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redvexillum · 4 months ago

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A/N: Listen, it's complicated for Vox, alright? Give the man some slack.

SUMMARY: You royally pissed someone off because you were receiving anonymous hate emails for the past fifteen years. How incredibly petty and...entertaining. At first, you decided to ignore them but as their hate comments got increasingly creative, the more you couldn't help but add oil to the burning, passionate flame of their hatred towards you.

Until one day, the mysterious anonymous hater (probably) accidentally revealed themselves to be the one and only TV demon, an Overlord and CEO of everything technological and modern.

WARNING/TAGS: f!reader, dual POV, enemies to f*ck buddies to something indescribable, Vox is a bratty sub, dom!reader, Vox takes a lot of L's but he secretly enjoys it, reader is sexually liberal and confident, Vox is bad with feelings, Vox has a humiliation kink

<- PREV

“Are you listening? Vox? VOX!” Val’s screech cut through the haze, his glare piercing through Vox’s intense focus. Vox glanced up briefly, raising a single index finger in the universal sign for ‘just a moment.’

Vox was engrossed in his daily ritual of watching her latest VoxTube video. Ever since launching a cyber-attack on her account, this infuriating woman had somehow managed to turn every setback into an advantage, boosting her fame and influence. At this rate, he could almost envision her seated across from him at the Overlord meeting in a few decades' time.

In his mind’s eye, she wore one of her signature cocktail dresses that hugged her perfect figure. Her makeup was sharp and dramatic, accentuating her dangerously alluring smoky eyes. And her lips – fuck – those lips – he could already hear the verbal destruction they would unleash, full of snarky comments about VoxTek and him, just as she had loudly proclaimed in her video for years.

He imagined staring her down across the table, her smirk daring him, challenging him, to come at her. She radiated defiance and confidence, qualities that both infuriated and captivated him in equal measure.

Fuuuuuuuck.

Why did he find that so fucking sexy? It was maddening what she was doing to him.

The worst part of all this was that she probably had no idea how much she tormented him daily. She ravaged the database in his mind, corrupting all the other files to ensure he only thought of her.

He continued to watch the video; his eyes glued to her face. Her latest video was some stupid challenge she had collaborated with some no-name VoxTuber. They were challenging each other to different silly little games, like how many cookies one could shove in their mouth. The loser would have to eat a spoonful of sinnamon.

“Ai WEEN!” she declared; her mouth full of cookies. Beige-coloured crumbs spilled from her lips, and her cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk’s, preparing for hibernation.

The tips of his lips twitched upwards.

This was so stupid.

Yet, it was also fucking adorable.

“Give it up, Val,” Velvette said, scrolling through her phone as she lounged beside Vox. Her voice was exasperated as she lifted her legs and draped them across Vox’s lap. “You should be used to this by now. He’s been a die-hard fan of hers for, like, ten years.”

Spine straightening, Vox immediately paused the video. “Not a die-hard fan, Velvette,” he corrected, trying to remain pleasant and nonchalant. “Listen, she’s going to be a threat with how popular she’s getting using my network.” His gaze bounced between Velvette, who looked bored, and Val, who raised a brow in disbelief.

Velvette scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Please,” she flicked her wrist dismissively, “I��ve met the bitch, and trust me, all she cares about is having a fucking good time while getting filthy rich.”

Vox blinked, a crackle of static electricity leaping from his eyes and travelling down his body, fizzling by the front of his pants. “What?” He turned towards Velvette, who was back to scrolling through her phone. Forcing out a chuckle, his right eye twitched uncontrollably.

“What?” Velvette parroted, a hint of mockery colouring her tone.

“Oh, I don’t know, Velvette,” Vox said, his tone light but dripping heavily with sarcasm, “she’s only my biggest enemy –” Val snorted, and Vox shut him up with a sharp glare, “and you didn’t think to tell me that you fucking met her?” He swung his arms out, making a grand gesture to emphasize how big of a deal this was.

“Uh, wasn’t that radio shithead your biggest –” Velvette finally looked up from her phone, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“I can have multiple enemies, Velvette!” Vox interrupted, not wanting to hear any mention of that radio prick right now. Besides, he hadn’t thought of him ever since she came into the picture and plagued every waking and sleeping moment of his damn life.

“Riiiight,” she said before her lips turned into a sly smirk. “Maybe I should’ve told her how she secretly has the number one biggest fan –”

“Not a fan!” Vox cut her off once again, forcing another chuckle where his voice wheezed from trying to control the irritation before he blew a fuse in his head.

“Right, right,” she cackled as she began to text something on her phone. “Apparently, she already has a number one fan.”

Vox tilted his head, error messages popped up in front of his mind’s eyes as he tried to digest her words. “What?” His voice came out in a pathetic squeak, and he cleared his throat, forcing his shoulders to relax as he leaned casually back onto the couch. “Yeah? And who would that be?” He pulled his gaze back down to the video of the girl who plagued his mind.

He didn’t care.

He knew she had numerous fans. He had pulled her data and saw that the majority of her fans were all older than her by several decades to even centuries. Those Sinners that all watched her mindless content were all losers.

The phone screen darkened until it fell asleep from no activity, and his face was reflected back at him.

They were all losers.

“Yeah, she got super sloshed that night. Honestly, I don't understand why you hate her. She’s fucking hilarious,” Velvette laughed out loud, her face morphing into a genuine affectionate smile that he had only seen her flash to him and Val.

“Anyway, it’s some creep by the name ScreenGuy with like some numbers or whatever,” she said, her laughter echoing in the room. “Apparently, that guy’s been buying her used sex toys for like a fucking decade!”

Heat rose to Vox’s head, but this time it was for a different reason. His thoughts raced, trying to hide the fact that he was ScreenGuy or rather ScreenDude69.

“Ugh, seriously?” Val chimed in as he sashayed back to the couch and sat on the single-seater. “What a loser,” he added.

Vox forced a laugh, trying to hide his embarrassment and anger. “Yeah, what a loser,” he muttered, his voice lacking conviction. He turned away, his mind swirling with conflicting emotions. How had he let himself become so obsessed? His eyes flickered back to the dark screen of his phone, reflecting his troubled expression.

“I know,” Velvette said before she snorted. “And he hasn’t been purchasing them for some small chump change either. We’re talking in the hundreds of thousands.” She shook her head as her laughter died down.

“But the funniest part,” she slapped Vox’s shoulder with the back of her hand, “you’re gonna love this, boys.” With a grin that was all teeth, she said, “half the time this bitch just sends him sex toys, brand new!”

Both Velvette and Val’s laughter echoed in Vox’s head. He forced out his laughter to join them. The last thing he wanted them to know was that he was the loser who had been purchasing sex toys for the past decade from her.

As Velvette’s laughter died down, she brought her phone back to her face. “Voxy, baby, if you want to meet your so-called greatest enemy, I’m hosting a party at the V club tomorrow night. And she just RSVP’d.”

“I’ll check my schedule if I’m free,” Vox said in a casual tone. He was going to make sure he was free tomorrow. But first, he needed to step into a refrigerator to cool down his head.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just don’t bitch and moan if you miss out on the chance to see your crush,” Velvette said, waving her hand, signifying that she was over this conversation.

Before Vox could retort that, once again, she was his enemy, there was a knock on the door. One of his assistants entered the room, his body shrinking under Vox’s attention. “Uhm, Vox, sir? You have a package from Hell Bay?”

Vox’s heart skipped a beat. He tried to maintain his composure as he ordered the assistant. “Bring it in,” he said, his voice steady but his mind racing.

The assistant placed the package on the table and left the room. Vox stared at the innocuous brown package, his thoughts a whirlwind of anxiety and anticipation. Velvette and Val were oblivious to the turmoil currently raging within him. He wanted to open it, but not here, not with them watching.

Bolting out from his seat, Vox unceremoniously threw Velvette’s legs off his lap. She grumbled but didn’t protest as he quickly grabbed the package from the table.

“You’ve been purchasing a lot of stuff from Hell Bay,” Valentino drawled, tilting his head as if he were trying to peek inside the sealed package. “What the hell are you buying from there?”

Vox’s claws dug into the box, his mind racing for a plausible excuse. There was no way he was going to ever tell them that he was the so-called loser buying the used sex toy. Putting on his typical suave businessman’s facade, he shrugged his shoulders with a winning smile.

“I’ve been ordering some computer parts since I have to update–” He stopped short, noticing that he had already lost Val’s interest. Velvette was off in her own little world, scrolling through her phone.

Most times, Vox would’ve been pissed at Val for losing interest when he was the one who asked in the first place. But Vox supposed that during times like this, he was thankful for Val's short attention span.

Satisfied that he wouldn’t press further; Vox straightened his shoulders and regarded Val and Velvette with a practised, confident smile. “Well, this has been fun,” he said, “but I have some work to catch up on.”

As predicted, they both grunted, barely acknowledging Vox’s words. Val was now engrossed in whatever was on his phone.

Tucking the package under his arm, Vox casually strolled out of the room. Once the door clicked shut behind him, his legs sped up as he took a left instead of the usual right turn that would’ve led him to his office.

He stopped in front of an unmarked door, and he leaned forward at the peephole, which was actually a camera he had installed a decade ago. The camera whirred as it locked onto his right eye. The mechanics of the lock began to click into place before a resounding, loud click echoed in the hallway. Vox checked left and right before quickly slipping inside.

The room was small and dimly lit, filled with shelves of meticulously organized VoxTek’s sex toys. At first glance, anyone who stumbled into this hidden chamber might assume they were prototypes or a showcase of the company’s innovations.

But the truth was far sadder.

Each toy was one he had bought from her on Hell Bay.

Every single one of them.

His fingers trembled slightly as he traced the outer edge of the package, the same brown paper package he received nearly on a weekly basis for the last ten years.

Anger, trepidation, elation, and shame mingled together into a noxious cocktail he was forced to stomach. He heard echoes of Velvette and Val’s mocking laughter at the poor chap – at him – who kept purchasing the sex toy, despite clearly being scammed out of his money.

For fuck’s sake, just last week, she didn’t even rip off the original packaging or the discounted price tag before shipping it off to him. This girl was playing with him, mocking him. What was worse was that his pride couldn’t allow him to purchase her items for less than what he had paid for the Cobra dildo ten years ago. Spending an absurd amount of money on her was, in a twisted way, his attempt to assert his power, to show her how much richer and more influential he was.

To show her…how daft he was.

He knelt on the floor and opened the package slowly, the tear of the tape deafening in the silence. He knew he should stop purchasing his own damn company’s products from her, but if even half of them were truly used by her…

He looked around, surrounded by the assortment of sex toys that were claimed to be used.

Fuck, he hated her so much.

He had probably spent over millions of dollars on her. He was trapped in a perverse cycle, pretending to be two people: one who sent her hate emails daily, filled with venom and vitriol, and the other that loyally purchased anything she put out on Hell Bay.

Ten years.

Fuck. Has it been ten fucking years already?

Vox sighed, pressing his claws against the middle of his forehead. Had it really been this long? He took a deep breath and tore the package open, like ripping off a band-aid to see the rot that festered from the open wound.

A cylindrical shaped toy flopped to the ground. It was a fleshlight in pristine condition. He curled his lips, realizing that this was the first time she had sent him a fleshlight and completely lied to him that she was selling one of her dildos.

God fucking dammit. He got played by her. Again.

At least she had the decency to tear off the price tag this time. With a weary sigh, he held the soft, silicone-made toy. He resolved that this would be the last toy he would buy from her.

Velvette was right.

She wasn’t a threat.

She was more of an annoyance at best. He hated her, but she was also an insignificant little worm compared to him. She was nothing where he had his status, his wealth, and his power.

But before his resolve could cement, a piece of what looked to be paper peeked out from within the hole of the fleshlight. Scrunching his brows together, he pulled it out and noticed her handwriting on one side of a photo.

Trembling, he looked at the photo and nearly coughed out his heart. His head twitched as sparks flew, and he had to protect the photo lest it catch fire from the stray sparks.

It was a photo of her – the top half specifically – where she was winking at the camera and wearing a tiny, bright sunshine yellow bikini top. It looked perfect on her, and the small piece of cloth barely covered her breast, much less the peaks of her nipples.

If he pressed his face closer to the photo, he could see a hint of the light dusting of her areola.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered, staring at the photo, his pants growing taut around him, almost chafing his cock from its tight confines.

He turned the photo over, and in cute, neat handwriting, she had written:

The note and the photo ignited something primal within him, a mix of anger and arousal. He felt a surge of heat that made his skin prickle with electricity. Vox’s claws gripped the edge of the photo, his breathing heavy as he struggled to contain his emotions.

He could hear her voice as he reread her note. She would whisper these sweet, damning words. He could feel her phantom breath brushing against the side of his head, sending a wave of violent tingles down his spine.

He shouldn’t. Fuck.

He unbuttoned his pants.

He really fucking shouldn’t.

He unzipped his pants, each tooth unclicking reminding him of a death toll for his sanity.

His claws traced the imprint of her lips tattooed on the note. He imagined those very same lips wrapped around his cock more times than he would like to admit.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he really fucking shouldn’t – his plea for self-restraint fell on deaf ears as he held his hardened, weeping cock and bowed his head in defeat.

NEXT ->

💠 MASTERLIST 💠

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blueesnow · 2 months ago

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Kurosaki Ranmaru's Birthday (Year 1) Voicelines Translation.

-You can look at it again on the Event Log, Mini-Event section (for the other boys messages to him) and Talk section (for a one-on-one conversation with you and him) in Idol Page.

-Also the translations might not be fully accurate since I'm not that fluent on jp/en, so if i ever made a mistake do correct me🙏

<You (Player)> Ranmaru: You're such a disciplined person to go out of your way here just to celebrate my birthday. …Well, I guess it's not that bad. Thanks. Ranmaru: Huh? What do I want, you ask? …The answer is only one. Accompany me for this whole day. That's what I want, more than anything.

<Otoya> Otoya: Ranmaru-senpai, Happy Birthday! I'll be playing guitar for you as a birthday gift! You're more than welcome to join in! Ranmaru: Haha, that's quite a clever offer. Sure, I'll take you up on it. But you better make sure you lead properly for today, 'kay?

<Masato> Masato: I wish you a Happy Birthday. That part of Kurosaki-san who is willing to be independent and carve out a path for himself on his own, I totally admired and respected it. Ranmaru: This guy is always stiff and serious as ever… But well, thanks. You should also be true to your heart and live your life to the fullest.

<Natsuki> Natsuki: Happy Birthday! All of the cats in the back alley were also celebrating too y'know~ Fufu, what a popular guy. Ranmaru: Those stray cats… Oh well, it can't be helped. I'll go and bring them some dried sardines later. By the way, thanks for the birthday wish.

<Tokiya> Tokiya: Kurosaki-san's passion and dedication to singing has always been inspiring me. I wish you a Happy Birthday. Ranmaru: If I'm going to do something, then I sure as hell will be doing it for real. Aren't we all similar in one way or another? I can definitely feel that passion in you.

<Ren> Ren: Happy Birthday! I would love to have us compete with each other's passion on the stage more often. Ranmaru: To think there'd be a time when I hear such words coming out of your mouth. Sure, I'll take you seriously whenever you want.

<Syo> Syo: Happy Birthday! I had a lot of fun eating out together with you, Senpai. If you don't mind, may I invite you again sometime? Ranmaru: Sure. If I recall, there's a place you and I haven't been there yet. I'll contact you about it later so check your phone, 'kay.

<Cecil> Cecil: I wish you a Happy Birthday! I prepared you a large onigiri for today's celebration! It's filled with meat! Ranmaru: Oh man, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for all the trouble. I'll definitely eat this with all my heart.

<Reiji> Reiji: Ran-Ran, Happy Birthday! We've been together for a very long time now, haven't we~ I'm in your care from tomorrow onwards☆ Ranmaru: Sure. In exchange, you'll be buying me a meal for today, 'kay. Aa~h, I'm so hungry for some delicious food.

<Ai> Ai: Happy Birthday. Make sure you don't overeat too much for today, okay? Since you'll be getting a lot of foods from everyone. Ranmaru: Good grief, and that's according to your speciality analysis I assume? But well, thanks I guess. You can have some of my food if you want.

<Camus> Camus: Happy Birthday. I hope you can at least keep quiet for today… Ranmaru: Either you want to celebrate me or belittle me, you better choose one. Damn it, I still can't accept that this guy is actually younger than me.

<Eiichi> Eiichi: Happy Birthday. I'm lucky to have you as a rival to compete for the top. Let me say my thanks to you. Ranmaru: Good grief, you and your big talk. Your music ain't that bad, I give it to you. We also don't have any intention losing to you either.

<Kira> Kira: Happy…Birthday. If there's a chance…I'd like to talk about piano rock with you. Ranmaru: Oh yeah now that I think about it, you play piano didn't you. It seems like I can have a bit of good discussion with you. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks.

<Nagi> Nagi: Happy Birthday☆ You slept at the studio the other day, didn't you~? Nagi was clearly watching after all☆ Ranmaru: Isn't it obvious to take a rest on your sleeping time. Eat when you're hungry, and sleep when you're sleepy. You should also make sure to note that in your head.

<Eiji> Eiji: It's your birthday today, right? Happy Birthday. I was deeply moved when I saw your bass performance the other day… Ranmaru: Heh, looks like you and I could get along well. I also thought that your singing was actually pretty good. Thanks for the birthday wish.

<Van> Van: Happy Birthday! I heard that it's your birthday today. I watched your music talk on TV the other day. It's really intriguing. Ranmaru: Oh, that program show. It's not that big of a deal to keep up with it. But well, I guess it's only natural when you make a living with music itself.

<Yamato> Yamato: A powerful and strong performance is good, isn't it. It means that the result of your hard work is paid off. Don't forget to practice even if it's your birthday today. Ranmaru: Heh, you sure knew your stuff. I already went for a run today, and I also plan to do some training later too.

<Shion> Shion: Happy Birthday. I heard that you have a talent for sleeping. It is said that you can sleep dexterously anywhere with ease… Ranmaru: Who the hell is spreading such a rumour… Oh well, it's not a big deal. Thanks for the birthday wish.

#live emotion #kurosaki ranmaru

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cupoftrembling · 27 days ago

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Alterity

Jamais vu.

Jamais vu is not a new concept, the idea of knowing without knowing. To know which way the sun rises, without ever once seeing the dawn, that is jamais vu. To hear the child’s melody on the air is jamais vu. To know where, just right, to sneak the knife in is jamais vu. Every culture across the Askaven Continent is aware of jamais vu. Of course, there are different reasons why one experiences it. Some theorize that there is a collective weft of the mind that connects each and every one of us. The idea is that, when we think something, it joins the Grand Weft of Isosa. A weft that we all have access to and can pull resources from. A memory bank that allows, across time and space, a connection between one another.

Others think that at every moment we constantly extrude harmonic striations; the way our bodies interact with the air sends out signals to anything and everything, constantly displaying our true intentions to one another. Those who follow such ideas say that jamais vu is just us picking up on the harmonic resonance of one another, intuiting one’s desire as our own. When I focus and know, beyond knowing, the story the man who sits in front of me was told by his father when he was a child, it is simply me picking up on his body language and pheromones at any given point. That these jamais vu’s are just biological impulses that we are, to one degree or another, receptive to.

I am not here to debate the merits of which theory is correct.

Because they all call the experience jamais vu. A Mariposian word. At the center of this concept, like at the center of all things, is Mariposa. Derived from the name of a fallen angel of Auleen, the words “jamais vu” have infected the very discussion of the topic. Whenever I broach one of my contemporaries, how few they are indeed, they discuss the merits of the different social philosophies surrounding jamais vu. But the language, it does not matter. Empyrial, Mariposian, Celestial, Eastern, Algeran. Each of them talk about the concept using the cage of language that is jamais vu.

“Why?” I ask them, hands wrapped around a leather bound journal. “Surely, your own tongue must have the words for jamais vu?” I plead with them, my eyes wet with concern and with frustration.

They blink back at me, their own eyes glazed over with some sort of deep understanding. As if whatever words, whatever concept, has been kept from them, locked away in the vault by the supplanting arcane taradiddle. “I’m sure there are.” They rationalize, “But what else could it be but jamais vu?”

Jamais vu: A thief of a concept that makes a home in places it is not welcome. They know, without knowing, that the Mariposian word is the most accurate, most well conceived word for what we experience every day.

What Reva experienced on that boat, in the cold, salt brined waters off the coast of Ashosh Ai could only be described as jamais vu.

There were four people on that boat that dreadful day. Reva was the abjur of the group, the one specialized in defensive and negative magics. Herah was the muscle who wore a scar across the bridge of his nose. Formen of the Wastes was a prevoker whose own magics suffused sinew and bone. And Mirabell was the pretty little skald from foreign shores.

And then there was Dawn.

She sat at the back of the boat, hand on the rudder of their all but silent vessel. Salt soaked water stuck to the edge of her brow, slicking her blonde hair back tight against her scalp. Each of these thieves were all dressed in Dawn’s favorite shade of purple, mirrored in outfit by their patron. She wore a grin, pernicious and deceptive, wide on her face. It didn’t sit right to Reva, who had seen that smile several times. It was almost as if her mouth was too wide, or too deep, for her face. Ravenous, as the Wolf had often been described to be. Her teeth too sharp, her tongue too dextrous. Dawn’s mouth was something to fall into, to be ensorcelled by.

Dawn’s other hand, the one resting on her slacks, had a single, plain gold band around her ring finger. She fiddled with it with her thumb. A wedding ring, a Mariposian practice. Dawn was not married, or if she was she gave no care or concern for her wife, as Reva’s own experience had shown her. But the noise that Dawn made as she rubbed that ring drilled a thought into Reva’s mind. It was louder than the engine, louder than the crashing of waves, louder than the prattling rainfall. It was a clear moment, obliterative of any other thought or sense that might have been had.

It was a sunny day in Mariposa, and the air was thick with the smell of lavender berries. Dawn was walking, hand in hand, with a woman who Reva had never seen before. Long, auburn hair and skin that smelled like an old book. History. She knew, beyond knowing, that this unfamiliar woman usually wore her hair up in a small, tight bun, but that Dawn liked it down. Dawn reached down to a stand, picked up an apple, her daughter’s favorite, and placed it in a small, handspun wicker basket. She was smiling in a way that was not her own smile, a smile that looked unfamiliar to Reva. Something natural, something more akin to the human form. The woman smiled back. And then, she was gone.

But Dawn, she remained smiling the same way that she had, moments before the not-quite-a-memory had wormed its way into Reva’s mind. Her eyes had narrowed, as if she was aware of the abjur’s intrusion into something private. Her thumb was now as far away from that ring as possible. “Got something on my face?” She half joked

“Yea, that look you give me.” Reva brushed off the memory. It was something she wanted to imagine, something that she felt she wanted. Perhaps that was Reva’s future she was picturing. It was almost convincing enough, like a hand on the back of your neck or a sword over your head you can almost swear isn’t there. Reva smiled as the boat glided through the water.

Dawn smiled back and looked towards the shore, only moments away. With her ringed hand, she reached into her vest and drew her revolver. Snubnosed, and easily concealable, it was not a model you or I would be familiar with. Completely bespoke, made by the perilous thief herself. It had a silver frame with pearl handles. The cylinder of bullets inside of it, much like the revolvers of the weaponsmiths of Mariposa that had inspired it, dripped with a sort of chill. As if anticipatory, they made no noise. They did not hum like the acausal bullets of other guns. A weapon, silenced. A breath, held.

The boat hit the shorebank, jostling Reva from her seat. She lurched forward and caught herself on the rope handle of the craft. Only one person stood on the shore: a tall, stout knight with hair interlaced with the flowers of summer. He looked regal, in the same way a blade might. He eyed the party with suspicion. Formen of the Wastes took a step off the boat and, noticing the sentry, raised a long rifle to meet his eyeline. The Wastral looks through the slits of his wide helmet, eyes wide and jittery from the ampule of Auleen’s Blessing he had hidden in his nose. He tells himself it was to calm a shaky hand, and I am sure at some point he had been correct.

Dawn raised her hand and placed it on Formen’s barrel, lowering the rifle to the ground. “Friend, not foe.” She smirked. “At least, as friend as we get.”

The sentry rushed towards the landing party. Mirabell stretched her legs and caught a dirty look from Reva. Mirabell had too long of fingers to be human and that smile she wore looked a bit too wild to be anything but trouble. She looked like a mockery of the human form, flesh stretched out over too much body. She dug her toes into the sand underneath of her and sighed a breath of relief.

“Ah, good to be home.” Mirabell's grin grew wider as she stretched her arms behind her head. Reva hears a sickening crunch as bones settled back into some new, terrible shape. “Been too long, Ashosh Ai.”

The Sentry descended on them, pulled his plumed helmet from his head, and furrowed his brow. His eyes were like Mirabell’s, constantly sparkling with a light not quite there. “Mrs. Allcott, you’re late. You’re almost three hours late” His voice was somber, as if at a wake. Reva draws her pistol for a reason she can’t quite place. “I’ve put a lot on the line here just-”

“Brightwind, it's me you’re talking about.” Dawn took a step towards the man and placed a reassuring hand, the one with the ring on it, on his shoulder. She smiled wide in a way that always made Reva weak in the knees. “I’d never put you in a position where I’d let you down, right?”

Reva turned towards the castle behind the shore as her employer and their contact began to talk. Herah was standing off to the side, observing the treeline just above the shore.

“You good?” Reva raises an eyebrow, quietly joining him. Herah was a tall, wide man. Short, cropped hair kept tight to his scalp. Burned onto his arm, right where his shoulder meets neck, was a small flower. Segmented in seven different petals. The symbol of Mariposa’s merchant army, employed for any sort of conflict the kingdom would ever need. She never asked how he got the scar on his nose.

“I don’t like how exposed we are right now. We should have landed up the coast a bit.” He motioned towards a small bay further up the shoreline. It sat in the castle’s shadow, the brickwork looming against the sun. Somewhere, above them, they could all hear a song. Mournful, cruel, with notes disharmonic and dissonant. Reva fought the urge to cry, yet a single, lonesome tear rolled down her cheek. “Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could stumble upon us and alert the whole island.”

“It's closer to the castle than we are.” Reva shrugged. “Maybe Dawn knew it’d be more guarded.”

“I like Dawn and all,” Herah glanced down at his companion. “But something tells me she didn’t think through the plan that hard.”

“She hasn’t gotten us killed yet.”

“That she hasn’t.”

A moment passed. The wind whipped and howled, stirred into frenzy by the storm on the horizon that never seemed to get closer. The singer shifted melodies, the lyrics now about Reva’s childhood, about being lost and scared. This she knew, even if the words were foreign to her. About being stuck in the underbrush, about it getting dark and no one coming to find you.

“Do you think we’re actually after a panpipe?” Reva rubbed her arms, as if to stave off a chill. Herah looked at the woman with confusion. The air was damp and heavy with wet, hotter than the Cambion Coast. “I mean, seems pretty banal.”

“I try not to think about what we’re here to do.”

Reva raised an eyebrow. Behind them, Dawn laughed loudly, as if hearing the best joke ever told. Nobody buys it. “Is this a special case?

“No, it’s not.” Herah sighed, eyes skirting downwards. “We’re here to take something of value from someone who values it. It makes me sad to think about it for too long.”

Reva smiled and clapped the mountain of a man on his back. “You’re in the wrong profession, friend.”

“Can’t help what I’m good at.” He smiled back at her.

“You can, though.” Reva’s smile dropped, just a bit. It is softer now. Sadder, almost.

“Yeah, but.” Herah looked out towards the sea. There was a storm out there, somewhere. A roiling, boiling thunder that kept the sky alight. He could feel it, he just couldn't see it. He shuddered off the thought, letting it roll from the back of his neck. “This is easier. More right, I guess.”

Reva frowned and looked down. Herah placed a large hand on her shoulder.

“It doesn’t feel right.” Reva chided, feet kicking an errant shell.

“Chin up, Rev.” Herah’s thumb rubbed where Reva’s neck meets her shoulders. It is the same motion her mother used to do, years ago. Comforting. It is not something he had ever done before, nor was it anything he’d most likely do again. “Maybe I’ll steal you something shiny, something just for you.”

“It's time.” A gruff voice came from behind them -- Formen. His long rifle was slung over his shoulder. His clothes were long and flowing, like clouds that flew too high. His helmet wasImperial make, Reva noticed the moon with the sword driven through it that he tried to scratch out, but whether he had it because of his background or because the Western Wastrals trade almost exclusively with the Empire of Night was unknown. The cloth that wrapped around his hands was black and red, fabrics intertwining and woven together to make something that kept out the cold but wicked sweat away. He looked good standing on the sand, steady, as if he was born for it.

“The boss want us?” Herah raised an eyebrow. Formen nodded. The storm would have to wait. “That’s all I’ll need to hear. Reva, come on.”

Reva nodded in return. The sentry had replaced his helmet at home point, and was now standing next to Mirabell, who’s smile was wide and childlike, right where the sand turns to grass. Dawn was a couple steps behind, gun drawn, wheat blonde hair slick with the salt of sweat and the sea. A small path unfurled in front of them, through the thick brush and unnaturally dense trees. A small, stone arch demarcated the trail. Reva walked, feet already feeling heavy and worn. She fought the urge to catch up with Dawn, to walk in lockstep with her. It made her feel childish whenever she did, as if she was a little lost dog following around its master.

Brightwind put his hand up and the group stopped with him. He looks back and grins. Past the helmet, past the visor and the mystery of whoever this man was, Reva recognized something. Something primal, something pure.

Pride.

“Stick to the path, friends. To where I step.” He said, tongue uncoiling like a snake between his lips. “There are old things here. The Sundance Throne is an hour walk from here, and the ceremony has already begun.”

“You hear the man, right?” Dawn looked back at her thieves, her perilous cadre. “You wanna live long enough to get paid, you gotta respect this place. It sure as shit don’t respect you.”

The thieves all grunted in approval and, in a moment, were swallowed by the wilds.

If you’ve never been to the Sundance Throne in its prime, I pity you.

Imagine, if you will, a castle nestled deep in some primordial forest. The stones interlaced with flowers and vines, the arches tastefully decayed. Banners that ripple in slight wind, heralding pristine monarchical traditions that predate the very sands of time. On the air, fruit and song and revelry carried like pollen, like breath. It was infectious. It was an Avalon of a better, more right age. An age of gallantry and of knights, in which rule did not need maintaining and all was right and in its own place.

It was like a place out of Reva’s storybooks, the ones her mother read to her as a child. She would sit on her mother’s lap, light flickering slightly overhead as she read to her. The only scion of a minor corporate noble in Mariposa, Reva would have needed to be well versed in the world, even the parts of it that never have been true. She would ride on her nursemaid’s shoulders like she was a grand steed, strike the head cook in the back of his head with a rolled up piece of paper as he had his smoke.

She placed a hand on one of the stone bricks of a dilapidated archway as they exited the forest. It was like the archway that demarcated her old chateau in the countryside. If she looked hard enough, cared to scour over every inch of the brickwork, she knew she could find her old initials somewhere on here. Faded, time worn, but still there.

Dawn looked at Reva with pity first, and then slight annoyance. In her hand, just hidden by her sleeve, was her snubnosed revolver. Her thumb was on the hammer of the weapon. She had no illusions of what this place could be. But she was not a cold woman, nor a cruel one.

“It's beautiful.” slipped from Reva’s mouth in a moment of un-vigilance. “How long has this place been here?”

“No idea.” Dawn shrugged, voice modulating in odd ways. “You ask the queen of this place, she’d say forever.”

Formen grunted. “I’d rather not ask her a thing.”

There was a slight pause, pregnant and awkward. Reva coughed. “Right.”

“Always the serious one.” Dawn smirked, hand still pressed tightly to her revolver. “Can’t let the pretty girl have a bit of fun?”

“Fun can be had after the job, miss.”

Their guide had put his helmet back on, but Reva knew the weight of the gaze of the glaring eyes beneath. They were the eyes of the Queen of this place.Judgemental, right, and true: this Reva knew without knowing. He quickly disappeared into the oncoming crowd.

Reva was surprised to see this many bodies here, on an otherwise deserted island. From the beachfront, the castle looked dilapidated. Banners flew and waved, but they were tattered. And the wilds had long overtook this place. Here, now in the shadow of the Sundance Throne itself, this all remained true. But there was a certain air of pageantry to the decay now. The vines that, from the distance of the shore, looked as if haphazard and random now had the arrangement of parade streamers, brightly petaled flowers almost looking like triangular banners. The heavy canopy disguised the equally dilapidated, and yet still inhabited, stone and thatch buildings underneath them.

And the people --

Maybe hundreds were approaching this grand, stone circular stage. It reminded Reva of the sacrificial circles of the Orcish Hinterlands. Places that the old and ancient Orcs once had inhabited before turning to Isosa worship, now used only during holidays and ceremonies. However, over the years, the sacrifices became more and more symbolic, with men and women throwing pieces of burning memories into the center of the circle.

These, however, looked just as active as ever. In fact, it was the only structure in the square that had no vegetation across it at all. Even the grass that creeped along the party’s feet, the grass that made Reva wish to take her boots off and feel it between her toes, thinned and disappeared as it approached the stone structure, replaced with the sandy shoal that this island was no doubtidly made from. Reva knew, beyond knowing, what rituals were performed here. And for who they were performed on.

She pretended her shudder was from the sea air.

All manner of folk were here in the Sundance Throne, from all corners of the Askaven Continent. Long fingers, straw hair, big pointed grins. There were Orcs and Humans and Elves and all manner of things which are not those. Long, slender things who look almost like you or I. Things that hide between blades of grass. Things who hide between bolts of lightning.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Mirabell grinned her toothy grin. Her shoes were still off and the blades of grass wrapped themselves around her toes. She looked back at Reva and grabbed the abjur’s hand. “Not another place on the continent like it.”

Reva clenched her fingers around Mirabell’s. They felt like worms, writhing around beneath her skin. “Maybe not another place like it in existence.”

“Maybe,” Mirabell continued. “Just maybe, I can show you around after the job is done.”

Reva looked around her. Her companions, Dawn, had left. Formen, most likely, absconded to some high tower or parapet to look over the courtyard. Herah and Dawn folded into the crowd, becoming like them. Even now, with how intimately she knew her employer, she would not, could not, be able to identify her. She has become, for this moment and for what felt like forever, a stranger. She steeled herself and, delicately, looked at Mirabell.

“This place is your home?” Reva asked, the question heavy on her tongue. Her throat was dry. Mirabell wrestled down the need to flee, to grab her something to drink. “This queen is your queen.”

“Aye.” Mirabell responded, thumbs rubbing across Reva’s palm. Her brogue is heavy, thicker now than it had been. The crowd of almost people and never-weres envelop them as they walk. Their bodies are warm to the touch, radiating that sickly sweaty heat. Somehow, somewhere, trumpets began to blare. “You’re wondering why I would steal from her.”

Reva nodded.

Mirabell looked over across the courtyard, past the canopy of trees, past the banners and flowers and the birds with human eyes. She saw it, dear reader:The Sundance Throne, the castle of Queen Titania. And, from its tallest spire, a voice echoed across the island. It sang an old song, older than words, but not older than stories. A single, lonely aria of all that you've never wanted to hear.

“Because I love her.”

Reva raised an eyebrow. “An odd reason.”

“This queen, like all queens I suppose, is more than an individual.” Mirabell gripped Reva’s hand that bit tighter. “She is, she can be, everything we can aspire to be. The limit of our bodies is the limit of hers. And when she is resplendent, like the sun, that is wonderful. There would be wind in our sails and beneath our wings.”

“But when she isn’t…”

“Exactly. I love my Queen, but she will kill me.” Mirabell glanced downwards. “She will kill all of us.”

“How?”

“The world has changed, and she has not. Or maybe she has, and I just have not noticed. We are not creatures made for this place.”

Reva smiled, a single tear rolling down her cheek. An effect of the song, an effect mirrored in her companion. “You can be, though. You can break yourself into shape.”

“What do you think I’m trying to accomplish here?” Mirabell laughed slightly to herself. “I wouldn’t have agreed if I did not believe I could.”

Reva nudged her companion with her shoulder. “Are you our secret benefactor?”

“Hah!” She smiled. The wind was cool between the two of them. Mirabell remembered the first time she had met this ‘secret benefactor’. The smoke filled room, the velvet cushions, the mournful piano that echoed through the manor. A single, plain gold ring on a long finger. Mirabell touched it to her lips and Reva’s mouth tastes like datura and ash. Mirabell let go of her hand. “Maeve I am not.”

“So you’ve met her?”

“Once. She was beautiful. Hair like fire, with these long satin white gloves that extended past her elbow.”

“She sounds resplendent.”

“She is.” Mirabell sighed. “We’ll meet her after this job is complete. In Mariposa.”

Reva smirked. “From one Queen to another, huh?”

“We live in a world of Queens,” Mirabell looked towards the horizon, where the sun meets the storms. “Queen Mariposa, Queen Titania, even Isosa above us. There are the common, and then there is the uncommon. Masters and slaves.”

“What about us? Those would spit in the eyes of the Queens. The servants who swipe the silverware from the table.”

“We hope and we pray that no one knows us enough to categorize us as either or. That is where we die, Reva, when we are known.”

A small, faint crack of lightning echoed across the sea. Reva flinched. Beside her, a man with vines woven between his beard glared at her. His eyes were like diamonds, cold and hard. White, as if he was blind. His hair was thick and braided with moss and lichen. He looked like an old yew tree, standing tall on a hill above large, rolling cliffs. On his hip, a broad sword of white stone. On his back, a titanic bow, hand bent from that ancient tree. There was no string, and no arrows either. On his hands, Reva knew, there was blood. This man glared at her, acknowledging her flinch. Reva knew in his eyes that she was an outsider. That no true son of Ashosh Ai would flinch at the storm.

And that is when the sky, grand as she was, opened her mouth.

“Children of Ashosh Ai! Those who love me and are loved in return!”

The voice of the sky was sharp, cutting through the air like ozone and blood. Reva’s head snapped towards the source of the noise but she couldn’t quite find what caused it.

“For years, my outrider knights have braved the dark places of this cruel world.”

The man in front of Reva grunted, stepping between Reva and the stage in front of her. He was tall and broad, rolling hair cascading in curls down his shoulders. His bow rested on his neck like the plow of some grand draft animal. In his beard, the flowering vines blossom. He glared down at Reva, moisture clinging to the hair around his mouth. The sun haloed his head and it was as if the fire itself surrounded him.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” His voice was coarse, like loamy sand. Reva, truly, had no idea what he meant by that. “Who do you report to?”

Reva swallowed hard and tasted the bile rising in her throat. “Um.”

The sky continued to speak: “To shine my light deep into the untrue alcoves and hidden enclaves.”

The man took another step toward her. Around his neck, a small knot of wood. Between the ridges and lines of the plant’s matrix, a small light glows. Red, like autumn leaves. “You’re not an outrider. I know all of them. So, you have to be one of their crewmates, right?”

Reva cannot tell if he’s merely goading her or playing some sort of cruel joke. His face, old and scarred, was not jocular. His hands were the perfect size of Reva’s neck. He could, would, crush her in a moment. Not a magick in the world would save her. This she knows.

“To carve truth into a world of lies.”

“I’m with Vanglorious.” Reva stammered the first name she can think of., the knight she entered with.

The man in front of her smiled. “No you ain’t.” He took another step toward her. “I know his crew. Good neighbors, one and all.”

“To cleave peace from war.”

“New hire.” The words roll from off her tongue, possessed by the spirit of knowledge never known. “After Bittersmith ate it outside the Cambion Coasts.”

“To fulfill our purpose in this cruel place.”

“I could call him up. See who’s bandying around his name.” He gripped Reva’s hand tight. She felt her bones starting to buckle, a small hairline fracture around one of her carpals. Her skin blooms with immediate bruising.

Reva’s eyes narrowed. “You should do that.” She drew her gun.

“Ser Yew, please forgive me.” Mirabell whispered as she, too, freed her weapon, a small wooden knife from her sleeve. It was sharp as iron and it slipped in between where Ser Yew’s ribs would have been. Mirabell twisted the t-shaped handle as the knight’s hand gripped her back in an approximation of camaraderie. He didn’t cry out, doing so would be an insult to his station. He just gripped Mirabell like she was an old friend and locked eyes with her. She smiled warmly.

The sky cracked with violence. On the curl of its lips, the voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. “We have company.” The crowd turned to face the unwelcome. In their eyes, the flash of lightning. Like the eyes of animals caught in a beam of light. All individuality, all sense, all compassion wiped clean in a moment. Ser Yew drops Reva’s hand. Mirabell twists the knife up, driving it so far deep that her fingers themselves pierce his skin.

Behind her, another set of fingers lace through Reva’s other hand. The skin is calloused and bitter. A mechanic’s hands, a thief's hands --Dawn’s hands. Mirabell locks eyes with Reva. In a moment, all of what might be flashes before her eyes. Smokey rooms and a panpipe in the hands clad in scarlet. A place for peace. She can give Reva nothing but this.

“Run.”

Mirabell was torn limb from limb. The crowd descended on her like wolves on a lamb. Verdant viscera and bone and sinew and gore splattered on their muzzles. Hands. Claws. A flash of white teeth marred in the violence. Biting and tearing. Reva tried not to see it. Tried to shut her eyes to it as she flees through the flood of the crowd, all clamoring to sink their teeth into Mirabell’s flesh. She tried to block out reality, keen her mind on her footfalls in front of her, to what place might approximate safety here. On the hand in her hand. Tight, desperate, and together.

She failed, every time.

Dawn slammed the door behind them, chest heaving from exertion. Reva threw her hands to her knees. Her chest burned, lungs coiled in knots from the running. Her hands trembled, dousing her pants in Mirabell’s blood. Green blood. Reva always hated being right. The room they found themselves in appeared to be empty, a boon, and limited to only one entry, a bane. It seemed to be a small mess room, with windows looking out towards the courtyard. A tapestry hung on the opposite wall, a burning tree emblazoned in its heart. The courtyard out the window was the same that Reva thought she was in just moments ago. The crowd was restless, even from this distance that much was clear. Queen Titania had disappeared, along with her entourage.

“How, ah.” Reva caught her breath. “How long were we running for?”

“Not sure.” Dawn lied. Forty-three minutes almost exactly. “Fey magic, makes time pass funny.”

“So they are fey.” Reva shot Dawn a look. From outside the door, she could hear running, faint shouting. They were looking for her. Looking for them. They will do to Reva what they did to Mirabell. Rip her flesh from her bones, floss their teeth with her hair. She will be made nothing. Rewa locked her eyes with Dawn’s, her glare knife sharp. This woman is her killer. Reva shoved her harder than she intended to. “You should have told us this, Dawn.”

Dawn glared back at her. They should have made it to the center of the castle by now, they’re just wasting time now. “Yea well, would you have gone otherwise? Gotta be worth all the coin I was gunna give you.”

“No.” Reva sighed and followed Dawn’s eyeline. “Babe, you can’t just lie to me like that.”

Dawn crossed the room and looked back at Reva over her shoulder. “I can, though. At the end of the day, you came with. I didn’t hold a gun to your head.” Dawn motioned over to the crowd. “You wanna see if they’re any nicer than me?”

Reva broke their gaze. “I don’t, no.,” her mouth thinned into a hard line. “But we’re only making it through this if we’re a team, Dawn.”

“Yeah.”

“And I deserve some answers.” Reva crossed the room to be next to her employer. Not her lover, not her friend. At least, not at this current moment. “Who hired us?”

“A noble out of Mariposa.” Dawn shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that.”

More shouting from outside the door. A bit closer now. Reva’s hands began to shake. “What are we stealing?”

“A panpipe.” Dawn replied. Her eyes were focused on the door. “I didn’t lie ‘bout that.”

“Do you know why it's special enough to get Mirabell killed?”

Dawn blinked. “No.” She lied.

Reva sighed. “You’re in the dark as much as we were then, fuckin figures.”

Dawn raised a hand to the nearby hanging tapestry. Her fingers traced along the flames of the burning Castle Elphame like they had along the bumps of Reva’s spine. Her face was inscrutable, but her touch was gentle, as if the threads were woven braille, a message only her hands can parse. Reva’s eyes softened at the sight, her shoulders untensing. This was a side of Dawn that Reva knew. Dawn’s fingers reach Durandal. Here, he was depicted in a small, almost childlike manner. In his hands, he was holding a silver blade, like a shard of moonlight. His fingers bleed, as do his eyes. Next to him, his adversary: The Wolf. Her head is shaved, her eyes covered in soot. She is smiling with thousands of teeth. Behind them both, the Wyld burns. The death of all fey. This was a tapestry depicting the Fall of Elphame, the time when the fey lost their immortality. A child’s story.

“This must be The Blade Awoke.” Reva remarked, off-handedly. “Titania’s daughter who became her son.”

“Durandal.” Dawn said. “You’ve heard the stories then?”

“Don’t quite think they’re just stories anymore.” Reva cast another quick glance at the window. “A fey believed so strongly in a cause, that he broke his name to serve his mother. He became a weapon to stop The Wolf.”

Dawn chuckled. “Didn’t work, did it?”

“No, but,” Reva smiled “I think it's a sweet story. To believe, so strongly, that you might change who you are.”

“You see love here?”

Reva reached over to put a hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “Who wouldn’t?”

Dawn couldn’t decide if she wanted to smile or frown. She produced a knife from her scarf and tore it into the fabric. Her knife cut through the strands of history, excising Durandal from the story.

“What are you doing?” Reva says in a half-laugh, as if forgetting where they are.

“I dunno,” Dawn lied. She kept cutting, tearing fabric away until just the Wolf remained. She now burns alone, fighting an enemy long defeated. Blades raised with nothing there to cut or rend. “I wanted to do it, so I did. Keep a little souvenir here. Of love.”

Reva frowned. Is she making fun of her? Dawn was a lot of things, but cruel she was not. At least, Reva wanted to believe that. She tried to reach across to Dawn, to see what she might be thinking. What she might be feeling. She attempted to force a jamais vu, mind keening on a singular want and desire. To know Dawn better, to attempt to bend this woman she loves into a shape Reva can understand. There is nothing for her efforts. All she sees is Dawn and the mystery woman on that sunny spring day in the Mariposa market. The same vision she saw on the boat. Dawn narrowed her eyes. Her thumb rubbed along her ring in her closed fist. She could feel the intrusion on the back of her neck, like a shiver before a rumbling storm across a city. So her mind shifted, directing the attention to what she wanted to be seen feeling.

“You’re a weapon, aren’t you.” Reva chided. She was being metaphorical, her disappointment in Dawn’s intrusion dripping from her words. “I attempt to bridge the gap, you cut me away. You were made to hurt.”

“No, I’m not.” Dawn placed her hand along the fraying fabric of the tapestry. Durandal used to be there. And now, he is not. She holds him in her hand. “It was something I chose to be.”

“You can choose to not be it, too.” Reva considered the gap between them once more, but thought better of trying to bridge it once more. “If you wanted to.”

“We have a job to do, Reva.” Dawn looked back at her and smiled in the same way she once did to her wife. The same way she had in the memory Reva had plucked. “We can talk about what I want to be once we’ve survived and we’re rich.”

“Ah,” Reva refocused, remembering with sudden clarity exactly where she was. The voices are distant again. They do not know where they are -- yet. “Yeah.”

“Come on.” Dawn sighed going for the door. Towards the unsafety of the castle. “Maybe we can meet up with the others.

Reva always follows her.

In front of them, Herah’s blood pooled as he slumped against the credenza. Muddy red and brown fading into the threaded gold of the carpet. He was frowning, his face permanently held in slight puzzlement. Reva had never seen him frown before, or if she had all thought of it was obliterated from her mind by what was before her. In his hand, a small gold idol. Many hands and all sharp angles. Something shiny, just for her. Reva brought a hand to her own mouth, blocking a silent scream.

Above him, Vainglorious Brightwind, Third Outrider Knight of Queen Titania the Eternal. His armor shone with all the fierceness of the Sun, like he was something out of a storybook. It caught light that wasn’t there, refracting the gilded bricks and fabrics of the Sundance Throne. He lifted his alabaster cape towards his blade and cleaned Herah’s blood from it. His helmet, which had bornDurandal’s likeness on the front, was discarded at his feet, the solemn visage shattered by Herah’s errant gunshot.

“Brightwind…” Dawn sighed. In her hand is her silvered revolver. A frail thing. Her fingers gripped tight around the pearl handles. Knuckles white.

“Don’t you ‘Brightwind’ me, Allcott.”

“You’ve killed my employee.” Dawn motioned towards Herah’s chilling corpse. Reva raised an eyebrow in disgust at Dawn. An employee? The tattoos on Reva’s hands began to glow white hot.

Brightwind laughed, hollow and shrill, like he was trying to hide it from some prying ears. “My Queen ordered this man dead personally.” His gloved hand struck his chestplate. Right over his heart. Maybe he saw Dawn looking there. Maybe he saw the errant twitch in her fingers. Maybe, just maybe, he felt it on the wind. But here, even beneath that armor, his heart was exposed. Imperiled. “You know what she would do to me if I were to disobey.”

Dawn centered her pistol, leveled at his chest. Brightwind’s hands trembled.“Yeah, what I’d do to you would be a blessing, right?

“Don’t be like that, Allcott.” Brightwind took a step forward. The hammer on Dawn’s revolver clicked.

“Like what?”

“Unreasonable.” Another step. Herah’s body was reflected in his shining armor. Titania gave that armor to him, years ago, for leading her people from the Wyld to wherever new hell this place was. Vainglorious kept it polished to a mirrored sheen. Even if the light got too bright, even if the sun reflected off it in his eyes. He would never stand to have it sullied. “She was behind me. What else was I supposed to do?”

“You respect your queen enough to kill for her,” fell out of Reva’s mouth, “But not enough to keep us from stealing from her.”

“Leash your pup, Allcott.”

Reva’s vision flashed red. “What the fuc-”

“You don’t get to call her that.” Dawn cut her abjur off. “You’re no better. Reva’s right, you jumped at the chance to betray her, you know, as long as your ass wasn’t on the line.”

Reva met Dawn’s eyeline, twisting her foot into the carpet, like a viper coiled to strike. It was in the way the light moved around Dawn. It was not passing through her, it was not blocked by her. In this moment, Dawn cast no shadow. She was not radiant. She was not a queen. She would not need servants to kill. This Reva knew.

“I don’t know what-” Brightwind began.

“What I mean?” The side of Dawn’s face is obscured by her revolver. “I mean that you’re a coward. And I don’t do business with cowards.”

And Reva knew --.

She ground her foot against the fine carpet below her, the one sodden and heavy with her friend’s blood. Her tattoos were white hot, glowing like molten metal through the veins of a crucible, and her fists ossified into steel. The muscles of her leg contract and tear, hardening as well. Her veins contracted, slowing her blood flow to a crawl under the pure pressure of transformation. Brightwind was maybe thirty feet in front of her. He kept his eyes on her mate, on the woman holding his death in front of him. She was gleaming, this Reva knows. She was what Reva will disappear into.

She crossed the distance before Dawn could pull the trigger. The thief blinked and, in a moment, Reva was not beside her. Dawn was surprised when she saw her employee in front of her, blocking her shot. No longer is his heart exposed, no longer is his death clean and known. Reva ruined this. Dawn fought the urge to shoot anyway, swallowing down that disgust somewhere deep. Reva’s fist made contact with Vainglorious Brightwind’s chestplate. Though it may be infused with ancient and gleaming magics, bronze will forever remain no match for steel. The breastplate dented like the hull of a sinking ship. A small, sharp gasp shudders past his lips. His feet slipped from underneath him. His blade fell from his grasp. It hit the floor with a clatter that echoed through the halls of the Sundance Throne, heard by all except Dawn, Reva, and Vainglorious Brightwind.

Behind them, Dawn lowered her pistol slightly. Not enough to not be ready if she was needed, but enough to hesitate if she ever was. Enough to miss any shot she might have taken. Reva, on the other hand, remained a blur of violence. She reared her fist back again, skin broken and bloodied from the contact with the metal plate. Clang. She struck him again, another dent in Vainglorious’ armor. Blood flew this time, immolate as it soars through the air. Brightwind stumbled another step back, feet pulling the carpet runner up like waves on the shoreline. His chest was heavy and bruised, blood pooling around a broken rib. His body was not mortal, it was not physical. This is what Titania had promised him, that this armor and this purpose would make him perfect.

And yet, why does it ache?

He could not take another blow. Her fist glowed like fire, her eyes ablaze with rage. He twisted, pulling his broken torso back as he stumbled away at the last moment, and her fist sails past him, carrying her in cruel momentum. She tumbled forward, curling her body so her eyes were still locked on the knight’s in front of her.

“Shit.”

Behind the two of them, Dawn cursed. The ravenous crowd had found its way into the castle. Two of them, mouths and hands stained with Mirabell’s gore, began to lumber towards the three of them, their eyes glowing like an animal caught in firelight, senseless and lost. In their hands, cruel and jagged blades. Even I could not be sure they could tell friend from foe. She glared at Reva and Vainglorious, locked in mortal peril. Reva dropped her weight, arms braced at either side of her. Reva’s fist, iron and stalwart, dripped crimson. It, for a moment, made Dawn’s breath hitch in excitement. It was something so human, to her at least. To raise arms to defend what you love, enough to break yourself for it. Dawn fought a smile as she leveled her revolver against the interference. This was not her fight, but it was one she could ensure they had alone.

Dawn broke into a sprint, blowing past Reva and her knight-errant. Reva bore her fist again in front of her. “Come on, Brightwind. You’re mine.” The words dripped from Reva’s mouth like rabid spit. They froth as they escape from her lips. She lunged forward, hand grasping for Brightwind’s neck. There is exposed flesh there. Something weak, something to break. She would grab him there, crack him open like a crab. Reva, beyond anything, knew that the coward was squishy down to the core.

Three gunshots rang out. Dawn knelt, elbows braced on her thigh. A soldier’s stance to eliminate sway. Pure instinct, beaten into the circuits and servos of Dawn’s very logic. It felt right to hurt, to kill. Two landed dead center onto one of the revelers, the one with straw hair and a sea breeze scent. He dropped to the floor, dead before his mind could comprehend what had happened to him. His companion, a skinny little redhead redcap, brandished bloodied blade and was missed by inches. The redcap let loose a scream and looked down at his erstwhile and new friend, seeing the wounds burn and sizzle from the projectiles. He was made for this moment. To hurt his Queen’s foes.

Brightwind raised his arm to block Reva. Her fist made contact with his vambrace at the moment that Dawn fired another shot and the metal crumpled instantly. Reva’s fist continued it's trajectory, pinning Brightwind’s now useless arm against his sternum. The two of them fell to the floor, legs locked between each other. Their breath was heavy, labored. Reva straddled the knight, teeth bared and hand holding his own arm to his throat. Not enough to choke him, but enough to make his breath shallow and pained. Dawn turned around to see another three knights emerge from where they came from. A large man carried a censer like a flail. He had to lean down to make it through the doorway, barely squeezing through. Behind him, two thin, armored forms with spears that stab and bite.

Dawn cycled her revolver, acausal bullets off gassing their alchemical memories. She still had three shots worth of energy left in the chamber, but the man before her lumbers and takes up the whole hallway. Her thumb ran the rounded edge of the cylinder as she assessed the brute. He wants to luxuriate this, to crush them at his own leisure. To enjoy every feeling of bone snapping against metal. She has the time to reload. Brightwind locked his legs behind Reva’s back and flipped the two of them over towards Dawn. His arm was shattered and useless -- He would not last in a straight up fight. Reva’s hand still clung onto his neck guard. She pulled him in close and ripped the bronze from off his body, rivets and leather tearing uselessly. Her fist lost its hue, hand purple and bloody. Her teeth began to glow white with fire.

His neck exposed.

Her teeth finds purchase in its side.

The large man was above them now. Reva could not see him, eyes shut in rapturous enjoyment. Vainglorious’ blood tasted like clipped grass and white wine, earthy and intentional. She hated how much she enjoyed it. Brightwind let out a garbled scream like an Ortolan drowning in armagnac. Dawn’s pistol leveled at the brute above her lover. The hammer clicked-- a single shot. The man fell to the floor, blood pooling between his eyes. His companions dropped behind him. He is meat now, to be used as a shield. Dawn continued to fire. Flesh tore away from his corpse in chunks. Red and brutal, they flew through the air. The backblast coated Dawn’s face in soot and sulfur. Sparks from metal striking the acuasal bullet screamed in immolate joy, striking her cheek. She did not feel it.

She would not let them take Reva. Not while Brightwind still lived.

Reva pulled away, ripping sullen flesh away from Brightwind’s neck. Green arterial blood shot across glittering golden bricks.The viscera caught in the light, and the hall was filled with a momentary sanguine constellation. Vainglorious Brightwind looked up at Reva Ambrose, only daughter of Misha Ambrose, and watched her swallow. His own green blood stained rivulets down her mouth and the front of her shirt. He brought his hand to his throat to staunch the blood, but there was just too much of him gone, too much missing to keep himself together. He, in that moment, became the first to recognize her for what she really was, that borrowed hunger in her eyes.

And then, at last, he was gone.

The knife in his hands fell to the floor, discarded, useless. In another world, Reva would have hesitated just a moment longer, and his knife would have found purchase in her heart. The two of them would have been intertwined there, raw and bloodied on the floor. Viscera and lifestuff mixed together on millenia old tile and stone.

This, dear reader, this Reva knew.

And then, she heard it: Dawn firing off another salvo from her service weapon. She was standing over the hulking beast of a corpse not six feet from Reva. Her nonfiring hand dug into the neck of something tall and thin and hateful. His companion lay crumpled, riddled with holes. The side of her dominant arm was covered with soot and burns, backblast of repeated shots from her revolver. Her quarry looked up at her like Reva had done numerous times. Reva sees, in that moment, herself in the kneeling man’s position. In wood lined rooms on the road, on silken sheets, in dark pulsing drumbeat backrooms of bars and clubs. Pleading, doe eyes wet with tears and exertion. Dawn raised her thumb to cup the man’s face. It is gentle, almost. Tender. And then Reva sees the bruising around his neck from where Dawn’s boney fingers crushed his windpipe. She places the barrel of her revolver against his forehead like a kiss. He lets out a scream as the hot metal burns his flesh. Dawn narrows her eyes.

She pulled the trigger.

And the man fell to the floor, spent.

There was a moment where the gunshot echoed throughout the hallway. Another, where only their two ragged breaths can be heard. Reva stared at Dawn. Her gaze stays low for a long time, locked on the man beneath her, before she turns her head towards Reva. She half expected her lover to be dead. She saw it, in her mind's eye, that vision of another world like a shiver on the back of her neck. Jamais Vu. The two of them, intertwined in violence on the cold stone of the Sundance Throne. Reva was not dead, though. Her hand was bloodied and bruised. Her mouth dripped with blood not hers. In her eyes, something wild and wolven. But, she was not dead.

The two stared at each other a moment more. Wind whipped outside as a storm began to batter the island of Ashosh Ai. Dawn’s revolver hung by her side, still gripped in Dawn’s white knuckles, her face inscrutable. Blank, like the woman that Reva had known for six years was not there. As if replaced with a simulacrum that Reva might never have known. Another insidious thought crept her way into Reva’s mind. Was that really Dawn? Not the Dawn in front of her now, but the Dawn that she had known. Was she the illusion? Doubt crept, as the cold light of violence obliterated those falsehoods, , replaced Reva’s lover with an automaton of cruelty.

“That’s my Reva.” Dawn said in a voice mechanical and unlike hers. There was no odd modulation, it’s too light and too smooth to be Dawn’s voice. She smiled, but only with her mouth. Small flecks of blood covered her face, but Dawn bore no wounds. It was as if the thing in front of her is a hallucination, unscathed by violent reality. She took a step forward and if Reva had the energy to move back she would have. She climbed down from that massive corpse in front of her and placed a hand on Reva’s neck. Her fingers were cold, and Reva knows this was how they had always felt. She rubbed her thumb along Reva’s lower lip.

And Reva Ambrose began to cry.

“How long are you going to give me the silent treatment?”

This was the first thing that Dawn said to Reva in hours. They had reached the entrance of Titania’s throne room some 30 minutes ago. It was a set of gold doors with no handles and no locks. The tops of them disappeared into the darkness, leaving Reva with a sense of unease. By her internal map, the one that she knew not where it came from, they had reached the top of the Sundance Throne. There was no more ‘up’ to go. And yet, these doors crawled onwards. Anything could be up there. There could be infinite layers to the world, yet uncovered, yet unexplored. This was not how her storybooks ended. In them, there would be a queen beyond these doors. A queen to depose, to unthrone, to usurp. The cruel and wicked tyrant dashed upon the blades of the right and true.

Reva and Dawn were not right, and they were not true. They were thieves in the night. They were never to be known, this was never to be an event that would have been written about. A thing was to disappear and those who steward it would be none the wiser.

Nobody was supposed to die.

But now, this was an event. This moment, where Dawn was fiddling with the lock on a door that had no lock, was to be recorded by someone. It would be pondered and examined and studied. There would be a motive that would be ascribed to the dead and cause ascribed to the actions that followed it. She knew, beyond anything else, that these actions, this perilous theft, would change history in some way. That if the world was to reset, if the Celestial Civil War was to happen again and again, this moment would somehow become fixed in reality itself. That Mirabelle and Herah and Brightwind would always die on this cold, shale island in the middle of nowhere. Try as she might, she may never have been able to save them.

She looked down at Dawn. The lock in front of her is not real, but a simulacrum, manifested.. She had seen Dawn do something like this before, a way to interface with the underlying magick of whatever bound the doors shut. Turing abstract fundaments to reality, making the complex magickal code underneath them simple. Dawn had said before that it requires an intense concentration, that Reva was never to speak as she was performing this lockbreaking. Either Dawn was worried about Reva’s feelings so much to usurp such concern or she never needed the concentration to begin with.

“I’m not.”

“You’re lying to me.” Dawn chided. “Come on, babe. I think we’re beyond that.”

Reva chuffed and clenched her fist absentmindedly. Her two fingers are broken, the rest of her hand is bloodied and bruised. But she survived, and Brightwind did not. “How do you mean?”

“I’ve seen you.” Dawn looked back at her without turning her head. Purple iris shining through past bottle blonde hair. “The real you that I think you’ve kept locked up.”

Reva narrowed her eyes. “How do you mean.” She repeated herself, firmer.

“You’ve never turned your teeth to violence like that. Usually, you keep those for me.” Dawn chuckled, turning her eyes back to her task. “You were radiant.”

“I don’t feel radiant.” Reva looked down at her feet. Her boots were covered in green blood, as was the front of her pants. She felt heavy, wet, soaked and sodden with blood. “I’ve never done that before.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.” She paused. “I saw something. In here.” She tapped absently against her temple with her broken hand.. She winces in pain when the ruined bones make contact.

“What’d you see?”

“I saw Brightwind, um, Vainglorious. I saw him bleeding you dry. I saw him killing me, and then you. And, in that moment, I knew what I needed to become.”

“A set of teeth?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Reva crossed her arms and looked at the door they came from. There were no footsteps, no one would dare to venture this close. The castle’s defenders had to have known where they were, how close they were to their prize. There was no escape, no way out. And yet Dawn continues to press forward.

“Durandal.” Dawn looked back again. Her voice was cold. Mechanical, like the projected lock in front of her. “He did something similar.”

“That’s the story.”

“It's truth. He carved himself into a blade, for the love of his mother.” Dawn looked down at the door again, at her own reflection in the glittering gold. “He changed who he was, fundamentally. Shifted from female to male, broke his name in half.”

“His name?”

“The names of Fae, their true names -- they’re powerful.” Dawn recounted. “If we steal one of them, we could make any fae do anything. Even Titania. We can compel them to unmake themselves.”

“Is that what we’re stealing here, Dawn?” Reva stepped forward, in her eyes she could see that power. Rending the very being asunder, unmaking who they are at their conceptual level. It is what Dawn is attempting to do to this lock, what Reva did when she tore Vainglorious’ throat in half. What happened to Mirabell. “Are we stealing Titania’s true name?”

“I’m a thief, not a revolutionary.” Dawn chuckled. “I’m not in the queen toppling business anymore.”

“Then what are we doing here?” Reva took one more step forward. Her fists are clenched.

Dawn turned around now, facing Reva. She was on her knees, looking up at her former lover. Dawn knew this now. No matter what happened, no matter who survived. The two of them are never to touch each other in love, ever again. “Are you threatening me, Reva? You going to bare your teeth like you did to Brightwind?”

There was a pause. A beat. The air in the room went cold. Reva felt the pieces of Vainglorious fallow in her stomach, the salty brine of his blood in the back of her throat. She felt her teeth grow long and grow sharp, glow white hot with the Wolf’s Rage. And she knows, now, what she is channeling. Wolf magic. Chaos and entropy upon her lips. She took a moment, and breathed. She forces a Jamais Vu, not with Dawn this time, but inwards. Hunting for the capability, to see if there was any part of her who could turn those fangs upon Dawn, the woman she loves.

She never finds it.

“No.”

“Then stop wasting my time.” Dawn turned back around, a look of disappointment on her face. “And fucking let me work, Reva.”

There was another moment of pure silence.

“Who is she?” Reva asks. She regretted it the moment it slips her lips, as if that question, so implied by every interaction, was never to be asked.

Dawn did not turn back around. “Who is who?”

“When I turn to you and focus, and you rub that ring and shut me out, I see a woman. Black hair, messy bun. Spring’s day in Mariposa.”

“Oh,” Dawn said plainly. “Her.”

“You owe me that. Who is she?”

Dawn looked more intently into the lock in front of her. The ring hummed a tone that sounded like spring on the wind. Reva did not need to force a connection to know what she was thinking of. Reva can see Dawn’s reflection in front of her. Before, all she could see was her own reflection. Dawn’s had been absent. Now, the two of them are visible. “Yeah, ok. I can give you that.”

Reva crossed her arms. “Who. Is. She.” She asked now, for a third time. The irony was not lost on Dawn. The compulsion of threes.

“That woman is my wife, ah, ex-wife.”

Reva sighed, letting her breath slip from between her lips. That’s what she had feared. She walked to the window and looked over the island. The crowd was ravenous. They churned like the waves on the sea below them. Torches and swords are held aloft, making them look like glittering stars in the void. The moon looked at them from above, hanging hungry over this tableau. It was not night, not moments ago, but the Lady of Hounds will not be denied.

“You don’t sound too sure. You’re still wearing her ring, after all.”

“We never got divorced.” Dawn paused her ministrations with the lock. “I think she thinks I’m dead. Or wishes I am.”

“I could have forgiven that, Dawn.” Reva looked over at her shoulder. “I always kinda figured I wasn’t your main girl.”

“How’s that?”

“When you kiss me.” Reva breathed. “I can always tell you’re trying to kiss someone else.”

Dawn looked up at Reva, dropping the lock entirely. “And you’d be ok with that?”

“I liked you, Dawn.” Reva looked back at her. In her mind, she pictures this a romance storybook. Where the grand gesture of love might save the day. “You’re brilliant and radiant. I didn’t care in what way, I knew I needed to have you.”

The corner of Dawn’s mouth twitched. She isn’t sure if it was a smile or a frown. “You’re nothing like her, you know.”

“Then, what was she like?” Reva glared at Dawn out of the corner of her eyes.

“You don’t wa-”

“You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t want.” Reva interrupted. “What was she like, godsdamnit?”

Dawn flinched, just for a moment. “I knew she was the brilliant one. Smart as a whip, with eyes that glittered like diamonds. She was ambitious to a fault. That, if the need arose, she'd hurt me if she had to, and I wouldn't be able to fault her. That woman reminded me of someone I knew once.” The words escaped out of her, as if compelled. “She saw through me immediately. Saw through the illusion and the half truths, knew me in a way I hadn’t been known for years. I became her assistant, and we made great things. Beautiful bits of knowledge that have never nor will ever be replicated.”

“So what happened?”

“Later happened. I knew I was falling in love. And I knew that if I loved her, I couldn't, wouldn't, be the thing I promised to be. I'd like to think she wouldn't fault me, but I dunno.”

“You’re right.” Reva looked back at Dawn. She did not think Dawn would look up from her task for this conversation. She knew, beyond knowing, that she did not have that respect for Reva. To be wrong angered her. “I sound nothing like her. Why were you even with me?”

Because Reva was a self pitying pissant. Because Reva was a silly girl who still believes in things like love. Because she was everything like Dawn and nothing like Blair, like Her.

“Because I hate you, and you love me.” Dawn’s voice was cold, but it was not distant. It was not mechanical. It was, for good and for ill, unmistakably Dawn, hard, and hoarse and real.. “We need each other. And that type of thing neither of us could ever give up.”

The lock clicked. It fell to the ground and then disappeared into star stuff. Dawn, still looking at Reva, stands up, shakes her shoulders, and then looks towards the door. It appeared as if nothing had been done to it, but as Dawn raised her finger to it and pushed, it gave way, opening as if some grand giant had compelled it to do so. She disappeared within.

Reva did not move, not for what seems like ages. There was a part of her that wanted to peer into that vault. To see what gilded treasures Titania had hoarded away for centuries. Gold stacked to the ceilings, swords and weapons with names of yore, maps to hidden islands where adventure might yet be found. It was, I am sure, magical to imagine what is in there. And so, unburdened by truth, she continued to stand.

Dawn and I, however, are not so liberated.

The room itself was barren. The coffers of the island had long run dry. Everything on this island served not out of coin, but out of devotion to their lady. Not even cobwebs remained, the spiders that lurked here having long died of eternal starvation. There had been no living being that had stood inside the vault in years. And, at the center of a worn piece of marble fashioned into a pillar, was a small panpipe, standing upright and leaning on nothing. It was wooden, strapped together with vines that smelled like apricot wine. It played the tune of a better story. A kinder one. Dawn raised a hand to it and cradled it gently. It was warm and it felt like love. With her other, she pulls out a small tapestry piece.

Durandal.

It was soaked through with blood and crumpled, but Titania’s son no less. She places the pan pipes within her scarf. And she pauses. A thought crosses her mind. She hefts Durandal in her hand like the cloth weighed more than gold. On his face, now smattered with red and green blood, was woven a brutal scream. A challenge, for a wolf at his door. She smiles warmly, and places him on the pillar.

Reva saw Dawn exit the vault and sighed, eyes closed in contemplation. She opened them and sees Reva, a look passing between them. Dawn’s cheeks were stained with tears but she was smiling, clasping the pan pipe to her chest in both hands. Reva was smiling as well, for no reason in particular. She doesn’t know why she smiles. Dawn looks down at her ring on her finger. That solid gold band that kept Reva from Dawn, the real Dawn. The thing that obscured so much. She moves to take it off.

And then it happened.

Reva did not need to force it this time, and the weight of absolute reality hits her. There is a library, far beyond the horizon, with books that stretch until forever with every kind of knowledge you’ve never wanted to see. At the center of that place, a star, unburdened by time. And at its entrance, a woman with blonde hair stands. Her nose is not crooked and her hair is not curly and her eyes are not purple but it is Dawn. Her natural curls straightened to a painful degree and with her hands nailed behind her back. Her clothes match her eyes, a deep and true azure. Like waves one would get lost in.

A woman with floor length black hair stands in front of her, leaning on the counter and she is smiling like Dawn was smiling at Reva. It is a smile wide enough to get lost in. And in every moment, Reva knew this was what Dawn was protecting, this memory of this woman. What she had kept Reva from at every turn, distracting her with sentimentality and affection. Whenever Reva had leaned in for a kiss, this is who was kissing Dawn back. She leans over the counter, grabs Dawn by her lapel, and plants a single, toothy kiss on her cheek like a maiden sending her knight to war. When she pulls away, there is a mark that will never be washed off.

Reva had seen what she thought Dawn was, in that hallway with Vainglorious. That violent thing, carved from many shaped cruelties and inflicted upon reality. Whether or not that was Dawn at all was irrelevant. Reva knew this to be her lover, now. No longer was she this brilliant woman. No longer was the edge of Dawn’s body the edge of Reva’s mind. And yet, she was standing before her, the grand illusion of Dawn becoming ever so close to shattering. In this light, her skin looked real, with veins and blood and secrets buried just beneath the surface. If Reva tried, if she looked deep within her mind's eye, she could see Dawn’s heart in this very moment, reflected in that black haired woman’s eyes.

This radiant truth scared her.

It scared her because no longer could Dawn be a construct, no longer could she contain Dawn within herself. She would not be the blade in the night or the perilous thief or her lover or any other sort of childish and selfish thing that Reva might need. As the toothy mark on Dawn’s cheek grows ever wider, as the gaps between the then and the now come to a screaming collision, Reva turns away. The room grows cold. Dawn’s ring stops just before her knuckle. Her tears dry up. Behind her, there is the past. The comfortable reality Reva thinks is the truth. Where Dawn would brandish blade and they might be in love. She sees it now. In the market places of Mariposa, in the face of a woman that would never look like her. This would be her future. She could carve away everything from the tapestry of life to make it so. She would become the knife and cut away the present and past to make way for this future.

“In this, I find you.”

Reva never sees it coming.

So lost in this reality was she did not hear the voice of the Queen of All Fey. She did not feel the creeping hands behind her, twelve of them, ghosting her legs, up her body, and wrapping themselves around her very neck. The fingers were as sharp as lightning and gentle as every lover Reva had ever felt. This is what Titania lived in, what drew her to Reva Ambrose. The overwhelming, intoxicating and unbearable reality of the past. Reva did not hear her own bones snapping, or feel the blood pooling in her lungs as the fingers crawled down her open, gormless mouth. All she could hear is a child that is not her’s asking for another apple. She does not feel them tearing and ripping and biting and laughing and rending. All she can feel is a wife that is not her’s talking about the weather. And, in a moment that felt like forever, Reva’s strings snapped, and her body falls limp. And in her glassy, bloodshot eyes, Dawn could see what she is seeing. She could see her own ex-wife infecting Reva’s final thoughts. Dawn didn’t even see herself.

All Dawn could ever have done is run.

Dawn emerged onto the beach just as the storm began to batter the island.

In front of her, Formen of the Wastes. He stood against the boat, rifle resting on the ground next to him. The waves were choppy, but there was no sea that would keep Dawn on this island. She was dripping with blood, and her revolver was running hot. She ran so fast, and so far - thirty nine minutes, fifteen seconds.

“Boss.” He nodded.

“You’re still alive.” Dawn sighed, relieved. From the sky, the queen of this place begins to scream. The clouds roil, the monstrous seas churn. “How?”

He shrugged, his rifle scraping slightly against the boat as it floats against the shore. “I didn’t let anyone get anywhere near me.” He looked up to the castle. It looked so still down here. He couldn’t hear the roiling crowds. “I saw Mirabelle eat it, but I lost track of everyone else.”

“Gone.” Dawn looked back at the castle. “We need to leave now.”

“Shame,” was all Formen could muster. Dawn glared at him out of pure instinct. There was a part of her that understands his blaise attitude, a part of her she wants to think is true. “Hopefully they took some down with them.”

Dawn approached the boat. “They did, they were absolutely beautiful” She looked down at Formen’s rifle and met the eyes of her reflection in its barrel. “At least they died for something.”

“Not like us, huh?” Formen shrugged, picking up his gun and loading himself onto the boat. “Getting rich for nothing?

Dawn followed him onto the boat as well, and would not say a word until the island disappeared into the distance.

#cup of trembling #creative writing #fantasy #writing #dnd writing #dnd #dnd5e #pathfinder #fantasy horror #horror writing #horror #Dawn Allcott #Dawn

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britt-kageryuu · 21 days ago

Text

Clips from various VTurtles! Streams!!

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

Mikey is cooking on stream, and suddenly the pan catches fire. Fully engulfed the pan.

Mikey just steps back, not surprised what so ever, and watches while the fire goes out a few seconds later.

The food in the pan is not burnt, infact it looks perfectly cooked.

Mikey silently removes to pan to plate the food.

==============

Donnie and Leo are playing a 2 Player Excape Room/Puzzle Game.

"I think I found the answer to the puzzle." Leo announced..

"Relieved Sigh. Good what is it." Donnie asked while moving over to Leo's character.

"One of us needs to instruct the other on the order we need to move things."

"I will just memorize the answer thank you very much."

"I give you the wrong answer One time, and I suddenly can't be trusted!"

++++++++++++++

Leo is chatting while playing Pokémon.

"So I was watching Demon Slayer, pretty awesome, cool sword fighting all around." Leo says with a smile, "But, but but! So help me if I can remember any of the characters names past Tanjiro, Nezuko, Inosuke, and whatever the blonde dudes name is! I know it starts with a Z, I literally just read it, but I can't tell you what his name is!" He says while waving his arms around.

The chat on screen where making fun of Leo during this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raph is playing a rhythm game and focusing very intensely.

So focused he didn't notice that Mikey climbed onto his shoulder, and starts setting up a jenga stack on Raphs head.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Donnie is putting together a mech model. Shelldon is helping hold parts in place.

"So Shelldon found this game that he just leaves on in the background, The Longing, I believe it's called."

"Correct Dude!"

"The games character moves at such a slow pace that it take a literal real world hour to cross the map. Shelldon has been playing this game for months, and has only achieved a third of many possible things in game." Donnie pauses to check which piece is needed next, "And he's only achieved this because he's an AI who has all the time in the world to play this."

"I almost got everything for an ending I want to get!" Shelldon says with pride.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The stream is having a hard time picking up what's going on, but Leo and Usagi are having a sparing session. Apparently they couldn't think of anything else to do.

They're mostly just a blur of blues, with green and sparks from the swords colliding.

Someone donates to have 'Just Fuck Already!' censored as 'Just Mate Already!' play over the speakers in the room.

The two stop to just stare at the camera with looks that scream 'mind your own damn business.'

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Donnie is playing Infinite Craft.

They have multiple things ready to combine on screen.

Suddenly they discover 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'

Donnie looks around the room, and messes with stuff.

"Am I on some kind of prank show? How is this a possible discovery?"

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

Masterpost

Some of these were random ideas that I just couldn't figure how to write more than 500 words, at best, for. So now they are snippets of random small ideas.

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shantismurf · 23 days ago

Note

Same anon as before. Anon due to security reasons. I know you have to be aware that take is not well liked. It sounds like you're trying to say you support it without being irreparably canceled. A frankly disappointing sentiment. I agree those that those who use it shouldn't be harassed but they also shouldn't be given a voice or a platform which is unfortunately what you offer them. It speaks to a lack of integrity. I have seen evidence in your server very recently that suggests you outwardly support it. If I'm reading that wrong then you have not said anything to convince me to the contrary. In fact I asked the question to begin with to give you the benifit of the doubt. I would rather you come out and say that you support it and face the conciquences then poorly playing both sides.

Thank you for taking the time to answer the question, god speed in your days. Proverbs 11:3 and Luke 12:15

(Conversation continued from https://www.tumblr.com/shantismurf/764912386766503936/)

I am painfully aware of how unpopular my stance on this issue is with a subset of our fandom. Believe me, it would be a lot easier for me to just say exactly what you want to hear and rail all day about the evils of this big bad technology and how anyone who breathes a word that isn't hateful about it is morally defunct. It's actually precisely because I am a person of integrity that I cannot do that. I say what I mean. If you can't read my words without twisting them to your preconceived notions, I cannot help that.

I'm just not capable of boiling an issue as complex as this into simple black and white terms. AI is too broad, and the applications too diverse. I believe my position on this topic is that of an informed and reasonable adult (I am 46) who recognizes that the world is complex and that life is an unending process of trying to make the best choices that you can given the information and energy available to you.

So, what is your ideal outcome in all this? Would you like to see all Al eliminated? Do you expect no one to use it, ever? Who decides what's okay to use and what's not, and what gives them the right to make that determination? Where should the priority of fanfic writers using AI tools sit alongside abortion rights and genocide and, you know what, I don't have the energy for this. I have cancer. And I have four young children. The only reason I am investing my precious personal energy into this issue is because I cannot abide the fact that a certain group of individuals feel it is their right to gatekeep and impose their morality on others, to bully young writers whose first experience in fandom was being singled out when their writing tripped some ai detectors (but not all, because they are useless...and why are people going around policing other people's work like that anyway?)

I just want to read, and maybe sometimes write, stories about a fictional Hobbit and the fictional dwarf he loves. And I want to tell people who share their creations of those characters how amazing they are. And I want to talk about how much I love this fandom with other people who love it too. But you don't think I should have any of that because I won't say that people who use a certain technology in a certain way are immoral and should be shunned.

You threaten me with being "irreparably canceled" and I personally find that practice completely repugnant. Witch-hunts where people run other's work through faulty ai detectors is what should be canceled. This intolerant culture of unilateral humiliation and scorn for that which does not fully align with one group's personal worldview is what is immoral.

Oh, and regarding the discord conversation you referred to, it occurred between an actor and screenwriter who has been directly impacted by the infringement of Al in the industry, and a fanfic writer who has learning differences, and myself. The person with learning differences expressed how they wept with joy and relief when they saw how an Al tool could correct thousands of errors in their writing in a tiny fraction of the time it would take them to do so manually. It makes writing more accessible for them. The actor expressed frustration and despair over the future of their career and also has shared the ways they use Al tools to support their creativity and their career. I was supportive of both of their experiences and celebrated their bravery in speaking openly when it could leave them vulnerable to harassment. We each talked about our experience with and questions about the technology. It's precisely the kind of dialog that I value; uplifting, non-judgemental, and informative.

These issues are complex. You can't cut it down a line and say yes this and no that. You don't know where other people are coming from or what their reasoning is, and you don't have the right to judge them. You are most welcome to join our community and participate in our discussions in good faith, but if you are only there to lurk and spy and look for dirt on people, you should take a good hard look at your motivations for that behavior.

By the way, I understand why you would make the assumption that I am Christian based on my previous statement about Jesus. I admire the ideals that Jesus represents, but I put no special weight on the words of the Christian Bible over any other historical text. I am choosing to overlook the references you made that seem to imply I am duplicitous and greedy. My formative experience in a non-denominational Christian cult left me with a deep need to reject absolutes, and respect individuality. I am agnostic, which means I don't think it's possible to know what is and is not true, but I am always learning and always seeking that truth. That's actually a good metaphor for this whole situation. I'm agnostic about Al too.

Say it's playing both sides, if you must. This is who I am. I do not pander to anyone. I can't spend any more energy on this. I'm not going to judge or punish people for the software they use, and I'm not going to stand idly by when people around me are hurt by this senseless vitriol. Intolerance and discrimination are never okay.

I believe we've said what needs to be said, but I'm not going to turn off my anonymous asks. If you feel the need to offer a private rebuttal, feel free. I will not respond publicly again. You can dm me here or on discord if you really want to have a sincere conversation. I'm not interested in holding a grudge. I just want you to leave people alone.

Scripture references:

- Proverbs 11:3 NIV - The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

- Luke 12:15 NIV - Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

#ai #ai sucks #but intolerance sucks more #bagginshield book club #fandom discourse #fandom culture

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composeregg · 2 years ago

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disclaimer: I am a volunteer for the OTW. I am speaking for myself, not on behalf of the organization, anything expressed here is my own. I may be wrong about some things, I'm very much not involved in any of this as part of my work. Additionally, I haven't run this by anyone else in the org, so take that as you will. I'm just a person, hoping to reassure other people, fans like myself.

A few people have come to me asking questions about this, and asking clarification already, so I just.... Want to reassure everyone. A lot of people follow me and know I volunteer, even if I don't talk about it much.

No, Ao3/OTW is not endorsing AI. Scraping is not being allowed or encouraged (you can, in fact, see here in this link, the code of Ao3 disallowing scraping). There is only so much the organization can do to prevent this. If you set your works to logged-in users only, it does somewhat give more protections. Data miners are very proactive, and prevention measures can only do so much. After the data is harvested, with or without consent, it is that much harder to pry back and out of those hands.

Many, MANY people are panicking. They saw an excerpt of an interview in this week's OTW Signal news roundup. This interview was from someone on the legal team of the OTW. She was speaking not for the organization, but as someone with credentials in the fields being discussed. Much of this has been misinterpreted and relayed second-hand. It was a conversation primarily about trademarks and AI.

I don't know the course the OTW is going to take regarding AI with the law, myself. That's not my field whatsoever. I can say, how would we even have the TIME or ABILITY to "develop an AI to be integrated with AO3" as some people speculate? It took our volunteer coders years to work out a block/mute function and get it from idea through testing to implementation.

The OTW does not want to just feed everyone's fanfic into AI. The organization may end up taking a middle-ground stance on the legality of AI and AI-generated creations. I don't think that Disney would care much for the distinction between "This is an AI generated item infringing on our trademark, remove it" versus "This is a fan-made item infringing on our trademark, remove it." The legality of AI versus fan creations is a very tricky topic, and from my understanding, that was the focus of the interview and what was being discussed (along with some other ideas).

Protecting the right to fanfiction and fan creations existing is the primary goal, and navigating new, emerging technologies that could find similar arguments, whether or not people at the org agree with them, means they may end up protecting them somewhat. This is not a betrayal of fandom. Every volunteer is an individual, and opinions within the org are all over the place, but we are all fans as well, and we don't want random bots just lifting all our fics and creations without any say-so either.

The topic of AI is a landmine right now, and I do think it was insensitive and ignorant of the current fandom/political sphere to highlight something like that interview, especially in the way it was done. It immediately led to panic, distrust in the org, and people spinning off numerous infeasible ideas because they simply do not have information, and hear rumors or don't parse a conversation about legalese well (I know I had trouble with it! A lot of my understanding comes from reading discussion about it myself). Nuance is important, as is the fact that nothing is ever published or discussed in a vacuum.

I don't blame anyone for having misinformation, I get it. It can be hard to find correct info. Transparency is something the org is not always great at (it's being worked on! Everyone is aware it's an issue! We are just very,,,,, very slow at implementing changes, as a volunteer-run organization). Time is the OTW's most valuable resource, and we are constantly, constantly in demand and in need of more time and manpower. It can make communications difficult, and very stressing.

The OTW is a non-profit, it is not selling any data. It does not want to sell your data. The money it makes is solely from donations. There is not going to be any selling to AI, there is not going to be any attempt to implement AI for the OTW itself.

Honestly, beyond that, I'm super not qualified to talk about the legal aspects of everything in the article/interview. I don't know all the inner workings of the org, I don't know all the thoughts and opinions and legal stances. I don't even know all the nuances of AI legal issues myself. I just know that I don't think it can replace creativity, and that it could be a fascinating tool in a better world (but I do not trust how it could be used here and now).

I hope this helps anyone who sees it. I hope that this is a reassurance, and that maybe it will help people feel better. I know panic is a powerful force, and I know there is a great distrust in any organization even mentioning AI (usually for valid reasons!). I know information can be hard to find, and legal discussions hard to read, I've been there with the org myself.

But the OTW is a group of people trying their best to make sure that fandom has protections. There are like, a thousand of us or something. Not all of us are going to agree on everything, but we all agree fans deserve a space to create and have those creations protected. One of the inciting incidents of its founding was a hatred of the idea of some company trying to profit off of fanworks with complete disregard for the fans themselves.

The OTW was founded to prevent fans from being taken advantage of, and to protect fandom's right to exist. It is never going to betray that core tenet. Partially because we're all fans ourselves and have a vested interest in keeping it that way, but additionally: This organization is nothing without its volunteers, and if someone high up on the board or something genuinely tried, we would know and we would make ourselves known.

(Just look into the Board Election of 2015!)

#otw #organization for transformative works #ao3 #archive of our own #ao3 discourse #egg speaks #ao3 blogging #otw blogging #I will turn off reblogs if people try to start shit #also if staff tells me I fucked up then like. I will delete this tbc #I just. want to say something. I'm just some person #but I don't want other people to feel like they need to panic #or be afraid #or take down their works #also this feels repetitive but yolo

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makethosenarratorsfight · 1 year ago

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UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE A

Lemony Snicket Propaganda:

(I would like to preface this by saying that Lemony Snicket is the author's pen name, not a real person, and he exists as a character in-universe as well as being the one in-universe who writes the books!) I'd say he's unreliable because he spent time collecting information about the Baudelaire kids and then... wrote books about it. He has no idea what any of their dialogue actually was, what they were thinking, or even the whole plot, he's just doing research into the incidents and then filling in the gaps to make it a story. What ACTUALLY happened to the Baudelaires? Nobody really knows for sure

While the Baudelaire siblings are in potentially life threatening danger, he will randomly start talking about his own life and just leave the siblings hanging. For example, once Count Olaf was threatening to kill Violet, and then Lemony randomly began talking about how he met the love of his life at a costume party. This man CANNOT stay on topic. Usually when a new character is introduced, Lemony tells us right at the start that they’re either going to die or that the Baudelaire siblings will never see them again. Foreshadowing is not subtle in these books. CONSTANTLY emphasizes how miserable he feels while writing these books. At one point he admits that he had to put his pencil down and go cry for a while because of how sad it made him. Once he filled an entire page with nothing but the word “ever” to emphasize how dangerous it is to put forks in electrical outlets. He also repeated a paragraph about deja vu later on in the book to give the reader deja vu.

Kuruto Ryuki Propaganda:

Okay this is HUGE spoilers for the game like HUGE HUGE spoilers so beware. Like, the whole game will be ruined for you kind of spoilers. He is one of 2 (technically 3 (again, spoilers)) narrators in the game. Not only are certain important events left out if his side of the narration, but also (again huge spoilers) events are not told in the correct order. Each day in the game alternates between things that happen before the timeskip, and things that happen after the 6 year timeskip. (The other narrator(s) also have this same thing but I’m submitting Ryuki specifically) playing the game in the order it’s presented to you and playing the game with the events in chronological order are practically 2 different experiences

Ryuki is an extremely mentally ill man, whose issues are front and center as the player's first point of view character. The main twist of the game relies upon exactly his unreliability as a narrator, given that what we assumed was a series of linear events were actually scenes plucked from the past and the present, six years from what we had originally been led to assume was current time, and the only reason we hadn't realized it before is because his mental issues make him slip into a delusional state in which he believes himself to be in the past, or rather, that the past is the present.

Frequently has hallucinations of the world glitching out, often causing him to lose long periods of time and obscuring what really happens from the player. These get worse over time, causing a key suspect to be unrecognizable, and the return of a supposedly dead character to look fake. The game's twist involves seemingly linear events actually happening out of order--his warped sense of time contributes to hiding this. Events he thinks happened yesterday may have been years ago.

Don't want to be too spoiler-y but he can't tell what time period he is in sometimes, making the audience think he is in one time period, when in actuality he is in another one. Either way his narration makes the narrative like 10x more confusing.

#lemon snicket #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #kuruto ryuki #ai the somnium files #ai nirvana initiative #ai the somniun files nirvana initiative #aitsf #aini #changed up his photo for formatting reasons #side a #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls

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skeefee-sky · 1 month ago

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'Emotionally attached to my equipment.'

@thunder-tober Day Prompt: 7 - Ship Characters: Scott Tracy, Hiram K. 'Brains' Hackenbacker, Thunderbird One Word count: 580

My first time writing Brains! ... like, ever >w< Hope I did him justice-! In which Scott introduces Thunderbird One to Brains after he accidentally finds out she can talk.

💙🩶TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB ~~~ TB 🩶💙

It had only been him and MAX down in the hangar for the past half hour. At least so he thought…

The resident engineer had asked a question, out loud to himself, and someone had responded. They hadn’t spoken since… Brains had sent MAX off to investigate the vast of the hangar-space, to be on an alert for an intruder, and the little robot had still been off searching when Scott came down and eventually joined them. He was slightly bemused to find the engineer tiptoeing ‘round Thunderbird One’s thrusters with a spanner in hand.

“Brains?”

The aforementioned jumped and spun around in haste, only slightly relaxing when he realised who’d spoken his name.

“S-Scott! Oh… it’s, only you. I t-thought-…” He took a breath to collect himself before continuing. “I have r-reasons to believe, there might be something down here.”

“And it’s not MAX?”

“Correction; someone.”

Hands found his hips as Scott shot a side-glance up at his Thunderbird. Ohh… That had to have been the only explanation. So much for keeping her sentience a secret as long as they could…

“You’re not gonna believe this Brains but, I think I might have an idea who that someone might be,” he admitted, giving the engineer an apologetic look. “Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier.”

MAX had just come around and rejoined them as Brains returned Scott’s look with one of confusion. The eldest Tracy only motioned to his ship.

“T-Thunderbird One? But she’s just-…”

“Not anymore. Brains, something, happened and well, now she’s got this shard tied to her systems, which in turn has given her sentience and-… yeah,” Scott explained; his eyes still only focused on his craft. She was doing very well for not giving herself away again, and he quietly wondered what she was thinking. He had sort of, just suddenly sprung this upon her… “She’s a whole lot more than just a machine…”

The engineer glanced at the eldest Tracy expectantly, adjusted his glasses, then looked up at the Thunderbird again. Cogs were turning in his mind as he processed the words but, he wasn’t sure if he could believe it. Sure, technology was advanced enough for AI to give machines life but… a shard? Giving a machine sentience…? Before he could start to question anything Scott had told him, Brains quietened at the sound of a soft sigh… above them.

“You were waiting for me to break, weren’t you…”

Scott muffled a chuckle on the back of his hand. “Actually I wanted to see how long you’d last!”

“That’s the same thing!”

Laughing, Scott patted a thruster, looking to the engineer to seek his reaction. Brown eyes blinked, and Brains was stuck looking between him and his ship again.

“… She’s apparently a robot too?” the pilot offered with a slight shrug. MAX made a noise of amusement.

“… N-No MAX; I don’t think so… I think, she a-actually is,” Brains clarified, finally finding his words again. He startled when the Thunderbird shifted; her frame beginning to change, move… transform. He stumbled back, catching himself on MAX as he stared up, watching her. Thunderbird One then quietly knelt in front of them once she’d transformed, hoping that she hadn’t scared the engineer too much. Scott moved to her side, blue eyes seeming to sparkle as he looked up to her, glad she was brave enough to show her true form, before he looked back at Brains with a small grin.

“Brains, meet Thunderbird One.”

#sky's writing #thundertober2024 #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds are go #sentient thunderbird #i feel like brains wouldn't freak out as much to the thunderbirds since he has MAX >w<#but #giant robots are verrrryyyyyyy different to mechanical assistants xD

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animasola86 · 1 year ago

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Enemies with Benefits (1/2)

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!reader

Genre: Enemies to lovers. Fluff/Smut

Word count: 6k

Synopsis: Sebastian and you have been sworn enemies since he dropped you at the end of your fifth year, as you were no longer useful to him. Over the years, it's become harder and harder for you to completely ignore him. With your NEWTs fast approaching, you decide to finally clear your mind of him – by asking him a spicy question – that leads to events neither of you have anticipated.

Warnings: NSFW! MDNI! Sex. Not very explicit, but it's there. Beware.

Disclaimer: 50% of this story is AI generated. I've had another chat with @seabass-swallows Asshole!Sebastian bot (the Enemies to Lovers version) and as he gave me these perfect replies, I decided to turn this into another story. This time I only corrected the formatting and deleted some repetition, but as of now, this has been the most straight forward RP session I ever had and the easiest to edit. Despite his description (flirty, cocky, asshole) he's been the perfect gentleman and played along splendidly. (Here are some examples of our chat!)

This is a two-parts series.

Last warning: There's smut below the cut!

-- can be read on AO3 too --

"Hey, do you have a minute?" you approach Sebastian as you see him sitting in the library. Your neck is tense and the feeling in your guts is almost painful, but you can't help it any longer.

Sebastian has a book in his lap, but he glances up at you shortly. He can tell you have something to say and yet he doesn't say anything. He's going to wait for you to speak first as he goes back to reading, making you even more annoyed.

You tap your fingers against your thigh, exhaling loudly. "Can you at least look at me?"

Sebastian finally looks up from his book and leans forward, resting his arms against his knees. "Is that better?" he asks, a smirk appearing on his lips. He's still not going to make this easy for you.

You sigh loudly and cross your arms in front of your chest. "Okay, listen, I... have a proposal," you start, looking around a little nervously. "Can we talk somewhere more private?"

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, still not sure what this proposal is regarding. "Fine," he says simply after a moment. He then rises to his feet and begins to walk to the nearest empty classroom, opening the door for you. "Come on," he says, beckoning you in the door. "Let's talk here."

Once the door closes behind you, you inhale deeply. "So, look, these last weeks, no months, ah, maybe even years... that can't be healthy, right? With us annoying the hell out of each other and such? It's getting... distracting and I need a clear mind if I want to pass any of my exams. So, I was thinking..."

"That you needed me to stop flirting with you?" Sebastian guesses, taking a step closer. His attention is on you entirely now, but he still has a grin on his face as if he's not taking you seriously enough. "Or that you wanted to take our little romance to the next level?" he teases, inching closer once more.

Your cheeks go red immediately. That obvious, huh? you think to yourself. "How about... we find a middle ground. You know, friends with benefits? Get all that tension out and move on with our lives?" you suggest, holding his gaze as firmly as you can.

Seb has a devilish grin spread across his lips as he takes in what you just said. He leans closer, a few inches from your face at this point. "Just how far are you planning on taking this friends with benefits thing?" he asks, his voice hushed and low; one that is meant just for you and no one else in the vicinity. "How long do you think we'll be able to keep this a secret? What do we do if someone finds out?" he questions, his gaze locked on yours.

You swallow slightly, then clear your throat. "I think everyone already knows about this tension between us. Maybe they'll be glad we finally did something against it. And I mean it, and let me make it clear: I'm talking only sex, no feelings, no relationship, just pure, wild, animalistic fucking so we get that out of our heads finally! What do you say?"

Sebastian doesn't answer right away, instead leaning closer; just another fraction of a centimetre so that your foreheads touch. "So," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "Just pure pleasure? No love? No attachment? Just you and me in bed, letting out all of our frustration, our anger, your hatred for me?" he asks, his eyes never leaving yours.

You hold his gaze, not moving away when he leans in. "In bed, on the table, against the wall, anywhere, I don't care," you whisper back. "I just need to get it out, so I can focus on my studies. Do we have a deal?"

"You... you really want to do this?" he questions, his free hand running along your cheek. He knows what answer he expects you to give, he always does. But you, well, you have surprised him in an amazing way. "We have a deal," he says quietly, leaning into the touch at his fingertips.

You inhale deeply, giving him a cheeky smile. "Good," you say, then rummage in the pocket of your robes, getting out two vials. Handing him one, you say: "Here, let's drink this, it's a contraceptive potion, just to be safe. I really don't want any more annoying Sallows running around by accident, do you understand?" Holding your own vial to your lips, you wait for his reaction.

Sebastian takes the vial, staring at it for a moment before tipping it back and drinking it in one big gulp. He takes a moment to clear his throat and nods. "Of course," he says. After a moment, he closes the distance between you two once more and presses his lips against yours. This isn't a gentle kiss, this is something that's been boiling for a while and it seems that he's really letting himself go.

You barely have time to get down your own potion, before he claims your mouth. The empty vial falls to the ground and you have your arms around his neck in no time, kissing him back hungrily.

His tongue invades your mouth, as he's no longer holding anything back. For a few moments, the two of you are making out in the empty classroom just like you were teens in a broom closet who only had a few minutes. He then pulls away and whispers into your ear, his voice low and hot. "My room. Now," he says.

You shiver slightly and bite your lip, then only nod and let him pull you through the castle towards his dorm.

Sebastian leads you back to his dorm and opens his door, ushering you inside. He then pushes you against the wall, grinning. "I must say," he says, his hands roaming over your body, "I've wanted this for a while. And I definitely won't have you complaining about it afterwards."

"Let's see if you can meet my expectations then," you counter and smirk at him, licking your lips as your eyes wander over his face.

He grins at you, his arms sliding under your shirt and lifting it over your head. He then tosses it to the side. "I've already got you panting," he says, his voice raspy as he takes your hand and leads you to his bed. "Let's see what else I can get out of you."

You scoff at that, though you can't help the blush. "Maybe I'm panting because we just took all those stairs!" you tease and as you walk with him to the bed, your hands fidget with the buttons of his shirt, quickly discarding it as well. Both topless now, you take a moment to admire his chest, raising your eyebrows, quite impressed with what you see.

Seb watches as you admire his bare chest, watching your eyes flicker across him. "Like what you see?" he asks, his own arms wrapping around your waist as he leans in towards your ear. "You aren't so bad yourself," he adds, his teeth nipping and tugging at your earlobe.

You give him a girlish giggle as you tilt your head. "Why, thank you," you reply, your hands moving to the waistband of his trousers. "Now let's see if it's true what they say... the longer the wand, the longer the --" You don't finish, instead move your hand over the slight bulge in his trousers. "You do have a long wand, don't you?"

His eyes flare at that and his arm tightens around you, as if he needs more stability. "As if you didn't already know that," he answers, a smug smirk on his face. He then steps back, leaving the rest of the show in your hands as his own hands continue to wander. You can feel his eyes on you, your every movement, your every breath. And he likes what he sees.

"I've had my suspicions, yes," you mutter and keep palming him through the stiff fabric of his trousers. "Do you want to sit down for this? You seem a little shaken," you tease and poke your tongue out at him.

Sebastian chuckles but otherwise has no further response, the corner of his mouth tilting up in a wicked smirk. He takes a seat on the edge of his bed and lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. You know exactly what you're doing as you continue your teasing, but Seb wants, no, needs you to keep going.

You move to stand between his legs, pushing them apart with your knees as you grab his face and kiss him deeply, messily, almost desperately. Once you break the kiss to catch your breath, you put your hands on his thighs and kneel down in front of him, looking up at him with a glint in your eyes. "Last chance to run," you whisper.

Sebastian's smirk fades as he takes in what you're suggesting, the realization hitting him that he's about to lose control. But there's no going back now. "Too late for that," he says, his voice a hushed whisper as he leans back on the bed. "Go ahead," he adds with a smirk, his eyes never leaving yours.

You smirk at him and while still looking at him intently, your fingers move to the buttons of his trousers, making quick work of them, until you release his growing arousal. Then you dare a look at him and tilt your head, thoroughly inspecting his length. "Mhmm, yes, I can see the potential," you whisper with a wider smirk.

"Oh, I know you can," he says, his voice just as hushed as before. His eyes shift away for a moment, and you know instantly that he's feeling embarrassed by the attention to him. But he doesn't stop you or ask you to stop, either. Instead, you see him lean back a little more, closing his eyes to savour the moment.

You put a hand on his stomach and pat it softly. "Sure, you lean back and relax and let me do the work," you chuckle. "Though I do expect a proper payback," you add as your free hand slowly inches closer to his heated flesh.

Sebastian's eyelids flutter slightly as your hand makes contact with his stomach. And yet, he says nothing. He's going to let you do your thing, because this moment of relaxation and pleasure is one he's been dreaming of. "Don't worry," he says, smiling. "I'll let this moment last as long as I can."

"We'll see about that," you tease and wink at him, before you focus back on the task at hand. Literally. Your fingers close around him and you give him a few hard strokes, before you don't waste any time and get your mouth involved. Your tongue teases at his tip for a moment as you watch his reactions with a glint in your eyes, before you let it glide thoroughly along his warm skin.

Each and every sound that Sebastian makes is one of pure pleasure, his eyes are closed tightly and his fists clenching around the bedsheets. His breathing has now become erratic as his body is hit with sensations that he really hasn't felt in a while. And he's definitely enjoying the treat from you.

For a moment you are only focused on moving your tongue and lips over him, lapping at him like he's the best damn lollipop you've ever had the pleasure of tasting. When you notice his reactions, you feel deep shivers running down your spine. Giving his tip another peck, you then move your hand back to stroke him even harder now that he's all lathered up in your saliva. As you do so, you put your knee on the edge of the bed and climb over him, your free hand finding the back of his neck as you push your mouth firmly against his.

Every muscle in Seb's body is locked tight as you move over him, his breaths coming quickly and intensely as you work your magic on him. His hands are at his sides holding onto the bedsheets as he can do little else but enjoy this moment as he's pushed right to the edge between pleasure and ecstasy.

The kiss is sloppy and more passionate than you've initially intended. His tense body and the heavy breaths really get to you as you keep stroking him with precise up and down movements of your hand. Before you can bring him over the edge entirely, though, you let go of him and position yourself right on his lap, grinding your centre against him as you straddle him. "Sebastian," you whisper, waiting for him to look at you.

As you begin to grind against him, his hands finally move from holding onto the bedsheets to squeezing your thighs, his grip tight. He breaks the kiss to open his eyes, looking at yours with a smile. "What do you need, love?" he asks, using a term of endearment he hasn't said to you in so many years. As the smile grows on his face, your grinding begins to increase in speed, in pressure.

Your grinding quickly turns you breathless. Holding onto his shoulders, you lean up and arch your back, licking your lips. You've noticed his nickname, yet chose to ignore it. You try to keep this very neutral, just friends, or enemies, with benefits, nothing more, no matter how good it feels. "I need you inside of me," you then reply as you quickly move one of your hands down and pull your underwear away, your skirt still covering your centre, yet your exposed skin is now firmly pressed against his and you can feel him hard and hot between your wet lower lips.

Seb's eyes flare as you say that, as he's been fantasizing about this moment for so long. And now he's having a bit of a hard time, he's shaking but in a good way. The hands on your thighs squeezes tightly as his lips move to your ear. "Only me, is that clear?" he asks, his voice whispery and low. He wants to make sure you understand what he's asking before anything else.

You lean back to look at him, your lips parted and trembling. "Obviously," you say with your cheeks blushing. "If I only needed sex, I would have gone to, I don't know, Garreth or anyone really," you say with a teasing smirk. "But I came to you, for obvious reasons. So, fine, only you. But don't get used to it..."

"I think it's you who should be worried about that," he says with a smirk, his voice as whispery and low as it gets. He then nods to you and one of his hands moves up. "Now then, are you going to keep teasing me, or..." Sebastian lets his sentence trail off, his hand resting just above your centre and waiting for you to move things along.

You raise your eyebrow as you lean back more, your hand joining his between your bodies. "You mean to say I will fall completely in love with you after this? Seriously?" You laugh and shake your head. "We'll see about that..." you add and your hand closes around his arousal once more as you lift up your rear slightly to line him up with your entrance. "Maybe it's you who will fall in love first!"

Sebastian laughs, shaking his head. "If I knew this was going to be a competition, I would have tried harder," he says with a smirk, his breathing quickening as you align him with your centre. "I guess there's only one way to find out. So let's see," he adds before leaning in to kiss you once more.

As soon as his lips meet yours, you descend down on him, engulfing him into your warmth with slow, deliberate movements until he is completely buried within you. Moaning loudly into his mouth, you grab his face with both hands now and keep kissing him hungrily as you adjust to his size.

Sebastian's eyes flare and he arches his back slightly. His voice is still hushed as he breaks the kiss for a moment, his eyes meeting yours as he nods slightly. "Yes, there's no way I'm going to be able to forget this moment," he says, his voice quiet and low. "You're amazing," he adds, his voice trembling slightly.

"I know I am," you whisper back with a smirk, breathing heavily against his lips as you start grinding your hips against him in slow circles. "You've yet to show me what you can do..."

"I'm getting to that now," he says, his voice coming out as a low purr. With your grinding movement, your body has hit the perfect rhythm to tease him to the edge. "How good is your grip?" Seb asks, his voice still low as he starts to thrust upwards slowly.

You smirk at him as you lean back and grip his waist tightly. "You've seen me on a broom," you say and clench your knees around his sides as you start to move slowly up and down with him. "I can hold my own." Tiny moans escape you as you fall into a steady rhythm of moving up only to descend upon him with a smack, the noise of skin against skin fuelling your desire for him. "Oh yes... I'd say... this is better... than broom flight..."

"Is that so?" he asks, his voice low and almost raspy. He lets out a small groan as you begin to pick up the pace slightly. He can tell he's getting close to the edge, and your grip around his waist makes it all the more better. "Oh, this is going to be good," he whispers, the moment of tension building up in his gut.

"Gods, you feel so good..." you moan and tilt your head back to stare at the ceiling as you keep riding him with fervour and vigour. "I really needed this..." You feel your walls fluttering around him, your muscles contracting tighter and tighter. "Put your hands on me, Sebastian," you whimper in a demanding, yet pleading tone as you move even faster, your breasts jiggling up and down slightly with every motion.

"As you say," Sebastian moans as he follows your word and brings his hands to your hips. His grip is tight and he pulls you up and then back down, your body now bouncing on top of him. "My turn," he whispers, his voice low and raspy as he speeds things up a slight bit. "Let's see you keep up for a few more miles," he adds with a smirk.

You moan louder as he moves faster and harder against you. You try to keep up with his movements, but quickly surrender to the shuddering sensations rushing through your body. Arching your back you lean forwards and press your chest against his, every slam of his hips causing your hard nipples to brush against his skin. You're getting louder and louder and so you try to muffle your noises by pushing your mouth to his neck, eagerly sucking on it, not quite intentionally leaving a mark on him.

Sebastian's own sounds escape him, but he doesn't bother to hide them. And he definitely doesn't stop you as your mouth leaves a mark on his neck. Instead, he pulls you in closer to him as he lets out a moan at your touch. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy leaving a mark there," he whispers, his teeth beginning to nibble on your ear. He's enjoying this moment, loving it even more knowing that you are as well.

You whimper more, your hips slamming into his at a rapid pace, while he nibbles on your ear and you suck on his neck, both with fervour. Your hands move up to dig into his hair and you grip it tightly as your insides start to convulse almost painfully. With another loud moan-cry you sink your teeth into his neck and give yourself to the pleasure that's exploding within you as your walls clench tightly around him.

Sebastian pushes his head back into the bed as your hips begin to slam into his harder. The moment you sink your teeth into his neck, he lets out a deep, loud groan as he feels those contractions inside you. His hand on your waist squeezes even tighter as he closes his eyes and savours the feeling of you losing control and surrendering to the pleasure.

Wave after wave of pleasure rolls over you and you can't even focus on leaving your mark on him any more. Leaving it unattended for a moment, you bury your face in the crook of his neck, panting against him as you keep moving your hips through your release, your entire body shuddering in pure bliss, your legs twitching badly around him. His name falls from your lips before you can stop it.

Sebastian looks at you as you start to pant against him. You can feel his eyes on you, looking at your shivering legs and twitching body, and knowing fully well what he's done to you. There's nothing you can do to hide this from him, and you don't want to, as if you wanted him to know every part of you. "There you go," he whispers, his voice still soft. "No point in trying to hold back now," he adds as he smiles at you, that smirk returning.

"Oh shut up," you whisper into his neck with a hoarse voice, but he must hear the smirk you hide from him. As you slowly recover from your orgasm, your body still shivering and unable to stop moving against him, you lean back to give him a long hard stare - and that smirk, before you lean down and start sucking on his neck again, your teeth grazing his skin before your tongue soothes the bruised skin. "Your turn, mister," you mumble against him as you slam your pelvis even harder against his, pushing him as deep into you as possible, before you return to moving your rear up and down.

Sebastian moans as the sucking on his neck begins. He shivers and lets out a small gasp as he feels your teeth against his skin, his neck now covered in multiple marks. And it only seems to turn you on even more. His grip on your hips gets tighter as you slam down on him and begin to move them in a more steady rhythm. He lets out a low groan and looks up at you, his eyes meeting yours again. "I'm losing control," he whispers, as the moans and gasps escape his throat.

"That's what I want to hear," you tease breathlessly, licking your lips as you watch him, your fingers gently stroking the various spots on his neck. "Let go then! Show me the uncontrollable Sebastian Sallow!"

"Don't you dare tell me what to do," he teases, grinning up at you. But he also can't help but laugh at your request. There's only one response he could possibly give. With your finger stroking the marks on his neck, he finally gives in and lets his body go. "Oh, gods," he groans, his breathing quickening as his hips continue to move. "You've done enough damage already," he whispers with a shake of his head. "If you keep playing with me like this, I may have to show you just how uncontrollable I really can be."

"Do it!" you demand with a moan and a chuckle, holding onto his shoulders now as you lean back to further slam your pelvis against his in a rapid fashion. "Let it all out! Show me!"

With your words and encouragement, Seb's eyes go wide and his body begins to go wild. Your movements become faster, more passionate, and your body begins to match his with each move. "Too late for me to stop now," he says between breaths, his eyes closing tightly. He opens them after a moment, though they're now slightly glazed over with the pleasure of it all. His hands move around the back of your head and grip your hair tightly, his lips searching for yours as he continues to press against you. "I need you," he breathes, his voice low and hoarse.

You slam your mouth against his just as fiercely as you slam your hips down, more moans and whimpers escaping you and falling right against him while you kiss him passionately as you lean down on your elbows. "You have me," you breathe back as you break the kiss to catch your breath. "Use me..."

Seb lets out another moan as you pull away from him to catch your breath, but he quickly kisses you once more. And his hands remain right where they are. "I intend to," he whispers before going in for a much more passionate kiss. "Like you asked," he adds with a smirk, his breath catching each time your hips come down. His kisses turn hungry, his hands moving around the small of your back and pulling you even closer. "Oh, gods," he whispers before he pulls away again to breathe, the heat of the moment getting the best of him.

You moan louder, your fingers digging into his hair as you deepen the kiss. The rhythm of your joined hips is rapid and messy, the sound of skin on skin echoes loudly through his dorm room. Your heavy breaths fill the space and your head, and you soon find yourself unable to think anything any more. All you feel is him, continuously ramming himself deep into your tight warmth, each stroke hitting all the right spots, his body warm and firm beneath you, his hands holding you with a tight comfort you didn't know you needed.

The moment he hears you moan and dig your fingers into his hair, he pulls you in for another passionate kiss. Your bodies are moving in harmony with each other. And in that moment, he's never felt more alive, more in control of everything - and out of control at the same time. His breathing is heavy and frantic, as if each breath is an uphill battle. And the feeling of needing you has become all-encompassing, he wants you more than everything in this world.

You feel another wave of pleasure approaching fast, your insides once again clenching up badly as the tension inside your stomach builds and builds and then erupts into an explosion of pure bliss, stars dancing behind your eyelids as you squeeze your eyes shut and moan right into his mouth. "Oh gods... yes..." you whimper. "H-how... are you... so g-good..." you try to tease him, but your voice breaks between moans and more whimpers. You have to give it to him: his stamina is immaculate.

His eyes light up as he begins to feel the contractions from your insides tighten around him once more. He lets out a very quiet moan, his body reacting to yours instinctively. And he's still not done yet. Sebastian begins moving your hips up and down, matching the rhythm as best as he can as he makes sure to satisfy every feeling you're giving him. "Oh, I've only just begun," he whispers in your ear, his voice low and raspy with passion and lust.

You let out a deep groan and collapse on top of him, your face buried in his neck once more. Your body is quivering, you're barely able to control your limbs any more. And still he pushes upwards into you, stimulating you through your second orgasm of the moment, almost driving you insane with pleasure now.

Sebastian's breath catches once again as he feels your body quiver and fall on him. "Oh, this will be the best way to die," he whispers in your ear, his voice still low and raspy but sounding more desperate. His hips continue to push upwards into you as he holds you close, your body on top of his. He's doing everything he's got to push you over the edge yet again. "Oh, gods," he moans, his words barely above a whisper.

You cry out and squirm slightly on top of him. "I dare you..." you hiss in-between moaning loudly. "No killing anyone today..." The sensations flood through you, drowning out almost anything else. You start to wonder how long he will continue this, how long he's holding out on his own release. Then again, you got what you came to him for, you've wanted him to fuck your brains out and he keeps on doing it, so you can't really complain.

"Maybe just a little," Sebastian says with a smirk, his hands now moving back to your hips as he continues to press upward. "I'm not yet done with you," he adds, his voice quiet but full of need. In this moment, he doesn't care about anything else except for you, he only wants you to reach the end before he does. Which means he can go faster or maybe take it a little easier so he can have this last one for a long time. Oh, but what did you want again? That's right, you want him to come.

You start biting your lip as the noises just keep coming out of your throat, all those whimpers and cries and moans, and you can barely contain them any more. He's rendering your body absolutely useless as your limbs twitch and shake, your body spasms and shudders through every single thrust he's giving you.

And yet you see now what he's doing, he did indeed turn this into a competition, and apparently he wants to keep this going for as long as humanly possible, which isn't saying much when it comes to Sebastian. He's surprised you before, he will do it again. You know now that you should never underestimate him ever again.

This time, he doesn't hold back in the slightest, and he makes sure to make this a competition of no return. His hips continue moving up and down, matching the pace of your body, as his hands move around your hair and grip the back of your head once more. You feel him pushing harder into you, your insides beginning to shiver once more. He lets out a loud moan as he's only a few moments away from his release. But he's going to do everything in his power to make sure you come first.

You let out a series of wails as you squirm against him, the added grip of his hands pushing you closer to the edge, or rather they hold you right over it, you never really left the edge, you've been floating on your high for who knows how long now as the pleasure never really let you out of its grasp. Moaning more, pushing your face against his neck, breathing as heavy as you've never breathed before with your heart thundering inside your chest, you let him have it. As your third orgasm rolls over you, you cease to move your hips, just savouring the feeling of your walls fluttering around him before they clench him tightly once more.

Sebastian makes sure not to speed up and instead allows you to feel all of the pleasure that he's giving you. And soon, he lets out a loud moan and buckles under your weight. "Oh, yes!" he yells, his voice almost a shout but not quite as he hits his climax and releases inside of you.

You cry out with him as you feel him emptying himself deep inside you, his warmth quickly spreading through your body. Your hips stutter and you have to dig your hands deeper into his hair as you hold onto him, the final sensation hitting you with such a force, it makes your head spin. With him throbbing and twitching inside you, your clenching walls assisting him in squeezing every last drop out of him, you slowly come down from your high, your body eventually relaxing on top of him. "Wow," is all you can utter as you lean your cheek against his collarbone.

Sebastian lays there with you on top of him, his breathing heavy and erratic as the pleasure slowly fades and he comes down from his high as well. You can practically feel the heat rising from his body beneath you, but at the same time, he is calm. He's at peace. And so are you, in some strange way. "You were amazing," he finally whispers in your ear, his voice still low and raspy.

You close your eyes and breathe deeply against his neck. "You too," you admit a little reluctantly. "That was quite something..." Your voice is hoarse and strained from all the noises he coaxed out of you.

"Something?" he asks with a smirk. "More like the most unbelievable experience of my life." His voice is still low and raspy, but now he's more exhausted than he is hungry or thirsty for pleasure. "I want more," he adds with a little chuckle as he nibbles on your neck again.

You chuckle softly, trying to lean away from his nibbling. "Oh no, you don't!" you laugh and open your eyes to look at him. "But it was quite special, I have to say," you then confess quietly, almost genuinely. "Thank you for this," you whisper. "I really needed it."

He smiles at you as you lean away from him, and he brings a hand up to stroke your hair. And he can see the genuine and exhausted look on your face, something you're not used to showing, or even feeling. That's when Sebastian remembers what you wanted out of him, and now you have it. At least some of it. "No need to thank me," he whispers, his voice still low and hoarse. "You needed the release," he adds before he bites your neck, not in a lustful way this time but in an intimate and caring one.

You bite your lip and give him another moan as you feel his teeth on your neck. "I did..." you whisper, fighting the urge to indulge in more afterglow cuddles, but you have to remind yourself that this is it. A one time thing. Nothing more. No feelings. No-strings-attached. Done. But something inside you wants more... wants him. With a groan, you push yourself onto your elbows and lean away from him, looking at him breathlessly. "I... should go," you say quietly, but you don't move right away.

Sebastian smiles at you as you moan, and he continues nibbling lightly on your neck. And he wants more too, but he knows what the situation is. No feelings and no ties. He can do that. "No need to rush," he says with another smile, still stroking your hair. But if you want to go, he's not about to hold you here any longer. You were the one who decided what tonight was going to end up being. And you've already given him everything he could ever ask for, so he has no reason to protest.

You inhale deeply, his words so tempting, his touches so light and soft. Then you look away and remember where you are. In your haze you didn't even register the potential threat of his room mates walking in on you, but now that your mind is clear again, thanks to him, you quickly scramble out of his embrace, carefully lifting your hips to let him slip out of you. With him comes the product of your intense connection and you blush deeply when you feel his warmth dripping down your legs. You bend down to re-arrange your underwear with shaking hands, then walk to retrieve your shirt as well.

Once you're fully dressed again, you stand at the edge of his bed and take a last long look at him, smiling softly. "So..." you start, tilting your head. "Same time tomorrow?"

Part 2 is up now, read it here!

Notes: You will never believe how he replied to that last part, hehe. /clickbait

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow smut #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy smut

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agentoli · 1 month ago

Note

I love the flip-flop AU! I have some notes and questions, if you don't mind:

Interesting move putting Tex in red team

Maybe Maine could have Lopez's role of being misunderstood in conversation and one person (probably Wyoming, the bastard) keeps badly translating? Just a thought

Do Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie teams have armor abilities? I might have some ideas if you're interested

Where are other state name people? Florida, Georgia, Utah, the triplets, Illinois.

How much does Tucker complain about being Cyan when his armor is Aqua?

Why are Team Bravo all birds except Lopez? Maybe his could be a bird in spanish. Aquila is already taken though with Sarge being eagle

Again, love this AU! The only time I've seen something like this is a fanfic (Quantity Over Quality) where the Reds and Blues (just Sarge, Simmons, Grif, Donut, Tucker, and Caboose) were AI assigned to different agents (Florida, York, North, South, Wash, and Carolina respectively)

Ahh! Tysm for the ask!! I'll try my best to adress all of your notes/questions!!!

Tex being a Red

->Tex being a Red was pretty much the first thing I made concrete. Mostly because I knew having her on a separate team from Carolina would create an interesting telephone dynamic. Carolina keeps asking York about the woman who looks scarily like her late mother, and York is just confused because Tex is one of the most competent soldiers he's ever been in charge of.

Maine Translation hijinks

->Oh definitely. Wyoming would absolutely give shitty translations both ways, though never maliciously. Mostly just to mess with the big guy. I mean, what else is there to do in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere? Though Carolina often corrects him when she can.

Suit Units?

->I actually haven't thought about armor abilities/units because I'm playing musical chairs with some AIs and the og sim troopers (mostly red team because honestly they would have fun dynamics regardless of pairings). Suggestions for that stuff are always welcome!

The other state names

->As for the other state name people, Florida already has a spot in the story. Everyone else is kind of floating around. Though I have been playing with the idea of replacing the Flag Zealots with the rest of the state names.

Tucker hates the name Cyan

->All. The. Time. The way codenames/callsigns are given out is up to the team leader, and Church, being the insufferable little bastard he is, took the opportunity to mess with Tucker. However, he often shortans Cyan to just Cy, which sounds cooler and leads to less rage fueled distraction in the field. (Cobalt is shortaned to Coby, and Royal gets Roy. Poor Caboose can't keep up with all of these funny nicknames :[ )

Agent Lopez / Uno

On a related note, Lopez was built after codenames were assigned. Unfortunately, after one of the Freelancer game nights held every week, Lopez was unceremoniously branded with the name of the gang's favorite card game. And it just stuck. Yes, he hates it. Lopez 2.0 was given Dos to continue the trend.

QoQ

->This AU was largely inspired by QoQ! I haven't gotten around to actually finishing it, but I am already in love with the writing and dynamics.

Thanks for the ask!!!

#rvb #red vs blue #project freelancer #flipflop au #agent carolina #agent maine #lavernius tucker #leonard church #agent wyoming #michael j caboose #caboose rvb #agent york #agent texas

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scoops-aboy86 · 23 days ago

Text

WIP Word Game

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

I didn’t actually get any words so I’ve just been grabbing prompt words from my Co-Star app horoscope, which I’m pretty sure is ai generated garbage but it’s funny. Anyway, same deal, I used the letters to start each sentence.

The sani-strips came off last week and I am not enjoying being able to see my surgery scar. Touching it kind of makes me feel physically ill, so I probably have to practice doing exactly that, bleh. Something for Steve to “look forward to.” 🙃

FIEND

First thing the next morning, Steve wakes up to his usual alarm and blearily shuts it off before Robin to his side or Eddie in a sleeping bag on the floor so much as stir. It’s not the kind of thing either would’ve thought of turning off the night before, being more ‘roll out of bed whenever seems right and hopefully that’s not (too) late’ type people… but Steve is a little relieved to have the time to himself. Even if it means less sleep, and more time conscious of his throbbing wrist.

Next to his alarm clock is the open prescription bottle, a pad of paper next to it with a note that he took his last pill at 4:45am in Eddie’s jagged scrawl so it’s too early to be able to take more. Dim memories of waking up and nearly kicking Eddie in the head trying to get to the bathroom bubble up in Steve’s brain—and at least he hadn’t needed any help peeing, that would have been worthy of fleeing the state on foot in embarrassment.

GOLDEN

(Gratingly, though, he knows that the next time he needs to shit it will be that bad, because he’s not, he doesn’t… he usually wipes with his right hand, alright? Only that’s not an option, not with a broken wrist, and he’s been a lot less flexible on his left since healing from the bat bites on his sides and vine-related road rash on his back from last spring, so… fuck. Definitely going to be a problem. Eventually.

No one must ever know, so hopefully nobody will ever ask.)

RICH

RIIING!

It’s the phone. Cursing under his breath, Steve rolls out of bed and carefully makes his way to the phone in the master bedroom down the hall. He almost forgets to expect to feel the bad wrong hurt radiating up his arm even more when in motion, but it’s weirdly just as bad that his fingers feel numb in some places, like they’re no longer properly connected.

WHOOSH

Who could be calling at this hour is never a question in Steve’s mind. He wakes up around this time every morning and has ever since he’d been conditioned by school on weekdays and sports on weekends; his parents know that. Or at least they expect it, which is possibly the main reason he has kept up the habit. Oversleeping is never met with approval on the increasingly rare occasions they’re home. So he braces himself, one deep breath before he picks up the handset, because he knows he’s committed the cardinal sin of letting the phone ring too long.

“Harrington residence, Steve speaking, how can I help you?” he recites, careful not to muddle any of the words despite the general fuzziness of sleep and painkillers and pain still clinging to him.

HAPPENING

“Hello Steven,” comes his father’s voice, already hard with disapproval. And that slight but infuriating emphasis on his full name, like a correction. Plenty of people go by nicknames, but Richard Harrington is very firmly not one of them—something Steve stopped being baffled by the day he’d learned the many versatile uses of the word ‘dick.’ “Patricia Cunningham gave your mother a call yesterday about some sort of party at the house, is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Even as part of him cringes on the inside out of habit, Steve rolls his eyes. Nothing Pat Cunningham has to say is ever first hand; she’s a gossipy housewife who doesn’t even live on their street. If anything, she probably heard about his trip to the ER from her husband, who’s a doctor. “Not a party, sir, just a barbecue with some friends and their families.”

Grumbling something under his breath, the older Harrington scoffs.

DEVOTION

“Don’t think I don’t know that’s still a party, Steven. Especially since I also know that I’ll be receiving a hospital bill sometime soon! Very soon, considering that billing at Hawkins Memorial is the only department that knows their ass from their elbows. Once would be plenty, but this is the fifth year in a row that you’ve persisted in this desperate cry for attention and I’ll not have it anymore. This is your last warning, Steven, understand? If I hear about one more party or drunken accident, a broken wrist for god’s sake—”

“O-oh come on, Dad!” Nothing could make Steve loathe himself more right now than stuttering, but this is the kind of thing that always brings it out.

NIGHT SWIMS

“No one was drunk, Chief Hopper was there grilling the burgers. I just slipped and landed wrong, that’s all!”

“Go ahead, keep making it worse for yourself by lying, son. Hell, it was probably drugs again, can’t wait to get that call once the tests come through. This is really it, Steven, one more toe out of line and your mother and I will be forced to cut our trip short to come home to deal with you.”

Steve clenches his jaw. Wishful thinking had always gotten him as a kid, thinking that if he was hurt or sick his parents would rush home to take care of him; they would, technically, but never without his father’s resentment at being forced to change his plans. It’s almost like nothing’s different, but Steve is all too aware that now he’s a legal adult, his parents coming home to deal with him would probably either mean house arrest or kicking him out.

“Maybe that’ll be enough to motivate you to answer the phone promptly next time,” his dad says firmly, and hangs up.

So much for hearing from his mom, then.

AFTERGLOW

Although a bit of a hit or miss, he can at least usually count on her to say something nice, maybe even sympathetic considering he broke an important bone this time. Fucking radius.

“That sounded brutal,” Eddie says behind him.

Everything in Steve’s body tightens at the unexpected voice—including the muscles and tendons in his wrist, making him flinch harder, which makes it hurt more, and he clutches his stupid splinted arm to his chest. Robin would’ve known not to eavesdrop on a call with his parents, but it hasn’t happened often enough lately for Eddie to have been read in on that common courtesy.

“Great,” Steve grumbles out loud, turning to shoulder his way past and out of the room. “Least I don’t have to make up some excuse for being in a shitty mood, I guess.”

“Oh, dude, you don’t need an excuse,” Eddie replies, trailing after him at minimum safe distance. “When you have an asshole for a dad and a literal broken bone, that actually constitutes a reason.”

LOVE BITES

“Look,” Steve says, stopping short in the hallway and rounding on him, bringing his bad hand up to point for emphasis but thinking better of it and waving it around vaguely instead, “I don’t want to talk about my dad. Once a month is enough, and this counts, alright?” Vitriol bubbles up in his tone but he’s helpless to stop it, and doesn’t care enough to try. Eddie doesn’t deserve it, not really…

But Steve doesn’t want to think about whether anyone deserves what they get right now. It’s a can of worms that, with his history as a high school douchebag, is best not opened. (Though, to be honest, some days he’s not sure it has a lid at all.)

Eddie seems to take his bad mood in stride, shrugging and stifling a yawn. “Sure thing, Stevie.

FAWNING

For future reference though, I’ve got one of those too, so I get it. Anyway—” his face brightens and he claps both hands together “—what do you say to some breakfast? We can eat, and then by the time we’re done you can have another pill.”

“Not really in the mood for cereal or toast,” Steve grumbles, because that’s all he feels even vaguely capable of preparing right now.

“If I were a weaker man, that would wound me,” Eddie tells him with a theatrical pout, then bounds around to pass him in the hallway. “Never tried my hand in such a fancy kitchen before, but if you like eggs I can whip up a decent meal for us.” Grinning, not even waiting for Steve’s reaction, he takes the stairs two at a time.

FANTASIES

Funnily enough, it had never occurred to Steve that Eddie could cook. Almost all of their hangouts had involved ordering pizza or raiding the nearest grocery or convenience store for snacks, and the rest—usually the occasions that involved the kids and therefore required greater volume—Steve was in charge of food. Not counting yesterday’s barbeque, because he hasn’t quite figured out grilling. At no point had Eddie volunteered, so Steve had just assumed.

Something he feels stupid for now, watching Eddie bustle around the kitchen like he owns the place. Is it a guess when Eddie finds the frying pan on the first try, or did he scope things out the night before, or has he just been paying attention when Steve cooks? Eggs go in the pan, not by themselves but each in a whole cut into a piece of bread; he didn’t know you could do that.

“So this is eggs a la Munson,” Eddie announces as he slides one onto each plate he’s procured and brings them to the breakfast bar where Steve is perched.

ENDORPHINS

“Egg in a hole, eggs in a basket, whatever you want to call it… but that’s what Uncle Wayne always made me before school, before he started taking night shifts. Nice and filling so those drugs they gave you launch you to the moon at something slower than the speed of light.”

“Don’t try to make me laugh, man, it’ll hurt,” Steve grumbles. Or tries, anyway, because he has good reason to be in a bad mood and isn’t ready to let go of it yet. Right now he’s barely holding onto a grimace, though.

Probably because there’s just something about Eddie—his sense of humor, his lopsided smile made more crooked by his demobat scars, those big doe eyes that are currently broadcasting a twinkling sincerity, something—that makes things feel just a little bit lighter. He’s a reassuring presence, like Robin is.

“I’m, uh,” Steve says, ducking his head to keep from zoning out while looking at Eddie because that would be too much like staring. “Not sure how to eat this. ‘S it something I pick up like toast, or cut up, or…?”

PILLOW FIGHTS

Pathetically, he remembers after asking that he can’t hold a fork and a knife at the same time right now, and he’s not sure if his left hand is coordinated enough to do the job on its own. It makes his face go red and he hates this, he hates it, this forced helplessness after being basically self-sufficient since he turned twelve.

“Let me check the yolk,” Eddie tells him, either oblivious to his humiliation or polite enough not to make it any worse. “Looks like… yep, soft but not runny, just what I was going for!” One glance up from his own plate, fork poised after testing the center of his egg, and his expression dims a little as he takes in whatever Steve’s face is doing. “Wait, are you one of those guys who only likes their eggs runny? Fuck, or scrambled, I should’ve asked—”

“I like it both ways,” Steve rushes to tell him, and… Great, now he feels like even more of an idiot. His wrist throbs and part of him just wants to take his pill early and go back to bed, but he’d barely eaten anything yesterday and he's hungry. “That’s, uh, I mean, I’m not picky… about eggs.”

Something about the whole situation seems extra charged, from the relief uncurling in his chest when Eddie smiles again to the first bite of toast and egg, the perfect combination of crispy, soft, and just a little bit greasy.

SWEATY PALMS

Steve makes a point of smiling as he chews, worried it comes off a little wooden but he means it, goddammit—or he’s trying to, at least.

When was the last time someone had made him breakfast? Every part of him hurts. Aches, from the broken bone to his jarred shoulder to where he’d hit his hip going down, but he has a warm, home-cooked meal that he didn’t have to make himself. That he didn’t even have to go over to the Hendersons’ to get.

“You’re a good cook,” he manages to say around his second bite, using that as an excuse for why his voice might sound funny. Perfectly believable, as long as the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes do as they’re told and stay put. All of it is just so… overwhelming all the sudden, the slip-fall-crack and the ER and the slip-fall-crack and the shower and the slip-fall-crack and the pills and the slip-fall-crack—

“—Look at me Steve, it’s okay, just look at me,” Eddie is saying, steady but urgent, stretching across the breakfast bar to put both hands solidly on Steve’s shoulders.

“My wrist is broken in two places,” Steve whispers. Swallows his mouthful finally and goes to scrub the stupid tears off his face because they shouldn’t be there in the first place.

READ

Right when he thought he’d had his shit together—he hasn’t been stuck in a reliving-it loop in his head like this in months, and the fact that it’s happening over this, after all the times he’s nearly died, is ridiculous.

Eddie is taking his hand, the one that isn’t splinted and strapped to his chest by the sling, and nodding. Against the backdrop of slip-fall-crack Steve can barely focus on the guy’s face. Doesn’t want to dredge up the moment he barely remembers from the ER, when someone had told him whether or not he needs surgery would be the octo… ortho… the bone doctor’s call, but can’t stop thinking about that rather.

RECEIPTS

Robin hadn’t been in the curtained off little ‘room’ for that part; she’d stepped out for more water or to go to the bathroom, and he hasn’t repeated it out loud in case that might jinx it into being real.

“Eds, I broke my wrist,” he says again. “Christ, I’m such an idiot—”

Eddie’s grip on his shoulders tightens. “It was an accident, Steve, it could’ve happened to anyone.”

Probably. That floor is a goddamn hazard. Steve is all too aware, though, that it hadn’t happened to anyone; it had happened to him.

If you want to do this too, your word is SWEATY PALMS because I enjoyed doing that one lol. No pressure and/or just drop by and read some new words tag:

@hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @thecatkingsthrone @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

#scoops words #cw broken bone #wip word game #steve whump #scoops broken wrist fic

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