#the cover with sting says 'is sting a friend or foe?' | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thebibliomancer · 29 days ago

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #326: WIND from the EAST

November, 1990

Earth's Mightiest Heroes have just fought their newest opponent. Now the Invincible Iron Man has to pick up the pieces. Good luck, Shellhead.

For some reason, the combination of the cover text and everyone being flat on their ass except one person who all hope now lies with against a fiendish foe gives this cover a retro feel.

I can't point to a specific example, it just has an older energy to it.

Anyway. Have you ever noticed that if you squint, the distribution of red versus gold on Iron Man's armor kinda sorta forms an I? With the Iron Panties and the chest piece forming the crossbars? A neat way to give him that superhero initial thing.

Last times in Avengers: Uh. There's been a lot of filler. John Byrne quit over editorial interference and there's been a couple writers since, all doing their own wheel spinning. So we get to the point where the most important last time in Avengers was Avengers Island getting sunk in Acts of Vengeance.

Remember how Michael O'Brien had spent a lot of money getting a new meeting room table for the Avengers, only to be told that Thor wanted to salvage something instead? Yeah, we open on the Avengers making a new meeting table.

It's kinda awesome.

Thor and Sersi forge the big A inlay, with Sersi heating up metal scavenged from girders of the mansion destroyed by the Masters of Evil and Thor Mjolniring the shit out of it.

The Avengers actually let Michael O'Brien help (probably to ease the sting of completely wasting his time before). O'Brien had a table top hand-carved from black basalt scavenged from the sunken Hydrobase.

So the new table is going to be a bit of the previous two bases. With the whole team chipping in to help assemble it. At least, everyone listed on the cover. Quasar has apparently dropped out between issues. Or Larry Hama doesn't want to write him.

But anyway, Thor and Sersi make the A sigil. She-Hulk gouges an A-shaped space in the basalt with her fingernails. Iron Man visits from the West Coast team just to put together all the communication and display systems for the table. And Cap supervises.

As far as throwaway downtime sequences go, I quite like this.

Since the Avengers are incorporating their history into the new table, Sersi decides to give Captain America a little gift. He had a scrapbook of Avengers adventures that was lost when Hydrobase sank. Sersi used a mysterious Eternal space-time bending process to recreate it.

That's nice of her.

While looking at a Daily Bugle photo of the Avengers fighting the Masters of Evil in issue #6, Iron Man almost says he was in that fight before doing a verbal backspace.

Iron Man: "Look at that front page photo from the 'Bugle'... the old Avengers battling the Masters of Evil! That was some fight we -- uh... I mean, you were in!" She-Hulk: "Sure, dude. That was the other guy in the tin suit, right?" Iron Man: "Absolutely. We are all well aware of the death of the original Iron Man..." She-Hulk: "... and you're just another anonymous employee of Stark Enterprises!"

I still have no idea why Tony is pretending he's not Iron Man to his Avengers friends. As a running subplot, it's not going anywhere. It's just repeating Iron Man saying that he's totally not the same guy they had three hundred adventures with and whichever Avenger he's talking to going 'riiiiiiight.'

Speaking of running subplots, there seems to be some conflicting writers on whether Jarvis suffered permanent damage to his vision after being beaten half to death by Mr Hyde.

Some writers still portray him wearing it. In this comic, Larry Hama has Jarvis call the eyepatch silly.

Anyway. Plot.

Big, buff black superhero Rage rings the doorbell of the Mansion construction site and says he's here to sign up to be an Avenger.

Jarvis tells him that one doesn't just show up and ask to be an Avenger. Factually incorrect, Jarvis. A lot of people do that. Like Hawkeye. But Jarvis also says that there's a lot of security checks and testing that one must go through.

Rage sees this as a runaround and just kinda walks in despite Jarvis.

Captain America comes to find out what the hubbub is and Rage asks the pretty legitimate question of why the Avengers don't have any African-American members.

Geez, this is a question that comes up somewhat frequently. You'd think that it would sink in or something.

In an in-universe sense, the Avengers just kinda form teams based on whoever is available. In an out-of-universe sense, it's a very legitimate criticism to lob. Why don't the Avengers have reflect the diversity of America better? Didn't the Avengers used to have a black chairwoman? What happened to her? Oh, an old white man manipulated her out of a job? That's a bad look.

Captain America responds, hey, what about Black Panther and Falcon! I have some black friends!

And Rage goes, they're not here, are they? And more specifically, he points out that Black Panther is a rich king. And that Falcon only joined the team because the government demanded they meet equal opportunity standards. (Wait, how do you know THAT?) Anyway, it sounds like Falcon is retired or something at the moment?

(Neither of them mention Monica. Who, y'know, led the team!)

Captain America: "You're beginning to tick me off, Rage... First off, nobody just walks in and gets to be an Avenger -- no matter if they're white, black, yellow, or green, for that matter!"

Again, factually incorrect. Starfox showed up from another planet and asked to join. And the only hurdle that required was for him to change his name because Reagan said so.

Captain America: "And just what can you do that qualifies you to be a super hero in the first place?" Rage: "What can I do? I've got super-human strength... I'm virtually indestructible -- And I believe in truth, justice, and the dignity of man."

He raises a good point.

And I like his look. The leather jacket look would definitely make him look unique on the line-up beside all the more superhero-y outfits. But having RAGE on the back of the jacket does meet superhero branding guidelines. Also, luchador mask. Pretty cool.

I don't love the codename Rage though. Superhero codenames that are just Noun are my least favorite.

Anyway, Rage accuses Cap of judging him by his appearance and thinking that he'd be bad for the Avengers' image.

Sersi and the rest of the Avengers wander out to see what's going on and Sersi sees Rage gesturing dramatically at Captain America.

So just as Rage is accusing Cap "I bet you think that I'll resort to violence at any second!", Sersi goes oh no, I bet that guy is going to resort to violence and full force blasts Rage with eye lasers.

Everyone remember that this is all Sersi's fault.

Despite Cap yelling at Sersi to not do this thing, Thor and She-Hulk assume that they're in a fight scene now and rush forward to escalate things further.

She-Hulk: "C'mon and pick on somebody your own size!" Rage: "Is that a challenge?"

Rage didn't start this. But he's not about to de-escalate either.

Cap manages to get everyone to simmer down.

Captain America: "There's been a terrible misunderstanding! Rage wasn't attacking me, he was trying to make a point... in fact a very valid point about perceptions!"

Sersi defends herself saying that she felt a lot of hostility in the scene before she eye lasered and Cap has to explain to the millennia old woman that conversations can be angry sometimes.

Rage decides that Actually, he doesn't want to be part of this "stupid organization anymore", which is more than valid.

Rage: "All you ever do is bash cosmic menaces off in some alternate reality or battle bad guys who have nothing better to do than destroy your headquarters! Nobody cares if super-villains fight super heroes! That don't mean diddly-squat to some kid in the inner city... I just want to use my powers to make life better for mankind, and if you don't know it, most of mankind is the little guy who never gets the benefit of your heroics!"

Then he slams the door behind him and walks off.

Hm. This is also something that comes up with the Avengers a lot. The idea that stopping alien invasions isn't Real. It's an argument that makes more sense as an out-of-universe argument than an in-universe one.

It doesn't matter to the little guy that the Avengers stopped a giant metal space man from eating the Earth? That's what we're going with? That's a dumb thing to say.

Benefit of the doubt, maybe this is more a statement of intent from Larry Hama about what kind of Avengers run he wants to do. As opposed to the cheap shot it usually is when some random person says that Avengers don't deal with Real Problems.

I do have to say, I like what Larry Hama did here by starting the issue with the Avengers being all chummy and building a table together and then assuming the worst of an outsider.

Paints the Avengers as maybe being a little clique-ish. Like maybe they need a new person to join and shake things up a little.

Anyway, Iron Man missed all of the Rage stuff but he shows up to tell them that Plot is happening.

Interspersed with the Rage conversation, there's been other stuff going on with Raymond Sikorski, National Security Council guy and liaison to the Avengers, arranging for Lt. Ramskov, hero of Chernobyl, to get a bone marrow transplant from Dr Estivez at Metropolitan General Hospital to treat his leukemia.

The man very heroically braved Chernobyl to shut down a steam pipe that was blasting radioactive vapor into the atmosphere, despite knowing his radiation suit would not be sufficient to protect him.

Problem though. Nobody told Dr Estivez so she is positively alarmed when a crane drops a man in a big containment suit with a radiation symbol on it.

She is further alarmed to hear that Lt. Ramskov has received experimental treatments at Tyuratam. Which is a space center and not a hospital.

These are legitimate concerns. But before you go thinking Dr Estivez is a total voice of reason, when she's giving Lt. Ramskov a look-over, she notices the containment suit is pumping sedatives and muscle relaxants into his bloodstream, she decides to disconnect the pump without asking why.

Granted, her objection is that she can't operate on a dude with unknown drugs in his system but... c'mon. Don't just pull things loose from a containment suit!

Without the drugs, Lt. Ramskov wakes up and starts glowing.

And then he melts through the floor.

... I feel like everyone in the room should get tested for radiation exposure.

Anyway, Sikorski decides this boondoggle should be the Avengers' problem and calls them in. And that brings us back around to Iron Man telling the rest of the team about Plot.

And as the Avengers investigate the hole in the hospital floor, it turns out I was wrong. Ramskov didn't melt through the floor. There's no sign of melting. No increase in the background radiation level. Iron Man sciences that it was quark manipulation what done it.

I don't have enough of a science brain to figure out what that means.

Ramskov's handler/escort, Ms Zhukova tells the Avengers that they better not kill Lt. Ramskov, Hero of the Soviet Union, on American soil! That'd be most bad!

Captain America has to tell her that the Avengers don't really make a habit of killing.

At least in these times. Superhero comics have changed.

Dr Estivez tells She-Hulk that the containment suit and the way Ramskov was kept drugged into a catatonic state leads her to believe that the Soviets were aware of Ramskov's abilities and were trying to keep America from finding out about them.

Ms Zhukova is shocked. Offended even.

And then there's an earthquake and the floor collapses, sending Dr Estivez, Ms Zhukova, and She-Hulk down into the pit beneath the hospital.

Well, She-Hulk is obviously fine. She fell through an entire building once, on purpose. The other two women might get hurt, though.

Iron Man and Thor leap into the pit and save the two normal women. She-Hulk declines being caught because "I could fall twice this distance and not muss my hair!"

And she falls to the lowest subbasement. Which looks like a sewer but She-Hulk calls it a conduit tunnel. She spots some footprints on the floor and goes looking for Lt Ramskov.

Thor and Iron Man want to deposit the two normal women back up in the hospital but both insist on joining the search for Ramskov. Zhukova because she is responsible for him and Dr Estivez because Ramskov is under her care and this is a medical problem!

So the two heroes land in the conduit tunnel and, like She-Hulk, start following the footprints.

Meanwhile, Ramskov. He is still hallucinating his backstory, miming turning a valve as he remembers trying to shut down the steam pipe back in Chernobyl.

But the flashback thickens! In his memory, he sees two mysterious figures in lead suits, dismantling a device attached to the reactor. Ramskov chases them because messing with the reactor could lead to a total meltdown!

... I thought Chernobyl had already melted down. But even still, it was not a situation that would benefit from being made worse.

Ramskov is still hallucinating backstory when Thor and She-Hulk find him. And since She-Hulk happens to be carrying a half-melted pipe she found, Ramskov sees the two heroes as the two lead-suited figures from his memory, who assaulted him with a crowbar and a wrench when he cornered them.

Ramskov punches She-Hulk in the head so Thor retaliates and Mjolnirs the Hero of Chernobyl in the helmet.

Meanwhile, Iron Man is walking with Ms Zhukova and Dr Estivez. The doctor repeats what she heard about Ramskov receiving treatments at the Tyuratam Space Center and now Iron Man is suspicious about this whole thing too.

He begins to ask if Ramskov is part of a special weapons program but then there's another earthquake. Iron Man tells the two women to stay put and goes to check on Thor and She-Hulk.

Where he finds them flat on their asses, as on the cover.

Ms Zhukova and Dr Estivez both refuse to listen to Iron Man, though, chasing after him.

Zhukova: "I cannot let them endanger the integrity of Ramskov's containment suit!" Dr Estivez: "He's still my patient, too!"

You could at least hang back a safe distance but no. They chase right up to where Iron Man is and where Ramskov is glowing and just making physics weep.

Iron Man: "Ramskov is emitting energy in wavelengths that don't exist on any scale! He's dismantling vector bosons and doing things to gluons that should never be done!"

That sounds bad!

Still reliving his memories, Ramskov tears open his containment suit as he tore off his radiation suit after it was ripped by the two men in the past times. Which just intensifies the energy he's putting out in the present.

I hope Thor and She-Hulk's gluons are okay.

Meanwhile, Rage is still in this book.

I figured he'd wind up joining the A-plot but it seems he's got his own subplot going on right now.

Rage walks up to a building that a drug dealer called L.D. 50 operates out of and tells some prospective customers to beat it because business is closing its doors.

Some of L.D. 50's men come out and try to shoot Rage with bullets from their guns for scaring off the customers and not gtfo-ing when they told him to.

Rage does his best Luke Cage, just walking through the gunfire.

I sorta wonder whether Rage exists because Luke Cage wasn't available to use. There's some overlap in powerset and the names rhyme. But Larry Hama is clear on what his inspirations for the character were and Luke Cage was not mentioned.

The muscle run upstairs to warn their vocabulary rich boss that some bulletproof dude is causing trouble. To his credit, L.D. 50 actually thinks of a possible way to deal with a bulletproof dude. Just throw him out a window.

But Rage didn't need to go upstairs to shut down L.D. 50. He pulled a Cage and now he's pulling a Sampson.

Rage: "This tenement was condemned by the city, but drug money bribed the inspectors and the misery of the people furnished it in luxury... It's about time it all came tumbling down!"

Then he shoves the load-bearing columns and the building starts to collapses. I can see why it was condemned.

I guess that's Rage dealing with the Real Problems tm that the Avengers don't have time for.

Next time in Avengers, the dimension of badly-drawn rocks, apparently. But actually next time, hopping back over to West Coast Avengers for some Great Lakes Avengers! Woo.

Follow @essential-avengers for more excitement noises. Like and reblog and comment and leave money for me under rocks. Any rock will do. It doesn't have to be badly-drawn.

#avengers #essential avengers #Lt Ramskov #Captain America #Iron Man #Sersi #where did you go?#She Hulk #Thor #the Vision #Edwin Jarvis #Rage #Raymond Sikorski #L.D. 50 #start of the Larry Hama run

5 notes · View notes

tiredassmage · 2 years ago

Text

imbalance

‘Tyr can have a Moment. As a treat.’ Aka, I wrote an entirely different fic because I had a revelation about what would have been a banger line to include in something already written and now I need to fit it in somewhere sknsklfnsdf.

(One day this man might snap like a glowstick entirely, but until then, the very, very, very close call on Quesh. So close you could almost say I robbed him.)

Cipher Nine makes an unscheduled stop on Quesh searching for answers. He’s told more graceful lies, but when friends look like foes and foes may be friends, you take what you can get. Cautiously.

Rating: T // Canon-typical violence.

“Do not follow me.” Cipher Nine nearly growled the words without so much as a glance over his shoulder. “Stay with the ship. Kaliyo’s handling security. And keep an eye on Doctor Lokin. I still don’t trust him.”

“Agent-” Vector tried again with a frown. They’d been circling around this since Nine had initiated their docking run with Quesh’s orbital station.

“What part of my instructions were unclear?” Nine rounded on them with a fire burning in his pale eyes, accentuated by the sharp draw of his brow, parallelled lines of the grim frown set across his lips.

Something twitched down Vector’s spine, but he refrained from flinching. Nine had been irritable since Taris. Maybe Kaliyo didn’t notice, or didn’t care to notice, but he was also restless. The younglings worried.

They reported increased pacing. Trouble focusing. Uncharacteristic.

They doubted Djannis was completely oblivious and, despite her gruff attitude, a part of them still dared to believe she wasn’t completely careless, but Nine had always been efficient in deflecting her barbed jabs.

“We are not looking for trouble, agent,” Vector said carefully. Their eyes narrowed slightly as they watched him. They wondered if he agreed. They did not mistrust his judgement, but Nine played by the rules of engagement just as much as he edged their boundaries. Their presence here on Quesh seemed to be further into the latter than they were accustomed to.

Intelligence had not directly authorized their presence here and Nine had not extensively discussed their reasons before landing. They had simply set course and had been told to stay out of trouble.

Nine held his gaze for a long moment in silence before he sighed. The mask flickered. One hand reached up to his temple. An increasingly common tic as of late. “There’s always trouble, Vector.”

The Joiner’s frown deepened. “Which is why we ask again to accompany you,” he said. “It isn’t safe.”

Nine shook his head. “No, Vector. This is one thing I must do alone.”

Stubborn. Vector inhaled deeply to exhale slowly. “Very well, agent,” they relented. “Just… take care of yourself. We will await your return.”

He could not shake the worry twining through him as he watched Nine disembark. Idly, they entertained a youngling that appeared from beneath his sleeve.

They hoped they were wrong to worry, no matter that he had found he would, regardless of assurances. Even in their relatively shorter time together, they had made more enemies than Vector could count - some far more nebulous and undefined than others.

As of the moment, some of them could have even looked like friends. Human betrayal was such a delicate, devious mess.

x-x-x-x-x-

Quesh wasn’t going to be making any vacationing lists anytime soon and that was well without the spat between the Empire and the Republic over whatever toxic fad currently had the galaxy��s throat.

Routine, surprise inspection. Tyr’s eyes narrowed slightly as his head dropped a hair further, avoiding direct eye contact with any Imperial personnel in the area. Cipher status cleared his landing, but, much like Hutta, he doubted the veil would hold up well under an even half-decent inspection. It’d make the cover up more difficult, at the very least. The less people that knew he was here or “why,” the better.

This was a gamble. It tasted as vile as the stinging air against his eyes. A hand in his pocket held fast to the list of increasingly revolting chemicals. Something itched, tweaked at the back of his mind, or maybe the front, or perhaps it slithered down his spine, twining between the muscle and bone, draining slow like a poison.

Maybe it did all of this.

He struggled to trap the urge to grind his teeth together. If only it was as easy to trap a thought as it was to pin a traitor beneath the heel of his boot.

The cursed blessing of a Cipher had always been the ability to skim through the waters of Imperial life as a ghost - enough authority in squared shoulders and a determined, steady stride to warn anyone within range of the vibroknife doubtlessly concealed somewhere on his person and the silent threat that there wouldn’t be enough people left to ask questions - meaningful ones, at any rate, yet with enough anonymity that most didn’t think to question another face in the crowd.

The facility wasn’t far. The lack of outer security should have been disturbing - or was it lucky, perhaps? Nine’s eyes scanned the stark walls silently as he moved forward. With something this close to the guarded chest of Intelligence, physical guards weren’t his concern.

His eyes closed a moment as he hitched in stride. He could have come up with a better lie about his presence here. Reported inspection might circle back to Intelligence.

Gears grinding, halting, catching, that drain of poison dripping down the back of his neck and lacing his blood again.

Would you tell a soul even if they hadn’t lodged it in your throat? Would you trust them?

He exhaled through his nose. He could lie again. Improvisation. Basic rule of operations.

“Administrator Kroius.” The sharpness carried nicely in this hollowed hell of a place. Nine affixed an almost too-pleasant smile as he settled with a threatening patience into parade rest and pinned the scientist in his sights. “You were told to expect me.”

“Yes, yes, the intelligence operative.” Scan the room. A glitch in the system. Interference on the holo display. Nine’s eyes surveyed quickly as the Anomid gruffly joined him, carelessly sidestepping bodies and leaving a droid behind at the counter. “You’d think for all we’ve done for you people, you could at least afford a courtesy warning.”

Nine’s eyes locked back on target. “Am I inconveniencing you, Administrator?” Fingertips played against his gloved palm.

Eyes widened. Nine’s smile twitched slightly further across his lips. “N-no, no, of course not,” Kroius stammered.

“Then you have the compounds I’ve requested?” Nine produced the list from his pocket - just in case the reminder was necessary.

“Shortly, shortly!” Kroius snapped his fingers at the astromech. “Oh-seven, fetch! Now!” Clawed hands steepled. “I’m sure you’ll find everything satisfactory, agent. We’ve long shared a mutually beneficial relationship with Intelligence.” His eyes were anywhere but the operative.

“You’re holding out on me, Administrator.” Nine’s voice dropped lower with the threatening hiss of a viper. “Spit. It. Out.”

“It’s just… the Dimalium Six,” Kroius said. One clawed hand toyed along the edges of his vocoder. “We’re… out. The Republic confiscated that particular chemical mine some time ago and their security is-”

“Not a problem,” Nine said. “Tell me what you know - everything. Maps of the area, what kind of security?”

The Anomid huffed. “You’ve seen their forces? Snipers? Battle drones?” The agent's gaze didn’t waver, so Kroius huffed again. “Of course, why would it matter to me?” He shook his head. If he’d been capable, Tyr imagined he might be rolling his eyes.

The Administrator prattled for a time - some half-caught comment about appreciation that would have made a Sith eager to crush throats. An itch. An insatiable one. The hum and weight of a vibroblade twirled in his hand, balance shifting over the wrist, or the heated barrel of a blaster, humming from the inescapable march of a plasma bolt.

The chemical supplier. He was involved. He deserves the punishment. A snarl twitched delightedly at the edge of his control.

“Operative?” Kroius cocked his head.

Nine blinked and inhaled, held the breath for a moment. He hadn’t moved and his fingers had stilled their warning song against his palm. A Cipher was never unarmed.

Scan the room again. No surveillance. Just a whisper of his passing. Spilled chemicals and a single blaster shot. No evidence. No loose ends.

The truth of those files in the low light of blacked out Intelligence Headquarters was burned against his eyes. Castellan Restraints. Considered and approved for limited use. Thought irreversible. Thirty days to six months.

Codeword-

It was a simple matter to draw the pistol, in his hand before he’d even blinked, pulled and pressed against the sick bastard’s head squarely between the eyes. The droid beeped and whirred something in alarm, but Tyr’s eyes were glaring down that barrel.

“Agent, I-”

“How many?!” This wasn’t where he was going to get answers. Inopportune location. Inappropriate subject with presumably limited knowledge.

His eyes narrowed and he nearly scoffed. Presumed. As if he’d make that mistake.

He doubled down on the stance, stepping closer as the administrator shrank back from the pressure.

“Answer me, you scum,” he growled. He pressed harder on the blaster. It’d be satisfying if it left an imprint. Evidence that could be burned away in the explosion, if necessary. They’d struggle to find a corpse. “How. Many? How many operatives?!”

“Agent, I don’t understand-”

“Liar!” He hugged the trigger tighter. It’d be so easy. His breath baited in his lungs like a pack of jackals singing to the death throes of fallen prey. “You deal in these chemicals, Administrator, and I’ll be damned if you don’t know a whiff about their uses!”

“Hallucinogenics, loss or alterations of memory, I-” the Administrator stuttered under his blaster. “It’s all well within Intelligence’s demands, I swear!”

Intelligence. All of the air left his lungs in one go. His grip slacked around the blaster and the pressure eased. Tyr looked farther than the end of the barrel and slowly backed off, drawing Nine’s sights off a potential target.

Maybe a justifiable one.

He closed his eyes tightly again and one hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

It was a shot that’d burn fine the whole way down, maybe even ride like a high for a couple hours before inescapable reality wormed its way back in: he was playing with fire with a half-baked plan more akin to a wild acolyte’s prayer to a half-rotted echo of a once powerful Dark Lord than a bloody strategy.

Witnesses or no, there would be questions. What was he doing on Quesh in the first place? What was his involvement? Was there any correlation between the deep cover Cipher operative appearing to a highly secretive Intelligence ally and a massive explosion of unstable chemical compounds?

Fuck. When was the last time he’d slept?

“Who-?!” Administrator Kroius flapped his arms, apparently having relocated his misplaced indignation. “Who do you think you are coming in here like this?! ‘Routine’ inspection? Why, I never-”

“You will not speak a word about this. To anyone.” Nine fixed a withering glare on the scientist. “You wouldn’t want me to make another unscheduled, unannounced visit, would you, Administrator Kroius?”

Kroius took a hesitant step back as the Cipher rounded on him, squared him up in his sights again.

Nine’s eyes narrowed. “Good man.” And an exhausting act. Nine holstered his blaster. “Now, as for the Dimalium Six.”

“You’re a crazy one,” Kroius muttered. “You’re still going after that?”

“And you won’t lay hands on it again, understood?”

“What?”

“Not another drop - not for Imperial Intelligence, not to anyone, not from you.” Kroius raised one clawed hand, but remained silent in Nine’s penetrating stare. “Don’t worry about them. Remember what I am, Administrator.” He stalked languidly towards his prey, letting a step or two drag for emphasis.

Kroius had the good sense to stay put. A hound was usually given to the thrill of a chase.

“I… didn’t catch your moniker, operative.”

“Cipher.” Nine turned without so much as a dismissive glance to the astromech and collected the rest of what he’d come for. “That’s all you need to know, Administrator. Try not to let it keep you up at night. Bad for health, I understand.”

“O-of course, Cipher. I-”

Nine’s narrowed eyes pierced him over his shoulder as he stuttered.

“It’s not really my decision to make, Cipher, but-!” He raised a clawed hand to stave off the fiery spark ready to ignite in the agent’s eyes again. “I assure you, I will do everything in my power to comply.”

“See that you do.”

Cipher Nine left with his head held high even as it ached sickeningly, twisting a poisoned blade in his heart.

One shot could have ended all of this.

Coward.

How many more agents were going to pay the price because he hadn’t pulled the damn trigger?

You've changed nothing. The cost of maintaining cover, biting back the bile that rose in his throat - a good agent even when no direct command had been inescapably issued to worm its way through him, to hollow out whatever remained that wasn't utterly Cipher Nine. Pride of Imperial Intelligence.

Right. Pride. As if it wasn't the root of this whole damn cancerous mess.

Nine shook his head in a vain and fruitless attempt to clear it. There was still the chemical mines, a job to finish. It may yet be enough - however temporary - to cut the beast at the source.

#swtor #imperial agent #swtor fanfic #ch: tyr #vector's full-time job is trying to keep tyr from snapping tbh #he's great at it when he lets vector actually do it askfnldksfnld #i have half an urge to keep picking at this but i already squinted at it in a daze at like 6:30 this morning so if i don't #give it up now it may gather dust in google docs and i refuse to let that gremlin win lol #dot words

21 notes · View notes

officiallyossy-haywooddent · 4 months ago

Text

Nightmares.

The earth is cold, damp. It should be comforting, it would be if it wasn’t for the soles of their borrowed shoes sticking to the ground, pulling away with a plop with every step.

The smell of death was strong, ugly. Salt and iron, the mix shouldn’t be sweet, it should sting and choke and curdle in their lungs, but it didn’t. It was twisted, the familiarity of it all. They stepped over the crushed skull of a soldier, if they were friend or foe it was impossible to tell, it all blended together now.

Their target was in focus, a boy no older than they were, glowing gold with exertion. His hands were pressed against another boy's chest, they recognized him; Micheal. He was the head councilor of the Apollo cabin. Was the head councilor, they corrected, they could feel his soul leave his body as the younger boy’s hands stopped glowing.

The boy looked up at them, blond as the sun. Definitely an Apollo kid, they thought, Will, he must be the oldest of that cabin now. They shrugged their pack off their shoulders, holding it out to him.

“You need this, right?” It was the last of the available ambrosia and nectar, there wasn’t enough to heal even half of the remaining campers but it was better than nothing. “It’s the last of the supplies, the Hunter captain sent me to deliver them.”

He looked up at them, tentatively taking the bag from their hands. “Yeah, thanks. Ossy, right? The Dionysus kid?” They hated it when people called them that. It wasn’t like he could’ve known, the rational part of them spoke. It was right, really. That’s how everyone identified each other at Camp, even if it did grate at their ears and make them want to tear their hair out.

“Yeah,” they crouched down to look the boy, Will, in the eye. “I’m guessing you’re the oldest now, huh?” He was shaking, the glow fading fast.

He just stared, silent and unmoving. Something was wrong, his pupils blown far too wide to be natural, skin turning red and crumbling to ash at their feet.

Suddenly they were swept sideways, landing hard on their bad arm. The sound of crunching steel and the weight of monster dust heavy in the air.

“Ossy, watch out!” They recognized that voice, he’d been gone nearly three years now, why could they hear him?

They tried to hold still, keep themself stuck to the ground, but they had no power here. Their body turned without their say, helpless to witness the worst moment of their life once more.

A dracanae had managed to creep up on them while they were stunned, now poised to strike. Nobody else had noticed, too caught up in their own battles to pay mind to a lone camper and dracanae. Nobody, except for Castor. Not even themself. They drew their ax, celestial bronze with Stygian iron tips, a beauty. Only to charge the dracanae a moment too late.

The monster turned towards the voice, spear at the ready. Castor had his back to them, locked in battle with a girl they’d seen around camp only a few years prior; he did not see the spear.

They tried to warn him, scream for him to move; run, but they couldn’t. The dust had rendered them to a coughing mess. The spear hit its target a half second before their sword hit the creature’s neck.

The blade cut swift through the tangle of thorns, their then-father illuminated by the dying sun. They grabbed at him as he pulled them from the bush, scratched up and bleeding, covered in mashed black berries and spider silk, though it would be years before they learned of the latter.

“Come on, kiddo,” he spoke. “Let’s get you home, we’ve got stoup for dinner.”

They held fast, no more than four years old, another two before the nightmare began. They could smell dinner from the driveway, good stoup, the kind with the big pieces of meat and barley floating through it like ducks in the lake.

The walk home was quiet and, if it weren’t for the stinging pain of falling in a blackberry bush, it would have been quite nice. They were left alone to bandage themself, clean the few deep scrapes with rubbing alcohol, neither were hard to find in the small bathroom. They weren’t quite sure how long they’d stayed in the small space, but it wasn’t long before their mother called them to the table.

Food was served, places set. The baby was quiet, the dog sitting calmly with the cats by her side, waiting for scraps to fall. The aspen trees creaked outside, it was starting to rain. They took a drink of the soup broth, metal..sweet and salty but metal nonetheless.

The room faded away, leaving them in the warm void they had fought so hard to forget. Floating, senseless, the only thing to note was the ever present warmth and the rising pressure in their head. Screams of men and horses alike, followed by footsteps and a dull, even growing hum. It would never stop, but it would fade nearly to silence before starting over. Scream, footsteps, hum, scream, footsteps, hum. It went over and over again, never stopping, never changing. They would go mad in this place before long.

Ossy jolted awake, screaming. Their heart was racing, air refusing to leave their lungs. They hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a while, not since the last prophecy was uttered. They grabbed for their sheets, a vine, something familiar, but were met with a soft duvet. Even in their mothers house they had long-since gone without.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, new footsteps. Ossy didn’t recognize them. They grabbed for their knife, slipping slowly behind the bed. Nobody would get the jump on them, they would make sure of it.

…….

OOC.

Idk, lore is lore? Anyway, this can be like a little stand alone or an rp starter if someone wants to do that :) but I needed to put some angsty Ossy stuff into the world.

#ooc. if it isn’t clear - idk wtf I’m doing #ooc. not the best written thing I’ve ever made but it is what it is #dc rp blog #dc rp #pjo rp blog #pjo oc rp #gotham city #gotham reports #crime alley #bruce wayne #red hood #maroni’s deli #park row #rp starter

1 note · View note

tearfallnv · 2 years ago

Text

Dante's Resolve

Dante felt the sting of the sweat trickling into the open cut on his brow as he glared down at his opponent. A slow trickle of blood threatened to crawl into his eye, impairing his vision, but at the moment he simply did not care. Briefly distracted, he wondered when the last time he had actually been cut during one of these back alley brawls was.

Seeing the puzzled look on Dante’s face, the wiry fighter opposing him moved to strike while his foe was distracted. Rushing headlong at Dante, the man launched a powerful right hook aimed at the cut, hoping to magnify the damage already dealt. Dante’s face lit up in a grin at the audacity of the smaller fighter.

“Too slow,” he thought wryly as he ducked the blow, his own fist jabbing out with as much force as he could muster. Dante’s blow struck the boy’s solar plexus, driving the wind from his lungs. As the fighter reeled backwards, Dante pressed his advantage, snapping a second jab into the boy’s face, followed swiftly by a third and fourth. Unable to withstand the flurry of blows, the smaller fighter reeled back, trying to put some distance between himself and Dante.

“Not a chance!” Dante shouted as he hooked his toe behind the fighter’s ankle, using the motion in tandem with his forward pressing momentum to floor the younger fighter. The boy’s eyes widened as he hit the dirt, his hands flying up to cover his face from a blow that never came.

“Call it,” Dante barked at the makeshift referee. The referee eyed the downed fighter, who seemed uncertain whether or not to get back up and into the metaphorical ring.

“Call it,” Dante repeated.

After a moments hesitation, the referee sighed, recognizing that the match was as good as over. “Dante! Winner!” A boy from the sidelines tossed Dante a towel, which he used to dry the sweat and finally wipe away the blood.

“Your reward?” the referee called, hand outstretched to Dante who was moving away from the crowd. Clutched in his fingers was a small leather coin purse, heavily weighed down from winnings.

“He cut me,” Dante called back, not bothering to look behind him at the ref. “First time in a long time someone has cut me. Let him keep the co;in.”

As he made his way out of the alley where the illegal brawls he participated in were so often held, Dante’s hand drifted to the cut, which had started beading up with blood again. As he pulled his fingertips in front of his face, his eyes seized on the blood.

“Fuck,” he groaned, rubbing his neck with his other hand.

In two days, Dante would be facing off against the heir to the Vance family, Rowan, in a one on one fight before Dragovia’s elite nobility. Up until now, he had felt confident in the match-up. After all, not only did Dante receive the same level of training and education as the Vance brat, but he held more experience too, having spent as much of his free time as possible brawling in the back alleys and dockyards of the city.

“Oh well,” Dante shrugged off his feelings of uncertainty. The lucky shot that had cut his brow was a fluke, he decided. An accident – not to be repeated.

“One punch,” Dante grinned. “That’s all it took to cut me. That’s all it would take to bring down Rowan.” Dante believed it too. The truth was, Rowan had never been hit before, not in any way that mattered. Not outside of a closely monitored training setting. One punch, thrown with harmful intent, would likely rock the boy to his core.

“I’d be careful,” a friendly voice called from the shadows of the wall. “Rumor has it that Vander has been extra hard on his brat lately. Rowan is going to want that win pretty bad.”

“Who says I don’t?” Dante chuckled back to his longtime friend Kamden.

“I don’t know,” Kamden shrugged. “You don’t seem to be worried enough. Brawling mere days before such a big fight? Reckless.”

“Bah!” Dante scoffed. “Big fight? Against Rowan? Hardly! I’ll wipe the floor with that spoiled punk.”

“Spoiled prodigy,” Kamden reminded.

“So they say.”

“You don’t think so?”

Dante shrugged back. “I wouldn’t know. Vander refuses to allow either of us to witness the other train, so all I have to go off is hearsay.”

“You’re awful confident for someone who has never even seen his opponent fight,” Kamden cautioned.

“Hey,” Dante scoffed. “He’s never seen me fight either!”

“True.”

“I wish you could be there,” Dante frowned. Although he wouldn’t admit it, the prospect of performing in front of a crowd of nobles eagerly rooting against him made Dante feel..... uneasy at best.

“What a sight that’d be,” Kamden laughed. “A dozen nobles cheering for a spoiled rich kid and one ragged street urchin hoping they all eat shit!”

“It would be nice to see,” Dante admitted with a grin.

“You’ll just have to tell me about it later.”

“Have you given any thoughts to my offer,” Dante asked suddenly, his mind switching gears rapidly as it tended to do.

“I have,” Kamden sighed.

“And?”

“You really think they would allow it?”

“They will have to,” Dante assured him. “Once I style on the brat, that is.”

“We will see.”

Dante grinned, his resolution to win redoubled. “That we will,” Dante assured his friend as the two parted ways. Deep in his thoughts, Dante made his way towards the small townhouse that the Vance family rented for him. The property was close enough to the Vance manor that the family guards could keep a watchful eye on Dante and yet conveniently far enough away that none of the nobility who visited would ever have the “misfortune” of running into him.

“Hey! That was an amazing fight!” a chipper voice announced from behind him. Dante could hear the pattering of shoes and turned to find a boy of maybe 10 years running towards him.

“Yeah?” Dante grinned at the kid's enthusiasm. “It wasn’t much.”

“Are you kidding!? I thought the fight was going to be close when he cut you but then you just destroyed that guy in seconds!” The boy stood in front of him beaming, hands outstretched, an old worn cap in his hands. “Would you sign it?”

Dante could not help but let out a chuckle, shaking his head and grinning ear to ear. “What would you want with an autograph from a street fighter like me?”

“But you’re not just a street fighter, are you?” he replied intelligently. “Rumor is that you’re all set to join one of the Academies this year.”

“You’ve got good sources,” Dante nodded, accepting the cap from the kid. For as long as he had been fighting in the alleys Dante had done his utmost to avoid anyone associating him with his “privileged” station, not only because it kept the brawling a secret from his guardians but also because the few times his opponents did discover his identity, his status as a “noble” caused hesitation and halfheartedness in the fighters. Striking a noble was a major offense, especially for those unfortunate enough to suffer the disease that was poverty.

“Where did you hear that?” he inquired.

“Around,” the kid grinned, winking coyly.

Dante nodded. “Fair enough.” He took a moment to finally take in the appearance of the boy before him. His hair was shaggy and unkempt, so full of dirt that the exact shade of blonde or brown was difficult to discern from a glance. A layer of grime covered the tattered, hole filled clothes the boy wore.

A street urchin. Just one of the many wayward kids rotting in the slums of the great capitol city of Dragovia. It was no wonder the boy had dug up such a well maintained secret then. Dante knew more than a few who had grown up in the back alleys of the city and how important information was to them, as it provided more than a few means of survival.

Dante’s grip tightened as he looked down on the hat held in his hands. “Tell you what kid,” he sighed, handing the hat back unsigned. “Why don’t you come with me. I’ve got something better for ya.”

“Whats that?!” the boy beamed, his face lighting up with excitement.

“You’ll see,” Dante grinned back, turning towards his home. “Come, come.”

As the two traversed the miles towards the townhouse Dante asked many questions of the kid, trying to learn as much as he could. The boy’s name was Kyo. He was eleven years old and had been living in a shelter with several other kids since he was 8, when his mother passed away from sickness. As Dante had expected, he scraped together a living by providing information, such as the comings and goings of guards and merchants, to other back alley thugs and thieves.

When at last Dante rounded the corner and stepped up to his door, Kyo froze in front of the townhouse. “Its smaller than I imagined,” Kyo announced, a glimmer of mischief in his eye. “For a noble, that is.”

“Not a noble, kid,” Dante shrugged. “Just owned by ‘em.”

“Riiiiiight,” Kyo groaned, eyes rolling in as exaggerative a manner as the boy could muster.

“You coming?” Dante beckoned.

“Right!” Kyo chirped, perking up as he bounded up the steps and into the house.

“Wait here,” Dante instructed, pointing to the den to the right. “I’ll be right back.” When he returned moments later, a small chest in hand, he found Kyo standing before the painting above his mantle.

“Who is this?” Kyo wondered.

“My mother. Or so I’m told.”

“You didn’t know her?”

“She passed away giving birth to me,” Dante sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Kyo mumbled, causing Dante to shake his head in discomfort. Here he was, an admittedly privileged young man - at least in comparison to those whose company he chose to keep - standing before a boy with nothing who was pitying him. What a world, Dante thought to himself bitterly.

“Try these on,” Dante instructed as he pulled an outfit from the chest.

“Mister?” Kyo blinked at him, not moving from his place.

“They are some of my old clothes. I can tell you need new ones and lets face it, I’m not going to fit them anymore.”

“Right,” Kyo half smiled in response, clearly unsure what to say.

“I’ll give you privacy,” Dante announced, exiting the room and only returning once the boy had beckoned him back.

“Not bad,” Dante smiled sweetly as he stared down the freshly changed lad. The clothes were baggier than he would have liked – a product of the difference in the nutritional availability between the two at that age he wagered. There was a certain irony in the juxtaposition between the fine fresh clothing and the grime that still covered the boy’s skin and hair, Dante decided. It was an irony that he was far too familiar with.

“Well?” Dante pressed.

“I like them!” Kyo chirped. “You sure it’s okay if I keep ‘em?”

Dante nodded firmly. “Let’s get you a shower and some food.” Kyo opened his mouth to argue but no words came out. He was, Dante realized, too hungry to even pretend to argue against the offer.

When the boy returned, freshly cleaned, Dante handed him a bowl of soup. The two talked for hours as he took in Kyo’s company. At last, when it was time for them to part, Dante sent him away with a bag full of dried foods – the kind that could last a while.

In exchange, Kyo offered a few words, repeated over and over as Dante ushered the boy out of the door. "I'll pay you back someday mister, I swear!"

#fantasy #light novel #anime #novel #story #short story #fiction #original work #writing #tearfallnv

0 notes

rebrandedbard · 3 years ago

Note

Good morning, I had an idea and I wanted to share (could be a prompt if you want): So, Jaskier definitely, absolutely wants to learn Geralts potions and which to give when. But they aren't labelled at all and you've got to discern by shapes and colours. I firmly believe Jaskier writes a little ditty for that and maybe it spreads or maybe Geralt wakes up after a hunt with vague memories of that song after Jaskier saved him...

Jessi you know exactly what to say to get a fic out of me. Invoke my musicality! Just for you, not one, but two songs Jaskier uses for Geralt's potions!

Witcher's Brew

wc - 2476

Geralt wakes up after a hunt gone wrong and finds himself patched up in bed. He waits for Jaskier to arrive and overhears him singing a strange song to himself as he fusses with Geralt's potion supplies.

Rabbit stew, warm and fresh from the pot. It was the first thing Geralt could remember upon waking. They’d had rabbit stew at midday, just before the hunt. He almost imagined he could taste it on his dry, cut lip, but the lingering bitter taste of White Raffard’s Decoction chased the last of the memory away. He could not recall taking any potions. In fact, he had trouble remembering what it was he’d been fighting. His head was vague, all the details swirling at the edges in a haze. Someone had been speaking to him, he thought. Was it the chanting of a kitchen maid, timing her baking with a prayer? Or was it a song?

A song.

Geralt sat up with a grunt. “Jaskier,” he called, voice rough and catching in his throat. He looked around the darkness of the room, but he was alone. He scented the air. Jaskier had been near in the last hour or so, his smell not yet faded. It tasted bitter on his tongue, like the decoction: bitter like the musk of fear. The tang of salt hung in the air as well. Tears. But there was more. From the table at his side came an earthy scent and he discovered a bowl of mushrooms upon it. Sewant mushrooms.

That’s right. They’d been in the caves. The vision of the beast rose to the forefront of his mind and he remembered that they’d been fighting not a wyvern as hired, but a slyzard. It had been a deadly miscalculation, for the beast could breathe fire over a great distance. Geralt felt the fresh burns on the back of his neck, smelled the poultice pasted there. He remembered pulling Jaskier behind cover. He’d not had the chance to see whether he’d been burned as well. There had been too much to distract him; he did not even know if he’d slain the beast.

There had been mushrooms in the cave. Someone had to have brought them. Jaskier would be foolish enough to return to the caves, even if the beast still lived. But for mushrooms? Geralt could not imagine why.

“Sewant from the sewer caves, crows’ eyes, fang of beasts; blood from all the nasty things, and myrtle pure as priests.”

Geralt turned to the sound of Jaskier’s singing beyond the door. It cracked open and there the bard stood, arms hidden beneath a mass of white flowers. He had, too, a leather pouch dangling from around his wrist. Unloading his burden upon the table, he flipped through the open bestiary, still singing under his breath. It was not his usual kind of song; it was lifeless, simple rhyme and meter without passion. He did not even glance Geralt’s way as he set to work, grinding ingredients together in a mortar.

“Mistletoe and mutagen, aloe leaf of wolf; green mold, han, and celandine, then in the flame engulf.”

Jaskier poured the concoction into a potion bottle and hurried to the fire. He bent to light it, cursing as the matches failed beneath his shaking hand. He cursed louder, his hand slipping again. His voice began to shake as he continued his chant.

“Remember Raffard’s recipe and count it by this rhyme; be ye neither quick nor slow to measure out the time. Once the brew has bubbled and its color turns to red, let cool and cork then brew again to raise him from—”

Jaskier’s voice caught in his throat as he failed to light the match once more. He gripped the potion bottle in his hand and wiped at his eyes, unable to finish the line. “To raise him—”

“From the dead,” Geralt concluded.

Jaskier whirled around, dropping the bottle upon the floor. It shattered, spilling its contents into the hearth and over his boots. But he didn’t pay it any mind. He ran to Geralt’s side and knelt before the bed. His hands were everywhere at once, prodding gently, examining him.

“Geralt,” he breathed. Then everything came out in one great rush, each new thought interrupting the last. “Oh fuck, I was—! You weren’t moving. You just dropped to the ground the minute your sword—! I had to carry you back, and you only had one vial left. I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to make more before …”

“One vial is enough,” Geralt said. He nodded toward the supplies on the table. “Is that White Raffard’s?” he asked, knowing it could be nothing else.

Jaskier nodded, silent.

“What was that song just now?”

Jaskier bit his lip, looking guilty. “I … didn’t meant to pry,” he murmured. “I promise never to share trade secrets but … I had to know how it was made. It’s one of your most important potions. If you couldn’t make one, and if we were ever in a situation where we couldn’t find a healer, I needed to know that I could save you. So I watched, and I wrote it to remember.”

“You wrote a song to remember how to brew a potion?” Geralt asked. He looked at the ingredients. They were all correct, and well-measured from the look of it. Jaskier had prepared three bottles, two still sat empty on the table. Before them, their ingredients lay in even piles, waiting to be ground in the mortar.

Jaskier took Geralt’s hand in his, pressing his forehead to it. “I can brew Raffard’s, White Honey, and Swallow. I know you need Swallow with Raffard’s, for the toxicity. And … if I ever brewed a faulty potion, I would have the Honey.”

“You know what potions to take,” Geralt said. It was less of a question, more an expression of awe. He’d never taught Jaskier about the potions, merely asking for them as needed if Jaskier were in reach to fetch them. And from that, Jaskier had learned what was needed when.

“I wrote a song for that, too. All of them: what they’re for, the ones to take before a battle, and the ones to take after.”

Geralt blinked.

“All of them?” he asked.

Jaskier looked up. He once more turned his head away in shame. Witchers’ potions were not for men to know, let alone theirs to brew. But he nodded. There was no denying it now.

“Sing it to me.”

The look on Jaskier’s face was nothing short of complete and total astonishment. Geralt never requested songs. “You … right now? You want me to sing the song?” Jaskier faltered.

When Geralt gestured toward the lute, Jaskier smiled.

“It hasn’t got music,” Jaskier said. “It isn’t meant to be sung, really. Not in that way at least.”

“But you could put it to music, I bet.”

Jaskier flushed. There was a bit of praise in there somewhere—an admission of skill. At Geralt’s request, he stood and fetched the lute. “You seem to be doing much better,” he said, sitting at his side on the bed.

“Raffard,” Geralt replied. “Are you in tune?”

Jaskier strummed the lute slowly, emphasizing each open note with pride. “Always am.”

“Sing, then.”

It only took a minute of experimental plucking before Jaskier had a set of chords prepared. He strummed them twice in succession, then began his song:

Before one fights vampiric beasts

Drink Black Blood down to spoil their feasts

And if there’s acid on the rise

First taking Bindweed would be wise

When fighting something swift and cruel

Down Blizzard quick before the duel

And if the brawl takes place at night

Take Cat to see in dimmest light

Geralt watched with open admiration as he listened. Jaskier had learned it all on his own. He’d made a careful study of the potions without any help, and what Geralt heard was thus far correct. There were trainees who��d not kept such simple things in order, even with proper instruction.

When fighting wraiths one cannot spy

De Vries’ Extract evolves the eye

And wolves will howl in perfect tune

When given life by the Full Moon

At the play on wolves, Geralt rolled his eyes. Even so, he was impressed. He’d only encountered two wraiths with Jaskier at his side. He would’ve had to pay very close attention to remember De Vries’ Extract’s purpose.

The bit about the wolves did not escape his notice either. There was a little crook in the corner of Jaskier’s mouth as he sang the words. Of course the potion made for jokes among the witchers of the school of the wolf, but they weren’t the only ones who used them.

But if one’s poisoned first, let’s say

Oriole takes the sting away

And when one bleeds, to stop the aches

A simple Kiss is all it takes

If long the task you must endure

Then take a dose of Maribor

And if one’s signs aren’t up to snuff

Then Petri’s Philter is the stuff

If one cannot avoid a hit

The vengeful Shrike takes care of it

And if you’ve time while under cover

Swallow aids a slow recover

If the battle leaves you tired

Tawny Owl may be required

And while weak one cannot parry

Thunderbolt will make foes wary

When hope is lost and at its end

White Raffard’s revives your friend

And if while brawling stunned you be

Then Willow is the remedy

For power in your every blow

Take Wolf to strike against your foe

And though it makes one wobble blind

With Wolverine their fate is signed

Remember this what else you do

White Gull is base for every brew

And when the potions start to strain

White Honey lets you start again

“You ended with White Honey,” Geralt remarked.

Jaskier lay a hand over the strings of his lute, quieting them. “It lets you start again, does it not? Once you swallow a dose of White Honey, it nullifies the effects of all potions,” he said in his most academic voice. “I thought it would be fitting to end the song there; it certainly helps to remember the purpose.”

“And you know how to brew it.”

“I find it ironic that there’s not a trace of honey in it whatsoever. In fact, far too many of your potions involve the use of vinegar, the very opposite of honey. Would it ruin the potions beyond use if I were to add a bit? A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, they say.”

Geralt smiled. He waved his hand, gesturing for Jaskier to come closer. He put a hand on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. “I think whatever potions you brew for me in the future will be made sweet enough by that sentiment,” he said. “So don’t fuck up my recipes, bard.”

Jaskier stammered, then laughed and batted Geralt’s face. “You cheeky thing! For a moment, I thought you actually intended to compliment me.”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” Geralt asked. “I did.”

“Not a compliment if you insult my cooking right after. Or—well, eh—brewing, as it were.”

“Alchemy.”

“Oh, yes, that’s much more flattering. Assistant Alchemist! I do like the sound of it.”

Geralt chuckled. “You’re my assistant now, are you?”

“But of course,” Jaskier replied, waving a dramatic arm in the air. “Always have been. I only needed a proper title.

“Then tell me, assistant: what became of the slyzard?”

Jaskier grinned and leaned over to grab the leather pouch from the table. He tossed it for show and caught it with one hand before emptying its contents. A collection of sharp, bloody teeth fell onto the sheets, some with bits of pink gum still attached to the yellow base.

“I believe Raffard’s called for fang of beasts in the list of ingredients,” he said. “And there was no other beast nearby to take from. Your sword was still lodged in its back; all I had to do was give it one last thrust through the heart.”

Jaskier winked and produced another bag from his doublet, heavy with coin. “Needed proof anyway,” he said, setting it alongside the teeth. “I needed some distraction while you were out, so I checked off the list: put you on the mend, finish the hunt, get the pay, replenish supplies.”

For a moment, his cocky expression faltered. “I was just finishing up when I got a little …” he trailed, bundling up the teeth once more. “Well, it’s easier to get lost in worrisome thoughts when doing quiet tasks like foraging. But you woke up, and now there’s nothing left to fear. I’ll have a new set of potions ready for you by the time you’re well enough to get out of bed.”

“… You … killed the slyzard?” Geralt said.

“You did most of it. I just gave it the last push. It barely twitched. Honestly, its innards made more of a fuss when I went to bottle them. I think you’ll be well stocked for some time.”

Jaskier killed the slyzard. He stooped to rummaging in its bleeding corpse for the most vile and disgusting of ingredients. For his potions. Which Jaskier brewed. Which he knew how to brew by merely observing, putting it all together in simple songs to remember. And still he’d found time to collect his pay.

“Fuck me,” Geralt said in wonder.

“Maybe once you’re healed,” Jaskier laughed, ears a touch pink.

“Then kiss me,” Geralt amended. He lay his hand over Jaskier’s arm, leaning forward, enraptured. It was a simple revelation and he wondered just how long the idea had been bubbling in the back of his brain. “Kiss me,” he said. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Jaskier blinked twice, his cheeks flushing as he took in the seriousness of Geralt’s tone. “Did … you put too much White Gull in that last batch of Raffard’s?”

Geralt shook his head, his eyes never leaving Jaskier’s. “Will you kiss me?” he asked again.

“I …”

“You killed a slyzard for me.”

“Yes.”

“And you memorized my potions. In case I needed them.”

Jaskier nodded.

“You love me,” Geralt concluded. His heart gave a leap at the notion. Yes. Yes, this was something he never knew he wanted. No, not wanted—this was something he needed. If all that didn’t add up to love, he didn’t know what would. It was such a simple thing, and he was a very simple man in every meaning of the word.

“Love me, Jaskier,” he said. “Love me and kiss me, please.”

But Jaskier already did. And before the final plea could escape Geralt’s lips, Jaskier did.

I’m going to take care of you, Geralt thought. He would take care of Jaskier just as Jaskier had always taken care of him. Good care.

“I do love you,” Geralt corrected.

Jaskier chuckled. “Don’t need to think about it?”

“I don’t think I ever really did.”

#asks #my fic #drabbles #witcher #the witcher #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #you know i wish that i had jessi's tag #actually let's tag this as a ficlet too it's a bit longer than usual #ficlet

815 notes · View notes

falling-pages · 4 years ago

Note

Okay how about first cuddles with Bakugou? Like he is almost feral about being held and having reader snuggle into them. And then....then he realizes the powers of a good cuddle. His body relaxes and accepts the cuddles. You know, just Bakugou leaning how to be a soft boy. 🥰🥰🥰 Hope this helps!! Happy Writing!!

This T_T my heart absolutely melted. This was absolutely self-indulgent on my end and I’m so happy you requested it!!!!

I decided to make it a part 2 of this one shot since so many people asked for a part 2 🥰🥰🥰 Lol also it’s long so I’m sorry

Friday Night pt. 2:

Third-Year Bakugou Katsuki x Third-Year gender-neutral Reader

Genre: Fluff, pining, cuddles, first kiss, just Bakugou going feral when he finally gets cuddles

Bakugou didn’t sleep like you thought he would.

Even with the fever ripping through his body, he laid there so peacefully. On his back, eyes scrunched shut, mouth in a thin line, the first time you had ever seen him not scowling, actually. It was like sneaking back into school after hours and watching the teachers work silently, in their natural habitats.

You didn’t know what you were expecting him to look like unconscious. Snarling snores, maybe. Resting on his stomach, gripping the sheets in his fists hard enough to rip. Probably thrashing, screaming and cursing at his dreams. Imploding smokey holes into the mattress.

But not...this. Not so peaceful, not the way he turned and slightly smiled at whatever his brain came up with. Not the way he would gently breathe in and out of his nose. Not the way his right hand sat limply at his side, his left crossed protectively over his worst wound near his stomach. Not the way his hair stuck out on the pillow gently cushioning his bruised face.

Neither Bakugou nor Aizawa would tell you how he got hurt, raising your suspicions. With graduation looming and the hero license exam nearing, you had figured your teacher had taken some of the top third-year students out for extra training. Bakugou had garnered more control over his quirk, granted, but he still needed the extra training. He liked to push himself too hard, take too many missions. Your outburst earlier in the evening sunk that into his thick skull.

Some part of watching him felt wrong, knowing he would blast you into outer space if he caught you looking. But this was your job tonight, to sit by his side and watch over him as he healed.

He suddenly gasped in his sleep, eyebrows furrowing as he clutched his deepest wound. The air rushed out of his now-open mouth, accompanying the slightest whimper. You lurched forward and activated your quirk, falling to your knees to look within him.

It staked your heart to see him in so much pain, but nothing was wrong, just some blood rushing to his wound. Not too heavy to come through the bandage, though, so you blinked and let it be.

And then you took a calculated risk. Maybe it was foolish, maybe it was wrong, maybe you thought “to hell with it” about his malicious tendencies. You knew it wouldn’t cure him, and you knew he would probably disintegrate you into a pile of ash and smoke, but you wanted to try. That tugging feeling in your stomach wouldn’t leave you alone, so...

You kissed him.

Well, his forehead. It was hot and dripping with sweat, and you knew it was dangerous, you knew his power was stored in his sweat, but you did it anyway. You had to. You had to try something to ease his pain.

He shifted beneath your touch, and you dove back into your chair and tried to act nonchalant.

Like that would work. Nothing escaped Bakugou, even when he slept.

His eyes peeled open, eyebrows quirked as he took in his surroundings. A brief whiff of smoke aired from his palms until he realized where he was. In “some extra’s dorm.”

“Hey--” his voice crackled like his bombs as his eyes fully adjusted to the dim lamplight. His peaceful facade remained.

“Hey,” you whispered back. Even injured and half-asleep, he still intimidated you.

“What happened?”

You breathed, relief flooding your core. He hadn’t noticed. “The pain woke you up. But you’re alright. Go back to sleep.”

His eyes trailed lazily across the room, until they met yours. Those crimson red irises could strike fear into the hearts of friend and foe, but when they looked at you, they were soft, confused, trusting. Sleepy.

“That’s not all.”

You settled back in your chair, fiddling with the wicker arms. “That’s what happened.”

“You kissed me.”

You suddenly prayed to every god that you would die. Shiiiiiiiiit, he felt that?

Panic covered your hands, making you lose feeling in your fingers. A buzzer sounded in your head, like an evacuation alarm. You cleared your throat. You wracked your brain for an excuse, but came up empty. Lying to him was a surefire way of getting blasted through the nearest wall. And, if the way he looked at you was any indication, you’d better tell the truth. “Only on the forehead.”

Bakugou studied you. Now his eyes were calculating, cunning. Now you couldn’t tell if he were looking at you as friend or foe. “You know my sweat could blast your face off.”

It would be a mercy compared to what you were about to go through. “You...just looked like you were in pain. I wanted to help.”

He stared at you for a few more painful seconds. His gaze pierced your sternum like a knife. Then, as if Heaven itself opened, he smiled.

He smiled.

“I wouldn’t mind another,” he murmured, turning his head back to the ceiling. Try as he might, you saw that grin, joining the blush running across his cheeks. As much as your crush feelings were hyped, you couldn’t help but feel more relieved at the fact that you were still in one piece.

You crept forward, hesitant to do as he suggested. He was a bucking horse, a wildfire that changed direction with the wind. It was all you could do to avoid getting burned.

As you leaned over him again, your size dwarfed by him, that calculating sheen stayed put. Was he going to burn you as you were defenseless? Was he going to blast you? He wouldn’t. He had better instincts than to hurt the very person taking care of his injuries as he laid helpless in bed.

But if he was being vulnerable with you, then maybe you should be vulnerable with him.

When you were just a few inches away, Bakugou’s eyes still open, he suddenly reached up and yanked your head down, interlocking his lips with yours. You sputtered, jerking to pull off, but his hand kept you there, eyes fluttering shut as soon as you made contact. After a moment, when you felt your soul reenter your body, you shifted to support yourself better, kneeling half-way on the bed, crossing your chest just above his.

He was warm. You could feel his warmth even while you sat feet away. Unlike Deku, whose skin was always cool and clammy, he was warm. Either by his quirk or fever or just himself, he was burning up, fiery to touch, like a cast iron brand digging into your side. That’s how he made his way in this world, torching the earth and salting the fields if he didn’t get what he wanted, setting off explosions to mold and shift reality into what he desired. He was molten lava, desperate, eager, wanting, burning and terrifying to touch, a spark set ablaze to decimate anything in its path.

Pulsating, and beating, and alive.

But when you lowered your fingertips to his shoulder, and you flinched--breaking the kiss to softly gasp--he frowned, focusing on your face, the way your eyes looked at your hand and how your sensitive fingers rubbed together.

“You okay?” he whispered, gravel voice hushed in honor of the moment.

You heard the pain laced beneath his voice and turned to look at him. Your hand fell on the mattress beside his chest. As his eyes bore into your head, you watched him, the way his muscles rippled, the way his very soul seemed enchanted by your kiss. If you activated your quirk, you were sure you could see the way his blood danced beneath his skin, the rush of chemicals to his brain, the excitement flaring in his nostrils.

He was an inferno incarnate, breathing and wild and alive, letting you touch him with all the slow calmness of an ocean breeze.

You slowly blinked, losing yourself in the imprint of his lips on yours. You unconsciously reached up to your mouth, tracing the outline of it with your fingertips.

As you make a sound of satisfaction, he smirked, trailing a hand up your calf to rest placidly on your thigh. “I said, extra, you okay?”

“Umm. Yeah.” Your eyes follow his hand, expecting it to burst like his grenades. “You’re just really hot.”

He scoffed, smacking your thigh--but gently, just feeling your skin. “Damn right I am.”

“No, not like that.” You rolled your eyes. “I mean, you are hot--attractive, I mean--but your skin...ummm, it burned me.”

“Oh,” he grunted. His eyebrows furrowed, losing that playful edge. He took away his hand, bunching around the sheets instead.

You massaged your sore fingers as he contemplated. You nearly missed his hissed out, “Sorry.”

So it was a night of firsts--the first time he heard you curse, the first time you heard him apologize, your first kiss and his, too, as far as you knew.

“It’s okay.”

Bakugou moved, waving your helping hand away in case he burned you again. Once he sat up, he leveled his eyes to yours and very lightly, gingerly, took your hand and raised it to his pouty lips. You waited for the sting, but as he kissed your fingertips, all you felt was warmth, like molten chocolate, like a woolen scarf, like the sleepy feeling of an open oven door.

He finished by rotating your hand in all angles and degrees, making sure to cover every inch of your palm, knuckles, and wrist in his love. The residual buzz traveled from your hand into your heart.

“It’s my emotions,” he murmured against your skin. “My quirk acts up when I’m emotional.”

He kept his eyes nearly shut, only focusing on pressing more adoring kisses to your skin. When you returned your other hand to his chest, he shuddered, staring back at you with wide eyes. You saw what he was about to say--“Don’t touch me, I don’t want to hurt you”--and folded your finger against his lips.

“You won’t hurt me,” you whisper. “You’re powerful, but I’m not afraid of you.”

You moved your hand down and leaned forward, returning his kiss. The hand he once possessed smoothed under his jaw, outlining it with a finger to pull him close. You tasted the hesitancy in his lips, no longer masked under the bravado of his previous kiss, and smiled. You searched for his hand and found it, bringing it to your waist, giving permission to the boy who rarely waited for others’ approval. But he waited for you. He respected you.

I know you won’t hurt me.

And that single move was when he realized he was so, so feral for your touch.

His long, powerful arms wrapped around your middle, hauling you completely onto the bed and scooting you into his lap, hugging you as close as he possibly could. There was no soft bone in his body--he devoured you, desperate for your love, your lips, you, you, you. A boy who had been scared to touch all of his life--knowing what it did to people, what he could do if he tried, the damage he even did on accident--was now clutching someone who wasn’t scared, someone who cared, whose hands knotted in his hair revealed just how desperately you needed him, as well.

You filled him with your love, and he you, and you felt a tear escape, the kind that you cry when watching a sunset, or eating ice cream, or listening to your favorite song, when you’re so happy that smiling just isn’t enough.

Bakugou felt the wetness on your cheek and paused, cradling and dipping the back of your head so he could kiss it away. “What’s wrong, Firework?”

You veins ran hot at the pet name so naturally falling from his lips. “Nothing.” You smile, biting your lip. “I’m just happy.”

He nuzzled your forehead. “Good. Now, let’s lay down. You need to sleep.”

You smoothed the bottom of your pajama shirt as he stretched to turn off the lamp. As you began to wriggle out of his grasp, he suddenly grabbed you tighter and held you as he shifted, lifting the blanket and dragging you both below. You began to protest on account of his injuries, but he squeezed you tighter against his chest.

“I’m not letting you out of my arms again,” he whispered, with a kiss to the head.

Once you both were situated in the dark, you rested your head on his shoulder as he scratched your back. The long, slow strokes nearly lulled you into sleep, but one question filled your mind.

“Baku--”

“Katsuki.”

You couldn’t see him, but he moved his face nearer yours, catching your hand planted on his chest. “Call me Katsuki.”

“Okay.” The draw of his informal name sent a chill down your spine that you’re sure he felt. “Katsuki, why call me Firework?”

He smiled into your hair, shifting your weight onto him. Drowsiness choked his voice. “Because fireworks are beautiful, brilliant, and I like to look at them.” His knuckles found your cheek, and he brushed them against it. “And you are beautiful, brilliant, and I like to look at you.”

Satisfied, you closed your eyes, drinking in the feeling of his warm skin and arms cradling you, desperate, never willing to let you go, and you never wanting him to.

#katsuki bakugou #bakugou x reader #bakugo katuski #katsuki bakugou x reader #boku no academia #my hero academia #bakugou fanfiction #bakugou #bakugou katsuki #mha #bnha #mha bakugou #mha bakugo #bnha bakugo #bnha bakugou

211 notes · View notes

coulson-is-an-avenger · 3 years ago

Note

kisses 21 jm!

For the prompt “we’ll face this together” kiss. TY SAHAR!!! OKAY I accidentally had one (1) jonbinary idea and then it ended up being SO FUCKING LONG (like 2.5k long) so uh. yeah. Warnings for descriptions of dysphoria, mentions of kidnapping and self loathing, and Jon getting pretty close to a panic attack. Also disclaimer, although I am nonbinary, I’m not transfem, so if there’s any critiques surrounding that, don’t hesitate to let me know. Stay safe y’all!

Jon’s face itches as he faces the mirror like an old foe. It’s long held an image that hurts him to see; aged by unfathomable horrors and dotted with marks like a canvas before a child’s paint tipped fingers, and these days he can’t even be sure that his reflection looks away from him when he turns his head. But, the devil it holds at the moment is the simple reflection of his short beard, and his face itches at the reminder of it.

It isn’t a physical itch. It lurks under the skin, poking and prodding at his senses, rubbing him the wrong way as he lays his cheek on his pillow, leaving a distracting echo when his chin brushes against Martin’s during a kiss, scraping at the inside of his skin as he stares at himself and takes in the sight of it covering his chin.

He scrubs his fingers over his eyelids. He isn’t ignorant, he realizes the discomfort he feels is most likely somewhat gender-related, but it’s… his relationship with his gender is complicated. In a lot of ways, it’s been such a mundane concern recently that he’s somewhat lost track of where he stands with it, but he remembers how it felt to first wear a skirt into the archives, all those long years ago. How gentle Sasha had been with him back then, even if the memory pinches the back of his head and grins with too many teeth and a short haircut that he knows now was wrong. But the Stranger cannot take that act of kindness away from her, even if it took away the face he remembers sharing it with.

He had felt like he was becoming something new, then, staring at a new path, freshly paved in his life, open to the possibilities of self discovery and certainty. Then his life had been riddled with worms and his friends had been carved out, one by screaming one, and he was on the run and set alight and kidnapped and disabled and nearly killed and kidnapped again and nearly killed and—

Jon remembers, vaguely, a flash of what had happened in the month he was… gone. He doesn’t remember most of what happened in that place. Probably for the better, he tells himself, but he does recall one thing. One very simple thing, really; that he hadn’t been able to shave, and he remembers the itch being all he could focus on for days at a time.

One of the first things he had done after stumbling through Michael-now-Helen’s door-not-deathtrap was drag himself to a sink and shave his face raw, burned hand be damned. His skin had suffered afterwards, nicked and irritated beneath its smoothness, and he had taken some strange, morbid comfort in the blemish he was able to inflict, after so many days of hearing hollow voices sing of its beauty.

This is a dangerous line of thought, he realizes, hands pressed against the bathroom sink, his heartbeat starting to pound in his ears. He desperately does not want to think about that, not here, and preferably not ever again, if he can help it.

He tries to bring himself back to the here and now, grounding himself in the feeling of porcelain under his palms, but the victory over his mind is a hollow one, unfortunately, as it brings him right back to the itching under his skin.

He’s not sure if this itch is exasperated by his own self consciousness, or by the lingering sting of the Lonely that threatened to separate him from himself, but it builds until its all he can feel in his skin, on his face, and he finds himself lunging across the counter, knocking things over in an attempt to hunt down Martin’s razor.

Jon had lost his own somewhere in the chaos of living in the archives, but he’s sure he saw Martin trim his own short beard when they first arrived at the safehouse, so it must be here, he thinks, ripping open drawers, it must— aha!

His fist closes around the razor, hidden under the sink next to a small bottle of shaving cream and Martin’s testosterone shots, and he barely gives a thought to what he’s doing before raising it to his dry cheek, just needing this thing off, and—

“Jon? You know that’s not how to do that, right?”

Jon whips around like lightning, his back to the sink and the razor clenched in his fist against his chest like a talisman, breathing heavily.

Martin had been smiling slightly as he entered the bathroom, but the expression quickly falls from his face as he takes in the panicked look on Jon’s face, and the erratic motion of his free hand, clenched into a fist at his side and twitching in an attempt to calm himself. Martin steps forward quickly, outstretching a hand.

“Jon, love? Are you alright?”

Jon fixes his eyes on Martin; kind, beautiful Martin who still goes a bit grey at the fingertips and the eyes when anxiety seizes him, Martin who has always been there, always been there, ever since the beginning. Jon anchors himself as he looks at that familiar, beloved face, and tries to take a breath.

“I-I don’t know,” He manages, because this all feels very silly now. He’s a grown person standing in the center of a bathroom, clutching his boyfriend’s shaving razor like it’s a weapon, for God’s sake, all because of what? Some facial hair? Good Lord, he’s being ridiculous. “Probably, I just… um.” He trails off, gut sinking as emotions spiral through him, too fast to pin down and name.

“Okay,” Martin says gently, shuffling a step closer. “Why do you have that?” He gestures to the razor in Jon’s hand, and Jon twitches, holding it closer.

“I need to borrow it,” He explains, stumbling. “I can’t- I need-“ He makes a frustrated noise and tries to get his thoughts to align. He inhales deeply and tries again. “I need to …shave. This-“ he gestures jerkily towards his face. “This is too much.”

Martin nods carefully, eyes glued to Jon’s face. “Too much?” His question is as gentle as his eyes, and Jon has to glance away for a moment, overwhelmed by being seen.

“It’s… complicated,” He begins, the fist pressed to his chest beginning to lighten up. “It… it just itches, all the time. Like- like a thousand ants under my skin, w-which is ridiculous because it doesn’t actually hurt or itch or- or anything, it just…” he glances back to Martin’s eyes, furtive and desperate for him to understand. “I need it to stop.”

“Oh,” Martin softens even more before Jon’s eyes, his face melting with understanding and sadness. “Oh, Jon. I didn’t realize you were having dysphoria.”

At the word dysphoria Jon glances sharply up, uncertainty fraught on his face, and Martin backtracks quickly.

“Or- s-sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. Is it-”

“N-no, Martin, it-it’s fine.” Jon waves Martin’s nerves aside and finds that he finally has a decent enough hold on his own to lower the hand that had been pressed against his chest. He turns around in the bathroom and sits down on the edge of the bathtub, sighing heavily. “It might be dysphoria, I don’t…” He hesitates, chuckling slightly. “I’m not quite sure I know it well enough to place it. Gender hasn’t exactly been… a priority these days.”

Martin nods and follows him deeper into the bathroom, setting down the lid of the toilet so he can sit on it and listen to Jon blunder through his feelings.

“It might be? I mean… I know I’m not a man, per say, but it… I mean, it could also be so many other things at this point. It’s just- I know it’s stupid to overthink, but—“

“Hey, hey,” Martin cuts him off, extending a hand to brush against the side of his knee. “It isn’t stupid, Jon. You don’t have to have a label or a reason in order to be uncomfortable. It’s- you’re allowed to call it just that; uncomfortable.”

Jon nods, looking down at the hands clasped in his lap.

“I know. It just hit me so suddenly, I-” He sighs, rubbing a hand over his forehead, careful to avoid brushing any of the hairs on his face. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Martin murmurs, and his hand rests more solidly on Jon’s knee. “Is this alright?”

Jon nods mutely, and lets himself expel some more of the tension in his shoulders as he focuses on the motion of Martin’s thumb sweeping softly over his knee.

“It reminds me of the circus,” Jon breathes after a moment of silence, and Martin’s hand stills against him, attentive and horrified. “When- when they…” He inhales sharply, willing his voice not to break. “Well, I couldn’t very well shave it,” He clenches his hands into fists again, still holding the razor tightly in his right. “Got it off as quickly as possible once I could.”

Martin exhales. “I remember that. I thought you just… I dunno, just really nicked yourself. I didn’t think about… yeah.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees, keeping his gaze on the hand on his knee. “I-I mean, I definitely did, nick myself that is. I wasn’t really thinking about doing it properly, I suppose.”

“Like just now?” Martin asks, kindly, gently, not judging. Jon feels his chest pinch anyways.

“Yes.” He admits quietly. Martin leans down to press a careful kiss to Jon’s knee.

“Okay, well, this time we’ll do it properly,” Martin raises himself from the toilet seat, reaching down into the cupboards to pull forth the shaving cream and a towel, and holds them out towards Jon.

Jon blinks, looks at the objects and then up at Martin, unsure of what’s being offered. “Sorry?”

“You still want the beard off, right? Let’s just make sure you don’t upset your skin,” He cracks a humorous smile. “Then it’ll actually start itching.”

Jon takes the can from his hand, but still frowns. “Us?”

“I- yeah,” Martin shifts his weight, fidgeting with the towel. “I can help, if that’s alright with you. You don’t… always seem to handle mirrors the best? And I’ve helped shave another person before so… yeah. If you want.”

Jon’s world stutters to a blushing halt. Martin’s right, he doesn’t like to linger on his face in mirrors even on the best days (of which today is certainly not one) and as much as he’s accustomed to doing this himself, what Martin is promising is intimate; an extension of vulnerability and the promise of a care that he hardly takes with himself. The more he considers it, the more finds himself tentatively wanting it, and he nods carefully. He trusts Martin, he’s decided a thousand times by now.

“Alright,” He agrees, and smiles.

Martin smiles in response. “Alright. Do you want me to um-” He gestures with the towel in his hand, and Jon nods.

Martin makes quick work of running the towel under the tap until it’s warm, and then wringing it out so it’s ready to actually use. He takes his seat again and tips Jon’s head back with a hand to lay the towel gently overtop, letting the warmth seep into his skin. It’s more effort than Jon usually puts in, or used to, when he did this more regularly, but he finds it’s a nice feeling, and he almost misses it when Martin takes the towel away again.

“Right,” Martin continues, looks pointedly to the can of shaving cream in Jon’s hand and Jon hesitates.

“Ah. Maybe not that part? Th-the actual shaving is fine, but-”

“Oh! Yeah, of course,” Martin nods, not questioning, and reaches forward instead to gently take the razor itself from Jon’s fist so he can use both hands to get the shaving cream on his face. Jon surrenders the razor, forcing himself to trust it in Martin’s hands, to trust that Martin won’t just leave him hanging.

He tries not to think too hard about the feeling of the cream on his skin. It’s a far cry from lotion, so it doesn’t bring up any sense memories, thankfully, but it’s still an uncomfortable texture, and he focuses on the sound of Martin’s breathing to keep himself from slipping.

Fortunately it doesn’t take long; soon enough Jon’s finished, wiping his hands on his trousers, and then Martin’s shifting closer, taking Jon’s face in his hands like it’s something precious, something to be loved and cared for. He is very close, his dark brown eyes nearly black with focus as he gently reaffirms that Jon’s sure about this, and then the cool razor swipes across Jon’s cheek.

Jon’s heart lurches in his chest, a messy combination of nerves and gratefulness, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move at all, and just watches Martin focus with gentle certaintly as the blade passes over his cheeks again and again in careful, confident strokes. His fingers whisper at Jon’s chin when he tilts up his head and swipes the blade carefully up the top of his throat, brow furrowed and tongue poking out of his lips in concentration.

Jon holds his breath, wills his heart to still, but it’s alright, with Martin it’s always alright. His hands are warm as they cup his cheeks, tilt him this way and that, thorough in their task, and his fingertips are gentle as they lift his chin and brush away foam and ghost over his throat. He never even comes close to nicking him, and Jon feels a great warmth unspooling in his chest, stinging his eyes.

“All done,” Martin finishes triumphantly, his face breaking into a grin as he hands Jon the towel again, lets him wipe off his own face.

There’s no coarse texture as the fabric touches his face, no itching or discomfort as it drags over his chin, and the steady drumbeat of wrongness that had pervaded him for weeks finally, finally dissipates, unblocking his lungs and releasing the tightness from his shoulders. He runs a hand over his chin, and finds a shy smile quickly taking over his face, affection and relief filling him up from the inside out and spilling onto his features.

“Thank you,” He breathes, and Martin matches his smile with one of his own, and nods, nothing but respect and affection in his eyes.

“Any time,” Martin says seriously, before reaching out to take Jon’s hand and slowly bringing it to his lips, giving Jon ample time to pull away. “You don’t have to struggle with this stuff alone,” He murmurs against Jon’s knuckles. “It’s easier together.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jon’s response is quiet, and Martin kisses his hand then; gentle, and full of reverence. Jon finds that he could melt right into the floor and be happy for the rest of his life.

He reaches up to pull Martin down into a kiss, gentle and insistent and grateful, lacing his hands in his hair and sighing against his lips at the sensation, noting how nice it feels to kiss his boyfriend without his itching skin pressing at his thoughts.

The kiss stays chaste, and eventually Jon pulls back just enough to press their foreheads together, keeping his eyes closed, reveling in it. “Together, then.” He affirms, and Martin smiles.

“One way or another.”

#sorry this took forever but in my defense im insane so here we are #the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #tma fic #jonmartin fic #jonbinary #nonbinary jonathan sims #gender dysphoria #YES it’s a shaving fic ok listen. listen. im 🥺#my writing #answered #set in the safehouse!!

135 notes · View notes

icylook · 3 years ago

Text

True Love's Last Kiss

Pairing: Leon x Leri (MC)

Rating: Mature; Word count: 1252; Read on AO3

Tags: Spoilers for the AMR demo; Not canon compliant - Leon and Leri (MC) started their relationship half a year before the final battle; Established Relationship; Angst; Hurt No Comfort; Feels; Heartbreak

A Mage Reborn demo 👑✨ @mage-parivir

Fic title inspo from the song - True Love's Last Kiss (Eternal Eclipse) 🎶 🤍

“Why did you do it?”

The question grates on his mind like long nails on a blackboard. A restless needle poking at his brain.

Why, why, why?

He heard it so many times, from so many people.

Why? Murderer. Traitor. Why, why, why?

Asking, shouting, demanding, threatening, using force so he breaks and tells them.

Why?

He endured.

“It had to be done.” Wearily he says the same thing he said to others. Over and over again, because they wouldn’t listen even if he told the truth. He was already doomed in their eyes, maybe from the start. No one likes a stray that gets the attention of those in power and steals them from you.

“Tell me your reasons. Why did you do it?”

But the way Leon asks the same question is different. He demands like a king he is. The way he squares his shoulders like he prepares for an attack, the jut of his chin when he stands up to a challenge. The fire in his eyes, dark in their silent fury and only a gentle tremble of his voice betrays how deeply Leri’s repeated words sting.

Right now Leri is the enemy that refuses to be conquered and he’s aware how stubbornly clever Leon is with his foes.

“I know who you are, Melmesne.”

Oh. So they’re using that to paint him a villain. Briefly, he wonders who was so smart to dig up that particular information, serving it to their king to fuel his wrath. The venom in his voice when he spits Leri’s forgotten surname feels like a slap to the face and he closes his eyes. The phantom feeling of a knife in his chest twists without mercy. He feels it since he’s learnt in the ruins of the old laboratory of what has to be done to stop the countdown to a massacre.

“Did you plan it? Pretended to be a friend, use me, use all of us just to strike when it suits you best?”

Leri silently watches how Leon prowls in front of his cell, like an agitated predator that would tear into his prey at the smallest provocation. He sways on his feet when he slowly gets up from the floor, his bad knee screaming in pain thanks to the hours in one position.

“Did you lie about everything? About us?”

No.

He didn’t. Even now Leon’s accusations are like a whip cutting at him until he bleeds. And he does bleed, silently.

“Was it lie that you loved me just to bend naive prince to your will?”

No, no, no.

It’s the first time in his life he was able to taste something as sweet as love and love back. He still does, with every bitter word, keeping it in his heart even if it shatters.

“Tell me why you did it!”

Leon so rarely asked him for things. Leri never wanted to deny him anything. It hurts to see him like that. To hear the desperation mixed with loathing in his voice.

Why why why-

It’s too much. It builds and builds until it finally spills.

“There was no other way!” The shout tears straight from the depth of Leri’s chest like thunder.

Leon flinches, stopping his pacing.

Leri’s breathing hard, shivering. The sudden outburst snuffing out his fragile energy like wind a candle flame. He stumbles, limp hair covering his face as he hangs down his head. Doesn’t see Leon moving closer like he wants to catch him when he curls his dirty hands on the bars of his cell, the chains pulling at the gesture. The bruises flare with fresh pain under the cuffs, threatening to re-open the scabbed wounds on his wrists.

He doesn’t care.

“No other way.” Leri rasps, leaning his forehead on the cold iron. A second of relief on his feverish skin. He ignores the hot threat of tears at the back of his eyes.

He recoils when Leon’s fingers close over his, holding on tight and he briefly relaxes under the warmth of his palms.

“Leri…”

He looks up at the face of a man close to his own, bowing over him with all his frame. “Truth can save you.”

Leri blinks, lost in the green eyes so bright he feels like drowning. The hold on his hands grounds him.

“Let me save you.” Leon whispers, earnest in his hope.

He hates to crush it. Hates the light to dim to nothing when he says softly, “Truth won’t bring back dead.”

The chain doesn’t allow him to reach for Leon’s face, halting him halfway. His fingertips twitch in the space between them and Leon doesn’t move, gaze fixed on him.

“I promised.”

Leon’s eyes widen. “Don’t-”

“I promised I’ll come back to you.”

“Stop it, I can’t-” The crack in his voice breaks Leri’s heart further.

The smile on his face hurts, splitting the cut on his lip. The words taste like copper. “I came back. Aren’t you glad to see me, love?”

And before Leon’s stricken expression turns into something else Leri’s the first to withdraw, even if it pains him to do it. Stepping back, until there’s a wall behind him, sinking down to the ground in a heap. His head lolls to the side as he watches Leon’s hands flex over the bars, knuckles white in his grip.

“You waited.”

Leon grits his teeth, jerking his arms away from the cell, eyes burning and too wet for his comfort. He angrily wipes at them, half turning from him and Leri bites the inside of his cheek to keep the hot and heavy tickle in the back of his throat from spreading up.

“Kept your word. Thank you, love.”

Leon chokes on a mirthless laugh, his gaze weighty before he turns his back at him. “You’re so cruel.”

Before he storms out his parting words reach Leri’s ears, a raw whisper of painful secret. “May the god be merciful to you because I can’t.”

The silence when he’s finally left alone is deafening.

First, Leon.

Then, Ilya and Saine.

And after all of them left him, there’s Ante, who quietly peels off from the shadows to show him she’s been there all the time. Listening and observing. She steps close to the cell doors, staring at him wordlessly. The blankness of her face, the rigid stance say it all without voicing it out loud.

“I was right about you.”

Leri looks at her, golden eyes half lidded. He hurt her companions. She would kill him with her bare hands if not for the orders of keeping him alive until execution.

He’s so tired, the cold of the floor siphoning what little warmth his battered body still has. Leri closes his eyes, the corner of his mouth curling up.

“It’s good to be right, no?”

And when he’s truly alone the tears leave clean traces on his skin, pouring freely from closed eyes. The chasm in his chest feels almost like during the worst experiments he had to endure. He didn’t know it was possible, to feel pain this great again after what happened to Eli. The risk of having something to lose, the agony of having your heart pulled straight out of you. It would hurt less if it was done literally.

Maybe Nyx will finally swallow him in his death and he'll come back to haunt them all.

A ghost, memento of their mistake.

But, even if they knew, it’d be too late.

Truth won’t bring back dead.

#amr #a mage reborn #icy is writing #spoiler to the title - there's no kiss D:#and there's my take on the dungeon scene #thank you for the angst fuel Adam!#i offer a flower 🌷#or three 🌷🌷🌷#done with this fic #two other wips appear lol #oc leri #Valerian Virtanen

101 notes · View notes

kkaeyva · 3 years ago

Text

work of art

𐐪𐑂 includes: delusional corrupted!albedo

𐐪𐑂 summary: even when the world ends, you will always be part of his canvas.

𐐪𐑂 genres + warnings: angst, major character death, blood mention, swearing, spider mention, food mention, that’s about it i think

𐐪𐑂 note: today i woke up and chose violence on readers’ hearts

𐐪𐑂 word count: 1.3k

albedo’s eyes flutter open to welcome the presence of the morning sun filtering through the window. he hums something quite monotone as he lifts the covers off of him, sitting up to observe the room, as he always does.

“good morning, love,” he presses a gentle kiss to your skin and tries not to flinch when his lips meet glass, cold like it’s been frosted over from chilly winter air. the blonde makes a mental note to make you a warm coffee, maybe something to wake you up— but for now, he’ll focus on himself first. (you are still asleep, after all.)

his blue eyes dig into the bathroom mirror, just barely under enough to penetrate the surface of the cold glass like a pebble into a still lake. he recognizes the person who stares back at him, though he’s not sure he’d call him a friend. a foe would not be a good title either. he blinks himself out of his trance and reaches for his toothbrush.

albedo doesn’t cough very often, and when he does, it’s only a natural reflex to clear his throat; this is one of those times.

“my throat’s quite dry today,” he observes as his fingers brush over the diamond-shaped tattoo that sits upon his neck. the skin feels rough under his fingertips, so he gulps down a glass of water to wash away the feeling. (it does nothing to help though, and albedo is left feeling more unnerved than before.)

the breeze adopts a faint melody of whispers and rhymes; characteristic of mondstadt, albedo thinks. though he was always neutral about the weather, he clearly recalls how rejoiced you used to get whenever you felt the sun on your skin. he smiles absently at the thought and considers stepping outside today, for your sake. and of course, just for your sake, he gives in to the urge.

he steps over sticks and rubble as he walks out into the open. the sun shines as it always does, as if it ignores the issues of the world below; narcissistic, as things are. he turns the other cheek when the sunlight extends a ray to caress his skin with fiery warmth.

nevermind, he sighs as the door creaks shut behind him, this was a bad idea.

the controllable, indoor lighting is much more his style. it works with him when the weather does not; a cooperative being. as such, it illuminates something in the corner of his eye, as if it were the guidance at the end of a tunnel: his forgotten, blank canvases collecting dust.

and, just to humour himself, he picks a less dusty one up. it’s not too big nor small, able to sit comfortably on his well-worn easel. there’s nothing in the room that inspires him, he realizes, but he also doesn’t want to make the trek to dragonspine. (the sun is not very comforting at the moment, you see.) he settles on a tried and true muse— you, of course.

so he begins.

the curve of your jaw is natural to him. so is the way you pucker your lips and the way your eyes crease when you smile. the tone of your skin and how the shadows dance along it has long since been committed to his memory. he makes quick work of painting you, but he feels something is missing. there should be something or someone beside you, smiling and enjoying the environment in the painting just as much.

right, he almost laughs at his own naïvety, he has to be there beside you.

(now, albedo isn’t one to draw self-portraits very often, but he tries to paint himself as accurately as possible when he does. and so he brings a mirror.)

albedo stares perplexedly at the same reflection he ignored this morning. no, no. he must’ve remembered himself wrong. he definitely does not recognize the person staring back at him. it makes him want to cry.

where has the brightness in his eyes gone? and the dark circles around his eyes weren’t there last time he checked. he looks sickly, a pool of guilt and hatred in his eyes. the star at his neck has morphed into a disgusting shade of violet, with spidery legs extending from it like someone smashed a hammer directly into glass. the broken expression he sees in the mirror makes his mind spiral.

he rushes outside. the sun burns as if he poured one of his potions directly onto his skin. it doesn’t matter to him at the moment, though, because surely—

the tall, overarching buildings of mondstadt are now only piles of rubble and ruins littering the ground. there is no wind, not even a light breeze. the statue of the anemo archon is what he assumes to be the giant, grey figure laid down on its side as if it was a god defeated in battle.

like the statue, albedo crumbles. he falls down onto his knees and it brings a stinging, painful shock throughout his body but he really can’t afford to care about that right now.

did he...

did he do this?

he wants to scream. his throat restricts him, much too dry to even let out a hoarse whisper.

he wants to cry. when his tears flow down his face, it feels thick; disgusting. it feels like blood— not his, though. (it’s so much worse when it isn’t his.) he can’t name whose blood it is; there are too many names going through his mind: lisa, jean, amber, venti, sucrose, klee, you. (oh, you.) his tears spill down his face. he gets up only to run away from it, away from the blood. he seeks your comfort as he rushes through the house (please please please be there—)

where are you?

where have you gone?

albedo picks up the picture frame on the nightstand. (funny how it perfectly reflects in the lighting— archons damn this controllable fucking lighting! leave him alone! let him wallow in his own self-destruction!) your smiling eyes look at him fondly. he doesn’t deserve your kindness, does he? but he really, really needs it.

he traces your face with his hands, covered in the transparent blood of all those he cared about and more, and flinches when he meets the icy, cold glass. his mind connects the dots at the last minute. he barely registers the sound of glass breaking as the picture frame hits the floor with a shattering impact.

there is only one last place for him to go.

he stumbles to his easel. the canvas is safe, thank the archons, though his palette and paintbrush have fallen to the floor, long since drying and staining the hardwood with the colours of you.

he gasps lightly, in awe, when you positively glow, not exactly like the sun, nor like the candlelight of the house’s ceiling lamps— something new, something different. something he fears he is too corrupted for. something he wants to protect for the rest of his life.

albedo lifts his hand to caress your face, only to reel back in horror when the only half-dried paint sticks onto his fingers and stains his skin with your colours. your beautiful, perfectly sculpted face is now smudged— just as delicate as he remembers.

and even though you look like you are melting, fading away from his life, he smiles, basking in your light. his throat starts to burn again when he tries to say “i love you,” and the paint on his hands feels more like (your) blood when he tries to wipe it off— he’s become numb to the horrifying feeling, even just for a little while. he’ll spend his time loving you, even if his memory dies like paint going down the drain when he washes it off the palette. he cherishes you so, even when his neck looks and feels like crackled glass. he’ll paint you over and over again, and when he runs out of paint, he’ll find more. he’ll create more, no matter what.

(why?

because you were always a work of art.

and you always will be.

now, would you say the same about him?)

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #albedo x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact drabble #genshin x reader #albedo #genshin albedo #albedo.txt #kkaeyva.writes #tw blood #cw food #cw language #cw spiders

134 notes · View notes

blossom-hwa · 4 years ago

Text

Brave - CHAN

I honestly still can’t believe I’ve finished this? There was a time I didn’t think I’d get to writing this fully until 2021 lmao?? And now it’s the longest fic in the whispers of nature series I need to go lie down

Dedicated to @wingkkun because screaming to Kai was like 95% of the reason I wrote this so fast <3 I also appreciate your fanart SO MUCH you are the entire reason tbz has such a presence in this fic!!

(reposted for... the second time without gifs AND links if it doesn’t work I'll cry)

Pairing: Chan x fem!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, nature spirit!au

Triggers: mild descriptions of violence (nothing graphic)

Word Count: 12.9k

Through tears, heartbreak, and a bit of love, Chan teaches you how to be brave once again.

SKZ Masterlist | Whispers of Nature

Red is simultaneously a color of love and a color of death. It is the color of passion, the color of a bride’s dress and the roses she carries down the aisle, but also the color of blood seeping slowly out of an open wound.

Right now, watching the wedding, surrounded by pale red flowers and silks and draperies, you feel as though you’re sitting at a funeral.

Your dress isn’t red, of course. No matter how much you wish you could leave the elegant hall and run away forever, you wouldn’t disrespect the bride in such a fashion. Not only is she the crown princess of your kingdom, she is also kind, a gentle, intelligent, bright woman who will be a brilliant queen when she is crowned tomorrow.

No wonder she is the love of your best friend’s life.

Something in you itches to just start screaming, to draw your sword and ruin the festivities. But you have no sword, only a sparkling ivory gown chosen by the kind princess herself. Today, as Jacob said, you are here as a friend. Not as a knight, not as a guard, not as a protector. A friend.

Somehow, that word feels so much worse than a cold “protector” would.

The dress is shimmering white, pale and beautiful, dotted with small crystals that shimmer like clouds and stars. It should make you feel lighter than air, light with happiness for your best friend and the woman he is marrying.

But the soft fabric feels cloying on your skin, heavy and strange and choking. It’s not that you can’t wear a dress – no, you’ve gone undercover many times at balls and galas as an unseen eye to protect Jacob, after he took his place as his father’s heir. It’s the situation.

This gown was made with good intentions. The heaviness in your heart has dragged those good intentions away, replacing them with dread, anger, guilt, and sadness.

At the altar, somewhere simultaneously very close and very far away, Jacob smiles at his bride-to-be, holding her soft hands between his rougher ones, reciting the vows that will bind them for the rest of their lives. You stifle the urge to place your hands over your ears.

Oh, spirits.

He says the word “love,” and you have to fight the visceral flinch that threatens to tear through your body.

His bride’s words are not quite as painful as his. You didn’t know her as well as you knew him (does she know his favorite color is burgundy, a red between scarlet and purple, the color of roses on the darkest night?), so her vows don’t sting as much. But there’s pain just the same – throbbing, subtle, never harsh but ever present.

The neckline of your dress feels too hot against your skin.

With sick dread, you listen to her voice taper away, see the trembling smile on her face as she stares into the face of the nobleman’s son. Jacob stares back with all the stars of the sky in his eyes.

(Did he never notice that you looked at him the same way?)

The priest takes their hands, guides them through the “I dos.” They are a radiant couple, pure red covering pale skin and silky hair.

Your heart, smothered in innocent white cloth, cries.

The priest’s next words ring through your head, rattling around your mind with a force to rival the club that gave you last year’s concussion. “You may kiss the bride,” you hear, muffled as though he is speaking through water.

The red-covered couple leans in close. One of Jacob’s hands cups her cheek almost reverently, while the other gently grasps her fingers. He looks at her like she hung the moon that illuminates the red roses of his night.

You’re a knight. You’re one of the Guard. You’re brave, courageous, able to face down any foe without hesitation, ready to fight to the death for your country and the people that you love.

As their lips touch, you close your eyes.

(You’re a coward.)

. . . . .

Your boots echo loudly on the hard marble floor. As you approach the throne, the large, wooden doors swing shut behind you with a soft thud. You sink to your knees, head bowed.

“Rise,” your queen says, her voice lilting and sweet and perfect in the shining chamber. Her king consort, your best friend (is he still your best friend? You aren’t quite sure), sits by her side.

Respectfully, you stand, careful to hide any vestiges of pain on your face. It’s been several months since the wedding, and you’ve gone back to the Crown’s Guard, assigned to protect the king and queen and train the guards for their duties.

The metal of your armor, though heavier than the ivory dress that still hangs in your closet, feels lighter on your body. It is protection, from swords and words and emotions.

“We received the request for your leave of absence,” the queen says. Her eyes convey the perfect amount of sadness and wisdom. “We would be sorry to see you go.”

Jacob looks at you beseechingly. He wants you to change your mind, to stay as his friend and protector. Your mind tells you that you should stay – after all, you know little of the other kingdoms, of the lands you have decided to travel and explore. Staying in the country you know best is the safest option, for you and for the royal family.

But your heart tells you to go, and on this matter, you will listen. You wouldn’t be able to live here long, watching Jacob and his queen rule happily together for the rest of your days. You wouldn’t be able to stomach seeing their children romp around, watching them dance together at balls, hearing the cries of the common folk singing praises of the royal couple.

“However, though it pains us to see such a trusted member of the Guard gone, it is your life, and we wish for you to live it to the fullest.” The queen smiles gently, holding out a folded letter. “This contains a copy of your signed request, as well as a letter of recommendation to any future employer you may seek.”

She’s kind. So kind. Your throat closes up as you take the letter, and you can barely choke out a “thank you, Your Majesty.”

“And do remember,” Jacob adds, “that you will always have a place in our guard, should you choose to return.”

“I thank you for your kindness, Your Majesties.” You bow low, touching your hand to your head in a gesture of utmost respect. “I, too, am sad to go. However, I do not doubt that I leave you in very capable hands.” A ghost of your usual smirk appears on your lips. “And I am sure, Your Majesty, that the King Consort has enough skill to keep the two of you safe.”

The queen, being the wonderful lovely woman she is, chuckles slightly. “If he was taught by you, I am sure he will.” She smiles. “We wish you the best, Protector of the Crown.”

. . .

Jacob catches up to you later, just as training has finished for the day. As you bid goodbye to the last recruits, he enters through the back door. You recognize his footsteps and put on a smile as you turn around.

“I could’ve been an attacker, you know,” he says, slipping into the easy banter you’ve established over a decade of friendship.

“You think I don’t recognize your footsteps by now?” The smile stays on your face more easily now, not because the pain is any less, but because you’ve had more practice.

A short silence hangs in the air. Sweat from your hair drips onto your leather tunic, while not a speck of dust lies on the rich silk that clothes your best friend. It reminds you of how far apart you are now.

“Is there really no way I can persuade you not to leave?” Jacob finally asks. His mouth is downturned in the slight pout you’ve grown to love, while his eyes hold the hope that made you fall.

Your mind screams yes. Your heart shouts no.

“Not this time, Cobi.” The nickname slips out before you can even think. “I’ve made my decision. It’s time for me to go.”

Jacob sighs. “Could you at least tell me why?”

You could. Speaking words isn’t as hard as other people think it is. It’s just that once you say them, you can never take them back.

Should you tell him?

His eyes are earnest. They’re honest. They want the brutal truth that you’ve grown accustomed to giving him over the years.

But the easiest lies are those that carry a hint of truth.

“I’ve never traveled.” The untruth falls easily from your lips. “Sure, I’ve gone to the countries where we were called to battle, and I was around when you had to go places for business, but I never got to really see anything. I want to explore, see the world before I’m too old.”

He doesn’t completely believe you. You know that for sure. You can see it in the downturned quirk of his lips, the suspicion as he blinks, but he knows better than to question it. He knows you would tell him everything if you could.

(This time, you can’t.)

“And here I was, thinking I could find you someone in court to repay you for all you’ve done for me.” Jacob smiles, completely unaware of how his words are stabbing holes into your heart. “Visit, all right? You’ll always be welcome here.”

You can almost hear your heart shattering, the pieces breaking off bit by bit as they fall to the floor. But you smile. “I’ll try,” you say, because here you won’t lie and say that you will. You won’t give your best friend, the love of your short life, a promise you may not be able to keep. “I’ll try.”

He hugs you, staining his silken shirt with the sweat of your tunic. You hesitate a moment, then fall into the embrace, taking a final comfort in the strength of his arms. It hurts, but it’s a memory. And even though you want to escape, you don’t want to forget Jacob. Ever.

“I’ll see you off when you go,” Jacob says when you break apart. “Tell me when, all right?”

Should you tell him? you wonder. Will him seeing you off do anything but hurt you more?

It won’t. But your pain means little in the face of Jacob’s, not when you’ve already hurt him so much with your desire to leave. You’ve injured him enough. “I will,” you promise.

Later that night, you wonder if you should have told him the true reason you were leaving. You wonder if you should have confessed everything, laid your heart bare and told him how much he truly means to you.

No, you eventually decide. You’re glad you didn’t. Better to not ruin his happiness with his wife or his remaining memories of you.

(Or maybe you were just too scared to tell him.)

. . .

You set out early in the morning, just as the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon. A part of you hoped that Jacob would be too tired to send you off, but you knew he could never do that. He cares for you.

Just not in the way you care for him.

He meets you at the stables, where you’re outfitting your favorite horse for the journey. In his loose tunic and trousers, it almost feels like the two of you are in your teens again, waking early to train for your positions in the Guard.

Those were the good days, you think. There wasn’t a worry in the world besides making it past the next test. Jacob’s father wasn’t dead, and he didn’t have to leave the Guard to take over his household’s duties. Meanwhile, you had no idea of your feelings. There was no heartbreak.

Better times.

Words aren’t necessary, not this morning. Jacob helps you saddle your horse and store your belongings in silence. If he notices you stiffening – just barely, mind you, you’re much better at hiding it now – when his fingers brush against yours, he doesn’t say anything.

When everything is finished, you linger for a moment more. It hits you that you’re really leaving the place and the people you’ve called home for so long with no intention of coming back.

Jacob’s eyes are sad but tinged with hope when he finally speaks. “You’ll always be welcome here, you know that, right?”

Your chest tightens. You know he’s asking, one more time, for you to stay.

Last chance to tell him, you think. Last chance to clear the air.

But you’re still a coward.

“I know,” you reply. “But I have to go, Jacob.”

He doesn’t ask you why, not this time.

You wrap him in a hug, one last hug before you set off forever. A piece of your heart shatters when he puts his arms around you, squeezing your body to his in that secure, soft hold that’s just so him. So caring, so sweet, so Jacob.

It takes all of your effort not to cry.

“Safe travels, Y/N,” he says as you swing yourself onto the horse. His eyes sparkle. You know he’s holding back tears, too.

You give him one last smile, imprinting the memory of his voice saying your name in your mind. “Thank you, Jacob.”

When you ride away, you only look back once. Jacob smiles in the distance, hand raised in farewell. A small tear on his cheek barely glints in the morning sunlight.

You wave back.

. . . . .

Travel is liberating, truly – though you loved being a knight, there’s something so free about not wearing armor all the time, not having everyone recognize you as one of the Crown’s Guard. You don’t have to listen to anyone, you don’t have to watch out for constant danger. You don’t have to worry about anyone, now, but yourself.

There’s a little guilt in this pleasure, as well as some unease. It’s strange not to follow the strict routine you’ve held yourself to for over a decade, and it’s even weirder not to have someone you are charged to protect.

Well, you have to protect yourself, you guess. But that just… doesn’t come as naturally.

You eventually force yourself stop thinking about it. Thoughts like these weigh down your mind and take away from the joys of exploration, you firmly remind yourself. So you content yourself with roaming small towns and villages, meeting the people, picking up new skills with which to make a living.

(You never knew you were so bad at cooking, but at least you get better.)

The spirits treat you kindly for the first few years. The money from your work as a knight keeps you afloat as you learn to make a new living (you avoid using the queen’s letter – that would draw attention, and you don’t want any of that now), and when that runs out, you put your newfound abilities to use wherever people care to pay you for them.

It’s not a rich existence. Nothing is certain in this life, not the way it was when you lived in the palace barracks and your basic needs were always met. Here, you can rely only on yourself for food and water and shelter.

But it’s enough. Everywhere you go, you meet new people – rich and poor, rude and kind – and it only enhances your wonder at the world around you. Truly, you think, you lived in a bubble before. Now, even though you’re poorer, you can see everything your eyes glanced over as a knight.

(And if you sometimes miss Jacob’s warm smile, even if it never spoke of love as deep as yours, it doesn’t matter. You’ve made your decision. You won’t go back.)

It isn’t like you’re losing your fighting skills, either. You still have your sword, something you refuse to part with no matter how little money you have. There’s plenty of danger – bandits, thieves, rich boys who think they own the streets – and as such, plenty of opportunities for you to keep your senses sharp.

It’s after one of these fights that you meet the moon child, Changbin. He appears in the dark alley after you’ve knocked the last man out and takes concern with the bleeding wound on your upper arm.

“I’m fine,” you try to tell him as he firmly guides you away from the alley and towards a dark patch of trees. “I’m fine – hey, please let go of me.”

Hearing the urgency in your voice, he drops your arm. Your hand immediately goes to the sword at your hip. “Where are you taking me?” you snap, eyes flickering toward the trees.

He reddens. “I’m so stupid,” he mutters to himself, rubbing his forehead. “I stay in the woods,” he explains. “If you’ll let me take you there, I can help you clean your wound.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “You stay in the woods?” you repeat, incredulous. “Why –”

A breeze shifts his hair away from his ear, revealing a pure white flower dangling from a slim chain, glowing in the moonlight.

A moon child.

Oh.

In all of your years of traveling, you never thought you would truly meet a spirit.

“My Lord,” you say, dropping hastily to your knees. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you earlier.”

“Please, none of that.” The moon child tugs you back up, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m just a moon child, none of the ‘my Lord’ stuff. My name is Changbin.”

Changbin doesn’t turn out to be a bandit masquerading as a moon child, thankfully, so you allow him to clean your wound in his makeshift hut in the middle of the trees. He introduces himself fully as a wanderer. Not a traveler, he clarifies, because travelers roam the world for pleasure. He does it out of necessity.

(The look of desolation in his eyes convinces you not to ask.)

He becomes your companion for months, nearly a year, walking with you from city to city until he decides to part ways in a small village near a forest. By that time, you’re sad to see him go – he’s been a wonderful friend – but like Jacob never asked the reason for your departure, you honor Changbin’s desire for silence.

He does leave you with one piece of advice, “traveler’s wisdom,” he calls it (you punch him in the arm when he says that in this high, haughty voice). “Villagers will tell you that these woods are dangerous,” he says once the two of you have calmed down. “They’ll say it’s haunted by spirits. And there is danger, it’s true, but there is also safety.”

You listen carefully.

“In the heart of the woods, there is a shrine. If ever you find yourself lost or in trouble, go into the forest at the break of dawn and find the shrine. The priestesses will take you in. If you can’t find the shrine by dark, though, leave as fast as you can.” The seriousness in Changbin’s eyes tells you he isn’t joking this time. “The forest isn’t nearly as dangerous during the day as it is during the night.”

So you travel for another year, keeping Changbin’s words in the back of your mind. As you continue, though, money begins to get scarce. These villagers are more suspicious than others you’ve met and aren’t as quick to hire a newcomer, especially one so poor but who bears such a sword (you’ll never sell it, not ever). Their suspicion is understandable, but it doesn’t make anything better for you.

You’re lost, now. You sold your horse and fine clothes a long time ago, leaving you with nothing from your old life but your memories and your sword. You’ve become a wanderer, not a traveler – forced to roam for no reason other than you must.

Several times, you mull over returning to the Guard. Jacob said he would welcome you back, and the thought of a full stomach and a place to sleep almost make up your mind on the worst nights.

But even though you want to see Jacob again, want to remember his warmth and kindness, a green snake twists its way around your heart, sliding up your throat every time you think of going back to him. He’ll never accept you, not truly, the snake hisses. He’ll never love you the way you love him.

And try as you might, you can’t stomach the thought of facing him again, not when you made the choice to leave.

So you remain a coward, a blind, stupid, stubborn coward. Instead of going to a place you know, a place where you would find care and acceptance, you throw your lot into Changbin’s advice.

You decide to find the shrine.

. . .

You’re on your last coins when you finally make it back to the village where you and Changbin parted ways. As dawn breaks, you take a breath, summoning your last strength, and head between the trees.

It’s eerie, a bit, but so beautiful. As the sun rises, the sky turns a beautiful shade of blue that melds with the trees’ greenery. It almost distracts you from the fact that you legitimately have zero idea where you’re going – Changbin only told you the shrine was at the heart of the forest, nothing else. You’ve been marking your path with stones you picked up along the way, but something tells you that won’t help much if you’re being chased by… an evil spirit. Or something.

(It’s embarrassing and slightly scary to say it, but you don’t think you have the strength anymore to outrun such a spirit, much less fight one.)

Luck seems to finally be on your side, though, because after exhaustedly pushing through a crowd of bushes, you come face to face with a beautiful shrine, surrounded by wild gardens and small stone buildings.

Several young men and women – a few barely older than children – look up at the rustling of leaves. For a few moments, they stare at your undoubtedly grimy, gross face. You only stare back.

It feels like an eternity has passed before one of the young women stands and walks up, a gentle smile on her face. “Hello, traveler.”

“Hello,” you manage, voice croaking with disuse. You clear your throat, face hot. “I’m sorry for intruding. I just… I met… I don’t know if you know him, but I met a moon – a man named Changbin –”

“You met Changbin?” Her eyes take on a new intensity and a sliver of joy.

“Um, yes.” You try to smile. “He told me if I was lost and needed a place to stay, I could try to find the shrine.” Looking down at your dirty hands, you bite your lip in shame. “I’m sorry. I can leave if you want, I’ve just… I don’t have a place to stay. I can cook, clean, anything you need help with. And, um…” You hold out the remaining coins in your pocket. “I have these?”

A rough hand closes your fingers over the money. “Keep your coins, traveler.” The woman smiles widely. “Changbin would only tell a true friend about the shrine, and a friend of Changbin’s is always a friend of ours.”

As she leads you into the shrine, the only thing you feel is guilty, overwhelming, crushing relief. Relief that you won’t have to face Jacob once more. Relief that you won’t have to face your heart once more.

The mere thought of your cowardice makes you cringe.

. . .

The shrine, you learn, is a very busy place. You wake up pretty early the next day, unused to the fact that you have an actual futon now and not just the ground, but already the other two girls in the room are getting dressed. Feeling distinctly out of place, you start to follow suit.

“Oh, you don’t need to get up just yet!” One of them smiles. “You’re a guest, traveler. Take some time to rest.”

“No, it’s all right.” You smile back, hoping it isn’t as awkward as it feels. “I’ve never been able to sleep too late, and I don’t feel right intruding on your hospitality without giving something back in return. Is there anything I can help with?”

So you find yourself in the garden after breakfast, sweating under the sun with a boy around your age named Kevin. He’s cheerful. Very fun company. Somehow, he makes the monotonous task of pulling weeds enjoyable, even takes your mind off of how out of place you feel in this quaint shrine.

Walking back into the shrine after spending the day in the garden, you wave off Kevin’s offer to bring you dinner, telling him you’re going to take a shower instead. But because you’re an idiot, you forget the fact that you have no idea where the showers are.

Kevin’s already walking away, and you honestly feel too embarrassed to call after him and ask. So, ignoring the curious stares you’re garnering from the other girls and boys, you start walking in an arbitrary direction.

It’s a mistake. As the sun sets, you feel like you’ve wandered the grounds at least four times, but you can’t even find a semblance of a shower room in the whole shrine. You’re about to give up when the priestess who welcomed you walks out of a nearby building, followed by a young man with curly blond hair.

You really don’t mean to catch his eye. In fact, you’re drawing away, about to walk in the other direction, when he looks up and fixes your gaze with his. His eyes narrow.

You suddenly feel very uncomfortable.

The priestess – what was her name? Priestess Yang? You think that’s it – turns around and sees you there, immediately breaking into a gentle smile. “Oh, hello, Y/N!”

Sheepishly, you wave. “Hello, Priestess.”

“You welcomed the sword-bearer?” the man interrupts.

What?

You’re not even carrying your sword. You left it back in the room, thinking it might be viewed as a threat if you brought it around. And you’ve never seen this man in your life. So how does he know that about you?

The priestess gives him a scolding look. “Chan, the shrine welcomes those who are lost.”

“But a sword-bearer?” he – Chan – argues. “You do remember what kinds of damage they cause?”

Indignation rises in your chest. He doesn’t even know you, and he’s already making assumptions? “Hey –”

“Changbin told her to find us if she was lost,” Priestess Yang cuts in smoothly. “If Changbin can trust this sword-bearer, I’m sure you can find it in yourself to do so too, Chan.”

Chan just looks at you with undisguised suspicion in his eyes. You glare back. How dare he assume such things about your character?

“Were you looking for someone, Y/N?” Priestess Yang asks, pulling you out of your annoyance.

“Well, no.” The sheepish smile finds its way back to your face. “I was, um, looking for the showers.”

“Oh, they’re just over there! I’ll show you the way.” She pats Chan’s shoulder. “I’ll see you, Chan.”

Chan smiles briefly, then disappears into the air, leaving behind the faintest scent of grass and springtime.

The priestess laughs at the shocked look on your face. “Chan is our forest guardian,” she explains, leading you onto a dirt path. “He helps keep us safe.”

Uneasiness crawls up your spine. “Is that how he knew I had a sword?”

“Yes.” She nods. “He sees everything, knows of all those who travel the forest. It’s part of his Sight.”

A ripple of annoyance passes through your mind.

All that sight, and he couldn’t help me once? you grumble internally. Thanks a lot, guardian.

Suffice to say, even though Priestess Yang encourages you to have an open mind, your opinion of Chan isn’t the highest.

. . .

The discomfort of being the “new traveler” at the shrine stays for a week or so. By then, most of the residents are more or less used to your presence (you just ignore Chan whenever he gives you one of his suspicious looks), and you’ve carved out a small niche for yourself, taking care of the shrine children.

There are more than you expected, surprisingly. You would’ve thought the shrine was primarily made up of older teens, if anything, who could find their way here. When you mention this to Kevin, he gets a faraway look in his eye. “The shrine opens its arms to the lost,” he says in reply. “It makes itself easier to find for children, because they often can’t journey here themselves.”

“Abusive families?”

Kevin bites his lip. “Yes.”

This knowledge only makes you want to protect them more.

As much as you enjoy talking with Kevin in the garden, it’s so much easier to work with the shrine children, you find. They’re sweet and kind, if rambunctious, and you make it your duty to keep them occupied and safe while the older kids and priestesses work.

“Y/N, Y/N!” One of the older children, Yuna, comes running up one afternoon. “Priestess Jeon said you could take us into the forest for a walk!”

“Who else?” you ask. “Not just you, right?”

“Chaeryeong, Sunwoo, and Eric want to come too.” She looks at you with wide, pleading eyes. “Please?”

Your eyebrows furrow as you weigh the merits and dangers of a walk. It’s going to get dark in a few hours, so you can’t stay out long, but if one of the head priestesses agreed, it couldn’t be too bad of an idea. The kids aren’t too young, either. They’ll listen if something goes wrong.

“If you get one of the messenger boys to come, we can go,” you eventually decide. If something happens, at least you’ll be able to send someone off to get help quickly. Just in case, though, you strap your sword to your side.

Juyeon meets you with the four kids at the shrine’s entrance. Your heart sinks a little – you hoped Yuna would find Kevin – but Juyeon is pleasant enough. He returns the smile you flash at him, anyway.

The walk is uneventful, for the most part. Eric and Yuna pepper you with questions about your work as a knight while Sunwoo and Chaeryeong listen in rapture. Really, it hurts a little to talk about your life in years past, but for the kids, you’ll do it. The smiles on their faces are worth it.

When you start walking back to the shrine, though, the air changes. It doesn’t ripple right – the wind feels strange, somehow evil. Juyeon clearly feels it too, from the way his eyes are darting around the trees. With an unspoken agreement, you begin herding the kids along faster.

There’s barely a change in the wind when the thing – whatever it is – swoops down. Only the blur of a wing in the side of your vision alerts you and you shout, pushing Eric out of the owl’s range and drawing your sword.

“What the fuck is that?” you snap, brandishing your blade.

Juyeon’s face is white as he gathers the children. “Screech owl!”

“Screech owl?”

Then the thing – screech owl, you guess – dives down again, and there’s no time to talk.

“Juyeon!” you yell. “Get them out of here!”

He doesn’t argue, just herds the children together and races away. Smart boy.

You’ve never fought an opponent in the air before. It isn’t fun. The owl is fast, too fast, almost like a damn mosquito racing through the air as you try to squash it, only a million times bigger and fiercer.

Your sword slashes through the air as you duck and twist and hide behind trees, feathers fluttering to the grass all around you. Awful shrieks ring through the air and you honestly can’t tell if it’s you or the bird – all of your senses are jumbled up.

Adrenaline courses through your veins even as the sun sets further, washing the forest in pale evening light. The bird seems to take delight in the onset of night – it swoops faster, hoots louder, and is in general just a much bigger asshole than before (if that was possible).

“ARGH!” A claw slices the top of your shoulder. If I had my armor…

But you don’t, so you duck behind another tree. Think, Y/N, think, you tell yourself as you heave deep breaths. Wait, no, don’t think. Thinking gets you killed.

Just listen.

The air is still. You don’t move a muscle.

Then –

The faintest brush of wind on your left.

Your sword cuts through meat and bone, and the owl falls, dead, at your feet.

For a moment, you just stand there, gasping, staring at the blood dripping off your blade and pooling from the owl’s body.

Gross.

“Thank you.”

For not the first time that afternoon, you let out a deathly screech and leap away. Clapping a hand over your heart, you glare at the newcomer.

“… Chan?”

“That’s my name.” The forest guardian raises an eyebrow, looking faintly amused. “Thank you for killing the owl.”

You just look at him, eyebrows fully wrinkled in annoyance and confusion. “If you wanted the owl dead, why didn’t you kill it yourself? You’re the forest guardian, surely you have the power to do that much.”

“I can’t kill things just because I want to,” Chan replies. It should sound antagonistic, you think, but the look in his eyes is softer than he’s ever looked at you. Appreciative, maybe? “It would upset the forest’s balance if its guardian killed one of those who live in its domain. I can only defend the forest against those that mean it deadly harm, not those that are merely dangerous.”

Wiping your sword on the edge of your tunic, you mull that over. “But if the screech owl was too dangerous, wouldn’t that upset the balance of the forest in the end anyway?”

“We weren’t at that point yet.” Chan raises a shoulder in a half shrug. “But you killed it, so we’ll never know if that would’ve happened.”

“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.”

He laughs. It’s a surprisingly cheerful sound – you thought it might sound like, you don’t know, someone croaking (look, you never had the greatest opinion of Chan until this point, and that’s still in the air). “I don’t think it is,” he finally says. “And I’m sorry. I was wrong about you being like all of the other sword-bearers who came to this forest. You clearly care for the shrine children.”

An apology. That’s something. Grudgingly, you force yourself to see Chan in a better light. “Apology accepted.”

For a few seconds, you just stand there, feeling the air turn more awkward by the second. “Um –”

“Do you need the way back?” Chan interrupts, a knowing glint in his eye.

By all the spirits, why did you have to meet him when you were lost at the shrine? Now he thinks you’re bad with directions, which you swear you’re really not, you just hadn’t been at the shrine long enough to figure it out.

Embarrassment creeps up your skin as Chan’s smirk grows. “… Yes.”

(And, okay, the forest guardian is a little infuriating and you find yourself wanting to hit him several times on the way back. But really, he isn’t that bad. Though you’d rather die than let him know you think that of him.)

. . .

Chan comes back the next day. You don’t expect him there, especially because he never visits the shrine more than one day in a row, but he surprises you with a smile and the offer of a walk.

“This isn’t your plan for killing a sword-bearer without anyone finding out, is it?” you ask, raising a nonplussed eyebrow as you follow the guardian out of the shrine. You’re not sure why, but it’s so easy to fall into banter with Chan the way you used to joke around with the other knights in the Guard.

Chan snorts. “As a centuries-old guardian of the forest, wouldn’t you think I’d have a little more wisdom than to kill you after several people at the shrine witnessed you leaving with me?”

You very visibly keep a hand on your sword just in case.

“So why did you invite me on a walk?” you ask after several moments. Chan’s bare feet are silent against the grass, but your boots make slightly louder thumps as you step over stones and fallen branches. “I know it wasn’t because of my scintillating personality.”

He stops walking. “I’ve heard you used to be a knight,” he says bluntly. “I wanted to know what kind of sword-bearer you were to leave such a prestigious position and even befriend Changbin, of all people.”

“What’s wrong with befriending Changbin?” you ask, desperately dodging the first part of Chan’s implied questions. “You make it sound like he hates… sword-bearers. He literally dragged me away after I beat up a bunch of men in an alley with my sword so he could clean the one wound I got on my shoulder.”

“Ah. That explains it.” Chan nods. “He saw you do good things with your blade.”

“… Yes?”

“Sword-bearers killed the girl he loved,” Chan explains. “Well, archers, really, but swords were involved.”

You swallow. That explains his wandering tendencies. “Oh. Who sent them?”

“The king of Adment.”

The title brings a scowl to your face. “Oh, him.” You spit. “That would explain it.”

Chan looks at you curiously. “You hold a grudge towards him as well?”

“He was never the friendliest to my kingdom,” is your brief reply before diverting the topic again. “So, is that also the reason you hate sword-bearers in your forest?”

“Whenever sword-bearers trespass, they almost always bring destruction.” Chan’s face turns hard. “I’ve learned not to take chances.”

The ages-old anger in his eyes speaks of a wisdom far older than the youthful form Chan takes. You narrow your eyes. “How old are you, exactly? You said centuries, but how many?”

He smirks, though there’s something weary in his gaze. “I’ve been alive for over a millennium.”

“What?”

“I can tell you more about that another day,” he says, teasing. You want to complain that he can’t leave you on a cliffhanger like that, but the sun is beginning to set, and you have things to do at the shrine. “Do you need an escort?”

You resist the urge to punch him, forest guardian or no. “I’m not that bad with directions,” you grouse. “You just caught me on a bad day. I can find my way back.”

He walks you back to the shrine anyway. And day by day, after every conversation you have, he walks you back as well.

Kevin, when you meet him in the garden, remarks that you seem more cheerful after a few weeks. “You look like you’re anticipating something exciting,” he clarifies when you only dignify him with a confused glance. His lips curl into a smirk. “Something about Chan?”

Kevin probably expects you to hit him or roll your eyes, maybe say something snappy in response. Instead, your face only drops as the meaning of his words hits you.

Do you feel something for Chan?

Well, you love to hear about his life. There are some really exciting stories he’s had after living so long. He’s also pleasant to hang around, and you enjoy talking to him.

It’s just curiosity, nothing romantic, you tell yourself. There’s no attraction. Just a slight friendship, maybe. Nothing more.

Nothing like what you felt for Jacob.

“Y/N – hey, Y/N!”

You blink to see Kevin staring at you in concern. “Are you all right? You zoned out for a minute.”

No, definitely nothing like Jacob. You try to smile at Kevin, pushing thoughts of blond hair and kind eyes out of your mind. That’s stupid – you would never let yourself be swayed so badly again. “I’m fine,” you say, hoping you’re telling the truth. “Let’s go get dinner, yeah?”

. . .

As the weeks pass, you begin to wonder just how much was truthful in what Kevin said.

Walks with Chan have become a regular occurrence, now. When he shows up at the shrine entrance every other afternoon, someone immediately calls for you.

And the worst thing is, you feel excited when you hear your name being called, when you’re with the children or scrubbing dishes or working in the garden. Everyone around gives you a knowing glance and maybe a teasing smile as you rush to see the forest guardian.

One part of you wants it. You want to be able to freely enjoy these walks, feeling the soft earth beneath your boots as you listen to Chan speak. The forest itself is interesting – he shows you the overgrown faerie ring, the water nymph’s pond and the accompanying willow tree – but you think his stories are even more intriguing. You like hearing Chan’s voice. You think you’d like to keep hearing it.

The other part of you doesn’t want this, though, doesn’t want the budding warmth that you feel with the forest guardian, even as the months begin to grow colder. It’s not that it doesn’t feel nice – in fact, this is precisely because it does feel nice. Too nice. You’re starting to feel a stirring in your heart that reminds you of how you felt for Jacob. Though it’s small, very small, it’s there – you can recognize it from the years of heartache you spent watching Jacob fall in love with someone else.

You don’t want that again with Chan.

It shames you to want to run away again, to run away from a place that has provided you with so much comfort in the months past. You love the children, truly, and the friends you’ve made are wonderful. You’ve even started giving Juyeon lessons with your sword. But what other course of action is there? There’s no reason a forest guardian with so many centuries of wisdom would fall for a young, naïve human like you. Here, a love story is even more impossible than one with Jacob.

The decision curdles in your stomach, fills your throat with bitter, hot shame, but it’s necessary, you tell yourself. Better to cut everything off right now, before your emotions grow out of control.

You’re not that important to the shrine, really. You’ve only been there a few months. They’ll survive without you.

You just can’t go through the pain you felt with Jacob ever again.

. . .

You debate avoiding Chan. If he were human, you might actually have chosen that path. But just like you couldn’t avoid Jacob when you fell in love – you were too close, he definitely would’ve noticed – you can’t avoid Chan. He’s the forest’s guardian – he’ll know you’re purposely trying not to be found.

So you decide to cut things off on one of your walks. It feels so simple in your mind – get away from the shrine, then tell him you’re leaving. He won’t care, you tell yourself. It won’t matter to him. And as much as the thought hurts, it’s the better option.

It should be easy, really. Chan gives you the perfect opening – “Why do you look so sad today?” he asks, stopping you by Hyunjin’s pond. The nymph himself doesn’t appear, which you’re very thankful for.

Well, no time like the present. You steel yourself. “I’m going to leave the shrine.”

Chan’s face switches expressions several times within seconds. You watch, feeling a sick sense of dread and relief pooling in your stomach. It’s out there. You’ve said it.

But spirits, why does he look so upset? So angry?

Like you mean something to him?

“Why?” he finally asks.

“Well,” you stammer, his unprecedented reaction sending all of the rehearsed words flying out of your mind, “I – I’ve overstayed my welcome, haven’t I? I’ve been here for months already, and I’ve used the shrine’s hospitality long enough.” His incredulous expression sparks indignation in your chest. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you realize how much you do for the shrine?” he snaps. His footsteps, usually so silent, pound on the earth as he steps up to you. “You think you’ve overstayed your welcome – do you know how much I – how much the shrine needs you now?”

How much I?

How much I need you?

How much Chan needs me?

Slip of the tongue. You shake your head, trying your best to ignore it. “All I do is help with the children, work with Kevin in the garden! Chan, I’m easily replaceable – I’m just a poor traveler who was fortunate enough to find the shrine! I’m lucky that you’ve all been so welcoming, but really, it’s time for me to move on.”

“And what about the children? Your friends?” He crosses his arms. “What about me?”

“They’ll live!” you snap. “And what do you mean, what about you?”

Chan growls under his breath. “Are you really trying to say that I mean nothing to you?”

His words hit you like a punch in the gut, like that time Jacob accidentally rammed you in the stomach with the pommel of a sword.

So… not a slip of the tongue.

“Why does it matter that you mean something to me when I don’t mean anything to you?” you finally say.

“And here I thought you were smart,” Chan snaps.

Anger flares in your chest. “I’m serious, Chan! Why would I ever think I meant something to you?” You gesture wildly at the expanse of trees surrounding you. “You’re a millennia-old guardian of a forest of magic. I’m a human who ended up here out of luck. Why, even if I ever felt anything for you, would you feel anything for me? What have I done to merit your attention?”

Chan’s eyes soften slightly. “So many things.”

Taken aback, you flail for words. “Elaborate.”

“You’re a sword-bearer. A kind sword-bearer. A sword-bearer Changbin trusts, enough to divulge his name and travel with for almost a year. A sword-bearer he believed was pure enough of heart to find the shrine – and don’t stop me there, if he hadn’t thought you would be able to find it, he wouldn’t have told you of its existence.” Chan stares at you with that same soft look, that soft look that pierces your heart and makes you feel guilty, so guilty, because you’re not as good, not as kind, not as pure as he thinks you are. “You carved your place in the shrine the first day you spent there. Without anyone asking, you took care of the children and helped Kevin in the garden. You did everything you could to give the children a bit of the love they never might’ve experienced otherwise and protected them from a threat you knew nothing of, something that could have torn you to pieces if you weren’t as trained as you were. You –”

“Stop.”

Chan looks at you, confused. “What –”

“I’m not – I’m not even near the brave person you’re describing,” you snap, tears starting to well in your eyes. “Stop talking about me like I’m some – some spirits-damned martyr, or something –”

“But –”

“And even if I was this, this noble and amazing person you think I am,” you interrupt, tears fighting to slip past your eyes, “how many other men and women at the shrine are the same? Kind, gentle, whatever you want to use to describe me? I’m not special, Chan. I’ve never been.”

Jacob didn’t think you were, at least.

“Y/N, why – just – did you not hear anything I just said about you?” Chan tries to take your hand, but you shy away, pretending the hurt in his eyes doesn’t send knives into your chest. “You earned the trust of a moon child haunted by those who carry blades in a matter of months. Those at the shrine took years to gain his full acceptance. You proved me wrong about sword-bearers. You showed me you were fearless, brave, kind – you are special, Y/N,” he insists, forcing you to meet his eyes. “You’ve shown me that, shown me so much –”

“Stop.”

Your chest is heaving, the tears have spilled out, and you��re fighting for breath. It hurts, it hurts so much that Chan thinks this much of you, but all you are is a coward running away your feelings. “You don’t know,” you gasp, “you don’t know what kind of a person I am. I’m not what you see. How can you –” you angrily brush a tear away – “how can you not see that?”

“Then tell me,” Chan says. “Tell me why you’re so different. Convince me.”

You don’t want to. You don’t want to convince him, you want him to always have that beautiful image of you in his mind – a brave, gentle knight dedicated to protecting those who cannot defend themselves. But he deserves the truth.

And the truth is that you are a coward.

“I left my kingdom because I was in love with my best friend,” you spit. “He married the queen, and I couldn’t do anything but watch. I left because I couldn’t stand to see them so happy together, knowing I would only be on the sidelines of their love for the rest of my life. I left because I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how I felt, couldn’t bring myself to clear the air. I left because I wanted to run away instead of facing my problems, Chan! And even when I knew Jacob would always welcome me back with open arms, even during my darkest moments, I still chose to run away! I chose to find the shrine instead of letting my feelings go and reconciling with my friend. I chose to find the shrine and run away a second time because I couldn’t stand to face him again when I was the one who chose to leave.” A choked sob escapes your lips. “And now I’m running away again, because I thought you could never care for me in the way I’m beginning to care for you. Only you apparently do, but I can’t just stay here and let you love this perfect, noble character who doesn’t exist.”

Silence fills the air. Surely the birds are chirping, the leaves rustling, but you can’t hear anything over the pathetic sounds of you trying to control your tears.

“So now you know,” you croak. “You know the truth behind the coward this knight really is.”

You can’t even meet Chan’s eyes.

“You’re right,” Chan finally says. “For a knight, you’re an awful coward.”

His words stab you in the chest.

“Courage doesn’t constitute running away.”

You can feel the blood dripping out of your heart.

“It means facing your challenges head on, doing what you must.”

You clench your teeth, resolutely looking down at your feet. It’s the truth, you tell yourself. It doesn’t matter if it hurts. It’s the truth.

Then Chan’s trousers enter your vision. You stiffen, ready to back away, but Chan’s already tilting your chin up with one gentle finger so that you’re staring into his eyes. “But you’re brave, Y/N,” he murmurs. “You’re brave when it comes to protecting others, defending the innocent from those who would bring harm.” A small smile curves his lips. “You’re just not too good at protecting yourself.”

You burst into tears. And this time, when Chan presses you into his chest, letting you inhale his woodsy smell of fresh grass and sunlight, you don’t pull away.

. . .

“You don’t have to run away from attachment,” Chan tells you on the walk back to the shrine. “You don’t have to run away from familiarity, from caring about people. We care about you, truly. The children would be heartbroken if you left. So would Kevin and Juyeon and everyone else.” He gives you a gentle smile. “I would be, too.”

Keeping his words in mind, you put away your thoughts of leaving the shrine and try to open your eyes to how much people actually enjoy your presence. Some days, when the self-loathing rises and you don’t want to do anything but run away, it’s hard.

But Chan always finds you, if not the same day, then the day after. He takes you into the woods and tells stories until your sides ache from laughter and the sparkle – or so he tells you – is back in your eyes. With his slow, careful help, you begin to see the small, but visible effects you have on the shrine.

Eric’s and Chaeryeong’s eyes light up when you walk into the room. Sunwoo and Yuna fight for your attention. Juyeon’s calm face breaks into a smile when you show up for his daily swordplay practice, and Kevin laughs with abandon when you crack jokes in the garden. They’re small things, but you realize that leaving the shrine would’ve caused a lot more damage – to you and to them – that you didn’t realize before.

So you cement your place in the shrine, throwing yourself into the daily life of the place you’ve tentatively begun to think of as something deeper than a mere shelter. Juyeon’s interest in swordplay gives you the idea to begin training some of the girls and boys in defense. The priestesses agree after a little convincing – after all, you argue, even if the shrine isn’t threatened very often, dangers like the screech owl crop up every now and then. And if anyone decides to leave the shrine in the future and make their own life, defense could be a very useful skill.

Chan embraces your idea with more warmth than you’d imagine, given his aversion to sword-bearers. When you ask him about it, he just gives you that teasing smile that infuriates and calms you. “I trust you, don’t I?” His smile turns gentler. “You’re a good, brave sword-bearer. I think you’ll be able to keep your pupils from going… astray.”

You certainly do your best. Over several years of training, you watch Juyeon, Kevin, Yeji, and Lia grow into formidable opponents. Sunwoo takes more of an interest in archery after you fashion him a crude bow and arrow, practicing with the (kind of terrible) weapons until you buy him proper set in town.

Life goes on, and it goes well. Shrine life is peaceful as new residents enter – the newest resident, Haknyeon, is adorable – and you grow into yourself as the months go by. Chan never presses his feelings, only treats you the same way he always did until you’re ready to accept his care.

“Are you sure?” he asks when you tell him, eyes sparkling with hope and love and uncertainty all at once.

Your heart blossoms with love for the forest guardian. “Yes.” You smile. “I think I love myself enough to allow you to love me too.”

His lips taste like spring, like golden sunlight filtered through verdant leaves. Pressed against his chest, you feel safe, delicate in the touch of his fingers splayed gently across your back, strong in the warmth of his arms around your waist.

Oh, Chan makes you feel loved, loved in a way that slowly erases the self-loathing you’ve carried for so long, in a way that makes you feel brave enough to remain standing with each passing day. And even though you’ve still got a long way to go, you take comfort in the knowledge that Chan, your forest guardian, will always be there for you.

. . . . .

News doesn’t come often to the small village just outside the forest, so when there’s gossip that doesn’t pertain to the whereabouts about one villager or another, it’s worth listening to. This time, it’s a kingdom at war with another.

“Which kingdoms?” you ask idly, examining an apple.

“One is Adment,” the shopkeeper replies. You snort, a sentiment he laughs with. “Which was the other, honey?” he yells to his wife in the back of the stall.

“Was it Callia?” she yells back.

You don’t laugh when the apple drops from your hand.

Trying not to visibly show your distress, you wave off the shopkeeper’s worry at your expression and hurry to finish the shopping. To your luck, when you make it back to the shrine, Chan is already there, conversing with one of the priestesses.

“Y/N!” His smile drops slightly when he takes in your expression. The priestess quietly excuses herself. “Did something happen?”

“Callia – Callia is at war with Adment.” You swallow hard, trying to steady your voice. “Jacob’s kingdom. At war with the one that killed Changbin’s love.”

Chan’s face turns hard. “I see.”

“I – I feel like I need to do something.” You gaze at him, begging him to understand everything you can’t put into words. “Chan, I feel like I have to go back and help, somehow.”

Chan’s eyes are gentle but unreadable as he grasps your hand firmly in his. “You should do what you think is right,” he says quietly.

What I think is right.

What do I think is right?

Your mind races with panic, but one thought emerges, crystal clear in certainty.

“Yes,” you whisper, more to yourself than Chan. “I’ll do what is right.”

. . .

The priestesses give you their blessing to return to the kingdom you used to call home. Juyeon, Kevin, Lia, and Sunwoo volunteer to come with you as well, even though you try to dissuade them repeatedly with how dangerous it’ll be. They could die, you stress – this is war, after all. But they insist.

You put off saying goodbye to Chan until the day before you leave. He’s the one who finds you, actually – he has something to say, apparently, before you go.

It feels so strange, walking with Chan through the forest with the knowledge that you may never come back. It’s not like you’re a stranger to the evils of war – every time you rode into battle as a knight, you knew there was a high likelihood that you would die.

But it’s different, now. Jacob and your fellow Guards knew the risks of war – you were all seasoned fighters, trained in tactics and stealth and strategy. Here, you only have a very small group of fighters – reasonably good for the amount of training they’ve had, but lacking in true experience. They won’t understand the true horror of battle until they’ve experienced it themselves.

There’s something else, too. You’re leaving behind someone you love for the first time, someone who cannot come and fight by your side.

“Can I go first?” you ask, stopping by Hyunjin’s pond. You want to see the still waters one more time before you leave.

Chan nods. “Of course.”

“I…” You look down, mustering your courage. “I wanted to tell you that I love you.”

For a moment, there’s just silence. Then a sudden flush spreads across Chan’s cheeks.

It bolsters your confidence. “I know I don’t say it often,” you continue, enjoying the shyness on your guardian’s face, “but I really do. I wanted you to know that I’m not going off to help Jacob’s kingdom because I love him the way I used to, but because I still care about him as a friend.” You gaze into Chan’s clear eyes. “I love you very much, and I wanted to tell you that before I left.”

He presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I never thought you were going to war out of romantic love for Jacob,” he says quietly. “You don’t need to worry about that, ever. I trust you.”

Your heart explodes with warmth. “So what is it that you had to tell me?”

“I never told you how forest guardians are chosen, did I?” Chan asks.

You shake your head. “No.”

“Well, sit down, and I’ll tell you now.” He smiles. “It’s a long story.”

Chan tells you of his first life as an oread, a mountain spirit settled in the craggy cliffs not too far from the forest. He tells you of the last guardian before him, a teasing fae named Jaebum.

“A fae?” you interrupt. “Isn’t that… not a good idea?” As lovely as Han and his lady are – you’ve met them several times by now – you wouldn’t exactly call him a suitable guardian. You’d say the same and more for his more sinister counterparts.

“Jaebum was different,” Chan says. “He cared deeply for the forest. After the two centuries I knew him, he found someone to love, to grow old with over time. He asked me to be forest guardian after he died.”

“So the current forest guardian chooses the next when they feel their time is over?” you clarify.

Chan nods, gazing into your eyes. “Yes.”

And all of a sudden, you understand.

“Chan, you –” You have to clear away the emotion rising in your throat. “You want to pass on the guardianship for me? To whom?”

“I’ve spoken to Changbin.” Chan smiles. “He was very receptive to the idea.”

“But – Chan, for me?” The old uncertainty starts to plague your mind. “Chan, I’m just… I’m just me.”

“Exactly.” Chan takes your hands in his. “You’re you. And I want to grow old with you. Live life with you. Don’t try to argue with me – this is something I know I want.”

You can’t even speak through the tears running down your face. “Chan –”

“Come here.” He wraps you in his warm arms. “I love you, Y/N. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

For how long you stay there, crying into Chan’s embrace, you don’t know. By the time you’re coherent enough to pull back, it feels like it’s been an eternity.

“So now you have to come back.” Chan smiles, though you can see a glimmer of fear, of uncertainty in his gaze. “You have to stay safe and come back for me, all right?”

“Yeah.” Hyunjin suddenly appears from the pond and you literally shriek, toppling backwards onto the grass. “You have to come back to Chan, or he’ll mope around for millennia and send the forest into ruin.” The nymph smirks, though you can see real concern hidden in his eyes.

“Like you moped for centuries over your cloud nymph?” Chan retorts, lips curved in an exasperated smile.

Hyunjin sniffs. “Details,” he says haughtily, already sinking back into his pool. He sends you a glance, though, that’s full of meaning.

You must come back. Don’t leave Chan waiting.

You make a silent promise that you won’t.

. . .

The next day, your cohort wakes up early. After yawning through a quick breakfast, you quickly gather your belongings and meet up at the front of the shrine. Several of the priestesses cluck over you like mother hens checking on their chicks, and you dutifully take their warnings and cautions with as light a smile as you can muster.

Chan shows up just as you’re about to go. The others thankfully leave you two alone for a bit (though you scowl at Kevin’s smirk and Lia’s whistle).

You don’t talk much, just stay wrapped in each other’s arms for several minutes. Eventually, though, dawn breaks. It’s time to leave.

“Be brave,” Chan whispers as you pull away.

You smile. “I’ll come back.”

With one last kiss that tastes of spring greenery, you leave the shrine. When you look back, Chan’s already disappeared.

. . .

It’s a long two years spent away from the shrine. The pace is difficult on your friends, who have only known the shrine as a home for so many years. For you, it’s a bit easier – you’ve been a traveler for a good few years, and it doesn’t take too long to settle back into the wanderer’s mindset, moving around, never staying in one place too long.

But they don’t complain. They’re strong, resilient, and resourceful – more so, really, than some of the knights you knew on the Guard. With their help, you launch quiet strikes at the border of Adment and Callia, taking down Adment’s forces small legion by small legion. Your group becomes known for your silent ambushes, though you take care to keep your identities hidden.

It’s like being a knight again on a smaller scale – planning attacks and carrying them out, knowing that you might lose your life or your friends along the way. It isn’t entirely unwelcome. Fighting still gives you that adrenaline rush, that grim, satisfying knowledge that you’re doing something to protect the people you love.

At the same time, though, it isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be. This life of fighting battles isn’t for you anymore. Yes, you will fight to defend, but you’ve found other ways to protect your loved ones, too.

It just cements the fact that you don’t think you’ll ever come back to Callia to stay.

Finally, Adment surrenders. You’re glad, truly – you’re ready to return to the shrine, as are your friends. As you begin the trek back through some of the rural villages, though, a few posters catch your eye. They spell out a request for the unknown border attackers to come forth to the palace and be honored for their aid in the war.

They know your story, Lia, Juyeon, Kevin, Sunwoo. It was only fair that you told them – how could you lead them to possible death without knowing why you came in the first place, why this was so important to you?

So you ask them. “Do you want to reveal yourselves?”

“I don’t think it’s a question of us,” Juyeon says quietly. “It’s about you.”

“Yes,” Lia echoes. “We’ll follow you, whatever you decide.”

Their trust still astounds you, even after so many years spent trying to dilute the self-loathing that used to plague your brain. “Give me a day to think,” you eventually say. “If you say you’ll follow me, I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

You stay up all night, debating. Your friends have already spent so long away from their home, fighting a war on your behalf. Is it worth it to take the extra few weeks spent traveling to and from the palace? Would it be fair to ask them to journey with you for even longer?

No, Y/N. You shake your head. They asked you to decide, which means they want a decision based on your feelings, on your desires. They’re kind enough to know that this must be your choice to make.

You sigh, leaning back against a sturdy tree. Why are you so hesitant about seeing Jacob again, anyway? You don’t love him anymore, not the way you used to. It doesn’t hurt you as much to think of him. Spirits, you even came all this way to help him in a war you weren’t even involved in.

Maybe you’re afraid that you’ll fall in love with him again, a tiny voice in your head suggests. Maybe you’re afraid that you’ll want to stay.

Oh.

That’s probably it.

Pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes, you sigh again. You love Chan. You love the shrine. You’ve realized that fighting battles as a knight isn’t the way you want to spend the rest of your life. But you’re still afraid that seeing Jacob again will awaken feelings for him once more.

Wait. You sit up, frowning into the darkness. For your feelings to awaken, they would still have to exist.

You don’t love Jacob anymore. The thought of him doesn’t make your heart thump anymore, doesn’t choke your throat with emotions anymore.

Logically, rationally, seeing him again wouldn’t hurt the way it used to.

But love isn’t rational, the oh-so-helpful part of your mind pipes up.

You scowl. Stop making this decision harder.

As the fire dies to glowing coals, as your friends quietly snore throughout the night (except Sunwoo, he snores very loudly), you sit there, mind warring with fear.

By morning, you’ve made your decision.

. . .

The palace is almost the same as you remembered – high, polished stone walls surrounded by a bustling marketplace and lush gardens. The grass looks a bit wilted and the market chatter sounds subdued, but the kingdom has just gone through a war. You would be more worried, really, if everything looked exactly as beautiful as it used to be.

Anxiety bursts in your chest as you slip through the crowds, face covered in a scarf, getting closer and closer to the palace. Three of the Guard stand sentinel at front gates, and even though you’re too far away to see their faces, you’re sure you’d recognize at least a couple of them up close.

“Breathe,” Kevin whispers helpfully next to you. “You’ll be fine.”

You nod shakily. “Yeah.”

Two of the Guard cross their spears over the gates as you approach. The third steps forward, meeting your gaze.

Your heart skips a beat at the sight of an old friend. Changmin!

“State your business,” Changmin says, eyes unmoved. It stings a little that he doesn’t recognize you, but it’s understandable. You’ve both changed over the years – you’ve grown out your hair, while he’s cut his shorter, and he’s lost the last baby fat from his cheeks – and you have a scarf covering half of your face.

“I have business with the king,” you reply, heart hammering in your chest. “I believe my presence was specifically requested, along with that of my friends from the border.”

Faint recognition lights Changmin’s eyes, though they also narrow in slight confusion. He looks at you for a second, gaze piercing yours.

“Is something wrong?” you ask. “We can leave our weapons at the gates, if you wish.”

Changmin shakes his head, shoulders slumped in resignation. “No, I just thought you sounded like someone I once knew.” He looks down. “She had a sword like yours, too.”

Your heart hammers at your old friend’s words. What would he say if he did know it was you?

His voice cuts through your panicked thoughts. “May I have a name by which to introduce you to His Majesty?”

Last chance, you tell yourself. Last chance to turn back.

You won’t lie – the choice sounds appealing, at least to your pounding heart. Glancing up at the high stone walls, you feel the old urge to run away.

You could. You could turn away from the gates right now, leave Changmin remembering someone who will never return. You could travel back to the shrine and forget this ever happened.

But Chan told you to be brave. And being brave doesn’t only apply to war.

You pull down your scarf, smiling at the incredulous expression spreading over Changmin’s face. “You can tell him an old friend’s come back to visit.”

. . .

After yelling at you for never visiting and punching you at least ten times (your arm is so, so sore, but as he reminds you, you should just be glad he didn’t challenge you to a duel right then and there), Changmin brings you into one of the waiting rooms. “I’ll find you and bite you if I come back and see that you’ve disappeared again,” he threatens before heading back into the halls.

Sunwoo raises an eyebrow, looking mildly disturbed. “Bite you?”

You snort, smiling widely. “Long story.”

Too soon, though, there’s another set of footsteps echoing outside of the room. The smile slowly starts to slip off your face, and your heart, previously calmed by Changmin’s characteristic welcome, starts to pound again.

Be brave. Chan’s voice speaks in your mind. Be brave.

You steel yourself.

Then Jacob appears in the doorway, and the room feels like it’s falling away.

. . .

By the time your mind has caught up to the present, you’re wrapped in Jacob’s strong arms, in one of those Jacob hugs that you used to yearn for every day. It’s comforting, warm, but to your pleasant surprise, there’s no hurt. No pain.

You only feel happy.

“You came back,” Jacob whispers, more to himself than to you. “You came back.”

You just laugh, squeezing your best friend harder. “I did.”

Thankfully, your friends understand that you need some time with Jacob alone. Changmin leads them out, already bickering with Sunwoo (how they became friends so quickly, you’re not sure you want to know). In the silence of the room, you and Jacob just stare at each other for a moment.

“I –”

“What –”

You burst into laughter and Jacob joins in, feeling heady with absolute bliss and relief that your worst fears haven’t been realized. You haven’t fallen back in love with Jacob at first sight. His mere presence doesn’t make you want to stay.

“You first,” Jacob finally says when you’ve calmed down. “You first.”

The laughter disappears from your throat as your smile dims. “I never told you the full reason why I left.”

Jacob is a good listener, a fact that you’re grateful for. If he’d interrupted you at any point, you aren’t sure you would’ve been able to continue. Still, though, it’s harrowing, recounting the love you felt for your best friend for so long.

“When I left the first time, I didn’t have any intention of returning.” You state the harsh truth with a bitter taste in your mouth. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you about what I felt, so seeing you only hurt. I didn’t… I didn’t want to feel any more pain.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” Jacob’s eyes are cloudy, filled with pain on your behalf. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known…”

“Stop.” You put a hand on his shoulder. “One reason I didn’t tell you was because I knew you’d blame yourself. It isn’t your fault. None of it is.”

Jacob sits in silence for a moment. “But you did come back.”

“I did.” A small smile curves your lips. “I found a place that took me in, allowed me to try and find myself once more. I found someone who helped me heal. So when I heard about the war, I didn’t have qualms about coming to help. It was something… I knew it was something I had to do.”

Jacob’s eyes clear. “I see. Your someone, your, um…”

“Husband,” you offer. It’s the closest thing to what Chan is to you that Jacob would understand.

He nods. “Your husband didn’t come?”

“No.” You shake your head. “I came with friends. We have our own things to protect, back at home.”

Home. That word surprises you as it leaves your lips. Home.

The forest, the shrine is your home.

It’s the first time you’ve made this connection. With the realization, a sudden burst of warmth fills your chest.

“I see.” Jacob leans forward, looking genuinely happy for you. “Things are going well, then?”

Briefly, you wonder if you should tell him about the shrine. You decide not to. That’s your secret to keep, at least for now.

“Yes, they are.” A smile involuntarily spreads across your face. “Very well.”

For a moment, the two of you just sit in comfortable silence. Then Jacob speaks. “Can I persuade you again to stay?” he asks, though from the look in his eye, you’re pretty sure he already knows your answer. “You can bring your husband and friends. There will always be a place for you here.”

It feels like you’re being thrown back in time to that day in the training room, just a few months before you left. Your answer is still the same as it was then, so many years ago.

But you have something else to add.

You shake your head. “Not this time, Jacob.” Your smile grows smaller, but softer. “Though I do promise I’ll visit you again.”

. . .

On the horses Jacob gifted you, it only takes a few weeks to return to the forest. You see the children and the priestesses first, waiting at the front of the shrine, followed by the other maidens and messenger boys. Their shouts of welcome bring a smile to your face.

Then Chan appears when you’re riding up to the gates, crushing you in a hug almost before you’ve leapt off your horse.

You lose yourself in your guardian’s warmth, in the strength of his arms wrapped around your body. It feels so similar to Jacob’s hugs, so comforting and soft and strong, but also so uniquely Chan. You laugh into his chest, tears beginning to stream down your face.

“I’m back,” you gasp between the tears. “I’m back, Chan.”

“I know,” he whispers, only holding you closer. “I know.”

A blissful eternity passes, wrapped in Chan’s arms, until he pulls back the slightest bit, just enough to press a long-awaited kiss on your lips. “You’re back,” he says one more time, as though he still can’t quite believe it.

“I am,” you confirm. “I did it, Chan.”

He knows. He knows, looking into your eyes, what you mean by “it.” He knows you don’t just mean that you fought Adment, that you came home alive. He knows there’s something more.

Something involving a certain past love.

Warm, warm pride blooms in Chan’s eyes. “Were you brave?”

Memories race through your mind – staunching bloody wounds, trekking through the forests at the border – but you know that isn’t what Chan means. He knows you can be brave in the midst of battle, brave in protecting those you love the most.

He wants to know if you were brave with him.

Your eyes twinkle as you remember the palace gates, seeing Changmin again, landing in Jacob’s arms once more. You remember his soft voice, his kind eyes full of real, platonic care, a memory you’ll treasure for years to come.

Where you once might have grimaced at the thought of your old home, now, the smile on your face only broadens with every passing second.

“Yes.” Your laughing gaze sparkles into Chan’s proud eyes. “I was.”

236 notes · View notes