#or as I call them 'WaterSpout'

[curioushabitforarivergod]

my current (main) WIPs that I haven't actually posted but I am working on them I swear please believe me

The Killing Moon

A ~70k tomarry, same-gen fic drawing inspiration from anglo and celtic mythology. Still in the planning stages but will probably have a sequel too

there is a light that never goes out

A janto one-shot. A CoE fix-it with immortal Ianto and plenty of angst. Need to finish writing a scene and edit it but I kinda hate large parts so I'm not sure where to begin editing

Kaleidoscope

A Slow Horses River/Spider with background Louisa/Min and Diana/Ingrid based on The Game (2014). Currently writing chapter one, but I will be posting as I go given there's only 6 chapters planned. Probably will end up around 60k

Feel free to ask questions about any of them or just chat with me. I've got some other stuff in the works, but they're joint things/very early conceptual ideas.

[zxomon]

I wish I had wings I could curl up in. And then sit high up on the roof of a gothic castle. And then fly around in the moonlight, scaring people to cheer me up! (But also help people who's lost in the woods and stuff, maybe by scaring them so they run in the right direction)

A midnight/early-early morning doodle, while thinking about a lot of things, being awake because I slept too much too recently. But it'll be fine. Just fine. Fine.

[wingedcat13]

Siren Call: 3

[We’ve had past and present Minerva, but what about future?]

One day, Minerva will be familiar with the island’s crags and shelves. She’ll know the way the shore slope becomes a drop off and where the sandbars are, the color and density of all the coral, the migratory patterns of the species who pass by.

Today, she knows enough to avoid triggering the sensors. Even pauses to adjust one that’s started sagging out of place.

Minerva chooses not to walk up the beach, not wanting to track sand into the - house? Facility? Building? - not wanting to get sand caked to her feet and legs. Jumping straight up to the roof in a waterspout is also unnecessarily dramatic when there isn’t a fight to get to. So she just gathers herself, waits for a wave, and urges it a little higher, placing herself at its apex.

It gets her high enough that she can reach the railing of the overlooking balcony, with enough momentum to curl and tuck her body, cartwheeling over the rail partially just for the joy of motion. Even the smooth tiles feel rough compared to the water, strangely unyielding, and she wobbles just a little as she catches her bearings. Belatedly, she realizes she almost kicked the crap out of one of the balcony’s chairs. The little swerve she does is automatic. At least there wasn’t an audience-

“Minerva.” Says Synovus, sitting on the table because they’re deranged. There’s a surprised tilt to the end of her name, like half a question answering itself. They’re wearing civilian clothes again, and some part of Minerva’s mind can’t help noting that their arms are bare. “Welcome - back.”

One day, Minerva won’t scowl at them on reflex.

Today, she demands immediately, “Were you waiting for me?”

“Y-es?” Synovus hedges, not moving. “But also no? I was - I thought you’d be coming up from the shore.”

They sound almost abashed. But that’s too close to ‘embarrassed’ and Minerva is well aware that Synovus has no shame. She may have genuinely surprised them - they’re perched on the edge of the table, and had leaned away slightly. Synovus wanting to be a problem would have chosen a much more… blatant posture. Or at least to sit further back in the shadows. The absence of either a gaudy attention grabber or deliberate stealth indicated this middle ground was not an act. Or perhaps that’s what she’s meant to think.

One day, Minerva will not have to consciously pick aside the paranoia to see what is in front of her.

Today, it takes effort - but she does it.

With a sigh, she closes her eyes, and focuses on each part of her body, bringing herself down from the mild surge of adrenaline. One hand draws back the wet strands of her hair. The other removes the mask that was a gift. She leaves her eyes closed while she rubs the red marks out of her skin.

With her eyes closed, it’s easier to skip past the defensive retort, and say instead, “You could’ve at least had a coffee waiting for me.”

“I don’t actually know your preferences in that regard.” Synovus admits, and for a heartbeat Minerva is worried this will turn into a far too blunt conversation about homecomings, but - “Do you take it black? Iced? Green?”

Minerva scoffs, but it might have just been a laugh. Even she’s not sure. “White chocolate mocha.” She answers. “One shot espresso, oat milk.”

“Ah,” Synovus says, as Minerva opens her eyes. They seem to have had a revelation. “So that’s why Alexandria likes those Unicorn frappes so much. Hm. And here I usually go for the cider.”

A smile tugs at one corner of her mouth at the thought - Synovus, dread assassin, going to a coffee shop and ordering hot apple juice with whipped cream.

Minerva sets her mask on the table. “Stand up a minute.” She tells Synovus quietly, her voice nearly lost in the sound of the waves below.

“I don’t take direction well.” Synovus replies, even as they slide off the table and to their feet, turning to face her. There’s a caution to their movements, but also curiosity, written far more liberally across the unobscured face Minerva once never thought to see.

If Minerva meets their eyes too long, she’ll lose her nerve, so she winds up staring somewhere around Synovus’s collarbone instead. There’s a scar there, hidden for now by a high-necked top, and Minerva knows that because she put it there. It had been a targeted move: Synovus had broken her collarbone the fight before.

She wants to be better at giving back things other than pain.

“Just - give me a moment. Don’t move, please.” She’s pretty sure it’s the ‘please’ that gets them. Synovus goes so statue-still that Minerva’s not sure they’re blinking. But they don’t protest. And they certainly don’t move as Minerva steps forward.

And in one of the most awkward movements of her life, slides her arms around Synovus’s ribcage, setting her chin gently on their shoulder.

This is instantly easier when she no longer has to look at Synovus’s face. Well. When she can’t look. Can’t fixate on finding and parsing the smallest of expressions, assigning meaning to the specific tilt of a chin or speed of a blink. She’s still bad at it - hugging - because she usually just lets other people hug her, and initiating it is weird, but she can’t imagine Synovus is particularly good at it either.

After all, they’re still standing stock-still, and if Minerva wasn’t currently very aware of their breathing, she might even think they were panicking.

“Not a trap.” She mutters, and feels as much as hears Synovus’s responding huff. But their arms slowly, cautiously, hesitantly come up to return the embrace, hands resting lightly on her back. The side of Synovus’s head tips gently into hers.

One day, Minerva might not feel awkward about body contact and physical affection. One day, she may find herself as familiar with Synovus’s scars as she is her own. And she just might reach a point, eventually, where one of them could make a joke about this just being an excuse to get Synovus wet and not immediately both perish from the agony of an accidental allusion to arousal.

For today, this awkward embrace is enough.

———————————————————

Minerva probably won’t ever see a crowd as something other than a threat to be monitored.

Large groups have always made her tense, and that instinct had only gotten worse over the years. Most villains respect the ad hoc agreement about making an entrance, but there are a distinct few who would kill from a crowd. And there are those who are not villains in the distinct, identity sense, but would wreak havoc nonetheless.

So she scans the mall’s sheltered internal colonnade from behind her sunglasses, and listens to her daughter tell her about her day.

“- I just told him that I’d come from further South, and he didn’t ask me any more questions after that, but then freaking Brad asked me if I was an ‘illegal’ and I know what you mean now, about temptation to cram people into lockers. He’s lucky he’s so tall; I couldn’t fold him up to fit without taking some limbs off.”

Alexandria huffs, taking an aggressive pull from her milkshake. The stress of her life is getting to her - no teenager should have worry lines, or bags under their eyes that deep - but she insists this is what she wants. Even if Minerva sometimes wonders whether Alexandria sees herself as a member of the school’s attendees, or just a spectator who sometimes catches a stray ball.

“Did you tell Brad that?” Minerva asks mildly, mostly curious.

Alexandria sighs again, “No.” She says sullenly, shoulders slumping. “I asked him if he thought the government should determine who gets to live where, and then when he started to argue with me I told him I hoped his yacht sank with him on it.”

“Alexandria.” Minerva was still learning to find the right tone. The right amount of reproach, without exasperation or accusation. She must’ve gotten close, because Alexandria just lifts one hand in a ‘not me’ gesture.

“Specifically so he’d wash up in Mexico or Hawaii and get to be illegal himself.” She clarifies. “I don’t think that convinced anyone I wasn’t an immigrant, though. Til Seanna pointed out my grades in Spanish would probably be better.”

Minerva’s sigh is more restrained, but she points out, “There are other languages in South America. Brazilian Portuguese, for example.”

She’s not sure why she’s entertaining this, really.

“That’s true.” Alexandria ponders that for a moment, drinking more of her milkshake. “I mostly just meant to imply I was from one of the towns that got fu- uhhhh, screwed up by the power grabs.”

Minerva briefly leaves the conversation, remembering that shell of a place. The layouts, the dressings of a town, not quite abandoned yet but with nothing else to bleed.

Judging by the nudge she receives under the table, Alexandria isn’t totally oblivious to her distraction. She’s also changed the subject.

“So.” Alexandria is saying, drawing one syllable into three, “How are you and my godparent getting along?”

‘Godparent’ has become Alexandria’s favored way of referring to Synovus in public. It’s a joke on multiple levels, some of which Synovus seems to appreciate. But Minerva thinks it also makes them slightly uncomfortable, in a way they refuse to express to Alexandria.

“It’s fine.” Minerva replies, on rote. Her eyes flick to Alexandria, then back to the crowds. “What is it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what is it,’?”

“You wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want something in particular.”

Alexandria’s mouth twists down, “Can I just get an answer without fishing for it, for once?”

Startled, Minerva looks at her again. Takes a better assessment of her daughter’s body language, the tension there. She knows she’s also gone tense.

Anger creeps into Alexandria’s voice, replacing the annoyance. “I’m not going to lose control. I’m not-“

She cuts herself off, abruptly looking away. Her fingers relax around the plastic cup, deliberately demonstrating that her strength won’t get away from her.

Minerva has a suspicion of how that sentence might have ended. I’m not like you and dad.

Reaching out physically feels like the wrong move here. So does stiffening up further and refusing to talk about it. Be better, she thinks to herself desperately, her mind flicking back to an image of a person with one foot in the water, one on dry land.

“We still… disagree, on some things. Some major things.” Minerva makes herself say. She still doesn’t like that Synovus kills people. She doesn’t like that Synovus has ostensibly killed for her, or for Alexandria. But she also feels relief that Synovus did, and a sense of gratitude she can’t quite smother. It makes her feel dirty, oily, and she hasn’t found it’s root.

Taking a breath, Minerva continues, “But… I don’t think they mean either of us harm.”

Alexandria has relaxed a little, absorbed by what Minerva’s saying. And probably having to pick through it for what she isn’t saying either.

“Would you say that you, I don’t know, maybe, trust them?” Alexandria prompts.

Minerva’s grimace is answer enough.

Alexandria sighs, “Mom.”

“It’s complicated, Alexandria.” She says, but it’s not the abrupt conversation-closer it would have once been. More… beseeching.

“Do you trust anyone?” Alexandria asks, “And like, I don’t even really mean me, here, but like. Anyone?”

Minerva remains silent.

“Do you trust yourself?” Alexandria asks, sounding a little alarmed.

Minerva hesitates - but she can’t really answer that one either.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, just the background roar of the mall’s crowds between them. Minerva hates this. She hates feeling like she can’t actually control herself, can’t master the emotional impulses she’s forcibly crammed into a box for years. She hates that Alexandria is having to pick up the conversation, make the overtures, do the work.

But any time she tries to think of a way to do it herself, her mind shies away from it. The words wilt and die in her throat. Because what if she gets it wrong?

What if she has more to lose?

Eventually, Alexandria looks at the melted remnants of her milkshake, and asks, “Can we stop at the Hot Topic before we leave.”

One day.

———————————

A week later, Rosie pokes her head into the common room Minerva’s reading in. “Minerva?”

She’d finally been asked point blank by one of them what she wanted to be called, because Athena no longer seemed accurate. Committing to Naiad hadn’t felt right either, so she’d given up her civilian name. Synovus already knew it, what was the point?

(It had occurred to her, later, that the small thrill she felt at being addressed by it was possibly what Alexandria felt at being addressed by her chosen name.)

(Also, it would’ve made Albion furious.)

“What is it?” Minerva asks now, letting one finger hold her place in the book as she sits up.

“There’s a fight drifting our way - Zephyr and a few others against the Eye. He’s made another floating platform again.” Rosie rolled her eyes, providing her professional opinion.

Minerva tilted her head, hesitating. Zephyr was a hero she’d worked with before, though they had never gotten along. He’d offered to take her flying, she’d taken that as flirting and shut it down, they’d never really overcome the resulting awkwardness. She had no idea who he’d be working with.

Eye, in contrast, was Eye in the Sky - a villain obsessed mostly with surveillance, and not being observed himself. He was a center point of several conspiracy theories involving the NRA, CIA, and a number of international organizations. She’d never fought him before, just heard the stories.

“What’s the protocol?” Minerva asks, rather than offer any of that information. She was certain this group of people knew far more about everyone involved anyway.

Rosie smiles, “Not much of one, just a lower alert status. Doll and I will make the rounds and check on everyone, Synovus is going to suit up just in case, but we won’t get involved unless territory agreements are breached.” She added, “Alexandria’s still on the mainland, we’ve made sure she knows to be suited if she makes her own way home.”

Minerva taps at the cover of her book, thinking. She feels adrift, still. This isn’t an actual fight, unless she wants to go and be Athena, and the idea of that is physically uncomfortable. It would also invite too many questions. Naiad would-

Hm. “Does Synovus want me in uniform?” She asks, sardonic.

“I didn’t ask and don’t plan to.” Rosie replies flippantly. “If they want you to do something, I imagine you’ll hear about it directly.”

Somehow, that isn’t the response she wants. “I don’t-“

“They also haven’t given any orders that you’re to be stopped.” Rosie points out, cutting her off. “The rest of us will be either in the operations room or up on the roof to watch. Klaxon if there’s trouble.”

She gave Minerva another smile, twiddled her fingers, and withdrew. Minerva shifted, and opened her book again.

She made it through two more paragraphs, then left it unceremoniously on the floor.

———————————-

On the roof, Synovus was pacing.

In a way, that’s reassuring, because even Minerva knew by now that if there was imminent danger, Synovus would be stock-still. The sun glints off the dark helmet, and threw the matte black of the rest of the suit into stark relief against the sandy-colored rooftop. Wind off the sea ripples through the cape, keeping it blown back, perpendicular to the path Synovus is walking.

The sun is kinder to Minerva’s costume, and there is no cape to blow. The dark mask helps keep her from being blinded by the sun. Athena wouldn’t be of much use here; Naiad might be.

Doll - the larger, Russian man who Minerva thought of as Synovus’s second in command - stood up here too, a viewfinder raised to cover his face. He’s looking into the direction of the wind, angled out and up, and Minerva follows that direction.

There it is - flashes of distant, shimmering silver in a cloud bank that’s thinning. Some masking device, most likely, now disabled. There’s tiny flashes of what must be powers or weaponry at use, but she can’t make out more than that.

“How bad is it?” She asks anyway, brisk and businesslike.

“The wind isn’t in our favor.” Doll comments. He’s always answered her as if she’s a coworker, and she appreciates that. “I can’t tell how much of it is powered and how much of it drifts. If there’s been damage to it -“ He lowers the viewfinder to make a hand gesture. “It might not be able to control its direction anymore.”

“Sloppy.” The comment is out of Minerva’s mouth before she can stop it. It draws Doll’s attention, if not Synovus’s. At the slightly raised eyebrow, she sighs and continues, “Disabling propulsion or navigation creates unnecessary risk to everyone involved. The only time it becomes necessary is when there’s weaponry that absolutely must be disabled, and you don’t have either the training or the time to sort out different power systems.”

Doll nods, offering her the viewfinder. “It could be self-inflicted,” he points out.

“Possible, but suicidal. That would require an exit strategy. Do you think Eye has one?”

“He’ll have three, only two of them will work, and none of them will be enough to keep him from getting captured.” Synovus breaks into the conversation abruptly, annoyed. Or perhaps professionally offended. “They’ll be personal craft.”

Meaning the rest of the platform’s crew would be left to die. Incentive for the heroes to try and rescue them rather than pursue, but what a waste.

The viewfinder lets Minerva get a better sense of the platform’s size, and also an estimate of its height and distance. She can make out a glimpse of a gray-shaded costume, diving through the clouds: Zephyr.

“If you interfere,” She asks, while her view is disconnected from her surroundings, “What would that look like?”

There’s a hesitation. A gust of wind snaps at Synovus’s cape. The distant battle continues.

“If they cross the boundaries, there must be consequences.” Synovus says reluctantly. “I will destroy the platform. Survivors will become my prisoners. If the heroes protest, I’ll fight them.”

Minerva lowers the viewfinder, and returns it to Doll. Synovus has stopped pacing. “You don’t have the facilities for a mass casualty event.”

“No.” Synovus agrees. “I don’t.”

————————————

Rosie has come out to join them on the roof by the time there’s significant change. The wind has died down some - likely a marker of Zephyr changing it, finally reaching their shores. The air feels thick and dead without it.

They’ve mostly stood in silence, watching. It feels longer than it has been, and Minerva knows it’ll be worse for those actually fighting. She’s surprised she hasn’t felt more of an urge to intervene.

Though she has been keeping watch for anyone falling to the water below.

It’s hard to say which of them notices first - their attention is collectively on the sky platform, and not each other. But there’s a decided tilt to the mostly-exposed metal monstrosity now, and in very short order, it begins to fall.

“Catch it.” Minerva finds herself murmuring. “Catch it. At least slow it-“

But no one does.

The platform hits the water at the full speed gained from a several thousand foot drop, slamming into the ocean. Those watching know that the metal will crumple on impact, water at that height and velocity worse than slamming into concrete. The surface area only makes it worse; tilted in at a slight angle, it displaces the water in a specific direction.

Towards the island.

Minerva had studied the ocean as much as she could. She knows this phenomena, and can cite times in the past it’s occurred. Not caused by the shifting of the ocean floor or tectonic plates, but by a sudden mass displacement.

They call it a super-tsunami.

Synovus is a statue beside her from the moment the platform starts to fall. Doll catches on once the surface of the water rises - and then doesn’t fall again.

“Three minutes.” Minerva calculates, based on distance and the probable speed of the wave. As many miles to cross. Much taller. “Evacuation?”

“The Jet is under repair, we can’t get it into the air in time.” Rosie answers, grim.

“Seals on the inner portions of the facility might hold, but we don’t know how long we’d be underwater.” Doll says, hitting the klaxon anyway. “The fridges?”

“Only as good as long as the power lasts.” Rosie replies. “Alexandria?”

“Still on the mainland.” Doll growls, running a hand through his hair. “Even if she could reach us in time, we’d have to get everyone onto the plane-“

Synovus has, so far, said nothing. Minerva is the only one close enough to catch when they choke out a strangled, “-fucking submarine -“

Minerva had expected Synovus to have a plan. A power, a strength, a defense mechanism. The realization that they don’t is like a fire’s been lit at the base of her spine.

She doesn’t remember grabbing Synovus’s collar, or dragging them to face her. She does remember saying, “I can stop it.”

Synovus doesn’t hesitate. “What do you need?”

There is no questioning of if she’s sure, or recommendation that she go into the waves to ride it out. No suggestion of running.

“Get me in front of it.”

Immediately, Synovus has one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and they’re running. Off the edge of the roof, not quite flying, flickers of shadow beneath their feet. Minerva doesn’t have time to question it, because her attention is on the big damn wave.

When she had said she could stop it, she had spoken with a bone-deep certainty. But she’d never actually tried to divert a tsunami before, let alone one of this size. The largest amount of water she’s worked with has always been as much as she needs to accomplish her goal, and nothing more. Diverting some rain-induced flooding is nothing compared to the power of the tides.

But she can feel the ocean beneath them, as Synovus clears the island’s coast. She can sense the oncoming wave, so fast to them, but to the ocean like a flinch in slow motion. The ocean doesn’t know how to control a fall.

But Minerva does.

The trick is in grasping the majority of the wave without over extending. She doesn’t need every droplet, every molecule, but she does need the vast majority of them.

It’s like trying to get a grip on something flat with only the pads of her fingers. It’s like misjudging a stair and finding herself both plummeting and ramming into an outside force. It’s like taking the first breath of rain-rich air in the early morning, and feeling life enter her lungs again.

Minerva twists the top back over itself, breaking the wave in the wrong direction. She cuts it down the middle, diverting it off to the sides. She forbids it to go forward, as though it’s met a cliff. And as the water falls, the wave collapsing, so does she.

It takes a brief second to put together that the body that had been holding her aloft is now limp, twisted slightly as though to put itself between her and the wave. Synovus is unresponsive, the shadows gone, only the cape whipping around them as they fall. Minerva is able to catch them, now, grabbing on before they can drift away.

She reaches for the water below them, calling it up to catch them with less than bone-breaking force. It’s easier, somehow, but also harder, and she’s having trouble fixing a direction in her mind for where the wave was and where the shore should be. Hot air, harsh wind, cool water and the dimming depths as they’re both drawn down.

And she remembers, finally, that Synovus can’t swim.

—————

The disorientation has mostly worn off by the time Synovus wakes up.

Minerva had managed to follow the upset currents, but hadn’t wanted to risk trying to shape and change them. Or to fight them overmuch, with her cargo. So they’d wound up washed not to shore, but to a small opening into one of the partial lava tubes at the island’s base.

Outside, saltwater rain is still falling, though it will stop soon. The ocean’s roar sounds, to her ears, slightly confused. The sun is still shining, and the wind has picked up again. ‘Calm’ is a subjective definition, but they’re approaching it.

Minerva had been relieved to find that Synovus’s helmet was intact, even with the impact to the water. She’d managed to find its clasps, and to remove it, making sure the seals had also held and that Synovus wasn’t drowning in their own personal fishbowl. They’re propped up against her legs, which are folded beneath her, and she’s prepared for a violent awakening.

But Synovus’s eyes blink open, and Minerva is able to watch their facial muscles work as they come to terms with their surroundings.

“You fainted.” Minerva informs them.

Synovus squints at her, but doesn’t immediately protest. They also don’t try to move much, other than a slight squirm that Minerva recognizes as a full body check. Do I still have my appendages? Do my fingers and toes all work?

“Yeah.” Synovus concedes. Their voice is raspy with saltwater, even though they didn’t get much of a chance to drown. This time.

Minerva should probably start somewhere else - like making certain they’re okay, or assuring them about the conditions outside, that the wave had been averted. Instead, she all but demands, “If you’re so terrified of water, why in the hells did you build on an island?”

She can see the balk in Synovus’s expression: a furrowing of their brow, a twitch of the nose. Synovus lifts a hand to consider covering their face, eyes the sand on their glove, and lowers it again.

“I already know you can’t swim.” Minerva says flatly.

“I can swim.” Synovus shoots back, annoyed. “I cannot swim well, there’s a difference.”

They sigh, and move to sit up. Minerva doesn’t stop them. She doesn’t expect an answer, at least not without further prompting, but Synovus continues:

“It’s… easier. The isolation. Clearly defined borders. This is mine, everyone else fuck off. And it…” Synovus shakes their head. “It serves its purpose.”

Once, Minerva would’ve accused them of grandstanding. Of the island being a show of wealth and status. She knows better now - knows that while that is true, there’s other reasons, layered beneath.

And she thinks about everything Synovus has ever told her about self control.

“It contains you.”

Synovus hesitates, partially grimacing, but nods. “Serves its purpose.” They repeat quietly.

The two of them sit in silence, in the dark shadow of the cave. They listen to the water, and the waves as they return to normal.

“Thank you.” Synovus says, into the silence.

“I don’t require thanks.”

“But I feel you deserve it, and it’s mine to give.”

“And if I don’t want it?”

“Refuse it. I will survive the disappointment.”

Minerva has the uncomfortable feeling that they are not discussing only gratitude. Rather than address that, or continue the discussion, she says instead: “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

Synovus doesn’t reply. They tilt their head, studying her in the dark. Minerva’s dragged them into a cave and confronted them with truths after they passed out from fear doing something on her word, she should give them a break. She doesn’t.

“I should be out there looking for survivors, or recovering the dead. I don’t want to. I should’ve involved myself in the fight, reminded them to be careful of the platform’s vulnerabilities. I didn’t. I don’t feel guilt. I feel… annoyed. Angry. Because they should’ve known better.”

Synovus just turns a bit, to rest their back against a rock. “And that in turn makes you feel..?”

“Foolish. Arrogant. A bad hero, and a worse teacher. I should be patient. Forgiving.”

“They nearly killed you.” Synovus points out dryly. “You’re allowed to be angry about that.”

“And more would’ve died if the wave had reached the coast.” Minerva grits her teeth. “But that anger should be - I can’t control them. I cannot fix them. But I didn’t even try to intervene until it was almost too late.”

“But you did intervene.”

Minerva gestures, attempts to pinpoint the logic fruitless and frustrated. “Am I a hero or not?” She demands. “Do I act for others or only my own skin? I’ve spent years - decades - so sure of the answer but now -“

She raises her hands, half-fisting them in her hair. The sensation provides a little bit of grounding, enough of a distraction she doesn’t think about the words before she says them. “- now you make sense to me, and the things I thought I believed in enough to die for are - are hollow or gone or dead. And I let you kill them. I let you kill him.”

Abruptly, she draws her knees up, burying her face in them. “I let - I made - my child - our child -“

Minerva can’t tell if she’s crying or not. Her breath is coming in gasps, and her face feels hot, and this was always the part of weeping that she hated the most; the lack of control, the inability to communicate. Her eyes burn. So does the center of her chest, her stomach.

And Synovus is here, as her witness. Why not? They’ve seen every other ugly part of her, every other failure. She’s spent a good portion of her adult life fighting this person, exchanging scars, only for them to pick up the pieces and try to protect her. She’s finally had the upper hand, proven that she does have power, that Synovus now owes her in the brutal calculus of lives, and instead of reassuring her it’s broken her.

Because Synovus doesn’t trust themself either.

But Synovus trusts her.

“Do you wish I wouldn’t have killed Albion?” Synovus asks quietly.

The answer is as simple and certain as the water. “No.” She says honestly. “No I - I don’t.”

There’s a pause. Then, “Do you wish I would’ve killed you too?”

That answer isn’t as clear to find. “I - some days.” She says hoarsely. “I committed the same crimes.”

Synovus exhales, across from her, and it isn’t quite a sigh. “Alexandria feels differently.”

Minerva stops breathing.

Of all the answers Synovus could’ve given, that’s the one she can’t counter. She can’t afford to do this. To wallow in self recrimination. Her daughter is out there. And while maybe - maybe her morals are falling to pieces, and she doesn’t know who she is, but she knows that whoever she is loves Alexandria.

“Is it pathetic?” She asks Synovus, in the dark she can’t see through and Synovus can. “To need someone else to determine who I am. What I believe.”

She can hear the twist in Synovus’s expression as they reply, “That’s… inherently not a question I can answer. But, Minerva?” Synovus doesn’t hesitate, so much as pick their way across uncertain footing, “I don’t think you would’ve been able to turn back that wave if you weren’t… as much as you are.”

It’s clumsily phrased. Wavering and uncertain. But Minerva, whether because she’s reading what she wants to from it, or because it’s actually Synovus’s intention, understands.

She takes a deep breath. Then another. Then she stands, and offers a hand in Synovus’s general direction. Her voice is much more certain, calm, when she says, “I need to go organize a search party.”

——————

Minerva may not ever come to terms with her role in her ex-husband’s death, or the harm she caused her daughter. She might not ever find the rock-solid beliefs that she once thought she had.

But she might - just might - come to terms with that uncertainty. The ocean doesn’t have roots either.

She’ll have good days and bad days. She’ll need to make decisions about who she wants to become, and how she feels about who she is. But as both Naiad, and Minerva, she has that freedom.

She’ll never touch the Athena costume again.

And one day, while she’s working on a laptop in one of the common rooms, Synovus on one of the other couches and Alexandria sprawled on the floor, Minerva will say, “I have an idea. Something I’d like to do about the Pacific garbage patch.”

And Alexandria will roll over to look at her, and Synovus will glance up. And Minerva will add, “It’s not precisely legal.”

And Synovus will say, “I’m listening.”

——————————

[And so ends Siren Call! This took much longer than it’s other pieces, and there were things I debated including and things I wanted to cut, but in the end, this was the flow the story took. I’m not saying I’m *done* with Synovus and co, but I will say that I’m glad to have this chapter closed and tied off.]

[As per usual, a copy of this will go up on Ao3 soon, and I’ll find out how long it is, because I’ve once again written directly into tumblr drafts. It’s where the Synovus muse lives, apparently.]

[buckets-and-trees]

Don't Blame Me

Characters/Pairings: Bucky x f!Reader Word Count: 960 Summary: A chance encounter in the middle of the night in your kitchen.

Content Warnings: smut, vaginal penetration, some light drinking, tw: cheating/infidelity

Logistical Notes: A humble little offering for @nickfowlerrr's Seven Deadly Sins + Seven Holy Virtues writing event, though certainly no virtues to be seen here - just envy and lust.

Additional Notes: I'd been thinking of Bella's writing event for quite a while, but @biteofcherry tormented me with a very inspirational gif and fed me some naughty thots that I haven't been able to get out of my head. But finally tonight, this demanded to be told. Title taken from the Taylor Swift song of the same name as it's loosely based off some of its feelings/drives.

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

You hadn’t expected to have company in the kitchen when you’d left your room in only the loose tank top and panties you’d worn to bed, but you made no attempt to hide your body when you heard his footsteps quietly treading down the hallway because part of you wanted him to see.

As he rounded the corner, he flicked on the single light that hung lower over the center island counter, the soft glow illuminating you leaned up against it with a pint of ice cream and a spoon, and pouring over his shirtless form, dark sweatpants slung low on his hips.

“Oh, I didn’t – sorry,” he said softly, tugging his pants up a bit more, and averting his gaze sharply away from you.

“You’re fine. Don’t mind me.”

You watched as he turned away to grab a glass from the cupboard, longing to reach out and run your fingers over the muscles moving and stretching along his back.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here tonight,” you pressed as he slotted the glass beneath the waterspout on the door of the fridge. “You have that giant presentation for the investors in the morning.”

Bucky sighed.

“Your girlfriend, my roommate, was specifically complaining about how you wouldn’t go out with her tonight because of it – which is perfectly reasonable by the way. You know that, right?”

He didn’t respond, still not looking at you, and then it was you who let out a sigh.

“Bucky, please tell me you didn’t go pick her up when she called.”

“Of course, I did, what else was I supposed to do?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

He finally rounded on you, his face a mixture of anger and hurt. “She was drunk at a bar, she needed me.”

“No, she didn’t! She went out with five of her old college friends – any of them should have taken care of her. She could have gotten an Uber. She could have called me, and I would have grudgingly been annoyed but gone and picked her up, even though I wanted to throw things at her when she left saying not to wait up because she was going to call you to go get her anyway because she knew you’d come because you’re the perfect boyfriend.”

Bucky clenched his jaw. “I’m not the perfect boyfriend.”

You scoffed. “Sure you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Why are you arguing with me about this?”

“Because I’m not the perfect boyfriend.”

You frowned.

He flexed his left hand in agitation, making the black plates quietly whir, but every sound in this nearly silent kitchen was loud. You could even hear the gentle, intermittent snores of your sleeping roommate down the hall, Bucky having left the door open when he came to the kitchen.

You looked from his beautiful vibranium arm back up to his piercing blue eyes.

“I want you to kiss me,” you breathed, barely above a whisper.

But you didn’t need to say it any louder.

His eyes darkened at your words. “I can’t.”

“You can,” you said, taking a step closer to him. “Please just kiss me.”

“Fuck,” he whispered when you placed one hand on his shoulder and one tentatively on his waist.

You closed the space between the two of you and tilted your head up, offering your waiting lips to him.

“Please, please kiss me.”

He didn’t move, which meant he also didn’t move away.

“Bucky, I know how you look at me now. You didn’t at first, but you’re bored of little miss perfect, you want imperfection, you want reality, you want me as much as I crave you.”

He dropped his forehead to yours, shutting his eyes. “Don’t.”

You pressed your chest flush up against his. “Just one kiss.”

“It won’t be just one kiss,” he shot back so quickly your stomach flipped, and you couldn’t hold back.

You surged up and captured his lips. His hands flew up to grip either side of you head, and it would have been tender if not for the heat and rage and longing that fueled it, causing him to hold you a little more firmly. You moaned into the kiss, and he backed your hips up to the counter, then lifted your hips up onto the granite countertop. You leaned back, bracing your hands on the smooth surface behind you. You drew your legs up around the backs of his thighs to pull him close, his legs stopping against the island, and you dragging your pelvis to the very edge, pressing your cunt against the bulge in his sweatpants. He broke off the kiss, his head dropping back on a groan of pleasure.

Desire was desperately coursing through you, you had wanted this man more and more over the past months, every friendly interaction only seeping deeper and deeper into your heart.

But adrenaline and bitterness also fanned the flames of your need.

Because it was likely she’d gotten plastered enough to sleep clean through anything until morning.

But she could wake up and come out here and see you like this as you kissed her boyfriend and pushed his sweats and boxer briefs down to free his cock. She could hear him growl into your mouth, licking against your tongue in an eagerness to taste more of you, pulling your panties off so quickly.

He only broke away from the kiss long enough to line up his cock, and then he shot into you, reclaiming your lips to swallow a sharp cry from you.

You’d been fueled by lust, but sustained by longing.

This was so much more than one kiss.

And as you clutched onto his shoulders – one metal and one flesh – you knew this would not be the end of it.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[sorryimananti-romantic]

I'm still stuck on the ATLA thing and I just realized that San can probably melt metals and throw it around to burn his enemies' flesh to the bone.

If Wooyo and Mingi combine their powers they can make a fire tornado. Yunho can bloodbend, make blood clot in your veins, make it heat up and expand so much that every single capillary bursts.

Hongjoong's light magic, if he can imbibe an arrow with it and it hits someone, can probably combust someone from the inside with the amount of energy light has. (Do you think he kinda has a glow from within because of his light magic tho? Whenever I think if him as the Prince of light, I imagine him glowing)

Wooyoung also probably does this

San/wooyoung/Jongho:

And Jongho is so Toph coded he WILL call you twinkle toes.

Also ever since the picture of Lightning bender Mingi took a seat in my head I've had this headcanon that whenever he gets flustered or shy little flashes of Lightning fly around him. Like you can literally SEE his fuse short circuiting

Mingi trying to flirt:

YES SAN CAN. also... isn't the iron in our blood a metal too? bloodbending for san, perhaps? (far-fetched tho i think yunho should be the only bloodbender out there loll also easy there mate-)

ah yes the combinations! wooyoung and mingi with the fire tornado, also wooyoung and yunho could do a water tornado (sth similar to a waterspout methinks)

hongjoong with his light arrows that would burn the flesh off your bones before it even gets to the combustion part. there's a reason i chose ginger haired bronzer makeup hongjoong as the prince of light bc i feel like he looks way too ethereal and prince-of-light-ey in that! the illusion mv, specifically. he looks etheral anyway but this:

also cackling at the gifs! so accurate haha wooyoung threatening the teezers with mini tornados between his hands. there's a reason i put wooyoung, jongho and san in one continent they have like similar? power types i think and can you imagine the chaos when they get together to practise? imagine them going to mingi's kingdom that has the only desert on their planet. they must be practising all that in the desert 😭

DSKLHFJKSDGH MINGI SHORT CIRCUITING WHEN SOMEONE CONFESSES TO HIM OR WHEN HE FEELS THE 'SPARKS' DFKJGHDJKGH if i write a mingi series in the lore that's exactly what we're exploring- his struggles with the lightning part of fire magic and how he finds a partner in between all of that and keeps getting his ass electrocuted 😭😭

[captainkirkk]

Okay, I'm late on the Spider-Verse recommendations, but I'm here now.

It's A School Night, Why Are You Out Saving The World by TechnicolorVocab01 is a great little fic about Jefferson trying to parent the new Spiderman because he's? So small?

To Have And To Hold by Traincat is a short crack snippet explaining why Aunt May calles Doc Ock 'Liv'.

Down The Waterspout by Mockingone is a what-if of Blond Peter surviving and fleeing the collider with Miles. Very sweet, highly recommend.

so lucky, so strong, so proud by ProfessorSpork is a sad little fic exploring how the various Spiders feel to see alternate versions of their dead loved ones. Major ouch.

He can turn Invisible! by Awakening5 is a series of snippets. Increasingly sappy and smutty as they go on, but I personally love them.

Aaa some of these look so painful, thank you

[thehistoriangirl]

The Tides Have Veiled [Nine]

This chapter is calmer than last one,

Or is it?

Viktor x Fem!Reader---Gothic AU: Spooky Sea---2.3K--SFW

> MASTERLIST <- Previous // Next ->

Synopsis:  Piltover the Old has an old lighthouse that looms over an abandoned port. From the house in the wailing cliff’s edge, the lighthouse owner watches that the beacon is being lighten up each time darkness arrives, so that monsters wouldn't dare to crawl inland, or so legends say. Both buildings are haunted, maybe even the man himself, by both past and present ghosts. Surprisingly, the keeper’s work is beyond turning on the beacon every night— but the rest is on you to discover.

Chapter Summary: Upon your return to Piltover the Old, you discover that the strange happenings aren't only bound to you, but to the whole town...

Tags: Strangers to Lovers | Ghosts | Mermaids/Sirens | Slow Burn | Bonding Time | Forced Proximity | Mystery | Dark Magic | Spooky (?) imaginery |

Taglist: @lunar-monster @bittercyder @local-mr-frog

Nine: Curses Trapped in Whirlpools

The wind near the beach was lighter, the marine breeze stealing all the free space inside your lungs to reclaim you, the sand trying to glue you to become one with it, dragging you to the ground.

“It had rained heavily.” An obvious statement to try to break the tension settled between the two ever since you climbed the carriage on wobbly legs.

The beach soaked, with the sand more like mud, tinted a darker shade of brown. Tiny pools scattered across the coast, all filled with dead specimens, amorph from the tearing tides and the unmerciful wind, and yet, too strange to belong to this world.

Hollow-like eyes, blobs of black substance resembling skin, teeth so sharp for belonging to such a tiny fish.

“Probably a waterspout," Viktor signaled, his skin regaining some color under the evening sun. The tip of his cane poked one dead fish. "These don't belong to the surface."

The lighthouse was still on, the beacon concealed with the sun’s brightness.

"What is that?" Your finger pointed to a strange mass near the cliff's wall. Without thinking, you walked toward it, feet sinking in the sand, chilling your feverish skin.

Viktor called your name, hand extended as if to stop you. But you couldn't see him clearly, looking at the sea swinging lazily, almost taunting for you to get closer to the thing only to snatch it out of your grasp.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

You stopped a couple of meters away, where there was a toppled basket, moss already growing from the vegetal fabric the basket was made of. Inside, there were wet pages of what seemed to be letters, the ink ran over by the water, eating the words away. Photographs of people you had never seen, weddings, funerals.

“What’s this?” you muttered, too scared to bend down and see it closer.

“Memories,” Viktor told you, his hand over your shoulder. “Come on. You’re going to get sick with your feet all soaked.”

“Why do people put them here?” The stone staircase was seeped in water, with you carefully walking behind Viktor, ready to help him in case any of his feet slipped from a step, but he was just as impassible as the lighthouse itself against the wind starting to blow over. “Isn’t it easier to burn them if they wish to get rid of them?”

"They're not trying to dispose of them.” His golden gaze tracked back at you from the corner of his eye, like another lighthouse casting its glow over your wandering mind. “It’s an offering.”

“An offering? I thought all the people here had shifted from pagan beliefs.”

A noncommittal shrug. "You can't get away from the belief when it's rooted in the ground you walk," Viktor commented, the exhibit at the museum coming back to your mind, the image of the lighthouse alongside the legends, the shadowy figure of a monster you didn't want to see. "This was one of the main coastal towns to seek the favors of mermaids, after all."

The sea’s roaring lulled you, eyes drifting over the never-ending blue of sky and water merging. It was a world of their own, so close and far from your grasp at the same time. “Viktor, do you believe in those stories?”

“People do that around fall, praying not to have any major storm hitting the coast.” Viktor walked with a steady pace, his hair shining between honey and copper. "I do not see the harm in amusing people's beliefs, Miss."

Knowing that it would be the best answer you could get out of him, you continued the path ahead.

"How's that I haven't seen one before?" Your breath was getting agitated, and you didn't know if the reason behind the steep climb, or Viktor's story.

“They only put them over the cliff wall, nearer as they can to the maelstrom in front of the cliff.”

You fidgeted with the handle of your suitcase—well, the one Viktor had lent you. “Do you know where the maelstrom leads you?" you asked, biting your lip at listening to how childish that question had sounded.

“’Where?’” Viktor raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! Haven't you heard that story?" you said, excited to tell the knowledgeable man next to you a new piece of information that may serve his research. “That if you fall into a whirlpool, you end up in the mermaid’s realm?”

He chuckled, a wry smile that could outshine the sun. "That's why you shouldn't throw rocks or logs inside them." He rummaged inside his pockets for his keys, and now, you could walk side by side, the house welcoming you like an elongated shadow, with no lights or curtains drawn, all its eyelids closed, as if dormant.

“Or the mermaids will come for you while you’re playing on the beach!” you finished the shared thought, happy to have made him smile, for once.

His eyes twinkled. “Do you think that ghosts can get trapped in the mermaid’s realm if they get caught in the whirlpool, Miss?” Viktor sounded as if he was about to give a dissertation, his voice almost reverential. “Sometimes, I wonder if that’s the reason why the cliff cries.”

The entrance door opened without noise, the bright light outside devoured by the foyer, stains covering your eyelids, black and red with each blink.

You were following Viktor’s white shirt, when suddenly you didn’t see it move anymore, your head bumping into his back.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Your hand flew toward his arm to steady him.

“I’m—It's… it's fine," Viktor muttered, tapping his cane on the floor. One. Two. Three. As if knocking.

You peeked from over his shoulder, feeling the blood pooling down your feet.

“What… what happened here?” you uttered, so quietly that it was a miracle Viktor could hear you over the rapid beat of your heart. The furniture was toppled, pages scattered over the floor, some glasses broken, crunched under Viktor’s unrelenting steps as he scanned the room. “Someone broke in?”

Could it be your family? Trying to coerce you into their will and find you gone?

Anger bloomed inside of you, tensing your jaw, and feeling a pit in your stomach, as if someone had forced you into swallow stones that would only drag you deeper into the current you wished to outrun. One not even the terribly adventurous trip to the city, not even the golden band on your finger could make you float away.

“I’m going to look for them,” you huffed, surprised at how cold your voice sounded. "This is unacceptable. To drag you into this mess…" It’s my fault, your mind echoed, another infuriating truth.

“Wait.” This time, Viktor did hold you by the hand, his fingers brushing your palm and wrist in a motion so light, for a moment you thought you would’ve imagined it. “They weren’t the perpetrators. Or I believe they weren’t.”

Looking up at him, you copied his frown. “Viktor, you don’t have to excuse them…” you started, words getting trapped in your throat at seeing how the light filtered from the entrance to the stairs in a familiar pattern.

Muddy footsteps.

Viktor saw the fear in your widened eyes, putting a hand on your shoulder.

"Miss. Go to the lighthouse. I will sort this out."

You grimaced, looking at the house torn to shreds. "I can help you clean—"

"No. It could be dangerous for you." His eyes searched for yours. "Please go to the lighthouse. I promise that everything will be alright."

Opening the rusty doors of the lighthouse felt almost like coming home; the familiar, newly painted walls received you, with the smoky smell of the hearth. Away from that house, for whatever lurked in there.

Shaking your head, you went to the beacon room to check on the electrical panel, finding it only slightly heated from working incessantly for almost three days. The longest Viktor or you could go with having nausea and headaches, hallucinations mixed on top of it, or so you thought, when you woke up in Viktor's bed, with him laying on the couch, the plate where you had put his meds empty.

You couldn’t turn it off, as night was already settling its black blanket over the waves, fog creeping into the surface to blur the limits of the familiar world to turn them into a ghostly landscape.

A chill ran down your spine at remembering the silhouette, white yet solid enough to pierce through the veil and stare right at you, freezing the blood of your veins with its ominous greeting.

Would you see it again? Just as you had seen the mud footprints.

Your teeth nibbled on your thumb’s nail, mind rummaging as to find an explanation.

Someone had broken in, it had to be that—perhaps someone lived inside Viktor’s house, using the owner's usual absence to their advantage. That's why they had appeared in front of your room, as a threat to draw you away.

But… who would dare to live in a seemingly haunted house? Maybe it was the reason behind the strange sensation of someone watching your every step, of all the silences charged with expectations of something breaking it.

Almost as if you could remember it from your days cleaning the house; the gazes from the corner of your eye to double check the hallways, that the creaking wood may not have been the aging house hit by the wind, but rather, a careless step right next door.

That perhaps Viktor was hiding another person from your view if he was distracted enough not to notice such things. Because it must be signs, like objects moving, or disappearing, the footprints, of course, or some noise.

At least you didn’t have to spend more nights there. Little mattered if you were husband and wife, you were only his lighthouse keeper. Occasional friend, at best.

Minutes poured into hours, the sky grey inside that another realm that seemed to be an unfinished sketch, with its sharp edges and grey backgrounds all ornamented with the cliff’s haunting cries, ones that in a twisted way, you had missed.

In the city where everything seemed to be a dream, the cliff’s real screams grounded you in the sick reminder that this was real.

That the muddy footprints were, too.

Your skin got covered in goosebumps, the constant thumping of raindrops against the ceiling drowning any outside noise, except the clear of the entrance door slamming close.

The chair you were sitting on creaked from your jump, feeling your heartbeat thrashing against your ribcage.

By paranoia, you looked back at the beach, where the female-looking apparition was already standing as still as a statue, her bony and deformed hand raised in a greeting.

She turned her head slightly, and the dead algae clung to her remaining black hair covering one of the hollow sockets where her eyes were supposed to go. Instead, from the holes ran putrid blood, almost as black as tar, that the rain couldn’t watch.

Her smile was too wide, showing her too-sharp teeth. And then it clicked in your head. She looked like those strange fishes from the deep sea.

Was she a mermaid?

“Miss.”

You screamed, and Viktor almost fell from the last step of the stairs, his knuckles white from balancing his body on the rail. Miraculously, the thin balustrade was stronger than it looked. “My—are you alright? I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I could frighten you so badly.”

He had an awkward smile on his face, eyebrows knitted in worry.

“Viktor… what are you doing here?” Your question didn’t help to diminish the blush covering his cheeks despite the wet ends of his hair poking around his ears.

“I suppose I couldn’t sleep.” With little, shy steps, he approached the uneven table, sitting atop it while pressing his cane against the ground to balance its legs. “Not after… well,” he sighed.

When you looked at the beach again, it was empty.

“Had it happened before?” Your voice was barely audible over the incessant rain.

His graceful fingers outlined every line of the wood. “A couple of times,” he sighed, the hollows of his face accentuated with the single bulb atop your heads. Viktor looked exhausted. “But never… like this.”

He shrugged. "It's rather a risky strategy to get me out of the house."

You gestured toward him. “Well, it worked today, so,” you said, trying to alleviate his focused frown for some minutes.

Viktor chuckled, his eyes twin to the beacon brightening the night outside. "Julio used to see me napping in the cot when he returned from his duty. He must have forgotten to tell you."

“I don’t mind the company.” You stood up, returning from the panel room with one of your blankets. Viktor smelled like the burned wood of his hearth, to old books and coffee, when your hands brushed his shoulders as you wrapped the blanket around him. “You’re shaking,” you muttered with a smile. “Do you want some tea?”

Viktor was about to nod. “Only if you’re having one, too.”

You felt your stomach lighter, and suddenly, it was very tempting to start playing with your unkept hair. “I will be back.” You could feel his gaze burned on your back as you walked toward the stairs. “Can you keep watch meanwhile?”

Viktor called your name, your feet hovering over the edge of the step. Turning to see him, slowly walking toward your unoccupied chair, gaze cast over the coast as his elbow leaned against the window to support his chin.

“I know we didn’t meet in the most… ideal circumstances. But… but I’m happy that you’re here, now,” he muttered, looking back at you with a smile. “Thank you.”

You smiled, looking at the ground. "I think I should be the one thanking you," you said, hands interlaced over your stomach. "You helped me break out the cursed destiny it had been traced for me.”

Viktor hooked the cane in the crook of his elbow, looking out the window, pensive.

“I like to believe we both are helping each other to break our curses.” Viktor looked at you intently, his gaze freezing you, mid-step, suspended in a void.

[birgittesilverbae]

lilith & shannon (platonic) + guard

The van rocks, the nose dipping down under the strain of an applied load, and Lilith sighs. "You're going to bottom out the suspension doing that."

"You'd know about bottoming." 

Lilith sighs again, draws it out into a slow leak of a sound, but Shannon's more careful when she hauls herself up onto the roof of the van, so she counts it as half a win. "What are you doing?"

Shannon settles down beside her, facing the opposite side of the parking lot, left side aligned to left. "It's my turn on guard. Time for you to grab some rest."

"There's no need. I don't require much sleep anymore."

"Me neither," Shannon replies easily, raking a hand through her hair. "Guess we can share the duty, then."

The soft glow just peeking out from beneath the cuff of Shannon's jacket, caught in Lilith's peripheral vision, makes her swallow an automatic retort. Instead, she sighs a third time, a sharp huff that makes Shannon rock to the side to knock shoulders with her.

"Is the thought of spending time with me really that awful?"

"If you're going to spend the entire night talking? Yes."

"Noted." She lapses into silence, and Lilith is about to give thanks for the moment's peace when– "Pardon the avian idiom, but when did you start using a sitting duck guard post?"

Lilith stiffens, fights hard to stop her claws from unsheathing. "I am no longer required to defend my tactical choices to you."

"That wasn't–" Shannon scrubs her hands across her face. "I'm not– I'm sorry. I keep going about these things like–" She tips her head back and groans. "I don't mean it as a criticism, Lilith. I trust your judgement. I have always trusted your judgement, even when I didn't necessarily trust you. I'm just interested in the thought process that's led to you playing the world's most terrifying gargoyle."

"Grotesque."

"Don't talk about my sister like that."

Lilith allows herself the briefest fantasy of teleporting Shannon to Paris solely to drop her off the roof of Notre-Dame. "Gargoyles act as waterspouts. The carvings that don't serve a function are called grotesques."

Shannon's laugh is warm, fond in a way that's never quite been meant for Lilith. "Spend a stakeout on a rooftop with Bea, did you?"

She can't quite recall whether Shannon has always been able to draw sighs from her with so little effort, or if this is a new development. "Perhaps." 

"Thought so. Reason for playing world's most terrifying grotesque, then."

Lilith drums her fingers on the roof panel. "I'm more a deterrent to the remnants of the Firstborn Children out in the open than I would be should I take watch from a covered position," she explains quietly. She lets the claws slide free then, presses the tip of one to the point of Shannon's shoulder. "If your choice was to face a nightmare head on or flee, which would you choose?"

"You're not a nightmare." There's a sharp edge to Shannon's voice, her words slicing hot through the night air.

"I'm the ghoul who appears from nowhere to leave a trail of bodies in my wake, Shannon. I'm their nightmare."

"That may be, but you are not a nightmare."

"We're not doing this right now."

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry." She elbows Lilith gently. "Using their base instincts of fight or flight against them? Genius."

No matter how hard she tries, Lilith can't tamp down the warmth that billows in her chest at the kernel of praise. "Thank you," she replies stiffly, then shifts the angle of her hips so she can concentrate more fully on her duties.

[quasarlasar]

MELISSA AND THE ALLIES OF GAIA ART DUMP 1 - THE SUPERCELL

In episode 9 of the story "Melissa and the Allies of Gaia" I posted on Wattpad in August, Melissa and her storm avatar partner Hurricane Carla (shown in her miniature form) face off against a sapient high-precipitation supercell over a salt marsh in Alabama. A pair of fisherman have been using the tornadoes/waterspouts it creates to catch fish, having used an artifact of evil weather magic to take control of the storm.

Since actually moving to Alabama (I had no idea I would end up there at the time I wrote the story chapter) I have kind of developed a new fondness for this character. Most of the characters in the story I have done art previously for but I have never drawn this one.

While I don't specify this in the story, I imagine this supercell to use she/they pronouns (insert mammatus cloud joke here) and the tornados are like her "children" that she lets out to "play" (I mean if you scaled up a toddler to the size and strength of a tornado you'd probably get as much destruction). I plan for her to come back in a sequel, though of course Melissa will end up calling her something like "Mr. Thunders." (not that I imagine she would care all that much, of course, being a giant storm and all).

Like the hurricane avatars, she has a miniature form (shown in the top image) that she stays in when conditions aren't right for her to build up her massive supercell body. It looks like a cute little cumulus cloud with a thunderbolt crest. She doesn't speak any human language, and in the story she only briefly speaks in the wind language of storms to Carla, so she isn't very talkative. For this reason I imagine Melissa might one day try to keep her as a pet, which of course goes terribly wrong (as you can see in the first page with "Mr. Thunders" pooping huge spiky hail all over her apartment ["Mr Thunders! Not on the car!"]).

Shown in the top image is also her standing off against the miniature form of Labor Day and glaring at him with lightning. This happens in the story because Labor Day gets really hungry after the wind shear causes dry air to be entrained in his circulation and he basically loses control for a brief moment and tries to eat her waterspouts. Needless to say "Mr. Thunders" doesn't like this one bet, and attacks Labor Day. Fortunately it turns out "Mr. Thunders" also is hungry for some warm moist air too and they end up just kind of returning to Gulf Coast Headquarters and having lunch on some tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico.

The final drawing on the first image shows them snuggling with their tornado children. Ultimately I imagine she only wants what is best for them. It just so happens that sometimes what is best for a tornado isn't what is best for humans.

Some more notes on her design:

-Since she's a high precipitation supercell I imagine she has a lot of precipitation falling both from her anvil and from her base, which obscures anything like the wall cloud etc. This also conveniently means I don't have to draw all the features in the base of the supercell because I can't make heads or tails of how they are arranged lol (you can tell I have more experience with tropical cyclones)

-I basically imagined her thunderhead anvil is like her hat. It actually extends far ahead of and behind her head (it is extended by the upper level wind shear) but since she's viewed from the front it is foreshortened. From the side it would be quite long.

-Her eye color is supposed to be the deep green seen in storms with a lot of hail as the sun sets. I imagine her triangular pupil actually looks like a conical tornado up close.

-I had previously in the webcomic drawn Melissa as having a peace sign beanie or skullcap, but I realized when writing the story that that sort of hat doesn't make sense for her home of Galveston, which has a hot climate. I imagine it's more of a sunhat now. (Okay this isn't about the supercell's design but I think it's important)

[ilearnedthistodaysblog]

#1105 What causes a fire tornado?

What causes a fire tornado? A fire tornado is caused when the intense heat from the fire rapidly warms the air above the ground and makes it rise in a spiral. Fire tornadoes are fairly common, but it is very uncommon for someone to see them because you would need to be in the middle of a forest fire or some other kind of vast fire. If you search on YouTube, you can find examples of them. Fire tornadoes are also actually not tornadoes, which is why they have several different names. They are called fire whirls, fire devils, fire whirlwind, fire twister, and sometimes firenado. I am going to continue to call them fire tornadoes, though. Why are they not tornadoes? A tornado is a column of air that descends from a massive thunderstorm, while whirlwinds, waterspouts, and fire tornados rise up from the ground and don’t have to be associated with a thunderstorm, thus they are not really tornadoes. In a tornado, there is always a supercell thunderstorm, which is much bigger than a regular thunderstorm. Rising warm air and sinking cold air in the middle of the supercell make it rotate. As the supercell gets bigger, more warm air goes upwards and cold air comes out of the middle of the storm towards the ground. The warm moist air creates a spinning funnel in the middle and the cold sinking air pulls the funnel down to the ground, where it becomes a tornado. Waterspouts and fire tornadoes form in a similar way and it is the exact opposite way to a tornado. A tornado is pulled down from the sky by the sinking cold air, but a waterspout and a fire tornado are pulled up from the ground by the rising warm air. In the case of a waterspout, the sun heats the surface of the sea and the air above it. The warm air rises up, carrying a lot of moisture with it because warm air has more energy, which means it can hold more water. This happens anywhere when the sun heats the sea but when there is a strong horizontal wind, a waterspout can form. The horizontal wind blows past the rising warm air and spins it. Once the waterspout has started to spin, the wind makes it go faster and a column of water is sucked up into the sky. Waterspouts are not as powerful as tornadoes, and they don’t last very long. A fire tornado forms in the same way as a waterspout, but the ground is heated by the fire and not by the sun. This usually happens during a wildfire, although fire tornadoes occurred during the firebombing of German and Japanese cities during World War 2. Wildfires create their own wind and weather, which leads to the formation of fire tornadoes. The main principle is that warm air rises. When the fire starts, the center of the fire becomes very hot. The temperature can get over 1,000℃, which is almost hot enough to melt gold. The fire heats the air above it, which rises very quickly. When the air rises, it creates a vacuum where it was, which draws more cold air and fire into it. This air is then heated and rises, creating a circular effect. The air that is drawn into the fire brings in more oxygen, which makes the fire burn more fiercely and hotter, making more hot air rise. This rising hot air can cause clouds to form. The hot air carries a lot of ash and when it gets higher, it starts to cool down. The water it is carrying condenses on the ash and forms clouds called pyrocumulus, which means “fire cloud”. The fire clouds can become storms in their own right and there is often lightning, which can light even more fires. The whole system feeds itself and is incredibly difficult to extinguish. In the same way as a waterspout, the rising hot air from the center of the fire can get spun by the fast winds coming in to to fill the void where the air had been. When they spin the column of air, it sucks fire up with it, creating a rising fire tornado. Owing to climate change, wildfires are becoming more common and there will be more fire tornadoes because they are a natural phenomenon. Wildfires are almost impossible to extinguish because they are too big and too hot. The only thing that firefighters can do is to try to cut fire gaps so that the fire can’t head towards towns or farms. This doesn’t always work and the wind that the fire creates can make the fire jump large gaps. The hot dry air above the fire dries out all of the vegetation, making it more flammable. And this is what I learned today. Photo by Frank Cone: https://www.pexels.com/photo/eruption-of-volcano-18092546/ Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_whirl https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/fire-tornado.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvfDbODi-vQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado https://www.britannica.com/story/how-do-tornadoes-form https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-destructive-wildfires-create-their-own-weather/346337 https://wfca.com/wildfire-articles/wildfire-temperatures-how-hot-can-wildfires-burn https://blog.gov.bc.ca/bcwildfire/wildfire-tactics-what-it-takes-to-put-it-out Read the full article

[waterspoutskies]

The Belated Blog Org Post

I've caved. I've done it. Fine. There will be organization upon this heathen blog.

'Ello 'ello, I'm waterspouts, waterspoutskies, PastelSkies until recently, and I go by the name Paloma Meso. A small handful of folks call me Pi or Laura because this is not my first internet rodeo!

You may also find me at my science sideblog, @synopticskies. I bring this up because the next subject is about my writing, which suffers from the fact that I'm a full time uni student relevant to my sideblog.

My AO3 is waterspouts and you'll find primarily LU and LU adjacent content on there. Also Four Swords. That's about all I write that isn't my own children! (And I am very proud of my own children, so look forward to more of them in the future.)

A selection from my AO3:

- Beneath the Skin: My primary multichapter project about my beloved punching bag, Shadow. He sure is having a time! (LU. Incomplete, 3 chapters.) - Thoughts Like These: Wild meets Chain, and he and Flora aren't happy about it. You've probably read this one. (LU. Complete.) - Where We Are: Chain meets Hyrule with some minor twists on my canon. Everyone is trying, except Hyrule. He's not. (LU. Incomplete. Chapters 1, 3, 4, and 5 Complete. Please pray for Chapter 2.) - Dancing With My Own Shadow: Shadow wakes up and gets dragged on an adventure. He's really not entirely happy about this. (Four Swords, AU. Complete.) - Illuminate: How does one rewrite the most dramatic moment in the manga? Even more dramatically, of course. (Four Swords. Complete.)

A Semi-breakdown of my tags:

#my writing is, of course, my writing. Any of my fiction and academia, and potentially some (albeit in very limited appearances) of my nonfiction. Also discussions about my writing.

#Geography BS wherein BS stands for both bullshit and Bachelor of Science. I found it interesting or study worthy related to my own studies, or was able to clarify something based upon my own studies! If it's tagged here, it's probably also on @synopticskies.

#[OUR] writing is anything that Ruby (and/or Ayla and/or Pumpkin) and I wrote. Worked on. Shitposted for. Something. (It's mostly LU Battlebots.)

#Is anybody listening? and the accompanying "You heard? No." are my ask box replies (and also are a Hadestown joke)! #Question Paloma includes the game posts that some asks are from.

#Fun Facts With Paloma guarantees you a rant about a variety of subjects. Usually science but not always.

#The Chronicles of Learning to be ADHD is my chronicle of, well, re-learning to go through life with increased functionality and dramatically increased medical bureaucracy. Fun! If it has this tag, it will have appropriate content warnings.

#Thou hast fucked about should be self explanatory. (It's the shitposts.)

I use most of my tags pretty consistently because I like to think I'm funny, so if there's an associated subject that comes up frequently there's a tag for it!

If I hate this later I can always edit it.

[duskys-dreams]

I was playing Minecraft Story Mode, and found a secret route that was unlocked by letting Axel lose his arms. This started Stella’s redemption arc early, and also let you not wear the pumpkin on your head (which let the admin not steal your brain.)

We wandered back to Beacontown, and Stella and I had a bonding moment where I was calling her “brother.” I had her sit on a block, then turned on a waterspout which pushed her off. We laughed about it.

Olivia came running toward as and frantically told us that something terrible was coming. We ran back into the woods and found the Witherstorm, which was strange because I was playing season two. Axel, Olivia, and Whiteout from WoF were taken away by the purple beam. I tried to run away, but I was sucked in too.

We were dropped in a huge icy dome that resembled the Icy Palace of Despair in episode two, but this was still chapter one. This didn’t make sense.

We saw the admin in his snowman form, who greeted us cheerfully and declared that we were going to die unless we figured out how to defeat him. I told everyone to look for a flower (because that was how you beat him at the end of the game, according to this dream.) We found flowers arranged in a cross shape and dug down beneath them, finding buttons. I somehow knew mine would just make him more powerful and tried filling the hole back up, but the dirt slid down and pressed the button anyway, revealing two admins, the snowman, and Romeo in his normal form. They were both massive.

I paused the game and told Marcel that I had unlocked a secret route, and he came over to watch me play. We came back, and I went through some intense trials, for example having to eat an entire wooden bat before something came to kill us.

Eventually, the admins stopped tormenting us. They opened up a door to the outside and told us that the kids today were tempted by flying, so they would let us leave if we chose to. If we did, we’d be permanently changed into hawks and be free.

Stella, Axel, and Olivia all left. I was tempted to do it too. I asked if we’d ever have another opportunity to leave, and the snowman said he didn’t know, likely not.

Wanting to continue the game and see how it went, I declared that I would stay. The two other people who were still undecided, a guy my age and a younger boy, started to leave, but I screamed at them to not leave me alone. They turned around and stayed.

The door disappeared, and we had to continue the game.

They handed us a long wooden bat with nails on the end and a folded-up letter, saying that both had to be disposed of properly. We broke the bat into smaller pieces for easier handling and gave it to the young boy to deal with, so the rest of us could figure it out the riddle.

I read it, and realized that it was about Animorphs, a letter David was sending to Rachel. Rachel was swinging through the trees, and David was a pigeon somehow. He was asking her for his power back.

[aer-arts]

anyway, i decided to be silly and draw Shrimp and their pirate crew as warrior cats, so let’s go

basic gist, Shrimp’s pirate crew is called Dockclan, they’re a group of stray/feral cats who live in a beach town in Florida or something, they aren’t really an official clan and don’t follow all of the warrior code, they’re closer to a bunch of well organized rogues

Shrimp/Shrimpstar is the charismatic (and massive, she’s some sort of Maine coon), she used to be the barn cat of some fishing/shellfish processing factory, however it’s since gone out of business and Shrimpstar was abandoned. While she used to be the leader of Sunsetchaos’s rogue gang she was kicked out due to conflicting goals

originally some rich person’s kittypet, Pandora/Sunsetchaos, Sunset at the time, ran away from home due to a hatred of the smothering environment. She and her friend Shrimp formed a gang of rogues and proved to be quite capable. She lost most her tail in a fight

Ross/Bonehound was a stray cat who hung out around the shipping/fishing district and was quite close to Shrimp. At some point he was attacked by a dog, while he survived and fought off the dog he didn’t come out unscathed. Shrimp found him in the aftermath and helped nurse him back to health, together they founded Dockclan to help out other strays in the area

Ticks is a raccoon who can somehow talk cat. They’re known around the area as some sort of trickster with a tendency to steal trash, human trinkets, and stuff from cats. They aren’t in the clan obviously but they have some sort of feud with Shrimpstar as she seems to have stolen a necklace from them

Cecily/Boarstrike was a feral rogue who belonged to a different group than Sunset. No one really knows where she comes from as she seems to have come from the woods. She got kicked out of her group after she got hit by a monster (car). While she survived she was seen as a liability and let go. Shrimpstar found her and knowing her strength invited her into the clan

Ennis/Bellthief as some designer breed, with long fur and curled ears, belonging to some vacationer. When he was younger he was declawed since they had a tendency to scratch things up. After she started loosing her hair due to some unknown reason she was dumped on the street and abandoned. She gained quite the reputation as a thief, since her lack of claws prevented them from hunting they took to stealing food from humans and cats alike, remarkably due to the bell still around their neck. Eventually they got bored and joined up with Dockclan as their medicine cat, they don’t actually believe in Starclan but they’re the only one who knows medicine

Erro/Lizardpaw is a shy cat often seen around people’s boats. Believed to have been abandoned as a young kit, they’re a naturally small and slim cat making them non-threatening and often pushed around by larger cats. He tried to steal food from Bonehound at one point and was promptly caught, but instead of being killed Shrimpstar stepped in and offered to keep her around and teach her how to be a proper cat

Waterspout/Stonepaw was a stray cat who found himself crushed in a small rockslide. Belltheif found him and after getting help from others in the clan managed to free them from the rocks, however they’re leg was loss. Afterwards Stonepaw stuck around the clan as an apprentice since they don’t remember where they came from and don’t have anywhere to return to

Cris/Darkpaw is a weird, unlucky black cat seen lurking around town. However it seems that Shrimpstar has adopted them into the clan, Bonehound claims it to be so he can’t cause trouble for others. It’s said that he dreams of the dark forest, however he’s words are often gibberish and were pretty sure he’s so uncooperative that the dark forest has given up on controlling him

Guppy/Tidepaw is an awkwardly built cat that washed up on shore one day after a storm. They hopped from rogue group to rogue group for a while, due to them speaking of prophecies good and bad and being seen as creepy. Eventually they got picked up by Shrimpstar and found a home with the misfits of Dockclan. While they are a skilled hunter, being the best in the group at catching fish, they’re they only member with an innate connection to Starclan (and the dark forest unfortunately) so they’ve taken up the role of medicine cat, well, after they gain their full name

[madrone33]

Every time Aang goes into the the Avatar State in ATLA:

Damn this took a long time to research and write out. I made this mainly just because I wanted to have a comprehensive list of all the times Aang uses the Avatar State, and then use that to see how effective it actually is.

(And also 'cause I wanted to compare it to LoK so I could confirm my hypothesis that by giving Korra complete control over the Avatar State it severely lowered the stakes, and thus they had to drastically diminish the actual power and effectiveness of said Avatar State if they ever wanted to have any sort of tension and suspense ever again. Except this only succeeded in making the Avatar State weak and Korra lose all the time while using it; it's now less "God Mode" and more "slight power up." Kinda getting off topic, soz. If you want to see her chart for comparison I might post it lmao)

Anyway, this was pretty fun to put together, though I might've missed something - I'm just going off of memory and wiki lol. Keep in mind that this is a lot of the time my interpretations of events, since Aang doen't go around just telling the audience what his motivations and triggers are. But the show does a good job showing the main things, so I'm just reading between the lines a bit to get some more concrete numbers.

Uhhh it's really long. And kinda complicated, even for me re-reading this, so. Enjoy my statistics, I guess?

Legend:

SUCCESS = the Avatar State succeeded in resolving what triggered it.

FAILURE = the Avatar State failed to resolve what triggered it.

?[words] = uncertain on whether or not the outcome was a success due to emotional triggers and the real problem being unfixable/out of reach.

[words]. = involuntarily entered.

[words]! = voluntarily entered.

-[words] = entered because of immediate physical danger.

_[words] = entered because of an overwhelming emotional trigger.

'[words] = entered for a reason other than immediate physical danger or immediate emotional trigger.

Timeline:

0 AG:

1. -SUCCESS.

Trigger: Aang and Appa are drowning in the ocean during a storm.

Actions: airbends an air pocket around them that eventually freezes over into an iceberg.

Exits when: they’re freed by Katara 100 years later, and it becomes clear the danger is past.

Winter, 100 AG:

2. -SUCCESS.

Trigger: he’s drowning in the ocean after being attacked by Zuko.

Actions: waterbends a waterspout in the form of a twister and sweeps Zuko and his crew off the deck.

Exits when: Zuko and his crew aren’t in a position to attack, so the danger is past.

3. ?_.

Trigger: overwhelmed by grief and anger from abruptly seeing the skeleton of Monk Gyatso, and being confronted by the realisation that his entire people were murdered while he wasn’t there.

Actions: generates hurricane-force winds.

Exits when: Katara and Sokka help the emotional pain become manageable again.

(Notes: not gonna call it a success, because the Avatar State couldn’t fix anything. It couldn’t bring Gyatso back.)

4. '-SUCCESS!

Trigger: Zhao and his men are waiting in the Fire Temple to hurt Aang and his friends once the Winter Solstice ends.

Actions: channels Roku directly into his body, who frees Katara, Sokka, Shyu, and Zuko, and then erupts the volcano underneath the temple.

Exits when: the Solstice ends, the danger also being passed.

5. ?_. (almost enters)

Trigger: nearly being overwhelmed by anger and betrayal while telling Katara that the monks wanted to separate him and Gyatso.

Actions: starts forming a gale.

Exits when: Katara helps ground him and bring him away from the emotionally painful precipice.

(Notes: the past is the past, and the monks are long gone. The Avatar State can't fix this.)

6. -SUCCESS.

Trigger: they’re all drowning in the ocean during a storm. Again.

Actions: forms an air sphere around everyone and flies Appa out of the ocean and into the storm's eye.

Exits when: the danger is past.

7. 'SUCCESS!

Trigger: people are dying and he needs to ask the Moon and Ocean spirits for help. He watches the koi fish in the Spirit Oasis while meditating to try and cross over into the Spirit World.

Actions: talks to spirits in the Spirit World.

Exits when: Aang has the information he needs, Hei Bai helps him return to the physical realm, and his soul returns to his body.

8. ?_SUCCESS.

Trigger: overwhelming anger and grief after the Moon Spirit, Tui, is murdered and the culprit, Zhao, got away.

Actions: merges with the Ocean Spirit, La, and lays waste to the Fire Nation fleet besieging the city.

Exits when: La releases him after the Moon is returned and the emotional pain becomes manageable again, the Fire Nation fleet no longer being a threat.

(Notes: technically a physical success since they beat back the Fire Nation, but it’s complicated, because the main problem was that Tui was dead, and La couldn’t actually do anything about that. It was Yue who fixed it, not Aang or La.)

Spring, 100 AG:

9. ?_SUCCESS.

Trigger: overwhelmed by grief and rage after General Fong “kills” Katara to force Aang into the Avatar State.

Actions: uses airbending to blast the general away, rises into the air on a tornado, and crashes down to the earth, releasing a powerful earthbending attack on the general, his guards, and his fortress. A small air sphere surrounds him while Roku talks to him in the Spirit World.

Exits when: Katara is safe, the General is no longer a threat, and Roku has finished talking to him.

(Notes: complicated success. The general stopped being a threat, but the problem was that Katara had seemed dead, and Aang hadn’t been able to do anything about that. Not to mention, he fell for the general’s trick, so it doesn’t really feel like a victory.)

10. ?_SUCCESS.

Trigger: overwhelmed by pain and fury at the sandbenders who kidnapped and hurt and sold Appa, and needing answers.

Actions: a large air sphere surrounds him, lifting him up into the air and creating a sandstorm.

Exits when: Katara helps the emotional pain become manageable again. The sandbenders are not a problem.

(Notes: kinda a success? He manages to intimidate the sandbenders into fessing up, but it feels wrong to use the Avatar State this way, and anyway, it doesn’t bring Appa back, and Aang still isn’t any closer to finding him again.)

11. -FAILURE!

Trigger: impending death or capture for himself and Katara while battling Azula, Zuko, and the Dai Li under Ba Sing Se. He decides to let go of his attachments and enter the Avatar State.

Actions: emmits a concussive blast and floats up in a pillar of light, fully in control of the Avatar State.

Exits when: Azula mortally strikes him with lightning.

12. 'SUCCESS. (enters briefly)

Trigger: he's revived by Katara healing him with water from the Spirit Oasis.

Actions: two second glow. He lives, but the Avatar State is locked.

Summer, 100 AG:

13. -SUCCESS.

Trigger: while almost being killed by Ozai, his back hits a rock in the exact spot where Azula struck him with lightning, re-opening his chakra and triggering the Avatar State.

Actions: collects all four elements and compresses them in a sphere around him. Moves at incredible speed, ploughing straight through obstacles whereas Ozai has to dodge said obstacles. The sphere can be used both for offence and defence. Since the sphere contains all four elements, it allows Aang to earthbend and waterbend while away from a natural source.

Exits when: he purposefully stops himself, refusing to kill Ozai.

(Notes: I'm calling it a success because the Avatar State works; it saves his life, and beats Ozai.)

14. 'SUCCESS!

Trigger: Wulong Forest is burning.

Actions: purposefully enters and then exits again, with only a momentary glow of realised control. He pulls in the ocean until all the fire is extinguished, before lowering the tide back again.

Statistics:

4/14 - (28.571%) - enters involuntarily from physical danger.

1/14 - (7.143%) - enters voluntarily from physical danger.

5/14 - (35.714%) - enters involuntarily from emotional pain.

1/14 - (7.143%) - enters involuntarily for a half second glow as he's brought back to life.

1/14 - (7.143%) - enters voluntarily to channel a past life in response to a threat of physical danger.

1/14 - (7.143%) - enters voluntarily to cross into the Spirit World.

1/14 - (7.143%) - enters voluntarily to enhance bending in order to complete a task.

8/14 - (57.143%) - success.

1/14 - (7.143%) - failure.

5/14 - (35.714%) - emotional unknowns.

4/14 - (28.571%) - physical danger success.

1/14 - (7.143%) - physical danger failure.

3/14 - (21.429%) - technically succeeded in fixing the physical danger, but it's an uncertain outcome because of emotional triggers and the real problem being unfixable.

2/14 - (14.286%) - complete emotional uncertainties.

4/14 - (28.571%) - other success.

Conclusion:

Aang has an above average success rate while in the Avatar State.

Almost a third of the time is miscellaneous successes, another almost-third for physical danger only, and a fifth for technical physical successes with complications.

Emotional triggers happen the same amount of times as physical, though they're never resolved cleanly.

Involuntary use happens far more often than voluntarily.

He only outright fails once.

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Nineteen — Convergence

“Oh, he won’t die. Like I said — this isn’t war. This is strategy. It’s chess, and Delsin Rowe has a bigger part to play.”

6.3k Words | 25 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: thalassophobia, body horror, stabbings, injections, ...monsters? I suppose

Brent took to the sky in a burst of silver while I flooded through the holes between each steel beam, the silver on them going orange with rust the moment I touched them. If…if we survive this, we’ll have to figure out why it did that. 

That was scary. The if. Dad prepared us so we could take care of ourselves, sure, but I think he was thinking more along the lines of Akurans or overzealous Lifeline idiots — not a Conduit that’s had her powers for years. We never even got to start training to fight! I just kept repeating to myself how she was in my domain; I had the upper hand here. She’d run out of concrete eventually, and Dad said we’d have to drain from an authentic source of our power — not one we put down ourselves. 

I zipped past the edge of the cliff and began to fall towards the Sound, the edges of its water rushing up to meet me on a wave as I solidified to human again. The water wrapped around my bottom half and gently pulled me closer as I fell, securing me in place as I plunged under the surface.

That funnel stayed around my legs, tapering away at the end into bubbling ribbons sort of like a mermaid fin, only not as defined. I’d have to work on fixing that later — regardless of aesthetic, I was using it to shoot through the water like a dolphin, using my gauntlets to push the disturbed silt back down so I could get a good look at the bottom of Augustine’s platform before going back up there. 

Each of the three support beams or joists or whatever Brent called them were dug deep into the dirt, spires of concrete splitting off at the bottom of each one to further tether them to the bottom of Puget Sound. Tendrils of gross sticky tar laced up in the water, polluting the poor estuary further. There was no dismantling her throne from down here. 

I reangled underwater, the funnel around my legs beginning to bubble and churn before spitting me out, launching me out of the water and into the air. Brent was still soaring, circling high above Augustine’s platform like a buzzard, coaxing her into concentrating on him instead of the evacuating Akomish, her throwing spears of cement in the sky in an effort to bring him down. 

At least, she was until I came up with my waterspout, freefalling for a moment before letting the humidity in the air catch me, spinning in place as I stood level with her on my own watery platform. I felt a tug from below, the Sound protesting a bit, and the surface split all of a sudden as a steel pillar came shooting out, Brent falling from the sky wingless to land on it once it settled. 

Brooke Augustine always looked fierce in the pictures of her in our textbooks. Put together, commanding — a real leader. Whoever was in front of us lost that composure over the years. Her hair was more brittle and frizzed, her eyes seemed alight with an energy and yet…not fully concentrating on us, either. I knew a little bit of what Augustine’s trial looked like, the guilty verdicts and the aftermath; she was deemed too much of a threat for herself — and too at risk — to be with the general population. She was shoved in a mostly-solitary system for the past seventeen years, and the effects were definitely showing on her. She seemed bordering on insanity.

All of her energy went into a deranged sort of anger, one that barely kept her from spearing us as we settled in front of her. “So,” she said, an uncomfortable calm to her voice, “He’s so cowardly he’s sent two kids in his place,”

Brent used all those years of shit talking other teams across the line of scrimmage to stare her down with ease, saying, “You asked for a Rowe. You didn’t say which one.”

She hummed, eyes squinting at Brent — and then landing on me, examining my face for a long time. “You’re his children,” she observed, looking at me like I was the only proof. 

I pushed as much power into my voice as I could. “You need to leave.”

She laughed, the sound carrying a bit too loudly for just a bit too long. “I don’t think so, child.” She spit the word like it was a slur. “I’m here for your father, and I’m not leaving unless it’s with him. Now stand aside, the adults need to talk.”

“He’s not here,” Brent bit back. He was still full steel, and I watched the shavings crawl up from his back to his arms, layering on him in shingle-like panels until they made an armor around his shoulders. Jabbing a thumb my way, he continued, “Like she said — you need to leave.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere.” She purred unsettlingly, like it was a casual request and not a demand. “Not until I get what I came for.”

Heat shot up my spine in anger. Brooke Augustine — she was a mastermind, someone devoid of empathy, especially when I remembered how personal her presence was in our family’s history. “Haven’t you done enough?” I demanded. “You killed our uncle, you used our mom — you’ve hurt the Akomish once already! I don’t know what you want him for, but he’s not here — so like we said, leave.”

Augustine’s eyes didn’t leave Brent, but her disquieting smirk played wider on her lips. “I see her, in you. She scowled like that at me all the time until I offered her the chance to kill. I was disappointed to hear she died. Abigail seemed so strong,”

The way she said disappointed — it didn’t sound like grief or woe. It sounded like her favorite toy just lost a piece and she deemed the rest of it unusable. Broken, useless, worthless. 

“Maybe she was thinking about how to kill you instead,” Brent growled, “‘Cause that’s what I’m gonna start worrying about if you don’t go.” 

“And do you think you can do that, child?” She asked, all humor sliding off of her face only to immediately be replaced with seriousness. It wasn’t natural, how quick her mood flipped. “Are you able to kill like Abigail did? Like your father?” 

“The only killer here is you,” I accused. Standing right in front of me was the propagandist whose fear mongering helped create Lifeline, who started the push for the DUP and all the fucking bills that followed. How many Conduits died because of her? How many experiments at Curdun Cay went wrong? Empire City was a tragedy, sure — but she’s the one who made it into a Shakespearian play. She’s the one who’s caused so much pain for all to come.

Her head tilted slightly, eyes breaking away from Brent. The smirk snapped back into place. “Oh, dear, I’ve never killed anyone that didn’t deserve it.”

My mind flashed fifty yards behind me to the guy speared into the cement. It jumped eighteen years back to my namesake. This woman was deluded! “You mean anyone that doesn’t fit your agenda.”

She hummed, amused. “Perhaps you’re right.” She shrugged simply. “Perhaps all I care about is my objective. Right now, that objective does not involve either of you. I’ve been told to bring in Rowe. I’m not afraid to remove you two from the equation if it means accomplishing my goal.”

Told to bring in Rowe.

“You’re with those people,” Brent breathed, realizing the same thing. “Archangel.”

She didn’t bother answering. She was already beginning her attack. 

I don’t think linguists have managed to find a word that could describe pain like what I was suddenly experiencing; it burned and stung and stabbed and gnawed. Something serrated tore through my bone marrow and sliced away at the ligaments around my calf, lighting up the end of each nerve ending in the bottom half of my leg and sending volts of painful electricity up my spine, short circuiting my brain. I lost concentration, the puddle of water holding me up falling away — but I didn’t care. Not even as the whipping winds of my plummet vibrated the shards of concrete in my leg; there was nothing but some deep intrinsic need to run away from it. 

The waters bended around me, thank God; when my leg hit the Sound, even with the help, it still made me yelp, the shaky exhales leaving in horrible staccato bubbles as I sank. The shards of concrete sticking out of my legs were thick, thicker than the actual shin bone they were stabbed through, deep red blood pooling with the thick black tar and polluting the waters. What wasn’t floating away around me was sinking into my shredded skin, burning everything in an acidic sort of way. The sight, the pain, all made me lose concentration — and a bit of my stomach. I didn’t know there could be a pain so bad it’d make your gingerbread cookies reappear. I writhed, losing focus and accidentally taking in a mouthful of water before spitting it back out.

The primal instincts tapped into the Conduit side, and I was full water before even registering it, the swirling mass of my body’s outline seeming to billow faster around that leg. But it did what I was begging someone, something to do; the concrete suddenly dislodged, all pain sapping away with it, a giant cast of my body’s lower leg rapidly falling into the floor and kicking up silt. It took a few breaths for my brain to catch up to my body, for my senses to pull back in fully and the electricity shooting up my spine to die off into a dull voltage. I solidified, the wounds on my leg staining my jeans red and black before it sealed up whatever gross stuff was stuck in it, leaving nasty scars that were fighting to change shade. 

I stayed there for three deep, ragged breaths, reabsorbing water and trying not to think of all the pollution that was suddenly in it as I made my heart rate steady. That heat in my spine stayed, though; is that what that felt like? That’s what she did to Dad? Betty, so many of the Akomish? Uncle Reggie? I tensed my arms and the water closest to them began to broil with my anger; she may have had no issue with hurting others, but Augustine was on my turf. She was going to bow to me.

I let the water resupply me consistently as something in my lower stomach tightened, like my core was flexing, and I began to force a current into the Sound, a steady swirl that pushed back as I rose on a waterspout. 

My biggest concern was both cornering her and keeping her from refocusing on the Akomish. Cornering her was going to be impossible with how she could build those concrete structures unless I put something in her way, something she couldn’t pass. One small wall of water wasn’t going to do much — but if I shifted everything into a thunderdome of waves…well, maybe she’d be less inclined to leave if she had to swim the whole way. 

I kept the waterspout as I broke the surface, a consistent drain source to counteract the sudden twinge in between my shoulder blades as I pulled the surrounding Sound up, the current swirling higher and higher as it created a wall between the three of us and the rest of the world, tsunamis frozen in their crash. 

Us. Looked like Brent was spared from the pain of the concrete, or at least managed to shrug it off as well; he was back in the sky, jumping between winged to freefalling and back again as the pannels of his wings slipped off his back and rolled in on themselves, becoming spears to throw at Augustine, re-equipping new wings in time to dodge her counterattack. 

The edges rose until Augustine’s concrete tower stood in the middle of a giant whirlpool, our fight hidden away in its open center. The waters below the tower were diminished — but I made sure to push some there so I’d stay connected to the Sound at all times, my bottom half engulfed in the waterspout and liquid as well to make draining easier. 

My appearance and the walls distracted Augustine, who turned in place to look at me again — giving Brent the perfect chance to swoop down from his place in the sky and throw a barrage of sharpened spears straight for her, each metal missile whistling as they cut through the air. Augustine heard them, turning again in time to spot them but not in time to stop them. All she could do was bring her arms up and bring in the concrete that spun around them to still and build on each other, blocking her face. 

The spears embedded in the concrete shield and she flew back with the force of their hit, splashing into the wall of water behind her and disappearing into its current. 

Everything fell still, save for the roar of the water and Brent as he forced another steel beam next to me and landed on it, wings settling against his arms and melting into extra armor there. “Y’think she’s gone?” He called over the sound of the whirlpool, looking at where she last was. The water was dark, frothy, and entirely void of her. 

“I don’t know,” I answered, trying to peer through it all. Maybe I could catch her form knocking around some water molecules? “She didn’t get you with that concrete trick?” 

He shook his head. “Steel’s stronger than concrete.” I glanced behind myself and tried to find her there, pulled out of the effort by Brent going, “Jean, Jean!” 

I shifted in place, looking to my left like he was, trying to see what the hell he was freaking out about. For a moment, nothing – just the dark waters, a bit of debris swept up in their rush. There was so much trash, swirling shards of wood and plastic and what looked like a giant sun-bleached tarp—

The tarp suddenly moved, and that urgent pull in my stomach flipped as the shape fought against the current in warning; because now there were two giant white shapes, symmetrical in size and position, and they blinked. 

Augustine was indistinguishable from the creature as it pushed through the water, a concrete leviathan. Cement was piled on itself again and again, scales to the giant snake that shot out of the wall and straight for the concrete tower, its giant head crashing into it and sending the shattered remains everywhere. The steel on Brent’s arm slithered down and stretched out, solidifying into a shield just in time to block the debris as I just let the water crawl up the rest of my body and turn me liquid, the rocks slicing through my form. 

I resolidified, brushing off the dusting of concrete and the sticky tar that pushed to my skin’s surface in the action, water slipping down into their gauntlet positions as the snake rounded to face us, opened its maw, and screeched, revealing Augustine hiding in the back of its head. She was smirking, her own armor of concrete on her shoulders as the vest on her body emitted a soft glow, the seams of the plating on her armor lighting up the rest of her. They weren’t blue by design — they held something. Some sort of liquid shifted in it, pushed through the tubes in the armor like a river, bubbling and churning and looking all too gel-like. 

I watched Augustine press some little button on the chest of her vest, and the blue in it illuminated even more, its aura leaving the seams entirely and enveloping her in its glow. It traced her outline, crawled into the concrete sleeves on her arms and following the pulse of her veins—

My mind shot back to only a few days ago, when I watched Brent’s jugular light up just like that after Dad hit him with the power of the Core Relay, leaving him on the cusp of movement just like Augustine was now. That blue liquid held the same stuff that was in the Core Relays.

Everything around Augustine zapped away and she fell to a knee on the tongue of the snake, prompting the giant reptile to snap its jaw shut. I didn’t get a chance to express this realization to Brent; legs broke away from the snake body, and slammed into the remaining tides at the bottom of the Sound, stabilizing the snake that, for a few moments there, was levitating on nothing but air. The structure of its shoulders extended far beyond the joints – and not just to make the spidery-thing look badass, I found out, giving it a matching set of spinal spikes that started with a giant mohawk-looking formation on top of its head. Where the spiny shoulders should have collapsed, the slabs instead stayed up so she could launch boulders of concrete at us from holes in the body, the rotator cuff becoming some sort of revolver. 

 I reached out and yanked some water from the wall to my right, piling it in front of us to try and catch the rock and throwing the entire pool away before they could fly through the water. Brent countered with twisted steel blades, launching one after the other at Augustine’s giant as I caught her barrage and threw them aside. 

One of the twisted stakes of steel slammed into Augustine’s creature’s shoulder, the grinding of steel against concrete making something in my teeth twinge as the creature cried out, the sound like dozens of well-paved roads trying to wrestle. There was a giant burst of concrete and the creature was now limbless again, Brent’s steel falling into the water below with a splash as the giant snake charged straight for us. 

Brent’s shoulder armor separated from him and he launched towards the sky on wings, leaving me alone with the viper that looked ready to swallow me whole. I pulled the waters against my legs — that were my legs — up, letting them creep up my body and take me in its wave, colliding with Augustine in the fall of my tide. 

I could feel the impact, and yet something more; the tug in my chest came with a flash of a vision, a reminder, and I heeded it without hesitation. Bits of the water — of me, although we were all one when I was intertwined like this — sunk into the pores of the concrete and expanded, orbs of water with air in the middle cracking away at the concrete, making bits of it shatter away. 

I pulled away as Augustine’s snake pushed against the aquatic Jericho wall, falling into it enough to pull myself together and emerge as a whole person again. Well, mostly whole; my bottom half was still connected to the whirlpool by fading away into water. The head of Augustine’s creature whipped around to look at me with malice in its concrete eyes — bits of its brow falling away from its slick, wet body. 

I managed to damage it. 

There was a sudden pattering from beyond the walls of the whirlpool, the consistent chopchopchopchop of a helicopter as its black shape broke the cover of the waters and began to hover over us. It was bright green and black, EMERALD CITY NEWS painted on its side in all white. What the hell were they doing here? This wasn’t a spectator sport!

The sound caught Augustine’s attention, the snake’s head swiveling in place to look at the helicopter as it steadied in place, the huge camera attached in the space in front of its landing skids swiveling in to focus on Augustine and I. I could barely count three heads through the tint in the windows. 

Augustine’s spiderling screeched, the sound coming out like a rock slide down a mountain, and turned to better face the helicopter before the holes in her shoulders opened and launched boulders of concrete bigger than the cockpit of the helicopter straight for the cockpit. 

I tried to catch it, I really did. The boulder moved faster than I did and I only managed to hit its side with the wave I pulled from the wall, knocking it off its course towards the cockpit and instead sending it barreling towards the tail of the helicopter. The slab collided and cut off the helicopter’s tail entirely, both metal and concrete exploding as the helicopter began to spin with the impact. 

“Brent!” I shouted. I don’t know why — what was he gonna do, catch it? I didn’t want him anywhere near those propellers even with the steel chrysalis. But there were three people in there, three innocent albeit nosey people that needed help. 

Brent zipped past, going as high as he could to still have a vantage point on the helicopter before releasing his wings and shooting the aura of steel across the capless dome we were in. The steel attached to the landing skids and began layering over them again and again. I could see what he was doing — he was making those floats that seaplanes have — but it wasn’t going to be enough to straighten their flight, nor stabilize them in the end. 

Augustine’s creature geared up to throw more at the helicopter, that terrible grinding sound coming from the rotating barrels on her shoulder as she readied another shot. I reached back and yanked water from behind me forward, over my head and towards Augustine just as she took her shot, snatching the boulder of sharp concrete out of the air. I pulled, something in my biceps stinging as I yanked the rock back in the riptide of the wave and let it fall atop Augustine’s spiderling with a comedic ping.

The spiderling reacted by rearing back a bit, giving Brent enough time to bring his wings back, shoot up into the sky, and yell, “Jean! Get ready to catch them!” 

The wings were let go again — he couldn’t use his powers and wings at the same time, which scared me if I’m being honest — and each bit of shrapnel that dispersed from him was woven tightly until he made a huge steel cable a lot like the ones that hold down telephone poles. He kept a hard grip on one end and tossed the other like a rope, swinging the opposite hand the moment it was free to summon a pillar of steel up from the ground to land on. The rope shot off with his mental guidance, whipping around the rotator mast at the base of the propellers and swinging back towards him, steel crawling down his shoulders and welding over his hands as he gripped both ends to keep them in place. And he leaned back, trying to stabilize the helicopter. 

Brent screamed out with the effort, more steel shooting up from the pillar to lock his feet into place as he put all his weight into pulling back, yanking the helicopter out of its freefall and keeping it still for just a few seconds. That’s all I needed, though; I pulled the tides diagonally until there was a swell building on top of the wall that barely caught them, rocking them violently around as I pushed the surge out and down. Hopefully they could swim to Seattle, or the helicopter would stay afloat. 

The steel cast encased around Brent’s left hand released in a halo of silver that ate away at the end of the cable until it was just long enough for him to whip the spiderling’s face as it turned. The sonic boom that came from its snap coupled with the grinding sound of shattering concrete as it sliced the beast’s spiny mohawk in half. 

Augustine exchanged with a few more missiles that Brent couldn’t block in time, making me to throw a wall of water between them and catch the hits in its tides. I forced pressurized water into every crack and crevice and broke the concrete apart before the slabs could hit Brent. 

Unfortunately, doing this meant Brent’s cable got caught in the waters, which caused it to disintegrate, the entire thing rusting rapidly like a lit wick before falling apart in his hands. 

“Jean!” He said incredulously, obviously miffed.

“What?” 

“Watch where you’re throwing that shit!” 

I glared at him. “Wh-, my water?”

“You’re gonna rust up everything of mine!” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t exactly planning on spending Christmas Eve fighting the rock-snake from fucking Pokemon!” 

“Onyx!” 

“Is now the time?” I demanded, pointing to Augustine as her spiderling tucked its legs and spikes, turning into an Onyx, apparently. 

The snake somehow levitated enough to rotate once in thin air like a roller coaster loop before angling itself for me and shooting forward. I shifted into full water again and pulled another wave up with me, colliding against Augustine and pushing into every orifice that disgusting creature had. 

I couldn’t describe the sensation. Technically, I was ripped apart, each atom a separate droplet that snuck somewhere differently — but it didn’t feel like that. Whether it was my body or the Sound, all of it felt like an extension of me — one I used to try and pull Augustine apart. 

I didn’t know much about concrete; I’ve never thought much about it beyond when I’d scuff my knees on the rough pavement or those chalk walks downtown Portland did. But I knew that while what I was doing was working, it was going to take hours to essentially hose her down. We’d have to come up with a better plan, and only one of us might have had an inkling as to what exactly we should do. 

I pulled away from Augustine and fell into the shallow waters at the bottom of our battle arena, regrouping and solidifying before rising back to the surface on another waterspout. Brent was back in the sky, leaving behind the rusted remains of the beam and instead returning to alternate between flight and fight, wings becoming projectiles and shooting back onto his arms just as fast. 

Augustine didn’t tire — but neither did we. She’d dodge Brent’s direct attacks and throw more and more concrete at us, and I’d encase them midair and chuck them aside. I was sure of it now; that suit, somehow, was something like Dad’s Core Relay things. Her power didn’t stop despite not draining, shard after shard of concrete launching away. When she’d work her way closer, force herself into our space so Brent couldn’t directly attack, I’d summon another wave and fall with it, colliding with her and sinking into every hole and crevice in her body.

We danced like this for a while before Brent found his way back to my side, landing on another beam as Augustine’s spiderling shook off the spears embedded in its forehead. She was definitely looking worse for wear, that was a good thing. “How is she still going?” Brent gasped out on labored breathing, and I couldn’t help but agree; even with staying connected to the Sound and constantly draining, something stayed sore between my shoulder blades. This was so hard. “When d’you think she’s gonna go drain?”

“She’s not.” I gestured towards the creature as it opened its maw to scream. Augustine was perched where its tongue should have been, hand moving to press something on her shoulder. “She’s using that stuff Dad does! It’s resupplying her!”

Brent looked at me like I was insane — but that glare quickly turned to horror as he watched blue emit from her, lighting up each avenue of vein like a passageway to her heart. Steel pulled away from his arm into his hand until he was holding a spear and he lobbed it, years of playing shortstop helping his precision as it soared and aimed for Augustine’s chest. The electrified aura around her zapped away just as the spear crossed the threshold of the creature’s maw, and she leaned aside to dodge it, a hand shooting out to instead catch it in its flight. 

Augustine flipped the spear in her hand like a baton and slammed its bottom into the platform she was floating on, concrete crawling down her arm, along her fingers, and to the spear, spreading fast. The entire thing was encased in concrete in the blink of an eye, now some giant staff Augustine kept in her hand as the spiderling’s mouth snapped shut. 

Brent didn’t seem upset he lost this round; his face was actually alight in realization, shining bright even without the sun reflecting off his steel features. “Spalling!” He shouted. “If we can induce delamination, we can kill the giant monster-thing.”

He looked over at me like I should have understood what the hell that meant. “What?” 

Brent rolled his eyes, exhausted at my lack of knowledge at whatever dorky architecture thing he was rambling about. Augustine’s creature began letting off more missiles, and I took to catching and throwing them back as he yelled over the grind of her shoulder cannons, “Spalling is when the steel in concrete structures corrodes! It makes the entire thing weaker because of the chemical carbonation and expansion of the metal! If I can stick more steel in her, and you rust it—”

“We can break down the rock snake!” I finished, glancing his way as I released another boulder. 

“I told you — Onyx!”

“I’m not calling it that!”

Brent himself threw a couple sharpened poles at Augustine, testing the waters on how big the pieces of steel would need to be and how hard he’d need to throw them. “I’m running low, Jean!” He warned. “I’ve gotta drain before we do anything else!”

Even if there was something metal nearby for him to drain, I wouldn’t have been able to pull it through the wall of water surrounding us. “Go, drain!” I demanded. “I can hold her off!”

The glance he shot me was uncomfortable, but he didn’t have much of a choice; he suddenly took off like a rocket, climbing the 20 foot whirlpool and disappearing from view. 

I refaced Augustine’s creature, which froze in place to glare down at me. David and Goliath in a proverbial stand-off before discovering who was God’s golden child in a final sprawl—and I wasn’t yet confident it would be me. “What do you people even want my Dad for?” I demanded, hoping the roar of the waters would carry my voice. “He’s done nothing but mind his business the last sixteen years! Why are you Archangel people so hellbent on getting to him? Why are you committing war crimes against a bunch of innocent people?”

I expected another barrage of missiles. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the spiderling snapped out to try and crush me in its maw. Instead, though, that maw opened, Augustine’s levitating platform pushing out from the back of the creature’s throat to the tip of its taste buds, arms encased in concrete padding like Dad’s was a few days ago. There was no way I’d be able to attack her now, I knew she’d just block my hit. “This isn’t war,” she called with ease over the sounds around us. She could make her voice carry without putting any effort into it. “Every game of chess starts with a line of sacrifices, child.”

“So, what? Everyone’s your little pawn to mess with? These people don’t deserve to die because you want to play games!” 

“I am not playing games.” She responded. “I am far from being in a playful mood. This is about your father, and what he’s done.”

“Delsin Rowe hasn’t done a thing in the past decade for any of you to even be upset about!” I retorted.

She chuckled. It was infuriating, how she thought this was a game! “He has debts of retribution that are overdue,” she shrugged.

“He’s paid enough!” I motioned to myself. “We’ve paid enough! How many more people gotta die before you’re all satisfied? Till he’s dead too?”

The way Augustine looked at me…I didn’t like the volt that shot up my spine. Like I was a poor stray she couldn’t wait to eat up. Like she knew more, a lot more, than what she was giving away. “Oh, he won’t die. Like I said — this isn’t war. This is strategy. It’s chess, and Delsin Rowe has a bigger part to play.” The concrete on her arms released and began to spin around, and the staff she made began to gain an eerie orange glow in the gaps of the concrete. “Unfortunately for you, you’ll just have to be another sacrifice in this tactical gambit.”

I couldn’t have stopped the next hit even if I tried. The misshapen cannonball of concrete was so fast I didn’t even get to shift to water in time; I took the hit straight to the chest, the polyps on the stone cutting into my collarbone and the bit of bicep it reached. I flung backwards into the wall of the Sound, the water not giving me the liberty of bending around me this time and instead letting me feel its full hit, lighting up my spine. 

It took me a moment to differentiate the white in my vision from the white froth of the churning water — for a second, it definitely all looked the same, especially when my eyes stopped focusing. The lopsided ball of concrete became another piece of pollution and fell away from my chest, leaving me scratched and bruised as I tried to convince my lungs to work again. 

I let the waters grab me, something separating from the current to pull me lower and away from the drama above the surface — or beside it, I guess — to the safety of the dark depths. It was something else I’d never be able to translate well; there was a very thin, very gray line between me and the water. It sometimes felt not like this was my power, but that I was, in all sense of the word, a conduit — the water chose what happened next. It nudged me towards the shadows so I could reorient my brain. It told me to breathe, and washed the blood out of the scrapes on my shoulder and collarbone. Moments like this made me feel like I went beyond being one with the water. 

But eventually it prodded and poked, warning me that my respite was coming to a close as Augustine’s snake dove underwater to finish the job. 

I was hidden. That was probably the only good part of any of this, that the sky was too dim and the water too murky for her to see me. I could barely see her; if it wasn’t for the water molecules shifting around her figure, I wouldn’t have been able to pick apart the snake from the surf. The creature stirred, shifting all kinds of directions to try and catch its bearings. 

She could call me a pawn all she wanted, but Augustine just set herself up for checkmate. 

I pulled down the whirlpool above, replenishing the waters here in the Sound without giving up the push of the spinning tide. The water beat around us like a tornado; there was a roar that pushed in with the swimmer's ear, the black hoodie I stole from Dad’s closet threatened to rip off of me. I waited until the Sound was now spinning with the push before redirecting the wild riptide, aiming straight for Augustine and her creature. 

The hit sent her snake spinning backwards twice before she could right herself, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered aside from pushing more speed into the water and chipping away at everything I could in its dash, weakening the snake’s armor from the outside in. I didn’t relent; not when the snake screamed some garbled screech, not when it tried pushing back, not even as it reangled and shot towards the surface again. I pulled some water to my sides and followed her to the surface, breaking just in time to see Brent loop back around in the sky. 

I pushed out my hands and grappled the water still on the snake’s concrete scales as it rose, pushing them back into the gaping holes and cracks and lining them with ease. “Now, Brent!” I screamed. 

Brent didn’t hesitate; the wings left his back and grew above him into sharpened, swirled pillars of steel that spun when he threw his arms forward, elongated bullets that pierced the body of Augustine’s creature with ease. I could barely see the tips of them rust upon impact before they drilled themselves into the cement, and I pulled more water from below and forced it to follow the slide of the spindles into the holes. 

The spider screamed out, a grinding sound killed almost immediately as Brent sent off three more spiraled spears and one of them stabbed through the roof of the creature’s mouth. I could see Augustine beyond it tumble, the concrete cane she made barely stabilizing her as the snake shuddered with the hits. She tried to move to press that button that resupplied her with Core Relay stuff but another spear shot through the back of the head, barely missing her back, and she fell forward. 

The concrete around each wet spear began to crack — spalling, I think Brent called it. Pits in the concrete widened, scales fell away until the twirled rebar was fully exposed underneath, a piercing of the exoskeleton that was failing to exist. 

And then everything fell apart, and Augustine plummeted towards the Sound. 

[norcalbruja]

Not-Fun with Hypnos

What's up, today/yesterday (August 5, but I posted this at almost 2AM) was incredibly stressful! First of all, I woke up to a power outage at 10am, and I had to hunt around for the new landlord's business card for several hours while I worried about the food in the fridge getting too warm. (Don't worry, I found the business card and the power's back on! No spoilage!)

While I was dealing with that, I waited about an hour past a scheduled job interview, only to get the response that they'd already filled BOTH positions I applied for.

That would have been nice to know an hour or so BEFORE my interview, not afterward. Fucking hell.

Dionysus recently went Therapist-Like on me a couple of weeks ago, and he said that since I'd been asking the spirits to try and help my insomniac ass get to sleep with mixed success, he figured it was time to ask Hypnos for help. I'm constantly trekking to an Otherworld cave to try and "soundproof" my way into sleep, so Dionysus was like, "if you're gonna sleep in a cave all the time, you might as well go to the cave owned by someone whose JOB is to put you out."

Behind the cut for Freaky Shit!

--

Hypnos is a young-looking brunette with a very soft and high-pitched voice. He's also very laid-back and sweet. So laid-back that he often sounds like a stoner, but that is beside the point.

He lives in a cave with a giant mass of flowers and greenery covering the ground. I was surprised to find this is literally his home in mythology, when I checked Wikipedia to make sure my gnosis matched up with known records.

Dionysus was like "Babe, I tell you all the time that you're not crazy, why did you check Wikipedia right now? DON'T ANSWER, I KNOW YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF PEOPLE CALLING YOU CRAZY."

And I was like, "But I also thought I was mistaking Hypnos' name for a Pokemon, so it wasn't ALL for that reason!" (Note: Hypno is the Pokemon, Hypnos is the Greek god.)

So the not-fun part about Hypnos' cave is that the plants, at least for me, TRY TO CLIMB ALL OVER AND CARPET YOU IN THEM.

Naturally, I freaked out when they started doing that and I went, "NONONO I AM NOT DOING 'THE LAST OF US' REENACTMENTS!!! I DON'T WANT TO BE A MUSHROOM ZOMBIE!!!"

Hypnos kept assuring me, "Honey, they're not trying to hurt you! Just listen to the plants, they're really happy and they know you want to sleep! Relax!!!"

Then the Green Man showed up for like, emotional support. He was also assuring me that the plants are nice, and they are not going to eat me, and the whole point of getting to Hypnos' cave is to let yourself go and sleep.

But as my dear readers probably know by now, I am anxious as FUCK even when I'm not freaking out. I have a hard time relaxing anywhere.

And Hypnos' plants REALLY like the Green Man, so they were just rooting in and tearing his skin up. And he started vomiting plants while he was trying to help me calm down, so THEN the Water-Spirit tried to help.

But the Water-Spirit's real form is made of water, and the plants don't seem to mind too much that he's seawater. While they started climbing all over HIM, they started "reverting" him from his human form back to his waterspout/man-made-of-water form. And he was like "No, plants, stop! I'm trying to calm her down, and I can't do that while I'm splashing everywhere!"

So with two out of three Emotional Support Men accidentally scaring me more once they got there, my first visit to Hypnos was a disaster.

But there's nothing else I can do right now, so I've been trying to go to Hypnos' cave and like, ACTUALLY go to sleep there at some point.

To his credit, Hypnos has pegged me for "the chick who can't sleep because she's got Too Much Stuff going on in that head." And not just because Dionysus brought me over--he senses how I'm always restless and unhappy all the time.

Rather like Dionysus, he knows that a lot of my unhappiness would be gone if I could just get a fucking break, have an art career, and afford my own place, but for now I have to go to Hypnos' cave and let the Sleepy-Time Plants try to engulf me.