#really some people get so triggered over the fact that we are inconsequential

[beware-thecrow]

i really don't think telling someone they are just one more out of 8 billion people aka they are not special bcs no one is, is this great offensive take some people think it is.

[my-mt-heart]

Since reviews of le spinoff S1 are dropping tonight/tomorrow, I wanted to go over my plans and expectations for the next 6 weeks one last time. I figured it’d be easier to put it all in one place rather than answer a bunch of individual asks.

First of all, I’m not watching. And I know I’ve said that so many times, it must be annoying at this point, but in case anyone thought I was bluffing or might change my mind, nope. I know what Daryl Dixon represents to me and I want to hold onto that as best as I can. How do I know he’s going to be retconned? Because the promotion is telling me so. Everything’s different? Don’t need to watch the flagship show to follow Daryl’s story? Daryl can build his own family just like Rick? He can be loyal to anyone he meets? Wanting to get back to his real family is “the wrong reason” for his mission? There was no plan for Daryl and Carol to go to New Mexico together? Get off the stage, Greg. All of that is clearly trying to appeal to new viewers or Norman stans who will follow him anywhere, not the built-in audience.

I started the campaign for Melissa because as JDM and Greg Nicotero are once again proving, not nearly enough people were on her side. I want to continue showing my support, and I don’t believe watching the first season of a show she was unfairly pushed out of helps me do that. There are a few people I trust to give me their thoughts on it. One of them is @lighteneverything whose reviews I will be sure to share every week. I’ll talk about anything Carol/Caryl related if it comes up, and I’ll share my own thoughts on some big picture stuff when the season is over.

As far as Carol/Caryl go, I expect very little. I think, based on the promotion or lack thereof, AMC is putting all of their stock in Carol’s appearance alone, meaning they want the relief of seeing her again to distract us from the fact that her role in the first season—despite possible vague references here and there—is pretty inconsequential. I think what little screentime she has will be a cold comfort considering the show was supposed to be hers too. But I’ll wait to find out what that actually looks like before I say more 🙄

I expect SM to be an absolute nightmare. The media and the fans who love to hate Carol/Caryl will have a field day with everything we find triggering and reviews will lean into the positives. I think the ratings for the pilot will be significantly better than DC’s, but we’ll see what happens after that.

I’m saying all of this so that hopefully anyone who’s nervous won’t be caught off guard. I know Caryl’s story is important and deeply personal to so many of us, so fuck all of the entitled assholes who used this show for their own purposes instead of catering to an audience that’s been loyal to them for over a decade. Please reach out to me if you ever need to vent. If you think the show is going to be enjoyable for you, then you can ignore me. I hope you get what you want out of it.

My hope is that we’ll be able to put this mess behind us soon, so we can just look forward to the stories that Carol, Daryl, Caryl, and all of their fans really deserve.

[melonteee]

It literally is the reason why a lot of people seem to like OPLA Sanji more, since they only associate him with the perv gag, not remember there were almost no pervy scenes with him at all, up until like Thriller Bark?

Your friends words about Sanji's flirting not being realistic hence it's easy to find cute and charming is so on point! The fact that he never demands anything from the women, he just does it because he likes it, seperates him from most irl men and ironically, the LA version of him was kind of what I feared Sanji would be before starting the series.

However, I completely also understand why a lot of women would dislike Sanji after Thriller Bark since while his flirting and behaviour were cartoonish and over-the-top before, the entitlement to women's bodies, even in the context of a "joke", is very real and can also be triggering.

The Clear-Clear Fruit/peeping joke is something I've never come to understand, it comes completely out of left field and I feel like it just doesn't make sense for his character, or what his character is supposed to be, at all. He loves women and he is really kind, but wanting to invade their privacy just to perv is the most selfish thing in the world. Gags are supposed be just that; gags. They're supposed to be inconsequential, like Zoro getting lost or even Brook's panty joke, not a fan of it either but it makes sense in the context of his character; he was alone for so long he completely forgot what is socially acceptable and what isn't, which in the end, is just really sad.

But I just never understood the point of Sanji suddenly wanting to peep on women, like WHEN did this happen? I was fully expecting it to be explained in WCI, that he wanted to be invisible because of the abuse he experienced every day and later he would just make it into something "lighter" as a coping mechanism but, not really? It was just left up in the air and I guess we will never know, maybe it was an editorial demand or Oda just wanted to appeal more to boys, I don't know.

I'm sorry this is so ranty I'm still just so pressed about it because I love Sanji dearly and I just really dislike the fact that this joke has completely overtaken his character in some people's minds and I GET why. It is a valid reason not to like him and I just wish Oda had never included it, there were way better ways to make him pervy if he wanted to go down that route with him. OPLA discourse has just made me think about it again and I guess the silver lining is that people are finding Sanji charming again, which is the way he is supposed to be.

Sanji does shoot himself in the foot a lot lol, and I totally understand why Sanji makes people uncomfortable so I never hold it against them or anything. Like yeah it's weird he wanted the clear clear fruit to be a perv, but when you see him reading the book of devil fruits as a kid in Germa, you can also have your own idea that he's definitely compensating for uh...being un-wanted LMAO.

It depends how you take his scenes I guess, one thing I will say is I can make him worse.

[pridepages]

Shouldding On Ourselves

I just finished Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

Forbidden romance is a trope that tantalizes readers. Lots of us want to be teased with a bite of the forbidden fruit--and Meryl Wilsner’s Mistakes Were Made is a juicy one!

Mistakes is the story of Cassie Klein, a college senior who meets Erin Bennett, a sexy older woman, at a bar. The two hook up in the parking lot and part ways, fully expecting never to see each other again. Imagine their consternation when they meet again at breakfast and discover that Cassie’s best friend is Erin’s daughter! Erin and Cassie know there are plenty of reasons for them to stop this disaster right here. But what starts as addictively mind-blowing sex deepens into an illicit romance. What will happen when their friends and family discover the truth?

Titillating taboo keeps readers along for the ride. But woven between each steamy sapphic sex scene are themes of desire and repression, particularly how they impact women in our society. To be raised as a woman is to be raised with expectations by the world that we learn to internalize and dictate to ourselves: “Oh, I want chocolate cake. But I shouldn’t have dessert.” “I want to lie on the couch all day, but I really should catch up on my chores.” “I don’t want to wear a dress, or makeup, or shave my legs. But I should look groomed.”

On and on it goes.

This insidious little word--should--triggers a learned response to ignore our natural desires. It seems inconsequential, but the repercussions can be serious and lifelong. 

One fateful day I was out at a party with friends. We were talking about our romantic histories, people we found attractive, etc. Suddenly, our resident bi queen turned to me and asked me point blank: “Are you queer?”

And my response was: “I don’t know.” Not a definitive “No.” I didn’t know. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that I was even allowed to ask myself that question.

That day led to some long conversations in therapy. Ones about my relationships with friends, family, and even myself. At one point, my counselor stopped me and said: “You say ‘should’ a lot. You talk about the ways you ‘should’ be feeling instead of the ways you actually feel. Fuck ‘should.’ Stop shouldding on yourself!”

That was life-changing advice. 

I stopped shouldding on myself. I forced myself to redirect every time I started to spiral over worries that I wasn’t measuring up, that I wasn’t believable in my identity, that what I wanted for my life was wrong.

So you can imagine me cheering Erin right along when she says: “Fuck should. It doesn’t matter what I’ve been trained to think I’m ‘supposed’ to do. What do I want? What makes me feel good? What will make my relationships stronger? Those are the questions that matter. Not what should I do.”

It’s not perfect. I still feel those terrible urges to please, to say the ‘right’ thing, to get an A in living my life like that’s a thing that’s possible to do. But I take comfort and courage from the fact that I’m not the only one working on unlearning this tic. Consider: during the lockdowns of the COVID 19 pandemic, a wave of women came out of the closet. Many factors probably contributed to that. But I’m willing to bet that at least one was the fact that--shut up in isolation with fewer obligations to distract and no other voices shouldding them down--many opened themselves back up to their dormant inner voices. Women began relearning how to identify their natural desires. Surprise! At least some of those desires were gay as hell!

I salute the courage of the late bloomers who have come out of the closet even if it meant upending their life. Defying the expectations of others, making choices that can even hurt others, is a frightening thing when we’re taught to prioritize everyone else over ourselves. But, like Erin, we need to remember that our courage can be a model for the ones who need it most. As Erin tells her daughter: “I want you to do anything you want to. It’s your choice...You get to find out what’s right for you. You get to make mistakes along the way. It’s your life.”

There’s no ‘right’ way to be twenty-one years old, or thirty-eight years old, or any other age along the road. Each life is a beautiful, unique work of art. But we have to remember: not every person is going to love every artwork out there. “Sometimes we have to do things that make us uncomfortable for people we love.” That’s ok. It’s your life. It’s your masterpiece.

So go out there and do whatever the hell you want. And, for the love of god, stop shouldding on yourself!

[bookwyrminspiration]

TW// Drugs n such

you asked for it smh, but I've been thinking a lot about that one scene in Neverseen in Exilliums healing tent (or whatever its called)

I had a whole rant here about what the implication of this 'serum' might mean in the lost cities but it kinda spiraled into nothing so I'm cutting it out. (main point was just the mood towards drugs, Shannon has had previous mentions of both alcohol and drunk people, so (though im not saying she should incorporate this into a middle grade book series a t a l l), Id be curious to see her take on drugs, (if they exist and how they effect people and the elven population // how is it treated? Is it looked down upon or even forbidden (why we might only see it in Exillium territories) or is it so normal and inconsequential that its just part of the norm in the lost cities?

but anyway, back to the thing I was originally thinking of - i feel like this is something rarely talked about but pls tell me I'm not the only one who has picked up on how weird Keefe's relationship with sedatives is. It's such a contrast to Sophie, where she's openly opposed to taking any type of sedative he seems to be really open to them, in fact in Unlocked every time he's knocked out by a sedative his language is pretty much always positive, like he really enjoys it. This probably just ties into something you mentioned a while back about Keefe and dealing with stuff by running away but I find it really interesting.

(Sorry if this is an uncomfortable ask to get, I know not everyone is comfortable with drug talk and I hope this Isn't overstepping a line.)

you're fine, don't worry! no lines overstepped. I appreciate you including the warning at the top, even though I'm alright talking with the subject. if there's something I'm uncomfortable with, that's not on you to know or worry about because I haven't shared any of my specific triggers, and the more anxiety-inducing ones are so specific to my personal experiences that I highly doubt they'll ever have any effect on any conversation ever. but I do genuinely appreciate your concern <33

I don't remember specifically what I asked for, but this is a topic I hadn't even realized was so fascinating, so thank you for bringing it up! That scene is kinda funny (as in weird) looking back on it, but Keefe was completely out of it and being a lot more vulnerable than he probably wanted to be due to his state of mind. I think it was intended to mirror something like anesthesia or laughing gas (note: in my brief research trying to find info about the boobrie dude I made a mental comparison between tam and sandor, so I'm just making note of it here so I don't forget), at least as far as Keefe's reaction goes. I think part of this was strategic so that we could get some information and vulnerability (although unwillingly) from Keefe and get that first glimpse of "the boy beneath all that swagger" (paraphrased from Sophie). But that's not what your ask is about so I'll move on before I get even more distracted.

wine, at the very least, exists in the lost cities. we've got fizzleberry wine, which is blamed by some for Caprise Redek's accident. Aside from that we've seen no mention of it, as this is a middle grade series about a young teen girl in a fantasy world, and in a "perfect" world there isn't a lot of talk about recreational substances. And I agree with you! this isn't to say that I think drugs and alcohol should be this huge thing in keeper or that it even needs to be address, just commenting that the attitude the general public has towards substances and intoxication is likely even more severe in the elven world, as has been the pattern with other things. We can tell from Caprise's incident that their wine functions similar if not identical to ours, as it was said to have impaired her motor control and thinking, hence how she fell off that balcony. So I think we could assume that drugs in the Lost Cities would be similar to those in the Forbidden Cities in function. Not in name though, likely named after some strange elven thing. Though if we go with the wine example, Fizzleberry is likely an exact description of what it is--the wine probably fizzes and is made from berries.

the elves highly value the mind, so I anticipate that anything that messes with it past beneficial medicinal uses prescribed by a physician are frowned upon. they think of your mental capacity and capabilities as integral to who you are, and composure as essential. drugs take that away and can impair your reasoning, hence my conclusion they're not well liked. however, I propose that this mindset is mostly those who are very proper, for example Lord Cassius. Dex was more than ready to take concentration serums of his own making--and convinced Sophie to take one (note: dex has almost killed both Sophie and Fitz. that can't be fun to know)--which directly messed with his limbic center. However, as he was raised in an apothecary and is already a little less in line with all other elvin values, I don't think him being an outlier is enough to completely through out my assumption. overall: looked down upon because it messes with the mind and the mind is crucial to elven society, and the way it impairs your thinking would make you a lesser person

and you're right! keefe's relationship with sedative is weird. we have this teenager who grew up without stable supports or a loving family having very little regard for how substances will effect his body, prioritizing the possible--not guaranteed, possible--benefits over all the risks. this is not to say drug use is inherently bad, just that the situation he's in makes me very cautious because he feels more at risk of falling into bad habits. also, your observation about tying that into him running away is very astute! i've talked a lot about him running away from his problems in more ways that physical, and I think this is an excellent example of that

he doesn't like his reality, the world he lives in when he's awake and aware and lucid. it's full of all these problems and people and he doesn't know what to do. but when he's asleep? he doesn't have to deal with any of that. he doesn't have to do anything, but he's also troubled enough and anxious enough that sleep doesn't always come easy, and he can be plagued by nightmares. but those sedatives mess with his mind and not only make him sleep faster and longer, but they can mess with your dreams and alter the reality you experience while asleep. i guess it could be a way of trying to take control of a situation he had very little control over, especially in unlocked when everyone else was trying to fix things without consulting him. with his waking world that bad, of course he's gonna like anything that takes him away from it.

it stands out especially when we switch to him as a narrator and he's praising these things and wanting to be sedated, as we've spent so long in Sophie's head and she's so against them from the trauma she experienced in the first book. that could mean his attitude them is more jarring just because we're used to Sophie and it wouldn't seem as dramatic if we'd switched from say, Fitz's head. but that doesn't mean there's nothing here.

i think i've said it before, but Keefe doesn't have any healthy coping strategies right now that he consistently relies on. his deference towards avoidance and making the problem go away, even if it's just in feeling induced by drugs, is a more extreme example of how he doesn't know how to just exist without hurting.

I jumped around a bit between topics so if I missed something you wanted to talk about more in depth please feel free to send another ask! Keefe's relationship to experiencing reality is fascinating and covers things from denial and refusal to change all the way to drugs and literally altering the way his brain perceives reality. This boy is on a collision course with destruction in both body and mind.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pandemics and peak indifference

When I think about our historical, profound shifts in attitude and discourse, the model I apply is "peak indifference."

Say you have real, existential problem. More often than not, these are systemic problems, and those are the hardest problems.

https://locusmag.com/2016/07/cory-doctorow-peak-indifference/

Not just because systemic problems involve collective action (you can't recycle your way out of climate change), but because the cause-and-effect relationships of systemic problems can't be easily known, so it's hard to know what you need to do to avert the problem.

Systemic problems pose a third difficulty: they enrich small minorities, and those minorities can exploit causal ambiguity to deliberately sow doubt.

To make that more concrete: think about cancer-tobacco denial.

Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. When it does give you cancer, the tumor comes years after the puff that damages your genes. There's lots of social pressure to smoke, and getting your friends to quit is even harder than quitting yourself.

And on top of all of it, the tobacco industry made tons of money from giving us cancer, and they could use some of that to fund doubt-merchants who deliberately worsened the difficulty in linking smoking and cancer.

https://timharford.com/2015/04/cigarettes-damn-cigarettes-and-statistics/

But denial doesn't make problems disappear - it just incurs policy debt, and the interest on that debt is human suffering. Climate inaction, tobacco inaction, and inequality inaction only delay the day of reckoning, and make it worse when it arrives.

That's where peak denial comes in. Over time, the mounting harms from policy debt make it harder and harder to deny the problem, At a certain point - long before we take action - the number of people who deny the problem starts to decline.

This happens naturally, without any need for activist urging. The problem is that the natural peak denial point is often several steps beyond the point of no return. And that's when denial slides into nihilism:

Here's what nihilism looks like:

"Well, I guess these things *did* give me stage 4 lung cancer after all. No point in quitting now."

or

"You were right, rhino populations are in danger! But since there's only one left, let's find out what he tastes like?"

That's why we can't wait for peak denial to arise on its own, why we must hasten its arrival - because we want people to engage with systemic problems *before* the point of no return.

That's where storytelling comes in.

Stories are a fuggly hack, an illusion played on our empathy, wherein we're fooled into caring about the literally inconsequential fate of made-up people (your breakfast yogurt's death was more tragic than Romeo and Juliet's, for it was once alive).

https://locusmag.com/2014/11/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/

But still, made up stories that make vivid and visceral the consequences of inaction can spur us into action, can create a vocabulary for discussing the lived experience of people in a future that has not yet arrived.

Even better than stories, though, are *histories*, the real stories of real people who really suffered through real experiences comparable to those that we face on our horizon. Hence "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

We're very good at forgetting history. The arrival of the covid pandemic was filled with stories of the dimly remembered 1918 influenza pandemic. Our failure to heed those warnings triggered tales of its brutal second wave the following winter.

Herp derp.

Starting in 1968, successive US presidents began to dismantle Glass-Steigel, a corrective put in place after a horrendous finance sector collapse that triggered the Great Depression and WWII. Not one president heeded historians' warnings about the consequences.

Derp.

Dismantling the checks on finance led to successive, worsening crises followed by crushing austerity a deepening inequality. Historical warnings about how this cycle ends with guillotines and Reichstag fires were ignored.

Derp derp derp.

The ideology of finance is a subset of right-wing thought, defined by Corey Robin (in "The Reactionary Mind") as the belief that some people are born to rule, while the rest are born to be ruled over.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-reactionary-mind-9780190692001

This belief has many guises (Dominionism, imperialism, racism, monarchism, fascism, libertarianism) but they all boil down to one thing: eugenics.

It's one thing to believe that markets are meritocratic during a moment of dynamism, when the low-born can rise to riches.

But when their offspring pull up the ladder and social mobility halts, "meritocracy" becomes hereditary: markets elevate the best people, and the best people are all descended from the wealthy, so the wealthy must be of better stock (cue Trump and his talk of "good blood").

Eugenics was once a mainstream American doctrine, and American eugenicists inspired Nazi "race science." But after the Holocaust, eugenics fell into disrepute and we dropped it down the same memory hole that the 1918 flu disappeared into.

But eugenics made a comeback under another guise: the "human capital theory," which holds that markets reward us in proportion to our value to society, and thus the CEO is paid 10,000x more than the janitor because the CEO provides 10,000x more value to the human project.

Eugenics isn't just repugnant, it's also wrong. To understand why, you have to understand how desirable traits are social, not isolated in individuals.

Blair Fix's essay on the link between eugenics and human capitol theory is a must-read:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/01/14/the-rise-of-human-capital-theory/

By way of illustration, Fix describes geneticist William Muir's experiments with improving chicken egg-production through artificial selection, in which he only bred the best layers. The result? A disaster. Egg-laying plummeted.

It plummeted because laying isn't an isolated trait. Chickens that produced the most eggs did so by bullying other chickens out of *their* feed and resources. Selecting for laying selected for bullying and aggression and led to endless chicken-fights and no eggs.

When Muir bred another flock of chickens based on a *group*'s ability to lay, THEN he got his eggs. Egg-laying is a social process.

This story will be familiar to anyone who's worked in a stack-ranked software development shop.

Software managers have long noted that some coders can turn in 10X or even 100X more code than their median colleagues. But attempts to build "superstar" teams that fired all the median programmers end in chaos and destruction.

If your 100X programmer is such a dick that no one can work with them, then their aptitude is irrelevant - you'll never ship.

I assume there are analogies to this in the sporting world, but I am vastly unqualified to discuss sports of any kind.

Despite the bankruptcy of human capital theory, the systemic dangers it posed, and the obvious fact that it was just eugenics dressed up as economics, the theory festered for decades, poisoning our worlds.

The C-suites of every major company are filled with hens whose egg-laying prowess is the result of their suppression of their peers' efficacy - while others whose social integration make them far more productive are relegated to worse jobs or forced out altogether.

The lockdown provoked squeals of outrage from the world's wealthiest people, who insisted that the factories be re-opened. As the slogan of the day went, "If a billionaire needs you to go to work to maintain his fortune, then you are the source of that fortune - not him."

We can't afford to be indifferent to any of our systemic problems any more: not climate science, nor inequality, nor monopoly, nor the lurking eugenics that justifies it all.

[ryouverua]

I've some bitter thoughts about Rika and how damaging her actions (or.. inactions) were to Satoko in Gou but it's weird- dunno how to say it without it coming out like she 'deserved all the hell she got' (when that's not the point at all). Hanyu warned her about /exactly/ this kinda crap in the original though, and without a leash on her so to speak she'd gone full escapist-fantasy at Satoko's expense to the point of even neglecting her through solitary confinement... yikes

Oh man, I’m so with you. I’m going to do spoilers underneath for obvious reasons (and maybe vague Umineko spoilers because Ryukishi07 loves re-exploring certain themes and it shows) but I will say, the bigger the backlash against Satoko got the more I got entrenched in my own position lmao - not the best attitude, but hey, might as well admit my biases upfront.

Like, even now I have to immediately preface this with ‘Rika doesn’t deserve this’. Of course she doesn’t. No one deserves this. But could she have prevented this with a little more thoughtfulness? 100%. And I think that’s what sets off a lot of people - on first glance, it does come off as very victim-blamey, because it seems to put the onus on Rika and really, that isn’t fair at all. Just like it wasn’t fair to Keiichi in Watanagashi/Meakashi that not giving the doll to Mion triggered those tragedies, or (to be as light on spoilers as possible) Battler’s ‘sin’ in Umineko has the effect it does. But the fact is, they do matter, and it is hammered home hard in their respective stories. Everyone acknowledges (and in canon, even Rika!) that if Keiichi had understood Mion’s feelings better and hadn’t thoughtlessly given the doll to Rena instead, then the tragedy with Shion wouldn’t have happened. And yeah, that’s messed up! But it’s true! Ryukishi07 loves the rippling butterfly effects of small, seemingly inconsequential thoughtless actions that end up hurting others in ways you don’t realize until it’s too late.

Like wow, it’s wild to me that even after all the terrible things Satoko did to Rika, the part of Gou that affects me the most is Rika’s impassioned plea for Satoko to come with her to St. Lucia’s (where all teenage girls go to suffer lol) after Satoko is completely upfront with her in her first loop, explaining how she’s not cut out for it, she’s going to struggle with studying, etc etc.... and then just. The juxtaposition of the same outcome that happens a few years later, when everything Satoko is scared of happens again. And maybe it’s because we don’t get to be dragged along the full years those two episode cover that makes it harder for a lot of the viewers to connect with Satoko’s misery and motive (I, personally, connect a little too closely with it bc of some personal experience and can confirm that for someone from a much worse background Satoko would be miserable and isolated in ways I can’t even imagine), but it just seems so odd to me how many people won’t acknowledge that Rika’s actions - or specifically, inaction - again, something Ryukishi07 highlights over and over again as a huge character flaw for her - led to this outcome.

And to bring it back to what you said about Hanyuu - you’re right, she does warn Rika about this explicitly that she’s treating Satoko like some neglected pet (I think I referred to her as Rika’s ‘comfort stuffed animal’) in the VNs because she’s such a staple of Rika’s lives that she can’t imagine being without her. This also comes up with Saikoroshi when everyone’s lives are ‘fixed’, everyone’s families are perfect, Satoko and her aren’t friends (and admittedly she does bully Rika) and what happens? 1) Infamous ‘Rika beats Satoko with a chair’ scene and 2) Rika decides that her perfect Matsuribayashi ending is better despite Hanyuu telling her that this is the perfect world for everyone, so bye-bye Satoko’s parents & Satoshi lmao (yes I’m oversimplifying it because the moral of that story is that the lessons they learned from their suffering/struggles made them into better people and we’re left with the question of whether it was a dream world or not but like, especially considering the cost of returning to the Matsuribayashi fragment, that’s kinda... messed up, Rika!). a-also omg do you think Satoko saw that fragment as an option because if she did, ouch....

To wrap this already messy ask up in an equally messy bow, Rika is living with that ‘uncompromising happiness’ ideal from her poem which is great.... except in loop 1 & 2, she fully stuck to that at Satoko’s expense. There was a point that Satoko was willing to (and would rather have) stayed behind and let Rika go to St Lucia by herself. It’s only in Loop 3, after Rika chased her out of the bookstore, after Rika insisted that ‘she wasn’t going to compromise on her happiness, she wanted both St Lucia & Satoko at her side’ that it became an all-or-nothing game. And yeah, obviously the hell Rika’s been going through since then is absolutely disproportionate to her ‘sin’, but there is just no getting around the fact that this was entirely preventable.

[talpup]

Summary: Yami Sukehiro just wanted to join the Magic Knights and make his mentor proud.  He knew there would be trails.  He knew trouble would come his way.  Knew he would be faced with discrimination for being a foreigner and a peasant.  What he didn’t know.  Didn’t expect.  Was that literal Chaos would come his way.  That he and his mentor’s sister would be at the center of world ending trouble.  Or that he would fall in love with his mentor’s sister and face more than discrimination; but the jealousy of Nozel Silva who loved the same woman he did.

Please remember this fic is rated mature and has warnings of violence, abuse, sexual tension, sexual behavior, and other possible triggers. For a full list of story tags please check the fics AO3 (link to that at the top of my tumblrs homepage).

Chapter 101

Teris sat down at a table with her friends.  Excited for their much needed girls day, Venice and Teris had decided to leave early and have breakfast at a restaurant in Raque.  Since Abril and Bran weren’t meeting Ricte till later in the afternoon, the two had joined them.

With the restaurant crowded, they took the first available table.  At first Abril had complained about sitting out on the balcony, muttering about the salty sea breeze.  Then she made Teris move, saying she wanted the seat with a view of the water.

Having seen the view from higher balcony’s at much fancier restaurants, Teris let Abril have the seat without a fuss.  Hopefully giving Abril the seat would better her mood and allow Teris and Venice to finally get Abril to open up about what was going on with her, Gendry, and Ricte.

But apparently Venice had other ideas since as soon as the waitress took their order and left, she looked at Teris and demanded to know. “What’s going on?”

Teris blinked in surprise.  “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb.  Spill.”  Abril ordered.

“About Yami?”  Teris’ eyes darted to Bran.  She wasn’t adverse to girl talk; but there was no way she was doing so with Bran there.

“No, silly.  How are you holding up?  First Bran and I bring in that guy from those Crazies, only to have him die five days later.  And the day after Bran and I bring that guy in, you and Yami are abducted. Never mind Nozel and Fuegoleon getting taken the night before that and ending up in Healers Hall.”  Venice frowned, worried about her friend.  “It’s no wonder Jax gave you and Yami the day off.  You two have been through a lot.”

Teris huffed.  “When aren’t we going through a lot?  I have a feeling that’s what they’re going to put on my headstone.  Here lies Teris Nova, she went through a lot.”

“Hey! Don’t talk like that!  Your name’s gonna be Teris Sukehiro by the time there’s need for any headstone.”  Teasing as she was, Venice was also deadly serious.  There was no way her friend was dying anytime soon.  Not if she had something to say about it.

“I know you can’t say much.  But at least tell us you all learned something useful before that guy died.”  Abril said, hopeful tone filled with disgust for Flic and the Agents of Chaos.

Teris glanced a Bran once again, knowing he knew the sad truth that they had learned little to nothing of use from Flic.  Looking between Venice and Abril, she sighed wondering what she could tell her friends that would give them hope but wouldn’t be a lie.

101.2

Yami hadn’t needed his sense of Ki to be able to tell Bran had been disappointed he wouldn’t be spending the day off with the guys. Bran’s guilt over his boyhood friend sweetening up to Abril, when Gendry had been the first Black Bull to befriend him, likely hadn’t helped.  At least Gendry wasn’t the kind of person who took his hurt and jealousy out on others.  Yami doubted he would’ve been so dispassionate if in Gendry’s place.  In fact he had taken his fair share of anger and jealousy over Nozel out on Bran by kicking the younger man out of his room so he could sit at Bran’s window and wait for Teris to return.

Teris… Yami smiled at the thought of her.  He had teased her early this morning, feigning hurt feelings and saying she couldn’t wait to be away from him.  Teris had laughed at his toying act and silenced him with a kiss, promising to make it up to him later.  That promise made Yami eager for the days end so he could return to her.  But first, he had some mana to expend in the hopes that it would ease the building force inside him and help with the constant undercurrent that made him want to destroy somebody just for breathing in his direction.

Seated on the ground along the perimeter of the Green Mantis’ training yard, Yami drank from a water skin and watched Jack and Tobin start their fight.

“This should be interesting.  Jack’s slash magic can cut through anything given enough time to adjust but against Tobin’s giant magic it won’t make much of a difference.”  Yami turned to Gendry thinking of the battle they just had.  “You’ve progressed further since last time we fought.  Who have you been training with?”

Gendry shrugged, eyes on the match.  “Who ever I can.  Mostly Bran.”

Yami nodded.  Bran and Gendry were both Third Class Intermediate Magic Knights.  Though his and Teris’ influence might've encouraged the rest of the Black Bulls to be a little more engaged and proactive about their duties.  It had been Gendry's friendship with Bran that had prompted Gendry into wanting to become a better Magic Knight. Sadly, Abril hadn’t been all that enthused about Gendry’s newfound interest.  Instead of seeing it as something they could do together, Abril complained about the time Gendry’s new focus took away from their usual activities.

Yami pushed the cork back in the stopper and tossed the water skin aside. “We should schedule a regular sparring session.  Nothing too frequent.  Every other week or once a month maybe.”

“I would've thought you had enough going on with being Vice Captain and dealing with the Agents of Chaos mess.”  Gendry said.

“If you don’t want to just say so.”  Yami said, eyes on Jack and Tobin.

“That’s not it at all.  I’d like to have a set sparring session with you. I could use the practice.”

“Then?” Yami questioned.

“It’s exactly as I said.  I thought you’d be bogged down and busy.  I don’t want to add to the pile of things pulling at you and become a nuisance.”  Gendry said.

Yami huffed, eyes following the fight.  “Don’t think you’re capable of being a nuisance.”

“Tell that to Abril.”  Gendry muttered.

Yami raised an eyebrow.  He was no closer to understanding Gendry and Abril’s relationship then he had been during his first year as a Magic Knight.  Not that he had bothered trying to understand it. Still, Gendry was a friend and friends had to occasionally show they had an interest in the others hopes and lives.

“Still wanna marry her?”  Yami asked.

“I said I think I might want to marry her.  And yeah.  I still think I might.” Gendry said.

“Then fix things with her and see that she’s happy.  If that’s too much trouble then let it go and be glad you have your answer on that ‘might want to marry her’ thing.”  Yami told.

“You and Teris make it look so easy.”  Gendry sighed, his complaint both envious and amazed.

Yami’s hearty laugh bounced off the surrounding trees.  It echoed so loudly through the sparring field that it gave Tobin pause.  Jack took advantage of the distraction, sending out a slash that knocked Tobin on his ass.

Gaining control of his laughter, Yami asked.  “Which part looks easy? Dealing with a group of crazies?  Or being unable to go out and do anything together because Bird Braid’s father might send more people to try and kill me?  Or maybe it’s the likely future fight I’ll have with her brother to free her from her family that looks easy to you.”

“I don’t mean any of that.”  Gendry said.  “I know none of that can be easy.  But that’s all outward stuff you have to deal with. I’m talking about the two of you.  As a couple.”

Yami’s humored grin turned dopey as he thought of Teris.  “Yeah.  I really lucked out.  Teris is an easy woman to get along with.  Pig headed, prideful, overly curious, too caring brat that she is; she’s perfect.”

“Abril’s great too.  I just wish she thought I wasn’t so inconsequential.” Gendry said.

“If she thinks that then she stupider than I thought.”  Yami said, seeing that Jack was leading Tobin to make the kind of strike he wanted in order to serve up a good return.

Gendry scowled at Yami.

Sensing the change in his friend, Yami said by way of apology. “Fine. No bad talking the Inch Worm.  So what’s the problem between you two anyway?”

Gendry ran a hand through his hair.  Other than Abril’s complaints about the time his training took away from them, there was the matter of Ricte.  But Ricte was a secondary problem.  A causal result of an underlying problem he had been unable to name.  “I don’t know.”

“Then find out.  If it’s something you think is worth working on, work on it.”  Yami said.

“What if it’s me?  What if there’s something about me that she doesn’t like?”  Gendry asked.

“She wouldn’t be your constant shadow and complaining that your training was taking time away from her if she wasn’t interested in you.” Yami told.

Gendry nodded at that, feeling better.  “So what do you say to every other Monday morning?”

Yami’s brows pulled together.  “For?”

“Our sparing sessions.”  Gendry said.

Yami shook his head.  “I got way too much going on.  You’d only become a nuisance.”

“Every other Monday it is.”  Gendry grinned.

101.3

Breakfast long since finished Teris, Venice, Abril, and Bran still sat at the balcony table.

“Betrothed?” Teris blinked at Venice.  “When?  How?  Kess and Jon haven’t been dating that long.  Have they?  It’s not like they had long held feelings for each another the way Tobin did for you.  Did they?”

Venice shrugged her shoulders.  “Don’t know.  I didn’t think he liked anyone else while we were dating.  I only heard about the engagement yesterday afternoon.  From the sound if it, they had some big fancy dinner between their families the day before that.  I don’t know anything more.  But since you know how all that stuff works.  I was hoping you could tell me if this was Jon or his parents doing.”

Teris shook her head in disbelief.  For it to be official and celebrated with a dinner, Jon and Kess’ parents would've had to have agreed to the match.  But was it their parents who had made the match?  Or Jon and Kess seeking one, and gaining approval?  Jon might've been a bastard son of Lord Denwulf.  But the Denwulf’s were quite a ways up the noble ladder from Kess’ family.  And with Kess being the youngest of three daughters, it wasn’t too far fetched for Lord Yates to look to wed Kess to Jon.

“What’s it matter anyway?  You’re with Tobin.”  Abril said.

“I just think it’s a bit sudden and am worried for Jon’s sake.” Venice snapped.  “I mean, he and Kess just started dating what? Back near the Star Awards?”

“Far as we know.”  Teris nodded.

Abril shrugged.  “Well, when you know.  You know.”

Teris and Venice turned to her.

“What?” Abril demanded, shoulders stiffening under their gaze.

Bran’s eyes darted around the three women.  He had been quiet for so long, he wondered if they had forgotten he was there.  Having been the first son, Bran was use to being forgotten while his seven older sisters talked.  In his experience, being forgotten was far better than being remembered.

“What do you know of it?”  Venice scoffed.

Abril crossed her arms, scowling.  “Apparently nothing.”  Before talk of Jon and Kess could continue, Abril exhaled loudly.  Resting her elbows on the table, she whined.  “How does one know?”

“How does one know what?”  Teris asked.

“That someone’s the one.  How do you know?”  Abril asked.

“I thought Gendry was your one.”  Venice teased.

“So did I.”  Abril mumbled.

Sharing a look with Venice, Teris prompted.  “But?”

“I don’t know!  He never talks of the future.  How can I know Gendry’s the one if I don’t know if I’m his one?”  Abril asked.

“Because the only other person Gendry regularly talks to is Yami and Bran, and I don’t think he wants to end up with either of them.”  Venice played.

“It doesn’t really matter how Gendry feels.  I mean, it does in the end.  But it doesn’t change the way you feel at the start.  Think about how torn up I was during that time Yami refused to speak to me before we got together.  Him being an idiot ass didn’t change how I felt about him.  Or how Tobin felt about Venice.”  Teris gestured to her friend.

“The man was persistent.”  Venice nodded of Tobin.

“I finally told him how I feel.”  Abril muttered about Gendry.

“In words?  With your voice?”  Venice questioned, in disbelief.

Abril nodded.

“What did he say?”  Teris asked.

“What he always says.  Nothing.”  Abril answered, exasperated.

Venice huffed.  “Sounds about right.  Guys are stupid.  They either won’t shut up when you want them to be quiet.  Or they refuse to talk when you want them to speak.”

“They’re not some pet that obeys.”  Teris chuckled.

“I know!  They’re incapable of obeying.  Though it’d be nice if they at least tried to listen.”  Venice complained.

Teris shook her head smiling.

“Ricte proposed.”  Abril said.

“What!” The two girls and Bran exclaimed.

“Why?” Bran demanded in guilty horror.

“When?” Teris asked.

“How?” Venice questioned.

“In his last letter.”  Abril answered.

“He proposed in a letter?”  Venice asked, incredulous.

Teris stared, dumbfounded.

Bran frowned, unhappy with his friend.

“That’s her there.”  Someone said, pointing to their table.

For a second Teris thought their waitress had complained to the restaurants manager about them lingering at the table till noon and was pointing them out.  She had a moment to think that they should leave a hefty tip for taking up the spot and the waitress’ chance of further customers when a magical burst of air exploded at their table knocking them back.

101.3.2

“When you insisted I take some time off, I didn’t expect you to pay call and ask for this.”  Nozel murmured, uncomfortably.

Walking beside her Vice Captain, Kess glanced out over the sea shore.  While not blatantly obvious, it was clear Nozel had been struggling with some inner turmoil since his release from Healer’s Hall after his abduction by the Agents of Chaos.  It was why Kess had given Nozel three days leave as soon as his debriefing about those events was done.

“Neither did I.”  Kess tucked her hair behind an ear, betrothal ring glittering in the sunlight.  “And I’m sorry to take you away from your family on your last day off, but I could use some help.  And, well… I thought this might be a way for us to bond outside of work.”

Nozel’s father wasn’t even here.  And after three days with his siblings, Nozel wasn’t all that sorry to be called away from them.  He usually avoided Noelle at all costs anyway, and Nebra wanted to do nothing more than lounge out on the family’s private beach; where all Solid had done the entire time was complain about everything. Funnily enough the one thing Solid hadn’t complained about was Nozel leaving them to help his Captain in her ask.  Instead Solid had taken advantage of it, saying if Nozel could go off without them then he and their cousin Kirsch could leave Nebra, Noelle, and Mimosa at the Silva’s beach estate and come into town for the day.

That’s where Nozel was now, walking the bustling boardwalk of Raque with Captain Kess.  A part of him wondered why he and his Captain needed anything more than a working relationship; an all business approach had seemed to work well enough for Captain Pyter.  But since becoming Vice Captain, Nozel had discovered that, though not necessary, some kind of acquaintance outside of work was of helpful use for the productive betterment of work.  That’s not to say he was going to turn into Captain Kess and seek to be warm and inviting, encouraging his subordinates to come to him with their personal problems.  But he didn’t want to be like Captain Pyter had been either, completely distant and uninterested in his squad members troubles.

Yet even after coming to the conclusion that developing some kind of friendly acquaintance outside of work was of benefit, Nozel thought his Captain's request was too much.  More than that, he didn’t think he was anywhere near qualified to help her.  Personally, Nozel wouldn’t have even asked his closest friend to help choose a betrothal gift; though Fuegoleon likely would’ve invited himself. Yet here Nozel was, at Kess’ request, helping her pick out a betrothal gift for Jon when he barely knew Kess or the Azure Deers Vice Captain outside of them being capable Magic Knights.

Nozel cleared his throat to say as much for the second time when a small explosion from a balcony down the way had them rushing to see what happened.

101.3.3

Coughing, Teris blinked through the dust and tried to focus her blurred vision. Though the ringing in her ears muffled most everything out, she managed to hear someone talking.

The voice said.  “We only need the light magic user.”

Hearing the same, Venice shouted.  “Teris!  Get out of here!”

Teris was loathed to leave her friends.  But if all they wanted was her, chances were it would be safer for her friends and trapped civilians if she left.  Heart hammering, she thought of Yami.  If they wanted her, did that mean there were others looking for him?

Her friends were close enough that she could light travel them all. Hoping she didn’t burn them too badly, Teris attempted to light travel them all to the Green Mantis sparring field where she knew Yami to be.

A cold prickle ran down her spine when she wasn’t able to.  It was different from the negating effects of Calen’s magic.  This felt more like a constraining barrier.

She looked up and saw herself crouching twenty paces away.  Surreal as the sight was, Teris instantly realized Abril had used her transformation magic to take her form.  So whatever was stopping her from light traveling wasn’t blocking all magic.  That was good to know.

Teris shook her head at Abril trusting she would understand the message that they were stuck here.  Never did she expect Abril to answer Venice in her stead.

“I can’t.  They must have some sort of blocking thingy.”  Abril hollered.

Knowing Teris would never refer to a magical block as a blocking thingy, Venice's face scrunched up.  She turned, the two Teris’ giving her pause for a fraction of a second.  Seeing Bran near the real Teris, she gave a tight smile and nodded.

Eyes on Abril, Venice said.  “Guess we’ll have to make a run for it, Vice Captain.  On your order.”

Abril blinked.  As accustomed as she was to yelling about how she wanted things done, no one ever listened.  She finally understood Gendry’s reasoning for wanting to become a better Magic Knight.  It wasn’t because he had sold out to the system and wanted to move up the ranks.  It was because he wanted to be of help to his friends.

“Now!” Another female voice commanded.

The four Black Bulls turned to see Kess and Nozel.  Teris’ eyes widened, realizing what the newly arrived Silver Eagles were about to do.

“Move!” Teris ordered Venice and Abril as she grabbed a hold of Bran.

Thankfully Bran was already cloaked in mana skin.  It made Teris feel less guilty for shoving him over the broken balcony railing.  Without a moments pause, she jumped after him.

Nozel’s mercury rain could be made dense or sparse.  The one thing he could not yet do was direct it so as not to strike comrades who were in the field of the silver drops.  Kess used her shadow magic to form long arms that pulled and pushed citizens out of danger.  The Silver Eagles Captain created a shield that blocked one of Nozel’s liquid metal drops from hitting Venice.

“Nozel. Cover the other one.  Venice and I got Teris.”  Kess ordered, moving to Abril.

Nozel wasn’t sure if his Captain realized that wasn’t the real Teris, but he did.  Abril might be able to make herself look like Teris; but she moved nothing like Teris.

A magical eagle of mercury waiting to catch him, the Silver Eagle’s Vice Captain leapt over the balcony’s edge.  He saw Teris battling someone a couple blocks away and flew over to assist.  Knocking the man out from behind, Nozel made sure to cut the assailant with his mercury.  If the man managed to regain consciousness before things calmed and he was arrested, mercury poisoning would slow him down.

Pulling Teris onto the mercury eagle with him, Nozel took back to the air. “Where’s Bran?”

“I sent him to the nearest Sentries station to contact Headquarters for back-up.”  Teris answered.

Nozel shook his head.  “Doubt they’ll have better luck.  Captain Kess already tried to use her communication crystal to call for reinforcements.”

Teris cursed, having feared as much; but Bran was clever.  He would know a communications block when faced with one and order whatever Sentries had magic capable of flight or other swift travel to get outside of the block and contact Headquarters.  Till then--

Teris frowned.  “Where are you taking us?”

Eyes scanning for attackers, Nozel told.  “Outside of whatever block they have in place.  I’m guessing that’s why you haven’t light traveled to safety; because whatever they’re doing to block communications is also blocking transportation spells.”

“No!”

“No?” Nozel glanced at her, brow furrowed.

Teris shook her head.  “I mean, yes, they’re probably blocking transportation spells; I can’t light travel.  But you can’t take us away!  My friends--”

“You’re the one they want.”  Nozel cut in.

“And Abril was left behind looking exactly like me!  Nozel, we can’t run.  I’m their Vice Captain.”

Ignoring her, Nozel kept flying.  Did Teris think he wanted to leave the others behind?  It was his duty as a Magic Knight to protect the Clover Kingdom and its people, yet he had left injured civilians in need back there.

“Your Captain's back there.”  Teris tried.

“Captain Kess ordered me to look after you.”

“Nozel—“

“My Captain's on the scene therefore my orders superseded yours.” Nozel snapped.

In that second of distraction, Nozel didn’t see the whirlwind that knocked his magical eagle off course.  Crouching lower, Nozel widened his stance to keep his balance and fought to right their ride.

Unsteady from the tumbling eagle, there was nothing Teris could to when a lance of condensed air struck her.  The world spiraled at a dizzying speed as she was sent flying off the eagle and through the air. Barely cloaking herself in mana in time, Teris landed on a tiled rooftop and rolled.

101.3.4

Bran was desperate and torn.  He had to help his comrades.  He had to help Teris.  But his Vice Captain had given him clear instructions.  After realizing a communication block was in place, Bran had ordered the Sentries capable of quick magical travel to get out of the communications block and inform Headquarters of the attacks; while commanding the rest of the Sentries to help the citizenry to safety.

Riding with a Sentry atop a large magically created lizard, Bran looked over his shoulder at the battling team of Sentries he had left behind among the sand dunes just outside of Raque.  Guilt weighed heavy on his shoulders.  He had now left not just his friend's and comrades, but two fights.

“If we come across more hostiles, you need to keep on going, sir.  I’ll do my best to distract and hold them off.”  The Sentry told Bran, sweating as he urged his magic to make the green glowing lizard move faster.

Though Bran understood it was because he was the only one who could give Headquarters more information about the attack; the thought of having to leave someone else behind made him feel even more like a failure.

Clutching the communication crystal the Captain of the area Sentries station had given him, Bran tried to think.  This wasn’t like the Wild Fire and battle with Sorcery Lances from a couple months ago.  Bran couldn’t assist his friends by battling these people with a deer. Even if a large sand cat or mid-sized sea fox had been near enough for his magic to seek out and control, it wouldn’t do much good. Not when the fight was in a large town.

Other than insects, Bran couldn’t control multiple creatures.  He needed something more; but he had nothing more.  All he could do was leave his friends and allies to fight, and hope he was able to fetch real help in time.

Yami had been wrong to show any interest and trust in him.  He was weak. Even with all his training and all he had done.  He was useless.

Tears stung Bran’s eyes at his own hated inadequacy.  Some Magic Knight he was, left riding with a Sentry for help.  With all the large fleet footed animals scared off further than his magics reach, he couldn’t even quickly get out of the communications block without assistance. He was undeserving of the promotion he got for his efforts a couple months back during the Wild Fire outbreak.  He didn’t deserve to be a Third Class Intermediate Magic Knight.  He didn’t even deserve to be a Magic Knight.

His grimoire, glowing and hovering beside him, suddenly brightened.  The pages flipped of their own accord.  A blank page came into being, added to the tome.  Writing sparked into existence as a new spell appeared.

101.3.5

Breath knocked out of her, Teris coughed.  Her rolled landing stopped at the feet of a scruffy faced, red haired man.  Sucking in a gulp of air, she squinted up at him.

“Teris Nova.”  The man said.

“If you think I’m Teris Nova you’re in for a disappointment”  Teris said, noting the sword of swirling air he held.

“We’ll sort out which of you is the real one later.  For now surrender and come with me, and I’ll see no one else gets harmed.”

“And who might you be?”  Teris asked.

“Commander Fanzell.”  Fanzell said.

It was then that Teris noticed the diamond on his grimoire.  Chastising herself for not catching it immediately, she said.  “You’re a Magic Warrior.”

“I am.”  Fanzell inclined his head.

Wondering how a team of Magic Warriors had gotten this deep into the Clover Kingdom, Teris said conversationally.  “You’re a long way from home.  Lost?  You know you could’ve simply asked for directions.”

Fanzell’s blue eyes narrowed.  He opened his mouth to tell her to stop wasting time when Teris shot out a beam of light.  The hit knocked Fanzell back to the next roof over.

Teris turned and sprinted in the direction of Nozel.  She had wondered at his delay and now saw why.  The Silver Eagle was still flying threw the air, only he was fighting a man on a cloud of smoke.  Teris lept to the next buildings roof.  As soon as she landed she was sent flying by a condensed burst of air.

Shaking his head clear, Fanzell rode a whirlwind after Teris.  It was a chaotic way to travel, the wind tunnel difficult to control.  As soon as he reached the roof she had landed on he hopped off the mini tornado and let it fade.

Pointing a magically created sword of wind down at her, Fanzell told.  “I have no wish to harm you.”

Teris rolled over with a groan.  Even cloaked in mana the hit had hurt. Fanzell watched her carefully, mindful of where Teris pointed her hands.

Acting as if she was still battling the pain and an unclear head, Teris quickly glanced at his stance.  A large undulating shadow crossed overhead.  It was a massive flock of seagulls, and they were descending.

Teris’ legs swung out just as Yami had taught her.  She cloaked her legs in mana at the last moment, least the cloak alert Fanzell to what she was doing.

As Fanzell fell, Teris jumped to her feet.

Stunned, Fanzell looked up expecting Teris to have made a run for it again. Instead he saw Teris’ fist right before it met his face.  Fanzell heard a crack.  Nose broken, his hands cupped his bloody face.  He cursed the pain and spotted vision, loosing sight of Teris.

Teris backed up as the mass of birds swooped and attacked Fanzell with claw and beak.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered at the sight.  The birds were surely being controlled by Bran; but he was only able to control a single, what he called, higher mind creature at a time.  Not having the time to ponder it, Teris hoped this meant Bran was safe and would soon get passed the block to contact Headquarters.

She spun around and looked for Nozel.  She caught sight of him moments before he was knocked off his mercury eagle by the Smoke Mage.  The eagle swooped and struck the side of a manor house in an attempt to catch him.  Nozel, the eagle, and the Smoke Mage disappeared behind a canopy of trees growing on the hillside.

“Nozel!” Teris shouted and cursed when she tried and failed to light travel to him.  Leaving Fanzell to Bran and the attacking seagulls, she took off running and leaping from roof to roof.

101.3.6

Venice glanced to the door where Abril and two Magic Warriors had disappeared, cursing that she and Kess hadn’t been able to hold all of them back.

Kess used her shadow magic to shield Venice from a magical attack.

“Thanks.” Venice called, eyes darting back to the enemy.  She created a mirror that deflected an attack and directed it at one of the Magic Warriors.  “Congratulations, by the way.”

Kess scowled as she sent a shadowy mass of arrows at their attackers. “For what?”

“Your betrothal.”  Venice said.

“I don’t think now's the time for that.”  Kess snapped.

“Well.” Venice shrugged, trapping a Magic Warrior in a mirror, “seeing as we may die.  I didn’t want go to my grave having you think I was upset and not happy for you and Jon.  You are happy about it, right? This isn’t something your parents are forcing you to do?”

“Will you shut up!”  Kess shouted.

101.3.7

Running away from two Magic Warriors, Abril lept off a second floor landing. Her calculated drop was disturbed by two young boys.  She landed on them, the three of them falling to the ground.

Abril got up only to trip and fall when her foot caught on some billowy fabric.

“Ow! How dare you!  Let go!”  A silver haired boy snapped when Abril tried to use him to steady herself.

“Get off!”  Abril barked.  She kicked the billowy, over-sized sleeve that belong to the shirt the red haired boy was wearing.  The fine fabric tore as she ripped her trapped foot free.

“Will you—Teris?”

Abril blinked.  Precious seconds wasted as she stared at the red haired boy before remembering the form she wore.  “Yes?”  She said, uncertainly.

“It is I.  Kirsch.”  The red haired boy placed a manicured hand gently to his chest.

Moment broken, Abril shook off the torn piece of silk.  “Good for you. Now get off.”

“There she is!”  One of Abril’s pursuers pointed down at her.

Abril’s head darted up.  She rolled to her knees and pushed to her feet. “Nice to see you, Kirsch.  Bye.”

Only she didn’t get very far.  Feet tripping over the other boys legs, Abril fell again.  Looking up at boy, she recognized a familiar familial stare of cold blue eyes and distinctive silver hair.

“Silva.” Abril growled.

“You’re not Teris.”  Solid accused.

The echoing sound of footfalls descending the stairs rang loud in her ears.  Abril planted a hand on the silver haired boys shoulder and pushed to her feet.  “Don’t tell them that.  Stay outta their way and get somewhere safe.  Nozel’s orders.”

Solid blinked at the fake Teris who took off at a run.

Kirsch looked after her and declared.  “How utterly unbeautiful!”

Neither young man noticed one of the Magic Warriors break off from the others and stalk toward them.

101.3.8

Teris slid between Nozel and Lotus.  Nozel barely created a shield of mercury before a spatial attack hit, taking a large swath of mercury.

Lotus balked at the attack and turned.  Seeing Galleo, he put his hands on his hips.  “The order was to take her into custody.  Not wipe her from existence.”

“She’s still alive.  Isn’t she?”  Galleo said.

Lotus looked down at Teris.  “Sorry about that.  Care to surrender?”

Teris kicked out trying to trip the Smoke Mage the same way she had done with Fanzell.  Ready for either a physical or magical attack, Lotus saw the strike coming and hopped over her swinging leg.

“Figured that burly mate of yours would've taught you some--”  Lotus’ voice cut out.  He stumbled, Teris having kicked his left knee, hyper-extending it.

Nozel pulled Teris to her feet.  His knees trembled under his own weight, much of his mana having been drained during his fight with Lotus.

“You alright?”  Teris panted.

“Fine. You?”  Nozel asked.

“Not dead yet.”  Teris answered.

“Not funny.”  Nozel grumbled.  “That one has smoke magic.”

“Mine can spatial attack.”  Teris said.

“I noticed.”  Nozel replied.

“Care to switch?”  Teris asked, figuring Nozel could block a few strikes till help came, or his mana recovered enough for him to do something other than defense.  In any case he wasn’t going to last much longer if he continued fighting the Smoke Mage.  “Or, I could take them both on--”

“No.” Nozel said, sounding as fatigued as he felt.  Though he didn’t like the idea of not finishing a fight he started, Teris, though out of breath, seemed far from tired.  If anything she seemed excited by the challenge; that had to be Yami’s and the Black Bulls influence he though in disgust.  It was the fact that he had already lost so much mana in his fight with the Smoke Mage that decided it for Nozel. “I got the Spatial Mage.  Just—don’t get too close to the Smoke Mage.  He’ll siphon off your mana.”

Lotus smiled at Teris as Nozel stepped to the one called Galleo.

“I was beginning to wonder if I would ever meet the other half of the famous duo.”  Lotus said.  “Not much about work gets me excited. It’s more of a necessary hassle in order to keep the family housed and fed.  But when the order came for this…  I must admit to having some interest.”

“You’re the one Yami faced during the Battle at the Border.”  Teris surmised.  She wished Yami was here, and that they could still feed off each others mana the way they had back then.  “He said you talked too much.  Is that the only play you have?  Disarm and delay with mindless chatter till your magic renders your opponent useless?”

Lotus shrugged lazily.  “It’s worked for me thus far.  Why change what isn’t broken?”

Teris released bit of her mana, magically heating up the air around her to the point that it burned off Lotus’ smoke.  The man’s smoke had been so sparse and thin that she hadn’t been able to see it.  But she sensed it as her mana made contact with it and it burned it away.

His siphoning smoke burned off, Lotus gave a weak smile his brow beading with sweat at the heat radiating from Teris’ magic.  “My wife is pregnant with our second child.”  He told.

“I’ll see you have a quill and paper so you can write to them from your cell.”  Teris said.

“That would be appreciated.”  Lotus said, readying his attack.

“Stand down or these two die.”  Came a proud booming voice.

Teris turned, eyes widening.

“Solid!” Nozel blinked.  His magical shield lowered, spears of mercury dissolving.

Still wearing Teris’ form, Abril struggled against magical bindings. “You leave Kirsch and my Intended’s brother alone!”

“That’s not the real one.”  Galleo told his comrades.

The one holding Abril shoved her to the ground in disappointed disgust.

Fanzell dropped onto the scene, the whirlwind that brought him dissipating. Knowing the one he faced had been the real Teris by the light magic she had used, Fanzell ignored the bound woman his subordinate had pushed away, and took in the two other hostages.  He didn’t like that innocent children had been brought into the mix and threatened. But now that it was done he had little choice other than to use it.

Ignoring the stinging cuts and gashes the flock of attacking birds had left, Fanzell gave the Spatial Mage a directive look through eyes made red and swollen from his broken nose.  “Galleo.”

The man opened up a portal.

Fanzell turned to the real Teris.  “Step through and I promise these two will be left unharmed.”

“Your promise means nothing to me.”  Teris sneered.

“Brother!” Solid called, frantic eyes full of fear.

“It’s alright.  Stay calm and quiet.”  Nozel soothed.  He looked at Teris.  There was no way he was going to ask her to submit to the Magic Warriors commands; but these people had his younger brother and were threatening his life.

Teris glanced at Kirsch and Solid.  Even if Kirsch wasn’t an extremely distant cousin or Solid Nozel’s brother, she would have submitted to protect them.  She was a Magic Knight.  The lives and well being of the Clover Kingdoms citizenry went before her own.

The tension in Fanzell’s shoulders eased when he saw Teris’ shoulders sag in defeat.

“Fine. But you and the rest of your squad of Magic Warriors have to leave the Clover Kingdom without harming another person.”  Teris relented.

“No! I’m Teris Nova.”  Abril shouted.

“Enough.” Teris ordered.

Abril fell silent, wide eyes stinging with tears at her worry and failure.

Teris turned to Fanzell.

“You have my word.”   Fanzell swore.

Teris sighed.  She didn’t know what the Commander’s word was good for; but it was all she had.  Giving one last look at Abril, she ordered. “Don’t struggle or fight unless they break their promise.”

“Step through the portal.”  Fanzell told Teris, eager to see his mission complete and his squad safely out of the Clover Kingdom.

Teris moved as slowly as she dared, hoping that someone had gotten through the communications block and assistance would appear.

The mage holding Solid by the throat squeezed causing the young royal to gurgle.

“Solid!” Nozel took a step toward his brother.

Fanzell made a noise of warning halting Nozel in his tracks.  He scowled at his fellow Magic Warrior for choking the young innocent but turned the expression on Teris and instructed.  “Hurry it up.”

Nozel glanced at the open portal and Teris, gauging the distance.  Turning back to his brother, he told.  “It’ll be alright, Solid.  Just stay put.  Don’t do anything.  Listen to Abril until they leave and help arrives.”

Finding Nozel’s words curious, Fanzell turned to him.  But he was too slow. Teris had just stepped through the portal and Galleo had begun to close it.  Fanzell’s muscles tensed as the Silver Eagle rushed toward him.  But the Magic Knight had no interest in him.  Instead, Nozel sprinted passed him and dived through the closing portal.

Fanzell blinked at the portion of the mans royal blue cloak that laid on the ground where the portal had been.  If Nozel had acted a split second latter he would have been cut in half.

“Brother!” Solid yelled, hand outstretched.

“Damn it!  I’m sorry, Commander.  Shall I open it back up and pull him out?”  Galleo asked Fanzell.

Jaw tense, Fanzell tore his eyes away from the blue fabric.  So much for a seamless mission.  Not wanting to stay longer than necessary and chance facing further hostility, he told Galleo.  “No.  Inform the other teams we have our prey and get us out of here.”

“Sir.” Galleo nodded.

Fanzell looked back at the sliced off strip of fabric thinking that the Magic Knights were a loyal and amazing group.  It made him wistfully envious.  He doubted there was a single Magic Warrior that would take such a risk for one of their fellows.

“The teams are falling back and headed to the meeting point.”  Galleo informed his superior.

“Good.” Fanzell bent and picked up the blue fabric, wrapping it around his hand.

“What of these three?”  The Mage holding Solid and Kirsch asked.

“Bind the boys.  We’ll leave them and the Magic Knight to be found.” Fanzell said.

The Mage gripped Solid and Kirsch tighter.  “But, Sir--”

Voice dangerous, Fanzell looked at the man.  “I gave my word.  You’re not suggesting I go back on it out of sheer malice, are you?”

The Mage straightened.  “No, sir.”  He shared a look with Galleo the two thinking that the rumors were true.  Their Commander had begun to weaken.

Fanzell stepped in front of Abril.  “I need you to listen and relay a message to your superiors.”

“You give her back!”  Abril yelled.

Fanzell used his magic to take just enough air out of Abril’s lungs so she couldn’t speak but was still cognizant.  “Tell your superiors not to come for Teris Nova unless they want another war.  You will have your Magic Knight—s,”  He drew out the added ‘s’ of the amended plural, “back by the morning of the twelfth.  If you cross the border into our kingdom, King Morris will not broker a peace as he did last time.  He will not stop until your kingdom is purged of life and left in nothing but rubble and ash.”  He saw the fearful turn in the her eyes, and felt the same at such a prospect. “Remember.  The morning of the twelfth.  My King just wants some time with Teris Nova to understand how she works.  It is up to your kingdom to decide whether that is worthy of war or if you will keep the peace and wait four days.”

101.4

“Are you really that tired, Yami?” Jack taunted sending out a slash that sent the Black Bulls Vice Captain skidding backwards several meters.

“Hardly.” Yami grunted.

“He’s toying with you, Jack.”  Tobin called, from the sidelines.

“More like letting you get a couple shots in as apology for the beat down you’re gonna get.”  Yami corrected.

“Quit pretending your doing me any favors Bull Brains.”  Jack cawed sending out two more strikes.  “You’re faltering and trying to cover.”

“If I were faltering would I be able to do this?”  Both hands gripping the hilt of his katana, Yami sent down a slash of darkness that had the Green Mantis leaping out of the way.

Rolling on the ground, Jack squinted at the kicked up dirt.  He looked back to see downed trees and branches for more than six hundred meters.

Tobin stepped forward, worried Yami had lost himself to the Darkness.

Gendry’s head jerked back, eyes wide.  Was that what he would be facing every other Monday?  He knew Yami was powerful, but to send an attack like that during a simple sparring session…

Yami half lept, half rushed to his opponent and pointed his dark cloaked katana at Jack’s chest.  “You were saying?”

Jack looked up at the Black Bull and cackled.  “You’re insane!”

Yami lifted and sheathed the katana in its scabbard.  “Thought your bony butt would appreciate that move.”

Jack pushed to his feet.  “Let’s try it again!”

“No.” Yami shook his head.

Jack lifted his forearm, the magical scythe-like blade pointing at Yami’s neck.  “Try it again or I slice you up.”

“You’re both insane!”  Tobin declared, making his way onto the field. “Jack.  Stand down.”

Sounding bored despite the magical weapon at his throat, Yami waved Tobin off. “Let him be.  Beanstalk’s just embarrassed he lost.”  He met Jack’s eye, all but daring the man to make a move and prove him wrong.

Jack cackled again and lowered his arm.  “You act all tough, but one day I’ll slice you up, Yami.  Only I want you to be at your best when I do.”

Yami made a derisive noise.  “Yeah, yeah.  Keep saying that—Jack.” Yami’s tone changed as he said the name.  His right hand reached, gripping the hilt of his katana.  “Don’t stand down.”

Jack’s eyes turned to Yami’s right hand, thinking the Black Bull decided to continue the fight.  “What?  You--”

Yami pulled the katana free.  “A large group just appeared.”

“It’s probably some fellow Green Mantis’.  En and Nix are expected back from a mission.”  Jack said.

“No.” Yami said.

The Ki Yami suddenly sensed was far too near.  These people hadn’t walked or flown closer; but simply appeared as if portaled.  Never mind the fact that one of the mana sources coming from the group was massively powerful.  There was no way the person was a member of the Green Mantis, not even the squads Captain.

“It’s Alowishus.”  Yami cloaked his blade in darkness.

Alowishus Spade rose up out of the ground.  Yami sent out several consecutive slashes which were blocked by a swirling mass of earth.

“Quick on the attack.”  Alowishus praised, noting how fast Yami’s movements had become.  “Not exactly the act of a hero though.”

“I’m no hero.  I’m a Magic Knight Vice Captain and you’re a threat to this kingdom.  Jack, with me.  You two.  Give the others a harsh welcome.”  Yami told Tobin and Gendry.

“The others?”  Tobin echoed.  His face hardened at the sight of five others appearing through the overgrown tree line.  “Right.”  His size doubled as he stepped in the Agents of Chaos’ direction. “Gendry.  Let’s go.”

“They want Yami.  We should focus on getting him out of here.”  Gendry said, glancing at his Vice Captain as Yami and Jack charged and attacked Alowishus.

“And how do you suggest we do that without taking out some of their number?”  Tobin snapped.  “Don’t question the Vice Captain's orders!  He’s not Bronn.  Yami will do more than have words or a well placed fist if you disobey.”

Yami and Jack tag teamed.  One getting in close while the other made an opening.  Still it wasn’t enough.  Alowishus was just too strong. Yami shot a quick glance seeing Tobin and Gendry struggling and cursed.  He should have known better than to think the four of them had a chance.  The Negation Mage, Calen, was nowhere in sight meaning that Alowishus was secure in his victory and merely toying with them. That only served to make Yami angrier, his grip tightening on his katana’s hilt.  Exhaling, Yami forced his hands to loosen letting the rage filled emotion flow through him.  Acknowledging his anger while not focusing on it cleared his mind and centered his thoughts, emboldening his movements with decisive determination.

“Your getting your way, Jack!”  Yami lept back, trading places with the Green Mantis.  He planted his feet, gripping the katana’s hilt in both hands and raising it over his head.  “Let’s try it again!” He repeated Jack’s earlier words right before he brought the dark cloaked blade down.

Jack, who had been in front of Alowishus, between him and Yami, lept to the side at the last moment.  Despite being cloaked in mana the Green Mantis was dragged back a bit by the gravitational pull of the dark slash.  Then blown out and away as Yami’s attack hit.  Jack tucked his arms and tumbled, rolling up to his knees and skidding to a halt.

Seeing the devastation and power of the attack, Jack silently cursed; Yami must’ve just been funning with him in that first dark slash.  Wait for me, you over muscled idiot, Jack thought.  Don’t leave me in your shadow.  I’ll rip you to shreds if you do.

“Master!” The Agents of Chaos yelled.

Yami didn’t even pause to take in the damage he might have caused Alowishus.  He spun around to Tobin and Gendry, and commanded. “Tobin, go get back up.  Gendry, to me.”

Tobin turned and sprinted away before Yami had even begun to say Gendry's name.

“Oh, no you don’t.”  Misandre roared.  She created a portal, hands reaching through the open gateway.

Tobin didn’t slow, trusting his comrades to protect his back.

Snarling, Yami sent out a slice of darkness that cut Misandre’s hands off so fast and clean it took the woman  several heartbeats to realize what had happened.  The hands, once belonging to Bronn, dropped to the ground, never reaching Tobin.

Glaring at the Spatial Mage, Yami growled.  “Told you I would have those off you.  Now, I can be done with that bastard and he can rest in peace.”

“Yami...” Gendry breathed, face losing color.

Yami turned in the direction Gendry was staring, his own eyes widening. Now that just wasn’t fair, Yami silently complained.

Jack moved closer to the two Black Bulls.  “What is he?  An earth mage or something.”

Or something, Yami thought watching the earth swirl and condense to form an arm, replacing the one Yami’s massive dark strike had taken from Alowishus.

“Ash to ash.  Dirt to dirt.”  Alowishus intoned, stepping out of the spiraling earth as it dissipated and fell.  “The moral form is nothing but earth, and to the earth our weary husks eventually return.”

The solid ground the three Magic Knights were standing on became sinkhole.  Before they could do anything, they were trapped up to their mid-thighs and stuck.

“You have your late Vice Captain's hands back, Yami.  Now further prove your honor and come with me so your friends may be spared.” Alowishus stopped several paces in front of him.  “You need my help, my boy.  You won’t make it to the Ritual of Darkness without it.”

“I’m not your anything.”  Yami sneered.  He sent out three quick, successive dark cloaked strikes.

Alowishus held up a hand.  The dark slashes stopped and hovered.  Frozen still for a moment before they broke apart crumbling and fading to nothing.

Alowishus shook his head and sighed.  “Difficult child.  Come with me or your friends die.”

“Why not just take me by force?  You’ve done it before.  Could it be you’re afraid to awaken what’s inside me?”  Yami asked, feeling the Dark force begin to stir.

“You may not be the cleverest, Yami.  But you are a smart one.  Do you truly think I fear you?”  Alowishus asked, well aware Tobin had almost reached the Green Mantis’ base.

“Probably not, but you should.”  Yami said.

“Master.” Clint called.  “Misandre is losing a lot of blood despite Slade’s bindings.  If she’s to be able to get us out of here, we must leave.”

“Then leave.”  Alowishus snapped.

“Master! We can’t leave you!”  Clint expressed, face full of concern.

“Return to Sanctuary and await my arrival as you were told.  I will tend to Misandre after my return.  Till then she will simply have to endure.” Alowishus looked at his followers.  “Now.”

Reluctantly, Misandre opened a portal.  The gateway took a couple seconds to form and was slow to expand large enough for a person to fit through.

Yami couldn’t help a perverse smirk of achievement at seeing the Spatial Mages difficulty in creating something that should have been as easy as taking a step or any other function that occurred by mere will.

“You enjoyed that.”  Alowishus commented, watching Yami.  “My followers hardship.”

Yami eyes snapped back to Alowishus.  “With the amount of hardship she and the rest of you have put us through, it’s about time you got some in return.  I’m not going with you, by the way.  So you can crumble to dust and die.”

Alowishus frowned.  “Why must you make things so difficult, my boy?”

“I already told you.  I’m not your anythi—oui!”  Yami snapped, Jack and Gendry's muffled gags stealing his attention.

Dirt gathered and rose up from the ground, entering Jack and Gendry's mouths and nostrils.  The two coughed and gagged.  But it was no use, the invading earth was choking the life out of them.

“Stop it!”  Yami barked.  He tried to pull his legs free but the ground held firm.  He swiped at the swirling mass as it entered Jack, but the mass only reformed and continued to obey Alowishus’ will.

“Can’t you see that I am only trying to help you?”  Alowishus asked, tone wounded and sympathetic.  “If you go on like this, you will lose yourself to the Darkness inside.”

Yami glared murderously at Alowishus.  “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Eventually.” Alowishus admitted.  “Right now, we both want the same thing.  For you to fight this force off and remain yourself.”

Yami’s eyes flicked black.  Gritting his teeth he battle down the Darkness about to boil over.  “Let them go.”

“Will you come?”  Alowishus asked.

Yami saw Gendry's eyes roll and begin to glaze.  “Fine!”  He yelled. “You have my word.  Now let them go!”

With a victorious grin, Alowishus lifted his hand, palm up.  His fingers curled one after the other in a beckoning motion.

Yami watched the earth change its course and fly out of his friends lungs. Jack and Gendry sagged, gasping and coughing.

“Let’s go.”  Alowishus smiled.

Before Yami could say or do anything, he was swallowed up by the ground.

101.5

In the quietness after Nozel and Teris’ argument the Silver Eagle had difficulty meeting Teris’ hard, angry glare.

Once they had figured out they had been portaled to a mana blocked cell with no means of escape, Teris had chewed Nozel out.  In her fear for Nozel, Teris had called out his stupidity in following her through a closing portal.  Her concern for her friends, and worry over Fanzell keeping his word had her chastising Nozel for his lack of care in his duty to protect the citizens of the kingdom.

Nozel naturally snapped back.  No one questioned his dedication to his duty.  His brooding emotions over what he had walked in on three days ago, the image of Yami and Teris still haunting his mind, had Nozel responding harsher than intended.

Surprised by his vehemence but not one to back down, Teris had snapped back at him.  A heated argument had devolved from there.  When Nozel called out her hypocrisy, saying she would’ve done the same in his place, Teris had changed tactics.

Teris had been glaring daggers at him for what felt like forever, though realistically Nozel knew it couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes.  Much as Nozel hated being scolded like some child, Teris’ silent treatment was so much worse; leading him to ask.  “What would you have had me do?  Let you to come here alone?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I would have had you do!”  Teris expressed. Her eyes drifted to the missing part of Nozel’s squad cloak for the thousandth time, her fear and anger at his foolishness reigniting.

“It’s always the same with you, isn’t it?”  Nozel complained.

“What’s that suppose to mean?”  Teris questioned, heatedly.

“You’re always judging me more harshly than anyone else.  As if I’m suppose to be some perfect person.”

“You’re the one who constantly presents yourself as a perfect person.” Teris accused.

Nozel sighed, this was getting them nowhere.  He looked about the cell, unable to look at Teris any longer.  “So what do we do now?”

“Why ask me?  What was it you said?  Your Captain's on the scene therefore your orders superseded mine.”

Nozel glowered and muttered under his breath.  “Ill tempered, hot headed brat.”

“What’s that?”  Teris asked, not having heard.

“I said you’re an ill tempered, hot headed brat!”  Nozel snapped.

“If that’s how you feel then why did you follow?”  Fanzell questioned, from the other side of the cell door.

Teris and Nozel turned to the Magic Warrior, neither having noticed his appearance in the heat of their argument.

“It sure would have saved us some trouble if you had stayed behind.” Fanzell went on, thinking of the discipline he would endure for letting the Silva Prince throw himself into custody; as if he had known at the time that the young man was heir to the Clover Kingdoms second royal House.

“If you’re looking for an apology for your troubles look elsewhere. You’re not getting one from us.”  Teris told.

“Figured as much.  Ill tempered, hot headed brat that you are.”  Fanzell teased.

“Only he gets to call me that.”  Teris said, head tilting toward Nozel.

“Who? Your Prince?”  Seeing the Magic Knights expressions, Fanzell nodded.  “Yeah.  I know who you are...  I do now.”  He mumbled.

“Then you know they will come for me.”  Nozel said.

“For both our kingdoms sake's, I hope not.  I hope those two kids and the Magic Knight that was trying to pass as you,” Fanzell inclined his head toward Teris, “relayed the message I gave, and your superiors believe and heed and my words.”

“What words were those?”  Teris asked.

“That you will be released and returned on the twelfth.”  Fanzell answered.

“You lie.”  Nozel challenged.

Fanzell’s eyes hardened.  “My King, unlike yours, doesn’t posture and lie.”

Teris wanted to ask about Yami but was afraid to.  As if bringing him up would remind their captors of his existence and endanger him.  She couldn’t sense Yami’s mana and hoped it was an effect of the spell put on the mana blocked cell.

“What is it you want?”  Teris asked.

“That I don’t know.”  Fanzell said, thinking he didn’t want to know either.

There were things going on in the Diamond Kingdom.  Rumors.  Whispers like the barest of breaths and breezes.  Things that hinted at augmented magic and mutilated grimoires.  Of groups of kids taken from the training grounds and never seen or heard of again.  To all this Fanzell turned a blind eye and deaf ear, not wanting to know even a hint of what might be going on.  His soul was tormented enough as it was.

“It doesn’t matter what threats you gave.  They will come.”  Nozel said.

“That’s what King Morris believes as well.”  Another voice said from down the hall.

Fanzell stepped back from the cell door and turned.  “Lotus.  What is this?”

“Sorry, Commander.”  Lotus apologized, expression truly sorrowful. “We’ve been told that His Majesty has decided to send the Prince back.”

Fanzell looked from Lotus to Galleo who walked behind the Smoke Mage.  “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“Why indeed?”  Galleo responded with a disapproving stare of accusation at Fanzell.

Fanzell swallowed, throat bobbing. There was only one reason why his superiors would skip informing him when he had just come from their offices.  The open display of lack in faith was chilling.

Fanzell cleared his throat.  “If you have orders, I suggest you carry them out.”

“I’m not leaving her.”  Nozel told, voice commanding in its volume and timber.

“You don’t have a choice, little Prince.”  Galleo smirked, clearly enjoying carrying out his commands.

“Morris doesn’t want a war.  He merely wants the girl.”  Lotus said.

It was difficult for Fanzell to tell, but it appeared as though Lotus didn’t care for this any more than he did.  Then again it could simply be Lotus’ usual tired lack of interest in anything.  It was hard to say.

“You can’t have her.”  Nozel told, positioning himself in front of Teris.

Fanzell noticed the way Teris merely stood by, appearing to have already accepted her fate.

“We already do have her.”  Galleo taunted.  “It’s you we no longer want.  Didn’t and shouldn’t have had you in the first place.” Though it had been his portal the young royal had jumped through, he cast an accusatory glance at Fanzell.

“Morris has been told that with just one of you taken, your King Agustus and Wizard King will wait until the twelfth to act, in hopes of staving off a war.” Lotus said.

“Told by who?”  Nozel questioned.

“Especially if we give back the heir to House Silva.”  Galleo put in.

“I want to know who told King Morris that.”  Nozel demanded.

“You will be portaled back to the gates of your Castle City.  Unharmed.” Lotus said, turning to Galleo at the final word as if to remind the man.

Seeing Lotus step near the cell door, Nozel readied his stance.  “Good luck with that.  The moment you open that door the mana block on this cell breaks and your--”

Teris placed a hand on Nozel’s shoulder causing him to fall silent.  He glanced back at her.

At her sad expression, Nozel questioned.  “Why are you looking at me like that?  We’re getting out of here.  Just don’t kill or knock out the Spatial Mage.  We need him to get us home.”

Teris hugged him, tightly.

Nozel was so shocked that he remained still and speechless.

“Tell Yami, Julius, and the Bulls not to do anything stupid.”  Teris breathed against his ear.

Nozel felt her give a humorless smile.

“At least not until they’ve clearly broken their word about returning me.”  Teris pulled away and meet his eyes.  “Then, if you want, you can do all the stupid things you wish to get me out of here.”

Nozel stared at her in confusion.  “Teris.  I’m not leaving yo--”

“It’s not your fault.”  Teris said over his words.  “You did all you could.  Going so far as to jump through a closing portal.  Stupid as it was.  Thank you.”

“Teris. It’s not over--”

Teris placed her fingers to Nozel’s lips, silencing him.  “I don’t want to be the cause of a war.  If you stay and get injured or killed while we’re trying to break free, there will be one.  House Silva’s pride will demand it.” Nozel gripped her wrist, tearing her tender fingers from his lips.  “I’m not doing this with you right now!  Get ready to fight!  That’s an order.”

He turned around to face the three Magic Warriors.  It was then that he remembered a magic blocked cell didn’t necessarily block outside magic from entering.

Teris stepped back.

Nozel’s head snapped back around to her, hand outstretched.  “Teris!”

Nozel disappeared, swallowed by Galleo’s portal. Teris’ eyes squeezed shut, willing herself not to cry.  Her trembling lips pressed together.  As fearfully angry as she had been at Nozel for his thoughtless action in following her; she had been selfishly grateful not to be alone.

“You’re a brave one.”  Lotus remarked.  “I wonder how I might’ve fared at the Battle at the Boarder if faced against you and not your counterpart.”

Thinking she was anything but brave, Teris asked.  “You’re not after him. Are you?”

“Yami?” Lotus questioned.  “Our only orders were to capture you, little miss.  Now, if you don’t mind.”  He dangled a spelled cuff that blocked magical transport.  “Put your hand through the bars.”

I’ll be recovering from my monthly infusion of “poison juice” this week, so if you wanna make a blah week brighter and bring a smile to my face I’d appreciate some feedback.  Thanks!

Thank you to those who have left hearts.  And a special THANK YOU to those who have recently commented or re-blogged. It really means a lot.  Also, I’ll be taking a week off.

Next chapter snippet:

Tears prickled Teris’ eyes. Her entire body felt as if it were engulfed in Wild Fire.  The palm of her hand so hot and seared that it was incapable of feeling anything.  Anything other than constant dull burning pain with the occasional sharp, gut wrenching stab that kept her mind from being able to tune it out.

[ardenttheories]

I don't expect a super serious answer from this, but I'm just curious. in a perfect world, how would hs^2 be written? do you have any particular headcanons or plot lines that would be interesting to explore? I understand the hesitation in answering a question like this, because other people might try to discredit your critiques under the guise of "well its not ur headcanons so that's why ur mad". anyways, just curious because I respect your perspective and ideas

In complete honesty? The first thing I would consider vital is a diverse team of people - genuinely diverse - to consider every point of representation with. I’m talking people of different races (to avoid the anti-black coding of Gamzee), with mental illnesses (to avoid the ableism in both Gamzee and Dirk), with different gender identities (to more accurately and healthily portray Jade, Roxy, Vriska, June - any character we could feasibly want to make trans or nonbinary), with different romanticisms and sexualities (so that we could write genuine MLM and WLW relationships without falling into homophobic pitfalls; to avoid biphobic stereotypes), and overall, with different traumatic experiences and triggers (so that we could more accurately gauge what triggers would need to be tagged and how to go over them in an appropriate and respectful manner).

We could never be 100% perfect, but with a team like that, we could at least get close to it. 

Additionally, I’d bring back either fan prompts or closely listen to fan theories and conversations. Homestuck^2 was touted to be written with the fandom in mind; to consider the direction we were asking it to go in, while basing it around a general barebones structure. I’d want to make sure we were including as much of that in as humanly possible. So, if a fan theory seemed like it’d fit into the story? I’d want to include that with the rest of the text; if the fans liked a specific character? I’d want to try and include them more often. Little things to show that we’re listening and that we’re writing the story WITH the fans - like how early Homestuck used to be.

On an actual storyline basis, I really do love the concept of Meat and Candy; that there’s one timeline that goes off the rails and one that is very rigidly stuck to a track. I wouldn’t want to change that concept entirely, but I would want to make it more palpatable for people to read. 

This would mean, for me, absolutely getting rid of anything to do with Yiffany. I’d completely replace that with Dave and Jade having a child together via ectobiology; how Jade has to raise their child in Dave’s absence after he goes missing, how that affects her, who she turns to for comfort and help. 

I’d want to focus Candy more on that feeling of helplessness and dissociation. On John feeling adrift in a world that doesn’t quite connect with him, that doesn’t entirely feel real; how that would affect his relationships, his friends, his family. In this timeline, all of the rebellion stuff would be completely background to the interpersonal connections everyone has (the things that supposedly don’t matter, as is the point of Candy), with much more emphasis on how useless and frivolous the whole war is. It’d get to a point where nobody actually knows why they’re fighting anymore except for the fact that they are, and that even Jane, who started it out of a genuine fear for the human race, is getting tired of it, is losing resources, is starting to realise that she’s drifting away from her own child. 

A truce would be garnered, started by Jane who just very much wants to reconnect with her son, with Karkat taking on the role as troll emissiary. It features long talks in a large, empty room, pouring over papers, where Jane admits that she doesn’t actually know what anyone is up to these days, how long it’s been since she’s seen her husband, since she’s seen John, and Karkat quietly confesses that it’s been several years since he’s seen Dave or Jade, and that he misses them both. 

After that, a lot of the content of Candy would focus on healing. They would get back to their happily ever after, even though some things would never be the same, and there would still be inconsequentialities. It would also correspond with John coming to the slow realisation that he really doesn’t need a plot to be happy at all; that just because it doesn’t matter to the overarching story doesn’t mean it can’t matter to him. 

The Candy timeline, therefore, would close early; it would fade from our view just as Dirk feared, but it would be happy and content, and free from any further meddling. I’d essentially want to enforce this idea that, yes, we can still have happy endings - even if they aren’t “full of meaning”. They can still be satisfying.

The Meat timeline, on the other hand, would have a significant focus on Dirk and his attempts to continue the plot. I think it would be fun, admittedly, if nothing went the way he thought it would. That after all of his villany and his acceptance of destruction in order to facilitate something he thought would be better, he actually just lost complete and utter control. 

The plot isn’t something that he alone can continue. It’s created with character conflict, with motivations and rises and falls and losses and gains; trying to recreate SBURB, to try and restart the cycle, isn’t what a plot needs to be. It isn’t what he thinks it will do. 

I’m unsure if you’ve seen this recently, but there’s been a lot of fanwork around the Lord!Jake English idea that went around several years back (when people saw the Caliborn sona). Now, this I’d want to put into it. 

Jake, fed up with being stepped on, walked over, hurt, suffering from the trauma of being completely and utterly ruined by Dirk, absolutely flips shit. He chases after Dirk to seek revenge, to cut short whatever bullshit he’s trying to do, and therefore much of the comic becomes this constant back and forth with an increasing fear for Dirk the closer Jake gets as he traverses Paradox Space.

It’s very much clear that when Jake arrives, Dirk will lose. There’s no question about it. Nobody suggests that anything else will happen. There’s several arguments on Meat’s Earth C over whether or not they should try to stop Jake, or let him stop Dirk - and whether or not Jake will calm down afterwards or continue his rampage. 

In the end, Dirk fails. Jake catches up to him, and just before he hits the killing blow, the entire thing goes dark. Our narrator dead, the plot abandoned; there is nothing more to see. This I would want to use to enforce the idea that, yes, plot can still be satisfying as hell and still have integral moments and be heavy and harsh - but it can also end in a way that leaves open questions because that shows that it isn’t the best ending you can get. 

And then we jump back to Terezi, using her Seer powers. Both timelines have been her trying to use her powers to See what’s in store, where she should go, what she should do. She’s still floating through Paradox Space, looking for Vriska, and as such she’s met with this... sort of internal dilemma. 

She knows, now, that the chances of her dying out here are high. She also knows that even if she does survive, she’s pretty much never going to see Vriska again anyway. She knows there’s a chance at a happier relationship with John, and that the only way she can get that is if she somehow manages to make a timeline where Meat and Candy merge together at once. 

So, she flies back. She manages to arrive on Earth C the day of John’s big decision, and interrupts him before he can go to the picnic. Through their dialogue, John gets it stuck in his head that, hey, there’s something BIGGER out here that you need to do, but you need to do that amazing thing again where you make a third Choice.

When John arrives at the picnic, he decides to eat some of the pumpkin instead - to which you might be thinking, what pumpkin? The one he put there, of course, using his retcon powers.

So we start on the Pumpkin timeline, written entirely in the 1st person narrative from John’s POV. It’s a completely biased interpretation of what’s going on, but it’s honest to John’s own thoughts and feelings, too, allowing everyone to act the way they usually would do without any influence, but still having a narrative touch. 

It shows John actively fighting to free the timeline from Dirk’s and Alternate Calliope’s narrative controls, those little hooks they’ve planted in it since time began, with a lot of back-and-forth as the two talk to John through the narration (which, he hears their voices as thoughts in his head). 

John attempts to free them both from their own biases and chains, encouraging Alternate!Calliope to leave the space she’s isolated herself in and join Earth C while convincing Dirk to undo the bullshit villain schtick he’s on (and that plot or no plot, there’s still a reason worth living for). 

It’d be a timeline filled with references back to original Homestuck (and funny quips from both Alternate!Calliope and Dirk along the way), a lot of morality discussion, plenty of theorising on narrative control and arcs and the placement of plot and fluff in a satisfying story, and have plenty of representation and romance and hints towards kids, too (such as nonbinary RoxyJaneCallie, DaveJadeKat, aromantic Jake, JohnDirk [because I couldn’t stop myself, honestly, with how their Classpects work so well hand in hand], and definitely RoseMary being the first to adopt a child that they absolutely do not call Vriska). 

It’d fill plotholes the fandom wants to be filled, and it’d have drama, of course, in the form of figuring out a way to destroy Lord English that doesn’t inherently lead to the Candy timeline. But it’d go back and forth between the heavy, plot-filled moments and the slower, relationship-based moments, with more humanising and development of Dirk and Alternate!Calliope and John as rounded characters.

That’s the best my tired mind can come up with right now. It’s something I’ve daydreamed about a lot, actually; how I’d rewrite Homestuck^2, or what my own ending to Homestuck would be using it as a foundation. I hope it makes sense! It’s a fun little thought experiment, honestly.

[ddaenggtan]

from eden | myg + jhs

you've been in the dark a long time, overworked and exhausted. the only bright point is your gatekeeper, hoseok, your closest friend and the man you love but can't have. you've accepted that loneliness is inevitable for you. when a voice calls to you, though, and moves you so deeply that you rip open the earth to help them, you meet a mint-haired boy that changes everything you thought you knew about your prison. | monsters and gods pt 1 (masterlist)

pairing | yoongi x reader x hoseok

genre/warnings | greek god au, hades!reader, thanatos!hoseok, persephone!yoongi, fluff, angst, smut, mild depictions of violence, mentions of blood (well, blood equivalent, bc gods), pining, depictions of abusive parenting, v v brief panic attack (seriously, I don’t go into a ton of detail, but it’s enough, pls don’t read this if that triggers you at all), love triangle (kind of), polyamory, , mutual masturbation, oral (female receiving), face-sitting, fingering, dick-riding, double penetration, unprotected sex (gods can't get sti's but u can! Wrap it b4 u tap it!), creampie, everyone hates Zeus but what's new, demeter sucks and is the literal worst

word count | 15.6k | cross posted to ao3  monsters and gods masterlis

a/n | hello! i’ve renamed this fic at least ten times, but it’s here!! the first part of monsters and gods!!! i keep seeing hades!yoongi (who i LOVE, don’t get me wrong, seriously you should check out @/seokoloqy’s hades yoongi fics because they’re PHENOM) and while I love hades yoongs, I also keep seeing him in flower crowns and being soft and sweet and, as we know by now, I am ultimately a slut for soft bangtan. so this happened. and then i thought ‘wow this mc is dark af i need some contrast here’ and that’s how thanatos hobi happened, also i couldn’t stop thinking of his Judgement Face, which is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, and how fast he switches between that and his smile, plus.....sope, I mean. c’mon. sope. and then it all kinda spiraled into a whole series of fics, only one other of which is even started tho its close to being finished whoops lmao so yeah!!!! pls tell me what u think, i’m not used to writing angst at all, so it may not be suuuuuuper prevalent in this, but i tried!!! also i really recommend listening to hozier while you read it bc i had his first album on repeat while writing it and from eden fits this pretty well imo!!!

It's dark when you open your eyes. You've spent so long down here, you're used to it, but the shadows always seem to make the air colder than it should be. Though you suppose the land of the dead isn't supposed to be warm.

You stretch and wince at the crick in your spine. Another night sitting at your desk, greek fire burning through the hours so that you can scratch away at the papers in front of you. Your siblings always enjoy doing whatever they want, using mortals and throwing them away however they please, cleaning up after each other whenever they can spare the time.

No one ever seems to think about you, nor do they remember the chaos up top only worsens your constant migraines.

No, instead they start their wars and slaughter their enemies and are absolutely oblivious about the fact that the Meadow is at 80% capacity as it is, with more souls arriving each day. Thanatos did well at his job, as did Charon, and you were always sure to be thankful to them, but you wish, not for the first time, that there was someone - anyone - to help with your work.

Your brothers have the naiads, the winds, and the lesser gods to help them with their oceans and skies. Gods of vengeance and retribution help with war, while the fertility goddesses and the muses aid the lovelorn.

And yet here you are, still alone after all these years. Millenia, you've been stuck down here, forced to live out your days in the cold darkness and manage the dead mortals. You've always been introverted, even before you drew lots with your siblings, but never like this. You've tried to leave, of course; at first making short visits to Olympus or the mortal realm, just to speak to another living soul again, someone else who understands what it's like to be trapped in your own life. It seems like every time you came back, though, the underworld had gotten smaller and smaller, nearly suffocating you in an attempt to keep its claws in your skin. And then, of course, came the curse.

You haven't felt the sun on your skin in nearly a thousand years, and while you've always been one for the shade, you miss it. You miss the smell of the flowers in the temples, you miss the sound of the river as it babbles past, you want to feel the warm summer breeze ruffle your hair as you stand in the middle of a marketplace. You're tired of the Fields, you're bored of walking the streets of Elysium with the weight of their stares at your back, sick of standing at the steps to the Isles and wondering if it is, truly, euphoric and if any mortal would ever find out. You don't wear your sandals around the palace anymore; you don't want to hear the footsteps echo. It's just a reminder that you are, truly, alone.

Even the other deities in the Underworld have stopped calling on you. The aura that surrounds you is enough to wilt most any plant, unnerve most every animal, and the gods are no exception. The only exceptions are Hecate, who makes it her personal mission to bribe you into visiting the Meadow if only for a moment, and Thanatos when he can slip away for longer than a moment to distract you from your work. They rarely succeed, but it's the thought that counts, you suppose.

You muse on this as you walk, bare feet skimming lightly over the soil of the Meadow as you make your way to the Gates. You could probably just shadow-walk, if you wanted, you do enjoy giving your Thanatos a fright, but you figure the walk would do you good. There’s no one to bother you as go, thankfully. The dead wander aimlessly around you. There's no acknowledgment as you pass; there's never any recognition of anything in the Meadow, the price mortals pay for being so utterly inconsequential and mundane.

You smile when you see that your friend is busy, and you give a silent command to Cerberus not to alert the man to your presence. The dog whines a little, but sits back on his haunches, shaking the ground as he does so. You're silent as you move up behind the judge.

"You wanted me to tell you my judgment and I have," Hoseok says firmly. "You could have gone straight to the Asphodel Meadow and existed in relative peace for eternity, and instead you request a hearing, and then have the gall to question my decision?" You grimace slightly; perhaps putting Hoseok in charge of judging the souls was not the best idea, but he has yet to be wrong about someone.

"Please, sir," The mortal whimpers. He's on his knees, suit crumpled and dirty where he sits. "I was only doing what I thought was best, please, surely that matters."

"You used children!" Hoseok says in shock. "As slaves! It's 2019 and you had nearly a hundred seven-year-olds sewing clothes together in a cramped warehouse with one bathroom. You seriously expect me to give you leniency because you thought that was best?"

"Their families would have starved without that money," The mortal says. He's on the verge of tears, which has always made you uncomfortable, so you stay hidden for now. "I kept them all fed and safe, didn't I? What would they have done without me? Gone to work in some factory, with dangerous machines and cruel managers, whipped every time they needed to eat?"

"You used children as nearly free labor, barely allowed them time to piss, fed them once every twelve hours, and you expect that to be okay because they could’ve had it worse," Hoseok says. Disgust drips from his voice and you’re inclined to agree with the sentiment. "I respect your opinion, but you are to be punished for your deeds fittingly." Hoseok snaps and two of the Bones come over. These two are in desert camo, one barely tall enough to be an adult judging by the skeletal build, but their grip is unforgiving as they cart the mortal off to the Fields. You don’t even need to mold together a punishment for him; the warehouse you sent others who’d done the same wasn’t quite crowded enough yet.

"Well, that was fun," You call, and delight at the way Hoseok jumps nearly a foot in the air. He glares at you as he turns and you don't bother to hide the smirk on your face. "Child slavery, huh? In this day and age?"

Hoseok tsks. "I know we used to allow some crazy shit back in the old days, but you'd think that people would know better by now. Using children like that, kids…” He trails off, still fuming, and you nod.

“I know.” You pull a piece of lint off his suit with a wrinkle of your nose. “You made the right decision if it helps.”

“I know I did,” He says with a smirk. “I always do.” You roll your eyes and turn away from him, watching the lines of souls head through the gates to their eternal blandness. It's the best way to hide the flush he brings to your cheeks. “What brings you out here, though? Aren’t you supposed to be doing something important?”

“Don’t I wish,” You mutter. “All I’ve got to do is figure out how to expand the realm again without Zeus’ approval.”

“Wait, he didn’t approve the expansion?” You shake your head and step closer to where Cerberus is laying, all three heads focused entirely on you as you rub his middle nose. “Where does he think we’re going to put all of the souls, up your ass?”

“Clearly,” You spit.

“I know it’s not exactly great down here and that they would all rather be thrown into the Pit than visit, but they need to sometimes. If only to see what it’s like. I mean, honestly, what do they expect us to do, just toss everyone in the Meadow and call it a day until there are so many that they’re tripping into Elysium? What the f-”

“Thanatos,” You say quietly, and Hoseok stops. It’s not often that you call him by his title rather than his name, preferring the familiarity of his friendship over the detachment of your positions. “Even here, the gods have ears. You know better than to criticize them like that.”

He huffs but nods his head. You press a kiss to Cerb’s middle nose and coo at him until he starts wagging his tail. When you turn back around, Hoseok is stumbling to keep his balance on the shaking ground. You laugh, which he does not appreciate, but before he can say anything in his defense, another soul is escorted to him by a Bones. The guy is already pleading with Hoseok, who’s returned to the stony mask he usually wears. The silver aura that surrounds him always brings you comfort, reminding you of the moonlight that bathes the surface world, but it has turned colder and is as deadly as mercury. You envy the way he can switch back and forth between his professional mask and the bright, loving man you know; if only it were that easy for you. Without so much as a wave, you weave the shadows around you once more, ignoring the soul's cries to you for mercy, and let yourself disappear into the darkness.

When you emerge from the shadows, you settle at the base of your garden tree. The only living thing that would grow down here, the sole reminder of the world above. Its branches show that it should be close to the harvest soon, maybe a month away at the most. You reach up, weaving through the darkness to pluck a pomegranate from the tree. You don't even like pomegranates anymore, you think as you inspect it. Ripe, juicy, and utterly disgusting; the gods' idea of a joke. The thing that brought about your isolation, your solitude, yet it continues to be the only thing that grows in this wasteland.

You laugh bitterly before tossing the fruit up in the air, letting it fly through the shadows to land beside Hoseok, whatever he's doing. He always appreciates your little gifts, the only real thing you can do to show that you aren't cross with him and are glad for the work he does. He's long been stuck here with you, but the fruit doesn't turn to bile on his tongue the way it does yours. Perhaps the willingness he had that first time made a difference.

Please.

You glance around, looking for the voice that suddenly echoes around you. It's soft, a memory of a whisper. It's not rare for you to hear the voices of the dead in your realm, but this is different. This one strikes you to your core, for this…

This one sounds hopeful.

The prayers that make their way to you are never hopeful. They are sad or angry or scared, always filled with tears and regret and more than a little hesitancy, but never do they have any shred of hope in them.

You stand, eyes narrowed as you look through the darkness for whatever soul may be calling to you.

Please. I don't want to go back. Don't let her take me.

Without thinking, you reach into the shadows. The blackness swirls around your fingers, unsure where you're trying to go. You don't know yourself, and you wish you did. You aren't sure why you're doing this; you rarely answer prayers, least of all the ones that don't mention you specifically, but something in this voice calls to you. It resonates in your chest, shakes your very being because you remember that feeling. You remember the way it felt to be free, standing in the sun and clawing at the earth as Gaia dragged you back down to your post, tears mixing with the dirt as you pleaded, begged her not to take you back down there.

With a jerk, you pull the shadows apart, and the ground quakes above you. You watch, anxiety pooling in your gut, and it's only the intensity of your focus that lets you see it: a figure, falling limply through the earth that you've opened. The string of curses you let out would make even Ares blush, and it's with a rush you haven't felt in millennia that you weave the shadows together into a net and toss it upwards. The figure falls into it with ease, shadows wrapping around the body to glide gently downwards until they can deposit the person with ease at the roots of your tree.

Your breath catches in your throat as the darkness recedes, revealing soft mint hair with flowers woven into it, pale green robes that are sliced nearly in half at the back and caked with mud. The man is beautiful and soft and bright, every inch the antithesis to your own black and grey clothes. You hesitate to even look at him, too afraid of dulling that sun-kissed skin with the death you carry on your fingertips.

His brow furrows and he winces, though his eyes remain closed. You blink owlishly before guiding the shadows around him once more; when you're sure he's secure, you pull him along behind you until you reach the only spare room you have in the palace. You situate him on the bed there, fluffing pillows and smoothing blankets until you can almost pretend he fell asleep there of his own accord. With pursed lips, you assign three of your Bones to watch him; one just inside the door and two outside of it, just in case whatever he was running from attempts to come for him.

You don't want to leave him, but you have work to do, and the land of the dead cannot rule itself.

It's dark when he opens his eyes. There is Greek fire in the corner, and shadows dancing on the walls around it, but he cannot make out much else. When he sits up and slides his feet off what feels like a bed, he hisses. The marble is cold and unforgiving against the bare skin of his feet and he doesn't know of any feeling like it. He's too accustomed to the dirt and grass from his mother's domain, and even the white marble of Olympus was warm to the touch. This is different. Alarming. New.

He eventually works up the nerve to stand fully. Looking around, he doesn't see any kind of light sources other than the brazier in the corner, so he grips one of the coals in his palm and uses that bit of light to find the door. The fire tingles against his skin, but he's long since grown used to holding fire in his palms for his mother. The warmth is comforting for a brief moment before the image of his mother flashes through his mind. He flinches at the memory of her face, twisted with wrath, and the stone drops out of his grip before he can catch it.

The marble of the wall is cool against his back as he slides to the ground, knees brought up to his chest and his eyes screwed shut against the darkness. There's a vice around his chest and he can't breathe and he can't see and he doesn't have any idea where he is or if he's even alive or if she's stuffed him somewhere he'll never be able to escape and the thought makes his head spin as the air catches in his throat and gods don't even truly need to breathe and yet he can feel the cold claws of death tighten around his throat and all he can see in his final moments is the horrifying face of his mother's anger and he can feel the vines and roots around his ankles once more and-

"Who the hell are you?"

He looks up, pushing the sweat-covered hair out of his eyes. There's a man, in the darkness, who exudes a faint silver light around him that illuminates the walls and black marble floor. The man doesn't seem angry that he's there, or even all that surprised; just curiously resigned. There are so many questions on the tip of his tongue, so much he wants - needs - to know but only one makes it past the rock lodged in his windpipe.

"Am I dead?"

The man frowns and shakes his head. "I seriously doubt it, since you didn't cross the river." The man looks him over, taking in the flushed skin and sweat beads and the purple robes he donned the moment he decided to run and seems to decide something. He crouches down so he's eye level, poised on the balls of his feet with his elbows on his knees, and even in a full suit, he looks impeccably put-together. "I'm Thanatos. You can call me Hoseok. If you'll let me, I'd like to take you to someone who probably has a better idea of what you're doing here." All he can do is nod, and Hoseok extends a hand, which he uses to bring himself to a shaky stand.

"I'm Yoongi," He says, hesitant and quiet. "Um, I'm Kore. Or, Persephone. Either one."

"I think I'll stick with Yoongi," Hoseok says. His smile lights the hallway that Yoongi stands in, and it eases something inside him, though he isn't sure what. Hoseok doesn't let go of his hand as he guides Yoongi through the corridors, and talks to him the entire time. He speaks of his duties there, souls he's judged that day, ones he wished he could do more for, comforts Yoongi when a walking skeleton in Roman armor passes him and explains that those are the security force of the palace. By the time they make it to a large room, lit on each side with braziers of Greek fire that give the room an eerie glow, Yoongi has a fairly good idea of where he is, and who Hoseok is taking him to see.

The large ebony throne at the end of the room and the black-robed figure sitting atop it only confirms his fears.

When Hoseok enters the throne room, you're only slightly surprised. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to take a break from his judicial duties, and so long as there were plenty of Bones to watch the gates, you had no issues. Years would sometimes pass before Hoseok needed to return, relieving the judgment council once more and returning them to their own afterlives.

To see him shadowed by the mint-haired boy you pulled through the earth, however, is a shock.

You set the papers you'd been writing at to the side. Your robes, woven from shadows and dipped in the Styx, swirl around your bare feet as you move to sit correctly with your back straight instead of lounging as you'd been doing before. The darkness you’d brought forth to cushion your chair, plump and fat and soft underneath you, shifts as well, keeping the hard edge of the marble from digging into your skin. Hoseok stifles a smile at the sight and you narrow your eyes at him. You wish he'd say something about it, the punk.

"What can I do for you, Hoseok?" You eventually ask as he and his companion reach the steps just below your throne. Even now, you can barely bring your eyes away from the boy behind him; he's radiant, the light in the room seemingly drawn to him despite the way he's slouched into himself.

"I was just wondering if you knew how this young man came to be in the underworld, my lady," Hoseok says. Your eyes dart back to him and you can't help the way your heart softens at the soft silver shine around him. You look to the mint-haired god again; his eyes dart around nervously as if he expects something to jump out at him, and he's close enough to Hoseok that if the other were to step back, they'd both likely fall to the floor.

You lean forward in your throne, doing your best to project a calm and friendly air to the shorter of the two gods. "Do you not remember?" You ask quietly. Your eyes don't leave his big brown ones, and you can see the moment the panic sets in. "It's fine, you don't need to answer me. Just know that you're safe here."

"Yoongi?" Hoseok says quietly, drawing the boy's attention. "Hey, it's alright. We're not gonna let anything happen." It takes several minutes but eventually the boy - Yoongi, apparently - nods. He hasn't relaxed at all, but he doesn't seem like he's about to bolt out of your throne room, so you consider it a success.

"You were praying," You tell him softly. "You asked for my help, so I gave it, as best I could. I don't think you meant for your words to reach me, but they did." Yoongi frowns ever so slightly as he takes in the knowledge. There's a hint of anxiety in his face, his brow furrowed adorably, but he doesn't startle when Hoseok rests a hand on his shoulder. He looks up, though, and the two of them seem to have a silent conversation. Something settles in your stomach, seeing the ease with which Hoseok interacts with him, and you swallow down the lump in your throat. It's ridiculous to feel anything like this; Hoseok is your subordinate and friend, and you've hardly known Yoongi for five minutes.

"He can stay here, right?" Hoseok asks. You look to Yoongi, wondering if he even wants to stay, if he even wants to be here at all or if he wished someone else had answered his prayers. Hoseok calls your name softly and your gaze flicks to him. "Can he stay?"

You find that you're debating with yourself. Yoongi clearly doesn't belong here; he is soft and sweet and gentle and completely at odds with the harsh, depressive atmosphere that lingers in your palace. He looks terrified even now as he takes in the room, eyes lingering on the bones that were fused together to make your throne. And yet...you cannot escape the fear and hope that had echoed in his prayer, the sheer desperation that someone would help him. He had been running and terrified, which could only mean that he was being chased by something or someone, and you couldn't force him out if he was in danger.

"If you would like to stay," You say after a moment too long, "Then you are, of course, more than welcome to do so." You rise from your throne, shadows dissipating as you do, and take a couple of tentative steps toward the pair. He doesn't shrink back in fear, which you take as a good sign. "The guest quarters will be yours to do with as you please. Hoseok can show you around the palace and grounds, so you don't get lost, and the Bones can bring you anything you require." You move to press a hand to Hoseok's arm, and you level him with a careful look.

"Of course, my lady," Hoseok says. He turns to Yoongi with a radiant smile. "And you can leave whenever you'd like."

"Of course," You agree quickly. "Hoseok can take you back and forth across the river as you wish. Charon can be quite fussy about it." Several times, your guests have been stuck on the wrong side of the river until someone brought your ferryman his payment. Yoongi looks slightly less terrified, and in the emerald glow of the fires, you notice how wide his eyes are. "Oh! You're from the surface, of course, I forgot."

With a snap of your fingers, the sconces along the walls light themselves, and the candles ringing the large chandelier in the center of your throne room surge to life as well. Yoongi startles a little, stepping closer to Hoseok.

"Ah, I forget you surfacers can't see as well down here," Hoseok mutters. "We'll get you a candlestick as well, just in case." He nods to you, Yoongi copying him in a most adorable way. They're halfway out of the room when a thought occurs to you.

"Yoongi?" You call after him. He turns, and the green halo around him makes your heart falter. "Don't eat the pomegranates. Not even the seeds." His brow furrows in confusion but he gives a hesitant nod before he turns and hurries after Hoseok.

As much as your chest aches for him, you won't subject him to this life. You watch him go and wonder how long he'll last in this hellscape.

When their shadows have long disappeared from the walls, you turn and retake your seat on the throne. With a wave, a small team of Bones appears in front of you - the same uniforms, with the same unit numbers, stamped on their dog tags, and the same haunted look where their eyes once were - and you do a quick count. Ten should do fine for what you need.

"Scour the earth. Do not speak to anyone. Find out what he was running from, and if it still searches for him. Don't let anyone see you, and don't let anyone know why you're looking. Return if you're in danger. Report to me immediately." They salute, and you watch their forms slowly disappear, becoming more and more transparent until they glide upwards and through the cracks in the ceiling.

You sit back and wonder how long it will take for you to get answers, and if it will be before or after Yoongi realizes he's too good for this place.

Yoongi is quiet. That's the first thing Hoseok notices about him. He doesn't initiate conversation, really, instead content to listen to Hoseok talk about the various souls he's judged and the occasional escape attempts someone has made. At first, when Yoongi speaks, he's quiet, like he doesn't really want - or expect - to be heard, and he always looks pleasantly surprised when Hoseok answers his question or responds to his comments.

It makes his heart ache, and he wonders what exactly Yoongi has gone through to make him so shocked that anyone would actually listen to what he has to say. It takes weeks for him to warm enough to Hoseok to start speaking more often, to ask questions about his day, to actually request specific things. The day Yoongi asked Hoseok, soft and hesitant, if he could show him the Meadow and the tree, Hoseok almost cried. Yoongi was so obviously ready to be told no, fully expectant for Hoseok to decline such a simple request, and it only reinforced Hoseok's need to give the god everything he could ever want.

"What are you doing, Yoongi?" Hoseok asks when he looks up. They're at the gates, Hoseok in the usual position, eyes roving over the lines of souls slowly shuffling forward, and Yoongi sitting nearby. Cerberus is curled up behind him, dwarfing the god with his massive body, all three heads snoring and slobbering as they sleep haphazardly on top of each other. Yoongi glances up at Hoseok as he grabs another flower from the basket beside him.

"I'm making Cerb some flower crowns," Yoongi answers as if it was obvious. Hoseok frowns.

"Flower crowns?" He echoes. "What's a flower crown?"

Yoongi gives him a disbelieving stare. "It's a bath salt. What the fuck do you think it is, Hobi? It's a crown made of flowers." Hoseok is caught off guard by the sarcasm, as he has been every time Yoongi has spouted off some kind of sass to him. He strides over and crouches beside the mint god to watch him.

Yoongi's fingers are sure and steady as he weaves the stems of the flowers together. It's already half-dozen, Hoseok thinks, the crocus blossoms blending together prettily and not straying in the slightest from where he places them. Hoseok hasn't ever seen anything like it, and he's entranced by the way Yoongi's fingers move and the way the flowers seem to just do whatever he wants without much coaxing on his part.

"I had the Bones bring me back a basket from their last excursion," Yoongi says. "Since none grow here." He stops with one last crocus and eyes it critically before apparently deciding it was good enough. Hoseok can't take his eyes off the thing, enraptured even as Yoongi sets it gently on his head. Hoseok can feel his eyes widen and his cheeks flush red.

"Thanks," He says after a second, one hand darting up to steady the crown as he shifts his weight. He smiles, unable to help himself and poses. "What do you think? Does it suit me?"

"Ugh, you wish," Yoongi says. Hoseok can see the smile in his eyes and is satisfied with the mirth threatening to bubble past Yoongi's lips.

"Y'know," Hoseok says after a while, hands in his pockets as he watches Yoongi make the second crown for Cerb. "I bet if you planted some seeds near the pomegranate tree, they'd grow." Yoongi's hands stop moving, his eyes drifting up to look past Hoseok. Something similar to excitement hides behind his eyes, and Hoseok wants nothing more than to bring it out to shine. Yoongi cocks a brow as if to say 'really' and Hoseok nods.

The gummy smile he gets in return, full of hope and light that the underworld hasn't ever seen before, is well worth the potential scolding you may give him for suggesting Yoongi fiddle with the tree's courtyard. And the way he keeps the flower crown nearby, hanging off a hook on the gates long after the blossoms have wilted and died, is worth the shy smile Yoongi gets every time he sees it.

You don't see Yoongi for the first few weeks he's there. Not really. You catch glimpses when he passes through the palace halls with Hoseok, and he sits with Cerberus while you visit Hoseok at the gates, but he makes no effort to seek you out, and you respect that distance. You can't bring yourself to force your company on him. You're an acquired taste; Hoseok has been in this realm for so long that he's accustomed to the darkness that follows you, the aura of death and despair that usually surrounds you. He's been surrounded by the dead almost as long as you have, so you know he can't be affected by it. Yoongi, though…

Yoongi is life. He's the springtime blossoms in a summer breeze, he's the sound of birds chirping in the treetops, he's vibrant and fresh and lovely and you cannot ruin that. You can't watch him wither away like a winter garden, you can't watch the color drain from his skin until he's just as much a ghost as the souls that wander the Meadow, you can't let him become just as dead as everything else in this cursed place.

So you leave him be. You offer curt nods when you see him with Hoseok and polite waves because giving any more of yourself to him without letting yourself get closer would be too dangerous. Even with the distance you keep, your chest tightens with every smile that graces his lips, you ache to hear his voice even just once, and it's too much. It's too much for someone you haven't even had a real conversation with. Someone who looks at you with apprehension and anxiety, yet brings undeniable joy to the man you've always held in your heart.

It's too much for you to feel like this for someone who makes Hoseok smile as if he's seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. You love Hoseok too much to stand anywhere near them.

You've been avoiding both of them for days. You can't bear to see Yoongi's gummy smile and Hoseok's adorable dimples as they gaze at each other, and you're busy enough to make a decent excuse for it. Expansion isn't difficult, but keeping it quiet is. Plus you've been on the hunt to figure out what had been after Yoongi with such ferocity that it sliced right through his robes and had him praying to anyone who would listen.

You had a few helpful leads, but nothing concrete, and it was more than a little frustrating. Which is why you find yourself stepping out of the shadows of the pomegranate tree, hopeful that it could help to ease even just part of the emotions rolling in your gut.

The sight of Yoongi surprises you, even more so when you see that he's on his knees beside the tree with dirt covering his hands and a smidge of something on his cheek. He looks absolutely wondrous, like everything you've been missing from the world above, and it would bring tears to your eyes if you let it because he's so far out of your reach.

"Hi," You say after a long debate with yourself. Yoongi's head shoots up and he fixes wide eyes on you. He reminds you of the ones who come to you with no memory of what's happened to them, scared and alone and about to get the worst news of their lives. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," He says immediately. "I didn't mean to, not really. You just said not to eat them, and I'm not, so I thought it would be okay. Hobi suggested it and you two are so close that I figured he'd know if you'd be upset."

"I'm not upset." Your voice is as gentle as you can make it. "I'm just curious. Hoseok didn't mention anything to me, and no one really comes here."

"Oh." The relief is palpable as it courses through him, and he looks back down at the ground in front of him. "I'm just planting some flowers so I can make more crowns for Hobi and Cerb. The others died so fast, and I don't want to keep sending the Bones out to get more if I don't have to."

"Oh, you made the flower crown for Hoseok?" You'd figured as much. No one else in the underworld knew how to make them, and Yoongi was the only consistently around him. "He showed me that, it was gorgeous."

"Obviously, it was made by me, after all," Yoongi spouts. You gape at him, and he gives you a contrite grimace. "I'm sorry, my lady Hades, I forgot who I was with for a moment. It won't happen again."

"It should," You say before you can stop yourself. He glances at you curiously. "I don't mind if you're relaxed and casual around me. I've never been one to enforce the rules that Olympus has. Hoseok is proof enough of that. And you can use my name, I don't mind."

The way he whispers your name, almost as if he's practicing it to himself, makes your heart flutter in your chest. It's so dangerous to be around him like this, relaxed and casual; it's so easy to forget that it's Hoseok that gets this, that deserves this small piece of sunshine.

"Well," Yoongi eventually says. "In that case, you can get to work. I've got an entire basket of seeds left to plant around this thing, and I can only work so fast. Plus I'm getting hungry."

"Oh. Okay, show me what to do." You don't hesitate to mirror his position, robes bunching under your knees in the dirt as he points at the small holes he's carved out of the dirt with the trowel and rake the Bones nabbed for him.

Yoongi is patient, you learn. Not extremely so, but he walks you through what you need to do with clear directions. The seeds are small in your hands, which amuses you to no end, and there's an odd delight in packing the soil around them and dripping water down onto them after. You're smiling for the first time in...you don't know how long, and the feeling of Yoongi's hands around yours as he shows you how to use the trowel is something akin to paradise.

His hands are rough; calloused and weathered and wonderful against the softness of your own. You start to talk freely to him, asking him about each seed you plant and what they are and how they look. He tells you about each one, the deep timbre of his voice like music to your ears. He rolls his eyes at every joke you make, despite the way he smiles, and hits back with several quips of his own. He listens as you tell him, voice shaking, about the pomegranate tree, and how it curses anyone who eats its fruit to stay trapped in the underworld forevermore. He talks and listens and jokes and laughs and it's only after you've made a particularly ridiculous joke that you realize your mistake.

"You've spent too much time around Hobi," Yoongi says. "He made the same joke yesterday." He's looking down at the last few seeds, plotting where in the courtyard to put them, and doesn't see the way the smile dies on your face. You'd forgotten. For a brief time, you'd forgotten that this is just pretending.

You don't get to keep this. You don't get to stay here, in this courtyard, with Yoongi and his rough hands and the mint hair that falls in his eyes and his gummy smile. This isn't yours. You don't get flower crowns and jokes and soft kisses, no matter how much you want them, just like you don't get Hoseok's bright grin or his dimples or his long fingers intertwined with yours. Your heart aches for these two beautiful boys, both of them everything you could ever want in so many different ways. And yet you have neither of them, you don't get either of them. They are each other's, and there is no room there for the death you bring in your wake. You kill everything you touch; the mortals whisper about the cold grip of your hands on their neck as they pass over.

You look back over the seeds you've helped Yoongi plant and wonder how many you've killed before they even lived.

You stand and brush the dirt off your robes. "Well," You say, careful to keep your voice level. "I've got some things to do. I trust you'll be alright on your own." You can't bring yourself to look at Yoongi, can't bear to see the dirt that smudged along his cheek, can't stand to see the way the orange robes drape along him and remind you of the way the autumn leaves looked coating the grass in the meadows.

He doesn't even get a response out before you flee, but you feel his eyes on your back long after you've hidden in the shadows and sunk down onto your bed.

It's astounding, you think as you rinse the dirt off your hands later, how a single afternoon planting seeds with someone can be so detrimental to the walls you'd put around your heart. Tears blur your vision and your fingers are trembling, but you keep scrubbing until the phantom slide of his hands against yours is gone and there is no more evidence of the planting you'd done. When you finally stop, your skin is raw and throbbing, and there are tears running down your face.

You had long accepted that Hoseok could never be yours. You were in two different positions, and he was much too bright to want to be with someone like you. Your shadows would have suffocated him, so you resigned yourself to being his friend. Friend is safe. Friend is good.  

You’d known the same when you met Yoongi. Bright and colorful amidst the darkness of the underworld, you wouldn’t dare to get any closer to him, too familiar with the fluttering of your chest and the jumping in your stomach every time you saw him. Just being friendly was enough, ensuring he is safe and happy is fine with you.

But this? Watching the two of them grow closer and closer, able to love each other so wholly while you stand alone in your darkness, watching their bright smiles and soft looks, all directed only at each other, for eternity? This was too much for you to bear. Being hopelessly in love with one man you can’t have is bad enough, but two of them…

You wish for the first time that you were not immortal, but a meager human upon the surface, unaware and blissful in your ignorance.

He never expected this. Not from the moment he woke up, not when he was sprinting through a forest to escape his mother, not for a single heartbeat could he ever imagined everything that has happened to him since he arrived in this cold land.

He’s been alone for so long, hidden away in his mother’s garden with only the rare visit from Artemis or Hestia as he learned how to do anything and everything his mother wished. He’s never had friends before, he’s never had the subtle inside jokes that he shares with Hoseok, familiar enough that even just a quick glance can have them both bursting with laughter. He’s never known a goddess like you, able to weave together the darkness into something tangible, something useful, something real. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen, and Hoseok’s uncanny ability to bend the environment around him and use his silvery aura to turn almost invisible to the naked eye never ceases to amaze him. The two of you are so powerful, so utterly awe-inspiring, and every single thing his mother had told him is so far from the truth that it almost hurts.

Neither you nor Hoseok is standoffish, really; he can see the hesitant friendship in every smile you send his way, and Hoseok’s primary concern at any moment is making sure he’s happy and safe. It warms Yoongi in a way he could never explain, not even in a million years, simply because he’s never felt this way. In all the books he’s read, the plays he’s seen, every mortal he’s watched, he’s seen this.

He’s seen how they turn red with just a look, how their hearts stutter when hands brush, how they smile, soft and private when they think no one is looking at them. He’s seen this feeling, the bubbling in his chest that he gets every time Hoseok laces their fingers together while walking and the moment you step into the courtyard and see the kaleidoscope of colors that you helped plant. He never would have guessed that he would feel it, though, too isolated from the rest of the world until he came here. Until you pulled apart the earth itself to help him escape, without even knowing why or who he was.

The feeling grows inside of him, thorns pricking into his every breath because he knows it can’t last. He’s seen how you and Hoseok look at each other when you think no one is watching, can feel the pull between you and the years upon years of familiarity that lie between you. The two of you are closer than he could ever get, two sides of the same coin, and more suited to each other than he would ever be.

And he can’t stay.

That’s the worst part. He knows it, knows that she will find him before long and wrap her claws around his throat and drag him back into that gilded cage she calls a greenhouse just to leave him. It’s for the best, my dear, she’ll say, it’s to keep you safe.

Yoongi doesn’t want to be safe, though. He wants to be happy and free, and he’s found that place here, surrounded by death even as he carves out his own little area of life. With Hoseok’s warm grin across from him and your own cool fondness beside him. With flower crowns atop his head and Hoseok’s, and the small buds are woven into your own crown of bones and grief as a small reminder that even in death, there is life.

But she will find him. She always does. And though he cannot bear the thought of leaving you, he will, if only to keep you safe.

Yoongi's been there almost a year when you summon Hoseok to dine with you. By the time he gets to your office - a very understated term for the sprawling library - you're already sitting at your usual desk, food pushed aside and forgotten in lieu of the papers stacked in front of you.  Even with your head bent low and bags under your eyes, you're the most beautiful person Hoseok has ever seen.

He remembers the first time he met you when Zeus had assigned him to be the gatekeeper for the underworld. You were so young, so skittish and worried that you were going to be a terrible ruler as if the dead could be disappointed in you. You'd been beautiful then, too, but not in the same way. You've grown into yourself since then; you're no longer afraid of being a bad queen. You know that you're competent and capable, you know you can do this, and you frequently prove wrong any Olympian who says otherwise. You're mature now; strong and confident and brilliant, and even with the bags under your eyes and the shadows that lick lovingly against your skin, you are absolutely radiant.

Hoseok is so in love with you that it physically hurts him, and every time he looks at you, he is reminded of how you are just out of his reach.

He clears his throat and you look up. The tired smile that graces your face warms him, and he settles into a chair on your left with practiced ease. This isn't the first time you've asked him to dine with you, and it won't be the last.

"What's the occasion?" He teases, delighting in the way you roll your eyes and gesture to the food and nectar that sits in front of him.

"How is Yoongi?" You ask. It doesn't escape him that you don't answer, but you always have your reasons, so he doesn't call you on it.

"Well. He wanders around on his own and doesn't seem to jump at the slightest sound anymore. He came with me the other day when I judged and managed to pick fifteen people for Elysium in a row." An expression passes over your face that he can't decipher. He continues anyway. "He still won't talk much about what happened, but he also doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to leave. I imagine he'll get bored eventually, and we'll need to give Cerb extra treats when he does, but I'm not concerned just yet."

You nod and Hoseok starts to eat as you rifle through a few more papers. "You know he's Persephone?" You ask, and Hoseok nods. He'd forgotten to share that knowledge with you, but clearly, you had your own way of finding things out. "So then you're aware that his mother is Demeter."

Hoseok pauses for a minute. He swallows the food in his mouth and really looks at you for the first time since he sat down. The bags under your eyes are more prominent, and you're wearing your Hades expression. The one that stays professional and controlled and tells people nothing of your true thoughts. Well, people that haven't known you for more than a thousand years.

"Hoseok, he can't stay here forever," You eventually say. "She's been looking for him everywhere. The humans' crops are ruined, ice and snow have covered the earth, more people are dying than we can hold right now. She won't stop."

"And that means we kick him out?" Hoseok hisses. You close your eyes and he can feel the sigh you're holding back. "You said yourself that he could stay as long as he wants. You can't just rescind that because some wheat goddess is going on a rampage. We still don't know what he was running from, or if it's still out there, and I won't watch him-" He stops, frozen by the way you're pressing your tongue into the side of your cheek. It's the only tell you have and he rarely sees it, because you rarely keep things from him. "What do you know?"

You don't answer, and he repeats the question, louder this time, as he surges out of his chair.

"I was running from her," Yoongi's voice echoes through the library. You and Hoseok both turn to see him standing in the door, and Hoseok's heart swells at the sight. He's in soft, muted pink robes that Hoseok knows he made himself. His cheeks are rounder, and he's no longer curled in on himself. He looks stronger. Confident. Unafraid. "I was running from my mother. That's what you found out, right?" Hoseok looks to you, and the regret in your eyes just confirms it.

"I'm sorry, Yoongi, I was only trying to make sure you were safe, I didn't mean-"

"It's alright," Yoongi says as he moves to run his hand along your cheek. "I know." He smiles at you. Hoseok looks between the two of you - Yoongi's hand resting lightly on your cheek and a soft smile on his lips while his eyes crinkle with rare happiness, your own eyes wide and full of what can only be described as pure, unadulterated love - and his stomach rolls violently. Even after all the time Hoseok has spent with you, and with Yoongi, and the times he's entered a room to find the two of you in comfortable silence, he never expected this. He should've, he realizes; the two of you are a perfect match, complementing each other to near perfection, each fault being smoothed over by the other's strengths.

How could he have thought you wouldn't fall in love with Yoongi? Soft, kind Yoongi, who had just enough snark inside of him to make every word out of his mouth an unexpected joy. Yoongi who braids flower crowns with the flowers he's started to grow in the courtyard, surrounding the pomegranate tree with the beautiful blooms. Yoongi, who encourages Hoseok to judge more and more souls, ones that don't request it, who can somehow pick the good people from the bad just by looking.

And how could he have ever expected Yoongi not to fall for you? Strong and intelligent, determined and kind. You who opened your home to him in his most vulnerable moment and never expected anything in return. You who did everything in your power to find what was chasing him, and find a way to stop it. You, with your lonely smile and your bare feet. You, who Hoseok himself has been in love with for tens of thousands of years.

How could he have expected either of you not to fall in love in the months that you have known each other when Hoseok couldn't even stop himself?

“I’ll go back to her,” Yoongi says softly, finally dropping his hand from your cheek and turning the radiant smile on Hoseok. “She’ll have no reason to continue this if I return.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, Yoongi,” You say immediately. ““You were desperate to get away from her, and...what she almost did to you, that’s unacceptable.”

“Let her rage,” Hoseok agrees. “You’re safe here, no one can get to you without getting through the two of us first, not to mention Cerberus and the Bones. No nature goddess will last in this place, not with our full force around you.”

“Thank you, Hobi, but no. I can’t ask you both to do that, not when it could end so badly for you. You don’t know what she can do, it’s not-”

“You aren’t asking us,” You say. Your voice is as quiet as always, but there’s a firmness there that Hoseok recognizes. It’s usually saved for the throne room when some mortal has been particularly annoying or stubborn, and it’s a shock to see it directed at Yoongi. “We are offering. Let us protect you, Yoongi. At least let me speak with Zeus about this. I may be able to convince him to intervene.”

Yoongi hesitates, the indecision is written all over his face, and Hoseok leans to lace their fingers together. It’s a familiar gesture, done so often to prevent Yoongi from getting lost that it’s second nature at this point.

“Please,” Hoseok pleads when Yoongi looks at him. “Please, Yoongi.”

The reluctant nod is all the confirmation needed. You’re already scribbling out a summons for Hermes to carry to the lord of the gods, and Hoseok is halfway through the halls to reinforce the gates and ensure Cerberus knows his task. He tries not to think about the way Yoongi lingered behind, one hand on your shoulder as he watched you write and the other caressing the flower-riddled braids he’d made earlier that day.

He doesn’t think about it, because in the end, it doesn’t matter. Hoseok is so deeply in love with the two of you, so grossly enamored, that he would go to the end of time itself if it meant keeping the two of you safe and happy. Even if that meant watching you love each other and not him.

“What do you mean, he won’t help?”

You massage your temples without looking up from the letter Zeus had sent back with Hermes. He was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. Hoseok had appeared not long after the messenger had left, and is, also unsurprisingly, irate.

“According to him, he has no dog in this fight, because Yoongi isn’t his son, he’s Demeter’s, and if he were to get involved, he’d side with her since the humans are dying so quickly, which isn’t exactly good for worship numbers.”

“Are you kidding me? He seriously said he’d take her side in this?”

“Not in so many words, but yes. And I get it, Hobi. His job is to keep the peace between everyone in Olympus, and without actually coming here to give me an audience, all he has is Demeter’s side of the story.”

“Which is?”

“That I kidnapped her son and am currently holding him captive in a dungeon down here.”

“That’s absurd. He’s not captive at all, he’s happier here than he ever was up there, and you didn’t kidnap him!” You give a slight nod to show that yes, Hoseok, you’re aware of the truth. “Does he know what she does to him? How she treats him?”

“Hoseok, please,” You mutter. The weight of Zeus’ words is like a blade against your throat and you want nothing more than to help Yoongi. Clearly, the Fates have decided against that. “You know how he is. Do you honestly think he’d care? She has a claim to him, despite what he wants, and unless we find a way to get Zeus down here or go there ourselves, our lord won’t be able to hear any other side of this story.”

“Then we’ll...we’ll go there! We’ll make them listen! You could talk sense into him, make him see that he needs to help.”

“You know I can’t do that, Hobi.” Hoseok flinches, as if just remembering that you are as captive here as the souls you keep. You’re glad, not for the first time, that Death Itself cannot be contained, so that Hoseok, at least, is free to come and go as he pleases. “And before you say it, no, we can’t ask him to go. It isn’t safe. The second he sets foot outside this realm, she’ll pull him back. We’re lucky that he hasn’t already told her where Yoongi is.”

Your statement is punctuated with a muffled thud, and the anxiety that runs through you is mirrored in the look Hoseok gives you. Another thud echoes through the palace, the ground rumbling under your feet, and you stand.

“Where is he?” You ask, already pulling the shadows around you.

“Just past the gate, walking through the Meadow. If we hurry-”

“Go.” You disappear into the blackness, never more glad that Hoseok can sense the living in your land. When you step away from the shadows, Yoongi is there, confusion written across his face and fear in his eyes. “You have to run.”

“No,” He says. “I’m not going to keep running from her. I’m staying here, she can’t take me back.”

“Yoongi, please,” You beg. He’s too vulnerable here, too open, too easily seen with his spring green robes billowing around his feet and flowers woven into a crown atop his head. He takes your hands in his and pulls you close, and you’ve never seen a fire like this in him. It burns hot and strong and it makes your chest ache for what could have been.

“I won’t let her hurt you while I hide away like a coward,” He whispers. His thumb wipes away tears you didn’t know were there, and determination floods through you.

"Please, Yoongi. Let us help you. Let me help you. I-" The words choke in your throat, but Yoongi nods as if they made it out.

"I love you, too." His voice is soft, barely audible over the shaking ground and the deafening sound of hooves slamming into your gates. You feel more than see Hoseok land beside you, and his hand rests on the small of your back without hesitation.

"Take him," You tell Hoseok. "Go to the palace. You'll be safe there. Don't let him leave."

Hoseok's eyes are fire-bright as he wraps an arm around Yoongi's waist. The god's protests fall on dead ears, even as you let your hands brush over the softness of Hoseok's ink black wings. Just one moment, that is all you want, just one single second to pretend.

"I'll see you after, my lady," Hoseok says firmly. You don't have the heart to correct him, nor the time, so you just nod. Yoongi's screams echo in your ears even as you turn, the blackness that lingers at every corner of your realm swirling around your feet and ready to be whatever you need. You let one last year fall from your eyes as the gates crumple, and the furious eyes of Demeter fixate on you and the black-winged figure carrying her son away.

Hoseok flies faster than he ever has, determined to get Yoongi into the palace and relative safety. The god sobs in his arms, still struggling to get back to where you stand in the Meadow, the massive form of Demeter towering above you, but Hoseok doesn't relax his grip. You gave him an order; he hadn't disappointed you yet, and he isn't about to start now. Not with Yoongi caught in the middle.

He doesn't hesitate when he touches down in the palace, wings retracted and brushing ever so slightly against the black marble floor. He turns to the nearby Bones and orders them to the doors, summoning as many others as he can spare from the gates and Fields to help barricade the palace from the goddess.

"Hobi, you have to go, you have to help her," Yoongi sobs. "She's gonna...I can't, Hobi, please, you have to keep her safe."

"I have to keep you safe," Hoseok replies. He's got a vice grip around Yoongi's arm as he pulls him deeper into the palace, doing his level best to avoid any window or door to the outside. "That was the order she gave and that's the order I shall obey."

"How can you say that?! Don't you care that she could-"

"Of course I care!" Hoseok spits, rounding on the shorter god the second the words leave his lips. "Do you think this is easy for me, Yoongi? Do you think I enjoy choosing between the two of you like this? Because I don't. I want nothing more than to be helping her right now, but I can't...I can't leave you alone here. It's too dangerous."

Hoseok isn't stupid; he knows exactly how he feels about you, and Yoongi, and he's not oblivious to the way the both of you look at him. Still, the two of you are powerful deities, worshipped and loved, feared and prayed to. He's just a guardian, content to sit in the background and watch for threats. Yes, he loves you, with every fiber of his immortal soul, but he also loves Yoongi, and he knows you love Yoongi, and you gave him an order.

"Hobi," Yoongi whispers, eyes wet and red and beautiful. "Hobi, please, you have to help her. She needs you. I can manage, I can hide, but she needs you. No one else can help her."

The fact that he's even considering this shows just how easy it is for Yoongi to manipulate him. Hoseok understands now, what you meant all that time ago. Yoongi's voice is rough and lingering and fearful but it carries so much hope that it digs into Hoseok's skin like a hook. He curses and bundles Yoongi into the corner.

"Stay hidden. Don't make a noise. You can't let her find you." Hoseok hesitates for a split second before pressing a quick kiss to Yoongi's forehead. "I will see you after this."

"I know."

It's never been harder for him to turn his back on someone, but Hoseok manages, with only one last look back before he takes to the air and surges forwards to where you stand, keeping Demeter back with every piece of your power.

Yoongi runs. He runs and runs and runs, the bare skin of his feet silent on the cool marble. The braziers have long since gone out, but he stopped needing them months ago. He knows where he is, even as he tucks himself into a small, nearly invisible niche in a corner. He hardly dares to breathe, too scared that the sound will alert his mother of his location. The palace is silent, not a single sound in the entire thing, and it's deafening in the aftermath of the rumbling screams that signaled your battle with her.

He isn't sure how he managed to convince Hoseok to leave him, whether it was the obvious love the god felt for you or the sheer desperation in his own eyes, but he could only pray the two of you made it out. As gods, you're all difficult to kill, but it's not impossible. Not for other deities.

Come out, little flower.

Yoongi stifles a whimper, panic coloring his vision white for a long while before he can breathe again. Memories flash behind his eyelids and he pried them open just to stare into the darkness.

You can't hide forever, little flower. You know that.

Her voice echoes against the marble. It makes her sound like she's everywhere and nowhere at once, able to find him even as he hides. He clenches his teeth and reminds himself that you and Hoseok are the only ones that know this palace better than him.

You're making me very angry, little flower. Why do you run? I only want the best for you, and you insist on causing such a fuss.

The sound of her sandals reaches him, reverberating off the walls and telling him that she's far too close. He slips silently out of the niche and pads across the floor on the balls of his feet. He doesn't make a sound, something he perfected in his time with her, and just as she slips around the corner, he's darting down another hallway.

Look at what you've done, little flower. All this mess, and for what? Do you like it when I'm angry? Do you enjoy this game of ours?

He slips into another hall just in time. Exhaustion has made him slow. The marble of the wall is cool against his heated skin, and he wonders where you are. Where Hoseok is. If you're alright or if you're laying in the Meadow, golden ocher pooling around you. The thought enrages him, and for the first time, he can feel power at his fingertips; real power, not the simple gardening magic she taught him as a child. He's ready to use it, he thinks. He's so tired of running, so tired of being afraid, and he's so fucking angry that the people he loves have had to fight his battles for him.

Found you, little flower.

Warmth circles his ankle and pulls before he can jerk away. Her nails are sharp than before, like sickles at the end of each long finger, and he scrabbles uselessly at the smooth stone floor. She's speaking but the sound of her voice - wind whispering through a field of wheat, a brook babbling in the summer - is drowned out by the blood pumping in his ears.

"No, I won't go back, you can't make me," He hisses, kicking at her hand with his free leg. He doesn't feel the cuts on his soles, doesn't register them at all until he sees the gold dropping onto the floor; the adrenaline masks the pain. She says something else and he stops kicking, though he doesn't know what she's said. He isn't listening, too busy thinking of a way out of this.

It comes to him, all at once, and he relaxes in her grip. His chest heaves in a sob, because he knows exactly what he has to do, and you will never forgive him for it.

"Alright," He says flatly. Demeter stops in her monologue. "I'll go with you. Just leave them alone." The smile that splits her face is more grotesque than any corpse he's seen in the Styx, but the way she releases his ankle is a blessing. He keeps himself hunched and downtrodden as he pushes himself up, into her waiting arms. The hug is bruising and brings vile to his throat, but it is necessary.

It's with a flash of green as he pulls away from her that he makes his move. The flower crown previously atop his head has morphed, grown into thick, thorny vines around her arms and keeping her in place.

Yoongi is gone before she can so much as screech, sprinting as fast he can through the halls to the one thing that can help him. He feels it when she rips through his flowers, his very soul shaking at the pain that rips through him, but he's determined. He's made good ground, he only had a little further to go.

The vibrant colors of the courtyard have never felt so welcome. He's halfway through, blossoms crushed under his feet as he tears through the carefully tended flowers, when she catches up. The blade of her scythe rips through his back, but the adrenaline masks the pain. He's bleeding, he knows, but he can't bring himself to focus on anything but the way the bark feels under his grip, branches reaching down to help him reach his goal.

She tears him out of the tree violently, no longer wearing the carefully sculpted mask of love. The scream that she unleashes when she sees him shakes the entire realm, soft pebbles falling from the ceiling of the cavern miles above his head, but he doesn't care.

The pomegranate is ripe against his tongue, juice tinting his lips pink, and the weight of it against his chest has never been more welcome. Demeter screams for what could be centuries, but Yoongi does not care, because he has won, and he has never tasted anything so sweet in his entire life.

"Come to bed," Hoseok pleads, not for the first time. You look at him with a sigh. His wings are gone, hidden away until he needs them again, and his arm is free of the bandages he's been wearing. It has taken so long for him to heal, and you still aren't sure he should be up and about. There's a small, barely perceptible scar along his forearm, the faintest reminder of what the two of you survived.

"I have to finish this before he returns, Hobi," You tell him, also not for the first time. Hoseok scoffs and comes around the desk to stand behind you, eyes roving over the documents in front of you.

"It's been over six months," He whispers in your ear. "Zeus has approved your expansion requests. I'm fine. You're fine. Yoongi will be back from Olympus soon."

"Hoseok," Your tone is warning despite the way he whispers your name. You deflate, falling back in your chair and letting him rub your shoulders. "I just miss him."

"I know. I do too." You're both quiet for a while. It has been six months since Demeter crashed into your world and rampaged through the Meadow to find Yoongi. You remember it so vividly, the way you struggled against the unbridled fury she had, the way Hoseok screamed as she broke his wing, the pain in your chest as you'd crawled to him and just held him in your arms until the Bones had made it to the two of you and carried him to the palace.

You had been, and still are, vastly proud of him and Yoongi for fighting back, but that didn't change the fact that they had both put themselves in immense danger by doing so. Even with the - admittedly brilliant, if stupid - plan that Yoongi had come up with, things never really worked out for you. Hoseok had been bedridden for weeks, unable to even more because of the pain in his wing. Hermes has helped with the healing process, which you were unendingly thankful for, but Yoongi had been carted off to Olympus almost immediately for negotiations.

Zeus, benevolent leader and incompetent moron that he is, had decided on a compromise: Yoongi would stay with you in the underworld after the harvest was finished, free to do whatever he liked, but until then he had to stay in Olympus. The letter had mentioned something about reparations to the mortals for the utterly obscene amount of crops they had lost - which was ridiculous really, they were doing their level best to kill the planet and you are gods, since when do gods pay reparations to mortals? - that Yoongi was required to use his abilities to help with.

You'd sent Hermes back with several colorful threats of what exactly would happen to the billions of dead you kept here should Yoongi return in any way other than utter perfection, and you've been anxious for days to find out whether you get to follow through on them. It only worsens when you remember that you have a decision to make when Yoongi returns. You remember the way he looked when he said he loved you, returning words you couldn't bring yourself to say, and you remember the elation and subsequent depression that came after the battle at the realization that you could have had him, were he not gone for half the year.

And yet you also distinctly remember the way Hoseok looked, wings splayed over several tables to hold them in place as they healed, vulnerable and shy as he told you that he was sorry for disobeying you. You won't ever forget his face as he explained, the way his lips formed around your name when he told you he couldn't beat to see you hurt, not after so many years spent loving you. The feel of his lips against your skin is like a phantom even now; Hoseok had waited until he was healed to do anything more than press chaste kisses against your knuckles, and even still you've not felt him the way you want, but it hasn't stopped him from trying.

"Come on, my lady," Hoseok says, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. "Just for a while." You grumble under your breath - you really do have work to finish before Yoongi arrives - but you allow Hoseok to pull you from your chair and lead you down the hall to your bedroom.

So lost in your own musings, you don't notice the figure lounging on your bed until he speaks.

"Six months and I don't get even so much as a hello?"

Your eyes shoot up and your breath hitches in your throat. Pale green robes lined in the most beautiful black and silver embroidery pool around him, matching the braided crown that rests atop his head. You didn't know flowers like that existed, let alone that they could look so wonderful on someone.

"I didn't know you were back," You breathe.

"That's the point of a surprise, my love," Hoseok says from behind you, hand tightening around yours. Guilt begins to grow in your chest and Yoongi tsks at you. He rises and comes to stand in front of you, brow furrowed.

"That's no way for a queen to look, is it? What has you thinking so hard?" His thumb smooths the space between your brows and you can't help the glance to Hoseok.

"I can't...I don't want to hurt you." Your voice is barely a whisper, and the familiar sting encircles your heart once more. You couldn't choose between the two of them, not if you tried, not even if it meant getting out of this place.

"You won't," Hoseok tells you with a familiar grin. "Yoongi and I have already talked about what we feel for each other, and for you. The only question now is if you'll have us. Both of us."

Months ago, you would have called them crazy and had them exiled for fear they'd gone mad. You never imagined you could have one of them, let alone both; you had been ready to tell them both that you had been mistaken because having one by your side while your heart still yearned for the other was far more cruel than anything you could put in the Fields of Punishment.

Now? Now you know what the Isles must feel like. It is Yoongi in front of you, thumb brushing lightly against your cheek while Hoseok's warmth is steady behind you, one arm encircling your waist and keeping you steady.

"Both of you?" You echo. Yoongi nods.

"You don't have to," Hoseok says from behind you. "But we know how you feel about us, and we're sure in how we feel for each other. There are stranger pairings in the world, aren't there?"

"Only one of you could be king." You aren't sure why you say that, can't remember why it even matters when Hoseok trails his lips over the shell of your ear.

"I never have looked good on a throne," He says. Yoongi's chest rumbles in a laugh, and you could cry at the sight of that familiar gummy smile.

"Please," Yoongi eventually says. "Please say yes." You search his eyes for any hint of indecision or regret, and when you find none, you turn to Hoseok. He has a soft, encouraging smile on his face, and he holds your crown in his free hand. The cool black metal is harsh against his tanned skin, but what draws your eye isn't the way the bones are fused together or the etchings of historical scenes across each. No, it's the soft pale green blossoms woven in among the metal, a stark contrast to the harshness of the bones, and the silver thread twined around all of it, dipping in and out in various places but clearly noticeable in the light. It's a perfect representation of the three of you and it makes your chest swell.

"Yes," You breathe. They don't move, and your eyes dart between them. "Yes, absolutely. I can think of nothing I have ever wanted more."

Yoongi surges forward, capturing you in a long-awaited kiss. His lips are soft as blossoms against yours, warm and gentle as the hands that cup your jaw and draw you closer. You're aware, distantly, of the soft clink of metal on stone as Hoseok sets your crown to the side, though his arm never leaves your waist.

Hours could have passed with Yoongi kissing you. You aren't sure. Time runs together and blends, a dizzying whirlwind of slow drags of his lips across yours followed by quick, messy bursts of his tongue. You can barely focus on what is happening, mind split between the absolute euphoria of kissing him and the heat that comes from Hoseok's fingers dancing along your waist and shoulders, his breath ghosting over your neck as he watches. When Yoongi finally detaches from your lips, he ducks down to suck at the exposed skin of your collarbone, and Hoseok turns your chin so you face him.

"May I, my lady?" He asks. His voice is rough and deeper than you're used to, affected by the sight of you and Yoongi. His fingers twine with the strings holding your robes together and you give him a nod. It doesn't even take a full breath before the black material is pooling at your feet. Hoseok stifles something that sounds suspiciously like a moan behind you, and you think Yoongi actually purrs. They both run their hands along your skin, basking in the goosebumps that they raise and the shivers that crawl up your spine.

"Absolutely ethereal," Yoongi mutters. You pull him into another kiss, one hand coming up to rest against his shoulder while your other tangles in Hoseok's hair where he's doing his level-best to leave his mark on your neck.

"Please," You murmur. "I want to make you happy."

"You've already done that, my queen," He says. His smile is soft and the glint in his eye is sharp. You huff a little and tap twice at Hoseok's neck; when he pulls away, pouting but compliant, you push Yoongi until he's falling back onto your bed. He goes with no objections, one hand twining his fingers with yours and you crawl up to straddle his hips. "Let me please you, my queen. I've been waiting six months to taste you, and I don't want to waste another moment if I don't have to."

Your breath hitches as Hoseok steps up behind you. The bare skin of his chest is a shock as it presses against your back, and he slides his hands along your sides before beginning to tease your nipples. You stifle the moan, emitting more of a whine than anything, and you think you nod. All you know is the heat between your legs and the knee-deep ache to make them happy.

Yoongi's between your legs in a flash. You can't be sure how exactly he moved so quickly without jostling you, but the thought is all but shoved out of your mind as he swipes his tongue against you for the first time. You're glad Hoseok is behind you because your legs are already trembling where they're curled under you and your head drops back to rest against his shoulder. As merciless as Hoseok is in his torment of your chest, Yoongi is doubly so.

You imagine a man starving and dehydrated in a desert wouldn't be this invested in a sudden banquet laid in front of him; Yoongi worships you, circling your clit several times before dipping down to dart teasingly in and out of your hole. He laps up every single drop of your arousal, dutiful in his mission even as Hoseok begins to whisper sweet nothings into your ear. The heat of his breath has you closer to the edge than you want to admit, but the sheer love that radiates from his words at the same time Yoongi rumbles out a heavenly moan straight into your folds, tongue buried inside of you, is what drives you over the edge.

You aren't surprised when neither of them stop; you get the sense Yoongi is thoroughly enjoying himself between your thighs, based on the growing tent in his robes. Hoseok grinds against your ass, and his own hardness presses against you with every painless thrust of his hips. A pang of guilt shoots through you and your hands drop. It's a bit of an awkward angle, but you make it work as you glide your hands over him. He's thick, that's for sure, and nearly as long as your forearm. How you're supposed to take that inside of you is anyone's guess, but as Yoongi brings you to yet another orgasm with his mouth, you realize that's exactly what they're preparing you for.

The whimper comes unbidden, walls clenching around nothing at the thought of them filling you, and they both shudder. "Please," You gasp, "Please, I need you. Both of you."

Yoongi graciously lets you rise off of him, and when you settle on your back, he sits up to smile at you. His lips and chin are absolutely coating in your slick, the sight erotic and exciting. The feeling is doubled as Hoseok grips Yoongi's chin, turning the mint-haired god to face him.

"How does she taste, my flower?" He purrs. You don't hear Yoongi's response, just the deep thrum of his voice, but you see the way Hoseok runs his thumb across Yoongi's lips, collecting your juices, before sliding it into his own mouth. You moan at the sight, Hoseok's eyes falling closed as he relishes in the taste of you. Yoongi strips out of his robes while he can, and he doesn't seem to miss the way your and Hoseok's eyes watch hungrily.

"Tell me what you want," Hoseok says, pulling you closer as Yoongi settles behind you. "We're here for you, my queen."

"I…" You falter. You aren't even sure what you want now; you've spent six months trying to figure out how to tell both of the men you love that you can't be with either of them and now you have both of them naked in your bed, waiting to please you. You can hardly think, can't focus beyond the feel of their skin against yours and the heat of their gaze, but you know one thing.

You need them to know how desperately you love them, and with the fire burning between your thighs, there is exactly one way you can do that.

"I need you inside me, Hobi," You tell him. "I need to feel you inside of me. Yoongi, too. Both of you." Hoseok's cock twitches and something in his jaw clicks. You don't wait for more of a response, choosing instead to slide across the sheets to straddle Hoseok's hips. His hands rest lightly on your hips, tentative now, and you smile at him. His hands are gentle now, soft as the smile he gives you in return. His cock is dripping and red, a warm heat in your palm as you guide him to your entrance.

The look in his eyes, the small moan he releases, the hitch in Yoongi's breath behind you as you slowly sink down onto Hoseok will forever be etched into your memory. You're so full that you could cry; he feels absolutely perfect inside of you, and it only gets better as he guides you carefully up and then back down onto him. Your moan is felt more than heard and it only gets louder as he speeds up. His fingers are marble against your his, unmoving and firm as he slides in and out. He doesn't look away for a second and neither do you; all the years you've spent thinking about him, the millennia you've ached to love and be loved by him, it has all led to this. Your hips moving against his, connected in a way you've never been before; if it were possible to read his thoughts, you think you could at this moment, because they must be a mirror of your own.

"I love you," You whisper. Yoongi's warmth presses against your spine as he slides a finger between the two of you to rub slow circles into your clit, and you gasp. "I love you, Hobi, so much." The words are a mantra on your lips, and you think there may be tears in his eyes but you can't be sure because you're coming again, shuddering on top of him, and Yoongi is gently pulling you off.

Hands turn you, and now it's Yoongi between your legs, cock red and throbbing where it sits against his stomach. He isn't as long as Hoseok, but he's wider, and you clench again at the sight.

Yoongi opens his mouth to say something, but you stop him with a soft kiss pressed against the corner of his mouth. You slide down onto him, welcoming the slight burn that comes with the stretch. It takes two breaths for you to become impatient and begin to move, grinding your hips down against his. Yoongi isn't as loud as Hoseok, soft pants and whines where Hobi is echoing moans and groans, but it's just as attractive. He moves his hips in tandem with yours, and the muses themselves couldn't have created a better rhythm. The words fall from your lips again; it's easier, now that you've said them to someone, to let them go. They don't ball in your throat, aren't a lump to swallow down anymore, and you revel in the feeling.

"I love you," Yoongi returns, thumbs ghosting over the skin of your thighs. "So much, both of you. Saved me, can't fucking...fuck, can't tell you enough." You nod and loose another moan when Hoseok slides a finger in alongside Yoongi's cock.

"Do you think she can take us both, my flower?" Hoseok asks. His voice is raspy in your ear and you shudder as you orgasm again. There's a moment when you wonder just how many times you can come from the two of them, but it's gone the second Yoongi speaks.

"I think she could," Yoongi responds. "She's certainly wet enough. Absolutely soaked, aren't you, my queen? Do you want that? Both of us in here, filling you up?" He punctuates every word with another thrust of his hips and you nod. You don't think you've ever wanted anything more.

Hoseok is careful as he fingers you, working you open with one, then two, then three fingers as Yoongi slides in and out. You'd commend them both on their stamina if you could spare a single thought to anything but the feeling of them. Yoongi looks wrecked, covered in sweat with swollen lips, panting and desperate as he writhes beneath you.

When Hoseok finally decides you're ready, he slides his fingers out and asks you again if you're sure. You barely have the presence of mind to nod, too close to coming again, but it's enough for him. He slides in, and all three of you are moaning. You can't be sure what it feels like for them, but you're in absolute bliss. Hoseok peppers your shoulder with chaste kisses, murmuring encouragement as he sinks deeper inside. His cock drags against your walls and Yoongi's dick, and the thought makes you clench around them both. You're so full, you may explode, but it's perfection. When Hoseok bottoms out inside of you, you're all still for a while, just getting used to it.

"You're perfect," Hoseok whispers into your skin. "Both of you, you're both fucking perfect. Fuck, can I-?"

"Yes," You interrupt. You're already grinding down onto them, desperate for any kind of friction. "Please, Hobi." He grunts as he starts to move, and Yoongi does the same. They get a steady rhythm after a while, one sinking in as deep as he could get as the other drags outward, only to slam back in at the last second.

A sob builds in your throat, the sheer pleasure rolling through your body too much to handle as orgasm after orgasm slammed into you. There are hands everywhere, two on your hips keeping you steady, two roaming your body and teasing your nipples, on one Hoseok's neck to keep him close as another rests lightly against Yoongi's throat. You aren't sure which are yours, can't tell where you end and they begin, too fucked out to be able to think beyond the drag of their cocks against your walls and the growing ache inside you.

"Please," You gasp. "Please, need it. Fill me, please, need you both to fill me, make me yours, forever. Mark me. I'm yours, always, please, fill me with you." They both groan at that, and their pace speeds up. They're hitting harder and deeper and brushing against the spot inside of you that makes your vision turn white. Something gushes down your thighs as you spasm around them wildly, hips jerking of their own accord, and you feel it as they come together, hot seed spilling inside of you as you ride out your highs together.

You're panting and sweaty and hot and still, you don't think you'd trade this for even a moment of sunlight. They slide out of you and their cum seeps down your legs before you can stop it. You fall to the bed beside Yoongi, chest heaving even as he wraps you in his arms. A wave of your hand creates a small fan near the bed, shadows churning out cool air that feels like ambrosia on your skin.

Hoseok reappears with water for you both, and you thank him. Your voice is nearly gone, but it's worth it, you think. You pat the space beside you and Hoseok climbs in. His skin is hot against yours; the three of you are essentially a furnace at the moment, but you can't bring yourself to care. You can't count how many orgasms you had or how long you spent with them; it could have been minutes or hours or even days. It doesn't matter to you, really. Sprawled between an already-sleeping Yoongi and a Hoseok that's tracing invisible designs onto your skin, you have everything you could ever want.

Later you sit atop the shadows near your bed, chin in your hand as you admire the card between your fingers. Yoongi and Hoseok are wrapped around each other in your bed, lightly snoring as the sheets rise and fall against their naked chests. As you watch them, Hoseok’s brow furrows and he lazily stretches his arm to pat against the bed in search of you. He snuffles a little, and Yoongi nuzzles deeper into the crook of his neck until they’re both quiet again.

Silver foil glints in the light and you look back at the card in your hand. There’s a stack a hundred high beside you, all of them identical to the next save for the curling letters that make up the recipients, but this one is special. This one is your favorite. If you didn’t absolutely have to send it off, you would frame it and hang it above your throne; ultimately, though, you’d rather bask in the aftermath that’s sure to come.

With a small smile, you set it atop the others and wrap the bit of twine around them all. It’s gone with a wave of your hand, no doubt appearing wherever Hermes is. You wish you could see the look on his face when he realizes what they are, but he’s not the one that you really wish you could watch.

The raspy call of your name brings you back to the present, and you look up to find Yoongi watching you, lids heavy with sleep and eyes dark. “What are you doing?” He asks.

“Nothing.” You grin and stand, letting the shadows underneath you fall away. “Just sending out a quick notice.” You slide in beside him and Hobi, the latter still asleep but turning to wrap his arms around you nonetheless. Yoongi presses kisses to your knuckles and you pull a stray flower petal from his hair.

“You’re gloating, aren’t you?” He mutters. There’s a smile behind his eyes, and it warms you.

“Maybe a bit.” You lean over and kiss him, gentle and tender and you hope that it conveys everything you can’t put into words. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No,” Yoongi answers after a long pause in which he moves to straddle Hoseok’s hips in order to get close enough to suck marks into your neck. His lips are slow against your skin, tired and lazy from sleep. “I think I enjoy this side of you, actually.” “I, for one, am very much enjoying this side of you.” You grin at Hoseok’s words, smiling down at him. He’s half-hard again, hands resting lightly on Yoongi’s hips and eyes fixed on the bruises that bloom on your neck. “I thought we were sleeping.”

“We were,” You tell him. “You can always go back to sleep if you want.”

“You wish,” He mutters. Yoongi groans against your neck and you look down to see Hoseok palming him, working him up to fullness as Yoongi fucks into his hand. You wrap one of your own around Hoseok and return the favor; the way his moan echoes through the room is better than anything the nine muses could have created.

It’s slow and tired, each of you already spent from your earlier activities, but when you eventually drop between them, chests heaving from your orgasms and already half-asleep again, you think it’s worth it.

When you wake later and find a card sitting on the flower-woven throne - a new addition to the hall, one most welcome - crumpled and half-torn with a thorn sticking out of it, you know it’s worth it.

[the-devil-herself]

Never Enough - Chapter 17

CHAPTER: 17

DESCRIPTION: Certain mates of Jotuns receive soulmate marks on their bodies. What happens when Loki’s mark is found on a girl with immense power? RATING: M

NOTES/WARNINGS: BIG TRIGGER WARNING -- mentions of infanticide and euthanasia, so please be careful before reading this chapter. Please let me know what you think!

TAGGED: @kneel-before-queen-loki​ @lokis-girl-in-mischief @tarithenurse @fangirls94 @hellofeysandarling @lokis-high-priestess @god-of-mischief-here-tada @marvelschriss

Everything was dark. I couldn’t move or breathe; I felt like floating. I was in a timeless void, and I couldn’t get out.

Until I heard shouting.

Suddenly, my eyes popped open. I had to shut them again as the light violently shone on me. Not being able to escape from the light so easily, I raised my hand to cover the harsh fluorescent bulb above me.

“Dana, you’re awake!” I heard Tony. His voice was strained with exhaustion and worry. I peeped an eye open very slowly to see the dark shadows under his eyes. “Thank God, kid.”

A hand gently grabbed my other arm, giving it a squeeze. Thor was smiling at me, his eyes bright with joy and relief, but there was something else in them. I could only faintly see the desperation beneath them.

“What happened?” I croaked.

Nat handed me a glass full of water, which I accepted gratefully. Steve recalled to me last night’s events with Lorelei. Apparently, she had done no real damage to me, fortunately missing all the big arteries. She had escaped, of course, but Loki was currently in pursuit.

“He left only after he knew you were okay,” Thor whispered to me. My heart felt lighter at that, but it didn’t drown out my worry over him. Why was he so adamant on killing this woman? Yes, she was evil, but there were plenty of evil people in this universe.

“Clint and Bruce are trying to track her down as well, but so far, nothing.” Nat refilled my glass, anticipating my needs expertly.

“And if they find her?” I asked.

Tony’s eyes were hard as he looked at a spot in the wall. “Then we destroy her.”

I spent the night under Tony and Thor’s watchful eyes. Nat and Steve would come in every now and then with food and water. However, the one person I really wanted here wasn’t around. My thoughts kept flipping to him and stressing over if he was okay or if he had found her.

I detailed hundreds of possibilities and scenarios of Loki finding Lorelei, that by the time he came back, I was so wound up with anxiety that I almost shot out of bed to hug him. Only Tony’s presence stopped that.

“What have you found?” Thor stood up to speak to Loki quietly, but the whole room was silent enough to where I could still hear them.

Loki shook his head. “Barely anything,” he hissed. “I do think I know where she’s headed, though.”

“Where?”

“She came to us,” Loki’s eyebrows were drawn together as he focused, “she’ll come to us again then. She needs something we have.”

Thor took a step forward. “And that is?”

“I should head to bed, kiddo,” Tony interrupted. He stretched in his chair before getting up and patting Thor on the back on his way out.

Loki’s eyes were drawn to me, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself. Thor noticed this subtle exchanging of looks and let himself outside. Loki slowly crossed the room to my bed and sat down on the chair Tony had vacated.

“I’m sorry I left you,” he whispered, his eyes turned downward in shame. “I just thought I might find her if I searched sooner.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay, I understand.” I put my hand over his without thinking, purely to calm him. His hand relaxed under my touch and brought his fingers through mine.

“She could’ve done much worse to you.” His hand suddenly bunched into a fist, and I could tell he was about to go into a blind rage.

I grabbed his hand again and placed it on my lap. “But she didn’t,” I pointed out.

He gave me a very weak smile before kissing the hand that held his. “I am immensely glad to see you okay, my little one.”

His face also looked taught and tired. I could tell he hadn’t slept either, nor did he plan to.

Dawn was coming through a bit a few hours later when Nat showed up with breakfast. Loki and I had separated ourselves, and he was seated across the room. She looked at him suspiciously but let it drop.

“You holding up alright?” she asked, a little smile showing on her face.

“So far.”

She handed me more toast, but I refused. “Dana, you need to eat more and gain your strength before we go kick the shit out of that witch,” she teased. I giggled at her joke, but I saw Loki stiffen immediately.

His hands clawed into his thighs as he tried to hold himself back. Something was up, and I needed to find out.

Once Nat left to go help Clint, I took the opportunity. “Why do you hate her so much?” I blurted.

Loki seemed startled at this outburst, but he swallowed and unclenched his hands. He came back to sit by me and tried to smile. “It’s nothing important,” he said quietly. Too quietly.

“Yes, it is,” I demanded. “Thor told me, okay? He told me you and her were engaged.”

Loki changed. His face went pale white, and it looked like a battle just went off in his head. “Aye, we were,” he muttered.

He didn’t say more only looking elsewhere for help. His eyes were scared and furious, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he tried to swallow his words.

“Loki, please tell me!”

He stood up, startling me. “It is of no concern,” he shouted, glaring at me.

I shrank back in my covers at his fury. I had never seen him so angry, not even when he sent the Destroyer.

He realized his affect on me and softened his eyes. Running his hand down his face to clear his head, he apologized. “I’m sorry, little one, it’s just…”

“Just what?” I encouraged. To no avail. He sat down again and remained silent.

I couldn’t stand it anymore, the secrets, any of it. So, I kept prodding. “Thor said she killed a noble.” Loki’s face grew dark. “Did you know the person?”

He turned away from me for a long time, contemplating what to say next. When he finally turned around, his cheeks were wet with tears, and I knew he couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Aye, I did,” he whispered. I felt his hand reaching for mine and gave it without a word. “Lorelei and I were engaged, but she turned to darker magic.”

I had already known this part but listened intensely to him describe their early relationship. They both had felt like outsiders and seidr brought them together. Frigga had even treated her like a daughter.

It was only common sense for them to have been together intimately.

But suddenly, she changed.

“She read a book, in the hidden depths of the library where no one ventured to,” he explained. “I had been there some times myself, but she had found a book on dark magic. Frigga had forbidden me to read it, and I respected her enough to listen. But Lorelei, she fell to it.”

She had become mean and agitated at the tiniest of things. She snapped at Loki more than once a day on inconsequential matters, and he had tried to reason with her.

“Nothing helped. Soon she started harming people. She would break a leg or drive a woman crazy, things that were too evil to be just simple pranks.

“She tried to pull me into it, and a little bit of it connected with me then. Of course, more of it would help me, well doom me, later.”

He paused, rubbing his left hand with his right—a nervous tick he had since he was a boy. “She got pregnant,” he breathed. I almost shot out of my bed, my heart had kicked so wildly. I couldn’t believe this, in fact, I wouldn’t!

“At this point she was downright cruel, but she chose to keep the child saying that her child would be as powerful as she, and we would rule as a family. I don’t know what she meant by that, maybe taking the throne of Asgard.

“Well, the pregnancy had complications, and the baby, my beautiful daughter, was born early and with severe disabilities. The healers assured us she would be fine, though.”

His eyes welled up once again as he relayed this part. “I told Lorelei, I kept telling her I would care for her and our daughter no matter what. I would always have them wanting for nothing.”

He took a break, clearing his eyes of tears. I gently ran my fingers over his cheek. “What was her name?”

He smiled faintly. “Her name was Sigyn,” he laughed. “Legends told of her as my beloved, but in the wrong way. She was my beloved, my gorgeous daughter.”

“Lorelei was not happy, though,” his whole body shook with this. “She was outraged that a baby of hers would be born not as powerful as she. But when I left one night to grab her food and more blankets, she…”

He didn’t need to finish. His fists were clenching the side of my bed as tried to regain himself, but it could not be done. He had let himself be shown to me, and his body wouldn’t stop now that the words were out.

My heart broke for him. I wanted to ease his pain, wipe his tears, do SOMETHING. But I could do nothing. A part of himself was ripped from him.

“Frigga and Odin kept it between ourselves,” he sobbed. “We never told Thor or anyone else. We locked her away in the darkest corner on Asgard and kept her there for hundreds of years.”

I then understood his desire to hunt her down. She had taken away a precious piece of him for no reason at all. “So, your threat to her about dying alone, it’s because…”

“It’s because she had our baby die alone. Now she will come to feel that by my hand.”

[comicteaparty]

April 1st-April 7th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from April 1st, 2020 to April 7th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

How do you feel about creators spoiling their own stories, and how does it effect how you read the comic?

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As someone who's both reader & a creator, it can be really hard to restrain giving spoilers. But it could also be that they are excited to make this story and they wanna 'get to the spoilers' really soon. But if you are such creator, an idea is to find friends whom you can trust, don't mind giving critique/give spoilers to. As a reader it can be slight disappointment to learn about spoilers in a comic you were invested in and still reading. At this point, I might think, I'm going to get out of the conversation on the spoilers and wait until more content is made(edited)

DanitheCarutor

Being someone who was raised by a parent who wanted me to spoiler movies for them if I saw it first, I don't care about stories being spoiled for me. Experiencing the scene is usually very different than being told what it is, also once I get to that spoiled scene I've already forgotten about it thanks to my Quality short-term memory. Honestly, I would totally go all out spoiling my own comic, but I know most people hate that stuff so I don't out of respect. There have been a few times when I've talked about spoilery stuff not really knowing if it would be considered a spoiler, or because I'm talking about something else that is related and I have to spoil a bit for the topic.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Personally it depends on how plot heavy the spoiler is. If it's something like what food/clothing/interests the characters have, I don't mind so much. But if it's something like who is going to die, who falls in love with who....I think the experience would be slightly more diminished.

Like @Joichi [Hybrid Dolls] said, I usually share the spoilers only with close friends, particularly those who know how to give their input. It's important to get feedback, but choosing who you tell is very important.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I’m very protective of story details. I don’t want people to know any of what’s going to happen in my story. I like having secrets

I don’t really mind hearing spoilers myself much of the time because I mostly enjoy stories by looking at all the events in the story together. If I know all the events sooner that often lets me enjoy it sooner

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I usually don't care that much about spoilers, unless it's about character death or something. Usually, I try to avoid them like the plague, just in case, but I don't really care that much.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Personally, on other people's comics, I usually only refer to what's in the comic proper. Not too fond of having to read supplemental material, like creator QA's.

I know they can be nice for some readers, but I genuinely don't like it when the knowledge established in a QA or so is assumed to be known in the comic proper without ever being mentioned there.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm having difficulty articulating my reasons, but for me, the creator spoiling things is different from a reader spoiling the same things. And reader-supplied spoilers can also be VERY different based on context and tone. I hate it when people spoil things for others out of malice (like when people were buying ad spaces, just after that one Harry Potter book came out, to broadcast [THIS IMPORTANT CHARACTER] DIES!!!!), even if I don't care about the work being spoiled.

Going back to creator-supplied spoilers........ it's something I can't relate to, as a creator myself? (Sharing spoilers in private is one thing, but if they're posting it in public...) This is going to sound negative and I apologize in advance. When I see a creator laying out the big spoilers in public, it makes me worry that maybe they prefer to talk instead of actually making the comic -- that maybe they won't make it to the ending. I'm happy to be proven wrong, of course. And there is no shame in dropping a comic before you get to the end (I've done that myself!). But yeah, public spoilers is one of those things that makes me worry.(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

^My thoughts exactly. It worries me in exactly the same way.

Deo101 [Millennium]

when it comes to reading spoilers, Ive never really minded. Granted, I'd rather have spoilers more towards "what to expect" because I otherwise will get a lot of anxiety. A bit of the way in, I want to know if something is going to be worth my time to get invested into, or if I should ignore the stress and just be along for the ride. Being told things like "this is a tragedy and you shouldnt expect to have a happy ending" and "everything will work out in the end" really calms me down when I'm reading. Getting small spoilers about character things, inconsequential plot stuff, etc. don't really bother me at all, but yeah I'm with keiiii where if someone is sharing the ending of their story halfway through I worry theyre not interested in actually working to get there.

I'll personally share in small private settings whatever people want to know, but I refuse to in a public setting share what I'd consider to be a big spoiler. I'll share small character things or vague plans and some worldbuilding stuff, but I don't see those as spoilers really.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The "what to expect" thing is a really great topic though. I would love to discuss it in depth in shop talk when the caffeine kicks in

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Ooh me too. I drop some future story features in my About page - very broadly. But it's more of a pitch than an outright spoiler. It requires some vagueness to be effective.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

@Deo101 [Millennium] Setting expectations correctly is very different from spoilers, I think, and more in direction of "what genre does that story fall under". Like a romance means happy (for now) ending for the main couple - even if you might end up disagreeing if an ending is happy.

It ain't a spoiler that a space opera has some kind of space travel, that kind of thing.

For me spoilers tend to cover plot specifics, not genre and general tone. That's setting expectations.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, but a lot of people really don't like to say that their story is gonna be a tragedy because they dont want to spoil that people are gonna die or whatever

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

That's... bad marketing.

Deo101 [Millennium]

it happens constantly

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I agree that a lot of times what creators share is basically bonus plot info, or extra details, or even warnings. I actually haven't really ever gotten a major spoiler from a creator.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Mind you, you can have people die without being a tradgedy, see the majority of epic fantasy.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

(On a side note, I have spoiled 100% of the plot of my comic to very specific close people in my life, but I don't know if that counts.)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't think there is a single person to whom I've spoiled 100% and I'm jelly of those of you who have Story Confidantes!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Honestly SOs and close siblings are a GODSEND

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm close with my bro, but he's not into the kind of stuff I write. (might be getting off topic?)

RebelVampire

Yeah I do want to remind again here this should be about experiences as a reader, not as a creator. And I know there can be a bit of bleed over, but there's a point where the focus changes too much.

RebelVampire

I think this depends on who it's being spoiled to. If creators want to spoil their stories to close personal friends in private convos, I think that's A-okay. Even as a writer I do that, because it's good to have people to bounce ideas off of. And I think for more creators it's the same. Also, sometimes you just want to have a fun chat to de-stress and it's easier with people who you can tell all your secrets too. If it's being spoiled to people who asked for spoilers, that's also another matter where I think it's mostly fine. In fact, depending on what's spoiled, it can really help drive engagement. For example, if a comic is "spoiling" lore that has a significant bearing on the plot without revealing the exact how of it all. However, then we come to the matter of major public spoilers, which there are tons and tons of creators who do this. On the one hand, that's the creator's right to do so, so a part of me feels like embracing the can't be helped mindset. But, if I'm being brutally honest, as a reader 90% of the time it just kills all engagement with the story for me. I mean, what's the point of reading the story if I can just find out everything in a fraction of the time? Plus, for me personally, I enjoy theorizing and trying to guess events, mysteries, etc. And if I'm being told the answers, that basically ruins like 80% of how I engage with content. I'm also confident I'm not the only reader who feels this way, so personally speaking I don't think it's a wise decision no matter how juicy or agonizing it is to hold in the spoiler.

Feather J. Fern

For me, spoilers don't mean much. I'm still going to read the comic regardless. Now I spoiling something is funnier, because it takes me forever to get to the section which I spoiled, so something I spoiled would take a year to get to, and then everyone forgot the spoiler anyways. XD

I have already spoiled endings to my friends about one of my comic projects, and three months in they are already like "I forgot about that." So maybe it's just my readers haha.

DanitheCarutor

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) About the talking vs. finishing the comic thing. If I decided to spoil it would be because I was impatient to discuss. Like, right now I have the worst itch just to talk about the climax and ending to discuss all the little details, what I could do better next time, if I should put trigger warnings on specific chapters, and/or how my readers feel. Would it keep me from making it to the end? Nah, executing and seeing the results are not the same as describing them. The emotions a reader has can change vastly when they experience an event vs. read a description, it's not as fulfilling... or as painful. At least that is my perspective, neither I nor my readers would get the full experience from me describing a major event/ending. I don't know how it would be for other creators though. Lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's definitely a case by case thing.

DanitheCarutor

Pff yeah, I imagine some people are less anal about execution than I am.

eli [a winged tale]

Great discussions here! If I’m the reader, I’d prefer not to be spoiled and enjoy the story as is. It helps me as both a consumer and a creator to see how the plot twists are planted and revealed. As a beta reader, though, I would need to know the story to give suggestions on how to execute said spoilers but this is more of a creator-to-creator basis. I totally get the itch to share and I think having betareaders/comic confidantes are great for satisfying that need while getting constructive ways to evaluate them.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Agreed. I think having at least one person within your reader circle who is privy to deeper details can be very helpful, both for editing and for motivation Especially if there are story details that won't be shared for years. It's a good way to prevent 'leakage'

DanitheCarutor

I need to get myself a confidant, not only would it help the itch but talking about it would probably help me better fill in the small details. There was a rl friend I had who got too busy and lost interested, and someone online who I talked to about smaller stuff, but I don't like bothering people. Especially since my comic is sooo... my comic. Lmao!

Gosh, I would be the perfect person for someone to confide in about their comic, I would totally forget about the spoilers after waking up the next day.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Tbh I don't mind if a story is spoiled to me. I'm the type of person who is like "okay so that's how it ends? How does it get there?" and I would be more upset if the creator spills those important parts that reach the end result. Though, when explaining my comic plots and details to my irl friends and beta readers, it's more of a planning session than things said in stone. Basically if it's something that I've not written down and could be a spoiler, yet I talk about it and those spoiler squeals aren't in the final scripts though. If it's an important detail and is a spoiler, I will withhold that information till the time comes.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I don't know what I'd think because I've never seen a webcomic I liked share spoilers before. I get the feeling that a "serious" writer would keep their twists private because they know they can show their plot better than they can tell it, if that makes sense. Even Sfeer Theory, a comic I really like that iirc did much of its brainstorming online, shut down their old worldbuilding posts once they got their actual comic started.

varethane

Personally, I'm not hugely opposed to spoilers, though it depends on the context. A lot of new webcomics when they're just started out will often only be able to market themselves with illustrations of scenes or dynamics that haven't quite happened yet, just by virtue of being so early on, and that's fine-- though increasingly less necessary the more Comic is released. The only kind of spoiler I might be actively mad about is if a comic whose appeal hingest largely on a central mystery or suspense spoiled The Answer, but I feel like most of the writers creating stories like that are conscious of this and keep that sort of thing under lock. There's also a big reason why I personally try not to share spoilers (and why I try not to put much stock by any spoilers I see posted by other webcomic creators, in case their process is like mine)-- which is that, basically anything that is more than a month ahead of the pages I've already drawn, is very likely to change substantially. I rewrite future plot points all the dang time. So if I shared something as a 'spoiler', there's only a 50/50 chance of that plot point actually coming to pass (unless it's one of the 4/5 big central plot linchpins); any readers waiting for it may come away disappointed, lol.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Def agree with Vare on this one. However, sometimes when a writer tells details to the point of no surprise in the comic whatsoever, that usually breaks immersion and interest for me. I've had a couple stories stagnate from having their plots revealed by the writer, and when the story hinges on that being a selling point, it tends to be very dissapointing to have done. Unless the story is character driven/ has characters charming enough to capture readers, i would def avoid spoiling the main plot points of the story if they can

eli [a winged tale]

I feel like anything in act 1 is technically not a spoiler since in books, the blurb encompasses act 1 even the beginning of act 2.

RebelVampire

Once again I'm popping in here to remind people this chat is primarily to talk about experiences as a reader, not as a creator. So let's not go too far into creator territory here.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It's hard to say how I'd feel because I don't really see writers post, like "X dies in the end" or whatever. Like it's not that common an occurrence, at least for comics I follow. What is common in my experience is creators posting ship art for characters that haven't shown up yet (thus spoiling that these are characters who will show up at some point, and at least have some interaction with each other). And with regards to that... I dunno. Like, my mentality as a reader/watcher of things is that a character doesn't "exist" until I see them in the story. Like, if I see a character in an anime OP, I'll be like "oh that character looks cool, I can't wait until I meet them". That is, I don't consider myself as having "met" them yet - I need the story as context. (for the record, that's true for me as a creator too - i know plenty of creators figure out their OCs' personality & backstory first before figuring out what sort of story they work in, and that's valid, but I can't imagine working like that) So anyway, to me creators posting OC art before they appear in the story is less "oh, i've been spoiled on what these OCs will do" and more "oh, i can't wait to read the story that these characters are involved in"

[dewitty1]

Chapters: 47/47 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald (brief mentions), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (very brief mentions), Assorted background canonical pairings Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Albus Dumbledore, Most everyone who appeared in canon Additional Tags: Horcrux Hunting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animagus, Dragons, References to Switching, super slow burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Brief scene of dubious consent (medicinal aphrodisiac), brief homophobic language, Minor Character Deaths, Patronuses, Mates/Mating, Sexual Content, Canon Rewrite Summary:

[Extensive re-telling of Deathly Hallows] ‘Kill Albus Dumbledore’ is less a challenging task and more a suicide mission, so when Draco Malfoy is presented with the option to either dispatch his Headmaster or suffer an excruciating and most ignominious death of his own, along with his parents, he reaches deep into his black little Slytherin heart and manages to scrape together enough courage to go with option C instead: Spend Sixth Year secretly studying Animagecraft in the hopes he’ll turn into something sufficiently imposing even the Dark Lord himself won’t be able to keep Draco under his thumb. But just his luck, his Animagus form turns out to be a dragon, and a rather randy juvenile at that, intent on finding its mate: one Harry James Potter.

Excerpt:

Malfoy really wasn’t helping anything; this was going to be difficult enough as it was, but with Malfoy griping and complaining the whole way, it was going to be downright dismal.

They were adults; surely they could be mature about this. Probably. “Well—think of it this way: you stopped fighting the urge to transform, and it didn’t turn out so bad, did it? Maybe this will work out the same.”

Malfoy sneered. “I’ve heard tell of your snogging prowess, Potter; trust my expectations are at the ground floor.”

And now Malfoy had bruised his ego. Harry’s patience could take quite a beating, but this was a bridge too far. “Oh, and you’re so much better at it? Felt like you were going to gnaw my face off earlier.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but he took the swipe anyway.

“I’m at least the more experienced between us,” Malfoy said, studying his nails.

“Sure about that, are you? You’ve only ever seen me at school—but you know I’ve spent my summers with my Muggle relatives, and when I’m not with them, I’m with the Weasleys, who live near a lovely wizarding village of several hundred.” Harry could count the number of times he’d set foot in Ottery St. Catchpole on one hand, but Malfoy didn’t need to know that.

Malfoy’s expression darkened at the implication, and Harry felt a brief flicker of concern; perhaps it wasn’t the smartest of ideas to trigger what were likely deep veins of jealousy and possessiveness.

He took a steadying breath and paced out a circle, letting their tempers cool. “…Look, I know this isn’t ideal—” Malfoy snorted as if to say No, really? “But we’ve both got far bigger, more important issues to focus on now, so let’s just…do this, so we can move on?”

“Fine,” Malfoy ground out, wrinkling his nose. “…Try again, if you must. I’ll try to tamp down the urge to clock you this time.”

“Wh—now?” Harry blinked, thrown. He hadn’t realised Malfoy would expect them to just get right to it.

“Backing out, Potter?” Malfoy arched a brow, lips pressed into a thin, judging line. Like he’d known Harry would try and weasel out of the agreement. “What was all that talk for, then?”

“No, just—I mean, I thought…” Well obviously, whatever he’d thought, he’d thought wrong, and he should have seen this coming. Malfoy had been dancing on the edge of a breakdown for several days now, and with potential salvation so near at hand, the urge to claw back some of that reassurance and confidence would be nigh unbearable. “…All right.”

Malfoy swallowed, throat bobbing, and uncrossed his arms. He was holding himself stiff as a rail, and he looked terrified.

“Did you…want to close your eyes again?”

“No I did not. Just get it over with.”

Malfoy’s voice broke just on the end, and he seemed to bite his tongue in frustration. Harry took several measured steps forward until the toes of his trainers kissed the tips of Malfoy’s fancy leather loafers—where had he dug out all these spells for this ridiculously fashionable wardrobe?

Was he meant to touch Malfoy? They hadn’t discussed etiquette—and at this point, Harry didn’t really want to. Discussing it was nearly as bad as doing it, so he decided to play it by ear. Touch was something that he knew settled Malfoy, at least on a subconscious level. If Malfoy didn’t want Harry touching him, he would surely let Harry know.

He brought his hands up and let them rest just at the knobby joint of Malfoy’s elbows, steadying the both of them in the tentative embrace. 

He could feel the fine thread of tension racing through Malfoy’s sinewy body, stretched tight and taut and ready to snap in the next strong breeze. 

Slowly, so as not to spook, Harry traced the jut of bone, memorising it, like Malfoy had done to him after the close call in Godric’s Hollow. He felt the tension ease, though only a hair, and Malfoy released a soft, haggard breath.

Harry found himself suddenly over-conscious of his technique. His earlier boasts of experience had been pure bravado, and while Harry was not entirely ignorant of the dynamics of kissing someone, he was certainly no Casanova. He and Malfoy were the worst people in the world to be stuck doing this. They were both equally terrified of losing face in front of the other, and both able to cut each other particularly cruelly if they felt so inclined. When it came down to it, Harry thought he’d probably rather kiss Voldemort than Malfoy, if only because he didn’t really care what Voldemort thought of him.

He did care what Malfoy thought of him, though. It was curious to think, but true. He didn’t want to seem cruel, or insensitive. He had so much power over Malfoy right now, in so many respects, and he wanted to show Malfoy that this trust he was obliged to place in Harry—this trust he would never have freely offered—was not unappreciated and not something Harry took lightly. He wanted to show him he appreciated the efforts Malfoy was making—though the steps were small at times, and he backslid on occasion.

The larger battle they were embroiled in now, together, made these smaller ones seem so inconsequential, and he just wanted to stop wasting his energy on these pointless fights so they could focus on the more important ones.

Harry lifted his chin, tilting his head just to the side so that the tips of their noses brushed—and Malfoy inhaled sharply, holding his breath. Harry stole his moment, leaning forward to bring their lips together. They held there for a long beat, neither moving, with mouths clamped shut and lips pursed tight. It was nothing like the heat and bruising force Malfoy had used on Harry earlier, and Harry felt a bolt of panic spear through him. He hadn’t a clue where to go from here—when the other party was this unenthusiastic, generally it was good manners to stop—and any moment now, Malfoy was going to realise he’d been bluffing and storm off in a strop.

But then Malfoy let his mouth fall open, just a hair, and a breathy little sigh escaped. Harry gave a gentle tug on Malfoy’s elbows to draw him down, closer, and he deepened the kiss. Malfoy’s hands slid up to curve around the back of Harry’s shoulders, clutching the fabric of his shirt with an edge of desperation, and he let Harry nibble on the soft of his lip. He pressed forward, for more contact, and Malfoy met him, turning into the pressure and running his tongue over the seam of Harry’s lips, like he’d done before.

It was slick, and hot, and bloody brilliant. Another way to make Malfoy shut up, aside from the occasional little sigh or catch of breath, and if Harry just focused on the sensations, gave himself over to it, it was…really not bad. 

Not bad at all. 

Too easy, in fact, to forget who he was doing this with and why. Too easy to just let it happen, to do it.

Harry took an open-mouth breath, and Malfoy’s tongue slipped between his lips, brushing against Harry’s. It was alarmingly hot, but Harry struggled to find the will to break the kiss to address it. It probably wasn’t important. Probably. He nipped Malfoy’s lower lip, then laved his tongue over it in apology. “…Is your tongue getting hot because you’re about to puke fire, or…?”

“Dunno…” Malfoy’s pointy nose was digging into Harry’s cheek, and his lashes fluttered against Harry’s. “Should we stop, to be safe?”

“Nah…” Harry said, muzzily, and laid down a soft, insistent kiss at the corner of Malfoy’s mouth, encouraging him to turn into it at a lovely angle that let Harry cover Malfoy’s lips wholly with his own. They moved with a gentle, languid rhythm that Harry could get drunk on, and what had he been worried about? How had he thought he could screw this up? They fit perfectly, so warm and right, and it was like Malfoy read his mind—couldMalfoy read his mind? Oh, what if they used Legilimency and—

A hand came to rest on Harry’s hip, though, and Malfoy drew back, their noses brushing. Harry’s breath was coming in warm, short huffs, and he felt flushed all over. His lips tingled, plumped and full, and he tamped down a giddy little grin, tilting his head to press in again—but then Malfoy pulled back, properly, and glanced away, covering his mouth with his arm and clenching his eyes shut tight.

Harry tensed. “What? Wh—did I do—”

Malfoy just shook his head, taking a step back. With the distance came fresh air, and each breath cleared the haze from Harry’s mind just a bit more. He took a moment to put his head back on straight while Malfoy collected himself.

Fuck. He’d just been snogging—full on snogging—Draco Malfoy. And…and he’d kind of liked it. Granted, that had been the point of the whole exercise: human contact, intimacy, and that damned reassurance. 

The dragon had to be purring like a kitten after that display, surely. Harry could say, unequivocally, that he’d never done anything like that with…well, anyone.

 If Malfoy needed further reassurance that he was not someone Harry was going to dismiss so easily, that he was not someone Harry was disgusted to touch, Harry didn’t know how he could express it. 

He’d had Malfoy’s tongue halfway down his throat, for god’s sake.

[elizaviento]

Manipulation (part 14)

Note:  Oh, here’s an update.  Finally.

NSFW -- 2550 words

(FYI: This story is a sequel/companion piece to Assimilation, which can be found in the Rick Fic Masterpost link in my blog’s description along with additional chapters of Manipulation.  Or, you can click the #manipulation tag in this post, within my blog, to access all additional chapters.)

*****

As she stood from the booth, her legs resembled that of a newborn fawn as she took a moment to steady herself before gracelessly exiting the restaurant.  She was insistent that I not assist her and I smirked as she wobbled on those ludicrously high heeled shoes.  But, I followed close behind and made quick work of pulling her to the side as soon as we were away from prying eyes.

“What about my car?” she asked when I pulled out my portal gun and triggered the green swirl in the alleyway.  I just tossed her a look as if to say ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ before taking her hand and leading her through.

From the look on her face, she had expected to step out in the soundproof cave of my bedroom or even the garage.

“This is my place,” I clarified.  Instead of questioning me, as I could clearly tell she wanted to, she politely waited for me to continue.  “I – I bought it before I left thinking – thought I wouldn’t be gone th-that long.”

Glued to the spot, she took a tentative look around the small and humble living space, her eyes finally landing on an old framed photo on the coffee table.  It was a photo she had taken during the Christmas season, almost fourteen years prior, of the entire family.  Summer was a toddler and Morty was only a few months old. She had him perched on her hip, standing between me and Jerry.  Summer was latched to my leg and Beth was on my other side with her arm around my waist, smiling down at Summer.

Plucking the frame from the table, she seemed to study each face individually. Stepping closer, I peered at the photo from over her shoulder, taking my own trip down memory lane.

“I – uh – I thought you looked so pretty that day.  I felt – made me feel like a – like a dirty old man.”

Placing on hand on her left shoulder, I used the other to sweep her hair over her right. In response, she shivered slightly as I trailed my tongue up from her shoulder to the soft spot behind her ear.

“Why didn’t you move in here when you came back?”

That question was unexpected and for a second, I balked.  “I dunno.  Guess I – I didn’t want to.”  In fact, I hadn’t really even considered moving into this house when I finally felt it was time to saunter back into my daughter’s life.  Huh…

Resurfacing from introspection, I noticed that she was still studying the faces in the photo when I snatched it from her hand and tossed it on the nearby armchair before turning her to face me.  Her expression, the one I’d seen a thousand times, proved to me what I had suspected – she was thinking way too hard.

“Stop t-thinkin’ – analyzing everything,” I whispered, dipping my head to kiss her, running my tongue over her bottom lip.  Opening up, she allowed me to sweep inside, threading her hands behind my neck.

Fuck, she was an excellent kisser. Her tongue rolled and wrestled with mine for dominance before giving in entirely as I pushed my fingers through her hair.  And, before I knew it, she had pressed nearly every inch of her body against mine; literally grinding her pelvis against the hard on already straining the inseam of my slacks.  When I pulled back to gently suck on the sensitive skin of her neck, she arched her back – applying more pressure to my aching cock – and tilted her head to grant me easier access.

“My god, Rick,” she sighed.  “You make me so fucking wet.”  My eyes rolled back into my skull and I issued an involuntary groan at the utterance of her filthy confession before nipping lightly along the column of her neck. “Were you really jealous before?” Her voice was breathy, each word punctuated with labored pants, and my lips and tongue and teeth continued to assault her flesh.

“Fuck yeah, I was,” I confessed, mumbling against her skin.  She moaned and dug her hands in my hair, encouraging me to continue. “Th-the thought of someone else – I-I-I was ready to rip that asshole’s dick off.”

Had those words really left my mouth?  Since when had I become so willing to admit anything of that sort?

Then, she laughed.  “Trevor isn’t an asshole.  And, he probably would’ve liked that. He told me and he’s into some kinky shit.”

Just then, I realized that this woman in my arms had lived an entire life after I’d left and I suddenly felt something knot in the pit of my stomach that, for once, wasn’t the booze threatening to expel from the orifice that had consumed it.

Pulling back to look at her face, she only laughed harder.  “You still cackle like a chicken, ya know,” I commented before asking, “How well do y-y-you know that guy, anyway?”

“He’s an old friend.  His fiancé, Jared, was on the force with Chris.  That’s how I met him.”  At the mention of her deceased husband, the knot in my stomach grew.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear the rest, but I remained quiet and she took that as her cue to continue.

“We kept in touch through text and email after I moved.  When I got back, I told him how I wasn’t exactly keen on returning to my old firm here and he suggested that I try to branch out on my own.  He’s building a house to surprise Jared.  He wants to have it finished before they get married and offered to contract with me for the architectural plans.”

As she talked, I stepped away from her to sit on the sofa to absorb and contemplate; my mind ticking a mile a minute as I imagined her in social situations with people I didn’t know and didn’t give two shits about.  Why was it so bothersome?  Why did it slightly irritate me, the idea of sharing her time with anyone else?

You already know the answer to this, you dumb fuck – jealousy.  Jealousy. JEALOUSY.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked suddenly, startling me.  At some point, she’d ambled to the couch and sat down, unbeknownst to me.  Thankfully, I didn’t give myself away physically, keeping the stoic pose I’d assumed several minutes prior.

“What – yeah, sure,” I replied, forcing my gaze from shifting in her direction.

“Did you know what I would see in the inter-dimensional goggles?”

Welp… you saw that one coming from a mile away.

“Not – uh – not exactly, but I had an idea.”  When she remained silent, I finally chanced a glance at her and continued. “You saw us – them… fuckin’, right?”

“Right,” she nodded, her expression neutral, as if we were having a completely normal, run of the mill conversation.

“Yeeeah. Happens a lot.”  Raking a hand through my hair, I leaned back and sighed; preparing myself for the follow up questions.

“Happens a lot in that dimension, or…” she trailed off.

“In an infinite number of dimensions.  Of course, it’s – uh – a little different in each one.”

“She’s cheating on Chris,” she said, more to herself than to me.  I shrugged in an effort to display how inconsequential that fact was in the grand scheme of things.

“Those – t-t-those Ricks don’t stick around home much.  For – uh – obvious reasons, I guess.”

“That’s why you didn’t recognize Chris when we were –”

“Yeah,” I interrupted her, not needed – or wanting – her to complete that sentence.  “They aren’t around him when I’m watching.”

“So, we just fell into some cosmic trap, huh?”

“No such thing.  We – w-w-we just like screwin’ each other.”

I could see her reasoning for thinking that we were ‘destined’ to become fuck buddies, but there was no use in lying.  The justification was flimsy, at best, and only served to sooth a guilty conscious. She didn’t seemed perturbed, though, as I saw her smirk from the corner of my eye.  However, she was silent for a few minutes that stretched on for a few years before continuing her interrogation.      

“When did you know?  About the others, I mean.”

“I’ve known for a while,” I confessed, pulling my flask from the breast pocket of my lab coat. The metal scrape of the cap as I unscrewed and the slosh of liquid, a familiar comfort as I tipped it to drink. A second later, I extended it toward her, touching the cool metal to her bare upper arm in offering, to which she accepted.  Only this time, she seemed to have prepared herself and only coughed slightly before taking another healthy sip before handing it back.

“There – uh – there’s dimensions where we – they started fuckin’ almost as soon as she turned 18,” I began.  “I-I-I don’t kick around those much.  It’s… uncomfortable.”  The woman on the couch beside me choked out a strangled laugh and I couldn’t imagine the associations she was making.  But, she waived her hand in the air in a gesture for me to continue.

“There’s dimensions where it – it happened later.  How much later depended upon ran-random factors.  A – uh – a big one is when or-or if I leave.”

“You could have had me before you left.”

“I know, baby,” I acknowledged, tilting my head against the back of the sofa to stare at the ceiling.  Recalling her adorable yet surprisingly subtle flirtatious that she probably didn’t even realize way back then creating a warm flush in the center of my chest. “You – y-y-you were so perfect.  I couldn’t ruin that.”

“And, what happened with Unity?”

Sighing, I took a larger gulp from my flask and continued –

“I – I thought – ugh – I-I-I thought it was happening for me then.”  Leaning forward, I hid my face in my hands and groaned.  The humiliation and guilt crashed into me like a tsunami wave. “W-w-when I saw you on that filed – I – I should’ve know. Fuck!”

“Rick, it wasn’t your fault,” she comforted, scooting closer and placing a hand on my back in an attempt at a soothing gesture.  “I know that.  And, nothing happened.  I still haven’t recovered all of the memories but it was clear from what I do remember that Unity didn’t actually want to… you know,” she finished, unable to actually say the words.  “It was manipulation, pure and simple.  Neither of us are to blame.”

Her words were utter bullshit and I groaned again, wishing for her to shut the hell up.

“You’re a good man, Rick.”

Then, there was the rustle of movement as she rose from the couch to stand in front of me. When I finally gathered the courage to look up at her, she shuffled forward and pushed my legs together so that she could stand directly over them.  Automatically, my hands flew to her hips in an unconscious bid to keep her there as she raked both bands through my hair, lowered to straddle my lap and scooted forward until we were chest to chest.  Settling her hands on my shoulders now, she bent her head to sprinkle kisses from the crook of my neck up toward my jaw; her lips fluttering across my skin in a way that had me stifling a whine of pure need.

“I’m not good with feelings and I’m certainly not good with talking about feelings –” she started, moving to the other side of my neck and continuing between kisses, “– and I don’t expect you to reciprocate.  But, I adore you, Rick.  I have since the first moment I met you.”  Hitching a breath, my hands migrated from her hips to her knees before gliding up her thighs.  “And, no one has ever made me feel as good as you do.  No one has ever made me cum so fucking hard.”

“Christ,” I replied in a shaky whisper, moving my hands higher up her thighs until I reached the lace of her panties, hooking a finger under the tops of each side.  “T-t-take them off.  Right now,” I commanded.

Quickly, she rose to obey and as soon as the offending garment was discarded, I grasped her hips and slammed her down on my crotch, thrusting upward.

“Rub – grind that pussy, baby,” I growled in her ear, rotating her hips in my clothed erection.  “I want you – w-w-want my pants soaked, understand?”

“Yes!” she cried as I continued to thrust upward, the pressure on my cock increasing to a maddening degree.

“Oh, t-that’s it, sweet girl.  Just – juuust like that,” I praised as she undulated her hips.  Her hands were clenched on my shoulders – almost painfully – for leverage as she ground harder and harder; smearing her wetness across that slack covered bulge real nice.  “Mmm, my dick feels slick already,” I crooned, kneading her ass roughly.  “Lean back for me.  Let me see.”

Lifting the hem of her dress, the obscene sight of wet spot she’d left on my slacks coupled with the furiously blush staining her cheeks made my head spin as raw lust clouded my conscious mind.  “Baby –” I whispered directly into her ear, “– you’re so perfect.  Keep – don’t stop.”

And, she appeased me, grinding and swirling her hips as I pressed upward again and again and again until we were both breathless.

“Rick – ohh! Rick, I’m gonna cum,” she moaned, screwing her eyes shut in concentration.

“Yesss, my good girl.  Make yourself cum.  Let – l-l-let me see those eyes when you do, yeah?”  Leaning back, she locked her eyes with mine, the connection so intense it was nearly too much.  “Oh, that’s it,” I encouraged, leaning in to place a quick kiss to her lips, never breaking eye contact.  “Make yourself cum on my pants, baby.  Get them nice and soaked for Daddy, huh?”

“Oh god!” she screamed, digging her nails into my shoulders so hard, I grimaced.  But, fuck, it was a beautiful sight – this woman unraveling right before my eyes.  Then, as the climax that had triggered the flood I had demanded she leave on my pants began to ebb, sweat trickled from her temples and rolled between her tits as she caught her breath and leaned forward to rest her head on my shoulder.  Her breathing was ragged and her body trembled slightly when it occurred to me –

Daddy?  What the actual fuck, Sanchez?

I had never assigned that moniker to myself, even in the throes of passion, with any other lay.  In fact, I had witnessed countless Ricks referring to themselves as ‘Daddy’ and scoffed, finding it utterly cliche.  Yet, here I was – succumbing to the same song and dance rippling out through the multiverse. The phrase ‘cosmic trap’ resurfaced in the back of my mind and I suppressed a bitter laugh.  

Well, fuck me...

To be continued...

[sokkathebluewolf]

Has Azula really never killed anyone? That doesn't seem like her but it does seem like it could be an interesting plot point that she's been hiding the fact that she has from sokka out of shame or something

*sigh* 

Well, this isn’t the kind of ask I usually get on this blog, but I’ll answer as earnestly as possible. Preemptively sorry if I come off strong, but I’m going to assume you really haven’t read the whole story and thus some of its underlying themes and established backstories (or absence thereof) have gone unnoticed for you because of that.

Canon Azula, at fourteen years of age, goes out to track down her brother and uncle in war times. Canon Azula is not morally appalled by murder, not by any means, but unless you count Aang, who (because of LOK and because he literally came back to life) hardly really counts despite her very obvious intent to kill him, Azula’s canon kill count would be ONE (1), and it’s still someone who didn’t stay dead. Aang has canonically and consciously killed more people than Azula (and I don’t mean Koizilla, I mean Sozin’s Comet, the falling airship that crashed pretty hard against solid ground when he knocked it down. Were there survivors? Likely. But genuinely thinking no one would have died after that sounds extremely naïve). So, please, keep that in mind before thinking “that doesn’t seem much like *insert character name here*”. 

Gladiator Azula, at fourteen years of age, goes NOWHERE. Gladiator Azula didn’t have to track down Zuko and Iroh because they were a failure and a traitor, respectively. Why? Because Aang didn’t come back. There was no Avatar on the loose that Zuko and Iroh would fail to capture heaps of times. Therefore, if Azula doesn’t have to go find Zuko and Iroh by Ozai’s orders, Azula doesn’t fight the Avatar and friends, Azula doesn’t end up anywhere near Ba Sing Se. Someone else (General Tiang) takes Ba Sing Se in Gladiator with the power of the comet, because in this setting the Fire Nation wouldn’t have the opportunity to take it any sooner. I am pretty sure the comet-enhanced take of Ba Sing Se is literally stated in the first chapter: there are no aircrafts yet because Sokka hasn’t helped the Mechanist complete them, ergo, Ozai can’t rain fire from the sky even if he dreams of that. There are also no dragons, so the firebenders couldn’t use this grand opportunity for something gradiose like burning the entire world to the ground and had to settle for an old-school military strategic victory.

Gladiator Azula is established, then, to not have taken action in her younger years because Ozai had no need to send her anywhere. Gladiator Azula has seen no military glory when the story begins, she has taken no missions before the first one she has in the South Pole, a mission where her role was meant to be diplomatic, first and foremost. The first enemy she meets whom she just might have a pretty good reason to kill? It’s Sokka. And we all know how that turned out. Had she been a trigger-happy murderer like you might think she is (considering zero murders “doesn’t seem like Azula” to you), that’s where our story would have ended. Funny.

Therefore, had Gladiator Azula killed someone before Sokka was part of her life, it’d have to be a Fire Nation someone. I repeat, she had never dealt with anyone who could be considered an enemy of her nation before the South Pole. If she didn’t kill Huang Li for disrespecting her, if she didn’t kill Admiral Chan for trying to screw her over and instead bided her time until she could one-up him for good… do you SERIOUSLY think the way I’m characterizing Azula leaves room for her to have committed, what, recreational murder of her own people because she was frustrated she didn’t get any chances to join the war?

Throughout the story, Gladiator Azula has showed very little compunction about threatening people with death, or even talking about killing others when she’s in a really bad mood. This is done as a very deliberate and intentional contrast with Sokka, who has killed countless people and wishes he’d never have to do it again. Why’s that?

Because often in fantasy fiction, in many stories I’ve found (including ATLA), killing isn’t treated with the gravity and seriousness it deserves. Sokka has canonically killed plenty of people too, and yet it never seems to bother him in the least there. I’ve read at least two other fics that give him PTSD for the deaths he dealt through the war, and to me, that’s a thousand times more sensible than him being utterly unconcerned with what he’s doing or who he’s killing. I like my characters more complex than Liam Neeson in Taken. Want senseless killing with zero consequences? That’d be a good movie to go to for that.

Gladiator Sokka killed his first man in the settlement, chapter 2, remember? He hasn’t forgotten it even now, despite at the time he tried to ignore it and move on to his actual mission. What was the purpose of that? If it needs spelling out, the purpose of it was to outright contrast the Canon Sokka mentality of “it’s what needs to be done”, a mentality he shares in this story at first, with the eventual Gladiator Sokka mentality of “taking people’s lives destroyed me on the inside because I don’t think I deserved to live when they died”. All this to make death a lot less leisurely, recreational, inconsequential than it is in countless works of fiction. Do you shrug off real life deaths as though they were inconsequential too? Has any relative of yours died and you’ve thought it’s irrelevant? Or, like me, are you living in a tyrannical country where fighting back against said tyranny has resulted in meaningless deaths of young people who were fighting for a future that was stolen from them? People whose deaths have just become a mere number on a list of atrocities a tyrannical regime refuses to answer for? Yeah, that sounds hella dramatic, I know. But I like to take my storytelling and the themes I deal with in it seriously, and death is one theme I categorically refuse to take lightly. ATLA did try to take death seriously too, but they certainly failed more often than not for me, especially when their heroes cared about death only if the plot required it.

That Azula hasn’t killed anyone so far doesn’t mean she won’t ever do it in the story’s future. But it does mean that, by the time she does, it will affect her, as it rightfully should affect any human being who isn’t completely amoral and, if you’ve read any further than the first three arcs, I’d like to think you already know Azula has a conscience she tends to ignore but that is still there. Spoiler alert, said conscience becomes louder and harder for her to ignore until eventually she starts abiding by it.

In conclusion, no, Azula hasn’t killed anyone. No, I don’t find that implausible for a character who hadn’t gone to war the way her canon counterpart did, especially considering said canon counterpart has only ever killed ONE (1) person if you do count him, despite being involved directly in the war to the point of even conquering a city herself. No, there isn’t some secret death Azula is responsible for that she hasn’t told Sokka about, because if there were, she would already have shown signs of keeping that kind of secret (yes, Sokka kept secrets that weren’t strongly hinted at, but they WERE hinted at: Rhone for instance was teased all the way in chapter 41 despite he only showed up in chapter 113, and the reasons for his reluctance to go home were implied since chapter 3, even if he didn’t outright tell Azula about them until chapter 106).

I’m sure there are countless other stories that don’t deal with death the way I do. But this is how Gladiator does it, and this is how Gladiator will continue to do it, because it’s being written by someone who doesn’t think carnage should be dealt with as lightly as it often is. Yes, there’s death in this story, a fair share of it, and that share will only increase in later chapters (I literally just finished an entire arc about serial murders through the Capital?), but I won’t ever take it lightly and I sure won’t turn my characters into secretive murderers for drama’s sake, especially if said suggestion contradicts virtually every bit of characterization I’ve worked on and developed for Azula throughout six years of studying her character and writing it in this story.

(Also… hiding it out of shame? If you think it’s unlike Azula to not have killed anyone, do you really think it’s “like her” to be ashamed if she really had done it? Do you really think she wouldn’t have been proud to own up to her kill count before her conscience kicks in for good later on in the story? What reason would Azula possibly have to be ashamed of killing someone in the earlier stages of Gladiator?)

[makaidu]

The LGBTQ Community is now in the era where in people are getting interested towards their stories. People nowadays are drawn to their walks of life and is curious of their capabilities. Members of the LGBTQ community are now recognized into various fields—in business industry, in government, and in media industry. Does this recognition seals the deal of a tolerating society? Or are we still yet living in a society where in as long as you matter, you will be remembered and once you don’t, you will wither.

The movie Call Me by Your Name and its achievement towards winning several recognition in various award giving body can testify to its beauty as a film. There has been a clamor with my friends about this movie but I never had the perfect opportunity to actually sit down and watch it. And then suddenly, things fell into its own places and I ended up watching this film. At first I thought it would just be the same Bisexual story and that at the end of the movie, after all the struggles and conflict, they would still end up happy and accepted. But this movie portrayed another perspective towards these kind of relationship and that this could happen and is happening in the status quo. That there are times that our forever only lasts as the summer does.

At the beginning of the movie, I would be very honest, I was bored because of the ambiance of the story. It seems flat and it’s very predictable. I could still remember, I stopped watching at some point. But as the story progressed, my attention also was diverted again to the movie as if I can’t take my eyes off of it. I started to become interested about the movie when the main characters are actually talking and they’re starting to get to know each other. I started thinking if my theory about the end of the movie would be the same to it’s actual ending or they would alter the ending of the story. I really like how they are able to commit with the scenes provided that the actors are both straight men and that there are scenes that require heavy commitment to achieve the proper emotion and with that I would like to commend them for giving enough justice to their roles. I also liked the fact that the movie sounds so natural therefore the feelings and the emotions are real and they are not backed up by certain musics just for the sake of the audience’s emotion. I like the fact that it was not manipulated just to trigger one’s emotion for that specific scene. I like the fact that they are giving the audience the chance to feel the genuine emotion instead of just gradually feeding them the expected emotions. They did not compromise the natural sound just to consider the emotion. Take the case of the scene where Oliver and Elio went to the town and had coffee and the cars would just randomly pass by them. Elio would raise his voice just for Oliver to hear him say. I like that because it’s like they’re portraying that I am inside their movie and I am a part of that scene.

Considering the different communication Media Theory, the Social Penetration Theory could be of great example in the movie Call Me by Your Name which states that we are all bound to have some kind of relationship with someone and this theory also defines how mere strangers could turn into deeper relationship as time goes by. The characters started with little to none information about each other but as the summer progressed, so as their intimate relationship. Under the Social Penetration Theory, there are several stages present through which relationships develop namely: Orientation stage, Exploratory-Affective stage, Affective stage, Stable stage, and Depenetration and these stages are clearly visible in the movie.

* ORIENTATION STAGE: On this early stage, where in people would usually start with short, simple, and inconsequential talk, Elio and Oliver just shook their hands and exchanged their smiles as they first met. Elio even had an impression towards Oliver and I can still see that Elio has this reservations towards Oliver because it’s the first time that they’ve met each other. Elio is still hiding behind his walls because Oliver is indeed a stranger to him.

* EXPLORATORY-AFFECTIVE STAGE: This is where Oliver started to open up about his interest towards ancient artifacts and Elio’s love for the music and somehow, they were able to go along with each other when Oliver went to the Urban, Elio was the one who assisted him and they’ve talked about certain things and they started to open up which led to the start of a deeper relationship.

* AFFECTIVE STAGE: Elio started to share his personal matters towards Oliver. He showed him the place that he would often indulge himself every time he’s sad. They even shared personal matters. Oliver even hugged Elio which portrays that they are both comfortable with each other.

* STABLE STAGE: This is where Elio and Oliver started to confess their feelings towards each other. Before, the bed of the two are obviously separated from each other. But because of their shared feelings, there came a point in the movie that they slept together with one bed and the level of their intimacy reached to a point of having sex. Also when Elio cried, Oliver knew his problem therefore, he knew how to comfort the sad Elio. They even went somewhere and shared a commonality about music adventure, and swimming. They are so happy because they feel like they are the same and the informations that they gave to each other are somehow beneficial to one another

* DEPENETRATION: Due to the fact that everything is temporary and nothing lasts forever, things will always come to an end. And like every other relationship, Elio and Olivers’ is of no difference. When Oliver was about to go home to his place and the summer was over, Elio was so devastated. He cried and he was so sad because Oliver had to leave. That’s when Elio started to fall out of love of Oliver. Though, deep inside him, he is still hoping that their love will continue. But because of that, it triggered the disconnection between the two. Oliver once called at Elio’s house and he was so hopeful but Oliver called to inform everyone that he’s getting married. With that, Elio was so lonely which led to the withdrawal and termination of their relationship

Another theory that can also be applied to this movie is the Symbolic Interaction Theory. The study of symbols and their use or interpretations. There is this one scene where in they are playing volleyball and Elio is watching Oliver play. Elio went to the table to get water for his friends but Oliver snatched it and he was the one who drank the water. Right after that, Oliver massaged Elio’s shoulder, he put his hands towards hi shoulder. Awkward as it may be, Elio was surprised of that gesture and then Oliver went back to the court. Elio thought that it was just nothing but I remember it right when they were talking on the latter part of the movie, Oliver explained that it symbolizes his attraction to Elio and he wanted to see his reaction.

Overall, I feel like this movie is meant to be out there and it is meant to be celebrated not just because of the fact that the film industry is accepting these kind of non-conventional love films, but because critiques are able to recognize such beauty amidst all the struggles and hardships that the member of the LGBTQ community is facing just to live normal, act normal, and love unconditionally.

We should try to indulge ourselves into these kind of movies to fully understand the enormous capabilities of our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community and that they too, are humans and humans as they are, they strip and fall but at the end of the day, they still fight and is continuously fighting for love because that is what they deserve. That is what we all deserve. To love, and to feel loved regardless of our race, status in the society, and gender.