#struck me in the head with a fishbone that is

[poppybros-jr]

I know this probably isn’t exactly what you meant by sending people’s OCs a fish bone, @desultory-novice, but…

…I couldn’t resist.

(in reference to this post)

[empressofmankind]

On My Silent Days

I Miss You A Little Louder

[Crocodile x female!OC]

Explicit with a capital E

Word count: 7k / 15 pages

A/N: Writing this has been my whole life the past 5 days, as anyone who has frequented my Dash recently can attest. I am obsessed with their chemistry.

Technically, this is part of 'The Show Must Go On'. You don't have to read it, but I recommend it. You'll get to know Shivs and her helter-skelter relationship with Buggy which sits as the background to this whole ordeal.

You see, this is like, Arabaste arch at the earliest - Cross Guild era more likely. By then, Shivs and Bugs have rollercoastered through so much bullshit and they've come out rock solid on the other side somehow. Clown keeps failing up, even with this relationship. Sir Crocodile finds the whole thing insulting, to say the least. And seems to think it is one well-placed remark away from utterly crumbling. Jealous ex, whomst? My dude, you fucked that up yourself. Repeatedly. You had more chances than you have fingers. Chemistry aside, this is absolutely a desert of his own making.

What else do you need to know? Shivs is only 2 or 3 years younger than Buggy (i.e. my age, come sue me), but Crocodile is 5 years older than the clown. So, she's in her mid 30s, he's in his mid 40s. She originally met him when he was maybe 28? Do the math. Oh yes, and for those less familiar with the Cross Guild era: our favourite clown has managed to accidentally become the lauded public face of what is actually Mihawk and Crocodile's venture. Understandably, the ex-warlords are a little miffed by this and spend decent amounts of time physically abusing poor Buggy.

Shivs' absolutely flawless plan is basically swapping sexual favours with her ex for get-out-of-jail-free cards for the clown.

My girl literally barging in here telling Croc: "I'll take ur cock if u leave my clown alone."

Yes. That's it. That's the plot.

She almost had him, too. Arguably, she had him the entire time. And then he gdamn snapped her from the pond edge like an unwitting gazelle in the last minute. Cuz we all - her included - forgot who we're dealing with for 14.5 pages straight. APPARENTLY.

screams into a pillow

Tag(s): Oh? Ok. Sexual favours! Is she fucking her boss? No, but he always makes it feel that way. Is she fucking her ex? Yes. Are they technically still married? Maybe. Blow jobs? Deep throat. Size kink? 100%. Filthy language. Graphic sex. Soft dom? Power bottom? I am on the fence. Little girl vibes on the margins, like, he tries. She too sassy and sooner a brat. Oh, orgasm denial! Big time. Humiliation? A little bit. Stretching? Yes. Moar size kink. Choking? Big yes. Spoiling? Also yes. She deserves nice things. Power imbalance? Yes. In whose direction? It kind of flip-flops. Did I need to spend so many words on their smoking and his cigars? Probably not, but it scratched an itch. With them, it counts as foreplay; I am sure. You know you're doing well when he takes the damn thing outta his mouth. World class banter, too. If I may say so myself. But really, the bottom line is that it's just oral and PIV dressed up real fancy.

ON MY SILENT DAYS 

I MISS YOU A LITTLE LOUDER

The double doors were as tall and foreboding as Shivs remembered. All bevelled hardwood and delicate gilding. She stood before them, gazing up. In the dead centre sat a brass knocker shaped like a bananawani's head, polished to a sheen. 

Knocking was for people with appointments, and waiting wasn't something she planned on doing here ever again. She put her palms against the cold, expensive wood and pushed the massive doors open as if breaking a siege. They swung on smooth hinges despite their weight and struck the marbled walls with resounding booms.

The opulent office beyond was exactly as she remembered. Marquina walls, fishbone parquet floors, blackwood furniture. The taxidermied juvenile bananawani set in the wall vitrine behind his desk was new. What had been there before? A map? A ship? No, a stone. An artefact of some kind riddled in curious glyphs.

Crocodile glanced up from his papers and the irritation flitting across his scarred face in the split second before he realised who'd dared barge in, set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. How often had she seen someone shrivel into a desiccated husk straight after that look?

Shivs held his pale gaze, set her jaw and strode into his office as if down the plank. 

The creak of leather as he leaned back in his seat. “You know I've killed people for less.”

She paused in front of his outrageous statement piece of a desk. She put her hands in the pockets of her baggy pants and forced her shoulders to unclench, her stance to relax. If Buggy’s dumb luck had managed to rub off on her in these past months, then now would be the time for it to start working for her.

“Lucky I am not ‘people’,” she said as she crossed her fingers in her pocket. 

Amusement squinted his eyes as the corner of his mouth twitched up behind his cigar. “No, you're not,” he said as he rose.

Shivs was not short. Not by any regular definition of the word. Buggy was only a head taller than her. She hadn't forgotten how tall Crocodile was, not really. And yet, as he came around his desk and towards her, there appeared to be no end to him as he approached. If she reached up, stretched her arm, she could nick his cigar. But only just.

"Do you still smoke?" he said as he stopped well within her personal space, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his gaze. He took a flat, brass case from the inside pocket of his coat and held it out to her. She remembered it. Remembered the exquisite taste of the narrow cigarillos in it.

"No."

"Liar." His gaze flicked down along his cigar at her. "You smell of cigarettes, doll."

"I have changed my ways."

Humour flitted under his gravelly voice. "For the worse." 

Shivs pursed her lips. "It's an expensive lifestyle when they don't come free with a goodnight kiss."

"Hah." 

The bark of laughter actually reached his eyes, crinkling their crow's feet for a moment. He held out the case to her again. "You poor thing. I do support charities, you know."

She took it this time and flipped it open. The rich waft of tobacco and sweet Goji berries greeted her as if no time had passed at all. Might as well enjoy her sojourn back to hell while she could.

She put one of the thin cigarillos between her lips and let him light it. Watched the firelight catch and reflect in his rings. Took a moment to savour the blend, rich and sweet as polished Beli.

They were very good.

Always had been.

Shivs took the cigarillo from between her lips and blew the smoke up in rings through a slow smile. They almost reached him.

Crocodile leaned down through the cloudy hoops to pluck the shoulder of her red-and-white striped sweater between thumb and index finger, a judgemental 'hmph' escaping around his cigar.

She enjoyed the expensive smoke and his fascination while it lasted. Maybe, just maybe, this would be enough? Letting him treat her like a doll badly in need of a better dress up? He liked to spoil, always had. Now, more than ever, he had the means to take it to completely nonsensical levels. Her ego could take it, if that was the price of leaving Bugs alone.

Shivs indicated his everything with an up and down wave of her free hand. "No way to afford the good stuff on a waiter's salary."

He let go of the fabric to brush his thumb across the smear of grease paint near the collar, staining his skin and the gold of his ring red.

"Or a dud's haul." 

He hooked the silk kerchief from his vest's breast pocket and wiped his hand. She followed the length of his arm up to his face.

"The entertainment isn't half bad."

“Yes.” He chewed the butt of his cigar, derision twitching his thin lips as he tucked the kerchief into an inside pocket of his coat. “His pathetic antics can be mildly amusing.”

Shivs’ grip on the cigarillo tightened, but she smiled pleasantly. “I like it when a man can make me laugh,” she said, pointing at him with the thin smoke between her fingers. “Even if at his own expense.”

She frowned at his broad back when he turned away from her without a witty reply, retreating to the button tufted camelback near them.

“You're not here for a social call,” Crocodile stated as he sat down, putting his arms along the sofa's curved back. Something flitted past his pale eyes, but it was gone so fast Shivs couldn't nail it. “What do you want, doll?” 

Shivs rolled back and forth on the balls of her feet, pursing her lips as if preparing to drive a hard bargain. She intended to seem casual, unconcerned. But her palms were slick with sweat and her heartbeat drummed in her ears. She filled her mouth with smoke, tasting the rich flavours. Savouring them before blowing it out in small puffs through her pursed lips.

"I want you to leave him be," she said, extinguishing the cigarillo in his ashtray.

Crocodile shifted and put his shin across his knee. Her gaze flicked down and she saw him take note. 

"And if I do?"

She held his gaze. One breath, two breaths, moved her jaw but didn't form the words. She wanted him to leave Buggy alone. Even if that meant taking his… beating, instead.

He blew out smoke through his nose, waiting patiently for her answer. The hint of a smile lingered as his pale eyes held hers from above the waterline of his scar. And in that moment, he reminded her so strongly of a lurking crocodile. Watching. Waiting. Biding its time to strike. It sent a shiver down her spine, and not entirely out of fear.

Shivs pursed her lips, steeled her emotions, checked her resolve. I'll do it for you, Bugs. It's a deal I know he won't refuse.

She met his intense gaze head on, then dropped hers slowly to his crotch once more. Allowed it to linger there, before looking back up.

He chewed the butt of his cigar and beckoned her. "You never could fit all of me down that skilled throat of yours." 

Shivs watched him uncross his legs as she approached. She trailed her fingertips along his clothed thighs before leaning on them. It brought her face level with his and she deliberately took a moment to breathe in his secondhand smoke. 

“Want to judge if that hasn't changed for the worse?” she whispered against his lips as she savoured the distinct flavours that made up his private blend. 

Strong muscles flexed and relaxed under her palms, and she presumed that to mean ‘yes’. 

She ran her hands down his muscular thighs, taking in their shape until her palms rested on his knees. His breathing changed, she could tell from the way he exhaled smoke. Denser palls, deeper breaths. No resistance as she pushed his knees apart far enough to kneel between them.

Brushing her fingertips across his overstated belt buckle, she smiled to herself. Some things never changed. She slipped the tooled tip through the frame, her movements slow and deliberate as she listened for the subtle shifts in his breathing. She loosened the prong with a sharp tug on the strap, using more force than was strictly necessary. An undercurrent of need laced the grunt that escaped him in response. 

Shivs reached into his pants with both hands, catching his gaze as she drew his penis out, feeling it swell against her palms. She made a noise of appreciation as she let her hands slide down his shaft. His pale eyes hunting after hers when she broke their gaze to look at her fingers fitting around the base. She had not forgotten how tall this part of him was.

Leaning forward, she trailed teasing kisses from halfway down his shaft towards the tip. I’ve swallowed swords longer than this, and dicks aren’t even sharp, she thought as she flicked her tongue past the rim, playful-like. Length was only half the problem though, she knew that perfectly well.

She put a hand on his thigh and leaned on it as she ran the flat of her tongue across the head and took him into her mouth, suckling the tip. Inched his cock further with deliberately slow, short bobs, tilting her head to ensure he’d catch every movement of her lips as they worked around him. Need strained his stoic expression when she stole a glance up. A twitch of his eyebrows when the tip bumped against the back of her mouth. She sucked down and drew his cock back out, watched it twitch and his grip tighten on the backrest as she felt his thigh flex under her palm.

She took him into her mouth again and ran the tip of her tongue along the underside of his cock. Relaxed her neck and let it slip further than before, teasing at the entrance to her throat. Nudging it, stretching it just a bit before sucking down and drawing him back out, tasting precum for her efforts.

The frustrated groan that rumbled up from somewhere deep within his broad chest sent sparks flying down her spine. This is gonna work, she thought as he reached for her head, petted her hair while she teased the precum from him with fleet, wet kisses.

“Stop messing around and swallow my cock, sweetheart,” Crocodile grunted, pale eyes alight with hunger. The petting stopped, fingers tangling into the hair at the back of her neck instead. It was like the twitch on the line that told a fisherman to react.

Shivs glanced up along his hard shaft, and reeled him in: 

“Yes, Sir.”

The horny groan that drew from him, before she’d even begun to take him again, settled comfortably in her bones. Gotcha, she thought.

Shivs breathed slow, deep, steady breaths as she slid his cock along her tongue, lining him up. The head pushed past the entrance of her throat and she switched to shallow breaths through her nose. The grunts and huffs that escaped him every time she swallowed were inhuman and she needed more of it.

She slid his cock further down, felt his thighs tremble as she did. The closer she got, the more his musk pervaded every stifled breath she managed around his thick cock. It was a heavy, heady scent and she shifted her position to press her thighs together. He didn’t notice.

She stroked his legs, ran her hands up to his hips as she leaned closer, and took him deeper still. His fingers were fisted painfully tight into her hair, but his large hand followed her without force or resistance, resting heavily against the back of her neck.

Almost. 

Almost there.

And then the tip of her nose bumped against his flat stomach. She could hardly smirk with his dick this far down her throat but counted on the crinkle of her eyes to work for her as she caught his gaze and slowly raised her hands, palms up. She didn’t care that they trembled. 

Look. No hands, motherfucker.

Crocodile grinned down at her through a huff of smoke, cigar dangling between his teeth. She thought it looked a little worse for wear.

“The pathetic clown doesn’t know what a dirty little slut you are, does he?” Crocodile said, his gravelly voice thick with lust as he petted the back of her neck. “Giving such sweet head to save his sorry hide.” He ran his fingers along her throat as if trying to feel how far down his cock had gone. “I always knew you could do it, sweetheart.”

“Now,” he added as he huffed out a pall of smoke and she felt cool metal sliding around the back of her neck, barring a retreat. “I need my cock-hungry doll to make me feel good.”

Shivs dropped her hands to his hips, gripping the folds of hard muscle there for support. She slid her tongue between her bottom lip and the underside of his cock, making sloppy little noises with the slightest bob of her head. Even those small movements pressed the round curve of his hook into the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine that made her squeeze her thighs together. She didn’t bother to try and hide it.

His large hand joined his hook, strong fingers digging into the back of her head, twisting into the hair there and holding her put as his thick cock twitched so far down her throat she didn’t even know anymore where precisely she felt it. She worked her throat around him, drawing rumbling moans from him that pitched.

“Ah -nngh- you feel so good, doll. So. Damn perfect.” His thighs tensed under her arms, flexing his hips with short jerks. She closed her eyes as she swallowed around him, frowning with effort. His breathy grunts as he lightly fucked her throat made her pussy throb.

Suddenly, his grip tightened like a vice and he shoved her nose-first against his hard, trembling stomach muscles, stealing her breath. Her eyes flew open as her throat strained and cramped, swallowing around him in reflex.

 “Fuck, honey. Ah---! Yes, yes.” The satisfied, drawn-out moan as Crocodile spilled his hot cum down her throat reverberated through the quiet office. 

Her fingers dug around his hips, tears jumping into her eyes as she gagged, feeling cum come up around his cock as stars danced into her vision. His grip weakened as he rode out his orgasm and she pulled back before he was quite done pumping cum. Shivs swallowed it mindlessly while coming up for air. His dick slid wetly out of her throat and mouth, streaks of cum connecting them before they broke.

She glanced up from his softening cock, glistening with her saliva all the way to the hilt. He’d tilted his head back, held his cigar nowhere near his mouth as he came down from his orgasm with deep, steadying breaths that expanded his wide chest and flared his nostrils.

He straightened with a lazy groan and a roll of his broad shoulders. 

Shivs met his gaze, panting.

“You’re still my pretty little thing, aren’t you?” Crocodile said, his gravelly voice breathy as he reached for her, stroking her cheek with his thumb. The gold of his ring was smooth where his fingertip felt rough, the warm touch grounding her fried senses. It lingered at her eyepatch, lightly brushing the faded leather. “The things we let people do to our faces…”

He hooked the kerchief from his pocket and dabbed her mouth. She reached for his hand with both of hers, touching the back of it, taking the cloth. She watched him watch her as she cleaned her face.

“Don’t you have a new pretty thing? Miss Face-of-the-Casino in her cute kimono?” Shivs forced her tone to be casual, edged with light mockery, maybe. It was stupid that it’d stung when she’d seen the younger woman. An irrational, petty feeling. An old pain. And, none of her business, at any rate.

The dismissive look that flitted past his pale eyes was rather unexpected. “An investment, nothing more.”

“She’s pretty,” Shivs said. Perhaps, part of the sting had been the fact that Miss Pretty had not responded to her the way women did when they were into other women.

Crocodile looked at his cigar before putting it back in his mouth. “That she is.”

Their gazes crossed and she pursed her lips. He reached for her jaw, fingertips grazing its curve. Then leaned down and pressed a peck against her frown. She sat up and chased after him as he took another draw from his cigar, stole the aromatic smoke from him as she teased her tongue into his mouth. He blew it out through his nose, taking the cigar from his mouth as he caught the back of her neck with his hook and took control of the kiss.

“You can have one if you like, sweetheart,” he said when they broke apart, indicating his cigar. 

And lord, if she wasn't tempted.

“You share ‘em these days?”

His derisive ‘hmph’ made her smirk as she rose to her feet. 

“What about Miss Pretty? She enjoy your… cigars?” Shivs said, and noticed she’d gotten his cum all over Buggy’s sweater. Shit.

Crocodile glanced at her, pale eyes searching. “I prefer making deals with those who have something of value to offer, doll.”

Shivs put her hands in her pockets and rocked up on the balls of her feet with a mildly overacted grin. “Oh, it’s a deal then? You’ll play nice?”

“My compliance doesn’t come that cheap,” he said through a huff of smoke.

She crooked an eyebrow, risking a hint of ridicule in her tone. “Cheap? And here I was, thinking I have a unique skill up for offer.”

He actually cracked a smile as he flicked the butt of his cigar into the general direction of his desk and ashtray. Then beckoned her with hook and hand. 

“Come here, doll.”

It would have been too easy.

She sauntered back to him and linked her fingers with his, curling the others around his hook, letting him draw her into his lap, straddling his thighs. He shifted so his cock was between them, pressing against her clothed cunt.

“What else will it cost me?” she said as she rested her hands on his shoulders, lightly riding against him. Every rub along his dick pulsed pleasure up her spine, and she hadn’t failed to notice it was already stiffening again.

He stoked the tip of his hook along her cheek as his large hand took in the shape of her firm butt, guiding her movement. “I want to know if your tight pussy can take all of me now, too.”

“Here, on a couch?” she said as she slipped her fingertips under his coat and pushed it off his shoulders. She trailed her hands down the revers of his vest, grabbed hold of them as she dry humped against him. “I thought you said you weren’t cheap?”

The bark of laughter that drew from him shouldn’t make her smile the way it did.

He pressed a kiss against it. 

“I wouldn’t dare, honey,” Crocodile said as he gathered her up in his arms and rose smoothly from the couch, leaving his coat behind. He strode across his study and through the adjacent library to the expansive bedroom beyond. She remembered the sweeping view from its curving window wall and the sea of nightlights twinkling far below.

Instead of depositing her on his spacious bed, he set her down on the plush rug beside it. And motioned up and down her clothes with a dismissive gesture. “Take those rags off.”

Not my rags, Shivs thought as she kicked her boots aside, removed her baggy pants and grabbed the edge of the sweater. She didn’t wear a bra. She didn’t like them, and she hadn’t bothered wearing one this evening either.

Fingertips traced the lacy sides of her underwear while she had the sweater pulled over her head.

“You still have those.”

He sounded…not surprised. Curious, maybe?

“No reason to get rid of perfectly fine underwear,” she said as she freed herself from the sweater, finding he’d already undressed.

“They can stay on,” he said as she folded the sweater, her hand lingering on it before she turned to him.

“For now?”

A smile twitched the corner of his lips. 

“Here, doll.” He held something out to her, cream-coloured and neatly folded. It seemed small and delicate in his large hand.

When she took it, the fabric cascaded into a surprisingly classy, mid-thigh negligee of shimmering silk. The top was constructed from intricately detailed lace with tiny bananawani worked into the pattern.

“Pretty,” she said as she brushed a finger across the delicate lace. She put it on and it fit her so neatly it felt like a second skin. An outrageously luxurious second skin for the silk felt soft as sin and the lace light as air. She turned a full circle on her tiptoe, overacting it just a little. She knew he liked that.

“Looks good on you.” He reached for her head, combing his fingers through her tangled red hair, tucking stray bangs behind the strip of her eyepatch. “I’d never let you get so grimy.”

“Can’t be a dirty little slut if you wash me.”

“Hah.” Crocodile leaned down and scooped her up into his arms, just like that. “Come here before I shove my cock down your throat again to shut you up.”

“Don’t tempt me- ah!”

Her reply cut off when he suddenly let go, dropping her into his bed. And that was quite the distance, even if the landing was soft. He immediately climbed on top of her, caging her with his much larger body. She spread her legs, accommodating his wider hips as he reached for her breast. His thumb traced circles around her nipple through the fine lace, stiffening at his touch.

“Like what you see?”

“Always have, doll,” he rumbled against her collarbone. Though no longer smoking, she could still smell it on him. Would be able to pick it out of a crowd. Subtle tones that reminded her of burnt coffee, dry glass and cinnamon, mingling with the faint wax smell of his hair gel and heavier citric notes of his cologne.

A small gasp escaped her when he brushed the lace down and kissed her hard nipple, taking it into his mouth and licking the sensitive tip. She felt the curve of his hook press against her hip, hitching up the silk as his hand slipped between her thighs. Strong, confident fingers pressed against the fabric of her panties and outer labia underneath. It ignited old desires, flickering life into fires she’d thought snuffed out.

His rough fingers traced the delicate lace, undulating with its curling, stylised waves. Her breath caught when they found the edge along the crease of her thigh. A mewl on her lips as he dipped them under the smooth fabric, fingertips grazing the warm, sensitive skin of her outer labia and sending sparkles of anticipation up her spine. The delicate fabric stretched with an alarming whimper from the seams as strong digits brushed between her folds, not quite able to reach. He grunted against her breast at the soaked pussy he found there.

She felt him slip the hook under the edge, warm from resting against her hip. The thought of him pulling her panties down with it lit up every nerve in the vague vicinity of her hips. Her eyes snapped open at the sharp jerk, the sudden cry of fabric tearing at the seam between silk and lace. 

Shivs made a noise, nose wrinkling. Those were the nicest-.

“I’ll get you new ones,” Crocodile promised against the curve of her breast, his gaze down as he hooked the fabric from her hips. The hunger in his pale eyes as he looked at her pussy made her spread her legs further. He leaned down to caress her labia and press a light kiss against them that made her throb, thinking about his tongue.

A breathy huff escaped Shivs when he slid his middle finger between her folds instead, running slow circles around her inner labia. Gathering the moisture there before teasing them apart and brushing across her clenching entrance. Pleasure sizzled up her spine when he pressed it inside, mapping her inner walls and finding all the right places far too easily. If he kept this up, she was going to come very soon.

He switched to her other breast, teasing the sensitive skin as he inserted a second finger. “I seem to remember you liked getting your little hole stretched,” he rumbled against her nipple, and spread his large fingers apart. She moaned at the strength in them, the ease with which they pried her open. It sent twinges of sweet, sweet pressure blazing through the haze of need fogging her thoughts.

She reached down to his hand, stroke the back of it. Found his thumb and guided it against her clit with a needy moan. Her thighs trembled as he massaged it firmly, pushed his fingers all the way in, then spread them as he pulled out. She felt his knuckles and the hard edges of his rings press into her labia when he pushed them back in but she didn’t mind, kind of liked it. She reached a hand for his shoulder, neck, grabbing hold of the tout muscle there as she arched her back towards him. His pace was torturously slow and she was loving it.

Shivs let out a drawn out whine when he stopped, pulled at his neck, wrist, knowing perfectly well neither will give an inch but trying, anyway. She tried to clench her thighs, rub them together, nurse the need smouldering in her veins, but his knees were between hers and she writhed in vain.

Crocodile shifted unto his elbow, bunching the silk further up her hips while taking his hard dick in hand. A hoarse whisper close to her ear as he guided the head against her slick pussy: “Won’t you beg for my cock, sweetheart?”

“I need to feel your cock in me,” Shivs said as she caught his hungry gaze. “Feel it fill me, stretch me.”

He grunted with barely contained need, she could see it in the straining of his back as she reached for his thick neck, folding her hands behind it. Felt it in the way his hips twitched as he pressed his shaft through her wet folds, coating it with her juices.

“Am I not a good girl, sir?”

“Yes, you are.”

Shivs moaned loudly when he entered her. Whined at the delicious pressure as he pushed deeper into her soaking wet pussy, stretching her around him. She clung to his neck, mewling with incoherent need. Her hand went to his hair, messing it up but not caring. Neither did he.

“Ah -ngh- fuck,” Crocodile grunted, his breath hot against her neck.

Shivs held onto him for dear life as she arched against his hard body, savoured the sharp pleasure of him stretching her cramping, soaking cunt wide enough to plough through. He’d not bottomed out yet. If she could take him, she’d have him wrapped around her finger.

“You’re. Fuck. As tight. As I remember. Sweetheart,” Crocodile groaned into her neck, his gravelly voice strained to the point of being near unintelligible. It was getting tougher and tougher to push further through her tight, contracting walls.

“Almost there,” Shivs whispered as she brushed a stray bang of dark hair from his eyes.

The noise he made in response was inhuman and she drank it in as she closed her eyes, spread her legs further to accommodate his hips and relaxed every muscle she could still feel. A whimper bubbled from her lips when he pushed up against something deep within her that twitched a pleasure so sharp up her spine it sat right next to pain. 

“Fuck, yes,” he ground out as his hips pressed flush against hers, his breath hot, heavy pants buffeting against the crook of her neck. “Feels. So good.”

He managed to push himself up onto his elbow, satisfaction animating his whole face as he looked at their joined hips, her soft labia squashed against his pubes. Shivs whimpered, his movement nudging tight bursts of pleasure deep within her. 

“I knew you could do it, doll.” His tone was thick with lust, laboured from his heavy breathing. He gently brushed a strand of sweat-slick red hair from her forehead with his hook, looking so proud. “You like getting your little cunt stuffed, don’t you?"

Shivs gave a sharp nod, struggling to form words.

“I know you do, honey,” he whispered as he rolled his hips against hers, not truly thrusting. She reached for his face with trembling hands, stroking his hard jaw. He grunted under his breath with each push and she pressed pecks against the puffs of hot breath until he responded. Until he chased her tongue back into her own mouth and pressed her head back into the pillow with the desperate force of his kiss, demanding entrance with his tongue that she was more than willing to give. 

“That's all you g-got?” she whispered through a moan and a bated breath when they broke their kiss for want of air. “I b-barely feel it.”

“Ah? You want more, doll?” Crocodile pulled out with a grunt, just a fraction, before shoving himself back inside her to the hilt, making her mewl with pleasure through clenched teeth as his cock bottomed out and up against her cervix. “Shall I take you back to my study? Pound you bend over my desk, like I used to?”

Shivs whined into his mouth as she latched onto him again, arms tightening around his thick neck as her cunt squeezed around his cock from the pleasure coiling around her spine. If he took her from behind, he could probably push deeper still. Oh, she’d be in trouble.

“Who’s cheap now, hrm?” A breathy hum into her ear as the obscene slap of his hips against hers filled his bedroom. She whined in need, the heady mix of mind numbing pleasure laced with an edge of pain making her tremble against him. “Do you want to be my little whore again? My pretty fuck slut to sit on my cock whenever and wherever I want?”

All she could do was whine and roll her hips to meet his steady thrusts. Fingers digging into the taut muscles across his shoulders, keeping him close as he fucked her deeper than she’d ever felt a man, even him. She whimpered, the heady mix of mind numbing pleasure laced with an edge of pain all but overwhelming her. Especially when he thrust just right, shoving his cock against a sensitive spot so deep inside her she didn’t even know she had it.

“I missed my. Pretty cocksleeve,” Crocodile grunted into her ear. “The. Only. Little slut that can take me -hng- properly.”

“Fuck me harder,” Shivs whispered, hands massaging his broad shoulders. He groaned with effort, she could feel the bridled strength in the muscles working under her palms. His pace picked up, and so did the strain in his body. Every thrust stretched her so deliciously, stimulating every needy nerve inside of her. 

“Do it,” she moaned wantonly as his thrusts started to push her up on the bed, her weight no match against his strength. “I c-can take it.”

“Ah - hng- you’re. Going to. Make me cum, doll,” he growled through clenched teeth. He grabbed her shoulder, holding her in place as he jerked his thrusts up against her. Her mind was unravelling. The only thing she could think about was his cock filling her, burning up every single nerve she had as needy pleasure coiled in her belly. She wanted him to cum. She really did.

When he paused, she struggled to comprehend why. Her gaze found his. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his mouth slack to accommodate the deep breaths heaving his chest. He was barely holding still, strain thrumming through every inch of his large frame above her.

“Does. My pretty little thing want. Cum as deep in her tight pussy. As her pretty throat?”

She whined, pulled at his neck with both hands. “Y-yes.”

“Beg. For it.”

“P-please,” she whimpered as she tried to make him move, weakly rolled her hips towards him. 

“Please what?”

“Please, s-sir.”

The noise he uttered in response to that settled somewhere at the primal base of her brain. She wanted, no, needed, to hear it again.

“Please, sir. Pound my needy hole like I deserve,” she mewled into his ear, savouring the way his breath hitched, that noise came again. 

“Damnit, doll,” Crocodile grunted through clenched teeth as he picked up a pace that became quickly rougher, slightly erratic. He locked his hold on her shoulder, broad fingers digging around her thin muscles and narrow bones, keeping her put as he pounded into her soaking, cramping cunt. “Gonna fuck you so full, you'll be leaking my cum well into tomorrow.”

“Please, please, pleaaasse,” she whined and clenched around him as he fucked her into the sinfully soft matrass with long, deep strokes that shoved his cock shamelessly up against her cervix to fit it all in. She wanted, needed, to cum around it, desperate for release. “Fuck me full of cum, sir. Stuff my tight cunny like you did my slutty mouth.”

“I -ngh- will, honey. I am,” he ground out, barely intelligible as his pace lost all semblance of rhythm and he bucked against her in the grip of his orgasm’s first throes.

“Oh! Yes, yes,” she moaned as he shoved his throbbing cock as far as she could take it, cumming against the deepest corner of her cunt as she shuddered around his cock with unfulfilled need. He stayed buried inside her as he came down, breath erratic before steadying, slowing. She whimpered in need, clenching around his softening cock. She hadn’t been able to cum around it like she wanted. It was too thick to cramp enough for a proper orgasm. She knew that, but had thought maybe this time…

He knew it, too. Remembered it.

“You’re still my pretty little thing, aren’t you?” he said as he caressed her cheek, ran his thumb across her parted lips. “Unable to cum around a cock like a big girl.”

She made a small noise that he swallowed in a kiss.

They stayed that way until her breathing steadied as well. Then he sat up and gathered her into his lap. She held onto him, her cheek against his collarbone. Not quite ready yet to let go.

“You look parched, doll,” Crocodile said as he brushed a bang from her eyes.

Shivs peered up at him. “I would not say ‘no’ to a sweet white.”

A noise escaped him that could have been a fond one as he lifted her off his lap and rose. The sound of his retreating footsteps filled the quiet. He’d gone to his study, judging by the distance. Shivs got up as well and shimmied the negligee down. Despite everything, she did not feel like taking it off. It felt nice against her flushed skin.

She sauntered to the curved window wall and found the view precisely as she remembered it. A sea of nightlights twinkled across the city below, mirroring the deep blue, star-speckled sky above. The moon hung low, waning from view. It wasn’t long before he returned. She heard him uncork a bottle behind her and fill two glasses. The snap and swoosh of his lighter. The familiar scent of his cigar preceding him as he came to stand beside her, still naked.

He held a glass out to her, a cigarillo clamped against its curve. The wine was a deep bronze instead of the pale yellow usual to white wines. She accepted the glass and smoke, gaze lingering on the narrow slot through its delicate stem. It allowed him to hold them with his hook without slipping. She glanced sideways and up at him. A fond smile twitched her lips when she noticed his hair was neater than before. He’d evidently taken a comb to it for a hot second.

Shivs put the cigarillo in her mouth and turned to find his lighter lying on the nightstand beside the wine bottle, and a corkscrew with its split cork still attached. She glanced at the label as she lit the cigarillo. It read ‘1811’ in large, proud capitals, and a name in a curving script she couldn’t be bothered to try and decipher. She would not be able to afford it, anyway.

Taking a sip, she returned to his side. The wine was sweet, indeed. With hints of lime, honey, saffron. She made herself comfortable against him, her bum resting on his thigh. “It’s a nice view,” she said as she blew out a thin pall of smoke.

He glanced down at her and their gazes crossed as he idly stroked her hip. “It is.”

Shivs leaned into his touch, sipping the wine. It really was, very good.

“Clever scheme you’ve gotten up to, in order to save the loser’s sorry hide,” Crocodile remarked as he blew a smoke ring against the narrow cloud she’d just produced. “But it has a flaw.”

Shivs let her weight shift from his thigh to his loin, only the soft silk between them. “You sure?”

A self-satisfied smile twitched behind his cigar as he gave her hip a squeeze. “None of this will work on Dracule.”

Only because I don’t have a penis, she thought, but no matter. They may have both grown older, but Croki was still fundamentally the same man she’d left years ago. And that would work for her, she was sure of it. Inevitably, Mihawk would pick on Bugs. She would take it upon herself to get irritatingly upset about it. Mihawk would no doubt insult her next, and Sir Self-Satisified here would take it personally by-proxy and shut him up. It’d be a win.

“I’ll think of something,” Shivs said as she blew a thin pall through his smoke ring, dispersing it.

He glanced at her, amused. “He’s partial to good wine, at least.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

She nipped her own wine, idly rubbing her thighs together. Pleasure skulked around the base of her spine, denied but not forgotten. She made a little noise against her glass when she felt his hand move up her thigh, his thumb brush under the edge of the negligee.

“Still needy?” he said as he bunched up the fine silk, rubbing his middle and ring finger against her clit in slow circles. It sent lazy sparks of pleasure straight to her brain. Drawing a shuddering whimper from her as he dipped his middle finger between her folds.

“Cum for me, honey,” Crocodile rumbled as he lightly ran the tip of his finger along the inner rim of her vagina, then teased the sensitive spot further down. Shivs gasped through her moan as the briefest shudder of an orgasm stole over her like a thief in the night. It was not enough, not nearly enough.

“N-need more,” she said as she put the glass down with a wobble. Reached for his large hand when he stopped, withdrew, tugging it back. Bunching two of his fingers together, of a mind to stick them into herself if he didn't.

“Come to our board meeting tomorrow. You’ll come sit with me and I’ll take good care of your needy little hole.” He shook her fussy touch and caught her pubes, massaging his palm firmly against her soft cunt, pressing her bum against his cock. “You can ride my palm like you used to, and I’ll make you cum on my fingers till your tight pussy is sore from cramping around them.”

Shivs wasn’t particularly keen on doing any of this semi-publically, least of all anywhere Bugs would be. Though she feared she wouldn’t be able to talk herself out of this, as easily as she’d talked herself into it.

“Don’t worry, doll. I’ll leave the pathetic clown alone,” Crocodile promised as he stroked her flat belly with the rounding of his hook. “Can’t beat the loser if my hand is occupied with something sweeter, hm?”

Shit. She had to tell Bugs. Forewarned, forearmed, and all that. She turned in his hold, his hand moving to her butt instead. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said, but he caught her wrist when she took a step back.

“Ah, ah,” he admonished as he stopped her, pulled her with him, back into bed. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

“I, what? Why?” 

Suddenly, she wanted to leave as he gathered her against him, nestling her into his lap and chest, spooning his large body around her like a cage. She wanted to leave, wanted to go to Buggy and cry when he guided his cock back inside her still moist pussy with an incriminating noise and a satisfied rumble. She’d meant to turn this trick and tell Buggy about it. Tell him her plan to manipulate the ex-warlord to leave him alone, to leave them alone. Tell him it had worked. 

Shivs pushed herself on her elbow but Crocodile pulled her back down to him.

“Stay,” he said as he hooked the fluffy underblanket and silk cover sheets about them, his arm around her waist, hand on her hip.

“Why.” She had to tell Buggy, but now she couldn’t. She’d left after they’d gone to bed. She hadn’t told him yet. He didn’t know. He’d wake up alone.

Crocodile stroked the midline of her belly with the tip of his hook, rippling the cream-coloured silk as it moved up her chest, counting to the fifth rib. The one behind which her heart sat.

“Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

A quiet sob escaped her.

"Ssh, sleep, honey," Crocodile whispered into her hair, fingertips stroking her hip. “I’ll take good care of you tomorrow.”

~

Honourary mention tags: @smut-goblin , @ruledbyproblematique , @gingernut1314 , @swirlsofblackandwhite

(N/A): To anyone reading & making it to the end. Writing this has consumed me the past days. I want to know what you think! What did you like? What made you laugh? Was there something specific you noticed? Something you now wonder about? I am 100% open to lengthy comments and blow by blows, ngl. I am obsessed with this.

If you want for more, I jotted down some of my own thoughts regarding this debacle. I may also be plotting another stint. Because Impel Down, do you understand me??

[abellinthecupboard]

Mary Warren's Sampler

You were a little while ago an Afflicted person, now you are an Afflicter: How comes this to pass? —JUDGE HATHORNE and JUDGE CORWIN Reversible Stitches: my mother and I leaned over a single piece of English linen — I want her smooth white hands not my master's fingers pinching the skin along my backbone voice breathing Mary — Single Satin Stitch — I stand before the court and I say I am sorry for it I am sorry and the girls shut their eyes — at home he struck my arm I hid behind the spinning wheel I hid from him — Chain Stitch — I gripped my mother's wrist her cold hand folded on the sheet of the bed we shared — I will tell I will tell — he said he'd thrash the Devil out of me he said he'd drown me in the creek behind the barn — Lace Filling Stitch — Mother's pattern book open on my lap I copied A Noble and Generous Fear Proceeds From Love in silk thread — I licked my finger my black spit leaked onto the page — the girls at any moment will fall down together hands set at their throats to show I am a witch — My Master's iron tongs could burn me out of my fit — Fishbone Stitch — my mother bent over the cloth head bowed to tie each small knot I touched her gleaming hair — In the court I bite my lips and whisper the lesson Fear Proceeds From Love Love is Fear — Buttonhole Stitch — he told me If you are Afflicted I wish you were more Afflicted — My fingers blackened bread and butter when I set his table and I screamed — Backstitch To the Past — to the edge of Eve's body we arranged at the sampler's border — to Fear to the marks along my arm his fingers made like stitches — he called me his Jade his body crushing mine until — Darning Stitch Cross Stitch Loop Stitch — I will tell I will tell It was the Devil's book my master Proctor brought to me — as witness my hand Marry Warren

— Nicole Cooley, The Afflicted Girls (2004)

[shimmerbeasts]

Now, wasn't that a truth, which hurt to acknowledge? Many years ago, when her hair had been short to the point, her pigtails could hardly be called a braid, and little clasps had held strands out of her face, Vi had been everything. Vi had known everything about Powder. From her favourite apple juice in the special cup and straw to playing monsters under the covers with Vi deliberately acting out the beasts, gesturing around, faux-growling and snarling, to her always asking what she had named her latest smoke bomb or nail grenade as Powder just like Jinx had named each of her inventions.

Some part of her, the stupidest, goddamn part of her, wanted to pull Vi aside and show her Pow-Pow, Zapper, Fishbones and the Chompers. Even the little grenades had each been given names, varying between being perceived as male or female. She wanted to introduce her sister to each one of her weapons the same way, Powder had been allowed to do. But somehow, Vi nowadays inspected her weapons with dread and a deep melancholy as if she could not believe how dangerous and threatening her little sister had become. Why could Vi no longer muster the pride and admiration, which made Powder practically glow?

Instinct made her hiss at the smallest hint of protest. In the past, she had not been that strong, but after Singed's experimental surgery, things had changed. Her blood had mixed with the thick, dark Shimmer, which prior she had only ever tasted periodically on her tongue. How strange it felt to be almost stuck in Hound mode. The world felt considerably richer, brighter and more alive, yet at the same time, Jinx had grown stronger, faster and more vicious. Silco had always encouraged her predatory impulses, the parts of the Vastayan heritage, which made you equipped to slice and tear and rip apart.

That same instinct seemed to have been triggered as Jinx shoved Vi against the cupboards. The shattering of the knocked-over wine and whiskey bottles seemed almost muffled in Jinx's perception, even as the alcohol splashed around her and Vi's shoes. Thin rills of blood trickled across Vi's shoulders. Her sister hissed under her breath. Her claws pricked Vi's throat, yet even though Jinx squeezed far harder than necessary, she did not draw a single drop of blood.

Vi gargled out some curse, maybe even an apology. It was hard to tell. However, what immediately reached Jinx's mind as if her nerves had been struck, was the hand caressing her cheek. Only Vi caressed Jinx in such a way - not even Silco had touched her cheeks - and the calloused pads felt like they belonged to someone much younger. Jinx drew in a quiet breath. Her closed-off, vile expression opened up, allowing her eyes to shine with sad recognition and hopeless longing.

As if on autopilot, Jinx relented her grasp from Vi's throat and stepped backwards. Her sister slumped against the damaged cupboards. Her reeling gasps mixed themselves with the crunch of the broken glass underneath their shoes and the splash of alcohol. Vi's face was puffy and red; her skin gleamed with sweat. Jinx backed away and pressed her hands on her thighs. Staring ahead, for a few seconds, all she could hear was the unbearable buzzing and hissing of static. White scribbles crowded in upon her from all sides and the word Vi appeared and dissolved over and over again in her field of vision.

Jinx vehemently shook her head to clear her mind and reduce the unsettling pit in her stomach. She said: "You did not answer my question, Violet. Why do you insist on keeping me as a weak child, as dead weight? I am just as strong as you now! My bombs work! Aren't you happy? I finally grew up. Why can you excuse your violence but mine makes you shudder?"

The jukebox was a nice touch. Vi let the soft familiar rhythm fill her ears as she finally, finally, began to relax. Things weren't tense like they were before, and the brawler felt that things were starting to ease up. Her sister approached the counter and gazed at the drink she repaired, quietly surveying the vastayan for just a moment. She pulled a hand beneath the bar and produced an old bar rag, uncaring of it being stained with old liquor. She, in fact, cared even less as she poured a potent whiskey over the rag, and brought it up to her face. Despite the size of the massive cut, the intricate blood vessels freely pouring blood down her face and down her jacket, the mercenary did not even flinch from such an action. She pressed it into her broken skin and drew in a sharp breath through her teeth, not even expressing anger towards Jinx for causing this wound. No, perhaps she shouldn't have been standing there-- and she was justifying her sister's actions again before she could stop herself.

Though, it was Powder's voice that gently cut through, and the pugilist couldn't prevent that smile from tugging at her scarred lip.

"How could I forget? At one point in my life, I knew you pretty damn well."

But somewhere along the lines, somewhere along the way, she said something wrong. She said something horribly wrong, as she opened her mouth to speak again, and Jinx was suddenly clearing the counter. That small, cold hand locked onto her throat and her own hands whipped down to grab onto her wrist-- but Jinx was faster. Before such an infusion, Violet was bigger, stronger, faster-- but now? Jinx was given inhuman speed, perhaps strength as well, seeing how she lifted Vi up and pinned her to the wall. She choked out a protest as she slammed back into the shelves, knocking down five or six bottles, the thick glass crushing against her body and dousing her in alcohol. The only reason why the mercenary realized it had cut into her was because of the burn that followed with the spilling of alcohol. She clenched her eyes shut and her blood soaked bandaged hands gripped at that narrow wrist, tacky fingers slipping against it as she tried to get Jinx to relent. Vi's boots touched the ground after a moment and she choked, her muscular throat clenching as she tried to get out the words.

Vi could have fought. She could have punched, she could have kicked, bit, thrashed-- but she didn't. She didn't have it in her. No, she refused to hurt her anymore. She wouldn't let herself, nor anyone else, hurt Powder anymore. Hurt Jinx anymore.

She wheezed, her teeth clenching and gnashing one another, struggling to speak, and yet she forced the words out. "F-fuck. I'm-- I'm sor--." Her lips moved uselessly as she tried to continue, but only choked wheezes could escape her clutched throat. Perhaps she deserved this. Instead of holding her wrist, she brought her right hand forward and gently cupped Jinx's cheek, offering a strained, painful smile. Her face was bright red from the lack of oxygen, her eyes glassy. But she didn't fight her; she couldn't. The rough, calloused pad of her thumb caressed her cheekbone, cradling Jinx's face in one hand familiarly. Her lips moved. I loved you, is what they mouthed, but no noise escaped.

Really, there was no getting out of this. Hell hath no fury like a Jinx scorned, it seemed. Violet didn't have any excuses to offer, no defense, no explanation. Nothing that would be worth wasting her breath on, which by the looks of it, was really becoming scarce. She hurt her little sister more than anyone else, and didn't deserve to be in her life. Vi didn't go looking for her because she couldn't be in her life-- perhaps it was for selfish reasons, but Vi was too scared of hurting her again, scared of what she was capable of. Her passion burned too much that day, and Powder was burned. The last time she would ever truly see Powder, and it was all her fault. She deserved what came next.

[crazy4dragons]

Fifteen (Part 1)

Hiccup struggles to come up with the perfect gift for Astrid’s fifteenth birthday. Hiccup-centric for now, with a bit of subtle Hiccstrid coming in Part 2. Rating: G. Prompt sent by @drakaina-amore64 (thank you!).

Hiccup sighed as he glanced at the collection of half-finished projects around him. Astrid’s fifteenth birthday was in a week, and he still had nothing good enough to give her. Or so it seemed that he didn’t.

A Viking’s fifteenth birthday was a big deal. Fifteen was the year children were finally allowed to take the lead on patrols, participate in battle, and most importantly, learn to fight dragons. For those reasons, fifteenth birthdays weren’t just a family affair—the whole island celebrated them.

And Astrid’s fifteenth birthday was an especially big deal, at least to Hiccup. She’d been his best friend growing up. With his mother gone, he often ended up staying with either the Jorgensons or the Hoffersons when Stoick was away and Gobber was busy running the island. On the weekends Hiccup spent with the Hoffersons, he and Astrid would play all day, then innocently cuddle up together for bed to help calm her fear of the dark, and his fear that a dragon would crash through the walls and eat them both alive.

They hadn’t been close like that in years; not since Astrid started basic battle training at eight years old and slowly latched onto a new group of friends. The last time they’d hung out was at Hiccup’s tenth birthday party, and he suspected that was only because Astrid’s parents made her go, just to be polite.

Gods, he missed the days when they were friends, always laughing and making up stories about defeating dragons together. Maybe if they were still close, he wouldn’t be having such a hard time thinking of a gift for her.

“Axe? She has one already,” he mumbled. “Mace? Has it. Sword? Has that, too.” He gathered the partially-finished weapons and put them in a box.

“What are ye working on, lad?”

Hiccup turned to see Gobber entering the forge. “Oh, nothing. Just uh…brainstorming some gifts for Astrid’s birthday.”

“Oh, I see. What ideas do ye have?” Gobber hobbled over to his desk and grabbed a piece of metal.

“I thought about an axe, or a mace, or a sword, some kind of weapon,” Hiccup began. “But I can’t seem to come up with anything she doesn’t already own.”

“Ye know, Hiccup, a Viking can niver have too many weapons.”

Sighing, the boy ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Yeah, yeah, but I just thought I could do something different. Maybe even something special.”

“Aye, I see.” Gobber raised an eyebrow. “Ye like her.”

A light blush covered Hiccup’s cheeks. “Well, uh…I…” he stammered. He’d always liked Astrid, but now that she was slowly transforming into a fiercely beautiful young woman, he couldn’t help but like her, like her.

“Ye don’t need to hide it, lad. I ain’t gonna tell anyone, ‘cept maybe yer father,” laughed Gobber. “Ye know, in a few years, yer gonna have to start settling down, anyway. And Astrid is just the kind o’ strong lass who could give ye a nice, strong heir.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, an heir,” he mumbled. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the heir, let alone father the next one. He also wasn’t sure he could even find anyone desperate enough to birth his heir. Yes, he was the next in line for Chief, but there were other more attractive, more successful men from neighboring islands who would offer the same social status—plus the added advantage of a tribal alliance.

“It’s gotta happen someday, Hiccup,” Gobber said cheerfully. “Yer father’s not goin’ to be around forever, and—”

Before he could finish, Hiccup was gone. He needed to focus on Astrid’s gift, not becoming Chief, and if he was being quite honest, he was rather tired of everyone talking about it. And by everyone, he meant Stoick and Gobber.

As he trudged home, Hiccup made a mental list in his head of everything he thought Astrid might need, only to cross off all of it by the time he walked through the door. Not only did she already have every weapon he could imagine, she also owned more than enough armor and other battle accessories. Clothes were always practical, and he could easily sew some leggings or knit a pair of cozy socks, but giving Astrid clothing seemed a little too intimate, even if it was just leggings and socks.

Not feeling up to waiting for Stoick to arrive, Hiccup cooked and ate dinner alone, then took his evening bath and headed to his room. Finding a piece of charcoal, he grabbed his sketchbook and opened it to a blank page. He always drew before bed, but this time, he was on a mission to draw until struck by inspiration for Astrid’s gift.

He began by sketching a portrait of her, paying special attention to her big blue eyes and toned muscles. As she grew up, her eyes were gradually losing their glow from childhood, instead becoming fierce and icy. However, Hiccup still thought they were gorgeous. And her muscles he both admired and envied. Gods, she would never feel attracted to him the same way he felt attracted to her, not with his delicate body.

A talking fishbone, that’s what Stoick called him.

Sighing, he put down his charcoal and flipped through his finished drawings, hoping that ideas for his next sketch of the night would come to him.

“I’m home, son!”

Stoick’s booming voice shook Hiccup out of his thoughts. “I’m busy, Dad!” he called, turning another page of his sketchbook. It landed on an image of a Deadly Nadder, Astrid’s favorite dragon. When they were little, she’d always talked about them. She even had a plush one that she took to bed each night, thinking it would protect her from fiercer, scarier dragons, like Night Furies and Monstrous Nightmares.

It was then that it hit him. He would make Astrid her own book, filled with drawings of all the things she’d loved growing up, from the stream they used to swim in together, to the axe her parents gave her for Snoggletog a few years ago, to the little plush Nadder he was almost certain she still kept in her room.

“Are ye so busy ye can’t clean up after yerself?” Stoick bellowed from downstairs.

Hiccup groaned as he remembered that, in his preoccupation with Astrid’s gift, he’d left his dishes on the kitchen table. He knew that if he left his room, he’d end up getting caught in an unwanted conversation with his father, and that definitely wasn’t what he wanted, not with all the drawing he needed to do in order to finish his project on time.

“Hiccup? Do ye hear me?” Stoick prompted.

“Coming, Dad,” the boy said, half-mumbling.

“I don’t know why yer always hiding out in yer room,” the chief remarked as Hiccup descended the stairs. “Can’t a son spend time with his father?”

Hiccup sighed. “Well, Dad, if you must know, I’m uh…I’m working on a birthday gift for Astrid.” He blushed while saying her name.

“Trying to impress her, eh?” Stoick raised an eyebrow.

“No! Of course not. I just…we used to be friends, and I want to do something nice for her.”

“Mmm-hmm. I see how ye look at ‘er.”

Hiccup covered his face in embarrassment. “Dad!”

“Remember, Hiccup, nothing happens on this island without me hearing about it.”

“Sure,” the boy sighed, shuffling to the table and grabbing his dishes. After washing them, he quietly slipped back upstairs before Stoick, who was preoccupied with warming his dinner, noticed he was gone.

“Alright,” he said aloud to himself. “Let’s get these drawings started.”

[twilightsagasworld]

Female (witch) reader x Victoria One-shot

requested by : @soggy-enchilada​

“Fishbone, Gillyweed, Wasp tail…” my mind wondered off, I furrowed my brows, something was missing, I looked around the area of my porch, ah, found it. Off to the side there was a basket filled with forget-me-not’s , I took a hand full of them and tossed it into the small cauldron on the steps of the porch where I sat. I lived on my own deep within the English forest in a rather small cottage, there’s a small village about a three day trip away where I trade potions for food and other supplies. The village was quite fond of me, they didn’t seem bothered by my status as a witch, though I think it has more to do with the help I provide for their ill and dying then anything else.

The potion I was currently stirring started bubbling from the unseen heat I provided with my abilities and I knew it was ready to be poured into viles. As I slowly poured the concoction into the first vile a figure dashed into the area about ten metres from me, I finished and closed the vile and placed it in an empty basket and stood up stalking towards the figure. It was a redheaded woman, pale as snow and rather beautiful, and come to think of it, her beauty and pale frame reminded me of a doctor who I met years ago.

The woman looked feral and wild, and I noted how peculiar her eyes were, “How rather interesting your eyes are my dear…” I said, my voiced laced with no fear and only curiosity. She took a step forward, she was a few inches taller than me, though I am rather short of stature. Her eyes scanned my face, her head tilting side to side gently, as if inspecting me, I sucked in a breath and licked my lips, her eyes followed the movement, “C-could I be of assistance to you? Are you lost…”, a name came to my mind, it seemed only right to call her by this, “…Victoria?”, she stopped her inspecting, head jerking quickly to make eye contact, “My name, how do you know it?” , I tucked a peace of my hair behind my ear, and made a small roll of my shoulders, “I know every person I meet, call it a…Very good intuition”, surprisingly she smiled faintly, I think, it appeared so when her lips twitched slightly. I gestured to my small cottage, “Can I get you something to eat or…” I took a look at her eyes again, remembering the doctor I met all those years ago, a cold one he was, his eyes were an unusual colour too, though I remembered something about how having a certain diet affected his eyes, so I assumed Victoria did not eat as a human did, “… Nevermind. A deer perhaps?”, she shook her head, “You know what I am” , I nodded, “A cold one, I’ve met your kind before, a doctor. Would you like to come in?”, she looked over my shoulder towards my cottage and nodded, I smiled at her, “Lovely, come along then!” I turned and trudged to my home, Victoria close behind.

Victoria surprisingly kept around for a few months, disappearing every so often to feed, I asked her to stay away from the village I frequented and she obliged. But tragedy struck on one of those days. Victoria was gone and I was picking herbs for my latest creation when I was the unfortunate target of a bear, apparently it was a mother protecting her young and I had come to close for comfort.

Two days I laid on the forest floor, slipping in and out of consciousness with blood matted and pooled around my hair and body. The mauling had happened so fast I couldn’t react in time to protect myself. The pain was excruciating and I wanted nothing more then to be dead.

Victoria must have found me, because when I woke again I felt more alive than ever, but there was a gnawing burn in my throat, like someone thrusting a hot iron down it, I sat up and almost gave myself whiplash by doing so. My eyes darted across my room and I noticed things I’ve never noticed before in my life, I could make out the faintest details of the wooden walls and could see every particle of dust in the air, my eyes focused on the corner of the room, “Victoria..”, my voice came out hoarse, but I noticed it sounded lighter than before, cleaner in a way, alluring, even to myself. Victoria looked frightened and relieved at the same time, I wonder if she would have cried if she could. I lifted my hand and within a second the lovely redhead was by my side and grasping it with her own. I searched her eyes, now that I really gazed into them I could see a thousand emotions within them, her right hand came to rest upon my cheek, I noticed how the cold of her palm didn’t bother me at all, come to think of it, I could hardly feel the coolness of it, I frowned, “Am I?...What am I? Am I like you now? Why does my throat burn so, Victoria?” the questions flowed one after the other, and Victoria looked guilty, “I’m so sorry (y/n), I had to change you…When I smelt your blood I knew you were dying and I had no other choice, I wouldn’t lose you, not now that I’ve found you” she sounded anguished, I think my heart would’ve leaped out of my chest, I realised what I was and I smiled at her, showing her the love in my eyes, “Oh Victoria… I’ve grown oh so fond of you, it feels like-“ “Fate” she finished my sentence, I nodded, “Fate, yes”, and for the first time in this life Victoria’s face changed into one of utter joy, she laughed and I joined her, the energy around us was buzzing and radiant. ( play the audio) Victoria stood up and dragged me with her, “Let’s go, you need to feed (y/n)”, I happily obliged, I felt fully content now, here, with Victoria, “Race you” I picked up the front of my dress and shot out of the cottage, Victoria chased me, our laughter echoing throughout the forest….

‘ I held your hand and felt complete, as you turned and said to me, from now on, you and me, we will be’

Word count: 1094

[chemicalmongrel]

misstamtabismuses:

"Vi's on the other side of the river", Jinx revealed and venom dripped from each word, "She's in a big cosy house with a big cosy girlfriend. She left me...again. She chose that blasted sister thief over me. But it's fine." An angry chuckle left her lips. "It's fine. I am fine! I got Fishbones. I need no one else."

Jinx reached up with her hand and softly patted against the shark rocket launcher's snout. The Loose Canon had turned her head a bit to be able to properly look into dark blue glowing eyes, sharp, jagged teeth and the gash, parting one of the shark's eyes. He looked so much like him. But that had been intentional. After all, Fishbones had been meant as a gift for him. Just like the pepperbox was in some ways, once she had worked out all the kinks. After all, why else give the weapon seven barrels?

Was any of this even real? The thought echoed in his head until it was all the man could think about. Like something out of a radio talkshow. One where the host kept drilling the guest with the same confounded question, again and again. Yet no amount of deflecting could clue the witless bastard in on the room's atmosphere. JUST READ THE ROOM!! It was made all the worse by the fact that there was no air conditioning. Just a muggy, humid sort of heat. Something you could only get when too much polluted air congregated in one place. Thus all the irksome scents rife in the air were magnified. BLOOD!! No! Stay focused, don't hurt blue! Don't lose control, stay in the now! Warwick felt the chill touch of metal pressed up to his chest and recoiled as if struck. His chest was rising and falling in rapid motion. It was difficult to breathe. He felt something trying to claw its way out of his throat. But he stuffed it back down until it burned his heart, focusing on what was afore him. Yet he could feel himself tittering on a razor edge--emphasized by how the chambers in his back whirred.

He looked to blue and saw her face soften, tension draining from her every muscle. Her scent shifted from predator to something else. Something old. Something new. There was a new face beneath that blue and it had a hardset jaw that had seen a hundred fresh horrors it never ought to have endured. But it was also the same, shaped different now, but still had all the hallmarks of an energetic little girl who needed a cup of juice when things didn't go how she wanted. STOP!! Icy needles pressed into the recesses of his cranium, cracking the bone and rearranging the gray matter. His thoughts were all over the place. Scenes and places from a lifetime ago flittered by. Then blue said a name and the needles became white hot. PAIN... NOTHING!! Vander Vander Vander Vander VandervandERvaNDErVAnD- Quiet! Emotions ran rampant and it showed in the caustic sludge burbling in the chambers and tubing. From green to blue to violet to black to crimson and back again. It was a phenomenon seen in his eyes, too, dancing down that same gradient. What did he do, what did he not do? All PAIN and scalpels and shimmer-poisoned food forced down your throat through a tube. Keep EATING until you become big and strong, an efficient MONSTER. Just like you always have been! But then you just vomit BLOOD and feel your bones cracking! He was brought out from the spiral by another touch, warmer, sticky. Something he recoiled from again. Only now the grinding of his chambers became deafening in his ears. His blood raced at the irresistible scent of blood. Could feel his heart hammer away and his breathing worsen, could feel how the ooze in his veins grew hotter by the moment. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth but he held on, ground his teeth to dust and clamped onto his own tongue until he tasted iron.

"...other side? What..." its voice faltered toward the end. Sister stealer? Shacked up with a well-heeled Piltie? There was something interwoven with the name and how blue said it. How she spoke of pink. It was everything but what the faint recollection the man still retained said it was. Like reaching out and taking a bundle of thread, only to find they're frayed and tied off to wildly different sections of a tapestry. One you had no hand in making. One you had been cut out of by the hands of another. His eyes trailed across blue's face--what was her name?--until drifting to the item she tapped with a hand. Then his eyes and the sludge threatening to scald him from the inside out turned a black-mottled crimson. Jagged teeth and a crooked smile. Face offset and attention brought to an eye that was hewn. It glittered. Stared him down, glaring a crooked sneer. O N E G L I T T E R I N G E Y E!

Liquid FIRE fills its veins! A madman's plunger splits muscle and pierces bone! Its world is RED and ORANGE and ANGER and PAIN!! But the man held the beast off, even as its entire body recoiled and tensed enough to make its bones creak from the effort. "NO... SCREAMS-- RUN!!"

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Femslash February Day 6

Prompt: Mermaid AU Fandom: Once Upon A Time Pair: Swan Queen

Summary: When the Jolly Roger gets struck by a winter storm Emma is cast overboard and rescued by a mermaid.

The water is so cold, capped with ice and stirring with a winter breeze. Winter seeps through her skin and into her veins without mercy. She wishes that the waves would just slam her into a craggy arch of limestone, would knock her out as cold as the waters. But they don’t, they are more content to toss her about like a floppy stuffed animal until her lungs can take no more.

She supposes that, when you bed with a ruthless pirate, you are bound to get tossed to the waves. And so Emma sinks beneath the surface, wondering if Killian has met the same fate. She’d told them that it was a poor season for sailing. The man is--was?--so stubborn. And this time they are both--or maybe she alone is--paying the price for it.

She closes her eyes and the cold wraps itself around her in a frigid hug. She feels fish swim past her and seaweed coil around her ankles. Her lifeforce begins to escape her in the form of clouds of bubbles.

And then there is a warmth. A strange warmth that wraps around her and she knows that she has finally died. How else could it be so pleasantly warm. She can’t remember what happens next. The rush of water no longer sounds in her ears. The cold no longer burns her bones. She can’t smell salt nor fish any longer.

And then she opens her eyes. And when she does the world comes back to life. Alive but somewhere entirely new. The sound of water is still there but it is muffled somehow and there is a fire crackling. Throwing shadows across the rocky walls of...of where ever she is. Perhaps a limestone cove? There are starfish and barnacles clinging to the wall. She knows that she is in the same waters because she can see chunks of ice drifting up to and knocking against the floor of this cavern. It smells the same but different. Like ocean water and seaweed but there is the cozy smell of the fire and something like flowers. She can’t name exactly which type. She hears the wind roar against the wall of the cove.

More pleasant than any of the other sounds, she hears a voice. “What ship was it?”

“Hmm?” Emma mumbles.

“What was the name of the ship that sunk?”

“The Jolly Roger. I was aboard the Jolly Roger.” It isn’t so jolly anymore.

The woman nods. Emma spots her resting her arms upon the rocks, mostly submerged in the frosty waters.

“Aren’t you cold?”

She shakes her head. “I’m more than used to this. It’s comfortable.” Emma catches the flick of a tail--onyx black with an oil slick iridescent. She tilts her head.

“Not for me.” Emma shudders. “Are you some kind of ice mermaid?”

The woman laughs. “There are no ‘ice mermaids’, I’ve simply adapted to the waters I was born in.”

“Can you do magic?”

“How do you think I made the fire?” The woman asks. She heaves herself out of the water. In a shimmering swirl of purple light, she swaps her tail for legs. “Regina Mills.”  She holds out her hand.

Emma takes it, it is surprisingly warm.

“Can you take me home?”

She nods, I can eventually, yes.” She replies. “But I was hoping that you could keep me company for the night. I don’t come by many people; it’s quite lonely.”

“Don’t you have other mermaids?”

She shakes her head. “I’m one of the few that has adapted to…” she gestures to the blocks of ice.

“Are you part seal by chance?”

She doesn’t seem entertained by the remark. “I am not, no.”

Emma laughs. “I was just joking. And, sure, I’ll spend the night with you. You did save my life.” She smiles.

At this the woman seems satisfied. She makes herself comfy in front of the fire. “Next time you plan on sailing I recommend doing so in better weather. I have so many stories of dead sailors.” She holds up her necklace, the bones upon it crack together. “I found these at various wreck sites.”

Emma quirks a brow, “that’s a little morbid, don’t you think?”

Regina shrugs. “It’s an aesthetic.”

“So you’re an evil mermaid?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t kill them, I simply make use of what they leave behind. You’re thinking of sirens.”

“Interesting.” Emma replies. “Terrifying, but interesting.”

Regina takes off her bracelet and puts it around Emma’s wrist. “Don’t worry, this one is made of fishbone.”

“What’s it for?”

“I would like to talk to you again after tonight, if you would do me the pleasure. I can find you if you wear this.”

Emma nods. The woman had saved her life, she supposes that it couldn’t hurt to get to know her a little more. And besides, she can’t say that she would get another chance to talk to another mermaid, much less a mermaid as compelling and alluring as this one.

Emma watches her lay down, firelight reflects in her beautiful brown eyes. She supposes that she had sought out an adventure. She clears her throat, “I didn’t see the Jolly Roger sink. Could you help me find it, I don’t think that Killian is dead.”

“Killian?”

“My friend.”

“Just a friend?”

“Just a friend.”

“I can help you search, on one condition.”

Emma inhales, “what condition.”

“When we find the ship, let me board it. I want to see the human world.”

“You have a deal, Mills.”

The mermaid smiles. Indeed, Emma wanted an adventure. She has a feeling that she will be getting more than her fill of one.

[lostsummerdayz]

Lost Summer Classics #1

When You Hit A Wall....

By: Nay Holland

And so fell the Piltover Enforcer, for she too, wasn't safe from the serial assassin.

As her body laid limp against the Piltover Museum, carnage surrounded her in the form of wrecked cars, broken street lamps and shattered glass; all of which painted this chaotic scene.

Beneath her cracked goggles, torn clothing, and bloodied face, Vi looked up meekly towards her would-be assailant, who bore a mask and a trilby hat. The barrel of the gun met with her eyes as she took heavy breaths, as if meeting her judgement.

"I guess I should have seen this coming, huh?" Vi cracked a smile as she let out a sharp, painful laugh. The masked man didn't respond immediately, but she felt his glare. If she could see behind his mask, he would probably be laughing at her.

"A fighter to the end. I enjoyed this dance, Vi." The masked man raised his finger and cocked the barrel of the gun.

Vi, her soul unwavered to her last breath, grinned as she spat blood in his direction.

"See you in the Shadow Isles, you motherfu--" The shot rang and echoed from the streets as a blood curling scream rang out.

"No! Vi!!!" A shrill voice echoed.

A woman, poised in a firing stance, fired several unrelenting shots towards the man. The man phased into the scenery as the bullets only grazed his body. 

"I'll kill you! You monster! I'll fucking destroy you!"

The figure didn't flinch, nor show any emotion to Caitlyn's words. It did, however, respond. 

"Caitlyn. As empty as your threats are, you aren't my target. I've gotten what I've came for. And now the circle is full again."      

The figure disappeared into the darkness completely, as Caitlyn stared, tears of anger stinging her eyes. When she regained herself, Caitlyn threw off her hat and ran towards Vi, holding her close as she moves her hand across her body.

"Vi! No. No, no, no, no! This isn't real. I told you not to go alone and your fucking confident ass had to...!"  Caitlyn's voice cracked  as the tears flowed through her face. A hand placed on top of her shoulder as Vi opened up her eyes, although very slightly.

"Cupcake? It's okay. It doesn't even hurt." Vi spoke softly, as her voice trailed off. Caitlyn's eyes expanded in worry as her lip quivered. "Please, don't cry. In this line of work, its to be expected."

"Shh! Dont talk! Conserve your breath! I've contacted EMS and they will be arriving shortly, just, please!" Caitlyn moved her hands towards the area where she was shot, but to her surprise, she doesn't find a single wound, not even one resembling a bullet scar. "...!? But weren't you---"

"See? It doesn't hurt... But I may be gone for a while. A...trial awaits me." Vi looks over towards Caitlyn as she grins, kissing her cheek. "If I don't see you again..." 

Caitlyn, who blushed at the gesture, held on to Vi angrily as she lightly shakes her.  "Don't you 'If I don't see you again' me! I won't tolerate your negativity! You will be alright! This won't be the end!”

"Perhaps I will. But until that time comes, I wanted to say. I love..."  Vi, closing her eyes once more, rested her head on Caitlyn's shoulder as her body falls limp. Caitlyn held her close to her chest, as the suppressed sobs turn into heavy cries of mourning.

Nearby, a male looked down with his face covered by a dark blue scarf. Holding a light blue sword to his side, he stared at Vi and Caitlyn from above, without any clear emotion. Not too far from the boy, a girl sprinted up to him as she caught her breath. She held a small machine gun to her side as an oversized rocket launcher was strapped on her back.

"Hey! Spiky hair! Couldn't you have waited just a little bit! I barely had enough time to stash Fishbones with me!" The girl caught her breath as she yelled, unaware of the events that transpired.

"Even if you brought both weapons, it wouldn't have mattered. We're too late, Jinx."

The girl looked down towards the streets, while she gasped, placing her hands over her mouth. The first thing she picked up were the bodies of Vi and Caitlyn, with Caitlyn holding Vi's body as a nearby ambulance draws near.

"Will Fathands be okay!? What happened!?"  Ekko removed his scarf as he lowered his eyes, shaking his head.

"It was a very one sided fight. The girl doesn't know the meaning of giving up. Growing up with her, you should know that she was the most reckless one of us all. But for her to go out like this.." 

"No way! Can't you use your timey whimey wibbly wobbly stuff to save her!? What good is having that power if you can't--" 

Ekko sighed as he clenched the sword, not daring to look at Jinx's tear stained face in fear of having himself breaking down.

"I've been down that road many times before. I couldn't fight fate then, I sure as hell can't do so now."

"That kid? But you were still getting used to your power! You've gotten used to your ability since then, so you should be able to make it in time! Right!?"

"Look! It wouldn't have mattered! There are certain things you can change, and yes I can alter time! But I can't change fate! Even if I intervened! I wouldn't have been able to do anything to save her...!"

"Ekko. Is Vi really--"

Ekko's tears silently began to fall, as the mere mention of Jinx using their real names, struck a chord within him.

"There was something that old man Zil told me when I trained under him. He spoke, that time is a constant. It catches up to even the fleetest of feet. However, even the supernatural isn't safe, and eventually time shall reveal all. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but its coming clear," Ekko closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, exhaling. "I've heard that this man fits the bill of the shady character who was seen in Demacia, where he....... Garen..... "

"Ekko? What are you implying---"

"We have places to visit. I'm sure Caitlyn will report this, but we need to also warn the others what we saw."  Before Jinx could protest, Ekko turned and parted his way outside of Piltover, not before giving a longing glance to Vi.       "We'll get to the bottom of this. Promise, Vi."

Originally posted January 7th 2016

[dunmerofskyrim]

77

All morning they walked by water and never saw it. The tangle of trees hid it from sight, but surrounded them in its sound. The chattering run of clear bright water.

Simra’s mouth was dry and sour from the heat. He caught himself patting the waterskin looped to his belt, checking it, then caught himself checking again, hopeless and habitual, like a superstition. Why would it have changed? Blighted thing was empty that morning. Of course it was still empty now. Still empty, and still sweat stinging at his back and in his eyebrows. Feet still hurting, but when did they not?

There was no track through all this growth. Every step was a blow struck against the forest. A process of gnawing into its bulk, its mass, chased on by the sense it was healing behind you, would mend quicker than you could travel. Trap you.

Following the Kogaru, Simra stepped where they stepped, weeds and grasses, and Llolamae traipsed behind him. They weren’t comfortable here, he realised. No more than he was. Didn’t know how to move through forest like this, all crashing feet and the cutting switch of a spear against the knit of green ahead. Their people had lived on this island since before time had a name for itself. Generations and generations, living in the icewastes of the coastlines like as not. Life and living balanced between the sea and the hotcaves. Might be this place had still been the greenest piece of the island in Kaliklu’s younger years,  but Dalvur Vedith brought the forest. It was recent; newer than anything like this ought to be. Not a forest, Simra corrected himself. A garden.

The light changed. One moment, filtered yellow sun and shadows of midnight green. Now things were luminous, sallow. Fungus reached in fronds, thin-stemmed up to left and right, like fences of growing willow. They ended capless in paintbrush tips, like blossoms almost, or the tendril-mouths of something that lived too deep under the sea to be understood by anything that didn’t. No glow to them that Simra could see, but then again there was no sunlight either. A smell on the air, like wax and turned earth and the sweetness of boiled milk.

Underfoot, nettles and weeds grew high as Simra’s waist. Pale-leafed and sticky on Simra’s clothes, they spooled and hedged together like messes of twine, and he tramped through them in long high clownish strides. Not a path, too thick-grown for that, but then why did the fungus either side feel like it’d been waiting for them? Ushered them into itself. Grown round them, maybe. A tunnel, a passage, a funnel.

To one side a tree was trying to grow, crashing up through the wall of fungus. Colourless craggy bark, dried up, and all its leaves starved to bones. The weeds crowded its trunk and had clambered choking into its branches. They sagged under the weight, overburdened, but up amongst them the weeds were flowering. Each was a pair of petals, lurid yellow and palm-sized, with a long smug purple needle hanging down.

Simra felt his mouth twist and tighten. He strayed as far as the fungus fence would let him, not keen to be under the weed-choked tree. Something pinched at his vision as he passed it by. Motion. He snapped his head up, back. His hand went for his belt, then slacked.

Butterflies. Moths maybe. A swarm of them, all big as his palm, swarmed between the branches in billowing stormclouds, wheeling scattering loops. Simra felt himself frown. Their wings were bright yellow and they searched the air with flickering tongues, thistle-flower purple.

“What in the—…”

Llolamae whooped and clapped her hands. Stopped and turned in place to watch them, mouth open and jaw hanging.

“There a reason Telvanni do things like that?” Simra said, stuck between the wonderment and wrongness of it. “Or is it just for the spice of it. See if they can.”

“Might have a reason.”

“Seeing if you can’s not a reason.”

“Might be an important one, even!” said Llolamae, neck still craned, keeping track of the moths.

“A weed that – let me straight this out – kills trees to make flowers that turn into moths, and then…fuck knows where that journey ends.”

“Seeing if you can’s important sometimes. That’s what Master Vidanu says. Testing principles, intit? You start small, and it might look like nothing, might even seem like a waste. But then who’s laughing when you reapply it somewhere else and of a sudden you’ve up and cured autumnsbone or gripe!”

“With moths…”

“Maybe.” Llolamae looked down, looked full at him, squaring her hips and shoulders.

“Fuck…” Simra muttered. “Well if I was waiting on a sign we were getting close… Come on. Let’s get this done.”

The fungus ended but Simra couldn’t quite place when. Gone in the time it took not to look at it. No fungus, no breeze, and back to daylight through the still leaves overhead, littering the ground like scraps and shatters of noontime gold. The weeds had given way to a dark velvet of moss, tending slippery and slow downhill.

Simra looked up from watching his feet, not wanting to stumble. A bright gap showed ahead in the closure of ferns and trees. The Kogaru disappeared through as Simra watched. He forgot the footing, his care of it, and hurried after them, muttering again, “Come on.”

With one hand he parted the greenery, opening the gap to fit through. Stiff hairy stems, one broken and bleeding what looked like bile. Delicate fronds, complex and intricate. Tiny leaves fitting together like tiles in a mosaic, like teeth in a clenched mouth. His other hand itched anxious at his belt, hovering between the hilt of his sword and handle of his knives.

“Come on…” Didn’t know if the words were meant to speed Llolamae behind him or steel himself for what was ahead. It was this place. Turning him round, putting a fear up him at seeing – what? – a stand of ferns. Then, sky, stark and open. A cut through the woodland, ten strides broad.

A deep narrow ribbon of water cut across the way and the Kogaru haunched down beside it, drinking from their cupped hands. Only the hunter stood back, leaning on his spear and glaring as Simra came through the ferns. Without looking down, the hunter lowered a hand to the bundle slung across his shoulders and brought out a flattened leather bottle, throwing it beside the youngest Kogaru who set to filling it.

Simra eyed the water. Crouched down beside it and sniffed, careful of it. Moss, moths, fungus that found you in the wilderness and fanfared your way with steepled stems — hadn’t yet found a thing in this basin he trusted. Just because he liked the look of this water didn’t mean he’d start trusting it too. How long had they walked beside it while it hid from them?

He wet his cracked lips. Unhitched his own waterskin, crushed the air out, and submerged it, giving it the side of his gaze as it filled. The water was so clear, seemed almost so still and steady in its running, that he scarce knew his hand was under it except by the chill of it. Deep and sharp, flooding up his wrist and into the bones of his arm. He was already longing for it. Thinking how it would ache in his teeth and unparch his throat. Freezing, high-mountain cold.

Wincing, Simra stood up and and passed the skin into his other hand, fluttering the wet one like that might fidget some feeling back into its fingers. Llolamae lurked by him and he passed her the uncapped skin. “Hold this a moment.”

Straight away she made to drink.

“Tscht! Hold on!”

She hesitated, mouth still open and skin raised almost up to it.

“I said hold it.” Simra cocked his eyebrows and jerked his head at the Kogaru, watching a moment. They were drinking free and open now, and weren’t dead yet, but all the same, all the same... He shuffled his old leather satchel round to his front. Picked through, staring into it, and came up with a length of plaited twine round his fingers, the coin-slight weight of a bronze medallion dangling from its length. It was wide across as a fingerjoint and tarnished green-blue by water — centuries of patina, he might’ve thought, if he hadn’t watched the streetmage etch her enchantment into it himself less than three years ago.

“What’s that do?” Llolamae asked.

“Makes water safe to drink,” he said, taking back the skin. Safe, unless someone put poison in it by design.

“By magic?”

He nodded. “Small thing, but it’s saved my life more times than any other blade or bit of magic I’ve ever owned.” Anycase, he liked to think it had. He’d never really know, not while it did its job, but since half the camp at Gelan-Telai went down with a blood-tinged flux, Simra reckoned one never could be too careful.

The medallion went into the neck of the skin and came out wet. No more tarnished though. Simra liked to think that meant something. He drank a measured draught. One clean, cold sip, then a long glug, cheeks filling, throat filling, then stomach cold and glad with it. “Ghosts…” he gasped. “Good.” He swilled out the sour corners inside his mouth, washing away the taste of thirst, and turned his back to Llolamae. Spat.

She took a quick gulp when he passed it to her then drained it dry.

Taking it back, Simra crouched to fill it again. Thoughtless, he found himself thinking, and something he thought stuck like a fishbone in the throat of his mind. Might be nothing. Maybe so, but it still itched. Looking down at the cut of the stream through the forest, it had no banks. No silt, no pebbles or gravel. Just the clean cleave of it, a deep brief trench through the moss and the pale solid stone beneath it. Like a gutter, sliced neat. Like something brand new.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, he dipped the medallion again and made himself look away from the water. Its stone bed, its strange slow run. There’d be no standing up for falling down if he let himself get tripped up on every scrap of strangeness in this place. Best just to carry on. Get this done. He’d been away long enough already.

[esonikofanfiction]

K: TALES OF MIDNIGHT: CHAPTER I: SASHIMI  || pt. I

Saruhiko Fushimi trekked his way through back-door alleyways and near-deserted pockets only frequented by shady under-dwellers and the occasional stray cat. The bustle of ordinary life come street-side in Shizume was too burdensome, mostly for the noise, but also for the work Fushimi did. It wasn't the type that rivaled afternoon strolls, business liaisons, lovers' dates, or errands to the supermarket, nor would he have looked the part besides. What he was doing, and where he was headed, he required the long saber of Scepter 4 strapped around his waist. 

It was warm. The sun was on the verge of dipping down beneath the littered glass formations rising over lesser, not-so-grand, though equally encroaching structures he wove in and out of like a rat. 

It had recently rained, which would have seemed a pleasant deter from the heat of summer’s final remnants dwindling into fall, though it only served to make the day wetter, the air muggier, and the orangish glare from the setting sun bounce more profoundly off the mirrored surfaces created by the downpour. 

Fushimi had had the misfortune of finding himself caught in the storm not twenty minutes past with nothing but a narrow awning shielding him from soaking up the water like a sponge. Now slightly damp and smelling like whatever mildew lingered in the greyed and battered alcove of what he assumed to be the backside of a kitchen serving soba, he slid a finger up the bridge of his nose, straightening his rims, and turned down an adjacent alley, only to come grinding to a halt on locking eyes with a tawny-marred degenerate less fortunately swamped. Its hair was wet in filthy clumps and standing straight on edge; it’s angled pupils rounded with alarm. On sighting him careening down the lane, it stiffened on all fours, hissed through what appeared to be the remnants of a fishbone, bore its fangs at him, and briskly scampered off.

Fushimi clicked his tongue disgustedly and ventured on another couple blocks, past rows of identically rancid-smelling dumpsters made all the more wretched when soaked, and finally to a metal door seemingly the same as every other, only this one bore a semi-high-tech panel just above the handle: one that called for a numeric passcode as well as biometric retinal and finger scans. While clearly fashioned as a warning unto others, this obstruction seemed far less of a disturbance and more of an incentive to continue, and Fushimi narrowed in, setting instantly to work. 

He shoved a hand inside his pocket, drawing out a slender metal box akin to a cigarette case. Opening it, he retrieved a piece of tech the size of a Scepter 4 button, which he set atop the panel. 

Next, he leveled his forearm to the panel itself, typing away at the buttons on his wrist device. A small holographic screen appeared and scanned the pad, locking in the signal. The corresponding LED screen lit up instantly, spasmodically displaying rows of numbers until the password was acquired.

After, having set the metal box between his teeth, Fushimi dove inside it once again for a thin slice of silicone, which he formed across his finger, then the scanner. A light beep in the affirmative confirmed the match and he scraped the rubbery glove back into the box. 

Lastly, he reached up and clicked a micro-button on his rims. A clear white light along his lenses flashed up once, then zoomed back down, changing the hue of his eyes from blue to hazel green. He leaned in close and looked into the scanner. A horizontal line of LED green shot out, whizzing up and down his optical features, issuing a final beep as the door unlocked, and he slid inside. 

It was dark, less stuffy than outside, but cool at least. 

Silently, he slithered through the basement, past the lobby on the ground floor, and onward to the first — a vast grey landscape littered with a maze of cubicles, side-offices, and a conference room: your standard office space, empty and deserted on the weekend; yet Fushimi knew better. It was why he came there in the first place — to the Susanoo Trade Building; more importantly, the location of the stolen Kawaguchi Algorithm. It had taken him weeks to track it down, and even though he’d found it, he knew it wouldn't stay in one place very long — certainly not out in the open in the center of the city. Maybe that was the idea, he had thought. Hide it in plain sight. Strolling down a narrow makeshift walkway in between the cubicles, he huffed with annoyance. "Or don't bother hiding it at all," he said aloud. "What a pain." Such an obvious ploy, if true, meant only one thing: he wasn't alone. This, he had come to realize; in fact, he’d counted on it, which is why, ducking hard beneath a nearby cubicle, he escaped a sudden aura-less blast that zoomed across the room, sweeping white and yellow streaks atop the hazy shadows of the dark. 

A zapping boom erupted, sending papers flying through the air. The computer at the desk above him ruptured in a surge of wire and plastic, the upper portion of the cubicle dismantled in a sea of smoldering pieces from what neither was a bomb, nor a bullet, but the result of an electro-current issued from an arm blaster, its discharge resembling that of an exploding power line.

"You've got to be kidding me!“ he grumbled, slamming up against the cube's dilapidated wall. Clenching irritably, he dipped his head against the bristly felt, blinked once against the ceiling, and dove into a roll across the floor. 

Another blast ensued, rushed and frenzied by his onslaught, and missed him altogether as he rose fist-first to smash the face of his opponent. The man fell in a heap of cheap metal armor to the floor. 

Fushimi sighed, twisting out a kink in his neck. “Idiot.” 

Kneeling down, he drew a set of braces from his pocket, snatching flaccid arms and spinning them around, cuffing them together. "So that's how it's going to be,” he said, rising. 

And so it was. With every room he came to on his spiraled track from first to second floors, from third to fourth, and onward to the fifth, he was met in equal likeness with another clunky foe, each one more moronic than the last, and all without a lick of supernatural power. This observation, given the nature of his occupation and the severity of his mission, Fushimi found peculiar, yet it was nowhere near as puzzling as it was frustratingly time-consuming, until finally, having punched his way through every minor muscle man and every wave of harmless static bolts propelled against him, he found what he was looking for. 

In the eleventh floor data storage room, dark but for the dim electric glow emitted from rows of blinking storage racks, Fushimi caught the vague, illuminated features of a woman scanning neon columns of encryption on a laptop in the corner by the door. 

Fushimi grasped the saber at his waist, issuing the Scepter 4 emergency draw command. The sword unlocked itself and the steady 'shink' of its release produced the blade itself, its silver tip ignited with a gleam as he advanced into the room. 

"I wouldn't do that," said the woman, still eyeing the screen. Before he had a chance to say a word, Fushimi found the meaning of her warning as he drew another step — directly onto an electrical pad that stunned him to the floor. The woman pursed her lips. "Told ya." 

Forcing dissolution from his eyes, Fushimi grunted more in anger than in pain and fumbled through his pockets, digging out a tiny metal orb no larger than racquet ball. He ran it over gently in his palm, fingering a button on its side. With the faint contortions of a grin, he clicked it and the orb lit with a start, letting out a rhythmic beeping chime that quickened, growing louder as he rolled it in a hollow clink across the floor. "Overconfidence," he scoffed. "Just shows how stupid you are." 

The woman chuckled, peering up at last. She looked at him, her gaze an eerie shadow in the dark. A spark of light ignited in her eyes. Her focus realigned itself and centered on the orb, its flashing signal ‘tink, tink, tinking’ toward her and she beamed, grinning wide with a guffaw before slapping her computer shut and bolting out the door the moment of the blast. 

Amidst the ringing uproar in his ears, Fushimi heard a muffled cry and quickly gained his feet, screeching his slick heels atop linoleum tiles and the ruptured remains of her laptop strewn across floor, all the while waving and coughing over acid-smelling smoke and flying pieces of debris. 

He catapulted out into the hall, and, swinging side to side, discerned the metal clack of a door slamming down the western corridor. 

A few steps later he was at the door, sending up a momentary glance at the plague beside it, equipped with a mumbled, "What the — ?" before bounding through it. "The hell are you playing at?" He whispered between panting breaths up the stairs, two, three steps at a time. "Or are you really that brainless?" 

He could hear the clicking footsteps of her flight along the upper storeys; leaning past the railing, he could see dark wisps of clothing as she zipped around the corners. 

Saber firm in hand, he hastened his pursuit, bursting moments later out onto the graveled surface of the roof.  

The red and yellow coruscance of present-creeping dusk struck him in a sudden blinding headache, and the clash against the humid layer thickening the air was nearly suffocating, though he hardly had the time to bask in the discomfort that it brought. With his first skidding step out the door, a force as that of a hurricane of culminating thunderclaps arrayed with lightning bolts came shooting through the air. 

Whether by his skill or acting on an impulse, he resisted the advance, brandishing his saber in an instant swipe before him, the ice-blue barrier of Scepter 4 protecting him from harm — or so he thought. He jolted at the impact, sliding crudely backward with a curse, digging his heels into the loose layer of pebbles in an effort to sustain the wall of supernatural fumes that towered overhead like the emergence of a sandstorm in the dark.

It was an aura: that, he knew full well, however this was far more potent, explosive, dangerous. While his produced a steady wave of blue, what tempest wailed before his eyes was dark like blackened pillars of destruction, wild, unpredictable, pervaded by a labyrinth of convulsive sparks that whizzed out one-by-one to pierce his shield and strike his every side. 

He toughened in a grimace, a line of sweat appearing on his temples as he watched the wall erupt in one high-voltage boom that dove into a crash atop his sword. The hell! He roared internally, feeling the vibration suck him upward as the aura rose again, billowing to fill the sky and mask what little light resisted night's approach. 

The dark had all but wrapped itself around him, forcing him inside, twisting ever upward in a raging, fuming vortex, plummeting again with the insurmountable force of a hammer that dropped him to his knees.

He hollered out in pain and sudden tightness, tainted yet untouched. The blow had struck him from within. His aura reached its pinnacle. His body felt the strain. It could not take the weight but rather urged him to implode, his force of power fumbling away. I'm not strong enough for this! He realized. 

The roaring thunder boomed, a squall of coal-like power gushing in his ears. Clenching hard, he set a second hand along his hilt. Still, the aura bore his to the ground. Nearly, he was at his end. He began to sense the last of his aura dwindling into trenchant nonexistence. 

Broken from the world outside, unable to escape, his consciousness cascaded into hazy, blotted scenes parading round his eyes; then all gave way and flew apart, unhanding him at once. 

The yellowed afterglow revealed itself; the air that weighed him down before felt light against his skin. 

The torrid blast dispersed itself and faded with the breeze, prevailing in the midst, the woman standing placidly before him, unmarred, unscathed, and perfectly at ease. By way of tepid streams, the final wisps of ashen power swept her long black waves across her face and the hem of her open trench coat in a flap against her knees. 

Residing in her grasp, a silver-sheened rapier was drawn and resting at her side. Her gaze, as like the rest of her, was dark, focused like a serpent on Fushimi.

(Next Up // Chapter I: Sashimi, pt. II)

(K:Tales of Midnight is an Eso Niko Fan Fiction series based on the anime/manga series K, written by GoRa and produced by GoHands. All fan fiction works written by Eso Niko are categorized as ‘unofficial fan fiction,’ and are in no way affiliated to GoRa and GoHands.)

[frankkjonestx]

To rehearse Perseverance’s mission, scientists pretended to be a Mars rover

Megan Barrington watched the sun rise over the rocky outcrop. When light struck at exactly the right angle, she mounted a gizmo that looked like eye exam equipment on a tripod and aimed it at the spot. The goal: gather evidence that this windswept wilderness once teemed with life, and then beam the information to her colleagues back home.

Soon, a version of that setup (minus Barrington) will be deployed on Mars. The state-of-the-art, zoomable, multispectral camera is part of the toolkit on NASA’s Perseverance rover (SN: 7/28/20). “That instrument is going to allow me to look at the mineralogy of Mars at Jezero crater,” the rover’s landing spot, says Barrington, a planetary scientist at Cornell University.

The rover is scheduled to launch to Mars on July 30. A February role-playing exercise in the Nevada desert by Barrington and six colleagues was a kind of dress rehearsal for the rover’s various instruments. Another 150 team members around the world played the “Earth” team during those two weeks, sending commands from remote mission control and receiving data as it would appear coming from the real rover.

“We’re not just simulating a Mars mission,” says engineer Raymond Francis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who organized and led the trip. “We’re simulating a specific Mars mission by presenting data … to the people who designed the instrument that will take that data. So the standard is high not to look like clowns.”

Perseverance has the most demanding and ambitious to-do list of any rover yet: seek signs of past Martian life, prepare the way for future human missions and collect at least 20 samples of Martian rock for eventual return to Earth. And that’s just in its first two years. For contrast, Curiosity rover has drilled a few dozen holes over eight years on Mars, and didn’t store any of those samples for later (SN: 7/7/18, p. 8).

The dress rehearsal in the desert will help ensure that when Perseverance lands on the Red Planet in February 2021, its handlers on Earth can get straight to the science.

“We don’t want to get there and learn how to explore Mars while on Mars,” Francis says. “We want [team members] to be ready when the rover hits the ground.”

Water marks the spot

The first order of business was to find the right spot for the dry run. “We had to pick a site that kind of looked like Mars,” Francis says. “The parking lot would not do.” The team wanted the site to look as Mars-like as possible, no factories, footprints or foliage to break the illusion.

An ideal site would have geology that echoed Jezero crater, which is thought to be the remnants of an ancient lakebed and river delta (SN: 11/19/18). It also had to be within a few hours’ drive of JPL, and not totally off the grid — the rover team slept in hotels, ate dinner in restaurants and had reliable Wi-Fi to send data to the Earth team every night.

The final requirement was that it be someplace the Earth team hadn’t seen before. If mission control members recognized the site, they could bias their findings with what they already knew.

Engineer and team leader Raymond Francis gets up close with the rocks to make a measurement.JPL-Caltech/NASA

“Most of the popular Mars analogs are already well known to the Mars community,” Francis says. “So we had to be a little sneaky.”

Previous exercises, in November 2017 and February 2019, were run in the Mojave Desert in California. For 2020, the rover team headed to Walker Lake in western Nevada. The lake’s water has been receding for a thousand years, so there are spots near the ancient shoreline where the present-day lake is invisible.

Walker Lake’s rocks preserved a cornucopia of biological signals for the ground team to discover: fossilized fish bones and shells of tiny shrimplike crustaceans called ostracods, which are not expected on Mars; and microbial fossils called stromatolites, which could plausibly be found in Jezero crater (SN: 10/17/18).

Toolkit

Francis and his team brought handheld versions of almost all the rover’s instruments to gather whatever data the Earth team requested. They had a drill, handheld spectrometers, lasers, a ground-penetrating radar that they transported in a jogging stroller, plus several elaborate camera setups to represent the rover’s navigation, hazard avoidance and zoomable 3-D science cameras.

Perhaps the most important piece of equipment was the broom used for sweeping away footprints. It became a running joke, Francis says: “We’ve got all this equipment, a multibillion-dollar mission, and it’s all hinging on this 99-cent broom.”

Almost everything went smoothly. But a few days into the mission, Barrington’s zoomable camera had “a major malfunction,” she says. She framed her shot, and…. nothing happened. The camera wasn’t getting any power, she realized. “I took it apart and rewired many pieces, to no avail,” she says.

She and her teammates finally realized one of the power adapters had completely blown. She had to drive two hours to the nearest city to get a new one.

Of course, driving into town to get a new part won’t be an option on Mars. The real camera, called Mastcam-Z, has been through weeks of rigorous testing and calibration, and is probably up to the task. But “we all go into missions knowing that sometimes irreversible mistakes occur,” Barrington admits. “All we can do at that point is use the instruments to the fullest capacity of which they are capable of operating.”

Planetary scientist Megan Barrington adjusts her instrument, a multispectral, zoomable camera standing in for Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z.JPL-Caltech/NASA

Signs of life, big and small

There was one major giveaway that the team was actually on Earth. “This is very much middle-of-nowhere desert, which is good,” Francis says. But the rover site was mere steps from a U.S. Department of Defense munitions facility, one of the largest in the world.

“It was really something to behold,” Barrington says. “They had hundreds of bunkers lined up in rows as far as you could see…. All of that was one very crooked metal fence away from us.”

More than once, military police showed up to check the team’s credentials. “I had to approach them and say, hello, people with the guns, I need you to stop walking now,” Francis says. “We’re running a Mars rover simulation and we don’t want you to put your footprints in this sand.”

Despite Francis and colleagues’ best efforts, the bunkers showed up in a few photos. The ground team gamely ignored them, apart from a few jokes about SpaceX founder Elon Musk building a Martian city.

By the end of the two-week exercise, the remote science team reviewing the data had noticed the ostracods and fishbones, and started exploring the stromatolites. “They were doing a good job of finding the biomarkers,” Francis says, who now has hope that “if Mars is hiding stromatolites, maybe we’ll see them.”

Coming home to quarantine

The field trip ended on February 27, just as awareness of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was rising in the United States. By March 15, JPL told employees to work from home. “We only had a few days together before we were all on remote work,” Francis says.

The pandemic has already contributed to the delay of the launch of the European and Russian ExoMars rover, which was also supposed to launch in July (SN: 3/12/20).  If Perseverance misses the late July to early August launch window, the rover can’t head to Mars until 2022.

If the pandemic is still an issue by the time the rover lands in February, Francis doesn’t know what the team will do. “But,” he says, “the good news is the mission is designed for remote operations.”

from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-perseverance-rover-nasa-mission-scientists-rehearsal-desert

[zarinthelwrites]

Blooming from the Mud Pt. 5 (Bleach/DGM)

Kanda draws his sword. This won’t take long.

It doesn’t.

Kanda enters through the gate alone, ignoring the groans and whimpers behind them. They’re alive, he doesn’t know why they’re complaining. Well. As alive as anyone is, in this strange place beyond the living world.

The first thing he sees are the dogs. They run up to him, lick the blood off his skin. Someone has fed them, brushed them, bathed them. They smell better than he does.

Beyond the dogs are four people, arrayed around the dusty courtyard.

Yumichika stands with his weapon sheathed, hair moving in an invisible breeze generated by his own core of power.

Beside him, Ikkaku has his sword leaned over his shoulder. He is watching Kanda with a slight smirk. His power is heavier than Yumichika’s, weighting down the swirling dust so that he stands in an inverted spotlight of his own making.

To his left stands a little girl, who looks younger than Kanda. Her hair is pale pink, cheeks stained in permanent blush. She is pouting, arms crossed against her chest. A pink katana hangs from her belt, longer than her legs so that it drags on the ground behind her. The bloodlust pours out of her in palpable waves, so much that it makes Kanda feel as if she is the closest thing to an Akuma he has yet found, or a Noah like Tyki Mikk, content to wear the vestige of human skin.

“Ken-chan!” She chirps, tugging on Kenpachi Zaraki’s sleeve. “He looks like fun~”

Kenpachi Zaraki is wearing a ragged white overcoat over the normal shinigami uniform, with white bandages wrapped around his midriff. His hair stands in stiff peaks all over his skull, with each peak capped by a tiny bell that all jingle in the breeze. An eyepatch covers his right eye, edged in gold. Three straps hold it in place, two running through his hair and one connecting to the collar he wears around his throat. His sword is completely covered in bandages. If Kanda felt the force of his soul all at once he would have been driven to his knees, but Kanda had been sensing him since he entered through the gate into the Seireitei, each step of his feet drawing him closer to this man soaked in death.

Kanda looks at them and smiles.

“Who’s first?”

“Me!” Says the girl, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Pick me, pick me!”

Kenpachi tilts his head back and laughs, harsh and grating.

“No, Yachiru,” He says, “I like him. We’ll do this... the proper way.” He laughs again as Yachiru giggles.

Then he steps forward so that he stands directly in front of Kanda. This close he towers above Kanda, six and a half feet tall at the very least. Kanda grimaces. He doesn’t hate tall people as much as he hates being short.

“What is your name,” says Kenpachi.

“Kanda.”

“Only that?”

Kanda hesitates. No one knows him here. He could lose that name forever, never hear it again.

“I have another name,” he says. “I’ll tell you after I defeat you.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Kenpachi, face still split in an eerie grin. “So. The challenge.”

He flings open his hands, baring his naked chest.

“Prove to me that your soul longs for blood,” he declares. “Show me your will, Kanda!”

“Only that?” echoes Kanda, unsheathing his sword. If this is the challenge, then it’s likely that Kenpachi’s skin will be far harder than flesh and blood could hope to be. It’s only natural, here in this place where flesh is but a memory of the soul. For something of this magnitude, the bare bones of his Second Illusion are nowhere near strong enough to bother with. No, Kenpachi asked for his soul.

Kanda closes his eyes. He can hear his heart beat more easily this way.

Ba-dum

He has no curse of burning life to draw upon

Ba-dum

No foreign Innocence to drive him onward

Ba-dum

He has nothing but the lotus flowers

Ba-dum

And Allen

Ba-dum

What had he said, when Allen had granted him his dearest wish?

Kanda opens his eyes. This sword may be new but his soul...he has been listing to those whispers far before his final death. Has he not died, over and over again?

“Breathe easily, Kurayami,” he whispers. “First Dream; Rising Towards the Heavens.”

He only realizes he’s moved once Kenpachi’s blood spurts in his face. He licks his lips, tasting it.

“Welcome to the 11th Division, Kanda,” says Kenpachi. “We’ll fight once you’re healed back up.”

“Wait,” says Kanda. He’s swaying on his feet, his ankle screaming while his single slash has reopened the wounds in his arm and chest. He sheathes his sword and flings his arms out, showing his papery skin and caved in stomach.

“It’s only fair,” he says. He is no longer condemned to the life of an Exorcist, irreplaceable and fighting against inescapable odds. He can fight the way he only dreamed of. “Blood for blood.”

“Blood for blood,” Kenpachi echoes, and smiles. Then he draws his blade. It grates against the sheathe on its way out, the metal screaming and shaking. The edge itself is ragged, old blood still remaining along its edge. That is not a blade that cuts once, it is a blade that will cut a thousand times.

“Are you prepared?” Kenpachi asks.

Kanda nods. Behind Kenpachi, Ikkaku is holding the dogs back as they growl, trying to run to him.

It slides through him like a jittering bonesaw.

He doesn’t know if it’s the pain or the blood loss that sends him to oblivion.

Kanda wakes up to Fishbone licking his face.

“Get off of me, you dumb dog,” He grumbles, trying to bat at the dog.

“Eeek!” A voice shrieks close to him. “Please don’t move, sir officer! You’re still not completely recovered!”

“I’m fine,” says Kanda. He shoves himself into an upright position in the bed, looking down at himself. His chest is completely swathed in bandages, and so is his left arm. His ankle has been splinted, and then wrapped to the point where it looked more like a ball than a part of his body.

“Oh?” A different feminine voice interrupts his mental catalogue of his wounds. “Yamada, didn’t I ask you to bring me here the moment the patient woke up?”

“Captain Unohana!” The voice shrieked, reaching an even higher pitch. “I swear, he just woke up as you arrived! You have miraculous timing, Captain!”

Another Captain?

Kanda turns to face the door, still petting Fishbone and Lizard. The woman has a peaceful smile framed by her dark hair, which is parted into two but twined together below her chin.

“Trying to leave so soon?” She asks him, smiling. Kanda is immediately pinned down by the force of her power, which feels like all his terrors and shadowy nightmares given weight and presence.

“..no,” Kanda forces out, trying to talk through the sudden onslaught. “I was simply looking at my injuries.”

“An infected chest would, three deep slashes down your back, one long gash down your left arm, a slice across your face, a broken ankle, and the massive hole in your lower abdomen where Captain Zaraki struck you.” She summarizes his injuries with that serene smile still firmly pasted on her face. “Traces of starvation and malnutrition inhibiting proper reiatsu growth and development. Severe dehydration. Need I go on?”

It sounded much worse than it was when she said it like that.

“Where am I?” Kanda asks instead of answering her.

“This is the headquarters of the 4th Division,” Unohana answers. She beams. “We are neighbors with the 11th Division, which is likely the only reason you survived.”

“You were only unconscious for three days!” The pipsqueak pipes up. “We thought that you’d be unconscious for weeks!”

“The 11th Division always recruits...hardy members,” says Unohana, lips curling upward in what should be a smile. “You seem to have earned your seat, at least. However, you being awake merely means that the timetable until your release back into the 11th division will happen sooner than was anticipated. I will be...most displeased if you engage in strenuous activities while under my roof.”

Kanda leans back against the pillows, annoyed but largely resigned. The main issue he had with being on bedrest was that it reminded him of being old and dying from his stupid body betraying him piece by piece, but the circumstances-- and the expectation of a full recovery-- were enough for him to be more willing to wait for approval before wandering off. Come to think of it, he hadn’t died from his own body after all! Since beansprout had burned the house down.

“Yamada,” the Captain continues. “Keep a close eye on him, hmm?”

“Me? I mean, Yes Captain!” The pipsqueak drops into a bow so low his head hits the floor. “I’ll do my best!”

Captain Unohana flows out of the room as quietly as she appeared.

Kanda waits an extra five minutes before making eye contact with the pipsqueak.

“I’m bored,” he informs him.

The pipsqueak jumped a solid three feet in the air, his chin length hair standing straight up. Then he hit his fist against his palm as his mouth dropped open in a particularly vacant expression. “Ah.” He says. “The scary guy said that would happen. He left you something!” He bolts out of the room.

Kanda stares after the pipsqueak blankly. This guy is way too much fun to mess with.

Yamada ran back after just a couple seconds, his hands over flowing with carefully bundled stacks.. Of paper.

“Is that...” Kanda trails off. He could already read the first one. Barely.

Mission Report: Hollow Extermination in Sector 8 of District 25, East

I KiLleD AlL oF tHEm! WitH mY ManLy Hands of StEel! I Feasted on.....

“I am going to kill him--”

[saltcdlimc]

hold onto me, 'cause i'm a little unsteady

BASICS:

Name: Quinn Leland-Porter Nickname: Q Age: 25 Birthday: october 13th Species: human Power: mind incursion Subpower: subconscious control Orientation: fluid, polyamorous Occupation: independent tattoo artist Hometown: gatlinburg/memphis, tennessee Languages: english, spanish Dominant hand: right Alcohol tolerance: average Drunken behavior: more social Smokes: socially Drinks: yes Drugs: light recreational Diagnosis: insomniac, bipolar Pets: Pluto-black kitten

PHYSICAL:

Ethnicity: native american, american, israeli Hair color: dark brunette Eye color: jade Height: 5'7 Weight: 122 Build: hour-glass, athletic Voice: american Scar(s): right hip and inside of left forearm from car accident

Tattoos:

tribal feathers behind left ear

minimalist armband on right forearm

minimalist rib piece

lotus,libra,venus thigh piece [ left ]

serotonin and dopamine pulse over the scar on the inside of her left forearm

watered-ink black cat on inside of right forearm

fishbones on right middle finger

planetary line-up left collarbone

PHSYCOLOGICAL:

Skills: guitar, vocalist, independent tattooing Hobbies: free-hand sketching, inking, mechanics,  Fears: losing control Comforts: smokey days, chipped nail polish, scented candles, crowded rooms, drawing

Positives:

confident

dependable

charismatic

sociable

Negatives:

unchaste

moody

unruly

listless

PERSONAL :

Diet: pescetarian Foods: greek yogurt, hummus and pita chips, vegetarian curry, sushi Color: muted indigo, peach Season: autumn Memory: age 8 when her dad taught her to ride her first dirt bike Bands/Artists: kings of leon, twenty-one pilots, x-ambassadors, zz ward, skylar grey, amy winehouse,  Book: milk and honey-rupi kaur Quote:

"your body is a museum of natural disasters; can you grasp how stunning that is?" -rupi kaur

“Past and future are in the mind only. I am now.” -Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

BIOGRAPHY:

Quinn Leland-Porter was born October 13th to high school sweethearts at the age of seventeen. While she wasn’t planned for, she also wasn’t unwanted. The circumstances might not have been easy or ideal but the couple made it work with the help of their parents and teachers working with them both to get them through to graduation of that senior year. After graduation it should have been smoother sailing, with her dad working in a small auto shop in their town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and her mom working opposite shifts at night at a local grocery store, ends were met, but it came with a strain on the relationship. Quinn’s mom gave up more and more every day on putting her heart and effort in raising their daughter; she grew more stressed and ached more for a freedom she felt robbed of, so the sweethearts crumbled. Quinn wasn’t even a year old when her mom left and didn’t come back, nothing more left to Quinn than her mom’s last name right alongside her dad’s like a fingerprint that was only proof that she had been there at some point. Her dad stepped up to the plate and became her hero the older that Quinn grew, ‘daddy’s girl’ to anyone who knew the little family of two. 

Q blossomed into a very charismatic and cheeky young girl who’s biggest fight in life was pulling ponytail and messy braids out of her hair and trying to fix them when her dad couldn’t get them just right. He tried his best and his lacking in knowing how to raise a little girl only gave Quinn more room to let her independence grow, so their relationship stayed strong and balanced. With her high-school years came some more extreme fights for Quinn and shows of her independence. She did well in school when she managed to make it on time and or even show up at all, when she could be pulled away from friends enough to apply herself, but truancy stacked up against her. Quinn liked mingling through crowds within her school, never one to settle down into a clique but rather meander her way from one to another to another. She knew everyone’s name and everyone knew hers; Quinn liked it that way. People were just as infectious to Quinn as she was to them and she was never lonely because she never allowed herself to be. Home life became a little more tense and turbulent when a slightly stronger show of her charming ways, and the promiscuous habits, picked up. It always an interesting morning in the house when a boy was sent scrambling out her bedroom window and out into the lawn to escape her dad. Quinn understood that her dad didn’t like the behavior but she wasn’t about to slow down and she fully expected her kisses to his cheek to soothe the tension before she went about the rest of her day.

After an extra summer spent in school, Quinn graduated and she roamed a little further from home to Memphis. She had been there plenty of times in cars full of friends, late nights spent in clubs and in motels, but this trek was different and a little more permanent in her mind. While some friends had made the move for college, Quinn made the move looking for a bigger piece of her newly attained freedom and she found it in a little voodoo-inspired tattoo parlor. While she’d always had a strong knack for free-hand sketching, she had never tried her hand with permanent ink on skin, but she was drawn to strongly to the notion. Starting out in the parlor she was only allowed to clean the shop and equipment, but soon after Quinn was allowed to draw out pieces of art people came in with and described to her for their tattoo. Her talent was seen then by the young man who owed the shop; Noah. For Quinn, it was like she could see right into the patrons’ minds and see the artwork exactly how they envisioned it, so much more vivid than any drawing could ever portray, but her hand could bring it to life on paper. She thought it more of a gift than a superpower, but maybe they were one in the same. 

When she wasn’t working in the shop, Quinn was focusing on the pleasure she found from falling into a relationship with Noah, who had finally let her place her artwork on people’s skin after months of only being allowed to draw them on paper. To the young lovers the relationship was glowing and infectious, the two rarely ever seen without smiles on their faces when they were together. It felt perfect even despite random heated fights of broken glass that seemed to only amplify the way they were drawn together like magnets disguising a beautiful train wreck. The two were destined for a different kind of wreckage. After almost four years of dating off and on again, the two were thinking further into the future and in more official ways. It started out as a playful game of Quinn asking Noah questions while they drove across the city about the things he wanted for them, only to be met with Noah’s equally playful answers of denial that they didn’t have a future at all. It had Quinn pressing further into his thoughts just to see that he was teasing her and and she smiled more every time she called Noah out on it. Over and over again Noah denied, and over and over again Quinn saw the truth in his mind that told her he wanted nothing but her. Time seemed to slow down so suddenly, a moment of Quinn scooting over to be closer to him in the front seat and his arm wrapping around her before everything was cut off by crashing metal and blinding pain.

Quinn woke up in the hospital alone the next day, save for her dad lingering close by. He wasn’t the male she was looking for, but her injuries were mostly minor. Aside from wounds from broken glass, it was her heart that hurt the most when she learned they’d been struck on the driver’s side and that Noah had been killed on impact. Quinn’s mind went right back to the moments leading up to the accident and she remembered the game, she remembered the images she’d walked in on in Noah’s mind of the future they wanted, and with that came immense pain. Panic ensued and guilt took over. Quinn’s moods snapped and she pleaded, insisted, telling doctors what she’d done, that she was to blame, that she’d distracted him from driving, right down to the way she’d entered his thoughts. It was waved off as the girl being in a stage of grief and shock but Quinn was persistent and quickly became volatile at not being believed. She was the reason he was dead and she needed to be heard, she had to be held responsible for something that could be seen as nothing short of being entirely her fault. 

Quinn was placed on suicide watch when she started refusing the treatments for her recovery and instead went against her own recovery by ripping out the stitches on the inside of her forearm, a growing anger and desperation to be heard. She was admitted to Crestwyn in Memphis for inpatient treatment, allowed phone calls to her dad but only insisted to him that she was fine. With the people around her however, Quinn continued to fight them on what she believed she was responsible for, taking every opportunity that she could to walk into the minds of counselors and other residents to prove what she was capable of. It was eighteen weeks of what felt like a war-zone to Quinn before she calmed and tired enough to be released, but where they wouldn’t keep her, Quinn built her own prison for herself in her head.  Looking at Quinn people wouldn’t realize she’s had anything but a happy life, and that’s because to Quinn, and despite the loss of Noah, she has had a happy life, or at the very least, she’s had a life worth living. Her natural charismatic and sociable antics returned in full-force and was right back to the girl walking with charge in her step and meandering her way from one crowd to the next, taking names and leaving hers behind as she moves about.

[nicaraguamissionstories]

Muelle Real

Thursday, Oct 19:  Well, the rains continued all night and by morning the river had risen two meters!  So here I am all geared up in my fluorescent rain coat (made by Reliable High Performance Products - http://www.dritex.com – which is made from a material called Dritex – great company out of Chicago) but as things turned out, once we got in the boat the rains stopped!!  

Since we began the community visits farther up river and moved our way down river (towards La Cruz), we are now very close to the communities we are visiting today which are Muelle Real and El Gallo. The trip was only about 15 minutes. These river visits are awesome for me because I love being on the river and seeing the wildlife and watching the water.

As we pulled into Muelle Real, the delegate of the community, Pablo Suarez, greeted us and immediately took us on a tour of the community. There had been a project that built a small bridge and a sidewalk (!) that crossed through the entire community about a half mile long. It made walking through this water filled low land a breeze. Here are a couple of houses that I saw. Most of the houses are built up on platforms because of the constantly rising and subsiding waters..

There was a little storefront next to the school and the church where Pablo bought us breakfast – a warm orange soda and a cracker – Yum!  What struck me was the fencing around the little store. The owner had taken bullets that he had from the war and placed them as a reminder on the tip of each board that made the railing.

Then in front of the store was the pantheon that the community built to bury their family members. It is at a central point in the community instead of off in some private area of the community. I guess they don’t want to forget about their loved ones so they pass by them every day and thank them for the lives they lived.

This was a BIG community and the people were anxious to meet me and share their stories! It was very exciting. Before getting started, I visited the school next door and had a chance to peek in at this preschool classroom. The kids were so sweet.

Later in the morning, these three little girls walked under their umbrella to visit the latrine. I couldn’t resist their smiling faces! They were sweet and shy at the same time, and broke into laughter after I took their first picture. So cute!

Inside the church was a warm welcome by a large group of joyful, talkative people. Nice change from the shy, reserved nature of most Nicaraguans. As I took photos of the church, this picture was behind the altar. You know the Nicaraguans are such a reverent and respectful people, and their full love for Teddy is evident in more ways than I can mention. But I have to try very hard on occasions to not break into inappropriate laughter at some of their mementos of him. This photo they doctored Pope John Paul II blessing Teddy complete with the Holy Spirit flying around in the form of some doves. I’ve seen Teddy on the beach marrying people, on top of a mountain in the clouds celebrating mass, posed in a Roman garden with his bible, and it just goes on. Such creativity!

This church in Muelle Real was also taken by the river two or three times (you would think they would take the hint and move the church further in land!). On this final construction Teddy had an idea:  How about building the front of the church, where the strongest impact from the water hits, in the form of a boat crashing through the waves…so that the water would flow around it instead of lifting the whole construction and taking it down river. Pablo said Teddy designed it like a boat! Fascinating. Since the building of this church and rising river experiences, the building has not moved.

The stories that came out of this community were incredible! One of the parishioners even had a booklet she had written of all her memories about Teddy.  There were about five women who told stories of Teddy healing their spouses from sickness and infidelity.  Today all five women have healthy husbands and restored marriages. Three other stories that stood out for me were these:

From Eugenio Fonseca a vocational promoter:

“We were in an assembly in 1992 and nearby there was a construction of a hospital where some blocks were left over. They donated the blocks for the construction of a kitchen for the church so we went with Father Teddy to carry the blocks. The “piedra cantera” are heavy and Father Teddy loaded one after another on his shoulders and went back and forth alongside of us bringing the materials to our worksite. He was able to lift more than any of us and made more trips!

As it turns out there was one man named Pablito who didn’t want to work. So he went to hide so no one would say anything to him or coax him into working. When we had finished and the food was ready for lunch, Pablito was the first in line! Father Teddy went to the front of the line and took the man by the hand and brought him to the back of the line and then he said: “After everyone here has eaten, and if there is anything left, then you will eat…because there isn’t food for those who don’t work.”

From Ester Mejia, a marriage catequist:

“About 8 months ago, my four year old grandson was eating fish, when a bone from the fish became stuck in his throat. We could see down his throat that the bone was thick and long and it had pierced both sides of his throat, lodging in a way that was impossible to remove. Julio Gomez, the papa of my grandson, proclaimed, “I know that Father Teddy will cure my son!”  We all prayed together and because it was nightfall we would wait until the morning to decide what to do. In the morning my grandson awoke and there was no fishbone in his throat at all. We all believe that our little Father Teodoro continues to watch over us.”

From Celestino Obando a confirmation catequist:

“In April of 2011, we were in the panga with Padre Teodoro as we headed up river to San Pedro in my boat. There were seven of us in total. We came to a particularly difficult place to get the boat over, and my motor didn’t propel us over the rocks. We got out ropes to try and have the boat in front of us pull us up the cascade but it didn’t work. In the process one of the women passengers lost her balance and fell out of the boat. Father Teddy immediately thrust himself into the water to grab hold of the woman and we captured them both to pull them on board again.

Once on board, we continued trying to get up the river to no avail.  There was another woman passenger who just sat there and wouldn’t help in the process saying she wouldn’t help because she had paid her passage and it was our job to get us out of the dilemma. Finally, Father Teddy said firmly “You must help, woman!” at which point she joined our efforts and we were able to get the boat out of that predicament. If it wasn’t for Father Teddy we would still be at that point on the river fighting for our lives.”

Here is a pic of this amazing community, deeply in debt to Father Teddy for the many shared experiences with him.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

The Fishbone and The Firelily (Part 13)

Cocooned snugly in Sokka’s blanket, Azula still hadn’t stirred. Not even a twitch or a flinch. The only indication that she had any life left in her was a very subtle rising and falling of her chest. The closer he held her to his body, the better he could feel it. And the better he could feel it, the more reassured he felt. The group had been walking for quite some time, managing to put three days distance between themselves and the mountain which was becoming nothing more than a bleak splotch on the horizon. But three days was a dreadfully long time for the former princess to have remained so still. At some point during their walk, Sokka noticed a thin film of sweat forming on her forehead. It was another reassuring sign that she was alive, but all the same it indicated a high fever of sorts. A sense of guilt still tugged at Sokka’s heart. He found himself having quite a miserable time. And Suki proved to be nearly as relentless as the demon who had tormented Azula.

 “Are you going to tell me what I did wrong?” He finally asked.

 “You know what you did.”

 Again he asked, “what did I do?”

 “What you’ve been doing since she got here.” Suki accused. “I should be the one in your arms.”

 “She can’t really walk on her own right now. Do you want me to just leave her here?” He replied, completely expecting her to bite out a snappish yes.

 Instead Suki stammered, “w-well no.” Quickly she added, “but you don’t have to be the one to carry her.”

 “Katara has been carrying Aang the whole time; she needs a break. Aang just woke up. Toph doesn’t want to carry anything but her own weight. Do you want to hold Azula?”

 Again she answered with a straightforward no.

 “Well then it looks like I’m Azula’s only option.” He stole a glance at the woman in question. For once, she was completely blissfully ignorant of the mishap at hand. Her wakeless face was anything but serene though. Her expression was tight, the only movement she made was an occasional grimace.

 “Well that’s not the point.” Suki was growing increasingly more frustrated. Sokka loathed to be the cause of it. “You’ve been choosing her over me since…since she got here. Like in the cave. We were both hurt, Sokka. And you want to check on her first.” He could see the resentment in her eyes. The betrayal.

 “Azula took the harder part of the hit.” Sokka pointed out.

 “No. She didn’t.” Suki insisted. “We were struck just as hard as each other.”

 Sokka pursed his lips and blew out a frustrated breath as he ran his free hand through his hair. “You’re right, it looked like I was putting you second. In my defense, he was targeting Azula not you so I assumed she got hit harder.”

 “I’m not just talking about the cave.” Suki informed him. “As we were getting there you would blow me off to go talk with her.”

 “She had no one—”  

 “How stupid do you think I am, Sokka? I saw her holding you. You fell asleep in her arms and the next day you were all over me!”

 Finally at his patience’s end he burst, “maybe I wouldn’t have cuddled with her if you hadn’t been making me feel…I don’t know but it wasn’t good.” He was silent for a moment. “Whatever it was, it didn’t seem real. We’ve been trying to put life into something that’s been dead for a while. I think that you knew it too.”

 “Maybe I did.” She said softly as she folded her arms over her chest. “Maybe I just didn’t want to let go yet.”

 “I didn’t either…” He confessed.

 “Do you love her then?” Suki asked after a few awkwardly quite footsteps.

 Sokka stole another glace at the woman resting in his arms. He brushed a finger over her cheek, “I think so. She makes it difficult though.”

 Suki didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day—not so much out of spite as out of having nothing more to say.

 With no real hurry, the group called it a night early and filled it with merry talk celebrating Aang’s reawakening. Despite it all Sokka found himself in good spirits. There was a sense of reprieve that followed in the wake of his argument with Suki. Coupled with Aang’s bright laughter things seemed okay. The boy had a wild tale or two to tell about his fever dreams that he shared with them by the campfire. Sokka busied himself with cooking some hog-monkey meat—their first real meal that wasn’t all nuts and berries. That in itself uplifted his mood. Without meat he was just the sarcasm guy and that sarcasm had fast been turning into a form of cynical. He handed Katara the first slice. “Can I get the next piece?” Suki asked as he cut into the meat again.

 “Of course.” He replied. Just like that she was speaking to him again and their conversations were notably less tense. There was a sense of freshness to the conversation, a lack of pressure that added warmth to the discussion. A lack of pressure that hadn’t been there since they started dating. This was right, he decided. After a steady stream of wrong decisions, he had finally made a correct one.

He would sleep in peace that night.

 At the break of the morn, when only a few rays of light managed to cut through the trees Sokka was pulled from his sleep. By what, he couldn’t exactly place—nothing poked nor prodded him and nothing wailed in his ear. There was only a vague sense that he should be awake. He rolled over only to be met with vivid eyes, gold in description. He was left to assume that she had, in fact, been calling for him. He was sleeping too soundly for her soft voice to break through the thick fog of sleep. “You’re awake.” He noted.

 “My mind is, yes.” Azula replied flatly. Her voice was laced with a somber quality he couldn’t quite grasp. He felt, at once, as though something was out of place. Though her eyes were very much alive and bright, her stature was still completely limp. Uncannily so.

 .oOo.

 Azula came to when everyone else was fast out of wakefulness. To some extent she had been awake prior, catching intangible snippets of conversation and twinges of feelings; warmth (completely external in source) and the softness of skin softness.  Something fuzzy as well as residual tingles at the base of her spin. Most richly though, she could smell. Wafts of different somethings cut through her daze—meat and resin and a smell that was distinctly Sokka. The comforting smell of smoke and a sweet odor that may have been wisteria. Yet she still couldn’t seem to claw herself back into full cognizance.

Fear still lingered somewhere on the fringe of her mind. An ominous sense that if she did climb out of the darkness that she would be met with something threefold horrifying. But she gave it her best effort anyhow, to shake the shroud of darkness out of her head.

 When she finally freed herself of her brain’s blackness, she was met with the black of night. She found that it wasn’t nearly as pitch. Little by little the rest of her senses caught up with her. She could fully feel the comforts of the blanket wrapped around her and the lesser coziness of the ground beneath her. The noise of the jungle filled her ears unabated by delirium. The sound of crickets and owl-bat hoots eased her sense of menace. She also felt a heaviness on her ribcage—an arm she realized. She deduced that it was Sokka who had his arm slung over her—who else, after all, could it be? Some time in the night, sleep had him rolling to face the other direction.

 There was another kind of weight too, Azula realized with the absence of Sokka’s touch. Her limbs were heavy, all of them. That or she was too weak to lift them. She tried sitting up only to realize that she was weighed down. No, it was different, she mused. She realized with a sprinkle of alarm, that she didn’t feel heavy at all. What she felt was nothingness. An absence of weight to lift. She tried to fight the rising panic—he had taken her arms and legs from her, tore them away. That was the first time she called out to Sokka, but the man was deep into his slumber.

 She looked down to see that her arm was strewn out in front of her, still sturdily attached at that. The sight took the edge off of her unease. Still she made a second attempt to wake Sokka. If she had the ability, she would have given him a jab in the arm and if that didn’t work, a swift kick in the shin. That would have done the job. As it were, she couldn’t move a toe, much less her whole leg. The pieces fell into place then; the tingle at the base of her spine, the complete and unrelenting agony at her chakra points, the inability to touch her on internal flame…

Azula’s breath hitched. He didn’t just take her bending….

 She uttered Sokka’s name again, this time louder. Still he didn’t wake. He wouldn’t wake for what would be the longest three hours Azula had ever experienced. The former firebender was alone with her dreads. Alone with a sickly feeling that tied knots in her belly. All she could do was eye Sokka with an intensity so great that her eyes may burst. For the first time since she’d left it, she longed for home and the sense of normalcy that came with it. Even if it meant enduring a beating, verbally or physically, from her father for her incompetence. Her mind didn’t have time to drift too deeply into that though. She could see the light filtering through the trees and Sokka, at last, pulled her from internal monolog.

He held a hand to her clammy forehead. She felt unsettlingly cold both inside and out but Sokka declared otherwise. That she was burning up and her cheeks were flushed. “The fever hasn’t broken yet.” He added.

 “Help me sit.” Her request fell somewhere in between a command and a question. He helped her into an upright position and propped her up against his chest. Azula didn’t realize she was thirsty until he put the waterskin to her lips. When she didn’t take it in her own hands he held tilted it up for her.  She drank the water within down with a degree of greed. The moisture rested delightfully on her parched lips.

 “More?” He offered.

 She nodded keenly and the waterskin was at her lips again. Already a part of her was feeling somewhat better. He set the container aside and took her into a full embrace, nuzzling his head on her chin. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

 “Not anymore.” He replied simply, eliciting a flutter in her chest. He stroked her bicep with his thumb. She found herself unable to return any of his gestures.

 “Sokka, I can’t move.” She finally vocalized.

 His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

 “I can’t…” she repeated her voice cracked. “I can’t move.”

 “Not at all?”

 “Nothing but my head.” Azula confirmed. She imagined that Sokka was relived that he’d never have to worry about her running off again. He readjusted the blanket around her shoulders, indicating that he was done with a soft pat.

 “We’ll make things right, we always do.” His confidence and certainty was contagious.

 She parted her lips to ask him how and pressed them together once again. She wasn’t in the mood to hear an ‘I don’t know’, not yet. For the time being she was content to soak his optimism in and dwell on the soothing rubs that he offered her arms.