#part of the way i read it is three sides of a coin; loop and mal are the faces and sif is the side. the essential in-between.

[nyatbinary-81]

YIPPEE!!!! IM GLAD YOU LIKE THEM!!!!!!!!

@vulpixisananimal sifstem art jumpscare!! more specifically i got bored and decided to mess around with sif and mal's outfits.

[yeyinde]

HELLO! In 2021, I read your ao3 work, "baby, (dont) fear the reaper" for the first time. For 3 years since, i have been haunted. Occasionally i would go back and read your work front to back. Tbh, i didnt know much about dbd lore at the time. i read it bcs it has some vibes that im into, and boy oh boy, those vibes do not disappoint! Halfway through i realized that if your work was a novel, i would buy it 100%, no matter the cost. I fell in love with how the reader was portrayed, how such a somber and melancholic personality can be twisted into such a calculating, patient, and analytical character. Danny too, how the hell did you capture such a narcissist is beyond me. Reader's descend into revenge felt normal, a natural progression, like how a river flows into the sea. Though i never expected Reader to start hunting Danny back, i thought Reader will always be the prey, never the predator. Though, there are tells, from how the reader feels a bit detached (?) from their childhood, carrying heart scars from a toxic childhood friend, how Reader continues their friendship with the aforementioned toxic childhood best friend (a love for rebels, maybe? Or is it a want for the dark resulting in admiration, and then, love?) despite the harm it inflicts. (That flashback chapter to Reader's childhood will always be one of my favorite chapters!) Whatever it is, Danny is the nail in the coffin, pushing Reader into the cliff to freefall into madness. Danny is the real head scratcher, though. Even though there are whole chapters dedicated to Dannys's POV, i still cant understand why Danny is so enamored with Reader. Yes, Reader gets him in a way no one can, but what is it with Reader being a past victim of a homicide that attracts Danny so hard? He even lets his guard down around Reader-he invites her to his motel for god's sake! Albeit to craft alibi, of course, but still. There's a whole chapter on it, where Danny finds out about Reader's case, but i still cant wrap my head around it. As the author, would you mind delving into Danny's head again to explain why Reader has such a chokehold on Danny? (no pressure, of couse!)

-also sorry for bad English, love you! <3

i love talking about bdfr! it's my baby!! i still have the original Google Doc with all the chapters, the playlist, and the outline because it was one of those things i could never really part with. and i can't believe you've enjoyed it so much!!! i'm so thankful for that because this was really a labour of love. i left pieces of myself in it that i don't think i can ever get back, and i genuinely don't think i could ever write anything like it again. it was my lightning-in-a-bottle moment, for sure. and ahhhhhhhh, 2021??? has it really been that long?? it feels like it was only a few months ago that i was sitting in my car eating a lobster roll and writing out the "Home Depot" opener on my phone lmao

but Danny's obsession with their case stems largely from his own narcissism, really. it's also his eventual downfall. Danny (and most, if not all, of the Ghostface Killers) is canonically obsessed with horror. a very morbid fanboy. so him meeting a surviving victim of one spurns his curiosity but also, his competitiveness. Danny is the showstopper. everything he does is very theatrical. he can't help the nagging sense of inferiority whenever someone else comes along. so he's caught in a loop of comparing himself to this other person, and also angry that you let yourself get caught by someone so subpar.

eventually, Danny comes to the conclusion that you're supposed to be his Final Girl, but someone else got to you first. and it's the anger, the jealousy, the obsession that really kicks everything into motion between them. and the reason Danny comes to this conclusion is a bit of a misunderstanding in three parts. Cat and Mouse (killer versus spunky Everyman Journalist); the Perfect Victim (Final Girl Blueprint); and then Two Sides of the Same Coin (or: there was always supposed to be two Ghostface killers, right?). that's the outline i stuck to when writing their specific arc.

this got super long so i put my notes on all three arcs Danny goes through under the cut. i mapped this story out pretty meticulously, so i hope my initial outline sheds some light on the insanity that is Danny lmao

Cat and Mouse is just a manifestation of Danny's boredom. at this point in his life, he's pretty stagnant. this arc would be Halloween H20 for him. the Florida Murders haven't happened yet, but he's been all over the US and no one has come close to catching him. Jed is still a persona he can use without worry of being caught.

and then you come along, and you're immediately wary of Jed. this hasn't happened much for him. he's able to read people with a shocking amount of ease and knows how to tune himself to their personality. either being overly friendly (Leslie and Jed), flirtatious (Gemma and Jed), competitive (Colton and Jed), or extremely competent (Jonah and Jed), but you're the outlier. the one he can't read. he tunes himself into the Old You, but it obviously doesn't work anymore because that version of you is gone. he misreads you. this strikes a nerve. it's never happened before.

it's exacerbated by your wariness of Jed, too. the way you go out of your way to avoid him, despite how much he adjusts his supposedly infallible personality to match you, it never seems to work. you're always on edge. you never trust him.

and then you make the comment (to his face, no less) about him being a narcissist. and this shouldn't be as huge of a moment as it is. Danny's been doing this for a long time, and it's kinda crazy to assume no one has clocked his Ghostface persona. but it's the fact that you say this so openly. and given everything that's happened to you, it heightens the stakes for him. for the first time in a long time, Danny feels like he could (potentially) be cornered. he also feels seen. and for a narcissistic serial killer who craves attention and admiration and fear (as noted in his POV chap., song choices), this is straight dopamine for him. it's everything.

so, he tosses you into the role of his foil. the one who will chase him to the very brink. but he doesn't anticipate the fact that you'd almost willfully ignore the warning signs right in front of you just to remain inside this bracket of normalcy you're still desperately clinging to (which is your own narrative downfall). he goes out of his way to make you catch onto him, almost angry that you don't.

it then kicks off the second part. he starts to consider you HIS Final Girl. but there's a problem. you're not his. you'll never be his. for such an unrepentant narcissist, this is almost too much. he's bordering on the edge of utter fury and an almost noxious jealousy. he wants to be your demise so badly that it bleeds into just pure, unfettered want.

and then the final part of their story is Twisted Soulmates. it kinda struck me as odd that every single Scream film had TWO Ghostfaces. it's kind of the blueprint. but DBD does not. they just had Danny. so i started thinking about what would happen if there were always supposed to be two, and added elements of Danny's loneliness. he wants, desperately, to share his work with someone who understands but this sort of thing would never appeal to the general public that's he trapped inside. he also risks getting caught. it can never happen.

until you. your anger at the man who did this to you, who ruined your life, is as potent as his desire to kill. he can see it in you. this darkness. this shifting, ugly rage brimming just below the surface. it makes his hackles rise because you could be the perfect partner.

it's a big part of why he spends so much time trying to "show off." why he gets so jealous when you focus your attention on Michael Myers instead of him. and why he feels the need to get rid of Leslie. she's a moral obstacle in your way.

he wants your attention now. he wants your everything, but there are parts of you that he'll never have, and this loss is too great to ever let your relationship work in the "real" world. but in all honesty, he's fine with being your eventual demise if you decide not to go with him. being your FINAL killer is something he fantasises about a lot. he wants to kill you from the moment he sees your wariness over Jed to the very end when he makes you chase him all the way to Utah.

but then the Entity intervenes, and suddenly Danny has a way to have everything he wants. your death (over and over and over again), and you with him (forever, always, eternity). but his narcissism does not let him see the killer you're shaping into. and when you end up turning the plot on him, using your "friend" as bait to lure him in, Danny knows he's gravely misunderstood you. in fact, he's never really known the real you at all.

this, of course, just spurns the obsessiveness in him further, making it very unlikely that he'll ever let you go.

[contrasting-realities]

A while ago I planned out a story called the Many Sides of Schrodinger's Coin, but I don't think I'll ever finish it. The reason why is because it was originally conceived as a fanmade Ace Attorney game but I don't feel like writing anything for AA at all, and Phoenix's perspective is instrumental to everything else, since that is the chronological perspective with the major plot twist and the other chapters covered the perspectives of everyone else as the plot unfolded.

The first chapter is up on AO3, but that's all there is, so I'm going to summarize it here since I like everything except the AA elements.

That chapter can be read here:

Spoilers for every fandom listed

First off, this story was a crossover between Ace Attorney, Shadows House, Hero Has Returned, Angels Of Death, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Devil Is A Part Timer, and the SCP Foundation.

The main plot was about Lee Seongjun turning Kate into a demon lord so that he could die since he and the entire multiverse is trapped in a time loop dependent on his return on death ability and a demon lord is the only thing that can kill him permanently. Hero Has Returned is about Isekai protagonists coming back to Earth and either going rouge or fighting against those who have turned to the dark side.

In Hero Has Returned, he turned another person named Minsu Kim into a demon lord since Minsu killed everyone he tried to turn into one and Seongjun killed him every time they fought. So, why did he use Kate instead?

Well, the first chapter has Minsu die at the hands of Edward who like Kate, is from Shadows house. Minsu dies because of a very specific weakness that Seongjun never discovered, he needs to use vocal commands to summon any of his weapons, armor, or blessings, and Edward has an ability that messes with sound. So, he used that on Minsu and killed him, but that wasn't who he was supposed to kill.

A month beforehand, Kate was banished to Earth with absolutely nothing to her name and a problem, retrograde amnesia that activated every three days. Eventually she met Minsu at a homeless camp and he effectively became her caretaker after the camp was shut down by the police. Minsu became very close with her as he had lost everything after coming back home, and Seongjun unfortunately now had to kill Kate since she was getting in the way of his plans.

That was until the night Minsu died, when he realized that she was incredibly close to turning into a demon lord, as in she would only need the negative karma from killing two people as opposed to killing several thousand. Edward called the cops on Kate though and got her arrested for 'killing Minsu' which is where Phoenix came in since Seongjun didn't know how Minsu died and didn't want to risk being unable to kill him again.

Seongjun adopted Kate after that incident so he could have better control over her, but someone else from Kate's world eventually came to kill her as well: Anthony.

Now I'm betting that you have a lot of questions, like why is Kate close to being a demon lord? And why is everybody trying to kill her? Well, in this AU Shadows House is just another world in Hero Has Returned that summons people from Earth to deal with their demon king, but nobody ever comes returns... under normal circumstances at least.

That's because the hero always becomes the demon lord after defeating their predecessor, who also is their summoner. It's been like this since the first demon lord tried to take over the first hero in a desperate attempt to survive their final battle, but died to the hero's will, they create a new shadows house and summon a hero to destroy everything and restart the cycle to minimize the impact the demon lord has on the world, since otherwise a lot more damage would occur since all realities aside from Earth must have a demon lord.

Kate began turning into one because she violated the rules of her world, which only the hero and demon lord are allowed to do, specifically that shadows can only have one 'face' (read: they can only possess one human body at a time). What happened is that Edward invited Kate instead of her Friend Louise. Invitation is the practice in which a shadow absorbs the body of the human (or 'living doll' as they're called), but Kate already had her own face due to having been born as a shadow/human hybrid. Edward was actually trying to kill her since he saw her as a threat to the house and overdosed her on a drug called Fragments of Grace which are used to help with unification. But Kate didn't die since she already had a face, since Edward didn't know this he kept giving her a stupid amount of the drug until she basically lost her mind. She became susceptible to brainwashing used on her doll, Emilico, which Emi chant a phrase which encouraged a shadow to take over the doll's body. Fragments of Grace also amplify the powers of shadows and can make them go out of control if too many are ingested at once, Edward eventually locked Kate and Emilico in a box for the unification and Kate eventually did try to absorb her doll. Normally, she would have died but all the fragments of grace gave her the power to actually do so and as a consequence, she started turning into a demon lord.

The current demon lord, Joseph, eventually realized what was happening and had Kate thrown into the canyon between the two halves of the shadows house, which interrupted her transformation. That canyon is actually a rift that leads out of the world of shadows and randomly switches destination worlds, and it's impossible to tell where it leads at the moment. They hoped that she wound up anywhere but Earth, but thanks to the power of one of the shadows who directly served under the demon king (aka the third floor) they learned exactly what they didn't want to hear. So, they pretty much told Edward off for what he'd done and also explained everything about the demon lord to him since nobody really knows about that aside from those who need to. Edward was then sent to Earth to make up for the damage he caused, but failed so they sent Anthony next.

Anthony, originally Christopher, is actually the current generation shadow hero, and ironically the only son of the noble house which Joseph took over and replaced. His father, Alfred, fell through the rift and into Earth alongside his friends and Joseph's daughter, who wasn't supposed to be at the house that day but she disobeyed her father, 60 years ago to 1960s America. Alfred had Anthony in 1997 with Joseph's daughter, she died soon after, and Anthony got isekaied in 2009 when he was 12. Alfred and his friends were looking for a way back to their original world since they got stuck on Earth and Anthony was always told that he would be the one to retake the house and save them, which is why he was given his original name. When he did return, he was pretty much a violent and entitled brat who just wanted to kill Joseph there on the spot. Joseph had some complicated feelings about having summoned the son of the man he betrayed, but he managed to explain why he did it to Anthony and over the years he calmed down and accepted his role as the next demon lord... before learning about Kate and Seongjun that is.

Joseph could see the area around Kate due to the ability which let them see into Earth being attached to her eyes and ears, he overheard a conversation between Seongjun and Phoenix which Seongjun said that he could see into the future and that he was also a hero. They used the same power on Anthony and told him that they would be sending him back to deal with Kate since they needed a hero to deal with another hero. Anthony had figured out by this point that Kate was his half-sister and he was pretty surprised once he learned about it, but accepted since a demon lord appearing on Earth would be a death sentence for most of the multiverse.

When Anthony did confront Seongjun, he realized that his intel was slightly wrong and that he couldn't see the future. He also realized that Seongjun was determined to turn Kate into a demon lord at all costs. So he stopped fighting and took a different approach and tried to reason with him, and it actually worked. Anthony got a lot of info out of Seongjun and told him the actual damage of what would happen, Kate, even if she was killed, would likely come back in 100 years and destroy the world. Then Anthony explained that he could potentially kill her permanently due to his powers as the shadow warrior, and then could kill himself before he became a demon lord so that fate could be avoided. Seongjun agreed to this since Anthony was offering to mitigate the damage and didn't intend to try and stop him.

After this, they started planning things out, deciding that Edward and a girl named Chiho Sasaki would be their targets. The first is obvious but the second is more complicated. Around midnight when Kate is about to lose her memories, she enters a suggestible state where she regains her abilities as a shadow and can remember everything that has happened to her since arriving on Earth. Their plan was to have Kate in this state kill their targets and then frame the murders on other people, with Phoenix being the one to do so thanks to his reputation of finding out the truth (Anthony messed with the memories of everyone they framed so that they believed what he wanted them to, he can do this because of his power to use the abilities of anyone he's absorbed). This is where Chiho comes in, Seongjun wanted to frame Gabriel (devil is a part-timer characters) for her murder since otherwise things would become more complicated. The SCP foundation is aware of what Seongjun is doing and of his situation, but have been unable to help him at all, so they tolerate his plans while trying to create a counter to the monster he will make. But they have their limits and will counter anything that is dangerous and unnecessary to ending the time loop. If Seongjun just killed Gabriel, and angel from another planet in the same universe as Earth, more angels would show up to either complete Gabriel's mission or take out the one who killed him, since he was supposed to take the demon king's second general (Ashiya/Alciel) and the hero (Emi/Emilia) back to their planet (Maou is just the king of demons, he is not the king of demon lord that could kill Seongjun, and their planet 'Ente Isla' also exists in the universe where there is no demon lord). This could result in an all out war which could end the world, and framing Gabriel without jumping through a few hoops would also be a pain because he has no legal identity on Earth, and would also likely break out of jail using his magic which would force the foundation's hand and they would kill him, leading to the above scenario. Just leaving Gabriel alone isn't an option either since by this point not all of the heros have returned yet and the South Korean government is going to be very hesitant to use them against the rouge heros, meaning that they and Kate will have a lot of time to cause damage to Seoul, early on in other timelines when Gabriel was unable to kidnap anybody this was prevented by Maou and Emi, but everyone from Ente Isla will leave to rescue Ashiya and Emi for a few months. They decided to find a way to limit Gabriel's powers and the make the angels think he brought getting stuck on Earth and out of the way on himself (i.e. getting arrested) so they don't realize what's really going on. Chiho was chosen because she is close to Maou and Emi but isn't from Ente Isla and has no notable powers and it would potentially be feasible to make up a story about Gabriel killing her to try and lure Maou's loyal general back to their world for revenge. (Maou was in Korea in the first place because the store he worked at was out competed by a rival store and upper management was pretty cruel about moving their low ranking workers to another country).

Seongjun had an idea of how to do restrict Gabriel's powers and planned on doing so while Anthony gathered information about Edward independently, but he ran into the person Seongjun planned on recruiting. Abraham Gray, from angels of death, was working at the jail Edward was staying at as a priest for some prisoners, but it turns out that he was also an old generation faith hero. He has a fascination with human belief and created an experiment where he would trap religious people in a building full of serial killers to observe how they would react. He knew what he was doing was wrong after observing the growth of Rachel and Zack as friends (He once thought that Zack was a pure being with no desires except a lust for blood) and decided to try and kill himself and destroy all the evidence of his crimes as a form of repentance, thinking that he would die having little to no power left, but he was wrong and was never implicated in the incident.

Gray agreed to help Seongjun and Anthony after he heard about the former's plight and the need for someone to help deal with the damage which would be caused by Kate and the rouge heros, it was also a way for him to repent by saving the world. Outside of his abilities to cause hallucinations and mess with people's heads, he can also seal the abilities of others away, which he did on Gabriel. Anthony and Seongjun then manipulated Kate into killing Chiho and framing Maou first while Anthony also controlled Gabriel so that there was enough 'evidence' that Phoenix could shift the blame onto him once the time came.

Edward was next, and the reason was very easy, Kate could be manipulated into wanting revenge on him. They decided that Lucy, another character from angels of death (she died in canon, but survived in this AU and was forced to change her identity by her employer because she tortured prisoners alongside another character named Cathy), because framing her would be easy. Around midnight, Gray manipulated some of the prisoners into starting a riot and during the chaos got Kate in there and had her kill Edward before framing it on a death row inmate named Lee Sookyung, who had been imprisoned for killing her abusive husband to protect her son, Kim Dokja (she was also cellmates with Zack).

Of course, Phoenix found out the 'truth' and Lucy was revealed as the 'killer' but more happened in that trial. Sookyung requested that Phoenix check up on her son since he had been moved from his relative's house to a psychiatric facility after somebody called the cops on them for abuse ('someone' aka Seongjun). Rachel also stayed in the same facility and had gotten somewhat close with Dokja, and Phoenix eventually realized that Sookyung was lying. She didn't kill her husband, Dokja did. He revealed this at some point during the trial to try and prove his client's innocence to disprove the notion that she was a killer. And Gray had to stop a double suicide between Zack and Rachel because Zack promised to kill her once they got out of Gray's experiment but both were on the fence on whether or not they wanted to die at that moment since Zack was already on death row and Rachel had started to recover from her issues.

Outside of Kate regaining her memories, there was one more thing Songjun had to do. A girl named Han Sooyoung was killed not too long after the trial and Kate was arrested for murdering her due to having seemingly broken into her apartment. At the same time, the web novel Dokja was obsessed with and which had given him hope when nothing else could stopped updating, with a final message being left by the author's killer. He nearly killed himself, but Rachel stopped him.

Phoenix came back to defend Kate again and figured out that Seongjun had killed Han Sooyong, but claims he did it to save the world, since the web novel being finished would destroy everything. All throughout this, the foundation has been helping Seongjun from the background and cleaned up after him, turning a blind eye to his actions. But in this case they had gotten involved to ensure Sooyoung's death since they are very well aware of what would have happened if that story was finished. Slightly before all this, Kate's friends figured out what happened to her and a shadow named John and his doll, Shaun, had both entered Earth to find her (They didn't know anything about heros and demon lords). Unfortunately, by the time they did Kate had been framed for killing Sooyoung and both were forced to stand as witnesses, which Seongjun insisted on because both needed to encourage Kate for her to successfully fight off her amnesia. The foundation didn't like this but were busy preparing for the inevitable broken masquerade scenario (the public becoming aware of the supernatural) that the hero crisis would bring. Both of these factors led Phoenix to realize that Seongjun wasn't really alone in this murder and that a lot of people were helping him (John's identity as a shadow was hidden, but eventually exposed by Kate and Phoenix).

This caused Anthony and Gray to break into the court room since Seongjun was broadcasting the trial's events to them. Anthony then explained to Phoenix that Kate had been responsible for the last two murders he had defended clients for, and provided evidence that they were telling the truth. Phoenix realized that all of it made sense but was in denial that it was real, John and Shaun had a similar reaction. In their first meeting, Phoenix noticed black psyche-locks around Kate when he asked about her amnesia, which he found out later with Dokja, indicated a secret stuck in someone's subconscious. He figured out how to break them earlier and tried to do the same with Kate, John and Shaun deciding to help him since Phoenix would need to come to her with answers and not questions. John and Shaun needed to be there so that Kate would resist the influence causing her issues and overcome it... which turned out to be Emilico herself.

Emilico died when Kate remembered everything and regained control over her powers, but Kate didn't want to lose her like she did with Minsu. So she diluted herself into thinking that Seongjun, Anthony, and Gray had trapped her inside her own mind and that none of this was real. That is when she fully transformed and blew up the courthouse. Seongjun had gotten trapped under the rubble and she begged him for an answer to why he did this to her, but he refused to give her a straight answer, so she killed him after telling him to go back and save Minsu, but he just died and the time loop was broken.

Phoenix had also gotten trapped under the rubble but was protected by a barrier made by Seongjun, John and Shaun also survived but were slowly being crushed by the weight above them. Nobody came to save them and John eventually lost his mind to hunger and tried to eat Shaun, leading to an unintentional unification that gave John the strength to get out of there (unified shadows have stronger powers than normal ones).

At the same time, the sorcery hero snapped and blew up another part of the city, before finding out about Kate and mistaking her for another rouge hero, not a demon lord, he played into her delusions and made her think that he was here to help her, with the other rouge heros doing similar while also looking up to Kate and sorcery since they were the ones who inspired their rampages. A certain SCP also sensed the awakening of a demon lord and broke containment in Japan to fight Kate, SCP-682 aka the old demon lord of the Earth.

Like before with some other interruptions, Maou, Emi and Ashiya went to try and deal with the threat, but realized that this was nothing like what they'd seen in Ente Isla and they were far more cautious with their methods, mostly Emi evacuating civilians while Maou, Ashiya and another demon general named Urushihara or Lucifier actually fighting the heros since their powers are based on the amount of fear around them, and obviously there is a lot of fear with isekai protagonists destroying everything.

Anthony and Gray escaped from Kate's rampage and met up with the foundation, who assisted everyone on the front lines while pressuring the Korean government to allow the good heros to help deal with the crisis. Korea refused at first because of their close ties to the Global Occult Coalition (A group similar to the foundation that focuses on destroying the supernatural rather than containing it). But the GOC eventually agreed with the foundation after taking a look at the situation, and the defense begins.

Gray eventually gets killed by Kate defending a ship of refugees from her, but he uses the last of his powers to create a weapon for Zack, who is still in jail with Sookyung, so that he can rescue Rachel and keep her safe, Sookyung goes along with him and saves Dokja as well. Zack originally liked and respected Sookyung a lot since she was extremely open about her crimes but that changed once Phoenix revealed that she was a liar, and Zack hates liars. But Sookyung argues right before the scythe arrives that otherwise her son would have been a social outcast for the rest of his life, and she tells him that not all lies are bad before they get interrupted.

Gray's body was absorbed by Anthony after his death so that he could use his 'face' to manipulate Kate, he did the same thing to Seongjun's corpse as well. The time hero, who uses his lifespan to power his abilities, had agreed to be absorbed by Anthony due to him only having 6 years left to live and Anthony being able to use his abilities more due to having multiple 'faces' with different lifespans. The shadows house also sent several shadows, both fused and not, to help Anthony gain power including one of Kate's friends named Patrick because he had an ability that canceled out the powers of other shadows.

Anthony does eventually fight and kill Kate once all the other heros were dead, and he absorbed and killed her before the other heros took him out before he turned into a demon lord. So basically, Hero Has Returned finally gets a happy ending.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Kate, in her delusions, mistook a boy named Jeongsu Park and his little sister Dabin for Minsu and Emilico, she saved them from the iron arm hero after killing their mother and then kidnapped them to keep them safe. Jeongsu is not pleased.

[noxcorvorum]

something else for flesh!mira is that she's the main healer, especially at the beginning of the game, and there's lots of examples of healing magic as the other side of the coin for harmful magic (i believe marcille says somewhere in dungeon meshi that healing magic was used as a torture method?)

her ability to counteract the timestops/freezing spells could also be read as flesh with the control-over-the-body aspect

i do really like the stranger!isabeau idea, both with the body craft and the fact that he hides his true nature to try and be someone others will like to be around

my first instinct for siffrin is the desolation, actually, because while fire is a common motif, the main meaning is about loss and senseless destruction, especially of things precious to you

the loss part corresponds to his missing memories/how he keeps forgetting things as well as essentially only interacting with puppets of his friends, while the destruction comes as they get angrier/more desperate as the loops go on- a specific instance i'm thinking of is when they forget to hold back on the first sadness and absolutely demolish it and then immediately loop back

i think odile could be at a very interesting place between eye and stranger - she knows a lot of things due to her guise as a researcher, she knows spells from all three types of craft as well as a slow spell (and the examine enemy action), and she slowly figures out that something's wrong with siffrin/the situation, which none of the others outwardly do (to my knowledge)

she also pretends to be a researcher/hides her real motivations in a similar way to isabeau, as well as feeling kindof 'other' in both ka bue and vaugarde

the king is end aligned to me, with maybe a bit of lonely?

i dont really have any ideas for the other characters like bonnie/the head housemaiden/etc, but i think that loop is specifically a pawn of the web

Okay so, I don't know that much about tma, but I'm so curious to hear your thoughts on the mirabelle thing /gen

ok quick rundown of tma and the Fears (i haven't listened to tmp yet so if this is now entirely incorrect...... oh well)

there's 15 Fears, entities that feed on the fear of all living things, but they're not exactly sentient (except for one), their influence just sorta trickles down into the world and humans act on it, either giving themselves up and becoming Something Else or getting eaten pretty much. the fears are as follows:

The End, The Eye, The Web, The Lonely, The Flesh, The Slaughter, The Buried, The Vast, The Spiral, The Desolation, The Dark, The Hunt, The Corruption, and The Stranger! Just those 14! Definitely no more! No spoilers here!

anyway flesh avatar mirabelle! the first and most obvious connection would be body craft except! she doesn't Change herself in that way! so why am I still locked into flesh mira? bcse the vibe

In actuality i just don't really know how to describe it? It is based on vibe, mostly the way she's interested in horror! The reason i went for flesh over hunt or even slaughter is because of a) the general gore in monster horror books (which iirc is what she mainly reads?) and b) the nonhuman (more than human?) aspects of the monsters. Werewolves is the first thing that comes to mind here, I've read some visceral descriptions of the transformation that i almost repeated but had to delete because i don't want to put a content warning on this post actually

don't really know how to articulate the rest of my thoughts so that is it! for now! if anyone has more ideas or even conflicting avatar hcs i would love to hear them :eyes:

[descendantofthesparrow]

Finale - Rewrite - POYW - Harry Hook x reader - part 5 - the ember

Outfits;

C4+(y/n)

*Mals transformation (skull is the symbol on her back)

Hadie and Celia

Uma (for her first appearance, she's wearing her canon dress)

=

The vks finally arrived at the closest shore facing the isle, Mal taking a deep breath and lifting her goggles to look at Celia. They didn’t want to draw too much attention to themselves on the isle so they would get off and on with the spell that Mal had used years back. “you remember what I said?” Mal asked Celia, Celia nodded, slightly unsure this would even work but Mal was sure Celia could use magic, and therefore cast the spell.

Celia took a deep breath and face the isle, picturing all five motor-bikes in her head as she spoke the incantation “Noble steeds/proud and fair, you shall take us/anywhere” the bikes all glowed a reddish-purple, matching Celia’s hair, and Mal nodded, knowing the spell had worked.

Mal put her goggles back down and revved the engine of her bike, leading the others onto the ocean. Hadie looked down at the water in awe as the bikes easily rode on the water as if it was solid ground, he whistled then looked back up to see the isle coming closer and closer. Celia laughed, feeling giddy as it sunk in, she used her magic, she had done it! She couldn’t wait to tell her dad!

After a few minutes the bikes passed through the barrier, both Hadie and Celia winced at the feeling of magical being forced back underneath their skin, and soon they rolled onto land, Mal taking a few turns towards Faciliers arcade that rested right next to curl up and dye. They passed through the wharf marketplace and through the alleyway where their old hideout was (which had been emptied and claimed by someone else)

Mal turned one last corner and parked her bike right in front of the place that used to be Hades Greek restaurant (he used to be there a lot, but at one point he stopped coming completely and left it in the hands of his hires and son, who ‘sold’ it and it was turned into a regular shop with furniture and decor)

The others parked next to Mal and turned off their bikes, taking off their helmets and leaving them on the seats as (y/n), Hadie, and Celia continued to carry theirs. Mal brought a lock of her hair in front of her and sighed, nope, still brown. She had a small hope that the barrier would reverse the spell that Audrey had cast but Mal supposed she was out of luck on that one. “Come on” Mal muttered, Celia leading the way to the arcade as the vks and (y/n) followed her to the arcade door.

Celia placed her helmet onto the fortune reading table for safekeeping (I mean, who would dare steal from the daughter of the shadow man?) (y/n) and Hadie doing the same, and walked up to a multicolored door with the words ‘Do Not Disturb’ in French painted on it.

Celia grinned at the vks and turned back to the door, excited to show off the arcade. She made a few quick beats with her fist, dancing as someone knocked back in a different beat. She did it once more and bounced in excitement as the door unlocked and slid open, the bouncer inside stepping aside as Celia gestured for everyone to follow her. (y/n), Mal, and Evie shared a proud grin and followed after her, Carlos and Jay looking around as they hadn’t been to the arcade in years, and the surrounding area had changed since the last time they were there.

Celia rushed through the entrance, gasping in delight as she saw the back of her father's head, she practically jumped down the steps and grinned widely as her father turned and smiled. “Hey!” he turned and threw his cane to one of his workers who caught it and turned back to a card reading table. Facilier turned back to his daughter and held his arms out “there she is!”

“Daddy~!!” Celia squealed as she ran towards him and slammed into his arms, laughing as he lifted her into the air and set her down on his other side. The two engaged in a little dance that had obviously been done time and time again, created years ago and they had decided to keep it up. Mal didn’t stop the smile from blooming on her face, while they were on a time crunch and the worlds impending doom was on its way, it warmed her heart to see good parents on the isle, it was rare to see one of the adults not seer at their kids, it was a wonder to see them be fully affectionate.

Plus Facilier had always been one of those adults the kids went to if they needed help, he was “nice” like that. Facilier tapped his cheek, expecting a kiss from Celia but the girl cheekily tapped his hat instead and started to run, squealing with laughter as he caught her and pulled her into his side. Mal and Evie grinned at each other, their delight at seeing the father-daughter relationship slightly dimmed by their lack of one.

The vks loosely followed the two Facilier’s as (y/n) explored the arcade, whistling a bit as she looked around at the extravagant displays and games surrounding her. She had heard Harry and Gil talk about this place before but she had never had the opportunity to visit it when it was active.

Celia grinned as her dad leaned down next to her ear “so what kinda hustle do you got goin’ on with them, shiny people?” Celia just grinned and pulled a small purple velvet drawstring bag out of her shoulder bag, plopping it in his hand and kipping over to the wall of signs next to her dad’s card reading table and grabbing the skull-shaped key then looping it around her neck.

Her father looked at her with pride as he held the piles of coins in his hands, all from the Auradon people she had read cards for in the last day. “Cher” her dad whispered, pride clear in his voice as he carefully poured the coins back into the pouch and tossed it back to his daughter “look at my little girl go, already conning half of Auradon~” Celia just grinned, perking up as Carlos called everyone over to a static tv that was connected to the Auradon network.

The reporter on screen stood at Auradon prep, next to the statue of Adam, as the camera followed him as he walked “Alerts of a sleeping spell keep coming in as it spreads across Auradon, sources say the daughter of Aurora, Audrey, is responsible for this spell; were trying to discover who is responsible for these vicious lies, and which villain has perpetrated this evil” the man stopped and held his finger up to his earpiece, his face paling in fear “it’s what? it's heading this way, cut it-cut it! we have to run!” the screen cut to static and the vks looked at each other in terror.

“We have to go get the ember” Mal rushed out, Hadie leading the way as you waited for Facilier to release his daughter's shoulder as he stared at the screen in fear for his daughter.

“I’ll protect her,” you said with a smile, holding out your hand to the girl as Facilier nodded and let Celia go.

“You better” he muttered, crossing his arms as you and Celia raced out after the others.

-

“Rookie mistake” Carlos grumbled as he spotted some of Umas crew members on top of their bikes as they rounded the corner of the alleyway. You sighed, looking over Jay’s shoulder to see Jonas on Jay’s bike, grinning wildly.

“Get off my bike!” Jay yelled out, leaping forward in an attempt to grab Jonas’ jacket as the pirate laughed. Jay just missed as Jonas and his four other pirate cohorts all raced off on your bikes, and you could recognize Bonnie on top of yours. “Over the roofs!” Jay yelled out, Evie and Carlos nodding and running off as Jay turned to you “cut them off” you looked back at Mal and nodded, climbing the buildings and running after the sound of the bike engines.

Celia went to follow but Hadie and Mal grabbed her arms, preventing her from joining the case “Hey, hey hey! They got this, we need to get the ember ASAP” Mal stated, nodding as Celia sighed in slight disappointment.

“Good timing too” Hadie muttered, checking his watch “right about his nap time” Mal raised her brow but followed her fellow vks as they quickly walked towards the other end of the isle where the mines were.

‘he takes naps?’ Mal thought, looking behind her and seeing you dropping down into an alleyway a few buildings away. She turned back to Hadie and Celia then quickly caught up to them as they had walked faster than she thought they would.

-

After a few minutes of (almost running) rushed walking, the three vks arrived at the mines, guarded by an intimidating metal gate with Hades symbol, made out of wooden planks and old tires, on the front, with multiple keep out and warning signs plastered around. “Hey” Mal interrupted Celia, who was unlocking the door. Hadie and Celia stopped to look at her confused, Hadie halfway wondering if she was backing out of the plan “how big is that dog?” Mal nodded that sign behind Celia and she turned, Celia sighed and shook her head as Hadie snorted at a joke that wasn’t there.

“You’ll see” Celia muttered as Hadie snorted again, pulling the gate open and leading the two girls inside. Celia gasped quietly and turned back on Mal, holding her finger up to her lips “Okay, you have to stay quiet it echoes like crazy in here” even as Celia whispered it reverberated against the old rocky walls of the isle mines. Mal nodded and glanced around at the multiple record speakers that hung off the walls, following Celia as Hadie stood by the railway that led towards his father's lair.

Mal jumped at the sudden sound of multiple dogs barking and grabbed onto Hadie, who laughed quietly and pointed at the speakers “not here” Hadie whispered, waving Celia off the bike turned-makeshift minecart hybrid “too loud, if we’re stealing the ember, we need to be quiet as possible, we walk. It’s not too far” Mal nodded and kept her grip on Hadie’s arm, tensing up each time the guardian of the underworld's barks echoed around her. Hadie glanced at her but said nothing, letting her use him as a crutch as the three vks walked down the dark and damp tunnels of the abandoned mineshafts.

Hadie took a few twists and turns, apparently a shortcut to his room (which was also a back way towards Hades main area of his lair), and soon the three stepped out into a pretty large room with a queen-sized bed with a dark grey and blue bedspread. Hadie grabbed a bass from his wall and carried it, nodding out towards the curtain door “an excuse, case he wakes up as we walk out” Hadie whispered, Celia went first as they stepped through the curtain.

Mal stopped as her eyes locked onto the back of the god of the underworld's head, his hair was a dim dark blue, the side effect of his hair unable to light ablaze. Mal sighed in relief as the god snored loudly…very loudly, it reminded Mal of when Ben’s dad had fallen asleep during a late-night hangout back when Mal was still in school at Auradon prep.

As the three crept closer, the sounds of dogs barking started to loop, and Mal looked around confused before Hadie pointed at an old record player, it had hit a scratch on the disc and was now looping on a singular bark. Mal breathed a quiet sigh of relief, that meant no dog to be fed to if Hades caught them.

Mal walked heel to toe as she snuck over to Hades, while Hadie and Celia slowly made their way around the other way. Just as Mal got close, Celia got fed up with the record and lifted the needle, sending a loud screeching noise through the cave. Mal and Hadie glared at Celia, as the rash decision had made Hades wake up. He lifted his head slightly and look directly at his son and Celia “What are you doing here?” he grumbled in a tired tone, yawning a bit as Hadie raised his bass in the air.

��Forgot my bass” Hadie simply said as Celia took out a can of corn and a packaged blue rock candy.

“I noticed, you were out, of canned corn” she tossed the candy and can to the god and he caught them with one hand. Mal by then had lifted the ember out of the dish it was sitting in and was bringing it to her chest, screaming lightly as Hades suddenly grabbed her hand, stopping her from crouching out of sight.

Hades turned to look at her, his yellow eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Mal harshly swallowed and released the ember as he took it from her, moving to rest his head on his arm. He and Mal stared at each other for a moment, Hadie and Celia standing awkwardly near the old wooden stairs that lead back up to the tunnels. “um-“ Mal started in a meek voice, watching his eyes as he looked at her newly brown hair and eyes “-can I have that?” her usual confidence was gone, she was powerless and in front of a god who could pick her up with one hand and chuck her across the room even without his powers.

Hades raised his brow and turned his head to look at the ember, which was black as coal, in his hand. Then he looked back at her. “And why should I give it to you?” Hades asked coolly, taking off his glasses and tossing them to the side, leaning back in his minecart turned chair, lofting his boots up next to Mal’s face. “uh-“ Mal clearly hadn't expected him to ask that, she had expected him to get angry and throw her out of his lair. Quick mal, come up with an excuse or something! “I need it?”…nice one Mal, top-notch, he’ll for sure give you the ember now.

Hades rolled his eyes and looked to Hadie, who just shrugged. “Auradon is in danger and we need the ember” Hadie answered dryly, watching Mal carefully as she stepped in front of Hades and held out her hand, his father's yellow eyes staring down at Mal carelessly.

“Please?” Mal asked in a much firmer tone, her eyes looking directly into Hades. Hades huffed and lifted up the ember, waving the black gem around a bit.

“You’re only half Hades, the ember won't do everything for you that it does for me” Mal clicked her jaw and gestured to Hadie, not really paying attention to what Hades had just said.

“Hadie’s gonna be the one to use it anyway, I just wanted-to…” Mal’s brain caught up to the words that had just come out of Hades mouth and she looked back up at him with wide eyes, Celia’s jaw had dropped as she realized what he had meant “IM HALF WHAT?!” now Hades looked confused, looking at Mal as if she was crazy.

“you-you didn’t know?” Hades has lost his confidence, his brow raising in confusion, then he looked to Hadie “she doesn’t know?”

Hadie just pinched his brow and sat down on the wooden steps, ignoring his father and (newly announced) half-sister as the Mal started to squabble about her mother and Hades. “fuckin-what?!” Mal screeched, running her hands through her hair and starting to pace around the lair, Celia looking concerned as Mal tugged at her brown locks “you?! My dad?! That’s-that’s not right?! My mom said he was human, a full-on human!? It can’t be you it-“ Mal started to hyperventilate and Hades took her hands, bringing her closer to him and looking into her eyes. “Kid, calm down, you’re having a panic attack, breathe with me, okay?” Mal knew she had to listen or she would pass out so she followed Hades lead. When she got control of her breath again, she pushed him away, wiping away the tears that had gathered in her eyes “she never told you?”

“I guess fucking not” Mal assumed he meant her mother never telling her about her true father “and-also HOW?!” Hades just gave her a knowing look “NOT LIKE THAT-“ Mal did NOT want to think about her mother and Hades doing the do “-I mean-how did” Mal gestured to herself then Hades “this! Happen?? I thought you were loyal to Persephone!?” “Mom knows about this by the way” Hadie interrupted, motioning between his father and sister “and she’s pissed the fuck off, so whenever you see her again dad, you have millennia of making up to do” Hades winced at the thought of his wife being very mad at him, but it wasn’t unwarranted, but he had another matter to attend to.

Hades sighed and turned back to Mal, rubbing his stubble “I got drunk, very drunk, I don’t remember much but I woke up next to your mother and eleven months later you were dropped off for me to babysit” Mal’s jaw dropped in shock and slight disgust “I didn’t know about you until you were already two months old, and then I took care of you for about three months before your mother took you back, something about an heir of darkness.” Hades waved off the notion of Maleficent abandoning Mal on his doorstep and continued on as Mal gawked at him. “and before you ask-I do know I am really your dad because your hair was blueish-purple when she dropped you off and it was almost completely blue when she took you away, I think your magic reacted to whomever you were around the most-“ Mal shook her head, she didn’t have time for this!

“Okay, whatever, I don’t care. I don’t have time for all this” Mal waved her hands around in frustration(noticeably in the same way Hades did but no one commented on it) and held out her hand again “but! If you wanna make up for being a lousy dad” Hades frowned at that “gimme the ember” he stared down at her for a moment before gently placing the ember into Mal's palm, Mal closing her hand around it and nodding “thank you, it’ll be returned after we save Auradon”

“It won’t work for you completely, you are still only half Hades” Hades warned as Mal pocketed the ember into her thigh bag, raising his brow as she glared up at him. “So what? I’m not the one using it, dad” Mal hissed the last word, as if it was poison in her mouth. She didn’t fully believe him, after all, if her mother had lied to her for years about her father, who's to say he wasn’t lying to her now?

Mal pushed past him and up the steps, Celia quickly following her as Hadie set down his bass and looked back at his dad.

“Did she really never tell her?” Hades asked  quietly, looking up at the stairs after Mal, an upset look on his face. “all this time, almost 19 years of standing by, she didn’t even know?”

Hadie sighed and crossed his arms “You really think Maleficent would have told Mal about her true parentage? If Mal had known you were her dad, she would have never listened to Maleficent, she manipulated Mal…I have to go, kingdom to save n all” Hades nodded, watching his son walk out after his daughter and sighing. So much for respecting Mal’s wishes.

-

Celia looked up at Mal, pressing her lips together as the awkward silence pierced the air. “I guess that’s why he was always asking about you” Celia murmured, stopping in front of the front gate as Mal paused, looking directly at the ground.

Mal then shook her head, lifting it up to stare straight ahead “let's go, we’re wasting time” Mal continued forward towards the main area of the isle again, Hadie and Celia giving each other a look before following after her. Mal was right, there were more important things to get to than her parentage.

-

Ben was back at his desk, talking on his phone with one of the captains of the royal guard “No. no, I want the royal guard handing out gas masks!” Ben said in a stressed tone, tapping through his tablet as more reports of the sleeping spell came through. Ben growled a bit as the captain on the other side muttered something about the spell “Well not everyone's asleep!” Ben hung up and tossed his phone on his desk, looking up and pointing at the servant standing at his door “Find out if anyone has seen Audrey, and see if she has a list of demands!” the servant nodded and turned out the door.

Ben sighed and unzipped his jacket, flopping back on his chair and running his hand through his hair as he tried to calm down. Why had this happened? What had happened with Audrey that caused Maleficent to possess her?

Mal had texted him earlier that the spell used the victim's emotions against them, so whoever had taken the scepter was feeling very intense emotions, enough for her mother to feed on that. So what had Audrey been feeling when Maleficent took control?

Ben had a sinking feeling it had to do with one very bitter grandmother.

“just one~” Ben yelped and stood from his chair as he spun around, eyes widening as he locked into Audrey’s eyes, which were swimming with green. “I demand my life back”

Ben looked behind him at his door, mentally cursing as all his guards had left to go help the people. “I have a proposition for you~” he turned back to Audrey and watched as he pointed behind her towards the rest of the kingdom “I’ll wake everybody up right now, under one, itty bitty condition” she stepped closer to him, her eyes flashing green. “make me queen”

‘queen?’ Ben thought confused, why would Audrey want to be queen? Why would Maleficent want to be queen? Then Ben remembered when he overheard one of Leah’s bullshit rants about Audrey’s right to the crown. Audrey was just doing exactly what her grandmother wanted, just in a twisted way…that’s why Leah had been turned to stone that morning.

And Maleficent was just going along with Audrey’s ���desires’ so she wouldn’t be detected by the young princess, she was waiting for the opportune moment to take over completely. “Audrey” Ben started softly, taking her hand and bringing it towards him. Audrey looked confused, her eyes flickering with magenta and green. “someone spelled you, you have to let me help you-“Audrey's eyes turned fully green and she ripped away from Ben, and Ben knew Maleficent was in control now.

“Pathetic” Audrey hissed in a cold tone, her face morphing into a sneer as the scepter glowed bright green in her hand “so kind, so trusting, you won't even strike your precious little friend down just when you had the chance” Ben glared at Maleficent, hand drawing behind him to the hidden dagger that (y/n) had stashed a couple of months ago. “just like your mother…” Audrey’s eyes turned bright green and then she grinned cruelly “but so afraid of being like your father~” Ben froze in fear, realizing what she was talking about. No, she wouldn’t “let's see how you like being a beast~” Ben raced forward in an attempt to snatch the scepter from Audrey but he was blown back as it flashed green and his body was overtaken in a green flash.

Ben screamed out in pain, but It only came out as a monstrous roar, his teeth becoming fangs as his nails pushed out and sharpened, fur erupting from his entire body and everything just became so loud.

He let out another painful roar, Audrey cackling in the background as the scepter flashed magenta and Ben swore he heard someone screaming then everything went silent.

Ben blacked out from the pain and when he woke up a few moments later, Audrey was gone, the only thing left was a few wisps of smoke. Ben crawled over to his balcony and looked down, a whimper slipping through his new snout as he saw many of the servants now turned to stone. Ben turned on his heels and ran through the castle, looking for anybody who could help him, his claws ripped and scratched at the walls as he raced through them, he ended up at the hall of armor and ripped open the doors, claws digging into the frame and Ben ended up with a large splinter in his palm.

He roared in pain again and ran out the other side of the hall, crashing through the doors and running into the forest, he couldn’t let anybody see him like this, he had to find a way to turn back into a human before he hurt someone.

-

Mal, Hadie, and Celia walked back into the arcade, Celia racing towards her dad as Mal walked over to her friends who were playing some odd combo of foosball and pool. “M!” Evie called, relieved her friend was okay as Mal trotted over to her and wrapped her arms around Evie’s arm. Evie grabbed Mal’s shoulder with her free hand and looked at her “do you have it?” Mal nodded and dug into her thigh bag, taking out the black as coal ember. “Good, let's get off this rock”

Mal nodded, turning to jay to ask him where the bikes were but he interrupted her “how’d you get it? I assume he either gave to Hadie or you snatched it?” Mal winced at the reminder of how she had gotten the ember.

Welp, no better time to tell them then now, eh? “uh, yeah about that” Mal muttered, looking down at the ember in her hand “uh, he just-gave it to me?” it sounded more like a question than anything else. Mal was unsure if Hades really was her dad, but she would spill details about the entire thing later, right now the short and sweet answer was best.

“He just” Carlos started, furrowing his brows in confusion and glancing to Hadie “gave it to you? And not Hadie?”

“Yeah well, there's a reason behind it which is-guess whomst the fuckiest my dad is?” Mal laughed, giving her friends a tilted smile as they looked at her strangely, why bring up her dad at a time like this?

“Oh no fucking way” it hit Carlos first, his eyes widening “no fucking way but you said-“ Mal laughed again, sounding strangled.

“I know! I know! I thought so too! But I guess it's just another thing my mother lied to me about” Jay looked a little miffed at not understanding what Carlos and Mal were talking about, Evie looking lost as well “Remember how I said my dad was human? For the last 19 fucking years?” Jay and Evie nodded, (y/n) cleaning up the table behind them before freezing as realization dawned on her.

“Oh, no fucking way” (y/n) groaned, looking to Mal with an exasperated look “your dad is-that means-what the actual fuck” Evie finally had enough and turned to Mal with her brow raised.

“Okay spill before I stab you”

“Apparently, my dad is fucking Hades” Mal hissed quietly, leaning closer to Jay and Evie as their eyes went wide in shock “Yep, my mother lied, again, about my dad. Told me he was human to keep me in check and shit.”

“I-“ Jay stuttered, unable to get anything out as his mouth opened and closed. “are you sure?” At this Mal shook her head, no she wasn’t sure, but this was helping them in their favor, Hades had given Mal the ember willingly under the pretense she was his kid.

“no im not, and I don’t want to know how or why, but we can do all this processing shit later when Auradon or Audrey aren’t in danger, let’s go. You got our bikes back, right?” Mal asked the boys, wincing as (y/n) glared darkly. She would take that as a no then.

“Nope, they got away” Carlos muttered, crossing his arms.

“The only way back to Auradon is the bridge” Mal sighed, smiling as Evie clicked her heels on the dusty arcade floor.

“Glad I wore my comfortable heels then” Jay grabbed Evie's arm before the two could leave.

“Yeah, we need the remote, and I left it at the house” Mal and Evie shared a horrified look, what were they going to do? Auradon was in danger and they were stuck on the isle with no way off.

“I lifted it off of you” the group turned to Celia, who was holding the golden remote to the barrier “I thought it would be useful and it is” Evie smiled, stepping towards Celia and leaning on a support beam.

“Good job” Celia smiled and Jay took the remote, pressing his lips together in an impressed smirk.

“Sweet” Celia turned to hug her father one last time as everyone grabbed their bags and started to make their way out of the arcade, she kissed him on the cheek and ran after (y/n), meeting (y/n)’s stride as she patted Celia’s back.

“Good job kid” Celia beamed again, happy her thieving skills were being appreciated. “also Mal!” Mal turned her head to show she was listening “After this shit is over, we're coming back here and getting those damn bikes back, that thing is too damn expensive to lose to a fucking isle goon” Mal snorted and nodded.

“Noted” honestly Mal wanted her bike back anyway, Carlos had spent several months making and modifying their bikes to fit them perfectly, she wasn’t about to let them be stripped.

-

The group of vks, and one dimension traveling girl, finally arrived at the bridge, Jay taking out the remote and pressing the bottom button opening the barrier. “Come on” Mal mumbled, nodding her head towards the opening. The others followed her lead and stepped over the barrier line.

Just as the ember crossed over the line, it ignited in a strong flash of light and heat, Mal felt fire shoot up her hand holding the ember and cover her entire body. Mal gasped in slight pain as the flash of energy flooded through her and filled her with a brand-new feeling of power and magic she had never felt before.

Mal let out the shuddering breath she had been holding and shook her head, the fire that had been drained by Audrey had been returned at full force…but it felt…different from her normal fire. Mal opened her eyes and looked down at her hands, gasping as she realized her entire outfit had changed. Gone were the purples and greens of her maleficent-themed outfit, replaced by the cool blues and dark greys of Hades, blue flames licking up her jacket-turned-vest and boots.

…guess Hades wasn’t lying then, Mal frowned, looking at herself a bit more as she realized she had transformed into ‘the daughter of Hades’. She had no other explanation for why the ember had done what it did otherwise.

“Holy shit” Carlos muttered, grabbing Mal's arm to stabilize her as she wobbled on her feet slightly “What happened?”

“I don’t know” Mal muttered slightly grumpy as she twisted the ember in her eyes, it had ignited in a strong blue “It might have to do something with the ‘Hades being my dad’ thing? Hadie?” Mal looked to Hadie, frowning as he looked just as confused as she felt. “shit, okay, um-ya know what? We’re gonna ignore this for now and figure out what the fuck happened when all this shit is over with okay? Okay.” Evie picked up a lock of Mal's hair, bringing it in front of Mal's face “Evie-my hairs blue….my hair is fucking blue it was brown two seconds ago and now it's blue”

“To be fair your hair was purple three hours ago, and it's also purple at the top.” Jay supplied, pulling back a bit as Mal whirled around to glare at him. “uh-yellow eyes too” Mal scrunched her nose at Jay and huffed.

“Not helping Jay” Mal hissed, she turned back towards Auradon and closed her eyes “Okay, we-let’s just go, we’re wasting-HEY!” just as Mal was handing the ember to Hadie, Evie lifted her arm to push a lock of hair behind her ear and bumped Mal's hand, sending the ember flying. “no!” Mal screamed in panic, running towards the edge and about to jump for the ember when a very familiar tentacle sprung from the eater and grabbed the ember “wha-“

Uma rose from the water, looking absolutely ethereal in her golden shell crown and teal dress, her turquoise locs pulled back halfway as the rest framed her shoulders. Uma grinned and raised her arms, the tentacle holding the ember following them “drop something~?”

“It can't get wet!” Mal yelled in a pleading tone, gesturing for Uma to get onto the bridge “give it back before it goes out!” Mal could see the ember sparking and flickering in Uma’s hold. Uma just laughed and her tentacle curled around the ember, sealing it airtight between two suckers. her eyes turned to you, who was grinning down at her from the bridge.

“Uma~!” you yelled in excitement, bouncing on your heels as she gave you a little wave.

“That’s my name~” she purred, giving one last smirk to Mal then she sunk into the water, the ember still tight in her grip.

“Wait!” Mal called desperately, she couldn’t lose the ember, it was their only hope! Mal took a step back in fear as from where Uma had sunk a large tunnel of water began to rise until it burst, soaking everyone but you.

“Ah!” Mal yelled, pausing as she noticed the water starting to evaporate almost immediately, off her body, especially her hair. “I wha-“ nope, nope nope nope, not important right now. She noticed the same was happening to Hadie, and the two were the first dry out of everyone else.

Mal looked back down at the water, searching for Uma “Behind you~” Mal gasped and spun around, seeing Uma in a dark teal button-up, dark blue leather pants, and brown boots, her golden shell necklace sitting proudly on her neck.

Before anyone else could say anything, Mal spoke up, lifting her arms into the air in exasperation “Where the hell have you been?!”

Uma looked genuinely surprised that those were the words that had come out of Mal’s mouth instead of just accusing her of villainy and trying to steal the ember back “We’ve been looking for you for three fucking years!! Do you know how much Harry and Gil bugged Ben and I because you wouldn’t show your damn face?!” Mal screeched, rubbing her face in exhaustion at the reminder of when Harry and Gil had straight up annoyed her and Ben back when the search for Uma was fresh. “Do you even know you were pardoned two years ago? You could've surfaced at any point and you would have been fine!!”

“That’s what I said to-….her” you covered your mouth as Mal slowly turned to look at you with wide eyes, Uma face palming as you winced “uh-“

“…(y/n) did you harbor a criminal?” Mal asked dryly, raising her brow as you shrugged.

“Technically no, I just, brought her food n all that…I honestly have no idea where she stayed, but we had a meeting place?” Mal sighed and shook her head, turning to look back at Uma who stiffened up in a defensive stance. “Also, Ex-criminal” you stated, shrugging as Mal just gave you an exasperated look “jus’ sayin”

“Whatever, Uma, I need that” Mal held her hand out towards Uma, looking at the ember in the sea-witches hand. “to break a spell”

“Cast by maleficent, proxied by Audrey, sleeping beauty’s daughter” Carlos explained, eyes locked onto the ember in Uma’s hand.

“So-the good guys the bad guy-“ Uma furrowed her brows as she tried to figure out how Maleficent cast the spell through Audrey. “well, I might not give it back, see what happens” your smile dropped and you stepped closer to Uma, taking her shoulder.

“Uma no, Harry and Gil are still in Auradon and we need the ember to save them if anything has happened to them, neither of them answered my calls and I don’t want to risk anything” Uma just pursed her lips, looking between you and the pleading Mal, who looked more worried as time went on.

“Guarantee me, that any single villain kid that wants to, can get off the isle” Mal pressed her lips together at Uma’s demand, wanting to agree but the deal she had made with Beast prodded the back of her mind.

“I-I can’t do that” Mal stuttered, clenching her hands by her sides, watching the ember carefully as Uma rolled her eyes and walked to the edge of the bridge. “Can't do that” Uma muttered, turning and holding the ember over the water “Well how bout now?!”

“Deal!” Mal screamed desperately, not bothering to hide the panic on her face as she held her hands out towards Uma “Deal, deal! I promise every kid will come off, but please!...Please.” Uma looked at Mal carefully, looking for any deception before she relented.

“Fine” Uma muttered, sliding the ember into her jacket “but I’m keeping it, because if you think I trust you to save Auradon on your own” she laughed a bit, giving Mal a once over “Think again” Mal closed her eyes and sighed, at least the ember would be on their side.

“Okay fine, this is fine, we need to go now though, Jay!” he nodded and pressed the bridge button, the magic extending from the broken bits they were standing on towards Auradon. “let’s go, we have no time to lose!” Mal jogged forward, Evie, Jay, Carlos, Celia, and Hadie following close behind, leaving you with Uma.

“When we find the boys, I’m blaming the entire ‘hiding you for 3 years and never telling them’ thing on you, since it was your idea and I would like to stay in Harry’s good graces” you joked, booping Uma’s nose and grabbing her hand to drag her along to follow the others down the bridge.

Uma rolled her eyes and hurried her pace, realizing that things were a lot more serious than she had thought, Mal hadn't even tried to start an argument, only focused on saving Auradon.

-end of p5-

part 5 yall!!!! the vks got the ember and mal discovered something new~!!! her dad! yeah in this Mal legit had no idea who her dad was, all she knew was that he was human and he was banished by her mother for his human weaknesses. so Mal thought her dad was a completely different person due to her mothers lies and just now found out it was a lie an all that. yeah bunch of shit XD so Ben is now a beast and Uma is here~!!!! hope yall enjoyed~!!

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[brown-little-robin]

10: The Zoo (part two)

part one | previous | next | ao3

The Barnett Zoo of Alabama has a single entrance at the south end. It’s a cloudy day, which Helen said meant there would be fewer people than normal, but Thad isn’t sure she was right. There are an awful lot of people in the entrance area, milling about looking at the posters and the coin-flattening machine and the loud televisions and in line to present or buy their tickets. And not just adults, but also a ton of children. Small children, alarmingly messy and prone to run randomly. It smells like popcorn.

He sticks close to Max, a step beside and behind him, and fidgets with his shorts pockets. He’d chosen a t-shirt and shorts, since Max said zoos were mostly outdoor experiences, but it’s cold in the entrance and he feels irrationally like everyone is staring at him. His bare arms prickle. He should have brought a sweater.

Finally, Helen finishes with the tickets. Thankfully, the plaza is much less crowded; it seems that people disperse through the zoo after leaving the entrance. Max goes and gets a map from a box that says FREE MAPS.

Max unfolds the map and displays it to Thad and Helen. There are six areas of the zoo, each corresponding to a continent; the Arctic and Antarctic continents are merged into one area called “Polar Adventure”. There’s also a separate Reptile House, a Non-Natural Creatures House, and an aquarium section.

“Do we want to head towards South America or Australia first?” Helen asks.

“We won’t have time for everything today,” Max says. “Maybe two or three continents. They close at five, and it’s already one. What animals do you want to make sure you see today, Thad?”

“The tigers and giraffes,” Thad says immediately. “South America looks interesting, but I really want to see the tigers if we can’t do both. We can skip Australia and America, I don’t care about those.”

Helen laughs. “Fair enough.”

“What about you, Helen?” Max asks. “Anything you’d like to hit today?”

“The aquarium,” Helen says. “It’s at the bottom of South America, though, and that’s pretty much across the map from Africa.”

“I think we can reach both places,” Max says.

“Let’s go to Africa first, then, to make sure we see the tigers and giraffes,” Helen says. “But, Max, is there anywhere you want to go?”

“Actually, I helped to build the Polar Adventure section,” Max says. “I’d like to show Thad someday. But I’m sure we’ll come back to the zoo another day.”

Thad reaches out and traces a path on the map, up and left to Africa and then down to the aquarium and back again. Hmm. It is a long way, and they’re on opposite sides of the zoo; they’d have to pass back along the same path to get to Africa and South America most efficiently. But—

“That’s not so hard. We’ll have to loop through North America to get to South America anyway if we don’t want to pass the same places twice, and it would hardly take us out of our way to go a little north to the Polar section.”

“Smart kid,” Max remarks. “All right. Africa, then Polar Adventure, then we’ll skirt the edge of North America and go straight through South America to the aquarium, and I believe that’ll take up all our time.”

Max called him smart!

They head left, towards Africa. Thad’s glad to leave the Non-Natural Creatures House behind. He doesn't know exactly what that means, but the icon is a winged snake, so he suspects mutants and genetic experiments. And given that technically he was a genetic experiment… he’s glad to put it behind him, is all.

The Africa section has facsimiles of animal tracks in the concrete paths—condor, red river hog, zebra, and so on, corresponding with the animals nearest that section of path. Thad quells the urge to place his feet only on the animal tracks. The hogs have interesting rust-red, black, and yellow markings and long hairs dangling from the tips of their ears, which they flick every so often. There’s a large pile of hay in their enclosure. What do they eat? Aren’t all hogs omnivores? Thad reads the educational sign about them. Yes, they’re omnivores. The zoo feeds them a balanced diet, but in the wild they’d eat anything from berries to eggs to lion carcasses. Fascinating. But Max and Helen are looking a bit impatient, so Thad pushes himself off from the fence. He’ll try to find out more about red river hogs later.

The zebras are temperamental and eye-boggling. Thad gets tired of them sooner than Max does, and Max notices and walks on.

They watch the siamangs and pygmy hippo the same way—quietly, Max and Helen exchanging a few comments, moving on when they seem ready. It’s almost like browsing in a thrift store, but with less pressure to make choices. The strangers don’t interact with them, thank goodness.

The chimpanzees are more energetic and intelligent than the other animals so far. Most of them are walking around or eating; one is scratching her butt, and another is bouncing idiotically on the net across the top of their cage. It reminds him of Bart.

“These are stupid,” Thad remarks.

Helen raises her eyebrows.

“Want to move on?”

“Yeah.”

“I think the elephants are next,” she says. She’s right, because she has the map, but Thad could have guessed that. There are elephant tracks going around the next corner.

The elephants are massive. SO massive. Nearly as big as CRAYDL, but made of flesh and bone. They’re more impressive than CRAYDL, somehow, more… organic. They have a weight to them as they move. Thad can imagine their bones creaking as their weight settles on their feet.

“Wow,” Thad says.

Max and Helen make admiring noises that Thad doesn't quite catch because the big female in the middle is huffing and lumbering over to a younger female with a calf and giving her a little smack with her trunk.

“That’s the matriarch,” he informs them. “She’s reinforcing the discipline of the group. That younger female probably just did something insubordinate.”

“How do you know that one is younger?” Helen asks.

“Oh, she’s less wrinkled and her teeth are further back in her mouth and her tusk is slimmer. As elephants age, the position of their teeth changes. I learned about African animals one time for ‘research’. Oh—CRAYDL and I used to sneak files that didn’t have anything to do with the mission and claim it was research.”

After the elephants, the path leads to the giraffes. They’re tall, all right, and just as funny-looking as Thad expected; they have agile purple tongues and odd knobby horns and hunched-up shoulders, and they come right up to the path expecting to be fed.

The tigers are disappointing. It’s the middle of the day, so Thad should have expected it, but they’re asleep. He can see one of them pretty well, though, and the coat is gorgeous. The orange shines in the sun. The black is deep and cunningly striped for camouflage, and the white fur is shaggy. It breathes deeply. Its ear flicks.

Thad soaks it in, committing it all to long-term memory. Unlike Bart, he doesn't have perfect memory, especially not since the speed force. But even before that, the manipulation of his genetics must have taken the eidetic visual memory. Thad does better with what he has, though, and anyway his memory is leagues better than a normal human’s. No one ever learned that dirty little secret. Not even CRAYDL.

As they approach the gates of “Polar Adventure”, Max smiles his rare genuine smile.

“I helped build this. Or rather, I helped in the planning of it.”

“Mm?”

“I had a friend, a Siberian Yupik woman named Cora Sam, and I also had a friend at the Barnett Zoo,” Max says. “When the zoo was planning to expand into polar bears, my friend from the zoo told me, and I connected him to Cora. I ended up bringing Cora back and forth from St. Lawrence Island so she could advise the zoo.”

“I never heard about that,” Helen says. “How did the man from the zoo get ahold of you?”

“Oh, I was meeting with him fairly regularly at that point to help wrangle the Non-Natural Creatures,” Max says. “They had a hyper-accelerated iguana.”

“A hyper-accelerated… that can happen?” Helen asks.

And then Thad’s too busy looking at the polar bears to follow the conversation. Thad walks ahead of Max and Helen. Two polar bears are lumbering in a line across the hill in the back of the enclosure, and one of them is diving into the water. There’s a lot of water in this section; they have seals, puffins, the polar bears, and… Thad rounds the corner of the polar bear enclosure and laughs out loud. Penguins, waddling comically about the rocks, sleeping in a group, little wings out for balance. They look so serious!

He leans over the railing, getting as close as possible to the glass. Their color scheme is elegant, black and white with a dynamic hint of peachy pink at the feet. But their shape! They’re ridiculous! They can barely move! How is this effective at all? And—one of them is following a smaller one around, a male trying to get a female’s attention, Thad supposes. Perhaps they’ll mate. But the female isn’t interested, and the male doesn't try anything; in fact, when she finally stops and turns around, the male nearly falls backwards in his surprise. She gives him an affectionate sort of peck, then pulls at his back feathers. Both of them start grooming their feathers, going back and forth between their tails and sides. Their necks can bend surprisingly far! Meanwhile, the sleeping penguins have woken up and moved all together and are falling back asleep—about one foot to the right, for no reason Thad can discern.

The penguins are great. The penguins are his favorites. Thad moves around to get a better view of the pair and is dismayed to see them stop grooming and slip into the water. But wait—there’s a hole in the fake stone wall, a sign saying “UNDERWATER EXPERIENCE”.

He descends the stairs and enters the UNDERWATER EXPERIENCE. It’s pleasantly dark until he turns the corner. He’d been hoping for a window to see the penguins swim. This is not a window. It’s a glass tunnel.

Oh. Oh, this is something. He wanders the length of the tunnel and back again. The green-blue light shifts and sparkles, and the penguins! The penguins! Underwater, they’re no longer awkward, but graceful, powerful, elegant, lithe. Their bodies no longer seem lumpy but agile; they’re all muscle, Thad thinks, until he reads the signs on his third pass through the tunnel and finds out that they actually have a significant amount of fat, which streamlines their bodies and nourishes them during incubating eggs and therefore not hunting. And he’s surprised to find out that they’re predators; he thought the harmless-looking birds would be herbivores. But with that strong sharp beak and the strength they’re displaying—yes. It makes sense.

He’ll never grow tired of watching the penguins dance.

“Thad!”

He startles, but gets himself under control in time that he thinks none of the strangers notice anything wrong. Max and Helen are rushing towards him wearing identical relieved expressions.

“What?” Thad asks, before he realizes that he can’t remember seeing Max or Helen since he noticed the penguins.

“We lost you!” Helen says. “We were just talking and then Max looked up and you were gone and we had heart attacks! Oh my goodness! You’re okay?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Don’t do that,” Max says severely.

The promise! Thad wasn’t supposed to—wait. The agreement was that he wouldn’t use his speed outside of Max’s ability to sense. He didn’t use his speed at all, so he didn’t break his promise, so Max shouldn’t be yelling at him.

He snarls, “That’s not fair. I didn’t use my speed, I just got interested in the penguins. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Max opens his mouth and pauses.

“Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Thad opens and closes his fists. No fight, he tells his body. There’s no fight.

“I didn’t even realize I’d lost you,” he says, half-defiant.

“Well, neither did we,” Max says. “Let’s call it even.”

“Sure.”

“South America next, I think?” Helen asks.

“Yeah. If you’ve seen enough of the Polar exhibit?”

“Are there more tunnels?” Thad asks. “The door over there, says SEALS, is that to another tunnel?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I haven’t seen enough.”

“Do you like the tunnels?” Helen asks.

They’re the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Me too. They’re my favorite. The Barnett Zoo kind of specializes in them; it has the most tunnels of any zoo within three states. The aquarium has quite a few tunnels, too.”

“Oh.”

Thad glances at Max. He’s looking up, tracking a penguin’s ‘flight’ overhead.

“What’s your favorite tunnel here?”

They skirt the very edge of North America. Helen talks to him about her favorite fish and things—she likes the coastal ones, which you can actually see while scuba diving, and anything brightly colored. Her favorite tunnel is the Coral Reef one. Max interrupts to point out the bison. Apparently Max saw herds of millions of these things back when he was a young man. Thad doesn't think he’d want to see that many. They look likely to hold a grudge, somehow.

They stop for a snack at the open area between North and South America. It’s lined with shops selling things like stuffed animals and caricatures and face paint and, of course, lots of little terrible plastic-y food shops. Most of the shops are dull. Face paint would be interesting, though. Thad likes the look of the dramatic blue butterfly one little girl has, and the tiger face is nicely realistic, but it costs money so he doesn't ask. The Thawnes’ resources were practically infinite; the Crandalls’… he’d guess not.

They decide on burgers. Thad fidgets beside Max, listening to another story about a bison hunt, as Helen goes and buys them. As they sit down at a plastic-y green table, a very small girl in tiny overalls comes up to him. She can’t be more than… oh… Thad realizes he has no idea how to tell age, but she’s very small and she’s looking at him like she’s going to say something.

“Your hair is pretty,” she informs him.

Uh.

His hair?

His hair is… pretty?

She probably expects a response.

“Uh, thank you,” he stammers.

“Your overalls are pretty, too,” Helen says, mercifully taking over the conversation for him, and then the girl’s mother hurries up and apologizes, and Thad manages to say “It’s okay,” and the girl is hurried away.

Thad stares up at the clouds, mind whirling. An exact duplicate of Bart’s stupid-long mane except for being Thawne-blond, pretty? His messy mass of hair, so bright blond it looks almost yellow in harsh lighting, pretty?

Helen says, “I don’t know that I’d call your hair ‘pretty’, but it is gorgeous.”

“Striking,” Max agrees.

Thad takes a bite of his burger. He can’t think of anything to say to that.

The South America section is amazing, with the rainforest flora and fauna and occasional sprays of mist, but Thad feels almost overwhelmed with new sights. He appreciates the jaguar, with its enormous yawn, and the anteater with its fluffy ankles and the powerful stride of the Komodo dragon, but he doesn't really engage with the zoo again. Maybe next time they can come back and he can have a proper look at things. In the aquarium section, he enjoys the tunnels, but he has more fun watching Helen gasp and smile and point out her favorite things. He catches Max looking at him a few times, his eyes wrinkled like he finds it funny, the way Thad’s watching Helen watch the fish. Well, that’s all right. Better to be amusing than threatening, Thad supposes.

The last tunnel leads them out to the plaza at 4:52 according to Helen’s watch. Thad suddenly feels bad. Just a minute ago he was so ready to be done and go home and sleep, and now he’s upset to be so close to the end. He doesn't want to leave.

“Time for our last stop,” Max says.

Last stop? Oh no. Not the Non-Natural Creatures House. Please not the Non-Natural Creatures House, Thad prays to the universe.

“The gift shop?” Helen asks.

“The gift shop,” Max confirms. “It’s open until six.”

Thank God. Anything is better than the Non-Natural Creatures House.

The gift shop is crowded. He’d probably find it interesting to look at all the things if he wasn’t so tired. Thad hopes they’ll find their knick-knacks or whatever and leave quickly. He just wants to sleep.

“Well, pick some things, Thad,” Max says.

They want him to buy things?

“I haven’t got any money,” he points out.

“You don’t need to earn your keep, remember?” Max asks.

“My keep, sure,” Thad says. “But I don’t need any of this stuff.”

“You deserve to have nice things,” Max says firmly.

“No I don’t.”

Thad regrets that instantly. Helen’s eyes widen, and Max goes very still. He didn’t mean to say that, it just slipped out because he’s tired and… prickly.

“Thad, honey,” Helen says, soft, like she’s talking to a scared animal.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he says hastily. “I just want to go home.”

“Thad,” Max says, and his serious tone of voice makes Thad’s gut lurch in a nasty despairing way.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I want you to pick out seven things. One for each year you spent in the speed force. Does that sound fair?”

Actually… it does. Max should pay for those years.

“Yes,” Thad says.

He turns away abruptly so as not to look at Helen’s stricken face. Now that he’s looking for himself, the gift shop seems more like a treasure trove, less like a stuffy little space. He’s attracted to the glass things first. He hefts a blown-glass ball with dark manta rays swimming in a translucent blue sea. It has a delightful sheeny smooth texture. He hands it to Max. His first year in the speed force. The year he discovered he couldn’t leave. The eternally travelling manta rays in their glass prison are… ironically perfect.

He picks a deep blue shirt next. It has a stylized elephant family and leaves surrounding a Barnett Zoo logo. It will be an excellent addition to his wardrobe. His second year in the speed force, the year of the seventeen-day storm. A notebook with a tiger on the front is his next year, his third year in the speed force. They blurred together by that point; his strict determination to count the time failed in the second month of the third year. It says it’s 100% Recycled; the paper is smooth, but the covers are coarse in a way that normally would bother him but somehow doesn't. Then he discovers a box of rocks, which you can pick from and gather into a small bag that counts as one item. He sifts his fingers through the rocks. They make a pleasant clacking sound. He picks a few bumpy green-and-blue specimens that look like jungles or views of Earth from above, a shiny black one, two stones with shimmering bands of yellow and orange that shine from the deep brown at certain angles like the iris of an eye, a spiky purple crystal, a stone that looks like jade, and barely squeezes in another blue one. His fourth year in the speed force. He takes a wooden box, too, with a little lock. That will be good to keep the rocks in, and maybe he could put his letter in it too when he’s out of Max’s house. His fifth year.

He looks up from the box and hesitates.

All this time, he’s been skirting around the central section of the gift shop: the shelves and shelves of stuffed animals. He wants a penguin. But stuffed animals are little-kid toys, and he’s… fourteen or twenty-one or six hundred-odd, depending. Anything but a little kid.

A couple emerges from the row next to him, play-fighting over a stuffed koala. Thad waits, but no child toddles after them. They’re adults and they’re buying a stuffed koala. It must be all right.

He reaches up and grabs a penguin.

It’s the softest thing he’s ever touched.

He closes his eyes in bliss, holds it for a minute, loath to give it to Max. He tucks it into his elbow instead. He wants another stuffed animal. He takes a sloth with velcro on its paws so it can hang from things. And then… he really wants one of the snow leopards with the long soft tails, but he’s at seven… but he wants it… so he takes the snow leopard too.

“That’s for not noticing I wasn’t Bart,” he informs them, and laughs at their expressions.

[telluricdog]

pirate fundamentals are all explained in a fairly rudimentary way on the site however since they're mad downplaying it in favor of their discord i'll run you thru what i can off the top of my head.

pirate plays as a turn based chessboard with you and your companions, who all fall into one of five of the games classes. all of these classes have wildly different playstyles even between boss and mob fights or solo and group play. there are three "types" of attacks, magic, ranged and your standard melee and all classes fall into these categories.

you might have picked up on five classes but three of these attacking types and the main combative stats. it can be a little tricky to figure out what goes where without doing extensive reading. this game more than wizard needs a tutorial revamp and im not even kidding in the slightest.

will gives you a boost in staffy/magic attacks, as well as healing, summons and all weapons labelled "bonus from will" which is not just staffs. witchdoctors want to run this because it powers up their magic. privateers want to run it because they're the support and healing class, and some of their "smashy" type melee weapons use will.

strength is the one buccaneers and privateers use, though primarily buccaneers because they're the all-out brawler. privateers who want to run a more damaged focused set can run it but overall it can be a very tough time deciding which you want to do.

agility is the best synergizing of the three big stats. swashbucklers and musketeers both utilize it and there's no two ways about it. no weird class bleed like privateers with will and strength, both of these want to run agility.

boosting the stat your class (and making sure the weapon you're carrying is has the "boost from x" that matches) is proficient in leads to critical hits more often depending on both your amount and how much an enemy has, which becomes vital in late game and racking up chain attacks with abilities, but in early game it is fairly important as well because your pirate will almost always be the most broken part of your team and the best at cleaning up in endgame.

other than that you have weapon power which is based on what weapon you're holding if you're a swashbuckler, a musketeer, a privateer or buccaneer. some late game builds in every class utilize spell power which is for spells (no duh) but that entails the magic, summons etc covered above. i tend to avoid this strategy as this makes the gameplay loop almost worse than wizards classic blade blade aoe in terms of how boring it is and play to my class strengths.

accuracy and dodge are both right what they say on the tin, opposite sides of a coin that continue to scale past 100% and can once again in late game lead to ridiculous chains.

companions come in all classes and utilities. there's no one right way to run any companion with any class and i tend to have my combat set to have my first mate with me and randomize who else comes to the fight from my available roster. your companions do not need to match your class and synergy isn't locked specifically to what power (will strength agility) their class benefits from. for example, my companions chantal and wing chun work well together because he has an ability that boosts her accuracy and can protect her better from melee attackers who she can't usually land a very effective chain on, whereas she can pick off enemy musketeers that would normally blast him into a million billion bird shaped pieces before he could even hope to get close.

battles usually(sans for some cringe boss fights) are 4v4 unless other players join, where their companion number drops as do the enemies that spawn into the fight. it can seem a little hectic and it's why most people quit, but honestly most people you find who still play tend to do it solo anyways and won't bog down the fight, or at least ask before joining.

pets are good in the sense that you can train them to give you helpful combative abilities and they themselves can join fights and do chip damage but it's a stupid complicated system. they do "train themselves" unlike wiz but it takes much longer and you need to be in an active discord to have a shot at an optimal build.

if theres anything else i missed lmk

Alright how the FUCK do you play Pirate 101

[ghastspidergwen]

I love @doctorsiren's dadskall au, and I thought I'd write a little fic about it. basically, the dadskall au is where xisuma and ex (alex)'s dad is doomguy, but some sort of accident/crazy magic/whatever made him and iskall share a body, go check out doctor siren for the whole story, she has great art, too!

disclaimers (you can completely ignore this section if you want): I have played about 15 minutes total of all the Doom games, read none of the books, seen none of the movies, but the ost is great, so this will probably be ooc for doomguy. xisuma and alex are more based on the featherweight au versions, not the real hermitcraft versions. this story is not part of the dadskall au nor any of dr siren's other aus, it's just a break for me to write some fluff. it takes place ~3-4 years after where fw currently is (s7 election era) but is not set in the fw au world. link to the post part of this is based on. ...and I think that's everything, onto the fic!

.

Xisuma took a deep breath, “I think dad’s alive.”

“You said you saw him die,” Alex, previously known as Evil Xisuma, said, turning to his brother, “They told me he died”

“He wasn’t exactly dead, it’s hard to explain. It’s more like...the horcruxes in Harry Potter. When dad died, I think there was some magic at play that made it so his ‘soul’ transferred into the nearest healthy, person. And I think I found them.”

“Uh-huh, and who might that be?”

“HALLO!” Iskall burst in, “What did you need me for?”

“Iskall? Seriously?”

“He was there that night and I have no reason to believe-”

“You really think Iskall-”

“It’s my best guess, everyone else was injured, and the magic had to choose the nearest healthy person, so it must be Iskall.”

“What must be Iskall?”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Iskall?”

“No, Iskall86,” Xisuma said, sarcastically, “Of course this Iskall, how many Iskalls do we know?”

“I still have no idea what we’re talking about, can -”

“No!” The void brothers turned to him and responded in sync. Xisuma pulled his brother into a side room, “Stay right there, thanks Iskall.”

“What?”

Xisuma exhaled and closed the door behind them, “Phew, OK, I have reason to believe that 13 years ago, Iskall was present the night that dad-y’know-and since everyone else there was either corrupted or injured, as the only uninjured person, dad’s spirit ended up inhabiting his body, but’s been so weak that it was only using Iskall as a means of staying alive, not influencing him or trying to take control of his body at all. Do you get me?”

“A little.”

“And I think I know the spell that will separate them, and give dad his old body back,” They went back into the main room with Iskall, “Should I do it now?”

“Blast ‘im,” Alex backed out of the room, putting a protective wall between him and the magic.

“WHAT?!”

A glowing green ball of energy swirled between Xisuma’s hands, and Iskall backed into the wall, “H-hey Xisuma, what are you doing?”

“This...shouldn’t hurt.”

Iskall held up a hand in a stop gesture, “SHOULDN’T?!”

Xisuma blasted him with the magic. Iskall glowed green, floated into the sir, then split into two people who fell down.

“I...think it...worked,” Xisuma muttered, collapsing to the floor.

Doomguy looked up, and noticed someone lying, unmoving, on the floor. His saving-people instincts kicked in, and he pulled himself over to the person. “C'mon, don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” he said, shaking them.

Someone was shaking Iskall. He sat up and opened his eyes, “Holy heck, it’s Doomguy!”

“You’re alive!” Doomguy said relieved, and pulled Iskall into a hug.

Absolutely starstruck, Iskall sat there, frozen. It’s Doomguy, I love Doom, Doomguy is right here, and he’s hugging me, it’s Doomguy! Iskall’s mind looped.

Pulling out of the hug, Iskall spotted Xisuma crumpled on the floor, “W-wait, I got-gotta check on my friend.”

Doomguy turned around, and spotted his son on the floor.

“Xisuma!” He stood up and stumbled toward him.

“Wait, you know Xisuma?”

“He’s my son. Well, your son, too. Our son.”

“Wha-”

“Short answer, I am you. You are me. We’re the same person.”

Looking at his hands, one thought crossed Iskall’s mind, I’m Doomguy. It was closely followed by “I HAVE A SON?”

“Two sons.”

“TWO SONS? And one of them is dying!” Iskall sprinted across the room and cradled Xisuma’s head, “I don’t know what to do!”

“Health potion?” Doomguy suggested.

“Oh, yeah,” Pulling a potion of healing out of his inventory, Iskall splashed it onto Xisuma. He held his breath and waited to see if it would work.

Xisuma opened his eyes. He sat up.

“Dad!” He jumped up, and buried his face in his dad’s chest plate, giving him a hug the same way he did when he was younger.

“I’m your dad, too,” Iskall said.

“You know?” Xisuma asked, breaking off the hug.

“Yeah, Doomguy told me. So give your poppa a hug,” Iskall uncrossed his arms and gave a very confused Xisuma a hug.

“Oh, OK,” Xisuma awkwardly pat Iskall’s back until he stepped away.

“Is Alex here?” Doomguy asked.

“He should be right outside, he didn’t want to be in the same room as an untested spell.”

“Wait, you didn’t test it? Then why did you cast it on me?” Iskall asked, panicked.

“How many people do we know that have another person living inside them?”

“Wels/Hels, I’m pretty sure Ren did for a while, a pregnant lady,” Iskall ticked off on his fingers.

“Different circumstances. Wels and Hels are one person, like two sides of a coin, Ren-I don’t know what happened with Grimdog or The Red King or whatever, but I definitely don’t want to mess with those, and did you just compare yourself to a pregnant woman?”

“Uhhh...nevermind.”

“You said Alex was just outside?”

“Yeah,” Xisuma pulled the door open, to reveal Alex sitting on a bench outside, drumming his fingers against the seat

“Did it work?”

“Yeah.” Stepping out of the doorway, Xisuma revealed their dad standing behind him.

“Hi, Alex.”

“Dad?”

“It’s me,” Doomguy sat next to his other son.

“Dad!” Alex hugged him, and they pulled Xisuma into the hug after a second. They sat there before the hug was interrupted by another pair of arms joining in.

“Family, together again,” Iskall sighed.

“What’s up with him?” Alex asked, glancing at Iskall.

“I’m part of the family, call me Dadskall.”

“OK...Dadskall, can we have awhile alone with our dad?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. See you later.” Iskall trudged out of the room.

“I haven’t seen you guys in forever! How long was I…”

“15 years.”

“So that would put you guys in your mid-30s, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Has anything big happened in the last 15 years?”

Alex pulled off his helmet, “Nothing too bad. I was imprisoned for a bit of it,” he glared at his brother.

Xisuma also removed his helmet, “I said I was sorry, how many times do you want me to apologize?”

“I wasn’t saying it’s your fault, I was just making the point that-”

“I get it! I was an idiot and I didn’t listen to you when you were clearly right.”

“Just like old times,” Doomguy chuckled, he examined his son’s faces, “You look so much older, like real adults. I’m so sorry I missed out on the last 15 years, I would’ve loved to see you grow up.”

“It’s not like you could do anything about it.”

“I know you would have been here if you could.”

“Also how did you guys get those scars?”

“Someone needed to keep slaying the demons after you left,” Alex shrugged.

“I angered some Watchers years ago.”

“You angered some Watchers?” Doomguy asked, standing up.

“I just realized someone was right, but it was too late to save them.”

“Darn right, I was.” Alex and Xisuma also stood up.

“I...forgot how tall you were,” Doomguy said looking, at up at Alex, who was only a few inches taller.

“Oh, yeah. Xisuma was jealous he never got this tall.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Sure,” Alex smirked.

“So, anything else new?” Their dad intervened.

“Daisy’s still alive.”

“Should’ve guessed,” he chuckled.

“Oh! You’re a grandpa!”

“What?!”

“Yeah! I adopted a guy named xB. I’ll call him over, so you can meet!”

<Xisuma> hey xb, can you come on down to my base, I’ve got something to show you

<xBcrafted> ?

<xBcrafted> yeah, be there shortly

“How did you meet this xB?”

“I was doing some exploring between seasons, looking for a good seed, when I found a small single player world. xB was alone in there. Poor kid was only 13, didn’t know where his parents were, said he had been handling himself for the last 2 or 3 years, so I took him back to Hermitcraft with me. He’s a great kid, you’ll love him.”

“Xisuma has practically adopted the entire server.”

“Server? You’re an admin?”

“We both are. I’m main admin of Hermitcraft, Alex is the backup admin.”

“I’m so sorry I missed out on all of this stuff. I really wish I could have been there for you two.”

Something thumped into the outside of the building they were in, and the door opened, “Freakin’ rockets, stupid friggin’ elytra,” xB mumbled. “Oh, hey Uncle Alex, hey, dad.”

Doomguy gasped, “I love him already!”

“Wha-”

“xB, this is our dad, Doomguy.”

“Wait, I thought he was dead.”

“Wonky magic stuff.”

“OK then. I’m xBcrafted,” xB said, offering his hand for a handshake.

Doomguy scooped him up in a hug, “Hello, xB, you can call me Grandpa Flynn, or just Grandpa, or just Flynn, I don’t care. I have a grandson!”

“Nice-to-meet-you,” xB gasped.

“Dad, I don’t think he can breath.”

“Oh, right,” Flynn released his grandson, “sorry, got a little overexcited.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m glad you’re back.”

“Glad to be back.”

“Do you want to go meet the rest of the server? There’s just under 30 of us, total.”

“Oh, you’ll love all of them. There’s me, of course, but Hypno and Jevin and Wels and False are all set up near me, Stress and Gem are also pretty close, and Doc and Ren are just past them, and…” xB rambled as the other three grabbed their helmets.

“You ready?” Alex asked, pushing open the door.

“Let’s go, I want to meet the rest of your family.”

[thedarklightwithinus]

Witcher Ways

A/N; I spent DAYS on this one. Had to do some research and whatnot. Geralt comes in at the end. Hope you enjoy. This is a daughter!reader. 

Summary; In which Geralt took you under his wing when you were a child and taught you the Witcher ways. 

Words; 4.1k

Pairing; Geralt x Reader 

The gravel crunches under her boots as she walks. She made her way through the sparse village, keeping her eyes from straying to the villagers that were tending to their crops. The last thing she needed was to be accused of looking someone up the wrong way. The bruise on her cheek from her previous run in with a group of men who claimed she had looked at them funny was still healing. The same probably couldn't be said for their broken bones and cut flesh. 

She had been meaning to pass through the village in order to reach a larger town. However, despite the village being so remote, it still had its very own notice board and though she tried to ignore it, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to the village. 

Y/N tied the reins of her horse, Opie, to a nearby fence that had a pale of water and some fresh hay. She looped the reins, tugging on them once she had tied them to make sure the leather wasn't going to come loose and allow Opie to roam the lands at his will. 

Opie himself seemed happy with where he was. He instantly began making a dent in the hay as Y/N smiled and spun on her heel. She subtly eyed the few villagers who seemed to, for the most part, ignore her existence. She welcomed it with open arms. It did make a nice change to be ignored rather than judged. 

With a breath of release, she set off for the small notice board that was stationed on a small piece of green grass. She came to a stop when she had made it, her eyes racking over the three pieces of torn parchment that were pinned to the board. 

The first was asking for honeycomb to be brought to a herbalist along with a short set of directions to her house.

The second, manual labour.

The third caught her attention almost instantly.

It had been scribbled hastily, the ink slip and sliding all over the parchment from where it had been written in a rush. The edges were torn as though the writer had ripped it from a larger piece of parchment. She skimmed it, getting the gist of what was being told in seconds.

Her brow rose. A ghost, apparently. 

Y/N lowered the parchment and took a look around her. Her head tilted for a moment as she took in what she could of the small amount of men who were tending to crops and the women who were holding baskets full of seeds.

She could tell that they were all worried about something. Whether it be that of the ghost or something else, she couldn’t be sure. 

Y/N sighed, shaking her head as she set off for the man called Buemir using the directions he had scribbled down. 

A left. 

The next right. 

Follow the path until you come to a large cherry bush. 

Take a left and follow the trail until you come to a hut. 

That’s where I shall be. 

Do hurry. Please. 

Buemir

Y/N shoved the parchment into one of the pockets in her leather trousers, moved forward and raised her balled fist. She knocked the chipped wooden door twice, pushing the door open when she heard someone call out for her to come in on the other side.

Before she entered, she eyed the doorway with a raised eyebrow. The occupant has decided to decorate said doorway with a vine of assorted berry’s. How he had managed to keep them alive was beyond her.

With a shake of her head, Y/N moved further into the hut.

Y/N stopped a foot away from the doorway once she had moved further inside. She took a look around, taking in the large stacked shelf’s that’s were littered with bottles and bowls.

Her eyes moved around as she looked at the jars that were on another wooden shelf that looked as though it wasn’t bolted to the wall correctly. 

The hut itself was split into two room that was sectioned off by a partial wall. Before she could take in anything else, her eyes were drawn to what must’ve been Buemir. He was lazily sat on a stool that was up against a crooked table. A tankard sat on said table before him. 

“Can I 'elp you?” He asked.

“You can.” Y/N began, taking the spare wooden stool out and sitting opposite the man. “Can you do me a favour?” She reached into her pocket and held up the parchment he had pinned to the notice board. “Describe this ghost for me?” 

Almost as soon as she had asked, the mans face paled considerably. He visibly gulped before he leaned onto the table as though trying to get closer to her. “It’s awfully scary.”

His voice was barely above a whisper. If she didn’t have such good hearing, she probably wouldn’t have been able to catch a word he said. 

“I’m sure it is... What I mean is, what does it look like?” She tried again, trying to gain the knowledge she needed in order to figure out what the creature actually was.

It took a moment for the man to open his mouth. He rubbed at his chin, clearly thinking his words over as he looked around at his belonging's.

“It... It looks like a woman.” He said, reaching to grab his tankard. Y/N wasn't sure what it was filled with but from the smell, she'd guess Ale. He took a large gulp, wiping his mouth with his sleeve before he continued. “Wearing a dress... All rags as though fresh from the grave. It’s skin falling off it’s bones. And it howls... Like it’s sufferin’ real bad.” 

Y/N frowned, leaning back slightly as she took in what he had said. She watched him take another shaky gulp. “It doesn’t sound like a ghost to me.” 

And it didn’t. She had never seen a ghost that looked as though it’s skin was falling off. More or less, a ghost looked like an imprint of ones past selves. 

“Perhaps a Wraith...” Y/N mumbled, more to herself than to Buemir. 

“Please, Miss.” He tore her from her own thoughts. “If you don’t get rid... If you don’t take care of it, it’ll come kill me.”

“How can you be so certain it’ll kill you?” She found herself asking, still finding it difficult to fathom that of other people’s feelings. Scared was something she had long since felt. “Don’t answer that... I’ll sort it. Now, let’s talk payment.”

“P-Payment?” Buemir stuttered, staring at her as she raised a brow and nodded. “Y-You Witcher’s a-are all the same.” 

“Witcher’s?” She questioned, leaning forward slightly. “What do you mean by that.” 

“You may n-not be one, not a mutated o-one I mean... You hold yourself l-like one.” He seemed to stutter much more than he had been when talking about something that supposedly was out to kill him. "I've seen a Witcher. A proper 'en. You h-hold yourself the same." 

 Y/N merely raised her brow. After a few moments of staring at him, she shook her head. "So... Where is this so called ghost?" 

Buemir seemed eager to go into great detail about the whereabouts of his ghost. His hands moved as he talked away, his words almost jumbling together from how fast he was talking. 

Y/N picked up the key words she needed. She was almost certain it was a Wrath by the time he had finished telling her where it was located. It made sense seeing as the location he had described was the nearby unofficial graveyard. A short walk would take her to the Wraith in less than ten minutes. 

It was no wonder the people of the village seemed so on edge with it being that close. 

"I suppose you want your coin now." Buemir grunted, downing the rest of his Ale as he eyed her. 

"I'll come back for the payment once it's sorted." Y/N told him, pushing herself to her feet. She moved towards the door, pulling it open before looking over her shoulder. "Word of advice, If someone want's paying before they get the job done, don't bother paying them."

With the said, she left the hut and pulled the door closed behind her. 

The sigh that escaped Y/N's lips was slow; Almost as if her brain needed that time to process what Buemir had told her. 

She took a moment to take in the surrounding area, allowing the sun to shine down on her before she set off towards the notice board once more in order to see where the herbalist who needed honeycomb was. If she was to get rid of the Wraith, she'd need to purchase some herbs from her. 

As she walked, she thought about all the things she had been taught about Wraith's. The familiar deep voice filled her head. 

"Wraith's are nasty business, Y/N. On their own? manageable. In large groups? deadly. We were taught back at Kaer that they're completely immune to the shock of Samum, though they can be stunned. That's no use to you though. Your best bet is to brew up a concoction." 

She had yet to deal with a Wraith on her own. More often than not, she was the help when it came to getting rid of the wretched things. However, she had spent many years reading from books about all types of creatures. The Wraith was one that had stuck with her since she had first read about them at the young age of seven. 

She had learned that Clerics and scholars had been debating whether spirits do in fact journey to another world after death since forever. Both groups, however, agreed on what happened when a spirit remained in our world after their body breathes its last breath; They transform into Wraiths.

Y/N made it to the notice board in record time. She read the parchment that told her how to get to the herbalist before she set off in the direction the woman had wrote that she lived.

As she came up to a hut that was sat on the cobbled path, Y/N noticed a middle-aged woman who was picking at a bush, placing her findings into a small cloth bag she had on the ground beside her.

Looking down to the parchment she had taken, Y/N scanned for a name before she looked up at the woman. "Sibyl?"

The woman looked up, her brows knitting together as she scanned the area. In seconds, her eyes landed on Y/N who waved the parchment at the woman.

"That's me, aye." The woman, Sibyl nodded. 

Her face lost it's annoyance as she stood from the ground, grabbing her bag and made her way towards Y/N, a polite smile on her face as she moved. Y/N found herself returning the smile. 

"I'm sorry to disturb you and unfortunately, I don't have any honeycomb on me... I was wondering if I could purchase some herbs?" 

Sibyl didn't seem to disappointed that Y/N didn't have the honeycomb she wanted. "Of course. I bid you warning though, I'm running low on stock. I plan to take a trip in the coming days. What is it you're after?"

"Arenaria and Saltpeter." Y/N winced, knowing how difficult it was to come by the first. 

Sibyl hummed making a face as though she was trying to remember something. "I have the Saltpeter... Arenaria, not anymore. I used the last just yesterday." 

"Ah, that's just my luck." Y/N muttered, shaking her head before forcing a smile. "Saltpeter, can I take three loads?" 

"You sure can." 

Y/N followed Sibyl to her door and stood in the open doorway as the older woman moved around her chests and shelfs. 

"Why the Saltpeter?" 

"Moon dust." Y/N replied, watching Sibyl look through her jar collection. "I have the quicksilver solution. I just need the Saltpeter." 

"The Arenaria was for Specter oil?" 

"It was." Y/N nodded. "I'll have to do without." 

"You need me to mix it up for you?" Sibyl asked. She made her way back over to Y/N with a jar full of Saltpeter she had measured out into three separate quantities. 

"No." Y/N smiled, pulling out her coin purse and shaking a few out. "I've got it." 

"You take care of yourself." Sibyl said, reaching up and patting Y/N's cheek almost in a motherly fashion. 

With that said, Y/N spun around and set off away from the hut. She walked along the cobbled path away from the small village and towards where Buemir had told her the Wraith was located. 

Once she had made a decent amount of distance between her and the village but not close enough to the Wraith to be detected, Y/N lowered herself to the ground. She pulled the rucksack from her back she had grabbed from Opie and emptied it's contents to the ground. She picked up the Quicksilver solution before shoving everything else back into the rucksack. 

Before she began mixing the two components, she took a look to the sky. Y/N predicted that sundown would be an hour away. Perfect. 

With a sigh, she began making the moon dust, mixing one part Saltpeter to two parts Quicksilver solution. 

The allergenic reaction to the silver found in Moon Dust can be very useful in preventing a Wraith from becoming intangible, forcing them into a fair fight.

She had always been taught that the danger comes when a Wraith vanishes, becoming immaterial and invisible. Most often a Wraith will choose to reappear directly behind its target and strike quickly, violently, and repeatedly. With the moon dust, she wasn't going to give it a chance to vanish.

Though she would've liked the addition of Specter oil, she wasn't about to beat around the bush. Bear fat was easy to get. Arenaria, not so much.

She was hoping that the Wraith was one of the ones that had a tendency to drift and wander aimlessly. It would give her the opportunity to confront said Wraith without the need to try and keep track of multiple ones. From the way Buemir had spoken, she was certain it was just the one.

Y/N rummaged through her rucksack once more when she had made the three batches of moon dust. She pulled out three glass vials, popping the lid and filling the vials with the moon dust. Once she had achieved that, she insured it was closed correctly. 

Holding the vials in her hand, she pushed herself to her feet. Y/N lowered her rucksack into the nearest bush before she set off North from where the small village was. 

She kept her feet light despite not seeing the Wraith. The last thing she wanted was to give away her presence before she had a chance to locate the Wraith and use one of her moon dusts. 

Y/N dropped slowly to a crouch when she heard that of a gargle. Though she had heard it plenty of times in her life, it always sent a shiver down her spine. She breathed slowly, eyeing the clearing before her with narrowed eyes. 

A sickening scream filled the air around her as the Wraith glided across the semi-green grass. It moved lazily slow. 

It looked exactly how Buemir had described it. Y/N briefly wondered how close the man had got for him to get a good enough look at the thing. 

Y/N breathed out slowly, her arm moving gently in order to pocket two of the three vials. Once she had done that, she gripped the third in her hand, bringing it back and lining it up with where the Wraith had come to a stop, it's back turned to her.

After another deep breath Y/N threw the vial, hard. It smashed close to the Wraith, the mixture beginning to smoke as it enveloped the Wraith completely. 

In seconds, the ghastly screeching began as the Wraith flayed for a moment. It caught its bearing quickly. Y/N stood up straight, pulling her sword out. 

She held the blade even, a perfect, undaunted horizon; always levelled with the nose, just as he had taught her. As the Wraith set on eyes on her, it screeched once again as Y/N grinned, waiting for her moment.

The Wraith glided to her, unable to transport itself closer due to the moon dust. It screeched as it did so, it's arms raising as though ready to strike. Y/N didn't give it a chance. Her blade flashed as she brought it over her head and hummed a low, swift tune when she brought it down right as the Wraith was about to take a swipe at her.

Her sword sliced the Wraith deeply. Y/N was quick to roll out of the way of it's arm. She sliced at it's back, bending backwards when it took another swipe at her. 

She continued the motion of bringing her sword down and rolling out of the way of it's swipes until she had cut the Wraith a good few times. 

The Wraith screamed loudly, it's body shaking from anger as it began using both hands to swipe at her. 

Y/N dove out the way and pivoted backwards. She brought her sword down once more, catching the Wraith along it's arm. 

It was as she was jumping backwards that her ankle caught against a clump of stones. She stumbled, keeping her balance and insuring she didn't fall to her ass. However, her moment of distraction proved deadly when the Wraith managed to take a good swipe at her. It knocked her to the ground in seconds, her sword flung to the side. 

Y/N coughed, grasping at the ground as she groaned, trying to catch her breath that had been knocked from her. She lay on the ground winded for a moment. 

Her eyes widened when she saw the Wraith above her, screaming down at her. She forced her body to roll across the grass when it brought it's clawed hands down. She coughed, still trying the catch her breath she she crawled to her sword. 

Before she had a change to reach the weapon, the Wraith behind her let out a harrowing scream. It screamed and screamed before suddenly, it went quiet. 

Y/N frowned, looking over her shoulder at where the Wraith had been. She eyed the black smoke that was disappearing, indicating the Wraith had been slayed. Her eyes moved from the smoke to that of an all to familiar blade that was being held by an even more familiar man. 

She coughed, letting herself fall to the ground in order to finally catch her breath now that the threat was gone. 

Once she breath freely, Y/N gripped her sword and spun onto her back. She sat up, glaring at the figure who was smirking at her. Y/N mumbled under her breath, raising the sword and pushing it back into its baldric. "I had it." 

"Sure you did." 

"I did!" She exclaimed, rubbing the dirt from her hands. "I had it sorted."

"Until you didn't." 

Y/N glared at the man, rolling her eyes as she continued to sit on the ground, crossing her arms across her chest. "What're you doing here, Geralt?" 

Geralt of Rivia smirked at the clear tantrum she was having. He had though she had grown out of them long ago. Clearly, it was hard to tame the wild wolf. Not that he was surprised. 

"Have you been following me?" 

"C'mon, Y/N." He chuckled, shaking his head as he sheathed his own silver sword and crossed his arms across his chest, mimicking her own. "I taught you well. You would've known if I was following you." 

She didn't say anything for a moment, merely looked him over for any difference in him than the last time she had seen him. "True... That still doesn't explain to me how you're here though?"

"Saw Jaskier in Novigrad."

"At the Inn?" Y/N asked. It was where she had last seen the Bard. 

"Mhm." Geralt grunted, moving towards her and holding his hand out. 

Y/N sighed as she uncrossed her arms gripped his large hand. He pulled her up, smiling as he looked down at her. 

"Jaskier said something about you moving North. Followed the road until I came to the village." The pair walked side by side back to where Y/N had stored her rucksack. "Spotted Opie and knew you were close." 

"Don't tell me you sniffed me out." Y/N grumbled.

She had always hated when he had done that when she was a child. All she would want to do was be alone so she could sulk about whatever had gotten her told off that day. Geralt always seemed to sniff her out of hiding no longer than an hour after she had left. 

"Guilty." Geralt chuckled, patting her shoulder as though he related to her issues. "Spotted you mixing up the moon dust... Made me proud." 

"Proud?" Y/N's eyes widened slightly.  

Though she knew Geralt was proud of her, it wasn't often he voiced it. In fact, she could name the times he had done on a single hand. He had never been good with words before she entered his life. Though he still wasn't good with them when she was in his life, he was better. At least, that's what others said. 

Geralt nodded. "You remembered that using your sword and striking doesn't always mean results. Moon dust was a good call... You were doing good too. Just need to watch your feet more. You were never good at that." 

"Well, thanks." Y/N rolled her eyes, grinning at the white-haired man. "I need to collect my payment and before you ask, I'm not splitting it. I did most of the work." 

Geralt grunted, smiling at the back of her head as she set off for her payment. "You deserve it." He called as he followed after her. 

"Perhaps you can have one coin." Y/N called back. "Or I'll buy your next meal, how's that?" 

"Trying to repay me for the last meal I bought you?" 

"Which one?" Y/N turned, walking backwards so she could look upon Geralt's face. "You basically raised me, Geralt. You fed me and kept me clothed. I don't have enough days in my life to ever repay you for that." 

"And you don't need to." Geralt shook his head, looking suddenly more stern than he ever had. "Never. Though you don't have my blood in your veins, you're my kid. As close as it gets." 

"Geralt of Rivia, people never believe me when I tell them you're a sweetheart." Y/N sighed, shaking her head. "Thank y-"

"Don't." Y/N already knew what he was going to say. "There's no thanks needed... Let's go get your coin. We should make it back to the Inn before dusk."

"Last one to the village has to clean the blades."  

.

[crash-hawk]

Crash, crash, burn, let it all burn, this hurricane’s chasing us all underground...

Since I recently re-released Three to read in its entirety on Tumblr, I thought I would do the same for the first chapter of the follow-up fic Hurricane: a series of short stories set in the Passerine-inspired Kaleidoscope AU, focusing on the intersections and parallels between the series’ Hermit cast and their DSMP neighbors.  Chapter 1 is a direct follow-up to Three, taking place literally hours later, so it’s recommended that you read that one first!

Hurricane is a work in progress, with three chapters completed so far.  The rest can be read on Archive of Our Own HERE.

(For a look at what’s going down in this AU’s version of Third Life, check out @lunarblazes‘ devastating Give Me Back My Heart, You Wingless Thing and @exactlymypoint‘s stellar To Stars and Void He Will Return.)

The morning after’s always a bitch.

crash, crash, burn

No matter how many times that you told me you wanted to leave

No matter how many breaths that you took, you still couldn’t breathe

No matter how many nights that you’d lie wide awake to the sound of the poison rain

Where did you go?  Where did you go?  Where did you go...?

- Thirty Seconds to Mars, “Hurricane”

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

A strange hush falls over the island in the hours just before dawn.   The moon sinks into the water, unnaturally bright against stars that seem pale and faded and  unreal, and seems to take all sound and life with it; the ocean is a vast expanse of smooth glass that barely seems to lap at the shore.  

The Queen of the Hunt notices, and it disturbs her.

She does not live with the others in the main village.  She makes her home in a vast cavern on the far side of the island, beneath a quaint red-roofed house that’s more decoy than domicile.  The house is for the young ones and the new ones, who don’t need to know what she truly is (although every once and again one will come seeking her specifically, usually one who’s seen her in the Starborn’s tournaments, and if they show promise and she has nothing better to do she will take them on.)

She does not live with the others, but she’s aware of the visitors who’d come to their shore the day before.  She knows them well, one of them most of all.  Her own dark mirror; sometimes her twin and sometimes a stranger, sometimes an ally and more often an enemy.  His presence here, in this place meant specifically to keep him out, infuriates her, because she knows it for what it is: both an implicit threat and a deliberate insult on the part of the one who’d brought him along.  The thought of marching into the village and demanding that the interlopers state their intent was tempting, the thought of demanding that they leave even more so.  But she and her shadow have always been flint and steel, and with each hour that passes the island feels more and more like dry kindling.  The Huntress tells herself that no matter what happens, she will not be the one to strike the spark.

She wanders along the northern shoreline, not knowing why, not knowing where she’s going or what she’s looking for.  It feels like she’s waiting for something, some coin to drop, some axe to fall.  

And then it does.

The land around her has grown sere and scrubby, gnarled oaks making way for the flat-crowned acacia trees local to the northwestern point of the island.  A huge mountain, ridged and buttressed like a castle, bulks to the sky, black against the dim, faded stars.  She can see lights glowing softly from the windows of the homes her friends have built there.

A scream suddenly bursts from one of the windows.

It shatters the night into a thousand fragments, echoing from stone and tree and water, freezing the Huntress down to the bone because she  recognizes  it, would know the voice anywhere.  That’s Etho screaming, screaming and screaming in terror and agony and something else, something that sounds dangerously close to madness--the Huntress has heard enough screams in her life to know.  

She’s running before she’s even aware of it, her bow materializing in her hand from thin air, as dawn crawls over the eastern horizon behind her in a silent white line.

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

Something’s wrong.

It pulses through Pearl’s mind in an insistent feedback loop, crowding out thought as they make their way back down the shore toward the village.  George rambles on at her side, the most he’s spoken since she can remember, the most he’s spoken in  millennia,  she thinks, ever since the old forests were a new thing too huge with potential for her to govern alone.  There are other siblings, of course, other gods of life and change and growth, but he is one of the youngest, and the most sensitive.  So she smiles and tries her best to listen as he talks and talks and talks, about his woods and his dreams and his nightmares and waking up choking on ash, about his animal friends and the valley he made bloom in honor of one that he lost, about the unlikely friendships she still doesn’t understand, treasure hunts and near misses and the universe saying I’m going to be the best thing that ever happened to you.

“Granted, they’re both idiots, Sapnap especially,” he says, smiling.  “But…”

“But they’re your idiots,” Pearl finishes with an answering smile.  She can’t help it, she’s all too familiar with the phenomenon.  And yet the maddening refrain continues:  something’s wrong.  Something’s wrong.  Something’s wrong.

To the east, dawn paints the sky in fragile seashell colors, washing out stars already strangely faint.  They’re close, now; Pearl can see the massive, irregular shadow of Scar’s ore pile and the dim violet glow from Grian’s observatory. There are few lights lit, and even though she knows that logically everyone’s probably still asleep, it still sits wrongly. Even at this distance, the village feels shuttered, empty, dead.

“It’s so quiet,” George murmurs.  Pearl turns to him, seeing anxiety in his eyes, in the way his arms wrap around himself.   He feels it too.

“Some of them should be up by now,” Pearl says absently.  “Bdubs at least, he’s staying at Impulse’s house this week and he’s always up and out with the sun, I don’t--”

“I think they’re all still there,” George interrupts, pointing down the beach, to where the the last embers of the campfire still glow dully in the early morning gloom.  “It looks like they all fell asleep there.”

Pearl looks, and fear washes over her like ice water.  

They’re arranged around the campfire in a ring, the way they gather almost every night if the weather permits.  Twenty-some people, it looks like, almost the entire village.  Some are still mostly upright, slumped against each other or against the logs of driftwood.  Others lie sprawled awkwardly in the sand or curled up tight against the wind.   Only one remains alert, prodding idly at the embers as they roast something on a stick.

Footsteps crunch in the sand behind them, making her jump, but she doesn’t turn around.  They don’t look like they’re sleeping.  Their poses are too awkward, too uncomfortable, as if they’d all been struck by the same bolt of lightning and simply lay as they fell.  They look--

“There you are,” complains the approaching voice, all smoke and grit.  “I’ve been looking for you all godsdamned night.”

“Sapnap--”

Pearl breaks into a run.

George shouts something after her, but she doesn’t hear it.  She runs for the campfire, her cloak and hood flying out behind her, heart pounding in her head and chest and throat.  

The one still awake looks up as she skids to a halt in the sand, smiling.  “Morning,” he greets. “Breakfast?  There’s fish enough for four.”

Pearl ignores him.  Up close, she can see that the younger ones do seem to be asleep, piled up on each other in awkward configurations and snoring quietly, but the others...the others…

“What have you done,” she gasps, before she’s even aware of what she means to say.

“What do you mean, what have I done,” Dream asks, blinking.  His voice and expression are the picture of bafflement, but his eyes are amused, glittering jade in the light of the rising sun.  “I was making breakfast.  They’re asleep.”

Impulse still sits next to Dream, slumped over the half-finished clock in his lap, head bowed. Beside him, Bdubs is face down in the sand.  She can’t tell if they’re breathing or not.  Across the campfire Scar lies curled on his side, arms crossed loosely in front of his face as if to ward off a blow.  And beside him--

“Grian!”

For a terrible, terrible moment, Pearl is certain that he’s dead.  He lies sprawled on his back, limbs bent awkwardly, boneless and loose as if he’d fallen out of the sky.  His wings are invisible, still cloaked, and that’s  wrong, Grian can’t hide his wings unless he’s conscious enough to think about it--

She drops to her knees beside him, laying one hand on his chest, the other cupping his cheek.  She feels him draw in a breath and sobs, vision blurring with relief.  So slow, though, a full minute going by before he draws another, and he’s so cold. Grian isn’t supposed to be cold.  Grian is quicksilver and solar flares and lightning in a bottle, rambling speech and manic laughter and too-warm hugs.  His fire is gone, his wings are gone.  Grian is gone.  What lies on the beach beneath her hands is nothing more than a placeholder.  A shell.  And she knows as certain as moonrise that if she were to go to the others, to lay her hands on their hearts, she would feel the same.

“What have you done?!” she repeats, pale eyes returning to Dream’s.  

Dream simply looks back at her, impassive, the unnerving smile still on his face. “Nothing they didn’t ask for.”

“They would never ask for this,” she hisses, standing slowly.  She can feel rage beginning to gather in her core, flowing down into her limbs like white fire.  

“Dream?” she hears George ask from behind her, quick footsteps shuffling through the sand.  “What happened?”

For a heartbeat, she sees the Green God’s expression flicker, a split second of something that might have been surprise or nerves or fear.   She doesn’t know, and doesn’t care.  Her rage is an incandescent, living thing, as though she’d swallowed a piece of the sun.

“I told her,” he says.  “They’re  asleep. Dreaming. They asked for a story, and I told one.  I might’ve...gotten a bit carried away, but they haven’t been harmed, George.  At all.  They’ll wake soon enough--”

“They are not asleep!” Pearl cries, and suddenly there’s a spear in her hand, the curved head glittering silver in the misty sunlight.  “Do you take me for an idiot? You’ve left their bodies here scattered like so many empty seashells, thinking I couldn’t tell the difference.  They’re not here!  What have you done to them, you lying bastard?”

In the space between heartbeats a white-cloaked shadow suddenly appears at her side, obsidian blade leveled inches from her neck.  “Put it down,” the War God snarls.  “Now.”

“No,” she says, not even bothering to look at him.  

“You’d break guest right?” Dream asks, still smiling congenially, stepping forward so Pearl’s spearhead rests just below his collarbone. “Your little commune holds that sacred, doesn’t it?  You’d run me through in the sight of the sun, in front of your ‘brother’?  Well, go on, then.  I’m right here.  I won’t even dodge.  Your place, your rule.”

“Pearl, Sapnap, stop,” she hears George cry, dismayed.  “Dream, what the hell’s gotten into you??”

Pearl’s hands tighten around the polished ashwood haft of the spear.  The rage in her is burning agony.  And yet she can’t move.

The Green God smiles, his eyes the color of acid and chlorine and radiation.  “I know you,” he whispers. “I’ve known you since you were formed.  You’re not cut out for this role. You don’t have it in you.”

There’s a sudden ‘twang’ and a puff of sand as an arrow strikes deeply into the beach a bare millimeter from Dream’s ankle. Another grazes Sapnap’s cheekbone a second later, drawing a thin line of blood.

“You’re no guests of mine,” a woman’s voice calls from a point above and behind them. “And I do.”

The War God’s sword jerks away from her neck, and Pearl’s paralysis breaks. She whirls, her spear falling from shaking, nerveless fingers, to see False, Lady of War, Queen of the Hunt, standing atop a wave-beaten spar of rock, longbow nocked and drawn.  Nor is she alone: beside her stand Iskall of the Mountains, his stone sword carved with runes and shimmering with enchantment, and Wels, Guardian of the Gates of Hell, in full dark armor and wielding a battleaxe the color of smoke.

“You,” Sapnap spits, black eyes narrowed and full of venom.

“Me,” False agrees.  

“What the hell,” Iskall thunders, fire glinting in his eye, “did you do to Etho.”

Dream rolls his eyes.  “Stars, Void, and In-Between, how many of you are there?”

“More than you’d believe,” Wels answers.  “This is our place.  Our home.  And I think it’s high time you returned to yours.”

“You’ve outstayed your welcome,” the Huntress states flatly, her normally blue eyes as black as Sapnap’s as they drill into Dream.  “I suggest that you and both of your friends get in your boat and leave.  Right now.”

“Mm,” Dream looks up at the sky for a moment, as if thinking.  “And if I don’t care to leave just yet?  I never got to read the ending to that story I was telling last night, and your student body was so excited to hear it.”  He glances over at the sleeping apprentices, and Pearl feels a stomach-clenching rush of fear and revulsion at the implicit threat.   “Besides.  You know you can’t kill me.  You know it better than probably anyone else here.”

False laughs.

Dream’s forehead furrows, and Pearl is gratified to see that awful smile slip just a notch.  “Care to share the punchline?”

“Oh, that’s true enough,” False admits.  “You’re right, it won’t be my arrow that brings you down, though I must admit I’d greatly enjoy the trying.  It’s just funny to me, how confident you are, considering where you stand.”  She smiles, a tight, icy little smile that makes Pearl shiver in spite of herself, as she glances back at the village.

No, Pearl realizes, not at the village: at the rickety, towering sculpture in the center of it...and the yawning sinkhole beneath.

Dream’s smile falls off of his face so quickly Pearl can almost hear it thump into the sand.  George stands beside him, looking confused and utterly miserable, hands twisting together.  Pearl hates Dream almost as much for putting that expression back on his face as she does for the motionless bodies at her feet.

“What in the hell are you talking about,” Sapnap snarls, scowling in confusion.  

“Shall I call him,  Dream?” False continues softly, still smiling.  “How about it? We’ve all got time, after all, while we wait for our friends to wake.  I’m sure he’d be very interested in your stories.  He’s a much more courteous guest than you are.”

“He won’t come,” Dream protests, but he doesn’t sound so confident anymore. “He’s busy, and lazy, and thousands of leagues away besides.   He’s got a new playmate, and they’re enjoying themselves too much with their little empire down in the Southern snows to bother with you.” The smile returns to Dream’s face as if it never left, but there’s no mistaking the undercurrent of fear in his voice, the obvious way he’s trying to convince himself of what he’s saying.  “And why should he answer to you at all, hiding away with your own little playmates on your nowhere island?  You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” the Huntress asks, dark eyes glittering.

A tense silence settles over the beach.  No one moves.  Even the waves seem to hold their breath, waiting to see which way the scales will dip.

“Why?” Pearl finally asks, her voice breaking.  “What did we ever do to you?”

“Like I told you, they’ll be awake soon,” Dream says with a shrug.  “Ask them.”

“Leave,” False reiterates, her smile gone, her voice cold.  “All three of you.  And don’t come back.”

“Very well, as my Queen commands,” Dream answers, sketching a mocking bow.   “George, Sapnap, let’s go.”  He turns to Pearl with a smile, green fire dancing in his eyes.  "Until next time, my dear." And with that, he walks away, moving off towards the docks.

Pearl recoils, skin crawling with loathing and a creeping, nameless dread. “George, wait,” she entreats, sorrow and desperation thick in her voice.  “You don’t have to go with them.”

George looks back and forth, from her, to False and Wels and Iskall with their weapons drawn, to his two friends, and then back to Pearl.  “They’re my friends,” he murmurs helplessly.  

He turns, walking off down the beach after Dream.  A sob escapes Pearl’s throat.  

Of the three of them, Sapnap lingers the longest, staring up at the three on the rocks with his sword still drawn.  

“He’ll betray you, you know,” False says quietly.

“Stop talking about things you haven’t the least idea about,” Sapnap grits.

“He will, though.  He’ll betray you the way the scorpion betrays the frog in the old tales, because it’s his nature.  And because you have something he doesn’t, a capacity he doesn’t understand and never will, no matter how badly he wants it.  I know, because you and I are the same.  You’ve already begun to discover that capacity, as bumbling and resistant and stupid as you are.  When you finally figure out the rest, he won’t be able to stand it.  He’ll turn on you, and he’ll hurt you.”

“Whatever you say,” he mutters dismissively, but he sounds unsure of himself.  At last, he sheaths his sword, stalking off after the others.  Pearl wonders if either of them will remember this incident two days from now, if they'll be allowed to remember it.

When they’re finally gone, their boat nothing more than a hazy speck on the water, Pearl collapses to the sand.  She pulls Grian into her lap and holds him, not letting go even as Impulse comes to with a strangled scream, clutching at his abdomen and hurling the half-finished clock into the waves with a cry; as Bdubs scrambles wild-eyed to the water after it, his legs shaking like those of a newborn colt; as Scar begins to cough and gasp and struggle to fill lungs that don’t seem to remember how to breathe; as the apprentices stir, looking around with dazed and uncomprehending eyes.

It’s only when Grian finally wakes, silent and gasping and threatening to shake himself to pieces in her arms, his pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks, that Pearl finally, finally allows herself to cry.

[omniswords]

Chronicles of a Parisian Dumbass 18

i'm sorry this is a few days late!! it's been real Headless Chicken time around here for a number of reasons, but, here you go!

this chapter is also known as, "LUKANETTE SHIPPERS COME GET Y'ALL JUICE: Part 1"

to: Marinette hey… um. hey. just. checking if you’re okay. those postcards came out beautiful.

from: Marinette shouldn’t i be asking you that?

to: Marinette i’ll live. i’m a Couffaine, “chaos” is practically my middle name. …so… how can i pay you? cash? one of those money apps?

from: Marinette just get better 😊 that’s all.

Getting better shouldn’t feel like such a tall order. But like with other affairs, Luka will just say it’s his fault and call it a night.

It only takes a few days for his knee to go from “bulging, throbbing mess” to “sort of tolerable,” and he doesn’t understand how the time is so annoying and yet so relieving. He has to call out of work because there’s no way they—or Juleka— will let him bike or even hobble around Paris with an injury like that. But it opens up his schedule for more band practice. And more chances to talk to Bubbles. Or, more accurately, convince Bubbles that he can still hold his own and shred the setlist to pieces.

And yeah, he tries his hand at perfecting Marinette’s song, but it barely comes out any better. Whatever melody is swirling in his head sounds wrong on paper, and even worse on guitar. Checking the posts of his drafts doesn’t help, either; the likes and comments and reposts have mostly come to a halt, no matter how many times he bumps the latest version to the top of his profile.

He thinks, for the most part, that it’s doomed to live in his head forever. And he hates it. Hates that it doesn’t sound right or good. Hates that he’ll never get to share what he really hears, what he really feels... with anyone.

The best he can manage is hopping on the metro, with his guitar and his amp and his busking license tied around the belt loop of his jeans, and finding just the right stone ledge or just the right bench at the bridge with the padlocks. Sometimes he doodles, strums out whatever comes to mind and hopes it resonates with someone. Some then he takes requests or plays fan favorites, the kind that earns him a smile or even an extra euro in his case.

He’s got to make the money somehow.

One time, he plays by the fountain at the Place des Vosges. For the parents who need something to tide them over while their children ask for balloons and skin their elbows and ride the carousel one too many times. He thinks about angles, and hearing colors, and pear tarts fresh from the oven, and business cards that look like flyers. He thinks about the color blue, too. Ocean blue. But he doesn’t play it. He’ll save it for a better occasion, when he’s not weighed down with cutting deals and combing through backstory that he’s not quite sure he’ll ever earn. When he’s not thinking about Marinette dropping a few coins in his case at the padlock bridge and almost looking guilty about it.

He shakes his head and gathers his paltry earnings for the day into the side pocket of his gig bag, stretches his leg to see if it’s worth putting weight on again. It doesn’t protest too much, thank God; at least he’ll be home before it gets too dark. But the sound of music stops him once he crosses the street. A radio. And it’s playing outside.

And it’s just over his head.

It takes him one moment to realize he’s stopped in front of Tom & Sabine’s, and another to look up. There is Marinette, watering some flowers in a box and resting her chin in her hand. Humming along to the music. when she meets his eyes, it sounds like her. Like exactly what he’s been looking for. Good, and right, and perfect.

And... sad.

The one thing Luka’s grateful for is that he wasn’t standing there long. Instead of fear or panic, he’s only caught up in mild surprise, and to his relief, so is Marinette. He readjusts his weight on his good leg, and he manages a wave with his free hand. “You know,” he says with a weak laugh, “we really gotta stop meeting like this.”

The smile Marinette gives him in return is just as sad as her humming, but harder to read. He doesn’t know if it’s telling her she agrees or disagrees, or if she doesn’t want him to go. Or if it’s something else entirely, something he’s not a part of. “Hey,” she says, leaning over the balcony to get a better look at him. Or maybe just at his leg.

He glances down at it, gives it a little shake, and shrugs in the face of the urge to wince. “It’ll be fine,” he says as nonchalantly as he can. “I’ll be back at work in a day or two. But, y’know... let me know if you’d rather I go busk somewhere else.”

Which, he’ll admit, is code for, let me know if you don’t want to see me anymore. He’s given her enough reasons for her to feel that way.

If Marinette’s somehow waded through to the real meaning of it, she doesn’t show it, and Luka doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. Instead, she leans over to pause her music, brushes her hair out of her eyes, and says, “Do you... wanna come upstairs?”

Well.

He wasn’t expecting that.

Luka can’t get any words out, so all he does is nod dumbly and limp toward the side door. On a better day, he might have been able to scale the bakery and hop over the balcony railing, if all his work on the Liberty is anything to go by. But maybe his guitar wouldn’t necessarily appreciate that. And neither would Mr. Dupain or Mrs. Cheng; he’d probably scare them half to death. Not to mention that maybe this is the sort of stunt reserved for Actually Cool People, and Luka is only ever Actually Cool in the recesses of his imagination or with a guitar in his hands.

Marinette meets him by the side door and lets him in with barely a sound. It doesn’t seem like she’s trying to sneak him in, the way she might have if they were in high school. If she might have even pulled off something like that in high school. But they slip into the apartment with Marinette’s whispered explanation that her father’s closing up shop and her mother’s getting ready for a dinner date. It reminds him, as they head to her room and she shows him how to hoist up onto the balcony, of all the dates his ma tried to go on. And how one day, she just stopped trying, and didn’t shed a tear over it.

Maybe, he thinks as he leaps up on the weight of one leg, he’s built for something like that. Or should be.

Marinette lets him take the deck chair so he can rest his leg, despite his weak insistence that he’s fine. She doesn’t go back to watering the flowers, or even leaning on the railing and giving the city that wistful look he thought was only reserved for Adrien Agreste. Instead, she sits cross-legged on the floor, and she watches him, never lingering on one part of him for too long. Like she’s expecting him to say something. Maybe it’s payback, in the end, for all the times she must have caught him.

“Hey,” he finally says to break through the quiet. “That song you were listening to... Can you play it again?”

She jolts to attention then, nods without a word, makes a grab for her phone. With a few taps, the song bleeds to life with a few piano notes, the rise of a few violins, the thrum of a cello. Luka thinks he’s heard this before, once. The words are all in English, so he doesn’t quite know what they’re saying. All he knows is the blue. It’s electric, it’s swelling in his chest, buzzing under his skin, closing his eyes. It sounds...

Like the ocean.

Like a world Marinette’s pulling him into. Her world. And he’s stepping into it. Just for a while. Or like, perhaps, just for that while, they’re meeting in the middle.

She must know what the song is about. She can wade through the colors and the sound, right to the words, as she sings to herself in accented English, as her voice dips low but not quite low enough, as her breath snags on the notes it can’t hold for very long. Maybe that’s why she seems so sad. Or maybe it’s something else.

“That song sounds like your eyes,” he says once the violins fade. It sounds like what I’ve been looking for.

Marinette looks at him like he’s lost his mind, and maybe he has. But there’s a softness to it. Like maybe no one’s ever said anything like that to her before. Like, secretly, she’d spent years wishing someone would. “What?”

“Oh, uh. It’s...” He can’t tell if it’s the music, or the evening sky, or Marinette that’s making it hard to snap back to himself. Maybe it’s all three. “It’s... that sound-color thing I told you about—”

“No, I—I figured.” Marinette fumbles as she turns down the volume. He hardly thought her the type, but she does it like it’s something she’s done for ages. Like she’s tapping into someone she used to be. “You... think about my eyes?”

Luka can feel his face burning, his stomach lurching. He’s overthinking, he knows it, but somehow it doesn’t feel wrong for him to say, “I’ve been trying to get them right for a long time.”

She gives him a confused look at first, but understanding cracks across her face once he unzips his gig bag, sets up the amp, and sets his guitar in his lap.

“Can you play it again?” he asks. It’s quiet, and unsure, but there’s a tinge of hope to it. “I want to get it right.”

Marinette’s eyes go wide, and her cheeks turn pink under the delicate string lights. It seems like she holds onto her breath for longer than she means to, but she nods, and she does that fumbling thing again as she reaches for her phone. Once those first piano notes trickle out, she looks to him expectantly. That’s all it takes for his fingers to find the strings. For his heart to find that ocean blue. He doesn’t quite copy the melody note for note; instead, he finds the little pockets where his music fits, and he makes it sound a little fuller. A little more like her.

Maybe it’s not perfect. But it’s good enough.

Somewhere along the way, Luka closed his eyes, and when he opens them again, he finds Marinette sitting closer—just across from him, in fact. She’s huddled up with her chin on her knees, all but marveling at him in silence. When she finally speaks, it’s after she’s paused the next song, and it’s only to breathe, “Wow.”

Luka’s not feeling particularly flirtatious; actually, the most he does is laugh sheepishly and rub the back of his neck. “I’m not so good with words,” he says. “But music gets me pretty close to what I want to say. So… maybe I was wrong about not having an angle. Maybe my thing is playing people.”

Marinette snaps out of it long enough to laugh, all breath, and say, “Where I’ve been, that sounds an awful lot like you’re a con man.”

“I’m not a con man, I mean... what people sound like. Their hearts, or... the parts of them that are most beautiful. That sound like that”— he gestures toward the speaker, and then up to the sky—”or remind us that... whatever we’re made of, it came from up there. Somewhere. That’s what I wanna think about, when I play…”

He catches himself and goes silent, but Marinette’s already giving him a meaningful look, teeth sinking into her lip. Somewhere along the line, her face went right to scarlet.

“Me,” she says. “That’s what you were playing in the park. Me.”

Luka doesn’t know how much of him has been discovered, but he keeps quiet all the same. He won’t give any more of himself away. It’s only as he’s about to apologize—for what, he’s not entirely sure—that Marinette cuts him off.

“Look, I… I need to tell you about something.”

He grips his guitar more tightly, because his phone is too far out of reach, and all the alarm bells go off.

[fratresdei]

How to Create Sacred Space

Sacred spaces are some of the clearest examples we have of humanity’s active involvement in cultivating the Sacred. Within sacred spaces, the lines between “what is ‘just people’ and “what is ‘purely divine,'” are, blessedly, blurred to indistinction.

For example, when humans build temples, they often believe that holy presence resides within it. However, there is no delusion that the temple was not built by human hands. That reality is in fact celebrated! Within sacred space we are free to relish in our participation, or co-creation, of divine presence in our world. This power we possess does not detract from the mystery of sacred space, but is something to cherish. If we have the power to construct and nurture sacred space, that says a lot about our standing in the universe.

So, what constitutes a sacred space? The answer could include many possibilities: perhaps you have a favorite quiet spot in your place of worship or out in nature. Maybe you grew up with a shrine or altar in the home, or you may be seeking to curate and maintain a space for yourself. The space may be hidden away where only you can access it, or out in the open where you spend most of your day. There may be objects that represent deities, loved ones, prayers or intentions present. It could be a clear, clean space, empty of clutter, where the mind and spirit feel free to declutter as well. Your sacred space may simply be your own body. While the size and structure of a personal sacred space may vary, the core is the same: a place that has been set aside for contemplation or communion with the divine. The beauty of a sacred space, like many facets of spiritual life, derives from the meaning it carries for you.

To help illustrate the many variations and nuances of a sacred space, Fratres Dei Spiritual Direction Contributor Saint Gibson @stgibsonofficial and Communications Manager Caroline Crook @yourfavoriteauntcarol (yours truly), have each shared a picture of our own sacred spaces and described the contents therein.

Saint’s Space

There are a number of sacred spaces scattered throughout my house; the rose-scented Our Lady of Guadalupe candle and collection of crystals in my bedroom, the shelf where my fiancé and I remember our departed ancestors with little photos and trinkets, and the font of holy water affixed to the wall by the front door. But the most prominent sacred space in my home is the altar table set up in the living room, underneath a gilded icon of the Madonna and child.

On it, I keep all my candles and figurines representing the saints and angels, and some beloved keepsakes, like dried flowers, gifted rosaries, and letters from friends. The plate in the center of the altar features a painting of the last supper and is used for offerings: generally water, and sometimes alcohol or milk depending on whether or not that's appropriate to the petition or the day on the church calendar. My household celebrates both the Christian holidays and the pagan wheel of the year, so the decorations on the altar change out with feast days and seasons. The candles around the offering plate change, but there's always a sacred heart of Jesus and a Mary mother of God burning away, and usually a Saint Jude and a Saint Joseph as well. I burn a rainbow candle to remember the queer saints of the church both known and unknown, and to ask for God's protection on LGBTQ+ people worldwide.

My patron saint is the archangel Uriel, patron of confirmation in the Episcopal church and of poets and scholars widely. My golden Uriel figurine presides over his side of the altar, along with a figurine of the archangel Raphael, my fiancé's patron. We've got all sorts of talismans and charms representing the four archangels, and we have a fiery red candle for the archangel Michael that stands looped in a necklace featuring a ward against the evil eye. A golden pietà, my fiancé's greatest thrift store find, watches over all the candles. We've also got a colored figurine of the Infant of Prague standing proudly over a photograph of my fiancé and I. That's because the very first letter my fiancé ever sent me was a photograph of the Infant when he was traveling abroad, and we like to think he watches over us.

There are prayer cards littered about, and I often find myself reaching for Saint Ignatius of Loyola or Saint John the Revelator in times of need. We also usually keep incense burning in a metal cauldron that's always stuffed full of salt and ashes. Frankincense, rose, and lemongrass are my favorites. There are also many taper candles that I've saved from trips to other churches or from sung masses on Michaelmas and Christmas Eve.

I've been curating sacred space in every dorm room and apartment I've lived in for years, and this is by far my most favorite space yet. There's enough room to stand while you pray and move items around, but it's small enough that I could pack up everything on the altar into one box if I needed to. The table stands right between the living room and the kitchen, in the heart of the home, and it makes me feel like blessings are being disseminated from the altar to every room in the house. It's a way to keep a little bit of divinity always within arms reach, incarnate in rosaries and candles and bottles of holy water. With my altar nearby, I feel prepared for any spiritual celebration or crisis, and I know exactly where to retrieve up my spiritual tools when the occasion calls for it.

Caroline’s Space

Let’s call my sacred space an acoustic version of what a sacred space can be. It’s only a few months old; yet another quarantine project. Cluttered? Yes. Often mistaken as just a shelf for all my candles? Also yes. But it serves my spiritual life in ways that I personally find intuitive and accessible.

Of the three bookshelves in my apartment, this one is in a central spot in the living room, facing the couch. It’s part of the space and rhythm where most of my daily life takes place. Especially during quarantine when my brain fog is even worse than normal, it’s nice to be able to naturally glance over at this shelf and quickly check in with its contents.

Said contents are 95% candles. Whenever I need to set aside some time for an intentional, spiritually fulfilling practice (whether prayer, yoga, reading, writing, or just a break from social media) I light a candle. On days of significance (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) or to pray for a loved one, I’ll light a smaller tealight candle in the centerpiece and let it burn for the day.

The remaining 5% is all gifted, bought or found objects from friends and family members. The centerpiece is a candle/incense holder one of my oldest and dearest friends gave to me. There is a glass dish of crystals, shells and sharks’ teeth, all collected over the years between Florida and DC, with family and friends. The glass bottle in the corner was a gift from a friend’s wedding last summer, and I keep that filled with rainwater or holy water, depending on what’s at hand. There’s a crystal seashell towards the back that was a gift from my late grandmother. Each of these objects, to me, represents the many connections, joys and loves in my life. I’m also part magpie, so it’s nice to have a place where these odds and ends I collect can be 1) on display, 2) out of the way.

Other objects come and go, as I like to place items on this shelf that symbolize what’s on my heart at the time. Coins, written turns of phrase, scraps from old clothes, photos of loved ones, etc. Occasionally the odd tarot card, if I’m looking for a stronger visual.

For years this surface was just part candle repository, part please-God-do-not-forget-to-return-these-library-books shelf. It had a vague purpose, and certainly held things that are important to me, but not in an especially meaningful way. The act of curating this space -- choosing that shelf, cleaning it up, deciding what to place where, and maintaining it over time -- has been a source of calm, inspiration, and reflection. It’s still a work in progress though; I have a holly wreath I place around the centerpiece during the holidays, and am looking into getting a wreath to celebrate each season in the year. To, you know, help me remember that time is still passing in quarantine (I want to say April was… two weeks ago?)

If you feel so inclined, we would love to hear from you as well: what does a sacred space mean to you? What sacred spaces have you cultivated or visited?

If you’re curious about cultivating your own sacred space with the help of an expert, book your first free virtual session with Fratres Dei Spiritual Direction in the comments.

Saint offers tarot readings that are affirming, insightful and welcome to all. Check out Holy Roots Tarot using the link in the comments.

February 18, 2021 | Denver, Colorado

[satoruvt]

the color of you - gold (2)

i lost the template for the banner i used in part one so i had to make a new one and it looks different and im sad but at least this chapter is fuckin AWESOME

pairing → keigo takami x bakery owner!reader

word count → 1736

summary → you’re not really dating, so you can’t really be in love with him… right?

song inspo → portland by armors

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

“Does everything look correct?”

The packet in front of you is intimidating, thick and detailing every aspect of the relationship you and Hawks are supposed to have. You flip through the pages, looking over the big points - no one but you, Hawks, his publicist and your lawyer are to know about the terms of your “relationship,” you need to be okay with having your picture taken, and the whole thing will only last a few months to cover a few press conferences and an awards ceremony. The line for your signature on the last page is blank - you expected Hawks to have signed it already, but the line above his name is blank as well. The ball’s in your court, it’s saying.

“Yes,” you say, nodding up at his publicist. “Everything looks fine, thank you.”

“Any boundaries?” Hawks speaks up, and you meet his eyes from across the table. You shake your head no, offering a curt, gentle smile. Your lawyer hands you a pen to sign the contract, and after a deep breath, you drag the pen across the paper in your name. Hawks does the same after you.

“There we go,” he says when he’s done, clicking the pen. His smile is laid-back, easy. “We’re officially in an unofficial relationship.”

You can’t help the smile that dances on your lips, because it really is ironic, but it’s quickly forgotten as the publicist goes over the general idea. There are big events scheduled for the two of you to be seen together - the press conferences, a few dates, the awards ceremony. You’re welcome to do anything else that you might want, the publicist says, and you don’t miss the wink Hawks sends you.

The rest of the meeting is settled with a copy of the contract handed to your lawyer, and the four of you disperse. You’re gathering up your things when you see Hawks waiting in the doorway. “Let me walk you to the front,” he says, and you do.

His agency building is smaller than you thought it would be, given he’s the number two hero. You get strange looks from a few people as the two of you walk towards the front - you’re not surprised, if you were anybody else but yourself you’d be curious too - and it’s not until the two of you are in the elevator, taking it down to the first floor, that Hawks speaks again.

“So,” he begins, and you turn towards him. “Fancy going on a date with me tonight?”

His gaze is playful, so you join in, and it’s not as awkward as you thought it would be. “You read my mind. Must be a lovers’ connection.”

He likes the humor, you decide, when his teasing smirk grows into a grin. “Well, I figure since we’re gonna be dating for the next few months, I should know about my new girlfriend. Doesn’t do well for the press if they ask me questions about you that I don’t know how to answer.”

You laugh, nodding along to his words. The elevator doors open and the two of you continue to the front of the building in comfortable silence.

“I’m very much looking forward to our date tonight,” you tell him when the two of you reach the front doors. They slide open as another person walks into the building, and the warm air from outside brushes against your legs. Hawks grins, pulls you closer to press a chaste kiss to your cheek. It takes you by surprise and you feel your face grow hot, but before you can say anything Hawks is already walking back to his office.

“See you tonight, babe!” He calls, and you roll your eyes, but the soft smile on your face would fool anyone.

And although it’s embarrassing to blush over something as simple as a cheek kiss, you suppose the pink on your face is a good thing. You notice paparazzi outside of the agency, and they definitely saw what just happened.

-

By this point, you’re not really nervous to be going on a date - “date” - with Hawks, but Jesus, it’s stressful to pick out what the hell you’re gonna wear. Do you actually try? Do you put on some jeans and a nice blouse and call it good? What does going on a fake date with the Number Two hero call for?

In the end you settle for a sundress, something in the middle. It doesn’t take much longer for you to finish up getting ready before you’re heading out the door to the restaurant Hawks had told you to meet him at. You’re lucky it’s not that far away - a fifteen minute walk at most. The sun glows in the evening light, drenching the world in melted gold.

The restaurant is small, but filled with a decent amount of people. When you step inside the gentle hum of overlapping conversation fills your bones, and you see Hawks in a booth down a walkway. You point him out to the hostess and she lets you find your way to him. 

“It’s awfully rude to keep your date waiting,” he says when you get close enough, standing up to greet you.

“What can I say? I dress to impress.”

Hawks kisses your cheek and you scrunch your nose at the feel of his stubble on your face. He lets you into one side of the booth, and you’re expecting him to sit on the opposite side, but instead he sits next to you. The low light of the lamp overhead makes his eyes brighter.

“You do look great.”

“Why, thank you.”

Both of you are teasing, playful, and the conversation is fluid to follow. You’re not speaking across a table so your voices are hushed, gentle, and you think you’re starting to understand why Hawks chose to sit next to you rather than across from you - it’s intimate, couple-y. 

“You know,” you say, finger tracing the rim of your wine glass, “since we’ve been dating for a total of, like, five hours, there’s a lot that I don’t know about you.”

“Ugh, were you even a fan?” Hawks teases, and you scoff, rolling your eyes. His tone softens when you make eye contact with him. “Ask away.”

“For starters, I don’t even know your real name.” You lean your head on your palm as you look at him. “And I feel like, as your girlfriend, I am entitled to that.”

Hawks chuckles, and there’s a certain look in his eyes that you can’t put your finger on. “It’s Keigo Takami.”

Keigo.

“Keigo, huh?” You repeat. It floats around in your mind, lingers on your tongue like the taste of honey. It reminds you of amber, gold, of coins and riches. Keigo.

“Well, I’m Y/N L/N.”

“I know, I looked you up.”

“At least one of us is smart.”

By the time your food comes, you’re barely eating, and it catches up to you how much the two of you have been talking. You’d been worried that the whole thing would be awkward and weird and not at all convincing, but you’re certain if anyone saw the two of you right now, they’d assume you were dating. The conversation rarely stops, and if it does -

Oh. He’s close.

There’s a moment of silence, a break from talking as you shift from one topic to another. On top of the two of you already being close from sitting on the same side of the table, with how much you’ve been talking, you’ve just gravitated towards each other. His arm is draped over the back of the bench, casual, but you can’t really focus when you fixate on his lips.

“And so we, um…” you trail off, then blink yourself out of your trance. “Wow, I completely forgot what I was gonna say.”

Hawks - Keigo - notices, and his face is smug. The smirk on his lips is nothing short of pride.

“Catching feelings for me already, Y/N?”

“In your dreams,” you bounce back.

For the first time tonight, you check your phone. It’s getting late, and although you don’t live very far away, you don’t want to be caught alone after dark. “Ah, I should probably get going.”

Keigo nods, reaching into his pocket to pull out a few thousand yen banknotes and set them on the table. You want to tell him that you have your own money to pay, but he cuts you off by getting out of the booth and speaking himself. “I’ll walk you home,” he says, and you furrow your brows as you get out, too.

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna trouble you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Keigo says, offering his arm to you with a sly grin. “It’s my duty as a hero. And your boyfriend.”

He puts emphasis on the word and you can’t hide the amused smile from your lips, looping your arm through his. 

The walk to your apartment is as comfortable as being in the restaurant with him, but somehow it feels nicer. You suppose it’s the open air, the golden sun having gone down past the distant mountains, leaving remnants of its light in freckles and rosy skin. The walk home seems faster, and you find yourself a little disappointed that the night is ending so soon.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to come inside,” you say, voice sultry as the two of you stop in front of your door. “Make the paparazzi think we had a little more fun in the privacy of my home?”

Keigo shrugs, and you can see him thinking about it. “I mean, if you’re okay with it…”

“Now who’s catching feelings?”

He scrunches his face up and you giggle. When you speak again, your voice is softer. Crickets chirp somewhere nearby. 

“I had a good time, dating or not,” you tell him, find your key and unlocking the door. “Thanks for taking me out.”

Keigo takes your hand in his and brings your fingers up to his lips in a formal kiss (though the wink he sends you says otherwise). “Anytime, princess. See you later.”

He takes off out of your apartment building and you go inside, immediately laying down on your sofa in the living room. You feel over the spot on your hand where he kissed you, humming quietly to yourself. 

Maybe this won’t be as hard as you thought.

[47-shades-of-hitman]

In Your Likeness | Chapter 4 - So it begins

Your nimble fingers fiddled with the small folding knife, twirling it around in between your fingers, barely grazing the sharp blade. Your index finger hooked into the small metal loop on the hilt, giving it a firm twist around your digits, building speed. Then, with a firm movement of your lower arm and wrist, you hurled it into the dummy – right into the artery, buried deep within the neck.

Agent 47 sat a little away, observing you. The training outfit he wore was a bit too tight to be comfortable and the band-aid they insisted for him to put over his tattoo itched terribly. His blue eyes scanned your face – calm and collected, something he could find himself in. However, something else shimmered in your eyes, and he was unsure of what it represented.

“You’ve attracted yourself quite the audience.” he stated, referring to the group of teenagers, who had gathered to gape at you from the glass wall, a few meters away. You shrugged, waving it off.

“I’m the best Assassin the Brotherhood has, of course they’ll watch. They need to train to be like me one day.”

You looked over at them and smiled a little. When you winked, they shyly scurried away, like bashful toddlers hiding behind their mother’s leg upon eye-contact.

“You frighten them.”

“No.” you countered. “They imagine themselves in my stead.”

47 kept silent, eyeing you with slight interest. “So, you can throw these knives pretty well.”

“Thank you.” you said. “Mind showing me some of your skillset? We need to get familiar after all.”

He stood and walked over, leather of his garment snug against his skin. It unpleasantly creaked upon movement.

He drew his ICA Silverballer and aimed it at the dummy.

Before he could take the shot, however, you deeply sighed next to him.

“Long range? How dull.”

He raised an eyebrow before gunning  three – four – five  dummies clean in the head.

“You were saying?”

You walked closer to one of the dummies, inspecting the bullet hole freshly ripped into the plastic doll.

“Long range combat can be dangerous. There is no way to silence the target in case you miss, impact by missed bullets can be heard, if the bullet passes through, who knows where it will end up. And, you cannot quickly pull them behind a corner, immediately out of unwanted sight…”

“It’s critical, though. You carry a firearm on yourself, too. Unsilenced, not to mention.”

Unholstering your revolver, you handed it to him. “Small, convenient, hardly used. Almost obsolete with those bad boys on me.” You flicked your wrists in the air, revealing your hidden blades.

“One quick stab, silent and effective.” you concluded.

Agent 47 nodded at the dummies.

“Care to show me?” He walked over to them and readjusted their positions. “Let me sketch you a situation.”

You agreed, standing on the place where he wanted you to be. Within a minute, he had shifted all mannequins around.

“Imagine this. You’ve just eliminated a target and want to slip away, but the only way to do so is through the door, where a lot of guards are watching closely. They have noticed some ruckus, so they are on high alert. Think fast.”

“Six enemies… Fifteen seconds, how’s that sound?”

“Try it.” Agent 47 stated, stepping back. You deeply inhaled through your nose, crouching as if you had indeed been sneaking around to kill a target, and began your dance.

Thwack! One of your throwing knives buried itself into the head of one of the dummies whilst you grabbed the other around the throat, slashing your hidden blade across its neck before pushing it to the ground.

Then, you jumped on forward, kicking one straight in the back, making it topple over. You used its body to propel yourself into a flying kick, moving your wrist forward in the gesture. The heel of your boot hit one doll on the right spot to knock them out.

Upon landing, you burst your blade through the throat of the dummy you had used to launch yourself. Another throwing knife into the one you had theoretically only knocked out.

At last, you ran towards the final practise doll, sliding down to the floor to sweep it off its feet by using the force of your arm, blade slamming into the chest as you turned your body.

Slightly out of breath, you stood up, dusting down your attire. 47’s eyes were focused on you, slightly narrowed. “That took you twelve point twenty-eight seconds. Hardly leaving a chance to react and there’s barely room for error on your part given that you’re a skilled killer. Overall, I must say that it’s impressive.”

You smirked, putting your hands on your hips. This compliment coming from the strange hitman in front of you caused an inexplicable tightening in your gut, but you didn’t pay it any mind. It was probably the fact that he seemed to stare right into your soul, and he could either read your mind or your deepest secrets.

“So, what about you, now?” you suggested, breaking the silence. He blinked, flexing his fingers at his side.

“Of course. Give me something – Anything.”

You hummed and went to work. After a few minutes, you had made up a scenario.

“So, this dummy right here is our target.” you placed your hand on the shoulder of one of the dolls.

“In order to get to it, you need to get past guards. However,” you continued, “The door is locked. What will you do?”

Agent 47 scoffed. “Within fifteen seconds? That’s impossible.”

“I don’t care about your speed, Tobias. I want to see your approach.”

He was reminded of the other Assassins training in the same room upon your usage of his alias.

“What do I carry on me?”

“No lockpicks, crowbar, or keys. How about this…”

You tapped your chin as you looked around the room, walking over as you spotted what you had been looking for. You pulled a chest towards the set-up and found a long plank soon, too. You positioned in such a way that it was resting against the long side of the chest.

“This is an open window… And you have to scale the plank to get to it. You start right there.” you pointed at the area which you had designated to be the starting point, “I’m curious to see what you will do.”

Agent 47 took place where you had wanted him to and stretched his muscles.

“Ready?” you asked, adjusting a stopwatch to a counter of zero.

“Always.”

“Right, go.”

And off he went – knocking out a few dummies, subduing another, hiding effectively behind an imaginary wall consisting of a wooden bar to stay out of the enemy’s line of sight. He used coins to distract a few guards, if there had been any, and you moved them around to pretend that they were actually going where 47 wanted them to go.

When he eliminated the dummy by using a fibre wire, your stopwatch told a minute and a half.

“Nicely done, I must say.” you praised.

A sudden presence next to you made you momentarily tense – you had heard her approach, but her voice was so sharp that you shuddered.

“Well, well… I didn’t know we had a new recruit!”

“Hey, Sigrid.” you greeted with a wry smile.

“You seem like you know what you’re doing…” Sigrid spoke to 47, voice sickly sweet.

Agent 47 remained neutral. “Yeah. I transferred from Romania per experiment.”

“Romania… Interesting.” Sigrid twirled a lock of her black, dyed hair around her finger. “What’s your name, handsome?”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head as you turned to the training ground in order to put everything back in place.

“Tobias Rieper.”

“How wonderful to meet you, Toby! My name is Sigrid Andres. I originate from Finland. They had me transfer here ten years ago when (Y/n) and her brother proved not strong enough. And now I need to fill in for even more empty space, since he died and all.”

Your body immediately tensed up even more than it had before – anger swelled in your chest and you had to resist the urge to punch her in her face. “Otherwise, (Y/n) wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the work Mr Howard throws her way. She’s a bit slow, if I’m honest. I believe it’s… A family trait.”

Agent 47 replied: “I’m sure that she can manage just fine on her own. She is a very capable Assassin.”

Your humourless smile was rueful and you fought the tears blurring your vision, turning to Sigrid.

“You, of all people, have the least right to speak ill to my family after everything you’ve done.”

Your voice was sharp like a blade and contained unspoken fury.

“Go take a chill pill, (Y/n). You seem a bit agitated. You should get yourself checked out because you’ve been acting strange lately.”

A scoff built in your throat and came out louder than intended. You poked a gloved finger at her forehead, pushing her back. “A  chill pill , is that what the teenagers are saying these days?”

“Not keeping up with modern-day media, old nag?”

“Want me to break your nose again?” you proposed with a scowl.

Sigrid turned away from you and towards Agent 47.

“You’re wasting your time, handsome… Come train with me instead. (Y/n) is an amateur. Perhaps I can show you a few… Massage techniques while cooling down. The showers are very spacious.”

She smiled, disgustingly sure of herself and her caked-on beauty.

“I’m not interested.” 47 deadpanned.

“I’m sure you will be eventually, handsome. All the men around here long for a taste of Sigrid and you’ll soon find out why…” She bit her bottom lip, winking at him. “Hope to see you around.”

She swayed her hips with every step of her departure, attempting to be sexy and hoping to hold his attention. You facepalmed, sighing deeply.

“Sorry about that. She’s always like that.”

Agent 47 hummed, looking at you, blinking a few times. “I figured that you didn’t really like each other.”

You laughed humourlessly, scowling. “That won’t even start to describe it. I loathe her.”

Pacing over to one of the dummies, you continued tidying up the training floor.

“We need to brainstorm a technique. We have a few more days to prepare, so I suggest we meet later, after washing up.”

The idea of taking off the tight training outfit was liberating to 47. “Sure.” he agreed, following you to the locker room. Gathering your belongings, you looked at him. “I always shower in my own quarters, and I suggest head for your own. The young recruits always shower here after training or school, and trust me, you don’t want to know how much hair is clogging those drains.”

You halted at the flight of stairs – one went up, where he had to go, and one went down, where your quarters were. “Meet me here at eleven-thirty.” you said.

“Noted.” Agent 47 said, ascending up the stairs to the room he had been assigned.

You went down to your quarters, rushing over to your bedroom to take a clean set of clothes.

Since you were one of the top-tier Assassins of the Brotherhood, you had been given private living quarters. It resembled more of a dorm, with just a few basic pieces of furniture and a small bathroom on the side. The kitchen area was adjacent to it, shared with a few other staff-members. The lower ranked members, like Sebastian, Miranda and Sigrid, had to deal with shared bedrooms.

Taking a lukewarm shower, you cooled down your body, scolding yourself for not taking enough time to do a real cooling down while in the training area. The whole run-in with Sigrid had you on edge and you wanted nothing more than to relax. Sighing, you washed up quickly until all sweat had made place for the soft rosy scent of your soap.

Your casual attire was fairly simple, and you threw your hair into a bun. Knowing that it was warm outside, you put sandals on your feet.

“Hey (Y/n).” Sebastian greeted. “Care to have lunch with us?”

Miranda and he sat at the kitchen table, a whole tray of sandwiches in front of them.

“It’s not like we can finish all of these on our own.” Miranda tried to convince you.

You smiled and shook your head. “No, thank you. I need to go upstairs, I have some unfinished business.”

After taking two sandwiches and stuffing them into a brown paper bag, Sebastian threw himself into the doorframe you were about to walk through.

“(Y/n)!” he said with feign hurt. “Won’t you tell us about that new Assassin, the transfer from Romania?”

“What about him?”

“Well,” Seb continued, “You and him seemed to have fun during training.”

You shrugged. “You probably read in the report that it’s an experiment. We need to observe each other the next few weeks. Also, why were you watching me during my training? Actually, don’t answer that. I need to file a report about this first training, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Brushing past a protesting Sebastian, you made your way to the hall where you had agreed to meet Agent 47. He wore a black suit combined with a red tie, the one you had seen him in during your first encounter.

“You may dress more casually outside of mission and training, Agent 47.”

He blinked. “I prefer this outfit.”

“Alright, your loss. It’s searingly hot during this time of day. Follow me.”

You lead him through a few halls, going through several doors and finally, ascending a ladder.

“Where are we going?” he quizzed.

“The roof.” you said, “Come on.”

Pushing open the trapdoor, you climbed through with 47 following closely.

The sun stung immediately and you worried that Agent 47 might get terribly sunburnt, opting for a place in the shade, against a broken air-conditioning unit.

47 stared at you for a second as you sat down, opening the small box you were holding.

“Sit down.” you urged, patting on the spot next to you. “Trust me, you’d rather eat lunch here than downstairs. Sebastian won’t stop talking.”

“Sebastian?”

“My friend. Come on, sit. If we’re not allowed to kill each other, let me at least try to become your acquaintance.”

A bit hesitant, Agent 47 took the place next to you and you held out a sandwich. He looked at it for a few seconds. “I don’t really eat all that much.”

“It’s just one sandwich. It’s good, take it.” you said, “You need to eat. Muscle building and all.”

He took it, and for a minute, you sat eating in silence, looking over the scenery of Jerusalem.

“Beautiful city, isn’t it?” you commented, immediately unsure if 47 would find beauty in such things.

Gesturing towards a spot in the distance, you explained. “See the golden dome? That’s the Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount. Well, a mount… It’s more of a hill, really, compared to the rest of the city. Gorgeous building, especially if the sun shines on it. Behind it, not in our sights, is the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

“I believe the Wailing Wall is near there, too.” 47 added.

“Correct.” you said, “The epicenter of Judaism. There’s very strict security around all of those places.”

You shifted, finishing your sandwich, wiping the crumbs off your hands.

“Jerusalem is the epicentre of religion and politics. I can’t think of another city deemed this holy by so many cultures. I sometimes wonder how it is, though. To be able to hold onto something divine.”

47 hummed to acknowledge that he had heard you, though not certain of what to make of the comment.

“But it makes for a great cover-up, too. I don’t believe any other city is as strictly guarded as Jerusalem. Guards on every corner and in between. Tension.”

You rubbed your chin thoughtfully.

“Inside the walls the religions tolerate each other provided that they all stay in their own quarter for as far as they can, and then, only to a certain degree. Outside of here, however, they’d kill each other in a heartbeat. You’d be good to stick to my side. I know this place like the back of my hand. It’s my turf.”

Agent 47 huffed. “Still, you hadn’t noticed me roaming about those days?”

You rolled your eyes. “I have superiors who handle things like that. I just do the field work. A bit like you, actually. You take the ICA’s orders. Or your Handler’s.”

He was silent, staring at the distance. The sound of civilization was drowned out by the distance you had from it, the noise of cars honking only faint. The mosque’s call for prayer was audible from far away.

“We’re not alike.” 47 said. “I’m genetically modified.”

“You go by the name of Agent 47. Where does that come from? What’s your real name?”

“I was born at the hands of a man named Ort-Meyer, and he gave me that name. Five men funded his project with both money and their DNA in order to create a superior army of killers. The Five Fathers, they’re called. I’m one of many clones, several types before me. Needless to say, it didn’t succeed, since I’m here, and I’m the only one left.”

Your heart climbed into your throat. “You… You really have no name, then?”

He shook his head.

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to be done about it.”

You folded your hands on your lap.

“When I was a teenager, I was briefly informed of rival organizations. The ICA, the Magpies, the Guild of Apache… We never learned about Ort-Meyer, though. We were always told that we were the ones in the right, at all times. Our motto is after all, ‘we work in the dark to serve the light’. But I still believe in what I serve is the truth.”

Looking over your shoulder, you eyed 47. “You, however, are void of emotion, are you not? Just what I heard from the rumours about you.”

“More or less.” 47 said.

“Do you stand for whom you serve? I know you’d die for the cause, but do you know  why you would?”

Agent 47 looked at you, narrowing his eyes. “They give me purpose. I owe them that much.”

You shook your head. “No, 47, I don’t think so. What I think is… That you know nothing else. You were created to be a killing machine and that’s all you’ll ever know how to do. Also a bit like me.”

His jaw tensed and you stared at him for a moment before continuing, “I was created to be a killing machine, too. Born from the seed of one of the Masters, born out of my father’s love for my mother, but still, in the end, it was planned out for me. I knew how to kill before I knew how to speak. It is all I’ve ever known, and I will never know anything else. Outside of this, I’d be lost, like an orphan abandoned at the side of the road in the slums.”

You stood up, dusting down your pants before grabbing the paper bag you had brought with you, shaping it into a ball. You pressed it against you, feeling the sun in your face as you eyed 47. He still sat on the ground, gaze fixated upon you.

“It might seem miles off, but you and I are alike.”

When he didn’t reply, you started to walk away towards the door again.

Upon hearing footsteps behind you, you halted, smiling a little before casting a look over your shoulder.

“I need to know more about the Brotherhood of Assassins.”

You hummed.  “I can tell you more. But under one condition.”

“And that is?” he quizzed.

“I want to learn more about you.” you said.

“There’s not much to tell.” was his answer.

“Then tell me everything there is to tell.”

He gave you a small nod. With that, you headed back inside.

[newsiegirlscout]

Bar-Lover’s Fortnight: Thanksgiving Dinner, let’s goooo!!! 

Once again, this features the highlight of platonic love and nothing else; today, it features. Relentless storge. Everyone loves Barley, including the person reading this! 

Cheers to @thederpyhipster for hosting the event!

Barley stopped abruptly, dusting the flour from his hands on his apron. 

“Absolutely not.” he said. 

“Please, boys…” Laurel pleaded with a small, sad, smile, “I know you three haven’t had the best history, and I won’t say this will end all of that, but...it would be a nice start.” 

“It’s not...it’s not that.” Ian interjected quietly, resting his spoon on top of the salad bowl, “Mom, Thanketh-Giving’s always been about family….Lightfoot family. Maybe one day, Colt can be a part of that, but, you know…” he shook his hand waveringly side-to-side, “He’s got his own thing. Besides, we’re not….not really supposed to have people over, y’know?” 

“Ian…” she sighed, “He spent most of lockdown with us. If he’s not family now, I don’t know when he will be; I won’t ask you to take him in, or be his best friends, but please, would you be willing to try your best?”

The younger Lightfoot brother sighed deeply, but nodded. Barley, on the other hand, glared down at the kitchen counter. 

“Fine.” he said finally, softly, “Tell him not to ticket GWNIVR2”. 

Ian returned to seasoning the salad, failing to suppress his snorts of laughter. “Tshh--that’s a hard reflex for him.” 

“Right?” the older countered, rolling another Lembas bun, “Parking violation: Ah don’t know, but knowin’ Barley, it’s somethin’.”

“Disturbing the peace, probably.” Ian joked, “Peace of mind, at least.”

Barley laughed. “Given how much he likes to talk, I’d expect a lonnng sentence.” 

“Nope, nope, nope.” Ian laughed, cuffing his brother on the shoulder, “That joke is too terrible, I’m locking you up right now.” 

As her sons bantered, Laurel slid the phoenix into the oven and reached for her cell phone. 

--The boys said yes...they won’t say it, but I think they’d love to see you

The “typing” signal looped, in short constants followed by long silences, as if the recipient were starting over or thinking about what to say, before the response chimed. 

~~Don’t tell them under oath of silence, but I’d be glad to see them too. 

*******************************************************************************************

Though it wasn’t the first time either of the brothers Lightfoot had seen their mom’s fiance in a suit, it still registered as a mild shock every time. 

What was really new, however, was the gentle expression of sincerity he wore as he presented the baked confection in both hands, looking almost….shy, somehow. 

“Saluta’tions.” he greeted, still as boisterous as ever, “Ah wasn’t sure if any of you’d ever tried it before, so this ‘ere’s honeysuckle-lavender pie--” 

“Traditional centaur dessert.” Barley finished, a smile lighting up his face, “The notorious favorite of Trophonius.” It was subtle, but Ian noticed his brother’s smile was fake in just the tiniest detail, but...it was nothing. He’d live. 

“Ee-yup.” Colt said proudly. “Oh, an’ Barley, Manticore sent these…” he turned, displaying the weighted saddlebags on his sides as he started withdrawing covered dishes, “Said she wanted to thank you for helping out at the restaurant.” 

Ian’s eyes widened as he looked at the dishes. “What? Dude!” 

Barley chuckled, but something about it was disheartened. “Yeah, moved a few orders when she was short-staffed. Something to do, I guess.”

“Barley, man, she must have loved you--what is this, a hero’s feast?” 

Laurel chose that moment to walk in, intending to greet her fiance and instead being frozen in her path seeing the pies. After a second or two of silence, she looked at her son, then to the desserts again. The eldest flushed a light shade of lavender, then stacked the cheerfully-labeled dishes in the refrigerator. 

“Well, tell her I said thanks.” he said conversationally, “Never too much pie, so….nice to get an appreciation like that. Ian, y’wanna see if we can’t find the old game board?” 

“Oh! Ah, sure!” he said, and just like that, the boys were gone. 

Laurel wrung out her teatowel over the sink, made a start towards cleaning the counters. 

“No magic in the house!” she called after them, but softer,  towards Colt, “Barley found Quests of Yore when he was eleven--Ian didn’t quite understand it, but he wanted to play with his big brother and Barley was more than willing to try and teach him. He didn’t quite pick up on stats, but he liked the story, so they made up a game where they could follow a campaign and act however they wanted...still have some of the old characters they drew somewhere.” 

Colt moved beside her, made a start on washing the pans in the sink. “Mm-hmm?” 

“Yeah.” she said softly, almost nostalgically, “They didn’t get to play as often since Bar started high school, but they always play it on Thanketh-Giving and Yuletide. I remember….there was one guy, a rogue with a...I wanna say it was stealth bonus, but if he rolled too high, the opponent would forget they were there.”  

“Did you ever play?” 

“Once or twice. They never forgot a character, so Mom-adriel is still running Dragon Bento somewhere.” 

The centaur washed the dishes in silence.

*******************************************************************************************

“Barley, dude, what’s your deal?” Ian asked quietly as they rummaged through the chest for the since-discarded Quests of Yore figurines. 

The elder stopped, tugged off his beanie and ran his fingers through his hair. 

“Lots of things, alright, Ian?”

“No, with Colt, I mean….I know, it’s weird, but..he’s not that bad a guy.” 

“Ian, I could win a Nobel Peace prize right now and he’d still think I’m a lost cause. He told me when I was fourteen that I’d end up exiled.” 

“Hmm.” Ian sighed, disappointedly, “Well, he’s...he’s trying to be cool. Plus, we crushed his car under a landslide that one time, so….” 

“So we’ll be ‘cool’ to him, but we’re just not ending up buddies--not unless he wants to come up here, himself, and make an effort. No matter how the mead flows, it’s never enough to forget.” 

The sound of footsteps--no, hoofsteps--thumped on the stairs, and Barley could hardly say he was surprised to open the door to Colt Bronco. 

But softly, sincerely, he bowed as well as a centaur could to the boys. 

“Do you have room for one more in your game?” he asked. 

The elder Lightfoot cocked an eyebrow; Ian silently pleaded with his brother, widening his eyes and raising his head. 

“Tally-ho, good sir! There is always room for one more on a campaign!” Barley announced, leading him in, “Take your place at the table, Sir Iandore will teach you our ways!” 

*******************************************************************************************

Colt was bad. Really bad. 

The path was endless, with no exit to be seen; after walking in loops for a minute or so, Ian cast the Flying Skull cantrip, allowing a flying skull illusion to go wherever he directed it and see through its eyes. Each one, successfully, found the exit, yet the same was not to be seen as the players approached it. 

Colt left a silver coin every league; the exit was not to be seen. 

All the rope gained from the previous battle was led out to see if the ends formed a loop; they did not. 

Ian sighed deeply. 

“I’m casting mage hand to carry Colt wherever the flying skulls are going.” 

The centaur protested, but upon successful roll, he soon realized what his fiance’s son had thirty minutes ago: 

The solution to the maze was only visible upon not touching the floor.

*******************************************************************************************************

“The Gelatinous Cube approaches!”

“.....I attack.”

Barley winced. 

********************************************************************************************************

“The dragon lies ahead, keeping watch over their horde. Behind them, you see the Princess Unattainabelle’s sword bolting the door behind them; the princess herself is nowhere in sight. They have yet to spot you; what do you do?” 

Colt tossed the dice in his hands, weighing the options. “Ian?” 

Ian shrugged. “A….a non-violent approach, maybe?”

“We roll to seduce the dragon.” 

The younger elf’s eyes widened, but Barley chuckled. “Sure! Roll away, good sir!” 

The clock ticked. 

The air was still. 

The dice rolled. 

Nat forty-six.

The elder Lightfoot’s eyes widened the same, until finally, he spoke. 

“The dragon falls forever in love with Denryx the Second; they return to their form as the lost satyr princess, and their horde and kingdom is willingly bequeathed to you.” 

“Well, lookit that.” Colt said with a self-satisfied knicker of laughter, “We won!” 

Just then, the scent of richly-flavored smoke reached them; Ian’s cheers ended abruptly with a laugh as he reached the door. “C’mon!!”

********************************************************************************************************

The roast phoenix’s flames blazed, then subsided in a waltz of luminescence; the bird itself was beautifully cooked. The fire extinguisher came to rest on the table, unused; Blazey scrambled up Colt’s barrel before he nabbed her in one hand and shook his head, relenting regardless to pet her head. 

Lightfoot tidings were less spoken aloud than internally, but voiced all the same; by fate or fair fortune, anyone looking upon the scene would have seen the glow of contentment on Laurel’s face, her thankfulness for her sons and fiance, her health, and most of all, her kitchen. (There had been a few scorch marks from less successful Thanketh-Givings past).

In the overtones of sincere love in Colt’s laugh, he was thankful more than anything for the same; for Lightfoot traditions past and present, and though he wouldn’t say it outright, for Ian and Barley and the shenanigans that had always been the talk of the station. 

For Ian, his thanks lay mostly in contentment with the way things were looking to be; for his mom continuing to be as supportive as ever, for a world that never lost its magic, and for a brother he’d always had. 

But for Barley? 

Everything.

For Thanketh-Givings past and fure, for the appreciation given by those who didn’t know how much it meant, for the way Colt was genuinely trying, for all magic and mayhem yet to come, and just....to the spirit of being. 

Barley Lightfoot didn’t know it, but at that moment, he was the happiest person in New Mushroomtown.

[harmonyandco]

Death eaters were dying. They weren’t being spent on his goals, they were having very suspicious “accidents.” “Catastrophes.” Apparently being “randomly” targeted in “violent acts.”

In short, the self styled dark lord was losing his minions to activities that his minions should be performing. Not falling victim to. Worse, he had no idea who or what was getting them. Possible leads vaporized like smoke in the dark of a new moon. On the surface, the war was going extremely well for his side. He outright controlled the ministry, Severus had controlled Hogwarts, now the Carrows did...but they suspected McGonagall held the wards. When Severus died she also disappeared. One of their spies had tailed her to the seventh floor where she vanished and hadn’t been seen since. But the school itself wasn’t cooperating. The daily prophet and WWN were mere mouthpieces for he and his minions...and yet a full 50% of his marked forces were either dead or had vanished. Not ran, he would know thorough their marks. They were gone. He fully suspected they were dead, but had no evidence beyond suspicions. When he first noticed his agents were going quiet he thought that the Order and/or Potter had gotten lucky a few times. But as his losses mounted at an alarming rate he knew there was a new player on the field. One he didn’t even have a name of. Death eaters were afraid to walk down Knockturn Alley! They owned that alley for longer than their movement had existed, and somehow, now, if they were in the open their heads may explode without an apparent curse having been fired. Fenrir went that way when he thought to make an example of a child that had ventured too near the Diagon Alley entrance. Others were found dead in the shadows without a mark upon them beyond a look on their face of surprise or shock. Initially the killing curse was suspected but St Mungos said they, to a man, had had their necks expertly broken. They weren’t all even in their Death Eater garb. The Parkinson matriarch was last seen in an evening gown for a ministry gala. Poof. Gone. Severus was killed in an apparent dragon attack through the window of the headmasters office. But nobody saw or even heard a dragon. But what else could burn that hot? He had to find out what was going on. And soon. The true scope of the losses only he knew but it was getting hard to conceal. Only their fear of his wrath has kept them from asking too many questions.

It reminded him of events from September of ‘79 to his unfortunate sabbatical in October of ‘81. By all appearances the war was going well then too. The light thought that they were on the ropes. But his forces were being worn far too thin by eerily similar occurrences. He had to track this menace down.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

From her “nest” in a bell tower 2000 yards from Knockturn Alley, Emma Granger quietly cleaned her rifle and contemplated the last year. Her husband Dan was quietly making his way back after dispatching his last two “appointments” for the day. Their having “awoken” from an unscheduled vacation in Melbourne has thrown both of them for a loop. For all their Spec-ops training they were both blindsided by their own daughter erasing their memory. They hadn’t seen it coming at all. Apparently they’d been living the life of a pair of mild-mannered dentists for a couple of months already when a routine medical exam to her brought it all rushing back when the couple was asked about her internal scarring and if she had lost the baby. The 17 year old girl that they’d forgotten they had. Now, they had no idea where she was, but within 24 hours of recovering their memories they were back in country and were put in touch with the M division of the Organization and soon were looking at case files that both thought they’d put to rest 18 years ago. Three times this Riddle guy had nearly killed them both. Three times they’d defied the odds. The first they both believed to be random chance. After that they were on his radar and he didn’t like to miss. The last time had nearly caused Emma to miscarry, giving birth to Hermione nearly a week and a half early instead of the end of September. They started this campaign of eradicating him and his followers then until Halloween of ‘81 when Emma managed to put a bullet through his head as he stood in a nursery in Wales. She couldn’t get a shot before he’d killed two more victims that night. The only strange thing was the green flash she’d seen in her scope as her bullet made the journey. Seconds later his heat signature was just gone. Not on the floor and cooling as the adults were. Gone. She and Dan had been read in on the magical world that night. But since it wasn’t their area, they didn’t work it. Until now. Their daughter and future son-in-law Harry were right in the middle of this mess and both had disappeared. And Dan and Emma were going to find them. And soon.

A Thermite RPG into the headmasters office of the school killed Snape.

After the parents find the kids-The Horcrux in Bellatrix’s vault the goblins refuse to “help” with...they won’t let anyone not authorized into another customers vault. But they can certainly give a tour to potential customers. And if potential customers happen to be informed where Bella’s vault is for targeting information and it gets hit with a bunker-buster dropped through Borgin and Burke’s thereby incinerating the contents and melting them into a pile of slag that the goblins have really no problem recasting into coin... well so be it.

Yes. This long winded thing is a prompt. Sorry it’s so long. Use none of it. Use part of it. Use all of it. I don’t care, it just struck me today and I had to share it. Basically, Hermione (as in Canon) wants to protect her parents and Bolivia tea them and sends them away. She it basically the daughter in the movie “True Lies” and has no idea who her parents really are or what they’re capable of. September is the 7th month of the Roman calendar and I think I also came up with enough to throw the prophecy into ambiguity that it could even be Hermione that is the chosen one. And NOBODY knows it.

Have fun with it.

submitted by @harmonyeveryday