me to stick around?” Billy seems to consider this, and then he shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. 

“Okay then,” Jim says. “You going back to sleep?”

“Maybe,” Billy says, and Jim knows that this means no. He rises, and he throws out his second empty can. Billy is still nursing his Coke. He draws shapes and swirls in the condensation on the can. 

“Hey,” Jim says, and Billy turns to look at him. “You’re gonna be okay, kid.” 

Billy hums a small response that could be sure in a sarcastic or non-sarcastic nature. Jim taps the wall and disappears into this bedroom. He leaves his door open a crack, and he shuts the window in his bedroom so that the wind won’t drown out the sound of any more of Billy’s nightmares.

Jim isn’t sure when he drifts off, but soon enough morning comes and with it drifts in the sweet smell of maple syrup and the clinking of silverware and glasses. He emerges to find El and Max shuffling about the kitchen. They are talking to one another in whispers, and when they see Jim, they shush him with fingers to their lips before he has a chance to utter a word. Max points to the couch, where Billy is curled up in a bundle of wrinkled blankets, sleeping soundly. 

[greatshell-rider]

day twenty-nine of quARTine: artifice (prompt list)

The door banged open and Jerry was shoved through into the room. He staggered, tripping over his own feet, and would’ve fallen had the guard not caught his chained arms and dragged him upright. They cursed at him, hauling him deeper into the room before kicking the back of his leg so he fell heavily to the worn wood floor on his knees. He stifled a groan, his ribs aching where they’d borne the brunt of his beating. He blinked away the blood trickling into his eyes as he peered up, a dull fear gnawing at his stomach as he watched Cindy be dragged in by two guards after him.

Zir arms were bound behind zir back and chains shackled zir feet, reducing zir movements to mere shuffles as ze came in. The guards barely came up to zir chest and ze had to duck zir head, slouching and bent almost double, but the ceiling still scraped zir shoulders. Along with the chains, a knife’s edge was pressed against zir side by one of the guards. Jerry knew the guards in the room, the chains, even the knife, wouldn’t have been enough to stop cindy. What worried him then was how ze shook, just slightly, zir skin almost buzzing. Ze kept zir eyes closed, even as ze was forced to zir knees—a guard tried to kick zir leg like Jerry, and ze merely lowered zirself down slowly—and Jerry could see the tight line in zir clenched jaw as ze tried to maintain zir growth. Ze was at zir limit.

Captain Banisi stepped into the room last, double throwing axes at their hips, and they left the door open, allowing sunlight to stream in behind them. Arms folded behind their back, they didn’t glance at their prisoners but faced the far side of the room. “It’s over, Starweaver,” they called, a low growl barely discernible under their voice. “The council knows what you’ve done.”

Jerry looked up sharply, and the fear in his belly blanched into horror when he saw Lani sitting at her desk across the room, scribbling on a paper with a purple quill. Her assistant Wren stepped forward as if to defend, hand going to the dagger belted at her waist, but Lani stopped with an absent hand, still bent over her work and writing intently.

“Wren,” Banisi said, their voice softened. “She’s not who you think she is. She’s a traitor.”

The young woman hesitated, looking torn, confused, and not a little panicked.

“Trust me,” the captain insisted, a note of pleading in their voice even as they waved the eight soldiers not guarding Jerry or Cindy forward. The pleading was replaced with firm certainty as they lifted their chin. “This is for the good of the world.”

The soldiers moved forward, edging cautiously toward Lani and Wren with quarterstaffs upheld. They knew who they were dealing with. Jerry coughed out a choking protest, but his guard’s hand dug into his shoulder, keeping him there.

Wren stepped back in fright as the soldiers advanced, eyes wide in shock—then they hardened. Jumping to the forefront of Lani’s desk she thrust her hand out, yelling, “Come no closer!” A burst of blue light shot out from her palm, expanding into a translucent, glimmering wall of magic splitting the room in two, her and Lani on one side, the soldiers, captain, and prisoners on the other. When a soldier tested it with their staff, the barrier buzzed but held firm.

Yes! Jerry thought, hope beginning to spark dimly. I didn’t think we could trust her. They had a chance now. Lani might still be able to escape.

Captain Banisi’s lips drew thin.

“Really, there’s no need for such theatrics,” an amused voice purred. Everyone looked as Lani rose from her chair, quill set aside, paper rolled into a scroll in her hand. “Wren, your friends were just paying a visit.”

She rounded the desk and stepped up to the ward, staring straight at the captain. “Weren’t you, Captain?”

“Of a type,” Banisi growled, then in a louder, official voice, “Lani Starweaver of the enchanter’s guild, you are under arrest for treason against the Sunmasked Council and the suspected murder of the Heirknight of the Moon Chalice. Your allies are beaten. Your plots have been thwarted. You are alone and powerless. Surrender, and you will allowed to beg mercy at the council’s feet.” Their lip curled in malice. “But I would rather you try and resist.”

Lani’s lips curled in a smirk. “Alone and powerless,” she repeated, amused. She rapped the knuckles on the back of her hand against the light-blue barrier, causing the surface to ripple. “And this is . . . ?”

Banisi said nothing. The soldiers shifted their stances uncertainly.

“Lani,” Jerry finally managed to wheeze. “Run! Go before—” His guard rammed their fist into his stomach, and Jerry choked, doubling over. They smacked his head with their staff, snapping it to the side. His blood sprayed across the floor in a dark splatter. He leaned heavily to the side, head dangling, hair damp with sweat and blood sticking to his face. Cindy growled, a low thrum in the back of zir throat, but one guard dug their knife deeper into zir side and the other raised their quarterstaff in warning, and ze stayed still. Ze’d shrunk an inch, and ze trembled more.

Lani paid no attention to them, either the beating or his warning. She was studying the ward, palm hovering by it as her eyes flicked up and down, corner to corner, her face expression focused and intent. She didn’t need to mumble or even mouth spells anymore.

Her head tilted to the side. “Curious design,” she told Wren, as if discussing with a student in class. “It’s almost as if—”

“Enough,” Banisi snapped, striding directly toward Lani. “This ends now.” They pulled at a string around their neck, yanking a stone amulet out from under their shirt that glowed orange where it was carved in spirals. Even Jerry recognized it; an unbinder. It undid magic, and would bring down Wren’s barrier in a blink. The captain stretched it out to touch the glittery surface and their soldiers crouched in readiness.

Lani met Jerry’s eye. She grinned, then clenched her fist around the scroll in her hand right as the unbinder pressed against the barrier and dissolved it.

Fiery red and yellow runes exploded from Lani’s feet, scorching the wood into black ash behind them as they ran hungrily toward the captain and soldiers. Ends of quarterstaffs glowed dark green as their wielders slashed them downwards, blocking the twisted lines of magic. When slashes of green met red-yellow, Lani’s rune died, leaving blackened wood. But one soldier missed, stumbling at their overswing, and the rune jumped onto their leg. They frantically drove their staff down towards it, but the rune wrapped itself around their ankle. It seemed to tighten, then its red-yellow glow faded to black.

The soldier became a pillar of fire, their scream evaporated in their throat, and fell a second later as a pile of ash.

Lani laughed at that.

Jerry launched himself at his guard, slamming his chained wrists against their head like a club, and heard Cindy grunt behind him as ze attacked as well, zir guards yelling out as zir body suddenly shrunk to zir regular size, loosening the binds—then one arm swelled massively as the growth previously used evenly throughout zir entire body surged to that one part for a brief moment, allowing zir to knock away the guards’ staffs with a giant fist.

They fell back together, Jerry still bound and Cindy now completely out of growth, both bruised and hurting, surrounded on three sides by soldiers, their backs against the wall. Best place to fight, Jerry thought grimly, as another rune caught a soldier and set them aflame, distracting the others. They might be determined, but we’re desperate. Let’s see how—

Lani’s laugh cut off suddenly, ending in a choked gurgle. Jerry snapped his gaze to her, then froze. Cindy cursed under zir breath.

A dagger was at his sister’s bared throat.

“Stand down!” Wren barked at them, one hand holding the blade, the other gripping Lani’s wrists behind her back. “I’ll slice her open if you don’t.”

Jerry tried to catch his sister’s eye, but she was staring at Wren out the corner of her eye, appraising her, looking mildly surprised, curious even. He swore violently. Of course they couldn’t trust her. No one was to be trusted! Why had Lani let her close? Why hadn’t she protected herself? Why did she always do this—

Cindy moved first, relaxing zir defensive stance and holding up zir hands in surrender, and at that, the soldiers pounced. Jerry didn’t resist, letting them knock him to the ground and grind his face against the floor with a booted foot on his neck. Cindy thumped down beside him a moment later; he twisted his head and their eyes met. Cindy shook zir head.

“Target neutralized, Captain,” Wren said, pushing Lani down to her knees. “That was the last enchantment Starweaver had on her.” The scroll in Lani’s fist crumbled to soot.

The captain stamped out the last of the burning runes. “Excellent job, soldier.” They approached, pulling a pair of manacles off their belt, then stopped. They stared at Lani, and Lani stared back, a slight smirk on her lips.

“You know what to do,” Lani told them, and Jerry winced at her mocking tone. “I resisted, didn’t I?”

The captain didn’t move. They seemed to be arguing with themself, trying to decide something. The fear clenching Jerry’s insides dropped to stark, ice-cold terror.

“No,” he rasped. Then, louder, “No!”

The captain’s eyes flicked to Wren. She stared steadily back, dagger held attentively.

“We surrendered!” Jerry yelled. The boot ground into his spine deeper, but he didn’t care, pushing himself up, straining to reach them. “You have us! Captain! Take us to the council! Only they have authority to order an execution! Banisi!”

Lani’s lips split to show teeth, grin stretching wide across her face. “Their death wasn’t clean, you know. Wasn’t quick. No, I made sure—”

The captain growled. They jerked their head at Wren.

Jerry screamed.

Lani’s assistant slit her throat.

~~~~

Lani hadn’t been sure if the captain would keep their end of the bargain. When was she? After all, she’d thought Wren had been genuine, as genuine as anyone could be. And Wren had been—just not to Lani. Well, she’d been useful while she lasted.

Captain Banisi, however, Lani just couldn’t decide. They were a very conflicted person, so good at their job and yet yearning for something else, something more. Lani had weighed the odds, and when the scale kept tipping marginally side to side, never settling on a heavier fate, she’d gotten impatient and decided she would just have to keep going and see how it turned out. Just like any normal human being.

And now it was turning out. Lani smiled at the captain, and made a guess. “Their death wasn’t clean, you know.” She had no idea how the heirknight had died. Their body had disappeared. But that hadn’t stopped Banisi from devoting all their attention and resources to finding the murderer, and Lani had found that intriguing letter in their rooms alluding to a forbidden lover . . . “Wasn’t quick.” And yes, there it was. Where once several emotions had waged war behind the captain’s eyes, now only rage—hatred—blazed. Where reason fails, heart prevails, Lani mused. “No, I made sure—”

Banisi motioned to Wren, and Jerry screamed. Obediently, even willingly, she cut her dagger across Lani’s throat.

Then she did it again. The blade passed through her skin, not even nicking it. Certainly spilling no blood.

Yet Wren tried again, desperately this time. “Captain, I’m trying but—”

Lani shook her head, sighing. “Such theatrics.”

Then she dug her fingernails into Wren’s hand around her wrists, deep enough to draw blood. Deep enough to let the poison powdered under her nails to enter the bloodstream. Wren yelped, reflexively dropping Lani’s wrists, and Lani mentally activated the enchantment bound to the powder. Wren’s cry of pain turned into a scream, then high-pitched shrieks as she dropped to the floor and scratched madly at her hand. Swiftly, her veins were bleaching to white. Captain Banisi ran to her, yelling at their soldiers to attack while they desperately tried pressing their unbinder amulet to various spots across Wren’s body.

Lani picked up her assistant’s dagger, and the faint blue glow around it faded, the enchantment spent. The remaining four soldiers rushed her, and Lani switched the blade’s spell from one of warding to one of intent. Of hunt. It blazed a deep dark red and Lani let it go, stepping back to avoid a quarterstaff’s swing. The dagger fell for but a moment, then spun in midair and darted quick as the flick of a bird’s wing to bury itself in the neck of the nearest soldier. As they fell, the dagger yanked itself back out and chased immediately after another. Staffs smacked it and sent it spinning, one soldier heroically threw themself on top it to protect another, trying to wrap their body around the blade to bury it, but the enchantment was strong, digging itself out of pounds of flesh. It was relentless, always spinning back to seek its target after being deflected away. And it was hungry—the more blood it touched, the more frenzied it became.

Across the room Lani caught glimpses of her brother and mercenary fighting their guards and so was unhindered as she hopped over her desk and crouched behind it to slide open a drawer. A thunk, followed by a triumphant yell, announced that a soldier had figured out to catch the enchanted knife on wood or cloth or leather or metal—any material that was already dead—rather than deflect it. Sadly, her blade wasn’t a scavenger, and was powerless when embedded in something that wasn’t living flesh, blood, or bone.

Lani stood back up, gripping a fistful of purple quills in each hand. The soldiers—four left, now—held up their staffs defensively at the sight.

That made her grin. “Oh, you’re learning,” she purred, and activated the enchantments she’d laid on the feathers long ago. Not quite as effective as the dagger, but she kept all her extra quills sharpened and ready for use. Just in case. She could never be sure when one might snap.

Maroon blazed down the vanes, complementing their violet dye quite nicely. The soldiers’ faces went pale. There were far more quills than survivors, and despite their fragility, Lani suspected that would stay true at the end. She opened her hands.

Unlike with her fire-trap runes, these soldiers could still scream as they fell.

A pair of quills took out the guard slamming their fist into Jerry’s face repeatedly as Lani left her desk and approached, and Cindy expertly tripped the soldier lunging away from a quill, sending them right into the path of a second aimed for their eye. Ze had Jerry’s arm over zir shoulders and was supporting his weight against zir body so he could stand somewhat upright when Lani reached them. Behind her, the last soldier’s scream cut off to a gurgle, followed by the thump of their body hitting the floor, and it was suddenly quiet but for Cindy’s panting.

“Ho, that was fun,” Lani said cheerfully, bending to check if her brother was still conscious. Nope. A faint breath bubbled blood at his lips though, so he would live.

Cindy nodded at something behind her, and Lani turned to see Banisi kneeling on the floor with Wren supported in their arms, the young woman’s veins now a sickly gray. But her chest still rose and fell, and her eyelids fluttered. Impressive, Lani thought, grinning. Unbinders had a hard time undoing magic inside bodies or minds, but the captain, untrained in magic as they were, had still managed to counteract the curse enough to keep Wren alive.

“This was not part of the deal,” the captain growled. Lani didn’t ask which part.

“You’ll get your payment nonetheless,” she said airily, sidestepping a pool of blood creeping towards her feet. “Look for a potion on your doorstep next darkmoon. It’ll stop the wyrms.”

“I should’ve turned you in,” they said bitterly, more to themself than to her. “Better that evil than this. Than you.”

Lani smirked. “You would doom your world to have me dead? Isn’t that kind of selfish?”

The captain said nothing. Again, that struggle, that ceaseless conflict. Lani snickered. Oh, imagine, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what you wanted. Wondering how to sacrifice want for need, or vice versa. Imagine hating yourself for your own greed. How amusing.

She turned to go, Cindy carrying Jerry in zir arms now right behind her.

“Starweaver,” Banisi said quietly. Lani paused, but didn’t turn. “You can’t run forever. Your crimes will catch up. I’ll catch up. I’ll find you. And I will kill you.”

Cindy sighed when Lani didn’t move and stepped around her, marching out the door. Ze never had cared for all the swapped threats and playful banter. Didn’t like how Lani played with her mice. But games were fun, even ones like this, where Lani’s opponent had no chance of winning.

Still, her brother did need medical attention.

“Hmm,” she said as she stepped after her mercenary. “Good luck, then.” She turned her head to give the captain a final lazy smile, the edges of it just a little mocking, just a little gloating. She’d guessed correctly, after all. “You’ll need it.”

[stupendoustrashmagazine]

A 10-pp. selection of poems

Personage The terrace offers a point. From this point a view. It's only a stop-off; it assumes the motion requisite for temporary stays will continue. The speculative friction required to stop those passing through would require planned extinction; would require war against generations of persistence across biome, suffering & misery magnified it remains threatened always. Building requires digging. Digging creates hollows to be filled. A move past botanicals—it doesn’t exist. A pulse in the web. Walk toward beyond the view: journey’s luck to close in on production. Pace picks up, dusk’s dis- appearing light invites one in: welcome.   Prelude Tonight the act of naming fell through the floor. We speak permeable solids inflected by light. Skull’s grid moves units indistinctly: windshield & palette cross paths, hatch an Ovidian shift, difixiones to devotio; the faux-gorithm teases pantheon from closet, traces flotilla’s down, hot air balloons, celebrating you or prairie fair. You’ll learn to kill that hunger for thunderhead drift. I follow shapes of your speech, attend to your syntax, taste your configuration; to keep up I sketch stick figure, code hypertext script cascading in style, the result of which confirms, again: we’re lost. Plot is a plait’d plat, flatland destination & another assemblage? I want aura to invite aural meiosis, aurora splitting into rural roads, for the bassoon quartet to be forgiven for plastic bag reeds on my direction, for aria to, moody, move into a different mode & travel out through spring’s open window; I want the racket splenetic melancholy, for dynamic accompaniment fit for unfashionable passion, the like. That state of exilium you described as a quantum between. Always pain hover triangulated. Frame Matisse with me, guilty stokes both— say the magnolia blooms shall remain & not at the expense of any other but they do not. Creek diverted, river dead: suck’d dry wax & cone though still dragonflies are purple, abdomen metallic sets of curvature & husk. Nearby: field of lightning. We walk through fjords of light forking down, resisting electrocution, naturally. The taste of our nakedness waking in early in your bed, black walnut leaves catching first October light. If I leave the house or library I sit on benches in Walmart or go to the Coralville mall alone, growing frosting in my chest & English ivy in my sinuses, scribble notes with my fork-tongue alone. Walk with me this once, again, into notional forest, ash-grey landscape dotted in umber, newborn beetles radiating, cobalt blue.   Skykomish in Summer In Goldbar Washington boys crossed river with driftwood staves feet slick-step between slime & rock, underbelly of serpentine but liquefied, algal nets stretch’d between toes, Like scales without edge—stiffened Cold after crossing they crawl’d up & into caverns allowing in fractions of sun but they felt cradled in a way shielded, intimacies there before they dove into round pools spun by spit current’s swirls, the bank of the cove gritty enough for a grip as they’d climb out out of sorts, alive they’d look at the congregation from which they just emerged tangle of nets, sunken conflagrations their bodies against the wake pressed a force there, quiet, endless, sound moving through medium beckoning, shape taking a form inky jar, turbine spat out from the bottom of an oil well.   Grass Cuts Nyanza Street. South Tacoma—we’re on A hill & approach it, tall grass, foreclosure. Blackberry brambles thick on the lawnslope purple, thorns & stickers, irritable touch. Boss climbs roofs with too steep a pitch; Hauls mowers from mud when I mire it Good in a ditch. His daughter today works with us, we weedwhack waist-high grass, rake clippings & tufts long enough to be hay in neat quadrants. They steam mornings we make it out as early as seven. A canopy borders the two-acre lot. I stare – emptying’s substance against nothingness of total inattention’s default setting. Metal asphalt shingles, roof’s pitch steep Low ground valley & everywhere: unhinged Botany thrives. Ivy plaits helices Around five-feet in diameter firs, in follow some twenty feet up when Jamie grabs a pitchfork. See something. It skitters through raked mounds, Goes through tunnels punctured By tines or cleat-roller aerating the lawn She shanks its body up against weed- blocker & brick. A metallic pling rings fades, she scoops it somewhere— this brought up her enjoyment killing, dressing, & cooking fowl. We move more grass I looking for insects, think of meat saws yawning day & night do they Day & night, fumbling—sound like chain saws or Colorado cattle feedlots, cottonwoods standing by during a drought, the sugar factory’s honey-butter burnt hair & soccer cleats left for week in a car. Mulch, juncos, midmorning sun on, sun off, Rake, return, pile, killing rabbits once we snapped their necks wrong, twice partial Breaks, botching it, both shaking we Shared an acute horror in our optics. Then we crushed their skulls with a hammer, But that’s when we lived near the volcano, when the halcyon sensation when standing at the bottom of Nisqually glacier, the sheaves of receding rose-grey gravel in aggregate felt like meteoroid field sent to grave resting place, armatures of old growth First & hemlocks in steep fractals jagged landings in glaciated river so thick with silt it looked an ash-blue sleeve. We take HUSKY 55-gal. trash bags of grass to the organic waste dump. We smell like gasoline & two-cylinder oil & grease. When I get home my house mama says Pew-whee! You smell like Marty; you smell like something that kills.   Shards What was it that came out the water in a sled a Wayward gesture young-&-stuffed Mess to common rendition Duchamp’s Pearl Neckless? In his version The sledgehammer fell square to carcass/shard/caress. You wanted/saved like anyone else wanted, A sequence of diadems, diamondic scales on A yellow python’s back. Be-figure, a mole Amongst slag pits, a slog truce from igneous slab. Bats tunnel boroughs, funnel rigmarole We keep one ray or dot of spun molybdenum— Torque at the end of the…—that glint relieves Grog, luster, a clutch lets cable go its single, slackening line. True fundament! come to the party— From up there, from below? Come beat through this bog’s Excrement, creakily swung skew joints, fallen centurions, Carve away gluttony,—an economic model Levels the field of every thistle’s purple demarcation. Remains disappear. Binary caskets Glisten polyurethane on oak grab it… If - you – get – to – the – place To – get – you – the – records: Prefabricated dirt tastes discard bottles, Skittling crevice, crick or face, collections Binding fractures. That which goes unseen. Make & model, blue castes. Signature mummies. Huffing. That kinetic thrill Pushing hammers through Masonite, Bulls snorting horns at a flag The very requiem of the horse’s eye A black so dark it blued the muscle in deafening Postures of grey fog: a way: body: yes, a shard, Blight-bit, a descending distend, steep bends— A weather system approaches Centripetally, a large unformed cat, To distillate—nothing—to pray to the grommet, One ventricle, alas—poor valve, the idea Of the river. The river. Is. Itself. Course vessel in a Losing resonance a tributary vacillation tip-toed beyond A materiality that is, is not, any old trick.   Spilling the Flour Began not thrush’s stamp, nor cardinal blue whistle but The sour flack going out, the waist line spilt. Emptying cylinders combed in sheet metal corrugate, Fill another vision, the conveyor belt muscle Persuasion. Sometimes a harvest sits like pheasants Before buckshot, freeze-frame, promise cannon— What will be. Corn stalks chopped at maggot root twist Wind crowing a parade, sans confetti, sans soleil. Platoon the distant mist, forgetting it’s metal multiplied In numbers not quantity. Not fog. That’s fire But the wound continuum in ears splits hair mimics a mime Brown cerumen flax spreads flat lays down in- To a line. Elements bind fetch needle & borrow thread Stitch from denim you see the voices hear. Spiders don’t mean to. Bats garner a wick of light Against normalcy of shadow. When is not Important. Con memory commemorate ingrown toe- Nail sunk into rib-line fleshed out for sake Of sake of being. Forsaken lake: equivalent to constrictor Vine, not theorem. Carpet moves imagined Equestrians run between alder beetles the abandoned Horses heaving in the meadow along the orange Vector. The chemilume incision furcates the dark shells Guarding liquefied innards, the many legs.   The Awful Cutlery Traveling by Greyhound between Dominguez- Escalante and Grand Mesa National forest, We’re full enough In the filled up four-wheel lurch on blacktop I-70 elegantly swung across Secluded Rocky Mountain scrag. “This shit’s too country” a woman remarks. You see what she means. The rosaries Of apricot, peach, cherry, and plum disintegrate Vineyard to vineyard to bottle To California, mid-stride Maybe she means. Maybe Damian The off-shore welder tells me about hanging above The water, rigged up, slung out, strapped in, Gluing thousand-degree metal to solid stack Rigs, working twelves till three months pass So he can go—“I go everywhere”—to complicate Home—“Love Alabama but I need to see it all The whole shit.” Dusk is a disk with a predictable arc. I’m here twenty years, this red land. From bottom canyon ditch combs Of bygone eon drag across mesa, leaving scar, Evidence of water, wind, shaggy coats left To bear, bear themselves, on other creatures Pitching, tent-by-tent, a story, a new story, old. The mother tells you, you & me, of Rocky Mountain Flats, the Climax Uranium Mill, A fire beginning with a crack, croaking a Groan to a glow, plutonium then, dizzied in dust, Vapored amoeba flung across the whole Front Range. Cows were the first to show up Without usual parts: eye, ear or triple-tongue. Do I believe anything I say anymore? Set that head against Plexiglas. Feel the chill— A lavender fork makes an albino tarantula Of sky, yet there’s a merge, the speech Corks off. Into each direction, asymmetry Between passengers a music nonetheless, The hiddenness behind tall sediment walls Now, this cutlery mass Stalking hungry movers, clawing at the dirt To reveal the intact pores of a distant femur.   Safe/Way Courtesy Clerk In the aisles of nondescription halogen baleen Sifts shop-cart rift-racket & geriatric dances. Old/new toothpick paradigm cues a mist/turn: Old is to new as young is to old, meaning Painting the urn in synthesizer blue still undoes. The unheard chambers are sweeter. Polyethylene is a mon-on- monomer ladder of Chain-stacks, bindings, writes the blurb We’re all in this together. Savings save you From it, from it you’ll be saved the lapse: Western tanager memorizes its own memory Launched in citrus beneath the varied canopy. Really: in this Safeway a woman chutes Hundreds of one-liters into the re/cycle Machine. She leans on cart rail, no wheel. Her child helps he laughed he threw them into The bin, the coins emerged. Someone said Music moves from a fix-point fence post, studded Down into ground. He’s right—what is there to do But do, bag up a customer’s purple cabbage Dreams stuff them sweet potato mush- Room into room, sacked. They’d blister From oxygen’s lack they’d try to make it, try To survive. Wouldn’t it be courteous To curtsy before bags bulge as balloons stuffed With vision? Even in tulip & rose section I Hand out the foxtail elixir, all the loot; were they Bodies turned down, turned into what now, soup? The day is butternut squash but wouldn’t A lizard do today let’s get all the gutter newts Recalling now how Scooby returned From a long drive he threw an iguana On the chopping block on the counter top In the apartment he was making soup He sawed off its head. What was inside The eyes? Nothing much. Eye cones con, resemble The black glass of a tick’s back. You’ll try To reach in & what — find out who looks back Tell yourself that’s you looking back. A gaze. Scooby ran cool water over the head, on it. Its jaw opened and closed again & again. “This is good soup that’s what happens After the head’s cut off.” What would the body Do after, what voice would reclaim itself, Would reconvene re — gather protest against scores Settled, dust made fall silk, unnoticed? What takes when taken back, how’ll things Exactly as they are be exactly as they’d been? What music shapes the marina, the guitar Rustling out a poison ivy arpeggio to become The place and the things of things as they are? How do you bargain or take the lead For the dreaded duet? The mouth opens cilia Tongue juts out pink premonition the sky boom Nitro’s paisley maize radished in the Word-Ward. Blue pollen doesn’t exist but when the man Who looks one-hundred buys the dyed-blue orchid & says “it’s for my” I cut him off & ask but He just laughs & says “it’s just a flower it’s just An empty bag” & walks out, away, toward Automatic sensor doors, glass partitions that open Like megafauna with a belly full of a world on fire.