#slowly fell less in love with the ship with each passing season

[idle-compy]

back in my benji phase hi guys

[jasontoddiefor]

AN: Season 2 The Mandalorian finale but Din/Luke.

Yavin was peaceful.

It was peaceful when the thunder roared above like the drums of war, blaster shots against beskar. It was peaceful when the children screamed in delight and not despair. It was peaceful when Din wore his armor despite not needing to fight anywhere but in the sparring ring.

Din had known peace. His childhood, before he had become a foundling, had been flecked with peaceful moments even in the middle of the slaughter that had been the Clone Wars. And later, among his siblings, he had also found moments of joy and rest.

Still, he wasn't quite sure if any of that compared to the calm he found in Yavin's temple. The tranquility was built into the very foundations of this construction. He knew the stories by now, those narrated in old books, datapads, and strange objects called holocrons that he couldn't use himself but had to ask one of the students to open for him. The Jedi and the Mandalorians had been at each other's throat often enough throughout time, Ahsoka's words came to mind, and yet Din found himself wandering their halls, being greeted by the few members of Luke's budding Order as if he were one of them. Maybe it was because the past was so distant, now that both their people knew the pain of having to rebuild from the ground up, from less than nothing.

It was not a pain he wished upon anyone.

The sun had not quite risen yet, tinting the temple's outside in a light golden hue. The building was beautiful, half overgrown as it still was. They had made some efforts to clean it out where the Alliance hadn't done managed to all those years ago. The temple was more of a refugee center, a place to restock, and a New Republic base than it really was a Jedi temple, the number of Force-sensitives low and the number of people Luke was actually teaching even lower.

They would get there someday.

He continued his path, walking further into the jungle, past the greenery, and along a river he had crossed more times than he could count already.

(That was a lie. He knew exactly how often it had been. Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, stepping into his old footprints.)

The river led him to a wide and open clearing, framed by small flowers in all colors of the rainbow.

They had cleaned it up a little after they had found it, made it more comfortable while ensuring it remained a part of nature. 

Luke had insisted that it was important.

The more you changed the environment, the more you disrupted the flow of the Force, that had been his argument. Din didn't quite know whether to believe him. Luke certainly looked as if he was a Master of that unexplainable power regardless of the environment.

The clearing was empty, which was a surprise for one.

Often, Din would find two or three other students practicing with their Master. All of them had their eyes closed, meditating in whichever way was the most comfortable to them. Luke tended to do handstands of all things and Din knew another girl danced an Alderani ballet she was desperate to pass on to another person.

Right now, Luke was sitting in the middle of the clearing, legs crossed and moving a few stones in a slow circle around him. A few more stones gently floated in the wind in a smaller orbit, carried not by Luke, but by the child on his lap. It fascinated Din that Grogu, despite being the mentally youngest trainee, was the one who was actually working with Luke. When he wasn't with Din, he attached himself to his teacher. A couple of the other kids did, at times, fall asleep next to their Master. Passed out with their heads on his lap, or leaning against him in some other way, drooling.

Gently, Luke and Grogu set the stones to the floor, then opened their eyes.

When they had first met, Din had been too preoccupied with everything surrounding him, the darksaber, which was still clipped to his belt, Moff Gideon, saving his son— he hadn't been able to pay too much attention to Luke Skywalker.

He had taken notice of his strength, of his kindness.

Not of his deep blue eyes, or his smile.

"Come to get us for breakfast?" Luke asked and picked up Grogu as he slowly rose to his feet.

He walked over to Din, ease in his steps that would fade as the day continued on, and only returned when he repeated his ritual.

"As always."

Luke smiled at him and, once he was at Din's side, gently put his forehead to Din's. They remained just so for a moment, then they fell into a comfortable silence, returning home.

Home, what a strange expression. Home had been his ship until he lost it. Before that, it had been the dorms he had shared with the other children, and before even that, it had been his parents' arms. Now it was a temple full of people trying to figure out who they were and who they wanted to be.

He wondered, briefly, what he would have done if he hadn't gone with Luke. If he had hesitated to ask, decided he could leave his son with another. Despite his worries, his love for his child, he had never, not even for one second, expected Luke to take Grogu away. Not without Din's permission, not without the child's own, and even after, when Luke had flown them here, he hadn't thought that he might overstay his welcome someday.

Perhaps that was the reason why he didn't want to leave, why he struggled so with the decision he had to make.

Life here wasn't comfortable, soft, but it was happy and bright, and despite their struggles, Din could feel himself relaxing more and more. He didn't miss the tension in his muscles, the constant anticipation that followed his previous lifestyle.

He was a Mandalorian.

Education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language, our leader.

His creed was calling him and Din had to obey it to the best of his abilities. He was following its tenets, took care and protected his own and yet—

The blade at his side burned with the heat of a thousand suns and Din knew his responsibility, but he did not want to follow it. Could not follow it without getting permission first, so that he knew in his heart that he need not fear.

"What is troubling you?"

Luke and Grogu were both looking at him, heads tilted ever so slightly in the manner that Din had come to associate with Force-sensitive people. There was just an edge of sharpness to all their movements, all their words. Like they were seeing and feeling more than everyone else and were so connected to the galaxy that they were not stumbling blindly, wondering what everyone else was thinking and doing.

"I still carry the darksaber," Din said, slowly, deliberately.

Luke hummed in reply. "I know. Leia has sent me a few very urgent messages regarding the state of Mandalore."

Din snorted. Of course, she had. Leia Organa was a force onto herself. While most people were quite happy to leave Din alone here and not bother him about outside responsibilities, she was decidedly not. He feared the day she would meet the Armorer.

Leia called him a coward to his face, but what else to expect of the woman who carried the title of princess as if it were a weapon of destruction.

"I am thinking of leaving. Just for a short while to try to settle the manner."

Din already knew there would be nothing short about it. Mandalore had lain in ruins when he had been only a child. There was no quick or easy solution to its state.

"If you do, we will be here, waiting for you to return," Luke replied. Grogu cooed, reached out for Din, and was quickly transferred into his arms where he could place one of his hands on Din's helmet.

"And if I don't?"

Luke shot him a look, bemusement and fondness all in one. "I suppose then we will have to come to follow you. I crossed half the galaxy for you once, I can do it again."

Alright.

Okay.

Din let out a breath he hadn't noticed holding. All would be well then.

[mulderist]

Wicked Game

Chapter 1  // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3  // Chapter 4 // Read on A03

Washington, D.C - 1948. Fox Mulder is a detective on the top vice unit; scandal, corruption, and lies come with the territory. He is forced to investigate a fellow officer and finds the lies go much deeper than the truth.

tagging @today-in-fic​

CHAPTER 5

The phone rang three times before she answered. My jaw ached as I tried to mask the slur in my voice when I told her who was calling. I realized it was a long shot ringing her number but I needed something to get my head on straight. I told her I was in Georgetown and as luck would have it she did not have a shift at the hospital that evening. She accepted my invitation to have a drink. I confirmed her address and I said I would wait outside the building to meet her, adding to look for the forlorn gentleman with a grey fedora. We disconnected and I exited the booth then walked to the curb to hail a cab. 

Scully’s apartment building was tucked into a quiet tree-lined block on Q Street. In a town built on history this neighborhood dripped vintage charm with neat colonial rowhouses and brick sidewalks. I paced a slow line in front of the staircase then stretched a foot on the bottom step. The sound of a door opening and heel clicks on brickwork caught my attention. There she was. A vision in a short-sleeved olive green sweater with a high neck, wide-leg trousers gave way to dark t-strap shoes that peeked out from under her pant cuffs. Her ginger-red hair was pinned up halfway and decorated with a small flower. I straightened up and tried to smile as she landed on the last step. 

“God, what happened to you?” she questioned before I could even greet her properly. 

“And hello to you too.” I replied.

“Oh, your cheek,” Scully frowned, “This reminds me of when we first met.” She inspected my face without laying a finger on me. I tipped back my hat slightly so she could get a better look. In the afternoon sun her eyes processed a diagnosis and she reached out a caring hand to touch my jawline but withdrew it quickly. Fingers formed a loose fist instead as her hand dropped slowly towards her hip. I cleared my throat.

“Serves me right for interrupting someone’s lunch, huh?”

“Must have been someone important for them to leave a mark like that,” Scully said, stepping back and adjusting her handbag. I shrugged then said,

“No, just me being a nosy cop.” I found myself staring as she smiled.

“So now that we’re here, where are we off to?”

“There’s a little place I visit when I’m in the neighborhood.” I slipped my hands in my pockets and gestured with a nod down the block. She joined me at my side and we strolled for a few silent moments. Her presence helped to mute the extra noise in my head. Though with each intersection we crossed I was still checking my corners, making sure we weren’t being followed. After the little scene I caused at the restaurant my guard was up. I knew I could never be too comfortable with my surroundings and I certainly didn’t want to put her in danger.

We walked farther down Q street and crossed over to 33rd to a small bar named The Blue Note. I opened the door for her and followed inside. It was your standard set-up with a small stage on the side arranged for a jazz combo. Too early for a gig, so the jukebox in the corner played the matinee performance. Regalia from the university littered the walls but in a more dignified fashion, like the proprietor was trying to distance the establishment from looking like a run-of-the-mill college bar. Still, it was dark, smoky, and my kind of familiar. Only a couple of bar flies had landed to start their day-drinking. I ushered her through a fresh haze of cigarette smoke to an empty spot at the far end of the bar. She took a seat and I adjusted my barstool, sitting close but not too close. Scully caught the attention of the stout bartender.

“I’d like a vodka tonic and my friend here will have?”

“Whiskey.” 

The man nodded and scuttled back to fix our drinks. I put my fedora on the bar and ran a hand through my hair.

“Can you tell me about this case you’re working on?” Scully asked as she placed her handbag in her lap. I thought about how much I wanted to divulge so I kept the names and places to a minimum.

“It involves a drug ring, fairly standard for the vice unit. However the fly in the ointment is that it also involves an investigation into my partner.”

“Wait, the one who was buried at Arlington?”

“The very same,” I answered as the bartender delivered two short glasses. I grasped the drink and raised it, she mimicked the motion. “Cheers,” I said before taking a long sip and swirling the ice cube around. Scully sampled her drink as well and I continued.

“The papers painted it that he was killed in the line of duty. Now, I was there that night. It was the same night I got a hot lead kiss on the shoulder and I think my partner was bumped off in a deal that went sour.”

“Your partner was a hophead?” she asked as she twisted the bottom of her glass on the bar napkin.

“I didn’t suspect he was a hophead,” I said after I downed the last of my whiskey, “but the medical examiner ordered blood work that confirmed he was sky high.”

“Did you see who shot at you?” she asked after a beat, tracing a fingertip along the edge of the highball. 

“No, but we did get a match on the weapon. So all I need to do is take him in .”

“Let me guess, that’s who gave you the bruise.”

“Very perceptive Scully. It was one of his goons actually.” I said as I rubbed my left cheek and glanced reflexively over my shoulder. She held her glass close to her lips and thought for a moment before taking another sip to finish it off. Scully pressed her lips together and focused on her now empty glass. I caught the change in music from the jukebox; a heavy piano piece that fit the tone in our little corner of the bar. I flagged the bartender and ordered another round.  She was hesitant at first on the refill but I guess she didn’t mind my company and decided to stick around. Time seemed to slow to a halt, dripped down like molasses on a winter day.

“Enough about me and the DCPD, I want to know your story.”

“My story, Mulder? I don’t think I’m as interesting as all that,” Scully said as she glanced at her hands, admiring the tidy red varnish on the nails.

“Try me,” I replied as our second round arrived and my attention was now only on her.

“Let’s see...you already know I’m a nurse,” she began with a gesture, “I’ve been one since before the war. Schooling was no cost and once the conflict started I opted to stay home in Maryland to fill the nursing shortage. My brothers had gone through the gauntlet at the naval academy and were sent to San Diego then the South Pacific respectively. It would have broken my mother’s heart if I joined up and got shipped off too” She paused and took a drink. “My sister and mother stayed in Annapolis but in ‘45 I headed to Washington to continue with medicine. There was more I wanted to learn and more ways I felt I could help.”

“And that’s how you ended up in Georgetown?”

She nodded and softly exhaled.

“After I buried my father, I buried myself in studies, work, and other hobbies. I figured if I kept myself busy enough I wouldn’t have time to think about the loss.” Her shoulders shrugged and she absentmindedly toyed with a strand of hair then swept it behind her ear.

“Any travel in that time?” I asked, hoping she had an answer. I was shit at small talk when I wasn’t using my badge.

“California after the war ended to see my brother Bill and his family for Christmas, then last year I took the train up to New England for a change of scenery.”

“Ah, I’m familiar with that area. My parents live on Martha’s Vineyard.”

“It’s really lovely. I was fortunate to visit in the fall.” A hint of a smile crossed her lips as she recalled the memory. A pleasant silence then fell between us. More small talk followed, less personal this go around. Filler subjects like the weather and sports weaved their way into conversation. I was pleased to learn she was a baseball fan and was hoping for a better season than last year. 

The bar was getting more clientele and as much as I wanted to stay and extend my friendship with Mr Jack Daniels, I figured we should make it last call. I paid our tab and escorted Scully outside, placing a featherweight touch on her shoulder as I guided her through the open door. The air felt cool as the sun hid behind passing clouds, setting up for another storm. She thanked me for the drinks and though she was a captain’s daughter who could certainly hold her liquor, I offered to walk her home. 

As we turned the corner and walked back up the block I still felt that we weren’t alone. I kept a close stride next to Scully as we neared her building. She ascended the steps and I joined her at the door. This time her hand found my cheek. 

“I hope to see you again,” she said as she gently stroked my jawline, “But next time without any occupational damage.” 

“Can’t make any promises, doll,” I said moving closer, feeling her fingers twitch, catching a flutter of her eyelashes as she exhaled. My gaze was soft, hypnotized by her features. She grazed the stubble on my skin then Scully raised her chin and placed a soft sweet kiss on my injured cheek. 

“Take care of yourself, detective.”

Through the narrow pane of glass on the building’s door I watched her walk up the stairs, she looked back over her shoulder giving me a final flash of that flower nestled against her red hair. As I turned and walked down the steps I noticed a car parked across the street and a man with a sharp suit and glasses leaning against the side.

“Are you following me?” I called out once I was on the sidewalk, my hand on the butt of my weapon.

“This is your surveillance detail?” Skinner questioned.

“Chivalry isn’t dead yet, Captain.”

“Something’s come up. Get in,” Skinner said as he motioned to the car. I walked around the front of the cruiser and opened the passenger door joining him inside.

“I heard about your incident with Carlo Lodi today.”

“Word travels fast.”

“You’re damn right it does, Mulder. This city is more connected than ever. I had a conversation with our friend Alex Krycek when he returned the squad car you lent him. Seems that he was privy to information regarding a Vincenti heroin shipment tonight.”

“Ha! What did you have to trade for that info?” I asked. He tensed his jaw then said,

“Continued protection. It appears he’s been sitting on this since we first interrogated him.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“There will be a boat arriving at the Navy Yard tonight. Small crew. They are going to make a transfer to one of the warehouses, but it’s up to you to find how they’re moving the shipment from there.”

I took a moment to process the details of my assignment. 

“Will I have back-up?”

“Via radio. Do not engage after you make the mark. Follow standard tailing procedure.”

“If you’re going to send me on a suicide mission, can you at least drop me off in Alexandria. I could use a shower and something to eat.” Skinner gave me a sideways glance and turned the key in the ignition, bringing life to the cruiser. He shifted into gear and we were on our way back across the Potomac.

[mimiri22-6]

I JUST FOUND OUT BEE AND PUPPYCAT HAD A SECOND SEASON! GUESS WHAT I JUST FINISHED WATCHING!

Oh my fucking god holy shit, my guys! This show. This fucking show. Where do I even start! First off

SPOILERS!!!!!!

YOU DO NOT WANT TO WALK INTO THIS SEASON, THIS SHOW, WITH SPOILERS! DO NOT FUCKING LOOK, THIS IS 1000% SPOILER TERRITORY!!!

So I will be taking the extra step of taking my laptop out, and continuing this on there(and after I wake up because it's 4am and I regret absolutely NONE of this whatsoever because, guys, I love this show with everything I have left to my being, I swear, I will die for a third season)

Warning: This is a long one.

OKOKOKOK! I know I know! It’s been uh...A Month since I first posted this! BUT I am Here Now and Ready!!! I am less than 10 seconds into the first episode of season 2 and I am already So Ready to relive this!!(Dream SMP has Nothing on this show, God I Love This Show Far Too Much!!!!!!)

...First ten minutes...I have So Much I want to say...Just-just a lot of love...

okokokokokokokokokok!!!!!! I think I know how I’m going to do this now! One bullet for each episode! Let’s see if I stick with it.

Gentle Touch

In the first episode we already get a big game changer for Bee and her development. Bee becoming more responsible as a favor for Deckard. He asks her to take care of his family while he’s at cooking school and we already see her doing this. Going out to the ocean with Weasley, going out of her comfort zone for people she’s practically family to, which is why we got the beginning flashback, once again going out of her comfort zone to stop Puppycat from punching kittens, And Finally, coming out from her nap cupboard to face Howl and help pay for bills by eating ugly food.

Little Fingers

Ooh, this one has foreshadowing dream sequence. I would say more about it if it had more significance, but it’s really just what happens to Bee in the last ep. This episode brings more of Bee being responsible, trying to take her phone away from Puppycat so he stops making bad purchases. This episode made me realize what Puppycat’s role is this season, the child. Or something among those lines. He’s the same as he was last season, but it seems/is a bit more exaggerated because Bee isn’t doing the same things anymore. She’s started to care about consequences. And speaking about consequences, Toast announces she’s pregnant while confirming that she’s been staying...in Cass’s room(?)...weird, but ok, and by Tim pointing and Merlin’s reaction, it’s Merlin’s...but also everyone else seemed like they thought they were the culprit and I don’t want to think about the implications of that....MOVING ON-OH WAIT, And Cardamon’s mom is spouting magic tears that messes with the plants, so there’s that.

Snow and Violets

I’m going to be honest, I’m not 100% sure what to put here and I’m loosing steam. (I’ve been awake since 3 am...) But I think I can put something. The situation with Mr. Cup is the definition of being haunted by your past. The guilt and regret of cheating in the past has made him lose his motivation to give it his all in racing because, what’s the point? Motivation and not caring was his norm, so he just stuck with it. Until Bee, and now he can be a rainbow and sleep with less guilt and regret on his conscience. The thing with the island rapidly changing could be one of three things. Something to do with the ship that  Is the island, a metaphor for change, or something really cool the creators just wanted.

Day off Work

Not Too much to note for this ep overall. Puppycat totally did do the ‘wrecking the house in search for the owner’ thing dogs do. Finally, a dog trait! Every time I see Cardamon now I just get sad cause he’s 7, and should Not be doing landlord stuff. Bee showing worry about how Cardamon’s mom is still asleep and being worried about Cardamon himself, I’m just glad someone’s noticing. I keep forgetting that some people haven’t watched the pilot so they don’t know about Puppycat being a Space Outlaw, so when he found all his stuff under the apartment I was less surprised and more excited. The two last things I want to say is I think it’s interesting/cool/intriguing how the Wizard family just takes every weird thing either in stride, unquestioningly, or ignorance. Just trying to pretend it didn’t happen so they don’t have to deal with it(other than Crispin, but he’s coming up). And the last thing I just want to bring to light is CARDAMON BEING SO CUTE IN THE LAST SCENE! JUST BEING A CHILD! AND LAUGHING WITH HIS DOG! ON A FUNNY CHAIR! I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR AND I WILL PROTECT THAT SMILE WITH MY WHOLE BEING!!!

My Favorite

Note, Pretty Patrick is also The Mayor. Alright. It’s definitely been a few months and you can see the relationship between Howl and Bee has gotten better, not that it was too bad to begin with, just a bit less peeved on Howl’s end. The theme of Bee being responsible is brought into play again with the train station scene. Telling Puppycat to not hit and the way Puppycat was acting around Patrick. All little kid stuff. Which also kind of clashes with what I thought was Puppycat being older than Bee by a lot, I’m honestly slowly getting more and more confused exactly how I should perceive Puppycat. THE FIRST REAL LOOK AT THE HAND GUYS! I’m still not sure what their deals are, but they have a corpse on their hands and that is already the biggest red flag. I have a guess as to what/who they are in relation to Puppycat and, by acquaintance, Bee, but I could be wrong, but I also can’t think of any other people they may be. I’ll bring it back up either the next time we see them or at the end.

Did You Remember

Grampa Puppycat cares about his granddaughter a whole lot. Don’t @ me, their dynamic is more confusing than a moving maze...Now this episode, ooh boy, it feels like a lot, but in a minimal way? First off, Cardamon finally breaks down about the stress of being a 7 year old landlord and Bee takes care of him for the day. Big Sis Bee For The Win! DON’T @ ME I MAKE UP MY OWN FAMILY DYNAMICS!!! Kind of continuing from the first sentence, Puppycat and Bee love each other(I Stand By Platonically For Them) so much already, for them it’s been a little over a year considering Puppycat fell into Bee’s life before her last birthday and now they’re celebrating another one. And I must admit, I can not for the life of me figure out wtf the deal is with the tears. They have little shapes of recent events in them and they make plants weird/straight up just make life! Like, What Even Is That?! Also, Cardamon finally gets a good sleep.

Bird Friend

Ok, so we got more ship pieces, a most likely reason as to why Puppycat was Like That in the last few episodes of season 1 and has been goopy every now and again in this season. Apparently eating things he shouldn’t eat make him Extremely off model and goopy. More hands! But not the rest of them this time around. I wonder if Sticky’s hunt for all the birds has any significance other than showing us another piece. Puppycat breaking down and spilling a few secrets after stress eating off the floor and Bee immediately saying no to someone else telling her what’s wrong with Puppycat and letting him come to her first instead of forcing him is always such a good lesson to have. Also, Cass is into weirdly shaped shiny things.

Two Clown Noses

Ah, it’s this one. The one that Really throws a wrench into the Bee/Deckard ship. THEY’RE BOTH SO CUTE! I CAN’T CHOOSE!!! This entire episode is just Crispin and Bee hanging out with the added angst of the beginning ‘story’. This world is full of such amazingly crazy characters and Crispin’s backstory is one of those crazier ones. Bee and him Lived Together and Know Each Other, he knows she’s a robot! My only question is, what happened that they broke up? WAIT- DID THEY EVEN BREAK UP?! It would be weird if they weren’t because they were living together and then they decide to live separate again would make no sense. I think I just jumped to the weirdest conclusion...Anyway! How would Puppycat get sick? I feel like that was just another thing they added to create different dynamics. The beginning birthday thing and the conclusion felt so real even though the cause was something so out there that I feel like only animated shows like this could pass, but also I feel like someone out there has done something similar, so what do I know. Yeah, not much else about this episode, it was mostly just Bee/Crispin stuff and character stuff. Gosh they’re so cute...but so is Bee/Deckard. Being a multishipper is hard...

Funny Lying

RIGHT! THEY’RE CALLED THE WARLOCKS! THAT’S THE TITLE I WAS FORGETTING! Tim knows everyone’s secrets, comes with the perk of having a lot of time and not talking much, you observe everyone else while they think you’re doing something else. I know from experience. Eavesdropping is a specialty of mine. SHIT THIS IS THE ONE WHERE CASS GETS THE MESSAGE DISSING HER FOR FALLING FOR TOAST FROM A COWORKER! I caught those vibes during the first season, but then the first half of this season came along and I was forced to drop those vibes in favor of cannon because TOAST WAS PREGOS WITH ONE OF CASS’S BROTHER’S KIDS! I’m good at catching gay vibes in fictional worlds, but I’m shit in the real world, just like everything else. And the thing is, we don’t get Any kind of explanation/closure for the entire rest of the season! We see Toast totally shocked reaction, probably moments before she was going to sneak attack Cass, but froze upon seeing that text. AND WE GET NOTHING ABOUT THAT FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON! Anyway, that was only like 2 minutes into the ep, this is taking forever. We got more Bee being responsible for Cardamon and getting rid of the tears, but the biggest part of this episode is undoubtedly Puppycat’s scenes. We got him sinking to the bottom of the ocean and getting cradled by flowers created by the tears next to the ship. We find out he was bullied and ridiculed in school as a kid and his best friend(idk what else they would be counted as), Violet, convinced him to leave their planet after they accidently summon their ship, leaving Puppycat’s mother behind. seeing how he cried about leaving her she seems to have been a great caretaker and he loved her immensely. We get the scene of Bee’s dad as a baby/Very young child on a mission, giving a presentation, and finding the candy to be a source of energy by cracking it open. Making me think, ‘Is that Bee’s fuel source? If it is, how would not taking full doses for two years effect her?’ because in the first season she splits the candy in half to share with Puppycat and in this season she didn’t eat the candy at all. Makes me even more worried for the future knowing what state she’s in when this season ends. With the last flower fever dream/memory it seems that the princess that he fell in love with was the one to make the final move to turning him into a ‘monster.’ Don’t worry tho, Bee saved him from the bottom of the ocean 

Golden Eyes

(I’m getting more and more tired as this goes one. I started doing this at around 12 this morning and now it’s nearing 6 pm. I’m loosing it!) We got another birthday and it’s Howl’s this time, though it’s not really his episode. The fish are attracted to the wish crystals for some reason and one eats a bit of it to be ‘human’ for a day. I love how the fish hated being a human and Weasley didn’t even notice it was a date. I don’t know if it was or not, but ending on that was funny. We got the return of the major douche from the season 1 finally and a mention of Moully. 

Why Don’t You Help Me?

(I took a break between episodes, aka I went tf to sleep, because I was falling asleep at the table and not really processing everything enough for what I’m trying to do) Ok, so this is a day in the life of Cardamon episode with supposed parelles to the Warlocks. We start with the red one stuck and the others unwilling to help...and then they start drawing Puppycat’s face on the 5th one’s corpse and these guys just do not care that it’s a dead body that they supposedly killed themselves. In short, they have all my fear because they are uncaring about body counts. Cardamon still goes to school on top of being a self proclaimed landlord and gets made fun of for being responsible and tattling at every chance he gets. Something I just noticed too is, at first I just assumed he was finally getting tired after being an adult in a child’s body for who knows how long, but now I’m thinking if he’s supposed to be asleep with Violet, his mom, then the reason for him being so tired is being awake too long. It could most likely be both, too. Just like Cardamon, I have no idea what all the tears mean. In the most recent one was see Moully as the charm in the center. What’s the pattern with these? Again we see Bee being responsible and taking care of Cardamon, making sure he gets home safe, tucking him in, and pulling an all night favor so he can sleep and get to school in the morning. Speaking of that, I can’t say I like Cardamon’s teachers all that much. I could rant about them, but this is already long and they’re not worth it. My only real question is, why the hell are their clothes so ragged and dirty? Do they not know how to bathe? Just, WTF? (either that or they’re Really not trying to hide their *ahem* activities from the kids, which just makes me want to punch sense into them or something)

Now I’m Really Alone

MOULLY!!!! Sorry, I just love him a lot. From what I can put together, he’s some kind of gift giving being. Giving wishes, exchanging good deeds and quick favors for other good deeds and favors. Just being Really nice and wanting to help everyone he comes across. This episode makes me see so much in common between Bee and Moully. They both want to help even when they don’t know how. Making messes and finding ways clean up those messes out of guilt and the feeling of obligation. They both have lost things they need to pick up and the knowledge that they have all the time in the world because they’ve both been alive for so long. It keeps getting hinted, but now kind of confirmed, that the Wizard’s know Bee is Weird because they haven’t seen her age. Hell, seeing how she interacts with Cardamon she could have even baby sat them. So all the Wizard’s know she’s Weird and, supposedly, only Crispin knew she was a robot. That was until Deckard found out in the season 1 finally. Once again bringing up the point of people in the Wizard family finding something out and ignoring it and hiding it. In the season 1 finally, Tim asked Cass if Deckard wasn’t depressed anymore, practically saying that Deckard has some form of depression. Depression being a mental illness that runs in families, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that some other members of the family have similar problems. One of the things I remember depression doing is the person will see a problem and ignore it. Something that many people in this show do with the weirdness around them and the emotional states/situations of the other people in the show. This season is about finally seeing the thing you’ve been ignoring and doing something about it. And that’s what Bee’s been doing this season, taking charge and finally getting her junk out of the ocean and getting REALLY far out of her comfort zone. She HATES water and the ocean, but she’s diving in to take back what’s hers and cleaning up a mess. There’s A Lot to analyze with this episode, the similarities of Moully’s and Bee’s situations and personalities, Puppycat being the responsible one again for the long run of things, the tears and how the wish crystals work, and the state of multiple character’s minds. Ignorance is bliss until it isn’t.

I Won’t Leave You Alone

Ok, SO MANY NOTES! Which makes sense seeing how it’s the last episode. First off, THOSE WARLOCK BASTDARDS VIOLATED MOULLY AND IF THEY WERE REAL I WOULD THROTLE THEM TILL THEIR HEADS POPPED OFF!!! I am a very protective person when it comes to things I care about. And I’m going to say it here and now incase something comes up of it, Cooking Prince gives be Colorful Vibes, if you know what I mean. You don’t follow someone home and bother them when they don’t want to be bothered unless you’re Into into them. That’s all I’m saying and if nothing comes of it, I will drop it. I’m barely hanging onto it to begin with. So, last episode we watched one of three hands punching the other hands to let Moully go, and in this episode it’s confirmed that the day Moully was pulled through the void, the 5th warlock died. My theory with that is, the 5th one was against getting Puppycat in some way and retaliated by fighting them off of Moully and then the others retaliated by killing them in some way. And the tears in this episode didn’t give life to the corpse, but grew new life over top of it, the tears can’t bring the dead back. The ship gets put back together and we see Puppycat being pretty selfish again, bringing the ship online while Bee gets scooped trying to help Moully. He indirectly helped, but only after he got what he wanted. Cooking Prince, an outsider, brings up how everything going on on the island is Weird and Cass celebrates someone acknowledging it. Once again, bringing back the ‘ignorance is bliss until it’s not’ thing going on around here. Cardamon does more childish things this episode, making a wish and crying in his mother’s arms. He got to finally let go of his responsibilities and let it out until he passed out, and now he gets to sleep again. Moully and Bee are out of commission and the Wizard’s+Cooking Prince stay one the island/ship to be with Bee even though they are mostly confused about EVERYTHING going on rn. Bee has multiple Bees now while she’s out, and so, they go looking for Bee’s dad. I have a feeling he has at least some white hairs by now.

I remember watching this season for the first time. I remember I definitely cried at multiple points, but I can’t exactly remember what points now. I didn’t cry this time, I was too busy taking everything in and trying to put what little pieces I could find together. The first season was to get us used to this world and get comfortable for a chill ride, but then it smacks you in the face with something much bigger at the very end. This season was to make you pay more attention and to question your surroundings. It was also about the first steps to taking charge of your life. If Bee didn’t do all the responsible things she did this season, the warlocks would have probably gotten Puppycat while the island went to shambles. Actions have consequences and that’s what this was about. I believe next season is why ‘Lazy in Space’ was the title. The characters are going to be in space, looking for Bee’s dad, and will acknowledge all the weird things going on while developing, excuse the pun, in out of this world ways. 

I can’t wait for season 3.

[mustyrosewater]

𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕, 𝒍𝒊𝒍𝒂𝒄 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕.

𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒐 𝒕𝒐𝒗𝒂𝒓 𝒙 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 . PROLOGUE . 

𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒍! 𝒊𝒎 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒋𝒐𝒚𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒔𝒐 𝒊 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂 𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒊 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒅!

𝒊 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏, 𝒊 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒖𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆�� 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝒂 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌!

𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒐 𝒊 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈!

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 : 𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔.

𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 : 2,623

there are legends throughout europe and so on and so forth that tell of magic, magic that has been long forgotten by the men of this age, only left deep within the trunks of the forest's trees, and the leaves that grow on the walls of ancient buildings. spirits will still whisper of the women who were able to wield this magic, they say if you are willing to listen in the calmness of a silent forest, they will tell you the stories of these women, warriors of an ancient tribe of druids and healers. but man became jealous of the power these women wielded, for they were unable to wield it themselves; and thus, they sought to destroy it. thousands taken from their homes and burned, simply for the crime of being connected to nature and the spirits that surrounded them. years passed and men were certain that they had wiped every trace of these women from their country. what they did not know, however, was that deep in the forest, they had left one family behind.  this family, a man, and woman, her belly swollen with the promise of a little girl, knew of the danger; she knew to hide her gifts from the world, for the safety of both her love and her child, in the hopes that by doing so they would remain safe from those who would seek to strike them down.  in an effort to hide, they traveled further into the woods, where they know they could not be found and built their cottage their, living off of the land until their daughter was born, a young girl who quickly grew into a young woman.  this same young woman who buried her father, taken by an ancient disease for which his lover and daughter, despite possessing the very same gift, could not find him a cure.  it was another seven summers before it was her mothers turn to return to the earth, only a week before the autumn equinox. returning her mothers body to the earth and in turn, letting her soul become apart of the forest was not saddening for this young woman, now twenty three summers of age, returning her mother to the earth was treated as a celebration, for now, she was reunited with her love, buried in the same spot under a large willow tree at the center of their forest, forever staying by each other's side, just as the gods intended.  at both the beginning and end of every season, their daughter, possibly the last of her kind in all of norway, visits that same willow tree and sits, sharing a meal with her parents; she believed that when she sat and ate with them, they truly were beside her.  -- pero tovar was raised on tales of this magic, these women in stories who could manipulate nature and talk to spirits. these were stories that, as a child, his mother would whisper to him in order to be lulled to sleep. in his youth, he always believed that there was truth to the stories; yet as he grew and had to bury his mother, his sister and his father, the stories eventually faded into distant memories. the last time those stories ever crossed his mind was as he was looking back on the shores of spain as the boat he was traveling on sailed away. years had passed since then, pero had grown from being that teenage boy to a man. becoming a traveling mercenary was not hard in this age, and the scars the littered his tanned and aged face was proof of his success in his line of work. he had never been to norway before, this was the first time a job had called for him to be in such a place. he did not like the temperature, it was almost always cold and damp each day as there was little to no sun. as soon as he had entered the small village to meet with the man who was in need of his services, people seemed to be intimidated by him. as soon as they laid their eyes upon his armor and weapons, his tan skin and the large scar staining the left side of his face, they would quickly avert their eyes and scurry on their way much faster than they originally had. pero did not dislike these reactions, if anything, he relied upon them to maintain a reputation as a terrifying mercenary that could be hired for even the vilest of jobs.  these villagers seemed just as odd to pero as he did to them, most of them pale with light colored hair, all wearing thick furs and coats to protect themselves from the harsh cold that almost always seemed to linger no matter the time of day. no matter how many years he had known of europeans, they always still seemed such an odd bunch to the spaniard.  his job in the village was simple, venture into the thick forests and hunt down a small group of bandits who had been plaguing one of the trading routes for months now; their presence had made it harder to transport food to the village while also making it near impossible for them to transport their goods to sell at the larger market a days travel away. the leader of the village was willing to pay a hefty sum of coin in exchange for snuffing out their problem, coin that pero would happily accept.   the day that he left the village with a small bag of supplies given to him in preparation, pero did not expect the forests to be so eerie. though he was no longer a child that was scared of the dark and shadows he'd used to imagine on the walls, he could admit that he felt eyes watching him as soon as he crossed the barrier that led into the forever winding and twisting woods.  all he could do was shake the thoughts and remind himself that he was here to hunt down bandits, receive his coin and be on his way. in no less than a week he would be back on a ship and going to his next job.  this was the like that pero had accepted years ago, when he first left his home in spain and everything he ever remembered of his parents and sister. on the ship he'd told himself that this was the life he was choosing to live and he quickly accepted that.  it had been another few hours of walking before the sun had started to go down and pero knew that he would need to set up a camp; he had been warned by his employer that it was best to sleep throughout the night, for things changed in the forest at night and it was best not to be awake to witness them. while he did not believe his employers superstition, he thought it was best to get a decent amount of rest for the inevitable fight he may come across tomorrow when the sun rose.  as he set up his camp, consisting of only a small fire and a tarp he could sleep on; pero's mind could not be ripped from the lingering memory of his employers warning and the things he was talking about. what did he mean by things that he best not witness? what things lingered in his forest that caused it to be in his best interest to not see them? these were the only things pero was able to think of as he ate a small part of the rations he had been given, and still when he laid down on his back on the tarp, staring up at the night sky peeking through the thick trees, it was still all he could think of. even when he fell asleep he was still thinking of such things, the things he assured himself were just old wise tales from a superstitious group of europeans who didn't know any better, that was what it was, there was no danger.  -- when he finally awoke, it was light and yet still grey and glum. his fire had been reduced to glowing cinders throughout the night, smoke still lingering from the ashes.  it took pero little time to stomp out the evidence of a fire and pack up his glorified excuse for a camp before he was off again, hiking throughout the thick wood that was already beginning to look the same.  not many hours had passed by the time pero finally caught sight of the camp that the bandits had set up, he had seen the smoke emitting from their fire and could hear the booming laughter coming from the men. approaching slowly and quietly, pero hid behind a large bush from a distance and watched the men, counting that there were eight all together. this was a problem, because his employer had told him that there would be only five for him to take on. either they had recruited more men in the time since he'd arrived, or his employer was attempting to cheat him out of a deal. his experience with past employers made him lean towards the latter. a matter that could be sorted once he returned to the village to collect his coin, plus extra for the unexpected added men.  it was only after three more hours of staking the men out and watching their moving habits that he decided he would attack once it grew dark and it was harder for them to spot him. in little time he'd already committed the layout of their camp to memory and kept track of who would be sent to keep watch. it would be best to attack when what appeared to be the youngest kept watch, no older than twenty summers it seemed, still young and rambunctious, not taking his won duty of keeping as seriously as he should due to over confidence. pero could not help but be reminded of himself when he was that age, cocky and adventurous. too cocky for his own good, the main he reason he wore the scar on his face to prove it. as he watched the bandit camp, his eyes could not help but drift to the side, looking further out into the highly dense forest, a soft fog seeming to linger and contrast with the grey skies. for a brief moment, pero could have sworn he saw a figure standing in the distance, any features except their outline hidden from the fog; though he was able to make out that they were wearing a coat made of fur and had a set of long flowing hair that reached their hips. a woman. in the middle of the forest, watching a bandit camp just as he was.  his brows furrowed at the sight, however, as soon as he blinked, the figure was gone from his view, only more fog lingering in the place they once stood.  part of pero hoped that the forest was not beginning to seep into his mind, causing him to imagine figures of women that were no there. figures that some men would mistake for the woeful spirits of the forest. not pero, he was above such superstitions and instead, quickly shook the thought from his mind and turned his head back to the camp, continuing to stalk his prey in silence, watching and waiting for his moment to strike.  -- this was not how things were have supposed to have gone. he was supposed to have killed those men easily, gone back to the village with evidence of his triumph, collect his coin and be on his way to the next village.  he was not supposed to have been injured while doing so, stabbed in the stomach with a hidden dagger that he had not seen and fallen down a steep and muddy hill, left with nothing but a single sword on his back and a bleeding wound he had done a cruel job of patching up with cloth from his own clothes once he had come to.  he was unsure how long he had been unconcious for; certainly enough for it now to be morning. his attack had only resulted in killing five of the men before he was stabbed by one of the remaining three; the youngest one, he was the one that had stabbed him. pero almost wanted to let out a bitter chuckle at the irony of such a thing if it would not have resulted in him clutching a tree doubled over in pain from the stab wound in his stomach.  every step that he took resulted in a hot, searing pain erupting in his chest. this pain caused him to let out cruel hisses among heavy panting. he used his anger as not being able to recognize the blade before it pierced him as motivation to push on, as well as reminding himself that he had experienced worse than this in his life, worse that he had continued to persevere and live through. this was simply another scar to add to the collection already covering his body. a map of his battles and triumphs.  as the hours wore on and on, pero felt the exhaustion beginning to caress him. his head was becoming lighter, his eyes were becoming heavier and his legs became weaker and more shaky with every step he took.  the smell was what hit him first. the smell of a wood fire. that was what prompted him to raise his head and look at the tops of the trees, spotting the sight of smoke only meters ahead. the line of smoke in the sky was all he could see, the tops of the tress were so thick that they obscured any sight of the source, only giving him the direction in which he needed to go.  as he traversed on further, pero began to contemplate what he would do should the source of the smoke prove to be a danger to him rather than a help. he was took weak to fight and was only growing more exhausted with every step. though he did have his sword on his back, he would not be able to defend himself. the more he began to think about what he would do, the less aware he was of the fact that he was closely approaching a break in the thick forest. almost a perfect circle of treeline, and within this circle laid a cottage made of dark wood, no doubt built from the very trees surrounding it. by the entrance stood a lantern, with a flame standing oddly still despite the breeze lingering throughout the forest. however, the moment pero stepped into the circle of treeline and onto the mossy grounds of the cottage, the breeze that had been blowing around him stopped almost instantly, leaving him in a dull silence filled only by the sounds of movement within the cottage.  too exhausted to care any longer about who lied within, pero limped towards the entrance, no longer caring to hide his grunts and hisses of pain. it was only when he finally reached the door that he succumbed to his weakness. his hand only just reaching up to lay flatly on the door before he collapsed and landed on his side.  his eyes had begun to grow too heavy to keep open, and as his blinks became slowly and heavier, he was only just able to make out the sight of the door opening and only just felt the feeling of being dragged inside by his arms as he finally fell victim to his tired state and became unconcious once more. 

[we-are-only-halfway-home93]

Wild Salt Air 1- Outer Banks Fic - [JJ x OC]

Summary: The ocean is dark and deep, hiding all her treasures. JJ catches the eye of one such hidden creature. 

Characters: JJ x OC, John B x Sarah Cameron, Kiara x Pope, Topper, Rafe

Warnings: Brief mentions of rape (not of a main character), suicide, near death experience 

Word Count: 3728

AN: So I watched Outer Banks, like, forever and a day ago and JJ is my favorite. I mean, when is JJ not the favorite. Anyway, I got this idea in my head that JJ gets saved by a mermaid and they fall in love. It’s not going to be very long. I was going to make it a one shot but the beginning is all background information so I decided that it was going to be maybe two or three chapters instead.

I based my mermaids on the story of the goddess Atargatis. Here’s a website that goes into more detail about her:

Atargatis the First Mermaid

I also based it on a story that I swear I heard somewhere about how the sirens based on Greek myth were created when women jumped overboard instead of being taken by pirates. I swear I heard that somewhere but I cannot find it anywhere. 

I also made this story non canon compliant. John B and Sarah are together and so are Pope and Kiara. They didn’t search for treasure and Ward Cameron didn’t kill John B’s dad. This is mostly going to be about JJ and his mermaid but I just wanted to make it clear that it’s not compliant with the tv show. 

Anyway, enjoy!

Wild Salt Air

Chapter 1

She was called many things.

Nereid

Mermaid

Nymph

Siren

She had but one name that she had been called as far back as she could remember. 

Dahlia

She didn’t remember much from before her life in the water. She remembered where she was born, she remembered her name and she remembered her death. 

She was born in Denmark to humble traders in 1770. She grew up on the coast learning to swim and to fish from her father. Her mother taught her how to bake and to sew, womanly endeavors. 

Her father traveled often, leaving for months at a time on trading vessels. She’d begged to go with him every season and every season he would say no, maybe next year. Her mother always said it was too dangerous. Terrible things happened to a woman at sea. 

Dahlia didn’t care. She possessed a love for the water she’d carry with her into death.  

The year she turned 16, her father finally let her accompany him on his voyage across the sea. He said it was a simple trade journey, delivering a cargo of beef, pork, sugar, butter and so on. It would be months and she would be one of the only females aboard. She didn’t mind, she remembered. Just the joy of being with her father was enough to make the journey worth while. 

They were sailing along near the coast of the colonies when they were attacked. 

They were set upon by pirates and most of the crew was killed near instantly. They were not equipped with more than a handful of fighting men. They were a trade ship after all and most of the crew were merchants and fishermen. Her father had been one of the first to die, huddled as he was in a corner. He’d been shielding her from the attack and his death had exposed her.

Dahlia was one of only three women on board. The captain’s wife and the first mate's mother made up the rest. The captain’s wife had been sequestered in the cabin early in the fight being subjected to unspeakable things. The first mate’s mother had died quickly, falling on the sword of a pirate as she ran. 

Dahlia was unlucky enough to survive the initial attack. The pirate captain was fascinated with her. He’d twisted her hair around his fingers, stroking the nearly white strands with dirty nails. He’d commented on her eyes more than once, astonished at their indigo color. He’d remarked several times on their shifting hue in the light. He’d said they’d reminded him of the ocean and its constant changing waves. 

When he began speaking of taking her with him aboard his own ship, she knew that her life was forfeit. She could not survive at the whims of another. She could only imagine the terrible things he’d planned to do to her and dread had speared her heart. 

His first mistake had been turning his back on her. She’d wanted to attack him but she knew she was no match. She was too small. She couldn’t take on any of his crew either. They had too much experience and she had no weapon. Her only choice, the only way she would be free of him, was death.

While his back was turned, she’d made her way to the side of the boat. The same side that the pirates had boarded. She’d stood on the edge, looking down at the sea. 

She would always remember how calm the water was. The waves lapped at the sides in the gentle breeze. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky. The sun had been shining down on the deck, warming the wood and stinging the soles of her bare feet. 

A perfect summer's day.

She’d heard the captain call out to her so she’d turned. He had been standing a few feet in front of her, one hand outstretched. He didn’t try to move towards her.

He called to her again, flexing his fingers once towards him.

She’d met his eyes with her own and fell back, landing hard in the water.

She remembered closing her eyes, feeling the currents carrying her away. She remembered sinking lower and lower as her lungs began to burn. She had opened her eyes and watched as the sun grew further away as she sank. She remembered opening her mouth to take in a lungful of air when a dark shadow dove towards her. Then everything went black.

She doesn’t remember much after that.

It was as if she had woken from a dream and her life had always been as it was under the sea. 

Time moved differently beneath the water. 

Years felt like days and months felt like hours. Time went by and different ships sailed the seas. 

New ships, bigger ships, louder ships. 

Fewer men died at sea. Women even less so. 

Her sisters began to die off. One right after the other. 

As long as their lives were, they were not immortal. They lived for hundreds of years but they still grew old and gray. 

Their numbers dwindled until there were just a few hundred of them on that side of the coast. 

Dahlia lived a relatively solitary life. She had a tribe that she belonged to and others that would share with her but she liked being alone. 

She may have chosen to die at sea but she didn’t choose to become a predator. 

She loved her sisters and her life below the water but she never developed a taste for killing like they did. She didn’t relish in consuming the unsuspecting sailor who crossed their path. She didn’t enjoy hunting down men who sailed into their territory. Unlike her sisters, she still had some memories of her life before the sea. 

She knew that not all were evil. She remembered men like her father who lost his own life protecting hers. She didn’t think it was fair to kill all men because of a few bad ones. 

She remembered what it was like to walk above water and feel the sun on her face. 

The sun was warm and inviting. The water was cold and unforgiving. 

She had loved the sea in life but death reminded her of the warmth of the sun and all she had to offer.

She didn’t like it but she would do what she had to to survive. 

She often found herself watching the sun shimmer against the waves, her brilliant light blurred by the rolling sea. Sometimes, if she reached out, she could feel the warmth of her rays just barely brushing the skin of her palms. 

Oh, how she missed the sun.

The moon didn’t hold the same warmth as the sun. The moon was cold. The moon hid more than she revealed. 

Because of what she was, she was forced to lurk in the darkest depths of the water where humans couldn’t see. Horror stories travelled through their tribes faster than the changing tides. Stories about some of their kind being discovered and taken to the surface only to be tormented and butchered by humans. 

In her sisters’ eyes, humans were the enemy. Evil creatures put on the earth to destroy their kind. She didn’t remind them that they once used to be human. 

Because of the humans, her sisters felt that they couldn’t travel during the day. It was safer to move at night. Hunting at night offered easier pickings. The weaker males didn’t last as long in the night. It made it harder for them to be seen, too, so they were less likely to be caught. Dahlia didn’t agree but she held her tongue. She was the minority among her kind. 

She didn’t count how long she’d been what she was. She knew that it had to have been years since she passed from her earthly life into her sea life but she wasn’t sure exactly how many.

She used the ocean activity to gauge the passing of time and to distract her from her unhappiness. 

Boats traveled further. They didn’t have to use oars anymore. Boats got bigger as well. Faster. 

Women started to frolic in the sea the same as men. Their bathing costumes grew smaller and more revealing. They created games in the water. 

Small boats that they would sit on individually and glide across the surface of the water. They chased each other on these contraptions, sending spouts of water into the sea as they traveled.

Big, long, boards that men and women would stand on and ride the waves. Small boards that would do the same. Skinny sticks that people would strap to their feet and then be pulled along by the boats. 

So many amazing things that Dahlia only dreamt about enjoying. 

It was on one of those days when she saw him.

She’d been hovering contently above an outcropping of reef, clinging low to its base, her tailfin slowly flicking from side to side. Her eyes scanned the ocean above her, watching the people play. Men and women, boys and girls, all of them were enjoying the ocean that day. 

She caught him out of the corner of her eye.

He was riding the waves on his board, dissecting them as they cut into his path. He sent foaming spray up every time he twisted the back end of the board. 

It was the sun that made him stand out. It shined off his body like wheat on a summer's day. His hair glistened in the light, sparkling as he crested each new wave. His body was browned by the sun, a new trend that she thoroughly enjoyed. 

Men and women alike were tanned. When she was a human, it was frowned upon for anyone to allow their skin to darken in the sun. The only people who did it were the ones who worked in the fields all day. Farm hands and servants. Any proper lady or gentleman would never allow the sun to darken their skin beyond its natural creamy complexion.

She found that she liked the browned skin of these new people. The way the sun licked their flesh was utterly fascinating. 

His skin was dark and wet, shining in the sun. 

She could tell he was strong. The way he kept his balance on the board showcased his core muscle strength. His legs were solid pillars of power as he steered the board through the water. She caught a glimpse of his hands when he briefly touched the surface on one of his passes across the waves. They were big and long and cut through the water like a blade.

She didn’t realize she’d followed him down the coast until he began paddling into shore. She was no longer covered by the reef and had exposed herself to anyone who happened to be swimming by. 

She found a large rock close to the beach that afforded her some level of protection. She poked her head out above the water just enough to watch him run ashore. 

He met another man on the beach. This man was sitting with a pile of what she assumed were their possessions. He had long dark hair and some kind of dark shield covering his eyes. The golden man ran out of the water and up the beach, slapping hands with the man sitting. 

She watched as they gathered their things and left the beach, all the while the gold one shook water from his hair and glistened in the sun.

She found herself looking for him after that day.

At first it was just every once in a while when she found herself watching the water but eventually she would stop every day and watch the waves. She found that the more she stopped the more likely she was to see him. 

She learned new things about him when he was on the water. She learned that he was stubborn, falling off his board and getting back on every time, never letting the water defeat him. She learned that he was funny, making his companions laugh when they played together. 

Mostly it was his spirit that made her love him. He rode every wave like it was the most important thing he needed to accomplish. He sailed the ocean like it was what he was born to do. He looked ready to conquer the world some days. Others it looked like the world had conquered him but he always rode the waves with a determination her father would have been proud to see on any of her suitors. 

It was when that thought first crossed her mind that she realized she may be in love with him. 

Her kind didn’t fall in love. There were no males of their species. 

They were created when the goddess Atargatis jumped to her death after the death of her beloved. The water would not conceal her beauty so she was turned into a half-woman, half-fish, forever roaming the waters alone. 

This tragic love grew through the centuries into despair and death. Women who jumped to their untimely death from any vessel at sea would be given the kiss of Atargatis and turned into a half-woman, half-fish, forever roaming the sea, killing unsuspecting sailors and men when they crossed their paths.

She was given one such kiss and forever bound to the water. 

She could become human again, if she so desired. 

If the pull of her heart was ever strong enough, and she gave the kiss of Atargatis to a man, she would forfeit her extended life and transform back into her human self. She would save the life of her human man and, in turn, become human herself.

There were only whispers that this had happened before. Not one of her sisters to recall if one of their kind had ever actually bestowed the kiss of Atargatis onto a man. She didn’t even know if it could be done.

She would try though. 

It really was only instinct that drove her to do it. She didn’t intend to give him the kiss of Atargatis but it did happen. 

It had been a dreary day. A storm was coming. She could feel it in the water.

The waves had been angry all day, beating the coast without mercy, washing debris onto the shore and back out again as they retreated only to bombard the sand with more fury. 

It was on days like this that her sisters took shelter far beneath the surface of the ocean where the gods’ wrath couldn’t reach them. 

Dahlia liked days like this. 

These were days where she could swim freely near the surface without fear of being seen.

Humans were less likely to venture into the water when the waves were this angry. 

She was swimming along the drop off when she saw golden legs splash into the water. She jerked back and darted away, retreating far from human eyes. 

When her heart stopped racing, and she was well hidden behind an outcropping of rocks, she lifted her head out of the water and searched the coast. 

The air froze in her lungs when she saw her golden boy cutting through the waves on his board. 

The dark gray clouds moved menacingly towards him, his frame shrinking as the waves rose and crashing around him. 

She could just make out the lines of his from her distance. His brows were drawn together in a deep scowl and his frame was tense. His eyes were wet but not from the ocean and his lips were nearly bloodless, he pressed them together so hard.

He was angry. 

She didn’t know why but she didn’t care. 

Behind him, a towering wave rose up, dwarfing his body against its deep backdrop. She saw it happening just seconds before it really did. 

The wave crashed down on him, dragging him down into the depths of the ocean before he had time to blink. 

A cry escaped her lips and she dove down, frantically searching for him beneath the black waters. 

She swam across the ocean and down, diving further away from any light as she went. Her eyes adjusted easily but her golden boy still remained out of sight. 

Her eyes grew heavy and her chest tight as she searched the waters in a desperate bid to find him. Her hair swirled around her in frantic tendrils as she whipped her head around. 

Just as she felt that hope was lost and her golden boy was gone, lightning lit up the sky and she saw the outline of a body floating gently just a few feet from her.

Her heart leapt with joy and she darted towards him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and flung herself towards the surface as fast as her fin would carry her. 

She broke the surface and desperately searched the shoreline. Several feet to her right there was a stretch of beach with several small hills obscuring part of the short from view. She needed to be as hidden as possible.

It didn’t take her long to reach the shore even with his additional weight. She pushed him up as far as she could. She settled herself at his side and pressed a hand to his chest. He wasn’t moving. 

She laid her head where his heart was and heard no beating. She felt tears come to her eyes and rush down her cheeks before she had time to stop them. She closed her eyes and nuzzled against the side of his chest, begging Atargatis to save him.

A deep calm settled over her and she opened her eyes.

She sat up and gazed down at his face. He could’ve been sleeping. 

She stroked her fingers down the plains of his face, tracing the smooth slope of his nose and hard angle of his jaw. She ran her fingertips over his eyebrows, shaking off the dampness that lingered. She dragged her thumb over his full bottom lip, tugging it down and clicking her nail against his teeth. She smoothed her hand across his face, tracing the shell of his ear. 

She leaned down, bumping her nose against his. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He smelled of salt and sand. The aroma lingered in his sinuses and she savored it. 

She pressed her forehead against his, bracing herself.

She touched her lips to his, the barest hint of skin against skin. 

He tasted like the salt of the sea and sunshine. 

She pressed harder, willing herself into him. 

After what felt like several minutes, she pulled away, stroking her thumb over his cheekbone. 

She didn’t even know if it would work. She’d only ever heard rumors. She hoped it worked. He was beautiful. He was the light of her sun. He shined bright upon her under the sea, allowing her to feel that much more warmth from the sun. He brought a newness to the ocean that she hadn’t seen in a long time. He made her feel alive again, so much more than the predator she’d been turned into. 

She felt a shift in her center of gravity, like a piece of her she didn’t know was missing finally locked into place. A cooling sensation followed. It started at the crown of her head and slowly worked its way down her spine, settling over her. It was then that she knew it had worked.  

She watched as the color returned to his cheeks. His eyes began to move beneath his lids. His fingers flexed against the sand but still his chest did not rise with breath. 

“JJ!” She looked up when a shout echoed through the tense air. 

Four people came down the beach, frantic. One she recognized as the long haired man who’d greeted her golden boy on the shores so many weeks ago. The others she’d never seen before. 

There was a dark skinned boy whose hands were clutching the back of his head in desperation. An olive skinned girl who cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted again, “JJ!” 

The final person on the beach was a tanned girl with golden brown hair flowing down to her waist. She clutched the hand of the long haired boy and frantically searched the beach. 

A strangled gasp resounded beneath her and she looked down. 

His eyes were unfocused as he gazed up at the sky. His chest heaved with each breath that he took. She stroked her hand down the side of his face and he jerked his head towards her. 

She hovered over him, really gazing down into his face for the first time. Until now, she’d only ever seen him from a distance. He was beautiful then. Now he was striking. 

His crystal eyes shifted in and out of focus, staring up at her. He brought a hand up to cradle hers against his face. 

“JJ!”

She looked over. He followed at a sluggish pace. They were getting closer. 

She looked down at him. His face was turned towards his friends. She glanced back over at them before she dropped her lips down to his, placing a tender kiss on the corner of his mouth. He tried to move, to react but she didn’t let him. 

She slithered down his frame, her hand trailing across his chest as she disappeared back into the water. 

She could feel the strength leaving her tail fin and knew it was only a matter of time before it was gone, replaced by human legs. She needed to find a place away from here where she could shift under the camouflage of the beach.

She sank below the surface and watched as his friends discovered him supine on the shore. She watched as they lifted and carried him away. 

A flame of hope sprang up in her chest when his head turned to look over his shoulder. She hoped he was looking for her. 

She felt her lungs tighten and release, a sure sign that she was rapidly losing her abilities. She ducked down under the water, swimming with minimal strength to the cover of a cave only a few yards from where she’d left her golden boy. JJ. 

With hope burning bright in her chest, she settled in her cave and let her transformation take hold.  

[brrahbrrahcharacterimagines]

Enigma (Bran Stark x Reader)

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Brandon/Bran Stark x Reader

Word Count: 2610

Warnings: Spoilers for season 8 of Game of Thrones, an aggressive drunken man

Request: Can u do a au reader and bran where he meets her during his travels through the kingdoms as their new king he feels intrigued about her because he cannot see anything related to her.. and how they help each other and eventually fall in love... @raveenasblog

A/N: This is such a cute idea! I hope you enjoyed! Also since it is set in Dorne, I would like to remind you that when I use the word “Prince” I am referring to the Lord/Lady of Dorne. In Westerosi history, since the Dornish kingdom had a different history with joining the rest of Westeros, they were allowed to keep the title of Prince instead of calling themselves Lords. It is not speaking in terms of lineage to the Westerosi throne. Okay, nerdy lesson over!

Finally, all the wars were over. The Night King was dead, and so was Cersei Lannister. In Dorne, your new Prince had been put in place and things were seeming to shape up nicely. After years of fear, fighting, and uprisings, you finally felt safe.

As the lands of Westeros were becoming safe once again, your new King announced that he would be touring all of the six kingdoms as well as the North. Despite the past problems between the throne and the southern kingdom of Dorne, you were anxious to meet the new King. He came from house Stark, an honorable house which you had never had a problem with. He had only been king less than a year, but you were sure that he had already done a better job than Cersei. You hated that dreadful woman. You blamed her for the death of Prince Oberyn Martell, and consequently the rebellion that erupted from the sand snakes that led to the murder of the rest of your governing family.

You brushed thoughts of her from your mind, focusing instead on the matter at hand. King Brandon Stark would be at the castle by late tomorrow morning. As a hired hand in Sunspear’s Old Palace this meant plenty of work for you, from sweeping the floors to making sure that every flower arrangement was situated perfectly. You were hosting a king after all; everything had to be absolutely perfect.

You rushed around the palace like a madwoman, furiously cleaning everything until it gleamed and shined. You worked until you thought your limbs might give out, working tirelessly until sundown when you were finally able to return to your quarters.

“Y/N,” called an elderly voice, making you turn to find the source.

“Yes?” You called out, your voice echoing in the empty hallway. An older woman stepped out of the shadows, one that you knew quite well. She was the head of all the other maids, having worked in the palace for most of her life. When you were a scared young girl in need of work, she was the one who had taken you under her wing. She secured you a job in the castle, and helped you hold onto it as power switched hands. 

“Nan!” You smiled, rushing over to give the woman a hug. She returned the hug, holding you tightly as she smiled fondly at the nickname you and the other girls had given her.

“Hello my dear,” she greeted you as you pulled away. 

“I haven’t seen you in forever,” you said, “thanks to these long hours preparing for King Brandon, I presume.” She sighed.

“Yes my dear, it doesn’t help that we always end up cleaning opposite ends of the castle,” she said with her warm smile that made you feel at home. “But I had to see you before the feast tomorrow.” Your face fell.

“About the feast,” you revealed, “I do not plan on attending.”

“What?” Screeched Nan, making you jump as the usually quiet woman raised her voice at you. “What do you mean you aren’t going? The Prince has even excused you from going as a server!”

“Yes, but-” You started, but Nan cut you off.

“No buts! You get to attend this feast as a single woman, and an attractive one at that. I am not letting you wiggle your way out of this.”

“I don’t think I’d fit in there,” you admitted. “I’m not so sure that I belong in the same room as a King and all the richest people in Dorne. I don’t even have anything to wear.” You gestured to the rags you wore, but as you turned back to Nan’s eyes she was smiling knowingly.

“That’s why I called out to you Y/N, I think I may have something that could help.”

You followed Nan to her chambers which were thankfully rather close to your own so you did not stray too far out of your way. There was a fire lit in the fireplace, illuminating the room in a soft, warm glow. You looked to the bed to only to find the most gorgeous dress that you had ever seen. You couldn’t help the gasp that came from your mouth.

“Nan,” you whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

“This is the dress I was wearing when I first met my dear late husband. At a feast not unlike this one, might I add.” Nan reminisced with a smile. “If you would accept, I would like you to wear it tomorrow evening.” You spun to face her, shocked.

“Pardon?”

“You are a beautiful girl Y/N, and you deserve a beautiful dress for such an occasion. You only meet the King once, after all. Besides, it wouldn’t be too bad to look stunning in front of Dorne’s wealthy when you are of marrying age.”

You blushed at Nan’s words, but you had to admit that you were excited at the prospect. The gown was absolutely perfect. It was covered in swirling patterns that captured the eye, the background fabric your favorite color. You knew that it would look just as nice on you as Nan promised. And she was right, after all. You were of marrying age. It wouldn’t hurt to get dressed up for potential suitors.

“I’ll wear it,” you agreed as Nan clasped her hands together excitedly before pushing the dress into your arms.

“Good luck then dearie,” she called, “seduce you a good one!”

You blushed at her forward words, gathering the dress in your arms before making your way to your own room. You had been dreading tomorrow night, deciding to keep to yourself in your room all night. Now, you couldn’t wait.

The next morning you woke up in a good mood. The sun streamed in through your window ad the birds chirped, making you feel as if you were living a fantasy. You took your time getting ready, preparing yourself for the King’s arrival. Once you were satisfied with your hair and outfit, you made your way down to where the rest of the palace was lining up. You had thought about wearing your new dress, but decided to save it for this evening alone.

As the carriages passed, you craned your neck to see a glimpse of the royal party but to no avail. Anybody of any real importance seemed to all have their windows darkened or their curtains drawn shut. All except for Bran, that was. As he passed you could see him clearly. His eyes locked onto yours, and you felt a smile come to your face. He gave you a small smile back as he carriage proceeded towards the castle. Although it was only for a moment, something about the way he looked at you took your breath away.

You shook the feeling, not allowing yourself to think about Bran that way. He was the King, and you were a lowly servant girl in Dorne. He just happened to meet your eyes was all, as he surely did to countless people trying to catch a glimpse of him.

You eagerly awaited the start of the feast, changing into the dress that Nan had given you. It looked even more beautiful on you. It hugged your body in the right places, but it was still modest. You weren’t that desperate. When it was finally time you strolled through the hallways towards the banquet room with a smile, trying to forget how you hoped to see the King again. See his soft brown eyes, his dark hair that you just wanted to run your hands through.

After you entered, you wandered aimlessly. You never went to these kinds of parties; the only times you did were as a server or a maid. This meant that you knew nobody, and the longer you were there, the more you wanted to leave. This had been your fear, and it was coming true. 

“Good evening Gorgeous,” came a deep voice from your left. You turned to face the Lord, smiling brightly.

“Good evening,” you replied.

“I don’t think I’ve met you before,” he flirted, handing you a glass of wine. 

“My name is Y/N L/N,” you told him as you took a sip of the drink.

“It’s nice to meet you, your name is just as beautiful as you are.” Your cheeks dusted crimson, smiling at him. He told you his name as well, revealing to you that he had made quite a fortune in buying and selling ships. If he was trying to impress you, it sure was working.

You talked to the man for what felt like an hour, but it surely couldn’t have been that long. You stopped drinking after your second glass, always drinking slowly to avoid becoming too intoxicated. This man did not do the same, drinking glass after glass as if it were just water. He quickly became drunk, becoming much more handsy as he drank more. At first it was tolerable, a light touch on the arm. However, he continued to drink and he continued to become more inappropriate. His hands would wander to your waist, and when he asked you to dance his hands would wander lower as you swayed. You kept moving his hands back up, but every time they strayed lower again and again. Agitated, you tried to excuse yourself from the conversation.

“What?” Yelled the man in a drunken rage. “Am I not good enough for you?” You froze as others turned to look at you.

“No, that’s not the case. I’m just going to go grab some-” You said, trying to lie before you were interrupted by the drunk Lord.

“You damn whore! You can’t lie to save your life.” He started stalking towards you as you backed up in fear. “Come back here, you cunt!”

“Excuse me, my Lord,” came a voice from behind you. You were startled, jumping aside wide-eyed. Even more startling to you was that as you turned towards the voice, you saw King Brandon Stark looking towards the Lord who had been causing you trouble. “Is there an issue over here?”

“Yes,” spat the Lord. “This dumb cunt has been leading me on all night, and now she thinks that she can just walk away from me.”

You looked towards King Bran with wide, scared eyes, too afraid to tell him the truth.

“I see,” said the King. The Lord smirked, thinking that he had gotten his way. The smirk was quickly wiped from his face as the King continued, “you are excused from the feast.”

“What?” Yelled the Lord in shock. “What did you just tell me? You can’t say that!”

“As King, I believe that I am allowed to say that. At my own feast, no less.” As the man looked ready to argue more, King Bran continued calmly. “Guards,” he said. You always expected people to yell for their guards, but he asked for them the same way you would expect him to greet anyone. They quickly came to his aid, whisking the other man away.

“Are you alright, my Lady?” Asked the King as he turned his full attention to you.

“I think I am now. Thank you, your Majesty,” you said with a curtsy. “But I am no Lady.”

“Then who are you?” Asked the King. You were just shocked that he was still talking to you.

“Y/N L/N, I’m just a servant who was allowed to attend as a guest,” you said, embarrassed.

“Would you like to join me out on the balcony?” Asked Bran, making your eyes widen and your eyebrows raise.

“I’m sorry?” You asked, not sure that you heard him right.

“I would like to look out over the sea from the balcony, and I wanted to know if you would accompany me.” If you weren’t mistaken, you could have sworn that you saw a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

“I would love to, your Majesty.”

“Please,” said Bran as you followed him towards the door. “If I am to call you Y/N, then you can just call me Bran.” You blushed, thankful that he was in front of you and couldn’t see it.

The two of you made your way to the privacy of the balcony, Bran closing the door behind you. 

“I appreciate everything you’ve done,” you said, “ I really do. But I have to ask, why did you help me?”

Bran looked at you with an expression that almost looked cocky, playful.

“Can I not come to the aid of a beautiful woman?” He said, making your cheeks take on a pink hue. Noticing that you weren’t going to take that as a final answer, he continued. “Have you ever heard of Greensight?”

You nodded your head.

“Why? Doesn’t it mean having the ability to read minds or something?” You felt a bit of panic rise in you at the thought that he might have it. You really didn’t want him hearing all the thoughts you’ve been having about him. Especially about how much you liked the way he looked.

Bran chuckled at your words.

“Close,” he said. “It means that a Greenseer can see into the past, and sometimes future, or anybody they would like. I am asking because I have it.” You cocked your head in confusion.

“I still don’t understand why you are helping me.” You froze. “Do I die soon or something and you pity me?”

Bran laughed at your words, and you could’t help but giggle back. He normally seemed so calm and serious, but seeing him laugh carefree made him look even more attractive to you. 

“So I guess that’s not it,” you smile.

“No, not quite,” replied Bran as he returned your smile. “You see, the thing is that I can’t see anything for you.”

“What?” You sputtered, shocked.

“I can’t see anything in your past, nor your future. It is as if there is a wall put up between us, blocking any information. I have to admit, it’s rather intriguing. You’re an enigma.”

“I’m a what?” You said, cocking your head. Bran smiled.

“An enigma. You’re like a puzzle.” You blushed as Bran continued to look at you with his beautiful brown eyes. “I’d like to figure you out.” Now you were definitely blushing.

“What do you mean?” You asked him shyly.

“I want you to come back to King’s Landing with me,” he revealed and your jaw dropped. “I’d like to spend more time with you. I’ve never met somebody that I couldn’t read.”

Despite the suddenness of the situation, it somehow felt right. You felt something drawing you to Bran, and not just because he was King. Something made you want to be with him, stay near him.

“I will return with you,” you agreed. “But on one condition.”

“Anything, Darling.” You had to push down the giddiness in your body at the nickname he used for you before continuing.

“I’m not cleaning the Red Keep.”

Bran laughed again.

“Y/N, my dear, I think you’ve got the wrong idea. You’re returning as my guest.” You blushed harder and harder every time Bran spoke. “My enigma.”

“I have to warn you though,” you stated, “I don’t do well on the water.”

“At least you don’t roll back and forth with the waves.”

You burst out into laughter at Bran’s words, picturing his chair rolling back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered between fits of giggles. “I don’t mean to laugh at you.”

“It was a joke Y/N, you’re supposed to laugh.” He responded warmly. You could get used to banter like this.

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this. Maybe I’ll write a part 2 sometime, as I guess I didn’t completely flesh out the request. I would like to pick up with them in the Red Keep sometime! How about after 100 notes? Or maybe just some requests if you guys have any ideas about how it could go!

Did you enjoy this? Help me continue making content by supporting me HERE!

Buy me a coffee! –> Ko-fi

[stareiiez]

Flower Petals and Blood

𝐿𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝐶𝘩𝑢𝑟𝑐𝘩 𝑥 𝐹𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟

Chapter 6

Word Count: 3.4k

𝑨/𝑵:  HI! Hello, yes, it's me. I have updated with an even longer chapter for this ongoing series that you guys have really seemed to enjoy :D I’m happy for the support and love I’ve gotten!

𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: Graphic description of choking, perhaps vomit.  Nothing too extreme for n o w, just good ole choking on some flowers. 

                             ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 "What's your deal?" You complained, your feet were trying to plant on the metal flooring of the base and then on the ground when you were dragged outside the base.

Your voice was high pitched and annoyed, as you if you had every right to be a bit whiny towards another soldier. The black-armored clad female had dragged you from your doorway, leaving behind Tucker to talk to you in private. The sun beat down on to your bear head and already sweat was working its way to dampen the back of your neck and back itself. It seemed to only get hotter in Blood Gulch around 'summertime', you had a way of telling when the 'seasons' changed due to the slight difference in this area.

"Whatever you could have said, you couldn't have said in front of your other teammate." You bit out, as the grip on your wrist grew tighter. Oh right, you forgot to mention how she had held you by the arm like a child who was in trouble, then dragged you away. She should have just grabbed you by the ear and scolded you just to further add on to your embarrassment.

"This isn't about him, this is far from him. Who you do on your own time in none of my concern. He's not even my teammate, to begin with in the first place, I'm just hired to be here to replace Church's death." Tex stated, her hand had pulled you harshly forward as the two of you wandered behind the back of the Blue base.

How quick she practically threw you ahead of her had your head spin slightly as you fought to gain your balance against the quick moment of momentum. Was a conversation that serious that she had to be that bitch to pull you away from- .. from. Well, what did she step in on back there? Were you going to do something with Tucker? You couldn't even remember, the moment he set his hands on you. Your body burst into flames of heat and some tingly feeling that left your mind dazed beyond compare. You were on fire and he added more gasoline to the bonfire that screamed in your chest. He burned the bright petals away and let you live. Maybe you were just pent up and Tucker was your only scapegoat. Did you like him? Maybe. He was good-looking, funny when he wasn't talking about his dick, and caring. He worried over your condition and in that one spare intimate moment, you could feel the ache in your lungs. He made you feel, normal. Tucker made you feel something other than pain and for one painstakingly moment as the world around you spun. Maybe he was something you needed in your life.

"Something is off about you," Texas spoke once you gained your bearings, her voice brought on that itchy feeling to your chest. Her voice was nails on a chalkboard and that yanked you out of your glazed over attention.

‘Gee Tex, as if puking up petals wasn't off enough. What do you want? A fucking billboard so you can see it easier instead of looking down at me from your god damn high horse named Church?' You thought to yourself.

Acid burned in your throat as you bit down on your tongue. You swallowed the sharp acidic tang that tried to push its way past your teeth in word vomit or actual vomit. Your breath left in a quick rush of air once your gazed turned to cast the female an actual agent of the nearly forgotten Project; and you. You were just someone that knew everything about the agents, everything the Project stood for. You could spill your guts to the public, to cover what the media didn't when the Director went into hiding. You didn't hate Project Freelancer, no you loved the stories that you heard about them. You loved and looked up to the war criminals as if they were Earth's do-gooders who saw no wrong and weren't manipulated into thinking they were better than anyone. Captain Flowers even told you of his past, of him faking his death to get into this particular simulation group under a new persona. He was dedicated enough to sell his soul for Project Freelancer, and by god did that organization let him down coldly.

He was crazy. his sanity gone and down the drain, the Project fell. He was all smiles and sadistic chuckles when everyone he ever knew or cared for was shown up as MIA or KIA. His sanity was gone and switched out for episodes that he was either way too friendly that it was uncomfortable, or for others that were a bit too bloodthirsty for a canyon group of idiots. He wasn't Agent Florida, he was some other man that filled that husk and took his job with the biggest grain of salt in the salt shaker.

You just hated her. Hate was a strong word, but she was just another manipulation that was conned by the Director. She didn't have to come back, she didn't have to be here and have Church wrapped around her pink finger, but she did. Church was hardwired to chase after her, he was destined to live out the Director's love through another robotic AI copy of her. You were just here on the sidelines to watch it play out and choke to death on some fucking made-up disease. Why do you need to be the one to tell her your whole fucked up one-sided love triangle fiasco when it's obvious she is here to just intimidate her.

Like some twisted female Alpha, she wants to make sure you don't fuck with what's hers. If it's possible to give hickies and blow an AI you'd gladly track Church down and make it happen as long as she sees it. The itchy feeling bloomed slowly back in your chest, your breath stuttered just slightly in your lungs. It was starting to hurt, the itchy feeling was moving upwards, like vines of a rose garden and twinning themselves through your organs. It's sharp thorns digging into flesh and tissues.

"Well?" Tex states, her arms have crossed over her onyx chest plate. Her head tilted to assess your unarmored form, and you swear she's grinning under the visor.

"It's just a head cold." You gritted out, the lie slipped through by the skin of your teeth, the truth was biting and burning on your tongue. The acidic taste rolled on your tongue, and it was harder to swallow this time around.

There was a scoff, from the other. Texas stared at you, her gold emotionless visor was staring you down. It was like she could see past the wavering lie you had hastily said to force her to be on her way. The silence growing between you two was nothing but uneasy, and your mouth burned with the sensation to double over and puke. You wouldn't mind spilling your guts, literally, on her polished black boots before you even amused her further. You needed to throw up, petals or liquid you couldn't tell this time around, whatever Texas was staring at, you wanted her to hurry up and move on. Your upper lip quivered as another beat of silence passed and she finally broke eye contact.

"I'll just go ask Church, you two seem to be.... way more comfortable for a teammate." One finger pointed accusingly at your face.

Your lips curled up at her words. "what's that supposed to mean?"

Tension sizzled, tightened, wound around your throat, and warmed your red blood cells that coursed through your veins as Tex didn't hesitate to reply.

"Church isn't smart, he's see-through." A snort escaped your mouth, one you couldn't help to not hold back. Yeah, no shit, he's see-through, he's not even a fucking real person.

With a glare you could feel penetrate through the golden, emotionless visor Tex continued. "He likes to hang around you, he's less of an-"

"Asshole?" You quipped.

"I was going to say absolute dumbass of a dick, but that works too if you want to be basic." She sighed, "Look, for some reason Church likes to hang around you. He rants, I hear him rambling and somehow cussing you out across the damn canyon. He's loud enough for even the dead to hear." *Ha, funny.*

"And this is supposed to make me blush?"

"I'm saying that whatever is going on between you, friends, you're screwing each other or whatnot. I'll find out what's happening with you, so watch your back." Bored with conversating over an Ex of hers, and whatever the hell kind of frequent one night stand hookup partner, The Bitch in Black sauntered away with the confidence that she was so sure of herself.

Once she had rounded around the base and was, hopefully, out of earshot, you wheezed hard. Lungs ached and trembled as a sharp pitched exhale left. Stabs of hot knives sliced at warm, soft, fleshy, sacs of skin that shrunk and grew behind your ribcage. The world blurred in watery colors, and small tears pricked and warmed your cheeks as they slipped down your skin. You didn't choke on petals, it felt fuller in your throat. The object bulged in your throat and tickled your trachea. Velvet petals, earthy tasting that made you gag and try to swallow whatever was temporarily blocking your air passage. You couldn't gag, couldn't possibly cough hard enough to even move the blockage more up to the back of your mouth. You were choking to death, and you were pretty sure you looked like an absolute mess or more while balancing in the brink of death.

With another choked gag, you fell to your knees on the dusty ground and then flung your whole body crashing down violently on the sun-baked ground in desperation. The sudden jarring and slam of your stomach on the floor, shoved the last few puffs of sweet oxygen and carbon dioxide gave the gentle shove of the object. Petals tickled your uvula, and you nearly clamped your mouth shut in repulsion. It wouldn't bug, no amount of even throwing up or coughing would make it move anymore. You'd have to shove your fingers down your throat to free your airflow yourself.

A trick, one stupid college tale your best friend told you before you shipped out for the military, was tucking your left thumb into your fist and squeeze. Strong, weak, or no gag reflex you couldn't give a damn. Not taking the chance to puke your guts out and more from just putting your fingers to the back of your throat was undesirable. Squeezing your eyes shut, your pointer and thumb of your right hand ventured into your mouth. Your lungs burned, and your body shook in rebellion from having another thing added to your mouth. It was easier to fully grab the petals that constantly brushed against your uvula, they didn't tear off as you slowly pulled whatever was choking you to death or unconsciousness. Your left thumb popped in the ever-tightening grip of your fist as you retracted your hand from your mouth and pulled whatever you were holding between your pointer finger and thumb.

Air, precious, hot, sweet, cold, burning, dry air rushed and skimmed down your throat as you finally inhaled. Your passageway was clear, and you could breathe properly. You still trembled and shook with small gentle coughs that came from your oxygen-deprived deflated lung sacs. Your eyes opened against the small tears that still flooded your pupils. With your hand now relaxed, it wiped your gaze clear and you finally turned to what was damp and hanging limply in your grasp.

Against the bright sunlight, you nearly let out a sharp gasp that stretched your already sore lungs to hurt even more. There color of periwinkle blue, with a bright golden center that was small and dusted with pollen. Pollen that dusted your lips and tasted like strong, musky Earth, and a sick, oddly sweet aftertaste inside your mouth. You couldn't tell the type of flower that was shining from the saliva that coated its once open spread petals. Thank god the single flower did not have a stem, it was just the head of the flower.

You never produced full flowers, let alone formed ones before. Small petals, large petals, oddly shaped or clumped together was what you had puked or coughed up for at least two or three days. Now your disease was progressing for the worst, and you weren't sure if your body could keep up. Eyes, wide as saucers you kept the soft flower in your fingers, too afraid to gently cradle it in your open palm. You had managed to push your weight up to your knees, then onto your feet slowly after a minute or two of gaining your strength.

Your feet carried you before you could even see where you were going. It's not like you needed to, you knew the ins and outs of this god damn canyon like the back of your hand. You mapped this desolate place since the first week you ever got stationed in the Blood Gulch Canyon. You were mindlessly walking fast, as fast as you could without tripping on the uneven ground. You were heading to Red Base, Doc could still be there. He didn't hang around Blue Base as much after Sarge claimed the purple medic as Red Team's own reluctantly. "Numbers over insubordination." was what Sarge always said, when he had begrudgingly allowed Doc to enter the Red Base that day of the exchange between Blue Team and Red Team. It was humiliating for Grif, and just sad for being desperate to get what Blue Team wanted the most.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Doc!" You nearly screamed as you stumbled into Red Team's Base, the flower still dangling and threatening to crumple in the tightening grip of your hand.

Your voice rang out and nearly caused Sarge to fire a warning shot near your head from the sudden panic that racked his body. He only had raised his shotgun at you, but how frail you looked and near on the edge of collapsing to the ground from exhaustion; he lowered his gun.

"What are you doing here? You Blue?" His gruff voice didn't stop as you merely cast the older man a brief look while venturing a little more into Red Base.

Sarge, Grif, and Simmons were all in the Base's kitchen. Random weapons were laid out and disassembled to be cleaned probably by Sarge and Simmons. Grif was scrounging around, opening cabinets and snooping around the crappy fridge for any type of food to snack on for probably the seventh time in the day.

"I- I need Doc, he's... he's supposed to see this." Your voice was quiet, trying to sound steadfast even though your breaths were sounding airy and wheeze like.

Your hand outstretched, the periwinkle colored flower was now dry and started to crumple its sad, wilted petals inward.

"A? flower?" Grif asked, his voice full of confusion as he looked at you long enough to take in your disheveled state that held the flower.  

"It's not just a-" You exhaled tiredly, clearly not in the mood to spill the dirt of your disease to yet more people who had an even higher risk of accidentally blurting out your secret to Church.

Simmons was too honest, Grif would 'accidentally' give you away without even thinking about it, and Sarge would be more than happy to prove Church wrong if the male were to assume anything about you. Sarge would expose your secret in the process, and then somehow blame your Blue ways for having this disease in the first place.

"Just, where is Doc?"

"He's in his room down the hall." Grif scoffed before turning his attention to the fridge, his top half-hidden behind the dirty white fridge door.

"Grif! You can't just tell the enemy where our men are." Sarge scolded immediately, Grif only made a grunting noise before bending down further to reach towards the back of the fridge.

Before Sarge could make any more threats, or begin to even start to for that matter, you grabbed the withering flower and ventured further into their base. Sarge's voice was growing quieter the more you walked down the surprisingly long bedroom hallway. The army, the UNSC or Project Freelancer, must have thought a lot more people would be so willing to be stationed in the most desolate places with nothing to do but play a long game of capture the flag. Oh, how wrong the Army was to even waste money to even have that idea.

Finally, what you could guess was Doc's room. Especially since smooth jazz music was pouring out from behind the closed door, and you could even hear the cheery humming of the male with the calming beat. It felt bad for you to even knock on the steel door and interrupt whatever he was doing in his room, but you could say sorry later after you updated Doc about your disease. The volume of the music was lowered, and you could hear Doc say 'It's open!'.

"Doc?" You mumbled, once you tentatively opened his bedroom door.

Random posters of cheesy uplifting quotes, colorful little post-it's of self-esteem cheer up notes were plastered haphazardly among the posters that were glued to his walls. Typical Doc, for someone so bullied and teased from both teams, he managed to decorate his room the way he would want to make him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. He was hyping himself up every day, and that was the most precious thing you could witness. Not everyone here was in the mindset to think the way Doc thought about themselves. Doc could perhaps go crazy and yet some part of his mind was so hardwired in positivity, that he could still find good things to say about himself.

"Oh! I didn't expect to see you here!" Doc spoke up once he registered you were standing in his room. He smiled warmly, glasses that sat on his nose tilted slightly from the movement of his cheeks.

"Well I'm your only real patient right now with a life-threatening disease, I would think you would expect me." You could have winced at the dry joke you were forced to crack to not ruin the welcoming environment in his room.  "Speaking of disease, Doc I have something to show you."

"Good or bad." The male rose his pointer finger to push the clear frames more upon his nose and plopped down on his bed to sit. His hands folded in his lap like a good listening student in elementary school. Except this was a sick version of  show and tell in a fucked elementary school.

"Well.." Your hand outstretched and showed the other the flower in your hand.

It stunk of a now sickeningly sweet smell, even if it was wilting and sad looking now more than ever. The periwinkle blue colored remained bright and vibrant, but the very ends of the petals were turning into the brown color that signified its slow process of decay. The smell was new, but then again maybe it was just the stench of Red Base itself. Maybe either base smelt different, but that would be a dumb observation.

"It's a Morning Glory, its.. pretty?"

Your eyes widened from Doc's observation. "Doc, are you kidding? I've never produced whole ass flowers before! and you want to tell me the type of flower it is! Are you still fucking kidding?"

"You're right! You're right I couldn't help myself." Clearing his throat, Doc leaned forward and plucked the head of the flower from your open palm.  He held the flower close to his eyes, nose wrinkling from the scent practically smacking him in the face from how nauseous it was making him feel.

"This is the first time you've ever produced right?" You nodded, and Doc hummed under his breath. One eyebrow cocked in question as he stared at the flower.  Curious fingers pulled at the petals and rubbed them between his thumb and forefinger, now and then making a noise of acknowledgment.

"Well, the disease is getting worse, it's progressing way faster than I thought it would. Good news, you won't choke on stems yet, just fully formed flower heads."

"That means?" You asked,

“It means you're well on your way to dying."

"Wha- Doc!"

"What? You asked."

You guffawed at the man who seemed stoic for once, he seemed so calm as a sudden rush of panic racked your brain and nearly left you screaming internally in your subconscious.

"Listen I'm serious when you need to actually talk to Church about this, or else this is going to be the end of you."

In the middle of you silently screaming and perhaps trying to hold together your sanity long enough to not break down screaming in front of Doc, in the Red Base no doubt. A third presence in the room made your spine curl inwards, and the acidic taste of sourness flooded your mouth.

"Tell me what?" Church asked when he materialized in the room, his see-through form that was hinted in the same color of the Morning Glory that was cradled tenderly in Doc's hand.

Now you had another reason to hate flowers, their colors reminded you of Church.

[coexistxcoldrain]

The Moon in Old Times

Title: The Moon in Old Times (AO3 Link, please visit! :) ) Author: yaoionshavedice / hes-only-tiny Rating: Explicit Warnings: Well, smut ...; mentioning of suicide Ship: Masato/Hiroki (MasaHiro) Words: ~10.000 Summary:  An onsen in the middle of nowhere, weird dreams of long forgotten times and oddly familiar memorial sites. Masato couldn't pinpoint the moment he thought he'd lost it. Maybe it had nothing to do with himself and everything to do with the appearance of this little brat from Tokyo who might or might not be shamelessly flirting with him. Notes: Not a native speaker! Please do give constructive criticism, I appreciate it! Also: kind of weird topic, I know. I’m also not an expert on all things Edo, unfortunately. So I hope you don’t mind tiny errors or anything that doesn’t make so much sense after all. Have fun :)

The Moon in Old Times

It had been hard – but not impossible – to find a nice traditional onsen that allowed tattoos. Obviously, that aspect had to have been one of my first concerns. I still had a spacious room with a private onsen here; however, I did enjoy using the public one first thing in the morning. When it was still freezing and dark outside. And considering how atmospheric the illuminated landscape melted into the steam rising up from the water … it was honestly a soul-healing experience. Cleansing, almost. I needed that, at least once a year.

It was on the dot 6am, maybe five minutes later. I had difficulties getting up early when on tour or during stressful weeks in general, but no such feelings when I was on vacation. I lay there, completely absorbed in my thoughts and the tingling sensation of the contrast between hot water and cool morning air; I’d almost missed the hesitant footsteps of someone with the same intentions I’d had.

When he entered the water, however, I realised I’d been lost in thought. I didn’t look. It just meant that my alone-time had already drawn to a close. You really shouldn’t stare when someone was about to enter the onsen, anyway.

A few minutes passed in silence as I concentrated further on the hazy, blurred surroundings and the pleasant feeling; but then the guy a couple of metres next to me raised his high voice with a clearing of his throat.

“Masato? Is that you?”

I couldn’t quite recall the voice though, so I turned my head in fear of seeing a full-on stranger sitting next to me; a fan. That was honestly the last thing I would have wanted right this second. I probably would have needed to change the ryokan, too. But no, sitting next to me, even if still awfully unexpected, was Moriuchi Hiroki; frontman of MY FIRST STORY and brother of one of my best friends.

That was … a coincidence.

“Oh, hey!” I spat out somewhat perplexed, seeing that I not exactly knew what else to say. Even though sitting naked inside an onsen with strangers and friends was part of the Japanese heritage – something as normal as it could get – here right now it remained kind of awkward. We were still the only ones here this morning and I knew him, but I didn’t really know him. Their band belonged to a different kind of generation of rock bands here in Japan. We briefly met on festivals, if we were lucky, but most of the time not even that. He wasn’t on very good terms with his brother, last time I checked, and Taka and I were good friends. That was it.

“That’s so funny that you’re here, too!” He grinned, or as far as I could make that out through the foggy night air. “Just on vacation?”

“Yeah,” I answered, still slightly taken aback by this new situation, “a few days. Just trying to relax a bit.”

“Me too,” Hiroki mused and nodded gently as if he had something on his mind but I didn’t say. I had actually just planned on remaining as silent as I could possibly manage during this holiday. Protect and heal my voice and just sweat out all this pent-up tension from all this unnecessary social interaction. I shook my head inwardly.

“So … I heard you just released a new album?” I asked only in order to have anything to say. It was release season after all, I thought I might have heard something along those lines, but honestly I just tried a shot in the dark. Next to me, however, he began nodding his head slowly.

“Been quite the year. I also needed a break.”

“I see …”

After that we fell kind of silent, though I talked myself into believing that it was because we enjoyed the relaxing warmth and silence, not because we were awkward as fuck. A few other men had joined us after a while, mostly elderly who honestly wouldn’t recognise any of us anyway. As it was time to go up again to get ready for the day, we briefly said our short goodbyes and I was sure I could feel his stares in my back when I left. But maybe I was just being paranoid.

***

I had started my day off slowly but breakfast went by pretty fast. And as I was launching in my room, clothed in a yukata, I noticed a curious pattern on the furniture and the wall cupboards. They weren’t just made out of smooth brown wood, as it was common for the interior of these old inns. There were delicate little flowers carved inside most of the surfaces. Nothing special to the fleeting eye of course, this ryokan was just a tad fancier than others, it would seem. Those, however, were lotus flowers. Significant in Buddhism and a lot of Asian countries in general. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, were they not spread throughout the whole room. I just wondered if there was a deeper meaning than just ‘it looks fancy’ to this. But I’d also seen a few here and there in the lobby and dining room.

I shrugged, and having finished my green tea, I lazily got up. I wasn’t in the mood to read and there was still so much time left until lunch, so I decided to take a quick stroll through the little village.

Breathing in the fresh air of the still early day, I walked alongside the river. A small amount of rosy plum petals drifted with the stream downwards. It was a nice enough day, a bit cloudy and the cold wind cutting. There were few tourists in the streets, less than I’d expected, albeit it being such a picturesque little onsen village. Right out of picture-book-Edo. Lots of tiny shops, bathhouses and restaurants on each side of the river.

Lost in thought, I let my fingers trace the wooden handrail in the middle of the street that separated the sidewalk and the river. It made me realise how badly I’d needed this time off. No phone. No appointments. No one other than me and my thoughts.

And yet … here I was thinking about the brief encounter between Moriuchi Hiroki and me this morning. What a God damn coincidence. Something out of a screenplay, right? How was it possible that two people in the same business who knew each other ended up at the same place and at the same time? Ryo would probably laugh about this; endlessly amused. He was the one who actually kind of got along with Hiroki and his band, no matter the age gap. I knew that the guy looked up to us as musicians. Maybe even as much as he looked up to his brother and his band. We were almost on the same level after all. We’d both did Budokan. We’d both toured the world. We were friends. If Hiroki were to strive to be like someone, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would be us.

I’d been so absorbed by my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed the little shrine at the end of the path that had slowly but steadily come into sight. It was a cosy, little thing. Overgrown with soft looking green moss here and there. It basically completed the picture of this fascinating Edo-looking village.

I bowed subtly before I entered through the torii on the left hand side. I hadn’t expected to visit a shrine on this trip; I wasn’t even particularly religious or fond of traditions. Sure, I did visit the local shrine on New Year’s day. But that was about it. Something inside of me, however small, told me to stay. I suddenly felt a warm feeling of understanding and calmness reach my chest. I just laid the blame on the fact that I’d felt so relaxed coming here in the first place. That feeling had to have come from that, right?

There weren’t even any tourists or local people on the shrine grounds. And even though I wondered why that was, I decided that I liked this situation a lot better than otherwise and opted to ignore it. Coming from a big city, it was so rare to see anything like that.

I went through the motions of washing my hands and mouth at the little well, cleanse my body with the incense and then went to pray. Something you internalised as a Japanese person. Even though I hadn’t known what to pray for beforehand, all of a sudden I knew exactly what to ask.

When I turned around, I noticed a statue made out of stone in front of a small pond. Even though not very delicately sculptured, you could make out the silhouette of what appeared to be a couple in each other’s arms. Nowhere were foxes or komainu to be seen. That was odd.

“I take it you are not from here?”

I was taken wholly by surprise that when I turned around, an old man was standing right next to me. I laughed, feeling caught, and shook my head. When the heck had he appeared out of nowhere?

“No, I’m not from here.”

“You are wondering about the memorial, do you not?”

I took a closer look at the guy. He was clad in everyday clothes and his thinned out white hair reached the tip of his ears. He glanced piercingly in my direction with his bushy eyebrows raised. One of these stares that you couldn’t resist answering, though he honestly didn’t come across unfriendly. So I nodded.

“It is said to be Kozaemon and his courtesan Tsuka. They committed love suicide a long time ago.”

I side-eyed the old man and watched him fold his hands behind his back. I of course knew a little about all this; about life back then, about the ranks and samurai and yūjo. About Bunraku and Kabuki and the usage of popular real-life occurrences that had found their way into premodern art forms. Double-suicide being one of the most popular among those. The most romantic. I’d just never seen a memorial like this before. Didn’t know there were any.

“It is, however, also said that an error occurred while passing on information and Tsuka was actually Tsukichi. That is all I know. A beautiful statue, is it not?”

I nodded slowly and gave an awkward sound of understanding and gratitude. The old man took it, nodded himself and calmly shuffled away. If that was the truth, no wonder modern Japan decided to conceal it. Love-suicides used to be common and relationships between men no secret. Though I’d never heard of an instance of a homosexual double-suicide before this.

***

Since I wasn’t in the mood to actually sit down and eat at the ryokan, I decided to drop by some small diner and eat out instead. Though when I returned to the lobby, I saw Hiroki sitting in the far corner of the room, reading a magazine. He hadn’t noticed me yet and for one short moment I thought about ignoring him and just returning to my room. But as I examined him there reading alone, I felt like this was a way too coincidental situation to let it pass by. To be nice, even if I didn’t feel like it.

“Hey, what are you up to?”

Hiroki lifted his gaze and instantly cleared up the moment he saw me; a subtle smile playing on his lips. I told myself that it was just because he’d been feeling kind of dull and hadn’t expected to see me again so soon.

“I’ve just been reading,” he swiftly showed me the magazine in a fleeting motion, something about music … or art … or fashion. I couldn’t really tell before he again put his hands on the cover. “You look positively relaxed, though!”

“I’ve been walking around the neighbourhood and picked up some food. I guess I’m fine.”

I nodded gradually to back up my statement as if Hiroki needed to be reassured that I was telling the truth. As I realised how stupid that was, I stopped. Shifted from one foot to the other. I wasn’t nervous. It was just awkward …

Just as I was about to take my leave, because him casually sitting in front of me throughout our conversation mildly irked me, he stood up. I was a fair bit taller than he was but Hiroki didn’t seem as though he was bothered by it in any way. His bright smile caught me somewhat off-guard.

“I bought this expensive sake yesterday that I actually wanted to bring home. But if you’re free tonight, I could bring some over,” he suddenly explained with a straight face. He looked as if he’d only just had this sudden revelation, though something told me that he’d kind of planned on doing just that. I honestly wasn’t really fond at the prospect of him robbing me of my night time ritual – if you could call it that – but he seemed so excited that I couldn’t bring myself to say no. So I reluctantly agreed.

And finally at night, there we were, sitting at this round coffee table on the tatami floor, in our yukata and drinking sake; probably looking like a curious wall painting from the Edo period. This was the theme throughout after all. Our hair styles didn’t quite fit in, though.

I watched as he sat there, one half of his yukata very nearly sliding off his shoulder. Soft looking, tanned skin peeking out from underneath it. The grey of the garment looked honestly good on him, I had to admit.

“You’d make one hell of an entertainer. That yukata suits you,” I heard myself blurting out without properly thinking it through first. The alcohol had already sunken deep into my bloodstream and had tinged my cheeks a hot pink. Or at least that was what it felt like. Totally forgetting that, in a sense, he already was an entertainer.

In front of me, Hiroki chuckled and again nipped on his drink. He had this habit of covering his mouth with the back of his hand when he laughed. It made him seem soft somehow. He also seemed to be at least as intoxicated as I felt, though probably quite a bit more, to be frank. Right this moment I was just relieved that he wasn’t weirded out by my admittedly kind of creepy comment. His brown hair was tugged behind his ears, revealing his slightly puffy and likewise reddish cheeks. The tip of his nose sheen healthy in the warm toned light. I could not seem to turn away from those two delicate moles straight underneath his right eye. There was just something about him that I couldn’t explain.

“Did you just call me a prostitute?”

Wha–? I knew he didn’t mean it, he was joking; bantering. There was still this drunken challenging smile on his lips, but his fidgety hands on the table told a different story. I hadn’t intended to make him uncomfortable. But now that he said it, it could indeed have been perceived like that …

“No,” I tried to reconcile, albeit probably sounding desperate. Here was to hoping that he wouldn’t realise in his current state. “But did you know that prostitutes did in fact enjoy quite a high rank back in the day? The good ones, that is …”

Again, he chuckled. “Every child knows that … But you did call me ‘one hell of a,’ right?”

“Okay, this is getting weird, I’m sorry,” I laughed nasally because I was trying to hide half of my face somewhere behind my upper arm. Taking another sip. Feeling the stinging liquid run desperately hot down my throat. This wasn’t how I’d imagined this going. We weren’t even that close. Why couldn’t we, for the love of the Gods, keep up a normal conversation like actual adults?

“I’m just messing with you, you know?” Something in his brown eyes glistened when he looked at me. Maybe it was just the light reflected in them, or maybe he just really enjoyed being a tedious little brat. “Didn’t think it’d be so easy with you.”

I clicked my tongue, shook my head and downed the rest of the liquid from my glass. Should have known, really. He wasn’t annoying, however, for some reason I felt myself liking the way our interaction went. It was a fine line between annoyance and pleasure, though.

“I think you had one too much to drink,” I lectured him with a raised eyebrow; not looking at him. I took the result of my earlier statement as proof that I should probably refrain from handing out compliments like White Day chocolate. He did look good, but this time I held back my opinion; swallowed it down again. No idea why I’d had this thought in the first place.

Hiroki, however, only smiled at me with an odd expression as he picked up the bottle of sake again and poured us another two; almost triumphantly, not saying a word. I sighed.

“Hiroki … I honestly don’t want to fade away in the onsen tomorrow morning with a hangover …” It was a white lie, I wouldn’t be hungover tomorrow. I just genuinely thought that we’d better stop right here …

“I’m just trying to be a good yūjo,” he shrugged, his plump lips still forming a slight smile. Innocence. Feigned innocence.

Again, I sighed. “Don’t you think you’d much rather make a better wakashū?” I didn’t quite want to enable this weird conversation any further, but it seemed like we were at a point of no return here. Now I wanted to at least look at this logically.

In front of me, Hiro nodded approvingly. Actually a bit too enthusiastically for my tastes, too.

“You’re right. But I’d be a bit too old for that, don’t you think?”

“Let’s not go there …” I shook my head. I really didn’t want to imagine Hiroki as a barely teenage Kabuki actor, occasionally pleasuring old men in his free time. I scrunched up my face and was about to consider whether I should cut it right off here; tell him I’m sleepy, suggest that we should maybe go to bed. I was starting to feel uncomfortable under his glances and cheeky remarks. And I wasn’t about to ask myself why that was just yet.

“Okay, I’ll stop,” he breathed, this time a tad softer. His fingers played with the glass on the table and a strand of hair was now loose behind his ear and fell into his face.

I was older than him, obviously. Seven years, to be exact. I’d asked. He looked young, too. Maybe a conversation like this was totally normal among his group of friends.

“But it’s still okay to tell you that your natural hair colour suits you, right? That’s not going too far, is it?”

Again, I stared at him a bit dumbfounded before I regained my composure. Slowly, I took another sip, felt the liquid run down my throat. Swallowed and almost had to cough because I’d chocked on it. My ears felt warm. “I guess that’s okay. I’ve complimented you first. We’re even.”

My words came out curiously broken; with a low and careful voice. I’d grow out my natural dark brown hair during off time. I liked the occasional change and also to give my hair a breather between tours. It had been a while, however, since someone had complimented me on that. Weird that I just wasn’t able to pocket it like a normal compliment from an acquaintance. Suddenly it became hard to look him in the eye.

“Maybe we should–” I started to intervene, but he nodded midway, agreeing to my unfinished suggestion in a whisper.

“We should,” he said.

As we both nodded and reached for the little glasses simultaneously, our hands faintly touched and we instinctively flinched; like a god damn film cliché. It was like a little electro shock, like a spark, I felt the hair on the nape of my neck stand up. And then, as I looked at him, for a split second I could swear Hiroki didn’t look like Hiroki anymore. In this short moment, I was sure to have seen what looked like an older version of him. Not as in ‘aged,’ but as in ‘not exactly now’. All the colours were sepia toned and blurred and before I could inspect his hair style any further, the weird feeling was gone and I snapped out of it.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly; his facial features only now starting to make sense to my brain again, slowly blending together. I shook my head confused to let go of that state but then nodded.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Forget it. I should really go to bed.”

***

I was leaning against the chunky trunk of a big plum tree. It appeared to be spring, everything was deeply in bloom and blossom, pinks and whites and yellows and greens all around, but the rays of the sun felt already intensely warm on my skin. I peeped up to the baby blue morning sky and smiled on account of it. What bliss!

“Your skin looks golden in the sun,” the boy in front of me asserted out loud; cupping my face lovingly with his two hands. I looked at him and even though I felt like scolding him, still I smiled.

Next he took the tiny used notebook and very short pencil from my hands and placed them next to us. I let him do it without objecting, even though I knew that he shouldn’t have the power to bother me at a time like this. I combed through his loose raven black forelocks.

“Take me with you tonight.”

“You very well know I cannot do that.”

“Your wife does not even need to know.”

“Look at me,” I heard my own voice ring in my ears as I looked at him intently; his face both soft and hopeless at the same time. The freshness of his pink cheeks well-neigh touched me to tears. “There is going to be a time and a place for everything yet to come.”

“I am afraid I cannot wait any longer,” he cried tenderly but his eyes were screaming. I could not seem to turn away from those two delicate moles straight underneath his right eye. They made him seem mesmerizingly beautiful. This time, I cupped his face. “I am tired. I love you.”

“And I love you,” I reassured him, “but this is not how the world works.”

“I cut myself for you.”

With deliberate and careful fingertips, I caressed the long, thick scar on his shoulder through the garment from that blade that day. It had only just closed up and healed recently.

“I mean it.”

“We will find a way, I promise you,” I whispered those words onto his trembling lips. Kissed a salty tear away. Knew that, in the end, this would only mean one thing.

“Born together on the same lotus flower.”

When the day of his genpuku ceremony came, and it was his time to cut off his forelocks, he lay in my arms; sobbing. I held him close and brushed through his hair patiently. Kissed his head.

He had tried to postpone it as long as he could but ultimately there was no young man who could escape it. You were supposed to embrace it, naturally. What an opportunity, an honour! To be able to fight in open battle as samurai and to finally be considered an adult! But for the wakashū youth at the time, it was bound to be a disaster.

“Will you still love me after that?” “I told you, I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I would gladly give my life for you,” I whispered into his black hair and meant it. “You will find a way, too, you will see. The wakashū-kabuki is about to change. I know it.”

And when it was finally time for us to be reborn, the winter had taken hold of the land. The icy cold gusts of wind cut our cheeks but we determinedly marched forward to the perfect spot encompassed by those large, naked plum trees and the little shrine. I had taken care of my wife’s financial well-being as best as I could have managed. I felt guilty but also indescribably happy at the prospect of finally being free with him. Together with him. Like it always should have been.

When I leant down to cut his throat, I kissed him intently and whispered “same lotus, remember” against his lips. It was both the hardest and the easiest thing I’d ever had to do. Then I hung myself.

And as I hung there, swaying in the wind, the full moon shining on me, I–

***

My alarm went off. Horror-stricken, I came to and suddenly I sat upright in my futon; clutching my throat and desperately trying to gasp for air. Until I realised I didn’t need to. There was fresh sweat on my forehead that I wiped away before I got up to drink some water.

What a freakish nightmare.

I’d never before dreamed of dying. Let alone anything Tokugawa period inspired. I didn’t even know I’d had the knowledge. But it had all felt too real, looked so real. The more I tried to hold onto the blurred memories, however, the more they slipped away. I shook my head. With all of yesterday’s wakashū talk and the little lecture at the memorial site, this was bound to happen, right? Right …

I sleepily rubbed my eyes and looked outside. Still dark, of course. I hadn’t been as sleepy yesterday …

After I’d had a cup of tea, I made my way downstairs to the onsen. Wondered if Hiroki would appear at the same time as yesterday. I waited in the mushy warmth and people came and went, but he never appeared.

Slightly feeling defeated, I let the back of my head fell softly on the wet stones behind me and sighed. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt so bad. Maybe I’d scared him away yesterday after all; had made him feel unwelcomed. That hadn’t been my intention as his senpai at all.

But then, what did I want?

Finally, at breakfast, I saw him sitting at the large table and joined him hesitantly. He really didn’t seem too pleased. But maybe I’d only imagined it.

“Did you sleep well last night?”

Hiroki spooned his miso soup; his face stiff. “So-so. Could have been better, honestly.”

My fingertips itched to ask him why he didn’t come to the public onsen this morning. He’d probably just used his own private one, but then again, why today …

“Yeah, me neither,” I mused; body refreshed, mind sleepy. “I hope I didn’t offend you yesterday.”

It was honestly a thought that had been circling around in my head all morning since I’d woken up from that weird dream. Objectively I knew that I hadn’t offended him and if I had, it wasn’t my fault. Just … seeing him looking so miserable, for whatever reason, felt like choking. Trying to be as silent as I could manage, I grabbed everything I needed for my breakfast and started to eat.

“You did not,” he reassured me and there was honesty in his voice, though his eyes remained a question without an answer. “I honestly think that I was acting like a little brat on purpose and I should apologise for that.”

“So, do you only think you should or are you apologising?”

When I lifted my gaze to look at him, for a moment, I thought he’d throw his tofu at me. But to my huge relief, he smiled, beamed even, and so I chimed in for a bit. When the pleasant feelings had settled after a while, I again tried to focus on the food. Suddenly it tasted a lot better.

“I’ll be honest with you,” I started after a few minutes in pleasant silence, not quite knowing whether I should really tell him, “actually I wanted to spend this vacation alone. You know, not even seeing or talking to anyone. But now that you’re here, too … how about going around town for a bit later?”

Hiroki nodded, not too enthusiastically but I liked to think he was. “That sounds great. Check out the restaurants?”

I nodded. There were a lot I hadn’t yet seen.

***

It was long dark outside when we exited the restaurant we’d had dinner at. Both clothed in grey kimono, and already slightly intoxicated from all the sake we’d had after food, we walked along the dimly lit river.

It was astoundingly beautiful here. It very well-neigh looked as though you were literally in old Edo, only the street lights meddled with the illusion. It was a clear night with a clear night’s sky and although still quite cold, there was no wind cutting our faces. Everything was dark and still and silent and listened.

We hadn’t said a word since we’d started walking alongside this little river called Heiki in a daze of alcohol and mild food overdose. Which was, for the record, slightly out of character for the both of us considering that we’d happily chatted away during our meal and it made me fuzzy in the head. We’d had a lot of fun together tonight.

After we’d walked for a while, our ryokan wasn’t too far anymore, Hiroki suddenly stopped to lean onto the wooden handrail at the side of the street and listen to the polite rhythm of the gurgling water. On the other river side, the plum trees were already in full bloom.

“Why we’re stopping?” I asked oblivious and watched him watching the scenery in front of us. There was a short smile on his lips. We were still drunk.

“It’s just so pretty here. I’ve spent enough time indoors.”

I nodded. Although I silently dreamed of using the onsen for a second time today. “It’s cold after a while, though, don’t you think?”

Hesitatingly, I shuffled to a spot next to him; the fabric of our kimono almost touching.

“I can handle the cold,” he mused but I knew he wasn’t finished. So I didn’t say anything after that. Then he looked up and so did I. Out here, you could actually see the stars. Sometimes you get the feeling that they’re not quite there in the city, as though someone had imagined them a long time ago and so they only then came into existence. You never really think about them, you never really see them, because even though you might sometimes look up from your hectic walk, they are not really there. You look up and they’re not there. You know they should be and you know everyone says they’re there, so you believe them.

“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”

I watched the not quite full moon closely, silently, and wondered if Hiroki knew what he’d just said. What a walking cliché … After another few seconds had passed, however, I decided to blame the alcohol for that as well.

“It is,” I said warily and got ready to start walking again, “but let’s just go inside. Have something to drink. I just want to get into the hot water one more time before I go to bed.”

“That does sound good,” he agreed enthusiastically as he walked right by my side. I could see his breath forming little clouds of white mist in the light of the street lamps whenever I peered over to him. And while I was at it, I forbid my head from overthinking his statement from earlier. He hadn’t meant it like that … “How about we go to my place? I have a private onsen.”

“Don’t you think I have one, too? You’ve been to my room.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his cheeks sporting a soft glowing pink. He was giddy, always in such high spirits, it was fascinating. “But does yours overlook the forest?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve booked the most expensive room?”

“What can I say?” Hiroki looked at me and laughed a hearty smile, showing me his wrist and attached to it: a rather expensive looking watch. “Rich parents and successful, too. Why would I settle for the almost?”

“Wow, you’re … unbelievable.”

What a fucking brat. He’d been like this from the start, as if he never cared how he came across. Maybe he really didn’t. Some people’d understandably think of him as obnoxious. But I knew he was kind and thoughtful. Honest even. That’s why he didn’t bother to change his cheeky ways. He knew he could trust me.

And he had been right indeed – his room looked full-on fancy; sort of extravagant even and the view over the forest was breathtakingly gorgeous. I hadn’t been aware that there were such major differences between the rooms. His little private onsen was built on what appeared to be a balcony of some sort – there weren’t any walls or glass façades surrounding the hot bath. It was wonderful, really, so you’d still be sitting outside and the hot steam wouldn’t fill the cramped little room. Now I knew why he’d stayed inside this morning. And, ironically enough, there was the moon right outside this room, hanging over the onsen like an exclamation point with the stroke of its upper body missing.

“I’ve got some beer. Tell you what, I’m going to get it and you go and get yourself ready?”

“That’s decadent,” I intervened slightly puzzled, though Hiroki’s face only revealed what seemed to be one of his ‘what do you mean?’-looks. As if that was the most common thing on this planet. So in the end I shrugged my shoulders and obliged, wondering when our roles had switched exactly. The fact that I was still intoxicated, however, helped this case enormously.

I’d been with friends to the hot springs a hundred times. Even with his brother. But somehow … this time … alone in a private onsen with him and alcohol involved … there was something feeling not quite right about this. I just couldn’t put my finger on why that was, though. And so I ignored the little voice inside my head as he sat opposite of me. The fact that I kind of initiated this mess in the first place Sipping his beer. The lights inside were dimmed, we only really had the moon illuminating our faces.

It looked kind of bizarre. I knew he was of drinking age, but he still looked so young holding this comparatively huge beer can in his hand. The way he sat there, silently, enjoying the warmth and sometimes looking up at the sky; questioningly. There was no way I could enjoy my bath like this. With all these ideas and thoughts running through my busy head. And him thoughtfully examining me once in a while when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“Is there something on my face?” I asked him without really expecting an answer to that.

The air around us had been electrified ever since we’d gone home from the restaurant. I should have known better and retired to my own room after we’d come here. I didn’t know what had made me stay.

“Do you think the moon looked the same for people in former times?”

I had to muffle a small laugh at that; I’d been expecting a lot but this knocked me off track. “Oh, it’s that time already? Philosophy?”

I couldn’t help myself but mock it. I busied my fingers with my own beer and hoped he would just drop the subject altogether. Something about it unnerved me to no end. No more talking about the bloody moon!

For a while then, he said nothing. Only when he saw my raised eyebrows did he open his mouth to respond. For some weird reason, I was anticipating exactly what he was about to say just then. God damn, I hadn’t actually wanted to trigger that.

“It’s just … I’ve had a weird dream last night.”

“Just a dream, though,” I assured him and freaked out on the inside. What a bizarre coincidence. Hopefully just that. Hopefully.

In front of me, Hiro nodded and finished his beer in one long gulp. He did make me nervous, I finally realised for the first time. His unspoken words especially; I could see them in his eyes. Now it was just awkward between the two of us. Both staring into nothingness and trying not to move. The water was suddenly too hot, it made my face glow up, and yet I could have sworn that I felt the subtle heat of his body instead. He was resting his arm outside of the onsen on the elevated ground; his fingertips loosely pointing in my direction. My chest felt heavy. I didn’t know what to do.

“What made you come here in the first place?” I heard myself saying before I could even intervene consciously. But then I thought that it wasn’t such a bad idea to talk about that, after all. Normal enough conversation starter. Made both our minds busy. Would probably and finally stop me from wanting to move closer to him.

Hiro shrugged. “I felt like it. Searched for a place that allowed tattoos. This one felt right.”

“Right,” I whispered like in trance. Even though I had to have sobered up quite some bit already, my head felt so fuzzy. Trying to be subtle about it, I examined that part of his chest piece that was visible above the water surface.  It said ‘Rule the Fate’ in elegant lettering and when I was done reading it, my hair on the nape of my neck stood on end. I realised that I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I knew he’d noticed. “Same for me.”

“You only have those two?” he whispered back in the same tone of voice, though only stared at the one on my neck. The Vena tattoo. “It’s your album title, isn’t it? What does it mean to you?”

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t quite make his eyes out in the dark, but his look was piercing. Not in an uncomfortable way, however, it managed to make me hot to the touch. My throat felt tight.

“We wanted to get back to our roots music wise,” I tried to give him the same TED talk I’d given basically any interviewer back then. And it wasn’t even that big of a lie. “So I thought roots … blood … veins … you get it.”

“Yeah, I get it,” he nodded, “but why’d you get a tattoo of that on your skin?”

“…Why’d you get yours?”

“I mean …” he paused, gesturing a bit comically. I again swallowed a lump in my throat. “You only have two. Those must mean something to you.”

“I just wanted to have someone on the cover with that tattoo. Thought it might as well be me.”

Hiroki only nodded as if he understood but in reality I knew he wasn’t convinced. Again, it wasn’t that big of a lie. I just didn’t feel fully comfortable talking about anything that personal. At least he accepted that. I watched him in front of me; tilting his head back to catch a nice cool breeze, his chest rising and falling softly. Fate. Then he lifted his gaze.

“Can I take a closer look at it?”

“What?” I responded instinctively and way too fast. I couldn’t quite tell him not to be ridiculous. I would have probably told him so yesterday. But tonight … I felt like I couldn’t refuse him such a simple request. He probably hadn’t gotten a good look at it in the past two days and he was just … curious. We were still slightly drunk. To ask such a thing was within the realms of possibility. It wasn’t weird. Or so I told myself. Because when I looked hard into it, when I tried to be honest with me … then I knew that all the fibres of my entire body wanted him closer. I wanted to say yes. I wanted him to look. The time of self-control was over, I’d just decided. No more self-control. He had it coming. I just couldn’t shake off that feeling of total helplessness; a feeling that this was all supposed to happen, right now and in the same exact way it was happening. “…yes.”

I held my breath as he carefully skidded closer to me in the onsen. It wasn’t big or anything, but the motion felt like minutes. Eventually, however, he was standing right in front of me; his stomach was almost at the same height as my face. I exhaled relieved when he decided to hunker down in front of me after all. My ears felt hot, again I held my breath. Prayed that I wasn’t coming across as nervous as my beating heart suggested.

This was it, wasn’t it? This was one of those moments. I’d never been good at them. I was tense enough with women. But with a man? The whole realisation of it all, that it felt so right and that I knew my body wanted him so badly, made me lose my mind.

Sitting in front of me like that, Hiroki scooted just the tiniest bit closer; supporting himself with his right hand on the edge of the onsen right next to my head as he leaned forward in slow motion. I felt his breath on my wet skin, making me shiver and flinched when the fingers of his left hand finally touched me; tracing the delicate strokes of black ink. I hadn’t expected him to, honestly. I’d thought he’d only look, but now that he was here and I wasn’t quite surprised retrospectively, I leaned back and let out a small sigh that I’d held in consequently.

I imagined he was aware of where my body was and was fussily concerned with trying not to touch me in the water, though I could feel his thighs close to mine. My pulse throbbed so loud in my ears that I couldn’t understand my own voice inside my head anymore. All I heard was him breathing faster. I was so nervous and yet so giddy. Time moved so excruciatingly slow. I knew my impulses were about to kick in. I could feel it. My head felt so dizzy, my heart screamed. This ridiculous act was so painful. I knew he wanted me and I was sure he knew that I wanted him.

Two days. It had taken him two days to make me mad for him and his body. Laughable!

I was just about to go ‘fuck it’ and grab his head and just kiss him; I couldn’t take it any longer and my fingers itched for his skin, I couldn’t take the fact that I couldn’t just touch him anymore – but then I  felt his lips brush against my neck. Drawing in a breath sharply, I swallowed down a moan and was so perplexed that I suddenly didn’t know what to do after all. Then I just decided on placing my hand on his head, brushing through his soft hair bolder by the second, encouraging him to go on. His right hand now on my shoulder and upper arm, the other somewhere in the water.

This kid sure had balls. I chuckled amused but softly. Relieved.

“You’ve planned this?” I breathed under shivers. My heart was so full; I didn’t know what to do with all these giddy feelings. I hadn’t been this horny for someone in such a long time. How was I supposed to hold back until I could finally touch him properly, anyway? All of this was moving way too slow. I wanted to grab him and press him against the floor. I’d never done that to a guy. I wondered how he moved; how he moaned and how his face looked when he had my cock inside of him. I let out a shaky breath. Grabbed the back of his head and finally kissed him. Pressed him against me; our faces so close that it became almost impossible to move. The steam had made our hair and skin damp. His lips were wet.

I loved the little trembling breaths he took between kisses. I knew his lips felt soft but all I could think of was that tingling right underneath my skin, everywhere. Everywhere his body touched mine. His hands all over me and one of his legs somewhat awkward somewhere between my legs. His hips were touching my stomach. I could feel his hard-on and I knew he could feel my cock brush against him, too. He kissed back with such force; with at least as much desperation as I had in me. Even his fingertips where shaky. When I supported him by the hips and pressed him closer towards me, he sobbed against my lips; I opened my eyes. My hands still both cupping his face.

God, he was beautiful.

But as I was watching him in front of me, searching for his eyes in the dark but failing, there was this sudden realisation what we were about to do. Reluctantly I pressed our foreheads together. Clenched my teeth. Exhaled slowly. It felt right, yes, though this would most definitely not be perceived this way by … literally everyone we knew or who knew us.

“Hiroki … I think we should stop.”

I almost couldn’t recognise my own voice when I spoke; I was out of breath. I tried to search for his gaze one more time in the dimly lit darkness and recognised the coldness of his breath on my wet neck. He was still so close to my own face that it was hard to breathe. Our noses touched. I felt his chest heaving. I honestly didn’t want to let go of him. I couldn’t.

“You don’t want this to stop.” A whisper.

He was right. I smiled against his lips but didn’t kiss him. He let out a long sigh. I didn’t know how we’d ended up here. I didn’t even really want to occupy my mind with that question. I just wanted to follow whatever instinct was piloting me at this moment. It felt so right. Something inside of me told me that I really shouldn’t worry about such a minor thing. It would all fall into place. I just knew that I wanted to get off with him so badly. I wanted to see his face when he came. I wanted to know how he sounded like when he was close. And it did feel like a taboo, too, somehow. Something I’d never considered doing, something that fans would definitely never know about. And something his brother would most definitely never learn.

God damn, I couldn’t stand it anymore. He was so right. No, I didn’t want to end this.

So I carefully got up and out, so as not to slip or hurt Hiroki accidentally in the process, and impatiently dried my body with a towel. It was freaking cold, but that wasn’t it, I was just desperate to get inside and begin where we left off. Still out of breath, I watched him climb out; biting my lips as my gaze fell on his hard cock. He looked a bit awkward standing there but I could not wait to touch him again. And so I took another careful breath and reached for his shoulder, wiped those single drops of water off as he was distractedly drying himself, too. His eyes on me the whole time. Gave him a small kiss before I began to hurry to get inside.

“Come on,” I encouraged him, took his hand and pulled him into the warmth. Didn’t care if he was still wet. Didn’t care if some of the curtains weren’t closed. Didn’t care about the far too dimmed lights.

I closed the door behind us and quickly pulled him into another kiss. Cupping his face, feeling the smooth skin on his back, pressing him against me as we stood there in the middle of the traditional looking ryokan living room.

I felt far too hot, my ears hurt. And I knew my lips had to have been swollen by then. But I just couldn’t stop kissing him, catching his moans and little desperate breaths. It wasn’t like playing an instrument; Hiroki definitely knew what he was doing and what he wanted. He fought back, he pushed, he pulled. I would have loved to thrust him to the floor and to just lead this whole thing. See if he liked that. If he wanted that or had had in mind when he started hitting on me yesterday out of the blue. But instead Hiroki swiftly dropped to his knees without any time left for me to protest.

It must have been God damn uncomfortable on the tatami floor but seeing him like this, looking up at me with half-closed eyes – I wasn’t really gonna talk him out of it, let’s be honest. I brushed through his hair gently and was excited to see where this was going. No man had ever given me a blowjob but Hiroki looked as though he knew exactly what he’d had in mind, which aroused the question of if he’d done it before. I held my breath before his tongue touched me and shivered when it did.

He grabbed my waist and let his hands wander back and forth. I closed my eyes. Could not quite relax standing like this but the sensation was just so overwhelmingly perfect that I at the same time couldn’t care less. I just wanted more of that throbbing inside of my chest, to get all choked up. I didn’t even think I could bring out a single word at this point. My mouth stood open and all I could do was to breathe loudly as he had me in his mouth. My hands somewhere in his hair. I felt him grinning against my skin.

Jesus. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“Hiroki,” I forced out with a broken voice then after all. I didn’t want to come just yet. But he was so good. My breathing grew faster and finally he stopped. Licked up my length once more before he stood up to face me again. He was still shorter than me, but his grin was so wide and smug that I was on the verge of holding him down and wanting to fuck it off him just like that. Instead I pulled him into yet another kiss; his tongue tasted faintly salty and bitter.

I let him press himself against my body as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and tickled my ear with his breath. Enjoyed the warmth his body gave off; all the angles, edges and muscles a woman didn’t have. Tried to capture and keep a hold of how he felt on my skin. Inhaled shakily.

“Are you brave enough to fuck me?” he whispered in my ear. I shivered. And mulled it over for a second. Brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead. I couldn’t think properly, I was just so horny. I hadn’t had sex with a man before him. But I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t worried. All I wanted right now was him in front of me on all fours; on top of me, beneath me. Everything; I didn’t care. I just wanted to make him scream my name.

“I didn’t exactly think about bringing condoms, you know.” That had been pretty low on my priority list when I came here, to be quite honest. Who would have thought, anyway?

I let my fingertips run up and down his flat chest, felt the pulse on his throat; nose to nose, lips to lips. My hands now on the nape of his neck. Breathing in his sighs. On the verge of telling myself ‘fuck it’ – only that I knew better.

“I don’t have any, either,” he whispered against my lips. I kissed his.

“I was afraid you might say that …” I chuckled almost silently; still pressing myself against him. The desire I felt for him was immeasurable at this point. How could a stupid little kid do that to me? I tried pushing the fact of him being Taka’s little brother, of him being in the rock music scene himself, to the very back of my head. It was kind of weird the longer I thought about it, but because I still wanted to do this, however the fuck he’d managed to convince me, I tried not to think about it any further.

So … we couldn’t fuck, but there were still plenty of other options left. Plus, there was always the possibility of a ‘next time,’ right? I had all the time in the world to fantasise about my thick cock inside of him next time, when we were more prepared. About him sobbing little moans and pleas with every thrust; begging for more. To be released. Deeper and faster. I almost chocked at the thought and finally broke the physical contact to get the futon out of the closet.

Hiroki watched me prepare it; his breathing shallow. When I sat down on it, he joined me in the blink of an eye. It didn’t take long for me to pull him into another kiss, which he approved of easily and obliged without a word. If anything, he melted into it. I could feel his body blur together with the rest of the background; I could feel him shiver and shake. My movements only grew stronger; more erratic. Pushing and pulling. Until he was lying right underneath me. I breathed his name against his lips. Kissed his jaw. Traced his cheekbones. Swallowed hard.

He was so God damn beautiful. And so God damn needy and complaint under my fingertips; his legs spread, pressing himself up against my body. I craved him. I so wished I could just fuck him after all. I could not wait. I pinned his arms back onto the floor and caught his silent sighs. Grinding down on him. Watching his eyes cloud over. His cheeks pink with lust, intoxication and hopefully embarrassment. I didn’t know why I wanted him embarrassed exactly. I just knew that I had to wipe that smugness off him fast.

“Want to have the next best thing?” I purred, shoving two fingers inside his mouth maybe a tad too ungently; all the while keeping his arms in check. But he understood, wasn’t surprised, it took him not a second to start licking them. I groaned as I pressed our foreheads together. I liked the sensation. I liked how I still felt as though I had the upper hand in all this. He’d oblige, and if he didn’t, I’d make him.

When I felt like it was enough, I replaced my fingers with my mouth and let them wander down his body instead. It was my first time with a man but I’d had anal sex before. I knew how he’d like it. And I was excited at the prospect of finding the perfect angle for him. Watching his face change. Experiencing in what way it was different for him than it was for a woman.

He arched his back when I was finally massaging against him, waiting for another response. Watching him wriggle and twist, trying to escape my firm grip. Watching him slowly losing it. I just needed this one reassurance. This one push. At this point I was hovering right above his lips. Not kissing him again. Waiting. My own cock was throbbing. My heart sank. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this excited.

“Please,” I heard him breathe, but his voice was so shattered and shaky that I’d almost missed it. His cheeks were still a fresh pink, as were his ears. He had his mouth open and his eyes closed shut. His teeth clenched. I could feel his cock pulsating.

God, was I really about to fulfil one of his old teenage fantasies? Had he been into me the whole time?

“Say that again for me,” I asked, licking his lips provokingly. Being the one to call the shots, to have the power over him, made me positively drunken with excitement. Women were often way too obedient in the first place. I’d never had the urge to exhaust established power dynamics. It was different with Hiroki. And this was only the beginning. I was looking forward to finally being inside of him; to fuck that smugness out of him. And somewhere in my head I wondered for a short second if I’d be able to cuddle him on my sofa, too.

“Please, Masato–”

Maybe he wanted to add something but I decided that it still wasn’t enough.

“I need a full sentence from you.”

He moaned under my weight; under the feeling of my fingers pushing further against him and yet still not pushing far enough. His cock looked so ridiculously full and desperate.

“I– I need your fingers inside of me, Masato. Please–”

When I finally pushed my fingers in, I made sure to watch him closely; to see how his face went to pieces, how he lost control of his facial features completely. I watched him intently. Fascinated. He instinctively tightened around my fingers. I had yet to move them in and out but he already seemed to be in the highest of highs. When I let go of his arms, he didn’t look as though he knew what he should do with them all of a sudden. So he left them above his head on the floor. But sitting back, taking in the whole picture; all of him – was so arousing.

After I’d started slowly moving my fingers in and out experimentally, he relaxed and it gradually became easier and his moans increasingly louder. It felt like being in a total state of manic fixation. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Off his face; off his cock; off the place my fingers slipped in and out of him. I watched his chest heave and him squirm. Two fingers were all it took for him to go insane. He looked as though it would be so easy for him to cum just from my fingers alone. My cock twitched at the thought. But I really wanted to get some friction, too. I was just so turned on by the sight of him and his little sobs. By the feeling of my fingers surrounded by his tight warmth. By him trying to somehow hide his face behind his arms embarrassed. Even though he obviously loved being watched as I fingerfucked him. His wide open legs said more than a thousand words.

Jesus, I would have loved to replace my fingers with my cock. Seeing what kind of difference it made. How loud he could moan. How his face looked.

I swallowed hard. I never would have thought I’d do that to a man, let alone him. I never would have thought I’d find cock attractive. But seeing him so turned on turned me on. Maybe my heart beat so fast because it was him and not some random other guy.

I leaned down again to stifle his moans with my mouth. Reached down between my own legs and began jerking myself off. It was kind of a pain in the ass, to be honest. God damn uncomfortable. But the smallest of touches felt heavenly. I shuddered with every stroke and already felt close to the edge. How could that even be a thing?

“I want to come all over you,” I pressed out; my voice shaking with lust and arousal. I couldn’t think of anything more perfect right now. Seeing him come. Him coming at the same time as me. Him coming from me coming all over him. Not needing to care about where to release or how to get rid of it afterwards. Just watching him love every second of it.

“Yes, I want you to,” he breathed equally shaky against my lips and I felt him finally reach for his own cock, too. Even though I would have loved trying to make him come just from my fingers, I shivered at the thought of him jerking off. Never thought about watching anyone like this. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything hotter.

I leaned back in order for me to take him in fully; to watch him slowly get closer to the edge himself. He was pulling his cock slowly but firmly, in the same rhythm as my thrusts. I was matching him. Not thinking about it. My head was on autopilot. I moved my fingers faster. He moaned louder. I did not think about bothering other guests. My mouth stood slightly open. Breathing became harder. My own hand on my cock felt so good. I closed my eyes for a second. Sighed.

“You look so pretty like that,” I groaned. Maybe a tad too loud. His answer was a long moan. I could see that he was close. Felt it.

And even though it was way easier to both fingerfuck him and jerk myself off when I leaned back, I just couldn’t resist bending further down to kiss him. I liked how he just couldn’t cope anymore the moment I tried to steal his breath on top of everything that was happening. He yelped and gasped and it momentarily threw him off balance.

“I’m close,” he whined against my lips.

I skidded closer to him on my knees. Moved my fingers faster, tried to go even deeper. He cried. I pressed our foreheads together. Massaging myself with an even stronger grip. I felt hot all over and this familiar electric sensation spread through my whole body. I closed my eyes.

But when I finally came, I leant back again to watch it all. I couldn’t seem to control the volume of my moans. I felt deaf. I tried not to lose the rhythm of my fingers but I kind of failed. I watched as the first shot hit him on the neck and jaw. I exhaled. Then his chest and stomach. I groaned. When he was finally coming too, triggered by my own orgasm, his cum reached his clavicle. My own was dropping on his cock and hand by then.

Breathing. Coping. Trying to regain composure.

I smiled when I realised how much cum he had on his body. He smiled back as he grabbed my head with his clean hand and just held it. Pressed our foreheads together this time.

What a fucking mess.

When I realised that he’d probably have to sleep in this futon tonight, I carefully pulled out my two fingers; listened to him whine at the sensation. Then I tried to find him some tissues to get rid of most of the mess roughly first before it ran down his sides. Then I washed my hands.

“I don’t know if it’s me – but I think you should take a shower.”

“Oh, really?” he said in a mocking tone as he turned around to face me. But his face was still flushed; he gleamed almost. His smile so bright I wondered if I’d just accidentally drugged him instead.

I cleared my throat; abruptly feeling a bit more awkward than before. It was just the way he stood in front of me like that. The tattoos suited his body shape. All of a sudden he looked his usual bratty self again. All wide smiles, big laughs and provocative words.

I liked how his body looked, I only now realised. It honestly blew my mind how that preference could develop over two days when I hadn’t even felt a similar urge once in my life before.

“Yeah,” I whispered and closed the gap between us. Pulled him inside my arms. Felt the angles and edges and pressed my lips onto his. “I should probably go with you.”

[initiala]

A little bit shorter this week, but as they say, it’s not the length that matters, it’s how you use it. And this satisfies more than a few, ah, cravings you may have had since this started again.

It’s smutty. I’m saying it’s smutty.

Thanks to @distant-rose for clearing this for takeoff and giving me a tasing reprieve after a very exhausting and busy August. Enjoy!

On AO3 and FFN

As Killian pressed her down against the bed, Emma thought for a moment about the ring her mother had worn every day of her life, the peridot with white sapphires on either side. The ring she'd died wearing, the ring Emma couldn't bear to bury her in, the ring that sat locked away in her safe with her human charm. Her parents had mated in every possible way they could and worn symbols of that love for all their time together, and even after the pain of losing her parents, her first pack, her litter, and her first mate, she’d always harbored some secret hope that someone would love her so much as to bond with her in the same way.

She eased him off of her, answering his questioning look with a secretive smile, and slipped out of bed to the closet; she knelt, moving shoeboxes and old shopping bags out of the way to get to her safe, and opened the lock. On top of a pile of important papers sat two velvet boxes: one held her human charm, and she left that one alone in favor of the other, picking it up and closing the safe before going back to the bed. "I don't know if you had any big ideas or plans or whatever," she started, perching nervously on the edge, "but this was my mother's."

Emma noted the change in Killian's scent, arousal fading as his expression grew serious. She offered him the box and he opened it, an eyebrow going up as he inspected the ring that had been passed down in her father's family for generations. "It's not silver," he noted.

"I never asked what it was," she said. "But my mother wore it, and my grandmother before her, and so on. Dad said it was an heirloom, a tradition for it to be passed on to the firstborn, and if there's any such thing as blue-blooded werewolves, my family's the bluest-blooded."

A corner of his lips went up as he chuckled. "Granny was right." Emma tilted her head. "She said that the children of alphas have certain traits and mannerisms. The daughter of a long line of alpha wolves? I'm starting to see her point."

She held her strength in check when she punched him on the shoulder, but just barely; Killian fell onto his back laughing and wheezing in pain. "Sure, tell me you're all worried about how hurt I was, then injure me some more, I see how it is."

"I hit you on the opposite side of your injury, you're fine. And I never said my grandparents were alphas."

"No, but their sons are. Were. And those traits come from somewhere." As he talked, he gently pried the ring from its box and took her hand. Emma bit her lip to keep herself from tearing up as he slipped the ring onto her finger; she had her mother's deceptively delicate hands, as her father always liked to say, and the ring fit perfectly. "There. Right where it should be," Killian said, looking up at her with heavy-lidded eyes.

Emma stared at her hand, unable to resist twiddling her fingers to watch the stones catch the dim light. "Dad said that when his mother gave him this ring for Mom, she told him that true love follows this ring wherever it goes." It's funny, almost, how she'd never thought to ask her first mate to bond with her in this simple human way. She'd thought that the mate-bond was enough. Two years together, both courting and then mated, and she'd never even mentioned the ring to him in all that time. She glanced up at Killian, looking at him as if she was really seeing him for the first time.

*~*

"You're moping," Ruby said, perching on the edge of her desk.

"Am not," Emma grumbled.

She had no reason to mope; mating season was over, so the overarching stench of heat throughout the city was gone, pairs had been formed, pups were due later that year. She'd gotten her itch very well scratched by the stranger from London who was much less a stranger when he left, and she'd bagged herself several paydays with bounty hunting, so her finances were set for a while. Things were good. Great, even.

"Seriously, you smell like a wet dog. That's how moping smells. Wet. Dog," Ruby insisted.

Emma glared at her from behind her computer monitor. She would not give her the satisfaction of knowing how often Emma Facebook stalked Killian Jones without actually sending him a friend request -- seriously, who left that much information out there without privacy settings? If Ruby knew, she'd crow about it, tell her she was a lovesick puppy, and then ship her off to England before she knew what was happening.

She didn't love him. He'd been a good lay, that was all. A very good lay. And now she just... wanted to know what he was up to sometimes.

It totally wasn't weird that she knew he went out for drinks every Thursday with his  'mates'. It also wasn't weird how much she'd thought about how English wolves must differentiate between love-mates and friend-mates to fit in with the humans.

Everything was fine.

"I'm not moping and I don't smell like a wet dog."

*~*

They'd only known each other for ten months -- hell, really, they'd only been together for four months. This was crazy, she was crazy, but the words were out of her mouth before she could even stop them. "I really hope she was right."

A year ago, if someone had looked at her with the kind of intense love and tenderness on their face as Killian did now, she would have run. A year ago she’d wanted nothing more to do with mates or the mating practices that dictated their society -- a year ago she’d still been hurting from the scars left by someone who cared less about her and more about what being with her meant for his own status.

A year ago, she hadn’t had Killian.

His hand slid up her cheek, his thumb brushing along her lower lip. “I really hope so too,” he whispered.

This time she didn't offer any protests when Killian coaxed her into bed with him. He had her astride him in a moment, slipping her camisole off and palming her breast in his hand. She relaxed into his touch as he gently squeezed and then splayed his hand across her chest, nestled between her breasts. She looked down at his hand, tanned against the pale skin of her chest, and wondered what it might look like with a ring to match hers. She brought it up to cup her face, nuzzling against his rough palm, and breathed in his soothing scent spiked with arousal.

“Don’t move,” she told him, rising up enough to slide her pajama bottoms off and toss them aside.

His breath hitched when she gripped his cock in both hands, gently squeezing and stroking she watched his eyes flutter closed as she made the movement almost continuous, pulling up with one hand and immediately going underneath the other once she reached empty air. “Fuck…” Killian breathed, the tendons on his neck straining as he tried to obey her order to stay still.

Their combined musk made the room heady; when his eyes opened again, she could hardly see any blue. His chest heaved, nostrils flaring, and the way he watched her move her hands to brace against his chest reminded her of a predator tracking his prey.

She raised her hips up again and adjusted her position; moving slowly, she rolled her hips, rubbing her dripping core along the length of his cock. The hard ridge of him caught her clit with every pass, warming her blood as much as his unwavering predatory gaze. She took his hand again and placed it on her chest. “Touch me,” she told him.

She held his eyes with her own, continuing the slow roll of her hips while his hand traveled a lazy path between her breasts and down her stomach. His thumb brushed her curls, teasing, then his hand smoothed across her thigh. She let her head fall back, closing her eyes and enjoying his slow exploration of her body; small waves of pleasure crested and fell as she continued to undulate over his cock, slowly pushing her closer to that peak. But Emma wasn’t in a hurry, not right now. She didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want this to end too quickly. She just wanted to live in this moment where it was just Emma and Killian and damn the world outside of their little bubble of pleasure.

When she finally allowed him to enter her body, he hissed, exhaling slowly as she sank down onto him. His knees rose behind her, feet planted on the bed, and allowed him to thrust up and match her movements. Emma fell forward, pressing her lips to his and bracing her arms on either side of his head as she rose and fell faster, starting a slow chase to that wonderful high. As he met her stroke for stroke, her baser instincts clamored to take hold -- she wanted to mark and bite and claim, remind him that he was hers and show everyone that he was taken. She must have made a sound, because his voice sounded hoarsely in her ear, “Let go, sweetheart. Take me.”

“Don’t want to hurt you--”

“You could never hurt me.”

Her teeth sank into the juncture of his neck and he cried out -- not from pain but from pleasure. His arms went around her, holding her tight against his chest. The days preceding and the days that followed the full moon left everyone’s blood running hot and it manifested in increased tensions, both physical and sexual. Killian’s persistent hitting on her and desires were proof of that -- and Emma’s need to mark and claim him.

They moved faster, bodies writhing together as they connected again and again, the hot slide of him inside of her making her burn. She didn’t scratch at him like she normally did but she bit wherever she could: his neck, his shoulders, his arms, even along his jaw. Every bite was soothed by her tongue and he whimpered under her touch, squeezing her tighter against him. His head moved and his hand moved and she found herself pressed up against his lips. His teeth sank into her lip, sucking it into his mouth and she whined, the coil inside winding tighter and tighter--

She shattered, shuddering in his arms as she came, and she felt Killian fucking her through it for just a few moments more before he stilled and spilled himself inside her. The kiss turned languid and lazy, his cock still buried inside of her, but Emma didn’t care. After the terrifying events of the last 36 hours, she wanted to keep him as close as she could for as long as she could.

He rolled them onto their sides, touching her wherever he could, her leg wrapping up and around his hip. His hips canted up into hers and she groaned, still sensitive. “What if I…” He rolled them again, pinning her under him, rutting against her easily. “What if I made you come again?” he asked against her lips.

“How--” She gasped, her toes curling as he continued the gentle rut. Fucking hell, there was no way he could still be hard. “How in the hell--”

“You said yes,” he murmured, picking up the pace and easing her other leg up over his hips. “You said yes, and we’re both alive after that hell of a moon, and I’ll be damned if I don’t make the most of it.”

Emma cried out when his hips snapped into hers. This wasn’t like when she was in heat -- then, her body was primed and ready constantly, coming down quickly from each high so she could handle the relentless need to fuck for a week straight. No, this was overwhelming, her body overstimulated as he thrust into her body again and again; she thought she was going to unravel at the seams, tingling all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes, but he abruptly pulled out of her and untangled his body from hers. She was about to ask what the hell he thought he was doing, building her up like that and doing nothing about it, but then he scooted back and settled between her thighs. He licked a long stripe up her core, humming at the taste of their mixed essences, and Emma forgot the question she’d wanted to ask.

She quivered under his ministrations, her limbs turning completely to jelly as he licked and kissed and nipped at her center. He eased her thighs over his shoulders and his blunted arm kept her hips still while his fingers toyed with and slid inside her entrance. She didn’t remember actually coming, just a feeling of immense pressure building inside of her and breaking all at once, rendering her incoherent for what felt like hours after.

She came to only when she heard Killian groan as he got back up to the pillows. “You hurt yourself,” she mumbled, her eyes still closed and her thighs still quivering.

“I didn’t,” he retorted and she let her head fall to the side, cracking open an eye to watch him stretch out on his stomach, his arms pulling the pillow under his head more comfortably. “Just a bit sore, that’s all.”

“Killian.”

He looked at her with one eye. “I swear, love, I’m not turning all alpha male on you.”

Rolling over with immense difficulty -- seriously, her legs were not cooperating, and her sex was definitely protesting any kind of movement -- Emma leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek. He hummed in content at her gesture of affection, and then she shifted, gently biting on his ear and tugging. He made a little whining noise and she nuzzled him again. “We’re going to have to air the apartment out before Liam gets here,” she said, laying back down with a sigh.

“Sod Liam, he can kip in a hotel.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s already staying in a hotel. Even just coming over he’s going to say something about the smell.”

Killian sounded absolutely pitiful. “I like the way our apartment smells.”

She breathed in, reminding herself of the layers of scents drifting around the apartment. It smelled like they needed to take out the trash in the kitchen, like the soap Killian had just used, and the lingering humidity in the air from the shower. It smelled like whatever had been stuck to the burner on the stove when she’d made the soup, which also lingered in the air, the ointment she’d put on his back, and the ever-present, almost overpowering scent of two people who couldn’t stop jumping each other’s bones at every chance they got.

It smelled like home.

She smiled. “I do too. I just think we should be considerate--”

“It’s Liam, love, we don’t need to be considerate for family.”

She propped her head up on her hand. “You do know this is actually the first time I’m meeting him, right? You remember that I don’t know him, not really? And I might want to make a good first impression on the man who’s going to be my brother-in-law?”

The corner of his mouth that she could see ticked up, teeth revealed by his grin. “You said yes,” he said, almost to himself.

Emma rolled her eyes, though she smiled and nudged him to move so she could curl up next to him. She really should go clean herself, but cuddling sounded nicer than getting up. “You have a one-track mind today,” she told him.

He nudged her nose with his, bumping their foreheads together. “I could claim you,” he murmured. “Claim you tonight and then Liam wouldn’t be able say a damn thing about the smell.”

He nosed along her jawline, nipping at her pulse. His lips trailed a path down to where, one day in the very near future, she’d allow him to mark her -- permanently. “Nng--Killian--we should wait,” she said breathlessly, letting her head fall back. “Killian stop.”

He stilled, sighing a little. His breath felt warm on her neck, and then his lips as he pressed one last kiss there before lifting his head up. “You want to wait?”

She nodded. Saying it out loud almost felt silly, but they needed to talk about it. “I feel like we should do it all at once.”

His teeth flashed. “Ah, Swan. Quite the exhibitionist, aren’t we?”

“Shut up,” she growled, even as he leaned down to tickle her collarbones with his scruff. “I mean like on the same day. Like, I know it’s kind of corny, but the whole wedding night thing. Humans just do it for their own weird reasons, but us? We’re bound together by human law and pack law then.”

He paused, considering her words. “You said that like you’ve had this in mind for a while, love. Did you have a day in mind?”

She shrugged, toying with his hair. She’d been thinking about it, sure, but not until today did she think he was already thinking about it too. “No, not yet. Well,” she amended, “I know it’s soon, but I think I’d prefer we do all of this before the next mating season. It’s not as… irritating for mated couples.”

Killian barked a laugh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was irritating.”

“No, not you, just the whole--oh fuck off, stop teasing me.”

He grinned. Sometimes she wondered if he understood just how much it meant to her that he wasn’t bothered about the fact that she’d been mated before; a lot of males didn’t care, but that lack of care often came with a weight of expectations Emma hated to try and live up to. Or, worse, those who cared and then tried to treat her like glass; yes, breaking a mate-bond hurt both parties, but after a few days, even the slighted party could recover enough to go back to their regular lives -- physically, at least.

Killian didn’t care, because he understood what it meant to have loved and lost before. Or maybe it was more that Killian did care, and he trusted her to let him know where her boundaries and limits were when it came to opening her heart to someone again. Either way, he accepted the fact that she had more expertise in this area than he did, and she loved that he never seemed put out when she mentioned her past in passing.

“I know, love, it’s not your favorite time of year,” Killian said, bringing her back to the present. “But if that’s what you want, we can have our ceremony -- ceremonies -- before the year is out, in case you bloom early again.”

She almost groaned at the thought, dreading that mating season was so close. She rarely went into heat so early in the year, normally peaking sometime in March or April, but occasionally her body liked to throw her a curveball and watch her deal with it. Going into season without a mate-bond was a miserable experience, a constant itch to seek out available mates and rut into exhaustion. Some years she’d had multiple partners, but until recently she’d only locked herself up for as long as possible and used her toys to try and satisfy that itch.

Having a mate meant less of an itch or a drive to seek and mate; really, having a mate during the season could be a wonderful bonding experience -- being locked up in your house and naked with someone for days on end could really make or break a couple. But it didn’t cancel out the fact that her body was in charge and all she could do was obey its commands or suffer when she refused. “We can talk over it more later,” she said. “There’s still some time. We don’t have to decide anything just yet.”

“Except that you said yes.”

Emma smiled. “Except that I did say yes. And we are airing out the apartment a little,” she added, going back to her original point. “Engaged or not, we should at least pretend that we do other things than fuck each other silly.” He stuck out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You’re lucky I’m going to let you leave the bed at all tomorrow, because you’re definitely not going out to meet Liam anywhere.”

Killian rolled them again and Emma giggled. “I don’t know, love,” he said idly, and she felt the hard length of him already pressed against her thigh once more. “I could certainly be convinced to stay in bed…”

[be-more-chill-evan-hansen]

Holiday fic

I know that a lot of characters don’t have canon religion, and I also know that it’s a possibility of either being Jewish or just not celebrating Christmas, so I am writing a fic that’s more for the holiday season that Christmas. As a Christian, I have come to acknowledge that Christmas didn’t even belong to Christians to begin with (it originated with Pagans celebrating the winter solstice and was practiced before the birth of Jesus and Jesus wasn't born in winter) so when I celebrate Christmas, I celebrate as a time to spend with family and friends (and I get gifts so...) and not as Jesus’ birthday, so when I write this, I am writing this as them trading gifts and spending time together. I don’t think it’s best to describe this as a “Christmas fic” since the characters are very diverse, so “Holiday Fic” seems more fitting.

Please let me know what you think.

This story is featuring, or at least mentioning, all of my OCs, and I had to update my Tumblr OC list because I forgot that my descriptions for Damien and Rich were on AO3 first and I had forgotten how I described them and had to fix it so here is the 100% accurate updated version. And I tried adding as many characters as I could, but it’s so hard and I was under pressure, so please don’t hate me. I am ageing the characters up to 18+ for reasons. And I made Dragon Fly (me essentially) Albert’s cousin because I can bend canon however I want.

It sucks, and it’s everywhere, but I wanted to get something out for the holidays. And I added a surprise at the end so you would hate me less. Please bear with me.

Featured ships: Relmer (I had to); Spalbert (for Alexa); Jatherine (they’re cute and they’re both raging bisexuals fight me); Blush; Finch/Buttons

Era: Modern

Warnings: none

Word count: 1315 (I think that’s a record)

Also, I’ve been struggling with this for a week. Please go easy on me.

~~~~

Jack was grateful that Jacobi let them rent the place out for the annual Holiday Party Extravaganza. They picked a day and time in December that worked for everyone’s schedule and did “Secret Santa” so everyone would get a gift. Usually, the party was at Jack’s house, but the group grew over the year, and his tiny apartment would not be able to hold everyone.

Everyone helped to move tables so the center of the floor would be cleared. Race hooked up his phone to a loudspeaker, courtesy of Albert, and played showtunes to “set the mood” for the party. Everyone dropped the presents they brought on the counter.

“Can I get everyone’s attention?” Jack was standing in the middle of the room. “First, I would like to thank Jacobi for letting us use his place to have our party.” He waited for everyone to quiet down before continuing. “I would also like to thank our new friends who joined the group this year. Hopefully we haven’t weirded you out too much.” He looked at everyone in the room. “And thank you guys for making this year the best.”

“Encore!” Sarah yelled.

Jack rolled his eyes and walked back to Katherine and kissed her cheek. “I’m excited. This is the biggest party we’ve had.”

“Yeah,” Katherine agreed. “It was nice for Jacobi to let us have it here.”

Davey joined the two and brought them both a cup of punch. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people in a room together before.”

“Same here,” Jack said. “I just hope that it doesn’t go horribly and end with Jacobi banning us.”

“Jacobi will never ban us.” Katherine laughed at her boyfriend. “He loves us.” She pointed to the table with Race, Elmer, Spot, and Albert. “They’re acting like it’s a double date.”

“Leave them alone,” Davey joked. “Let them have fun. It’s a party.”

Spot wrapped his arm around Albert’s shoulders. “I feel like this party will be the best one yet.”

Albert looked at his boyfriend. “And why is that?”

“I don’t know. Just a thought.”

“Just a thought?” Race asked. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

Spot mocked laughter. “It’s not as lame as your life.”

Race pretended to be offended. “I know my life is lame, but hey!”

.

Romeo turned to August. "Have you ever thought about dyeing your hair?"

August shrugged their shoulders. "I never thought about it. I don't know what color would look okay."

"I think any color would suit you."

"Really?" August asked. "I don't think I would look good with any color. Green wouldn’t look good at all."

Romeo laughed. "Not green. Maybe something pastel, like lavender or a pale blue."

"Lavender? Really?"

"Yeah."

"I can see it," a voice said from behind Romeo. Mush looked over the booth at August.

"What are you doing, Mush?" Romeo asked.

"Listening to you guys obliviously flirting with each other." He had a smirk on his face.

"We aren't flirting," August said. "Please leave."

"Kay." Mush walked off laughing and went to find Kid Blink. When he found him, he wrapped his arms around his waist from behind. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Yeah." Kid Blink turned around and kissed his boyfriend on the top of his head. "Go have fun. It's a party."

"Says the person sulking in the corner."

"I am not sulking. I am brooding. There's a difference."

"Brooding?" Mush asked. "What are you? Batman?"

"Funny."

"RACE AND ELMER ARE UNDER THE MISTLETOE!" Smalls yelled.

Race and Elmer quickly shared a kiss, which was over as soon as it started. It caused some of the others to boo.

"That was boring!" Romeo yelled.

"Where was the passion?" River asked.

"My dead grandma kisses hotter than that!" Finch called out from the other side of the room. 

"Grow up, guys," Race said. He and Elmer sat back down with Spot and Albert. “Hey, Albert. I know that your cousin prefers to go by her nickname, but what’s her real name?”

Albert leaned in very slowly, trying to reach Race’s ear. When Race moved his ear, closer, Albert blew into it. “I’m not telling you.”

“You’re boring,” Race said, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of Albert’s warm breath in his ear.

.

Dragon Fly was in the corner with Katherine and Sarah, updating each other about their lives.

"How’s college, Dragon Fly?" Katherine asked. "I know that you're going for writing."

Dragon Fly quickly pulled her cup up to her mouth. "It's...college." She took a long sip from her punch. "God, college makes me want to become an alcoholic.”

Sarah held her cup out. “I’ll cheer to that.”

Liberty passed by them. “I will cheer to that as well.”

“Do you even know what we’re cheering to?” Katherine asked.

“No,” Liberty said. “But, I heard Sarah say she was cheering to something and I didn’t want to be alone.”

Dragon Fly pointed to Max, Damien, and Rich in the corner. “Go talk to them. They look really bored.”

Liberty groaned. “Fine.”

“Time for presents!” Jack called. He passed out the gifts to everyone and sat next to Katherine. “This may be our best party ever.”

She smiled at him. “I may have to agree with you on that.”

“Who got me an empty box?” Finch asked loudly. 

“You haven’t even opened it,” Buttons replied.

“It weighs nothing.” Finch shook the box in his boyfriend’s face. “Nothing.” 

“If you’re so sure it’s nothing, then open it.”

Finch rolled his eyes and ripped the wrapping paper. He opened the box and looked inside. “There’s an envelope taped to the bottom.” He pulled the envelope out and turned it over. He found text and read it to himself. “I know we’ve been dating for five years, but I just want to say....” He opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. When he opened it, glitter fell into his lap. He read the paper. “The amount of time we’ve been dating isn’t important to this gift. I just wanted to mislead you into opening a glitter bomb. I love you.” He turned to Buttons. “Cute. Where’s my real gift?”

Buttons smiled. “Behind the counter. I’ll go get it.”

“That was the best fake gift I’ve ever seen,” Henry said. 

“You’re telling me,” Sniper replied.

“Hey, Finch,” Buttons said, “I need you back here real quick. You’re present is too big to move by myself.”

Finch got up, brushed glitter off of himself, and walked to where Buttons was. When he walked behind the counter, he stopped. “Buttons?”

Buttons was on the floor behind the counter, kneeling with a ring in his hand. “Finch, I know that we’re only 21, but from the first moment I met you, I knew that you were the perfect person for me. I’ve been trying for the past few months, but I couldn't find the right time. When I drew your name for Secret Santa, I knew that this was a sign. I knew that it was meant to be now. Just like I knew that we would be together. You are my best friend, my life, and my soulmate. I love you so much. Will you, Patrick Cortes, do me the honor of marrying me?”

Finch stood speechless. He was frozen with his hand over his mouth. “Is this for real?”

“It’s as real as the glitter that will not wash off for the rest of your life.”

Finch let out a small laugh, trying to hold back tears. “Yes.” He let Buttons slide the ring onto his finger and hugged him tightly. “You’ve always been dramatic.”

Mush grabbed the mistletoe and held it over Finch and Buttons. “You have to kiss now!”

Buttons pulled Finch into a kiss and rested his forehead on Finch’s. “If you thought this was dramatic, wait for the wedding.”

~~~~

I needed something cute and I was like “huh, maybe a Secret Santa proposal would be cute” so I did it and I hope it makes up for the crappiness. Thanks for reading. 

TAG LIST (message/inbox me if you want to be added):

@daveys-pet-snake

@galaxy-trees13

@disasterbisexualhere

@marcusisaprettygay

@ughwaitwhat

@purplelittlepup

@well-the-kids-do-too

@crutchie-the-crutch

@graceful-popcorn

@i-got-no-clue-what-im-doing

@bencookisagod 

@thebroadwayaesthetic

@i-got-personality

@bennie-badeend  

@thatpoorguysheadisspinning

@broadwaybooksandbagels

@buttons-in-the-refuge

@lilcutedagger

@stormcrawler75

@cream–rises

@aw-jus-let-em-try

@suddenly-im-respecsable

[joanna-lannister]

which characters of afoiaf you like more in tv-series and which ones you like more in the books? do you like someone in books but dislike their portrayal in GoT? is there any character in tv show you feel like a perfect representation of their book persona? just curious of your thoughts! :)

Hi Nonnie! 😊 *put my glasses on*

This is kinda difficult to answer because I haven't read all the books yet i'm such a slow reader but thanks to Tumblr (and other sites), I've read so many excerpts so I'll try to do my best. Plus I guess I'm a little biased because I watched the show first so yeah, I love more the show!characters. I feel I can connect more to them than in the books, they seem more... human ? Less flawed ? At least at first, so it's easier to relate to them. I think the only exception is Arya, not that I hated her in the show, she made me laugh and I was scared for her but I simply didn't relate to her. I think her chapters made her more fleshed-out. And now I have grown to love her and I really loved the faceless men storyline unlike most of the fandom.

And my opinion for the rest (if you don't want to read everything, you can pass this part, I wouldn't blame you 😂 and some of them are kinda controversials):

Cersei: while I still love her book counterpart and relate to her, I feel she's more balanced in the show and because of this, I can connect to her even more. Lena's portrayal is amazing (but I'll talk about it later), she is still flawed and yet, you understand. I mean, I know most people perceive her as an ''Evil Queen'' but I have never thought that way. I clearly remember the moment I fell in love with her, it was during the Stark feast, Robert was whoring (as usual 🙄) and you can see the hurt on her face, even Cat notices it. And she's hurt, not because she loves him, but because he is humiliating her in front of everyone. So yeah, I have always seen her as a broken woman more than a ''mad queen'' and that's why I think show!Cersei is more interesting.

Sansa: She's more hardened in the show than in the books and I like that, for me it's more realist, but I don't feel like she lost her kindness tho. While I would have loved to see more Alayne in the show, contrary to the popular opinion, I liked the Winterfell storyline but I believe they could have done a better job. They handled the situation pretty badly and they should had given more Alayne persona for this arc. And I think show!Sansa is more sassy.

Catelyn: I ADORE Cat in the show but in the books, I don't know, she slightly annoys me, she lacks... some energy. I think however her chapters are super importants. The part in the Vale has some clues and foreshadowing for the "Great War" in my opinion but I guess they are not going to use it in the show and that's also why they cut out Sansa's storyline.

Daenerys: Oh I love reading Dany POVs ! They are probably my favorites. I think book!Dany is a little more balanced tho. As a big fan of her relationship with her dragons, I can't wait to reach this part. Though, I'm kinda worried for her last chapters. Many people are saying that GRRM has difficulties to write the Meereenese knot and I agree with them. Past the season 3, her arc became inconsistent. Her storyline is either wrapped too slowly or too quickly and I feel this is not only D&D fault but also GRRM. He had too much ambition for this part and I'm truly curious how he's going to end it.

Jon: I'll be honest, when I started watching the show, I didn't care about him. I only started to like him when he met Ygritte and his book counterpart is just...annoying. No, just no. The only parts that stir up my interest actually are his dreams, they are full of clues.

Ned: Same as Jon, but x1000. Book!Ned is unbearable for me. I want to roll my eyes out almost every line. He's more enjoyable on screen. The only parts I care about are the Lyanna's ones, it give us more insight about Robert's rebellion.

Bran: Same with Jon and Ned but I don't really care about him, even on screen and even now. Yet, I think he's truly important for the story. But I just can't... And I don't like GRRM writing for his chapters.

Tyrion: Uhuh Tyrion is for me the most white-washed character in the show! And I'm not sure I'm going to love him in the books as much I love show!Tyrion but I also think erasing most of his flaws was a big mistake. They play a big part in the last book and that's why past the season 4, Tyrion became annoying, only drinking and whining. He only got his "intensity" back when he reunited with his siblings.

Jaime: Funnily enough, I don't have so much to say about Jaime. I think he's more arrogant and jealous in the books. I still like his storyline in the show, unlike most people. I feel his arc, both in the show and the books, are excepted.

Tywin: I think I have the same feelings for Tywin as I have for Cersei but we don't have Tywin POVs so it's not easy to judge his book persona.

Jorah: I despise book!Jorah, he's a foil for Littlefinger, I think tho his background is more solid. But in the show, I like him. I even feel pity for him. And I admit if something happened between Jorah and Dany, I wouldn't mind. I don't usually ship Dany x men but I think Emilia and Iain have a good chemistry.

The Tyrells: Loras has more depth in the books but the show gave us more insight for his relationship with Renly. I think Margaery is more nuanced in the show but maybe it's only Natalie Dormer's portrayal. Olenna is maybe the most faithful to her book persona in my opinion.

Theon / Melisandre / Stannis / Davos / Brienne / and others I forgot 😂: I like them but I guess I don't care enough about their book persona right now to have a strong opinion about them. I think tho book!Melisandre is less caricatural and book!Stannis more clever.

Voilà! For me the books and the show are two distinct entities but at the same time, they complete each others. If you want to know more about Robert's rebellion, the books are really hepful and if you want more nuanced characters like Cersei, the show is here for it.

I also like the fact the show aged up the characters, this is something that disturbed me, and the fact it removed some useless ones. The only exception is Arianne Martell (and maybe Lady Stoneheart), I would have loved to see her on my screen and the Dorne plot was terrible in the show... Oh and Mya Stone, I loved that girl! Though I think sometimes GRRM writing is stodgy, he embarrass himself with some unnecessary detail, I just want to roll my eyes… The show goes more straightforward thankfully. So D&D writing is not perfect but neither GRRM. Like I mentionned with Dany, he's too ambitious. Yes, he had a brilliant idea, he wanted to subvert the tropes but I think he's failing: Jon is the secret heir, Sansa the princess in the tower, Cersei the evil queen… I have this feeling he's doing what is excepted now. Since the last book, new shows/books/movies have been written and these tropes are well known, sometimes they are already subverted. So I'm really curious how he's gonna wrap all these storylines and make something new, if he ever finish the books...

And for the actors, if that was also your question, I think they are doing a great job. Like I said, Lena is amazing. Nik is more subtil imo, watching him in other movies made me realize his skills. Iwan and Jack are so good, they are playing the worst characters and yet, they are the sweetest humans on earth ! Charles Dance, oh his voice, I can't picture someone else playing Tywin. Alfie is talented too and deserves so much more recognition. Peter is awesome, like I said Tyrion was annoying during the S5-S7 but the scene between him and Cersei in 7x07 OMG, they nailed it! I still have shivers.

I'm not sure that's the answer you wanted tho and I'm sorry because I always speak tooooo much i'm a disaster. But thank you for your ask and if you have read my whole reply, BIG THANK YOU!

Have a nice day! ❤️

[shujinkomononobe]

Voltron has ended and I just finally digitalized my OC for the show...

Name: Blade Nadezhda Dunkeheit Titles: Einherjar of the Black Hound Garmr NA - 235

Age: Season 1 - 17 (22) Season 6 - 18 (23)

Birthday: May 23 Rebirth: November 28

Species: (Experimented) Human Heritage: German (Janus)/Russian (Allisa)

Relationships: Hunk - Best Friend Lance - Prank Partner Keith - Sparring Partner Pidge - Little Sister Figure Shiro - Uncle Figure Coran - Weird Uncle Figure Allura: Big Sister Figure Garmr - Friend and Hound Allisa - Deceased Mother Janus - Deceased Father

Weapons: Garmr - His Hound. Unlike the Lions of Voltron, Hound is a pendant that acts like a full body bayard. Created by Blade when a meteor of the same ore as Voltron fell on Earth. Due to it’s small size Blade couldn’t build a ship, hence why it is a pendante. Unlike the Lions, Garmr’s energy source is his Einherjar. Thus those who wishes to use him must need a large amount of quintessence within themselves. Allura, Lotor, Haggar, Blade and other Alteans are capable of using him. if someone uses him that lacks the required amount of quintessence, they will quickly tire out. Also unlike the Lions who sends signals or ideas to their Paladins, Garmr can talk to it’s Einherjar as one would normally talk to anyone. Body - Experimented body can control his biological components giving him abilities of numerous animals and aliens Magic - After consuming Altean hair he has given the ability of magic but he doesn’t know how to use it though.

Rules: 1. Anyone can give him an order 2. Any kind of order is acceptable. 3. Only the one who gave the order can cancel or change the order. 4. One order at a time. 5. Achieve the order at any means possible.

Personality: Kindly know he has two personalities. The reason for this is his body protecting him. Animals have self defense mechanism that protects them. His doesn’t protect him physically but emotionally. When fear overrides his system his self defense mechanism activates causing his brain to shut down all emotions. Only when he feels safe can snap him back to normal. Self Defense: Stoic and robotic. He follows the rules, making him the perfect tool for anything. His fighting capabilities during this phase is inhumanly great that Voltron fell before him during their first meeting in less than five seconds due to the lack of mercy and no fear of death. Normal: After being trapped in his self defense mechanism for nearly 17 years he is a bit shy and stoic towards new people. He often maintains distance towards newcomers and doesn’t trust easily. After gaining his trust he will show affection by physical touching. Which can be seen at the team when he constantly hug Hunk, carries Pidge around, massage Lance, pet Keith, arm wrestle with Shiro and teach the Alteans the Earth dances. He is also caring and fierce fully loyal once he trusts you. His fighting capabilities are still great in this phase but not as great when his self defense is activated due to his empathetic self. He is also known to call Pidge by her real name Katie, and calling Shiro by his first name Takashi and is also known to use German phrases from time to time. Russian phrases are rare but it also happens.

Backstory: His parents Janus and Allisa we’re both orphans. The two grew up in  the same orphanage in Germany and was never adopted. The two feel in love with each other as they grow up and helped around the orphanage. Later in their lives they became great scientists and got married. Allisa then became pregnant with Janus’ son. The two named him Blade after their first date when Janus tried to impress Allisa by carving their initials on a tree which Allisa replied sarcastically “Oh yes, bring a blade on a first date in a forest far away from civilization where no one can hear me scream is romantic.” Then tragedy struck the two. An accident occurred in their lab causing Janus to forget human emotions leaving Allisa. To make matters worse Allisa lost Blade in the accident. As a way to cope with depression Allisa kept Blade’s corpse in a specialized container as a reminder of the happy times. After five years she finds Janus again and found out he made a military organization with questionable morals named Angel Corps. In hopes of reminding Janus who she is, she joins the organization. After watching a documentary Janus sought to create the “perfect human”. A human capable of evolving so quickly that it can’t die by natural means. He instructs his scientists to create his desire by any means necessary. Some started from scratch, creating artificial humans, others started to experiment on young orphans, while Allisa who is slowly losing hope used Blade in the experiment. A lot of the experiments failed and died. A few like Allisa’s experiment succeeded. At first Allisa was filled with joy. She has managed to bring her son back to life. Until reality struck her that her son is to be made a soldier, a killer, a monster. Blade during the time was known by his code name. NA - 235. NA meaning Noah’s Ark which is the name of the project he is in and 235 as his number. He made friends with other experiments like him as they were all grouped up in a room. From time to time the scientists came to experiment on them. Little by little their numbers dwindle. The last experiment was the remaining experiments take a serum. Unlike 235 who was fine with the serum the rest of them turned into grotesque flesh monsters. Seeing his friends turn into such creatures scared him so much that the last experiment finally made 235 activate his self defense mechanism. And so he killed his friends when he was ordered by Janus. Allisa watched in horror seeing this. As the creator of the “perfect human” Allisa became Janus’ new assistant. Allisa accepts the “promotion” in hopes that she can keep her son safe. 17 years passed and a meteor fell. 235 was sent to investigate the it due to it’s abnormal readings. When he finds the meteor he called back the organization reporting his findings. Before the organization could give him a new order, a voice asked him to create something from the meteor. He does so with the voice guiding him and slowly made a pendant out of it. It is then revealed that the voice was Garmr. 235 gave the pendant to Janus when he was instructed to give him the meteor. Curious Janus wore it. Janus finding the pendant and the ore it is made of unique but ultimately useless gives it to Allisa.  Unknown to him Garmr tried to heal him. Slowly his emotions arise again and the memory of Allisa returns. Sure enough he looks and finds Allisa and asks her forgiveness. In joy Allisa does and the two planned to run away with their son for a peaceful life they originally planned. Unknown to the two a rival organization ordered 235 to destroy Angel Corps and to kill everyone involved in it. 235 follows this order. Allisa who had the pendant wished for someone to help her son. Garmr moved by her plea for her son and not for her life spoke to her. There the father and mother gave their quintessence to Garmr asking him to protect their son. When 235 finally killed the remaining people of Angel Corps, his parents, Garmr used the quintessence given to him to order 235 to use him. Garmr wants to fulfill the two’s wish but he doesn’t know how. He is young and has no experience with caring for another. And this robotic phase he is in isn’t a sickness since it’s natural for his body to engage in this weird self defense so he can’t heal him like what he did to Janus. Then he hears a roar of five lions, sensing they are like him he orders Blade to search for the Pride. The Pride of Voltron. Months passed and Voltron hearing a howl leads the Paladins to a moon. There they found Blade but Garmr who was scared for his Einherjar after the Galra continuously attack them both thought they were enemies and ordered Blade to fight them. In five seconds Blade defeats them. After hearing the the Voltron Lions roar, Garmr realizes he has found the ones who can help Blade, telling him to stop. After the fight Garmr apologizes and pleads for the Lions to help his Einherjar. Hearing this the Pride accepts his apology and promises to help Blade, coaxing their Paladins to welcome Blade into their group. The group naturally wasn’t so trusting with Blade at first. They also soon found out that he will obey any order which Lance used to his advantage to prank them all. In irritation Keith accidentally ordered Blade to kill Lance. Keith managed to cancel the order in time but in doing so they grew to hate Blade ordering him to isolate himself in a room. The only one was kind enough to visit and try to befriend him was Hunk. Bringing him food, talking about random things, asking about his life. With Hunk’s kindness Blade slowly felt safe until his body deactivates his self defense phase. After 17 years Blade finally cries into Hunk’s arms. After this he slowly bonds with the rest of the group who slowly but surely accepts him. Now he fights with them and depending on their choices, his future will change.

[kairi-chan]

Fighting For You [3/?] - SasuSaku

[First Chapter]

Summary: They were from different worlds. They were both interested, but knew a relationship between them was less than likely to happen, even if they both wanted it. Sasuke’s profession was dangerous, and Sakura was sheltered. Her parents’ did not approve of him. Slowly though, feelings started to take root and both of them were willing to fight for each other.

Genre: Romance / Humor

Rating: M

A/N: Co-written with @ss-tyytyy she will be posting it on her FFnet, while I will be posting it here on tumblr.

Sakura watched Ino position her food on the table, and readjusted the small flower vase for the ninth time before finally snapping a picture. The blond smiled, obviously content with her photo and quickly typed up a caption before posting it. She then flipped her phone over, screen first on the table, before finally looking at her again.

“So,” Ino propped her elbows on the table and leaned closer to her.

She pushed the chicken around her salad, refusing to meet her gaze. “So what, Pig?” her voice was merely a whisper. She couldn’t shake off the way Sasuke looked at her earlier, or the way his muscles rippled as he sparred with Naruto. It was sending all sorts of feelings and sensations into her system that she couldn’t explain.

The blond scowled. “What do you think of Sasuke?”

“I don’t think he likes you very much.” She teased.

Ino stabbed her chicken with her fork and ranted on. “He thinks he’s so high and mighty! He’s not even that good. I bet Naruto could kick his ass.”

Sakura laughed. It was really easy to rile Ino up. And she wasn’t going to lie, she liked teasing her best friend because her reactions were always gold. “I know. And he ruined your chances of getting Naruto’s hands on you.”

“I know!” She screeched. “What a bastard. Now I know why Naruto calls him that all the time.” She paused for a while before blurting out, “Oh my gosh! Did you see the latest summer collection? They’re adorable!”

This was exactly how things were supposed to be for Sakura. Brunch dates with Ino on Saturday mornings in fancy places while she listened to her rant on about boys and her latest fashion obsessions. After she would go around the fashion district and maybe do some shopping.

Her driver would then fetch her, and bring her home. She would have just enough time to freshen up and have dinner with her parents. Both of them were very busy people, but they always made it a point to spend time with her at least three times a week. It was like a schedule to the both of them. Ino often commented it wasn’t normal, but Sakura never paid too much attention to it. She loved her parents, and cherished all the time they could spare for her.

“Darling,” Her mother reached up, and Sakura bent down for her mother to kiss her cheek. “You look beautiful.”

Sakura smiled until her green eyes disappeared and walked over to her father.

“My precious flower is always beautiful.” He cooed. She kissed his cheek and settled into her seat. “Just like your mother,” He pointed at her, and then winked at his wife. Who blushed in return.

Sakura laughed and shook her head. Despite being married for twenty-two years, her parents still behaved like two teenagers in love. She eyed her father with a small smile on her face. Even if he was a CEO, he was still pretty humble. And not as scary as people thought him to be. She then shifted her gaze to her mother. The fine lines on her face only emphasized the knowledge she had acquired during her years in medicine. She adored her mother, and so desperately wanted to be a doctor, just like her.

“How’s your Shadowing going, darling?” Her mother asked. “Tsunade isn’t working you too hard, is she?”

She shook her head and took a sip of water. “No, mother. She’s a little scary sometimes, but she’s been very nice. Dr. Tsunade even offered more hours for me to stay. Next week, she’ll allow me to watch a surgery!” Sakura spoke excitedly, to which her mother’s smile only widened.

“She’s a good surgeon. I knew she would like you.”

Her father crossed his arms and smirked. “Good thing she recognizes talent when she sees it! My daughter will exceed her, I am sure.”

Sakura grinned and started to eat. The rest of the dinner was filled with lively conversation. Her father shared funny stories of how he liked to scare the new recruits sometimes, only to end up laughing as soon as they exited his office.

“I think,” He said in between laughs. “I think he requested to be moved to a different department!”

The two women laughed. They then moved to the living room for dessert.

“Sakura,” Her father pulled out a small box and presented it to her. “I know how much you love strawberries. I heard the first harvest in London was good, so I had some brought for you.”

She felt her cheeks color. Strawberry season wasn’t even starting yet, and here her father was, air shipping fruit halfway across the world just because he knew his daughter liked them. She opened the box and her green eyes glittered. They were red, and plump.

“Thank you!” She grinned. She eagerly dug into the fruit and ate.

Her father grinned back, and plopped down on the sofa next to her. “This is exactly what I needed. Just a night to spend with my two favorite ladies.”

Her mother looked up from her phone and asked Sakura, “Is Ino dating someone new?”

Sakura stopped mid bite. “Yeah, she is.” She replied warily. “Why?”

Her mother showed her screen to her husband. “Hey, isn’t that MMA fighter? Uhh… I forgot his name.”

Sakura froze. She did not want to have this conversation with her parents. It was embarrassing enough that her mother followed Ino on Instagram, and they were both friends on facebook. “Naruto.”

“Ah yes!” Her father perked up. “He’s a good one. I watched one of his fights in the pantry once. Young and agile.” He nodded.

A wave of relief washed over her. At least her father slightly approved of Naruto. Slightly.

“Have you met this boy, dear?” Mebuki asked.

Ah, she was dead. “N-no,” She lied. “Ino likes to talk about him a lot, though. I think I waved at him through facetime once.”

Both of her parents gave her a look, but let it pass. “No boyfriends until you graduate medical school.” Her father said with a stern stare. To which, she merely nodded meekly.

Her mother laughed and held on to her father’s arm. “Sakura’s old enough, don’t you think? She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

Sakura was thankful for her mother’s trust. But she knew her father always got into a huff about these things. “Exactly, Mebuki. Which is why I’m sure boys would just fall all over her!”

Sakura laughed half heartedly. This wasn’t exactly the case, but it had happened on more than one occasion.

After taking a shower, Sakura lay in her bed and scrolled through her phone. She finally saw the selfie she took with Naruto at the gym earlier. She sighed and placed her phone down. She stared at her ceiling and contemplated how her life had been going so far.

Maybe Ino was right. She needed to get out more and live. But how could she with her overprotective parents and high expectations? Sakura groaned and turned to her side. She picked up her phone and scrolled through her instagram feed some more. She stared at Ino’s photo with Naruto again and saw that she had tagged him. She clicked on his username and looked through his profile.

It appeared to be a personal account, and yet he had more than a hundred thousand followers. There were no photos of Ino on his feed, though. It was mostly professional photos taken during fights, and some videos of him training. There were occasional funny photos of himself, and selfies with his manager. And then, her breath hitched. It was a photo of Naruto and Sasuke.

Without thinking, she read the caption and hastily clicked on the tag with Sasuke’s name. He also had a lot of followers, but her face fell when she realized it was his professional account. The feed was clean, and it contained photos from his fight, videos of him training, and snippets of interviews. It barely contained any casual photos of him, which made her frown.

She wasn’t going to lie. She repeatedly watched the videos of him doing push ups, and pull ups. She adored the way his muscles rippled. Sakura also enjoyed listening to his voice during the interviews. He often gave one word responses, and smirked often. Which she enjoyed. She found herself laughing when someone asked him about his friendship with Naruto.

“We see you and Naruto train together often. I heard your managers were good friends. What do you think about him?”

Sasuke smirked. “He’s a loser,” came his automatic response.

“Aren’t you afraid you may have to fight him one day? I believe you two belong to the same weight division.”

He shrugged. “If it comes, it comes. It won’t affect me, or my standing. I’m still going to beat the Dobe anyway.”

Sakura laughed. His confidence was mostly taken for being cocky. She wasn’t going to lie, he was cocky, but there seemed to be so much more to Sasuke than that. Plus, since she had already seen Naruto and Sasuke’s exchanges first hand, she knew he was bluffing. They were both good friends, and it seemed like the media ate it up like hotcakes.

She read through the comments, and through more of his photos. She found a link of a compilation of his best fights. She clicked it and her phone redirected to Youtube. Sakura found herself holding her breath with each second that passed. All of the videos were less than five minutes long, and that was already including his entrance. The cut version, at least. Sakura couldn’t take the idea of someone punching that face. It was too pretty to take a hit.

Luckily, he almost never received them. Sasuke was quick, and dodged gracefully. It almost looked like he was dancing. His face was mostly nonchalant, but there was an unmistakable glint of fire in his eyes. He was in it to win, and he always did.

After watching nearly all of the fights on his youtube channel, she moved to watching other fighters. She couldn’t believe how brutal these fights could get. She felt all too relieved that Sasuke never received a fatal blow.

“Oh my god, is that blood on the mat?” She muttered to herself as she pulled her phone a little closer. The guy kicked him in the face and sent blood splattering. He fell on the mat with a thud. “Oh my god!” She screamed. Sakura was never one to be fazed by blood. It was next to normal for her. But the thought that people actually placed themselves in situations to get knocked into the next week baffled her.

“He could be a model with how hot he looks.” She muttered, as she rolled on to her other side. She closed the Youtube app and went back to his instagram. Once she got bored with that, she went to google and searched up his name.

Sasuke Uchiha

Even his name sent thrills through her body. After reading his wikipedia page, she checked the time. It was already passed midnight. She set her alarm and put her phone away to her side table. All of her stalking suddenly made her feel so tired.

“Why do I do this to myself?” She whispered as she pulled her blankets to cover her lithe body. Tomorrow would be another day. Another day where she would start her routine again. But she half hoped that she would get a little disruption, and an invitation to come and watch him train again.

Sakura started her day early with a yoga class near the hospital. She always liked attending, as it helped prep her up for her day. It was nice to sweat and practice both physical and mental discipline before her day actually started. After she took her shower, her driver fetched her and drove her to the hospital.

She walked through the halls and smiled warmly at the staff who had recognized her as Tsunade’s ward. She usually shadowed her from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. Doing hospital work always made Sakura forget everything else that went on in her life. It was one reason why she liked being there in the first place. Other than helping people of course. She always knew that helping was one of her life’s callings.

During lunch, she decided to eat at the pantry, instead of staying at Tsunade’s office. The television was on, and the other hospital staff gathered around to watch some reruns. Sakura perked up as soon as she heard his voice.

“I train hard. It’s only natural that I win.”

Her green eyes were glued to the screen, completely forgetting the meal in front of her. She caught herself smiling. She had already watched this interview last night, but it still sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach to hear him again.

After her hospital shift, she decided to spend some time for herself. She saw Ino’s Instagram story that she was spending some time with Naruto. She didn’t want to bother her, so she walked to the park across the street and found herself a tree to sit under. She had two more hours before she had to meet Ino and their other friends for dinner. Sakura was half hoping she would bring Naruto along. He seemed like he would get along with their group of friends. She then found her thoughts drifting back Sasuke’s smoldering gaze. She shook her head to clear it and pulled a book out of her bag.

She had had enough of him invading her thoughts for the day. For now, she wanted to spend time getting lost in another world. Sakura opened the book and began reading.

“Forehead! You’re late!” Ino chided.

Sakura laughed nervously and took a seat next to Shikamaru. “Sorry, I lost track of time.” Her green eyes then roved around to everyone at the table. Tenten, Choji, Shikamaru, Ino and Naruto were there.

“Hey, you’re here!” She greeted him.

Naruto grinned, making his whiskered cheek rise, until his blue eyes disappeared. “Hi Sakura-chan. I didn’t really have a choice, ya know?”

The whole table erupted in laughter. Everyone knew Ino probably threatened him to join, but judging by seeing no damage on either of them, Naruto had come on his own free will.

Dinner was filled with laughs and stories. She rarely got to see Tenten since she was busy with her summer job, and Shikamaru and Choji were helping out with their family businesses. It was all the more reason for her to cherish these moments with everyone. But as the laughs died down, the food all gone (mostly thanks to Choji), and the bill paid (courtesy of Ino), they all shuffled out of the restaurant and said their goodbyes to each other.

“When can I go and watch you train again?” Ino asked Naruto.

“I have a fight coming up, so I’m a little busy. I’ll have to ask if you can come when my coaches are around.”

Sakura watched as Ino pouted at Naruto, who then grinned. “I’ll ask and then I’ll call you, alright?”

She brightened up. “Yeah! Hey, can Sakura come, too?”

“Sure! But just so you know, Teme won’t be there.”

The pinkette turned bright red and flailed her arms around. “It’s fine! I don’t want to intrude.”

Naruto and Ino laughed. “Hey, it’s no problem. I can ask Kaka-sensei if you can. But as soon as I get a free day with Sasuke, I’ll let you two know, alright?” He kissed Ino’s forehead before walking away.

Sakura watched him leave. The hope of seeing Sasuke again made her heart soar. She was more than excited to see him again.

A/N: Now we got a glimpse of Sakura’s life. What do you guys think? Tyy and I love hearind your thoughts! 

[raw-output]

20 Years.

Two-thirds of a lifetime ago, a ten-year-old boy in a scratchy wool sweater sat huddled under an old down blanket. The first proper snow of the season had come the week before, and the boy hadn’t been dressed for building forts. Now here he was - bored, sick and sweaty. His mother entered the room with a mug of undrinkably hot milk with honey and butter. In her other hand was an issue of GAME.EXE, a computer gaming magazine. The words “HALF-LIFE” were plastered across the bottom of the cover. The boy loved reading, and loved computers, and the milk needed time to cool off anyway. He opened the magazine and flipped to page 8 after finding it in the table of contents. The boy grew older and switched languages, countries and continents, but his favorite game never changed.

-

It’s hard to compress two decades into text, but I will attempt to do so when it comes to my relationship with the Half-Life series that began all those years ago, with that preview article in that magazine.

The article  was written in a second-person perspective that really stuck out to me, and was filled with screenshots that would later turn out to be of an unreleased rough beta version of the game. It ran through several dramatized, episodic descriptions of events in the game, then listed out the weapons used in the game, the enemies you would face and the tactics to deal with them. Finally, there was an interview with Marc Laidlaw himself. This single article was sufficient to make me completely insufferable to my parents for the next few months. “I want to play Half-Life,” I would say. At first, this meant asking to go to an Internet cafe a few blocks away from home, and for money to pay by the hour and use one of their beefy gaming PCs. Later on, it meant asking for a copy of the game, and for time on the “main” home computer - the only machine that could run the game at all, in glorious 320x240 resolution that gave me headaches.

-

A couple of years passed. The move to the US threw everything into a pleasant state of disarray, but the one thing that hadn’t changed was having to ask my parents to use the computer to play Half-Life. I had found one of my own soon after arriving in the States, but it had no sound card. It was there, on my mother’s computer, that I finally beat the game. My thirteenth birthday present was a copy of the newly released Opposing Force expansion. My birthday cake featured an edible photo of myself playing in a fountain in downtown Chicago, which my mother doodled over with brightly colored frosting. I was now knee-deep in toxic green sludge, a crowbar in one hand, and a proud Lambda logo on my chest.

Most kids in my 8th and 9th grade classes didn’t share my enthusiasm for Half-Life. They played console games and were rightfully hyped about the Playstation 2 and X-Box. In search of like-minded people, I took to the Internet. My options for getting online in 2001 were limited to libraries - either during lunch at school, or at the Naperville Public Library, which was a hour-long walk from home. I discovered Planet Half-Life, an offshoot of the Gamespy network. Through it, I discovered the fact that my favorite game was designed from the ground up to be moddable. I learned of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and Sven Co-op. I discovered the Handy Vandal’s Almanac and The Snarkpit, two communities focused on level design. Having no reliable internet at home, I downloaded the level editor - then called Worldcraft - onto a floppy drive and brought it home to install. For the first time, I wasn’t simply playing the game. My parents looked on as I worked to figure out the obtuse user interface, trying to remember what I’d read earlier in the day. They raised their eyebrows when I finally managed to compile and run my first level - a hollow, unlit concrete box 512 units across with a single prefab trashcan hovering in the center. There wasn’t much more I could do in the limited time I was allowed to use the good computer, but I had caught the bug. My notebooks were filled with doodles of level layouts, my mind filled with cheesy storylines to match.

Eventually my family moved to a house with proper internet access, and I got a set of hardware with enough power under the hood to run both the game and the editor. It could even produce sound! All the things I could only read and salivate about were now within my reach, and I gorged myself on them. Counter-Strike quickly fell by the wayside, but Team Fortress and Sven Co-Op did not. Natural Selection came out and blew me away with how different a Half-Life mod could look and feel from the original game. I stayed up past midnight, playing, building, and playing some more. I learned that projects can die - when the extremely tongue-in-cheek Scientist Slaughterhouse mod went silent.

The release of the Half-Life 2 trailer took everybody by surprise. I had called one of my like-minded friends and we synch-watched it together, pausing every few minutes to let the video buffer and gush about how amazing everything looked and how much we were looking forward to messing with the modding toolkit. The subsequent beta leak and resulting delays taught me to be patient.

The move to California was not long after, and my patience was immediately put to the test as most of my belongings were stuck with the moving company, including my computer. I must have gone through a full pack of printer paper in less than a month, drawing up concepts and layouts for Xen Rebels, a mod centered around a semi-peaceful human colonization of the realm set after the events of Half-Life. Once my computer arrived, it was right back to the late nights and groggy mornings for me. Our home Internet was bad but workable, and I spent countless hours with the new and more creative mods that were being released, including The Specialists - a strong attempt to recreate the gun-fighting and martial arts stylings of Hong-Kong action movies in a multiplayer game. Around the same time I was introduced to the strange new world of anime, and decided that I simply must change the two throwable knives offered by The Specialists into kunai and throwing needles. This of course required me to learn 3D modelling. At the time, this was done with Milkshape 3D, a model editor compatible with most contemporary game formats. Once again, countless hours of figuring out the interface and the workflow followed, set to the calming tones of the Unreal, Deus Ex and Half-Life soundtracks. Creating models felt a lot more freeform than levels as I wasn’t constrained to a unit grid or forced to use convex geometry, and one day the new throwing weapons were in. I published the modified models on a forum to exactly zero fanfare. Around the same time, I began learning the basics of Photoshop in school, so modelling and texturing went hand in hand. To say my early textures were atrocious would be an affront to honest, hard-working atrocious textures the world over, but I continued my studies. My experience with working in 3D even netted me a 2nd place award at the school art contest - money which I immediately put back into upgrading my computer.

Half-Life 2 came out in November of 2004, to universal praise and celebration. I received the collector’s edition as a present for New Year, along with a copy of Raising The Bar. I beat the game the same morning, without a wink of sleep between unwrapping my present and the final darkness of the credits screen. The SDK didn’t ship with the game, but as soon as it was released I dove in. Soon after, the modding community blossomed, bigger and more vibrant than the original game’s, driven by the incredible flexibility of the engine. One of the first mods that appeared was made by a British man named Garry, and was called simply that, “Garry’s Mod”. It let players interact with the physics engine, and slowly sprouted more and more features. Many players used these features to pose character ragdolls, eventually creating entire comic series with storylines ranging from the comedic non-sequitur to dark and serious. Of course I felt the need to try my hand at it. That lead to the creation of The Plane - the story of Beet, a Combine Elite who managed to break free of his overseers’ indoctrination and find friendship, love, and revenge on his old masters. The only redeeming feature of that story was that it taught me how not to write stories.

I began getting more attached to the Gmod community than the expressly level design one at The Snarkpit. The few levels I publicly released were designed specifically as sandboxes to play and build in. The most popular ones were gm_orbit and rp_bahamut, maps set in space and featuring zero gravity for physical objects, allowing players to build smaller spaceships, or roleplay as the crew of a salvage and exploration vessel. Posting teaser images on the forums taught me a valuable lesson - what it felt like to be the one creating hype, instead of experiencing it. The constant demands were overwhelming. Some would simply want more work-in-progress screenshots. Others would drop ultimatums that unless a certain feature was designed a certain way, they would refuse to use the map. Others yet attempted to worm their way into getting the map early, offering to test it and provide feedback. I had almost deleted each project multiple times before finally releasing it.

Life happened, and things with Half-Life slowed down. When the Orange Box came out in 2006, I attempted to get it at a five-finger discount at a local Target. I got caught. Indirectly thought it was, Half-Life taught me that idiocy often leads to consequences. Buying it legitimately later in the year and playing through Episode Two reminded me that some stories aren’t written to end neatly.

It was in 2007 that I bought a membership for the Something Awful forums, and discovered an avid and very exclusive community of Gmod players. Over the course of the following decade, most of these people remained in constant contact with me, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. I became an admin once we opened our serves to the public - moderating the newcomers and mentoring the unskilled. One of the people had a project in mind, and I began creating models again. Miraculously, Milkshape 3D remained compatible with the Source engine, so I worked with it until I learned Maya. This project would eventually become known as Armored Combat Framework, and be released to the Gmod community at large. I learned how to iterate designs based on feedback, and how it felt to work in a well organized team.

Frontier happened around 2010, and was another lesson in teamwork - specifically what happens when things break down without role redundancy. Ambitions ran high, and the hype mounted. The programmer eventually left, and all that remains of the project is the very videos and images that were used to hype it in the first place, and a folder full of now-useless models, maps and textures. That was probably what prompted me to start pulling away from Half-Life and Gmod in general.

Black Mesa came out in 2012 and breathed a new life into my old obsession. I played through the original Half-Life again, then through the remake, noting the differences and the tweaks to make the gameplay more palatable to modern-day players. It felt good, like putting on an old but comfortable jacket. I’d fire up the SDK now and then, mostly to help newer, more driven designers. Two of the guys from Team Frontier went on to work in the industry full-time. There were whispers of a new game in the works, minor leaks of file and folder names hidden away in Valve projects. Episode 3 turned into Half-Life 3. A full sequel, rather than another short episode, as originally planned. “HL3 Confirmed” became a meme, but the people at the top remained silent.

Life kept happening, as it does. I lost people, I found people. I left home. Every now and then I’d fire up HL or BM again, or drop by the old Gmod server. I’d build things and model things, and release none of it to the public. I watched as the Dota International became the most widely spectated event in gaming, making players, sponsors, and Valve millions. The realization slowly started settling in. Then Marc Laidlaw retired, and later posted the Epistle. The workers at Valve spoke of a lack of direction and stagnation that comes with a cornered market. Modding for an engine over a decade old, no matter how advanced, slowed down.

It’s a different world now. Unity and Unreal engines rule the scene. Survival and Battle Royale have become the new buzzwords. Microtransactions. Loot boxes. Streaming integration. Freemium. E-Sports. Mobile gaming. Virtual Reality. If a new Half-Life were to appear today, would it be changed by the zeitgeist, or would it stay the course set by its predecessors? I don’t know. But there’s one thing that the escapades of a mute, bespectacled research associate have taught me more than anything else: hope.

[warriorsashestoashes]

History and Formation of the Clans

Clan Formation and Past

It started with the purge.

Cats had lived with humans peacefully for many lifetimes. But when disaster befell humans, as the first wave of the black plague hit, they blamed cats. It was believed that cats were the carriers of the plague. Of course cats scoffed at that. Ridiculous! Some of them had even died from it themselves! But popular opinion had turned against them. At first a few, then many, then almost all cats were driven from the town, with the hope that the sickness would stop spreading. Some were killed, but more died from sickness and starvation.

Driven to the wilderness, they fought bitterly amongst themselves. In order to survive, they grouped together in small groups, with the stronger fighting off the weaker.

It was at the beginning of spring, when the first greens were shooting up, when prey was beginning to be more common, one pregnant she cat laid to rest in a Grove. Her mate and their companions set up a guard, but to everyone's surprise she went into labor. The toms immediately freaked out, but even though they gave her space, they still stayed close to defend her. Her mate approached her, this was his mate, and his kits after all, why would he be aggressive and why would she? He promised her his love, to protect her, and that all the others would do the same. But she was so weak, everyone feared for her.

At that moment Devas moved. They lent energy and life to the queen, helping her give birth to her kits. All three were born strong and mewling. It was a miracle. The queen, filled with Devas strength, thanked them, and the other cats in the group, and vowed that together they would all make their lives here. No more looking to the past. After this they would look to their future, and build it under the benevolent gaze of Devas.

And so Pineclan was born. Of course it would not be named so for many seasons, but the seeds of it existed, the first monarch, a queen with her kits, and her mate who helped her to recruit and train new cats, to protect camp. She went on to mother many more kits, many who weren't her own. Under her direction they pushed cats outward, back into the human town, and deeper into the wilderness.

Humans no longer hunted cats. After having lost so many to the plague, the rats were out of control. They were forced to accept cats back in order to keep rats from completely taking over.

With the plague mostly gone, trade started back up again. With the ships came new cats, cats from far away places. After many cats had been forced back in the city, they were now very much more hostile to outsiders. A few of the foreigners took shelter with Pineclan, but they just never seemed to quite fit in. So, the outsiders gathered as many cats from around the docks and ships as they could, and headed north past Pineclan. They made their home along the bank of the Firth. It was they who first designated Pineclan as such, as “that clan from the Pines.” Eventually to differentiate between the two groups, they became known as Pineclan and Firthclan.

As the two clans grew, so did their territory. Slowly, the native wild cats were pushed further and further until they were forced out of the forest completely. At this point, Firthclan and Pineclan had begun to skirmish over borders and territories, though it wasnt too violent quite yet. But for the wildcats, forced to trek across the open fields until they could find a place of shelter it was devastating. It was the middle of winter, cats died of starvation and sickness left and right. And on top of that, the faeries of the normally isolated area stalked them, stealing their kits and causing havoc. They were forced to band together, to hole up in a rock formation, hide their young deep in the stones. The other clans referred to them as the Moor Clan, even though they had not taken on the position as a group quite yet. They were simply a splintered group of cats sheltering together. But as the next generation grew, they forged bonds and ties strong as any of the other clans.

Pineclan and Firthclan’s war escalated. Pineclan wanted all the territory on this side of the firth. Firthclan wanted their original camp, a place called Salmons rest to remain theirs, as well as a strip of land. The two clans fought over it bitterly.

However, with the appearance of the wild cats in faerie territory, the faeries began to explore, to push outward, particularly the brownies. They began to play mischief on the other two clans, worsening the war by taking on the appearance and even sometimes the place of certain cats. When one jet black tom became the deputy of Firthclan, a battle in which a kit was killed took place. The clans discovered that the tom was a Faerie merely impersonating a cat. All the animosity which had been turned towards each other suddenly turned towards a new target. The Faerie.

The clans, all of them hunted faeries that they found, killing or harming them. In turn the faeries enacted revenge. It was almost as dark a time as the purge.

It would be Moorclan who would become the mediators. They would bring all together in the ruins at the gathering place, including the representatives of the brownies, the group of faeries which had been part of most of the meddling. Moorclan hoped that in close quarters the cats would have the advantage, so when the faeries inevitably broke the truce (which they always did in Moorclan’s eyes), the clans would wipe out the brownies. But the truce held, and negotiations began. Eventually after rigorous debate and discussion, the Pact was established.

The Pact was a powerful magic, binding them to the Faerie and granting them an afterlife, while also giving them tools to protect themselves against the faerie. The clans agreed to hold a gathering every full moon, in the gathering place, a night on which faeries could move more freely between realms. The hope was that the clans might commune with those who had passed away, or ask benevolent faeries for favors. However, faeries rarely appeared, or kept hemselves hidden, and their lost loved ones, if they appeared, never spoke to them. The clans still kept the gathering nights, but the original more mystical element slowly faded from the custom. It became a way to address issues between clans and provide shows of strength and prosperity.

Pineclan and Firthclan returned to their camps, their war put aside for the time being, content that the faerie would have less desire to continue to meddle.

But after all the effort, all of what they had had to sacrifice, Moorclan was not content with the outcome. The pact had not completely protected them from the faerie. So they returned to their territory and sought another more radical solution. Moorclan sought out one of the named faerie, and formed a smaller pact with him, but they paid a terrible price.

When they came to the gathering the next moon, they informed the other clans. Their territory was no longer accessible to faeries. In return any black kit, who could potentially be a faerie in disguise would be left out to be consumed by the earth and sky. The other two clans rioted, but Moorclan had their minds made. Their bond with the named faerie was established.

What followed were many seasons of peace. So far, no major devastating wars have broken out. Skirmishes, and small rivalries lasting years at a time, but nothing else.

Moorclan routinely sends out spies to keep track of the various factions.

Pineclan sneakily expands in the summer, counting on more common food to keep the other clans careless in checking their borders.

And Firthclan draws ever closer to the realm of faerie, distancing themselves from the other clans.

Recent points in history to include in Biographies:

(New history points will be accepted based on when high positions are accepted and what parts of their histories are considered relevant)

Firthclan:

60 moons ago: Heavy rains flood Firthclans camp. Firthclan moves to new (current camp). Previous camp used to be in Salmon’s Rest. Clan begins to become more distant from the others.

44 moons ago: First border skirmish since moving to a new camp. Firthclan is attacked after being wrongfully assumed to be a Moorclan patrol. Firthclan leader negotiates an appropriate repayment of the blood debt of the cat who fell during the battle.

38 moons ago: A black kitten is rescued from just inside Moorclan’s border and adopted by a Firthclan queen. They are not told of their origin.

22 moons ago: A sickness strikes Firthclan. Some believe it to be a curse brought upon by someone disrespecting a faerie, or a cat aligned with evil faeries. Some cats are lost, although the oracle manages to save many.

8 moons ago: The more spiritually attuned Firthclan cats notice that local sprites and faeries are becoming more agitated and worried, some randomly disappearing and new ones appearing more frequently than normal.

Pineclan:

59 moons ago: Previous Monarch takes charge of Pineclan, begins an era of internal focus, allow more outsiders to join the clan and help it prosper.

48 moons ago: Battle with Moorclan due to discovery of spy attempting to seduce the Monarch.

46 moons ago: Truce with Moorclan lasting the lifetime of the then monarch, promising no spies on either side and no unnecessary aggression. Birth of Current Monarch.

12-14 moons ago: Four cats disappear, all in completely different locations, but all in the same way. It is suspected a dangerous rogue faerie is involved. The disappearances suddenly stop, so nothing more can be done.

6 moons ago: Death of previous monarch, suspicious death of chosen heir, current Monarch takes charge of Pineclan.

Moorclan:

56 moons ago: Moorclan dispatches spies to Firthclan, Pineclan, and the human town.

48 moons ago: Spy is discovered in Pineclan, and executed. Moorclan treats it as an act of aggression.

46 moons ago: Truce with Pineclan, no more spies there, but the other two spies are still active.

35 moons ago: Firthclan spy informs Moorclan of the black kit. No actions are taken.

27 moons ago: An avalanche buries several cats beneath rubble, and the place becomes a place haunted by the spirits of those who could not reach the afterlife.

15 moons: An odd earthquake shakes the territory, and for a short time, the sky has the wrong color. But it returns to its average normal self. Loireag refuses to explain what happened.

3 moons ago: Moorclan spy in human town reports stories from ships cats, of sickness spreading through humans again. The sickness is marching north its said, but it may come earlier on one of the ships. Moorclan is advised great precaution when hunting and encouraged to stay away from the other clans.