#that man has gained more than a dozen of gray hairs right then and there

[galaxy-fleur]

you think Leon got some sort of reward from Ashley after they returned to US? genuinely asking of course

or did they just get separated? wonder if they even had a chance to say proper goodbyes 😭

It could go either way, honestly! Realistically speaking, they'd immediately get hounded by a team of medics and personnel as soon as they get back to base. I'm guessing President Graham and the rest of her family would be there first hand as well. Ashley would get escorted away pretty quickly: to make sure she's okay and have her reunite with her family. It's not unreasonable to think that they don't get a moment for a proper goodbye. Leon has his own duties to attend to, reports to be made, and medical checkups to deal with. He's certainly not one to insist on anything, either. Maybe just a lingering look before he quietly slips away.

But it's also very much possible to imagine Ashley requesting a quick moment to say a final goodbye to him. It'll probably be a tad bit awkward and rushed because of all the eyes watching, but it would be genuine nonetheless. Maybe a pat on the head and a little final quick from Leon, and a grateful smile and a chuckle from Ashley.

So it's really for you to decide, however you want to imagine their parting to be.

[evolutionsvoid]

The tale is one many are quite familiar with, as it has spread far and wide since its birth. There are few who haven't heard, but it is a story that they would recognize quite quickly if told the first few lines. It has come in many guises and been written with different characters, but it is still one that is all too common in this world. A tale of a cursed kingdom and a mad king, which honestly doesn't narrow it down all that much when one realizes how many times that sort of thing has happened. Regardless, this particular story speaks of a desperate lord who would do anything to remain in power. His rule was growing feeble and his enemies were many, surely time and its cruelties would bring his life and kingdom to a violent end. However, he refused to give up, even as his armies abandoned him and his citizens questioned his power. He needed to keep order, he needed to keep authority, but his weakening body could do no such thing. That was when he turned to darker powers, ones that promised a happy end to his miserable tale. He brought in sorcerers and summoners, any who could help touch the realm beyond and access the incredible power that lay within. Deals were struck, contracts were written up and a few shady warlocks with bloody pasts wound up walking free from their supposed life sentences. In the end, all this bargaining allowed the king to contact the other side and make one last deal to save his faltering rule. What emerged from this horrible agreement was a brilliant throne, a seat for a true ruler of the land. All the king had to do was take the throne as his own, and the power to fulfill his dream would be his.   The moment he sat upon the throne, he felt an incredibly surge of energy and strength. The graying man who once struggled with his old battle armor now had the power of a dozen men. It was as if his youthful self had returned, but he was far better now than even in his best of past days. No warrior could match his skill, no foe could best his strength, it was as if he had gained the power of a god. Infused with this incredibly energy, he marched onto the battlefield alone and single-handedly turned the tide. The invading force was sent scrambling back to their homelands, bearing bloody tales of an invincible king. Inspired by his new found strength, his armies returned to his side and his people once again praised his name. With him leading the charge, he slew all who dared threaten his kingdom and insured that his rule would be supreme. He would be the master of this land, watching over it from his prized throne. The throne would always give him the strength he needed to vanquish any who challenged him. Unsurprisingly, this wonderful time did not last long, as there is a reason this story is an infamous one. While the throne charged this king with incredible power, it did not do this for free. It was not just a lifeless chair, as it had a mind, a will and a hunger. Whenever he sat upon its dazzling "seat," hair thin tendrils would emerge from its body and stab painlessly into the lord. The throne would connect itself to the king that sat upon it, and from this connection would it give this unstoppable power. In return, however, the throne required sustenance. From these same tendrils, it imbibed in his blood and life force, feeding off him like a parasite. In the beginning, the king hardly noticed, as he was too overwhelmed with his newfound strength, but as time wore on the draining began to take its toll. As he lost blood and life, he grew a desire for it as well, a need to replenish his stock. At first, he simply drank the blood of his enemies, which also made him that much more terrifying to his foes. But as he returned to the throne again and again for a recharge, his hunger grew worse. Soon he began to feed on his enemies, sometimes right on the battlefield, tearing into them like a wild dog. But this would not satiate him for long, as he needed the throne's power and that chair needed his blood, so he ate more and more. Eventually his own citizens began to wind up on his dinner table, and the tales changed from a god king to a cannibal one. The kingdom he sacrificed everything for to keep was now to be wiped out by his own hand and hunger. As the atrocities of the cannibal king grew, his people banded together to bring this horrible regime to an end. A rebellion force, aided by those they once called foes, stormed the castle and did battle with the wretched king. The casualties were many, but they soon learned the source of his strength. Knowing his need to recharge and feed, they lured him into the dungeons and trapped him in its gloomy depths. His strength would allow him to break free from any bars or shackles, but as each trap was sprung and each gate was sealed, the cost of freeing himself grew more and more. Without the throne to sit upon, he was growing weaker, which finally gave the rebels the chance to bring him down for the good. The cannibal king was slain, his head chopped cleanly off and presented to the people he once terrorized. With the horrible lord gone, the people could now seek to rebuild, but first they needed a leader. The one who organized the rebellion took this position for himself, and took the throne along with it. He sat upon this beautiful chair and vowed to bring prosperity back to the kingdom. This lasted for a few months, before the parasitic throne turned him as well, and a new cannibal king was born. Once again, the people came together to defeat this foe. The king was executed and the people celebrated, and this time a queen took on the mantle. This wondrous event was unsurprisingly followed up with the birth of a ravenous queen, who once again began to dine on human flesh. Quite used to this charade by now, the people grab the executioner's axe and went about chopping this monster's head off too. With the wretched queen slain, the citizens of the kingdom finally put their heads together and thought: do we really need a monarch? And also I think there is something wrong with that chair. And so the people of the land chose a new form of rule, and the opulent throne of demonic nature was dragged into the depths of the castle and sealed away. There it would be left to rot and fade away into nothingness. The castle would be left empty and its grounds would be guarded, so that no others could sit upon the throne and begin the cycle of madness again. But power beckons so sweetly to many, and the promises of the throne would soon find someone who could not resist its temptations. Man is a wanting creature, and sooner or later they will give into their desires, no matter the cost. All the throne had to do was wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Any time now. And wait. And wait. Sooner or later, someone will come to claim this incredible power. And wait. And wait. And wait. Wow, really taking their sweet time with this, huh? And wait. And wait. And wait. They do remember there is a ultimate source of power down here, right? And wait. And wait. And wait. I'm sorry, did monarchies fall out of fashion? What is going on here? And wait. And wait until it couldn't wait any longer and seriously where is everyone? Should have had like five warlords breaking in here by now! Did power hungry tyrants go extinct or something? So the throne decided that it was done with waiting and took matters into its own hands. It clawed and chewed its way out of its prison, after all, it had nothing else better to do. After years of slowly burrowing out of the abandoned castle, the cursed throne reemerged into the world, ready to begin the cycle once again. The people of the land would soon find a new tale to spread and a new ravenous ruler to fear. Well, they would, if they hadn't been so busy at spreading those other stories around. For the decades the cursed throne lay buried, the people of the land told the whole world about the cannibalistic monarchs and their vile chair. It became quite the popular tale, even being published as a book or two! Actually, wait, is that a whole series?! About a cursed chair? Goodness, people will read anything. And what is that? A play adaptation? Well, I hope whoever played the throne looked the part! Oh come on, that looks terrible! Did you people even try to match the likeness? So it seems the story about the corrupting chair had reached almost every ear in the realm, but it was no problem for this demonic thing. It was only a matter of time that someone would come begging at the throne's feet, pleading to be given the power of the gods. Begging did indeed happen, but more on the throne's side of things. Turns out that people are actually surprisingly good at avoiding a cursed object after its been advertised again and again as bringing horrible death. It seemed that no matter who they turned to or asked, there would be none who would even consider it. The decades locked away had already worked up a terrible hunger, and now all these do-gooders were denying it its feast. No one would sit upon the throne, no matter how much it begged or bargained. A real shame that the rules of the original contract specified that the sitter had to be a willing participant, meaning they couldn't just ram someone from behind and get them to fall on. No, they had to choose to sit on the cursed throne, and everyone was being a real jerk about it. Come on, just for a minute! A moment! Please! Anything for a quick bite to eat! The once proud symbol of might and royalty, now reduced to begging onlookers and harassing strangers. Anything to get a single person to sit upon the royal seat! It skitters from town to town, pleading and scrambling to find anyone who will park their rear atop it. No matter what it offers or promises, everyone always says "no." To be fair, though, the throne definitely isn't making this an easier. Turns out people aren't a fan of having some possessed chair screech "SIT ON ME! SIT ON ME PLEASE!" or "C'MON! PARK THAT TUSH RIGHT HERE! I NEED IT! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEED IT!" at them. It has tried going after children, but it keeps scaring them off on accident and the contract may also insinuate it has to be a legal adult to sit upon the throne (freaking fine print). That also rules out animals and beasts, who now just torment the throne further when some alley cat falls asleep on it and can't even have the decency to shell out some blood! Now it tries to coerce the elderly, offering a nice place to sit after a long grueling walk. My, those groceries look heavy! Sure would be nice to sit down for a second, eh? Oh, fellow drunkard! You seem woozy and in need of a rest! Why not park it right here? What's that? Those under the influence are not considered consenting adults, thus voiding all contracts? Seriously?! Oh son of- Well, there is always the furniture store. Let's see how long before the owner finds out again... So goes the tale of the cursed throne, forever haunting the land in search of a sitter. Its journey has taken it far and wide, with numerous adventures that seem to always fail in finding a willing host. Perhaps now the throne itself has stories to tell! Tales of its desperate attempts and endless hunger. But those are stories for another time, as they are a long ones. Oh, a long story indeed! Quite the long one! In fact, it would probably be best to take a seat to hear all of it! Right here! C'mon!   ---------------------------------------------

“Malesedius, The Cursed Throne”

On the subject of weird NPCs or characters, figured here is a good one to add in. As we get closer to the spooky season, why not a cursed object that is having a really hard time with things? Sooner or later people got to stop falling for these cursed things, so then what?

[maxwell-grant]

Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s). 

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth? 

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914). 

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.” 

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.” 

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day. 

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth. 

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm. 

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC. 

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course. 

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (29)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

***

Having a good growing reputation in Roseville is a good thing. When you arrived here to open your café, you didn't expect to attract people in such a short time. And yet that's what happened. But who would have thought that one day you would be in the mayor's office? You pinch yourself mentally to wake up. Because honestly you don't believe it. Just as you still do not believe that Mayor Tallis came to your café, drank and eat in your café and is personally invited to come and see him in his office at the town hall a few days before. No, it's impossible.

And yet you are there. In the town hall. Waiting for the mayor to bring you in. According to his secretary, he had to make an important call before he received you. You didn't dare to believe it. And yet, it's coming. You don't know what he wants from you but one thing is certain; You are not likely to forget that day. You play nervously with your fingers, occasionally taking your phone to watch the time or go on social media. The more time passed, more the stress rose. After about ten minutes, the door of the mayor's office opened and the mayor came out, with a big smile on his face.

Marius Tallis has been caring for Roseville for 30 years. If at first there were few shops and inhabitants, he quickly changes things and made this dear little village more attractive. Despite his past sixties, He stood straight, his short gray hair, his thin face and his hazel eyes made him a man in full health and always as radiant with vitality. If only we could all be as fit at that age...

“Ah! Miss (y/n)! Please come in! Please excuse me for the delay but I had to make an important call and it lasted much longer than I had anticipated.” He said before letting you in, inviting you to take a seat.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Mayor, I understand perfectly. Being mayor involves a heavy responsibility and sometimes it’s better to take the time to discuss things and others than to rush.” you respond with a smile.  

“This is even more the case when you have been running a small town for 30 years. I have seen and evolved Roseville, and today it’s as I dreamed of it. I don't want to make it a metropolis or anything else, but just a small town that is welcoming to everyone. You must surely be wondering why I invited you to meet me in my office.”

“I must admit that this is quite a... surprising situation. In general, we are the ones who ask to see you when there is a problem, and not the opposite.”

He pressed the intercom button and asked his secretary to bring two coffees. After a few minutes she arrived with the tray in hand that she placed on the mayor's desk. The latter thanked her warmly and asked her a couple of things before letting her go back to work quietly. He handed you a cup that you accept, thanking him, and then sat down at his desk, taking his cup in hand to drink a sip of coffee.

“Miss (y/n), if I asked you to come to my office... it’s because I have a proposal to make to you. Since you came here, and opened your business, I have only heard positive reviews and compliments about you. Know that you have gained a flourishing reputation in a short time and this is quite rare in your field.” He said before gets up and to go to an old photo of the city hanging on the wall. “Since I've been running Roseville... I organize every year its... birthday if I can put it like that. Every year I celebrate the efforts I have managed to make as well as those of the inhabitants, to make Roseville the city as we know it and see it today. It’s an event that all the inhabitants want and so do I. My request is simple: I would like you to be the one who will take care of this year's pastries. You will have the field free as to which pastries you want to add to it. It's like... a huge banquet to which you bring sweetness and sugar. I know that what I am asking of you is important and that an event of this magnitude is new to you. You don't have to answer me right away, the festival is only for in 2 weeks. But I would be very honoured if you would agree.”

“Well, Mr. Mayor, I... I am very honored that you offer me to participate fully in this event... it's true that it's brand new for me... but you are not afraid that... that the Ghostface manifests itself? I suspect that it will be done during the day but... it's going to last very late I guess, and we all know that Ghostface is a man of the night.” you ask worried. This is the kind of event that Ghostface could easily blend into the crowd to spot his next victim... or come and see you.

“Don't worry about this, Inspector Wilhelm and his men will take care of the security of the event. Because unfortunately because of this... Ghostface, we forget the young delinquents who take advantage of it to spoil everything and aggress people. As for Ghostface, I place all my trust in our police to arrest him. No criminal is perfect miss (y/n), sooner or later the rider will fall from his horse. And the fool will be locked up.” he replied with a sincere smile.  

You nod, then the mayor escorts you to the entrance of the town hall, greeting you warmly. You, participate in the event of the city? While you have only been living there for a short time? It was unthinkable. And yet that's what's happening to you right now. But you have to think about it, that's why the mayor gives you time before giving an answer. The first thing you do is send a message to Jed. You have to warn someone of all this!

He replied that he was happy to hear the news, the Roseville Gazette would cover the event with other local newspapers. He does not assure that it will be him and his group who will take care of writing the article but he will come to see you. You can be sure of that. Jed is really adorable... even while working he finds a way to take time for you.

You go back to the café to discuss it with Amy and Corey. How will they react? they have just started their work that they find themselves with a great event on their shoulders. It would be a little selfish of you to impose that on them. We might as well discuss it with them. You will then decide.

“It's... it's serious??? The mayor himself asked you???” said Corey, shocked.  

“I can't believe it... I don't know what to say... I am speechless!” said Amy.  

“I haven't given an answer yet... but I know it's going to be a lot of work and...as you just started, I don't want to put you that much work and pressure right now.” you replied with a little smile.  

“You're kidding! On the contrary, we are ready! You realize, the mayor in person asks that it’s us, or rather you who takes care of the pastries for the Roseville Festival of this year! It is an honour and an unexpected opportunity!” said Corey excited.  

“Are you sure? It's going to be a lot of work! It's not a dozen people that we will serve but the whole city! or even more! We will have to redouble our efforts! understood?”

“Yes Madam!” said Amy and Corey at the same time.  

You're still talking a little bit to see what you could prepare for the festival. There are so many pastries that you could prepare, plus you have no limits according to the mayor! what to choose?  what to do? So much possibility! it must please everyone! you are going to propose several of them, but which ones is the question. You call the mayor to inform him that you accept his proposal. He was delighted to know that you will participate fully in the festival and informed you again that the event will be held in 2 weeks. This gives you plenty of time to prepare everything and think about what you are going to do. But the idea that Ghostface could be there, not knowing who he actually is scares you. And the worst thing is that it can really be anyone and he won't come and tell you it's him easily. He will pretend not to know you, will smile at you like a normal person.

Your whole body began to shiver thinking that you are going to talk to the one who has been harassing you since your arrival without even recognizing him. You, Amy and Corey give yourself an afternoon of rest. since you had an appointment with the mayor around 2pm, it’s not necessary to reopen for the afternoon. Fortunately, you had already informed the usual clientele via a sign that you would exceptionally close this afternoon. But at the income level, you have not lost your afternoon, given all the people you have had this morning, you can even tell yourself that you have made a profit.

You return home after performing your daily ritual at the shop, fear in your stomach. But you don't show it, you don't want to worry Jed... and you don't prefer to see him angry. Fortunately, this has never happened yet. The latter stood in front of your door, his angelic smile on his lips. But despite all your efforts, he noticed that something was wrong. He took you in his arms, hugging you while placing a kiss on your cheek and then on your lips.

“What's going on? Did you have a problem at work today?” he asks, passing his hand on your cheek.

“No, not at all on the contrary, we had a lot of people and we even made profits. I'm just a little tired that's all.” you simply answer.

“If there was a contest of the worst lie, you would win without problem. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it in relation to the mayor's proposal?”

“... Yes. I'm a little afraid that I'm not up to the task. You realize, I've only been here for a short time, he has more competent pastry chefs than me, and yet it is I who the mayor has chosen to participate in this year's festival. I have never participated in something so important, imagine that I miss everything? I'm going to pass for a fool in front of the whole city.” You replied. Of course, you’re lying, that's not what scares you, but you really don't want to worry Jed. Or make him angry.

“Hey, if the mayor asked you, it's for a good reason. Even though there are pastry chefs who have been here longer than you, it’s your pastries that people want to eat. And I'm one of them. So, you don't have to care about it, I know you're going to make it. And then you're not alone, you have your employees and... if need be, I would come and give you a helping hand.”

“Oh? would the great Jed Olsen be a fine pastry chef in addition to be a great journalist?” You replied with a laugh.  

“Hey you took pie twice the last time we had dinner together. So, you can say that I am... a god?” he responds with an innocent look.

“Very funny mr. god of pastry, we will see it on the ground with REAL equipment. In the meantime, I'm going to go rest a little and think about what cakes I'm going to do. How about you?”

“Well for once I'm going to go and rest too. with everything that's going on right now... I need to be fit. I know, "Jed Olsen taking care of him for once, it's a miracle," but it happens to me from time to time to think about myself.”

“I hope so. Good night Jed... I love you.”

“I love you too. Good night...” he says, heading to his apartment before he stops. “Oh, I almost forgot! You remember when we thought... that we had to move in together? Well, the apartment on the top floor is free and... it’s the size of our apartments combined so... I thought maybe we could take it? I talked to Mr. Lawson about it and told him that I would see with you.”

“I'll think about it. Thank you, Jed.”

You go home, without seeing the sneaky smile that was looming on Jed's face. You don't know what you're getting into... oh no, you don't know. You put your things down before going to your room, take clean clothes, and then you head to the bathroom to take a good shower. After that, you land in your sofa, a pencil and a notebook in hand, a recipe book placed on the coffee table. For 2 hours, you try to see what you could do, the pages of the notebooks darkening as you write, scratch, erase. But nothing suits you. Absolutely nothing.

“I don't see why you're looking for inspiration in these ridiculous books. I think for once... you could improvise, do something that bears your signature.”

You jump off the couch, pointing the pencil like a weapon at Ghostface. He sneered and approached you, with this approach of his own. This nonchalance that he possesses says a lot about him... just like his gestures.

“Oh my god...how scared I am, honey. Are you really going to hurt me with this weapon of mass destruction? Is this pencil as sharp as my knife?” he said ironically.  

“Shut your Mouth !  I'm tired of all the men in this city trying to charm me and take me for a weak ! Just like that damn server !” you said angry. 

You put a hand on your mouth realizing what you have just said. You just said, in front of Ghostface, that someone seduces you. What did you do?

“ There’s someone in this city that will taste my blade, if I find him. Thank you very much my angel, thanks to you, I have just found one more victim.”

“Don’t you dare...”  

“Or what? Are you going to report me to the police? For wanting to protect you, or even save you from a potential dangerous predator? remember : I fall, you fall too.”  Ghostface said, gently touching your cheek with his gloved hand before taking your face into his hands.

“ You know, I've already lost someone because of a bastard who had nothing to f**k about life, I won't let it happen again. You can count on that. I'm already nice enough to let Jed take care of you while waiting for you to drop him for me.”

He released you before heading with an assured step towards the window. He looked at you, and even if you couldn't see his face, you could imagine the anger and madness that was looming over his face.

“I had planned to spend time with you tonight but... in itself you just gave me a job. I'll find him... and when I know who he is... he will bitterly regret it.”

He disappeared out the window before you could say or do anything. You sit heavily on your couch, taking your face in your hands. What have you done? You have just offered Ghostface a new victim! even if he is just an idiot who tries and who already regrets his actions, he deserves more than death.

You have just signed the death warrant of a man.

And the worst... It's that deep down of your heart, you want it.

***

(In three days, I will be 23 years old. Time passes too quickly I didn't even see the year pass! Enjoy your youth as much as you can because given everything that happens, we do not see the time passing at a crazy speed. Once again, I would like to thank you for following the little potato that I am! I hope you’ll like this chapter like the others ones! Well, it's time for my brain to rest! Have a great weekend to you all! See ya!)

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

The Mask of Death Chapter 14 - For Her Sake (Vader Being Scary Fanfic)

Bail Organa had never been so terrified. He felt the layer of cold sweat damp and clammy against his forehead, his lips drawn into a strained grimace to prevent them from trembling. He had been through war zones, kidnappings, terrorist attacks and assassination attempts. He had aided Jedi fugitives Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi as they went into exile, right under the nose of the newly announced Emperor Palpatine. He had adopted the daughter of one of his best friends in the wake of her tragic passing, and was actively raising her as his own. He had seen the child’s father murder younglings, in the name of The Dark Side. What he hadn’t counted on was for said adopted daughter to grow to resemble her father more and more with each passing day. She had her late mother’s political lenience, her debate skills, her keen intellect, her dark hair and brown eyes. But she had her biological father’s dry sarcasm, his stubbornness, his nose for trouble, his courage.

Anakin Skywalker died on Mustafar, Obi-Wan had said. At the very least, he had been left for dead, consumed by flames. Perhaps, Obi-Wan had known that was a lie. Perhaps, he had known his former apprentice lived albeit a changed man.

Bail had never been as closely linked to Anakin, he’d been Padmé’s close friend and although Anakin had always been polite and easy to make conversation with, there’d always been a barrier he couldn’t penetrate. Sometimes, he’d wondered whether Anakin was jealous of his friendship with his secret wife - something he wouldn’t find out about until much later. Either way, whereas Obi-Wan and Yoda had deemed Anakin Skywalker to be dead as soon as he transitioned from Jedi Knight to Sith Lord - Bail didn’t share their opinion. Perhaps Obi-Wan had loved the boy too much to see the darkness in him, but Bail has noticed his dull edge early on. What little he had gathered from Padmé when she would mention him, had only served to further his suspicions.

Bail had been wary enough, knowing he’d need to keep his daughter, Leia, under wraps to hide her potential from the Emperor, were she to have inherited her father’s Force abilities. That was trouble enough, knowing the power of Palpatine whose cunning intellect had played both sides of The Clone Wars right into his own hands. No, worse yet was this.

Leia was all of six ars old, and while Bail would have preferred to leave her behind on Alderaan with either his wife, Breha, or a handmaiden, or nursing droid - her big brown doe eyes pleading with him to attend the senate banquet with him had made him cave. It might be dangerous, but she hadn’t displayed any latent Force powers so he deemed it safe enough. She was his daughter, there was no reason for anyone to suspect where her biological heritage might come from. Except, once they arrived - little Leia dressed in a baby blue, frilly gown with puffy sleeves, befitting of her status as crown princess of Alderaan, and a sheer embroidered silver scarf resting over her narrow shoulders - the banquet had turned out to be preceeded by an unprepared gathering. Apart from Bail Organa himself, the small party involved Mon Mothma of Chandrila, Gall Trayvis, Burla Pao, Adrian Loto and Lafreeda Zint - all member of The Imperial Senate, as well active members of the organized secret Rebel Alliance. That in itself was enough to make Bail break into a nervous coldsweat.

Still as the less than unwitting senators settled down, realizing far too late it may be a trap rather than an actual briefing - they were joined by three additional party members. The first two, Bail knew all too well. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, with his receeding silver hair meticulously combed back; his piercing, steel gray eyes scanning the faces of each attendant. His thin lips twisted into a callous smile, as he gave a curt bow of greeting before settling down at the head of the long table. The warm mahogany shades of the unusually well decorated dining lounge seemed so much less inviting, his presence bringing everyone up on their toes. Bail felt Leia’s big, dark eyes study his expression as she peered up at him from the spot on his lap where she sat poised; before her gaze travelled over to Tarkin’s gaunt, lanky form.

Hard on his heels strolled the newly appointed Captain Rae Sloane, whose prestige had gained her favours to climb the ladder after her aid had helped retract the Emperor himself unscathed after an assassination attempt over Ryloth; lead by a close ally to Bail himself, twi’lek freedom fighter Cham Syndulla. Her frizzy dark curls were tied back into a neat, tidy ponytail and she held her head high, confident in her newfound position. Bail had no doubts she possessed the ambition necessary to make a name for herself. It was the person to follow after her, that made Bail’s heart drop into his stomach. He gulped, and bit back the bitter taste of bile that welled up in his throat; hands suddenly unsteady as he held Leia closer to his body, as if that would help secure her. It didn't ease his nerves.

Captain Sloane sat down on the chair next to Tarkin, looking suspiciously like his right hand woman, and the small smirk on her painted lips suited her. The third guest the Imperial party had brought along, no doubt as an intimidation factor as he cared little for politics, opted to stand silently to the left side of Tarkin’s chair. His strong arms were folded nonchalantly across his wide chest, the constant sound of his respirator giving off a rhythmic pattern - breathing in and out in steady intervals. Behind the trio, at least a dozen stormtroopers, armed and ready, loomed outside the hydraulic doorway. They stood immobile, the door locked on open as a grim reminder of their presence. But Bail didn’t even glance at their gleaming, polished white armors and helmets. Instead, he found it difficult to tear his eyes away from Darth Vader; as the enforcer of the Emperor hovered like a makeshift harbinger of death right behind Tarkin.

Anakin Skywalker is dead, the Jedi exiles had said. But Bail had seen the holo recording, he had seen Emperor Palpatine - Sith Lord Darth Sidious - deem Anakin his new apprentice. Darth Vader, he had been dubbed. And Darth Vader was very much alive.

There were no physical remnants of the man whom the girl queen and senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo had fallen so madly in love with. Gone was the unruly dark blonde hair, the stormy blue eyes, the cocky smirk, the boyish attitude. Instead, Vader came across more like a reaper. Clad in all black, billowing cape trailing behind him. Taller than Anakin had ever been, by at least a few inches. Bail remembered Anakin had been shorter than him, but Vader made even him and his six foot three frame feel small; forced even him to tip his head backwards to meet the Sith Lord's gaze. Except, Vader’s gaze existed only as a pair of crimson, opaque lenses as eye holes for the face plate he wore. A mask, and helmet, concealing his identity. Making him unreadable, unpredictable. The mask itself eerily reminiscent of a human skull, with exaggerated and accented angles. As Bail peered uneasily down at Leia, he noted that her eyes, too, were glued to Vader’s form.

“I suppose it’s about time I explain the idea behind our little rendez-vous,” said Tarkin’s shrewd, authoritative voice.

“Please, do,” Mon Mothma agreed, faking a rather believeable smile as she invited one of her least favourite people in the world to take the lead.

Vader didn’t move. Bail wasn’t sure whether he was listening, or simply lending his physical form as a prop for intimidation. Even as Bail tried his best to pay attention to Tarkin’s lengthy speech of the Emperor’s supposed faith in this exact group of Imperial Senators - a blatant lie they were all aware of - he failed to maintain his focus. Instead, he carefully watched Vader out of his periphery; feeling Leia squirm, unruly on his lap as she began to get bored and restless with the drawled lecture.

“I was not aware there would be children present,” interrupted an unimpressed Vader, his tone booming and powerful as it ricocheted off the walls - in response to Leia’s annoyed grunt, as she attempted two wriggle loose from her adoptive father’s vice like grip.

“I’m terribly sorry, Lord Vader. Senator Organa was not aware of your direct involvement, we were summoned on the behalf of the annual banquet, as you are aware. He came prepared for the festivities,” Mon Mothma was quick to inject; and Bail stifled a small sigh of relief.

“I see. It is… unfortunate, that he lacks adequate foresight,” Vader replied, the short pause drawn out and premeditated, and Bail felt the hairs at the back of his neck rise.

To calm himself, he gently smoothed back Leia’s soft fishtail braid, looping it through his fingers and she huffed in protest.

“I apologize, with all due respect. This is my daughter, and while I agree that it is not an optimal arrangement, there is little else I can do at this point,” he quickly said, to hopefully mend the situation and direct the attention away from himself and back towards the issue on the table.

“I was under the presumption that you have little trouble gathering up servants upon request. A nurse would hardly be inssufficent for a man of your status.”

Vader seemed to go for a matter of fact delivery, but his voice was as monotone as ever, filtered through the vocalizer as it altered his naturallyspeaking voice. Anakin had had a cheeky, but soft tone - sometimes whiny, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes kind. The dry sarcasm persisted, but all else seemed to have ebbed away until only the unnatural baritone of the modulizer remained. Vader shifted a tad, hooking his thumbs casually into his belt and Bail had to force himself not to clear his dry throat when he realized the man’s head was tilted ever so slightly in his - and subsequently Leia’s - direction. The words were a thinly veiled jab, but Bail didn’t reply. Instead, he carefully bounced Leia a bit on his lap to amuse her and she seemed to relent for a moment, though she was back to fiddling with his laced fingers, determined to break free.

“Either way,” Tarkin picked up where he had been cut off, “ there is in fact a reason this security debriefing was deemed a necessity. The banquet will transpire as is tradition, but I was tasked with informing your particular parties of suspected terrorist activity in your immediate sectors. You are not being accused of anything, neither are you presumed to be involved with these nefarious activities. But, it is our duty as Imperial sovereigns, to warn you on behalf of the Emperor himself. Unfortunately, he will not be able to attend the festivities, much less this brief meeting. He does, however, send his best regards and my only priority is to forward his deepest condolences.”

It was nothing they hadn’t heard before.

In fact, Bail could count the very few and far between appearances the Emperor had made in person since the day he was announced as such. He blamed his physically marred features for his unwillingness to attend social ceremonies. Bail nodded, only half listening.

It was uncomfortably cold. A frigid, dry, jagged sort of icy chill lingered in the tense air. Before the Imperial trio arrived, the company had been warm and friendly, though poignant with suspicion. Now, the space seemed cramped, constrictive and suffocating. As Bail tried to focus on the culprit of the eerie, uneasy sensation - he found its source without really trying. Stinging, piercing, sharp pin pricks emanated from Vader’s direction. As if his very aura, his Force signature as the Jedi called it, was oozing off him. As if the sensation of dread was part of his very core, as if it was emitted from him in a cloud of invisible, foggy haze. Its shadow fell upon the small group, trapping them in despair, contempt and an awkward stillness. Peforating every inch of their perimetry.

That was the moment little Leia chose to make a break for it.

With an agile twist, she rolled around full body and slipped promptly out of her father’s now slack grip. Bail flinched, already reaching out for her to restrain her yet again, but she ducked and avoided his hands. In an instant, all eyes were first on the viceroy's helpless expression as his clumsy hands fumbled through empty air for his daughter’s tiny form. Then, they travelled over to Leia who had already managed to slip underneath the table; dive between Sloane’s legs to crawl under her chair, and pop up right in front of Vader. He towered over her, even as he too appeared to be staring at her petite figure. Her cheeks were tinged pink, the cold of the room nipping at the tips of her ears and nose. One tiny hand clutched at the lace embroidered along the hem of her lavish dress; the other was thoughtfully rubbing her little chin as she tipped her head so far back, she nearly toppled over to peer inquisitively up at Vader.

Bail was up on his feet in the blink of an eye, scrambling as he took a few rushed strides towards his daughter - and the Sith Lord. Vader regarded the small child, head tipped forward to grant him a better view through his seemingly cumbersome head piece. He said nothing, and Bail noticed the green and red blinking lights of Vader’s belt reflected in Leia’s large, dark eyes. He didn’t dare look away, didn’t dare tear his gaze away from the visage of his daughter standing in front of a child murderer, a monster - and unbeknownst to both her and him, her biological father. Bail’s outstretched hands retreated slowly, and he curled them into fists for lack of anything better to do with them. He let out a small gasp through an open mouth, and watched as it came out in a cloud of condensation. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Tarkin’s amused expression, one silver eyebrow quirked at the display.

“You’re cold,” proclaimed Leia in a high pitched tone after what seemed like an eternity. "You could get sick."

Vader did not reply, but neither did he ignore or brush off the comment. Bail felt his heart hammering wildly against his ribcage, as he watched in awe while Leia promptly reached up to slide the flimsy fabric of her decorative scarf off her shoulders with a shrug. She pouted, determination furrowing her fine brows as she stood on her tiptoes.

“This will help,” she declared proudly.

Wobbling slightly, she raised her arms as far as they would go only to tuck the frilled end of her little ornate scarf into the crook of Vader’s sturdy elbow. He stood unrelenting, and Bail wasn’t sure whether he should be horrified by how uncanny the child’s resemblance to her late mother was when she smiled; a wide, toothy beam revealing the missing front tooth. He felt fear pooling in his belly, his stomach churning and his face pale as Leia took a step back to admire her handiwork and thoughtfulness. She clapped her hands, pleased with herself. Vader’s hollow eye sockets shifted to stare first at the small girl, then at the scarf that was barely wide enough to reach around his arm where it rested draped over his elbow. Then, whatever spell had transfixed him seemed to wear off, as he turned his head to lock eyes with Bail. Even through the face plate, Bail could readily feel the intensity and weight of the bewildered glare he was rewarded. It took all his resolve not to shrink back; his concern for Leia’s safety winning out as he hurriedly closed the gap between them to scoop his daughter up into his arms, and settle back down in his seat. Tarkin was first to break the tension, as he chuckled at the unexpected display.

“You have raised a quite remarkable child, Senator Organa,” he said, his tone an odd mixture of snide and amused. “Let us hope she will grow up to develop your sense of propriety.”

The rest of the meeting progressed rather effortlessly, a tirade of threats and insinuations hidden behind a facade of protocol politeness and curtesy. Bail had heard it before, although the knowledge that the Imperial fleet had detected suspicious movement around the Alderaan system did nag at the back of his mind as a foreboding warning. Leia settled down, silent and obedient as soon as she had carried out her mission. The room was still freezing cold, but Leia was warm to the touch; her skin soft, and her head heavy as she rested it against her father’s chest. Soon, she drifted off into the light, easy sleep only a satisfied child could muster. Her expression remained proud even in her sleep, as a dark brown strand of hair fell into her chubby little face. As the party said their goodbyes, concluding the meeting, Bail gathered up his sleeping daughter to close to his chest - protective and paranoid.

When Bail exited, last in line, Vader lingered just outside the hydraulic doors. Tarkin, Sloane and the troopers were already retreating down the hall in the opposite direction - no doubt to touch up on their own appearances before the banquet come evening. Bail hoped Leia’s nap would give her enough energy to enjoy herself, seeing as there were more likely to be at least a few other children in attendance for her to play with. He hoped it'd help her forget the encounter, he didn't look forward to her asking questions about the Dark Lord. Still, as he moved to swiftly pass Vader, a chill went down his spine and he instinctively stopped; an inherent need to adress the man screaming at him to tread lightly.

“Lord Vader. I must apologize for my daughter’s brash behaviour. She can be rambunctious, she has a mind of her own. It will not be repeated, I assure you,” he said, in what he hoped was a respectful voice as he turned towards the other man to face him.

Vader stared dismissively down at him, his head tilting downwards as his gaze shifted to the sleeping Leia. She snored quietly, mumbling something intelligible as she rubbed her cheek against her father's frock. For a fretful instant, Bail felt terror wash over him as he dreaded the thought that perhaps Leia’s obvious resemblance to Padmé was not lost on Vader. Perhaps, he had put it all together. Perhaps, the effort that had gone into hiding Leia’s true parentage had been in vain, to no avail.

Hesitating, Bail held his breath as Vader reached into the left side of his inner robes - only to pull out the little, frail scarf he’d been offered. It was wrinkled, comically tiny where it rested across the Sith Lord’s large, gloved palm. He held it midair for a short moment, as an offering; as if unsure of what to do with it - and Bail took the opportunity to force out a hushed ‘thank you’, relief washing over him when he gently tugged at the end of the fabric and it slid effortlessly out of Vader’s loose grasp.

“Indeed. I would expect as much. For her sake,” Vader said as a reply to Bail's earlier attempted apology, and the impact of those words were not lost on him.

Without further ado, Vader turned on his heel to stalk in a quick pace down the same corridor Tarkin and Sloane had disappeared along. Heart still thundering away in his chest, Bail watched the black shadow of his form disappear in the distance, menace of his presence dying away with it. He knew what that threat meant, and he was determined to honour Vader’s assessment.

After all, Vader didn’t know the entire truth - and he was no stranger to spilling blood of the innocent youth.

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

So, I love the installments I've written for Leia and Vader so far in this fic, and I wanted to write something from Bail's POV. What better than to have him fear for his daughter's safety the very first time she is introduced to Darth Vader? Leia is so young, she doesn't remember this encounter later on and whatever she may recall she would chalk up to a fever dream or childhood fantasy. Bail, of course, never brings it up again except for to Breha in secret.

Hence, my explanation for the existence of this chapter. Most of all, I wanted a different angle and take on the dread Vader emanates, and I'm glad to have another installment of this series out. It's been forever!

Enjoy!

Ao3 link below:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049894/chapters/69212226

[epiphany-of-a-madwoman]

Daylight | Edward Cullen x Stark!OC

Chapter 2 | Invisible String 

"You gotta step into the daylight and let it go"

Summary: Delphina Stark, to be frank, is tired. After the events of the Accords are done and half of the Avengers are now considered fugitives, she moves from bustling New York to live with her mom in Forks, Washington. Wielding a sarcastic attitude and crippling self-deprecating humor, she somehow gets wrapped up in the supernatural world.

Word Count: ~3k

Note: Click here for the Masterlist for this series ♡ || Link for my tag list in my Bio ♡

   “So, how are you enjoying the school so far?” The voice on the other side of the phone trickles into Delphina’s ear. It’s honey-sweet and wrapped with a warmth that could only belong to Pepper Potts, quelling the homesickness that’s been crescendoing since she stepped on the plane. It’s lunch period and instead of sitting at one of the tables, getting claustrophobic from everyone staring at her like it’s the circus and she’s the newest act, Delphina opted to call a few people, Pepper being at the top of that list.

   “Oh you know, I’ve already texted my mom on five separate occasions begging to be home schooled.” Delphina says.

   “And?”

   “And I received a veto all five times,” Delphina says, a small smile on her lips. Laughter trickles from the speaker into her ears, bringing a smile to Delphina’s face. She can perfectly imagine Pepper’s face right now. The way her face scrunches up, perfectly straight posture bent over slightly, and the small lines that form around her eyes when she smiles. And instead of soothing her homesickness, it ignites it, like a flickering flame being doused in oil. The easy banter and relaxed feeling another reminder of how much she misses New York.

   “Well, I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Pepper trails off, her voice raising an octave, the statement sounding more like a question.

   “Oh, I’m not concerned. When she gets home from work I’m going to ambush her with a PowerPoint presentation and everything.” Delphina says, breathing out a laugh at her own joke. “But in reality, it’s not… the worst, I guess. No one has tried to kill me yet, so there’s that.”

   “That’s good, and hopefully the bare minimum for your expectations.”

   “Don’t worry Peps, my standards are always low, keeps me from being disappointed in anything,” she says. Turning around and glancing at the clock, it reads 12:45, fifteen minutes until lunch ends and class begins.

   “I’ve got to go, my next class starts soon. I’ll talk to you later and tell dad that my plans for overthrowing the patriarchy are currently in phase one. Love you!” she says, walking towards the cafeteria entrance, bag swinging with each step and tapping against her side.  

   “Will do. I love you too.” Pepper says, laughter lacing each word. And with that, the line goes silent as the call disconnects. With a sigh, Delphina pulls the phone away from her ear and back into her pocket. Opening the door, the loud talking assaults her ears, quickly overcoming the semi-peace that covers the outside like a thick wool blanket.

   To her left, there’s a table of obnoxiously attractive people, and hidden in the midst of them is the guy from her Biology class. There’s three guys and two girls, all wearing nice clothes with perfectly styled hair. Matching amber eyes pin on her like a cat pouncing on a mouse, none of them so much as blinking when Delphina meets their gazes.

   “Family genes are weird,” she mutters to herself, snapping her gaze away and continuing forward, towards the loudest table in the room, where Bella and all her friends sit at. But before she gets too far away, Delphina swears she hears someone chuckle from the other table. She returns her attention to them, seeing the guy from Biology smirking as he looks at Delphina, amusement dancing in his eyes. She flashes him a quick smile, taking notice of the scowl the blonde woman presents in return.

   “New York, New York! How gracious of you to well… grace us with your presence.” Mike calls out upon noticing her.

   “I have a name you know,” she mutters, pulling out the chair by Bella with more force than necessary.

   “I know, but it’s kind of hard to remember,” he mutters, scratching the back of his neck with his brows furrowed.

   “It’s Delphina, Mike, not that hard.” Angela pipes up, flashing a quick grin towards Delphina, which she quickly returns.

   “Whatever doesn’t matter. Back to what I was originally going to say, how you liking Forks so far?” he questions, moving from his seat across the table so he is standing by Delphina.

   “It’s cold,” she grumbles, not meeting his gaze as she pulls out her phone.

   “W - yeah. Look, I know we’re not big city New York --” Delphina hums in agreement. “But I’d say we’re alright.” he finishes.

   “How long did you practice that one in front of the mirror?” Delphina asks after a moment, moving her eyes from her screen to meet Mike’s. He promptly begins stuttering, face heating up rapidly that longer Delphina stares at him.

“I’d say about 20 minutes, heard him in the bathroom practicing everything he was going to say,” a guy teases, moving behind Delphina like that air. She turns to see Tyler, smirking at Mike before he turns to Delphina, throwing her a wink. And as quickly as he appeared, he’s gone, Mike nearly falling out of his chair as he chases after Tyler.  

“Get back here, Tyler!” he yells, nearly tripping at least a dozen times, Tyler just laughs as he runs, effortlessly avoiding Mike. “Not cool, man. Not cool!’

Delphina raises a single brow, her face void of any amusement as they run through the room, Mike screaming like a banshee and Tyler cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West.

   “But I do have a question.” she turns her attention to the rest of the table, mainly focusing on Jessica, since she seems to be in the center of all the gossip. “Who are they?” she nods her head in the general direction of the group of gorgeous people. From the way Jessica’s face lights up and a giddy smile overtakes her face, Delphina knows Jessica is the right person to ask.

   “Those are the Cullens. Their dad, Dr. Cullen, and his wife Esme adopted them. The two blondes are Jasper and Rosalie Hale, they’re twins. The big guy by Rosalie is Emmett. They like...a thing.” This causes Delphina to raise a brow, but she doesn’t interject. “The other girl is Alice, she’s kinda weird, her and Jasper are a thing. And then lastly there’s Edward, incredibly single and gorgeous, but apparently too good for anyone here.” she finishes, her tone bitter like espresso at that end.

   “Cool,” Delphina says, nodding her head and then focusing on her phone again. “So if only two of them are blood-related, why do they all look alike?”

   Jessica opens her mouth and then closes it again, like a fish fresh out of water she’s squirming from uncertainly. Before anyone else can say anything, however, Eric interrupts them, claiming the chair between Angela and Delphina.

   “Hate to interrupt, but Delphina, I’ve been dying to talk to you all day. I don’t want to spend this precious time on the Cullens. As you probably already know, I’m with the school newspaper, and as the new student - no - as the new student and daughter of Tony Stark you’re the feature, which means I need dirt.” he says, looking at Delphina with puppy dog eyes and a hopeful smile.

   “If you need dirt, there’s some outside,” she replies, pointing her perfectly manicured finger towards the building exit.

   “You know that’s not what I meant. We can delve into whatever you want: favorite color, check; childhood trauma, also check. I mean, you were in Stark Tower when Loki attacked in 2011 weren’t you? Come on, Del, you’ve got to give me something-- anything, please!” Eric pleads, holding his hands into a prayer symbol.

   “Eric, I really don’t think she wants to be on the paper,” Bella speaks up, cutting him off before he can continue talking.

   “Yeah, not really my thing. Me and the press don’t get along.” Delphina mutters, checking the time.

   12:56.

   “What does that even mean?” Jessica asks, taking a bite out of her salad.

   “It means, I spent most of my time in New York with Natasha Romanoff.” Delphina says as she shoves her phone in her pants pocket and stands up from her seat.

   “Black Widow!?” Eric exclaims, eye lighting up with excitement. Delphina nods her head, grabbing her backpack, throwing its strap over her shoulder

   “And if you remember, a few years ago, she told the media and news to kiss her ass. Take that as you will.” And with that she walks away from the table, a smirk on her lips.

   “Oh, and it’s pink, but only in pastel,” Delphina calls behind her, long out of hearing range before anyone has a chance to reply.

                                                   o0o0o0o

   The classroom is relatively empty when Delphina manages to slip in. The teacher, a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair and a pallid complexion is sitting at a desk, intently focusing on some papers. A few students litter the room, sitting at tables that fit two people per desk, making idle chat before the bell rings to signify the start of class. Eyes flicker immediately to the guy from her Biology class with the messy copper hair and honey eyes. He’s sat in the farthest corner, not looking at anyone as he focuses on his notebook.

   Delphina approaches the teacher’s desk, gaining the woman, Mrs. Davis’ attention. She glances up at Delphina and then back to the paper in her bony fingers, and with lightning-fast speed, back up to Delphina. She clumsily stands from her chair, nearly knocking over her desk in the process. She thrusts her out towards Delphina, a nervous smile pulling at her lips that are painted with bright coral lipstick.

   “You must be Delphina Stark, welcome to History II, I’m your teacher Mrs. Davis, but I think you already knew that.” she chuckles nervously. Delphina slowly takes her hand, giving it a quick shake before dropping it.

   “That’s me,” she mutters, handing the teacher the paper she needs signing. She snatches the paper from her hands, Mrs. Davis vigorously signing it, handing it paper a second later    

   “You’ll be down there, by Edward.” with a quick nod, Delphina turns to go to her chair. She quickly reaches the desk and sits down, tossing her bag on the ground beside her. She turns to look at Edward, who is still intently focusing on his notebook.

   “Looks like I can’t get away from you. Or is it the other way around?” A moment of silence passes. A small sigh leaves her mouth as she begins mindlessly scrolling through her phone, more students filtering into the room.

   Ring.

   The bell pierces through all the noise, indicating that class has officially begun. Delphina slides her phone into her pocket, attempting to appear interested.

   “Sit down, Jeremy.” Mrs. Davis scolds one of the rowdy students in the room, a football player she’s seen hanging around school. Mrs. Davis moves from behind her desk towards the center of the room. “Today, we’ll be covering World War II, but before we jump into today’s lesson, we have a new student today.” Mrs. Davis says, pointing back towards where Delphina is sitting. “Delphina Stark.” All at once, everyone in the class turns to look at Delphina, whispering to one another as their eyes lock on her.

   She offers a pathetic wave, sinking into her chair, in hopes that the floor would swallow her whole. And whatever god is out there seems to have at least a small amount of empathy, because a moment later, everyone looks back at the teacher.

   “Since we are starting a new chapter, that also means a new assignment.” a few of the students groan, but Mrs. Davis pays them no mind. “Turn to the person at the table next to you, get a good look at them, because that is your partner for this coming project on World War II. This assignment counts for half of your semester grade, so I recommend you make the best with what you have. We’ll be going over the specifics tomorrow, but today turn to Chapter 23 in your book and start chatting with your partners.” Mrs. Davis says, finishing her announcement and moving back to her desk.

   Delphina flips open her book to Chapter 23 and turns to Edward. His gaze is already transfixed on her, no book in front of him, just a notebook and pen.

   “Mind if we share?” he asks, voice smooth like honey and as sweet as a mid summer strawberry, his lips pulling into a crooked grin.

   “Oh, now he wants to talk to me.” Raising a perfectly shaped brow at him, her eyes narrow slightly. “But sure, what’s mine is… well still mine, but I’ll let you read it too.” Hand on the side of the book, she pushes it closer to him. A faint chuckle leaves his mouth, the sound like soft bells ringing in Delphina’s ears. And she hates how much she wants to hear it again, and again, and again.

   “I'd like to apologize, actually, for how I acted earlier. It was rude of me to ignore you like that,” he says.

   “Please, I lived in the same building as Loki at one point. I don’t think anyone could top that maniac,” she says, a sly smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. He breathes out a laugh, the quiet flick of the thin paper clashing with the melodic sound.

   “But I accept your apology.”  

   “Didn’t he attack New York?” Edward asks, eyes solely on Delphina, paying no mind to the book they should be reading.

   “Oh yeah, I swear my mom nearly killed my dad when Loki attacked Stark Towers. It was kind of funny actually.” After pausing for a moment, she opens her mouth again. “Well, after I got over the trauma of the whole building almost collapsing on top of me, of course.”

   “I’ll take your word for it,” he says, the grin on his face growing ever so slightly and Delphina’s heart nearly stops in that moment

  ‘Keep it together, you idiot.’

  “You never did introduce yourself,” the teasing tone in her voice is the perfect match to the glint of mischief in her eyes. She nudges him lightly with her elbow, feeling nothing but skin that’s like cold marble and chilling to the bone.

   “Apologies, I’m Edward Cullen.”

   “Delphina Stark, but I’m sure you already knew that,” she says, rolling her eyes with an exasperated sigh.

   “There has been talk around the school.” He reflects the smirk on her face like a mirror.

   “Great, love that for me so much.”

   “You don’t like the attention?” he asks, the laugh in his voice betraying that he already knows the answer.

   “No, despite what people think, us Starks aren’t vying for attention everywhere we go,” she mutters, glancing down at the page for a split second, if only to say she did look at their chapter.

   “So why move to a town as small as Forks, where everyone is going to talk?” he asks.

   Flick, another page turns, nearly tearing from the speed.

   “Well, it wasn’t my first choice, but my mom lives here, so here I am.” Anxiety creeps into her system, increasing each second that Edward continues to look at her, flashes of sitting in the Compound surrounded by deafening silence overwhelming, beating against her like a baseball bat hits a ball in the Big Leagues.

   “Well, let me be the first to formally welcome you to Forks.” The words are playful and light, and Delphina can’t help but lean into them, falling deeper and deeper into the haze hanging over her each time he opens his mouth. She smiles at him, pushing away the Avengers and just focusing on the sound of his laugh and the intoxicating smell of his cologne, a woody scent that feels like the best parts of nature.

   “Well, you’ve already been beat there, but thank you.”

   “I couldn’t help but notice that Mike Newton has taken an interest in you.” he says after a moment, containing his laughter long enough to speak smoothly. Delphina scoffs and rolls her eyes.

   “Yeah, wish he wouldn’t. He might be nice, or whatever, but I have a strict ‘no dating anyone that calls me a nickname based solely on where I moved from’ policy.”

   “That’s oddly specific,” Edward says. Delphina just shrugs, a smirk pulling on her lips.

   “But effective.”

   “Don’t you want to make friends?” he asks, moving his eyes away from Delphina for a second to look around the room, the other students too engrossed in their own conversations to notice them.

   “I don’t need friends, they disappoint me,” Delphina says without a moment of hesitation, quoting the iconic Vine like she’s drinking water or breathing air.

For a moment it brings her back to the Compound, before everything with Ultron happened, setting the scene for the Accords. Delphina would make obscure references to Vines or memes that were popular at the time, most of the Avengers wouldn’t understand them, Thor least of all. But he laughed at every single one anyways. Steve would shake his head and mutter something about kids these days, only giving Delphina more ammo to tease him with. As soon as the memories enter her mind, weaving through every thought until it’s all she can think about, she banishes them, refusing to fall into that melancholy.

Then, Edward laughs, not a breathy sound or a small chuckle that Delphina nearly misses, it’s not booming like Thor’s, the kind of noise you make when you don’t understand a joke. But a loud one, a genuine one that leaves his eyes looking like small crescent moons, lighting up Delphina’s dark skies. And she doesn’t think what she said is that funny, nor her wittiest line ever, but maybe it’ll become her one liner for the next lifetime, using it at every opportunity. If only to hear Edward laugh like that again.

She places her elbow on the desk, leaning her chin against it as a starry smile forms on her face, memorizing everything about this moment, the small crinkles around his eyes, the way his eyes shine, and the bright smile on his face. If only to remember back on it late at night when she inevitably has trouble sleeping.

“Should I then assume that means you wouldn’t like to be friends?”

“I can have one.”

                                                 o0o0o0o

Tags: 

@stuckupstucky 

[bitterlikesweets]

Love Bites Ch 12

This is the twelfth chapter of a modern/vampire AU ereri fanfic. You can also read it on Ao3. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Next

Eren’s still not sure if he should be impressed by Levi's weapon closet, or if he should be terrified. Levi is halfway absorbed by it, his upper body hidden by black cloaks and coats and he rummages through the more dangerous contents deeper inside. Eren is a few feet away, perched on the armrest of Levi's black sofa, his nose scrunched in annoyance.

"You rub those clothes in garlic or something?" Eren asks, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"Every other week," Levi replies.

Eren scowls. That must be why he didn't smell it last time.

"Why? And why the hell did you still do it when you knew I was going to come over?"

"Sometimes I need to smell like shit to save my own life." Levi sticks an arm out between the coats to flip the grumpy vampire off. "And you can get over it."

"Does a stinky coat really help you that much?"

"I think you being halfway across the house from me proves that it does."

Eren frowns. He can’t disagree, although he would be keeping his distance from Levi right now even if the man didn’t dive headfirst into a closet that stinks of garlic. Eren's not sure if he should be close, if he can be close. Because as much as Levi’s touch and his presence sets Eren at ease, the fact that he always almost bites Levi’s throat when they get too close has the opposite effect.

Eren doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the way his body moves without him even noticing. He doesn’t like the way those movements always lead to fangs against Levi’s neck because what if Levi doesn’t notice next time? Levi is quick and alert, but he’s also comfortable. He laughs, he jokes, he lets Eren lean against him like it’s nothing. Like Eren is just a human, a person, not a monster with the ability to rip Levi’s throat out, just like—

Eren squeezes his eyes shut.

He just doesn’t want to hurt Levi or anyone else. And the more this keeps happening, the more he becomes unsure if it’s safe for people to be around him. Levi has noticed and stopped Eren every time the vampire gets too close to biting him, but what if there’s a day that Levi doesn’t notice? What if there’s a moment where the former hunter thinks he's safe and ends up bitten or turned or worse, just because he trusted a vampire when he shouldn’t have? What if—

“Hey.”

Eren’s eyes fly open, and he finds Levi standing right in front of him, pale lips curved into a frown and gray eyes staring up at Eren in concern. Eren forces out a brief laugh and averts his gaze, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

“S-sorry, did you say something?” Eren asks. “I kind of zoned out for a second.”

Gray eyes narrow, and Levi steps to the side, into Eren’s field of view. Eren lowers his gaze to the floor. Then he drops his hand from his neck to the armrest he’s still perched upon.

“Zoned out,” Levi says.

“Yeah, yep. That is, uh… I did say that.”

When Levi stays silent, Eren clears his throat, his grip tightening on the sofa’s black fabric.

“Sorry, why don’t we just—”

“Eren.”

Eren blinks and raises his gaze to meet Levi’s. And Levi—Levi is closer, stepping closer, moving closer, and Eren's eyes flicker down slightly, to Levi's still exposed neck. He thinks about his fangs too close to Levi’s neck and his own bite scars throb—

Eren slides backwards. He does it forcefully too, bracing his hands on the armrest and shoving, launching his own body backwards with speed that surprises him so badly, he knows he accidentally activated his vampire strength. He sees gray eyes going wide before his ass is off the armrest and his balance is lost. He tumbles to the other side of the sofa, half of his back slamming into black cushions and the other half hanging limply in the air, all four of his limbs flailing in panic.

And while that's happening, all Eren can think is, I'm a fucking idiot.

Then something catches one of his flailing limbs. A hand wraps around his left ankle. Eren looks up and sees one of his feet dangerously close to Levi’s jaw, probably just seconds away from kicking the former vampire hunter in the face.

Eren’s body stills, one of his arms dropping to hold himself up off of the ground, the leg not currently being held hostage by Levi lowering and bending slightly, to rest upon the sofa cushions.

And Levi’s just staring down at Eren in silence. Just looking, his gray eyes as dark as a storm cloud at dusk.

Eren’s about two more seconds of awkward silence away from telling Levi to just put him out of his misery.

“Wait here,” Levi says before Eren’s shame ascends to unbearable heights.

“Wha—”

Levi tosses Eren’s leg aside like he’s just tossing a piece of garbage into the trash, and Eren’s body twists with it. The remnants of the vampire's balance that were keeping Eren miraculously still on the sofa crumble to nothing, and Eren tumbles into a heap on Levi’s carpeted floors, spluttering out a mix of questions and curses.

When he gains enough sanity to prop himself up onto his hands and knees, the last thing Eren sees of Levi is a pair of feet at the top of the stairs across the room.

Eren just stays there for a moment. His mind is taking a moment to process, rewinding the past few minutes to make sure that actually happened. Honestly, it feels a bit like he’s hallucinating. Or having some sort of horrible dream. A naked-in-the-classroom sort of horrible dream.

He looks over his shoulder at the sofa that he’s put in complete disarray. The extra gray pillows that used to be tucked neatly against the armrests are on the floor, one of them trapped beneath Eren’s knee. The cushions are dislodged, showing the rough fabric and metal beneath. Eren’s pant leg is rolled up where Levi had him by the ankle. And Levi…

Levi disappeared.

Eren pushes himself up off of the floor into a sitting position, resting his back against the sofa and wrapping his hands around his ankles.

Eren massively fucked that up.

He didn’t mean to. He was thinking about not hurting Levi physically, and now he’s gone on to hurt the man in other ways. But Eren’s mind is just… everywhere. Or, more like nowhere. His mind is everywhere and nowhere at once because if he lets his brain go, he’ll just start thinking about everything. Then, all of Eren’s focus goes to try to get his mind to shut up for a fucking second—

And then he gets caught off guard. And then his thoughts go everywhere again. And then Eren is launching himself away from the man who means the world to him without a thought for the consequences until it’s too late.

Eren is messy. Single-minded. God, he just feels like such an idiot sometimes. Of course Levi left him after that—

Eren’s ears twitch. His grip tightens around his ankles.

The water is running upstairs. He can hear the humming pipes, the dozens of tiny droplets hitting tiled floors.

Levi is… turning on a shower?

Eren blinks. He tilts his head when the sound changes, senses heightening, ears angled towards the sound unconsciously. The sound is quieter, the drops not falling so heavily. They’re traveling shorter distances, landing on something less rigid. It has to be flesh, skin, unless Levi has shoved something random into the shower to throw Eren off. (He wouldn’t do that… Would he? Does Levi think of weird pranks when he gets mad or something?)

Levi is showering. Eren jumped away from Levi like the man was the embodiment of the plague, and Levi… Levi is showering.

Eren can’t tell if he’s just stupid or if Levi just doesn’t make any fucking sense.

A few minutes later, the sounds stop. If Eren strains, he can hear fabric rustling, quiet footsteps across the floor. And then he doesn’t have to listen because Levi is coming down the stairs, a towel hanging from his neck and a few droplets falling from his dark hair.

Levi pauses at the bottom at the stairs, meeting Eren’s gaze from across the room. Eren straightens a little, his eyes scanning Levi’s face for annoyance—and also scanning his new outfit, because the dark t-shirt clings to Levi’s wet torso, and fuck Eren needs to get his head together.

Levi’s gaze shifts above Eren’s head to the areas directly beside Eren. Levi shoves his hands into the pockets of his black sweatpants, averting his gaze as he sighs. Eren flinches, closing his eyes and preparing for the worst—

“You could’ve at least cleaned up a little.”

Green eyes pop open. Gray eyes are already ready to meet that gaze.

“...Huh?”

“I was up there for a little while,” Levi says, then he juts his chin out to point in Eren’s general direction. “You could’ve fixed your mess.”

“What?” Eren looks over his shoulder and the mess of pillows and cushions before springing to his feet. “O-oh, yeah, I can, uh—I should’ve—I’ll clean up right now!”

Eren turns his back on Levi, frantically attempting to shove the cushions back into their places, though it feels like he’s only succeeding at displacing them at different angles.

He feels more than sees Levi come up next to him, mostly because he’s keeping his gaze stubbornly on the sofa. Levi helps him put the rectangular cushions back in their rightful place. Their shoulders brush, just once, and Eren’s breath stutters.

“...You’re just as worked up as earlier,” Levi says, bending down to pick up one of the little gray pillows.

“Oh, I just, uh…”

Eren clears his throat and dives for a pillow, but Levi catches hold of his hand.

“It didn’t help?”

Eren finally meets Levi’s gaze again.

“What didn’t?”

“The shower.”

Eren blinks.

“What was the shower supposed to help with?”

“The smell.”

“I… what?”

“The smell,” Levi repeats, a frown coming to his lips. “You were already complaining about it, then I came close and you jumped away. So, I assumed—”

Eren should probably feel bad for how loud he laughs, how hard it shakes his shoulders and bubbles out from his lips. But when Levi is looking up at him, tenderly holding his hand, wet from the shower—because he thought Eren was that bothered by how the man smelled like garlic—

He really can’t bring himself to feel bad when it’s just this damn funny.

“What?” Levi snaps, dropping Eren’s hand. “The hell are you laughing at?”

Eren is still laughing, bent over with his hands on the couch to keep himself upright. But his arms are shaking with his shoulders as he laughs, and he slips. His body veers to the side, into Levi, and the man wraps an arm around Eren, to steady him.

Though when Eren looks up, eyes watering, Levi certainly looks less than happy about it.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” Levi nearly growls.

Eren bites back his laughs with his flat front teeth, just long enough that he can suck in a few greedy gulps of air afterwards. And when he’s finally calm enough to form words, Eren flashes a grin at Levi and says—

“You, obviously. Dumbass.”

Levi drops him. Eren bursts out laughing all over again.

“I just don’t see what’s so fucking funny.”

Eren looks up at Levi, standing over him with his arms crossed and a scowl on.

“You are,” Eren says. “Thank you for worrying about me, but—”

Eren starts to laugh again and barely chokes it back in time to finish his sentence.

“You must really like me, huh?” Eren asks.

It’s a joke. Eren’s still half-laughing as he says it. He doesn’t mean the words, not really—though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t projecting a bit of hope into them—and he never intended for Levi to take him seriously.

That’s why it freezes Eren. It kills the laugh in his chest, the way Levi’s expression falls back into the stiff mask, when the man’s entire body tenses and angles away from Eren. Levi’s mouth opens and falls shut. His eyes, the most expressive part of him, are blank.

Eren’s body goes cold. It’s not even a rush, not a flood of blood escaping him. It’s instant, it’s freezing. He has Levi’s blood in him and he can’t feel it. What he feels like is a corpse.

And… he is one. It’s just that with Levi he forgets. He always, always forgets.

“I, uh…” Eren’s mouth is dry. “I was joking.”

Levi’s shoulders lower a little. He turns his head even farther away. He does that thing with his mouth again. Open. Close. Silence. Then—

“...Oh. Good.”

Good. Good? Good?

“No, fuck, wait—”

Levi’s talking but Eren’s head is fuzzy. His ears are clogged. He stumbles to his feet, and when Levi reaches out for him, he dodges.

Good. Good. No, of course. Of course. Because if Eren was serious, that’d be bad. Because of course, Levi doesn’t feel that way, not towards Eren. He must feel the opposite because why else would he react so strongly to a fucking joke—

“Eren.”

“Look, I know we were supposed to be practicing, but I really just want to go home right now.”

He can feel Levi at his heels as he rushes to the door. He refuses to look back.

“Please, just let me explain—”

“I really need to go home.”

“Eren—”

There are fingers at his wrist. Eren jerks his hand away before Levi can get the chance. He can’t—he can’t right now, can’t be here, can’t listen, can’t be touched. It’s too much, and it’s not just the joke, it’s the neck and the biting and his newly realized feelings, and Eren just can’t.

He’s so cold. He’s shaking all over. He doesn’t want Levi to touch him. Not right now, not when he feels like this.

He doesn’t want those warm, human hands anywhere near this walking corpse.

“Eren—”

“Levi, please—”

“Eren, I’m in love with you.”

Eren’s hand is already on the doorknob. His back is to Levi, and the door is already open. The cool night air is making him even colder. He’s shaking. His mind is—his mind—it’s everywhere, nowhere, not where he fucking needs it and even it was, it never helps him anyway. He’s far from thinking straight, far from having any coherent thought at all.

Maybe that’s why, even with Levi behind him, saying everything he wants to hear, Eren runs out the door.

[vurlix]

The Druid of Mothem

### I started working really hard on this one AI Dungeon campaign mapping out the whole world of Xaxas that the game offers and putting it all into World Anvil (an online world builder) So i can better track places and people since the AI in AI dungeon can only remember so much. The majority of this story is created by GPT-3 (if I had to make a guess I’d say ~85-90%. I also used the website Art Breeder to generate the pictures for the characters and landscapes. ###

### AI is coming a long way. I plan to continue this story since I love playing a druid in 5e. ###

### I also added the new AI Dungeon feature which allows the gaining of stats so every time I try to do an action, it rolls on stats that continue to grow. ###

### But besides that, I also rolled out a Druid Wood Elf and have a character sheet to follow

I’ll link everything after the story, other than that I hope you enjoy!! ###

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You are Goodaquazi, a male elf druid who lives in the town of Morthem. You are new to the town though rarely actually visit it. Being a druid you're the most comfortable being outside the town in the forest with nature. The town of Morthem consists of a few large buildings and many smaller ones surrounding it. Humans and elves make up the population of this small farming town. A large deep forest surrounds the farmland as far as the eye can see. It truly is a beautiful forest.

When you're not spending time in Morthem, you can be found deep in study at a small nature temple located somewhere away from Morthem deep in the forest. This temple is where all druids or those with an interest in nature and druidism spend time in study, meditation, or prayer.

The day to day life of Morthem goes on with or without you and that's OK. The people are content and that's all that's in your heart. It's a simple life, and you're happy with that. 

You are in a forest somewhere far from any civilisation. This is your home and you feel comfortable here with the animals, plants, and nature. You were taught by the master druids to harness the natural magic energy that exists in all things. You practice this skill every day for there is always more to learn.

 You lie down on the ground, stretching out your arms and legs along the lush grass and closing your eyes. The sun is high overhead, its light filtered through an unblemished blue sky. A cool wind blows through the field, carrying with it the rich scents of soil and nature. The grass is damp from last night's rain, and you can sense the life force of the land, almost as if it were a living creature itself. The scents and sensations are almost overpowering after your time in the city, but feel refreshing now that your senses have been reawakened.

You slowly open your eyes. All around you, plants grow and animals live in a perfect state of harmony with the land. You vanish from their sight, though creatures with greater senses might still be able to detect your presence if they were really looking.

However, it is not upon the ground that you wish to be. You feel cramped and bored lying there, so you take a deep breath and rise up into the air, levitating several feet above the ground. You are weightless, able to drift through the air with only a thought.

You have many hidden conversations with animals as you move through the forest and they, curious about this friendly stranger. Different types of animals, each with their own unique personalities, sizes and abilities. There are fighting animals able to kill even the largest of beasts, and others that are solely for transportation or, in some cases, purely companionship.

You drift along atop the wind, smiling and laughing as you fly. This is how you move from place to place when you are outdoors. Eventually, you begin to get a splitting headache from all the sensory input and decide to head back home for the day.

You approach your cabin by nightfall. Made chiefly of wood with a thatched roof, it looks every part the fairy-tale cottage. An enormous oak tree towers over it and provides shade. You walk up to the door and unlock it with ease. Heading inside, you take off your shoes, as is custom in this land. The entire floor is covered by a thick carpet of grass which springs back up after every step you take.

Una, your girlfriend, is preparing dinner. Her long blond hair falls down to the small of her back and her sky coloured eyes pierce your very being. By her feet rests Zane, the cutest puppy you've ever seen who can someday grow up to be a fierce guard dog if given the right training.

"Hey, Una," you say.

"Uh-huh," she replies, engrossed in the cooking.

From another room, you hear a baby boy giggling. The newest member of your family, Behan, lies in his cradle. You fly through the door and hover over his crib, looking down on his innocent features. Through your son, you have discovered the true joys of fatherhood. All younglings go through an insane rebellious phase, which Behan will eventually go through too, but for now he is really sweet.

"You look tired," remarks Una, suddenly standing beside you with a bowl of strawberries in her hands.

You take one out of the bowl and eat it, relishing the sweet taste as it enters your mouth. "I had an interesting day," you reply. "Why is Zane outside?"

Una blushes. "I wanted to surprise you. Turn around."

Curious, you do as she says and spin on the spot. You hear Una squeal with delight before her arms embrace you from behind and her head rests itself upon your shoulder. "So?" she asks, a mischievous smile evident in her voice.

You turn to face Una and are faced with the image of her clad in a tight, midriff showing black dress and knee high stilettos. Your jaw drops and you stare with awe. "Wow," you utter, staring at her beauty. "You... look... amazing!"

"I thought we could go to a friends' house to eat. They're having a party, do you want to go?"

The constant sensory input has given you a monstrous hunger, and as much as you love Una, you need food. "Absolutely," you say.

The two of you fly to your friend's house. The manor lies on a hilltop which descends into a plain, which lies on the edge of a dense evergreen forest. You are faced with the grandest house you have ever seen. Dozens of little windows peer at you like wandering eyes. Hundreds of lights create the illusion that the house is glowing. The manor is at least four stories high and has a tryst swim among trees behind it. The entire setting is like something out of a fairy tale. You land beside a golden pathway that leads up to the manor. The evergreen forest towers over you on both sides and a soft, cool breeze passes through it, sending chills down your spine. You take a deep breath through your nose as you enter through the heavy wooden door.

You are faced with a giant hall, with several corridors branching off it. The walls are lined with suits of armour, which glare at you with iron eyes. Black and white tiles line the floor, and a giant chandelier made up of antlers hangs from the ceiling. You both walk past the hall and down one of the branching corridors. Tiny flickering lights dance along the corridors' walls. You peer into a room and see a grand piano and several pieces of classical music written in notes on sheets of music. You enter the room as you sense somebody there. An old man with a goatee sits in the corner of the room, playing the piano. The music is slow and rhythmic.

You remember this man. He was one of Una's former boyfriends, a pianist that travels around the country and plays for people. You are about to call out to him when Una grabs your wrist. You look at her, meeting her fiery eyes. She motions for you to follow her and the pair of you bypass the man entirely. The next corridor weaves back and forth and has the same black and white tiles as the last corridor. Finally, the corridor brings you to a set of stairs. You climb the stairs slowly, and as you do you see someone at the top. It's the host of the party, Judge Beckery.

"You came!" he says, smiling. "I can already tell this is going to be the best party ever."

"Who was that man playing?" you ask, motioning toward the room with the grand piano.

"Oh him?" says Beckery. "That's just Harvey. He's a bit of a weirdo."

You nod slowly.

"Anyway, I just got here myself," says the Judge. "I'll show you to your room."

The pair of you head up another flight of stairs and Beckery stops at the first door on the left. He opens it and ushers you inside.

"I hope you'll be comfortable in here," he says.

The room is small but comfortable. It has a double bed, a dresser, and a nightstand with a lamp. There's also a desk in the corner. The walls are covered with a deep blue wallpaper. You set your bags down on the floor and look out the window. The courtyard and forest surround the house.

You return to the party. Those few feet between you and Una seem like an endless distance, one that neither of you are willing to cross.

As you enter the room the crowd melts away before you and everyone stares in astonishment. You stand there, surrounded by a crowd of people. A fight seems inevitable.

Suddenly the crowd parts and Una comes before you. She looks into your eyes and gives you a small smile. It's a smile that says everything will be alright. You smile back, and then feel your face flush and your heart flutter.

Before you stands Una, a tall and willowy young woman with long blond hair, gray eyes, and fair skin. Her beauty takes your breath away--more than that, her presence does, the way she stares back into your eyes timidly yet still willing to meet your gaze for as long as you like.

"I love you Una, thank you for bringing us here but I'm starving! Why don't we go into the dining room and get something to eat?"

Everyday your craft keeps you occupied and your spare time is spent with Una. As the years pass your personal life and druidic life begin to overlap one another. Your love for Una only deepens and your son Behan grows in strength and wisdom. You tell him stories of the old lands of Tuatha, and promise that when he's old enough you'll return, if only to visit.

"I saw the strangest thing today," Una says to you as you eat dinner. You are eating roasted duck at this party and Una has been watching you and Behan with a faint frown on her face.

"What's that?" you ask.

"I saw one of the peasants run over a fox and kill it." she says.

"That's terrible, why would someone be so careless about a living creature. What if that fox was me Una? Did you see who the peasant was that ran over the fox? " you respond.

"I did," she says, "It was Chris."

"Are you sure it was him?"

"No. But the man I saw was a barbarian and he's friends with that barbarian."

Knowing Una, this must have bothered her greatly. You've never been a fan of Chris, it seems that even if you are wrong about him, you still have to tell him to apologize to Una. As the sun disappears over the horizon and night falls, you head over to Chris's room.

You rap on his door and he bids you come in.

"What the hell do you want." Chris grunts angrily. You can tell he's clearly been drinking and not to mention his room smells awful. You also notice that there are various bottles filled with assorted types of Liquid.

"My wife is pretty upset with what happened at the party earlier, and I'd like to apologize if I could." You lie.

"Alright?" He says to you as he lights his pipe, the lighter producing a small blue flame.

You quickly chant a short incantation and the flame on his pipe flares up as smoke billows into his face, he has been incapacitated by the flames and he begins to scream as he desperately tries to pat them out.

You rush over and smack him in the head with your palm and he's out like a light.

You then look for Una to make sure she is alright, you find that Chris' alcohol and medications have finally kicked in and he has gotten some sleep.

You reassure Una and tell her not to worry about anything.

The next morning you both wake up and start to gather your equipment together.

You hug Una close and tell her how much you care for her.

"I told you everything was going to be fine." She says to you with a smile, "Let's go home, I miss Behan...and you need someone to do the shopping and cleaning."

Slowly the two of you head home. You start to reflect on the events that have occurred and realize that your life is finally calming down. You open the door of your home to find Zane making Behan laugh by chasing his tail. You watch your family with a smile on your face, glad that everything has worked out for you. You take a seat and call Zane over to join the family for a group hug.

“Good boy” you say to Zane as he begins to wag his tail happily. He gets up and goes over to Behan who is attempting to crawl away to no avail. Zane begins to lick Behan in the face, you watch them both laugh and occasionally look over to Una. You feel truly happy just watching them all. This is real happiness, this must be how Father felt. Time passes and it's nighttime before you know it. You tell Una that you're gonna cook dinner for tonight so she can relax and enjoy her night. With the nightly routine of cooking, cleaning and putting Behan to bed you soon find yourself heading off to bed as well.

As you both lie in bed with Una's hand wrapped around your arm you feel truly complete. There's nowhere else in the world you'd rather be, you have everything you need right here.

Your eyes start to get heavy as you fall asleep with a smile on your face. Your mind drifts from one thing to another as you find yourself entering the druidic realm of dreams. Several hours later you drift back into consciousness and remember the events that have led you here. You open your eyes and slowly sit up, the sun is already high in the sky outside and Una is nowhere to be seen. Knowing that she's probably out hunting, you get out of bed and look out the window. You take a deep breath through your nose and smell the scent of trees, nature, earth, and wild animals. You feel truly at peace in this moment.

With a smile across your face you walk over to Behan's bed and pick him up.

"Come on Behan!" you shout excitedly "Let's go play outside!"

You look outside and everything looks great. The forest, the trees, the earth, everything is perfect. This is your life now, and you wouldn't have it any other way. You set Behan down on the floor and go over to your dresser to grab your clothes. Nature is perfect, yes, but there are simple things in life that make it better. And one of those things is clothes. You put on your typical outfit, nothing too fancy, just your typical wool pants and tunic. With that done, you walk outside to play with Behan in the fields.

Zane wakes up and comes to join in the fun running around in circles and making Behan crawl after his tail. Every day is a happy day when you're with those who matter to you .

As you look out across the fields to watch Una returning from hunting with freshly killed deer, you realize that those that got you through hard times are the ones that matter most.

You will continue life as it is now. There is nothing else you could desire.

You greet Una with a small smile and hold out your arms for the deer carcass.

"Good work Una." You say smiling at her as you lift up the deer.

"Thank you." Una responds looking down at Behan who crawls over to her legs.

The carcass will feed your family for the next few days. You set it down near your home and bring Una inside to rest. She's a hero today and that's all that matters. She deserves to be treated as one.

You Kiss Una on the forehead and lift her in your arms to carry her into the bedroom.

You place her near Behan, and they both fall into a gentle sleep. They look like an angel and a demon sleeping together, but there's no malice in them at all!

You grab your blade and walk over to the deer carcass. You begin to butcher the beast using your vast expertise in limb severing. First, you remove the legs, then the head and then the torso. You work fast because you don't want the meat to begin rotting. With enough salt, you could eat it in a day or so.

Your family will eat good tonight and for the next few days!

Having finished the job you walk back into the house returning to Una's bedside to watch her sleep until dusk arrives.

Throwing in some pork for extra taste, you set out to make the deer meat stew.

The meat and bone will be used to make the stew and the offal fed to Zane who is begging by your side the whole time.

A blue flame envelops your hand and you slam your hand into the oven! The rich scent of flame-broiled deer meat fills the room in an instant.

"Zane! If you eat any more of my food, you won't grow up to be big and strong like me!" You joke at your small but ferocious dog!

Finally, the food is done, and you sit down with Una and Behan to enjoy an evening meal.

Master of fire you may be, but without the love and support of your wife and son you would burn out in a flash. Tonight you are happy and look forward to an amazing life with your family.

You hold Una's hand and thank her for being the amazing woman she is. "I have a goal set for myself tomorrow Una, I'm going to learn to shape shift" you explain. Una smiles and shakes her head fondly at you. "You'll never stop learning will you?" she asks in response. You both laugh and enjoy the evening meal.

[wintersongstress]

All I Dream and Have

1 ❧ 

Summary: Bereaved and evading the clutches of a family tragedy, you leave behind the pain of your past to marry your fiancé and seek out your dreams, for the dawn of a new century holds the promise of a fresh start with the man you love.

But, if you knew anything about life, it was unpredictable and unkind, and when your plans for the future fall apart and you start running from the law, nothing could prepare you for the path ahead. One that lead to dark places and hard choices. One where everything you believe about right and wrong is tested.

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Female Reader

Word Count: 4.4k

A/N: This is 30 years late but I’m posting it anyway!

Chapter 1: A Field on Fire  ❧

May 25th, 1899.

Dear Lenora,

I am the happiest I have been in a long, long time.

This letter is awfully overdue—for that I must foremost apologize to you. These past few months have been both the longest and the most fleeting in the course of my life. In my relentless grief, I lost my sense of self in pursuit of burying the past, believing that would be in my best interest. I see now the errors in that thinking. There is no forgetting, and part of the suffering is how you endure. It was the least of my intentions to leave my closest friend behind in the ashes of what was. All I knew for certain was that I needed time—to heal, and I needed Matthew—which brings me to my news and the reason behind my renewed hope in life.

He asked me to marry him.

I said yes.

I desperately wish to tell you all of the beautiful details of those simple words in person, so I ask that you forgive my brevity. Regretfully, this letter is not a wedding invitation. We have decided to have a small ceremony, only the two of us at a scenic little chapel. The swiftness of this life-altering affair may seem imprudent, but I have never been more sure of any decision in my life.  I know it will be perfect—because it is him, and because it will mark the beginning of the rest of our lives together.

At this moment, I write to you from our private suite on a ferry docked in Blackwater for the evening. Traveling across the country has been tiresome, however Matthew has hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect my inheritance while we travel, so all is safe and sound. Tomorrow, we board a train bound to our new home in New York. Originally, I shunned the notion of using my parents’ money to support to my future, but I recognized that was what they left it for, and who am I to spit back their last gift to me?

Now the time has come for me to focus on what I have to gain, not dwell upon what I have lost and all of my misfortunes. In that sentiment, I found my new love: for my work, and for my fiancé. And I believe that will be enough.

I wanted to express my gratitude for all that you have done in settling the matters of my family’s estate. I was not strong enough to go back and see what was left, and I surmise I never will be.  

Please, write to me soon; I wish to clear the air between us. I miss you terribly, and, above all, I hope that this letter finds you well. Do not hesitate to let me know of anything you need of me. Take care.

Sincere—

The pen in your hand stills as the softest whisper of a kiss blooms against your neck, leaving the finishing stroke of your letter promptly forgotten. Your breath hitches in your chest, and the chill that tingles down your spine infringes on the solid warmth of the presence at your back. A spell of quiet and alone had fallen as you began writing beneath the green desk lamp this evening. One imbued by the gentle breeze flowing through the windows opened to a twilight sky.  It all broke with a soundless sigh as you melt into the pair of slim shoulders behind you, sinking into a different kind of peace.

That touch—it belongs to him . You would know it anywhere. The trepidation of his hands, how slow they are to indulge as they travel, his fingertips trailing down the curve of your shoulders. Only he was capable of speaking of such soft wonder and considering you so thoughtfully without the sweetness of words.

What also unquestionably belongs to him is the whiff of cologne that follows his nearness. A sweetly dark scent of spice and musk, one that often clings to your skin with a simple passing brush of his sleeve. During the long months apart, he would leave you a scarf to remember him by, something to hold close. On the lonelier nights, you would gaze upon the moonlight glowing through your bedroom window and hold it against your heart. Every memory of him rose in your mind with that scent, and all of them were filled with fondness.

An unthinking smile lifts your cheeks.

“You know, it’s incredibly rude to sneak up on people,” You chide lightly, the teeter of a laugh sweetening your voice as your eyes lull to a close. A beat passes, and you both linger in the silence. His mouth glances your skin with the delicate grace and indecision of a butterfly as it drifts upwards with light, teasingly chaste presses.  

Metal clatters, rolls across the mahogany desk and lands on the carpet with a thud. All the while, your head falls back as you yield a contented sigh and nest your hand into a familiar crown of dark hair, lacing the waves between your fingers.

A mischievous smile touches your ear. Matthew smooths his elegant hands down the sleeves of your gown, indulging in the emerald shade of satin encasing your arms. The silken sound has your teeth tugging your bottom lip, and a horripilation of delight prickles the skin beneath your dress .

“I’m sorry, I forget all my manners when I’m around you, Mrs. Cornwall.”

“Soon to be,” You correct, breathless at the low tone of his voice.  

His thumb tips your chin to his, and in that fleeting space he murmurs, “Not soon enough.”

And with that, your lashes brush along his cheek as his mouth seeks to capture yours.

Matthew’s kisses are always languid and warm. In the blurred space between eyelids, his hands find their rightful place along your neck, holding you still at the perfect angle as his lips press into yours. Time gloriously eludes you both in those few moments as your hand slides farther into his hair, and you forget. You forget about the letter and the circumstances that brought you to write it in the first place. You forget where you are, no longer listening to the lap of water against the boat or the chirp of insects in the spring evening.

To forget all but who you are with is an elusive feeling, one that grants an immeasurable relief that leads you to forget the worst of all that has happened. Like a flower to the rain, you open yourself up to it freely. The brief tastes of it you had with him in moments like this kept you sane, and to know that they were never far was the reason why you smiled every day when you woke instead of sobbing to sleep each night. Yes, to forget was what you needed most desperately, and in Matthew’s embrace you forget about the worst thing of all.

You forget about the past.

His kisses were also easy to get lost in, dismissing all of your thoughts and clarity until you opened your eyes to find his in a haze. In the soft, warm lighting from the globe sconces of your suite, a fortune of silver glitters in the gray of his gaze, and a slow smile blooms between you. He was as lost as you were.

You thumb over his freckled, pale and prominent cheekbone, trailing down the hollow of his cheek to trace the line of his smile. With the tragedy that had befallen you, you subconsciously began to memorize his features, as if you might lose him, too, one day. The thought is too frightful to water, and it makes your hand drop.

As a part of you, a shadow was never far, and despondency shared its loom in equal. One fugitive glance behind was all it took to draw you back, and before long that woeful song filled with emptiness lured beckoned, calling out to you like a siren at sea to drown in the cold, dark waters of grief.

Matthew notes the way your eyes fall away, spotting the sadness doubtlessly lurking within them, and he clears his throat.

“I have something for you.”

“You’ve given me enough gifts, Matthew. What more could you give me?”

The back of his finger strokes your cheek, softer than a snowflake’s falling. A small, hidden dimple winks briefly at the corner of his mouth. “You’ll see. Keep your eyes closed.”

He curiously withdraws, and you do as he bids.

His footsteps shuffle away towards the bed where his travel case is and you sit patiently, eyes closed and excitement unfurling in your chest. After a few moments of rummaging he returns, and the cold weight of gold settles upon your neck delicately.

“Open.”

A silver mirror is placed in your hand and your jaw drops as you raise it towards your neck. Dozens of tearful peridot droplets glimmer back in the reflection, matching the twinkle in Matthew’s eyes as he watches you. The cloudless facets are cool to the touch as you admire them speechlessly.

“Matthew—”

“I thought it matched your dress when we were in town earlier. I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s beautiful,” You breathe. Matthew’s fingertips skim along the pendants sparkling over the smooth skin over your heart, absently trailing down to the glass buttons of your bodice.

“Not as some things…” He whispers dazedly, and the allusive warmth that brews in his downcast gaze has you swallowing tightly.

“Still, you shouldn’t have. As lovely as this is, I don’t want to display our wealth so ostentatiously...” And yet, as you voice your opposition to this show of lavishness , your sight remains fixed on the captivating stones. They do compliment the peacock feather embroidery along the flounce of your sleeves, and the jewel tones of the silk. Part of you chastises your budding inclination towards the extravagant frivolities Matthew had begun to spoil you with, and the other half…the other half of your sensibilities hesitates. Wearing this made you lift your chin higher and refine your posture to accommodate the elegance it demanded, as if it were a sense of purpose resting over your heart rather than a necklace.  

“You can have nice things. You can allow yourself this,” Matthew says after a moment of watching you deliberate. His words are veiled in understanding, knowing your silent doubts and why you waver.  He caresses the line of your bottom lip in an attempt to bring back your smile. “I want you to have it.”

You glance up, catching the softness in his eyes, and the tactile persuasion of his touch works.

“Thank you. I—” He swiftly cuts you off with a capricious kiss, one you grin and acquiesce into blissfully.

When he breaks away, he strokes your cheek with his thumb once more, and your eyes are slow to open. “No gratitude is necessary. I just want to spoil you,”

Reassured, you set the mirror down beside a letter opener atop a shambolic stack of research notes.

“We should—” you pause to clear your throat, stuck on your own words. “What time is it?”

Your pocket watch gleams on the desk, and you retreat from his embrace.

It was a gift from your mother for when you graduated from medical school. As always, you were reluctant to accept the indulgence of the timepiece. The gold face was engraved with two birds circling a flower, one whose center was a brilliant ruby that glittered like a star. She had insisted that it was a reward for your diligence, and looking back, you were glad that you ultimately conceded.

How often you thumbed the face of it, on that train platform on that autumnal day, fondling the last piece of her you had.

Your fingers close around the watch and flip the cover open.

“Dinner will be served soon, we should get going,” You announce. With a golden click the reverie is broken and you return your attention to the letter, signing it with a hastened scribble.

Matthew huffs a small laugh, “Now I remember what I originally came here to tell you.” He sighs, resigning his fond hold of you with one last, lingering caress to the back of your craning neck. The growing number of those light and leisurely touches he thoughtlessly gave reminded you of his unabated affection, and the fact that they made your heart flutter each time revealed how steadfast yours was, as well. You averred the realized possibility of you finding this kind of sincere and undying love on luck, an astronomical chance—like a shooting star in a barren sky.

Dazed with happiness, you sift through the contents of the desk’s side drawer in search of an envelope with a sweet hum. Matthew has stepped away in pursuit of making himself more presentable for the evening—although his outfit alone is more than passable. In your opinion, it is debonair.

After sealing the letter, you take a moment to admire him in his finery and the motions of his body as he searches for a suit jacket in the wardrobe. His shoulder blades shift gracefully beneath the raven dark silk of his vest, the material dimpling around the ornate buckle cinched at the small of his back as he leafs through his options. As he turns, the light of the room catches in the threads of gold embroidery swirling around the front of the garment.

Matthew presses his lips together as he holds two neckties up to his black collared shirt in the mirror next to the wardrobe, switching between a gold and a rose red puff tie. His brows alternately rise as he considers each choice. The sight twitches the corner of your mouth up and threatens a laugh, especially as he comes no further to reaching a decision each time he pauses between them.

Rising from the plush chair, the fabric of your gown rustles from the movement as you swivel around the desk to join his side. He calmly asks for your opinion.

You snake the red tie around and underneath his collar, tucking it in and smoothing the enamel pin in its place at the center afterwards. His Adam’s apple bobs as your hands slowly proceed down his chest, and your lips idly press a kiss to his clean-shaven jaw.  

“I thought you didn’t want to be late?” He teases. A hand curves around your waist, and his nose traces down your temple playfully. As he pulls you into the circle of his arms, your hands drift up to his shoulders, and you slant your mouth to hover over his, calculated in your distance.

“I don’t. That’s why—”the word drags along with your bottom lip as you  impishly sweep it over the seam of his expectant mouth. When the tips of your noses bump,  a fleeting pause simmers as you slink your tortuous path upwards. “We should go,” you finish. You kiss his cupid’s bow deviously, unable to hold back your grin.

“After you,” he hums while hooked on the edge of your lips, amusing you by forbidding himself from purloining another kiss. Another laugh comes easily to you as he chases the distance between when you pull away.

In the space of an hour after sunset, the evening has grown cooler. Gliding across the carpet, you retrieve your shawl and drape the silken sapphire blue fabric around your shoulders for warmth. The beaded fringe sways as you swipe the ivory envelope off of the desktop. Matthew offers his elbow to you, all chivalrous and patient as he smiles softly. He leads the both of you outside and the door clicks shut.

The stars had come out, and as they twinkled, the developing town of Blackwater sat sleepily at the water’s edge. Far beyond the rooftops rose the Grizzlies mountain range, their cloud-haloed peaks standing sentinel against the backdrop of the wide and rolling golden-yellow plains.

When the ferry first docked earlier this afternoon you enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the bustling streets in the sunshine, more than glad for the change of scenery and the breath of fresh air. Men wearing caps and suspenders toiled under the sun all day, constructing the new town hall and trundling carts of freight down the dusty docks alongside the draft horses whinnying down the cobblestones. They created a din with the ringing of their hammers and mallets and shouting.

Music drifted outside of the Oriental Theatre and women admired the storefront window displays beneath the brim of their hats. The barber propped his door open to invite business in. Fresh red and glossy apples formed a neat pyramid outside of the general store, and men on their lunch breaks smoked cigars and dangled their worn shoes over the balconies.

Children played with their dogs inside their picket fences at the edge of town, the parents lounging on the porch in the shade with a lemonade. When the sun went down, the men trickled into the saloons for a round of poker or back home to their families.

The people in Blackwater were no different from the rest of the budding civilizations of America. They worked hard for an honest life to sustain an honest dream. They enjoyed the simple pleasures that came their way, and they welcomed you to do the same.

The heat was much drier and more bearable than the thick, humid air of Savannah. Although, you found that you missed the vibrant greens of the seaside city you called home for the past few years. You would spend your Sunday mornings on a blanket in the park with your textbooks, hidden by bushes of blue hydrangeas and glancing up at the wizardly beards of Spanish moss hanging down from the vast trees. In this dry part of the country, the dirt blown in from the plains dusted the ground and clouded the air from the high traffic, leaving you eager for a bath in the mid-afternoon. That must have been when Matthew purchased the necklace.

Your fingers fondle the droplets, a nervous habit, as if rubbing the coolness from the stone would ease the worries that always swirl below the surface of your happiness.  

Along the waterfront, the street lamps glow yellow into the blue night, bleeding their luminance onto the lake and wavering. With the shimmer of starlight on dark water, the whirling of colors across the ripples resembles a field on fire, burning bright and stretching onwards greedily.

The low murmurs of conversation drifting out from the open dining room interrupt your thoughts mercifully. Your footsteps no longer creak across the wood of the deck, instead clicking on a floor buffed to a high polish.

The sighs of a violin and the musical clink of ice in crystal glasses fills the air, lifting your eyes to the warm atmosphere around you. Men in lavish suits with slicked-back coiffures and ornamental gold-topped canes swirl their amber drinks and mingle. Prim, staid women cling to their sides or sit at the dining tables, their golden hair coiled and twisted in place with jeweled pins while they pick at their nails with keen interest. Tall, potted jungle plants with scalloped leaves decorate the walls between the windows curtained off with red velvet. A fire burns in a hearth on one wall, keeping back the chill of winter’s end and spring’s beginning.

An usher stands near the door and you briefly speak with him, handing him your letter and an ample amount of cash for fulfilling a special errand. The older gentleman assures you he will see to it promptly after leading you to your table.

A woman wearing ivory elbow-length gloves cools herself with a lace fan stolidly. Her gown dusts the floor with white lace and elaborate ribbons and gatherings decorate her petite waist. A strand of pearls adorns her swan-like neck, and dangling from her ears glimmer drops of diamonds. She has a chiseled, elegant, oval face, with a small set of brows and lips and a slender nose she lifts at the sight of you. The beating pass of her fan slows distractedly.

Your gaze passes over her for all of a second, paying no heed when she puffs her chest to draw your attention to her jewelry, her wealth, her social standing. Instead you smile up at Matthew, and he catches it instantly, his hand falling to the small of your back as you lean closer to him.

A server in a vest and tie pulls out a cushioned chair for you, gesturing for you to sit before draping a napkin in your lap. Matthew settles in at the seat across from you and orders a bottle of Cabernet while the man lays a menu over your table settings. With a humble incline of his head, he leaves you to your conversation.

You drum your fingers against the pattern of the tablecloth, perusing the menu’s entrees for a few moments before coming to a decision. Matthew has gone curiously silent.

Candles glow between you, letting time pass unknowingly in the spell they cast as he gazes upon you softly, his eyes alight. Bemused, you pluck a grape from a silver platter laden with ripe fruit, watching him watch you as you taste its pleasant sweetness.

The corner of his mouth lifts.  

An uncontainable laugh blooms from your chest. “What is it?” you demand half-heartedly.

He shakes his head, clearing the fog of his thoughts with a chuckle as he lifts his chin from his propped fist.

“I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. Us,” his hand reaches for yours, and the mood shifts from light laughter to sincere tenderness in a blink as you wordlessly accept his touch. “Finally running away together,” he trails thoughtfully. A thumb runs along the ring on your finger and the stone sparkles darkly. His ring. His promise to you. Your commitment to each other.  “Like we always dreamed.”

A part of you struggled to believe your life was falling into place at last. All of these years of diligence and sacrifice, thriving off of letters alone while you both worked towards your dreams. The hardships that obstructed you, the grief, the doubts of finding happiness again because of everything that happened. In the darkness of the past you told yourself he was enough. After all of it, he had to be. He was all you had left.

You cling to his hand. To you, his ring shone with the brightness of the future.

“We’re hardly running. In fact, I’d say our pace is quite leisurely,” you say cheerfully, lacing his fingers between yours. Hope floods your heart when he squeezes your hand back. “We have all the time in the world.”

Silverware clatters and a shrill laugh breaks your reverie. Matthew loosens his hold respectfully when the server returns with a bottle of wine, clearing his throat as to announce his presence politely. He pours the drink smoothly into your empty glasses. Meanwhile, you fix your attention to the embossed leaves floriating the baroque wallpaper. You twist your fingers in your lap as the liquid sloshes against the crystal before settling in a dark crimson pool.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to tell your father?” A harmless question, but one you have both been avoiding.

You always understood that Matthew had a complicated and strained relationship with his irascible father, Leviticus. As his only son, expectations were put upon him to live in his shadow and carry on his legacy. But Matthew was nothing like him, and that was precisely the problem. After his wife, April, died, whatever kindness he afforded his flesh and blood atrophied. Like she did. Matthew was her reflection in every way: her eyes, her dark hair and elegant face. In the years that passed since her death, he became a source of resentment for his father, reminding him of the limitations of his money in the face of his dearly beloved perishing.

Matthew’s expression hardens and his shoulders tense. Shrinking back, you swallow the knot in your throat and gnaw your lip, dipping your head in supplication at how thoughtlessly you brought up such a sore subject. The only shared trait you witnessed between him and Leviticus was his temper, and though its occurrence was rare, it still twinged to recognize where it came from.

“He knows what he needs to. No more, no less. I don’t need his money or his blessing,” he grumbles bitterly, eyes shuttered. His anger is directed elsewhere, and for you, that assuages your guilt. You quietly shun yourself for fearing his reaction in those brief moments. He would never direct his anger towards you.

The gentle touch of your hand atop his flutters his lashes, and his brow softens. Warm lighting and drifting music surrounds you and instills nothing but peacefulness and calm.

“We’re leaving all of that behind and starting anew.” you remind him, helpless to caress the coldness from his hand. The tenseness in shoulders loosens and his palm turns up.

He lifts your knuckles and presses an apologetic kiss upon them. His breath tingles down your wrist as he lingers.

“How about a toast?” you propose when he releases you.

“To us?”

“To us.”

With a crystalline clink, your glasses meet. The smooth and sour taste of the wine slips over your tongue and you savor its richness. As you close your eyes, you open your mind to more than appreciating what you have in this moment. You accept the idea that this is the moment when you leave the past behind for good, that it changes for the better. And with that, the disquiet of your thoughts settle with your glass against the table, silenced in the light of Matthew’s smile and the happiness it speaks of.

A loud crash sounds from behind the dining room doors, and a collective gasp ripples through the room as the are doors kicked in. You whip your head towards the clamor, your heart seizing as your body jerks upwards with a flight instinct.

Silver barrels of raised shotguns and rifles gleam in the lighting and a formidable group of men burst inside, their black duster jackets chasing their tall and imposing forms. Saddlebags are draped over their shoulders and masks conceal their faces, though not their intent.

Outlaws.

Your throat dries, your muscles freeze.

Matthew finds your arm in the uproar of screams and gunshots, plaster raining down as he pulls you against him.

“Ladies and Gentleman, this is a robbery! Get down on the ground!”

[greensaplinggrace]

Barret Apocalypse AU Pt. 2

PART 1 | PART 2 of Prompt: “Hello! This is kind of out there but I was wondering if you could do a post apocolypse au? With tons of Barret but not very shippy. With lots of found family though! Thanks” ~ @eilesgiire

CAN BE FOUND HERE ON AO3

Three hours and seven houses after leaving camp, Barret still hasn’t found a single shelter even remotely suitable for living.

Most have been the victims of roaming Mobs, walls shredded and marked by the distinct silver shards of glass bombs, destroyed simply for the safety and seclusion of their locations, and the select few that haven’t been touched by the Mobs are overrun by the infected instead. One place is even reduced to shambles by what appears to be an earthquake, not even slightly inhabitable.

Every single time, the houses will look stable from a distance. Safe to explore and eventually settle in for the winter. And every time, they all turn out to be unusable and they all reveal themselves to be disappointing in some way. He’d headed out to look for any house worthy of a home, but not a single place he’s come across so far is even close to meeting his criteria. 

It doesn’t have to be much, but it has to be enough.

He won’t settle for anything less when it comes to his little girl.

It hurts to even be separate from her for so long, but he has to do this. If he wants to keep their camp safe, but especially if he wants to keep her safe.

Barret only wants what's best for Marlene; it’s always been what he’s wanted. Beyond the bid for environmental change and the firm rise against corrupt policies. Underneath rebellions and uprisings and what the media had once called terrorism. Throughout all of it - the loud, brash call for freedom and challenging the winds of fate themselves - Barret’s interests have never strayed from Marlene. 

Everything he does, he does for her. Keeping the world safe keeps Marlene safe, and providing for Marlene is all Barret has ever wanted to do since the first moment she settled in his arms.

Unfortunately, providing for Marlene means taking risks, and taking risks means leaving her.

Used to be, taking risks meant risking Marlene as well, but Tifa’s solid presence at his side has been a boon the likes of which Barret had never expected. Sent by the planet herself, Tifa had come into their lives not in a whirlwind but in a steady drive back to camp after the day she’d recovered - the day he’d thought she left for good - with a truck bed full of three years worth of supplies and four suitcases brimming with clothes and toys for Marlene.

She’s done nothing but prove her worth every day afterward, pulling her weight around camp and helping to ease the burden of responsibility just a bit. Just enough for him to feel like he’s finally getting somewhere - like he can finally do what he needs.

So now, Marlene is always safe. Tifa stays with her when Barret goes out. Or Barret stays with her when Tifa goes out. Leaving Marlene no longer means abandoning her, and taking care of her doesn’t mean putting her at risk, and recently the world has stopped looking as bleak as it once had. Filling instead with just the faintest, glimmering tinge of hope. 

But no amount of hope can change the fact that they need a solid roof over their heads, and no amount of trust in Tifa can help Barret miss his daughter any less.

Hope certainly isn’t getting Barret any closer to finding salvageable shelter, either, and he’s just beginning to give up on the last of it when a woman’s scream rips through the silence of the forest.

Barret hits the brakes with a grating screech and skids over to the side of the road immediately. Eyes wide through the shade of his glasses as he peers intently out the smudged windows of his truck, attempting to gauge any sort of threat level. He’s reluctant to exit the car just yet in case it’s a trap, but if it is a call for help Barret can’t just sit idly by while someone suffers.

He searches for a time before he notices where the screams are coming from, but eventually he sees it. Just down a small pathway in the forest that opens up into a wide clearing sits a house. It’s a massive, immaculately pristine mansion practically crawling with the infected, but that isn’t what chills him to the bone. 

Dawn has started to break out the first light of the next day, and the vivid red rays cast a gruesome pallor over the scene laid out before him. 

Littered across the blood slick grasses of the clearing are dozens of bodies - possibly hundreds - skewered and piked and cut to pieces like cattle. He’s stumbled into a damned battlefield, Barret realizes, and there’s only one group savage enough to do something like this.

SOLDIERs.

Without another thought he’s out of the car and slamming the door closed behind him. Infected he can deal with. SOLDIERS he can put up a fight against. But whoever is in that mansion? He doubts they can do either, otherwise they’d already be out amidst the fallen.

He sees the group of SOLDIERS almost immediately when he reaches the dip at the end of the pathway, the whole of the clearing opening up before him like some sick wartime display. There’s a man sprawled across the ground right in front of him whose eyes have been burned clean out of his skull, mouth smeared with blood and chest caved in. Laying dead beside him is another person, a woman with her head half severed at the neck and legs bent at an impossible angle. Then another and another, extending out in front of him and beside him, leading into the trees and up to the mansions doors. 

At a guess, Barret would say they’re guards, but most of them aren’t even whole enough to identify, either butchered by their aggressors or gnawed at by the crowd of zombies currently tearing at the walls of the mansion.

It’s a level of cruelty Barret has never seen before in his life, and he considers himself a strong man when it comes to violence, but even entering the clearing has his stomach turning at the mere sight of the blood, pooled in wet patches of mud and glinting off matted blades of grass. It’s a massacre.

Killing the sick fucks who did this wouldn’t be punishment enough.

The fact that they’re still here, though? That’s what really pisses him off. There’s only two that he can see, gathered nearer to Barret than the mansion and both looking down at something on the ground, weapons drawn and ready as if they’re not already surrounded by the bodies of their victims. One has red hair and the other has long, distinct silver hair that Barret would be able to recognize anywhere, based on the propaganda that had run rampant throughout Midgar before it’s collapse. 

Which means the other must be Genesis.

The first time Barret finally gets to come face to face with the war criminals who have destroyed the lives of so many - who worked gladly for the company that destroyed Barret’s life - and it’s when the world has been overrun by knock-off zombies and mako addicted gangs. And to make matters that much more complicated, there’s only two of the five he knows to exist currently present.

Two people who did all of this.  

Shinra really did create monsters.

The heat that burns through Barret’s veins is pure rage when he hears the screams in the mansion cut out in one last abrupt, terrified screech, still standing surrounded by the brutalized bodies of the dead, a horde of infected not even a few meters away and a sea of blood like the earth is bleeding. While these people - these murderers - just linger at the scene of their own crime and talk like this is a damned vacation and not a fucking massacre. 

Without even thinking of the danger, Barret is whipping his gun into the air and preparing to fire, free hand clenched into a furious fist at his side and vicious words already at the tip of his tongue. Ready to finally do something for once - ready to fight back and take control -

Yet before he can so much as consider firing, a movement catches his eye. A shock of matted blonde hair that shifts between the only two men still standing. Pale, bloodied limbs struggling to gain traction against the soaked and unforgiving earth. The hacking cough that follows is enough to sober Barret like a bucket of ice cold water as he realizes that somebody is still alive. Pinned between two super soldiers and lying prone as Sephiroth’s sword descends for the final blow.

Barret’s heart hits the back of his throat.

“Hey!” he yells, starting forward as they turn to face him. He ignores the warning frowns that mar their faces, Sephiroth’s sword drawing back ever so slightly as if to attack him instead, and powers on with his gun raised. “Hey! Get the hell away from him!”

It’s Genesis that ends up facing him fully, snapping his sword to attention in one quick, smooth motion and pointing it directly at Barret. It forces him to stop dead in his tracks a good few feet away from them, but Barret’s close enough now to see the pallid state of their faces and Sephiroth’s unnaturally slitted pupils. He looks like a ghost of the pictures Barret had once seen, cracked at the edges and wild eyed, paler than the dead and hair askew like some tormented ghost.

He doesn’t look alive.

And Genesis isn’t much better. Barret never had the chance to get a glimpse of him the way most had been able to with Sephiroth, but he can take a wild fucking guess that the graying, unwashed hair and sallow complexion isn’t normal. Nor is the way he’s acting right now, sword extended in a threat as a twisted smirk graces his delicate features. 

They’ve both gone completely off the deep end.

The blonde on the ground isn’t faring too well, either. They’ve done a number on him, kicked and beaten him until his skin is coated in bruises, hair caked in blood and clothes ripped. There’s a cut down his shirt that looks like it was made by the straight edge of a sword purely for the purpose of exposing skin, and Barret’s veins run cold in a different kind of fury at the sight.

It’s easier now than it had been even days ago to believe the rumors. That the SOLDIERs were the ones to start this apocalypse; that it was Shinra’s precious little lapdogs who let the world fall into chaos.

Gaia, Barret is endlessly grateful that Marlene and Tifa aren’t here to see this right now.

“I ain’t playing around,” he snaps, “back the fuck off before I shoot.”

“This isn’t any business of yours,” Sephiroth sighs, sounding as if he’s discussing the weather instead of some poor man’s life, and Barret has to unclench and clench his fist again to refrain from shooting that smug mug right off his face, “I suggest you move along.”

“It’s not going to happen, you twisted fuck.”

Sephiroth’s lips thin at that, his blade finally falling away from the blonde completely as he turns to face Barret alongside Genesis. He looks incandescently angry, eyes alight with a demented sort of fury that has Barret’s hair standing on end, but he doesn’t back down. SOLDIER or not, he’ll find a way to stop them.

“I ain’t gonna let you murder somebody right in front of me!” he protests heatedly, swinging his gun around to face Sephiroth when the other’s eyes narrow dangerously. “The hell is wrong with you?! He’s on the ground right now. He can’t even fight back. ”

“This is SOLDIER business.”

“Of course, that’s why it involved the eighty guard rotation of some rich fuck’s manor? Dead servants and a horde of zombies clawing at the doors of a building that doesn’t even belong to you? SOLDIER business, my ass.”

Sephiroth sucks in a sharp breath, grip tightening ever so slightly on the hilt of his blade, but Barret doesn’t waver an inch as those hateful eyes glare venomously. 

“I don’t know you and I don’t care to,” Sephiroth hisses, “but if you continue to try my patience, you’ll soon become acquainted with my blade. This is your last warning.”

“To hell with your fuckin’ warnings. How ‘bout I don’t shoot you for murdering half a small town’s worth of people.”

It’s Genesis that reacts this time around, letting out a laugh as he weaves the tip of his sword through the air. “You think you could hurt us with that toy?” he scoffs, smirk rapidly turning into a mocking sneer, “you’re nothing compared to us. I could put my sword through you before you even got a single bullet out of that worthless pile of scrap.”

“Take your best shot, asshole!”

It happens in the blink of an eye. One moment Barret is standing his ground against two furious supersoldiers, Genesis baring his teeth and winding up in a snarling fury, sword moving so fast Barret can hardly see it cutting through the air as he prepares to meet his end. Then the next there’s a blur of movement and the screech of metal against metal, a massive buster sword reverberating just inches above Barret’s head with the force of Genesis’s blade. 

Barret instantly recognizes the blonde hair.

“What the-?”

“Cloud! Enough.” Sephiroth’s own sword is extended now, pressing with careful precision into the pulse point of the blonde, and he does not look any happier than he had thirty seconds ago.

“You two know each other?” Barret’s beginning to suspect this person might not be another unfortunate guard from the mansion. He’s holding his sword level with Genesis - of all people - as if it’s nothing. The weight of his blade alone should have been enough to send him keeling over.

That’s when Barret notices the uniform - a SOLDIER’s uniform. It doesn’t look the same as a first class uniform, but it's definitely not a civilian’s outfit either. 

Barret had been protecting a SOLDIER.  

A rush of emotions floods him at that. Anger and confusion and frustration making him growl out a warning and direct his gun right back at Sephiroth.

“What is going on here?” he demands, “you’re standing in the middle of a massacre about to kill one of your own?!”

Sephiroth chuckles, tone lightening for the first time since Barret arrived. “Well, we’ve already killed the other.”

Dead silence. 

Not even Genesis moves for a second, and the blonde’s arms start to shake beneath the pressure. Though the sword above him poses a massive threat, Barret can’t help the way his eyes are drawn like magnets to the dead body that had been right beside the blonde. The torn, blood soaked remains of a SOLDIER uniform tells him all he needs to know.

They killed him. One of their own. Just as they’d been about to kill the blonde. There truly is no end to Shinra’s cruelty. Even after the company’s demise its loyal soldiers gather to slaughter each other like cattle and destroy the lives of those only trying to get by. Even after Shinra has died the planet still burns, and the SOLDIERs are still the tools of its destruction.

Yet a SOLDIER had also been the one to save his life.

Cloud, Sephiroth had said.

His reflexes are slow, movements groggy, and Barret would bet his only remaining arm that the guy has at least a medium grade concussion. He’s already breaking under the strain of holding back a super soldier - already crumbling beneath an impossible weight. There’s no telling if he’d be able to run or keep up with the fight - no telling if he’s a good enough person to even try it...but he’d been a good enough one to save Barret’s life.

Barret’s determined to get him out of this in one piece. 

The next moment is a blur of movement. The snap decision to fire, not at Sephiroth but at his blade, until the sword is ripping the man’s arm sideways and his expression is slackening in surprise. Barret doesn’t even take a moment to contemplate the true suicidal stupidity of attacking someone like Sephiroth before he’s charging forward, grabbing the blonde by the waist and using his gun to take the brunt of Genesis’s sword. It’s only for a second - only to garner enough time to pull the kid back and free him from the lock of blades - but it’s enough for Barret to holler as an electrifying pain numbs his gun arm. The shriek of tearing metal splits the air, accompanied by Genesis’s own noise of outrage, and Barret hauls the kid backwards and onto his shoulders without hesitation.

There’s a beat of tension as Sephiroth recovers his footing and Genesis regains his bearings, Barret staring right at two infuriated super soldiers through the sparks of his shredded arm.

Then the world is rushing back around him. Panic and noise and the need to get the hell out of there. To return home to his daughter.

So Barret takes the kid and he runs. 

And hell, he doesn’t look back for anything.

——

Barret winds down several backroads as he makes his way back to camp, determined to shake any tail he might have now that he’s possibly angered some of the most powerful people in the world. He hadn’t seen them pursue him after he’d dumped himself and the kid in his truck and torn out of there like a bat out of hell, but there’s no telling what their kind has up their sleeves.

There’s no telling what the one in his truck has up his sleeve, either, and it’s damn ridiculous that Barret is risking any part of his life for a Shinra lapdog that might turn on them at any moment, but he can’t bring himself to abandon the guy. Can’t allow himself in good conscience to leave someone so clearly injured out to fend for themself, let alone someone who’d happened to save his life. Even if Barret had also happened to save theirs. Barret would say that makes them even, but he knows it’s more complicated than that - knows that ties of any sort of blood can lead people to do bad things. It's hard to break from that mold. Hard to choose something good over those you consider family.

Cloud turned on his people. That takes more than guts. Though Barret doesn’t know if 'more' is a bad thing or a good thing, considering it had led him to being a turncoat. No matter how justified it may have been.

He brings the blonde back to camp because it’s the right thing to do, and because apparently he’s made a habit of picking up strays. But it’s with a heavy heart and a host of fears, millions of horror scenarios playing out in his head. A swirling mass of dreadful scenes depicting Marlene and Tifa hurt and dying because of his actions - his family hunted now by people they have no hope of beating alone. 

Scenes that follow him all the way home.

Yet when he pulls up to camp he doesn’t even think to let those worries show, and when he steps out of the car and slams the door shut behind him, there’s nothing on his face but a massive, beaming smile as he sets sights on his little girl. She squeals when she sees him, dashing forward in a mad scramble of flying cookware from the portable oven.

“Daddy!” she screams excitedly, “Daddy, you’re back!” She hits him with all the force of her tiny body and he laughs as he takes her up in his arm. The warmth and relief that fills him almost brings tears to his eyes, and he hugs her so tight to his chest that he can feel her breathing and alive against him.

“That’s right, angel! Safe and sound, just like I promised.”

She giggles against his neck, small fists rising to press at the nape of his neck in a hug. “Tifa and me were making you dinner!”

“Oh, is that so?” He chuckles, looking up to see Tifa standing a short distance away. She looks relaxed and happy, smiling with a languid sort of bliss as she watches the two of them. 

Then her eyes drift down to his destroyed arm and the expression drops to one of pure panic, her gaze darting back up to his own with alarm.

He winces and shakes his head, silently telling her he’ll explain it all later. But he refuses to let go of Marlene right now - refuses to let her out of his sights - so he nods at the passenger seat of the truck, observing pensively as Tifa finally seems to catch his drift, circling around the car to check inside.

“Did you bring back anything fun, Daddy?” Marlene asks sweetly, leaning away to peer up at him with wide eyes. He hums for a moment to stall, hearing Tifa’s small gasp as she catches sight of the battered SOLDIER, and tries to keep his tone light when he answers.

“Not this time, baby. Had to focus on houses instead of stuff, remember?”

“Uh huh! You were house hunting!” She exclaims proudly, eyes crinkling with the force of her smile.

It’s impossible not to return one of his own, warm and loving as he moves them both away from the situation about to unfold, further into the camp. “That’s right! When did you get such a good memory?”

Marlene kicks her legs in the air with an offended sniff. “I always have a good memory. It’s you that forgets things. Like my necklace!” She pouts.

“Well, you’ve got me there,” he laughs, forcing his tone into something unworried as he turns to see Tifa haul the blonde from the car. She slams the door shut with enough force to make Marlene jump, and as she carries the blonde bridal style into the clearing he notices the dark shadow of horror in her eyes, lips tight and arms shaking as she stares down at him. 

Marlene can’t help turning at the noise, and Barret has no power to stop her as she gets a look at their new guest. She gasps, mouth dropping open as she begins to squirm eagerly in his grasp. “Who’s that?! Is he another friend? Is he staying with us too, like Tifa?”

“I don’t know!” He keeps a hold of her as Tifa sets the blonde down on her own mattress, instantly digging around in her pack for supplies. Then turns his full attention on Marlene again, looking sternly into her pleading brown eyes until she stills enough to listen.

“We don’t know if he’s staying, yet,” he tells her honestly, voice gentle, “But we can’t bother him right now, okay? He’s hurt and he might be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how? Who is he?” It’s Tifa who speaks, although she doesn’t look back at him as she does so, and Barret sighs as he crouches to lower Marlene to the ground. She races over to them both before he can do anything, but he trusts that Tifa won’t let any harm come to Marlene.

“A fool, apparently,” Barret snorts with bitter self reproach, “and a turncoat too. ‘Less his friends were just…” he glances at Marlene, shocked and curious as she hides behind Tifa and peaks out at the blonde from around the woman’s shoulder. “...hurting him for the fun of it. They looked past the point of sanity, though, so who the hell knows.”

“A Cluster?” Tifa frets, “I thought they didn’t wander out this way.”

“They usually don’t. Stick to the roads and such. Don’t got time for the likes of backwoods campers. But this wasn’t a Cluster, it was worse.”

“Worse how?” She finally turns to look back at him, and the furrow between her brows makes his heart ache for her. He almost doesn’t want to say it, but -

“SOLDIERS.”

She freezes, expression going blank, and he knows nothing good can be going through her head right now.

“What?” She croaks breathlessly, “You brought a SOLDIER back here? Are you insane? ”

“What’s a soldier?” Marlene’s voice is small and afraid, and Barret swallows the conversation in an instant at her tone, falling to his knees and beckoning her over. 

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Come here.”

He sees Tifa drop the conversation as well, biting her lip to keep from speaking as she settles a comforting hand on Marlene’s shoulder. She forces herself to relax as she gives Marlene a warm smile, nudging her toward Barret, and after a few seconds Marlene begins to approach with tiny steps. She’s fidgeting, casting fervent looks back at the limp body next to Tifa.

“Is our new friend a bad guy?” she asks hesitantly, eventually working up the courage to speak as she gets closer. 

Barret swallows thickly. “No, he’s not- not a bad guy. He saved my life.” Then, louder as he directs it to Tifa, “he saved my life.”

She sighs and nods, shoulders tense as she turns back to keep working on Cloud, and Barret leans forward the rest of the distance to sweep Marlene up again into a comforting hug. Like magic, though, she’s already moved on from the emotion of two seconds ago. Fear turned to a palpable interest as she hums curiously against him and vibrates with a new kind of energy.

“So he’s a hero?” She asks as he stands to take them to her tent.

“I suppose he is,” he admits reluctantly, holding back a scowl.

“Then why is he so hurt?”

He parts the flaps of her tent and carries her into the muted blue shadows, laying her gently down on her sleeping bag. She yawns widely, rubbing at her eyes and sniffing, but she doesn’t let up on the questioning gaze for one second.

Barret toys with his next words. “His old family...didn’t treat him very well.”

“But why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Families aren’t supposed to hurt each other. They’re supposed to take care of each other. Like you do with me.”

His gaze softens and he brushes a stray lock from her eyes, mulling over his next response. “I take care of you because I love you, and you’re my precious little girl.” She giggles when he leans down to smother her in a sloppy kiss, pushing his face away playfully. Then he leans back and sobers up, saying tenderly, “These people...they weren’t like us. They didn’t agree with him, sweetheart. I don’t know the whole story, but I know they tried to kick him out.”

“They wanted to abandon him?”

She sounds so sad, and Barret doesn’t know how to make it better. Doesn’t want to lie to her but doesn’t want to hurt her. 

He exhales slowly and presses her back into her bag when she tries to rise. The heavy weight of his hands rests on her chest for a moment in solid comfort, and after a time her small fingers come up to rest atop his own. She pats at him solemnly like it’s him that needs the comforting, and he chokes back a laugh.

“We should keep him,” she says, “so he can know what a real family is.”

“We aren’t his family, sweetheart.”

“But you’re a Daddy. And you said that we should always help and protect people.”

“That’s-” He huffs in amusement and relents beneath the insistence of her hopeful eyes. “Very kind, Marlene. And very brave.”

Her smile is shy with the light pink in her cheeks, but her eyes sparkle victoriously. Barret doesn’t know how to tell her that the SOLDIER probably won’t be around come morning, if he even stays that long at all. So he turns his palm to catch her wrists between his fingers, bringing her hands up to lay a kiss on the back of each. Then he lowers them back down to kiss her goodnight as well, hushing her worries with a gentle touch to the forehead.

“I couldn't be more proud of you,” he says lowly, “my kind girl. You’ve grown up so well.”

“I think you’re the kindest, Daddy, for helping people even when they’re mean. I think you’re a hero, too. You and Auntie Tifa and…”

“His name is Cloud,” Barret admits, already regretting saying the words. And sure enough-

“And Uncle Cloud!”

“How about we wait until he’s awake to see if he wants to be called that, huh?” It’s a lot more rational than he wants it to be, but he can’t bear to snuff out the flickering light of hope Marlene’s found in the situation.

“Fine,” she pouts, before brightening excitedly, “and then he can tell us a story! About how he was the hero and saved you.”

Barret rolls his eyes and stands to leave. “I saved him too, you know.”

“Sure, Daddy.”

“Yeah, yeah...Goodnight, little bug.”

“Night night!” He exits the tent and zips up the flaps, and it’s only after he’s turned and made his halfway across the camp that he hears, “don’t let the bed bugs bite!” sound out behind him.

Barret chuckles fondly, wincing at a sudden sting of pain in his gun arm, and glances over at where Tifa’s working on the SOLDIER. 

His smile drops almost instantly as he sees her leaning back on her heels, hands raised defensively against the harsh movements of her patient.

He’s awake, Barret thinks.

And acting exactly as Barret had feared, judging by the distress clear from across camp. He grits his teeth and storms over, hand already clenched into a fist.

“Hey!” Tifa jumps in surprise, turning to face him as he approaches, and Barret only faintly registers the lack of fear on her face before an infuriatingly cold voice is piercing the air.

“You can’t keep me here,” Cloud says, rising to sit up despite the obvious agony it brings him. He wraps an arm around his stomach, but the intensity of his glare doesn’t waver once.

Tifa worries at her lip as he moves, hands hovering over his battered body as if she doesn’t know where to place them. “You’re still injured, you can’t be up and about! Let me help you,” she practically begs, and Barret’s blood boils at the sound of it. What right does this kid have?

“Not interested.”

“Oh you can’t be serious!” Barret finally snaps, coming to a stomping halt right next to the both of them and scowling furiously down at the kid. “Drop the tough guy act and suck it up. You ain’t helpin’ no one with that attitude, least of all yourself.”

He opens his mouth to say more and falters almost violently when he catches sight of Cloud’s exposed upper body, teeth clacking shut as his eyes widen.

The kid’s shirt is cut right off of him now, with the tight black binder around his chest exposed for all to see. Yet what really horrifies Barret is the garish mass of bruises painting every inch of his skin. He’s coated in cuts and stab wounds, shaking with exhaustion and ribs stark against his thin body, with what looks like an actual bullet wound still red and seeping in his shoulder. Under the pale light of the moon, with blood and dirt washed away, he looks worse than he had sprawled out on that battlefield.

Barret’s stomach turns.

“Shit,” he breathes out before he can stop himself, “what the hell did they do to you?”

“A lot less than what they did to Zack!” His voice cracks and his teeth clench after he speaks, as if the words have spilled unwillingly from his mouth.

“The other SOLDIER?” The one they killed?

The words spark a fire in Cloud that has him whipping to attention so quickly Barret’s surprised he doesn’t keel over from the pain. “It ain’t any of your business!” he grinds out, voice desperate and guarded and hurt all at once, lashing out like an injured animal, “Stop treating me like I’m made of glass. Stop talking like you’re familiar with me. You don’t even know me.”

Tifa crosses her arms and raises her chin defiantly, unflinching in the face of Cloud’s anger, and meets his gaze head on when he turns to glare at her. Barret’s hit with another sense of profound respect for this woman, who doesn’t even blink at the unnatural glow of mako eyes in the night, upper body rising to match Cloud’s own harsh tension.

“You’re not being treated like glass! Your injuries are getting taken care of. Last I checked, there’s a hell of a difference.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Ya can’t take care of shit, soldier! Do you hear yourself?” Barret hisses, “do you see yourself? You wouldn’t make it a day out in the wild alone.”

Cloud works his jaw, the stubborn set of his shoulders unrelenting for just a second before his expression shifts, softening in surprise as his trembling body finally can’t take the stress anymore. Tifa reaches out just in time to catch him as he collapses, and the way his lashes flutter, eyes glazing over, speaks more about his wounds than whatever shit was spilling out of his mouth.

Barret snorts. “What a dumbass.”

“Barret!” Tifa scolds, lowering the kid with such a painful amount of gentleness that he’s half convinced the kid may have been onto something about being treated like glass.

“Look, he’s an asshole!” Barret defends, waving his gun arm at the kid in a momentary lapse of judgement that has it zinging with pain. He covers up a wince before Tifa can see it and continues on, growing tenser with each passing moment, voice heated with the pain and frustration of the day. “We’ve done nothing but help him and he’s acting like he doesn’t give a single shit. Dozens of people died today. I almost died! He almost died!”

“And his friend did die, so maybe cut him some slack.”

“That doesn’t excuse his shitty behavior.”

“It was one conversation, Barret! For a few minutes, while he was concussed and injured and barely coherent. He probably won’t even remember it in the morning.”

Barret grinds his teeth and quiets, because he knows she’s right. Know he’s overreacting but damn, everything about the kid had rubbed him the wrong way. “He’s a SOLDIER, Tifa.”

“One who apparently saved your life. One that you brought back with you, which tells me a bit more about what you really feel about this situation.”

“I just don’t trust him,” Barret says, “and I don’t like him.”

Tifa just shakes her head. “Go to sleep, Barret. You’ll want to apologize in the morning.”

“You said he wouldn’t remember the damn conversation anyway!” Barret huffs indignantly, the thought of apologizing makes his hackles rise like nothing else, and he’s thinking he may need to take Tifa’s advice, after all. That he should go to bed before he does something else he might regret.

Something- not something else- because there’s not anything else that he-

Dammit .

“Yeah,” he sighs, waving his hand as Tifa opens her mouth to keep fighting, “yeah, you’re right.”

He gives her a soft goodnight, feeling a bit better when she relaxes and sends him a reassuring smile before turning back to work on Cloud, and heads over to his own tent to settle in for the night.

He just needs some time to cool down - just needs to take a moment to himself so he can grieve the brutal loss of his prosthetic and the deaths of every single person he’d seen today. Needs to be able to reconcile with the horrifying levels of destruction he’d witnessed.

Once that’s done - once he’s had the time to settle down - he’ll apologize. Or find the guy some ice cream. He doesn’t know. But right now, just for the night, he needs to rest.

He goes to sleep with a calm mind that night, content and soothed by the knowledge that things turned out okay, with the firm resolution that he’ll get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and lighten the air between him and the new guy.

Unfortunately, come morning, Tifa’s bedroll is empty. The top kicked aside and the buster sword missing from where it had been propped up against a tree.

Cloud is nowhere is sight. 

And as Barret looks around in sleepy bewilderment, he realizes that neither is the truck.

“Mother fucker!”

[science-lings]

Crazy AU maybe? Tony is a King who keeps pissing off his court by not having an actual heir, just adopting multiple poor orphan kids and making them princes/princesses. The more the court complains, the more kids he accumulates

Okay so, first of all, this ended up a lot longer and a lot off prompt than I originally planned, second, it’s important to note that this is in my already established fantasy AU world. Honestly, I just wanted a reason to write more for it. I actually tried to write it in the Tumblr reply box thing but it kept on getting deleted. Those were the more on prompt drafts so I apologize for not making the prompt my complete priority. However, I think you’ll like what’s in store anyway.

 The prompt was just so much already part of the original AU itself that I had to just continue with it.  I hope you guys enjoy! the rest of the AU can be found HERE

Lord Anthony Stark had always been a strange but brilliant man. Even when he was just a squire he was too intelligent and inventive to be wasted as a knight. His father, Lord Howard Stark was a retired knight of the king. Given countless sacks of gold and his own section of the kingdom to rule over so that the lazy king wouldn’t have to do it himself. 

Anthony grew up like a prince. A clever and envied boy that was much more than his parents ever saw him as. He was trained to fight, even if he wouldn’t be a knight. He made a friend of the son of a farmer, who would eventually become Anthony’s greatest ally. 

Before he was old enough to be coronated, his parents were killed by men sent by the king. The king had grown tired of Lord Howard’s greed and lacking of loyalty and hoped that his only son would do better. He had never met the boy but if he was smart, he would stay out of the king's way. 

So, Anthony Stark became a Lord and molded his little section of the kingdom into what he thought was best rather than what his father would’ve wanted. However, the king's eyes were always on the young lord, in the form of a large man named Sir Obadiah Stane. He too was a knight too old to fight, but he didn’t want land like his old friend, he wanted to bide his time to gain all he could from the golden goose that was the last Stark. He made himself the Lord's advisor with only the word that he worked with the boy's father.

When the boy became too much for the old knight, Sir Stane decided to get rid of him. He gave the Lords gold to a group of notorious bandits to attack the man while he was out traveling. Little did he know that the last Stark was much more than a beautiful prince. 

Anthony Stark came back with not only his life but with an infant scarlet and golden dragon gripping onto his shoulder and several mystical eggs in his bag. Stark had cared for the baby dragon until it could help him out of his prison with its breath of fire. 

Lord Stark imprisoned Sir Stane and everyone lived happily ever after. 

The End

Lady Virginia Potts finished her story as she rocked her baby in her arms. 

“You’re boring her my lady.” Her husband whispered from the doorway, the only light being a candle he was holding. 

“She loves dreaming of dragons and hellfire my lord.” Virginia smiled as Lord Stark approached her. 

“Just like her mother.” Anthony leaned down and their lips met for a brief sweet moment. 

“Is everyone else settled? It would be a miracle to herd them all to rest.” Virginia said as Anthony took their child from her mother and set her in her crib, knowing that her godmother Margret would be but a room away. 

“I handled it. It turns out that convincing squires who have been training all-day to have exotic pastries was not too difficult. I’m mostly sure that they’re at least preparing for bed now.” Anthony said as he took his wife's hand and walked with her in the castle halls. 

“Are you going to be stationed outside of Peter’s room again, in case he has another nightmare?” 

“I’m planning on being nearby, as you said, just in case.” He admitted. 

“I admire your intentions but you need sleep too-” Lady Virginia was interrupted by a servant stumbling towards them. He had the kings crest of a gold fist surrounded in violet. Sir Rhodes and a female guard followed loosely behind.

“I apologize, my lord and lady, I’ve been sent by the king.” The young man stumbled. The Lord and Lady shared a look and looked at the king's servant, knowing that their lives were likely about to get more complicated. 

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

In the morning, they all set off for the king’s castle. Their horses were clearly marked in the gold and scarlet cloth embroidered with dragons, signifying their adopted family brand. Only little Morgan was left at the castle, with dozens of maidservants at her side as well as all of the lord's dragons. 

The eldest member of their odd family was sat straight on her horse, Margret’s graying hair still immaculate in the early dawn. Harley and Riri leaned heavily into their steeds and yawned at increasing intervals.  Peter was more used to strange sleeping schedules so he seemed fine but he led the group with the knowledge that his magic could predict the worst before his words could warn them. 

It took two nights of travel to get to the king's castle. Two long nights of storytelling and playing with magic so that they didn’t die of boredom. Two very long days and nights of slowly getting more and more sick of sitting on the back of their horses. 

They were almost relieved when they got to the king's castle. Almost. The king was an asshole so they weren’t that excited. 

The king's daughters were waiting outside of the castle in dark purple dresses trimmed in gold. Princess Gamora had long dark hair in gold ribbons and darker skin than what was common in the region. Her adopted sister Princess Nebula had no hair at all and odd blue tattoos on her pale skin. They both had stone-cold expressions and neither of them looked comfortable in extravagant dresses. 

“Your highnesses,” The lord greeted with the mask of a charming smile. 

“Lord Stark. It is a pleasure to meet you and your ward. The king is waiting.” Princess Gamora said. Anthony saw something more behind her eyes, he knew she was hiding something. 

“I suppose we shouldn’t keep him waiting then.” Lord Stark suggested as he dismounted from his horse. He helped his wife off of her horse and watched as Harley tried to help Riri and almost fell to the ground. Margret rejected Peter’s offer of help and hopped off of her own horse with no trouble at all. 

The king’s guards accompanied the group into the towering castle. Anthony noticed Gamora’s eyes wandering around nervously before snapping back in front of them. She walked by Lady Virginia and at one point discreetly slipped something into her palm. The lord didn’t make a scene and only placed the information at the back of his mind. He was about to introduce his whole family to the most dangerous person in all the kingdoms after all.

The throne room was a little dramatic, even through Anthony’s eyes. There was no lack of gold in intricate designs and decorations. Violet cloth and colorful jewels were placed everywhere they could fit. Images of the king completing his conquests decorated the walls like a proud pharaoh. A single glorious throne sat at the end of the room. In it, was the king, in his large armored glory. 

King Thanos was larger than any normal man, many people thought him half giant. No one would dare say it out loud as there would be consequences for slander against the king. Scars adorned his face like he had gotten into an altercation with a lion. He had no hair but his head was covered by a gaudy crown with jewels every color of the rainbow. 

“Lord Stark! I was beginning to lose hope that you were coming. I was looking forward to meeting your ward. You do have… quite the assortment.” Thanos said, his booming voice filling the room easily. His tone suggested polite friendliness but Anthony knew better than to trust the king. 

“I could say the same about you my liege, it’s a pleasure to be invited back.” Lord Stark forced out. “However, I don’t think you invited me over just to meet my family…”

“You’re right. I invited you here to take your family. You’ve become a problem.” Doors slammed closed and the dozen guards and the princesses all pointed their weapons at the visitors. The Stark’s mostly stood unwavering. Anthony, Riri, and Harley all drew their swords in an instant while Lady Virginia held a small knife that none of them recognized. Margret pulled out a small handheld automatic crossbow wielding poison darts and paralyzing toxins. Peter stood weaponless in the center, knowing that revealing his magic would be a death sentence if they couldn’t beat the king’s forces. The king wasn’t one to throw away anything he could use, he would keep them alive if they gave him any sort of advantage. A man who could sooth a raging dragon was an advantage. 

Lord Stark stood unafraid with a fiery look behind his eyes, full of rage at the sheer audacity of the king to threaten his family. Actually, he was afraid. He couldn’t stand his makeshift family being in danger. But he did know that they were a force to be reckoned with. Even without dragons. 

There was a moment of tense silence. Those on the kings side waiting for orders and the Stark’s were not going to start the fight, even though the fight was inevitable. The king seemed to enjoy the fact that the Stark’s were completely surrounded, outnumbered, and moments away from permanent captivity. 

“I let you get away with so much, I refuse to be any more lenient. You should be grateful, I’m keeping you alive, you’re still useful to me. Your children however… will only stay alive if you behave. I do not want to waste dungeon space on them…” the king said in that infuriatingly condescending way. 

“We surrender. Just don’t hurt them.” Lady Virginia dropped her knife and made momentary eye contact with Princess Gamora before looking straight at the cruel king with the same steely expression as her husband. 

Lord Anthony dropped his sword, hoping that he was making the right decision. He would do anything to keep his children safe. The Stark’s surrendered. Even Margret grumbled as she put down her handheld crossbow. She muttered something about being able to take them. 

And just like that, the Stark’s were defeated. For now. It wouldn’t last very long. 

_______

Peter sat in his cell with his eyes closed. He was trying something. It wasn’t working. The elders in his village would do this thing where they could remove their spirits from their bodies and contact the other clans of magic users in the land. But there were no more elders and no more village and Peter had no idea what he was doing. He had never done anything like this before and he didn’t know if he even could. 

He wished he could talk to the dead. Talk to his parents or his aunt and uncle, the elders, just someone who could help him. He wasn’t that kind of magic user though. There were necromancers out there that could but Peter wasn’t born with that kind of magic. He didn’t have any help. That made everything a whole lot harder. 

After what felt like the thousandth time of trying, he got a little frustrated. It’s not like he couldn’t get out of the cell, he totally could do that easily. But right outside his cell was way too many guards that he wasn’t sure he could beat with his current energy level. It turned out sleeping on the ground for a few days and trying to nap on a horse wasn’t the best way to get enough energy for a big fight. 

He could barely see Lady Stark and Harley through the little windows in the side of his cell. Everyone else was too far away. He tried to think of a way to get them out of there, but the slight sluggishness of his mind made it almost painful to try. He was tired of putting all of his energy somewhere that bore no fruit.

Peter slumped down against the rough stone wall in exhaustion and found himself dozing off. His head hurt and he was only alive because the king thought it would motivate Lord Stark to do something for him. He wished he had stayed back at their own palace with Morgan. Then he could at least bring the dragons to the rescue. He had only just barely gotten them to trust him and they were still weary of the servants and anyone that wasn’t a Stark. 

He fell into a momentary sleep against the wall until a loud noise woke him up. This loud noise ended up being a guard yelling for him to wake up. He scrambled to his feet before actually being able to perceive the situation. 

The princess stood outside of the bars that kept him in. Instead of a dress, she wore dark leather and had her long dark hair down in perfect waves. She looked just as cold as before as she spoke. 

“The king has asked for you Peter. I’m here to escort you to him.” Gamora said calmly. “If you try anything, I have been ordered to kill you.” 

“I understand,” Peter gulped nervously. The door to his cell opened and a guard yanked him out. 

“Are you sure you want to take him alone Princess?” The guard asked. 

“I can handle a child. Do you doubt me?”

“Of course not your highness.” 

“Good. I will take him to my father now. I would keep my mouth shut if I were you.” The princess hissed and grabbed Peter’s arm. As she led him away, he looked back to see his everyone except Lady Virginia looking alarmed. Lord Stark was grasping the bars of his cell like he was willing the metal to bend for him. Everyone else looked like they were trying, and failing, to hide their worry. Peter smiled a little in an attempt to ease their worry but he was sure that they were right to fear for his safety. The king was known for his hatred of magic. If they knew he had magic than he was likely headed to his death. Fun. 

Princess Gamora led Peter through the endless halls of the castle, but not towards the throne room. The princess avoided the guards to a point of pressing him against the wall and using her body to casually hide his when they went by. This was when he realized that she may actually be helping him. 

She snuck him up the tallest steeple of the castle and led him to a dusty room that she unlocked with a rusty strange key. Peter was shocked when he recognized what the room contained. There were crystal balls and magical artifacts thought to be lost in the destruction of the king. Weapons that could only be used by people with magic in their veins and even a full alchemy setup. He had never seen one so complete. Even Uncle Ben only had a partial set. 

“Why are you helping me?” Peter turned to the princess. 

“I want the king dead. I want to live in a way that I do not have to fear for my sister’s life and I am sick of seeing the destruction he brings. I want to be free.” 

“Then I am glad to be of service. I’ll do my best to repay my debt to you.” Peter smiled as he saw a small relic. He recognized it immediately. It was an orb of contact. It was used to contact the sorcerer supreme and the leaders of each tribe of hidden magicians. Needless to say, he grabbed it immediately. 

The room around him disappeared and he felt completely weightless. A well-lit table appeared in front of him and each seat had a symbol that mirrored the tribe whose leader sat there. Peter stayed at the head of the table. At the other end, he appeared. The sorcerer supreme. A tall angular man with a black goatee and streaks of white in his hair. He wore a large scarlet cloak and an eye amulet around his neck. 

One by one, they began to appear. The strongest magic users that Peter had only heard about. This was when he started to get nervous. Maybe this was not as urgent… fuck it, he was in the kings castle, the king who enjoyed commiting mass genocide on people with magic and as far as he knew, was the last survivor of his magic tribe. He needed some help from these people. 

The famed Scarlet Witch sat in the seat representing the tribe Mutae, A woman wearing purple robes and massive bright red hair sat in the seat representing the tribe of the Inhumans, An asian woman with scars all over her face and simple clothes sat in the seat for the tribe of the Kree, Captain Marvel, not a leader but a powerful magic user sat in one of the seats, Freya of the Asguardian tribe, and a dozen more sorcerers that Peter couldn’t even name. 

Every seat was taken except for his tribes. Conforming to him that he was the last one left. He looked up at the most powerful people in the world and straightened his back. 

“I am Peter Stark. The last survivor of the Tribe Arachne, and I need a little help.” 

_________

Gamora shut the door to the witch's quarters. It wouldn’t be long until her father found out what she did. Someone would notice. She just hoped that she could give the kid enough time. She didn’t know what he was doing but she knew that it was time for a new king. She kept her palm on her sword’s hilt and casually strolled down the spiral staircase. 

On the way, she ran into her sister. Nebula looked at her sister expectantly. 

“Do you have the kid?” 

“Does it look like I have the kid?” 

“You know what I mean.” Nebula hissed. “The Black Order noticed that he’s gone. I think they’re onto us.” 

“I’ll get them off our tail, just make sure they don’t get to the kid.” Gamora ordered, receiving a quick nod from her sister. 

Nebula ran up to where the boy was and found him floating in the air and looking up at the ceiling with his eyes glowing gold. He was also holding a strange colorful glass sphere that had a strange white glow to it. She had seen the object before but it had never glowed. Moments later, the kid gently landed on the ground and his eyes faded a little. Now only his iris’ glowed. He smiled at her in that kind of optimistic way that somehow lightly eased the sense of dread she had ever since they came up with the plan. 

“What do you have?” She asked. 

“I have help.” Peter held out the hand that didn’t have the orb. In it was a glowing orange stone. Peter looked around the room before picking up a golden jeweled staff, He put the gem into the end of the staff and it started to glow with the same energy. 

“What is it going to do?”

“It’s going to send the king somewhere where we will never have to worry about him ever again. Can you help me get to him?”

“Yes. Stay behind me, don’t do anything stupid.” She ordered. Peter just shrugged. It took a little bit of waiting before he could actually do something, but now that he could, he was nervously ecstatic. 

While he was talking to the sorcerer supreme, he asked what it would mean for the kingdom if he were to reveal his magic and if his pseudo father took the throne. The man had just smiled at him and said that with the dragon king on the throne, they would be free. He said that he had seen what would happen to the kingdom with the Stark’s on the throne and reassured him that everything would be okay. 

All he had to do was defeat King Thanos. 

Piece of cake… 

_________

After Peter was taken away, Lord Stark felt sick to his stomach. What were they going to do to him? Did they know he had magic? Is he going to come back? Anthony was not a stranger to overthinking but this was a little excessive. He may have been spiraling. 

When Princess Gamora came back down without his kid, he only got more worried. He obviously wasn’t the only one by the sound of Harley and Riri’s frantic whispering. It was Margret who spoke first though. It was actually more of a demand. 

“Where is Peter! Where did you take my grandson!” Gamora looked at her calmly with a tiny hint of a smile behind her eyes. 

“Leave us! I have some words from the king for the Starks.” The heavily armed guards looked at each other before bowing to their princess and leaving the room. 

“Peter is safe, I’m getting you out.” She said when the king's guards were out of earshot. She took out a ring of keys and started to unlock Lord Stark’s cell. 

“Why are you helping us?” Margret asked. 

“Because… the king… stole me from my family and killed my parents in front of me. I never thought I would meet someone as powerful as him. And then I heard about the son of a knight that rose from the fire of dragons. And the rumor came to light that he made a horse grow wings and leave an entire camp of bandits dead on the ground.” Gamora started to unlock the other cells. 

“So you want us to kill the king?” Harley questioned as he was released. 

“No, I want him to.” Gamora turned to Anthony. 

_________

Thanos was in the throne room waiting for them. No visible guards and no weapons even though he clearly knew they were coming. Naturally, Lord Stark was pretty cautious. The king must have something up his sleeve. He would never just stay out in the open like that unless he genuinely didn’t know he was coming. Peter thought that was unlikely. 

The king was incredibly intelligent but as proud as the king of everything could be. The king had conquered everything. He had conquered everyone. Everyone except the Starks. No one could conquer the clan of dragons. At least not with Anthony as the head. 

The king was proud. He believed he knew what was best for everyone and was the ultimate authority. He believed himself to be a god. Everyone else was under him, either for him to crush or to force into compliance. He feared magic because there was a chance that people who had it could become more powerful than him. 

The king had the largest army of magic hating barbarians in the history of the kingdoms that forced those with magic to completely go into hiding. The initial massacre was massive and successfully make every magician fear the king. Even the Sorcerer Supreme disappeared. They got used to living in the shadows and never being safe. The genocide of Peter’s tribe was only another reminder that they were never safe from the king.    

After all of that, Peter stood in the throne room with only the king's youngest daughter behind him and a new powerful weapon that Peter barely knew the extent of. He didn’t know if Gamora was coming back or if Thanos’ personal guards were on their way.

It didn’t matter. Peter had so much rage pumping through his veins just seeing the king that it made his fear slip to the back of his mind. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t all his rage. It was the rage from the stone. The Sorcerer Supreme called it the ‘Soul Stone’ so Peter felt that the rage came from the souls of the magic users that Thanos had killed without mercy. He had never felt such fire in his soul. It was like the mind-numbing fear he felt when he watched all he had ever known burn to the ground was replaced with pure anger. 

Peter was never a destructive person but at that moment, looking into the king's soulless eyes, all he wanted to do was burn the castle to the ground and hope Thanos was burnt to a crisp in the process. His body felt too small for the unwavering rage inside of him. 

“Welcome back child, I was wondering who would be first to escape. You Stark’s, are quite… stubborn.”

“I think you messed with the wrong people. My people.” Peter growled. “And I think, it’s time for a change. A change in power.” 

Peter’s eyes glowed with the fury of every soul the king had destroyed. Every witch he had burned, every person defeated in battle, every civilian of every village he had set ablaze. Peter felt all of them. They were all with him in the little glowing stone. There was a lot of power in not being alone. There was a lot of power in so much pain. Peter was born from pain as all the Stark’s were. 

Golden ribbons of light sprouted from Peter’s skin. The energy swirled in the air and created an image around him. Lines of warm yellow power outlined a massive reptilian head in front of his own. Small curled horns grew from the forehead of the light creature and the rest of its body emerged from the base of its skull. Around Peter was the body of an adolescent dragon made out of magic. In a flash of light, the dragon gained scarlet and blue flesh and its golden eyes faded to reveal Peter’s warm brown ones.  

Dragon Peter roared and for a slim moment, he saw fear in the king's eyes. 

_______________

Once everyone got their weapons back, Lord Stark and Princess Gamora led the group up the stairs, heading towards the tower, where she last left Peter. Servants and maids hid behind doors and pressed themselves against the wall. But they weren’t afraid, they didn’t intervene. They didn’t tell any guards and only sent curious glances their way. 

Everything was tense but calm until there was the muffled sound of a screaming roar that Tony knew better than any person in the kingdoms. It was the roar of a dragon. He had no idea how a dragon got there and the slight shake of the grounds made his heart jump. 

“The boy-” Princess Nebula sprinted towards the group. “He went to confront Thanos.” 

“By himself?” Harley exclaimed. 

“That’s not exactly out of character for him,” Riri muttered. 

“A dragon is a little bit dramatic don’t you think?” Lady Virginia suggested. 

“He’s been hanging around us, what did you expect?” Anthony shrugged as they walked quickly to the large doorway leading to the throne room, which was more of a titanic hall than a room. It was large enough to hold a dragon pretty comfortably anyway. 

Gamora opened the door quickly to the sight of the back of a dragon the colors of Peter’s favorite outfit. Red and deep blue with a little bit of gold. The dragon whipped its head towards them and Lord Anthony got a glimpse of its eyes. They were brown and human. No dragon had brown eyes. No dragon had slitted pupils. This wasn’t just a dragon, it was Peter. 

“Kid?” The lord muttered as the dragon nodded. Dragon Peter then turned back to Thanos and roared again. The king himself had gotten a hold of a massive stone-crushing double-bladed sword and he held it in front of his stupid bald head as some sort of sheild from Peter’s burst of white-hot flames.

________

King Anthony Stark was not just a great man, but a great king. The kingdom sighed in relief when the previous king was confirmed dead and his daughters released from their torment. The specifications of which the tyrant king was defeated were only known to those who had laid eyes on the event. 

Followers of Thanos crept into the darkness and were sure to return but for the moment, the Starks were alive and at the center of the kingdom. The new royalty were mostly accepted among the people. The new king didn’t threaten them harshly if they questioned his questionable law. The new king had several advisors and was planning to have a group of qualified individuals at his side to help protect his kingdom. 

Witch hunters went out of business in a flash as the most aggressive magic hater was out of the picture. The new king spent a mountain of his fortune on keeping as many magic users safe as he could and banned hate crimes towards them as a whole. 

The deep violet and the golden fist that decorated the castle was replaced with rich scarlet and images of dragons. The fear that was gripping everyone under the king’s rule had eased and it was like the sun had risen for the first time in decades after everyone had gotten used to the constant darkness. 

Of course, just because the king was dethroned didn’t mean that all the evil was defeated. The black order had vanished and there were still plenty of allies of the old king that were hiding across the ends of the land. They would be back, the new king was sure of it, but they would bide their time. The Starks were powerful enough together that approching them now would be suicide. They defeated the single most powerful man in the land without the dragons they were known for. 

For now however, they were safe. Gamora had packed all of her things and was determined to find an adventure. She said goodbye to her sister before setting off on the dangerous roads towards the lands of Asgard. 

Nebula had nowhere to go and she wasn’t planning on following her sister wherever she was heading. King Stark was happy to let her stay until she decided on what she wanted. Unlike with Thanos, she had a choice. It meant more to her than the man who gave it to her would ever understand. 

Anthony didn’t expect to become the king when he left his castle, in fact, the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind until well after Thanos was defeated. He only wanted his family to be safe. Becoming king was not exactly part of his plan but with neither of the princesses wanting the throne and Lord Stark being part of the previous king’s assassination, was the obvious choice for the role. 

Of course, the Lord accepted, if not for the fact that anyone would be a better ruler than Thanos, but because he was wise enough not to rule alone. Anthony was aware that he would never know what was best for everyone. There were things that he didn’t understand. Things that he would never fully understand. Because of that, he had the idea of making a team, a ‘knights of the round table’ kind of team. He wanted to get the best of everyone and they would help him protect his kingdom. 

King Anthony Stark sent out the wax-sealed invitation letters only a day after being crowned King by Princess Nebula herself. No one else was qualified and it implied a peaceful transition of power even though Thanos wasn’t exactly dethroned peacefully. 

And so, the reign of the titan king was ended and the dragon kings began. As long as the dragon king sat upon the throne, there would be light.

[cuttoothed]

A self-indulgent spin off from @peachblossom-odyssey 's delightful AU, because we have been discussing the roles of some of the other characters in this world. Featuring tsundere dragon Elias, and world's greatest pirate Peter Lukas.

*

Elias stretched languorously as he woke, spreading out across the width of the bed. He would admit that his stretching was not quite as impressively lithe as it used to be, but it was difficult to recreate the powerful grace of a dragon in a human form. It was just one of those things he’d got used to, over the years.

He never would have slept on a feather mattress as a dragon, either, but the human body was soft, and sleeping on a hoard of magical artifacts and rare books was definitely hard on the human spine. One of many areas where his current shape was deficient, which also included the lack of wings, and the horrible inability to breathe fire at anyone who annoyed him. The opposable thumbs were nice, but they didn’t entirely compensate.

At least, he considered as he got up and began dressing, I still have my lair. A dragon’s lair was its entire sense of self, its history and dignity and pride, and in Elias’ current state, defending it against bandits, or so-called heroes, or even other dragons, would have been impossible. He kept a hefty length of metal piping at hand for emergencies, but he was realistic about its potential effectiveness.

Fortunately he hadn’t lost his capacity for illusion with his shape, and the mouth of the cave was utterly impossible to detect from outside. He was always careful when exiting and entering, so as not to give away the secret, and this morning was no exception. He looked cautiously around before walking through the curtain of glamor and out onto the beach. It was a beautiful summer’s morning, with the waves lapping gently on the golden sands, and the smell of salt lingering -

“There you are!” said a pleasant voice from behind him, and something came down over his head. Rough sackcloth, smelling of something chemical, something - something -

Elias’ last thought before losing consciousness was about the absolute indignity of having a bag put over his head.

He returned to the world slowly, groggy and with a pounding headache. Blinked his eyes open and stiffened as he took in his situation. He was tied to a chair, in a small, neat room. Judging from the porthole and the charts on the desk, a shipboard cabin. Abducted, then. And all his treasures looted, no doubt. He gave a low snarl under his breath, struggling against the ropes binding him (which, he noted, were oddly soft. And crimson red. Not the sort of rope you’d expect to find on a ship). If he only had his flames, or even his pipe -

“No point struggling,” came that same mellow voice from behind him. Elias craned to look over his shoulder (human necks were so short) and the man chuckled, walking around into view.

He was handsome, by human standards. Piercing blue eyes and graying hair, a short beard. Rugged features. Dressed in well made sailor’s garb, completed by a long, dark blue coat trimmed in silver. Elias smirked to himself. Just a human. He could talk his way out of this.

“There seems to have been some misunderstanding, Captain - ?”

“Lukas,” the man said. “Peter Lukas. And there’s no mistake, I’m afraid. So how about you stop playing games and show me that pretty tail, mermaid?”

Elias could think of at least two things wrong with that designation, right off the bat. He laughed.

“You’ve got the wrong man, Captain Lukas. One of the merfolk does frequent this bay, but I’m not him. The lack of gills probably should have tipped you off. And these.” He bared his teeth, human as the rest of him, square and white and utterly nonlethal.

Lukas looked at him with amused skepticism. Leaned in close and pulled open the collar of Elias’ shirt, which, really! Stroked his fingers roughly across the sheen of gold in the hollow of his throat.

“I know the merfolk can change their tails for legs when they choose,” he said. “These lovely scales tell the tale.”

Elias could hear the pun in his voice, and shuddered. He loathed this man, instantly and entirely.

“Well it’s hardly my problem if you can’t tell dragon scales from fish scales, is it?” he snapped.

Lukas’ eyes widened a little, and he whistled softly. Elias suddenly realized he’d made a rather obvious mistake. Damn this man for being so irritating.

“A dragon?” he murmured. “Is that so? I’ve never met a dragon before. I’d always heard they were bigger. And more intimidating than enthralling,’ he finished with a grin that was probably supposed to be seductive. Elias snorted.

“I should warn you,” he said, “If you’re planning to loot my lair, many of the pieces in my hoard are cursed. Be it on your head if you take them.”

It was true, and part of Elias hoped Lukas would take some of them. Particularly some of the more esoteric books in his collection. There was one from the Archwarlock Leitner titled On Vivisection that, well... Elias could certainly wish it upon this man.

To his surprise (and some offense) Peter Lukas laughed, his broad shoulders shaking and his blue eyes shining with mirth.

“I’m not interested in your hoard,” he said. “I’m the greatest pirate in the seven seas - I have enough wealth for a dozen lifetimes. But I am interested in how a dragon came to take human form. Chasing after a forbidden love, maybe?”

“Nothing so sentimental,” Elias told him, trying not to think about wealth for a dozen lifetimes. As a dragon, it was difficult not to fixate. “It’s a curse, and one I cannot wait to be rid of.”

That damn Gertrude Robinson, he’d thought her a mere librarian. How could he have known she was an immensely powerful mage beneath her drab, harmless exterior? Yes, he’d threatened to burn her library to the ground if she didn’t surrender its rarest books, but there had been no call to curse him this way. Until you appreciate the human experience, she'd said, and what a joke. Elias would never appreciate the human experience.

“I understand,” Lukas said, placing a hand to his heart. “I am under a curse of my own. Doomed to sail the seas eternally until I can find my one true love. That’s why they call me Lonely Captain Lukas, because from all the handsome lasses and comely lads who’ve tried to gain my favor, not one has captured my heart.”

Now it was Elias’ turn to laugh, and he did so heartily. The melodrama was almost ridiculous enough to be endearing, if he didn’t so thoroughly despise this man.

“So that’s why you’re seeking the merfolk, then?” he said at last. “You’ve heard that eating the tail from one of their kind can break any curse?”

“As have you, I’m sure, my fair dragon,” Peter said, inclining his head. Elias glowered at him.

“Indeed,” he said. “ Also, I have a name.”

“But you haven’t shared it with me,” Peter said with a smile. “And I know it’s impolite to ask a dragon their name. No matter how desperately you’d love to know it.”

“Perhaps you're not entirely uncouth,” Elias conceded grudgingly. “Untie me and I’ll tell you.”

“Of course!” Peter made quick work of the ropes with nimble, gentle fingers that told Elias he was accustomed to knotwork. Between that, and the velvety red texture, Elias wondered just precisely what Captain Lukas used the ropes in his cabin for.

Well, a promise was a promise.

“Elias,” he said shortly. He shrugged off the ropes and stood up, chafing his arms with a pretense of annoyance. Really, the ropes had been remarkably comfortable, and he hadn’t lost a modicum of circulation.

“Shame,” Peter said, “Those looked very nice on you, Elias.” He drew the word out like nectar on his tongue, his eyes traveling over Elias’ body with unabashed scrutiny. Elias tried to ignore the heat rising in his face. Dragons did not blush, just another indignity of this human form.

“If our business here is quite complete, I'll be going,” he said, slicking his hair back into order. The hair was one thing he did like about this form. It was soft and thick and enjoyable to run fingers through.

“I won't stop you,” Peter said, still looking over him with open admiration. “But I do wish you'd stay for dinner. My cook makes an exceptional Lobster Thermidor.”

Elias hesitated for an instant, because he really did love lobster. But draconic honor compelled him to be true to his intentions.

“Unfortunately, Captain - ”

“Peter, please.”

“Captain. As we're both hunting the singular merfolk who lives in this bay, it seems we're rivals. It wouldn't be appropriate to share a meal.”

Peter smiled at him, heated and hungry, and leaned across to open the cabin door. Waved Elias through with a chivalrous sweep.

“My men will take you back to shore of course,” he said. “But I think you're wrong about us being rivals. Now I've met you, my fair dragon, I feel I may not need a mermaid’s tail to break my curse.”

Elias stalked past him, head held high, refusing to give Peter the satisfaction of a reaction. How dare a mere human presume so with a dragon! When he got his flame back, he would burn Peter Lukas and his ship to ashes.

Until then, though, well...it was always pleasant to be admired. And only a dragon's due.

[everlarkficexchange]

Unmasked ~ Eight

Written by: ~ M ~

Prompt #88

Rating: E (Explicit) This fic will contain consensual sexual content; mild language; discussions of injuries, illness, and amputations in a historical setting; discussions of miscarriage; discussions of minor character suicide; references to non consensual sexual situations.

My thanks to the moderators of @everlarkficexchange for always running an entertaining event, and for playing along with a little fun and mystery. Please enjoy the eighth chapter of this adventure. Previous installments can be found here. Regards,

~ M ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~ Chapter 8 ~~

Saying farewell to Effie and Haymitch turns out to be a more difficult task than I expected. Haymitch quietly reminds me to keep him informed, that he and Effie both wish to be at my wedding, wherever I decide it will be held. The absence of any sarcastic comment from him unnerves me.

“Aunt Effie despises the country,” I say and Haymitch shrugs.

“She will brave the monotony for your wedding.” He winks then and I manage a small smile before he helps me into the carriage.

I find myself leaning out the window as we pull away, watching them grow smaller until we turn a corner and I can no longer see them. I will miss them, I realise when they vanish from view. As badly as my husband hunt turned out in the details, it was successful. I am engaged to be married, and there is no taking that back now. My success, questionable though it may be, is in large part due to their help. Now I simply have to learn to live with the consequences.

I settle into my seat and find Madge watching me. Unable to find the words I need to broach the thousands of things we should speak on, I turn vacant eyes back out the window, onto the street. We are silent as the buildings thin and then eventually fall away altogether.

The removal of their restrictive presence allows me space to breathe. Trees rise up around us, meadows and fields reach towards the horizon as though they might touch the sky if they could but grow fingers. I feel as I do at the end of the day, when a corset is removed and my body sings in relief.

This is where I belong.

“What shall you do first when we return to Everdeen?”

“Take Sagittaria out for a long ride, I should think,” I murmur and Madge hums. I frown as I realise how that must sound. “After seeing my family, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You must be happy to be seeing Maysilee.”

“Katniss, I know I failed you as a chaperone and as a friend. I should have seen more, advised caution instead of encouraging the haste–”

“I do not mean it as a criticism,” I say and turn back to her. It strikes me then how fortunate I am that Madge returned to my life at such a time. Without her, I would have no real friend. I cannot bear to have the events of the past month cause a rift between us. “I am not yet ready to talk about it, but we will. There will be time enough before the damned wedding to beat the subject to death with a spoon.”

“A soup spoon or custard spoon?”

“Well no need to make it difficult on ourselves, so I suppose a soup spoon.”

Madge laughs at this, although I am unable to join her just yet. After that, we are more like ourselves, able to converse and even smile. I avoid all thoughts of Robert and our night at the masquerade, if it even was him. Thinking on the questions that remain will no doubt make me mad. Whether that is a furious mad or an insane mad, I have not yet decided and am not yet ready to explore the possibilities. An ache resides in my chest every time I think on it, yet the further away from Capitol that we drive, the less it disturbs me.

Peeta Mellark and my pending marriage to him is a problem I will have to face eventually, but for now I must focus on more pressing issues.

************************

We ride our horses the last few miles, enjoying the fresh air and the perfumes of summer at Everdeen. I crane my neck to survey a few of the fields and check on the progress of our crops. All seems well enough, yet I cannot shake this feeling that something had gone amiss in my absence.

Primrose and Maysilee greet us at the front stairs. Matching smiles grace their faces. Madge, in her haste to dismount and greet her daughter, startles Diablo and is nearly trampled under hoof. The three of them talk over one another as Prim attempts to spill half a dozen stories while Madge showers Maysilee with kisses and affection.

When I finally manage to dismount, Prim ceases her chatter and embraces me. “We have missed you! I want to hear all about your time in Capitol. You were quite stingy with the details in your letters. Who is your betrothed?”

“We’ll talk about that later,” I wave the topic away. “How is our father?”

“The same, I am afraid. Doctor Aurelius worries about muscular deterioration and bed sores, but Mother has been working to prevent both. He says that Father could not have a better nurse.” Well at least she is managing well, I think but do not voice it. I can see in the way Prim shifts her eyes that she is keeping something from me. No matter. I will find out soon enough.

“Miss Everdeen!” A strange male voice calls and I look up to see a man on horseback approaching. Prim mutters angrily under her breath and releases me. “Miss Everdeen! We meet at last!”

“Have you found it then?” Prim asks him and he shakes his head.

“I did not. I found purple blooms with yellow markings but they did not possess blue thorns.”

“Well then back out to the woods with you, sir! I will need those flowers for dinner this evening as they are my sister’s favourite!” It is a bold faced lie and I search my memory for any flower I know of that matches the description. I come up with nothing.

“Miss Primrose, I think you send me on a fruitless hunt.”

“I would never!” Prim yells and I decide it is time I gain control of whatever mess this is.

“Excuse me sir. Who are you to accuse my sister so?”

“Your pardon, Miss Everdeen. I am your cousin,” he states and dismounts with a wide smile and, sweeping his hat from his head, bows low to the ground. “Rory Hawthorne at your service.”

I turn murderous eyes on Prim for a moment at this revelation and she wilts in front of me. “We will discuss this later,” I seethe and move closer to my dear cousin as he stands and staggers back. He could almost pass for our brother with his dark hair and gray eyes so like mine. He is objectively quite handsome and yet I wish that I were able to spit on his boots and send him packing.

“You were not meant to be here so early. In case no one bothered to mention it, my father yet lives. This is still our land, not yours.”

“I – that is – my schedule permitted a change and–”

“Your schedule permitted a change and yet you did not bother to ascertain if a change to ours was acceptable? Good sir, I do hope you’ve not been staying here while I’ve been gone… with my sister… unchaperoned.”

Primrose gasps and Madge sniggers softly as Rory Hawthorne gapes at me.

“No! I would not dare put Miss Primrose’s reputation at stake. But your mother–”

I cross my arms over my chest and glower at him. He gulps and then his mouth flaps open then snaps shut on repeat.

“Good sir, while I find your imitation of a trout quite amusing, you are wasting my time. I am weary from several days’ travel and have tasks to see to. If there is nothing else then?” I turn towards the house without allowing him a chance to answer.

“I am staying at the inn in Seam!” he blurts out and I glance back for just long enough that he gains control of his flapping jaw.

“I hear they serve an excellent dinner. Good day, Mr. Hawthorne. Come along Primrose, Countess Hargrove. I shall need both of you this afternoon. We shall all be much too busy to entertain.” Madge’s eyes widen and she curtsies to me. I try not to laugh as we sweep into the house, leaving Mr. Hawthorne to retrieve his jaw from the ground.

“Katniss!” Primrose hisses as the door closes behind us and Madge releases her laughter. “Good heavens what happened in the city? You were like a fire breathing dragon just now! Poor Mr. Hawthorne!”

“Poor Mr. Hawthorne nothing. The nerve of him, visiting and viewing the properties as though they already belong to him. I won’t give him a second before father is dead and buried to prepare our home for chopping to pieces and auctioning.”

“That is not why he is here!” Prim purses her lips, her cheeks a brilliant pink. I take note of her behaviour and wonder at it. Has Mr. Hawthorne been courting my sister, I wonder? I’ve no chance to pry.

“Katniss? Is that you I hear?” mother’s voice floats to me down the stairs and I turn in her direction. I have to swallow a gasp at her appearance. She seems so… drained. So thin and pale, her normally glossy hair and dull shade and kept back in a messy coiffure. Still, she hurries down the stairs and embraces me. “Oh my darling, I am so happy to have you home. Your father needs you. Perhaps if you could spare time to sing for him, it might help revive him. He did always love singing for you.”

She releases me with a choked sob and I mumble out some sort of pathetic agreement to sing to my comatose father.

“Oh but where is your new husband?”

“I am not married yet, Mama. Only betrothed.”

“Will we not meet this man, then? Your letter revealed nothing! Oh but we can begin work on your dress at least. I know it shan’t be as glamorous as what Effie would see you dressed in –”

“Mama, I –”

“–but you shall be beautiful bride no matter –”

“Mellark!” The name escapes me in a near shout and my mother lifts a hand to her throat, blinking at me as though clearing smoke from her eyes. “His name is Peeta Mellark.”

“One of Reginald’s sons?”

“Oh is he the one who rescued you that day?”

“Yes,” I croak and Madge saves me, handing her precious child right back to Prim and wrapping an arm around me.

“It has been a long day of travel. We both could do with some rest and then we will share stories tonight. We have so many!” The falseness of the cheer in Madge’s voice is lost on my family. They smile and agree, happy to let us go, assuming that they shall learn the entire story this evening.

Once the tub is filled with steaming water and scented soap, my clothes discarded, I climb in and sink beneath the surface, wondering if it is possible to drown in bath water. I blow out bubbles that are annoyingly anticlimactic given the level of my frustration as I expel my breath into the water.

************************

I immerse myself in the work of keeping Everdeen running smoothly. The more tasks I complete, the freer I feel. A week passes before I realise it, swallowed whole in the work of managing home and farm, as well as dealing with the lamentable presence of Mr. Hawthorne.

It becomes apparent to me, within a matter of days, that Mr. Hawthorne is rather fond of my sister. He lingers at her side to assist in even the most mundane of chores, regardless of how pleasant her mood. She blushes at the attention and yet it is not a demeaning blush. When he stumbles underfoot and I open my mouth to cut him to size and remind him that he has no right to be here while my father lives, that it is rude to linger about waiting for a good man to die, it is Primrose who rushes in to assist him. The words die in my throat every time that he thanks her and her blush deepens.

“How long do you wish to stay here?” I ask one afternoon. Prim makes a face at me until he turns to her, as though seeking her approval. She grants him a lovely smile and then a sharp glare, as though her manners win first but then something else takes over.

“Not much longer, I should think,” he says. “In truth, my brother Gale expected me days ago. I wrote my excuses already–”

“You should not keep your brother waiting so,” I say and ignore the strange glance that Madge gives me.

When he finally parts, promising to visit again soon to assure himself of our well being, he also whispers a promise to Primrose that he shall write, expressly to her. In his presence and even in his absence, she seems to walk and speak with a certain assurance, stand with greater height, although that may well be due to natural growth, but I cannot help but mourn the passing of her childhood nor can I help the fear that perhaps Rory Hawthorne will be her first love, only to have those hopes destroyed when he auctions off our home one piece at a time.

And yet, despite my reservations about my sister and Mr. Hawthorne, I cannot help feeling jealous of them, cannot help comparing their behaviour to mine and that of the man in the mask on that one, exquisite night.

No, not jealous, I remind myself each time the bite of green threatens to triumph.

“You could have been more pleasant to him. It’s not his fault his brother will inherit Everdeen.”

“And yet you sent him looking for a flower that does not exist,” I remind her.

“To keep him away for your return! I knew you would not wish to see him as soon as you came home.”

“Or you knew I would be upset at you withholding knowledge of his presence.” Prim purses her lips and does not attempt to deny my accusations. I sigh at her pink cheeks and bright eyes. She has the look of someone in love. “I would prefer it if you allowed yourself more time and a wider acquaintance before settling on a husband, Prim.”

“Who said anything about a husband?” she practically screeches and then flees the room.

“You’re only going to drive her into his arms faster if you forbid it,” Madge whispers and I lose it then.

“Well then what’s your grand idea?”

“It would not be so bad if they were to fall in love. Perhaps then his brother would take pity and give Everdeen to Rory.”

For one second, I sound as though I am gagging on food. “I will not sell my sister into marriage to keep the farm.”

“I did not suggest that,” Madge says with a slight bite in her tone. “Katniss, you have not been yourself since we returned. Prim was right that first day. You are like a dragon breathing fire at nearly every turn.”

“I am not,” I insist. Quite convincingly.

On some days, I attempt to sit with my father, to relieve my mother and my sister the burden of tending him, but I find that I cannot stay long. I cannot bear to see him so, not when my heart aches so and worries continue to weigh my shoulders down. I long to speak with him, to unburden my cares as I am so used to doing.

I stay silent during my time with him. Another week passes.

The gardens become a favourite haunt of mine. I examine their cultivated beds and consider changes to make the gardens more like the wildflower meadows, if slightly more tamed. It is on one such afternoon as I wander down the rows that Primrose nearly scares me half to death and once more, the tenuous situation we find ourselves in is thrown into sharp relief.

“Katniss! Katniss come quick!”

I grab fistfuls of skirt, crushing the fabric in my palms as I race up the stairs, panting hard as I reach the upper level and Prim motions me into my father’s room.

“His hand moved! I swear I saw his hand move!”

“Papa. It’s Primrose. Can you hear us? Do you think he can hear us?”

“Send for the doctor!” my mother orders and then grabs my arm, clinging to it for one desperate moment, her eyes wild. Then I become invisible, standing aside as mother and Prim and Doctor Aurelius once he arrives, hover over my father.

Hours pass with no change. No movement, only a whispered conversation between my mother and Doctor Aurelius that causes her to sob once then flee the room in tears.

“Mama!” Primrose races after her and Doctor Aurelius shakes his head.

“There is not much hope, is there?” I ask and the doctor sighs.

“I still can promise you nothing, Miss Everdeen. But from a medical perspective, no. There is not much hope. You should make preparations. Quietly if you do not wish to cause your mother more pain.”

That evening, I sit vigil, staring at my father’s fingers and willing them to move, to prove my mother right. But it is no use. By morning, all I have are itchy eyes, a distraught mother, and the overwhelming desire to crawl into a cave to sleep my life away.

But I cannot. Instead, I have Charles, one of the grooms saddle Sagittaria and escape into nature.

Sagittaria snorts in delight and chomps at the reins. She is, as I am, eager to gallop across the fields and to regain the time lost to our confinement in the city, or perhaps some sense of the world. The fragrant, smog free air rejuvenates me and I am better able to see clearly my situation and I am finally able to make decisions regarding the hundreds of problems I am faced with.

I cannot and should not be jealous of my sister, although I admit to myself that I have been feeling so lately. I made my choice for a marriage of convenience out of necessity, specifically to give her the luxury of time and the freedom to pursue a true love match. I do not regret my choice, even if the manner of it’s unfolding leaves much to be desired. I shall simply have to observe and counsel but not control the path of Prim’s relations with Mr. Hawthorne.

Madge is correct on yet another thing as well. As loathe as I am to admit it, the more days that pass with no word from Peeta, the more agitated I become. I cannot stall forever. I will have to marry him eventually, and I would prefer it to be on my own terms as much as is possible, rather than have him wander down the lane one day to insist he grows tired of waiting and demand my hand.

He left the choice in my hands, and so I shall choose. I struggle with it only a little as I brush Sagittaria with a touch too much vigour, angry with my limited options. She dances away from me and into the wall of her stall as I sigh and apologize to her. I should not exercise my frustrations on her.

My father still lies on the brink of death with no security for my sister, my mother, or myself on the other side of death. To say nothing of Madge and Maysilee as well as the several hundreds or so who have come to rely on Everdeen as their source of livelihood. With purposeful movements, I finish with Sagittaria and head straight for the study, not bothering to change from my riding habit as I sit at the desk and pen a letter.

Dearest future husband,

If we must be wed, then I would prefer to accomplish the distasteful deed here at my home. Though I risk ruining fond memories of the hills and the forests in doing so, I would rather have my mother and sister present at the blessed occasion. Send word post haste as to when I should expect you and we shall have a room and a wedding prepared for your arrival.

Sincerely,

Your dearest future wife

I stare at the words and then scrawl a messy post script.

Shall I expect any members of your loving family at this joyous ceremony?

A quick fold and seal then I search the desk for the letter he gave me before parting in Capitol, so that I might copy the direction. As I pull it from the back of a drawer, I scowl at the thing. I never opened it, too angry and heartsick over the manner of our engagement and the loss of the man in the mask…or rather Robert. I do not know which and rub my temples in confusion.

I never read this letter.

It seems to burn my palms as I stare at it. I drop it on the desk, copy the direction and then shove it back into the dark recesses of the drawer. I then sit there and consider burning it, gleefully watching the flames eat the parchment and Peeta’s words.

Instead, I leave it fester in the dark. I rise and take my letter to the hall, depositing it on the small stack of mail to be sent this afternoon. I then join my family in orchard where they have gathered to enjoy the sunshine and breeze.

“We have work to do. I have summoned the betrothed.”

************************

My darling future wife,

How pleasing to receive your letter. I did not realize you capable of such romanticism. Thankfully, I am not too much engaged in business at this time and will be able to join you at Everdeen no later that the 30th of this month.

The Marquise de Vale shall not be joining us for our wedding as he is much too busy this time of year. I shall, however travel with one companion. A stable hand who is indispensable to me and whom you have already met. My brother Henry and his family – you do recall I told you of him – expresses a desire to be present as well, although this depends on the date of the nuptials.

I do hope this shall be agreeable. I am not inclined to arrive only to meet you at the altar. Perhaps some time is needed before we say any vows. I look forward to discussing this with you at length.

Your ever loving future husband,

~ Peeta ~

I am gnashing my teeth before I even reach the end. The words almost spur me to tearing the letter into the tiniest of pieces. Or perhaps I shall dance on it in indignant rage, as he suggested I do with the letter explaining the gift of my boots I now wear. Then I read his post script.

I promise that Joe will not cut any laces on any more of your boots unless it is a matter of life and death.

To be continued…

[radiojamming]

For your one word prompts to save you from your family: Fitzier and covet.

sorry this took so long! this is actually my first time formally writing any fitzier content so hopefully i’ve gotten something slightly right!

very, very much based off the punch brothers cover of “another new world” (lyrics here) 

“Covet, verb transitive

1. To desire or wish for, with eagerness; to desire earnestly to obtain or possess; in a good sense.

Covet earnestly the best gifts. 1 Corinthians 12:31.”

-Webster’s Dictionary, 1828

- - -

“—and I had thought to inquire—or, rather, Ann had thought to inquire after those lodgings on recommendation from—Francis? Are you listening?”

Francis pulls his gaze from the windows, blinking slowly as he draws himself back into the conversation. James Ross sits across from him, his face all unveiled concern. “Yes,” Francis replies, if not a bit dully. “Ann asked after some lodgings. I heard you.”

James’ expression carries doubt with a pinch in his brow and the slow search of Francis’ features. What he sees, Francis doesn’t know; possibly a sad, sorry man all crumpled up like an old newspaper in a plush chair that doesn’t suit him. The constant stream of visitors to Eliot Place certainly haven’t been impressed with the lauded Francis Crozier, Hero of the Lost Expedition. 

“Indeed,” James says at last, running his thumb over the gilded curve of his teacup handle. “It’s not so very far from the Observatory, so you’d have no excuse to avoid visits, lest you’re ill every day of the year.” 

James follows this up with a smile that Francis believes is an attempt to rekindle their old humour. Francis tries to reflect it, but it feels like a very poor imitation.

“Blackheath Park seems fine enough,” Francis concedes. It’s what James wants to hear, he’s sure. “Provided I can afford the place, I’m sure it’s well-suited.”

“That would be provided your memoirs sell, which I have no doubt they will. If you wrote pure gibberish, they’d be snapped up faster than any edition of Punch.”

Smiling for James’ benefit is starting exhaust him, so Francis allows it to fade. Honestly, if James cannot read him by now or know him well enough to detect a change in his feelings, then perhaps their relationship isn’t as close as Francis counted on. 

James’ own smile flags and falls, and he follows it with a soft sigh as he places his teacup on the table beside him. Then he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Come now, old man,” he says, sounding like he’s trying to coax Francis out from under the bed. “It’s a new start for everything. If it really vexes you to be so close to Greenwich or within reach of the Admiralty, we can look for lodgings out in the countryside.”

“That��s… That’s hardly the point, James,” Francis says quietly, turning back to look out at the grey day through the rain-warped windowpanes. Then he lowers his head and looks down at the ornate carpet beneath his feet. Such finery still surprises him, even when it seems commonplace. “I think I’d like to go back to my room, if you’re finished with me for the afternoon,” he says.

Silence follows. Long, heavy silence.

“Alright, Francis,” James replies at last. He sounds defeated, sorry for something that is far from his fault. 

- - -

Francis sleeps often, far more than he ever did prior to 1845. It comes as catnaps between visitors, or quiet dozes by the fireplace. His dreams come as shallow flickers of light and sound, dancing on the surface of his mind like the sun on open water. His dreams come in the abstract, in men that do not exist so much as they are joined products of the parts of dozens of men he’s known. These cobbled men walk along in landscapes strange and distorted, made of towering black cliffs and low valleys of gray shale, surrounded on all sides by ice.

Always the ice.

He’s grateful that the dreams are short and hardly worth grasping, often forgotten as soon as he wakes, just as he’s grateful that he comes to in a world where ice can recede. 

Night, however, is different.

He must dream, although the things that come at night do not seem like dreams at all. He receives visitors even in the smallest hours of the morning, and they are as true and tangible as James and Ann. They dress in finery or their most casual of clothing, as rosy-cheeked and lively as Francis could ever hope to see. All sit at the fireside—the fireside in his room at 2 Eliot Place, and not another fireside of a dream—and converse with him. They cannot be dreams.

Jopson comes sometimes, for instance. He must let himself in, which he has every right to—he’s a man of rank now. Occasionally, Little accompanies him or arrives separately for a private conversation. Irving has done so on occasion, although not at Little or Jopson’s frequencies as he has more to do. Blanky visits as well, although far less often than Francis would like. He enjoys his visits best as the two of them stay up to the oddest of hours, laughing like boys over things that could never be discussed outside of the house. 

There is one visitor that Francis hopes to see most of all, and one that he feels he sees the least of. Every night, when his door opens, he holds his breath and waits—hopes. 

Tonight, Francis takes his place in the ornate confection of a chair that Ann had insisted on buying for him. Idly, he wishes for his pipe or something else to preoccupy himself with. Sometimes his visitors do not come for hours, and aside from the eagerness of waiting for them, Francis can’t help but grow bored.

His visitor for the night does not seem to be one of those who calls at unfortunate hours. It doesn’t seem but a quarter of an hour after sitting in the chair that Francis hears the door open. His breath catches as he turns to look, and something as bright, warm, and wonderful as the sun rises in his chest at the sight.

Fitzjames comes into the room, dressed in an unadorned black coat flecked silver at the shoulders with raindrops. His trousers are finely-tailored, although even in the dim firelight, Francis can see mud at the hem. Even in his simple clothing, he looks as handsome as ever, the fire catching gold in his hair and bronze on his cheekbones. If Francis were even half as eloquent as Fitzjames, he might have some appropriately poetic thing to say; perhaps a comparison to Apollo might befit him.

“James,” he greets, smiling despite himself.

“Francis,” Fitzjames returns as he takes his seat in the chair opposite. Naturally, he fits himself into the image of a man in happy repose in a fine chair. “I would say that you look well, but I fear I’d perjure myself.”

Francis huffs a laugh and leans back in his chair. “You would,” he concedes. “I’m afraid I’ve been more out of sorts as of late than I have been in a good while. I’ve concerned Ross, I’m sure.”

“I thought he’d be used to your moods.”

“Not half as much as you are, it seems.”

“He wasn’t trapped with them as I was,” James returns, but his smile does not drop away, nor is it fixed or a masque. Firelight dances in his eyes as if it burns from the dark liquor of them. The sight warms Francis in a way that he cannot properly explain. 

“Yes, well, you’ve certainly made yourself scarce in the interim, James,” Francis replies. “I can count fortnights in between your visits.”

“Oh, it’s not that severe. I’m a busy man these days,” James says, shrugging back into his seat as he places one heel on the opposite knee. 

“Are you now?”

“Quite so, although not with the same preoccupations that you have. In fact, Francis, if you were even a hair more social, I might say that you would be just as scarce as you claim I am.”

Francis smiles and just as much of a sorry mimic as it felt when he directed it at James Ross, it feels as opposingly authentic now. “Would you drag me to parties and show me off, then?” he jokes. God on high, he can’t remember the last soiree he attended that wasn’t mandatory. “Make ourselves the centerpieces of every respectful gala—Fitzjames and Crozier, Heroes of the Far North?”

James laughs and the sound rings off the ceiling like the most wonderful arrangement of bells. Part of Francis hopes it doesn’t wake James and Ann, although some traitorous part hopes it does, if only to hear his own felicity in progress.

“I wouldn’t mind it, but I know you’d detest every minute.”

“And then some.”

“Lord above, Francis, have you ever enjoyed a party?”

“Not a one. I detest all delights and celebrations. I thought we’ve established this.”

Another laugh. Francis would coax a hundred of them from Fitzjames if he could. “We have. Thank you kindly for reminding me of your dreariness,” he says, folding his hands on his chest as he leans back. “That being said, I hadn’t come to goad or jeer at you. There was an intent to my visit.”

A quiet pause follows with hardly a pound of the heaviness that Francis had felt earlier. They sit in the crackling, warm darkness, pleased with each other’s company and wanting for little else.

“I had wanted to ask for… well, for a blessing, of sorts,” Fitzjames says, sounding thoughtful. “I didn’t know how to time it wisely, and every hour that I considered seemed to be the wrong one.”“Not worth sending a letter, then?” Francis asks. 

“Hardly, no. This sort of thing deserved a personal conference.”

A strange rush of something bright and flushed-warm runs a course through Francis at a speed and extension that he can hardly understand. He feels as giddy as a schoolboy, as clumsy as a child just gaining their legs under them, as struck in the heart as a man holding a perfumed letter close to his chest. It’s all the stranger for how this strikes him, even with the fewest possible words to stir them.

“James—,” he starts, although how he means to follow this, he doesn’t know.

Fitzjames lifts a hand to pause him. “Pardon a moment, Francis. Let me say my piece before I ask.”

“Of course,” Francis concedes. If asked, James could talk until sunrise and Francis would let him.

“First, I meant to inquire the state of your memoirs. I’d heard it through some sources that you mean to publish them before December.”

“January, I think. Ross is trying to persuade me to be expedient but I’m yet to send in the final edit.”

James gives him a peculiar look, playing off his own smile like he means to smirk but is too kind to do so at Francis’ expense. “Mister Blanky once told me that they would need to invent a new kind of literature if there was ever an intent to publish an honest memoir. I trust the same applies to your own.”

Francis thinks to the pile of papers sitting in the top drawer of his writing desk. The stack is stained with blots of ink and netted with scratched-out words and phrases. Whole chapters have been crumpled up and burned in the very fireplace they sit before. Francis believes that Fitzjames is well-aware of this fact.

“It does,” Francis agrees. “Being honest about it would only serve to have me locked up for the rest of my days, James.”

James does not say what both of them are thinking. The Creature, bloody-mawed and snarling with bits of skin and cloth woven between its teeth. Cornelius Hickey, or the man that paraded under the poor bastard’s name as he sprung a trap of mutiny and kindled the most craven behaviours. Gunshots echoing through canyons of ice, blood spattered across the snow, men ripped asunder by beast or crew.

“I understand,” James says at last, and he means both words wholeheartedly. “And that leads me to my question. Do you recall those last moments we had? It was— Oh, I can hardly recall the location now. King William Land, certainly.”

“Island,” Francis corrects. “King William Island.”

“Of course. My own memory shouldn’t be so patchy. But yes, there at the end, do you recall our conversation?”

Francis thinks on the question. He dimly remembers those grey moments before the rescue, not unlike the grey hour that precedes the dawn, when all the world is cast in the colours of doves. He thinks of the ice fields and the black dots that appeared on their seemingly endless horizons. Dogs barking. Men shouting. And their conversation—

God above, what did they even say at the end? It comes as a blur now, muddied in the relief of rescue and the grief that followed.

“I… It was something about…” Francis trails off, furrowing his brow as he thinks. 

James sits in patient silence, watching Francis with eyes as bright as embers in the darkness. “You can’t remember?”

“I’m certain I can. I meant to write of it, after all. It’s late, if that’s any plausible excuse.”

“It may be, although I believe I can assist in that and you would not even have to mark me as your coauthor.”

Francis laughs, little more than a soft puff of sound. “Your name not in print? You could stand by that?”

“Among other things, but yes,” James replies. “You asked me a question, and I mean to ask you something similar. You asked me if I was certain. Do you remember?”

No memory immediately follows save for something that feels like trying to clear away a bale of cotton in his own head. Francis tries to connect the question to the rescue. Was he certain of… of the reality of the rescue? Certain that they would make it? Certain of their numbers?

“I suppose I might,” Francis says, although something about the question perturbs him.

James seems to take this as reason enough to go on. “I received something of a missive recently. It was of the private sort, and one that I trust you wholeheartedly not to spread beyond these walls. Can I ask that of you?”

Without hesitation, “Of course.”

“I told you of my birth, I know.”

“You did.”

“It seems strange to say as I remember nothing of the circumstance, as hardly anyone can claim they do, but recently, I’ve started to recall the smell of orange blossoms. Isn’t that odd?” James asks. He smiles as if he’s told a particularly clever joke, and Francis can’t help but smile back. “I believe I was born in a florid sort of place, and sometimes I catch the scent of something that draws me back to it, even though all I’ve ever known is England. Just a few weeks ago, I was presented with the opportunity to go back to that place.”

“To— To where you were born, James?”

“One in the same,” James confirms. There’s something dreamy in his expression now. “I’ve never been since infancy, if that could even be confirmed. I’ve been told it’s very warm and tropical, which makes it quite the opposite of the Arctic in every way.”

Francis puzzles over this a moment, trying to connect the parts of their conversations in an attempt to predict what James means to ask of him. Some stray piece of his heart founders as if it means to sink, and he does not know why. “So you mean to ask…”

“For your blessing on this journey. I will be gone for a long while and I’ve not yet considered the details of my return to England,” James says, spreading his palms upright in his explanation. “I mean for it to be a visit, but I don’t know what will happen once I get there.”

Frowning, Francis shakes his head. “Why would you ask me? I’m hardly your keeper, James. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

At this, James gives him something like a conspiratorial smile. He sits up, drawing himself out of his repose, his hands folded in his lap. “Francis,” he says. “Are you so blind to what I ask of you?”

“I… Well, I must be. You’re a grown man and aside from missing your company, I can’t fathom why you’d consider my opinion in the matter,” Francis replies, bristling despite himself and with no explanation as to why. That foundering part of his heart is in serious danger of grounding on some unseen shoal, and that’s the only source of his discomfort that he can identify.

James stares at him, astounded, before shaking his head. “Oh, you wonderful, foolish man,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“I’m going away, Francis. I’m leaving for a long, long time and I do not know the hour of my return any more than I know the moment that we will meet again. You understand this?”

“Of course I do. But James, I don’t—”

James’ hand goes up again. “Please, Francis. Let me finish, as I want perfect clarity between us. That was my chief mistake in the Arctic and I never intend to have that be our divide.” He lowers his hand back into his lap and stares a moment longer, still with that burning look in his eyes, searching as Ross had done but not for the same answer. “Back then, on King William Island, you had asked me if I was certain, and I mean to say it now that I am, and I hope you are as well.”

Certain of—

Scabbed lips and eyes rimmed in red. Voiceless. A hand on his. 

“I am certain of this,” James goes on. “That I want you to have what you want. I know now more than I’ve ever known before that you have not gotten half of what you’ve deserved from the world, and I mean to end that pattern as best I can.”

Suddenly, James reaches across the space between them, taking Francis’ hands in his own. Francis can feel the old callouses on his fingers; marks from rifles and rockets, from handling ropes, from holding pens. Francis could feel them for years and never tire of their shapes and forms. He squeezes James’ hands, earning a smile from him that he reflects back without hesitation.

A stopped bottle. Bared throat. A moment suspended like dust in a sunbeam, silent and still.

“If you’d have me stay in England, I will,” James says, emphasizing every other word with a slight shake of their joined hands. “I will stay on this side of the Cliffs of Dover and never know their faces. I won’t sail so much as a ship’s length west of Ireland or north of Orkney if that would be your will. If you mean for me to stay in order to keep your happiness, then I am a servant to it.”

Swallow through the tightness in his throat. Swallow through the reflexes.

“But if you’d allow me to go west, then I am sure I will find some happiness there as well, and I can at the very least promise that I would see you again, even though there would be years to follow our parting.”

Francis stares in awe at James, at the clarity in his eyes, the sureness, the strength and health he carries in his entire carriage. His own heart flutters like those same grey doves, pressing up insistently at his ribs as if the whole contraption means to escape. “Oh, James,” he says. He reaches up to press one hand against James’ cheek, thumb going over the ridge of his cheekbone and marveling at the softness and warmth he finds there. “You needn’t ask for that.”

“Of course I do,” James replies as he leans into Francis’ hand. “I want your happiness foremost as it’s one thing that’s been denied to you too often.”

Stillness. Silence and stillness. Cold.

“James,” is all Francis can think to say. His heart, now released from the shoal, moves on his accord and urges him forward to press his lips against James’ forehead. He cannot ignore how James leans into this gesture as well as if Francis’ touch is the only thing worth seeking.

“I am certain,” Francis says against his skin. He leans back, but stays close enough that he can see the lights in James’ eyes, can hear the soft draw and release of his breath. His hand does not leave his cheek. “I am certain,” he repeats.

- - -

“A great loss against the world was incurred in that hour. If it were possible to pass a missive onto the earth from that remote and terrible place, all good creatures would have mourned his passing. I said good-bye to a dear friend in Captain Fitzjames, and while my loss was in no way comparable to what England and the world lost, I felt it most acutely.”

-Narrative of the Franklin Expedition to the Northwest Passage, and Its Loss and Rescue, in the Years 1845-1848, Capt. Francis R.M. Crozier, 1851

[ariadnelives]

Chapter 26 -- The Assault

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3”]

Later that day, several dozen heavily-loaded shuttles fell into orbit over Phobos. Ariadne was upset that they didn’t take more time to plan before moving on Dr. Simon himself, but as Spacebreather pointed out, they didn’t have time to stall. If they waited more than a few hours, the cult would have a chance to move him.

Most of Ariadne’s ground forces disembarked about half a kilometer from the facility’s entrance. Several dozen spacesuit-clad armed acolytes were standing outside exactly one of the caves, so the crew figured that was likely to be the door the Zealot was behind.

“Bring the noise, querida,” Ariadne said into her comm and the last remaining ship immediately did several flips in midair and fired off several plasma bolts that, despite the ship’s advanced targeting system, somehow managed to not hit any hostiles. After a beat, she scoffed, “Showoff.”

“You love it,” Spacebreather’s voice returned through the comm. “Get in there and knock these guys out so I can join you on the ground.”

“We’re on our way,” Ariadne chuckled.

“You got five minutes,” Pilar’s voice buzzed back, “and then I stop missing on purpose.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Ariadne replied. “Te amo, terminado.”

“Terminado,” Pilar agreed, and switched off her comm.

“Do you think the Triplets will be okay with Fastwing?” Sasha asked Sweettalk on a private channel.

“Yeah, I mean, you got their chips out, right?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Sasha replied, “I feel like we shouldn’t have brought them with us. We just got them away from these creeps.”

“They wanted to come,” Sweettalk said, “If we can get Dr. Simon in custody I’m sure they’ll want the chance to confront him, and if the shit hits the fan, they’re with the best pilot in the system--”

As if by magic, Pilar took this opportunity to do a showy corkscrew maneuver over the crowd of acolytes, narrowly avoiding several shots from their weapons, and releasing a cloud of multicolored smoke to disorient her attackers.

“--Okay, the second best pilot in the system. If we get hurt, Alicia will get them to safety.”

“Plus,” Sasha added, “I’m betting she does something cool with their hair.”

“She has a gift,” Sweettalk agreed. “Point is, we just convinced your sister it was bad to keep people grounded for their own protection, so we sorta screwed ourselves out of the right to object when the triplets want to come along.”

“Heh,” Sasha laughed. “You know, I only just now got why that’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Just the idea of keeping someone ‘grounded’ in a spaceship.”

“Mm,” Sweettalk agreed, “and now that you’re not grounded anymore you’re actually, you know, on the ground.”

This went on in this fashion for a little while. The rest of the crew didn’t know how grateful they ought to be that Sasha and Sweettalk were speaking on a private channel. There are only so many jokes on the word “grounded” that two people can make before their friends and loved ones feel compelled to intervene, and there is little point in attempting to quantify exactly how far past this point Sasha and Sweettalk went as the crew took their positions and systematically knocked out each of the acolytes guarding the entrance. By the time they had finished, Sasha and Sweettalk were both breathless with laughter from their rapidfire, almost vaudevillian exchange of “grounded” puns.

“Everyone grab one,” Ariadne called out on the public comms.

“Why?” Lefthook replied, “I mean, there’s a limited amount of air in those suites, can’t we just… let the problem take care of itself?”

“We’re sending a message,” Ariadne replied. “Ghostrunner and Spacebreather killed hundreds of their acolytes in self-defense. These guys don’t pose a threat to us.”

“You know they’ll wake up eventually, right?” Lefthook responded, begrudgingly joining the others in hauling the unconscious cultists through the airlocks.

“Once they’re inside, we’ll cut their air lines,” Ariadne explained. “They’ll live as long as they don’t try to go back outside. Once we’ve got Dr. Simon back on Ship Trap with a gun to his head, we’ll contact the authorities and let them deal with these guys.”

Pilar came marching over the ledge with a very large assault rifle slung over her shoulder. “Don’t forget to take their guns, these things are choice.”

“Fair point. Take their guns, we don’t know how many others are in here anyway.”

“Girls!” Alicia called, coming around the corner with her styling kit, “I thought you might enjoy some new hairstyles! I mean, I like a nice bob as much as the next lady but--”

She was left speechless at the sight of the Triplets. They sat together, glowing a slightly artificial blue. Alicia could not tell which of them had been cybernetically augmented. All evidence of injuries had vanished. It was as though all three girls were simultaneously completely organic and completely synthetic. There was something about it that caused Alicia to want to look away on an instinctive level, but she couldn’t.

“What is this?” Alicia finally stammered out.

“Something new,” all three girls mused in a single voice.

“What did you do?” Alicia asked, starting to rush towards them but quickly recoiling, out of fear that they might be contagious, or even radioactive.

“We touched,” they responded, “and understood. This is what we were built for. Evolution. Adaptation. We were designed to grant our father immortality. Our bodies will incorporate anything that facilitates our continued existence, and adapt to survive anything that threatens it.”

“Whatever doesn’t kill you,” Alicia muttered and trailed off. “I’ll be damned…”

“We have to go into the cave with them,” The Triplets responded. “Their plan is going to fail.”

Several minutes and about fifty unconscious and several seriously wounded acolytes later, Ariadne and Spacebreather reached the door to the throne room with Sweettalk and Sasha in tow.

“Stand watch,” Ariadne directed Lefthook to lead the other other troops in the corridor. “Non-lethal force if you can, but if someone’s going to die, don’t let it be you. That goes for all of you.”

“Yes, cap!” The girls replied, and unholstered their weapons.

A moment later, Pilar kicked down the door to the throne room. “ON THE GROUND, ASSHOLE!”

A single acolyte manned a computer terminal that seemed to have no screen and only two silver joystick-like appendages for controls.

“I SAID GET THE FUCK ON YOUR KNEES IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THEM,” Pilar bellowed.

The Acolyte fall to his knees.

“Where is Dr. Simon?” Ariadne asked calmly, “You’re gonna want to talk fast or else my associate is going to find some creative ways to make you glad those robes are already red.”

“He is here!” He whimpered. “The Zealot is all around us.”

“Babe, do I have your permission to start cutting off fingers again if he doesn’t get serious?” Pilar asked.

“I’d listen to her,” Sweettalk chimed in, “Last guy she took a finger from ended up decapitated.”

“He is all around us!” He pleaded. “Please, look!”

He gestured at an ornate golden table near the center of the room.

“Spacebreather, keep your gun trained on his head. If he tries anything funny, see if you can take it off in one shot,” Ariadne slowly started inching toward the table.

“With pleasure,” Pilar stroked the trigger of her rifle carefully.

Ariadne looked down on the table, through the inset glass to what lay within.

Lying motionless inside the table was an unmistakable face with a neatly trimmed gray beard and a straight, pointed nose.

“This is not Dr. Simon,” Ariadne replied. “This is his body. Where is Dr. Simon?”

“Back up,” Sasha asked. “Dr. Simon’s body?”

“Prescott had to tell me something to convince me it was worth it to help him,” Ariadne replied. “This body has been dead for fifteen years. Dr. Simon, on the other hand--”

“--Viable Lazarus,” Sweettalk gasped. “Lazarus, we should’ve seen it all along. They’re trying to bring him back from the dead.”

“I’m only going to ask you one more time before I let my beautiful associate indulge her itchy trigger finger,” Ariadne replied. “Where is the server containing Dr. Simon’s consciousness?”

“I already told you,” the acolyte began crying, “He is all around us.”

“Look at the walls,” Sasha marveled, “Sis, they’re--”

“Databanks,” Ariadne replied, “We’re standing inside the most massive supercomputer in the system.”

“Do we just smash them?” Pilar asked.

“If you destroy the servers, you’ll kill more than the Zealot,” the Acolyte offered, “The databanks are full of lost souls who’ve seen the light of the Red God.”

“What is he talking about?” Pilar asked.

“He’s using a few thousand human shields,” Ariadne was disgusted. “All those people who took a Suffering Test for this wackjob were signing up to be brainwashed. He hollows out their head and fills it with their programming, and their consciousness ends up imprisoned here. If we unplug the whole system, there’ll be no way to restore the people he’s got under his little spell.”

“You, crybaby,” Pilar jabbed the Acolyte with her rifle, “dial this jerk up, how do you talk to him?”

“If he wishes to send messages, he can, but in order to speak directly with him… without ViLaz as a relay, we have to enter the system ourselves to gain an audience with him. There’s a psionic interface--”

“--And how do you go about deleting individual files from this system?”

“I don’t see a screen or a keyboard or else I might be able to hack in.”

“No synthetic computer can interface with His prison,” the Acolyte whimpered, “Only a human brain has the processing power necessary to access the system.”

Ariadne chuckled. “I’d almost admire it if it wasn’t so evil. He’s actually built a computer I can’t hack.”

“So, how do we get in?” Pilar asked.

“Stands to reason that each drive in these databanks contains one consciousness,” Ariadne said, “So, if I can access the system, I should be able to identify the drive with administrator permissions, then all we’ve got to do is yank that one out, take it home, and format it.”

“Patch in, like, connect your brain to this thing?” Spacebreather asked incredulously.

“Have you ever seen a computer more powerful than my brain?” Ariadne asked.

“Yeah, babe, this one,” Pilar snapped gesturing at the entire room made of computer that they were standing in, “it’s absolutely out of the--”

Ariadne very pointedly said nothing at her, which managed to stop Pilar cold.

“There’s no keeping you from doing this, is there?” Pilar sighed.

“I’ll be safe,” Ariadne promised. “In and out.”

“You’d better,” Pilar warned. “If you die, I’m coming after you.”

Ariadne smirked. “You’d better not.”

Ariadne planted a kiss on Pilar’s lips and then got immediately to work.

[we-built-the-shadows-here]

it’s Snape’s birthday and I’ve been sitting on this for a bit so here is a new fic to close out my fic recs of 2018, and I’m just gonna throw chapter 1 up here on its own!

LD50 (ao3) (ffn)

January 3 1981: Belladonna

Knockturn Alley is full of furtive movement and mutterings even though it is thirty minutes until the newly-imposed curfew and bitterly cold. It is the first Saturday in 1981, and the street has well-hidden inlets and outlets; the people flow through like a river. No one wants to catch the ire of the Aurors who are, even now, certainly watching. Most of the legal transactions still have the sly movements of the illicit; most of the illicit transactions have the easy grace of a carefree conversation. Everyone’s head is covered in hats, scarves, hoods both to stave off the cold and to disguise identity.

That's how Severus hides: hood pulled high, collar turned up against the chill, stubbled chin and telltale nose hidden behind a lumpy wool scarf. It’s cold enough to warrant it. He’s looking at a fogged window at an assortment of cursed books, watching one drag itself to and fro past the others--the one that shakes, the one bound in human skin, the one whose gently shifting cover pattern could hypnotize if you weren’t careful.

The books are a pretense; his real focus is the reflection in the window of the people as they move up and down the street. He straightens when he sees his target: a bright yellow scarf, catching the dim streetlamps in the snowy gloom, strolling slowly down the alley. He jerks his head as the yellow scarf walks past, tugging his own collar tighter, making sure the tiny brass star pin--his own marker for his partner, nicked from a pawn shop--is exposed. He turns, and they fall in stride, looking straight ahead.

“You’re late,” Severus mutters.

“You’ll wait if you need it,” he drawls. “For your little haemophiliac customer, you said? Sad story.” He sounds as if he’s heard about a dozen of them today and gives credence to none. “It’s five galleons, now. Do you have the money?”

“Yes,” Severus huffs, the word making a puff of mist in the cold air. He had hoped for a discount, with the whole cloth tragedy of a sick child woven in, but clearly struck out. Perhaps the man was raising his prices to charge for the lie, as well.

What they are doing is not precisely illegal , which is why the item is not delivered by one and the payment taken by another to thwart law enforcement. But this transaction is also not entirely above-board. Were a Ministry official to inquire after it, certainly no tax would be paid, and Severus knows for a fact that the brewer would not be certified. There are a number of reasons not to be certified, though; one could be unable to find a Master to apprentice to, or one could be a registered werewolf or vampire or half-breed of some description, or one could simply lack the galleons.

Even galleons themselves are muffled where Severus holds them between his fingers, and the flagon of potion is swaddled in dirty canvas. They pass hand to hand with ease, and Severus takes the vial easily even though nerves have his fingers shaking. He’s bought ingredients from the black market like this, but never a finished potion before, and it feels less like a transaction between fellow professionals and more fully illegal, which means more frightening, with the Aurors permitted to attack with Unforgivables first and interrogate later.

But there’s more he’s supposed to get, more than just the vial. “Your supplier--” he starts.

But his companion has already turned to go into a dimly lit shop door. The shopkeeper greets the man with a thin smile and the door shuts behind them both, and Severus fights the urge to look after, to look around at all. Looking around is worse than walking alone, but his heart is still pounding. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, through his teeth, so it doesn’t make a huge puff of steam; it was clumsy to ask like that, clumsy to pry so openly at the supply chain when he’d only just won the dealer’s trust enough to sell. He has to keep his gait even, step by step, soles slipping on the icy cobblestones. Well, half of Dumbledore’s task was to get blood replentisher. He has blood replentisher. The other half--meet with his new contact and begin some kind of work with them in person--will be more painless. It has to be.

Near the end of the alley he slips into a doorway and, spine rigid with the effort it takes to not glance backwards, he disapparates.

The designated place Dumbledore had indicated is not so far as it might be; he makes two stopovers before coming to rest along the foggy, moonlit street. He walks five long blocks, takes two  left turns, and crosses a street to ensure he isn't being followed despite the fact that there is no body in the darkness trailing him, no footsteps in his ear to betray a follower. It helps calm him, and it is perhaps the only spycraft that he'd managed to think of on his own that wasn’t entirely lifted from a pulp novel. His heels are muffled on the sidewalk by snow and charm, and his dark cloak sucks in the light. He feels like a shadow, and is comforted by the thought.

The dingy, dim muggle lane with its dirty shutters and spindly trees comes to an end and there, in the dimmest corner, is the address he was given. One light is on in an upstairs room. Up the stairs to the door, and Severus pauses at the threshold, tugs his hood closer to his cheeks, and knocks.

The door opens of its own accord. Charmed, it must be. Or a trap. He could walk away. It would be safer. Severus thinks of the light upstairs. They must have heard. Might have opened the door using their own wand. It could be an Auror ambush, or a Death Eater ambush, or an Order ambush from those who embraced the more brutal methods Dumbledore claimed to not endorse.

Severus has scrounged in the dirt for as much information as he could for Dumbledore for over a year: it was, all of it, thin, barely sufficient, little of it actionable. Then, on new year’s eve, an owl carrying Dumbledore’s sprawling script: Acquire a blood replentisher potion and meet your new contact, I have an assignment uniquely suited to your skills. This is your opportunity to gain my trust-- and the date, time, and location, this anonymous, run-down home. He had barely managed to find someone who would sell him the blood replentisher in time for the meeting.

Severus decides that he wants Dumbledore’s trust. It’s the only hope he has of surviving this. He strides across the threshold and shuts the door behind him, throwing the bolt.

Warm light is pouring down the stairs in shattered shapes, carved by a banister, but no light is on in the first room, a parlor with an arm-chair and a fireplace. Dimly through a doorway he can make out a kitchen. He waits to hear someone call or speak, but no one does. When no one appears, he whispers, “Hominem revelio.”

His senses expend for a swooping moment and--yes, someone is upstairs in the lit room. He begins slowly moving toward the stair. A floorboard creaks beneath him and he pauses, briefly.

Someone is humming. The tune is half-familiar, half-remembered, something from the Muggle radio from a long time ago.

Two more steps. Only one room is illuminated, the one he saw from the street, half a bookcase and a desk visible behind the banister. No person. Two more steps, and still nothing. Three more, and he’s at the landing. Four more--

A door with no light behind him flies open and there’s a wand stuck in the back of his neck. “Don’t try anything,” a woman’s voice demands. “Were you followed?”

Snape's head turns slowly. Something very odd is happening in his gut. The seller’s voice had been an intentional cipher, but this one, that voice is-- “Do I know you?”

She scoffs, then. “I said, were you followed?”

“I wasn’t followed,” he says. He could shoot a hex over his shoulder, could sweep her legs out from beneath her, could run. But this is about trust. “I have what Dumbledore asked of me.”

“All right.” The pressure comes off the back of his neck. “You can turn around.”

He very nearly doesn’t want to. He stares for a single, flat moment into the opposite room, lit so well, and curses himself for being tricked, for having a secret, for defecting to Dumbledore, for being so damn predictable.

Then he turns.

There she is: red hair, green eyes, anger, and the reason Dumbledore hadn't told him the name of the handler who would meet him. “You,” he says, pushing all the loathing he has for himself into his tone. “Dumbledore didn't say--”

“Dumbledore didn't say because you wouldn't have come,” Lily Potter says. “Frankly I wouldn't have believed it myself if you weren't standing here.”

He had begged--on his fucking knees in front of the old man--for her life, this exact woman’s life, almost a year ago. Dumbledore had taken the defection and assigned it a price: information. He had paid it, over and over again, through a Protean charmed quill and through the Auror Bones and, very rarely, Dumbledore himself. Too much obvious, direct contact was dangerous to Severus himself. Dumbledore cared at least that much for his life.

He had wondered, briefly, if it was meant to be an Auror sting to lock him up. While gray market potioneering could lose his certification if it happened too many times, it wouldn’t put him in Azkaban, it wasn’t really any more illegal than the woman selling homemade pasties by the train station, and Dumbledore had far worse against him.

Far worse that was now standing before him. Severus spits on the floor at her feet.

Lily wrinkles her nose and glared down at the little wet patch on the carpet, then returns to glaring at his face. “Are you done?”

“I'm not working with you,” he says hotly.

“Fine,” Lily says. “I told Dumbledore you we're better suited to Azkaban anyway, when he gave me this assignment. Glad to know I'm right.”

The idea that she didn’t want to work with him-- that she had been assigned when all of this had been to protect her--and her prophecied son and her dreadful husband--that she might be right -- “Is that what you think,” he hisses, stepping closer.  He has grown since the last time they had stood so close together. He has also learned many things, learned to use his voice better than just to shout, learned to imply violence instead of just reach for the blunt tool first when anger flared, learned to be quick and smart and keep a level head in a fight, which maybe this was shaping up to become. He could look down his long nose at her, eyes narrowed in disdain, thinking you’re nothing to me and make it plain on his face without saying a word. He keeps his tone just barely level through sheer force of will. “You know what I am, then. Perhaps you should think twice before threatening me.”

Her wand must be up her sleeve, the way her finger twitches, as if considering bringing it to her hand. “I don’t think you’re going to hurt me,” she says, voice tight but even.

“The Dark Lord has murdered mothers before, witch.”

“I know he has. I don’t think you are going to hurt me.” Her eyes are fixed on his, even, open, brow knitting back together, but not in anger--in frustration, as if he were being particularly dense. She pushes past him, toward the light. “Come on. Let’s sit in the study. Don’t touch anything. This is the house of a Muggle on holiday so I’d ask you not to make me stage a break-in for him.”

He could leave. He could leave, right now, throw the swaddled potion down a sewer grate, disapparate, go home, get blind stinking drunk and go to sleep on the couch. He could do it right now and likely wouldn’t even suffer for it. Dumbledore wasn’t the kind to punish, not the way the Dark Lord is.

He follows her into the study. She takes the seat at the desk. There is a fat floral armchair that Severus would rather set on fire than sit in, so he stays standing.

“Our assignment,” he says, with all the disdain he can muster.

“Yes. Right.” She pulls a piece of thumbed parchment out of her pocket and sets it on the desk.“You’ve got your Mastery and certification, you’re probably brewing, right?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “There is an artificial shortage in medicinal potions ingredients, Ministry’s throttling imports and increasing hunting down home-herbologists growing ingredients. And there’s an all-time low of potions masters.” Her eyes go narrow and sharp, as if daring him to say anything about why she isn’t one--the marriage, the baby, her blood status and the fact that most potions masters would hesitate even in peacetime to take on a mudblood.

Severus is glaring at the window, at his own reflection and hers. He flicks his fingers at Lily as if he doesn’t care, gesturing in a loop. “Get on with it.”

Her hand on the desk becomes a momentary fist, but then she goes on. “The biggest pinch is blood-replentisher. Even St Mungo's is feeling pinched on that one. The only place that can reliably stock medical potions is the black market and the prices--”

“You owe me five galleons, by the way,” he interrupts.

“Five?” She looks shocked. “Last week the going rate was three.”

“I suppose they aren’t giving me the new customer discount that they offer to Order members,” Severus says bitterly.

“Not to slimy bastards like you, anyway,” she retorts.

He moves to the door. “Tell Dumbledore--”

“Oh, hell, sit down Sev.” She passes a hand across her brow. “I’m sorry, all right. That was uncalled for. You did what we asked.” And then she starts digging in her pocket. “I don’t think I have five. I only brought what I needed. I’ve got a few quid--”

“It’s fine,” he says harshly from the doorway. He can’t exactly afford all five of the galleons but he’s not about to beg for two. There is enough rice in the cupboard, he won’t starve.

She produces three coins and places them in a neat little stack on the desk, as if asking him to come back in. He does. They’re warm to the touch when his hand covers them--the warmth of her body, he realizes uncomfortably. He inspects one. It’s so bright, it must be fresh from the bank, but the mint date is 1716.

Potter gold, then, minted and then put in a bank. That, too, he swallows, and shoves the gold into his pocket. He can feel her watching him and tries not to allow the ugly flush that he knows is creeping up his stubbled neck to reach his cheeks.

“Anyway,” she says, clearing her throat and reverting her gaze to the well-thumbed note. “Fully half the potions the Order managed to source have turned up tampered with or outright poisoned. And they were poisoned really well, even I had trouble when I went through our stores.”

That is interesting. Some Death Eaters had died of tampered black market potions, and they suffered the same difficulties the Order had. Detecting the tampering was a feat in itself, Severus knew firsthand. “And you want me to inspect further? Follow up your work?”

“No,” she says. “Dumbledore wants us to trace the tampering back to their source. Figure out who’s doing it, and why. Maybe even stop them, if we can.”

“I would sooner suggest you stop taking medical potions,” he snaps, rattled by the ambition of the task--and the word us. Himself and her, working together; not the occasional report, but real work.  Low risk spy work compared to the passing of information that he had already done--that would get him killed, this could be played off--but still valuable or he wouldn't be doing it. But then again, he had never been a spy before. His forearm itches, at that thought. He doesn’t reach for it.

“People are dying, Severus,” she says, deadly serious. “We can’t trust anything but charms and you know well as I do that potions are better for the worst of it. People are dying and will keep dying and you and I are the best brewers the Order has. This is our assignment. Do you accept it or do I have to tell Dumbledore that I’m working alone?”

He resents that. It’s not as if he had a choice regardless. “Your first sample, then,” he says stiffly, dropping the cloth-wrapped vial before her on the desk.  “I take it you will require more?”