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odditycircus-2002 · 2 years ago

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Huddle Up

Y'all remember my post about the Black Sun Job where Diyana and Hellboy were stranded in an arctic wasteland for a little over 6 weeks after Hellboy blew up a Nazi's base? Well, this drabble is what came to mind for a bit of what happened between them during those weeks on the ice.

Hellboy huffs to himself in frustrations as he dug at the snow and sleet hoping to find something from the remains of the hangar to use as fuel for the fire, he and his fellow agent only have so much daylight left after all.

"Just more useless crap."

The large red man grumbles, tossing aside scrap metal in a small pile of similar debris. He then looks up to find his fellow agent, Diyana Swann, a little off in the distance; a black setter dog is currently digging deep into the snow. Hellboy watches as Swann briefly disappears into the hole she dug before reappearing, completely covered in snow contrasting brightly against her dark fur but otherwise without any tinder. The dog that is Swann frowns before speaking.

"I have nothin' here either."

Swann lets out a huff before shaking her entire body, briefly appearing as a dark blur that then shifts into a more humanoid form that Hellboy is more familiar with. Despite having the general shape of a human of African descent with black wavy hair, it's not hard to miss the dark rabbit ears sprouting from the sides of her head or the long tail extending from her spine that ends with a tuft of blue-gray fur. Upon closer inspection past the winter boots she's currently wearing, anyone could see that Swann's legs don't exactly resemble a human's either. Sure, they seem normal above the knees, but going down from there, they're more digitigrade in appearance, like that of a four-legged animal.

"You just had to blow up the entire hangar, eh? Deadly job ye did there leaving any kindlin'."

"I'll keep that in mind next time Nazis try to use me as their guinea pig."

Hellboy sarcastically quips back. Swann sighs as she places her hands on her hips before returning to where their impromptu firepit is, which is basically a small hole in the ground with a pitiful amount of wood in the middle, they dug out earlier. Hellboy is not too far behind as he joins his coworker, sitting opposite her.

"I gotta ask though, where were you during that? You seemed to have vanished into thin air when the grunts started pulling out the ray guns."

Hellboy narrows his golden eyes in suspicion at the pooka across from him. Swann waves a gloved hand dismissively with a nonchalant grin.

"I knew you had it covered, 'sides you're able to take those shots than I could anyway."

"Doesn't mean they didn't hurt like a S.O.B."

Hellboy subconsciously runs a hand over the burgundy-colored bruise on his right shoulder where the ray guns first hit him. Diyana grits her teeth as she lets out a hiss at the various bruises and injuries that decorated his hulking form.

"I can imagine, yer gonna be so sore in mornin'. But hey, at least I got ya out just in time before ya could blow up with the rest of those morans."

"That reminds me, you haven't exactly answered my question. What were you doing while I was having my ear talked off by wannabe Hitler?"

Swann maintains the same unbothered expression in contrast to her colleague's persistent gaze. She's the first to break their eye contact as she gives a shrug and a hum.

"Eh, no use keepin' it hidden, 'sides we'll need the kindling."

Swann then reaches into her stylish coat to pull out a small stack of papers. They crinkle in her hand as she shifts through them with an analytical eye; some she throws in the fire pit, and others she tucks back into her coat. Hellboy isn't sure he would like the faerie woman's answer when spotting a familiar symbol on the corner of one of the documents and recognizing the writing to be in German. He isn't going to stop Swann from using her lighter to set the papers ablaze, though. The faerie snaps her lighter close when the kindling does its work for the few wood pieces they can find.

"I don't need to be a psychic to know yer askin' why I have Nazi papers."

"Yeah."

Hellboy confirms, observing as Swann warms her gloved hands over the small fire. She then moves her hands to grab a pack of cigarettes and her cigarette holder from her coat pocket to use the small fire to light one. Hellboy watches Swann take an inhale before exhaling a smoky yellow hand grabbing at the air.

"I'm simply fulfilling the research aspect of your organization as upon my agreement with the Professor and the board members. While you're their smash, I am more of the grab."

The smokey apparition then disperses before Swann takes another inhale to exhale a blue and yellow stream of smoke that resembles the planet, Earth, along with a few of the aircraft that dragged them to their current location.

"If it's any comfort, there wasn't really a lot of juicy intel as much as much as thick crackpot plans for world domination."

Hellboy follows where Swann is gesturing to the ashy remains of the documents she burned, his lips are pressed together in a thin line as he stares intently at the fire. On one hand, he knows that it's always these Nazis' plans to take over the world, essentially. On the other, he's not a fool to accept what Swann told him to be the whole truth. She's come through in a pinch within the hangar and now with the fire, though.

After a few moments of silence, Hellboy looks from the fire to his fellow agent, her cigarette half its original size.

"Did you at least gather any idea on how to get out of this winter wonderland?"

Swann shakes her head to which Hellboy gives a tired sigh.

"You blew everythin' up, handsome. Any vehicles ain't nothin' but scrap now."

"Well, why not teleport us out like you did with me?"

"I'd have to know what continent we're on first to figure out where to go. Though, all I see is ice and snow to the horizon."

Swann then makes a sweeping gesture to the frozen land around them. A icy breeze then blows by which cause the agents' small fire to dance rapidly in the wind, looking almost ready to go out. Both Hellboy and Swann desperately start to shield the flame with their body, the large man begging under his breath for the flame not to die. Once it stabilizes again do both agents back away a bit from the fire.

"Any word on the radio?"

Swann inquires, once she's able to stop her teeth from chattering too much. Hellboy shakes his head before pulling out the blocky radio that was one half of a two-way radio, one of the only things they could find amongst the wreckage.

"Nothing, just static."

"Here, let me."

Swann holds out a hand to which Hellboy obliges. He watches as Swann takes out some small screwdrivers and a plier then starts to disassemble the radio.

"Can ya find a small thin and malleable piece of metal?"

She asks him while wiping the batteries with her coat. Hellboy, again, acquiesces to the phooka's request, finding and breaking off some scorched metal the size of a fist into rough strips the width of his pinky. If there's one thing Hellboy can trust Swann with, it's her way around machines. He watches his fellow agent use one of the metal strips to attach to the radio's antenna, using a rubber band and bobby pin she found in her pocket. Swann appears to pay special attention to a small scorched cube in the radio, then fiddles with the wires within it before returning it to the radio.

"Alright, the batteries seem to be in working order, with no sign of damage or corrosion. Added some length to the antenna to hopefully boost the signal 'fore takin' a gander at the repeater. It seems to suffer a bit of damage from the blast, but everythin' else looks good. Just wish I had my carpet bag on me."

"Only one way to find out."

Hellboy then takes the radio from Swann and switches it on.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Agent Hellboy and Agent Swann of the BPRD requesting rescue and pick up. We're stranded on what looks to be a tundra. There's snow and ice everywhere. Last known location, is Fletcher's Ice Island T-3 in the Arctic Ocean. Hurry, we don't have a lot of fuel for a fire."

Hellboy then releases his hand from the receiver before glancing back at Swann.

"Fingers crossed that your upgrades worked and somebody heard it, otherwise they're gonna find some strange snowmen by then."

Hellboy gives a dry chuckle while Di nods in agreement with her arms wrapped around her in a death grip.

A Few Days Later

As Hellboy feared, their fire situation worsened to the point that both he and Swann had to dig through their pockets for any flammable miscellaneous items. This includes Swann's carton she held her cigarettes in, her hat minus the hat pins on them, old receipts and memos, and even some of their hair or fur in Swann's case. The latter made their small camp stink as hell to the point it became hard for either of them to choose between getting away from the stench or getting closer to their only source of warmth. Well, perhaps the fire isn't their only warm source.

Hellboy looks up from their only line to the outside world to the woman across from him. On Swann's lap is loose wiring, screw, and more metal scrap as she works on disassembling and picking apart the repeater from the radio. Swann hopes that by making repairs to the repeater or even making a new one, could boost the signal of their radio. However, the faerie woman's progress is slow as is evident by her trembling hands causing her to drop a screw or cause her to start over what little progress she made. The sound of Swann's teeth chattering together is the only other sound to fill the silence between them besides the weak crackling of their fire and howling freezing winds. Hellboy couldn't stand it for much longer.

"C'mere."

The large man beckons Swann toward him with his giant stone hand. Swann tears her gaze away from her work her long ears tilted at an angle to express her confusion.

"W-w-what?"

"I'm not gonna repeat myself."

Hellboy then stands up to shuffle over Swann's side of the fire, securing the radio in his belt before sitting down behind the faerie woman and scooping her up into his lap, bridal style. He then wraps his muscular arms around Swann's shivering form, flinching slightly when brushing against her ice-cold cheeks. Said woman lets out a small squeak at the contact but instinctively clings to the larger red man once fully processing how he's pretty much a living furnace.

"Christ on a stick!"

Swann happily mutters to herself. She wraps her arms around Hellboy's barrel chest as best as she can.

"You're welcome."

Hellboy could've sworn he felt a rumbling sensation coming from her. It seems that Hellboy huddling close to his fellow agent did the trick, as after Swann took a few minutes to warm herself up by greedily taking in his body heat, she is able to complete making a new repeater. She then installs into the radio before handing it to Hellboy, who gives more or less the same message as last time. After taking his hand off the receiver. Sensing he's being watched, he looks down at Swann gazing up at him with hooded eyes and a sultry grin.

"I always knew you were hot, Handsome."

"Don't start. You're lucky I feel like being nice."

Swann gives a shrug before crooning,

"I'll still take what I can."

Hellboy lets out a groan but doesn't object when Swann intertwines her tail around his nor does she say anything when he rests his chin on top of her head right between her small horns. Although, Hellboy does note that Swann is soft and warm to have in his arms. For a while, they both sat in silence to simply bask in what little heat their fire gave and the warmth exchanged from their combined body heats. The silence is eventually broken by Hellboy, who doesn't bother moving from the top of Swann's head.

"You're lucky to have small horns. Must make everyday life easy for ya."

"Aye, how else do you think I'm able to put on my hats or lay my head down on a pillow without tearin' it to pieces?"

Hellboy lets out a huff in amusement, his warm breath brushes against the fae woman's long ears, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine and causing her to tighten her tail around the large red man's. The latter thinks nothing of it, chalking it up to the bitter cold. He raises a brow when hearing a sudden crunchy pop similar to whenever he cracks his neck or spine while stretching. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he can spot Swann's horns lengthening like trees growing 100 times faster. He moves his head from the top of Swann's head in time to catch her horns twisting and curling before settling to resemble a ram's. Swann twists in Hellboy's lap with an amused smile.

"What did I tell ya? Sure, they're grand an' everythin', but I'd prefer a bit less of a hassle. Ya like?"

She runs a hand down one of her horns as if brushing back a strand of hair while maintaining heavy eye contact with Hellboy. The latter gives a barely perceptible shrug.

"Horns aren't really my thing, but they're fitting on you."

Swann then places her hands over her cheeks before using one to fan herself in an overexaggerated fashion.

"Ah shucks, you make me blush, Handsome!

The fae woman then raises her hands to run them over her horns as if sweeping back her hair, causing them to shorten and shrink under her touch until they're back to their usual convenient size.

"Speaking of horns, where's yours exactly, Big Guy?"

Swann gestures with one hand to the smooth stumps on Hellboy's forehead. He glances up at them before lifting his normal left hand to feel the mostly smooth stumps.

"Don't got'em 'cause I didn't want them. I used to be insecure about them as a kid, but nowadays I file them down for about the same reasons as you."

Hellboy gives a shrug in response. Swann gives hum as she contemplates what her fellow agent just told her.

"I suppose that's best for ya,"

The faerie woman then starts giggling to herself, causing the giant red man to raise a brow in confusion.

"What's so funny, now?"

"I was just thinkin' of ya tryna put on a shirt only for two absolutely massive horns-"

Swann holds her hands about a foot from her forehead.

" -to rip a hole through them, leaving ya stuck mid-dressing."

Swann then bursts out into full laughter.

"Or-or-or ya tryna to go through one of the doors at HQ, but ya can't cause the horns are too wide to let ya through! So you're just left havin' to figure your way in, only to get stuck in the doorway!"

A wry grin makes its way on Hellboy's face before he's too left chuckling at the ridiculous imagery.

"Kinda reminds me of when Mac tried to bring in a whole tree branch inside, but he didn't figure that the branch was too wide until after he ran full force at the door frame."

A moment of silence passes between them before both burst out into laughter to the point Swann has to grab onto Hellboy's broad shoulder to keep from collapsing, which is harder than it sounds considering how his shoulders kept shaking from the force of his laughter. Hellboy raises his left arm to wipe at his eyes for any tears that leaked out, which gives Swann a good look at a faded bitemark. A bitemark that's a lighter shade of red than the rest of Hellboy and appears to be the result of a large creature by the looks of it.

"How'd ya get that scar? Looks like it got ya good."

Hellboy glances over at the bitemark on his forearm and flexes his left hand.

"Yeah, but I'd say the mutated mutt got it worse in the end. I can at least say I'm alive."

"Mutated mutt? Do ya mean what happened last year in Rosemead, California?"

Hellboy nods.

"Yup. Guessin', you read the papers about it?"

"Aye, kinda hard not to when your face and name were everywhere.

"I can't help it I got a mug that cameras just love."

The giant red man gives an amused grin at his joke. Swann reciprocates his expression with one of her own and lightly elbows him in the ribs.

"Don't get a big head about it, yours is already large as it is."

"Guilty as charged."

Hellboy shrugs without an ounce of guilt.

"I'd wager though you got your share of scars."

"More than you can believe."

Swann glances down at one of her arms before adjusting the gloves to smooth out a small wrinkle, her grin falling ever so slightly. Hellboy could sense the change in demeanor from the smaller woman, making him furrow his brow.

"What kind of scars are you talkin' about?"

He asks quieter and gentler than his voice was just a minute ago. Swann remains silent, making no indication that she even heard Hellboy. The latter chooses not to push the fae woman, but that doesn't stop him from noting how unusual this sort of heavy silence is for her compared to her normal chatter.

Eventually, the silence is broken when Swann opts to shrug off her coat, revealing the white blouse with long frilled sleeves underneath. She then turns around and stands between Hellboy's legs to drape the blue coat over his broad shoulders. The large red man raises a brow but doesn't stop the smaller woman from smoothing the way-too-small jacket over him.

"You sure you wanna be giving this to me? I don't believe it's my style and I don't really need it."

The corner of the fae woman's mouth twitches.

"It's the best I can do given yer own was cut into ribbons, plus I can't have my personal heater turning into an ice cube."

"Touching."

Crinkle

Both Hellboy and his fellow agent turn their heads, Swann's ears standing at attention, in the direction of a familiar sound of plastic clinking followed by a light thump, followed shortly by a loud clink. Looking over to Hellboy's left side, they find a small packet of airplane biscuits and two mini bottles labeled "bourbon". Both agents look at the unexpected sustenance and then at each other again with wide eyes. Swann then gives a shrug to the large man's silent question.

"Even I sometimes forget what I keep on me."

Some More Days Later

After some thorough searching and Hellboy shaking the coat turns out Swann had half of another airplane biscuit pack in her and Hellboy has a mint broken down into dust in one of his pockets. While it isn't much in normal circumstances, to both BPRD agents, they may as well have found a feast. They both nibble their share of a cinnamon and sugar biscuit, both sharing half of one of the scarce biscuits while engaged in conversation with Swann still sitting in Hellboy's lap.

"....Why Romania? I figured you'd wanna go somewhere warmer like Mexico, Africa, the Sahara desert, the Bahamas, or Florida after this."

"You'd be wrong, Red. For one thing, I still have fur, so what may be mild to ya, is fiercely the opposite. 'Sides, I know a couple of great restaurants there, including one that makes some of the bleedin' best paprika chicken ya ever tasted."

The fae woman then takes another small bite from her quarter of the airplane biscuit, closing her eyes to briefly imagine the paprika chicken she mentioned; she can almost taste the delicious dish on her tongue, not the stale sugar cinnamon of the biscuit. Hellboy opts to wash down his biscuit with a small sip of bourbon, which is barely an ember warming his chest.

"You'll have to take me to one of those restaurants sometime then."

Swann gives a coquettish grin as she playfully bats her eyes.

"Are ya askin' me out on a date, Red?"

Hellboy's brows shoot to his forehead.

"Uhhh, no? Not really."

The large red man reaches his left hand behind his neck, suddenly feeling warmer than he did a minute ago. Swann's grin softens into a small smile as she turns her head to look up at him.

"Date or not, I'd be happy to show ya."

Hellboy gives a soft grin of his own.

"Sounds like a plan. Though, honestly,"

Hellboy leans back against the wall of the pit they dug, craning his neck to stare up at the bright full moon in the sky.

"I'd like to spend some time home. I know the Professor, Margret, and Archie must be scouring the Earth right now to find where we're at. It'd be nice to see them all again, and I'm sure Mac is missing me as much as I miss him. What I wouldn't give right now to be back in my warm bed with him. "

The large red man glances back at the fae woman in his hold, certain he would find her batting her lashes at him before making an innuendo; however, this is not what he finds. Hellboy finds Swann looking over at the fire with a stolid expression on her face as if in deep concentration.

"Swann?"

At the sound of her last name, the fae woman turns to look at Hellboy with a smile that doesn't quite reach her forlorn eyes.

"Ya lucky to have so many folks waitin' for ya at home. At least, I got Romania and all of Europa to head to."

Swann then gives a bitter chuckle. Hellboy doesn't say anything, pressing his lips in a thin line, silently hoping for his fellow agent to elaborate. His patience pays off when Swann gives one final detail.

"It's the closest I'll ever get to going home."

"Why? Are you saying that you can't? Actually, why do you stick around HQ and not Ireland?"

The faerie woman doesn't say anything in response, leaving them both in heavy silence once more.

...

Even More Days Later

Swann didn't speak much after mentioning home, barely uttering a few words. Even then, only when necessary, such as asking Hellboy to hold a few components of the radio as she got to work trying to strengthen the signal again. He watches as she screws and unscrews each piece in repetition with no real progress other than, perhaps, a way to keep her hands busy. While Swann is occupied with the hand radio, Hellboy looks over their remaining food, which, while not a lot to begin with, is nothing more than crumbs. The large man gives a sigh as he looks at the sad crumbs and dust in his normal hand.

"Any luck with the radio, Swann? Cause food's here is just crumbs you'd feed a mouse."

"s-s-sickner for-r-r yaaa."

The Fae woman slurs thickly in reply, stuttering at the same time from what Hellboy figures to be from the cold. He quickly takes the coat draped on his shoulders to cover his partner, even rubbing her shoulders a bit to generate extra heat. Hellboy then presses the back of his hand against Swann's cheek, finding that he may as well be touching the snow around them. He throws a quick glance at the small fire that may as well belong to a candle. Hellboy clenches his jaw tightly as he then looks back at Swann, finding her hands to be moving at a snail's pace and her head bobbing, causing her wavy locks to fall forward.

Before she could fall forward as well, Hellboy uses his giant right hand to catch the fae woman and tilt her back and used the other to place the radio down. He attempts to will away the way his heart started clawing its way up his throat by talking to his fellow agent and putting her coat back on her.

"Hey, Swann? Why don't you take a break from workin' on the radio for a bit? We're gonna need more fuel."

"A-ayeee... an féidir leat an fhuinneog a dhúnadh, le do thoil?"

"I have no idea what ya just said, but I'm gonna need ya to stay awake. Just don't close your eyes, yeah?"

Swann only lets out an acknowledging hum which Hellboy figured is good enough. He then snaps his fingers in front of the woman's cat-like eyes, briefly getting her to keep open without struggle for a few seconds before she's back to struggling with their weight. Hellboy ends up cradling Swann's shivering form, so small compared to him, close to his chest. Hellboy shuffles around, trying to find any flammable debris that both of them may have missed. Occasionally he would jostle her in his arms when she seemed too still, sometimes engaging in nonsensical conversation with her, anything to keep the fae woman from falling asleep and dying.

"I missh the soft ground a-and the grass 'tween toes."

"Uh-huh, and what else?"

"mo dheartháireacha agus deirfiúracha amaideach,"

Di gives a small drunken laugh as she gives a thousand-yard stare without actually seeing anything.

"plainsss, fielllds, winds... Jesusss I misss the aaaale...."

"We can get some ale later, but we can't if you go to sleep."

"Mmmmhhhh... souuuunds goood."

"I hope you mean the ale."

Hellboy moves aside a piece of metal that's roughly his size with one arm, finding something charred in the snow. He crouches down next to the partially buried item and uses his free hand to start digging at the snow around it. His face brightens when he unearthed a mostly charred piece of wood that could've been part of a door.

"Ah ha! A bit burnt but it's still wood."

Swann can only give a breathy giggle.

"bleedin' kelpies... gotta hog waterrr..."

"Right."

The large red man sits in front of the fire, its flames larger than a minute ago, thanks to the charred wood he found. Once he's taken care of the fire, Hellboy turns his attention back to the smaller woman in his arms, the knot in his stomach somewhat lessening when finding her no longer shivering as badly. To be safe, though, he takes one of Swann's arms tightly wrapped around herself to check her pulse.

"Mmmhhh... weak, but at least it's still there."

"A-are we in the w-wetlandsss?"

Swann mumbles out as she starts to kick her feet against the snow with barely enough force to flick a snowflake away. Hellboy is quick to hoist the faerie woman up more into his hold.

"No, we're in the ice lands."

"Ohhh booo..."

"Yeah, I know."

For the rest of the day, Hellboy continues to make nonsensical small talk with the barely conscious fae woman, which admittedly. During one conversation, he stopped to give Swann a few crumbs and the few drops of bourbon left in his small bottle.

"Cén fáth a bhfuil an fuisce imithe i gcónaí?"

Swann slurrs as she tiredly squints at the tiny bottle in Hellboy's hand.

"Sure is, Swann."

The fae woman then goes silent for a moment longer than he would've liked. However, before Hellboy could open his mouth to say anything, Swann speaks again at a volume her fellow agent had to lean down to hear.

"W-why can't I gooo home?"

"What's stopping you?"

"Them..."

"Who's them?"

The demon-like man couldn't make out the rest of what his fellow agent said, but they were swears and curses, given how she practically growled them out. Feeling it'd be better to get straight answers when Swann is more lucid, Hellboy changes the subject.

"You wanna hear about the time I crashed a vehicle when I was a kid?"

"A-aye...hehe..."

"Figured you would. To start, I love reading Lobster Johnson comics and I had something of an overactive imagination..."

Hellboy spends the rest of the night recalling his childhood and the places his job has taken him around the globe, having found that telling anecdotes from his life stories helped keep Swann awake. For the most part, he still had to shake her around to keep from dozing off. Sometimes, Swann would interject with some murmured commentary, which is how Hellboy learns that she's apparently banned from places in Sweden. Something about framing a giant talking squirrel for crimes she committed, but the large red man decided that's a question for another time.

...

He must've dozed off at some point since Hellboy opens his eyes to blink blearily at the rising sun. He then looks to the fire pit, where only ashes, embers, and smoke remains. Hellboy gives a heavy sigh to himself at the idea of scrounging up more fuel for the fire.

"Hey Swann, we're gonna-"

The large man is jolted fully awake as everything comes rushing back to him. He looks down to find the fae woman curled up in a fetal position on his lap with her back with a light cover of frost that gave an almost glazed look to Swann. He feels his stomach lurch as he raises a hand to her neck to try and search for any sign of a pulse, finding her skin to be cold as the landscape around them. Hellboy then feels it sink when he finds nothing.

"No,no,no, no come on."

Hellboy mutters to himself as he picks the smaller woman to squeeze against his body, which likely may not have been as effective as he would like given he's been shirtless in the cold the entire time, with frost forming on him. Yet, none of this bothered Hellboy, who starts rushing around the area with Swann still in his arms, desperately searching for anything he can burn while ignoring the hunger pangs from days of little food. While he didn't find any wood, he did find miscellaneous melted rubber parts from a variety of destroyed machines and items. Hellboy didn't care that it smelled worse than when either he or Swann would use a bit of their hair for kindling, as long as it made a fire which it did.

Sitting as close as he can, Hellboy sits by the fire again to get to work to warm up his fellow agent. After putting his hand directly in the fire for a few seconds, he rubs at her shoulders, arms, and neck to help give and generate heat. When this didn't make the faerie stir, Hellboy wracked his brain for anything else he could do to warm Swann up. He faintly remembers something about skin-to-skin contact being used in cases of hypothermia during the briefing before embarking on this job. Hellboy groans to himself at what he knows he has to do, but his resolve is steeled when looking down at the frozen fae woman in his arms.

Hellboy then starts unbuttoning Swann's jacket, enough so his left hand can slip down to her sternum, just above her breasts. He then starts rubbing counter-clockwise with the intention to generate heat to keep his partner's heart pumping. While not meaning to, as Hellboy was focusing on not overstepping his boundaries with the unconscious fae woman, he gets a glimpse of several stitched-up scars in the shape of claws peeking out from both sides of Swann's ribs. The large red man quickly looks away out of respect and embarrassment. He keeps averting his gaze from Swann as he holds her bare chest against his own bare chest with his beefy arms wrapped oh-so-carefully around her smaller form.

"I just know if you were awake, you wouldn't let me live any of this down. Right now, though, I wouldn't mind since it'll mean you're not dead."

Hellboy murmurs to the still-unconscious faerie.

The large red man sat there for what could've been hours, although there wasn't really any telling given how the sun seemed to barely have moved across the sky. Still, the fae woman didn't stir or give any indicators that she was still alive, not even a twitch. Hellboy knows he purposefully put off checking on the state of his only companion in the wintery landscape; which is why by the time the sun started to lower behind the horizon, he finally decided to grab one piece of metal from within Swann's pockets. Hellboy specifically rummaged for the most reflective piece before taking it out of his fellow agent's pocket and placing it under her nose. After a few moments that had Hellboy holding his breath, he takes the metal piece from under Swann's nose, finding nothing has changed for the metal not even the barest hint of steam.

"Swann? Swann? SWANN!"

Hellboy drops the metal piece to start shaking the unconscious, no, dead woman in his arms.

"Come on Swann! You know it's not the time to be foolin' around, Diyana! Diyana! Diyana please!"

After a few more minutes of futilely trying to wake Diyana up, the reality of the situation finally sinks in for Hellboy.

Diyana Swann is dead.

...

Hellboy may not have exactly gotten along well with the phooka, but he decided the best way to honor Diyana was to give her a proper burial. Well, as proper as he can with a six-foot deep grave, buttoning her back up in her coat, and placing a makeshift cross made of scrap metal. Hellboy has never really been to a funeral before so he doesn't know what exactly he's supposed to do. He spent a good part of his day just sitting at the foot of Diyana's grave, just twiddling his thumbs as he tries to come up with something to say, some nice last words, but nothing came.

Hellboy felt frustration bubbling hot in his chest and mixing in the heavy stone that settled in the pit of his gut. He wishes he could've done more to keep his partner alive, to not have let her down so badly. While he wishes he could've learned more about her, being stranded with Diyana gave him a glimpse behind the flirty and lofty persona of someone much more vulnerable, human even. Hellboy concludes that now, any secrets she hid, died with her, meaning he may never really know Diyana.

Hellboy curls up on himself with the two-way radio clutched in hand, the fire having gone out hours ago. He spends the next few days like this, slipping in and out of consciousness, only moving to eat some of the snow around him. Hellboy ends up staying in his curled position for so long that frost and icicles start forming all over him.

...

crunch

Hellboy slightly raises his head at the sound. What was that noise?

crunch

There it is again. The large red man turns his head in the direction of Diyana's grave in an attempt to pinpoint the noise. Could it have been some fallen snow? No, Hellboy reasons to himself. It's just hills and hills of snow all around him. Besides, he hasn't even moved from his spot to disturb any of the debris around him for days.

crunch crunch crunch

Okay, definitely not falling snow. In fact, if Hellboy's hunch is right, that noise is coming from-

Crunch Crunch CRUNCH

A muddied gloved hand pops from out of Diyana's grave, followed by another hand, then a muddied and snow-covered Diyana gasping for breath. Hellboy scrambles for the gun he swiped from the fae woman to aim it at the latter as she starts dragging her upper half out of her grave. He could only stare slack-jawed as his formerly, dead partner starts to sink a bit back into the loose snow before she starts to claw at the snow to get a good grip on the ground. Diyana's grunts and heavy panting helped snap Hellboy out of his stupor, making him rush to the faerie's grave to offer her his giant stone hand. She takes it, and Hellboy heaves against the snow and mud's suction around her waist to yank her out of the grave onto more stable ground.

Diyana crawls a few feet from the grave before collapsing on her back, taking huge gulps of air she's been deprived of. Hellboy stares down at her with his hooved feet on either side of her head, disbelief in his features. His, now-alive, partner lets out a few coughs before speaking in a scratchy voice.

"Why the fuckin' hell did you bury me alive?"

A long pause sits between them to the point Diyana thinks that the large man didn't hear her. She opens her mouth to repeat her question, but Hellboy finally answers her inquiry, gesticulating with his hands to hammer his words in.

"Why? Why? I thought you were dead!"

"Well, it's fierce obvious that I ain't."

Diyana then rights herself in a sitting position to stretch her stiff arms and crack her neck. She then starts to dust off the mud and snow on her.

"I-I checked for a pulse, and if you were breathing, you didn't have one, and you stopped breathing!"

"Technically, yes, I was dead for a few hours or so, but no, I wasn't really. Help me up, please?"

Diyana raises her arms up toward Hellboy, who obliges and reaches down to help the fae woman to her feet. It's clear that the long period of inactivity in the cold has affected Diyana's leg muscles, given how when she tried to take a step of her own, her legs wobbled before collapsing under her. The whole sight reminded her partner of a newborn deer taking its first steps. Hellboy helps her up again, but keeps an arm extended like an old-fashioned gentleman for Diyana to hang on to as she takes some shaky steps toward the now-extinguished firepit.

"You haven't answered my question, what do you mean you weren't really dead?"

"While my form is humanoid,"

Diyana gestures to herself with a free hand.

"... and follows most of the human anatomy rules, I made a few adjustments to it when I first conjured it, including hibernation for our sort of situation."

"You mean you were going under Torpor?"

The faerie woman nods.

"Aye."

Hellboy then proceeds to help his alive partner to take a seat near the firepit, carefully lowering her down in a sitting position before taking a seat next to her.

"And you're just now telling me this, why?"

Diyana at least had the decency to look sheepish. She places her tail in her hand and starts to pick at the mud still stuck to it.

"See here, Red, I really didn't mean to give ya such a startle,"

"Too late for that."

"... Either way, I was gonna say somethin' about it, but I suppose it slipped my mind."

Hellboy gives a few incredulous blinks. "Yeah, the fact that starving while in freezing temperatures leads to you becoming essentially dead to the world, is totally easy to forget about bringing up."

Diyana raises her hands up in surrender.

"Aye, aye, aye, I get it. But to be fair, I was a bit busy with other tasks at hand and I thought I would go into hibernation later."

Hellboy lets out a heavy sigh as he starts to slouch forward while rubbing a hand down his face and muttering under his breath.

"Goddammit lady..."

He then turns his head to look back over to Diyana with a softer expression.

"At least you're not dead. That's all that matters."

Hellboy recognizes the coquettish smirk that spreads across his partner's face and how her tail curls up in a tight "S" shape.

"Hold on, were you actually concerned for lil' ol' me, Handsome? I didn't think you cared so much."

"I was concerned about going crazy on my own, but at least with you still alive I have someone to blame."

Diyana titters in amusement with the tip of her finger delicately placed over her mouth at Hellboy's deadpan delivery.

"And yet you went as far to give me a nice little burial."

"It's not like I could've just left your "corpse" on the ground like garbage."

The phooka woman gives a dismissive wave of her hand.

"I wouldn't get in a twist too much over that, when I actually die, you wouldn't have anythin' to actually bury. I'd just return to the earth one way or 'nother."

"What do ya mean by that?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

Diyana ends on an, in Hellboy's opinion, ominous note. The faerie woman leans in his direction before speaking.

"Mind if we huddle up again? I'm bleedin' foundered from just having to dig myself out of the snow since somebody buried me alive."

Hellboy rolls his eyes but obliges and places Diyana on his lap.

"Yeah, yeah, I figured. I would've let you anyways so need to rub it in."

"That's grand to know, Handsome."

Hellboy didn't need to see his partner's face to know she was grinning. "This is only because we're in this sort of environment, so this is a one-time thing."

"I have a feeling it won't be just one-time,"

Diyana gives another low chuckle that causes Hellboy to feel more warmth building up in his body than earlier.

"but in all seriousness, I should warn you given our current situation, I'll be falling back into Torpor in perhaps a few hours to a few days."

"Thanks for the heads up."

"Oh and Red?"

Hellboy lets out a hum in acknowledgment.

"When I do go into hibernation again, please don't bury me alive."

"Keep bringing it up and I might just be tempted to do so."

...

Diyana stares at the low fire while eating her ball of snow for the evening, cat-like eyes in deep contemplation. Over what? Hellboy doesn't have a clue, as he, too, finishes his snowball. He then wraps his arms around his partner and sets his head on top of her head in their usual position. Hellboy doesn't worry too much when he starts feeling a wave of exhaustion creeping on the edges of his mind, as even in this freezing climate, he doesn't quite feel the unforgiving bite of winter the same as everyone. He's about to doze off until he's interrupted by Diyana speaking.

"Do you remember our conversation about where we would go after this ordeal?"

The fae woman asks in such a low volume that, even when the larger red man gave a low hum in acknowledgment, he could almost write it off as something his sleep-deprived mind conjured. That is until Diyana kept talking, a little louder this time.

"You also asked why I'd rather mingle among our fellow human agents than head back to the Emerald Isle. The answer's simple, I can't go back there because, I was exiled."

Hellboy's eyes widen in surprise as exhaustion starts to fall away.

"Did ya do something extremely horrible?"

Diyana gives a dry chuckle.

"Depends on your perception of "horrible," but I didn't commit any crimes against humanity. In fact, it was because I tried assisting that I can never go back."

Hellboy shifts in his position to get a better look at his fellow agent's expression to gauge whether or not she's lying. However, a part of him already knew that was not the case.

"How was that deemed horrible?"

Diyana sighs in melancholy, her ears drooping to match her feelings. She then reaches out a hand to the fire pit, where the shapeless smoke rising from the smoldering remains starts taking on a humanoid form with a faint purple outline around it.

"Perhaps a bit of visual aid would help to explain."

Hellboy squints at the whispy figure his partner made, recognizing it to be a smaller model of the latter. He watches in quiet awe as Diyana begins to weave her tale with smoke and color.

"Hundred of years and many moons ago, I was the typical young faerie. I would run across the Isle's plains and hills to my heart's delight and play tricks on any passing humans on a whim,"

The faerie woman then waves her hand to make the figure representing her turn change into a horse, then uses her other hand to creature a human-shaped figure that mounted her back. Horse Diyana appears to snicker before bolting off into the air, running circles around Hellboy's head. The horse-shaped apparition then dumps the unharmed and discombobulated person to the "ground" before galloping off. The horse shifts back into a younger Diyana, who turns to spot an entire phantasm village complete with featureless and ghostly men, women, and children milling about. The smoke-made faerie climbs a constructed tree to watch the village from afar.

"Other times, in between playing tricks collecting trinkets, and shining baubles that caught my eye, I would spend hours observing humans and all their quirks. So fickled, many of them are, clinging to rules and then having to adapt to seemingly nonsensical new rules before deciding ta hell with them! Yet, I can't deny how fond I am of their creativity and ingenuity,"

With a flick of her wrist, the village becomes formless for a moment before splitting off into shapes consisting of heavy plows; musket rifles; mechanical clocks; wheelbarrows; a water mill; the spinning wheel; along with much more inventions that the large red man could only vaguely recognize from textbooks on the Medieval Ages. Hellboy can't take his eyes off of the smokey images as they move to reform and reshape the misty shapes into new figures, bending to Diyana's will as if she simply raises her hands. The images then solidify to show the younger faerie passing by non-humanoid figures working with hammers and anvils or on a loom, all to then raise their blades, chest plates, and robes in presentation.

"In that same vein, I would watch the goblins and hobgoblins taking the pretty baubles they collected to make splendid blades and armor for the fae kings and queens,"

Diyana then makes a fist that she brings down on the flat of her palm.

"BANG! CLANG! Went the hammers,"

The conjugated shapes of the goblins raised their hammers and smashed them against their anvils, with sparks somehow flying from within the smoke.

"WHOOSH! Went their great furnaces."

Smoke, tinged orange, surged from behind the figures before dispersing and adding to the weaver's loom; from it, they produce a long unbroken flowing stream of smoke that gently flutters in the air.

"How could I not also love watching the other faeries and queens create beautiful art resulting from all the dedication and intricacy equal to that of the goblin forgers? Eventually, I had enough of simply watching and decided to try crafting, but with my own twist."

Diyana then manipulates the smoke to depict her younger self using her hands to shape formless blobs of smoke before presenting them to changing crowds of faes, including ones with crowns on their heads.

"I would create enchanted clothing that not only was fit for royalty but for battle with layers of their robes and gowns doubling as an arsenal of blades or belts as whips and swords. Soon word spread of my talent, and shortly after, which were sought after far and wide by many kings and queen's courts, including their monarchs themselves!"

"Sounds impressive."

Diyana nodded in agreement without taking her eyes off the image she conjured of another goblin patting her younger self on the back while said self puffed out her chest and beamed in pride. With her focus diverted, Hellboy glances down at his fellow agent to find her pupils dilated and glistening. He then watches those pupils contract into thin slits and ball her hands into fists, the images darkening to match her change in mood.

"In my naive attempt to earn the praise and adoration of both human and fair folk, I tried to gift every human on the Emerald Isle items that I thought could improve their lives."

Diyana then makes a sweeping gesture to the smoke, causing it to writhe around before briefly stilling to create the items she then describes.

" Including mechanical bulls that would be more efficient in plowing their fields so they would not age nor become tired; small portions of lightning to help light and warm their homes; as well as clothing with pockets that are deeper than they first appear."

The fae woman clenches her hand into a fist, causing images, and the smoke disappears without a trace. When Diyana speaks again, her words are terse and have a venomous edge.

"Of course, the higher-ups didn't like that. They wanted to keep all the dwindling magic they could to themselves. When my mentor and the other royals learned what I did, they put me on trial. Heh, if you could call being chained up and forced to kneel while being scolded like a dog a trial. Even though, technically, by their own laws, I did nothing wrong."

Hellboy notices how his partner gripped her knees, causing the material of her gloves to creak. He's sure that if he could see her hands, the knuckles would be white from her grip.

"As the court decided my fate, I hoped I could rely on my friends and mentor, who encouraged my ambition, to defend me... I was wrong."

Hellboy looks back at Diyana, trying to gauge her thoughts, only to be met with a poker face that came from centuries of experience. The only thing to tell him about the pooka's internal state is how her tail twitched like an irritated cat. Diyana let out a heavy sigh, trying to push away the memory of how her mentor looked down at her chained form with disappointment and contempt etched deeply in his wrinkled face.

'If I knew you'd become a traitor to the wee folk, I would've never let ya step foot in my forge.'

She then takes a deep breath, her eyes burning with unshed tears. Diyana willed herself not to shed any before finishing her tale.

"After the court banished me from all of Northern Ireland, word soon spread of my... "treachery." No king or Queen's court would have me on their lands. Soon after, I was banished from setting foot in all of Ireland. So they put me on a boat with nothing but the clothes on my back, where it was decreed, I would never return to my homeland. Otherwise, I would suffer a slow and painful death before returning to the earth."

The pooka woman then leans back against Hellboy's barrel chest with her arms crossed over her chest. Without prompting, Hellboy wraps his arms around his partner, returning to their earlier position with him resting his chin atop Diyana's head. A veil of silence falls between them as the large red man contemplates and takes in what his fellow agent just divulged to him. Unlike when he buried his, presumably dead, partner, he's able to come up with a few words to say to her.

"... Do you ever miss it, your home? 'Cause for what it's worth, I'm glad to have you here."

Diyana feels her cheeks heating up and the corner of her mouth twitching, none of which Hellboy could see. Yet, he could hear the wistfulness in his partner's voice loud and clear.

"Aye, even with so many centuries have passed. I still long to run on its green grassy hills with the breeze in my mane; climb and rest in the woodlands, sometimes making small talk with travelers; drink from the marshes on a hot summer's day; pick blackberries in the brambles as a snack. It was once truly home for me."

"Do you miss anyone there?"

Hellboy catches Diyana's tail flicking in irritation out the corner of his eye.

"I doubt there'd be a welcome party much less a single faerie happy to see my mug. So they can all fuck their collective holes for all I care."

Hellboy lets out a chortle, which then breaks into a hearty laugh that proves infectious as Diyana soon joins in. A much-needed breath of alleviation both agents desperately needed.

...

Up high in the sky, miles the above the snowy landscape below is a chopper with the BPRD's signature logo on the side of the haul. Within the vehicle is Professor Broom and another agent accompanying the former in the search for Agent Hellboy and Agent Swann.

"We should be approaching the coordinates, Agent Muraro, but there's no sign of either of them so far."

Agent Muraro squints at the horizon, spotting what could be Hellboy's large figure crouched over.

"I think I see them or maybe just one, Professor. See something, anyway."

After landing the chopper, the Professor and Muraro approach the silhouette the latter spotted earlier. It turns out Muraro's initial assumption was correct as it became clear it was the two missing agents the closer they got.

"My word!"

Broom exclaims when he can make out more of the agents' states. Hellboy was hunched over with Swann's coat covering his back, although he and the coat were covered in snow and ice. However, the coat didn't do much to hide the large man's emaciated form, showcasing his prominent ribs and sunken cheeks. In his flesh hand was a similarly snow-covered hand-held two-way radio with some apparent modifications to lengthen the antenna. Similar to her larger partner, the faerie was covered in snow and ice with sunken in cheeks as a sign of starvation. Broom then takes notice of Swann curled up tightly in a ball in Hellboy's arms, one dirtied glove held over where his heart is and with both their tails intertwined.

...

Hellboy is the first one to regain consciousness, followed shortly by his partner, who's still in his lap. Diyana instinctively reaches for a knife strapped to her thigh when processing voices not belonging to her or her partner. When she opens her eyes, Broom and another man, another agent the faerie presumes, are standing on either side of her with a gloriously large campfire burning before her, melting the frigid chill from her bones with its searing heat.

"B-b-bruk Mor-r-rph..."

Diyana turns her head in the direction of Hellboy's groan, feeling his entire form shivering under her with both of them wrapped in a large blanket. She could feel his arms tight around her form trying to greedily take in her newly acquired warmth. Diyana opens her mouth to try and tell her fellow agent to ease up a little, but her words too came out as a jumbled mess.

" E-ee-ease u-upmh..."

"I think your lady friend is tryna tell you to ease up a little on her, kid. She's not a teddy bear."

The other agent speaks up for her. Hellboy glances down at Diyana before loosening his hold on her.

"Ssss-owy D-di-i-i."

Diyana gives a thumbs up to show all is good, not making any move to break away from Hellboy but opting to raise her hands toward the fire in front of them. Broom takes note of how at ease the two agents seem with each other compared to their usual quarrelsome interactions. Then again, he reasons, desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Professor then goes on to explain how the Bureau has been searching for Hellboy and Swann ever since they disappeared from the Ice Island for a little over six weeks. Finally, they had a lead when the U.S. department got word from Tokoyo that one of their whaling vessels picked up a BPRD distress call from the South Atlantic. Basically, the craft that took both agents ended up from the Earth's North Pole to its South in little time.

"...I can only speculate that the craft that brought you both here passed through the Earth, somehow. There are, of course, countless legends about the Hollow Earth, and hidden passages that connect one pole to another. I had assumed these to be metaphors for the hidden recesses of the human mind, but they may have a material reality. Perhaps those who constructed the craft had knowledge of such passages."

Swann then takes a sip from the hot cup of joe Muraro served her and Hellboy before handing it to the latter.

"Yer-rr... hmph... You're right the morans who had knowledge of the craft knew 'bout them and it's not too far outside the realm of possibilities for such passages to exist. We fae already use our own sorta of hidden passages to move from one place to another, however, while the Otherworld may be different in geography and built from the mortal realm it's still adjacent to it. I myself use but a fraction of them whenever I teleport."

Broom's eyes widen as his brows raise to his forehead.

"Fascinating, have you ever gotten a good look at these passages from within the Otherworld or this one?"

Diyana shakes her head.

"Nah, I don't really have to look, I more or less just know where I'm going when I'm in there."

"Genetic or muscle memory perhaps?"

"I would say more along the lines of the latter given I had years upon years of practice in regards to teleporting."

Muraro clears his throat to grab both scholars' attention.

"I have a question of my own for either you or Hellboy; what went on down here anyway?"

The man gestures with his head at the debris spread out around them. This time, Hellboy is the one to do the talking.

"Bunch of Nazis. Flying saucers. We took care of it."

Hellboy closes his eyes and takes a long sip of his joe.

...

EPILOGUE: Some Years Later

Hellboy and Diyana stand beside each other at the foot of a Queen sized bed with floral patterned covers and pillows. Hellboy glances between the bed to his fellow agent from the corner of his eyes.

"Um-"

"Let me stop ya there 'fore ya embarrass yerself. We can both share the bed. We're both fully grown adults, not some hormonal youngins."

"I guess you have a point."

Diyana then bites the bottom of her lip as her tail curls tightly on itself.

"But I wouldn't mind if you decide to have a ride with me."

"There it is."

Hellboy rolls his eyes playfully, not so surprised that's where the faerie woman's line of thinking went.

"In all seriousness, look at your sleeping options; we have one bleedin' bed set, there's a hard cold floor, and there's no couch unless you want to sleep on the small table and chair,"

Diyana gestures to the furniture placed right under one of the windows, giving them a nice view of the dense, snowy Norwegian woods with the sun dipping behind the tree line to bathe them in ethereal glow. A thick blanket of snow covers everything, including the only road leading to this middle-of-nowhere motel they're staying in. Hellboy then looks back at the bed before avoiding eye contact with his fellow agent.

"Remind me again why you didn't just spring us for a nice hotel?"

"'Cause the nearest one is about 70 kilometers away from where we're supposed to find some fire giants and this motel is closer."

"Yeah, that checks out."

Diyana then turns her head to look at her partner with a teasing smirk and hands on her hips.

"Is the idea of sharing a bed with me that horrible?"

"Err no. No. It's just, usually we have our own beds and err well,"

Hellboy groans with his left hand rubbing down his face, his tail flicking on its own accord. Without another word, Diyana grabs the pillows and starts evenly lining them down the middle as a barrier. When she finishes, she turns around to face her partner, gesturing to the pillow wall.

“Better?”

“Uh yeah, yeah, much better. “

Diyana gives Hellboy a soft smile.

“If it’s any comfort, it isn’t too different from when we ended up around Antarctica.”

“Right, just without the threat of freezing to death.”

“There we go!”

Diyana then crouches down to reach into her carpet bag to pull out a manilla folder with some papers, including pages copied from old tomes and newspaper clippings pertaining to the fire giants. She hands this folder to her fellow agent for him to review.

"Imma freshen up in the jacks and slip into somethin' more comfortable. Could you review the file meanwhile?"

"Not a problem."

"Thanks, Handsome."

Diyana struts past her partner, briefly looking over his shoulder to blow him a kiss before disappearing into the bathroom. Shortly after, Hellboy hears the sound of pipes creaking and groaning, followed by the sound of running water. He then sits on the right side of the only bed before opening the file and taking out a printed page detailing the fire giants' homeland, Muspellheim. Hellboy is unable to focus on the paper to the point he finds himself rereading the same paragraph over and over again without actually taking really reading it, his mind entirely on something not giant-related.

'What would Di's version of "something comfortable" be?'

In his mind's eye, he could see the pooka in a lacey nightgown that stopped just below the knees and hugged her curves in all the right ways, extenuating her lithe figure. The gown has thin straps, displaying her collarbone and a tasteful peak of her cleavage. Hellboy can almost hear Diyana's flirtatious words while giving her usual coquettish grin before it turns into a sweeter expression, her body language relaxed and at ease. She then opens her arms, beckoning him to-

'NO!'

Hellboy's head shoots up from his reading, wondering where that came from. He pinches the bridge of his nose as he groans to himself, frustrated with himself for conjuring those images.

'Come on, get it together! You're not some horny teenager that loses it by sleeping near a woman, much less a friend. You're a grown-ass man that can control himself! You're just sleeping beside your friend, not sharing a marriage bed!'

Hellboy lets out a long sigh before placing down the file, deciding to head out for a quick smoke. He just got up from the bed before the bathroom door opened with a large cloud of steam pouring out into the main room. Hellboy watches as Diyana's familiar figure emerges from the steam, releasing a breath he didn't realize he's been holding in relief.

Instead of the alluring nightgown he imagined, his partner wore a blue-green sleeping shirt with long sleeves with ruffles at the end; the collar was covered in lace but in a way that completely covered her chest and most of her neck. Diyana's lower half matches her upper half with pajama pants that only expose her from the ankle down. Instead of letting down her loose ebony locks, her hair is confined in a silky purple nightcap. Hellboy notes the single pink hair curler set at the end of his partner's tail with an amused snort. Diyana rolls her eyes with a small smile.

"You finished reading up on the file?"

"Yeah."

The large red man then picks up the file to hand to his partner's outstretched hand. In the back of his mind, he notes something different from his fellow agent's usual attire but quickly rationalizes it to wearing ordinary pajamas. He then goes to the front door with Diyana plopping down on the left side of the mattress with file in hand.

"Heading out for a smoke. I shouldn't be long."

"Aye, Imma do some light readin' here before turnin' in. Just lettin' ya know so you don't mistakenly bury me alive again."

Diyana could only see the back of Hellboy's head as he let out a pantomime groan.

"That was one time, Di."

With that, he opens the door and heads out, not having to look behind him to see his partner's amused grin. Later that evening, after deciding his head is clear enough, Hellboy steps back into the shared motel room. He surmises he may have been out for some time, judging by how he found Diyana fast asleep, curled up in a tight fetal position.

After hanging up his duster, Hellboy tries to move as quietly as he can, trying to be courteous to his fellow agent. Of course, stealth has never been exactly his strong suit and the fact he's walking against a hard floor with hooved feet didn't exactly help. He tenses up and stops dead in his tracks when his partner lets out a groan.

"Sorry, Di."

Hellboy whispers to the faerie who, besides a twitch of an ear, didn't seem to react to his words. Diyana shifts a bit in her slumber when HB finally lies down on the other side of the makeshift pillow barrier, causing the mattress to dip under his greater weight and the springs to creak, causing him to cringe.

"Sorry again, Di."

"Mrrhhh..."

Came the faerie's only response before stretching a bit and nuzzling into her pillow with her hands gripping the soft material. Hellboy glances over and suddenly hit him about what seemed so different about his partner.

'So she can take them off.'

He takes a moment to look over Diyana's ungloved hands, almost feeling as if he's seeing something he's probably not supposed to. Yet, he can't stop his eyes from noting her short black claws or the faint scratch lines and uneven skin from scars that dot the skin, possibly from years of working with machinery and or in the clothing business. If he were to hold one of these hands, they're probably a bit calloused from centuries of labor. Would Diyana let him hold her bare hands, he wonders? Realizing he may have been staring too long, Hellboy is quick to lie down with his back to his partner and a giant stone fist hanging off to the side.

...

Dawn barely broke out from behind the horizon when Diyana woke up. She lets out a yawn before huddling close to the source of warmth in her arms, her mind in a sort of haze as it stood between sleep and consciousness. In the back of her mind, Diyana finds herself wanting nothing more than to stay surrounded by the warm cozy thing and its pleasant smell that reminded her somewhat of roasted peanuts. Yet the sound of light snoring has Diyana opening her eyes, filling them with crimson.

She pulls away a little to find the warmth she was cuddling is actually Hellboy. She glances away from him to find the pillows she set up yesterday scattered all over the bed, leaving nothing between them. Sometime during the night, he moved onto his back so his massive stone hand was still hanging off the side of the bed, but his left arm was wrapped around her shoulders. Diyana is on her side, tucked against Hellboy, with her bare hands pressed against her fellow agent's chest, one hand right over his heart. While their legs were still covered by the comforter, the faerie woman could feel her leg hooked on the inside of her partner's leg, their tails intertwined.

Diyana feels the back of her neck all the way to the tip of her ears grows hotter with each passing second, unintentionally giving Hellboy's tail a squeeze with her own. In return, the large red man gives Diyana a small squeeze of his own while muttering something too incoherent for her to make out. After spending a few minutes biting her lower lip to keep from screaming, she then takes a deep breath, willing her racing heart to slow down, which works, sorta. Diyana could still feel the prominent blush on her cheeks as she tucked her head back under Hellboy's jaw, the sound of his soft snoring in one ear and the sound of his heart beating strongly in another. She then closes her eyes, a small genuine smile on her face, and lets herself believe that, just for one moment, they're not merely co-workers and friends sleeping next to each other; instead, this is a-

'No. No, I just want to enjoy a few more minutes of shut-eye.'

Diyana fervently tries to convince herself before deciding to just let herself relax in Hellboy's embrace.

When her fellow agent began to stir awake, the faerie quickly popped into the bathroom to get ready for a day of giant hunting. Back in bed, Hellboy fully stirs awake and looks over the collapsed pillow barrier.

A/N I have no regrets for making such a long piece! Stay weird, my fellow humans!

#Hellboy #mike mignola #Dark horse comics #My writing #Hellboy fanfic #Hellboy x OC #Hellboy/OC #Diyana Swann #Pooka #Puca #Phooka #Arctic setting #drabble #Dark Horse #one room one bed trop

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kirindensetsu · 4 years ago

Text

The Making of Fubuki

((Reposting from Den of Angels workshop thread because I wanted my friends to be able to see~))

After years of pining after dolls I couldn't afford as a broke teenager, my first BJD was a Bobobie Sprite I purchased for my 18th birthday. Unfortunately, she didn't live up to my expectations and I never really bonded with her. Her face was cute enough, but the Bobobie body lacked the grace and posing ability I imagined for the Unseelie faerie I'd been daydreaming of for years. Sueding and wiring didn't help, blushing and tattooing highlighted her blockiness, it was a mess. I packed her away and tried not to think about my disappointment for 12 years. In the meantime I learned to build and paint resin garage kits, inherited one of my sister's dolls, bought some others, took anatomy & physiology in college, and did a couple extensive restorations and full-body modifications. I was sure I had thrown her away at some point as a failed project, but last weekend I found her tucked away in a doll bag I thought was empty. Having just finished substantial mods on a Dollshe body, and awaiting an unfinished Unoa kit for my birthday in September, I decided that I owed it to her to try again. Doll nudity below the cut, looooong post--

My Sprite was originally going to be a pooka with golden eyes and extensive woad tattoos. The golden eyes are incredible, so those are staying, but she's now going to be a blue oni to fit in with the rest of my collection. My plan is to do extensive additive epoxy work, and then to use Krylon Fusion to give everything a unified finish. The goal of the project is to reduce the... idk, STRAIGHTNESS of the old Bobobie body. I was never going to be happy with it, the lines were all far too rigid.

Head: Modified mouth for a wider, smirking smile. Magnets added to headcap (old Bobobie used an S-hook iirc; I did this part back in 2008). Forehead drilled for 3mm brass rod armature, and epoxy used to sculpt horns over rod. Bust: Substantial subtractive modifications to breasts, which involved removal and readdition of nipples. Addition of epoxy clay to back and shoulders to give a more curved body line in profile. Deepening of shoulder sockets with 18mm eye bevel, followed by sanding to make shoulders narrower. Waist: Reshaping of upper torso joint into sphere for smoother range of motion. Subtraction of resin in back and addition of epoxy in front to enhance lumbar curve. Hips: Substantial reshaping of lower waist seam to more naturally follow the pelvic girdle. It reminded me of granny panties before Added epoxy to butt, again for lumbar curve. Thighs: Suwariko joint mod (cut the thigh and added a PVC insert to enable swivelling at the hip). Added epoxy to make her thighs look less straight. Calves: Removed 1cm of length at the ankles and rebevelled the socket. Removed resin at the ankles to bring them in, and added epoxy at the calves to make them curvier. Feet: Sculpted little claws, which were cute, and then decided the feet needed to be 5mm longer. Cut across, drilled and pinned with brass rod for structural strength, gap filled with epoxy clay. I also modded her feet to have defined arches and balls back when I first got her. Alas, spitting into the ocean. I added S-hooks, but did so by drilling the ankle and inserting brass rod to form the axle for the hook. Arms: The proportions on her upper arms BOTHERED me! they were so SHORT! and I only just figured out that's what I hated about them last week! I added 5mm to the upper arms by cutting them in the middle and using SteelStik to make a structural repair (plumber's epoxy putty has a shorter open time but far greater structural strength than artist's epoxy clay). Sanded the heck out of the wrists to give them a more delicate taper. Hands: Beyond salvage. The hands were my least-favorite part of this sculpt. I tried to bulk them up to look less spidery but it was just too difficult... I've ordered a different pair of MSD hands which will have claws added, and then when everything is painted it'll all match. Thanks for reading this far! Here's a preview of what her golden eyes look like next to Krylon Fusion in Antique Blue.

((first progress post)) I think I'm mostly done adding epoxy clay (at least where it'll show; presumably the wrist sockets will require tweaks to fit the new hands), so now it's time for finish sanding. I start with 60 grit for shaping, then switch to a 120 grit sanding sponge. To check for scratches, pinholes, and inadequately feathered edges, I apply a wash of diluted acrylic paint. Once the paint has dried, I scrub the piece with a nylon scouring pad. Paint remains in the surface irregularities.

All sanded with 220 grit. I don't think I'll be going higher than 400 because I want there to be some tooth for the paint.

Any pitting in the epoxy clay that can't be sanded out is marked with a Sharpie and will be patched with Tamiya spot putty.

I did a test spray of the Krylon Fusion on the headcap and it's fantastic! Holy cow is it *poisonous* tho, I'm used to working with volatile chemicals but this was something else. Get OUT OF THE AREA between coats and leave it outside until it stops outgassing, not just until it's ready to handle.

This test piece is four light coats sprayed 1 minute apart, allowed to cure for 4 hours, and then wetsanded to remove the spray texture. It's pretty sturdy but I will wait several more days to see how it continues to cure before experimenting with matte sealants. ((progress update 2))

Haven't done much but sand-and-fill-and-sand-and-fill, but my 14mm beveller came in today so I can start deepening her elbow and ankle sockets. Added some epoxy clay to the insides of the eyewells so 14mm eyes will fit with no gap. I need a needle file to clean up the corners of her mouth... Monster feets! Nails on the right came out better than the left, still need to feather-sand everything.

Elbows progress. The early Bobobie elbows are I guess /technically/ double-jointed because the joint is a sphere with two slots, but I thought I could do better than that. You can see epoxy clay spliced in to make the sphere into a peanut: this isn't a structurally sound repair unless you pop it apart and drill/pin/glue-epoxy it back together.

View from the back. By keeping the joint heads spherical with no elbow-shaped detailing, there's some rotation as well as flexion, which I like.

Touching her face with one of her old hands. I hope the new ones come soon!

((progress update 4))

In good news, these parts are all ready for paint! It's really hard to do prepwork with no filler primer, hope I didn't miss any spots...

In less good news, her new hands arrived and they are... very smol ;u; I forgot that the new trend for slim minis means that everyone has TINY LITTLE HANDS.

They are, however, beautifully sculpted and a good 3D reference for what needs fixing and how. Bobobie palm is very short relative to fingers: I made a transverse cut behind the knuckles and added epoxy to lengthen More curved volume across the back of the hand: Not necessarily realistic, but looks a little cuter, plus it makes the transition into the cylinder of the wrist look less stylistically jarring. More defined joint angles: Some of these I did via cut-and-thermoform repositioning, mostly I'm aiming to fake it by building up and carving away at the weird smooth curves. The fingers are just TOO SKINNY: But obviously I'm not going to squish rice-grain-sized blobs of epoxy to the fingers, right? It's too fiddly, it doesn't want to stick. What's the solution? Brace for a truly hideous WIP image--

"AAAAAAGH WHAT IS THAT DARK GRAY MESS" it's JB Weld epoxy! It's like load-bearing, slow-curing modeller's putty! Slathering putty onto an armature and then carving it away to refine the shape is how anime figure artists make hands and detailed hair. I was thinking about it from a polymer clay technique/perspective so I missed the obvious solution. Hand in the foreground has more layers than the hand in the background, every layer gets the shape a lil closer. ((progress post 5)) Parts set up on sticks so I can handle them without touching...

... and after 4 light coats!

Closeup of the head, lil' glossy because it's still drying. For the deeper areas like the joint slots, mouth, and the crannies of the ears, I'm going to have to decant some of the paint into a jar and apply it with a sacrificial brush.

((progress post 6)) I return from Depression! I finally finished sanding-and-spraying the Krylon Fusion coats, gave her a last polish with microfine to even out the texture, and have started blushing her. I'm using a mixture of Tamiya X-series acrylics applied via airbrush for basic contouring, then I'll go back in with pastel to add warm tones and details.

Fun discovery: in an attempt to cover some accidental overspray, I tried spraying the Fusion directly into the paint cup of the airbrush and using it to "erase" back to the base color. I'm NEVER using this product straight from the can again, it goes on so smooth and gorgeous from the airbrush! No orange peel or bubbles to sand away. I'm seriously tempted to get a can of pink and try blushing with it.

((progress post 7)) Doing a faceup over a spray-painted substrate is HARD I want to CRY. I talked about sanding out the spray texture to get an untextured surface, right? Welp, didn't/couldn't sand well enough in the corners of the mouth and the folds of the eyelids, so it's crusty-looking with pastels over it and now there's nothing I can do about it that doesn't involve stripping down to resin and starting again.

((final post)) Sueded and strung!

I didn't take pictures of the sueding process because I was using Barge Cement and it is messy and time-sensitive. I used masking tape to make templates of her joints, transferred to some thin gray lamb suede I found on eBay, and glued it fuzzy side out. The suede was thicker than real pliver, more like the thickness of silicone KIPS discs, but I think it worked out without too many fit issues. The trim store had 3.5mm elastic in a beautiful slate-blue color that I thought would look nicer in the joint slots, so she's strung throughout with thicker elastic. Some more poses to show off the functional mods~ Suwariko joints let her sit crosslegged, and more mobile wrists let her put her hands into the pose.

A more ball-and-socked shaped contact surface at her waist lets her slouch at a full range of angles instead of being locked into two.

With longer upper arms, she can reach the ground in this pose! You can also see how the modded waist joint lets her cock her hips.

She could always stand with locked knees. I think she needs some wire in her legs to let the suwariko joints hold their rotation against gravity, but I'll see how the elastic tension settles in first.

A parting shot out the snowy window. We've been having a hard time picking between a few names for her, but I think this settles it. Welcome back, Fubuki~

#making-of-fubuki #doll custom #bjd #bobobie

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zodiyack · 5 years ago

Text

Princess

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x petite/scrawny!princess!reader

Warnings: mentions of death, swearing, smoking and alcohol, changing things from the movie, spoilers??, a sexual word, violence, fluff

Note: ANASTASIA AU CAUSE WHY NOT LMAO || So the movie Anastasia takes place in 1926, Anastasia was 8 (1916) when Rasputin cursed her family and killed all of them but her and her grandmother. She ran with her grandma to the train, falling and hitting her head before she could get on it. Watch the movie, I can’t explain it for you oof || AGAIN, AS I SAID, THIS IS A BIT DIFFERENT BUT STILL SOMEWHAT SIMILAR

Words: 5713 I’m sorry

masterlist | Peaky Blinders Masterlist

It was currently 1919. Tommy and his brother Arthur had heard news of a princess, who was assumed dead, being alive and missing. They knew it was a true rumor, and boy were they determined to find that girl...or at least a girl to play her.

Polly and Ada were training the girls on how to act formal. And when the time was right, each girl would audition. Tommy always turned them down though. He claimed they were nothing like the princess.

“How’d ya even know the princess anyways, Tommy?” Arthur questioned, with the intent of teasing and out of genuine curiosity.

Closing his eyes and rubbing his temples, Tommy remembered. It was like it was yesterday.

1902 was the year it happened. Her family’s demise. The young Shelby boy was only 10 when he met the princess. Now, he was 12 and rescuing the 8 year old girl. He admired her greatly. The princess met him in a peculiar way that most people would deem unladylike;

She was riding her horse without a saddle when she was thrown off and landed on none other than the infamous Thomas Shelby. Of course, she didn’t know who he was, or what a boy his age was doing by himself.

“How rude!” She tried her hardest to seem serious about the situation. In all honesty, it was to distract from her red cheeks. She stood up and brushed the dirt off her body. “A girl lands on you.. and all y-you do is stare?”

“A lady wears trousers and all I do is stare, ma’am.”

“O- oh... Please, don’t let word of this reach the palace.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. She was the princess- that’s where he knew her from. “Of course your highness!” He knew she could sense the sarcasm coming from his voice by the way she visibly tensed.

“Whatever... You may know me, but who are you? I’m Princess Y/n L/n. But please, call me Y/n. I like being..well not a princess every once in a while.”

“Thomas Shelby ma’am. Please, call me Tommy.”

They had met every day, her telling him stories of what happened in the palace, and him telling of his family. She was fascinated by the peasant life. It was odd. Normally, Tommy would dream of being the richest man alive, but the fact that a princess, who could do almost anything she wanted, dreamt of being a commoner...that was strange.

However, her strangeness was something he needed to put aside currently. He may have thought it was one of her best traits- but now he needed to think of her safety. The sorcerer Rasputin had cursed her family and was after her wishing nothing but death. Tommy would not allow that. The commoner grew feelings for the princess he had met two years ago. Of course, he wasn’t sure she felt the same way, but he wasn’t going to let her die.

As he lead the two females through the secret door Y/n had showed him, he whispered his goodbyes. Then, right then and there, she stole his first kiss before she ran with her grandmother to the train station. He touched his lips for a second, then realizing where he was and running behind her shortly.

“Tommy?” Arthur’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “What, ya cut ya lip or somethin’?”

Tommy removed his hand from his face and inhaled. He actually missed the princess, and he wasn’t even sure he would ever see her again. “No. Back to the auditions, the girl who’ll be her must be 25, and she must have h/c hair with e/c eyes. I wanna say.. a soft voice. Oh yes, and she must have a serious side.”

His brother made a face at the demands, but added them to the list. The auditions went for an hour or two longer, and none of them were the ones Tommy wanted. Some were either too dramatic, some nowhere close to the description of the princess, others were.. well just plain scarring. It was disappointing, to say the least, but what the Shelby boys didn’t know, was that Y/n herself was waiting to be found.

. . .

“Now get out!”

“Alright alright, no need to yell Sarah. I’m out, okay? Goodbye kids!” Y/n ignored the mean old orphanage lady as she said goodbye to the kids she grew up with. She was finally leaving the place to search for her family. If she had one...

All she could remember was waking up on the train station ground and being lost. The only sign she had of family, was the necklace that never came off her neck. It read, “Together in London.” London was her only clue, and her only hope to be happy.

“Wish you luck finding your family, Y/n/n.”

“Reall-”

“No.” The gate was then shut in her face. Sarah cackled and mocked Y/n’s necklace and dreams. That didn’t really have an effect on Y/n, for she was already walking down the road.

Humming an oddly familiar tune, she skipped in the snow. When she stopped at what used to be a wooden post, it was wrecked and covered in snow. They were her directions. She didn’t own a map, nor did she know her way around England having never left the orphanage.

She gave up and groaned. Sitting on the snow soaked ground, she muttered words of annoyance. She really thought she could find a way to London on her own. Y/n actually had hope and courage and now all she had was-

“Bark!”

She had bark? No that wasn’t right- Just as quickly as she had sat down, she stood up and searched for whatever had made the noise.

“Bark Bark!”

A dog?

When the small animal came into Y/n’s view, she could see that it was a little brown dog. It was adorable. But what was it doing out here by itself? The dog came closer, allowing Y/n to see that it- no he, had no collar or tags.

“Aww poor boy... Do you miss your family?”

The dog tilted it’s head. Could it be answering her? Nope. He rolled over and stuck his tongue out again.

“Hm.. Well I’ll call you Pooka!” She took the dog’s cheerful barks as a good sign. “Do you know where I’m supposed to go, Pooka? ...Of course you don’t. You’re a dog-”

Pooka bit down onto her scarf, dragging it around and off of her and heading down the path to the left. Y/n grunted and chased after her new friend. This was probably normal, after all, dogs wouldn’t know how to understand humans...would they?

Only minutes after following Pooka, did Y/n realize she was headed out of Lichfield and to Birmingham. It would take hours, and she knew that. But ‘a few hours’ wouldn’t stop her from finding her family. So she followed the dog. And besides, a girl her size wouldn’t make it in the snow if she were to wait for help. In the orphanage, it wasn’t much. The meals were not always even and nor were they filling. The older kids would often tease Y/n, saying how she would fly away if she were to stand in the wind a moment too long.

The trip of following the dog turned out to be useful. She made it to a station where she ate and asked around. An odd lady told her to look for a Shelby family in Birmingham, and to not let anyone know she had told her. So off she went, now nearing the unknown place of Small Health. Every time she mentioned the name “Shelby” to the people, they shuddered and didn’t have much to say. Some women smirked but still didn’t speak.

Next, Y/n tried the Garrison. It was full of men. Like, FULL. The only women were accompanied by other men, or were..well whores. It didn’t make Y/n uncomfortable, but she was distant from everyone. Distant as in, avoiding making contact with the people in the pub. She’d only drank alcohol once, and it was after she had a small breakdown at the orphanage. Her friend Jill telling her the drink would wash away her sadness.

This time, the responses to her question about the Shelby name were answered by the man serving drinks.

“What do you want with the Shelbys? They’re not the best people to be looking for.”

“Oh...well I was told that they would have a way to London? Specifically Thomas and Arthur Shelby?”

Harry sighed. He knew what she was talking about, sadly. So did the two men standing right behind her.

“That would be us. Or, for a proper greeting, I am Tommy Shelby, and this is my brother. If you want to go to London, I’m afraid we have no more auditions available.” A deep, but soft, voice spoke into her ear. It gave her chills and made her shiver.

“I don’t know what you mean by auditions. I just want to go see my family, or whatever family I have left. They’re in London and I have no way of getting there. No money, no nothin’. Not even memories.”

Arthur glanced Tommy. The two held the widest grins on earth. “Alright...but you must be the princess in order for us to take you.” They hooked their arms through hers and led her to a corner of the pub. “See, are you her?”

Y/n observed the well made painting that rested on the table. The child looked familiar, but Y/n didn’t believe it. How could she be a princess? She didn’t even look as fancy as the people in the pub!

“Me? A princess?”

“Well you do look quite like her, dear.” Arthur walked around Y/n. “What’s your name? How old are you?”

“Y/n/n and I’m twenty-five... why?”

“Perfect! That’s the age the princess would be now!”

“But still, I can’t possibly be her, I mean look at me!” To prove her point, Y/n pulled at her dress. It was practically a large ratty coat and a belt tied tightly around her small waist. The brown tights-like-pants hugging her legs were the only supply of warmth she had. A princess would be well fed and dressed in fancy clothing. To Y/n, she looked nothing like a princess would. Her hair was knotted and frizzy, a princess’ would be combed and neat.

“Ah...how sad. Well, we must be on our way then.” Tommy turned around with the painting in hand. He walked rather slowly, and don’t even start on Arthur’s expression. She was the perfect actress for the princess, why was Tommy walking away from a good deal?! The younger Shelby elbowed his older brother, “walk slower. Three. Two. and-”

“Wait.”

“One.”

“So what if I am this princess you speak of? I can’t remember, so who knows, I could be her. That is a possibility. And hey, if I go with you and figure out I’m not her, we’ll at least have made friends, right?”

Tommy let a snarky smile slip onto his face. It was obviously aimed at Arthur 'cause disappeared when he faced the young woman. “Right. Well then, come along Y/n/n. We have a train to catch.”

. . .

“What the fuck are you doing.” Y/n looked up from her journal to see Tommy glaring at her.

“I’m writing...” She was a mess. The ink from her pen was smeared across her cheek and she was slouching.

“No. I meant that.” He gestured to her legs, which rested underneath her bum. “Sit normally woman. No one would ever think you’re the princess with your bad posture and childish sitting.” He handed her a cloth. “And clean your face while you’re at it.”

“Oh leave her alone Tommy.” Polly chuckled, not looking up from her own book. “She still has time to learn.”

Ada, Polly, John and Finn joined their family with Y/n on the train. Ada had made it her duty to teach Y/n, Polly offering her assistance. And the other boys were probably just eager to meet her. Either way, they were preventing Tommy from making an ass of himself in front of the poor woman.

Or...at least trying to. Tommy growled and left the car, going to smoke in the smoking car. Y/n had only met Tommy a day ago, and she thought he was nice. Now that she saw this side of him, she was rethinking her opinion.

“Is he always such a dick?”

Polly laughed once more and finally looked at the girl in front of her. “Yes dear. I’ve known that boy most of his life, and trust me, he’s not changing. Especially after the war.”

“Did he serve in it?” Pol nodded, looking back down with sorrow. “Oh my..that must’ve been hard on him..”

“It really was. He said that he loved a girl when he was younger. And that the war was not only something he needed to help in, but a way to prove to himself that he could possibly be worthy of that girl’s love.”

“I personally think that the girl made the right decision, getting away from him. He’s so mean and grumpy.”

Polly shook her head. Her final laughs of the ride escaped her mouth. The reason for them being final was unknown to the two women.

Y/n fell asleep, and Polly went back to her book. Tommy joined them again, refusing to apologize. He saw Y/n and admitted she was beautiful, although he would never deem someone as beautiful or even more beautiful than the lost princess who owned his heart.

The reason of Polly’s laughter being the last of the ride was being shouted by John. He told his family how they had the wrong papers and needed to hide away in the baggage car before they were booted off the train. Tommy went to wake Y/n, earning himself a shocked punch in the jaw. After he collected himself, he rushed Y/n to said car, only causing her curiosity to grow.

This was the last time she trusted a stranger claiming they could supply her with a ride to London. And they were only around forty minutes away!

“Alright, will someone please explain to me, what the fuck is going on?”

“Well, Y/n/n, Tommy and Arthur here decided to get the wron-” Slap! “Wrong car! Now, we are um.. moving cars! You shouldn’t have to sit in there worth all those filthy commoners. And- wait what’s that sound?” John didn’t even finish his sentence before he noticed something was wrong. Y/n and the others heard it too.

Before anyone could do anything, the train was jerked forward and the door to the dining car was ripped off. The other half of the train faded into the winter background. Everyone had fallen over, Tommy landing on Y/n with a large box in his arms.

“Get off of me!!”

He sighed and threw off the case, pulling Y/n up. She mimicked him as she brushed off the imaginary dirt from her clothing. It reminded him of his Y/n, if only he realized Y/n/n was not actually the mysterious girl’s real name.

“Uh Tommy..”

“What is it now Ada?”

“Someone’s um...flambeed our engine.”

“What!?” Tommy pushed over to where Ada was looking. It indeed looked like sabotage. He pulled off his coat and climbed to the front of the train. Sparks and coals were flying everywhere. It was burning hot and no one was driving the train. They would need to jump off.

He noticed the bridge for the railroad tracks was broken in half. It would cause their deaths if they were to continue in any of the cars, or even in the train itself.

First, his mission was to separate the car him and his family were in from the front two. After telling his family of the plan to escape, he hopped back to the part connecting the cars. It was somehow frozen over, so he demanded a tool to break the ice. No tools worked, he was tempted to just get up and find one himself. Luckily, Y/n saved the day, handing him a dynamite and winking.

“That’ll work.”

Once they were safe and off the train, into the snow, Y/n laughed. It made Tommy’s heart warm. Again, the warmness didn’t last long. Tommy told himself that she wasn’t actually the princess, and he was saving his heart for the real one. The chances of finding her were slim, and he knew it.

“Tommy?”

“Yes Y/n?”

“Promise me we’ll still be friends after I become queen.”

“I promise. Promise me you’ll invite me and my family to the palace?”

“My family and I.”

Tommy turned to the princess and gave her a short glare. She only corrected her grammar when she was being a form of somewhat serious mixed with worry. The fact that she doubted his loyalty to her in their friendship hurt him, but he understood. The royal family already had trust issues, and he didn’t plan on giving the princess more.

“What would happen if I were to... maybe leave England?”

“I would journey with you, Y/n. To all ends of the earth. No matter how crazy the adventure may seem.”

He watched the smile find it’s way onto her face. A similar smile appearing on his in response. She didn’t reply for what seemed like years. That was until she hopped off the tree branch that posed as a two person seat.

“I would do the same for you, Thomas Shelby. For even just one adventure with you is the only adventure I could possibly dream of.”

. . .

Now on their way to the cottage of Helena Williams, Ada tried her best to train Y/n. She was teaching her posture, showing her how to walk like a lady. It wasn’t going to well. The book tactic didn’t work, Y/n dropping it off her head and into the dusty path multiple times.

Pol had even given Y/n a new dress. It was a sight any man would love to see. The color matched her eyes and her hair was styled in a way- well really everything about her look acted in a way that made the dress seem like it was made specifically for her.

She looked more and more like the princess. Thomas refused to admit it though. In his eyes, no one could ever make him feel the same way about them as he did about Y/n. There was a chance she was still alive, and Tommy wanted to be the one to find her. He would take the reward money and set off on an adventure to all the places Y/n told him she wanted to explore. London was first, as Y/n’s grandmother lived there and waited for her granddaughter.

All Tommy had left of Y/n was his memories and the music box that her grandma gave her before they escaped. He knew it could be the key to finding the real princess. If only he could open it.

“Tommy?”

He grunted. Tommy was in no mood to speak.

“Are you sure I have a chance of being the princess?”

‘No. Your chances are nonexistent, love.’ “Yes. I believe you might be her. Just maybe.” He let the lies escape his mouth.

“I guess that’s enough to give me some form of confidence.” She went back to her training, this time actually doing better. She mastered the wave and walk, perfected the bow and fake smile. She even knew how to dance.

They arrived at the cottage and Polly rushed to Helena. The two women shared a hug, it was much need with the years they spent apart. Helena saw Tommy and walked to him, pinching his cheeks while mumbling something about not seeing him since he was a wee lad.

“And who might this be?” She was done greeting the Shelbys, now raising and eyebrow at their guest. “Another Shelby?”

“No ma’am. I’m Y/n/n.”

“Helena, this is someone we brought to see if she’s the princess.”

“Oh but... come right in!”

Helena sat down and poured cups of tea. She had a Russian accent and a high pitched voice. Her hair was short and blond, poofy and moving every time she moved her head. She had curves that complimented her body, and her purple dress only made it better.

“You certainly do look like Y/n...but so did many of the other girls.” She inhaled and sipped her tea. “Where were you born?”

“At the Buckingham Palace.”

“Correct! And how does Y/n like her tea?”

“I don’t like tea. Just hot water and lemon.”

“Good!”

Some time past, and Y/n was answering the questions honestly, giving answers that were correct.

“Finally, you may find this an impertinent question, but indulge me. How did you escape during the siege of the palace?”

It was the one question Tommy knew she couldn’t answer. If she got this wrong, she would never meet the queen and he would never get the reward. It was game over. Well, until she opened her mouth for a response that made him rethink everything.

“There... was a boy... He opened a wall, and I kissed him. He was my friend..or at least I think... He.. no. That’s ridiculous, walls opening?”

Tommy’s jaw dropped. He stopped pacing and stared at the girl. He knew she couldn’t see him, but he didn’t care. It was really her. The girl he fell in love with and was waiting to meet. The reward didn’t matter to him anymore, for his reward was sitting right in front of him.

“So...is she a L/n?” Polly was the first to speak up.

“Oh well, she answered every question!”

“You hear that my dear?! You did it!” Arthur picked up Y/n and spun her around. The Shelby family cheering with joy. Y/n even let a few giggles of her own come out of her mouth. “So, when do we see the empress?”

“I’m afraid you don’t.” The family stopped cheering.

“Come again?”

“The empress simply won’t allow it.” Upon seeing their annoyed and sad faces, she smirked. “Oh! Do you like the ballet? The Empress and I see them every time, they preform in the Kingsley Room. You should check the place out, the empress loves to sit in the top rows.” She winked and walked off with her tray of tea.

“...Anyone want to go watch some ballet?”

. . .

Y/n ripped and ripped at her paper. She was nervous, and the ripping only proved her point. Tommy tried to stop her, taking the paper from her, but she kept getting it back and tearing more pieces off. Tommy hadn’t told her that she really was the princess, he was saving the reveal for her grandmother to tell her.

That unfortunately, did not happen in the way he expected. After the show, the empress refused to see Tommy or his family. She turned them away and explained how she was done hurting. Calling the guards was something she had to do when Tommy broke his way into the vip section to get her attention.

He shouted at the empress. He demanded that she at least look at Y/n. He told her that he was in the castle when it all happened, and how he was the one who helped them escape. “I’ve heard of you Thomas Shelby. You and your gang. You will quit looking for my granddaughter..if she’s even alive. All you men saying you’ve found her...I’m done hurting. My heart has had enough.”

Not long after that, she called in security. They threw Tommy out of the room. He thought the surprises were over, but there sat Y/n with a red face and puffy eyes. “You! You used me! You just wanted to get that poor woman’s money, didn’t you? I’m done with this!” She stormed off, leaving the Shelby man in his own regrets.

No. He would not just sit around and cry. He was Thomas Fucking Shelby. He stood up and raced outside. The empress was sitting in the car, waiting for her driver. Tommy took the opportunity and pushed the driver out of the way, climbing into the driver’s seat. He sped down the road, ignoring the empress’ demands of slowing down and stopping.

He looked into the mirror, “Sorry ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” She gasped and spewed insults. He didn’t slow down, only going full speed. “I’m not going to stop until you listen to me!”

“Fine!”

The car halted with a jerk. Tommy got out and slammed the door, opening the empress’ on the other side. He pulled out the music box from his coat. “Recognize this?”

“W-where did you get that, boy?”

“You should know, I told you the truth after all. I was the boy who helped you guys escape. Y/n/n really is Y/n. I knew as soon as she told the story of her fleeing. I love her and I can’t stand to see her suffer, so please. Just go talk to her for once. If she’s not her, you can throw me in jail for all I care. I don’t want a reward, I just want to see her smile.”

The empress tilted her head at Tommy’s determination. The fire in his soul and heart that made his love for Y/n indestructible. She could see the anger and hurt in his eyes. The same look she had in hers when she turned him down. He denied the reward she had offered, most men would not.

“Alright. But if she’s not Y/n, expect my guards to be at your doorstep.”

. . .

‘Knock Knock Knock’

“Go away Thomas.”

‘Knock Knock’

“I thought I told you to-” She stopped packing and opened the door to find the empress smiling at her. “Oh, I’m sorry.. I thought you were-”

“Thomas Shelby? I’m not dear, but I would like to speak to you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You.” The woman walked over to the chair in front of the vanity, taking out the small box. “You are Y/n right?”

“Y/n/n. I’m not the princess, I’m sorry.”

“Ah. What a shame. I thought I’d be with her in London...”

“Wait!” Y/n was fiddling with her necklace. It caught the woman’s attention when she turned around.

“What is that, dear? Come here.” Y/n did as she was told and sat down. The woman grabbed her necklace and read it. “Together in London...” Her eyes sparkled as she turned to Y/n. She took the necklace and unlocked the box, a melody playing softly.

“Hear this song and remember

Soon you’ll be

home with me

once upon a December”

The woman joined in singing with Y/n, crying and wrapping her arms around her. “Oh Y/n. My Y/n.”

It was a sweet moment. However, the women could not see Tommy as he stood outside, blowing a kiss to Y/n’s room. His brothers and sister asked him if he was sure. He said yes, and started on his journey back to Birmingham.

. . .

“It’s beautiful grandma!”

“Yes my darling...It is...”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well Y/n...somethings are also beautiful. Like the love between a princess and a bet maker.”

Y/n scoffed and rolled her eyes. “He’s not like how he was when we were kids. He’s probably enjoying spending all of his reward money on whores and alcohol.” She was dressed in a crown and fancy dress, her hair done like she had imagined. She was living the life she was meant to live, and the man she thought she loved was probably living the one he wanted.

“...He didn’t take the reward money, my love.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. He said he just wanted to see you smile.”

“I guess I was wrong about him...”

“Y/n. Go after him. While you still can.”

Y/n nodded at her grandmother’s words. She was about to head out to find him before Pooka ran off into the maze behind the palace. Y/n groaned and searched for her dog. The maze was...off. It sent chills and uneasy feelings to Y/n. She started to notice it. The walls would close behind her, blocking her way out and others’ ways in.

Less than twenty minutes later, Y/n was greeted by Rasputin. She thought he was dead. He was. Well, somewhat. His body was decaying, limbs popping off and acid bubbling in his stomach. He was falling apart yet still aching to finish his curse and kill Y/n.

Rasputin threatened her and mocked her. He brought up the curse, refreshing Y/n’s memory on the matter. And when she didn’t respond the way he wanted, he had some of his spiritual minions claw and bite at her dress, tearing shreds off the once beautiful gown.

“I am not afraid of you!”

“I can fix that!” He growled loudly. “Care for a little swim..under the ice?!!”

A green light flashed from the glass his hands, the bridge crumbling on the side Y/n was on. She was falling, and her crown had already fallen off into the freezing water. Before she could fall herself, Tommy had appeared, his jacket off and his face red. He grabbed her hands and pulled her up with a groan.

“If we live through this-” She groaned as well. “Remind me to thank you.”

“You can thank me later.”

“How enchanting! Together again, for the last time!” Rasputin sent a cursed stone Pegasus flying Tommy’s way, picking him up and bucking him off into a part of the bridge that stood up on it’s own.

“Tommy!” She was halfway over the edge, only her arms and head showing. Y/n was struggling to pull herself onto the bridge, the struggle growing more intense when she cried for Tommy. He grabbed a metal rod and was fighting off the stone statue.

Rasputin walked to Y/n, grabbing her by the part of her ponytail that touched her neck. He lifted her slightly, “Do svidaniya, your highness.” The bridge section that was hanging underneath her fell. “Finally! The last L/n dead!” She screamed but caught a grip onto the remaining bridge in time. Tommy watched her, a newfound courage taking over, his strength coming back to him as he fought off the cursed statue.

The sorcerer was about to kick her hands off the bridge, when Pooka bit his ankle. Pooka and Rasputin were pretty much playing tug o’ war with Rasputin’s legs. More of the bridge Y/n was hanging onto fell, and she grabbed for the only thing she could. She was now hanging over icy water, clinging to a metal rod that was stuck in the side bridge.

He watched Pooka tumble away when he kicked him off his leg. When he looked back, Y/n was nowhere in sight. A splash sounded and the water rippled. “Yes!”

“No! Y/n!” Tommy raced to the water, preparing to dive. The Pegasus had other plans. Darting into him and shoving him to the other side of the bridge.

“Long live the L/ns!” Rasputin cheered.

“Right!” He kept laughing, opening his eyes and turning his head to the voice. Y/n stood her ground. “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” She ran at him and tackled him to the ground. She was wrestling him for the source of his power; the glass vile-like-thing.

He pushed her off of him, sending more minions after her. Pooka saved the day once more, biting it out of his hands and rolling it to Y/n. She stomped on it, causing the Pegasus to break into rocks. One of the rocks hit Tommy's head, knocking him unconscious. She gasped before turning to Rasputin with an angered expression.

“This is for Tommy!” She stomped on the vile. Red light glowed from it.

“Give it back!”

“This is for my family!” She rolled it backwards with her foot and stomped on it another time.

Rasputin tugged on the bottom her dress. “I’ll tear you to pieces!”

“And this. This is for you.” She stomped on it one final time. The vile exploded and the red light flashed. Both Y/n and the sorcerer were blast backwards. He started to melt, disappearing into nothing.

Tommy woke back up and searched for Y/n. When he saw her, he spun her around, kissing her before he set her back down. She giggled and kissed him again. He found his princess, and she found her commoner.

. . .

“And on the boat back to Birmingham, I kissed her over and over.”

“Ew! Gross papa! You didn’t have to tell us those details!”

Tommy chuckled at his 5 year old son’s disgusted expressions. His daughter, Nevaeh, was nothing like Charlie. She simply smiled and clapped a the ending of the story. Her brother had heard it every year, and this was the first time the 2 year old girl got to hear it for herself.

Y/n walked into the room, smiling at her children and husband. Seeing Charlie’s face was all she needed to see to know Tommy had told their story.

“Alright. Off to bed now, you’ve got tea with your Gran tomorrow. Be on your best behavior and remember to be formal.” She waited and smiled at her children’s confused faces. “I’m kidding. But seriously, please behave for your Grandma.”

“Oh it’s okay! Nana won’t care! She loves us!”

“Yes, while that may be true, you still need to listen to your mother, prince Charlie.” Tommy tucked his firstborn into his bed. Going to his other child, he whispered something into her ear.

“Mommy?”

“Yes my love?”

“Can you sing us that song? December or something?”

So that’s what Tommy said...”Of course dearest, only if you two agree to sleep afterwards.”

They nodded and lied down. Tommy walked around Y/n, kissing her before sitting on the chair next to the door. Y/n sang the kids the lullaby-like melody from her childhood. When the song finished, she noticed they were asleep.

“Goodnight, my little goblins.” She turned to find Tommy asleep on the chair as well. She giggled to herself. “Goodnight to my little and not so little goblins, I guess.”

Y/n grabbed her husband and carried him to their shared bedroom, struggling, but managing to do so. She was now Queen and she was glad that she had her peasant to rule alongside her.

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edourado · 5 years ago

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Together, ch. XI

Here’s an homage for Jon’s look, that look when he was Shane and started to lose his marbles.

I remember that literally making headlines, so here’s me, remembering it.

Hope it pleases.

Much love.

---

It was a gloomy Saturday morning when Frank commented that he needed a haircut.

He had just come back from his run, and was inspecting his own image on the microwave door. Karen was getting ready to take Lady for a walk.

“We might be a while”, she said, putting her hair up in a bun. “I’ll stop by the store to pick up some dog food, we’re running pretty low.”

And she did take her time, walking around the empty streets, sitting on a bench by the water, taking some pictures of Lady looking pretty, stopping to appreciate this little time outside.

When she got back, it was a while before she actually went fully inside: leaving her shoes outside at the door, she first went through the routine of cleaning Lady’s paws, disinfected the bag of dog food before putting it away, took her mask off and hand washed it in the kitchen sink, leaving it to soak for a bit.

Lady and Pooka were playing on the floor and Karen was in her underwear, making her way to the bathroom, when she realized Frank was in there.

“Hey”, she greeted from the corridor, before getting to the door.

“Hey”, he replied, voice low, relaxed.

“I got the dog food, but they were out of-“

Karen stopped, mid sentence, mid step.

Frank was standing in front of the sink, shirtless, cleaning up after giving himself the haircut he said he needed, and she found herself staring.

Shirtless Frank was anything but new to her, and she had seen him with many different hairstyles.

But there was something about that particular scene.

Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was the fact that it was gloomy and rainy outside, and the bathroom light, combined with the warmth of the apartment, created this cozy, lazy, indulgent feeling, or perhaps it was just Frank, and sometimes she would just be hit in the face in how, well, hot, he actually was.

He had shaved his hair off. So short he was practically - effectively - bald. His face was also clean shaven. His sweatpants rode low on his hips, and again, that light, that simple over-the-mirror low intensity light bulb, created shadows over him that made him look so… Appetizing.

She kept staring, eyes running on the dips and swells of his chest, the tightness of his muscles, the flexing of his arms as he moved to clean the sink, the curve of his neck, and the surprising lack of hair on his head.

Karen started and Frank noticed.

“What?” He asked, lifting a hand to his head to rub on it, and Karen’s eyes went to his bicep, noticing how the muscles moved, and she felt her toes curling. “You don’t like it?”

She blinked, surprised, and shook her head, smiling.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” She took a step inside the bathroom, the tiles cold under her feet. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

His hair had been getting a little out of control, lately, reminding her of when he had resurfaced for the first time, ambushing her in the street, the most dramatic way he could find of “saying hello” - actually asking for a favor. When he said he needed a haircut, she thought he meant the trim he usually got, and she liked it, was used to seeing him like that. She never expected this radical change, and it did suit him - a whole lot - but she was caught off guard.

Karen spent so much time staring at him that Frank caught on.

“Did I miss a spot?” He asked, somewhat sarcastically, running his own eyes over her, standing there in nothing but her underwear, and she shook her head, lips curving in a little smile again, taking a step further towards him.

“No, I don’t think you did…”

Inches from him, she lifted her right hand to run it up his neck, around his ear, exploring this new style she had never seen on him - maybe a picture or two, but never face to face. Her left hand stopped on his chest, fingertips running the expanse of his collarbone, delicately, her toes wiggling lazily, and his smirk made her blush a little.

“You like it, then?”

Karen nodded, smiling, and Frank dipped his face a bit, catching her lips on his in a slow, lingering peck, his own hands lifting, teasing the waistband of her underwear, the other one mapping the location of the clasp of her bra.

“It’s reminding me a bit of… I don’t know, the time when you were this…” she started, practically melting right there in front of him.

“What?”

Eyes running around his face, she shook her head, still taking him in.

“This dangerous man, you know?” He lifted his eyebrows. “The positively very bad guy I should stay away from.”

“Hmm. Great job with that, by the way”, he said, smirk back in place, hand squeezing her waist, and she smiled again, running that hand around his shoulders, now, the other one still feeling around his abdomen, turning her head to the side to allow him to place a kiss on her neck, closing her eyes at the feeling of his hands, which grew a tad impatient, squeezing.

“I don’t think anyone can blame me, really. What was a girl to do, when you kept coming to my rescue every chance you got?”

“A girl should thank me and move on with her life.”

“Hmm, we are not having this conversation again”, she decided, tossing her head back when he moved to run his lips on more of her neck, hands full of her, now, pressing her to his chest.

Catching his mouth on hers, she kissed him, deep and slow, full of that familiar hunger that started to flare from deep inside her, hands running over his back, his arms, up his neck, exploring, feeling warm, feeling melty, she was always putty in his hands.

“Oh no”, she said against his mouth, and her voice came out breathy and slow. “You shouldn’t kiss me.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Karen turned inside his arms, and he immediately hugged her to him, dropping his mouth to that’s spot under her ear, and she looked at them in the mirror above the sink, pressed together, skin to skin, his strong arm around her torso.

“I haven’t showered after coming back from Lady’s walk. I could have the virus on me.”

His other hand rose and grabbed her jaw, sweetly and firmly angling her face to his, and he kissed her again, and her knees nearly buckled from the intensity of it.

And then he let go of her, turned her to face him, and he looked so dangerous just then, looking at her like that, like he was about to consume her, like she was prey, she loved it, loved it, loved it, shivered all over when he pushed her, hand on her stomach, making her step back towards the shower, stepping with her, closing the shower curtain behind them, kissing her under the spray of water, peeling underwear and bra off her, letting her take his quickly soaked sweatpants off him, pinning her against cold tiles, maneuvering her any way he wanted, making her bite down hard on her own lower lip, the water was cold before they were ready to step out of the shower.

And Karen was lazy for hours and hours after that, a bit sore from their shower, she felt that high for the rest of the day.

“Stay here with me”, she asked him, borderline whining, from under the covers of the bed when he started to walk out towards the living room.

“I’ll just feed ‘em”, he said, that raspy quality of his voice making her want to wrap herself around him all over again. “And then I’m all yours.”

She heard him filling the puppies bowls with food and refreshing their water, and then he was walking back in, looking all big and brute and strong and perfect.

“Gotta watch those eyes, Kare”, he said, almost in a warning, and Karen reached for him, sat up to kiss him when he knelt on the bed and pulled him on top of her, hands roaming, moaning when he squeezed the flesh of her hip just hard enough, like he knew she liked it.

“If I knew a haircut would have this effect on you”, he said, moving to get himself under the covers with her. “I’d have done it sooner.”

She enjoyed his attentions, like she always did. Especially when he acted like this, with a little bit more force, his touch a tad heavier than usual, Karen enjoyed that immensely, and did her best to show it to him: he liked it when she got vocal, and so she did, just to have him shushing her, telling her to be quiet, even if he didn’t mean that at all.

And he left her feeling good, good enough that she felt like jello the rest of the day.

“Hey”, he said, hours later, running his fingers through her hair, her head resting on his legs while they lounged on the couch. “Could you make some of that brownie of yours?”

“Yes”, she said - breathed, more like it -, moving to sit up, kissing him once, twice, three times. “I’d say yes to anything you asked right about now.”

Frank smiled. “Dangerous thing to promise.”

“It’s true, though”.

She got up, making her way to the kitchen, Pooka running after her to try and bite her sock out of her foot, Lady remaining behind on her spot by the couch, enjoying Frank’s scratches on her ear.

Karen made him his brownie, lost her sock to Pooka while she mixed the batter, watched as Frank sat on the floor, teaching the puppy how to sit and stay and lie down.

(Lady, staying very true to her name, learned all the tricks and commands extremely quick, and needed less lessons than her baby.)

When her timer pinged, Karen took the brownie out of the oven, cut it up into squares and took it to the living room, in it’s own baking pan.

“Hmm”, Frank said when she gave him a warm piece. “So good. Thanks, sweetheart.”

“You’re very welcome”, she said, kissing him again, sitting back on the couch, looking for the remote.

She was wearing a big long sleeved T shirt. It was complete with a hoodie, but it was of a very light, flimsy material, it would not warm her on a truly cold day. She wore it with loose pajama shorts and socks, and, some twenty minutes into her tv show, Frank turned to get another piece of brownie, and put his open hand on her thigh, sliding it until he was grabbing her ass, and squeezed, making her wince, and then dropped his face to bite on flesh, like he loved to do.

“Ow”, she said, not serious at all, making a face, moving to make room for him by her side on the couch, gasping when he dipped his hand under her shorts.

.:.

Frank slept on his stomach, arm flung around her, face on the crook of her neck, while she watched the show he had interrupted earlier. They had retreated back to bed, and she was propped against a thousand pillows - she had bought more after the lockdown, figuring that if they were going to spend so much time inside, they might as well be comfortable - her leg curled against one of his own, her fingertips running up and down his back, gently, just a feather of a caress.

Looking down at him, she wondered if it actually was his haircut that had put her in such a mood, because it was no news to her how handsome he was, how in shape he was, how attracted she was to him, but they had been together for months and months, now, and it had been a while since she had felt this… Thirsty.

Someone shouted, on TV, and there was a bang, screams, and Karen quickly grasped the remote, lowering the volume, but Frank stirred, groaning, his hand squeezing her again, settling more comfortably against her, and, again, she watched the muscles working under his skin.

And that settled it, she thought. Living with a guy like Frank, perpetual thirst was pretty much part of the deal.

#anyone else a fan of this particular haricut on him?#kastle #kastle fluff #kastle ff #grace and frankie #karen page #the punisher #daredevil #quarantine drabbles

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beerecordings · 5 years ago

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oh hell oh geez i am thinking about Selkie Chase again ignore me while i headcanon

Chase loves going to the swimming pool in town cause he’s trying so hard to like reject the Selkie side of him but he still desperately wants to swim sometimes and he just does laps for hours and the lifeguards are like “why the hell can this small white man swim so gotdam fast get the olympics on the phone!!” and somedays Henrik has to swing by to pick him up cause he’s been swimming for like five hours straight. the lady at the counter knows him by name she’ll be like “he’s in aisle six doc” and then Henrik has to go drag Chase out by the back of his swim trunks and burrito him in a towel to make him eat and get in the car

when Chase does decide it’s time for him to try getting back in the ocean he’s going to be so out of practice at doing seal stuff that he will look like a total dork. he’s gotten SO BAD at catching fish, all the other seals are snatching them up before he can get them. and it doesn’t help that Henrik came along to make sure he didn’t have an anxiety attack thinking about Stacy or anything, so he’s just sitting on the rocks on the beach laughing his ass off watching Chase try to do this. Chase is going to flop-flop-flop up there and shove Henrik right off the rocks

then they end up having an all out splash war right there in the waves and the other seals are like “???? human man good??” and start ganging up on him and teasing him, pushing him around with their noses in the water and splashing him too. Henrik laughs a lot despite himself, just cause it’s so ridiculous. he ends up getting a little far from shore and starts to get kind of scared as the waves get bigger, but then Chase is beside him, pressing his back against his hands, and Henrik holds onto him and gets to drift while Chase pulls him along. it’s nice for Henrik to see him in his element and relaxed and Chase didn’t even realize he’d kind of been missing being able to share this part of him with somebody. they go up and down the beach as the sun goes down and Henrik is just lying against his warm seal blubber, playing games with the other seals and soaking in the sun. it’s really nice.

if they get starboy Marvin he can shapeshift to a seal too and then the four of them can all go swimming like that! but Chase probably won’t be up for that level of intimacy for a while. he shares this part of himself rarely, but when he does it’s very nice for him and he always feels more at peace afterwards.

Chase loves otters and will go tease them while he’s in the ocean. if you see a seal slapping water onto a whole platoon of chirping otters, that is probably a Selkie playing games. Chase must resist the urge to take them home. they’re like dogs to Selkie.

one day he’s going to have a close brush with a killer whale and come home shaken as fuck and hide under Jackie’s bed for like four hours shaking. the others bring him sashimi and promise him he’s safe. Henrik is just glad he didn’t get a bite - bad injuries on Selkie can make it impossible for them to change into their other form and even if he could change a whale bite on a human body could prove deadly to Chase.

on that same note, if he ever gets badly injured in the water, he will be unable to change back into a man and he’ll just have to try and hide and find help, unable to get back to Henrik, the only one he trusts to look after him. if he’s lucky, other Selkie will find him and they’ll change into humans to go find Jackie and Marv and Henrik for him. unfortunately these Selkie have not been human in a long time.... Jackie wakes up at three in the morning to a trio of half-naked Selkie wrapped up in seal coats babbling to him in Selkie Gaelic and trying to drag him down to the beach. he’s a little confused but (he got the spirit) they get there. they spend the rest of the night sitting beside a heaving, hurting seal Chase tucked up in a safe crevice on the rocks of the beach, watching Henrik trying to figure out Selkie medicine and seal surgery.

just imagining Chase showing up to a city hall meeting about seal hunting laws or ocean pollution or something and get VERY HEATED about it lol. he makes good points though, he defends the ocean and the creatures in it really well because he is so passionate and understanding of the issues. Jackie’s in the back of the room going “YEAH!!!!!” every time Chase makes a point

Anti can TELL there’s something magical about Chase (because Anti is fae and they can sense that) but he doesn’t know quite what. so he’s spying on Chase all lowkey like “dryad?? fae blood? half-Pooka??” and then he catches Chase just like. shoveling fish n chips into his mouth or slapping his belly for a half hour straight and he’s just like “.........ah i see.” which is funny but also Anti understands there’s an imbalance in Chase’s life and he sees it as a corruption of his nature that Chase is so afraid to acknowledge that other side of himself and he almost feels bad for him. he might try to just throw Chase in the ocean one day and force him to stay there until he starts to get lost in the Selkie part of himself and forget being human. he’s pretty sure he could curse Chase to be unable to change for a long time. in his mind, it would be merciful, but then again, Anti really hates humans and feels like he was poisoned by man-made technology and electronics. he sees himself in Chase, goofy as he is, because Chase is so obsessive about his online image and his channel and all this stuff

one time Chase goes out to the ocean and he says he’s going to be gone a few days but then there’s an emergency and they need him so they go to the colony where he usually vacations and they’re like “.... Chase?? bud? you there??” like two hundred seals turn around to stare at them. Chase is pretty deep in seal mode so he’s going to be like one of twenty who come over to play with these humans and Jackie and Marvin and Henrik are going to be there like “.... uhhhhh I think he’s that one??? dammit Chase stop splashing me this is serious!!!!!!! u are a flubber bucket cut it out!!” *they are bumped into the water and all the seal starts bark-laughing at them*

also sometimes when he’s feeling affectionate Chase just like. compulsively buys fish and eel and stuff to bring home to the others. his brain is like “providing fish for family... is Good” and he’s like “can’t argue with that” and makes Jackie eat like three rolls of sushi. Jackie is not complaining.

#selkie chase #long post #bee posts #mythology au

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tyrwinthyr · 6 years ago

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Episode 1, act 5

“Please instruct the officers that though they may wish to pronounce our quarry’s name correctly, they should refrain.”

The group stopped to stare at the doctor, each with their own version of ‘incredulous’ on their face.

“How would they even know how to say it?” asked Zbrozek, “We don’t even know how to say it, and they left us to do the dirty work.”

The officers in question were two blocks away, parked ‘at the ready’ in a Taco Star lot. When the group had last seen them, they were taking turns placing orders.

“I know how,” Whip said quickly.

“It is not ‘Darth Bob,’” Alois said, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Baa vaan…” the pooka didn’t make it to ‘see’ before the doctor’s hands covered his mouth.

“What did you not understand about not saying the name?”

“I understood,” Whipple responded, pushing the human’s hands away. “But damn, your face when I started…” he snickered, walking past the man towards the house.

“It was kind of funny,” Fei commented as she, too, passed the man. Sheila only nodded, trying (and failing) to hold back a chuckle of her own.

The building they walked towards was a large contemporary home in one of the nicer areas of the Hilltop section of Denver. It had grown dark while the group was on the road, but in Hilltop, even the trees had their own lights. Whip whistled in appreciation.

“Three bedroom, nearly ten k square feet,” Sheila advised. “Around here, this place cost nearly two mil.”

Whip whistled again.

“How do you know that?” Fei asked, “Oh, never mind, miss trust fund.”

“I sold houses for a while,” she replied, unperturbed. “It was good money, but they took away my license when the Crusades started.”

“She’s married,” Zbrozek cut in. He paused at the front door, looking back at them. “Her husband probably doesn’t even know she’s one of you. You four stay back, let me and the doctor do the talking.”

“The doctor and me,” corrected Alois.

The lieutenant stared at him blandly (he had several different ‘incredulous’ options), then turned to knock on the door.

A few moments later, a middle-aged blonde opened the door. She was pretty in a traditional way, to Sheila’s eyes anyway. Short hair paired with conservative glasses gave her a professional appearance, even while dressed in a housecoat. The shock of seeing such a large group was clear on her face as she stammered, “Um, hello? Yes? Can I help you?”

Zbrozek flashed his badge. “BNC, ma’am. We’re here to talk to April Cassidy?”

“My wife is upstairs feeding the baby.” The woman narrowed the opening of the door some, putting her body in the way of seeing behind her. “Can I ask what this is about?”

The lieutenant paused, blinking in surprise.

“Of course,” said Alois. “I’m Dr. Uhl, a specialist in Fae studies. The BNC is investigating rumors of a creature found inside of your wife’s workplace. We just need to ask her a few questions.”

To his credit, Zbrozek simply nodded in agreement.

The woman’s gaze rose to the Fae clustered near the end of her walk. She tugged her pale housecoat tighter around her waist. Sheila admired the length of the robe. She always appreciated longer skirts, and this one touched the woman’s ankles.

“Don’t mind those Folk,” Alois assured, adjusting his sweater vest with a tug. “They are here in case any more of those creatures might have followed your wife home.”

Whipple began stalking back and forth, staring out at the road, doing what Sheila could only guess at being ‘guard movements.’

She hesitated, but eventually the woman opened the door for the two humans.

“I didn’t catch your name?” the doctor asked, stepping past her.

“Janice,” came the simple reply, just loud enough for satyr ears to catch it. The door closed, and the Fae immediately spread out.

Whipple quickly vanished into the backyard, easily hurdling the five-foot fence. Sheila found a spot in the shrubbery to peek in the front window; a downdraft made her look up. Fei floated above her, moving quietly from window to window with her hair blowing akimbo. At times, all she could see of the apsara was her pale, round face.

“Cheater,” Sheila grumped, trying to find a spot out of the light – Fei was doing an expert job of it, but she couldn’t quite make it work. Once she settled down to watch she vaguely wondered what the Cassidy’s electric bill looked like. A glance back towards the door found Mortimer still standing where he was, his face turned oddly upwards toward the stars. He was the only one who hadn’t scattered.

After worrying her lower lip considering the sluagh, she looked back in the window. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could see clearly enough into the front room where the trio – no, quartet -- were sitting.

Without a doubt, the auburn-haired woman who’d joined them was beautiful. Her body was thick at the hips, and her shoulders wide: the effect was imposing. Watching her lips move through the glass, Sheila found herself wishing she could hear the woman’s voice. When she laughed, the satyr’s chest fluttered at the distant sound. She could barely drag her eyes away from the woman to her team mates.

Zbrozek was grinning.

Sheila blinked a few times, then looked to the doctor.

Alois also smiled wide, raptly attending to the woman’s every word.

“Shit,” she muttered. A wave of her hand tried to catch Fei’s attention above. The apsara glared at her, but she did drift down. Before she could speak, Sheila made a few sharp gestures towards the window.

“Shit,” the apsara grumbled in echo. “Never send cis males in to deal with women. They will fuck it up every time.”

After shushing her, the satyr turned to look back in the window. Seated opposite her vantage point, looking directly at her, was Janice. Even as the men stood up to follow April up the stairs, her wife continued staring at Sheila. When the satyr blinked, the woman inside had vanished.

“Fuck!” both Fae outside the window exclaimed at the same time. Both also searched futilely for where the woman might have gone.

“She’s Fae,” Sheila announced lamely. Humans didn’t vanish like that.

“No shit, dumbass,” Fei agreed absently, drifting upwards. “What kind of name for Folk is ‘Janice?’ Keep an eye out for her, I’m going to look for Z.”

“It’s American for Sine,” the Janice in question responded from where she stood just on the other side of the bushes from the surprised pair. Sheila gasped and spun to look at her. The apsara gave out a screech of surprise.

“Hush, now, April just put the baby down to sleep,” Janice scolded, arms folding across her chest imperiously. “Even a full baby will wake up to your caterwauling.”

“Yeah, well, don’t sneak up on us like… that,” Fei tried to retort.

“You, who peep through my windows, can speak to me of ‘sneaking?’”

The girl codfished. After trying to come up with something, she alighted next to the satyr.

“Your humans are distracted. Want some tea?”

“I’m more of a fan of coffee?” Sheila floundered.

To Sheila’s eyes, the house looked staged. When she’d worked in real estate, she’d spent hours giving each room in the house for sale a presence of its own. There were few signs in the front room that anyone actually lived there, no matter the throw-pillows and furniture.

When Janice came in with tea for Fei, and coffee for her, each cup was carefully placed on a coaster. The BNC Fae nestled into the overly comfortable cushions, but their host perched on the edge of her seat. Light classical music played from hidden speakers, and the air smelled of sandalwood. Sheila stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. Weariness didn't mean she had to be rude to their hostess, her father’s curt voice instructed in her mind’s ear.

“So,” Fei began, having seated herself cross-legged on a love seat, tea cradled in her lap. “Thank you for your hospitality… but… what the fuck, lady?”

In the midst of leaning forward to lift her own cup, Sheila startled. A little coffee spilled over into the saucer, and before she could blink twice a towel was placed next to her to clean the mess. As she mopped, she attempted to give her colleague a meaningful glare.

“What the fuck, indeed,” the woman said, resting on the edge of her chair once more. “How do you sleep at night, working with the Agency? How did you track us down… was it that Unforgiven outside?” Each word was delivered with purpose, the way one might imagine a strict CEO lectured his underlings.

“Your wife left a trail of bodies behind her,” Fei responded defensively, glaring at the woman. “How long did you think it would take for them to find you?”

“We work with them to keep tragedies from happening,” Sheila added. It may have started as an excuse to avoid a CCC, but now that she’d said it out loud… it felt real. She lifted her chin, channeling some of the intent she’d only just felt into her expression and voice. “You think if we didn’t come they would have knocked on your door, rather than SWAT just breaching it?”

The woman looked thoughtful. “That must be where she was… oh, Aibreann, we’d have found another way.” The satyr wasn’t surprised they had Americanized their names. It helped blend in. When they looked as human as this pair, that was how they survived. Even aside from that, having to explain your name was written ‘Sine’ and pronounced ‘Shee Na’ was a pain by itself.

“It was to feed the baby,” Fei asked rhetorically. Sheila was surprised to see the girl look so sad. Until that instant, she was sure the only emotion the apsara had was spite.

“Yes,” was the reply. Janice looked up towards where her wife might be. The moment of softness in her face passed, hardened by resolve. “I thought my wife was getting the supply from a blood bank. I should have known better. When she speaks, though, it is hard to refute her.”

“You don’t have hooves,” Sheila noted, glancing at her feet, packaged in delicate house shoes. “The packet the doctor gave us about the baobhan said they’d have hooves.” She looked to Fei – both pairs of eyes widened in mutual dawning realization.

“Is that what you thought she is?” Janice’s tone mocked them, but her face remained unchanged. “No, foolish Folk. The sith are leaches, hiding in the shadows, striking in packs. My wife is much, much more than that.”

A chill ran down the satyr’s spine. There was something of a caste system to the Fae. At the bottom of that system sat the wildlings, creatures of chaos and little intellect. Liminals, like Sheila, were somewhere near the middle: too useful to throw into the deep, but not enough magic to be a true Fae. At the top were the Tuatha De, who could wield near godlike levels of power. Just below the few ‘Toothy Day’ that existed, came the Aos Si.

Any being who claimed to be above the sith was either insane, or Aos Si.

“Are they dead?” Fei’s face paled, her gaze cast towards the stairs.

“No,” Janice’s voice did little to assure either of her listeners. “Your humans are safe, for now. They’ve been lulled by her voice, complacent and willing. They were taken upstairs to keep them out of the way while I handled the four of you. If you were to die, no one would blink an eye. The loss of a BNC lieutenant, however, would have been concerning.”

“The Cross is coming for you,” Fei uncrossed her legs, placing her tea cup on the table next to the coaster. Her expression shifted, warring between confidence and the same fear Sheila was fighting, “You think your wifey poo is going to be strong enough to stop them? You know they won’t hesitate to kill your child.”

In the space between blinks, Janice had one hand on the apsara’s shoulder. A well-kept nail from her other hand pressed against the girl’s shocked eye. Worst of all was how calm the woman’s face was.

“How dare you use their name to try and scare me?” she rasped. “If it wasn’t for the unspoken contract of hospitality, I’d be buying a new love seat rather than cleaning off your blood stains.”

“She isn’t bluffing or threatening.” Sheila voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears, as if she was hearing a recording. She forced herself to breathe slowly, though it was difficult. “When we were at the station, the Iron Cross was there. A five-man kill-team. We all know what they look like.”

Their hostess released Fei’s shoulder and drew herself up to stand tall. Trying to regain some of her composure, the smaller Fae swatted lamely at the woman’s hand.

“You, I believe,” Janice allowed. “Sylphs are not trustworthy, but I’ve never met a satyr who didn’t tell it like it is.” She turned smartly, heading towards the stairs. “Stay here.”

“I’m not a fucking sylph,” Fei protested weakly.

“I’d have jumped in if it had gone much further,” Whip said, peeking up from behind the couch. The apsara squeaked, but after nearly having her brain impaled by an amazing French manicure, she didn’t have much startle left in her.

“Holy hell,” Sheila held a hand to her chest a moment. The gesture didn’t do much to help her heart. “How did you even get in here?”

“That was easy,” he responded, vaulting over the cushions to seat himself between them. “Their wards of detection don’t include domestics.” The satyr couldn’t say she was surprised. ‘Domestics,’ as the high Fae were known to call pookas and other Folk invested in human relations, were beneath the Aos Si’s notice. They were lower than wildlings by the strongest, but actually on par with the liminals power-wise. To add such beings to your magical defenses was to admit they might be a threat.

“Behave yourself,” she ordered. She received a raspberry from the pooka for her troubles.

“Do what she says,” Fei scolded him. “Imagine a mother bear protecting her cub. Now imagine if the momma bear moved so fast she could kill you without getting any blood on her pretty frock.”

“I’m fast, too,” complained Whip, throwing himself back against the cushions, crossing his arms. He did nod his agreement, however.

The procession down the stars began with Alois, who was still smiling beatifically. Behind him came Zbrozek, wearing what could only be described as a grimace of amusement. Janice came right after, a swaddled package in her arms. Last was April.

“Darth Babe!” exclaimed Whip, announcing her presence. There was a dreamlike quality looking at her directly, as if she wasn’t fully in focus.

“Get your furry butt off my linen sofa, domestic,” Janice demanded. Behind her, her wife chuckled. Sheila’s heart skipped a few beats at the sound, her face flushing. The pooka rose fluidly, moving into a practiced bow.

“I think you three gentlemen should step outside,” April’s lilting voice caused warmth in places the satyr wasn’t willing to admit to.

“It would be better to be here, with you,” Zbrozek sounded as if he was trying to be authoritative but failed miserably.

“If men come for me, would you really want them to get to my door?”

As if that made sense, both men turned and walked to the door.

“Whip, come.”

The pooka stared in shock at the lieutenant, mouth slightly agape.

“Now.”

After stomping his foot, tail thrashing angrily behind him, he followed the two humans out the door. His last hurrah was to slam it behind him. In Janice’s arms, the bundle wriggled, soft protest rising into the air. Rocking in response, she turned her darkening gaze to the remaining Fae in the room.

“We will be reporting your part here to the high Courts,” she informed, turning her shoulder to them. Slender fingers lay casually on that shoulder, massaging gently.

“Sine, my love, if they had not come here first, our visitors would be the Cross,” April cooed, kissing her wife gently on the side of her neck. “I forgive them all trespass.” Each word resonated inside Sheila’s body, shaking parts of her she hadn’t thought of or felt in years.

Janice’s eyes widened slightly, twisting her neck to look back. A kiss on her cheek seemed to lighten her spirit, but her eyes were still tinged with barely held fury.

“I cannot argue with you, Abs.” with a wave of her hand, she dismissed the others. “Fine… get out. You won’t find us here again, and neither will the Cross.”

Fei darted to the door, leaving without a word. Sheila failed to note the apsara’s exit; she walked towards the couple instead. After Janice reluctantly moved out of her way, the satyr looked up into April’s eyes.

“Epithymíes Mou,” she breathed, one fist over her own heart, the other clutching it there. Her knees were shaking, her head swimming, but she had to do it. It was an old request; a right Dionysus had given his creations. It wouldn’t matter if the target understood the words, they would always understand the urge behind them. When the words were spoken by a satyr it allowed the recipient to know how much they were desired. They would feel it as deeply as the one who offered it.

“How dare you?” Janice said, attempting to step in front of her wife.

With one gentle hand, April kept her spouse to the side. Her eyes met Sheila’s. Not only was the satyr a half breed, but she was also female. Her male cousins, those with the most power, could force the matter: their desires would be obeyed on the spot. In this case, it was only a request. It could go one of two ways: denied, in which case the satyr would be freed of their desire then and always; or accepted, which would allow both to go wherever the desire took them.

“Your god only ever had one thing on his mind, didn’t he.” It wasn’t an answer, so the satyr stood, waiting. “But I never minded it. I accept, to be attended to in the future.”

It was enough. The air lightened, and Sheila was released. She nodded, blushing to her core. The relief was instant, letting her think clearly about what she had done. With an embarrassed ‘thank you,’ she left their home. Behind her, she could barely hear the couple arguing, but she didn’t stop until she was in the back seat of the SUV.

The silence in the vehicle was just as awkward as the ride up, but for different reasons. After Zbrozek informed the officers waiting that the suspect had fled, they left. For the first thirty minutes, the lieutenant drove around aimlessly, his eyes glazed over by April’s command. When he finally pulled into a Denny’s parking lot to ask what had happened, Whipple was more than happy to explain the whole situation.

“So, the four of you let us be led around by our noses,” he asked when the pooka’s breathless explanation finished. “And you didn’t do a damn thing to stop them?”

The only Fae in the vehicle who’d look at the man was Mortimer. While the others pretended to find something out the window to study, the sluagh stared at the lieutenant with his runny-egg eyes.

“And death will have no dominion,” he intoned, raspy voice carrying a hint of baritone as he recited the poem. “Dead men naked, they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon; when their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, they shall have stars at elbow and foot; though they go mad they shall be sane…” he stopped there. It was his turn to look out the window.

After a long moment of confusion, Zbrozek turned his head to ask, “Anyone want to translate zombie into English?”

“If we’d tried to stop them, even the dead would die,” Fei answered, still not looking at him directly. She huffed hot air onto the window, then drew a quick symbol on it to ward off Death. Folk didn’t often speak about her without acknowledging her power. “I, for one, am not ready to join the stars.”

Sheila turned away from the scenery, gaze falling on the apsara. The satyr had been inside of her own mind until just then. The voice of her smaller colleague had drawn her back. Usually so sharp in tone and manner, she thought Fei sounded reflective, soft, someone who shared her own wonderous fear about the beings whose living room they had visited.

“Darth Babe was scary powerful, boss,” Whip spoke up from the back, which he now shared with a still-dazed Alois. As the rest of the team nodded their confirmation of his words, Whip added, “We didn’t die, and no one else will either. Win/win, right?”

“How do you know they won’t kill again?” Wrinkles cutting deep at his eyes, and alongside his mouth, the lieutenant frowned. “Our first case, and I can’t even report it as solved? How the hell do you consider this a ‘win?’”

“We succeeded in removing a threat without bloodshed,” the pooka replied, unabashed. “Don’t you remember Sheena, Queen of the Jungle explaining that to you before you were given your commands?”

“If my addled brain is any indication, I’m sure the lieutenant doesn’t remember any of that,” Alois finally piped up. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Every time I try to focus on the event, all I see is her amazing face.”

“Deep glamour,” Fei explained, her bitter tone returning. “Even the enchanted can’t do much about it. How do you think we remained a secret from you humans as long as we did?”

“I have it on good authority that the enchantment you all shared from Arcadia prevented your detection,” Alois said, dropping his hands in his lap. “Though I often wondered why the Toothy Day weren’t so exposed. Was that the power they share?”

“Power resides only where men believe it resides,” Whip said, sounding surprisingly insightful.

“Blah blah blah,” Fei sniped. “Small man, long shadow, blah blah. You aren’t the only one who watches Game of Thrones, furrball.”

“Until just now, I thought I was the only one in the car who enjoyed it,” he said, his chin coming to rest on the back of her seat. He batted his eyes at her, cooing, “You are now my new best friend.”

“I am not your new best anything. Get off my seat,” she protested, waving her fingers in front of his face as she twisted away from him.

“Christ,” Zbrozek growled as he turned back to the front of the vehicle. “I don’t think I’m going to survive this assignment…”

In her corner of the SUV, Sheila watched the other members as they continued to banter. In her mind she went over everything that happened in that house in Hilltop: her newly minted intent to use the BNC to protect the Fae; the quick way the ‘authority figure’ was turned into a puppet by a powerful being; and finally, the contract she had verbally signed with that being to, at some unknown time in the future, do dirty things together. Using her hand to cover her mouth, she smiled, eyes dancing at the thought of what might come.

Epilogue

For bodies that had fit so well together during the night, they were becoming uncomfortable entwined in the morning. Neither wanted to untangle though, so they separated slowly. Furred legs meshed with smooth skin were last to separate; the two lay together on the floor.

“Well, that was something,” said the Fae, delicate fingers still finding reason to touch naked flesh.

“Agreed,” replied the human, unable to stop himself running manicured fingertips through fur.

“Why did we have to use the floor again?”

“She’d have skinned us alive?” he joked, sitting up on his side to get a better view of his lover’s face. He so loved the horns, jutting out of the freshly mussed hair, “Plus, um, ew? I do NOT know who she’s had in there recently, and her taste can be vurry questionable.”

The Fae sat up, looking around the room, distaste curling lips from teeth.

“She is very messy. I don’t know how you put up with her.”

A much-needed stretch later, he answered, “She took a beating for me, without even knowing me. It was the first time anyone had stood up for me.” Serious talk, now, without his usual lilt, “We are incompatible in so many ways… but she seems to be the parts of me I was missing?”

Eyes of the lightest blue turned to look at him, though the face attached was cool. “It sounds like you have… feelings for her.”

“Oh, I have the feels, alright,” he agreed, standing up to search for missing clothing. “I know you can’t say the L word, not with meaning anyway. Even hearing it makes her uncomfortable… but she’s my sister in spirit, and I L word the hell out of her.”

Hooves pulled in, still sitting on the floor, the white-haired boy turned his gaze towards the painted portal, frowning.

“She is so messy, though… in so many ways. It’s why father kicked her out, to get rid of the chaos she seems to sow.” He attempted to smooth out the tangle between his antlers, smiling upwards at his lover of the night before. “She would kill me if she found out about this, though, so I appreciate your keeping this between us?”

Gaspar wrinkled his face in his usual adorable fashion. Only once he was clothed again did he rest his rear on the edge of Sheila’s bed.

“If she asks, you know I’ll have to spill it,” he responded, heavy hand over his heart. “I’m bound.”

After a brief sympathetic laugh, Simon stood up to lean his chest against the man’s shoulder. “Well, if I’m to be turned into a deerskin rug… least you could do is help me shower?”

With a gleeful laugh, Gaspar picked up the smaller Fae, carrying him towards the bathroom.

Hundreds of miles away, the rising dawn warmed cool skin: the Cassidy family paused their trek. After taking what they needed, they had moved out immediately, heading towards the woods as they had many times before, in many other countries.

Sine held her arm out to the light, lifting the bandage she had wrapped there. Underneath, sudden exposure to air caused her to hiss sharply. A wound shaped like a cross festered there.

“Let me see,” Aibreann demanded gently, trying to take her wife’s hand.

“It’s fine… he barely grazed me with the iron,” she lied. It was a white lie, as far as she was concerned. They had no time to rest, to truly care for the wound, so what good would it be to tell her beloved the truth?

It was obvious her lie wasn’t entirely believed, but the subject was dropped. They had barely escaped the one Cross soldier that found them. If there had been more, well… there would be more wounds than just the one.

“We have to put a lot more miles between us before I’ll feel safe,” she continued, searching her pack for the protein bars stowed for the trip. “They won’t think to look out here yet, but when they do… you know they use grimms.”

Aibreann nodded, auburn hair bouncing with the movement. Twisted creatures, tortured and used by the Iron Cross as hounds, they could track Fae by scent. It wasn’t truly the beasts the couple worried about, it was their masters.

“After that, where will we go?” she asked, settling on a rock to feed the baby. There was a visceral ‘pop’ noise, as if a person were biting into a hot dog: the child suckled contentedly. She was accustomed to the pain now, and the blood loss was acceptable. “You cannot go too far after accepting that ridiculous contract… seriously, my love… what were you thinking?” Sine offered up one of the bars she had come up with. It was accepted after her wife daintily dabbed their daughter's cheek free of blood with a lace kerchief.

“I was thinking that she is a satyr, a creature known to be led around by their desires. I was thinking she is with the BNC. I was thinking that subjugating such simple Folk to my will help us see them coming.”

Sine shook her head in amazement. Even she, after so many years with her wife, could be amazed at just how cold she could be to the commoners.

“My love,” she said, “You are deliciously evil, you know that?”

“I am the Dearg-Due… I am what he made me.”

#Satyr #Pooka #fae #faerie #fairy #urban fantasy #writer #writeblr #writing #fantasy

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skimblyshanks · 3 years ago

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🛌☠🐶✨✊!

OC Ask Game!

For my Alonzoffelees fankids, and over a month in the making😅

🛌 What kind of sleep schedule does your OC have?

Victor

Alonzo, Misto, and Uncle Munk all make sure he has a steady, proper, regular sleep schedule since he’s chosen to idolize the least-rested Jellicle around.

Lis

She uses Victor as a general timer, and follows his sleep schedule.

Olivia

She needs her beauty sleep. And a good solid general rest along with that.

Charley

He sleeps in irregular spurts

Oats

He and Ich cross paths often; evening-night is Oats’ peak mischief time.

Polly

She is a morning person. If that means staying up all day and night, then so be it, she will not sleep once the sun has begun to rise.

B'Willy

B'Willy has never gotten reliable sleep. He's a light sleeper, and he's a fitful sleeper. His nerves keep him awake most often, anyways. Gets enough sleep to function, and probably nods off a little here and there.

Ichabod

Ichabod is pretty reliably asleep from sunrise til mid-late afternoon. Night time is his creeping time. Once he's awake he's awake, tho, so it's like. If he's up in the morning he's up all day.

Pooka

Pooka sleeps whenever they feel like it. What are they going to miss? Nothing they wanted to do, clearly. They are likely the most well-rested, along with Olivia.

☠ How petty are they? And what length of pettiness would they go for?

Victor

He has no time for passive-aggression about small stuff. He doesn't do petty, but if you want to wind him up fast, make a big deal about something small, especially if it's someone being petty in response to someone else's pettiness like. why are you continuing the cycle, then?!

Lis

Similarly to Victor, Lis doesn't have much patience for pettiness, but unlike Victor, she has more of an issue with pettiness as the original offense, because if you're petty in response that's just fair, really. As a result, she sometimes will get petty in response to others, but rarely to an extent further than some snide comments.

Olivia

She spends the most time of anyone amongst snooty cats, so she can absolutely get hung up over trivial stuff. She’s not one for retribution over it, tho she will get snide and passive-aggressive if it bugs her enough.

Charley

He is very aware of when everyone else is petty. He is very aware of the usual pattern of fallout and consequences from everyone’s pettiness. He makes a deliberate effort to not be petty. He will not be part of the problem.

Oats

Oats is a little shit, but honestly he doesn't usually get petty?

...except towards Polly, and like her, he'll take it far. I'm talking lock her out of the house over some stolen pencils.

Polly

Oh, she is very petty. Mainly toward Oats, but that's more because she tries somewhat to retrain it around others. With Oats, she'll take it pretty damn far, and since she’s usually the more responsible one, that will typically include punishments from parents and other grownups for Oats.

B'Willy

He’s quite petty, but most of the other kids don’t realize it. If he’s taking low shots, he’s taking them anonymously.

Ichabod

This kid gets rid of his body when he feels like it and is haunted with the knowledge of how you will die but not when. He’s not petty. There is no time for pettiness.

Pooka

They do not care. Genuinely. They think most shit that riles up over half of their siblings is dumb as rocks, but they don’t care enough to be bothered by others’ being bothered.

🐶 What would your OC do if they were chased by a dog?

Victor

He would try to fight it, or at the very least seriously consider trying to fight it. When he's younger, he probably tells himself he'll fight it...up until it gets really close, at which case he will sprint off with everything all puffed out. When he gets older, tho, he probably has gotten some scratches in on a few pooches. Still doesn't make fighting his first option when he doesn't need to, tho.

Lis

Her first instinct is to run in the direction the of the dog, then get low and weave through its feet as she runs the way it came

Olivia

Like Lis, she'll try to run the way the dog is coming, but where Lis tries to go under the dog, Olivia will run straight at it...then break to the left/right and give it a wider berth while looking for hiding spots. Expect lots of hissing and wailing.

Charley

He'd ask the dog nicely to stop running so they could talk :) 9 times out of 10, this is successful, and as a result he's friendly with most of the dogs where he lives

Oats

He'd see it like a scary game after a moment of "Oh shit." He and Polly can both teleport kinda, and he already makes regular use of this ability while causing mischief. So he'll start popping here, there, and everywhere; on the dog's left, on their right, behind them, on their back...and up on top of a wall too high up to reach.

Polly

Polly, along with Oats, can teleport a short ways throughout their immediate surroundings. However, she would probably be too focused on running, and finding somewhere a dog wouldn't fit into, to teleport. She can probably make it under a dumpster pretty quickly, and then press herself up against a wall so the dog can't get her.

B'Willy

My baby freezes at danger. While he does have magic, when he's little it's not something he can access beyond uncontrollable spurts. There could maybe be a burst of magic to chase the dog off it ends up close enough, but no way to know for sure. It's also unlikely he'd be far from Misto or Lonnie, tho, so it's v fair to expect one or both of them to step in and get him out of the situation.

Ichabod

His first compulsion in just about any situation is to pack up the body and just worry about his head. If that sight doesn't scare off the dog, then it's easy enough for him,as a head, to pop into something nice and unnoticeable until the dog passes by.

Pooka

They either go boneless, or they make themselves roughly dog-shaped and dog-sized, and swipe at the pursuer.

✨ What kind of aesthetic do they like?

Victor

Technically craftcore? He’d be the kind to self-embroider and do visible-patching on his clothes, so.

Lis

probably Peach(core?)

Olivia

She will dress like a beatnik and you can’t stop her.

Charley

lagenlook!

Oats

let the boy have some casual clowncore

Polly

Crowcore

B'Willy

dazecore/comfy. to take it one step further he even has a literal Comfy. as in the literal blanket hoodie.

Ichabod

he’s a Mallgoth-inspired poser

Pooka

Cryptidcore. one of the kids has to be.

✊ Would your OC win in a fight against an ostrich?

Victor

No, but he’d try.

Lis

Olivia

Charley

Assuming the ostrich is not in an agitated state from the beginning, see the “chased by dogs” answer

Oats

Polly

B'Willy

Eh? Maybe when he’s able to control his magic.

Ichabod

Can the ostrich experience existential dread? if so, Perhaps. if not, then No.

Pooka

Yes.

#alonzoffelees kids #Alonzoffelees fankids

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cookinguptales · 7 years ago

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So while I was in NYC, I got to see Mean Girls, Spongebob Squarepants, and Anastasia. It was really a combination of lottery winnings and tkts, though I did splurge and get myself the Mean Girls ticket ahead of time. Despite how I got the rest of the tickets, I actually had pretty good seats at all the shows! So that part was nice.

More in-depth thoughts under a cut, but can I just say how weird it is that like... I think I had the most fun at Spongebob? I only went bc I won the lottery but like. I genuinely enjoyed that show. lol. Reminds me of when I went to see Shrek: The Musical on a lark with my friend, and we were shocked that it’s actually a great show.

I saw Spongebob first, an evening show. It was also my most high-pain day, so I have to admit that something funny and a little stupid (with a good heart) was probably exactly what I needed. The music was fun and catchy (not a shock, I guess, considering the people they got to do music for them) and the actors did a really spectacular job. I realized after coming home that I had some different actors than appear on the recording, but I liked my actors more. The Mr. Krabs I saw sounded so spot-on that it was a little creepy, lol, and our Plankton was super fun. I was kind of shocked when the guy who played Squidward started talking in a straight-up British accent after the show, lmao.

I laughed at a lot of the jokes, and though I never really expected to see Patrick Star leading a cult, it was apparently exactly what I wanted out of my evening. Plus, it actually had some pretty good lessons for kids. Don’t turn on each other and scapegoat immigrants when bad things happen, think for yourselves and always try to fix problems rather than running away from them, sometimes people say things that sound profound but won’t actually help you, diversity is valuable… I think it kind of veered into a trope I’m not in love with (immigrants are great because they’re useful) but I think it was also good for kids to see a character who was female (and played by a black woman) who was fantastic at science, kind, determined, and the one who ultimately saves the day. I also liked that the show was clear that her pain and wariness didn’t go away just because people started accepting her again. I think it managed to go in on some really good lessons without ever feeling preachy about it.

Plus, again, the show was just super fun. I love how it played with the space (like the way the actors kept interacting with the band and the conductor) and the jokes were genuinely funny. Patchy wandering around and trying to crash the show was great. The songs were catchy and fun and it was really cohesively done. Also, I think it really managed to nail the feeling of the characters and this underwater world without being too on-the-nose. (I’m looking at you, Little Mermaid.)

Was it the deepest, most memorable show I’ve ever seen? No. But it was a lot of fun, and fun is frankly what I needed right then.

Next, I saw Mean Girls. I’ll admit that my enjoyment of this show was marred by a couple things. It’s not the most accessible theater (I never did get to see the merch booth…) and the lead actress was out. There was a standby actress who could play like… 6-7 different characters? And I was really ??? when I saw that, like. There were really two options. Either she’s the best actress on earth, who can totally transform herself so she can play such diverse roles… or she’s generic af. Unfortunately, she turned out to be the latter. Like, don’t get me wrong! She was technically proficient and could sing really well! She just didn’t feel like Cady. There was something missing there, y’know? Some spark or charisma. She was just boring to watch, which kind of dampened the whole show. I overheard that it was her first time playing Cady, though, so idk. Maybe she was just nervous.

That aside, though, I did enjoy the show! It was a Wednesday (so I did wear pink) and it had a lot of the heart of the movie. It was really funny, and I liked how Janice and Damien were used to frame the show. They made for great, hilarious narrators. I really enjoyed most of the songs, too. Some were a little forgettable, I’ll admit, but others were really touching (particularly Gretchen’s solos) or super funny. Damien sings a whole song about how sometimes you just need to STOP and I loved it. The song was hilarious. The script itself was packed with good stuff. There were great jokes and good social commentary, more depth for some of the forgotten side characters and some really touching moments.

Plus, Cady aside, the rest of the actors did a tremendous job. My one gripe with the original movie is that… idk, the actress who played Regina George never quite felt like she could actually be a queen bee in a real school. Is that weird to say? The other girls around her just felt prettier and more charismatic, so it was hard to buy that she would actually be in charge. The Regina in the musical, though? Holy shit, you feel it. That woman could walk through Times Square and every eye would be on her. She did an absolutely fantastic job with Regina, and the other huge standouts to me were Gretchen and Janice. Just excellent, excellent jobs all around. I really love how much time the show gave to Gretchen so you could really get where she was coming from. Get that poor girl a therapist, honestly.

I think part of the problem is that, all things considered, it’s difficult not to compare Mean Girls to Heathers. And frankly, Heathers is a better show, imo. They’re both good! But I do sort of feel like Mean Girls could’ve gone in a little harder, and its music wasn’t nearly as memorable as Heathers’s. That said, like Heathers, Mean Girls: The Musical has a LOT more potential for f/f than the movie. lmao. And isn’t that really what we’re all here for?

(I mean no, probably not, but it’s what I’m here for.)

The third show I saw was Anastasia, and I gotta admit it. I’m shocked how much I didn’t like Anastasia. I’ve been wanting to see it for ages because that movie was my childhood, but I bounced hard off that show. Like I was kind of hanging in there for the first act, but I was literally wishing I could check my watch during the second act. Plus we had an u/s for Dmitri and he was. Not fabulous. I always feel bad saying that about understudies but like. He was……… not fabulous. So the criticisms I have going forward about Dmitri in the show might be colored by that. Bear with me.

Now, the show is super different from the movie. And I understand why they chose to go for realism rather than fantasy, but I disagree with that choice very, very firmly. Not only did it make the whole show a real fucking downer, but like… I feel like when you make movies about real people, you either have to go completely realistic or go real fucking far off the deep end. Like the movie really went in on the near-mythic stature that Anastasia and Rasputin had in history and folklore during that period. It went in hard with magic and zombies and had a real fairy tale feeling that only really worked because of the wild tales people were already telling about the historical personages. No one watched the animated movie about Anastasia and went “wow, I bet that’s just like real life”.

The show decided that they wanted to be more realistic and talk about like. God, execution of political prisoners and people starving in the streets and refugees and just generally the politics of Leningrad. So not only was that fucking depressing, but it really pulled things back to be like… If you’re being all realistic about this, shouldn’t you be more realistic about the real life people you’re using for this story? This isn’t how Anastasia’s life went, and I can buy that in a fantasy what if? AU, but when you’re aiming for gritty realism, then telling this story about a person who was executed (and yes, we now know she was executed) is just… It feels disrespectful, y’know?

Plus once you start bringing in the real politics of the world, I’m going to start examining the characters through a real historical lens. A love triangle is annoying and unnecessary anyway, but you managed to make it fucking creepy by having this guy stalk her after his dad killed her entire family, and while he’s still working for an oppressive regime. That’s not romantic! But you also managed to fuck up royally by making that actor far more handsome and charismatic, not to mention a much better singer, than the actual love interest!

Like! Dmitri only barely worked in the movie, y’know? You have to straddle such a fine, fine line with a lovable con man. If you take out the lovable, he’s just a fucking con man. And in the show, he just felt like a con man. Again, the fact that the u/s couldn’t sing all that well (he went sour several times and sometimes sounded just like Ernie, of Sesame Street, which is kind of the opposite of sexy) did not help things. But he was also just a fucking dick to Anya and it was difficult to tell why she liked him, other than the writing’s new decision to make her basically a street urchin like him. (As in, she’d been living on the street for many years previous to the show’s start — he also never worked in the palace and saved her life in the musical; it was never actually stated how she escaped in the musical.)

The actress who played Anya did an amazing job, but the writing for her character was pretty ??? most of the time. Like I get that you want to make her feisty (and why did you choose AN ATTEMPTED RAPE TO DISPLAY HER STRENGTH?) but if she’s really so street smart, why does she constantly make bizarre decisions? Why does she want to go to Paris if she doesn’t have the Together In Paris necklace? Why is she having a weird love triangle between a man who verbally abuses her and a government official who wants her dead? WHY DID YOU MAKE IT CLEAR THAT SHE HAD A DOG AND THE DOG IS DEAD? Poor Pooka!

Speaking of people I can’t root for knowing actual historical fact, they changed Sophie into an ex-Russian dilettante named Lily who spends all her time complaining that she used to be rich af in Russia and it’s so sad that all of the Russian elite had to give up their major Russian fortunes so they could… have minor French fortunes and cushy jobs. Like every time they started reminiscing about the good ol’ days in Russia, I was just like “oh right, that’s why they had a revolution, eat the fucking rich”. Like the new background they made up just made me despise her and all her friends.

They also made Anastasia’s grandma kind of a bitch. You’re really kind of forcibly reminded how awful monarchies can be whenever she talks about politics! And that cute, short scene in the movie where she finally meets Anya? Drawn out to like a half hour of this old woman rambling about how awful the world is and how she hates everyone and Anya is just a tricksy bitch. Fun times for all!

Plus like. I don’t remember a single song from the musical that wasn’t in the movie. I hate that they took out all of the magic and the talking animals and Rasputin (how did they never even mention the HISTORICAL one?) and they just had to rub it in by cannibalizing In The Dark of The Night and turning it into a depressing-ass song about political refugees who were fleeing Russia and would never see it again. (Note: the singer of this song was shot in the head by Russian authorities shortly after singing it.)

The only thing the musical really did was make me so sad for these people who had a revolution because their rulers were deeply corrupt and used the lives of the poor like pawns, and then had an equally corrupt government regime move in. The people were starving either way! And the musical trying to romanticize all that (they kind of wanted to acknowledge the historical crimes but still make me like the people who caused the problems??) just felt awful. They tried to work this story in with the real historical timeline by being like YEAH SHE WAS REAL AND THEY REUNITED BUT THEN SHE DECIDED TO LEAVE AND NEVER TELL ANYONE WHO SHE WAS AGAIN SO THE CREEP IN THE GOVERNMENT DIDN’T GET IN TROUBLE AND NO ONE EVER KNEW THAT THE REAL ANASTASIA WAS ALIVE. Like what. No. They found her fucking corpse. You can’t try to follow real life and have her actually be Anastasia. You can’t have your cake and eat it too! Do you want to make a musical about the plight of the Russians during this time period, or do you want to write a fairy tale? You can’t do both! All you’ve managed to do is play out some bad history and make me feel kind of gross.

….and boring music, questionable politics, and fuckin dreariness aside, the writing was just bad. The second act dragged on and on and on because they would never say in a minute what they could say in an hour. I was kind of bored and annoyed both. If you’re going to change a story and add an hour and a half of material, it better be good material. And it wasn’t. The only bright spots for me were the spectacular costumes (really gorgeous), the interesting sets, and the woman who plays Anastasia.

Other than that, I was not thrilled. All it did was make me want to go watch the ding-dang movie so I could just see the ding-dang bat.

#I have a lot of feelings apparently

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whereverthemusetakesme · 7 years ago

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1-10, 25

⊱asks for muns with a multimuse⊰

1. is there a muse that you wish gets more attention?

There are a few of them... but if I had to pick just one? Scout, for sure. I do get that she’s an obscure character even within her fandom, and no longer even relevant since the canon reboot - but that doesn’t stop me wanting to do things with her xD

2. if you HAD to choose, who’s your favorite muse?

Vanellope. Definitely Vanellope; she’s not only the cutest cutie, but also my favourite fictional character overall. Though I have to say that Lauren’s not far behind her... being as she’s 100% my own character, I’d not be a biased creator if I didn’t chose her xD

3. which muse is the trickiest to get into character for?

Recently? I’d say it’s been Mabel. I feel like the way I write her is hit-and-miss most of the time; but because there’s so much canon material for her I struggle to take all of it into account at all times, you know? I think I emphasise certain parts of her personality at the expense of others... and plus, I’m nowhere near as outgoing and bouncy as she is, which gives me trouble sometimes too xD

4. is there a muse that not a lot of people roleplay with?

I suppose that Cera, Lauren, Zoey, Babs and Vixey all fall under that category; each only have one or two people who interact with them at present. That’s the advantage of a multimuse blog, though; even when they don’t have that many interested partners, the blog as a whole still stays active - rather than collecting dust (and unanswered asks) the way Cera’s used to!

And then there’s Scout, who has had a grand total of zero roleplay partners so far, so is kind of in a category all of her own? xD;;

5. if you HAD to choose, who’s your least favorite muse?

That’s not even a contest... Taffyta, for sure. I mean, I have a lot of fun writing her, but... is she a butt, or what? xD

6. which one of your muses have you been playing the longest?

On the whole? Angel. That was... back on Proboards, eight years ago, my first rping experience ever - it was a Disney-themed site, and she was my favourite character at the time, so she was the natural choice - and I guess she’s just stuck with me ever since.

7. which one of your muses has the most ships?

Ships I’ve been part of through rp here? That’s got to be Margo ( @bespectacledkitten ), as the only muse who’s actively participated in more than one ship at all. Even then, she’s only had Antonio and Vale as shipping partners, so... not loads.

Though if we’re talking more just for whom most ships exist, regardless of my participation in them... well, poor Angel does tend to be shipped with just about anything on four legs!

8. what is each of your muses otps? notps?

Hm.

Angel: OTP is with Patch of 101 Dalmatians II; and while there are a lot of ships of her I’ve seen that I disagree with, I’d say my main NOtp for her has to be with Dodger. As a sibling-type bond between them... oh yeah, I’d be all for that! But I just can’t ship them... he’s too similar to her, wouldn’t be able to give her what she needed in a relationship.

Mabel: I don’t really have any OTP for her. I’ve never rped a ship with her, and while some of her canon ones can be cute, none really make me think yes must ship it! NOtps are with either Dipper or Gideon... both for obvious reasons.

Cera: I’m intrigued by her and Littlefoot as a couple, though I’d need to actually get to play around with that before I could truly call it something I ship... and I’m not really sure of her other options. I haven’t seen any other pairings with her to have a preference on.

Taffyta: I’m not opposed to shipping her, but I don’t have any so far. NOtp is with Vanellope.

Zoey: OTP is with Rudolph, pretty much by default! No NOtps yet... I don’t even feel justified in calling her and Arrow a NOtp at this point, since we see so little actual relationship between them in canon. They’re just a noncommittal meh at this point.

Vanellope: None. I just don’t ship her... so I guess any ship with her is a NOtp for me?

Vixey: OTP is Tod. Don’t have any NOtps at present.

Scout: Undecided. I don’t think I ship her with Whie, but... I’d need more in-character interactions with her before I could commit to anything, either way.

Babs: OTP is with Featherweight, honestly! I dunno, there’s just something about the idea of those two being together that really appeals to me. Don’t have any NOtps so far.

Lauren: Haven’t really considered it. Lauren’s asexual, in my mind, so it just... hasn’t been relevant for her.

Danielle: I dunno I have a specific OTP. At different times I’ve shipped her with Berlioz (Aristocats), Rolly or Lucky (both 101 Dalmatians: The Series), but none that I can really commit to as a ‘one true’ pairing. Likewise, I don’t really have any NOtps for her, either... I’ll just play her and see what comes ^^

(and Annette as a bonus: OTP is with Pooka from Anastasia. He’s really the only person I’d consider shipping her with, so... NOtp is everyone else? xD)

9. why were you drawn to each one of your characters?

Angel: She’s just... long been a favourite of mine. Not ever since I first saw Scamp’s Adventure, when I didn’t pay her specifically much mind, but... it must have been a couple of months later, when I rewatched it for maybe the fourth time, I just... fell for her. The way she’s had such a tough life, her curious combination of selfish and selfless, both of which made her so interesting to explore further... and, I’m not gonna lie, her being the CUTEST little thing didn’t hurt at all either x3 By the time the first RP site I was part of came around, she was just the obvious choice to go for; and she’s stuck with me ever since.

Mabel: She’s just so quirky and energetic and optimistic and fun... how could anyone who’s seen Gravity Falls not be drawn to her? I liked her as soon as I started watching the show (some years after it ended, granted), and by the time I finished it I was really warring with myself over whether or not to pick her up. As you can tell, my willpower lost that battle xD

Cera: She’s such a hard-headed, stubborn BUTT WITH A HEART OF GOLD and I love it x3 I mean, I don’t usually go for characters like that, but something about the way Cera pulls it off is just... plus, the fact that she’s kind of too cute to take her jerkiness that seriously helps, too!

Taffyta: Mostly? I first picked her up because my girlfriend rped as pre-movie Vanellope and was hoping for some more of the Sugar Rush kids to pick on her... and I thought I could oblige there. I mean, I’m not really drawn to Taffyta, she’s awful... but she’s also a fun departure from all my other characters too xD

Zoey: I think... I was drawn to her potential more than her herself. In Rudolph, Zoey really is portrayed as your ‘generic love interest’ character, she’s cute and determined and doesn’t judge him for his nose... and that’s really all we’re given. And I just saw so much more untapped potential for that character, that I wanted to take her and make her into something more than just what the movie did.

Plus, the fact that my gf rps as Rudolph on her multi-muse was a key factor in that choice, too x3

Vanellope: She’s just so... got everything that makes me like a character. She’s utterly adorable; she’s so fun and sassy; she’s really brave; she has scenes in the movie that completely break my heart for her; she’s JUST... precious cutie, must be protected at all costs. I’ve had fun writing her on a couple of short-lived Proboards sites, so when I started up the multi-muse, it seemed a perfect time to add her to my muse roster.

Vixey: Like Angel, Vixey wasn’t a liked her as soon as I saw her. I’d watched Fox and the Hound many times before I even really considered her beyond her role in the film... in fact, fun story, I first picked her up on that Disney-themed Proboards site I mentioned above. My girlfriend had been playing Tod on there; and the site was a war environment, and she was planning to get him killed in one of the battles. Now there had been previous rpers who had played Vixey on that site, but all of them had since left or vanished... so I just thought, wouldn’t it be fun to pick her up so she can be UTTERLY TRAUMATISED by her mate’s death? Fox and the Hound has been a favourite of mine since I first started liking Disney movies, after all.

And it was just, as I was looking through her scenes to get the inspiration to write her, I realised how much there was to love about this character. She’s smart, kind, romantic, of course... but she also doesn’t let herself get pushed around. She was never afraid to stand up for herself when Tod snapped at her... and, I’ll be honest, I started to notice all the little hesitancies in her speech, too - the “Oh, um, gosh” and such like - and just found they made it such FUN to write her dialogue... and I’ve been attached to her ever since!

Scout: Oh my goodness, Scout... where do I even start with her? xD Like Vanellope, she’s adorable, she’s smart, she’s got herself a sharp mouth... and her life’s been such a struggle that, when I reread the novel, I just felt for her so much. The way Sean Stewart describes her, captures her personality, is just SO PERFECT, she’s so real to me, so believable... I wanted to do things with her, I wanted to do her the justice that the rest of the SW expanded universe, beyond that novel, never seems to give her. She deserved more spotlight than just that one novel, and a minor role in another, and I wanted to give that to her.

Also, I’d been low-key looking for a Star W.ars muse to take ever since I’d seen The Last J.edi, and Scout (who had just vaulted to the top of my favourite characters list for that fandom despite her lack of Force talent) was the perfect choice for that.

Babs: She’s just my favourite pony. I’m not sure what, exactly... I guess in some respects, the tough but also cute kind of characters appeal to me? After we saw her in One Bad Apple, I just found her a really interesting character. There was so much we were given about her that the episode didn’t have time to expand on, and I’m curious to see that built on and developed. Like Vanellope, I played her on a couple of short-lived Proboards sites and had fun with her... and when I was thinking of other characters to add to this blog, I just came again upon some of the gif icons I’d made of her for that, which just made me want to write for her all over again.

Lauren: What can I say..? She’s the main character of an original story I’ve been trying to write for years; I’m indulging myself by playing her here xD Though, fun fact? She was originally scheduled to simply be a minor antagonist in that story’s initial conception. Then, as I started delving into her backstory - to find the reason why she was how she was - she just became more and more interesting to me than the girl who had been originally created as the main character. Slowly Lauren just kind of... pushed her out to gain the top spot in my affections for herself.

Danielle: I’m not gonna deny it, Annette’s always been my favourite of the cocker sisters... but that said, they’re all adorable, and I think I started to warm up to them about the same time I did with Angel. The personality, all the little ways the animators showed their distinctness... Annette stood out to me the most, as the smart one of the bunch, and even before I started rping at all I’d developed a whole detailed personality for her. Dani was always second for me, while Collette kind of lagged, just because I couldn’t relate to her in the same way as I could the other two.

I don’t really have much to offer for the why they particularly drew me in. Just... they’re totally adorable, what other explanation can I give? xD

10. which muse is the most fun to write for?

Ooh... I think that’s gotta be Vanellope too, truthfully - though each of the newest additions to the blog aren’t far behind her. Babs and Dani and Scout are all really fun to play around with, too :D

25. which muse do people send the most asks for?

Mabel and Vanellope, so far on this blog! Though... I can’t say I’m really surprised. Their fandoms do both seem to be active for the long run, especially here on tumblr, so it does make sense that they’re the most popular ^^

#amanymcsnmore #ooc #ask #meme response #long post #This... got a lot longer than I expected it to!#but it was also fun; thanks so much for sending it :D

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aiweirdness · 8 years ago

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Neural networks + Kittens = !!!

It was inevitable that the neural network, having named all kinds of internet datasets, should turn its talents to naming cats.

And what an occasion! The AFK Cat Rescue of Huntsville, Alabama contacted me because they had an exceptionally adorable bunch of kittens (plus one magnificent Persian) who need names and homes. June is kitten season here in the USA, so shelters are inundated with new kittens right now, and AFK takes the very high-risk cases, kittens who are too small to survive in regular shelters, or who are sick or injured, or have neurological disorders.

To be sure, the AFK Cat Rescue’s kitten-naming game is strong. They’ve got a black and orange kitten pair named Shere Khan and Bagheera, and they have another pair of cats named Grindylow and Pooka. With their full list of the several hundred cat names they’ve used over the years, plus the list of several thousand cats registered in Toronto (thanks to Tumblr user @maverick-ornithography), I had comfortably enough to train a neural network with.

I fired up my trusty karpathy-char-rnn neural network framework, and sat down to watch it learn.

Colzyy Mumhan Tygrar Juolb Ggonooo Byn Malgacor Gatbewl Mrror Rglslwelph Aarla Teaw Mos Tilypsronvynkor

“Very good,” I said. “Coming right along. Nice work on Aarla, maybe not try so hard on Teaw Mos Tilypsronvynkor.” I said all this to myself, of course, because the neural network operates entirely without my input once training starts. I can shout “No, you fool!” at it all day if I like and it ignores me perfectly.

Soon, however, I began to notice that quite a few of these cats had last names, and sounded actually rather grand.

Jarlag Argon Mankith Cuttim Aeggerooy Jozga Andend of Karlans Irtenda of Tiyra Sittrobt Torg? Arten Sword Lord Magian Welu-the Manwys Parihen the Thawk Haldir of the Saleword Barga Mr. Yetheract Belfine Bracken Belis Goodbrook Bentone Ballywood Grim Wyyne Gorihand Molgo

I had, as it turned out, accidentally trained the neural network on another dataset, a list of character names from Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, C. S. Lewis, Robert E Howard, and Terry Pratchett (sent in by reader Thomas Pugh).

AFK Cat Rescue, however, decided to roll with it. First neural network kitten: Parihen the Thawk!

Parihen the Thawk: This guy was surrendered to an animal shelter after he hitched a ride in the engine of a car. He had a dislocated leg but it's healing well with rest. He's shy, tiny and misses his bff who is in the hospital right now for her much worse injuries. He's got a lot of energy and loves to show off his belly.

I finally got the neural network training on the proper dataset, but I was worried when, by the time I went to bed it was producing literally the following names over and over:

Hurter Hurler Hunty Hurty Hunter Hurker

Some who are not so fond of cats may argue that these are in fact the best cat names. Fortunately for the AFK Cat Rescue, the names did eventually become more suitable. I present to you:

Jexley Pickle - This little girl is a hoot and a half. She's full of energy, bounce and comedy. She loves to nurse on ear lobes and finger tips. She's about 6 weeks old and was found after being chased up a tree by a dog.

Mag Jeggles - When you touch him he rattles from head to tail with purrs. He's so sweet. He was simply too young to be made available for adoption, and was rescued from a shelter that could not care for him.

Snox Boops - He was in a room with a lot of kittens that were too small to place up for adoption and even much smaller than the others in the room. When you pick him up he capsizes in your hands and starts purring. He's got a huge voice and a huge demand for love and attention.

Mumcake - She was brought into a shelter as a stray, but she was too young for adoption and if she wasn't pulled by rescue she would have been subject for euthanasia. She's adorable, loving, outgoing and shoots sunshine right out of her butt. (Sunshine ejection not shown; you have AFK’s word for it.)

Tilly Mapper - This little girl also took a ride in a car engine and her rear leg was nearly completely severed as a result. She's been stitched up but she's had an infection set in. She is only around 8 weeks old and she's in very poor body condition from having tried to make it on the streets. We hospitalized her yesterday and she's doing much better. We hope to have her back to foster home by Friday.

Big Wiggy Bool - He is a doll-faced persian that was surrendered to a kill shelter when his family could not take him on their cross country move. He's five years old and has obviously been doted on. He's super affectionate, very easy going and a talker! He's been recently groomed and trimmed up by Robyn Warner with Goin to the Dogs and Cats Mobile Grooming Service. And he loves belly rubs. Rubbing that fluffy, soft belly is an experience so wonderful it can only be discussed in breathless whispers.

Photos of the above cats by volunteer Amy Harrell.

And, since it IS kitten season, the neural network is happy to provide a list of cat names (some more usable than others), for use in naming cats, computer servers, firstborn, etc.

Jeckle Elbent Jenderina Roober Snorp Snox Boops Cylon Sookabear Frere Sonney Mrow Jexley Pickle Marper Foppin Toby Booch Snowpie Big Wiggy Bool Macha Boo Mr Whinkles Timble Macfallon Machaka Licky Cat Mr Bincheh Macnaw Maxy Fay Tim Hike Mr Gruffles Grips Liony Oli Lingo Lingley Conkie Lasley Goo Mr Took Linky Marvish Mag Jeggles Corko Maggin Mcguntton Mara Tatters Mr Tiggie Mr. Skuffles Mr. Hinkles Mush Jam Tilly-Mapper Mr. Jubble Mumcake Muppin Mr O

Perhaps backup choices:

Cutzerinda Galorub Pans Sofa Shotkie Ouiho Pope Kogon Ro Larky Rorka Bot leperaONtiea Malool Scagkaleoru Clagmlh Mice iiia Ha LuoleryPlogalasnfalon Hubla Ssrerosti Negflun Mery Booii Balllucidoux

Definitely backup choices:

Trickles Poot Moosh Papper Clotter Moan Toot Cloobie Slarkbir Jenky Pissy Schitty Retchion Pappy Dopia Pilly Scabbys Pish Mesladewench Souffungy Mr Tinkles

#neural networks #cats #kittens #cat names #kitten names #char-rnn

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big12pickparty · 5 years ago

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Week 8 Big 12 Picks: It’s AG-STRAVAGANZA week!

Photo cred: Pistols Firing.

Glad to be writing about football again. The Big 10 is back this weekend, as is the Mountain West. The Big 12 has five games on its slate. It’s almost like we have a normal weekend of football in front of us!

A few interesting matchups outside the Big 12: Nebraska at No. 5 Ohio State, No. 23 NC State at No. 14 North Carolina are both in the morning slot. No. 18 Michigan at No. 21 Minnesota, No. 9 Cincinnati at No. 16 SMU are the best non-Big 12 games in the evening, though if you haven’t seen Zach Wilson play yet, staying up for No. 12 BYU vs. Texas State might be worth your while. Wilson is a compelling watch even with the inferior competition.

I’m also curious, in the extremely unlikely event that Nebraska opens its season by beating Ohio State--the Buckeyes are 26-point favorites--how high the Huskers climb. The hype would be unbearable. NU hasn’t beaten Ohio State since first joining the Big 10 in 2011, losing five straight since.

Last week: 1-0 (1.000)

Overall: 12-10 (.545)

Kansas 0, No. 20 Kansas State 45. K-State recently lost Skylar Thompson for the year to injury, which severely dampens the Wildcats’ hopes of challenging for the conference crown. KU, on the other hand, lost Pooka Williams, which severely dampens their hopes of scoring points in this game or any other.

Oklahoma 34, TCU 30. OU is about as likely to lose this game - it would be their third in a row - as a pig would be to voluntarily attend a barbecue. The Frogs are just 1-8 against the Sooners since joining the Big 12. That lone victory came in 2014--not, as I recall, Bob Stoops’s best year. Nevertheless, OU is only a 6.5-point favorite, and I don’t think the Sooners cover here.

No. 17 Iowa State 21, No. 6 Oklahoma State 31. I saw someone on Twitter suggest that these two schools need their own trophy for this game. I think it was an ISU fan. I like the idea, but what would the trophy be, and what would the game be called? I think the trophy should be a tractor. (Call the game the AG-STRAVAGANZA!) Mike Gundy played it coy with the media this week, saying that both Shane Illingworth and Spencer Sanders could both see meaningful playing time this week. A good move on his part. They’re such different quarterbacks. Despite the win over OU, I’m not entirely sold on Iowa State. Brock Purdy has played a lot of hero-ball, at least when I’ve been watching, and that will not fly with this OSU secondary. Vegas is expressing very little confidence in the Pokes this weekend (-3), and I can see why. OSU has lost quite a few of these type games over the past four years. Plus, this series has developed the feel of an actual rivalry game in that time: since 2015 not a single game between these two has been decided by more than a touchdown. ISU only won one of those games, however. The Pokes own a 32-19-3 edge all-time. I see them making this the first non-one-score affair between these two Land Grant schools in awhile. Also, don’t miss this opportunity to look back on Tylan Wallace on the same play destroying not one, not two, not three, but four (four!) different Iowa State defenders last year. May all four of them rest in peace.

Baylor 38, Texas 37. I don’t like picking Baylor. Picking Baylor to win makes me grind my teeth. Makes me want to throw up on the nearest Southern Baptist I can find. Worse, picking these particular Baptists to score an upset makes me want to roll around on the ground and eat grass Nebuchadnezzar-style. But I’ll take Baylor in the upset this week. I guess I’ll book a trip to the dentist. In any case, I think Tom Herman is either oblivious or he just says things that make him sound that way when he’s nervous. Earlier this week he said that “I think the general pulse of the team is that we're in as good a place as we've ever been right now as a team”. When you consider he said this less than a week after losing to OU. When you consider his team is 2-2, and should be 1-3. All I can say is that these are the words of a man who is either scared, or an idiot, or both. Anyway: Baylor and UT have met every year since 1923, and a total of 109 times. Texas owns a 78-27-4 advantage. The Horns lost 24-10 last year in Waco. This is the kind of game that, if Texas loses it, may very well get Herman a pink slip. Baylor hasn’t played since the third of this month. I haven’t researched it much, but here’s my position on the Eyes of Texas. If the band that has to play the fucking song doesn’t want to play it, because they think it’s racist, and if the players who play for the team that the fans cheer for don’t want to hear it, because they, the players, think it’s racist, then why on earth would you play the fucking song?

West Virginia 26, Texas Tech 21. Tech showed no signs of life in their recent 31-15 loss to Iowa State. WVU has a pretty good defense. Should be good enough in Lubbock, too, I think.

...

PS: I spent most of the past week working on finishing a long piece about Belmont University’s ties to private prisons and the most successful human trafficker in American history. It went live yesterday, and if you want to read it, you can here.

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rosesnvines · 7 years ago

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Guardians of the Universe

For the prompt Loneliness, I guess (considering Rapunzel is lonely after losing everything and everyone she once knew)? But yeah, a Voltron AU. They just work too well. XD

After the wild ride Eugene took them on, everyone was glad to be out of the lion.

“We . . . are never . . . doing that . . . again,” muttered Cassandra as she fell over, panting.

“We’ll try not to,” quipped Jack Frost as he shot her a lopsided grin before glancing at everyone else. Eugene was walking like he was drunk, Varian had to sit down he was that dizzy, North was rubbing his head, and Sandy was grinning from ear to ear, looking like he was ready to do it again.

“Are you sure about that, Frost? I thought you always liked to have fun. That’s why you got kicked out of the garrison!” blurted Eugene. He became very quiet when North shot him a glare.

“Now is not time to be talking about that. Now is time to be finding out what is going on,” stated North firmly as he pointed at the castle doors they were standing in front of. The lion behind them began to move. Eugene and Varian screamed while the others watched curiously as the lion let out a roar. The doors opened. “Ah, thank you,” said North before leading the way into the castle. Eugene and Varian grinned sheepishly at the lion. Jack shook his head and chuckled as he followed Sandy, Cassandra, and North in, they were going to have to learn how to interpret the situation properly if they were ever going to get anywhere. When the last two of their group joined them in the foyer, a light turned on and a robotic voice spoke.

“Scanning.”

“Uh, hello? Can you tell us why we are here?” asked North. No answer came but a series of lights turning on, leading them down the hall.

“Uh, I guess we need to follow the lights,” stated Jack with a shrug. North nodded and led the way. The group followed the lights in silence for several minutes before entering a room.

“OK, why did it lead us here? It’s empty,” stated Eugene as the group piled in. A whirring sound startled them as a console of some kind shot from the middle of the floor.

“Hmm . . . perhaps this alien computer?” asked North hopefully. Sandy shrugged.

“Well, only one way to find out,” remarked Varian as he rolled up his sleeves. He glanced at them. “What?”

“You’re more likely to blow this whole place to smithereens if you touch that,” stated Eugene. Varian grinned sheepishly. Another whirring sound caught their attention and they glanced around the room for the source of it. Not far from where they stood, two pods rose from the ground. One pod looked like it was opening, revealing a golden-haired girl. She let out a gasp as she opened her emerald eyes. Jack could only stare in shock, she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“Father!” she called out as she fell towards the floor. Eugene, being the closest, caught her. She glanced up at him. “Wh-who are you? Where am I?”

Eugene cleared his throat. “I know not who you are or how we came to be here, but I just wanted to say . . . hey there gorgeous, I’m Eugene, and you’re in my arms,” he said with his most suave look. Jack groaned and rolled his eyes.

“What is with your nose?” she asked.

“What? It’s perfectly fine! Why does everyone have a problem with my nose?” muttered Eugene. He let out a yelp as she grabbed his ear, turned him around, and knelt him down with his arm behind his back.

“What are you doing here? Where is King Frederic?” she asked rapidly.

“We don’t know anything, we just got here!” blurted Eugene.

“Wait, how long have I been out?” she asked, finally letting go of him and walked over to the console.

“Oh, so that’s how it works,” stated Varian as he intently watched her pushing buttons. The other pod opened at that moment, to reveal a large rabbit. He clapped his eyes on Eugene and let out a yell, bounding out of the pod. Eugene yelped and dashed to the side, the rabbit missing him by inches.

“She has a kangaroo as her guard or something?” asked Jack, watching the whole scene with amusement.

“I am no kangaroo, I am E. Aster Bunnymund, a pooka and best friend of King Frederic. We have served the Coronans for thousands of years,” stated the rabbit.

The girl let out a gasp and took a step back from the console. “And we’ve been asleep for ten thousand years!”

“Hey, looking pretty good,” quipped Eugene.

“Princess?” asked Bunnymund. She turned to him with tears in her eyes.

“And, and Corona is . . . gone,” she muttered, the tears falling from her eyes. Bunnymund pulled her into a hug. “We may be the last Coronans alive.” A squeak came from the pod where the princess had been. She and Bunnymund went and checked it out. “Oh, we might not be the last! Hello there, little fellow,” she said, picking up a bright green lizard. “I’m going to name you Pascal.”

North cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention. “I hate to interrupt this moment, but, we need some answers, if you don’t mind. We came here thanks to one of your lions, I believe.”

“You found a lion?” asked the princess incredulously. The group nodded. “My father built them, he, he sent them away to keep them from falling into the hands of Pitch Black.”

“Pitch Black?” asked North. The princess nodded. “I heard of him!”

“What? He’s, he’s still alive?” she asked incredulously.

“From what I gather, yes,” replied North.

“Then we can’t stand around, we have to find the rest of the lions,” she said.

Jack cleared his throat. “Um, before we do that, may we introduce ourselves?” She blinked before nodding slowly. “So, um, yeah, you’ve already met Eugene. I’m Jack, this is Cassandra, Varian, Sandy, and North.”

“Pleasure to meet you all. I’m Princess Rapunzel of Corona and this is my trusty adviser and dear friend, Bunny. And, well, this is Pascal.”

“Pleasure to meet you, princess. Now, let’s see what we need to do to take care of this Pitch Black,” quipped Jack.

Rapunzel smiled at him. “Yes, let’s. And the way to do that is by forming Voltron.”

#jackunzel #jackunzelmonth #jackunzelmonth17 #voltron au #tangled series #Rise of the Guardians #voltron

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tyrwinthyr · 6 years ago

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Episode 1, part 4

The area set aside for Sheila to create a portal was a concrete block of a building. It wasn’t until they walked the distance that she understood just how large the inside of this warehouse was. It wasn’t Fae magic that created the space, just some rather ingenious engineering. It took up the entire city block, but from the outside looked like it was broken down into five different lots. The satyr wondered at the purpose of various structures, but Zbrozek was in no mood to instruct her.

“She’s a pain, right?” she probed as he dug the key out of his pocket, thinking of a certain petit apsara.

“What?” he snapped without looking at her.

“Nothing, sir,” she mumbled back. It was more than just his tone that quieted her, it was the aura of cold coming from the door he was unlocking. The gelid feeling in her fingers and nose could only mean one thing – Iron. Worse, blessed Iron.

The lieutenant leaned into the door with a grunt, pushing hard to expose the space beyond. Fluorescent lights flickered to life inside, showing the room mostly empty. On the far side, perhaps sixty feet from the door, a table held painting supplies. Zbrozek crossed to the table, motioning for her to follow.

“Your father wasn’t very forthcoming with what should be in the paint,” he said, lifting one of the cans to show to her. Sheila stood, unmoving, on the other side of the doorway, “The portal isn’t going to paint itself,” he declared impatiently. When she still didn’t move, he dropped the can before walking back to her.

Taking a step back, Sheila shook her head; she kept her gaze down.

“This is why you’re here, remember?” he leaned casually against the door, causing her to wince sympathetically. She knew it wouldn’t bother him, but just the thought of touching was bad enough. When she still didn’t move, he ordered flatly, “Get inside and start painting.”

“No,” she said under her breath, her body starting to shake. One hoof moved forward, forced by the oath.

“What?”

“No, sir,” she corrected herself. She took another step back, pain starting in her left arm, her fingers going numb.

“We don’t have time for acts of rebellion, Sheila,” he growled, grabbing at her arm.

“I’m not going past that!” Sheila pushed at his hand, “How about I set the floor on fire, then demand you walk past it? That’s what you’re asking me.” Her hoof clacked on the concrete as she stomped it at him, her cheeks flushed with anger and pain mixed.

Zbrozek stopped trying to grab her to look back at the door, then back to her, curious.

“The door?” he asked, obviously confused. When she gave him one quick nod, he sighed. “Shit, I’m sorry. I thought you just couldn’t touch it, like an allergy. I didn’t even think liminals had an issue with it at all.” A bitter shake of his head, and he was looking back at the door again, “All the shit I just don’t know…”

The satyr could count off a hundred different scenarios where human ignorance had threatened a Fae’s existence, but she kept her mouth shut. To her mind, it was better that he didn’t know all the other secrets they kept from the vast population of ‘normal people.’

“The door was put up to keep things from coming in through your portal,” the lieutenant lamely explained. “But if I can’t even get you through it, it’ll be pretty unusable.” He seemed to be talking to himself, so Sheila stayed quiet.

“Well… fuck,” Zbrozek motioned for her to follow him again, walking back towards the other buildings. “I guess we’re driving to Denver.”

The drive wasn’t as unpleasant as Sheila had assumed it would be. Fei, having added leggings under her dress to ward off the chill, put on her headphones immediately. Her fingers rarely stopped tapping the Alienware on her lap. Whipple, all the way in the way back of the SUV, had muttered something about being, “All back of the bus,” before spending his time playing a hand-held device. With Alois digging through online records on his laptop for references of the baobhan, it left only the satyr and the lieutenant without their noses pointed at a screen.

Sheila spent her time staring out the window, hugging her knees to her chest. She was trying to find some warmth after dealing with the door.

“We are ten minutes from the hotel,” Zbrozek broke the silence once they entered Denver, turning down the music. He had chosen light jazz for the trip, which the satyr didn’t mind at all. “Dr. Uhl, give us a little background on the sith, please.”

“Darth Bob,” Whip said with hushed reverence.

“The sith, which is usually pronounced ‘shee,’ is a term used for evil fae,” Alois coached, turning in his seat to look back at the rest of the team. “As I’m sure you know, there is a lot of ambiguous lore to sort through. If we enunciate some of the words as they are written, it allows for disambiguation. We still pronounce ‘sid he’ as ‘shee,’ for instance, but most people are aware of the negative connotations of the word ‘sith.’

“We only have ten minutes, Doctor,” Zbrozek butted in, still watching the road.

“Okay, so ‘sith’ is bad, ‘sidhe’ is good?” Sheila asked, never too clear herself on the Fae from the English isles. Alois spread his hand, waggling it.

“Sort of. There are certainly bad sidhe, while sith are invariably malcontents. It is much like the way you use ‘Toothy Day’ for your leadership...”

“Not my leadership,” Fei hissed, putting her headphones to the side.

“My apologies… but no one argues that they are the strongest of the Fae, yes?” Alois waited a moment to see if there was any argument before continuing. “So, yes, we have chosen to pronounce things incorrectly both to help our own minds deal with them, but also to prevent the Naming powers from knowing we speak of them.”

“Shall we just call them vampires then?” Zbrozek queried while checking his GPS.

“That’s way too loose a term for such a complex group of…” The lieutenant turned a frown on the doctor, stopping his lecturing in its tracks. “The baobhan sith are vampiric in nature, but we cannot make the mistake of treating them like classic vampires. As far as I can tell, they are not weakened by garlic, are able to function during the day, and can cross running water.”

“So, no crosses and all that crap either?” the lieutenant asked, maneuvering to their exit off the highway.

“Well, actually,” Alois started, until Fei leaned forward abruptly to change the channel on the radio.

“Doesn’t this thing get any good music?” she asked, flicking from one station to the next. When she found something she liked, she sat back again. “There we go, something more energetic.”

Zbrozek demonstrated what he thought of her choice by turning the radio off.

“You were saying, doctor?” he asked, glancing sidelong at Alois.

Alois held his ribcage, confused. After a furtive glance back at Fei, he said, “No, you’re right. We can toss most of that out the window.”

“So, what do we have?” the lieutenant was obviously exasperated, his ring finger tapping repeatedly on the steering wheel.

“A common thread,” Fei answered. “All of the victims lurked on the same ‘hook up’ site, ‘Glamr.’” She paused for effect, then read the tagline for the app: “Have a fairy tale romance, right in your own neighborhood.” After making a retching noise, she continued, “There’s an app as well… what Fae would be stupid enough to put themselves on an app that tracks their location?”

Sheila turned her gaze out the window to hide her sudden blush.

“It isn’t the Fae that are being killed,” Zbrozek began.

“Not that we’re investigating, anyway,” Fei cut in.

“Stop it,” the lieutenant said, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror.

“Stop what, caring about my people?” the apsara glared at him, mouth a thin, angry line.

“Mom and dad are arguing again, Red,” Whip sobbed from the back, trying to hug Sheila from behind. “Make them stop!” She snickered at his theatrics, patting his hand in false comfort. Gods, he was soft.

“Shall we assume, then,” the doctor jumped in, “That in this case the baobhan is hunting using the app, targeting single males?”

Another tense moment between the lieutenant and Fei passed, before she dropped her eyes to her laptop.

“Yeah. Swims, to be exact.”

“I like to swim,” Whip said, putting his chin on the back of Sheila’s seat so he could comment. “Not a lot of good places to swim without chlorine in Colorado, though.”

“Single white hetero males,” Fei corrected him with a sigh.

“Chlorine is bad for the fur,” the pooka confided in the satyr, giving her a very serious nod.

“Collaborate with Brice back at HQ to pull the information you need,” the lieutenant ordered, reminding Sheila of her missed opportunity to sneak a whiff of the technician. The two ‘non-essential’ humans had been left behind for their own safety, but she was pretty sure it had more to do with Zbrozek not being able to handle the crew he had already. They were supposed to meet another Fae in Denver. The circus was going three rings big, and the ringmaster was getting balder by the minute.

The administration building for the Denver police was a rather daunting edifice made of concrete and glass. No expense had been spared in creating the atmosphere that if you were here, and you didn’t belong, you’d royally messed up. To Sheila, it looked like building blocks stacked on top of each other by a creatively stunted ten-year-old.

Zbrozek tapped his ring finger on the window after closing the Fae in the car. Whipple wriggled his way to the front seat to hit the button, lowering all the windows a crack.

“The greenhouse effect can kill a pet! Crack your windows!”

“You aren’t pets,” exasperated, the lieutenant rapped loudly on the roof. “Just stay in the car.” As he strode away, snippets of his grumbling could be heard with tidbits like ‘herd of cats’ and ‘keeping the pooka in the trunk.’

“He wouldn’t really do that,” Whip asked, turning to look back at Sheila, “Right?”

“I have literally no clue what he’d do,” she replied, unbuckling her seat belt so she could stretch. “You’ve worked with him for a while, haven’t you? In the BNC?”

His teeth chattered some as he considered her question, body oscillating in his seat. “With him… with him… well, alongside him on occasion. Until this assignment, he was just another front-line operative like me.” Turned as he was to play with the radio he missed Fei closing her laptop to listen.

“So, what you’re saying is,” her eyes narrowed, lifting her feet up to kneel on the seat, “That he wasn’t ‘in charge’ before?”

“Yep,” Whipple continued pressing buttons, only allowing the briefest of notes to be played on any one station. “I guess since I was indentured we weren’t exactly the ‘same,’ I guess…” He turned back to look at the apsara, head at a slight angle, his full black eyes and sharp teeth giving him an aura of menace. “But we bled the same color, though. He might be struggling right now, and I might act up, but I’ve got his back. Feel me?”

Fei rested back on her heels, returning his gaze for a long moment before looking out the window. She nodded a couple times, pulling on her headphones.

The pooka flashed Sheila a full grin of sharpened teeth, eyebrows waggling, “Want to pet me some more?”

“I didn’t pet you in the first place.” It was hard to accomplish the appropriate offended look when his tail was thrashing like that.

“Fuck me,” Fei dropped her headphones in her lap, hands going to her chest defensively.

“Ha!” Whip burst out, “Nymph!”

“Fuck off,” she retorted, glaring at him while pointing out the window. As he wriggled his way into a closer seat, Sheila watched the men she was indicating; her heart began to race.

To the human world, the four men were just three police officers escorting a sharply dressed man carrying a briefcase. To the Folk in the car, the clues were obvious as the buildings that loomed over them. The metallic shields on their left breasts appeared normal, unless one noted the black symbol at the center. The image, centered inside of a gold star, was reflected on the case as well, but larger. The Fae always noted that symbol.

“Iron Cross,” Whip exhaled the name. “We are so screwed.”

It wasn’t until the men had entered the building through the same door Zbrozek and Alois used that the three finally breathed again. A cold chill ran down Sheila’s back, mimicked in the nearby pooka’s fur. Reaching a hand up, she began smoothing it out with slow strokes.

“I have to believe,” she said, watching Fei’s face, “That they are here because of the murders, not for us.”

“Are you really that naïve?” the girl gave her usual sneer. “I knew trust fund babies were sheltered, but surely you had wifi in your bunker?”

“Who pissed in your cheerios?” Whipple came to rest between the two front seats, looking back at them. “I agree with Red. We’re on the same side of the law, this time.”

The apsara slumped backwards into the seat, kicking her feet out.

“There has never been an interaction between any Fae and the Iron Cross that didn’t end in bloodshed. If they kill you, they don’t even have to pretend it was an accident. You were guilty because you’re not human. Surely, even you two idiots can understand that?”

Sheila unclenched her fists, not even realizing she’d clenched them, then rubbed her fingers into the divots her nails created.

“Your attitude is what will get us murdered,” she muttered, smoothing Whip’s fur again.

A knock on the window behind Fei turned whatever retort she had planned into a scream. Her body impacted against the satyr’s side as she launched herself away from the car door, twisting her tiny body in mid-dive to face her attacker. Her hands came up, fists clenching around visible currents of air. Whipple’s quickness saved the day, pushing her hands to point at the back of the truck just before she unleashed her power.

Glass flew outward as the rear window shattered. The debris didn’t land immediately however, caught up in the miniature whirlwinds Fei had unleashed. After a few breath’s time, it all fell like hail on a car nearly a block from where it had started.

Outside the vehicle, a thin man rose, nonplussed by the near miss of the apsara’s gift. He was tall, much taller than the lieutenant, so had to bend down to gaze into the car. Gaunt would have described him, but Sheila felt somehow ‘hollow’ explained better. His irises looked like the yolk in over-easy eggs, his fingernails like broken potato chips.

His voice drifted in through the crack in the window, bringing with it the scent of mold.

“Bad time?”

Mortimer, the ghoulish man who’d turned Fei into an air cannon, had claimed the front passenger seat, and was staring out the window blankly. He’d been sent to the SUV by Zbrozek, with instructions to introduce himself.

After giving the pooka a rather scathing look for opening the door for the ghoul, both girls sat quiet. Fei remained next to Sheila in the middle of the back seat, staring at the side of the new man’s face. The satyr was quietly glad for the company. She found the citrus scent under the smell of lilies on the apsara’s skin distracted her from the ‘graveyard’ odor of their new colleague.

“Problem?”

Mortimer’s voice cracked in the middle of the word, but still managed to startle all three Fae.

“I, for one, was wondering if you are a slow zombie, like the classic Romero ones, or if you can run like the current trend in wildcat zombies?” Whip leaned on the driver-side door, eyes wide with wonder, rather than the dread the girls shared.

“I don’t run,” came the raspy reply, “Death catches us all.”

“Seriously?” Fei spurted, kicking the back of the pooka’s seat. She suddenly seemed to find even Sheila’s nearness upsetting, throwing herself back to her own side of the car. “So many Folk in the world, and I’m teamed up with the comedy relief.”

“Red isn’t particularly funny,” quipped Whip, giving his usual sharp-toothed grin.

“That’s strike three, fuzzbutt. Call me Red one more time, and you’ll get to see firsthand just how unfunny I truly am.” While the pooka snickered at her, Sheila leaned forward, elbows on thighs. “So, what are you? Like… Fae-wise?”

He took his gaze off the front window and turned it on her, his neck popping loudly in the car as he did so.

“Sluagh.” As soon as he uttered the word, the other three in the car curled the fingers of their right hand, thumbs sticking out between middle and index fingers. Almost in sync they shook this sign in the air, on the third shake releasing their hands like tossing away something sticky.

Before getting involved with the BNC, Sheila had little contact with Celtic Fae, so her understanding of who they were was limited to common knowledge. She did know the sluagh were dead creatures that would steal your soul if you let them. They’d been frontline terrors during the Crusades. The sight of them flying into battle in a flock of blackbirds had sent their mortal opponents fleeing in terror.

The corners of Mortimer’s mouth curled upwards, his own right hand lifting to expose a thin leather band tied tightly around his wrist. On top, bottom, and both sides a small metal bead could be seen.

“Geas binding,” he explained.

Even though they all scowled in disgust at the extreme measures, they also relaxed. The binding would prevent him from using his abilities, and the Geas wouldn’t allow him to remove the band himself, or to cause others to do it. Breaking the power in the band would cause permanent loss of powers or even death.

“I can’t imagine you’d be very useful, then.” Fei spent a moment adjusting the hem of her dress until it rested just-so. “What good is a powerless dead guy?”

There was no response from the corpse in question, who resumed looking out the front window.

“Speaking of powers, can I just say ‘woah!’ to you?” Whipple’s eyes lit up with admiration. “That was some neat trick! All I can do is transform into something most people think is a ferret. You though… woosh, boom!” His hands rose in mimicry of her own.

“Girl’s got to protect herself from the patriarchy somehow,” Fei replied, attempting to sound blasé. Opening her laptop, she tried to look uninterested, but Sheila saw the corners of her mouth rise.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Came a sudden roar from the parking lot outside. “I can’t even leave you alone for ten fucking minutes?”

After surveying the damage, as well as spending more than a few minutes complaining about the cost to fix the window, Zbrozek updated them on the situation.

“The detectives here did most of the work for us,” he began, ousting the pooka to the far back again. With Alois pushing himself into the seat next to Sheila, Fei grumbled something hateful before hopping into the back with Whip.

“I’m glad I spent so much time doing research then,” she complained. “I could have been updating my blogosphere…”

“You found information that they didn’t, which connected the links,” the lieutenant interjected.

“Of course, I did.”

“In any event, it looks like our killer made a mistake. The last victim, George Garbutt…”

“Heh, Gar Butt,” Whipple giggled, ducking himself double when Zbrozek glared his direction.

“The last victim snuck a picture of the girl he was with the night he died.” Holding up his phone, he showed the group a picture of a man surreptitiously taking a selfie. Behind him, with her head away, was an auburn-haired woman. Sheila instantly hated her, mostly because her hair was perfect.

“Great. We’re looking for a redhead.”

“Look closer, Fei,” the lieutenant held the phone out further, so the girl could see.

“Mirrors don’t lie,” Mortimer murmured from the front seat.

He had it right. Behind the woman, caught in the angle George had set, was her face in a mirror. As far as they could tell, it was a simple restaurant mirror, not silvered, but it did the trick. Without it, she was probably beautiful. Catching her in the reflection revealed her otherworldly beauty. There were depths to her eyes that demanded blissful staring, and the arch of her cheekbones begged for a lingering touch. Most humans would ignore that half-glimpse of the truth, considering it just a trick of the light. The Fae knew better.

“Right. Her name is April Cassidy, or ‘Summerlove87’ on Glamr. Apparently, all the victims had private conversations with her before they died. They are getting a warrant to pull those messages from the dating service, but we have enough proof to bring her in.”

“That’s enough evidence to bring in a human,” Sheila spoke up, sitting straighter in her seat. “I’m surprised they didn’t drag her in the moment her face was found.”

“Mrs. Cassidy is an executive for a company named ‘Allied Manufacturers Global,’ or AMG. As far as they know, April is out on maternity leave,” Zbrozek paused a moment to let that sink in. “They spoke to her assistant, who is quite positive that her boss is a human.”

“That explains a lot,” Alois broke in, leaning a bit to see the lieutenants face better. “I was wondering why there was a sudden rash of these attacks. Surely, we would have heard of men losing blood, particularly with all the media around Fae powers?”

“I was escorted out of a store when the total didn’t ‘seem right’ to the cashier,” Sheila shared. “The manager accused me of ‘glamouring’ the register.”

“Which, as we know, you cannot do,” Alois continued. “I must assume, given the information provided, that usually they feed discretely from their lovers. Few would investigate a hickey, for example.”

“Babies are starving beasts,” Mortimer whispered.

“Exactly.”

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