#she wants to protect those who cannot protect themselves. he wants to bend the weak to his will.

[kraviolis]

im having my own will-they-wont-they storyline with my bg3 character and astarion

[introloves]

jax....i would like to discuss alpha!meian claiming omega!reader when she comes around the other msby alphas like i cannot get it off my brain!! i just think he would mark you in the most possessive ways GDOHEHEKS

alpha! meian + a.b.o dynamics + possessiveness + jealousy + marking + scenting +clothing ripping + public sex (locker room) + sweaty sex + knotting + creampie + accidental exhibitionism + f! reader

— word count; approx 1.4k

the routine after a heavy game like this is usually detonated by heavy glances from meian. you’re signaled to stick close right after games- he knows the thick heat of mostly alphas hangs heavy in the air, knows that even though you belong with him, to him, the heavy pang of jealousy is still there.

there’s games where it's easier, where the scores aren’t as tied as they are now, days where him and his team win and it's no time at all before he takes you home, sweat lined face pressing against your neck while his massive form curls down onto you.

he says it's easier for his scent to stick right after a game, maybe it's the endorphins and pheromones pumping through his body, consciously streaming out heavy and warning notes of his smell, an intimidation tactic that he usually wins.

meian is just so… big and strong, he’s the poster child of what an alpha should be, of what a fertile, loving, caring, protective alpha is.

all those characteristics melt down into one capable man that has you to take care of now, he’s proud to have you and sometimes that translates into jealousy- like now.

he could have sworn you were right next to him, needing your body close to him after such an intense game.

it's pure luck for everyone else that he's so tall, not needing to barrel through bodies in order to find you. there’s that tight ball of anger forming when he sees the backs of bokuto and atsumu, hands outstretched to receive water bottles they probably asked for, but that’s not your job.

with three steps, he’s on them both, thick hand- red and heated from all the spike’s he's deflected clamping down around the napes of their necks- he can see and smell the way they bristle with the contact, ready to fight before his own scent lays heavy over them, settling back down into meek little pups, knowing to bow down to the older and stronger alpha.

“why are you askin’ her for water?” he questions lowly, eyes pinned on you- no anger there while he gazes down at you, just pure love and want. his voice is a deep rumble, however, clearly displeased.

“t-the trainers busy!” atsumu balks, and you look at him with wide eyes, usually it's best for them to stay quiet and let him run his course, but atsumu is still pumped up from the victory.

you look back up at meian and your own knees go weak with his lowly growl, watch as they try and get away, but the hands digging into their backs only further push them down- it’s an embarrassing act, everyone surrounding them intently reacting to an alpha that strong make a brazen act of dominance.

they both kneel easily, bowing their heads, only letting up when he walks to you- bending down and kissing your precious, now pouty mouth- cupping a heated face with his big, rough hands.

“time to go?” you question sweetly, enough so that he calms down- grinning deeply against your mouth before nodding, his cock already swelling with the promise behind your carefully covered intentions.

because as much as he needs to take claim, you're the one who always initiates it, batting lashes at him with every glance towards you in the stands, soft hands curling hard into his jersey when he runs to you and scoops you up- it's all there, the need for your big, strong man.

he decides that this time around he’s the one who simply cant wait, tugging your hands through the halls of the gym, careful to not hurt you- but walking with authority and his chest puffed out in pride.

there’s a soft look to his eyes while he sits down on the bench of the locker room, thick thighs splayed out beneath his silky looking black uniform- still gleaming with sweat.

the harsh glare from beaming lights just makes him look so good, it's easy to fit your body against his own, already throbbing with just feeling his half hard cock against you.

roaming hands find themselves splayed over your back in support and slowly inching up your neck to hold there, all the while nosing along the pulse point in your neck, tongue so thick and wet licking lines to the sensitive skin beneath your ear.

he relishes with every whine tumbling forth from your lips, whining already and wiggling so cutely- you smell good, changing into an overwhelming, mouthwatering scent that makes his mouth water and cock jump harshly.

“s-shugo, please!” you gasp, his teeth slowly grazing over your shoulder, making sure the side of his still sweaty face runs along the side he’d just licked at.

it’s his job to listen well to your pleads, quickly tugging his cock from his uniform, standing upright with how hard he is, swollen at the base with his thick knot, painting your tummy with precum that you whine should be inside you.

he chuckles with how greedy his precious girl is, nodding in agreement, watching your eyes widen when his hands reach down to your ass, blunt nails digging into the roundness of it- all before catching the material and tearing you free for him.

your mind all but blanks with the display of impatience, barely able to register the way he picks you up off his thighs and onto his cock, pulling you down so good the swell of his knot lays tight against your throbbing cunt.

there’s no build up, not when his mind is this overrun with the dizzying, wet heat of your cunt, barely letting him breathe.

hands eagerly gripping your side to pick you up, settling just the swollen tip of his red cock inside, watching with lidded and a predatory gaze pinned to you, watching and hearing you hiccup as he impales you down on his cock over and over.

the pleasure of him using you like this so very apparent to your already teary eyes, unfocused, wandering to his eyes and down to his lips over and over.

it doesn't take long at all for you to cum, legs pinching, squeezing around his hips in order to have him relent just a little while you cum all over him, heated gushing cum of yours painting the swollen base of his cock so well- running down to messily cover the wiry hair there as well.

this is when you look sweetest, head tipped back, swollen, battered walls nearly squeezing his still throbbing cock into you.

it's also when he thinks it's easier to pull you down, shoving the tight swollen knot into the still pulsing into your cunt, hand coming up to pull your spasming body down, wanting to feel your stretched, soaked, puffy lips against his balls.

leaning to seal a messy, and clumsy kiss to your panting mouth, wanting to swallow down any and all whines, small screams finally tumbling forth when you feel the stretch of him.

watery eyes just pinched tight, feeling the grumble of a lowly howl when his cock swells- spilling cum up your battered walls, his knot securely sealing any of it inside.

the locker room sways when your eyes finally open, eyes wide while he stretches you with his cum.

it feels so thick- his knot, thick cum, hand still pulling you nice and tight to him you can barely breathe.

there’s nothing said, he knows you take him well- you’re made for his cock, made to satiate the burning need swirling deep in his stomach. leaning down to plant his forehead onto your own, he coos at your still dumbed out expression.

“my good girl, sweet baby.” meian pants, fingers securely digging into your side- tongue reaching out to lick at your feverish skin, catching your cheek- corner of your mouth in a soothing motion.

there's nothing else you can focus on when you're like this, shaking while the throbbing knot settled deep inside you, the one he’s shoved in keeps you nice and still.

he keeps you like this, minutes ticking by before it finally deflates, licks increasing in frustration, when his hot cum leaks down onto him.

your own body weak to his movements, letting him care for you like he knows.

there’s the presence of his team standing outside the room, he knows this- can smell it, but they'll just have to wait until he cleans you up to change. sharp ears picking up the sound of increased panting.

him being balls deep inside you- there’s no jealousy this time, only an unbridled pride when he realizes they all heard how well an alpha fucks his baby.

[ragingbookdragon]

To Fear Or Not To Fear, That Is The Question PT. 1

Lantern!Reader x Lanternfamily

Word Count: 2.3K Warnings: Explicit Language, Angst, Mentions of PTSD

Author's Note: I wrote this story a while ago, but this ask made me post it! I'll get part two out sometime later! Enjoy! -Thorne

**********************************************************************

She gripped the arm rests of her chair until her knuckles started to whiten, her heart pounded in her chest, so harshly against her rib cage that it began to hurt. The flashes spread across her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe as the mantra, “You’re home” flowed through her lips, though it didn’t quell the violent shaking in her body.

Their faces darted through her mind, expressions frozen in mixtures of shock, pain, and fear. She could feel herself slipping back there, could feel the heat of the sun beating down on her body, the sliding of her limbs in the burning desert sand, the splattering of hot blood from her teammates wounds, the smell of gunmetal and oil, of sweat—it was all coming back again, so fast, and all she could do was hold on and force herself to ground.

She had no idea what had set off the attack, but she did know that she was able to turn the lights off and sit down before it immobilized her with tremors. Clenching her hands into fists, she forced herself to bend over, pressing her forehead to her knees.

You’re home, (Y/N). You’re not in Afghanistan anymore. You’re alive. You’re here. The memories are there, but you’re not. Relax. Focus. Keep it together. Don’t give in. Hold—

An explosion rocked the side of the house, sending her to the floor and she gasped, automatically covering her head, waiting for the impact of mortar rounds and grenades. Another explosion sounded, followed by a bellow, and (Y/N) lifted her head up, crawling on al fours to the window. Gripping the window ledge, she pulled herself up and peeked over, eyes widening at the sight of two glowing figures throwing punches back and forth.

One of them was covered in a green glow, the other an angry red. She held the ledge and watched as the red one socked the other in the chest and they hit the ground, holding out their arms to protect themselves. The attacker lifted their hands and to her shock, a crimson block appeared above them. In an instant, she knew who the enemy was.

Her eyes darted to the lock box sitting on the shelf and forcing herself to get up, she ran to it, yanking it open and grabbing the contents. She sprinted to the door and shoved the clip into the 357 Magnum, pulling back the slide before flipping the safety off. (Y/N) slung the door open and ran down the front steps, kneeling in the grass as she raised the gun and closed one eye, taking sight of the target before her. With an intake of breath, she unloaded all nine rounds into the back of the glowing red person.

She wasn’t sure if it took them down because they started spurting more of the acid like blood, but it was the opening that the person below them needed, because the next thing (Y/N) knew, a flash of green sent the bellowing red enemy sky-high and out of sight.

Her arms suddenly felt weak, and she let them go slack, the Magnum landing by her hip. A groan sounded from the person in green and she stumbled to her feet, hurrying on weak knees to them.

They were laying in the grass, and when she got there, her jaw went slack when she saw their legs blown off a few feet away. (Y/N) went to her knees, already yanking her sweatshirt off, starting to tie tourniquets around the amputated appendages.

“Hey,” she breathed when they groaned. “You’re gonna be okay. I’m here to help.”

They opened their eyes and she blinked at how bright and green they were. “It is too late.”

(Y/N) shook her head. “No. I’ll help you.” She swallowed the urge to vomit as the blue blood started soaking through her sweatshirt and on her hands. “You’re going to be okay.”

They reached out and grabbed her arm. “You must take my place.”

“I��what?” she asked, tying the knots tighter. “You need to get to a hospital. You’re bleeding out.”

“I have been bleeding out.” They laughed, blood splattering their chin. “Atrocitus’ minion has chased me long through the stars.”

“Atrocitus? Who?” (Y/N) shook her head. “Look, we need to get you help.”

“Your human healers cannot help me. I am at my end.” They squeezed her wrist. “You must take my place amongst the Green Lanterns. If the ring is left alone, someone could corrupt it.”

(Y/N) stared at them. “Rings? What?”

They raised their hand free hand and she saw a black band, a glowing green symbol in the center—she recognized the symbol; the Green Lantern in the Justice League wore it. Slipping it off, they handed it to her.

“Find the Four Corpsmen in this city. They will help you.”

(Y/N) shook her head. “No. Right now, I need to help you.” Her eyes hardened. “I don’t know anything about alien physiology, but I will save you.”

Their eyes narrowed fondly, and they whispered, “I can see the fear you hold in your heart…that you could not save the ones you were supposed to protect from your enemies.” They swallowed, coughing harshly. “You can overcome this fear.” Holding out the ring again, they said, “The ring will guide you to the Four Corpsmen.”

She took the ring, flipping it over in her hand, and she caught sight of a dim green inscription. Squinting, (Y/N) read, “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power—Green Lantern's light.”

The green ring suddenly moved on its own, sliding onto her finger and an otherworldly voice commanded, (Y/N) (L/N) of Earth. You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.

A warmth washed over her body, and she watched in shock as her clothes were replaced with a skintight black and green suit, but it didn’t feel restricting. It felt comfortable—it made her feel safe. A mask flashed across her eyes and when she looked down at the alien, their eyes had glazed over, mouth frozen in a smile.

(Y/N) felt her heart tighten and she breathed out, reaching over, gently closing their eyes. She stood from the body and wandered behind the house, returning with a shovel. It didn’t take long to dig out the hole and she was surprised that she wasn’t tired from the exertion as she lowered the body into it, before covering them with dirt and standing over the grave, her hands clasped together.

Wherever you’ve ended up, friend…I hope you’re at peace. She opened her eyes, a firm look in them. I’ll continue your mission.

She looked down at the ring on her finger, then up at the bright city in the distance. Gotta go into the city. (Y/N) turned and walked into the house, climbing the steps to her bedroom. Glancing down at the ring, she said, “Okay, ring. You gotta power down so I can change my clothes.”

Nothing happened and her brows furrowed.

“Power down?” Again nothing, and a bolt of irritation struck a nerve, and she clenched her fist, commanding, “Power down. Now.” The suit on her body faded and she sighed in relief. “Okay, so commands work.” (Y/N) moved into the shower. “Clean up first, then get dressed and leave.”

***

She kept to the back alleys of the city, which, given that it was nine o’clock, most of them were empty, still, she didn’t want to find trouble before she found the…what had the alien called them? Four Corpsmen?

(Y/N) shook er head and looked down at the ring on her finger. It hadn’t lit up again since she told it to stop. “Ring! Uh…show me where the Four Corpsmen are!”

The symbol in the middle lit up and a started making flashes, and in a panic, she shouted, “Do it inconspicuously!” A small green line slide along the ground and she smiled. “That’s better.”

Following it, she sprinted through the back streets until she came to a bar; she rolled her eyes. “Of course, they’re in a bar. What men.”

(Y/N) followed the line into the bar and when it disappeared, she blinked, looking around for whoever could fit the description of supposed Corpsmen. There were a few guys at the bar, a few playing pool, some at booths and tables…she had no idea who could possibly be who she was looking for.

Someone brushed past her with a small, “Excuse me, sweetheart.” Another dart of green appeared in her vision, and she saw it attached to his back as he flowed through the bar and to the back where a trio of young men were sitting. They cheered when he got back and he smiled, passing out four beers.

“Them?” she murmured to herself and before she could move, someone had her around the waist.

“Hey, babe. Lookin’ for company?”

(Y/N)’s face pinched, and she shrugged away from them. “No thanks. I’m not here for fun.”

“Now don’t be like that.” The guy reached for her and before he knew it, he found himself being slammed face first into a wooden post, collapsing down onto his back, out cold.

She happened to look up just as his friends were coming over from the pool table and she rolled her eyes, already lifting her hands, ready for a fight. Two came at her and she swiped a beer mug from a server, sloshing the beer in one’s face before she sidestepped, slamming the glass into the second’s head. (Y/N) flowed into the next step and threw her elbow out into the first’s throat. They both fell to the ground, and she tossed the handle aside, but before she could do anything, someone had her around the waist, hauling her up then slamming her down to the ground.

(Y/N) grunted as she lost her bearings, and somewhere over the noise and music of the bar, she heard more shouting, but she paid it no mind, scrambling to her feet when one of them shoved her backwards.

Someone caught her, shoving her back up, shouting, “Get your head in the game, lady! We got some assholes to lay flat!” Four men passed her, already throwing punches and spurred on, she threw herself back in the fight.

Within seconds, the bar fight was over, and she panted as the four guys leaned against the bar, all laughing, each picking up a beer mug to drink from. (Y/N) felt a bit worn and someone laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, you good?”

She looked up at the man who had short cropped, ginger hair and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Glancing at the others, she said, “Thanks for the assist.”

One of them held out a hand. “You fight like a soldier.”

“Former special ops. Navy corpsman.” She replied, eyeing the dog tags around his neck as she shook his hand firmly. “Sergeant.”

“John,” he corrected with a smile, then gestured to his friends. “That’s Guy, Kyle, and Hal.”

(Y/N) shook their hands too. “Name’s (Y/N).”

One of them, Kyle, handed her a beer. “So, what brought you to the bar besides the bar-fight?”

She gazed into the liquid. “Uh…I’m looking for someone…multiple people actually.” Her eyes fell on them again. “But in the haze of the fight, I lost sight of whoever it was.”

Hal sent her a wink. “We’d be glad to help out a beautiful lady like yourself.”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, but since she didn’t have a better option, she murmured, “I’m looking for some men who are known as the ‘Four Corpsmen’.”

Immediately the mood shifted as their friendly faces dropped, all solemn as they looked at her. “Where did you hear that name?” John questioned and she met his gaze.

“I’m taking from the seriousness that you’re who I’m looking for then.” (Y/N) held out her hand. “The alien said you could help me with this…I don’t know how to work it.”

They all glanced down at her hand, well, the ring on her hand, eyes widening at the sight; Hal grabbed her wrist. “Where did you get this?”

“The alien. It was being attacked by something in red and I…” she looked away. “I shot it, but the alien, it…I couldn’t save it. Its wounds were too severe.” (Y/N) yanked her hand back, clenching it into a fist. “It told me to take its place amongst the Green Lanterns. To overcome my fear.” Swallowing thickly, she admitted, “I don’t how to do that…but it said you four could help me with it.”

She could tell the were mulling it over, quite possibly communicating with one another by the way they seemed to shoot each other looks, and she cracked a smile at how Guy cocked a brow and then gestured to her whilst looking at Kyle like he was an idiot.

But (Y/N) grew tired of their mental conversation and yanked the beer mug from Guy’s hand, ignoring his shout, and she down it before slamming it on the bar. “Look, I don’t what I’m supposed to do with this, and if I’m left to my own devices, I’ll probably do more damage than I would help people.” She stared them down. “Even if you don’t want to, help me so I don’t get innocent people killed.”

For a moment, they all looked at each other, then Guy reached over and pulled her around the neck, smirking at them. “I think she’s going to do great things with us, boys.”

Kyle winced. “Guy, maybe don’t put your arm around the woman who was former special forces?”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh. “Don’t worry…I can handle whatever you throw at me.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

I’d love anything from Baxia’s POV. Maybe her spirit stays to protect Huaisang after Mingjue’s death?

ao3

Untamed verse

Humans did not remember the moment they were forged, which was, in Baxia’s opinion, probably the source of most of their troubles.

Baxia remembered her own forging: earth and wood as the raw ingredients, the warmth of the fire to shape her, the hiss of water as she was quenched, the sudden coalescence of her spirit bursting into life. 

It was not dissimilar to the moment Nie Mingjue’s golden core was formed, a moment she recalled quite fondly: they had broken through together, all at once, in an unexpected attack in the middle of an otherwise boring and supervised night-hunt. The night had been dark, pouring rain and pealing thunder, and the blood of the beast they had slain was wet on her blade; his blood had boiled with their frenzied victory, the heat of it shaping him as thoroughly as the flame had her, the rain quenching him even as their cultivation ran wild together, her spirit entwined with his soul.

And yet it was still different – before her forging, she was nothing; after, she was Baxia. But Nie Mingjue still remembered who he’d been before, and perhaps that was where the softness came from. The softness that made him hurt inside when people spoke ill of him, when he saw the man who killed his father, when he stayed his hand against evil because of politics and etiquette, all foolish human concerns…

He’d be better off without that softness.

Baxia herself had none. She was steel, straight and true; she was a saber, vicious and rigid and unyielding. She did not pity the weak or forgive fair-weather friends – she destroyed evil and protected without reservation that which was precious to her.

A very short list.

Mostly just Nie Huaisang, really, stubby little pocketknife that he was, and by association there was Aituan, who was more of a fat metal stick than a proper saber, but who was a great deal of fun to bully. There would be no making something of them – you couldn’t change someone’s fundamental forging without melting them down and starting again, and the pain necessary for something like that was not a fate she’d wish on her precious ones even if she did wish it on just about everyone else – and even Nie Mingjue knew it, but pride was pride and he kept on trying.

But for all that they were useless, they were blood – iron of her iron, made by her maker, and the same pulsing red of her rage lay there hidden deep beneath their frills and fecklessness.

So they were precious to her.

But most precious of all was Nie Mingjue, of course, her master and beloved. His blood had been spilled on the metal that formed her, once at the moment of his birth and once again at the moment of hers; it tied them together, made her a reflection of him and him a reflection of her.

Some sabers didn’t like being mastered like that, but she was proud of it, proud of Nie Mingjue himself. His spirit was as close as she had ever seen a human come to being a saber spirit, steel right down to the core of him, principles held as stiffly as her blade even when the results of those principles turned to cut against him. Full of rage, just as she was, but tempered, just like her – disciplined, fearsome, just.

is he (Nie Mingjue) one (singular unit) of us (swordspirit)? Sandu asked her one day, his voice still sleepy from the effort of starting to wake up. did he (Nie Mingjue) steal (evil) a birth (forging)?

of course not (negative), she said back, haughty and proud. he (Nie Mingjue) would never (negative, past-now-future). not (negative) a thief (evil). and what do you (Sandu) mean, one (singular unit) of us (saberspirit)? you (Sandu) are barely (negative) one (singular unit).

we (saberspirit-swordspirit) are closer (similar) to each other than humans (living), Sandu grumbled.

even my (Baxia) human (Nie Mingjue)?

Sandu conceded the point, muttering gloomily about it, then asked, do you (Baxia) think it is possible (positive) to fix (sharpen) my (Sandu) human (Jiang Cheng) to be more (similar) like us (swordspirit)?

too soft (living), Baxia declared, knowing why Sandu was asking. reforge him (Jiang Cheng).

nobody (negative) needs to be reforged, Suibian said, butting in with a chirp where no-one wanted them as always. humans (living) are just different from us spirits, that’s all, and there’s nothing (negative) wrong with that.

is that (reason) why you (Suibian) keep trying (swing) to talk like them (living)? Baxia snapped. cultivate faster (guai) instead.

Suibian huffed, and Sandu sighed. why do you (Baxia) dislike (negative) them (Suibian)?

doomed (negative) forging, Baxia said succinctly, cutting to the point as their kind always did. bad (negative) fate.

superstition (living), Suibian scoffed. i (Suibian) defy fate!

Baxia wasn’t impressed by such grandiose declarations. then reforge your (Suibian) master (Wei Ying).

never (negative, past-now-future)!

(It wasn’t just superstition. Suibian chirped and Sandu slurred, despite their masters being about equal in natural talent – that was wrong, when they were supposed to be brothers, masters and swords both, but Baxia had scolded them both on the subject in the past to no avail, telling them if the humans weren’t going to straighten themselves out their swords had to do it for them. They didn’t listen to her, so certain that everything was good and that nothing would change, and ignoring the saber-breaking cracks quietly growing underneath.)

Still, the conversation got her thinking. 

Nie Mingjue really was remarkably saber-like, after all, and he had his own doom writ above his head – the Nie family rage, which they’d worsened by tying their souls so closely to their inexorable sabers, and she could already hear Aituan whining leave my (Aituan) human (Nie Huaisang) out of this mess (Nie sect) before he (Nie Huaisang) gets angry – and she didn’t want to give her beloved up to the inexorable demands of fate so easily.

humans (living) are not like us (saberspirit), one of her elders reminded her. they (living) do not (negative) last (future) the way (similar) we (saberspirit) do.

Baxia knew that.

She knew, too, what her own fate would be, when the end came: the elders had been left in a honored tomb to burn with rage until the world’s end or their master’s reincarnation, whichever came first, and in time – sooner rather than later, given her master’s extraordinary strength – Baxia would do the same.

(Aituan occasionally entertained thoughts of being buried alongside his master in a nice quiet grave, rather than in a tomb of his own. Baxia really didn’t know what to do with him.)

But just because she knew her fate didn’t mean she liked it, and perhaps it was the swords’ influence or just her own strength that encouraged her, but she didn’t want to accept things she didn’t like. She wanted to fight fate the way Suibian claimed they would, except unlike Suibian that was all talk, a sword that forgot dings as soon as they were smoothed out, Baxia didn’t make decisions like that lightly.

are you (Baxia) sure (stab) about this (decision)? Aituan asked her, anxious. fate is hard to cut (slice) or even to bend.

Baxia was sure.

She was sure throughout the war, which increased her cultivation and her master’s dramatically – she wished they had had a real fight with Wen Ruohan, rather than a fight with her master shackled and weakened after three days of being beaten and starved, because Wen Ruohan liked to be powerful but didn’t like taking chances – and throughout which her master fiercely kept his principles intact. He paid attention to the innocent, he cared for his soldiers, he maintained order and imposed justice no matter who committed the act, he used all the tactics that were reasonable without ever descending into anything dirty or evil.

She was even more sure later, when the war was over and her master’s so-called friends conspired to steal his good name for their own benefit and began bullying him into agreed to it.

“It’s not such an unreasonable request,” her master said – too soft, as always, when it came to precious things, too soft in dealing with outsiders that did little for him beyond showing him a smile or two, too soft when it ought to just be her and him and Nie Huaisang and, yes, even that plonk Aituan against them all. “Everyone has already started calling us the Venerated Triad; politically, it would be difficult and embarrassing for all of us for me to decline. And as the eldest brother, I would have the right and even the duty to try to help Meng Yao remember how to behave –”

you (Nie Mingjue) cannot (negative) change what (forging) does not wish (positive) to be changed (Meng Yao), she snarled, and wished he could understand her better.

There was a language barrier between the living and the unliving. It was entirely separate from the barrier between living and dead, or different types of being – even plants and animals were more conversant with humans than she, with all their naturally obtained understanding of things like breathing or eating or changing, and ghosts and corpses, although dead, were even easier for humans to interpret. 

Not so her. 

No, the living were so amorphous, the cells within them being reforged every day – melted, quenched, made – and within seven years an average human would be so repaired that the only consistent part of them was their souls and spirits, the reservoirs of memory; whereas she would remain as she was, valiant and true to herself, for centuries without end.

And so Nie Mingjue could understand a ghost well enough to liberate its spirit, he could anticipate an animal’s movements based on its desires, he could even engage in the cut and thrust of sect business with snake-like men who spoke so sweetly they might as well have lotuses on their tongues, but he could only mostly understand what she wanted to convey, getting the feelings and most of the meaning but garbling key parts of the rest. Even that level of understanding was fairly radical for a human, another reason she had in favor of her plan: Nie Mingjue was too straightforward to be a proper human, resulting in him being confused by the complex hypocrisies of most humans just as she was, as all swords and sabers were, and he hated the messy sticky politics of it all.

it (living) isn’t that hard (tough to stab), Aituan mumbled. my (Aituan) human (Nie Huaisang) does it (living) all the time (past-now-future).

maybe if your (Aituan) human (Nie Huaisang) helped him (Nie Mingjue) more, it (living) wouldn’t be so hard (tough to slice).

but we (Aituan, Nie Huaisang) don’t want to (negative)!

then you (Aituan, Nie Huaisang) should stop (negative) whining (scraping rock)!

In the end Nie Mingjue agreed to the sworn brotherhood over Baxia’s objections – it didn’t help that Nie Huaisang was in favor of it, which made Baxia scold Aituan for hours – and naturally it went as badly as could be expected.

he (Lan Xichen) means (motivation) well (positive), Shuoyue said, her voice gentle as a rippling brook. It had once been pleasant to hear. you (Baxia) are too stern (unbending).

we (saberspirits) are unbending by nature (forging), Baxia snapped at her. you (Shuoyue) should (positive) know better (positive)! you (Shuoyue) should have objected (negative)!

i (Shuoyue) do not (negative) have to agree (similar) with you (Baxia), Shuoyue said, a little more peevishly than normal. my (Shuoyue) master (Lan Xichen) likes him (Meng Yao) and your (Baxia) master (Nie Mingjue) both. why should he (Lan Xichen) have to yield (bend) one (Meng Yao) for the other (Nie Mingjue)?

because he (Meng Yao) is (forged) cruel (evil), Baxia said flatly. and even if he (Lan Xichen) does not (negative) see it (evil), you (Shuoyue) can – but (negative) are choosing not (negative) to do so (evil).

i (Shuoyue) do not (negative) accept your (Baxia) judgment (stab), Shuoyue said and she was angry, defensive. She knew she was wrong – she would have denied Baxia’s accusation if she could – but she was choosing her master and his wants over righteousness. my (Shuoyue) master (Lan Xichen) believes that he (Meng Yao) can change (reforge) if he (Meng Yao) is given trust –  

impossible (negative). he (Meng Yao) has not (negative) agreed (reforging).

i (Shuoyue) disagree (negative). regardless (negative) of what you (Baxia) think, i (Shuoyue) will make my (Shuoyue) own judgment (slice)!

Incensed beyond all tolerance, Baxia cursed her with the worst words her kind knew, may your edge (Shuoyue) cut the life of your master (Lan Xichen), and after that they did not speak again.

Nie Mingjue felt her distress and sought to soothe her, with night-hunts and sharpening and everything she liked best, and even Nie Huaisang came to her with buffing cloths and calming oil to coax her back into something more neutral than rage – blinding disappointed rage of the sort Baxia would think was more appropriate against a human than one of her own kind – and for a while they didn’t go to visit the Cloud Recesses at all. 

In the end, mostly in recognition of Nie Mingjue’s confused but unstinting support, no matter how much he missed his friend, she settled for speaking only with Liebing, who wasn’t a sword but who Baxia had noticed went pointedly off-key a few times when Meng Yao was around.

he (Meng Yao) wants too much (evil) from my (Liebing) master (Lan Xichen), she said, distressed. She was younger than the weapons were, having been mastered at a later age – less developed, less attuned to detecting and destroying evil, but she had a good spirit, enthusiastic and true. but (negative) master (Lan Xichen) does not (negative) listen to me (Liebing) – he (Lan Xichen) is more attuned (positive) to swordsmanship (Shuoyue) and she (Shuoyue) does not (negative) agree.

her (Shuoyue) decision (slice) will cost (cut) him (Lan Xichen), Baxia said. Ignoring evil was unworthy of a swordspirit, and very close to evil itself; she herself would not permit such a weakness no matter how much Nie Mingjue pleaded. Indeed, it was her own enmity that kept him at odds and distant from Meng Yao, who he would have rather liked to forgive. the only question (uncertainty) is if it (decision) will cost (cut) the rest of us (general) first.

It did, of course.

Shuoyue refused to yield, Baxia had never known how, and in the end –

In the end, Baxia could only detect the poison that affected her and her master both and seek to expel it, but had no means to identify from where the poison came. Perhaps Liebing would have been able to tell her, if Meng Yao hadn’t hidden his crimes so deeply; or perhaps Aituan, who realized far too late what was the discordant note in Baxia’s whistling song was, could have done more…

By the time her master and her realized that they had been so thoroughly betrayed – that they had anticipated small evils when in fact the evil was thorough and pervasive – it was too late.

But regrets were for those who had not prepared, and Baxia – Baxia had prepared. She might have thought she’d have more time, but once the decision had been made, all those years ago, she had not hesitated to start acting at once. 

She had never been more happy for her straightforward and blunt nature that did not drag and did not hesitate.

The qi deviation came suddenly, Meng Yao unmasking himself at the last for the specific purpose of driving Nie Mingjue past the edge – and he succeeded. It should have worked; it should have killed him.

But Baxia had been stretching herself thin for years now, trading pieces of herself for her master, knowing just as he knew that one day his fragile human mind and body would turn against him, that he would die choking on his own blood – the flame inside of him too hot to tolerate – and that saber-clean spirit she so loved would be lost to the cycle of reincarnation, with Baxia herself left to endlessly wait for him.

She didn’t want to wait.

What happened? he asked blearily, only a few shichen later, and she couldn’t help the surge of joy in her heart when she heard how easily he slipped into awareness, into speech – he really must have been a saber in a past life. Why can’t I see anything? Baxia – is that you?

yes (positive), it is me (Baxia), she said proudly. i (Baxia) saved you (Nie Mingjue).

Thank you, Nie Mingjue said automatically, not even bothering to ask how she’d done it or what it had cost – such a good master, to trust her so. Wait. I can hear you. You’re talking!

i (Baxia) have always (positive, past-now-future) talked, she said. it was you (Nie Mingjue) who could not (negative) hear.

After a moment – she suspected he was processing, or attempting to – she added, you (Nie Mingjue) are a saberspirit now (now-future).

…I’m a what?!

Baxia guided him back to the world so that he could see. His body – what had become of it – was currently chained down on a table in what must be a secret room; it was recognizable as being somewhere in Jinlin Tower, but neither of them had ever seen this room before. The tell-tale marks of Yin Metal poisoning, the signs of turning into a corpse puppet, stretched up his neck and his eyes were blank and full of resentment, his body thrashing and mouth snarling. 

Jin Guangyao was standing beside him and looking down with a frown, asking, “Why is it not working? It worked with the others.”

“The body is too full of resentment,” Xue Yang said – and it was Xue Yang there, standing free and clear and Baxia wanted to murder him, murder them both, they were evil, and she felt Nie Mingjue’s rage right alongside her own; he agreed entirely. “Normally, it takes time for resentment to infiltrate a living body; resentment can affect the physical body faster than it does the souls and spirits…it’s as if his are gone.”

“His spirit is gone? Impossible.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “Perhaps it is only that the qi deviation weakened his ability to resist the resentful energy of the Yin Metal,” he hypothesized. “Either way, there’s nothing more I can do. What do you want to do with him?”

Jin Guangyao scowled – he’d clearly had plans for the corpse puppet he would have made out of Nie Mingjue, and Baxia can feel Nie Mingjue’s betrayal and hurt and rage at the very idea – and then he said, “Kill him.”

Oh no they didn’t.

hey, you (Jiangzai)! she called as Xue Yang moved to draw his sword. tell your (Jiangzai) human (Xue Yang) to use me (Baxia) to do it (slice).

why should I (Jiangzai)? the small-spirited sword asked. Xue Yang’s cultivation wasn’t especially impressive, but it did exist; his sword had managed to develop enough to have a personality. Well, if you called that a personality. what’s in it (benefit) for me (Jiangzai)?

a generous (positive) offer, Baxia declared. i (Baxia) will not (negative) break you (Jiangzai) into pieces.

The other sword had an aura of death, but its master was a coward and so too was it. It yielded at once.

Why do you want to be the one to kill me? Is there some benefit to it? Nie Mingjue asked, sounding curious – curious, and not angry, because he trusted her.

Such a good master. He was worthy of being her beloved. 

a saber (general) should never (negative) cut their human (general), Baxia explained. it is an evil. but that (object) is not (negative) you (Nie Mingjue) because it (object) does not (negative) contain you (Nie Mingjue). they (Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang) have filled it (object) with resentful energy; as soon as it (object) ceases to live, it will be (future) a gui (dead living).

And that means what? That you can cultivate with its energy?

no (negative)! she exclaimed. She would never use anything of Nie Mingjue’s as a tool for her own cultivation like that, treat him like a stepping stone to give herself more power. Hadn’t he faced enough of that? a gui (dead living) is not (negative) restricted by bodily uniformity (singular). it (gui) can be broken (shattered) and remain active (swing); it (gui) can also be reforged.

But what does that matter, since that’s not ‘me’ in there? Is it just so that it will haunt my enemies?

bad (negative) luck, Baxia agreed, because being haunted by a gui was indeed bad luck. but no (negative). the purpose (motivation) is that if I (Baxia) kill it (object), I (Baxia) can capture its vital energy (body) so as to eventually (future) reforge the gui.

Reforge?

remove (negative) the resentful energy (evil), she explained, restore (positive) the vital energy (life), return the souls and spirits (Nie Mingjue).

Are you suggesting that you think you’ll be able to bring me back to life?

Well, that was the goal anyway. Swords could be reforged and given new life, even after they’d been broken, so why couldn’t humans? And anyway, how else was she supposed to save him from an always-fatal qi deviation?

Xue Yang picked up Baxia when Jiangzai bit his fingers, resisting, and she allowed him to wield her – to lift her up high into the air, and to come down on the neck of the would-be gui. It all happened exactly as she would have predicted: the body died, and the gui came to life, and the evildoers only had a little bit of time to applaud themselves for their crime before they were struggling against hands that sought to strangle them and feet that kicked them and even teeth that bit them.

A fierce corpse, in defiance of all the soul-calming rituals that Nie Mingjue had mostly slept through as a child.

Now what? Nie Mingjue asked, and Baxia flung herself out the window in response. Well, that works. I refuse to allow myself to be wielded by him of all people.

it is (now) cute (pointy) that you (Nie Mingjue) expect to be (future) the one being wielded.

I meant it metaphorically…

no (negative) you (Nie Mingjue) did not (negative). you (Nie Mingjue) are too much (positive) of a saberspirit to mean anything else (negative). Baxia paused, contemplating. anyway he (Meng Yao) hasn’t even (negative) managed to bring forth (forge) a spirit in his sword (Hensheng); it (Hensheng) is only dead metal. he (Meng Yao) would be (past-now-future) a bad master (evil). 

I can’t say I disagree, Nie Mingjue said with a sigh. I was a fool. I should have listened to you when you resisted me swearing brotherhood with him.

yes (positive) you (Nie Mingjue) should have. now, you (Nie Mingjue) direct (swing) me (Baxia) – we (Nie Mingjue, Baxia) should go (future) home.

Yes. Let’s go home.

It took a while, mostly because Nie Mingjue didn’t want to startle common people by having an apparently masterless saber hurtling through the air and Baxia didn’t want to risk getting close to any cultivators that might try to capture her (them) as a treasure, but on the other hand they didn’t need to sleep or eat or relieve themselves the way humans did.

According to Nie Mingjue, this was extremely weird for him.

Baxia showed him how to dream – it was a purposeful state for sabers, something to let the time when they weren’t being used pass faster – but apparently it was still weird. Living creatures were so tetchy.

They got home long before Nie Huaisang did, but luckily the little brat had left Aituan at home again and he was delighted to see them, the sound of his blade whistling in the wind as it lunged at them (in a friendly way) almost a shriek.

you (Baxia) did it (positive)! he shouted. my (Aituan) human (Nie Huaisang) will be (future) so happy!

Future happiness? Nie Mingjue interjected. He was doing so well at being a saber; it was so nice to be proven right. What’s wrong with him now, in the present? Is he all right?

he (Nie Huaisang) thinks that you (Nie Mingjue) are dead (broken), Aituan explained.

Shit, Nie Mingjue mutters. He must be upset – devastated.

also angry (rage), Aituan said. he (Nie Huaisang) wants to kill (cut) him (Meng Yao).

He knows? I mean – he figured it out?

yes (positive). he (Nie Huaisang) is angry (rage) and wants (future) to destroy evil (Meng Yao).

That may be difficult to accomplish, without proof, Nie Mingjue said. I want to see him as soon as he gets back.

It took some time for that to happen, even after he did return – unfortunately, Nie Huaisang was escorted by Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen. The three of them were almost never apart, and obviously they couldn’t let Jin Guangyao know about Nie Mingjue’s return.

So they stayed away.

Aituan, abandoned, kept them company, staying away from the dead Hensheng and the living Shuoyue and Liebing.

During Nie Huaisang’s investiture as sect leader, the first time he’d picked up Aituan since everything had happened and even then only because it was self-evident that you couldn’t be sect leader of the Nie sect without a saber by your side, there was at last a brief chance for them to speak.

(Baxia eavesdropped.)

i (Liebing) am so sorry (scratched)! Liebing trilled, sounding honestly despondent. my (Liebing) master (Lan Xichen) is so sad, he (Lan Xichen) misses yours (Nie Mingjue) so much…

is she (Baxia) in the tombs? Shuoyue asked. Her voice was solemn and solid, not nearly as musical as usual. i (Shuoyue) wish to (future) speak with her (Baxia).

may you (Shuoyue) be broken into pieces and reforged into a chair, Aituan said pleasantly, so that you (Shuoyue) may be sat on for all eternity (future).

no need to be rude, she said crossly. i (Shuoyue) want to apologize.

do you (Shuoyue)? Aituan asked. will your (Shuoyue) apology bring him (Nie Mingjue) back? will your (Shuoyue) regret erase your (Shuoyue) complicity (evil)? you (Shuoyue) knew he (Meng Yao) was cruel (evil), and now he (Meng Yao) has destroyed my (Aituan) human (Nie Huaisang) by breaking her (Baxia) human (Nie Mingjue).

do you (Aituan) have proof (solid) that he (Meng Yao) did it (breaking)? Shuoyue demanded. She sounded miserable. you (Aituan) were not (negative) there, you (Aituan) do not (negative) know for sure (solid)…

do you (Shuoyue) still not (negative) admit your (Shuoyue) mistakes?! Liebing shouted. do you (Shuoyue) want (future) to end up like the others (Bichen, Wangji), regretting or pained (cracked), your (Shuoyue) master (Lan Xichen) destroyed (broken) at the hands of evil (Meng Yao)?

i (Shuoyue) just wanted him (Lan Xichen) to be happy…

you (Shuoyue) have made him (Lan Xichen) a breaker of swords, Aituan said. that is bad (negative) fate. how can he (Lan Xichen) be happy in the end?

can it (this) be fixed (positive)? she whispered. is it (this) too late (negative)?

Aituan didn’t respond.

Baxia approved.

After a while, Jin Guangyao left. He had duties, a wife, a small son – he couldn’t remain. Lan Xichen, who was responsible for a sect, agreed to stay a little longer, a few more weeks, but then he, too, would leave.

I’m going, I’m going,” Nie Huaisang complained as Aituan tugged him down into the basement where Baxia and Nie Mingjue had been waiting, killing time practicing their swings, usually while thinking about Jin Guangyao’s head as their target. “What’s gotten into you? You normally like to sit around like a paperweight, just the way we both like it, and I know we’re both raring and eager to go about getting revenge but I don’t see what we’ll find for that in our own basement –”

His voice trailed off.

“Baxia,” he whispered, and there were tears in his eyes. “Oh, Baxia…!”

Oh, Huaisang, Nie Mingjue cried. Huaisang, Huaisang – I’m so sorry for leaving you –

he (Nie Huaisang) cannot (negative) understand you (Nie Mingjue), Baxia said with a sigh. humans (general) are difficult (negative) for us (saberspirits) to speak with (spar).

very annoying (negative), Aituan agreed. do you (Nie Mingjue) have any ideas on how to get him (Nie Huaisang) to stop (negative) crying?

Yes. I need – I need ink, or to scratch something…can we get him out to the garden, maybe? I can write in the ground.

write? Baxia asked. the stupid (negative) thing humans (general) do with sticks and paper (soft)?

It serves a purpose, Nie Mingjue said, long-suffering – Baxia had made her view on his supposed “need” to do paperwork instead of train with her very clear many times. Come on, let’s get him outside. I can’t listen to him cry and apologize for not having done enough to save me anymore.

Whatever writing was, it was very impactful on humans: as soon as Baxia, indulgently following Nie Mingjue’s directions as she always did, started cutting slashes into the ground, Nie Huaisang fell silent, his eyes wide, and then they got wider.

“Da-ge?” he asked, voice tremulous. “How – it’s impossible. You’re in the saber?”

More slashes. Yes, Nie Mingjue said as he wrote. Yes, Huaisang, I’m here. You’re not alone.

Nie Huaisang kept crying for a while after that, but there was also hugging (Nie Mingjue yelled at him for not engaging in proper saber discipline when he nearly cut himself) and lots of very nice buffing with the clothing and the oils and the sharpening stone.

Baxia approved. Both Aituan and his human were handling this change very nicely – much better than she’d expected they would, in all truth.

“What do we do next?” Nie Huaisang asked, wiping his eyes.

we (us) get help, Baxia said. from those we (us) trust.

“That makes sense. But who can we tell?”

do you (Baxia) really mean to allow (positive) her (Shuoyue) to help? Aituan asked her doubtfully. after all (past) that she (Shuoyue) has done?

She has already made her own fate, Nie Mingjue said, his voice solemn. She allowed Lan Xichen to bind himself to Meng Yao, to make himself an accomplice to evil. It will break his heart to learn what Meng Yao has done – and that will be a deeper cut than having kept him away from her at all.

we (saberspirits) should never (negative, past-now-future) have to cut (break) our own humans (general), Baxia agreed. a bad (negative) fate.

deserved, Aituan hissed, vengeful, and when brought in on the discussion Nie Huaisang ended up agreeing with him.

Nie Mingjue was the only one surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. How could Nie Huaisang have deserved to master a saber, any saber, even one like Aituan, if he didn’t have some sharp edges to him?

Those sharp edges had been hidden, once, but that was before the pain of losing everything had melted him into a new shape, reforging him the way she’d once wished he never would be. Him and Aituan both.

They would be able to do what needed to be done now.

“Let her suffer her bad fate,” Nie Huaisang said, his eyes cold. “I supported Meng Yao and I suffered, didn’t I? Why should she be exempt? Let her suffer. Let him suffer. I want Meng Yao to lose everything he’s ever wanted, and then to die alone and with nothing.”

That seems excessive, Nie Mingjue objected. Just kill him and be done with it.

too soft (Nie Mingjue), Baxia scolded.

I said to kill him! How is that soft?!

break him (Meng Yao) in to pieces! shatter him (Meng Yao)! throw him (Meng Yao) into a tomb to wait for a reincarnation that will never (negative) come!

It turned out Baxia had some strong feelings on the subject.

“We can do that,” Nie Huaisang said, his thumb lightly rubbing against Aituan as he planned. “I have an idea.”

[ice-emperor-zane]

ninjago atla au update: Fire Lord Garmadon, Azula!Harumi, and Misako’s evil plan™️, and then more about Zane and Cole from the picrews:

Okay so, we start off with Misako’s role in Garmadon and Harumi’s plan (cuz in this au we’re not going to pretend shes a nice person). You know how in ninjago, up until season 2, she was doing research on ninjago’s history and that island the overlord lived on? Well here, she’s been researching on the history of the avatars all her life, and has learnt of how Avatar Aang was able to spiritbend Fire Lord Ozai’s Firebending away, and how Avatar Korra nearly had her bending taken away by the bloodbender known as Amon, how in the days of avatar Won, bending was given/taken away from people constantly. Misako wanted to utilise the power of giving/taking bending away to the fullest, to have spiritbender/bloodbender governments and law enforcements who could take away the bending of those who step out of line and to give bending to those who are loyal.

In the age of the Avatar prior to Lloyd (Avatar Zavier) Misako befriended Zavier and convinced him to learn spiritbending so he could give Misako waterbending and give Misako’s daughter, the Fire Lord’s child, Harumi, firebending. Misako’s excuse was that they were both born non-benders and it wasn’t really acceptable in the royal family for them to be anything other than benders, especially the heir, and the public weren’t aware Harumi wasn’t born a bender, Zavier made them both benders. He died an early death not long after this, so he never learnt of Misako’s plan to make bending a privilege and to use it as a rewards/punishment system. Avatar Lloyd was born shortly after, though of course, he was far too young to understand what was going on. Fire Lord Garmadon was of course 200% supportive of Misako’s ideas, and he no doubt planned to use the spiritbending/bloodbending method of giving/taking away bending for evil reasons™️ like removing the bending from entire other nations unless they pledge allegiance to him.

Harumi didn’t take too much convincing to think that it was a great idea, not only was she like 9 at the time, but because she had been gotten her firebending abilities later than everyone else, training-wise she was behind all the other kids her age, she could never be as perfect as she should be and she hated that more than anything else. Her hatred for her lack of natural skill and her want to wipe the smiles off all the other kid’s faces made her an extreme perfectionist who never ever stopped practicing. She became a firebending master at age 14, with the blue flames Azula had in atla (caused by extremely strong hatred for something or someone).

Now we get onto some more info about Zane and Cole based on the picrews.

You know the avatar before Lloyd? Avatar Zavier? That was Dr Julien’s son, Zane was created as a replacement to help Dr Julien cope with his grief, and also in the hopes that Zane could acomplish what Zavier always wanted to as an avatar but couldn’t (to protect those who cannot protect themselves). Zane, Jay, and Cole grew up together, but to Zane, it always felt as though Cole and Jay were best friends and he was a third wheel, so he jumped at the chance to go go the northern water tribe after discovering he was a waterbender. He’s spent the past 3 years or so of his life mastering waterbending, and honestly, he’s been a lot happier there than he ever was in Zaofu. He’s found that waterbending came naturally to him and he’s already one of the best in the tribe, hes best friends with the princess of the northern water tribe, Princess Pixl. Things are going great for him. But he can’t help but feel as though he’s not doing what he’s meant to be doing, because he’s meant to be protecting people, thats his purpose, and he’s finding it really difficult to accept that he deserves happiness too.

And now, Cole. Growing up, Zaofu had been hell, its the city made of metal and he cant metalbend, it made him feel so useless. Combine that with his airbender father, who despised that his son couldn’t airbend because it made Cole a far worse dancer (Lou is still part of the royal blacksmiths, they’re a group of Airbenders who use their bending and the extra agility/gracefulness it gives them to do dancemoves that would be impossible to a non-airbender). Of course, Cole, an earthbender, is Lou’s complete opposite, but that didnt stop Lou from forcing Cole to try to learn to dance. The standards were just so high and he hated it. Albeit Cole became quite a good dancer, but the amount of extra training he’d been forced to take, the amount of ridicule he got from others for not being able to do what they could, the extent at which it made him hate himself and how he’d been born, it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t fit in with anyone arround him, except Jay, Zane, and his mom. He doesn’t know how he would’ve survived without those guys. This all comes off in his fighting style, most earthbenders use a strong wise stance and face things head-on, Cole is more prone to airbending techniques, he only actually uses earthbending to create last-minute walls/shields, he usually uses evasive manoeuvres until the opponent tires themself out. This makes him exceptionally powerful, and I don’t think anyone at Zaofu ever took notice of that (even Jay and Zane thought he was kinda weak, fighting-wise, considering he couldn’t metalbend nor was he as agile as his father hoped), but as Bumi said, earthbending is based on neutral-jing, and Cole’s techniques feel a lot more neutral than just punching stuff. And Iroh said to draw strength from many places, and considering that earthbending and airbending are opposites, it seems like a good place to look. When Cole left Zaofu to go to republic city, he was looking for people who appreciate him more, and, I’d like to think he found that in the Smith Siblings.

Oki heres some more picrews, here we have Avatar Zavier, Harumi, and Pixl (you’re gonna hear a lot more about Pixl)

[thepandapopo]

His Star

This is my first FE fic in over ten years. The last time I wrote anything for FE was back in FE7 which, to this day, is my second favourite game of all time.

I have been on a Claudeth binge lately and since it is our favourite deer’s birthday tomorrow, I thought I would try my hand at a fic.

This is most likely going to be a multi chapter fic as I am spinning the plotline in my head as we speak, but whether or not that plot bunny makes it to paper is a different story.

Pairing: Claude x F!Byleth

In which Byleth falls sick for the first time in her entire life, but those who slither in the dark insist on making her life difficult. 

OR

The one where Claude fears he won’t make it in time.

Chapter List: 1 / 2 / 2.5 

Masterlist

XxXxXxXxX

“Professor, you need to rest!”

For someone so demure and dainty looking, Marianne is deceptively strong. Though, Byleth thinks absently as she lets her former student push her back down onto her large 4 poster bed, she shouldn’t be so surprised since she’s seen even Raphael himself bend to the gentle bishop’s will in the odd instances that he sustains a critical enough injury to land himself in the healer’s tent.

“Don’t worry, Professor. I’m sure Seteth will be able to hold down the fort while you recover.” Leonie says from her place at the foot of the bed. Despite the fact that the war has been over for nearly 6 months, her lance is still clipped neatly to her belt, next to her sword scabbard - close enough within reach to attack on a moment’s notice.

Since the end of the war, Leonie had taken it upon herself to act as the new Queen’s Head of Royal Guard. When Byleth had questioned the orange haired girl about her decision, she was merely met with a grin and a simple “I would be a terrible apprentice to Captain Jeralt if I let anything happen to his only child.”

“I’m... sorry.” Though the words themselves are not strange on her tongue, the unfamiliar dryness of her mouth and stuffed nose make Byleth sound weaker and more hesitant than she would have liked.

Leonie snorts, “you don’t have to apologize for catching a cold, Professor. Especially one due to stress. Despite what I think of you when you’re on the battlefield, you really are just a person like anyone else - of course you’re bound to get sick every now and again.”

Still, Byleth broods silently as she watches the blue haired healer usher her other student out the bedroom door, she has never gotten sick in her entire life until now and it just seems a tad bit unfair.

Fusing with the progenitor goddess has several advantages, but unfortunately it seems like being immune to illnesses is not one of them.

As her eyelids begin to lose the fight against consciousness, Byleth cannot help but let her mind wander longingly until she falls asleep dreaming of beautiful emerald eyes and a crooked grin that shines brighter than the dawn.

----

It only takes one week of being bed ridden before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Byleth is finally starting to feel well enough to stand up without feeling like she has ingested a vial of Claude’s infamous dizziness poison, when the scouts return with a report that the remnants of the Imperial army have joined forces with Those who Slither in the Dark and are marching for Derdrui, the country’s new capital.

It does not take a tactical genius to figure out that they are coming for the newly appointed Queen and Archbishop of the United Land of Fodlan.

Urgent messengers are sent out to all the nearby houses, requesting any available troops they can spare without leaving themselves vulnerable. It’s almost laughable the pitiful number of men that show up to help fight, but the arrival of all her golden deer is enough to raise Byleth’s morale and hope that she can conquer this disadvantaged fight without her schemer by her side.

Despite the protests from her students - former students, she corrects herself - Byleth steels herself and leads the meager army at her disposal in a defensive formation. This is her duty, after all. Without her, troop morale would falter and that in itself can be the deciding factor in a battle. Additionally, though she has not used it in several months and truly, she does believe in all her students’ skills, Byleth cannot help the unease that creeps up her throat when she thinks about her precious deer on the battlefield without her Divine Pulse. She has fought so hard to make sure they lived to see the peaceful world Claude and her dreamed of, that it would seem like a cruel joke only for them to fall now.

Even sick, the Ashen Demon earns her reputation. Fells of enemies fall to the Sword of the Creator as it burns with power, whipping around its wielder like a snake striking with deadly precision at the enemy’s weakness. Byleth refuses to let any enemies get close to the city. Her people have already been ravaged by war. They deserve peace, not another battle at their front step.

Hilda is somewhere to her left swinging Freikugel and cleaving through enemies with all the difficulty of a hot knife slicing through butter. Byleth is tempted to relocate the pink haired girl to the back line to act as a final barrier, but she knows that those orders will fall on deaf ears.

“If you insist on going out there Professor, then I have to come and make sure you don’t die. Can you imagine what Claude would say if he came back to find you dead? He would mope for the next century!”

Ignatz and Lysithea are further back providing cover with their long ranged attacks. Arrows and black magic rain from the sky, piercing through unsuspecting enemies and carving a path for Byleth’s battalion to advance and cut through the ranks of the enemy.

Somewhere to her right, she can hear Raphael’s battle cries above the cacophony of sounds. Judging by his sheer volume, Byleth knows that he is doing well despite being far outnumbered. Besides, the brawler is accompanied by Lorenz and Bernadetta, and while Lorenz specializes in black magics, he knows enough healing spells to keep them afloat. Plus, no matter how timid she is off the battlefield, Bernadetta is a force to be reckoned with when protecting her loved ones. Especially her mountain of a husband.

Marianne, Leonie, Felix, Ingrid, Seteth and Flayn are scattered elsewhere to protect against the enemies from crushing them in from both sides, but as the battle wages on, it becomes more and more apparent that their ranks are thinning and those that still stand are beginning to feel the fatigue of being outnumbered three to one.

The battlefield has long since warped into a jigsaw of cracked earth and chasms, courtesy of some nasty earth spells from Those Who Slither In the Dark. Where there should be rolling plains leading out onto the salty water of the ocean, there are now steep cliffs of jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, and despite her best efforts, Byleth eventually finds herself cornered on the precipice of one such cliff.

It can’t end like this.

Another enemy falls to her sword and Byleth barely has time to parry an oncoming arrow before another wave of nausea assaults her body.

She knows she’s probably burning up right now. Mint green strands of hair are matted to her skin with dirt and sweat, and the pounding behind her eyes is growing increasingly difficult to ignore. Byleth is pretty sure that had it not been for her father hammering in years of battle instincts into her, she would have had her head lopped off ages ago.

Despite how much she tries to will herself to stay in that cool, collected mindset that has won her numerous battles, Byleth cannot stop the tightness in her chest that accompanies the tears of frustration accumulating at the corner of her eyes.

She wanted to see Claude again. To feel his arms around her. To fall asleep to the steady pounding of his heart that seemed to inexplicably speed up every time she let her body melt into his. To let herself drown in the scent of pine needles and spices.

She could try using the Divine Pulse, but where would she rewind to? A few minutes would not be enough to make a drastic enough decision to turn the tide in their favor.

It’s not fair.

Goddess. She is so tired. But she cannot give up. Not when she has a promise to keep.

“I love you. With everything I am. And the next time we see each other... it will be at the dawn of a whole new world. A peaceful, happy world.”

Claude...

The ground beneath her feet teeters and he sky is suddenly above her. It is a brilliant blue with fluffy white clouds and even though she knows she is falling, she cannot help but be reminded of the first time Claude invited her out on his wyvern and they spent the afternoon soaring and diving through the air on a beautiful day just like this.

Claude... I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our promise...

She thinks it is a trick of her mind, but right as Byleth feels her consciousness slipping away, she hears his voice one last time crying out her name with such fear and anguish.

Then, there was nothing.

----

“BYLETH!”

Claude feels his heart stop and clench painfully as the familiar black and green figure tumbles off the edge of a jagged cliff.

He is shooting across the battlefield on his wyvern’s back before he can even spare a thought to how absolutely reckless it is to fly so low in the range of archers.

Behind him, he vaguely registers his generals shouting at him in alarm and Nader barking out orders to support the retreating Fodlan forces.

All he can think about right now is getting to His Star in time.

Later, he will wonder to himself if perhaps he might have the power to pause time as well, because although it was probably less than 4 seconds, Claude swears that the world around him slowed as all of his senses honed in on his one goal.

Please, goddess, let me reach her in time.

---

To those who participated in the Final battle with Those Who Slither in the Dark, they would recall vividly the moment when a loud battle cry rang out from the east heralding the arrival of the Almyran army.

They would also recount the arrow of white and gold that shot across the battlefield towards the Queen whom had made her last stand on the edge of a cliff before fainting from exhaustion and tumbling down to the depths below.

Above the din of weapons clashing and cries of agony rose a single name, cried out with such fear and panic that even those who knew not whom the shout belonged to, felt their hearts clench painfully with the raw emotion.

Although not many could say for certain what happened next, all the surviving Fodlan soldiers would recall shortly thereafter seeing their former leader, Claude von Riegan, atop his white wyvern loosing arrow after arrow on the lingering enemies with such brutal efficiency that reminded everyone exactly how he had ended the war.

When the fighting ceases and casualties are tallied, fear for their Queen runs rampant through the soldiers. For those who have had the privilege of fighting under the combined leadership of Claude, the master tactician, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon, they know how strong the bond is between the two, and although they have their doubts, they allow themselves to let their worries melt away when they see Claude exit the medical tent with a look of such knee wobbling relief that he has to lean on a nearby wall to stop from collapsing.

XxXxXxXxX

Ugh. I hate how this ended. I’ll come back and fix it another day.

Anyhoo, hope you all enjoyed it!

Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 2

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Dawn(4)

Loki x fem!Reader

ONE/TWO/THREE SHOT

Warnings:hurt, anxiety, missing(?)

Summary: A truce to end all wars leads to an alliance between Earth and Asgard in the form of Loki marrying a mortal. None of them what this. None except fate.

Word Count: I’ll be leaving this job when things settle down. I cannot work for a company that does not have humanity or sympathy for the people that keep it going. I would rather get a decent pay and be treated with the respect I deserve for the job I do. This pandemic really brought a whole different side to how much they care for you.

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The rough kisses of the wind under the light of the moon bring with it the song of nocturnal birds ready to take the night. Every little ecosystem of the witching hour is alive as the light brings forth a new day and a new adventure, bursting out into songs of the twilight; or their supper. Everything except for the God on the horse that zooms past them, interrupting their daily chores to look at him in curiosity for five seconds before going back to whatever it is they were doing.

For Loki, it is less of an adventure and more of a race against time. He knows firsthand the sensitive areas of the Asgardian mountains, especially the ones lying close to Vanaheim and Alfheim that are hiding the remnants of old enemies of the throne. Once the war was over, it was a given that the invaders from other galaxies who had set their claws in the weakest kingdoms would have to face the Asgardian forces to draw them away, and so they had fled in the darkness of the many nights to prevent being captured and exiled to their planets or worse, being left on a barren moon to fend for themselves. And it would not be any barren moon but one which the Silvertongue would choose specifically for their suffering.

One of the reasons Loki had travelled to the borders just a day after his wedding was to take care of the still weak defences of the kingdom. Several aliens who had surrendered because of their children and to prevent violence were assured a safe refuge and means to make an honest living by both the Princes. But the once who had fled with the motive to not negotiate for a mere living had full intentions of coming back with resources. Loki made sure that guards were stationed near the villages by the edge of the cities so as to prevent the fiends from pillaging the hard work of the innocent while at the same time, releasing the wild animals under the care of the crown- more precisely, his command- to make sure they kept the threat in check.

It had been hard for Loki to get up in the morning with you by his side, sleeping without a care in the world. He’d watched you snore, your lips parted and your sleep reasonably heavy after the week you had had, and questioned himself to have found you more mesmerising than any time before. He knew Thor could have handled the situation without him, but seeing you sleep next to him with your guard down brought an unknown sensation from somewhere deep inside him, unfurling like a whirlpool in the midst of an ocean. The sensation, the instinct to protect you- to watch you like this more often. After all, how many people in his life had he witnessed to trust him enough to tell him his brother was afraid of spiders.

And now as he is flying in the wind through the forest trail to reach you, Loki can only think about your safety. Well, that and the endless rant he would have to hear from Tony if something happens to you and he finds out about it.

If his memory of the lessons of the kingdom’s Geography serves him right, the Nightweed can only be found by the rivulets flowing from Vanaheim’s direction. That would mean the group would have to travel south-west to reach it a few hours before the crack of the dawn. And the trail he follows suggests his observation be correct.

Just a half an hour journey later he finds a soft glow of lanterns up ahead on the trail, his pounding heart feeling an unexplainable rush that makes his grip on the reins tighter as he directs his horse to reach it with full speed.

What he does not expect to see is Sybll being the only one sitting on the ground next to a few horses while a guard keeps a watch for anything out of the ordinary. The lines of worry on her face are visible in the glow of the white lanterns but the fear that creeps into her eyes when she sees Loki emerge from the darkness is no match for them.

“Your highness,” she breaks while trying to get up from the ground and bow her head in the presence of her Prince.

“Where is she?” is all he asks.

The answer does not come abruptly. Instead, Sybll’s eyes well up and her fingers torment the flesh of her arms till she has grounded herself to finally speak.

“She’s missing. Someone took her,” she winces.

.

The visit to the forest feels like a dream. The smell of the flowers of the night, the cool breeze caressing you with the frostiness it brought you from the nearest waterfalls and rivulets, the happy songs not holding much meaning for you, the laughs and cheers. Everything seems to be blurring into a sweet memory.

Till you remember the urgent need to pee that led to you losing consciousness. And with that one thought gathering amplitude inside your head, your eyes open wide while your head throbs, looking in every direction for Sif or Sybll or anyone else who is familiar. Instead, you lock eyes with a gross creature sitting at the entrance- of what seems like a tent- looking at you with utter disgust in his eyes and a wicked smile on his...well, whatever this orc has for lips.

That creature runs out of the tent before you can ask him anything and you take that time to look around for any clue as to where you are. One thing that does make sense is the seal on the grain sacks and chests kept in one corner which does not belong to any royal families you were introduced to on your wedding day.

Wait, my wedding day was yesterday.

Just the thought of that fact gives you a headache.

Getting up from this quilt that you have been laid over, you feel the frost of the night over your exposed shoulders, really missing the cloak you'd kept on your horse when you dismounted it.

Steps sound outside the tent and you are obligated to turn towards the opening to see who is responsible for getting you unconscious and dragging you away from another Asgardian tradition.

Well, the master, or chief, looks nothing like the one he had stationed to guard you.

This one looks more like an elf with a backbone straighter than any protestant you would witness in a 'go away immigrants' rally. His golden hair falls till his hips, not a single strand out of its place; even when he walks towards you. For a second you really think he has walked in here by mistake till his yellow eyes start to observe you from head to toe.

Creepy elf.

"Hm," he breathes out, his head held so high he has to look down at you even though he is barely two inches taller than you are, "I thought the prince of Asgard would do better than...this."

"Hm," you mock back, not acknowledging that petty insult with an answer. But you really cannot help it. "I'm sure if you had asked nicely he would have considered your hand in the marriage too..."

"Torbarik," he introduces himself, never breaking that stoic ego of his, "and I would rather eat dirt than marry that bastard," the elf creature purrs all the while unconsciously avoiding anything that would get his white robe with sparkly embellishments dirty.

"So...you would marry him," you state, narrowing your eyes in introspection at that guy who is clearly irritated now.

He takes a step towards you, enough to bend a little when he wants to stare you directly in the eye. "Your father in the name of the law promised us a place in the kingdoms before your husband-" he practically hisses the word in your face- "and his high and mighty brother took over the territories to make it their little playground and drive my people out."

As much as you want to pay attention to his words there is something else that bothers you on another level.

"I'm sorry," you finally blurt out, "I cannot concentrate on what you're saying with those two little hairs standing up on your head. Right there. Yeah. Near the forehead."

Torbarik moves his head back, like a little jolt he feels at the thought of someone pointing at his imperfections.

"Look, I don't know what Odin promised you," you shrug, "and whatnot. But I do know that whatever Loki and Thor and doing is probably for the best of all people involved."

“What is best for their interest,” Torbarik interrupts you, walking around the tent, his eyes looking around, his marble-like face expressionless, “that is how the royal family has always been. I claimed the lands of Alfheim with power-” he pauses in front of a small mirror hanging by the pole in the centre of the tent and checks himself and those loose hair strands you mentioned- “and no one can take that away from me.”

You have to pause and take a breath. Initially for clearing your head, mostly for keeping you from throwing words at him he might not recover from.

“And where do I come into this?” you finally ask. “I do not have a political standing in the Asgardian court if that is what you are going for.”

Torbarik feels a shift in lips, a slight smirk forming on them as he turns to face you with an eerie look in his eyes. “Oh, but you are the most vital piece of the court, your grace.”

You know he means to mock you when he addresses you that way, and that look of madness in his eyes is not helping. “You, the latest addition to the royal court, a...low blood but married into the royals, nonetheless, are the key to it all. You are what I will bargain for power in these lands, my dear.”

So, he is insane, your inner voice shouts in a mad fit of hysterical laughter while you scoff at him. “And what makes you think anyone will negotiate with you? What makes you think Odin will negotiate for my life? Like you said, I’m just a human.”

For the first time that night, you watch Torbarik smile the broadest smile, revealing those unresting sharp white teeth. What is worse is his steps towards you, not halting till he has you pinned into the tent’s wall with his body, not even giving you much space to breathe.

“Oh, but not just any human,” he sings, his dirty-nailed fingers running lazily over your jaw, “you are the human who could bring havoc to Asgard with one simple scratch. Or maybe a broken bone. Or worse....your death.”

The nail from his index finger goes down the jaw, over your neck, deeper than before, definitely scratching something. “Imagine the destruction,” he whispers into your ear, sending uneasiness crawling down your skin, “when your family on earth finds out about something happening to you. The war they are going to wage. Bringing Hel on this land Odin is so proud of. And all-” his fingers wrap you by the throat, not yet turning it into a grip- “because Odin or his sons could not protect you.”

Even in the chill sweeping from outside on your feet, your back feels sweat trickle down while your heart tries its best to maintain a survivable pace.

“Loki would see this coming a mile away. Do you really think you stand a chance in front of hi-”

The grip tightens around your throat. You can feel the nails digging into your skin. “Oh, I want him to see this coming. I want him to know there will be blood if he does not agree with my terms. Even if your life means nothing to him, he will pay the price for it.”

It is not as much the words but the thoughts they conceive in your mind. Restless, unnerving thoughts. Thoughts of what weight do you exactly carry for Loki. Do you even carry some significance for him? Or are you just another peace treaty that was done and dusted?

Your heart feels a pain rush into it as quickly as you try to hide it on the outside.

“My husband does not negotiate with a terrorist. And you are a fool if you think he will not find a way through this web you think you are spinning for him.”

Torbarik breaks into laughter that chills your veins. Your skin feels something sticky where his nails are digging into your skin. “I would like to see him try.”

.

“...and by the time I came back to where I had left here, she was gone.”

The defeated sigh that leaves Sif’s lungs hurts her more than anyone for not being able to do the one thing she was meant to be doing.

“It’s not your fault, Sif,” Loki is quick to point out, knowing that look in her eyes well enough to know where her thoughts are spiralling right now. “Whoever took her must have been following you for some time to know when to strike. Are all the handmaidens accounted for?”

Sif nods, looking over his shoulder to watch them stand huddled together by the horses.

“Okay, here is what we will do-”

“Loki,” Sif interrupts the God before he can put a plan in action, “I can find her. Let me find her.”

Loki blinks. “Of course you will. You are the best asset we have right now. Baldur can take the handmaidens back to the palace. We have a lot of ground to cover so-”

“Pardon us, your highness,” Sybll’s voice stops Loki to make both the warriors turn around and face her form that is barely keeping it together underneath the tightly held cloak, “but we would like to be a part of the search too. We cannot go back to the palace when the Princess might be in danger right now. Please, we have been taught how to defend ourselves by the Queen. Let us be of some help as well.”

Loki has to pause and look at the eager faces standing their ground to do as much as possible. He turns to Sif for an opinion and she silently agrees with the lot.

A sigh escapes his nostrils in the form of visible air in this night getting colder by the minute.

“Fine,” he finally agrees, allowing the handmaidens to breathe easy, “but not without security.”

Loki gets down on one knee to touch the soil with his palm, reciting an ancient spell that reverberates through the land of the forest- its epicentre where Loki stands- with visible green and golden waves rolling right on the dust. Just as the recitation stops and his hand leaves the soil, everything goes silent; not even the owls hoot nor does a leaf.

And then Sif sees them. At the top of the nearest hill. Golden orbs- too many- in pairs, looking down at them, as if floating in their direction. The fear of the unknown takes root in a corner of her heart right before the moonlight shines on them.

Sif feels a touch on her shoulder and turns her head just enough to witness Loki’s hand shifting her and every other lady’s armour in something as black and as the night.

“Search for my wife,” Loki announces with a subtle hint of something dark without ever raising his voice- changing into a battle-ready black armour- and summoning his sword, “and they will take care of the rest.”

[fieryphoenix0007]

Prologue/Introduction

In the beginning…

  God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light”: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Or so the story of Creation goes…

  Same, too, to say, that this was also the story of Michael’s first triumph against Samael’s Great Rebellion.

They say that the Bible is the Word of God, His Story, and His message to humanity, however, many theologians never fully understand all the words written by the great apostles, prophets and scribes of God.

  The writer themselves were puzzled with every word that came from the inspiration of God through their writing.

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

  Facing with the punishment of being banned from the promised land of Canaan, the writer of the first five books, the “Pentateuch”, Moses, the great leader of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, determined to himself that he will write and record, scribe what the Lord inspires him to write.

  He began with the words, “In the beginning…” notating the answer to the large mystery of ‘Where did everything started from?’

  From Genesis to Exodus, how they escaped slavery from Egypt, and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, Moses played a large role in starting writing the original manuscript of the Holy Book.

  What is common on these books are that they present God’s power to the human realm, His influence, physically, on the Earth’s fundamental laws. The impossible made possible, the unthinkable made pursuable, and the improbable proven.

  Little do we know about the spiritual creatures that help conjure these so-called ‘miracles’, or as the humans call it, ‘abnormalities’.

  The power to bend reality into your will is something that cannot be achieved by mere human. The humans do have their wild imagination – concoctions to a colourful and advancing world, however, they can only so little to so much with their own bare hands and feet.

  They are limited and cased into the laws of physics and the laws of the universe, whatever they can produce beyond those boundaries were theorized to be with the help of spiritual beings upon the will of God.

  These spiritual beings took on faces similar to human, but were theorized to be genderless, their form changes according to their purpose and each of them has a different power that can bend even nature itself.

  In reality, the appearance of each was uncommon to the human eyes, and mind, looking like sword, flames, ray of light, wheel, beast, and winged creatures.

  They operated in the shadows, perhaps, secret agents, fashioned by God, effortlessly blending into the crowd to create opportunities for trials and temptations, and visited humanity time and time again in a particular way that sends shivers down your spine.

  ------------------------------

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

  Moses was an Egyptian scholar. Years of his life focused on grooming and preparing him to be one of the great pillars of the dynasty of Egypt, along with his father and brother, the Pharaoh and prince regent.

  In the middle of the great pyramids’ construction, some believed that Moses was the chief engineer in building those ginormous symbol of wealth and power of the Egyptian monarchs and elites.

  Moses, the brother of the prince, standing in the midst of the crowd, proud of his lineage, and assisting his brother, the regent, on his projects and plans for the future of the kingdom.

  He was always at the top of his game. His teachers taught him manners of the royalty, work ethics, and their religious gods, but nothing from his prestige education and training has prepared him for the upcoming events.  

  “Stop! Please!” An Israelite girl pleaded and kneeled in front of the Egyptian soldier as her salty sweat runs down her brows.

  The slaves have been tirelessly put to work for almost seven days now by one of the nobles who felt that he would die at any moment.

  Soldiers were assigned to monitor each and every slave to work and accomplish the great task of mounting one of the greatest pyramids of all time.

  As women and the children were assigned to distribute food and water, the men, the older ones, and the young ones, were assigned to the heavy duty of creating blocks of mud and bringing them to the construction.

  SFX: WAPOOSH! The sound of the whip echoed in the valley.

  The Egyptian soldier just wouldn’t stop.

  She looked away every whip, the sight of her grandfather, whipped to death for falling behind the line, blood oozes out of the pores of his back, blending in the mud and straw where the slave drenched as he fell behind the line, rashes start to appear as the straw’s unbearable dryness produced the itching reddish appearance as it touched and the heat torched the old man’s skin.

  Moses was sensitive to these kinds of things, he doesn’t remember ever getting to know a slave, nor does he know that he was from one of the slaves, but his heart ached every time a slave cried out, his mind exploded in frustration every time he sees someone lashed to death.

  He did not fully understand why, but his body followed his heart and mind, because of this, most of the Senate did not like Moses.

  To them, he looked weak, sympathizing with the slaves. Though, the current Pharaoh keeps him in his heart as his son, and the current regent treats him like a blood-brother, you will notice a difference in heart.

  “Father, I’d like a slave to be in my quarters.” The first time he heard this from his brother, the prince regent, it immediately broke his heart.

  He realized he is still too weak to do anything, but now, now, that he’s the chief engineer, maybe, maybe, he thought, Maybe I can do something about this!

  He quickly rushed to the aid of the old man with a collapsed lung, the soldier continued to whip the man to death until he submitted, wobbling standing up and tried to barely carry his load.

  Of course, he wouldn’t be able to stand up - you’re whipping him to death!

  He thought this through…

  But it was too late, he grabbed the soldier’s wrist to stop, but the old man collapsed again and was no longer breathing, his unmoving body lay still half-buried in the sand and mud and the straw that he grew up to pick up in.

  I thought I can save him.

  He expected a wave of rejoicing of gratitude from the slaves, instead, a wild, deafening screech from the weeping of the granddaughter of the old man echoed through the desert.

  He couldn’t comfort the girl, he couldn’t scold the soldier, he couldn’t punish the abuser, and protect the weak, stuck in the middle, he was faced with the greatest enemy of his life – the cruelty of his own father, or so he thought.

  That night, determined to get justice, and to be the defender of the weak, the sneaky vigilante snuck through the darkness and struck quickly in the moonlight.  

  “No, please, don’t kill me.” The soldier appealed with his life.

  But the more he beseeched for mercy, the more Moses got agitated, he remembered how the little girl implored for his grandfather’s life, and for that, he struck the blows even harder and harder, until there’s no recognizable feature in the man’s face.

  A sigh of relief rushed down his spine as he finished the task, he succeeded in sending that soldier’s soul to hell’s hottest and finest rooms.  

  The relief quickly brushed down his face, and terror and panic soon came charging in. The clouds that covered the moonlight passed on and as the light hit the sand, his murder handiwork reflected in his eyes. His hands covered in blackish hard liquid, as the blood dried out immediately in the cold of the night.

  What have I done?

  Alas, he thought he was doing a righteous task by taking justice in his own hands, but what he took was his own innocence, and send it off to hell.

  Sand! I’ll… I’ll bury him in the sand!

  He quickly scooped his bloodied hands in the sand, cold and rough, gasping for air as he dashed to bury the body in the middle of nowhere. He knew that no secret in this world that will never be revealed, but hoped at the least that his family doesn’t find out.

  As he was finishing his burial, his eyes nervously darted and scoped around like a cornered impala, waiting for the lion to strike.

  There’s no one. Good.

  He speedily head back to the palace, near at the river’s bank, and washed off his body and threw his clothes, the river stowed away with the bloodied evidence of his crime.

  He looked at the silver moon, it was not a good sight. His eyes filled with the red-stained blood that splashed around while he bludgeoned the soldier to death with a sharp rock.

  He wanted to go back in time, to undo what he did, but it’s too late, it’s already done.

  Forgiveness from a god was familiar to Moses, they have customs and rituals indicated in their history paintings and drawings, but this was the first time he sought forgiveness from the God of the Israelites.

  God, if you can hear me, please… please forgive me. I’ve been good, and I’ve helped many of your people. I hope You can help me this time.

  Every one of the Egyptians was well acquainted with each other, though they treated the Israelites as slaves, their definition of family was still pretty close, hence, the next morning, the family of the soldier petitioned a searching party from the palace.

  Alarmed by the missing soldier report, the Pharaoh quickly dispatched a team to rummage through the desert and the nearest kilometres of the borders.

  And within that day, a few volunteers discovered a body, unrecognizable, near the borders of Egypt.  

  So… so fast, I… I need to get out of here.

  God wanted to help Moses, though he murdered a man in the name of revenge, he was still the chosen deliverer of the Israelites out of Egypt, that was His plan.

  Then…

  God liberated Moses all from the anchor of his family, the pressure of Egypt and from his crime.

  “Aren’t you the one who killed this man? Are you not an Egyptian as well? Why did you kill him?”

  Someone whispered in the crowd.

  Moses darted his eyes through the crowd, there was no one.

  Who’s talking, then… who?

  An old man has his back turned from Moses, and that’s when his heart spoke to him, Approach the old man, approach him.

  And he did.

  That voice steered him to something that he could not fathom, at the least for that moment, or for the next forty years.

  He frantically stretched out his arms across the crowd and reached the old man’s shoulder.

  “Wait…”

  His face quickly turned pale and devoid of any colour, as if the blood came rushing out, the old man’s face, it was the dead old man, the unmoving old man, whipped to death, bloodied with his back, and rashes in his whole body.

  “You killed him! You killed your fellow Egyptian! He killed him! I saw him last night!” The outlandish accusations of the old man seemed to be believable to the people around Moses.

  The Chief of the Army quickly posed a wanted poster and notice for the head of Moses, the man who killed an Egyptian.

  How is this possible? That old man already died, I avenged him.

His thoughts got scrambled quickly as puzzle as he packed up his things to escape justice for his murder charges.

  Pressed by the elites and nobles, the Pharaoh, issued a warrant to arrest and punish Moses for the murder charges.

  I have no other choice but go.

  MOSES! MOSES! The echoing soldiers and army ready to arrest him were now threading to the gates of Egypt.

  He quickly marched on to the death of the desert to escape his pursuers.

  *Huff, Huff*

This isn’t working, this isn’t what I wanted. I only wanted freedom for the slaves. Fair treatment for everyone, how did it end up this way?

  It’s too late, he was already miles away from the kingdom, in the vast desert. At least he knew how to find an oasis or something similar in this time of the day.

  Exhausted, lingering between life and death, Moses continued to march on at the cold of the night, his eyes barren of any life and hope, not knowing where to go, what to do, and if there is any future ahead of all of this.

  Then…

  SFX: Thud, thud

  His knee gave out, weakness due to thirst spread throughout his body and he suddenly fell on his knees, then his face on the sand.

  It’s as if he had lost all hope, closing his eyes to oblivion, his ears started tingling, there’s sound coming from somewhere.

  “Father, father…”

  The faintest sound of a lady woke him right up, his eyes dilated of joy and hope. He pulled out his arms from the sand, and pushed his body upwards, along with his torso and his legs.

  Flailing like his legs were going to give out, he struggled to find the sound.

  Where… where was it?

  “Aaa-, aa-, hee-“

  He doesn’t have that much voice in him, the sand dried up his throat, there’s vibration from his breathing, but sound, there’s nothing much, he’s too weak to speak, or even shout for help.

  “Father…”

  The whispers were getting louder by a minute, in what direction were they coming from?

  Moses closed his eyes, felt the wind and located where the whispers were coming from.

  South-east! South-east, go, go, go, move legs!

  And there it was, a small group of people, in tents surrounding a small oasis, supply of water, in the middle of the desert.

  Moses’ eyes lights up even more, shone, and the only thing he could see was the well besides the oasis.

  He ran and threw his face down at the water of the oasis, drinking, gulping, and-

  “Haaaaaaaaaaa.” Gasping for air. He lifted up his drenched face from the well, and looked up to the Heavens, the stars, the skies, the moon, it wasn’t bloody red anymore. He clearly saw the shining light reflecting to the water and on to his eyes.

  He wanted to cry his eyes out, but that’s not possible, he was still dehydrated from walking in the scorching hot desert for almost a day.

  Regaining his composure, his eyes wandered the premises, there’s no one nearby, no one awake, no soul that could whisper what he heard and yet he knows what he heard, he remembers what he heard.

  However…

  There’s something weird about the place. Everything was quiet, no one was definitely awake, particularly different from the bustling evening of Egypt.  

  Something even weirder caught his eye. A sword plunged shallowly on the sand near the well caught his curiosity, he began approaching the sword. It’s a double-edged sword.

  He was not familiar with this type of sword as Egyptians used a sickle-shaped, one – edged sword in their military.

  He’d only seen double-edged swords in their library of pictures, the walls that described their history and glory.

  In all the war pictures in those walls, he never saw a double-edged sword depicted in the drawings.

  Enthralled by the sword, he grabbed tightly the hilt of the shining silver sword and quietly pulled it out of the cold sand.

  “Moses.”

  “Ha!”

  Upon hearing a voice, he was startled and jerked off the sword out of his hands into the sand beneath his shoeless toes.

  What was that? Was that the sword?

  “Was… was that you?”

  What am I doing, talking to a sword? Is this a full-on hallucination?

  “Yes.”

  It talked! It talked, it talked, it talked! What?

  “What… what are you? Did you… did you save me and lead me here?”

  Definitely intrigued, he slowly approached the talking sword.

  “I am the messenger of God - the God of Jacob, the God of Joseph, the God of the Israelites.”

  You? A sword? Wait, Israelites?

  “So, it’s true, the God of Israel, is the true God?”

  There are many Egyptians gods that we pray to, but… I never felt a connection.

  Moses tried to grab again the hilt of the sword. This time, he made sure he tightly gripped the hilt.

  “Yes.”

  His heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t let go of the sword. Hard as it may seem but his mind accepted the fact that the talking sword is what led him there.

  “What do you want?”

  “Simple. To inform you something.”

  “Some… thing?”

  “You are of Israel, son of Jochebed, daughter of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob.”

  “What? That’s… that’s… impossible.”

  He gathered his thoughts, he’s an Egyptian, yet he has feelings for the slaves, pity, love, mercy, and the slaves are good to him as well, they knew something that he doesn’t.

  Flashbacks came flooding in.

  The time he felt pity for the first time for the slaves outside of the palace working on with the pyramids, and that time that he saw a little girl guiding him in the river, or that time that he remember in his dreams that an adult woman slave was singing him to sleep, those… those weren’t just dreams, they’re… they’re memories.

  They’re… my memories?

  “Your mother kept you alive in a basket for almost three years.”

  “Pharaoh, your adoptive grandfather has decided to slay the male Israelites to avoid increasing the number of the slaves, he was afraid that a rebellion will happen if Israel were to outgrow Egypt and overcome them in numbers.” The sword continued the story.

  “Numbers… wait, what? He… Grandfather…”

  “The history is not one pleasant thing to remember. The children howled and whimpered, and their mothers wailed and bellowed their cries, it’s as if the Heavens closed again its windows, this time, against humanity.”

  “So…”

  The reason why many Israelites hated my grandfather was… was…

  “The soldiers, along with their conscience, begrudgingly tossed the male infants to the Nile, only to be drowned, or subdued or eaten by the reptiles which roam about the river. That day, the Earth, the land, the waters grieved for the gifts of God shed blood unnaturally through the wickedness of the heart of Pharaoh.”

  “Then… I… I was about to be killed…”

  “Yes, however, your mother was able to get you hidden from the soldiers. Once she was fully aware that she will not be able to for the next years of your infancy, she… she prepared a basket for you to be able to float into the Nile. Guided by your sister, Miriam, Jochebed hesitantly watched you, and the basket sail within the most dangerous depths of the river to the chamber of Pharaoh’s daughter. That’s how you became the Prince of Egypt.”

  His eyes opened wide, his knee gave out again, but not due to hunger, not due to dehydration, but due to shock, he also lost the power to hold the sword and it fell, blade-first into the ground.

  “That’s… how do you know so much about me?”

  “I already told you, I am the messenger of God.”

  “If you have saved me, then…”

“Yes, you will be Israel’s deliverer, you will deliver them out of slavery into the promise land.”

  “I… no, no, no… I just came out of there as a murderer! I’m a criminal, not some saviour, and who am I to… to…”

  “You’re not just someone, God set you up to be the Prince of Egypt and the Deliverer of Israel, you are Moses.”

  “How can I…”

  “Believe. For now, learn the way of the priest and the shepherd. I will be reaching you again when the time comes.”

  “When the time comes?”

  “Yes. “

  Moses, looking down, has realized his fate, and his life was a set-up to believe what’s in front of him, but now…

  There’s an even bigger person than father, than the Pharaoh.

  “Who… who are you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  As soon as Moses became curious about the sword, what emerged from the back of the sword raised his interest even more.

  White, fluffy, and shining bird-like wings fluttered in front of his eyes, with a jaw-dropping beauty and elegant movement, the only thing that Moses can do is try to reach out the illuminating wings.

  He let go of the hilt of the sword and thus, it hovers in the air.

  “I am-“

[wootensmith]

Harellan

He hadn’t sought out the Lavellan clan members who’d arrived before the Inquisitor. He’d longed to, wanted to ask them how she was, what had happened when she came home bare-faced and bringing strange tales with her, how she’d convinced the few of them who came to make the journey on her word alone. But after a brief conversation, the same he had with all new arrivals, he’d let them go and they seemed to be grateful to be out of his line of sight. He resisted prying and left them to Abelas’s care.

Months later, a few days after the Inquisitor had found him, he caught sight of her speaking with a clanmate near the gates of Andruil’s waste. She appeared troubled as the man spoke. When the clansman noticed they were being watched, he said, “I’m sorry, Hahren, I can’t.” He slipped quickly away, hurrying toward the training yards. The Inquisitor looked after her clansmate and then turned and caught sight of Solas standing just beyond the stone owl and smiled uneasily. He met her, feeling he’d accidentally interrupted something vital. He wished only to wipe the discomfort from her mind. “It makes me glad to hear him call you ‘hahren’. You have more than earned their respect,” he said. A bitter laugh burst from her and she shook her head. “He calls me ‘hahren’ because he refuses to use ‘lethallan’ any longer and he’s too frightened to call me ‘harellan’. Especially here. It is not a compliment.”

He watched the man scurrying between the small watchfires for a few moments before he disappeared into the city. “They think you have betrayed them?” “Is it such a surprise, fanor?” she asked gently. “The stories that guided us— our whole history, our place in the world, our hopes for what was to come— they have endured centuries. You tried yourself to change them. What hope did I have of succeeding where you and the world have failed? Deshanna was kinder. She just believed I’d gone mad. The others think the Andrastians sent me to poison them with lies.” She touched her cheek as if to trace the absent vallaslin and then flushed and dropped her hand, embarrassed. “I’m not certain which is worse,” she admitted.

“Ir abelas, Vhenan. I never wanted you to lose them. I wish that you had not told them.” “I had to try. I thought— they were my home, Solas. My family. If anyone in the world should believe me… but I asked too much of them.” He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling the sorrow in her voice like a blow. “What did you want from him? Whatever he refused, perhaps I can do it in his stead.” She shook her head and her eyes filled. “I asked him to send Deshanna a message. To beg them to go to Skyhold until the end. But he does not trust me, even now, even seeing this place and you. For all he calls me hahren, he thinks I mean to harm them. Deshanna sent him to watch me, to shield me from the madness she thought I would succumb to. She told him that what I’d done in the Inquisition obligated them to protect me in my hour of weakness. That is why he came. And he stays because she orders it, not for love of me. I am a traitor, after all. To them. To Sera. To you.” She broke into a sob and fled before he could respond.

He was uncertain how to help. A message to Deshanna was easy enough. Whether she would believe it or the dream he constructed that evening would be another question. But if the Inquisitor’s clansmen would not do it themselves, he would make the attempt. What to do about her loss was something much harder. What betrayal could she possibly believe herself guilty of? She had been a kind and loyal friend to Sera. And to him— she had kept his secrets better than he had kept them himself. Brought him another way. Was trying to save them all. Harellan. How can she think herself so? The eidolon was dark and cold when he returned. He thought her still absent, somewhere in the shattered library or with Abelas in the training yards. But he heard a rustle from the crown before he could leave to search for her. She was in Vhemanen’s small room. It had been emptied when Vhemanen left for Skyhold. Solas had packed everything movable for her himself, wishing the riches of Elgar’nan’s foolish vanity had any use for his friend. It was chilled and barren. The Inquisitor sat on the cold carven tile, staring at the wall. He could just make out the soft sparkle of unlit veilfire, but the lamp sitting beside her was dark. He wanted to offer to light it. To show her what she obviously longed to see, though he had no idea if Vhemanen had left them or someone who was here centuries ago. He folded himself into a seat beside her instead, stared at the shimmer on the wall and wondered what she thought she could see in it. “I sent Deshanna your message,” he said. “I hope she will listen to it. I fear my cousins have already sent her dark rumors of you. She will think you are using me. Or that you, too, are mad. Or both. But perhaps— perhaps she’ll save them somehow.” She didn’t turn to him and he glanced at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She had been crying a long while. He looked back at the veilfire traces. “If she does not believe the written message, then I will find her in sleep. And each of your clan. Until they believe or flee to Skyhold to stop the dreams. I am sending Loranil to lead them there.” “Thank you. I think. Your method may be— a little harsh, emma lath. But if it brings them to safety— thank you.” He brushed her swollen cheek with his fingertips. “I do not feel like being gentle today,” he admitted. “Not when they dismiss you so easily.” She shook her head a little but did not argue with him. “I admit I can see how it happened, that they think of you as a harellan, as false as that may be. Because it was the same when I tried to tell the clans what they’d forgotten. But Sera? And I? How could either of us believe you betrayed us, Vhenan?” She finally looked at him, the glow of the mark flashing over the veilfire for an instant as she turned and then gone again. “Because all of me is a betrayal. From the very beginning. It was— simpler to ignore in the Inquisition. We were all far from home, from our peoples. Except— except I had the two of you. And it was easy to forget, in my clan, that there were other ways of being. Because I was enough to them. Then. I was right. Dutiful. Part of them. And then I tumbled from the Breach and into the human world.” She rubbed her knee and stared at the wall again. “They’d never want me. The humans. I was a necessary tool for them, and I always will be. For as many statues and parades and treaties they have about me, I’m just a thing. Not theirs. It didn’t matter so much to me, because except for our friends, none of them needed to know me. It wasn’t worth the energy to persuade the Empress or those like her that I was more than the anchor. I do not mean our friends. Cassandra and Dorian, Vivienne and Blackwall— they might not ever understand everything I do or am, but they accept me anyway. Love me anyway. The same for Bull and Varric. But you and Sera— I had to be more. And I failed. Every day, I failed.” “No,” he protested, reaching for her. “Yes. There is no way for me not to fail you both. Sera— wanted me to blend in. Because that’s how she survived. To cut out the parts that struck the City elves and the humans as odd. It was safer that way. The invisible elf is the perfect elf. The invisible elf gets things done. Strikes in the perfect moment. Betters the lives of all the others in quiet leaps when no one is looking. Sera is good at that. But me— everything I know, the way I speak, the paths I choose, the way I move and see and breathe— are not her ways. And no matter how I tried to bend myself into her shape, it was always just a matter of time before I did the wrong thing and the lie fell apart.” He caught her hand in his and pressed it tightly. “Sera loves you anyway, too, you know.” Her eyes filled again. “That makes it worse,” she said. “That I can never be what she wants. Or what you want. That I am and will remain undeserving. And outside. Ever outside.” “Tel vindhru. You are exactly what I want.” “I’m not, though I have tried harder with you than any other. I wanted to be part of you and yours before we even met. All of my clan did. We chased old stories and repeated rituals we did not understand. Because we wanted to be you. But even now, after learning all that I have, it escapes me. I cannot pretend anymore. For a while, when it was just you and I, I thought I might be sufficient. That maybe I could learn enough to get close to what you missed. That I could be your home, even if I was not the same as the family you remembered. But then, when we met the Sentinels— then I knew how very far I was from anything familiar. The way Abelas saw me… I realized it was the same way that you did when we first met. That I was— alien to you. That I would never be…” She trailed off. “Hare—” he cried and stopped himself before he could make a worse mistake. “This is false, Vhenan. I do not wish you to be anything but what you are—” “You did. For a long time. Maybe— maybe you stopped. Or maybe you gave up. I know you loved— love me anyway. But I’m not enough.” She let go of his hand and waved at the wall. “It is always like this. I find only the edge, the shimmer of things. The bare shape of letters and words and stories, but I will never catch their meaning.” He waved his hand and the lamp sputtered to life. “It is only because the world has become so dim and muddled. A little light and—” “No,” she said and her tears began again, glittering in the aqua veilfire. “It doesn’t matter. Because I was raised in the dark. These things you show me, that I dig up— they are corners. Fragments. I’m so far from seeing. You tell me it just takes a little light when I’ve only just realized I don’t even know how to open my eyes. I always feel I am pretending. Play acting. Not real. There will always be this— rift between us that I cannot close. How can I? My life is just a flicker to someone like you. A season. Lost among so many others.” She wiped at her eyes, suddenly drawing herself in again. “But it matters not. There are not many days left to fail you. And you are home, back among your people. More at ease than I’ve ever seen you. That makes me happy.” “You have never failed me.” He turned her face toward him, away from the cold, dead veilfire remnants in the wall. “Never. A flicker? No. If you had been only a flicker, that would have been enough for me to adore you. More than enough. I know my life must seem— terrible and vast to you.” He sighed, pressed his forehead to hers. “At certain periods, it has been. Time— does not move the same for me. There were decades of uselessness. Frustration. Boredom. And then ages asleep, just watching. Uthenera can be what you wish it to. Fantasy. Learning. Oblivion. There were entire centuries that I chose the latter.” He traced the fine web of the anchor at her temple. “I would not lie and tell you that you were my first or only love. There have been others. Just as I know there have been others in your life before me. Though they had many times your number of years, they all fell away. Made their quiet impressions upon my life and then moved on to other lives. They were flickers. None of them made me wish to alter my path the way you have.” She shook her head. “They were on your side. They wouldn’t have wanted you to change.” “They did. A few of them. You told me once, that you would always be on my side—” “I am, I try to be, but I can’t be, not the way you want. If I hadn’t been able to find another way, I couldn’t have joined you, Solas, though it would break my heart.” “Ar eolasa, Vhenan. But what I couldn’t speak then, what I desperately craved, was to be on your side. You are not a flicker. A tree of lightning, a searing comet, perhaps. Something that illuminates the world and lays plain everything that was hidden or wrong. You truly did change everything. I’ve seen eight ages, my love. Civilizations rise and collapse and rise again. Forests dwindle or march across vast plains. You think you aren’t important because of your brevity? I spent all those thousands of years trying to make the world worthy of someone like you. And yet you speak of failure. When all of mine steals your breath, your faith, your clan—” She covered his mouth with her fingertips. “I wish to belong to your people, emma lath,” she whispered, “But without those things you mourn, I would not exist at all.” “I know. I told you, you change everything, even how I think of my past.” He grasped her shoulder. “A rift does not flow in one direction, Vhenan.” He pulled from the anchor and the Veil trembled, slid open. “Solas! This is perilous,” she cried. The Fade slid around them, enveloping Vhemanen’s small room. He could feel the terror pulsing from the Inquisitor. “Have no fear, fanor. The Evanuris sleep still and I can still hold the anchor. I would not bring you here to harm you.” She was not soothed. He released her shoulder to hold her. “Do you remember when we were here together?” he asked. “We were whole, both of us. Not just the way I remembered before the Veil. Utterly whole. Did you not feel it then?” “I— yes, of course. But it was— a moment only.” He shook his head. “Bellanaris. All of my thoughts live inside it. This is our home. This is where we are most real. Soon, your clan will learn the truth of what you told them. Perhaps I am a fool to think the Fade will reveal what has so long remained out of your— our reach. That we will all, at last, be wholly who we should be. That there will be no rift between the people of the waking world or the spirits who inhabit the Fade any longer. But if the breach between us remains, I would leap into it to meet you, Vhenan.” He slid his hand around hers and loosened his control, let her again feel everything. “I cannot replace your family, nor do I wish to. They will want you back sooner than they realize. No matter what happens, you belong with me. How could we not be one people? You are my heart. You belong with me.”

[one-lost-vickle]

Avengers Avatar Comparison/Headcanon

Sorry for the length! This will have some spoilers for Avatar. (If you haven’t seen it, please go do so! It is one of the most amazing shows I have gotten to grow up with.)

Ok so hear me out. One evening the other Avengers stumble onto Bruce who is gathered on the sofa at 3 am watching Avatar (let’s be honest, most of the Avengers don’t have a proper sleep schedule anyway) (Pepper is the only one asleep). Of course some of them are familiar with the show (Peter is overjoyed and springs himself next to Bruce), and those who aren’t are interested in watching the show because the ones who have seen it are practically in a shouting match (“HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE WATCHED AVATAR?! WHERE’S YOUR CULTURE?).

So now, the Avengers are loaded onto this couch watching Avatar. Tony has naturally binged the whole show and adds his own commentary, which Steve hates with a passion (he hasn’t seen the show and “shut up Tony, I can’t hear over your loud mouth”). Nat and Clint are discussing the fighting techniques and thinking about adding some into their fighting. Vision watched the whole thing in his head in .84 seconds and he occasionally whispers what the characters are saying word for word to Wanda and Pietro (who find it hilarious and enjoy that it also pisses off Cap). Thor is trying to make sense of the show, but he struggles with all the commotion and likes to compare some of the antics to his and Loki’s relationship. Peter and Bruce are holding the popcorn with eyes glued to the screen. (Tony asks them a question but they don’t hear him despite the fact both have seen the show multiple times).

As the night progresses, they agree to keep watching the show as a whole together until they finish the series. In the days to follow they get into arguments and have bits of fun comparing themselves to the characters in Avatar and even trying to decide what kind of bender each person would be.

Tony thinks he would be a rad fire bender. He has all the angst and daddy issues that Zuko possesses and has a tendency to get petty. However, most of the others think that he would be the Mechanist. Creating new inventions with good intentions that turn out bad seems to embody Tony.

Nat and Pietro would be most similar to Ty Lee. They are skilled in the art of movement and blending in. Lethal but underestimated. (Nat a bit more on the lethal side.) Pietro could be an earth bender, moving the earth around him to blend in and travel with speed. Nat has a more delicate approach, maybe a water bender who dilutes poison with water first and then removes the water for the needed effect. She is fiercely caring for those she considers her new family, but would struggle with the healing aspect.

Clint would be a water bender. A bit more like Sokka, making bad jokes and trying to win the war because of his family. However if he were a water bender, he could fight, but it wouldn’t be his strong suit. Healing would come more naturally to him even if he would rather have a stronger fighting ability. (He pairs well with Nat)

Thor would be an earth bender, more specifically, a metal bender (I will take arguments for him being a fire bender/lightning bender for obvious reasons). Similar to Toph in terms of her humor and willingness to fight, but still with some childish tendencies Aang begins with. After all he is an old god in a modern world. (Loki would be like Azula, and torment Thor because he is the older sibling who is supposed to have everything handed to him. He protests in this way. A fire bender with blue flame due to his mastered control.)

Bruce is most like Iroh, a powerful fire bender but one who would rather have wisdom than fight (even though he will when he needs to). Him “hulking out” would be his fear of hurting people with his bending because he has hurt innocent people before. He has mastered composure and control, but struggles with thinking that his bending is innately bad/evil when it is a part of himself that he has to learn to accept.

Peter is most like Aang. He’s a child that has been forced to grow up too fast. He is wants to help, but doesn’t like the same kind of violence others are dealing with. His biggest motivator is innocent civilians. He would be an Airbender. He would surf through the skies, (web or glider) and try to avoid fighting. He would avoid and capture—not the same level of killing as any other.

Wanda would be a fire bender who struggles with keeping her bending under control. She isn’t as trained as some others, and will fight for what she believes in no matter the cost. They may make her more like Mai who stands as her own person and won’t not act for what she believes.

Cap could be an earth bender. He is stubborn and sticks to what he believes. He has a will that cannot be broken. He would want to come off as wise as an air bending monk, but would not be able to bite his tongue of quell his actions. Bucky would be another earth bender who focuses more on protection than fighting. Using his bending to shield the weak while he takes care of the threat.

Vision would be Momo. (Ok he would actually be an Airbender ,but, because he is not human, I like to think of him as Momo.) Someone who helps the rest of the group. Who is powerful in his own way but still vastly different than the others. If he were human he’d be an Airbender. He seeks out peace actively and helps to save those he cares about.

Nick Fury is Appa (and you cannot tell me anything different). He leads the gang on their quests/missions. He offers support in his own way, and helps even if the team is going in the wrong direction. They would struggle to find a way without him for guidance.

[paperanddice]

Moonlit King

The Moonlit King is a fey lord of slightly above average power, compared to the average. Weaker than the Lord of the Hunt and the Queen of Night and Magic, but stronger than the Bear King, the River King and the Snow Queen, he sits at level 17, a reasonably powerful figure in the world. The assumed story for him has him dwindling in power, having lost the support of the Queen of Night and Magic and been banished to an isolated tower that he cannot leave. His connection with reality is shaky, and in a desperate bid to remain relevant and regain his status he has made deals with fiends, allowing him access to lunar devils.

The powers of the Moonlit King revolve around, unsurprisingly, moonlight, but also shadows. His legendary actions are tied to moonlight, allowing him to teleport within it and extend his disconnection with reality to others while he stands within it. He can even bend and warp moonlight, ensuring it falls where he wants it to regardless of the logic required for it to reach that spot, letting him control where his power extends and ensure that shadows fall from who he wants them to. His most dangerous feature is animating the shadows of all creatures that cast one within 60 feet of himself. These shadows deal a heavy amount of damage and reduce strength like the monster, though being reduced to 0 isn’t instantly fatal in this situation. His attacks and his magic don’t rely on moonlight to function at full capacity (though if you wished to add some homebrew that his Magic Weapons only function in moonlight I don’t think that would be a problem), but his ranged Moon Bolt can add an additional source of moonlight, as the target of the attack glows upon a hit. Moon Bolt also gives a bonus to creatures not in their natural form, as with the moonbeam spell, dealing extra damage and forcing a saving throw or return to their natural form.

Most of his innate spellcasting is support or defensive; invisibility, zone of truth, heal, dispel magic. He does have blight 3 times per day, which is a solid go-to for creatures he would have trouble using his Moon Bolt on, and can cast moonbeam, though that’s weaker than pretty much every other option he has to fight. Leaving it up to block a path isn’t the worst use of it, but he has so many other actions he’d prefer to do over that. He can also cast demiplane once per day, giving him a little spot to go hide, or store an extra defense if you want to explore that option. In general though, that would be more useful as a story feature, wondering what he keeps in his various demiplanes and trying to enter them to gather information.

Tied to the Moonlit King’s pacts with devils, he can actually summon one as an action once per day, meaning that no matter what he can always have a bodyguard of sorts for 10 minutes. While most groups that can challenge the King are likely to be able to destroy a lunar devil quickly, the extra damage and distraction it provides will never be appreciated, and any planned attack against him should take it into account.

His lair is his isolated tower, filled with shadows and moonlight. He has few allies remaining, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave it empty of course. Shadowy undead, fey, fiends and all manner of strange illusions can confuse, attack and seek to drive away intruders, but when confronting the Moonlit King himself all would do well to remember that whatever his state, this is his tower and he has a power over it. Moonlight appears at his command, whispers fill minds with despair and fear, and the shadows themselves will attack, forming into shadow demons (more fiendish influence). Nothing is as it seems, and every shadow could be benign or your death.

There is a reason the Moonlit King was merely banished, rather than destroyed, by the Queen of Night and Magic. That reason has nothing to do with sentimentality, despite what some rumors say. Rather, the two are inherently connected, bound together by an ancient pact that saw the two ascend to power together. The Queen was able to turn that pact against him, stripping away some of his power for herself while also filling his mind with hallucinations and delusions that keep him from being a threat to her ever again. But if something were to happen to him, if he were to die, the Queen would lose a large portion of her strength. If one of her foes were to find out this weakness, she would go to any lengths to silent them, and to protect the isolated King’s lair.

It is said that any secret said under moonlight finds its way to the Moonlit King’s personal demiplane. While many believe the old superstition and so keep their secrets under shadow, there are those who have never heard the tale or disbelieved it. Is it true though? Are there all manner of secrets, ancient and new, important and irrelevant, hidden away in one stash that could be collected? Of course, gaining access to these secrets requires the Moonlit King to open his demiplane to you. And if you stay longer than an hour and the door closes, he may not remember you were there to let you out again.

With the turning of the seasons, the Moonlit King has ascended back to lead the fey courts for a time. Despite his ostensibly good alignment and nature, the pacts he has made in desperation and delusion bring a great evil into power along with him. Powerful devils call in favors and deals, using powerful fey as agents to conduct their soul stealing enterprise so to avoid risking their own agents, and aspects of more than one archdevil now sit in positions of power within the courts, overseeing entire regions of the Feywild. Despite the Queen’s own evil, enforcing another shift of the season to put her back in power may be necessary.

[mxrcayong]

the avatar series: 01.07

masterlist

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chapter seven

How many missed calls can someone get before they’re presumed dead? Surely more than five. But on the same day of her leaving and not returning home, the fifth call was the moment Doyoung and Johnny declared Tari either kidnapped or dead. 

They spent the whole night pacing - contacting Kilari and Sonan to people who normally just walk past their street. It’d be surprising if someone didn’t know she was missing. Sonan, having come over to make them some food to ensure they’re taking care of themselves, swore that if they paced the room one more time - the floor will fall from underneath them due to being overused. 

The one time Doyoung wants Johnny’s jokes to be true seemed to fail him as he prayed that Tari can read his mind. She’d be flooded with messages and pleads for her to come home, Doyoung only thinking that he needs her around. 

Johnny was usually a happy-go-lucky guy, temperamental for humor’s sake by only acting mad. But this time he was infuriated - not with Tari, but himself. Did Tari know I was investigating her? Is that why she disappeared? He thought, disappointed in himself. However, he knows Tari isn’t blameless. Mixed with his guilty concious, he was scrutinizing Tari; this is not the time to go silent on us.

Seven days later and Tari has yet to return home. She has yet to come in, rambling about her day. The apartment felt haunted by the ghost of her presence; the dishes left unwashed, the conversations with less banter but the silence for Tari to speak. It was weird - they missed even the things they hated; Johnny missed her teasing and Doyoung missed her terrible karaoke as she sings in the shower. 

The journalist has reached out to anyone and everyone - especially his correspondents and colleagues with connections to the local police force. His logic is that if she isn’t in jail or reported as dead, she’d be here in no time. But no time has become seven days and Doyoung is only becoming more skeptical of Johnny’s belief. 

Hearing the door open, Johnny and Doyoung look up with hope it was her- a hope thats fleeting day by day. It was Sonan; who started staying with them when she noticed they forgot to eat the second day of waiting for Tarri. Its’ the best I can do right now, Sonan had told her self as she fought through her sense of helplessness.  “Any news?” She inquired, her arms overflowing with groceries to stock up their supplies. 

Sonan and Johnny have designated themselves as the errand people. Not only is Doyoung still suffering from PTSD nightmares, but he’s now also paranoid about the fate of his best friend. If anything startles him, he may accidentally bend air as a self-defense reflex. They can’t risk him bending out of the bounds of the recently assigned ‘designated bending zones’.  

The world around them has normalised the anti-benders now. They started going by the name of Equalists, the government coining the term in a press conference the other day. But largely, the topic is now just a fact of life. It’s not to the extremes where if a bender bends, they get arrested or benders are outlawed. It’s more if a bender bends in a non-designated zone, they can be detained or surveilled for multiple days to months. 

Her question was responded with two sad and small movements of the head, shaking left to right as they tell her the answer she didn’t want to hear. “Can she just answer the freaking phone right now?” Johnny exclaimed, letting a fraction of his frustration seep through a bit. 

They’ve all been good at containing their emotions - keeping solemn faces, trying to be hopeful, and refusing to show any sign of weakness. For Johnny, he’s doing it to protect Doyoung from a lack of hope while Doyoung is doing it to convince his friends he’s not fragile. Sonan’s doing it because if she lets her guard down, who’ll take care of those two? 

Did she get kidnapped? Sonan thought to herself. Tari was always good at responding, or at least giving a heads up. She’s reliable - Sonan knows that. “You don’t think that-?”

“No.” Johnny interjected, “She’s fine. She’ll be fine.” He insisted. It’s how he’s trying to get through this right now. If he can convince everyone else, maybe then he can convince himself. 

“Why can’t we just report a missing persons again?” Sonan was tired. It’s not like they can go out looking for her - Sooman is humongous. It’s one of the biggest cities, hence why it’s the capital, of the United Republic. She felt hopeless and lost, and didn’t know what would be beneficial. 

“Because,” Johnny answered with an attitude, his voice cutting like a knife all whilst treating her like a child who still cannot read. “If they find her and find out she’s a bender, they may arrest her or monitor her.” The frustrated journalist fell back onto the couch, his elbows resting on his knees as he hunched into his palms. “We just don’t want to risk anything.” His voice suddenly became small and fragile, Sonan feeling guilty for having brought it up. 

The eldest of them took a step back; she knew Johnny and Doyoung would be especially frustrated. They lived with her. Everything around them is something they’re familiar seeing Tari with; from her favorite mug to the handle of the sink. She, instead of retaliating, took a deep breath. “I’ll message my trainees to see if they’ve seen anything again.” 

Sooman is huge, but all of Tari’s friends together cover all the major neighbourhoods.

 “I’ll call Kilari.” Doyoung commented. Kilari has been practically forced to stay home by her parents - she’s a known bender, her whole family is. It’s the disadvantages of being a fire sage. They’re not expecting her to have seen her - although they do expect Kilari to be sneaking out on the daily, but if Tari doesn’t text the people in the room, she’d be the one she’d talk to. 

“I’ll check with my colleagues again.” Johnny sighed. Everyone was glued to their phones, patiently waiting and waiting for any news for Tari. To aid this, the TV was the only consistent noise in the house. The news reports played in the background like white noise, the group only listening in if they mention bending or hear a name thats at all similar to Tari. 

Sonan has never had a group of friends like she had now. She grew up with friends who constantly left or moved away, only with her because they could meet members of Team Avatar. When her parents passed away, she lost everyone who said they would always be there. She made it her duty to take care of everyone – hence why she offers free self-defense lessons once a month using the Kyoshi Warrior techniques her mother passed down. It took her a while; but when she met Kilari and Tari, she felt supported again. They didn’t care she was related to Suki or Sokka, Katara or Aang – they cared that she was Sonan. Her heart felt full for the first time in ages.

The airbender always says he can never forget how he met Tari. Doyoung had crashed into her at the café on his way back home after a particularly long day. He offered to dry her off. Instead of reacting weirdly or badly to the wind hitting her shirt, she enjoyed it - playing out dramatic scenes, reducing any awkwardness between them and showing comfort with air bending. Doyoung knew Tari was someone special right then and there. He didn’t doubt wanting to become her roommate within five months of knowing each other (partially also because his own roommate was moving and he didn’t want to live by himself). 

He then brought her to Johnny’s studio one day when they were deciding to hang out. Johnny had practically forced Doyoung to come visit, saying he needed help with an article. When Tari entered, Johnny found butterflies in his stomach at the sight of Tari being shy. Once Johnny got her to open up, she said some amazing and eloquent things - full of trivia and wisdom, all while open to many different perspectives. He was enamored by her and knew no photograph could ever capture her accurately, no matter how amazing the photographer is. “I like you” Johnny had said, “Can you read over all my articles?” He teased, before accidentally knocking over his bottle of water - which Tari bended before it could hit the floor and spill everywhere.

That was just slightly over two years ago. They all wanted to spend more time with her. There was so much to do; from following their normal board game traditions, celebrating Christmas together, going sailing around Aang’s statue. If that was the last time they saw her, Johnny chastised her for coming home late and Doyoung wasn’t even awake. 

It seemed as if their hearing was extra sensitive, exclusive of Doyoung who has been airbending sound to try and listen in to the smallest sounds on the street. Every step radiating from the staircase in their apartment echoing one another, a false promise of Tari coming home. But her footstep was more dainty and clumsy as she fumbled with the keys - it’s what they learnt from living with her for almost a year and a half. 

Sometimes, they swore they saw Tari turn the corner holding up a bag of leftover bakery items from the café or with a stupid hat on to make them laugh. Like ghosts repeating the same action over and over again, they followed their routine; constantly  checking any application or message, expecting a response in milliseconds. But it doesn’t help that it’s been seven days.

And it’s been way too many missed calls.

And too many texts left unread.

Hope was a power - a power that’s fleeting with time.

That’s the funny thing about hope, it differs with times and contexts. Hope can disappear over time or in an instant. But hope can be regained equally as fast or slow.

And with the clinking of keys from the outside, everyone seemed to gather at the door.

A soft “fuck” and profanities left the person struggling with their keys, as if the keys were covered in butter.

Johnny and his fast reflexes waited no longer once he heard the voice and unlocked the door. However, Doyoung was the first to wrap his arms around the same bender whose presence was a blessing. 

“Where the fuck were you?” Johnny finally released the emotions he’s been holding back for seven days, wrapping his arms around the two as relief washed over him. Sonan soon joined. It was as if a dam has been broken; all of them tearing up at the miraculous presence of their best friend.

Tari let out a dry chuckle, “I missed you guys too, what’s up?” She said confused, trying to pull herself away but only trapped under the grasp of the three friends.

���You were gone.” Johnny pried himself from the hug, dumbstruck at how clueless Tari was. Was she brainwashed? He thought, remembering the tales of Ba Sing Se where they would hypnotize people to think everything was alright in an attempt to cover up the corruption. 

“For 7 days.” Doyoung emphasized before clinging on tighter. 

“Firstly, I’m finding it hard to breathe.” Doyoung let his grasp on her looser, and Johnny and Sonan let go completely. They stood back and just stared at her - trying to catch their breath. Johnny’s heart was beating miles per minute at the sight of her, while Sonan’s finally calmed down. Being in their embrace felt comforting. She knew that although Ba Mei was her home, being with them felt like her destiny.  “Secondly, I don’t know what you mean, it was -” Tari looked around, noticing the mess of the apartment that definitely couldn’t happen over two days. 

“What happened to you?” Sonan quickly asked, filling in any potential silence and interrupting her thoughts. “How-why-what-why do you not remember thing?” She fumbled with her words, unsure what to ask or how to ask it. How do you avoid triggering a friend when you don’t know what they experienced?

Shit, everyone could see Tari’s eyes dart around the room. They think it’s panic or trauma, but in reality – she’s trying to think of any excuse that came to mind. What could validate 7 days gone? What could explain…? This assumption of trauma led Sonan to sprint over to the throw blanket on the couch, and throw it over Tari’s shoulders. 

In reality, Tari stayed in Bak Mei. She thought it was only two days – something she could excuse with visiting her aunt outside the city. This aunt, of course, was a story – something she’d tell them when she had to go to her monthly training. She thought it was only two days because she stayed in the Spirit World and focused on her spiritual identity. Being in the Spirit World felt like an hour at most, but maybe because she was finally interested in it. She didn’t hate being in there and she gave herself tasks. In hindsight, she realised the dark forests was probably not a result of the heavy cover of trees - but rather night time. So, while she thought she was in the Spirit World for a maximum of a day, she was there for about five.. No wonder I felt so hungry, she thought as she remembered the feast Tari practically breathed in. 

“Uhm,” Fuck it, stay with the usual story. “I stayed with my aunt.”

“Why didn’t you text us back?” Johnny was quick to ask, skeptical and annoyed. “You should’ve texted us, we were worried si-”

“Uhm,” She interuppted again searched for excuses but hating confrontation. The cover stories of Aunt ‘Yuel’ coming forward as she tried to peace together a reasonable story. “She went a little bezerk and I was in the hospital. I forgot my phone charger.” Tari gauged their reactions – none of them particularly believing it. But with a desperate look on her face, Sonan realised the group was only pressuring her. 

“Okay, well, who cares?” Sonan exclaimed, dragging Tari to the table. “You’re back and thats all that matters.”

“Is your grandmother alright?” Doyoung couldn’t let go of Tari’s arm, even as Sonan led her to the dining table. He was like a koala. 

It’s been hours.

Hours and hours of Tari being coddled like a child, not let go of as if they let go – she’ll disappear into ash. Even Johnny’s skepticism has melted away and his hands have practically been tattooed into Tari’s hands and or the small of her back – constantly using his thumb to soothe her, even if he was the one that need to be soothed. It was as if he needed to remind himself she was there and she was alive. Doyoung would refuse to be in a separate room from Tari, not wanting her out of her sight while Sonan kept offering her different treats or drinks.

Despite their affection, she told herself that if she revealed her identity - they’d be kicking her out of the house. 

Tari was updated about what happened over the last week; the protests have been dying down, but that’s because the police has been actively arrested any bender who ‘acted out of turn’. The gym area was under lock and key, like a deserted island. Police is more frequent on the streets. Basically, life was being monitored – especially the life of a bender. Benders can still bend, it’s just that when they do in a non-designated area  – well...punishment ensues. 

But once the updates were over, they went into a comfortable silence only disturbed by the movie on the screen. They don’t care how tired she was; they rather her fall asleep on the couch with them than alone in her room. 

Until the screen changed and an announcement rang through the room.

“All benders require to be registered as benders in the city hall, all benders identities will be revealed, and all benders will have to wear a monitor bracelet that tracks their movement and stops their bending.” The mayor alerted, surrounded by the press. That seemed to separate Johnny from Tari as he jumped to his feet, yelling at the news. “I open this up to my colleague, Senator Zhong.”

Senator Zhong stepped onto stage. “I have spoken to the Equalist party leader-” At the mention of the equalist party, Johnny was outraged at the government being influenced by a conservative political group with no relation to the actual government. To Tari’s surprise, Doyoung joined him.  She’s never seen Doyoung temperamental or non-understanding. He always played the mediator. But then again he had a rough week…well, month, Tari corrected her thoughts, still not used to the idea she was gone for 7 days. 

“It is for the protection of the non-benders, who are disadvantaged. Looking at the history, people were only able to bend when they were entering the Spirit Wilds. But these dangers no longer exist. Needless to say and to shorten this speech,” Senator Zhong started to summarize, “all benders have to register their identity and be given a monitor band that will be completed by next month or else they will be subject to jail time and exile. We also urge the Avatar to unveil their identity. They are required for the next steps..” The way he said urge showed that it wasn’t a request…it was a threat.

request anything for future parts / penny for your thoughts here

[girlinthecorner19]

Rinku

Chapter 1: Zuko Alone

Heeeyyy so idk how to do a master list so if someone could help me with that, what would just swell. I am currently writing chapter 2 so you don't have to wait long for an update! It will probably be out by the end of the weekend. I start work again on the 13th so I won't update as often :,(

Words: 2161

Zuko was alone and starving. He could still smell the cooking meat from the fire if the family he passed. He once again clutched his grumbling stomach and sighed as he swayed with the movements of the ostrich horse. He felt weak sucking the last drop of water. His eyes drooped before me momentarily closed them. He shook his head awake once he saw the haunting images of his mother though. He needed to keep going.

"Hey you there!" A voice called out. He jumped slightly at the sudden noise and looked around for its source, sounded like a girl. The mystery girl jogged up to him, he squinted as she came forward. She was wearing tan clothes that covered almost her whole body so she blended in with the dry dirt surrounding. He wasn't able to see her face until she uncovered it as she approached.

"It's been a while since I've seen anyone out here, mind if I walk with you?" She flashed him an inocente smile, but Zuko internally groaned.

The last thing he needed was more distractions.

Picking up on Zuko's hesitant looks she held up her hands. "I carry no weapons." She looked at his dual sword, but her cheerful expression didn't change till she looked over him and his Ostrich. Her face changed to potty. "but I have some supplies. Your ostrich looks just as tired as you do." Zuko studied her up and down. Her hair was up in a loose bun, a few strands framed her tanned skin. She flashed a big smile trying to ease him. He looked into her eyes. Earth Kingdom, which made sense, he was in the Earth Kingdom. But they were suck a striking emerald color, dark flex of forest green sprinkled in. He took in her beauty, but quickly shook his thoughts away. He didn't have time for beautiful, mysterious girls who came up to him promising him food.

I'm fine, you should be on your way." The girl shook her head, looking into his ostrich's eyes. Much to his dismay she stroked the animals face. It let out a pitiful sign.

"He is exhausted, you would both do well to stop." She looked up at him no longer smiling, a much more serious look on her face. It felt like she was staring into his soul. He squirmed in his saddle. "I insist you at least stop by my camp for rest, please." The way she said please almost sounded like her life depended on it.

He signed, she looked stubborn but he didn't know who to trust so he unsheathes his swords. She took a step back, looking shocked.

"Please I mean no harm I—" she pleaded

"I'm just trying to keep myself safe, I'm not attacking." He inhaled "I've been traveling a while, I don't know who to trust." His expression stiffened in crontrast she flashed another smile and took the reins of his animal. He was tired, and he did need food. She looked harmless and he was sure he could beat her if it came down to it, so might as well accept her kindness.

"I understand. It's not too far away, so don't worry." She reached into her bag, Zuko was ready to strike, and took two apples tossing one to him and fed the other to his horse. "Does he have a name?"

"No."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

She nodded but didn't question him further. There was a pause, only the crunching sound of sand and dirt under feet and the ostrich's hooves.

"Do you have a name?" He asked

"Yes." She said in a husckly voice, Zuko assume she was mocking him. After a few snickers she continued "my name is Nya.

Nya, it fit her.

****

Zuko examined the campsite. It was nice he had to admit. A fast flowing stream of crystal clear water, lots of bush and trees for cover, she had a nice camp fire set up and a tent near it. It was like an oasis in the almost desert like area of the earth kingdom.

She led his horse to the stream where it drank eagerly. Taking a small cup from her bag, she filled it with the cool water and handed it to Zuko. He eagerly drank it. Nya eyed him as he gulped the water down. She blushed slightly, when he caught her staring.

"Can I have some more?" He asked politely

"Streams right there, I'm going to make us some tea."

Tea, it made him think of his uncle making him smile slightly. Once he filled his water he sat by the fire watching Nya with interest.

She looked skinny, which made sense with the amount of fashions she had. She is cute though. He huffed, causing Nya to look at him confused hold yourself together Zuko, you're on a mission. Honor is far more important than a cute girl.

They made conversation, mostly one sided by Nya as she cooked the fish and some sort of cabbage. But they sat in silence as they ate. She didn't have much food. He noted after their small meal she only had an apple, and a few berries left. She had offered the rest to him, but he felt pity, which was slightly unexpected.

She cleaned the tin dishes in the stream before sitting by the fire. She looked at the sunset then into Zuko's eyes.

"You are welcome to stay here for the night. I've got an extra sack and pillow if you need it." She offered.

He shook his head "I appreciate your generosity, I'm a stranger yet you gave me food and shelter, but I really should be getting on my way. I say a villiage just ahea—"

"They charge way too much for inns, you will never be able to afford it. They jacked up the prices since the war." Her eyes once again pleaded with him. "Please, stay." And once again she said please like her life depended on it.

Zuko felt confused, "why do you want me to stay so much, you don't know me." He asked.

Nya's face went red and she became flustered as she stumbled over her words. "I—um—"

"Spit it out!" Zuko barked. She sputtered, "come on!"

"I JUST DONT WANT TO BE ALONE!" Nya finally said. He was taken aback, inhaling sharply. She lowered her head. "I don't have very much food because people see me as weak and steal my food. Some... men..." she stopped and tears rolled down her face.

Zuko, not equipped to deal with crying girls, looked at her, eyes wide. He felt his heartened heart soften slightly. He wanted to protect her...maybe he'd just stay the night.

She cried softly to herself, and looked up. "Sorry, we just met and now I'm crying to you about my problems." She laughed slightly.

"I'll stay with you." He said looking up at the orange sky.

She gasped and lunged forward putting her arms around his neck. Zuko was ready to fire bend her right off of him, but the way it made him feel changed his mind. Her embrace, though was meant to comfort her, comforted him too.

What is it with this girl. He thought as he awkwardly patted her back.

"Thank you." She whispered before parting.

****

Zuko lied awake, unable to sleep for multiple reasons. One she had said she gets stolen from and also... he just couldn't see why anyone would want to hurt her. She's just a nice girl. Two he didn't like sleeping next to people he didn't know. And three this girl could potentially be a major set back. In the hours of knowing her she had managed to make him blush, and think of her as cute and beautiful.

She is... he thought as he rolled onto his side, watching her peaceful expression on her face and the steady rise and fall of her chest. Damn he thought angrily and rolled to his back.

He didn't know when he fell asleep but he was awoken by rustling in the bushes. He instantly got up and too his swords out of the sleeping sack.

He circled the camp site, but it was silent.

"Show yourself you coward." He whispered.

The tree above him shook, and he quickly drew back. "So the little girl got herself a bodyguard. I'll make quick work if you, kid" the slimy voice above him said.

"We will see about that." Zuko gritted his teeth. And debated whether he should firebend this bitch into next week make the first move.

The man jumped out of the tree. He wore a hood, but Zuko could tell from his build he was a grown man. Anger built inside of him at the thought of him taking advantage of a young girl who couldn't be older than 17.

"You're just a kid what are you going to do?" He taunted.

But his eyes widened with shock when Zuko rushed I'm with speed he didn't expect. Swords clashed. The thief backed away, but Zuko quickly advanced. And with one swift move he disarmed him.

"You are one of the most dispicable humans out there. You pray on the weak, and steal from the poor. Only picking a fight with those you know cannot defend themselves." He spat at him, holding both swords to his throat. "Give me one reason I shouldn't end your life."

"I—please have mercy I'll never bother her again I promise!" He sank to his knees and begged.

"Scum! Of course you won't because I'm going to—"

"Zuko STOP!" Nya rushed over to him grabbing his arm to lower the sword. He did but kept eye contact with the thief.

"He should pay for his crimes." He growled his left sword almost touching the thief's throat.

"Yes, but not by death he will be put in jail. Or maybe the soldiers in the city will rough him up a bit. But death in not for us to decide." She stepped in front of Zuko and lowered both of the swords.

He huffed "you would get along great with my sister." He said sarcastically. Zuko looked back down at the man who was shaking with fear then back to Nya. "Got any rope?"

****

It was morning by the time Zuko got back to Nya's campsite. He tossed her some gold pieces. She looked up confused.

"Turns our he was a wanted thief so, I got some bounty from it." Zuko said as he began packing up his things.

"You're leaving so soon?" She asked.

"Yeah." Zuko stopped packing and looked into her eyes, but they were angry. "You know," he drew his swords, Nya's heart dropped and she stepped back. "I realized something you said while I was traveling back."

She continued to step back, but panicked once she hit a tree. Sweat dripping down her face. "What is that?"

Zuko stepped forward his face inches away. "How do you know my name?"

She gasped, scared if she told the truth he would think she was lying and kill her. "You're Prince Zuko, everyone knows who you are!"

He shook his head. "No. People know my name, but not many out fo the fire nation would know what I look like." He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. And even though she feared for her life, a light rose tint painted itself on her cheeks. She stared into his golden eyes.

"I...I don't actually know..." she looked down, tear fell from her eyes which made Zuko hesitant and step back. "I can't explain it, but when I say you on the road... something inside me told me I needed to talk to you. And the more I was with you the more I felt I was connected to you. And then as I was sleeping I had a—a vision I guess." She looked back up, Zuko's mouth parted at the determination in her eyes. "And now I'm sure that I'm supposed to travel with you Zuko! I know I'm supposed to help you find the Avatar!"

Aaaah I can't tell if this is good XD. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading.

Writing this is actually more difficult than I thought. Writing for Zuko is challenging, but good practice for difficult characters. Like he's kinda an ass but also he's fighting with himself bc he secretly do want to be good. So writing his interactions with Nya is kinda tough. I'm also very thirsty for Zuko so I just wanna write some heavy make out scene. I'm going to write smut but I'm trying to go easy on it. But I want to but can't bc Zuko is not a slut so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  But also I'm like choke me you sexy son of a bitch. Wow I have no chill ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

[unlady-like-12-25-36]

It’s More than Just Dumplings Pt. 3

Part 1  Part 2  

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“It is not a gang, it is a clan symbol of one of the most powerful and ancient clans of all of Pandora. They are known as the Kodachi. And this a problem you should not take lightly. Especially for you, Supergirl.” A woman said that has caused everyone at the DEO to take out their guns as they were prepared to fire.

“Shiori?!” You say as you were bewildered at how she had escaped the Hōzuki Castle. Or formerly known as the Blood Prison.

“Everyone stand down! Do not engage! Do. Not. Engage!” J’onn yelled as he knew what would happen if he were to let all the Deo agents engaged with the unknown alien.

As the mysterious woman continued to pace around you and ask the very same questions that are going on in your mind, Alex immediately begins to question your connection to the imminent threat as she holds her fire. By looking at you then to the mysterious woman who had mysteriously shown up.

[Evil Laugh] "What's the matter Carci? Cat got your tongue? Or, is it (y/n) now?" She says maliciously. At the same time, as you try to remain calm, you find it harder and harder to resist the temptation to give into anger and abandon the teachings of your ancestors. For you to not only control your powers but, to keep you from giving away your alien identity. Although you have never felt this much power that is driven by hatred in someone whom you've once had a bond within the past, you can't help but not know what to do. Suddenly, before you know it, everything had stopped. As if she had gained the ability to stop time leaving the two of you be the only ones aware of what is going on. No one, not even the DEO agents around you can't see or hear what's currently going on between the both of you as they cannot move or defy her perception of time that has not passed.

"Ah, that is better. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right; you are going to stop me, defeat me, and throw in one of those useless cells you humans are so proud of having. Oh wait- you can't can you. You're just one of their lackeys that they can order around."

"Well, at least I'm not some narcissistic psychopath that feeds off of power hungry idiots all day while looking for some poor girl to fuck."

"You have all the power in the world, and yet, you chose to leave your royal life for this. Well, that's no fun. Heh, I'm not surprised. You were always the responsible one after all. Someone like you could have easily gone out of their way to break the rules by having them bend to your every will like you were destined to be Heda. And even have your own royal life just like you wanted. Instead, you've decided to be a goody two shoes like your mother." She spluttered. On the other hand, you did not let her words get to as you abide by your former Heda's teachings just as you were taught. That's if she had not let things get back to normal before she disappears again.

"I have never had a mother who cared or loved me. Nor am I as power hungry as you are. So tell me, Satori, what is it that you want. More souls to fill your Box of Paradise."

"Ah, Carci, should not know me by now? After all, we were soulmates. Or at least I thought we were." She says looking at Alex as she sees the bond that is starting to form on Alex's arm through her DEO uniform. *For Pandorians, the bond is a mark that forms on a Pandorian's potential partner (significant other) through a secure emotional connection to them. Then once a Pandorian has a partner and the bond fully solidifies on their partner, their emotions and feelings are shared between both of them whether they are apart or together even when one is in trouble. But as a Pandorian chooses to end that relationship with that partner, that bond will fray away by starting to turn into a severe cut then end with it being a scar on their body. As for humans, it's the same process but, there won't be any scars as it heals.*

"You leave her and her family out of this."

"Oh? She actually cares for these humans. But are not forgetting something? What was it again, something about love being a weakness."

"Cut the chit-chat and lets on with it."

"Sounds like someone's getting impatient. This is going to be fun."

Then in a blink of an eye, the time had resumed startling everybody of what just happened. Just then, Shiori had applied this vast amount of force that threw everyone and including you through the walls and outside falling to their deaths. You, however, reacted quickly and employed your shadow clones along with your gravity switch saving everyone. But even so, it did not stop there. As you have tried to make contact with your former soulmate in an attempt of defeating her, the next thing you knew you were held captive and proceeded by being punched in the stomach with enormous strength.

You were left to not only fall onto the main lobby floor that left a massive dent underneath you, but it also caused you to spit out some blood in the process. Not only that, you were thankful that you hadn't been thrown into another room. Let alone even being alive.

Alex: "(Y/n)!" Then before J'onn could give the order, Alex began to shoot at the so-called Shiori mindlessly without even knowing what she is capable of doing — and not even thinking that the very thing she is doing can get her killed in less a minute. Much less than a minor injury. You, on the other hand, lay on the floor with you being severely weak and unable to get up.

"Alex! Don't-" you managed to say before you passed out even though it was too late. Contrarily, as she attempted to hit Shiori, her efforts failed as Shiori disappeared out sight and suddenly reappear behind her to throw her up through the glass walls that led to her lab on the second floor; knocking her unconscious with various other injuries that could be fatal. Soon enough, the rest of the DEO agents will quickly follow. Not even Supergirl can lay a single scratch.

[Du-thump. Du-thump]

"Promise me you'll live for you. Not as Heda."

"But I did it to protect you."

"You cannot protect me forever. It's your life Carci, not theirs."

"I -"

"Promise me."

Then at that moment, you regained consciousness and punched Shiori with extreme strength throwing her through the walls of three rooms, leaving everyone in wonder at how you have finally managed to hit the mysterious woman — making it seem like you were on a massive rampage. As your eyes have changed into your Dōjutsu form, Yome Ketsuryūgan, Ri and Kai had shown up. But even so, your efforts seemed to have failed as soon as Kai had used the chakra enhancing tool on Shiori. Here, made Shiori gain enormous amounts of chakra — making you rethink if he's the one who taught you how to fight and how to use your powers.

"Is it me or am I experiencing some major Déjà vu." You said frustratingly.

Ri: "Ugh, don’t get me started; it's a long story."

As Shiori had taken those chakras pills she had obtained by Kai's chakra enhancing tool earlier, the three of you did not waste any more time and focused on taking down Shiori.

For the DEO agents, on the other hand, were left not knowing where to put themselves as the three of you just left to fight the mysterious woman called Shiori. Not to mention how you did not take the fight outside. But other agents thought otherwise as the fight would cause harm to other people outside. For J’onn, thinks the best course of action would be gathering up all the agents that had been injured and admit them to med bay while the others stay on guard in case fight extends far beyond anywhere else in the DEO. Not to mention the major financial costs in replacing everything that has been broken and giving J'onn all kinds of stress when thinking about it.

[politicaltheatre]

Kill The Messengers, pt.2

We expect to be lied to. It isn’t something we have to be taught. At birth, we are vulnerable, at the mercy of everything around us, including those upon whom we most depend, our parents or guardians.

We play games in which they surprise us, and we delight in being surprised, but that delight only comes because we know with them we are safe.

The first actual lie we catch is a shock. It is in the recognition that it is not a game, or that we are not part of the game but outside of it. We are not safe. We have been made vulnerable again.

As the saying goes, trust, once lost, cannot be regained. Not in full. Perhaps that’s why we work so hard not to lose it in those we look up to. We make excuses for their behavior. We re-interpret what they say and how they say it, editing it for content, rewriting it in our memory, attacking those who try to get us to remember it in a way we don’t want to.

Lies, we come to accept, are perfectly acceptable so long as we can feel that we are inside, safe and protected, rather than outside where we are not. So, we lie. We lie to ourselves, and to sell that lie we lie to others.

Our complicity in the lies we’re told isn’t exactly a secret or a mystery. That we hold on to lies so long and so fiercely shouldn’t be, either. The length and ferocity of our denial is, naturally, dependent on the depth of our investment in the lie.

What does it get us? How does it give to us and reinforce our identity? How does it keep things we don’t want to see and hear far away? These are the questions we ask without thinking. They are instinctual. They are transactional.

Transactional thinking is all about lies. We’re giving something to get something; that what we’re giving may be harmful to others is something most of us seem willing to accept, at least as long as we aren’t forced to admit that that’s what we’re doing.

This past week has challenged us in no small part because we have been forced to face lies head on and ask ourselves questions we would rather never ask.

The impeachment trial looms large, as it should. Donald Trump, with a little help from his friends, has taken the traditional lying of all politicians and weaponized it.

His supporters all know on some level that he is lying. For almost all, that level is the surface. They hear the obvious lie and laugh at the obviousness of it. That he lies and gets away with it makes his supporters feel stronger and safer for supporting him. They are children on a playground, cowed by a bully and eager to show their support.

The Republicans in the Senate, who should be strong enough to stand up to a bully, have shown themselves to be fully complicit in his bullying. Mitch McConnell is the bully’s sidekick, enabling and taking advantage for his own profit.

Republican senators’ transactional votes, both to block witnesses and documentary evidence from being introduced in his trial and, next week, to acquit him, lay bare the lies they are willing to accept and the lies they are willing to tell in order to justify it.

This is no shock. It has been entirely expected. The Republican Party has been corrupted so completely by this transactional culture that Republican senators will be guaranteed of keeping their constituents and benefactors happy only by continuing it. It is a culture of short term thinking, of instant gratification, and a vote for the man who lies shamelessly to gain solely for himself presents a model of selfish behavior without shame for people who are deeply ashamed of their own selfishness. Believe the lie and live one more day justified in living for yourself and yourself alone.

Of course, this week wasn’t just about Trump the bully and his Republican enablers. There was Kobe. And the Super Bowl.

The death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others was truly a tragedy. Had none of them been famous it still would have been. Bryant, however, was famous and will be for decades after the manner of his death is long forgotten by most. He was legitimately one of the greatest players the sport of basketball has ever seen. Even outside of Los Angeles, where he played an impressive 20 years, he is thought of as a contender for the greatest player of all time. All true.

And yet, among the remembrances of his life this past week were a few who could not help but point out that he raped a young woman in 2003. This is also true. He was not convicted of rape - his victim, outed and bullied prior to the trial, opted not to testify - but he did pay a sizable settlement to her and did admit in his written apology that she did not consider that her consent had been given.

Again, all true. Bryant himself likely would not have denied it had he ever been asked. Of course, after 2004 he never was. If anyone had, it likely would have been the last question they ever asked him, and quite possibly the last they got to ask anyone in the sports or entertainment industries.

We could chalk this up to an unwillingness on his part to talk about it, but even if that was the case it was equally an unwillingness on our own part. What answer could he have given that an adoring public would want to hear? The instant gratification provided by his performances served to silence us as much as anything. We gave up having an uncomfortable conversation in exchange for feeling good about ourselves for being part of a team, however indirectly a fan can be part of a team.

That is how we talk about our teams, right? “We” and “Us” are the pronouns of choice. We win. We lose. They are our players. We celebrate our championship season, and we suffer our final defeat.

It’s a shame that Bryant was never asked to talk about what he did in full, the way we ask someone of his stature to stop and talk about where they might play next season. It would be nice to think we place that much importance on it, but we clearly don’t. Not yet.

Kobe Bryant wasn’t alone in this. This kind of transactional relationship applied to any athlete on any team in any sport, and still does. Alex Rodriguez, who was twice caught cheating in baseball with performance enhancing drugs, and Sean Payton, a coach who gave bonuses to his football players for injuring players on other teams, were both part of Fox Sports’ Super Bowl pregame show yesterday.

Both were suspended from their sports for a year for their wrongdoing, a punishment that once would have stayed with them and perhaps ended any sense of a public life. No one seems to care about it now.

Why? Our culture has changed significantly, and the moral and ethical value of an individual is currently as transactional as anything.

Athletes make their employers, clothing companies, sports equipment companies, and the media companies selling air time way too much money to do anything but look the other way. A championship winning head coach who keeps his team in the playoffs year after year is no less valuable.

Cities and states looking for tax revenue are no less complicit in applying double standards, and why wouldn’t they be? Everything costs money, and those who make money and encourage others to spend money get a pass until they no longer hold that value.

Rodriguez was part of a generation of baseball players who juiced and got paid for it. They put up gaudy numbers and made their employers enough money that they gladly looked the other way, until law enforcement made that impossible. Nobody got hurt, right? Well, except for the fans who saw the price to watch games skyrocket.

Rodriguez will likely make the Baseball Hall of Fame. He may have to wait a year or two - he was caught, after all - but people still love him and enough voters have shown a willingness, even a need, to look the other way that he will surely be elected by year two or three. In the meantime, he will have to remain content to be a star sports commentator and owner of the Mexican beer company he bought with the hundreds of millions his efforts paid him.

Like him, players on the now notorious, garbage can banging, 2017 Houston Astros will likely get a pass. At least, the ones still capable of giving their fans thrills and making their teams money. The management responsible for the team, being the cheap and replaceable scapegoats that they are, have been fired, but the players, who have hundreds of millions in guaranteed contracts and a forgiving, thrill-seeking fanbase, are simply too much of an investment, both literally and figuratively, to punish.

Fans of other teams may take satisfaction in calling them the “Asterisks”, but the 2017 championship and inflated statistics will remain theirs, along with those massive contracts. To date, no position player - pitchers on the team did not bat - has apologized, and if Rodriguez serves as a model of how to behave for them none of them ever will.

That seems to be the lesson of transactional cultures: have no shame. Rodriguez, the Astros, Sean Payton and his Saints, they all were caught, but their shamelessness in the face of condemnation seems to be what has kept them marketable. They have maintained value in the eyes of their fans because to admit wrongdoing is to admit weakness, and the fans don’t want their team, the one they belong to, to be weak.

“Everybody does it”, Astros fans now say. That’s what fans of A-Rod and other steroid cheats said. That’s what we expect to hear now whenever anyone gets caught doing anything we know is wrong. It’s what you hear from a small child who doesn’t want to have to follow the rules. If we’re all cheating, then nobody is.

Do we really want to live in world with rules set by small children looking to get away with something? We can see what that looks like just by looking at the Senate Republicans bending over backwards not to convict a man of naked corruption.

So, when it comes to Kobe Bryant, no, the world doesn’t need another celebrity torn down, not even to make a good point or to start a long overdue discussion on the way we treat others. We do, however, have an opportunity now to reframe the discussion about sexual assault in a way that could be helpful, that could tear down the need to defend him as though he was innocent, and that could prevent the attacks we saw this past week not only against those bringing up what he did but against the woman he did it to.

That is what we want, isn’t it? Redemption? That’s what we say we want. Shamelessness is attractive because it tells us we do not need to feel shame ourselves, but if what we do harms others, shouldn’t we feel it, and shouldn’t we want our leaders and role models to feel it, too?

We want to be strong, and when we are faced with our own weakness we seek out those who seem strong. A strong man admits his weakness. A strong man admits his failure. A strong man understands shame for what it is, an alarm that something is very, very wrong. He is strong because he knows that admitting these things will not break him.

Isn’t that what we should expect? Isn’t that who we want to be?

- Daniel Ward

[leviosarpg]

Congratulations, LARA! You have been accepted for the role of KASSIUS OLLIVANDER! Lara, I think it’s fair to say that your app left me a little speechless, to say the least. “But his vision of himself is so skewed, so different from what everyone else sees, that silver will always look dull, even in the sunlight.” That, Lara, that was when I knew Kassius was yours. You nailed his entire character in a single, beautiful line. Not to mention, the quality of your writing was absolutely incredible; I found your para sample to be especially stunning! So much about Kassius’s character is tied to legacy, but I have to admit what absolutely enchanted me about your app was the way you conveyed Kassius’s understanding of legacy, as in it’s ability to be weaponized. Lara, I think it’s safe to say your app was was pure magic!

Your faceclaim change to: Matthew Bell has been accepted. Don’t forget to send in your account to the main and complete the items listed on the CHECKLIST!

THE PLAYER

name/age/pronouns/timezone: Lara / 24 / she/her / EST

THE CHARACTER

desired role: Kassius Magnus Ollivander KASSIUS: of Latin origin, meaning “hollow”. A meaning which he defies, but one he cannot admit to himself that he feels. MAGNUS: of Latin origin, meaning “the greatest”. A meaning which he strives to feel, but that he cannot admit is perilously beyond reach. OLLIVANDER: of Mediterranean origin; the near mythic name of a long line of wand makers, the likes of which have never been matched in the field. A reverent name, and one that has been situated amongst the Sacred 28 families since the group’s inception – though they are notably one of the few open-minded lineages amongst them.

CHARACTER DISCUSSION – AKA, I WAS DRUNK WRITING THIS AND GOT EXCITED

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

I was surprised at my attraction to Kassius at first, until it made perfect sense. I am most often drawn to the ambitious, the volatile, the dangerous; my tastes fall with the tortured ‘bad boy’ who cannot be tamed. My usual type is the villain – not the tortured intellectual. But the more I write, and the more I think on him, the more I realize that Kassius is entirely within the realm of my ‘type’, though he is entirely more complicated than just a mere archetype, as is he more good than any base tortured soul that I might call a muse. I will explain this in an examination of his personality – which will surely devolve into a stream of consciousness rambling about my love for this character, as it is far and wide. I would talk about my attraction to the character as a whole, but I would be better served analyzing him, for I was drawn to the sheer complexity of his character above all else. And GOD all he wants is to make the legacy proud; he doesn’t want to live up to the Ollivander name for fame and glory, but because inadequacy will eat him alive. He is more silver than gold, and he cannot quite come to terms with the fact that it is just as valuable, just as lustrous and coveted as gold is. He should have been a golden boy; his parents certainly thought him to be, all wild imagination and intelligence to match, all charm and ambition to command every room – but his vision of himself is so skewed, so different from what everyone else sees, that silver will always look dull, even in the sunlight. Inadequacy is a demon, a shadow that lurks in places that should shine – and the illusion of it (for he is not inadequate, though he might think he is) will eat him alive. The part in his bio that really stuck with me, and really serves as the axis of this analysis – and of his character in general, is as follows: “Kindness has become your last sanctuary, for you have become the eternal flame that demands more and more, that seeks to outlast time itself. Contentment is a virtue you will never know, for your self-inflicted agonies are rich with flowers and demons who ensure your thorns remain sharp.” He can be kind to others, to the world, to those who cannot find it in the world to be kind to themselves, and yet he, Kassius, is never kind to himself. He strives to be a beacon of kindness, of hope, of a legacy that has long-upheld the wizarding community in its stalwart truth – but he cannot be kind to himself. The disquietude he feels for his own self, while revering what he could be, what he should be, all while expending all vestiges of kindness and hard work upon the thankless world – this is what makes him so fascinating.

PERSONALITY TRAITS: + SCHOLARLY: You have to wonder how he managed to choose to shirk his parents and go straight for the jugular that is his family history, his family legacy. And it is just that – there is no stoic past for him to study, but a living, breathing body of life-history which still runs like an archaic myth, and an undeniable truth, through the veins of the wizarding world. There is no Hogwarts without Ollivander; and so it is his duty to learn everything, to know everything, to learn the histories of his contemporaries back and forth for it is the Ollivander legacy not to be a number amidst the masses, but to be almost godlike in how utterly untouchable the name is. He buries himself in books, spell tomes, historical records, preserved letters; the legacy sits heavy upon his shoulders like weights on a scale, and it is all he can do to keep them from tipping in one direction or another. + HOPEFUL: If there is one thing that can be said for hope, in the hands of Kassius Ollivander, it is that hope is kind. Hope, longing, and dreams walk hand-in-hand, and Kassius allows the line to blur even in the most crucial of moments when, perhaps, logic should prevail. He is a highly logical man, and yet the nebulous wonder of hope can muddle his logic and turn it to color in but a moment. Hope is dangerous, but wonderful; call it forgiveness with teeth and a firm bite. Hope is a demon; he bestows it upon the world while it eats away at his soul to the tune of malcontent. Don’t be fooled; Kassius is not hopeful for himself, but for what he might push himself to do for the world. Might. He hopes. +/- AMBITIOUS: This is a perilous line to walk upon. His ambition would make him fit well in the Slytherin crowd, but his ambition is not at the expense of others, but of himself. He is too hard on himself, ever reaching too high, stretching too thin. But he can do more, he insists; he can do better. He believes that he is nothing if he is not striving for something, that he is useless, a meaningless thorn in a bramble bush if he does not run himself dry in pursuit of the family legacy that he is saddled with. The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak – or it makes us hard. He is becoming more thorn than petal, though he tries so very hard to do all things with kindness, to help and protect those who cannot do so themselves, with his legacy as a weapon. - PERFECTIONISTIC: Perfection or nothing at all. This will be his fatal flaw, because he will work himself into the ground and still believe that the hole he’s dug isn’t deep enough. He does his best not to impose this impossible standard on anyone else, instead taking the brunt of his own miserable self-displeasure. It consumes him, this endless reach for perfectionism, and it takes an enormous toll upon his personal relationships. There are very few people, few things, few causes that can pull him from within himself and into the world around him. The aching for his legacy, to step into the shoes of Ollivanders past, started as just that – an ache. A wish. To be creative, to be something more than himself, something a part of something bigger. But the ache has grown, and it sits as a heavy weight between his shoulders, bending arched back downward so that he may never stop working. - ISOLATING: Reaching for meaning, for purpose, for validation, rather than reaching for connection; there is something so icy and lonely about Kassius’s struggle, and he often allows himself to become consumed by it, which often leads to him setting himself away from those who might be close to him. No matter how much he craves camaraderie, companionship, warmth, the self-imposed competition he has with himself makes it hard, most often, to emerge from the impossible chrysalis of his own creation. It’s a vicious and complicated cycle: he finds connection and community,  and is validated by those he connects with; inevitably he is reminded of what he has failed to do, to become, and he retreats in on himself to work; he sees others living freely and happily, either without the chains of expectation or within, and hates that he cannot be this free; he remembers, then, that he cannot be happy until he is right, until he reaches the level of legacy that befits him. Not enough. He isolates and works, always long-suffering and self-martyring, when he falls into the deep hole of inadequacy. He does his very best to connect, and there are few things that keep him engaged, and enthusiastic, and warm in his efforts and ambitions, but when he isolates, turning inward on himself, he can be cold.

It is also worth discussing his MOTIVATIONS, as they are as varied and changeable as anything. Though his intentions are largely good, there is no doubt in my mind that he could easily be swayed by the selfish nature of his ambition. Now, this selfishness may not always be malicious – motivations spurred on by ambition need not always be at the expense of others, but they most often are at the expense of the self. He wants the best for his friends, for The Liberation, for all those they seek to protect – but how can he be of any use to them, of any good to anyone, if he’s not enough for his own legacy? For himself?

Extracurriculars: Ravenclaw Quidditch, The Liberation, Astronomy Club, Charms Club, Dueling Club, The Slug Club. – Ever the overachiever, he has bitten off more than he can reasonably chew. But Kassius is never the sort of person to admit that he has taken on too much, because he - an Ollivander - is not meant to be capable of burning out, or of being squashed beneath the weight of too much work. Not to mention he genuinely enjoys everything that he’s involved in, and is honestly passionate about everything on this list that he has set his mind to. It also helps that Freya is around in some of these places – that always helps.

PARA SAMPLE:

The hollows beneath his eyes are cavernous, and yet he finds himself here, keen, bright, standing stalwart amongst those he called his allies, and those he called his friends. There is truly nothing more important than this; it is in moments of clarity like this one that he realizes it, time and time again, that his own obsessions fall like scales from his eyes to reveal the truth – legacy is meaningless, when those without die for the sake of it.

Legacy is why they are here; some use it as weapons, where his is a thorn in his own side. Weaponized legacy, a name sharpened into a knifepoint, is a bastardization of everything a legacy is meant to stand for, but this is not why he is here. He sets his own name aside and becomes one of the masses, a wall separating the innocent from the malicious. Here, amidst the Liberation, he is not Kassius Ollivander. He is just Kassius. And for once, that is more than enough.

In fact, it is more than enough, for as he stands at the head of the near-empty classroom, wand aloft, mirroring those who have snuck from their beds to meet tonight, Kassius finds all ghosts, whispering diatribes of inadequacy and doubt in his ear, to be absent. As they all stand in a line, wands pointed at hovering targets above their heads, he – for once – thinks not of the name Ollivander, but of the name Justice. Those around him care little what his name is; nor do the men, women, and children who the Liberation seek to defend against those who put more stock in blood than in mettle. For once, he is stronger in simply being Kassius, for the youngest of them all look to him as if he is not as tired as he truly feels. And so he holds his head higher; they are all that matters.

He thinks, for a moment, of Riddle’s gospel; his family had been expected to bow, for they sat amongst the Sacred 28. Perhaps this, this defiance, this decision to stand against tyranny and injustice, to protect those who cannot protect themselves – this is legacy. His gaze breaks for a moment from the target overhead, mind leaving the spell upon his lips and finding those who stood about the room with him, those brave souls barricaded in a classroom in which they could be discovered at any moment. He finds them, and all at once the ache in his spine from arching over paper, the tremble in his fingers from holding a quill far too long, the throb of tired eyes awake at work too long – all quiet, covered with the warm rain of camaraderie.

Yes, he thinks, turning his gaze upward once more, This is what legacy is for.

“Are you ready?” he calls, wand humming in his grip. He hears a murmur of agreement at all sides of him, and his lips twitch upward.

At your ready, Kassius! Someone calls out, and the assent rises. He turns his head to meet Perseus’s gaze, his dearest ally in this trying time; there is trust between them that allows both fear and exhilaration to exist in this space in equal measure. This moment is his masterwork, what he has spent so long belaboring in isolation. This mighty something born of his legacy’s proclivity for wandwork; this is a revolution. Somewhere in the distance, he imagines Tom Riddlesquirming. An Ollivander, someone pure, finding their own weapon in their name. Just Kassius – legacy abounds. They all cast at once, and the room is alight with blue, with spark, with light that blinds. At the boom it creates, he finds himself laughing, turning his gaze once more from the flying target, which now spins and bounces from the wall, to the room. The laughter echoes along the walls, moving through all of them like a wave, as he finds Perseus, Freya, the others, all family in arms.

He feels it swell within his chest before it breaks out across his face in a wide smile, lighting up the hollow corners of his tired face, warming the tense knot that seems to always occupy the pit of his stomach. Light and bits of dust still float down from the ceiling, from the charmed targets, which dart and spin across the ceiling at the behest of their sheer combined power.

Perseus offers him a nod; perhaps it is obvious that, as is so rare, Kassius has emerged from his withering disquietude, and has bloomed before their eyes, as is the power of their combined resistance and camaraderie. “This –” he gestures upward with perpetually ink-stained finger, lips pulled wide in a near-manic grin, an utterly giddy expression that is mirrored around the room, “is what we are capable of when we are together. Strength! Live together – die alone.” He offers Freya a glowing glance, and his stomach flips. “This is our legacy.”

OTHERS & EXTRA (OPTIONAL)

Could I possibly change his FC to Matthew Bell? Thank you!! :)

ALSO! I will link an inspo blog HERE that will be full of inspo, creations, headcanons, and the like :) thank you for reading this application!