#playing as rivulet is a joy and going through all the areas

[foxstens]

finished rivulet

[summer-fun-swim]

The golden hour cast a warm glow over the city, but inside the luxurious hotel, the ambiance was different. The indoor pool area was a world apart, a sanctuary of tranquility contrasted against the bustling city beyond the glass walls. The sound of water gently lapping against the pool edges filled the space, punctuated occasionally by the laughter of young guests enjoying their evening.

Among them was a group of four friends: Ken, Danny, Philip, and Erik. At eighteen, they were on the brink of becoming young adults, though they still embraced their childhood with a kind of carefree exuberance. Their laughter echoed through the high-ceilinged space, bouncing off the tiled walls, and creating a sense of intimacy in their shared adventure.

Ken, the instigator of the group, stood at the shallow end of the pool, water lapping at his ankles. His brown hair glistened under the soft, diffused light, droplets forming rivulets as they slid down his forehead. He wore a snug navy blue swim trunk that contrasted sharply with his sun-kissed skin. The fabric clung to his thighs, a blend of material that shimmered as he stepped back and soaked in the buoyancy of the water.

“Come on, you guys! Don’t be wimps! Jump in!” Ken called, an excited grin on his face.

Danny, hesitating by the pool steps, adjusted his glasses, which were slightly askew from the humidity. He wore a bright red swim shirt that hugged his frame tightly, the fabric so vibrant it seemed to glow in the soft light. As he stepped into the water, the shirt became translucent, revealing the dark outline of his swim trunks beneath. The water embraced him, sending a shiver through him that turned his reluctant grin into a laugh.

Philip was next; he had a laid-back demeanor, often the quiet observer of the group. He wore a pair of patterned board shorts, their earthy tones blending with the shimmering blue of the pool. As he dove into the water, his t-shirt immediately soaked through, clinging to his lean torso. The fabric turned dark and heavy, accentuating his athletic build as he surfaced—water cascading off him like glittering jewels.

“Not bad, right?” Philip called, enjoying the playful splashes while shaking his head like a dog, sending droplets flying everywhere.

Erik, the last to make a move, had been watching with an amused smile. His swim shorts were a muted green, the color reminiscent of a forest after rain. He often sported a serious demeanor, but the atmosphere of the hotel pool had pulled him in. He took a deep breath, summoning his courage. With a playful flair, he sprinted toward the edge, leaping into the air in a perfect cannonball. The splash sent waves racing across the surface, and for a brief moment, the sound of laughter and splashes filled the air like music.

As they all floated and splashed, the water formed an ethereal scene around them. The coolness enveloped their bodies, contrasting with the warm air above. They spent the next hour playing games, a mix of tag and diving competitions, their laughter melding with the echo of water.

At one point, Philip performed an impressive flip into the water, eliciting cheers and hollers from his friends. When he emerged, his t-shirt clung to his skin, the weight of it evident as he wiped water from his face. The way the shirt clung to his body, highlighting every contour, made him look strikingly cool and confident.

“Nice one!” Ken called out, giving Philip a playful shove as he floated nearby. Danny, meanwhile, was trying to stay afloat while maintaining his glasses, which were now slightly foggy.

“Hey, someone help me!” Danny exclaimed, half laughing as he trying to clear his glasses underwater only to bring them back up, the fog still refusing to budge.

Ken chuckled and swam toward him, grabbing Danny’s shoulders and shaking him lightly. “Let it go, man! Just enjoy the moment!”

The group exchanged playful insults and cheers as they continued to play. Time slipped away unnoticed, lost in the joy of youth, laughter, and the shared spirit of adventure. Each splash, each shout, blended together into a symphony of friendship.

As the sun began setting, the hotel pool took on a surreal quality. Underwater lights slowly illuminated the blue water, casting soft waves of color all around. The atmosphere transformed, becoming more intimate and dreamlike. The reflections on the tile floors danced, forming intricate patterns that added to their surreal experience.

Ken leaned back against the pool edge, letting the water support him. “Can we do this every summer?” he asked, looking up at the now-glowing panels above them. His voice was sincere, as if he were wishing to freeze this moment in time.

“Definitely,” Erik replied, tossing his hair back, droplets flying from his strands. “Let’s make a pact.”

Philip nodded while Danny adjusted his glasses again, this time fully aware that they bore the marks of a fun-filled adventure. “Agreed. But next time, we need to remember the towels. I’m freezing!”

Realizing how soaked they all were, they started climbing out of the pool, laughter ringing through the air, water cascading off their bodies like gemstones in a waterfall. As they stepped onto the tile floor, their wet clothes clung to them uncomfortably, but the chill of the air was refreshing, invigorating even.

They flopped down onto the lounge chairs surrounding the pool, still giggling. The reflections in the water were mesmerizing, a perfect metaphor for their youthful summers ahead—shimmering, unpredictable, and beautiful.

In that moment, amidst the laughter and shared glances, they knew this was just one of many evenings they would cherish. Their friendship, much like the water, would continue to flow, full of warmth, joy, and boundless adventures. And as night fell, they laid back, wet but carefree, under the soft glow of the pool lights, bound together by the magical memories they were creating.

[imastrangeone98]

Lost and Found - Chapter 12: Lady

(A/N: hello my non-existent fans! how was the last chapter you definitely didn’t read? so I put up a masterlist [finally] for my horrible page. also I decided to work on a story for my bnha idea, so if you’re a bnha fan maybe you can look forward to it??)

(fair warning- this and the next chapter are probably gonna be the longest)

TRIGGER WARNING: brief mention of cutting and suicide (please don’t do this to yourself- there are people that love and care about you- you are strong, never forget that)

ok some tips: normal means present events, italics mean memories, and bold means memory within the memory

Lady couldn’t tell how long she’d been wandering the darkness.

That, and the strangely crunchy ground under her feet, was the only thing that existed in what she called “The Center of God.” For a being made of light and goodness, His insides were black as pitch.

The only thing that cut through it was Dante’s flickering demonic energy, causing his body to pulse with red light. But it was hopelessly faint, and would fizzle out from time to time, causing the blackness to surround them once more.

It didn’t help that he was currently sobbing his heart out, causing the already-weak light to die more frequently.

Lady knew she wasn’t the best at words at times. She wanted to comfort her grieving companion, but the reassurance died in her throat each time she thought about her.

Faith. Her friend.

She just... dissolved. A shower of gold that couldn’t be put back together no matter how hard they tried.

No more long walks through the meadow. No more conversations about life and joy. No more stargazing on the beach. No more shopping sprees. No more photo booths.

No more Faith.

A lump formed in her throat. Unshed tears stung her eyes. She raised a hand to swipe them away-

A bright diamond-like star briefly hung in the air seconds after Faith dissolved. Lady reached for it, fingers barely grazing it-

Her eyes widened. “Dante.”

She turned around to notice him hiccuping on the ground. He hadn’t heard her.

She kneeled next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dante. Listen to me. I have an idea.”

He heaved another breath, his bare chest briefly glowing with dim light before disappearing, plunging them back into darkness.

“Dante. Breathe.”

“She’s gone, Lady,” he choked out. He sucked in another shaky breath. “She’s gone! I- I’m not gonna see her again, I-“

“Maybe there’s a way. Just hear me out.” She waited a bit for his breaths to at least slow down before continuing. “When she dissolved, there were those weird sparks that came out, right? I... I managed to touch one before it flew off. And I saw-“ Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “I saw her memories. I think.”

That clearly got his attention. His whimpers died down to sniffles, and he shifted, causing the ground to crackle. “Her memories?”

“Yeah. At least, I think so. She was holding someone and- and crying. There was a lot of blood, too. I think I saw something from her past.”

For a moment, everything was silent except for the faint screams of pain in the distance.

“They were scattered,” Lady said, the idea in her head already solidifying. “What if we could find them? Bring them back together? If there’s a chance that her body could be restored-“

Dante suddenly shushed her. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Screaming. Lots of it.” His body flickered once more, illuminating the darkness; it was much brighter than before, which relieved her. “It- it sounds like Faith.”

She closed her eyes, focusing in on the sounds. For a second, she didn’t hear anything.

Then- a painful wail erupted in the distance, followed by another, and another, and another-

“Sounds like a lot of voices,” Lady murmured. “What could it be?”

“This, maybe.”

She turned to Dante, who was holding, in his hands, a skull.

A human skull.

“What the fuck?!” She scrambled away from it, and her hands scraped on something hard. Lots of hard things.

“Bones,” he spat, his blue eyes flickering with red. “Nephilim bones.”

“We need to hurry,” Lady declared, all too eager to jump from the ground and brush off the bone dust. “If we can find those shards, maybe we can find a way to put her back together.”

“Let’s split up. It’ll be faster.” He stood up, glancing behind him. “Before we fell, I thought I saw one of them go that way.” He turned around and pointed in that direction. “I’ll head there.”

Lady thought it was a bad idea to split up, especially in an area where neither could see and weren’t familiar with. But with the desperation clear in his eyes, she knew she couldn’t debate with him.

“Alright. Then I’ll check out the other side. Maybe we can meet up at the...” She looked over at the general location of the screaming. “...Wherever that is.”

Dante nodded. “Yeah. See you soon.” He dashed off into the darkness, the light fading into the distance.

She sighed, and (hopefully) turned in her chosen direction. “Okay, Faith. Where are you?”

[...]

She found three pieces.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to find them. But the memories that came with them...

She stared at the three glimmering shards in her palm. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost feel the raw pain emanating from them-

She dropped to her knees. Memories of the boy getting shot, of the old man in the crash, of the screaming-

Her grip on the shards tightened. The whispers died down.

How do you live with this? she couldn’t help but think. How do you deal with this pain every single day?

The shards didn’t reply.

Lady stood up again on shaking legs and began trekking, keeping an open ear towards the screams. She could tell that she was running out of time, and she still needed to find her last shard.

But it took about an hour before she found it. Floating atop a large pile of bones; she winced each time she took a step.

As she approached it, she noticed that it’s light was growing dimmer, as if-

As if the life in it was being leeched out.

Eyes widening, she hurriedly reached out to grab the shard-

She stood in front of a little alleyway. The sky was pitch black, no stars to be seen. The lamppost above her shone with an orangey light, painting everything in a strange, fluorescent hue.

Through the light, she saw a faint shadow huddled in a corner near the trash cans. Soft whispers and sniffles grazed her ears.

The closer Lady got, the more she noticed- the faint smell of iron in the smoggy air, the wet cement under her feet...

The shadowy figures took the form of children. Two little girls, probably no more than the age of seven. One lay on the ground while the other- a younger Faith- kneeled over her, whispering something that Lady couldn’t quite make out. She was sweeping something towards the resting one, cupping whatever it was into her hands and pouring it onto the other’s-

Wrists. Bleeding wrists.

The liquid that dripped from her hands was dyed red.

Lady stumbled backwards, phasing through a dumpster. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs forgot how to function. She just sat there, helpless, watching with stunned horror as the girl desperately tried to save her doomed friend.

“Have you ever lost someone?” Faith had asked her once, during their walk through the forest.

Lady had found a hiking trail relatively close to the shop, and had invited her to come along. They sat together on a log, watching the birds fly past and make nests.

“...My mom,” she replied, fingering the pendant at her throat. “And a friend of mine, once- when I was younger. Suicide.”

Faith nodded. She was quite for a moment, then said, “I understand.”

She didn’t say more. She didn’t need to. Lady was grateful.

Deep down, she knew- had always known- that Faith understood better than anyone.

And now, Lady saw why Faith understood.

And as she tried to revive her friend, carefully scooping up blood and willing it to re-enter her dead friend’s body, she fought the urge to throw up.

But she didn’t look away. Couldn’t look away. It was as if time stood still, frozen in an eternal loop of never-ending fear and hopeless wishing.

Perhaps it did.

It was only when the blood began to spill to the floor in rivulets that Little Faith began to cry.

“Please don’t go,” she wailed. “Please don’t leave.”

“Please don’t go,” Lady- Mary- sobbed, clutching her cold friend’s body to her chest. “Please don’t leave.”

“It’s my fault,” Little Faith said through heaving breaths. “It’s all my fault, so wake up... Blame me and wake up...”

Lady’s hands clenched.

“No...” she whispered, staggering to her feet. “No, don’t...”

She stumbled towards them. Almost immediately, the world began to spin. The edges of her vision turned white.

“Wait!” Lady nearly lost her balance, and she tried to run towards the children. They only slipped farther away. “Wait!”

They didn’t wait. And neither did the world.

Everything spun out of focus.

And her eyes saw nothing but white.

Her hands still shook. Her legs were weak.

But then she blinked, and her breath- once more- got caught in her lungs.

Sitting with her back turned... was Faith.

“Faith!” Lady sprinted towards her and fell to her knees, placing her hands on her shoulders. “Are you alright? I got your memories; do you feel better?”

Silence responded.

“Faith?”

“...Riley.”

She froze.

“Her name was Riley. She loved to sing. I played for her a lot. She always brought snacks and shared them with me.” Faith gazed at her hands- unstained, untainted. “I killed her. I watched her blood slip away through my fingers.”

Lady stared at the ground. Words formed in her mouth, but they turned to stone the moment she tried to speak. “I...”

“I killed my friend. I killed all of my friends.” She buried her face in her hands. “They were right. I’m a monster.”

I’m a monster.

She gritted her teeth. “No, you’re not. It wasn’t your fault, Faith- it was never your fault!”

A sob escaped Faith’s chest. “Then why do I lose them?! Why do they always go away?! I try so hard to make them happy, and they always leave! They go away, and I’m...” Tears streaked her cheeks. The scars on her body began to glow- as if the spirits residing in them were growing upset. “I’m still here. They’re gone, and I’m still alive.”

Lady didn’t know how to answer. What could she say?

“...They’re still here, aren’t they?”

“...What?”

“Your friends. Your loved ones.” She placed a hand on shoulder, gently nudging her friend towards her. “They’re still with you. They never left. Even when they could, they stayed by your side.”

Faith’s scars glowed, a tad brighter than before. She ran her hands over her arms.

“They were good people,” she murmured. “Like you. And it’s good people that I always get killed.”

“I won’t die. You could never kill me, Faith. Never.”

Finally, she looked up- her golden eyes shone with tears. “I lose everyone. I don’t want to lose you.”

Lady smiled; the words finally came to her. “You won’t lose me. I promise.”

“How do you know that?”

She gripped Faith’s hands in her own, giving them a light squeeze. “You’ll have to trust me. Do you?”

Her response was immediate: “Of course.”

“Then trust that you won’t lose me. And I give you my word that no matter what happens, I’ll stay by your side.”

She sniffled. “Until the end?”

Lady gave her a grin. “Until the end.”

And when they hugged, she felt relieved at how warm- how alive her friend felt.

...She couldn’t stop herself, even if she tried. 

When she buried her face in Faith’s shoulder, she immediately sunk her teeth into the skin. 

Faith didn’t seem to mind. Her hand was soft when it rested on Lady’s hair. Her lips moved, as if saying a prayer. 

A blessing. A promise.

[...]

Lady and Faith laid side by side on the ground, the former’s arms wrapped protectively around the latter.

Faith’s shoulder began to glow just a bit.

———————————————————————

A/N: holy shit! It’s done! Huzzah!!!! Fair warning- the next chapter will probably be just as long XD

Edit: read chapter 13! :D

[themadamelibrarian]

Adventures of Baby Castiel Chapters: 19 Fandom: Supernatural Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Gabriel (Supernatural), Castiel, Lucifer (Supernatural), Michael, Chuck-God, Anael Additional Tags: Big Brother Gabriel, Baby Castiel, Angst (the parts will be warned in the title)

Summary: Angels are not born but they come into being as small creatures, just like humans. And someone has to guide them. 

Share this story and show support for the creator!  The Littlest Angel and The Messenger The day Gabriel first held Castiel in his arms was anything short of miraculous. The last Angel to be created in heaven and he was perfect in Gabriel’s eyes, with his white fluffy wings that would gain color after the first molt. And those blue eyes, like the clearest, deepest ocean, Gabriel had never seen eyes like those in an angel. Gabriel couldn’t be more enamored of this small being if he’d sprung from his own loins.

“Don’t worry, Little one. I’ll teach you all the best games. And just you wait until you can fly. We’ll be unstoppable.” 

BIRB “BIRB!” was Castiel’s first word, much to Gabriel’s chagrin. The archangel had been trying to get the fledgling to say ‘angel’. Shaking his head, Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “No, Cassie. We aren’t birds, we’re Angels..can you say that? Angels.” he reaches out and wiggles one of Cas’ wings. The baby looked at his brother in consternation before blurting out “BIRB!” Shaking his head, Gabriel picks his little brother up and wraps his smaller of the three sets of wings around them. “Alright, Little Bird. Enough lessons for today,” he says as he reclines back for them to rest. Everything is quiet with the littlest angel curled up on his chest. This is until Castiel sits up straight and points right at Lucifer who is passing by and screams as loud as he can. “BIRB!”

Little Sneezes The first time Castiel’s grace manifests something from nothing, it’s a cloud of multi-colored bubbles. It’s a total accident and preceded by the tiniest high pitched sneeze, which Gabriel found both adorable and hilarious. The second time it happened, Castiel’s sneeze was louder and instead of bubbles, it was a shimmer of butterflies, much to the delight of the baby seriph. A couple of the small insects even stayed around and landed on Gabriel’s head like badly placed hair clips. The day Gabriel realized that it was time to train his little brother was when he sneezed six times in a row, effectively filling their nest with puppies, flopping fish and for some odd reason, taffies. 

Thumbs Aren’t Fashionable Castiel didn’t have many bad habits. At least none that weren’t expected of a fledgling who barely was a year old. But he had an infatuation with his thumb being in his mouth. Gabriel couldn’t figure it out, but he tried to get him to stop. Not successfully, but he tried. It’d gotten to the point that Castiel wouldn’t release the digit except to eat and even then you could see the deep consideration in his face. To uncork or to not uncork, that was the question. Gabriel even went so far as to try and consult with Raphael on the issue considering that his older brother was THE Archangel of Healing. Even Raphael’s suggestions didn’t work. Until one day, Gabriel introduced Castiel to a pacifier. The baby took to it immediately and totally forgot about his thumb. And if he got a few disapproving looks from Michael over the shape of the pacifier, he could care less. Seeing Cas with duck lips was just too funny to pass up. What Laughter Brings What most don’t realize is that a baby angel’s grace is the closest you can get to the raw energy of creation. That’s why older angels take great care in keeping outbursts from the fledglings as under control as possible. One misplaced tantrum could destroy a world that took eons to create. But Gabriel was not most angels and Castiel was a quiet, curious babe. Which did nothing but lull the Archangel into a false sense of security and he let his protective control of Castiel’s grace slip. The little angel was still quite small, in fact, he hadn’t even sprouted his wings yet. He would just lay content in the nest, gumming on a rattle as he silently watched his brother do various tasks. Gabriel turned to walk to the opposite side of the room when his foot caught in the rug and he fell ass over apple carts into a pile of feathers he’d saved from his last molting to line the nest. A spray of gold feathers shot into the air. Groaning Gabriel sat up with a loose feather sticking out of his hair like a chaotic crown. Castiel looks at the sight with wide eyes and a growing grin of amusement. Gabriel spits out a mouthful full of down with a small curse and Castiel erupts into a fit of giggles. The older angel glares at the baby, but it’s only half-hearted, as he rubs the feathers out of his hair. “Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?” Gabriel reaches over and runs his fingers along Castiel’s sides making them both erupt into laughter. Each of them feeding off the other’s joy. They keep on like this for several minutes, before Gabriel scoops him up. “Let’s go find something better to do than clean,” he says as he hugs him close to his chest. When Gabriel steps out of their nest, he stops short just at the threshold and stares open-mouthed at the rainforest surrounding them that hadn’t been there before. He looks down at Castiel and shakes his head with a chuckle. “Michael’s gonna kill me.” Who Needs A Teething Ring? A small whimper escapes from Castiel as he chews furiously on his fist, creating rivulets of drool that start to pool on a sleeping Gabriel’s chest. His brother shifts subtly under him but continues to sleep on. Trying to be the mediator between Michael and Lucifer was exhausting to the say the least, not to mention the debacle of Cas’ bath earlier. Castiel continues to chew on his chubby fingers until one of Gabriel’s wings shift around them, causing a feather to tickle across Castiel’s cheek. The little seraph stares at the errant feather for a moment before reaching out and grabbing it to drag it to his mouth. Wrapping his mouth around it, his gums work in an attempt to alleviate his discomfort. The trickle of grace that leaks through the feather manages to achieve his goal and he is lulled to sleep with a spit-soaked feather wedged in the corner of his mouth. Molting The first molts are always the worst, or so Gabriel had been warned. He personally couldn’t remember his nor had he really paid attention to other fledglings when they went through theirs. Now he wished he had. It all started with Castiel being crankier than usual. Not wanting to play and just generally being a grump when Gabriel tried to engage him. Then over the next few days it progressed to the point where all Castiel would do was lay curled up in a little ball, whimpering and hiccuping through his sobs. Gabriel tried singing to him and holding him, everything that was recommended by the few other angels he spoke to about it. He even went so far as to try and feed him a touch of his grace with disastrously messy results. After cleaning the nest up from the failed attempt at feeding an idea struck him. Castiel’s oil glands never produced much preen oil on their own and it’d made the task of caring for his wings a true chore. Gabriel could have smacked himself for not thinking of it sooner, his own oil. It couldn’t hurt even if it was generally frowned upon. To other angels, it was akin to using someone else’s toothbrush but at this point, Gabriel couldn’t care in the least. Settling down beside Castiel, he reaches back and massages his own glands until he had an ample amount running down his hand. With a touch that wouldn’t have disturbed dust, he runs his coated fingers through Castiel’s feathers. Taking great care in working the preening oil into the newly budding quills. When he was halfway through the first wing, Castiel’s whimpers tapered off and he turned his head to gaze up at his big brother to give him a faint wet-eyed smile. “Feeling better, Little Sparrow?” Gabriel softly inquires. Castiel lays his head on Gabriel’s bent knee and lets out a sigh of contentment, spreading his downy wings wide. Gabriel chuckles lightly as he watches the baby. “Don’t worry, Cas. I’ll figure things out eventually, even if we have to share toothbrushes along the way.” Fuzzy Bee He doesn’t know why he made the fluffy insectoid monstrosity for Castiel, but he did and now you couldn’t pry the stuffed animal from the hands of the fledgling if you used the strength of all of Heaven behind the proverbial crowbar. Castiel would drag the thing everywhere. To the garden, where he’d show ‘Fuzzy Bee’ the other bees in hopes he’d learn how to make honey or fly. He’d take it to the nursery area where he was supposed to play with other small angels, but instead, he’d sit in a corner and tell it the same stories Gabriel had told him the night before. Castiel even went so far with his fuzzy friend as to sit quietly and groom its wings as Gabriel groomed Castiels. But Gabriel had to draw the line when it came to bathtime because no way was he letting a soaking wet stuffie into the nest. Much to the chagrin of the younger angel, he made Castiel sit Fuzzy on the edge of the tub and wait until they were finished. Once dried, Castiel clutches Fuzzy tight to his chest and runs for the nest for story time. Gabriel crawls into the nest and scoops up Castiel along with his bee, into his lap. Before long, Gabriel hears his baby brother breathing soft and slow. Smiling down at the serene little face, he places a tender kiss on his chubby cheek. “Sleep well, Little Sparrow. You too, Fuzzy.” Curiosity Killed The Cat “Castiel!” the piercing cry from Gabriel reverberated through the heavens but the small angel paid it no heed as he and Fuzzy Bee followed after the pretty butterfly. Castiel continued his quest to catch the butterfly who danced along the currents, dangerously close to the edge of the chasm that dropped down to the lower planes. If an angel were to step off the edge, he would fall as his wings painfully burned away. The older angels call it ‘The Falls’. Castiel’s little wings, newly covered in a fluffy down of plumage, fluttered in imitation of his quarry as he giggles. Gabriel flies as fast as his wings can carry him as he scanned the heavens. His heart pounding in his chest when he couldn’t immediately find his brother. He’s about to turn back to make another pass when he sees Castiel start to tumble over “The Falls” with a terrified cry. Gabriel tucks his wings close to diving down and catches him before Castiel is completely lost to the mist that licks at the edge. “Whoa, there little nugget” he pants as he pulls them both from the edge. Castiel grasps a hold of Gabriel’s collar as he watches horrified as Fuzzy Bee tumbles into the mists. Gabriel lands on the grass and holds Castiel close. “It’s okay. Gabe’s got you.” Castiel looks up at Gabriel and bursts into tears as he points to The Falls. The only intelligible word that Gabriel could make out was Fuzzy. The archangel looks around and doesn’t see the stuffie anywhere around. That’s when he realizes what must have happened. He tries to soothe his brother as he reaches behind his back. With a snap of his fingers, a new Fuzzy Bee appears in his hand. Bringing it around, he shows Castiel that his little friend didn’t fall but was safe and sound. Castiel gasps when he sees the bee and quickly grapples it with both hands, burying his face between the antenna. With a sigh, Gabriel flies them back to the nest and tucks Castiel in as he silently thanks his Father that he found his brother in time to stop his fall from heaven. Baby Wings “Gabe, watch me!” said a small voice from a few feet away as little Castiel hunched down with his wings flared out to each side of his shoulders. He’d just gone through the second molt of his life and was overjoyed at having ‘grownup’ feathers. Gabe looks up from where he was studying one of the bright red flowers that were in this section of heaven and grins from ear to ear at the sight of his brother flapping his tiny wings for all his worth. Small downy feathers flying in every direction and raining down like charcoal colored snow. Honey It all started with a lone honey bee flying past the tip of Castiel’s nose. Fascinated by the buzzing insect, the little Angel follows after it. Watching with wide eyes as the bee stops at flower after flower collecting pollen and nectar. When the bee leaves the last flower and starts circling towards the hive in a nearby hollow log, Castiel spares a glance back to Gabriel who is speaking with Lucifer, Michael, and Raphael. All four of them in deep conversation and not paying particularly close attention to the Castiel’s activities. Smiling wide, he turns and chases after the bee to investigate what is going on inside the log. Lowering to all fours, Castiel peeks into the hive and at first, the bees are quite perturbed by the intruder. With a grace-laced coo from the baby, the sentry bees settle down and actually start their own exploration of the angel until there are several dozen bees walking along his wings trying to get a grasp on what has invaded their nest. Castiel carefully lays on his stomach so that he can watch the bees go about their work and politely greet the queen bee and her daughters, unknowingly getting thoroughly covered in a thin coat of honey that drips from older combs around him. He’s having such a grand time inside the cozy hive that he barely hears his name being called by the four Archangels. Lucifer is the first to find him or rather find his feet sticking out of the log. Bending down with a smile, Lucifer looks in on Castiel. “And what have you gotten into now, little brother?” Giggling, Castiel bids a quick farewell to the hive members and backs out until he faces the Morningstar while letting out a soft buzzing of his own. Laughing at the state of Castiel, he takes a step back. “Oh, Gabriel..” he sing-songs. “I think you’ll want to see this.” Gabriel and the others quickly walk over, Michael and Gabriel bursting out in laughter at the sight of young Castiel covered in honey with dirt and leaves sticking to him in random spots. The only one not laughing was Castiel, who was confused by his brothers’ reactions, and Raphael who looked like he was about to have a fit over the sight of an untidy fledgling. “He is filthy!” Raphael grumbles to Gabriel. “It isn’t proper or healthy for one so young…” “Oh lighten up, Raph. It’s just honey and dirt.” Michael laughs as he claps him on the shoulder. “Honey is the healthiest thing Father created on this Earth,” Gabriel says as he scoops Castiel up into his arms. “Isn’t that right, Nugget?” He swipes a finger across Castiel’s cheek to gather some of the honey on the tip and offers it to him. Castiel studies the finger for a moment before latching on. His eyes go wide as the sweetness hits his tongue and starts to suckle Gabriel’s finger clean. Raphael makes a disgusted noise and flies away from the unsightly display. Chuckling, Gabriel he says his goodbyes to his remaining siblings and flies back to his nest where he spends the better part of the day cleaning every morsel of honey from Castiel. After drawing three separate baths for each of them, he learns that honey is the worst thing in the universe to try to get out of fluffy down feathers but it was worth it just to hear Castiel imitating a bee every time the sweet stuff was mentioned. Dress Up Castiel was a curious angel. In fact, he is the reason that we have the saying “Curiosity Killed the Cat.” It was an unfortunate incident that Gabriel doesn’t talk about and never uses against Castiel in later years. Except that once when the Winchesters and he got into a particularly nasty situation…but I digress. Castiel was curious, especially about Gabriel’s armor. Which for the most part stayed propped in the corner of their nest well away from accidental touching by little hands. It wasn’t that the armor was delicate but that it was fashioned from a portion of Gabriel’s grace and the Archangel didn’t want it manhandled on a regular basis. That just made it all that more attractive for the younger angel, not to mention the fact that he wanted to be just like his brother. On this particular day, Gabriel had taken it down to dust it off from Castiel’s last molting which had feathers and dust flying everywhere. Whistling he’s working on his breastplate when Castiel walks into his field of vision with the Archangel’s Helm on his head. “Look, Gabriel. I’m ready.” Looking up, Gabriel starts to laugh at the sight of the ill-fitting helmet. “Not quite, Little Sparrow.” He grabs the pair of bracers and fastens them around Castiel’s arms. “There you go. Now you’re ready to fight the evil hordes.” With a whoop of joy, Castiel flairs out his wings and runs out of the nest. “Come on, Gabriel! We got to get the hordes.” With a smile, Gabriel puts on his breastplate with cloak and follows Castiel outside. They soon drew a crowd of other angels as they had their own little mock battle, using sticks as swords. It wasn’t long before Lucifer and Michael joined in while Raphael played referee. Lucifer and Castiel against Michael and Gabriel. It was a time filled with laughter and joy for the Archangels. One of last they were to have.
Naps
Gabriel was at his wit’s end. He could tell that Castiel was tired and was in serious need of a nap, but the little angel would not do it. In fact, every time Gabriel tried to lay him down, Castiel would start screeching like he was having his wings torn off. So that is why Gabriel was pacing around the Garden with Castiel clutched in his arms while the baby fussed and cried. Finally, Joshua, God’s Gardener, approaches the pair and directs them to a section of the Garden closer to the throne of their father. Here the garden grows thick with flowering plants that buzz with bees. The two older Angels sit under a tree as Joshua explains that Castiel just needs to feel peaceful to sleep soundly especially with the constant activity that’s found in other parts of Heaven. “You were the same way when you were younger, Gabriel. From the way Lucifer tells it, you were a trial on his patience when it came to napping.” the Gardener says with a chuckle. As the two angels talk, Gabriel lets Castiel wander amongst the flowers. Sometime later, Gabriel realizes that he can no longer hear the small chirps and babbles of Castiel. He looks around and can’t see him anywhere. Frantically, Gabriel and Joshua search the area, but can’t seem to find the seraph.

Panicked, Gabriel alone enters the throne room and is taken aback by what he sees. There is his Father, holding the little Castiel and crooning a lullaby. The Archangel is about to say something but Father looks up with a smile and places his finger to his lips to silence him. “Let him stay. He is my last and I cherish this moment.” Nodding, Gabriel slowly approaches them and happily watches them together. Even going so far as to sit at his Father’s feet to lean his head on his knee. Something he’d not done in a very long time. Father smiles down at his son, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ve done a fine job with him, Gabriel. You’re a good brother and I’m proud of you.” Nightmares It was quiet. The kind of quiet that only comes when everyone is asleep. Except for one noise piercing that quiet. A scream from a distressed angel ringing through the trees surrounding the nest and then falling into sobs. Gabriel awakens with a start, his sword materializing into his palm. His sleep-addled mind frantically looking around for the cause of the shriek. What he finds is Castiel curled around his pillow as his wings quake in fear. Discarding his sword, he shakes Castiel gently. “Castiel, wake up.” his words are soft so as not to startle the fledgling further. Castiel turns over and wraps his arms around Gabriel’s waist, burying his face into his stomach. “Monsters.” a single word that speaks volumes. Gabriel bends down and cradles him in his arms. “You’re safe, Castiel. There are no monsters here.” he rocks slowly the way he used to when his brother was much smaller. Shaking his head, Castiel sits up enough to crawl into Gabriel’s lap and clutch at his shirt. “But there are, I saw them,” he whines into Gabriel’s chest. “And fire and a bright light. A soul. I was trying to get the soul but the monsters broke my wings and dragged me down into the fire.” Gabriel’s heart clenches at the description. He’d never heard of such a horrid place and it chilled him to the very core of his grace to hear his charge describe such a thing. Taking a deep breath, he gives Castiel a tight hug. “It was just a dream. Besides, do you really think I’d let the monsters get you?” he tilts up the tiny angel’s face to look at him and gives him a smile. “Who would help me tug on Lucifer’s feathers when he isn’t looking?” Castiel sniffles a little before giggling. Gabriel lays back down and holds Castiel close, his hand gently stroking the silky curve of his wings. “Go back to sleep, little brother. I’ll keep the monsters away.” I’m Not A Nugget. I’m An Angel Of The Lord! Castiel is scowling at his brother with all the ferocity of Michael and Lucifer combined after that one time Gabriel turned their wings a bright shade of fuschia. Gabriel is finding it very hard not to break out in laughter at his small cherubic face scrunched up with his arms crossed over his chest. “Oh come on, Cas. It was just a nickname. You know I like to call you silly things.” “I’m NOT a nugget. I’m an Angel of the Lord.” Castiel replies with a stomp of his foot. Bending down, Gabriel smiles as he boops him on the end of the nose. “You are an Angel of the Lord, but still a nugget of one. And my nugget at that.” Why? Gabriel had snuck away with Castiel in tow. His little brother now having gone through his second molt, he wanted to give him a treat. So here they are on Earth to look at all of their Father’s latest creations. After quickly stopping Castiel from stepping on a fish crawling on the shore near the ocean, the small angel’s attention is drawn to a pair of animals mating. “Gabriel, what are they doing?” he asks innocently as he stares with a frown. Looking in the direction that Castiel is focused on, he shrugs as he continues walking. “They’re mating.” The archangel answers flatly as if he’s telling him the color of the sky. “Why?” Castiel runs after him, casting one last look at the animals before taking his brother’s hand. “So that they can have babies.” “Why?” Castiel chirps as he looks up at Gabriel. The eldest rolls his eyes because this isn’t the first time he’s played this game. “So that the species can continue on.” he patiently explains. “Why?” Letting out an exasperated sigh he answers the infernal question several more times until he’s talking in a circle. Finally, he bends down and looks Cas in the eye with a squint. “Because Dad said that’s the way it’s gotta be. So pick a different subject, would ya?” Castiel thinks about it for a moment before his eyes widen at Gabriel. “Did you mate to have me?” Groaning, Gabriel slaps a hand to his forehead and walks away. “No, Castiel. I didn’t.” And so begins another round of the ‘Why Game’ Away in the Manger It was the big night. Something his Father had planned for a long while and it was Gabriel’s job as the one who announced the upcoming birth to oversee the actual delivery to make sure everything went according to plan. When Gabriel tried to explain to Castiel that he had to go to Earth and that Lucifer would be keeping watch over the little angel, Castiel wouldn’t have any of it. He pleaded and begged for Gabriel to take him too. The sight of the young angel’s big blue eyes looking up at him as he pleaded his case is what finally broke Gabriel’s resolve. That’s how the youngest angel in heaven came to witness the birth. “Ga’riel, where are his wings?” Castiel asks quietly with a confused tilt of his head, his nose scrunching, as they looked on the baby asleep in the pile of hay. Chuckling, The Messenger gently strokes a hand over Castiel’s wing. “He’s human, Little One. He doesn’t have wings.” “So he can’t fly?” Gabriel shakes his head as he reaches out to brush the fine black hair from the human child’s forehead when he starts to fuss. The touch soothes the child back into a quiet sleep. “He won’t need to fly. Father says he’s got work to do here when he’s older. Important work.” Castiel’s mouth drops into an ‘o’ as he sits back into Gabriel’s lap. “Can I hold him?” “No, Cas. We’re just here to keep vigil while Mary and Joseph rest.” wrapping his arms around Castiel he starts to rock slightly out of habit while he hums tunelessly. “Ga’riel, do I have ‘portant work to do?” “I’m sure you will, nugget. Why else would your wings look the way they do. Made for speed and strength in flying. Father will tell us when you’re older, I’m sure. Until then you can help me from time to time.” “Really?!” Castiel looks up, his wings fluffing in excitement. “Really. Now be still. Baby Jehoshua is trying to sleep.” Gabriel kisses the top of Castiel’s head and starts to sing low and soft. “Oh, holy night. The stars are brightly shining…” Angel Tears (Warning angst ahead in this part) When Gabriel left heaven, little Castiel who was the equivalent in age of a human three-year-old, cried out for his nest mate and brother. His cries were so shrill and heartbreaking that it nearly brought the remaining Archangels to tears. But it wasn’t they who provided comfort to the small seraph, but it was Naomi’s hand who guided Castiel and made the crying stop… one way or another. Farewell, My Brother (Angst) The end was almost near. The final battle between his brothers Michael and Lucifer. Castiel had just joined the Winchesters at Bobby’s house after being dragging his graceless form from the hospital halfway across the country. As he leaned against a nearby credenza in Bobby’s study, his interest is piqued when the boys start explaining their need to find the rings of the four horsemen. When it’s revealed that Gabriel was the one who tipped them off to the method of opening the cage and the events leading up to the revelation, something inside Castiel broke a little. Swallowing thickly, he half listens to the rest of the conversation until he can’t any longer. Slipping out the door, he walks out into the yard until he can stare up at the night sky. He was not used to the feeling of sorrow welling up in his heart. With tears slipping down his cheeks, he watches an errant meteor burn out in the upper atmosphere. “Ga'riel.” is the only word he whispers before he sinks to his knees and mourns for the brother he could have called father. 

Kisses Castiel heard something very interesting one day while walking along with Michael. When he asked his older brother what mating meant, Michael explained very poorly that it was something that two Angels did when they loved each other. Castiel didn’t pursue the line of questioning beyond that as the answer Michael provided, however brief, was satisfactory to his young mind. Later when Michael left him with Lucifer to attend to important matters, Castiel crawled into Lucifer’s lap and very sincerely asked him to be his mate.

Surprised at the question, Lucifer looks down at the little angel and blinks for a moment as he tries to process what in the great flares of the Horsehead Nebula is going on.

“You want to be my mate?” Lucifer asks very slowly. Castiel nods so that his hair flops against his forehead. “I lub you and Mich says mates lub each other.” Lucifer lets out a chuckle as he shakes his head. “I am sorry, Little One. I’m…” he stops to think of the best way to let the little guy down without hurting his feelings. “I think you should ask Gabriel about this.” Castiel sticks out his bottom lip in a slight pout at Lucifer not agreeing but nods anyway as he snuggles into Lucifer’s chest. Days later, Castiel had not spoken to Gabriel about it but had asked nearly every angel near his age, some of the younger ones agreeing. Especially after hearing Castiel’s explanation of what it meant and who had told him about it. The one to seem to take it the most seriously was Anael. Whenever they would be brought to the garden with the other young angels, she and Castiel would be inseparable. He would teach her the things he learned from Gabriel and she, in turn, show him what she’d learned about flying. This went on for a great long while until one day Anna leaned over and gave him a sweet little kiss on the cheek. When she pulled away and smiled at Castiel, he turned a bright shade of crimson and took off back to Gabriel’s nest as fast as his legs could carry him.  Unaware of the events that were transpiring outside of the nest, he was spending some time sorting through the messages his Father wanted to be delivered soon. His thoughts on the most efficient routes were interrupted by a blur of someone running past him followed by a plume of feathers shooting into the air as the blur made an impact with the nest. Looking up in confusion, he bats a few feathers passing by his face while staring at the nest. “No one told me to expect meteorites today,” he mumbles as he crawls towards the nest. As Gabriel gets closer he sees two bright blue eyes peeking out from a trembling pile of his loose feathers. Gabriel lays flat on his stomach so that he can be level with the blue eyes and rests his chin on his hands. “Hello, Castiel. Are we playing a game?” The pile shakes back and forth emphatically with the movement of Castiel’s head. “No! Gotta hide.” “Oh? And why’s that, nugget?” Gabriel asks softly as he chances a glance at the door to make sure some danger wasn’t following his charge. “Cuz…Anna..she…she KISSED me!” Castiel hisses from his hiding place as if the mere mention of the ‘K’ word would conjure another out of thin air. Gabriel lets out a gasp, not at all truly shocked after what Lucifer told him about Castiel’s proposition. “She did?? And what did you do?” Castiel lifts his head, dislodging the nest feathers so his face appears. “I runnded away.” The Archangel tries to hide the smile that is threatening to come through in his amusement. “You ran away from a kiss? Why would you do that? Anna’s cute and sweet on you.” “Cuz, Gav'iel. Kissin’s….” Castiel thinks about the experience and wrinkles up his nose in disgust as he scrubs at his cheek. “icky an’ wet.” “Well, I can’t argue with you about that, kiddo. But maybe someday you’ll like it and then you and your mate won’t stop kissing.” Gabriel sits in the nest beside Castiel and pulls the small one into his lap. “Then I don’t want mates if their gonna be kissin’ me.” he grumps as his wings fluff up in aggravation. “Lucifer told me that you wanted him to be your mate. Did you ask Anna too?” Gabriel runs his hands over Castiel’s wings to get the feathers to lay back down. Castiel shrugs as he leans his head on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Michael saids you’re mates if you love someone. And I love Luc and Anna.” “Ohhh.” Gabriel rolls his eyes at Michael’s botched job of explaining something as complicated as Mating to the little guy. “Well, just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to be their mate.” he adjusts his hold on Castiel so he can look him in the eye. “Mates are a very, very special kind of love. A love that is greater than the kind you have for me or Lucifer or Anna. That big kinda love will make you want to disobey everything just to make sure they’re safe and happy.” Castiel looks up at Gabriel with wide eyes. “Disobey?? Wow..” “Yep. Someday you’ll see what I mean.” Gabriel places a kiss to the top of Castiel’s head and gives him a short hug. “So, you want to go see what colors we can turn Raphael’s feathers today?” Castiel giggles at the thought of the last time they turned Raphael’s feathers Vermillion with green spots. Nodding, he jumps up from Gabriel’s lap and tugs his hand to get him moving. “Can we do rainbow colors with sparkles?” Gabriel finds Castiel’s laughter infectious and is soon giggling along with him as they walk out the door. “I’ll even have them make sounds this time.”

[truthuncovered-a]

@ctrlaltkibo ♥’d for a pregame starter.

            ❝ well, if you won’t t-talk, then maybe th-this will. ‘ you pull out a knife, a switchblade you pocketed from one of the delinquents at school, & rest the tip against suzuki’s throat, watching his eyes for the fear you long to see. a sick sense of joy bubbles within you, like a soda bottle that had just been opened –– slow at first, then boiling over into a wide smile. ❝ so... wh-what’s it g-gonna be ? your apology or your life ? ‘ the other boy, who had been struggling against you goes still, body frozen in place. 

            ❝ i don’t know, hinata-kun ! i d-d-don’t know where your fuckin’ figure went, please just...let me go. ‘ his eyes widen with terror, unable to turn around to look into yours. your smile fades as you increase the pressure on the blade, the side slowly sinking into the delicate flesh until a drop of blood glints ruby in the dying sunlight. 

           ❝ this isn’t about my figure, suzuki. ‘ your voice slides easily off the tongue, frigid venom freezing your broken syllables into full, complete words. ❝ this is about you. all these years, you’ve made fun of me, laughed when i just wanted to talk to you. all these years, i just wanted to get to know you, be friends with you, even. & you’ve done nothing but treat me like trash. ‘ a shaky laugh convulses through your entire body, causing the blade to sink deeper in the process. ❝ i g-guess it’s garbage day, isn’t it ? ‘ you hiss, repeating his famous catchphrase that he’s burned into your skull. does it hurt, little boy ? you wonder. how does it feel to be treated like trash ? 

               but not a peep from the other boy. guess when you’re playing his game, he has no room to talk shit. but you’re starting to get bored. you slowly sweep the knife across his throat –– 

               until a strange feeling creeps down your spine, rivulets of ice freezing your blood solid. though you’re alone, you feel as if a thousand eyes are staring you down. the last thing you want is an audience. you drop the knife, suzuki wrenching himself free from your grip & sprinting off into the darkness, blood dripping onto the pavement with every step. ( run off, little boy. run away from the monster you’ve become. ) fear holds you in its icy grip, forcing you to bend down & pick up the knife. gray eyes sweep around the area, pale hands clenched around the handle. ❝ wh-who’s there ? ‘

[roosterart-blog]

Not for teacher.

He didn't know exactly how he got here. Well, he did but that didn't make it any less baffling. He stared across at his unusual lunch date and recounted the past few hours.

Mike woke up that morning pretty blah. He was on vacation but all his friends had gone out of town to family. He didn't have anything productive to do and lacked the mental bandwidth to just veg on Netflix. He figured he'd hit the gym early and see where his day took him. He had a productive lift. He didn't hit any PRs but he got a nice pump. He took some pics for instagram and got dressed. It was time for breakfast so he went to a Cafe for some eggs and a coffee. He entered the shop and that's where things went awry.

Mrs. Winter the ice queen. She had been his history teacher in 12th grade. Everyone hated her she was strict to the point of cruelty. She had taken a particular interest in him, making his year a living hell. The real kicker was that at the end of the year she had married Mr. Hann his favorite teacher. Mr. Hann taught math and had opened new doors for him. He owed all of his lifetime math skills to Mr. Hann. To think that rotten bitch was with him was an unthinkable mind fuck.

It took a moment for her to see him but when she did a cruel grinch smile twisted up the corners of her perfectly painted lips. She was impossibly hot, that was for sure. She had a vicious beauty like a comic super villain. She reminded Mike of poison Ivy. Red hair red lips and a body that dropped Jaws. Mr. Hann was more like a Clark Kent. Subtle, demure, a little clumsy, endearing, and built like a truck. He always wore glasses and moccasins a button down and dad jeans. Noone knew how or why they had gotten together.

She got her coffee and walked purposefully over to Mike. She greeted him enthusiastically as if she was unaware of his seething hatred, or didn't care. She asked what he was doing and sneered a little when he told her. Gawd he just wanted to slap her, beat her, and hate fuck her into a coma. As if she could read his mind she said matter of factly, "you want to hurt me." His face must have given away his answer because she said "good, come with me."

Mike felt pulled to follow her. He wanted to walk away and never see her again but some invisible string seemed to be guiding his movement. As they left the coffee shop she said nonchalantly "maybe you can make yourself useful, you really were a poor student." FUCK!

Mike was lost in a fog of rage. He didn't remember getting in her car but here he was outside her house. The house she shared with Mr. Hann. I shouldn't be here he thought. She ushered him inside and before he could stop her kissed him deeply. He pulled away and she slapped him. His head rang as she pulled him back into her kiss. Mike violently grabbed her hair and kissed her back. He took control slamming her against the nearest wall. Her hands were all over his back clawing and pulling at his clothes. He grabbed her wrists, slammed them against the wall, and began biting her neck. She moaned and arched her back, pressing her body into his. He stepped back and spun her around. He pressed her face into the wall as he found the zipper on her dress. He unzipped it and pulled it over her head leaving her in a black lace bra and green lace panties. She kicked off her heels and he spanked her hard on her round bottom. She hopped up wrapping her legs around his waist and pointed towards the bedroom upstairs. Mike stumbled his way up and when he arrived threw her onto the bed. He took off his Tshirt, popped off his loafers, and shimmied out of his shorts. He stood there in his bikini briefs and watched her admire his athletic body. In that moment he remembered Mr. Hann. "Fuck I shouldn't be doing this" he said aloud. Mike closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. That's when he felt her hand.

She practically pushed him over onto the carpeted floor. She made eye contact with him, her wicked smile never leaving her lips. She rubbed him through the material of his drawers. He didn't remember ever being so hard in his life. He felt like a water balloon that was ready to burst. Just as he thought he might cum pain flooded. She squeezed his balls so hard he lost his breath. Before he could shout in pain she locked his mouth with hers. She pulled down his underwear and shifted her panties aside and amidst his pain Mike felt himself enter her. She began to ride him. Shifting up and then violently slamming down on his pelvis. His abs ached as he tried to find his breath. It was then that Mike heard the door. "Get off me" he whispered. "I think your husband is home" but that didn't stop her, in fact she picked up pace. He could feel his barriers fall and the knowledge he was about to be caught turned Mike on ten fold. He was aware of the footsteps up the stairs, heard them near the door and just as Mr. Hann entered Mike turned her over, pulled out and blew his load all over her stomach.

Mike looked up and saw Mr. Hann staring in surprise. But what was most surprising was what happened next. Mr. Hann began to unbotton his shirt. He dropped his jeans revealing that he was commando. His girthy cock flopped out like it had been held hostage in that denim cage. When Mr. Hann was completely undressed he silently got on all fours. Mike watched Mr. Hann unsure of what was going on. That's when Mrs. winter-Hann got out a paddle. He watched amazed as she spanked Mr. Hann with that paddle. He saw tears rolled down Mr. Hann's face, his smile indicating these were tears of joy. Mrs. Winter pointed for Mike to sit on the bed and watch. He obeyed and continued to watch the debacle in stunned silence. She continued to spank Mr. Hann until a drop of precum fell from his stiff cock onto the carpet. She then went to the dresser and got a large strap on. She dropped a gob of lubricant on Mr. Hann's puckered hole and entered him. She f#cked him senseless yelling profanities at him. Calling him a little bitch and a slut. Mr. Hann said nothing just groaned in pleasure. Mike. Just watched in stunned silence. He could feel his erection returning. She rammed Mr. Hann and clawed at his back till he finally shot a heaping load all over the floor.

Mike watched Mr. Hann panting as Mrs winter pulled the dildo out of his slick ass. He was surprised at how aroused he had become so soon after his last orgasm. Mrs. Winter threw the strap on aside she walked over to the bed and ordered Mike off of it, he abliged. "Fuck him" she said. "Excuse me?" Mike asked confused. "Fuck my husband," "we're not done here.

Mike had definitely fantasized about Mr. Hann before. Usually he was being passionately held by the older larger man. In his head Mr. Hann was a masculine giant a father figure. That image did not match up with the silent submissive man he'd just seen fucked to orgasm.

Mike had had fantasies about Mrs. Winter as well. Usually more along the lines of stashing her in a trunk and burying her alive. To think he'd just fucked her and was about to top Mr. Hann at her behest. Never in a million years could he have anticipated this.

Mike looked over at Mr. Hann who was busy eating his own cum off the floor. Their eyes met and Mr. Hann's eyes seemed to beg for it. Mike walked over to Mr. Hann and grabbed his chin. He kept eye contact as he slid his half hard cock between his old teachers lips. Mike slid his fingers into Mr. Hann's short brown hair and began to rock in and out of his mouth. Mr. Hann played his tongue over Mike's shaft and Mike felt his erection increase. He kept like this until he was around half way to finishing. Mike pulled his cock out of Mr. Haan hungry lips and circled to his raised ass. He looked over to Mrs winter who was watching the whole encounter, touching herself and masturbating. She rubbed her smooth pussy, circling and teasing her moist clit. She urged him to go on, to fuck her mountain of a husband.

Mike lined up his head with Mr. Hann's moist asshole. He had never in his life been so simultaneously uncomfortable and aroused. He was about to push in when he changed his mind. He moved his cock away and bent over to eat Mr. Hann's ass. Mr. Hann was not expecting this and for the first time that afternoon he made an audible sound of pleasure. Mike forced his tongue into the hole eliciting more sighs and moans. He reached around and began stroking Mr. Hann's impressive cock. He kept this up until Mr. Hann's moans seemed to reach a fever pitch. When he thought his teacher might cum he stopped all stimulation. It was then that he rammed his rod into Mr. Hann's muscular ass. Mike felt the warmth slide along his shaft. The muscular walls tightened and released. He could hear Mr. Hann's breathing and knew he was close to finishing. He slid in and out of his sheath slowly, feeling the friction with each movement. Mike continued at this pace till he felt Mr. Hann shudder. He knew he was about to cum and so he began ramming him with short forceful thrusts. Mike felt his own orgasm build up he cam to fruition just as Mr. Hann did. Mike leaned over and held the much larger man. Mr. Hann bucked and shuddered shooting rivulets of discharge on the already soiled floor. The force of his orgasm threw Mike over the edge too. Mike pumped his milk deep into Mr. Hann's guts. Mrs. Winter watched still pleasuring herself. Mike pulled out, reached out his hand and caught the dribble of cum from Mr. Hann's ass. He fed the handful of warm seed to the submissive giant. Mr. Hann hungrily lapped it up then proceeded to clean his own mess off the floor again.

Mrs. Winter-Hann beckoned the now exhausted Mike over to the bed. She handed him a vibrator "my turn you little fuck Boi." "It does appear you can do something right." Mike began circling her nipples and clit with the vibrator. Alternating areas in response to her moans. He brought her right up to the edge of release then stopped all stimulation. She looked at him shocked. She moved to finish herself off but he grabbed her wrists and held her for a few minutes. When it seemed she had lost her arousal completely Mike began stimulation again. She bucked and moaned and begged him for release but again he stopped and held her. Mike continued this a 3rd, 4th, and 5th time. Mrs. Winter was crying, "please, give it to me!" after the 6th time he walked away from the bed. "do. It yourself you old whore," he told her.

Mike went over to Mr. Hann and reached out his hand and said "get up, get dressed, let's grab some lunch." Mr. Hann looked questioningly at Mike. "you little bitch, " Mike added. Mr. Hann smiled and abliged. They got dressed and left the house to the sounds of the snow queens crippling orgasm.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 18: The Trollstones

It’s time for LORE.

Before we head out to our next adventure, we obviously have to go shopping. Clem buys a bunch of liquors and mixers, to test out the Boozenomicon we found at the artist house. Gral gets himself a “phat outfit makeover.” Shoshana and Clem buy something out of the back of a caravan called Old Badgerbeard’s Fine Valdian Liquor, guaranteed to add +2 to any Taint save by remindin’ ya of the simple joys in life.

Shoshana spends a little time playing translator and introducing people to the couple of orcish outriders who are gonna stick around. (“This is K’evin, he likes long walks on the beach and mah-jongg…”)

Anyway: we’ve just saved a town from people who hate parties, so naturally it is time to roll on the carousing table. Valeria finds a group of people to teach her favorite game, Man-go, and proceeds to lose 25 gold gambling against “complete newbies.” Clem wins a suspiciously similar amount at gambling, and can neither confirm nor deny that the noob hustling Valeria is just her in a fake mustache. Gral and the outriders teach a few orcish games, and Gral handily cleans everyone out by channeling the spirit of an experienced gambler. Bard Poker ain’t for amateurs, y’all.

Shoshana, still getting used to having more money than her entire village combined, buys a couple of drinks for some folks…then gives some cash to some needy travelers…and then the word gets out she’s giving out free money, and she has to use her Shadow Powers to gtfo before she’s swarmed. Whoops!

In the morning, Clem sends a letter back to her caravan, saying hi and updating them on the latest news. It’ll probably arrive alongside the original package, but that’s fine.

We head out and spend an uneventful journey retracing our steps to Mornheim. We notice Old Lady Jolene has moved out; the cottage stands empty and abandoned. Before long, the trees begin to take on that distinct skeletal cast and the skies begin to dim. We get that familiar sensation of the life draining away from the land. The birds stop chirping, except for the harsh caw of carrion birds. Flies cease to buzz. The air takes on the dusty, dry smell of grave dirt as we once again approach the necropolis Mornheim.

The hastily assembled walls of the town rise up before us. A few people are out working the orchards, with sentries posted to keep an eye out for the dead.

(There’s a wooden sign posted: “NO DEAD PEOPLE. This means you, Frank.” This sign won’t stop Frank because Frank can’t read! It’s posted on the end of a shovel, probably for hitting Frank when he comes back around again.)

Kyr Crabber is on duty when we show up, leading some repairs on the walls. “Oh hey, yer back!” He hauls the gates open for us. “Where’d you go? Heard you were going off to get some medicine. Want me to get the doc?”

Valeria shifts awkwardly. “Um…I’ll tell her myself?”

“So you’re not delivering meds, then.”

“Uh, it’s a magic thing. Don’t worry about it. How’s the town?”

He lets us deflect. “We got hit hard last night, and the Penitents didn’t show. Some sort of super-ghoul, I guess? It hit the walls pretty hard. Lady Aubrey took a hunting party out to the catacombs to try to track it down and kill it. They musta only left an hour or two ago.”

Shoshana shouts up that we’re gonna do a magic ritual to purify the water supply so it stops making the people sick. He’s like huh, it’s the water that’s doing that? That’s why I don’t drink it. 😉 Shoshana tells the old drunk an ancient Valdian proverb: HYDRATE OR DIEDRATE.

Anyway, It’s still early in the day and Valeria is buzzing with excitement, so we’re gonna get right to it. She’s gonna get to Be A Hero!

The ritual has a limited range, and the notes on the scroll say to plant the magic item at the river source, so we hike on up to the local landmark known as the Trollstones. Crabber says they looked pretty normal the last time he did a patrol; looks like a “big pile of rocks with water comin’ out.” Well, he’s not wrong.

In Valdia, “trollstones” is a catch-all term for any kind of standing stone, henge, or menhir, the assumption being that they were erected by trolls in ancient times. Many of them are assumed to be old druidic sites. This one, though crude, is huge and impressive. Hundreds of enormous stones are piled into a huge cairn. River water flows out of the gaps – some upper sections in impressive waterfalls, some flowing from underneath directly into the river basin. The water has a murky look to it, and the grass closest to the water is sickly and dying.

Valeria Investigates the area by strapping the Eyegis to the Aethis and sendin’ them swimming in. Our very good gator soon finds an entrance into the Trollstones! Turns out there’s a pretty substantial hollow under the big pile of rocks.

There’s air inside the cave, but we’ll have to swim a bit to get there. Shoshana strips off her big heavy skirt and Valeria hauls her onto the gator. We all dive underwater. CON saves all round! Valeria rolls a six and picks up 2 taint as the necrotic curse in the water seems to sap the life out of her. The cave is dark and dank, so we light up A-Luxor. We can now see a tall, craggy cavern, water dripping in rivulets over the jags of stone. Between the running water, uneven rocks, and slippery moss, it’s definitely difficult terrain. Clem nat 20s a Perception check and shudders as she feels the visceral power of the Pale King pulling at her soul.

The DM debuts a Special Location Rule. Due to the uneven footing, we may either treat the area as difficult terrain or try to move at full speed with a DC10 acrobatics check. If you fail, you slip on the rocks and fall prone partway through your movement.

We spot carvings in these stones, all over the place. Massive letters, deeply chiseled into the cave walls in a script we don’t recognize. However, there’s a smaller carving underneath in Old Valdian, seemingly a translation. Shoshana reads it out to the others: “This is the Tomb of Urdemak, First and Last King of the Trolls. Grandson of the Woods, so [unintelligible] with Life, that Death could not hold him. May we weep for his passing, and dread his return.”

Gral considers. “Perhaps this Urdemak is an agent of the Pale King?”

Shoshana rolls her eyes. “Uh, DUH. He sounds undead, don’t he?”

“No, I mean like the Lurker, or that creepy ringmaster. Something that’s higher in the Curse’s hierarchy than the dybbuk, something that’s controlling the Curse in this town.

Before we can plan a potential Boss Fight, Clem hears movement coming from outside the radius lit up by A-Luxor. It sounds like the rattling of bones. She draws her Warhammer and we all roll for initiative!

Shoshana backs up behind Aethis and readies a Chill Touch while Gral readies his crossbow and Clem draws her sword. Two massive skeletons lumber into view. Judging by their shape and their enormous claws, these are troll skeletons, clattering across the slick terrain with surprising ease.

One charges Clem, bowling into her like a truck even as Gral and Shoshana strike at it. She stands her ground, though, and meets it head on with her hammer for two crushing blows, bloodying it. (Well, if it had blood.)

Behind us, the water roils as two huge shapes rise out of the pool, forming into Water Weirds. Each has a skull floating in it. Valeria uses her shield as an umbrella against a deluge of water and breathes ice at them, but their churning water breaks up the ice crystals that form.

Clem whacks the crumbling troll skeleton again. Shoshana Burning Handses out of panic as the Weirds close in on her, which turns out to be a terrible idea against water monsters.

Gral manages to hook a troll skeleton right on a vertebra – hey, this looks important! – and yanks it right out of the spine, collapsing the skeleton. Meanwhile, the Water Weirds try to engulf Valeria and Shoshana, grappling them.

Valeria casts Command on the one holding her and tells it to Drop It. It obligingly drops her into the shallow waters. Aethis loyally slaps the Weird with its tail, cutting a slice through the water. It blorps itself back into shape, but clearly it’s been disrupted somewhat. Then, unfortunately, it just picks her right back up again. Aethis just keeps on slappin’.

Shoshana, like any cat that has been picked up against its will, claws and bites at the big water hand, dealing a decent amount of damage. In retaliation, the water rushes up over her face, and she takes 1 Taint as she chokes on stank cave water.

Meanwhile, Gral casts Phantasmal Force to momentarily convince a troll skeleton that magic shackles are wrapping around it. Clem sees a skeleton acting like it’s restrained and is like sure, I’d hit that. She crunches it to dust, Second Winding and charging toward where Valeria and Shoshana are getting absolutely soaked.

Gral, out of skeletons to fight, casts Dissonant Whispers on Valeria’s captor. It fails, but he damages it, and he uses his bonus to wooble Valeria out of the water. She takes 3 psychic damage as things get not Water Weird, but Key Weird, and she shlorps out of the water and hits the ground hard. Ow. Meanwhile, Shoshana finally manages to squirm free, dodging an AOO to go hide behind the tanks.

Gral loads up his heart-seeking crossbow bolt, hoping it’ll target a skull just as well, and nails the floating troll head for a chunk o’damage. Unfortunately, that means it’s noticed him, and he gets picked up by the big ol’ water hand. Aethis continues to twerk, thrashing the monster with its slappy tail.

Clem pulls her greatsword and strikes decisively with Great Weapon Master, severing one of the elementals from its water source, and it collapses into harmless water.

Shoshana, finally able to use ranged attacks, shoots the remaining one with a blast of cold, hoping to freeze it. And it does, icing over. Gral makes an athletics check to break out of the crumbling ice sculpture, and manages not to become art.

We stand in the dripping cavern once more. A-Luxor flits around happily, not sentient enough to notice there was a fight.

Valeria burns her new candle, and we take a short rest. The light of the holy wax candle is pleasant and it seems to keep the darkness and dread of this place away. Also, we don’t get a pile of taint, which is nice. Eventually the wick reaches its last, seeming to burn far faster than a candle should, but for a short time it was bright and cheerful in this dark, dank place. The joyful, flickering flame departs and we are once again left with the dark and the wet, the sound of rushing water and old ghosts.

We must pick a path. For lack of any differentiation, we go left. There’s a pile of skulls and bones piled up on the side of the tunnel. (Valeria grabs a troll vertebra as we pass by. It is quite old. It’s a T11 anteclinal vertebra, in dog anatomy terms. It’s the one that’s best for stabbing, apparently? We don’t have time to unpack this, Dr. Valeria’s Player.)

Shoshana rolls a nat 20. With her excellent darkvision, she sees another carving. Most of them have been in Troll – most of the party didn’t know trolls had written language, but here it is. The rest of this part of the cavern seems to be propped up by a few not-especially-sturdy wooden support pillars. We hear some scrambling coming from our left, and a pair of ghouls with axes rush out of the side tunnel.

Shoshana pokes her head out toward the noise and does a wink-and-finger-guns. One hit, one crit. Both ghouls instantly melt from acid. The DM complains because they were gonna chop down the support pillars and drop the ceiling on us in a fun puzzle fight, but NOPE LOL. You’re gonna need tougher enemies than that! (Shoshana’s player immediately knows she will regret saying that.)

With the ghouls out of the way, we take a closer look at the carving, its lower half reading in Old Valdian:

“His mother was a River-Queen and Daughter of the Wood, and her love suffused him with such life that no spear nor axe could fell him, unique among the Trolls. He feared not the touch of flame or acid, as no wound upon him could cause lasting harm. As he grew, he became the great champion and defender of the woods. For the first time, the [unintelligible] had a King.”

This seems to be a continuation of the first set of troll-runes. We want to show Dr. Kjeller, or perhaps Dr. Galvan.

Shoshana makes a Knowledge!Religion check. The Way of the Woods has a large but loose pantheon of wood spirits. The most powerful are affectionately referred to as Baba and Gramps, the grandmother and grandfather of the woods. They have many children, who are powerful wood spirits in their own right. If Urdemak’s mother was known as the River Queen and Daughter of the Wood, she would be one of the children of Baba and Gramps, which would have made Urdemak a wood troll demigod. That certainly explains the bit about not fearing flame or acid.

We listen ahead. From the rightward path we hear something scratching against stone. On the left we hear the sounds of rushing and dripping water, and wailing. This place seems, unsurprisingly, to be chock full of undead. Gral does a stealth ahead to the left path and doesn’t see much. The wailing is from a lot deeper in; whatever’s making it just has a darn good set of lungs.

Sneaking over to the right path, he sees something very interesting. There’s some sort of man-made structure! There’s carved stone pillars and smooth, rectangular construction. Huh, maybe the undead have construction tools? Also, he sees a large creature. It’s wearing a cloak.

Shame it’s spotted Gral.

He can barely see it, but he can feel the thing’s gaze upon him, sapping the life out of him. “That is NOT A FRIENDLY THING,” he hisses back to us.

The Bodak, as the DM calls it, slithers toward Gral and uses its Withering Gaze, trying to crumble him to dust. Despite a save, he still takes a hefty chunk of damage.

Shoshana aims a Fireball down the tunnel, roasting something that’s crawling out of a shadow and charring the Bodak. More skeletons and ghouls are pouring in, and the ones that avoided the blast squeeze their way out of the side tunnels and begin to funnel down toward us. Gral casts Bane upon the Bodak and two of his minions.

Clem charges ahead, keeping her footing on the slippery rocks, and cleaves a skeleton apart. Valeria throws a trident from a distance, forking another in the ribs. She holds her hand out, and glowing rose vines extend from Kyr Marius’ gauntlet to snap the trident back to her for another throw.

The Bodak steps forward, its eerie breath rattling out of its round mouth, and turns its terrible gaze on Valeria. Valeria’s holy aura defends her, and she only takes half damage.

If we want to make direct attacks against it, we must either avert our gaze (granting disadvantage) or make a Con save vs 3d10 damage. Shoshana sidesteps the decision with a Shatter spell, aided by Gral’s Bane, that destroys the second skeleton and bloodies both the ghoul and the Bodak, luckily just missing one of the support pillars. The ghoul charges Clem and misses, which is a mistake, since Valeria is right there to Sentinel it. She forks it with the trident like she’s picking up trash on the side of the road, and tosses it lifeless (un-lifeless?) into a corner. The Bodak hisses in displeasure. “Uuuuuseless…”

Gral uses Phantasmal Force to convince the thing that he is charging into melee with it, even though he’s staying well clear.

(“The Phantom of the Orc-era is theeeeere, insiiiiiide your mind…” one of the players quips.)

Clem heads on in with a Great Weapon Master attack, able to avoid its gaze as it turns to attack the illusory Gral. With a mighty swing, she takes a huge chunk out of the strange creature, tearing through its rotting robe.  

Valeria risks the CON save against its horrible stare, and passes. She throws her trident twice – a nat 20 and a nat 1, natch. The trident clatters against stone as the thing dodges out of the way, and then she yanks the trident back with her glowing vines, burying it in its back and shredding its rotted flesh. She is mildly a Fire Emblem character now, so she gets to do epic crit poses. Victory!

We cautiously emerge into the chamber that’s now been vacated. Valeria can recognize the style of construction! With A-Luxor’s light, we can now see that the Bodak was scratching at a carved stone door. Wait, this is Aquilian architecture! Valeria would know that style anywhere. There’s brick, and a bit of a frieze of eagle, and the columns are carved with legionnaire motifs. It’s simple, as Aquilian style goes. A heavy stone door is set into the center of the wall. We investigate it and, of course, check it for traps.

Valeria crits her investigation and finds the mechanism to open the door. It looks like the mechanism is broken, but with a bit of fighter-and-paladin muscle we can get the door open, no problem. Valeria doesn’t read much Old High Aquilian, but there’s writing on this. Something maybe like “Place of…” something.

Is it the nuclear waste message? “This is not a place of honor?” Only time, and reckless decisions, will tell.

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something important. The writing wasn’t part of the original design. She can tell there was some sort of latent spellwork, like a low-level Stone Shape, that was set up to supersede the carving that was originally there. Something happened to trigger the spell, and a bunch of letters engraved themselves over the stone. Valeria’s not sure, but she thinks it says something along the lines of Containment Breach.

Uh-oh.

Shoshana copies down the writing, so we can double check with Lucinius, and then we crack that bad boy open.

There are four huge coffers here, like treasure chests. One is open and empty. (Shoshana’s player gets excited, assuming this is where they got that Warden mummy! But no, the DM said coffers, not coffins.) There is a sunken hollow in the center of the room, which has only a metal grate covering the opening to the water close below. Gral can see heavy chains dangling into the flowing water; something was once chained up there, but the chains have now been broken. Hmm.

Maybe this troll king Urdemak is the Pale King, and this is where he was imprisoned?

We think about it, but we’re doubtful. The Aquilian structure postdates the construction of the rest of this place, pretty substantially. This isn’t part of the troll tomb; this is something the Aquilians placed within the tomb site centuries later.

Our investigation reveals no traps. The coffers seem like some kind of foot locker? At the end of room, there is an altar with a bird on it – an altar to Oberok, flanked by austere stone lecterns. Valeria knocks over the statue of Oberok, because Rack’s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, dangit! (Archaeologists Hate Her!)

In the carvings on the walls, we recognize a repeated word. It’s the word Lucinius pointed out in the mummy’s tattoos, the one he told us meant “Warden.”

Lucinius would be So Mad at us for ruining an archaeological site, but he’s not our dad. We find 400 old Aquilian gold coins. Valeria can easily tell us that we COULD use them as gold, but they’re more valuable as collector item. We roll a ONE HUNDRED on the loot treasure hoard table and nearly win a Rod Of Beating The Game. Instead, we find in the next locker a set of 4 Aquilian icons, each depicting an Aarakocra version of the four lesser gods, as they were before the Deicide. Rack the Soldier (which is weird to us), Lethe the Smith (without martial accoutrements), Torme as an owl-faced bird holding a tome, and a small, insignificant crow-like figure wrapped in a cloak – surely an old version of Guile.

In the third locker, we find a book. It appears to be written primarily in High Aquilian but with a lot of diagrams. Perhaps a training manual? Most of it has translations into Old Valdian, it seems! Shosh takes a look at the text. It’s titled: Warden’s Training Manual: The Spear and the Spell.

This is a magic item. If we train with it for a week, we gain advantage on saves vs each other’s attacks. Interestingly, it’s been modified to work for non-Aarakocra and translated, which means it was yet another collaboration between the Aquilians and the people they supposedly never invaded.

Meanwhile, Shoshana rolls well and finds a surprisingly well-preserved scroll in the lectern, with high Aquilian calligraphy inscribed on it. It feels magically inert to Shoshana – this is no spell scroll. Valeria rolls poorly on an Int check and doesn’t recognize most of the words. But the bit at the end is a common phrase.

As far as we can translate, which isn’t much, we read:

“First Prisoner, Item #5

Containment Procedure: [Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet] waters blessed by local spirits [consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor] influence of the prisoner.

As per request by [unintelligible], [incididunt un labore et dolore] disruption [magna aliquia].

Description: [Ut enim ad minim veniam] First Prisoner.

Let the Vanquished be forgotten, let the Victorious reign eternal.

Glory to Oberok.”

The scroll is damaged, but it doesn’t look like intentional damage, it’s just Real Old. This is important as hell! It’s clues!

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something about the door.  Based on the way the rest of the door is weathered, in this wet cave, the Containment Breach message is comparatively very new. Within-the-last-couple-of-years new, compared to the ancient ruins. Maybe around a decade old? A little less?

That’s not too far from when the first stirrings of the Curse arose. This could have easily happened after the Curse began – or perhaps simultaneously.

We wrap up our exploration. The Aquilian structure is at a dead end, so we backtrack and begin to go down the tunnel with the wailing. We come across a third carving, though cracks and erosion have made parts of it illegible:

Man, no wonder the Pale King set up shop here.

“[unintelligible] that the Great Wyrm came. The sky filled with flame and fury; the wood burned with the Wyrm’s wrath. Urdemak led the Woods against the great Wyrm. He [unintelligible] the spear [unintelligible] aloft by a dozen giant eagles and [unintelligible] onto the Dragon’s Back.

Urdemak’s claws tore open the Dragon’s throat as it was filled with terrible flame. The fire, straight from the dragon’s heart, scorched Urdemak’s flesh from his bones. As the dragon’s death-spasms faded, the defenders of the Wood gathered around, awaiting their King’s regeneration.

But so thorough was his destruction by the dragon’s flame, bane to trolls, that he could not call the power of life to restore him, and so instead, the king’s grasping soul found only Death”.

As we move past the third carving, the sounds of rushing water echo through the dripping, dank cave. Gral’s keen ears hear something underneath that, clattering and clanking in the passage off to the left. He Mirror Images and we move ahead. Sure enough, there’s a big ol’ skeleton in plate armor waiting for us.

Valeria charges in, but as she passes by one of the piles of scattered bones, a skeletal hand snakes out and grabs her ankle. Startled, she fails to wrench her claw out, and she topples to the ground. The DM is pleased we are FINALLY next to one of the bone piles during a fight, we’ve avoided them like three times by chance. Valeria pushes to her feet and smacks the pile with a wrench, scattering the skull pile and sending the bones pinging off the rocks, but she’s lost her move on the skeletal knight. Gral throws Faerie Fire at it, but it dodges with practiced ease. No other enemies seem to be illuminated by the spell.

Clem charges the skull knight, smashing down on it with her Warhammer. It parries with its longsword and slashes down on her with a Blinding Smite of dark power.

Squeezing out of the rocks like a roiling dark mist comes a wailing, ghostly figure. The wraith drifts to Shoshana and grips her from behind. Her maximum HP is reduced by 21. That’s a LOT for a sorcerer! She chokes and pales as the life drains out of her.

Valeria decides she does not like this wraith thing that just ate her buddy, and mightily smites it, bloodying the cursed thing. Aethis twerks at a second pile of skulls that is swiping at Clem’s feet and smashes it apart, coming away with a hand clutching its tail. It derisively shakes off the weakened bones.

Gral throws a Dissonant Whispers at Ser Spooks the Skull Knight, and makes it afeared. It tries to flee, which gives Clem a chance to swing at it.

As Gral connects with the mind of the skull knight to frighten it, he gets flashes of this guy’s life the same way he sees into the Allsoul. This was originally a Paladin of the Order of the Hammer who left Valdia. There’s images of fighting pirates? Much of it is first person view of wielding a sword, smoke billowing from it as his Blinding Smite summoned Lethe’s flames. This guy’s maybe decades dead – not centuries, but not yesterday either. And the armor is clearly ceremonial rather than practical – something he might be buried in. Seems whatever’s haunting the Trollstones is recruiting from Mornheim’s catacombs.

As it tries to run past Clem, she catches it with her Warhammer, dealing it a terrible blow. She gives chase, dropping her hammer and drawing her greatsword. This thing’s armor was once a set of glorious full plate, but much of it has fallen away, and he’s not defending himself well – like he’s using a shield that isn’t there anymore. Aethis snaps its jaws shut on the Skull Knight’s leg, grappling it. It tries to drain Clem’s life force, but she shrugs off its magic. With Great Weapon Master, she brings her silvered greatsword down. The shock of the blow crumbles its cracked bones apart.

Shoshana’s claws manage to catch in the wraith’s mists, tearing holes through it. Gral runs toward the wraith with his silver dagger out, shoving Shoshana out of the way and plunging it into the wraith with the help of his Psychic Blades.

He summons the power of Blank Mask, a covert ops orc bard from the Asciension War. As he strikes through the wraith, the ghost of a hooded orc with a blank bard mask appears, grabs Gral’s dagger, and pulls the wraith’s head back to slit its throat like an assassin. The dagger clatters to the floor as both Blank Mask and the wraith fade away.

The way stands open, and there is another inscription on the wall.

“The power of Death filled him as Life had before, but, as Life begets Life, Death must spread itself, and Urdemak, now a thing of rot and decay, proceeded to lay waste to those he once protected. His great strength and will to live magnified by the cold grip of death. Eventually, the children of the Wood, the sons and daughters of the great ones, took to the field against their nephew. Many died, but eventually the thing that had been Urdemak was defeated.

The Trolls constructed a great tomb of many large stones to house the body. His mother was reduced to tears [unintelligable], and with those tears flowed her wish that none would ever suffer as she had suffered, that none would see their children returned as twisted servants of death.”

Well that certainly explains…literally everything about Mornheim.

Valeria reaches out and grants a blessing from Rack upon her friends with Aid, which our HP totals all very much appreciate.

We short rest again in the warden’s outpost, Gral singing a Song of Rest, and all take 4 taint. We return to the passage of the fourth tablet and find our way forward.

As we approach the tomb itself, we can hear a voice ahead, speaking modern Valdian. “They’ll be here any minute! Wake up, you old idiot!”

Gral can sense something up ahead, similar to how he senses the Allsoul. If the Allsoul is a rock concert, this is a kid on a triangle. But for a single soul to even be audible? That’s astounding. If that’s a single voice, that’s a voice of immense power.

“I know you’re in there! You ingrate! What, afraid you’ll make your mother sad? After everything I did for you,” a sodden-looking figure in ratty robes is shouting, waving his arms in frustration.

As we make it into the huge chamber, we can see he is dwarfed by the imposing standing stones. Massive stone sarcophagi tower in a semicircle over a burbling, whirling spring. To the side, an enormous rock landslide partially buries the skeleton of a mighty dragon.

Every inch of this cave wall has been carved with Troll words, depictions of life and deeds of Urdemak. Given that the centerpiece is a pretty epic mural of Urdemak fighting the Great Wyrm, we can guess where the dead dragon came from.

One of the sarcophagi has been broken open, and someone has placed an enormous troll skull, massive even for a troll, on top of it, turning the tomb into a huge stone altar. A small, human-sized silver crown is placed upon its head; we recognize the same style of crown from the Pale King tapestry we looted from the castle.

Somebody’s turned this place into an altar of the Pale King. Possibly that little dude over there.

Valeria would like to object to that, preferably with violence. Gral would like to alter that altar.

The skull must be Urdemak, first and last king of the trolls. The crown, though – perhaps it was the thing that was being held in the Aquilian chamber?

The little man still hasn’t stopped complaining. “Wake. Up!” He throws a rock at the skull and misses. “Useless ingrate!”

As we approach, armor clanking, the figure turns around and groans. “Oh. You again.”

I’m sorry, have we met?

Shoshana sarcastically waves hello. Gral rolls insight. It’s not trying to hide who it is. Gral’s not sure whose skin it’s wearing, but it’s that frickin’ dybbuk again.

“What are you trying to do here?” it complains. “I put a lot of work into this place!”

Shoshana stops waving and flips him off.

The dybbuk raises his voice, in that spooky cadence necromancers use for sounding dramatic. “Urdemak!” it intones. “These interlopers have violated your tomb! If you would, rise up and destroy them!”

The skull does not move.

We roll for initiative anyway.

The dybbuk moves first. “Fine. You won’t kill them yourself? I can still make use of you!” It begins to chant, mumbling quickly with pronunciation that sounds archaic even for Old Valdian. Something about “Guardian of the River Morn, servant of my-“ It switches language, but clearly it’s summoning something. The dybbuk deftly steps back onto the altar and gestures as the waters begins to writhe and roil and spin, rising to engulf the massive skull and claws from atop the altar.

Now if you’ll excuse the DM, he needs to add one more thing to the initiative order. This thing, he calls…the Pale Spring.

As this thing’s health bar grows across the top of the screen, we recognize it looks similar to the Water Weirds on a far larger scale. More human and troll bones rise from the pool into its swirling mass, but Urdemak’s mighty skull and claws form the cornerstones of its shape.

If we’re coming here to put a sword in the water, the DM figured the water should have a chance to object first.

Gral slaps Clem with an inspiration and makes a joke in Orcish along the lines of “who pooped in the pool?” Shosh rolls her eyes, but it fails its save. Let us be clear: you, sir, are stank water.

The Spring raises itself up and the chamber begins to flood. Its claws seem to be wreathed with some kind of horrible necrotic energy. We all manage to keep our feet against the huge wave it throws at us, except for Aethis, who was swimming instead of standing. The gator is dashed against the rocks and bursts into a cloud of sparkles, gone until Valeria can resummon it.

Valeria, outraged, charges forward and hurls a trident, her gauntlet allowing her to whip it back a second time. She also casts Shield of Faith on Shoshana. Shoshana, who is aggressive but no fool, casts Mirror Image on herself and tries to hide behind a rock.

Clem tries to slog through the deep water, rolling good Athletics to avoid it being difficult terrain, and whiffs both her attacks, sword slicing harmlessly through the water – until Gral’s bardic inspiration kicks in. The bones seem to flow into place to form armor to block her swings, but she manages to crack some femurs.

It uses its legendary action to crit Clem. It’s facing the other way, but the troll claw flows through its center as a new watery arm grows out and rockets into the drow.

The dybbuk leans casually against the empty sarcophagus. “Y’know, if you would have shown some gratitude and killed them, this could all have been avoided!” It wiggles its hands and some skeletons crawl out of the cracks in the rocks and form out of the mounds of bones. “You! Throw things at them!” it commands them.

It spares a glance toward the dragon skeleton. “No. Don’t even think about it. We’re not there yet. I know better than to trust YOU.”

The Pale Spring’s claws surge with energy, giving it an extra d10 on attacks. Both Clem and Valeria get slammed as the bones hurtle toward them on powerful jets of water.

Valeria gets up in the Spring’s face and smites it. After all, it’s both undead and an elemental. As Valeria raises her sword She-Ra style, vines grow around it and down into the water. s she strikes into the mass of water, The bones try again to form armor but the glowing rose vines grow through the cracks, wrapping around the bones and crushing them to powder. It roars with anger, and for the first time, the dybbuk looks genuinely concerned.

Gral rolls perception at the DM’s request. That note he heard before, he hears it clearer and louder now. From the skull, from the claws, echoing from the unbroken stone sarcophagi. Gral has talked to powerful ancient spirits before; he gets the unmistakable vibe that Urdemak is deeply enraged. But there’s no animosity toward us; he’s angry at the way this dybbuk has disturbed his rest and dared to use him.

Shoshana squeaks an “I’m sorry, Clem” and casts a fireball toward the melee. The chamber lights up with flames and rattles with a mighty KABOOM. The dybbuk is pretty scorched and any mook skeletons in the way are gone to ash, but Clem manages to dodge the worst of it. Steam rises off the Pale Spring as it turns to retaliate, the frigid water coming to life and sucking Shoshana under. The bony fingers of the Pale King wrap around her and in her terror she falters – and lets the Pale King gift her 10hp in return for 2 taint.

Clem rushes at the Dybbuk, intent on destroying the one who turned the Red Hand into a death cult, but the Spring strikes at her as she runs, knocking her unconscious. She takes 3 taint as she falls toward death, into the Pale King’s domain.

Gral’s nearly out of spells, but he throws a Healing Word at Clem. He channels an Orcish drill sergeant yelling “DID I SAY IT WAS NAPTIME, SOLDIER? GET UP, SOLDIER, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BLEEEED.” Then he draws his sickle and goes in! His Psychic Blades barely scratch it, rolling low.

The Pale Spring readies its claws, charging them up again to strike with extra damage. Clem dodges, narrowly avoiding another killing blow, but it manages to slam Valeria hard against the rocks.

The dybbuk orders the remaining skeleton to throw something at us. Its aim is not great. A clavicle just sort of clatters toward us awkwardly.

Shoshana leans back and lets raw electricity course out of both of her hands, blasting her usual twinned Chromatic Orb at a much higher level. The dybbuk is booted completely out of its flesh suit. We see the familiar floating skull in the bell of the jellyfish as the body it was wearing falls apart. The Pale Spring takes a heavy hit too, the electricity surging through it in a brilliant crackle, steam rising. It retaliates, trying to drag Shoshana down into the undertow, but she hangs onto a sturdy rock and keeps her feet under her.

Clem pushes herself to her feet, Second Winds, and buries her sword into the currents. It’s got more bone fragments than bones inside now, and she manages to take a chunk out of one of the huge troll claws. It swipes back, but feebly, for minor damage – which allows Valeria to strike in with a Sentinel.

The dybbuk’s lost its body and the Pale Spring’s nearly down; it’s not gonna stick around. It woobles away down through the cave floor, eluding us once again.

Gral throws the last of his inspirations into a Psychic Blades. A ghostly circle of orc heroes raise their lances and plunge them into the water, all at once. The elemental lashes out, flailing as the circle of orcs presses inwards, its claws passing through the specters even as they crush its bones. It falls, reduced to simple water, back into the spring, and the two troll claws wash back down into the central pit.

The waters recede and we are left standing in the tomb of Urdemak the Troll King. Wait, no, there’s still a skeleton mook there. We give it a sternly worded Go Away.

Valeria runs over to Clem, patting at her for 15hp and healing herself 15hp as well. We managed to turn around fast enough to avoid one of the fight mechanics. If the dybbuk got desperate, it would have awoken the dragon. It hesitated when Clem went down, and then Shosh nuked it.

We all take a deep breath. Clem’s a bit miffed that she didn’t get to beat the crap out of the dybbuk for possessing her old friend, but such is life.

We set to moving the piles of bones out of the water. Shoshana uses her Mage Hand to remove the crown from Urdemak’s skull, since nobody wants to touch that thing. The skull is suffused with necromantic energy. To Valeria’s Detect Magic, the crown is lighting up like a bonfire. Gral’s getting vibes from the skull, though – it’s feeling a lot more chill with the dybbuk driven off.

It takes some elbow grease and ingenuity to place the enormous skull and claws back into the open stone sarcophagi and close them again.

We roll against Taint for exposing ourselves to the necromantic energy of the fight. Everyone succeeds.

Hey, what do we do with this evil crown?

We talk it out. Judging by what we’ve seen down here, it sounds like the River Mother’s blessing on this tomb and these waters was what was stopping all undead from rising in Mornheim. The Aquilian containment zone worked by submerging the evil undeath crown in the blessed waters.

It looks like the dybbuk, or another agent of the Pale King, managed to remove that blessing and turn the tomb into an altar of undeath. Valeria’s ritual will slow down the undead and stop the Curse from poisoning the city through the water, but it won’t restore the blessing of the River Mother. Submerging the crown, at this point, would just start tainting the water again. We decide to put it in a foot locker in the Aquilian structure; at least it’ll be contained.

While we worry about the crown, Valeria begins her ritual. Shoshana has coached her on the pronunciation of the Old Valdian incantation. There is a section that’s invocation of the Power; written to reach out to Grandmother and Grandfather but Valeria switches to Draco-Aquilian to invoke her patron Rack.

She raises the sword we prepared, anointed with the druidic poultice made of the plants we gathered in Bad Herzfeld, the vine of the moon lily wrapped around the sword like a chain of Rack. As she reads the words aloud and drains power from the scroll into the sword, the writing on the scroll melts away.

Standing on the altar where the skull used to be placed, Valeria strikes the sword down, sheathing it into the water. It stays upright as it leaves her hands. The moon lily’s vine grows upwards, blooming into a massive flower above the water, its roots extending deep down into the spring.

The sickly, murky look fades from the waters and they once again run clear. The purified water begins to flow down through in rivulets through the tomb of Urdemak and down into the River Morn.

Valeria has Achieved Her Quest! +1 Inspiration!

 We take some time to admire our work and clear the Pale King’s trappings out of Urdemak’s tomb, but soon it’s time to leave. As we turn to go, Shoshana places her hand on the stone sarcophagus holding Urdemak’s mighty claws, and pauses as she feels a wave of overwhelming power.

It feels like gratitude.

As she blinks stars out of her eyes, Shoshana sees her hand atop the king’s tomb, overlaid by the ghostly shape of a troll’s heavy, sharp claws. She blinks again and the image is gone, along with the strange sensation, but as she flexes her claws she feels like something has changed.

(Shoshana has received a boon: Claws of the Troll King! Grants an extra d4 of damage to the Primal Savagery cantrip, with an additional d6 of damage for each sorcery point spent, up to 3d6. Each additional die also heals the caster that many hit points. Requires attunement.)

We climb our weary way out of the caves. Luckily, it seems we’d already cleared the area of nasties, or they’re avoiding the newly blessed waters, and we’re mostly undisturbed on the way out. We are drained, exhausted, and of course absolutely soaking wet.

As we hike back to town, we see the clear waters flowing through the still blighted land of Mornheim. Maybe it’s our imagination, but the area around the river seems just a little less Tim Burtony. It’s been several hours; the sun is almost down as we hurriedly drag ourselves to the safety of the walls. Near the city, we see a ragged group emerging from one of the catacomb entrances. It’s Lady Aubrey and her crew; they look quite scorched except for Mercedes. We, on the other hand, look quite damp.

Aubrey squints at us. “You’re back? The fuck’ve you been up to?” She hasn’t been home to find out we showed up.

Valeria chirps, “We Purified the Water!” You can almost hear the capital letters. Shoshana just points at Valeria and nods. “What she said.”

Gral, thankfully, is a master storyteller and actually gives Aubrey the deets as we schlep back to town.

“…And you found this scroll in my house?” she asks, once he’s done. We nod and hand over the scroll. The spell incantation has melted away, but the instructions on spell components still remain. Aubrey’s obviously taken aback by what she sees. “…this is my mom’s handwriting. I don’t…you’re gonna have to tell me everything. We should get inside the walls.”

She composes herself, back to business for now. “So did it work?”

Valeria nods. “Yup. We weren’t able to restore the blessing, but the water won’t be making everyone sick anymore.”

“Wait, wait, the water was blessed?”

Shoshana nods. “Yep, uh, the Trollstones is this big troll grave, and there was a blessing from a Child of the Woods to prevent her son from rising as undead, and the Curse seems to have broken it-“

“Why does it feel like you learned more about my home in a day than I’ve known in my entire life?!”

“Uh, we went…real deep. And fought monsters about it.”

“Yeah, I’ve gone real deep! I’ve fought monsters! You know what I found out? I found out there’s SUPERGHOULS.”

When we get to the walls, the old troll gardener, Skulbjor, is guarding the gate. “Oh! It’s dem! Hey, where’s your chomper?” he asks, looking around for poor exploded Aethis.

“…Don’t worry, they’ll be back!”

“Oh good, dat’s a good chomper. How was your hunt, Lady Aubrey?”

“Well the thing is dead. Again.”

As we drag ourselves inside, Gral approaches the old troll. “Skulbjor, how familiar are you with the legends of this place?”

“Well, I grew up here,” he says. “I’m older than most anybody what lives here.”

“Have you ever heard the name Urdemak?”

Skulbjor considers for a minute, his face scrunched up in concentration. “No, I don’t know dat one. Where’s he buried?”

“The Trollstones were his tomb. He was a great troll king, whose power was perverted by the undead in this place. His spirit was angry, but I think we were able to put it at peace.”

The troll considers this quite seriously. Finally, he nods. “Dat’s good to hear. One thing the previous troll told me is dat it is a very old troll tradition that there must always be a troll in Mornheim, and to never ever mess with the Trollstones. Lady Rosalind went there a lot. She went there the day she got sick, even. I found her there, yanno. Brought her back to the castle myself, but she never woke up.”

Man, do we have a story for him later.

While walking, Valeria takes moment and thanks Shoshana for helping with the translation and pronunciation of the spell, and helping save the town. There’s hugs. 😊

The two adventuring parties stumble into the gates of Mornheim as the sun sets, sharing stories. Skulbjor looks out over the hills for a long moment before closing the gate. “Urdemok. Wow, das interesting.”

Valeria and Gral roll CON saves against the Pale King’s taint. Clem and Shoshana, meanwhile, have gained enough taint to receive an Offer.

[madamebadger]

Pentilyet and the first signs of spring at Skyhold! :D

Five Times Cassandra and Josephine Notice Signs of Spring, And One Time They Don’t

Snowdrops

 It is pure foolishness, Cassandra knows. Pure foolishness.Josephine can get better flowers, should she want them, from the trading trainsthat bring supplies from northern Thedas, or, for that matter, from thegreenhouse where Lady Vivienne grows both exotic plants for her potions andbeautiful flowers for her perfumes.

 Still, still, still. Still, she saw that tangle of snowdrops,pushing themselves up from the hard unforgiving earth, and thought: Josephinewould like these.

 (She does not know, precisely, why it matters so much to her that Josephine would like them, and she does notchoose to examine that thought too clearly.)

 They are but half a day’s ride out fromSkyhold, which is well, for the snowdrops prove fragile in her grip. Even onlyneeding to keep them unwilted for that short length of time is difficult, evenwhen she wraps them carefully in a dampened handkerchief so that the warmth andpressure of her gloved hand will not crush them.

 When they do arrive back at the keep, Cassandraalmost—almost—doesn’t give them to Josephine. Josephine has manyflowers; they pass through her hands like water. She gets them, and then shedeploys them, as surely as Cullen deploys his soldiers: these to decorate herdesk and make it welcoming, those reserved for the tables on the great hall fora special dinner occasion, others put in the rooms of the nobles to whom sheplays host. Others, she has learned to her surprise and secret delight, simplyfor the joy of it: a basket of larkspur given to Scout Harding as a thank-youfor the work she does, a fragrant bunch of dried heather sent with Charter whenshe Caer Bronach.

 But then, perhaps that’s why she does want togive them, after all. Josephine gives flowers away to so many people. Surely, shewould appreciate receiving some?

 She doesn’t think that there would be awkwardness ingiving them until she is actually ready to give them, though. And then she findsherself, after the debriefing with the Inquisitor, with a handful of whiteflowers, their stems wrapped in a handkerchief, and Josephine looking at herwith polite curiosity. “These. For you.”

 “Oh,” Josephine says. “Thankyou, they’re lovely.” She is such a consummate diplomat that it is impossibleto have any idea whether she means that, or is simply being her own courteousself. She takes them, and then without any fumbling at all finds a little potto put them in. Cassandra is squirmingly aware of how pitiful they look,compared to the normal lush bouquets that Josephine arranges to decorate thespaces in which she lives and works.

 She should leave well enough alone and just go, and be glad thatJosephine was kind about it, but something makes her say, “It’sjust that Leliana told me that you dislike the cold. And then Sera told me thatsnowdrops are prized in Ferelden because they witness the start of spring. Theycome up even through the snow, you know. But only when the ground is softeningand spring is near.”

 “Ah,” Josephine says,and Cassandra can see the softening in her eyes—a softening like the earliestmoments of spring. “Then, thank you. That was most thoughtfully done.”

 Cassandra can feel a flush beginning at the back of her neck, likethat selfsame spring thaw. She lifts a hand. “It was nothing,” shesays, and turns, before the flush can crawl up high enough for Josephine tosee.

 Greens

 Cassandra looks surprised, when Josephine intercepts her at thehead of the great hall, for dinner. “Lady Montilyet,” shesays. “I had thought—” Her eyes dart to where Cullen and Blackwall and Bull aresitting; where she will sit, left to her own devices, far away from the nobleswho necessarily monopolize Josephine’s conversation.

 “Yes, I know,” Josephinesays. “But there is something that I would like to share with you. To all ofyou,” she adds.

Cassandra acquiesces, letting Josephine join her at the table.Cullen and Blackwall greet her most properly; Bull eyes her up and down in away that would be most inappropriate normally, but is simply his way, beforerumbling, “Josie.”

 What Josephine wants to share with them is a salad of new springgreens: chickweeds, young dandelion leaves, watercress, the tenderest newleaves of arbor grace, dressed with sea salt and wine vinegar and garnishedwith an elaborate sprinkling of violet blossoms—newly broken through the soilin the Chantry garden.

 “This,” Cassandra says,after a few bites, “is very good.”

 Josephine smiles. “Leliana told me that you who travel hard on theroad will be the one to crave the spring greens most of all—that all winter youconsume hardtack and old potatoes and salt beef and very little else. So Ithought you would appreciate this.”

 Cassandra smiles at her. (There is a violet leaf caught just aboveher upper lip for a second, before she deftly wipes it away with the corner ofher napkin.) “Leliana is often right,” she says, “even if she is also oftennosy.”

 Josephine smiles back, simmers helplessly at the warmth it leavesin her belly.

 Rain

 It has been a long night, with a great deal of Wicked Grace, mostof which Cassandra lost. She should be more annoyed, except that more oftenthan not she lost to Josephine—or to Leliana—or, Maker help her, to Varric, the cheatingbastard. (Leliana cheats too, of course, but Leliana at least has the tact tonever allow herself to be caught at it after the fact. If Josephine cheats, it’swith such subtlety and aplomb that she is never caught, not even later.)

 So, being as it has been a long night, there is nothinginappropriate about walking Josephine back to the keep. The Skyhold courtyardis a largely safe area, but there are always new recruits whose character onedoes not know, and at any rate, Josephine’s slippers are not fitfor tripping over rocks, and so—

 (Cassandra knows that she is deceiving herself, and chooses toignore it.)

 They are only a third of the way across the courtyard when itbegins to rain. Not snow. Up until this day it has still snowed—the wet,slushy, halfhearted snow of late spring, but still, snow. This is rain, andharder and thicker than snow. A downpour, almost.

 Josephine yelps, flinging her arms over her head. Cassandra doesnot even think before shucking her cloak off and slinging it over Josephine.Josephine pulls it up, to cover her head and shoulders, and then Cassandra hasher by the upper arm and is pulling her pell-mell through the driving rain. Itpounds cold and relentless on them both, but still: it is rain, and not snow, and so the sky is no longerso cold that any water that comes from it must come in the form of freeze.

 They come to a stop in the little alcove under the great stairsthat sweep up to the keep, where it is still, yet, dry, though, water is makingits way via rivulets into the dirt there. Cassandra shoves back her wet hair,blinks to clear her eyes.

 Josephine is laughing. “Oh, Maker,” she says. “Iam wet through! But you must be worse—take the cloak back, please.”

 Cassandra shakes her head. “I am well enough,” shesays, though the water has slithered under her doublet and soaked her cottonundershirt to the skin. It will be little enough trouble to spread her wetclothes out in the forge and let them dry, to let herself dry there too.

 “But you must let me giveyou your cloak back,” Josephine says, making to take the cloak off. “It is onlya few steps up to the hall—”

 “No, keep it.” Cassandracloses her hand over Josephine’s, and realizes only after that she has nevertouched Josephine so, bare hand to bare hand. It stuns her, the contrastbetween the cold droplets still trickling over Josephine’s knuckles and thewarmth of her skin. “I have not far to go. And my clothes will bear a good dealmore damp than yours will, I daresay.”

 Josephine smiles, and for a moment all the world is—no. Cassandrapushes that thought away. “Thank you,” Josephine says.

 Mud

 Of course, mud follows rain like day follows night. For Josephine,this isn’t a great consideration; it is rare that she needs to leave the keep if she does not choose to,and usually there is at least a dry path spread out with boards and sawdust tothe tavern should she be required to make an appearance there.

 It seems not so for Cassandra. She is in the yard, sparring withthe Inquisitor, and they slip and slide constantly for all that they do notstop. And for all that, Josephine notices two things. First, the Inquisitor andCassandra still have an ineffable grace, for all that they slip and squish androll through the mud. And second, that Cassandra is laughing.

 Cassandra’s laughter is as hard and sharp and gloriouslybright as her sword in sunlight.

 They fight, apparently, to a draw, though Josephine cannot tellhow they have determined it. They are both smudged and bespattered with mud,thick up to their knees and then spackled in constellations across their torsosand arms and even faces. Cassandra says something to the Inquisitor, wiping herarm across her cheek—a gesture that smears more mud across her face.

 The courtyard is thawing, Josephine thinks suddenly. And thenCassandra turns to look at her.

 Her eyes are as bright and as alive as the spring earth, and shesmiles, and attempts to wipe more mud from her face, with similarly fewresults. “Lady Josephine,” she says.

 “Lady Cassandra,”Josephine replies, and then has to press her wrist to her mouth to keep fromlaughing as Cassandra walks out of her boot.

 She is at Cassandra’s side in an instant,steadying her so that she does not put her stockinged foot down into the dirt.Cassandra looks at her with consternation. “You shouldn’t be down here. Yourslippers will be ruined.”

 “My slippers willmanage,” Josephine says, steadying Cassandra as the Inquisitor pries Cassandra’sboot out of the mud and helps her work it back onto her foot.

 The Inquisitor is laughing at them both, but Josephine is skilled enough to choose to ignore that.

 Birdsong

 Cassandra is aware that it is rare for Josephine to be able totake time off of an evening, and so she is—yes—honored that Josephine haschosen to spend this rare free evening with her. They sit outside the tavern,drinking beer. (She would not have thought that Josephine would drink beer, butshe does, apparently. Cassandra does, of course; when traveling, often beer isthe only safe thing to drink. She usually chooses small beer, because her headfor alcohol is not great.) Around them, green groundcrover creeps back,colonizing the broken mud of late winter. Above them, the sky is a broken thingof mackerel clouds and soft low blue. And all around them, the birds arebeginning to sing: the whoo-WHEET and HEE-hurr of various southern birds intheir mating season.

 “The snowdrops,”Josephine says, out of nowhere. She takes a drink from her lager and licks thefoam off her lips. The gesture is entirely ladylike and discreet, and stillCassandra must drag her eyes away. “They were very beautiful.”

 “That was two monthsago. They have wilted, surely?”

 “Yes, but it meant a lotto me. Leliana is right, you know. I try to love the winter, or at leasttolerate it, but I do not. It never grows so cold in Antiva.” She sighs, andthen smiles. “But then you brought me something that showed both the beauty ofwinter and the hope of spring.”

 “I,” Cassandra says. “But.”And then she fumbles to a stop. And then she blurts, “It is only spring. It isn’tme.”

 “Hmm,” Josephine says,and tips her head back toward the sky. She is so beautiful in the soft ambersunlight of spring, her skin aglow, her hair alight. “There, do you hear? Thebirds are coming back.”

 Stars

 Leliana, who looks often at the sky for the return of her ravens,knows that the sky is opening up. For months it has been a low, pewter colorwhen it wasn’t a cracked and broken pattern. Snow and then rain, and shadowtoo.

 Now the sky is opening up, the clouds clearing so that you can seethe stars.

 Leliana stands in the center of the courtyard, and turns, slowly.From there she can see the lights in the tavern and the Chargers singing, andSera sitting in the window watching everyone. She can see the infirmary and thecamps. She can see the entrance to the gardens, that are beginning to spillover with early-spring weeds. (Once, when she was a lay sister, she dug up suchweeds, and counted it a prayer in its own way to do so in service to theChantry. Some days, she wishes she had stayed there always, though it wasimpossible.)

 And there, above her, Josephine’s window. Lit withcandlelight. She would bet every favor that she has to trade that up there,Josephine has coaxed Cassandra into the first kiss between them—or vice versa.It will be a good kiss, if necessarily hesitant, chaste. It will be sweetenough that they do not notice the stars opening up above them, again.

 Leliana notices.Both things are sweetness. She tilts her head back to the stars wheeling, andwishes them all the joy of the turning spheres.

[moonlightandmarble]

The Sister He Never Had

Teenage Amira teams up with Chimney to wreck some bad guys, but there’s some surprises in store before celebratory wontons can be had.

Inspired by @irdeadite Thank you dear <3

Amira bounced lightly on her feet as the band played their final song for the night. She was a striking figure, lanky and tall with a full vibrant purple mohawk that bobbed like an exotic birds plumage over the heads of the crowd as she danced.   No one seemed confused by her presence however. Due to her appearance and her ability to hold her own in a fight with any guys who got a little too handsy she had gained the respect of many in the club, and was trusted to root out anyone who might try to cause any problems.

As the song wound down she closed her eyes, letting the walls that protected her mind from the sometimes overwhelming emotions of humanity slip down. She soaked in the crowds sense of camraderie, letting their collected positivity flow over her. It reminded her of flying, filling her with exhiliration and joy. Her eyes snapped open however, as she felt a barb of menace puncture the bubble that she was surrounding herself with. Her eyes scanned the room, searching out for the source of the predatory taint in the air.

As she began to slowly make her way through the crowd her senses began to narrow to the point she didn't even notice the people bumping into her. Instead she was focused on the pungent stench of cheap beer and even cheaper cologne which could not cover the underlying scent of fear. She licked her lips, tasting the air. Blood...dried blood, rust, and the sickly sweet scent of death.

She kept walking, reminding herself to not stare at her quarry. Five men were in the corner of the room, eyeing one of the girls like a group of hungry beasts as she left the club. They spoke to eachother, whispering softly, but not so soft that her attuned ears could not hear them.

They had plans, nasty plans. The hunt was on.

They left the club, keeping a safe distance from the girl as they followed her, not knowing that they too were being chased. Amira adjusted the collar of her spiked jacket as she slipped out of the exit, sticking to the shadows as she silently kept pace.

She had learned the art of the hunt from both her fathers, honing her skills as a hybrid of their kind alongside her brother. Kenith however was not a fan of punk as she was and had stayed home for the evening.

She made a mental note to bring home their eyes for him.

The girl crossed the street, heading towards the park. Amira realized she was taking a short cut across the park to reach the brick apartments on the other side. She frowned, all the girl wanted to do was head home safely to her family after having a good time and not be hassled by a bunch of drunk boys, let alone a bunch of drunk boys who had gotten into the habit of torturing women for fun.

She could feel their hatred, their pride, and their excitement. They were feeling daring, their egos bloated from not yet being caught. She smirked, thinking about how much fear they would exude when they were in her hands...

As the girl passed the stone and iron gate that marked the edge of the park they slowed their pace, slipping behind a copse of trees to hide themselves. She was looking over her shoulders, being wary as she walked. Amira nodded to herself, no doubt the girl had walked the area hundreds of times, but still was trying to be careful. She wondered to herself if she had been human if she would have been like her, vulnerable and in so much danger from her own species.

After giving the girl just enough space to make her feel safe and alone, the boys moved past the wall. Amira followed close behind, and it was as she perched on the wall that it hit her.

Cigarette smoke, stale coffee, cinnamon whiskey and candy. A cloud of negativity, rage, and sadness underscored with the tiniest sliver of curiosity. She knew that scent anywhere, but the malestorm of emotions that came with it just confirmed it. Chimney was nearby. Uncle Chimmy she used to call him. She remembered seeing him around the house, but her most vivid memory was of her Bapa bent over the gaunt frame of the man as he lay recovering from emergency surgery on the dining room table. Bapa was exhausted, but toiled with his herbs, unguents, and with very his hands to heal him. She and Kenith wanted to help the poor man, not understanding at the time that some wounds of his would never be healed...

She reached into her pocket, pulling out a candy bar that she had been saving for later and laid it on the stone beside her. She figured he already knew she was aware of his presence, but leaving an offering couldn't hurt. She stood up, taking in a deep breath before letting her wings expand from her back. They stretched out, inky black blocking out the light of the stars, and in a moment she was gone, taking to the air. Her wings were silent as she glided, the cool breeze bearing her towards a highrise. Her feet landed delicately on the blacktop, and she carefully folded her wings behind her as she perched on the corner.

She had flown over the park to one of the apartments, unseen to human eyes. But she knew he was watching, and it didn't surprise her when she heard the his voice rumble out of the darkness behind her soon after, gruff and distorted like it was coming from a demented radio,

"Really? A candy bar? What do you think I am, Santa claus or something?"

She chuckled softly, before looking behind her at the red eyes that peered from a shadowed corner of the rooftop, "Well fine if you don't want it I'll eat it!"

"Hey I didnt say I didn't want it"

The darkness coalesced, forming a tauntly muscled man wearing a red shirt stained with a black spatter mark. His black fauxhawk and facial hair made his grey skin seem almost ghostly under the moonlight, with his red eyes burning like coals from deep sockets. The candybar was in his hand, already ripped open with a bite taken out of it.

Amira smiled. He didn't look a day older, even though the last time she saw him she was a toddler. She looked back down to the alley below however, keeping an eye on the girl and awaiting the presence of boys.

Chimney approached and he was soon beside Amira, staring down into the alleyway while nonchalantly gnawing on the candybar,

"So, what do you want?"

Amira lifted her head, but didn't take her eyes off the alley, "Uhh what do you mean? You found me remember?"

"Yeah, but what's with the bribe?"

Amira shrugged, "It's not a bribe...I just know you like candy"

"...oh"

The gnawing continued, and soon the boys had filtered into the alleyway. Amira kept watch, slightly sniffing the air. They had weapons, not too much of a surprise, but they had more than the standard knives.

Gunpowder.

Her eyes narrowed. They were getting a little skittish, but not too much of a surprise. Between her, her family, and the relusive being beside her they had plenty of reasons to be afraid.

"So...are you gonna do something or are you just gonna stare at them?"

She smirked, "I'm looking to see what weapons they have"

"And what do your elf-eyes see Legolas? They're frat boys. The only weapon they have is terrible alcohol tolerance and the ability to scare women away..."

"Pfffft, well that's true, but these guys are carrying guns too, I'm thinking in case they come across someone like you"

Chimney snorted, "The only thing a gun is going to do is piss me off more..."

"Yeah, but it means that they're spooked, which is good because I get more fear out of them"

A grunt was his only reply.

They were nearly below them now, it was time. She stood up, brushing the dirt from the roof off of her hands, "Well let's go say hi...or do you want to finish your candy bar first?"

He paused for a moment, looking at the remainder of the bar before lifting his shirt. The slavering fanged mouth that occupied the space where his abdomen should have been opened expectantly, and into the gaping maw he threw the rest of the candybar. It snapped shut in an instant, and he pulled down his shirt,

"Let's go..."

Amira shot him another grin before shaking out her wings, and promptly diving off the edge of the building. Chim for his part slipped back into his wraithlike form, quickly crawling his way down the brick wall like a serpent made of smoke.

She landed directly on one of them, causing him to hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Her claws were already grabbing onto his jaw, pulling his head to the side and snapping his neck before he could even scream.

That was one down, enough to give the others a good fright, but she needed more...the fear needed to be drawn out, but causing too much noise or giving them a chance to retaliate. While it would take a lot to hurt her, she preferred to avoid being shot while wearing one of her favorite jackets.

One of the men turned and ran, but a whip made of darkness snapped out and grabbed him, pulling him back and slamming him violently against the alley wall. It pulled back, whipping through the air again and slicing right through another man, bisecting him from the top of his head downwards. The two halves fell in a shower of blood before the whip grabbed the previous victim and pulled him bak towards Chim's solidifying form. His lips were pulled back into a rictus grin and his eyes blazed a predatory red as his blackened fingers reached for the groaning man.

Amira could taste the fear in the air, thick and sweet like a honeyed fog. She rounded on the last two, blackness spreading out from her pupils to cloak her eyes entirely, her lips forming a feral half-smile, half-snarl. She pounced on one, her claws drawing rivulets of blood as she dragged him kicking and screaming back towards the darkness of the alley. His companion, the last of the group, turned on his heel and bolted, only to slide to a halt and fall hard onto his back as Chim manifested directly in front of him,

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Please...please don't kill me!", he tried to move backwards...away from the red eyes that seemed to burn right into his soul, away from the curling vapor of darkness that rose from the pale mans mouth like black smoke, away from whatever the growing feeling of dread that pressed against his skin like the cold lips of death itself.

Chim advanced slowly, his hands dripping with blood, slippery from pulling out the eyes of the man in the alley. The gurgling death throes of Amira's victim could be heard in the background as she ripped his trachea free of his throat, but Chim's eyes remained unblinking on the man before him...more specifically on the red and orange orb that pulsated within his chest, its surface marbled with streaks of black.

It happened in an instant, the man felt sharp claws puncture his chest, forcing the wind from his lungs and causing his heart to lurch. He screamed in pain as he was lifted, his own body weight impaling him further on Chimney's claws, his blood pouring freely down the pale grey arms that held him aloft. The last thing he saw before his final breath, were those red eyes, still staring into him with all the cold regard of a snake watching a rat.

A few moments later they were overlooking their work. Blood stained both walls of the alleyway, the scent of copper heavy in the air. The men looked for all the world like they have been ripped apart by a pack of wild dogs, all of them missing their eyes and their skin shredded by claws and teeth. Amira stood amid the bodies, her head raised and her eyes closed, blood smeared on her teeth and lips. She inhaled deeply, tasting the last lingering bit of fear left in the air, before wiping her mouth clean. She tossed aside what was left of one of the victims heads before turning her focus on Chim, who was stepping over the bodies, examining their belongings.

Chim snickered as he spotted a bottle among the men's possessions. Fireball Whiskey, unopened and brand new. He snagged it, twisting the cap off and grinning triumphantly before taking a swig of the sweet and spicy liquor. He turned his attention to Amira as she began to dig through their pockets,

"You want some?"

She grinned, "You know technically I'm not allowed to drink yet"

"You're not even a human being, I dont think those laws apply to you"

"Hehe, true that", she reached out for the bottle with a grateful nod, before tipping it back with ease. She of course had alcohol and more under the supervision of her parents, and her metabolism made it so that she wasn't easily affected by what would cause most humans to become inebriated.

She lowered the bottle, handing it back to him, "So is this where you do the soul-eating thing? Should I like look away or something?"

Chim snorted, "Why? Your innocent baby eyes can't handle it or something?"

She stared at him for a moment before throwing her head back, "Bahaha! No it's just some people don't like it when you watch them eat yanno? Rude and stuff."

He shrugged, "I couldn't care less."

"Mmmkay", she looked at him expectantly.

"But I'm not going to do it now because they're all dead already, and dead souls taste stale and gross"

"Ohhhhhh, I see. So those husk-things you make...are they like zombies or what?"

He wiggled his hand, "Kinda, sorta. Not really. They're half dead and souless. Uhh, more like a wraith or a ghoul."

"Ohhhhhh...huh!"

As he looked on she continued to rifle through their belongings, and she suddenly held up a thick wad of cash, "You killed this one, he had 600 on him."

"Well now he doesn't", Chim plucked the cash from her hands.

There was a soft pained groan from one of the bodies, one of the men was still alive. Amira snapped her fingers, "Oh, I almost forgot!"

She stepped over to the groaning man, grabbing him firmly by one bloody and lacerated arm and dragging him over the bodies of his friends as if he was no more than a sack of garbage. He moaned and whimpered as she did so, still trying weakly to pull against her iron grip.

"Uncle Chim you want this guys soul? He's not-" she was interrupted by another groan "-shut up! He's not dead yet"

Chimney tightened the screwcap of the bottle before lightly tossing it onto the chest of the nearest body. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes burning with a fierce hunger. The man whimpered in fear, struggling uselessly against Amira as Chim reached out for his throat.

He was lifted easily, and before he could react Chim's claws were in his chest, sliding easily past flesh and bone to grasp onto the treasure that dwelled within. The man gurgled and twitched, his eyes rolling up into his head as Chim pulled out what looked like a glowing glass marble. Swirled with a mixture of yellow, red, black, and grey, the soul cast Chim's rugged facial features in sharp contrast.

His prize won, Chim tossed the man aside, before bringing the soul to his lips and letting it slide down his throat. It was gone in one gulp, with Chim making a face of disgust before grabbing the bottle of whiskey, "Ugh...", and downing the equivalent of two shots.

Amira had watched in awe before grinning, her white teeth glinting in the darkness,

"That. Was. Awesome."

"Eh, I guess. Tasted stale."

"I can't wait to tell Kenith about this, he's gonna lose it. Hey wait", she stepped forward with a look of concern, pointing to a deep cut on his left forearm. Dark blood dripped freely from it, along with a faint whisp of miasma that rose into the night air, "You're hurt..."

He snorted, "This is nothing, you've seen me at my worst remember?"

Her liquid black eyes widened, her wings lifting slightly in surprise, "...you knew I was there?"

He shrugged, "I heard tiny chatterings here and there between moments of being unconcious. I decucted they where definitely not your dad....s."

"Wow...I didn't think you'd remember that...", she sat down on an upturned crate, looking at him in curiosity as he leaned against the brick wall of the alley.

"My memory is exceptional since I've become a husk. I've remembered everything that's happened to me. Everything. Well...mostly everything."

"But you don't remember the stuff from before then right?"

"Bits and pieces, but I'd rather not remember much of what my life was like when I was alive. Some things aren't...worth remembering..."

Amira was quiet for a moment, looking up at the moon as as a cloud passed in front of it, deepening the shadows in the alley, "After he healed you...Bapa had a hard time remembering things, he kinda took on your memories for awhile."

Chim paused. He remembered hearing sobbing as well as he was fading in and out of the grey mist. Soft, dual-voiced sobbing of the banshee who had hardly left his side as he fought to pull Chim from the edge of oblivion. He remembered being perplexed by it, "...unfortunate"

"I guess I wouldn't want to remember either...you're basically a different person now right?"

"No I'm not. I'm just...worse now"

There was a thoughful silence that passed. She ran her hands over the feathers of her wings carefully, presumably to groom them. He watched her, studying her out of continued curiosity. It seemed like yesterday that she was a tiny puffball, and now she was sitting in front of him, nearly an adult. Was it really so long ago that the possession had occured.

As he thought of it, a phantom pain stung him along his sternum. It was a rare occurance, but a subtle reminder of the faded scar that had been left there. He hid his grimace as she spoke again,

"Would you ever ask Argus to reverse it? To go back to being human?"

He shook his head, "No. I don't want that...I don't even want this. But...this is what I'm stuck with", he gestured to himself. He was quite a sight, his shirt stained with blood and his grey skin starkly outlined by black his beard and hair. The hollows of his eyes were deep, his eyes glowing silver now that he was at ease.

"So...what do you want? I mean you saved the universe basically. You could ask for whatever you wanted..."

He sighed, looking away. He wasn't comfortable with where this conversation was headed, "Nevermind, kid. Let's go..."

"Where are we going?"

"You're going home, I'm going to get more booze and souls..."

"Ah, well actuallllllly I need to get some wontons first. Bapa's been craving them", she stood up brushing her hands against her jacket before shaking her wings. They seemed to vanish into the darkness, her eyes lost their eerie blackness, and once more she looked for all the world like a teenage girl. She smiled at him, her rows of fangs replaced with pearly human teeth, "See you Uncle Chim, it was cool seeing you again".

He expected her to just leave, but to his astonishment he felt her arms around him, giving him a quick hug. He was so shocked that before he could react it was already over, and he could only stand in silence as she turned to leave.

"Yeah...", he watched as she walked down the alleyway confidently. He sighed and shrugged, before taking to the air in an instant, his wraith form curling through the alleyway like a nightmarish wind.

Amira hummed as she walked, pulling the collar of her jacket up as a cold drizzle began to fall. Steam rose from the asphalt and concrete as she strolled past a row of warehouses on her way to the small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that sold the best wontons in the city. All she needed to do was pick up a sizable portion of those along with some dumplings, and dinner would be set for the whole family.

But she stopped suddenly. A new chill had settled in the area, a deathly cold that seemed to want to sink into her bones. An irritating sensation, like thousands of hornets buzzing, filled the air. It caused her ears to twitch, her lip curling as her teeth began to click. She began to feel a bloodthirsty anger begin to burn from deep within her, as if she was witnessing some horrid even taking place. But there was nothing to be seen still, just an oppressive and offensive sensation that filled her with irritation at its very presence.

This could only be one thing, a Void Beast.

They had a particular hatred for her and her family due to their involvement with the fight against their vile god, but even moreso after they had provided protection, healing and a safe haven to Chimney. But the hatred was returned sevenfold...they were the sworn enemies of banshees, and the stories of their horrors had been handed down to her from her grandmothers and through the genetic memories given to her by Iblis.  

She cracked her knuckles and squared her shoulders, her wings sprouting from her back and lifting along with the hairs on the back of her neck. She felt no fear, only anger at their presence. She was the descendant of the revered matrons of the banshees, and the inheritor of the power of the bohgeys. She and her brother were the only two of their kind, and gained the strength of both peoples. While this would be nothing compared to fighting frat boys in an alleyway, she was prepared to fight the intruder if it meant protecting the innocent humans that lived in the area.

As her eyes shrouded themselves in black once more she heard the discordinant whispering of its approach...mad gibbering meant to drive the mentally unprepared to insanity and despair. But she also heard the approach of footsteps, and she growled in disgust.

Of course, cultists. Worshipper of the Blood Goat, as it was now known. They must have summoned the Void Beast to act as a hound as they searched for victims...or to find Chimney. Either way, she was not going to allow them to get past her.

She stood, waiting, her wings fluffed out in aggravation and annoyance. She was having a good night and didn't need it to be ruined by cultists. Not to mention she still needed to get wontons. They were going to suffer mightily indeed for this. And then she saw them, white robes with pointed hoods marking their status as lower ranking members of the cult, with a individual swathed in blood-red leading them. Red leather gloves gripped a copper-colored thurible, from which billowed a rusty-colored smoke that made her nose crinkle in revulsion.

She stood her ground as they silently approached her, before coming to a stop 40 feet away. There was silence, and she felt all their eyes upon her. There were 14 of them that she could see, including their leader, and she knew the Beast would not be far behind.

The leader took a step forward, his head turning slightly, "Ahh, one of the Abominations. Where is your brother?"

"Luckily for you he's waiting for me to get home along with the rest of my family. They won't have to wait long though, I'll have you finished off soon enough."

The cultist snickered, "You're a mistake that will be rectified, you and your pathetic family. Now where is the Anathema?"

Amira snarled, "I'm not telling you a thing."

"Why do you protect him child? He is nothing but a danger and a hinderance to your family. Tell us where he is, and we may spare you."

"He *is* family. You and your whinyass god can go back to the hole you crawled out of, you're not getting a damn thing except for me ripping your lips off so I don't have to listen to your yacht-club accent anymore."

"We shall enjoy sacrificing you Abomination, your blood shall be offered up unto Him amid your screams."

Amira growled, readying herself to charge, but a familiar black fog poured out from a steam grate near her feet, coiling upwards before solidifying next to her. Chimney cracked his neck as he manifested,

"You're looking for the Anathema?"

He took a step forward, putting himself between her and the cultists,

"Well here I am"

The red cultist turned to the others, barking out, "What are you waiting for? Kill them both!"

As the cultists scurried forward Chim bellowed like an angry bull, rushing ahead before taking the form of a whirlwind that ripped into the white robes like living razorwire. Blood sprayed into the air as a fine mist, and Amira gave a roar of her own as she followed his path of destruction. While she was surprised to see him show up she wasn't going to question it, instead throwing herself into the fray, her claws lashing out in a frenzy at faces and throats. She flung out a wing, causing another cultist to be knocked down onto the hard cement of the street. She proceeded to grab him before taking flight, lifting him into the air.

The cultist flailed his arms at her, trying to throw her off kilter as she continued to ascend. Her wings made powerful sweeps as she lifted him up and up, her arms keeping a tight hold of him. She could heard the sounds of the fight below, despite being high above it, far beyond the point humans could hear. ��As the cultist struggled she smirked, "Oh, you want me to let you go?"

"No! No please! Don't drop me!"

"Sorry, me being nothing but an abomination I guess I just don't understand. Oh no and now you're slipping!"

She loosened her grip, just enough for the cultist to make a panicked squeal,

"No no please! Please don't drop me!"

"Sorry abominations aren't strong enough to hold up such powerful members of the master race and all!"

"Oh god! God please don't!"

She grinned, her white fangs gleaming in the faint light of the crescent moon, "Looks like you picked the wrong religion buddy. Oops", she let go of the cultist, and he fell with a scream before slamming into the pavement below with a heavy thud. She rose higher, spreading her wings wide in the night air, before diving down towards the swirl of red and white that marked where Chim continued his culling. he lifted her legs, taking aim at one that was attempting to sneak behind the enraged demon, and landed on him like a raptor onto a mouse.

The force of her landing broke bones, sundered flesh, and ruptured organs in her chosen victim, leaving them little more than a bloodied mass within a white cloth. She turned, smiling with grim satisfaction before leaping at the cirle of cultists attempting to corral her snarling uncle.

Chimney only saw his victims through the red haze of his hatred, his miasma blasting out like diesel fumes as he roared in defiance of the cultists attacks. He shredded through flesh and robes alike, snapping limbs and cracking heads in a brutal dance of violence that stained the ground with blood. One of the cultists struck at his stomach, but instead of hearing a pained cry was rewarded with broken knuckles as his fist met the teeth of the stomach mouth. Chim laughed as the cultist cradled their smashed hand,

"Ha! Here, try again, like this", before stabbing his claws into the mans stomach, ripping him open and causing gore to pour out on the already wet ground. Chim turned with a chuckle before swiping at the face of another cultist, causing him to scream as he was blinded, but only to be cut short by having his head torn from his body.

The cultists fell, one by one, their limbs and viscera littering the ground. Here are there were only small patches of white, as their robes were soaked in blood. But there was one left, twirling the censer like a ball and chain as Amira carefully made her way closer. The leader in his red robes flung the thurible towards her face, and she dodged and dove expertly as she growled, closing the gap between them and cornering him against a wall.

As Chim stomped repeatedly on one groaning cultist he caught sight of the two facing off. He stopped and made his way towards them, stepping nonchalantly on bodies as he walked. As the red cultist threw the thurible at Amira again she snagged the chain in her claws, snarling viciously as she pulled him off balance and sent him crashing to the ground. She tossed the still smoking device aside and pounced on the cultist, throwing punches along his ribs. Chim ran towards her, "Hey! Kid! Wait!", before picking up the censer. It was made of a heavy metal, and it felt solid at the end of the woven chain. Amira paused from her assault, lifting her head to look at Chim with a feral expression.

He smirked at the censer in his hands before looking at her, "That one's mine, and I got an idea..."

Amira's eyes refocused, and she nodded, a smirk of her own forming. She picked up the priest while he whimpered in pain, his hand clutching at his ribs. Amira was quite a bit stronger than a normal human, and Chim could hear the sound of snapped ribs grinding as she roughly handled him, before flinging him down at Chim's feet.

In an instant Chim had ripped off the cultists hood, before wrapping the chain of the censer around his throat. The red priest's face was bloodied from Amira's assault, a shock of white hair at the top of his head standing up straight. He grasped at his neck as Chim dragged him by the chain across the pavement, Amira circling as she watched. They both snickered as the priest gasped and choked, his face nearly as red as his robes before Chim stopped,

"Oh no, no, not yet. I'm not done with you..."

He unwound the chain roughly, before holding up the censer itself in his hands. Amira made a face as the rust-like smoke continued to emanate from it, and she pulled up part of her jacket over her nose. Chim looked at the ornately decorated ball as he knelt down next to the priest,

"Let's take a moment to appreciate the irony of this", and with a grunt he brought the heavy device down onto the priest's face. He brought it back up, the priest sputtering under the pain of his now broken nose, before smashing it down again. Again and again he did this, gaining speed with every hit. Again and again he cracked the censer down onto the red cultist's face, until there was nothing but red paste and shattered bone where his head had been.

Chim tossed the censer aside, its fire and smoke finally quenched by the blood of its owner. He snorted, "Ugh fucking thing smells like shit..."

Amira lifted her head, her teeth clicking together softly and her feathers fluffing out. It was then that Chim felt it, the warmth spreading through his veins and into his fingertips. As if Amira's reaction wasn't enough, the Mark was warning him, telling him the Void Beast was near. He growled as he felt the power surge within him, Argus's gift weaving through him in preparation, giving him the edge he needed.

He gestured to Amira, and she followed him closely as he pressed himself against a wall, around the corner of which was a seemingly empty street, the lights of which flickered rapidly before cutting out completely at one end. He lifted a finger to his lips, looking at her before giving a small nod of his head to the darkened end. The discordinant whispering was coming closer, growing as he lifted one arm, his miasma forming a transluscent black blade that extended from his wrist. As she looked she noticed small veins of gold extending into the blade...Argus's very blood seeping out of the Mark and acting as poison against the agents of the Goat.

As they peered around the wall, they saw a growth seeming to sprout from the darkened end of the street, bubbling out like tar and forming a thick tumor on the brick which grew rapidly. When it had reached the size of a conversion van the noisome mass sprouted tendrils like spider legs, which kicked blindly as it pulled itself free, and it oozed down into the street. Hundreds of red eyes blinked as a cacophony of shrieks like the dying cries of children echoed from the mouthless being, before settling into the whispering once more.

Chimney's lip curled as he watched it undulate down the street. A memory crept up from the back of his mind, one from a time he had long forgotten. He had heard the whispers in his home, as they invaded his space and his mind, dragging him to the Void to strip him down to bare nerve endings and exposing every weakness he had to their invading minds as they peeled away all that was left of his humanity.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory, setting his jaw as the heat from the Mark made his skin tingle. He felt the the holy blood fill in the injuries from the previous fights, sealing them shut as his miasma sought to escape from his skin. He breathed deeply, tasting the night air as he felt himself being recharged, the warmth cascading across his stony skin.

Suddenly the memory was no more, another distant ghost that didn't need a second thought. A faint speck of dust from another life that was flicked out of the forefront of his mind and back into the dark repressed space he kept secret even from himself. He opened his eyes, and he turned to Amira,  who looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He gestured for her to stay put, "Wait here...just...whatever you do...wait here", before standing up and slowly walking to the center of the street.

His fingers twitched as he stood facing the Beast. It stopped, all of its eyes focused on him as he called out to it,

"You looking for me? Come on you son of a bitch, come get me! COME ON!"

The Void Beast shrieked in response, moving towards him with a speed that belied the skinny tendrils that dragged it forward. It wailed, a mixture of hunger and rage propelling it forward as all of its eyes rolled madly. Despite its size it was no lumbering beast, but instead moved with a unnaturally fluid grace like that of an ocean creature. It gibbered as it barreled towards Chim, and Amira watched apprehensively from her crouched position.

Chimney stared ahead at it. He could have passed for a statue if not for the occassional twitch of his fingers. Amira was coiled like a spring, torn between wanting to join in the fight but knowing she needed to wait, and see what he would do.

The Beast was almost on him, and still he did not move. But then, just as it was about to envelop him, he dropped to one knee and raised up the blade of miasma. It stabbed into the Beast with ease, gold energy burning into its flesh as the blade sank in deeper. It cut through the corrupt flesh like a scalpel slicing into a marshmallow, and the Beast wailed as the it tried to pull itself away from the source of its agony. But it had built up too much speed, it's own weight betraying it and causing the blade to sink it even deeper, bisecting it as its legs flailed uselessly. Chim groaned under the effort of holding up his arm, but squared his shoulders against the titantic force of the beast impaling itself on his blade.

Amira watched in shock as the Beast sailed by, cut into two pieces and shrieking in pain as the golden energy began to scorch away what was left of its flesh. It's eyes widened and rolled in terror as it burned into nothingness, its finally death cry echoing weakly in the street.

Chim panted, before willing the blade away and standing up once again. His miasma formed short plumes as he caught his breath, aand he turned to look at Amira,

"See? Easy."

Amira looked up at him, before standing up and grinning, "I admit, that was pretty fucking cool"

Chim looked down at his blood-drenched arms, "Ugh. Say Bambi did your dads ever teach you any tricks for removing blood?"

"Bambi? I-", she reached up and felt the tips of her horns before she chuckled, "Oh yeah, Bambi. Yeah Bapa did, hold on one second"

She rubbed her palms together, summoning up a small violet flame in her hands that soon spread into a larger black and purple ball that lent a eerie light to the street. She let it grow, spreading over her arms and her shoulders before flicking the ball towards Chim.

He grunted. He still hadn't gotten fully used to the flame tricks the family used for healing and repairing, but he looked down as the flames crawled over his skin harmlessly, the caked on blood fading in their wake. He leaned his head back, letting the flames coat him entirely. They tickled slightly as they reached his beard and hair, but otherwise felt cool to the touch. Almost refreshing in a way.

He looked back down, the flames dying away as the last of the blood and dirt faded from him. It was if he had just started his evening, with no signs of the previous events showing on his clothes or skin. Amira was also spotless, and her inhuman features faded from view once more.

Suddenly there was a gurgling chitter from underneath his shirt, accompanied by a gnawing hunger. The stomach mouth demanded food. He had expended a lot of energy, and needed to make up for it. He grunted, before looking at Amira,

"So, what's this about a wonton place?"

She chuckled, "C'mon, I'll show you where it's at..."

[hemawrites]

Travel Tales to Palakkad

The best way to learn I have discovered is to travel. It is like reading a book- discovering things first-hand. There is tremendous joy in always leaving behind a home that is ridden with mundane problems, seemingly endless chores, the drudgery of a routine in short! It is like the frog in the well experiencing and breathing new freedom outside-  an entire world waiting to be discovered with all its beauty and short-comings.

My brief stay in Palakkad helped me rediscover the simple joys of life that I seemed to have forgotten at least for a while. While the bustling city life has its numerous advantages, I sometimes feel the disconnect that it also brings with it. In the quiet village home in Palakkad, I am quite happy to be without wi-fi and my laptop. My senses are alert and I realized I had become more observant. Summers in Palakkad are quite unbearable and the monsoons are awaited eagerly.

There are row houses facing each other, and every morning would see the women of the homes wash the black Cuddappah stone  laid neatly in front of each home  and draw out the perfectly drawn kolam out of rice flour to be seen in contrast to the back background.  Kolams are almost like graphology- just as you can read from a handwriting, so also kolams tell stories about their authors ! Some are drawn out of mere routine, some in a hurry, some out of compulsion , but the ones that stand out are simple ones drawn out of love. There is a delicacy in each perfect line , and festive occasions would mean more elaborate kolams, drawn out of freshly soaked and ground rice, a liquid that like paint is ore free-flowing and does not get erased away that easily unless the intention is deliberate!

Palakkad is essentially the corridor that allows entry into Kerala because of the Palakkad gap, that is a low mountain pass that bridges Coimbatore to Palakkad and cuts through Nilgiri hills and Anaimalai hills. The Bharatapuzha river that originates from here caresses the entire place along with her tributaries . It is a feast to the eyes to watch the lush green paddy fields , the many rivulets, the swaying coconut palms dotting the horizon and the shore and the several colourful birds that find haven in these surroundings.  The  clear blue skies add to the hues of the blue green waters of the rivers, and it is here that I have found every home with at least a few “basic” trees!  

The evening sky glows with the red sky reflecting its glory on its red-tiled roofs. Then as darkness spreads its blanket across the sky, the moon rises shining like a large lamp and the temple priest  lights up the temple bringing light from the corner of the street. Then one by one, all lights in the villages are lit. The evening prayers begin and as the priest raises the aarti plate, the entire village stands with folded palms praying from the sacred space of their own homes, thus symbolically taking in the sacredness from across the temple to the altar of their homes. The villages in Palakkad were essentially agraharams(Brahmin residents) and the oldest among them being Kalpathy , which has been regarded as a heritage village. The temple chariot rituals in each of these villages are worthy of participation and are rich memories to carry back home.

The village homes are large and airy, well ventilated with wooden roofs and beams and wooden stairs that lead to the bedrooms of the main part of the house. There is a central court yard  which doubles as a wash area to clean hands and legs should one come in from outside. It is quite a treat to hear the sound of rain on these tiled roofs and when they pour down the roof, they almost resemble a mini waterfall !

There is a sense of participation from the entire village when it comes to temple festivals, weddings or even solemn occasions of the passing away of a village resident. It is then that we understand how much we miss the human strength and support when we distance ourselves from the cultural roots.

It was here that I enjoyed teaching my children how to learn from residents how to be resourceful. When my son wanted to play cricket and we did not have a bat- (we had to go to the town to source it), my uncle came with a solution. He used the thick  base portion of the coconut frond and easily chiselled out a well-shaped out though rustic bat. When my son found the grip on the handle not too good, my mother promptly came up with a solution- use the jute rope; when the rope was coiled around the handle, it not only looked aesthetically beautiful, it also enabled better grip. It was the first lesson in resourcefulness. The ability to think quickly comes in with being thrown to basics- when solutions do not land on a plate, the mind begins to work. They soon learnt how to send rockets flying in the air using the coconut leaves! Children learnt to make bracelets and coconut –leaf balls too! By the end of the vacation , they had learnt to identify the vegetables and flowers better- Botany seemed fun this way , and all without any compulsion! Soon they found that among all other trees in the garden- a small farm(!), the coconut and the plantain tree could be regarded truly special- every part of the tree could be put to use!

As we plucked the jasmine flowers for my mother who would weave it into a beautiful strand, I found my uncle suddenly quiet as he drew me away from the malli bush. High alert. None of us moved- all remained quiet. After six minutes, we saw a long snake slither away! I gasped- my uncle said: “Pooh, it is only a cherai (rat snake)!” It drew my attention to the fact that living in the quiet of the countryside perhaps teaches us to be alert and sensitive to Nature around us- to be conscious of little sounds, little movements, and more importantly the ability to respect space and species.

In later years, it was perhaps his training in early childhood that probably taught my son to respect creatures around him on his university campus too. He once used a long stick waiting for the snake that had slithered on to the main road, allowed it to settle on the stick before he could  carefully put it away from the main road where it could possibly run the chance of being killed.

Vacations in Palakkad taught us to be happy with little,  taught us to notice the animals at closer quarter- we understood the calls of birds- the large chemboth (Greater  Coucal) , the king fisher, the wood pecker. We watched the flowers bloom, the fruits appearing and the ecstasy of drinking tender coconut fresh from the tree!

As I return to the city and get on to Facebook , I am reminded of the several thinnai ( small platforms ) conversations that we had as we got together each evening waiting for the temple priest to come. I realize the intimacy of the conversations with real people as the against the several ‘friends’ on FB who I have not seen in flesh!

[idornaseminary]

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Natasha and Calix

The festivities in Old Aroon were in full swing by the time Natasha got there. As usual, plenty of alumni had shown up, desperate to see their old school again, which meant there were far more people around than usual. She still had no problem cutting through the crowd, as almost anyone who saw her wanted to get out of her way. She gave off an aura that made people wary and uncomfortable, which she liked quite a bit.

She had planned on staying in her room and preparing for the dangerous trip that they were about to embark upon, but she had an issue to settle first. None of the others seemed to trust her much, besides possibly Beatrice, and even that was shaky. She didn’t mind at all, and in fact didn’t particularly want their trust, but Calix was going to be an issue. If something went wrong, she doubted he would be very willing to help her, and may even blame her. In the interest of self-preservation, she had to make nice for at least a bit.

She had checked the infirmary and around the castle for him, but wasn’t surprised to not find him there. That was why she had ventured into Old Aroon, to look for him so that they could talk. When her eyes finally landed on him, he was with Beatrice and a man she didn’t recognize, presumably an alum. She still had no issue walking up to them with a sweet grin on her face.

“Beatrice, Calix, hello!” she said, the dangerous note in her chipper voice barely detectable. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Calix’s blood, filled with passion and joy as he spoke with his girlfriend and her father, who had returned to say goodnight before retiring, ran icy cold like a river of ichor frozen in late winter at the sound of the enchanting siren’s sickly sweet voice, the underlying danger and menace scarcely noticeable through the cheerful and lively veneer. He glanced up at her from the confines of the wooden booth, an inclement tempest building in his grey eyes. Calix had been through enough that evening, with more peril to come at the stroke of midnight, without the arrival of Natasha Kraus.

“Fancy that. Can we help you,” he snapped, but the anger was hidden behind a wall, not wanting his emotions to govern his actions in front of his girlfriend’s father and his boss. He slipped past Beatrice to the edge of the booth and stood protectively in front of the Selwyns.

Natasha pretended to look shocked at his hostility when in reality she would have been more surprised if she hadn’t heard it. “I just wanted to say hello,” she told him, tucking a bit of her dark hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted something. But I also wanted to ask you about that project for our Charms class?” she asked. “I was hoping we could discuss it outside.” She was sure Calix would be well aware they did not share a class together, but hoped he would want her away from the Selwyns and would go with her anyway.

Calix clenched down hard on his tongue, his teeth slicing through the soft skin and a rivulet of blood pouring forth as the thin barrier collapsed under the pressure. Calix knew Natasha had never shared a single class with him, but he understood the inherent message behind the fabrication. He nodded, afraid his words would betray him, turning on his heels to kiss Beatrice’s forehead gently, cupping her rosy cheeks in his strong hands.

“I won’t be long, my love,” Calix softly spoke, “I’ll be back in a few short moments.”

He begrudgingly stepped away, unwilling to leave Beatrice, and glared at the witch. He pointed towards the crowd, pushing past her and stepping through the rapturous and raving masses towards the cold air of the moonlit streets outside.

Natasha couldn’t help her slight smirk as Calix pushed ahead through the crowd, offering a friendly wave to the two left in the booth as she followed after him. Once they were in a relatively private area, she dropped the pretenses.

“You don’t like me,” she said, her voice a bit flat as she looked at him. “I know that, and the feeling is mutual. But tonight, it will be by far in your best interest to put just a little bit of faith in me. Do you think you can manage that?”

Natasha had no doubt that the mediwizard would have no hesitation to hex her if he had the chance, which was why she was having this conversation with him in the first place. She wanted to survive this trip that already seemed like a suicide mission, and was trying to eliminate unnecessary risks.

When the air hit him, Calix shuddered, the cutting, boreal wind seeping into his bones. He cursed himself not forgetting his jacket in his anger, his warmth and compassion leaching out into the surroundings, lost to the world around him. He defensively crossed his arms in front of him, half the cogs in his mind screaming at him to draw his wand and get the answers that he wanted one way or another when the witch dropped her schrade, and the remaining gearwheels were begging him not to do something rash that could endanger those closest to him.

“You’re right,” he concurred, “We don’t like each other. Why? Because ever since Sam met you here in Old Aroon, he can’t stop freaking out whenever he thinks of you. Every time he sees you, he panics, like it’s some sort of Pavlovian conditioning. And, if I’m honest, I actually think there’s something very twisted about doing that to another person. But, let’s say I can manage to play nice, taking I could’ve hexed your sorry ass back in the Den when you were completely exhausted if I’d wanted to, will you be able to stand by me and not piss me off like a spoilt brat? Or try and get inside my head like you do with everyone else? Is that something you can do?”

The German had expected hostility. That didn’t come as a surprise to her, but considering how well the boy had done at holding his cool in front of others, the sudden outburst she got was a bit of shock. She smirked slightly though, impressed that even if she couldn’t manipulate him as she did most people, she could still get him this riled up.

“I did you and your little group a huge favor by doing that. I owe none of you anything, anything at all, which means that, effectively, you owe me. So I’ll behave however I want to, and you can stay out of my way. And I can guarantee that hexing me then would have been a bad choice, for both your and Sam’s sakes, as it would be now.”

Calix took a deep breath, filling his lungs with glacial air that pierced and numbed the tissues and made breathing difficult. The witch’s smirk, cunning and sadistic, like a fox on the hunt for prey or a crow diving for carrion, was caustic. When she mentioned Sam, Calix’s fingers flexed, crying out for the smooth touch of his wand, tucked beneath his shirt for later. He realised too late that he had allowed her to gain a foothold, allowed her to slip past his defences and start chipping away at the protective walls he had built. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“You did that favour out of the goodness of your heart,” Calix said, a mocking tone mirroring the German’s sickly sweet voice, but varnished with a pleasantry that was difficult to peel back, “No one forced you to help us. No one. You did that all of your own free will, and I’m sure you’re marching into the Gladur with us in the same frame of mind. I know exactly why you’re tagging along, my dear, and I have no problem in playing house with you, if you’re willing to do the same. Let’s not forget, you started all this horrid business. Alright?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Really? You think you know me?” she asked, stepping slightly closer. “You think you understand why I’m helping you, when any sane person would be running as far away from this suicidal task as possible?” She smirked a bit, seeing how he was almost twitching with annoyance, how his fingers were trembling with the desire to draw his wand and curse her. She was pushing her luck, but she didn’t care. He was just too much fun to play with.

“And I am happy to play along, although I’m sure you have more of a stake in it than I do. I would hate for poor Beatrice to be upset by us fighting. The girl is just a bit too...fainthearted for that.” Natasha had something of a threat in her voice, the smirk still toying at her dark lips.

Calix steadied himself, bracing when the witch mentioned Beatrice’s name as well, a feeling of utter disgust twisting his stomach into knots and poisoning the butterflies that fluttered there.

Of course, she knows.

He unwisely closed his eyes for a second to regain his composure. Natasha was an expert at manipulation, at exposing someone’s natural weakness, the fault lines and stresses that when pressured shattered into a thousand shards and allowed the siren’s voice to sweep in and take control. For Calix, it was the people he loved, those closest to him that he would move mountains for - they were his greatest strengths and his greatest weaknesses.

Unlike her, he wasn’t a manipulator nor a persuader: he couldn’t fight at her level. But, with a smirk, he knew she couldn’t win either. There would be no victory, no loss - that he could play. He contemplated playing the one trump card he knew would break through every little barrier the witch had, watch what happened when Calix turned the tables of faith and enjoyed the changing biochemistry if he mentioned McKayla Steele. But, he wasn’t like her. He wouldn’t do that, even in his anger.

“I think, you’ve drawn all this on yourself. I don’t know you like you said, and maybe if you weren’t so intent on being a bitch all the time, we’d actually get on. But, hey, that’s up to you. Just leave them out of it. Do I make myself clear? Because it’s your insistence on hurting those around me that’s the problem.”

Natasha shook her head a bit. She knew this was her fault, and frankly, didn't care. She watched him for another moment and told him, “I won't touch or harm either of them. Is that what you want to hear?”

She smirked softly. She was still under the impression that he had him cornered, not that he was withholding some sort of trump card that she knew nothing about.

“Just remember that I can break Sam like a twig if you try to mess with me, okay?”

With a small wave, she walked off, proud of herself for what she assumed was a victory.