#psionic eyebrow

[yourlocalbackalleydoctor]

the lieutenant and his psionic eyebrow

BONUS !!!

kim watching harry's confused bisexual ass wonder why hes so drawn to the balcony smoker

[votive-candle]

23 / 08 / 2024 🪩🤨

Jean reckons with The Psionic Eyebrow for the first time

[aliettali]

skilltober 10: authority (starring kim’s psionic eyebrow)

[illwilledomen]

Adults n’ babies.

Info below.

Villagers (and all Testificates)

- Children have tufts of hair, and bald during puberty.

- The darker pigment in their proboscis occurs during puberty. They also grow into their noses.

- Kids are kind of scrunkly and wrinkly, like Sphinx cat kittens. They’re also very small, and have huge growth spurts once they hit their teenage years.

- Adult villagers are incredibly tall, and lack much visible hair aside from fine body hair, light facial hair (like stubble) and eyebrows, which are bristly and whisker-like. Another noticeable feature is their short philtrum and near lack of a visible upper lip. Their noses are as sensitive as human lips, and are typically used in the same way for affection and gesture. Villager proboscis can scrunch, wrinkle and twitch, moving to follow scents like the noses of elephant shrews.

- Villagers have much keener senses of smell than humans, and can produce a wider range of sounds.

Piglin

- Much like villagers, piglets start fuzzy and bald into wrinkly adult piglin.

- Piglets learn to vocally emote first, then sign phrases later on. Piglin use vocalisations as emotional context cues for the more complex sentences they sign.

- Piglin sows have litters of up to six piglets. Most of these piglets will die, particularly if it’s a nomadic horde, so they only receive proper names at one and a half nether years, or when they begin to grow out of their camouflage stripes.

- Piglets are born with stripes and an earthier pigment to help them hide from Infernal predators.

Endermen

- Endermen give birth through their mouth. They do breed asexually, though some Endermen do recreationally partake in what is possibly intercourse. It’s hard for Enderologists to tell.

- The offspring spends ten years inside of a nutrient sac before emerging as an Ender-child. The Ender-child will slowly develop features like limbs and a complex digestive system, though it begins with only a torso, a brain and a pair of eyes. These eyes are non-functional as psionic communicators, which is their secondary purpose in adults.

- They excrete an oily substance that repels Endermites and keeps them moisturized enough to move. As the larvae matures, it will develop the velvety exoskeleton of an adult Enderman. It will also begin to omit psionic frequencies, though these begin as nonsensical bursts of information.

- They mature at 100 years old. Most of this 100 years is spend engorging on chorus fruit, stem and endstone mineral salts. They have no emotional connection to their parent, as eventually they will develop enough to join the Chorus and become one conscious Being. Alternatively, they can worship a void God and become an Endersent.

Players

- Players were primarily constructed by Rana of the Elphar Senate of Builders, or artificers under her command. Most players were raised either in the Garden, an enclosed sterilized “meadow” next to the Senate building, or within the ancient city.

- They have three brains. The Animal, aka a normal human brain, the Purpose, an information tablet which dictates their robotic instincts, Basic Information and function, and the Soul, which enables emotion and sapience.

- Steve was constructed as The Builder, Alex was constructed as The Hunter, and Hero was constructed as The Friend, but is commonly referred to simply as the first. Hero destroyed two other players before he was supposedly decommissioned.

- Players begin existence as entirely androgynous beings, and may transition into genders upon discovering them. Gender is not encoded onto the Basic Information tablet, so they may struggle to understand it. Steve has adopted a masculine identity, enjoys it, though expresses confusion at being called a “male”.

[ddarker-dreams]

Epilogue.

Yandere Blade x F Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, codependency, Blade's love language is committing murder for you. Word count: 1.5k.

Nexus index.

“You went overboard.”

Blade doesn’t respond.

You know he heard you. He’s lucid enough to comprehend your words, but that doesn’t mean he’ll acknowledge them. Not when he’s standing there, parsing through his frenetic thoughts, which must feel more like a distant dream than reality. This is how you’ve come to understand his mara. It’s a capricious affliction, despite how adept you’ve become at soothing it.

This burden isn’t yours alone to bear. Blade has his part to play. He has to at least, on some level, want to ward off the beckoning madness. Your psionic abilities lay in amplifying base desires, not writing over them. Usually, this isn’t a problem. Usually, you both prefer he retains control instead of leaving a trail of contorted corpses in his wake.

Today, however, was decidedly unusual.

The nature of your new ‘work’ invites risk. Danger has never been a stranger to you — there was a reason why leaving the LOTUS-EATER’s premises was discouraged. This daunting acquaintance loves seeking you out. The feeling isn’t mutual, regardless of how successful the attempts are. It’s the aftershocks that you dread most. In the moment, everything happens so fast, there’s no time to be afraid until you reflect on it later.

Nona would tell you that what’s done is done, no point in dwelling on it further.

Lear would suggest you exercise more caution in the future, whilst barely being able to hold back tears of relief that it wasn't worse.

They aren’t here, though, you think. I only have him.

You swivel around on the kitchen island’s barstool to examine Blade like he’s examining you. He’s wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist as his clothes were dirtied beyond saving. Water trickles down the contours of his scarred, lithe body. The scent of orange and vanilla wafts in the air beside him, courtesy of the safehouse’s shower, no doubt. You prefer that over the metallic miasma which clung to him previously.

His crimson eyes pierce through the dimly lit room. You can’t decipher his expression, nor do you care to. What matters is that he gives some reassurance there won’t be a repeat of today’s incident. Knowing him, however, that’s too much to ask, but you’re starting to wonder if sweet lies are kinder than the truth.

Blade’s predatory gaze pauses at the fresh bruise on your forearm. What he doesn’t reveal outwardly is more than made up for by the sickening wrath his mind emanates. You wince beneath its intensity, a reaction he ignores, surprisingly, as he’s too focused on the hand-shaped indent. It isn’t until you inhale sharply that he snaps out of his reverie and the pressure in the room lessens.

While you rub your aching temples, he approaches, slinking forward like a stray cat. Though he viciously defends you as a guard dog would, you think he shares more similarities with the feline species. He bristles at anyone’s touch but yours, silently stares until you give him attention, and would gladly lay a pile of his kills at your feet, seeking approval for the macabre offering.

There was a time you’d voice this musing to observe his displeasure.

That time has long since passed.

Blade’s calloused fingertips run over the bruise, light enough to spare you any pain.

“Are there more?” he asks.

“I haven’t checked,” you shift back to rid yourself of his touch. His eyebrows pinch together, forming creases. “Is that really all you have to say?”

He’s glowering now. You don’t know what displeases him more — your avoidance of his touch, irate tone, or the condemnation hitherto left unsaid.

“You would’ve had me show mercy to your attackers?”

Blade enunciates the word mercy with every ounce of contempt one would regard their mortal enemy with. Now you’re beginning to better understand why getting him under control was such an ordeal. You encountered every possible resistance when attempting a link with him, a phenomenon you hadn’t experienced since that fateful day in The Lounge’s private room. He was always so receptive to, well, you, oddly pliant to your whims so long as you framed them right.

“You didn’t need to—” your throat goes dry, as the sights, sounds, and smells from earlier resurface, “—Need to…”

Fucking terrify me.

Sometimes, you forget on purpose.

You forget so you can drunkenly ramble anecdotes about your strangest clients over drinks, let him teach you the steps of weapon forging, and not struggle when he pulls you into his chest at night.

You forget so that your resentment can stay suspended in time, never growing past a point that’d suffocate you.

You forget so you can remember how to live.

Streams of sunlight sneak past the room’s blinds. You reach out, as if to catch it, allowing the beam to settle on your hand. The closest star to this planet — Varsig — is named the Spectator. The planet’s earliest inhabitants once thought the giant orb to be a god’s eye. Following their every movement, scrutinizing their every decision.

In the current year of 2157 AE, few still believe this superstition.

You understand where those ancient civilizations were coming from.

Eris’ eternal night hid wrongdoings behind a silvery veil. Stars, however, ensure you witness everything. Every misstep, shame, and regret is crystal clear. There’s no questioning the integrity of what you see. It burrows into your memory where it intends to remain forevermore. You’re reminded again and again that you’re no longer an Exalted Arbiter, but a means to an end for the universe’s most notorious criminal faction.

Either way, it’s a glorified transfer of ownership.

Still. At least then you had Loopy, Nona, Lear—

“You’re thinking about him.”

You freeze upon hearing his gruff accusation. Swiftly, perhaps suspiciously so, you turn the faucet of your thoughts off. Too much slipped through in your carelessness. Blade might not have your level of experience when it comes to decrypting the minds of others, but he’s spent enough time around you to pick up on a few things. The low-level link you share with him goes both ways, as per that miscreant Kafka’s suggestion.

For the most part, it’s an unobtrusive function that’s no more noticeable than one’s breathing. This prevents the continuous uptime from placing heavy strain on you. Identifying fluctuations in Blade’s mara is its main function. However, if you’re not being vigilant, a few segments from your psyche can pass through to him.

“Sorry,” you murmur.

It’s an unconvincing apology.

His mara, previously satiated from its earlier gorging, rouses. It seeks to form a tribunal with you as the defendant. This disease hates you, worships you, and longs to break you so that it might stitch you up and do it all over again.

Blade shakes his head and sighs.

The mara’s deliberation over your sentencing fades, leaving nothing but uncomfortable silence.

He turns around and starts walking away. Your eyes, ever keen in the dark, trace over the scars that cover his back. The off-color testimonies to his many battles have welcomed a newcomer, inducted into the ranks hours prior. The skin is red and angry. His long hair partially covers it — a slash made from the right side of his back to the lower left.

There’s little you know about combat, but from what you can tell, his opponents were skilled. They moved too fast for you to get an accurate count. In the aftermath, the remains were either butchered beyond recognition, or the few intact limbs so spread out, you couldn’t arrive at a number then either. Blade intercepted every shot and stab intended for you. He parried most, yet some slipped through the cracks. Without a second’s hesitation, he’d shield you from the onslaught, unfazed by what must’ve been excruciating pain.

That undying devotion is yours.

He belongs to you, really. Possibly more than you belong to him. This husk of a man who flayed the flesh of your foes and hung them by their entrails. Only the Aeons above know what other desecrations he committed when your consciousness gave out.

Sometimes, you calm the chaos simmering in his veins.

Other times, you raise it to a rapid boil.

“Yingxing.”

His retreating figure stills. Before, holding the memories of who he once was guaranteed he’d succumb to the mara’s influence. It’s less definitive now. There’s an undeniable intimacy to it — speaking a name scratched from history. He isn’t Yingxing anymore, nor can he ever be again. Somewhere, wedged deep into a forgotten crevice of his psyche, a tiny fragment of that splintered identity slumbers.

You rouse it when you think he needs to remember the anguish of losing everything.

“Do you want to be loved by me?”

You’re plenty capable of feeling love.

You love your student, who wrestled with life to reclaim the joy it previously stole. You love your first friend, who didn’t cower away from the unruly girl who decided to change his name on a whim. On some days, you could even love your mother, if your memories deceived you enough.

What about him, whom you might spend centuries beside?

Can loneliness outweigh resentment?

After what feels like multiple lifetimes, he responds.

“Anything’s enough.”

When he leaves, he takes a part of you with him.

…

You rise from your seat.

[kryaaas]

I need Kim to be a little miscreant to Jean....like maybe he would secretly steal Jean's pens or sneak too much sugar in his coffee <3

Naturally Jean at first blames the shitkid or Cuno because he could never suspect the *respectable Lieutenant Kitsuragi* of such petty tricks

One day Jean figures out it was Kim and but Kim uses his Psionic Eyebrow to tell Jean that he is too paranoid and needs to focus on his job

[yandere--stuck]

CAN U WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT YAN VRISKA I NEED HER SO BAD

Fun fact: Most of this was written 2 years ago!

---

"I hate you," You sneered, feeling your nose crinkle as you glared up at the troll.

Her psionics hadn't put you to sleep, not like the last few times, but had forced you to your hands and knees in exhaustion. She'd been practicing, apparently, wanting to hone her abilities to control the minds of humans just as she did lowbloods. Part of you was terrified at the thought, but another was far too tired to even care.

If she learned how to control your mind, at least you would no longer be aware of the horrible situation you were in. But, for now, you still were, and you could at least get back at her in some small form.

It seemed this time you had twisted the knife exactly where it hurt.

"What?" Her voice was soft, tinged with pain

The look on her face… It should have vindicated you. But, it only left a heavy, dark feeling in your stomach. The furrowing of her eyebrows, the look of sadness and hurt in her slit eyes, the soft downturn of her lips, even the way her form tensed up at your words… For a moment, only a moment, you forget everything she's done to you.

You forget the kidnapping, the forced sleeping spells, the lies, the insults, how she would hold you over the pit where her lusus resided, threatening to let you fall in. For just a breath, you were able to see the small intricacies of Vriska Serket, a glimpse at the more vulnerable side of the Troll.

And then that moment ended.

You yelped as a hand yanked at your hair, claws twisting into your locks and digging harshly into your scalp. Your head was yanked to and fro, your scalp aching and burning with each tug. You could hear Vriska's grunts of effort and rage. You didn't dare look up, afraid of your captor's ire - and that she might snap your neck if you so much as turned the wrong way. 

She moved her arm as if to toss you away, forcing you to rear back, only to swing her arm toward herself, pulling you back toward her on your hands and knees. Your tears dripped to the floor as you cried in silent pain. Your mouth opened wide in a silent scream.

“Now, what do we say?” Vriska asked through grit teeth.

Your throat squeezed tight. You knew the words she wanted to hear, but your body wouldn't let you make a sound. All you could do was stare up at her, eyes bleary and stinging with tears.

“I said speak!” Vriska spat. 

One of her legs suddenly kicked out, impacting your arms and sending you scrambling to the ground. You gasped out in pain as Vriska held you up by your hair. Your scalp screamed in pain.

“I'm sorry!” You blurted out in a sob. “I didn't mean it, I'm sorry!”

The troll simply stared down at you for a moment. You could feel it - the judgment, the scrutiny. Your breathing was shaky, taken through long, heaving breaths as you fought through the pain, trying desperately to keep still long enough for her to make a decision. Maybe if you did it right, she'd stop punishing you. Maybe if you stopped fighting back, none of this would happen. Maybe you should just give up trying to escape entirely. 

It seemed like she was going to hold you there forever. That is, until Vriska unceremoniously dropped you to the ground. You laid there, halfway into the fetal position as you massaged your poor scalp, hoping to ease the pain.

You jumped as Vriska knelt beside ypu, but she quickly corralled you into her arms, shushing you as she did.

“You apologized, it's okay,” Vriska flashed you a sharp grin. “I don't have to be the bad guy anymore.”

You didn't respond, merely sniffling and trying to avert your gaze.

One of her hands rubbed at your back, while the other captured the side of your face and turned you to face her again. The look she gave you was almost... Tender. Loving. She smiled at you with the brightness of the Alternian sun - bright and filled with warmth, but deadly all the same. Well, so you've heard.

"You know I love you, right?" She asked.

Taking a breath, you nodded. You didn't fully believe her, of course, but an affectionate and calm Vriska was better than a Vriska with a grudge. And you definitely didn't want to make her upset all over again. So, you smiled as she embraced you fully. You tried to relax into her arms as she began to rock you back and forth.

Maybe if you shut your eyes, you could pretend that this was what your relationship - if you could even call it that - really was. You being comforted by your loving alien girlfriend and living together in her home while definitely not having been kidnapped. And maybe it'd be for the best if you tried actually believing it.

[disco-archetypes]

KIM KITSURAGI - Your brain sends the signal to your lips but they refuse the order. Something is paralysing them. You're pretty sure it has something to do with the lieutenant's eyebrow.

VOLITION - The eyebrow is exercising *psionic* control over you.

COMPOSURE - It's like you're *locked down*.

YOU - What's... happening... to me?

KIM KITSURAGI - "Something the matter, detective?"

AUTHORITY - Goddamn right something's the matter! Lieutenant Eyebrow here thinks he can shut you down like some brow-less freak? Thinks you're just going to lie back and take it?!

AUTHORITY - Let's show him: Raise your brow high, up to high-noon.

DRAMA - Smugly, sire. Raise it smugly.

YOU - (Raise it smugly.) "I don't know, *is* there?"

KIM KITSURAGI - Reflexes take over, the lieutenant's brow meets yours: His fierce counter nearly tears your face off. This could get ugly...

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - Your fingers trace the edges of an imaginary holster on your hip. A slight twitch runs through your index finger.

AUTHORITY - Now, counter his counter! Brow to the troposphere! Full hoist!

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Put your neck into it. That's where the power comes from.

YOU - Gradually turn your head and let your brow rise untethered.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant anticipates your move but can neither deflect nor parry your counter-counter assault. A single drop of sweat trickles down his cheek...

YOU - Hold steady...

KIM KITSURAGI - "..."

YOU - "..."

KIM KITSURAGI - "..."

SHIVERS - It's as if the entire world is frozen solid in awe of this great clash of brows. Nothing exists outside this moment.

KIM KITSURAGI - An almost imperceptible snap inside the lieutenant. His shoulders relax, his eyebrow casually descending as he tries his best to look relaxed, nonchalant even.

COMPOSURE - A graceful retreat. So smooth you'd almost think there was no battle at all.

[blackjackkent]

In some ways, I feel like Rakha's liveblog ends up being a lot more streamlined than Hector's bc I have a lot less writing about "Here's how I solved this puzzle for the first time." :P

This puzzle, for instance. Not a particularly interesting one, if I'm honest. The interesting part is what lies behind the door it unlocks.

Another brain to talk to in Gortash's machine, and an enormous carved mural labeled "Desecrated Relief."

As Rakha halts in front of the relief, her mind spasms again in her head and the voice of the Absolute booms through her.

"--OUR -destiny----- DESIGN- downfall....---"

Narrator: Your tadpole echoes. Not with presence, but memory - tinged with loss.

"-THE GRAND DESIGN----- -order--- --perfection---- ---- UNITY--- every plane AS ONE--- every being- ---IN THEIR PLACE---"

Narrator: That loss blooms into a sudden fury, burying claws in your mind.

Pain - agonizing pain and grief and loss, as real in the moment as if she were feeling it herself.

"---taken--- --corrupted--- --GONE-----"

The Absolute screams in her mind, a wail of anguish... and then fades.

Narrator: And just as suddenly, pain and memory are gone - leaving only stone once more.

"The Grand Design," Lae'zel mutters icily. "It is every githyanki's duty to ensure the ghaik empire is never reborn."

"The Grand Design," agrees the guardian, whispering through their minds, a soothing balm after the Absolute's screams. "The restoration of the mind flayer empire. The dream of all illithids."

Rakha nods slowly. She feels rattled and unsettled by this glimpse into the Absolute's thoughts, by its visceral grief at the loss of its own tyranny. While the memory had control of her, that grief and rage was hers, just as the beast's violence is hers in the moments it takes control of her.

She shudders. Will there ever be a time, she wonders, when my mind is mine alone?

She picks up the heavy jar with the brain and drags it back to Gortash's machine.

-----

This one is labeled "Waking Mind," and it is remarkably composed when Rakha activates it.

"Hmmmmm," it says thoughtfully, squinting at her. "Fine bones. Sharp jaw. Some variety of elf?"

Rakha considers correcting it, then decides not to bother. Half-orc. That's what Gale says at least. She remembers nothing; for all the connection she feels to that particular identity, she might as well be an elf.

The head is still talking, anyway. "Pretty enough for a flesh-prison," it says briskly. "If not the noble githzerai features I was born with. I'd guess you're no willing guest of the ghaik either. Perhaps we might aid one another."

"You called yourself 'githzerai,'" Rakha says slowly. "Is that some kind of githyanki?"

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Lae'zel roll her eyes with a muted chk.

The head is equally unimpressed. "Oh, for a set of hands to slap your face," it snaps. "The yanki lost their way the moment Gith threw down the ghaik empire. Only we zerai continue the war to end the ghaik forever. Only we fight them on their own battlefield - the mind."

Rakha rapidly extrapolates a few things from this. The zerai and the yanki are similar but not the same - splintered factions of Gith's whole. Perhaps like those who follow Orpheus, as Lae'zel has described. But she also discerns - this brain is not like the others. It knows its state; it knows it has no body.

"You're remarkably sane," she says matter-of-factly. "For a pickled brain."

"A githzerai's mind is not so easily cracked," answers the head curtly. "Our discipline was the very reason we were attacked. My order taught a psionic technique much-feared by the ghaik. They destroyed us for it and kept me as a trophy. I never broke, but... I've spent all these centuries awake. Aware. So here is my offer. Use your tadpole. Erase me, and I will pass my technique on to you."

Rakha's eyebrows lift thoughtfully. A gith mental technique designed to fight off illithid influence. Something that might push back the tadpole, perhaps? Might help her carve out peace in her own head?

The idea is tempting, as anything that might quiet her mind always is. And yet...

Narrator: [INSIGHT] You catch the lie - the monk isn't telling you everything.

It's subtle, a slight flicker of the eyes away, the minutest hint of indirection. But it's enough.

Her jaw sets in a scowl and she clenches a fist at her side. "If you want my help," she growls, "then tell me the truth."

The head shudders and its eyes go very wide. "All right!" it wails. "I-- the ghaik did not find my monastery. I led them there! They promised me immortality and they gave it! I have been their rotting trophy for centuries!"

Narrator: As her agitation swells, so does her latent psionic power. To your tadpole, that guilt and terror are almost... fragrant. You realize the illithids locked her away not as a trophy, but as a fine vintage.

"Please..." the head pleads desperately. "Touch my mind and purge it. The moment you do, my knowledge will be yours."

The beast would enjoy this mind's death, she thinks vaguely, but only as a by-the-way sort of thing. There is no blood, little pain. For once, this time it is the tadpole that is hungry; she could reach out and consume rather than purge, draw its energy into her by force.

It takes all the strength in her to resist that instinct, to simply reach out towards the other mind and brush against it, gently, gently...

She is so tired of having to fight down the things that would have her rip and tear like a mad animal...

[ILLITHID] Reach out and purge her mind.

Narrator: The awareness that floods you is nothing like the tadpole. It is tentative, and tinged with the loneliness of eons. It fades beneath your touch, but you feel something left behind. A fragment.

"It is only knowledge yet, without comprehension..." whispers the head, its voice fading with each word. "But when you use it, you will... see... and I... I see..."

Its voice drifts into nothing and the head again goes still and slack.

For a long time, Rakha stands very still with her eyes closed, looking inward. The knowledge the zerai gave her had no answers in it, not really. But it settles in the back of her mind, a stabilizing force, a new pillar, a new retaining wall. It is not peace, but perhaps a new glimmer of strength.

"Are you all right?" Wyll asks.

Rakha shrugs.

"Chk," Lae'zel mutters. "A githzerai monk. And a traitorous one at that. What good to drag its little secrets from its broken mind?"

Rakha speaks - a little slowly, as if she is swimming back from the bottom of some deep pool and reacquainting herself with the air. "It... had suffered enough," she says haltingly, and her eyes flick to Wyll in a silent question. A request for confirmation.

He nods, takes her hand and squeezes it gently. "Yes," he agrees.

[rukafais]

for @thespacelizard so i'm not just making an extremely long post with no readmore or like, spamming DMs

“Why, Kimmuriel, I had no idea that you were interested in such carnal pleasures,” Gromph Baenre said to the psionicist when Kimmuriel had finished with Dahlia and was preparing to leave House Do’Urden. With the new insight he had gained into the morass that was Dahlia’s jumbled mind, Kimmuriel had thought it time to depart Menzoberranzan for a bit and see to his business on the surface. His intended teleportation journey was interrupted, however, by the rather powerful psionic intrusions of Methil El-Viddenvelp, the illithid standing at Gromph’s side when the archmage met Kimmuriel in the antechamber just outside of Dahlia’s room. “I was learning,” Kimmuriel replied dryly, “as the subject of an experiment.” “One for which I am sure you could find many willing subjects,” Gromph teased. Kimmuriel stared at him blankly, revealing his boredom. “What do you want, Archmage?” “I?” Gromph asked innocently. “Why, Master Oblodra, you are the one who is where he does not belong.” Kimmuriel hardly failed to miss the unsubtle reference to his surname— the name of a House Gromph’s mother, with the power of the Spider Queen flowing through her, had utterly obliterated. “Bregan D’aerthe has been ordered to serve in House Do’Urden, has it not? I lead that band.” ---

“Your unrelenting quips waste my time, Archmage. Is there something of substance you wish to discuss? Like, perhaps, why you instructed Methil to interrupt my attempt to be gone from this place?” “Because I wished to speak with you, of course.” “Then speak of something worthy of my attention."

---

Gromph looked from one to the other, and arched an eyebrow when the illithid bowed to Kimmuriel.

“Do you plan to enlighten me?” asked the archmage, who sensed the exchange but could not quite decipher it.

“Our discussions are quite beyond your understanding at this point in your training, my student,” Kimmuriel answered.

Leave us, Kimmuriel silently requested of Methil, and the illithid bowed again and complied. Methil walked to the door, then dematerializing to pass right through the closed door as only a powerful psionicist might.

“Brilliant,” Kimmuriel said as he watched Methil leave.

“Rather showy, I think,” Gromph said.

Kimmuriel looked at him incredulously.

“Shall I weave a dimensional door to take me from this place when I desire to leave?” the archmage asked.

Kimmuriel shrugged and shook his head, his expression still incredulous, even belittling. “If you so desire.”

“And will I then be brilliant in the eyes of Kimmuriel?”

“Showy,” the psionicist was quick to answer, and now Gromph wore a confused expression.

“Methil exists more in his mind than in the physical world,” Kimmuriel explained. “He exited the room in that manner for the sake of expediency, nothing more.”

Gromph glanced back at the door. “Are you saying that it was less effort for the mind flayer to walk through the door than to reach out and open it?”

“Brilliant,” Kimmuriel replied, and when Gromph looked back at him, he added, “And brilliant in a manner unlike your magical dweomers each day. For Methil the powers are nearly inexhaustible.”

“Will I come to that point, my teacher?” Gromph asked slyly.

“If you do, I will envy you.”

--- “Ah, yes,” said Gromph sarcastically. “You were learning.” “I am always learning. That is why I am the master, and you the student.” Gromph’s red eyes flared for just an instant. He was not used to being talked to in that manner, Kimmuriel knew. “Now that you have learned, you will leave? Or am I to have another lesson?” ---

It was a curious phrase coming from this one, one of those nonsensical surface structures often bandied about by the less intelligent races, but in this context it was more than that. A hint? Kimmuriel sent his probing thoughts into Gromph’s mind. There were few drow more intelligent than Gromph Baenre, and he could easily defeat such psionic intrusions from afar. Indeed, Kimmuriel wondered whether even an illithid could gain much from stubborn Gromph directly through the meld of its probing tentacles if the archmage mentally tried to block it. But now those guards were down. Gromph was allowing him in. Gromph kept it focused, his disciplined mind allowing no side-journeys for the psionicist, who felt almost as if he had mentally entered a long and illustrious hallway, full of statues with teasing placards.

--- “Enough!” Gromph shouted suddenly, breaking Kimmuriel from his trance. Kimmuriel blinked open his eyes and looked at his student, his expression one of puzzlement. “Archmage?” he innocently asked. “What kind of fool do you take me to be?” Gromph said with deathlike flatness. A wave of panic rolled up through the normally composed psionicist, and he seriously considered teleporting from that room at once—though of course Gromph would chase him and find him. “Spare me your false accolades,” Gromph clarified, and it was all Kimmuriel could do to suppress a great sigh of relief. “I know I have failed this day.”

---

“It will grow easier,” Kimmuriel assured him. “These powers of the mind are new to you—I am amazed at the progress you have already made. Such psionic scrying is a difficult task for any, even an illithid, and that you can perform it at all is testament to your mental strength, and offers great hope that you will one day—one day soon, perhaps—attain psionic greatness to rival your arcane prowess.” The compliments performed as Kimmuriel had hoped, and Gromph eased back and visibly relaxed. And the kind words were only partly a lie, Kimmuriel knew, for Gromph was indeed powerful in mind magic —and as intelligent as any drow ever known. Intelligence alone didn’t guarantee psionic prowess—the brilliant Jarlaxle was quite fumbling with regard to the psionic powers, after all—but when one had that aptitude, as with Gromph, great intelligence would present great opportunity, a ceiling as high as the sky in the World Above. “Are you prepared to resume our sessions?” Kimmuriel asked.

---

He could hear their telepathic calls in his head, begging for instructions, and he knew that he controlled them. He could feel it. They would obey his every command. “Kill that one,” he instructed the others, pointing to what appeared to be the most aggressive of the group, and without hesitation, the other four fell over the targeted creature, bearing it to the floor with a tumbling crash. They tore it apart, appendage by appendage, leaving a smoking, melting husk on the floor. Gromph felt almost godlike, and he couldn’t suppress his grin as he considered the melding of psionics and arcane powers. He understood the mind flayers much better at that moment, and understood Kimmuriel as well, and wondered how his brother Jarlaxle could possibly control the psionicist of House Oblodra. ---- “Where is that creature you claim as a peer?” Gromph demanded. The one you consider your tutor? Jarlaxle thought, but very wisely did not say. “Seeking answers, I would hope.” “In the Abyss?” Jarlaxle nearly laughed out loud. “Where Kimmuriel always seeks his answers,” he replied. “At the hive-mind, of course. The illithids know everything in the multiverse, if one is to believe Kimmuriel.”

---

“You will tell me everything Kimmuriel learns,” the archmage said at length. “And when he returns, you will deliver him to me immediately.” “Deliver him?” Jarlaxle shrugged and offered a meek smile. “What?” Gromph demanded. “Kimmuriel is a leader of Bregan D’aerthe, dear Gromph, and as such, he is free to make his own choices,” Jarlaxle explained. “I will inform him of your desire to speak with him, but …” Gromph’s nostrils flared and for a heartbeat, Jarlaxle feared that he might have gone a bit too far in his overt backtracking. But Gromph quickly calmed—no doubt he reminded himself that he needed Bregan D’aerthe right now more than they needed, or feared, him. Jarlaxle could get word of Gromph’s whereabouts to Matron Mother Baenre very quickly, after all, and the mercenary leader had a good idea that Quenthel and Gromph were not on particularly good terms at this time. “I wish to speak with him,” Gromph said calmly. “Perhaps it would help if you would tell me why,” Jarlaxle offered. “Perhaps I might burn my explanation onto your naked back and leave you face down and dead on the floor for Kimmuriel to read.” “A simple no would have sufficed.” “Jarlaxle doesn’t take no for an answer.” “Hmm,” the mercenary leader snorted, and he shrugged, tipped his hat in concession, and walked away, muttering as he made his way through the haunted corridors of Illusk. Now he knew, without doubt, that Gromph blamed Kimmuriel for Demogorgon. “Ah, my tentacle-loving friend, what have you done?” Jarlaxle asked himself, but the question carried back no answers in its echoes.

---

“I will reduce him to ash,” the archmage promised, and there was no compromise or debate to be found in his tone. “Yes, dear Jarlaxle, do go find him.” All four of the others took a cautious step back from the sheer weight of the threat. “He was your instructor in what you most desired,” Jarlaxle dared to reply. “Was,” said Gromph. “And he betrayed me.” “You do not know that.” Gromph glared at him. “Am I to believe that mighty Gromph Baenre considers himself to have been used as a puppet by Kimmuriel?” Jarlaxle answered. “You think it was Kimmuriel who tricked you into casting a spell beyond your control, one that brought the great Demogorgon into the tower of Sorcere?” “There are many times when Jarlaxle speaks too much,” Gromph warned. “But that cannot be,” Jarlaxle pressed anyway. “How can Kimmuriel have had knowledge of that kind of power? To summon the Prince of Demons? Every matron mother in the city would have murdered her own children to find such a secret." ----

Kimmuriel shrugged. “These are strange times of unexpected occurrence, Archmage. I did not know that the invocation I helped you to sort out through the combination of magic arcane and psionic would bring Demogorgon to the Underdark, or that it would so damage the Faerzress as to give other mighty demons access to the corridors of Faerûn’s underworld. “Had I known that, surely I would have helped you to avoid that … trouble.” He shrugged again. “Come, Archmage. You will find the journey enlightening in ways you could not ever before imagine.” Gromph tapped his fingers together again, staring at this confusing drow. The hive-mind! From everything Gromph had ever learned regarding the mind flayers—and thanks to Methil El Viddenvelp, his knowledge of the subject was extensive—the illithid hive-mind was perhaps the greatest repository of knowledge and understanding of the multiverse in existence. He took Kimmuriel’s hand. ---

“Lower your defenses,” Kimmuriel urged him, audibly and in his mind. “The illithids have no reason to show you enmity. It was they who bid me to bring you.” Gromph looked at Kimmuriel with great suspicion, and thought for a moment that he had foolishly accepted the invitation, and that this, after all, might be no more than a ploy to eliminate a threat to Kimmuriel, who had long been favored by the squid-headed beasts. But Kimmuriel shook his head. “They would take no sides in our dispute, even if I so wished,” he said. “They would know with confidence that whichever of us proved the stronger would willingly work beside them, to learn from them as they learned from me, or you. “Lower your defenses, I beg,” he went on. “They cannot serve you here in any case, and hiding behind walls of useless wariness will only prevent you from experiencing the power of this place of ultimate knowledge.”

---

Gromph and Kimmuriel walked side by side through the passageways of Gauntlgrym, a host of dwarf guards directing them. King Bruenor hadn’t been pleased to see them, but at least they had come to see him properly, in accordance with Catti-brie’s wishes. Gromph hadn’t much noticed or cared. He had only come to this place now because of Kimmuriel’s insistence. Since he had accepted Kimmuriel as the official ambassador of the illithid hive-mind in the rebuilding of the tower, Kimmuriel’s wishes were no small thing. “It is an amazing insight, perhaps,” Kimmuriel offered as the party descended the long circular stair to the main chamber of the lower levels. “It is idiocy,” Gromph replied with calm confidence. The only thing preventing him from a complete explosion of outrage here were his most recent memories. Never had he felt such power flowing through him as when the illithid collective had sent the kinetic barrier to the waiting K’yorl. That had felt to Gromph to be the purest and most intense expression of intangible power he had ever experienced. In those moments of flowing perfection, he believed that he had come to know what it was like to be a god. ---

“Truly you wound me, my friend.”

“I wound you, but you’re to get me killed, beyond doubt,” said Kimmuriel.

“Gromph is not going to kill you,” Jarlaxle assured him. “After feeling the power of the illithid hive flowing through him to destroy Demogorgon, he is more likely to cast enchantments of love upon you than to lob fireballs your way.”

“Thrilling,” Kimmuriel dryly replied.

“He would give you a room at the Hosttower.”

“To be surrounded by insipid wizards and their limitations?”

Jarlaxle sighed in surrender.

[bright-tatters]

Tatters #33

Police Commissioner Minerva Dashden grounded her whole office. Not in the glittering Central office, but in the square, thick-walled fortress that squatted at the base of the slate-gray mountain between Lamps and Tatters.

The tall shelves crowded around her with their awards and baubles from thirty years on the force. Her favorite was the shoe-sized crystal model of the city from mountain to rivers. Travail was highlighted in police uniform blue. Directly behind her desk stood the weapons case: revolvers, a rifle, an assortment of dread grenades, a psionic screamer. Tools, some of which did irreparable damage to mind or body, some temporary measures to try first.

Someone knocked on the thick, steel door.

“Enter,” she yelled.

It was Piper. Boyish yet imposing Piper. Was this the conversation where he walked out? She'd wondered for the better part of a year. “Come in. Shut the door.”

“Sir.” He complied with his ready enthusiasm.

“I heard about our visitor from your patrol. What do you think of him?”

He sat on the low chair facing her. It took an absurd piece of furniture to keep her at a level above him. “I think he's serious,” he said.

“Any more info on the manufactory?”

“I think it’s owned locally.”

“Then who put it there? Fortune had a lockdown on the recipe. Where is his pet chemist?”

“‘Helping.’ The poor soul told us that much.”

“Damn. I guess it was too much to ask that the trade be destroyed by one bombing. So Fortune let his chemist go.”

“No,” Piper said roughly.

“Well, Vaughn Vaynor sure as hell isn't dead. Or living in Travail. So let go is the only option left.” Minerva sighed and rolled her muscular shoulders. “I do like getting criminals tied up with a bow. But the guy who made Vaughn is the root cause of so much more. He let this happen.”

“He offered to erase the entire operation!”

There it was. “So you've already spoken to him. And he's offered Fortune's patented solution: indiscriminate homicide. We're not using him.” She stood, getting even more height advantage. “Piper, I have some related advice. It would be better if you got a girlfriend.”

He bridled. “No.”

“Everyone knows what I know.” The reason she should just fire him. A bad apple spoiled the barrel. But she had never made concessions to the mastermind via Piper; the benefit was one way, if you didn't count Piper's endowment. The day Fortune asked her for a favor was the day she destroyed their link. Because she was in the right, and he chose not to be. “You're going to get caught and I will not defend you. I like being handed solved cases but I like imprisoning crime lords more. Please, make them all believe you're sleeping with a nice girl. If he burns you'll be burning with him.”

“A woman I don't want won't change that.”

“Piper, you're young. Not student young, but not graying, either. The romance of your musical days hasn't lost its luster. I'm here to tell you a secret: the luster isn't real. And love doesn't conquer all. It would barely penetrate the wall.”

“Tatters has no walls.”

“Because it's a lost cause. Photia always expected, in case of emergency, to let it burn. If I demand that you be careful, it's because I want you to stay alive and on my force. You're a good guy. You make Helen about ten times better and kid witnesses trust you. But in chasing Fortune you have no safety net. Take that seriously.”

“He offered to break the new manufactory.”

Minerva spiked an eyebrow. “Because when he does it it's okay?”

“He'd be saf—”

“Walk, man. I'm getting cranky.”

*

Piper adjusted his collar and looked around. Minerva was not one for jokes. She meant what she said about valuing him. She also meant what she said about letting him burn. He knew Fortune's proximity threatened her integrity. He knew a lot of things.

He swallowed. His breath wasn't coming right, no matter how he tried.

The wide open space of Travail HQ was studded with desks, with colleagues. The far wall was a mosaic of polished fragments of blue and clear glass. Automobile lamps, waste from the inner docks...Piper had suggested the project himself.

People looked at him. They all suspected. He fought for deeper breaths, aching. A girlfriend. Someone to hide the unbearable shame of his choices.

He knew the saying. A bad apple spoiled the barrel. Was he bad?

He sat at his desk and absently returned the affable (knowing?) greetings of a few peers. He pulled a sheet of paper and his best fountain pen. He used official blue.

Fortune:

When do I pay for these months? Our lives cannot support our moments, nor our moments our lives.

It has to end. Now, as of reading this. There is nothing between us. Nothing but our natural enmity. This is the only thing that can preserve my integrity, and you yours. Goodbye.

Constable Colm Poet

He stared at it until it was dry and his breath was coming normally again. So an hour or two. He folded it and slipped it into his coat. He didn’t mean to deliver it, but he needed the ghost scan to see what he had written when it checked his desk’s surface. The physical letter he could deal with later. He wanted to tear it into a million pieces, but not here.

[tea-with-eleni]

Hers was the first sentient blood you ever dared drink.

In truth, you don’t know why you did it. Perhaps it was just that you wanted to break as many of the chains he threw over your life as possible. Perhaps it was the way she looked at the world with such innocence that you found her irresistible. Perhaps she just had the misfortune of setting up her bedroll closest to yours.

You think you want her to wake up. You want her to see that she shouldn’t have been so ready to invite just anyone to travel with her — psionic connection or not, she allowed a predator into her camp on a few moments’ acquaintance. You want her to turn on you.

Of course, she doesn’t.

“I’m a little hurt you didn’t say something earlier,” she whispers with a soft smile. “I’d like to think I’m understanding, when it comes to things like blood demands. I told you, I think I’m the Dark Urge.” Her silver eyes look as red as yours in the firelight. The scars at her throat ripple a little when she swallows, hard. She is nervous, you can hear her pulse, but she also isn’t lying. She tugs at the laces of her shirt, pulling it a little away from her neck. “I trust you. Take what you need.”

She’s a fool. Or perhaps not — you also notice the fingers of her other hand twitch, beginning to gather the weave. She can call fire as intuitively as you can, part of your shared elven heritage. That actually calms you. If you do lose control, if her blood does overwhelm you, she’s ready to defend herself.

You accept her offer.

Nothing could have prepared you.

You thought, that first night, that nothing could compare to the game animals you stalked in the darkness. They were already so much better than the vermin he made you drink. It was the difference between peasant’s gruel and fresh buttered bread. If a boar is fresh bread to you… she is the richest cake, something worthy of a royal wedding. You aren’t sure if you believe the superstitions about sorcery being part of the blood, but it would explain a lot if it is. She tastes like power.

She has to ask you to stop, but you are able to draw back. You feel a little drunk. She presses her fingers to the oozing wounds at her throat with a slight wince. “I’ll feel that tomorrow,” she whispers. “Did it help?” She looks at you and her eyes narrow. She has seen her blood, still on your lips. She frowns slightly. “Did… No. You would have remembered.”

“Is something wrong, darling?”

She shakes her head. “I thought, for a moment… I don’t remember anything before the nautiloid. There’s just blood.”

You wish she hadn’t said that. As potent as she was, you do still need more. You can’t drain her dry. You make your excuses, though she seems lost in her own thoughts, and vanish into the night.

You hunt well.

It isn’t surprising that she comes to your tent before breakfast is even ready. She’s a little pale, a little less steady on her feet, and, oh yes, there are the marks from your teeth at her throat. “About last night.”

You raise an eyebrow. Part of you wants to convince her she dreamed the whole thing, but she isn’t angry. She’s far too understanding. You admit you aren’t a true vampire. She accepts it. Is she truly this accepting, or simply stupid?

“In the spirit of openness,” she says with a smile, “Your condition punishes you with weakness if you don’t drink blood. That’s straightforward enough to deal with, although I don’t think we’ll like the results if you just take mine. Especially since my blood calls for me to kill anyone and everyone and decorate the camp with their intestines. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s normal.” She says it so sweetly. Her posture, her expression, hells, your dim sense of her through your psionic connection… she’s serious.

You’re not sure how to respond to that.

You settle on what you already decided to say before she approached, that you’re happy to make meals of your little band’s many enemies. Perhaps the deaths of bandits and goblins will be enough for her as well, although you’d prefer her to keep the redecorating to a minimum. She agrees, although she sounds a little uncertain. You laugh and suggest maybe she could keep a skull or two around. Her smile turns teasing and she jokes about scaring you off, how she isn’t at all sure that she isn’t the bigger danger to camp. You assure her that you can still drain her if you have to. Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice of words.

The rest of your companions seem rattled, when they overhear your conversation. She defends you. She’s very good at persuading them. She does not mention the part where you technically threatened to kill her.

Over the next few days, you realize that she’s confided her own form of bloodthirst to several of your band already. None of them took her seriously. It unsettles her, how easily they brushed off her peculiarities. She asks you, when you have a quiet moment, how you deal with your own dark urges. You avoid the subject but her question stays with you.

[chinchillasinunison]

The poll I hosted the other day regarding Ishimondo Fakémons came out as "just post the written concepts now" by a 2/3s margin, so that's what I'm doing here. Name and Pokédex entry followed by an inspiration and appearance section. Feel free to draw them if you wish!

Uniformic: The Orderly Pokémon (Bug/Psychic)

These Pokémon can discharge and receive psionic waves through their large antennae, which is how they keep their colonies so precisely structured. When they forage for food on the surface, Uniformics tend to find the chaotic nature of the outside world frightful, so individuals will try to impose their standards onto others to little effect. The only exception to this is Toadstooligans, which Uniformics have developed a symbiotic relationship with.

On my "Kiyotaka is an ant" propaganda yet again. Not much to say about this one, just taking regular ant traits and giving them a little supernatural twist. In terms of appearance, Uniformic would honestly probably just be a cartoon ant with some Kiyotaka traits (big eyebrow-like antennae being the major one, and of course the eyes). I don't have much to say about this one.

Toadstooligan: The Pestilent Pokémon (Poison/Fairy)

These impish Pokémon will steal whatever tasty goodies they come across no matter the barrier between the two, often leaving destruction in their wake and sometimes hurting themselves in the process. Its discerning diet gives the jelly fungus that grows from its head a rich, buttery flavor when fresh. However, when consumed dry, it inflicts a hunger-induced blind rage. The thieving ways of a Toadstooligan can be halted by a Uniformic, which will keep it out of trouble in exchange for its delicious fungus.

Making Mondo a fungus and Kiyotaka an ant that feeds on it is inspired by leafcutter ants, who cultivate fungus as food (and a certain other ant-fungal relationship that we'll get to later), but there's another fungal species that Toadstooligan takes after: witches' butter. Firstly, yeah, it's a butter joke, but I've put thought into it beyond that, okay? In Swedish folklore, the devil gives witches a cat called a carrier, which steals food for the witch (typically butter). Sometimes, the carrier stuffs itself too full in its eagerness to please its master and vomits some of its cargo on its way back home, which is where the fungus comes from. The whole idea of being part of this cycle of crime that's actively harming you but still participating anyway is very Mondo to me. Appearance-wise, I'm picturing a wooden doll/puppet thing (because it grows on rotten wood) with some cat-like features (like the way the piece of wood for the head was cut looks kinda like cat ears or a branch tail) and the witches' butter as the pompadour.

Whorlyceps: The Spiraling Pokémon (Poison/Psychic)

This evolution is the result of a Uniformic outlasting its Toadstooligan companion. Any spores inside its stomach dry out all at once, engulfing it in directionless fury and ravenous hunger. It will run itself in circles trying to find its typical food source, with its psychic abilities sending nearby Pokémon into similar senseless spirals until it faints from exhaustion.

Before you say anything: yes, cordyceps have been done in Pokémon before, but this is a bit of a different angle. Both pieces of this evolutionary line take inspiration from different ant-fungal relationships to establish the contrast between them and tell a story about how a relationship can help and hurt in equal measure. There's also the inspiration of ant mills, something I've compared Ishida as an unhealthy coping mechanism to before. It's a phenomenon in which army ants lose their way due to an outside trigger and start running in a continuous circle after each other until they die of exhaustion. Whorlyceps is definitely fucked up looking, bleached white dry spores all over and spiral motifs (in particular, the eye flames curling into spirals).

[victoria-vd]

//screw it, Astra

// Ooh, Astra! I gotta think abt this one hmm

I think Astra tends to range between 1 (Tolerable) and -2 (Nuisance). She enjoys engaging conversations with her, especially concerning differences in psionics or discussing differences between universes. But there are times where she may come across one of Astra’s posts in the wild and roll her eyes or raise an eyebrow. But if she sees a take that she personally disagrees with, she does this wonderful thing of just scrolling away. Not worth wasting her time and energy arguing online, there’s better things to be doing with her life.

[sdj-official-fictive]

I love the psionic eyebrow

I can't get rid of the picture of Jean sorry

JEAN DIE FOR ME PLEASE. I am gonna spit on him. Also wjejwkdksksk Pissfaggot-Bibi

[ixmelodix]

Sollux: Climb

Erisol Week Day 7 - Ascend

[This one got long, whoops ^^;

This takes place just before Chapter 9 (Sollux: Hope).

Recommended listening: Touch the Sky (feat. Matt Wertz) - Generdyn]

-----------

“Have you ever been up there?”

Eridan looked up to where Sollux was pointing. “Up... what, on the mast?”

“Yeah. There's a platform up there, isn't there?”

“The crow's nest. It's not a 'platform'.”

Sollux stuck his tongue out at the seadweller; Eridan rolled his eyes in return. “It looks like a platform, it is a platform, just a platform with a fancy name.”

“Platforms don't have walls.”

“Some do!”

Eridan shoved the other with an elbow to the ribs. “For fuck's sake, Sol, quit bein' such a dumbass,” he growled; but there was no real anger in it, and Sollux knew it.

“When you stop being a self-righteous prick,” the yellowblood responded, sidestepping the second attempt at a shove. “You haven't answered the question.”

“What- oh. If I'd been up there, right?” Eridan let the argument go. “Once.”

“Just once?”

“What do you think I am, some kind 'a cat? I don't feel the need to climb everythin' in sight, thank you very much. Once was plenty.”

Sollux allowed the silence to stretch after Eridan's response for a few moments, concentrating on the road as they approached the seadweller's ship.

“Why?” Eridan finally asked, when Sollux didn't seem inclined to say anything more.

“Dunno. Just curious, I guess. Seemed like something you would've had fun with, as a wriggler, you know? You were all kinds of nautical obssessed, you can't tell me you never wanted to play lookout?”

Eridan shrugged, looking away. “Seahorsedad wouldn't let me up it, when I was real little, an' I guess by the time I was older it didn't really have all that much appeal,” he replied; but there was something in his tone that made Sollux narrow his eyes.

“Why wouldn't he let you up there?” he asked, trying to probe out what exactly it was.

Eridan turned to him with an eyebrow raised. “Your lusus let you go climbin' around on thin's a hundred feet in the air when you were little?”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

The seadweller snorted. “Yeah, so. No. Just cause he could fly didn't mean he wanted to be rescuin' my ass when I got stuck up there.”

“...when?”

Sollux watched with interest as Eridan half-choked and flushed brightly.

“I- if, fuckin' hell, if!”

“You said when. ...Actually, you said 'when you got stuck'. That pretty heavily implies you did.” Sollux raised a brow.

Eridan refused to look over at him and hurried his steps. “Well, would you look at that, seems like it's comin' on rain or somethin', we'd better focus on gettin' back- gah!”

Sollux snickered at the entirely undignified noise Eridan made when he was abruptly stopped by the red and blue of Sollux's psionics. “Oh no, you don't. There's not a cloud in the fucking sky.”

Eridan huffed and crossed his arms.

“So, want to tell me about how you got stuck up there?”

“Fuck off.”

“Rude. No. Spill.”

“Fuck you!”

Sollux didn't respond to that one; just watched the petulant seadweller and waited.

“Will you just let me go?” Eridan asked after a bit of (what he probably thought was) surreptitious wiggling to test the psionics holding him.

“When you answer the question.”

Eridan narrowed his eyes. “Your answer is no, now let me go.”

Sollux had to mentally rewind the conversation to make sense of that answer; when he realized how he'd phrased the question, he sighed. Of course Eridan would answer the letter and not the spirit of it.

“Fine, fine, keep your secrets. Whatever,” he grumbled, keeping his word and releasing his control over the psionics even if the answer wasn't what he wanted.

Eridan made a show of dusting himself off before resuming walking in silence.

----

Sollux had long since relegated the mystery of the crow's nest to the 'forever unsolved' category by the time, a perigree later, that he came out onto the deck to find Eridan staring up the mast.

The yellowblood stopped where he was to watch, confused but curious, as the seadweller hesitantly touched, then gripped, the lowest rungs of the ladder that led up the mast.

Is he going to-?

He was.

Sollux raised his eyebrows as Eridan slowly but surely pulled himself up rung after rung, testing each to be sure it would hold his weight before committing to it.

His pace slowed drastically as he got higher, almost halfway up the mast now; and then the wind started to pick up, and Eridan stopped entirely.

Sollux frowned, squinting. It didn't look like he was just waiting for the wind to die down or anything, it looked like he was...

“Just cause he could fly didn't mean he wanted to be rescuin' my ass when I got stuck up there,” Eridan had said.

But how would he have gotten stuck on a ladder?

Unless...

He was scared.

Things snapped into place in Sollux's mind. Eridan's bluster, his discomfort, his avoidance of the topic; the determined refusal to talk about it...

The way he clung to the mast above, swaying fifty feet in the air - eyes squeezed shut, Sollux now saw as he rose closer on sparking red and blue - like it was going to drop him and he would splatter to the ground below.

As he rose even with the other, Sollux reached out with his psionics to surround Eridan - not taking his weight, not yet, but keeping a cushion there in case he had to quickly. “Hey, ED, you okay?”

Eridan startled violently and almost lost his grip in twisting to look at the source of the noise; the yelp of pure terror that that provoked immediately crushed any desire Sollux might have ever had to tease him about any of this.

“S-sol-? Wh-what, how-w-”

Sollux let the sparking psionics behind Eridan take up just a little of his weight now in a way he knew the other would be able to feel it, without removing Eridan's own control over his position. “Easy. It's okay, I can get you if you need it,” he said soothingly, floating a little closer.

Eridan's fins were flattened against his skull; Sollux doubted the wind, however strong it was up here, had anything to do with their position. The seadweller's hands spasmed on the rung they were clutching, and he squeezed his eyes shut again, forehead against the wood of the mast. “I... wh-what are you...”

“I saw you climbing,” Sollux replied, guessing that that was probably what Eridan was trying to ask. “And then you stopped, and I was worried. Are you okay? Do you want me to get you down?”

“...you're not laughin'...?”

Sollux kept his sigh strictly mental and floated close enough that he could gently rest a hand on Eridan's shoulder. “No. Why would I laugh?”

“'Cause a s-stupid fuckin' w-wriggler can't e'en manage t'climb 'is ow-wn fuckin' m-mast w-without cryin' like a f-fuckin' grub...?”

Sollux blinked and looked a little closer - and yes, there they were, little tracks of water filigreeing along Eridan's cheeks with the wind.

“There's nothing to laugh about in any of this, Eridan,” he replied quietly, moving his hand from the seadweller's shoulder to his upper back. “There's nothing to be ashamed of.”

Eridan hiccupped but didn't respond, his forehead still pressed against the mast.

“I mean it, Eridan. If it had been me, without my psionics, I would've started freaking out five feet off the fucking ground. It's not some sort of failing in you that you aren't a squirrel or something to not care how high up you are.”

He thought he caught a sniffle; he knew he caught the way the other's fins fluttered a little, even against the wind.

“You... really...?”

“Yeah. Heights are fucking terrifying, all right? There's nothing weird about that.”

Now Eridan dared to open his eyes again, meeting Sollux's; his expression was the most open and vulnerable Sollux thought he'd ever seen it.

“Do you want me to get you down?” Sollux asked again, gently.

This time, Eridan visibly seemed to think about it.

“...You... you can? You're sure...?”

Sollux bit back the urge to snark. “Yeah. Positive.”

Eridan swallowed, gaze flickering between Sollux and the mast, seemingly trying to make a decision. Sollux waited him out.

“...U-um... maybe, just... after...?”

“...'After'?”

“...after we, I... get to the top?”

Sollux blinked, feeling a little stunned. All of this, and Eridan wanted to... keep going?

“Holy shit, ED, seriously? You want to keep going?”

Eridan wouldn't meet his eyes; Sollux suspected that, if the wind hadn't already brought all the color to his cheeks that they could handle, Eridan would be blushing at that.

“...yeah?” the seadweller answered quietly.

“...Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Do you-”

But before he could even finish his sentence to ask if he wanted him to carry him up there, Eridan swallowed hard; shifted his weight; released and flexed first one, then the other hand; and then resumed climbing.

Sollux watched in astonishment, keeping pace as Eridan continued to move up the mast; fear was etched in his every tense muscle and flickering fin, but the seadweller overcame it with sheer determination, eyes fixed on the now rapidly approaching base of the crow's nest above.

Eridan didn't stop until he reached it; and even then it was only because he clearly wasn't sure how to get through the opening on his own. But Sollux read the question in the look the seadweller sent his way; he answered it by gently bolstering the other up, catching his weight while Eridan scrabbled at, then managed to grab, the metal handles set in the floor for this very purpose.

He didn't release his psionic grip until Eridan was well away from the hatch and leaning against the outer wall; landing on the platform himself, he crouched down next to the violetblood, out of the wind. “That was amazing, Eridan,” he said quietly, smiling a little at the startled look he received. “I mean it. You did all that, even though you were scared? That's fucking amazing.”

Eridan looked away, hunching in on himself; but his fluttering fins spoke volumes. “It... it w-wasn't, really...”

“Bullshit.” But his tone was affectionate, and he reached out to take one of Eridan's freezing hands in his. “It's really fucking cold up here, though, and I don't really feel like being turned into a trollsicle, so, can we go back now?”

Eridan swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah. Let me, um... let me just... look, first, though?”

Sollux nodded in turn and stood, reaching out a hand to help the seadweller up; Eridan took it with both of his, and the two of them managed to get him upright, though he stumbled a bit into the yellowblood in the process.

“...Shit, Sol, you are freezin',” he said, startled. “I, I'm sorry-”

“Shut up. No apologies,” Sollux cut him off, then grinned. “You can make it up to me with something hot to eat when we get back down.”

“...Deal.” Eridan nodded, then turned a little to look around.

His expression as he took in the (admittedly pretty amazing) view from up here was so precious that Sollux wanted to box it up and treasure it forever.

“Wow...” Eridan whispered, his waver gone in his wonder. “It's... beautiful.”

Not as much as you, Sollux thought - then caught himself in that thought and hurriedly backpedaled. “Yeah, seeing everything from up here is pretty cool, right?” he managed, trying very hard to pretend he hadn't just been thinking of something entirely different.

“'Cool' is an understatement.” Eridan sighed a little in pleasure, expression soft and wondering as he looked out to where the first moon was just beginning to dip into the ocean to the west. “I... cod, this is amazin'.”

“...was that a fish pun?” Sollux couldn't help but ask, humor bubbling up.

Eridan's face was too flushed in the wind to show any more blushing, but the way his fins flipped down and fluttered broadcast his embarrassment just fine without it. “Fuckin'- look, it wasn't intentional! Quit laughin'!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Sollux replied, doing his best to stop. “It's, it's cute, really, that's all.”

Eridan huffed and turned away, crossing his arms.

“I'm sorry, okay?” Sollux reached out to gently turn him around again with a hand on his shoulder. “Blame it on the thin air or whatever, it's fine. But I'm getting really cold now, and I'm pretty sure trollsicles don't have psionics, so...”

“Okay, fine, geez. Can't even let a troll get a good look around,” Eridan griped; but when Sollux held out his hands, Eridan took them without hesitation. He kept his eyes fixed on the yellowblood's face as psionics lifted both of them out of the basket-like crow's nest and floated them both to the deck of the ship below - probably so that he didn't freak out, Sollux suspected - and didn't let go until Sollux himself did after they both had solid footing again.

“...Thanks, Sol,” the seadweller said quietly once they stepped apart, eyes on his hands as he rubbed a cramp out of the muscles of one with the other.

Sollux smiled, and guided the shorter troll inside with an arm around his shoulders. “No problem, ED - but next time, get me first, okay? I don't want to wake up to splattered seadweller soufflee.”

Eridan snorted and let himself be steered inside. “Nice as that view was, I don't think there'll be a next time. Once is enough.”

Sollux resisted the urge to point out that he'd said that last time, by telling himself Eridan probably hadn't actually made it all the way to the nest as a wriggler before getting 'stuck'; and instead just turned both of their steps to the stairs down into the kitchen. “Now, I do believe I was promised something to warm up...”