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dis0rderly-cl0wn-nerd · 4 months ago

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Crack A Smile and Cut Your Mouth

Ledger!Joker Origin Story

Chapter Ten - Nothing Is The Same

Warnings: Trauma responses, a bit of gore at the beginning

Chapter Summary: Still getting used to his new life, Jack wakes up from an awful nightmare and goes for a run.

Author’s Note: This took me forever sorry guys 😭 I wanted to get this posted days ago but oh well. I think it worked out better this way anyway. Side note! Jack's hair is back :D

Taglist: @alittlesmartcookie @furisodespirit

If you would like to be added to the taglist please let me know! <3

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The deafening sound of a Black Hawk circling overhead and explosions all around roared in Jack’s ears, making it impossible to think straight. He couldn’t aim his rifle. He couldn’t focus. It was like he lost control of his own body.

All Jack could do was helplessly watch the destruction around him. He tried to look away but when he looked down there were bits and pieces of maimed soldiers scattered about. Someone who had just been shot in the chest bled out at his feet. Their deadened eyes bored into his.

Jack screamed as he attempted to get away. He couldn’t no matter how hard he tried. He was drawn to it by an unknown force. The scene played over and over again in a loop. The Black Hawk flying up above, the explosions, the corpses…

The loop broke when a stray bullet hit him in the face and ripped open the flesh on his cheek, creating an oozing, gaping wound. Blood pooled in his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. The drowning sensation took over his body as he writhed on the ground.

Jack gasped and jolted awake. He sat up in bed, panting. He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair as he tried to catch his breath. His biceps, also glistening with sweat, shone as the moonlight peeking in through the curtains reflected on them.

This had to be his strangest nightmare yet. He didn’t have them as frequently as he did that week he was discharged but they were much worse this time. He didn’t know what was better, a nightmare every night or a few a week that were horrible and would rattle him for days.

Jack glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. It was almost 4 am. He decided that now would be a good time to go for his nightly run. He completely forgot about it and fell asleep earlier than usual because he was so tired from the lack of sleep.

After stretching his tense muscles, Jack swung his legs over the bed and grabbed his pants and black hoodie from the floor, throwing them on half heartedly. He stuffed his keys into his pants pocket and slid on his shoes before quietly slipping out of the apartment. Instead of taking the elevator, he took the stairs since they were less noisy.

Once he was down at the lobby, Jack pushed the double doors open and walked out into the street, a gust of cold air hitting his face. Pulling his hood over his head, he took off to the left and sprinted down the sidewalk.

Ever since he moved to Gotham a few months ago, he ran almost every night. Normally he would stay out for at least 20 to 30 minutes. He found running therapeutic and a way to clear his head. The adrenaline was like a drug. A temporary fix to help him escape his problems.

This time Jack took a different route than he usually did. He liked to switch things up every once in a while. The dim street lights provided just enough light for him to see and illuminated his profile as he moved under them, giving his jagged scar a grisly effect. To a passerby the brief glimpse probably looked horrifying. That was partly why he wore a hood over his head.

In the end he made it all the way to Gotham River, which flowed north of Downtown. As soon as the water was in sight, he stopped and approached the nearby bridge, wiping the sweat from his brow. He dug out his lighter and a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it and inhaled the first drag, closing his eyes and reveling in the crisp scent. Leaning over the railing, he looked out over the shimmering water and exhaled the smoke, the vapor curling in different directions.

The water was oddly calming, and combined with the smoke helped to settle his nerves, which were still shot from the nightmare. A gust of wind ruffled his hair and made him shiver a little, his skin prickling at the cold.

These days Jack didn’t know what to feel. Day and night the war stayed with him. He thought he would eventually get over this, but apparently it was still lingering around, looming in the back of his mind. He couldn’t settle back into society properly. He could barely sleep. He couldn’t go a single day without being reminded of the war in some way. His scar was no help with that.

With a tired sigh, Jack finished his cigarette and headed back, tossing the butt into a trash can close by. As he got closer to his apartment building, he slowed his pace. He entered through the double doors just as quietly as he exited earlier. His eye was struck by a light that emitted from the office and streaked through the lobby.

Vernon is up pretty early. Jack thought as he started up the stairs.

He reached the 3rd floor and scanned the hallway for 307. Finding it, he fished out his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. He stepped inside and shut the door, tossing his keys onto the countertop. He went to his bedroom and flopped down on his bed with a loud exhale.

There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. It was already morning, although very early, and now that Jack was up, he would stay up. He checked the clock beside him. It was close to 5 am. He sat up with a grunt and got down on the floor to begin his usual morning workout.

The first thing was sit ups. He could do 250 in ten minutes. Next was push ups. He could do about 150 of those. Then to finish it off he held a plank for as long as he could. His muscles were on fire by the time he was done but it didn’t bother him. It was ingrained in his head to stay in shape. He also found himself taking pleasure in the pain. It was difficult to explain.

Jack sat up and rested for a minute, catching his breath. The running and the exercises made him pretty sweaty. A shower was looking very appealing right then. So he trudged into his bathroom and slid off his clothes. Then he turned on the water and as he waited for it to heat up, gazed into the mirror at himself.

It was a pitiful sight. His eyes were heavy and sunken in with dark circles that rimmed the bottom of them. His face was gaunt and weary. Trying to be positive, he noticed his hair was growing back. It went past his ears now. He wasn’t sure or not if he wanted to grow it all the way out like how he used to have it. He would probably settle halfway, somewhere at his shoulders.

The water had warmed up so Jack stepped in the tub and stood under the shower head. He wet his hair first and lathered it with soap. Tilting his head back, he ran his fingers through his brown locks and rinsed. He was kind of ashamed to say he hadn’t properly washed his hair in almost a week. But it wasn’t like he had to impress anyone. He rarely went out and he lived alone. He could care less.

After he was done washing himself, Jack just stood motionless under the water and took in the warmth. Resting his head on the wall, he breathed in and out rhythmically and listened to the water pitter patter into the tub. As the steam rose and wisped past his face, he felt a sense of clarity that brought him out of his sleepy haze.

Jack shut off the water and pulled the shower curtain aside, stepping out of the tub and onto the fluffy blue mat on the floor. He grabbed a towel from the cabinet under the sink and dried off, wrapping the towel around his waist.

Back in his room he threw on a loose navy colored tee and black sweatpants. He felt his stomach growl and plead with him for food as he walked out into the main area of the apartment. All the exercise must have worked up his appetite. He relented and went to his pantry to hunt for food. He didn’t feel like spending the time to cook anything so it needed to be something simple.

Jack settled on a pack of blueberry Pop-Tarts and slid them into the toaster slots. While he waited he poured himself a glass of orange juice and placed it on the table. Once the Pop-Tarts were ready, he put them on a napkin and sat down. He ate the pastries tentatively since they were still hot and sipped on the juice.

He made a guttural sound of annoyance and moved his tongue across the inside of his cheek where the scar was. Food, especially the sticky kind, had a tendency to get stuck there. He noticed a few days ago that he was developing a habit of messing with the inside of his mouth with his tongue and licking his bottom lip where it had a small forked crack in it. He didn’t know why. The best way he could describe it to someone else was having a sore in your mouth that you compulsively need to mess with.

It was a gruesome, repulsive habit but Jack didn’t try to stop himself. He knew it would be hard to quit since he was going to have this scar for a long time. He just hoped nobody out in public would notice. Bearing the scar was bad enough. People already stared at him. He didn’t need to give them another reason to.

Jack sighed as he realized his life would never be the same as it once was. He had to come to terms with living with this trauma, the scar, this new environment, and the fact that he was alone. His mother was gone, his father didn’t give two shits about him, and he didn’t know a single soul in Gotham. Being a loner never bothered him before but back then he had a choice. It hurt worse when he was forced into it.

He was already alienated from the rest of society by being in the army and having to adjust back to civilian life. The scar pushed him even farther out of the norm. He hated when he was at the store and his military ID (that he kept putting off to take out of his wallet) flashed when he was pulling out money and people, noticing the card and his scar, would always say the customary, “thank you for your service.”

It infuriated him to no end. He could read their eyes. They pitied him. He didn’t want them to. They didn’t even mean what they said. Everyone said it because it was “respectful” or “polite.” He didn’t feel bad in the slightest for thinking like that. He took solace in knowing he wasn’t the only vet that felt this way.

Jack cleared out the negative emotions beginning to swirl within him and finished up his breakfast. He refused to have another bad day today. Yawning, he stood up from the table, gently tossed his glass into the kitchen sink, and threw his trash away. He plopped down on the couch in the living room and switched on the TV. Right now he really needed a laugh so he turned on some cartoons to pass the morning by.

#ledger joker #jack napier #heath ledger #the dark knight #nolanverse #cross posted on ao3 #my writing

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jackoshadows · 2 years ago

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I write about Arya’s relationship with Jon a lot - they do stand out in the books with their frequent mentions of each other. However, her elder sibling energy, love for and protectiveness over her little brothers is also highlighted in her narrative and something to look forward to when Arya, Bran and Rickon eventually reunite in the North.

Arya and Bran are clearly close - in Jon’s nostalgic childhood memories he compares Arya and Bran to Robb and himself, in terms of the children pairing off with each other growing up.

Playing, Jon thought in astonishment, grown men playing like children, throwing snowballs the way Bran and Arya once did, and Robb and me before them. - Jon, ADwD

Even the thought made him feel foolish; he was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch, not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran and Robb and Arya. - Jon, AGoT

In Bran’s weirwood visions he sees a boy and a girl playing swords and immediately makes them out to be Arya and himself - until he realizes it is Benjen and Lyanna Stark.

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. - Bran, ADwD

Bran and Arya like doing some of the same things, they feel the same way about some of the same songs.

The rooftops of Winterfell were Bran’s second home. His mother often said that Bran could climb before he could walk - Bran, AGoT

Arya was a skilled climber and a fast picker, and she liked to go off by herself. - Arya, ACoK

Some books. I like the fighting stories. My sister Sansa likes the kissing stories, but those are stupid." Bran, ADWD

Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid - Arya, ASoS

Bran compares Meera and Leaf to Arya:

Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. ACoK

A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that. For a moment Bran thought it was his sister Arya … madly, for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle… - Bran, ADwD

They are both strong wargs and skinchangers and even in their journeys, they have mentors teaching them to embrace the darkness

Arya would wait until she heard him snoring, then creep barefoot up the servant's stair, making no more noise than the mouse she'd been. She carried neither candle nor taper. Syrio had told her once that darkness could be her friend, and he was right. If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. - Arya, ACoK

There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. "Never fear the darkness, Bran." - "... The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong.” - Bran, ADwD

Apart from these many parallels, there is Arya’s protectiveness over her younger siblings. The way she tries to protect baby Bran from spooky ghost Jon and the way baby Bran looked to her for that protection.

That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya’s hand.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.- Arya, AGoT

From the mentions in the text here and there, it’s clear that Arya adored her baby brothers and loved playing with them.

Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. - Arya, AGoT

That was when Arya missed her brothers most. She wanted to tease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. She wanted Jon to muss up her hair and call her "little sister" and finish her sentences with her. But all of them were gone. - Arya, AGoT

Arya stared at them with resentment, remembering the times she'd played at hoops with Bran and Jon and their baby brother Rickon. She wondered how big Rickon had grown, and whether Bran was sad. She would have given anything if Jon had been here to call her "little sister" and muss her hair. Not that it needed mussing. - Arya, AGoT

Once in a while, Sansa even missed her sister. By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, even riding through the winter town if she liked. - Sansa, ACoK

I am so looking forward to reading GRRM’s take on Arya returning North and reuniting with Rickon who is being brought up by spearwife Osha on Skagos with Shaggydog during his formative years, and even before they left Winterfell was a bit more wolfish than his siblings and also liked the dark.

Rickon patted Shaggydog's muzzle, damp with blood. "I let him loose. He doesn't like chains." He licked at his fingers. "Rickon," Bran said, "would you like to come with me?" "No. I like it here." - Bran, ACoK

Remember when Arya thinks ‘I wonder how big Rickon has got’? I think she’s in for a surprise! And I feel like given how much GRRM mentioned writing more for Osha because he loved Natalia Tena’s take of it on GOT, we may get Arya and Osha or Jon and Osha meeting as well. And then there’s Nymeria and Shaggydog. Imagine them comparing notes?

Shaggydog: I had Unicorn for lunch...

Nymeria: I had Frey for lunch. Oh and also command an army of wolves...

Summer: I had some undead wights for lunch...

Ghost!Jon busy mussing Arya’s hair with his paws....

#Arya Stark #Rickon Stark #Bran Stark #Jon Snow #asoiaf

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fabeong · 19 days ago

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Questions from the Fic Writing Game :)

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

💕 what's your favorite part of your writing process?

🔚 have you ever completely changed the direction a piece was going?

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

Oh mate, you’ve really chosen some good ones here thank you 💕

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

MATE. Ok you know how this says one or two lines yeah sorry I’m dropping a paragraph but I think you might like it 👀

(Under a cut bc I go on a ramble whoopsies)

“I know your surname is Toktra, and it means to search for” Florentius spoke softly, thoughtfully; the memories rose all too easily to his lips. “Your hometown is on the north… no, north-eastern tip of the Alik’ir desert, though you haven’t been back in years. You like cloudy weather the most although you’ll accept the sun because it hurts vampires, and your favourite colour is yellow. You find any flute music intolerable and you joined the Vigilants at thirteen years old, to this day still the youngest they’ve ever accepted. And…” suddenly he was fighting against a smile, only as soon as he looked over at Isran at last he lost it and collapsed into helpless laughter. “And you’re allergic to figs, as we found out at that pastry stall in Bruma, and your face-“ “Went so numb I could barely speak.” Isran finished the memory for him, a smile somewhere between reluctant and irrepressible fighting onto his lips. Florentius nodded, his chuckles finally subsiding though his chest ached. When had he last laughed like that? The last thing he expected was for Isran to speak again. “Your first name is Silas.” His voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible over the snowfall outside. But Florentius heard him. “But it’s technically your father’s name. It’s an old Cyrodillic naming tradition where your first name is your father’s, your second is your given name, the third is your family name, and you have another name too, it… it indicates where you’re from but I don’t remember-” “Eboratum” Florentius whispered before he could help himself. He stared at Isran, frozen in place and unable to believe what was happening. “Eboratum.” Isran exhaled slowly, but it seemed like he could no longer stop. “Your favourite food is medium-rare venison and you were frightened of graveyards as a child. You love autumn because of the changing colours of the leaves and you had to kill your best friend when they were infected with vampirism and tried to infect you. You know how to swim but you don’t like to do it. You used to have long hair that almost reached your elbows, and it always looked so soft I wanted to ask how you looked after it. You come from Venda’s Watch, half a day’s ride south of Bruma, but you studied in Cheydinhal at the Great Chapel there and… and you ran away from Arkay when you were thirteen.”

So I’m a huge fan of the “to be loved is to be known” idea, and I get to really indulge in it here, plus 🥰🥰Florentius and Isran backstory 🥰🥰

💕 what's your favorite part of your writing process?

ooh that’s a tricky one tbh. I think the most satisfying part is honestly when I finish a fic’s first draft?

🔚 have you ever completely changed the direction a piece was going?

Oh i absolutely have 😅 one example that really comes to mind was a fic I wrote many years ago that started out fully meant to be a cozy, comforting, coming-home-to-your-lover sweet fic and then after I wrote the soft intro my brain just went “…but what if that was a dream? And reality was anything but sweet?” And I completely went off into a hurt-no-comfort narrative with another evil plot twist at the end 😈

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

Honestly there’s a lot going on rn but one positive thing is I finally got confirmation my job will keep me on past Xmas 🎉 which is kind of a double-edged sword bc I’ve already decided I don’t want to stay too much longer but still yay for job security ✨

#fabeong rambles #beloved mutuals

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stxrrbright · 4 months ago

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🔁 how about a drabble for Lena

Playlist Drabble Little Girl Gone

I tagged triggers below, but just brace for overall mafia business ^^;; Not super detailed!

--------

There was no reason for the room to be so dimly lit... Honestly, with the sun still out (barely setting over the sea's horizon), there was no reason the entire house to be this poorly lit! Lights were replaced with the soft glow of candle fire, and silence hung in the air like a blade ready to drop on the guilty. No one can be found in the halls; either they were sent away or they were really good hiding in the shadows. This created a stark difference of the estate's usual bustling atmosphere-- just the way the Don liked it during the wee hours of execution days.

In the underbelly of the estate, where stone walls cage the screams of those who dare cross the Menagerie, a trio of well dressed family members stared down their prey. A man of muscular build was left bloodied and bruised whilst bound in chains.

"We should put you down like the dog you are." One of the men in a full lion's mask huffed as he stepped forward. He only stopped when the woman next to him put her hand over his shoulder. They watched as the man bared his teeth to them and snarled in an attempt to keep them at bay... Was this meant to scare them?

"What are my crimes?!" he shouts with a bit of desperation hidden in his voice. If the trio's hearing weren't as keen as it was, they'd probably miss it, but what his voice masks doesn't hide the fear in his eyes. He thrashes against his bindings; only allowed to got so far before the chain's mechanism yanks him back hard. As he laid on the stones, the other woman stepped forward to grab his hair- her mask a simple swan, and she grabbed a fistful of the man's hair to slam his head onto the floor one time.

"Your crimes are as follows," she yanks his head up to coax the rest of his body to sit up, "Disloyalty to the family, theft, cut and selling of family product, selling out old Lynx, and... Starting that fire in the North district." The man fumbles over his words after hearing what he was accused of. Lion, Swan, and Moretta- the woman who stopped Lion, stared at him silently. One thing you don't really mess with the family was territory, and the North district was the Menagerie's.

Moretta snapped her fingers, prompting Swan to brandish a blade. Before she could make the strike, the man shouted a name:

"ADELENA! That brat had the entire undercity under her thumb!! I had to set the place on fire! She took everything from me when she ran away! My family name, my dignity, my honor! When I heard she was there... I had to!! That little--"

"Bitch?" Moretta held her mask to finally speak. She fully took her mask off to hand it to Lion before she walked slowly towards the man she used to know. She snapped her fingers to have Swan back off, and she took her place to hold his face in her hands harshly. The recognition that Moretta, the new Don of the Menagerie, was Adelena... His old slave girl.

"You're just as pathetic as I remember you, Master Reld... Always playing the victim of 'bad help' to manipulate your standings. But I must remind you: you've had me in too many ways growing up, and I simply just grew tired of being your little toy," Lena patted his back placing a piece of paper on his back before she reached over to uncuff his wrists from their chains, "I'll give you a head start."

Lena snapped her fingers again to have Swan and Lion follow her out the wrought iron doors, knowing well that Reld wouldn't move after them in his stunned surprise. By the time they rounded the corner to head up the stairs, they heard Reld run after them. One last snap of her fingers, and Reld's body went up in flames.

His screams were pained, as they should have been, and his sudden pleas for mercy felt of deaf ears as Lena watched him burn.

"It's such a sad shame I'm not as forgiving as I was back then... Isn't it?"

#the 'feminine rage' portion of my playlist lol #.inbox #Lena answers !!#tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: burning #ill give you a head start is what Reld often said to Lena before punishments #.unnamed mafia verse

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theotherackerman · 2 years ago

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COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan, Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, A Song of Ice and Fire

NOTES: Tiny timeskip. More reveals. Levi has had enough of this shit. You’ll see what I mean....

Chapter Five: Visions I Vandalize

Swords clashed.

Sweat ran down Mikasa’s face.

“Sasha! Tighten up on your left! Mikasa! Why are you not attacking Sasha’s left?! She’s not guarding it! Annie! Stop going low! I know your signature move!” Levi shouted the entire time they trained, pointing out their every weakness.

It was helpful, it made them train even harder.

It had been a fortnight since Eren had left.

There was an anger in Mikasa that had been festering long before things had happened with Eren. The anger at her aunt, her parents, and even her brother were consuming her.

Why did her aunt have to choose her to be heir? Why did who she married mean so much? And why besides leaving her here did her parents not intervene with Kiyomi? Her father had his dragon. Why did it seem like the only ones who cared were in this castle? Why was she doomed to a life she did not want?

Why did everyone make decisions for her?

When would she get a say in her own life?

Her choices were being taken away, even by Eren.

He had left, running away without even giving her a chance to speak to him again.

The rage came out as she trained with Sasha and Annie, both of them coming at her at full force. It kept her mind busy so she didn’t have to think about it.

They were sweating and breathless by the end of it.

“Sasha, you’re weak on your left side,” Levi announced. “Annie, you keep letting Mikasa use your weight against you. Mikasa, you let your anger blindside you.”

Levi had been watching their training today, giving them tips. Annie and Sasha were both competing in the tournament at the capital.

Mikasa hadn’t decided if she was going to compete. She had already angered Kiyomi twice.

Once for not marrying Zeke.

The second for bowing to the Jaeger family.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to risk her anger a third time, no matter how well she might do. Regardless, she was still going to train. She wanted to be prepared for whatever might happen.

“Again,” Levi commanded.

Mikasa, Sasha, and Annie took up their stances again.

—--------------

The streets were always filled with people when the Royal Family returned to the capital.

King’s Landing was in much better shape than it had been when the Fritz family had ruled.

There were still parts of scorched earth from the dragons but it was healing.

How there were still Fritz supporters, no one understood.

Eren rode in the carriage again with his brother, their mothers, and the wolves.

He gazed out the window, people waving as they passed.

“Eren, are you feeling fine? You’ve barely spoken since we left the North,” Carla asked her son as she smoothed out his hair.

“I’m fine, Mother,” he muttered, not even bothering to look at her.

He wasn’t fine.

Zeke had told him how disappointed Mikasa had looked, how she barely ate. He told Eren to go back, explain himself.

Eren had refused.

His brother would never understand.

This way, he was saving Mikasa.

The carriage stopped once they were in the courtyard, the gates closed behind them.

Carla and Dina exited the carriage first, their sons following them, and the wolves after them.

“Eren, I know you don’t want to talk about it but…”

Eren held his hand up, cutting him off. “I’m fine, Zeke.”

Zeke looked over at Armin as they went into the castle.

Armin grabbed Eren’s arm, stopping Eren and Fenrir. “I need to talk to you.”

“Don’t you start,” Eren groaned.

“No, it’s not about you. It’s about me.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. No. I…I can’t tell you here. I don’t want her reputation ruined.”

“Her?!” Eren exclaimed.

“Keep your voice down!”

“Armin, what have you been doing?”

“Besides protecting you? Nothing good,” Armin ran a hand through his hair.

“Why are you two lurking back here?” Pieck asked as she approached them. “No. Do not tell me. I do not want to know.”

Pieck Finger was an older knight, closer to Eren’s brother in age. She also could be found among Zeke’s friends and confidants.

“Hange is looking for you, Armin. They want a debriefing on The North.”

Armin sighed, “of course. Any chance they have thought about holding the position of Captain?”

“Last I heard they were still saying no. I have tried to talk them into it but no such luck.”

Armin nodded before turning to Eren, “we’ll speak later, yes?”

Eren nodded, “who is guarding my room tonight?”

In the capital, Eren was heavily guarded after the last attack from the rebels, Grisha had insisted. The North had been safer, no one would cross the Ackermans’ and their dragons. Here was a different story.

“I believe it is either Reiner or Colt. I am not entirely sure though. You could ask Hange,” Pieck shrugged.

“I’ll see who’s on duty. I’ll come find you later.”

Eren nodded and Armin walked away.

“Heard you gave Jean quiet the beating in the North,” Pieck said once Armin had walked away.

“Of course, you did,” Eren said as he rolled his eyes, walking in the opposite direction as Armin. “Come Fenrir,” he called to the wolf who trotted at his side.

Pieck trailed behind him.

“It has been so boring without you here. Your bird is very angry you left. He’s been screeching in your room day in and out. He escaped from the aviary shortly after you left. We’ve been having to feed him. Other than that, there’s been nothing exciting here,” Pieck informed him as she caught up with Eren.

“How is me fighting with Jean exciting?”

“Because from what I heard, you finally put him in his place. And it was over a girl. Scandalous indeed.”

Eren rolled his eyes again. “Zeke told you the moment we arrived.”

“That he did. He also said you made that princess very sad. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Pieck narrowed her eyes, “doesn’t seem like the Eren I know. He fought for everything.”

“I still do. She has a reputation. I won’t tarnish her.”

“Oh Eren…”

“Do not. Please. I do not want your pity,” Eren said as he walked a little faster.

Pieck said nothing more to him as she trailed behind him as his guard.

—----------------------------------

Midnight had not made a mess of Eren’s room which surprised him.

The crow left out a loud CAW as soon he saw his owner. He landed on Eren’s shoulder.

Eren petted the crow’s head. “Yes, I missed you as well. You couldn’t wait, could you?”

“NO,” the crow said. It was one of the few words that the crow knew. Eren had tried to teach him others but the crow only seemed to learn what he wanted, not what Eren wanted.

“Of course. Having you stay with the ravens is beneath you, it seems.”

“YES,” the crow replied as he cocked his head to the left. He hopped off of Eren’s shoulder and landed on Fenrir’s head. The wolf was clearly annoyed but did nothing. “FENRIR!” The crow screeched.

“You learned his name out of spite, didn’t you?” Eren asked as he began to undo his plate armor.

“NO!” Midnight exclaimed before flying to his perch.

Fenrir and Eren shared a look, neither of them believed the bird.

—-----------

Kenny and Kuchel surveyed the land, looking for any signs of the Tyburs invading. They also checked to see if there were any signs of the Others.

Kenny wasn’t sure if he believed that the Tyburs could control the Others. He wasn’t sure if the story about the symbols were true. It didn’t matter. People lied all the time in the courts to get political gain.

It just so happened to be exactly what the lords needed to hear.

“Do you think Mother’s dragon is among them?” Kuchel asked as they turned around from the wild dragons.

“I think so. They say they can live hundreds of years,” Kenny said as he leaned back on Blaze. “Don’t think too hard, Kuchel.”

“I worry. I worry about Kiyomi’s eyes here. This is the only place we can safely talk. What will she do if she finds out about Levi, about me? She’ll find out he’s a bastard. She’ll find out I had to sell my body to survive. She could destroy us.”

Seaflames let out a roar that echoed throughout the land and shook the land.

“I believe your dragon just answered that question. Let her try.”

—--

“It went horribly,” Zeke told Dina and Carla as they sat in the queens’ tea room.

“Is that why he was so sad the whole way here?” Dina asked as she stirred her tea.

“I couldn’t get him to tell me what happened. He said he did not wish to cause any more harm. My poor son,” Carla looked down. “So he confessed and she rejected him?”

“Not exactly. I will not betray my brother’s trust but I will say that I believe it was all miscommunication. I do still believe that you are right. Mikasa very well be the one to best Eren in a fight. She is his match,” Zeke said as he lifted the tea cup to his mouth.

“She won’t fight in the tourney. Kuchel already told me it is unlikely,” Dina sighed. “Kiyomi is already upset that you are not marrying her.”

“She wants Mikasa to be in a loveless marriage?”

“Yes, she was. She has an heir. She has a child but they are a bastard. She won’t legitimize them.”

“That is absurd.”

“It is but there are traditions, Zeke. You see how the people here act towards Eren. Changes cannot be made overnight,” Carla sighed.

—-------

Armin had briefed Hange on the North. They seemed rather pleased. Armin had let Hange know about what had actually happened between Eren and Jean. Hange was someone Armin could confide in. They would also hear it sooner or later for Zeke as well.

Hange was what Armin considered a true knight. They were brave and just, a defender of the young and innocent. They always acted with the best intentions. They were who Erwin had named temporarily Captain of the Guard before he passed.

Armin wanted Hange to take the position permanently. Hange had said they didn’t think they were ready for the position full time and supported Armin’s taking his former liege’s position.

Armin felt like he was much less prepared than Hange.

Not to mention Armin felt like he was moments away from disgracing the one and only woman he had ever loved.

Yet he told no one how he felt about her. He never even told Eren that Annie existed.

So tonight he would come clean, he would tell Eren everything.

Lucky for both of them, it was Reiner who was guarding Eren’s room tonight. If he heard anything, he wouldn’t say anything.

“Armin,” Reiner nodded as Armin walked up to Eren’s room.

“Reiner. How’s the capital been?”

“Pretty quiet. Glad to see there were no problems in the North.”

“Thankfully.”

“Eren seems a little…..what happened?”

“He finally found someone he’s interested in and it didn’t go well.”

Reiner scoffed. “So his answer is to sulk?”

“Seems to be that way.”

Reiner shook his head.

Armin opened the door to Eren’s room. Half the room had been turned into a study/sitting room. It was littered with weapons and books. The other half was Eren’s actual bedroom. There was Fenrir, stretched out on top of the bed while Midnight was sitting on the pipes that held up the canopy around the bed.

The raven let out a loud “CAW!”

Eren sat at the table, books spread out. “Debriefing took that long?”

Armin nodded, “I had to explain the entire trip. Hange had to inform me of things here.”

“Anything exciting?”

Armin shook his head, “Several brawls. Smaller rebel attacks but nothing we haven’t dealt with before. Since your father has been delivering food to every house here, things seem to be calming down. Even the Fritz loyalists seem to appreciate not having to spend so much at the market. The market vendors are happy to sell their stock.”

“So who is she?”

Armin sighed as he sat down in the seat across from Eren. “Annie Leonhart.”

“Wait. The Princess’s lady? The blonde one? When did that happen? How did that happen?”

Armin ran a hand through his hair, “I’m not entirely sure myself. As you know, I went there a lot with Erwin as you know. I always thought she was beautiful. I've seen her fight and she’s very graceful. She cares about the Princess a lot. She just seemed like a good person so the feelings grew. Then I started talking to her. We kissed and it went on from there…”

“Wait, did you…did you bed her?”

Armin said nothing.

“You did! When? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…I don’t know. I guess….I worried for her. Her father is rather strict. He wants her to become a part of our knights once Mikasa marries. If I was captain….it creates so many more issues. I..I don’t know anymore.” Armin leaned forward and put his head in hands.

“Why?”

“Because I brought that up. We were about to….and I told her we should stop. She got mad at me. Said I was only thinking of my reputation, not her’s. Said it was too late. Then I overheard her talking to her father. She asked if it would be so bad if she married, he said yes.”

“But you love her? She knows that, right?”

Armin shook his head which he still held in hands. “No, I never told her.”

“What?”

Armin looked up, releasing his head. “It never felt right to say. I…I don’t know. Now…now we just avoid one another. She goes one way, I go the other.”

Eren leaned back in his chair. “We’ve got ourselves in a mess, don’t we?”

“Yes. And they’ll both be here in a fortnight.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. I clearly know nothing when it comes to these issues. I think you should talk to the Princess,” Armin said as he gave Eren a knowing look.

“And you should talk to Annie. But it seems neither of us are very good at that.”

“It seems that way,” Armin sighed.

Neither of them had any idea of what they should do next.

—----

Jean could hear the bed frame of the room next to him knocking into the wall.

He was going to kill her.

He was absolutely going to kill her.

The entire time he had been gone, he had not thought of her once.

The thorn in his side, the person who drove Jean even madder than Eren Jaeger, was on the other side of that wall with one of her “visitors.”

Then the laughing came.

Jean covered his head with a pillow.

Why did he have to share a wall with that woman?

Jean lived in the barracks to be away from his asshole father as much as he could. It was nights like tonight that made him second guess that decision.

Finally, when he heard her door open and the man left, Jean got out of bed. He shot to the door and threw it open. Then went to the room next to him. He proceeded to pound on the door.

The door opened to reveal the bane of Jean’s existence, Pieck Finger. She was dressed clad in a tunic that went down to her knees.

“Where are your breeches?” he asked as he ran a hand down his face.

“On the floor somewhere,” she shrugged as she walked away from the door. “What do you want, Jean boy?”

Jean rolled his eyes, “stop calling me that! And stop fucking when I’m trying to sleep!”

“Stop listening!” Pieck called from inside the room.

“I would if my wall wasn’t against yours!” Jean yelled from his spot in the hall.

��Move rooms then!” she yelled back.

He hated her.

He absolutely hated her.

And it wasn’t just because the first time he had fought her that he had ended up on his back with her standing over him, the point of her sword at his throat.

She annoyed him.

Everything she did annoyed him.

The way she had multiple lovers, the way everyone seemed to think she was so sweet, and how brilliant she was, it all drove him absolutely mad.

Now she was ignoring him, dressing herself like he wasn’t even here, not he could see from where he was standing in the hallway.

“Is that it? Do you need something else?” she asked as she walked back over to him.

Why was she so short?

Why did he just notice how small she was?

“No,” he said as he threw his hands in the air and walked away.

He hated her.

—---------------

Hange was exhausted. They had never been happier when dinner was over. They retired to the library to work on their own personal research now that they were off duty for the night. They had taken up a table in the back of the library, books spread out.

“Was running the capital that bad while we were gone?” Zeke teased them.

“It was….not something I ever want to do again,” Hange replied as they leaned back in their chair.

“I still think you should take up the job of Captain of the Guard permanently.”

“You and Armin both.”

“Oh come on, Hange. It cannot be that bad.”

“Lets see, tavern bawls, rebels attacks. Oh yes, rebels preparing to throw cow shit at the carriage. Do you know how many people I’ve had to throw into the cells this week alone? I’m annoyed.”

“What are you reading? The Tale from Old?” Zeke asked as he peered over their shoulder.

“Some of the more in depth views of them. Mostly about skinchangers though,” Hange said as they handed a book over to Zeke. “Erwin’s father believed that magic was real. My family was said to be talented in that area. So I’ve taken it upon myself to learn what I can as a memory to Erwin.”

Zeke sighed, “you could just take his position instead. Hange, you are the truest knight in the Seven Kingdoms. You’re brave. You defend the weak. You speak for those that can’t.”

“And I do not wish to lead.”

“But you do.”

“Because I will do my duty. But I will not go out of my way to accomplish it. Besides, are you really one to talk? You have no desire to lead as well. Now are you going to listen to me about skinchangers?”

“Of course, Hange. Tell me everything you know,” Zeke said as he pulled the chair out and sat across from Hange.

Hange’s smile widened. “They’re actually very interesting. Your family was said to be a very powerful skinchanger family. The name for one that turns into wolves or dogs is a warg. But they don’t actually fully change into the animal. They go into the mind of the animal.”

“Wait, what do you mean they go into the mind?”

“It’s simple, really. They can see with their eyes, fly. Everything the animal experiences the person experiences. There are, of course, things that are forbidden to do while in the animal body. You can’t eat human flesh while in animal form, things like that. The rules aren’t that interesting. What is interesting is the fact that these symbols for our houses can be traced to who the skinchangers were. Wolves for the Jaegers. Lions for the Leonharts. It’s also said the type of magic someone from that house wielded went into the decision for the sigil. Isn’t that interesting?”

Zeke’s face scrunched up. “Do you happen to know what the sigil for the Tybur family is?”

Hange shook their head, “not off the top of my head. I know they’ve struggled with the Reiss family, a cousin to the Fritz family for years but the sigil escapes me. Why?”

“My father was talking about them.”

“Is something happening?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear it all. I wasn’t supposed to hear any of it I don’t think. They were talking about my marriage to Mikasa…it was needed to make sure Kiyomi couldn’t back out. But for what, I don’t know. And I know my father won’t tell you anything because he knows you’ll tell me.”

Hange looked down at their book, “times like these…I really miss him.”

Zeke nodded, “because Erwin didn’t give a shit. He just told us everything. Even when he really shouldn’t have. I met Levi this trip. He’s exactly how Erwin described him.”

Hange laughed, “I’ve met him a few times in passing. Didn’t know much about him to be honest with you. He’s rather short.”

Zeke laughed, “that he is.”

Hange looked down at their books. “I’ll look up that sigil for you and when I do, I hope you’ll tell me what exactly you’re thinking.”

Zeke smirked, “you know I will.”

With that, Zeke left Hange alone to work on their research.

——————————-

The warm sunset air should have cleared Mikasa’s head.

It did not.

Nothing did.

Thoughts of titles and marriages and love and whatever else kept popping into her head.

Kayda was annoyed with her. The dragon was annoyed because Mikasa was annoyed. At this point, Mikasa didn’t blame anyone for being annoyed with her.

She had once hoped for guidance from her parents but it never did. It wasn’t that they didn’t love her or that they loved her brother more.

The issue was that there was an entire ocean between them.

So many years had been spent without them. So many milestones missed. She couldn’t even resent them for it because they had done it for her. How could she possibly be mad about that?

Yet they had allowed Kiyomi to try and put her into a loveless marriage.

It was all about duty.

Duty to a continent she had spent little time on.

The answer seems to be simple.

Her brother was a peacock. He had been born and raised there. His dragon egg had not hatched. He was the clear choice for an heir.

Mikasa could not be tamed to the world of her aunt. She would never be their perfect princess. She could never be locked away in some tower and not be with her people.

Kayda flew closer to the ground and then rose up at the last possible moment as one of the sea cliffs came into view. It snapped Mikasa from her thoughts.

She could feel the spray of the ocean. They had gone further than she intended. Yet it was a welcome distraction.

Vulcan’s roar was heard from above her, Levi waving at her to hurry up.

Suddenly, she felt like she had been transported back in time.

Back before Mikasa truly knew what it meant to be a princess. A time where Mikasa thought Princess just meant you got to wear a fancy dress to a party and the duty part would never come into play.

A time before Levi was Lord Ackerman.

It was a time where she was mistaken for Levi’s annoying little sister. She had been fine with it, never bothering to correct.

Kayda took off, catching up with the other dragon and his rider.

——

It was late when Kenny found Levi in the study, reading through letters.

“What’s your plan?” Kenny asked him as he walked over to the chair in front of the desk.

“For what?” Levi asked without looking up.

“I don’t suppose you have an overall plan.”

“That was more Erwin’s department. The smart thing to do would be for Grisha to put the Fritz bastard on the throne. Ackermans and Jaegers can rule the North easily together if we marry Mikasa to Eren. Kiyomi releases Mikasa from being her heir.”

Kenny nodded, “so you think they should marry as well.”

Levi sat his quill down and looked up. “How many people will a dragon accept to ride it with their rider? Or let them pet them on the first meeting? How long did it take for Kayda to accept Sasha and Annie? The boy showed no fear. Kayda recognizes something in him. I think we should trust the dragon.”

“I thought we were marrying her for love, not duty.”

“You haven’t noticed the moping?”

Keny snorted, “oh no. I’ve noticed.”

“Besides, you asked what I would do. We never said we were going to do it,” Levi said as he picked up his quill. “Though it might get Kiyomi to stop sending me so many ravens. She wants to change Mikasa’s title.”

“Because she bowed?”

“Because she’s realizing her niece has no desire to run a country.”

“She would do it out of duty for no other reason.”

Levi snorted, “I’m well aware. Let Kiyomi take her title. I will give her a new one. When was the last time the title of ‘Blood of the Dragon’ was used?”

“Before my grandfather. Is that what you’re considering? It will make a statement if you do that which is why you are doing it, isn’t it?”

Levi smirked, “you’re not the only one who knows how to play the game of thrones.”

Kenny was very proud of his nephew but he would never let Levi know that. So Kenny just laughed at Levi’s antics.

——————————-

Toss and turn.

No matter what Mikasa did, she could not get comfortable.

So she stared at the ceiling.

Sasha, Annie, and Mikasa had no secrets between them now. Sasha had prodded Annie for more information about Annie’s escapades with Armin.

Annie did not answer any of the questions Mikasa and Sasha had had.

Mikasa got out of bed and pulled her dressing gown on. She decided to wander the castle as it was better than just laying in bed, wondering what she should be doing. The nice thing about being in the Ackerman castle was that it was almost impossible for anyone to get inside of it. No one would dare try to cross the dragons that were right outside.

It was also said that the dragons knew secret tunnels and passage through the castle that had been built just for them. The dragons could pop up at any moment to protect their riders. Mikasa had stumbled across some strange passages but she had never gone down them to see where they led. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they did exist.

The dragons seemed to see past someone’s outward appearance. It was why their riders trusted their dragons so much.

Kuchel told Mikasa of a time during the war where several Fritz Loyalists had tried to sneak into the castle.

Vulcan, only five years old at the time, had killed them all with a blast of fire to protect his rider.

There were other stories of marriages where the couple had decided not to marry because the dragon had not accepted the other person.

Mikasa’s parents had both risen on his father’s dragon many times together.

Her parents.

She had been thinking of them a lot lately. She knew they had done all of this to protect her, to keep her away from Kiyomi for whatever reason but why didn’t they seem to care more than that?

They always seemed so content when she visited them.

Was it all an excuse?

Had she done something wrong as a child?

Why did everyone end up leaving her sooner or later?

Why didn’t anyone fight for her?

Why didn’t anyone stay?

“Your thoughts are so loud, you woke your dragon up,” Levi’s voice called her back to reality.

Somehow, in all of her thoughts, Mikasa had walked to her favorite window.

Kayda was flying right outside of it.

Mikasa looked down. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. I don’t care. Kayda, on the other hand, looks a moment away from smashing through that window and carrying you off.”

Mikasa looked back at her dragon. “I’m okay,” she reassured Kayda.

Kayda snorted smoke.

“I promise.”

Kayda snorted smoke again before flying off.

“So what was that about?” Levi asked Mikasa.

“Just late night thoughts. I couldn’t sleep,” Mikasa looked back down and began fiddling with a loose thread on her dressing robe. “Why are you up?”

“Fielding letters, requests. Broken fences, lost sheep, a few cattle, strange sightings. Someone stole someone’s chicken. Usual lord things I have to handle. Oh and the ridiculous amount of ravens your aunt decides to send me has multiplied. I swear if I ever get the chance, I am going to let Vulcan eat every single one of her ravens and then I’ll let him have the peacocks as well to really drive home the message.”

Mikasa looked up and laughed. “Better you than me. Are they all about how I disappoint her?”

“Not all of them. There’s a good number of them that talk about how I disappoint her as well. How my uncle lives with her…I do not understand.”

“You’re not even related to her.”

“Correct and somehow that makes it worse.”

Mikasa laughed again.

“So what is bothering you? You might as well tell me now.”

Mikasa sighed. “My parents.”

“What about them?” Levi asked as he crossed his arms across his chest.

“I don’t know. They don’t really write to me. They don’t spend time with me. They seem happy living in Kiyomi’s palace. They just sort of…..left me here to be raised.”

Levi took a deep breath, “I don’t even know what to say because I do not understand either. I believe they want to protect you.”

“But not my brother?”

“You’re right. It does not make any sense. I feel as if there has to be something bigger going on there that we just don’t know. Your parents have always been kind to me. Your mother loved you very much. She was so proud of you when you were a baby. Your father was the same. I was the one to find you with Kayda, you know.”

“You were?”

Levi nodded, “she was curled up around you after she hatched, much like a cat. I ran and got your parents. Your father talked about how your dragon was going to be bigger than Seaflames and how he’d never have to worry. You’d always be protected.”

“From what?”

Levi shrugged, “I don’t know. I did always get the feeling that if your parents didn’t have to be across the sea, they wouldn’t have been. I don’t know why. Much like I don’t know why Kiyomi wants to change your title. Don’t worry, the one I’m having you announced with is much better.”

Her title was being changed?

Mikasa must have truly disapppointed her aunt for that to happen.

“Am I no longer a princess?”

“Still a princess. Though it no longer says you’re the heir to the Azumbito throne.”

Mikasa took a deep breath. She should have known. Not only had she not become betrothed to the crown prince, she had bowed to another Royal Family when she was not supposed to be of their court. She should only bow to her aunt.

Yet Mikasa had made that choice. She did not regret it.

“Is it my brother then?” Mikasa asked finally.

“She didn’t say that you weren’t the heir. I think it’s a test,” Levi answered.

“A test of what?”

“To show you what will happen if you don’t listen to her. She doesn’t realize she’s granting you freedom by taking it away. She thinks she’s hurting you. She’s trying to get you to fall in line. It’s a calculated move, I’ll give her that.”

“So what do I do?”

Levi shrugged, “whatever you want, within reason of course. You’re still my heir until you have children that I can name my heir.”

Mikasa laughed, “why not have your own?”

Levi scoffed, “I already helped raise one spoiled child. I’m not raising another.”

Mikasa rolled her eyes, “you did not raise me.”

“I helped raise you. You would have died the first time you tried to fly without me.”

“You pushed Kayda and me off the cliff!”

“Birds do it to their children.”

“I’m not a bird!”

Levi smirked, almost laughed.

“This is why I’m taller than you,” Mikasa retorted.

“Oi! Shouldn’t you be nice to me? I could marry you off to someone.”

“And I would tell your mother.”

“What would my mother do?”

“I don’t know but I’m going to find out.” Mikasa began walking in the direction of Kuchel’s room.

“Going to tell my mother, just like when we were children,” Levi called before he started following her.

“Oh I thought you helped raise me.”

“You can help raise someone as a sibling. I am sure Zeke helped raise Eren.”

“And you wanted to marry me to him.”

“That was never my idea.”

“But you still went along with it.”

“Because I have to. You have your duties and I have mine.”

“Kiyomi isn’t your queen!”

“But she is your aunt and you are her heir! Think rationally, Mikasa. I have to play the game, I have to give sometimes. I had no intention of marrying you to Zeke. I would not take your freedom away from you. Besides, the rational thing would be to marry you to Eren. That is exactly what I should be doing. War looms over us. Marrying you to Eren would ensure that Kiyomi could not back out of supporting this continent should anyone attack. “

Mikasa stopped walking. “War is coming?”

Levi sighed as he stopped as well. “Yes.”

“I…you want to marry me to Eren?”

“It would be the smart thing to do.”

The smart thing.

The right thing.

She heard it enough. Her parents had said it was the right thing, the smart thing to leave her here. To protect her.

They hadn’t protected her.

They had abandoned her.

If they truly wanted to protect her, they could have stayed within the walls of this palace. Kiyomi would not get past the dragons.

“I will do what is asked,” Mikasa replied.

“No. I will not let you marry for this. You marry for love. Nothing else.”

Mikasa scoffed, “seems to me that love is curse. Your father. Kenny’s love. Yours. All dead. My parents say they love me but they left me here. Annie had her heart broken. What’s the point of love if all it does is harm? I will abandon love for duty. If we need Kiyomi’s support, I will marry Eren.”

“We just went through this with Zeke. No, Mikasa.”

“Levi, think rationally. If war is coming….”

“It’s not coming in the morning .The sun will not rise to war.”

“So you say but can you truly promise me that? Levi, I do care for Eren. Rather I did. He asked me if I could ever see as anything more than a friend. Of course, I hated that he asked me if I could ever see myself marrying him.”

“He did?”

Mikasa nodded. “I thought he was just after….”

“That boy is in love with you. What else could that possibly have meant?”

Mikasa’s jaw dropped and her eyebrows raised. “No…he’s not…”

“Horrible way of saying it but that sounds like to me that he was in love with you. He just did not know how to say it without scaring you off.”

“We barely spent any time together!”

“Since when does that matter?”

Mikasa looked down, still in complete shock. Annie had been right. “Then why did he leave?” Mikasa wondered out loud.

“Because you rejected him, I’m guessing.”

“No. That…..that cannot be.”

Levi sighed, “it is late. Come see me tomorrow. Even though I despise the idea of getting involved in your romantic problems, I can see that if I let you work this out on your own, you’ll never understand. Go to sleep.”

Mikasa nodded before she slowly made her way back to her room.

She got into bed.

Yet one question remained unanswered: why did everyone who loved her leave?

——-

Levi should have taken his own advice to go to bed but instead, he wrote a letter. In the morning, it would be attached to a raven that would fly to King’s Landing.

——-

King Grisha,

Though the betrothal of your oldest son and my cousin did not work out, I believe your youngest has become fond of her. I propose a betrothal between Princess Mikasa Azumbito Ackerman and Prince Eren Jaeger.

Of course a more formal betrothal would have to take place in the capital. Seeing as we will be arriving in less than a forthright, I have written a head so that you might consider this proposal. I do not want you or your wives or your sons to feel any pressure to agree. The Ackermans will forever remain loyal to House Jaeger.

I would love to make that loyalty into a forever bond and unite our houses.

I must also be truthful with you. My cousin has had a title change and her option as heir to the Azumbito throne may not remain. However, I think marrying your son to Princess Mikasa Azumbito Ackerman, Heir to the North, Blood of the Dragon may be just as nice.

Do not give me your answer now, I only ask that you just think on this.

-LA

—----------

“YOU DID WHAT?” Kuchel screamed at Levi at breakfast that morning.

“I said I sent a letter to the king proposing to marry Mikasa to Eren,” Levi repeated as he added sugar to his tea.

“WHY?”

Kenny laughed.

“Must you yell this early in the morning?” Levi asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kayda accepted him. He asked Mikasa if she would marry him.”

“He did what?” Kenny asked.

“It was not an actual proposal from what Mikasa had told me. I think this is the correct move,” Levi picked his tea cup up and took a sip from it.

“I thought we were marrying her for love,” Kuchel muttered.

“We are. We are just speeding things along.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I understand but I am the head of this household and it is my choice.”

“Have you at least talked to Mikasa about this?”

“I have not and I will not until I have an answer from Grisha.”

Kuchel sighed. Hopefully her son knew what he was doing.

—------------

A marriage proposal for Eren.

Grisha never thought it would arrive.

Yet here it was from a good family, a major house.

It wouldn’t matter if they thought Eren was a bastard anymore because he had a princess for a wife.

Grisha wondered if Mikasa would prefer to live in The North. Eren had seemed very at home there until the last day. Then he had taken off. Grisha still didn’t understand what had caused that. Maybe it had involved the princess.

There was no way that Grisha was going to say no to this.

Unless….

Unless Carla, Dina, or Eren said no to it.

Zeke had brought up the idea while they had been there.

He would wait to talk to Carla about it until the Ackermans arrived. He wanted to see how Mikasa and Eren acted around one another.

#wmmtb #mine #writing

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annas-hair-donut · 2 years ago

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Fierce & Feisty Friday

Rules: Post a snippet from one of your fics (can be published or WIP) featuring a fierce and/or feisty character this Friday or next, then tag some people so they can share, too! (Feel free to use the banner if you want!)

Tagging: @thecassadilla @true--north @bad-at-names-and-faces @annaofthenorthernlights and anyone else that wants to play!

🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻🌩️🌻

This week's fierce and feisty comes from my fic, "Boom! Clap!" (Frozen - Kristoff/Anna) for the upcoming Frozen Smut Week: Ruby..

“Boom, boom, boom, clap!” Anna sang, stomping her foot and clapping her hands with the words.

Kristoff backed his stool up to the door and leaned back.

“I can handle the door,” Sven said.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna get a glass of water,” Kristoff said.

Sven looked back at the stage, and said teasingly, “Yeah, you’re thirsty, aren’t you?”

Ignoring him, Kristoff slinked in the shadows at the back of the bar and leaned against the wall. His leg was killing him after sitting on the stool for so long, but the unobstructed view was worth it.

“You're the magic in my veins / This must be love,” she sang.

Kristoff rolled his eyes. Magic. Love. Such a naïve way of thinking about it. It had to be much more than that. He’d seen people risk their lives–die–for people they loved. And there wasn’t anything magical about it.

“Boom, clap! The sound of your heart. The beat goes on and on and on and on and on again.”

At least that was a sentiment he could get behind.

“Boom, clap!” Anna sang and tossed her hair in time with the beat.

She clapped her hands again, each time startling Kristoff a little more. “Boom, clap! You make me feel good. / Come on to me, come on to me.”

Kristoff licked his lips when Anna ran her fingers through her hair. Then he scanned the room, always keeping her in his periphery. And all his attention focused back on her when she clapped her hands again with “Boom, clap!”

He folded his arms and put his hand to his chin. One of the nice things about not being in the army anymore was not having to shave every day. But Anna probably preferred clean-shaven men.

By the time she got to “You’ve got me burning up with all of your love,” she had figured out how transfixed Kristoff was, and she seemed to sing—and dance—just for him. He needed confirmation, but he didn’t dare turn his head.

He learned two things as his eyes swept the room: (1) Her eyes were smoldering, angry at him and no one else; and (2) There was a man at the bar who couldn’t take his eyes off of her either, but she paid him absolutely no attention.

She didn’t even know that her eyes should cut holes in his soul instead of Kristoff’s, but Kristoff wouldn’t have her move them for anything, which is why he gave her 95% of his attention while he kept an eye out for the man who was leering at her.

Everyone clapped when she was done, and her admirer made a huge show of it, but Kristoff kept his arms folded.

He sat at the end of the bar while her biggest fan fawned all over her in the middle. It was only karaoke, but he acted like she was some sort of pop star.

He watched Anna out of the corner of his eye while he drank his water. It still felt like a luxury to him, more so than the whiskey being poured into Anna’s glass. He chuckled when he noticed all the red liquid being poured on top of it, though. It was one of the few times Kristoff had smiled, albeit a small one, since getting back.

He looked away when she pulled the cherry stem from between her teeth. He knew she saw him, but he nearly choked on his water when she slammed her bag onto the bar next to him.

“What?” she asked in an irritated tone.

He swallowed audibly and lied like he’d been trained to, “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her fan followed right after, rudely grabbing her hips from behind and kissing her cheek.

She squeaked, then giggled. “Not now!” she said in a soft teasing voice to the man, along with a gentle pat on his cheek. Clearly, Kristoff had misread the situation, and that bothered him even almost as much as the chill that had all his arm hairs standing up.

He slugged back the last of his water and slammed the glass on the table. He walked away without a word, but he could feel her eyes burning into his back, even while she laughed with the other man.

He didn’t look back until he got to his stool, and even though the guy’s tongue was halfway down her throat, she was looking right at Kristoff.

He rolled his eyes and went back to doing his job. He didn’t need that kind of drama.

To be published at AO3 on March 26th for Frozen Smut Week: Ruby.

#fierce and feisty friday!#frozen #kristanna #frozen smut week #boom clap!

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biinkspacewp · 2 years ago

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One: This is Berk

summary: hiccup haddock makes berk’s war against dragons even harder, but at least he took down a night fury.

pairing: hiccup haddock x fem!oc

warnings: canon violence

word count: 4.2k

series masterlist

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Freya Bragason could pinpoint the exact moment her life changed forever, starting with the day her brother, Kare, cut off some of her dark hair in her sleep. While she wasn’t known for being a particularly aggressive viking, Freya did suffer from seemingly random bouts of violence, of which the second her mood soured everyone around her suffered the consequences. Growing up with four older brothers, it was a wonder she wasn’t more standoffish and quick to anger, but despite that and her upbringing in Berk, an island even the toughest of vikings wouldn’t consider easily inhabited, she typically had a calm and soothing air about her.

The island of Berk could only be described as twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death, located solidly on the meridian of misery. Despite the islands rather horrible weather, the view was quite beautiful. It was spectacularly mountainous, with tall spikes growing from the cold water below. Berk was mostly settled on a small, semi-flat plain that stood on the east side, with the great hall carved into the rocky wall against the back. Over the years, houses continued to climb the sides of the mountains, preferring the advantage of height compared to expanding into the forest to the east of the village.

The village, while harsh, was filled with only the toughest of vikings who had resided there for the last seven generations. It definitely wasn’t a smooth sailing seven generations, nearly every building in Berk was new, but it was sturdy. Vikings were stubborn creatures and didn’t like to admit defeat when the dragons that swarmed the island continuously set the village ablaze. So they rebuilt, and rebuilt, and put out fires, and rebuilt.

It was early in the morning with the sun still not peeking above the blanket of water in the distance. Despite the darkness that still covered the world, the residents of Berk were wide awake. Flames covered the roofs and burnt lines were splayed across the grass as the dragons swooped down to steal away the sheep that reside there. Vikings were hanging from the heads of dragons or the legs of livestock as they tried to deter the beasts from destroying their home yet again.

With a shout from outside, Hiccup threw open the door of his house, swiftly closing it again when a Monstrous Nightmare spewed fire at him. With the front of his home now lit up in flames, he snuck from the building he was instructed to stay at into the middle of the chaos. Vikings were falling around him, weapons nearly shaving a few inches from the already spindly boy as he ran. He wasn’t sure why, but things did seem to go remarkably worse with him around.

He ducked beneath a carried beam, turning back as he passed another viking. Hiccup winced when he watched the man smack his head against the wooden beam, causing almost everyone one to hit the ground. People continued to push past him from behind, hitting his shoulders roughly. He turned only to be met with a Gronkle blast that toppled him.

He was quick to pick himself up, racing up the wooden ramp leading from the docks that he’d hopped down to. The boards creaked beneath him as he passed an entourage of vikings diving headfirst into the battlefield behind him, yelling at him as they passed.

“What are you doing here?”

“Get inside!”

“What are you doing out?”

“Get back inside!”

A hand the size of his head snatched the back of his fur vest, pulling him back away from a line of fire as a dragon flew past. He was now dangling in the air as he was held up.

“Hiccup!” a voice the boy was dreading to hear bellowed out. “What is he doing out again—” Hiccup was turned, now facing the man as he got closer to his face.

“What are you doing out?! Get inside!”

Hiccup was pushed forward as his boots finally touched the grass again. He looked back at the Viking before him as he stumbled over his own feet.

That was Stoick the Vast, the chief of Berk. He was a large burly man, a head taller than those around him with arms as thick as tree trunks and a beard a brighter red that the fires growing across Berk. They say when he was a baby, he popped a dragon’s head clean off its shoulders.

Hiccup watched as Stoick the Vast lifted an upturned wagon above his head, throwing it at a passing dragon. The dragon was stunned, dropping the sheep it was carrying before flying away from the man. Stoick turned to the Viking beside him and questioned him.

“What do we got?”

“Gronkles, Nadders, Zipplebacks. Oh, and Hoark saw a Monstrous Nightmare,” the Viking replied quickly, ducking beneath his shield when a blast rang off nearby. Stoick the Vast didn’t even seemed phased, standing proudly as he spoke.

“Any Night Furies?”

“None so far,” the man answered, still cowering under the cover of his shield. An understandable reaction.

“Good.”

Hiccup was off again before Stoick could catch him still out amongst that battlefield. Vikings around him were shouting out commands as he passed, “Hoist the torches!” being the only one he could hear clearly. Flaming sticks were tossed into the bowl of the torches as they were raised to the skies. He never really understood the purpose of the torches. Dragons breathed fire, the fact obvious as Berk was alight around them, so Hiccup wasn’t sure if they were supposed to ward them off or attract them to the flames, but either way they weren’t very effective.

Hiccup continued on, finally reaching the blacksmith shop. He rushed inside past Gobber who was hammering out a sword on the anvil. Gobber wiped the sweat from his forehead with the hammer as he spoke.

“Oh! Nice of you to join the party! I thought you’d been carried off!”

Gobber was a rather short, stocky viking who was missing his left hand and right foot. His missing limbs definitely didn’t slow him down, his stumps typically covered by one of many creations he had come up with to make working in the forge easier. That creation was currently his hammer. Gobber had known Hiccup his entire life, letting him become an apprentice in the shop once he was old enough.

Hiccup moved through the forge as if he’d finally found his place, yanking on his apron and typing the laces behind his back. “Who, me? Nah! Come on, I’m way—“ his voice strained as he lifted up a nearby spiked mallet with both hands and every bit of might he had in his body, “—too muscular for their taste.” He was just able to get it high enough to hang it on the wall with the other weapons. “They wouldn’t know what to do with all this,” Hiccup gestured weakly to himself, his arm already sore as he flexed it to Gobber.

“Well, they need toothpicks, don’t they?” Gobber laughed as he swapped out his hammer for another attachment.

Hiccup made a face at him as he passed, throwing open the wooden shutters of the window. No sooner as the window was open there were vikings laying down their damaged weapons. Hiccup clumsily gathered up the twisted metal, carrying everything over to the smoldering coals before dropping them across it. He moved over to the bellow, and using all of his weight it eventually gave under him, stoking the coals back up into a flame. He ran back to the window to grab another armful of tools when he saw others running around outside dousing the growing flames of Berk.

Putting out fires was exactly what Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third wishes he could be doing right now, helping the other teenagers his age hauling around buckets of water. Instead he was stuck in the blacksmith shop with Gobber since no one, not even his own father, trusted him to hold his own outside against a dragon attack.

He shied back as a dragon ignited the house across from the shop, Hiccup feeling the warmth of the fire from where he stood. Everything felt as though it happened in slow motion as he heard someone yell about the fire and the bucket brigade showed up.

Fishlegs was a rather chubby viking, with his time normally spent coursing through the book of dragons, making cards filled with information for each one. While he wasn’t particularly spry, he was strong and he held more kindness in him than anyone else in Berk.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut were a pair of energetic blonde haired twins. Often found pulling pranks when they weren’t pummeling each other, one was rarely found without the other. Even though they weren’t the smartest set of vikings in the village, the pair would follow their friends into the dreariest of situations.

Snotlout was probably Hiccup’s least favorite of the group, although some of that was definitely due to family rivalry. He didn’t hate Snotlout, he just wasn’t too keen on the fact that Snotlout was impatiently waiting, and possibly scheming, for his disappearance. It didn’t help that Snotlout was considered a successful viking whereas Hiccup would describe himself as leaving something to be desired. All around though, if you excluded the brunet’s tendency to brag about his skills, Snotlout was a fairly strong and dependable viking. That is, when he’s not chasing after the girls around him.

Astrid was even more of a true viking than Snotlout if you asked Hiccup. She was dedicated to learning all about how to kill a dragon, even going as far as to have already trained for dragon training despite it not beginning for another week. She typically carried around an axe and had a look that she’d crack someone’s skull open if they made her mad. Hiccup truly believed she would. After all, Astrid was a particularly aggressive viking.

Finally, there was Freya. Freya was an odd case. She showed no interest in killing the dragons that plagued Berk, but she was still successful in providing for the village and nice enough to befriend everyone on the island. She was typically found working with plants, fibers, or leather, crafting something useful for herself or to trade for other items across Berk. Her only negative attribute was probably her random violent outbursts. Every now and again, something would set her off and it was like a warpath until she calmed down again. Hiccup has never personally experienced her anger, maintaining a fairly positive friendship with her, but he had seen her in a bad mood before and if it was any indication he hoped he was never on the receiving end of it.

The girl walked away from the house as yet another dragon’s blast hit it, ruining her efforts and backlighting her in a wall of flames. Freya’s dark hair was pushed past her face, braids and adornments shining, the fire making it appear more red than normal. Hiccup couldn’t help but stare. The fur wrapped around her shoulders and tied to her forearms helped protect her from burns as she marched toward him and away from the flames. She had a pair of seax, one on either side, strapped to her waist. Normally she was also armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, but seeing as how her hands were full carrying buckets, she didn’t have it on her at the moment. Hiccup was entranced.

He snapped out of it when Gobber yanked him up by the back of his shirt. Hiccup had only moved a fraction of an inch before he’d been caught. At this point he was convinced Gobber knew what he was going to do before he did.

“Oh, come on!” Hiccup complained, “Let me out, please. I need to make my mark!”

“Oh you’ve made plenty of marks,” Gobber exclaimed as he sat Hiccup down, away from the window, and repeatedly jabbed him in the chest. “All in the wrong places.”

“Please, two minutes,” Hiccup pleaded. “I’ll kill a dragon. My life will get infinitely better. I might even get a date!” With Freya hopefully. Or maybe even more unlikely, he’d get attention from Astrid.

Gobber just stared at the boy before listing off all the reasons Hiccup was not able to kill a dragon “You can’t lift a hammer. You can’t swing an axe. You can’t even throw one of these,” he held up a bola to emphasize his point. Hiccup watched as it was snatched from his hand, the viking throwing it into the air to take down a Gronkle.

“Okay, fine,” Hiccup reluctantly agreed before gesturing to the machine behind him as he shifted closer to it. “But this will throw it for me.”

He smacked his hand on the top of the machine causing it to open, flinging the loaded bola at Gobber, who narrowly avoided it, before it smashed an unsuspecting viking at the window in the head. Not a great start. Hiccup winced as the viking fell to the ground.

“See!” Gobber hobbled toward Hiccup and the launcher. “Now this right here is what I’m taking about.”

Hiccup stumbled over his words as he tried to explain away the mishap. “But it—I—mild calibration issue—“ Gobber cut him off.

“Hiccup! If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all…,” Gobber gestured at Hiccup, “this.”

“But you just pointed to all of me.”

“Yes!” Gobber knocked him in the shoulder. “That’s it! Stop being all of you.”

The pair nodded back and forth, Hiccup to egg on Gobber and Gobber in an attempt to once again get through to Hiccup to stop.

“You, you sir,” Hiccup pointed a finger at Gobber, “are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much raw vikingness contained? There will be consequences!” Was he seriously doing this bit? So not proving his point.

Gobber seemed less than impressed, turning from him as he gave instructions. “I’ll take my chances. Sword. Sharpen. Now.” A sword was roughly dropped into Hiccup’s arms.

Hiccup sighed. Packing the sword over to the grinding stone, he set it down and began sharpening it.

One day, he was going to get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything around Berk. A Nadder head would be sure to get him at least noticed. They were quick and covered in sharp spikes, almost guaranteeing recognition if he could outsmart one. Gronkles are tougher. They weren’t fast, but their thick skin was near impossible to penetrate. Taking down one of those would definitely get him a girlfriend. A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads meant twice the status. One releases a toxic gas that chokes up everything in its radius. The other emits a spark, lighting the gas of the first. And then there’s the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best vikings go after those. They have a nasty habit of setting themselves on fire. Add that to the fact that the fire they spit is more akin to flaming magma, and they make a rather formidable opponent.

But the ultimate prize is the dragon that no one’s ever seen. It’s blast was so strong that even the charge up could be heard from miles away. It’s fire was odd, more like a purple light streaking through the sky until it made contact with its target, destroying anything in its path beyond the ability to be repaired. That dragon is the—

“Night fury!”

Hiccup looked out just in time to see the sonic blast from the dragon demolish a catapult. The creature never steals food, never shows itself, and never misses. The dragon circled back, hitting the rocky base on which the catapult used to sit.

No one has ever killed a Night Fury. That’s why Hiccup was going to be the first.

Abandoning the sword he was sharpening, Hiccup headed toward his machine, passing Gobber as he fixed an axe to his stump. “Man the forge, Hiccup. They need me out there.” Did they need Gobber specifically or? The man hobbled out of the shop, turning back to Hiccup before taking off. “Stay. Put. There. You know what I mean.” He gave a mighty yell before disappearing into the fray.

He admired Gobber’s enthusiasm that he would listen and actually stay at the forge. A grin crossed his face as he wheeled the machine out the door and through the hoards of vikings who were once again yelling, “Where are you going?”, “Hiccup!”, “Get back here!” He shouted out reassurances as he passed them, heading toward the cliff’s edge. Once he reached it, he opened the contraption and sat silently, scanning the skies for the beast.

I will kill a Night Fury then everyone will finally respect me.

The Night Fury roared in the distance, but he didn’t see it anywhere. He muttered to himself quietly as he could, “Come on. Give me something to shoot at. Give me something to shoot at…” He nervously glanced around when he heard another roar.

The roars were getting louder, Hiccup closely scanning the sky waiting for the creature. There was a shift, like the stars were disappearing, and then he saw it.

It’s outline glided across the sky as it covered the stars, pitch black swirling around in a sea of little lights. The tell tale sign of it’s charge up echoed across the cliffs as it’s purple blast hit the catapult in front of him, lighting up the sky. There he saw the beast fly through the explosion, getting the quickest glimpse of it, before he released the bola.

He was sent flying back, hitting the ground feet from the machine. Hiccup was quick to right himself, watching the dragon as it roared, falling from the sky. Did he actually just…

“I hit it. Yes, I hit it!” Hiccup jumped up, arms above his head and smile on his face as he celebrated. “Did anybody see that?”

There was a growling behind him as he heard a loud crunch. He slowly turned around coming face to face with a huge Monstrous Nightmare.

“Except for you.”

The dragon reared back and Hiccup took off through the hills, screaming as he went. He finally shoots down a Night Fury and this is how he goes? Dying before he can tell anyone? Seriously?!

The dragon snapped behind him as he ran, spitting out short streams of magma as they went that narrowly missed him. Hiccup was so not made for this, taking in sharp breaths as his skidded across the cobblestone and behind the metal wrapped post of one of the torches. He couldn’t breathe.

The Monstrous Nightmare roared again, spewing flaming lava around the sides of the post as Hiccup made himself as small as possible. He was going to die here. He shoved down his thoughts as he peered around the right side of the now burning post, unaware that the dragon had wrapped itself around the left side behind him.

A flash of something caught his vision, and he turned as Stoick the Vast kicked the Monstrous Nightmare in the face, pushing it away from Hiccup. The pair rolled away from him and as the chief stood, he became the dragon’s primary focus. It let out a thundering roar and Stoick only fixed his helm upon his head as the dragon looked at him. It reared back again, ready to burn the chief to ash. But as it opened it’s mouth, only a small, pitiful amount was released, far from reaching its target.

“You’re all out.”

Stoick stalked toward the dragon, slamming his fist across its face when he reached it. His punches continued and as the dragon retreated, Stoick followed, delivering a beat down to the beast until it finally lifted its wings and flew away. However, now with the dragon gone, Stoick the Vast’s entire attention was on Hiccup, who was still standing behind the post of the torch, even after it finally burned though and fell to the ground, it’s flaming top taking most of the docks ramp, and a few poor vikings, with it.

There was one more thing that Hiccup forgot to mention.

He winced, looking away sheepishly as he apologized, “Sorry, dad...”

A large mass of vikings had made their way up to Stoick and his son, the group unable to do anything but watch as the dragons finally retreated, taking much of their livestock, a few nets full thanks to Hiccup, with them. In their wake they left much of Berk ablaze, Hiccup almost sure he didn’t help with that either, as he felt the glares of the Vikings surrounding him on the back of his head. Could the ground please open up and swallow him whole? Please!

“Okay, but I hit a Night Fury.”

Stoick reached out and grabbed him by the back of his fur vest, dragging him through town and through the center of the glaring vikings. Maybe he should have timed that better.

“It’s not like the last few times, dad! I mean, I really, actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot,” Hiccup explained. If he was already in a hole, he might as well dig it deeper while he’s there. “It went down of Raven Point. Let’s get a search party out there before—“

“Stop!” Stoick released Hiccup as he cut him off, his voice echoing in his ears. “Just stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!”

The second Stoick stopped talking, Hiccup could help but to interject, the silence was just too loud at the moment. “Eh, between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding. Don’t you think?” There you go, Hiccup, just keep digging that hole. Six feet deep should do it.

“This isn’t a joke, Hiccup!” The man groaned, trying to reel himself back in as he yelled at the boy in front of everyone. Hiccup wasn’t sure if public humiliation was really the way to get through to him, but he couldn’t exactly tell his father he’d rather talk about this inside. “Why can’t you follow the simplest orders?”

“I—I—I can’t stop myself. I see a dragon and I just have to just kill it, you know?” Oh for the love of Odin, stop talking! “It’s… who I am, dad.”

The man before him just grabbed his head, eyes closed as he responded. “Oh, you’re many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them.” His hand dropped and he made eye contact with Hiccup. Hiccup looked away, the disappointment radiating from his father as he spoke. “Get back to the house,” Stoick looked to Gobber who moved closer to the pair. “Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up.”

Great, a walk of shame through the town with Gobber.

He slowly trudged back toward his house, Gobber following only a step behind him. Hiccup wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed by the public chew out from his dad or that fact that he’d once again managed to make Berk’s fight against the dragons more difficult, even if he did actually shoot down a Night Fury.

Hiccup sulked past the same group of teens he was looking up to not twenty minutes earlier, none of them hiding their distain for him. Ruffnut laughed loudly as Tuffnut made a comment. “Quite the performance.”

But it still wasn’t as bad as having to listen to Snotlout, who was all too jaunty with a grin on his face. “I’ve never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped.”

Hiccup held back from saying something he’d regret. “Thank you, thank you. I was trying.” He hoped there was enough sarcasm in his words that it could seep through Snotlout’s thick skull, but he doubted it.

Astrid, thankfully, didn’t say anything. Instead she sat silently on the stairs holding her axe. The look on her face was a message all in its own though, you screwed everything up again.

Freya was sitting next to Astrid on the stairs. She had finally gotten her bow and arrows back, the girl picking at the metal arrowhead of one of the arrows, running the tip of it under her ends of her fingernails. The look on her face was wildly different to the blonde next to her. It definitely wasn’t disappointment and it wasn’t quite pity. It was almost like an understanding.

Freya Bragason was looking at Hiccup Haddock like she understood exactly what he was going through. And Hiccup wanted to know why.

#hiccup haddock #hiccup horrendous haddock lll #httyd hiccup #hiccup haddock x oc #hiccup haddock x fem!oc #hiccup haddock fic #flowers of fury #how to train your dragon #httyd #httyd 1 #httyd fic

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antoniaxmoreirax · 2 years ago

Photo

Name: Antonia “Toni” Moreira

Gender & Pronouns: Cis Female/She/Her

Age: 30

Birthday: August 26, 1992

Occupation: Barista @ Deja Brew

Neighborhood: TBD

biography

tw drugs, tw crime

Toni was a happy accident. Her parents were well into their 40s when they had her, ending her brother’s only child existence shortly after his 14th birthday. She always felt that they were in competition though there was love between them. Naturally, both of them yearned to be their parents’ favorite. Toni was outgoing and athletic, her brother was passive and booksmart. He became a sports physician, she became a college dropout. But before then.. she was destined for soccer stardom.

Toni was once passionate about soccer. She was a star striker in high school who smashed score records held by the top opposing players in her region. She loved the wind in her hair as she ran the field, the rush of adrenaline as she soared past her opponents, the bittersweet burn of pushing her body to the brink of exhaustion when the goal line was finally in sight, the satisfying swish of net when the ball found its home. She earned a full athletic scholarship to the university of her choice upon graduation (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and had finally surpassed her brother as the family’s example of success..

The glory didn’t last however. Toni jeopardized her spot at the top when she fell for ‘the wrong girl’ several months into her freshman year. She became preoccupied, blew off practices, partied a little too hard. She would’ve been able to recover from all of that, if not for the big secret her girlfriend was hiding from her. It turne out that her girlfriend always had party favors on hand because she was dealing.

When her girlfriend’s stash of drugs were found in Toni’s dorm room by their RA, Toni was banned from campus athletics, her scholarship was yanked and she barely survived a disciplinary hearing with the university’s board. When her remorseful girlfriend offered to float her the tuition so she wouldn’t have to tell her parents about this whole mess, Toni accepted out of desperation.

She didn’t realize that she was borrowing money from a drug distributor's daughter and that she’d be expected to deal for him until her debt was repaid. She panicked when those terms were laid out for her, quietly withdrawing from school and skipping town. She ran off to Florida, spinning a tale to her family that she was going to take a gap year because she’d fallen out of love with soccer and needed to find herself again.

They weren’t enthused by the idea, but they were supportive.. even when her gap year stretched on for several years and it became abundantly clear that she wouldn’t be returning to college. Running was a great solution at first, but nothing lasts. Her ex eventually found her through a mutual friend on social media a few years ago and resurfaced at Toni’s job to resume collections.

It’s been easy to explain her instability away as her being flighty and never being satisfied in one place for too long as that aligns with her personality anyway. She’s always been that girl to do something crazy, to sneak off without telling anyone first, to cut her hair off and rock it like a total baddie. No one really bats an eye when she constantly has a new job or has taken up a new address. Toni’s moved all over the Floridian coastline. Professional piercer, budding stick poke tattoo artist, amateur wedding stylist, retail, bartender, etc. She’s done a lot to keep herself afloat and keep off more unsavory people’s radars. Including a few things she doesn’t want to talk about.

A sizable chunk of her paycheck goes to a PO Box every month and as long as she keeps making payments, her ex stays out of her hair. Toni looks at running differently now, knowing that she can never run far enough to escape the mistakes of her past. She craves financial independence and stability, no longer having to owe anything to anyone. She’s very slow to trust others at first. Toni is skeptical of love since her last relationship proved that she sucks at judging people’s character. Maybe if the right person came along they could change her outlook, but she’s not banking on it.

#about.toni #providence.intro

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rogersandclarke · 5 months ago

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im only on a 10mg edible i need to remember that this is what it feels like: "I married Isis on the fifth day of May But I could not hold on to her very long So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong I came to a high place of darkness and light The dividing line ran through the center of town I hitched up my pony to a post on the right Went in to a laundry to wash my clothes down A man in the corner approached me for a match I knew right away he was not ordinary He said, “Are you lookin’ for somethin’ easy to catch?” I said, “I got no money.” He said, “That ain’t necessary” We set out that night for the cold in the North I gave him my blanket, he gave me his word I said, “Where are we goin’?” He said we’d be back by the fourth I said, “That’s the best news that I’ve ever heard” I was thinkin’ about turquoise, I was thinkin’ about gold I was thinkin’ about diamonds and the world’s biggest necklace As we rode through the canyons, through the devilish cold I was thinkin’ about Isis, how she thought I was so reckless How she told me that one day we would meet up again And things would be different the next time we wed If I only could hang on and just be her friend I still can’t remember all the best things she said We came to the pyramids all embedded in ice He said, “There’s a body I’m tryin’ to find If I carry it out it’ll bring a good price” ’Twas then that I knew what he had on his mind The wind it was howlin’ and the snow was outrageous We chopped through the night and we chopped through the dawn When he died I was hopin’ that it wasn’t contagious But I made up my mind that I had to go on I broke into the tomb, but the casket was empty There was no jewels, no nothin’, I felt I’d been had When I saw that my partner was just bein’ friendly When I took up his offer I must-a been mad I picked up his body and I dragged him inside Threw him down in the hole and I put back the cover I said a quick prayer and I felt satisfied Then I rode back to find Isis just to tell her I love her She was there in the meadow where the creek used to rise Blinded by sleep and in need of a bed I came in from the East with the sun in my eyes I cursed her one time then I rode on ahead She said, “Where ya been?” I said, “No place special” She said, “You look different.” I said, “Well, not quite” She said, “You been gone.” I said, “That’s only natural” She said, “You gonna stay?” I said, “Yeah, I jes might” Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child What drives me to you is what drives me insane I still can remember the way that you smiled On the fifth day of May in the drizzlin’ rain"

>be me

>Marry Isis on the 5th day of May

>lose her like a noob

>divorce.jpg

>guess ill ride off to the wild unknown country

>doing laundry, man in corner approaches me for a match

>"Looking for something easy to catch, Anon?"

>broke asf so I agree

>Set out for the cold in the North

>I ask where we are going

>"We'll be back by the 4th"

>bestnewsiveeverheard.jpg

>on the way

>thinking abt turqouise, gold, the world's biggest necklace, etc

>get to destination

>its pyramids embedded in ice

>"there's a body I'm trying to find, anon"

>so that's what he has on his mind...

>start digging

>shit sucks, wind howling, snow outrageous

>chopping through the night like its minecraft survival mode

>in the middle of this my partner just fucking dies

>dont know wtf to do

>make up my mind that I have to go on

>what feels like 900000000 years later finally fucking break into the tomb

>open casket

>its empty

>rageguy.jpg

>literally nothing. no jewels either

>i have been fucking played

>go back outside, pick up partner's body

>yeet him into tomb and cover it back up

>say a quick prayer

>feel satisfied

What do you guys think I should do? I sort of want to ride back to find Isis just to tell her I love her...

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fantasticait · 2 years ago

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Just as we were all getting back into the mainland domestic groove, somebody started in with dragons and crop blights from across the North Sea. Now bitter winds were screaming in from the west, searing the land and ripping the grass from the soil. I tried to put these things out of my mind. On summer evenings my young wife and I would sit out front, high on potato wine, and watch the sun stitch its orange skirt across the horizon. At times such as these, you get a good, humble feeling, like the gods made this place, this moment, first and concocted you as an afterthought just to be there to enjoy it. But I knew what it meant when I heard those flint-edged winds howling past the house. Some individuals three weeks’ boat ride off were messing up our summer and would probably need their asses whipped over it.

Djarf, whose wife was a sour, carp-mouthed thing and little argument for staying home, was agitating to hop back in the ship and go straighten things out in Northumbria. My buddy Gnut, who lived just over the stony moraine our wheat field backed up on, came down the hill one day and admitted that he, too, was giving it some thought. Like me, he wasn’t big on warrioring. He was just crazy for boat. He’d have rowed from his shack to his shithouse if somebody would invent a ship whose prow could cut sod. His wife had passed years ago, dead from bad milk, and now that she was gone, the part of Gnut that felt peaceful in a place that didn’t move beneath him had sickened and died as well.

Gnut’s wool coat was stiff with filth and his long hair so heavy and unclean that even the raw wind was having a hard time getting it to move. He had a good crust of snot going in his mustache, not a pleasant thing to look at, but then, he had no one around to find it disagreeable. He tore a sprig of heather from the ground and chewed at its sweet roots.

“Djarf get at you yet?” he asked.

“No, not yet, but I’m not worried he’ll forget.”

He took the sprig from his teeth and briefly jammed it into his ear before tossing it away. “You gonna go?”

“Not until I hear the particulars, I won’t.”

“You can bet I’m going. A hydra flew in last night and ran off Rolf Hierdal’s sheep. We can’t be putting up with this shit. It comes down to pride, is what it comes down to.”

I wished Gnut would go ahead and own up to the fact that his life out here was making him lonely and miserable instead of laying on with this warrior-man routine. I could tell just to look at him that most days he was thinking of walking into the water and not bothering to turn back. It wasn’t combat he was after. He wanted back on the boat among company.

The clouds were spilling out low across the sky when we shoved off. Thirty of us on board, Gnut rowing with me at the bow and behind us a lot of other men I’d been in some shit with before.

Gnut was overjoyed. He laughed and sang and put a lot of muscle into the oar, me just holding my hands on it to keep up appearances. I was missing Pila already. She hadn’t come down to see me off, too mad and sad about me leaving to get up out of bed. But I looked for her anyway, the land scooting away with every jerk of the oars. If Gnut knew I was hurting, he didn’t say so. He nudged me and joked, and kept up a steady flow of dull, merry chatter, as though this whole thing was a private vacation the two of us had cooked up together.

Thanks to the easy wind bellying our sails, we crossed fast and sighted the island six days early. One of the hockchoppers spotted it first, and when he did, he let everyone know it by cutting loose with a long, obnoxious battle howl. He drew his sword and swung it in figure eights above his head, causing the men around him to scatter under the gunwales. This boy was a nasty item, with a face like a buzzard’s, his cheeks showing more boils than beard. I’d seen him around at home. He had three blackened, chopped-off thumbs reefed to his belt.

Haakon Gokstad glanced up from his seat in the stern and shot the boy a baleful look. Haakon had been on more raids and runs than the bunch of us put together. He was old and achy and worked the rudder, partly because he could read the tides by how the blood moved through his hands, and also because those old arms were poor for pulling oars. “Put your ass on that bench, young man,” Haakon said to the boy. “We got twelve hours’ work between here and there.”

You could say that those people on Lindisfarne were fools, living out there on a tiny island without high cliffs or decent natural defenses, and so close to us and also the Swedes and the Norwegians, how we saw it, we couldn’t afford not to come by and sack every now and again. But when we came into the bright little bay, a quiet fell over all of us. The place was wild with fields of purple thistle, and when the wind blew, it twitched and rolled, like the hide of some fantastic animal shrugging in its sleep. Wildflowers spurted on the hills in fat red gouts. Apple trees lined the shore, and there was something sorrowful in how they hung so low with fruit. We could see a man making his way toward a clump of white-walled cottages, his donkey loping along behind him with a load. On the far hill, I could make out the silhouette of the monastery, which still lacked a roof from when we’d burned it last. It was a lovely place, and I hoped there would still be something left to enjoy after we got off the ship and wrecked it up.

We gathered on the beach, and already Djarf was in a lather. He did a few deep knee bends, got down in front of all of us and ran through some poses, cracking his bones and drawing out the knots in his muscles.

Gnut smiled and squinted up at the sky. “My God, it’s a fine day. Let’s go up the hill and see if we can’t scratch up a bite to eat.”

We hiked to the little settlement on the hill. Some ways over, where the monastery was, the young men were on a real binge. They’d dragged out a half-dozen monks, hanged them from a tree, and then set the tree on fire.

Our hands were stiff and raw from the row over, and we paused at a well in the center of the village to wet our palms and have a drink. We were surprised to see the kid with the thumbs in his belt bust forth from a stand of ash trees, yanking some poor half-dead citizen along behind him. He walked over to where we were standing and let his victim collapse in the dusty boulevard.

“This is nice,” he said to us. “You’d make good chieftains, standing around like this, watching other people work.”

“Why, you little turd,” Haakon said, and backhanded the boy across the mouth. The fellow lying there in the dust looked up and chuckled. The boy flushed. He plucked a dagger from his hip scabbard and stabbed Haakon in the stomach. There was a still moment. Haakon gazed down at the ruby stain spreading across his tunic. He looked greatly vexed.

As the young man realized what he’d done, his features fretted up like a child trying to pout his way out of a spanking. He was still looking that way when Haakon cleaved his head across the eyebrows with one crisp stroke.

Haakon cleaned his sword and looked again at his stomach. “Sumbitch,” he said, probing the wound with his pinky. “It’s deep. I believe I’m in a fix.”

“Nonsense,” said Gnut. “Just need to lay you down and stitch you up.”

Ørl, who was softhearted, went over to the man the youngster had left. He propped him up against the well and gave him the bucket to sip at.

Across the road, an old dried-up farmer had come out of his house. He stared off at the smoke from the monastery rolling down across the bay. He nodded at us. We walked over.

He pointed at Haakon, who was leaning on Gnut and looking pretty spent. “Looks like your friend’s got a problem. Unless you’d like to watch him die, why don’t you bring him inside? Got a daughter who’s hell’s own seamstress.”

The man, who was called Bruce, had a cozy little place. We all filed in. His daughter was standing by the stove. She gave a nervous little cry when we came through the door. She had a head full of thick black hair, and a thin face, pale as sugar— a pretty girl. So pretty, in fact, that you didn’t notice right off that she was missing an arm. We all balked and had a good stare at her. But Gnut, you could tell, was truly smitten. The way he looked, blanched and wide-eyed, he could have been facing a wild dog instead of a good-looking woman. He rucked his hands through his hair and tried to lick the crust off his lips. Then he nodded and uttered a solemn “Hullo.”

“Mary,” Bruce said, “this man has developed a hole in his stomach. I said we’d help fix him up.” Mary looked at Haakon. “Aha,” she said. She lifted his tunic and surveyed the wound.

“Water,” she said to Ørl, who was looking on. Gnut eyed him jealously as he left for the well. Then Gnut cleared his throat. “I’d like to pitch in,” he said. Mary directed him to a little sack of onions in the corner and told him to chop. Bruce got a fire going in the stove. Mary set the water on and shook in some dry porridge. Haakon, who had grown rather waxen, crawled up on the table and lay still. “I don’t feel like no porridge,” he said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Bruce said. “The porridge is just for the onions to ride in on.”

Gnut kept an eye on Mary as he bent over a small table and overdid it on the onions. He chopped and chopped, and when he’d chopped all they had, he started chopping the chopped-up ones over again.

Finally, Mary looked over and told him, “That’s fine, thank you,” and Gnut laid the knife down. When the porridge was cooked, Mary threw in a few handfuls of onion and took the concoction over to Haakon. He regarded her warily, but when she held the wooden spoon out to him, he opened his mouth like a baby bird. He chewed and swallowed. “Doesn’t taste very good,” he said, but he kept eating anyway.

A minute passed, and then a peculiar thing occurred. Mary lifted Haakon’s tunic again, put her face to the wound, and sniffed at it. She paused a second and then did it again.

“What in the world is this?” I asked.

“Gotta do this with a wound like that,” Bruce said. “See if he’s got the porridge illness.”

“He doesn’t have any porridge illness,” I said. “At least, he didn’t before now. What he’s got is a stab hole in his stomach. Now stitch the man up.”

“Won’t do any good if you smell onions coming out of that hole. Means he’s got the porridge illness and he’s done for.”

Haakon looked up. “Talking about a pierced bowel? Can’t believe it’s as bad as all that.”

Mary had another sniff. The wound didn’t smell like onions. She cleaned Haakon with hot water and stitched the hole to a tight pucker.

Haakon fingered the stitches, and, satisfied, passed out. The five of us stood around, and no one could think of anything to say.

“So,” Gnut said in an offhand way. “Were you born like that?”

“Like what?” Mary said.

“Without both arms, I mean. Is that how you came out?”

“Sir, that’s fine a thing to ask my daughter,” Bruce said. “It was your people that did it to her.”

Gnut said, “Oh.” And then he said it again, and then really no one could think of anything to say.

Then Mary spoke. “It wasn’t you who did it,” she said. “But the man who did, I think I’d like to kill him.”

Gnut told her that if she would please let him know who it was, he’d consider it a favor if she’d let him intervene on her behalf.

Ørl opened up his wineskin, and we all had a dose. It was sweet and potent and we drank and laughed and carried on. Haakon came to. His ordeal had put him in a mawkish bent of mind, and he raised a toast to his pretty surgeon, and to the splendid day, and how much it pleased him that he’d get to see the end of it. Bruce and Mary loosened up and we all talked like old friends. Mary told a lewd story about an apothecary who lived down the road. She was having a good time and did not seem to mind how close Gnut was standing. No one looking in on us would have known we were the reason this girl was missing an arm, and also the reason, probably, that nobody asked where Bruce’s wife had gone.

It was not long before we heard somebody causing a commotion at the well. Me and Gnut and Ørl stepped outside. Djarf had stripped to his waist, and his face and arms and pants looked about how you’d figure. He was hauling up buckets of cold water, dumping it over his head, and shrieking with delight. The blood ran off him pink and watery. He saw us and came over.

“Hoo,” he said, shaking water from his hair. He jogged in place for a minute, shivered, and then straightened up. “Mercy, that was a spree. Not much loot to speak of, but a hell of a goddamn spree.” He massaged his thighs and spat a few times. Then he said, “So, you do much killing?”

“Nah,” I said. “Haakon killed that little what’s-his-name lying over there, but no, we’ve just been sort of taking it easy.”

“Hm. What about in there?” he asked, indicating Bruce’s cottage. “Who lives there? You kill them?”

“No, we didn’t,” Ørl said. “They helped put Haakon back together and everything. Seem like good folks.”

“Nobody’s killing them,” Gnut said.

“So everybody’s back at the monastery, then?” I asked.

“Well, most of them. Those young men had a disagreement over some damn thing and fell to cutting each other. Gonna make for a tough row out of here. Pray for wind, I guess.”

Brown smoke was heavy in the sky, and I could hear dim sounds of people screaming.

Gnut didn’t come down to the feast. He said he needed to stay at Bruce and Mary’s to look after Haakon. Bullshit, of course, seeing as Haakon made it down the hill by himself and crammed his tender stomach with about nine tough steaks. When the dusk started going black and still no Gnut, I legged it back up to Bruce’s to see about him. Gnut was sitting on a hollow log outside the cottage, flicking gravel into the weeds.

“She’s coming with me,” he said.

“Mary?”

He nodded gravely. “I’m taking her home with me to be my wife. She’s in there talking it over with Bruce.”

“This a voluntary thing, or an abduction-type deal?”

Gnut looked off toward the bay as though he hadn’t heard the question. “She’s coming with me.”

We sat a minute and watched the sparks rising from the bonfire on the beach. The warm evening wind carried smells of blossoms and wood smoke, and I was overcome with calm. We walked into Bruce’s, where only a single suet candle was going. Mary stood by the window with her one arm across her chest. Bruce was worked up. When we came in, he moved to block the door. “You get out of my house,” he said. “You just can’t take her, what little I’ve got.”

Gnut did not look happy, but he shouldered past and knocked Bruce on his ass. I went and put a hand on the old farmer, who was quaking with rage.

Mary did not hold her hand out to Gnut. But she didn’t protest when he put his arm around her and moved her toward the door. The look she gave her father was a wretched thing, but still she went easy. With just one arm like that, what could she do? What other man would have her?

Their backs were to us when Bruce grabbed up an awl from the table and made for Gnut. I stepped in front of him and broke a chair on his face, but still he kept coming, scrabbling at my sword, trying to snatch up something he could use to keep his daughter from going away. I had to hold him steady and run my knife into his cheek. I held it there like a horse’s bit, and then he didn’t want to move. When I got up off him he was crying quietly. As I was leaving, he threw something at me and knocked the candle out.

And you might think it was a good thing, that Gnut had found a woman who would let him love her, and if she didn’t exactly love him back, at least she would, in time, get to feeling something for him that wasn’t so far from it. But what would you say about that crossing, when the winds went slack and it was five long weeks before we finally fetched up home? Gnut didn’t hardly say a word to anybody, just held Mary close to him, trying to keep her soothed and safe from all of us, his friends. He wouldn’t look me in the face, stricken as he was by the awful fear that comes with getting hold of something you can’t afford to lose.

After that trip, things changed. It seemed to me that all of us were leaving the high and easy time of life and heading into deeper waters. Not long after we got back, Djarf had a worm crawl up a hole in his foot and had to give up raiding. Gnut turned to homesteading full-time, and I saw less of him. Just catching up over a jar turned into a hassle you had to plan two weeks in advance. And when we did get together, he would laugh and jaw with me a little bit, but you could see he had his mind on other things. He’d gotten what he wanted, but he didn’t seem too happy about it, just worried all the time.

It didn’t make much sense to me then, what Gnut was going through, but after Pila and me had our little twins, and we put a family together, I got an understanding of how terrible love can be. You wish you hated those people, your wife and children, because you know the things the world will do to them, because you have done some of those things yourself. It’s crazy-making, yet you cling to them with everything and close your eyes against the rest of it. But still you wake up late at night and lie there listening for the creak and splash of oars, the clank of steel, the sounds of men rowing toward your home.

_______ Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. Story Abridged. Buy his book here.

#literature #capital-L Literature #favorite books #book recommendations #short story #Wells Tower #vikings #abridged #the unabridged story has more blood though #April 1805. Napoleon is master of Europe. Only the British fleet stands before him. Oceans are now battlefields.

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bisexual-horror-fan · 2 years ago

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SO! Everyone has been dying to hear about my weekend and my experience meeting Robert! Here it is under the cut!

Friday we rolled up to the con on time, early check in, got a lot of recognition and pics in my Sailor Majora cosplay, including one person who got a pic from me at Anime North like five fucking years ago and remembered me, very cool! Didn’t do much shopping, hit a few panels and then at the hotel later we got pizza, drank a lot, played games, fucked till about three am and barely slept.

Saturday was THE day! The big day! My photo with Robert! I got up and in my full ANOES fit, the shirt, the hat, the vans collab shoes, the nails, extra as fuck, you know?

I was so nervous, I would think about the fact it was happening today and my stomach was so up and down. We did more shopping, a lot more, I got some cool stuff but soon it was time for me to break off and go to the photo. Now my photo was in the north building. I was in the south building and the escalators were shut down, I was stuck down there for around twenty minutes and started to freak out worrying about getting to the other building. I managed to squeeze out and booked it, I needed to be there early, I had to be, I had never done a photo at a con and finding the place was a hassle. After hitting the bathroom I am finally in the right direction when tragedy strikes. I was wearing a leather mini skirt that fully unzips in the back and it fucking broke open. Full fancy deep purple lingerie panties and cheeks on display. I held the zip closed and ran to the nearest bathroom which was five feet away. Thank God, I leaned into a corner and kept telling people I wasn’t in line and to go ahead as I fixed it. In the bathroom line was a staff member who pointed me in the right direction of the photos.

I fixed my skirt and ran off, hoping and praying to anyone and everyone that my skirt doesn’t break open in front of Robert fucking Englund. I got there and before the Robert shoot they were doing a duo one with Robert and Jaime Campbell Bower. The black curtain was so thin I could SEE them from my place in line, third by the way from how early I was. In between people Robert was talking Jamie’s ear off. I couldn’t hear what about but he was gesturing wildly and Jaime seemed very, very interested and was nodding along.

One thing I could hear if I listened hard enough was the metal clicking of the glove, yes THE glove, Robert was wearing. Finally it was time, we were ushered back, there was a table to drop shit you didn’t want in the picture, bag abandoned, I moved forward and watched as a few people ahead got theirs done. They are so fast, there is no time to even really say anything and I am stressed. I mean he is five fucking feet from me and I am dying.

It’s my turn.

I go up, I say, “Hi!” and he nods with a big smile. He wants me on the other side of him so without saying anything, he puts both hands on me, the man didn’t say shit to me before touching me! Talk about a dream. He moved me to his right, both hands on my biceps and I am sure the look on my face was priceless. He presses me to him and says, he doesn’t ask, not really, he TELLS me, “I’m gonna grab your hair, okay?” and then my high ponytail that is fed through the back of my springwood high baseball cap is in his gloved hand and he is pulling it up! I am dying.

I had no idea what to do with my hands. My heart is racing, I feel warm and just, thoughtless? Full of joy and totally thoughtless, smiling like a total idiot. The photo is taken, the photographer is fucking laughing, I assume from my expression and demeanor and like, my everything. They call out next and Robert told me, “Good job.”

He told me good fucking job and I was walking away, totally on air. I got my bag, I headed to pick up my photo and it was printed off and passed to me and I was still grinning staring down at it. I pre-paid to get it framed, I went to do so and the framing girl was saying something but I wasn’t listening, I literally can’t remember what she talked to me about.

I left with my freshly framed photo and headed to go meet up with my husband and friends. The whole walk from the north to the south building I was smiling so hard under my mask. I kept on thinking over and over, “He touched me. He pulled my hair. He told me good job. I met him. I got a photo with him-” over and over.

So happy.

I shopped more, I went back to the hotel, I told the tea to everyone cuz we got separated, had dinner and then went to the live podcast recording with Jay and Silent Bob.

Then today, Sunday, I had two missions. Get the photo signed, go to Robert’s panel and ask aquestion. After getting in my Amber fit and packing up the room and car for later we leave. Grab breakfast, show up at the con an hour after it opened. I go to Robert’s line immediately and I am greeted with a sign that says, “Robert Englund is closed for the day. Tickets only.”

After an hour his line was full for the fucking day. I missed my shot. They decided to pre-sell autographs, even tho they didn’t advertise it on the website that they made such a change so I missed it. I checked over and over if I could pre-buy but there was no option. So heart broken and dejected, I left and met up with the friends and Mr.Bex.

After some heavy retail therapy and some great finds I break to go get in line for the panel. I am fourth in line, I get in and park myself as close to the mic as I can.

He comes out and it starts and the guy with Robert takes a half hour of his time asking some questions then it was our turn. I ran and made it sixth in line because someone went for the mic before they officially said we could. I thought, sixth, I can totally fucking get my question in. I was going to ask if he had any cool stories or fun memories he wanted to share about working on Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon.

We got two questions in, someone asked to cut and the person let them, and then this fuck, proceeds to ask THREE questions you could google. About if there was ever talk of a Freddy VS Jason two, which there was, which led to Robert talking about Freddy VS Jason VS Ash and then this fuck asking if Robert would ever play Freddy again, to which, as he always says, is a big fat no. He would like a cameo as a doctor if they ever remake Dream Warriors tho.

This fuck took so long, that they let there be one more question. I was so close. Two people away from asking. What a bummer. The panel was great, Robert was fun and again being in the same room and hearing him talk about his passion for his craft is so good.

After this the Joseph Quinn panel was happening and getting out of the con after that let out would be insane, so we left. Back to the car, hit the Wendy’s on airport road, came home and unpacked and here I am.

It was a great con, a great return, amazing new memories, great finds and true, while I didn’t get a signature, Robert didn’t see my tattoo because they rushed the photo’s so much, and I didn’t get to ask a question, it was a great weekend.

I miss it already. I can’t wait for next year!

I had fun, I still got my photo, Robert touched me, spoke to me, I shared time with him and that is so fucking speical and huge and makes every little negative thing more than worth it. I hope I can see him at a con in the future and THEN get the photo I took with him signed!

And that is the whole tale! Hope you are satisfied with it.

#BHF vaycay #BHF face #HERE IT ALLLLL IS #I am focusing on the good #It WAS amazing in so many ways #Even with the few rough spots #I loved the start of this vacation #I loved getting the time with Mr.Bex #I am fucking DYING #LIKE OH MY GODDDDD #ROBERT MY MANNNN #HE RUINED ME #And yes I was fucking wet as hell the rest of the day

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hollybell51 · 3 years ago

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Chapter Ten

A rabbit’s warren, a rabbit’s rules

A Heart of Ice - Jack Frost x fem!Reader

Chapter Nine, masterpost

Word count: 1653

Summary: it’s Bunny’s turn to tell the “buckle up” joke.

“Hey (Y/N)? (Y/N)!” Jack ran through the factory, desperately searching for you. There’d been no sign of you since you’d gotten back, since the sleigh ride in silence, Sandy’s absence gaping painfully, since you’d smiled at him and touched his face.

“Come on mate, hurry up or we’re leavin’ without her!” Bunny shouted, obviously impatient.

“We can’t just leave her here!” he yelled back, “just gimme a few more minutes.”

“Mate—”

“Be quick, Jack!” North cut him off, and Jack kept running to find you. Where would you go? You’d want somewhere quiet and alone, probably hard to get to. Somewhere where you could think…

“The roof,” he muttered, leaping out the closest window and riding an upwards draft to above the factory, scanning the massive structure for any sign of you. It only took him a second to spot the tiny figure, standing on the top of the roof, arms spread wide.

He swooped down, alighting behind you and stopping dead. You were glowing, like you did when you were happy, or when you were doing your thing with love.

“(Y/N)?” he asked, stepping carefully towards you.

“Hi, Jack.” The smile was evident in your voice, joy dripping from every sound as you spread your arms wider, swaying gently. “God, I love it up here.”

“Y-yeah,” he frowned, inspecting your face. You were high, he just didn’t know what you’d taken. “So… what are you on?”

“MDMA,” you answered, like he had just asked what the time was.

“Wait but I—” He’d thrown away the packet you’d had, emptied the contents into a pond and frozen the water. There was no way you could have gotten it.

“Can’t stop me, Jack. I’m very resourceful.” You sighed, turning and flitting closer. Your cheeks were flushed, your pupils dilated despite the brightness of the day, and up this close he could see the baby hairs sticking to your forehead with sweat. It was just like Jamie’s roof, you looking up at him, so close he could feel the heat of your skin through the air between you. Jack placed a hand on your forehead, pulling away when you gasped. You were hot, so hot.

“Do that again,” you breathed, your eyes closed.

“No, (Y/N), you need to get it together. The others are looking for you, we’re going. Easter needs us.”

“I don’t like Easter very much,” you sighed. “We should just stay here. You and me, Jack.”

“Don’t do this, (Y/N).”

“Why not?” you frowned, moving even closer to him.

He should have stopped you before you did anything you’d regret, before one or both of you got hurt. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop you as you placed both your unnaturally warm hands behind his head, couldn’t stop you as you pulled him even closer, couldn't stop you from pressing your lips against his, your fingers tangling in his hair. And he couldn’t stop himself from kissing you back, even though he knew you didn’t really want this, he couldn’t stop his hands finding your waist, couldn’t stop the frantic pounding of his heart and the roaring of blood in his ears. And he didn’t even know if he wanted to.

You both jumped as someone cleared their throat, turning to see Tooth hovering behind you.

“Tooth,” Jack said, “I… uh, I found (Y/N).”

“I found Jack,” you grinned.

“Can you help me out here?” he asked her, shoving you forwards.

Tooth glanced between the two of you, frowning. “Sure,” she said slowly, flitting around to beside him. “What the hell is going on?” she hissed.

“She’s high,” he whispered back, “I don’t know how long it’ll last.”

“And it was your clever idea to make out with her? Jack, that’s really—”

“Stupid, I know. But it wasn’t my idea, and I wasn’t making out with her. She kissed me. Anyway, can you help me out with this? At least until she stops acting… high.” His lips were still tingling from your kiss, and as wrong as it was and as much as he hated himself for thinking it, he wanted you to do it again.

Tooth sighed. “Yes, Jack. She’s my friend too. With her metabolism, she’ll be fine in about an hour, maybe two.”

“Alright!” North shouted as they entered the room, you trailing behind them. “To the sleigh!”

“Oh no, mate,” Bunny stopped him, grinning. “My warren, my rules. Buckle up!” He banged a foot on the ground, and it opened up, swallowing the group into a large tunnel.

For the most part, Jack managed to stay upright and in control, relying heavily on his staff. He grabbed you, aware that it was probably not going to be fun for you to be bounced around with everyone else while tripping balls.

“We should do this more often!” you called, your arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Jack tried desperately to pay attention to staying upright and to keep his mind for fixating on your warmth, your breath brushing his cheek, the soft lines of your body... he was failing.

“I agree!” Bunny yelled back over North’s cursing, the two Yetis’ yells, and Tooth’s laughter.

After a moment, everyone tumbled out onto the ground, North and his Yetis landing in a large heap while Bunny, Tooth, you and Jack all landed on your feet.

North groaned, getting up slowly. “Buckle up,” he laughed. “Is very funny.”

“Welcome to the Warren!” Bunny grinned, spreading his arms. Behind him, two large stone eggs were turning in their places, the carvings on their mossy faces showing smiles. Suddenly, Bunny froze, standing bolt upright, his ears twitching.

“What’s going on?” you whispered beside Jack, your hand resting on your bow.

“Something’s up,” Bunny said, brandishing his boomerangs. North pulled out his swords, and Jack readied his staff, aware of you drawing back an arrow. As you watched, a flood of tiny white eggs ran towards us, a high-pitched scream following them. It was downright creepy.

North yelled, charging forwards, the everyone else following behind him ready to attack whatever it was that was chasing the eggs. Only, it became apparent that it was all unnecessary when a little blonde girl holding three eggs came running out of the tunnel ahead, the squeal dying in her throat.

“Sophie?” Jacked asked, confused. Everyone quickly put away their weapons.

Sophie laughed, dropping the eggs and chasing after an elf. “Elf elf elf!”

“What is she doing here?” Bunny asked, panicking.

“Ah, snowglobe,” North muttered, patting himself down.

“Crickey, somebody do something!”

“Don’t look at me,” Jack said, “I’m invisible, remember?”

“Don’t worry, Bunny,” Tooth smiled, fluttering over to where the kid was dragging the elf along the ground by its hat. “I bet she’s a fairy fan! It’s ok, little one.”

“Pretty…” Sophie sighed, dropping the elf and staring at Tooth.

“Aw! You know what? I’ve got something for you! Here it is!” She opened her hands, presenting a handful of teeth to the child. “Look at all the pretty teeth! With little bits of blood and gum on them!”

“Tooth, what the fuck?” you asked, frowning at the shocked fairy as Sophie ran away crying. Your cheeks were still flushed, your skin still alight and your eyes shining. “Blood and gum?”

“Seriously, Tooth,” Jack added, “when was the last time any of you guys actually hung out with kids?”

“We are very busy bringing joy to children!” North protested. “We don’t have time… for children.”

Jack quickly conjured a snowflake, twirling it around his finger and sending it through the air towards Bunny. “If one little kid can ruin Easter… then we’re in worse shape than I thought.”

The snowflake collided with Bunny’s nose, sending a burst of sparkling magic over him. He blinked, then smiled and bent down to Sophie. “You wanna paint some eggs? Yeah?”

She laughed, running after him as he led her through a tunnel. The others trailed after them, coming out into a huge green area, hills and rivulets all covered in the little eggs, all walking down through flowers and grass.

“Alright, troops,” Bunny addressed, “it’s time to push back. That means eggs everywhere! Heaps of you in every high-rise, farm-house and trailer park. In tennis shoes and cereal bowls, there will be bathtubs filled with my beautiful googies!”

Jack turned away from the flood of eggs, searching for you. You weren’t behind him anymore, in fact you were nowhere he could see you at all.

“Uh, (Y/N)?” he called, jumping down from where he was balancing on his staff. “Hey North, did you see where (Y/N) went?”

“No,” the big man frowned, “why?”

“I can’t… can’t see her anywhere.” He turned to go, but North grabbed his arm, turning him to face him.

“Jack,” he said softly, “this is very hard for (Y/N). Pitch being back again, she is…” he stopped, glancing around.

“They had something together, didn’t they?” Jack asked.

He sighed. “It is not my place to tell you about (Y/N)’s past, but she and Pitch have history that none of us do, and she has struggles with him – and with herself – that we can never understand.”

“What do you mean? With herself? I know about the uh, the drugs and all that, if that’s what you mean.”

“No,” he shook his head, sighing again. “That is not what I mean. It is her story to tell, but you must know this if you are going to be of any help to her at all. And she will need your help, Jack.”

“I…” He trailed off, at a loss for words. What the hell was he on about? “Ok.” He turned to go, but North stopped him again.

“One more thing,” he said. “She is very lucky to have you as a friend.”

“A friend, yeah.” Jack said, retreating down the path the eggs were taking.

Chapter Eleven

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