#take note of the tags: hes trying to teach her how to hunt

[monsoon-of-art]

Oh boy Gaeric Parenting Cringefail moments!!

Great Risk, Great Reward

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

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS FIC CONTAINS: VIOLENCE TOWARDS ANIMALS AND CHILDREN, BLOOD, INJURY, AND ANIMAL DEATH - IF ANY OF THOSE THINGS MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION!

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

I want to thank my pal Mons for being a constant inspiration for the PLA Mer AU and for beta reading this fic for me. Summary: Gaeric finds out that Dawn likes penguins, but their bonding times goes a little awry.

Don't want to read it on Tumblr? You can read it on AO3!

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

“Hey-” Dawn began to scramble across the ground faster, very familiar with the voice and deathly terrified to have yet another bad encounter. “Hey, squirt! I’m talking to you.”

“Oh no, no, no, no-”

Dawn was almost across the room, almost to the same pool that Ingo had disappeared into with Calaba and Irida – where had Gaeric even come from and why hadn’t she heard him? He was so big and, mer or no, seals were not exactly graceful on land. A hand snatched her up with her fingertip’s inches from the frigid water. Enclosed in his warm palm, Dawn felt herself moving through space and mentally preparing for the worst. What was he going to yell at her for today?

To her surprise upon meeting Gaeric eye-to-considerably-larger-eye, he was beaming, looking genuinely excited about… Well, something. Dawn had only even seen him grumpy and tired, and he usually wasn’t awake at this hour.

“I thought we learned from last time,” his tone was chiding, and his expression momentarily reflected the voice, but clearly, he was too excited to permit the disapproving scowl to grace his face. “Stay out of the deeper water without an adult.”

Dawn cringed and shrank in his outstretched palm, edging as far away as she could because her heart was positively slamming against her ribcage with a barely contained anxiety. She was less afraid of Gaeric after that last time Ingo dumped her with the warden. Despite how intimidating she still found him, his coat was very soft and fluffy, which was one point in his favor. It was practically irresistible, many other pups running their fingers through it with a reverent fascination. (And he had been pretty nice to her since then, doubly so after she quelled his noble with her flute.)

Still, this level of excitement for Gaeric was not in character. So, Dawn remained wary even as he propelled himself across the ice toward a different hole. She recognized it. It was a tunnel that led to the outside. A fresh wave of panic swarmed in her head like a cloud of wasps, buzzing irrational thoughts into her ears. She swallowed an anxious whine as it became abundantly clear that Gaeric intended to take her from the settlement. Dawn fiddled with her scarf, keeping her eyes low, and hardly listening as Gaeric chatted at her in amicable tones.

“Ga-Gaeric?” She interrupted him hesitantly. He was just about to set her down so she could follow him, in his excitement, he had even noticed how she was acting. “Wh-Where are you tak-taking me?”

“Hm?”

Oh, he supposed he hadn’t told her just yet. He was just so thrilled, so excited about the news. All the wardens were. Loathe as he was to tell the Diamond clan anything, he also shared the good news with Sabi, who he was sure would find some way to relay that to the rest of her clan.

Now, however, Gaeric was turning vaguely pink. He hadn’t meant to overhear. Honest! People just presumed that he, under his nice, warm stitched walrus skins, was asleep, and often he was dozing off, but it was a catnap like he had seen Lady Sneasler do. Half-conscious but ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice, especially given the strange changes in the sea recently and the encroaching of those humans into their territory.

“I, uh – I heard that you like penguins.”

Dawn’s jaw slackened in disbelief. She had only recently told Ingo of her travels to the northern shores of Hisui, an ice encrusted and ethereally silent snowscape, and witnessed several penguins waddling around. Either Ingo told his fellow wardens, and considering how close to the vest he kept most information concerning Dawn that seemed unlikely, or Gaeric had overheard, which made her nervous about what else he might have inexplicably overheard. Mentally scolding herself for being so careless of her surroundings and tongue so loose as to talk of her secret double-life on the surface.

“Er, yeah! I do.”

A gleeful glint came into Gaeric’s blue eyes, his next sentence actually made her perk up.

“Fantastic! Let’s go look for some penguins then.”

Dawn should have known that it was too good to be true.

The swim to the north shore was actually pretty nice. Gaeric was chatting with her amiably, grinning toothily while she swam around him, his eyes watchful for any potential predators, but they seemed to be getting along famously.  That was, until they made it to the frozen tundra, and Gaeric threw out an arm to make her halt.

“Alright kid,” he said, flashing her a broad smile.

He did not notice her decidedly confused expression as he launched into an in-depth explanation of penguins.

“These guys are speedy in the water, but you probably know that already.”

The warden gently nudged her toward the distant penguins torpedoing through the water, zipping after silvery fish.

“If you need air, the clan has already made a few airholes in the ice. Just be cautious of any predators that might be on the ice if you stick your head out to get a look, alright? I’ll be right here if anything happens.”

“Uh, okay?”

Dawn replied, unsure why Gaeric of all mers would be so excited to show her something like this. Lian loved to show and share things with Dawn, but Gaeric? This was extremely out of character. That was when she started to realize things were not exactly as they seemed.

“This is my first time watching you, so don’t be worried about making any mistakes. We all know Ingo’s not the greatest of hunters.”

Hunters?

Did Gaeric… Oh, no.

Dawn felt another insistent little nudge to the small of her back. That’s why he was excited. He was excited to teach her to hunt because she had said she liked penguins. Gaeric was providing her helpful tricks and hints for her imminent hunt and Dawn could feel her insides roiling. Why did he have to suddenly be so encouraging? Her brain was screaming with panic, clutching her hands in front of her and nervously fussing with the edges of her scarf.

Sensing unease, he stopped pushing – some pups had performance anxiety, they wanted to impress or do well on their first hunt, but they got inside their own heads. Maybe that’s what she was feeling with his incessant chatter.

“Hey kid?” She twisted around to glance at him, and he gave her two thumbs up. “You’ve got this.”

With that final encouragement, Dawn swam forward, the warden unaware of the deep grimace etched into her cheeks. He wanted her to – what? Chase a penguin? He knew how bad she was at swimming. Yes, she had been getting better since she learned to dodge the frenzied nobles, but she was not fast, just better coordinated. She was trying to think fast. Gaeric expected her to try, and she had to do something to maintain her façade, so she would at least chase after some penguins. He would eventually get fed up with her failed attempts… but then what?

Gaeric genuinely enjoyed hunting. Not because he was a bloodthirsty maniac or anything (like Dawn seemed to think), he just felt more in his element chasing prey down, when building his sophisticated traps, when launching a spear into the hide of a seal – he said that it tickled the predatory part of his brain that few other activities seemed to even scrape. Teaching pups to hunt was always an exciting prospect. Pups had so much untapped potential that Gaeric loved to nurture. The next generation of Pearl clan hunters was a serious source of pride for the warden and, although Dawn could be a little weird at times, he was just as invested in teaching her as he was with any pup.

Dawn drifted, penguins and fish danced erratically in the water before her like it was some absurd ballet. Maybe if she had been here with Ingo, it would have been amusing, but not under her current circumstances. How could she make this look convincing? She thought about her excursions with Laventon and his advice on how to get closer to their target. A target was basically prey right?

‘Stay low and move slow. Don’t make any sudden movements or noises that might scare them.’

Maintain the illusion. She knew just enough about penguins to know they would quickly scatter once she started chasing them, probably hop back onto the icepack the moment they saw her advance. She dove down where the sunlight couldn’t reach and the water became even colder, watching the white bellies of the penguins flitting around overhead. Without realizing it, Dawn’s body was responding to an instinct she did not think she possessed as a human who transformed into a mer; muscles coiling, pupils blown wide in anticipation, hands curling and uncurling.

The warden watched with an ember of pride burning brightly in his chest. He waited with great anticipation for her to make her first catch.

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

Gaeric watched her for about twenty minutes as penguin after penguin slipped through her clutches with startling regularity. He knew she wasn’t experienced, but even the most novice of pups was able to grab a penguin after a couple of tries. Now all the birds were making a beeline for the shore and there was no point for the pup to follow. If she was this bad in the water, she would have no chance hunting anything on the land.

Dawn actually snarled at him when he shifted himself between her and her quarry, the noise frustrated as she tried to dart around him.

“Pup, stop. You’re going to overheat. Go up and take a breath. Clear your head.”

The surveyor didn’t even realize how much heat she was radiating from physical exertion. Her slim chest heaving and muscles quivering – she didn’t realize how much her focus had consumed her. The large mer guided her to the surface, already giving her pointers as she tried to catch her breath. How long was she chasing the Adélies? She was able to recognize the brush tails and distinct two-toned coats from her previous excursions with the professor. She was genuinely trying to catch one… to do what with? She didn’t want to dwell on it, the mere thought made her shudder with a mix of disgust and horror.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” The warden murmured sympathetically, completely misinterpreting her expression as disappointment. “Catching them gets easier with practice. You stay here.”

No argument from Dawn, she felt exhausted as she watched Gaeric disappear into the gloom. The blood pounded in her ears, otherwise she would have noticed how quiet the surrounding water had become as a predator trawled through the sea.

He was gone for a little while, Dawn waiting idly for the warden to return, but making sure to practice scanning around like Ingo had taught her. She was very small and there were a lot of would-be predators like orcas, leopard seals, and polar bears patrolling for a tasty snack like her.

She smelled Gaeric before she saw him, or rather, she smelled the blood. Thankfully it wasn’t his, but it was putrid, clouding the water in a fine pink mist as he approached, which was when she heard the shrieks that sent a cold shiver up her spine. The warden had a woven net over his shoulder that was chock full of dead Adélie penguins, all except one, which was making those horrific noises.

Dawn covered her mouth, feeling saliva pooling beneath her tongue, but it had nothing to do with hunger. No, the penguin looked far from appetizing. A wave of nausea rolled through her, making her skin feel prickly hot and stomach roil when he came to a stop in front of her.

The smell of blood was all around her, sticking to the inside of her nose, bitter and metallic, while Gaeric rummaged through his catch of the day, seizing the sole penguin left alive, and dropped it before her with an encouraging smile. He had the realization that she would not only be hungry after all that swimming around, but she would also want a chance to prove herself to him. He had done a similar tactic with other pups, the younger ones especially; catch something of an appropriate size for them and injure it, then allow the pup to make the final blow. It was a good boost of confidence after a long string of failures.

The penguin flopped around, plumes of blood misting the water darker and darker pink with each flap of the poor creature’s unbroken wing, wailing in fear and agony. The scene was ghastly.

“Alright pup. Now, what you’re going to want to do is-”

The audible gag over the sounds of the penguin made Gaeric stop midsentence and he looked more closely at the tears collecting in her dark eyes.

“Ga-Gaeric, I c-can’t…”

A frown settled on his face. A new predicament. Dawn probably liked to eat penguins, but she had never been hunting before, certainly not with him and presumably not Ingo. This would be her first kill and, occasionally, pups would get squeamish. It didn’t happen often, but they would suddenly get cold fins, and just couldn’t follow through with a kill. He should have guessed that Dawn would be similar. Ingo had had a similar reaction, but he quickly got over it out of necessity. So, he told her the same thing that he had told all the others in the past.

“Dawn, I know it’s hard, but this is something you have to learn to be comfortable with.”

Gaeric gestured to the flightless bird flopping around. When she didn’t look, he lifted her head with a knuckle placed under her chin. Dawn wouldn’t have expected him to be so gentle. Ingo treated her like glass, which was not within the norm with mers. They bit and scratched and roughhoused. This was completely unexpected of Gaeric.

Dawn emitted a sickened gurgle, averting her eyes away from Gaeric, away from the bird – there was nowhere else to look. Gaeric took up most of her field of vision and the penguin took up what remained. Her eyes snapped closed.

“I can’t,” she moaned, more to herself than the warden, “I can’t do it.” Her hands moved to cover her mouth and nose, trying to block out the assault to her senses.

In her head, she was trying to calculate how badly this would make her look in Gaeric’s eyes. Just because she was able to quell his lord and he was treating her with less suspicion than he usually did, Dawn knew he did not trust her. That was when a thought came to her.

She was alone with Gaeric. Completely alone. He could have been grilling her the whole time about her deal, which he had done in the past, but he was so caught up with hunting that he hadn’t. Without that distraction, without that ounce of “goodwill,” Gaeric had her in a very precarious position.

A palpable wave of anxiety rolled through her, her eyes widening and her nearly hidden ear pinning back, whole body eerily still – and the warden didn’t even seem to notice, already steamrolling into a lecture about the necessity of hunting because it was about survival in this dog-eat-dog world. If Dawn wasn’t feeling so sick to her stomach with fear, she would have found a way to tease him about how he sounded very similar to a certain someone in his clan.

“Do you really want this poor bird to wriggle around in the water until a different predator comes around and does the exact same thing? Because that’s what’s going to happen.”

He watched her wince, cowering to avoid looking at the penguin. He sighed. This might require a little more persuasion. What to do… He considered for a moment. By this point most pups would have gotten over their initial reaction and kill their prey, but Dawn was still resistant. He knew she was picky, but this was something she needed to grow out of for survival purposes. It was all well and good that Palina and Iscan and some of the others were trying to accommodate her picky habits, but Gaeric was trying to look at this realistically.

Food was calories and calories kept you alive. Hunting was what kept you alive and, well… death was a part of life. It wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary.

And she needed to learn for her own good.

Gaeric sighed. A deep, weary sigh that made Dawn peek at him through her fingers.

“We aren’t going anywhere until you kill this penguin.”

“B-But-”

“We have all day. If this one dies, then I’m going to get another until you do what I’m asking you to do.”

The horror in her dark eyes was enough to solidify Gaeric’s resolve. If she didn’t want to be seen as a baby by the older mers, then this was the first step, so he wasn’t going to let her wiggle her way out of this with that silver tongue of hers.

He could have predicted the quick dart to his flank, trying to outmaneuver him with her speed, but he was used to pups. She smacked into his palm at full force and reeled back with a dazed oof! No amount of pleading and crying would sway him, and she could tell he meant what he said, they weren’t going anywhere until Dawn killed it.

On a fundamental level, she knew this was a teaching moment that was meant to strengthen the bond between her and the warden and to hone her hunting skills, but Dawn was also Laventon’s research assistant! She had spent nearly two weeks alongside the professor studying all the animals that the mers ate! She couldn’t do it. Not in good conscious to her researcher nature.

She tried anyway. Grimacing at the bird with a tightness in her throat as she turned her gaze to Gaeric, mouth open only to be cut off.

“No.” He said preemptively. “You’re going to do this. I know you can do it – so do it.”

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

There was a long stretch where Dawn just couldn’t move, unable to look at the writhing Adélie and trying to ignore it as it made the more horrible screeching noises. She was hoping that a different predator would swoop in and snag the bleeding penguin by now, but Gaeric was an active deterrent.

The warden seemed to possess infinite patience, preventing her escape with such ease that Dawn found it frustrating. Even when she thought she was being slick when she tried to clamber onto one of the chunks of ice when she was permitted to take another lungful of air, he instantly scooped her up and plopped her back in front of the bird.

In a test of wills, Dawn knew who the winner would be; Gaeric could and would throw his weight around to make her commit the gruesome act. She actually started yelling at him when her frustration at the situation boiled over and, still, he remained resolute, nudging her back toward the penguin indifferently even as she tried to push back against his hand with every ounce of strength in her small body.

“Kid, you have to do this. That bird is suffering, you need to put it out of its misery.”

“You’re the one who hurt it!”

Dawn wriggled, squirming between his fingers, but he held her tail fast between his middle and pointer finger. He swung her back around and that’s when she started baring her teeth at her in a poor attempt to assert herself. Gaeric didn’t let that stand. A low growl resonated in his throat, leaning into Dawn’s space, and narrowing his eyes with a snarl on his lips. She wasn’t intimidating him, and she was quick to cower at his display.

When Gaeric didn’t release her tail and held her in front of the penguin, Dawn knew she was out of options and that frightened her. Her chest and throat grew tighter.

“I can’t – please don’t make me.”

“It’s for your own good, Dawn. Trust me.”

He sensed the change in her demeanor, his perseverance had worn her down, and, although she was trying to stifle her sobs, she was trying to reach for the penguin.

“It’s going to try to snap at you, but you need to take it with your hands by its beak and twist its neck until it snaps. It’s going to seem like a lot more, but also somehow less, pressure than you think you’ll need, but that’s something you get used to.”

She sobbed as she clamped the bird’s beak shut, scooping up the Adélie’s body in up against hers. She nearly vomited as the penguin writhed desperately, its heart pounding so fast and hard that it almost made her drop it in fear. The encouragement over her shoulder was not helping, even if it was meant to be.

Her hands shook violently, unable to perform the motion Gaeric described and unable to open her mouth to beg him to let her go. It was pointless, he wouldn’t, she had to do this. Dawn whispered an apology to the struggling bird and was about to jerk her limbs to get it over with, but that’s when she noticed Gaeric’s grip had loosened.

She cautiously turned her head only to see a look on Gaeric’s face that shook her to the very core. Dawn only saw him in profile, but his ears were pressed nearly flat against his head, his eyes opened wide with dark pupils shrunk to three-quarters of their size, and – she had never seen so many sharp teeth.

Without a word, Gaeric scooped her and the bird up, and moved fast. Dawn barely had time to ask what was happening, he unceremoniously shoved them into a niche in the blue white of the glacial ice.

“What’s-”

“Stay here. Don’t come out until I come get you.”

“But what’s-”

Dawn tried to say, deliberately ignoring what Gaeric had said by trying to slide out, but he was quick to push her back in the crevasse.

“Stay put.” He growled and, this time, Dawn obeyed, fear rooting her to the spot. She did catch Gaeric hissing something under his breath just before he darted out of sight. “Those damn ships…”

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

Gaeric was sufficiently deep that the ship sitting atop the wave would have no idea what lurked beneath them. A fury was burning inside him, his eyes narrowing as the ship moved closer in the direction of the settlement. He had been too distracted by Dawn to notice the ship sooner and it was far too close for comfort, just beyond the sheet of ice like they had been following the coastline from their settlement.

The humans weren’t paying attention.

So, he would make them pay attention.

Irida had asked him to deploy nonviolent methods and, thus far, he had obeyed his mentee out of respect for her and for her title as leader. He had dragged many ships to their doom against sharp, rock outcrops and glaciers, some he had capsized with the motions of his massive tail, and other times just used his immense strength to snap off vital pieces to stop their forward progress.

The ships kept coming though. It’s like the humans never ran out of the damn things! He knew Mai had handled one or two that got too close to the Diamond clan and he had disabled or destroyed more than he could count on his fingers, and they still didn’t stop coming.

Gaeric thought it was high time to be proactive about the human situation.

Even at this depth, Gaeric could hear the crew moving along the creaking wood, he could identify each one by the pitch and timbre of their voices. The crew wasn’t large. The water was absolutely silent and eerily still, nothing but he and the ship in the vicinity. The warden edged closer, remaining right beneath the craft, or at least, as much as he could manage. As much as he wanted to bust through the hull and give those arrogant humans a really good scare, he pushed down those instincts.

This ship was going to be demolished, smashed into smithereens to make a point – one that was jagged and razor sharp. His lips were pulled back over his teeth as he watched the prow cut through the glass-like surface of the water. It was a good day to be sailing, or it would have been if the ship had been anywhere else.

He was poised and ready to strike. Every muscle in his body coiled as he went over his plan again in his head. Gaeric would strike with his heavily muscled tail, using it like a battering ram to shatter the ship in two. What about the crew? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Ingo whispered in the back of his head (sort of an oxymoron in itself which helped Gaeric ignore the impending ramifications of his actions). The warden growled under his breath, shaking his head as if to loosen the thought’s hold on him.

Nothing was going to stop him. He would accept whatever punishment Irida dished out because he was doing this for the continued protection of his people. It would be worth it if his clan could survive another day. This ship and every other one that came into their territory – he would break each and every vessel until the humans had nothing but logs lashed together with hemp to take on the rough seas.

Gaeric surged forward with a blinding speed, ready to make his steep descent back into the depths to maximize the damage on the clueless vessel. The silence of the water would have felt deafening, had his ears not picked up a noise that made him stop dead in his tracks. A panic struck the warden like lightning as he heard the noise again. Instantly, his attack on the ship was forgotten, the crew none the wiser of the near miss as Gaeric tore off in the direction he had come from as another scream reached his ears.

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

Dawn hadn’t exactly meant for this scenario to be playing out as it was. The second she heard Gaeric saying something about ships, she knew that it had to be one of the Galaxy Team’s, a research vessel or fishing boat. The Ginkgo Guild didn’t head toward the northern shores for much of anything, it didn’t intersect with their trade routes, so it was extremely unlikely to be one of their trade ships.

She panicked.

Gaeric would no doubt be pissed, but Dawn needed to stop him. He had already done a lot of damage and that only made Kamado double down on his efforts to map out the icelands so fewer ships would be lost. It was a never-ending cycle.

She was peeking out of the crevasse that Gaeric had unceremoniously stuffed her into for her own protection. Nothing to see, nothing to hear – the ocean around her was lifeless. It was creepy. Even the penguin behind her was silent, but she was afraid to look around at it. Dawn didn’t want to see if it had finally succumbed to its wounds. 

The idea of sharing a small space with a dead animal made her almost as sick as she had been as Gaeric had been encouraging her to snap the penguin’s neck. Blindly reaching behind her, Dawn flapped around to find the carcass to shove it out of there. Over her internal mental anguish, she did not realize there was one sound she was hearing, ears flicking in the direction of it but listening passively.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

She mumbled, nearly in tears as she managed to get a hand on the Adélie and was about to push it out of the crevasse when she heard the noises that she had subconsciously been hearing but not registering. Dawn jerked her head, a clicking that sounded familiar but also sent a chill down her spine. Ingo made those sounds sometimes. The sharp squeaks when he attempted to communicate with someone (or ones) no longer at his side. If she could hear it, then it was already too late.

All her disgust was instantly replaced with terror, and she wasted no time, grabbing the Adélie and shoving it out of there just as a massive shadow blotted out the light. Dawn slapped her hands over her mouth, squelching the scream that was pressing against her lower ribs. From her vantage, she could see the penguin floating in the water, its form lifeless and slowly sinking. A dark snout nudged it curiously, a second snout appearing on the other side and nudging it in confirmation.

There was a voice in her head screaming at her that was a mix of her own, Ingo’s, Laventon’s, and every other mer she had ever spoken to get out of there. Not safe. Danger. Predator. Move. Escape!

What had Gaeric said earlier? If she needed to breathe, the clan had made air holes.

Dawn raised her eyes to the top of the crevasse and, true to the warden’s word, there was a small shaft of light. Thank Sinnoh for the foresight of the clans. She moved quietly, not that the orcas could do a whole lot if she was up on the ice, but she didn’t want to attract any attention whatsoever. She reached the hole, a smaller one that had partially frozen over but was clearly made for a mers smaller than Gaeric, Ingo, or even Mai and Adaman, and poked her head out, taking a deep breath of cold air.

She was about to put her hands on the ice to clamber out when she felt her whiskers twitch and something deep in her gut told her to stay low. The sheet of ice seemed barren, but something was setting off a danger alarm in her brain.

Time slowed, all other sounds fell away, even the sounds of the orcas in the water, and Dawn heard something crunching the snow under its feet. The crunching got louder, the sound blurring into one as it got closer, and Dawn did scream this time, ducking back into the water and getting as far away from the air hole as an enormous paw reached through to swipe at nothing. A furry paw as pale as the ice around it fumbled for the prey it knew was down there and Dawn couldn’t stop screaming, alerting all the predators around her.

The polar bear was just able to shove its head through the hole, thank the gods it had shrunk from its previous size, and it blinked at her, beady black eyes following her movements as she tried to get further away. The orcas, now quite alert of one prey in the water, and most likely the bear on the ice, were crowding around the crevasse, squeaking and pushing their snouts into the crack. The bear must have also registered their presence, but seemed to hesitate, weighing its options before two-inch long claws began to tear through the ice. The promise of an easy meal that had nowhere to run just below the ice – if it could make a hole big enough for it to get through.

The orcas were of no consequence to the large land mammal, they couldn’t move tons of ice to force their way into the crevasse, but it did make Dawn a sitting duck. All she could do was scream. Trapped between a rock and a hard place, so Laventon was wont to say. Stuck between two mouth loads (possibly more since orcas moved in pods) of conical teeth and four paws decked with razor sharp claws and a mouth big enough and strong enough to crush her skull.

She was going to die.

Ice crunched all around her, the bear’s paw slapping the water as it excavated the ice piece by piece. Behind her, the orcas squealed and kept throwing her into darkness. Fear was tightening around her lungs and heart, making it hard to think about anything due to lack of oxygen. Everything had finally been going so well! She had quelled the frenzied nobles and the seas had stopped slowly rising. Jubilife was safe for a little longer. People had stopped looking at her with suspicion and she finally felt comfortable in the mer communities that had opened their arms to her.

Now it was all about to come to an end because she couldn’t kill an already doomed penguin.

Dawn didn’t realize she was crying, her tears just mixed with the cold water while she sank lower into the crevasse, as far away from either party as she could get from, but it wouldn’t matter. Gaeric was going to destroy a ship in broad daylight and Dawn was going –

Outside, the orcas were squeaking in agitation as she picked up something with her sensitive ears. Something massive tearing through the water at a breakneck pace.

“Gaeric!”

Dawn had never screamed so loud in her life. The sounds of the bear and the cetaceans were drowned out by her deafening cries.

The fear in her voice only spurred Gaeric to go even faster until – there! Two orcas were poised and waiting in the exact place he had left Dawn, the ignored remains of the penguin he had caught drifting into the abyss with their attention focused on the alive and panicked prey hiding within.

Orcas, like all their cetacea cousins, were intelligent. Orcas in particular are adept hunters and they enjoyed playing with their food before they ate it. Gaeric wasn’t exactly sure why. He wasn’t sure if animals were capable of cruelty like mers and humans were, but he knew that they acted beyond what was necessary to acquire prey. This wasn’t a particularly favorable match up, Gaeric was big, but orcas weren’t exactly small, and they had numbers on their side. Admittedly less numbers than would be normal for the species, but Gaeric wasn’t about to question it, and he hoped, in the back of his head, that that didn’t come back to bite him.

He launched himself like a missile through the water, leading with his shoulder to slam into the unprotected flank of the closer orca. By this point, the warden wasn’t even speaking intelligibly, just hissing and spitting and roaring – because how dare they. How dare they attack his little protégé when she was already going through her own emotional turmoil. He had been so caught up with the creaking and sloshing of the ship in the distance, Gaeric hadn’t noticed the threat around him, and by extension, Dawn.

Without even looking, he knew the other orca was coming toward him. They were faster, but Gaeric was smarter. Just a few well-placed hits - claws digging into sensitive spots like eyes and enough whacks with his heavily muscled tail, then the pair would be on their way.

“Gaeric!”

He could hear her yelling, but he didn’t understand why. He was managing the threat. The whales would be gone soon and then he would take her back to the settlement. This and the penguin were enough trauma for one day.

His claws raked into the underside of the orca, tinging the blood pink as it wailed. What he didn’t need was for them to attract others, he needed just enough time to get Dawn and hightail it out of there because taking on a pod was out of the question. Even if he had Ingo by his side, orcas were meticulous and savage when they chose to be.

“Gaeric! Help!”

Can’t divert his attention now! The orcas were falling back, fleeing into the gloom with high pitch whines that were sure to draw in others in their pod.

“BEAR!”

Bear?

That’s when Gaeric heard the low grumbles and huffs, something big splashing into the water. Like it was in slow motion, he saw Dawn dart towards him as the whales fled, only to see her get jerked back violently.

A polar bear.

An old and all too familiar dread suffocated him. His body was moving even before the electrical impulses raced from his brain to his limbs. His fury blinded him, only allowed to because his thoughts weren’t there. Gaeric was lost to time. Frozen in the memory of another young protégé in mortal peril because he acted stupidly.

Gaeric had promised himself – promised himself – that this wouldn’t happen again.

And yet.

No more blood. No more traumatized pups. No more mistakes.

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

Dawn was too busy trying not to get mauled to see exactly what Gaeric was doing, but the polar bear was alternatively swiping at her and ripping up chunks of ice to get better access to her. The surveyor just kept screaming for the warden with each swipe that came closer, with every scoop of ice that provided a bigger hole for the arctic predator.

It was getting dangerously close now, its head and shoulders almost squeezing through –

There was an agitated squeaking that only grew more distant. Gaeric must have run the orcas off. She just needed to get to him. Dawn darted for the crevasse, even spotting the blue haired warden beyond, looking uninjured, but quite agitated himself.

“BEAR!”

She shrieked at the top of her lungs, but it was too late. The sheet of ice that had been protecting her finally caved in and the polar bear was in the water with her paddling toward her with urgency. A massive paw slammed into her side, knocking the wind out of her and five claws bit through her uniform and into her abdomen.

The last thing she really saw before a flurry of colors was Gaeric’s expression. She had never seen him look scared before. He prided himself on being strong and brave for the sake of the clan, but that heartbeat before he was on top of the pair, Dawn had never seen that look on his face. A haunted look in those blue eyes.

It was a flurry of limbs, the water churning, and the bellowing that almost deafened her, but she saw it all. Her head might have been spinning because of how much she had been flung around (and blood loss), but she watched Gaeric take the bear’s neck and, exactly as he explained to her with the penguin, twisted it sharply.

The snap was the most sickening thing Dawn had ever heard. It made each individual hair on her body stand up and she did actually vomit this time (although, that also might have been her body’s reaction to the severe trauma). Things were moving much too fast. Gaeric was quick to drag her and the bear away, grab his net load of penguins that was swaying in the current at the bottom, and hightailed it out of there before anything else could happen.

So, Dawn saved a ship, at the cost of having a nasty gash through her uniform, unaware just how bad the injury beneath was.

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

Gaeric physically cringed as Ingo got in his face. It was the first and only time the larger warden had ever gotten confrontational with any member of Pearl clan, and it was downright frightening. It was easy to forget just how dangerous Ingo could be if he only chose to. It was easy to grow complacent with that knowledge in mind, that Ingo chose kindness and patience when he didn’t have to be.

Right now, Ingo was not choosing to be anything other than pure rage. A deep, foreign growl resonated in his chest as he demanded to know what happened because his pup was hurt and Gaeric looked remarkably unharmed.

To his credit, Gaeric was willing to take whatever Ingo had to dish out at him on the chin. He failed as a guardian. He failed to keep a pup under his watch safe and now she was getting treatment for wounds inflicted by the polar bear. So, he was willing to accept whatever punishment Ingo was inevitably building toward. In all his years of knowing Ingo, he had never seen him so angry, but before this last year, he never had anything he cared so deeply for. Yes, Ingo was loyal to the clan and devoted to his ward, but Dawn was different. For him, Dawn was family, and for Gaeric to be so careless - it was tantamount to something happening to Irida on Ingo’s watch.

Ingo listened to the story, his hands curled into tight fists as Irida watched on, cautioning him by repeating his name because she didn’t want nor need infighting between her wardens, not with how the sea was so intent on swallowing up the region – humans and nobles included. With a shaking hand, Ingo jabbed a finger into Gaeric’s chest, right in the center of his clan crest, and rumbled dangerously low,

“You had better pray to Sinnoh that she recovers.”

They all knew that Dawn would be just fine, Ingo was just veiling his threat – if anything like this happens again, I will not be so forgiving. Gaeric had narrowly avoided Ingo’s considerable wrath. The cavern was silent in the wake of Ingo’s departure, everyone collectively holding their breath until Irida exhaled slowly. Her wardens followed suit. Catastrophe avoided, they all waited for the medic to be done tending to Dawn so Ingo could see her and start to calm down.

[dejabluebabygirl]

I See You - Chapter 2

Miles Quaritch x Fem! Na'vi OC

Summary: Vira Te Wou Auhew’ite, an albino Na'vi and future Tsahìk of the Tayrangi Clan, The Ikran Riders of the Eastern Sea, keeps needing to save the demon Miles Quaritch at Ewyas command. When she's given a sign to try to teach him The People's way, both she and Miles struggle with their growing feelings for each other.

Authors note: This one just ran away with me, I had it almost written and then felt I need to add some more scenes and went back. I hope it all flows okay, I've read it over quite a few times but feedback is appreciated!

Sorry for the delay on this, I went out with my Grandma for her 82nd birthday and we just had too many Salted Caramel Martini's LOL. I've been feelin’ rough since.

Rating: T

Warnings: Canon typical violence, strong language/swearing, mild mentions of mating/sex, mentions of nudity, hunting/animal death, use of drugs/alien alcohol??? (I'm so bad at tagging, let me know if I need to add something please), and unrealized attraction/pining

Words: 6955-ish

--

Chapter 2

Vira declared bright and early the next day that she and Miles needed to move camp, if he wanted to learn to be Na’vi they needed to sleep like Na’vi which meant finding a temporary Hometree for them. She’d briefly considered him back to the Tayrangi clan but her mind flashed back to when he burned the village of Ta'unui and chasing her down in the jungle last night hadn’t helped. She couldn’t bring herself to bring him home until she knew for certain he could be trusted. Ewya willed she teach him so she would, the great mother didn’t say she needed to talk him home. They wasted no time mounting their Ikrans in search of one.

In the back of Viras mind it lingered that she needed to be home in 2 short cycles to mate with Huärì. Would she trust Miles enough by then to take him home? The Tayrangi were known for being a progressive clan but could they ever accept a demon? She could only do so much with her sister, she’d have to rely on her mother to interpret Ewya’s will as she had. 

The pink Na’vi mulled over her thoughts as she and Miles soared over the dense jungle on their Ikrans. Her orange eyes distractedly scanned over the tree tops for a suitable tree to stay in for the foreseeable future. The sooner they found one, the soon they could get themselves settled in and get comfortable.

“What kind of tree are we looking for, Princess?” Miles called from the left. 

“Tall and strong with large branches to live in, long vines to climb, near water and game trails would be best.” 

“Like that one?” His large blue hand pointed to a tree that was poking a few meters higher out of the canopy than those clustered around it. 

She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t seen it. 

“We’ll see.” A brazen smile crossed her lips as Vira dove towards tree tops. 

–

Miles had been right about the tree. They found it had a suitable large upper branch that could have fit six na’vi of Miles size side by side comfortably, if the ground looked good this would definitely be the branch they would sleep and dwell on when not out in the jungle.

The two of them climbed the vines down the jungle floor to find several fruit trees and game trails they could follow, Vira was impressed with the strength and speed Miles displayed going down them. Even with his large size, everything he did was graceful and agile, every movement had a powerful purpose behind it. If he was in pain from his injuries, he didn't show it at all. Her stomach flipped as she watched him scale down, Miles had abandoned his awful sky person vest at the last camp giving her full view of his back and arm muscles under his tight shirt. 

He trailed behind her as they walked the forest floor together, she showed him how to step lightly on his feet, and make less noise as he moved through the jungle. His pants still rustled and made noise but when she suggested making him a tweng he looked uncomfortable at the thought.

“Not quite ready to run around the jungle in my skivvies just yet, Tiny.”

Vira laughed, she’d have to ease him into their ways, he was sharp and rough, quick to anger, and he needed gentle hands to guide him. She knew she planned to start with him giving up his sky people weapons for a spear and a bone knife.  As she walked the game trails with him, she’d stop and kneel to identify the tracks in the soil, he’d slowly come down to join her, resting his hands on his knees and as she showed him Yerik, Nantang, 'angtsìk, and Talioang and how to identify each along the natural paths the animals created.

The game trails lead to a beautiful water site, it had a small waterfall cascading into it and flowed into a large pool at its base before continuing to snake through the jungle as a river, a perfect place to fetch fresh water, bathe, swim, and maybe even fish.

Ewya had provided sanctuary and Vira felt a little weight lift off her chest that she was right in interpreting the great mother's will that Miles learned to be Na’vi. She was not Tsahìk yet, she knew better than to presume she knew anything of her will but she couldn't help but feel this was right. This is what she was meant to do.  Vira renewed her promise in silent prayer to do all she could to teach him as they walked back towards their Hometree. 

On the way back she made Miles gather stones so they could make a fire pit on their living branch, with a proper firepit made it would not burn through the branch through the duration on their stay. She felt blessed when she found a bountiful amount of tautral, she knew she could weave into a mat for them to sleep on until she was able to make them each a Nivi. Her people slept in huts in caves but she’d observed the technique and helped the elders of tree-dwelling villages on her travels and felt confident in her ability to make them, it would just take time. That mat would at least keep them comfortable and off the bark of the tree. She walked back with her arms overflowing with bean stalks with right Miles behind her. 

—

Quaritch propped himself up against the tree trunk while Vira busied herself around the large branch that would serve as camp. He could hear their Banshees playfully snapping at each other in the upper branches. Viras first priority had been to check his rib once they started to settle in for the day. He was actually surprised by how good it felt after it had stung like hell last night after chasing Vira through the god-forsaken jungle. She said a little prayer to the tree god as she wrapped him up again in leaves and muck. 

When Miles tried to get up to help her build the fire pit she shooed him away and said he needed to rest. The little pink native impressed upon him how important it was for them to get a kill tomorrow so she needed him well rested. He watched her build up their camp quickly and efficiently and he couldn’t help but be the slightest bit impressed by how fast she was able to get their little operation up and running. It was just past midday and she had the fire pit built and all the fruits they'd gathered were organized. He watched with interest as her little pink hands worked to break apart a large stone that looked akin to obsidian back on earth. It seemed she liked the two big pieces she broke from it since she brought them over. 

“Shape for spears,” handing him one and sitting beside him, unsheathing her bone knife from her thigh holster and using it to shape the black stone. He watched her small pink fingers gently shape the stone to a point, he took out his own company knife and tried his best to mimic her movements.

“Don’t force the shape, let the stone guide you.” She said, stopping work on her own spearhead and placing her hands on his hands over to work hand over hand with her small pink ones over his large blue paws. “Gentle.”

“Never been very good at being gentle.” He was a hard-ass gyrene, made of stronger stuff than most. When was the last time he’d been gentle with anyone or anything? Spider, probably. Not even Paz, his mother, not really. Paz had been something fleeting, burned fast and hot, something that was bound to happen when you put hundreds of marines together on an alien moon with no bar in sight to get your rocks off at. Quaritch would never have described their relationship as gentle, amicable maybe. They had respect for each other but they both knew what they were each after. 

When he’d taken Spider from the jungle, he’d tried to be softer with him, have a gentler touch. He really had and in turn, the kid, his kid,  wormed his way him in and had softened up. Just a touch. Spider had stopped him from killing the natives on more than one occasion, and took the time to teach him basic Na’vi and their customs but in the end Quaritch was a marine, a soldier, it was all he’d known for so long. His mission in life was always to complete the mission he was given at any cost.

Now, his focus on the mission had shifted, sitting in the tree far from the familiar, human comforts of the RDA. Sitting here while a little pink savage held his massive blue mits that still felt alien to him, was all for his mission,  learning the strange Na’vi’s ways, were all, in service to the mission. He’d Kill Jake Sully, and secure a new home for humanity. 

Vira released his hands and he kept working the stone, feeling her orange eyes staring at him.

“What?” his knife shaping the stone as gently as he could.

“See? You’re being gentle now. You have a strong heart, don’t doubt.” She placed her own rock beside him.

“Could you shape mine? Please? Need to work on mat.” 

He grunted out an affirmative sound as she gathered the bean stalks and sat beside him again and began quickly and skillfully weaving them together. They worked in silence mostly, they hadn’t talked much small talk since they’d had their spat yesterday. When she talked to him it was mostly something she was teaching, impersonal. 

Quaritch stole glances at her quick nimble little fingers weaving the bean stalks together. He watched as her orange eyes glanced at his hands as well, all the natives seemed to have some interest in them, normally the attention was negative but she was almost fascinated by them. Their eyes locked after a while of exchanging glances in the evening quiet. 

“Sorry,” Vira blurted, he could see her face was practically purple she was so flushed. “For yesterday, should not have been rude.” 

The Recom Na’vi shifted uncomfortably, he wasn’t really blameless in the interaction, and he’d let his temper get the better of him. 

“Yeah well, guess I should have just let you go. Just didn’t want anything to happen to ya.” Half a truth, he didn’t really care about her per se, she was just a pink monkey but she was an asset to him. It was why he hadn’t turned around when she bathed at the river, the Recom Na’vi got no gratification out of watching the female alien. Quaritch just didn’t want something bigger and meaner snatching her up for lunch before he’d even gotten the chance to ask her to teach him the ways of the Na’vi. That conversation hadn’t gone to his plan in any capacity but she was here agreeing to teach him so he had to be the smallest bit thankful to the weird little seeds that made her stop her hasty retreat through the jungle. 

“Let’s just put all that behind us and forget about it, alright Princess?” 

Vira nodded and shyly looked up at him through her white lashes, “would you finish telling me of the metal spiders?” 

—

Quaritch woke up with the sun and sounds of the jungle no longer at rest. The two of them had fallen asleep talking again the tree trunk, the little pink Na’vi frantically had weaved the mat until sleep overcame her and it was so large draped over the two of them like a blanket. He watched a few moments later as Viras sleepy orange eyes blinked a few times and she stretched her long limbs and yawned. She didn’t offer a morning greeting but got up and went right to work, he was actually pretty sure she was muttering curses in Na'vi, something about her back hurting too. She took the mat off them and gathered vines and large sticks they’d collected yesterday to make their spears. Maybe the aliens didn’t say good morning or maybe she just wasn’t a morning person. 

The Recombinant Na’vi watched as she showed how to tie the spearhead on. He’d tied a complicated knot or two in his time and did it quickly. Earning a 'quick study' as praise from Vira. Not that he needed her praise but I did puff up his ego that maybe this whole learning to be Na’vi thing would be easier for him than it had been for Sully, he’d seemed to have a hard time when he started out from what he remembered of the tapes he’d reviewed. 

They climbed down the tree, and Vira went through some practice thrusts and throws. It felt surprisingly good in his hands. Natural. 

“Spear is extension of you, all tools are extension of you and your energy.”

Miles nodded even though really didn’t understand but figured playing along was easier than asking questions. 

They walked the game trails, Vira explained they were looking for yerik tracks, Hexapede, from Quaritchs understanding they were kind of like deer. She explained how one of them would need to hide in a tree and the other would drive one to that spot. 

“I am not skilled with spear, better with bow” she admitted, “you are big and strong, you will have to make the kill.” 

“That’s a tall order, Tiny.”

“I will show you how, if you miss, we have fruit to eat. Bow will wait, no harm.” She offered a small smile of reassurance. 

Once they found tracks along a path, she lead him to a low hanging tree branch over the natural game trail. Vira explained to him how she would drive one down and he would have to take aim and throw his spear at the beast. 

“Lay flat, be one with tree” she demonstrated by practically melding her small pink body against the branch, her head cocked to one side white hair splayed everywhere. 

“When you hear me coming up the path,” she made a whooping sound, he could have mistaken it for the prolemuris if he didn’t know the pitch of her voice. “Slowly stand, get ready. You will feel the movement in the tree.” 

Yellow eyes watched her slowly roll her pink body up off the tree in a fluid motion, taking her spear in hand. He could see the lean, strong muscle in her arms. 

“Breath slow, slow heart. Hold breath and release with your throw”

Miles watched Viras release her breath with her spear as it spear pierces the ground below. 

The pink native had him run through the motions a few times before she felt comfortable leaving him glued to the branch to go try and heard a Hexapede his way. He felt crazy laying on the branch, what was he even doing out here? He could just shoot the thing when it ran by, he was sure Vira would be pissed but he was a helluva shot, he had no doubt if he used his pistol he’d make the kill. But it did defeat the whole point of him trying to learn the Na’vi way. So he waited, and waiting, his blue ears flicking and straining to hear Viras call. 

He felt like he’d been waiting damn near an hour when his ear perked he heard the far-off “whoop” of Viras soft voice. 

They came in closer and closer succession after that, so close he could also hear the rustling of something else approaching through the woods and feel the gentle thumping of the earth through the tree. The Recom na’vi stood slowly, his bare feet finding their foot on the branch. He readied his weapon and thought of Vira and slowed his heart with a deep breath. This all felt almost instinctual, was it the Na’vi DNA mixed with his own helping him? Was this something primal they all felt? 

He felt the ground shift as the beast ran under the branch, his toes gripping the bark, yellow eyes sharp as he took aim and released the spear from his hands.

—

Vira and Miles celebrated his first kill into the night. His spear had struck true. Vira had called him down from the tree as she slid her knife across the creature's neck to end its suffering and thank Ewya for the energy they would receive. She couldn’t be anything but impressed with Miles, even if he was a demon, such a kill on a first hunt was impressive. His strike has been as true as any true born Na’vi. 

They spent the rest of the day breaking down and preserving pieces of the animal, she taught him how as they went but they worked quickly and she wasn’t sure how much of her teachings he absorbed. She reminded herself that after they consumed this kill she would make him say the prayer next time. That was a thought for the future, for now, they sat by the fire cooking their Yerik and reliving the hunt. 

“You were so strong and fast!” Vira praised as she mimicked the movement of throwing a spear across the fire from him, cooking meat on twigs. Her next project for the fire would be to make a spit and a smoker soon, better cooking and preserving but this would do for now. It would fill their bellies. 

“I heard you and felt it coming down the path just like you said, felt the tree and all. That was just incredible.”

She smiled at him “See? The energy flows through all things.”

He gave her a skeptical look like he still didn’t believe in Ewya's presence. Her orange eyes searched his yellow ones. How could he not? The atokirina' chose him, he felt the rumble through the tree. All things were connected. All energy borrowed from the great mother, energy they would all have to return one day. 

She moved the meat from the open flames and handed him a piece to eat still on the stick. They each devoured their food in silence and Vira pondered how to make him see. Would he ever? It was part of the Na’vi way, surely she needed to show him. 

As she looked down upon the glowing jungle from their Hometree, an idea struck her. 

“Come,” Vira stood grabbing onto his hand, attempting to pull him up. The pink na’vi knew she could not lift him but he relented and got up and scrambled down the tree's massive vines behind her. 

When they reached the floor of the jungle, it was lit up with all its nighttime glory. Most of the vegetation held a faint flow, the grasses beneath their feet shined bright with contact. 

“Come, come,” she beckoned him further into the jungle along the trails, dragging him by the hand. She flushed a little at the touch, thankful for the darkness, still not understanding why he made her feel that way.

Light was created everywhere in the wake of their movements, with every step and touch of plant life. Vira let her fingers trail along a row of shrubs, lighting the way. They came to a grouping of trees where glowing moss flowed from tree tree-like rivers. This is what she has been looking for, what she thought would show him.

“Do you see?” she gently touched the moss, the light brightened and dissipated but clearly spread out from the spot she touched until it disappeared. “All is the Great Mother's energy, we borrow it from her. Some day it must return .” 

“Yeah, yeah, circle of life, Kum ba yah bullshit, I get it.” He mumbled but his eyes didn’t match the disinterested tone. 

Vira watched his yellow eyes dart around the forest with interest and wonder. Had he truly never really looked at the beauty of their home at night? She watched him experimentally touch the moss and other plants with his five fingers as they continued walking. She smiled a little, he didn’t believe her but it would take time. At least he saw the beauty in the jungle.

There were tall orange rounded flowers along the path they had been following, their petals glowed beautifully, so different than most of the pink, purple, and green hues. Vira knew them as txon ’ong. Their nectars were drunk at celebrations if one drank too much they might have trouble walking, or sleep most of the next day, sometimes it was said challenges of Combat were made when the nectars were consumed but that was few and far between. For most it made them jovial, some even said na’vi were said to feel closer to Ewya when they drank it.

They were celebrating his great victory, what could it hurt? She would be sure not to loose her wits.

—

Miles watched the albino Na’vi go to the glowing orange flower, bend its stem and drink from its rounded top. 

“Txon ’ong, night blossom, celebrate.”

Quaritch shrugged and came beside her and did the same, bending the stem of the orange bioluminescent flower and taking a few large gulps. It was sweet at first but the aftertaste reminded him of some strong spirit he couldn’t quite place, maybe gin. 

He let out a low whistle. “Well, now it’s a party,  Tiny.” 

Quaritch felt more relaxed from the blossom, whatever it was exactly made him lower his guard just a bit in the jungle, just like he had the first night he was injured. The first night he’d met Vira.

The forest was truly otherworldly at night, so different from anything on Earth. The pink na’vi teacher kept walking the trail and he followed behind, he felt more acutely aware of the lights they created. How the slightest bump or rustle made small chain reactions. No, Quaritch didn’t believe in some little tree god. This little display meant nothing in the end really to him, just a pretty little light show. Maybe it slightly proved to him what Grace Augustine had been blathering about, the connections between the trees and the plants. Miles had never gone out after dark onto the forest when he’d been human, especially not after dancing with the viperwolf his first day on Pandora. He could maybe, just maybe, be behind the science. Not the tree hugging hippie all mother crap. 

They walked for what felt like a long time, enjoying the natural glow of the forest. Sometimes she’d have to come back and grab his hand to tug him along if she felt he was lagging. 

They wandered to the clearing with the watering hole they’d found earlier. Quaritch rubbed his yellow eyes, unsure if the drink was playing tricks on him. The river, waterfall, and the little lake itself all lit up in a purple glow. 

Vira laid down in the soft grass next to the water’s edges. It glowed around her pink form as she found and comfortable position on her back. Her orange eyes looked glossy from the nectar. 

“Come, see the stars.” She patted the ground beside her, sending small shocks of green glow through the grass from her pink fingers. 

Miles walked forward, only to be started by a group of fan lizards he nearly squished beneath his large blue feet. A dozen of them shot up around him, casting different colored hues onto him. The little guys were actually kinda cute. 

Vira laughed at his startled expression. “Like a baby.” 

He felt his face turn purple, this was all new to him. Normally he gave orders, normally he knew exactly what he was doing, not learning. Being called a baby by her again lit a little fire in his gut, he’d be the best goddamn Na’vi. He’d show her. He’s already made the kill today with the spear, something she didn’t think she would have been able to do herself. Instead of getting angry though, a roll of relaxation flowed through him, must have been the nectar because he laid down beside her and they stared up into the starry sky. 

Vira pointed out the visible constellations and told him stories and names that different clans had for them. Quaritch was surprised by how much he enjoyed the little stories, they reminded him of Greek and Roman epics he’d heard on Earth.  They also had horoscopes, different signs with different meanings that each Na'vi was born under.

In the middle of one story, his stomach let out a loud rumble, Vira turned on her side to face him and laughed, a deep one in her belly. The kind of laugh where sometimes no sound came out. He turned to face her too and laughed just as hard. 

“Sign to go back,” she said between laughs, her large orange eyes crinkled at the sides from how wide she smiled. 

—

A week passed in a flash, and Quaritch felt was managing to get a small handle on how the Pandora natives lived. He’d started keeping track of the days my making tallies on the trunk of the tree, where he often reclined against at their base camp. When Vira saw him marking the tree she’d decided to add to it as well, above his first 5 marks she’d taken her bone knife and crudely drawn him on a branch, victorious, as his spear pierced the Hexapede below. It was truly a primitive etching, it reminded him of cave paintings or even stick figures back on earth but they each knew what it was. He couldn’t deny it made him puff with a touch of pride inside when he looked at it. 

The Hexapede had indeed been a boon for them, food to keep them fed, turned out he actually liked the taste of it too, especially when Vira put some hot spices on it, it reminded him a bit of Cajun cooking back on earth, from his human memories. 

Vira was continually impressive to him, she was a hard worker and wasn’t scared of getting her hands dirty. She used every bit of the beast for something too. Guts and sinew for bow string, thread, and bindings, she uses its hide for laces and made clothing for herself. She didn’t wear her big collar anymore unless they went out hunting, just wearing leaves or flowers tied up intricately over her breasts or even just a string of beads and feathers that precariously covered her nipples but she seemed to have no shame in her lack of covering. She’d also made him a water bottle from the hide which proved useful. The Pink Na’vi didn’t want anything to go to waste. It reminded him of how it had bothered on some level him with the poachers killed the Tulkun, not that it was dead but because they'd wasted such a large animal for a few measly drops of liquid. Seemed wasteful and inefficient. He didn't care for innefeicies.

While Vira worked she also made sure she was teaching him something, either going over the techniques she used or quizzing him on his Na’vi language skills. He’d been working hard to memorize her little prayer the people said over the animal's bodies for when he next killed a critter, he wanted to be the one to finish his kill from beginning to end next time. Miles didn’t buy into any of the hippie tree-hugging crap she was peddling but he’d do the song and dance to keep Vira teaching him.

He’d remembered from his review of Sullys videos that he’d referred to learning from his woman as ‘learn fast or die’ but it wasn’t like that at all with Vira. She didn’t have contempt for him, she wanted him to succeed and was a patient teacher. He’d learned this past week she was kind and smart as a whip, and her English was improving much quicker than his Na’vi. Quaritch found an internal struggle over his Na’vi teacher, he was struggling to see her as just a helpful savage, that she's only a step above a monkey. 

Having this time with just her and to just breathe, not chasing Turk Makto to the ends of Pandora, forced Quaritch to accept a few things. One of those being that his body was 20 year old Na’vi body now, but his mind was still that 51 year old hard ass marine. He’d known it since the minute we’d woken up with the rest of the Deja Blue but being out in the forest with no one but a local, forced him to take stock of things. Miles thought about his actions over the past 4 months chasing down leads with Spider, he really didn’t feel such intense hatred as he did back when he was human for the Blues or even when he’d first been decanted in space and decked Lyle in the face, thinking he was surrounded by enemies. He tried to work out if it was because of Spiders' influence on him or because he knew he was looking at a Blue when he looked in a mirror. Maybe he’d just gone soft, he was an old man in a young man’s body at the end of the day.

They settled into an easy rhythm together, each taking care of things around camp, she’d give him Na’vi lessons on language, customs, and histories, and he helped her improve her English. Sometimes they’d race their Banshees around the treetops together and go off and explore. She was a hell of a flier, he learned the Banshee was nearly sacred to her people, the Tayrangi of the Eastern Sea. When Vira found out he hadn’t named his Banshee she scolded him, loudly, from the back of her golden one who he’d learned was named Stiwi. Mischief. 

Miles had quickly pretended he misunderstood her question and said the royal blue beast named was Wasp, after his SN-9 WASP pistol. That felt fitting as anything the military dog in him could think of on such short notice. He supposed he could have just called it Banshee.

With there only two of them, they didn’t need to hunt or even gather every day, sometimes they’d just go for long jungle walks and she'd point out the flora and fauna and quiz him on what things were. She told him once he was more sure of his footing in the trees she’d teach him to swing from the vines. Images of Tarzan flashed in his mind. Things were simple but they were good. They’d gone back out another night and drank the nectar of the night blossoms again, she’s said it was really meant for parties and ceremonies but she said having some fun couldn't hurt. He wondered if that meant she was a bit of a troublemaker in her village, sneaking out to drink with the other village deviants when she’d been younger, like a teenage who snuck out through their window. The thought made me chuckle since now she seemed like a rule follower now. 

Quaritch focused now on shaping the small segments of black stone, the same used to make the spearhead. Vira had been put in charge of making arrowheads today. The thought of shooting with a bow made him uneasy, he’d seen enough of Mrs. Sullys arrows to know how deadly they could be but it seemed an odd twist of fate that he’d have to learn to use the same type of weapon that ended his human life and got him into this na’vi body in the first place. 

“Bows are ready,” Vira called as she walked along the branch holding a large bow she’d made for him. He took it from her and saw all the work she’s put into it. She'd carved intricate patterns into, way nicer than her crude little etching on the tree. It was dozens of stars forming the various constellations she’d pointed out to him during their time together drinking the night blossom. Vira had strung small tassels with beads made of teeth that she’d dyed different hues at the top where the strong met bow. The front had some kind of holder made of blue leaves that replaced a quiver. Miles tried to think if he’d ever gotten a gift that had so much work out into it. He’d seen her over the past several nights sitting across the fire from him instead of next to him as she normally did after dinner, working on something. He ran his fingers over the carved grooves. 

“Thank you,”

“No need to thank, fine hunter deserves fine bow.”

He watched her pink skin flush a shade darker.

Quaritch had originally thought she flushed so often at him back at their first camp because she found him an attractive Na’vi, she was a young female after all, didn’t they have little infatuations and mess around like humans did? Just some natural instinct. He was a young male and she was a young female, that was all. Miles was sure there were plenty of forest boys back at her home who’d thought she was a looker with those orange doe eyes, they were warm and inviting like the first rays of sunshine. Miles' mind thought back on Vira being a young troublemaker and sneaking out with derelict jungle boys and getting drunk off the nectar in the woods. The thought of her causing mischief didn’t seem as amusing as much anymore. 

The colonel shifted gears in his mind and filed away that he would have to ask one day about societal customs of recreational customs like courting and sex, it was so embedded in human society he assumed it had to be a part of the Na'vis. They were a humanoid society after all, no matter how primitive they may be. He’d heard mention from the science pukes of a mating season but he’d never really paid attention. Now that he was trying to get into the belly of the beast, truly know his enemy. He knew no information on the enemy was unimportant. It was all part of his mission to learn all he could. 

That’s what he told himself anyways, it was practically a mantra in his mind at this point. Every question, every kindness he showed Vira, every moment spent together, was all in service to his mission. He was not enjoying himself out in the jungle with some native woman. 

“One more,” the pink na’vi quickly made her way from him across the tree. He caught a whiff of her scent as the breeze blew, she smelled like a sweet lavender from the herbs they washed with and an underlying scent of something almost spicy, warm, and cloyingly sweet, that was just her scent. Her musk. It was all over the camp. He was sure he could track her scent at 100 clicks he knew it so well from his sensitive na’vi nose. 

“Jeez Princess you’re spoiling me,”, he drawled to her, making her shade blush so deep it touched her ears. 

Quaritch pondered then that she just flushed often because she got easily embarrassed and flustered. It was just harder for her to hide her flush than a Blue na’vi.  He had just been reading too much into things.

She scrounged around in a pile of yerik bones and came back holding a bone knife, it seemed like she’d tried to make it comparable to his RDA combat knife in size and shape, he saw where she’d tried to even shape a serrated edge opposite the razor-sharp bone edge. 

“Now that’s a fine blade, Tiny. Thank you.” 

She handed him a sheathed to go across his chest, not unlike the ones he’d seen over Navi wear. He didnt know when she’d made the sheath either, had he just thought she was working on clothes or things for herself and had really been making him all these gifts?

He stood and slipped the sheath on over his tank top and put the knife in the holder. 

“How do I look?”

Her orange eyes danced up and down his form, “more Na’vi every day.” 

— 

Vira and Miles scaled down to the base of their hometree, she was eager for him to try out the bow she had made for him. She had concerns that he might not have been ready to use it with his chest injury but he seemed stronger and stronger every day thank Ewya, he healed faster than she had ever anticipated. Maybe it was the great mother's plan to heal him quick so he could learn quickly. She had no other explanation, she hadn’t expected him to heal for a cycle, and they were not even halfway through.

The pink Na'vi brought paint down she’d made and marked three large yellow circles on the trunk for Miles to take aim at. Vira demonstrated how to shoot with her own bow, placing the arrow, nocking it, and letting go with her breath just like she taught him with the spear. She hit her mark first try in the center of the circle she was aiming at.  The pink Na’vi smiled to herself, a bit smug, definitely more skilled with a bow than a spear. 

Miles tried next, he seemed far less comfortable with the bow she noticed that he had with the spear. He handled it almost as though it may bite him. He knocked his arrow and took aim, his arrow falling below the circle he aimed from.

“Try another,” Vira ordered, she did a half circle around him, pink tail swishing in thought and he pulled another arrow back and it fell low again.

“I don’t think I’m meant to use a bow, Princess”

She made a thoughtful sound. “We need to fix your stance, that’s all. Pull back, do not release.” 

He did as he was told and Vira got up close to him, chest to chest, she could feel his breath on her forehead, hear his soft inhales, and feel the rise and fall of his broad chest. She used her feet to push his legs into the proper position. 

Vira took her small hands and lifted his drawing arm so his elbow was higher, she adjusted his bow arm by touching his forearm. To her those few moments she spent fixing his stance felt like an eternity. She turn her face up toward him, face flushed, surprised to see his yellow eyes were looking down at her and not at the target. His lips would have brushed her forehead if the bow did not prevent them from getting closer. 

“Take a strong, deep breath,” she moved her hands to gently touch his abdomen. Vira heard the deep inhale and felt him take a deep breath. Kentens danced in her stomach and heat pooled to her face and between her thighs. 

“Now try again.” She broke away from the close contact.

Vira watched his strong arms release the arrow with his breath. It whirled through the air, hitting its mark.

—

For dinner they ate the smoked spicy yerik she’d cooked, the smoke preserved the meat so it was good for several days but they would need to hunt soon. Vira was excited to hunt with her new bow, she was not the strongest or greatest hunter but she was skilled with a bow. If they had more numbers she’d consider they go hunting talioang on their Ikrans but with only two it would be hard and too much meat to try and eat. When she brought him back, he could try with the clan.

Still hungry after eating the meat she grabbed a Yovo fruit to peel and eat while they sat propped against the trunk of the tree on the sleeping mat. Miles sat beside her with his arms resting on his knees, legs spread apart, and relaxed as his large body took up extra space. He plucked the fruit out of her hands before she could even draw her knife from her thigh. Vira whined indignantly at the theft. 

“Oh come on now, didn’t your mama teach you to share?” He looked down at her wickedly, “I can try out your gift,” he pulled the bone knife from the holster on his chest, its sharpened edge shining low in the firelight. 

Vira rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything to Miles as he began to peel the fruit. Vira had come to enjoy watching his hands work with the extra finger, she no longer found it alien or even him really alien over the past several days, he just needed a teacher. The watched as he expertly used the knife she’d crafted for him, it made her happy to see it put to good use. 

“See somethin’ you like there Princess?” He quipped as he kept peeling, Vira hasn’t even tried to hide that she was watching his hands. 

She smiled and ignored the heat rushing to her face. “Your hands, too many fingers. Should be clumsy.” 

“Here I thought I should be flattered with you staring and you just want to pick on my hands.” He laughed and laid his hand flat on his leg closest to her, palm up and open. He wiggled his fingers. 

Vira tilted her head, orange eyes sparkling up at him with fascination. “Can I touch?” 

He nodded and surprised at her own boldness, Vira took his hand in her own two. She was curious in nature, always wanting to learn and see and touch all she could. Greedy for knowledge. 

She traced the lines of his blue hands, moved the smallest finger up and down and bent it. She bent Miles's whole hand in a fist, it shouldn’t have worked with 5 fingers but it did. She had him hold up his hand and lined it up her own with it, thumb to thumb, finger to finger all minus the small one. Not so different. He surprised her when he wrapped his small finger around the back of her hand and curled the tops of his larger fingers over her small ones.

Viras smile reached her eyes and glanced at him, she couldn’t read what the gesture meant behind his yellow eyes. It was a gesture that Na’vi did, it had no real meaning to them but something they did with babes and younglings. It was something her father had done many full sky cycles ago. 

Miles pulled his large hand away and resumed peeling the Yovo fruit, he halved it and handed it to her not bothering to cut it more. His yellow eyes looked far away while he ate. 

--

Last Chapter - Next Chapter

Master List

--

Taglist: @bandomonia @milknhonies @hobnob2020 @nissilou @neteyamsbulletwound @bitchykittenconnoisseur @missroro @unhingedcanary @whoreforquaritch

[neteyamb]

ashes to ashes: chapter six

pairing: loak x f!omatikaya reader

summary: as a healer, y/n had taken an oath to treat every patient with their best interests in mind. this hadn’t been a problem, until loak’s petty injuries become a routine. she has to swallow her pride and feign concern, feign kindness, and face the ugly hate that has been brewing between them for years. 

tags: enemies to lovers, confused and pining loak

word count: 2.1k

notes: im in poland rn and this is a little bit TERRIBLE but also very necessary.

 ⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

billie bossa nova

love when it makes you lose your bearings / it might be more of an obsession / you better lock your phone / and look at me when you're alone / won't take a lot to get you goin' / i'm sorry if it's torture though / that heavy breathin' on the floor / i’m yours, i'm yours 

nova – a star that suddenly increases its light output tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity

your eyes search loak’s for any insincerity. you had grappled with him over superiority for as long as you can remember, but for it to be offered to you made it feel like a default win or some dirty trick. you were still debating which would be worse. loak’s attention was glued to you so fiercely that you felt naked below his amber eyes; you abstain from looking at his face any longer, drawing your attention to the fresh scars that littered his body. you distantly note that they were healing nicely, fading slowly from harsh red to calm blue.

for him to come to you like this, almost grovelling–it was an insult of the lowest sort; if you had any respect for him before, it was because he wouldn’t back down. while he belittled you constantly, he never went easy on you, he would fight with everything he had. and now that he chooses to pity you, were you meant to fawn over his whimsical, clearly unplanned apology? familiar anger sank in your stomach and crawled up your throat. “i don’t owe you anything,” you shoot, crossing your arms over your chest. loak clenched his jaw, considering your words. 

he begins to wonder if his decision to confront you was made prematurely; even now, he had to refrain from jumping your bones in aggravation, from pinning you down and trying to taste your comebacks. he worries his lip, ripping his eyes away from the curve of your neck as if he hadn’t been getting acquainted with it for several moments. “no, you don’t–owe me anything,” he assents gruffly. 

you attempt to physically peel his heavy attention off of you, taking a further step back to rustle away the thick air. “oh, joy. our first agreement.” you begin to continue on your route, but he grabs for your arm in resolve, quick to stop you while his chest thuds wildly. you snarl at the path ahead. “wait. i can make you a deal.” it was desperate, and as the offer fled his lips he was frantic to come up with a feasible proposition. he couldn't afford to let you slip away a second time. you flinch, turning towards him once more with your patience wearing thin. he furrows his brows, averting his eyes as a panicked blush rises up his neck. “i can teach you how to hunt. formally.” he pauses, tilting his head towards you. “you could be a warrior.”

your ears perk at his proposal. of course, you were very familiar with the bow, but your failure to follow through with the pursuit of valid warrior training was a sore spot he consistently aimed at. you glare at him in warning, hoping for his sake it wasn’t just another jab to add to the pile. loak licks his lips, staring down at the grass. “it’ll be great,” he straightens his posture, flashing a hopeful, boyish grin. “promise.” 

✶✶✶✶

your stomach filled with regret as you walked towards the archery grounds the next afternoon. you were skeptical about being taught by loak, but if you ever wanted to fight alongside real soldiers, there wasn’t much choice; those willing to take time out of their day for one-on-one training were scarce, especially if you consider their teaching capabilities. jittery, you stressed the drawstring of your bow as you waited. 

loak approached the clearing with conviction in his step. he had never offered you help before, but he had quickly realized this past week that without you around, his focus and mood took a lethal hit; he’d be spacing out and then snapping at people for next to nothing. if he thought about it, this deal is moreso about helping himself rather than you. he just had to play nice, but not…not too nice. a tight smile crosses his face when he sees you, but it was directed a little over your shoulder instead of at yourself. 

loak had seen you shoot before, but watching your calculated gestures up-close was different; his brain fogged as he analyzed the way your shoulderblades flowed under cerulean skin, and he tripped over his words more times than he’d like to admit once he noticed the way the drawstring prodded at your lips when you took aim. he pushed down the irritating emotions that lapped at his belly, biting his tongue. 

after conquering every static target, the two of you shifted off-course towards moving ones. you followed him into dense trees for several minutes before coming across a yerik. crouching together behind a bush, you watch as it licks at a puddle and flicks its ear. it had been a significantly long amount of time since you had last pointed an arrow at a living creature, but loak gives you the go-ahead. you were annoyed that you put yourself in a position where you had to follow his orders, but still you take your aim, digging your knees into the dirt and straightening your back as you drew the string. you held your shoulders tighter than you knew was necessary, but you couldn’t shake off the fear of the probable humiliation you’d succumb to if you missed the shot. loak notices, shuffling closer and adjusting you with icy hands. you bristle under his touch, but keep your eyes on the yerik. 

his chin dips slightly at your hesitation; obviously you hadn’t practiced hunting much and this was just your first session, but if you were thrown onto the battlefield at this moment (as warriors often are, with little warning), you’d be struck down quicker than he could react. he'd have to drill into you the impluse to shoot reflexively if he wanted you to succeed. behind you, loak leans towards your ear, hair tickling at your collarbone. “release.” his voice is low, soft but not whispering. you suck in a breath, holding your position strong before ripping your hand away from the nock of the arrow. it hits the creature in the heart, and you don’t turn to meet loak’s approving expression before removing yourself from the bush and praying at its side. he’s light on his feet as he joins you, cutting in to correct your words no more than twice. 

✶✶✶✶

once you’ve finished carrying the animal back to the village to be preserved as dried meat, you’re quick to put some distance between yourself and loak in hopes of settling your nerves. he stands there quietly for a minute, permitting himself to indulge in the gentle sway of your long hair in the breeze as you leave. 

dusk crept over the village, and loak declined dinner in favour of laying in his hammock. he splayed his fingers over his abdomen in thought, gradually digging his fingernails into the skin until it stings. the more loak thought, the more it was maddening; you danced around his mind, most recurrently in your usual, taunting manner. now, though, he is able to remember what your body feels like against his. he’s known before from heated arguments followed by tense healing sessions, but those came with so much doubt and conflicted thoughts that he couldn’t make sense of what was a fantasy and what was reality. now, he could remember feeling just one thing at a time. and it was a curse. he remembers the way your chest pressed into his when your breath would hitch, he remembers the way your nails grazed his back, and he remembers the way your warm tongue moved in synchronization with his. 

sleep wouldn’t come to him. defeated, he rises to his feet with the intention of taking a cold shower. 

✶✶✶✶

you walked hip-to-hip with kiri like a conjoined twin as the sun settled in the sky, having just finished weaving practice. you were making steady progress, now able to create small armbands given that they have no ambitious details. you were walking her home; she had promised neytiri to keep an eye on tuk while she and jake went out. you stopped at the door, watching with a small smile as neytiri kissed her daughter’s forehead and ruffled her hair before heading off.

loak sat in his hammock, looking up at you with tired eyes. you wanted to laugh a little; he looked kind of wimpy with his sunken shoulders and downturned ears, but you decide against it. you didn’t want to risk losing the shiny new deal. still, facts are facts. “loak, you look like shit.” he grumbled an unintelligible response, swinging his bow over his back and walking out of the hut on quick feet. for a second, you weren’t sure if he intended on teaching you today–he’s sensitive when he’s grumpy. “you coming?” he threw over his shoulder as he walked past you, decidedly avoiding eye contact. 

you trudged deeper into the forest than before. the two of you didn’t talk, instead preferring to listen to the sounds of wildlife waking up. you came across another yerik, an older one that appeared to be female. you were ready to perform the actions you had yesterday, but before you could execute them, loak swiftly picked up a stone and chucked it beside the animal. he was not very talkative today, but it didn’t surprise you he’d do something like that without warning. still, annoyed, you toss him a questioning look. the fatigue had left his eyes, they were now bright and glowed in the shade. you wonder briefly when it had happened, and how it was possible you didn't notice until now.

“chase it,” he said, not waiting for you before running after it. you held your bow in a tight grip as you leapt over low branches, but you couldn’t deny it was difficult to properly place the arrow while keeping up. you shoot blindly before nudging past loak in the direction of the yerik’s wail. 

✶✶✶✶

the two of you had taken a wrong turn somewhere. you were lost, chests pleading for air. frustrated, you whack him with your bow. “that was entirely your fault!” you snap, eyes wild. still heaving, he whacks you with his own in return. he wasn’t in the mood today. “you have to learn to chase them, y/n. just because you can’t on the first try doesn’t mean it’s my fault.” you seethe, considering his reply. “still, i have no idea where we are,” he says, looking around in vain for any familiar landmarks. you huff. “yeah. now what, genius?” 

loak thinks for a moment, pouting his lips. the both of you could handle yourselves against the creatures of the forest, but the best thing to do was wait in the area until a search party was inevitably sent out. you'd be in a fuckton of trouble afterwards, but it'd do the job. “let’s spar,” he breathes. “good for training.” you look at him skeptically, eyes narrowed. “i think we’ve exercised that option enough,” you deadpan. loak chuckles, removing the quiver from his back and placing it on the ground next to his bow. he figures, if he can’t take his anger out on you, he has free reign to do what he will under the pretense of training. he’s convinced it’s a good idea, although maybe it has something to do with sleep deprivation. he nudges your shoulder. “hit me with your best shot.”

hesitantly, you put your bow and quiver next to his while eyeing him suspiciously, lips pursed. you had never hit loak because he asked you to, and this setting seemed…more formal than you were accustomed to. you lower your knees and place your hands out readily in defense. he mirrors your actions, feeling light; this was the first time he could breathe without a clenched chest in days. he felt alive. for a few seconds, you attempted to disarm him with telepathic mind games, but when it didn’t work, you made a kick for the back of his knees. he easily jumps around it, tail curling behind him with the adrenaline he had craved for days. loak grins, rounding your back to poke at it. you shiver, annoyed, before whipping around to meet his eyes.

“you’d be a sucker on the battlefield. don’t leave your back exposed.” you lower your arms briefly. he’s giving you advice, you realize. helpful, genuine advice. you feel a grin split your face. “noted,” you say, falling back into position. you circle him a little, keeping him in your line of sight with his words in mind. 

you’re able to get a few pushes in, but it was mainly chalked up to the fact that you knew loak's movements and habits so well. heart beating rapidly, he sweeps at your legs with one of his own and you fall to your back. he leans over you, pausing for a second to make sure you’re not winded. “i win,” he smiles cheekily, eyes darting quickly to your mouth. he taps your leg. “same goes for your legs. keep them strong.”

⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

notes: how fourmillyour...

taglist: @weasleytwinwheezes @mrslandryy @amortencjja @tallulah477 @optimisticblazetrash

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

ch. 9 — behat (to promise)

notes: timeskip of a few months! also, guysss so ummm i really hate the last two chapters i wrote so i'll have to scratch them and start again... but im also in the middle of some pretty important stuff so yah. sorry about that.

summary: alethia meets thorunn. athelstan and ragnar talk about ragnar, promises are made.

warnings: mentions of depression, ppd and other mental health issues, ragnar is a bit of a dick tbh

tagged: @levithestripper @demon-of-the-ancient-world @grantairescurls

series masterlist | general masterlist

Alethia

It was getting colder in Kattegat. The temperatures had dropped in the past week, and Alethia could not help noticing that the days were shorter as well. But, there was a prolonged sense of gentleness within the cold days. Aslaug had given Alethia proper furs, Ragnar returned an old sword to her. She looked as if she was back in Winterfell, right after taking the castle back from the Boltons.

Sometimes, her heart tugged when Alethia thought of the North. Kattegat was similar to it, though the people were not. When Alethia woke up in Athelstan’s longhouse, she sometimes thought that she was back there, in Westeros. The thought seldom filled her with distress.

Still, Kattegat was a place that she thought she could call home. And as word spread that she was taken, that she really was Athelstan’s woman, Alethia had the sort of automatic respect she never did receive in England. 

That morning, she was the first free woman to push into the Great Hall. A few thralls were already working, setting the table and cleaning the floors. Alethia felt guilty each time she met the eyes of any of them. She was saving money to free them, but she knew it was a pointless endeavor.

But she and Athelstan agreed that they would never buy a thrall, or make someone a slave.

Hvitserk bounced up to Alethia before she could see him, crashing into her. Alethia stumbled backwards, landing on her back, and Hvitserk giggled, hugging Alethia tightly. While she was supposedly just a guard to Aslaug, Alethia had quickly become caretaker to Ubbe, Hvitserk and Sigurd. Aslaug was too preoccupied with Ivar, and Ragnar…

Alethia lost some respect for him each time she thought on the matter. His three middle sons exhausted her thoroughly every day. It was not her responsibility, and yet, Alethia reveled in taking care of them, just as she had with Clothilda, Godwin and John in England.

“Are we going to play today?” Hvitserk asked.

“Like always.” Alethia promised. Hvitserk took her by the hand, pulling her to the table. He was always hungry, always the first to eat. Alethia had given up on trying to teach him any tablemanners, not that the Northmen took those particularly seriously.

“What are we going to do?”

“I was thinking of taking you hunting. Your brother’s skills with a bow have improved considerably, and Sigurd loves climbing the trees in the woods.”

“But it’s cold!” Hvitserk complained.

“Your mother bought new furs from the merchant three days ago. I’ll bundle you up so you stay nice and warm. And if your brother shoots a rabbit, you could have stew for dinner. How does that sound?” 

Hvitserk’s eyes brightened at the thought of his favourite food, and Alethia smiled. While Ubbe was responsible, taking himself quite seriously for a boy of eight, and would no doubt make it his mission to provide for his brothers tonight. Hvitserk, however, was the sort of playful that reminded Alethia of Rickon and Arya sometimes.

He was a wolf-child. 

Alethia hoped life would be kind to him. She tried to make it as much as she could. 

And Sigurd… however little the small boy liked to admit it, he was the one that took after his mother most. Already, Sigurd was drawn to bouts of anger and frustration, the only thing seemingly able to soothe him being when his mother sung to him. But Aslaug did not do that often.

Alethia sighed, handing Hvitserk a bowl of porridge.

“Where are Siggy and Thorunn?” she asked.

Hvitserk took a bite, gulping down his food without eating, before he answered. “I don’t know. Thorunn was crying again yesterday. She’s always so sad.”

“Okay. Do you know where she is?”

“No.” Hvitserk said. “I don’t really like her. She looks scary.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“You also look like her, but you don’t scare me.” Hvitserk continued anyway. “You aren’t so gloomy all the time.”

“I’m about to be very fucking gloomy.”

Hvitserk giggled, smiling widely as he saw his brother trudge towards the table. Ubbe was wearing a frown, hands rubbing his eyes.

“What is it, Ubbe?” Alethia asked.

“Ivar was crying again. I couldn’t sleep.” Ubbe complained. He climbed the bench next to Alethia. It did not escape her that he leaned against her, his hand searching for hers. Her heart broke a little.

“I will try to find something to help your little brother. And we are going hunting today.” Alethia said. “Is it alright if Thorunn comes along? I cannot take care of all of you at the same time.” 

Hvitserk frowned. “She’ll ruin it. She’s like Sigurd when he’s angry.”

“Will she be crying?” Ubbe said.

“Maybe.”

“I want her to be happy. She is our sister-in-law.”

“That’s right.” Alethia smiled. “Good job, Ubbe.”

“Maybe we can just send her back if she is very sad.” Hvitserk suggested. “Then it won’t be so scary to take her along.

“I promise you, you will have a great day.” Alethia said. “You two finish dinner, and help Sigurd get dressed, alright? Make sure he eats too, and give him some pears for his porridge. Ask the thralls for more in case you finish all the fruit. It’s important he has some. Can you do that?”

“I can!” Ubbe said.

Alethia ruffled his hair, and the boy hugged her quickly, before he looked away. Hvitserk stared up at her from his spot at the bench, before a cheeky grin appeared on his face.

“I hope you’ve gotten better at archery since last time.” he said, sticking out his tongue. Alethia raised her brows.

“Careful little man, or I’ll have to eat all the rabbit stew in the world by myself.”

Hvitserk’s insulted gasp was the last thing she heard as she slipped out of the Great Hall again. In the center of Kattegat, around the Great Hall, merchants were setting up their stalls. Alethia took note of one merchant who displayed little trinkets. As she stepped closer, her heart skipped a beat. There, amidst mostly worthless playthings and souvenirs, was a small collection of coins with what had to be Chinese symbols.

Alethia bought one of them quickly. She slipped the coin into her pocket, turning it over in her hand as she walked. 

Perhaps she could hide it somewhere, with a message of some kind. Perhaps archeologists would find it in a century. Then, she would have been here.

No. It was too dangerous.

Alethia stepped up to Bjorn’s longhouse. She knew that Bjorn would be away. He had been sleeping at Rollo’s house for the past two weeks, taking Siggy with him. Thorunn was alone here.

She knocked. There was nothing, not a single sound from within the house, but still, Alethia waited.

She knocked again. And again, there was nothing. But then, Alethia caught a quiet sniffle.

“I’m coming in now.”

No response. Alethia opened the door slowly, but closed it behind her as fast as she could. Inside the longhouse, it was dark, but there was a rank smell that permeated the walls. Alethia lit a candle, walking towards Thorunn. The girl was a little younger than her, and so similar to Alethia in so many ways. Alethia thought that, maybe, she could understand her.

If anyone.

Thorunn was backed into a corner like an animal, and as Alethia raised the candle, she cowered away. Alethia sat down a few steps away from her, putting the candle onto the ground. Thorunn shielded the scarred side of her face, knees drawn up to her chest. All she was wearing was a shift, and that was crusted with dark red blood. It was around her abdomen, and so, Alethia guessed that it stemmed from some kind of complication with birth. She tried to ignore the smell, tried not to focus on the way that Thorunn’s hair had turned into a matted mess.

Had no one taken care of her, Alethia would have been the same.

“Hello, Thorunn.”

“Who are you?” Thorunn asked. “Are you real? Did the Gods send you to mock me?”

“I am real. I am Alethia.” she said quietly. “Athelstan’s woman.”

“The priest has a woman?”

“Now he does.” Alethia replied. “And you are Thorunn, right? Bjorn told me all about you.”

At the mention of his name, Thorunn looked away. “He does not love me anymore.”

“I think he does. I think he simply does not know how to handle… you.”

“I warned him about that when I was still a thrall. He didn’t get it.”

“Lothbrok men.”

Thorunn’s expression changed. It wasn’t a smile, not yet, but Alethia was getting there.

“Would you like to come hunting with me? I’m taking care of Ubbe, Hvitserk and Sigurd for today. I hear you’re good with a bow.”

Thorunn eyed Alethia suspiciously. “Bjorn set you up to this, didn’t he? He wants me to feel better about myself.”

“I don’t know Bjorn very well. All I know is that he’s an angry young man with a babe he does not know how to care for. You said it yourself, you thought the Gods sent me to mock you. I came because…  I had a feeling we were similar.”

“You’re not a monster.” Thorunn whispered.

“And what makes you one?”

“Have you seen my face?”

“Have you seen mine?” Alethia countered. “You have done nothing that would make you a monster.”

“I abandoned my daughter.”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t want to take care of her. I’m scared I’ll mess things up.”

“Every mother is.”

“Do you have a child?” Thorunn asked.

“I lost mine.” Alethia admitted. “I have no child that came from my own body, but I have been raising those of others, those that are lost for many years.”

“Can you raise my daughter?”

“You can do that yourself.”

“I cannot.”

“Yes, you can. Whatever I do for those children, it is never enough. I am never quite right. That is because I am not truly a mother, only a stand-in. And I don’t want that for Siggy.”

“I cannot do it. Look at me! She’ll grow up afraid.”

“Because of what? That scar?”

“Yes!” Thorunn cried out. “Do you not see what we are? How ugly and deformed we look?”

“Rude.” Alethia mumbled. “But I am loved. I know it. And not in spite of my scar, but because it is part of me. Bjorn will love you with or without it.”

“How do you know?”

“Just a feeling.” Alethia replied. 

“And what if I don’t deserve it? He’s the son of Lagertha! He could have anyone!”

“Your beauty does not make you any more deserving of love.” Alethia countered. She shuffled closer, and took Thorunn’s hand. “And even if we are monsters, are we not still women? We feel pain just as we feel love, and hate, and anger, and happiness. We are human, and therefore, we love. Let them point fingers. Dare them in your defiance of holding your head up high. Therein lies strength some will never understand. Do not let them take your spirit.”

“Them?”

“Those that would tear you down. You are a fortress, Thorunn. It is alright to feel weak, to want to hide away and never see the sun again. But the sun is beautiful, Thorunn. Outside is beautiful. Life is beautiful, just as it is terrible. You have a daughter, and you have the chance to raise her in a way that she shall always feel safe and loved.”

“It is so much.”

“I know it is. I am not asking you to feel alright. All I am asking is that you come hunt with me and the boys today. Let me help you. Let Aslaug, and Bjorn, and everyone else help you. I know asking for that help is hard, and so I will do it for you. All you must do is accept.”

Thorunn withdrew her hand, hiding her face in her palms, and for a moment, Alethia was afraid.

“Alright.” she said finally. “But I do not know where to start.”

“I do.”

Alethia stood, her joints aching as she did, and she thought that she was getting old. How silly, considering that she was only twenty. The thought of it excited her. Growing old! She never really thought she would, not even when she had still lived in her time. A life beyond twenty seemed unfathomable, and yet, here she was. Living. Breathing.

She took the bucket that stood in the corner of the longhouse and carried it outside, filling it with water. Returning to the longhouse, Alethia opened the shutters to let some light inside. It took time, but the wooden tub filled with cold water. When it was full, Alethia helped Thorunn up. She ignored the smell, the blood, the dirt.

Thorunn sat in the water, and Alethia threw the shift into a corner with dirty bedding and molding food. While Thorunn scraped the dirt off of her skin, Alethia took to work with her hair. Slowly, the mats disappeared. They weren’t as bad as Alethia thought they would be, and she thanked every higher power that Thorunn was a blonde, and not a brunette, where her hair would have been thicker, and likely impossibly tangled.

Alethia wanted to shriek as lice crawled onto her hands, and her scalp felt itchy while she flicked them off, crushing them under her boot. Using a comb, Alethia tried to rid Thorunn of the rest of them. Finally, she handed the other woman a towel, letting her dry herself while Alethia set out new clothes.

When Thorunn was dressed, the sun was considerably higher in the sky, and she looked like she was going to be okay. Hopefully.

“We’ll take care of the house later, but the boys are waiting for us. It’s almost noon already, and they’re likely fighting.” Alethia said.

“Thank you.” Thorunn replied. “I don’t know if I…”

“It’s nothing. I had help as well.”

“Can we be friends?” Thorunn blurted out. “I don’t really have… friends. I don’t think Bjorn counts – he’s more than that after all.”

Her eyes were so wide as she grabbed Alethia’s hands again, holding them in the space between the two of them. For the first time since they’d met, Alethia saw Thorunn smile. It suited her. As Alethia looked at her, she felt like a girl again. God, how she loved that. 

“Yes. I would like that.” Alethia replied.

Thorunn linked her arm in Alethia’s, strolling out into the street as if she was alright, and Alethia felt her heart beat in her throat out of happiness. She had a friend! How she’d missed that.

And Thorunn looked like she felt the same way.

Athelstan

Ragnar sat on the beach, watching as Athelstan drew up the walls of Paris. When he looked at Ragnar, Athelstan knew that his friend was somewhere else in his mind. Somewhere where there were no children, no wives, no kingdom, only Ragnar and the boat.

Then, Ragnar hissed through his teeth. “Tell me about Paris.”

Athelstan rolled his eyes. Paris, Paris, Paris. Since they’d returned from England, Paris was all that Ragnar wanted to talk about. “Again?”

“Please?”

Athelstan shook his head, smiling lightly. “I only went there once.”

“Continue.”

“I was visiting a monastery in Frankia, right outside of Paris, and one day, the monks there took me to see it.”

Ragnar had closed his eyes. He looked like he was sleeping, but Athelstan knew exactly what to say so that he would pay attention again. “But what I remember more, is the beautiful women.”

He had a feeling Alethia would not have liked those words. Alethia. Athelstan wanted to disappear into his mind, but then, Ragnar leaned forward with so much interest that Athelstan had to continue. “I almost… questioned my vows of celibacy.”

“You never told me that part before.” Ragnar said. And then, a wolfish grin appeared on his face. “Speaking of celibacy…”

Athelstan sighed. “Yes?”

“You and her… hmm?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” Athelstan lied.

“She lives in your house. You have to have done something . Or did you get a second bed, you sad, sad man.” Ragnar teased. Athelstan considered his choice of words for a moment.

“What do you think?” 

Ragnar squinted, blue eyes disappearing momentarily. “Two weeks ago.”

Athelstan could not help but laugh, and Ragnar’s eyes widened. “You did not tell me?”

“The night we returned to Kattegat.”

“AND YOU DID NOT TELL ME?” he shouted.

“I thought it unimportant.”

“Next you’ll tell me you plan to make her your wife.”

“I am, actually. Planning it, I mean.” Athelstan mumbled. Ragnar’s eyes widened slightly, before he huffed.

“Why? Why bind yourself in such a way?”

“Because I love her.”

“I love Lagertha. And yet, I never should have married her.”

“You and I, Ragnar, we are not the same.”

“I know.” Ragnar replied. “Then you have my blessing. Though Kattegat does not have a church, so I do not know how…”

“She would refuse to marry me in a church. The Christian way, it binds her too much.” Athelstan shrugged. “It would have to be a Norse marriage ceremony anyway.”

“Good. Good. And now you have to tell me, what did you do when… you know?”

“Well, we uh…” Athelstan began. He knew he was reddening. At the same time, there was the warm feeling of satisfaction at the base of his stomach when he thought back to that first night. And all the nights that followed. “We did it, and then we did it again.”

Ragnar rolled his eyes. “You are such a Christian sometimes.”

“What is it precisely that you wish to know?” 

His friend’s eyes gleamed, and Athelstan regretted ever saying anything. “Has she ever gotten on her knees for you?”

Athelstan’s mouth turned dry. “I’m not- I am not answering that.” He stuttered out, and Ragnar laughed.

“I knew it. She’s corrupting you! My Athelstan, corrupted by some godless girl from England!”

“She is not from England.”

“No? Where then?”

“It is… complicated.” Athelstan sighed. “I suppose the land is comparable to Eastern Frankia.”

“Perfect. Then she’ll know how to help us with Paris.”

“Ragnar, no.” Athelstan said firmly. Ragnar froze, before he turned to stare at Athelstan.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Do not involve her in your raiding plans. Don’t. Do not offer her to plan it, to come to Paris, or to fight. I will not be your friend if you do.”

“You’re afraid she’ll die.” Ragnar mused. An itch of annoyance spread through Athelstan. Ragnar was being too unserious about this.

“No. I know her body would survive. But… if she goes to Paris, she will not come back the same. She has fought enough, Ragnar. And I suppose, in that way, you and her are the same. I know you take no joy in it anymore.”

“I am a Northman, of course I take joy in it.” 

“You do not have to lie to me, Ragnar. And I know I do not understand, but she will. You can talk to her. Many soldiers have.”

“What does she do with them? Some magic ritual? Or maybe she is a witch, and sleeps with them to wipe their memory and make them her slaves?”

“You’re trying to rile me up. You don’t believe in any of that.”

“Well maybe I do.” Ragnar said, raising his hands in mock defeat.

“Stop it.”

“Alright, fine. What does she do with them? Why do they go to her if not for… her womanly charms?”

“I hear she listens to them. Not that you need that, Ragnar. You talk so much anyway.”

Ragnar snorted, but Athelstan could see the emptiness behind his eyes. He knew that Alethia would be talking to him tonight.

Then, his friend scratched the back of his head, quickly changing the topics again. “So, marriage. What comes next? Children?”

“I haven’t thought about that.”

“But you want it.” Ragnar noticed. His eyes bore into Athelstan’s, and it felt as if he could read his mind.

“I do.” Athelstan said. There was something in his heart that ached when he thought of it. His own family.

“Perhaps your sons will fihgt alongside mine one day.”

“I want daughters.” Athelstan blurted out. “I want them to be like her, like Lagertha, like Siggy when they grow up. Like Aslaug and Judith.”

“Why?”

“Because they are stronger than we are.”

Ragnar paused for a moment, before he looked down at the sand. HIs hands dug into the ochre, disappearing below the surface that rippled like the ocean.

“If I do have a daughter…” Athelstan began. “I want to name her Gyda.”

When Ragnar looked up again, there were tears in his eyes.

Alethia

Thorunn was smiling by the time that dinner was being served by the thralls. Alethia watched as she talked to Aslaug, Sigurd tugging at her hand. Alethia was glad that she had gotten to help her. The look of deference slowly disappeared from Thorunn the longer she spoke to Aslaug, and, when Bjorn entered the Great Hall, trailed by Lagertha, who had Siggy in her arms, Thorunn did not turn away.

Alethia sighed with relief, picking up Hvitserk, who was attempting to fight Ubbe over her shoulder.

“If you want to hit your brother, try not to hit my head as well.” She told Hvitserk. He had the audacity to pout, crossing his arms before his chest.

“And why are you two fighting anyway?

Hvitserk only shrugged, stomping his foot to emphasize his point. Alethia tried to bite down the laughter that bubbled up her throat.

“He’s your brother, Hvitserk. I know Ubbe can be overbearing, but he means well.”

“Fine. I won’t hit him I guess.” Hvitserk complained. “I’ll play with Bjorn instead.”

When Athelstan walked into the Great Hall together with Ragnar, Alethia could not help but smile at him. Athelstan turned her way almost immediately, as if he was a dog that could sniff her out.

Ragnar followed Athelstan as he made his way towards Alethia, and now, Alethia was a little concerned. Ragnar never bothered talking to her.

“Hi.” Alethia said, and Athelstan hugged her without another word. He was uncharacteristically quiet, even for him. 

“He’s planning a raid.” Athelstan whispered in the hug.

“It’s okay. Thank you.” Alethia replied. She let him go, smiling amiably at Ragnar.

“Your sons are admirable hunters.” She said.

“I’d hope so.” Ragnar replied. His tone was so dry, so flat, so uninterested, that Alethia felt reminded of her own father.

“It wouldn’t hurt to take some interest.” She hissed. “They notice that, you know.”

Ragnar raised a brow, looking over to Athelstan as if they were sharing some kind of inside joke. Alethia was glad that Athelstan did not try to reciprocate his all-knowing smirk.

The king of Kattegat stared at Alethia a moment longer, as if he was trying to read her soul, eat her heart. Alethia tried not to look away as best she could, but when Ubbe tugged at her hand to gain her attention, Alethia did not care enough to continue their little contest. 

Ubbe was holding out a bowl of stew, filled with the prizes of their hunt today.

“Thank you Ubbe.” Alethia said. “Would you like to eat with me and Athelstan today?”

Ubbe nodded shyly, and Alethia patted the free space next to her. Athelstan sat, taking a bowl of stew out of the hands of one of the thralls. Alethia ate quietly, waiting until Athelstan had finished his quick prayer. It was the kind of domesticity they could only begin to afford.

Alethia’s hands found purchase in Athelstan’s and as she looked to him, she had a moment of peace between lifetimes of war. Athelstan was quick to kiss her cheek, before anyone could catch them in their little display. Alethia’s hand stroked his jaw automatically, and Athelstan smiled at her with such adoration that she thought she might die.

So much, for her. God, had there ever been a sweeter joke?

She ate her stew, and Alethia knew that, months earlier, she would not have tasted it. But there it was, and it satisfied her. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

There was a thought in the back of her mind, one that Alethia had not thought explicitly, but one she thought she’d known about for a while. She smiled at Athelstan, who did not know.

Later, Alethia helped Aslaug settle Ubbe, Hvitserk and Sigurd down. The hunt had exhausted them, but they were brothers, and in such, always found a reason to fight. Aslaug had only a tired smile to spare Alethia as the three of them had finally fallen asleep. Ivar was still in Aslaug’s arms.

“Thank you.”

“I enjoy taking care of the boys.” Alethia assured.

“I meant Thorunn, and me. We did not want to ask for…” Aslaug began. “You have a place in my queendom.”

“And I shall defend it as if it were my own.” 

Aslaug smiled, nodding at Alethia as she made her way out of the Great Hall. It was starting to darken in Kattegat, and Alethia’s hand was never far from her belt. Athelstan’s longhouse was on the outskirts of town, where it became quiet. Alethia knew it was there not only because of the tranquility, but also because the forest reminded him of home.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alethia caught Ragnar, staring at her from afar. His eyes were unfocused, and Alethia knew he wanted something from her. Comfort, perhaps. 

In Wessex, Alethia would have opened her home to him. But Hagar had been nothing, had had nothing, and Alethia had used up all of her energy today already. She wanted to go home, to Athelstan. 

“Tomorrow.” Alethia called.

Ragnar jumped, as if he had not expected Alethia to speak to him. Then, he nodded through the fog that had to cloud his mind. Alethia closed her eyes, breathing out. Whatever Ragnar carried with him, Alethia knew it hurt. She had watched the king enough to know he felt about his crown the same way that Jon had. 

She did not feel guilty forgetting about that when she stepped into her and Athelstan’s house. 

And there he was, sitting at the desk, charcoal scratching over parchment.

“What are you drawing?” Alethia asked.

“You.” 

Alethia smiled, hugging Athelstan while leaning over him. She put her chin on his shoulder, her own face reflected on the parchment. It was her from a few days ago, hair still wet from swimming in the bay of Kattegat. Alethia knew that it would be the last swim she would take for a while. It was getting too cold for her to swim.

Winter was coming.

The thought of House Stark’s words no longer made her heart ache for Jon. There was the dull echo of a boy she’d loved as a girl, but no more. Not when Athelstan was right there with her.

Athelstan seemed to read her thoughts. “When it gets cold, we’ll be forced to spend more time inside.”

“The boys will be a lot.” Alethia sighed. 

“I was thinking… with all the time we’ll be spending inside,” Athelstan began. “Could you teach me? Your language, I mean.”

“Why?”

“I want to love you in your language.” Athelstan said. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, before he pushed his chair back and stood in front of Alethia. There was a trace of fear in his eyes as he looked at her. 

“What is wrong?” Alethia asked.

“Nothing.” Athelstan replied. “Nothing at all. But, the truth is, my reasons for learning your tongue are more selfish than not.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I want to sing to my children in the language of their mother. If she’ll have me.”

Alethia’s mouth turned dry, and suddenly, her heart was beating in her chest. It was kissing Athelstan the first time all over again. “What are you saying?” she whispered. Athelstan’s hands grabbed hers a little more tightly, and he let out a shaky breath.

“Will you marry me?”

The sound Alethia let out was a half-laugh, half-sob, half-squeal. She threw herself around Athelstan’s neck, laughing. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you, and I’ll have you. Just as you are, speaking my language or not.”

Athelstan enveloped her, hands holding her tight, safe, warm. His lips brushed her cheekbone, dusting a kiss there where a scar split her face. Alethia felt loved.

[aubadeempress]

Tagged by @cyrus-the-younger

Tagging || @suzalulus @thefinalsnart @laketheghost @leos-pineapple @felrija @sistervirtue

[Note] Please do not feel obligated to do this! I tagged simply, because I thought it would be fun and I think you are cool. Oh! And if you do not want me to tag you next time I do one of these, please do tell me and I will make sure not to.

Also! Blank Version under the spoilers to make it easy!

LAST SONG ✦ Serendipity by Laufey

FAVORITE COLOR ✦ Pale rose pink and deep reds.

CURRENTLY WATCHING ✦ Vids on Youtube and internet situations. At the moment, looking at the Yandere Dev situation and being absolutely disgusted. It was not unexpected. That fool had years of red flags and some people just did not listen until now.

LAST MOVIE ✦ The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). I rewatched it recently with my brother. I cannot help, but enjoy movies on revenge like this one. Some terrible ancient part of me just craves to see revenge done successfully. I oddly feel some catharsis and enjoyment watching him and the friends he made destroy the people who wronged him. I am also an absolute sucker for a romance between two people forced apart by circumstances to the point they make assumptions and believe their romance cannot return-- BUT IT DOES!!! Because deep down they love each other still after all these years and recognize details about each other. Also, the outfits of Edmond Dantes sincerely fuck. Also, you cannot pay me to read the original source material. It is scuffed and I am uncomfortable with the VERY POORLY AGED parts of it.

CURRENTLY READING ✦ Too many webcomics. Help. Please. A few titles I am loving are 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' (ORV), 'The Return of the Mad Demon', and 'My Derelict Favorite'. There are more, but these are big favorites at the moment.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY ✦ Sweet + Savory! I love sweet and sour flavors a lot.

LAST THING GOOGLED ✦ DND 5e Divination Wizard. Some old friends of mine said I was either that or a Chronurgy Wizard. Please be gentle, I will die from the smallest amount of damage. Yeah, sure, I can cast magic that bends time and lets me take a peek at people's past and future, but the moment you poke me with a finger in a key spot I WILL DIE.

CURRENT OBSESSION ✦ A new story idea for a comic! It's about an elite magic user who literally becomes a living library by using her body to store a bunch of magical tomes to smuggle them out of a magic organization which is trying to heavily regulate magic use in the country. Her running away becomes a whole journey where she realizes the organization she once believed in is horridly broken and how the state of the world looks like beyond her cute little office. She learns more about the challenges in her dream to see magic on every street corner, such as the need for effective and understanding teachers, the difficulty of teaching itself, and the way someone's class and quality of life affects the ease of learning. Not only is she made to reconsider previous ideas, but the reckless choice to become a living library has its own set of negative effects on her being and she is being actively hunted down by her own previous comrades. Oh there's also this cute handsome farmer who actually reads tomes and uses magic against regulations. The organization has long wanted to take him down. He's gruff, but is an absolute nerd.

CURRENTLY WORKING ON ✦ Graduate School Applications and a lot of creative projects, including a story of three demigods who hate and love each other which has me in a chokehold and the mess above.

LAST SONG

FAVORITE COLOR

CURRENTLY WATCHING

LAST MOVIE

CURRENTLY READING

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY

LAST THING GOOGLED

CURRENT OBSSESSION

CURRENTLY WORKING ON

[graytrailcam]

Documentation of Fossil Forest's First Litter SCORCH-FINAL UPDATE-End of Iron Wolf PlayThrough

Scorch continued to be very much himself, traversing the steep slopes of East Amethyst Mountain with a fair bit of ease with his partner Aurora.

They settled with their own freshly dug den overlooking the cliffside in the middle of their territory. Appropriately dubbed, Cliffside Den.

There they had a humble litter of four pups. Two males; Igneous and Granite, and two females; Marble and Quartz. Scorch was fiercely overprotective, as he had quite a run of bad blood with surrounding wolf packs due to his behavior as a dispersal wolf before settling down, and because it seemed he had set up turf in the middle of a boar grizzly's.

Scorch and Aurora came into conflict with the boar grizzle quite often, especially when it came to their hunts. Though they always managed to either chase him away or steal pieces to eat at a safe distance.

The boar grizzly wasn't the only competition however, as coyotes would regularly follow the pair on hunts with hopes of harassing the two of them enough to scavenge from fallen prey.

Regardless, for the most part, Scorch and Aurora were quite successful in maintaining their turf while making time to head back home and give the four pups some good lessons, like teaching them how to howl.

It seemed however, that in Scorch and Aurora's constant harassment of the local boar grizzly, that he decided to try their den for a source of food since they had insisted on not allowing him to feed from most of their kills, and chased him away from some of his own. This was a harrowing experience, leaving Scorch with a mangled jaw by the time he and Aurora had chased the Grizzly away.

This attack was followed soon by several attacks from Scorch's most aggressive nemesis apparently, the Wapiti Pack, aiming to take out his small litter and future competition.

The constant fighting and inability to maintain his territory posts made the Fossil Forest pack's land gradually shrink, as well as their available food resources. It became harder and harder to feed his pups, and soon Scorch and his family were starving.

He came upon a Bull Moose at the edge of his turf, the first available prey he'd seen in nearly a month it felt like, and in his blinding hunger bit off more than he could chew, getting trapped under the creature's hooves.

Scorch's skull and ribs were caved in when he was found. A snarl still on his face. Though it was much younger than expected, no one was surprised that Scorch had died fighting something too big for him to take on. The moose later died of the injuries Scorch had given it, helping Aurora continue to thrive by feeding their pups and raising them on her own. It is noted that she did not take another partner for as long as she remained in the pack, til her eventual death.

While the runt of their litter, Granite, did not survive a bout of illness that took him, the rest of their small litter made it to adulthood.

They are tagged, and will be documented going forward.

WOLFQUEST: AE THREAD SCORCH-Burn Creek Pack 3M Later documented; Fossil Forest Pack 1M

Talon and Nightingale's second surviving son, the runt of the first litter, dubbed Scorch by researchers, was the first of the Burn Creek Adolescents to venture away from home and establish himself as a lone dispersal wolf. Having outgrown his previously tiny stature, now Scorch seeks to carve out a place in Yellowstone for himself.

Scorch is an over confident wolf, possibly a leftover trait from having been babied so much as a pup. This showed primarily in his first attempts at hunting elk, which were nearly disastrous.

Though Scorch was able to bring down a particularly sickly calf, this left him with a lame leg and busted jaw for much of early fall, rendering him having a more than difficult time hunting for himself and leaving him relying on scavenging.

It wasn't long before Scorch began to do what Dispersal wolves do best, invade other pack territories to nab some of their members around his age.

His main point of interest seemed to be the Wapiti Pack to the South of Amethyst.

Often, he found himself entangled with the oldest male wolf, though Scorch was large enough to handle the older wolf on his own through their several harrowing encounters.

Though Scorch would have little luck with the Wapiti females. Or any females that he ran into in Pack Territories for that matter.

All the while, a small fellow dispersal from the Biscuit Pack, just a little over a year his elder, kept tailing him, identified by researchers as Biscuit 113F. Often seen in the distance tailing Scorch, she seemed to not grab his interest.

Scorch would continue to scour the Eastern Side of Amethyst Mountain. North to the Lamar Pack, West to the Rescue Creek Pack, and then South once again back into Wapiti territory. All with no luck luring some of their bachelorettes.

His leg injury proved particularly heinous, and many researchers feared he would starve to death were it not for his incredible luck while scavenging.

And his skill as a Hare Hunter.

Never the less, the days and weeks trudged forward and despite expectations, just as when he was a pup expected to succumb to illness, Scorch refused to lay down and die.

His best stroke of luck came about when he came upon a bull bison carcass, managing to chase off the coyotes that scrapped with him for the rest of the large kill, sleeping on top of the gore once he had gorged himself on it after days with no food.

When he woke that evening, the small dispersal from the Biscuit pack had found him once again. And maybe it had been the weeks of no luck with any of the pack females, or maybe it was her tenacity and determination, but she managed to win him over.

It was an incredibly short courtship period. She had more winning over to do than he did, and by then he was already more than impressed that she hadn't left him in the dirt. After further observation and locating some records regarding the Biscuit pack, it is theorized by researchers that she was likely also a runt that managed to survive till adulthood. She would be referred to as 'Aurora' from this point forward.

The brief snowfall waned as the two settled themselves smack in the middle of the eastern side of Amethyst Mountain.

[aziraphales-library]

Any fanfics about the shenanigans of raising Warlock?

Yes, we have loads on our #the dowling years, #kid fic, and #warlock dowling tags that fit the bill. I’ll add some to the collection now...

i like this place (it feels spooky) by asideofourown (G)

“Nanny!” Warlock exclaimed, jumping in front of her as she reached the front steps. “Please take me to the Halloween haunted house tonight!”

Nanny Ashtoreth looked down at him, one eyebrow arched perfectly above the lenses of her dark glasses. “What have we said about asking for things?” she said sternly.

Warlock rolled his eyes, and left off the ‘please’ as he repeated, “Take me to the Halloween haunted house tonight! Don’t worry, Brother Francis can come too, if you want. Can we go? It’ll be fun! ’N spooky!”

Nanny’s lips twitched into a small, wry smile. “I suppose with that argument, I have no choice,” she said.

[Warlock, Nanny Ashtoreth, and Brother Francis go to a haunted house]

treasure hunt! (real treasure not included) by bystandertxt (G)

One moment Crowley was negotiating with the Cook on making crepes for Gardener Frances’s late breakfast, and the next, Warlock had become the human embodiment of a whirlwind in the kitchen, babbling excitedly about a treasure his mother had told him might be on the estate.

“What treasure?” asked Crowley to the little creature, as he zoomed about the kitchen in search of snacks to take on his quest.

“I don’t know,” Warlock replied, as cheerful as Crowley was confused.

Nanny Poppins by BrightTerror (NR)

Warlock loves watching Mary Poppins, especially with his Nanny, because it reminds him of her.

Or 5 times Ashtoreth and Warlock Watch Mary Poppins and The One Time he Watches it Without Her.

An Arrangement of Convenience by iamanidhwal (T)

Due to an extra layer of protection in the Dowling estate, Crowley (as Nanny Ashtoreth) is forced to act and behave accordingly even outside working hours.

Trying to keep up her regular clandestine meetings with Aziraphale through roundabout methods lead to hijinks and a sizeable cover story, one including a fake engagement, a wedding preparation montage, and a beautiful engagement ring that makes Crowley's heart skip a beat.

Joy of Cooking by D20Owlbear (T)

Nanny Ashtoreth is doing her damndest to instill the virtues and vices a young Prince of Darkness needs. So, she teaches him about how the universe was made so he can eventually remake it once he’s of age and grown into his birthright.

On her day off, she ends up giving Warlock a more hands-on lesson, patching together shortbread biscuits the same way God did in Her cottage at the Edge of the Universe before it was made when She created the angels. All the while telling Warlock the story of how She made the Earth and the Firmament and even Crowley herself.

Somehow though, those sorts of thoughts don’t seem to end on a high note for Nanny… Luckily, Sister Frances is here to help. Or try to, at least.

Mothers Take the Stage by Crowoxy (G)

Harriet Dowling tries to be a mother, has a breakdown, meets someone new, and gets invited to an all parents complaint group in the span of an hour. It's the start of how she reclaims her life back with the help of Nanny Ashtoreth and people in a small town called Tadfield and how Nanny Ashtoreth becomes a Nanny for more than just Warlock (the definite Antichrist) and finds out just how much she enjoys it.

Alternatively titled: Stealing One Back From the Patriarchy

- Mod D

[fandom-monium]

i finished for the holidays and i just *chefs kiss* beautiful talented amazing sajkgdkj no words i love that romance wasnt even the main point 🥺💘 anyway i love how you write reader and i wondered between her and spencer who gets jealous???

Unrivaled

Summary: In which you seem pretty close with the new intern, and Spencer is not happy about it. (ft. one of my fave white bois) “Have I ever told you how much I value your friendship?"

WC: 3.6k

Tags/Warnings: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader, fluff, cussing, Jealous!Spencer bc id like to see that, established relationships (blegh), Garvez if you squint, the lightest implication of smut ever, points to yall who can guess who the intern is before reading the end or the tags 😉

—

Spencer is not jealous. He’s not.

Why would he be? 

He has no reason to be jealous, Spencer chants to himself as he sits at his desk. Even from across the bullpen he still manages to hear your voice, and while normally it’s music to his ears, even better than Mozart, now it just feels like nails against a chalkboard. Grating his eardrums, making him wince.

Because you’re laughing. Not with Spencer though. Not at his obscure references or lame jokes.

With the new intern.

Why did Emily have to put you in charge of him? She could’ve chosen anyone on the team to have him shadow, but it had to be you! Not that you’re incapable or unqualified; you’re experienced, talented, and the best person he knows. 

… Okay, he can see why she picked you.

Why do they even have interns? Unnecessary, really, when the BAU has you and him and he guesses the other teams too (it’s weird, he’s never actually interacted with them but whatever). Maybe it’s time to start making budget cuts. He’ll discuss this with Emily when he gets the chance. He’s got some influence, working at the BAU as long as he has.

But he’s not jealous. 

Logically, jealousy (like an intern) is unnecessary. The green-eyed monster (like an intern) is ugly and contributes nothing productive, and if Spencer’s being honest, the world (like an intern) would be much better off without it.

At least that’s what he keeps telling himself as he downs his coffee like a shot of whiskey, trying to quell the squirming beast in him. Despite 90% of it being sugar, it still tastes bitter. He sets his mug down with a thud, and it’s loud enough to make Luke, Garcia, and JJ turn their heads, exchanging concerned glances when he slumps back in his chair.

Spencer doesn’t care. The world’s ending; you’re apparently into younger guys, with neat dark hair and forearms that can probably snap someone’s neck, and he can’t do anything about it. What does it matter if his best friends catch him in a sour mood, right?

“Hey, Spence,” JJ's tone is soft as they slink over, Garcia and Luke leaning against the edge of his desk and JJ flanking the other side. “You alright?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Spencer gazes past them, his eyes never leaving you. He deflates; your stance is relaxed, completely open as you nod at whatever Intern is saying, his hands gesturing spastically. It must be interesting, the way you listen with rapt attention and respond just as enthusiastic.

Spencer scoffs. Not like that’s anything special. You do the same for him. And the rest of the team.

...What the hell are you guys talking about? 

“Well, you look like you’re about to throw your mug across the room. Or at an intern.”

Spencer blinks, finally breaking away from you long enough to eye the ceramic octopus. “That’s a good idea actually.”

“Don’t,” Garcia and JJ both shoot him a warning and he huffs, resting his chin in his hand. Garcia looks horrified, betrayed even while JJ has that expression on, the one she gives when she scolds Henry and Michael.

Whatever. It’s not like he’d ever sacrifice Mildred. Garcia entrusted her to him, after all. 

Unless...?

No, he couldn’t… Maybe.

“You know, Reid, if you’re jealous—”

Spencer snaps his head to Garcia, eyes wide and darting to you like you have super-hearing, “Jealous? Who’s jealous? Not me.” He cringes, his voice octaves higher and cracking like a prepubescent boy.

Garcia snorts, “Okay, sure. But if you are jealous, I was going to say you have no reason to be. You wanna know why?” Spencer raises an eyebrow at her and she continues, “Sure the guy’s smart enough to get a full-ride scholarship at GWU, and he’s top of his class at the academy—”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

"And he’s one of the most good looking guys I've ever met—”

"How is that relevant—"

Luke frowns at her. "And have you met me?"

“My point is,” Garcia’s red lipstick curls into the most reassuring smile, “that you have nothing to worry about because (Your Name) loves you. A lot.” 

Spencer perks up. “You really think so?”

“I know so. I see the way they look at you, and if that’s not love I don’t know what is," She shrugs, "And just because they’re talking doesn’t mean they’re into him.”

There's a collective nod of agreement and Spencer sags in relief. Of course they're right. He knows they are. 

If you think about it, technically, he's got the advantage. You've known each other longer, bonded and shared experiences together good and bad, and you’re emotionally and even physically intimate with each other (something he's especially proud of, considering how long it takes you both to warm up to others).

And who knows? This is probably temporary! Whatever this is, the connection you seem to instantly make with Intern (faster than when you two had met, he realizes with a needle to his heart) is short-term at best. It'll peter out eventually, like most friendships do.

It’s sad, but a cruel fact of life.

(Is this selfish, wishful thinking? Nah.)

They’re right, there is no need to worry, Spencer thinks as a weight lifts off his chest, finally able to breathe. You love him and he loves you and eventually, everything will go back to normal. 

There’s nothing to worry about.

—

The world’s ending.

“It’s really not.”

Yes, it is.

“Doc, come on.”

“Do not ‘Doc’ me,” Spencer grumbles, lifting his head from the comfort of his arms. He grimaces at Luke. “You didn’t see the way they looked at him. The way they talk about him.”

Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since you’ve taken Intern under your wing, and he’s had enough. If Hell is real, this is it. For days, he’s tried to resume some form of normalcy, and he was never one to be bold but desperate times call for desperate measures as he asks you out for lunch or invites you out on dates, even stuff he wouldn’t normally do because they’re more your thing. Something, anything to get you away from Intern. But...

At work: “Hey Spence, I'm teaching Intern (menial task that a 4 year old could do). Would you like to help—”

During break: “I’m taking Intern out for lunch. He’s still new to town, and I thought he could use a tour—”

In bed: “Did you know Intern’s a huge fan of Star Wars—”

Snap, and there went his patience.

Intern this, Intern that. 

Spencer could tolerate this at work. At least he’s saving lives, being productive, getting paid. But under his roof? In his bed? 

That was the last straw.

Spencer's not one to wish ill on another, he's not like that. But if something happened to the guy, say, get injured in the field, perhaps from a "stray" bullet, he'd be intern-ally grateful. Heh. 

"Hey, you good?"

Spencer sighs, swiping a hand over his face and turning back to Luke. "Yeah, why?"

Luke waves a hand at his face, eyebrow raised, "For a second there, you kind of had a scary look on your face."

"Did I? Weird."

"Right," Clearly unconvinced, Luke brushes it off, deciding to get to the root of the matter. "As I was saying, I still think you have nothing to worry about. Although, I do think it's a little weird that (Your Name) is talking about Intern as much as you say they are." He offers Spencer a little smile, his hand falling heavy on his shoulder. It's the most comforting touch he's had in two weeks. "I'm not one to talk, but I suggest you speak to them. I'd also be uncomfortable if my partner were talking up someone else."

Spencer blinks, squints at Luke, before gripping his hand and standing up. "Have I ever told you how much I value your friendship?"

"You can stand to mention it more often," Luke shrugs, eyes crinkling with amusement as Spencer lets go and heads for the door. 

"Noted."

—

Spencer nearly goes feral when he finds you.

Of course you're with him.

He searched the floor like a bloodhound, discovering you've been on your feet almost the entire day, running around the office, up and down the elevators, finishing your work and helping around. You must be exhausted. It's because of this he tracks you to your favorite break room, mostly quiet save for the buzzing drip of the old coffeemaker. He knows you need to be alone sometimes, recharge those social batteries.

So when he bursts into the room like he would hunting an unsub, eyes quickly scanning the immediate space, he expects nothing less but you. What he did not anticipate was to find you, just as soft and pretty as ever under the fluorescent lighting, leaning against the counter and sipping daintily at your favorite mug. 

With Intern standing a little too close to his liking.

“Hey, Spencer,” You chirp as you lower your coffee mug, lips glossy from your drink. Spencer's quick to shake his stupor―he can’t afford to be distracted, but it’s difficult when you’re beaming at him, clearly excited. You nod at the home-wrecker, “Me and Intern here were just talking about demonology and he’s got this interesting theory on werewolves―" Lycanthropy? Are you fucking kidding him right now? 

Just when he thought he couldn't hate the guy any more.

"CanItalktoyou?" It comes out rushed as Spencer gasps between breaths, leaving no room to second guess himself.

"Sure," You blink at his urgent tone.

For a second, you watch him expectantly, and Spencer's gaze darts between you and Intern. "Alone?"

"Oh! Okay. Be gone," You wave Intern off, and when you place a hand on his shoulder, Spencer sees red. Or green in this case.

Intern doesn't resist, but the noise Spencer releases is animalistic because the guy can’t seem to read the room, questioning you as you gently shove him towards the door. "What about the thing―"

"We'll talk about that later."

"But you still need to show me how to―"

"Don't worry, Intern. Just wait for me, I'll show you once the adults are done talking."

"You know at some point you're gonna have to call me by my name." 

"Nah. If we get to call Luke a newbie, we get to call you Intern. Also I do not know how to say your first name."

 "You could just call me St―"

Enough of this. Spencer closes the last stretch of distance, batting your hand away from Intern’s shoulders as he kicks him out himself, slamming the door in his face. Spencer turns on his heel to face you, caging you both. “You―” He pants, chest heaving for air.

“Me?”

“You-him-we―”

You’re unfazed, simply nodding at him and his odd behavior. If anything, you’re enjoying this as your lips twitch in a poor attempt to withhold your amusement, trying to cover it with a slurp of your cup. Then again, it’s not everyday you get to see Spencer, face flushed from exertion, speechless as he gasps for breath.

(At least not at work… In the break room specifically.)

It takes a minute as Spencer swallows a few times, but his heart’s erratic and it’s not just from running through the entire building. When he’s got enough air, he blurts out, “Did I do something?”

Your brow shoots up. “What?”

“Did I forget something important? Upset you in some way?”

“No? I don’t think so?” You frown at him, your answers more like questions. 

It only spurs him on, and though his tone is frantic and his eyes just as wild as his hair, you’re more intrigued than frightened. Definitely confused.

“Okay, but you know I love you, right?”

“Yes and I love you too but Spence, what’s this about?" Setting down your mug, you look at him like he's grown another head.

Spencer sighs, "I just… you…" He frowns, glancing between you, the floor, and the empty space between you. 

Spencer Reid is a man of words. Many, many words, according to all his friends and his coworkers. Mainly knowledge―he's never been great with feelings―but as you gaze at him, patiently waiting for him to gather his thoughts, he wants to melt into the floor. There's not a hint of annoyance on your features, your eyes warm and inviting. 

He's so in love with you.

Then like scripture the words come, natural without much stuttering or hesitancy. He recounts the last two weeks. The internship so far, the times you've left Spencer behind for him, the times you just talked about him, like the guy (practically a stranger) is your new best friend. Usually, pretty people make him tongue-tied and you do―god, you do―but at the same time only you make it so easy. Talking, expressing without fear of―

"Pfft―"

―Judgement. Pausing mid-sentence, Spencer gawks as your nose twitches and your blink rate increases. You purse your lips, a hand slapped over your mouth as it threatens to break out into a grin.

"Are you-are you laughing right now?" When he just poured his feelings out to you? 

That does it. You keel over, peels of laughter coming like a tsunami, crashing into him and Spencer loves your laugh but not when it's at him. 

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing," you wheeze, gripping your stomach. Spencer pouts. There's even tears in your eyes. "But you're telling me this is all because you're jealous?"

He stutters, "Well-I-no-It’s just…" He wants to say ‘you're mine’, but as your eyes crinkle he knows there’s no need.

"That's kinda hot."

"Wha-really?" Wide-eyed, Spencer squeaks as you step closer to him, backing him into the door. His hands come up to his chest in a kitten-like manner yet at the same time protective―you'd never hurt him and you both know that―but you admit your initial reaction was poor when he laid his feelings bare. 

“Ahhhh Babe, you know there’s no one else for me but you.” Spencer blushes and you chuckle, taking his hands in yours. He let's you. “Also, as adorable as Intern is, one, I think I’d be able to tell if he was hitting on me, and two, he’s not really my type.”

Spencer swallows, “And what exactly is your type?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Looking him up and down, you step closer, enough that your breath puffs against his chin. You smell like cheap coffee. “Tall, handsome doctors with messy, brown hair―” You lightly tug at one of his stray curls and he bites back a smile. 

“―and a cute nose―” Your hand moves to cup his cheek, bringing him down to peck the tip of his nose. It scrunches as Spencer breaks out into giggles. 

“―Who can recite classic literature. Who can bake like he belongs on The Great British Baking Show but can’t cook for shi―”

“Okay! Thank you, I get it,” Spencer says, almost completely relaxed now.

“Good,” You nod with finality. “And for your information, I wasn’t trying to make you jealous."

He raises an eyebrow. "So you just abandoned me and talked about another guy for the hell of it?"

Spencer's tone is casual, joking even but you know better. There's underlying bitterness and hurt and your heart squeezes because you did that. "No, of course not. There is a reason behind all that.“

“What could possibly excuse you going above and beyond your job as a mentor―”

“I was trying to set you guys up.”

Spencer deadpans. “Set me up? With him?” Oh god, he knows you’re weird, but he’s never considered you to be outright insane (is it weird he still loves you?).

As if reading his thoughts, you roll your eyes, “Spencer, how many friends do you have outside the team?”

“Not a lot.” No hesitation, but he accepted the fact a long time ago. 

“Yeah and that’s okay. But if you’d talk to Intern, you’ll find you two have a lot in common. I know he’s younger than us, but he’s a good kid, real smart,” You give him a meaningful look and shrug, “Not like IQ 187 smart but he could definitely hold a conversation with you.”

Spencer murmurs, pulling you in so you're chest to chest, “This entire time, you were really trying to make us friends?”

You nod, your expression a mix of giddiness and hope that makes whatever feelings he felt before, the confusion and―yes, fine―the jealousy, dissolve like sugar in water. Spencer sinks into you, burying his face into the crook of your neck and inhaling your soap. Of course you had good intentions. Of course you wanted to do something nice for him.

Fuck, he loves you.

“So… we good?”

Spencer huffs, “I hope you realize how much I suffered the past few weeks.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Then yes, we’re good,” He mumbles into your shoulder, “I appreciate what you were trying to do.”

“And?”

His brow furrows and he pulls back, meeting your eyes. “And what?”

“Will you try to be friends?” You look at him expectantly.

Spencer opens his mouth to answer, a definitive no on his tongue, but then you’re giving him puppy-dog eyes and before he realizes it, “Okay.”

Wait, no. That is not what he meant to say.

“Yeah!” You throw your arms around him, and Spencer can’t stop you, grunting as you basically swing him around like a rag doll. But he finds he doesn’t care when you set him back down because you’re happy, happy for him, grinning ear to ear as you babble, “I can already tell you two are gonna be the best of friends! You guys have so much to talk about, all that nerdy stuff. Maybe even debate! And we could play chess and―”

There’s a knock and you both turn, a voice muffled by the door, “Hey, guys? I don’t want to interrupt in case you’re boning, but you didn’t exactly tell me where to wait for you? God, I hope you guys aren’t boning. Please tell me you’re not boning right now.”

You groan, “No Intern, we’re not boning! Right-uh-go ahead and meet me back at the office, I’ll be right with you.” You turn back to Spencer, sending him an apologetic look. “I will see you later, okay? And since you’ve been such a patient and understanding partner,” You plant him one last kiss before patting his cheek, and his eyes widen as your voice lowers in the way you know drives him crazy, your eyes glinting with mischief, “I’ll make it up to once we get home. Bye, love you!”

Before Spencer can fully register your words, you're out the door, cackling as you leave him to compose himself, his face beet red from running the possibilities. By the time he emerges from the break room, you’re long gone.

“Hi, Dr. Reid?”

Spencer almost snarls, cursing under his breath. Just when he thought the day was getting better. He turns back. 

Intern stands tall, relaxed and shoulders back, black tie loose and cheap white-collar button up slightly wrinkled. No doubt from working hard and following your instructions throughout the day. Spencer respects the work ethic at least. Meanwhile, the younger man eyes him, and he’s certain it’s not from intimidation but with curiosity.

Spencer doesn’t linger on that. He’s used to it, not being intimidating to others.

He continues, “It’s nice to finally talk to you, one on one I mean. I’m a fan of your work. Seven degrees, huh?”

“Yeah,” Spencer says curtly. Recalling the earlier conversation with you, he stamps down his irritation and tries to extend an olive branch. “How did you know?”

“It’s the internet, sir,” Intern raises an eyebrow, offering an innocent smile. 

“Right,” Spencer returns it with an awkward one of his own, “Hey, sorry for... literally kicking you out before. That was completely unprofessional.”

Intern waves him off, “No, it’s cool. I totally get it. I’m flattered, by the way.”

Spencer frowns. “Flattered?”

“Well, it’s not everyday you find out your superior’s jealous of you.”

Spencer blinks, and it takes all his experience as a profiler to mask his embarrassment. “You heard that.”

“The FBI’s got thin walls,” Intern shrugs and steps towards him. “Although I have to say, Agent (Your Last Name) is wrong about one thing.” Stopping short in front of him, for the first time Spencer is close enough to note the moles dotting his face. “They can’t tell that I’m flirting with them.” 

He starts down the hall after you, and Spencer’s eyes trail after him as his brow furrows, until realization slams into him and his jaw drops. “Wait, you...”

“Oh and since (Your Last Name) wants us to be friends, I think we could be on a first-name basis,” He pauses to look back at Spencer, watching with a crooked smile as the older man sputters. 

“So, you can call me Stiles, sir.”

Then once again, Spencer is left behind, frozen in the hallway as he processes what just happened.

And the next time he finds you and Special Agent Stilinski in the same room, whether it’s crowded or not, Spencer does not hesitate to cling to your side, putting as much distance between the intern and you as he can. Spencer’s grateful you don’t question it.

There may not be anyone else for you, but that doesn’t mean no one will try.

―

AN: ahhhhh thanks anon!! There was a similar request then i saw this tiktok (and listened to this tiktok the entire time) and i combined them. Id also like to emphasize that my version of reader is neutral across the board, race, gender, etc.

Yes, i have a type. No, i will not be taking criticism. 

Been hella overwhelmed with classes and work so here’s my way of destressing. Also suggest checking those tiktoks if you wanna understand me :))) also you mean to tell me i have to write the threesome myself?? Bs tbh 😔

watched 15x4 and i was so sad when Spencer addressed Luke as his coworker like no bitch hes your new bro stfu

and i have no doubt that stiles and spencer would be one of the best crossover duos given the chance 

[cqlfeels]

@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let's talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.

A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!

Let me start by briefly going through why I decided to write this, because it’s important. In haunting Meng Shi’s tag in my starvation for Meng Shi content, I’ve multiple times come across the idea that Meng Shi pushed Meng Yao too hard, that she should’ve been more careful with teaching him to seek his father’s approval at any cost, and that she was too naïve. I’ve never reblogged this kind of post because 1) I personally think it’s rude to go out of your way to ramble about how much you disagree with someone on their own post and 2) if this was an isolated incident I wouldn't care either way, so I didn’t want to direct this rant at anyone in particular. It’s more to do with a tendency, primarily (as far as I can tell) from fans who haven’t had much contact with Chinese culture, to oversimplify Meng Shi and make her relationship with Meng Yao slightly disturbing, and I think part of it is due to CQL basically cutting out her entire storyline (so fans simply don’t have info about her to assess her fairly) and part is due to misunderstanding what a good parent is supposed to act like in the context of Ancient China.

[Of course, Ancient China is not a very useful historical concept, not any more than “ye olde Europe” - things change a lot based on time and place - but you know. It’s fantasy. Extremely broad trends are okay in this case.]

Anyway, the idea behind the posts I mentioned is, basically, that Meng Shi (usually through no fault of her own) is to blame for Meng Yao’s obsession with power, since his desire for approval was inherited from lessons she taught him. Just to start with, I’d argue that Meng Yao isn’t power-hungry as much as he craves security and respect, but that’s a different meta. Let’s assume that she really did teach him to be Like That. Was she wrong to do so? I’m not looking for “does that make for a happy, well-adjusted childhood?” or “would you raise your own son as Meng Shi did?” - I’m trying to figure out, would she have been considered a bad mother in the context of the society she lived in? I don’t think she would’ve.

It is surprisingly hard to find texts about the obligations of parents in Ancient China. Their main obligation is to raise filial children, but I feel like that’s not very useful: whether or not parents are good parents, children are expected to be filial, so a child being filial really says more about the child than about the parent. Maybe the parent completely missed the mark and society at large was what taught the child to be filial!

We can assume, of course, that parents were to raise good people, and that by learning what a good person looked like, we could figure out whether the parent was successful, but once again, I feel like that’s pinning things on the outcome, not on the process - the best of parents can end up with an awful kid and vice versa.

While thinking about all this, it took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to remember the story of Mother Meng and Meng Zi, but once I did, it wouldn’t leave my mind - in part because the Meng here is the exact same Meng of Meng Shi and Meng Yao (yay! fun if useless parallel!), and in part because this is a story about how a woman can successfully raise a son by herself.

Okay, so important note: one of the most influential ancient Chinese thinkers is Meng Zi (孟子 Mèng Zǐ), who is known in the West as Mencius. If you've never heard of him - he's perhaps second in importance only to Confucius. When Mencius was still a young child, his father died, so he was raised by his mother, who is usually known only as Mother Meng (in Chinese, 孟母 Mèng Mǔ.)

Mother Meng's story is told in Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳 Liènǚ Zhuàn), which for around 2000 years beginning around the 18th century BCE, was the most commonly used book used to educate women. The book is divided into sections, each one showing a different way women could be honorable and good. Mother Meng's story is told in the Maternal Models section (母儀傳 Mǔ Yí Zhuàn.) The story has a few parts, some of which I'll quote, always from Kinney's 2014 translation.

Before I go on to quote it, though, I'd like to establish that Mother Meng's story is so, so famous that even if Meng Shi had never read this particular book, I'm almost certain she would've been familiar with at least the outlines of Mother Meng's story. I'm not cherry picking a suitable chapter from the book, I'm literally going with the most famous story in it because Meng Shi would be most likely to know this one if she knew no other story.

Okay, the first part of the tale takes place when Mencius is a young boy and Mother Meng is a widow raising him.

The mother of Meng Ke of Zou [a different name for Mencius] was called Mother Meng. She lived near a graveyard. During Mencius’ youth, he enjoyed playing among the tombs, romping about pretending to prepare the ground for burials. Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son.” She therefore moved away and settled beside the marketplace. But there he liked to play at displaying and selling wares like a merchant. Again Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son,” and once more left and settled beside a school. There, however, he played at setting out sacrificial vessels, bowing, yielding, entering, and withdrawing. His mother said, “This, indeed, is where I can raise my son!” and settled there. When Mencius grew up, he studied the Six Arts, and finally became known as a great classicist. A man of discernment would say, “Mother Meng was good at gradual transformation.”

According to the translator's footnote, "gradual transformation" is "a childrearing technique, whereby a child is morally formed through daily exposure to correct models of behavior."

From this story comes the proverb 孟母三遷 (Mèng Mǔ sān qiān) - "Mother Meng moved three times." It's come to mean that a parent - especially the mother of a male child - should spare no efforts to provide an environment that will give their child a good education, paying particular attention to what models are surrounding them.

I'm sure I don't need to say if Meng Shi was at all familiar with this proverb (and she would probably be), she must have been very stressed out over literally raising her son in a brothel. (Here I must mention sex workers in ancient China were often essentially owned by the brothels, so literally "moving three times" wasn't really an option for Meng Shi even if she could miraculously pick up another trade.) Meng Shi did however at least try to surround Meng Yao with the accomplishments appropriate for the son of a cultivator:

Xiao-Meng, are you still learning those things lately? [...] The things your mom wants you to learn, things like calligraphy, etiquette, swordsmanship, meditation… How are those things going? [...] His mom’s raising him as a young master of a wealthy family. She taught him how to read and write, bought him all those swordsmanship pamphlets, and even wants to send him to school.

Meng Yao actually talks a little bit about “those swordsmanship pamphlets” in the only time in canon he directly shares memories about this mother:

Lan XiChen, “Your [guqin] skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?”

Jin GuangYao, “No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice.”

Lan XiChen seemed surprised, “Sword and cultivation guides?”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, you haven’t seen them before, have you? Those small booklets sold by the common folk. First jumbled sketches of human figures, then deliberately mystified captions.”

Lan XiChen shook his head, smiling. Jin GuangYao shook his head as well, “All of them are scams, especially to fool women like my mother and ignorant children. You won’t lose anything by practicing them, but you definitely won’t gain anything either.”

He sighed in a rueful way, “But how could my mother have known this? She bought them no matter how expensive they were, saying that if I returned to see my father in the future, I had to see him with as much competence as possible so that I don’t fall behind. All of the money was spent on this.”

See what’s happening? Meng Shi cannot physically take Meng Yao to cultivators, but she spares no efforts in giving him the closest thing she possibly can -- figuratively, we might say she moved three times.

Of course, these booklets don’t work, but as Meng Yao says, how could she have known this? The cultivation world is very closed off - think of how the entire Mo household gathers to see Lan juniors, and how Wei Wuxian mentions once that “Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.” Not just noble, but mysterious. That tracks, too - I mean, they live in inaccessible households and mostly leave to night hunt or visit each other, neither of which is an activity that would allow commoners to get much more than an occasional glimpse of them.

Now, if Meng Shi doesn’t even know that a pearl for Jin Guangshan was just a trinket, if she doesn’t know even the wealth of a major sect, how can she read booklets and decide whether that’s genuine cultivation or not? All that she sees is a chance for Meng Yao to be surrounded by the ideas and skills of the people she wants him to emulate - cultivators - and therefore she does everything she can to get him that chance. Mother Meng moved three times.

Okay, but maybe the argument is not “Meng Shi shouldn’t have pushed Meng Yao to cultivation” but rather “she should’ve pushed him, just not too hard." To that, I present another tale from Mencius' childhood:

Once, when Mencius was young, he returned home after finishing his lessons and found his mother spinning. She asked him, “How far did you get in your studies today?” Mencius replied, “I’m in about the same place as I was before.” Mother Meng thereupon took up a knife and cut her weaving. Mencius was alarmed and asked her to explain. Mother Meng said, “Your abandoning your study is like my cutting this weaving. A man of discernment studies in order to establish a name and inquires to become broadly knowledgeable. By this means, when he is at rest, he can maintain tranquility and when he is active, he can keep trouble at a distance. If now you abandon your studies, you will not escape a life of menial servitude and will lack the means to keep yourself from misfortune. How is this different from weaving and spinning to eat? If one abandons these tasks midway, how can one clothe one’s husband and child and avoid being perpetually short of food? If a woman abandons that with which she nourishes others and a man is careless about cultivating his virtue, if they don’t become brigands or thieves, then they will end up as slaves or servants.” Mencius was afraid. Morning and evening he studied hard without ceasing. He served Zisi [a great scholar whose grandfather was Confucius] as his teacher and then became one of the most renowned classicists in the world.

Notice that Mother Meng moved three times to ensure Mencius would have the highest of aspirations - to become a scholar. But just aspiration isn’t enough. Not by any means. Now that Mencius is actually studying, Mother Meng is willing to take an extreme action to ensure he's taking it seriously. Mencius doesn't have a father to smooth his path to success. He has to learn that aspiring to greatness isn't enough. He'll have to put in the effort as if his life depended on it. And if he doesn't persist in his hard work, everything he's done thus far will be useless. Sounds like a lesson imparted on young Meng Yao, doesn’t it?

A lot of fandom rage towards Meng Shi would apply to China's Best Mom Contender, Mother Meng. She gives her son big dreams, and teaches him how to go about achieving them in a society where failing is easier than succeeding. Yes, it's fair to say that Meng Shi taught Meng Yao to refuse to settle for anything less than being “Jin Guangshan's son, a respected cultivator.” Yes, it's also fair to say that she probably didn't allow him much time to play like children his age did. But unfortunately, in the world of MDZS, poor children probably wouldn't get to play anyhow, the difference is that they'd usually be working, not studying. Studying is a privilege! It’s a privilege Meng Yao could not afford but was given to him anyway, through his mother’s many sacrifices. We can even say that while she was alive, Meng Shi was trying to ensure Meng Yao would one day have a better life, at the expense of a fun childhood - and that's very Mother Meng of her, whatever our modern Western sensibilities might have to say about that.

Finally, I’d skip other tales (which show Mother Meng and an adult Mencius) and go straight to the poem that ends the Mother Meng section:

The mother of Mencius

Was able to teach, transform, judge, and discriminate.

With skill she selected a place to raise her son,

Prompting him to accord with the great principles.

When her son’s studies did not advance,

She cut her weaving to illustrate her point.

Her son then perfected his virtue;

His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.

I’d like to focus on the last verse - “His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.” All that Mother Meng wanted was for Mencius to not completely ruin his life, but he became great. You can so very easily see a parallel with how Meng Shi hoped Meng Yao would be a cultivator but he became Jin Guangyao, Chief Cultivator, styled Lianfang-zun, one of the Three Venerable, hero of the Sunshot Campaign.

Of course you can say “Jin Guangyao did many Very Wrong Things to get there, though!” Which, sure, okay, fair point. How many and how wrong depends on which canon we're discussing, and your own interpretation, but there’s no version of the story in which Jin Guangyao is 100% an innocent child uwu. But blaming that on Meng Shi is just... straight up weird? I don’t see anyone going “If Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted Wei Wuxian, he’d never have dared become Yiling Laozu!” and that’s pretty much the same logic. Would street kid Wei Wuxian have invented a new type of cultivation if he had never been taken in by the Jiang? Probably not, but raising undead armies is very much not something Jiang Fengmian could’ve predicted. In the same way, how could Meng Shi have predicted that teaching her pre-adolescent son “You are the son of a cultivator, act like one and earn your place in society” would’ve ultimately resulted in innocent deaths? How could she predict “You’re not destined to having the same horrible life I did, you can get something better than this” was a bad thing to teach? I quite honestly don’t know.

Finally, I'd like to point towards a much flimsier evidence that Meng Shi did great as a parent. And that is Meng Yao’s love. Nie Huaisang at some point comments Meng Shi is someone who Meng Yao "cherishes more than his life," and I think his assessment is correct.

Even putting aside the fact he built a whole temple to get his mother to reincarnate into a better life, and even putting aside how he refuses to flee the country without her remains, there's still crystal clear evidence that Meng Shi must've done something right. Because a lifetime of people using his mother to bully him doesn't seem to have made Meng Yao resent her. Had their relationship not have been very strong, odds are he'd feel bitter and/or ashamed of her. That doesn't seem to be the case. He's attached to her even decades after her death.

I want to be very careful with equating mutual affection with good parenting, though. When I was a rather rebellious teenager, my mother (in typical Chinese fashion) used to say that parents and children don't have to love each other as long as they're dutiful to each other, by which she meant that a parent-child relationship isn't informed by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by whether you'd be willing to do anything for each other. Specific to my case, she meant "I don't care if it makes you hate me, you will do as you're told because that's what's best for you." (That may also be the reason why people more familiar with Chinese culture see the Jiang family less as outright abusive and more as #complicated, but that's another meta.)

Whether your kid wants to hug you every time they see you is of no consequence to traditional Chinese thought - raising them to be the best they can is all that matters, because at the end of the day, you won't be around forever, but you can definitely set up your kid's life so that it goes smoothly and virtuously. How that's accomplished varies depending on many factors, but to have the goal be "I want my child to love me" rather than "I want to raise my child right" would've been considered selfish as hell.

So even if all that Meng Shi had given Meng Yao had been stern lessons about the need to go get his birthright, she would've still have been considered a good mother!! In fact, she would've been doing everything she was supposed to do, under extremely difficult conditions! (Remember the importance of environment? That Meng Yao grew up to want to be a cultivator despite having probably never even met one speaks wonders about Meng Shi's childrearing powers!!)

But just based off how over the top Meng Yao's filal dutifulness is, I'd go a step further and say that even as she did the impossible, she was also loving enough to inspire genuine affection. This is complicated because children who have present fathers could expect their mothers to be tender with them. The first century BCE text 禮記 Lǐ Jì or The Classic of Rites says that:

Here now is the affection of a father for his sons - he loves the worthy among them, and places on a lower level those who do not show ability; but that of a mother for them is such, that while she loves the worthy, she pities those who do not show ability - the mother deals with them on the ground of affection and not of showing them honour; the father, on the ground of showing them honour and not of affection.

But when the father figure is lacking for any reason, the mother must abandon her tenderness because someone must guide the child, and without a father, the role falls to the mother. A single or widowed mother had to be very careful to not smother their children with affection and raise useless, spoiled kids, or so it was thought. (The presence of Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is why Madame Lan can be so affectionate with the Lan boys, by the way - if she was raising them by herself she would've been expected to be much more practical. AUs where she just gets her kids and runs away could do very cool things with this idea. But I digress!)

Where was I? Oh, okay. Because Meng Yao seems to not just respect, but actively miss her, it seems that Meng Shi somehow managed to deal with her son on the ground of both honor and affection, to paraphrase.

So basically, all things considered, it seems not only would Meng Shi have been considered a great mom (if people could look past her being a prostitute, anyway) but she also went above and beyond the bare minimum. She truly spared no efforts on any front to make sure her son had everything your average gongzi would have - someone to teach him and someone to love him, access to education and confidence in his birthright. That she couldn't actually make him a cultivator, that she couldn't actually raise him in a proper home with no one being cruel to herself or him - that's immaterial. Even Mother Meng couldn't control what her neighbors did, only what she taught her son! The key point is Meng Shi tried. She did everything she could to educate her son right. You couldn't ask more of her, and quite honestly, you should probably be asking less.

Of course we can't err on the other extreme and say she was Perfect. Given MXTX only ever writes flawed characters, we can safely assume that if we'd known more about Meng Shi, we would've seen many flaws. Indeed, just the fact she didn't teach Meng Yao the guqin when he apparently wanted to learn it might point to some conflict we don't know enough to speculate about (maybe she focused too much on cultivation when Meng Yao's interests lay elsewhere? Maybe she wasn't able to sufficiently shelter him and he felt it'd be a burden to ask her to teach him anything? Maybe maybe maybe, go wild with your fics.) Nevertheless, I would never hold a female character to a higher ideal than a male character - if the male cast of MDZS can be a hot mess and still be admirable for what they're trying to do, then so can Meng Shi.

At the end of the day, when I look at Meng Shi - and I've made myself a document with all the references to her in the novel canon so I could easily contemplate her life and character - all I see is a woman every bit as determined and resourceful as her son, willing to do everything it took to raise her little boy into the sophisticated and ambitious man he became.

Finally, here's a fun little parallel that I'm 100% sure was unintentional but I still love. I said Meng Shi couldn't have moved three times. She couldn't, but I think maybe she taught her son he was worth moving three times for. Qinghe Nie. Qishan Wen. Lanling Jin. Isn't that super fun to think about?

Alternatively, tl;dr: Oh My God I Can't Believe We're Blaming Women For The Actions Of Their Adult Children In The Year Of Our Lord 2k21, Meng Shi Was Doing Her Best, Chill!

[that-blue-vault-dweller]

Can you write about the various activities the SS does with each of the companions?

I was a little worried about this one, but I tried! Hopefully it's good! 🥰 Thank you for the request! 💙💛

Cait - If F!Sole drinks, then they go drinking together and get into the biggest bar fights ever. But if F!Sole is not the type to drink, then they are both perfectly happy with spending time in silence together as they each do their own thing. However, F!Sole also works with her and teaches her how to add mods to her weapons. They are currently working on an upgraded baseball bat for Cait to use in combat, and Cait is both frustrated with the process as well as thrilled with how awesome the bat is and will be.

Piper - Helps her proofread and brainstorm for different articles. (If F!Sole is according to canon) Her time in law school really helps with refining Piper's grammar and punctuation. They also people-watch together and make up funny backstories and names for the people they see. They can spend hours in Diamond City and Goodneighbor whispering amongst themselves and giggling like madwomen and at the same time trying to look innocent. They also spend quite a bit of time discussing things from the old world with Piper eagerly taking notes as F!Sole answers any and all questions the reporter may have.

Curie - F!Sole usually goes out scavenging with her to look for various things to experiment with. Most of it consists of mole rat teeth and bloatfly glands, and F!Sole loves to listen to what Curie is doing in her work. F!Sole oftentimes helps her with the experiments, and even when their efforts blow up in their faces (sometimes literally) they have a good laugh and debate about how to avoid the mistake next time.

MacCready - They work together oiling and polishing each other's guns. They also go out hunting together since they both have great aim and good eyes for spotting creatures moving in the bushes and grass. They also like to talk about their kids (providing that F!Sole kept the robot Shaun) and they spend a lot of time scheduling play dates for the boys.

Deacon - They like to disguise themselves in plain sight and see if the other companions recognize them. They also have absolutely zero reservations about pranking anyone nearby. Their most favorite target of all is Glory because although it is rare that they ever successfully prank her, it is very rewarding when they do due to her very gratifying reaction.

Codsworth - They oftentimes work together to repair things around Sanctuary Hills. He will happily hand her tools and offer assistance if she cannot quite reach something or is not quite strong enough to get it into place. They also happily recount stories from their time together before the bombs and they sometimes speculate about what life would have been like if the bombs never happened.

Hancock - If she is into chems, they get high together. If she is not into chems, then they like to go and make some people uncomfortable in Diamond City. (Post-McDonough-synth-reveal) Now that McDonough is no longer mayor, they have nothing stopping them anymore. They take a particular pleasure in striking up conversations with the higher-class citizens just to shake them in their hoity-toity attitudes.

Danse - They work on power armor together. It seems a little obvious, but they both genuinely love to give one another pointers about mods and help one another through issues and snags with the armor. They are currently trying to build the most fortified, safest, most invincible power armor that they both can possibly piece together.

Preston - They love to go out and take walks through the woods near Sanctuary Hills. They are always armed just in case something goes wrong, but overall, it is just a relaxing look at nature as they talk about anything and everything. It is a really nice way for both of them to wind down and calm themselves from the stress of running the Minutemen and helping so many people.

Valentine - They love to share stories of the old days and experience all of the nostalgia. They also work out detective cases together and with their astute minds put together, they sack the bad guys almost every time. They also like to look into old cases before the war and dive deep into all of the potential motives of the criminals that did it.

X6-88 - They usually do target practice together, and work on one another's aim. He gives her recommendations for improvement and she wastes no time in utilizing them, becoming almost as fast and strong in a gunfight as the courser himself. Of course, whenever he screws up (which is extremely rare) she wastes no time in teasing him a little. After all, he gives her pure heck when she messes up.

Dogmeat - F!Sole loves to play fetch with him and they can go for a while with that. They also play hide and seek. She tells him to stay and then runs away and hides. She then calls for him, and runs around, looking for her everywhere. When he finally finds her, he barks excitedly and she runs from him, the game evolving into tag as they run.

Strong - They have made up a game where they each challenge each other to lift different things. F!Sole almost always loses, but Strong has a good time boasting and picking up things. F!Sole enjoys seeing him happy rather than his usual grumpy self, so she is more than happy to take a few "puny human" comments for the opportunity to bond with Strong.

[babypandawrites]

Don’t Care

Pairing: Team Avatar & GN Reader  Warnings: Death Mention & S2 Spoilers Word Count: 1,031 Summary: After joining Team Avatar, you have a hard time getting on the good side of a certain boomerang loving Water Tribe boy. 

-Navigation- | -Atla Masterlist- 

Sokka did not like you. 

He made that very clear from the moment you joined ‘Team Avatar’.

You couldn’t really blame him, seeing as you joined Prince Zuko in his journey to hunt down Aang for the past year. As much as you disliked doing it, your loyalties have always lied with Zuko. When you were a child, despite the fact your father was named a traitor to the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Azulon saw promise in you and allowed you to stay. You stayed at the royal palace and trained alongside the young Prince and Princess. Though you were young, you were established as a sort of bodyguard to the siblings. 

When Zuko was banished, you were told to go with him. Less so because of your protector status and more so of the fact Ozai just didn’t like you being around at all. You liked to think it was because he felt threatened by a child, but you were unaware of the true reason.  Then when Azula took on hunting down the Avatar, she recruited you to help her rather than help her brother. You had no right to say no, seeing as your loyalties were also meant to stand with her. 

Long story short- but not really -you’ve caused a lot of problems for the rag tag group of kids. 

It was really quite the surprise when Toph and Katara vouched for you at Sokka’s refusal to let you come with them after the situation in Ba Sing Se. Toph used her… interesting sense to tell the truth to vouch you were a genuine person when you said you wanted to help, and Katara noted how you tried to stop Azula from killing Aang.  He wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t stop you from climbing atop Appa with them, nor did he try to throw you off the bison. Which you had been pretty sure he was going to do. 

You were thankful he didn’t. 

It didn’t take long for you to become friends with Toph after joining the team. She seemed to be pretty understanding of you, and didn’t have anywhere near the same problems with you Katara and Sokka did. She could sympathize with the fact that you never felt like you could be yourself because of where you lived, how you were raised. Apparently she’d been the same. It was nice to know there was someone else who understood.  “Going against them to help us, even though you’d always been told to be loyal to them- Was pretty cool of you.” The young earthbender punched you in the arm shortly after speaking and quickly added, “If you ever tell anyone I said that, I’ll bury you once we get off this boat.” 

Getting along with Katara took a little longer, however.  “Just because I vouched for you, doesn’t mean I like you.” The waterbender had commented one day, when you told her good morning.  “That’s fair.”  She seemed to be shocked but how much you didn’t care, you guess it surprised her that you didn’t really mind if they didn’t like you.  When she questioned you about it one day, you’d shrugged your shoulders. “I figured you guys would treat me worse.” Was all you offered. Something about that sentence made her feel bad about you it seemed, and once she’d forgiven you for the pretty terrible things you did, the two of you became fast friends. 

Sokka on the other hand, just wouldn’t budge. He was extremely stubborn on the matter. Whenever you greeted him in the mornings, you were met with silence. It was obvious he didn’t have any interest in talking to you, so after a little while you eventually gave up on it. You decided to wait until he came to you, if ever. You kind of doubted he would but, there was no point in trying to force it.  It caught you off guard, when he leaned against the boat railing next to you, after everyone hijacked one of the Fire Nation’s ships.  “Thanks.” Was all he said, after a long moment of silence, before leaving again.  You weren’t entirely sure what he was thanking you for, but you’d take it. It wasn’t a lot, but it was still improvement. 

After Aang woke up, saying he was shocked to see you there was an understatement. If not for his injuries, he would have attacked you. He’d been pretty quick to accept you onto the team after the others explained things to him. At one point you offered to teach him firebending, knowing he had to learn, but he’d turned you away.  “I hurt Katara the first time I tried to firebend… I promised myself I’d never learn. I don’t want to hurt anyone again.”  You’d nodded in understanding. “Let me know if you ever change your mind, kid.”  He thought it was funny that you called him kid, when you’re only a few years older than him. Two, to be exact. 

Safe to say, excluding Sokka, you got along pretty well with Team Avatar. You found quickly they were much better to hang out with than Zuko and Azula- No offense to the Prince. Even if you didn’t particularly approve of his decisions, he was still your best friend. 

One night, in the Fire Nation cave the group currently inhabited, you’d sat by yourself off to the side. Even if most of them we’re fine with you, part of you felt like you still didn’t belong. Probably the part of you that wished Sokka wouldn’t hate you so much.  “Are you going to come eat with us, or mope over here all night?”  Speak of the devil, and he will appear.  You looked up at Sokka in shock, as he held a hand out to help you up. You’d honestly thought he would pull his hand away at the last moment, pulling some kind of prank on you, but he didn’t. He actually grasped onto your hand and pulled you off the ground.  You didn’t know what made him change his mind about you, but as you sat down between him and Aang, you decided you didn’t really care.

[hiswhiteknight]

Unbelievably Outlandish– Part 10

Summary:  Before starting down a new crossroads, the Reader goes onto an adventure of literary traveling. Suddenly tossed into an unbelievable story that has swept the world, The Outlander Series itself. How will a twenty first century woman survive?

Note: I own no characters, except reader, clearly this is based off the lovely book series Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and tv show. This follows more the tv show, but it’s far from accurate. I’m going to try to get better with using less proper English, but who knows maybe I’ll get into Scottish slang.

Pairing: Jamie Fraser x Female Reader 

Words: 1400

Warning: Angst, playfulness, cursing, slow start, obvious fighting and violence, mention of suicide

*I’ll be honest, this chapter is more of a fuller, substance chapter. If you wanted to be added to the tag list, please send me a message or chat. Thank you for everyone’s patience!

The hunt still left you plenty in your thoughts. It should be on helping in whatever way you can, but you kept thinking on your role here and how you clearly will never belong, no matter how to try to be kind and open to the culture, no matter how much you push away your own values and morals for these people. It will never matter. Rupert yelled your name, catching your attention. A man got hurt and you help mend what you can before instructing Rupert to bring him back to the village. Another scream, a different type of scream caused you to be pulled from you own thoughts of now and into the times of wartime. You charge to the scream, you found a man losing blood quickly, and a shot pulled you from your thoughts. The boar that did this must have been shot, “Mistress Y/L/N, am I going to die?”

 All the pressure and anger you felt subsided, “Hold of Geordie, let me look at you,” several clansmen surrounded you. Dougal showed up to hold Geordie as you tried to patch up his leg. Dougal and him were exchanging words when you saw the wounds to his abdomen. Dougal made eye contact with you and you knew he knew what you were saying. You pulled off the tourniquet, and grabbed his hand, “Geordie, the pain is going to be go soon, but while we wait, I have a bet with Angus.” Geordie looked at you the way many men have looked at you before in the Marine. You had to bring him peace in the time of his panic, “I bet Angus that the colonies had more beautiful sites than Scotland. Tell me about your home, what’s it like?”

 Georgie perked up as he told you about his home and you gripped his hand with all your might and continue to stroke his hair to help sooth him. And soon he was gone, you quickly got up and made your way to your horse. Before you knew what you were doing, you made your way to the castle. You needed some busy work, like stitching up the leg of the man who was also attacked by the boar. Afterwards, you walked outside to see the men playing field hockey, which you played for a few years in high school. This was far more barbaric, and you could see Dougal taking his rage out on Jamie. He could cope in anger, but if you did this, you would be gutted.

 You wondered who would win in a fight and you had no doubt Jamie would win. When you saw Dougal on the ground, a young girl from one of your lessons tugged on your arm, “Well hello Molly dear, you enjoying the gathering?” There is no reason to take your rage on children, they didn’t do anything wrong. Honestly, teaching them defense things and survival tactics was the most time you felt at peace, well except when you were with – never mind that thought.

 “Aye mistress, very much,” you smile down at her, “I heard about your ill-wish and I know who made it. They did not know it was intended for you when they gave it to the girl.”

Guilt hit your chest again, someone was scared you were going to hurt them for being an accomplice. You were letting the harshness of one person hurt your relationship with the majority, “You know who put it under my bed?”

 “Aye mistress,” she whispered, “You wouldn’t be telling my mother, would you? She wouldn’t be wanting me to get into others business.”

 You bent down to her level, “Tell you what,” you pull out your coin bag with most of the money you made for yourself while staying here – your escape money, “I’ll tell your mother you helped me collect supplies for the gathering, which is why I paid you all this. And you tell me who put it under my bed?”

 “Mistress, I don’t need your money. Girls aren’t allowed to learn the things you are teaching. You don’t deserve any ill-wishes. You’re lovely,” you smile up at her.

 You pass her the bag, “You’ve earned it dear, I keep my word. Give me the name and the money is yours.”

 “Laoghaire,” she whispered. You shot up, looking around completely shocked.

 “Alrighty lass,” you pat her on the shoulder, “If you don’t mind, I have business to take care of.”

 “Be careful, please,” she urged after you.

 You had a hyper focus again, you intended to kick her ass, like you reported. And you found her socializing where most of the clan put up tent for the gathering. You passed Murtagh and Jamie, taking off your sling bag off and your dagger from your waistband and handed it to one of them, “Murtagh, could you mind this for me?”

 “I’m not your errand boy, lass, and where you going that you won’t need this,” he questioned.

 “You’re a pretty face, Murtagh, you ask too many questions,” you sass to him, looking at your target. Jamie and him stopped leaning on a post, both putting their drinks down. They could clearly tell you mean business. “Hey, Laoghaire, you two faced, toxic bitch, I got your gift earlier and I would like show you my appreciation.”

 She had the audacity to give you a glare, before she realized she was in real danger. She started to step backwards, and the crowd started to grow around you as you moved closer to the girl, “Leave me alone, wench.”

 “Oh, you do have words now that you can use. I thought you might be too stupid to speak up and say something since you chose to instead use this voodoo bullshit to get at me. You want to bring me pain lady, let’s go at it,” you finally were within three feet of her. Before you could make a grab at her, she ran in another direction.

 You were about to put your running skills to work, when Murtagh gripped your arm, “Come on lass, you made your point let’s get you back to the surgery.”

 “You know what, I’m a little busy right now. But I’ll meet you in the kitchen in a few, we can have some tea to cleanse our spirit, la de da and all,” you keep her in your eye sights. You were about to start your chase when you were tossed over a shoulder. Murtagh was carrying you back as you banged on his back. You were mad in this moment because you gave your dagger away to this meathead or he would have suffered from a few, no lethal jabs. He dropped you in the surgery room, “Damn it, Murtagh what the hell is wrong with you?”

 “With me, you were about to put a big target on your back. You’re a guest here lass, they don’t take too kindly to guests attacking one of their kin,” he leaned against the counter.

 You started to cry, and you usually do not cry, “Does it mean nothing I didn’t start it? Her action deserves a consequence. I watch all men here fight over nothing and here I am fighting against an injustice and my life is at danger. Do I not matter to anyone where? Should I just go to the tallest tower and jump?”

 “Don’t be so dramatic, an ill wish is nothing,” he urged to you. He didn’t seem too phased by the fact you were crying, though he did soften his voice to show sympathy, “I know you don’t believe any of nonsense. You are a smart woman.” You started to toss things about the surgery, organizing all the stuff you brought out for the hunt. Murtagh walked over to you and stopped you by gripping the top of both your arms, “Y/N, you matter more than you know. Stop this behavior, you’ll get accustomed.”

 “Murtagh, why do I always have to be the one to change? What do I have to do to feel like I belong here, how long will it take for people to believe I’m not an outsider?”

 He took a deep breath again, “I know it doesn’t seem it now and I don’t know how, but you do belong here. It’ll come in time. Until then, stop picking fights.”

 “Yes father,” you rolled your eyes, “Where is Jamie, I assume he has my bags and things?”

 “Aye, right now he is taken care of Laoghaire, so you needed be worrying about her anymore,” he said, making his way to the stairs.

 “Unless he has killed her and hid the body, I’ll keep to worry about her and her no good deeds, thank you,” you shouted at him. “And make sure Jamie brings back my things sooner rather than later.”

 And before Jamie could drop off your things, Dougal Mackenzie came down to share you would be journeying out to collect rent from the clan who wasn’t able to make it.

PART 11

 Taglist:  @doctorwhatwhenandwhere @damnedandbroken @blushingpogue @blancastans @slytherinambitious @kinky-asher @lovesanimals @bilesxbilinskixlahey

[thetravelerwrites]

Dr. Mael Halvorg (Part 2)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationship: Male Part Fae/Female Part Fae Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Fae, Naga, Reader Insert, Anthropology, Genetics Content Warnings: Children, Pregnancy, Incubation, Infertility, Birth, Oviposition, Egg-Laying Words:

Commissioned by @ivymemnoch​! The reader and Dr. Halvorg discuss his lingering infertility problem. Amai lays her final clutch of eggs. Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist

“Good morning, class!” You said on the first day.

“Good morning!” Fourteen bright voices responded.

All of the children except for baby Yenu were sitting on their tails behind desks in a room that had been set up as a classroom by the staff.

“So, every day each week we’re going to work on a different subject,” You began. “Mondays are reading and language comprehension, Tuesdays are maths and sciences, Wednesdays are social studies and economics, Thursdays are geography and history, Fridays are fun days with arts, crafting, music, and educational games. Today is Monday, so we’re going to start with reading. You should each have a workbook appropriate to your developmental level in your desks, so please take out your reading workbooks.”

As the children shuffled and searched for the right book, Dr. Halvorg stepped inside the classroom with a clipboard. You raised an eyebrow.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I’m observing the children in a school setting to see how they adapt,” He replied.

You narrowed your eyes at him. “And I’m also assuming how I teach, correct?”

He dipped his head sheepishly. “I was curious. And it’s for my research.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Mm.” You turned back to your students and fell into your teacher’s voice. “Keenai, if you would begin reading the first sentence, please?”

Keenai picked up his workbook and started reading. “The small dog lives in a red house.”

“Can you tell me which of these words are verbs?”

“Um…” He looked at the sentence, frowning.

“To remind you, a verb is an action word, something someone does.”

“Uh… lived?” He replied slowly.

“Very good.” You said, and he smiled in relief. “Tani, you’re next. Read the next sentence in your book.”

“The red house was built on a wed… wedeness…”

“Wednesday,” You said. “That’s a hard word, I know. Can you tell me what the noun is in that sentence?”

“House?”

“Good! A noun is a person, a place, or a thing. I’m a noun, you’re a noun, the room we’re in is a noun.”

“Is Nenish a noun?” Jinsa asked.

“Yes.”

“Ha ha, you’re a noun!” Jinsa said, pointing at Nenish.

“So are you!” Nenish interjected.

“Hey, hey! Settle down, please!” You called over them, sitting on the edge of your desk. “Fuma, you next.”

Fuma read from his book, and then Amaia. Next, you went down the line of the four-year-olds, having them read a sentence and find colors, shapes, numbers, or sounds in the sentences. The three-year-olds were next, and they simply read small sentences. You then had the one-year-olds spell and say three-letter words.

Their quick development was normal for nagas, as they tended to age quickly until they hit puberty, when their aging progress slowed to accommodate for yearly hibernation, but it was also startling in conjunction with the developmental levels of similar creatures. You had never studied the advancements of a species’ young so closely before, and you had to admit, it was fascinating. You could see why Dr. Halvorg found it so interesting.

You set the children writing tasks appropriate to their learning level and took a moment to talk to Dr. Halvorg, who was scribbling quickly in a notebook.

“They have computers now that you can write on, you know,” You told him, amused.

He looked up over his glasses at you and quirked an eyebrow. “I am aware of that, thank you. I’m not quite so old-fashioned as I seem, regardless of what Amai might tell you.” He looked back down and continued scribbling. “I’m a chronic note-taker. A bad habit I can’t seem to break, though with my profession, it’s often a strength rather than a weakness.”

“Hmm,” You hummed. “And what do your notes say about my teaching?”

“Adequate,” He replied, still scribbling. “Don’t misunderstand, that’s not a criticism. I hold everyone to an extremely high standard. If you hadn’t met expectations, I would have dismissed you.”

“So I meet your expectations?” You asked sardonically.

“At the moment,” He said, snapping his book closed and standing up. “I still want to observe your other classes before I’m completely satisfied.”

“Hmm,” You said again.

True to his word, Halvorg attended every class that week, observing you interacting with the children. Other than a question or two about your future curriculum, he stayed quiet. At the end of the week, he asked that you submit a weekly progress report until you either found a replacement or were dismissed.

It seemed excessive to you, and you were beginning to wonder if he still saw the children as an experiment. He seemed to care about them, but how much of that was genuine and how much of it was his own self-interest? You were starting to feel leery of and disconcerted by him.

Perhaps he picked up on this, because he seemed to go out of his way to avoid you. He had you direct all of your questions and reports to his assistant and rarely picked up his phone. Any conversations were brief and succinct. He did send you notes on your curriculum, making suggestions for each child. If you weren’t already suspicious of his motives, you might almost have though it sweet.

“I think Halvorg is avoiding me,” You told Amai when the two of you went to lunch together. Now that the two of you could hang out after all the years, you made it a point to set time aside for each other and had lunch at least once a week.

“What makes you say that?” Amai asked, drizzling dressing over her starter salad.

“Ever since he watched me teach classes, he’s barely spoken to me. He seemed excited to exchange research notes when I first arrived, but now he seems to have no interest in speaking to me since he finished observing class.”

“He could just be busy,” Amai suggested. “The four year old’s birthdays are coming up. He always does something special for the kids on their birthdays.”

“Are you concerned that he only sees your children as test subjects?” You asked her. “He seems obsessed with them.”

Amai laughed. “I thought that way in the early days, but he genuinely loves kids. If anything ever happened to me or Yenuno, I’m confident Halvorg would take care of them.” She took a sip of her mineral water. “Are you coming to the kids party? You’re invited, obviously.”

“Will there be clowns? I hate clowns.”

She snorted. “Nothing so gauche. I think Halvorg set up a treasure hunt. The kids always love whatever he plans. Honestly, I know I complain about him, but he does make it easy for me sometimes. I haven’t had to plan any major events since the kids hatched.”

“Hmm… I don’t know. It’s strange to me how involved he is.”

Amai sat back in her seat and eyed you shrewdly. “Did he ever tell you about his son?”

You looked up in surprise. “Son? I thought you said he had no children.”

“He doesn’t… technically.” Amai set her fork down. “You didn’t hear this from me so don’t repeat it, but he had a wife nearly a hundred years ago who cheated on him. He raised a boy, thinking he was his son, but the child was actually fathered by the other man. His wife left him and took the boy with her and he never saw him again. I don’t think he ever got over that.”

“Oh, god,” You replied, horrified. “I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“He’s spend the last several decades saving dying races from the brink of extinction. In a way, he thinks of those children he helped bring into the world as his children, too. And every time he has to let them go, it’s like losing his son all over again. I think the fact that he gets to help raise our babies is something of a gift for him. Trust me, it’s not something he takes for granted.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that,” You said in dismay.

“Halvorg is stuffy, strict, and a stickler for protocols, so he can be difficult to read, but I assure you, he loves my children as if they were his own. It may have started as research, but he has a family now and I think that’s what he wanted all along. Try not to judge him to harshly.”

You conceded with a nod. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The following Saturday, you attended the kids birthday party as requested. The kids were excited and zooming around the receiving area, shrieking and laughing, all of them wearing party hats and nothing else. Amaia was piggy-backing on Dr. Halvorg, her tail wrapped around his waist for stability and her arms hugged around his neck. Dr. Halvorg walked around completely normally, as if this was a typical action and he was used to it. He watched the children playing with a wide, fond grin on his face.

You walked over to Amai and Yenuno, who were watching from the refreshments table with Yenu, feeding her crackers.

“Nothing like a little bit of chaos in the morning,” You said.

They laughed.

“You’ve never seen them after a group kill,” Yenuno said. “They’re uncontrollable after they’ve taken down an elk together. It’s pretty incredible to watch for me, personally. Nagas in the wild typically don’t work together and they especially don’t hunt together, not even siblings.”

“They are very close and friendly, for nagas,” You remarked. “Markedly different to most snake-related species I’ve met.”

“It’s Amai’s blood and influence that’s doing it, I’m sure,” Yenuno said, kissing his wife’s cheek. “She’s the most friendly and cheerful person I’ve ever met.”

“To be fair, sweetie, you haven’t met all that many people,” Amai said, laughing.

“That is fair,” Yenuno conceded. “My point stands, though.”

“Alright children, gather ‘round!” Halvorg called, and they flocked to him, swirling around him like a whirlpool. “Now, you guys are going to split up into teams to help Nenish, Tahara, and Sadji find their gifts. Nenish will have Tani, Jinsa, and Keenai on his team. Tahara will have Amaia, Osan, Ishni, and Dashu on his team. And Khuzho, Chidil, Fuma, and Itheti will be on Sadji’s team.” He handed a small leaflet to each team. “Follow the clues to find the treasures! Go!”

The kids scattered, giggling madly.

“Come get something to drink and rest for a minute, Halvorg!” Yenuno called. “I think you’ve earned it.”

Halvorg grinned boyishly, an expression that brightened his face and made him look… well… rather handsome. He jogged over to the table and had a ginger ale. Elves have hypermobile ears, and his ears were high and wiggling slightly, a normal indication in elvish peoples of happiness and excitement.

“I think they’ll really enjoy their gifts this year,” Halvorg said, taking sips of his soda. “And the treasure hunt is half the fun. It’s challenging, but not too difficult. If they work together, it should be no trouble at all.”

“You didn’t get them history books like last year, did you?” Amai asked with her eyes narrowed. “You might as well have burned the money you spent on those for all the use they got out of them.”

“No, I learned my lesson,” He said defensively. “I bought toys.”

“Educational toys?” Amaia asked shrewdly.

He stopped mid-sip and looked at Amaia with an eyebrow raised. “…maybe,” He said into his cup.

Amaia rolled her eyes. “At least Yenuno and I ordered some stuff the kids will like.”

“You don’t know that they won’t like them,” I said. “I loved educational toys.”

“Yeah, but you’re a nerd,” Amaia said, poking you playfully.

“So what? Your kids could be nerds, too. I’m pretty sure Osan is going to be a Star Wars fan. He’s been talking my ear off about the Mandalorian.”

“It’s so strange,” Amaia said, ignoring your response and looking off in the distance. “I thought that because the kids were hatched in clutches, they would be like twins or triples or the like and have similar interests and personalities, but they’re all so different. Different likes, different traits, different styles. It’s amazing.”

“It amazes me, too,” Yenuno said, staring into his drink with a wistful expression. “My siblings and I separated when we were young, so I don’t know what they were like or if we had similar interests. Honestly, until recently, I never gave them a thought. Watching my children work together… it makes me wonder what my own siblings were like, and if they’d still be alive today if we had helped each other.”

There was a contemplative silence for a few minutes, broken by excited voices reentering the receiving area.

“We found it!” Tahara said, holding up a wrapped gift. The other four were carrying smaller treat bags that had their names written on them. “Uncle Maël, look!”

“Excellent! Well done!” Halvorg said, bending to give Tahara a hug. “Now, let’s wait until your brothers return with their gifts before we open them, okay? How about you five play tag until then?”

“Okay!” Tahara said.

“I’ll play with you,” Yenuno said. “I’m starting to get fat, preparing for the incubation period.” He patted Amai’s belly, which carried his three eggs, likely to be the last clutch they’d have together.

“How soon?” You asked Amai as Yenuno took off to chase with his children.

“Any day,” Amai said with a weary sigh. “And I’m ready for it. These little guys are heavy.”

“Boys or girls?”

“We won’t know until they hatch. It’s too hard to get a clear picture with the ultrasound, and besides, even if it could, both the male and female genitalia are internal, so it’s nearly impossible to tell.” She took a sip of ginger ale. “We’re really hoping for at least one girl. Don’t get me wrong, we love the boys more than anything, but we’d like Amaia and Yenu to have some sisters.”

“I’d like to be present for the laying, if that’s okay,” You said.

“For your research?” She asked.

Your head rocked back. “No, because you’re my friend and I want to be there for you.”

Amai smiled fondly. “Oh. Of course, thank you.”

Dr. Halvorg had not added anything to the conversation with you and Amai, and instead went to the table and made a plate of snacks. You gave Amai a look and a cocked eyebrow, and she nodded understanding, slipping away from her spot to watch her husband and children play.

“Dr. Halvorg?”

He flinched and looked up, glancing around furtively and noticing that the two of you were alone. “Yes?”

“Why are you avoiding me?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again before responding, “I’m doing no such thing.”

“I’ve requested at least three meetings with you this past month, and you’re always too busy,” You said dryly.

“Well, I am,” He said, turning. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“Are you avoiding me because I asked you out?” You asked bluntly.

He missed a step in his stride and stopped.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I should have realized from your professional demeanor that you wouldn’t be open to interoffice dating. I apologize.”

Halvorg sighed and turned to face you. “It’s not that. Not exactly, I mean.” He set his plate on the table and looked you full in the face for the first time in weeks. “I haven’t given a thought to dating in…” He rubbed his forehead. “Gods… decades. The question took me off guard, of course, and I actually had to sit down and give it some thought. I’ve been wrapped up in my work, of course, but I think I was just distracting myself.”

“From what?”

He sat on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. “It’s hard to talk about. I don’t even really talk about it with Yenuno, and I would consider him my closest friend.” He sighed heavily and avoided your eye. “I’ve ignored my personal life in favor of spending my career and fortune in this century helping races achieve something I want for myself.”

“Children?” You guessed.

He nodded a little morosely. “Not just that, but that is a significant part of it. I’ve been following the reproduction rates of Celtic fae since the fae were originally integrated and it’s decreasing year by year. I live in constant fear that my own race will be extinct in my lifetime.” He quirked his head at you. “Your race still seems to be fairly prolific, is that correct?”

“Oh yeah, I have a bunch of brothers and a truckload of cousins. No problems there.”

He sighed. “I don’t know what the problem with my race is. I’ve studied genetic traits, magical impediments, marriage and divorce rates, and ratio of coupling to conceptions.The numbers are terrible and I don’t know why. That’s what drives me crazy. I hate not having an answer.”

“Have there been miscarriages?”

“No, that’s the crazy thing, the rate of conception is extraordinarily low. I think there have only been three live births of Celtic fae blood in the last year.”

“Oh, jeez,” You said, sitting against the table next to him. “I didn’t realize the problem was that severe. Have you considered whether it might be a physical problem?”

“How do you mean?”

“Have you ever done a sperm count? Or had an MRI of the area to see if there’s a blockage? That kind of thing can be genetic and men tend to be shy about stuff like that.”

He tilted his head and frowned. “No, I haven’t. It actually hadn’t occurred to me. Honestly, I’ve been so focused on my work to distract myself, it may have worked too well and I ignored such things.” He looked at you and smiled. “You’ve given me something to think about.”

You smiled back. “Good. I wonder if the females of the race have a similar issue. It may have been something bred into the people over time, over centuries.”

“That’s possible,” He said. “There’s certainly a precedent; some creatures have been bred to extinction. Remember the pug?”

“That tiny dog breed with the squashed face?” You said. “Yeah, they died out a while ago, didn’t they?”

He nodded. “That was human interference, though. Yenuno’s people were dying out due to antisocialism; too reclusive to even propagate their own species. Yenuno was the only one of his kind to take up this project, and even he was reluctant.”

“He seems happy now,” You remarked.

“Yeah,” Halvorg said softly, watching Yenuno laughing and chasing his kids with a sad kind of jealousy. “He does.”

You watched his face, the deep, deep sadness creasing his face and making him look older than he was.

“Follow up, Halvorg, see a specialist. This may have a fix that didn’t exist the last time you tried.”

He nodded, smiling at you, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I will.”

As you stood up, you bumped his shoulder lightly. “Thank you for talking to me. I appreciate that you trusted me enough to discuss such a sensitive subject. I get the feeling that you don’t share yourself with many people.”

He laughed. “No, not really.” He looked up with a smile that seemed more sincere. “Thank you for listening.”

Amai went into labor three days later. She was taken to the laying room, where both Yenuno and Dr. Halvorg were present in addition to the interspecies OBGYN. You were suited up in scrubs and the paper gowns that surgeons wear, as was everyone else in the room besides Amai, who was completely naked, and Yenuno, who never wore clothing. There were natal heart monitors on her belly and an EKG hooked up to her chest.

Amai was sitting on a specially designed chair that would allow her to pass the eggs through her birth canal and into the waiting arms of the doctor. She was already sweating and panting by the time you arrived. The OBGYN and Dr. Halvorg were having a quiet conversation. You went to the other side of Amai and took her hand, trying not to wince when she nearly crushed your fingers.

“Is she okay?” You asked in alarm.

“She’s not fully dilated yet,” Halvorg said, pulling his braid into a surgical cap. “The eggs are getting impatient, it seems.”

“Yeah, well, so am I, so they can settle the fuck down!” Amai shrieked at him.

He bore the abuse with no reaction other than a wry smile. Yenuno wisely said nothing and simply wiped Amai’s forehead with a cloth.

“It won’t be long,” the OBGYN said. “She’s almost there.”

“Just saw me open and get them out,” Amai moaned. “It would hurt less.”

Yenuno tried to kiss her cheek, but she swatted him away weakly.

“No,” She said peevishly. “No touching ever again.”

“You said that last time,” He said, smiling fondly.

“Yeah, but I mean it this time,” She said sulkily.

“Of course you do, darling.” He patted her head. She scrunched her face up at him in annoyance. She was always adorable when she was miffed.

“I’ll make you into shoes,” She said sourly. “And a matching purse.”

It took a while for Amai to dilate fully, and by then she was very tired. Yenuno was looking worried; she’d laid several eggs over the years and never struggled this much before. Perhaps this being their last clutch was a good idea.

“Okay, I think we can start pushing now,” The doctor said, getting ready to catch the eggs. “Amai, when you feel the next contract, hold your breath, bear down, and push.”

“Okay,” She breathed. “One’s coming.”

We all braced for the push. Amai took several quick deep breaths and held it, her face pulled tight in pain and effort, doubling over in the chair as she did. You and Yenuno held her hands and patted her back and murmured encouragement. Halvorg was waiting with a soft cloth to take the eggs for cleaning, after which they would be laid in a specialized incubating carrier to be taken to Yenuno’s cottage.

The first egg came slowly and with much screaming. The doctor caught it and handed it off to Halvorg. The shell of the egg was soft and needed extremely delicate care, but Halvorg was well practiced by now and got the egg washed and into the carrier under ninety seconds and returned for the next.

The second egg came more quickly, but Amai screamed the whole time. By the time the third and final egg was laid, her voice was raw and she was too exhausted to scream.

But it was over. She fell back into the recline of the chair as if boneless and breathed in shallowly, her eyes barely open.

“You were amazing, darling,” Yenuno said gently, kissing Amai’s face. “Rest. I’m taking the eggs to the cottage. The children will visit you when you’ve slept.”

She turned her head slowly to look at him and touched her fingertips to his face, tracing down his cheek, chin, neck and chest before letting her hand fall back to her side, and her eyes closed. Nurses came to whisk her away to a recovery room, the OBGYN following behind. Yenuno and Halvorg left to take the eggs to the cottage for the incubation, and you were left alone in the laying room.

As you were shedding the paper gown and surgical cap, you noticed a small book lying on the ground. It looked to be one of Halvorg’s research journals, though it was smaller than his usual ones. He must have dropped it out of his back pocket when he was disrobing. You picked it up and took it with you with the intent on returning it to him in the morning.

And of course, you’d completely forgotten by the time you woke up.

Amai recovered enough in a few days to be up and walking around. She and the children took turns keeping Yenuno company, as he grew morose if he was left alone too long. You had declared half days until the new babies hatched so that they could have more time with their dad.

One afternoon, after the children had left class for the day, Dr. Halvorg came in and sat on the edge of your desk.

“Hello,” You said pleasantly, closing the folder with their latest work for grading. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“I wanted to let you know I took you up on your advice,” He said, looking a little bashful. “I went and saw a specialist. They’re going to be doing some tests soon. Sperm count, blood tests, an MRI. Any test that can be done will be done.”

“Good!” You said, swinging your chair around. “I’m glad. Maybe you’ll finally get an answer.”

He sighed, looking pensive and anxious. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I still wanted to thank you for pushing me to do it.”

“I didn’t push you to do it, Maël,” You said. His eyes narrowed at your use of his first name, but he didn’t say anything. “I just brought the subject up. It was your decision to do it.”

“Well, thank you all the same,” He replied. “I admit, I’m nervous about it. I could either get wonderful news or have my worst fears confirmed. I don’t know how I’ll react to either option.”

“Would you like me to come with you?” You asked him.

He looked at you in surprise. “You… you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t,” You replied. “But this is the kind of thing you need friends for. And since Yenuno is tied up with the eggs, I could be a good substitute. You don’t even have to think of me as a friend, if you don’t want to, just an emotional support associate.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I think of you as a friend.”

“Well, thank you. I was hoping we’d get there eventually. So? What do you think? Want some support for this?”

“Not for the tests, I can do those by myself perfectly well,” He said, adjusting his tie nervously. “But… for the results… perhaps… a friend would be nice.”

“I’ll be there for you, then,” You said, standing and patting his arm. “Does Yenuno know about this? Have you talked to him about it?”

“No,” He replied. “I didn’t want to tell him while he’s dealing with his own new babies. Besides, if the news is not good, I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. If the news comes back positive… I don’t know… I think this is one thing I’d rather keep to myself.”

“Except for me, you mean,” You said.

He nodded concedingly. “Besides you.”

“Let me know when the results come back and I’ll go with you. We’ll make a day of it, go to a spa, get a bikini wax together, eat some overpriced salads, buy something ridiculous we want but don’t need. It’ll be a blast.”

He actually laughed a little. “Sounds like a plan.”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[cocastyle]

Robin — TWO

Pairing - Joel Dawson x reader

Word Count - 4,476

A/N - new update for Robin!! yay!! this series as been so much fun writing so far and I’m overwhelmed by the unexpected love for this series so far! I hope you all continue to enjoy it as much as I! I have a lot in store for our very own Batman and Robin duo :))

if you would like to be added to the tag list, let me know!

R O B I N

Robin Series Masterlist

⭒❃.✮:▹  TWO   ◃:✮.❃⭒

Dear Aimee,

This week has been especially shitty.

We lost Connor to what looked like a really big ant. It helps me to draw them. I try to capture their essence, scribble down some notes on how to kill them.

Turns out Robin's katanas can pretty much solve anything. Although, I'm pretty sure it's just because Robin's the one wielding them.

Sometimes I think drawing them is the only way I know how to cope with these things. That and having Y/N. She helps me a lot more than I give her credit for.

I owe her my life.

We've lost a lot of people over the years. You'd think you'd get numb to it after a certain point.

You don't.

- - -

Y/N walked through the hallway with a small skip in her step. Despite everything that had happened in the past week, she still managed to feel happy just at the thought of being with her best friend. With her activities for the morning already done, she was determined to spend some time with Joel who she knew was still a bit down on himself about what had happened during the breach.

She had set up the target in the room where Gertie and Mav1s were, knowing that the boy had been begging her to teach him how to shoot for a while now. She had about a half an hour before she had to be back with the hunting squad, so she was hurrying to get to Joel so that they could have more time working with the crossbow.

She was almost to his room when she heard his voice echoing down the hall. Furrowing her eyebrows, she picked up her speed and went pass his bedroom until she was at the radio room. She poked her head inside, her eyes landing on the boy who sat at the desk with the radio turned on.

"This is 7045. Come in, 3022. I repeat, come in, 3022. Over," Joel said, his eyes flickering over the map in front of him where he had 'X's marked everywhere except for the circle around their bunker and 3022.

"This is 3022. What is it now, Ray?" a voice replied over the radio making Joel sit up a bit more.

"Hey, Janice. No, it's actually. . .It's, uh, Joel," he told her making Y/N smile softly as she watched the boy.

There was a long moment of silence before the woman chuckled, "Oh. Joel."

"Yeah," he replied, smiling slightly.

"All right. Hold on one second," Janice said. "Aimee, it's Ray!"

Y/N’s smile faltered at that, muttering softly to herself, "Aimee, of course."

"Joel," the boy corrected with a small sigh into the radio. "Thanks, Janice."

"Joel! Hey!" a new voice said, instantly making the boy perk up as a big grin took over his features.

"Hey, Aimee! Hi!" Joel exclaimed. "How are you?"

"Hi. Yeah. I, uh. . .I'm good," Aimee told him.

"It's so good to hear your voice," Joel admitted, relaxing a bit at finally being able to hear her voice once again.

Y/N watched him for a moment longer before smiling sadly and turning to walk away. She knew how much getting to talk to Aimee meant to him, so she wasn't about to interrupt him with something he honestly probably didn't care to do. Besides, she wanted to give him some privacy to talk to the girl he was in love with. After all, that's what she would've wanted if it were her having to talk to Joel over the radio.

The girl walked aimlessly down the hallway, lost in her own thoughts about Joel before she was snapped back to attention when a voice softly called out, "Y/N, are you alright?"

She came to a stop, her head lifting up to notice Kala standing in front of the memorial they had for all the lost colony members. The girl's eyes were on her, concern evident despite the sadness in her eyes.

Y/N gave her a forced smile and said, "I'm fine, Kala."

Kala just stared at her before giving her a sad smile and whispering, "Joel's talking with Aimee again, isn't he?"

Y/N looked away at that, swallowing thickly before asking, "How. . .how are you?"

Kala went quiet and glanced down at the hat in her hands that had belonged to Connor. When she continued to not respond, Y/N walked across the room and pulled the girl in for a hug. Kala melted into her embrace, her body shaking a bit as she softly cried.

"I know," Y/N whispered, holding onto the girl tightly in hopes she would realize she was no alone. "Connor. . ." She trailed off as she felt her own sadness bubbling into her throat. After all, Connor and her had been close. He was a part of the hunting team with her. He had been like brother to her and she had lost him. "He was a great person and he loved you so much. He died protecting you."

Kala sniffled and nodded her head. "I know," she said, her voice cracking a bit.

The sound of footsteps approaching pulled the two apart and they turned to see Joel walking in. He plopped down on a seat beside one of the tables, a numb and upset look on his face that made Y/N’s heart break.

"I'm going to go put Connor's hat up," Kala muttered, her hand gently squeezing Y/N’s arm in order to pull the girl's attention back to her. "Thank you."

Y/N nodded and Kala gave her a small smile before walking back over to the memorial while Y/N walked over to Joel. She sat down in the seat beside him, the boy instantly looking her way while she offered him a small smile.

"Hey," she whispered. "How are you?" Joel looked away at that and Y/N sighed, "Joel, you need to put the breach thing behind you, okay? No one was expecting it, so you can’t blame yourself for being scared."

"But you're not scared," Joel retorted, his head still hung low.

"Are you kidding me? I'm always scared," Y/N told him, her words making him look up at her. "It's my fear that keeps me going.It's my fear that pushes me through whatever challenges may come my way."

Y/N didn't go into the fact that her fear was never truly about herself. Her fear had always and would always be for Joel's life. For if she died, then that meant Joel could die simply because she wouldn't be there to protect her. And that's what scared her more than anything in the world.

The thought of Joel dying.

So in her mind, she survived for him. She survived so that Joel would survive.

The boy was looking at her, still not saying anything. Sighing, the girl reached out and placed a hand on top of his own. She gave him a reassuring smile before saying, "Even Batman was afraid every once in a while, Joel. That's what makes him human."

Joel smiled a little at that, squeezing her hand and rubbing his thumb over the top of her skin while Y/N smiled back.

She let go of his hand and leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on the table as she looked to the boy. "How's Aimee?" she asked.

Joel looked at her in surprise, not sure how she could've known he was talking to the girl, before saying, "I think she's fine. We. . .we didn't get to talk much before the radio cut off."

Y/N frowned, "I'm sorry, Joel."

Joel smiled weakly and looked down at the table before whispering, "I just miss her."

Y/N felt her heart ache at the sight of him and she quickly dropped her feet to the ground before wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leaning her head against him. "I know," she whispered softly, ignoring the way her heart slightly broke knowing that even after seven years of not seeing her, Joel still loved Aimee.

Y/N had gone through seven years of watching him pine after a girl who barely even seemed to understand what she had when he was her boyfriend. Yet she still stuck by his side even though she found herself falling in love with him even more with each second that passed.

Joel let out a soft sigh and leaned his head against her own, relishing in the comfort of his best friend while his heart ached for the girl he loved.

Still oblivious to the fact that the girl holding onto him loved him more than Aimee ever could.

- - -

"I wanna know how it got in," Karen demanded, frowning from where she sat down at the table. The whole colony was there, the discussion about how the monster had gotten in finally being brought up after giving everyone enough time to mourn.

Y/N was watching Joel, her eyes flickering over the boy who sat on the opposite end of the table with his gaze on the table and a numb look upon his face. Frowning, she pulled her gaze away and looked to Karen. "You sure about that?" Y/N asked. "Sometimes it's better not knowing."

Karen was hesitant, knowing that what the girl said was true. After all, the hunting team didn't always tell them what went on unless everyone agreed on it. It was better for some people to have to worry about certain things over others. When she gave a small nod in response, Y/N looked to Tim and gestured for him to go ahead.

With Connor gone, Y/N was one of the designated leaders at the moment. She had a bit of a reputation in the colony anyways, having worked her way to top hunter on their squad within a matter of weeks. So Tim didn't hesitate to comply to her orders, looking around at the others as he explained, "It appears to have ripped through one of our perimeter defenses."

"What, it ripped through steel?" Anna Lucia asked, having not known that bit of information.

"Y/N, Anderson, and I resealed the breach point and the vent. Nothing's getting in that way again," Tim assured them.

"And if they do, we'll be ready. I set up triggers around possible breach points to help alert us when something's attempting to get in. Next time one tries to strike, the team and I will be out there ready to take it down," Y/N said.

"But why did it happen?" Karen asked.

"It was a freak occurrence," Ray told her. "There's no reason to think it'll happen again."

"Ray's right. We only took precautions just to be safe," Y/N spoke up. "We should try to stay calm. There's no use worrying—"

"How far away is Aimee's colony?" Joel spoke up, his voice making them all go silent while the boy looked over at them.

"What?" Tim asked.

"Aimee's colony," Joel repeated, ignoring the fact that everyone's eyes were now on him including Y/N who looked like she didn't understand what was happening. "How far away is it?"

"About eighty five miles," Ray answered.

"How long does that take to get there?" Joel questioned. Y/N sat up a bit, her feet that she had propped up on the table falling to the ground as she stared at her best friend.

"Joel, you're not actually thinking of going?" Tim said confused.

"Tim, just. . .humor me," Joel pleaded. "How long?"

"Seven days," Y/N spoke up, causing the boy to look her way. She was watching him, her eyes flickering over his face while she had a completely blank look upon her face. It was enough to make Joel still, for he had never seen her act that way, but he was too focused on her words to speak up about it. "Minimum."

"An armed and trained hunting party would be lucky to last fifty miles on the surface," Anna Lucia said, the others all looking at each other and mumbling in agreement while Joel looked off in thought and Y/N continued to study him with narrowed eyes. "But you, Joel. . ."

"All right," Tim spoke up, noticing the way Y/N had obviously gotten distracted by what her best friend was saying. "Now I need volunteers to help reinforce some of the outer perimeter."

Everyone began to speak up, agreeing to help out, but Joel spoke out again, his voice making everyone freeze as he said, "I'm gonna go."

Everyone was dead silent as they looked to him, Y/N’s face growing a bit pale while Joel ignored her gaze. "It's an impossible journey, Joel," Tim told him.

Joel shook his head and stood up. "No, I'm serious," he said. "I love you guys, but Aimee is one of the only people in this world who ever truly made me happy, and she's only eighty five miles away. And I'm gonna go see her." He let out a breath he had been holding before smiling slightly. "That felt awesome." He then turned and walked out of the room, leaving everyone staring after him.

All eyes turned to Y/N who was staring at the place Joel had just been with tears in her eyes. All she could hear were Joel's words playing over and over in her head.

Aimee is one of the only people in this world who ever truly made me happy.

Aimee is one of the only people in this world who ever truly made me happy.

It took her a moment, but Y/N was up and out of her seat without a second thought. She ran out of the room, leaving the others to sigh and exchange a look for they knew Joel's words had hit her harder than he meant to let them.

By the time she reached Joel's room, her tears were long gone and her mind was already made up. She appeared in the doorway, her eyes instantly locking on Joel who was shoving his few belongings into his backpack. He glanced up at her, his eyes hesitating on her form for a moment before he looked back down.

"I have to go, Robin. I can't stay here anymore and just wait for something to happen. I'm done waiting," he told her, shoving his journal and pencils into his backpack as he did so.

"I know," Y/N replied. "You have to do this. You should go." Joel looked up to her at that, his face displaying a look of shock for a small second. She smiled softly at him before walking towards him and saying, "But I'm coming too."

"You're. . .you're what?" Joel asked in surprise, his eyes flickering over her face as she came to stop in front of him.

"Joel, you're the only person who makes me happy," she began, her words making his heart skip a beat which he quickly pushed aside as nothing. "I can't let you just leave without me."

Joel was reminded of what he said earlier and his face softened as he reached out and cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. "You know I didn't mean that you don't make me happy, right?" he eyes searching her own to make sure she understood what he was saying. "Cause you do, Robin. You're the one that keeps me going every day."

He let go of her and turned to his backpack which he zipped up, missing the way Y/N’s face heated up for a second due to his words and display of affection. She quickly pushed her feelings aside, knowing Joel always had been an affectionate person. It was just how their friendship worked.

"But I have to go see Aimee," Joel continued, letting his gaze fall back upon his best friend. "And I can't just make you come with."

"You're not making me do anything," Y/N assured him. "I'm coming. We stick together through everything, remember?" She took a step forward before holding her hand out to the boy. "Batman and Robin, right?"

Joel hesitated as he looked to her, a smile slowly making its way onto his face while he felt his heart swell with an emotion that he pushed aside as nothing else but relief in getting to keep her by his side.

"Batman and Robin," he agreed, clasping his hand in her own while they exchanged small smiles.

Y/N gave him a short nod before taking a step back which caused Joel to frown because it suddenly felt like he was missing a warmth he hadn't known had been there when she was right in front of him.

"I'm going to go grab my things," Y/N said. "I'll meet you by the exit." And with that, she ran out of the room, leaving Joel to stare after her. He was a bit confused as to what he had just felt, but didn't think much of it as he turned back to his bag and smiled.

"I'm coming, Aimee," he whispered, thoughts of reuniting with the love of his life running through his head.

- - -

Dear Aimee,

I am done hiding. I am done waiting for things to get better.

It's time to take matters into my own hands. Time to let someone else make the minestrone.

I'm taking a radio, even though it doesn't have power. But I'm gonna take it anyway.

Robin's coming with me. She's just the best, you know?

I didn't want to admit it, but the thought of leaving her behind had scared me. Knowing she'll be there with me every step of the way, it provides me a sort of comfort that I can't even begin to describe.

I can do anything if I have her with me. Walking eighty five miles through a monster infested world will be a piece of cake.

- - -

When Y/N was done packing, she went off to find the rest of the colony, knowing she would have to explain to them that she was going with Joel even if they might not want her to. Muttering rehearsed lines to herself, Y/N walked into the main room where the colony was all huddled around a map and writing things down.

"Guys," Y/N began, letting out a shaky breath. "I'm—"

However, she didn't get a chance to finish before she was being tackled in a hug by Kala. Y/N fell into a stunned silence, hesitantly hugging the girl back in confusion before Kala pulled away to look at her.

"You're going with him," Kala stated. "We know." Y/N blinked in surprise before looking around at the others who all just nodded softly despite the sad smiles on their faces. The girl looked back to Kala who just smiled softly. "It's okay, Y/N. We knew you would."

"I didn't want to do this to you guys," Y/N admitted. "I know we just lost Connor and losing another person on the hunting team isn't ideal, but I have to go with him. He's my best friend."

They all nodded in understanding before Tim reached out to clap a hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to explain to us, Y/N," he told her. "We get it. Just know that we'll be waiting for you two when you get back."

Y/N smiled softly at that, falling into Tim's embrace while everyone smiled at the exchange. "So," Y/N began as she pulled away from the man, "what are you guys doing?"

"Attempting to make a map for the two of you. Well. . .mostly for Joel in case he somehow gets lost," Anna Lucia said making Y/N chuckle softly before she walked over to the table.

She smiled softly at the sight of all the notes on the front before noticing that there seemed to be something on the back. She flipped the paper over, her smile growing even more at the notes the crew had all written on the back for the boy.

"We were going to make one for you too," Kala spoke up. "But I think Joel needs more of a reminder of how much we love him than you do. I have a feeling you already know that."

Y/N smiled and looked up at the people who had become her family. "I know," she whispered making them all smile before she looked down at the paper snd grabbed ahold of one of the pens. She scribbled down a small note on the back to go along with the others before Karen folded the map up.

It was when she was almost finished folding it that they heard Ray call out, "He's not joking."

They all walked out of the room at that, Y/N catching sight of Joel making his way over towards them with his backpack on and two crossbows and her katanas in hand. His eyes locked with hers and he smiled before holding out her weapons. "I think you may have forgotten something," he mused making the girl roll her eyes.

"Thanks, Joel," she said before grabbing the katanas and strapping them into her back and under her backpack. She then took the crossbow and the two turned to head towards the ladder that led to up above when Tim stepped in their way.

"We're not letting you two leave. You're needed here," Tim told them, even though Y/N knew that he understood he wasn't going to be able to stop them.

"Tim, Y/N may be, but I'm not. Come on. I don't do anything," Joel said.

"Joel, that's not true. You fix the radio. You make the minestrone," Tim stopped after that and winced slightly at his own words. "Okay. Doesn't sound as important when I say it out loud."

"I appreciate you trying," Joel assured him. "Really, I do. I just don't feel like I belong anywhere. I don't really wanna die all alone at the end of the world, so. . ."

Tim stared at the boy for a moment, his eyes flickering over to Y/N who gently shook her head at him to let him know he shouldn't say anything about her feelings for the boy. Tim sighed and turned away, allowing the two to walk by.

Joel moved forward, but paused before looking back at the others. "Look, I know you guys all just think of me as, like, some little, pathetic, adorable hedgehog. But I can take care of myself. I'm actually probably a lot stronger than you might think," he told them.

Y/N smiled softly at the boy's words, knowing how badly he wanted to prove to them all that he could do this. She placed a hand on his arm and Joel looked her way, smiling as she squeezed his arm before looking to the others. "We'll take care of each other," she assured them. "We've survived seven years. We can survive seven days."

The colony didn't say anything until finally Karen stepped forward and held the map out to Joel. "We made you a map," Karen told him.

"Thanks, Karen," Joel whispered before the girl reached up to hug him. Joel hugged her back and Karen pulled away with a sad smile before going over to Y/N and hugging her as well.

"Just. . .take care," Karen whispered before she pulled away and backed up to join the others. Y/N stared out at the people who had become her family, her eyes tearing up a bit as she knew that there was a possibility she would never see them again.

She felt a hand latch onto her own and Y/N looked to her left to see Joel giving her a reassuring smile as his fingers intertwined with her own. Y/N gave him a shaky smile in return while Joel rubbed his thumb across the skin on top of her hand.

"Everything will try to kill you," Ray told them.

"Oh," Joel muttered, making a small face which made Y/N chuckle softly.

"Be observant. Use the advantages that you have. You're fast and small and Y/N is one of our best hunters, so, Joel, don't fight. Just run and hide. Y/N, you should do that too, but if you need to, use those katanas and crossbow like your life depends on it cause it does," Ray said.

"Don't fight," Joel repeated, making another face before looking to Y/N. "So Robin fights, but Batman doesn't?" he whispered to her. She just smiled shyly at him.

Ray reached out and pulled the two into a hug, Joel and Y/N hugging him back while their intertwined hands still stayed by their side.

"You're both assholes if you get eaten," Ray told them.

Y/N smiled at that before saying, "And you all are douchebags if you don't answer our call when we get there."

The group all chuckled while Joel went to hook his crossbow to his backpack. Everyone fell silent as they watched him, their smiled falling as he struggled to simply latch the crossbow to his back. Y/N sighed and brought her free hand up to facepalm herself while Joel just awkwardly laughed and tried to latch the crossbow one more time.

This time it latched into place and he smiled before saying, "Okay."

"Nice," Ava muttered.

Joel ignored her comment and squeezed Y/N’s hand before turning to climb up the ladder. "I love you guys. Tell Aimee I'll see her in seven days," he said before climbing up the ladder.

"We believe in you," Karen called after him.

"Love you, buddy," Tim said.

Y/N walked over to the ladder before hesitating at the bottom. She glanced back at the colony, her eyes flickering over each of them. Karen and Kala were softly crying as they hugged each other, the others all looking at her sadly before Tim just gave her a small nod.

"Take care of him," Tim said before hesitating. "And yourself."

"I will," Y/N whispered, smiling at the group one last time. "I love you guys."

"Love you too," they all chorused as she began to climb up the ladder like Joel had. The latch was already open by the time she reached the top and she was blinded by the sunlight until Joel moved himself above the hole and looked down at her.

"You sure about this?" he asked, his eyes flickering over her face for any signs of hesitation.

Y/N smiled softly, "I'm sure."

Joel smiled at that before holding his hand out, the girl looking to it for a moment as she realized just what it is they were doing. Was she really about to help the boy she loved reunite with the girl he was in love with? It was crazy. She knew that. Yet seeing that smile on Joel's face and knowing that this was what he wanted, what he needed, to be happy was enough for her to know this was the right thing to do.

Then, without another second thinking about it, Y/N took ahold of the boy's hand and he pulled her into the world above.

- - -

Tag List

@simplybarnes

@spideysimpossiblegirl

@bookdorkfangirl

@katemusic

@eternallyvenus

@juliebean247

@trustfundparker

@blahhhhhhhaaa

@used-avocado

@havingagooddream

@blogforhoes

[starlightrows]

Disrupted

Pairing: Din Djarin x f!reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Tags: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Non-graphic violence, 

Summary: Your clan of three has a routine that gets you through the day to day. But the events of chapter 14 throw a wrench into that and disrupt everything

AN: Originally posted on AO3 in December 2020 

It seems like everyday is an adventure traveling with your riddur and foundling son. If it’s not bringing in a bounty, it’s doing odd jobs in exchange for information you only hope will lead to the next helpful piece of information. And still there are days that must be “wasted” to resupply, make repairs, do laundry, and catch up on sleep if you’re lucky. But despite this seemingly turbulent lifestyle, your clan of three had a routine of sorts.

Mostly revolving around the baby. When he wakes up, it’s officially morning time. That means getting him up and out of the pram, and immediately getting food in his belly. Then, hopefully you would be arriving to whatever destination is set for the day. Hunting a bounty, meeting with a contact, delivering bounties and cargo, and market days. Market days were the little guys favorite. Usually because he got treats from the market, and dad carried him in the satchel. They only thing he liked better, was when mom carried him in her arms.

If it’s a big travel day through hyperspace. Then the entire day is devoted to entertaining him on board while also trying to get work done. Din cleans weapons, makes small internal repairs, charts future courses. You try to balance the budget to make sure you will have enough credits to afford fuel and food, count out rations to make sure they will last, and prepare them as best you can with the limited galley space available. All while trying to teach Grogu basic things like his colors and shapes. Truthfully, you weren’t sure if you should be trying to teach him more advanced things like arithmetic, or planetary geography. He was supposed to be older than you after all.

Grogu gets grumpy and fussy at about midday, no matter what planet or how deep in hyperspace you may be. That means it’s time for him to drink something like bantha milk, bone broth, or just water if you’re running low on supplies; and take a nap. Sometimes you or Din will nap with him, especially if it’s a resupply and repair day.

When he wakes up again, he’s usually less needy. He is usually pretty happy to observe whatever it is his parents are doing. If Din is flying the ship, he liked to sit with him in the cockpit and play with the durasteel ball handle on the rear deflector shield control. Or he will sit on one of the crates tethered to the walls of the ship while you meticulously inventory the supplies and their replacement costs. He’s most happy on the afternoons when both you and Din sit in the cockpit together. Din flying the ship, you copiloting at his side. Grogu likes to sit on your lap and listen to the two of you talk. Droning on and on about nothing. He doesn’t always know what you’re talking about, but he likes both his parents to be together, especially if they’re giving him attention together.

Which is why the end of the day meal is his favorite. Even if you and Din haven’t interacted much all day, you would come together for dinner. Sitting as a family in the hull of the ship to eat rations together. After dinner, Din cleared the eating utensils while you would give Grogu a bath and get him ready for bed.

Cradling him against your shoulder, pacing up and down the length of the hull, bouncing him slightly with each step, and humming sweet lullabies. Coming to a stop in front of his pram, just as he was falling asleep. Din would join you, drawing you into his arms, and swaying gently without a word and you finish your last lullaby. Placing Grogu into the pram, you give him a kiss on the head and close the lid.

At that point, you and Din have time to either continue working on your respective tasks, work on two person jobs on the ship, or as you both prefer just spend some quality time together.

But not anymore. Not since Tython.

Less than an hour. Less than a single hour had passed between the three of you stepping off of the Razor Crest, and watching as the four massive, seemingly indestructible, black droids ascended into the sky with your child in tow. In less than 60 minutes the Crest was obliterated with everything you owned on board, you were beaten within an inch of your life by the droids, and your son was plucked from your arms. Left to bleed out on that wretched mountain top.

And less than an hour after that, you sat aboard the ship of a man you had just been threatened by. You felt disoriented and dazed, and not just from the probable concussion. Din knelt in front of you below deck, gripping your forearms as you stared blankly into the visor of his helmet.

“What are we gonna do?” You asked numbly. “A-a-all of our weapons. Our rations. Our home. Our son..... what are we gonna do?”

He squeezes you again, it’s grounding but you are having a difficult time getting your mind to focus on any one thing.

“We’re going back to Nevarro,” he says frankly. But you’re confused.

“Nevarro? You think they’re taking him to Nevarro?”

This worried Din more, it is evident you are more injured that you appear. And he makes a mental note to send a communication to Cara ahead of time to make sure medical staff is waiting when they get there.

“No cyar’ika, we have to get some help before we can go after Grogu. We’re gonna go see Cara,”

This seems to pacify you for the time being. Your head his pounding, and all you want to do is cry and sleep. And hope when you wake up this will have been a horrible dream.

It isn’t though. You wake up in a clean bed with a bandage around your head. Din lays next to you on his stomach. Despite the fact he his dead asleep, he looks exhausted. His eyes are puffy and a little darkened. He’s been crying. And all at once you are overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, sadness, loss and despair. Your home really was gone, and so was your son. But unlike the Crest, you could get Grogu back.

When Din eventually wakes up, he describes how disoriented you were and the utter terror he felt at not being able to keep you awake during the flight. Luckily a heavily dosed bacta shot, and a good long sleep had you on the mend. He tells you of his plan to spring Migs Mayfeld from prison with Cara’s help, and get him to help find out where to find Moff Gideon’s cruiser. You don’t like the idea of bringing in Mayfeld. He had been extremely aggressive and irritable the last time you’d dealt with him... but you didn’t have a better idea.

It was much easier than expected getting Mayfeld to agree to help. Though he didn’t have much room to argue. You felt almost good about the situation as your rag tag group consisting of Mayfeld, Cara, Fennec, Boba Fett, Din and yourself; flew towards Morak. You felt like you were actually working to accomplish something. Getting closer to getting your baby back.

But like Fett said. It was a long journey to get there. It was like being home on the Crest. But you were uncomfortable, unused to being in close proximity to so many people for this long. And you had nothing to do. You felt... trapped in your own mind. Without thinking about it you would stand up, as if moved by some unseen force and walk away from the others and return with nothing new and not a word. Just a sad empty look on your face.

After the fourth time. Mayfeld blurted out “What the hell are you doing? You got a screw loose or something” he was trying to be funny. Trying to cut the tension. You didn’t turn around, you just retreated below deck. This time Din followed. “What’s with them?” Mayfeld asked, directing his question at Cara.

“It’s midday,” she spat. There was a long silence before said quieter “it’s time to feed her son and put him down for a nap”

That shut Mayfeld up.

Below deck, you leaned your head and forearms against the wall of Slave I. Enjoying the cold that leeched into your skin, at least it was something.

“Cyare,” Din called out softly. You turned to face him, leaning back against the wall. Tears brimmed in your eyes. He approached you, extending his arms out to you. Inviting to to take comfort if you wanted it. You accepted, leaning on him as the tears slipped down your cheeks.

“I know” he whispers “we’ll get him back. Whatever it takes,”

Din Djarin Tag List: @spideysimpossiblegirl

[itsclydebitches]

Another thing about how rwby views trauma survivors reacting to their abuse or unfortunate background is that it frames the solution to healing is by serving in armed forces. Weiss and Blake joined Beacon to escape their abuser. Ren and Nora joined Beacon after the loss of their families. Winter joined the military to escape Jacques and I'm assuming will become the new Atlas general after Ironwood's death. The Huntsmen Academies are all framed as these safe havens (literally with Mistral) for anyone who can carry a weapon, meanwhile anyone who can't or doesn't want to join, or joins a group outside of the institution is depicted as bad.

To say that this is all muddied would be a huge understatement because even if we put aside the complicated message of, "Overcome your abuse by learning to punch back," at this point the combined huntsmen-military is no longer presented as a means of escape. Rather, between the rewriting of Winter's history – she has apparently been manipulated by Ironwood this whole time rather than choosing the military as a means of escaping her abuser – as well as the military aligned huntsmen – FNKI aren't heroes like RWBYJNOR anymore, willingly protecting their home, they're children who have been forced into this conflict – there's now this major divide between fighters-on-their-own and fighters-as-part-of-the-institution. We could even read this as extending to the huntsmen academies themselves, given that one has fallen, one was destroyed, and the other lost its figurehead. They used to be presented as havens for struggling individuals... now, not so much. The plot's message is not that heroes win by banding together through established structures that were designed to help those coming from bad circumstances (note how aware Ozpin is of these backstories: Qrow's bandit tribe, Blake's White Fang history, looking into Ruby's defense of the store, etc.), but rather you win by rag-tag individuals making decisions based on friendship.

Yet simultaneously, that divide is by no means neat and tidy (since plenty of stories have that latter message). As we've discussed elsewhere, RWBYJNOR is ingrained in these structures despite the story rejecting them. They got their initial training at Beacon (how many fans have argued that they learned enough there? That they're basically full-fledged huntsmen already? So, that school was pretty important, yeah?). They worked with Ironwood for months. They're using the prestige of their licenses to get people to listen to them. They're hijacking military equipment to give the world orders to prepare for an attack. Ruby became a general in all but title in that moment, in the same way that Weiss became the Remnant equivalent of a cop when she tried to arrest her father. Volumes 6-8 suddenly wanted to send an anti-military message without considering the context of their story (what does a military mean in a world where unambiguously evil monsters attack, as opposed to a world where these "monsters" are minorities?) and they failed to separate the heroes from the structures they so passionately reject. You cannot have the group stand in opposition to Ironwood and everything he represents while also encouraging the audience to oohh and ahhh at Jaune whipping out his huntsmen license to lead a group of civilians to safety. The supposed cruelty of the former and supposed heroism of the latter are meant to exist simultaneously, despite the contradiction. We went from the message that huntsmen academies, including Atlas', are a haven from abuse, poverty, etc. but now, suddenly, certain types of escapes are no longer morally sound. So just ignore how many of the heroes took the "wrong" path.

And then on top of all of that we have Rhodes. RWBY is pushing the individualism message hard nowadays – that a group of friends is better than a general and his soldiers just ignore that Ruby is their leader and they all follow her orders – yet it's Rhodes' individuality that is criticized in Cinder's flashback. He, as a single person, tries to take on the complex situation of helping an abused child and he failed. The fandom's reaction to his efforts is pretty telling because most kept falling back on structural solutions: "Why didn't he just call CPS? Why didn't he get her admitted early like Ruby? Why didn't he approach some superior to fix all this?" Most fans seemed to grudgingly acknowledge that kidnapping Cinder and raising this traumatized kid on the road while hunting grimm was... not the best idea, so they turned to the very things they've rejected in Ruby's part of the story: laws that people have to follow, schools with an hierarchy that can serve as support, someone above you whose orders you follow and whose seniority can help you in a tough situation. In Cinder's flashback people wanted Remnant to have structural solutions because, clearly, leaving one flawed man to fix this situation on his own didn't turn out so well. They (and the writers) just don't want Ruby to have to obey those same structures because Ruby is the title hero they've grown to love over eight years. We feel like we know Ruby and we assume that if Ruby is in charge she'd totally make the best decision. But Rhodes? He's a stranger, someone we see for less than ten minutes, so his flaws are far easier to home in on. Few are willing to acknowledge that Ruby is Rhodes on a much larger scale, trying things because she wants to help, but ultimately doing far more harm because she's incredibly inexperienced and is just running on her own, individual ideas, not any of the structures in place that are meant to deal with such crises. Rhodes' "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll teach a tortured kid how to defend herself and hope for the best" is Ruby's "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll drop Atlas on Mantle, leave with the Relics, move everyone to Vacuo, and hope for the best." The primary difference is that while Rhodes is punished through his death and the narrative makes it clear that this was the wrong choice (Cinder murders everyone and becomes a villain), whereas Ruby's screwups are continually framed as heroic. And that's because the show can't make up its mind about this structural vs. individual approach. Do huntsmen need to be held responsible for their actions, or do they need complete freedom to do the right thing with the belief that anything that goes wrong was completely out of their hands (Yangs' take)? Well, that depends entirely on which huntsmen we're talking about. RWBY's idea that some people are intrinsically good and others intrinsically bad means that the writing – and the fandom – can demand rogue huntsmen be held accountable while simultaneously cheering the group running away from arrest; curse Clover for following orders while simultaneously gushing over how loyal the group is to Ruby; condemn lies that Ozpin gives while simultaneously justifying the ones Ruby gives, etc. RWBY has no clear message, just the insistence that whatever our heroes does is good. The path they've taken, learning to fight to escape horrific situation is a good thing. The path Rhodes laid out, teaching Cinder to fight to escape a horrific situation, is a bad thing. It comes down to the characters, not the situation.

Finally, yeah, there's a complete lack of acknowledgment that either option – structural or individual – alienates those who don't know how to fight. This is seen most clearly in Whitley who asks why he'd want to be a huntsmen when he can afford an army, yet when armies are painted as unquestionably bad, the story won't admit that this leaves Whitley stranded. He had no way to escape his abuse like Winter and Weiss did. He had no way to defend himself when Weiss shoved a weapon in his face. The story never had to grapple with where it's left characters who can't fight and who shouldn't make the evil choice of relying on soldiers because Whitley unexpectedly got on Weiss' good side and gained her protection. It doesn't matter anymore because Whitley is a Good Guy now who the group will take care of. But if he'd continued to disagree? Gone to his room instead of calling Klein? If, in the future, he does something that annoys his sisters and they decide to ignore him like they did before? Well, Whitley is screwed. In a world besieged by grimm – with attacks growing with each volume – he wanted to rely on an army to help solve these problems. But then that was said to be wrong, the general died, and the army, far as we can tell, was left behind to die as well. So what's left? Rely on the huntsmen. Just hope that there are enough (there aren't), that you get a good one (not a Lionheart, or a Raven, or a Cardin, or a Dudley, or...), and that the good ones care enough to bother protecting you. Even if the story hadn't gone out of its way to show how terribly flawed individual huntsmen are – from Lionheart's devastating betrayal to Qrow teaming up with Tyrian – from a practical perspective it's just not enough. Volume 8 showed without a doubt that in a war like this, one built on a witch's ability to summon endless grimm, an army is necessary. Salem would have been into Atlas in a second without those soldiers holding her forces back. Yang, Jaune, and Ren wouldn't have gotten to the whale without that army. Yet the story never acknowledges this, instead pretending like the few individuals we see – the limited numbers the characters keep admitting are horrendously limited – could have somehow saved the day without that assistance. Everything we're seeing nowadays – which characters can use these institutions to escape abuse, which can lie to help the war, which should rely on structures as opposed to their own ideas and physical power – is a mess of inconsistent, often contradictory messages.