#something about an emotion consuming you and you become goo

[opal-owl-flight]

Mister Sandman

Bring me a dream

Make it the sweetest, that Ive ever seen

[ctheathy]

Yandere Changelings w/ human!Darling

The Changelings x Reader

Yandere Headcanons

Author's note: Gotta love these big buggo babies

reformed Changelings < unreformed Changelings

The Changelings/Reader [Platonic+Romantic-ish?]

[Gender-neutral Darling|Female Darling|Male Darling]

Potential ⚠️TWs⚠️ :

The Reader is quite humble • Abduction • Jealousy between changelings • Stalking • Invasion of privacy • Co-dependency • Aggression • Use of adhesive/the green goo • Violence • Possessiveness • Overprotective behaviour • Predatory behaviour • Love feeding • Overfeeding/“Overdosing” on love • Heart failure • Corpses of changelings mentioned

Changelings have certainly never had a very positive reputation around Equestria. The species of bug-like creatures mainly known to have ruthless mannerisms that only acts on instinct. Especially when considering the changelings eat love and love alone to keep them from starving. As you can see... These creatures, too, need to feed. And so steal the love hidden within ponies and other living entities for themselves with brute force. And this tiny human here... has love, and a lot of it.

But despite being an aggressive species, they are also known to be rather curious towards creatures they've never seen or heard of before. Which is why being a human is really just a saving grace for you in this scenario. Cause instead of pouncing immediately purely from starving impulse, they know they'd need information to report back to the Queen first. And since this is the first human the changelings have ever met, their natural reaction to encountering a new species is to learn more about it instead of feeding off of it, atleast not before they got all the answers they'd be satisfied with. Considering you are the only source of love and affection around.

The first changelings that have noticed your presence may start seeing you as a tasty morsel. if love is like meat for them, then they're being deprived of it, and then the one creature comes along that's a walking talking buffet of love. They'd observe your actions and behaviours from a safe distance for a little while, taking note of aggression signs or being a potential threat to the hive. But in truth... you weren't. You were more of a lover than a fighter, which gave the changelings the signal to not waste any other opportunity to abduct you into the hive for some answers.

And that's... when something sparked.

Being calm and sedate in your position would usually cease a changelings’ natural instinct to hunt and would often cause in less aggression and forceful measurements. But even if they did try feeding from your love, that would be similar to essentially trying to suck from a dry well, because the transporting process from the human realm to Equestria drained you of many strong emotions to begin with, and it takes a lot more time for your entire alternation from universe to universe to take full effect. And the changelings wouldn't budge from their stubbornness until you reached out to one of them... Brushing a gentle hand over its malnourished frame.

The love that you'd contain would be a tad bit ‘different’ from normal love they'd consume, mainly due to the fact that they never had to actually take it with force. You gave it to them willingly, making the love inserted into them a lot stronger and effective than if they were to steal it. Which results in giving their bodies an intense emotional ‘shock’ as you basically feed them little by little... The shock would still feel good to them, like it would make them feel warm and light headed, but their heart would begin beating rapidly by the shot of immense adrenaline they just got.

The reason why changelings need love and affection in the first place was because they need it for their survival. The value feeds them. As they learn you're capable of feeling and giving love, they would want to keep you around permanently to feed. However, in extreme cases it might lead to a changeling becoming dependent upon one person's love. And their survival might be based on that person's love and affection. and what happens when that person's love and affection starts to falter? There is such a darker side to something so innocent as eating some consensual love.

Which could go either two ways...

Plan A being a bit more complicated. Since they ended up taking a ‘sample’ of you to basically extract the hormones and emotions of love, you had proven yourself to be more productive than all of the ponies they've held captive combined. Feeling more satisfied with the mere sip of love you've happily handed out to them than with any usual prey they had ripped the love from. But the Queen desires love too, because it is essential for their race. And because the hive is almost completely devoid of any love in the first place. You could become a sample for the Queen... Just keeping you there and farm you for love.

But there's also a considerable chance the changelings who captured you would scrap plan A and would instead focus on a plan B... Keep you a secret from Queen Chrysalis and prevent you from being cocooned at all costs, but only under the condition if you keep blindly feeding them with your lovey-dovey personality. Changelings tend to function with a very strict hive mentality... conclusions are set by the swarm's majority of drones’ standpoint. They all have a strong tendency to fall for group decision-making, but they're also quick to swap their beliefs if it seems like the right choice for the best of the colony. So it likely wouldn't even take long for the entire swarm to come to an agreement to keep you secured under high protection and warding.

Due to being a good source, you would give them more positive energy than any other creature who would falter in their fright after being captured... which would make you a rather popular target for the swarm of drones. To a point where the entire hive would start to view you as the "heart of the colony" of sorts. Because a changelings emotions are based on their diet. And the more love they receive, the more addicted and obsessed they'll become with it. So they would all be head over heels at some point, bordering on complete worship ...viewing you as an object of their affection and admiration. And getting even more physically violent to defend and protect you from what they consider a threat to their food source.

They might be feeding off of the love you give them and emotional positivity for now. But if they keep feeding and feeding, eventually they are probably going to want something else than just your emotions, which isn't good... But at the end of it all, they will want to protect you. But their methods might be a bit morally questionable. They have been looking for a more ‘sustaining’ source of love their entire lives. And from what we know... love only grows stronger.

So what happens when a creature becomes utterly emotionally dependant on someone?

What if... they begin to get obsessive?

Instead deciding to ensure no one else gets to have you?

Signs of attacks outside of the hive would become more apparent as time went on, a variety of breeds beginning to disappear aside with half dead creatures covered in adhesive emerging from their hideout as no entity even dares to get close to the shapeshifters. Some changelings would begin arguing with eachother over the delightful taste of your love. But knowing how naturally greedy and hostile they can get, these would convert to physical violence sooner or later, causing a bunch of internal conflict in the colony. A bunch of love starved changelings just riskily fighting over a single human.

It would get so bad, in fact, that there's possibly not even second you'll spend in the hive without a changeling being nearby, just ... watching you. With or without you knowing, there to strike and pull you back in at a moments notice if your demeanor gets too close to flight response. The changeling that you first bonded with would feel remorse about doing it, but the rest of them won't really care much as long as they can keep you in their grasp. Though you would still be allowed to travel closely outside of the hive, they'll keep their little eyes on you anyway...

You'd have this love that's a bit diluted, but even with just having a weaker type of love to feed off of, they'd have to feed for a longer time and drain their energy in order to get it. Which in terms causes in them taking more than they can physically handle. You aren't necessarily a dry well, but rather more of a dripping faucet while they are all dying of thirst. So they could still eat from your given love for a while, but if they try to go all out, there could be horrific consequences...

Because each of them are essentially trying to take enough to survive, their individual feeding sessions can become more aggressive. They don't want to kill you, nor do they understand how strong of a heart you have. So they don't see that they need to be gentle. Because in their eyes, you're considered weaker as a mortal. And your emotions, not being very strong, make their hearts race and they aren't feeding slowly and cautiously enough to keep the heart beating at its normal pace. You're basically a complete reverse card on them. To the point of them becoming so infatuated with you, that they literally forget what they are doing, and basically, accidentally kill themselves with a massive case of overdosing love.

The more of your love they take, the more they will like you. And the more they like you, the more they would try to suck it out. And the more they try to suck it out, the more it would turn into a "want" instead of something more natural. And then, that's when some would begin to die from overfeeding. The emotional shock and overdosing on love being much more overwhelming than the changeling's bodies are capable of handling. And of course, you wouldn't really understand why they were all suddenly lifelessly scattered around you...

It would be quite a challenge for many changelings to have the self control to prevent that fate. I doubt the majority of them would even understand the concept of death enough to avoid it even when their heart rate was going at unsafe speeds. The situation would honestly be safe for the changelings that have enough self-control to hold themselves back, but those who don't would become history real quick... Especially as changelings mainly seem to cocoon their prey. You may have more love to give when you're out in the open, but perhaps you even walking freely might just be enough to push many changelings over the edge.

Though this would also highly depend on the distinct personality of each changeling. Those who were more reasonable would try to just suckle in love. Then we have those who would become a bit feral and aggressive trying to tear the love out of you. Making it like a really twisted irony that they want love, but by trying to obtain love, in this way, they could essentially doom themselves. The ones who are more in control and more disciplined may survive. But either the greedier or younger, more immature changelings might get too excited and just want more and more. Which leads into them destroying their bodies via the very thing they wanted. The ones that do manage to control themselves will remain very interested in you however. But even if their fair sense of attachment and perhaps even bond towards you won't fade...

This is nothing more and nothing less than a parasitic relationship

[lollytea]

Just want to bring up a question about the Grom curse thing, this implies that a curse can be made by can be made per se by strong emotions. This also may have given Belos the idea of "the dangers of wild magic" he could've conveniently corrupted people who posed a great threat to him. just a thought

Oooooh!!

I'm hesitant to call Grometheus' fate a curse because I can't say for certain if that's what it is. TOH is kinda vague about how curses in this universe work or what defines them.

It's never clarified if Belos' problem is technically a curse like he claims or just some stupid shit he did to himself, without considering the possibility that the glyph/palisman magic might be uncooperative with his (at the time) human body.

I don't imagine that what Grometheus endured was a traditional curse like Eda but rather, something more similar to Darius (and maybe Belos a bit too)

Alright so, this is just a headcanon but I've always figured that this talent Darius has for shifting his whole body, flesh, bones and all, into goo mode wouldn't be like. Standard abomination magic stuff. This track is the study of controlling goo, not becoming goo. So, the stuff he's pulling off here is near impossible for any normal witch.

So, in my opinion, Darius is simply not normal. He was born with a capacity for magic that is far beyond that of a normal witch and equates to being extremely powerful. Anyway his mastery over abominations became so natural to him, as simple as breathing that his physical body went through an innate "transfusion" of sorts where he basically became one with his magic.

Cases like these are very rare and usually only crop up if a witch has bonded their soul to one specific area of magic. So if goo is what's making Darius' bile sac overheat, goo is what he's gonna be.

So, for example, another born powerful witch like Eda, who is a jack of all trades, wouldn't have developed something like this (even if her curse hadn't hindered her.) because there's too many spells and techniques being practised but no outright obsession that is being mastered enough to completely dilute her bloodstream.

Well, possibly. It's unknown if a witch can achieve this form with mixed magic. The condition is rare enough that not a lot of data has been collected yet.

Giuls and me have been exploring the same idea with Willow

(There's a lot more in-depth biological details about how this whole thing works but Giuls will probably talk more about all that at some point)

Anyway!! Grometheus!!

So, what I imagine is that Darius is an example of a successful fusion between physical form and magic, while Grometheus was an example of the same thing Gone Terribly Wrong.

See, in Darius' case, he managed to achieve a perfect union between his own sense of identity and the magic that had become part of him.

But in Grometheus' case, that did not happen.

They began as person who collected the essence of others for their research. They hoarded fears inside their own mind for years and years, maybe even decades. That's thousands and thousands of souls that they stole those fears from.

That's far too much for a normal witch to handle. But Grometheus was not a normal witch. They were powerful enough to endure it. Or at least they thought.

It was too much. Far too much. It was like deathly bacteria damaging everything inside of you. A slow and steady rot. Think food that's gone bad that's been there for months. That was the magic inside of Grometheus.

I dont imagine that this corruption was directly caused by Grometheus' negative emotions. But rather, those emotions weakened their resistance to the swarming fear that was consuming them. Maybe if they had been stronger or happier or had people around who reminded them why they were alive, they could have realized what was happening before it was too late.

There still would have been long lasting damages. But they may have been able to find the balance between themself and the magic and kept their identity intact.

But soon enough, the fear ate away at everything else that remained of Grometheus. They lost who they were. They didn't know who they had ever been.

They were no longer a witch who collected fears. They were simply the vessel for fear itself.

It's a little unclear what this ask means but I don't imagine that Belos was the one who corrupted Grometheus, if that's what it's implying. Although yes, he probably would have used this case as effective propaganda.

At the time of Grometheus' corruption, this concept of physical form and magic fusion was unheard of. No cases had been documented yet. So Belos could conveniently twist it as an example of the dangers of wild magic.

However, as times changed and studies continued, this condition became more well known in the Healing Coven as a perfectly natural (if rare) biological evolution.

Sadly, it had not yet been theorized that Grometheus' case was anything other than a reckless use of wild magic, rather than a condition that wound up destroying them because nobody knew enough to help.

The truth doesn't come to light until after their vessel was slain in the Hexside arena, but they were hardly still alive in there anyway. The truth is delivered by Gus Porter, who saw everything through their eyes during that one moment where he dissected them with his amplifier mirror.

So now, Gus has absorbed it all. The thousands upon thousands of fears all melted together into a sickening tarry contamination. Gus inherits everything that consumed Grometheus and now it resides in his own mind.

And that's where we currently stand and now the question hangs in the air. Can Gus achieve a successful physical and magical transfusion the way Darius did? Or is he in danger of losing himself to the rot?

[wonder-in-wings]

TIMING: Early December LOCATION: Another alley SUMMARY: Felix (@recoveringdreamer, who just can’t get enough of Parker (@wonder-in-wings, finds the Warden in a… bad mood and intervenes. CONTENT WARNINGS: drug manipulation (referenced), unsanitary, self harm, vomit

Before, he had an excuse. There was a reason why he did what he did, even if it took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize what had happened. Even with the effects of the crystals out of his system, Parker still felt the tug of them, the pull of emotions that weren’t his wanting him to overreact, or get mad, or break down without any provocation. He had gotten them under control early into their malingering and things like the spinner ring that now reliably rested around his right-hand middle finger and the rubbing stone that Rhett gifted him, tools that were… ‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know the word either, you weirdo.’ In any case, they helped, especially during those times where Parker could feel something inflaming his brain even if he didn’t understand why. He knew there was a term for it, one that he heard when he was a child when his parents didn’t think he could hear them. The young Warden was so eager to reject the label that he didn’t commit it to memory, something that was… unlike him despite his early dismissal of titles and labels that he either felt as though he didn’t own or were just used to categorize him instead of treating him as an individual. The ache on his back served the opposite effect as the aforementioned ring and stone, having healed very quickly but still stinging, though something was planted or perhaps lodged just under the skin. It was something he couldn’t reach, couldn’t even see, and it was in such a sensitive location that it had subconsciously burrowed into his mind, flaring it up with those emotions that pulled on him. An unusual pain that had unintentionally shortened his temper. Maybe that was why he didn’t have any friends, even in the ones that called themselves his friend. Maybe that was why he found himself face-to-face with some other, aggressive individual who he accidentally bumped into when he was consumed with his thoughts and he didn’t even partially attempt to excuse himself from the brawl. Maybe that was why it devolved quickly, the non-hunter with his inferior strength completely outmatched by Parker’s own and he had dragged the man, once again kicking and screaming, into one of the nearby goo-splashed alleyways and was currently strangling him with the man’s own messenger bag. 

— —

They’d been keeping their head down since throwing that fight for Beau. They knew their bosses at the Pit knew about it, knew that retribution would be delivered sooner rather than later. It wouldn’t be pleasant; it never was. But if it put them back on good terms with Beau, if it meant their transgressions were forgiven… that made it worth it. Didn’t it? Felix let the thought swim through their mind as they walked down the street, taking the long trek back to their apartment to avoid the goo. They hadn’t been able to drive to work in weeks now, unwilling to lose their truck to the goo and unsure how to navigate around it in a vehicle. Teagan’s return, at the very least, had lessened the ache in their chest that came with catching sight of the statues lining the streets near the Pit, but it was still hard. Felix had always felt a little too much for their own good.

Which was why the sound of a choked off scream grabbed their attention so firmly. Anyone else might not have heard it, but Felix was too wired to let go of the jaguar completely after a night in the Pit, had enough of the cat still active to make his ears sharp and allow his eyes to cut through the dark. They stumbled towards the sound, desperate to help after a long night of hurting. Into an alley, expecting some creature displaced by the goo or someone well on their way to becoming stone. Instead, they found an all-too-familiar face and a pit in their stomach.

“Let him go,” they demanded, taking a few more steps forward. Claws slashed through the strap of the messenger bag, too desperate to provide airflow before it was too late to worry about exposure. They knew Parker well enough to know he was ruthless. If anything, they were surprised the man was conscious and not already drugged. It was… different than the warden’s usual methods.

— —

Strangulation wasn’t very high on Parker’s list of methods for extermination (‘You mean ‘murder, bro’) but it worked as well as anything else. His jaw tightened under skin slick with sweat - the exertion wasn’t working him up, no, just the critical thinking skills that would place him as the singular culprit of said murder as he wordlessly, emotionlessly, robotically watched the glimmer start to fade from the stranger’s eye. He moved his head deftly out of the way of clawing hands, feeling his muscles rippling as they withstood wild attempts to grab onto his arms. The man’s nails couldn’t even pierce his shirt. 

What could, however, were the claws that belonged to something decidedly less human than the unfortunate stranger who happened upon another one of Parker’s ill moods. The words, if there were any, fell on half-deaf ears, the other droning with a mixture of latent pain that stabbed too close to his spine and… what the layman would call ‘fury’ but he still would’ve insisted that he was just irritated. Misplaced. He realized that the stranger didn’t deserve it as those inhuman claws on a human hand cut through the strap, instantly loosening the makeshift garrote. The Warden blinked, a breath escaping from his nose before the rest of him reacted but it did so swiftly, with his hunter reflexes and only a few swipes were permitted before his four-fingered hand shot out and wrapped strong fingers around the wrist of whatever it was that had inserted itself into his affairs. His other hand still grasping the now-ruined length of the messenger bag’s strap, his cold glare darted up to find himself looking at none other than Felix. Had this been a different scenario, a separate set of circumstances, Parker would’ve almost reacted with a dark, dry playfulness. He wasn’t afraid of the balam, he arguably never was but with one successful tail under his metaphorical belt, he knew that it was possible and that Felix had no power over him anymore. During this particular scenario, however, his pupils were almost invisible in the sea of ice water that was being propelled towards the balam. “Don’t.” One word, that was the only warning he gave the shifter.

— —

A hand shot out and closed tight fingers around Felix’s wrist, and it was hard to deny the way their heart leapt to their throat at the contact. It was hard not to remember the first time they’d run into Parker in an alley not unlike this one, hard to forget the drugs swirling in their system or the terror pounding in their chest. It took all they had not to shift further at the mere thought of it, not to let the jaguar pounce in and take over the situation himself in a way that would have left the alley far too bloodied for Felix to live with.

They forced their fear down, plastered an expression of bravery that wasn’t quite genuine onto their face. This wasn’t about them. They were helping the man on the ground, the one gasping as he rested a hand against his bruised throat. Felix wouldn’t leave as long as the man was in danger, and the man would remain in danger as long as Parker was in the alley with him. 

“Don’t what?” They challenged, and they thought their friends might have been proud of the way their voice didn’t quiver. They thought the people who loved them might applaud the way they kept their back straight and their eyes steely as they glared at Parker, the way they didn’t immediately give in to the desire to shift and let the animal take care of the confrontation. “You’re the one who needs to stop. Before I make you stop.” They let their eyes dart pointedly to the scar on the warden’s face, the one they had put there.

— —

Blue eyes could’ve pierced through anything that stood before them effortlessly, yet as they glared at Felix, Parker found fear that was safely tucked under the visage of courage. The two knew each other well enough. The balam knew what the Warden could do and vice-versa, a clash of humanity, empathy, logic and self-control. Only it was ironic, wasn’t it, that Felix possessed humanity at this moment and Parker lacked self-control. The same lack of self-control that used the leverage from his tight grasp to force the balam out of his space, shoving them with strength that rippled under his gray thermal henley, under his perspiring skin, under the knot of heat and pain in his back. “You won’t make me do anything.” Parker snapped, his voice low, with an unfamiliar sharpness to it. “You don’t do anything. I was right; without the jaguar, you’re nothing.” He started to pace, keeping his steely eyes on the balam between intermittent glances down at the man who was still on the ground, almost as though ensuring that his prey was still there for him to continue once he was done with Felix. “So hurry up. Quit wasting my time. You won’t stop me; that’s for your jaguar to do.” He hissed, knowing that he was causing an unnecessary altercation right now - his fight wasn’t with Felix. It never was. Parker never once wanted to lastingly hurt Felix, not like the resentment he harbored for Emilio. Not like the begrudging, persistent animosity with Teagan. And yet, the young shifter always seemed to know exactly what to do to appeal to the wretched thing in the Warden’s brain, cutting through every surface with ease. The older man placed one of his steel-toed boots on the stranger and looked down at him. “Apologies for the interruption.” He said, his voice switching back to monotone so quickly it was almost as though his voice were put through a filter. — —

He’s right. It was a sickening thought, one that Felix hated, but it was the truth. Parker had a point. What was Felix without the spirit in their chest? Not much of a fighter. Not much of a person, either. Their father had tried, with intentions that were good and methods that were bad, to strip the humanity from them, and what they’d been left with in its place was a strange thing, a quiet uncertainty. Not quite human, not quite beast, even without the spirit to account for. Take away the only piece of the puzzle that made it come together, and what was Felix then? Something weak and uncertain, something quietly afraid. 

Still, in spite of this thought, they tilted their chin up in steely defiance. They were good at not letting their opponent know that they were afraid; they did it in the ring every night. Parker was a lot less terrifying than a raging werewolf or a hungry zombie, even after everything. “Yeah, well,” they flexed their fingers, “right now, I’m the one with the claws.” 

He shoved them back, and Felix stumbled a little before catching themself on the dumpster behind them. Sharp pain shot through their hand — broken metal sliced flesh, but it was a minor wound. They’d worry about it — and definitely disinfect it, because ew — once they got home. For now, they had a job to do, a person to help. Given the way Parker’s boot found the stranger’s body, he wasn’t about to back down. “Hey, we’re not finished.” Felix surged forward with an uncharacteristic flash of frustration, shoving the warden away from the stranger. Their bloody palm left a mark on the hunter’s shirt, and part of them felt a childish sense of satisfaction at the fact that it would probably stain. Parker probably didn’t have any Tide pens on him.

— —

Moments were like photographs sometimes with how they tended to be, just vignettes separated by flashes of light or recollection. The reason this came to mind was because it was how it felt now; one moment, Parker had cast his gaze down, pressing his weight on the dazed man on the ground and the very next, he was being forcibly pushed away by the balam. The smell hit him first, accompanied with what could’ve been described as mild, if irritable, surprise as his sharp blue eyes darted to Felix before glancing down at his shirt. The handprint that found itself on his chest was recognized by shape first, but that was soon an afterthought that blended into a haze of disappearing cohesion. The smell was associated with the sight, which was simultaneously filling and emptying his mind with… he wasn’t even sure at that point, as rationale began to fade. Parker took two fingers and smeared some of the print off of him, holding them up and seeing shining slicks of pink. Iron. Blood. He needed more. The Warden’s grace was missing in an instant as he carelessly lifted his shirt enough that the material that housed the bloody print could be chewed on, the red pulled off and into his system to scratch a maddening itch in his head, on his back. It was horrible in its taste, undesired as it was sucked from the cotton. Irresistible as blue eyes, pupils now dilated like a shark sensing a wounded animal, darted to the source of red. The man on the ground was all but abandoned as Parker made one simple association: hand had blood. Body had blood. The distance between them was closed with inhuman speed as Parker advanced on Felix - if that was their name, it was temporarily lost to the baseline desire, an intense craving - with his eyes staring intently on the same hand that housed the open cut. Nothing was said, a second look wasn’t spared for the balam as the Warden’s hand was once more wrapped around the wrist of the shifter and the cut was being pulled with inhuman strength towards Parker’s open, hungry mouth. — —

Their brief assault had its intended result. Parker turned away from his would-be victim on the ground of the alley, the poor man having lost the warden’s attention entirely. But Felix didn’t stop to consider that this move would leave but one target for the hunter’s rage, didn’t think about just how little they wanted to face Parker down again. They still had nightmares about that first alley meeting, about the needle-thin knife spreading a cold sluggish feeling through their veins, about the terrified jaguar refusing to give up control until Beau’s blood covered his teeth. They didn’t particularly want a repeat experience. But Parker turned his attention to them, and Felix wondered if they’d be given anything resembling a choice. 

And then… something strange happened. Parker looked down at that bloody handprint on his shirt, lifted it into his mouth. All Felix could do was stare in perplexed disgust as the warden sucked the blood away from the material and into his mouth. Parker was staring at them, something strange behind his eyes. It reminded Felix a little of that first experience in the alley, of the hunger behind his expression when his eyes had landed on the balam’s tail. But there was something different about it; as if there was even less control now than there had been then. 

The warden shot forward in an instant, his hand wrapping against Felix’s wrist in an iron grip once again. The balam’s hand was pulled towards the warden’s mouth, and Felix stumbled backwards, yanking uselessly at the limb. “Whoa, what the fuck?” They didn’t curse often — their father hadn’t liked it, and the habit that had been more common in their youth had died out quickly as they grew — but this situation certainly seemed to call for it. 

Wardens came with enhanced strength, like all hunters did. Felix wasn’t much of a match for Parker’s grasp as their bloody hand was yanked towards the hunter’s mouth, but they had two hands. The one not trapped by Parker’s grip shifted just a little, claws coming out sharp and dangerous. In spite of everything, they didn’t want to kill Parker. They didn’t even particularly want to hurt him. All they wanted was for him to stop. So, they went for what they figured would cause the least amount of damage — they sunk their claws into the arm attached to the hand that was trapping their wrist, desperate to loosen the grip.

— —

The warmth with the smell washed over him, the hand splayed with crimson remaining where it was with astonishing resolution as Parker kept the balam from backing away too far. His grip was so firm, Felix could’ve fallen over in their entirety and he would’ve kept them on their feet in a move not unlike a dip in a dance. It was pervasive, deadly. But the stumble told the Warden that there was no jaguar present, at least not at first. Parker’s tongue pressed itself against the open wound. Vile, the first sparks of cognizance returning to a mind that craved. Not nearly enough, though. Claws in his arm weren’t even acknowledged for a moment, nothing aside from the sharp inhale of skin being punctured. Felix’ hand still pressed against his mouth as he started pulling the blood from the gash, the taste of metal, dirt, and whatever else might’ve been on that dumpster entering him as though he were trying to suck poison from the balam. After a few moments in eerie silence following Felix’ surprised expletive, Parker’s icy blue eyes with their enlarged pupils skittered down to see the dots of red welling around the points of entry, the same claws that had given him the unsightly scar on his face. All he saw was red, a hazy smear in an unfocused world. An artistic expression of carnal instinct that churned through a mind wrapped in rusted chains, corroded only by one thing. His own free hand wove around theirs and grabbed the wrist of the hand that sunk its claws in the arm of the hand that wrapped around the wrist of the open wound. They were knotted for a few short seconds before Parker obliged to Felix’ unspoken request, losing his grip on the balam’s lacerated palm and instead pulling their other hand with the ferocity of a large cat attempting to gut its prey. With Felix’ help, four new gashes were formed in the Warden’s arm, slicing through the sleeve of his gray shirt before he forced the claws off of him and he turned the same hand around, twisting it until the claws faced Felix’ chest. He started pressing, the muscles in his arm rippling as he pushed the claws towards the shifter. “Now you do it.” Parker hissed before lifting the exposed, bleeding injuries to his mouth and messily scraping at them with teeth tinged red, saliva that swirled around. Nausea threatened him already, but it was smothered in the base craving that told him that he needed more. More. Not nearly enough. It was fortunate that Felix hadn’t put up a fight yet.

— —

To say it was a strange sensation would be an understatement. Parker lifted the balam’s bleeding hand to his lips, and no amount of yanking or pulling could free Felix from his grasp. They let out a low whine, fear’s icy grip wrapped so tightly around their chest that they thought they might freeze to death with it. Parker’s mouth was on their hand, was sucking the blood from the wound, and Felix had never been afraid of vampires before, not with everything else the world had taught him to dread, but they were terrified now. They kept their claws in the warden’s arm, but it was like he didn’t even feel it. He was so wholly focused on the bloody hand, so single-minded. Felix felt a little woozy; they weren’t sure if it was a genuine reaction to the blood they were losing, or a psychological response to how they were losing it.

Then, there was another hand on them. Gripping their other wrist, manipulating their clawed fingers. Felix was too shocked to put up much of a fight as Parker dragged their claws down his own arm, was too confused to stop it. Why was he hurting himself? What was the endgame here? The stench of Parker’s blood mingled with the smell of Felix’s, sitting in the alley like a tangible thing. Had they shifted enough to make the smell stronger, or was it really this intense? Even Felix wasn’t sure. Parker’s original victim, the man Felix had stepped in to save, was long gone now; evidently, he’d seen his chance and taken it without a hint of concern for the person who’d stepped in to stop his assault. Felix wasn’t sure whether to feel offended or relieved.

With the claws’ ‘work’ done, Parker turned the deadly weapon on Felix, pushing their own hand towards their chest. Panicked, Felix shifted the hand back to that of a harmless human just as their fingers brushed their t-shirt, heart pounding against their fingertips. They didn’t understand what Parker was doing, what he was after, but they were pretty sure they should stop it. It couldn’t be anything good, could it? 

Shaking the shock from their system, they reached out and grabbed for the warden’s bleeding arm, trying to yank it out of his mouth. “What are you doing? This is — Are you a vampire now? Is that a thing? Don’t be a vampire. It’s bad enough that you’re a warden, you shouldn’t have any more —” They punctuated each word with another harsh yank, pulling desperately without even fully knowing why they wanted to stop this so badly.

— —

The surprise at Felix not scratching themselves was rather brief as what was left of Parker’s rationale could quickly surmise that the shifter seemed to have more control over themselves, at least compared to last time. Human fingers, with no jaguar claws, were pressed against their chest. The Warden let go of the arm, brow twitching slightly, almost seemingly in disappointment as there were no more openings for the shifter’s blood to exit their body and be siphoned into his mouth. At least his own blood was sufficing, terrible though it was, inedible, metallic, foul. Oozing down his esophagus, threatening his gag reflex that he literally swallowed as it was overpowered with the harsh craving. Then Felix placed their hand on his arm again, attempting to separate his mouth from the gashes that wept freely. It could’ve been considered almost comical, the way the balam was pulling on his arm and the way Parker’s head was pulled after it, like someone trying to remove a sucker from the mouth of a child. What was considerably less comical, however, was the way that Parker didn’t move his mouth away from his arm because his teeth were burrowed into the flesh, latching his jaw over the wound that stung meaninglessly. The ache in his back was stronger than he felt either of them were. Eventually though, when the threat of nausea was too high to ignore, Parker did relinquish his mouth’s grip on his arm and it haphazardly slammed against Felix, though not through any force the Warden exerted. Blood flecked the both of them, Felix’ shirt roughly matching the Warden’s now as it was painted with his blood. As that happened, Parker’s gaze became unfocused and his other hand slammed itself over his mouth as his shoulders lurched. “Let go.” He ordered, muffled through his hand. Urgent.

— —

It was like trying to pry something from a dog’s mouth, the way Parker followed his arm with his head. Felix was struck with the mental image of standing tall, of holding Parker up by a rope gripped between his teeth with his feet hanging above the ground like a desperate puppy who couldn’t bear the thought of relinquishing its grasp on its favorite toy. It might have been funny if not for the pounding in the balam’s chest, or the way everything seemed so terrifying now. They’d seen Parker in so many different states — calm and collected during that first alleyway meeting, wild and emotional during the second, and now… whatever this was. And none was any less terrifying than the last. None made the warden seem harmless, none made Felix less afraid.

His jaw was locked onto his own arm, and the fear was so intense even if Felix couldn’t quite understand why. What did he care if Parker gnawed his own arm off? He’d be less harmful without it, less of a threat. But Felix wasn’t someone who liked seeing anyone hurt, even someone they hated. When Parker finally released his jaw, when his arm smacked against Felix’s chest, there was some relief in it.

The warden’s hand went to his mouth, and when he spoke, Felix dropped his arm hesitantly. His claws were out again now; he didn’t remember unsheathing them. “Are you going to puke?” He wasn’t sure if his tone was one of concern or… mild interest. He was confused, curious. What was the intention behind what Parker had done? Why pull his own blood and Felix’s into his mouth when it was clear his stomach wasn’t built for it? He wasn’t a vampire; he couldn’t be. His skin had felt warm when Felix touched it, and his teeth weren’t pointed into fangs. He was still just Parker. And he still didn’t make any sense at all.

— —

If there was any relief to be found in Felix’ adherence to Parker’s instruction, it was quickly brushed aside in favor of the Warden taking a few staggering steps back until he was on the other side of the same dumpster that, in a small, irrational part of his mind, started this whole thing. ‘You know that’s not true.’ Walker said as Parker dipped his head forward and retched. To someone not privy to the events that led them there, it would’ve looked alarming, witnessing the man spewing blood and bile from his stomach as though he’d suffered a traumatic injury to at least one of his internal organs. He assumed it answered Felix’ question, as though his body language didn’t speak for itself sufficiently enough before that point. The alley was splashed with crimson, a mixture of DNA from the shifter and the Warden, making the pavement and wall look like a Pollock painting before he was done and Parker’s chest heaved for breath, eyes watering, a quivering arm placing a palm against the wall in support. He remained there for several moments, taking painfully deep breaths, wondering if the residual pulls of nausea were going to lead to anything else. “Not a vampire.” He finally answered after another few moments; he was done. The Warden, head spinning and gaze blurry from lacrimation, straightened up and took a decidedly more certain step away from the wall. If the balam was looking at him, the hunter opted out of returning the gaze and instead recovered what amount of professionalism he had left, pulling a bandage from one of the pouches of his utility belt and starting to wrap his gashed arm after tending to the blood on his face, cleaning himself up as best he could. He was irritated that this was the third time he’d encountered Felix and some external powers had negatively affected him again, making him look stupid, unpredictable, emotional. It definitely wasn’t vampirism; that might’ve been preferred, if his emotions could be taken so easily. The spot on his back flared up again, as though asking Parker how he dared forget about it; he responded by wincing briefly and he used his wrapping up the injury on his arm as the excuse. “I… don’t know what’s wrong.” He admitted softly, looking at nothing in particular on the wall he faced. “I need to do some research.” There were a couple of ideas in his head but everything was still so new, so unanswered. ‘Obviously.’ “...Apologies. That…” He faltered, his eyes falling as he now looked to the ground. “I’m sorry.” His voice carried something unfamiliar with it, again, as it tended to do when he interacted with Felix though the Warden wasn’t intuitive enough to know what it was. 

— —

Parker was, as it turned out, going to puke. It wasn’t like anything Felix had seen before. They’d seen people throw up blood, courtesy of the Grit Pit, but… not like this. There was something wholly unnatural about the entire thing. Even though it was Parker, there was a part of Felix that almost felt bad for him. It looked uncomfortable, painful, even. But… this was the same man who’d had no sympathy when Felix had begged him not to inject them with that sedative, the same man who would have taken a piece of them if the jaguar hadn’t intervened. And he had done this to himself, hadn’t he? Felix had just watched him sucking his own blood and theirs, and that was what he was vomiting now. It was hard to feel too bad for him, in spite of how pathetic the whole show was. 

“No,” Felix agreed hesitantly, “vampires don’t usually do that.” Parker wasn’t a threat at the moment, but when he took a step forward, Felix took a step back anyway. Their heart was still pounding, even if the warden looked like a strong gust of wind would probably take him out. They knew part of them would always be afraid of this man, just like part of them would always be afraid of Leo or their father. But, unlike with the latter two, there was no conflict to that fear. No fondness, no guilt for being afraid. In a lot of ways, there was something like relief in that. To have a fear that was uncomplicated, that made sense. Felix liked that better.

Though it was still a little hard to be afraid at the moment. Parker looked kind of pitiful, kind of sad. Felix reminded themself of the man who’d been here before, the one Parker probably would have killed if they hadn’t stepped in. And of Teagan, and of themself in an alley just like this one. They set their jaw, crossed their arms over their chest. “I’m not letting you leave until I know you’re not going to hurt anybody else,” they said, voice sounding stronger and more authoritative than they felt.

— —

The churning of his stomach as it held the last traces of nausea turned into a ripple of irritation as Felix still stood there, before him, pretending like they were in control or that there was something that they could do to actually stop whatever the Warden was going to do, if anything. Watering blue eyes narrowed and found Felix’ face once more. “Then you might need to accompany me and ensure that no one needlessly starts an altercation.” Parker replied rather shortly, popping his neck as he spoke. “You think I just… go around starting fights?” He asked, drawing himself up to his full height once more, though one of his hands still clenched his stomach. “That one–” His other hand pointed to the ground where the man was lying helplessly until the balam decided to get involved. “Started it.” There was a ragged exhale but Parker kept himself steady, feeling the knot on his back starting to pulse again. The alley was hot. His face was dirty, his arm was thudding with a dull, deep pain. He breathed deeply again. And again, but more shallow. It wasn’t supposed to be shallow. He wasn’t supposed to get emotional. But it seemed so difficult sometimes. As though there was something just under his skull, scratching at him when everything got too noisy. And Felix or… the Jaguar, or whichever it was, could probably pick up on that emotion. That weakness. So Parker willed his breathing to steady itself once more, though not without some visible heaving of his chest as he tried to get enough oxygen to make each breath worth it. “I try not to hurt anyone in general.” He added, keeping his steely stare on Felix now. “And you can call it what you want but I never had any intention of hurting you. Not then, not the second time. Not now.” 

— —

The idea of ‘accompanying’ Parker anywhere made Felix feel beyond uneasy, but wasn’t it a better alternative than allowing him to hurt anyone else? At least Felix could defend themself. Their eyes darted briefly to the scar on the warden’s face, then the wound on his arm which was no longer bleeding now that he’d sucked most of his own blood from the location. Mind made up, the balam set their jaw in a stubborn line. “Okay,” they said. “Where are you going?”

In spite of their stubborn resolve, it was hard not to shrink back when Parker rose to full height, hands clenched into fists. Was it fear or anger that had their heart pounding in their chest? Both, maybe. A quiet marriage of the two, inseparably woven together. “You were about to kill him,” Felix replied, and they were a little proud of the way the anger shone through above the fear. “It stopped being self defense pretty quickly, if it was ever that to begin with.”

There was emotion dancing over Parker’s face. It was so unlike it had been the first time they’d met in an alley, when he’d been almost robotic in the way he’d treated them, or the first time they’d ever come into contact with one another on the college campus. Their second alleyway altercation came to mind, when something was off with the warden. Was this something that happened often, then? Which was the norm — the emotionless mask, or the poorly contained fury? It was impossible for Felix to know. But when Parker spoke, when he claimed he didn’t hurt people, the balam let out a shocked laugh. “Are you serious? You — You tried to cut a piece off of me. You have cut pieces off of other people. Do you think that doesn’t hurt? Do you think we don’t feel? Do you think drugging people against their will makes it better, somehow? You can’t be that stupid.” 

— —

There were too many conversations happening again. Parker couldn’t have been sure that it was because of him but as Felix started their supposedly-righteous counter-argument pertaining to pain, the Warden became very still. It might’ve been easier to say that everything the balam said had entered one deaf ear and either never made it through the auditory process, dying before it could or if it did pass through, it was with no additional thought or concern. ‘This is why you kill things, boy.’ His father looked into his blue eyes as the latter sat on the ground. Nearby was the fresh corpse of an anthousa, a broad iron knife protruding from its neck and two wings haphazardly splayed on the ground, one of which was torn during a scuffle. ‘You leave them alive, they come back then they treat you like the monster they think you are. ‘They don’t care about you.’ His father continued as Parker wordlessly let his eyes drift around the environment, his fingers digging into the earth as he was certain it was underneath him. The torn wings, the smell of ironless blood. ‘You ain’t a person to them so don’t treat them like they’re people back.’ The Warden blinked slowly and as he regarded Felix, the last vestiges of emotion left his face. “Perhaps I am that stupid.” He replied, his tone soft, almost gentle in a way that might’ve fit Parker had he not looked and acted the way he did. “Anesthetics, cauterization. Ensuring that the process goes quickly and efficiently… Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been too soft.” The way he spoke was almost musing, as though Felix weren’t there at all. Absently, Parker brought up his left hand and his fingers grazed over the healed spot where his pinky was missing, where it had been taken without any of those benefits. It’d been cut from him by a man who didn’t appreciate it, someone who wasn’t like him. Parker could still feel every millisecond of that pain. Felix was right, weren’t they? What good had making sure fae, nonhumans and whatever else were unconscious and unable to feel the process done? ‘You know the answer to that one.’ “I’m going to test this theory.” He said, icy blue eyes snapping back onto Felix. “But somehow I have a feeling that they’d much rather have been sedated beforehand.” A slight tilt to his head. “Maybe they’ll ask why, as they’re fully conscious when I tear their wings off. And I can say ‘a little kitty cat told me that it doesn’t make it better’.” Torture brought Parker no sense of satisfaction; that was largely why he didn’t do it. He didn’t like perpetuating fights, he didn’t like dragging conflicts out. The longer a fight wore on, the less proficient he felt at his job. The screams of pain, the cries of surprise, fear, terror, the wild look in the eye of a monster desperate to live and, up until that point, completely unaware that they were mortal, none of it was appreciated by the Warden. Torture was Walker and their father. Murder was his family. He was a failure, but that didn’t mean he always had to be. His eyes flickered to the corner where he had retched. He felt the ache on his back; how he longed to remove that without any anesthesia, to pull whatever it was out and feel it leaving his body. What a sense of relief he was being denied. Maybe that was how he could’ve been perceiving it all these years. What a waste. “I’m going to the… pharmacy. Then I’m going home.” He replied, returning to his blunt tone abruptly; gone was the dreamlike cadence, the wispy contemplative longing. “You may accompany me to the pharmacy. You’re not going to my house.” 

— —

Too soft? Was that really what he got out of the outburst? It was beyond frustrating. Felix felt as if he wasn’t being listened to at all, as if anything he said would become some excuse for Parker to act as a worse monster and push the reasoning off on someone else. They thought of their father, of the years and years of bodies piled up outside the cabin. They thought of the Grit Pit, and the blood that stained the floor of the ring in the interest of lining someone’s pocket. Didn’t everyone have some excuse for the terrible things they did, some way of making it not their fault? It meant nothing to the people who were affected. Felix thought of Teagan, of how thoroughly she ached. They thought of themself, of the way they still sometimes woke up in a cold sweat just thinking about that alley where something had only almost happened. How many nightmares did Parker feature in? How many atrocities had he excused himself from because he went about them in a way he had decided was acceptable? 

“That’s not what it’s about!” They’d never been particularly good at raising their voice, but it bounced off the walls of the alley now, so much louder than it normally was. “It’s not about whether they’re conscious or not! It’s not about whether or not you drug them. It’s about you — deciding that you have some right to other people’s bodies because you want it. God, do you even realize how fucked up that is? You don’t have to do any of the shit you do! You don’t have to cut pieces off people — because they are people, we are people — just because you feel like it. You could just — leave people the hell alone! That’s an option for you! A pretty — a really easy one, actually! It’s a lot easier to not cut pieces off of people than it is to do it! Most people do that every day!”

Their hands shook. Their chest ached, their breath came in sharp gasps. You get too worked up, Leo used to say. It’s embarrassing. Aren’t you humiliated by it? And normally, Felix might have been. They might have felt ashamed, might have felt stupid. But right now, they were confident. This was an easy one. The bad guy was pretty easily identifiable as the man who thought it was his right, somehow, to take pieces of other people’s bodies for himself for no reason beyond desire. As if he deserved those appendages more than the people who had been born with them, who had grown them themselves with their own bodies. 

The idea of going anywhere with Parker, even to ensure he hurt no one else, was suddenly overwhelming. “Or you go home,” Felix countered, “and if I find out you hurt anyone else, I’ll claw your throat out myself. I swear. I swear I will.” They didn’t make threats often. In fact, they thought this might have been the first time they ever made one at all. Violence wasn’t a thing Felix understood well, and it certainly wasn’t a thing they enjoyed. Every drop of blood they spilled was a thing they desperately wanted not to do. It didn’t make it okay — nothing ever made hurting someone okay — but it wasn’t a thing they relished in. Not like this man, who seemed to think losing a piece of yourself caused no pain of any sort, who hurt people constantly and told himself he didn’t. Did he keep trophies, Felix wondered? Did he have some basement somewhere with taxidermied tails and pressed wings that had once belonged to people? The very thought of it made the balam sick to their stomach. 

“I — I know you think I’m stupid. I know a lot of people do. But if you really think like this, if you really think there’s any excuse for the things you’ve done, if you — if you think any of it is okay? Then you’re the stupid one.”

— —

A lot of information was sent his way and, without changing his expression, Parker contemplated everything that was said, most of it brief but all of it having been carefully combed through. ‘You’re wasting your time.’ He knew. He knew he was wasting his time by thinking through every point that Felix had thrown at him, as though any of it mattered, as though Felix could’ve thought for a second that anything they said mattered to him. 

“You have no idea what I think.” He replied after a lengthy pause, the uncomfortable expanse of silence punctuated only by Parker’s breath catching in his throat as he felt another spike of nausea urging him to dry heave, causing his grip on his stomach to tighten. Instead, he spit out a mixture of blood and saliva and inhaled slowly, an unintentionally ragged thing as it weaved itself through the webs of phlegm, cells and mucous in his esophagus. “It’s very easy to cast judgment on someone else when your violence can be excused by a promise, isn’t it.” The Warden should’ve been sneering condescendingly as he said this, with a half-grin on his face that showed teeth slicked with blood that lingered in his mouth. 

He wasn’t. 

No, as Parker spoke, his voice was devoid. He had been given enough time to sufficiently suppress whatever he could’ve been feeling, which was effectively an assault on his ideology. His father called him a failure because he didn’t kill his prey. Walker shredded part of his collection, yelling at him, frustratingly asking him why he couldn’t have been normal. The balam that stood before him, so arrogant and sure that they were morally superior despite housing the spirit of a jungle cat who either acted on instinct or he played with his food, which either made the jaguar mindless except for directive or equally as bad as whatever Felix perceived Parker to be. 

“All of your points have been acknowledged.” That was the first part. “Some of them might even be legitimate.” The second part, after which came a short pause and a steely-eyed glare at the balam. “However, they change nothing. Nothing you said means anything to me.” Parker regarded his torn Henley and the smeared remnants of Felix’ bloodied handprint on it, opting to roll up his sleeves in an attempt to look as put-together as possible as he readied himself to leave this interaction. He was done here. “You are stupid. You’re a hypocrite. And you’re wasting your time.” His tone now took a professional edge to it, seemingly as though he were talking about a business transaction as he cleaned himself up. The crimson-stained handkerchief he had initially used to wipe the blood from his face was neatly folded as he attempted to remove the rest of the sticky fluid. “Nothing will change.”

The Warden wanted to continue. Teagen would keep killing humans and Felix would allow her to because in their mind, that’s likely been “justified”. Felix would continue fighting in the Grit Pit because their hearing was better than their listening. Or their critical thinking skills weren’t great. Could’ve been both. Emilio would continue to pursue him because of one thing he’d done, Burrow would keep using him for her personal benefit. And Parker would keep doing what he was doing because he had to. It didn’t matter if it was right or wrong. He wanted to say that Felix wasn’t the only one who struggled with control but that, like everything else that remained unsaid, everything else that stayed securely in the Warden’s head, was a waste of time. 

‘They don’t care about you.’ The knot in his back pulled on the nerve endings in his back and Parker resisted the urge to wince. “If I never meet you in an alley again, it’ll be too soon.”

— —

“I’m not making excuses for myself,” Felix replied, “but this isn’t about me.” They knew that what they did in the Grit Pit was wrong. Did it matter if they never would have done it without the contract binding them? They were still doing it. There was still blood on their hands; it didn’t matter how it got there. But even so, there was an undeniable difference between Felix and Parker. Felix took no joy in what they did, felt terrible about the people they hurt. And Parker? He’d deluded himself so thoroughly that he seemed to be at least capable of pretending to believe he wasn’t hurting anyone at all. Felix would rather be like this. It was better, he thought, to drown in guilt than to be completely devoid of it. 

Even now, it was clear that nothing he said would get through. Was it because Parker viewed them as something less than human? Was his ego so large that he genuinely thought himself above anyone who wasn’t human simply because of the way they were born or otherwise became what they were? If monsters existed, Felix thought, they didn’t look like balam or werewolves or even fae. They looked a lot more like Parker, who somehow believed he was owed pieces of living people simply because he desired those pieces. 

So there was no surprise when Parker acknowledged that nothing would change. For all his self-assigned superiority, the warden was incapable of the one thing necessary for actually being above anyone or anything — the ability to improve. He was a stagnant thing, so steadfast in his beliefs that he refused to bend to anyone else’s. Felix wondered if he thought of it as a positive quality. Was he capable of self reflection at all? They wanted to think that everyone was, but… Hadn’t Parker proven the adverse time and time again? 

“Maybe I am stupid. But I’d rather be that than whatever it is you think you are. Better to be stupid than to be cruel.” Maybe they were a hypocrite, but at least they were capable of acknowledging their flaws. At least they could admit to it, could improve upon it. As long as they were capable of that, there was still hope. Evolution was possible only as long as you allowed yourself to evolve. And Felix would. Felix always would. 

He stepped aside, motioning that he’d allow Parker to pass. “I meant what I said,” they stated, trying to keep their voice stern and cold. They halfway managed. Not completely, but enough to satisfy. “If I ever find you hurting someone else again, I’m not going to leave you with just a scar. I mean that.” They were surprised to find that they did. It took a lot for Felix to reach their limit, but Parker had found it. It was almost impressive. 

“I hope I never see you again.” For both their sakes.

[existentialmagazine]

Review: The Rocket Summer’s newest single ‘Don’t Be Yourself’ carries acoustic softness and a fierce, building sound in unison for something epic

Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, Bryce Avary, or better known as The Rocket Summer, has been a musical force since his teens. With several album releases, charting hits and worldwide performances, he’s made it known he has what it takes to create music alike no other. Sharing stages with artists such as Paramore, Goo Goo Dolls, Onerepublic, Switchfoot, Third Eye Blind, All Time Low and more, it’s no surprise his work has connected with audiences spanning genres left and right.

Reminiscent of artists like Never Shout Never, The Rocket Summer’s newest single ‘Don’t Be Yourself’ is a paired-back anthem intended to pick you up and engrain some of life’s most important messages inside of you when you need them the most. While the title might have you believing otherwise, the finger-picked acoustic guitar that leads things is sure to set you up with the knowledge that ‘Don’t Be Yourself’ is about nothing other than sincerity and introspection. As every string rings out with such strength and vibrancy behind it, you can’t help but feel the infectious confidence behind the performance, even when the sound is held back for an emotive introduction of sorts. Paired just with rich vocals in a soundscape so vast and yet empty, you can’t ignore what it is that Rocket Summer has to say, carrying emotion through every raspy line and fluctuating high and low that embraces staying true to yourself.

The lyrics are just as thoughtfully crafted to match, delivering a reminder we all often need: ‘don’t be yourself in a million years, be yourself right here.’ As we all often make decisions to hide parts of ourselves, determined to wait to find those that accept us for our true selves, The Rocket Summer preaches that you don’t have time to wait with falsities and facades when you should be living your life authentically for you. While the sound carries a tenderness to it, the words are nothing but radiant in contrast, showcasing the power that intimacy and truthfulness can bring even if it means bringing down your walls and becoming vulnerable. How could you possibly feel anything other than filled with joy as The Rocket Summer sings that ‘mistakes you might make, contemplate, but do not stay there’, allowing you the grace to feel but the much-needed push to strive forward with the changes you can make moving on. Through further lines like ‘you’re just gonna let your fears take all of your years’ , it’s like The Rocket Summer nudges you from your bubble “safety” and reinstates the finite nature of life, your limited days that you need to grab at full force and live to the fullest as yourself.

The sound slowly but surely grows in intensity, akin to the experience of building your confidence and accepting who you are as all that matters. With the riffs developing to be more strong-handed, and a more prominent echo to their every vigorous pluck, ‘Don’t Be Yourself’ slowly starts to consume you and there’s really no desire to make it stop. The following chorus erupts into the most mesmerising peak of all though, glowing with drums and cymbals that begin to seep through the sound with a dominance that’s loud and booming, but a brightness you always hold near and dear. Cello and mandolin also simmer throughout, littering an orchestral touch that adds an aching to the most poignant of lines like: ‘it strikes me what it’s seen, the beauty and the screams, the weddings and the funerals, new life, the best, the worst.’

By the time it’s coming to a close, ‘Don’t Be Yourself’ will have you covered in goosebumps, taking in a deep breath to process it all. From the beginning’s softness, to the absolute in-your-face volume that thrusts the narrative unavoidably your way by the end, there’s not a single second you won’t be completely enthralled by how this song will develop, what you’ll learn, and the unbeatable sense of strength and empowerment you’ll carry forever more. Just listen for yourself here, once you’ve heard it, you’ll know why nothing else can ever come close.

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Unknown

// This coverage was supported and created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator.

[cheerstofandomfamily]

Well it's officially been 15 hours since I began realizing that my hopes were about to be crushed, and my fears would become reality.

I stepped away from Supernatural earlier in season 15 because I knew the only ending to this show would be death for at least one brother. I knew that for my mental health I needed a break, or to step away entirely, from Tumblr and from the show. It was consuming me, and I was letting it.

I didn't think Destiel would ever happen. I had made my peace with that, and I left the show during a time where not a lot of drama was happening. It worked, and I was able to continue loving Destiel through fan fiction, and occasional moments that I would later on see on Tumblr.

Then 15x18 happened. And the whole world exploded in rainbows and black goo. And I said to myself, "Well if they're going to let THIS happen, then it might soften the blow of seeing one of my boys die a perma death."

It did not.

Supernatural, I cried myself to sleep last night. And I'm crying again writing this post, because you took my hope, gave me a HEARTBREAKING death scene, and then NOTHING to tape my heart back up again.

To Jared & Jensen - you performed the most emotional scene I have seen in an incredibly long time. And I applaud you for it. I'm mad at how it went down, but I give you credit for making me feel feelings.

To Misha - you deserved better than to be an extra they had to cut due to covid. I'm devastated for you.

To the Supernatural fandom - I don't know what I'll do without you guys now. I truly cannot grasp the reality that I'll never be able to analyze another gif set, or image of Dean's bedroom, or wonder if Sammy is going to get hit in the head again. I'll never see green and blue the same. I'll never be able to listen to Carry On My Wayward Son the same, if at all. I'll never hear the words "you changed me" again without wanting to punch something.

To the friends, and mutuals I was interacting with and had to step away from - I'm truly sorry that we have been so misled by the story. I've enjoyed the last two weeks immensely, and can't put into words how much I will miss this. (Alphabetically tagging a few specifics that have been either on my mind or in my notifications recently, but there are SO many of you that I will miss dearly.) @amyoatmeal @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @emblue-sparks @legendary-destiel @madimoo31 @mmangoss @mrsaquaman187 @savannadarkbaby @savemecastiel @shippsblog @spn-bitchh @spnjohnlocked @verobatto-angelxhunter @weird-dorky-little-d

Each and every one of you has made this experience so meaningful. You asked what about all this was real? What the point was? We are.

To the writers - I have no words. I know you did what you thought would be a great ending, and maybe I'll look back in another 15 years and be at peace with it.. there were some good moments, but for me I will always remember what was missing.

I understand now. You were the Empty and WE were Castiel. The moment we let ourselves be happy, you came for us. The moment we FORGOT and let the sun shine on our faces, you brought us to nothing. And then left us to burn with our regrets.

I suppose I should thank you for letting me see Sam shirtless one last time, but then you destroyed that with a stupid wig too. I should thank you for the fact that Cas was in heaven and was able to fix it with Jack, and spend eternity as TFW after all, but we didn't even get more than an eyebrow raise and half a smile. You couldn't have used his voice in this episode instead of 15x19? Now I'm mad about Lucifer again. I will never be over the fact that you thought we'd want to see him again, instead of literally any other character.

I'm ENRAGED. That you took my Sammy, and all his character growth, and leadership development, and said "the only peace for him is if everyone he loves is taken from him and is left with only one path in life, and that's the apple pie life where he can grow old and have a kid" WHAT.

I might add more later, I don't know. Right now I am sick with grief over this finale. I know I can't look at it objectively, I know a lot of people out there did enjoy it. I am not one of those people. And I knew better.

[cringelordlikesplaz]

Ocean’s Eternity

So. I’ve been thinking about the end of Obsidian Age a little too much. Basically this is the 3000 years Plastic Man spent on the bottom of the ocean. I might do a follow up to this later.

When he woke, everything was dark. There was a sensation throughout his body which felt like suffocation, and there was this... itch. All over. But it was mild. It wasn't important compared to the other, more pressing matter at hand.

He couldn't move. He couldn't see. He couldn't feel or hear or smell or taste or do anything.

Well, that's not true.

He could wait.

~~~

He was on the ocean floor, this much he knew.

~~~

He wasn't being saved. After waiting for however long he'd waited, that was becoming clear. His team was most likely all dead. That was the only scenario he could see where they didn't save him. 

He was in the thick of it, that was for sure.

~~~

He was going to be stuck for a long, long time.

~~~

He mourned for his team. He would have cried if he'd had eyes, but he didn't. Not like the ocean needed any more salt water. He mourned for a lot longer than he should have, honestly. But it wasn't like there was anything else to do but sit there and be sorry.

What finally got him to stop, however, was the fact that they all probably went somewhere nice. Excuse his pun, but there was no way in Hell that the Justice League didn't go to heaven.

~~~

This couldn't be fixed.

~~~

He wasn't sure how long he'd been there. It had been a long while.

He'd taken to counting the seconds, unsure if he was anywhere near correct. No one really concerned themselves so much if the space between beats were too long or short enough. Maybe the Flash, actually. But even he didn't count the seconds.

Or maybe he did. He didn't know. He couldn't ask.

He was going crazy.

He was going very, very crazy.

He knew this. He was pretty sure crazy people weren't supposed to be so aware of their craziness. But when you are aware of nothing else but your mind, he supposed you had to be self aware.

~~~

Every once in a while, he'd have something happen to him that felt like a seizure. It was painful and sudden and sharp and he begged any gods that would listen to let him be. And maybe something out there listened. Maybe something took pity on this wretched thing on the bottom of the sea because when the seizure ended, he'd black out.

Peaceful oblivion.

~~~

He was mad. In more than one way, he was mad. He was pissed, would be the more correct term in this situation. He was mad at his team. At the Justice League. He was so, so angry. How dare they. How dare they?!

They talked shit about him. Sometimes behind his back. Sometimes to his face. They never gave him an ounce of respect. They never gave a damn.

And then they had the audacity to die and leave him there, on the bottom of the sea. Forever. With nothing to do but count the seconds which was probably wrong now that he was so worked up. Great job, Justice League, you made me lose count!

He fumed and raged and plotted and didn't scream because he had no mouth.

~~~ 

The itching was bad. It was really, really bad. It was so, so bad. It was the only thing he could feel. It was consuming every memory of every other sensation. He didn't remember what sunshine felt like, or the rain. He couldn't even feel the coldness or the water or the pressure that was certainly around him.

He could only feel that damned itching.

He hated it. He hated it so much. 

He wanted to turn into a monster and rake his claws across the Earth, he wanted to pull up the land and have magma flow out like the world's life blood. He wanted to shriek and yell and cry and tear his brain out of his skull and slam it into the center of their planet and then maybe- just maybe- he could finally die.

Or maybe he'd infect the planet with his strange body, and then the world and everyone on it would know his pain, know this madness that crawled like a million spiders made of razor blades just under skin that wasn't there.

~~~

His dreams offered no reprieve. His dreams were too lucid, nowadays. Too much time alone in your head would make you a master at your subconscious, he supposed. Except he was still very very very crazy, and so he wasn't quite a master at anything.

But sometimes- sometimes.... his dreams weren't lucid. Maybe he wasn't even asleep when he dreamed, anymore. Maybe it didn't matter. But sometimes, his mind finally calmed, the insanity put away for a few hours, minutes, seconds, all would be soft.

His dreams, the not-lucid ones, whether he was awake or not, had a common theme.

He would be spending time with his son. Whose face, despite so much time alone and insane and in pain on the bottom of the sea, had remained clear as day.

He would be holding someone's hand, and despite how he can't remember the warmth of the sun or a fireplace or a hug, would be warm anyway.

He would be smiling, calm, and happy. He wouldn't be so alone.

When he woke, the madness usually got worse.

~~~

He was no longer mad at the Justice League. He'd finally calmed down. He was still mad, he was certain of that, but that was in the sense that he was insane. He was no longer angry at his old, dead team.

Because rational thought, something he thought had died within him, had found a way to resurrect itself. Like some shambling zombie, it crawled its way up from the bottom of his soul and started to whisper facts to him.

And he was so, so tired of being mad.

They didn't put him here. They would save him, if they were alive. They'd pull him from the depths of this dark Hell and they'd put him back together, piece by piece. They would take away the pain and the darkness and they'd give him back his sunshine and his family and his heart.

Because they were the Justice League. And they were good. 

He mourned for them again, because they deserved to be remembered, even if the only thing that could remember them was the dust at the bottom of the world.

~~~

He was no longer mad. Probably. He wasn't in the best position to tell, honestly. Oh, and he means mad in the sense of insanity, this time.

He was no longer crazy.

It lost its appeal, strangely enough. If he was correct with his counting, it had been around a thousand years. Maybe more, maybe less. Maybe he was completely off. It didn't matter. 

What mattered was that, even though he was sane -saner- his mind was still a wreck. In the expanse of his mind, he stood, hands on his hips. He surveyed the damage. Memories shredded, emotions lost, fear and despair and loneliness on a rampage.

He cracked his metaphorical knuckles.

It was time to start picking up the pieces.

~~~

Slowly, very slowly, he pieced together his memories. Some were beyond repair. He tried to fix them anyway. With patience and care and all the time in the world, he glued his old life back together. His name was Plastic Man, Eel O'Brian, Patrick. Huh.

He was a thief. A hero. A father. 

He had a son. He remembered his son. He never forgot his son, despite it all. But his son's memory did get warped- he'd have to smooth that out.

But, he noted with no small amount of pride, he'd remembered his son's face. Not his height or his age or his voice, but he remembered his face. 

He also remembered that he wasn't a very good father. That came with much less pride.

~~~

In the wake of his madness came clarity. Acceptance. He made his peace with his eternal damnation. Some sort of thousand-year long five-stages-of-grief thing. With a lot more insanity than was usually recommended.

He wasn't going to lie to himself: it sucked. There was nothing good about his situation. But there was nothing he could do, and going mad had only made things worse.

In the wake of his madness came clarity, and with clarity came the realization that he was lonely. Eternally so. He was lonely and regretful and sad. He had so many things he wanted to do. So many places to go, people to see. He had wanted so much.

He didn't know if he deserved it.

He probably did.

~~~

So he was probably still a little bit crazy. Not like before. He was, what he considered, a healthy amount of crazy. 

Just enough to pass the time. Talking to yourself was never considered 'sane' anyway. 

~~~

He was still counting the seconds. It helped things stay in order. He was counting in his dreams, in the deepest part of his subconscious, he counted. He had built quite the internal clock for himself, it seemed.

~~~

Sometimes, he'd stop for a while. Not counting, of course. He had probably forgotten how to stop counting. But everything else. Sometimes, everything else would stop.

His mind would be ever so slow, and nothing truly mattered in those moments. He simply existed, pieces of plastic on the ocean floor.

And it would take a while to come back. He didn't really want to go back, but he always did. And when he did, he'd laugh.

He was plastic in the ocean. He'd been polluting the waters before plastic had even been invented.

It wasn't very funny, but he'd laugh anyway.

~~~

He was in the middle of replaying a baseball game in his mind for the nth time when something happened. Another seizure. Hadn't had one of those in a while.

But something- something was off. It-

He woke up. 

~~~

His thoughts were sluggish. There was- noises and- lights? Pressure. He must have really gone off the deep end now.

And he felt like a pile of mush- of goo or slime- and-

And the itching wasn't there.

The itching was always there.

And he could move.

He may have freaked out a little bit.

~~~

"Plastic Man, you need to calm down!" Superman yelled.

He snarled, "Don't tell me what to do! You're not even real!" 

"We are real! Please, we need you to listen to us-" Martian Manhunter was cut off as he wrenched up a metal panel from the floor and chucked it at him. It phased through the martian, of course, but it did seem to surprise the green guy. His hallucination was very convincing, he'd admit.

The sensations being too loud and painful and too much. The light too bright, the air too fresh. He didn't even know he'd remembered how to breathe.

Suddenly, Superman was in front of his face and was- well he was petting him. It was kinda weird.

But- but his hands were warm. Not only that they had- they had texture and he could feel how tense Superman was, but as the seconds passed and he calmed, so did the tension leave Superman's hands.

"Oh." He whispered. He reached up and took Superman's hand, inspecting it. It was strong, like steel, and he could feel a pulse beat just beneath the skin.

"Oh." He said, interlocking his fingers with Superman's. He gave a light squeeze and Superman squeezed back. He looked up at the man of steel, noticing for the first time he'd shrunken back down into a reasonable size.

A pressure was draped across his back- A black cape had been wrapped around him. He looked over to see Batman kneeling beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He touched the cape on his shoulders- it was heavy and thick and made of something smooth on one side and soft on the other. 

He dragged his fingers across it, reveling in the sensations.

Martian Manhunter was there too, now, and he reached out and gently touched the martian’s face. J'onn allowed him to do that, his eyes shut.

"Oh wow," He said, his voice strange to his own ears.

"...Is this real?" He asked, finally pulling away to look at his hands. They were melted slightly. His entire form was melted slightly. He was also naked. He hadn't even noticed. No wonder Batman covered him up.

"Yes." Batman said, his grip tightening like he could convince him through sheer force of will. Maybe he could.

"...Oh," He said, letting his hands fall.

He swallowed.

"Oh my God." He said, his voice cracking. He buried his head in his hands, feeling his body melt even further.

Someone hugged him. He wasn't sure who. He rested his chin on their shoulder. They put their arms around him and somehow that helped his body stay stable.

And everything was still too much and too close but it was real. It was real. 

He was back.

The Justice League saved him.

~~~

He knocked on the door. He stood there, anxious. The sky was dark. It was dusk. Clouds covered up the sunset. Smog was in the air. Cars drove in the street and the wind howled overhead.

He couldn't stop staring at it all. It was real. It was real. Real in a way he'd forgotten. Real in a way his mind couldn't replicate, not in 3000 years. Though it had come very, very close.

The door opened.

"Patrick," Angel greeted, "How nice to see-"

She paused, taking him in.

"Did something-?"

"Yes." He said, his voice hoarse.

She opened the door for him, and he stepped inside.

"Where's Luke?" He asked.

"Living room." she said, "Come."

Their apartment was small. But not too small. 

Luke sat on the couch, cartoons playing on the TV.

"Dad?" Luke said, brightening. He jumped up from the couch and hugged him tight. He returned the hug, stretching his arms out of his sleeves and holding his son close.

"Dad!" Luke said, pulling away, "You're back!" 

"Yes." He said, "And I'm here to stay."

He turned to look at Angel.

"If that's alright...?"

"Of course." She said, smiling softly, "But I'm going to need help around the house."

He smiled at her, and nodded.

"Dad?" Luke said, weary, "What happened? You and the Justice League saved the day, right?"

"Yeah, Luke. We did." He said, "But I'm not a part of the Justice League anymore."

There was a pause. Angel sat down in a chair.

"Did they kick you out...?" Luke asked.

"No, son, they didn't. I didn't do anything wrong, either. I just-" He choked back a sob, "I can't go back."

Luke hugged him tighter.

"I love you, Luke. With all my heart." He said, failing to keep the tears at bay.

Luke nodded into his chest. He thought he could feel his shirt getting wet.

"So I'm going to stop being Plastic Man."

[nettlestonenell]

(above, an unpopular opinion?--if so, the first of many)

The King: Eternal Monarch Catches Plenty of Hate Online Why That Is, And Why You Should Ignore It Part I

(to be posted in several parts, spoilers possible, but will be limited)

Subjects of the Kingdom, Citizens of the Republic, and (as always) Gentle Readers:

If you’ve spent any amount of time searching The King: Eternal Monarch, Lee Min Ho, Kim Go Eun, or various other adjacent topics online since 2020, the fact that Kdrama The King: Eternal Monarch is more likely to be associated with negative coverage rather than positive, is far from news to you.

Just the other day, @dumbassdictionarysds popped into my DMs and asked if I might have a post in me to explain what I thought the roots of this heated rejection of the show might be.

“I was thinking of making a video on TKEM and its criticisms and why people didn't like it and why I liked it,” they wrote, “I would really appreciate if you could give some insight into what common criticisms you saw and what you thought of them.” 

It should come as no surprise at this point that, as someone showed up wanting to talk about--and hear about--TKEM that my responding was an absolute no-brainer, and a welcome moment of elation.

As we dive in, let me give two (sorta three) shout-outs to places I’ve read meta for TKEM, whose thoughts on the matter and the show have no doubt helped shaped my own opinions and understanding of it: bitchesoverdramas.com and thefangirlverdict.com, with a nod to TKEM’s Wikipedia page as well. For the record (because it seems it might prove germane here) I am neither Korean nor have I/do I live in Korea (nor the Kingdom of Corea, for that matter).

Okay. Many people (perhaps most people?—at least online fan people) really, really have issues with TKEM. Writer Kim Eun Sook’s shows, while generally well received by fandom and critics, are no strangers to occasional controversy-- particularly of her two most recent dramas available through Netflix, Mr. Sunshine and The King: Eternal Monarch. 

Research seems to show that KES tends toward being something of a polarizing figure in fandom. Those that love her don’t just love her a little, but will die on this hill, and those who dislike what she does can really, really, REALLY, not stand it (and are also ready to die on that hill). 

That’s a lot of people camped out, ready to die on their respective hills. For every person that thinks Goblin is the greatest kdrama ever filmed, there is a person ready and waiting to dismember Heirs’ Kim Tan.

No one should be surprised that KES’ new show would prove polarizing.

So let’s get down to business. Why all the hate?

Expectations Deliberately and Consistently Subverted

Was this Lee Min Ho’s Regarding Henry-moment?

WRT TKEM, let’s start with the elephant/top star in the room: stratospheric Hallyu star Lee Min Ho’s return to viewers’ screens following his two year absence due to mandatory military service (and removal from public life). 

There is a weight added, then, to fans’ expectations for the show. It’s not just LMH’s next project, it becomes his MOST IMPORTANT project, his ONLY new project. (Since 2016′s The Legend of the Blue Sea, I believe).

Don’t ask me to react to this photo. I’ve been processing its existence for months now, no conclusions to share yet in sight.

These are fans of Boys Over Flowers’ Goo Joon Pyo, of Heirs’ (also by KES) Kim Tan. These are die-hard viewers who know how they like to consume their LMH on-screen. But KES (and LMH, b/c he’s actually spoken directly to this) aren’t interested in handing out on-brand LMH anymore. Therefore, his Corean King/Emperor Lee Gon is much more in line with the mature, controlled, focused and kind Joseon magistrate Dam Ryeong (from The Legend of the Blue Sea) than the out-of-touch disaster boy chaebols like GJP and KT that rocketed him to global stardom and notoriety.

For instance, TKEM has its hero Lee Gon (LMH) experiencing an epiphany moment of actually understanding and feeling deep empathy for what the female lead is going through—an understanding and an emotion that that utterly evades both GJP and KT (and let’s face it, the majority of kdrama male leads) throughout their entire series.

Do people perhaps hate on LMH in TKEM just as they hated Harrison Ford’s attempt in Regarding Henry to choose projects that artistically interested and challenged him but were found NOT to interest movie goers that rather wanted to see (what they expected from) “a Harrison Ford film”? Is it that viewers wanted to watch (what they expected from) a LMH kdrama?

Had the character of Lee Gon been written and performed as more of a GJP-role would the show’s reception have been more robust and less controversial?

Thankfully, for this viewer, we’ll never have to know.

You cannot truly address LMH’s return to screens without bringing up TKEM episode one, and the way the writing chose to handle what surely had been incredibly hyped in Korean media (LMH’s return). 

Does LMH storm the screen in the first moments, triumphant? Is his face the first thing we see? Not even close. The show begins in a muddle for viewers, not sure where we are or what’s going on. And then it…doesn’t do much to clear that up. [more on that in a later section] 

Essentially, the show begins in a police interrogation room, during a scene that actually takes place in the penultimate episode of the show. It then proceeds to a seminal event that happened 25 years BEFORE the main timeframe the show operates in. 

Neither of these things involve a visible LMH. IN FACT, it is more than 37 minutes into the first episode before he’s acting on-screen. [Yes, I know he’s shown in a 10 second lightning flash right before the show’s 4 minute mark—but that’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, and barely even counts as an amuse-bouche.]

When we do see LMH as the grown Lee Gon (a child actor having portrayed him for the prior 37 minutes), if a viewer is holding entitled golden boys GJP and KT in their mind, it changes their potential reading of Lee Gon’s entire introduction to us as king. The humorous sniping between him and Court Lady Noh over getting married and producing an heir might take on a (misinterpreted) nasty edge, if one is predisposed to expect LMH to portray an temper-tantrum-throwing male character of great wealth whose character arc is to redeem him from his bratty nature through finding the love of an average good woman [Hint: that’s not at all what’s going on here.]--if that’s what a viewer showed up for, they’re going to have those expectations disappointed. And if they can’t shed them, they are going to hate this show.

...to be continued in Part II  “Subtitles? More like Sub-par-titles“

[snelbz]

The Ranch {Epilogue}

An A Court of Thorns and Roses, Nesta x Cassian, Modern AU, fanfiction.

Collaboration: @snelbz​ x @tacmc​

Summary: Nesta had spent years in Paris, living her dream and drowning in riches as a gourmet chef, capturing the hearts of the city and its people. But, after her father passes away unexpectedly and leaves his cozy, countryside B&B to his oldest daughter, Nesta is moving back home to the tiny town of Velaris, where the ranch, her sisters, and her father’s unfulfilled dream, awaits.

Nesta took a deep breath, every emotion she had ever felt toward Cassian Nazari coming to the surface. She hadn’t seen him in over twenty-four hours, and it had been the longest she had been without him since they’d been together. 

She hated it. 

But, it would all be worth it.

She looked in the mirror, admiring herself, shamelessly. It was a day she had dreamt of for so long, a day she had planned for and waited for, longingly.

A day she had almost thought would never come.

A cry from down the hall had her turning away from the mirror and towards her daughter’s bedroom, where her sisters were supposed to be getting her ready. She sighed, glanced into the hallway to make sure there was no sign of Cassian and hurried down the hall.

“No!” Sloan was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, the little dress with the pink tutu in her Aunt Elain’s outstretched hands. “No pink!”

“This is what you have to wear today, sweet girl,” Elain explained. “It’s what mommy picked out for you.”

She shook her head, not yet noticing Nesta standing in the doorway. Feyre stood off to the side, rubbing her round stomach and sighed. “I’m hoping she’s as stubborn as she is thanks to Cass and that’s not an Archeron thing.”

Nesta scoffed, “It’s a Sloan thing,” before entering her daughter’s room.

“Mama!” She said, lifting her arms to be picked up the second she saw her. Nesta did so and Sloan pointed at the dress in Elain’s hands. “Mine?”

The one word sentences had become a very normal thing in their house. No was her favorite word, but Beau Beau was a close second.

“Yes, yours, isn’t it beautiful?” Nesta asked.

Sloan crossed her little arms. “No.” 

Nesta sighed, setting Sloan on the ground. She was more of a run in her underwear through the mud type of little lady. 

Which she got from her father.

“Daddy wants you to wear this dress,” Nesta pushed. “And when the wedding is done, you can change.”

Sloan’s little lips pursed together. “No pink.”

“Mama loves pink.”

“No pink.”

Nesta hung her head, exasperated. “Get Cass. She’ll do whatever he asks.”

Feyre chuckled but nodded. “Make yourself scarce. I’ll be back in five.”

Nesta did just that, re-entering her own bedroom, and putting on her jewelry and slipping her mother’s pins into her hair, the last touches she needed to be ready to walk down the aisle. To marry her best friend.

Speaking of, she heard slow, heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and it took everything she had not to throw open the door, grab his face and kiss him until she was lightheaded.

She would do more than that tonight.

But for now she had to wait, and her heart melted when she heard him ask, “Where did they find a dress for a princess as beautiful as you, huh?”

The giggle she heard next was the telltale daddy’s throwing me in the air giggle, which she adored, but stressed her out to no end.

“No pink, daddy,” she heard a minute later.

“Yes, pink,” Cassian said, his tone matching hers. “Because mommy loves this dress, and we love mommy.”

There was a small stretch of silence before she heard Cassian say, “If you put this dress on, daddy will give you a sucker.”

Nesta rolled her eyes, but Sloan’s excited giggled floated through the air. She supposed there were worse ways to get Sloan into her dress, although Nesta hoped all sucker goo stayed off Sloan’s dress until pictures were done.

Nesta glanced at the clock on the wall.

She had twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes too long. Nesta was ready to marry Cassian, and she was ready to marry him now.

She was in the bathroom, touching up her make up one last time, when she heard her door open and quick footsteps ran across the hardwood before when the bathroom door was shoved open. Sloan stood there, a broad grin on her face. Her blue-gray eyes, Nesta’s eyes, were sparkling and Nesta couldn’t help but grin back.

“Princess, mama!” She announced, holding onto the edges of the tutu.

“You’re the most beautiful princess I’ve ever seen,” Nesta said, picking her up, and gazing in the mirror.

There were days Nesta swore she was the spitting image of her father, but that was usually when she was getting into something she wasn’t supposed to. Right now though, save for her naturally olive complexion and her dark hair, she looked so much like herself.

“Do you remember where you’re supposed to go when your basket is empty?” Nesta asked, picking the small basket up from where it sat next to her bouquet.

“Beau Beau,” she replied confidently and Nesta chuckled.

“No, baby. You can either stand with Aunt Elain or sit with Mor and Vivi.”

“Aunt Lainey,” she said, squirming to get down.

“I know, we love Aunt Lainey,” Nesta confirmed, setting her back on the floor.

Elain came in, Feyre just behind her, and both of them were smiling, softly.

“Are you ready to get into place?” Feyre asked.

Nesta looked at herself one last time before she nodded. “So ready.”

Elain picked up Sloan before slipping her other hand in Nesta’s. Feyre did the same on Nesta’s other side, then they were walking down the stairs together.

The house was empty, all except for Azriel, who stood at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled upon seeing the women come into view. After kissing Elain’s forehead, he held his hand out to Nesta.

“Ready?” He asked, quietly, his smile fully genuine.

She took it and said, “You have no idea.”

Music began to play from out front and Nesta looked at her sisters.

Elain whispered, “It’s time.”

Feyre was the first one Cassian saw, carrying Sloan down the porch steps. She looked radiant, absolutely glowing at six months pregnant. A glance over at his brother told him he thought so, too. But when she set his daughter on her feet and she gripped onto Beau’s tuxedo collar, he thought his heart might burst. Nesta had rolled her eyes, but never objected. Beau was a part of the family, there was no way he wasn’t going to be in the wedding.

But his sweet girl, his Sloan was so beautiful. He never thought he could love someone as much as he loved Nesta, so all consuming and vital to his happiness. But then Sloan came crashing into his world, and he couldn’t imagine a second without her. He wiped at his face, and chuckled to himself, knowing if he was crying seeing his baby girl, he had no hope when his beautiful fiancée stepped out of their home’s front door.

Feyre stepped to the side and Cassian whistled quietly. Beau began walking towards him slowly, careful not to make the baby tumble over. He wasn’t nearly as excitable as he was when he was a puppy, but Sloan was his entire world and he would never do anything to hurt her.

Halfway down the aisle, Sloan finally noticed who was at the end, and cried, “Daddy!” before happily giggling down the rest of the walk.

Except it was more of a run.

The white rose petals in the basket were forgotten as she hurried to her daddy.

So much for standing with Elain as planned.

Cassian laughed as he scooped Sloan up in his arms, her little hands flat out against his chest before her head fell into his shoulder.

Feyre couldn’t help but laugh as she followed her niece.

Elain was next, shaking her head with a smile as she took in the scene before her, underneath the archway draped in floral and greenery. She winked at her about-to-be brother-in-law as she stepped up in front of Feyre, but Cassian’s eyes never wavered from the door, which Nesta would be walking through any second.

Excitement flooded his body, and he held onto Sloan a little bit tighter as that front door opened, once again, and Azriel stepped out, Nesta on his arm.

He forgot how to breathe. The dress she wore was simple, elegant lace with a beaded belt. It was plain enough that it let her beauty shine, but she never needed any help with that. Her smile was the most gorgeous sight in the world, but when she saw him at the end of the aisle, holding their precious baby, she couldn’t help but cover it up. He heard the teary laugh from across the yard and couldn’t stop his own.

“Mama pretty,” Sloan whispered, and his arms tightened around her.

“Yes, she is.”

The walk down the aisle was the longest walk of Nesta’s life. If it wasn’t for Azriel’s calming presence - and very firm grip - on her arm, she was fairly sure she would have sprinted across the grass and thrown her arms around him. But she kept her pace, walking in time to the music they selected, and then she was standing in front of Cassian.

The officiant didn’t ask who gave Nesta away, Azriel just stepped to the side, taking his spot next to Rhys, and Nesta took Cassian’s outstretched hand. Her heart had belonged to him since she arrived back in Velaris. There was no need to give a blessing when they’d already been so blessed beyond comparison.

The ceremony was relatively short, mostly because Nesta had told the officiant beforehand to marry them as quickly as possible, because she just couldn’t wait any longer. Once the vows had been said, and Cassian kissed his bride, they were swept away into a mess of pictures and greetings and whatever else. Nesta didn’t care, though. She would do the messy wedding thing, as long as Cassian didn’t leave her side.

After the pictures, Sloan fell asleep on Cassian’s shoulder, and after they got pictures of that, she was being carried away by Feyre, who was begging to sit down from her own pregnancy exhaustion.

As everyone ate the extravagant meal they had catered, Cassian took Nesta’s hand and pulled her away. 

“Hope you’re not too hungry,” he muttered, pulling her around the side of the house as the sun sank down behind the hillside. 

“No,” she laughed, “but I’m surprised you’re not.”

He winked. “I can eat later. But right now, I want to spend time with my wife.”

She smiled up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting her head slightly. “Is it fun to say?”

His grin was breathtaking. “Oh, it’s fun. You should try it.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t, there’s no one here but my husband to appreciate it.” She was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. “You’re right, it’s fun.”

Cassian cupped her face and kissed her softly. “Are you having a good time?”

“Of course, I am,” she said, looking back to where some of their friends and family were still eating and others had already jumped on the dance floor. “This day is everything I ever dreamed it would be.”

“It sure was a hell of a time getting here,” he breathed, brushing a curled strand of hair out of her face. “And to think it wasn’t too long ago that I thought you were just a spoiled, rude, beautiful woman.”

Nesta chuckled. “You don’t still think that?” 

“The beautiful part, maybe,” he grinned. “And the spoiled part. But just because you’re spoiled by me.”

“We both are,” Nesta chuckled. “Me and that baby that’s passed out on my sister, drooling on her beautiful gown.”

“I love that baby,” Cassian whispered. “And her mama.”

“Would it be rude to tell everyone to go home so that I can take you upstairs?” Nesta whispered, her hands on his chest.

Cassian laughed, wrapping his arms around her waist. “We can't very well kick the people out before they’ve eaten dinner, I feel like you of all people should know that.”

She smiled and rested her head against Cassian’s chest. “I know, wishful thinking.”

He kissed the top of her head and smiled. “Everything is so crazy back there, I just wanted a minute alone with you.”

Nesta was gazing out towards where that cottage used to be, at the long driveway they had put in, that would lead right to the restaurant Nesta had plans for. The cottage was gone, but the memories still lingered, eighteen months later.

She leaned into his chest and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent. She wanted to savor the moment, wanting to remember every second, wanted to dedicate every inch of him in his wedding attire to memory. They only got one wedding day, and although it was busy and stressful and overwhelming, it was all about them, their love, their little family, and how far they had come. 

Laughter and conversation floated from the back of the house, where the guests were gathered, eating and enjoying each other, celebrating. 

“I guess I should go check if Sloan is still asleep on Aunt Feyre,” Nesta whispered.

“You should check if Aunt Feyre is sleeping,” Cassian countered. She’d had a rough pregnancy thus far. Sick, weak, and ready for her baby to be brought into the world.

“Come on,” she smiled. “Let’s go be merry and married.”

He followed her and they did just that, sharing their first dance, cutting the cake, tossing the bouquet and the garter - which just happened to end up in Lucien and Vassa’s hands - and then they were ready for their grand exit.

Since they got married in their home, they decided to take the truck down to the cabin, and Az and Elain would stay in the main house with Sloan. She was just now getting used to sleeping in her own crib and Nesta was not on board for throwing that off. 

After a quick goodnight, tucking her in and letting her sleep in her “princess dress”, they were hurrying down the stairs.

“We’re just down the hill, call us if you need us,” Cassian explained before they walked out to where the truck and their remaining family and friends waited.

“We’ve got this,” Elain smiled and Nesta hugged her.

“Hang her dress up once she’s asleep, please,” Nesta said. “We were not getting it off of her awake.”

Azriel snorted. “Got it.”

Nesta hesitated. “And...you know...if you want to send me little updates now and then-.”

“We’re a quarter of a mile away,” Elain reminded her, with gentle eyes. 

Nesta had never spent a full night away from Sloan. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her family, but the thought of anything happening to Sloan, after what they had been through, was unfathomable.

“I’ll keep you updated if you promise to go enjoy yourselves,” Elain followed. “Now, go!”

Nesta chuckled as she climbed into the truck. “Fine, fine.”

After another round of goodbyes and thank yous, they were headed down the driveway, toward the little cabin, where they would spend their first night together as man and wife.

The same place they’d spent so many of their early days. Thinking of that had Nesta smiling as they parked in front of the cabin.

“You’re so gorgeous.”

She looked over to where he was sitting behind the wheel. In a pair of nice, clean jeans, a crisp button down, a vest, and, of course, his boots, Nesta couldn’t get over how handsome he looked. Even Sloan had said so, announcing to everyone how pretty her daddy looked. She blushed and looked at her hands, the sparkling diamond on her finger and the platinum band sitting alongside it. Cassian reached across the middle console and turned her chin to face him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she smiled, leaning into his touch.

He opened to the truck door and she unbuckled her seat belt, moving to do the same. “Stay right there,” he ordered, hopping out and hurrying around to her side.

Opening her door, he slid his hands underneath her dress and scooped her up, making her giggle as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you across the threshold.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She laughed as he climbed the porch steps and said, “We don’t live here though.”

“We used to,” he smirked down at her. “Same difference.”

She rolled her eyes but definitely didn’t protest as he carried her up the porch stairs, kicked open the door, and carried her inside. He didn’t set her down until they were in the bedroom, and she gasped upon entering. 

Rose petals were scattered across the bed, candles were everywhere. Last time Nesta had seen Cassian's old bedroom in the cabin, it was being used as storage. Now, it was as beautiful as any honeymoon suite.

“I was busy this morning,” Cassian said, quietly, reading her thoughts.

He laid her down, gently, on the bed.

“It’s perfect,” she promised, smiling faintly.

Cassian went back out to grab their bag from the truck, then shut the front door, and she heard the lock move into place.

Nesta checked her phone quickly to make sure Elain hadn’t texted, even though they’d been gone less than five minutes.

“What the hell are you gonna do when she goes to school?” Cassian asked, grinning, as he came back into the bedroom, the duffel bag Nesta had packed for them tossed over his shoulder.

“I have years before I have to deal with that,” Nesta said, sighing, putting her phone on the nightstand. “Thank the gods.”

Cassian held out his hand and Nesta took it, standing and wrapping his arms around his waist. He did the same and leaned down to brush a kiss against her lips. “You’re such an amazing mother. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

Her eyes were bright, and she looked absolutely radiant as she looked up at him. “One of them?” She asked. “What else is on that list?”

“Your love for our family.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “Your tenacity.” Her cheek. “Your loyalty.” Her jaw. “Your bad ass cooking.” Her neck. “And I can’t forget your tits.”

Nesta laughed and grabbed his face, pressing her lips to his. “Shut up and make love to your wife.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he muttered, leaning down to kiss her again, but she was pushing against his chest.

He raised a brow. “Was that a tease? If it was, it wasn’t very nice.”

She snorted, and shook her head as she turned around. “First, you have to get me out of all these buttons.”

Cassian blinked.

There were a lot of buttons.

“Why couldn’t you have gotten a dress with a zipper?” Cassian mumbled, starting at the top to undo the long line of buttons, one by one. 

“You don’t like this one?” Nesta asked.

Cassian laughed a breathy laugh. “When I saw you step out of that house, I cried.” 

Nesta looked at him over her shoulder as the dress became loose. 

“The dress is stunning, but you could’ve worn a paper sack and I would’ve still cried,” Cassian continued, meeting her gaze.

That gaze made Nesta feel like she was on fire.

The things this man could do to her with just a look, with just a word.

Her husband.

She felt the last of the buttons separate and she let her dress fall to the floor before turning to face him.

His eyes were wide. “Wow.”

Wow was right.

Feyre and Elain had taken Nesta lingerie shopping for her bachelorette party. Feyre couldn’t drink and the other two agreed to suffer in solidarity, but Nesta didn’t complain. Any time with her sisters was perfect, even if wine wasn’t involved.

Cassian dragged a calloused finger along the boning of the white corset and then down the strap of the garter belt.

Suddenly, Nesta felt self conscious in all of the white lace. She wasn’t a virgin, by any means, their daughter sleeping in her crib at the house was proof of that. But she wanted something traditional about their wedding night. Cauldron knew the rest of their relationship hadn’t been. She whispered, “Is it too much?”

Cassian swallowed hard. “Fuck, no. But as hot as it is, I want you out of it, more than I want you in it.”

She lifted a challenging brow. “Now you have to figure out how to take it all off.”

His grin was feral, but as he reached up to begin, she shook her head. “You first.”

Cassian chuckled, and shook his head. “Cruel, wicked woman.”

Nesta grinned as she sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg over the other, waiting for her husband to put on a show.

He kept his eyes locked on hers as he kicked off his boots, then he slipped off his vest. Loosening his tie, one by one, he popped the buttons of his white shirt open, shucking it off and dropping it on top of the vest and her dress. He reached over his head and pulled his undershirt off and dropped it on the growing pile of clothes. When he kicked off his jeans, leaving himself in nothing but the tanned skin Nesta loved to drag her fingers over, she expected him to begin on her own remaining attire. Instead, he surprised her by bending over, picking up their discarded clothes and laying them out over the chair in the corner. She watched him, her lips parted in shock, a small smile turning up the corner of her lips.

“Did you just lay our clothes out so they wouldn’t get wrinkled?” She asked, an eyebrow raised.

“I did,” he said, turning to her and closing the distance between them. He held out his hand once more and she placed hers in his and stood, her heels long forgotten. The top of her head barely came up to his chin. “Does that turn you on?”

“You have no idea,” she breathed, leaning up and wrapping her arms around his neck.

His quiet laugh made her grin widen as he picked her up, those legs wrapping around his waist. Instead of the bed, he pressed her up against the wall, his hand running up her thigh, across the lingerie that she had so carefully picked out for him.

Nesta’s phone vibrated on the nightstand just as Cassian's lips touched hers.

He sighed, fully aware that she wouldn’t be able to focus on them before she read whatever it was. After carrying her to the side table, he looked at her phone and said, “Sloan is sound asleep, her dress is hanging up, and Elain says all as well. She also says to enjoy yourself.”

“Fine,” Nesta breathed, her arms around his neck tightening. “The baby is well taken care of, you're right. You have my full attention.”

“Do I?” He asked, quietly, his lips finding the side of her neck. He nipped at the tender skin, followed by the brush of his tongue to soothe any pain he’d caused with his teeth.

“No,” she said, that little whine slipping into her tone that meant she was getting impatient. “But you know I’ll be worrying about her the whole night.” He chuckled, gripping her ass a little harder, kneading the flesh in his hands. “She’s always on my mind, too, but we deserve this. A night to ourselves.” His cock was between them and he ground her against him so that it was pressed against her lace covered sex. “A night without a baby monitor or a late night feeding. Just time to appreciate each other. Very, very intimately.”

“Then you’d better hurry up and get me out of this lingerie - and not in the brute way.” She added, seeing a familiar, destructive spark in his eye. “This was very expensive and I’d like to be able to wear it again.”

Cassian raised an eyebrow and asked, “Planning on having a second wedding?”

Smirking, Nesta said, “I actually planned on wearing them for our anniversaries, but if you’re objecting…”

His lips found hers and he cut her off. Cassian pulled back a hair and breathed, “No objections here.”

She groaned, leaning into his touch, into his lips as he slowly undid the hooks of her corset. She knew he was growing frustrated, knew he was becoming impatient, but that only humored her more.

Eventually, the corset came free, and even Cassian took his time, per her wishes to keep it all in good condition, removing it from her skin and placing it on the bed behind her. With gentle, calloused fingers, he ran his fingertips down her skin, starting at her collarbone, down between her breasts, down to the garter belt. 

“You know,” he whispered, bringing his hand back up to cup her breasts. “We can start with that on.”

Her lips pursed into a seductive smile. “Now that you can see my tits?”

He nodded, slowly, his eyes darkening as she reached down to grip his cock.

Nesta didn’t hesitate as she dropped to her knees and stroked him slowly. The low curse that tumbled from his lips, only urged her on further and she glanced up at him as she ran her tongue along the length of him, from base to tip, and swirled it around the swollen head. His hands wove into her hair as she took him in her mouth.

He grunted, “I hope you aren’t too attached to this hairstyle.” She glanced up at at him, cock in her mouth, eyes asking the question for her. “Because I’m about to fuck it up, especially if you keep doing that.”

The words were more of a growl by the end of his sentence, when Nesta began to bob her head.

Cassian’s head fell back as he began to do what he said he would. With every bob of her head, Cassian’s fingers dove deeper into her hair, the intricate braid coming loose, the curls fading into mere waves. He breathed curse after curse, each one becoming more desperate.

Nesta watched him the entire time, through her black-painted lashes. She thrived on the ethereal expression on his face, how his brows scrunched together and his lips remained open. 

“Nesta,” he growled. “Nes.”

She hummed with him inside of her mouth, which only made that low growl return. 

Those fingers in her hair pulled back her head. Her lips remained, perfectly still, just around the head of his cock. Her eyes were wide, humored, as she looked up at him. 

His chest was heaving.

“I love the sight of you with my cock in your mouth,” he breathed.

To say that they got to take their time with each other the last year and a half would be a complete and utter lie. Now, they would take their sweet, sweet time with one another, with no interruptions.

He could see the smile in her eyes as she gripped the back of his thighs and took him deeper and deeper, until her pink-painted lips could almost leave a print on his skin. He groaned, hunching over her and when she gagged lightly, his fingers found her chin and pulled her mouth off of him. A soft gasp for air left her as he gripped her shoulders and tossed her onto the bed.

She laughed quietly as her back hit the mattress which turned into a moan as Cassian’s mouth found her, through the sheer, white lace. Her eyes rolled back in her head as he lavished her, but when she heard a tearing and cool air on her sex. He was grinning up at her between her legs and it was very hard to stay mad at him when he was there.

“I told you to be careful,” she whispered, chest rising and falling rapidly.

He breathed, “I’ll buy you a new pair.” With a deliberate slowness, he dragged a finger between her folds and circled her clit. She whimpered and he said, “You’re already so wet for me.”

“Did you expect anything less?” She gasped, as she sprawled out on the bed, gripping the comforter between her fingers. 

“No,” he replied, slowly, his thumb still moving at an agonizing pace. “I know what you like, Mrs. Nazari.”

She moaned, quietly, a hand coming to cover his as he circled her clit, ever so slowly. “What is it that I like?”

“To be teased,” he said, knowingly, cockily. “Then you like me to build it up, slowly.”

His thumb against her clit moved just a little bit faster.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she gasped and her back arched off the bed.

“Don’t move,” he said, wrapping an arm around one of her thighs. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her mound. He breathed, “Move and I’ll stop.”

Slipping her fingers into his hair, still tied at the back of his head, she chuckled, the sound husky and bedroom soft. “No, you won’t.”

“No,” he crooned, his mouth so close to where she needed him. “I won’t. But I’d appreciate it if you played along.”

With that, he ran his tongue between her folds, savoring the essence that was his wife. Her grip tightened on his hair, close to painful, and he groaned as he devoured her.

He couldn’t get enough of the taste of Nesta Archeron.

But the taste of Nesta Nazari… 

His eyes fell shut as he reached down and gripped his cock, stroking in time with the flicks of his tongue.

She breathed his name, begging him, trying so very hard to stay still, but struggling. Every time she whined his name, though, it only made him hold her down tighter. 

She was yanking on the strands of his hair, too, making him groan over and over again, into her pussy, the vibrations of his low voice tightening her grip. 

It wasn’t until her entire body was tensed around him, beneath his hands, that her grip loosened and she came with a curse into the quiet room.

Cassian stroked her, gently with his tongue, his hand dropping from his cock as he looked up at her through dark lashes, his lips wet.

“Please,” she breathed, tugging on his hair, not in the same needy desperation as she had momentarily before, but in urgency, an urgency that he reciprocated. “Cassian, please.”

He trailed feather soft kisses up her body, pausing to pay special attention to her breasts, biting and pinching and squeezing and licking. Nesta was almost ready to come again by the time he reached her lips and was positioning himself at her entrance.

His breath was hot against her mouth, her body on fire with the need of him, the want of him.

“Please,” she whispered, a quiet plea, but he could hear her desperation. 

And he mirrored it.

He didn’t bother inching his way inside, didn’t bother taking it slow. She was soaked, and he needed her.

After grabbing her hips, he pushed himself into her, all the way down to the hilt, where he stayed, his head falling back, and let himself bask in the feeling of simply being inside of her.

She did the same, the nails of one hand digging into his ass, the other his back, and she didn’t try to muffle the cry that left her as he plunged deep inside of her. He pulled out, almost all the way, and snapped his hips into hers again, the wooden frame of the bed slamming against the wall. Nesta moaned his name, every syllable, every breath urging him on and on. He repeated the motion again and again and again, one of Nesta’s hands tangled in his loose hair, the tie lost somewhere in the sheets.

Cassian cursed, low and rough, as his head fell against her chest and he pulled a peaked nipple into his mouth, and her back arched off the bed once more.

He wrapped an arm around her waist before she could fall back against the bed and gripped the headboard with the other. Nesta’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, completely at the mercy of the roll of his hips.

“I’m close,” she breathed, the words tumbling from her lips.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.” The words weren’t cocky in any way, just proof that he knew Nesta’s body better than his own. He could have gotten himself to the edge, but tonight, his goal was to make Nesta feel like a goddess.

And that began with making her cum as many times as he possibly could.

“Cassian,” she pleaded, her nails digging into his skin. 

He kept that pace, his rhythm, didn’t even hesitate for a second as Nesta cried out and she shattered around him, her knees shaking on both sides of his ass in the air. The noise that came out of her was something between laughter and crying, purely from joy, complete ecstasy. 

Cassian slowed down, but he didn’t stop. He leaned back, watched as Nesta’s chest heaved, watched as her eyes fluttered, watched as her parted lips turned into a grin.

Her palms rested flat on his chest as he slowly pushed himself in and out of her.

When her eyes finally focused on him again, the flush high on her cheekbones, she grabbed him by the back of the head and crashed her lips into his. He groaned, hitching her leg up, and holding it against his side. She whimpered into his mouth, his thrusts rolling deeper and deeper, until she was a writhing mess beneath him again.

“Fuck, Cass, please,” she breathed, her fingers digging into his arms, rooting herself to the moment, to him, the feeling of him being inside of her.

He felt her walls begin to tighten around him,  but her hand pressed against his chest, differently than it had a moment before, and he smirked knowing what she wanted. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he rolled them until she was on top, body flush against his, and he just laid there for a moment, letting her take over.

He was more than willing.

Nesta was instantly comfortable, in her element, staring down at her husband as she rode him. When Cassian brought up his knees, she leaned back against them and he watched his cock disappear inside of her as she slowly bounced up and down it. Before he could do it himself, 

Nesta took his hand and brought it to her sex, where he began to circle her clit, slowly.

“Tell me what you want,” she breathed, eyes bright as she rode his thick length, just a little bit faster, her breasts bouncing as she moved atop him.

He leaned up, bracing his weight on a hand as the other gripped the back of her head and kissed her with a gentleness she wasn’t expecting. He gazed in her eyes, and breathed, “I want to worship you, in every way imaginable, every night, for the rest of my life.”

Her head fell back as he let his lips drag down her neck and she breathed, “Fuck, I love you.”

His teeth found her skin and his hips met hers thrust for thrust. It wasn’t long before they were both short of breath and Nesta’s moans were filling the cabin.

Nesta only grew louder as Cassian approached his climax, holding onto her tightly, his teeth still grazing her collarbone. 

And then he moaned, his own sounds filling the cabin, sounds that Nesta never grew tired of hearing. He came in her, moving her hips with his hands as he rode it out. Nesta’s breath shook as she found her release, too, and they both came to a halt, her still nestled into his lap, him still inside of her, his face buried into her neck. 

Cassian waited until his breathing had evened before he leaned back and looked at her. Without a word, she brushed his damp hair out of his face, and kissed his forehead, softly. 

“I love you,” he breathed, a look so vulnerable in his eyes that it made Nesta’s heart ache.

Things had not been easy after Tomas had kidnapped Nesta. There had been many nights Nesta awoke, drenched in sweat and tears, Cassian’s arms banded around her because she’d been thrashing so hard she’d almost harmed herself. Even after his death, Tomas haunted her. It was almost six months before she had been able to sleep all the way through the night.

Without Cassian, she wasn’t sure she would have survived the time after Tomas’ attack. This man was her rock, her anchor in the storm. The constant light in a world that once used to be so dark.

She whispered, “I love you too,” unwilling to shatter the silence they sat in, the only sound their shared breath.

After a moment, Cassian stood, lifting Nesta, still nestled deep inside her. He carried her into the bathroom and set her down in the large garden tub. The second he pulled out, their mixed releases spilled from between her legs. Cassian watched it, eyes still dark with lust. His cock was already growing hard again and he turned the tub faucet on and stopped the tub up. “Let me go grab you a glass of wine and a much needed glass of whiskey and when I get back, I’ll give you a massage.”

“Lemonade,” she corrected him, turning to look over her shoulder, to watch him leave.

Cassian stopped in the doorway and turned to face her with an arched brow. “Lemonade? We just got married, and you don’t want wine?” 

She gave him a soft smile as she slowly shook her head. “Oh, I would love a glass of wine...but, lemonade will do.” 

His surprised face turned into one of confusion, and she slowly watched, perfectly humored, as that confusion turned back into shock.

And awe.

“Really?” She hardly heard him, he spoke so quietly, hardly getting the word out.

Nesta’s nod was all he needed to start tearing up, and instead of leaving the room, he was back in the tub with her, his wife, hovering over her giddy frame as he kissed her, softly, slowly, tenderly. 

In the past few years, they had been through hell and back, but every day gave them another reminder that they had conquered hell and made it out alive. 

Cassian would continue to go through whatever hell life threw at him, too, as long as he went through it with Nesta, the mother of his children.  

His wife. 

The love of his life.

[zenosanalytic]

Growing Up is Hard; It’s Hard and Nobody Understands

So I noticed netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion up last week and started watching it front to back for the first time ever(this happens to have coincided with me being in a down-mood for your edification, dear readers u_u), finished it today, REALLY liked it, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining what the hell is even going on in NGE cuz it actl seemed super-clear to me(a person who has been consuming NGE analysis and post-NGE media for literally 25 years) u_u

Surface Plot; Or NERV: What the Hell Is It?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible: An organization of super-wealthy individuals calling itself Seele(looking this up, it means soul in german) wants to possess the power of God. The final third or so of the series is clear on this; it’s all about power. Ikari Yui, a geneticist, is recruited by this organization, and her husband Gendo(having taken her name which says a LOT given typical Japanese practice) comes with her. In seeking out this power, they discover a hollow sphere underneath Antarctica(”The White Moon”), send an expedition there under the guise of the UN, encounter an entity with this power which they label an “Angel”, and do SOMETHING which prompts it to explode the continent flooding the earth and killing half the population(that Gendo left beforehand implies this may have been intentional, or that a bad outcome to Seele’s approach was easy to predict, tho in typical Gendo fashion, his is the only ass he cared to save).

Afterwards Seele blame the scientists for this outcome and send Gendo on a salvage mission which recovers both remains of the Angel, now dubbed “Adam”, and a device they dub “the spear of Longinus”. Seele creates Gehirn to study these remains for practical use; they clone “Adam” and dub the result Evas(Eves). Having cloned them, they now need a way to use and control them as the Evas are non-responsive. They hit on the idea of injecting people into them via the Entry Plug system, presumably to act as a brain. The first person to try this, Ikari Yui, was absorbed by the Eva(Unit 01); the second(Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin; Asuka’s mother) was partially psychologically absorbed by Unit 02, psychologically and mentally injured by this, institutionalized, abandoned by her shit USian husband Langley who remarried to her LEAD DOCTOR, and eventual kills herself in a hanging which Asuka either is the first to discover or, given her memories of promising to die with her/begging her not to do it, was present for. An important thing to note about this: Shinji and Asuka’s ability to sync with their Evas comes from the fact that their mothers are PART of their Eva’s identity, and all of their classmates are potential pilot-candidates. The implication here is that Seele KNEW this happened when you put adults into an Angel, and they KEPT DOING IT ANYWAY to create more pilots, but there’s no confirmation of that in series.

After the attempt at human adult control fails, Gendo combines Yui’s DNA with Adam’s and creates Rei. At the same time he is doing this another team, under Akagi Naoko, is developing Magi, a biomechanical computer for simulating the human mind(again: certain implication to this re: Evas though the series never says anything). Naoko is romantically interested in Gendo, and they start getting together(Gendo’s too much of an asshole to be said to date, I think). After Rei, a toddler, tells her Gendo calls her an “old woman” in private, not realizing this is insulting, Naoko kills her, then kills herself out of shame over having MURDERED A CHILD, and Gehirn is folded into a new organization, NERV, which Gendo is put in charge of. Rei forms the basis of the second attempt at controlling the Evas; child-pilots.

How they use Rei for this I’m not exactly sure. It could be because Rei is cloned from Yui(she easily syncs with Unit 01 before Shinji bonds with it completely), or because she’s part Angel via her Adam element(Kaworu says Angels merge with one another easily and naturally), or it could be they did something with Rei I’s corpse and Unit 00(I dont see how as it seems to require a LIVE pilot). Regardless, she is raised to be the pilot for 00, the prototype. MUCH later, when the rest of the Angels finally decide to come looking for Adam, Shinji is called in, and after his success Asuka(who like Rei and unlike Shinji has been training to pilot her whole life) is called to Nerv headquarters(under Japan, in the “Black Moon”; a second spherical hollow where they found another Angel they call Lilith) too.

Regardless the child-pilots are only a step in Nerv and Seele’s plans, as Rei is ALSO the template for the Dummy Plug system, the final step in complete control of Eva units. To put it simply, the Dummy Plugs are Rei-clones without her personality or memories, and will just do whatever the heck they’re ordered to. At least once during the series(and I’d argue two, possibly three times) Rei dies and is replaced by one of these clones through some process, which involves what looks like a pre 00 Eva’s spine and probably a Magi-like backup, which transfers her personality and memories into the new body.

So what is Nerv? Well it’s hard to say EXACTLY because Gendo is in some sort of conflict with Seele(and I want to keep my watches of End of Evangelion out of this post; to focus entirely on JUST NGE itself) and Nerv IS Gendo, but as the series states repeatedly it’s an attempt to control the future of humanity by controlling what they call “the power of god” which, given that it’s what most distinguishes the “Angels”, is the AT, or “Absolute Terror”, Field. What is the AT Field? It’s a field that can make or unmake any kind of matter or energy from basically nothing, and it also seems to have a strong tie to what you could call the Ego; to desires and sense-of-self. An AT Field gets stronger when the person generating it is experiencing powerful emotions; Confidence, sure, but also Fear, Abandonment, the Will to Live, and Anger.

That last bit is very important. Why? Strong AT Field effects require a powerful emotional motivation in the pilot combined with high sync-rates with the Eva(basically a lobotomized Angel-clone) generating the Field. The three pilots we meet, the Strongest candidates, are all exceedingly traumatized people, and Gendo is the direct cause of the trauma of two of them. At no point in the series is Gendo ever a good father to Shinji, he is CONSTANTLY unreasonable, neglectful, and cruel to him; he’s kinder to Rei but at the same time her loneliness, the state of her “home”, and her lack of self worth shows that he rarely interacts with her outside of missions or explains what’s going on beyond bald facts; and he COMPLETELY ignores Asuka, a deeply lonely child with a history of abandonment and close brushes with death; he even delegates bumping her from the program. This point is important because it’s important to recognize that Gendo is a bad dad on PURPOSE; that he instrumentalizes his bad dadness to traumatize Shinji(and Rei and Asuka, though sadly the series doesn’t focus on them enough for us to see much) as much as he can, because he thinks that trauma, that emotional instability and anger, MAKES SHINJI A MORE USEFUL PILOT; ie lets him generate more powerful AT Fields. This is never said clearly, but it’s clearly what’s going on as forcing Unit 01(and thus Shinji) into awful, heartbreaking, life-threatening situations is vital to his plan. Gendo’s a piece of shit, and I want ppl to recognize just HOW BIG a piece of shit he is, because I feel this powerfully.

And for what? For Power. To be “God”. To get the highest numbers. To generate the MOST Invincible Invincibility Shield. For Ridiculous, Absurd, Childish reasons. For, you know, the same reasons rich and powerful people do all the fucked up shit they do in the real world where giant magic robots thankfully DONT exist.

And how do they plan to do this? Through “Human Instrumentation”, which will literally kill everyone by turning them all into goo.

Metaplot; Or “SHINJI! Don’t Get in that Robot!!”

So, maybe this is just because(as said previously) I’ve been reading NGE Analysis and consuming media which NGE heavily inspired for ~25 years, but I think it’s old hat at this point to note that Neon Genesis Evangelion is ALSO an allegory for becoming an adult, centered on Shinji. However, it’s just really SO on the nose in this, so PERFECT as such a narrative, that I want to run through it real quick. Also: A Cruel Angel’s Thesis is basically a thesis-statement for this series; please check out the lyrics.

So Shinji is living under the guardianship of a teacher(yup: this series even takes a swing at how our society uses schools to warehouse kids so their parents can waste their lives producing “Value” instead of raising them), when the shitty dad that abandoned him decides he has a use for him after all and calls him up.

On meeting with a child he has not seen SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM ON THE STREET WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED he immediately ambushes him with the command that he get in a huge body(that he grow up) to do what? Whatever Gendo tells him to, but specifically: commit acts of violence for Gendo and Seele’s profit. He tells him this will protect people; meanwhile doing it destroys those peoples’ literal homes. The rest of the series is a series of monotonous, incomprehensible “Tests” judging his, and his peers, worthiness for approval and affection on the basis of how well they can use those giant bodies to do what Gendo tells them(so: capitalist work), punctuated by unpredictable, brutal, traumatizing, and physically dangerous events(so: capitalist work). Every friend, and the one lover, he meets, he is placed in unnecessary, destructive competition with and, when they are male, forced to attack and(in the case of the one lover, Kaworu) kill them; this last comment on homophobia is so stark and obvs I don’t even feel like you can CALL it subtext, even IF it plays out over mostly a single episode(honestly this plotline should have been given more time). And all the time they’re doing this, they must ALSO continue going to school and maintaining the front that they’re happy smiley Heroes, completely normal and not traumatized at all, and Nerv and the government that lets them run this city is a great and wonderful organization. Is this not what becoming an adult, over your teens and 20s, feels like?

And then there’s Seele and Nerv. Able to move state governments as they wish, Seele CAUSED Second Impact(Global Warming). By not returning Adam’s remains, they’re CAUSING the Angel attacks on Nerv meant to retrieve them(the threat of Human extinction). The Angels eventually begin trying to communicate and Nerv’s response? Destroy them before they can; blow up the Evas(and their pilots) if they succeed. And to top it all off Seele and Nerv are actually trying to CAUSE the very extinction(Third Impact) they claim to be preventing! Seele and Nerv are just SUCH good metaphors for capitalism in our modern day.

The transwoman reading of Shinji also seems pretty dang strong to me, though I’ll only deal with it shallowly. Shinji is the only “male” of all the pilots. Outside of command and security, most Nerv staff are women. Being an Eva pilot, being Nerv staff, is marked as “feminine”, and Shinji is an Eva pilot; is a Nerv staffer. The body he gets into, Unit 01, acts as a metaphor for the large, imposing, masculine body he’s expected to have as an adult “man”, yet it’s also spiritually his mom -feminine- and his ability to use it is tied DIRECTLY with his ability to “Sync” with that spirit; with his ease and comfort being feminine. Even at the level of mere aesthetics, Shinji’s plugsuit makes him appear to have breasts! Going a bit deeper, he initially relates to the women around him by relating to their gender. He’s most at ease with Rei because of the personality traits she shares with him which, we know from his gender-policing of Misato from earlier in the series, are traits he considers feminine(ie: he doesn’t feel like Misato has them, so he thinks she’s being a woman “wrong” and gets oddly offended by this in a way that really feels more about him than her). Asuka is constantly expressing her frustration with him for not “being a man”, ie, for being “feminine” in her eyes, and he isn’t really bothered by it(her calling him an idiot seems to stick much more firmly). Misato and Shinji establish a modus vevendi when she accepts him as he is, allowing him to do the household chores and to cook; he’s comfortable and happy when accepted into roles his culture considers feminine, while most of the series is him bucking AGAINST the masculinity forced on him by Nerv, his father, and others. Again: this is a very surface-level engagement with the subject, but even at that shallow level I feel like the case for reading Shinji as a transwoman is pretty solid.

Dislikes

It’s not a perfect series by any means of course.

There’s allot of dialogue that’s pure 90s nonsense, though the series mostly includes it only to shoot it down.

Like I said above, I don’t think Rei and Asuka really get the time or attention they deserve. In general the series treatment of women is ...Weird... especially around the issue of sex. It’s really strange; in many ways it’s far better than most anime(spcl from that period) on this. Women are ACTUAL PEOPLE with psychology, opinions, and pasts; they’re allowed to have emotions of their own, and struggles, and to be damn competent; they are independent and their own selves rather than accessories or “prizes” to men. But on the issue of feminine sexuality it just gets suddenly so weird in this very particular old-school misogynist way. Like: it treats women’s attraction and reactions TO relationships as something devoid of and impenetrable to reason, without belittling the emotions(the desire and hurt) behind those reactions. That’s the only way I can describe it, and it’s so strange to see something that is both so insulting and sympathetic at once. Oh, and the Akagis in particular are done super-dirty for seemingly no reason I can see, tho I can guess, and Akagi Ritsuki is CLEARLY a lesbian(possibly bi lesbian) and also Rose Lalonde(srsl; her Deal should have been an unrequited, unspoken crush on Misato. They openly dealt with queerness re: Kaworu and Shinji they could have done it here too).

The Kaworu storyline should have been a series of episodes or even developed from the start with him as another pilot(maybe replace Toji with him), though they’d have to tone down his weirdness, at least at the start. A deeper dive on Shinji’s sexuality(honestly his attraction to Kaworu is SO much more immediate and believable than anything we see with him and Asuka, which there is basically nothing of beyond the ep where they had to do choreography for a fight, and that’s not developed on) would have really been appreciated, and having Kaworu be a bigger part of the series would have facilitated that.

Also honestly the whole series feels a bit rushed? Spcl the second half. Like I said: I haven’t done any followup reading lately, but I remember there being some budget problems or something, so maybe that’s the cause. Ironically it might actl also be why it’s as GOOD as it is; having to keep it short forces you to write concise and lean, and that’s probably why its themes and message are so clear. But, I’d have liked more rambling for character development, and more time spent on seeing Rei and Asuka react to the stresses we saw Shinji face(also they never really get moments to shine like he does; another negative common to the medium and genre). Asuka in particular, as a Japanese German with a USian temperament abandoned by her parents, already an outsider in SO many ways, coming to live in an entirely different culture where she’s even MORE of an outsider; forced to live with people(Misato and Shinji) she finds it impossible to relate to or connect with; who has literally NO ONE beside a single adult guardian who totally blows her off THE WHOLE SERIES after delivering her; PLUS her awful past: there’s just SO MUCH material I’d have loved to see explored more slowly and with greater depth, detail, and sympathy even if what IS there already is pretty powerful and effecting. She’s SUCH a good Vriska(so I’d also have loved to see her break more shit too >:>)

Conclusion

So Anyway: I really liked this series. It had its problems, there are things I’d have liked to see, but it absolutely deserves the reputation it has. I might write more about this, I might do a watch through INCLUDING End of Evangelion(which actl makes much more sense having watched the series, though having done so makes Shinji’s masturbation scene comPLETELY out of left-field like where the hell did THAT come from); we’ll see.

[phantomgirl15]

“Bad Dreams. Nightmares, Really.”

Request for @dp-marvel94 for a phicc using an idea from @ectoblood about how Danny gets to relive all of the clones’ last moments in his dreams. I really liked this concept and it was fun to write! I hope you’re okay with me using this as a prompt, and I hope that this little blob of writing that kinda just came to me after a lot of thinking about this concept is enjoyable to read.

Just as a warning, it does have a lot of emotional pain and generally a bit more graphic pain and gore.

Rated: T               Words: 2,237

The room was dark and quiet, almost nothing moving except the body suspended in saline and ectoplasm. The silence almost caused a high pitched ringing in his ears as he stared across the floor, one other ghost still there, a hand pressed to his forehead in frustration.

"It's not good enough! They still aren't stable!"

The anger in his voice could be heard echoing around the room. The lights flickered on, blinding for only a moment, but a moment too long. A large sledgehammer cracked the glass, the vibrations in the gelatinous fluid causing a feeling of nausea. Another thunk on the glass. And another. And another. The cracked began to web outwards, the pressure from the fluid making the glass almost groan as the seepage dripped to the floor.

One more blow and the glass shattered, the thick fluid forcing motion sickness as it flooded the basement's concrete flooring. Screams of pain were heard by the second ghost, but all that could be felt was the pain. Burning pain ran through the entire body, the feeling of melting and being torn apart causing the screams to get louder. Red and green fluid mixed on the floor, creating a brown puddle as the pain increased. A hand reached for the ghost that had broken the glass in rage, only to be seen melting before falling to the floor in the liquid state.

The screams didn't die down, they continued to echo around the room. The pain that was caused by the disintegration of molecules was excruciating, each second feeling like an eternity. The ghost looked at the melting child, his eyes almost filled with tears, and yet still emotionless as his newest son died. The screams of agony making him look away. The last thing that was seen was a puddle of what had been the child's body before his eyes dissolved in the acidic mess, the burning only getting worse. The vision vanished just as fast as it had appeared.

Danny sat straight upright, breathing hard as he found himself completely whole and stable in his own room, in his bed, in his house. He heard his parents talking in the kitchen, remembering that it was Saturday and he had plans to meet with Sam and Tucker and hang out with them before sleeping at Tucker's place. The memory of the dream crept back into his mind, his eyes wishing to unsee what had happened to the clones that Vlad had made of him.

He saw himself sweating as he looked in the mirror by his dresser. He saw the look of fear he could only barely remember from when he saw the last clone dying. He felt the fear he assumed all of the clones felt as they were dying.

. . .

Sitting in Tucker's room was fun, playing games and keeping busy with occasional ghosts showing themselves. Danny felt that he could finally relax, his mind distracted from his dream that morning. He lost the memory of the clone, lost the memory of feeling defenseless, weak, powerless. He lost the fear of being in so much pain that he couldn't do anything about what was happening to him. He lost the memory of having to be chained in Vlad's basement and being forced to go ghost.

"Danny, what movie you wanna watch?"

"I dunno. You got anything we haven't seen before?"

"Nah, bruh. All I got is what I had last week."

"In that case put in one of the 'Dead Teachers' movies. I don't really care which one."

Sam and Tucker nodded eagerly as Danny leaned back against the couch, his hands resting behind his head. About an hour and a half into the third movie Danny began to doze off, the hour getting much later into the night than he was used to staying up.

The darkness in his dream consumed him.

. . .

Danny saw himself in his dream and looked to see himself charging a powerful blast of ghost energy. He saw that he was on the golf course, that his skeletal figure was what he was inhabiting. He saw the blast, charged, and coming towards him. He saw the green light moving fast, but couldn't move. He couldn't get himself to move. He was too weak.

He wanted to scream but only silence left his mouth. He felt his eyes widen, the energy hot and burning through the bone as it touched him, as it ripped through the ground, as it destroyed the area around him. He felt his own energy tearing him apart, the feel of it almost as ungodly as being set in lava and just waiting to be taken out, only to find that nothing remained. He felt each molecule being destroyed, each atom that made up his being breaking apart and finding a new place to live.

He was able to see that when this happened, he hadn't cared. He just saw it as another stupid clone, one who probably couldn't feel anything. He saw the deadpan look on his face and saw just how similar to Vlad's it was in the previous dream.

Danny tried to get the ghost to close its eyes but he had no control. He had to feel the pain physically while being haunted by himself emotionally. With each moment the pain got worse, the ghost still unable to do anything. The light got brighter, hotter, the ghost that Danny had found himself to be finally being gone, being destroyed. Yet the pain still lingered as he began to blackout from the memory.

. . .

Sam was shaking Danny awake. Apparently, he had been screaming in his sleep while they were still watching the movies. He could still feel the pain, still, see his own face being merciless on the ghost. Danny shivered, beginning to sit upright as Tucker asked what happened.

"I just had a bad dream... That's all."

Danny tried to look away but his friends knew that there was something wrong. They saw how cautious Danny was to move, the pain still flooding his body, aching with every movement.

"Tell us what happened."

Danny looked away and shook his head, still trying to forget what happened, the pain from it being too much to handle mentally and physically. He tried to get away from his friends as their hands reached for him, causing them to exchange worried looks. He saw that they were worried and began to explain the dreams, not even realizing that he had tears running down his face.

"I saw, I felt what I had done to the clone. I knew what he felt."

"Danny I'm so sorry. How about we put on a happy movie and you try to sleep to that instead?"

"Yeah... we can try that. You're gonna make sure you can wake me up?"

"Of course, dude. We got you covered."

Danny smiled and looked to his friends, waiting for the movie to be on for a bit as he fell asleep, his body aching from the last dream. He saw the happy movie playing, smiles on every face as his eyes closed.

. . .

Danny saw himself and his cousin standing a bit back from him, his body towering over theirs. He saw that Danielle was more cautious about what she was doing, but he looked emotionless again. He saw nothing on his own face as the ghost he was inside began to run towards him and Danielle. He saw the energy they blasted at him, felt it tear through his abdominal region, leaving a large hole where his stomach had been.

He felt the ectoplasm dripping from the top to the bottom, the wet feeling causing him to become lightheaded in fear of what was about to happen. He felt himself become unstable enough that he collapsed, nothing left of him except a puddle of goo. The throbbing pain from the blast to the stomach still running through his mind.

Danny suddenly saw nothing except for the emotionless look on his face until Danielle collapsed in his arms. He wanted to cry. He had been a monster, exactly what he was trying to avoid. He was destroying clones and now reliving their last moments and he couldn't stop them from playing through his head.

Danny wanted to scream but couldn't.

. . .

There was a large cube in front of him, empty as the real him was locked away. He felt his second eye fall to the ground, melting as the floor touched it. He felt his body begin to break apart, one arm falling, then a leg, then a hand. He felt everything hurting, almost burning as he continued to melt. He felt himself being torn apart from the inside out.

His mind raced as he felt his head fall to the ground, praying that he didn't have to see the look on Vlad's face as he died for the fourth time. His mind was racing, wanting to die already but still being alive. The pain was too much - enough that Danny wouldn't wish it on even his worst enemy. He felt the aching and the burning, the acidic levels tearing him to shreds. Tears fell from the eye sockets of the head, the body still just floating above him, ectoplasm dripping onto his face and pulling the skin away from the skull. He tried to scream but nothing came out.

Danny's body collapsed on top of the head, the ectoplasm burning through the bones and eating away at the remaining flesh, leaving him as nothing but a small puddle that nobody cared about. Leaving him as a small mess that nobody had second thoughts about. Danny wanted to call out and be noticed...

But he couldn't.

. . .

Danny woke up to Tucker leaning over him, hot tears running down his cheeks and neck as he sat upright.

"It's painful in the dreams."

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to."

Danny looked to Sam and Tucker and saw that they were there for him. That they were supporting him no matter what. He took a deep breath in and let it out, quickly giving a slight idea of what happened. He listened to the silence for a moment, hearing his friends' breathing as they processed what they heard from him. He almost wanted to sob, feeling all of the pain from the past dreams filling his body and mind.

He flinched away as Sam gave him a hug, telling him that it would be alright. It was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

Danny felt a pull in the back of his mind, the emotions flooding him as he sat and felt the pain in every part of his body. He felt himself lean into the hug, grabbing Tucker and pulling him close too.

"Thanks, guys."

Danny just looked at the wall, his words almost sounding more forced than anything. He found himself unable to sleep for the rest of that night, the feel of what happened making him not wanting to sleep. His friends forced him to remain awake until the next night when they couldn't have a sleepover.

. . .

Danny saw the large tubes of clones surrounding him, he felt the walls closing in as he saw his fight with Vlad happening, he felt himself falling as he crash-landed on top of Vlad, being pushed to the side before being told he was unstable. Fear filled him - enough to overpower the pain that he was experiencing. Danny almost wanted to cry as he dissolved. He saw Danielle screaming in fear until the ghost finally closed its eyes, the screams still ringing in his mind.

. . .

He felt Danielle's pain while being dissected. He saw her legs beneath her, shaking in fear and from melting. He could hear her screaming as he tried to get her out but couldn't. He knew that she would come back, but the pain and fear were still haunting him from when she was melted.

He felt her body collapsing, felt her being torn to shreds, his muscles aching as they were pulled apart. He felt the agonizing burning as molecules were ripped from one another, and she became a puddle. As THEY became a puddle.

Danny felt his heartbreaking as he felt the last of Danielle's body be turned to goo, her muscles and the skeletal system being left to melt and combine with the rest of her already melted body. He wanted to cry out to her, to tell her that it would be okay, but he couldn't scream. He couldn't say a word. This wasn't his body, and the mouth was already destroyed. He couldn't do anything.

. . .

Danny woke up screaming again, his parents bursting into his room, letting him know that this had been the third day of him not sleeping well. The third day of them having to make sure he was okay and walking in to see him covered in sweat and scared. The third day of him getting asked if he saw a ghost in his room. The third day of him screaming or crying when he woke up.

Danny looked in the mirror and saw the deadpan face again, no emotion showing on it as he told his parents the same thing as he had the past three days. What he assumed he would have to tell them for many more days.

"It was only a bad dream."

[bonesingerofyme-loc]

Oryx, Beloved of the Deep

The Deep liked Oryx the best because Oryx came the closest a being born in the universe could to actually understanding it.

The Deep (The Darkness, the Winnower, whatever title you’d like to give it) is incompatible with mortal concepts of morality, and really any mortal concepts at all. It’s like arguing with gravity or taking personal offense to light being both a particle and a wave.

So what we get are intermediaries between the Deep and individuals - we get Worms. Worms are sort-of-between the timeless tropism that is the Deep and the impossibly small-scale living creatures of the universe. Which means the Worms can’t really relate to either, but try their best to bridge it. 

When the three Krill siblings found the Worms, the worms sold them an easy deal - eternal life, as long as they do whatever the worms say. Considering what the Worms say is pretty well in line with what the three wanted to do anyway, it seemed pretty sweet.

But the divergence begins here, as does Oryx’s climb to real ascension. 

Xivu Arath wanted to fight. She was, and is, simple. She is war, she is a knight, she wants to test her blade against all things. There isn’t much nuance.

Savathun wants to live forever. Oh, sure, she’s known for her trickery, for her traps and plans and infinite cunning - but all of those, all of those, are bent toward the goal of immortality.

Let’s look at these two, then. And how they live up to the urge of the Deep.

Xivu Arath wants to fight. In a way, that’s pretty in line with the Deep - it desires a final, ultimate shape. But see - the Deep doesn’t care how that comes to be. It doesn’t care if that final shape comes to be because a single extremely angry Hive went out and personally cut everyone’s heads off, or if a bunch of self-replicating grey-goo nanobots managed to consume the whole universe. They’re both perfectly valid conclusions to the Deep. One final shape. The end. Easy.

So Xivu superficially is following the ‘philosophy’, so to speak, of the Deep, but she doesn’t believe it. She’s not doing this out of some desire to to be the Only Thing Left Standing. No - from what we know of Xivu (which is precious little, really, compared to her siblings) - she’s just a scrappy sonofabitch who wants to fight. The fact that her burning need for war results in species and complexity dying off, and thus in some way the Final Shape is approached is really kind of serendipity. Not every thing that goes to war worships the Deep - conflict is just a natural part of existence, even in the Sky’s view of it.

Then we have Savathun. She wants to live forever. You could say that the desire to live forever is coterminous with the desire to be the Final Shape. To kill all other things so that one is never threatened and can exist eternally, one and the same with the universe.

But that’s a stretch. Savathun actually hasn’t seemed inclined toward omnicide in particular.

Oh, sure, she’ll partake of it of course, because she is, after all, Hive, and has a Worm gnawing in her throat, but Savathun is out here to live. That’s why she took the Worm, remember?

Aurash wanted to understand, Xi Ro wanted to fight, but Sathona - Sathona wanted the Mother Morph, because she didn’t want to die.

We’re seeing this more and more as more lore is revealed, and it’s becoming interesting how Savathun appears to be growing discontented with the Worms and perhaps even the Deep itself. Indeed - they seem to be nothing more than a means to an end, which was power, and longevity, so that she could learn more and discover more, and draw more power and longevity to herself, that she might then move onto the next stage of her plan for eternal existence, leaving behind both the Worms and the Deep. Unlike Oryx or Xivu Arath, Savathun has tried plans to satiate trick and satiate her Worm’s hunger. Unlike her siblings, she’s trying to find loopholes.

And now she’s hit upon Imbaru, which, by it’s very nature, actually requires other life to exist for it to work. Savathun’s humdinger of a scheme is actually antithetical to the Deep entirely - instead of becoming eternal as the only one, she wants to make herself synonymous and synchronous with suspicion and deception so that as long as those things exist, so too will she. 

But how can those things exist if the universe is sterile and dead, all into the Final Shape?

It can’t.

Savathun is angling to break her contract with the Deep and the Worms.

Thus do we have one sister who is merrily warring across space and time, content to do what she always wanted, and it just works out nicely that the result of her hobby does trend toward what the Darkness wants. The other sister is merely using the Deep as a tool, ready and willing to discard it as soon as it becomes useless or a hindrance.

Now Oryx.

Now we look on Oryx, the Taken King, First Navigator of the Osmium Court, Lord of the High War.

Oryx, you could say, was a true believer. In classic fashion, the true believer had his doubts in the beginning, and wavered in his faith. In classic fashion, from the doubt came only the passion that true zealotry can bring, and thus did Oryx become the mightiest of the Hive and most beloved of the Deep.

Now why would Oryx be the most beloved of the Deep?

You could say it’s for a number of reasons. Maybe Oryx had the highest K/D. Maybe Oryx extincted one more species than his sister’s did. Maybe Oryx made sure his lineage said the right prayers in the right way to make the Deep pleased.

It’s none of that.

Oryx was the most beloved because Oryx actually understood.

The Deep is impersonal and it is a force. The Deep doesn’t care about you, or you, or you or you. Your death means nothing to it - literally nothing. Not a positive or negative, just a fact. A fact. There is no malice in the Deep, no hatred - it is a force. That all things must end and become One Shape, to end the game. 

These things the Hive do - the tortures, the horrors, the torments - the Deep didn’t ask it of them. The Worms did. 

The Hive must do one thing. They must kill. Whether they kill with torturous scalpels or with impersonal nuclear fire - it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead, and the game progresses toward the end.

You could imagine a culture of grieving righteous crusaders, bringing silent death to worlds with painless gasses and bursts of gamma rays, extinguishing trillions of lives as humanely as they can, mourning for each culture lost but knowing it must be done, and taking it on as their curse.

They would serve the Deep as truly as a zealous, shrieking horde of tormented Thralls clawing apart screaming masses.

This is what Oryx began to understand. Oryx in his studies, in his charting of the Deep, came the closest to being able to converse with it on a comparable level. Consider his death - he forsees it and welcomes it. He recognizes and accepts his role as but a tool, an implement, in the great design of the Final Shape. Sure - he hopes that he might be that Final Shape, but he is content, if he is not, that he has done his duty to the universe in progressing it that much closer. And he hopes that whomsoever does end his existence will understand Oryx, and Oryx’s goal, so that even in death his influence can guide his slayer to continue his good work and seek the Final Shape.

When Oryx went to speak with the Deep, and Savathun and Xivu Arath tried to strand him there, something happened.

Oryx fought the deep.

What manner this fight took, what shape it held, what result it had - that’s unknown. But from Verse 4:3, metaphorical though it is, Oryx clearly turns on the Deep and vies with it in some way.

And the Deep is pleased.

Why wouldn’t it? Oryx met with his ‘god’, and stayed true to the exact thing that god cares about more than anything else. The struggle. The push for single victor. Oryx would fight and kill his god to prove his god correct - and this is all the Deep asks.

In his time as a Hive God Oryx stripped away much of what he was. There’s mentions of emotions alloying together, of reduction of complexity in his psyche until all things seem to smear together. 

This too, is as the Deep is.

Oryx, in a way, was mantling the Deep. He was becoming simpler, closer to the smile of a blade, closer to nothing but a knife, in mind and purpose, but a knife that was willing to shatter if another knife greater than it contended. 

I think the Deep misses Oryx. I think, in as much as it could be, it was proud. In this strange new game with warped rules and twisted grounds, Oryx came the closest to what the Deep once had before it all began. Oryx came the closest to understanding the Deep, personally, and for once, the Deep almost had a peer in the way the Gardener could never be. 

In a way, Oryx was almost a friend.

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

Animorph/DP crossover

so i’m officially on an animorph binge, fueled by nostalgia and dawning horror as i rediscover how deeply messed up an violent this series is.

for those of you don’t remember or only vaguely remember the weird book covers, animorphs was a quintessential nineties book series (and brief bad tv show) that most of us read for free-reading points when we were eight. it is a series about 5 kids who witness an alien ship crash one day and have a dying alien give them the power to turn into any animal and alien they collect dna from (a bit like ben10′s omnitrix now that i think about it, only it came out first, isn’t a bracelet and is generally horrible). new space dad also gives them, a group of 13 year old’s, the mission to stop a different race of alien invaders, called yerks, who are essentially slugs that crawl in your ears and take over your body. they intend to take over earth. the animorphs can’t trust adults because they don’t know who’s being mind controlled and quite suddenly they find themselves in a full scale war, full of moral grays and trauma at every turn along with goofy nineties slang and sometimes (rarely) the kids having fun with their ability to turn into wild animals. arguably the first book has a higher kill count than the entire harry potter series. it doesn’t pull it’s punches and, while i’m sure i have nostalgia glasses on, it’s really good. give it a read sometimes.

so, of course, i have to dump my crossover head-cannons on you, because combining these two worlds, that have pretty impressive world building is too good to pass up. (keep in mind i’m only three books into this binge and my memory is mostly hazy). strap in;

okay first of lets set the condition that ectoplasm and ectoplasm based weapons kills yerks. therefore Danny and any ghost can actually kill yerks pretty easy. it also means Danny can’t become a controller even if they try. i want to set this stipulation because lets be honest the yerks are too powerful and the hero side is already outnumbered. i suppose you could think of it as to semi sentient slimes fighting for dominance, yerks are more living and sentient than ectoplasm itself, but that’s part of what makes them weak to ectoplasm, a materiel that is a byproduct of death and that has proven to be corrosive in general. ectoplasm is less thought based and more hunger and emotion based. so it’s easy for ectoplasm to consume a yerk because as a sentient being it has emotions and mass, whereas, a yerk looking for a brain in a ghost won’t have much to grab onto.

or you could not have that caveat and make everything even darker and worse by having ectoplasm being good for yerks, similar to those slime pools they bask in. in which case, discovering the ghost portal will be a crushing blow to the humans

Danny can clear out yerk infestations, just by possessing people, but it essentially means burning a yerk alive inside someones head, which is traumatizing for everyone involved. Danny doesn’t like doing this but will when necessary

yerks, due to this aversion to ectoplasm, are actually very superstitious about ghosts and avoid ‘haunted’ places as much as possible, leaving Amity fairly safe until the larger scale plans start taking effect. 

at which point ‘let’s just wipe this haunted city off the map’ plans start circulating. (’but wouldn’t that just create more ghosts?’ ‘i won’t pretend to know’)

enter the animorphs and team phantom on different fronts. the animorphs are eager to know why the yerks are so adverse to this city that they’re willing to destroy it. is there a weapon there? is there something useful there? i don’t think even the andilites know about yerks weakness to ectoplasm (oh they would have used it) so they’re running blind, hoping to get the weapon and the information before the city is destroyed, and you know, hoping to prevent the city’s destruction

team phantom on the other hand are way blinder in general. their involvement started as Tucker hacking some government files and then accidentally following the backdoor breadcrumbs into the entire yerk system. he take’s the whole, ‘aliens are controlling our government’ thing, as more of a ‘I WAS RIGHT’ moment than a ‘oh no!’ Danny and Sam are reasonably skeptical because of this

until they find out that the city’s gonna get destroyed yet again. and then things are kinda sticky for them, because most of what they know about the alien invasion is from Tucker’s hacks and a lot of it is in an alien language that’s taking time to translate.

so of course the animorphs show up and find literal ghosts and assume aliens because they’re not far enough in the timeline for god and time travel to be an established thing yet. everyone is freaking out, because they’re being invaded by something else!? they’re already in one war, man. and the team debates are on because clearly these things are an enemy to the yerks if the yerks want to destroy them so much. we could use them (Rachel, Tobias), but we don’t know anything about this race or if they’re the lesser of evil between the races (Marco, Cassie). Ax’s only opinion is that ghosts freak him the hell out and are unnatural. i don’t think he’d be able to telepathically communicate with ghosts (except for Danny and Vlad) and that deeply scares him. Jake decides they need more information before they decide. the team quickly elects to catch a ghost and interrogate it.

which goes as well as one can expect. watching the animorphs try to fight the box ghost with all their animal forms is embarrassing, with how ineffective it is. team phantom walks in on this.

which leads to the ‘are we talking to hostile aliens’ stare down. team phantom saw enough of the fight to be like, no, and have already proven more or less that the animorphs aren’t ghosts, so alien is the other conclusion to draw.

the amount of sarcasm and banter that Danny and Marco create being in the same room together is legendary. establishing a bit of almost playful respect

Ax is being messed up by Danny’s psychic wavelength because he can hear it but there’s migraine inducing feedback

Sam and Rachel however are low key butting head in the background and that results in a fight the they break up and pretty much establish, yeah, we’re all good guys here, okay. (Sam and Rachel's sass levels are also dangerously high. in general the amount of sass in the room could fuel a teledrama)

everyone’s hesitant to share information, Danny keeps his secret initially and even though they get their rundown of the aliens and the rundown of the ghost, neither are willing to share the big secrets or trust. team phantom have this whole ‘what if they’re the aliens trying to blow up the town subplot while one of the animorphs (i wanna say Tobias but i don’t think he’s picked transformation back up yet so lets say Marco) grabs some of Danny's dna to see if they can turn into a ghost.

it goes as horribly wrong as it can go.

most ectobased life forms don’t have dna because they’re made purely of ectoplasm, that’s it. the only reason Danny has dna is because he’s a halfa and his Schrodinger's cat existence was very lucky and very unnatural. combining ectomutated dna with a power that is based purely around life is not good. marco almost dies, everyone’s really mad, even though it’s not Danny's fault. the animorphs demand that they fix him and Sam is bitter because the blame is on them for taking his dna without danny;s consent but whatever. they save him anyway because they’re the heroes.

welcome back Fenton dream-catcher, they remove the ectomutation spirit thing from Marco safely and either they have to fight the half-transformed goo monster or the thing collapses on it’s own because it’s completely unstable.

Marco, depending on how philosophical you want to get, tastes death, ectoplasm, ghost obsessions, and possibly some of Danny's memories? i guess the animorph power works a bit like copying another creatures spirit, which is one of the reason, copying something like Danny is so complicated because he is the perfect hybrid of spirit and life. they ironically can’t copy literal spirits though because they have no dna as a starting point. the whole near death experience is going to haunt Marco for a while.

oh well, life saving, monster fighting, out of the way, trust is finally established.between the teams and everyone get’s crash courses in ectobiology and animorph biology and figure out why the bad stuff happened.but  they still don’t know that ectoplasm kills yerks

this got long. i shall do a part 2! - Hestia

[ellieaelious]

Elf Bee Eye Pt. Two {Smile}

Part: 2 of ? Verse: Bright 2017 Movie Characters: Ellie (OC), Haldir (OC/Canon), Nick Jakoby (Canon), Daryl Ward (Canon), Dark Lord (OC/Canon) Honorable mentions/Cameos: Kandomere (Canon) Rating: 18+ Summary: We take a look back at how this all started and Haldir learns something troubling about his new partner. This chapter will contain violence, death, and all that good stuff!

Not every feeling was of disdain as Haldir and Ellie made their way down the hallway. While he found it a bit unnerving that she smiled so earnestly at everyone, apparently some found it very attractive. Mostly human males, the occasional female, would pause for a brief moment as she greeted them in passing. To anyone that didn’t know better, she had a similar ethereal beauty that elves did. Humans became easily flustered by it, especially since it was a rare sight to see an elf be genuinely happy and so open about it. It really didn’t bother him until an small collection of elves by the elevator made it a point to press the elevator button for them, and even give her a lingering glance. Disgraceful.

Everything went right over her little head, from the slight tint changes of cheeks, the overly friendly greetings, even when one elf was so bold as to take her hand in greeting before she boarded the elevator. It did make her feel more welcomed. No one really caught her eye until she saw a distant blue form, not far from the office that she had met Haldir in front of. Her pupils dilated, expanding the distance in which she could see. Haldir noticed the odd look on her face, following her gaze while pressing the button to close the doors.

“He’s with the magic division.” Haldir broke the silence, causing the small woman to look up at him.

“He has blue hair.” she commented quietly.

“Quite magical, don’t you think?” he smirked a bit, wondering how she could be so easily amused by a different shade of hair color.

“Well...he probably goes to a salon, or if he’s particular might even do it himself. I thought it might be natural at first, seeing as he even took the time to have his eyebrows done. But then when he lifted his hand I saw his arm. The hair on it’s black. Takes a little mysticism out of it once you connect the dots.” Ellie listed through her detective reasoning, finishing with her now trademark grin as she looked up at him.

He almost punched the stop button before he had her pinned against the wall. She was so much shorter than him, it wasn’t to hard. He watched the smile fade slowly from her face as she bit her bottom lip, confusion firmly in place.

“I want you to understand one thing. I’m not in this elevator willingly. I’m not in the same building as you willingly. We are not friends. We are not even allies.” he leaned down close to her, sniffing the air around her face as she started to cower down the closer he got. It was a defense mechanism if she was being honest. Make her eyes large, small, quivering mouth, cower to appear more helpless. Animal instinct.

Haldir pushed himself away from her and crossed his arms, still looking down, lavender eyes almost glowing. “There is something familiar in your scent.” he leaned down closer again. “What exactly are you?”

It was a very personal question, one that she wouldn’t answer under normal circumstances. Despite his crude manner though, she still needed to try and make peace.

“I’m a sub species of Realmain, is the simple answer but...” she paused for a moment, trying to get a feel for what answer he was looking for. “I found out a few years ago that an ancestor came from another dimension a few thousand years ago. He was part something called Dunmer. A type of elf.” judging from the look on his face, she guessed correctly in what he was snooping for.

He’d never heard of a Dunmer before, but then again he’d never heard of anything else that showed up over the last few months. But it made more sense now. Since he’d actually been in her presence, he could feel something familiar about her. Maybe that’s why she was the one doing all the talking when the two worlds were negotiating.

“I’m not going to attack you. It’s what your ultimate goal is. Isn’t it?” her tone changed as he mulled over her initial response. His eyes widened as immense dread overcame him. Suddenly, he felt two feet tall in her presence.

It was her doing, a simple trick of reversing emotions. She had looked in his eyes long enough to perform a quick exchange. Now, he could feel how he had tried to make her.

The fabric of her vest heaved in and out, air moving between the carefully woven threads that allowed her skin to still breath. She had been giving chase for a while now and neither of them seemed to be slowing down anytime soon. Ellie’s eyes narrowed and teeth gritted as she picked up speed, hand reaching out to grab the fabric of the runner’s jacket. As her fingertips grazed the polyester blend, the Dark Saer shed the body in the middle of a leap across another building. The human host began to plummet while the formless mass of tentacles landed on the other side. There was still plenty of time to save the former host, but not enough to where another wouldn’t be taken.

Acceptable loss.

The splat of the body hitting the concrete alleyway was muffled by the laughter the creature gave as she continued to chase it over rooftops. Although it was faster in this form, she no longer had any reason to hold back.

She let out a furious grunt, leaping into the air as her naginata formed in her hands. A few spins and she managed to land with the single bladed end embedded in a tendril. The monster let out a shriek and paused, allowing her to tackle it. It was hard to land a blow on something made of goop, but she still gave it her best shots. She made sure to keep her mouth closed tightly and visor across her eyes to avoid becoming taken over herself. It was a struggle that she took to the sky, launching them both high into the atmosphere. It may have been midnight where they were, but if she could get high enough maybe she could catch the sun over the horizon.

The mass of tendrils and goo began to engulf her, finding every nook and cranny it could to consume of her. As her torso became engulfed, her skin took one more gasp of air before it was completely encased. They stayed floating like that for a moment, the creature tightening and becoming smaller, folding the ruler in on herself. It let out a satisfied chuckle before shrieking in pain. She managed to break a flash grenade before her hands were completely immobile. They both began to plummet towards the ground, a crackle and flash of light surrounding them as they did.

“When did the sun come out? How long were we like that?” Ellie thought to herself as she began to struggling with the smoking creature. It didn’t matter. She had the upper hand now.

She landed on a guardrail, right between her bottom rip and hip bone. It knocked the air right out of her as they both bounced along the pavement, making small craters from the impact. The dust that kicked up shielded the nocturnal creature as it took a breather. Ellie barely had time to assess the damage before she was back in the game, forcing herself to her feet and trying to see through the dirt. Luckily her visor began to scan the area, showing her an outline of the beast.

They both came tumbling out, surrounded by onlookers. For a brief moment, the Dark Saer took on it’s regular form, a half snake half woman, before shrieking and dissolving back into the tar mass. Ellie wasted no time in grabbing the only solid thing she could find on it and began flinging it back and forth on the ground like a rag doll. As she went to stomp it, tendrils shot up and impaled her, sending her flying back into a now abandoned taxi. The force was enough to send both her and the vehicle into a department store window.

“Help.....meeeee.” the Dark Saer took on the form of a half snake again, hissing and reaching for the pointy eared crowd. There was something...different about these beings. Not human. Something much better. Slit eyes scanned the crowd until they fell onto a hulking form. Coiling back on her tail, it launched forward for an Orc, holding the screaming male down as it forced it’s way into his mouth.

Ellie managed to limp her way back into the street, her bones snapping back into place and wounds healing as she marched forward. The look on her face was stern and frightening. She scanned the area, locking in on the new host just in time to be smacked by a traffic light it decided to use as a weapon. She fell to her knee, holding her forearm up to protect her head. The deep laugh it let out was disturbing to say the least. And honestly, she was getting miffed it kept getting the upper hand. As it brought the light back for a heavier hit, Ellie stood and lifted her foot, planting it firmly on the chest of the host. A loud CRACK filled the air as the Orc flew back, it’s entire rib cage breaking from the impact. Ellie let out a huff, she’d heal him, if it even left the host alive.

The Dark Saer quickly abandoned ship, trying to slither it’s way towards screaming bystanders. A firm boot to it’s tail halted it, bring the attention back on her. Reaching down she began to pull it back to her, flicking her wrist as a metal rod slid from her sleeve. It extended into three points, and with a swift swing she managed to stab the creature in the eyes, pulling on the rod to allow the third point to sever the tongue. The creature twitched for a few moments before falling and bubbling away into ash. Ellie let out a relieved sigh before making her way to the host. She knelt down, placing her hand on his forehead. A small white light came from her hand and traveled through the Orc, healing him before he succumbed to his wounds. She was about to begin a memory wipe she she noticed...he was not human.

Slowly she began to look around, noticing none of them were human. This was bad. She noticed the sounds of sirens growing louder, flashes from cellphones going off all around her. In panic, she closed her eyes and teleported. In a small puff of air she was gone, reforming on the top of the empire state building.

“IDA, mind telling me where I am?” she asked the automated assistant from her world.

“New York City.”

“Not. Funny.”

“Well, not your New York City. But Someone’s.”

Ellie huffed angrily as the sky grew dark. Black portals began to open in the sky, dropping dark figures down to the earth below. Ellie went wide eyed, immediately calling for back-up.

With their own war at home, none one ruler could spare their troops. Except the grand phoenix known as Bennu. She graciously offered her support, so long as Ellie remained in command. Small price to pay. And even smaller one was wearing the leather straps on her hands. It was finally agreed that spires would be placed in all the Elven districts, the most secure of cities around the world. It was a lengthy process, but finally both worlds came to an agreement. Ellie, Bennu, and the phoenixes would stay until they managed to hunt down every Dark Saer that managed to slip through. They would also aid in the local government investigations.

The soft ding of the elevator sounded as they reached the ground level. Haldir seemed visibly shaken, and Ellie continued to smile as she stepped out.

“Our vehicle is waiting out front. We wouldn’t want to be late.” she looked back at him, smiling.

There was something sinister behind her innocence. Something that terrified him. He just hoped he would survive this assignment. 

End of Chapter A/N: That has to be one of the quickest chapters I’ve ever done! Holy cow x.x Part three will probably be up sometime next week. I’ll also start including a soundtrack to go along with your reading :3

@wewingedchildren-of-outcasts

[shadowsfiguresfigments-blog]

A good place to die Chapter 22 (smut)

Warning: harsh language, violence

Right before Penny crashed into me, my foot slipped on the misted floor and I tumbled down, unable to steady myself in time. Pennywise crashed into the sink with enough force to bounce back over me. I hit my head pretty hard, and was momentarily stunned. The clown lost no time, pinning me down easily with one hand, while his jaw started to morph into the protruding abyss of sharp teeth. Unable to do anything, I watched as he spread my numb legs wide apart and tore into me.

A thousand sharp needles dug into my soft skin, punching holes into my lower abdomen, my inner thighs and my pussy. Penny started sucking immediately, going so hard I could feel parts of my skin tear between the wounds. Still dizzy and unable to move my limbs, I tried to look at the huge shape bent over me. His face had lost all resemblance to anything human. His eyes, which had turned a glowing burgundy, loomed over the sides of his head, his nose was entirely gone, and his jaws closed entirely around my abdominal area. In fact, my brain gave me the image of a gigantic deep-sea creature, the ones they don’t show kids because they might induce nightmares.

At that point my strength left me, and I went completely limp, unable to even access my eyeballs. My lids shut themselves, and a calming blackness approached me. I still could feel his tongue wiggling into me, trying to get to the source of my menstrual blood. It almost felt like his tongue had somehow grown hungry little mouths itself, grazing the surface of my womb for every bit of blood possible. But the pain drifted further and further away, until I no longer was aware of anything around me.

 I woke up to the strangest sight. Pennywise was still sucking on me, his face even more deformed, but something had changed. His eyes had lost all color, and there was something… desperate about him. I tried to sit up, but was immediately hit by another wave of nausea. Also, my head hurt horribly. Still, I managed to get into a sitting position, and weakly put my hands on the remnants of his hair. The skin beneath them had turned a scaly brown, and his body had somehow deflated.

I tried to speak, but nothing but a horse croak came out of my mouth. I feebly pushed against his head, not expecting any great results, but with a wet, slopping sound his mouth peeled off my lower body. It was completely lax and slopped unto the floor while his tongue was still buried in my womb.

It wiggled slowly from side to side, somehow desperate to remain within me, but just like the rest of Penny it seemed to lose its strength. Finally, his tongue slid out of me, curling up into a moist red tube. An eerie, whaling sound filled the clouded air. It sounded oddly distant in the mist, yet I knew exactly where it came from. With all my might I struggled to raise my arms further, willing them forward inch by inch, until I was finally able to hug Pennywise. His form oozed out from over- and underneath my arms.

What had happened?

What had I done?

A pain I hadn’t known before shot through me and gave me the control over my body back. I wrapped my legs around him a well in an attempt to contain all of him between my limbs.

We stayed like this for what felt like an eternity. Penny’s cries eventually subsided, and the only sounds audible were my heartbeat and my breath. After a while I nuzzled my face into the gooey sack he had become, caressing him like a wounded child. The dizziness faded, and all I was left with was one hell of a headache, but I didn’t care. My attention was solely focused on Pennywise, on that god-like horror master, who lay in my arms shivering. Sometime later, when he appeared to be more solid, I gently picked up his tongue and put it back into his mouth. It still had the little tentacle-like suckers protruding, but they appeared to be no longer… alive.

Still, Penny was able to keep his tongue in his mouth, and I noticed his eyes had shifted more to the center of his former face. They stared at me, a little more silverish than before, in an incredibly upset way. Not exactly sure of what I was doing, I gently placed a kiss on the spot that used to be his forehead, and started cradling him. I hummed a little melody from an Anime series (I had entirely forgotten the name, but the melody had been stuck in my head all the time) and kept stroking him.

When he finally started to move I felt like crying. He slowly retracted himself from my embrace, and in doing so morphed back to the clown figure I had come to love. Though he appeared to be struggling very much with doing so, he still managed to sit up and, in turn, cradled me against his chest.

“I’m sorry, little one”, he whispered.

“Don’t be”, I managed and buried my face against his shoulder.

I still struggled to understand what had happened, but I was not the only one. I could still feel him shiver, and when I looked up his face seemed to be overwhelmed with showing his emotions.

“Penny, are you okay?”

Silence.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

Still no answer.

“Penny, I love you. Please tell me what’s going on”, I begged.

Several minutes passed before he answered me.

“You’re hurt.”

“Never mind that. What happened to you? You were… goo. I thought you died on me.” My hoarse voice broke on the last words. I sounded like some fucking orc.

“I… don’t know. You smelled so good… And I was hungry.”

He hugged me so tight I was unable to breathe, holding on to me like I was the only thing that could keep him here, in this reality.

“I ate the animal meat you gave me, and I’ve been hungry for so long.”

“So you were in a sort of feeding frenzy?”

He shrugged, and the movement together with his tight embrace lifted me up several inches.

“Did I taste good, at least?”

He grabbed me by my shoulders and held me at arm’s length to get a good look at my face. His eyes had turned a dark purple shade. It was a color I had never seen before in my life. Dots of light appeared in his iris, slowly rotating. It was a hypnotizing sight.

“You are delicious”, he rumbled. “But I could never eat you.”

I stared at him. Had he actually just said that?

He continued to hold my gaze, the dots rotating so fast they turned into fiery rings. I was sure that those rings were a gateway into another world, just like the wormholes on the old sci-fi series.

“I won’t eat you”, he repeated, his voice becoming more steady. “I won’t allow anything to happen to you. And I won’t allow me to hurt you either.”

I clutched at him and anxiously dug my nails into him, afraid of what he was implying.

“Don’t you dare leave me again!”, I rasped as loud as I could. “I can’t deal with this world on my own! I need you. I love you. I can’t feel without you!”

We stared at each other in desperation.

The silence continued until a dripping noise interrupted it. I tore my eyes away from Penny and saw my menstruation was far from over.

“I’m sorry, Penny, I need to get this cleaned up.”

His eyes flashed red for a second, but he nodded.

“I shouldn’t help you with that, sorry”, he mumbled.

I got up on shaky legs, but I found myself able to move without nausea, and set to clean the floor and myself. Fortunately auntie had a habit of hiding the little jewelry she had in a box of tampons, and I simply borrowed one of them. Penny had withdrawn himself into my room, and I made sure that there wasn’t a single drop of blood left on me before I entered.

It sucked to have my period back – I had forgotten how intense the cramps could get, and I had honestly no clue how Penny and I were supposed to deal with it. Penny obviously wasn’t “safe” around me while I bled, and it hurt him to know that. Furthermore I would really have to worry about protection from now on, though I didn’t even know if I could get pregnant from him.

With all this whirling around in my head I went back into my room only to find Penny in his human form sitting on my bed. I went straight to him and clasped his hands. At least I tried to, but mine were just so much smaller than his he ended up curling his around mine. A troubled smile appeared on his luscious lips, but the lines on his forehead didn’t fade at all.

“You know, I’m still not afraid of you”, I teased him, and kissed him briefly.

“I know”, he sighed. “But I don’t know what I might do to you. I don’t like this sensation.”

I tried to make light of the situation, both for his and my sake.

“Well, it’s not like we can just ask anybody, right? We’re no ordinary couple, no sir. Imagine auntie’s face when I come up to her and ask her for relationship advice on me and my horror-clown-shapeshifter. It would probably give her a heart-attack.”

He just stared at me, his handsome features locked in discomfort.

“Also, she might be upset about your nutritional choices. And the fact that I don’t care.”

After that also failed to receive a reaction, I just sat down on his knee and kissed him as slowly as I managed to without ravaging him right there. At least he kissed me back, and soon his hands wandered down my back and raised the familiar goose bumps.

“We’ll get through this”, I gasped in between kisses, but the words felt empty. Isn’t it amazing how language can be so unable to express your feelings? The sensation of believing in something so strongly everything else seems to fade, the attraction to someone else that consumes your thoughts and leaves you both weak and yet full of power, and the desperation that either breaks you to pieces or makes you discover a strength you never even considered possible.

All those things I was unable to say with my words I communicated with my body. Our tongues entwined, probing each other’s mouths, while our hands sought to bring us as close together as possible. It was an entirely new sensation to feel Penny in his human disguise. Instead of steel cables covered in silk I tore of his clothes to feel smooth skin over well-formed muscles, betraying the strength within his slim frame. And where he would normally touch me with his cool gloves warm hands slid over my hips and my breasts.

Suddenly the tension between us changed. An slight air of desperation that had been there before turned into a full storm. It left us clutching at each other with so much force it almost hurt. Our teeth grinded together as our kisses became increasingly deeper and anxious, and I could no longer wait for him. I grabbed his dick to reposition it, and with one swift thrust he was inside me.

He may not have been as big as in his clown form, but I came instantly nonetheless. I wrapped my legs around him while my body shook and closed the last little space between us. There was no time to relax or get accustomed to him; instead his thrust were so quick and hard I was moved around on the mattress. I dug my teeth into his lower lip, and in response his fingernails clawed my back. Moans escaped both him and me, and with one final forceful thrust he shuddered and came, triggering my second orgasm simultaneously.

All of this must have happened within five minutes or less, but it was the most intense sensation I had ever experienced. The desperation had subsided, but was not gone. Penny had collapsed on me, but his arms stayed firmly around me, as did mine. We both shuddered in the afterglow, the force of our lust dissipating only slowly.

I clung to him while tears seeped into my eyes.

“I don’t care about being human, Penny.”

[mindfuleatingwithalicia]

Enjoying your food, has health benefits

So we have all heard it, eat more fruits and veg, eat less sodium, eat less saturated fats, drink more to improve your health .. But how many of you have had been told to eat what you enjoy to improve your health. Yes, it might sound a little controversial but there is some truth in this. Let me explain. When we consume foods, the food has an impact on our bodies and our energy levels negatively or positively. Our bodies also affect our thoughts and our feelings about things. So if your feelings about what you are eating are negative, that will then influence the body also.

In Japan, one of the dietary mandates is "enjoy your meals." I think this is a great idea and we should follow suit in the UK.

Most of us tend to believe we have to choose between enjoyment and health when it comes to eating. There is a stack of evidence that suggest eating-related pleasure, satisfaction and enjoyment are important components of a healthy diet.

On the flip side, negative emotions related to eating like guilt, fear, shame and judgment have a real negative impact on our health and well-being – Here a few things that can happen

1. You'll digest your food better.

Enjoyment tells the parasympathetic nervous system to trigger its relaxation response. This is the same system that gets your digestion going by relaxing the muscles in your gastrointestinal tract and increasing digestive juices. So when you are eating food that tastes good and brings you pleasure, you're also triggering digestion. The opposite can happen as well: If you eat something that you don't really want or like, or you feel guilty or ashamed while eating it, you trigger the body's stress response. This partially shuts down digestion and can lead to insulin spikes, fat storage and gut issues like bloating, constipation or diarrhoea

2. You'll absorb more nutrients.

When it comes to nutrient absorption, taste matters. A study looked at iron absorption when people from Sweden were given Thai food and people from Thailand were given Swedish food. In both cases, people absorbed less iron than when they ate the food from their native country, which they presumably enjoyed more. The study also looked at nutrient absorption when both groups were given the same meal, but blended into an ugly brown goo. In this instance, neither group absorbed much iron, likely because it was no fun to eat.

3. You'll be satisfied with less.

There is a difference between feeling physically full and feeling satisfied. If you aren't completely satisfied with the food you are eating, it becomes much easier to overeat. That's because when you don't get the pleasure you are seeking, your brain interprets that missed experience as hunger, so you continue to eat more and more in an attempt to feel satisfied. Satisfaction, however, is what really turns off the drive to eat. When you enjoy the food that you are eating, it is much easier to stop eating when you are full.

So how can you learn to enjoy your food in the name of – not in opposition to – health? Take a note from the Japanese and follow these tips. With some practice, you can figure out what foods give you the most pleasure and enjoyment – and your overall health will likely benefit as a result.

Stop labelling foods as bad, indulgent or forbidden. When you think of foods as "bad," eating them comes with a side helping of guilt and judgment. This guilt counteracts any pleasure you would otherwise feel and makes it tough to enjoy the food. Plus, eating foods you enjoy but have labelled as off-limits often leads to overeating or bingeing because who knows when you'll let yourself have those foods again (and what the heck, the day is already shot, right?). Changing your mindset and viewing foods as neutral allows you to make choices based on health, satisfaction and self-care, which increases the pleasure you feel.

Ask yourself, "What do I really want to eat right now?" This may be a hard question to ask, especially if you're used to dieting, following food rules or eating the same things every day because you think you "should." It will take some trial and error, so experiment with food choices and take note of how satisfied (or unsatisfied) you feel after eating each.

Slow down and be mindful. When you eat quickly, you don't give yourself a chance to really taste and enjoy the food. By slowing down and savouring your meal or snack, you will get more pleasure from it. Slowing down also helps you to better feel when you start to get full because your stomach has more time to signal to your brain that it's had enough. This can make it easier to stop eating when you are comfortably full. sources

Please be mindful not to only eat the best healthy food for you but also please make sure they are foods you are going to enjoy, Food is not a punishment, it is a part of life that should be enjoyed

Big Hugs

Alicia

Founder of Liyah Women’s Holistic Wellness Space, Credited Holistic Facial practitioner, Mindful Eating Coach, Acupressurist   Holistic Wellness Coach for women, Healing Arts Facilitator & Host of Alicia’s Talk Sessions