#she could have flied and she was... plucked out of the sky

[mla0]

I have way too many fic ideas... I was like "Oh I'll work on the next Ways to Go chapter. Oh I'll start the first chapter for the fic for my wings AU. Oh what if I wrote a MLA0 fic set during Princeton." and now I'm switching between all three. Head in hands.

SAMEEEEE MAN we're in hell together. to continue the big fic now, to do the like, 2-3 oneshots floating around in my brain, to continue the original writing that's mostly just for me and my partner..... DECISIONS HAVE NEVER BEEN MY STRONG SUIT!

[reallyhatethiswebsite]

I don't know if you're still taking prompt requests at the moment? But if so I had an idea floating around in my head.

Raphael is reading to Tav in that deep, soothing voice of his while she's lying in bed with the flu or something. She thinks he's being sweet (and in some way he is) but she finds out he's aroused by the very sight of her so weak and vulnerable before him and he can't help but indulge so a little smut ensues 🤭

Keep up the amazing work, I loved the eex pollen fic! 💕👻

I merged these together, hope you don't mind. Thank you Goof and Kat for helping me make this more coherent, and Kat for finding the translation of the rancid poetry ☺️ if you're interested you can read the full poem here

Read on AO3

-

Fiends were not kind, or selfless, or sweet. Perhaps a few might dare to skirt the lines, but her fiend, her Raphael (as much as he could be hers), was not one of them. So when he perched on her bed beside her like a doting devil-spawn gargoyle, promising to read to her as she lay stricken with a common seasonal ailment (that he, of course, was in no danger of catching), Tav was more than a little suspicious.

“Poetry,” he said when she groggily asked him what, exactly, he would be reading.

If nothing else, Tav thought, he could put her to sleep with his gaudy, childish rhymes. Not that she didn’t enjoy Raphael’s deep, soothing voice, but his literary endeavours left a lot to be desired. Still, the effort was appreciated. A nice surprise, even.

It was only when Raphael began to speak, plucking words from the pages of his secretive little book like pulling wings from flies, that she began to understand why he was doing it.

“My love,” he purred with all his usual swagger and sultry bravado twisting his next morbid sentences, “do you recall the object which we saw, that fair sweet summer morn, at a turn in the path of a foul carcass on a gravel strewn bed. Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman. Burning and dripping with poisons, displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way. Its belly, swollen with gases.”

Tav stared at him. Struck dumb by sickness and shock. He continued, focused, grave. Only a hint of amusement turned up his thin lips.

“The sun shone down upon that putrescence as if to roast it to a turn, and to give back a hundredfold to great Nature the elements she had combined, and the sky was watching that superb cadaver blossom like a flower. So frightful was the stench that you believed you’d faint away upon the grass.”

Disgusting. Compelling. Two words that described the poetry and the devil both, because as Tav listened, as she watched him talk, she saw the signs that answered her question. His expanding pupils, the glimpses of his fangs as he frequently licked his lips, the slight shifting of his legs, the flex of his wings and hypnotising sway of his tail…these things, she’d learned, were his displays of arousal. Her weakness, her vulnerability, excited him. She should have known.

What an awful creature he was. Yet it was more than the illness boiling Tav’s blood. Wringing the air from her lungs. A shame she was too weak to do much – not that it ever really dissuaded Raphael. It certainly wouldn’t now. Something slender, ropey, warm and firm slithered up her leg, underneath her flimsy nightdress. Wormed its way between her thighs. Kissed and caressed the sticky flesh. Dipped betwixt her mons to press itself against her tender sex, to roll and rub like a bitch in heat looking for attention. Teased her winking hole, let me in…

Tav inhaled sharply, her throat tight. Tongue thick and heavy. She’d wanted him to do this, use his tail this way, for some time. Of course he would choose this moment to indulge her fantasy. He grinned wolfishly when she spread her legs for it. For him. Worked her cunt until he could smear the first fresh musky slick of her interest around. Lather her clit to call it from its hood, come and play. Entered the snug cavern of her cunt to the symphony of her warbling whimpers – because gods his tail was thicker than his cock, oh the stretch was delicious and devastating and it just kept going – and his rancid words.

“The blow-flies were buzzing around that putrid belly, from which came forth black battalions of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid all along those living tatters. All this was descending and rising like a wave, or poured out with a crackling sound; one would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath, lived by multiplication.”

Perhaps it was the delirium of fever. The cloying heat beneath all the layers of her skin she couldn’t escape. The swelling of her brain as it pressed against the walls of her skull. Maybe it was none of these things. But the devil’s tail wriggling and writhing in her cunt, slender and serpentine and slippery and scalding, was the best sensation she’d ever experienced. It reached places, touched spots, nothing else – not even her own fingers – could. Its control, the nudging of its wide blunt tip probing deep into her sex, searching for the opening of her cervix, was making her gnash her teeth and buck her hips, feet flat on the bed. Her fingers like claws gripping the sheets. Nails shredding. The noises she was making were obscene but she couldn’t be quiet. Couldn’t be modest with her pleasure. It was the all-consuming kind. The kind that made people do stupid, awful, dangerous things just for a chance to feel. The kind that split nerves and yanked tendons and rattled teeth. The kind so good it hurt, so good she didn’t care about anything else except rubbing and fucking and touching and cumming.

The kind so good she could die.

She would never be the same.

Through it all, Raphael kept reading.

“And yet you will be like this corruption. Like this horrible infection. Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being. You, my angel and my passion!” He knew the text by heart. His dilated glittering yellow eyes, pupils so huge like twin eclipses, wouldn’t look away from her. Wouldn’t blink. She, sweat-slick and undulating like a mad thing. He, enraptured, his leaking cock straining against the fabric of his trousers. His voice, deep and raspy in the grip of terrible, demented lust. “Yes! Thus you will be queen of the graces. After the last sacraments, when you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers, to molder among the bones of the dead.”

“Raphael…!” Tav slurred. It was too much. He was killing her. His tail so long and alive and thriving in the hot and soft and spongy squeeze of her cunt. She dug her heels into the mattress and arched her back; to brace herself to accept him deeper or to make a feeble attempt to pull away, regain control, she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything except the agony and ecstasy of his play. The sick and succulent purr of his disturbing words. The things he said, his poetry so vile and so sweet, like the first sloughs of rotten flesh from a bloated corpse in the sun. She should have been horrified. Repulsed. She was, and she couldn’t get enough. He thrilled her in ways she didn’t understand. Ways that frightened her.

“Then, O my beauty!” Raphael, utterly impassioned, was reaching the crescendo of his piece and she, the crescendo of her rapture. The devil palmed and petted his erection, pressed a thumb hard into its damp head. Gripped its stiff shape through his clothes. He was going to make a mess. “Say to the worms who will devour you with kisses, that I have kept the form and the divine essence of my decomposed love!”

When Tav came, when Raphael finally released her from the torment of desperate want and need and desire by nudging the tip of his tail into the cradle of her womb – it hurt so good she bit her tongue her mouth tasted like blood she hated him she loved him she wanted to pull him apart – she screamed. Her climax, violent, unforgiving, shuddering, took it all. Her body responded to him, his cruel and feckless and greedy lust, by squirting her release over his tail. Over the sheets. A first for her. Powerful orgasmic contractions milked his tail for things it couldn’t give, but what it could do was squirm, leave her breathless and sobbing as it – he – drew out every scorching second of pleasure until she was a wet, babbling wreck.

“No more,” she begged. Wept. “Please…please, Raphael. No more. I can’t take it…”

“Oh, my little mouse,” crooned the devil, feasting on her with his hungry gaze. He’d come, she knew he’d come, by the familiar inflection in his voice. The flush on his cheeks. The dark wet patch between his thighs. Still, he fisted his cock. Not yet soft. Not yet satisfied. He let his tail slip from her twitching cunt slowly. Flicked her swollen clit as he went. Curled his devilish extra limb up to leer, to admire the shining coat of cum Tav had given it. Sleep, exhaustion, was taking her. Her eyelids were heavy. Closing. “My sweet little mouse…”

[broken-clover]

2- Stars

Technically this one was gonna be for a different fandom, but 80% of the way through I thought it didn't fit the theme well enough and relocated it. Despite it being a little more spur-of-the-moment, I'm still happy with how this one turned out!

Today's is a little fluffy date piece with Giovanna and Ramlethal. Please note that while I intend to make the usage of constellations as realistic as possible, with how hemispheres work and where different easy-to-see nebulae are located I ended up taking a bit of artistic liberties. A little ironic, since I've got a whole headcanon about Giovanna being autistic about space. Oh well...

-

“There. It’s riiiight…”

Ramlethal felt the hand around her wrist direct her finger westward until it was pointed at a cluster of spots.

“There. That’s the Carina Nebula. It’s one of the easier ones to see, so it’s a good spot to start with.”

If she squinted into the night sky, she could swear there was a tiny hint of red between the whitish dots. “That’s it up there? Wow…”

“Pretty view, huh? Told ya that Illyria’s got too many lights to see the really good stuff.”

Of course, Ram was half-sure that part of the reason she’d been invited to a scenic hilltop at night was as a dramatic romantic gesture, but Giovanna wasn’t wrong in that regard, either. She hadn’t been aware of the sheer amount of color that was visible in the night sky.

“So what’s in it?”

“‘What’s in it?’ Geez, Ram, what isn’t in it?” An elbow playfully nudged her in the side. “It’s got a whole bunch of open clusters, it’s got the most luminous star in the Milky Way, and it’s got these things called Wolf-Rayet stars in ‘em, so that probably speaks for itself why I like looking at it.”

Ram laughed, and Rei perked up, unsure if the mention of wolves involved her or not. She lowered her head again with a huff, and Giovanna scratched her between the ears. She ducked back under the legs of her telescope, delicately twisting the knobs and slightly moving the position. “I’m gonna scoot over a little, there’s another one that looks really good through the scope.”

While her girlfriend worked, Ram looked back up at the sky. She had already lost track of where she’d been directed to before, but any part of the sky was nice. After a few casual outings, she knew enough to spot a few patterns. The summer triangle, Aquila and Cygnus branched off from it, Sagittarius. She still wasn’t quite sure that they looked like swans and people and snakes and horse-men, but it was easy to get swept up in Giovanna’s excitement when she showed them all off.

“I know they’re big,” Ram said. “I know they only look so small because they’re so far away. But it still feels like I could pluck a few out with my fingers and hand them to you.”

“Heh! Well, then we’d have a biiiig problem, because now there’s a giant ball of plasma burning everything.”

“I’d do it anyway. If you asked me to.” She replied, only for her face to scrunch as she broke out into more laughter. “I’m sorry, that was very corny.”

“Very. But I like corny. Speaking of…”

Giovanna gestured for her to approach, still staring into the scope. The Valentine squeezed in close. “What are we looking at?”

“Here, put your eye up to the lens.” Gio took a step back, allowing the other to take her place. “Don’t jostle it too much. You see that big glowing spot? That’s the ring nebula.”

There was something round and bluish right off-center in the telescope’s view. “It’s shaped differently from the other one.”

“Yep! That one’s made of an old star that’s breaking down. It’s changing into a white dwarf and dumping old parts of itself all over while it does.”

“So…that one’s dying?”

“All of ‘em do, after enough millions of years,” she nodded. “But all the stuff they shed flies around space and ends up making new ones.”

Ram went quiet for a moment, thinking to herself. “You don’t think that’s sad?”

“Sad? Maybe a little.” Giovanna sat back on the hillside. “I think it’s cool. Every star’s made of pieces of old ones. Sometimes they make other stuff. Y’know, all the stuff on earth originally came from space. Plants and rocks and water ‘n all that. People too. We’ve all got little pieces of space in us.”

Ramlethal continued staring through the telescope. She wondered how far away the stars had to be. She wondered how bright it had to be in order to be seen from so far away.

“I wasn’t made the way humans were. Are there still pieces of space in me, too?”

“Probably.”

It wasn't a very convincing answer. She continued to look. Behind her, she could hear both Giovanna and Rei moving around.

“Hey. Ram. Look at me real quick.”

Reluctantly, she did, and as soon as she turned, there was something warm against her face. The suddenness made it difficult to process, and as soon as she tried, something else wet slobbered along her arm.

“Rei, down!” Giovanna stepped back from the kiss to lecture the dog. “I had a moment going! I was gonna- augh…” She put a hand over her face. I was gonna do a thing where I went ‘well here, you can have a little of mine,’ but now the whole thing just feels weird.”

It was a little weird, but Ram thought it was weird in a good way. “I like that you tried.”

“I just didn’t want this whole thing to end up bumming you out.”

She nodded. “I get it. But I’m having fun. I like spending time with you.”

The two of them sat down together, using Rei as a pillow and watching the stars as they continued to twinkle.

“Can I ask you a question, Giovanna?”

“Eh? Yeah, always. What’s up?”

“Why was the ring nebula corny? I’m still confused.”

The woman was silent for a moment, then snickered to herself. “It’s- y’know what? Let’s wait a couple years ‘n come back to it.”

“It’s going to take me that long to figure it out?”

“Nah, it’s just that with how much I paid, it’s gonna take me a while to save up.”

“...I still don’t get it…”

“Heh. Ask your sister.”

[aurumacadicus]

I’ve shown Tony suffering so just know he is not the only one <3

Steve leaves the Sanctuary and immediately rockets into the sky so he can’t hear if Tony calls for him to come back. He knows he’ll stay if he does. Knows he’ll grow to resent Tony, even if it’s his choice. (His ears strain to hear anything over the wind rushing through them, hoping to hear his name, a plea, even just simple birdsong. He pushes himself faster, so the wind whistles, and pretends the tears rolling down his cheeks are from that and not because he’s leaving behind the only person who’s loved him. Who’s desired him. Who sang love songs he made specifically for him. Who hid behind his friend in fear that Steve would be disgusted by him when he was told the truth about him.)

He goes back to his flock’s nesting grounds and brushes off everyone’s concerns. He lets them think he’s brooding over the fact that he’d been shot down by humans and then rescued by them, and he was still trying to figure out how he felt about that. Cleans out his nest. Rebuilds, with two bodies in mind. “Did you find a mate there?” Bucky asks cautiously, and Steve rips his nest apart again, so they don’t ask anymore, especially when he makes it for just his size again.

Tony doesn’t nest, Steve reminds himself, and feels stupid for not realizing. He sleeps in the little cabins that the Sanctuary has built for birds who couldn’t fly. He’d been put there, too, as he healed. He should have put together the clues. Tony had been there for years and hadn’t moved his nest up into the trees. Why would he, when he couldn’t get up to it without help? He couldn’t come up to the cliffs where Steve lives. There’s no way to traverse them. He’d have to nest in the flat land above them, and it wouldn’t be safe. But maybe Steve could bring him here, one day. Maybe he’d like to see that Steve is capable of building a solid nest. For reasons. Maybe.

Maybe.

Steve doesn’t realize he’s plucking until Natasha flies up one day, can’t temper the horror and shock from her normally impassive face. “What have you done?” she gasps, shaking hands reaching toward his wings and then pulling away again.

Steve looks. What has he done? Plucked himself bare in spots. He flaps his wings even though he can tell just by looking that they won’t hold up in flight. Trapped. He’s trapped. He looks around frantically for an escape, but he’s stuck there. Is this how Tony would have felt? Trapped until Steve came home to carry him away? He feels sick to his stomach, although he doesn’t remember the last time he ate.

“Steve,” Natasha whispers, voice trembling. “What can we do?”

Steve doesn’t realize he’s clawing his nest apart again until the question registers. He drops the sticks from numb fingers. What can they do? “I don’t know,” he whispers back, because none of them have wingspans big enough to help support his weight. He’s trapped. They’ll be migrating soon. He can’t ask them to stay. There won’t be enough food. They’ll freeze.

Steve can’t help the distraught screech that escapes him. He’ll starve. He’ll freeze. And Tony won’t know what happened to him. He promised he’d come back to visit once the hurt wore off, but he won’t be alive to, and he knows Tony will somehow blame himself.

He shouldn’t have left the Sanctuary. He should have stayed with Tony.

Steve grabs another handful of feathers and yanks them out with another bone-shaking screech that has Natasha diving away with a cry of her own.

[doctorslippery]

I would love to see a writer with the chutzpah to challenge the Phoenix backstory in a truly new light.

The St. Claremont fanboys claim the script is holy writ and should not be changed. But so much of the stuff the Chris wrote has been adjusted for the modern and for new storylines.

I want a story where Jean finds herself near the ruins of the D'Bari solar system. And flies there, and stares at all she and the Phoenix wrought after Mastermind screwed with them.

She reaches out and plucks Mastermind from wherever he is, whatever he is plotting, or whatever rest he has found, and throws him through time to have a ringside seat for what he caused. And then, makes him lives the last moments of D'Bari over and over and over.

And after a bit, the Phoenix feels something. Something just beyond the edge of her grasp. It's the Jean trapped within the Phoenix. Screaming at herself to stop.

And at that moment current Jean Phoenix realizes that there is something she can do. Not to change this. But to try to atone in a small way. Summoning all the power she has, all the Phoenix's fire from everywhere, everywhen to future her standing at the moment of D'Bari's death. The celestially aware and the psychically powerful all notice across the universe.

And at the moment of the death of D'Bari, the Phoenix pulls the entire solar system through time to the present where D'Bari and her people will continue their lives. To all the rest of the universe, it looks like they have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of their dead solar system.

Jean leaves a gigantic burst of power in the past to fool Dark Phoenix into believing she succeeded in her goal.

She leaves Mastermind astrally lost in space, far from home, with no idea how to get back to his body. [future story seeds]

And D'Bari's sun and civilization lives again.

She flies back to Earth, spent, worn out. And sleeps for three days.

When she wakes up, she feels something different. She's still the Phoenix, but she's diminished. Whereas she was capable for rending time and stars and entire solar systems, she's now just an Omega class psychic. Whereas she could fly unaided through the void, now simple atmospheric flight is it.

She looks up at the distant sky, at the stars, and beyond visual distance, a star shines and a people live. Risen. Like a Phoenix.

[rotten-pest]

Coiled spring of death; Or, 2nd molt.

It is a strange thing, to try to explain. Humans, all their ken (birds, rodents, hooved things, hounds, so on…) shed skin regularly. But that was a very different sort of thing, more like a tree losing a leaf. So small and inconsequential as to be unnoticeable. But for her kind? Shedding, or molting, as it were, was a long process. First the old skin must be separated from the flesh. One becomes inert, lethargic. For humans, such a process is called ‘de-gloving’, and is a bad thing. After the outer is separated from the inner, digestive fluids are flooded into the space but do not yet get to their work—but they do singe, tingle, a bit of a numbing sensation. First the new shell must be prepared. It is soft and flexible. One cannot put to words the immense relief, whence previously unknown, to this stage. But it is a short lived relief, for what comes after. For once complete one must break out of their old shell, pushing and bulging and squirming and throbbing and twisting and crawling, digestive fluids weakening the structure, lubricating the separation point, until one splits along their old back and is able to begin pulling themselves out. Then they are a soft thing. Teneral, or callow. Then they may grow into their new skin, swallowing air to expand the flesh while it still flexes And then, rest. While their new skin hardens, tans, until one is no longer soft-bodied-pale, near transluscent.

It is, in so many words, exhausting. For Pests, who are enormous compared to any other hard-shelled things, it is a very, very long process. And such the need for cooperation, then. One must be tended to, extensively, while they molt. Cleaned and tended to, helped if they get stuck. Nothing quite as terrifying as being sealed within one’s own flesh.

But it is not especially painful, perse. Even having once pulled off one of her own arms, it hurt, but it was a dull aching pain for a short while and then ceased. And then it grew back, a molt or two later.

So it is to say that this molt, as it were, is the worst agony? That it is past pronunciation, past full consideration, at certain points. Where her great and immense form, her perfect chitinous body? A hide untouchable, blades broke upon it? Now rendered by the rot of Aeonia? Her body, broken upon the wheel of fate, in a way, for it was the destiny of all things to die. The depths of a beast opened up by prey too large, her body is wrecked, and as the tears of the flesh emerge, they leave behind the tears of sorrow. Ants and flies pillage her corpse, a thousand tiny mouths. Worms writhe beneath the thin layers of her flesh. Tiny, toothless mouths burrowing through her flesh. It hurts, but it is no sharp pain. It is a long, dull agony. She cannot focus on the pain anymore, but there is nothing else to think of. So she is awash in pain. The gnawing. And then other things come for whats left. Decaying as though dead, turned to not much more than Dread and Ruin in the most nebulous of terms, as more dead among the rot. Like sand through her fingers, she grips onto her own certainty with strength to shatter bone. Desperation that could tear a star out of the night-sky or spit in the face of a Goddess. I am alive, alive, alive, and live for greater purpose. And what wretched agony blooms forth from her grip, like lightning licking her cortices. Fire, it feels like fire, or maybe being dipped into cold-beyond-cold, torn betwixt the two wildly.

And then, silence.

The absence of all things. Sight, touch, sound, taste. Hot, cold, light, dark. The very sense of where she is in space, the dimensions of her body. Unmade, unraveled. A single thread in the tapestry of life, plucked out. Time does not exist in this place, and for one who worships the vibrancy of life and curses where it has been limited by earthbound gods, who who drinks deep the well of fungal networks as they prize life from the dead, it is torture.

Somewhere, distantly, there is a reclamation of something. A fleeting thing, no more than a hair.

When she emerged from the Rot, it was with purpose. Go forth and find Our Goddess, sang the choir. Shrill desperation turned their voices sharp, like shards of broken glass upon which she cut her teeth and honed her mind upon that which she’d sought. Before her was a dilapidated land, flush and yet barren. The Rot starved, neglected. She was a chord in the epitaph. To seek. To bring back. In one way or another, she'd bring Her back.

Her reviled children, begging for the barest sliver of love. To put an end to the stagnancy of ever-abundance. Poison, the tool of her trade, was in her mind far less harmful than the Golden one’s holy decrement. An empire built on top of corpses. Achievement and pride brimming in absence of life.

A forest without saprophytes and armillaria—the soft and dry rots—was a forest bound to overcrowd, where the eldest trees would rule over for time immemorial and smother their babes in their cribs, if they ever flowered at all. That was the degradation of the world, and She turned her face from it.

And yet the chorus begged for Her yet still.

Cotesia hated them for it.

She remembers her first sunrise. She remembers being held up, to see it. Look there, young one, said gently, scent-taste so sweet and nurturing. Held, lovingly. They, so wretched and unloved, treated with such revulsion.

And so her flesh is pulled around the scaffolding of bone. Blood fills her veins, no longer to idly slosh around a body cavity at loose direction. A heart is separated neatly into four chambers, a pair of lungs and a diaphragm work in tandem with a mouth and nose to allow air in and expel it out. She is woven from all things reviled, not ash to be returned to such. She is alive. Painted in scarlet hues, cleaved close back to the realm of that which can be held, molded into what could be seen. What could be rent and cleaved. Abandon ambiguity, reverence, nostalgia.

I am alive.

She bursts from the swamp of Aeonia gasping, pulling herself from the muck.

[abyssalpriest]

Thoughts: Vepar, 18/8/23

"Create more content for Vepar," Leviathan says, much more challenging my emotional reaction than asking for it, in reaction to my complaints of how little there is of her online. He says: "Make it if you want it. Why not?"

Create what, though? Talk about her? Write prayers to her? Never have I been so wired to another entity in my life, I spin as an electron around her as a proton, magnetise like poles with the screeching of metal against metal as the forces of the universe drag me to her. There's a storm outside tonight - eerily it has calmed since the start of writing, scarily pregnant with anticipation and its eyes stare into my room pressed against the black curtains, not an end but a pause before it will continue - and it's silver in nature. It's silver waters churning and droning and groaning like bells scraping off one another. I'm out there playing with her.

There is no prayer to Vepar because I am the Sky which holds her, the Sun. She is the Sky that holds me, the Earth. I am the clouds which electrify - my right arm physically tingles as I write that word like it's threaded into a live wire - which alight with her static, her pull, her force. Rent flesh, slammed limbs into the ground, flat teeth sharper than a wolf's, snarl bigger than a monkey's, eyes wide like a demon.

There is no prayer to Vepar because there is no absent one to be called. There is no successful call to Vepar that I could utter that isn't immediately heard. I have positioned myself externalised-guts-first and had her tender hands stitch them back together with the shining metal thread of her consciousness, I have given myself up so fully, so perfectly, to the will of the Storm Mother that there is barely a moment between my lightning and her thunder.

... Except when we dance, I guess. When she dances. Except when she dances, when she plucks the feathers from birds, when she skins the dead, consumes the sacrifices... There are so many paths she walks that I cannot follow, faltering instead at her altar as an outsider again when she sways with the sea, when she calls like a bird, when she flies into the in-between of the Sky itself. All I could offer, therefore, is an absence. All prayers I could give you that succeed would succeed entirely because of totality of connection, like an electric wire succeeds in sending from one end to the other instantaneously, or it would fail entirely because it would be borne from disconnect and purposeful detachment as I fail to follow. There is no point, and there is no point. With Vepar it is either being or it is not being.

There is on and there is off, with her. I'm aquatic, the Sky is the Abyss and vice versa and therefore I swim in the Sky as I fly in the sea, so it isn't a matter of, when she stirs the ocean with a spear, either drowning a horrible death or churning the waves with her... It's a matter of swimming so successfully in dreams where I spend its entirety clambering to a water source and dive in like a child screaming to be born, or being so soundly surrendered to sleep that I don't dream at all. It's a matter of standing atop the concrete ground like I've ruled it for centuries, her consciousness possessing my body and soul so fully and eclipsing all of an Us with the sovereignty of a Me, or it is staring at her as a foreign moon orbiting my planetary solitude hundreds of miles away.

Ah, the screaming. That's where the birth stops. She walks with me, Ive been doing this for centuries. I know her. Like best friends synchronise slang and laughter patterns I walk with her stride without watching. The walking I follow. The vicious, consuming sea eyes black as the deepest abyss, I mirror them. The water consuming and consuming and consuming, the colours of the ocean flickering one after the other in specific hue-codes of writing and expression that only the Sky-Abyssal creatures like us can understand... But when she screams I stop. The Leviathan's cross is a friend and map I have traced with every part of my body and soul and all extensions of butterfly effects radiating from me, I understand all as traversible: space, time, thought, understanding, concept, waves, sounds, but not the screaming. The screaming is a wavelength on the cross so arching in its patterns that it forces me to stop. The screaming is transformative. The screaming is the cross.

[wanderingaldecaldo]

Would love to a formative memory from both: (I figure due to their different life-paths, they might have different ones!)

Sk!Val and 🔫

as well as Corpo!Val and 🔫

Thanks for the ask from the Core Meme-ory game! I was asked already for SK!Val but she has several formative memories of Mitch (and that's before she considers him romantically). The next memory is a scene I have yet to write, so I'm excited! *cracks knuckles*

🔫- Mitch Anderson [SK!Val_Memory_02]

"If they got Mitch and Scorpion..." Panam trails off and her voice cracks, and V doesn't know how to offer comfort.

"I know, I know..."

Heart sinking, V watches the feed from the drone. A drone flies overhead and robots with automatic weapons march around guarding the crash site. She counts the burnt out husks of four nomad vehicles as Panam cries out for her fallen clan.

"V, if they --"

"Don't worry. We don't know for sure," V says, even as she sees another body.

Neither of them. She takes stock of the defenses and then they both see Mitch, hands in the air and walking back to the AV in custody of a robot. Further up she spots a pair of motorcycles, and just beyond them another body, this time wearing a familiar vest and hood.

Scorpion. Deceased.

All her fault. The pit in her stomach threatens to swallow her whole. She has to get to Mitch, has to save him, or she will never be able to forgive herself.

"Listen. We saw Mitch. They probably got Scorpion," V says. It's not the worst lie she's ever told, and besides, Panam will find out the truth soon enough.

Moments later, she's crouched behind a bolder, quickhacking the robots and drone. They don't last long against her, then she zigzags to the AV's control panel, allowing Panam to join her.

Once Panam is in position, V grabs the door and pries it open. The pilot holds Mitch as a shield, one arm around his neck, other holding a gun up to his head. In this moment, all she cares about is saving Mitch, keeping Panam's friend alive. She pulls her pistol, her backup for when the shotgun doesn't work or the Mantis Blades won't cut it. She closes her eyes, remembering where both Mitch and the pilot stood, then takes a deep breath, pops around the open doorway, and takes quick, careful aim. She fires without hesitation, and the pilot drops immediately.

As Mitch gasps in relief, so does she. She falls back to let them have their moment; Mitch attempts to patch Panam's wounds while she only wants to know about Scorpion. V's cowardice in the truck, her lies about Scorpion, means Mitch has to tell Panam the truth, that he's dead; no one survived.

As she turns away from Panam's anguish, she digs in her pockets for a pack of cigs that Johnny bought. She squats and sucks down the smoke that scorches her throat and listens to Panam and Mitch without looking at either of them, knowing she's the cause of their pain.

🔫- Mitch Anderson [Corpo!Val]

This scene is a fleshed-out version of a flashback I wrote for the corpo au. It's really important to Val, and really solidifies their friendship in her mind.

Val watches as Mitch drops to the chair and sips his beer. She could call the Caliburn and leave right now, let him have his solitude like he asked. But something about the way he carries his sadness plucks a chord in her chest; resonates with the same frequencies and depth as Jackie's. Instead she sits in the other chair, opens the cooler and grabs another beer, her long nails clicking as she pops the tab.

Mitch watches her, eyebrows drawn together and a frown pursing his lips. She shrugs and raises the beer to him then looks out at the desert. They sit there in silence, not a word passing between them, while the sky passes through the brilliance of a desert sunset and the air grows cool, until Mitch finishes the last beer from the cooler.

"Reckon I can take you back to camp after all," he says as he lights a cigarette. They don't speak on the drive back to camp either.

After all her time at Arasaka, all the meetings and talking and bullshit and subterfuge, after living and working with Jackie, sitting with someone in companionable silence is a rare treat.

When Mitch kills the ignition but makes no move to exit the Colby, she also remains in her seat, still silent. What she wouldn’t have given for someone to sit with her in silence while she mourned Jackie. To simply not be alone in her grief. Perhaps that's why she's here. To atone for her part in Scorpion's death.

He looks at her finally when he speaks, his voice quiet. “Guess I needed the company after all. Thanks, V.”

“It’s Valerie,” she says by reflex, then shakes her head. “Sorry, bad habit.”

“Hell, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

She shrugs. “Also habit. Got the nickname from... a friend. Hate it but it stuck.”

One side of his mouth lifts in a sad smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well then, thank you, Valerie.”

“You’re welcome, Mitch,” she says, returning the smile and reaching over to squeeze his hand.

Turns out these are good for the writer's block. Still accepting asks for the Core Meme-ory game! Still have a couple more for Mitch even 😏

[sukirichi]

— just the two of us

request: I almost read all of your jujutsu kaisen writings and I love it. Your writing is really good! I do not know if a request about a fics🥞 about satoru gojo who is really in love and not very possessive with an oblivious reader. It will be fun to see Satoru try to flirt with her and she doesn't get it🤣

pairings: gojo x oblivious! reader

notes: THIS IDEA IS SO CUTEEE I absolutely loved every second of writing it! thank you for the request and I hope you like this! 🥞 breakfast has been served!

word count: 3.3k

warnings: none, other than this is unedited and written humorously rather than seriously~

masterlist !

Gojo doesn’t know whether he’s lucky – or completely cursed – over the fact you’ve got no idea he’s so in love with you.

It’s a bright sunny morning, perfect for outdoor training, and he walks with you all the way to school with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. You stretch your arms out in the sky to bask in the morning glow and warmth of the sun, sleeves pushed up to your forearms to “get that vitamin D.”

Satoru snickers at your statement, because you’d totally be getting a different kind of Vitamin D if only you’d notice him. Sometimes he wonders, if maybe you’d inherited the Six Eyes instead of him, would you finally be able to see him – or would you still remain unaware?

He doesn’t even know where it began. A year ago, Yaga introduced you as the newest staff member. You’d been so fidgety and nervous then, unsure of what to do and worried if maybe the kids wouldn’t love. They did, of course, how could they not. Not only were you extremely fun to be with, you’re also caring, fretting and even crying whenever one of the students got injured over a mission.

Shoko reminds you all the time that this should be normal for you by now, but you always cry every time, sobbing that they’re still only kids and should be out having fun.

Yeah, maybe that’s where it began. Your kindness struck a chord in Satoru’s heart, and before he knew it, he was falling for you. Hard. Next thing you know, he shows up five minutes before you leave for work, mock-saluting you before inviting you to breakfast. He does this every damn day, and you still don’t get a single thing.

“That café was really good,” you muse, fingers stretching outwards and giggling as the sun peeks through the spaces. Satoru sighs beside you, wanting nothing more than to slip his fingers through those softer ones. “We should go back there sometime. Maybe even take the kids with us this weekend so we can all have breakfast together!”

Satoru masks a snicker with a cough. It reminds him of the time Megumi called you mom and dad by accident, to which you happily responded with before tackling the boy in hugs, while the strongest jujutsu sorcerer only flushed in embarrassment.

Him being him though, Satoru played it off cool, flipping his hair before striking a pose. “Huh, a dad?” he smirks, “The only person who gets to call me daddy would be no one else but Y/N.”

The raven haired first year student immediately recoils in disgust. Meanwhile, the innuendo flies straight through you, and you peer up at him innocently with your head tilted to the side. “Daddy? Why would I call you my dad? My father is still alive and well, and I don’t see you marrying my mom or anything,” Just as Megumi nearly howls in laughter – another evidence that you’re really something else to get the usually stoic boy to lose his composure like that – you snap your fingers, the light bulb above your head practically shining. “Oh, I get it! You prefer younger women and you want them to call you that! Kind of like the hype for onii-chan nowadays.”

Hopeless, Satoru wants to say, you’re absolutely, utterly hopeless.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Satoru shrugs nonchalantly, sending a smirk your way. It usually drives everyone crazy, but you only smile back up at him in the same way you smile with everyone, and he tries his best to not show his shoulders are deflating. Nevertheless, he doesn’t give up. “How about you and I go out somewhere this weekend? The movies, perhaps?”

Say yes, say yes – please say yes.

Really though, he’s waiting for that ‘no’ already. Satoru knows you always go out of town during the weekends to visit your family in the countryside, only coming back on Monday the next week with a basket of fruits and traditional goods that isn’t so easy to find in the city.

But then you clasp your hands together in excitement, lashes fluttering delicately as you beam up at him. “Really? You’d like to go to the movies with me?”

“Of course I would,” Satoru tries not to stutter, hiding the fact that he’s completely taken aback. He’s the Gojo Satoru for heaven’s sake, he shouldn’t be this affected by anyone’s presence. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want to?”

“Oh, nothing, I just thought you were busy. This Saturday, then?”

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, it’s actually happening – his mind was barely functioning at this point, and he even slapped his cheeks to snap him back to life. “I thought there was a fly,” he lied with a chuckle, “But yeah, Saturday. I’ll pick you up?”

“Yeah, sure!”

Satoru wouldn’t stop smiling the whole way to the school. Even when Yuuji had face planted into the ground and Megumi sprained his ankle from training, he wasn’t able to get rid of the ridiculously big smile that stretched across his lips. He’s floating in cloud nine, flowers erupting from his ears and heart-shaped emojis bursting in his background.

“Well, you look creepy,” Shoko commented in the faculty room the moment you excused yourself, “Did you land a date with her or something?”

“That I did,” he stated proudly, even banging his fist on his chest like a deranged form of King Kong.

“I can only hope Y/N makes it out alive,” Nanami announces from behind the newspaper he’s reading, legs crossed over another before he peeks above the paper, narrowed eyes dead set on the blindfolded man. “Don’t be too wild with her, Satoru. She’s a gentle soul despite being a sorcerer – I humbly suggest you don’t mess with her feelings.”

“Are you kidding me? She’s the one messing with my feelings by being so fucking cute all the time!”

“Who’s cute?”

Shoko nearly spits out her coffee the moment you enter, glancing around the room and sitting down next to a shock-still Satoru. Nanami only huffs in his seat with a shake of his head. It doesn’t take long before Satoru regains his confidence and recovers from his shock – he’s turned to you with his torso completely facing your way.

You bask in the attention, mimicking the gesture until your faces are mere inches from one another. The fact you’re so responsive and attentive to him yet still painfully naïve strikes a mental war of himself debating whether he wants to kiss you or knock your head upside down. Satoru chooses neither options as he leans closer, his smile growing wider when you don’t pull away, and he doesn’t stop moving until his lips are right beside the shell of your ear.

“You’re cute.”

Shoko shudders at the same time Nanami just gives up on everything, folding his paper and lying that he’s got someplace to go with Ichiji. Satoru patiently waits for your reaction; for you to crumble this time around.

You’re silent for a moment, brows almost right across each other when you register his words. Satoru ends up holding his breath for your next words, wondering: is this it? will she finally understand what I feel for her now?

Even Shoko ends up sitting at the edge of her seat, silently watching the exchange with interest barely hidden in her sparkling eyes. Satoru watches as your lips open, his eyes transfixed on the way the soft flesh moves. They tilt upwards, revealing a set of a wide smile – the smile he can never get enough of. “Thank you!” you giggle at his compliment, “You and Shoko are very cute too! And the kids too, especially Toge! Not that I’m saying he’s my favourite—”

“He’s definitely your favourite student,” snorts Shoko who is ignoring the way Satoru turns completely gray beside you.

It turns out you still haven’t figured it out after all.

“The kids this – the kids that,” the tall, lanky man whines, his head falling back on the back of the leather couch. He looks so utterly defeated you can’t help but lean over him to check if he’s okay, but Satoru pouts and hides his face under his uniform instead. “Why can it never be just the two of us?”

“Sorry, what did you say?”

This time, you’ve kneeled on the couch to hover him. You even pluck one side of his blindfold off to see how he’s doing, and suddenly thankful you can’t see the way his cheeks are absolutely flaming right now. 

“Nothing,” he assures, his smile hidden behind his shirt. You look absolutely adorable hovering over him like that – eyes wide and lips pouty – what he wouldn’t give to kiss those lips right now, but it isn’t the right time, and Satoru just needs to find a better way to tell you how he feels. “It’s nothing.”

It’s absolutely not nothing.

Saturday couldn’t come faster.

Satoru finds himself willing time to go faster. Once the awaited day finally comes, he wastes no time in choosing his best outfit; an oversized black shirt tucked into black skinny jeans before styling his hair up the way he likes.

He winks at his reflection in the mirror, going ooh and aah at how hot he looks. It’s another reason why he can’t comprehend why you don’t like him yet, when, uhm, he knows he looks damn good? He’s pretty funny too – and his strength and power is already a no-brainer. Satoru can’t wrap his head around any possible reason why you wouldn’t like him; it’s basically a life or death mission at this point.

With that end goal in his mind and a spritz of perfume later, Satoru sashays out his apartment. Even though it’s already dark outside and he spent the whole day walking back and forth in his room trying to come up with ways to confess to you, he acts coolly all the way to your apartment.

This time around, he’s more than confident. He’s going to have you wrapped around his pretty little finger, “Wow,” is the first thing he says, pulling his blindfold down just to look at you.

Satoru feels blessed in that exact moment to witness how the heavens took their time with you, creating only the best out of the best and birthing the most magnificent person ever. Suddenly, he grows an urge to run to the countryside and thank your parents for going funky one night and creating you, because you’re an absolutely magnificent gift and it really baffles him how you’re real.

“Wow,” he repeats again, and you chuckle when he shakes his head. “You look beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you look him up and down, smiling in satisfaction. “You look very handsome yourself.”

Satoru’s been called handsome a million times before that it’s gotten too much in his head already, but hearing it come from your lips hits different. If he was excited before, it’s nothing compared to what he feels now when you loop your arm through his, dangling off his arm like you were a lover.

He knows it’s not real and this is probably just a friendly date for you – something he intends to clear up later – but it doesn’t stop him from puffing his chest up a bit, almost as if bragging to everyone around you that he was the one you’re with, and that he was the one you’re going to the movies with.

All your babbles about everything goes straight into one ear and out the other. He wants to listen to you, he really does, but he’s so intoxicated with your voice that he just ends up nodding at everything you say; his attention mostly on how sweet you sound and smell.

His feelings only intensify a hundred times more when you finally make it to the theatre. Not only is it dark, but you’re sitting right next to him, arms and thighs brushing against each other. He takes note of every little movement you make, smiling to himself when you don’t pull away from his thigh flush against yours.

In this close proximity, your perfume overwhelms his senses. He finds himself leaning closer just to get a little more taste of it, his arm resting on the armrest beside him and placing his cheek on his open palm.

He doesn’t even know what the movie is about. All he can see, hear, feel and recognize is you – nothing and no one but you. Just as he wanted, it’s just the two of you.

Satoru reaches out to the bowl of popcorn in his lap to distract himself from the need of kissing you already. He was so smug that he’s on this date with you; now he feels like the world is laughing and mocking at him because you’re so close yet so far away. The last thing he wants is to say something weird and have you running for the hills. It’s clear you don’t like him, after all.

You end up reaching for it the same time he does, making your fingers brush. It sends a jolt of electricity down his spine and he immediately retracts it.

Looking up at him with an apologetic smile, Satoru knows he’s messed up. “I’m sorry,” you blurt out, raising your hands in surrender with a nervous chuckle. “I should’ve gotten my own bowl instead.”

Satoru stares at you through his blindfold. You’re close enough that he can count your lashes – both top and bottom row – and he’s so stupefied at this point that he just says the first thing that comes to his mind; absolutely anything just to get your attention. “Cold,” he shows you his hand, “I’m cold.”

“Oh,” you nod and slip your fingers through his. Satoru nearly gasps at how electrifying the sensation is from having your smaller, softer fingers collide with his, your hands fitting perfectly in his bigger, calloused ones. Then, you close your intertwined hands and smush your cheek with it to transfer your heat – completely unaware that Satoru feels like he’s floating in his own Infinite Void right now. “Feel warmer now?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Extremely.”

Something beast-like wakes within him after that. Now that he knows you don’t mind touching him at all, Satoru can’t help but want to take out all his playing cards and just go fuck it. So he does – and he might regret, he might not – who cares? It’s just the two of you, and you’re the only one he ever cares about this much that he’d pretty much let you do anything at this point.

“You know,” Satoru begins, shifting until your joined hands are resting on top of his chest. His heart is just about ready to burst through its confines at this moment, but he holds back. It’s now or never. “Shoko and Nanami are annoyed that I talk about you all the time.”

Your eyes widen at his statement. “Really? Do you talk badly about me or something?”

“No,” he nearly groans in frustration, “You’re really pretty and cool. You’re amazing during missions, too, when you fight, it’s like I’m witnessing a warrior princess. So cool.”

This makes you laugh until the person sitting behind you rudely shushes you. You bow your head in apology, turning to Satoru with a softer smile this time; one that looks reserved and private compared to your big grins. “Oh, no,” he closes his eyes even behind his blindfold, “Don’t smile at me like that. I don’t think I’ll still be cool if I end up stuttering over my words.”

“Satoru!” you whisper-hiss, although your chest is filled with so much giddiness too that you’ve both forgotten about the movie; unaware that the entire theatre was crying over the main character’s friend’s death. “What are you going on about?”

He wants to laugh so damn hard. He thought confessing his feelings for you would end up in a pitiful heartbreak that you’d be weirded out and push him away. For a moment, he forgets it’s you, and that nothing is ever difficult or painful with you – other than, of course, you being oblivious, but that isn’t something he can’t fix. He’ll get you on the train one way or another.

“I have a confession.”

“Yeah?”

“I was practicing how to ask you out for a whole hour in the mirror,” Satoru whispers, careful to not ruin the melancholic mood of theatre. It doesn’t even surprise him that his world is filled with nothing but sunshine even if the world around you has descended into grief and loneliness. “I also called Nanami on first date tips.”

“Nanami?” you echo with a gasp, “Why Nanami?”

“Because he’s married, that’s why. Mans know some tips for sure.”

“Wait, so,” you chuckle nervously, and Satoru waits, waits for you to pull away or push him back – anything that would indicate discomfort. He’s patient the whole time, watching carefully as you only squeeze his hand and gesture to the both of you with your free one. “This is a date? Our first date?”

“Only if you want to be,” Satoru shrugs, grimacing afterwards at how sappy he sounds. “Well, I actually consider this our first date and I’ve been waiting for this for like forever now, so I sure as hell hope you want this too. I didn’t dress myself up today only to come back home crying.”

Satoru’s heart – if possible – only beats crazier and sings the syllables of your name when you start laughing harder to the point you have to muffle it by burying yourself in his bicep. He feels like his muscles and nerves could erupt at any moment. It’s crazy – absolutely insane – how you have him wrapped around your finger like this. He doesn’t complain though; he never will.

“I’m glad,” you mumble through his shirt, your erratic heartbeat matching kiss when you take the first tentative step of kissing his jaw.

Satoru stiffens underneath you, a low growl ripping from his throat. He’s feral, wild, drunk at the sight and scent of you. You make him feel like he’s fluctuating between dimensions, all the planets just crashing on one another until the stardust is left in your eyes because what else could be an explanation for what he’s feeling other than a supernova collision of hearts?

“You always make me feel so happy when you’re around that I still can’t believe you feel the same way. I was so worried that maybe you wouldn’t get my hints.”

Satoru groans, “What the hell? How long have you liked me?”

“I guess when you started bringing flowers to Megumi randomly just to piss him off.”

Satoru wants to rip his hair out. That was just a few weeks after you’ve started working with him, meaning you both have liked each other this whole time and he’s been suffering and feeling stupid just for nothing?

“God, Y/N,” he mutters to himself, “You really do know how to make a man go crazy, huh?”

That innocent smile on your face lets him know that as usual, you’re oblivious of everything. Satoru is right; he still can’t decide whether he wants to whack you in the head upside down. With a sigh, he ends up choosing the latter, nearly falling over his seat when you let out a surprised yelp at the feeling of his lips on yours.

It doesn’t take long before you grab onto his shirt and cling to dear life, laughter bubbling through your lips as you kiss. The sound is so precious he wants to bottle it up and keep it treasure for the rest of his life, but Satoru doesn’t rush anything.

With you and only with you is he ever capable of feeling like it’s just the two of you in a world filled with chaos and destruction.

[yostresswritinggirl]

The One The Bard Once Loved

NEW Vibe check (appropriate song to cry to while reading)

"The bard, the sprite, the archer. The trio of young dreamers that wish to witness the blue skies past the raging winds that lock their freedom. But those are more than mere dreams, for it requires the sacrifice of those you love, to grace the courage to fight a God. And Barbatos, poor Barbatos, sacrificed more than he wanted."

Pairings -> Venti x Fem!Reader x Bard (Gale)

Word Count -> 4,337

Theme -> Angst, Backstory, Long Fic

Series -> #Bonafide specials (100 followers event)

Warnings -> Spoilers to Venti's story, character death

"Oh little sprite, from whence beyond

Does thou reminiscent of a vagabond?

Curious to which it whisks upon

Trapped now in desolate, forlorn"

Venti the wind sprite had always been curious, the single whisk of air that always goes the opposite way, hanging behind from his fellow currents to be distracted by a curious thing. So it was no surprise to anyone that he had gone lost once more in their rounds swaying but when he'd not return, long ago has his current passed the nation of Mond. Yet there was no way he can fly by his family of winds, for he finds himself trapped within the walls of a grazing storm that cages the stone walls of the city, of winds that he could not control nor agitate.

No matter how hard he tries the wind does not part, and so little Venti was stuck inside brooding skies and angry blasts. No mere sprite can go against the mighty strength of an archon.

So he resigns to his fate and wanders in this new place. Of a city wide and barren, why dare the Decarabian hide such dwelling? And even with the raging howls of the walls of wind, Venti couldn't help but wonder the silence it traps within.

A tiny ball of white in an expanse of gray. The thought scares the little sprite enough to make him scurry for the smallest bit of sound he can decipher. The loneliness creeps into his core—

And his little body bumps into that of a soft material. "Oh! Goodness, one should not run off without looking like that-" the figure turns and finds itself face to face with a floating blob, deep blue eyes wide and mouth hangs with wonder. Venti recognizes this creature in one of his endeavors as the wind, a human being, the true wanderers of Teyvat. Yet what is one doing trapped? "Such a peculiar being! What could you be?"

Yet it is not frightened by Venti's rarity, well, given he is not the most frightening wonder in this continent this was no surprise.

The sprite did not mind being found out. No, no, quite the opposite honestly, as he flies closer to the young boy and hides in his upturned hood. Nuzzling against the junction in his neck as he expresses gratitude in the company and presence of another in this desolate world.

The young boy chuckles and it reminds him of a song. "Perhaps you do not understand what I spoke?" The sprite shakes its head and the ticklish spot is tickled again. "Or do you not know how to speak?" A nod. And another giggle.

Without another word, the human slips back into the alleys of winding yet thin roads before making his way inside what looks to be a cathedral of tall composition. Glass windows of the same length tinted in kaleidoscopic patterns of color. There is a light in them you would usually bask in during the 'outside world', but in here it replicates that of an oasies in the deserts of Sumeru.

Underneath the artificial haze it beams a seeming spotlight at a figure clad in a dark ebony cloak. Venti felt the vibrations of an elated gasp as the human rushed over with a smile and frantic waving.

"My fair muse, how you've brighten my day, bestowing your presence tonight!"

The cloak tenses before immediately relaxing, the 'muse' he speaks of turns with its loose hood falling as it bundled around the shoulders, and Venti the sprite couldn't help but gasp too at the sight!

Fair is lacking, no words can describe the essence of bloom and beauty at the beholder as you stood there almost sparkling, hair catching the twinkle of light. Your plum lips caught itself smiling yet your eyes twinkled double the amusement at the sight of the human before you, "Gale." You murmured with an undertone of annoyance as you trudged over, flicking the boy's forehead so suddenly he'd voiced his hurt loudly. "Where have you been?! You've never been late to our daily rendezvous, you had me worried-!"

"Oh, such a cutie when you worry!" The young boy, Gale, cupped your cheeks in the middle of your spiel as he softly pats it with his fingers. Venti had never seen such creature change colors as fast as you, not even a chameleon, or an octopus in hiding. "I've simply found a new companion while I was out and about!"

As if a spotlight was caught unto him this time, your blown eyes wandered to the sprite floating by your company's neck. And oddly he'd found the attention appreciated.

"Who is this? An elf?"

"Venti!" There was a distant jingle of imaginary bells in his squeak of a voice.

"It/You can talk?!"

(Y/N) Lawrence.

Gale the Bard.

Venti the El- Wind Sprite.

Gale was a bard that resides in the cathedral of Mondstadt, homeless and without blood and kin, the nuns had took him in and lead their choir in turn for their hospitality.

You, on the other hand, lived with a clan of hunters that once ruled the mountains and forests. But with the emergence of the inescapable walls of wind, your family had been on the forefront of the protection of the citizens.

There were a lot of struggles in communication between you two and the lil sprite. He only knows his name and how to copy words (not so fluently) so questions had to be foregone, teaching the little one took priority. And Gale being the weaver of words took it upon himself to teach him frequently as you had your duties and family to go to.

Venti would sometimes disappear for a majority of the time and you'd figured he finally found a way to pass through the winds without shredding himself among the blades of current. And then he'd pop back in to listen to the merry tunes Gale had come up with, both of them waiting for your return.

"Ah Venti, is she not a beauty? The youngest daughter of Lawrence, as divine as that of incense. Oh tell me those dotted eyes could see it too!" The little sprite eagerly nods as he follows the bard's stride across the aisles in the holy cathedral, once again barren of other souls except for them. Whenever his human friend finds time to muse, it would be most about the maiden he fancies, the muse of most of his songs. Venti had been captured by his delicate tunes and savory lines to the point that he too had been overly enticed by your grace when your presence shines.

Your strength, your smile, your laugh, your hair. Your gait, your poise, your eyes, your glare. You had caught their stares dozens of times in silence before and it was always up to you to put them back to present time.

Venti simply basked in your warming aura and indulges himself outwardly, often you'd find him dozing off on the crown of your head. And often times you'd find a little pout on Gale at such a sight that you had no choice but to tease. In those moments, the wind sprite knew he had come out triumphant.

The cathedral doors open as quickly as they had closed, your windswept and frantic form appearing from the storm outside. The two boys in your life immediately lit up on your appearance but you'd know most of it was directed at the numerous scrolls and books you currently cradle in your shivering arms.

You offered them a grin, one of victory, and you'd all cheered at your success.

Soon, your merry trio made its way to the second floor of the cathedral in front of a faraway hallway that looks over the vast floor of the first yet still had the glow from the looming illuminated glass windows. Beholden in front of you are illustrations of a world beyond, filled with colors and shine, a world you had only imagined from stories now pictured perfectly.

Venti would hover over the illustrations at random intervals and giddily point at some of those he recognized, squeaking incoherent noises yet reflecting happiness and familiarity. While you fancied with indulging the sprite in his incomprehensible stories, Gale sat beside you with adoring yet distant eyes upon the images laid before him. Looking through them, and projecting himself in such a world. The books of the outside world you'd stolen from your clan's sacred libraries will be the start of a spark of desire to be free. And with it the start of a new era.

"The true sky, and songs that cageless soar...

Were they not wishes worth fighting for?"

Long had you gone and abandoned your stolen goods for them to admire more, at least until the day your clan finally realized the missing materials in the vast expanse of the bookshelves they own. There was more to marvel at yet you feared if you linger longer, your sister would look for you and find your little crime all too soon.

Venti quietly watches the familiar illustration of a beach littered with creatures of the sea on its glittering sand before he'd lift his tiny head up, witnessing the intense stare his bard friend had on the scroll where lies an overgrown tree and a stone structure. The sprite noted he had not seen this one.

"How marvelous it would be, to celebrate the most joyous moments under this tree," Gale mumbled in a quiet lilt of longing in his voice, "Imagine (Y/N) and I, with you by my side, as I finally pluck the courage to get down on one knee." Venti bumbled in slight jealousy, buzzing in front of the bard that could only cast a laugh. "Oh hush, dear friend, is it not appropriate to take an arrow to the knee for an archer such as she?"

Yet even with his desire to be by your side, the little sprite knew that he would be there to support his friend for the happiness you two deserved. In a land where you are free. Still, Venti hopes his cuteness would be enough to prolong you just a little bit more.

Drunk in passion and dreams, the next day the bard was scheming. And when you'd come to his cathedral of a home, he finally poured out his plans to you with a Venti quipping with cheers on the side.

The Mondstadtian had predicted your hesitance, even your disapproval on the notion, and were ready to chip in to persuade you once more— yet you gave in. Immediately. The same fire burned in your eyes at the thought of being unshackled and caged from the world begging to be explored. Your sentiments together with the bard fueled the desire between you three, and through the brainpower of a trio of young minds, you had drawn your plans.

Gale aided by Venti would try and coerce with the Ragnvindr clan's leader, and you would work on convincing your eldest sister Amos for the help needed to coerce the whole Lawrence bloodline into the battle. You knew there was an undeniable hatred within her against Decarabian and you wanted her to fuel that fire once and for all, for one great cause.

And soon enough, the strings of fate had come into play, and the one who shall record this momentous history has taken its seat by the balcony of war. Only the last piece of the puzzle is left in this grandoise play—

"Gale, Venti, are you sure this is the right direction to the hideout? We're taking a route longer than usual, surely you're not making last minute pranks..."

Your bow smacks at your back as you made your way inside the dark closet. It was two cycles before the fated ambush would come and in your nerves you had not realized how amiss things had been for the others. You were more than ready even if your fingers were to tremble everytime it holds your bow and arrow, predictions of the war that shall come floats within the expanse of your mind.

In your limited vision, your bard friend and sprite shared a look that did not pass by you. The tension had only caused you to gulp in your nervousness, were you found out? Did the participants of the revolt suddenly back down? "There has been a change of plans, but worry not for history still pans. My Muse, it is best you stay to assure you will not be caught in the storm's disarray-"

A hand flew across the bard's pristine white skin and his dark ocean hues could not help but widen. Is he... telling you to not participate in the war?! What kind of— a sob left through your gritted teeth despite your best efforts, and you're not sure who was more broken between your friends upon the sight. "How could you, even think- Gale, you carry no arms but a lyre! And Venti still has no means to go against the Archon that controls the winds! What kind of absurd idea is this?!" In the middle of your rage, your friends had already wrapped you in their sentimental hug, expressing their own misery with free-flowing tears." I'm supposed to protect you... t-the three of us were supposed to lead the path of freedom..."

"You've always protected us, (Y/N). Now would be the best time... to return the favor," and as your friend stepped back to give a parting smile, your whole world suddenly engulfed in black as the door shut with a slam and a final lock.

"Gale! Venti! No, please no! Let me out! Don't do this, PLEASE!"

"Please hear us out, our dear (Y/N)," Gale leaned his forehead against the thick door that separates you two, shedding the last bit of tears he could muster before the end of an era. The desperation in your every bang against it, breaks apart a hole in his own heart, "For your own good, and your own future."

When Gale described love to the little Venti, the latter was certain that he felt the same way for you. Yet the human ever so jokingly laughed at how he was still too young to fully understand the implications of such words. But he desired just as much to protect you, to be by your side, and to see your smile. But the human was right for he did not truly understand the reasons WHY he felt like so...

So he asked instead, dear friend Gale of Tales, why have you come to cherish this human in devotion? And quite so the other was happy to indulge!

"It starts with young Mondstadt when the walls were young and the people still knew the tales and what they sang. I was a poor little bard with a broken lyre, when living alone was nothing but dire.

Without a home, without a bed, I was ready to starve to death. But an angel clad in white suddenly lead me to bright light. My muse had brought to me a cathedral, yes the one we are in now! And since then I've lived a proper choir life, always wondering how...

just how things would be without (Y/N), my angel? Continuing to live in the dark alleys, would I have been able? Even now I have yet to repay her act of kindness. But one day, for sure... " Perhaps, this act the young boy now follows, was the payment he had been waiting for.

How long you had stayed there, you had no clue but by the sounds of war cries and clashing steel had told you enough. You'd been there for too long.

Blessed with some luck that a crowbar had found its way in this janitor closet in a cathedral no less, you had immediately set out to join the battle: beyond the holy doors flames had lit up from the torches the revolt has carried, many bodies lay by the stone grounds of the city, some moving and struggling while some... you spare them not a second thought as you rushed past the stone pillars to where the heat of the war should be. If the battle plan had gone as it should then—

A hand gripped your arm with such force it had you cry out before you even registered you were being slammed to the floor. A shadow of a knight that serves the God of Storm looms over you with a glare blazing past his helmet. "You're one of them, I recognize that face! You're not winning today-" yet another blade suddenly pierced through his chest, and your shirt had been splattered when it was pulled. The now lifeless body falls past you and another replaces him.

"Sir Ragnvindr!" The knight shared the same shock and relief you wore before it steeled, immediately pulling you up and away from the on-going exchanges of blows. "Everyone- how's the war looking?"

"Men had fallen from the green-tipped arrows, but we are making progress," the redhead gestured to the tower where the greatest enemy lies, taking note of the cracks and crumbling structure, a sign of his coming doom. A very good sign. "Amos took it upon herself to climb the tower-"

"What?! That's beyond the plan, she- she could get herself killed!" You brought your own bow from your back at the mention of your sister archer, bringing the strings back with an arrow at the ready, your intention clear. The redhead had shown a glint of worry but his gaze had been resolved once again at the hope of freedom, and he leaves you to your chase as he fends off the guards that dare go after you.

You expertly evaded blows and parried kicks with your bow and arrow, yet no sign of the heads of the resistance had caught your sight. The longer you climbed, the more you feared for the worst. By 2/3 of the tower you had scaled you managed to poke your head out to see the scale of war. Of red and orange floated below as the razor winds felt more violent than it had been ever since you had been born within its impenetrable walls, even from this distance high up you could still hear the clash, the warmongers held up in the central square where all battles now takes place.

And within that chaos you managed to single out a lump of black and a dot of floating white. Miraculously, your scream had reached their faraway ears and looked up, just in time to see your aerial shots of support.

"(Y/N)?! What is she-!" His words had been cut with an arrow wheezed past his head to bring down a foe that had sneaked behind him. Right, battle. Many of the immediate threats had been neutralized and the resistance had found the upper ground thanks to the archer's barrage. "How-how is she up there!"

Another body had fallen next to him with a cut on its back, a certain knight rushing past him to hit another. "Watch your back, bard! Now's not the time to monologue, she's going to backup Amos."

You were too far to hear the horrified gasp and the fearful expression your two faithful friends adorned. But the ground you were on began to shake, and you know you had to go on. "Venti! Gale! Focus, I'll be there with you two soon!" You screamed at the top of your lungs in hopes that it will reach them before continuing your ascent to the most treacherous area you had to be in—

You barelled towards the woman with silver hair with a pace you've never seen and a strength you'd never thought you carried, exchanging the shot you felt lodge into your left side as you sent one right through the guard's neck. You fell on your bottom and clutched the wounded area, but kept it there, if not to make sure the blood does not pour if you were to take it out.

"Sister!" The familiar voice cradled you as gently as she could with a fear-stricken face. But you assured her that it had not hit anything major, the way her worry didn't dissipate seem to hide a kind of anguish she couldn't name. "We must get you to safety, the clerics- the clerics could-"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," you grunted as you pried yourself out of her grasp to prove your point, still able to keep your stance. You see Amos struggle from fatigue yet about to bite back, "We're so close, sister, any moment we linger is another body on the list of deaths." Painfully she'd bitten on her own tongue, finally relenting as you ascended the last few steps.

Normal arrows are nothing but toothpicks against the mighty God of Storms, the Anemo Archon, who easily flicked your futile attempts to graze him. And yet Decarabian was losing power just from fighting off not only your barrages but those even from below. His walls were thinning and his heart crumbles, from the thought of his once devoted followers turning back on him.

With one last strength the Lawrences gathered every piece of energy and power they could into their shot, and Decarabian looked at them with tired eyes and a raised hand. "Finally, I shall hold his gaze." The voice next to you spoke before your charged shot, swirling with beaming light flew past the sharp gale of wind and pierced through the God's core. Your ears had picked up on a violent crack before you were hit by the razor breeze upon the dying breath of the archon, sending you and Amos off the crumbling tower to free fall to your deaths.

In the edge of your peripherals the bleak gray walls of storms dissolved into rays of natural light, giving way to a hue of blue you had never seen before. As the wind wheezed past your ears, you smiled at the face of death—

When a jingle of little bells suddenly slowed your descension, and you were softly met with the hard floor on your back. With tired eyes you'd found yourself next to the pioneers of freedom, conscious and unconscious. You had felt Venti nudge your hand to those of another's limp ones, soft palms yet calloused fingers, you intertwined your hands with that of the bard's.

"We did it, we finally... did it..." A pulling force drains the consciousness from your mind and body in laboured breaths, and despite your protests to keep staring at the beautiful sight of the true sky, your eyelids were pulled shut by an unknown exhaustion.

Past their closed state, a flash of light was the last thing you had thought. Bruised and beaten, your warm hand did not register how the ones you clung to... did not squeeze back.

...

The next time (e/c) orbs flew open their eyes the world felt that of a lucid dream, with silk of the cleanest white donned their body, and the softest breeze of a sweet flower you had not smelt passes by you. Teal orbs looked down at you with a gentleness you've felt from the artificial light from the cathedral. Speaking of- your eyes unfocused shifted its gaze to the light blue skies.

"You're... awake." Your bard friend breathed out in disbelief and another emotion your brain can't quite place. The cotton of clouds float above in painted beauty, and you had pried your sight away from it almost painfully just to spare your companion a look.

"It's..." your throat grated and ached at the attempt, coming out so weak and breathless, "It's very beautiful... out here, free... Have- have you gone to explore?" Your face twisted in numbing pain from talking, and the bard started to quiver yet stood strong with a smile.

"I had, it's - it's just like how we imagined, even better than we've taken for granted," wet spots adorned your cheeks in short successions, you couldn't help but smile. "I only wish you were there to see it first hand, the flowers, the sunsets, the land-"

"Yet I fell asleep," you laughed in mirth yet there was no sound that escaped. The grip around you tightens as you loll your head to the side; there lays a new city kissed by the huge orb of light in the blue veil of a sky, lush green grass of health you've never seen before shone with a moistness on it, and around its glory lays a beauty of a moat that mirrors the one above. Beautiful, you whispered under your long-awaited breathe.

"The people of Mond had done their best to rebuild, for the promise of freedom they had not wilt," a hand on your cheek, flawless, urged your gaze once more to lay upon the bard. "We've devised a festival to celebrate named Ludi Harpastum. Tell me... my muse, will you accompany me in this new custom?"

A new breeze had lulled you in your ears once again to sleep, and a flash of fear had passed over your companion's features before it dissipated when you opened your eyes once more. A festival, you haven't heard that in years, "I would love to. But maybe... tomorrow..."

"Tomorrow."

"Mhm, I feel tired... the sun invites me to sleep, will you wait for me tomorrow?"

"T-Tomorrow."

"Good." Your eyes were covered by darkness again as you felt a pressure against your forehead. "It's... a date..." And your tired heart finally found peace, after battling for 15 days restlessly, desperately.

Venti picked you up from where you laid on his lap, setting you down on the grass bed besides the giant roots of the Windrise tree. Nearest your left, a stone plate carved with words you never dare see lies next to you. And for the first time in fifteen days, a God cries again.

¹The green-tipped arrows were coated with poison.

²Reader's bow is designed after the Raven's Bow.

³Gale is not the bard's official name but was used to avoid too many confusion.

⁴This had a different, more painful and hatred alternate ending where you hated Venti for taking Gale's form, but I changed it so I could rest my own heart.

*in honor of your contribution to Mondstadt's freedom, the maiden who throws the Harpastum is made for your grace.

@boxofteenageideas @creation-magician @your-local-venti-simp @indigodreamtime47

[whythinktoomuch]

(pt. i)  (pt. ii) 

She keeps to the darkness, keeps quiet, and keeps her distance, just the way she’s been trained to. She watches Lena, and she does it quite well. The difficult part is settling on the one thing that she should be learning from these endeavors.

Lena does a great many things throughout her day—often up before the sun, and only homeward bound long after it’s set. But after three long days of research, there’s one feature in particular that seems to warrant the most attention: a dark fleck, nestled in the pale expanse of her vulnerable throat.

When she tries to encapsulate the entirety of that observation into words at her disposal, however, all she can manage is, “Lena, not ugly.”

Lex doesn’t reply for a long while, which isn’t typical of him. But his tone isn’t unkind when he finally asks, “Is that it?”

“Yes.” She frowns, because why couldn’t that be it?

But Lex sighs, and that soft sound uproots her peace at its very core. “I wanted you to bring me a fact,” he says. “Not develop an opinion.”

“Different how?” she demands.

“Well, I need evidence.” Lex takes her hand, turning it over to reveal her palm, forever marked and marred from her most recent encounter with Kryptonite. “I need you to show me something. Something real. Otherwise, it doesn’t count. Do you understand?”

And yes, that much is definitely understandable. Even to her.

//

With much repurposed effort, she watches and waits while Lena does her work. Then she watches Lena take her leave, then waits some more.

It’s only when the top floor of the building is emptied of all people that she flies over, slipping into Lena’s office through the balcony door that’s never locked. From there, it doesn’t take long to secure what she’s looking for.

The next time Lex pays her a visit, she drops an armful of her spoils right at his feet.

“Lena likes coffee,” she announces boldly.

Lex is clearly taken aback at first, blinking and still. But then he grabs one of the many empty coffee cups now littered across the floor, and a slow smile dawns on his face. “All right then. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

She grins so wide that it strains the corners of her lips.

--

“Lena is cold,” she says the next time they meet, presenting a delicate black glove for his amusement and perusal.

“Yes, well, most people are when it snows,” Lex says.

“Not me.”

“Well, you’re not exactly most people now, are you?” Lex’s pride in her is absolutely infectious, so she grins. “Of course not. You’re… exquisite.”

“Good thing?” she asks. It’s usually the first question that wells up inside of her upon hearing new words.

“A very good thing,” Lex says with a playful wink.

Over the last two weeks, Lex’s visits have dropped from often to somewhat often enough, his precious attention now divided between her and another project of his. It’s been a near impossible change for her to weather, but moments like this make it a little easier.

That is, until Lex slips the glove on.  

She watches him flex his fingers one by one, forcing the taut leather to crackle loudly in her ears, and retreats somewhere deep inside herself. She fights determinedly against the frown threatening to twist her features into something uglier.

The glove isn’t hers. It isn’t Lex’s either, but his hand fits so perfectly that it could very well be his if he wanted.

“Not actually all that warm,” Lex comments, snorting when he peeks inside the glove. “And yet, pricier than your average first class ticket to Paris… Tsk, a little superficial, if you ask me.”

She nods as appropriate, but most of her concern is still with the glove and how Lex stuffs it into his back pocket like it doesn’t mean a thing.

//

“Yes, her hair is indeed very long,” Lex says, accepting the offering of Lena’s hairbrush, complete with stray strands of dark hair still caught in its teeth as ample proof for this careful observation. “This, Bizarrogirl, is absolutely perfect.”

And it is. Because this isn’t just a handful of coffee cups tossed in the trash or a lone glove left behind in the snow during a hasty commute. No, this is something she actually had to break into Lena’s apartment for, in the middle of a workday, undetected even in broad daylight.

But even all that and more couldn’t outweigh the very simple fact that Lex has the means to kill her now.

Evidently, a big part of his new project has been synthesizing a strain of Kryptonite that would only be lethal to her, and he must have succeeded because today, he’s armed with blue-tipped syringes that can pierce her skin.

It’s for research purposes. It’s the only way that Lex can collect blood samples so as to better study her molecular makeup, which will only help her in the long run. Lex, of course, would never hurt her.

Except it does hurt. Each needle sinks into her arm in an acute twinge, and she can feel the aftereffects of the breach crawling inside her head. It’s worse than the green light. It makes her stomach dry out like a rock, and tugs cool drops of sweat onto the surface of her skin.

But Lex must notice this sudden unrest living inside her because he lets her keep the hairbrush.

“Mine?” she asks, cradling the brush in her hands. It’s been relieved of all traces of Lena, but that doesn’t matter. She’s seen Lena use it enough times that it’s still rightly precious.

“No, it’s still Lena’s,” Lex corrects her with a gentle smile. “But you can keep it,” which is the best possible answer he could have given her.

//

She’s watching Lena unwind at home from her favorite spot in the sky, drawing from her x-ray vision and super-hearing with an ease that is now very practiced.

Everything is pleasantly routine until Kara knocks on Lena’s door, which is still very routine until they start raising their voices at each other. They exchange some words that she doesn’t quite understand with many implications that perhaps she will never understand. Then Supergirl is leaving through the balcony, flying off into the night in a blur of boastful blues and reds, while Lena is left behind to yell at herself and cry in unpredictable bursts.

Eventually, Lena settles in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of something that makes the air taste bitter. She’s halfway through her third glass when she slumps forward, her head dropped into her folded arms, breath gradually slowing and deepening.

She watches Lena sleep, waiting until the waiting is unbearable. There are all sorts of reasons why she shouldn’t, but she touches down onto the balcony, sidling into the apartment like a fleeting shadow, and finds herself in Lena’s presence for the very first time.  

The bitter taste is stronger in her nose now, but so is everything else to be perceived about Lena. Everything from her soft snores to the slight warmth her body gives off once within reach.

And she risks that everything for a single touch, brushing her fingertips right where Lena’s long hair starts to end. It’s light, yet stirs something pure, frenzied, and fluttering in her chest. Then Lena sniffles and mumbles into her own arm, “… Kara?” and the moment spills into reality.

Teeth bared, she plucks the glass from Lena’s fragile grip with just enough care that it doesn’t shatter and leaves the same way Supergirl had barely an hour before.

//

She sets the glass before Lex with a firm clack! that calls his attention away from his tablet.

“Oh hello…” Lex sits up with a small chuckle. “And what’s this? Are we celebrating?”

“Lena is sad.”

Lex is out of his chair, his stare wild as he promptly demands, “What happened? What did you see?”

“Kara came. They talked… Supergirl left.” She squeezes her right fist, digging her nails into her palm the way she’s supposed to when things overwhelm her. “And… Lena is sad.”

Lex bursts into laughter. He doesn’t stop laughing for the rest of the night.

//

She doesn’t want to learn things about Lena anymore.

Things are so different now. Lena is quieter, often alone. She spends most of her time at work and not nearly enough time maintaining habits that are meant to keep her alive.

But Lex still insists that she keep watch, so she does, and she still does it so well. She works at it even harder, in fact, now that his visits have become even fewer and farther in between as of late. Lex’s other project is supposedly not as important as she is, but it siphons off his time like it must be.

Lena’s new routine is polished, heavily sanitized, and well-established until the night she breaks it in favor of tasting the nighttime air. She steps onto her balcony in clothes made for sleep and with a glass filled with something more sweet than bitter. Her eyes narrow up at the darkened sky. She stares, as if expectant.

“Hello…? Is somebody out there?” Lena rests her elbows precariously against the railing,  sighing between intermittent sips of her drink. Then, in a softened voice, “… Who are you?” And all of a sudden, Lena’s become tangible and more than just another person waiting for Supergirl to save her.  

Bizarrogirl glides from shadow to shadow, trailing the darkness all the way down to the far corner of the balcony, where she settles in, secluded and silent. Lena doesn’t turn around, but her heartbeat is readily transparent enough for the both of them that it doesn’t matter. “Hello, Lena,” she says.

Lena sighs into her glass. “So, are you the one stealing my things then?”

“Yes.”

“You know… I really thought I was just going crazy. That I was just conjuring up senseless conspiracies because god forbid I ever misplace something like a normal person.” Lena pauses to take a small sip of her drink and chuckle. “But then, you went ahead and took my favorite glass right out of my hand, so…”

She smiles, even though she knows no one can see it. “You are smart.”

“Allegedly,” Lena says, shrugging. She looks over her shoulder, blinks blearily right into the darkness. “You’re really not going to show yourself, huh?”

“No. Never.” She holds her breath, but the follow-up question never comes.

Instead, Lena just turns back around with a small nod. “Believe me, I’d be doing the same thing if I could,” she says quietly, and leaves it at that.

“Not… scared?” she finally has to ask.

“Should I be?”

She shakes her head after some hesitation. “No.”

“Well, there we go then,” Lena says, rubbing at her eyes with a resigned sigh. “Listen… I’m just… so tired right now, and frankly, I just don’t have it in me to address whatever it is you’re trying to do. But to be honest—” she tosses back the last of her drink in a single swallow—“I have enough things. So… consider this a freebie.”

“… Freebie?”

Lena pushes off the railing, exhaling half-hearted laughter. “Yes, freebie. I’m leaving this for you right here, okay? No need to resort to petty theft or breaking and entering.” She sets the empty wineglass right outside her door, but pauses before stepping through. “… So, what’s your name anyway?”

The most obvious answer—so carefully practiced, her clumsy mouth sounding out the word over and over again for her own sake—feels wrong in the moment. A lie, somehow, in the face of Lena’s undeserved generosity.

“You do have a name, don’t you?” Lena glances over, head tilted curiously, and their eyes almost meet despite all the darkness cast between them.

“No,” she manages to say, her fingernails biting fiercely into her own palm.

Lena gives a hum, one so thoughtful and reminiscent of her brother. “Well… that’s something you’ll have to steal from someone else, I’m afraid.”

She watches Lena slide the door shut behind her, but waits until all the lights disappear before reaching for the glass.

//

It takes two more days for Lex to pay her another visit, and he walks into her room to find her turning the wineglass over and over in her hands. He frowns when she doesn’t immediately offer it up to him.

“So, did you learn anything?” Lex asks, and she just nods. “… And…?”

She rolls her right hand into a fist so tight that her entire hand feels like a bruise. “Not. Scared.”

“Lena’s… not scared.” Lex studies the wineglass carefully before directing his sharp gaze back at her face. “I see.”

He doesn’t ask for further clarification, or any other question, or anything at all, for that matter. He just leaves, and she feels nothing about it.

[dakarimainink]

Happy New Year

WARNING: Fluff, friendly, little bit of alcohol, angst, a bit of bullying

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x You (Reader)

Wordcount: 1.6K

Note: Not betad, all mistakes are my own.

This was a request by anon:

"heyy could u write a os about reader and pedro meeting each other at a mutual friend's party and they just hit it off??"

I'm so bad at fluffy writing because 'Im such a slut

I hope you like it.

I'm not gonna lie, I actually struggled writing this 😭

Extra note: Y/F/N = Your friend's name

DISCLAIMER: the number is fake! I got it off a fake number site!!

Masterlist

You knew your friend was popular with a lot of people, but when you were invited to their New Year’s Eve party, you had no idea there would be so many and you barely recognised any of them. You guessed some of the guests were your friend’s partner’s, but it didn’t really make a difference to you now that you were standing alone on the side-line with a drink in hand.

You contemplated to just leave and go back to your original plan to celebrate in front of your TV with pyjamas on, it wasn’t as if you hadn’t done it before, but it was nice to see your friends again, at least some of them.

While contemplating what to do next, you absentmindedly plucked one and one chip from the bowl next to you, your eyes glossing over the mingling people around. Your thoughts drifted over to how your next year would be like, what goals you would set for yourself. It had been a slow year and you were truly ready for a fresh start.

In the corner of your eye, you noticed a small group of people approaching you. You took a step to the side, getting out of the way of the snack table. You turned your head away and looked at the fairy lights slinging across the walls.

“Y/N?”

The voice made you snap your head to the source, meeting a pair of curious baby blue eyes. You gulped as ice prickled in your veins. Fuck…

“Oh my god, it is you.” She giggled and turned to glance at the three other people standing with her. “Haven’t seen you since high school.” Your eyes dragged along her beautiful features and her silver cocktail dress. “Do you remember us?”

“How could I ever forget?” You mumbled with your head hanging low, dread washing over you as old memories hit you left and right and all you wanted to do was crawl away to the safety of your bed.

“I’ll never forget that time you got your period in the middle of the class, your seat was gushing red.” The woman cackled and you cringed inward at the memory. You had to go home that day and didn’t return to school until a week later once your period was done. “Or that time you got gum stuck in your hair.”

You chewed on your lip as you looked up at her, a hint of anger lingering at the back of your throat. “That was because of you.” You pointed out; your fingers tightened the grip around your glass.

The woman took a step closer to you with a smirk playing on her lips. “Mmm, and it was hilarious. You truly rocked your new hairstyle after that.” She grasped at your hair. “You should have kept it short.” She chuckled, lightly tugging at your hair before taking a step back.

You wanted so badly to snap back at her for what she put you through. Years of humiliation you had fought to suppress resurfaced as you were facing her for the first time since those horrible years.

She folded her arms and leaned her weight to one side. “Let me take a guess, you’re here alone? I wouldn’t be surprised, someone like you are born to be lonely.”

You met her cocky gaze and furrowed your brows. That was the last straw for you and you inhaled sharply, ready to bark out at her.

“There you are.”

Everyone snapped their head to the warm and vibrant voice to your right.

“I’ve been looking all over for you.” You met the man’s gaze, warm dark eyes that radiated kindness. He stepped right up to you and pulled you in by the waist with a caring smile. “We need to get outside if we’re to catch the fireworks.”

You could feel the warmth radiate from him and the smell of dark spice and light citrus hit your senses and you inhaled deeply. You gaped at him, not sure as to what to say or do.

“If you’ll excuse us, ladies.” Shifting his hold to your hand, he led you away from them and towards the garden. You barely kept up with his long and confident strides through the crowds of people until you finally stood outside under the clear night sky.

The air was crisp and fresh, feeling grateful for getting out from the cramped and uncomfortable situation, you looked up at him with a grateful smile. “Thank you.” You breathed out.

“And I thought we were all grown-ups here.” He mumbled to himself as he gave you a once over. “You okay?”

You nodded.

“I’m sorry for just marching in there, but I couldn’t help but overhear how rudely they spoke to you.”

You cleared your throat, feeling the fuming heat cool off of you. “Actually, I’m grateful you did. I almost snapped at them, which would probably turn into a whole scene.” You rubbed the back of your neck uncomfortably.

He nodded understandably. “That would probably turn a few heads.” He chuckled and took a sip from his beer. He held out his hand to you. “Pedro.”

You took it with a smile on your lips. “No, that’s not my name.” You said with a serious tone.

“N-no I mean…” He noticed your smile had twisted into a playful smirk and he rolled his eyes teasingly.

“I’m Y/N.” You chuckled and let go of his hand, licking your lower lip in the process.

“So that’s how it is, huh?”

You nodded, proud of your little joke. “That’s how it is.” You took a sip from your glass. “You know what, I think you would look great in a hat.” You giggled, the thought had popped so randomly into your head, and usually you would have kept it to yourself, but the alcohol was already making you a bit smug.

His eyebrows shot up in amusement. “A hat? What kind of hat?”

“I dunno, just a hat.”

You both chuckled at the random thought. He nodded with a smirk playing on his plump lips. “A hat it is then.”

You cleared your throat, shaking off the thought of him reminding you of someone. “So, are you ready for the new year?”

“Yeah, ready for a new year with new adventures and new projects. And you?”

You shifted your weight to one side. God yes! “Pretty much, yeah. It’s been a long year, so ready to put it behind and get a new start. At least that’s what it feels like – a new start.” You smiled “I definitely won’t waste away in my pyjamas at all.” You added sarcastically.

He chuckled. “You know what, that sounds pretty nice. It also sounds like the plans I initially had for New Year this year.”

You snorted at his honesty. “Mine too.” You admitted with a chortle as you looked around at the other unfamiliar faces glancing at you.

“How do you know these people?” He asked, snapping your attention back at him. You couldn’t shake off the feeling of having seen this man before.

“Y/F/N and I have known each other since we were like three years old.” You replied. “And you?”

“Ah, Y/F/N is also a friend of mine. We met like - … - four years ago I think it is.” Your heart lightly fluttered at his furrowed brows as he thought about it. “Or is it three?” His eyes bounced to your gaze with a warm glow. “I can barely remember, time flies by so fast.”

“TEN. NINE. EIGHT.”

You both looked out on the growing crowd by your side, everyone facing away from you to look up at the clear night sky. You felt a smile grow on your lips as you realised it was soon to be a new year.

“FIVE. FOUR. THREE.”

They all chanted together as some fireworks flew up in the air and exploding, painting the black canvas with colours and sparks. You turned to look at Pedro beside you, who already had his gaze on you.

“ONE. HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Everyone shouted out in unison.

He held out his beer bottle and you clinked your glass to it. “Happy new year.” He smiled sincerely, filling you with warmth.

“Happy new year.” You both took a sip from your own drinks and held each other’s gaze. You both took half a step closer and he bent down, wrapping his arms around you and hugged you tightly.

“To new beginnings.” He whispered.

Safety washed over you as you stood in his embrace. His scent overrode your senses as you wrapped your own arms around him. He pulled you a little closer as you heard him inhale deeply.

“Pedro.” An unknown voice called out in the distance.

He let go of you slowly, as if he was reluctant to part from you and looked behind you.

“Alex.” He chimed and took a step to the side to greet what you thought was his friend. “Happy new year.”

“Happy new year, man. The others are looking for you, they wanna wish you a happy new year as well, come on.” Alex grabbed Pedro’s wrist and pulled him with him.

You chuckled at the sight as Pedro looked over his shoulder at you with an apologetic look. You waved at him, hiding the feeling of dismal and emptiness as you watched him leave. Pedro… You echoed his name in your head, when suddenly realisation washed over you. Pedro…! You gaped at yourself in disbelief. Holy shit!

~

You woke up with a throbbing headache, rolled over and grasped for your phone. You had a few texts from different family members, but what caught your attention was a text from an unknown number.

---------------------

202-555-0021

You’re right, I do look great in a hat.

Omg, ahaha

You're definitely rocking that hat!

How did you get your hands on a hat so quickly?

Have coffee with me and I’ll tell you the thrilling story of how I got it

Hahah sure. When?

El Barrista in an hour? I will be wearing my hat

See you in an hour

(Wanna be added to my tag list for Pedro Pascal and his characters? Let me know and I will happily add you)

@cynic-spirit, @lililolli, @notabotiswear, @sara-alonso, @blankmooon, @xoxo-callie, @mamacitapascal, @thewaythisis, @greeneyedblondie44

[muffindaddystyles]

Vamp!harry x readers first time being fully intimate! He’s scared of hurting her so he’s really hesitant to do it. it’s also her first time in general so maybe you can make it really fluffy please??

Sorry for being supppppeeerrr late but promise it's gonna be worth it. All my lovin!!

Vampire!harry at valentines day.

It's valentine's day. For Harry everyday is a day for lovin' but in vampire culture valentines is the key to the lock of ever love and showing your passion towards your better half. He showered Y/N in abundant of affection; was waiting for her to wake up on his bedside like an impatient puppy and the moment she blinked open her eyes he was all over her. Almost swallowing her whole. His plush lips kissed every inch of his lovie and muffled all her giggles with his heavy smoochs.

"Will you be my valentine?" He murmures against her mouth and she squeaks still sleepy, "ofcourse yes!" He was joyous and kissed her as many times as he could.

She was all smushy squeals and jumpy on her bum while ripping her gifts down, "Slow down poppet 's all yours." He laughed resting his chin atop her head. She got all blushy and shy in his arms when on her rummage a furry brallete top and shorts dangled with her fingers, "'s sooo cute Harry. Thank you!" She tries to kiss him but it lands against his chin. Pastel heart boxes full of rich chocolates and strawberries made her sky rocket over the moon dribbling him with her kisses and sweet whispers.

After exchange of gifts, chocolates and kisses they went to diner near her flat hands in hands for some tummy filling brekkie. They were inseparable, with heart twinkling eyes, tender gushes and sighs full of love for eachother. Anyone could spot them the couple from far like a bat under the moonlight.

It's cloudy and thick so she hauled him with herself flopping into poof of lavender fields the scent cocoons them as they stared into eachother's eyes with love and happiness till she lifted her fingertips to lightly brush it over his silken dollop of cheeks with a quirk of lips; it burns. To touch him. Lit her core on fire with desire and yearn to be his's fully.

He takes her cheeks and gently, gently, ever so gently smudges his candy lips against hers to taste her mouth. Sliding his palms down her spine under her bottom to pull her ontop of him without un-sealing his lips from over her's. Her hands meanders under his hickory curls that made him grunt and raise his hips to push against her womanhood.

"Want you, please." She whimpers putting the pressure down on his bulge jolting with the wave of pleasure with each swivel, "shh. shh 's okay gonna take care of ye' . . . Let's go home first." He pets her hair murmuring against her chin and plucks her pout when she shakes her head with eagerness.

"What lovie', didn't know ye' were thatttt kinky!?" He tickles her dimples at the sides and she scooches down into his chest with spurts of laughs, "Aish. 'M not . . just want you to take me."

"You'll 'ave me – darlin' in the best way possible." He sighs kissing her sweetly with tongue to explore her tangeriness and his nostrils flares when she whines with the flutter of her eyelashes.

//

"Come fo' me again baby." He says while licking up her folds with hunger pinning down her shivering thighs as his sleek fingers pumped her own cum back inside her. They came back home, undressed in haste and Harry wrapped her around him like a soft bear laying her down promising her that he'll fill her with his cock. Gave his tongue and fingers to her, playing filthy between her sticky thighs with three digits of his's buried deep inside her weepy pussy.

It's her second orgasm and still the knot in her stomach didn't unwind. It'll only after being stuffed full with his thick fat prick deep inside her wet cunt. When she whines trying to latch to his shoulders murmuring, "what if it'll not fit?" He giggles popping out her nipple from between his lips with a dirty noise.

"Now, I'll take it as a compliment but 'ave been warmin' ye up fo' a mo' haven't I?" He palms her breasts and runs his thumbs over her nipples while circling her clit; watching as she squirmed and whimpered under him. "You're wet fo' a proper nice fuck baby — bet gonna take my dick so well fo' me." He spreads her gooness down her slit dangerously close to her other hole. She gasps and he swallows it with a kiss pressing his thumb against her puckering pink hole while slithering his ring finger inside her dripping pussy.

"'S all fo' me?" He prods inside her making her moan breathily and she bobs her head desirous to have him all for herself. He tucks his trousers down while sucking her bottom lip tenderly, his erection slapping his lower tummy and her shivering hands brushes the aching tip of his cock making him rut in her grip.

"Oh me sweet bundle of blood." He whispers gazing into her earthy eyes with passion and love bitting his pale jutted lips when she stroked him spreading his pre-come down his thick shaft. He glides his palm under her back other cupping her jaw, "stay still fo' me moppet." He says in a low hum working his oozing prick between her folds making squelching noises. Sliding it down and inside her slowly almost loosing his balance knocking his forehead against her.

"S' tight." Her wetness allowing him to extend deeper till he pulled out making both of them whine, "shh. I gotcha lovie' . . ." He huffs bottoming out snug and warm inside her fluttering walls milking the tip of his cock, it pimples goosebumps at their skins.

He frees her wrists touching her sides, "you can move now." She quickly winds her forearms around his shoulders loving the way their bare skin feels together while they're intervined in such an intimate way. A shiver runs down his bone marrow when her lips skims over his throat and teeth grazes to find the perfect spot to mark him just the way he does to her, "tell me if it hurts yeah? don't wanna harm ye' in any way." He's grinding his hips at very gentle pace just to test waters. His hand groping and teasing her pebbled nipples sometimes sneaking down to flicker her clit.

"You'll not, please please . ." She tries to thrust into him but he pins them down glaring her sternly. He's awed how hooded with lust her eyes are, darker than his demonic ones and it's so sexy his hips quacks pummeling inside her unintentionally but it made her go feral, "'m serious baby." He nudges her thighs wider holding it down watching himself push inside her yearningly.

"Can you please fuck me now?" She breathes annoyed at him and he grins giving her chaste kiss on lips, "y'want that? dirty babe." Her eyes rolls back when he thrusts inside her continuously without a waver roughly while kissing her collar bones controlling himself to take a bite from her. He could listen how erratically her heart's been beating squirming his lips upwards as she arched and thrashed under him.

He sucks her nipple inside his mouth pulling at it with a hum and crimson rimmed irirses fucking her brutally to make her see stars and saturn.

"Wanna cum?" He presses his palm with force against her belly to feel himslef bumping through stroking his ego. Her eyes teary and button nose red as she nods, "then beg." He smirks and it made her tug at his roots from the pleasure of sight when his fangs poked out ever so slightly within his gums.

"Please harry. Can I come?" Her upper body shaking from avoiding to gush all over his cock and he twitches against her spongy walls with a whimper while playing with her clit, "yes cum right now." Her moans were the most erotic thing Harry has ever heard as she let herself limp in his arms feeling safe and happy coating his dick with her cum. Babbling incoherence under him and his face falls into her neck fucking her, overstimulating her with each stroke and she holds him tight cooing in his ear as he came hissing when her glistening soaked pussy tried to push him out.

After some minutes he recouped, kissing the side of her head trailing little pecks at her sweaty line bringing her up closer to his chest.

"Was I good?" His gaze soft and genuine. "The best." She hiccups tiredly. Cheeks blushed and eyes glassy, "How was I?" Her shyness clear. "I love how your pussy feels around me. Swallows me perfectly." He smiles whispering the end part and she whispers it back, "made for eachother."

He cleans her with baby wipes rubbing them between his hands before using them to swipe away his cum from her inner thighs. Hushing her softly when she whimpers as he nudges at a particular sore bite or her sensitive folds. Threw sheets into hamper and brought her favourite patched quilt to cuddle under it not letting her untangle her calves from his's at all.

Then in evening they baked together more like her checking out her love marks on her body in the glassiness of refrigerator while he squats beside the oven like an over excited puppy. She gasps dramatically wiggling her bum to have a better look then almost shoving it against his face making him tumble.

"Harry! you left a horrendous bite under my bum!!" He gives out a belly ache laugh slapping her arse playfully, "What can I say, moppet. Ye' got a cute lil bum. Couldn't resist biting ye'r peach" She huffs trying to grab him but in an instant he's turning into the weeny black creature flapping his wings down at her small lips smirking down at her in victory.

"Oi. You can't just turn a bat everytime you do somethin' naughty, it's unfair!" She puts her hands on her hips glaring up at him and he flies to the other direction but unfortunately knocks himself into the book shelf. Her laugh echoes into whole house as he transforms back into his humanly figure rubbing his head smiling up at her full of giddiness and she flops down beside him kissing his dimples with a grin that doesn't seem to disappear.

"Happy valentines day you fool."

[sunflowergirl522]

You Need To Remember 3

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Reader

Summary: Your best friend Peter gets sucked into a different reality in front of you and you use your power to go after him. You find yourself in a new reality but you don’t remember how you got there.

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 1681

Masterlist Previous Part

When Peter had hit the back of Monica’s head to knock her out you gasp. What was going on?

“Peter! What are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done before hun.” And then you’re greeted with darkness. 

When you wake up you’re in some sort of attic with a headache in the back of your head where you were hit. Monica’s yelling for Wanda and banging on the window while Peter sits on the couch with a guitar. You’re laid on a recliner in a corner of the room and sit up and grimace at the heart beat in your head.

“Don’t waste your breath babe. No one can hear you from in here.” Monica turns around to look at Peter and glances at you when he calls her babe. You just shrug at her not knowing what was going on as Peter starts to play the guitar. Peter’s never touched a guitar in his life. How did he know now? He strums something dramatic and makes a face at Monica as she looks between the door and him. She tries to run and you know that that’s a bad idea before she even does it. It seems like she’s forgetting about his super speed. He beats her there, getting in her way, and flicks her back.

“Shit, Monica!” You rush to her side to help her into a sitting position and make sure she’s okay. You help her over to the recliner that you were just on while Peter goes to make a smoothie or something. “What is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”

“Can’t have the two of you messing everything up for the missus.”

“What is this stuff?” Monica asks in what seems to be disgust and you try to figure out what he was talking about. Who’s the missus?

“This is my man-cave.”

“Man-cave?” Your eyebrows scrunch together, not once has Peter ever used the term man-cave.

“A place to chillax, you know, while the missus is turning up trouble.”

“What the fuck?” You mutter to yourself as Peter walks over to the tv and Monica rifles through the papers on the stand next to her.

“You a fan of Steven Seagal?” When he doesn’t get a response he frowns and keeps doing whatever it is he’s doing.

“Agnes doesn’t live here.” You turn to Monica to see her staring down at a piece of paper and lean on the recliner to look over her shoulder. She’s holding a picture of what seems to be Peter with brown hair and a different name typed underneath it. “You do.” Her mouth is wide with shock as she looks up at the boy who fumbles with something. “You’re Ralph Bohner?” She sounds just so confused and you have to admit you are to but you can’t help but also find yourself amused.

“Boner.” Peter chuckles and you giggle a bit at it too. Monica shoots you a look and you shrug at her in response as you cover your mouth. It’s a ridiculous name and you’ve always been as immature as Peter.

“How is she controlling you?” Monica gets up as she asks.

“You wanna tussle again?” Peter gets into a fake fighting stance and bounces around. Monica catches him by surprise and flips him over her shoulder and pins him to the ground. “Meow. She’s feisty.” You ignore how much him flirting with Monica hurts you considering he’s probably under some control. As soon as Monica rips the ugly puka shell necklace from Peter’s neck his face morphs into a scared look. “Please, spare my life!”

“Nice to meet you Ralph.” Monica gets off of him then and you teleport to stand in front of the window behind his head. 

“Huh?” He goes to lean up on his elbows and you step closer to lean over his body. Sensing you, he looks up and relief floods through his features.

“Yeah nice to meet you.”

“Y/n!” He uses his speed to stand in front of you. “Are you okay? God I didn’t hurt you too bad did I?” His hand goes to the back of your head to feel for a bump.

“I’m alright Peter, don’t you dare start apologizing because I know you won’t stop. What happened anyway? One minute you’re about to help Wanda and the next you’re knocking us out.”

“I don’t know I guess when I was me for that short bit she was distracted but I was snapped back into her control when I got closer to the house.” He turns to point at Monica. “Good job with the necklace though, I didn’t even know.”

“I could see her energy.” Monica shrugs before tossing it over her shoulder. “We should go help Wanda.” 

“We’ll catch up.” Monica nods at you before running out the door. “What is this about?” You hold up the picture for Peter to see.

“When I ended up on the other side of the portal none of this shit was going on. It must’ve been just before it so I found a picture of some dude who looked enough like me to pass and made up an alias.”

“And you chose Ralph Bohner?” One of your eyebrows quirk up and a small smile forms on your lips.

“Alright so I saw it on a gravestone when I ran through the neighborhood to figure out where I was and thought it was funny.”

“It is pretty funny, I’ll give you that. It’s definitely a name I can see you picking. I’m really glad you’re alright Pete, I was so worried when you disappeared.”

“I was pretty worried too. I didn’t know if I was ever gonna see you again.” Peter steps closer to you and caresses the side of your face. The two of you stare at each other for a minute before you clear your throat.

“We should probably go.”

“Yeah.” Peter holds onto the back of your neck and the two of you make it to the town square just in time to see a funnel cake truck smash into a SWORD car. A robotic looking man comes out of the library and the twins run to him yelling dad. “That’s Vision, shame you never got to meet him.” You and Peter stay behind a building so that Agatha doesn’t see the two of you. The two of you watch as the two witches fly up and start to fight in the sky.

“Oh shit!” You both exclaim together as Agatha seems to drain Wanda completely of her power. Peter zips off and comes back with some popcorn offering the bucket out to you. You take a handful as you watch as Wanda takes all of her power back and transforms. 

“Damn, she looks good! It’s a good thing I’m so into you Pete because otherwise I’d be hitting on your not really sister.” 

“You’re into me?” You don’t even realize what you just said until his words feel your ears.

“Um, well yeah, have been for a while now.” You might as well let him know, maybe if he freaks out you can get Wanda to erase his memory or something.

“Good, I’m pretty into you too.” He just shoves another handful of popcorn in his mouth and keeps watching the moment in front of the two of you and it suddenly starts to turn to night as Wanda and her family walk away. When the both of you walk over to Monica it’s completely dark and the walls of the world are shrinking. 

“Is that popcorn?” Monica asks the two of you pointing at the bucket and you nod at her with a small smile. The wall of the world goes past the three of you causing it to be day again.

“It’s not often we get to watch the fights.” You shrug and Peter takes your hand in his own after zipping over to throw the bucket away. “We’re normally almost dying in them.”

Wanda walks into the town square again and all of the townspeople stop to stare at her as she walks up to the three of you. Monica's attention goes to her and she takes a few steps to meet up with Wanda.

“They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them.”

“It wouldn’t change how they see me. And you, you don’t, you don’t hate me?”

“Given the chance and given your power, I’d bring my mom back. I know I would.”

“I’m sorry. For all the pain I caused.” You look over at Peter to see concern on his face and you can tell that he just wants to wrap his arms around this Wanda and console her. He had lost his twin in your own reality and you know how hard this must be for him. You squeeze his hand to remind him you’re here and a small smile appears on his face.

“I know.”

“I don’t understand this power. But I will.” It’s then that Wanda’s attention goes to the two of you. Peter smiles at her and does a little wave and she walks up to the two of you. “So who are you, then?”

“Uh, I’m Peter, Peter Maximoff. Weird, I know right.” He does an awkward laugh and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand and you decide to come to his rescue.

“We’re from a different reality, if that helps at all. He was plucked out of ours and put here I think to get to you, we aren’t completely sure though.”

“Huh, nice to meet the two of you.” Sirens start to get close then and Wanda starts to walk away before turning to face you three. “Goodbye Monica, Peter.” She nods at Peter in acknowledgement.

“Bye, Wanda.” Monica says before Wanda flies away. “Good luck.” As cops start to swarm around you, you turn to Peter.

“Let's go home.” You do what you did to get here and use your strength to open a portal to your own reality and Peter pulls you through before it can snap shut.

Peter Taglist: @amourtentiaa​ @simpforquicksilver​ @parkersdarling @loveyou3000-mcu

[weil-weil-lautre]

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,      Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —      And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;   The young birds are chirping in the nest ; The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;   The young flowers are blowing toward the west— But the young, young children, O my brothers,      They are weeping bitterly ! They are weeping in the playtime of the others,      In the country of the free. Do you question the young children in the sorrow,      Why their tears are falling so ? The old man may weep for his to-morrow      Which is lost in Long Ago — The old tree is leafless in the forest —   The old year is ending in the frost — The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —   The old hope is hardest to be lost : But the young, young children, O my brothers,      Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,      In our happy Fatherland ? They look up with their pale and sunken faces,      And their looks are sad to see, For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses      Down the cheeks of infancy — "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"   "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !" Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—   Our grave-rest is very far to seek ! Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,      For the outside earth is cold — And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,      And the graves are for the old !" "True," say the children, "it may happen      That we die before our time ! Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen      Like a snowball, in the rime. We looked into the pit prepared to take her —   Was no room for any work in the close clay : From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,   Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,   With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,   For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,— And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in      The shroud, by the kirk-chime ! It is good when it happens," say the children,      "That we die before our time !" Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking      Death in life, as best to have ! They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,      With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city —   Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do — Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty   Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows      Like our weeds anear the mine ? Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,      From your pleasures fair and fine! "For oh," say the children, "we are weary,      And we cannot run or leap — If we cared for any meadows, it were merely      To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping —   We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,   The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,      Through the coal-dark, underground — Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron      In the factories, round and round. "For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, —      Their wind comes in our faces, — Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning,      And the walls turn in their places Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling —   Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, — Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling —   All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! — And all day, the iron wheels are droning ;      And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)      'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' " Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing      For a moment, mouth to mouth — Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing      Of their tender human youth ! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion   Is not all the life God fashions or reveals — Let them prove their inward souls against the notion   That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! — Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,      As if Fate in each were stark ; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,      Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,      To look up to Him and pray — So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,      Will bless them another day. They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us,   While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us   Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word ! And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)      Strangers speaking at the door : Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,      Hears our weeping any more ? " Two words, indeed, of praying we remember ;      And at midnight's hour of harm, — 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,      We say softly for a charm. We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'   And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,   And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 'Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely      (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,      'Come and rest with me, my child.' "But, no !" say the children, weeping faster,      " He is speechless as a stone ; And they tell us, of His image is the master      Who commands us to work on. Go to ! " say the children,—"up in Heaven,   Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find ! Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving —   We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,      O my brothers, what ye preach ? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving —      And the children doubt of each. And well may the children weep before you ;      They are weary ere they run ; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory      Which is brighter than the sun : They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ;   They sink in the despair, without its calm — Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, —   Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, — Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly      No dear remembrance keep,— Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly :      Let them weep ! let them weep ! They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,      And their look is dread to see, For they think you see their angels in their places,      With eyes meant for Deity ;— "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,   Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,   And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,      And your purple shews your path ; But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence      Than the strong man in his wrath !"

The Cry of the Children by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

[freunwol]

not to ssau post twice in a row but heres the entirety of it that i deleted off of ao3, for archival's sake. i didnt edit anything abt the formatting or anything from the document i found it in, so... well enjoy 16 y/o me's writing lol

1

/One white dove against a dark blue sky, beautiful and graceful, that flies against the current that carries a starving hawk. Such is fate./

Lucid blinked awake. Her vision was a mass of blue- she rubbed her eyes, and the mass above her slowly cleared itself into leaves. Sunlight poked through the gaps, one beam burning hot on her cheek. She sat up and slapped it. 

/Figures I would dream about that./ She moved backwards against the branch she was on, stopping once her back hit the trunk and resting against it. She looked down to her lap- a single piece of parchment was resting on it, a simple letter. She had read it over and over, and each time she could only reach one conclusion- this was her chance.

Lucid jumped from the branch, landing gracefully by a pile of leaves. She dug through them, uncovering her crossbow and a small, emptied quiver. She stuffed the letter into the quiver and strapped it around her waist, then picked up her crossbow. The steel finish shone blue under the trees. She plucked at the string, and it hummed in response. 

A shuffle- Lucid whipped around and went quiet. She raised her crossbow slowly. Her heart began to pound, to where she feared she wouldn’t be able to hear-

Another shuffle. She shot her arm to the left, pulling the string back. A shimmering blue arrow materialized as she moved her hand towards the trigger. She shifted her position to face fully towards her potential target…

A blur of brown. She pulled the trigger, and was greeted to a loud /thunk/. The arrow dissipated, and Lucid was left with the sight of a small, brown, bloodied ball of fur in front of her.

It was a squirrel.

She went still- then laughed nervously. /I uh… I just did that for target practice! Yeah, practice. I can shoot a squirrel out of a tree. I’m a pro. Not just nervous as hell. Yeah./

She made to begin walking, glancing behind herself- and stopped. Just over the sea of blue leaves was a spot of pink in the distance. The sight forced her heart still in her chest. She felt herself drawn towards it, the desire to go back just as strong as her will. But…

She felt underneath her collar and retrieved a small, golden locket. She turned from the sight and pressed the locket to her lips.

/For my Queen./

She dashed away and didn’t look back.

“This is ridiculous!” Orchid stomped back and forth in her office, barely missing from running into a stationary Lotus, who was holding two crumpled up letters in his hands. “He dissolves Aurora, disappears for an era, and then suddenly decides he’s ready to be a vigilante, and asks us to help him like he never left?! What kind of person does he think he is?!”

“Well, he’s not a person, he’s a transcendent.” 

“Oh, potato, potahto! He still thinks his values are more important than anybody else’s!”

Lotus blinked. “That’s an odd criticism of somebody who’s concerned for the sake of the world.”

Orchid stopped in place, sighed, and turned to Lotus. “Brother, dear, may I ask you something?”

“No.”

“Why do you always argue these things when I know you agree with me?”

“...”

“...” Orchid leaned toward him. “/Do you not?/”

“...maybe not.”

Her’s eyes widened, then she spun around, laughing to herself. “That’s refreshingly honest of you! If frustrating.”

Lotus turned his gaze downward. “It’s just...if he’s right about this, and we do nothing, we won’t have anything left to play with.”

“/Command/, dear brother, say command.” She turned back and tapped him on the nose as she said this. He stayed still. “It’s a nicer word.”

“...why are you calling me ‘dear brother?’ And why do you suddenly care about wording?”

Orchid lifted her chin and stuck her hand under it. “Well, mine dearest brother, whom I love with all my-”

“This is because Le Tierre called you vulgar, isn’t it? This is your way of mocking her.”

“Duh.” She crossed her arms and pouted. “She thinks she’s so much better than me… she’s just a secretary! Nothing to the grand commander of the Black Wings of Edelstein!” She spread her arms outward at this, using her proud stance as a point of proof to her statement. Lotus just sighed.

Orchid walked to the front of the room, stopping in front of a large window. The whole of the city of Edelstein laid beneath them, theirs to watch over. Protecting the peace was stressful, annoying even, and yet…

“Edelstein is ours. If that bastard thinks his deal is more important…” She turned to Lotus. “He’ll come get us.”

He nodded in agreement.

Damien sorted through his bag one last time, counting the money and clothing he had over and over. He obsessed over his plans in his brain- /Buy a ferry to Orbis. Stay for one day, buy a ferry to Victoria Island, buy another to Edelstein. Spend a week searching for a guy in the middle of nowhere, die of starvation or animal attack, or he turns out to be lying. Great!/

He looked over the letter he had again, hoping for some clue in the wording, some sense of guidance he missed...and found none. He sighed and tied his bag closed, strapping it onto his hip.

Damien stood back up and looked around. There were no candles in his attic, but the small window in front of him let in enough of the bright noon light- enough to see the thousands of dust particles in the air around him. He had shuffled his scarf over his face to keep himself from coughing, but it was starting to get difficult.

He tiptoed his way out of the room and closed to door behind him, wincing at the loud, laborious creaking of the old hinges. /That door...hasn’t been oiled in decades, has it.../ 

Making sure to make no noise, he went into his mother’s room and placed his note- /Going hunting, had to leave earlier than expected. Will return in ten days. XOXO -Damien/

It wasn’t technically a lie, but still, his heart sank.

He went downstairs, cringing at every small noise his steps made, and made it to the largest room in his house- a small den with a fireplace, where above it was mounted...an empty sheath. Damien ran to the sheath and took it down, feeling his heart begin to race in his chest. “What…-”

“Looking for this?”

He whirled around in panic to find his mom, with a bright green robe, holding his sword.

He ran up to her and snatched the sword out of her hands. “I told you, you shouldn’t touch Vengance!” He put it back into its sheath and strapped it into his back. “I still don’t know what it does, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find out, but in the meantime I can’t risk anyone getting hurt-”

“Damien, you’re rambling again.”

“Ah…sorry...” 

She sighed and motioned to his bag. “You wouldn’t be taking half of our savings if you were going hunting. You wouldn’t be taking Vengance, either, but a sword won’t buy us dinner. Unless you sold it, like I told you to.”

“Mom, nobody would buy...nevermind.” He fiddled with the straps, tightening and untightening them. “Look...it’ll only take ten days, and I promise I’ll send a letter with the savings if it takes longer, so-”

“You’re looking for your brother again, aren’t you?”

“...yeah.”

Not technically a lie. This was the closest thing he had to a chance in years.

She only responded with a deep scowl. They stood there for a moment- then Damien placed a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t be long, I promise.”

She pulled him into a hug. “Don’t promise, just do that.”

“Of course.”

He pulled away and made for the front door. He had just opened it when-

“Oh- one more thing, Damien.”

“Yeah?” He turned to face his mother.

“If you find your brother, tell him…” She paused. “Tell him that he’s an idiot.” She ginned.

Damien grinned back. “Of course.”

He closed the door behind him and blinked. The bright light reflected on the surrounding plantlife didn’t treat his eyes well, but he wasn’t about to head off just yet. He took in his surroundings- Leafre, at high noon, had the sun directly above it, creating minimal shadows and giving everything around him a surreal appearance. The greens around him seemed to blend together harshly, cut through by blurs of dark brown. Everything would return to its normal appearance soon enough, about an hour after noon- just when Damien would be leaving.

He began to walk down the path towards the station, but had hardly taken five steps before he looked back at his house. It was a small, cobbled together thing of brick and cheap shingles- it had been his home for as long as he could remember. Now… he had no idea when he would return.

He gripped his scarf and walked away.

To an outsider, the sight of the sunset on the cracked stone architecture of Azwan made the city seem drearier. To its citizens, it was a welcome relief from the bright beating sun of the daytime. To Hilla, it served as a constant reminder. The letter didn’t help in the slightest.

She looked to the small pageboy kneeling in front of her, noticeably trembling out of his skin despite his stoic expression. 

She nodded slightly. “Thank you. You may go.”

The boy froze, then jolted upright, made a hasty yet gracious statement of gratitude, and bolted out of the door. Hilla chuckled. “Children get scared of the darndest things.”

The moment the door shut behind the child, Hilla turned around and cursed loudly. The air in the room stiffened as the now fearful guards glanced at each other. 

“This...this is bad. This is horrible. This… of all damn people…!” She clenched her fists, her knuckles turning white. 

“Empress…” One of the shamans finally spoke- her voice was hardly above a whisper. “What...what was in the letter.”

Silence.

“Medina…” Iason leaned towards her and spoke in a whisper. “I’ve never seen her in this state…”

“Me neither-”

“Guards!” Hilla shouted, causing a number of the guards to jump. “Leave this room and seal the entrance. Let nobody in and nobody out until I indicate otherwise.”

They shared glances again, unsure of her motives-

“/Now!/” Hilla slammed her staff against the ground as she barked out her order. The guards scrambled to move, filing out and closing the doors behind them.

The throne room was left in silence, with nothing but Hilla, her aides, and the dimming light of the sunset. Dark shadows cast across Hilla’s face, seemingly deepening the numerous wrinkles re-appearing over her skin. Her hair, turning from red, to gray, to a sickly white, was translucent in the yellow light. She gripped her staff tightly.

“All of you,” she said, turning to the aides, “what I am about to discuss will not leave this room, save a singular letter. This is of vital importance- beyond any meeting prior. Do I have your word?”

The aides stood in stunned silence, unsure what to say. Hilla sighed and repeated herself- “/Do I have your word?/”

“Yes, empress!”

“Good.” She turned away from the aides, taking careful strides towards the front of the room. From the wall of one-sided glass, the whole of Azwan was beneath her. 

“...He does one good deed, then decides he can take me away from my kingdom on a whim…” She muttered. “He thinks I can abandon this to go on a doomed manhunt…”

Suddenly, she whipped around and headed back towards the center of the room. “Once he receives the response, he will have ten days. Tell the border guards that if a man with long white hair and a wooden staff arrives within that time frame, they must bring him /directly/ to me. Otherwise, he will have no admittance to Azwan. Ever.” 

Silence.

“Empress…” Medina finally said, “What will the letter say…?”

Hilla went still for a moment- then a wicked grin formed over her face.

“Listen carefully.”

From the hills of inner Edelstein, far from any of the populated areas, hundreds upon thousands of starts could be seen at midnight. They illuminated the hillsides and forests with a slight light, just enough for a certain long haired mage to see his work in front of him. He had written, re-written, and then written his message again, toiling over the wording, then had finally sent it out...it felt incomplete. He read it to himself once again, if only to assure himself that it would be effective. The mage didn’t expect a quick response, nor one at all, really...but he hoped that he would have some form of assistance in the coming future. Regardless…

He folded his parchment, placed it back into his bag, and laid on the grass. There were no trees on the hill he was on, nothing to separate him from full view of the stars above. He was tempted to lie there forever, to soak in the universe…

Above him, he saw a small figure fly over- a single dove. After a second, a hawk flew over, followed quickly by the muffled sound of impact. 

The mage closed his eyes.

/To those whom I am contacting… I will make this brief.

As I write to you, a great evil is stirring- one beyond what this world has seen before, and one it may never get the chance to see again.

I have sensed it from within the Temple of Time- Rhinne has turned to corruption.

I do not know her motives, nor her plans, but I fear that she will soon strike.

For this reason, I ask of you a simple request- join me, and protect the world.

If I must act on my own, I shall. However, I am unsure if my own power will be sufficient.

If you wish to join me, meet me within the wilderness of Edelstein.

I await your response.

  -The White Mage/

2

Aria had become used to the boredom typical of being an Empress- most affairs were handled by her dignitaries, and everything else was menial at most. That day, however, she stood at the head of the long unused conference table, beaming. The rest of the table…

“Aria...may I ask why you called a meeting with no pretense?” Aran asked. “You’re lucky none of us were doing anything.”

“Speak for yourself.” Eclipse didn’t bother to look up. “I have far less time to practice sparring than you.” His eyes drifted to Aria, then darted away. “And I implore you, Empress Aria, stop making that expression. You look like-“

“/Watch it./” Phantom snapped. He shifted closer to Aria, who had barely noticed Eclipse’s remark. 

He simply shrugged and looked back down to his staff. “Apologies.” 

Silence.

Next to Eclipse, Mercedes slammed her hand on the desk, causing him to jump. “Aria, I can’t imagine you brought us here to stare at each other. What on earth are you waiting for?”

“For everyone to arrive.”

She turned to see Freud walking up, with Evan holding his hand and Eunwol following closely behind. Freud settled himself by the end of the table, with the other two hovering nearby. “I’m sad you assumed that we wouldn’t be included.”

“Yeah, that’s rude.” Evan pulled himself on top of the table and sat cross-legged. “You should apologize.”

Eunwol blinked.

Mercedes sighed. “I just didn’t expect it. And Evan…” She glared at him. “/Please/ don’t sit on the table.”

“But I want to…”

Freud chuckled lightly. “Evan… This is important.”

He sighed and slid off of the table. “You always say that…”

“It’s true this time.”

“/Ahem.../”

Everyone went quiet as Aria, who had placed a large, bound parchment on the table, began to speak. “It seems everyone is here...aside from Demon, who’s currently in Edelstein. He will be caught up upon his arrival.” She paused. “I’ll get to the point- Rhinne has finally contacted us again.”

Everybody at the table snapped to full attention, staring at her. She swallowed, and continued, “We’ve had false alarms in the past, yes, and I was certain it was another one, but...no.”

Her calm smile contorted into a wicked grin. “It’s time.”

No response.

“...y’know...for war? Conquering?” Aria motioned vaguely. “Preparing the world for Rhinne’s rule?”

“I just don’t think any of us had a response to that. It was... dramatic.” Aran didn’t meet Aria’s eyes.

“War usually is,” Phantom said flatly. “Did you want her to throw it out there while we all just sat around and sipped some tea?”

Aran glared at him. “I did not ask for your input.”

Phantom looked away and didn’t respond.

“Do not mind them, Empress. If this provides the opportunity to use darkness at last, I will gladly follow.” Eclipse grinned.

“Eclipse-” Mercedes began.

“Don’t bother,” Freud mumbled, “he’ll just get mad.”

She glanced back towards Eclipse. “...and may I ask, again, why a nineteen year old is on a war council? ...as well as your own son?”

Freud went silent.

Aria picked up the rolled parchment and began to open it. “I thank you for your concern, Eclipse, but I don’t usually mind banter between my guards and my /husband,/ of all people. Regardless…” She held the fully opened paper in front of her face. “For my preferences, I think it’s wise to begin conquest as soon as possible, if only subtly, so…” Aria places the paper onto the table and revealed a large, detailed map of Ossyria. “I’d like to use this time to decide where to strike first.”

“White Maaaaaaaage!!!!!”

Damien yelled into the hills, responded to only with the sound of his own voice. “Where are yoooooooooou?!!! We’re here to save to wooooooooooorld!!!!”

“Stop screaming, he’s not here.” Lucid plopped onto the grass near him. “He would’ve heard you by now if he was within eight miles.”

He sighed and sat down next to her. “It’s frustrating. I’ve spent almost half of my life’s savings /getting/ here, and now we can’t find the damn guy. I’m starting to think this was a scam to fund Edelstein’s transportation system.”

“Nonsense. He wouldn’t go from an organization like Aurora to money-making schemes...I hope.”

Damien nodded, pretending that he knew what Aurora was. He did not. 

A moment passed in silence.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, uh… Where’re you from?”

“Elluel. There aren’t elves anywhere else.”

“Oh...I’m from Leafre.”

“Cool.”

More silence.

Damien made to get up when Lotus cleared her throat. “You’re wondering what my motive is, aren’t you? A pupil going directly against her queen has to be suspicious.”

/…I wasn’t/ “Yeah.”

“The thing is… she’s been acting strange. Our whole alliance with Ereve was out of left field and gave us nothing- in fact, we’ve been giving resources to them that we can’t afford to give. On top of that…” She swallowed. “Mercedes...she’s seemed more and more like a figurehead carrying out whatever Aria wants to do...which I guess is just what Rhinne wants to do. And what the letter said… it makes too much sense.”

“...what are they doing?”

Lucid gave out a dry laugh. “I guess Leafre wouldn’t get that kind of news, huh?” She shook her head. “It’s not important to you.” 

“That’s cold.”

“It’s just complicated.”

Damien sighed and stood up. He stared into the surroundings- the hills only grew larger the further from the city.

“You’re… Damien, right? I’m Lucid.”

“Yeah…” Damien blinked, then turned around. “Where did you hear that?”

“There were demons in Edelstein talking about a guy with one eye. I think they were looking for you.”

“Demons in…” His eye widened. He drew closer to Lucid, intending to speak further, when her hand shot out to her side.

“Wait.” Her voice was soft. She stood up slowly.

“You-”

“/Hush./”

They stood still for a moment, Lucid visibly straining to listen, her ears sticking straight out- until they shot back as she reached for her crossbow.

“Someone’s here.”

Damien stiffened and turned where she was staring. He heard nothing but the slight rustle of grass in the breeze. He looked back at Lucid. “Um…”

She held her crossbow out in front of her and began taking light strides forward, leading with it. Damien sighed and pulled out Vengance. It hummed in his hand, glowing red save for a single empty groove. He reached instinctively for his satchel… and found a fistful of air. He glanced at his sides- nothing. A brief flare of panic lit in him, until he remembered he had left some of his belongings in a hotel room in Edelstein. /Must be there./ He turned his attention back to Lucid and followed a careful distance behind her, matching her quiet steps.

She broke into a sprint. In a moment, she was on the other side of the hill. Damien ran to catch up to her, finding her with her crossbow loaded, pointing directly at...

A man with long white hair sleeping on the hillside.

Lucid stood still. She slowly lowered her crossbow. “Please...don’t tell me he’s what I heard.”

The man snored lightly. Lucid sighed into a groan. “He is.” She threw her crossbow onto the ground and sat down in a huff.

/...what just happened?/

Damien sheathed his sword with hesitance, staring at Lucid. “Um…”

“I thought I heard something growling.” She jabbed a finger in the man’s direction. “It was just him.”

“Ah.” Damien stared at him for a moment, then looked to the hill behind them. “Well… we may as well keep looking, then-”

“This is the White Mage, idiot.”

Damien’s head whipped back to her. “He is?!”

“Did you not think that the /white/ guy with /white/ hair and /white/ robes could possibly be the /White/ Mage?” She gestured emphatically towards the apparent mage. “No clue at all?”

“Well…” He turned around fully and walked back towards the mage. “I mean, from his cadence, I thought he was some old scruffy guy in the middle of the woods…”

“With a big name tag that said ‘Hello, I am White Mage.’”

“Ha ha.” He stepped next to him. The mage’s expression was serene, completely unbothered by the daylight. Damien reached out, intending to shake him awake, when a sharp blue volt of energy crackled around his fingers and a bright, translucent barrier materialized around the mage.

“Ack!” He jerked his hand away and barely caught himself from falling backwards. He glanced at his hand- nothing had happened to it. “What the hell…?”

Lucid stared intently at the mage, then, as if an energy barrier hadn’t just suddenly appeared around him, walked closer and squatted by his face. She lifted her hand just outside of the barrier and closed her eyes.

/A verdant field in the middle of a forest, undisturbed by society. Lush green and browns briefly intercut with bright blue from above, and a lone figure standing in the middle, a small child with bright silver hair./

/Lucid groaned./ Always with these dreams.

/“Hey, White Mage! Wake the hell up!”/

/The child in front of her disappeared, and the forest began to dissolve into black. Before long, she saw nothing but darkness./

/“Lucid, correct?”/

/She whipped around to find the mage standing behind her, staff in hand. He seemed slightly hunched. “I hope my message was received without much complication.”/

/“...I almost shot it.”/

/He chuckled. “My apologies.” He straightened his posture, standing far taller than he had while hunched- still much shorter than Lucid. “Should I presume that this means you will assist in my efforts?”/

/“I’m quite literally right next to you. I did this to tell you to wake up.”/

/“Ah-“/

/The void they stood in turned to a brilliant white.../

...and slowly cleared into the hillside. Lucid stood back up. Damien was nearby, picking at grass. He turned to look at her. “Can I ask /now/ what the hell you’re doing?”

“He was dreaming. I told him he has visitors.”

“... you what?”

“It is her ability.” They both turned to the mage, who was now sitting up. His smile was small, but warm. “Lucid is able to enter into dreams and manipulate them, whether she is awake or asleep.” He stood up. “ And I presume you are Damien?”

“I...yeah.” Damien dropped his grass collection and stood. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

Lucid nodded, while Damien grunted.

The mage grabbed his cape and began to pluck grass from the cloth. “My apologies to the both of you, I wasn’t expecting a response within the week.”

Lucid blinked. “That’s… a long time”

“Yes, well…” he trailed off as he starting brushing at dirt. They stood for a moment.

“Well…” Damien cleared his throat. “Is there… somewhere more secure to discuss than the clearest hillside in Edelstein?”

The mage nodded. “There’s a place just over the next hill that will house us. And just as well, this is thoroughly stained…” He bunched up the cape in his arms. A large green stain had created a vague outline where his back had made contact with the ground. He started down the hill, curving away from the both of them. “Follow me.”

The two glanced at each other, then followed in silence.

Lucid glared at the mage from over the rim of her teacup. She took a long sip. “When you said there was a ‘place over the hill that will house us,’ I was given the impression of an inn.” She placed the cup on her plate. “Not a shack.”

They were in a shack with a low, cracked ceiling and soft wooden floors. Lucid sat at a small table, where the White Mage sat across from her, and Damien stood to her left- there were only two chairs. He stared intently at his sword, gripping it tight. He hadn’t spoken a word since they arrived.

The mage chuckled. “I didn’t intend to mislead you in any sense… I merely meant that this will be residence while we discuss our course of action. Far more comfortable than talking on a hillside.”

Damien finally glanced up. “I’d rather talk on a hill than sit around and drink tea in an abandoned heap of wood.”

“I live here.”

“...oh.” 

Damien looked down to the floor, then squatted. His eye was barely visible from over the side of the table.

Lucid glanced between the two men. “I, uh… appreciate the hospitality, personally… and sorry for insulting your house.”

The mage waved his hand. “No offense taken. It’s a horrible little place.” His smile was thin. “A miner was moving into Edelstein proper and was looking for an excuse to avoid paying for it in some way. It wasn’t difficult to dissuade him from burning it down- not very expensive, either.”

“Evidently.”

“Still… I don’t spend much time in it, thus the upkeep goes somewhat neglected. It was a bit nicer when I moved in… just a bit.”

Lucid laughed a little. 

The mage returned the smile for a moment, then stood up. “We’ve stalled long enough.” The other two looked up at him, Damien still sitting in place.

“...I want to answer something first. Lucid, Damien, you’re wondering why I contacted you two, I’m sure.”

Lucid nodded. Damien merely kept staring at him. 

“It’s simple. Rhinne… she is not working alone. She has the empress of Ereve under her control, as well as… certain people that are important to the two of you, if I am not wrong. Forgive me if I am making assumptions, but I believe someone with an emotional attachment to those involved would have more insight into their actions than I would. As well as that… I figured that you’d rather take their status into your own hands, if it comes to that.”

Lucid gazed into her teacup. “I… I appreciate that.” Her smile was thin.

The mage smiled back. “I hoped you would.”

Silence. 

“When you say people important to us…” Damien started, staring intently at the mage. “You don’t mean…”

“I was under the impression that you had a connection with the Demon Slayer-”

“He’s in Ereve!?” He shot up, his eyes wide with a fervor.

“Well… he’s connected with them, I’m sure, but I can’t say where he is-”

“That must’ve been why the demons in Edelstein were looking for you,” Lucid said. “I’ve seen reports on the area mentioning him.”

Damien’s eye shot between the two of them- he was practically hyperventilating. “Then… then we need to question them, now.” He put his sword back into his sheath. “Right?”

“Well, wait-”

“That’s actually very convenient!” The mage clapped his hands together. “I was about to propose we head first into the city proper.”

Lucid stood up. “You were?”

“I sent a letter to the commanders of Edelstein’s Air Force regarding Rhinne. Considering the people they are, if they have not already contacted me at this point, it means they expect me to convince them in person.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Those two never change.”

“So, there’s five of us then?” Lucid asked

“Six, actually. I sent a message to Hilla, as well, but-”

A sharp screech from outside cut him off. The three looked at each other, then bolted outside, weapons brandished. The White Mage looked around, seeing no one immediately outside-

Another screech directly above them. He looked up- on top of the shack, perched on the edge of the roof, was a brilliantly red bird, practically sparkling. Clutched in its bright orange talon was a neatly rolled parchment. It stared into the distance.

The mage whistled to the bird, which immediately fluttered down towards him. It dropped the parchment in front of him and flew away as though it had never stopped. He picked it up and gazed at it- the letter was tied with a thin red rope. The moment he touched it, it dissolved into sparks, and an eight-pronged circle surrounding an intricate design appeared in black atop the letter.

“It would seem,” the mage began, showing the letter to the other two, “that Hilla has offered a response.” They lowered their weapons as he unfurled the letter and began to read it.

The placid expression he had held melted away as his brow furrowed and his eyes scanned the page faster and faster, until he folded the paper in half and sighed.

“...There’s been a change in plans.”

“Empress!”

Aria turned around to the Demon Slayer, stopping as he ran to her. He slid into a deep kneel.

“Rise, Slayer. I believe Freud was to inform you of our plans?”

He stood in an instant. “ Yes, and I need to speak with you immediately.”

“You seem energetic.” She took cursory glances around the two of them. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here, so if it suits you…” She gestured towards him. “Speak your mind.”

“My brother is looking for me.”

“Damien…?”

He dug into his pocket and retrieved a small cloth satchel, jingling lightly. He emptied the contents into his hand- five gold coins, engraved with the mark of the demons, and a small red stone. “One of my soldiers retrieved this from an unfamiliar demon in Edelstein.” He slid the coins back into the satchel and held the stone gingerly, staring at it. “This gem… it’s been dulled, but it’s from my brother’s sword. It has his energy. He’s… he’s looking for me.”

Aria sucked in air through her teeth. “That...complicates things severely, then.”

“How so?” He looked up.

She didn’t immediately respond, holding her hand to her mouth, deep in thought.

He glanced back down to the satchel. “Well… he’s not leaving any time soon… of course, if he is a problem, the Resistance could weaken him-”

“You and I both know the Resistance can’t handle him in their state,” Aria snapped.

Demon gazed at her, and slowly raised up the red stone. “Not if he had this, they couldn’t.” He smiled lightly.

Aria stared at him for a moment, then broke into a grin and bowed deeply to him- he returned an even deeper bow, nearly reaching a right angle. “Thank you for your information, Slayer. We will discuss this with the heroes at our earliest convenience.” She turned and continued in her path a bit faster than before.

Demon opened the satchel and placed the gem back into it, then inspected its contents once more. Five golden coins, all dusty. He picked up one with a large dent on its side, one that he left there years ago. He threw it back into the bag and stuffed it back into his pocket.

3

“No direct flights?!”

“I’m sorry, sir. Azwan doesn’t have an airport, and Ariant’s is closed for maintenance until Tuesday.”

“It IS Tuesday!”

“Next Tuesday.”

Damien spun around and groaned a long, drawn out “Damn iiiiiiiiiiit….” as he walked back to the other two. “Just… FUCK, man…”

“Watch your language!” Lucid yelled from the other side of the room.

“Sorry.”

The White Mage glanced around the room, jumping from airship after airship. His eyes landed on the view outside the window- an ill-fitting mountain of black rock adjacent to the mines, with a symbol of two wings around a circle etched directly above the doorway. /The Black Wings./ The mage had to shake his head at that. /What a name.../

“Well, this seems...entirely like we've shot ourselves in the foot, here.” Lucid turned to the mage. “Haven't we?”

“Well…”

He looked over the mountain again. He hadn’t seen the two in such a long time, and not on good terms, but if they hadn’t denied them outright far earlier…

"Not yet."

Orchid faced the three idiots standing in her office. The White Mage stood tall, holding his staff by his side and meeting her gaze. The other two by his side were a bit more distracted by the decor of the office- not something she could blame them for, it /was/ a grand place. She raised her arm, pointed at them, and bellowed,

"Absolutely not!"

"..."

"You couldn’t have thought we'd be okay with this. You kick us out of Aurora, abandon the place without saying a word, then you come back out of the blue with your…" She wiggled her fingers. "...entourage, and what? We're just okay with that? We drop everything we've built here- on our OWN- to go on a wild goose chase?"

The White Mage winced visibly. "That wasn’t-"

"Save it. Get out." She sat in her chair and turned around.

Silence filled the room. The White Mage sighed and turned to the doorway, shoulders hunching slightly. He motioned to the other two; Lucid shifted to follow, and Damien…

“You’re fucking joking, right?” Damien stepped toward the commanders, ignoring the disbelieving looks shot at him from behind.

"Not even a little."

"We came all this way, we're preparing to sacrifice everything, and you give us nothing?!"

"Nope! Now shoo." She laid her hand over her chair and made a whooshing motion.

Damien prepared to shout a little more at them, but was cut off by Lucid pushing him behind her. She glared at him, doing her best to send him /let me handle this you idiot/ vibes - which seemed to work, as he stepped back. 

"Listen, guys…" Lucid's voice had raised by about two octaves. “We really don’t want to step on your toes if it’s too much trouble…”

“It really is.”

Lucid had to keep herself from talking back with a breath, then said, “But we really need a flight within the next few days, and there’s no airports in Azwan, so…”

"...Azwan?" Orchid turned in her chair slightly. Beside her, Lotus finally raised his head ever so slightly, making eye contact with the mage. “You didn’t say anything about Azwan…?”

"Yes, I…" He stopped, then gazed down ever so slightly. "I sent one to...Hilla-"

Orchid barked out in laughter, while Lotus grimaced and turned away again. The mage shuffled in his boots. Damien and Lucid shared a glance that confirmed their shared confusion. 

Between fits of laughter, Orchid said "CHRIST, you’re desperate, aren’t you! One little premonition and you’d kick an emu right in the ass, huh!”

“...huh?”

Orchid turned around in her chair, now chewing on a pen as she said, "So you can’t just wait for the Ariant port to finish maintenance?"

"Well, its...urgent." The White Mage fished a piece of parchment from inside his cloak- the letter with Azwan's insignia. "She gave us ten days, and it’s been six since the letter was sent, and-"

"Gimme that." Orchid bolted up and snatched the letter from his hands, backing up before he could grab it back. She moved back to the desk and laid the letter flat over Lotus's papers, holding it with one hand and placing the other on her brother's shoulder while they both read. 

Lucid leaned toward the mage. "Hey, uh, what's their deal?"

Damien followed suit. "And your deal? and Hilla's?"

The White Mage sighed and set his staff upright. "It’s a long story… and not great for my own image." 

Damien craned himself as to meet the mage’s eyes. “Is that why you didn’t show us the letter? It’s incriminating?” 

“Yes.”

“Oh…”

Silence overtook the room, intercut only by distant mechanical whirring from further within the headquarters. The White Mage tapped his fingers over his staff, shooting a quick glance at the other two, who were both looking in opposite directions. He looked down and immediately felt two pairs of eyes trained on him, boring into him, crawling down his spine, staring through his soul- 

He trained his gaze just past Lucid’s face, just to keep her distracted eyes in his peripheral.

Finally, Lotus rolled the letter back up and handed it to Orchid. She held it still for a moment, her eyes closed, then placed it down.

"Still no." "We'll take you."

"...what?"

Orchid's head whipped to Lotus, who was staring at the mage intently. "Our ship is on standby right now, and the trip won't take a day. And I've been meaning to discuss Azwan's accessibility with Miss Hilla."

The room went silent again, save the distant whirring and the near audible sound of the gears grinding in Orchids head as she stared slack-jawed at her brother. He just kept staring at the similarly dumbfounded mage- though he was less obvious about it. 

Orchid pulled her lips into a thin smile. “Lotus...can we talk about that for a second? Privately?”

They turned around and began to whisper furiously at each other.

“Well…” Lucid cleared her throat. “I guess...that was easier than I thought?”

The mage sighed. “They act so close, but they’re hardly that coordinated. I’m glad Lotus is a bit more rational.”

“SHUT UP OVER THERE!” Orchid yelled over her shoulder. “The adults are talking.” 

She turned back to her whispered shouting match. The White Mage scoffed.

Then he looked up. The office wasn’t that large, but it was certainly tall- being carved out of a mountain, the ceiling, a dark black rock and intercut by stalactites, was nearly impossible to see. He dragged his thoughts back toward the lower level before he could consider the number of spiders hiding above him. 

The two had gone silent. Orchid just stared wide-eyed at her twin. The White Mage couldn’t see his face, and hers started to shift from shock to confusion, then to resignation. She heaved a heavy sigh and said, "Fine. But we are ONLY dropping them off." She turned back to the other three. "Wait for Ariant to get it together if you want to go home."

The mage smiled and bowed. “Thank you very much. We’ll return to discuss further cooperation in a few days time, then.”

“Oh, shut /up/.”

From the landing, Orchid could see the entire city far better than she could from the office. Sprawling green spaces, bustling population, and an active air force- she crossed her arms and smirked. Her pride and joy, plain for her to see. 

She turned around and soaked in the sight of her other pride and joy- the brainchild of her, Lotus, and their lead scientist, a terrifying, soul-crushing, unbelievably huge airship, with the power of a thousand lesser fleets. Black Heaven.

And it was still under construction. So she and Lotus would transport the mage's cabal in their personal jet. It was far faster either way.

Lotus had already situated himself within the cockpit, and she could see him tapping over the controls from where she stood. She chuckled. /For all your "manners," you're not that patient.../ Le Tierre had no clue what she was talking about, she concluded. 

She looked down to see Damien sprinting toward the jet.

“NO RUNNING ON THE LANDING!” She bellowed. He almost tripped stopping himself, and yelled back a quick “sorry” before walking at a comparable pace.

“Hey...guys…” 

Inside the ship, Lucid and The White Mage sat across from each other in a circular booth, and both turned to the door, where Damien stood, panting. “How...how long until we...take off…?”

Lucid checked the clock. “Forty minutes. Where were you?”

He sat near the mage and tried to catch his breath. “I was...putting my stuff at his place.” He jabbed a finger toward the mage for emphasis. “It’s safer than a random apartment.”

“Is it?” Lucid said with more than a hint of doubt.

“Probably not, but I know where it is.”

“Is my heap of wood so unreliable?” The White Mage chimed in and chuckled lightly. Lucid looked off and scooted further into her seat.

Damien sighed. He could still feel his heartbeat in his ears, but he wasn’t gasping for air. /Jesus, I’m out of shape... / “It’s in the middle of nowhere. How do you even get food out there?”

“I have a small garden nearby.”

“Oh, I didn’t see it.”

“It is quite small.”

Damien glanced around. The three of them sat in a large circular room with black chrome finish and a lot of empty space. The table, surrounded by the booth seats, had a holographic display with a number of flashing squares on it, and was currently projecting a muted recording of a local sporting event that nobody was paying any attention to. He could just barely see into the bridge with Lotus flicking over a lot of buttons that meant absolutely nothing to him.

His gaze finally landed not quite on the mage’s face as he said, “I almost expected you to say you photosynthesized or something, with the light and all...”

The White Mage chuckled. “I haven’t quite figured that out. And eating isn’t too inconvenient yet that I’d need to.”

“Yet.”

“Yet.”

He wanted to leave it at that, but his mind kept drifting back to Hilla’s letter, and the mage’s consistent secrecy at its contents. /This is either the best time to ask, or the absolute worse...fuck it./

“Hey, White Mage… I hope you don’t mind me asking, but… what /exactly/ happened between you and Hilla?” He asked, attempting to sound as casual as possible.

The White Mage’s smile dropped as he sighed. “I do mind, immensely. Don’t pry into others’ business when it doesn’t concern you, child.”

“Excu-”

The distant explosion broke their attention. . The three jumped to their feet and looked at each other, then at Lotus. He stared out the window for a moment before standing with a huff and jogging out of the jet. They glanced at each other again before following suit.

Once back on the platform, they ran up behind Orchid, who was now floating several inches off the ground. From where they stood, they could clearly see a cloud of black smoke climbing from between the small, eccentric buildings.

“What on earth…?” Orchid squinted into the city. “That’s… is that the salon…? Why-”

Another explosion rang out, far louder and larger than the last one. Orchid’s eyes widened. “That was…”

“A residential building.” Lotus pointed to the rising plume of smoke. “And a large one, too.”

She gritted her teeth. “...Shit. Alright, put every soldier on guard, and make sure nobody’s in the streets, I’ll handle this.” She broke into a sprint and was gone in a second, and Lucid and the While Mage ran the same way after her. 

“Wait...what happened? What’s going on?” Damien said.

Lotus looked sidelong at Damien. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to the soldiers, “We’re under fucking attack!”

4

“Why...can you guys...fly…?” Lucid said between calculated breaths.

The mage gestured his staff vaguely in the air. “It’s less ‘flying’ as you’d think and more like ‘levitating’, though it can only go as fast as I could run, and-”

“I can fly ‘cuz I’m cool,” Orchid interjected. “Duh.”

“...”

Lucid exhaled as close to a sigh as she could manage without breaking her rhythm. Sustaining her speed was hard enough without this shit. She was following their turns, doing her best not to run directly into a wall, when she finally saw the smoking building on the other end of the street they had just turned onto.

“THERE!”

The shout came out from behind them. Lucid whipped her head around and sawa knife fly just a few inches from her face. She skidded to a halt and turned back with her crossbow aimed in front of her.

A small huddle of heavily-clothed people with masks over their faces rushed towards the three of them. Lucid loaded a duller arrow into the barrel and nailed one of them in the chest. She began loading another one as the White Mage ran in front of her and thwacked one of the people in the head with his staff, while a small barrage of rocks came from the other side and pushed the rest of the group of attackers back several meters.

“What the HELL are you doing?!” she shouted at the mage.

He swung his staff over his shoulder. “There’s no point using magic against the small fry.”

Orchid scoffed. “Wonderful idea against the people /throwing knives/,” she said as she floated the pieces of the street back into their spots. She had put one foot on the ground when a translucent barrier appeared around her. A second later, a loud bang echoed across the street. 

Lucid threw her crossbow in front of her and her eyes darted. She caught sight of a crumpled bullet falling from the side of the barrier, a few inches from Orchid, who was now floating in a fetal position.

“Rather save it for the people with guns.” The barrier expanded to encompass the three of them. “These take more than you’d think.”

“Shit…” Orchid landed on her feet and backed toward the mage. Lucid followed suit and took in the surroundings as she did. The streets looked empty, but around each corner she could see the faint glint of eyes, along with a crowd of faint heartbeats.

“We’re surrounded. Less than twenty. If you guys fly up, I can-”

Her words were cut off by a sudden blast of sound and heat, which threw her backwards. She lay in a daze for a second before realizing she was on the ground and staggering to her feet. /An explosion…?/ The White Mage and Orchid had landed near her, but where the three had stood a moment ago was a small crater and an expanding plume of black smoke. Lucid could just barely make out a silhouette through it. 

“Wh...what in the…” Over the ring in her ears, Lucid could hear Orchid’s voice shaking as she stared into the clearing plume and slowly rose again. The White Mage regained his balance in the corner of Lucid’s vision.

A quiet mechanical whirring sounded from in front of them, and a bright blue light cut through the street. 

Damien ducked into the side streets on seeing the huge crowd of people running in the other direction. The plume of smoke was still in the distance, but the street he was on seemed to go on for a while, and he was running too fast to see if any of the other paths were faster. The plume gradually grew closer, when-

“Oi.”

A familiarly-accented voice called out from one of the connecting streets ahead. He slowed to a jog and found three pureblood demons standing in the corner, wings outstretched. Damien’s heart stopped.

“You guys...need to get out, there’s an attacker on the loose-”

“We know that." The tallest one stepped forward. "You've been looking for Slayer again, right?"

Damien froze. "Wha…"

"There's no reason you'd bring Vengance out of Leafre otherwise. It's too dangerous."

"You…" Damien unsheathed Vengance and pointed it at the group. "How do you know about the sword?!"

He scoffed. "You think you're intimidating, huh? It's broken." He took a switchblade from his back pocket. "You're no match."

/A switchblade...against a sword.../ Damien glanced between the three. One had also taken out a switchblade, while the other was backing away holding a small brown pouch-

"HEY!" Damien shouted and lunged past the tall demon. The one with the pouch - /Damien’s pouch/ - took flight down the corridor, and Damien broke into a sprint in pursuit, shouting down the way.

The sparking, charred exoskeleton of an android stood in the crater, with two blue glowing eyes trapped between exposed wires and messy black hair, trained on the three of them. It stepped forward, stopping at a weird angle but holding itself steady, and raised a glowing segmented sword. The attackers, now out in the open, grinned behind it.

Orchid held a tentative yet steady arm in front of the others. "I don't know what you people want, but if you're gonna mess with OUR technology-"

The android smashed the sword against the ground, where it split into multiple blades connected by a rope-like line of plasma. It raised his arm back up and swung down violently. 

Orchid flipped her arm across, where several pillars of rock rose in front of them and were near instantly sliced in half. The android’s eyes shone brighter through the split in the rocks, and it raised its arm again.

“GO!”

The three jumped from each other as the whip came down and smashed the ground they had just stood on. Lucid kicked one of the men to her left in the stomach and propelled herself toward the android. She fired off two shots and jumped back as she heard one crack into his armor somewhere, along with a distorted shriek. 

She aimed for him again, but was jolted forward by a jab in her back. She swung behind her and managed to nail the attacker in the jaw, then brought her crossbow on the top of their head. A hollow thunk sounded behind her, where she turned to find the White Mage standing over someone on the ground. He clutched his staff from the bottom and swung it freely into someone else’s side.

The android turned to face the White Mage, and had started to raise his arm when a chunk of rubble flew into him, sending him several yards down the street and into a small huddle of masked people. Lucid started to run toward him, and nearly jabbed at the hand that grabbed onto her shoulder then before realizing it was Orchid.

“My fight.”

/...where were you.../ Lucid stepped back regardless. Orchid floated to where the group lay in a confused mess, and with a raise of her hand lifted the android, sparking and half crushed but still moving limply.

“All of you… are fucking arrested.” Orchid bellowed. “Stealing and tampering with government technology, do any of you even have a CLUE what this is capable-"

Her shouting swapped to a loud shriek alongside a dull thud. The android collapsed to the ground as she grasped her arm, and Lucid could see the hilt of a knife sticking out from just below her shoulder. She quickly moved her crossbow to Orchid’s left, but in the same moment she heard a loud bang and a cloud of smoke enveloped the area.

“BASTARDS!”

Orchid rose the rocks behind her with a lift of her other arm and flung them through the smoke. It cleared enough that they could see there was nothing left under the cloud but rubble.

Damien got no response to his desperate shouting other than his own steps and pounding heart. The outer edges of his lungs burned, but no matter how fast he ran, he could only barely see the side of a wing before it turned a corner, until he ran headfirst into a plume of smoke. He backed out, trying to discern anything from inside it, but a moment later the smoke blew out from the passage to reveal there was nothing there. He took a tentative step forward and locked eyes with Orchid.

“Oh, there you-”

“Where the hell WERE you?!” Orchid landed and squeezed her arm tighter. “You useless… check the area for civilians!” 

She walked away mumbling. Damien’s heart sunk a little.

"Well, at least you weren't hurt." 

He turned to see Lucid walking up, brushing some bits of rubble off her shoulder. "Obviously not, but you probably wouldn't have been much help anyway… I just meant there was a lot of ranged onslaught. Don't make that face." 

Damien sighed. "I /was/ on my way over here. I think I ran into the group of demons you mentioned."

"And?"

"They pulled a switchblade on me and one ran away with my coin pouch."

"Ah." Lucid turned to face the rubble with a hand on the back of her head, and her ears perked up. "Say...what did the pouch look like?"

"Uh…" Damien scratched his head. "It was brownish cloth...and kinda old?"

"Like that?" She pointed into the pile, where a small cloth pouch lay on top of one of the misplaced rocks. Damien's eyes widened and he ran to the bag, tearing it open. 

Five golden coins, one slightly bent.

"..." 

He threw it to the ground. "GOD DAMN IT!"

The only noise for a long while was the hum of Orchid's jet hovering over Edelstein, while she stared out the window with her arms glued to her sides and her hands in fists. Lucid could imagine her expression. She turned away, but the only thing her eyes could land on was a forlorn Damien with his head in his hands. He hadn't moved for the past half an hour.

"Uh…" Lucid crossed her legs. "So...about that pouch…"

Damien moved his hand slightly and made eye contact. The accusatory crimson of his eyes caught her for a moment, but she broke away and cleared her throat. "What was in it, anyway?"

“A gem.”

“...a gem?”

"...so, this sword." He moved the sword at his side onto his lap and put his fingers over a small groove in the hilt. “There’s supposed to be a gemstone here, but it fell out a long time ago...and it doesn’t really...work right without it.”

“So you carried it around in a very stealable bag of mesos?”

“I mean-” Damien grumbled. “Maybe putting it there wasn’t the /best/ idea but it still kinda works if you like...put it against the groove for a little bit…? Like it...activates it a little.”

“Ok.”

“...”

Damien put the sword back at his side and put his head back in his hands. “/God…/”

The harsh reflection of the yellow lights inside the jet covered the cloudy night sky in the window. The White Mage turned away from the sight and jumped at the sight of Orchid, who was sitting right next to him.

“Ah… good evening, Orch-”

“Bitch.”

He blinked. “...Sorry.”

She shot up and started pacing in a small circle just in front of him. “Oh sure, apologize now, that'll make up for /everything./ We managed just fine on our own, I'll have you know."

"...Well that's good-"

"Jesus, your optimism is so ANNOYING. Where did this COME from?! Was twelve years without us so absolutely AMAZING?!" She came closer to him with every shouted word. "Or do transcendents just never understand when people are mad at them?!"

The White Mage glanced between Orchid and the other two sitting in the booth, now having paused a game of virtual chess to look over at the altercation. He gave a strained smile. “Orchid, I...can we talk about that /later/...?”

Orchid’s glare froze on him, her eyes wide and her mouth stretched into a thin line. An agonizing second passed, then another, until she stepped back with a loud huff. “/Fine./ It’s not the only gripe I have with you right now.” She shot her head behind her. “And YOU TWO can mind your own FUCKING BUSINESS, why don’t you!” They whipped back and unpaused their virtual chess.

The White Mage cleared his throat. “Orchid, I know you may not believe me, but I'm glad to see you and Lotus again...and I'm glad you didn't get hurt in the last battle."

"/.../"

"...Well, badly hurt-"

She shot her left arm out and shoved the haphazardly wrapped bandages into the Mage’s face, who shrunk back into his seat on nearly tasting the blood soaking them. “And what do you make of THIS, then?!”

“At least you weren’t shot...”

“So you can stop bullets and not a /knife?/”

“I /saw/ the gunman. I wouldn’t have been able to stop the bullet if he fired earlier.”

“Thought light traveled faster than that."

The White Mage opened his mouth, stopping for a moment, then laughed, extremely aware of the immense tension in the room. "Light speed is a bit beyond my powers, at least at the moment. That would require full synthesis." He laid his chin on his hand. "And /that/ would only be possible by a great mage."

"...well, Sir Not-that-great Mage, maybe you’d /be/ great if you shielded people a little more often than when you /expect/ them to be attacked, which should also be all the time.”

“That’s far more complicated than you think,” he started. “Shields need focus to be properly maintained, and the more they’re spread out-”

“I don’t actually care, just figure it out. Or just be faster on the uptake if you can’t /properly maintain/ them. Rhinne probably has way worse than a few knives to throw at us when we get to that.”

“Rhinne-” he paused. “...you /are/ joining us, then?”

Orchid sighed. “Trust me, I didn’t want to, and running Edelstein…’s air force is hard enough as is. But THIS?” She whipped out a dagger, holding it gingerly by the blade and displaying the Ereve insignia engraved on its hilt. “THIS is grounds for /war./”

He looked the dagger up and down. “...This is the knife that was in your arm, yes?”

“The one and fucking only, still could fit like a glove, ya wanna see?” She started lifting the bandages off her bicep before the White Mage frantically forced her hand away from the now slightly more bloodstained pile of bandages. “That’s a no, then. Anyway, Ereve’s supplying whoever the hell it was that just attacked us, and I will NOT stand for that shit.” She plopped back onto the seat next to WM, spreading her arms out to indicate the very amazing visual joke she had just made.

He smiled lightly. “I’m glad you’ve decided to help me.”

She scoffed at this and turned away. “I’m not doing this for the sake of your sudden altruism, it’s just beneficial to me and Lotus...speaking of which.” She jumped up and ran into the bridge, shouting something about “changing these fucking bandages” to a very obviously preoccupied Lotus.

He watched her for another moment before turning back to the window. The clouds had parted now, and he could clearly see a number of stars, with the moon just barely visible from the top of the window. He craned his neck further into the glass to get a better view of it, the glaring yellow lights barely out of the way of the bright white moon in waning crescent. He stared at it. /Luminous loved the moon… well, everyone does, but...he was always asking about it.../

He kept staring for a long time.

Ereve was almost entirely viewable from a high enough spot in the daytime. At night, however, trees and fields gave way to shadows and darkness, plunging the land just below the silver treetops into nothingness. Eclipse found the reflection of the moon on the leaves a far lovelier portrait than the moon itself on any night of the year, and far less harsh.

/A welcome side effect of the dark, I presume./ He turned to leave, and jumped back on seeing a small figure staring up at him.

“Oh fu- ..Cygnus, /what/ are you doing here.”

“My apologies for scaring you, Eclipse.” She bowed deeply. “I simply wanted to look out at Ereve. The view is calming to me, especially with the moon so much brighter tonight.”

He leaned on the railing. “And what, praytell, has a child so worked up?”

She opened her mouth, then looked off with a finger pressed to her lips. “Mother has been quite excited over the past few days, and the whole island has had a rather high energy. It’s...overwhelming? Yes, that’s the word.” She stared back up at him. “Is there a festival soon I haven’t heard of?”

Eclipse learned further into the rail and laughed darkly. “A festival of sorts, yes. A festival of blood, of darkness, of death over all of Maple World!” He shouted, then lowered his voice to say, “As well as preparing the people for Rhinne’s return, of course...moreso that, I believe.”

Cyngus stared at him for a moment. Then she broke out laughing. “You always put simple things in such macabre language! You sound like a villain.”

“It is the fate of such a skilled wielder of darkness such as myself. You would do well to watch your back.” /And what eight year old has any business throwing around words like /macabre/?/

“I trust you would never /harm/ her, would you?”

“Who the-”

His eyes locked with Aria’s, who was close behind Cygnus and had balled her fist slightly. She wore a thin smile.

“...good evening, Empress Aria. I was simply warning her against darkness.” He straightened as he spoke and stepped to his side, putting just a bit more distance between himself and the two. “Children shouldn’t find themselves too curious, I believe.”

“Perhaps beliefs like that make you more childish than an eight-year-old.”

He froze, then sighed bitterly as Aria began to chuckle.

“You know I’m simply joking, Eclipse. Plus there’s still quite a bit of preparation before the…’festival of destruction,’” she said. “/Please/ don’t actually destroy anything unless I say so.”

Eclipse leaned back against the railing. “I wish you had more faith in my loyalty, Empress.”

“It’s not a question of loyalty, it’s a question of temper. Such are the ramifications of having multiple teenagers on a war council.”

He shot back up straight. “Empress Aria, with all due respect, I think you will find I am-”

“Perfectly capable, calm, and willing, yes. And the same goes for Evan...I suppose.” She sighed. 

Eclipse stepped back again. “If his presence shakes your faith in myself, remove him from the council.”

“I have faith in Freud’s decision, Eclipse. Take it up with him if you don’t want him here.” She turned and grabbed Cygnus’ hand. “He’s more likely to listen to you, either way,” she muttered, and moved away. Cygnus turned and yelled a quick “goodbye” before letting herself be dragged away.

Eclipse leaned back onto the railing and looked around. The grass surrounding his shadow was painted a bright silver in the moonlight, as was the whole courtyard. The light bouncing from the marble illuminated the area almost blindingly, the moon’s reflection off of a small puddle nearly as bright as the sun. He scoffed and stormed out.

5

Future note: this chapter was never finished, all i have is this next bit and an excerpt that makes no sense without the rest of it and also would spoil the twist it covers WAY too early so i left it out lol

The whirring of the engine was only slightly audible from the back of the jet, serving as both a boon for Lucid’s sensitive ears and a curse for her current objective. Despite her lightest steps, she could still hear the tap of her own feet on the aluminum flooring. Regardless of whether or not non-elves could hear it as well…

[she very quietly opens the filing cabinet] 

She screeched as the cabinet slammed shut on her hand. She pulled her fingers out, allowing the cabinet to come to a close with a click.

“Get out.”

She whirled around and was met with Lotus’ stare, flat and cold.

"I, um-"

"Get out."

“Why are these-”

“Get. Out.” The cabinets began to shake as he spoke.

She hesitated a moment before walking back toward the door. Lotus floated to the side to allow her exit.

“Ah, Lotus, sir…” She started after she had stepped out of the room. “I apologize, but-”

“Listen.” He turned to face her directly, floating just high enough that he was above her. “I don’t know how Mercedes treated you, or whatever made you think you can just snoop around wherever you want. But if you want to stay on our property, you won’t act like the spoiled idiot that you are while you’re here.” He hovered barely an inch away from Lucid’s face, his flat stare now with a hint of rage. “/Understand?/”

Lucid stood frozen. She took a step backwards and looked off to the side, before quickly mumbling, “I understand…”and beginning to walk away.. She heard Lotus grumble something before the door clicked shut behind her.

Future note 2: yeah……. SO much has changed since i wrote all this. Not the least of which is the quality of my writing which (i like to think) has improved considerably… which for how frequent i actually write is slightly amazing but it HAS been five years….. Oh my god ssau has been a thing for seven years hourgh