#she's lived so many lives she's seen so much (innumerable fics)

[mitskibf]

the only new character I'm excited about seeing in good omens s2 is the bedroom above the bookshop

[cranberrymoons]

winter games

prompt: sports (@steddieholidaydrabbles) word count: 605 rated: t tags: basketball, fluff, eddie enduring jock stobin ✊😔 notes: this one stands alone but is part of the future fic series!

welcome to Day 22 of the fic advent calendar – bite-sized fics posting every day during the month of december. enjoy!

Eddie has a type, and much to his eternal dismay, his type is jocks – with a heart of gold, though! That’s an important distinction. 

Anyway.

He’d been afraid that this would lead to him marrying into a Turkey Trot family, a bunch of evil sporty people in spandex who wake up at five in the morning on Thanksgiving day to run a 5K in the freezing cold before they’ll allow themselves a slice of pumpkin pie, but luckily for him, this hasn’t turned out to be the case.

Unluckily, he has instead found himself married to someone who takes basketball… so goddamn seriously. 

It’s actually kind of adorable, even if he doesn’t actually know or care what’s happening as he sits back on the couch with Steve’s feet in his lap while he and Robin yell at the screen. 

“I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s doing,” Steve says as Eddie takes a swig of his beer and watches impassively at the tiny men in the red jerseys running back and forth on the court. “It’s like he’s never even seen a hoop before.”

“Seriously,” Robin says. She hands over her bag of chips when Steve makes a grab for it. She rips an anxious hand back through her hair where she’s curled in the big squashy armchair near the couch. “Pathetic.”

“They’re still winning though, aren’t they?” Eddie asks. They turn to him with twin exasperated looks, and Eddie widens his eyes. “Indiana. They’re winning.”

“That’s not the point,” Steve says as Robin nods along emphatically. “They should be winning by more.”

Eddie makes a face. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense to you,” Robin says. She rolls her eyes. “Just because –”

But they both devolve into outraged shouts at something that’s just happened in the game, and she doesn’t finish her thought. Steve gets so wound up that his feet shift in Eddie’s lap, heels digging into the tops of his thighs, and Eddie lets out a little grunt of pain. He squeezes Steve’s ankle to get him to move, and Steve gives him a distracted apology as he commiserates with Robin over what is apparently something worth being very upset over.

“Neither of you even went to this school,” he says under his breath, taking another swig of his drink. “Why do you even care?”

Robin glares at him. “How many ear-blasting rock shows have I sat through over the years?”

Eddie sighs. “A bunch.”

“An innumerable number,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “You can put up with one basketball game.”

Steve makes a face. “She kind of has a point.” He rubs a hand over Eddie’s arm where it rests against his legs. “Sorry. Go do a snack run or something if you’re bored. We’re not even to halftime yet.”

Eddie doesn’t need to be asked twice, not when there are several hours (?) of this in his immediate future. He shifts out from under Steve and collects a few empty plates before starting in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Bring more drinks!” Robin calls after him.

“And some of the Christmas cookies from earlier!” Steve adds, craning his neck around to be heard from his spot on the couch. 

Eddie just rolls his eyes, smiling to himself as he pulls open the fridge and stares into it, considering starting some type of cooking project just to keep himself out of the way of the two-person cheering squad in the living room. 

And – okay, so his type is jocks. Doesn’t mean he actually wants to be around them when they’re doing jock things.

[also on ao3]

[quietwings-fics]

breathing exercises

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Doctor Who Ship: Gen (Twelve & OC) Additional Tags: Episode: s10e05 Oxygen, Drabble Sequence, Friendship, Light Angst, Major Original Character(s), Nonbinary Character Wordcount: 700 Part 21 of 11089/Even Fics Summary:

Snapshots of an adventures.

“Are they bickering again?” Bill nearly jumps out of her skin. Even’s standing right beside her; where did they come from-

“Don’t do that!” Bill squeaks. “You scared me.”

Even blinks at her.

Too many moments later, they say, “Hello, Bill.” And an awkward amount more, “sorry,” but it’s said like a peace offering.

“About the… vault, yeah,” she answers, lowering her voice, hoping the Doctor is too busy arguing with Nardole to hear. “Do you know what’s in there?”

“No.” 

“Are you sure?”

“The Doctor’s good at secrets,” Even avoids, and Bill frowns. Well, that last part was true.

----

The Doctor sees Even freeze in the frame of the TARDIS, eyes scanning the tight corridor of the spaceship. 

“Staying or going?” he calls back to them. “Come on, even Nardole got out for a look.”

(Nardole makes an offended noise at that comment. The Doctor ignores him.)

“A getaway driver seems like a good idea for a rescue mission,” Bill says. 

“No.” Even steps out. “No, I’m coming.” They force their voice from their throat. When they’re near the Doctor, they say, quietly, “You should have let me keep my-”

“We won’t need it,” he interrupts, a well-worn argument.

----

Even knows first. The Doctor sees it in their eyes, hears it in the way their breathing goes shallow and steady. 

Old habits.

They’re quiet enough that neither Nardole or Bill notices their sudden silence, but the Doctor does. They’re loud with all the demands they want to make and growing louder with every breath Bill or Nardole take without knowing the limited pool they pull from.

They speak again when Nardole is instructing Bill to take deep breaths. They miss the point he’s making in calming Bill to interrupt with oxygen efficient breathing instructions, which makes Bill hyperventilate more.

----

In the dark, the Doctor reaches out.

He knows the approximate distance. He knows Even is in front of him. He only feels the dull inside of his own glove and the burning pain across his face, beneath his skin, a warning sign of what he’ll have to excruciatingly live through longer than any human if they don’t escape this vacuum.

And then, he feels Even flinch in surprise. They slip from under his palm, leave in a senseless void, no sound or smell to guide him.

For innumerable seconds.

Lost.

They grasp his hand and lead him to safety.

----

He doesn’t need Even’s help nearly as much when he has his other senses to sketch out the shape of the world, but he doesn’t tell them off for staying near, if only because they tend to step between him and anyone approaching.

They spend precious oxygen to tell him, “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.” He snorts. They both know that can’t be true. “And good. It was good. Brave.” (Part of him is almost grateful he can't see their face as they say that.)

“Don’t waste breaths on flattery," he says. 

"Stupid," they emphasize.

----

Even’s betrayal lashes out with distance and silence. He loses them beyond other people's voices and footsteps.

He tells Nardole that Bill's alive and hopes they’re listening. 

He appeases them with the only thing that will. He promises them a death that'll mean something.

That’s a lie. He knows. That makes it no less disquieting when they step beside him and knock their shoulder into his. He knows it's them, by height, by gait, by scent when they lean close. Forgiveness or acceptance?

He forms their name and can’t make himself say it.

"Doctor," Even whispers as the door opens.

----

He puts on a convincing performance, he thinks. It helps that the TARDIS is so familiar, that the controls are like knowing his own nerves.

All Even has to do to shatter the illusion is hand him something.

“Dropped this,” they say. 

“Keep it.”

“It’s yours. I don’t want it.” He doesn’t even know what it is. He takes a deep breath and prepares to grope at where their hand is most likely to be.

Even pulls at his wrist, turns his hand, and presses the object into his palm.

“Sunglasses,” they say, “yours.” He slides them onto his face.

(Enjoyed it? Any interaction is welcomed. You can even support me on Ko-Fi <3)

[sleepylixie]

Only Fools Rush In

Crown Prince! Jeongin X fem! Reader

Fantasy AU, Loose retelling of Sleeping Beauty.

7k words, Platonic pairing, Beware of non-graphic mentions of death( only mentions, with respect to curses and dark magical behaviour ), slight violence in fight scenes (not explicit at all), NO mentions of blood.

Songs: Can’t Help Falling in Love(DARK) - Tommee Profitt // Tomorrow We Fight - Tommee Profitt ft. Svrcina

|| Prologue ||

A/N: @magicbehindwords ​ hello, Carolyn! Tis me, your Secret Santa!! Man, you have the chillest vibes, I really enjoyed figuring out this fic for you! I had something entirely different planned, but you saying you enjoyed a good high fantasy read ended with me happily derailing and plunging into the Fantasy Woods instead xD I hope you enjoy this offering(I know it’s really late hhh I’m vv sorry T^T) 

There will be one more fic joining my pair of Christmas gift fics! As a part of @hanflix​ With Love, Chistmas holiday collab, I will be posting a Jisung fic soon! Anyways, onto the fic!! Do let me know what you think, my ask box is open! ~

Drop me an Ask! || Masterlist

It’s been very rare to have known you, very strange and wonderful. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

1-JEONGIN

“.....Crown Princess of the Western Isles.”

An elegantly dressed young lady stood before Jeongin, her hair falling over her shoulders as she sank into a neat curtsy. He cursed himself for not catching her name during her herald. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Highness,” her voice was a smooth serenade, the words rising and falling in an unfamiliar accent . Her eyes didn’t flit away from his gaze or widen in flirtation, but maintained a steady gaze akin to his own. Jeongin’s brow arched slightly- she was brazen, playfully so.

“The pleasure is all mine, my lady.” He bowed back slightly, suppressing a sigh at the repeated action he was forced to perform. He had been meeting the multitude of ladies Ataloria had to offer for what felt like time immemorial.  It was the same old thing, over and over again- bow, exchange pleasantries, have them whisked away by the herald before speaking about anything of consequence. The hall was abuzz with quiet laughter and chatter, the excitement palpable for the biggest celebration the kingdom had seen in centuries- The Rose Gala. 

Ataloria was a kingdom ruled by women ever since it’s conception- queens of enormous power, wealth and cunning who turned the once tiny valley town into the biggest empire of its confederation. While a queen could rule Ataloria solo, a royal son would require a woman in wedlock to rule with him, cementing his place on the throne for him. To make sure their kingdom���s prince found a suitable wife before his coronation, the tradition of The Rose Gala was born. 

In the son’s 18th year,  a celebration would be held in Ataloria inviting ladies from every corner of the kingdom to the Rose Palace(his home) for a chance at the Crown Prince’s hand. Such was the fairness of the bygone queens- they believed that nobility was a reflection of character, not blood. 

“May I have this dance, Your Highness?” Jeongin met the princess’ eyes, surprised- none of the previous ladies he’d met had yet to ask him for a dance, but here was this princess, her twinkling eyes matching her smile as she held her gloved hand out. A smile pulled up the side of his lips as he accepted her hand, leading her into the centre of the dance floor. She was bold, playfully so- he liked it. 

The band picked up a soulful waltz piece as Jeongin swept the princess into his arms, the two of them melting naturally against each other as they began to move. She was well- trained, Jeongin noted, because she moved with fluid ease, balancing her movements with his despite this being their first dance together.

“How has the Gala been so far, Your Highness?” Her accent was less pronounced than it was before, but Jeonign shrugged it off. It was likely because he was getting accustomed to it. “It has been quite an interesting affair, my lady. I hope the preparations for your arrival and living have been up to your standards.”

“You live in a beautiful city, Your Highness” she giggled lightly as Jeongin twirled her out and back into his arms, unfaltering in their motions. “Yes, the capital of Ataloria has lived up to the many expectations that us outlanders had of it… But I wonder, Are you always this formal?” He allowed a smile of his own to creep up his face- her stubbornly casual behaviour intrigued him more than he’d like to admit. “If you insist on thinking me formal, I must insist that you address me by my chosen name and not by my title… your name, my lady?”

An amused grin lit up the princess’ face, her hand tightening almost infinitesimally on his shoulder as the music crescendoed to a high.

“Y/N, Your Highness. My name is Y/N.”

//

2-JEONGIN

The moon was creeping higher in the sky when Jeongin slipped into the highest tower in the north wing. It had been a struggle to slip away from The Rose Gala, a faked headache finally allowing him to rush back to his chambers and gather up his belongings so he could sneak his way to the North Tower.

His previous princely outfit had been exchanged to lighter, more rugged garments of the darkest black, embroidered with threads of silver. A snicker bubbled to his lips at the thought of the ladies in the Rose Hall, of how they’d react if they saw their sweet yet aloof prince like this- scratching a pentagram onto the stone floor with an air of familiarity he hadn’t exhibited to them. 

Spellcasting had been a guilty passion for Jeongin ever since he sat in on his mother’s meeting with the silver-eyed spellcaster coven that resided just outside Ataloria’s borders, thoroughly intrigued by how they wove enchantment into words and items like it was second nature. He was forbidden from interacting with them, however. His mother told him that some knowledge was beyond the ears of an ordinary mortal and such boundaries must be respected without error. 

However, curiosity had driven him to swipe a few books from the coven elders, fascinated by all the information that lay between the covers. It became a habit to steal some of the spellcasters’ books during their visits, replicate them as soon as possible and return them to their original resting place in the coven’s temporary living chambers.

Over time and innumerable incidents of trial and error, he learnt to wield the energy that thrummed in the world around him. Starting from simple levitation, he worked his way through more and more complex spells as his capabilities expanded. Not a single soul knew about the prince’s penchant for spellcasting- it was a secret he guarded fiercely, for fear that he would be frowned upon and misunderstood for communing with dark spirits. 

Sitting back on his haunches, Jeongin admired his handiwork- purple candles decorating the cardinal directions on the pentagram, the flames flickering a warm yellow. 5 crystals lay in a circle in the center of the pentagram, all identical in shape but unique in shade. Sigils of protection, enhancement and power decorated the edges and also littered the floor in a circle around him. 

Since most of his arcane knowledge came more from reading than practicing, he’d spent months in this very tower room, mouthing the incantations until he was fluent in the foreign language and practicing drawing the sigils until he could draw them in his sleep. There was too much at stake with this spell to get something wrong- the safety of Ataloria, to be specific.

Saying the first words of the incantation out loud stirred something wild in his veins, instantly feeling every wave of energy throbbing around him. It was darker, stronger, almost turbulent in nature, unlike the freely flowing, easily shaped energy he’d always encountered before. But he would endure, because this spell was not a question of just his capabilities, but also the country he’d one day rule.

This Winter Solstice night, he would cast the biggest spell of his short life as a spellcaster.

This Winter Solstice night, he would cast a warding spell around the Atalorian borders.

If everything went perfectly, the warding spell would need no renewal- it would transcend the life of the caster and instead be latched to the power of the kingdom’s crown.

Shivers of cold anticipation slid over his body as the energy began to swirl around the pentagram, his focus honed to a razor sharp edge as his words began to bend it to his will. It was time.

//

3-JEONGIN

Jeongin knew that something was wrong the second he stepped out of the tower. The Rose Gala wasn’t the quietest affair; the muted sounds of string instruments and chatter had rung through the walls until he cast a sound-dampening spell around the North Tower. Now, despite lifting the spell and stepping out… an eerie silence hung in the air, heavy and stifling. There was none of the merry-making that he’d heard before. 

Keeping to the shadows, he crept down the corridor towards the main staircase and stopped short. The guards posted near the sliding doors of the north wing were fast asleep, leaning against the wall and slumped onto the floor. A shiver slithered down Jeongin’s spine. This wasn’t normal. The guards in the palace were nowhere close to lax in security, especially during nights of revelry.

Catching hold of one guard’s shoulder, he shook him hard, hoping that the jostling would wake him up. But he only crumpled to the floor, completely unaware of the world. Almost like he was….no, He couldn’t be. Jeongin fell to his knees before the man, scrabbling for a pulse at the man’s wrist- no, he was alive. Very much so.  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he got to his feet, warily scanning the top of the main staircase on the other side of the sliding doors. The silence was almost deafening as he made his way towards the staircase, looking down at the main lobby of the castle- 

Everybody was asleep.

It was almost like a wave of sleep had taken over every guard, guest and staff in the palace, rendering them silent and slumped on the floor the second they encountered it. A maid was leant against a pillar, a tray of champagne lying toppled next to her. A herald lay on the floor, curled up next to the skirts of a slumbering lady in red silk.

Stumbling away from the bannister, he collapsed on the top stair, a rush of panic overwhelming him- was he at fault for this? Surely he wasn’t… But what if he was? What had he done wrong? Was the timing off? How was he to fix this?? What was he going to do-

That was when he heard it.

Cutting through the thick silence was a husky, haunting melody, singing words that tore through his mind, bringing back faded childhood memories. He remembered being afraid first, finding solace next in the voice and its wistful song. As he grew up, his slumber came faster and deeper, rendering him unable to listen to the walls’ song. But he didn’t forget the words. He never did.

However, the voice didn’t echo from the walls the way he remembered- this time, it was coming from the very hall The Rose Gala was held in.

“Wise men say only fools rush in...

But I can’t help falling in love with you…”

The voice continued singing the same lines as Jeongin hurried down the staircase and towards the hall, the open doors spilling the chandeliers’ lights into the modestly candle lit corridor. The marble floor of the hall was laden with ladies’ skirts and gentlemen’s capes and cloaks, every single person including his dear parents and family fast asleep- except for one.

Y/N.

Jeongin watched as she sang to herself, her arms held out almost as if she was… she was waltzing with somebody. There was something so haunting about the sight to Jeongin- maybe it was the song that spilled so easily from her lips or the way she danced with nobody but the air to accompany her. Her skirts clutched in one hand, she swept back and forth in front of one of the windows, the only person awake amongst a sea of sleeping people. 

“Wise men say only fools rush in...

But I can’t help falling in love with you…”

“You can come in, Your Highness.” her voice lacked the Isle accent he heard before-if anything, she had the exact same accent as his own. “This is, after all, your palace.”

So much for staying hidden. Jeongin cautiously stepped into the hall, eyes narrow as he marked her every movement. But she was calm as she dropped her arms to her sides, turning to face him from across the hall, her smile the exact same as before- brazen, confident, playful.

“Do you have something to do with this, Y/N?” He demanded, his voice quivering with the pent-up panic he was struggling to control. “Oh no, Your Highness,” Y/N responded,  beginning to pick her way across the sleeping people towards him. “That’s the question I must ask you. What did you do to my home?”

Jeongin instantly stiffened, one hand going to his belt for his dagger and the other, encompassed in ice-cold hoarfrost. There was no point in hiding his powers, especially if he was alone with…. Whoever she was. To his shock, her eyes lit up in joyous surprise. “Oh, I see you’ve learnt to conjure the elements. You’ve come far in your spellcasting studies, Your Highness.”

“Greetings, Your Highness. I am Y/N, the guardian of the Rose Palace.” 

“Oh, this sweet girl?” she raised her arm before brushing back her intricately curled hair with an uncaring flick of her hand. “ Her name is Yelina. She asked me to… assist her in courting you. I assure you, Your Highness, I’m not from the Western Isles nor do I have the need to spy on you.”

“Assist? Yelin- What are you going on about?” Jeongin’s temper finally reached a fever pitch, his voice raising in frustration. “I expect a straight answer from you, whatever your name is. Who are you, and do you have anything to do with this?”

The young lady in front of him dipped into a bow- it wasn’t the neat curtsy he’d seen at the beginning of the night. This was a deep, sweeping bow, almost mocking in nature as she nearly knelt to the floor and rose in one fluid motion. 

Her eyes were silver when they met his, a stark contrast from the dark eyes that had peered out of her face before. “And you, young prince, have just caused trouble you might not be able to mend.”

“How do you know that, Y/N?” Jeongin’s voice was as cold as the ice wreathing his fingers, his jaw tightening as he struggled to keep his rising anger in check. “Do the Western Isles dare to spy on its future monarch?”

Just as Jeongin began to advance toward her, his eyes blazing with fury at her twisted answers, a velvet soft laugh from the doors cut through his haze of anger. He caught the way Y/N’s face paled, her demeanour stiffening as she caught sight of who stood behind him. Whirling around, he saw a man walk into the hall, his plump lips pulled back in a satisfied smirk.

“How very quaint of you, guardian.”

His voice was dark, almost sensual in it’s smoothness, a terrible age ringing in every syllable. His hair was a deep purple, drizzled with streaks of white that hung inelegantly over his eyes.  A dark cloak fastened at one shoulder fluttered around his feet as he moved further into the hall. There was something wrong with this man, Jeongin realized as his grip tightened on his dagger. The energy in the room had taken a nosedive with his arrival, leaving him with barely a few strands to hold onto. 

“Nobody nor the stars give a damn about your opinion, Chris.”

Jeongin started at Y/N’s cold voice ringing from next to him, her eyes narrowed in derision as she stared down the purple-haired man. However, the man wasn’t fazed in the least, his smile only widening in response. “Is that any way to talk to your elder, young one?”

That was when Jeongin noticed the flash of quicksilver in Chris’ eyes- identical to Y/N’s.

Spellcasters.

//

4- Y/N

“You’re no more my elder than that band of heathens you used to lead.” you spit,  stepping in front of Jeongin. You could sense his surprise as he watched your form change- hair turning white, your forehead wreathed with icy blue flames. It probably must be quite overwhelming for him, but you couldn’t spare that much throught- Chris was not to touch a single strand of his hair, stars be damned. 

“You’re not welcome here, Chris. Begone.”

“When has that ever stopped me, little one?” Chris’ silver eyes narrowed in a sardonic smile- only, it wasn’t a smile but a soulless show of teeth. “Besides,the intention of my visit was only to extend a hand of gratitude to the crown prince behind you.”

To his credit, Jeongin didn’t so much as flinch, matching Chris’s stare for icy stare. “From the guardian’s stance, I presume your hand of gratitude isn’t one to clamour for.” A rueful smile dragged your lips upward; Jeongin had never been the type to mince his words.

“I must insist, Your Majesty,” Chris’ very stance glittered with the stench of malice, your magic tingling unpleasantly around you. “Or must I call you Jeongin, for you will not remain a royal much longer?”

“I’ll stop you right there.” You growled, fists clenching as blue flames sparked alive in your hands again. “Do not speak of the crown prince that way.”

“Or what, little one?” Chris laughed aloud. “Will your sweet crown prince run his country to doom yet again?”

“W-What-” Jeongin spluttered behind you, confused and bewildered. Chris cut through his stammered sentence, his words carrying over Jeongin’s. “Your spell backfired, princeling. Instead of protecting your kingdom, you sent them all to the one place where they’d never be harmed- their sleep. If only you knew the nuances of spellcasting. Stolen knowledge can only do so much, you know. I allowed you to steal the books, foolish mortal boy. Did you really think you were sneaky enough to swipe from spellcasters??” Chris snarled mockingly at you and Jeongin. You could sense the terror rippling off your prince; taste it like copper on your tongue.

“ Your kingdom will fall to death soon, all because you couldn’t keep your sticky mortal hands to yourself and mess with power you don’t deserve to know, princeling. All of this,” he exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide in sinful exultation, “Will belong to the heathens Y/N spoke about-” And a spear of fire threw him off his feet, sending him flying and crumpling against the far wall.

Stalking towards his prone figure, you pulled him up and slammed him against the wall, your hands clutching his cloak. A line of blue blood trickled down from his hairline to your sick satisfaction, his lips pulled back in a pained snarl. A snake of your flames bound his arms together as you stared him down, silver for silver.

“This kingdom has never been yours, neither will it ever be.” Your voice was soft, icy, pointed. “It belongs to Ataloria now and stars be damned if I don’t make sure it stays that way.” 

“You’re a traitor to your own kind, Y/N.” Chris spat in your face, struggling against the flames around his wrists. “Do what you wish to stop this. You and I both know this curse will be fulfilled by that foolish mortal you protect. You’ll get your comeuppance when your princeling’s folly renders this kingdom obsolete,little one. That’s a promise.”

With those final jarring words, he disappeared in a plume of red smoke, leaving you alone with a shell-shocked Jeongin and Ataloria’s sleeping citizens.

//

5- Y/N

“The land that Ataloria stands on is home to a lot more history than you know, Your Highness.” You bustled into the basement kitchen with the prince at your heels. Jeongin slumped in a chair at the wooden table, his head hidden in his hands. You couldn’t recognize if it was fear, regret or anger, because the only thing you could sense from the prince was a mixture of emotions too complex to gauge.

The both of you had spent the last couple of hours placing temporary warding charms over the entirety of Ataloria- If your brother could break in, god knows what else could. It was no mean feat, especially for two spellcasters and a vast country. But Jeongin rose to the task, his brow furrowed with concentration as he burned perfectly drawn sigils onto the map and spoke incantations with a clear, soulless tongue. The sun rose as you worked on the warding charms- it was bordering early afternoon by the time you led him to the kitchen. It fascinated you how easily the craft came to him; it wasn’t natural for a mortal with no magic in his veins.

“I don’t want to hear it, Y/N.” He sounded small, exhausted, shattered. The night must have been extremely overwhelming for him, you realized. The pressure of being responsible for an entire kingdom’s destruction must not be the easiest weight to carry. “If you’re guardian of this palace, then why didn’t you do something to stop me?” You could hear the blame, the self-loathing in every sentence, but you let him speak. “All these years, you watched me through the walls, sang me lullabies, but didn’t bother to stop me from digging myself a spellcaster grave.”

You gulped, pulling yourself together as you took a seat next to Jeongin. This was not going to be an easy story.

“Your Highness-”

“Call me Jeongin.”

“This story possibly holds the key to righting the wrongs of the night past. Do yourself the favour of listening, Jeongin.” A wave of his hand and straightened posture signalled you to speak, the only response you received.

“The entirety of the Southern Sphere was ruled by spellcasters, their power much greater than those of the spellcasters in your country. Then, this area was called Erus Nox. The spellcasters ruled with great pride and fairness- mortal and Spellcaster coexisting amongst each other with great peace. The capital was not too far from what you now call the Western Isles. Over the centuries, corruption began to take root as it did in any great empire. Many spellcasters did not believe that mortals deserved rights equal to their own, that mortals were the inferior race because of the magic their veins couldn’t hold.

“Soon enough, there were mortal killings in the bowels of the city.News reached my- the Spellcaster King and he ordered his cavalry to round up the perpetrators and have them publicly sentenced to the gallows for breaking the peace. That decision didn’t sit well with the spellcaster nobility, who were now driven to believe that the King.. our king favoured the mortals more than his own blood. Rumors were circulated that the royal family were weak beings, pandering to the whims of their mortal population...it wasn’t true. None of it was. But it spread like wildfire, and suddenly there were mass killings in the suburban areas and the noble circle every other day.”

“Wait, how do you know so much about this?” Jeongin asked you suspiciously, his eyes narrowed. “This clearly isn’t common information. Were you.. Were you one of the rebel forces?!”

“No, you impatient brat.” You bit out, your clenched fists creasing crescent shaped indents into your palms as Jeongin stopped short at your unfamiliar, condescending tone. “If you absolutely must know, I was the crown princess of Erus Nox. Don’t interrupt me, or I will freeze your mouth shut.” A glimmer of amusement flashed past Jeongin eyes at the barely-veiled threat, aware of how different you sounded from barely minutes ago.  He nodded at you to continue, so you did.

“My father and I were particularly outspoken against the heathens ravaging the country. We did everything in our power to curb the nonsense, the fanaticism of the rabid spellcaster rebellion. Towards the final days of the… the era, my family and I rallied the mortals and sent them to the closest mortal-dominated towns in the country. By the time the last human group left, it was too late.

“The rebels broke down the wards and- and sent nearly my entire family to the darkness. My father and I fought until we were forcibly subdued. I was made to watch as my father breathed his last, strung up to the throne I was meant to inherit.”

“From his last dying breaths, my father cursed the entire kingdom to fall apart the second he passed. He cursed the land to only cater to a mortal queen when the right lady stepped up, and continue to have only queens in power- may the masses be ruled by the very race they considered inferior. But before he could complete his incantation, he passed into the darkness.”

“Because of the holes his incomplete incantation left behind, the rebel forces brought in Chris to lighten the weight of the curse.- my trusted advisor and confidant,” You shook your head bitterly, the betrayal still ice in your spine. “He was my trusted advisor and confidant, a spellcaster inferior in power only to my family.

“He had no choice but to let the mortal queens part run its course- but he wrote into existence that one day, a mortal prince with a penchant for spellcasting would be born. When he came of age, he would prick himself on the sharp edge that is the art of spellcasting and bring down disaster upon the kingdom as he knows it. At which point, the crown-less kingdom would be ripe for the spellcasters’ picking, heralding the royal son’s folly as a reason for the mortals’ inability to rule- Erus Nox would be restored in all it’s bloody glory for these savage, power-drunk hordes.”

“As for me, well,” You let out a bitter laugh. “Chris had other plans for me. He had resented being my subordinate all along, and took the opportunity to even out his petty grudge. He bound my soul to the castle that was meant to become my home after my coronation, forcing me to watch Erus Nox’s destruction from what was meant to be my chosen headquarters.”

You sighed as you struggled to keep your voice steady, bluntly ignoring the glance of pity that Jeongin sent to you. “He magically sewed my lips shut, forbade me from speaking about the curse and the crusade to anybody, destroying most of my magic reserve and reducing me to.. Well, Guardian of the Rose Palace. But it seems,” you grinned wickedly, your demeanour switching instantly from forlorn to...wild and wicked. “Chris has always had a chronic problem of underestimating me, despite having to trail after my skirts for decades on end.  He weakened his curse on me in the heat of the moment back in the hall, when he told me to do what I wish to stop him.” Jeongin’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping in surprise.

“S-So, you’re free?”

“Well,” you cocked your head in thought. “As free as I can be, without a body to inhabit. This young lady’s body is already quite tired out from the exertion I put her through…. But that’s besides the point.” Your eyes glittered in thinly veiled joy, tinged with malice. “This time, he’s truly going to get what’s coming for him.”

//

6- JEONGIN

“Chris left a glaring loophole in his incantation. It was a possibility he didn’t entertain, because it was a sheer impossibility in his eyes.” Jeongin listened closely as Y/N laid out the information she’d gathered over the years, and the conclusions she’d arrived at from it. The two of them were still sitting at the table where Y/N told him about the story of Erus Nox. His heart was heavy from the pain he felt from her words- being a prisoner in the same castle you were meant to rule from must have been the worst kind of pain to bear.

“..He did not consider the possibility of the mortal prince being alive to right the wrong he had committed.”

Jeongin gasped, sitting up straight in surprise. “That seems like a stupid possibility to overlook.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Jeongin.” You chuckled. “It was quite by chance that I noticed the discrepancy, but yes. Chris’ curse will be obsolete if you undo the spell you wrongly cast.”

He shrugged, leaning back against the chair. “How do you propose we do that?”

Y/N’s fingertips pressed against each other, her elbows balanced on the table edge. “That warding spell you tried to cast- show me what you did. If we were to find out where you went wrong and undo it, Ataloria must likely be revived.”

Jeongin rubbed the back of his neck in thought, processing Y/N’s words. “How long will it take for you to find my errors?”

“Depends on how long the incantation is. ”

“Then what are we waiting for? You know where the North Tower is.”

“Stars above, Chris is a nasty hellhound for letting you swipe this book,” Y/N cursed, carefully taking the book from him and flipping it open. “This book contains incantations that even the most seasoned spellcasters of the current age can’t cast right.” Jeongin’s shoulders slumped as he took a seat on the floor next to her kneeling form.

Stepping carefully over the throngs of peacefully slumbering people, Jeongin led Y/N up to the North Tower. The room was as he’d left it- chalk smudges and bits of purple wax dotting the floor. Pulling open a dusty drawer, Jeongin picked out the book he’d taken the incantation from. 

“I really should have kept my nose out of spellcasting. “He muttered softly, watching her turn the brittle browned pages carefully. “Would have saved the world a lot of trouble.”

“You’re such a self-absorbed little thing,” Y/N quipped, still absorbed in the pages of the spellbook. “This was your destiny, one that Chris wrote for you. You’d have come across spellcasting and fallen in love with its craft in one way or another. Besides, you’re in the presence of a master spellcaster- Oh, is it this one?” Y/N pointed at the page in front of her.

Jeongin nodded miserably. “Yes, that’s the one. This is the modification I came up with.” He pulled out a dog-eared, heavily scribbled piece of paper from between the book’s leaves, handing it to her.

“You’ve got some balls trying this incantation without any formal training, that too with modifications!!” Y/N exclaimed, scanning the pages of the incantation. “I’m surprised that an eternal sleep is all you caused after ruining it.If you had cast this right, it would have completely removed the possibility of a siege on Ataloria’s borders ever again.”

“I know. That was why I took the risk of casting it. It would have been ideal to protect the borders.”

“No, you don’t get it.” She spared him a glance laden with calculated curiosity, “This spell is extremely volatile, because of the number of variables it includes- even more so with your changes.  It’s strong enough to ward away any mortal or spellcaster who isn’t welcome within its borders. This could decimate the spellcaster siege,  if you recast it right. It’s… It’s genius. You’re better than I anticipated.”

“It was all for naught, I ruined it regardless,” Jeongin sighed. “If you’re that good of a spellcaster, can you undo and recast the spell instead?”

“I am still a spirit, so the doors to these kinds of spellcasting are closed to me.” You frowned. “It will take me a long time and power I am yet to find to cast a body for myself, so the fastest way to revive Ataloria would be for you to undo the spell with my guidance.”

An iceberg lodged itself into Jeongin’s heart at the thought of having to cast a spell again. He swallowed thickly, the fear turning his thoughts slow and sluggish. “I’m not sure that is a good idea. I’m clearly not meant to dabble in spellcasting, I’m but a mortal-”

“Does spellcasting make your blood sing, Jeongin?”

It only took Jeongin a split- second’s thought to answer her question. “Yes.”

“Then why must you be scared of failure?” Y/N’s eyebrow arched. “Even spellcasters make mistakes. That doesn’t stop us from pursuing the craft, does it? Also..you’re not alone now, Jeongin.” She placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “ This craft was never meant to be exclusive. I knew mortal spellcasters who bent energy to their will much better than many spellcasters by blood. You’re a natural at this. I believe in you.”

Jeongin’s face crumpled as a few tears escaped his eyes unbidden. The idea of pursuing spellcasting beyond a hidden passion sent a thrill through his body despite the havoc his previous attempt had caused. The possibility of failure, as daunting as it was, only pushed him to practice more, be better- He wiped the tears away. If not for himself, at least for the good of Ataloria...

“Are you certain that this spell could protect Ataloria from future harm?”

“Absolutely. I’m sure of it.” she sounded confident; Jeongin had no reason to distrust her.

“You truly believe that I can undo the spell ?”

Y/N stood up, the book in one hand as she held out the other for him to take. “I do. Are you up for the challenge, Your Highness?” She used the title like a teasing nickname, her eyes creasing into a smile as Jeongin took her hand, hauling himself to his feet.

“As much as I’ll ever be.” 

7-JEONGIN

//

“Do you remember everything I told you?” Y/N leaned against the door of the North Tower, watching closely as Jeongin went through the same preparations as last night. The pentagram and sigils drawn, the crystals and candles laid out, Y/N’s paper of corrections and developments on the new spell clutched in Jeongin’s hand.

“Yes, I think so.” He huffed out a breath, the air fogging in front of him. The sun had set, giving way to the twilight darkness. This night was eerily similar to the night before- the sun was high in the sky, the stars against the cloudless sky. But tonight, his kingdom’s fate hung in the balance, because a group of magical elitists couldn’t admit defeat. 

“Thank you, Y/N.” His gratitude clearly caught Y/N off-guard, judging from her widened eyes and parted lips. “Oh- I-”

His thoughts wandered to the people that lay deep in slumber around the castle and the kingdom- his people. Their fate and safety lay in his untrained novice spellcaster hands. Jeongin’s jaw tightened, his resolve strengthened. He would do everything right this time around, no matter what it took. For his people.

Before she could answer, a resounding boom ripped through the tower, shaking the floor under their feet. Amidst the pebbles and tiles falling from the ceiling, Jeongin saw Y/N hurry to the window in the tower wall, her expression shifting from confusion to fury.

“Chris realized his mistake.” The words sent a chill down Jeongin’s spine. The energy-sucking feeling he’d felt in Chris’ presence was one he did not wish to encounter again-

“I’ll hold him off,” Y/N’s brow and wrists blazed in the same icy blue fire he’d seen that morning, her silver eyes flashing dangerously. “No matter what, don’t step out of the room, do you understand?”

That was when Jeongin saw the silver line etched at the entrance of the door, a flare of silvery energy encompassing the entire room around him- A forcefield. Y/N stood on the other side, her voice loud yet muffled as another explosion rocked the foundations of the tower. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND, JEONGIN??”

The energy that picked up around him was as wild as he remembered, a hurricane almost throwing him off his feet from the time he uttered the first words. If anything, it was almost chaotic, the wind screaming in his ears as he struggled to keep the incantation running. It was almost like the energy did not wish to be undone, rebelling against his attempts to right the wrong.

“YES, YES I DO!” He yelled, lunging for the spellbook that had fallen to the floor. He had no time to spare, maybe if he worked the incantation fast enough no harm would befall Y/N or his people, there were his people in the castle, he couldn’t mess up-

He could hear the distant crackle of fire and the screech of metal outside the forcefield- Y/N was making good on her word. It would only be fitting if he did the same. 

8- Y/N

//

You dodged another arrow of ice, a hiss slipping through your teeth as you pulled yourself to your feet. “Tired already little one?” Chris called out, his fists ablaze with red-tinted ice. His eyes blazed a bright silver, almost white as he advanced towards you.

“You wish, blood traitor,” You snarled back, tossing a wave of  shadow energy at Chris, but he only danced out of range. “It seems to be so!” He cackled, another gust of energy pushing you backwards on the smooth marble. 

The two of you stood at the entrance to the North Tower, right outside the forcefield you’d left around Jeongin. You could only hope that he was doing everything you told him to do. You gritted your teeth, rallying what was left of your magic. Yelina’s body was strong, but she wasn’t a spellcaster. The constant magic use was taking a toll on her while the stress of inhabiting a mortal body taking a toll on you. Your magic wasn’t made to inhabit a mortal body for too long-you could only hope that the two of you held out long enough to give Jeongin the time he needed…It was time for some old-fashioned trickery.

“You can’t get through the forcefield I put around him even if you get past me, Chris. It’s beyond your capabilities.” You grinned at the way Chris’ eyes narrowed. You’d hit the right nerve. “I know for a fact you’re too proud to bring any of your heathens with you,” you taunted further, revelling in his clenched fists. “Keep your nasty tongue to yourself, Y/N-”

“You were embarrassed by the loophole you left, weren’t you?” the mocking sweetness in your tone had a growl ripping out of Chris’ throat, an angry vine of energy flying towards you. You ducked, allowing it to break through the plaster and cement of the wall behind you, a raucous laugh bubbling up your throat. Keep him occupied, keep him occupied until Jeongin completes the incantation-

“You came here alone to fix it. You’re just as I remember, Courtesan,” you exclaimed, dancing out of the way of Chris’ attacks, until one flash of lightning caught you unawares, slamming you against the wall. Chris’s purple hair was almost black in the darkness as he materialized in front of you, his snarl showing pulled back teeth ready to pounce. His hand tightened around your neck, squeezing slowly. “I should have killed you that day in the throne room-”

“ Social climbing, greedy, proud,” you choked on the little remaining air you had left in your lungs,  defiantly staring Chris down. “Always overshadowed, can’t do a single thing right-”

“You little-”

Your eyes screwed shut, waiting for the final blow- which never came.

//

9-JEONGIN

“You- There’s no way you reversed the spell-” Chris screamed, his silvery bright eyes almost white in the moonlight darkness. He could feel Chris’ magic rebel against his own, the intensity almost enough to make Jeongin see stars, but he held on. His magic’s grip tightened on Chris, who choked and spluttered to silence.

“You’re not welcome here, Chris.” Jeongin’s voice was louder than he thought, bolts of magic bodily pulling him away from Y/N. She slumped to the ground, coughing and spluttering, but his attention was speared upon the thrashing man in the clutches of Jeongin’s roiling magic.

“Y/N told me you had a chronic problem of underestimating people.” He sounded calm, almost conversational to his own ears. How was he so calm?

“I must agree for tonight, a foolish mortal boy will be the reason for your downfall. I hope your entire association remembers that before ever thinking of laying siege upon my kingdom again. Leave, Chris. And never return.”

“I would not lay my bets on that, mortal scum.” Chris snarled, finally finding his tongue before dissolving into thin air, Jeongin’s magic letting him leave. The castle was alive yet again, with faint murmurs and loud screams. He could hear the sound of life everywhere- and it finally hit him. He succeeded.

An incredulous laugh spilled from his throat, almost instinctively moving towards Y/N as his grin grew wider. He’d succeeded, he saved them, he did it all by himself-

He knelt before her, gently helping her sit up and open her eyes.. Dark eyes that were decidedly not the silver he’d gotten accustomed to. It was Yelina that stared back at him, not Y/N- her eyes narrowed in exhaustion, the previous injuries inflicted by the fight against Chris nowhere to be seen.

“Y-Your Highness?” Yelina’s Isles accent was back in full force, and it was all he could do to school his face into a mask of bland relief. His tongue instantly cooked up a suitable lie for their location while his mind raced- where was Y/N? Why did she disappear ? Did he do something wrong again?

Until he heard it.

A husky, haunting melody that seemed to echo from within the walls of the castle, the sad melody sounding unmistakably joyous to his ears. Y/N hadn’t left, he realized. She was right here, as she always was. Her curse was weakened, she’d said- not broken. She was still a prisoner of The Rose Palace.

Jeongin smiled a secret smile to himself as he led Yelina back into the castle, a quiet promise made between him and the moon- one day soon, he’d break the curse on Y/N. And that day would come very, very soon.

Wise men say, only fools rush in

Thank you for reading! :)

But I can’t help falling in love with you..

///

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Network Tag: @inkidz​ @districtninewriters​ @starryktown​ @bystay 

​Do let me know what you think! - Elliana.

[ohnopoe]

Do I Wanna Know? | Chapter .01

Ship: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader Word Count: 1.1k+ Tagging: @hawkerz12​ & @slowlywithfreedom​ Warnings: SMUT. Author’s Notes: If you’re under 18, stay away from this fic. This is not a suggestion. It is against the law for you to be reading this if you are under 18.

This was originally titled ‘Daydreaming’ but then it became a series, so I figured it needed a name change. Sorry for any confusion!

Kinktober Day Three: Daydreaming

Part One | Part Two | Part Three (coming soon!)

It was a well known fact, Jedi were not allowed to have attachments, especially relationships. The idea of caring for one person above others could put both parties at risk, and could compromise a Jedi’s ability to make the tough decisions this war needed.

It was also possibly the hardest rule to keep.

Who could help but care for those they fought beside? Who could ignore the feelings that came from being by someone’s side through battles and missions? Who could ignore that way your stomach tensed with fluttering when he looked your way?

You could never quite pinpoint when you had begun to feel that inescapable pull towards your fellow Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Perhaps it had grown over years spent together at the temple, perhaps it had come from the innumerous times you had saved one another’s lives on the rare, glorious times you were partnered together for missions, or perhaps, perhaps it had simply manifested the first time you had seen him, becoming a true Jedi knight while you were in your final months as a padawan under the tutorage of your master, Plo Koon.

You couldn’t help but feel it was probably the latter as you sat in the council chair, your council chair, with the fair haired man at your side. The meeting was long and tedious, and even the ever diligent Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn’t be tempted to pay the emperor’s holo-messages their due attention as the senate leader dragged on about the financial costs of fuel being used by the Jedi.

It had been some time ago that he first caught your distracted gaze, offering a smile that mixed empathy with cheek as he gave you the slightest glimpse behind those well built walls and showed his own boredom to you and you alone as the council continued to listen to Palpatine drag on and on. It soon became something of a game between you, each bored and desperate for a way to pass the time of what had started out as a meeting and quickly dissolved into something of a lecture instead.

Every time Palpatine would repeat himself, every time Windu would offer a thinly veiled judgement in return, every time Ki-Adi-Mundi seemed to startle himself awake, your eyes would meet, sharing a look before quickly going back to your calm states of apparent diligence, trying desperately not to laugh aloud.

But even that couldn’t keep your attention on the conversation for long; not when there were such distractions longing for your attention in your peripheral vision. Obi-Wan could be called a distraction even as he droned on about something as dull as mining exports, but lounged back in his council chair, one ankle dropped over the opposite thigh in such an open and inviting posture, it was hard to keep your sights, and thoughts, straight.

You could diminish the thoughts of how relaxed he looked as he sat back against his chair, head tilted back slightly, tempting you to visions of him in a similar position that was far from proper. You could even force your mind to ignore that breathy moan that escaped him as he hung his head back even further, doing nothing for the fantasies threatening to slip into your mind. But as he began to run his hand over his thigh, massaging the taut muscle through khaki cotton, your mind finally gave out.

You could see yourself there between those powerful thighs, your hand tracing patterns in the place of his own, edging ever forwards until you found your prize. You could practically feel the warmth of his body surrounding you as you lowered yourself to his hard cock, desperate to feel him in between your lips, to know his taste. Would he be salty and sweet? Would his taste have you desperate for more as you began to slowly bob your head up and down?

And then there was another thought filling your mind, curiosity unsated as you watched his hand move rhythmically against his thigh, hypnotising you into your fantasy.

How would he react?

Would he be submissive, giving into the feel of your mouth, warm and wet around his length as you brought him closer to the edge? Would he take charge, hands wrapping themselves in your hair as he took control of your movements, forcing himself down as far as you could take him, using your mouth for his pleasure with little concern for the tight grasp he had on you as he found what he was searching for.

How would he sound? Was he quiet and reserved, or loud and loquacious? How would it sound to hear him moaning, lost to the feel of your lips wrapped around his cock?

A strangled sound, something between a sigh and a moan escaped you, bringing you back to reality with a daunting clarity. This was not the time for such thoughts, especially when you were surrounded by some of the strongest force-wielders in the galaxy. A blush heated your cheeks as you glanced about, desperately hoping no one had heard the sound that had felt too loud to your own ears. But, as Shaak Ti caught your gaze, holding it for a moment with an amused smile, you knew you hadn’t been as subtle as you had hoped. Still, it seemed no one else had noticed, or at least, no one else seemed to care as the meeting continued on around you.

You were determined to keep your mind out of the gutter, at least until you could find your way back to your quarters. You couldn’t risk any of the other council members getting curious or accidentally letting your guard down for any to hear the thoughts that seemed to drown out any other.

You focused yourself, using meditation practices to calm yourself as you did your best to stay at least somewhat present to your surroundings, counting tiles and anything mundane that would keep your mind dulled and relaxed.

The meeting didn’t seem to draw on for much longer, or perhaps you truly had found some sense of calm and it had simply felt that way. But before you knew it, most of the council was finding their way towards the door, finally free from the chancellor’s ramblings.

You wanted a quick escape, following the majority of the council without so much as a glance towards the man who had plagued your daydreams, the same man who was sitting resolutely in his chair, watching you carefully as he shifted awkwardly.

But Shaak Ti was more mischievous than many liked to think. She stopped you just as you found yourself at the doorway, a knowing look on her serene features that shattered the calm you had built in an instant. But she didn’t look judgemental, if anything she looked amused and, was that sympathy in her gaze?

Leaning forwards carefully, the stunning Togruta's usual serenity seemed to give way as she offered you words which stunned you. And an address.

[mightbewriting]

So I came to W&H and B&E in an odd way. I'm a long time Dramione fic reader who like many of us doubled down on in 2020 to find comfort in a bananas year. I kept seeing W&H on everyone's rec list, but for whatever reason kept putting it off. Then I heard about the prequel and decided to wait for that to be finished, read it, then do W&H. But once it was finished, I saw you recommended W&H first so I was like okay I'll do that. I struggle with impulse control but am trying to do better so when I saw the audiobook for W&H I was like perfect, I'll listen rather than read that way I won't gobble it up in a day. Ha well that did not work, I listened to the first 3 chapters (at that time those were the only chapters they had recorded) then instantly ran not walked to A03, reread said chapters, then continued on. At Chapter 4 of W&H, I thought hmm maybe I'll read them simultaneously. I continued that way maybe through Chapter 13 of B&E and Chapter 7ish then fully committed to W&H first. I cannot imagine reading these fics in real time because reading them in full, back to back was the most intense glutenous binge and it's taken over my life in the best way. I have been living in your fictional universe for the past two weeks. I started a list of all the parallels and callbacks and eventually had to call it because they are innumerable. I'm awed. In literal awe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Your writing - the individual words of your vast vocabulary, the way you string said words together into hilarious, heart breaking, heart stopping, beautiful, and visceral feelings is astounding. It's hard to explain but even good writers (and/or an intriguing plot) sometimes do not create an overall immersive feeling. But the feelings your words evoke are all encompassing and truly universe building. Like it's not just the wording or the plot or the charters but all of it together come to make something even greater than the sum of their parts. Your writing, your universe of W&H, S&S, and B&E live in my mind and heart and in an embarrassing amount of screenshots of passages on my phone and in voice memos to myself as I don't have anyone irl to fan girl with. When I think of your words and the world you built, I'm reminded of a Taylor Swift lyric: "it cut deep to know you, right to the bone". That is how I'd describe your writing's effect on me, but in the best way.

Your brain's capacity to plot, plan, and flawlessly deliver W&H THEN B&E? Idk how you kept all the threads and plot points and moments and timelines in check. My head aches just thinking about how you wrote these stand-alone but also inextricable works of art. Like how does one's brain function in such a level? And it's especially telling in B&E because we knew where we were going but I still gasped, screamed, squealed, giggled, had to put my phone down, clutched it to my heart, fist pumped, stopped half way through just for a minute to breath and take it all in, and overall looked and acted as an utter idiot during each and every chapter because while I knew where we were going I also had no idea! I'm just floored you managed to keep us at the edge of our seats with a prequel? Who does that? You do!

The texts in the final chapter of W&H devastated me, literal chills. I think about that daily. It's exactly what H and we needed. Just like a reminder of what they went through. It reminded me of Chapter 41 of B&E. Like a summary of where they had been and where they are now.

The other thing that rattled in my brain is the motifs of choice and time, life kind of boils down to those two things huh? But choice especially. It's funny because choice is so prominent but at the same time how W&H and B&E give off soulmate vibes even though this is not a soulmate fic (also are the rumors true...?!) because despite time turners, breakups, and lost memories, they always come back together. But more on choice: it's just as Draco says - in a million scenarios he'll always choose her and he feels lucky she chose him just once. But of course with W&H, she does it twice. And she does it in both timelines of B&E, and of course that's the problem when Draco realizes he has not done the same hence heartbreak 1.0. And just god - he wants her to have a choice with the potion, a choice with her memories, and stops the timey wimey madness by realizing he's taking her choice (and in a way H started it by taking away his choice and leaving the first time). And then those parts about how he chose her, she chose him, but they could not chose each other. This motif, these callbacks. I'm flabbergasted. It's just hitting me now that you extend the choice to us as readers - we get to choose whether H get her memories back or not.

Theo in all your Wait and Hope universe, but especially S&S broke me. Blaise asking who is taking care of Theo when he's taking care of everyone else? Theo's literal and figurative demons? Yikes. Those were unpleasant looks in the mirror for me. I'm glad Theo has his Blaise. Where's mine haha? Also just shout to your underrated Blaise. The fact that he might be my favorite of the Slytherians in your stories says a lot since he doesn't say a lot haha. But he packs such a punch in all your works.

Okay, after singing your well deserved praises and fan girling and marveling at your works (god this is so long, I'm so sorry!), at long last my ask. I still cannot get this out of my head: what did Theo mean in Chapter 1 of B&E when he suggests to Draco “I know that. Maybe you could—tell her some of—” some of what? I zeroed in on this as soon as I read it and it's been rattling in my brain ever since.

um. hi? holy shit. i dont know how to process this. i am resisting the impulse to cringe away from the level of praise happening here because i really need to learn how to take a compliment but oh my god? i am not...this is just...wowzers. you are very literally too kind to me. i have melted into a puddle of feelings in my reading chair here. 

so, first things first: thank you. these are some of the nicest things i’ve ever heard about my writing and i can guarantee i will come back to this ask when I'm feeling like i suck and need a motivation boost. i can’t deny...it feels really nice to know that at least one person out there caught and appreciated some of the insane attention to detail i forced upon myself lol. so thank you. truly, thank you so much for saying such amazingly kind things that have short circuited my brain!

and im sure my friends at @etl-echo-audiobooks will be over the moon to know that their recording work was such a hit! your trajectory reading these stories is so fun and hilarious and probably the most unique reading experience i’ve heard so far xD

also, please be advised that your analysis on choice in these stories is probably going to live in my head rent free for the rest of my life. i feel seen, you know? you just...picked up what i was putting down and it feels really nice to know that it worked for you! 

and ok. your question. that little dash of ambiguity i was planning on leaving open ended. but let it be known i can be plied with compliments. i can’t just *not* give you something in return for such a lovely and kind and thoughtful dose of joy you had absolutely no obligation to give me today. 

so, in my mind, after draco’s house arrest ended and before he went abroad for his mastery, he and theo had an extensive (most likely drunken. also blaise was probably there too) night of reflection where they kind of just looked back at their childhoods and the war and the history of blood purity and just sort of went: “what the fuck?” i imagine draco probably confided in theo that when he went abroad, he planned to just try and pretend like none of it mattered, to see if that was really true. and draco probably kept him updated via owl (even though draco did not write enough and theo had feelings about that) so that by the time draco returned and we have theo asking that sort of trailing question, the implication at the end is “what if you told granger some of your realizations about it all?” so...not all that exciting? but there you have it!

in conclusion: thank you! you are too kind! i appreciate your thoughtful commentary SO much! i’m so happy you enjoyed these stories. and i hope the explanation of what theo was going to say wasn’t too underwhelming.

[nicknellie]

Context so people who haven’t seen Ghosts can still read and enjoy this: Alex is the ghost of a WWII Commanding Officer. In this fic he relives his army days before he died, telling Julie all about it, focusing on another soldier in particular - Lieutenant William Havers.

Sidenote for people who have seen Ghosts: Alex is the Captain, Julie is Alison (because I would pay real money for them to have a conversation like this in the show), and Willie is Havers.

This is the saddest thing I’ve ever written. I wanted to include Willex in the longer Ghosts AU I’m writing but I couldn’t find a natural way to fit it in so I wrote this as something completely separate. Every interaction between Alex and Willie is taken from BBC Ghosts and is very gay.

Here’s to Buried Secrets

Alex could remember it like it was yesterday. Late June in 1940 – hazy spring had bled into a dazed summer, his troops were getting restless after going on a year of work, and he was just about ready to lose his mind. That day had been one of startling revelations and hard-hitting truths, painful decisions that felt like betrayals, stagnant silences and hurt.

With the war dragging on endlessly, his troops had been getting complacent. They did critical work at their base, top secret and crucial to the war effort, but there were times where nothing would happen for days at a time and the troops would get bored. Their behaviour was beginning to waver, and though he wasn’t too against it overall (he understood why they were acting up, he was bored to death too) Alex had to do the right thing and set them straight.

“Now,” he said, “that brings me neatly to point sixteen. There is still a great deal of noise going on at night – laughing, giggling, horseplay. Now, we all get bored – that’s inevitable in our circumstances – but may I remind you, we are at war. I wo…”

He had let his sentence trail off. At that moment, the doors at the back of the room had swung open and in walked Willie. Lieutenant William Havers was Alex’s right-hand man and close friend. There couldn’t always be much room for friendships when at war, and living in such close quarters with everyone in the house could make bonding difficult, but there was something about Willie and Alex that had allowed them simply to click. They understood each other – they cared for each other. Perhaps a little too much.

“Ah, Lieutenant,” Alex greeted, interrupting his own speech.

Willie walked towards him, hand outstretched, holding a small, folded piece of paper. “Communique for you, sir, from HQ, marked urgent.”

“Ah,” Alex returned, taking the note. “Finally! This’ll be my requisition for a service revolver.”

Willie smiled gently as Alex unfolded the note, and Alex suppressed his own. But as soon as he read the note, there was no smile left to hide. This was that first striking blow, that devastating loss; the note brought with it the news of a surrender.

“Good God,” Alex exclaimed, skimming the note over again, making sure he’d read it correctly.

“Sir?” Willie prompted, sounding concerned.

“France has surrendered,” Alex explained.

“My God,” muttered Willie. The troops, still assembled to the side of the two men, began murmuring amongst themselves, the tension in the room much higher now than when Alex had been telling them they needed to go to bed on time.

Alex looked out the window, scanning the sky for any sign of attack. It was silly, he knew – nothing could have happened so quickly – but as it was wont to do, his anxiety began to overwhelm him.

“The Germans are coming,” he said, breath hitching in his throat.

“I don’t think they’ll be here just yet, sir,” Willie told him.

Alex shook his head, regained control. Willie was always good at doing that; he could sense when Alex needed help to calm down, and he could do so with an easy joke, a clever quip. Coming from anyone else, talking to a commanding officer that way might have been a sign of disrespect, but from Willie it was just what Alex needed.

“What? Right,” Alex agreed.

Willie could see he was still distressed. “May I suggest we initiate the emergency lockdown protocol, sir?” he said easily.

“Yes!” Alex exclaimed. He was eternally thankful for Willie – God only knew where he would be without that man by his side. “Yes, jolly good.” He turned to address his troops. “Now, it’s vital that nothing fall into enemy hands.”

“You heard the CO,” Willie said to the troops as Alex turned to watch out the window again. “Get to your duties.”

The troops dispersed in a cloud of excited but nervous chatter, getting to their stations, hiding their work. Alex was left alone with Willie, his only comfort. As Willie came to stand by the window with him, that easy, dashing smile on his lips, Alex felt himself both tense and relax. His worry ebbed away, but it was replaced with the hammering of his heart and a shortness of breath.

“Er… exciting times, Willie,” he ventured. He knew he should have called Willie by his proper title, or at least his surname, but when in private the two were much more open and colloquial with each other. Besides, in the wake of such a bombshell using his first name didn’t seem so scandalous. “If they do invade, we might get a proper pop at Jerry.”

“Yes,” Willie said through a chuckle. But the smile on his face dropped after a moment. Alex felt his heart plummet – Willie was usually all smiles and it was never good when they fell away. “About that, sir… I know we do vital work here, sir… but I want to get involved in the fighting. I’ve put in for a transfer.”

Alex felt like his breath had been stolen from him. Here again, that blow to the gut, that crushing feeling of betrayal. He knew distantly that Willie wasn’t betraying him and he could understand why he wanted to go. What stung was that he was only finding out after the fact. Though he knew also why Willie hadn’t told him: because they both knew that Alex would have done everything in his power to stop him, and it would have been too painful for either of them to bear.

Neither of them had ever mentioned it, but there was something magical about the bond they had. It was like they shared a soul, improved each other, completed one another. Alex didn’t want to think too hard about it. The thought of what he and Willie could have been was painful in innumerable ways.

He still didn’t voice those thoughts now, even though he knew it may be one of the only chances he had left. Instead, through a hitch in his voice, he said, “You’re leaving?”

Willie didn’t reply for a moment, a pregnant pause growing between them, pushing them apart. It stung, and Alex couldn’t feel anything.

But then Willie gathered himself and said, “There’s talk of a North Africa front.”

“Yes,” Alex replied, nodding like it all made perfect sense, like he didn’t feel as if he were going to die. “Yes, well, I totally understand, of course. Carry on.”

He ended it like a command, an order. It wasn’t because he wanted to be apart from Willie - no, he wanted to keep him close by forever - but he needed to grasp some semblance of control and giving orders, doing his job as CO let him do just that - be in control, understand what was happening.

“Thank you,” Willie replied, excruciatingly quiet, ducking his head.

He left the room and Alex in musty silence, the air heavy with revealed secrets and suffocating like gas. Alex’s mind was swimming, fogged with hopeless fantasies, weighed down by the knowledge that the one person who kept him going would soon be leaving him.

*

Alex had almost forgotten that Julie was there until he looked around and saw her watching him. He was dragged back down from his own mind, his own dredged up memories, and instead reminded himself that he had been telling her all that, not reliving it for no good reason. Perhaps he’d got a bit too caught up in it all, lost in his own head.

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Willie was wonderful. A very fine soldier. I never found what became of him, though, after he left for North Africa. We exchanged letters for a while, but it was difficult – what with the top-secret work I was doing, we couldn’t have addresses being traced and whatnot. We soon fell out of touch, and then… well, I died.”

Julie reached out as if to take his hand, but then seemed to remember they couldn’t touch, so rested it in the space between them on the sofa. Alex smiled weakly, laid his own hand beside hers. He tried to avoid looking her in the eye – her expression radiated pity and it was the last thing he wanted to see.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said gently. “It must have been awful.”

“Luckily, a true soldier like me becomes adept at hiding his feelings,” he said, trying for light and joking but clearly missing his target. “Besides. I couldn’t worry my troops. Had to keep morale up, which was difficult enough in itself. It was… it was rather a lot to come to terms with.”

“What happened when he left?” Julie asked softly.

Alex sighed. “Well…”

*

Alex had been in his office just a few days later. He was staring down at an envelope, carefully sealed. In it was the blueprints for a new limpet mine, a prototype bomb that would perhaps revolutionise the war had it not been so unstable – Alex and Willie had been trying to create a version that was safer, easier to use, but so far had come up empty. They had been instructed to dispose of the bomb and its blueprints; the mission would be dropped.

The envelope was marked simply with the word ‘William’. That was what the operation was called, its codename. Alex had been the one to decide upon it, uncreatively naming it after the first thing he saw, which just so happened to be his lieutenant sat by his side. Willie was the only other one to know about Operation William and when he left it would just be Alex.

Alex had imagined many a time that the contents of the envelope were something entirely different, that the name on the front was to address someone rather than to hide something. In his dreams, there was a letter inside written in his own handwriting and it spilled every deep dark secret he was keeping. It would be addressed to Willie and for his eyes only. In his dreams, Willie would write his own letter in return, addressed to Alex.

He would never write that letter, he knew. It could get him killed.

He was snapped out of his reverie by a knock at his office door.

“Come,” he called, tucking the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket.

The door opened and Willie let himself in, shutting it behind him, standing to attention.

“Ah, Willie,” Alex greeted, glad to see him as usual. “At ease, at ease. I was just thinking about you, actually. How’s the emergency lockdown coming?”

“Very good, sir,” Willie returned, smiling sweetly. “Most items have been squared away, as per the order.”

“Excellent,” Alex returned, beaming. He moved to stand behind his desk, closer to Willie but with a barrier between them. As he tried to speak, Willie began too. “I see–”

“I’ve come to tell you that–”

Both laughed, nerves buzzing between them. Alex knew what his were about – he could only guess and hope as to why Willie seemed a little on edge. The space between them felt charged with expectation, though what it was for Alex didn’t know.

“Sorry,” he said, returning Willie’s genuine but faltering smile, “you first, Lieutenant.”

There was a pause. Uncomfortable, excruciatingly anticipatory. The last remains of Willie’s smile crumbled and he swallowed before he said those few words that would tear down the last of Alex’s resolve and ruin him forever, haunting every dream and nightmare and waking moment. The words that would echo in his head whenever there was silence. The words he would fall asleep thinking about every night from that day forward.

“I’m afraid I’m leaving you, sir… At eighteen-hundred hours this evening.”

The world stilled. Alex wasn’t sure his heart was beating anymore. The part of their shared soul that was Willie’s was torn away from him. He came up blank.

“So soon?” was what came out of his mouth, weak, desperate, small. He hated himself for it, so tried for light-heartedness and gestured to the shining new gun on Willie’s belt. “That would explain your new service revolver. I don’t suppose they sent one for me, did they?”

“Only for front-line personnel at this stage, sir,” Willie said, a light but forced smile on his face.

“Of course. Yes.”

“It’s North Africa, sir,” Willie said. There was something like hope in his voice – it felt like he was asking Alex not to be too upset. Be proud, he was asking. Be happy. For me. “I’ll be able to have a proper swing at Fritz!”

“You make sure you give them a bloody nose,” Alex joked.

He answered Willie’s silent plea for his blessing, his reassurance, his pride, and he tried hard to be positive. He attempted a half-hearted fake punch, throwing it in Willie’s direction and was delighted when Willie responded (if only subtly) as if he’d been struck. Willie was grinning, looking happy, looking excited. Alex had to try and be excited for him too.

But still he said, “I shall miss you, Willie.”

Willie’s face fell again. Alex half-hoped his meaning hadn’t been easy to decipher. He knew what he meant, he knew why he’d said it, but it was a stupid and dangerous thing to say – a stupid and dangerous thing to hope for. Willie swallowed heavily, his throat bobbing, and Alex couldn’t read his expression. Though he was fairly certain it was something similar to his own.

He had always known that Willie felt it too, this forbidden and electric thing between them, whatever it was. This shared soul that was now breaking in two, never to be repaired, never to be recreated. It was this moment that Alex realised he and Willie could never have what they wanted.

So he backtracked.

“By which I mean, of course, that we shall miss you. And I know the Wilson House XI will certainly miss your cover drive.”

Willie’s smile came back too slowly. Alex knew his lie hadn’t come quick enough. He knew the unspoken words and unwritten messages were still there between them, heavy and quaking and full of fear, sadness, silence, and things neither wanted to put a name too. They danced around it, though they wouldn’t have to for much longer. Just a few more hours and whatever they had would be shredded forever as Willie said goodbye.

“Thank you, sir,” Willie said. “Well… if that’s all?”

Alex collected himself, simply looked at Willie for a moment before making himself reply. “Yes.”

Willie nodded, took it as his cue to leave. He pulled the door open and was on his way out of the room.

There was so much Alex wanted to say, so much he wanted to do. He wanted to spend a hundred more sleepless nights with Willie, working on secret projects and perfecting weapons. He wanted a thousand more late night conversations spoken in metaphors and riddles, deciphering each other, growing closer, learning more about their relationship than was permitted. He wanted a million more moments just to look at Willie’s face, to dream of what he couldn’t have.

All he wanted was to speak this silent truth that hung between them like a noose – damn him if it killed them both.

He called him back. “I say, Willie?”

Willie turned faster than lightning, hand rested on the doorknob but eyes trained on Alex like his face was all he ever wanted to see.

He tried to say all he wanted to, but knew he could never. It appeared he just had time for one last metaphor, a final riddle, one last waltz around their dire and doomed reality.

“It’s a bally shame we won’t get to finish the operation together,” he said.

Judging by the look on Willie’s face, the message was received loud and clear. Willie offered a smile, genuine but bittersweet. And without a word, he left the room.

Alex took the little envelope out of his pocket again, stared down at it. He had wanted to bury Operation William alongside Willie – they had both worked so hard but for nothing and it seemed only right they should rid the world of this failure together. But Alex would have to do it alone.

If only he could write that imaginary letter now, he thought. There was so much he could say, but not enough words in the English language to say it. There weren’t words to describe the abject loss he found himself steeped in, the gaping hole that had opened in his chest, the weeping wound that would never quite heal.

That night, alone, he went into the garden with the blueprints and the prototype bomb and he buried them both. With it, he buried all memory and evidence of himself and Willie, all their hard work, all they had built and experienced together.

He bottled those emotions to never let them out.

*

“He left that night,” Alex said to Julie, “six o’clock on the dot. The rest of our crew saw him off, waving from the doorway, but I stayed in my office. I told them I had paperwork to do.”

“Did you get to say goodbye?” Julie asked.

Alex sighed. “That conversation… well, that was our goodbye. The rest of the house was in chaos so I didn’t have another chance to speak with him alone, everyone needed either my assistance or his.”

Julie’s eyes were brimming with tears; Alex didn’t look at her, or his own eyes would have watered too. “So that was it? That was the last you saw of him?”

“Sort of. I watched him leave from my office window. He… he gave me one last wave from the gate then disappeared, off on his own adventure. Without me.”

“Don’t you wonder what happened to him?” Julie asked, shuffling closer to Alex on the sofa.

“All the time,” Alex breathed. “I looked for his name in every newspaper and every message I received after we lost contact but I never heard of him again.”

“Would you like me to Google him?” Julie suggested. She had explained this whole ‘Googling’ thing to him a while ago and from Alex’s understanding she simply had to type Willie’s name into the little search bar and all his information would come up in an instant. It was quite remarkable, really, and perhaps it would give him that last little bit of closure. And yet…

“No,” he said, “no, thank you, Julie. It’s quite alright. I… I have this version in my head of who he became and I shouldn’t like to spoil it. I shouldn’t like to taint what memory I have left of him, should his life have turned sour.”

Julie smiled softly. “What’s the image in your head like?”

Alex cleared his throat. “Well… I suppose I like to imagine that he was the best soldier out there on the North Africa front. He rose to a position of command – that was where he thrived, really, but good Lord was he good behind a gun. He was well-respected and kind and his men adored him. And I pray that he survived the war, that he made a living for himself, that he got everything he could have ever wanted in life. Really, I suppose… I suppose I just imagine him to be happy. That’s all I could have ever wanted for him. And if I were to find out he were not happy, well… no, I quite like the Willie I remember.”

Julie left a pause before she spoke again. Alex could see the cogs turning in her mind, could see her wondering if she should say whatever was on the tip of her tongue. He knew what was coming the moment she opened her mouth.

“Did you love him, Alex?”

Alex stood, crossed the room and stood by the window. His hands clasped behind his back, swagger stick gripped tightly, he looked outside, eyes trained on the gate. How many times had he stood here during the war and after, waiting for what he had lost to return, hoping in vain that by some miracle he could be granted his happiness? How many times had he wished for what he could not have? How many times had he replayed those final moments in his head, watching Willie wave goodbye?

It happened again as he stood there. It was as if a cloud came over him, throwing him back decades, putting him right back where he started. Willie stood by the gate, thick coat donned, hat atop his head, his bag slung over his shoulder. He waved up at Alex, and Alex smiled back.

“Yes,” he said at last, so quietly that he thought Julie may not have heard him. A great weight was lifted from his shoulders, decades of repression undermined in that one admission of his true feelings. It wasn’t enough – it never would be because he’d never said it to Willie – but acceptance was a start.

Slow as death, Willie – Alex’s version of him – ceased his waving and walked through the gate, disappearing into the darkness to where Alex would never follow. And for the first time after reliving that agonising memory, Alex let himself smile.

[ceescedasticity]

Jin Guangyao’s hoarding problem, version 2, part 2

This isn’t so much “not a fic” as a “tell-don’t-show” fic. Not sure there’s a word for that.

(This next section starts out very dark, but just remember: in a more canon timeline, every one of these add-ins died in agony!)

Tingshan He (per novel canon) is a minor sect; its leader He Su speaks against Jin Guangshan's appointment as Chief Cultivator, and for some reason the appropriate response to this is considered to be arresting the entire sixty- or seventy-person on fabricated charges of conspiring to kill Jin Guangshan and giving them to Xue Yang to be turned into animated corpses. (What the hell.) He Su tries to negotiate for mercy for the elders and children; when none is forthcoming, he calls Jin Guangyao That One Insult, and then Xue Yang cuts his tongue out and throws him in a cage of corpses in front of his screaming family. Jin Guangyao in canon is like "…I'll leave you to it," and goes back to one of his innumerable other tasks. May or may not be the same tongue Xue Yang serves later.

(Also, novel-verse, and I am still not over this, this is before Xue Yang wipes out Yueyang Chang. He's still the person who was willing to kill dozens of people over a finger, but we'll never know if he would have actually done it without this example of 'respond to insult by eradicating sect'. Anyway. This is drama-verse Xue Yang, who found his influences and made his choices a long time ago.)

Here, Jin Guangyao goes to put up some silencing talismans between this outer part of the Dizang and the inner part where his high-value prisoners are. He doesn't want to subject Wen Qing to listening to all that — he might someday, if he needs to prove a point, but that's all the more reason not to do it randomly. Besides, Wei Wuxian can't even sit up but he might still come up with something stupid to do if he heard too much screaming, since apparently he's so very concerned about random collateral damage.

He has a thought. He comes back. He tells Xue Yang to hold off on killing any of them for a bit, he wants to do a finer check.

Jin Guangyao picks out a few members of Tingshan He.

He Lei is a cousin of He Su's, and currently the youngest surviving disciple at ten. Hasn't spoken since her parents died in front of her.

He Jian is her older sister. She is twelve. Has a Jin brand on her cheek; missed her parents' deaths while passed out.

He Zhi is their older brother. He is fourteen. He doesn't have a functional tongue anymore. Was technically present when his parents died, but very distracted; also got his face clawed up a bit.

He Gangfen is in his sixties, and has been responsible for training Tingshan He's beginner disciples almost since there has been a Tingshan He. He sees almost all of them killed horribly before Jin Guangyao makes him an offer.

He can save these last three disciples. All he has to do is — voluntarily — give up his golden core. —And convince Wen Qing to do the surgery.

Wei Wuxian's agreement isn't necessary, obviously.

It's not a pleasant conversation.

He Gangfen is so far past caring about Wens or the Yiling Laozu it doesn't even come up. Wen Qing points out there is absolutely nothing guaranteeing Jin Guangyao will keep the kids alive past the surgery — that "saving" them might even mean killing them quickly. He Gangfen says there's everything guaranteeing they'll die horribly now if he refuses, so please. Please.

Wei Wuxian, who has been staring at the ceiling trying to pretend this conversation isn't happening across the room, has a moment of insight and blurts out his conclusion. There is something — not a guarantee, but there is a benefit for Jin Guangyao in letting the children live.

Because what's he going to do as is, if Wei Wuxian or Wen Qing start outright defying him? Kill them? Oh no. Terrible. Hurt Jiang Yanli and deal with Jiang Cheng's reaction? Maybe threaten to do experiments on Wen Ning oh wait. The children would be accessible, disposable hostages.

Which is better than what He Gangfen was hoping for honestly, that might even be long-term, so please.

Being in this situation with accessible, disposable hostages is not remotely appealing, but. But.

Wei Wuxian tells Wen Qing he won't ask her to do this but if she wants his consent she has it.

The surgery is a success.

(Jin Guangyao is polite enough to remove He Gangfen from Wen Qing's workroom before administering the coup de grace. He Gangfen thanks Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian first.)

The kids… well. Jin Guangyao had more criteria than just age — that was important, but he wouldn't have gone through with the idea if they hadn't met other requirements.

Not too proud to beg.

Not already trying to swear revenge.

Naive enough not to be instantly suspicious when he asked them if they'd like a chance to save their little/big brother/sister. (They don't know about He Gangfen, much less about their broader purpose as hostages. They think he couldn't come up with any easier way of obtaining menial servants for the Dizang.)

Not more scared of Wen Ning than Xue Yang. (You have to be an idiot to be more scared of Wen Ning than Xue Yang, but a number of people still manage it. Shocking.)

It doesn't hurt that the oldest one, the boy, can't talk.

The older two for sure should be able to remember Sunshot, and all of them should know the blood-curdling stories of the Yiling Laozu (they had better, Jin Sect spent money making sure those stories grew), but exposure to Xue Yang makes even that less frightening. They're cautious, and Wen Qing in particular is trying not to let them close, but — connection is happening.

All according to plan.

(There is something Jin Guangyao has not planned for: Do you know who's not very scary at all even without Xue Yang for comparison? Who is also a prisoner of the inner Dizang, inasmuch as he's hardly ever allowed to leave, at least? Who is also doing a lot of menial chores, and who might end up providing guidance for someone else doing them? Who never had much power to act with cruelty or kindess, before, and who's seen a lot more cruelty than kindness, but who lately has spent a lot of time listening to Wen Qing and Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian? Who certainly wouldn't say no to a boy almost his age respecting him and wanting to spend time in his company?)

(Mo Xuanyu, that's who.)

Wei Wuxian meanwhile is experiencing mixed feelings about his new previously-owned golden core. He feels better. He feels much better. He can tell he'll feel better yet when he's healed more, which is happening, now. He also— Well, he's hoping even more that Jiang Cheng never finds out about the transfer, now, and he wouldn't have thought that was possible. It feels less strange and more his every day, but when he thinks about it— Well. It's upsetting.

So he hopes Jiang Cheng never finds out. He hopes Jiang Cheng can forget him, now. Maybe Jiang Cheng can be happy now. He knows that last one's a long shot, but he can hope.

(Jiang Cheng is… well, he'd not worse off than the usual universe, exactly. Jiang Yanli is alive! Just — he had to face her, with everyone saying he's the one who killed Wei Wuxian and he sort of was, and with his having left her lying there when she wasn't actually dead, and she didn't say anything that sounds like a recrimination but what must she be thinking. She must be so disappointed in him, she's just too kind to say anything. And he doesn't have the distraction of obsessing over Jin Ling, since Jin Ling is still with his mother.)

(As for Jiang Yanli… Jin Guangyao is not, in fact, trying to ensure she's seen as fragile and mad with grief, and not taken seriously, and that she's afraid to push back too much because they might take Jin Ling away, or Jiang Cheng might overreach trying to back her up. She's not on Jin Guangyao's agenda at all at the moment. It's just that very few people in Jinlintai have ever taken her very seriously, least of all the Sect Leader, and 'mad with grief' seems like a reasonable explanation for her turning up in Nightless City so most people are believing it with no extra effort necessary, and Madam Jin thinks she's terribly fragile and wants to protect her, and of course Jin Ling's welfare is everyone's highest priority so if it would be better for him to be elsewhere, well, that's an option. And Jiang Cheng would back her up in a heartbeat, of course he would, but Jiang Cheng is… well, Jiang Yanli thinks he's at least as mad with grief as she is, and she's not sure he'd be careful enough, if it came to any kind of confrontation.)

(Jin Guangyao is, really and genuinely, uninvolved with the incident wherein a Jin disciple attempts to treat Jiang Yanli's 'madness' with musical cultivation and succeeds only in causing heart palpitations. Well, he's involved inasmuch as the disciple's musical cultivation was based almost entirely on spying on Jin Guangyao, but he's unaware of that until the situation blows up. Happily everything is blamed on the disciple's lack of skill and hubris for attempting such a delicate feat as musical cultivation with no proper training. Since it's not like even the adulterated music is supposed to cause heart palpitations, it probably was lack of skill. And it's very embarrassing for Madam Jin, who decided to let an amateur try rather than ask Jin Guangyao, who would have been happy to help.)

(The most important consequence of that incident is how the cultivation world spends a while gossiping about the complexity and difficulty and potential dangers of musical cultivation, so a few months later, when Jin Guangyao proposes Nie Huaisang could play a little of the Song of Clarity, and Nie Huaisang says he's flattered by San-ge's confidence but he's much too poor a student for that. The trip to the Blade Hall doesn't go smoothly by any stretch of the imagination, but as many disciples come back as don't and they do get the sealing done, so… as well as could be expected, maybe.)

(It doesn't make much of a difference in the timeline of Nie Mingjue's decline. It makes a bigger difference in Nie Huaisang's emotional stability and interpersonal support network.)

(Back to the Dizang.)

As anticipated, as soon as Wei Wuxian is well enough to move around/work, he's ordered to work on reconstructing the Stygian Tiger Seal. As a safety precaution, any time Wei Wuxian has his hands on the half-Seal, at least one the Hes will be moved to some unknown location — usually He Lei, as He Jian and He Zhi both have enough facial scarring that people would be likely to take note of them, but He Lei doesn't even talk so Jin Guangyao can just leave her with the scullery drudges for a day or so, or even send her to Moling. So, using the half-Seal to immediately blast out isn't an option. Refusing isn't an option.

But that's okay, though. Wei Wuxian has a plan. He is going to reconstruct the Seal — with safety features this time. No one said not to do that. The whole process is so intuitive and hard to pin down not even Xue Yang can really tell what he's doing. And he is still depressed and mad about the whole situation so that shouldn't give anything away.

(Xue Yang suspects he's up to something of the sort… but telling Jin Guangyao would spoil the game. And CQL-verse he doesn't have any pressing revenge to get to at this point; might as well do some fun adversarial collaboration! In between sneaking out and making trouble just to keep anyone from getting complacent.)

Wen Qing doesn't have anything much to do at the moment. She decides to see if she can get Wen Ning a little more movement back in his facial muscles. If he can move all his fingers, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to move his face.

Mo Xuanyu sneaks a bunch of bamboo slips out of the supplies of the disciples guarding the outer Dizang so He Zhi has something to write notes on.

Jin Guangyao is only getting busier, really.

***

(Up next are Nie Mingjue’s last breakdown and JGY’s marriage, but I still can’t decide on the order.)

[lovemxnot]

How to kill a dragon | Lee Minho

Genre: how to train your dragon!au, Vikings!au, enemies to lovers!au

Pairings: Reader X Minho ft. Chan, Changbin, Jisung. (Maybe more)

Warnings: blood and gore, idk they're Vikings what would you expect.

Synopsis: It was your soul's mission to avoid Lee Minho at any cost, but life seemed to have other plans. A plan full of dragons, confusion, lots of tears, Minho, and newly found troubling feelings. 

A/N(edit): the fic is posted.

A while ago, I read this masterpiece by none other than @j-once, and it reminded me of my favorite movie (httyd).I don’t know if she wrote it based on this movie or not, but I thought it would be a fun concept.

Heres a sneak peek ( basically the first part of the story)

I’ve been working on this for some time now, give it some loven’ it’s lonely.

I.

Steam was still rising from your soup bowl, meaning you haven’t been sitting on the polished wooden bench here for that long. But time could not go any slower than a wagon pulled in mud whenever you were in the presence of the almighty Lee’s family.

All they did throughout the whole weekly-dinners you and your father had with them in the great hall was boast and brag about how powerful they are, how many dragons they’ve slain, how much dragon skin they have hung up on their walls as tapestry, and how many teethes they wore around their necks, one from each species they’ve killed, as a reminder to the townspeople of who they were.

They perceived themselves as royalty. No one actually liked them, but everyone bared with their bragging as they played a crucial role in keeping this land safe and in one piece.

Your spoon kept picking at the peas in your soup, glaring at them, hoping if you keep your head down and stare at your soup long enough, you might turn into one eventually and not have to sit through this agonizingly long Rendezvous.

You wished you could skip these dinners, but being the last and only descendant of the villages’ chief put you in a tight spot. The Lee’s were a compelling family, they kept the village safe for innumerable years, forming a long line of dragon slayers. So to refrain from rendering this town to ashes, your father made sure to always be on good terms with them; thus you having to sit next to your father on a weekly basis in the large hall placed up north the island, where the elite lived, and pretend you don't dream about having their heads on sticks.

Appetite nowhere in sight, you abandoned your soup in favor of playing with the mashed potato next to the rib meat dosed in a brown sauce, smashing it even more. The food looked delicious, props to the chef, but you lost your appetite whenever you were within a mile of their existence. Being their neighbor wasn’t that fun either. Not when you inevitably meet at least one of the Lee’s whenever you step a foot out of your house.

You were beginning to believe this dinner might actually end on a peaceful note this time, without food thrown at each other across the table. Until the pretty faced boy seated in front of you opened his mouth.

“Why so quiet, Y/N? Dragon got your tongue?” Lee Minho, the youngest and last of the Lee’s, teased.

Great, now any sign of you having a civil, quiet meal completely perished.

You glared at him, trying to keep composed and not fall into one of his tricks, you replied, “Having to stare at your face all evening makes me want to hurl.” Alright, so much for keeping your composure.

“Aw, I make you that nervous?” He grinned, mischievousness sparkling in his pretty brown eyes— you meant ugly, ugly mud brown eyes.

“Aw, you want me to shove my foot up your ass?” You taunted.

“If that's what you're into,” that made everyone on the table queasy. And made your cheeks burn.

“you're revolting.”

“Come on, princess, I know you like me.”

“ I’d much rather have myself hunted down by a night fury than fraternize with you .” It was infuriating how good looking he and his brothers were.

His oldest brother, the firstborn- Chan, was the only one with a cool-headed mind, he was notoriously known in the village for his strength but he never, not once bragged or acted out as the rest of his younger siblings.

You were even more agitated with the way your heartstrings tugged whenever you set eyes on Minho. But you never liked him. There was no reason behind that, no big fight over who got the last biscuit from the great hall buffets, or quarrels over who-said-what-about-who, and especially no arguments over who was the better Viking because you-along with the whole island- knew that both of you have never killed a dragon.

While 12-year-olds were out there with a dash in their slate, both you and Minho were known for being the most softhearted Vikings this town has seen in decades. It was no victorious title, especially not to Minho, the legacy of the Lee’s must continue on, and you understood how suffocating it must feel to have to bear the weight of the crown he was forced to wear since the day he took his first breath. And it’ll stay on his head till the day he takes his last.

You hated him because he was a stuck up prick that couldn’t stop himself from annoying the living daylights out of you. And as far as you know, he couldn’t stand you either, if the glares he always sent your way weren’t an indication of his hate than you don’t know what it is. But you had no idea why he hated you. You never did anything to him. His hostility originated from the pressure of being the black sheep of the house, but why he chose to take it out on you was a mystery.

“Be careful what you wish for.” Minho had the audacity to smirk, right where you had a steaming hot bowl of soup in your hands reach. Did he not learn from the last time he tried to test you? Was the slimy residue of the goat intestines that left his hair sticky and smelly for a week not enough of a warning of how hands-on you could get? He might need a reminder.

He was right though, Night furies were no joke. They are the most feared type of dragons. It only appears at night, never shows itself. It’s fast, stealthy, and never misses an aim. If it has its eyes on you, then you better pray to Odin to give you the stamina to outrun it to a shelter, because other than that your chances of encountering a night fury and coming out alive are nigh to none.

It’s sporadic to see a night fury, much less kill one. No one knows how it looks like, and no one has ever caught or killed one. The only sign that one has come to hunt you is their screech and their unmistakable blue plasma fireballs that could burn anything to ashes upon contact.

You could say night furies were the most sought after dragon in the Lee’s, they want them as a trophy. If they could get that under their belts, then this town would not hear the end of it with how high their heads would be in the asses, proudly wearing it as a tophat.

While you were busy thinking of your comeback, You heard his parents and your father joking as always, saying how you two bickered like a married couple, and how perfect both of you already played into your foreseeable future marriage.

This was another point that added fuel to your hatred. Your families always talked about how the both of you would eventually come around your little fights and marry each other.

With that said, you still would rather be eaten alive by a dragon than have to face the Lee’s for any second longer.

You opened your mouth to say exactly that, but the perusing pair of eyes that were set on you made you shut up. You turned your gaze from Minho's and caught his older brothers instead.

You’ve always admired Chan, he was calm and collected, unlike his baby brother. Fighting in front of him made you feel immature. You two don’t talk often, but you would have absolutely no problem if he were the one you would be betrothed to. He was a very sensible man.

You dropped your gaze back to your plate, letting go of the issue. Shame draped over your shoulders like a coat, you don't mean to pick fights with Minho, but his constant remarks always hit the nail on the head. He knew how to get on your nerves, and it annoyed you to no end that you give him the power to do so.

“So tomorrow is the big day, yeah?” Minho’s father cut into the pregnant air with his question, gathering everyone’s attention back to him, ignoring you twos previous bickering.

“Yes, the sea has cleared up enough for us to set sail.”

Seeing as it was getting hotter these days, sun heating up your armors, turning them into a portable fireplace, melting your skin. Seas turning back to their natural liquid state, your father and his soldiers were bound to go on to one of their semi-annual sea trips.

It completely slipped your mind. It was always around this time, where the adults of this town sailed out to explore the ambiguous sea, in hopes of finding where all these dragons were nesting, while the younglings stayed back for dragon training.

Dragon training.

You’ve managed to avoid joining training thus far, somehow explaining to your father how important it was for you to learn from the town's seamstress how to sew two pieces of leather skin together. But you had a feeling, not this time.

“ Is Commander Kim still the head trainer for this years dragon training ?” Your father nodded, then said, “ speaking of dragon training, Y/N will be joining this year.”

That was news to you. You knew it was bound to happen, but knowing that he signed you up behind your back without consulting you first still hurt.

“What?!” Your spoon clacked loudly against the plate, gathering everyone's attention.

“You heard me,” He said with finality. “ Minho will be there with you too. One of you might actually kill a dragon this time.” He added humorously, as if that would make either of you feel any better. You would rather jump into an active volcano than have to stand next to one of them.

You saw Minho scowl at the mention of his name while everyone else at the table cackled.

“ I bet Y/N will kill one first.” Changbin, the second oldest son and the older twin of the lee pair, made the frown on Minho's face deepen. You could see he was trying to not burst, his hands curled to a fist, knuckles turning white.

Sympathy washed your disdain away, You always felt sorry for Minho whenever his brothers made fun of him. You were an only child and were handled as a relic, meant to be seen and not touched, behind compacted glass. You've never lived a life of sibling rivalry, it wasn't that you envied people with siblings but the thought of having someone to throw the blame on when you tear one of your father's maps seemed pleasant. You always thought blood is thicker than water but witnessing firsthand the unfortunate bulling of lee Minho made you think otherwise.  

“ what’s she going to kill it with? Her crossbow?” The younger twin, Jisung, Snorted. You ignored him, both pairs of the twins were nutheads. Albeit good looking nutheads.

“But dad,” you tried to bring the conversation back onto you, letting Minho breath for a second, not that you cared about him, but because you would hate it if you were in his place “the seamstress finally managed to get velvet, she’s going to show me—“

“No more excuses!! this time you're going!” He slammed his fist into the table. He looked mad, you didn’t know the town folks shit-talking about his daughter being too weak to inherit this town bothered him that much. He must have reached his limit for him to slip and yell at his kin in front of other people. “ how can I pass this village down to you if you can’t even face a training dragon?!”

Ouch. That stung. It wasn’t like you wanted to become the next chief, you wanted to explore the world beyond your tiny island, study the plants and animals, experience life in general. But you were tied down by duties and responsibilities.

You were startled into tears, you’ve never felt this humiliated before. Getting yelled at in front of your archnemesis made tears threaten to fall from your eyes. Now you wished you had stared at your soup harder.

Picking up your crossbow from beside your leg, you stood up abruptly, your soup could not rival the heat that was pooling in your cheeks, eyes glassy, lips pressed to a tight line. “I'll take my leave.” you rushed outside, ignoring your father's calls. Missing the solicitous stare that followed your figure out, his fists unclenching.

Continue.

[ginfest]

My little post-686 fic ~900 words, and (despite being a little late) for Day 27: Song Lyrics of IchiRuki Month 2019 :)

slow dancing in the dark

(song artist: Joji)

—

Memories glisten around Ichigo like fireflies

He’s alone, again.

When I'm around slow dancing in the dark

The memories are family. His mom. His wife. But they’re lost to haze almost as fast as they show up.

There’s one woman who shows up clearly and unwaveringly, her image glowing and burning Ichigo’s soul, a pain arising that he’s all too familiar with.

Don't follow me, you'll end up in my arms

His heart is heavy and his throat stings in pain. He’d spent innumerable years trying to put the affairs of that night from his mind.

He’s forced once more to watch Kuchiki Rukia walk away from him upon his own request, every molecule of his body begging her to turn around and look at him one last time. It doesn’t happen, like it hadn’t happened before.

You have made up your mind

I don't need no more signs

Her silhouette was all he saw beneath the light of the moon. How many times had he seen her near the moon? How many times had he seen the vibrant yellow and red of Karakura sunsets, or the blue of soul society skies in her eyes, in her hair?

Had he ever really known her? The thought seeped in like blood, thick and inescapable, as his eyes lay upon her from a distance, happy.

Away from him.

Can you?

Give me reasons we should be complete

It felt bittersweet, to rewatch their lives. Her small arms wrapped around his chest, his heart directing his arms to never let go. He did eventually, and for that he would repent for eternity.

It hadn’t mattered how many times they kissed, how many times they loved in stolen glances and brief hand brushes.

The pain had grown too distant for them; Ichigo and Rukia were built on pain and loneliness. It was abhorrent to their nature to grow soft, an inalienable side effect of their togetherness.

You should be with him, I can't compete

You looked at me like I was someone else, oh well

Years passed, and it took merely brute force to shove his pain into some hidden corner of his conscience. Rukia was only a friend. Only an acquaintance. He didn’t think about her every day, every month, or every year. Thinking brought memories, which he had tried so desperately to erase. He was Ichigo Kurosaki, and he could not be weak.

His red-haired bride was a distraction. Inoue was kind and cared for him. Rukia did not. Renji was was Rukia’s soulmate, of course, and a much more suitable husband.

So why couldn’t he love his wife the way he had loved the only thing he had ever considered impossible?

Can't you see?

I don't wanna slow dance

In the dark

Dark

When Rukia and her new family, the ones she truly desired, came to visit, Ichigo was cordially polite. Gave a nice smile, greeted them at the door, asked the proper questions.

He had been impaled many times. If he spent even a second looking at her, it would be his fatal blow.

She still looked at him though, and he could not return her gaze in fear that it would slap him back into the loophole of his sinking soul that he had tried so, so hard to ignore. That he had spent eternities flailing his arms miserably, trying not to drown. For his wife, for his son. For what little pride he had left.

I don't wanna go home

Can it be one night?

Can you?

Can you?

Give me reasons we should be complete

He gave in one night, and it was disappointing to him how it only took her hand on his shoulder to sent him plummeting in his memories, in his sorrows, in his regrets.

The children weren’t home. Renji and Inoue weren’t home. Sunlight streamed through the windows in the kitchen, where Ichigo stood, cutting vegetables for dinner. The digital clock on the oven read 16:57. He could have sworn it hadn’t changed for hours, time frozen in place.

The false air of peace dissipated, a side effect of his self-made distance vanishing.

He had turned around, grabbed her wrist. His mind was lost, something Rukia had realized as he pressed her against his granite counters.

You looked at me like I was someone else, oh well

The memory seemed to burn a hole in his soul. Her violet eyes screamed everything but fear or anger or disgust.

Her lips struck his first, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck like they had hundreds of times before. She felt like cold water, like electricity, like fire and ice, like release.

His first gasp of air after being pulled out of his prison of blood.

Can't you see?

I don't wanna slow dance

In the dark

Dark

The kiss was one of many to follow, a fervent attempt to make up for their separation. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and her face buried in his shoulders as he carried her up the stairs swiftly and pressed her into the bed he shared with his wife.

Their impulsive outburst of physical affection meant all too much. Neither of them said a single word. It was too quick and too much the release they had been desiring.

Inoue and Renji returned, cheery kids alongside, genuine smiles plastered on all of their faces. Ichigo and Rukia didn’t look at each other. Didn’t say anything to each other.

In the dark

Dark

[discomfort-food]

Terrible, Beautiful, Maddening (a Hegeleth fic) 1/?

Summary:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” ― H.P. Lovecraft

The second oldest is love.

Canon-divergent at the end of Azure Moon.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Out of Enbarr

A rosy hue was just barely lighting the eastern sky when the mercenary left Enbarr, looking for answers to questions she did not yet know how to ask. 

The former capital of the Empire may have been under occupation by Kingdom troops, but for the common folk, life must continue as usual. The street vendors’ food tasted the same whether the shade of a red or a blue banner fell across their stalls. Kingdom horses left the same droppings on the cobblestones as imperial steeds, and they all went into the same street cleaner’s cart at the end of the day.

She clung to the edges of the streets, ducking her hooded head further down and slinking into the shadows when a patrolling guard came into view. If stopped, a quick reveal of her signature green hair would have sufficed to allow her to continue on her way unimpeded, but that would take precious time from her journey away from the city, and leave unwanted gossip that Seteth would no doubt have to clean up.

A pang of guilt threaded through her chest when she thought of Seteth. He had been shouldering the majority of the duties that came with leading the Church; although it was Rhea’s wish that she replace her as Archbishop when the time came, she knew very little of the actual tenets of the faith due to her isolated upbringing. Not that Seteth ever complained, of course. He was the type of person that thrived on being busy and having innumerable responsibilities, though he would be hard-pressed to admit it. 

Technically, she wasn’t even officially the Archbishop yet. Rhea had been found, deep in the dungeons underneath the palace, weak and in no shape to lead the Church. Plans to officially hand over the reins had already been put in motion; once Rhea had recuperated enough to be seen in public and crown the new King of Fodlan, the heavy mantle of the church would be laid upon her shoulders.

--

“Seteth. May I ask you a favor?” The question lies strangely in her mouth. She is not usually one to ask for favors.

“What is it, my friend? You know I will do my best to accommodate.”

Hesitation. “I need… I need some space.”

He frowns, not understanding. “Space? We do all need quiet moments to ourselves from time to time. I have found the palace gardens to be particularly peaceful when I am in need of respite.”

A sigh. “No, that’s not it. I need to leave. I need time to… process. By myself.”

“Leave? To where? For how long?” She winces at the slight tone of panic in his voice.

“I don’t know where, really. Anywhere where people don’t call me ‘Professor’ or ‘my lady,’ I suppose.” She hesitantly meets his eyes. “And it wouldn’t be for five years again. I can promise you that. Two or three months at most. Before winter arrives.”

He puts his forehead in his hand and exhales. “I understand the war has been hard, Byleth.” He is one of the few people who actually do address her by her name. “You, perhaps most of all, have been shouldering the greatest burden of all of us, between commanding the army and acting as a figurehead for the church. I sincerely apologize if your personal needs have gone unnoticed during this process, and I cannot stop you from taking a period of time to yourself. However, I would be remiss if I did not ask you to reconsider. There is still so much work to be done to repair relations between the Kingdom and former imperial lands. Not to mention it would be devastating to the church if anything were to befoul you and we had no way of knowing.”

“I understand your position, Seteth. And please know that I take no pleasure in adding to your responsibilities. But there is… something I need to do.”

He contemplated her words. Softly, “I don’t suppose this something has anything to do with the recent reports of mutilated livestock being reported from rural territories.”

She remained silent.

A defeated sigh. “Very well. You have earned my trust twice over, and I know once you set your mind on something, the goddess herself cannot sway your decision. I only ask that you refrain from leaving any… mess… that would have to be cleaned up.”

A nod. “Thank you, Seteth.”

--

The rosy hue in the sky had evolved into a full palette of warm colors by the time she reached the city gate. Most traffic at this hour was entering the city: farmers bringing cattle in to be sold at the butcher, merchants pushing carts of their wares to be sold in the marketplace. A handful of guards, clad in recently issued blue tabards, were busy inspecting carts as they entered the city. Accounting for persons exiting the city was not a priority, and a lone person travelling on foot would have no cause to be questioned. Dodging a pair of children, clearly excited to spend a day in the capital, and slipping through the narrow space between a carriage and the stone archway of the gate, Byleth stepped beyond the walls that she never wanted to be enclosed within again.

Ragged, unplanned settlements where the poorest lived spread out a mile or so from the gate. Most people living here worked in the city but were unable to afford property and safety within Enbarr proper. Life woke up early here, already she could see women hanging up the day’s laundry, men slurping down a lean breakfast before beginning their day of work.

A mangy dog chewing on a scrap of cloth thumped his tail at Byleth as she walked by. Dust kicked up under her feet and hung heavily in the air, painting her boots the color of a rusted sword. She knew the ground wouldn’t have to wait long for its thirst to be quenched, however; the angry red sky was a sign that late summer showers were soon to follow.

The patched and weary shacks gave way to fields of crops, or what was left of them. What hadn’t been harvested prematurely to feed increasingly desperate imperial troops had been trampled or burned by the zealous kingdom army on their march to Enbarr. Despite the destruction, Byleth could see farmers dotting the landscape, tilling the fields, guiding work horses, clearing destroyed vegetation. It would be a meagre winter in the south; efforts had been put underway to ration what remained of imperial food stores but it was a raw fact that many throughout Fodlan would not live to see the spring.

Byleth followed the road, rutted from centuries of use, as it lazily curved northward. She walked at a steady pace; she had a general destination in mind, but for once in many moons there was no imminent need to reach a particular location. She travelled light: a basic pack that carried survival necessities, and a humble sword on her belt, much like the blade she once wielded as a mercenary. The Sword of the Creator had been left in Seteth’s care. The attention that weapon would bring would certainly outweigh its usefulness, and she had a feeling she would not have need of its power for a long time.

--

“So… That grotesque creature was Edelgard…”

They stand just inside the palace throne room. She can see Dimitri’s in rough shape but he hides it well. Most people wouldn’t notice the way he favors his left side, the slight tremble in his grip on Areadbhar. She is not most people. If their comrades had been as perceptive as she, they probably would have not let only the two of them enter the throne room alone. As it is, they are busy holding off reinforcements coming from upstairs, downstairs, and several hidden passages no doubt designed to make the palace difficult to secure to those unfamiliar with it.

Despite her position, Edelgard has surprisingly little defences in her throneroom. That is, if the nightmarish figure standing, no- hovering just in front of the Adrestian throne could still be called Edelgard. If it were not for the golden horns atop her stark white hair, she would be unrecognizable as the student she taught years ago at Garreg Mach.

A twisted snarl echoes through the chamber: “These fools are caught up in the sacrifices at hand and cannot see the future ramifications at stake… We must bury them.” Each word is inhuman, a mangled echo of the calm, evaluating girl she once rewound time itself to save.

“We must trample the past underfoot, and move onward to a brighter tomorrow!” The words are forceful but ultimately hollow; it is but the snarl of a cornered and desperate animal. 

Nevertheless, her words have their desired effect on the remaining guards in the room, who begin to advance toward the intruders.

--

Just as she had predicted, by early afternoon the sky had opened to a downpour. Byleth trudged along, avoiding the muddiest bits of the road. Before leaving Enbarr, she had traded her signature fishnet stockings and coat for trousers and a hooded cloak that had been treated to resist water. Even so, a damp chill crept its way through her body. She stuck her hands in her armpits as she walked to keep them warm. 

The wet squelch of hooves in mud steadily came from behind her, slowing as they neared. A soft “Whoa, there!” and the snorting of horses followed as a cart pulled alongside her. Keeping a hand on her blade underneath her cloak, she turned her body to allow the cart to pass.

Instead of continuing, however, the cart creaked to a halt. The driver, a heavyset, bearded man, pulled up his hood, blinking rain out of his eyes. “Hello there, friend! Not great weather to be taking a walk in, is it? Hop in and we’ll give you a lift to Belfort.” He jerked his head to the back of the open cart, where a handful of drenched fieldhands sat. “‘Fraid it’s not much shelter from the rain, but it’ll save your feet some work, eh?”

Byleth nodded and let out a brief “Thank you,” before climbing into the back of the cart, where the others shuffled to make room. A few peered at her curiously when the hilt of her sword came into view.

“You a mercenary or somethin’?” A young woman with a dark braid sat on the bench across from her. Her face was lined beyond her years, a sign of a life of hard work outdoors. 

“I am.”

“Don’t see many of you guys outside of a company anymore, most I figure banded together to join the war.”

“I used to be in a company, but…” Byleth trailed off, leaving the woman to draw her own conclusions. It wasn’t exactly a lie anyway.

“Yeah, yeah, I get ya’. Well, we all do what we can to survive. Looks like the goddess was looking out for you.” 

The corner of Byleth’s mouth quirked up at the mention of the goddess but she did not reply.

“So where’re you headed now? I hear there’s a need for blades up north in the old Alliance.”

Byleth blinked and contemplated for a moment. “North,” she confirmed. “I’m tracking… someone.” 

She perked up at this; Byleth realized this was probably the most interesting interaction the woman had had all day.

“Oh, hunting for a bounty, eh? Tell me what they look like, maybe I’ve seen them. A lot of people pass through on the way out of the capital, you know.”

Byleth shook her head slowly. “They didn’t.”

The woman rolled her eyes, but a sly smirk graced her face. “All right, all right, keep your secrets. My ma always did say I ask too many questions for my own good.” She slumped back against the rail of the cart, toying with her braid. Her hair was a similar shade to what Byleth used to see in the mirror herself.

Byleth raised her eyes to the sky. The rain didn’t look to be letting up any time soon. “How far is it to, um...” 

“Belfort. About thirty minutes at the rate we’re goin’. Normally, most travellers from the capital push on a few hours more to Willsfeldt, but I reckon this,” she gestured towards the heavens, “is going to last into the night...” The woman chattered on amicably, Byleth nodding along but only half listening. The names of towns, cities, rivers, entered and left Byleth’s mind like dry leaves. She had never had to worry about the specifics of location names or borders when she was a mercenary. Even the odd times a job separated her from Jeralt, she would have no trouble navigating using landmarks and the stars. 

“... anyway if you’re looking for a place to stay for the night, my uncle’s inn is your best, well, only option.” The woman stopped talking, drawing Byleth’s attention away from her thoughts.

“Yes. That will be fine.” Byleth pulled her hood further down over her eyes in an attempt to signal that she was no longer interested in conversation.

Another grin. “Woman of few words, eh? Don’t worry, I can take a hint. I’ll buy you a pint at the inn to make up for talkin’ your ear off.” She chuckled and closed her eyes, not seeming to mind the rain in the least.

They continued the rest of the way in soggy silence.

[reifromrfa]

Threads of Thoughts | Juminzine Fic

Hi guys! Here’s my fic for the @juminfanzine! :)

This is a bit different from my other pieces, but I really hope you like it <3 I love Jumin and it was so much fun to try and write from his perspective ^^ Thank you to everyone who supported the zine! 

Also, thank you to my amazing collab partner, Franjipantree (follow her on twitter!) <3 

Enjoy! :D

Heir Exclusive is privileged to get a sneak peek into the thoughts of Korea’s wealthiest man, Jumin Han. The following is an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Threads of Thoughts, capturing the innermost thoughts of C&R’s CEO regarding the various kidnapping attempts throughout his life. His book will be available early next year in bookstores internationally.

1st of September, 2018 | 01:42am

I have always been different. Born into wealth, my experiences differ from the normal South Korean citizen. I do not drive…I have chauffeurs. My meals are planned for me by a professional nutritionist, my physical health overseen by a personal trainer. At a young age, I have been taught how to run a business, given advanced lessons…I have been placed on a luxury jet, while other children share a bus or take the public transport.

We never choose the families we are born into. As children, we simply do what we are told, accept the cards we have been dealt; it is up to us to decide whether it will be a winning hand or not. I, of course, knew at a young age that I would inherit my father’s massive business empire —as Chairman Han’s sole heir, who else would he trust to run his company? I had been dealt a winning hand, but that did not mean I was going to relax; no, I intended to use my cards to my advantage and further increase their value.

There are those who cannot comprehend that the fortune my father amassed was gained through hard work…a sincere dedication to his business. There are those who take one look and classify my family and I as aristocratic snobs…as people who live off of their fortune, spending days languidly beside luxury pools or sophisticated parties. I do not feel the need to defend myself against such false accusations. C&R stands tall and firm because of the foundations my father erected, and as his heir, I plan to continue his legacy.

Unfortunately, the world is rife with greed. People will do anything for an easy way out...A shortcut to wealth, to a better life. This journal is where I am able to freely express my unfiltered thoughts. What I wish to talk about tonight is not about our family business…nor is it about my father. No…I wish to talk about the people who allow their greed to consume them, enough so they dare to commit atrocious crimes.

Such as kidnap.

I remember when I was a young boy…I did not question the team of elite bodyguards who accompanied me everywhere I went. I knew my status made me an easy target: sole heir of C&R, a mere child with no means to defend himself. I was already wary of people; who wouldn’t be, with my father’s endless parade of women? And having my father tell me of the threats to my life…of course I trusted him. He is my father, who else would care about my safety more than him?

Indeed, he was right about the dangers that lurk outside the walls of our estate. The first time someone ever attempted to kidnap me…yes, I still remember it vividly.

Class had just ended. I was safely in our car, seatbelt securely fastened when several black vans blocked our path and men with guns exited the vehicle. The other car with my backup bodyguards was nowhere to be seen. The guards with me immediately drew their own guns as we were surrounded by the strangers in masks. I watched the men shoot at our bulletproof windshield, try to pry open the doors with crowbars, yell out threats and demands from outside.

My father warned me about such situations. He said I should remain calm and think rationally, putting my safety above everything else. Showing fear would only give them more power, more leverage. I knew my father loved me —he still does. He would never give me false advice. Therefore I remained calm. Composed. Not showing a trace of fear to the barbaric kidnappers outside the vehicle. With the heavily tinted windows, I doubt they were able to see me anyway.

It was over before it even began. One minute, the men were threatening us while shooting at our car, the next, my bodyguards from the other vehicle came and shot their leader, bringing the other kidnappers to their knees. I still recall the bodyguards exiting the car, leaving me sitting in the back while they rounded up the kidnappers and surveyed the area. Only Driver Kim remained with me, offering a kind, reassuring smile.

My close encounter with the kidnappers was all over the news that evening. My father shielded me from the rabid reporters and hungry journalists, desperate for the drama a ‘traumatized rich boy' such as myself would offer. Yes, it was quite a shocking experience…but I would not go as far as to calling myself ‘traumatized’. Worried, my father had me examined by various health professionals, checking my physical and mental health with regards to the event…I was fine. I did not want to cause a fuss, and I was safely in the car when everything was happening. My father did not have to worry about me. I didn’t know it then, but that experience would be one of the many kidnapping attempts throughout my life. 

To be honest, I do think these experiences have affected me subconsciously. At a young age, I have learned that humans are fragile creatures…easily broken. Humans are greedy and cannot be trusted. There are lengths to which some people would go, for money.

As an adult, I am very much aware of my status and the people who relentlessly chase me for my wealth. That is why I have hired the top men who would ensure my safety and my loved ones’ security. It has made me wary and indifferent to most people.

But she…she is different. My beloved MC…my precious wife. She has brought immense joy to my life, and to be honest, I am able to breathe easier when she is with me. The threads…she untangles them for me, loosens their hold on me.

She is my life.

And it terrifies me.

I know how easy it is for things to change…how easy it is to manipulate the thread of life. Just one snip…and a life is over. It is ironic that one such as I, a man with wealth and power, can have so much to fear.

But no amount of money in the world can ever bring back those we have lost…and I came very close to losing her today. Gone are the days that kidnappers targeted me. No…they know my weakness now. They know I would do anything for my wife. If it were me they took, I would never give the kidnappers anything. Therefore, they grew bold and tried to kidnap my wife.

Earlier this afternoon, MC had insisted to go out with Assistant Kang, to do some last minute preparations for the RFA party. When several men entered the store they were browsing in, the bodyguards contacted me immediately and I rushed to the scene. I called her, of course. I wanted to hear for myself that she was safe, she was unharmed. I shudder when I remember her anxious voice…

“My love, I see the men, they are already in the store and they are coming closer…Do not worry, Jumin, the bodyguards have spotted the—ah, please sir, don’t touch me!”

They dared to touch her…my precious wife. I grew so agitated and restless, I wanted nothing more than to be beside her and introduce the stranger to my fist. God...I will make sure they know what a grave mistake they have made. Thankfully, Assistant Kang is knowledgeable in judo —she was able to defend herself and MC from the men before my men took the kidnappers away.

However, the fact still remains…I could have lost her today. Had it been a different friend with her…or had they pulled out a weapon…God forbid.

Sometimes…Sometimes I wish I could keep her locked up in the penthouse. It is the one place that is heavily guarded, extremely difficult to reach…a safe haven. She would be safe at home.

…yes, I do understand it sounds like I am…unhinged. Rest assured, I am perfectly fine. I simply prefer exercising control over matters. When she is out there…though she is protected…there are other variables I cannot control, cannot foresee. There are innumerable dangers the world poses to my beloved wife. She has become a valuable asset, because she is the queen to whom the king would willingly sacrifice himself for.

She is my everything.

One word from her lips and I am unraveled, I am bested. I am willing to do anything for her. Today, I learned what true fear was. Today, I felt like a boy once more…powerless. Trapped inside a vehicle, waiting for news…good or bad, I have no control. Today, I clasp her thread tighter in my hands…for I do not want to lose her. I can’t. She does not know how much she means to me. And I do not dare to keep her locked up inside a cage…though I desire it, her happiness is also my priority. I want to see her smiling, her radiant glow driving out the hollow emptiness in my soul.

Earlier this evening, I held her close to me, my fingers stroking her hair, wet from her bath. MC was clearly a bit shaken, and I sought to soothe her nerves, reassure her that she was safe. I pressed my lips to her head and spoke to her…

“You are home, my love. Nothing will hurt you here…you are safe.”

“Yes…I know that, Jumin. But I still got scared. If they had gotten me…they would have used me against you. And I never want anybody to use me to blackmail you, Jumin.”

Imagine my shock…my wife still thought of my well-being despite being put at risk. But none of that mattered.

“MC, you are the most precious person in the world to me. Please, I ask you to put yourself above anybody else, even me. Your safety and happiness always come first.”

“No…Jumin, you are my husband. To love and to cherish…I made that vow to you. I don’t care what happens to me…if you are well, if you are safe and happy then I am happy.”

I pull her closer to me then, burying my face in her hair.

“I do not deserve such a wonderful person like yourself, my love…But know that I am never letting you go. I love you, MC. I love you.”

And I meant every word.

A million thoughts ran through my mind as I rushed to her earlier…different outcomes, possible scenarios. I thank God that she came out of it unscathed, unharmed. However, fear remains gnawing at the corners of my mind and my heart. What if someone attempts to take her away from me again…?

No. I must study her security detail once more. In the morning, I will have her bodyguards re-evaluated; perhaps I should add more men to guard her.

Ah…my wife calls for me. It seems as though my thoughts have consumed me, I have lost track of time. It has gotten quite late and I want to be with her…to hold her close and cherish her. Rea her she is safe, and I will never let anything bad happen to her.

Because she is my love...my life.

My MC.

Until then, my old friend.

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[the-pontiac-bandit]

all the way home i’ll be warm

so, thanks to @jakelovesamy for the prompt, and to her and @elsaclack for all of the help!! i’m only including the prompt because it seems important that y’all all know that this started as a creepy cabin drabble. (title is from “let it snow” bc yes i Obviously wrote a christmas fic in mid-june) 

99. “We’re in an abandoned lodge in the middle of nowhere. Sure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

Jake Peralta has never enjoyed the outdoors. Sure, that one Cub Scouts camping trip in first grade was pretty fun, but that was mostly because his dad was Assistant Scoutmaster that year, and Jake got to stay up until the sun started to rise, making s’mores with Charlie Daniels and his brother. Adult Jake Peralta prefers snow plows, massage chairs, modern insulation, and easy-access delivery food.

Which makes the fact that he agreed to spend Christmas in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York with his new wife’s family a remarkable testament to just how much he loves said new wife.

Of course, the Santiagos are a remarkably awesome bunch of people. Victor warmed up to him - finally - when Jake told the Santiagos about his intentions to marry Amy. He showed them the ring, and Victor decided that anyone who had managed to save up that much money with a credit score below 200 was plenty tenacious enough to be a Santiago. Her brothers, meanwhile, had warmed to him as soon as they learned how much he loved basketball and good cop movies (Luis once told him that there were so many Santiago brothers it wasn’t even that noticeable when they picked up a few extra along the way. Jake had never felt more thrilled to be so entirely a part of something).

Even with all that awesome, being snowed in with all of the Santiagos in an eight-bedroom “cabin” (it’s definitely way too large for that title, and yet still somehow too small for all seven brothers, their spouses, and the kids) for four days over Christmas was not his idea of a dream vacation. Jake has no idea exactly how many nieces and nephews he now has, but he knows that there are at least twenty children that made it to the cabin ranging from scarily-new infants to surly teenagers, and they all call him Tio Jake with an excitement that warms his heart.

That many kids with that few bedrooms, though, means that someone is always sleeping somewhere strange. Usually on the floor. Definitely at a weird time of day. And Jake definitely almost steps on them on his way to the kitchen for more Cheetos (Manny brought a seemingly endless supply - he keeps pulling more from his car every time the boys finish a bag. Jake is eternally grateful).

Amy always seems to know who’s sleeping where (she also knows all of their names, of course, because she’s a perfect aunt who filled up their entire trunk with personalized gifts for each child and all her brothers, leaving Jake with a much better understanding of why they couldn’t afford Paris).

There is a constant hum of noise in the cabin. On the first day, which Jake obnoxiously calls Christmas Eve-Eve to anyone who will listen, everyone is in and out - exploring the nearby town, enjoying the fresh air, playing games of soccer on frozen ground that gives Jake a bruise on his hip when he tries to bicycle kick for the winning point. All in all, a great first day.

Then, that night, the snow starts to fall. At first, it’s some flurries. Just enough snow to be romantic - when it falls, it’s light and fresh, and Jake’s been to the country before, but just rarely enough that seeing fresh, fluffy snow surrounding him is a novelty. The Santiagos, who grew up with a huge backyard and spent their winters rolling around in snow that no dogs had peed in, were less impressed, and thought he was insane for wanting to spend that much time in the woods in the snow at night.

But then Amy walked outside with Jake in her heaviest parka, and they stood together and watched it fall, illuminated by the faded light coming out of the cabin, where the Santiagos were playing the largest game of Apples to Apples he’d ever seen. Everything was perfect, and just a little bit magical, and when he leaned down to kiss her, he could see the snowflakes that had settled on her eyelashes.

Jake is thoroughly enjoying the feel of her lips against his, even if that’s the only skin-to-skin contact available with all the layers, even though the pom pom on top of his hat is slowly pulling the entire garment forward to cover his eyes, but it ends when Amy decides her hands are freezing - even in their wool mittens - and tells him very pointedly that if he likes what her hands were going to do later, he’d best go inside and save them from frostbite. After that, he moves very quickly back towards the fire the Santiagos lit in the living room (carefully guarded by the oldest cousin, college freshman Anna, to prevent any accidental burns to the five year-old twins racing past).

Everything is perfect until the next morning, Christmas Eve, when he wakes up to nearly two feet of snow on the ground outside. Of course nothing is plowed and of course their cars are buried and of course there are somehow now nearly forty people stuck in what used to feel like a very large “cabin” and Jake’s thinking everyone should have just gotten hotel rooms in the city instead, no matter how pretty the untouched snow is.

Jake and Amy are up ridiculously early, thanks to the wails of the baby that radiate from the room they share walls with. Jake gently pushes Amy back to sleep when she starts to get up to go take care of her niece - she never lets herself sleep, and she’s been absolutely exhausted lately. She deserves this.

So Jake finds himself in the kitchen with Luis, Manny, and Joel, sitting in flannel pajama pants and overlarge matching t-shirts (Joel designed Family Reunion 2018 shirts. Jake never wants to take his off). Children are playing quietly around him - all of them are aware that moms, dads, and older siblings are trying to sleep, and they’re Santiagos, so of course they’re complying. Jake’s enjoying his Frosted Flakes (also courtesy of Manny), and reveling in the early morning quiet (at least, compared to Santiagos at full volume), compounded by the thick coat of snow on the ground outside.

It’s Luis who breaks the comfortable silence, clearing his throat and shifting in his seat. His daughter Lucia, just barely three months old, is cradled in his arm, and he’s clutching a steaming cup of black coffee for dear life with the other hand.

“Man, thank God she fell back asleep. Sometimes she just won’t stop crying in the mornings, and I can’t exactly take her outside in this weather. Would’ve been a fun wakeup call for everyone.”

Joel shoots a pointed look at his little brother, just fourteen months older than Amy. “But it’s so worth it. I remember when the twins were that little - a handful, but the best gift I could have asked for.” His gaze rests squarely on Jake, looking inquisitive, and Jake squirms a little bit under the intense stare.

Manny jumps in shockingly quickly to support his brother. “Yeah, Sarah and I only got married a year ago, but we’re already talking about it - we just can’t wait to have some of our own. What about you, Jake? Any kids in your future?”

Jake laughs a little, feeling a bit uncomfortable but brushing it off - brothers must talk like this all the time. “Oh, I’d say they’re definitely somewhere down the line, but definitely not anytime soon. There’s a life calendar hanging above our bed that says no kids until Amy’s a lieutenant, at least.”

Luis starts to laugh, but he’s quickly silenced by Joel, nearly thirteen years his senior, elbowing him in the side. He swallows his giggles, looking furtively at Jake, but their new brother-in-law hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.

They talk about their kids for a while, and Jake explains the elaborate color-coding system that Amy devised to pack for this four-day vacation. Then the boys give Jake, whose past experience with Christmas has been iffy and mostly related to Santa Claus, the lowdown on the innumerable Santiago family Christmas traditions.

The calm lasts until nearly 7:30, when Isabel Santiago emerges from the master bedroom, Victor looking a little sheepish at her heels. Jake had quickly learned at his first family event with the Santiagos that for all his commanding presence, Victor Santiago is constantly a little cowed and a little quiet when his wife is around. Isabel is furious that anyone let her sleep this late when there are grandbabies to feed and snowball fights to be had and children to catch up with. Jake quickly vacates the kitchen, knowing full well that any cooking done in his presence will quickly devolve into spilled batter and (somehow inevitably) explosions.

Back in his room, he decides to brush his teeth and hair and make some pretense to his new family that he’s less messy than this. His toiletries are stored carefully in the bathroom, in a nice case Amy got him to replace the messy gallon-Ziploc that never quite dried that he previously relied on. Everything is perfectly packed, and he knows exactly where it is. But when he tries the door, it’s locked.

“Amy,” he calls softly, not wanting her brothers to hear them through the frustratingly thin walls (seriously, how did Amy do this for eighteen years?).

“Jake? What do you need?” Amy’s voice is terse, barely audible. The shower isn’t running, so Jake decides she must be using the bathroom. He tries the handle again, wondering if it was just stuck, but nope - still locked.

Amy’s voice comes through the door again. “Can it wait, babe?”

He sighs. “Yeah.”

Then two minutes pass. Then three. The toilet never flushes, and he can smell French toast being fried in the kitchen all the way from their tiny bedroom in the back.

“Babe? I just need my toothbrush.”

“Just two more minutes, Jake. Please.” Her voice is tense, stressed, and a little hoarse, and he’s not entirely sure why.

“This is taking forever,” he whines. Then, a pause. “Babe, are you,” he brings his voice down to a whisper, “pooping?”

There’s a cough, then few seconds of silence from inside the bathroom. Then, a relieved sigh. “Yes, Jake. I’m pooping.”

“Amy, I’ve seen you poop before. Let me in.”

“How on earth am I going to do that?”

“Right.”

And he waits patiently until - finally - he hears a toilet flush, and she lets him in. The bathroom smells a little musty, reminding him somehow of their bathroom the week they both had the stomach flu. Her face is a flushed, and her eyes are a bit wild, darting around the way that they do when she’s stressed or anxious. Before he has time to question it or make sure she’s okay, though, he hears Manny call from just inside the door to their room that breakfast is ready and everyone else is eating. Amy replies that they’re coming, so Jake pours some toothpaste in his mouth, swallows quickly, and follows his wife (he’ll never get tired of thinking that) out the door.

All of the Santiagos are gathered around every flat surface in the living area of the cabin, each with a steaming pile of French toast, bacon, and strawberries. All of the weirdness of this morning is forgotten as he plops on the couch next to Luis with his own plate, leaving a corner of the couch for Amy. The pair immediately start discussing the Knicks’ playoff prospects with a few Santiago nephews sitting on the floor nearby (Jake’s pretty sure their names are Robert and Matty, but he can't be entirely sure. Everyone looks alike - those Santiago genes are strong.)

He’s so busy trying to convince his new family that the Knicks will win tomorrow by a full 70 points that he doesn't notice that Amy spends most of the meal taking deep breaths and leaves her French toast, her favorite breakfast, almost entirely untouched.

As soon as the conversation lulls, the sound in the room transitioning from lively conversation to quiet groans of sated contentment, Amy jumps up to start collecting plates. Her mother quickly follows, as she always does. They wave off all help (although not much is offered - everyone is far too full to move) from brothers and spouses, and even from Jake, and mother and daughter bustle off to the kitchen together.

Moms and dads, startled by the sudden lack of a syrup-covered plate in their lap, jolt to alertness, rushing to scrub powdered sugar, syrup, and orange juice off the faces of their children before they can ruin the furniture in the rented cabin. In the midst of the sudden reinstatement of chaos, Joel’s wife Mari stares at Jake, catching and holding his eyes. Then, seemingly unintentionally, her gaze shifts from him to the still-open kitchen door, out of which the clinking sounds of dishware being washed are emerging over the tumult of voices in the living room.

He gets the message (he thinks - that was a pretty weird look) and gets up to help his wife in the kitchen. He’s happy to go help anyway - after all, he has nothing to do to help clean up the plethora of nieces and nephews surrounding him, and he likes to be useful.

He’s stopped dead in his tracks at the door to the kitchen, though. Isabel Santiago is giving him a terrifying glare that is - like Amy’s - eerily reminiscent of that of a middle school librarian. It stops him in his tracks, and somehow, he knows to stay there. But instead of abandoning the room, going back to play with Robert and Matty, the eight year-olds who informed him during breakfast that he’s the coolest uncle they know, he backs away and sneaks behind the door, watching through the crack between the hinges, so that Mrs. Santiago doesn’t know he’s there.

Amy is gesticulating wildly at her mother, clearly frantic. When her hands reach up to start twisting her hair, though, her mom grabs them gently, says something, and pulls her only daughter into a hug. He can’t make out what’s being said over the din of the room behind him, but the cadence sounds distinctly like Spanish, so he knows he wouldn’t be able to follow even if everyone else would just shut up.

He’s relieved, though, to see Amy’s shoulders relax into her mother’s arms. He’s not sure what’s wrong, but clearly her mother has it under control. The sight of Amy’s breath steadying, her hands relaxing, calms him - whatever it is clearly can't be that bad.

And he's right. He’d returned to his room to change out of pajama pants (although this is the perfect kind of day for a pajama-jammy-jam) when Amy walks in, hugging him from behind and pressing her face into his shoulder.

He lets her stay that way for a few seconds, before pulling her arms just loose enough that he can turn around in her grip and properly hug her back. They stay that way, uninterrupted and holding each other close, for far longer than they should be able to, what with every single child in the house barging into their room at all hours to get some one-on-one time with their favorite aunt.

Finally, she pulls back, placing a quick peck on his lips before opening the top drawer of the dresser to find jeans and a sweater (before Amy, Jake didn't even know you could unpack on vacation, so he takes a second to marvel at the fact that he doesn't even have the opportunity to wreck the organization of their shared suitcase).

“So...you're okay?” he asks, a little tentatively.

Her back stiffens when he asks, and she freezes, one pants leg on, the other leg in the air. Then, in just a second, she's back to normal. In a carefully measured voice, she replies, “Yeah, babe, I’m fine. Why wouldn't I be?”

“I saw you talking to your mom, and you looked pretty upset.”

“Oh, that!” she replies, just a little too quickly. “I forgot the present for Mateo, and I didn’t know what to do, but my mom had an extra, so we’re giving him that!”

Jake’s pretty sure that he remembers writing Mateo’s gift tag himself, is almost certain it’s sitting near the side of the pile in their trunk, but he knows better than to argue. If Amy says it’s not there, then it’s definitely not there.

And then they hear Victor calling for them to come help decorate the Christmas tree that Diego drove up from New Jersey for the cabin, so instead of protesting, he grabs her as her head pops through the crew neck of her sweater (her softest one, which makes it by far his favorite) and plants a firm kiss on her lips. She laughs through it, wiggling away and protesting that we can’t do this, Jake, my dad might be coming in!

But then, when they hear her father’s footsteps fade into the background, she turns around and surprises him with a quick kiss before walking off, expecting him to follow. He does, but only after spending a few seconds marveling that the woman walking off with a new bounce in her step and a swing in her shiny ponytail is married to him.

Jake emerges into the crowded living room only a few steps behind his wife to happily discover that most of the younger children have been sent outside to play and release some energy. This means that the living room, while still loud - thanks to the room full of Santiagos, whose grasp of volume control is iffy at best - is full of the hum of polite conversation, rather than the screams of children trying to play tag between the boxes of ornaments, provided by Isabel.

When everyone sees them enter, though, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt. All eyes are trained on Jake and Amy, standing a few feet apart at the front of the room. Isabel starts to get up, takes a deep breath to say something, and then Amy shakes her head. It’s almost imperceptible, and if her ponytail wasn’t quite so bouncy, Jake wouldn’t have seen it at all.

Immediately, conversation resumes, as though nothing had ever happened, leaving Jake to wonder if he was imagining everything. Still standing in front of everyone, he leans in and whispers the question to Amy, who just shrugs in response - as if to say my family’s weird - deal with it.

So he does. He finds Luis sitting and untangling Christmas lights with Alex, their oldest brother. Alex looks up as Jake sits down, and a smile lights up his face as he claps Jake on the back.

“Congratulations, budd--” Alex is cut off abruptly from a sharp elbow from Luis that Jake definitely did not imagine.

Both men are looking at him warily, looking a little nervous for reasons that Jake can’t even begin to parse. They're silent for 10 seconds, and then 10 more, just watching him expectantly.

Then finally, with a relieved sigh, Luis breaks the silence. “Anyway, Jake, wanna give this string a shot? We can't get this knot out to save our lives.”

So Jake takes the lights they hold out for him and gets to work, doing his best to forget about the weird way that Alex had been staring at him.

Thankfully, untangling the lights turns out to be so consuming that he does manage to put his weird morning out of his mind for a little while. He has no idea how lights could have gotten this bad, until Alex explains that his kids used them as a rope for a hostage situation game that summer and put them away themselves. He’s a little impressed, honestly - figuring out how to untangle these lights might be a harder puzzle than any he's managed to solve with the NYPD.

Finally, though, he is able to hand Victor, who is taking meticulous instructions from Isabel about where the lights should be strung, a perfectly untangled strand of Christmas lights to add to the tree. The children are called back in to add ornaments to the now-lit tree (which stands taller than the trees Jake’s managed to squeeze into any of his apartments). The stomping of boots on the front mat sounds like a herd of elephants entering the house, and it lasts for what feels like an eternity as more and more kids traipse through, tracking an unbelievable amount of snow through the living room on their way to put up their coats.

His job done, Jake moves to the couch and squeezes into the impossibly small space left between Amy and the arm of the couch. Amy, laughing at the noises he makes as he tries to force his butt into the few available inches, gets up, settling on his lap as soon as he sits down.

Her head comes to rest against his shoulder as the kids reemerge, loud and ready to decorate. They watch the tree slowly acquire character via the addition of all sorts of ornaments - from fancy gold family heirlooms that only nineteen year-old Anna and her brother Sam can touch, hung high at the top of the tree, to paper drawings strung with yarn that two year-old Eliza drapes proudly on the bottom branches, balancing tentatively on chubby legs.

Amy slowly snuggles closer as they watch the scene unfold, so that her legs are folded on the couch (she may or may not give Luis, sitting next to them and playing with Lucia, a small kick as she pulls them up, just in case he’s done something today to deserve it), and Jake wraps his arms around her. Two of the thirteen year-olds are making faces at them and pretending to vomit in the corner, but Amy just laughs and plants a kiss on Jake’s cheek to bother her nephews.

Jake notices, when the tree is about halfway done and a few of the brothers are getting up to help their kids even out the ornament distribution (Jake has long-since discovered that Amy comes by her OCD honestly), that Isabel Santiago is watching him closely. She seems to have fixated on his arms, draped lazily over his wife’s (her daughter’s) abdomen. He can't read her expression, despite all his years of detective work, but he sits up straighter, trying to match the professionalism of Joel and his wife, sitting in the opposite corner of the room and gently holding hands in separate chairs.

As he shifts, though, Amy groans her objection, nuzzling her face deeper into his chest. That's when he realizes his wife is half-asleep. So instead, he settles back, deciding Mrs. Santiago must have been looking at something else - a quick glance confirms that she’s now talking to Diego’s wife animatedly about Christmas Eve dinner plans.

Finally, the tree is done. Isabel brings out sandwiches for everyone (Jake has no idea when she had time to make them. He’s at least 80% sure his mother-in-law is magical.), and lunch is finished in 10 minutes flat.

By this time, it's mid-afternoon, and there’s just a few hours until Christmas Eve dinner preparation begins in earnest. Matty and Robert beg their fathers for a snowball fight, and they agree eagerly, and before Jake really realizes what happened, everyone is getting up to go find coats and enjoy the hour or two of true daylight remaining.

Jake wakes Amy up (she claims drowsily that she’s been awake the whole time, thank you very much), and as they get up, Manny and Luis wander over to ask if Jake and Amy will be joining. Jake accepts enthusiastically, but Amy shakes her head.

“I don't think a snowball fight is up my alley today,” Amy apologizes with a yawn.

“Right! Because of the--” Manny starts, and then shuts his mouth so hard his teeth clack.

Amy gives him her special death glare, usually reserved for Charles when he starts talking in meticulous detail about her reproductive system.

Luis just laughs and drags Manny away, but Jake doesn't miss the excited hug Manny and Luis exchange when they think they're out of sight. Things are starting to get undeniably weird, Jake decides, furrowing his brow.

Amy is leading Jake back to their room when they find Isabel herself standing in their path. “Amy, could I borrow Jake for a moment? I need help with something, and your brothers are useless.”

Amy tries to glare at her mother, telling her silently to back off. But Isabel glares right back, and all of a sudden, Jake feels like he’s watching Amy look into a trick mirror at a fair - every mannerism is identical.

To no one’s surprise, Isabel wins, and Amy drops Jake’s hand, throwing one last concerned look over her shoulder as she continues to their room. Amy may have her mother’s glare, but her mother has an extra 37 years of practice.

Isabel starts to walk towards the kitchen, perhaps the only empty room in the house, and Jake follows automatically.

When they get there, she closes the door and turns slowly towards Jake. Slowly, carefully, she says, “You know, Amy loves you. A lot.”

Jake, feeling almost as nervous as when he asked them for their blessing to marry Amy, replies with the first dumb quip that comes to mind: “I’d hope so - we've been married for six months  now!”

Isabel chuckles a little at that, seeming to loosen up. "I know. And we're all happy to have you as a part of the family," she reaches up touch his shoulder, her expression turning back to something more serious. "I know Amy likes to take care of herself. She's been like that her whole life - she didn't even want our help as a toddler learning to walk, which didn't go down well. There was the whole puddle incident," Isabel gets a far off look in her eyes for a few seconds before focussing back in on Jake, who has a host of questions about the phrase puddle incident. "I know she likes to take care of herself, but you're taking care of her too, right? We all need a little taking care of sometimes."

"Of course! We take care of each other - when she lets me," Jake shrugs, like it's obvious.

"Thank you," Isabel smiles a warm smile. "I knew I could trust you, Jake. I'm just reminded how lucky I am at times like these, that all my babies grew up and made such perfect families themselves. All these grandbabies!" Isabel gestures around as if there are grandbabies escaping from every crevice of the house (in fairness, they definitely are).

"They're all pretty special," Jake agrees, remembering the chorus of Tio Jake. No two words any adult (except for Amy) could say would make his heart feel so full.

"All so unique, and so precious." Isabel adds. And I just wanted to tell you how thrilled we all are that you all could be here with us this Christmas - I know it was hard to get off work, but it’s good for Amy to be with family, especially this year.”

Jake has already started to spew words about how of course they were thrilled to be here and it was never a question that they'd find a way to make it and they love seeing everyone. And then her last words register, and he pauses, his mind swirling as he looks for any explanation for what she might mean.

"What do you mean this year? Is-" he lowers his voice "is someone sick? Does Amy know?"

"No one's sick," she chuckles softly, "but Amy has been feeling a little under the weather. There's a special tea I have, it used to help me when...I mean, it helps with the nausea. I'll get you some to take up to her." Isabel starts for the cupboards, rifling around in the ones above her head. Jake isn't sure she can even see in there.

"Do you need any help?" He offers, but just then Isabel produces a lilac box and nods approvingly at it.

The tea takes five minutes to make, but Jake's distracted for most of it by Matty, who comes in with a hacky sack, which Jake can't say no to. The kid is surprisingly good, and Jake’s out-of-practice, leading to more than one miss and several repetitions of the phrase, “Aw! I boofed it!”

Isabel finally hands Jake a steaming cup of tea, which he carefully starts to carry back to Amy.

"Make sure she's getting enough sleep, too!" Isabel says as Jake starts turn away.

"Uh...I will, I guess?"  

She laughs at his confusion, ruffles his hair (she has to reach up on her tip toes to do it), and hands him a cookie (Jake has no idea where she got it, but Isabel always has cookies. Jake loves her dearly for it).

With that, Jake knows he’s been dismissed. He walks out of the kitchen much faster than he should with the tea, carrying the cookie in his mouth.

When he finally navigates his way towards the glorified closet that he and Amy are sharing this Christmas, he throws open the door dramatically, startling Amy, who’s sitting on the bed wrapping a plain white box in red-and-green patterned wrapping paper (Jake remembers her packing the extra wrapping paper over his strenuous objections about the fact that there are no more gifts to wrap and there’s no possible way that she’s forgotten a gift for anyone - she even had one for Alex’s new puppy.)

“Babe,” Jake says frantically, his mouth still full of cookie, “I think your family is trying to kill us!”

“What?” Jake rarely catches Amy off guard anymore - she knows him almost as well as she knows herself. But he can see clearly that he’s surprised her with this.

“D’you think your brothers are still mad at you for that time you busted their party?” Jake is busy running through a list of every possible reason they could be on a Santiago hit list, but he’s discovering the list is pretty short.

“No way - I was nine!”

“Maybe it’s just me! Maybe they know 145 isn't a good credit score! Ames, what if they discovered I don't have a favorite font?”

At that, Amy gets up off the bed and walks over to him. “Babe, they already know that. And you do have a favorite font - it’s the title font from the Die Hard poster, remember? Everything’s totally normal - nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

The statement was clearly supposed to make him relax, and she turns around to find his coat for him so that he can go outside and join in the snowball fight, but Jake isn't satisfied. Then he notices that the peals of laughter he’s hearing are coming from outside, rather than inside, the house, and he realizes that they must be totally alone inside. The knowledge that they're alone in a snowed-in cabin adds an extra sense of eeriness to the afternoon light filtering through the clouds.

“Babe, we’re in an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. Suuure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

Abandoning the search for his coat, Amy grabs him by one hand and drags him back to sit down on the bed with her. “First of all, the cabin isn't abandoned - everyone is, like, ten feet outside the front door. Second, we’re on family vacation - you've been watching way too much true crime if you think someone’s trying to kill us. So what’s bugging you?”

Jake pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, and then lets everything out in a rush. “Your mom just pulled me aside to make sure I knew to take care of you because you love me and everyone keeps staring at me and Manny congratulated me and I don't know why and you were even being weird about pooping this morning and they’re definitely up to something really freaky, babe!”

And then he’s cut off by Amy’s laughter. She’s fallen backwards on the bed and is clutching her stomach as deep belly laughs escape into the still air of the cabin. Jake just glares at her - he can’t believe she’d be laughing about something this serious! They’re in an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods (she can’t convince him otherwise) and their lives are on the line!

Finally, slowly, Amy catches her breath. When she’s gotten herself under control enough to speak again, she says the last thing he’d ever expect: “Want an early Christmas present?”

In shock, Jake replies, “Babe! Now is not the time for early Christmas presents! Now’s the time to dig out the car!”

“Jake.” She gives him The Look, the one that means that he’s being ridiculous and he needs to stop and listen. “Open the gift.” And she hands him the mostly-wrapped box that has been sitting forgotten on their pillow.

Still uttering half-hearted protests, he tears at the wrapping paper to expose the plain white box inside (what can he say? He’s a sucker for gifts). It looks vaguely like a box a tie might come in, and he looks up at her. “Santiago, clothes aren’t gonna fix the fact that something creepy is definitely coming.”

“Keep opening, Peralta.”

So he does. When he takes off the top, he looks up at her. She waits patiently for him to look down, to actually register what’s inside the box. When he finally does, his jaw drops as some still-unidentified emotion bubbles up in his stomach.

Because lying inside the box is a positive pregnancy test.

“I took it this morning, when you were with Manny and Luis and I’d woken up to throw up again and Mari bought it for me yesterday when they went into town and I was gonna give it to you first thing tomorrow morning but you’re in the middle of a weird...Jake?”

The sound of his name jerks him out of his reverie. Slowly, he looks up at his wife, a grin painted across his face from ear to ear (he’s pretty sure no one could wipe off this grin - not even the still-possibly-murderous Santiagos playing outside). Then, he’s tackling her back into the pillows at the head of the bed, being careful of her abdomen while their laughter mingles and fills the still-silent cabin.

Their legs are tangled and his arms are wrapped around her and her hands are combing through his hair and he’s never felt this disgustingly, blatantly happy in his life. “Santiago...You’re really pregnant?” he asks, awe saturating every word.

She nods in response, a smile growing quickly on her face. “You’re really happy about it?” she asks.

In response, he shifts forward and kisses her firmly. It’s far from their most graceful kiss - their teeth keep clacking because neither of them can stop smiling long enough to kiss the other properly. Jake doesn’t mind, though, because he’s too distracted by the pure, unadulterated joy that’s radiating up from his chest and out through his face and out through his fingers and the very tips of his toes.

Finally he pulls back. “Yeah,” he answers with a laugh. “I guess I’m pretty happy about it.”

She hits his shoulder lightly, rolling her eyes at her dumb husband that she loves so much. And he’s too busy thinking about the fact that Amy’s pregnant and all of the possibilities that that fact brings to even pretend it hurt. Instead, he shifts one hand slightly, gently, so that it comes to rest just over her belly button.

“You know, you can’t feel him kick yet.”

“I know! And him? It’s obviously a girl that we’re obviously naming Nakatomi!”

“Jake, Santiagos have boys. Always. Trust me, this kid is a boy.” She sounds so sure, but he can’t stop himself from giggling (he might never be able to stop giggling because he doesn’t think happiness this strong will ever wear off. It’s pulsing steadily next to his heart, filling him with the same warmth he felt when he saw Amy do the Double Tuck in her white dress as she walked down the aisle).

“Ames, they had you.”

She’s opening her mouth to retort, but the mention of the Santiagos reminds Jake how this whole conversation started in the first place. “Babe, this is all very exciting and everything, but it has nothing to do with why your family was acting so weird. Either you need to explain or we need to get the hell out of this creepy cabin. Something definitely just creaked and we’re the only ones inside!”

“Jake...that was you. You just moved and the bed creaked. And, to answer your other question, my family...might have known.” She sounds a little sheepish, but mostly she just sounds blissfully happy.

Jake looks at her in obviously fake indignation. “Amy! You told your family before you told me?”

“In fairness to me, my mom actually is the one who told me!”

Jake looks at her a little incredulously. “Babe. Come on. You keep track of everything to the hour. There’s no way you didn’t know about this.”

“I’m serious! I was a little late and pretty tired and nauseous, but didn’t think anything of it. My mom took one look at me and pulled me aside and told me. She’s had so many kids she just knows, Jake. Joel and Alex and my dad figured it out on their own, too - they’ve seen my mom have so many kids it takes them, like, half a second to pick out a pregnant woman. Between the four of them, things...got around pretty quickly. They’re all pretty horrible at keeping secrets.”

“No kidding.” Jake thinks back to the millions of weird looks that he’d forced himself to disregard and the dozen weird conversations he’d had since yesterday morning.

“They just get really excited about new grandkids, and they couldn’t wait for you to be excited, too.” Her voice is soft, as is her smile, and her hand has drifted towards his cheek.

“Trust me. I am.” He leans in to kiss her, a proper one this time. And it’s amazing and fireworks are exploding behind his eyelids and he hasn’t been this truly happy in...maybe ever and she’s rolling him over to straddle him and her hands are finding the buttons on his shirt, but then, a small voice is shouting outside their (thankfully closed) door to come outside. With a startled laugh, they break apart, jumping up impressively quickly to seated positions on opposite sides of the bed. Amy shouts back at her niece that they’ll be out in just a sec, and she begins searching for the coats and boots that they’d thrown off so hastily last night while Jake frantically buttons his shirt.

“There’s really no way we can get out of going outside?” Jake asks, a little disappointed.

“Remember when you were so excited for the snowball fight?” Amy retorts, a huge grin cracking across her face.

“Yeah, but now there are better things to do!”

And with that, Amy hands her husband his coat and boots, grabs his hand, and drags him to the front door. They emerge with his arm over her shoulder and her arm around his waist (she’ll say she just needs to be kept warm, but really she just can’t stay away from him). They watch on the side for a while, and at first, everyone leaves them alone (or at least, no one throws snowballs at them).

Jake’s so busy looking down at his wife, who’s positively radiant, that he doesn’t notice the sappy grins being thrown their way by every single adult in the clearing.

They stay that way, blissfully unaware of the screaming children and the happy smiles from Mr. and Mrs. Santiago and the high fives Manny and Luis are throwing each other because their baby sister is having a baby, for quite a while.

And then Joel ruins it. “Ay! Peralta! Stop making eyes at your wife and get in here!” And then a large snowball hits Jake’s face.

Jake roars with laughter as he bends down to start making his own ammo, but he’s slow - certainly unused to the speed at which Santiagos can form snowballs. He’s getting pelted from all sides, and the kids have joined in, and one dumped a pile of snow down his back while he bent down to make another snowball and he’s going down.

And then Amy throws a snowball. It hits Joel square in the face, and he backs up, sputtering. Manny starts to charge, but he’s gotten a heaping pile of snow to the face before he can get anywhere near her (she’d shifted while everyone was distracted, placing herself strategically behind her parents and using them as a human shield that none of her brothers could touch). One by one, the Santiago brothers and their spouses go down, their children getting distracted by the prospect of tackling their own parents into the snow. Jake’s more than a little impressed with her accuracy - now he knows why her aim with a gun is so good.

And then he’s able to stand up, brushing the snow off his jacket and shaking it out of his hair but mostly looking at Amy, who’s all sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks as she gives her dad a high five. And then Victor Santiago is pulling his daughter into the tightest hug Jake’s ever seen and if he’s not mistaken a tear is leaking out of his eye (no - he must be mistaken - that’s definitely just melting snow) and Amy’s laughing a little and he can see her lips moving, reminding them that it’s still early and they’re not even supposed to know, but none of it seems to resonate because then her mom’s joined in the hug and Luis has found Jake watching all of this unfold.

“Congrats, man.” He pulls Jake into a quick hug, clapping him on the back before he releases him.

“Thanks,” Jake says, and he’s surprised to hear his voice crack a little bit on the word.

“Yes! I finally got to say it!” Luis shouts so loudly that Jake falls back down into the snow, startled.

Later that night, after the Christmas Eve dinner that was so amazing Jake may never need to eat again and the midnight mass that they all had to traipse through the snowy woods to get to, Jake and Amy finally get to lie down, limbs tangled as she rests her head against his chest. She’s in her flannel pajama pants and his academy sweatshirt, and he’s wearing her family’s reunion t-shirt, and he’s maybe never been more in love.

His wife is already three-quarters asleep - it’s almost midnight, and pregnancy has made her constantly, painfully exhausted. But through the thin walls, the sounds of her siblings putting out presents from Santa drift in, and he can’t help but smile. He’s pretty sure it’s Luis who stubs his toe and lets out a string of Spanish curses, and he’s guessing it’s Alex who shuts him up so abruptly. He laughs a little bit, quietly, and Amy shifts against him.

“Next year, that’ll be us, babe.”

She grins up at him, her eyes heavy lidded and her hair already a little mussed in its ponytail. “Can’t wait.”

[fiercyy]

to call for hands from above

Summary: Rukia’s life, 50 years onward.

Partially inspired by @deathberryprompts ‘release’, the song Heartbeats by José González and my own saltiness. This probably should have been a chapter fic, but I do not have the time sooooooo…

Also, hi yes, I do not acknowledge canon so I won’t even write post-canon fix-its apparently. They bum me out. Have a canon divergence instead:

. .

Fifty years After, Rukia stops visiting the living world.

She is a captain now, with innumerable responsibilities. Not to mention the weight of the Kuchiki name; a load her brother has slowly begun to share with her.

She fills her days with paperwork, training, a standing appointment for tea with Kyoraku-Soutaichou and Shinigami Women’s Association meetings. She fills her nights with dinners with her brother, drinks with Renji, Rangiku and Nanao, anything to pass the hours and the quiet.

. .

i.

Tatsuki Arisawa shows up on the roster of Academy graduates and Rukia drafts her immediately. If there’s one thing that her year in the living world taught her, it’s that one can never have too many friends around.

. .

ii.

“Do you remember how you died?” Rukia asks, with little sensitivity, over ice cream.

Tatsuki, with her mouth full, shakes her head, “I hope it was awesome though.”

Never one to concern herself with the details, Tatsuki considers herself satisfied with how it all turned out. She lived a good life, became a prize fighter, had a nice girl. She was middle aged when she died, but she doesn’t feel cheated. This life is as good as any. She feels worse for the people she left behind. She doesn’t know who she worries about more; Ichigo or Orihime.

Discovering she’d been right about Rukia all along was nice.

“Do you remember how you died-? AH SHIT,” she grips her head, “Brainfreeze.”

“I was a baby.”

While massaging her temples Tatsuki grunts, “Well that’s a huge bummer. Don’t tell people that.”

Despite herself, Rukia laughs.

. .

iii.

Sex adds an element of complexity to relationships that she finds wholly unnecessary. Men can be so emotional about it. But a woman has needs.

And when you’re a captain, your pool narrows considerably. Conflicts of interest, gossip, hero-worship: all things worth avoiding in a bedmate.

In the end, she picks a fellow captain. A comrade, not a friend. They respect each other enough to be upfront about what it is. It’s sporadic but it’s good; an exercise in stress relief and banking flames.

Neither of them makes more of it than it is.

Rukia is not looking for a partner.

He has his own issues to work through.

. .

iv.

Rukia has become a good teacher. She selects her protégés for their fire and spirit. Many of them have risen through the ranks and she couldn’t be prouder.

Occasionally she’ll write recommendations, and she is never more brimming with smugness than when another captain writes back to tell her that her faith was well placed.

Tatsuki says she’d make a great motivational speaker. From what she can gather, this is apparently a profession in the living world. Just talking to people and telling them how to live their lives? She supposes she would be good at that. She’s had a lot of practice.

. .

v.

One day, Byakuya makes an appointment with her. This is an odd occurrence, not because they never spend time together, but because they live together. He would see her later for dinner.

“Nii-sama, is everything alright?”

He nods and gracefully moves to her personal sitting area. She follows, confused.

“Is this an urgent matter?”

“Not at all.”

He stands until she invites him to sit, as is customary. She calls for Kiyone to make tea, then takes a seat across from him.

They are long past the stage when Rukia feels uncomfortable around him. She understands him far better now and he has made an immense effort to do the same.

“I came here because this is an official matter and I felt this setting would be most appropriate. Over the past few years, I’ve given you more and more responsibilities to prepare you, as my heir.”

“Your guidance and trust have been greatly appreciated, I am honoured by it.”

“When you were promoted to Captain, I had something commissioned for you. It is deservedly yours, as it should have been long ago.” Byakuya places a cherry wood box on the table. It’s so smooth that it shines and gleams in the light. Her name, in full, is written in ornate characters on the lid.

Rukia flips open the gold latch and opens the box. Nestled on a bed of pure, white silk is a kenseikan. Three perfect white ridges. She runs her fingers along each peak and looks up at her brother with wide eyes. “I- I don’t know what to say.”

Byakuya stands and walks around the table then kneels at her side. The panic of unknown variables and unfamiliar territory makes Rukia’s heart flutter. “Allow me.” He takes the kenseikan and begins to braid it into her hair. Yuzu used to practice braiding hers and Karin’s hair. This feels just like that; like family, familiarity and home.

She respects her brother, always has. She loves him, has for many years now. She has grown comfortable with him. But this is something new. This is normality, this is intimate and real. This is the final mark of his acceptance. This is a welcome that she has never expected, never could have dreamed up.

She feels the tears burning in her eyes, but her smile is wide. And when he’s done and pulls away, she can see him clearly.

“Thank you Nii-sama.”

“You are very welcome, Rukia.”

And Rukia feels it.

. .

vi.

Rukia relearns lacking dignity.

Alone in Soul Society, she allows herself to be the way she was in the living world, in Rukongai. She allows herself to be gruff and impatient and silly. She tells jokes and draws all of her officers birthday cards by hand. Her characters have become famous. Kiyone and Tatsuki tell her that they pass them around the division like trading cards. Kiyone is the first to collect a full set.

. .

vii.

She asks Renji to give her a tattoo.

She spends half a day, lying on her stomach as he takes a stick and poke to her back.

“Mine are about all my battles,” he tells her, with the needle in his teeth as he dabs at a painful bit where it’s started to bleed. “Yours is about you.”

He only laughs a little when she whines at the pain.

Rangiku, who holds her hand through most of it, laughs a lot.

. .

viii.

She has a good life. She’s surrounded by people who love and respect her. On her own merits, for herself. She has work worth doing. A world to shape. People to lead. She has followed her dreams and ambitions, and they led her here.

Her life is not empty without him, it’s not. It’s full to bursting with purpose, light and love.

But sometimes.

In the dark, in a bed that is empty except for her, she wonders. In the morning, when she wakes up alone and has no one to kiss goodbye. When she has a quiet moment in the park and a breeze lifts her hair just right and she can practically see him in the distance. In battle, when she can hear his voice and feel him at her back.

She wonders what might have been.

What if she had let him love her? What if she had stayed? What if she had taken him with her? What if she shared her life with him?

She does not often second guess herself, but somewhere in the living world there is a human boy who always gave her pause.

Her life is good and full. But having him would be so much better than not having him.

. .

And you, you knew the hand of the devil And you, kept us awake with wolf teeth Sharing different heartbeats In one night

.

.

footnote i.

Fifty years after the war, Rukia stopped visiting the living world and this is why:

It was a warm summer day, the pavement swam under the sun’s scrutiny. Ishida was the one to call her. He had retired from the hospital and spent his days with his family or sewing dresses and costumes for loved ones and on commission. His hands were just as steady and capable as they always were, despite his age. Though, his glasses had slowly thickened over the years.

“How are you?”

“I’m well, how are you? How is everyone?” She didn’t mark his brusque tone as anything out of the ordinary, that was just Ishida.

“…Everyone is fine,” It was in the pause that she found something to worry about. “You should visit. Today. Before three o’clock.”

She hesitated, “I have a lot of work to do, I don’t know that I can get out to the human world before then.”

“Make time,” he told her.

The fear manifested in her chest like an anchor pulling her down, the air left her lungs in a gasp. “Ishida, what’s happened?”

“I can explain when you come.”

She left that very minute. Kiyone was left in charge.

She bolted through the senkaimon and did not bother with a gigai.  They met at the entrance to the hospital. Ishida’s wrinkled expression was grim and familiar. He gestured for her to follow. He led her through the white halls, the milling doctors, nurses, patients and families, before stopping at the entrance to a third-floor ward.

“What’s happened?”

He must have seen the fear in her eyes.

“Rukia,” he had never before called her that, “It’s Ichigo.” She moved to shove past him, but he stopped her. “He’s been here for a while. We’ve been thinking about how to tell you-“

“What have you been keeping from me?!”

“-Today is a good day, that’s why I called you. He’s having a good day.”

“What does that mean? Then why is he here?”

Ichigo was 67 years old, any manner of horrible things could have befallen him, weakened and wizened as he’s become. She saw him. She just saw him. When was that? A few weeks? Maybe a few months. She couldn’t recall but she just saw him. He had to be fine.

“He’s sick, I just wanted to warn you before you saw him.”

For fifty years she had tried to keep a respectful distance. What was it for? So much time wasted.

“Take me to him,” she said imperiously. “Right now.”

Ishida obliged.

He had his own room. Yuzu was sitting beside him in a faded brown leather chair. Rukia was glad that he wasn’t alone. They were chatting quietly and he had a smile on his face. Relief washed over her body like a warm shower.

“Ichigo.” It hadn’t been that long since they’d seen each other, but she’d missed him. She took her place on his other side and smiled down at him.

His hair had faded into a peachy white fuzz, his eyes were milky with cataracts. But the folds of his face couldn’t conceal the man he was. If anything, they were just his teenaged scowl lines made more prominent.

She could shake herself. Death wasn’t the end for them. She had to remember that.

“Rukia,” he smiled, “Been a while.”

“Yes, how are you feeling?” the knot of anxiety was loosening now that she could see him. He was fine. He seemed fine.

“As good as can be expected.” He smiled up at Yuzu, who was not looking reassured.

“It’s good to see you Rukia-chan.”

“You too Yuzu.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” asked Ichigo.

Rukia quirked a brow and looked down at herself. She supposed he meant why wasn’t she in a gigai, but she didn’t always have the time.

“You look like you’re playing dress up, midget. I mean, unless you got promoted twice and didn’t tell me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re wearing a captain’s robe,” he said like she was the one being an idiot.

Rukia didn’t know what to do. She glanced back and forth between Yuzu and Ishida helplessly. Something was very wrong.

. .

footnote ii.

Dementia, she learned later, was a horrible human disease. It ate at the mind until there was nothing left.

It was explained to her that sometimes he was out of place in time and sometimes he didn’t recognize anyone at all.

For months she returned to the living world as often as possible. It was an immense strain. She was caught between feeling guilty that she couldn’t visit more often and never ever coming back again.

Because more and more often, he stopped knowing her face. As he grew weaker, he grew more confused. His mind was failing him. He would have fits of anger and frustration that she would quell as best she could, but sometimes she felt like she was making it worse.

She wanted to be there for him. She wanted to be his partner.

But she had other responsibilities that yanked her back.

She was considering taking a leave of absence, but then she visited the living world one last time.

. .

footnote iii.

Ishida said this could go on for years yet. She wondered if dying sooner was what was best for him. He’d have a life waiting for him. He’d be healthy, he’d have his full faculties. Here, life was cruel. There was no end in sight. He was out to sea, far from the relief of shore.

But for today, he was alright. Today was a good day.

“You saw Tatsuki on the roster huh?”

“Yes, she’ll be graduating soon. I’ll tell her you say hello.”

“I miss her, she’s been dead for 20 years, send her over for a visit when you can?”

“Of course,” Rukia promised, willing to deny him nothing. “You’ll be upset, she’s looking a lot better than you.”

“Most people are, these days.”

“Well, you were never that handsome to begin with.”

“Hey, I did alright.”

Her hands found his. “Passable at best.”

They lapsed into a companionable silence.

“Do you ever think of dying now? Of skipping this part?” she hated herself for saying it, but also wondered if anyone else had asked him if he wanted the option. “We agreed you should stay because you deserved to have a life. This isn’t living, this is waiting. This is disappearing. This is exactly what I wanted to spare you.”

“Nah,” he said, sighing a gust of 67 years of breath. “I think I’ve gotta see this thing through.”

“I understand,” she didn’t, not really, but that may have been because she loved him.

“You don’t have to watch, you could-“

“If you finish that sentence I’ll put you out of your misery now,” she growled, without thinking. How dare he? But that was out of bounds.

“I don’t want you to watch. I want you to see me as the man I was.”

“You’re still that man, the same man you’ve always been in my heart.”

“I’m not. You think I don’t know how you feel when I don’t recognise you? Let me paint you a picture.” His tone was light but she flinched nonetheless. “It feels like the person who knew you better than anyone else in the universe suddenly doesn’t know who you are. It feels like talking at a wall. Like no matter what you do it won’t leave an impression. It feels like you’re on fire and no matter what you do, nothing helps and you can’t breathe and living hurts. Except-“ And here he took her hand in his and squeezed it as tightly as he could, which wasn’t much. “Except I dealt with it for hours. I could fight to fix it. I can’t drag this out for you. It’s a disease, there’s no fighting it. Only waiting.”

Ichigo touched her face and it was the first time she realised that she had been crying.

“I’ll still be waiting, here or there, it doesn’t work like that. I can’t just stop-”

“Let me go. I’ll find you, I swear I will. When this is all over I am going to come back to you.”

“I don’t understand why you have to go through this,” she drew that hand to her mouth and held it there. “Please.” She didn’t know what she was praying for.

“Thank you, Rukia, for giving me this life. For giving me this time. Wait for me a little longer?”

“Please don’t make me go.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“Well it’s not up to you either! What was this all for?!” she demanded, “Am I your partner or aren’t I? You can’t have it both ways.” She was screaming now. “I don’t need you to be brave for me, you idiot! I’m plenty brave. I love you and you need me!”

“Rukia, please-”

“Ichigo, I can stay. I can help you, I don’t care if you don’t remember me. You shouldn’t have to be alone. I don’t want to leave you!” Kuchikis do not get hysterical, but it was a near thing.

“What did I tell you? Your opinions are hereby rejected.”

That was ten years ago.

.

.

One night to be confused One night to speed up truth We had a promise made Four hands and then away

. .

ix.

She’s been grooming Tatsuki.

She’s a powerful woman with raw talent and the instincts of a prize fighter. Rukia enjoys training her. It’s like directing a tornado or a hurricane. “Again.” She commands. With a twitch of her wrist, Tatsuki’s zanpakuto flies into the air and plants itself twenty feet behind her.

“Every time we do this it gets more humiliating,” Tatsuki moans, “I feel like you’re trying harder. Were you not trying before?”

“She just wants to look cool while she kicks your ass,” Renji chimes in from the sidelines.

“That’s just not fair,” she pants, hands on her knees.

“If I’m making eye contact with you, it means you’ve improved.”

“Oh come on!”

“I could bring out the paperwork and read some of it over while we do this if that would make you feel better.” Rukia’s grin shows all her teeth. She smugly turns her nose up as she goads the other woman into battle. “Come on Arisawa, don’t you think you can hold my attention?”

“I’ll hold your attention alright…” she grumbles under her breath before picking up her sword and charging again. “Haaaaaaaayaaaaah— OW! OW! OW!”

Rukia pushes Tatsuki’s sword aside with the back of her knuckles, putting her off-balance. She then hits her directly in the funny bone.

“You’re the worst.”

At Renji’s snort, Rukia’s gaze cuts up towards him, “Glad you’re enjoying yourself, want to take a turn?”

“You want to pick on someone your own size? I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your squad.”

“What was that Lieutenant?” Given that the air in the courtyard lowers by several degrees, Renji does the wise thing and shuts up. Rukia’s disposition immediately shifts to sunny. To Tatsuki, she crooks her finger, “Come at me again, this time try to remember that you were a championship fighter and cover yourself when you strike.”

When she turns around there is a man in the centre of the courtyard. “Yo.”

A roundhouse kick would have knocked the wind out of her if Rukia hadn’t already lost her breath.

She goes from doubled over to running before she has the chance to think. Rukia collides with the man full force. She threads her fingers tightly into his orange hair and pulls from the roots, yanking him towards her in a passionate, feral kiss.

Eventually, she forces herself to pull away so she can stare at his face.

“I told you I’d come as soon as I could.”

Her life was full. She did not need him. She missed him. She wanted him so badly.

And now that he’s here, her world is complete.

. .

             To Call For Hands From Above, To Lean On

[mrevaunit42]

Somewhere, beyond the sea

Hi everyone Mr.E here with a special story. but fiiiiirst! HAPPY BIRTHDAY @hains-mae *throws confetti* i hope you enjoy this story. That’s right it’s a birthday fic, one of two i owe but one step at a time. Mae requested a mermaid au *not little mermaid, sorry crab lovers* so i did it. but i had to build it up, give good reasons why things happened and leave it open to come back to next year when she asks for part 2 as a gift. 

so the story here is Marco is the prince of mewni, a kingdom that was once destroyed and reborn when Marco’s family found the deserted land. the ocean side palace is threatened by a powerful, unstoppable pirate force that threatens to destroy everything. marco, desperate to do something, attempts to pray to appease the old gods of anicent mewni though ends up finding someone else instead.

and that’s it. i hope you all enjoy it. @hipster-rapunzel and if you would like to be on my tag list (a list of people i’ll tag when i post stories on tumblr) please let me know.

That’s it for me, have a fantastic week and stay amazing people! thank you if you read my story and thank you if you don’t. bye!

“Father, please...” Marco began but the only response the agitated flutter of his father's cape.

“Marco this is not the time.” Rafael replied, his hands anxiously tapping against each other “You do not understand Mijo”

“I don't understand?” Marco shot back with a harsh edge, eyes flaring in disbelief “I understand father. I am not the simple schoolboy you believe me to be. I am prince of...”

“You are the prince of Mewni” Rafael boomed over him “And I am its king. I am trying to protect you but you do not seem to realize...”

“What?” Marco snapped, arms crossed against his white elegant military tunic and crisp black dress pants, his blade hanging lazily at his side “What don't I understand? That there is a massive pirate fleet on the way? Ready to steal our food, precious goods and raze our kingdom to the ground? Is that what I don't understand, dad?”

Rafael frowned at the Marco's chose of informal terminology. He let out a mighty sigh, slumping into the simple yet refined throne tiredly, his crown sliding off to one side of his head.

“Marco, it is too dangerous.....Your mother and I....if something were to happen....”

Marco huffed in disagreement “I am the crowned prince of Mewni. I cannot simply stand by and let my people, our people die! You said it yourself: Every able bodied man must answer the call...”

“Marco, I...”

“And I” Marco said with an edge of finality “Am an able bodied man. With or without your permission, I will fight.”

Rafael sighed in defeated “Marco....how could we possibly hope to hold them off? Ocean surrounds our palace on far too many sides.”

Marco paused uneasily, unsure how to solve a problem that had persisted through his entire lifetime and that of his father's. When Marco's great, great, great (many greats) ancestors found the rotting shell that was once the kingdom of Mewni over thousands of years ago, raiders and pirates were small bands, troublesome but hardly a threat. By the time such groups became a formidable size, the kingdom had grown far too large to be consider a target. Any attempts to take or pillage the oceanic palace were a Pyrrhic victory at best and a devastating loss at worst.

Something, however, changed.

The once orderless, aimless wanderers of the sea became focused, determined and worst of all, powerful. Someone or something across the waves in far off land was gathering the most vile, cutthroat and savage of those who roamed the sea and marshal them into a deadly force that spread like a plague, threatening to claim all who call the ocean home.

The reports had been around for decades of course: Written accounts of the forces brutality first hand, recounted with horrifying details. But back then it had been an unfathomable distance away, a problem that was over there, harmless to Mewni. Mewni would survive. Mewni would be safe.

Mewni was on the verge of being wiped off the face of the map now. Another forgotten land lost to tragedy and time. The reports were no longer of far, inconceivable distances but mere miles away from the palace. The kingdom swelled in size as survivors poured in with every passing breeze, each bringing a renewed sense of dread and fear that infected the populous with terror.

“Father....” Marco murmured softly “There must be a way....something we haven't thought of. Perhaps if we ask for aid...”

“None of our neighbors can spare anything more.”

“Umm...perhaps we can train our men to....”

“The attack” Rafael muttered quietly “is fast approaching. We do not have enough time to ensure all able bodied men will be able to use a sword properly let alone cannons and rifles.”

Marco froze, his mind whirling a million miles per hour. He hated how useless he felt, he hated how each plan he came up with would only end with failure. Mewni had face innumerable, impossible odds before and survived but it seems this time the gods favor....

“Wait!” Marco cried out “Wait, I have an idea.”

Rafael turned wearily to his son “Marco?”

“The gods. T-the old gods! From before. Let's pray to them....”

Silence filled the room, unsure and concerned eyes fell upon Marco as the once hushed, invisible gathering of people who remained quiet during exchange now murmured with barely contain whispers.

“Marco, we've been over this” Rafael firmly replied, rising to his feet angrily “The old gods are just a myth, a remnant from a civilization long past as we will be if we don't figure out a real plan”

“But dad, the texts! They speak of...”

“I KNOW WHAT THEY SPEAK OF MARCO!” Rafael roared, slamming his fist against his throne.

Silence fell once more, even Marco was unable to respond to his father's outbust. He had never seen such a thing before and only now did it dawn to him how scared his father must've truly be.

Rafael took a deep, calming breath, his shoulders sagging once more “I know what you want to believe Marco. I know you want to believe in all powerful deities who could save us with a flick of their wrist. I knew you wished the guardians that live beneath the waves to exist but they do not. They are not real, they were never real and they're never going to be real. Marco, we need a plan, not fairy tales.”

“But....” Marco weakly began but he far too tired and lost too much of his momentum to go on

“Marco, my son. Please leave us be. We have a war to plan.”

Marco sighed, the weight of the situation pressing down on him far too much for him to fight back.

Marco gave a polite bow and strode out of the room, defeated and dejected.

The doors creaked open then shut behind him with a deafening thud.

Marco rubbed his eyes tiredly, leaning against the thick wooden throne room door “Oh man....what I am going to do?”

“How about pray?”

Marco flailed wildly, grasping his sword though struggled to free it of its sheath.

“Whoa, honey, honey calm down!”

Marco felt tense as a pair of hands grip his shoulders gently. He turned only to find himself staring into the face of his mother, worry etched into every inch of her face.

“Moooom!” Marco spoke with a childish whine “How many times did I tell you not to sneak up on me? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Angie giggled, patting her son's cheek lovingly “No, if I told the ladies of the court how much you love singing you'd die of a heart attack.”

Marco pulled away from his mother though he did not break her hold on him “You joke far too much.”

“And you” Angie countered “far too little. You're a young man, not a cranky geezer. You need to relax”

“How can I relax when our entire kingdom is threatened? How can I be at ease when our family, our people could wiped out of existence. Father needs me....”

Angie pursed her lips as she held Marco tightly.

“Marco, we'll be fine.”

Marco sighed “I want to make sure. Even if it's pointless, I want to do something....anything. I can't just sit here and just pretend”

“Well” Angie asked quizzically “What did you have in mind?”

Marco shifted uncomfortably “It's stupid.”

“No, running down the hall in your undergarments is stupid, your idea is not.”

Marco chuckled, giving his mother a small grin “I do want to pray.”

“Umm...didn't I just...”

Marco shook his head vigorously “No, I mean...to the old Mewni gods....”

“oh.....oh”

“I know it's stupid....” Marco whispered “but....I...

Marco stopped as he felt his mother pat his head, rubbing away his well kept hair.

“I understand. I mean as long as you know nothing is probably going to happen, I can't see the harm in it.”

“Really? But dad said...”

“Dad” Angie replied firmly “is under a lot of stress. He's not exactly in the right state of mind. Here, I'll show you how to properly pray to a non-existent god.”

“Gee, when you say it like that, I sound a little crazy.”

“All those with faith are a bit crazy dear.”

Marco shivered as a harsh, chilled wind swept against him, howling furiously as his boots crunched against the sandy shore, the waves that crashed against the land soothing yet thunderous.

Marco was at the base of the cliff that held the palace aloft, its surface gray and roughly carved by the countless centuries the wind had thrown itself against it.

He glanced about under his riding cloak, a small container wrapped gingerly in his hands as he made his way to the location his mother told him about.

“34....35.....36” Marco told himself “37 paces from the dirt road.”

Marco looked about, unsure what he was looking for. There was nothing here but rocks that washed ashore, patches of random grass and weeds that managed to survive the salty air and an uneven cliff face. There was no tunnel, no cavern to the reflective pool that his mother said existed.

“Mom” Marco rolled his eyes irritated “ugh, you just told me this to keep me busy, didn't you?”

Marco scoffed, taking his frustration on a nearby rock, kicking it as hard and watching it as it lazily sailed through a nearby bush.

What Marco expected to hear was the sound of solid Earth ricocheting off a larger piece of rock. What Marco heard was the far off echo of rustling and the thud, thud, thud disappearing into the void.

Marco pulled away the obstructing bush to find the mouth of a cavernous tunnel that sloped downward, deep into the ground.

“Okay.” Marco nodded to himself, carefully taking a slow step forward “Either ancient Mewmans were paranoid or I'm about to find some really creepy cultist crap. Please don't be a cultist crap, pleeeeease don't be cultist crap.”

The shadows grew around Marco the further he ventured, the illumination brought by the mid-day sun swallowed whole by the emptiness of the dark, the only sounds of life were his own footsteps and the moaning of the breeze.

Marco coughed though refused to remove his grasp on the container.

The tunnels deepened, curving slightly ever downward in subtle and confusing ways. Marco lost track how long he'd been blanketed in shadows and he began to fidget anxiously.

“This was the stupidest idea I've had” Marco told himself “and I once thought putting roast beef between two slices of bread was a good idea. I mean how am I supposed to use a fork with that? Sigh, I should just go back. I don't know why I'm even doing this, it won't even ah!”

Marco flinched as, without warning, a warm light basked him in its glow. Marco's strained against the sudden shift before focusing once more.

“ugh, I....whoa....”

All about him were multicolored crystals, large, thick towering pieces spreading through in every direction, splashes and hues blending together and covered the enclosed cove in every possible color Marco could've ever had imagined and many more he wouldn't never dream of.

Far beyond the sandy, cold sand under his feet was the ocean, the cool sea breeze chilling him to the bone while it raced throughout the hidden cavern.

There wasn't much left in here: broken, discarded pieces of items once used for worship, weapons that have long rusted and dissolved away, papers and books that seemed complete but would crumble into dust once Marco attempted to move them.

The only thing that remained of the ancient Mewmans that once lived here was a smooth, carefully carved stone altar that was sunk halfway where the ocean and land met.

“Okay” Marco muttered to himself, slowly edging closer to the stone monument “Mom did not mention an altar but it's okay. just because it's here doesn't mean it has to do anything with a cult.”

The soft, wet crunch of Marco's boots mixed with the natural ambiance of the ocean, a harmony of peace as Marco gently placed his offering upon the stone.

He carefully unwrapped his gift, his stomach rumbling loudly as the mouth watering smell of melted cheese wafted into the empty cavern, triangular chips held in an elegant royal bowl.

Marco's signature dish: Super Awesome Nachos.

“Hey” Marco started, his voice awkward and constrained from lack of use. He coughed loudly, feeling more and more embarrassed with each passing moment “Man, only I can get humiliated in an empty room.”

Marco closed his eyes, his breath calm and relaxed.

“I...I know you're not real.” Marco spoke “I know you're not probably didn't exist.....I...I don't know what else to do....I...I'm scared.....I need a way to save my family, my people...but I don't have anything else.....please....help.”

The only response Marco received was the howling of the ocean breeze and the washing of the water against the sand.

Marco shook his head. Why was he even here? Why did he even bother? He should be with his father, attempting to figure out some sort of way to save their home, not in some sort of creepy cave from a time that no longer existed.

Marco's steps faded away as the young prince made his way through the darkness, disappointed in himself for such a childish endeavor.

The waves crashed carelessly against the shore of the cove as they did for countless years and would do so for countless more but something else lurked beneath the surface.

A dark humanoid shape shifted anxiously in the darkness of the water, inching closer and closer to the nachos left on the stone altar.

A pair of sky blue eyes peered from the water, looking back and forth for any signs of life but finding none.

The figure approached carefully, eying the treat with great wonder.

The head of a young woman rose from the water, her long bright blonde hair wet and clung to her back. She took a large whiff of the strange food before letting out a content sigh

“hee, that smells amazing!” the girl cooed to herself, approaching the altar carefully “I didn't think anyone left any food here any more.”

she lay there, her upper half free of the watery grip of the ocean while her lower half remained below

She reached for it, nearly taking hold of the treat before stopping

“Whoa Star” She scolded herself “You can't just eat weird food, randomly placed an offering altar no one has used in your lifetime. Psst, wait! Sure I can”

Star took a chip from the bowl, marveling at the orange substance that lay across. She took a little nibble.

Her eyes widened as her taste buds exploded with an amazing sensational taste she never experienced.

She let out a content moan before rapidly digging into the food, shoving as much as she could into her mouth, her hands dripping in the cheesy, gooey sauce as she ate like a ravenous animal.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Star stopped at once, her eyes darting back and forth wildly as someone approached.

“Oh crud”  she tossed the bowl back onto the altar haphazardly before diving back into the water, her pink fish tail displacing water about before disappearing into the inky dark.

Marco trudged back, aggravated and annoyed.

“I can't believe I forgot the bowl” Marco scolded himself as he came into back the hidden cove.

Star watched as the strange creature came into view, walking on two stumpy, strange looking fins.

Star glanced at her tail, her fingers over her smooth pink scales in awe and wonder

“Could my fin be like that? Ooooh two fins? I could swim twice as fast!”

There was a muted thud. Star's attention snapped back to the surface and the stranger that came closer to the water's edge.

Star let out a gasp of surprise, leaning forward as she caught a proper view of the beautiful stranger

He was about old as she was. He wore some sort of cloth that covered his body with varying colors. His hair was well kept, slicked back and as brown as some of the algae she found near her home when she went looking for treasure or caught with general wanderlust. He bent over, picking up the bowl from the sand, glancing about curiously.

Star caught her breath as his gaze fell onto her. Well not onto her since she was hiding within the depths of the ocean but she felt like he was. Like he was seeing her and only her. His dark brown caramel eyes were hypnotizing and Star found himself reaching towards him.

“Hello?” Marco called out but there was nothing here. No signs of life, no footsteps. In fact, other than the fact the bowl fell off the altar on its own.

Marco frowned, suspicious of what could've caused the bowl to tip over...and emptied.

“Hello?” he shouted again “I mean you know no harm....but admittedly you're freaking me the hell out.”

Star swished back and forth anxiously, nervously biting at her lips.

The soft crunch, crunch, crunch of the stranger's funny looking land fins dully echoed throughout the water, keeping Star fixated upon the handsome man.

“Hello?”

Star waved under the waves.

“I'll come back tomorrow” Marco told no one “Maybe you'd like to talk then?”

Silence.

“Yeah....and I'm talking to myself....”

Star watched eagerly as the handsome man glanced about the empty cove uneasily before being swallowed whole by the darkness.

“HI!” Star leapt out from the beneath the water, waving frantically to catch the attention of the stranger “I'm Star!”

No response.

“Shoot” she pouted, smacking the aquatic substance that surrounded her “Right, I got be faster. Tomorrow, tomorrow for sure!”

The next few days were interesting to say the least and not because Star had yet to talk to the beautiful stranger that graced the cove but because she found him fascinating

He was a creature of habit, always arriving at the same time with the same outfit and the same wondrous snack that made Star's stomach rumble hungrily.

He was timid in his movements almost he was afraid of being ridiculed and mocked despite the fact he was 'alone' in the cove.

The first day or so, he placed the snack back on the altar and waited a respectful distance away. Star wanted to greet the man but she found herself nervous and her throat dry. How does one exactly talk to someone who didn't look exactly like you?

The man would stay for an hour before sighing in defeat and taking the treat back to wherever he came from which always caused Star to whimper sadly.

The next he came, he was far less formal, opting to dress in a simple white tunic and dress pants. Instead of laying the amazing food at the altar, he gently placed it where the ocean met the land and laid beside it.

This time he spoke and Star couldn't help but listen.

His name was Marco Ubaldo Diaz, he was the crowned prince of Mewni and he was feeling a bit trapped about a situation that threatened his kingdom though he never clarified what was the problem

He would stay there for hours, just talking and with each word out of his mouth, Star's fascination with him only grew.

He talked about how lonely it was being the crowned prince, the constant need to pretend, how he longed to do what was right and just.

He described the world he belonged to: The green grassy knolls, the beautiful flowers that grew in the spring, the nachos he made by hand.

Star listened, eager to learn more and more about Marco and his world though she could've done without him teasing her about the nachos. He chewed on them happily and Star could do nothing but fume.

Today was the 7th day and this was the day Star was going to introduce herself, hell or high water.

Marco approached as usual, nachos slung under his arm.

He planted the bowl in the middle again and took a calming breath.

He had long since given up expecting some sort of mystical entity to appear from the sea. He convinced himself some creature smelled his food and ate it. He must've scared it off when he returned for the bowl. 2 plus 2 equals math.

Still, Marco came every day, finding peace and solace in this isolated, hidden place. There was something therapeutic about sitting here and talking about his problems to the world, to nature without no one to judge him.

“ You know...” Marco began, looking lovingly to the ocean far in the distance “Non-existent person who I kept referring to so I have some sort of focal point for my thoughts. I always wondered what lay beneath ocean? So much of it covers our world....yet no one knows what is under the sea.....I wonder often and...”

“I can answer that!”

Marco jumped, tumbling backwards against the uneven sand as an unexpected splash echoed through the small cove.

Marco eyes widened as a beautiful woman appeared from out of nowhere, her hair damp and wrapping over her shoulder, the only thing covering her bare skin and...

Marco felt his cheeks reddened, averting his eyes at once “I-I'm sorry, I didn't think...”

“Umm, why aren't you looking at me? Do I have something on my face?”

“N-no” Marco stammered “I mean no disrespect miss but you're...you're...umm....”

“Did my shells come off? Oh that's embarrassing”

Marco snuck a peek despite how horrible of an idea that could've been and true to her word, the girl was not naked as he feared but was wearing two strategically placed shells as some sort of makeshift outfit.

“...oh good” Marco let out a tense sigh “Wait, how did you get here?”

The woman laid on the beach, propped on her elbows and looking at him as if he was the most interesting thing in the world “Oh I swam here.”

“How...? Marco questioned, taking a step forward to the enchanting beauty.

“Duh, my fin.”

Marco jolted awake, his eyes blurry and his head spinning

“are you okay?”

Marco moaned groggily, something bright and yellow leaning over him.

“I...”

“I didn't mean to freak you out.”

“I...?”

His vision cleared and there lay the girl from before, her sky blue eyes brimming with joy and relief, her sunshine blonde hair hanging loosely over her shoulder, held back only by a hand brushing it behind her ear.

“.....I....! Fish!”

“Fish?” Star perked, looking around excitedly “Where?

“You!” Marco backed away “You're a fish!”

Star pouted, her tail fin smacking the retreating tide “psst, I'm a mermaid, not a fish.”

“...W-wait, mermaid?”

Star peered curiously at Marco's stunned face

“Yeah? Never seen a mermaid before?”

“No!” Marco cried outloud

“Well, just because you've never seen a mermaid doesn't mean we don't exist.”

Marco ran his hand through his hair “I can't believe this...h-how long have you been watching me?”

Star happily chewed on Marco's cheesy snack, letting out a contented moan

“all week'

“All week?!” Marco's voice cracked “Wait, you heard everything?!”

“Yep!”

Marco clutched at his hair, feeling faint at the idea someone witnessed how exposed he allowed himself be.

“Could you tell me more?”

Marco stared at the...girl? Who leaned further on her elbows, eyes shimmering with wonder and awe.

“What?”

“Your world” Star beamed “It sounds amazing....could you tell me some more?

“you're not going to make fun of me?”

“Make fun of you?” Star raised an eyebrow “Why would I do that?”

“Because I'm a loser?”

“Loser? You're amazing!”

Marco flushed at her kind, genuine words, her bright smile bringing one onto his own lips

“I....”

“please?” Star pleaded as her hand snuck into the bowl for more nachos.

Marco sat before the mermaid, trying to prevent himself from passing out again.

“Umm...sure. I'm Marco” he offered his hand politely “and I'm talking to a mermaid....”

Star glanced at his hand and gingerly took it in her own, giving it a small shake

Marco marveled at how soft her skin felt against his

“I'm Star. Now share these nachos with me and tell everything. Don't leave anything out.”

[ninzied]

Impulse [Bandit OQ]

When Regina double-crosses him on a job, Robin is forced to reconsider what she might mean to him, and how he plans to return the favor – after he escapes from the Queen’s Guard, that is. (Based on the prompt: “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in.”) ~15k. [ffn | ao3]

Happy birthday to my dear friend @loveexpelrevolt. I’m so thankful fandom brought me to you, with your spunk and talent and your generous heart. You are truly one of the most inspiring people I have ever met (which we can finally say we’ve done in person!). Anyway, you gave me this word prompt many moons ago, and it was actually intended as last year’s birthday fic, but by the time I finished it there were only so many months until this one, so I figured I’d wait :)

(I would like to thank @starscythe​, @sometimesangryblackwoman​ and @revolutionsoftheheart​ for all their help in shaping this fic, and to @starscythe especially for inspiring me with her amazing manip.)

They’ve been marching for days, it seems.

Robin gives the rope around his wrists another vigorous tug, but the knots there are as damnably stiff as they had been five minutes previously, stubbornly refusing to loosen. The guards have already confiscated his satchel of lock picks, and of course it would be just his luck to reach for the dagger in his boot – bending himself awkwardly as he feels for the handle, hop-stepping so as not to break his stride – only to find that it’s mysteriously vanished.

Well that's just bloody wonderful.

“Whatever it is you're doing back there, d’you mind maybe not doing it for a while?” grumbles the man in front of him – a lumbering, overgrown sort of individual, filling out the edges of a rich red tunic that looks as though it’s seen better days – and then there’s a pointed yank at the rope where they’ve been tethered together. The man tips a hairy chin sideways to prevent his words from carrying toward the head of the line. “The last thing we need is for them to think you’re up to something.”

“Right. My apologies.”

“No harm done,” the man – giant, really – grunts good-naturedly, shrugging one large boulder-like shoulder. “But, you know, if it’s all the same to you, I’d really like to avoid getting tossed in those shackles again.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Feeling properly chastised, Robin drops his arms back down behind him and struggles to contain his rising frustration. Some quarter-hour that already feels like an eternity earlier, while plodding along single-file and chained at the ankles through some particularly perilous terrain, a fellow prisoner had stepped most inopportunely into quicksand, dragging several others down with him before the guards had managed to react in time.

It had been an ordeal, to say the least, to dismantle the remaining restraints before any more casualities occurred; the Evil Queen had, after all, promised her men considerable amounts of money in exchange for the realm’s most wanted, and what use was a heart that was no longer beating?

One of the guards, with a face that might have been handsome if not for the cruelty hardening its features, had given Robin a sound beating after he squandered his sole chance at escape in favor of extending a tree branch toward one of the men as the earth began to swallow him whole.

“That one was hardly worth a sack of gold anyway” had been the guard’s only comment, and while Robin staggered back to his feet, the man turned away to consult a pocket mirror, ensuring that not a lock of his golden hair had fallen out of place in all the commotion.

Robin sincerely doubted he could say the same for the state of his own hair – or the rest of his body, for that matter.

Wincing around the throbbing eye and an uncomfortably swollen nose – broken now, surely – that he’d gotten for his troubles, he forces one foot in front of the other, feeling useless in his anger and wishing, above all else, for open skies (for freedom) above a campfire pit, and for the company of John and his men, likely kilometers behind him now and at an utter loss as to what’s become of their leader.

He should have known better than to trust that woman.

“What I wouldn’t give for a pint right now,” the giant speaks up again then, sounding wistful, and Robin musters a rather humorless chuckle for his benefit.

“Something stronger, perhaps.”

“We’ll drink our way through Sherwood Forest after we’ve escaped,” his companion decides, in a firm tone that Robin doesn’t have the heart to dispute, though his thoughts have already begun to turn on him, chasing some thread of desperation brought on by a growing sense of hopelessness at their predicament.

If he manages to scrape his way out of this one intact, he vows to be done with it all. With the thieving, and the crime, and the at-times thankless job of living with a target on his back just so the poor may never know hunger. He’s going to retire from the business, he is – something he’s been meaning to do for years, though he’d never quite found the right time for it, as is the way of kicking old habits.

This time, however, he’s certain (he must be) that things will turn out differently. This path he's on can only end one way – with his reckoning, at the hands, if not the mercy, of the Queen – and he's no intention of dying such a thankless death today.

After he's broken free – after he’s put no less than half a kingdom between him and her army – he’s going to go make an honest man of himself, whatever that means. He’ll put down roots in some remote town, someplace so ordinary, so easily overlooked that even an outlaw could lose himself there. Perhaps he’ll find a proper woman to fall for while he’s at it, if the fates are permissive and she not so quick to judge a man for his past and his dubious codes of honor.

Once upon a time, he might have thought to look closer to home (to his heart) and hope, but the instability of his profession has hardly afforded him such luxuries, and the only woman he’s ever found himself thinking of, caring for of all damnable things, is the very woman responsible for landing him in this mess to begin with, without so much as a second thought.

And as soon as time draws them together again – it’s always but a matter of time, whenever they’re concerned – he’s going to settle the score between them, once and for all.

He owes her a reckoning too, that Regina.

…

It’s an easy job, she’d told him. A two-man job, one she’d have clearly preferred to do alone if reason hadn’t won out over pride, and here she’d looked him over, sharply appraising, before announcing that she supposed one of him would simply have to do.

We’ll be in and out by first light, she’d told him (that is, if you’re half as useful as they say you are), and then she’d named their target – a traveling dignitary in possession of several ancient scrolls, worth quite a lot to the nobility in some neighboring kingdom – and asked to borrow his horse, in a way that made Robin wonder whether he had any true say in the matter.

He scowls now to think on how little he had said by way of objection – how unreservedly he’d relinquished the reins to her and let things fall as she’d planned them. He’d been more than satisfied with the opportunity to observe Regina in as natural a habitat as she would allow him, something inside him stirring to wonder at what he might learn of her with or without her permission.

But she’d revealed her true colors to him today, she had, and putting his faith in places he shouldn’t – staking his life on some illusion of friendship with a woman who can hardly spare him a smile on most days – is not a mistake he intends to make a second time.

Robin’s distracted enough by his recollections that it takes a moment to realize the fellow walking ahead of him has taken to stealing furtive glances in his direction, jaws unsticking before clamping back shut as if chewing carefully over the things he's about to say.

“I'm a, uh, big fan, by the way.” He mumbles his way around the words in a rather bashful manner, but then the moment is fairly ruined when he asks next, sounding desperately curious, “How the hell did they finally manage to pin down someone like you?”

Robin attempts a smile that comes out feeling more like a grimace.

Clearly aware that he’s touched on a sore spot, the man continues, “Not that it didn’t, you know, require a whole army to put their backs into it.” And he’s not wrong about that, though it had taken the work of a single woman to drop Robin’s guard long enough to find himself hopelessly surrounded by a squadron of soldiers who barely know left from right without their Queen to tell them so. “I'm just…surprised, is all.”

“As am I,” says Robin, endeavoring not to dwell on those dark, inscrutable eyes he’d been less than wise to trust, and how she’d winked his way before all but shoving him into the path of the oncoming cavalry, leaving him stranded in the woods without a horse or his share of the treasure.

Her duplicity had, much to his chagrin, thrown him so thoroughly he could do more than stand there while she flew between trees to save her own skin, never once glancing back as he shouldered the humiliation of getting caught, which – judging from the sheer turnout of massively armed forces – had more than likely been intended for her.

As innumerable as the notorious Robin Hood’s own impressive undertakings of lawless misconduct have been, not a living soul in the Enchanted Forest is clueless to the legend that is one Regina Mills, as deadly as she is rumored to be beautiful, wanted above all else for her unspeakable crimes against the crown.

“Sounds like there’s a story there.” The giant is looking at him with such an earnest, hopeful expression now that Robin feels almost genuinely apologetic for letting him down.

But he’s reluctant to delve into the details of Regina’s treachery – the tight spaces and dark corners, warmth and breath unwillingly shared, hands fumbling too-close (or so he told himself) – and then the sudden chasm that had opened and stretched and stretched from her eyes to his, separating them in a way that felt startlingly permanent even before she mounted his horse and rode away from him.

No, Robin thinks, he’d rather not relive those less-than-favorable moments, the itch of displeasure he can’t quite get rid of, and so he carefully deflects with a polite “Indeed,” followed by, “Please forgive my ignorance, but I don’t believe I’m as familiar with your work.”

“Oh,” says the giant with an awkward, embarrassed sort of chuckle, “the name’s Anton, but – err, my friends call me Tiny.” He mumbles something sheepish about harps and magic beans, a collection of pastimes that sit rather oddly on this rather large man, and Robin is wondering if he hasn’t simply misunderstood him when his thoughts are sidetracked by a rippling disquiet that’s just reached the end of the line.

He peers around Tiny’s colossal frame, somewhere near the level of his elbow, to find a guard up ahead extending an imperious hand, signaling for their party to stop. This particular man, by Robin’s estimation from his current distance, would hardly come up to his own elbow, squatly built as though the gods had taken a regular-sized person and pressed him down from head to toe rather than shrinking him into something more properly proportioned.

A bulbous nose protrudes from between two narrowed eyes, and a snarl involving all of his teeth has started to show through his beard as he points a gloved finger just off the road, into a thick patch of forest that has suddenly gone far too still to escape anyone’s notice.

The guard previously so preoccupied with his hair nods meaningfully to the dwarf before advancing on the bramble, sword at the ready for whatever might have endeavored to hide on the other side. He slides the blade between branches, slipping through the undergrowth until all Robin can make out of him is a swish of black cape, then nothing.

Five heavy seconds of silence follow, then the sound of many things happening, suddenly and all at once – an agitated horse’s whinny, the dull thud of things landing where they probably shouldn’t – and Tiny is startled backwards, nearly trodding over Robin’s boots.

The guards are wearing matching baffled expressions, rooted there with indecision as to how they ought to proceed, while Robin’s fellow inmates begin clamoring loudly, cheering on their invisible champion as the noise beyond the bushes escalates to an alarming degree.

Robin seizes his opportunity in the face of everyone else’s distraction, and he’s digging into the rope with fingers and nails and renewed determination when the thicket just beside him gives a great rustling twitch.

He barely has the time to react when out canters a wild-maned, riderless horse, which Robin might have thought to recognize had he not been so concerned with avoiding getting trampled underfoot when the mare kicks onto her hind legs and takes off into a gallop across the road, scattering the Queen’s men and prisoners in various directions.

Robin is awkwardly attempting to help Tiny back onto his feet when he hears the guard call out, victorious and gleefully sinister, “Going somewhere, princess?”

He stills, and a dreadful sense of foreboding begins to prickle up his spine and spread.

“I don’t see anyone coming to your rescue this time,” continues the guard, his taunting merciless despite how winded he sounds, and the renewed signs of a struggle – a disturbance in the leaves, the pained cry that soon follows – seize Robin around the middle, squeezing at something there. “Looks like you won’t be smuggling your way out of this one.”

“Charming, as always,” comes a second voice then, biting, scornful, and Robin’s heart quickens at the familiarity of it – so often directed towards him, with a dark roll of her eyes to match (and a refusal to stay for that drink she’d once promised him when he caught her in one of her better moods) – but no.

It can’t be. Not her.

The guard eventually emerges from the tree line, looking disheveled but terribly triumphant as he hauls a struggling Regina behind him, wrists bound behind her back, stubborn heels digging into the dirt.

“Still has a dog do all her dirty work, then,” she remarks contemptuously, with a futile jerk of the rope as it pulls her forward, forcing her footsteps into an echo of his.

Her captor freezes for a split second, his expression severely unpleasant, but it edges into something dangerously close to delight as he turns to smirk at the look of her, captured all the same despite the sharpness held in her words, her gaze, though she even now manages to stare down her nose at him.

For all Robin’s bitterness regarding her betrayal, this is not a fate he’d ever wish for her, and it takes a monumental effort – plus a quelling flick of Regina’s eyes in his direction, so swift he might have imagined the contact – not to launch himself forward when the guard levels his sword point to the pale white of her throat.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he tells her, his tone disturbingly casual.

“I’m sure Snow White would prefer to do the honors,” Regina speaks around the blade, with a carelessness that has Robin clenching every part of his body.

“That’s Her Majesty to you,” corrects the guard, almost sternly, like a teacher scolding a schoolgirl. “Besides, I can still deliver you to her without hands, or a tongue. Your heart is what she’s after, and there are ways to ensure that it still beats even if the rest of you is in pieces.”

“Considerate of you,” says Regina, unfazed (foolish, Robin thinks, so foolish, and he is so desperately angry with her), even as her words take on a hoarse, strangled quality. “Tell me, Charming, when do you think Her Majesty—” she curls a lip, less than subtle in her mocking “—will finally see you as more than just an errand boy?”

A titter towards the front, poorly concealed, sets off a chain of gleeful reactions that the other guards can’t seem to contain, despite their warnings and the threatening way they step forward with their weapons half-drawn. The dwarf, currently installed some distance away and looking rather surly about the delay in their travels, makes no indication that he’d heard the dig apart from a single crack in his expression, frighteningly smile-like, that’s gone too quickly for Robin to guess at its meaning.

Tiny, meanwhile, is muttering unintelligible things to himself, slack-jawed with some revelation, and then he’s jamming a large elbow into Robin’s ribs with such enthusiasm that Robin nearly loses both his breath and his footing. He glances upward to find the giant looking intently sideways at him, eyes wide and almost comically awestruck as he whispers very carefully out of one corner of his mouth, “Is that…is she who I think she…?”

Personally, Robin never has been able to find much of a likeness in the posters depicting a face with her name (wanted, in black and bold letters, for murder, treason, and treachery); they lack the fire, the spark to her scowl that he’s been known to burn himself on whenever he’s not careful.

They will not reduce her to something so colorless, so flat.

No. No, they will not.

Tiny continues to gape at Regina in an openly stunned fashion while Robin weighs his options and quickly settles on the only way he will allow this to end, already grimacing at the prospect of another blackened eye or perhaps breaking something more vital than a nose this time when he creates the diversion to help her escape.

Now all he needs is an excuse to—

“She’s something to look at, she is,” Tiny is still carrying on under his breath, starstruck in his admiration, and he suddenly seems to be standing a good deal straighter than before. “The sketches do her absolutely no justice. Say, you don’t suppose she’s…y’know…taken?”

Robin utters a silent apology for his new friend as he tightens his hands to fists and braces himself for impact, preparing to drive his head into the underside of the man’s gobsmacked jaw.

The guard has pressed his blade with enough force to crease Regina’s skin now, though he’s yet to draw blood (time is of the essence, and Robin tenses, turning, ready to stir up some trouble). The dwarf speaks up then, growling out an irritated “Quit messing around so we can get on with it,” and the guard obligingly lowers his sword and raises an arm, backhanding Regina across the face instead.

Robin becomes vaguely aware of something large and hairy stepping into his sightline, the sensation of hitting nothing but wall when all he longs for is to move, to break through worlds if that's what it takes – oh but how he needs to destroy that bastard for what he’s just done—

There’s a murmur of “Easy there, Robin Hood” somewhere above his ear, barely heard over the pounding rush of blood there, seeping to touch his vision until he’s seeing red.

“You’ll only do her more harm than good,” Tiny is whispering urgently, and he doesn’t ease back until Robin gives him a tight-lipped jerk of a nod in understanding.

His muscles are still singing with the desire to tear the guard apart by the limbs as the man wrenches at the rope and shoves Regina roughly forward, a glove buried in her hair, yanking, twisting, smirking like the sick son of a bitch he is, until her jaws clench from the effort of not crying out. A stream of scarlet has blossomed just above her upper lip, and Robin’s fury finds a new target as he fights the compulsion to reach for her, shake her, demand of her just how she’d let herself finally fall into enemy hands.

Looking too pleased with himself, the guard eventually releases her hair and steps ahead to take the lead, leaving Regina to trip and stumble after him. She waits until he’s turned fully before swiping her mouth against her tunic, wincing when the motion aggravates something in her shoulder, and she rolls it gingerly back and forth, testing the extent of the injury.

Robin has become well-acquainted with the guard’s savagery these past many hours, the aching soreness where brass-covered knuckles have no doubt painted his face in lurid shades of purples and greens. Still, he knows Regina to be equally deadly, if not more so – light on her feet, exceptionally clever in tight situations, armed with a sharpness that cuts deeper than any blade – and by all accounts it makes no damn sense that she would’ve been caught so easily.

What had she been thinking, to linger so close (so recklessly) to the roads, while men who would gladly see her hang for her crimes seek passage to the castle – to the Queen – that she’s spent a lifetime outrunning?

He’ll have words with her on the matter soon enough, Robin decides with grim determination as he watches them draw near the end of the line. Regina, clearly guessing the path of his thoughts, looks pointedly elsewhere when the guard stations her just behind him.

It occurs to Robin that seeing the two of them side by side may trigger certain unwelcome memories as far as the guard is concerned – a heist interrupted, a trap lain in a hijacked carriage, an arrow landing shy of the Queen’s head (but only just) – and it won’t improve their already dismal odds of survival if the guard comes to recognize him as the one who’d helped Regina escape that first time, so many summers ago.

Robin is carefully dropping his gaze to his boots when the guard grabs at his own bound hands, moving for the loose end of rope dangling there. Chuckling quietly, the man loops it noose-like around Regina’s neck, tightening, tightening (something deep inside Robin’s chest straining in answer), until she’s all but hissing in pain.

The ground goes unfocused beneath his feet, seeming to shift away from him with increasing unsteadiness as though the two have been separated in some irrevocable way, but something else has weighed him down, resisting his every urge to act, to unleash whatever form of hell he can, to do something other than simply go on standing there.

The guard is just within reach and just distracted enough that Robin could aim a devastating if not fatal blow to some of his more vulnerable body parts (he’d so like to see the man try to smirk with a fist in his throat), if not for even the off-chance that any sudden movement on his part might end disastrously for Regina.

And so he stays motionless, unable to so much as scowl when the guard begins patting his palms up and down Regina’s backside, dallying too long near her hips before roughly working his way toward her front. The rucksack she’d secured to her belt earlier with their hard-won scrolls is gone, Robin notices, must have been surrendered to the woods in the heat of her capture, but its loss is nothing in the face of all else he’s too close to losing, now.

A more-than-thorough survey of her legs, a thin blade confiscated from the lacings of her boots, and the guard is leering over Regina again, with a grin vile enough to turn any stomach playing across his features. “Better keep up, if you want to keep your own head,” he murmurs to her, almost in the cadence of a lover, before sauntering off to rejoin the front of the group.

Robin closes his hands and wills the shaking to stop.

For a long, miserable moment there’s nothing to take note of but the slow restoration of order to their party, the quiet, shuffling defeat in their steps and the occasional word, testily exchanged, between guard and dwarf up ahead. Tiny offers Robin a brief, rueful attempt at a smile before facing forward and shuffling on, and though his generous size has them rather effectively hidden from view, Robin doesn’t look back. He holds himself stiffly, quietly, willing the guards to forget Regina briefly enough for him to work his mind around their current dilemma.

It would have been a fairly easy thing, gambling with his safety alone on some half-baked plan of escape, but he’s her to think of now – her head, that heart so long sought after by the Queen, all things too valuable for him to risk the way he might have his own life – particularly when she can’t appear to be bothered about attending to such matters herself.

He won’t allow his sacrifice, involuntary as it was, to be entirely for naught now that she’s marching to near-certain death with him.

Robin’s shoulders soon begin to protest from the effort of extending his wrists as far back as he’s physically able, lending what slack he can to the rope around her neck, and it burns away at him, more than being double-crossed or cheated out of some trivial fortune, to find that his hands are tied, and her life along with them.

They are thieves, after all, meant for only fools to trust (he’d been the fool to believe anything more than that lay between them), but this, this he’d never asked for, when all he’d truly desired to steal from her someday remains well-guarded and untouchable as ever to him.

…

Midday slides into early afternoon as they near the mouth of a stream, its babbling current providing them something of a cover when Robin’s failure to acknowledge her in any way seems to provoke Regina enough to break the silence first.

“You look terrible.”

Her nonchalance, maddeningly ill-timed, stirs Robin’s temper, and he replies, as evenly as he can manage, “No bloody thanks to you.”

A beat, then she remarks, “You sound upset.”

“You don’t miss a thing.”

She doesn’t seem to have a response to that, and he carries on, curious to see what it will take to force a confession out of her. “I should’ve known you had some ulterior motive when you invited me along on that job.” His tone grows dry. “And here I thought you’d grown genuinely fond of my company.”

“Still can’t get over that, can you,” sighs Regina, and she actually has the audacity to sound bored with him. “I needed a ride, and something to distract them with in case we were found out—”

“It’s nice to know that’s all I’m good for,” Robin deadpans, though he can’t help but feel somewhat offended. He hadn’t earned his reputation – or the substantial bounty on his head – by being no better than a distraction. “I’m flattered, truly.”

“Besides. You weren’t supposed to…” She trails off, and for a moment he wonders if the forest hasn’t simply claimed the last of her words when they eventually reach him again, tight and evenly controlled. “You were the one actually stupid enough to get caught.”

He recognizes the slight for what it is – the closest thing resembling an apology he’s ever likely to get from this woman – but still he can’t help needling her, can’t resist the image of her scowling at his backside the instant she finds her own words being used against her. “Still can’t say sorry, can you?”

She falls silent again, and he’s satisfied.

The men up front have not let up on their squabbling, irritated snatches of “But I found her first” and “Yeah? Who do you think Her Majesty’s going to believe?” rising to filter through the trees, and in their preoccupation Robin finally ducks his head back for a glimpse at Regina. It won’t be much longer, he reckons, before the guards tire of arguing, and the nearby source of fresh water tempts them into stopping for a drink; once they’re stationary, he’ll have better luck at securing their means of escape, the jagged edge of some stone, perhaps a thin-pointed branch he can wedge into the rope and loosen its knotting.

Regina is twisting around in her makeshift noose while he watches her, but at the feel of his gaze on her she stops, looking stonily askance. Her cheek is still smarting from the blow she’d received, a thin trace of blood staining her upper lip in a gash that will surely scar, and Robin feels a twinge in his chest at the thought.

“At any rate,” he tells her, softening, “I think we can both agree that neither of us have been particularly perceptive in our choices today.”

Regina snorts out a laugh. “Speak for yourself.”

Irritation rattles him down to the bones, and he forgets his composure a moment. “Need I remind you how much your head is worth to these people?” he growls to her quietly, jerking his head toward the men who’ve been no doubt quarreling on that very same topic. “To the Queen?”

“Twice as much as yours, at least,” she’s quick to remind him (always), looking smug of all things, and it vexes him that even now she could reduce this to something as petty as a competition between the two of them.

“That’s hardly the point,” Robin mutters, returning to his careful scrutiny of their path ahead. He signals back to her as best as he’s able whenever the ground levels off unexpectedly or a protruding root upsets his footing, and he can only hope she’s not so proud as to ignore even these small warnings.

She makes an impatient sound in her throat when he doesn’t make the effort to lecture her any further. “So are you done, or…?”

He ducks beneath a low-lying branch that’s overgrown the width of the road, slowing his gait to allow Regina time to do the same without, quite literally, risking her neck. “We’ve still much to discuss, you and I.”

“Maybe later,” she tells him dismissively once their pace has found a regular rhythm again.

“Oh?” And in spite of everything, he finds himself battling a smile. “You’ve more important matters requiring your attention, I take it?”

“Now’s just not a great time.” She sounds increasingly distracted as they tread along, picking their way around cumbersome ferns, sidestepping hollowed bits of walnut shells that litter the soil. The stream has started bending eastward as the trail takes them further north, and too soon they’ll have reached the outermost corners of Sherwood Forest, of home.

“We’ve another day’s walk to the castle at least,” Robin argues for the sake of appearances, given that he’s no actual intention for either of them to see said walk to the end. “Tell me, then, when would be more convenient for you? After we’re comfortably settled into our prison cells? Or just before our beheading?”

He can practically hear Regina’s eyes rolling behind his back, every inch of her likely poised in retort, when Tiny swivels around to regard them both with a dour expression.

“Would you two knock it off for a while?” the giant wants to know, before adding a disgruntled “You’re kind of making my ears bleed.” He hazards a glance over Robin’s head then, and whatever he sees there has him beckoning Robin forward with a shifty-eyed twitch of his chin, dropping his voice so low that the words barely make it past the length of his beard. “Listen. I’ve given it some more thought, and she’s all y—”

Robin never quite catches that last bit, distracted as he is by a sudden, odd pulsing of light in his periphery, too bright, too deliberate to have come from the sun.

Before he has a chance to wonder if he’s seeing things, Regina closes in at his heels, forcing him to stagger-step in tandem with her strides (pressing, relentless) before she topples them both over, trapping his hands somewhere between the lambswool of her vest collar and the smooth belted leather at her waist.

“What the bloody – Regina, what are you—”

“Do me a favor.” Her request is even-toned, almost offhand in the way she lets it settle into his ear, but he doesn’t miss the restrained sense of urgency behind it, and his eyes instinctively dart back up to the front, where the guards are still negotiating the terms of their claim to the Queen’s most precious cargo.

He exchanges a look with Tiny, who appears to have caught on to the sudden shift, and the giant nods wordlessly to him before facing meaningfully forward again, straight-backed and vigilant.

Robin inclines his head toward Regina until he can feel stray wisps of her hair tickling his jawline. “What will you have me do?”

“There’s another dagger – there – in my vest. I need you to get it.”

Unbelievable. “And you didn't think to mention it earlier?” he says, aggravated, though given her track record (notoriously bad at sharing, for one) he supposes it’s hardly shocking that she would have thought to keep such crucial details to herself.

“I was waiting for the opportune moment,” she hisses, and it’s his turn to roll his eyes while he finagles his hands into a position better suited for (he sighs) more or less feeling her up, carefully laboring his way through her muttered guidance – to the right, down, then down more (pay attention), and do you feel it yet (well what’s taking you so long)?

“Watch it,” she warns in a rush when one hand strays farther right than either of them wanted, knuckles brushing against the unmistakable swell of a breast beneath her collar, and he curses, curses, curses this woman, thinking of how he’d rather perish at the hands of the Queen than a part of Regina’s anything, her razor-like gaze, those deceptively soft curves, that knife she’d stabbed into his back at least one time already.

“Got it.” He retrieves the dagger, gripping the hilt like a lifeline and feeling relieved in more ways than one as Regina finally steps away, giving him room to recover his balance and find that breath he’d quite forgotten to take.

His thumb catches on a groove in the handle, tracing over the engraved surface of a lion’s mane that he’s felt a hundred times before, could likely sketch out to minute detail from sheer memory alone.

“Hang on. This is my dagger.”

“You don’t miss a thing,” she drawls.

“You do realize this marks the second time, now, that you’ve more or less proved to harbor some death wish against me?”

“Well there’s no need to be dramatic about it,” sniffs Regina. “You’re lucky I got caught when I did. Unless you were waiting to reach the Queen’s doorstep before choosing to do something about it, you clearly needed someone’s help.”

“Because you stole my dagger.”

“You would’ve done the same thing,” she mutters exasperatedly, as though she’d had every expectation that he would be this difficult, and he manages to breathe through the height of his temper before turning to regard her again.

“No,” Robin tells her evenly, and he likes to imagine he’s more than unsettled her, that scowl of hers beginning to slip at the firm tone he’s taken, and she looks almost confused by his unwillingness to play by their usual rules. “I wouldn’t have.”

Regina seems to recover the next instant, and she stares mulishly up at him, her face inscrutable now.

He slides his gaze away and toward the ground, not wishing (not ready) to see her reaction as he goes on, matter-of-factly, “You and I both know I would never do a bloody thing that put you in harm’s way.”

Her answering silence cuts at him more than he’ll willingly admit, and then her voice is reaching to touch him again, half in challenge, half in entreaty. “So cut me loose.”

Robin obliges without another word, sawing swiftly through the rope, and the fibrous twining gives bit by bit until it’s falling away, freeing her from him.

She’s suddenly pressing herself along his backside again, with the distinct sound of a smirk against his ear as she whispers, all teasing warmth for having gotten in the last word with him, “Try to keep up this time.”

Not even a sodding thank you.

And then she’s gone.

“She’s something,” Tiny remarks, with wonder evident in every towering inch of his frame, and together they follow her flight through the trees as the forest, down to its very leaves, seems to part at her command, swallowing her safely out of sight.

Something doesn’t even begin to cover it.

…

At least she’d had the decency to leave him with more than just a blow to his pride this time around.

Robin turns the dagger point inward, working it deep into the knots binding his wrists together. It’s a far trickier task than simply slicing away at the rope, taking care not to cut himself too badly on the blade, but he soon finds a manageable rhythm and his mind begins to wander, inevitably it seems, to chase after Regina.

She’ll likely have found a more expedient form of transportation by now, absconded with another’s horse or charmed her way into someone else’s carriage, and Robin tells himself he’s glad for it. The greater the runaround she can give the guards the better, though it’s not that particular distance so much as the one growing and growing between the two of them that he finds he’s so preoccupied with at the moment.

Regina hadn’t given him that much of a head start, and he wonders what good it would do him –  how much a horse and his portion of the scrolls are actually worth (knowing full well the worth of other things) – even if he does choose to pursue her, once he’s made his escape. They’ve always been so terribly careful, so calculated in their space and their debts, their reservations and the risks they’re willing to take with one another.

What would they be without any of these things standing between them, Robin wonders, and it’s the hope of discovery, that thrill of what’s yet uncharted as far as Regina is concerned, that fuels every impulse he’s ever ignored in the past to simply go after her this time.

As absorbed in his thoughts as he is, he hardly pays attention to Tiny’s small-sounding “Uh oh,” nor the deafening stillness that’s overtaken their party, until it’s spread halfway down the line, and he nearly runs into the giant from behind before coming to an uneasy stop himself.

The guards, from the sound of it, have settled their differences for the time being and begun a routine sweep, taking stock of their prisoners and loudly debating which of their sad-looking lot will be fortunate enough to receive a sip of water once they’ve procured more from the stream.

The golden-haired guard is, naturally, the first to take note of Regina’s absence.

“Where is she?” he roars, raising hell as he stalks toward Robin, drawing his sword and shaking it outward in a blind sort of fury. “How the hell did she escape? Leroy! Search the woods! She won’t have made it far on foot!”

Nothing for it but to go down fighting, Robin thinks grimly as the rope finally begins to budge and loosen. And if he can take this bastard down with him, so much the better.

“You!” growls the guard, livid, sword point coming within rather uncomfortable proximity to Robin’s chest. “Which way did she go? You must have helped her do it!”

Robin leans in close enough for the blade tip to just nick the leather trim of his vest, confiding with a solemn, “Not for the first time, as it so happens,” and then he winks at him.

Not to be toyed with, the guard presses further, thundering, “Tell me where she went,” when the bushes beside them give a great, violent shudder. Robin backs away with hardly a second to spare before the mare is bursting back through, powerful legs lowering to tread the path where he’d just stood.

This time, she isn’t riding alone.

“Looking for me?” a voice above them wonders, and Regina reins the horse to a stop inches in front of the guard’s incredulous face.

In the brief moments since they’d been separated, Regina had worked herself completely free, with chafed-red skin in place of the rope around her wrists and neck, and Robin looks upward to find her gaze startlingly warm on his.

She turns to address the guard once more, tilting her head almost coquettishly as she clucks her tongue at him. “Honestly, Charming, did you really think I was going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“You should’ve run while you had the chance, Regina,” he sneers up at her, swinging his sword in a slow, lazy arc that has the mare prancing backward, tossing her head with a loud, wet snort. The sword advances with another wide sweep, more deliberately paced this time. “I’ll deliver you to Her Majesty in a coffin if I have to now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen,” Robin interrupts them gravely then, and he tosses the leftover pieces of rope aside. They flop to a useless pile on the ground, the remaining length of it still dangling from Tiny’s bound wrists.

The giant lets out a low, impressed whistle as Robin, fingering the hilt of his dagger, brings it casually into view.

The guard – Charming, Regina had called him, though Robin has every intention of questioning her peculiar choice of labels later – looks from one to the other, visibly weighing his odds.

Regina makes the decision for him then, urging the mare to canter forward and force the guard into a hasty, stumbling retreat, completely taken aback by the boldness of her move.

“Go release the others,” she orders Robin, and he opens his mouth to object (a cheeky Are you sure you don’t need me to distract him? on the tip of his tongue) when she expertly maneuvers the reins, rearing the horse back onto her hind legs, and Charming, cowed, nearly loses his balance.

Well, then.

On second thought, he’s quite certain she’s more than capable of handling herself.

Tiny is practically beaming at her, and Robin, shaking his head with something like admiration himself, turns to untie the man when a large palm the size of a salad plate clasps him firmly around the shoulder. Robin feels himself being hauled backward, coming face to face with a remarkably familiar, bushy-bearded grin.

“John?”

“Miss me?” beams his oldest friend, thumping Robin soundly across the back before retrieving a set of blades from his boots. “Let me assist you with that.”

“Oi! Robin!” calls out another voice, originating from somewhere within the dense greenery several paces ahead of them. Seconds later, none other than Will Scarlet emerges from the underbrush, dragging behind him a gagged, bound and rather surly-looking dwarf. “What should I do with this one, d’you reckon?”

Robin has hardly recovered from his astonishment when, as if on cue, no fewer than a dozen of his men are bursting out of the woodworks, brandishing axes and crossbows and shouting spectacularly as they descend upon the flustered guards up front.

“Well we weren’t about to let Regina have all the fun, you know,” yells Little John, looking pleased with Robin’s expression – still cautiously suspended somewhere between delight and utter bewilderment – as he goes about freeing the rest of the prisoners.

“Are they with her?” Tiny wants to know, rubbing the soreness out of his wrists and blinking about in a state of absolute wonder. Robin’s men have already begun to make quick work of the Queen’s, if their exuberant shouting is any indication. Regina, on her part, has effectively trapped Sir Charming between her horse and a nest of prickly vines. “This is hands down the most amazing rescue mission I’ve ever seen.”

Robin would have scowled and set the record straight on who, exactly, his men answer to, had he not noticed one of the guards jostling loose from the ongoing skirmish and about to make a run for the trees. His overlarge helmet has been knocked comically askew, an empty scabbard clanking against his armor with each hurried step.

Politely excusing himself, Robin breaks into an easy jog after the runaway guard.

Incapacitating him ends up taking such little effort on Robin’s part that he’s fairly embarrassed by it, slipping behind the unsuspecting guard and applying but the slightest pressure with his blade to the softness beneath the man’s jaw before he’s throwing up his hands in surrender.

Robin tosses him in with the rest of his lot, now sat clumsily down on the dirt with their backs in a circle, shackled at the ankles and wrists and looking altogether worse for the wear while the Merry Men help themselves to their weapons and supplies.

“The Queen will see all of you burn for this,” the dwarf is snarling from where he’s been crammed between elbows, and Robin cheerfully bends down to twine a piece of cloth around his mouth and spare everyone else from the noise.

By the time he’s turned to seek her out again, Regina has already dismounted, carting the last of them behind her like a dog on a leash.

She’d certainly done a number on him, and Robin might have winced on the guard’s behalf if the sight of him weren’t so bloody satisfying.

Charming looks badly banged up, with his hair now severely deflated, a significant dent in his breastplate shaped curiously like a horseshoe, and somewhere in the thick of a struggle he’d somehow managed to misplace his sword.

Trying and failing to tuck back a smile, Robin strides forward to meet Regina halfway, and then they carefully trail to a pause once they’re at arm’s length away, something like shyness still holding the both of them back.

He’s known many things to stand between them before, but never an uncertainty quite like this, an unspoken wonder at what else they might prove capable of feeling, and it thrills and unsettles him in equal measure.

“You know, I had everything under control,” he tells her, teasing, an echo of the first words she’d ever spoken to him so many summers ago, and she purses her lips in a poor attempt at looking stern with him.

“You’re welcome.”

He inclines his head. “Thank you, milady.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I brought you something.”

He tilts his head sideways and pretends to consider her offering, while Charming spits blood on the ground and glares daggers at Regina’s back.

“And I suppose you think this makes up for everything I’ve had to endure today?” Robin keeps his tone light, playful, his smile never leaving him, but it seems to throw her all the same. Her gaze shifts away from his as she fiddles with her braid, the action entirely self-conscious and entirely disarming to him.

He takes another step toward her.

“What’s all this?” Will is demanding suddenly, marching up to them with a reproachful eye for Robin. “You planning to help the lady out or go on standing there all damn day? It’s not like she hasn’t already done the hardest parts for you.”

Shaking his head, the lad relieves Regina of her burden, tutting at a petulant-looking Charming to “hurry along now” and yelling ahead for Friar Tuck to “add this bugger to the pile” before they pitch the keys into the river.

Several of the recently freed convicts have gathered to welcome the guard, massaging their fists with gleeful intent.

“All right, all right,” Robin hears Will conceding to them, “you can rough him up a bit more – just bear in mind that we still want our message to the Queen to be fairly recognizable by the time it’s delivered to her, yeah?”

Regina is biting back something suspiciously like a smile when Robin ruefully meets her eye again. Without anything to occupy her hands now, she shoves them under her arms, pulling a face when the movement reminds her of her injured shoulder.

“Let me have a look.” Unable to recall why space had seemed so crucial to keep between them earlier, he reaches for her, just grazing her elbow when she eases out of his grasp.

“Later,” she says, and he will hold her to her word, whether she’d meant it genuinely or not.

The horse, having grown fidgety from the recent lull in action, trots over to join them, nudging a nose into Regina’s arm and sniffing around for any apples she might have stowed there.

“Dapple,” Robin greets his longtime riding companion before muttering a half-hearted “Traitor” under his breath, earning a true, unrestrained smile from Regina this time, and the loveliness of it leaves him fairly out of breath.

“You have excellent taste, don’t you,” she hums to his mare, rubbing an affectionate hand over the muzzle, but there’s an unfocused look to her now, taking her far enough away from him that he feels the distance like a palpable thing.

He wonders if she hasn’t grown as restless as his horse, eager to move on – ready to forget whatever they’ve finally begun to uncover between them and go back to pretending they’re little more than sometimes-friendly rivals with a bad habit of accumulating debts with one another.

“We’ll have to be more careful from now on,” Regina says, pulling his gaze back to the front where his men have chained Charming to a tree, the guard beaten nearly beyond recognition but for the murderous eye he’s trained on them both. They may be walking free today, but at too steep a price, and he will come to collect with a vengeance, tomorrow and every day after until they’ve no place left to run.

As loath as Robin is to admit it, they can hardly call this a victory, knowing the Queen will not suffer the embarrassment in silence.

“We’d be better off getting rid of them in a more…permanent fashion,” he murmurs, already guessing Regina’s answer.

She shakes her head, toying with Dapple’s bridle while Robin’s men take one last turn around the heap of guards, finalizing arrangements and readying themselves for departure. “I won’t be the monster she is. Or the monster she thinks I am.”

Robin heaves a sigh of agreement, nodding to Little John when the man beckons, yelling earnestly about the ale that awaits them at Granny’s tavern.

The invitation had been all-inclusive, the crooks and thieves they’d liberated already exchanging the heartiest of chuckles and backslapping the Merry Men like old friends reunited, but Regina seems to have read it as her cue to take her leave instead.

“Until next time, then.” She extends the reins to Robin with a formality that he’s rather disinclined to accept from her, not now, after all they’ve been through together.

His hand closes around hers, sliding a gentle thumb over the bony part of her wrist. The ropes had scraped deep, leaving raw, angry welts on her skin, and he resolves to tend to those too, once he’s seen to her shoulder. “You really think I’m going to let you go that easily.”

She arches a brow in challenge, though she’s yet to shake him off, and he’ll take his victories wherever he can.

“At the very least you owe me that drink,” he bargains with her, feeling suddenly bold, reckless even, and he throws in a crooked sort of grin to tip her over one way or the other.

“One drink,” she allows, thinning her lips together, though whether to press back a scowl or a smile he’s not entirely certain.

He schools his expression into one of polite interest, shrugging at her in an indulgent manner, “If you insist,” and she rises to the bait with a single dirty look.

Relatively reassured that the chances of her taking off again are somewhat lessened now, at least until she’s found a way to settle the score, he loosens their fingers where they’ve come together, releasing the reins as he gestures for her to mount.

“After you, milady.”

…

Little John leads the party in the general direction of their encampment, detouring slightly west to pass through the alleyway behind Granny’s tavern. He and several of the other men disappear into the back bearing various accoutrements they’d acquired from the guards, emerging shortly thereafter with barrels of ale, cured meats and an assortment of cheeses fit for a feast.

“Courtesy of the Evil Queen!” crows Will, punching the air in triumph, and the men start up a round of song as they resume their journey, with the promises of celebration, starlight and cavorting round a campfire not far ahead of them.

The day’s events have worn Robin down more than he’d realized, and the exhaustion begins to make itself known as the sky fully darkens, filling his body from head to toe with a heaviness he hardly has the strength to fight. More than once he finds himself swaying sideways, his vision blackening, only to be jerked out of a creeping slumber as the ground beneath him lurches unpleasantly and Regina’s glowering face shifts into focus.

“Are you trying to break something else now too?” she wonders grouchily, throwing his arms more securely around her middle, and he curls instinctive fingers into her tunic, wondering if he’s imagined the slight hitch where he flattens his palms just below her ribcage.

“Are you suggesting you’d actually like me in one piece?” he teases into her ear, and she turns to stone in his arms, stiffly facing front again and scoffing under her breath about how she should’ve checked him for head injuries.

He smiles to the back of her hair, thoroughly enjoying her noise of protest when Dapple gives some thorny bramble a wide berth and the movement rocks Regina solidly into his chest.

Robin marvels at how he’d been able to fall asleep at all with her nestled into him as she is, warm against his thighs, firmly pressed between his palm and belly, the faintly floral scent of her tickling his nose every time she shakes a fallen lock of hair from her face.

Will trots past on his grey saddlebred, side-eyeing them while looking strangely smug about something. Only then does Robin become aware of his hands and where they ought to be or not, one of them already straying dangerously beyond the boundaries of what’s considered strictly decent.

His fingertips have just settled back into the notches between her ribs when Regina carefully slips the reins into his grasp, muttering something about making himself useful for a change, and he’s grateful to have another place to put his hands for a while, where they’re much less likely to get him in trouble.

He feels an odd amalgamation of relief and disappointment when an enthusiastic whooping sounds from the front, announcing their arrival home.

Robin dismounts first, extending a hand that Regina brushes impatiently aside, and the sight of her rigid back as she stalks off to join the others drops something dull and heavy into his chest.

He keeps himself busy for a while, thanking each of his men for their timely assistance and receiving more than a few good-natured quips in return. Will gleefully remarks on what a pretty damsel in distress Robin had made, with his bruised-up eye and the sorry state of his nose, and Friar Tuck reassures him between bouts of their laughter that he’s the necessary herbs and medicines to speed along his recovery.

“And Regina is far easier on the eyes than any knight I’ve ever seen,” continues Will, earning an emphatic nod of agreement from Tiny. “It’s a lucky thing she found us, really. You should’ve seen the look on her face when she—”

But Little John has chosen that moment to trundle by, distributing an armful of flagons amongst their circle, and Will, distracted by the prospect of a drink, never quite finishes the thought.

“How did you wind up so far north near the Queen’s roads?” Robin asks them curiously, wondering at the fortuitous timing of things between Regina’s hard-earned escape and her happening upon his men in the woods, recruiting them to ambush the royal guard and come to their leader’s rescue.

But for now they all appear too preoccupied with celebrating said victory to concern themselves with rehashing every detail leading up to it, and the question seems to fall entirely on deaf ears.

Frowning thoughtfully into his untouched ale, Robin ducks carefully out of the conversation and continues to make his rounds about the campfire. The strays they’d taken in that day are eager to make his acquaintance, and they express their profound gratitude to him, as if he had been the one to personally orchestrate their escape.

His protests are quickly written off as an unconvincing show of humility, and Robin, chagrined, can only smile and drink to their hearty toasts, hoping that the true mastermind behind the rescue mission won’t consider this as yet another one of his numerous offenses against her.

As for his own men, they continue to remain bafflingly mum on the part they’d played, and though there’s little room for paranoia when one lives and works amongst thieves, Robin is under the distinct impression that they’re avoiding something every time they respond to his questions with a longer than usual drag from their ale.

Regina, on the other hand, seems to have decided on ignoring him entirely for the remainder of the evening, always suddenly and mysteriously elsewhere whenever he approaches to exchange pleasantries with another cluster of men who swear to him they’d only just spoken with her.

The fact that she’s not actually left yet ought to reassure him to some degree, but still Robin finds himself half-worrying she’ll disappear on him completely before he’s a chance to – well – to be honest he hasn’t worked out what, exactly, but it feels important, somehow, that she’s chosen to stay while he does.

…

The crowds are beginning to thin a bit by the time he completes his circuit, some of their new compatriots electing to retire and find their respective ways home before night has crowded too close to the roads. Tiny is one of the last to grip Robin’s arm in farewell.

“Would you like an introduction before you go?” Robin teases him, nodding across the campfire toward the unmistakable silhouette of Regina (slight, hair wild in the growing winds), where she’s currently deposited on an overturned log and deep in conversation with Little John. “I can put in a good word, for whatever mine’s worth to her.”

A hearty chortle, then, “Nah, it’s all right. I know a losing battle when I see one.”

Robin looks quizzically at him.

“Anyone with eyes can tell she’s already spoken for,” shrugs the giant in an offhand fashion, as though it’s no big secret who could ever be so bold or so successful as to claim the heart of one Regina Mills. All Robin can do is stare at him, wondering what sort of conclusion he’d already come to in mere hours that Robin had been unable to see in all his time of knowing this woman.

“Wow. You’re a clueless one, aren’t you,” his friend remarks. “I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that her capture was probably not an accident?”

Robin finds that he has no answer.

With a smile that pulls at his beard, the man hefts the bag Tuck had packed him, bulging with bread rolls and the like. Whistling a cheerful tune, he departs through the trees, leaving Robin to puzzle over the truly ludicrous thought that rescuing him might have been Regina’s plan all along, that she had…but no. She wouldn’t.

But had she?

Running short on excuses to distract himself from the inevitable now, he circles back around the campsite, weaving unnoticed through his liquor-soaked men and keeping close to the shadows until he’s nearly reached their log.

He loiters there longer than is strictly polite, telling himself that he’d rather not interrupt the very serious discussion they appear to be having between bites of dinner and sips of ale.

Their backs are to him, and Robin observes with some amusement that Regina’s head barely comes level with John’s shoulder, despite his friend’s slouching posture as she jerks a chin up toward his ear.

“Thank you,” Robin hears her say, words he’s never known her to be capable of, and they sound rough on her tongue but sincere all the same. “For your help.”

John is shaking his head with a chuckling sigh, talking around a mouthful of porridge. “That was, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I was in.” His spoon scrapes the bottom of his bowl, and he nods his thanks when Regina relieves him of the cutlery and passes him a fresh pint of ale instead.

“However.” He waggles a stern, slightly tipsy-looking finger in her face. “You forgot the bit about how you were supposed to await my signal before making a scene. And I don’t recall that being a part of the plan either.” He makes a broad gesture, calling attention to her general air of dishevelment, the ginger way she’s still holding her shoulder, the rope burns she’d sustained.

The cut on her lip that should never have come to pass.

“Well what was I supposed to do when Charming stormed at me through the bushes?” Regina drawls, shrugging off her injuries, though even in this dim lighting Robin doesn’t miss the painful tick in her jaw at the movement. “I had to improvise.”

John harrumphs.

“Besides,” she says dismissively, “we got what we came for. Mission accomplished.”

“Suppose I can’t argue when you put it that way,” relents John gruffly, sounding like he’d very much love nothing better than to do exactly that. “Are you ever planning on telling him that part of the story?”

She’s suddenly fascinated by a bit of dirt on her shirtsleeve.

John smiles in a resigned sort of fashion. “I thought as much. Well, lass, your secret is safe with me, for as long as you wish it. By the by…” He rummages around for something in his tunic, retrieving a knapsack and handing it over to Regina. “I kept them safe for you, as promised.”

“Sorry,” Robin speaks up behind them then, unable to hold himself back any longer. He steps within the circle of firelight as they both start and fall silent. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Regina’s expression closes off as she turns to glance at him over one shoulder, while John’s eyes go comically wide, cheeks turned ruddy as though they’ve just been caught in some awfully compromising position.

Robin’s gaze never leaves Regina’s, searching there, waiting for her to reveal something of herself to him, but she’s as miserably inscrutable as ever.

“Right, then,” John announces loudly to no one in particular, “I’ll just go…refill…this.” He jerks at the near-full drink in his hand, liquid sloshing over the rim as he stands in a hurry and scarpers.

Robin advances with caution, approaching Regina as one might some creature in the wild, for fear of startling her into flight should he make any too-sudden movements. He indicates the spot John had just vacated. “May I join you?”

“I’m not stopping you.” She looks away as he takes a seat beside her, a near-imperceptible stiffening to her spine, and though he carefully gives her space, placing himself flush with the edge of the log, he’ll not let her off the hook so easily in other regards.

“You still owe me that drink,” he reminds her, gaze steady and unrelenting even as she dallies obstinately for several seconds before meeting it again.

Her mouth immediately opens on a scowl, as if by some instinctive need to make things difficult for him, but the words seem to fade as she looks him slowly up and down, cataloguing all that she sees until he begins to shift in discomfort, unsure what it is that she wants from him, what else she might be waiting to hear him say.

“Here,” she says at last, brusquely pushing her pint into his hands, “you can have mine,” and then she’s shoving herself from the log with such force it lurches backward, leaving him to find his balance again while she stalks purposefully away from him, clutching the scrolls John had just returned to her.

Well that was…not entirely unexpected, Robin supposes, given her track record thus far, though he takes very little comfort in the fact. Her abandoned drink weighs rather heavily on his spirits as he resigns himself to this distance she seems intent on keeping between them, now that their debts have been squared away and he’s no longer in need of her rescuing.

He’s raising the flagon to his lips when she returns, her arms laden with various cloth bags, a few precariously balanced bowls of noxious-smelling substances that couldn’t possibly be edible – unless, of course, her plan is to poison him.

Freezing, Robin can only stare as Regina reclaims her seat on the log, dumping the pile at his feet before turning to face him with a stern, business-like expression. He feels the flagon being pulled from his unresisting grip, and then she’s thunking it down on the ground with the rest of her things.

“Come here,” she orders him imperiously, a hint of her royal upbringing showing through, and what can he do but obey, musing all the while about how differently this story might have turned out had Regina been the one on the throne instead of the famed Snow White.

“You first,” he attempts to bargain with her when she reaches to address his wounds, and her surly expression earns a gently teasing smile from him, one she quickly casts aside with a firm grip on his chin.

“Hold still,” she mutters irritably, shifting forward and peering down at the state of his nose with a look of intense concentration, lips pursed, eyes narrowed as though his injuries might heal on their own if she simply glares at them hard enough.

“Just a scratch,” he can’t help but murmur, and she bristles in a predictable fashion as he struggles to better contain his smile this time.

There may as well have been a dragon perched on the log beside him at that moment instead, for all the smoldering ire just behind her eyes as she leans ever closer, breathing fire and bearing down on him with deadly intent, and Robin might even have feared less for his safety had that actually been the case.

He braces himself for imminent contact, but then Regina’s testing the length of his nose with a tenderness he hadn’t expected, pressing gingerly, quietly huffing her exasperation when he flinches on instinct away from her hand.

“Hold still,” she repeats, but kinder now, softening her scowl with every wince that he makes. He thinks it a rather difficult thing to ask of him when she’s sitting so close as she is, one knee pressed into his thigh, her face hovering just above his at a distance too tempting not to do something about, and he forces his eyes shut against the view.

She inspects his nose a minute longer as an easy silence falls between them, filling with the light, fitful cracklings of the campfire, pulling out snippets of conversation from the not-so-distant rumblings of his men as stories pass over clinking pitchers. John is bellowing something indistinct about which bones to break first in a fight, Will joining in soon thereafter, until the lot of them are nearly overflowing with laughter and ale.

Robin finds himself grateful for their distraction, his men entirely oblivious – or at least behaving that way – to the two of them on their remote little log, wrapped up in one another out of necessity, or perhaps something more, this time.

He eventually cracks his eyes open again when he feels Regina moving away from him. “Definitely broken,” she announces shortly, and he grimaces to have guessed as much while she swoops down to collect some of the supplies she’d brought with her, selecting several bags as well as a bowl with a particularly pungent odor before settling the lot into her lap.

She carefully measures out pinches of dried herbs, grinding them to dust between fingertips over the bowl and swirling a thumb into the mixture. “The good news is that your face is no more crooked than usual for it, so there’s no use in trying to set it back.”

“Lucky indeed,” Robin deadpans, and she gives him something vaguely resembling a smile before she bends over him, her lips pressing back together in a thin, focused line.

The touch of her fingers to his face is so light he might not have felt it but for a rapidly spreading sensation of coolness where the salve begins to work some kind of magic, chasing away the worst of the pain, clearing out his nasal passages. He breathes in, pleasantly surprised to discover that the herbs she’d added appear to have neutralized the scent, coaxing it toward something clean and mint-like, crisp as the air after an early morning drizzle.

A buzz of warmth has begun to fill him, reaching the farthest parts of his chest, and he knows it’s not just gratitude he feels for her, this woman who is so determined still to act as though he’s little more than a sometimes-rival to her.

He knows better now. He does.

He does.

Robin tries not to let his gaze wander too obviously down to her mouth while she works, wondering at what the consequences might be of such boldness – wondering whether he cares – but the gentle way she’s lifted a steadying hand to cup the side of his face lulls him into recklessness, loosening words from his tongue.

“So,” he says, “I have it on reasonably good authority that you allowed yourself to be captured by the Queen’s guard.”

He suspects for a moment that she will deny it – As if I’d do something that careless and stupid, he can already hear her say in scathing dismissal – but Regina doesn’t falter, fingers never breaking stride as she replies evenly, “Were you under the impression that they could ever catch me on purpose?”

Robin bites down on one corner of his smile. “Of course not. My mistake.”

She shrugs her good shoulder in a lofty sort of manner and tells him, primly, “Wouldn’t be your first.”

“No,” he agrees, then, because she’s made it all too easy for him, “And I’ve certainly made my fair share of those today. Trusting you not to sell me out after that job, for example.”

“Bandit,” she reminds him immediately, but she can’t seem to meet his eye, and her hands drop from his face to busy themselves with scraping restless little circles into the bottom of her bowl. Forgetting any need to exercise restraint with her, Robin eases a palm over her fidgeting fingers, and he understands how truly vulnerable he’s found her in this moment when she doesn’t bother pulling away from him.

“There is honor to be had amongst thieves, as you’ve well proven,” he argues kindly, running his thumb along her wrist with as light a touch as he can bear, careful not to frighten her off, poised for flight as she is, has always been, with him. “Besides, some mistakes are worth regretting, and that was hardly the gravest of the many I have made today.”

“No?” she asks tonelessly, intent as ever on avoiding his gaze, as though such a thing will do far more damage than any sort of physical contact between them.

“No.” Robin lets his eyes fall to touch her mouth at last, stumbling over her upper lip where the smoothness there had broken open, marked by little more now than a thin, dried splinter of blood.

There’s a sharp, audible hitch when he lifts a daring hand to stroke his thumb across the wound, her breath coming out in warm, shallow puffs against his skin. He splays his fingers over her jawline, trailing another finger down to the redness around her neck that the guard’s makeshift noose had left behind.

“I’m fine,” she tells him, quietly insistent.

“Perhaps.” His voice has dropped to a murmur, rough and low as it passes from somewhere deep in his throat. “Be that as it may, milady, I believe it’s your turn to hold still a moment.”

Her eyes finally swing upward to land most unnervingly on his, unblinking as she stares at him, wary. She doesn’t move to stop him when he raises his other hand, still loosely joined with hers, and touches the raw-pink underside of her wrist to his lips.

“Robin…” His name escapes her on a sigh, in warning or exasperation, some half-made attempt to convince him that the sudden kick in her pulse has little to do with the kiss he’s just pressed there, or the second, or the third when he realizes he’s gotten away with the first two.

She never quite recovers her voice long enough to protest further, and he shifts forward on the log, bringing his mouth within centimeters of her own. He flattens her palm over his chest, willing her to sense the madness beneath it, the thundering, and know that she’s the one who has caused the storm there.

His thumb has drifted down to catch at her lower lip, gently tugging, and her mouth parts at his touch, gaze growing warm and heavy, the look of her utterly impossible for him to resist now.

The bowl tumbles forgotten from her lap, landing with a soft thump onto the earth at their feet as he snakes an arm around her middle, coaxing her close, closer. The rigid lines of her body seem to soften against her will, curving slowly into him until he’s certain he’ll never again feel quite whole without her pressed against him as she is.

He carefully brushes aside a lock of hair that’s come loose from her braid, twining it around his fingertips and cupping her cheek in his palm. She bumps the tip of her nose into his, as if to test how well the salve has settled, and Robin’s mouth slides sideways into a mischievous grin as he returns the favor with far less delicacy, smearing leafy bits of paste across her skin.

Her face scrunches in a captivating manner, her answering scowl only half-formed, out of habit, and the air between them goes hushed and still, as though they’d both in their teasing neglected to take a proper breath.

“Regina,” he murmurs.

She blinks, bewildered, as he leans further in, and then her lashes are fluttering closed.

Her lips touch his with an aching uncertainty, cautious and brief, pulling away almost as quickly as she’d brought them together. His eyes open to find hers in some state of turmoil, wild and borderline fearful, as if she’s just done a terrible thing and simply can’t fathom how he might respond.

It is ridiculous – she is ridiculous – and Robin might have thought to point out as much were he not so focused on how he longs to kiss her again.

So he does.

He eases his mouth over hers, gently, ever so aware of that cut he’d rather not reopen, but then her lips are parting, soft and full and oh so inviting, and he cannot help but slip his tongue out to meet hers halfway, sliding, and tangling, and gods.

He kisses her, kisses her, kisses her until they're both breathless from it, and still it isn't enough, that heady sensation each time their lips come back together, how she sighs into him whenever he dips in to taste her again just so.

Regina’s breaking contact once more, too soon, bending to reach something on the ground before he’s even fully recovered his senses, and then she’s closing his hand around a rucksack, several rolls of parchment taking some vague form at his fingertips.

He lifts a searching gaze to hers.

“Take them,” she says, voice gravelly-rough, scratched bare with some emotion he can’t quite identify, and he’s having trouble reading her now. “They’re yours. You should take them.”

Robin feels her watching him as he turns the scrolls over in his palm. He pauses, testing their weight, and then his grip tightens, lifting them up before carefully, deliberately, tossing them into the firepit some yards ahead. There’s a flare of light as the flames eagerly lick up the cloth and its contents, pounds of gold upon gold now gone to waste, and neither of them move to salvage what remains.

“Those scrolls were never what I was after,” he tells her simply while Regina stares and stares at him, speechless but for all the tenderness and something like wonder left unspoken in her eyes as as he presses his lips back to hers.

He’s lost to her again in an instant, gathering her hair to the nape of her neck, angling her slightly as he tilts his head in kind. He takes her lower lip between his teeth for a quick little nibble before slanting his mouth fully back over hers, deepening the kiss, relishing the feel of her, silky, warm, and still tasting vaguely of ale.

She’s humming soft things into his mouth, sighs and other sounds he’s never heard from her before – a throaty mmm that spreads heat low in his belly, a muffled squeak of surprise when he slides a palm down her back, the other locking under her knee to hoist her sideways into his lap.

The movement jostles their lips apart, just long enough for Robin to catch his breath and then thoroughly lose it again as he takes in the sight of her. With her back to the firelight, it’s difficult to make out more than shades and shadows, but there’s no mistaking the rosy flush to her cheeks, the look of swollen pink lips now well-seen-to – and the hint of a smile, alluring in its disbelief, as her fingers creep upward to dance almost tentatively along either side of his neck.

He holds her gaze steady with his own, trying to communicate to her the things that he thinks might scare her away, were he to say them aloud.

She drops her eyes away from his before too long, clearly not comfortable with whatever she’s seen in them, but she seems content to let him hold her in other ways for now, and he takes the opportunity to press a kiss to her injured shoulder, inquiring lowly, “How does it feel?”

“I’d forgotten about it,” she tells him, sounding perfectly sincere, but there’s a teasing turn to her tone when she mentions next, “I must have gotten distracted by something.”

“Oh,” says Robin with mock seriousness, “yes, I’ve been told that I can be a very…” He makes his way across her collarbone, threads of her fur collar catching in his stubble, “…very…” then up the column of her neck to find her pulse point, and she opens her throat to him, dragging fingertips into his scalp as he explores her skin with lips and tongue, “…good distraction.”

He noses slow, open-mouthed kisses up to her jawline, enjoying the way she arches into him, the content little noises that catch a bit before tumbling out of her, and then she’s stilling suddenly, sounding winded but stern all the same as she accuses him, “You’re rubbing everything into my hair.”

Robin leans guiltily back, pulling with him matted strands of her hair that have stubbornly clung to the remaining paste around his nose and eye. She carefully sweeps them aside, with a scowl she doesn’t quite sell, and then she’s sighing when he offers her a sheepish sort of grin in return, resigning herself to something as she bends over his good eye and dots a kiss to his brow.

“I gather a reapplication will be in order, then?” he wonders, playfully innocent, as she fusses irritably with her ruined handiwork. “And while you’re at it, my back is starting to feel a bit sore as well…” He trails off suggestively, winking up at her once she’s settled back enough to see it, feeling terribly tempted to kiss away each downturned corner of her frown.

“Keep it up and that won’t be the only place you’re hurting,” Regina grumbles, and he can’t quite suppress his smile – there are many things he simply can’t seem to help around her, as it turns out – while she looks increasingly flustered, unsure how to handle him flirting with her so outrageously still.

“I’m afraid I’ve a spot here that may also need tending to,” he carries on solemnly, shamelessly, relinquishing the hand he’s settled over her thigh to run a thumb along his lower lip, and she appears torn between blackening his other eye and kissing him again if only to shut him up for good.

Meaning to make the choice easier for her, Robin leans in to capture her mouth again when she shifts in his arms, finding a soft spot between his ribs with a wayward elbow, and his breath leaves him in an audible grunt. He winces dramatically and Regina looks stricken a moment, hands hovering at his hemline, prepared to untuck it from his breeches and investigate any injuries that may have escaped her notice when she catches the look on his face.

“If you wanted to remove my clothes, all you had to do was ask, milady.”

Irritation colors her cheeks. “Was this your plan all along?” she demands to know, with an obstinate glare at some point near his chin, just beyond the reach of his scrutiny. “Getting caught so I'd have to come save you?”

The memory of her bursting through trees and whatever else stood in her way – guards and queens and perhaps the walls around Regina’s own well-caged heart – flashes across his mind, again and again, and it both pains and warms him to an unbearable degree, that she would be so careless with herself, and for him.

He wonders at – and knows, without question – the lengths he’d have gone for her in his place, but it hardly comes out even, somehow, everything she had already risked over what he’d give up without hesitation. His pride, his freedom…his heart, of course, has long been off the table, tucked into her breast pocket alongside his dagger (hers, now, too) before either of them could be fully aware of the change, though it feels nothing like loss to him.

Wordlessly, selfishly, he nudges in another kiss just below her ear before murmuring there, “Admittedly, it has rather worked out in my favor.”

Regina huffs at him, but there’s little heat behind it, and her fingers splay on either side of his jaw, nails scraping gently over stubble, thumbs finding his dimples as they deepen into another crooked smile.

“That being said,” he continues while she gazes down at him, “how much longer are we going to pretend throwing me to the wolves wasn’t all just an elaborate excuse of yours to come chasing after me?”

“And I suppose this is your idea of payback?” she returns. “Discovering all these new injuries so that you might trick me into staying?”

“You wound me,” Robin tells her, swallowing carefully around the sudden sensation of his heart settling up in his throat. “And I do mean that quite literally.” He manages to keep his tone light, while the rest of him feels insupportably heavy all at once, sobering at the thought of them parting ways, now, when there’s so much yet to discover about this woman. The fit of her in his arms without all the usual bickering and glowering between them. The feel of her sharpest edges cautiously gentling for him alone.

What other sounds, soft or otherwise, he might be capable of stealing from her.

The indistinct clamor of his men and their merrymaking has finally begun to reach some conclusion, dispersing from the circle they’d formed to redistribute themselves amongst the camp. One passes close enough to the dwindling firelight that Robin can just make out Will’s profile, the lad glancing very obviously everywhere else but them, ducking his head almost shyly and hastening off toward his tent.

Stirred by the commotion – by the feel of so many trying not to look their way, though he knows she’d never admit it – Regina eases down from Robin’s lap, situating herself back onto the log beside him. She seems a lot less concerned with the matter of space and how much of it belongs between them this time, resting her forearm over his thigh, curling a hand above his knee, and the ease of it – of them, however just-formed they may be – feels so right, so familiar to him that he can hardly comprehend the days leading up to this one, the near-misses and the not-quites and how close they’d come to being nothing at all.

Still, there’s something like wistfulness in the sound of her sigh, the ginger way she leans a shoulder into his chest as he winds an arm around her back. He finds her waist and settles his hand there, needing to feel her – warm, whole and quite possibly his – and know that she has stayed, for him, for now.

But this night of so many beginnings will also come to some unavoidable end, and Robin doubts that she could be so willfully tamed – that they could come together without fumbling some first – when her one inclination has always been to run, no matter the direction, and his to catch up to her only when she’s stood still enough to let him.

He angles his body into hers, reaching for her other hand. She opens her palm to him, and he traces the lines there, wondering. “How else could I persuade you not to go? Tell me.”

Her smile is soft, secretive, and he knows her answer before she’s spoken. “I've already put you – put both of us – in enough danger today.”

It’s a difficult point to argue without downplaying all the bruised egos and broken noses and wounds that will surely scar, but he closes an arm tighter around her waist regardless, weaving their fingers firmly together as though she couldn’t just as easily pull them apart.

“It certainly was more eventful than most,” Robin finally allows, pressing a kiss to her temple, then a smile in her ear. “But I do so like when you come to my rescue.”

“Are you always this useless?” she asks him, fondly.

“Around you?” he murmurs, mouth falling sideways in that way he’s learning she likes so well, and his voice takes a turn for the very, very serious. “I’m afraid it can’t be helped, milady.”

Regina might have rolled her eyes, might have scoffed and made him out to be some kind of fool – she has a weakness for such things, when it comes to him – but then he’s kissing her again, most thoroughly, before she’s the chance to fall into old habits. Perhaps she’ll discover a way, still, perhaps he’ll blink and find her gone by morning, but she’s opened enough of her heart to him now that if she expects him not to follow…well.

Certain habits are harder to break than others, after all, and he never could resist the thrill of a hunt, of teasing a scowl – and perhaps something more – out of this woman, who may very well have been biding her time, running, and waiting, for the moment he finally caught up with her.