#previous commenter is completely right about formation fighting

[chaiandsage]

Hello, it is me, I am back. I'm being insane about TL... again... It's my constant state at this point I fear.

Anyways, I was making myself a playlist for the story and was wondering if you had any songs that you personally associate with the fic and/or characters.

I may or may not also be reformatting the bind for a second print with a couple new features (that may or may not pretty much just be making all the comms messages formatted with the Minecraft font so they look more authentic... That's... definitely not the only think I am changing.... Listen, I know I'm insane, we do not need to talk about it)

Okay, so, sorry for the delayed reply, but you probably had no idea just how insane this question was going to make me. Because a lot of these songs are ones that I hold very close to me and some, in one way or another, were even the inspiration for a lot of major plot points that happened in the story. Others, however, I got really into while the fic was still being updated because some of my readers would comment about their own songs that they connected to Trust Life or would even make entire playlists for it--which I LOVED. So anyway, here's two different lists for each of those, complete with explanations that no one asked for on why I think they vibe with the story :D

My Personal Vibes

So quick side story, I worked in retail while I was writing up the story outline for this and most of my job involved doing some very repetitive and boring tasks that left plenty of brainpower to spare for me to think about and plan out the story while I was doing them. And I'm sure you know that most stores will just play a bunch of generic, upbeat, bubbly, pop music on loop the entire day (I kinda vibe with it ngl, but I get that it's not for everyone), but that was what I had to listen to throughout the day and like it or not, that was the music that I ended up coming up with a lot of ideas and fixing a lot of plot holes to. And honestly? I wouldn't have had it any other way. But my point is, if a few of these songs are kinda cheery sounding and don't seem like they have that much to do with the story's usual theme, just know that that's why, lol.

Can't Remember to Forget You - Shakira

Something, something... memory loss, Scott and Jimmy forgetting they were already a couple during Double Life... Neither of them being able to forget each other after the breakup--plus that one "kissing in the moonlight" line inspired that flashback scene that Scott had in chapter 43.

Part Of Me -Noah Kahan

Recognize the title? Chapter 30 baybeee. This was kind of how I wanted Tango's feelings for his previous boyfriends to come off. Not all of the lyrics are accurate, but most of it matches the tone I was trying to go for.

Pick Me Up - Sam Feldt, Sam Fischer

This one made had me thinking about snowbugs 24/7 and for as arguably disconnected from the theme of the story that the lyrics are it had absolutely no right to inspire as many scenes in this fic as it did. It's how I came up with how Scott's escape went after stealing the enchanter back in chapter 31 with him jumping off the roof (fun fact: that fight was originally gonna be during the day and it was gonna be Scott who threw the water and TANGO who jumped, but I changed it). It's also the inspiration for chapter 45 when they're storming the fortress and Scott and Tango have to help protect each other. ALSO--Remember the title to chapter 49??? Yeah, that's literally just one of the lyrics from this song. It freakin inspired the burning garden scene too. Get this song out of my head man, it's taken over my whole personality at this point...

Good Grief - Bastille

More of Scott and Jimmy just missing each other achingly and Scott in particular only being able to watch from the sidelines as Jimmy "moves on" with another man.

Still Into You - Paramore

Pretty self-explanatory. Kinda captures the vibe of the ending imo. Could be applied to almost all of the relationships and not just our main throuple.

Find an Island - BENEE

JOEL AND ETHO!!--Something about them moving too fast in their relationship during Double Life, the "storm" that was them getting their memories back, how they drifted away from each other thinking they'd be better off going without any contact, and of course the whole shipwreck and sailing theme here was just screaming "boat boys" to me.

Avalanche - Christian French

Less on-the-nose, but still a really fun vibe to me. Basically the insanity that followed after Double Life. The players realizing their feelings for other people. Can sort of be viewed more from Grian's perspective since he more or less "started" all this or at least he partially blames himself for it even if he didn't as much as all his friends all thought he had. He started the small tumble that spiraled into an avalanche as the drama continued to influence nearly everyone he knew.

Stitches - Shawn Mendes

More of Scott beating himself up both mentally and physically as he goes through his breakup at the beginning of the story. He can't sleep, can't eat, can't stop thinking about Jimmy... He's barely dragging himself forward on two feet as it is.

Thank Me Later - Sigrid

SCAR AND GRIAN--Basically Grian's whole perspective on Scar. He thinks that the person he loves will be better off if he just let him go. He knows that Scar isn't going to let go of him easily, but he deserves better. He just needs to convince him of that and maybe, as painful as it will be for Grian, Scar will move on.

Sucker - Jonas Brothers

Mostly vibes. Tango, Scott, and Jimmy doing crazy things together during the first three days of the game. Scott and Tango continuing to be menaces to everyone together even after Jimmy died. All three of them being like: "Hey, let's break into people's houses. Let's set things on fire. Let's steal and murder and fight monsters together. And while we're at it? Let's fall even deeper in love--because I kind of just realized that all of this is only fun to me because I'm doing it with you."

Hate You - Poylow & BAUWZ

THIS FUCKING- Okay... I hate that this very simple tune that I heard over a freakin YOUTUBE SHORT ended up inspiring a scene that was so fun to come up with that never even made it into the final outline, but picture this with me for a moment:

Tango doesn't realize his feelings for Scott right before the Wither attacks back in chapter 50. Instead, they're closer to their base when it happens. They just got done having that whole tense argument and "confession" and are still holding hands and staring at each other when Scott points out Tango's eyes again, not knowing what it means. Tango's eyes go wide. He pulls away, running over to their fish pond to see his reflection and... Oh god. No. No, no nonono-- His breathing is picking up. Every soft, caring interaction he's ever had with Scott now pass through his head in a blur. He realizes it was love. Scott asks what's wrong. Tango doesn't respond. He can't. What would he even say? Instead, he curls into a ball and tries to control his breathing while Scott crouches down and puts his hands on him, holding him in a hug as he panics and tries to sooth him, telling him that it's okay even though he doesn't quite know why Tango is acting this way all of a sudden. Tango hates it. He hates that he's fallen in love again and through that, might have very well ruined everything. Instead of being blown up right away, they have a few minutes to talk to each other. And in that time Tango, still not in the right headspace and through panicked breathing, asks Scott the straightforward, hypothetical question: "If I were to break up with Jimmy after this game ends and tell him to go back to you, would you ever forgive me for it?" And Scott can only look at him, horrified as he tries to form some string of words that make sense enough to give a proper response to that question that even he doesn't know how to answer... Up until the wither comes back once more to blow them up before they can even have a real conversation about it.

Haha... Oh well. I don't regret cutting this out to make the plot flow more smoothly (I needed a reason for Tango to check his comm in that moment) and it's mostly the same reaction from Tango either way. But still, it would have been a very fun scene to write that might have added a bit more spice to everything that was going on at the time.

Curses - The Crane Wives

You knew there'd be at least one Crane Wives song in here. I don't think there is a single person in this fandom who hasn't heard this song yet. It would have been a disservice not to add it here. But other than that, obviously, it's the title for chapter 56. The chapter where everything goes wrong and all of the remaining players die in quick succession to Grian and his traps. It's definitely the kind of song you listen to when you're trying to picture a scene where everything is meant to to go wrong all at once. And I love it for that.

Allies Or Enemies - The Crane Wives

No explanation needed. To me, this is the enemies to lover's national anthem.

The Moon Will Sing - The Crane Wives

Another Scott POV song, 100% (can you tell he's my favorite yet?). But it could also apply to all three of the Flower Ranchers depending on which lyrics are being sung.

"I could have been anyone else" Scott not believing Jimmy when he says he fell in love with him back in Third Life in only a week's time like he had with Tango. Scott thinking that if that really were the case, then he could have been anyone to Jimmy. He is convinced that Jimmy could have stumbled upon and teamed up with any other player during that game and the result would have still been the same.

"Before you made the choice for me" Jimmy being sad and angry with Scott for not accepting that he loved two people and refused to choose between them. Scott making that choice for him by outright leaving instead of trying to talk things over.

"We walked in the dark", "I never gave a single thought where it might lead" Tango and Jimmy, them falling in love while being in blissful ignorance brought about by their amnesia. Not even taking a second to consider that what was waiting for them on the other side of Double Life wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.

"All those empty rooms" Scott feeling alone, going back to a home that feels empty, one he used to share with the person he loved.

"I shine only with the light you gave me" Could be applied to Tango or Jimmy. They have self confidence issues. Tango thinks that Jimmy is the only one who isn't afraid of him. Jimmy thinks that both Scott and Tango could do better than him at some points in the story. They complete him. His life would feel so dim without them in it.

"We could have had anything, anything else. Instead you hoarded all that's left of me." Scott again. He and Jimmy could have had so many more long, happy years together. All that potential is gone now. Why did he have to leave him? Why did he have to such a large chunk of Scott's heart with him when he left?

"I wanna feel the fire that you kept from me." Kinda silly, for a while I thought this line was "kept FOR me" and not "kept FROM me", and I tied it to the act of Jimmy and Scott keeping their hearts warm for each other (whether they wanted to or not) in case the other decided to come back to them. They were mad at each other, but in all that time their love hadn't dimmed in the slightest. But after reading the actual line, I now think it's giving more like, Tango letting his fire out and Scott and Jimmy both accepting that as part of him with open arms, each during their own separate points in the story.

Songs from Readers' Playlists That I Fell In Love With

Can't Sleep Love- Pentatonix

Scott is a tired, tired man.

Your Stupid Face - Kaden MacKay

2nd enemies to lovers national anthem.

Hot Tea - Half Alive

Lots of themes of tea and love going on here.

The Fall - Half Alive

The person who added this song single handedly got me into Half Alive and made them one of my favorite bands.

Human Touch - Olen

Themes of waking up, breaking up, touch starvation... Also just a really fun listen in general.

Where We Started - Bailey Bryan

I think they added this as more in reference to Scott and Jimmy and how they were reconnecting during the first half of the game. But honestly? I listened to this back when the fic was only updated to chapter 29, and as the only person who knew how this whole story was meant to wrap up, it made me think more about the ending, or more like the final few chapters that I had planned out at the time where Jimmy and Scott finally figure out the kind of love that they want from each other after the game ends and try to figure out how to get back to how things were between them before their breakup. And it's a bit of a messy path for them to take, with them being all hesitant to kiss each other at the start of it, but they make it back to where they were before eventually, and I think this song captures all that beautifully.

Dandelions - Ruth B.

Ties to flowers, hopes, dreams... This one had no right to make me as emotional as it did, but damn.

Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

TANGO SEEING SCOTT'S EYES--Seriously, he is so transfixed by them the entire fic and only finally gets to see their true color in the last few chapters. I love this.

Human - Christina Perri

"I CAN STAY AWAKE FOR DAYS IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANTTTT"

Scott again with his self-destructive tendencies during the majority of the fic. He is very sad. This also kind of reminded me of Jimmy? Just cause its both him and Scott who are hiding their true emotions throughout the story.

Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears

@Milo-media made an animatic of the fic to this song and now it lives rent free in my head. What happened here. I don't even like 80's music but this song has been on my personal playlist for months now...

Go check it out if you haven't seen it cause it's awesome: https://www.tumblr.com/milo-media/740042336270254080/this-song-is-so-snowbugs-based-of-the-fic-trust?source=share

That's everything (I think?). If you actually did read all of that then... I'm sorry. Lol. Seriously though, please feel free to message or @ me if you ever post your full playlist. I will literally never get enough of people giving me the songs they think relate to Trust Life.

And if you'd like to see the full playlists made by the other beautiful people who read the fic, they can be found right here:

Playlist by Checkmace (Ao3):

Playlist by @nerdyenby (Tumblr):

Playlists by AndIcarusFell (Ao3)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-82qWZlR3CyiY5Ihf926JPJ

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-9oXUPWiB--1Zy_3W6BNdsm

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-_YpVm8Ex_wgfQee3sXTUXU

[leonawriter]

reaching Mangetsu Inaba in the playthrough I’m watching, and usually I skip past all of the actual dungeon crawling and levelling and fusing- but someone mentioned Loki in the comments of the video and sure enough, he got made.

As is known, Loki in P4/G is of the Fool Arcana, but Personas are known to move Arcana depending on the social links/confidants available in the game they’re in. 

Funnily enough, though... as far as I’m aware, from P3 and P4 and even P5, the Fool Arcana seems to most often be aptly named. It’s the journey of the protagonist - and their friends - when they’re starting out their journey and being led astray. It’s the path you end up taking when you don’t know the full facts about a situation, so maybe you’re making assumptions, or maybe you’re being lied to.

Spoilers for the games below.

In P3, you’re told by Ikutsuki that if you defeat all of the Full Moon Shadows, then the Dark Hour will end and so will Tartarus vanish, and Shadows - all of it will be over. The protagonist and their friends in SEES want this to happen, they want things to be safe, so they fight with this cause in mind, and they are the Fool Arcana. However, late in the game after you’ve defeated the “last” Full Moon Shadow, the Dark Hour doesn't go away, and it turns out that you were lied to. You’ve actually been enabling the formation of Nyx, the ultimate big bad of the game, all this time. It’s only after this, and understanding what Nyx is, that SEES becomes the Nyx Annihilation Team, and gains the Judgement Arcana.

In P4, the Investigation Team is Yu’s Fool Arcana. They’re searching for “the killer” but they aren’t part of any official investigative squad, police or otherwise; they’re basically just kids stuck in something too big for them. Their only way to move forward is to react to what others (Adachi, Namatame, the Midnight Channel) do, the information they’re given, and there’s little they can do in the way of direct action. In fact, they nearly kill an innocent man and let the real killer go free because they want to have found the killer, having previously been convinced that they’d found “the killer” when even then, if they’d looked at the facts, it wouldn’t make sense. They only become the Judgement Arcana “Seekers of Truth” after not letting assumptions and the desire for easy vindication cloud their minds, and looking at the facts properly.

In P5, the Fool Arcana is “Igor” who isn’t even Igor. Akira is told what to do rather than guided, and - in a rather more literal case than usual - led by the Nose. We see at the end that the Phantom Thieves’ actions, either due to how things are meant to be or how Yaldabaoth has distorted Mementos, we don’t know - have been effectively doing the bad guy’s work for him. In a break from the previous two entries, the Fool Arcana only maxes out right at the end of the game, sure, but after the Judgement Arcana has been unlocked and completed, and they only find out that they have been played for fools right at the end. Interestingly, one could argue that the Phantom Thieves were still being the Fool Arcana right up until January, with how they were led astray not only by Yaldabaoth, but also Maruki.

In a way, the Fool Arcana is the “Trickster’s” Arcana. They’re being made fools of; they’re being tricked, pranked, whatever you want to call it. The purpose of maxing out the Arcana is to grow as a person enough to see this and move past it, having learned from the experience. 

But also, everyone starts as a “Fool” - someone who can be taken advantage of. By understanding yourself, and the world around you, you understand how you were tricked, and how not to be tricked next time.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Sonic Boom - S3E1

Episode title: Friendship 101

Word count: about 3000 words

Author’s Note: I’m trying a rather new format for this fic, since it’s based on a TV show with various songs and camera angles. If you have any comments about whether it works well or not, please let me know!

(Also, the theme song choice is all thanks to khinesthetic, who used it here and inspired me to put it in this fic.)

Next

[cue Mr. Blue Sky by ELO (0:00-3:45)]

[The show opens on a zoomed-out view of Hedgehog Village from above. Stone walls separate the village from the wilderness outside. There are large spaces at several points throughout the structure for entry and exit. A large patch of grass with benches scattered about sits at one end of the village, and a marketplace made up of wood-and-cloth stalls runs along one of the walls. Houses are grouped in seemingly random clusters throughout the town, and the (in)famous Meh Burger stand sits all on its own, with picnic tables spread across its wooden flooring. As the music progresses, the camera begins to zoom in on the village- then on one of the streets in particular- and rotates down to eye level to face…]

Sonic the Hedgehog walked through the streets of Hedgehog Village with a bounce in his step, occasionally dancing to the music playing through his earbuds. As he wandered throughout the town, he passed the usual people running their stores, arguing over botched orders at Meh Burger, and, at one point, Aqua the Rabbit absolutely freaking out over the loss of a single follower on Angstagram (the latest social media network for moody teens).

He did a 360-degree spin before winking and pointing finger guns at Amy Rose when he spotted her haggling with the local grocery store owner. She paused briefly to wave at him with a smile. “Hi, Sonic!” she called, completely ignoring the irritated fennec in the process.

Then, the music froze and changed to something extremely ominous as she turned around to face the shopkeeper once more. A dangerous gleam appeared in her eyes as she pulled out her signature hammer. “Now then, about those prices you’ve been setting lately…”

The song cut back in as the view switched back to Sonic, who was now moving away from the scene at a slightly faster pace.

Really, though, he was more than happy to see his other friends not long after. Knuckles and Sticks were currently busy rummaging through the town’s garbage together, excitedly chatting about the latest piece of interesting junk they’d found, while Tails was fixing someone’s broken rain gutter (and attempting to ‘improve’ it in the process, which meant that it could now measure the amount and intensity of rainfall in a storm- a very useful, though unfortunately unwanted improvement).

Surprisingly enough, as he continued on his way through Hedgehog Village, he managed to get people from a few different places to wave back at him when he said hello. Although perhaps it wasn’t quite so surprising when one considered that this was one of the most cliched opening sequences that could possibly happen in any movie or TV show. Ever.

And of course, the only logical outcome of this scene led to everyone beginning to stop their usual activities and gather in one of the few open spaces in the town, clearly prepared to break into a fantastic musical dance number straight out of Broadway. Incredibly, this was one of the few moments in which everyone in the village seemed to be able to get along…

...until Eggman’s latest giant robot slammed feet-first into the ground, sending everyone off-kilter and scrambling for cover. Shrieks of panic rose in place of the music as the villagers fled the scene to hide in their houses. The dramatic entrance didn’t just ruin the mood, it absolutely crushed it with the sheer force of its impact.

And that was, obviously, when the show really began.

[cue In Your Face by Shockwave Sound (0:00-1:04)] 

[Each of the five members of Team Sonic appears on a black screen with their name spelled out in their signature colors (blue, yellow, red, pink, and green) and does a couple of cool fighting moves, followed by snippets of scenes featuring them from previous episodes of the show for about eight seconds each. All five of them then appear together in their usual fighting stances, emphasizing their status as a team.

The Eggman logo then appears in an ominous, glowing red, backlighting the doctor himself and all his creations- before the lights flick on to reveal him alone in his evil lair with a green screen behind him, at which point he shrieks and covers the camera with a hand. Then, neon blue electronic lines begin to appear across the screen and the camera spirals to follow them, selecting one particular line to trace. Not long after, said line ends at a circle which, with a flash, turns into the words ‘Sonic Boom’. Beneath the title, it says ‘Ancient Secrets’ in neon blue.]

[Then the music ends, at which point the episode title- “Friendship 101”- appears for a few seconds in the same color before the show itself returns.]

Sonic scrambled to his feet and zipped over to Tails, pulling him up from where he’d fallen after the robot’s overdramatic arrival. Amy managed to do the same with both Knuckles and Sticks simultaneously, which let Sonic stare for a moment, startled, and then promptly resolve to remember not to get on her bad side anytime soon.

Soon enough, the team had scrambled into their usual positions, ready to fight. Amy and Sticks kicked the battle off by handling the various smaller robots that threatened to get too close to their team, never faltering (and in fact seeming a bit gleeful in the badger’s case) despite the sheer number of enemies. Knuckles, meanwhile, launched Sonic bodily into the air for Tails to catch, before picking up a boulder about the size of a house and lobbing it directly at the robot’s chest.

“Hey! Easy with the boulders- QuakeBot took a lot of effort to make, you know!” Eggman shrieked from above, hovering in the relative safety of his Eggmobile. 

(Relative, in this case, was of course in comparison to mixing absurdly volatile chemicals in a lab, bothering Shadow at any and/or all hours of the day, or being on Tails’s bad side when the fox had a glue gun. The doctor still remembered that situation all too well, and currently ranked it as far more terrifying than merely being punted into the stratosphere by kids under half his height and about a third his age.)

Sonic paused to stare at Eggman from where he was currently dangling in the air. A smirk began to spread slowly across his face. “…what did you just call it?”

“You heard me the first time!” the doctor roared, now incredibly embarrassed. “I named it that since it makes the ground shake when it moves, like an earthquake??”

General laughter came from the heroes assembled on the ground and in the sky.

“Argh! Nobody appreciates my genius around here! Now, QuakeBot, stop standing around and start attacking!”

“I suggested TerraBot, since it still has to do with earth and is a play on the word ‘terror’, but nobody ever listens to my ideas, now do they?” Orbot muttered irritably to himself, tucked inside the Eggmobile.

“I listen to all your ideas!” Cubot offered encouragingly.

Orbot’s mouth shifted into a small smile. “Thanks, Cubot.”

Meanwhile, Sonic had been pulled into a spin by Tails, who whirled the hedgehog around before letting him shoot downwards toward the robot in a spin dash- only for him to get caught and sent flying into the nearest house.

He shook off the surprise quickly (and apparently sustained absolutely zero damage despite having literally crashed through a house, because superpowered teenagers), darting back over to the group. “Well, uh, guess it’s time for Plan B then!”

Crickets chirped in the ensuing silence. Even the robot had stopped moving to hear what he had to say.

“And the plan is…?” Amy prompted.

Sonic folded his arms with a huff. “I dunno, I thought you guys would have one!?”

The pink hedgehog rolled her eyes at that. 

Tails piped up. “I have an idea! Sonic, you’re going to need to be curled up for this, okay?”

The hero promptly did just that, before emitting a muffled “mmhmm?” from inside his layers of quills.

“Alright then, Amy, I need you to hit Sonic with your hammer right at the side of this house.”

Sonic’s blood ran cold. “Whoa whoa whoa, wait a second can we maybe rethink thiaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

He ricocheted all over the palace like a pinball, slamming into several key points of the robot thanks to Tails’s rapid calculations. However, the robot was sadly unaffected by his screaming at a pitch that came dangerously close to shattering glass.

The robot was easily disabled and the attack overall quickly repelled after that. Thankfully, it took Sonic only a moment to recover from his impromptu stint as an out-of-control projectile and get back to fighting with the others…complete with a “Let’s do that AGAIN!” moment, which was met with a resounding no from both Amy and Tails. 

Their ears were both still rather sore from last time, after all.

After Eggman was punted all the way back to his island by a well-placed kick from Sticks, though, the crew was about to head over to Meh Burger for a post-battle meal when they discovered that they had an entirely different problem to take care of. The villagers, who were beginning to come out of hiding after the attack, were furious upon seeing the damage dealt to their homes and stores.

“How could you let this happen?” one shouted.

Before long, the villagers found themselves a more specific target when the owner of the house that Sonic had smashed into pointed her finger directly in his face. “This mess is awful!” she cried. “And it’s all his fault!”

Within seconds, a mob of people had descended upon the overtaxed teen.

“I’ve never known a hero so irresponsible.” one fumed.

“How dare you!” the fennec from earlier roared.

The elderly wolf of the village shook her cane at him. “Shame on you!”

Sonic could feel himself beginning to tense up as the villagers turned their ire on him. Whether or not he’d admit it to anyone, he needed two main things in order to be his usual heroic, cheerful self: open space and positive reinforcement. Right now, he was getting exactly the opposite of both of those.

And he was not feeling good about it.

He looked briefly over to his friends for help, but Sticks had already vanished, Knuckles and Tails looked more nervous than anything, and Amy was already walking towards him with that look in her eye…

“Sonic, next time you do need to work on making sure the robot doesn’t catch you, you know-”

A streak of blue shot out of the village, leaving nothing but a scorched trail of grass and the snap of a sonic boom behind.

Sonic didn’t slow down until he reached the mountains- which technically wasn’t very far from the town at all, so he ran quite a bit more after that until he ended up in the middle of the jungle. Then, he sat down with his back to a tree and his arms around his knees, feeling very unheroic and overall pretty lame.

The blue hedgehog frowned at the dirt. Honestly, some days it really did feel like nobody seemed to like him. The only person who ever even suggested he was important on a regular basis was Tails, and Sonic didn’t blame him at all for not jumping into the middle of that crowd. Tails was only thirteen to his seventeen and a half years old- not exactly an age when he should be expected to go toe-to-toe with a crowd of angry adults.

Still, though. When being a hero got him all risk (no matter how low) and no reward...it was difficult for him to keep hold of that core feeling of “I can make the world a better place to live in!”, which, despite all his other claims, was truly at the center of what had motivated him to start fighting against Eggman so long ago…

[The scene morphs in a manner which shows the lighting shifting so that the sun is overhead. A sound effect of birds chirping plays over the scene change. This implies that it’s been several hours since he first fled the village.]

Sonic was still lost in thought when the snap of a twig in the bushes made him jump to his feet in surprise. The surrounding vegetation rustled ominously for a moment...only to reveal the four members of his team in front of him. He watched them all cautiously, his expression tense. More than anything, he looked ready to run at a moment’s notice- something which only served to make his friends(?) seem a little more distressed. “Uh…hey, guys?” he began tentatively.

“Sonic, I…” Amy began forcefully, before stopping herself. At first, it looked like she was about to scold him again, but then suddenly her face fell. “Listen, Sonic, we’ve all been talking a lot about what happened back at the village…and there’s something I want to say.” She gave a slightly tired sigh. 

“I know we usually like to make jokes and witty commentary, but...sometimes, the world’s just a difficult place to be in.” she said. “...so we really do need to talk about serious stuff occasionally, even though I know it’s tough for you to even mention how you’re feeling. Unless, you know, it’s ‘great!’ or ‘cool!’ or something like that.”

Sonic cringed at the mere idea, looking more and more like he thought running away was the preferable option here.

“So what I wanted to say was that in a world where there are too many people trying to beat you down...what I was trying to do was tell you how to be more tolerant, because I thought that would help. I figured you can’t change how other people are going to be, just yourself, so I hoped that might make things better.

“But...I’m not actually a licensed therapist- yet, anyway. So I might have been wrong on how I went about that. Maybe...instead of telling you off for not being able to stop all those people...in the future I’ll pull out my hammer and tell them to knock it off already. Does that sound better to you?” she asked.

The blue hedgehog froze. “Ames…I...” he croaked, trying his best not to think about why exactly it felt like his throat was so tight all of a sudden.

Sticks folded her arms. “I like that plan! Those people are way too crazy sometimes…and you guys know I have a verrrrry high tolerance for crazy.”

“We can make the villagers quit bugging you together, just like how we fight Eggman!” Knuckles added encouragingly. “It’s always better that way, isn’t it?”

There was still one person who hadn’t spoken yet, though.

Suddenly, Tails crashed full-force into Sonic, squeezing him in a hug that for once he didn’t pretend to hate. “You know I’ve always, always, always got your back, right, Sonic? No matter what?” he asked, looking up at his older brother. “Even if I don’t always know how to do it right.”

The blue hedgehog simply nodded, not trusting his voice to help him maintain his ‘cool guy’ status.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel up to talking about it now, though.” the fox added understandingly, stepping back but still leaving a hand on his arm. 

“But!” Knuckles added. “We won’t tell anyone if you ever decide you do need to get some stress off your chest every once in a while!” He smacked his own chest with a fist for emphasis.

“Nobody needs to know.” Sticks growled, the camera suddenly showing a dramatic angle of her face as the lighting dropped noticeably.

“Uh…that’s kinda dark.” Sonic said, holding up a finger with a bit of a confused frown, which let the lighting and camera angle zip back to normal.

“Anyway!” The pink hedgehog clapped her hands together, turning to face the group as a whole. “What do you guys think about heading over to my house and watching some movies? I’ll even…” She sighed, her whole body slumping. “…make some messy, simple, unprofessional chili dogs. In my state-of-the art kitchen. I know Sonic probably could use a pick-me-up right now, after all.”

“Thanks, Ames! You’re the best!” the hedgehog in question said cheerfully, the promise of good food and great companionship boosting his mood significantly.

Then, his posture shifted once again into something a little more vulnerable. “And thanks to all you guys. For, y’know, everything.”

“Of course!” Amy chirped.

Tails smiled at him. “No problem, Sonic.”

Sticks folded her arms. “That’s what a team’s for, ain’t it?”

“Of course it is!” Knuckles said, in that rather confusing manner where nobody was actually sure if he understood anything about what had just happened.

The echidna actually walked over to Sonic after that particular declaration, though, placing a hand on his shoulder as his face became uncharacteristically serious for a second. “Really, Sonic, we can all help you out, alright? Nobody gets to yell at our leader without getting yelled at back!” he declared, punching a fist into his other hand.

The hedgehog blinked twice before looking up at his friend. “You…just called me the leader?”

“Well, duh! That’s why everyone calls it Team Sonic, right?” Knuckles asked with a smile, letting an awkward (but genuine) grin spread across Sonic’s face.

Within seconds, the hero found himself squeezed in a big hug from all sides by his friends- and then actually lifted off the floor through a joint effort from Knuckles and Amy. 

“Guys- come on! I can’t even move here!” he cried out, his legs flailing so quickly they made a vibrating noise in the air. “Guyyyyssss….” he whined, though nobody seemed to care much about his halfhearted complaints (judging by the happy expressions on their faces).

Then, the episode began to end, as evidenced by an iris out transition. The slowly shrinking circle paused for a moment on Sonic’s current expression, highlighting it against the otherwise black screen. He now sported a sheepish, if slightly pleased smile, complete with a faint pink blush on his face from all the positive attention. 

Clearly Sonic liked being, well, liked far more than he let on.

Then, the circle snapped closed with a pop, and the credits began to roll.

[Voice Actors: 

Roger Craig Smith

Colleen Villard

Travis Willingham

Cindy Robinson

Nika Futterman

Mike Pollock

Kirk Thornton

Wally Wingert

Bill Freiberger

Original creation by:

Evan Baily

Donna Friedman Meir 

Sandrine Nguyen

Bill Freiberger

Takashi Iizuka

Writer/editor:

Solalunar “Sol” Eclipse

Thank you for watching reading.]

[7-wonders]

Circling the Drain

Summary: It's a race against time...wait, why do people say that? It's not a race against some outside force, it's a race against a crazed back-from-the-dead mafioso with a vengeance.

Word Count: 3454

A/N: I tried something a little different for this chapter in terms of formatting, mainly because there was so much I wanted to fit in different POVS. Uhhhhh let me know your thoughts and like, comments and reblogs make my world go round. ALSO that second gif is exactly how I imagine a certain scene (you'll know it when you read it).

Warnings: Very torture heavy chapter. Blood, torture methods, guns, knives, kidnappings, talk of death. You should probably go pet some puppies or kittens after you read this.

Previous chapters of Memento Mori: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11

Duncan

It’s difficult to know how much time has passed since Duncan was last outside of this small concrete room. There’s no windows to let light in, no clocks to denote the hour, and no sort of schedule that he can catch on to. Although, even if there were a schedule, he would be too delirious from sleep deprivation to realize that there was one. The only thing that Duncan can count on is the unending torture at the hands of his uncle.

All of the crisis training in the world wouldn’t have prepared him for the physical and mental torture that he’s been put through. Though he doesn’t know it, it’s been almost seventy-two hours of this absolute hell, of Bill beating him black and blue, taunting him, slowly ripping out fingernails one by one (somehow, he still has six, though one of the six is just barely hanging on), refusing to let him sleep, and tasing him back to consciousness whenever he tries to close his eyes. This most recent time, the throbbing of his head had begged him enough to where he finally closed his eyes, only to be jolted up with a rush of electricity running through his body and seizing his muscles.

“You still think you’re getting out of it that easy, huh? That you can fall asleep and bide your time until you’re ‘rescued?’” Bill chuckles. “No, it’s not that easy.”

“Just kill me already, if that’s what you’re planning on,” Duncan says through clenched teeth, glaring up at Bill through the one eye that’s not completely swollen shut.

“Is that what you want? You want me to kill you?” His obviously-fake concern would enough to make bile rise in Duncan’s throat, if he had actually had anything left in his stomach.

“You want me to beg for it, don’t you?”

“I guess I underestimated you. Turns out you do have some sort of critical thinking skills.”

Duncan defiantly turns his head, refusing to give Bill what he wants. Realizing this, Bill begins to walk towards the door. As he does, going to flick off the single light bulb in this place, Duncan’s chest tightens in anticipation of the claustrophobia he’ll surely begin to feel (most likely a side-effect of what he’s gone through, considering he’s never been scared of dark spaces before) and he scrambles to stall him. “So why are you keeping me alive?”

Bill stops for a moment before slowly turning around. “I already told you.”

“No, I know that you want revenge. But what’s your plan? Why waste your time? Surely you’ll at least give me the honor of knowing what I’m dying for?”

His jaw clenches, not pleased with that last question, but he doesn’t hit Duncan. Yet. “I’m taking back what’s mine, and then some.”

“And you think Mom’s going to be okay with that?”

“Your poor mother is going to be more than okay with that when she finds out that the Coven killed her only child.”

Slowly, it dawns on Duncan. “You’re the one that’s been killing people in the Coven’s style and leaving them in our territory?”

“Of course I am!” Bill holds his arms out as if to say ‘tah-dah!’ “Cordelia Goode would never be so bold as to do that! But after I kill you, drain you of your blood, cut your tongue out, dump you in the Potomac, and reappear into society, people won’t care about that little fact. Especially after I reveal that it was the Coven that prompted me to fake my own death and go into hiding for years.”

“How long were you planning this?”

“About a year before you stabbed me, when I realized that you were far too…” he grits his teeth, “charismatic to not end up with the family business eventually. That’s why I always made sure that the police and paramedics were well-paid, just in case the day ever came that I needed them to lie on my behalf.”

“You have it all planned then, so why not just do it and kill me now?”

“Well, there are a couple of minor issues I still need to work out.” Bill glances at Duncan slyly. “Such as what to do with that girlfriend of yours.”

In a flash, Duncan sees red. He lunges, forgetting the fact that he’s chained to the radiator and can only go so far until his ankle is jerked violently and he falls back to the ground. “You leave her alone, she’s done nothing wrong!”

“You’re right, she hasn’t, but (Y/N) knows too much.”

Duncan’s heart skips a beat when he realizes that Bill (predictably) knows more than he should.

“I’m thinking a suicide? It’s very believable, what with the grieving girlfriend and all.” Bill steps forward and, ever so slowly, places his foot on one of Duncan’s hands. “Maybe she slits her wrists in the bath? It’s very easy to overpower someone when they’re vulnerable. Or perhaps she overdoses? That’s not my preferred method, though, far too much room for someone to survive an overdose. Tell me, Duncan, how would you prefer that she die?” With each possible method, Bill continues to lay more pressure on Duncan’s hand until Duncan is moaning in pain.

“Don’t...hurt her,” Duncan pants.

Bill finally removes his foot, giving Duncan a moment to breathe before he stomps on his hand, digging the toe of his shoe in until Duncan is screaming and Bill is sure his hand is broken. “I think she’ll jump into the Potomac with a weight tied around her ankle. The poeticism--her drowning in the same river that your body will be found in--is something that’s just too good to pass up.”

“I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll kill you again and make sure that it sticks this time.” Tears are streaming down Duncan’s face, though whether that’s from the physical or emotional agony he’s in, he can’t be sure.

“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Bill smiles, walking to the light switch and flicking it off. “I’ll be back in a bit, and then our final act can finally begin.”

This time, Duncan doesn’t stop him before he leaves, barely letting the door close before his willpower crumbles and he begins to sob. Cradling his injured hand, he has to force himself to look at the now-mangled fingers. He gasps, attempting to straighten them out, but they refuse to even twitch in response. It’s now that Duncan realizes that the true torture is waiting. His mind and body shattered, he now has to be at the mercy of Bill Shepherd before he can finally die. He’s never wished for death before, but now, he feels a pang in his heart for every one of his victims that have had to wait, broken and bruised, for Duncan to kill them.

You

“Does this location have any significance to you?” Cordelia asks Annette, pointing to an address hastily written down on a scrap of paper. The address corresponds to a building, fairly nondescript, but obviously holding some sort of significance.

“No, it doesn’t.” Annette shakes her head.

“That’s because this is the location of the first school that I opened here in D.C. Bastard’s really going all in on trying to frame me for everything he’s done.”

(Y/N), who had previously been dozing off on Langdon’s lap (Langdon had already made her swear not to tell anybody or else he would kill her in her dreams like Freddy Kreuger), sits straight up at this moment. “What makes you think he’s there?” she asks.

“This car.” Cordelia pulls another paper out from the folder she had brought with her, this one a picture of a Mercedes E-Class. “It’s been back and forth from Umbra to the old school numerous times in the past two days. License plates are registered back to Umbra.”

“So it’s definitely Bill, then.”

“I’m not typically a betting woman, but I would put money on this. Surveillance indicates that this car has been parked in front of the Goode Academy for six straight hours now.”

(Y/N) doesn’t know much about hostage situations, but she has to assume that Bill being where Duncan is held captive for an extended amount of time means nothing good.

“We need to move now, then,” Annette says. There’s no question behind her voice; she’s going to get her son.

“Yes. Your team?”

“Myself, Langdon, and (Y/N).”

Cordelia glances warily at (Y/N). “Do you have combat experience?”

“Duncan trained me to fight, and also did some weapons training with me,” (Y/N) says.

“That’s good enough.” (Y/N) tries not to be offended. “I have myself, Madison, Misty, and Mallory.”

“We’re going?” Mallory, a brunette wearing a gold headband, says.

“I need my best girls, and you three have proven yourselves.”

“Alright then, let’s go.” Annette grabs a key from around her neck and unlocks what you thought to be a closet door, opening it to reveal a weapons cache large enough to rival a small government’s. “Stock up.”

“Which gun are you most comfortable with?” Langdon asks (Y/N), the two standing side-by-side after everybody else has had their turn.

“Uh, I don’t really know the names. It’s a handgun, and it’s black.”

“Probably a Springfield, then.” Langdon hands (Y/N) a gun that looks similar to ones that she’s handled before. “It’s already loaded.”

“Thanks.” She glances at Langdon after holstering her own weapon, watching as he selects numerous guns of different sizes. “What if we’re too late?”

“We won’t be.”

“But you heard what Cordelia said. Bill’s been there for six straight hours now. He could have--”

“You’re right, he could have,” Langdon interrupts. “But we can’t go in there assuming that the worst outcome has come true. We have to have hope. If nothing else, there’s always hope.”

“I have hope.”

“Good, because I do, too.” Langdon grabs a knife from the weapons closet, twirling the tip of the blade on his index finger. “Now let’s go get Duncan back.”

Duncan

Bill stands before Duncan, twirling the tip of a knife on his index finger. “I’ve held onto this for six years now. Do you recognize it?”

Of course Duncan recognizes the knife that he stabbed his uncle with. In his dreams, he can still feel the cool leather handle gripped tightly in his palm.

“It’s something of a treasure to me, although it certainly didn’t seem like it at first. I’ve come to recognize the significance of holding the thing that almost killed me, and I like to keep it as a reminder.” Bill holds the knife out to Duncan, knowing he’s too weak to fight him for it. “See that on the blade? Why don’t you read it for me?”

Cursive lettering is engraved on the blade, though it was not there when the knife had been in Duncan’s possession. “Memento mori,” Duncan mutters, trying to remember his Latin lessons from high school.

“It was an extremely popular phrase during the medieval period, specifically when it came to funerals. ‘Remember you must die.’ It’s a warning, a reminder. That’s what this knife has become to me, a reminder of the inevitability of death. It also reminds me that I’ve survived death before, and I’ll surely survive it again.”

“Quite the sense of humor,” Duncan remarks dryly.

Bill shrugs, bending down to Duncan’s level. “A little gauche, perhaps, but I enjoy the significance of the phrase.”

Duncan’s about to ask him what the point of this is when Bill shows him by shoving the knife into his abdomen. Duncan grunts in pain, gritting his teeth and glaring at him. “Of course you’re going to stab me just like I stabbed you.”

“Do you know how I managed to survive?” Bill asks.

“I’ve tried not to think about it much.”

“I survived,” Bill continues, “because you were too stupid to realize that you needed to pull the knife out. What do all of the medical professionals say when training civilians on dealing with stabbings? ‘Don’t remove the weapon.’ That’s the only thing keeping them from bleeding out, and it’s what kept me from bleeding out.”

“I had assumed I severed your abdominal aorta, what with all the blood.”

“Exactly, ‘assumed.’” Bill digs the knife around to watch the way that Duncan tries not to scream before pulling it out and watching as blood begins to pour out of the wound. For every beat of Duncan’s frantic heart, trying to pump blood to the source of the injury in an attempt to clot it, more blood pulses out. “Never assume things, my boy.”

Though his head is starting to spin, Duncan finds just enough rage to spit at Bill. “Go to hell.”

“From the looks of it, you’ll be there long before me,” he says almost gleefully before pulling out a gun and shooting him in the thigh. This time, Duncan openly screams. “Just wanted to make sure you actually die, if the stabbing wasn’t enough.” Bill’s extremely nonchalant, as if he’s discussing the nuances of the Nationals rather than talking about murder.

Bill grabs a key and unlocks the chain from around Duncan’s leg, knowing that he won’t have the strength to escape. “I’ll be back in half an hour to check on you.”

“Fuck you,” Duncan responds, but Bill’s already gone.

Duncan moans in pain as he stares at his wounds, feeling the stickiness of blood beginning to pool under him. Lifting a shaky hand, he presses it to his abdomen to try and slow the bleeding. As he swallows deeply, realizing that he very likely is going to die shortly, he thinks about a number of things, mainly regrets.

He wishes that he had realized earlier that his mom was just as much Bill’s victim as he was.

He wishes that he appreciated Michael more for the brother he had been to him.

He wishes that he had told (Y/N) that he loved her more often.

But most especially, Duncan wishes that he had just put a bullet in Bill’s head that night instead of stabbing him. Then, he wouldn’t be feeling this intense cold begin to settle in his bones as he’s forced to slowly die on the concrete floor of a basement. Facing the Grim Reaper head-on is not nearly as dramatic as he thought it would be.

You

Watching the Coven, Langdon, and Annette taking out the defectors is not nearly as dramatic as (Y/N) thought it would be. Wisely, they had requested that she stay behind until the perimeter was secured. It’s much quieter, and a lot less bloody; as it turns out, members of organized crime do have consciences, and chose to subdue those not directly a threat. After Langdon finishes tying those who had remained loyal to Bill together, Cordelia motions for (Y/N) to follow the group into the old school.

The proud sign that once declared this building the Goode Academy now lies in the dirt of the overgrown lawn. The doors are open, solely because the rusted hinges make it impossible for them to remain closed against a gentle breeze. The further that they make it inside, the more frantic (Y/N) is. She knows that they’re close to Duncan, she just doesn’t know what state they’ll find Duncan in. Before they can make it too far with Cordelia as their guide, Bill appears. Instead of holding a machine gun, which is kind of what (Y/N) had expected, he has a concerned look on his face.

“Annette, thank god you’re here! I know this must be confusing to you, but when I heard that Duncan was missing, I knew that I needed to save him from the bitches that had sent me into hiding years ago.”

Confusion blankets (Y/N)’s mind as she tries to figure out what’s going on, but Annette doesn’t feel the same. “Cut the shit, Bill. I know what you’ve been doing.”

Bill laughs. “You’re going to let Cordelia Goode manipulate you into believing her, after she tried to kill me?”

“You’re an idiot. You think I don’t smell the blood in the air?” Annette laughs viciously, a verbal slap in the face. “Where’s my son?”

Like a switch was flipped, the worry on Bill’s face falls into contempt. “You’ve always been too emotional for your own good, Annette.”

“‘Family over everything,’” Annette quotes. “Remember that? What happened to that?”

“That died the day that that--that mistake came back from boarding school and decided that our business, the empire we built from the ground up, was his birthright.”

“You never were good at sharing, were you?”

The siblings stare at each other for a moment before Bill sighs. “You could have just been complicit, but no. Guess I’ll have to think on the fly, then.” He pulls out a gun and cocks the hammer back.

Before he can fire, Madison and Mallory appear from behind him, having snuck into the back. Madison knocks the gun out of his hand, the weapon firing into the ceiling, as Mallory socks him in the face and drives him to his knees. Both women force his hands behind him, holding him still as Cordelia walks up to him.

“The door to the basement is in the kitchen, hidden behind the left wall of the pantry,” Cordelia says to the group.

(Y/N)’s off, moving as fast as she can while maneuvering through the unfamiliar house. “Wait, you can’t do this. Annette, you aren’t really going to let the Coven, of all people, do this to me?” Bill pleads.

“I can actually, and I will. After all,” Annette turns to Cordelia, “we have a deal.”

In the kitchen, (Y/N) throws open the pantry door, pushing and shoving and pulling at the left wall before it finally opens to reveal a set of stairs.

“Girls?” Annette calls just before she reaches the door. “Make it painful.”

(Y/N) runs down the stairs, hands scrambling along the wall until she comes across a light switch. Flicking it on, her eyes look around the room until she sees a lifeless figure on the floor that’s surrounded by a pool of blood. A cry is ripped from her chest as she falls to her knees beside Duncan, hands hovering above him as she tries to figure out what to do first.

He’s pale, scarily so, and he’s breathing so shallowly that she can’t tell he’s breathing at first. Somehow, with all the blood, he’s still breathing. All (Y/N) can focus on is the fact that he’s still alive (later, she’ll wonder how she didn’t even flinch at all of the injuries and the blood, oh, the blood) as she rips her shirt off and presses it firmly against the wound on his stomach, calling his name over and over again in increasing levels of desperation.

From behind her, she can hear Annette scream and yell for Langdon to call an ambulance. She can feel the presence of somebody next to her as they catalogue where Duncan’s hurt, but she can’t bring herself to look away from Duncan’s face. His perfect face, that she’s kissed over and over a thousand times and has taken immense pleasure in watching a blush rise to the surface. His perfect face that she’s now slapping to try and get him to at least show some sort of response.

“You don’t get to die like this,” she tells him, hoping that he’ll somehow manage to hear her. “You said that you didn’t want to be the reason I suffered, but look at you now, making me suffer. Don’t keep me suffering like this!”

Slowly, and just barely, his eyes crack open just enough that (Y/N) can see a hint of blue. His lips move, saying something without audible sound, and she brings her head down to his to try and catch what he’s saying.

“An angel.” She finally makes out what his reverent whisper is over the wail of the incoming ambulances, and laughs brokenly as her head falls onto his chest in relief.

//

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[chalkrevelations]

Moving on to Episode 4 of Word of Honor, and y’all.

Wait, first: If you’re new or just visiting, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep but for the ENTIRE SHOW. Maybe a lot of them. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled. (They’re all gonna be tagged “word of honor episode reax”)

A couple of big things, first:

So, right up front, I don’t know for sure that this is the first time we’ve heard the word, but it’s the first time I’ve twigged to it in this re-watch. As Zhou Zishu and Chengling are leaving the inn in the morning, at the very beginning of the ep, Wen Kexing asks why ZZS continues to call him gongzi and wants to know if he’s still too much of an outsider for a less formal form of address. He uses the word 外人 (wairen) (at 2:30) for “outsider,” which is how the subs translate it here. Anybody who’s been around for these flailing reactions since the first time I watched the show might remember that I made a deal about this somewhere around in the late 20s of the episodes, based on a post from someone that I scrolled quickly past while avoiding spoilers and that I have NEVER FOUND AGAIN and am STILL LOOKING FOR, that alerted me to the use of this word and its nuances in ep 25. There’s a conversation there about WKX possibly taking over some of Chengling’s training at Siji Manor, and WKX demurs, calling himself “外人.” Youku translated it there as “someone else,” as in having “someone else” train your disciple, and ZZS responds with “And you’re 外人?” again translated as “someone else.” This actually seems to mean “stranger,” or “outsider,” as they do actually translate it here in Ep 4 - presumably someone who’s from outside your sect, at least in the Ep 25 instance, in which WKX is labeling himself that while he’s in the midst of his upcoming crisis, trying to keep his emotional distance from ZZS and Siji Manor. It’s used again in Ep 26, when ZZS finds WKX giving training advice to Chengling, and it’s one of the ways they have WKX and A-Xiang reflect each other, when she uses it in Ep 29, and rejects it as a description of herself, in order to claim a place in Cao Weining’s sect/family (which, now, knowing … GOD. My HEART). Anyway, I found it super-interesting that WKX is using this word here in Ep 4 to push against ZZS’s boundaries, in contrast to the way he’ll use it later, to try to fortify his own walls against ZZS and Siji Manor. I begin to suspect that he doesn’t want to tell ZZS who he actually is because, maybe, just a little bit, he wants ZZS to figure it out, to recognize him, to truly know him (zhiji) without him having to spell it out. We kind of travel back around to this idea near the end of the ep, when WKX is questioning ZZS about the Baiyi sword, and ZZS tells him that their relationship is like the fish that ZZS unsuccessfully tried to cook and threw on the ground – raw (i.e., unacquainted) – to explain why he keeps shutting out and shutting down WKX. Only we know now that isn’t entirely true, and WKX certainly suspects it isn’t entirely true. (Also, just an observation, ZZS says in that later scene that he’s not interested in who WKX is. DON’T TELL HIM THAT, my dude, now it’s going to be 3,246 episodes before he’ll give you any personal info.)

Also, just a note – I think we make the switch from Zhou-xiong to A-Xu in this ep. (ETA: No! I have been reliably informed by @janedrewfinally that this switch happened back at the end of Ep 3 (at 41:18), and it seems to be part of what precipitates the Completely Reasonable, Not At All Flirtatious, Utterly Heterosexual No Really, Like Bros way that ZZS takes WKX's wine jar. You know the incident we mean.)

The second thing that I really started turning over in my head here is the developing relationship between WKX and Chengling, and this is one of the things that took me so long on this one, because I wanted to go back and look at those two, specifically, in the previous eps again, and revisit their interactions both with and without the mediating factor of ZZS. The first time WXK sees Chengling is in the marketplace at the end of Ep 1 when Chengling ends up giving his token to ZZS. But I think the first time WKX sees Chengling is maybe when WKX’s sitting in the cutout window with his drinkie during the massacre of Mirror Lake and ZZS draws the Baiyi sword to protect Boatman Li and Chengling, just before they make it to the boat and float away back to the mainland. I don’t know how much of the beginning of the fight in the abandoned temple WKX then sees before A-Xiang makes her entrance, but there’s a lot of Chengling flinging himself in front of Boatman Li and ZZS in a way that’s not entirely dissimilar to the way Zhen Yan will fling himself at his parents’ bodies in flashback in a later episode, and then WKX definitely sees dying Boatman Li charge ZZS with Chengling’s care, then make Chengling bow, in a parallel to the scene we’ll get later when Qin Huaizhang accepts Zhen Yan as a Siji Manor shidi. In Ep 3, there’s a lot of weird sympathetic looks from WKX as A-Xiang berates Chengling over dinner (she doesn’t quite have this jiejie thing down yet, and she’s probably never had someone younger than her to take care of) for not taking care of himself so he can be strong and get his revenge for his family’s deaths. This time out, Ep 4, we start with the beggar gangs coming after Chengling, which has some resonance with the former Ghost Valley Master and his Ten Devils standing around the bodies of Zhen Yan’s parents and debating what they’re going to do with this kid before they steal him away. You can see WKX’s eyes start to narrow as the lead beggar dude talks, and he eventually even asks them, “What are you going to do if he doesn’t want to go, take him away by force?” We get a LOT of cutting to WKX in this conversation, even though he ostensibly has nothing to do with this, it’s really a convo between Beggar Guy, ZZS and Chengling. WKX pulls focus, and he eventually provokes that fight, and sure, he wants to see ZZS fighting and hopefully get a look at the Baiyi sword, and he even may think that’s the extent of his ulterior motives, but I’m not sure that actually is the full extent of his motives, there. This episode is also when we really see WKX start to encourage Chengling to continue to press at ZZS about taking him as a disciple, including the first use of the infamous “Tough women can’t resist clingy men” saying. Chengling comments that he was just supposed to be Son #3 who stayed home and took care of the old people, and WKX comes back with the Extremely Significant Comment that “When the children want to fulfill their filial piety, the parents have died,” which is not only Extremely Significant, but also sounds like it may be a quote from a poem or other literature? Anyway, a lot of this is just to say, KINDLY AU ANON WHO WAS THINKING ABOUT WRITING THE STORY IN WHICH WKX GETS CUSTODY OF CHENGLING BECAUSE ZZS IS NOT AT MIRROR LAKE, ARE YOU STILL OUT THERE? Hopefully you are hard at work, writing, because I have been having thoughts about this relationship.

What else? Kind of chronologically:

First of all, it continues to physically pain me to have to look at that horrifying facial hair, ZZS. I cannot WAIT to hit Ep 6.

We open this ep on WKX rolling walnuts in his hand in a way that is reminiscent of SOMEONE who we’ve seen do that before – multiple times, given they put that shot of Ghost Valley Master in the opening credits. Nevertheless, I didn’t catch this right away on my first time through. It took me a few episodes, and then I FINALLY noticed the opening credits shot right in front of my face. Point to you, show. Once you know, this ep practically shoves it in your face, recreating not only the walnut rolling, but a dude getting held up in the air and choked out (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1 (and will see again)) before being slammed down on the ground with WKX crouched over him (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1). Later, WKX is concerned about his manicure (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1). It’s actually a little bit funny that both he and ZZS - a master assassin and a guy who literally skinned another dude (and maybe ate him?) to take his throne – are both so prissy about actual, literal blood. Anyway, is it significant or a coincidence that WKX waits until ZZS and Chengling are out of sight before actually going wild-eyed? You know the look I mean.

OH MY GOD, it’s Lovelace. I had blocked this dude from my mind. Eurgh. Nevertheless, there are a number of things I love about his scene, and all of them are related to A-Xiang, my feral beloved - from the way she clomps into the room, completely unworried about stepping the least bit gracefully while making her presence known and stomping (lit. and fig.) all over his dramatic little bit, to the way she berates him, threatens him with “Aunt Luo,” bares her teeth at him, and makes the eye-gouging motion at him. She is the best, and I adore her. I also love how she literally laughs in WKX’s face at his comment that maybe he just wants to be friends with ZZS, OK, is that alright?

The fight with the beggar gangs in this ep may be the first time we see something similar to the cage of spears maneuver in Prince Jin’s throne room all the way up in Ep … what? 30? … although it won’t be the last time we see it, and each time we see ZZS is perfectly capable of avoiding it or escaping it, making me suspect that Tian Chuang only “trapped” him in it because he let them, just like he only got taken back to Prince Jin in chains, in the first place, because he let it happen. We see it at 5:30 with the beggar gang’s staffs, when ZZS breaks it up by literally flinging another dude into the middle of it. We see it at 5:41, when he kicks his way out of the formation. And we see it at 8:15, when the sheaths have come off the swords, and he feints under them to break his way out. Just noticing.

When WKX is talking about the Baiyi sword as they all sit around ZZS’ sad little raw fish in the dirt by the lakeside, he mentions that Rong Changqing created three master works – the White Cloth sword, the Dragonback, and the “Great Wild Land,” per Youku’s translation. ZZS has the Baiyi sword, I assume the Dragonback is Ye Baiyi’s sword. Is the Great Wild Land actually the Ghost Valley? Given what we learn from Ye Baiyi in the back nine about Rong Changqing and his plans for Ghost Valley? Anyway, then we get some magic pipa playing, and ZZS (trying to, apparently) play WKX’s xiao in musical self-defense, and even though he leaves his opponent bleeding, WKX takes the opportunity to make suggestive comments about teaching him how to blow properly, just in case WKX’s been slacking on his act as a cheesy pick-up artist and anyone’s beginning to see through him. ZZS yells at Chengling for his lack of martial skill, then yells at him for crying, because that always works, particularly with traumatized teenagers who have had their entire family and sect massacred like, two nights ago. As a shifu, I’m not sure how you manage to inspire such devotion, my dude. WKX plays the indulgent parent, but also reassures Chengling that ZZS has good reasons for yelling at a traumatized, newly orphaned kid. I suppose he is getting him ready for all the yelling that’s going to go down once they get to Five Lakes Alliance and Chengling has to deal with Gao Chong and Shenshen. Chengling’s response, with WKX’s encouragement, is to ask to be ZZS’s disciple again. Was Han Ying (who I guess we’ve yet to actually meet at this point (EDIT TO ADD: NO WAIT, he was in Ep 1)) this much of a little dumbass to 24-year-old ZZS when Han Ying was 14? (EDIT 2 TO ADD: And who is writing this story, omg.) Although, ugh, that makes me realize that part of ZZS’s bad mood is that Chengling asking to be a disciple must be bringing up a shit-ton of bad stuff for ZZS about how he got all the other Siji Manor disciples killed. (Wen Kexing sees himself in Chengling, making his bow to Qin Huaizhang, one of the few good things that ever happened in his life, while ZZS sees all those red flowers on the mural back in his rooms in Prince Jin’s palace.) A final lakeside observation – A-Xiang pokes at ZZS’s uselessness as a cook here, and WKX will later ask him why he’s so utilitarian about food and drink, when they’re the greatest pleasures of life. (Really, WKX? THE greatest pleasures? Although that’s certainly an interesting comment given where we end up, in the end.) And it makes me begin to wonder – is ZZS so bad at cooking, and does he continue to avoid it, at least partially because he’s already losing his senses enough so that it interferes with preparing a tasty meal?

Also, we meet the Four Scorpion Assassins, and Pretty Arhat and Evil Bodhisattva have some pretty bold names, but now I’m back on my thing about the women in this show, and wondering what kind of enlightenment or release these two feel like they’ve had, and how it may or may not resemble the mindset of the women of the Department of the Unfaithful in Ghost Valley. I’m not well-versed in Buddhism, though, and am maybe not the person to take on how that religious symbolism is or is not used as a metaphor for female freedom in this show.

This is getting kind of long, so one last observation for now, and I think I may have mentioned this before: WKX has color-coded ZZS and Chengling as a unit in the robes he bought for them when he also rented out the entire inn. He’s not in the same color, but he is in a complementary shade and tone, which I find interesting. Also, his sash is sort of salmon, not the red of his Ghost Valley getup, but not completely divorced from it, either.

[fanfalc-616]

Time For Amnesia

Chapter Nine: Ice, Electricity, And Painful Injuries

(Previous Chapter Here)

Uhhh ok so I was working on the new chapter and I realized I never even posted chapter nine (on tumblr anyway it’s on ao3-). But uh yeah here it is,,, I’ll post ten (which I finally completed!!) tomorrow.

Also yes this is my new format for all fanfics hsjshdh

Eventually, Nya comes in, looking concerned.

“It’s getting late.” She notes, choosing not to comment on however she feels about how he’s been acting.

Kai nods. “Where am I sleeping?” A sudden thought strikes him. “I- I don’t sleep with… them, do I?”

Nya seems uncomfortable. “We agreed that that would be a bad idea, and before you got together, you used to stay in a different room- the room you woke up in. And-“

“Alright, I’ll just go there and go to bed.” Kai gets up from his spot on the floor.

After pausing for a moment, Nya nods. “Do you need me to show you where it is, or-“

He shakes his head. “I remember.” Without waiting for a response, he heads off to the room, silently grateful for the fact that he’s not going to have to spend the night with the others.

He’s only just sat down when there’s a knock.

Groaning, he gets up and walks over to the entryway, opening the door.

Cole stands there with a small, slight forced smile, holding a set of striped red pajamas. “These are for you.”

Eyeing him warily, Kai takes them. “Uh, th- thanks.” He stutters out, trying to ignore the way his mind flashes back to how he watched him make out with Zane.

“Are you okay? Your face is really red.”

Shit.

“Yeah I’m fine everything’s fine you should go now bye.” Kai blurts out in a rush. As soon as the words have left his mouth, he slams the door shut in his face.

Well, that solved absolutely nothing.

He has enough emotions going on- these people are crazy, and he doesn’t want to have to get to know them or have anything to do with them!

So why is his heart racing? Why does he feel like this?! He doesn’t want to like these assholes, he wants to be able to threaten to skewer them and actually mean it!

With a quiet grumble, he starts getting changed- but he almost drops the pajama shirt when he looks down at his torso.

Since when did he have a six-pack?! It’s not defined like a bodybuilder’s or anything, but he’s definitely got some strong muscles there.

Shaking his head, he goes back to putting on his pajamas. He must seriously work out a lot.

Well, if he’s a ninja savior of Ninjago, then he’s probably going to have to be in good shape.

Sighing, he turns off the light and gets on the bed. Curling up under the covers, he closes his eyes and tries to drift off.

If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll wake up back at home.

—————————

Kai wakes up in the red bed he went to sleep in.

Drat.

With a sigh, he gets up from the bed, and just as he does, the door opens.

Jay stands there, a nervous smile on his face. “I, uh… I guess your internal clock still works. But, uh, it’s breakfast time, so-“

With a groan, Kai walks over to him. “Alright, let’s go eat.” He grumbles.

He pretends not to notice how Jay tries to hold his hand, and after a moment, he stops trying to take it, and Kai ignores how that sparks guilt inside of him. It’s fine, he doesn’t care. He shouldn’t feel bad, he doesn’t even know him!

They’ve only just reached the dining room when an alarm starts blaring. Kai immediately feels himself switch into a fight-or-flight mode, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Then Nya’s voice comes on over the comms. “Everyone to the bridge! Now!”

Jay tenses up. “C’mon!” Without waiting for a response, he takes off running, leaving Kai to chase him down the halls.

When they arrive at the bridge, everyone else is already there.

Zane immediately starts talking. “There appears to be a genetically engineered snake being used to terrorize New Ninjago City. From what we can tell, it was created by-“

“Cut to the chase!” Nya interrupts.

Lloyd shakes his head. “No, we have comms, we can get an explanation on the way. Let’s go!”

There’s hardly a pause before they all race out of the room- but Lloyd peeks back around the corner to look at him. “You- you just wait here, okay?”

Kai doesn’t get a chance to respond before the blond runs off, leaving him alone.

What the hell just happened?

Still trying to process things, he decides to go into the living room and see if he can watch what’s going on in the news. Whatever’s going on, it seems like a big deal.

So he walks in and turns on the TV, waiting for an explanation to be given.

He watches as a reporter- Gayle Gossip, she said her name was- shows some weird ice snake thing attacking the city. Listening carefully, he can just make out some words that the ninja are saying as they try to stop it.

“- weakness to heat-“

“-Zane, fall back-“

“MOVE!”

Kai stares in horror as he watches Nya get thrown from her vehicle and tossed into a building.

Something in him screams at him to move, and he listens to it, getting up from the couch and scrambling off to wherever the hell his instinct is taking him.

He finds himself in some kind of little launchpad like area for vehicles, and finds himself gravitating towards a red motorcycle.

Oh, what is he doing? He’s not seriously going to try and fight the ice snake, is he?

Yeah. Yeah, he is. Because no one messes with his little sister.

Kai starts up the bike and continues to trust his instincts, just doing whatever feels right.

Which is how he ends up screaming his head off while he falls from the sky on the motorcycle.

The bike falls out from under him, and Kai finds himself flailing about, still screaming.

Until he feels himself get grabbed, and a loud grunt escapes him as he scrambles for purchase on whatever he just fell onto.

He blinks a few times as he realizes that he’s on a- on a dragon what the hell-

Clinging to the rider of the dragon, he feels his eyes widen as he recognizes them.

“Zane?”

The robot looks back at him. “Kai?” He seems shocked. “You were supposed to wait on the ship!”

Before the brunet gets the chance to respond, the tail of the ice snake is suddenly striking towards them, and Zane has the dragon dip, trying to avoid it.

But it’s a rocky move, and they still get hit, the dragon literally disappearing under them.

Kai hits the ground with a loud thudding noise, but luckily enough, he doesn’t seem to be too badly hurt.

He gets to his feet, and Zane quickly runs up to him, getting in close.

Kai’s about to brush him off, but he’s caught off guard by his eyes. His bright blue eyes that glow, and the deep concern behind them as they stare into his own.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” His voice is gentle, full of concern and softness.

Kai swallows, but doesn’t answer, still captivated by the glowing blue irises that seem to stare through to his soul.

“Kai? Please, are you okay?”

He nods shakily, unsure why he’s so affected by something as minor as eye contact.

“I’m going to scan you.” Zane decides, setting a hand on his shoulder. His eyes flicker a little as he looks Kai up and down, a thin band of light emitting from them and falling over Kai’s figure.

And that’s when he snaps out of it.

Stepping away, he shoves Zane back, putting his arms out in front of him in defense. “Woah there, I did not agree to be scanned! So keep that little light show to yourself!”

The robot blinks a few times as he steps back, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “My apologies, I was only trying to-“

The snake’s tail slams into a building, sending wreckage flying everywhere. With a mumbled complaint that Kai can’t quite make out, Zane pulls him aside. “Stay out of trouble. I’ll return when the fight is over.”

Without waiting for a response, he runs off, leaving Kai alone.

He stands there for a few moments, looking around the torn up alley and listening to the nearby noises of combat. Something inside him is itching to go follow, and after a moment of consideration, he runs off towards the battle.

As soon as he gets close, he’s forced to dodge and duck behind some debris to avoid getting frozen by an icy blast. So it’s an ice creature, then?

… fire melts ice, right? Maybe if Kai can get close, he-

“Kai?! What are you doing here?!” Jay shouts, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the way of an attack.

“I’m helping!” Kai defends himself as the ginger uses a blast of lightning to shatter a large chunk of ice that had been flying towards them.

“No! No, you are not! I’m going to have to protect you instead of actually concentrating on the fight! Why didn’t you stay on the ship?!” Jay glares, grabbing Kai by the wrist and pulling him along.

“So I could come help!” The two of them narrowly miss getting impaled by flying concrete as they duck behind a still-intact building.

Jay looks downright furious- an expression that almost looks cute on his baby-ish face. “We have just covered that you are not helping! Not. Helping. Not helping at all!”

Kai feels his face flush some at the scrunched up nose and the way his cheeks puff out. Still, he manages to defend himself. “It’s ice and I have fire powers!”

Grabbing him again, Jay drags him around as they avoid getting impaled by debris created by the snake. “If this snake doesn’t kill you, I will! And if it does, I’ll resurrect you and kill you again!”

Kai arches an eyebrow at the statement. “Aren’t you supposed to be in love with me?” He complains.

Jay gives him a look. “It’s because I love you that I threaten to kill you. Because apparently threatening is your love language.”

“Huh?”

“You do it all the ti- LOOK OUT!” Jay tackles him, sending a blast of lightning at the the tail of the snake that’s crashing down-

Everything goes bright white, and pain wracks his body, making him cry out. They manage to avoid getting crushed, but only just, and the two of them end up sprawled on the ground.

Kai feels himself twitch some, all of his hair on end. Groaning, he glances over at Jay, who’s getting to his feet.

The ginger’s eyes widen as he looks at Kai. “Shit, I- are you okay?! I didn’t mean to shock you!”

He got shocked? Hmm. That would explain the excruciating pain.

With a groan, he forces himself to sit up. “ ‘m doin’ g-great.” He gets out, ignoring his blurry vision as he struggles to his feet.

“Kai-“

Jay is cut off when the snake is suddenly whipping back through, hitting the ginger clear across the alley- and the only reason he stopped there is because of a wall.

Kai winces as he watches Jay get slammed into the concrete. That can’t feel good.

Then again, he’s not exactly in peak condition either.

He struggles to get up a few times before resolving to just lay there. Jay will come get him in a minute, and even though it’s concrete, the ground feels awfully comfortable…

Even as his vision grows more and more blurred, he manages to make out several sets of combat boots, and then someone is picking him up, dragging him away.

Kai lets them, closing his eyes. It’s probably just Cole… yeah, Cole wears black, and is definitely strong enough to carry him around. That would make sense.

The world starts to fade, and Kai doesn’t bother trying to hold onto it.

Everything hurts, and it would be so much easier to ignore it and drift away…

And that’s exactly what he does.

[arahul-abyssia]

To Mend What's Been Broken

And thus is my third story for @starprincesshlc and @jklantern 's Nintember celebration! (Coming a day late because of Various Reasons.) I have written about Emotions! Again! So we're three for three on that front! I have also accidentally mirrored Me-From-One-Year-Ago and once again made Story 3 only a bit shorter than the combined lengths of Stories 1 and 2.

Also, this story is very much a direct sequel to one of the stories from last year, specifically the only one I haven't mentioned in this post yet. This one should be >83% understandable if you haven't read part 1, but still, here's a link to it! (Please let me know if the link doesn't work, I know Tumblr tends to hate links.)

~~ Craft, Bug, Beach, Anger, Family ~~

Rynn looked to the sky, the noonday sun shining down upon the beach. It was far warmer in the coastal Lurelin Village than he was used to back in his mountainous home, and the still-smoldering charcoal from the previous night’s bonfire was not helping matters. Fortunately, he would soon be headed far away from the blazing warmth of the sands; unfortunately, however…

“Well, Rynn! You’re looking much better than yesterday; is your wing fully healed, are you ready to fly back?”

Rynn did not turn to look at his father. “Doctor Faldea examined me earlier, says the healing potion took effect and my wing is ‘good as new’. But--”

“Excellent! Then as soon as Director Nokoss finishes up the communications with the Lab, we’ll take off!”

His father had interjected as soon as he heard what he wanted, and cut him off. Again. This had a tendency to happen whenever he had his mind made up about something, and Rynn felt like he did so even more when the topic of flight, specifically of Rynn finally taking flight, came up.

Though both of them never said it, he could feel a level of disappointment from them, disappointment in him for failing his Trial of Flight the previous day, as if they had expected him to avoid a storm that came out of nowhere or a large Sheikah device hurtling directly toward him. They acknowledged those were unforeseen circumstances, but yet, he still felt like they blamed part of the failure on him.

“Alright, I just finished the meeting with the Hateno Tech Lab.” Both Rynn and his father turned toward the flight director, who seemed to have come from the center of the village and was wearing a very clear look of annoyance, little though the difference was from his usual expression. “To make a long story short, they thought their airborne Weather Formation Machines consistently hovered far above Rito flight height and will look into what went wrong. Somehow, they didn’t consider communicating with us about what regions to keep clear on certain days, but I will be kept in the loop going forward. Regardless, they aren’t experimenting in Faron today or in the near future, so we should have no trouble getting back or setting a new date for the trial.”

“Well, that’s all good to hear! Wouldn’t you agree, Rynn?” His father had turned to look at him, but Rynn had lost himself in thought, doubt, and fear again, and he had to say his son’s name several times more before he was shaken back to attention.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, that’s great, I guess…”

“Right… I’ve programmed the Updraft Device to send all three of us high enough to catch the winds back over the jungle. If you both are ready, I’d like to head back as soon as possible.”

Rynn’s father gave a nod, which the flight director seemed to take as confirmation from them both, and motioned for them to take certain positions as he brought out the same angular Sheikah device from the day prior and began fiddling with it. Rynn, however, was hardly paying attention, once more dreading having to fly. When he was with others, it was easier to focus on things that weren’t the void he was staring in the face, but after the disastrous events of the previous day, the prospect was even more frightening than usual. Yet, he knew that nothing he could do or say would convince either of them to find an alternate way home, so he instead attempted to swallow the fear and prepare to take wing.

“On my mark. Three… Two… One… Fly.”

Director Nokoss activated the device, creating a massive updraft beneath the talons of all three Rito, which quickly caught their wings and brought them far above the land. It was all Rynn could do to focus on the forms of his father and director instead of anything and everything else, as they adjusted to follow a westward--and quite rapid--wind and thus began the journey back toward Whistling Hill.

The last rays of sunlight were fading as they reached their destination, though the stable lights seemed to be shining even brighter than usual. In tandem, Rynn’s father and the trial director adjusted and descended, and Rynn followed suit as best he could. The flight had taken a toll on his nerves, further throwing off his balance, and as the other two Rito made graceful landings upon the hill’s peak, he came in too fast, failed to catch the grass properly, and stumbled briefly with the momentum before falling onto his face. Though the ground was dry, it reminded him all too much of how he woke up after falling from his trial the day prior.

“Hm. Your landing could use some work. Remember: lead with your talons, not your torso.” Director Nokoss remarked.

“...Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind…” Rynn mumbled through gritted teeth. Comments about his flying and anything related to it were just about the last thing he needed at that moment.

“Well, now that we’ve got those unforeseen circumstances out of the way…” the director continued as Rynn pushed himself upright. “We ought to take a moment to set the trial’s new date, preferably within the next several days, so we can avoid having to plan around the Labs.”

Rynn froze.

“Ah, good idea, Director!” said his father. “What do you say, Rynn? Take tomorrow to recover and complete the trial the day after?”

“No…” said Rynn, his voice only a low murmur.

“Oh, that fall must really have knocked it out of you, huh? How long do you need? Three days? Four?”

“...No…” he said again, his voice barely a whisper. His whole body was beginning to shudder.

“‘No’? Rynn, I don’t understand; we can’t wait too long… You have to complete your trial of fli--”

Something snapped.

“No!! You don’t understand! You don’t ever listen to what I say, you don’t ever pay attention to how I feel. Why can’t you understand that I. Hate. Flying?!”

Without waiting for any manner of response or reaction, he turned and ran down the hill as fast as his legs would carry him, ignoring the shouts from behind as tears began to well in his eyes. He didn’t know where he was going, all he knew was that he wanted to be far, far away from his father, and the director, and any others who wouldn’t see his struggle, and if that meant disappearing into the night, so would it be.

After a while, enough for dusk to have given way to twilight, Rynn slowed his pace in order to catch his breath. He looked around and found himself in what appeared to be one of the many, many century-old ruins that littered the land. Not wanting to leave himself exposed to the night, he quickly located and crawled into a small, mostly-intact room in one of the dilapidated buildings, over the mound of rubble that occupied what was likely once its doorway. The moonlight illuminated enough of the space for him to find his way to a wall and finally, for the first time in what felt like ages, try to relax his shaking, adrenaline-charged body.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to sit there through the night; that was plainly a terrible idea. But he needed space and time--to think and to focus and to get away from people who wouldn’t and couldn’t understand him--and he would not find those back at the Riverside Stable, not with his overzealous father and impatient flight director.

Though now that he had finally sat down and begun to calm his jittery nerves, he realized how exhausted he was, having spent almost the entire day fretting, flying, fighting, or fleeing. A dull soreness all over his body pleaded with him to stop moving, and though some part of him screamed to resist the pull, he felt his vision begin to fade…

…

“Hey, sleepyhead!”

Tevara’s bright voice cut through his drowsing like an arrow-shot. Rynn glanced up to see her smiling face gazing at him from the other end of the rubble, illuminated by the moon and the flame of the torch she was holding.

“Oh… hello, Tevara.”

“It’s been a bit over an hour, Rynn. Are you ready to come back yet? We…” She trailed off, her tone shifting as she seemingly noticed his expression and posture and silenced some quip she had planned to make.

Was he ready to go back? He knew, in the back of his mind, that he had already spent far too long away from civilization, but he had fallen asleep instead of processing his thoughts like he had wanted, and if he went back now, they’d still be tangled and writhing, and he didn’t really even want to look at his father or the trial director until he knew what to say.

Not hearing a response, Tevara spoke again, her voice now much softer. “I’m… really glad you're safe, Rynn. I feared the worst when we heard what had happened, and then when we came out to welcome you back, we heard your outburst and saw you running away… well, the night can be dangerous, especially when you’re alone.”

Rynn let the silence hang between them as he took in her words, then, after a few moments, spoke. “How did you find me before my father did? I thought he would have taken to the skies to try to trail me… him or Director Nokoss… or both…”

“That would be because I stopped them.” Rynn jumped slightly as another voice, the kindly and warm tone of Tevara’s mother Burnora, sounded from behind his friend. She stepped aside as the tall woman bent down to peer past the rubble pile as well, her scarlet-red hair joining her daughter’s and the torchlight in obscuring the opening in flame. “They both wanted to pursue you immediately, but I managed to convince them to wait for a while, and let us try to find you and bring you back first.”

“She grabbed them by the talons to force them back to the ground and calmly threatened to break their wings if they didn’t listen.” Tevara interjected, with her mouth turned up ever so slightly in a mischievous smirk. Rynn felt himself smile slightly, though he doubted either of them could see it.

“Rynn, I’ve known your father almost as long as you’ve known my daughter, and you’re right: he does often fail to listen, especially when he’s got his mind set on something. And up until an hour ago, he was set on you being able to be like him: Mevulo, one of the greatest fliers of our day, recognized by Master Teba himself.”

“So, what? He just… changed, suddenly? Suddenly he saw things differently?”

“You’ll have to talk to him yourself to see, young voe. For all his… idiosyncrasies, he truly does love you and want you to be happy, and… whether or not he would have listened to you before, he will listen now. I ma-- I’m sure of it.”

Rynn went silent once more, once again weighing his options. He wasn’t truly entirely ready to confront his father, but he also had a sneaking suspicion that, if he didn’t at least attempt to talk to him, he would never be ready. Slowly, he brought himself away from the wall and climbed out of the room--I swear it wasn’t this small when I entered--bringing himself back to his full height and stretching his limbs.

Tevara looked as though she wanted to hug him, but seemed to be resisting the urge, knowing how he felt about being touched. “Right, let’s head back! The night’s great and all, but it’s starting to get a bit chilly for what I’m wearing.”

The hike back to the stable passed without incident, and the three split ways at the entrance to its inn, Tevara and Burnora heading inside while Rynn went to meet his father at one of the campfire circles nearby.

“We’ll be here if you need us, Rynn,” said Tevara, “just… please don’t go running off again if things go south, okay?”

“I… I won’t. Thank you, both of you.”

They nodded as he turned and walked, slowly but firmly, toward where his father was sitting. He had been watching them from the moment they had returned, and upon being approached, leaped up from the log. Rynn was acutely aware of his father’s limbs twitching oddly and his posture being slightly off; it was clear that he, too, wanted to embrace him, but was trying to give him his space--it was one of the few things he had ever completely listened to Rynn about--and besides that was overall somewhat uncomfortable with and hesitant about the situation. It was a state that Rynn could not recall ever seeing his father in. A dark piece of his mind wanted to relish in that, fancying it a comeuppance for the discomfort he had had to endure; he quickly quelled it as best he could.

“Welcome back, Rynn… are you alright? Didn’t get hurt again out there?”

“I’m fine… could be better, but… fine.”

“Good…” His father’s expression shifted slightly, as if he wasn’t sure whether to prolong the pleasantries or get to the point, before he let out a quiet breath and settled upon the latter. “So… I never realized that you… you hated flying…”

This was obvious and unsurprising, but it still stirred Rynn’s frustration once more. “Really? You never once noticed how nervous I was whenever the topic of flying came up? The number of times I tried to avoid all the flight training? The fact that I never once expressed interest in flying, unlike literally every other Rito ever?”

“I…” he seemed to want to protest, or justify himself somehow, but… “No. I honestly, truly didn’t. Could you… perhaps elaborate? So I can… ‘understand’?”

“And you’ll listen? You won’t jump in or interrupt until I’m clearly finished speaking?” Rynn attempted to keep the malice out of his voice, but some managed to manifest anyway.

His father appeared to wince slightly, mumbling something to himself, before nodding. “Yes. I will wait, utterly silent, for you to say what you need to say.”

Rynn nodded, much more slowly, then took a deep breath, attempting to resist the stinging in the corners of his eyes. “Flying… it scares me…! I know it’s a cruel paradox, a Rito who’s afraid of flight, but... It doesn’t feel freeing, or exhilarating… it feels like I’m trapped in an uncaring and unforgiving void, and if anything goes wrong, I’ll plummet to the earth, desperately hoping that I can somehow slow the fall and mitigate the inevitable pain. There’s no ground, no cliffs, to support me or allow me to catch myself from the fall. That’s terrifying! Even the thought of it makes my mouth dry out and fills my stomach with butterflies, to say nothing of what it’s like actually doing it…! And then… and then…”--the tears had begun to flow, and he no longer cared to stop them--“And then, when my worst fears came true, and I tumbled from the sky and woke up lost in the jungle, alone, with a battered body and a broken wing, it was only by luck that I was rescued. And immediately after the damage was healed, you had me fly all the way back. These past two days have easily been the worst of my life, and you didn’t notice at all! For so long, you’ve constantly pushed me toward these lofty aims, but you never asked how I felt about them, about what I wanted to do.”

Another bout of silence hovered between them, as Rynn’s father considered his words and Rynn tried to calm his rapidly beating heart.

“And you… never tried to talk to me about this? If it… if it’s been affecting you this badly all this time?” His voice was sympathetic and concerned, with not even the slightest trace of accusation.

“I wanted to, and I really did try to! But every time I try to talk to you about something important, it feels like you’re always focused on something else, or so intent upon whatever you’ve set your mind on that you cut me off before I can say it. It’s been happening for so long now, that I’ve pretty much just… mostly stopped trying.”

Rynn was left almost breathless, having said much with more force than he had meant to. He collapsed upon the log opposite his father, trying to focus on anything else that might help to alleviate the anger and onslaught of unrestrained emotions that were rapidly taking a toll on his little remaining energy: the blades of grass beneath his talons, the way the breeze rippled through them and the way the firelight danced across them, the way they both cooled and warmed his ruffled feathers and strained limbs, or even the miniscule creatures that he couldn’t see for the dim glow, but knew were present all the same. ...Nothing truly seemed to help, and whether his father was waiting for any further word from Rynn or taking a remarkable amount of time to take in what he said, the silence between them was quickly approaching deafening.

Eventually, though he finally spoke. “Rynn, when… when you ran away, and Burnora stopped us from pursuing you, I was… confused, perhaps shocked… I didn’t understand why you did what you did, or why you felt what you felt. But then, she… said some of the same things that you did, in that way she always does. ...And it’s true: I always have struggled with letting others fully finish before jumping in, or taking notice of the states of others if I’m really focused elsewhere. It’s something I thought I was getting better about, but… it seems that, for this whole ordeal, at least, I wasn’t. I thought I knew what you wanted, how you felt, but… I was wrong, and I never did ask you, not truly. Flying is important to me, and I guess something in me made me feel as though you must as well.”

He paused again. It was odd to hear such explanations laid plainly from his father, but at the same time, with these admissions of fault, Rynn began to feel as though some weight were slowly being lifted from him.

“But you’re my son, not my clone; you don’t have to be exactly like me. I… I hate to see you like this, Rynn…! I hate that I made you feel like this. You shouldn’t feel like you can’t communicate with me, you shouldn’t feel pressured to do things that make you this viscerally uncomfortable, certainly not by me of all people. ...I wanted to be the best father and guide I could be to you. But I see now that I wasn’t. So… for all of this; for not listening, for making undue assumptions, for distressing you so… I want to apologize: I’m sorry, Rynn.”

Once more, something snapped. Not like the first time, like a branch being loudly split in twain, but rather like the resounding clicks of something finally falling into place. For the first time in far too long, a genuine, if shaky, smile crawled onto his face; not a smile of peace or contentment, but a smile formed out of a much-awaited lifting of weight and tension, of a catharsis long-overdue.

He lifted his head, finally looking directly into his father’s eyes again, difficult though they were to see through the fresh wave of tears. “I… I… ...thank you, Dad.”

A matching expression formed in his face, a clear relief passing over and through his body. “No, thank you, Rynn, for helping me to finally see you. I promise, on my honor as a Rito, a Hyrulean, and someone who you should be able to trust, that from this point forward, I’ll do all I can to make sure that nothing like this ever has to happen again.”

Rynn stood. His father’s form was again held in that odd and subtle-but-evident way that indicated a repressed intent to embrace, which he only now had a greater appreciation for.

“Now, it’s later than any of us should be up. Don’t worry about Director Nokoss: he left a bit ago, something about having ‘other obligations’. We can figure out what to do next--for everything and anything--in the morning. For now, though, I think you deserve to get some proper rest.”

Without a word, Rynn nodded, turned, and headed toward the stable’s inn. There was still much to think about, much to talk about, and there were some parts of it that he couldn’t say he was looking forward to, but for the time being, he felt lighter than he had in a long while, almost as if he was, then and there, without fear or doubt or fright or dread, flying.

[oloreaa]

Vencuyanir Ch.2 - The Sandcrawler

vencuyanir [ven-COO-yah-neer]: sustain, keep alive, preserve

Summary: Many things happen on their way to the Mandalorian's ship. Bean is unfazed and trying to be helpful, Elana… not so much

Words: 6.2k oof

Notes: Thank you for your lovely comments and reblogs, they mean so much to me🥺

Warnings: canon-typical violence (gore/blood, gun violence), hostages

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……………

The next morning, Elana was woken by the Mandalorian.

"Get up," he said, standing right in front of her, staring down. She startled awake, squinted up, brows furrowed and dark hair unruly. Then, she looked at the pram, seeing green ears peeking out of the pod. Not even a second later, dark eyes followed, peering at her. He cooed and stretched a hand out to her, smiling widely. The Mandalorian got close and uncuffed her without a word before retreating away again.

Elana got up, combing her hair with her fingers before putting it into a low braid while walking over to Bean, greeting him with a quiet "Good morning".

"We have to move," the Mandalorian said, strapping his rifle across his shoulder, walking a few paces before he stopped again, looking up at the canyon walls.

Taking notice of the filled water bottle, she put the moisture bead away and got the ration packs out. Offering one to Bean, she broke it in half in order for him to hold more easily. He started to gnaw on them, but his little face told her everything about what he thought of the taste.

"Yeah, honey, I know," she murmured, stroking his ears, "they're not tasty. We can get you something better later on." Bean pointed to the Mandalorian, and made a questioning sound. Elana could not control the face she made, and shook her head slightly.

"We're not asking him for food," she said so quietly that the bounty hunter would not be able to pick it up, "also he probably doesn't have anything better anyways."

Bean frowned, mouth turning downwards. She had to smile at his disgruntled face, and with a last boop on his nose, she straightened up and started to pack the things away into her backpack before walking towards the Mandalorian.

He had been waiting patiently, allowing them a short time to properly wake up and prepare for the day, for which she was grateful.

The Mandalorian held out the cuffs then, and with a clenched jaw she let him attach those to her wrists. He tilted his head towards her in a slight nod, then set off again, Bean's pram floating with him. Watching how his tattered cape swung across his broad back, Elana held back a sigh and started to trail after him.

It was much more difficult to walk in comparison to yesterday, since her legs ached with the effort, muscles unused to so much exercise and climbing across the rocky terrain. But taking step after step, setting one foot in front of the other, the ache slowly dwindled to an amount where it was annoying but not actually bothering her too much. They walked for at least an hour, the pace less gruelling than the day before, but it was still exhausting after a while.

The canyon walls decreased in height around them, and the path they walked on was getting lighter and lighter, both due to the fact that the edges of the cliff were lower and let more daylight in, and the sun rising higher in the sky. The rock formation curled above them, giving them some semblance of protection even if the canyon itself was becoming more shallow.

Where yesterday the surface was bare and devoid of life, down in the canyon there were lizards scuttling around. Across the bond she could feel Bean watching those with big eyes and rising interest, leaning over the edge of the pod to peek out. The Mandalorian kept walking, stride purposeful, unbothered by the reptiles.

More lizards appeared again, and Bean leaned out even more, squeaking quietly, eyes growing huge. Elana watched him, glad that he seemed to be entertained by them even though he could not get out and play. Crossing over a small trickling stream, they continued walking without a break. The packed earth beneath their feet was not bone dry anymore, but had occasional patches of wet mud here and there, making the walk more difficult.

Some of them were actually mud puddles and Elana was suddenly glad that Bean was sitting properly in his pram because he would have definitely tried to play in them and make a mess of himself. And she would probably have let him, giving him an hour to tire himself out so he would sleep better at night.

"Mrah," Bean said quietly, eyes wide as he tried to get a better look.

The lizards that tailed them were approaching fast, a group of them gathering around them. Elana looked at the ground, keeping an eye on them. Are they venomous?, she suddenly asked herself, anxiety spiking, and inched closer to the pram. But before she could open her mouth to ask the bounty hunter, they scattered in a matter of milliseconds.

The Mandalorian stopped walking.

Elana held her breath automatically as he stood still as a statue, the only sound she could hear for the moment the wind whistling.

A shadow passed over them, too quickly for Elana to see the source behind it as she whipped her head around. The Mandalorian turned his torso, slowly looking around.

"What is--" Elana started to ask quietly, but he held a hand up sharply, effectively shutting her up. His leather gloves creaked as his hand wrapped around a blaster.

Elana jumped when a figure, a Trandoshan dropped down from the top of the canyon with a roar, stumbling back as fast as she could, getting away from them.

They knocked against the Mandalorian's rifle, and with a fast movement, he pushed Bean's pram backwards. A sharp rapid beeping filled the air, and she stumbled backwards as fast as she could, placing herself in front of Bean. Her heart beat fast in her chest as the Trandoshan advanced on the Mandalorian, sparks flying as he hit his armour. Getting the upper hand, the Mandalorian knocked him down, only to whirl around when another one dropped down. While he deflected a hit, a third one appeared, getting involved in the fight as well.

The Mandalorian held himself against three opponents easily, blocking hits and kicking out, every slice that broke through his defence sliding harmlessly off his armour. Using the end of his rifle, he stabbed at one of them, blue electricity crackling, knocking the Trandoshan back a couple of paces.

Seizing the opportunity of the distracted bounty hunter, one of them ran towards Elana and Bean, the former shielding the pram protectively with her body. She squared her shoulders, preparing to defend Bean with her life even while cuffed, but before that could happen, the hunter vanished into thin air.

Eyes wide, she stared at the golden sparks floating around them, her gaze dropping to the pile of fabric at her feet that had not been there before.

The hunter had disintegrated.

Her heart dropped into her stomach, and she had to gulp. The Mandalorian still had his rifle raised, pointing directly at them. A moment passed, not one word was said. Breathing hard, the visor of the Mandalorian was trained right on Bean, and the child was staring back. Elana was wide eyed, looking rapidly between them, unable to decide whether she should check upon Bean first or rip into the bounty hunter for firing a weapon right when Bean was in range.

She turned and crossed the short distance to the pram, wishing she could take him out of the pram and press him to her, but it was impossible with the cuffs. "What is wrong with you," she got out, voice shaking and hands trembling, overwhelmed with the need to feel Bean. Him, alive, in her arms, "You could have hit him!" Chest heaving, she glared at the Mandalorian, heart beating fast in her chest, every possible scenario that could have played out making it seize up.

"Good thing I didn't," he replied, before taking the beeping fob and crushing it with his boot. His helmet turned around to her, "We're being followed."

The statement hung in the air.

They looked at each other, the impassive shield of the beskar mask making it impossible to gauge what was going on in his mind. "Why do they want him?" he asked, sounding tense.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I don't know," she said, shoulders hunching. It was not a complete lie. She had some ideas as to why anyone wanted Bean, starting with what the little one could do, but actually knowing? How could the people who wanted Bean know that he could make things float? How could they know about the bond?

"We need to move if we don't want to get ambushed again," the Mandalorian said, and turned around, taking off again.

Elana stared after him, worry lingering in her chest. She knew that there were many bounty hunters coming to Arvala-7, and she knew that they had tried and failed many times to get Bean. This was the first time that someone had come so far in actually getting them.

Now, the other hunters would have easy picking with them out in the open, especially considering how close it just was, how easily they should have overpowered the Mandalorian.

Elana did not even dare to think what would have happened to Bean if the Mandalorian had not quickly pushed the pram away from the scuffle, and silently thanked the Maker for his reflexes. Starting to walk again, trailing after the Mandalorian and the floating pram, she was left alone with her thoughts, running at hyperspace speed. She suddenly noticed the cut on the Mandalorian's arm, the sun reflecting the glistening of blood.

"You're hurt!" Elana exclaimed, not thinking as she went to inspect it, some kind of instinct taking over. She was stopped though, by an arm pushing her away when she got too close, and the bounty hunter stared her down.

"Don't touch me," he threatened quietly, and Elana instantly shrank back, heart pounding. Feeling a flush rise up in her face because of how foolish she felt, she just held up her palms a little awkwardly because of the cuffs, trying to placate him.

He simply turned around, and ignored her timid "I'm sorry".

The day was crawling by at a snail's pace, and they only stopped for water and food. If Elana had thought that she felt disgusting yesterday, she was not prepared for today. Her entire body was sticky with sweat and dust, and when she rubbed across her arms dirt clung to her, baked into her skin. Her hair was a tangled mess, the only saving grace was that it was in a braid and could not get much dirtier. She longed for a water shower where she could scrub her entire body raw, some soap to wash off the grease on her face and her scalp, and clean, dry clothes that she could put on afterwards. Elana might have actually cried if that opportunity arose. Thank the Maker that Bean was not a sweaty baby, and with his pram he was the cleanest of them all.

Despite all this, she pitied the Mandalorian, who must have been sweating buckets underneath that coarse weave and the durasteel armour, not to mention the cape he was trailing behind him. Was it only for the aesthetic, to look even more menacing, or did it serve some purpose? It looked like a good emergency blanket for cool nights, though.

When night finally fell again after a gruelling day underneath the sun, they made camp outside the canyon, on the edge, where they would continue towards the Mandalorian’s ship the next day.

The Mandalorian took out a small heater lamp while Elana gave Bean water, turned on the moisture bead after he was finished, and fed him his ration packet. Unhappy with the consistency, it took longer than usual for Elana to get Bean to eat, the baby whining and frowning at her every time he had to take another bite.

"I know it doesn't taste good," Elana said, holding the packet with a stern face, "But it's all we have right now."

The Mandalorian was inspecting the wound on his arm, hissing lowly in pain when he must have grabbed it too hard, and then took out a device from one of the pockets on his thighs. Watching the Mandalorian settle down, Elana pulled her knees to her chest, scooting closer to the rock behind her, once again scolding herself for her moment of weakness before. Why did she want to help him? Why did she constantly offer him help, water, food when he would not hesitate to let them die?

Why was she like this, giving away precious resources that could go to Bean to their captor?

He did not spare her a glance as he shuffled around on his seat, and pressed the device in his hand to the cut on his arm. Horrified, Elana gasped as it flared bright red, and the flesh sizzled. "What are you doing?" It escaped her before she thought about it, "Is that a cauterizer?"

"Yes," was the only thing he said, before pressing it to the cut again.

The sound was gruelling, and when the Mandalorian gave a low groan at the pain, goosebumps spread over her whole body. "Stop that," she demanded, chest seizing up at the smell of burnt flesh, "You're hurting yourself."

"It'll get infected," he explained, infuriatingly calm, as if she were a child.

She huffed. "Doesn't that increase the likelihood of infection? With the inflammation--"

"I don't have time for that," the Mandalorian interrupted her.

"Fine," she rolled her eyes. Get septicaemia for all I care.

He continued holding the cauterizer to his wound, sizzling filling the air, and Elana did her best to ignore the pained grunts and heavy breathing the Mandalorian let out, trying to stave off the nausea from the thought of someone doing something like that to themselves. Suddenly, Bean appeared right next to the Mandalorian, stretching his hand out, reaching up. Elana had not even noticed that he had left his pram. Grimacing at the strain, Bean stretched his hand out some more.

Before she could say or do anything, the Mandalorian softly pushed him away with his hand, and took Bean under his armpits, lifting him back into his pram in a matter of seconds, Bean making a disgruntled coo at the manhandling. She would have made a sound of protest if he had not been so... gentle with Bean. Staring at him, wide eyed, Elana felt something akin to hope fluttering in her chest.

Since she had started to care for Bean, she had noted that she could make many assumptions about a person, and be proven correct most of the time, simply by the way they treated the little one.

The Niktos had shown a full range of possibilities on how to gauge personalities. Those that did not spare him a glance veered towards the spectrum of untrustworthy, and those that cared enough to check up on him once in a while were the ones that Elana could go to if there was a problem. There were many impatient ones she did not care for in the slightest, since they had punished the baby for the smallest of things. But overall, the Niktos had been neutral to Bean, guarding him like they were hired to, but nothing more. And based on how the Mandalorian treated Bean, there was hope that he could be convinced to not hand them over to those that put a bounty on his head. It was basically impossible not to fall in love with Bean upon sight, anyways.

The Mandalorian started to repair his chest plate after sitting down, fixing something on it, the circuitry making violent sparks fly. Something clicked, and the chest plate gave a whirring sound, the Mandalorian exhaling in relief as it booted up.

Elana had a sharp eye on Bean now, quietly observing what he was trying to do. After jumping out of the pram, landing lightly, he waddled towards the Mandalorian, and stretched out his hand again, whining slightly. A choked off sound that came from the Mandalorian as he noticed Bean made the little child warble even more, his voice almost scolding. If it was not so bizarre, Elana would have laughed.

After a short glance towards her, the bounty hunter stood up, bent over, carefully picked Bean up again, and set him down in the pram. Bean looked up at him, big eyes questioning, ears perked up, cooing at him. The Mandalorian hesitated before he pushed a button on his vambrace and the lid closed with a hiss.

The man looked at her, visor menacingly tilted down. "What did he want?" he asked, still a bit breathless, chest probably heaving from the brutal way he had used the cauterizer on himself.

Elana looked up, and could not help but feel proud of Bean. "That, Mandalorian," she said quietly, "was him trying to help you."

His body language was incredulous. "Why would he do that?"

She glared up at him, straightening up. "Because you were in pain."

The Mandalorian scoffed slightly. "He should not care," he said stiffly, which made Elana scoff as well.

"Do you think he understands that?" she snapped, brows furrowed at the bounty hunter, "The only thing he could see was that you were cauterizing your cut with that kriffing atrocious thing."

He said nothing, just turned his head to the pram, watching it quietly. Then, with a sigh, he returned to fiddling with his chest plate, not sparing her another glance.

She made a face at him, before turning around and laying on the cold floor, pulling the threadbare blanket around her shoulders. Keeping her back firmly to the rock formation behind her, she fell asleep with the light of the lamp illuminating their makeshift campsite.

The next morning, she woke before the Mandalorian did, sunrise announcing itself through the pink and purple swirls in the sky. Watching as it turned gold, she tucked her hair neatly into braids, and finished as the Mandalorian gave a start and sat up.

Looking at the pram first, then at her, he started packing the lamp and other supplies away while she folded the blanket and put it into her backpack. Frowning at the leather straps, discoloured from sweat, she sighed. When they arrived at some place with water she would try to clean it up some. Button pressed, the pram opened, and Bean sat up sluggishly, blinking, still half asleep.

Whining slightly, he held his arms up, wanting to be taken, and Elana quickly put her backpack on, scrambled up and hoisted him into her arms. He snuggled into her, and gave a slight snore, evidently falling asleep again. Taking a look at the Mandalorian, already finished with packing and waiting for them, cuff in his hand. Elana held Bean closer, sending him a glare. The Mandalorian only sighed, and packed the cuff away for now.

They took off, Bean still in her arms until he was fully asleep again, and Elana put him back into the pram once the bond let her know that he was drifting into dreams, letting him snooze a bit. As if he had been waiting for Elana to have her arms free to use again, the Mandalorian was quick in securing her the moment Bean was in the pod.

The sun rose behind them, elongating their shadows in front of them, and they worked their way up a steep hill. She was glad when they went over the ledge, and the ground evened out to a flat, which went on for some kilometers all around.

"We're not far now," the Mandalorian said suddenly, and she could not help but to tense up.

"Where are you taking us?" Elana asked.

He exhaled with a crackle of the modulator in his helmet. "To my ship," he said. She scoffed.

"Ha, ha, very funny, I did not gather that," Elana muttered, "Where are we going?"

"To a client."

"And they are?"

"Confidential."

She looked at him, face deadpan, and opened her mouth for a retort before she thought better of it. If he did not want to talk, fine. It was unlikely that he would give any more information to her. And she did not even know what information could help her in some way.

They walked for at least half an hour before something blinked a kilometer away, reflecting the sunlight. Based on the relieved slump in the Mandalorian's shoulders, even though he did not make a sound, she gathered that it must be his ship.

The countdown started, she thought grimly to herself, and felt herself tensing up. No way back. She took back everything she had thought the last two days, every sullen complaint that she ached, that she wanted to be out of the sun, that she was tired and thirsty, because the complete fear she felt made her long for the moments where the end was not as apparent.

In a few hours Bean would be handed over to some client of the Mandalorian, and Maker knows what they wanted with her child.

They had to take a longer route around though, since a canyon was cutting straight through the more direct path, and soon the glinting disappeared. Making their way towards the ship from another angle, it steadily came closer with every step they took. A spark of hope grew in her heart as she heard some noises, carried over by the wind.

It sounded like Jawas, her mind supplied, and the Mandalorian must have come to the same conclusion, for he increased his pace. They walked over the rocky stone edge, shouting filling the air as the bounty hunter became more and more tense with every step. When they finally arrived at the overhang, there was a huge Sandcrawler next to a silver ship, the smaller one half disassembled.

The Jawas were whooping in joy and talking amongst themselves as they manhandled the pieces to their Sandcrawler.

The Mandalorian took off his rifle in a smooth motion, yanked the end piece off and held it to his visor, and Elana realized that it must have been some scope. He then lifted his rifle, it gave a click under a practised flip and started whirring in a foreboding manner. He fired.

A Jawa disintegrated.

She flinched at that, the knowledge of the Mandalorian having such a weapon still making her nauseous.

Bean leaned forward, interest suddenly spiking along their bond. The Jawas started to flee, running into their Sandcrawler, but the Mandalorian got another shot in, and reloaded his rifle. The little child watched the Mandalorian take out several Jawas, ears perked high, and Elana grimaced at the fact that Bean was exposed to this much violence in the span of only a few days. It would be a marvel if he did not have any sort of nightmares afterwards.

The huge structure started to move, and the Mandalorian was quick to give chase, the pram floating along.

"Hey!" Elana yelled, scrambling to get behind them, "hey!"

The Mandalorian was wickedly fast, gaining speed quickly while she struggled with jumping down the rocky terrain without breaking an ankle, especially with no free hands to catch herself if she fell. She caught up somewhat when the bounty hunter dropped to his knee, Bean’s pod right beside him, and fired at the machinery in the back of the Sandcrawler. He then ran behind it again, his frame becoming smaller and smaller in comparison to the looming structure, before he jumped up, pulling himself onto the fast moving thing.

He is crazy, Elana thought, running behind them, not knowing what else to do. Stay? Then she would be left alone while he was doing who knows what, and since Bean was attached to him, his pod swerving safely around any obstacles, she had to go after them. Even if she could not keep up with the running or the speed for long, she had to stay with them, so she could at least follow what was happening with her eyes.

The Mandalorian was trying to climb up the Sandcrawler using the ladder, and the Jawas veered to the side, trying to scrape him off on a rock, but he somehow managed to stay on top of the ledge he was positioned on.

She could see how the Jawas started to throw parts at him, doing their best to slow him down, but the bounty hunter was still unerringly trying to get to the Jawas, climbing with visible effort.

Elana could not follow everything while she was running behind them, for the parts that the Jawas had thrown to slow down the Mandalorian succeeded in slowing her down. Having to watch her step carefully so she would not skewer her foot by stepping on some rusty pipe or stumbling over a Jawa corpse, she missed the point where he launched a rope from his armour, using that to pull himself up.

He's crazy, she thought, breathing hard as she ran as fast as she could, switching her focus between small white pram floating behind the Mandalorian, and the Mandalorian himself, He’s lost it.

How did he think that he had the slightest chance against the whole Sandcrawler and the tribe inside? Completely nuts.

Elana could not believe her eyes when he actually reached the top after some struggle, his frame now tiny because of the distance, but the begrudging respect that budded was quickly replaced with dread as the Jawas electrocuted him.

She could see him swaying slightly before falling down, the moments seeming endless. Wincing at how hard he hit the ground, Elana tried to increase her speed, but it still took too long until she was near enough, the speed of the Sandcrawler putting a decent distance between them.

Arriving at the fallen Mandalorian, wheezing in exhaustion and heart beating fast from the run, it took everything in her to not just collapse on the spot. Placing her hands on her knees and taking a few moments to suffer, Elana gasped for air, feeling her sides burn.

The Mandalorian was sprawled out across the ground, completely still, but his stomach continued to move up and down.

"He's breathing," she told Bean, who was watching with worried eyes, soft coos coming from the small creature, and she straightened up, breathing deeply, "He is probably alive."

Elana really hoped that he was. Not necessarily because she liked him, quite the opposite, out of necessity. If he died, she and Bean would be kilometers away from any kind of civilization, in the middle of the desert, food and water, even with the moisture bead, scarce. And if the hunters from yesterday were any indication, they were probably wanted by even more people.

She would rather take her chances with the Mandalorian, who had not hit them when he fancied it in the last two days, who treated Bean gently, and had not made a pass at her, knowing that she could not properly defend herself.

It was not the highest of standards, Elana had to concede, but it was unlikely that other hunters would be as 'pleasant' as the Mandalorian was.

Getting closer to the sprawled out Mandalorian, she peered down at him, brows raised. Then, she looked back at Bean who was watching them. Then back to the Mandalorian again.

She nudged his leg slightly with her foot. "... Mandalorian?" she asked, tilting her head as she nudged him again, this time against his side.

He did not stir.

Feeling worried now, she dropped to her knees, and poked him, instantly withdrawing in case the Mandalorian woke up and took her finger off without a warning. Bean sent something that she could interpret as worry, and a picture of blue sparks and a fuzzy feeling flooded the bond. He was showing her what happened, Elana realized, and looked at the Mandalorian again.

She honestly did not know what to do. Should she take his armour off to check for injuries? The way he fell, he could have sustained some heavy damage. Broken bones? Concussions? Maker, spinal injuries?

Could he have split his head open and Elana would not notice? Was he bleeding out somewhere beneath the armour? Hesitant fingers hovered above his armour, before settling on his chest plate, giving him a tentative shake.

Nothing.

Elana bit her lip, feeling conflicted. She knew that there was something about a Mandalorian's helmet, that it should not be removed by others, or was it that only they could remove it? And he had only taken it off to drink or eat when she was tied up against the pram. For a short second she thought about manipulating the bounty hunter's arms in a way to take off his own helmet but discarded that thought just as quickly as it had appeared in her head.

"What do you think, Bean? What should I do?" Elana asked, looking to the baby as if he could give her an answer.

Bean cooed, tilting his head to the side.

"I don't want to disrespect the guy's culture, if you get me?"

Bean nodded gravely, as if to say 'yeah, I get you'.

Elana exhaled a breath, lips pursing, contemplating what to do. She really did not want to take off his armour and maybe do something culturally insensitive, but what if he had an injury that she could treat? She did not have many medical supplies, but if there was a small wound? What if he needed to sit up? What if there was something that needed instant medical attention?

Elana shifted on her knees, and leaned over the Mandalorian, taking notice of how he was breathing. Still breathing?

"Oh Maker," she huffed in despair, "Maker above."

She settled her fingers slightly around his helmet, and tried to gather enough courage to pull it up, heart beating fast in her chest.

"I'm sorry, Mandalorian, if this is something extremely taboo that I'm doing here, but honestly--" Elana gave a short nervous laugh, "Yeah, I'm sorry. Please don't kill me afterwards, that would be very much appreciated." She tried to lift it, not even raising it half a centimeter before his hand wrapped tight around her wrist, almost giving her a heart attack.

The world suddenly went flying and she found herself pinned under the Mandalorian, his hand curling around her throat, the other pressing her into the ground. She gasped, both in shock and at the force with which he had slammed her into the ground, and clawed at his hand, scrabbling underneath him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she got out, "Thought you were injured, tried to help--"

The words grew more panicked as she tried to speak around the pressure on her windpipe. Elana could faintly hear Bean squeaking in alarm.

"It is forbidden," he snarled at her, voice impossibly rough, before letting up, leaving her gasping and floundering on the floor.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, tears in her eyes, coughing from the steel grip that had only just been on her throat. Rubbing against it, she winced. Would that leave a bruise? She hoped not.

The Mandalorian's breath was ragged as he clumsily stood up, chest heaving as he stood above her. "I should kill you for that."

Elana swallowed thickly, staring up at him with watering eyes, trying to hold back the cough building in her throat. "I did not know it was forbidden, I swear," she tried to explain herself, "I know that Mandalorians don't take their helmets off but I assumed, with injuries--"

"Yeah, you assumed," he interrupted her, sounding angry, hand twitching towards his blaster. She flinched back, and apologised again, staring at the ground, blood rushing in her ears. Bean was squeaking indignantly in his pram, a frown on his face.

"I only wanted to check for injuries, I swear," she whispered, hoping the Mandalorian would believe her.

He turned around, and looked after the huge trail the Sandcrawler had left, before letting out a huge sigh. Elana stood up, discreetly patting down the dust on her clothes and checking up on Bean, who was making questioning sounds at her, his ears hanging low. I'm okay, she sent to him, along with a smile.

The Mandalorian looked back to them, his shoulders dropping again. "Just this once, caretaker," he said, towering above her as he stared her down. She nodded quickly, shrinking back in fear. With that threat, he stalked past her, whole body tense, and started to walk back the way they had come.

She stared after him, heart beating fast in her chest, mind reeling. Bean's pram floated past her, and he cooed at her, hand stretched out as if he was urging her to follow.

Elana might not have understood the scale of what had just happened, but she knew that the Mandalorian would not have hesitated to shoot her. Or snap her neck. There were several times when she wanted to open her mouth and ask whether or not he was all right, he did fall from an incredibly dangerous height onto his back, but she was too scared of him going off at her again. They walked back in silence, the Sandcrawler having left an unmistakable path they could easily follow. Looking up into the sky, she noticed that it would not be long until the sun set. The Mandalorian walked with a straight back, but his step was slower than before. She contemplated asking if he was injured again, but thought better of it.

It took a while until they arrived at the Mandalorian's ship, various pieces of it lying on the ground around it. The ship was stripped, pieces on the side missing, and from what she could spot the engine was basically gutted. There was no way that the ship could make it into space.

The Mandalorian let out a string of curses that crackled through the modulator, and pointed a finger at her. "You stay here," he commanded, body tense, and he pressed the button on his vambrace so Bean's pram did not follow him, inching it towards her with a motion of his arm before whipping around, starting to examine what was left of the ship.

It was large, unpainted and silver except for some faded designs on the sides, and a model that was older than herself. Scratch that, it could very well be from the time before the Empire. Elana wondered how well it was holding up before the Jawas got to it.

Seeing this as a good moment to rest her legs, she sat down on the ground, Bean's pram next to her, and she took out the water bottle. First giving Bean something, the little one drinking in big gulps, obviously thirsty, and then took sips herself.

She heard a loud bang from inside the ship, and exchanged a glance with Bean. "Someone's angry," she said to Bean, and he cooed in agreement.

A movement from the cockpit drew her eye, and she could see a glint through the viewport, which was probably the helmet of the Mandalorian. Shortly after, the ship started whirring, and the left repulsor gave a huff before shutting down. Then, the right one did the same.

"The ship can't fly, you see, Bean?" Elana could not help but smile, feeling exceedingly petty. Bean nodded in agreement, ears perking up as he babbled to her. She reached a hand into the pram, and he grasped at her fingers, holding them tightly. He held out his other hand, and beckoned for her to pick him up. Elana did, and put him in her lap.

Bean frowned at her, and wriggled. She frowned right back. "You don't want to be held?" Something creeped across their bond, and she could not help but raise an eyebrow at what he wanted.

"The Mandalorian? Are you sure?"

He pointed towards the ship, and started wriggling again. Setting him down, he started to waddle directly to it, and a tug across their bond made her follow him. Bean struggled across the packed ground, and then up the ramp into the ship. She was right behind him, watching the small one like a hawk so if he stumbled or fell she could instantly get to him.

Bean reached the top, and chirped loudly into the ship, ears high and reaching his arms inside.

"Where is your caretaker?" The Mandalorian asked Bean, voice rough. She poked her head into the ship, and gave a tiny, only slightly sarcastic wave. He sighed, before pushing himself up from the cub he had been leaning against.

"Shouldn't you know better than to let him wander?" He accused, tilting his head at her.

Elana shrugged instead of answering, eyes narrowed. How dare he try to tell her how to handle Bean?

The Mandalorian pushed past her, his steps ringing loudly on the durasteel floor of his ship. "Come," he said, and started off walking again.

Elana rolled her eyes, and scooped Bean up, who protested with a whine.

"Where are we going?" she asked, almost afraid of an answer.

"Somewhere safer than here."

……………

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it!

@mndalorians Cass YOURE the GOAT even though youre a little crabby lmao. Ilysm its unreal

Tags: @binggrae-banana-milk @b0n-chann @pisss-offf-ghostt @chibi-liz05 @din-damn-djarin @soldade @yourexcellentboiiii @chaotic-noceur @ezrasarm @hdlynn @mndalorians @over300books @agirllovespasta @crookedmoonsaultpunk @teaofpeach @shadylightbearherring @mitchi-c @concussed-to-pieces

[fanfictionaries]

Oh So Many Years: Ch. 19 - Shoot The Moon

Pairing: Hermione Granger x Fred Weasley

Summary:

Summer has ended and students return to King’s Cross to begin another year at Hogwarts. 

Warnings: Swearing, Death, Smut/18+ NSFW

Author’s Note:

For some reason Tumblr wouldn’t take my formatting like it has with previous chapters. I swear it’s a freaking crap shoot whether it will EVERY time I poster on here. It would be nice to know how that works...

Anyways, please enjoy :) 

Masterlist

<<<Chapter 18

 Summer days are gone too soon

You shoot the moon

And miss completely

And now you’re left to face the gloom

The empty room that once smelled sweetly

Of all the flowers you plucked if only

You knew the reason

Why you had to each be lonely

Was it just the season?

 Hermione Granger was nothing if not a punctual person. At the best of times she was fifteen minutes early and at the worst she was on time. However, she should have known that the Weasley family would want to stick true to their tradition of arriving at King’s Cross by the skin of their teeth. Tapping her foot impatiently as she stood in the busy kitchen, Hermione worked very hard at fighting off a headache. Mrs. Weasley was screaming at the twins for charming their trunks and accidentally knocking Ginny down two flights of stairs and Walburga was screaming because Mrs. Weasley was screaming. She checked her watch for the umpteenth time that morning and ran a hand over her hair. They may not even make it on time at all if they carried on this way, she thought irksomely. Especially if they waited any longer on Sturgis Podmore to show up like Moody wanted them to. The last thing she needed was to miss the train on her first day as a Prefect. Smirking to herself, Hermione stared down at the silver pin fitted snuggly to the front of her jumper and admired it. Prefect. She had done it. Just one step closer to Head Girl.

A tap at the kitchen window brought Hermione out of her musings. Looking up she saw the brilliant, snowy visage of Hedwig. Hermione sighed, striding towards the window, and throwing it open. Hedwig flew in, looking quite flustered for a bird. Perhaps she also knew they were running late. Cursing in her head, Hermione wondered if perhaps her parents had forgotten that today was the day she left for Hogwarts. Why else would they have chosen to send Hedwig back so late in the morning? She took the letter from her parents out of Hedwig’s clutch and then allowed the bird to climb onto her shoulder. The owl’s long talons dug sharply into her skin, holding on for dear life as Hermione sprinted out of the kitchen and up the stairs. On the second floor landing she spotted Crookshanks stalking a stray mouse and scooped him up as well. The giant orange beast squirmed in her arms, putting up a fight but possessing enough respect to keep his claws put away.

 “Oh stop, Crooks. Honestly, you’ve spent all summer doing whatever you please. Just cooperate with me for one second,” Hermione groaned, holding onto her cat even tighter and bounding up the last flight of stairs to Harry and Ron’s room.

 “Sorry Harry! Mum and dad only just sent Hedwig back,” she apologized, walking across her friends’ messy room to place Hedwig in her cage. “Are you just now getting dressed?”

 “Uh yeah, I slept late,” Harry mumbled, buttoning the last button on his shirt, and moving to pull on his socks and shoes.

 Hermione sighed, placing Crookshanks down on the bed and taking a moment to stare critically at her best friend. Harry had mentioned the resurgence of his nightmares earlier in the summer when she found him wandering the halls late at night. She had been on her way back to her room from another late-night library session with Fred, but of course she didn’t tell Harry that. While what her and Fred were doing wasn’t necessarily wrong, there was an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they should keep it to themselves. People just wouldn’t understand.

 However, looking at Harry now, Hermione didn’t need her former knowledge of Harry’s nightmares to know that he wasn’t sleeping well. He had circles under his eyes, and despite Mrs. Weasley’s cooking the past month he still looked too thin.

 “How’s Ginny?” Harry asked, tying his laces.

 Hermione rolled her eyes. “She’s fine. Mrs. Weasley is patching her up in the kitchen. I wouldn’t go down there right now though if I were you. It’s a zoo. Mrs. Weasley and Walburga are still yelling and now Mad-Eye’s complaining that we can’t leave until Sturgis Podmore shows up. Otherwise the guard will be one short,” said Hermione, leaning against the end of the bed and petting Crookshanks idly.

 “Guard?” Harry asked, looking up from his shoes. “We have to go to King’s Cross with a guard?”

 “You have to go to King’s Cross with a guard,” corrected Hermione.

 “Why?” questioned Harry, standing up in an irritated fashion.

 Hermione scoffed, “Why do you think, oh Boy Who Lived?”

 “I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low. What, do they think he’ll be waiting behind a dustbin at the train station, waiting to do me in?”

 “I don’t know. It’s just what Mad-Eye says,” said Hermione, fighting to stay calm and sympathetic. She was getting a bit tired of Harry’s moody demeanour.

 Her assumption about Harry’s arrival at the beginning of the month had been correct. Harry had been irate. At everyone, but especially at her and Ron. Luckily, Fred and George swooped in at the right time, just like Fred had said they would. Bless the both of them. Hermione didn’t know how much more chastising she could take, she already felt guilty for not writing to him. She’d apologized at least a thousand times over in the last month, but Harry still had a sour mood and while Hermione had been prone to tears at the beginning, now she was just frustrated.

 “Look, I’m not too happy about it either. Do you think I want to be late today?” Hermione asked snippily, looking at her watch once again.

“Will you lot get down here now?!” Mrs. Weasley’s bolstering voice boomed up through the stairwell and Hermione pushed off the bed with a sigh. She grabbed Crookshanks in her arms once again and headed towards the door. “Are you coming?” she asked once she got to the doorway.

 “Yeah, right behind you,” nodded Harry, looking a bit pink in the face. Perhaps her comment had embarrassed him. Hermione smiled at the thought. It would do him good to remember he wasn’t the only one with problems in the world.

 Hermione hurried down the stairs, running into the twins halfway down.

 “Well if it isn’t our favourite little Prefect,” said George, reaching out and ruffling the top of Hermione’s head. Hermione batted his hand away before reaching the bottom of the stairs and placing Crookshanks in his carrier.

 “I’m not speaking with you two,” she sniffed, looking away from them and instead focusing her attention on getting the finicky latch closed tightly on her cat’s wicker carrier.

 “Oh? Why’s that Hermione?” the two asked in unison.

 “I’m annoyed with you both,” responded Hermione in an off-handed manner.

 “Annoyed?” asked Fred with a shocked tone.

 “With us?” asked George, sounding equally as surprised.

 “That can’t be right—” Fred leaned against the wall beside her and took the strap from Hermione’s hands, latching the carrier closed with ease “—we’re angels, we are.”

 “You knocked your sister down two flights of stairs!”

 “By accident!” cried Fred and George.

 “Yes, well still. I hope you know that I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour once we get to Hogwarts.”

 “I knew this would happen Freddie,” said George, shaking his head solemnly.

 “We really should have prepared ourselves more for this inevitable betrayal,” added Fred woefully.

 “Our little Hermione, a swotty Prefect.”

 “No more fun.”

 “No more laughs.”

 “Oh the laughs we’ve had,” bemoaned George wistfully, throwing himself dramatically onto Fred’s shoulder.

 “You two are ridiculous—” Hermione shook her head, unable to stop the smile from forming on her face “—I told you before. Just because I’m a Prefect doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being fun—”

 “You were fun before?” asked Ron cheekily, entering the hallway with a cauldron cake in hand.

 Hermione scowled at him. “Ha, ha, very funny Ron. You know, you’re a Prefect too now. You should start practicing a bit more civility.”  

 Ron smirked, ignoring her comment, and instead taking a bite of the cauldron cake before going over to stand near Tonks and Ginny.

 Hermione turned back to the twins who stared down at her expectantly, waiting to hear the rest of the speech she’d given at least three times over since she’d received the letter with her silver Prefect pin. “Now, as I was saying. I’m not going to turn into a monster. Just realize that I have an obligation to the school first and I won’t hesitate to reprimand you if need be.”

 “Reprimand, you hear that Freddie?” asked George with an impish expression.

 “Sure did Georgie,” answered Fred, looking equally as puckish.

 “What are you going to do, Hermione?”

 “Give us a bit of a spanking?”

 Hermione blushed, furiously and against her better judgement. But she was more well-versed in the ways of the Weasley twins and so her embarrassment did not stop her from responding like it might have in previous years. Instead, she looked up confidently at the two and tried to put on what she could only imagine was a semblance of seduction. “Only if you’ve been bad boys.”

 The twins balked at her comment, mouths hanging open and ears tinging pink in a fashion very similar to Ron but very unfamiliar to them. Fred and George Weasley did not get embarrassed easily. If they had any kind of response, there was no time for it. A moment later, Mrs. Weasley came into the hallway from the kitchen and Harry came down the stairs. Walburga was still screaming insults from the wall, but all ears were trained on Mrs. Weasley’s instructions on who was going with who to King’s Cross and what to do with their trunks.

 A whirlwind of people, crosswalks, and magical barriers and Hermione was finally on Platform 9 ¾. In a way, Hermione was glad they had walked to the train station. It had given her a sense of control on how quickly they reached the train and she had practically run the entire way, Mr. Weasley and Ron on her heel. Once the stress of getting on the train was gone, Hermione was faced with a whole slew of new worries. Sirius had insisted on coming to the station with them and had done his absolute most to stand out like a sore thumb in his Animagus form.

 “He shouldn’t have come with us,” she said, watching the black dog chase the train exuberantly, as they took off from King’s Cross. The students in the train watched it laughing, and even some of the parents left on the platform smiled at the rambunctious dog. They wouldn’t be so cheerful if they knew it was Sirius Black, escaped Azkaban prisoner, thought Hermione cynically.

 “Oh give him a break. He hasn’t seen daylight in ages. Just blowing off a bit of steam he is,” said Ron, continuing to smile out the window at the dog quickly dwindling in size as the train travelled further from the station.

 “Well, as much as we’ve enjoyed your company these past few months, Georgie and I have some important business with people who well…”

 “—aren’t you lot,” George finished for Fred, giving them a short wave before the pair of them turned and disappeared into the next carriage.

 Hermione sighed, not even wanting to begin to think of the trouble they were sure to get up to. Over the remaining month they’d managed to nearly perfect their line of Skiving Snacks and have an admirable inventory at their dispense. As a Prefect, Hermione tried not to think about it. The less she knew, the better.

 “Should we find a compartment then?” asked Harry, turning to her and Ron looking the most cheerful he had all summer. It made what Hermione had to say next even harder. She chanced a look at Ron who was looking equally as guilty.

 “Oh…Harry. I thought you knew. Ron and I have to go to the Prefect’s carriage,” she said, watching the smile fall from Harry’s face. She looked back to Ron, hoping for some support but he was looking anywhere but Harry, focusing intently on one of the wall-mounted light fixtures as if he were seeing it for the first time.

 “Oh—” Harry nodded “—right. Fine.

 “I don’t think we’ll have to be there the whole time. Just long enough to get instructions from the Head Boy and Girl and then we have to patrol the corridors from time to time. We can still—”

 “It’s fine,” said Harry, cutting her off. He was using the clipped, overtly chipper tone he used when he was trying too hard to sound casual. “I might see you later then.”

 “Yeah, definitely!” Ron finally chimed in. “It’s a shame we have to go down there. I’d rather we didn’t, but…we have to. I guess…I mean I’m not enjoying it. I’m not bloody Percy.”

 Harry smiled again, this time in amusement at Ron’s rambling. “I know you’re not,” he said before waving them off to the Prefect compartment.

 Despite his reassurances that he was fine, Hermione felt guilty for leaving Harry there on his own.

 “He’ll be alright,” said Ron, leading her down the corridor towards the front of the train where the Prefect carriage waited for them. “I’m sure he’ll find Seamus or Dean or Neville or someone.”

 “Oh right…”

 It was easy to forget that they all had other friends outside of their small inner circle. Especially since for the longest time, Ron and Harry were her only friends. At least, her only close friends. Neville was her friend, she supposed. As were Fay and Emmy. She might even stretch as far as to say Lavender and Pavarti were her friends as well. Well…maybe more like close acquaintances.

 “Who do you think they chose for Slytherin Prefects?” Ron asked as they neared the front of the train.

 “With our luck it’ll be Malfoy and Parkinson,” grumbled Hermione, reaching the door to the Prefect’s compartment and sliding it open. It was almost poetic the way the moment the words left her mouth, the opening compartment door revealed none other than the two Slytherins in question. They sat in the corner, side-by-side, looking bored and smug. Their expressions only seemed to lighten when they spotted Ron and Hermione entering the compartment.

 “And I thought being a Prefect was supposed to be a place of honour—” Malfoy sneered, looking her and Ron up and down in a condescending manner “—now that I know they’ll give the job to just anyone, it takes away a bit of the prestige.”

 Pansy snickered.

 “Funny, I was just thinking the exact same thing,” Hermione spat back, staring Malfoy in the eye as she tried to telepathically burn him alive. If ever there was a time for emotion-fuelled accidental magic, thought Hermione, now would be it.

 “How dare you, you—”

 “Now, now—” cut in Roger Davies, a seventh year Ravenclaw and the newly appointed Head Boy “—leave the house rivalry for the classroom and the quidditch pitch.” Davies laughed, but Hermione could see the nervous glint in his eye as he gripped his wand tightly.

 “Bloody git,” Ron mumbled under his breath. Hermione didn’t know whether he was referring to Malfoy or Davies, but either way Hermione felt like it was fitting. The rest of the compartment seemed to feel the same as her, as both the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Prefects were giving Davies wary looks while trying to create as much space as possible between themselves and the Slytherins. Hermione was grateful to see that the other Prefects were familiar faces. Padma Patil, Pavarti’s sister, was the spitting image of her twin and gave Hermione a small wave as she sat down. Hermione, while having limited interaction with the Ravenclaw, found that she liked her much more than Pavarti as they had a shared interest for learning. Anthony Goldstein, the other Ravenclaw Prefect, she recognized from Transfiguration classes years prior. He also gave them a brief greeting. Ernie MacMillan was there too, and while Hermione still didn’t care for him since his spread of lies about Harry their second year, his presence was soothed by the kind and quiet Hannah Abbott who sat next to him.

 “Now!” exclaimed Helen Monroe, the Head Girl, some time later. They were coming near to the end of their meeting, or at least that’s what Hermione assumed based on the agenda they had been given. Their meeting had taken much longer than either Hermione or Ron had anticipated. Ashamedly she thought of Harry sitting on his own in a compartment waiting for them. Merlin she hoped he had found someone to sit with instead of choosing to mope by himself. Maybe Fred and George had found him at the very least.

 “The last thing on our agenda we’d like to address before handing out patrol and meeting schedules is an issue of favouritism,” said Monroe with a smiling face.

 “Favouritism? What do ya mean?” asked Ernie, sounding affronted as if he’d just been personally accused of the offense.

 “Well, in the past we’ve had issues with Prefects showing house favouritism—”

 “—giving points where they’re undeserved and taking points away to give their house a leg up on winning the House Cup,” chimed in Davies.

 “And we just wanted to remind you that your responsibility is to the school and it’s students first and foremost. So please try and show some sense of neutrality, no matter who is involved, whether it’s those in your house or…family members…” Monroe shot a nervous look in Ron’s direction that Ron missed but Hermione did not.

 For a second she wondered if perhaps they were talking about Harry, given he was so prone to getting in trouble and then the truth of the implication hit her square in the face. Maybe she was spending too much time with Fred and George otherwise, she would have caught on immediately that that was exactly who the Heads were referring to. Hermione wanted to laugh. She almost did. Bringing a hand up to cover her mouth, she faked a cough to try and hide the bout of giggles threatening to escape her chest.  

 They were given their schedules after that. Hermione and Ron had the first set of patrols up and down the train, and so instead of heading straight towards Harry, they meandered down from the head of the train, peaking into compartments, and breaking up little spats between younger students. Ron seemed to take to the position of power quite well. Almost too well in some instances, Hermione having to remind him of the speech they’d just been given about abuse of power in favour of their house. He had been trying to take points from a group of third year Slytherins for being too loud – an offense that Hermione deemed worthy of a simple reminder. They were about halfway down the train, Ron trying to reverse a jelly-legs curse that had been set on a fourth year Ravenclaw by accident, when a compartment slid open and Hermione nearly collided with Angelina Johnson.

 “Oh!—” the Gryffindor chaser exclaimed, stopping short “—Hermione. Hi.”

 “Hi…” Hermione responded awkwardly, unsure of what to say. Suddenly she was very nervous, which was ridiculous because she had nothing to be nervous about! It’s not like her and Fred had really done anything. Intimate? Sure. But in a friendly sort of way. Nothing that when taken into context could be deemed inappropriate, reasoned Hermione. Although, if that were true then she wouldn’t have anything to be nervous about.

 “How was your summer?” the older girl asked.

 The question took Hermione by surprise. Why did Angelina Johnson care about her summer? They weren’t friends, and up until that point Hermione was under the impression that Johnson didn’t even like her all that much.

 “Fine. I spent most of it with Ron’s family,” Hermione said, trying to push past how odd it felt to be having a conversation with Fred’s girlfriend when she was madly in love with him and had spent most of her summer nights curled up on a couch or in his bed with him. In a totally appropriate way of course.

 “I thought you might have. George mentioned one time that you usually visit them during the summer,” said Johnson, nodding and looking nervously around them.

 “How was your summer? I heard you spent it at quidditch camp. How was that?” Hermione asked, trying to bridge the uncomfortable silence between them with polite conversation. Why were they still talking?

 “It was good. Yeah, really good. I learned a lot of…stuff.”

 Hermione nodded, raising her eyebrows in acknowledgement. When Johnson neglected to continue, Hermione glanced back in the compartment where Ron was patting an exhausted looking Ravenclaw student on the back, having just broken the curse. She wished he’d hurry up and save her from whatever was going on right then. Her attention was pulled back to the uncomfortable conversation when Johnson spoke once again.

 “Listen, Granger. Now that I’ve got you, I was wondering…” Johnson paused, seeming to contemplate her next words. “I was just wondering whether—”

 “There you are!” Ron exclaimed, exiting the compartment behind Hermione, and placing a hand on her shoulder. “You know, I really could have used your help in there. You’re much better at counter-curses than me Hermione. Oh, hi Johnson.”

 The older girl seemed to go all rigid and awkward at the appearance of Ron. She shifted from foot to foot and cleared her throat before straightening her position and taking on a completely different demeanour. “Weasley. How was your summer?”

 “Good, thanks. Not as good as yours I imagine. Quidditch camp! That must have been amazing!” mooned Ron, getting a sparkly look to his eye at the thought.

 “Yeah, it was great. Learned loads of stuff that should be sure to put Gryffindor in the lead this year. We need a new Keeper now that Oli, I mean—” Johnson coughed “—now that Wood’s gone. Will you be following the Weasley legacy and trying out?”

 Ron went red around the ears, ducking his head bashfully. “Actually, yeah. I thought I might.”

 “Good. I look forward to seeing what you’ve got,” said Johnson with finality before giving them both a small nod and moving past them down the train corridor.

 As strange as the interaction had been, only one thing seemed to stick with Hermione in that moment.

 “You didn’t tell me you were planning on trying out for the team!”

  Fred reckoned he should have known the minute Angelina neglected to show up to their usual compartment that something was up. Alicia had given some offhanded excuse of Angelina going to scout out compartments for potential quidditch recruits and Fred had bought it at face value. In the past he might have questioned it a bit more, gone looking for his long-time friend and currently girlfriend. But in a way it had been a relief for him to not have to deal with the issue of Angelina the moment he got on the train. He was much too excited to show Lee and Alicia their new products and didn’t want to sully it by breaking up with his girlfriend. It had been a long-time coming. He’d wanted to end things weeks ago but had ultimately decided that he couldn’t do it over letter. Him and Angelina had history and she definitely deserved more than a letter saying ‘Hey, this isn’t working. Mind if we just go back to being friends?’. Not to mention the girl got harder and harder to reach as the summer went on. The last letter she’d sent him had been nothing but a picture of her and the beater for the Holyhead Harpies with the words ‘Isn’t this rad? Missing you lots! x Angelina’ written on the back. And while it was cool, Fred couldn’t help but think that in a way it was a finality to their relationship for him. The two of them had never really been gossipy conversationalists, falling back more on their shared physical activities and the comfortable silence that came with old friendships, but this was a bit too sparse for him. He wanted more. He wanted something different. He wanted…Hermione.

 Luckily after the reveal of their new products, Lee wasted no time in bringing other students into their compartment to show off their goods. Before Fred knew it, he and George were completely immersed in their salesmen roles and so all thoughts of girls and relationships were quickly replaced with galleons, sickles, and knuts.

 By the time he and George had made it to the castle their pockets were significantly heavier and their spirits lighter than ever. They were almost completely out of fake wands, biting teacups, and spitting teapots. They had even been convinced by a group of second year Hufflepuffs to sell some of their Skiving Snack Box products – the sweets not yet fully through trial runs. Fred and George agreed but only if they were willing to report back on the effects. The students were happy to do so as it meant they got the sweets at a discount.

 The next clue that went unnoticed by Fred was the fact that Angelina chose to sit at the opposite end of the table as him at the feast. But Fred had been too excited, telling Hermione all about their sales, to notice. Besides, Alicia and Lee were sitting with her and Fred and George usually sat with their family at the start-of-term feast. Still, when Fred caught Angelina’s eye at the end of the table as the last of the first years took their seats, he found himself panicked at the odd look on his girlfriend’s face. Did she know? wondered Fred feeling the all too familiar summersault in his stomach. How could she possibly know? The only person who knew he wanted to break up with her was himself. He hadn’t even told George, although he suspected that George suspected as much.

 The churning sensation stuck with him all throughout dinner and resulted in him eating very little, something that did not go unnoticed by neither George nor Hermione.

 “You alright, mate? You barely touched your porkchops,” said George, licking the last of his chocolate ice cream from the back of his spoon.

 “Yes, and you didn’t even fight Ron for the last of the custard,” added Hermione, her comment touching Fred as she had remembered custard was the only pudding he really cared for.

 “I’m fine. My stomach’s just a bit upset,” he lied, chewing on the side of his thumb as he stared down at the table, tracing the grain of the wood with his eyes.

 “Maybe you should go and see Madame Pomfrey once the feast is over,” suggested Ginny kindly. Fred shot her an appreciative smile before returning his gaze to the table.

 “Well, now that our stomachs are full and our hearts are warm from friendly conversation, I’d like to take a moment of your time to go over the usual start-of-term announcements,” Professor Dumbledore’s gentle yet authoritative voice rang throughout the hall, pulling all attention to himself at the centre of the staff table. He went into his usual diatribe on how the Forbidden Forest was of course, forbidden, how Filch wanted to remind them that magic was off-limits in the corridors between classes, etc. etc. Lastly, he announced that there would be two changes in staffing: Professor Grubbly-Plank was back to take over his position as the teacher for Care of Magical Creatures, and their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was a woman named Professor Umbridge.

 At the mention of her name, Fred looked down the staff table for the first time that night to see a new addition. A stout, round woman in a garish-looking pink outfit sat where the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher usually did. Despite her loud outfit she had a very unpleasant look about her, decided Fred. Although, it didn’t really make much of a difference to him. They had a new Defense teacher just about every year now and seeing as it was his last year, it really was inconsequential. They were all the same in the end.

 “Hey, I know her,” commented Harry. “She was at my hearing at the ministry.”

 Fred found that kind of odd. What was a ministry official doing teaching at Hogwarts?

 Dumbledore moved on, beginning to talk about quidditch try-outs when the new DADA teacher did something that made her stick out from all the other defense teachers before her. She stood from her seat. Dumbledore stopped, midsentence and looked at the short woman. Professor Umbridge let out a, “Hem, hem,” and Fred thought for a second that he must be hallucinating. Was this woman really interrupting the headmaster to give some kind of speech? More gracious than Fred could ever imagine to be, Dumbledore allowed her to speak and speak she did.

 Her speech was long-winded, full of comments about Hogwarts’s greatness and how the Ministry placed a lot of stake into the education of young minds. It sounded like a lot of hot air in Fred’s opinion and one glance around the room at the other student’s and even some of the teacher’s faces told him that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. When Professor Umbridge had the audacity to say that she hoped they would all become great friends Fred couldn’t help but utter a sarcastic, “That’s likely” which was mimicked in time by George as well.

 Then she spoke of progress and change and how things must be done for the better and Fred felt an all-new unease take over him. An unease that radiated throughout the entirety of the room for once she had finished and taken her seat, the hall was much quieter than before.

 “Well that was certainly illuminating,” Hermione whispered from beside him.

 “Don’t tell me you enjoyed that shite,” said Ron exasperatedly. “That had to be the most boring thing I’ve ever heard.

 “I said it was illuminating, not good,” sniped Hermione. “It certainly put things into perspective.”

 “It did?” asked Harry. “Sounded like a load of waffle to me.”

 “Yes, well there was a lot of important stuff in all that waffle if you’d been listening,” said Hermione, her mood turning dark. She had Fred’s attention now as well.

 “There was?” asked Ron dumbly.

 “All that talk of ‘progress for the sake of progress’ and ‘practices that must be prohibited’?”

 Ron and Harry shrugged at her, but Fred was beginning to understand what Hermione was getting at. If Umbridge worked for the ministry and believed that changes needed to be made at Hogwarts then—

 “It means the Ministry’s interfering at Hogwarts,” said Hermione, surmising Fred’s conclusion perfectly.

 The room burst into applause, Dumbledore having finished the last of his announcements and then students began to rise from their seats. Ron and Hermione stood, leaving to escort the first years back to Gryffindor tower. Fred laughed with George when Hermione looked like she was about to lose her head when Ron called the first years ‘midgets’. Turning his head away from the squabbling pair, his eyes fell once again on Angelina.

 Fred swallowed thickly.

 If ever there was a time, it was now. He should just do it. Get it over with. Break her heart and hope that they could move on. Trying to find the bright side to it, he told himself that the sooner he ended things with Angelina, the sooner he could begin pursuing Hermione. However, that only left him with even sweatier palms. Standing up from the table, he looked between George and Angelina with the full intent to cross the room and ask his girlfriend to speak in private. But instead,

 “Alright, Freddie!” he announced loudly, catching George off guard. His twin looked up from the conversation he’d been having with Ginny and looked at him curiously. “I’ll see you in the common room. I have a few things I need to take care of first.”

 Before his brother had any time to question what he was doing, Fred flew from the Great Hall and past Angelina, avoiding looking in her direction as he turned the corner and headed towards an unknown direction. He had only gone a little way down the corridor when a voice called after him.

 “George! Wait up!”

 Fred stopped and turned to see Angelina running after him. What could Angelina possibly want with George, Fred thought for a moment as he watched the pretty witch approach him, her long braids bouncing off her shoulders. She looked nervous when she finally reached him. Her hands twisted together, and her eyes couldn’t quite meet his.

 “That’s me, George. What’s up?” Fred asked, wanting to kick himself. Coward. He was a coward.

 “Can I…can I talk to you for a second about…Fred?”

 “What about Fred?” Fred asked, feeling incredibly stuck in the lie he’d created.

 “Um, you know how I was at quidditch camp this summer?” asked Angelina, looking around them and grabbing Fred’s arm, pulling them over to an alcove away from prying ears and eyes. “And you know how Oliver was there?”

 “Yeah…” said Fred, feeling the blood drain from his body. His limbs had gone all cold and his fingers all numb and tingly.

 “Well, something might have happened.”

 “Something? What kind of something?”

 “Like I might have, I guess you could say I might have cheated?”

 “Might have or did? Those are two very different things Angelina,” said Fred, speaking now more as himself than as himself pretending to be George.

 “Okay, I did! I cheated!” admitted Angelina, bringing her hands up to cover her face in shame.

 “With Oliver Wood?!”

 “I know! I know! It just sort of…happened. Oli and I, we’re—”

 “Oh, so it’s Oli now?” asked Fred, feeling his temper bubble.

 “Look, I know you’re angry. I mean, Fred’s your brother after all.”

 Oh, right. She still thought he was George. Well this certainly threw a wrench in things. “Don’t you think this is something you should be telling him and not…me?” asked Fred, feeling slightly confused as he tried to wrap his head around processing the fact that his girlfriend had cheated on him with Oliver Wood, and that she had no idea she was speaking to him and not his brother.  

 “Yes, and I want to, but George. We’re friends too right? And you know him better than anyone. I was hoping you might know how to break this to him as easily as possible,” Angelina pleaded, looking imploringly into his eyes.

 Before Fred could even begin to figure out how to answer that, both his saving grace and downfall came all at once in the form of the real George Weasley.

 “You alright Freddie? What are you two up to then?” asked George, looking innocently between the two of them, tucked into the alcove.

 Angelina looked between George, the real George, and Fred who she now was beginning to realize was the one standing before her. Fred watched as the realization took over her and then how fear replaced confusion in her eyes before she muttered, “Well, fuck.”

 The conversation at that point had been a bit stale. Fred reckoned he might have gotten more answers out of her if George hadn’t come along and blown his act, but it was probably for the best. The more Fred thought about it, the less he really wanted to know. Still, some things stuck with him. What did Oliver Wood have that he didn’t?

 “I mean, it’s Wood!” cried Fred for the tenth time that night, laying face up, wrong way on his bed, head hanging off the end.

 “I know mate, I know,” responded George, continuing to unpack his and Fred’s trunk. A nicety Fred figured he was only giving considering his current predicament.

 “Maybe she’s bewitched or something,” suggested Lee kindly from across the room.

 “Yeah, maybe she’s under some kind of potion or spell. How else could a prat like that land Angelina?” added George.

 “I don’t know, Fred managed to land her just fine,” said Kenneth Towler, earning a round of glares from everyone in the room.

 “Shut it, Towler,” warned George, but he had gotten Fred’s attention now.

 Lifting his head till it was level with his body, Fred looked at the bookish boy with narrowed eyes. “What are you trying to say Kenneth?”

 Kenneth laughed, a short and breathy scoff, shaking his head from side to side. “Have you ever considered that maybe Wood’s just better than you?”

 The room was silent. Shocked at Towler’s words and more importantly in anticipation for how Fred would respond. Fred too was curious as to how he would react. Digging deep within himself he searched for anger, sadness, envy, but he found none of it. Instead, he laughed. A full body, side aching laugh that sent him toppling out of his bed and wiping at tears at the corner of his eyes. George and Lee joined in, followed shortly by Towler himself. When Fred finally calmed down enough to catch his breath he was on the floor, back leaning against the foot of his bed and one knee bent upwards to support his left arm.

 “Yeah, you might be right there Towler,” he sighed, feeling better than he had a few minutes previously.

 Despite his ability to laugh at the situation that night, Fred couldn’t help but mope the next day. Sure, he was planning on breaking up with Angelina as well, but it still hurts to get dumped and cheated on. Especially when the other man was your old quidditch captain. Not to mention, in a way he felt like it was slightly expected of him. In true Hogwarts fashion everyone knew the tale of him and Angelina and more importantly his mistaken identity. It had turned into a bit of a joke really and by dinner the next night people were saying things like “Just make sure it’s actually them and not their twin” when someone planned to meet with someone.

 It wasn’t particularly clever, Fred thought. Surely he and George could have come up with something much better if it had happened to someone else. But it hadn’t happened to someone else. It had happened to him, and he wasn’t about to throw fire to the flame by making a better joke that would surely stick around much longer. That just wouldn’t be fair to Angelina, who was already looking about as miserable as you could. It was clear she was embarrassed and guilty. Several points throughout the day Fred thought about putting her out of her misery and telling her not to feel bad. Maybe if he had been a better boyfriend she wouldn’t have been seduced away by another man. Maybe she could tell that his heart wasn’t truly in their relationship and therefore it was easier for her to be unfaithful. Still, he had been the one who’s heart wasn’t in it and he hadn’t been shoving his tongue down Hermione’s throat all summer. This was a new fact he had unwillingly learned from a few Gryffindor sixth year girls gossiping too loudly in the corridor before dinner.

 Once at dinner and knowing this fact, Fred longed for distraction. Glancing around he noticed that Hermione was noticeably absent. Of course she would be gone on the one day he needed the comfort of her ability to go on and on about whatever subject he asked her about.

 “Say, where’s Hermione?” Fred asked Ron and Harry as casually as he could.

 Harry shrugged but Ron answered, “Library maybe? That’s where she was last I saw her. You know how she gets.”

 “Maybe I should go get her? Make sure she doesn’t accidentally miss dinner,” Fred said, standing from the table.

 George gave him a knowing look. “Is that all?”

 “Dinner is the most important meal of the day Georgie,” said Fred, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

 “I thought that was breakfast,” said George back, smiling now.

 “Yeah, and I thought you weren’t a huge dickhead. I guess we’re both wrong.” And with that Fred spun on his heel and exited the Great Hall.

 Fred made it halfway to the library when he began to notice something very odd. The air had begun to thicken, a layer of fog soon surrounding him. Very shortly after his shoes started to make a wet splashing sound with every step. Looking down the corridor through the hazy fog, he realized that the floor was covered in water. A few steps further in and he realized that it was beginning to deepen. Something brushed his left hand and Fred jumped, spinning quickly, and pulling out his wand only to find a cattail. What was a cattail doing in a Hogwarts corridor?

 “Lumos,” he muttered, the tip of his wand glowing brilliantly and illuminating the corridor ahead of him. But he did not see a corridor. Or at least not the corridor he expected to see. No, instead the hall seemed to be transformed into what could only be described as a swamp with an expanse of still water covered by lily pads, cattails, and moss-covered logs. To top it all off, if he focused hard enough and held his breath, Fred could make out the croaks of toads in the distance.

 “What?” muttered Fred aloud in confusion.

 “Oh no, you weren’t supposed to see it until after dinner with everyone else,” whined a voice from behind him. Fred spun, his wand illuminating the face of Hermione Granger. She stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind her back as she frowned in his direction.

 “You did this?” he asked in shock.

 Hermione’s frown quickly morphed into a very proud smile and she nodded enthusiastically. “It’s a portable swamp. I’ve been working on it all summer. It was supposed to be yours and George’s Christmas present – you know, for the business.”

 “Why?” asked Fred, unable to really form full sentences from shock.

 “I heard about what happened with Angelina and I figured you might need some cheering up. I was hoping you’d get to see it for the first time when everyone else found it, but this is nice too. At least this way you won’t accidentally fall into it. A foot further and the water depth drops to about four feet,” she informed him casually, although the smug expression on her face told him she felt very proud of herself.

 Fred took a quick step away from the water and towards Hermione, not wanting to chance falling in. He stared at the witch before him, wide-eyed and speechless.

 “Do you like it?” Hermione asked, looking a bit nervous now as he had yet to make any real comment on her brilliant invention.

 Like it? He loved it! It was probably the nicest gift anyone had ever given him. How could he even begin to express how grateful he was? He was so happy he could kiss her. In fact…

 Fred leaned down, wrapping his arms tightly around Hermione and lifting her off of the ground as he claimed her mouth. The kiss was hard and overly enthusiastic at first, but in almost no time they were swept back into the memory of their first kiss all those months ago and they melted into each other like there had been no time between them. A single continuous kiss that went on for seasons. A kiss that Fred never wanted to end as he held Hermione tightly and snogged the living daylights out of her. Unfortunately, the kiss did have to end. A distant murmur of voices sounded from somewhere near by and they broke apart panting. Hermione’s lips were red and swollen and parted in a surprised expression when he carefully placed her down on the ground. They took a moment to just stare at each other, both surprised and delighted in what had just happened. But then the voices grew louder, and they knew they had to go. Fred held out his hand, raising his eyebrows expectantly. Hermione took it firmly, smiling bigger than he’d ever seen. Then they were off, running down the corridors and away from the scene of the crime. Through the halls of stone floors, ancient tapestries, and regal portraits they ran, laughing like school children. Which in a way, Fred supposed they still were.

Taglist:

@theworldisugly-22

@aoonai

@sjh-07-10

@is-it-madness

@i-d-e-g-a-f

[slytherinbarnes]

Sub Rosa [50]

v. the tinder box

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x reader

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: bruising, fighting, violence, explosions/fire, near death. 

Summary: tensions with the Ice Nation come to a head as Clarke desperately tries to stop a war. 

a/n: HAPPY CHAPTER 50!!!! HALFWAY, WOW!!! to those of you who have been with this series from the beginning, thank you! to those of you who just recently jumped onto this wild ride, thank you! to those of you who may be reading this in the future, thank you! thank you to all of the love, support, comments, messages, and interaction. i love you all so much and I can’t believe we’ve made it this far! the taglist for this series is open! I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think!!! also yes I know this is a day late, this post just disappeared in my drafts??? and I wasn’t able to reupload until today. ch 51 will go up on saturday and then we’ll resume regular posting next week!

previous chapter // season masterlist // series masterlist

March 19th, 2150; somewhere near Arkadia

You don't know how long you’ve been walking for, but based on the growing pain in your legs and the soreness in your feet, it’s been a long time. You can't see anything through the sack over your face, but you are able to see the light filtering through the spaces in the fabric. Based on the fact that you started marching in early evening the night before and it’s now light outside, you can guess that you’ve put in about 18 straight hours of walking, no stops in between to camp or rest. 

You know that Kane and Bellamy are nearby, because you can hear the chains on their hands and wrists jingling as they move. Every few hours one of you tentatively whispers the other two’s names, despite the fact that every time you do, the guards around you smack all of you in punishment. You’re sure that a bruise is steadily growing on your left arm, but the pain is worth it for the reassurance that you’re not alone. 

You’re thinking about calling out to the two men again, since it’s your turn in the rotation, when Echo’s voice rings out loud and clear around you. “Hod op!”

Halt! You are pulled to a stop by your guard, and you feel tension run through your body at the thought that this is it, you’ve arrived at Arkadia. But before you can contemplate that any further, a familiar voice yells, “We need to talk.”

You smile underneath your disguise, and breathe out, “Clarke.”

You hear Bellamy mutter, “What? Clarke?”

You’re unable to answer him because you receive a harsh hit to your shoulder, deepening your already bruised arm, but Roan confirms your suspicions when he yells, “Reinja! Lok Wanheda in!”

Archers! Target Wanheda! Your breath stutters in your throat, and you can hear movement all around you as the archers take position, but the sound of death doesn't follow, and no cry of victory over Wanheda is called. You hear movement again, this time accompanied by a murmur of anxiety, and you suspect that Clarke had a trick up her sleeve that the Ice Nation wasn't expecting. Echo is next to announce their play, “Lid honon-de in!

Bring in the prisoners! You are grabbed by your guard and led forward a few steps until you are pushed down to your knees. You hear Bellamy and Kane pushed down beside you. Then the bag is yanked off your head, flooding your vision with bright sunlight. You blink against it, trying to readjust your eyes to the light, the world suddenly coming back into view. As it does, you see that you aren't at Arkadia, not yet anyways. You’re in the stone ravine on the way to camp, about 20 miles out. You feel your guard at your back, sword held out towards you, waiting for the command to rid you of your head. The thought makes you uneasy. 

“Your move, Wanheda.” Clarke stands a few hundred feet away, looking at the three of you in shock, and you can see emotion threatening to overtake her. But then she remembers where she’s at and who’s watching, and she composes herself. “Ten minutes, that’s all I ask.”

She turns and walks away without an answer, knowing that the Ice King will follow. And he does, dismounting from his horse with grace, despite Echo’s protests. “Wait, where's she going? What if it's a trap?”

“It is a trap. We're already in it.” When he turns back to answer her, you can see green dots spotted along his chest, signaling the use of rifle scopes on the precipes up above. You smile a little, happy to have the support. He turns and walks away, following Clarke into the woods, and one by one the green dots drop away from him. save for one, which lingers on the King a full minute longer than the others, before it also drops away. As soon as Roan is out of sight, Echo takes up command. “The king is clear. Archers, the first gunshot you hear, loose your arrows. Infantry, on my command, scatter and climb. Kill until there's no one left.”

Beside you, Kane scoffs. “This is insane, they knew you were coming. We have thousands of rounds, you'll be the ones with no one left.”

As soon as Kane mentions Skaikru having the element of surprise, a hopeful look passes over Bellamy’s face. You peer at him, trying to make sense of it, until you remember his words from last night. Octavia will warn them you're coming, you’ll lose. You feel hope rush through you at the thought of your best friend, your second sister, still alive, despite Echo's best efforts. Kane sees the expression on both yours and Bellamy's faces, and he looks between you in confusion. “What?”

“They thought they had the element of surprise, but we did.” Bellamy’s voice is low, but hopeful. “Someone warned them.”

“You think it was Octavia?”

“She's alive.”

A smile passes over Kane’s face at the thought, and for a while, though still captive, the three of you sit in the middle of an Azgeda army, hopeful that maybe all hope isn't lost. Of course, in typical “chaos of the Earth” fashion, it doesn't last long. The guard behind Kane suddenly yells out, “Look out, Skaikru!”

You all look up in alarm as a figure makes its way towards you, hands lifted in surrender, and only when they get closer do you realize that it's Monty. “I’m unarmed. I need to talk to whoever's in charge.”

One of the guards runs over and grabs him, tossing him to the ground near the three of you. As Monty pulls himself up, Bellamy grabs his arm, holding him in place, and whispers, “Is Octavia alive?”

Monty nods, and relief rushes through all of you. A smile breaks free on Bellamy's face, but he quickly hides it when Echo slides off her horse and walks over to your group. “Speak.”

Monty's arms are still lifted in surrender as he watches the spy, “One of our people has moved out of formation. I've reason to believe he's going to the cave to try to kill your king.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

You turn and snap, “Why do you think he's telling you this? He's trying to stop a massacre.”

Kane looks at Monty, his expression serious. “Who is it?”

“Riley.”

You and Bellamy exchange a look, remembering the condition you found Riley and the others in, the captivity and torture they had endured, at the hands of the Ice Nation, no less. Bellamy turns his focus back to Monty. “Riley? He shouldn't even be here.”

“That seems to be the consensus.”

Echo turns and motions to two soldiers nearby, “Yu en yu, ogeda kom ai. Tsa bants.”

You and you, with me. Let’s go. Kane immediately starts to protest, “Wait! If our snipers see archers on the move, they'll open fire.”

“I will not allow my king to be assassinated.”

Bellamy argues, “He doesn't have to be. I know Riley, let me come with you. I can stop him.”

You look towards him in alarm, shaking your head. “Bellamy-”

Echo cuts you off as she stands glaring at your boyfriend, “Do you think me a fool, Bellamy?”

“You'll be a dead fool if you step out of this kill box without me. Use Monty's radio and let Kane tell them we're working together to find Riley, and they'll let us pass.”

She thinks about this for a second before nodding at Monty to pass his radio to Kane. He complies, and Kane immediately switches into Chancellor mode, voice serious. “This is Chancellor Kane.”

On the other end, Miller’s father answers, “Sir, are you all right?”

“Listen to me, Bellamy's working with one of theirs to find Riley. You let them through, understood?”

“Copy that.”

Echo turns to Bellamy's guard. “Take off his chain.”

His guard complies, leaving the reatriants on his wrists, but freeing his legs. And then, she surprises everyone by turning to you. “I want this one too.”

Bellamy and Kane both start to protest. “Echo, that wasn't part of-”

“...really not necessary to-”

But she shuts them both up by lifting her sword to your neck. “Her twin is in the cave with the king, and Bellamy is in love with her. If Riley isn't stopped, she dies first.”

Panic grips your heart as you wonder if it’s even possible to stop Riley in a vendetta for revenge as large as this one. Despite Roan having no involvement in his imprisonment, Riley seems to think the king’s death is the only retribution. It’s hard to stop ideas like that. Just ask Pike. Your guard frees your feet but leaves your hands chained together, same as Bellamy, and Echo motions to Monty. “And put the chain on this one. If I'm not back before the sun goes past the trees, kill the hostages.”

Bellamy holds his bound hands out to Echo, indicating that she should free him completely, but she ignores him and shoves him forward before grabbing you and pushing you behind him. As you follow the path that Roan and Clarke took, Bellamy muses, “So much for building trust.”

He leads your trio through the woods, straight into the setting sun, towards the cave to stop Riley, and all the while, Echo keeps her sword at your back. One wrong move and she's ready to end you, without hesitation. As Bellamy leads you down the path, he motions to a nearby ridge. “That ridge gives the best sight line to the cave, that's where we'll find him.”

“Are you really willing to kill your own man to save my king?”

Bellamy stops in place, and turns to face her, rolling his eyes as he does. “Don't you get sick of it? Sides; my man, your king. Praimfaya doesn't give a damn about what clan you're from.”

Echo ignores the jab, and focuses only on the impending doom of the human race. “I'm glad you'll get a chance to say goodbye to your sister before it comes...unless we all die here today.”

A flash of surprise passes over Bellamy’s face, but you aren't surprised to hear the words from her. Despite all of your disdain for the spy, she’s smart. Smart enough to know that if Skaikru had the advantage, Octavia had to have survived, as impossible as it seems. Bellamy's jaw tightens at the mention of his sister, from her almost killer, and he turns and starts walking again before he quips, “If you had killed her, these chains would be around your neck.”

“It's like Queen Nia used to say: war makes murderers of us all.”

The words leave you and Bellamy in silence, both of you considering the truth to them. Has war made you a murderer? You get a flash of a memory, five notches carved into the handle of your knife, and that’s just from the kills you used the knife with. That doesn't include Atom, any of the people from Mount Weather, or the various Grounders, guards, and people you killed along the way, just to save yourself. It also doesn't include anyone you killed indirectly, a death caused because you had a hand in it in some way, whether you meant to or not. Gina. The Farm Station survivors in Mount Weather. Pike. Monroe. Lincoln. Your father. Stephens. You have the horrifying realization that the idea you've always tried to fight, the thing you never wanted to become, has happened. You’re a killer. A monster in some people’s eyes, maybe a savior in the eyes of others. But the fact still remains that you're a killer. It's not an idea you’ve thought extensively about, because the truth of it makes you sick to your stomach. Never did you ever imagine that the little girl who used to listen to stories about space and constellations, who longed to see the world on the other side of her door, would grow up to become someone who took a life and rarely thought of it again. 

Bellamy pulls you out of your thoughts when he turns to look at you and Echo. “We should be close, follow my lead. If he fires that gun, we'll be at war.”

“Whatever you say.”

You spot Riley first, sprawled out on a large boulder up ahead, gun resting in front of him, aimed towards the cave. You point and tell Bellamy, “There!”

Bellamy takes off running towards him, calling his name as he does, before coming to a stop at Riley’s side. “Riley, stop. You don't want to do this.”

“Get out of here, Bellamy.”

As soon as the words leave Riley’s mouth, Echo grabs your arm and pulls you closer to her, lifting your knife to your throat. You make a small sound of surprise, and it’s enough for Bellamy to turn his attention towards you, eyes widening in alarm at you so close to death again. “Echo, Echo, wait. If you kill her, Riley will shoot.”

He turns back to Riley, begging to keep the peace. “Riley, listen to me. Pulling that trigger won't end anything. The three of us will be executed, along with Kane and Monty, and our side will open fire. It'll be a bloodbath.”

Riley makes no move to end his revenge, his finger still resolutely resting on the trigger. “You're a prisoner. You're just saying what they want you to say. I know all about that.”

Echo’s hold on you had started to loosen, but Riley’s continued refusal to stand down pisses her off, and has her tugging you close again. “I’m done with this.”

Your knife bites at the skin of your throat, and dread washes over you. You look towards Bellamy, whose gaze is still on Riley and you whisper, “Bellamy, I love-”

He cuts you off, turning to face you with a teary eyed glare, his voice firm. “No, this is not how this ends.”

Bellamy is in pure distress when he drops to his knees beside Riley, nearly on the verge of tears as he makes one last plea. “Riley, I am begging you. I know how you feel about them, and I know what they did to you, but your life was saved for a reason, and this isn't it. Trust me when I tell you, if this turns into a massacre, it will never get out of your head. War made me a murderer, don't let it happen to you.”

Your heart breaks at the words, and you feel a rush of sadness at the thought that the last words you’ll hear from Bellamy are words of regret for the things that he’s done. Riley shakes with the conflict of his decision, warring between the idea of pulling the trigger or letting it go, and you feel Echo tense behind you. You aren't sure why at first, but as you look around, your eyes land on Clarke and Roan, now exiting the cave. Echo’s hand wraps tighter around the knife, and you have the distinct feeling that this is your end. A tear rolls down your cheek as you look back to Bellamy again, his gaze frantically flitting between you and Riley, before finally, miraculously, Riley drops the weapon with a sob, burying his face in his hands.

Echo drops the knife from your throat, and you scramble away from her, towards Bellamy, hugging him the best you can with the chains around your wrists. Tears of relief fall down your face as you realize that somehow, you escaped death once again. You feel a wash of anxiety when you think that eventually, one day, that won't be the case. 

At that moment, Roan and Clarke come around the corner, and as soon as she sees you, she runs towards you in alarm. “La lune, are you okay?”

You turn towards her, hastily wiping away your tears, allowing her to hug you. She pulls away to inspect you, eyes falling to the small cut on your neck from your knife, and her eyes jump back up to you in alarm. Knowing her, she catalogued you the second Roan revealed you as one of the hostages, and she’s smart enough to know this cut is fresh. She whispers, “What did they do? Are you okay?”

You smile at her the best you can, still upset from near death. “I’m fine. We all are, because no one died today.”

Roan eyes your group suspiciously, looking from a sobbing Riley, to your upset form, and then to Echo and Bellamy. “So, what did we miss?”

“Nothing, sire.”

Belamy looks over at Clarke, trying to decipher her body language. “I take it we're not at war?”

“Not today.”

“And the ship?”

Clarke looks at you, then over to Bellamy. “If we can't crack Nightblood, we'll share Arkadia. Find a way for us to survive together.”

Her answer is immediately followed up with a loud explosion. You all exchange looks of alarm before looking for the source, seeing a plume of smoke drifting into the air from somewhere nearby. Clarke’s voice is horrified when she whispers, “It came from Arkadia.”

The words send you all into action, and you take off running back towards the army. As soon as you arrive, Roan is yelling out orders to his people. “Azgeda, hold here. Free the hostages. Echo, you’re with me, we’re following them back.”

“Yes, my king.”

One of the guards quickly loosens your chains, and you shake them off, before Kane runs over to all of you. “What was that? What happened?”

“We don't know.” Clarke grabs her radio. “Arkadia, come in. Arkadia, do you copy? What’s going on there?”

The answer is met with the sound of chaos in the back, screaming and crying echoing all around. “Fire! Alpha Station is on fire!”

Every single one of you exchanges a distressed look, and Clarke switches the radio back to the channel she was using for the guards involved in this mission. “Everyone Back to the rover, now! Arkadia is on fire!”

You turn to her, wheels of your mind already spinning as you contemplate the news. “How far to the rover?”

“Not far, but we only have space for two more. We rode out here almost at full capacity.”

You turn to Kane and Bellamy, “You two shoud go.”

They both start to protest, but you shake your head. “Kane, you're the Chancellor, your people need you. Bellamy, you have to go find Octavia.”

They know they can't argue with your words, and Clarke offers, “I’ll stay behind.”

“No, you're a better doctor than I am. They’ll need you.”

Roan must have caught the tail end of your conversation, because he rides up beside your group on his horse. “She can ride with me.”

You turn to look at him, “Are you sure?”

He holds out his arm, extending it to you so he can help you up, “We’re allies.”

And though you’re still annoyed at his flip flopping attitude, his constantly changing alliances, you know there’s no time to argue. If you want to get back to Arkadia, this is the way to do that. You turn and look at Bellamy, who gives a little shake of his head, but you shrug. You turn back to Roan, and take his outstretched hand, which he uses to swing you up and over onto the back of his horse. Clarke nods at Roan, “We’ll see you there.”

Roan nods once in return before nudging his horse into movement, and you have half a second to wrap your arms around his waist before he urges the horse faster, sending you flying through the woods and the trees. It takes some time to ride back, and at some point the rover catches up with you, though they never overtake you. They stick close, allowing Roan to lead the pack towards Arkadia, and the bright flames that are dancing against the dark sky in the distance.

When you reach Arkadia, Roan pulls his horse to a stop and Clarke stops the rover nearby. Bellamy is out of the vehicle and at your side before you can even dismount, and he helps pull you off the horse before you can even thank Roan. Clarke joins you as all three of you run into the camp, and straight into chaos. All around you people are screaming and crying, looking for loved ones lost during the explosion, searching for someone to administer medical aid. You pause at the entrance, Alpha Station looming in front of you, pieces of it falling down in large flaming chunks. 

“I need to find my sister.”

Clarke points towards one of the flame free sides of the ship. “She was in medbay.”

All three of you take off running towards the entrance, searching for any sign of Octavia. Finally, exiting from one of the few safe places left, she is led out of the ship by a man you don't recognize, and Niylah. You point towards them, grabbing Bellamy's arm to get his attention. “There!”

He runs towards her, frantic, yelling, “O! O!”

When he reaches her, he scoops her off her feet and turns and carries her away from the growing flames. Clarke grabs Niylah and leads her away, and you eye the unknown man for a second before turning and following Bellamy to safety. When you reach them, he’s kneeling on the ground, Octavia still in his arms, her arms wrapped around his neck as she cries into his chest. You drop at her side, reaching out for her arm, and she flinches away from you, not realizing that it's you. You move into her line of sight, reaching for her hand. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

She wraps her hand around yours, connecting you, before rasping out, “It was Ilian. I tried to stop him.”

She turns the best she can to look at the unknown man, Ilian, who is silhouetted against the destruction that he caused. Octavia coughs hard, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs, and you nod at her. “You’re okay now. Don't say anything, just breathe.”

She nods, burrowing closer to Bellamy just as Clarke runs over to you. You turn and tell her, “She’s okay, for now.”

Clarke opens her mouth to say something, but whatever it was dies in her throat, because a series of explosions rings out, sending flaming debris everywhere. The loud blasts staccato the air, and all of you turn your faces away as more debris rains down with each burst. Clarke reaches out for your hand, and you instantly take it, drawing comfort from your twin. You glance at Bellamy, worry etched into his features, and you know that your expression is the same. 

Your faces all lift to the burning station as it falls apart around you; Octavia in her brother’s arms, her hand wrapped tightly around yours, you in the middle, grip held tight by your own sibling. All four of you, your family, helpless as you watch the ruin of your home, and the destruction of your safe place from Praimfaya. 

-

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[tentendeservedbetter]

home is where my team is - Chapter 3

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“Today will be the final test I have to take in order to become a Genin, just as you and father have been before. Please, watch over me.” 

She bowed slightly, her hands together in a prayer sign in front of her nose, before opening her eyes and pushing herself off of her knees to stand. She quickly patted her black pants, getting rid of any left over lint from the pillow she sat on, and she stared at the Dainichi Buddha that stood tall and proud with his eyes closed, in the middle of the elevated floor surrounded by the four other slightly shorter Buddhas on each cardinal sides. 

Lines of black tiles, rectangular and short with white paint engraved in kanjis, sat in rows and columns along ascending stairs that flanked beside the Buddhas closer to the wall, with bigger tiles reserving their spots closest to the statues. The big tiles soon transformed into framed photos with a tablet in front of it as you descended the stairs, with the most recent addition being the only one in colour. 

The Hyuuga Shrine found in the northern part of the Hyuuga Compound is a homestead for the gods and the names of their ancestors and recently departed. While the Konoha cemetery was where most of their relatives would be buried, allocated under their appropriate place reserved for specific clans or among the fallen, this shrine was more so a safekeeping of their past, of their legacy, and of their tradition. The walls, though faint and dull from age, had traces of paintings of the Hyuuga clan's rich history and unique style of fighting, tracing all the way back to before the formation of Konoha as they know it today.

Rarely did Hinata come to the family shrine to pray, and rarely does she pray at all. She was unsure i f she truly believed in the gods that protected their family, and she was much more unsure of whether the spirits of her ancestors were truly watching over her. If anything, they were probably looking down at her with disappointment in their eyes and disapproving shakes of the head at how the heiress of the Hyuuga Clan turned out.

Poor Lord Hiashi,  they were probably whispering amongst themselves.  It was bad enough that he had no sons, but the eldest daughter is weak in nature! What will become of the Hyuuga clan at if Hinata were to remain heiress?

She only came to the shrine when she needed time alone and away from the entire compound, a place where she may talk freely to the air and without having to feel the weight of disappointment from the elders of her clan. Solace was found in the shrine that was hidden amongst the trees, away from prying ears and scrutinizing glances. Though, it was the limited access to the shrine that allowed the shrine to be almost always empty; this sanctuary is only allowed to be accessed by the lucky few that were born into the Main House of the clan.

The lucky few like herself.

Hinata wasn't fond of that rule, thought she was never fond of  anything  concerning the divide between the Main House and the Branch House. She was taught from a young age about the relationship between the houses from the elders that watched over her: the Main House was the brain of the clan, the most important organ that allowed all the knowledge and secrets hidden within this family to carry on throughout the generations, while the Branch House was the vessel that protected this important organ, working only as a reactionary mechanism of the Main House. 

The Branch House's purpose in life, the reason they were born, was to protect the Main House from outsiders who sought to obtain the ultimate knowledge of the Hyuuga Clan, and inherently, want to obtain their prized kekkei genkai: the Byakugan.

But the shrine is a place for someone to seek solace and guidance in the gods, with the Buddhas being those who transcended into omnipotence, a teacher to all who wish to pursue their knowledge. 

Why, then, should the Branch Family, who, despite only being seen as protectors of the Main Family, not be allowed to enter this shrine that praises the gods that guided the principles of their clan? Do they not carry the same clan name? If their sole duty is to protect the Main House, then they are in an equally honourable position as them; without the members of the Branch House, the Main House lineage would have to fend for themselves. They should have the right to seek solace, the same right as the Main House have to seek faith.

That’s what Hinata wished she could say. 

But she knew that the house dynamic in the Hyuuga clan was much more complicated than that, running deep into the roots of their lineage. She knew it was a game of power, a game of authority. They were the Hyuuga clan, after all, and they were considered to be one of the most prestigious clans in Konoha, one of the four noble clans to actually found the village; control was a given to a clan as secretive and powerful as her own.

That’s why they performed that cruel technique that even the Hokage had to turn a blind eye to; to maintain power and control.

Maybe one day she could change the way the Hyuuga clan was. Maybe one day, the Main House would come to co-exist with the Branch House in a more equal way. But if she wanted to do any of that, she needed to be stronger than she is now.

And the only way to do that is to pass today’s test.

If you’re there, Mother,  Hinata thought as her eyes returned back to the coloured image along the ancestral lineup. The woman in the photo, with deep blue hair that hung behind her shoulders with a few strands shaping her face and pale irises, looked back at her with a soft smile.  Please give me the courage you had.

She took her white hoodie and backpack from the floor beside where she sat and put it on as she started to walk across the wooden floor towards the doors of the shrine. As she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she took one last breath of the incense scented room. 

She had plenty of time to spare before heading out to the Hokage Rock, her usual morning practice session (or, as she liked to think of it, her usual morning  torture session) with her father and grandfather was put on hold for the time being. But first she had to pick up her lunch from the kitchen- her grandmother was likely there to make sure Hinata would pack more than enough to eat, insistence that if she wanted to become stronger for the clan, she would build her body that way. 

It was conflicting with what all her aunties would say. They would tell Hinata to cut down on the food, or else she would gain weight.  Or worse , they would say when her grandmother mentions being stronger,  you’d look like a guy with big muscles . It didn’t help that ever since she turned 10, for some reason, her waist had gotten wider and her chest was bigger than most girls her age. Luckily, the hoodie she had was not only useful for the cool January weather they have in Konoha, but also helped hide her body from judging eyes.

She crossed a short way into the main house found in the centre of the compound, trying to maintain her step as she crossed the floorboard that lined around the perimeter of the house. She kept her eyes glued to the ground whenever she could see an elder Hyuuga walking down the hall, trying to ignore them and save herself from an impending lecture. 

As she entered the hallway towards the kitchen, Hinata turned the corner quickly, when she suddenly felt a sharp collision with someone that made her rebound back onto the floor. 

Her face twisted slightly at the pain of her nose hitting against the other person’s shoulders, and she let out a small ‘ow’. 

“Watch where you’re-” a sharp voice suddenly scolded her, before abruptly stopping. Hinata looked up towards the person she had just hit, and she could feel a slight sense of dread building up in her stomach.

“O-Oh,” Hinata managed to mumbled, as she scrambled to get herself up, not wanting to seem completely knocked out from what was a simple collision (even though her nose was still stinging). "Neji-niisan."

Her cousin stood before her in his usual shinobi garb of brown shorts and eggshell washed shirt, looking down at her from his slightly taller stature, his angular eyes narrowing. His headband with the Konoha symbol gleamed slightly when he tilted down, the metal rectangle being stitched onto a brown headband instead of the usual blue, with long buckles hanging from each of his temples and going past his shoulders.

Neji was her cousin through their fathers, his father Hizashi, who had passed away when she was too young to remember what had truly happened, being her father’s younger twin. He was Hinata's senior by only a year. He had graduated from the Academy and became a Genin during the previous year, yet he looked much older than the average 13 year old that he should be. It could be because of how hardened his face looked compared to a lot of kids around their age, making his face look sharper than it actually was. He balanced it out with his long brown hair, that flowed up till his waist as it would traditionally be grown by the men of the family, held by the end with a hairtie. 

Hinata was often time envious of Neji. He was considered what a Hyuuga should be, disciplined and stoic, and efficient when it came to mastering the basic forms of their family’s fighting style, the Gentle Fist. She wished she had not only his natural gift of picking up skills with ease, but also his confidence and surety with every calculated strike he made- it would definitely make her life easier if she were that way.

That, and she wished she had his looks as well. She had heard the long running comments made by the women of the family; “ Hiashi’s eldest is cute and all, but Hizashi’s child is the prettiest out of all the cousins”  and “I wish my daughter looked like Hizashi’s child”.  

And most of the times, Hinata agreed with them.

“I’m sorry!” Hinata quickly exclaimed, feeling nervous by how his white pupils seemed to be looking into her soul. “Are you alright?”

She could see that he was trying not to show his scowl at her, but was proving to have difficulties when she saw the corners of his mouth twitch downwards, lines evident on his pale skin.The dread seeped in deeper, and she could feel her shoulders curl inwards, trying to make herself small under his gaze.

Neji never smiled at her. 

He always frowned.

Even when Hinata was younger and tried to talk and play with him, Neji never smiled at her. He only forced out a reply here and there, and that’s only if her father was around.

“Lady Hinata,” Neji replied courtly, his tone much cooler than before, but he still glowered at her. “Please watch your step. You can hurt yourself by not being careful.”

“O-oh,” Hinata muttered as she glanced away, his piercing eyes making her nervous. “Okay. But are you-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Neji immediately walked past her with a quick step, turning the corner she came from without a single word, leaving Hinata alone. 

“...hurt,” she finished in a whisper, the dread now turning into hurt at being dismissed this way. 

She really did try her hardest to get to know Neji but to no avail. The young boy never seemed to want to talk to her, never mind be around her. If he was, it was only because Hinata couldn’t be left alone and needed someone from the Branch House to watch over her; and usually, Neji would be the prime candidate, handpicked by Hiashj, being the closest to her age compared to the other clansmen. It has always been this way, their relationship has always been rocky, but Hinata never understood why Neji always refrained from talking to them. 

Were they not cousins before anything else? Was he not supposed to her older brother, the one she should seek guidance from?

What had she done to Neji, except be born into the Main House? 

But at the same time, if she were him, would she not resent her as well?

Hinata didn’t have time to ruminate over what had just happened, and tried to push it down to the back of her mind, as she often does. She fixed the straps of her bag so it fit snug on her shoulder and continued to walk down the halls at a slower pace.

She got to the part of the complex where the faint sounds of pots clanking against one another and fresh fish and eggs sizzling on top a pan could be heard, and Hinata could feel her mouth salivating. She was just in time for a quick breakfast on the spot.

She slid the door with a gentle hand, revealing a pair of woman, both relatively young and wearing a white bandana across their forehead, swiftly shifted between the countertop and the stove. Another woman, middle aged with a few grey hairs, stood near a giant pot on top of a coal fire near the open doorway on the opposite side, letting the steam from the rice cooking waft out to the back court. An elderly woman with grey hair secured in a bun and slightly hunched shoulders shuffled along the countertop, a bento box sitting in front of her as she stuffed sliced vegetables inside.

"Lady Hinata," all three women acknowledged her as they did a bow to the young heiress. Hinata bowed to them, them being her aunties, even if they were apart of the Branch House - she was still raised to be respectful of her elders. 

And even then, Hinata found that it was harder to maintain a separation of houses between the women of the Hyuuga clan- regardless of the house they belong to, and regardless of whether they are of a lower branch, it seems that often when the women and girls are together without the demeaning eye of men, there is not as big of a drift between them, save for maintaining standard titles protocols. 

It didn't help that often times, marriage between the Main House and the extended Branch House. After all, her own grandmother, her father's mother, was from the Branch House, further along the line, and married her grandfather of the Main House. These marriages blurred the lines of formality at times.

Though, what the women lacked in standard house tensions tends to take the form of more personal grudges towards certain family members, from meager things like forgetting to return the favour to downright gossiping about an aloof relative over tea.

Ah, the benefits of having a large family.

While Hinata would try to avoid having a conversation with relatives (mostly because it causes her an existential crisis with their incessant questions and because she already had enough whispers about her), these three aunties were the ones she was most comfortable with. They were often the ones in the kitchen, the ones making the meals during the day for the entire clan; diplomacy was the least of their concern when they had to make copious amounts of food.

"Good morning, Aunties," Hinata replied in a soft tone, smiling as she stepped towards the elderly lady, to look at the contents of the bento box. She could feel her stomach churn at the amount of rice that was on the exposed layer, and that was just one of the two. "Grandmother, you know I can't eat that much food..."

"Nonsense," her grandmother said without looking at Hinata, her frail little body shaking as her hands closed the lid of the bento box. She started to fold the cloth, a baby blue cloth, around the box in a slow manner, the slight twitching of her hand with each tug worrying Hinata, but she didn't stop the woman from doing it. "You need all the energy you can get to become stronger. How would you bring honour to the Hyuuga name if you do not become a strong heir like your father, and his father before?"

Maybe I don't want to be the heir , Hinata wanted to say, but just smiled shyly, eyebrows pulling in. "I can be strong without eating a meal for two."

“Mother Homura," one of her aunt's with the white bandana started from the stove. "Lady Hinata does not need to eat more than she needs to. They won't put her on any taxing missions right away."

"Aunt Kayake's right, Grandmother," Hinata nodded along. "I'm just doing a test-"

"If it's the same type of testing they did with Hiashi, then you most definitely need more than this," Homura replied, her eyebrows, fine and grey, raising as she tried to turn her body to put the bento box back onto the table.

"N-no, it's alright!" Hinata took the box with both hands before Homura could set it down. She started to guide Homura towards a rocking chair in the corner of the kitchen, where a tea set has already been placed on top of a table nearby. "This is enough! Thank you."

"Have they already assigned your team?" the woman stirring the pot of rice, her Aunt Suzume, distantly related to Hinata as is Kayake, started, drawing Hinata’s attention towards her after she allowed Homura to take a seat.

"Yes, we were assigned to them yesterday," Hinata said, unraveling her grandmother's hands to hold onto the bento box in the blue cloth. "I have been placed on a team with Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame."

"An Inuzuka?" The other woman with the bandana, Kayake's younger sister and Hinata's Aunt Mitsu, giggled. She continued to slice open the shrimps from their shells on a cutting board, placing them in a separate bowl. Mitsu leaned forward slightly towards the other three woman, keeping her voice low so that only Homura, with her age causing her poor hearing, could not hear.“The Inuzuka men are quite rugged, don’t you think?”

“Mitsu, we do not care for your love affairs,” Kayake waved her sister’s comment off, returning her attention to the stove, but Suzume’s face contorted in a frantic frown.

“Mitsu! Do not plant such ideas in Lady Hinata’s mind!” Suzume scolded her with a hiss, lifting the rice paddle from the pot, waving it slightly as if she were about to hit Mitsu with it. Hinata could feel her neck start to flush slightly as it started to reach her cheeks at her implications. “She is still a child!”

“Tell me, Hinata,” Mitsu ignored them and ushered Hinata to come closer. The young heiress gravitated towards them. “What are your teammates like?”

“They’re…” Hinata started, hesitating slightly about the words she could use. How  were  her teammates like?

She was apprehensive of being placed on Team 8, and she was sure Shino and Kiba were too. She saw how Kiba’s friends, the two boys and the girl he always sat next to, snickered and whispered amongst themselves when they heard Hinata and Shino's name, and something about them being 'weirdos'.

Hinata wasn't surprised by their words. She knows that, compared to the rest of her classmates, she was off. Painfully shy and quieter than a mouse, Hinata was a stark contrast to what the usual kid her age was like. Her mannerisms, her voice, hell, even her looks, made her a wallflower, a pale white wallpaper that people know is there, but never bothered to be looked at. Only her blood made her truly visible. The only times that people willingly engaged with her is when her family's name is mentioned during a lecture, in which all the kids would turn over to wherever she was sitting to look at her, to see her reaction.

Most of the time, she would look away.

She didn't like looking at people. She didn't like making eye contact.

She felt it was too heavy, too intimate, too much for her soul to handle. She feels like people try to analyze too much of what she says, trying to reach into her soul, trying to unlock the pandora box that is her emotions.

And she didn't like that.

That's why she liked Shino a lot. She knew they would get along well, he was equally as quiet as her, though he was by no means shy. If yesterday's team meeting probed anything, it was that Shino Aburame was vocal, raising himself as an equal to whoever he spoke to. But he respected their space, respected Hinata's space, not looking at her unless she initiated (though, it could be because his glasses made it hard for her to see his irises, making her feel at ease).

Kiba on the other hand, she wasn't sure what to say. He was on the opposite spectrum to her, being outgoing and rowdy with his ways, and the confidence he exudated made Hinata envious. She didn't mind loud people- she found them fascinating and admirable. 

But he was also subtly witty, something that she didn't think she would describe the Inuzuka as. Usually he is vocal about how he feels, calling someone out on their nonsense without a second thought, but yesterday showed her that there was more to him than meets the eye. 

She had to admit thought; while envious of Kiba's personality, she was incredibly intimidated by him. It's not as if she didn't see his bad side, when he would dive head first into a fight against another kid if they talked smack about him to his face, his fists brimming purple with bruises and face speckled with blood. And he always came out victorious with a grin on his face, and Iruka-sensei fuming as he had to drag him off of the poor kid who tried to get a rise out of him, only to be crying on the ground with a bloody nose.

Just remembering it sent chills down her spine.

She definitely did not want to get on his bad side.

"They're nice," she said, fidgeting with the bento box as she glanced away, the way Mitsu looked at her with anticipation making her nervous. "A-and, they're very interesting."

"Interesting in what way?"

"U-uh-"

"Mitsu, you'll get in trouble if Lord Hiashi hears what you insinuate," Kayake warned her sister with a weary look towards Homura, but the old woman barely heeded their words, enjoying a cup of tea as she swayed slightly in the rocking chair.

Mitsu giggled at her words and straightening herself, before continued slicing the shrimp's shell in her hand. "Can't I ask the young heiress about these things? It's not like they won't ask her about it later."

Hinata could feel herself blush at her aunt's notion.

There was someone that she admired in her life...but she was not going to disclose that to them, not until the entirety of hell freezes over.

"Do that when it is time to do so," Suzume scoffed. "Knowing Lord Hiashi, however, it would be a long process."

I hope it doesn't happen anytime soon,  Hinata thought, biting the bottom of her lips slightly. Talks of marriage and whatnot were not her main concern- perhaps one day, but right now, she had more things to worry about than her supposed betrothal.

"Isn't it interesting though," Kayake suddenly started after a pause, turning back to look at towards the two other women and Hinata. "That they always put an Aburame, an Inuzuka, and a Hyuuga on the same team whenever the graduating class had all three?"

To this, Hinata's eyebrows raised slightly. Her words were too precise not to ignore. "A-always? Who was apart of the last of this group formation?"

All three women looked at one another when Hinata asked her question, their faces suddenly become weary, and Hinata could feel the room fall still all of the sudden. She glanced between them, not knowing what to do, and suddenly felt like becoming very small to hide herself, not knowing what had warranted this tenseness.

"Lord Hiashi hasn't told you yet?" Suzume asked in a suddenly low tone, hushed as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. When Hinata nodded, she glanced around for a second, her eyes flitting cautiously towards the door, before landing back on Hinata. "Well...it doesn't hurt to know but...the last time they had a Aburame-Inuzuka-Hyuuga team was with-"

They suddenly heard the tatami door wiggle a bit and abruptly stopped talking, waiting for the person to reveal themselves.

“Lord Hiashi,” all the women in the kitchen said in unison as they bowed, and Hinata turned around towards the tatami door, a tall man in a deep blue yukata and a darker grey jacket standing between the frame. 

Her father had his usual stoic face, his eyebrows naturally arched to look like he was frowning most of the times and his mouth in a straight line. He gave an acknowledged bow to Hinata’s grandmother, his mother, before looking over to Hinata.

“G-good morning, Father,” Hinata quickly whispered with a slight bow of her head, gripping the sides of her lunch box. Hiashi stared at Hinata for a moment, as if analyzing what he saw, trying to pick out any sort of flaw in how she appeared.

“Today is your final test, is it not?” Hiashi asked in an even tone, never breaking eye contact from Hinata, who glanced away towards the lines of the floorboard. “Why are you still here? And look at me when I speak to you.”

“Yes!” she squeaked at how much sharper his tone became, and straightened her gaze. “I just had more time left so...so I thought I could take my time today.”

Hiashi narrowed his eyes.

“ Heedfulness is the path to the Deathless. Heedlessness is the path to death. The heedful do not die. The heedless are as if already dead* .” Hiashi quoted the proverb from ancient scriptures without missing a beat, and Hinata could see the frown lines deepening on his tanned face. “If you were going to mindlessly be on the compound this whole time, then you could have been practicing your forms. Your sister has already mastered all of the basic forms; you have yet to perform them efficiently.”

“I-I,” Hinata started, now feeling her neck burning in embarrassment of being put on the spot in this way, but she couldn’t finish her sentence, feeling the heat rising to her face.

“Mother,” Hiashi turned his attention towards her grandmother, who had simply been keeping her mouth closed as Hiashi gave Hinata the third degree. “Hinata is grown and she can make her own meals. You’re spoiling her by making her lunch.”

“Hiashi,” Homura said with a slight hum to her voice, soft and slow, as she started to sway lightly on the chair. "If you believe this to be true, then you should make your own tempura from now on, do you not think so?"

To this, Hiashi eyes slightly widened in hesitation for only a split second, but he quickly fixed himself back to neutrality. Hinata had to stifle her laugh, and she looked down to hide the amused smile she couldn't suppress.

Leave it to Homura to be as eloquently blunt as her son.

"That is not the same," Hiashi replied coolly. "The food you make is for the entire family."

"Tempura is usually reserved for dinners," Homura said as equally calm. "But you still insist on eating it for breakfast as well. You should eat better; you're a grown man."

Hinata could see her father's jaws clenching, muscle along his jawline flexing- being told off by one's mother in front of an audience was not on the top of every clan leader's to do lists.

"Hinata." His eyes returned to her, and she quickly kept her lips in a line. "It is best if you left for your test. You don't want to keep your team waiting for you."

I didn't even eat breakfast,  Hinata thought, but refused to say this outloud. She didn't want to be scolded anymore than she needed to be. "Yes."

“Do not be a burden to your teammate,” Hiashi said courtly, before stepping aside to let Hinata walk through the open doorway. 

Hinata gritted her teeth, feeling her throat suddenly lodged with emotion, but she kept it to herself. She nodded, and quickly exited the kitchen, giving a quick bow to her grandmother before she made her way towards the courtyard to leave the compound.

I won’t burden anyone,  Hinata thought as she inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying her best to maintain her confidence, but she could already feel the tips of her eyes started to sting with tears.  I promise, I won’t burden anyone.

----

When Hinata made it to the top of the Hokage Rock, she was surprised to see that Shino was the only one there, waiting underneath a tree. She glanced up to the sky, the morning sun bearing white in the east slightly above the horizon. It was nearly time for their test, she could tell, but where could their sensei and Kiba be?

She wasn't sure where Shino was looking at, his dark frames shading his eyes from anyone to see, but from the way his face tilted down, she could tell she was looking at the ground with intent. 

Should I call out to him?  She thought, ready to raise her hand to wave towards him, but hesitated slightly.  No, he looks busy...I don't want to disturb him. But, then again, I should ask him where everyone else is...

Hinata continued this debate on whether she should call out to Shino or walk up to him as she crossed clearing, but she wasn't given the opportunity to think it through. All of the sudden, she heard a high pitched bark becoming louder from the trail she just walked on, and a voice yelling, "Akamaru! Wait up buddy!"

She knew who it was immediately, and spun on her heels to look behind her. Unfortunately, she was not prepared for the small flash of white coming towards her at full speed, already a metre away from her.

Hinata didn't have time to react, and she wasn't sure whether she could or not- by the time she blinked, the flash of white had jumped up towards her and hit her chest, pushing her backwards and making her land on her behind, before laying flat on her back.

Talk about a double whammy. This is the second time she was sent flying onto her back. Her tailbone was starting to hurt a bit. It didn't help that she had her backpack on during the fall, and had placed her bento box inside, making the impact harder against her lower back when she fell, the side of the bento box digging into her sharply.

Hinata blacked out for a few seconds, eyes closed in shock and her ears momentarily blanking. When she slowly opened her eyes, she was greeted by a little brown nose against hers and the sound of slight panting.

Her eyes started to take in everything beyond the nose, seeing it attached to a white puppy with long, floppy ears and small, brown eyes that looked at her with excitement. The puppy barked at her once, and she could feel a  thump thump thump  on her abdomen, his tail wagging happily.

"H-hello...Akamaru," Hinata managed to say in a soft voice, remembering the puppy's name from how Kiba had introduced him as yesterday. This only made Akamaru even more excited because he barked a few times and his tail wagged faster, before he gave Hinata's cheek a little lick.

Hinata could feel her heart soar at this little gesture by the puppy. Is this what feeling wanted is like?

"Akamaru!" Kiba's voice exclaimed as he ran up towards Hinata, who was still being licked by the puppy. "Get off of her! Sit!"

Akamaru did as he was told with a slight whine, and hopped off of Hinata's chest, sitting down beside her as he looked expectantly at Kiba. Hinata managed to prop herself up with her elbows, lifting her back up into a sitting position. She glanced up to see Kiba standing near her feet, both hands on his hips as he gave Akamaru a disapproving look.

Hinata could feel her heart start beating fast while looking at her now teammate; he was much more intimidating from where she was sitting, narrow eyes shifting around with a frown on his face. Kiba had always scared her slightly, with his red markings making him look like a warrior on his way to a battleground, and the way his eyebrows, sharp and fierce, made his narrow eyes look even more piercing. She was half ready to apologize, but then she saw his frown disappear as he softened his look, now looking at Hinata with...was it concern?

"Sorry about that," Kiba said, almost in a mumble, and Hinata could see that his cheeks flushed pink suddenly, as if embarrassed. "I swear, he's usually better behaved than this."

"It's okay," Hinata replied softly, and Akamaru barked at Hinata, taking a step closer.

 "What d'ya think you were doing, Akamaru?" Kiba looked at Akamaru with a stern look, his arms crossing over, eyebrows pulled in. The puppy stopped in his tracks and looked up to his owner, his dog wagging in the air.

"Arf! Arf!"

"So what? You could've hurt Hinata!"

"Arf! Arf, arf, arf!"

"I don't want to hear it," Kiba huffed. "Now sit and think about what you did! You're not getting any treats until you obey!"

Akamaru let out a whining sound, his happy demeanor dropping as his tail stopped wagging, his eyes looking back at Kiba big and glistening in woe. When Kiba raised an eyebrow at Akamaru, waiting for the puppy to continue, Akamaru stopped his attempt at persuading Kiba to let him be and he laid down on his stomach sadly, a whine emitting from his throat.

"...you need a hand?" Kiba asked after a moment when Akamaru settled down. 

Hinata, meanwhile, was preoccupied staring between him and Akamaru in awe, watching them have a conversation she couldn't understand, only going by Kiba's words. What kind of technique helped you communicate with animals? She knew about shinobi being able to summon animals for their services, forming a blood pact between the master and the animal, but she often heard of summoning animals being able to speak in their tongue.

When she noticed Kiba's hand reaching out towards her, she looked at him for a split second, feeling less intimidated by her new teammate. Should she accept his aid?

I won't be a burden,  she reminded herself, while shaking her head lightly.  I won't be coddled.

"N-no," she said quickly, her inflection making her voice crack, and she stood up, brushing her behind while doing so. She added in a much more normal rhythm, "Thank you, t-though."

"Hinata, are you hurt?" a low, monotone voice suddenly said behind her. She nearly jumped by how close the voice, low and soft, was, but she stopped herself from doing so upon recognition, and turned around towards the source.

"I-I'm not," Hinata said with a slight smile, tilting her head up to look at Shino, him being taller than she, even with her sandals. She placed her arms slightly in front of her, refraining from showing any signs of pain from her back. "I'm fine."

Shino stood by with his hands in his coat pocket, half his face still being hidden the collar, not saying anything for a moment. Hinata couldn't tell where he was looking, but from the way his arched eyebrows pulled in slightly, she assumed she was looking at Kiba. He softened his face again quickly, as if realising that they were staring at him.

"Did something break in your bag?" Shino asked smoothly, without moving whatsoever. He paused again for a split second, before continuing, "Because I heard a crack when you fell."

"Oh!" Hinata exclaimed in a light voice, swinging her bag around in front of her quickly, remembering her poor bento box that she had inside. She opened her bag and peered inside and…

"Oh no," Hinata moaned as she looked at what was supposed to be her lunch.  The rice, vegetables, everything was outside of the bento box, scattered everywhere and she could see the box has a slight fissure along the side, likely due to her landing. 

"My l-lunch," Hinata mumbled, and she could feel her stomach churn at the sight of food being spoiled. She really should have eaten something before leaving.

Shino leaned over slightly, head barely moving downwards but Hinata could tell he was looking into her bag. He stood there motionless for a moment, before tilting his head slightly on the side, looking beyond Hinata. 

"Can't you keep your dog on a leash?" Shino said suddenly, his voice low and a bit forceful, inflecting slightly at the end as if unsure how to end the sentence.

Hinata could feel a shift in the atmosphere amongst them at Shino's words, and she stared at him wide eyes before looking over at Kiba. Kiba stared at him for a split second, eyes blinking at Shino, before his eyebrows pulled in quickly, jaw clenching, when their teammate's words were finally processed in their minds.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'can't you keep your dog on a leash'," Shino repeated in an equal tone. The atmosphere was tense as they stared at each other, and Hinata took a slight step back, not wanting to be caught in between, fidgeting with her fingers slightly.

"His name is  Akamaru,  " Kiba replied sharply, his words punctuated with a slightly louder tone, and Hinata could see the flame of anger spark in his eyes as he glared at Shino. "And  Akamaru  isn't some  pet  I can put on a leash. Like how  you  don't put your bugs in a  container ."

"We're talking about Akamaru, not my insects," Shino replied stiffly. "Maybe you should train him to listen to you more before using him on our mission. Because it looks like he doesn't even obey simple commands."

"Arf!" Akamaru barked lightly, looking between the two of them, but Kiba ignored him.

"She said she was fine, didn't she? It wasn't like he was attacking her- and besides, you don't need to tell me what I should do with  my ninken!"

They had an important test that would determine whether they could become Shinobi, why were they having an argument at this very moment?

Hinata wasn't sure what to do with herself at that moment, finding herself hesitating to even look at either of the boys, fearing they might explode into an altercation if she dared to see. Should she stop them from arguing? How would she even stop them? What if they start getting into a fight? Would she be able to stop them? No way.

She was too weak, too cowardly, no way would she be able to stop a fight. 

"U-uh, guys," Hinata started, but her voice barely came out, a light airy tone that was easily overpowered by Kiba's voice.

"What's your problem with me, huh?" Kiba started, suddenly taking a step forward passing Hinata to stand directly in front of Shino, his fists clenching. "If you got something you want to say about me, then say it to my face!"

"I have nothing to say to you," Shino replied. "I was talking about your dog."

"If you have a problem with  Akamaru  , then you have a problem with  me ," Kiba said, his voice filled with venom as he looked up to Shino, who didn't flinch in the slightest. "Yesterday you had a lot to say- why are you acting all mute now?"

They stood there for a moment, neither of them moving. Akamaru let out a slight whine, and shuffled closer to Hinata's leg, as if seeking some sort of comfort, but she couldn’t move. The pressure in the atmosphere is making her head tense up with adrenaline, and Hinata could feel her forehead starting to scrunch up. She couldn’t activate the Byakugan, not now, no, and she tried to focus by glancing between them, waiting for someone to say something. 

Shino was the first to break the silence.

"If you don't know how to use him, then you shouldn't have brought him today," Shino said slowly and dully, as if talking to a child who didn't understand what he did wrong. "It would only hold us back. This test is important and we can't jeopardize our chances."

Kiba gritted his teeth, and Hinata could see his fists started to clench. 

Oh no. 

Was he going to swing at him? She shifted her legs slightly apart, ready to intervene, but she could barely move otherwise.

Before Kiba could move, the wind started to pick up pace around them, swirling in front of the trio and forcing them to plant their feet on the ground and concentrate on not being blown away. Hinata could see the leaves from the trees nearby creating a sparse tornado as a sudden figure appeared in the middle of the vortex.

“K-Kurenai-sensei,” Hinata mumbled as she watched with wide eyes as the leaves settled around the figure, revealing their long black hair and deep red outfit.

"Looks like everyone came here on time,” Kurenai looked between them with a nonchalant smile. “I was going to give you guys some time together, but it looks like something was happening. Is everything alright?”

Kiba unclenched his fists and placed them in his hoodie pockets, balling them up inside. He gave a dejected, “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

She glanced over to Shino, who didn’t say anything and was looking away from her, before her eyes landed on Hinata. Hinata felt flustered and started to glance away, her nerves getting the best of her as red eyes scanned over her, waiting to see if she had anything to say. 

"Y-yes," Hinata said, still glancing away. "All fine."

"Alright then," Kurenai replied after giving them another questionable look, and she reached into her dress pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a small clock. "Since everyone is here, we can get started with the test. Gather around."

All three of them obeyed and followed Kurenai as she walked towards a wooden picnic table underneath a tree nearby. After leaving their bags on the table, they formed a semi circle around Kurenai, with Hinata standing between Kiba and Shino as Akamaru rejoined his master by his side with a few little bounds off his small paws. It took a good amount of self-restraint for Hinata to not look at the puppy and coo at how cute he looked as he sat down, his tail waving around slowly as he waited for Kurenai to speak.

"Since this is my first time having a Genin team, I decided that this test would be much easier that I had originally planned,” Kurenai started, her gaze resting on them as she spoke. “Your test will be…” 

There was a fraction of pause in her sentence, and Hinata could feel the anticipation in the air as they hung over her every word. What was the test going to be? Are they going to have to prove their worth by winning a match? Would have to fight each other? 

Or worse; would they have to win a fight against Kurenai? 

Hinata gripped a string of her hoodie, her hand already placed over her chest while she was standing and listening to Kurenai talk, and she swallowed. 

“A little game of hide and seek tag," Kurenai said, and Hinata could have sworn there was a flash of amusement on her face. "With a little added twist of capture the flag. Sounds fun, right?"

Hinata glanced over to her teammates, and she could see Kiba shift his eyes around to them as well, apprehensive and wary about her intentions.

"You've played those games before, haven't you?" Kurenai asked with a slight quirk of her fine brow, looking between them as they stared silently back, uncertainty in the atmosphere.

"We have," Shino responded for the group. "As children, though. "

Hinata noticed the slight hesitation in Kurenai at his words, her lips pursing slightly, but it left as quickly as it came. She smiled instead, and continued in a much softer voice, "Then you should already know the rules. But there are a few things I added and changed for this test."

She held a hand up and placed a finger onto the metal plate of her red headband, right beside the Konoha symbol edged deep. She tapped it with the tip of her deep red nails. 

"This headband right here is the flag,” she said in the same tone. “The goal of this test is to get this headband off of my forehead."

Hinata felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety and worry building up in her stomach at Kurenai's words, and her eyebrows refused to relax from the frown. This doesn't sound like a hard task, but considering that this is a Jonin they were facing, only a rank below the Hokage, makes this little task...well...much more difficult than anything they had ever gone through before.

From her ranking, and from what Hinata remembered from the previous day, she knew Kurenai's strongest skill was in the realm of Genjutsu. Genjutsu in itself was such a vast field, limited only by the users' own unbrittled imagination. It is the art of illusion, after all, preying on the senses of your opponents by affecting the specific parts of the brain in order to make them believe that the illusion are true, making them vulnerable to experience things that are not happening in the physical world. Unlike Ninjutsu, though, it was much harder to control, with the user having to be able to control their chakra as well as being able to come up with a way to reach the opponents senses, those being five more extra things to worry about, unlike the other ninja arts. 

The expanse of Genjutsu was not taught during their Academy years, instead focusing on Ninjutsu and Taijutsu to prepare them as shinobi. The only Genjutsu they had to learn was the Clone Illusion Jutsu, but even that D-level jutsu was incredibly hard to master, taking many a year to make at least one competent clone illusion. 

Even Iruka rarely employed that technique during the mock battles he would have with another teacher, opting for the easier Ninjustu,  Clone Jutsu , telling them that clones are better used to distract the enemy and less taxing for them to control.

"Okay," Kiba replied slowly, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "What's the hide and seek part for?"

“That’s the fun part," Kurenai replied. “Like a usual game of hide and seek, I'll hide around the Village with the flag, and you three would have to find me in order to capture the flag. I’ve decided to make it easier, though, since this is the first time I’m doing this test. The only places I’ll hide is on the Hokage Rock or the training grounds. Nowhere else in the Village."

A game of capture the flag that required them to find the flag in a pretty expanded area ...

This was definitely not an easy task, but it was definitely not a hard one. They’ve played these kind of games in the Academy, in the form of a treasure hunt in the middle of one of their training grounds in order to utilize their survival skills for a few hours, but it was limited to a certain area and one target. That, and they usually had a much more obvious trail to lead them on the right path. 

It was clear to Hinata as why Kurenai set up the test in the way she did. She must have read their datasheets when they were first assigned to her: with Kiba hailing from the Inuzuka clan and having a keen sense of smell, and Hinata having the Byakugan that allowed her heightened sight, this test was to see how they would do in tracking a target. Hinata wasn’t sure exactly how Shino fit into the team, but she knew he was extremely perceptive, more so than she was, even without her clan’s abilities.

Hinata felt like she should have an advantage for this task, with her Byakugan and all, but she still had an immature grasp of the skill. It was taxing to control, and took up a good amount of her strength to maintain; even with all those years of training, she couldn’t understand how to control it efficiently.

And that’s what worries her the most.

She should have an advantage, but this advantage was easily be a disadvantage.

"That's it?" Kiba said, a smirk growing on his face. "That makes this too easy!"

"There’s three extra rules, though,” Kurenai added as she smiled at Kiba's enthusiasm, as she held up the clock. “The first one is the time limit. I’m only giving you exactly five hours from when we start to find me. I’ll leave the timer here.”

“Would that be wise?’ Shino suddenly asked. Hinata looked at him questionably, as did everyone else, and it took him a minute to continue his though. “It’s possible that one of us could change the clock, and give us the advantage of having extra time."

“Good point Shino, but this is mostly for you three,” Kurenai said. “I don’t need a clock to tell time. Besides, if one of you touch this clock, it would self implode. You could try it yourselves if you don’t believe me though.”

Hinata gulped as she stared at the clock in her hand as it sat on the table. No way is she going anywhere near that.

“This leads me to the second rule. If none of you get the headband before the designated five hours, then you  all  will fail the test and be sent back to the Academy.”

That made sense. This was like a final exam, it made sense for her to be this strict on them.

"The last thing is the most crucial part, so listen carefully," Kurenai continued. "The reason why the Academy decided to put you in a team because each of you possessed the abilities to become impeccable trackers.”

"But after meeting all of you yesterday, I gave it some thought," she said slowly. "I figured that there's no point in having all three of you become Genin when we could use the person with the  best  tracking skills so far. Therefore, the first person to find me and capture the flag will become a Genin. The other two will return to the Academy."

“Wha-” Hinata muttered in shock, taken aback by her words, her fist clenching tighter on her chest.

"Are you even allowed to do that?" Kiba asked. "There must have been a reason to put us all together like this!"

"Yes, there must have been. But at the end of the day,  I'm  the one who has to teach and guide you to becoming a remarkable shinobi during your time as a Genin," Kurenai emphasized. "The Academy doesn't have control over who passes here on out- but I do. And I have decided that whoever is the most capable gets to be Genin."

That’s not fair,  Hinata wanted to say, but she held her tongue, realizing the stupidity in her thought. The ninja world is never fair to begin with; so why would this testing be?

"Remember you only have 5 hours," Kurenai said as she hit the button on the clock. The clock hand started to tick, and Hinata instinctively took a shuriken from the blue holster around her leg, readying herself. “Do you have any more questions?’

"Do we need to give you time to hide or-" Kiba started, his question tapering off as he took a stance, readying himself for Kurenai to move. Hinata’s eyes never left her sensei, who simply smiled at them.

"There's no need," she said as the wind suddenly picked up pace around her, the grass around her twirling at a rapid pace. "The real me is hiding already. This…"

Hinata’s eyes widened as Kurenai’s legs started to blend into the background, fading away and being replaced by pink petals. Her body morphed against the gradience, rising up to her body as more petals fell, as she watched in amusement with how taken aback they were.

"Was all a genjutsu."

Her face faded as an echo in their minds, and the wind stood still as the last petal from the top of her head fell to the ground on top of the rest. The three of them stood still, none of them knowing what to do for a split second. 

Shino was the first to move, taking a step forward towards the stacks of flower petals.

“Hey, wait,” Kiba started as Shino squatted down, holding one of the petals between his thumb and index finger, carefully surveying. “What are you doing?”

“Checking if this is real or not,” Shino said. “It could be useful to track her down.”

“Whoa, don’t hog the whole thing to yourself!” Kiba exclaimed as he ran towards Shino, Akamaru barking as he ran behind Kiba. 

Hinata snapped out of her faze and found control over her feet, trailing behind Shino, unsure of what to do.

“You got her scent?” Kiba asked Akamaru, who let out a bark. Hinata could see Kiba’s nose move a bit as he inhaled sharply, moving his head around until he set towards east to where they were standing facing the other side of Konoha. “Alright. We got this. Let’s go Akamaru!”

“Hold on,” Shino said suddenly, making Kiba halt in his spot, and turn around quickly. 

“There’s no ‘hold on’,” Kiba said, crossing his arms as he frowned. “This is a test and only one of us can pass.”

“That’s why I said hold on,” Shino continued. “There’s something weird about it.”

“And?” The Inuzuka asked sharply, his patience running thinner by the second. “What about it.”

“Listen,” Shino replied equally as fast. “It’s weird because her reasoning for only passing one of us is incredibly vague. Don’t you find it strange that they would go through the trouble of putting us in specific teams only for one of us to pass?”

Kiba grimaced, staring at Shino for moment, as if conflicted with his words. He then replied, slight hesitancy in his voice,“It...It doesn’t matter who I’m with. Even if I weren’t with you guys, I’m pretty sure the rules would be the same.”

Hinata felt a slight pang in her chest when he said those words, the bitterness seeping through like tea through a filter. She had to grit her teeth to refrain from being too hurt.

 “Besides, she said it herself,” he continued as he started to turn his back towards them. “She’s in charge of us. There’s nothing stopping her from booting us back to the Academy. And there’s no way I’m going back there.”

“Kiba,” Hinata tried to start, but she couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t know what to say. 

An uneasy silence fell over them.

“She’s headed towards Training Ground 1,” Kiba suddenly said in a quiet tone, never turning back to look at them. He tilted his head down, and said “Let’s go, Akamaru.”

With a bark of agreement from the puppy, he sped off at full speed, towards the direction of the training ground he mentioned, the one closest to the Hokage Rock and filled with hills and forest near the wall that encompasses Konoha. 

That’s one of the larger ones , Hinata thought, as she stood there, trying to gather her thoughts. She could see from the corner of her eyes Shino looking at her, not saying anything, as if waiting for her to move. 

Her gut was telling her the same thing that Shino was doubting; the reason for only one of them felt too vague, as if Kurenai wanted them to break that rule. Sure, they all have skills for tracking, but there’s something more to it than that.

But no, that wouldn’t make sense; she was very clear that she only wanted one. Why would she deceive them into believing a fake rule? Was Hinata thinking too hard into this?  

“He’s right,” Hinata said when she made her decision, and she glanced up towards Shino. She looked directly at his glasses, dark enough to cover his eyes under the sun in the atmosphere, and maintained. “Even if we all work together, only one of us can pass.”

“Hinata-” Shino started, but stopped abruptly. He just stared at her in silence for a moment, and Hinata couldn’t tell what he was thinking, or even why she was standing there to begin with.

“I’ll see you there, Shino,” Hinata offered softly, and she started to run off towards the direction, focusing her chakra towards her legs to help them pick up her pace.

I won’t be a burden to myself, Hinata thought, a new sense of determination swelling in her stomach.  I can take care of myself.

Can I?

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

And we’re back for the second chapter, which is a lot shorter than the last - only half the size, thank goodness. I have a feeling this will go by somewhat faster than the first chapter, if only because there’s so much less happening per chapter and less worldbuilding to pick at.

Being up to forty followers already is actually really neat - I was expecting this project to go under the radar a bit longer. Thank you for all the likes and comments, and especially the reblogs! 

[No. 2 - Roaring Muscles]

Have to admit that the title page is definitely something - it’s deliberately styled in the same format as Western comic book covers. And in so, you can really see the difference in art style between the Westernized All Might and Horikoshi’s normal style for Izuku. 

The next page is a full body shot of All Might posing (RIP all the pens that died inking that one image), with some background panels covering the basics about the man - that his age and quirk are unknown, and that his strength has made him popular even since his debut. He’s got a lot of merch, branding, magazine covers, newspaper headlines, movie adaptations, etc etc. and, of course, that creepy fucking mask.

If Izuku has one of those, I am both disappointed and completely not surprised. I both look forward to and dread the day someone draws him wearing that monstrosity. Also-

Is that the same keychain Ochako gets during the Secret Santa swap in some hundred and twenty or so chapters? 

Alright, not the same one, but a similar pose. Not surprising, since I doubt Hori even remembered this panel at the point Ochako was given it, but it would have been an interesting little callback if it had been.

Moving on, we learn that since he became active, there’s been a notable decrease in the appearance rate of villains - with a graph showing the decline. His existence alone is a deterrent to villainy, which in no way will cause issues decades down the line. But yeah, basically Izuku confirms that All Might’s earned his title of ‘Symbol of Peace’ - and that the same man with so many accolades just told him he could be a hero.

(That last panel, of just Toshinori and Izuku, which is so uncluttered compared to the other panels… mmm, gotta love it. Makes it feel so much more poignant and dreamlike, which it probably was to Izuku at the time.)

The next page gets right to where we left off, with Izuku on the ground crying his eyes out while his mind plays through all the doubts and negative words thrown at him over the past chapter years. However, he’s finally heard what he’s always wanted to hear from this Alolan Exeggutor lookin’ dude:

Who also happens to be the No. 1 hero and Izuku’s idol. Izuku wonders if he could wish for anything more than that, so of course, Exeg- I mean Toshinori continues on, saying Izuku is worthy of inheriting his power. Which snaps Izuku out of his happy crying to actually look up at his idol, confused as heck.

BABEY.

But yeah, Toshinori laughs at Izuku’s expression and says that it’s a proposal, and that there’s work to be done. Also, this is the first instance of ‘my boy’ shown in the manga - while I know in Japanese it’s supposed to be just a translation of ‘young man’ or something close, I choose to see it in a different manner, as per my Dad Might agenda:

Look, you have to admit things went from 0 to 100 real fucking fast here, I will not take criticism on my interpretation. While we’re on the topic of ‘0 to 100’:

Toshinori please get that checked that’s a lot of blood jesus fuck. But yeah, he offers Izuku his power (which outside a shounen manga is questionable, kids, don’t trust that.) Izuku is still confused, naturally, so Toshinori clarifies he means his quirk. He explains how the tabloids like to guess what his quirk is, while he avoids answering with jokes, because All Might has to come off as a natural born hero.

(Also that dramatic posing, he’s such a fucking loser, I love him so much.)

You can really fucking tell he’s a performer at heart. I feel like it fits with his love of movies too - he probably liked acting out the dramatic hero speeches and fights in old superhero movies. Which I mean, also makes sense since heroes in the current era are as much actors and performers as they are public servants who handle crime and disasters.

Toshinori explains his quirk was passed down to him like the Olympic torch, which Izuku mentally stumbles over, and when that is confirmed, Izuku falls into a dazed rambling over this, completely tuning out of the outside world; he thinks about all the previous theories put out there, then basically confirming that his power being passed on is nothing anyone has ever considered, in part because there’s so little known about quirks, and even the reason ‘quirk’ [which in Japanese is ‘Individuality’] is used, because they’re unique to the person who wields said power. 

(Also, I want to know what the other six mysteries of the world are, Izuku. Why won’t you share that important tidbit with us? Worry about the quirk later!)

Toshinori cuts into his rambling, asking if Izuku really doubts him and that it’s nonsense, he has secrets but he doesn’t outright lie. Izuku does snap out and try to apologize, but Toshinori continues on:

One For All. Certainly a power that comes with no downsides, hidden legacies, or enough mysteries to fill the other six damned slots of the mysteries of the world. Izuku repeats the name slowly, and Toshinori goes on to explain it: 

A small detail to note, there’s eight lights in the background, already revealing how many holders there currently are at this point. Notice how much weaker OFA must have been back at the beginning, compared to the power Toshinori has, and then expand that to what Izuku starts out with. And interestingly, it’s called a ‘crystalline network of power’, and that it ‘links those crying out to be saved and those with brave and true hearts.’ For our first description of OFA, it… sure seems poetic and almost romantic. Wonder if that will hold up in the chapters to come.

Anyways, moving on from that, Izuku asks why him, and Toshinori says he’s been looking for a successor, and that he believes Izuku worthy. Even as someone who is quirkless and a ‘mere hero admirer’, he was more heroic than anyone else there. Izuku tears up again, and Toshinori slaps himself in the forehead, saying it all depends on what Izuku says. 

Izuku gets to his feet and rubs away the tears, thinking about what he’s been told and how Toshinori’s greatest secrets (hah) have been divulged to him. He asks himself if he has reason to refuse, and immediately decides that no, he doesn’t, and tells Toshinori he accepts while reaffirming he’s got no reason to refuse. Toshinori says he expected nothing less than that quick answer. 

Seriously, look at the intensity of that reply, he is down and willing to do this. No second guessing, no hesitation. 

This seems like a good stopping point, since the second half of the chapter is all the training, including the montages, so I’ll finish things up in the next one (yes, I know, not taking five posts to get to the point, who would have thought?) and we can get into the crazy fun stuff. 

[artificialqueens]

The Parent Trap, Chapter 9 (Biadore) - Henny

A/N: Thank you for the comments, Hennies! Y’all are making me feel like Ariel in the beginning of Little Mermaid 2 :> I missed all of you too! Sorry if there was a problem with the formatting of the previous chapter; completely my fault!

OH, and if you’re confused with the timeline, I’ll simplify it for you:

RPDR Season 6 (filming) ended around Mid-July of 2013 (assuming it takes about a year or so before it is released). January 2014; Roy and Danny started dating. 6 months after that, June 2014, a month after Bianca wins, they get married. A year later, the couple gets baby fever, so they start looking for the perfect surrogate and egg donor. This is where I deflect a bit from the prologue, it takes them until May 2016 to conceive.

TLDR; the fic takes place July 2026, and RPDR is currently airing S19 with THE AS:BoTW filming the very same year . If I had said anything contrary to those stated above, disregard it. This is the new timeline I’m going to follow going forward.

All the love, Hennies!

XOXO, Henny

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“Well, would you be interested in joining the first All-Stars: Battle of the Winners in place of Bianca?”

The way Adore gaped at her phone was almost comedic, mouth opening and closing like a fish. In some way, she’s almost flattered at the fact that Ru called personally instead of a producer. It’s almost very considerate, since the man knew what had gone between Danny and Roy.

“Well, last time I checked, you didn’t crown me, Mama…” Adore adds a teasing tone to her voice, and tries to ignore the nerves that seemed to resurface at the idea of returning back to the competition. It’s been many years since Season 6, and Adore has genuinely forgotten how it feels to be on a platform like that again. Focusing on her music as both Adore and Danny has shifted the focus of her career as a drag queen and performer; and with many seasons passed, she knew her charm has run dry with Drag Race fans.

Ru laughs, the iconic shrill making Adore spiral back into the werkroom. “I didn’t, didn’t I?” He laughs again, and Adore can only imagine him wiping a fake tear. “But, I am planning to release the footage of you and Bianca winning to prove that my decision to invite you has some bearing, at the least.”

Adore inwardly groans again, remembering the night of the finale wherein they filmed the ending of her and Bianca winning together. She feels the ghost of Bianca’s hands squeezing her own as they waved and the sparkly confetti rains and glitters of lights from cameras blinded their eyes; applause and cheers roaring in their ears.

“What will the other queens say? The winners, I mean. It’s not like they’ll consider me a winner, especially the newer queens.” Ever the anxious person that she is, she finds a brush to fiddle with to lessen her anxiety.

“My competition, my rules. Whatever I say goes, Baby. They can say whatever they want, but if they’re smart enough, they’ll pipe up. And, besides…” Ru trails off excitedly, like they were sharing a secret. “Since this is only a Netflix special, I’m only doing the first decade season winners. I’m sure they’ll be nicer to you than recent ones.“

“All of them said yes?”

“All, but one, you already know…”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“So, what do you say?”

“I- I don’t know, Ru. I’ll think about it…”

“Of course, let the producers know soon, alright? Filming starts October! Toodles!”

The call ends, and it takes everything in Adore’s willpower not to throw it to the wall. She looks at her phone’s lock screen and sees the beaming face of Portia, and she manages to calm down. She stands up, grabs a pre-rolled joint in her makeup kit, and heads out of the building after shouting to the manager to inform him about her whereabouts. She normally didn’t do this anymore; smoking, hard liquor, and even hooking up with trades that come her way. Portia had completely turned her life around, and so did Roy and Nerissa. “Fuck,” Tears fill her eyes again at the thought of her daughter who she no longer knew, she sniffles as she takes a long drag of her joint and breathing out harshly.

A tall figure looms over her, and with a tap on her shoulder, she nearly doubled over in fear. “What the fuckkk…” She groans, clutching her heart.

“Oh, sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you.” Adore looks up to meet the steel eyes of a blonde stud with a smug smile on his face.

“Shit, I know you…” Adore murmurs in thought, before she remembers “You’re Brooke, right?”

“Brooke Lynn Hytes, yeah.” He flashes her a beautiful, gorgeous smile, pearly whites and all. “…But right now, uhh,” He looks down to his jeans and plain gray shirt, “You can call me, Brock.”

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“Okay, give me another one.” Portia looks at her cards, one five of hearts and the other six of spades. It was really late and they just finished washing the dishes of the entire camp after dinner. Not tired from their post-cry-emotional nap earlier, they had decided to play a game of Blackjack. Nerissa deals her another card, and picks one for herself. Portia peaks at the new card, and sees her nine of spades. She joins the cards together, and places them down in triumph.

“20, let’s see yours, Haylock.”

Nerissa drops her cards, a jack of diamonds, two of clubs, and nine of clubs. “Blackjack, bitchh…” She taunts, laughing at Portia’s dismayed face.

“That’s not fucking fair…” Portia drawls, “That’s your 9th time winning, I think you’re cheating…”

“Oh, please. You just play your cards wrong, and sometimes, I’m just really lucky…” Nerissa beams as she watches Portia fix the cards and put it back in their case, murmuring “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“It’s getting pretty late, too. I think we should go to bed.” Nerissa yawns as she grabs her blanket and tries to settle herself in. Portia agrees before standing up to lock their door; to make sure the windows are tightly shut; and to turn off the light. The moon shines at its brightest, a cool silver light shimmers through their window.

“I know it’s late, but I’m not even remotely sleepy.” Portia comments despite the yawn the escapes her.

“Same here,” Nerissa says with droopy eyes.

“Tell me, what’s Bianca like? No… noo…What’s dad like?” Portia asks, adjusting herself so she faces her sister. The mere idea of having a sister and having Roy Haylock AKA Bianca Del Rio, THE Bianca Del Rio is possibly 50% her dad makes her more giddy than anything in the world.

“Dad is probably the most workaholic person you’ll ever meet. He’ll make time for you, yes. But, you can tell that 75% of his mind is just…” Nerissa sighs, “exhausted, if not thinking about work… He really tries though, he hasn’t missed any of my ballet recitals yet nor any PTAs. He’s as active as a busy parent can be.”

“That’s good, I guess…” A hum of agreement, another yawn.

“And not to mention, the free dresses.” She giggles, “How ‘bout our other dad?” Nerissa turns to lie on her back, thinking about her dad who she hasn’t updated in awhile, even though she promised to do so everyday. A sudden urge to hug her dad courses through her body, and subtle pout forms at her lips at the thought of Roy. She missed her dad, she’s still upset about the whole not-telling-her-she-was-a-twin-thing, but she missed him nonetheless.

“He’s pretty chill. I can do anything I want,”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, my dad’s pretty cool. We have the kind of relationship where I can tell him things and… he can tell me things. He’s my best friend, so we just have fun most of the time.” Portia says with mere awe. “But, it wasn’t always like that. There was a time though where he was pretty down in the dumps; he didn’t really have the best mental health back then and his coping mechanism–”

“Hey, this seems kinda personal. You don’t have to tell me this, okay? Only if you’re comfortable doing so.” Nerissa says, her arm crossing its way to pat Portia’s tummy to stop her thought.

“No, no… You’re my sister, and I trust you enough.”

“Okay, if you’re sure… So you were saying?

“Yeah, so, he didn’t have the best coping mechanism. Alcohol is tricky when it gets out of hand. I didn’t mind at first, because I didn’t think it was that bad. I didn’t notice the signs because I was so young. It was only one incident, really, when I understood the gravity of it all. Around June, he nearly drank himself to death. I don’t know why he drank severely that night, but I just found him passed out on his own–” Portia chokes as tears start up with the memory of seeing her dad then. “I was only four then, Riz. I didn’t know what death was, but the minute I saw him– It just rationalized so quickly in my head. I called 911 as fast as I could. I didn’t know what I was saying half the time ‘cuz I was just crying.”

Nerissa places a comforting hand on Portia’s arm as the girl tries to fight the sniffles. When Portia manages to barely win against the tears, she continues, “When we were in the hospital, I was with my Grandma and there was another man, I– I don’t know who, from what I can remember– we didn’t know if my dad was gonna make it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Porsche.”

“No, no… It’s fine. Just sucks to remember it. But, he managed to pull through, obviously. He hasn’t drank alcohol in years. So, I’m really proud of him, especially in his line of work, it must be so hard.”

“Yeah, as his 50%-chance daughter and for what it’s worth, I’m proud of him, too. “

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

When Courtney heard the rumors going around backstage that night, she had about ten shots of tequila before coming to the conclusion that she wouldn’t tell Roy. But, funny how alcohol works out.

“Yanxxxxx” Courtney drawls out on her phone that she’s struggling to hold up to her ear. But the effort was there. She has absolutely no idea where she is as she presses her warm cheek to the cold faux leather seat of a couch.

“Bitch, did you really just– What?” Roy rolls his eyes as he looks at his phone that hosts Courtney’s current call and the said-blonde on his couch, drooling and staring off into space.

“I gotta–” hiccup “tell you a ssssecret.” Courtney angles her phone to her mouth, so she’s directly speaking to the phone’s microphone. Roy walks over to the drunk girl, grabs her phone and throws it in her purse. He ends the call on his phone before slipping to the kitchen, grabbing a towel and soaking it with cold water. He gives it a good squeeze to remove the excess water before going back to Courtney and placing the towel on her forehead.

“You’re so lucky Riz isn’t here or I would’ve left your drunk ass in the club.” He mutters in annoyance, even though everyone knew he wouldn’t really do that. He could never let anything happen to any of his loved ones, and god knows Riz has seen Courtney or Shane pissed drunk since she was a toddler.

“No,” Courtney says abruptly, hand swatting away Roy’s hand. “Nooooo…” She continues to drawl. “The secret is Ado…” She leans in close, way too close. Roy gets a harsh flashback and hastily pushes Courtney away. With the push, Courtney plops on her back and passes out entirely. Roy sighs, both in frustration and exhaustion. He wouldn’t bother removing Courtney’s makeup, but he did give her the courtesy of removing her wig and cap, as well as unlacing her corset. It all feels familiar to him, taking care of someone and helping them de-drag, except of course, back then he had to strip Bianca off himself and help Danny remove his clothes which then would lead to…

Roy shakes his mind, trying to get rid of the idea before it escalated. He leaves the guest bedroom and makes his way to the kitchen for a glass of wine. He’s just going to pretend he doesn’t know that Courtney was about to say something about Adore as he starts up a design for Rupaul on the granite kitchen counter.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“I can’t believe Biadore was ACTUALLY a thing.”

“How can you not? The tension was so obvious, especially during that one part where Adore said she didn’t want to work with Bianca? The sexual tension was just–” Nerissa fans herself before she receives a slight smack and push on her shoulder.

“Dude, you’re so fucking weird. I don’t wanna think about my dad’s sex life OR YOURS!!”

“I’m just telling the truth! The stare was intense.” Nerissa breaks into a fit of giggles at Portia’s face of slight disgust at the idea. “And speaking of, did your dad date anyone again?” Nerissa asks.

“Never anyone serious enough to introduce to me, no. He’d go on dates, sometimes Adore would go on dates. But, yeah. He never really seemed interested in dating anymore, so he put all his attention to me or his and Adore’s music.”

“Do you call Adore “mom”?”

“No, that’s weird!” Portia snorts, “My dad is, well, my dad. He has his own quirks and personality. And, Adore, to me, is just a whole different person. I can’t explain it. Like, I know he’s Adore Delano through and through. But, my mind just sees Adore like a whole different person.” Portia rolls again to her back, so she’s facing the ceiling like her sister. “How about your dad? Did he date anyone?”

“You know what’s weird? I don’t think he ever did, not even dating or flirting with anyone else. He’s always been so closed off to anyone who showed any particular interest.” Nerissa twiddles with her thumb, before scrunching her nose in distaste. “I mean, in some way, I get it. He’s scared to love again. Uncle Shane always said so. I wish I knew why though.”

Portia hums, thoughtfully. Another pregnant pause looms over their conversation. It has gone on for so long that for a moment Nerissa thought Portia was asleep, until…

“I AM SUCH A FUCKING GENIUS!”

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:

Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight |

[watching-pictures-move]

Viddying the Nasties #37 | Possession (Zulawski, 1981)

This review contains spoilers.

Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is a movie I'd somewhat been dreading revisiting. When I'd seen it all those years back (on YouTube, split into two parts if I recall correctly, as the DVD had been hard to come by in those days), despite being greatly moved by the experience, I'd also found it an extremely exhausting film to sit through. It's a tortured divorce melodrama (among other things) that starts at 11 and only goes up from there. Lots of shouting and screaming, physical abuse, kicking around chairs and tables. The movie is not what I'd call an overtly pleasant experience. Watching it now (on a Blu-ray from Mondo Vision, a substantial upgrade from my original format), while I won't characterize my previous impressions as inaccurate, I was able to better appreciate how the movie modulates this tone, acclimatizing us to its fraught emotional space. The movie starts off in the realm of a normal, bitter breakup, with the husband having returned from a work trip only to learn that his wife is leaving him and struggling to make sense of it, his frustration and anger stemming as much from the fact of her dissolving their relationship as his inability to comprehend her motivations. It isn't really until the half hour mark that it asks us to dive off the deep end with it. The husband hits his wife in the middle of a fight, follows her onto the street as she tries to halfheartedly throw herself onto the path of a truck, which then drops its baggage in an almost comical bit of stuntwork, their squabble ended when the husband becomes surrounded by children playing soccer and joins in. Any one of these by itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but Zulawski assembles them into an off-kilter crescendo, and does away with any sense of normalcy for the rest of the runtime.

That this approach works as well as it does is largely thanks to Isabelle Adjani as Anna, the wife, who spends the aforementioned scene looking like a vampire in cat eye sunglasses and blood streaming down her grimacing mouth. She delivers perhaps the most bracingly physical performance I've seen in a movie, but again this is something I'd maybe underappreciated initially in terms of how finely tuned her choices are. An early scene where she fights with her husband has her manically cutting raw meat and shoving it into a grinder, as if to channel her frustrations into acceptable form of violence for women. When she takes an electric knife to her throat, she begins to spasm about like a farm animal during a botched slaughter, providing a further comment on her domestic situation. The film's most famous scene has her freak out in a subway tunnel, thrashing her limbs about chaotically but almost rhythmically, maybe like the contractions when goes into labour. Her character later describes this as a miscarriage, ejecting the side of her which is neat and orderly and "good". Adjani plays this other half as well, with a much more old fashioned hairdo (braided conservatively like a stereotypical schoolmarm), one which provides a much more tender maternal figure to the couple's son. Adjani is also well cast because of her emotive, saucer-like eyes, which she isn't afraid to point at the camera repeatedly, providing a genuine emotional grounding during both the quieter and more hysterical sections of the movie.

Her husband, Mark, is played by Sam Neill, who had been cast after the filmmakers had seen him in Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. To understand why Neill works so well, it helps to know that Sam Waterston had previously expressed interest in the role. Waterston, while a good actor, would have come off too fogeyish as the husband. Neill brings the appropriate edge and even sex appeal necessary for the material. And like in Jurassic Park, his best known role, he brings an inquisitive quality that keeps him close enough to our vantage point to give the narrative arc some grounding. The other major human character here is Heinz Bennent as Heinrich, a new age guru who happens to be having an affair with the wife. One on hand, this character represents the counterculture from Zulawski's homeland, which he had left after trouble from the authorities when making his last movie. On the other hand, Zulawski was drawing heavily from the bitter divorce he had just gone through, and directs a sizable fraction of the movie's contempt at this character, leading me to believe that his wife in fact left him for some new age buffoon. In one of the movie's funnier scenes, he has Heinrich confront Mark over Anna's disappearance and then go into a dumbassed trance while spouting new age nonsense and basically calling Mark a Nazi. This is the guy his wife left him for? This jackass? Mark sets him up by sending him to Anna, knowing full well he could be killed, but the potency of Mark's rage (and Zulawski's, by extension), as well as the ludicrousness of the Heinrich character, keep us from sympathizing with the latter too much. Zulawski has Heinrich die with his head in a toilet, a final flush by Mark serving as one last hilariously mean-spirited gesture of contempt.

Zulawski originally conceived the movie as having another major character, Anna's ex-husband, to be played by veteran actor and director Bernard Wicki, but after the first day of shooting with Wicki, he decided to drop the character entirely. (I suppose it depends on the personalities, but I wonder how actors react to being let go early from a project. Is it worse if it's on the first day? How about if you lead the filmmakers to realize they should do away with the character altogether? I only hope Wicki got paid.) It's not hard to see what purpose this character would have served, particularly in the way that Anna "upgrades" her lovers, having traded a much older man for the younger, sexier Mark, and then trying to replace him with an evolving monstrous fuck-squid (more on this later) that she was trying to nurture and reshape into the ideal partner. The only remnants of this character in the finished film is his young wife, who appears in the climax and his goaded by the "new" Mark (the final form of the fuck-squid) to shoot into the corpses of the real Mark and Anna. The character's proposed thematic purpose might have spelled out this moment's significance more clearly, but I'm not always convinced thematic clarity is preferable to how things move and feel, and the end product does not feel incomplete or incoherent, or at least not detrimentally so. The emotions make sense, even if the events onscreen are outside the norm. (My condolences to those of you who've been dumped for a monstrous fuck-squid.)

Having been conceived after his last project was quashed by authorities in Poland, there's undeniably a political element here, enhanced by the noticeable presence of the Berlin Wall, near which much of the film is situated. (At one point the camera looks out the window and sees the police from East Berlin staring back.) The realities of the Cold War figure heavily in the characters' lives, as it's suggested that Helen (the other Adjani) is from behind the Iron Curtain (she speak of readily identifiable evil, which could be interpreted as the visible presence of an authoritarian regime) and that Mark's work is in the field of intelligence, maybe even espionage. But the movie is less interested in pointing out political specifics than in the accompanying sense of repression and division, which plays heavily into the visual style. The movie often divides its frames to separate the characters, but rarely with any sense of symmetry, suggesting a sense of emotional chaos enhanced by the bruising mixture of wide angle lenses and handheld camerawork. When we're with Mark, the movie looks overcast, bluish grey, appropriately repressed at first, although Anna's presence throws his neat, fluorescently-lit apartment into disarray. Anna's love nest, situated in the Turkish district right beside the Wall is dilapidated and unkempt, which may have reflected the squalid realities of a hastily rented apartment in what I assume is a poorer part of town, but after having excised the orderly part of herself, it seems like an accurately messy reflection of her headspace.

Now back to the fuck-squid. It's hard to go into Possession this day and age completely blind, and even back when I first saw it, it came on my radar as the movie where "Isabelle Adjani fucks a squid". I have a lot of respect for Zulawski for delivering the goods on this front and for Adjani for throwing herself into this material, not because I'm some kind of sexual deviant who gets off on this stuff (although if you are, I'm not here to judge, it's a free country, just clear your browsing history after), but because modern arthouse cinema often defaults to a mode of cold, downplayed and too afraid to raise the audience's pulse (because apparently it's undignified to force a reaction out of the audience) and it's nice to see a movie serve what it says on the tin (this is one I'd have loved to see with an unsuspecting audience back in the day). Producer Marie Laure-Reyre notes that Zulawski was very hands on with the conception of the monster, drawing inspiration from gargoyles in Polish architecture, as if to further imbue political context into the proceedings. When seeing the end product, I can only assume Zulawski broke up with his wife at a seafood restaurant (I would hope he didn't react like Mark and throw around all the tables and chairs). Of course, the design of the monster means that the movie leans heavily into body horror, and its inclusion on the Video Nasty list in the UK and its release in the US in a heavily-trimmed 81-minute version emphasizing these elements likely contributed to its psychotronic reputation early on. (I am still interested in seeking out this cut, as I can't imagine the loss of 40 whole minutes wouldn't substantially alter the film's character.) It flirts with other genres as well. Certain scenes have a clear slapstick quality. Some of these involve Heinrich, the ever-reliable target of the film's ridicule, but there is also Margit Cartensen, playing Anna's friend and Mark-hater Marge, falling on her ass like a Three Stooges bit. And there's the climax, parodying action movies with its woozy cocktail of car chase, shootout and explosions, which leads a headlong rush into the film's apocalyptic final moments.

[yikeswtfmate]

I’ll hold you to that

Summary: There’s a new message from a stranger in her DMs, but what does he want from her and why exactly is he so freaking cute?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (College AU)

Warnings: swearing; that should be it, I think?

A/N: This is the second fic in two days, who even am I? What am I even doing? What is happening?! My only excuse is that I’ve started this like 2 months ago and only now got round to finishing it so...enjoy?

This might need a second part though, I feel like I need some college dorkiness in my life rn

Also, do some text and ig messages count as making this a social media au? Probably not, since I was too lazy to do that format with the apps and all that?

masterlist // Watermelon Sugar - another part

Natasha is lying on her friend’s bed, furiously typing away at her phone. The chime of incoming messages is constant and it is starting to drive Y/N up the wall.

“You could do this in your room as well, you know.” Turning in her desk chair, ready to start going off on the redhead, Y/N is cut short by a long suffering sigh. “What’s wrong now?” She knows that if she ignores Nat now, she would only get more annoying, which in turn would leave her no chance of finishing studying for the night.

“I’m talking with the people in my group, trying to prepare for the mock trial next month and there’s this guy who is completely infuriating!” Nat spats and lets out another groan, as her fingers fly across the screen. “He says that we should stop defending the CFO and try and get a settlement because it’s obvious he actually did indeed commit fraud. How are we supposed to make a case and win when he’s completely disregarding everything we’ve studied this semester? Of course the prick committed fraud, but we still have to make the case for him, this is the fucking assignment, you pompous asshole.”

“Yeah, babe, I have no idea what you’re saying there, but go you! Down with Wall Street or whatever, but I still need to study for this management exam, so it would be great if you could kindly fuck off to your room?” Y/N smiles at Nat, who finally looks up at her and sighs.

“Fine. I’ll let you study for your stupid exam, but you still need to reply to that cute guy like you promised.”

“Remind me again, why am I supposed to do that?”

“Because you promised, you ass! And your sex life is shit so Wands and I reckon if you get laid, you’ll stop being so stuck up about school.” It’s Nat’s turn to smile sweetly at Y/N, who throws a pen at her retreating form.

“Why are you guys like this?!”

“We both have unresolved daddy issues, now get on with it or I’ll send Wanda in here.”

Y/N sighs heavily and slumps in her chair. She glances at her charging phone on the desk and tentatively picks it up. She unlocks it, a picture of her and her roommates popping up on the screen and the notification is still there. Still taunting her, still adding fuel to her friends’ pestering.

They have looked through his page, of course. They have looked at all the pictures with his friends, some of them recognisable from the halls of college, all the pictures of him in various cafes, restaurants, bars, gyms, but the picture she still comes back to is the one with him at the beach. Wayfarers perched on the bridge of his nose, ruffled hair in the wind, and that tan that stretches from the set shoulders to the prominent six pack (although the bottle of beer in his hand makes those abs so unfair to believe exist) to the firm thighs. She has looked through all of his pictures, analysing every detail and description, still wondering how in the hell she managed to catch his attention enough to grant her a message from him. And then she would go on her profile, filled with pictures from the dance studio, her coffee filled all-nighters in the library, and fair enough, there is that picture of her at the pool where her bum looks just right and she could get why in a sense, but what the hell, look at that guy!

Her fingers still hover over the notification indecisively, when the group chat pops up on her screen.

Wands: do it, bitch

Y/N: I was just getting myself ready!!!!

Wands: u’re a clown

Wands: JUST DO IT

Y/N: why must you attack me like this

Nat: I’m interrupting my fight with that idiot to send you this very important message

Nat: do it, bitch

Y/N: I hate you both

Y/N finally taps on the notification and there - in all its glory there is one simple message that has been giving her a headache since the previous night. Granted, she was a bit drunk on wine, and the shriek she let out when she saw the blinking notification made her toss her phone to the other side of the couch. Wanda picked it up and looked at it confused, while Natasha slumped on the couch in order to see over her shoulder. They both whistled at the same time, which was disturbing in and of itself, thinking how alike all of their mannerisms have become since they became roommates two years prior.

She takes a big breath that does nothing to relieve her nerves, and biting her lip, she finally opens the app to her messages.

JamesBBarnes: Hey

Huh. Funny how such a little greeting makes her tap her leg unconsciously to the point that their downstairs neighbours will be complaining at their door soon. She closes her eyes for a second, shakes her head and mutters a 'what the hell.'

Y/Nwhatthehell: Hi

Now that this obstacle is over, Y/N idly wonders what made her so flustered. He's just a guy who happened to send her a message after following her on Instagram. There's nothing weird about it, is it? They're both attending the same university, she's fairly sure one of his friends is actually the guy Natasha is currently fighting with on that project of theirs. Maybe he just wants to be friendly, maybe he needs some management information for one of his mock trials. Who even knows, so what is she so stressed about? With a huff, she throws her phone away, determined to finish the chapter opened in front of her and relax for the rest of the evening.

She's in the middle of writing the last note on employee engagement, when a ping from her bed startles her into dropping her pen. She turns cautiously, as if sudden movements would force Aragog crawling out of the device, but decides she's being stupid again so she stands up and nearly lunges on the sheets.

As confusion is written all over her face after reading the first line in the notifications bar, she opens the app and stares at the screen.

JamesBBarnes: Listen, I know this might sound weird, but could you ask your friend to stop fighting with Steve? I'm trying to study over here and he's been throwing stuff around since yesterday saying something about a redhead girl who's hijacking his trial just bc she wants to prove a point

She doesn't know what she was expecting, but it's definitely not this. Is that disappointment she feels for hyping herself up just so he can ask this type of nonsense of her? Maybe, but maybe she just feels a little silly for having thought this guy would hit on her on Instagram. She sighs and replies to him, now annoyed with herself more than anything.

Y/Nwhatthehell: why didn't you just send her a message?

JamesBBarnes: From what I've heard about this Natasha, you seemed like the more reasonable one

The reply is swift, and makes her smile. Nat can be a bit too much if not handled with care, especially when it comes to group work. However, Y/N now has what seems like a million questions, and she’s even more confused than a few minutes ago.

Y/Nwhatthehell: how did you even find my IG anyway?

JamesBBarnes: oh Steve has a huge crush on Natasha and we were all forced to go through her every single photo and hear about how amazing she is every single day since the beginning of the year

JamesBBarnes: but maybe don't tell her that 

JamesBBarnes: you know what, screw that. You can even show her that msg, the punk will never be man enough to tell her himself, might as well get my revenge for all the days I've been forced to listen to him go on and on abt her

She takes a second to read the messages again, when a howl of laughter bursts out of her chest. She had an inkling this was the case, from the way Steve has suspiciously been assigned to every single group project Nat had since September. And Y/N could bet his feelings weren't unrequited, for all the hissy fits Natasha has been throwing about him lately.

Y/Nwhatthehell: what if i tell you he might get what he wants if i tell her that?

Y/Nwhathehell: would you be able to put up with him when he's in a relationship with her? He's probs gonna be 10x worse

JamesBBarnes: oh shit u're right 

JamesBBarnes: fuck it, might as well get it over with. At least he'll stop moping every time she calls him an idiot 

Y/Nwhatthehell: you make a very compelling case, James. Studying law must have its benefits...you know, like having strong well rounded arguments

JamesBBarnes: my arguments would make more sense if i would be allowed to study ya know 

JamesBBarnes: and it's Bucky 

Y/Nwhatthehell: ?

JamesBBarnes: my friends call me Bucky 

Y/Nwhathehell: so we're friends now, are we?

Y/N can't stop the feeling of giddiness that starts to inflate through her chest. She might not have gotten the flirtatious messages she was expecting, but this seems somehow better. More real.

JamesBBarnes: if we're playing matchmakers for our friends, might as well be, don't you think?

Y/Nwhatthehell: i think i'll need a stronger argument than that in order to help you

JamesBBarnes: tell you what. I'll buy you a coffee and a pizza if you help me with those two 

Y/Nwhatthehell: coffee and pizza? A man after my own heart

She wonders for a second if that comment will freak him out, but hangs her head with a grin that splits her face when she sees his reply.

JamesBBarnes: only for you babe 

Bucky stares at the screen, unable to process what he just sent. He likes this girl, likes how his first impression after seeing her profile hasn't changed after starting to talk to her. He knows how easy it is to lie away your life on social media, and he can admit he's more than excited that she seems as wholesome and funny through text, and not only through pictures. Following her and sending her that message yesterday was his genuine desperation at trying to do something, anything really to make Steve stop, but he didn't expect to actually want to keep talking to her. He really hopes he hasn't messed up anything, when 'Typing...' keeps appearing and disappearing.

Y/Nwhatthehell: i'll hold you to that, babe

[yeet-man]

One’s Rebirth (Chapter 4)

A/N: Congrats to @red-riot-rat on getting 500 followers! That’s amazing, I hope one day I can get as many as you. Anyway, since they got this huge milestone, I might release chapter 5 later today who knows. I hope y’all enjoy this as always and peace out!

"Sir, can you tell us what All Might is like as a teacher?" 

J'me glared at the reporters that gathered around. The boy let out a sigh before speaking. "All Might is just how you expect. He's not called the number one hero for no reason." After he gave his answer he walked away from the reporters.

It was a drag to deal with a million people asking questions at once, but he needed to deal with it. He thought about what Ryan said a while ago, 'what if Mari is here because we're here.' J'me didn't want to believe it, but the possibility of Mari being there because of them was possible. He walked into UA Academy and started heading in the direction of 1-A.

A green haired boy, named Deku walked up to J'me. "Hey J'me! I was sort of wondering about your quirk. You see in the test that Mr. Aizawa held, you showed that your quirk was wind or at least I thought it was wind. In the hero's vs villains test you showed us being able to manipulate water, wind, earth, fire, and lighting, not to mention you teleported!" 

J'me listened to Deku speak about his quirk, the boy kind of looked at the green haired 'protagonist'. He softly chuckled when Midoriya finished speaking, he wasn't going to give details about the entirety of his quirk. "Midoriya, listen. All I’m going to say is I basically have a bunch of quirks in one."

The boy’s eyes widened in shock, he slowed down his pace a little to look at J’me. "H-how...how do you have multiple quirks in one?"

"It’s better if you don’t question it right now, Midoriya." His tone was serious, hopefully Deku wouldn’t question it till later.

"Oh...o-okay. Well, can you tell me about your quirk in depth, at least what you want to share." His pace quickly returned to normal so he wouldn't be left behind.

"Sure," He started talking about his quirk in depth for Deku’s sake as the two walked to class.

After a couple minutes of walking they got inside the classroom. J’me noticed right away that Kairo was missing. Maybe he was running a little late? Who knew, he just hoped nothing happened to his friend. 

Everyone was present except Kairo by the time the bell rang. Mr. Aizawa began to call students' names out, double checking to see if everyone was here. When he got to Kairo’s name he looked up, not seeing the boy in the classroom. 

"Has anyone seen Kairo Furo lately?" Mr. Aizawa asked the students that were in the class currently.

Silence passed for a few seconds before Ryan spoke up. "I saw him last night, he was going for a late night jog. After midnight I didn’t see him…"

“Maybe he overslept when he got home?” Kirishima called out from the other side of the classroom. 

"No, I highly doubt that. He wouldn’t sleep in on accident or on purpose. Since he got into U.A, he wouldn’t miss it for the world." J’me said out loud so everyone could hear him.

"Something must have happened between midnight and on the way back to his house…"

Mr. Aizawa looked at Ryan, then he looked at J’me. "If I assign you to this mystery, will you solve it?" The teacher had a serious expression on his face at the time. He wanted this to be figured out just like everyone else.

J’me and Ryan looked at each other for a few seconds and then nodded at Mr. Aizawa.

"Very well, I give you the entire day to figure this out. You two are dismissed at once, good luck."

The two students grabbed their items and started walking towards the exit while J’me turned around to ask a question, "Is quirk usage allowed Mr. Aizawa?"

"No, you must learn to not always rely on your quirk."

The boys simply nodded and went on their way. 

"So, you live by the woods correct?" J’me had to make sure there was no other way Kairo could have gone home. If there was, this ‘mystery’ could be for absolutely nothing. 

"Yeah, if someone did go into the woods near my place it’s basically a dead end." He responded back at J’me with a small sigh after his sentence. 

Ryan led J’me to an area that was by his house, though where Kairo was taking his jog. 

The boys looked around for any evidence indicating where Kairo could have gone. Out of all days this motherfucker could disappear, why the day Iida gets some spotlight? The boys encountered something almost an hour of looking.

The thing they encountered was another person that seemed to be looking for Kairo as well.

"Who are you and what are you doing man?" J'me asked the unknown boy they saw.

The boy looked at them, curiously wondering who they were as well. "Oh me? I'm Calvin Lewis and I'm in the middle of figuring out what happened here."

J'me and Ryan introduced themselves as well and told Calvin why they were here. There was one slight problem with this Calvin person though. He looked like someone very similar to a person they knew in their 'previous' lives.

"So, the both of you go to U.A I assume? From the looks of it y’all are in class 1-A." Calvin said with a monotone voice, he sort of just wanted to solve this mystery. 

Both boys stayed quiet for a few moments trying to figure out how Calvin knew they were in class 1-A. It was simple enough to figure out they went to U.A since the boys did say so.

"Uh yeah...Calvin was it? How did you figure out we were in class 1-A?" Ryan finally decided to speak up and ask the question.

"Well, from the way you two act I honestly doubted y’all were in any other courses except the hero one that is. And y’all aren’t in class 1-B like I am so yeah." Calvin told J’me and Ryan to follow him since he found something that could help them find out what happened to Kairo.

"Wait, you go to U.A as well? I'm surprised to be honest since you're like hella fucking tall. Shit you even taller than Ryan." J'me just kinda stared at how tall Calvin was when he asked the question and made the comments.

Ryan on the other hand, gave J'me a death glance and punched him in the arm. "Bitch."

The shortest boy of the three flinched at the hit and rubbed his arm. "Why you always gotta beat me, what I do to you?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, it's called getting your body stronger." Ryan responded with a somewhat sarcastic tone in his voice.

Calvin just looked at the other two boys and let out a sigh. "Smh my head. Will ya just zip it for the next minute?"

Both of the boys looked at Calvin and nodded their heads.

Meanwhile J'me was trying to figure out who Calvin was. The way he spoke and acted was similar to someone he knew in his previous life.

A few moments passed before they arrived in the place Calvin wanted to show them. "I assume this was your friend, Kairo." 

Was? They were both confused on what he meant like that. Surely Kairo was just knocked out, there was no way someone could actually kill him...right?

The two boys took a couple steps forward in front of Calvin. They wanted to see just what he meant by that.

Upon seeing the dead corpse that was Kairo, J'me's stomach dropped. His best friend of over 8 years was truly gone, though he didn't want to believe this nightmare was real. 

He crouched down next to the dead body, checking the vitals of the corpse to see if he was truly gone. He was. J'me wanted to cry yet no tears could flow down no matter what. It felt like control was out the door though he still had his hand on it. 

Meanwhile Ryan wasn't taking this well either. He started blaming himself for what happened, if only...if only he would have jogged with Kairo. Would that have even changed anything? He didn't know but to be honest, Ryan would rather have his life taken than Kairo's.

"I'm sorry about y'all's guys lost, but this isn't a time to be sad. We have to figure this out and your friend justice." Calvin was a bit sad about the loss of a person, but he didn't know him so the only thing he could do was at least give Kairo some justice.

The boys nodded and began to search the area for any clues. About 10 meters out from the body was a blood trail.

J'me luckily found it and started following it. The trail navigated through the forest and to some plains. There was a huge blood pool near the exit of the forest, other than that it was completely gone.

A few minutes he called over Calvin and Ryan to check the trail and pool out, asking if they had any clues about the blood.

The two boys examined it, being careful not to mess anything up. At the end of it, they couldn't figure out how Kairo was killed or who the blood belonged to.

"Um...how about we take pictures of this and show EarserHead tomorrow?" Ryan asked, kind of hesitant to even do so though since his head was fogged up with his thoughts blaming him for his friend's death.

"Yeah...maybe he can help us figure out who murdered him." J'me let out a shaky quiver from his lips. It was basically time to examine the body and the wounds Kairo suffered. 

The shirt he was wearing was torn up, revealing multiple cuts along his torso and stomach, going in an ‘X’ formation. The cuts looked vigorous, almost as if that weren’t caused by a knife. Dried blood was all over his body and floor, it seemed like a homicide more than anything. After further examination Kairo suffered broken ribs as well as his skull being cracked open in the back.

“Jesus...who the hell could do something like this? This is honestly fucked up. And why Kairo? Out of all 7 fucking billion people in this world why him? This is complete bullshit!” J’me stood up and kicked the dirt in frustration. 

Ryan just kept looking at the dead body of his friend. He wanted to run, scream, fight the person who killed Kairo. Without any evidence he couldn’t do anything but blame himself for the death of his homie.

Calvin was trying to stay calm as possible. He didn’t need to break out into his emotions no matter what. He let the other two boys do what they needed to do to calm themselves down and return to the mystery at hand.

"You guys want to take a blood sample? It might help us figure out who killed your friend."

Both Ryan and J’me looked at Calvin, they had sort of a confused look on their faces. How were they supposed to take a blood sample when they didn’t have anything to get one with. 

Calvin just stared at them with no emotions on his face. "What? I have a small tube we can put the blood in." The boy then pulled out a small test tube from his jacket pocket. “Once I saw the body I went back home and grabbed one just in case.”

That totally doesn’t seem suspicious at all. Ya know the casual character somehow having a test tube. Makes total sense right?

Ryan and J’me looked at Calvin as if that wasn’t weird at all. They both did end up agreeing though.

Once the blood and photos were gathered, J’me made a couple calls so Kairo could have a proper funeral. Afterwards all three of them went on their way.

Ryan went straight home, not wanting to do anything but repeatedly blame himself.

Now Calvin was the only one of the three that stayed behind. He checked the area near Kairo’s body in case he could find any more clues. Not really finding anything else he went home somewhat disappointed in himself.

J’me made a quick stop at his house, running in, placing the photos and test tube on his nightstand. He washed his hands in the kitchen so he could glance at the clock.

4:12PM

Surely U.A was over at this point. The boy dried his hands with some paper towels, grabbed his phone and left the house in a hurry. He didn’t want to be anywhere close to where his best friend was killed. 

J’me unlocked his phone once he got out of the house, immediately calling Kirishima without a second of hesitation. The phone rang for a few seconds before someone picked up.

"Hey! J’me, what’s up?" It was the friendly voice of Kirishima, someone that could be trusted with anything.

"Kirishima...meet me at the beach." J'me sounded on the verge of crying because it was true, he wanted to cry but held it in for the time being.

"Why? What's the matter J'me?" Kirishima was concerned for his friend. After all he just calls, tells him to meet at the beach and sounds like he's going to cry.

"Just fucking do it Kirishima!...please." He hung up without saying bye or anything of the sort and just ran to the beach, not stopping for anyone or thing.

Kirishima quickly puts his phone up and his shoes on. He ran out the door and to the beach as well, worried about his friend.

J'me is the first to arrive at the beach. While he waits for Kirishima to show, he sits down on the sand and tries to clear his thought process.

Minutes passed before Kirishima also arrived at the beach. It took him a couple seconds to find his friend, but once he did Kirishima ran straight to him as fast as he could.

"J'me! Buddy what's wrong?" He asked with a concerned tone in his voice as he rubbed his friends back.

"We… we were able to figure out what happened to Kairo. He was killed… we don't know who did so that's currently what we're trying to figure out." J'me held his head down for the whole time, not wanting Kirishima to see him crying.

Kirishima kept on rubbing J'me's back as he sat down on the sand as well. "I'm sorry… even if I didn't know him like you did, I'm pretty sure he was a good friend and would have been a good classmate."

"I knew him for 8 years, this is such bullshit… why did it have to be him? It could have been anyone else but him…" J'me complained, wishing it could have been someone else that he didn't know instead of Kairo.

Kirishima didn't know what else to do so he just let J'me ramble on. "It's gonna be okay buddy… no matter what happens I'm sure Kairo didn't want you to sit here and cry." He talked softly, sorta not wanting to hurt J'me more.

"No… it's not gonna be okay. I lost my fucking friend, how is it supposed to be okay? Besides, even if it is okay I still have to live with the feeling that I couldn't even save him…" He started to feel many things at this point. Depression, guilt, anger, and other feelings that he couldn't explain.

"Just trust me J’me, everything will be okay as long as you have all of your other friends. And even if you knew what was going to happen, you wouldn’t have been able to save him. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth bro…" Kirishima hated to admit it, but it was indeed true. 

"I know, but still, I wish I knew what would have happened so I could at least be prepared. It’s just… we have been through so much shit together and we should have became heroes." J’me slowly wiped the tears off of his face. He let out a small shaky breath and looked forward at the ocean.

"I am going to become the greatest hero for Kairo."

Kirishima listened till he decided it was a good time to talk. "That’s the spirit J’me!" Deep down the red hair boy was jealous of his friend. He was able to keep going forward without one of his friends in the living realm anymore. How was he supposed to keep up with someone who could keep pushing through no matter what problems came their way? 

"Everything is going to be fine, just keep pushing buddy. I believe in you J’me."

J'me smiled slightly and looked at Kirishima. "Thanks Kirishima, I believe in you as well. I know you'll become a great hero as well." 

The red haired boy chuckled and patted J'me's back. "You know the future, that's the only reason you know." 

J'me smiled a bit more as he stood up and dusted himself off. He helped Kirishima to his feet before speaking. "Even if I do know the future, it can change without me even knowing."

Kirishima nodded in agreement and gave J'me a hug. "No matter what happens I'll be in your corner and I'll have your back, got it."

J'me was a bit surprised by the hug, but he did return it. "Got it," he let go of Kirishima a few seconds later. "I'll see you tomorrow Kirishima, I hope they don't shut UA down because of this…"

Kirishima also let go the same time J'me did. "I don't think they will, but I'm not entirely sure. I hope they don't either." 

J'me nodded and said his goodbyes. Once he did, the boy turned around and started his journey home. 

Kirishima also went home, wanting to get some extra sleep since school was no joke at times.

Once J'me got home, he opened the door and slowly took his shoes off. He double checks the door, making sure it's locked before going to his room

The boy sits down on the bed and grabs the photos that were taken earlier. It was worse to look at now then it was hours ago, maybe it was because he'd almost gotten over the death of Kairo? Who knows.

He felt the urge to throw his guts up, so he placed the photos down and laid in his bed. This entire day was stupid to him, but at the same time it helped him learn something. He had friends looking over him and he had Kairo looking down upon him in the clouds above.