#the titans are going to rise up again and destroy the forest? there was a brief side plot where they try to avert that but like...

[clare-875]

Until The End (Levi x Reader)- Chapter 13

[Capture and Protect]

_____ A/N: Posted on Wattpad (@CLARE_875) but also decided to post here :)

Summary: "You can push me away, but I will still fight by you, and I will still follow you… until the end."

The ever-so-stoic Levi Ackerman has only ever known the terrors that living in a cruel world could bring. This all changed one fateful day when he encountered [y/n]; a girl renowned for her looks and abnormal speed. As they escape the confines of the Underground together, they soon discover that freedom doesn't come easy in a world full of Titans. As they rise through the ranks, [y/n] becomes known as "Humanity's Angel", a beacon of hope to humanity as she melts the walls Levi had built around his heart. However, she has her secrets too, and a dark past that might just threaten to pull them apart.

The storyline and characters of Attack on Titan do NOT belong to me, but all to Hajime Isayama; however, I do own this story, and all that occurs disparate to that storyline.

[Series Masterlist] [Chapter Twelve] <--> [Chapter Fourteen] _____

Warnings: Canonical Violence, descriptions of injury

Two days had passed since you had woken up in the hospital, but most things went back to normal. Mikasa had sought you out to apologise, which you instantly brushed off. You had given her a knowing look, telling her you knew what it felt to want vengeance for those you love. She had looked at you in surprise and, in turn, surprised you with a slight smile as she thanked you again and wandered off. Eren had also checked up on you, grateful for your support in getting him back. You smiled to yourself; they were good kids. 

Levi had been... overbearing, to say the least. Barely letting you move despite the fact that your wound was healing at the abnormal pace it was. He, on the other hand, was the one who needed the rest, as you got concerned each time he would grasp at the leg he injured. It turned out that before he had come to your side, he had landed wrong in his haste to get Mikasa to get Eren to safety. Despite that, you were happy to have more time with him as both of us were grounded due to our injuries. Erwin's orders. 

During that time, he had debriefed you on the situation and upcoming operation. Apparently, with the help of the members of the 104th Training Corps, the blond boy, Armin, had helped to identify a person of interest that may be the Female Titan. Annie Leonhart. The one also supposedly responsible for killing Sawney and Bean. Evidently, she was part of the same 104th Training Corps and is now part of the Military Police. The operation would take place in the Stohess District within Wall Sina on the way to the capital. This was our last chance to capture the Female Titan; otherwise, we would have to give Eren up to the Capital. If that happened, our pursuit of finding those who wish to destroy the walls would become increasingly difficult, to the point where humanity may go extinct. 

The plan itself was that Erwin, Levi and you, along with a boy named Jean disguised as Eren, would pass through Stohess. Then, Eren would act as a decoy and lead Annie into the Underground tunnel. If they got her to the lowest level, even if she transformed, we would be able to immobilize her. However, if she had transformed before, then Eren would likely have to transform as well, and with the help of the Scouts, try to capture her. Of course, though, this was Erwin's plan, meaning there's also a plan C. If Plan B fails, Hange and Miche would be on standby, ready to entrap the female Titan with metal wires used in the Giant Forest. All of this would have to be done without you and Levi’s assistance. 

Nurse Frida had already warned you that the bleeding on your side had only recently stopped fully, your skin barely holding the injury together. If you made any sudden movements before it was fully healed, you could risk reopening it, making you return to the dire situation you were in only a few days ago. Unfortunately, Levi had been present when she gave you the rundown. You had only told him about the ability to heal at an abnormal pace, not including any other facts you had found out the days prior or of your dream. You didn't want to burden him more than you knew he was. He had taken the warning from Frida seriously, however, and though you lacked the need for bandages now, he made sure your movements were always careful as to stop you from bleeding out again. 

You now stepped out of the carriage in a simple, long black dress with matching high heels on your feet. I picked them out with Petra a few months ago. We had come to a halt due to a disturbance down the road, though you knew the "disturbance" to probably be Annie having transformed before we could encase her in the Underground tunnel. You sigh, before looking at your surroundings. You don't think you can get used to this whole "formal attire" thing. You glance over to Levi, who stands next to you. He was also in formal attire: a black jacket and pants with a white buttoned-up shirt underneath. Okay, you think to yourself, maybe I could get used to it. Well, that was before you saw the Military Police, who looked shamelessly at you.Levi had already given a dozen Scouts cleaning duty during our preparation to the Capital for, quote, "getting too distracted." 

You were slightly glad, though, as he stood slightly in front of you, blocking the majority from your view. You were sick of being treated like an object for men's pleasure as you hear another one of them let out a low whistle, "Humanity's angel in a dress." You hear mutters arise as you roll your eyes, wishing you could walk up to them and show them what "Humanity's Angel" can actually do. You see Levi tense slightly, piercing glare pointed towards the direction of the noise, but before things get too out of hand, Erwin, luckily, speaks out. 

"Nile... Deploy all of your troops. We should assume a Titan has appeared." You look up to see the Commander of the Military police look back at Erwin. "What are you saying? This is Wall Sina... There's no way a Titan could be here!" You hear a carriage nearby suddenly open again, and you see Jean, disguised as Eren, jump out in haste. "Wait! Don't move, Jaeger!" Jean looks in annoyance at the Military Police, who grasped at him, "I'm done with this disguise!" He throws the brown wig on his head to the floor as the soldier in front of him gasps dramatically. You sweatdropped slightly; it really wasn't that good of a disguise. "Never call me by that name again, moron!" Jean runs off, stopping before us and letting Erwin know that he is going too, before running off to get his equipment. 

"Erwin, what is this?" Nile yells out, but he is interrupted as a soldier lands nearby. "Commander, here!" A soldier comes with a case, which opens to reveal maneuver gear ready to go. "Good work," Erwin nods before taking the gear and putting it on himself. "Hey, Erwin!" Nile continues to shout but is ignored as Erwin looks at his surroundings. "Anyone who can move, follow me! We'll rendezvous with the capture teams." You and Levi stay in our place as you see Nile stand in front of Erwin, gun cocked and aimed at him. "Erwin, wait." The other military police follow through as well, pointing their guns at Erwin. "What you're doing is clearly treason against the crown!" 

"Nile," you hear Levi speak up from next to you, a bored expression on his face, "I'm starting to wonder if your brains don't even live up to that sorry excuse of a beard." You grin inwardly at his remark before crossing your arms over your chest and stepping next to Levi, "Seems to me that you don't even have a clue what's going on." Nile doesn't falter at our words; his gun is still aimed at Erwin. "Remove your equipment, Erwin!" A tense silence takes over as Erwin stares, blue eyes flickering at the man in front of him. Suddenly, bright light shine from the skies in the distance. Orange and yellow sparks fill the air as Nile turns, eyes wide, "Now what?" A familiar growl reaches the air. Eren. 

.....

"Titans fighting each other?!" You look up to see two members of the Military Police land by Nile's side. "Yes," the soldier replies, "The damage to the city is unbelievable! There are many casualties, both civilian and military." Nile's face turns to one of fury. "Erwin! Is all this due to your plan?!" A brief silence takes over before Erwin replies, unflinchingly. "That's correct." You hear the nearby sound of civilians screaming with the thunderous boom of the city being destroyed. "All of this was my personal decision." Erwin's stare is intense as he looks at Nile. "I don't intend to make excuses." Nile freezes, his eyes fierce at Erwin's words, before moving forward and grabbing him by the collar. "You must have known what would happen if you executed a plan like this in the city. “How? How could you do this!?" Erwin replies without hesitation. 

"To lead humanity to victory." 

"Bullshit!" Nile's voice echoes between the buildings before he lets Erwin go and reaches for his gun again. "You're a traitor! I could execute you right here and now, and none of the brass would even care!" Tension reaches the air again as you look around; you’re surrounded. "That's fine by me," Erwin replies. "But then you must assume command." Nile's form goes rigid as his hold on his gun falters. "You must not let the Female Titan escape. Paehl's in charge of formation. Vyler oversees supply. Work with them to drive her to the east wall at all costs." 

"W-wait... Wait!" Erwin heeds Nile's words, halting in his debrief of the situation. "Are you... Are you really telling me that this will help humanity?" You look to the skies, smoke now bellowing off the buildings throughout Stohess, fires raging whilst bits of debris were flung in the air. "I believe it's a step forward." Heavy silence consumes us as you see Nile's form wither, eyes shut before he grits his teeth, pulling his gun to his side. "Lower your guns, all of you." He announces as Erwin's blue eyes spark with surprise. "Handcuff him." The military police around us heed his orders, nodding. "Deploy all of our men. Your priority is civilian rescue and evacuation!" 

"Erwin, a trial will decide your punishment," Nile says, as a soldier forces Erwin's hands together. "Once this is over. I'll submit to one with pleasure." Erwin replies, voice calm as ever. His eyes then follow you and Levi as we move slightly forward. "Levi, [y/n] you stay put," his eyes then sharpen at Levi, who seems to hesitate. "You hate pointless death." Levi looks to Erwin at his words, eyes sharpening, "Yeah, you're right. I despise it, whether it be mine or your causing someone else's." 

..... 

"Levi!" you yell out as you follow him. He walks to the best of his ability to where a group of Scouts stands. He turned around swiftly, eyes sharp. You sigh, "Where are you going? Your leg is still-" But before you can finish, Levi quickly interrupts, "I have to get to where the Titans are fighting," you look at him in surprise as his gaze softens briefly before he continues. "I just have a feeling things are getting out of hand." You look at him, nodding; you trust his intuition. "Let me go with you," you say as you approach him, already knowing the answer before he speaks, shaking his head. "I won't have you bleeding out on me again," his eyes flash briefly as you see a look of past horror in his eyes. You knit your eyebrows together as he tries to get you to trust him. 

"Okay," you say slowly, his eyes looking at you in shock, "but, I'm not leaving." Levi sighs in defeat before nodding, "Fine, here," he tosses his jacket in your direction. You catch it looking up questioningly. "So the shitty Military Police don't get distracted." You look at him in shock before you put the jacket on, instantly warmer and more comfortable. You smile, rolling your eyes at his slightly flushed cheeks before he notices the teasing glint in your eyes, an irk mark appearing on his forehead. "Tch go before I change my mind!" You let out a slight laugh, shaking your head as you walked down the street in the direction Erwin left. "Yes, Captain~" 

..... 

You finally made it to Erwin's side, and your eyes widened at the scene in front of you. Eren's Titan's eyes glowed sharply, red marks adorning its body. His movements were frantic, fuelled with rage as he held onto the Female Titan, who grasped at its eyes in agony. Eren had lost control. Suddenly, the Female Titan elbows Eren's Titan in the face, blood bursting on impact, but you can't tell whether it's Eren's or hers. She then falls to the floor before kicking Eren forcefully in the head, causing him to land across civilian buildings with an earth-shattering boom. The ground shakes, but you look on to see the Female Titan get up slowly, smoke bellowing from her damaged face. She rushes forward towards Wall Sina with sharp crystalline claws appearing, the same substance that had stopped you and Levi from penetrating through her neck with our blades. 

She starts to climb up the walls in a frantic attempt at escape as Eren growls, before rising from the fallen buildings and lunging at her. Eren grabs at the Titan's legs, now hanging from her as she continues to rise. your heart thumps irregularly. If she escapes, all would be lost. As Eren tries to bite into one leg, the Female Titan kicks Eren with the other, causing him to fall to the ground. The female Titan continues to rise upwards, now free of his grasp before you see a whizz of raven hair rises towards her. At first, you thought it was Levi, but then you saw it was actually Mikasa. She cries out as she turns through the air on her maneuver gear before slicing at the Titan's fingers, causing one hand to fall limp by its side. She then changed direction, slicing again at the Titan's left hand. A moment passes, and then the Female Titan finally falls to the ground. 

The impact causes the ground underneath her to break, but then you see Eren rise up, lunging towards her, punching her hand away that flings through the air towards us. Soldiers around us scramble as the arm moves, coming in direct contact with the bridge where Erwin and you stood. Despite the blood that spurted from her severed limb and debris that flew through the air by our side, we stood motionless, looking at the scene in front of us. "I'll destroy the entire world!" Eren's voice is raspy and unnerving as it reaches the skies through the Titan. His hair moves relentlessly through the wind, and his eyes are purely murderous. Eren then leans forward towards the nape of the Female Titan, intent on devouring Annie. 

"Crap... He'll eat the girl inside, too!" You hear Hange yell from one of the rooftops. "Don't, Eren!" Jean yells out from beside them, eyes wide at the scene. "Eren!" Mikasa shouts at him, but he heeds them no mind. Your hands start to tremble as you look, unable to do anything as Eren gets closer to its nape, teeth sharp and eyes wild. He then bites in, blood tainting the air as the flesh of the nape becomes undone to reveal a girl with blond hair, unmoving as tears fall from her closed eyes. Eren's form seems to stop momentarily at the sight, as a brief silence overtakes us. But then, a bright blue light extends from where Annie lay, causing soldiers to look away as heavy winds and pressure extend out with the lights. Are they fusing?

Flesh rises up from the Female Titan, enveloping Eren's Titan with its own before you see the glow of a crystalline substance growing and enveloping Annie. Just as you think that you are done for and the crystal will envelop Eren too, you see two blades glistening between the lights. A familiar green cape flashes with the symbol of the Scouts before rushing down to Eren's Titan's nape, quickly slicing through to reveal the boy. It was Levi. "Don't eat a valuable witness, you idiot," you hear his voice as his eyes look down at the boy. Your heart warms at the sight of him despite the situation as you grasp at the jacket around you, relief filling your body. 

.... 

Several moments later, you stood between Levi and Hange as we looked at the sight of a Titan's skeleton steaming in the sun. To its left lies Annie protected deep within an impenetrable crystal. You see Mikasa hold Eren up in his withered form whilst Armin sits by his side. Moments pass slowly when you see the boy finally stir, red marks of his Titan adorning his eyes and face. "Eren..." you hear Mikasa mutter as she looks at him. "Mikasa?" The boy looks at the raven-haired girl and asks, "Where's Annie?" You follow their line of sight to Jean, who continues to slice at the crystal she is encased in despite it not leaving a single scratch, and instead causing his own blade to shatter. 

"Damn it! What is this?!" You hear him yell, eyes sharp on the woman in front of him who seems in a deep sleep. "We've come this far, and you still won't say a word, Annie?! Come out! Come out and finish what you started! Hey, this isn't fair... Annie! Annie!" Levi puts a hand on his shoulder as you follow him slowly to where they stand, standing behind them. "Stop it," Jean looks to Levi, desperation clear on his face, "it's useless." You see Jean's face conflict with emotions before he finally brings his blade back down to his side.

"Use the wires to make a net!" It's Hange now who speaks out to the Scouts. "We'll tie it up and carry it Underground." Soldiers around us reply affirmatively as they move to their commands. You look to Hange, who is deep in thought. You know what they're thinking. So many people had died, and so many sacrifices had been made, but if Annie couldn't answer any of our questions, what would we have to show for it all?  Youmove to their side quickly, squeezing their shoulder to try to provide some comfort. Hange looks to you gratefully before they go off to oversee the other Scouts. 

You follow Levi as we slowly approach Erwin, who stands still, handcuffed in front of a dozen military police. "I don't suppose we can call this operation a success..." Levi speaks out as we stop briefly beside him. "No." Erwin replies, "We have ensured the continued survival of the Survey Corps, most likely by the skin of our teeth." Levi's face darkens as you look at the floor in front of you.

.....

Later, Erwin met with the Brass under the watchful gaze of the military, and we learned several things. The summons for Eren Jaeger and the Survey Corps were suspended indefinitely. The custody of Annie Leonhart was granted to the Survey Corps, where we would keep her hidden and captive deep Underground. However, it would still take much sacrifice and time before we would learn what it was that held us captive. What it was that made you feel like your freedom, true freedom lay so far out of reach. 

_____

[Chapter Twelve] <--> [Chapter Fourteen]

[nikki-smurfling]

Who wants the shortest outline of the Defendersverse I can make? None of you? Too bad you're getting it. By the way, it's not very short but I tried. Text wall time!

SO

Back before there were smurfs, when the Titans were just locked away in Tartarus, there was a prophecy. "The legend of Tartarus will rise again and befall the land, wreaking havoc in his wake. To free the land and restore balance, the golden jewel must be found and returned to its former glory." A couple hundred years pass and Achelois (a minor goddess, in charge of the phases and pulls of the moon) begins to create one of the greatest beings...a Titan that she builds alongside the other gods, who all lend bits of their powers to her to put into this beast. The titan, breathed to life as a very small child, is meant to grow powerful under their guidance and destroy all the other titans that are locked away. Cut to another part of the world, where a brave and kind sorceress, (Enter Sorceress Imenga) is growing weary of how much her followers simply take, take take without giving anything in return or even so much as thanking her for her good deeds (healing people and stuff) and eventually she becomes bitter and curses them all to lose their understanding of money/currency. Threatening to permanently curse them if they don't repent, and when this doesn't work turning them into small creatures with tails. A young mage who was under the curse vows to stand up to her, and upon defeating (and killing) Imenga attempts to use her magic to heal the cursed people. This only turns them blue. They all want to worship him for saving them, which he denies and eventually simply becomes their leader, asking his new followers to merely spread goodness among themselves and the other creatures of the forest that had grown around their once busy village. He essentially becomes the first Papa Smurf, dying with an unfinished spell to turn his followers back into humans gripped tightly in his thousand year grasp.

A few generations later, the newest leader loses his son (youngest of twins). He decides to dedicate his time to trying to bring his son back, slowly corrupting as he learns more and more powerful spells. Eventually he learns about the young Titan, a being of ultimate power. Along with a "friend" (we'll get to that later) he tries to steal some of the young titan's power. Ripping into his wings as the small beast is in the middle of transforming, he renders him permanently flightless-and manages to get enough magic from him to create very powerful amulets. The "friend," during this attack, also steals away Achelois' immortality. With the last bit of her powers, she completely removes all of the young titan's memory and whisks them off to the castle of the kingdom they had been hiding away in. The young Titan, who now believes himself to simply be a gargoyle, is renamed from his godly name (Goyuilus) to Bainbridge, and is the prized possession of the king and his new wife (Yes, Achelois marries the king.)

Now back to the leader, he's created these seven powerful amulets that he gives to members of his village, the very first Defenders of the Smurfs. These amulets give these smurfs the ability to shapeshift into different creatures. This is merely in attempt to hide what he's actually trying to do, and one member is permanently trapped in his animal form. A cat. Remember this, the cat is VERY important. One member of the team is killed, and shortly thereafter he takes said member's sisters (They were triplets) off to try and find another source of powerful magic, ultimately trapping both girls in Castle Captor (Talking castle that forces its "guests" to work and vanishes from reality for 500 years. Time doesn't pass within the walls of the castle so the girls are going to be children for a LONG time) Having lost an entire family that was close to his remaining son, he falls deeper into his corruption. Eventually, his living son sees how dark he's become and bands the Defenders together to trap him in a new form...a human form. They don't know this, but this also makes him immortal. The son (Storyteller is his name, btw...he's later known as who we met as Grandpa) begins trying to undo all of the damage to the village that his father (Who has dubbed himself "Hastor") has done, starting with removing any and all knowledge of Mage and Imenga's existence and creating an entire false history that dates back as far as the beginning of man. As he travels and records these false stories, he also loses several of the amulets which the other Defenders have given him. This is ALSO important, remember this later too.

Well in the meantime the "friend" of his father is...roaming the world and causing natural disasters and plagues that we would all recognize as mass historical events in present day. (For example, Pompeii and Atlantis.) That. That would be because this "friend" was actually the titan Kronos. He escaped from Tartarus shortly after Bainbridge was created and has been travelling the world by possessing powerful members of different societies so he could find the rest of his body. His pit stop at the smurfs' village was an attempt to find one of those parts, but he never succeeded because his host failed the mission to kill Bainbridge. Cut to five hundred years later, Hastor had attempted to forge a new family to forget about his past as a smurf, but this family moved on without him. Hastor's human son, is Palladore. He's the wizard that raised what WE know as Papa Smurf, from a child. Palladore's great-great Grandson...is Gargamel. Which is hilarious because Storyteller's son is Papa Smurf. That's only somewhat important information. Anyways like great-great grandfather, like great-great grandson I guess, Hastor and Gargamel are both evil.

Gargamel has been forced to foster three girls, around the time what we'd know as season nine of the smurfs' series is (It doesn't exist in the Defendersverse, but the main plot point does, that's the Time Crystals. More stuff that's super important, remember this later.) These three girls revolt after he captures some smurfs and steals their essence, drinking the essence and...turning into smurfs. They and the captured smurfs go back to the village and the girls are allowed to stay. One of those girls is...actually not a girl, they're Nikki. Nikki was already a shapeshifter funny enough because they're a werewolf. The whole drinking part of the smurf essence did something funky to their lycanthropy and the only way to calm down the magic happens to be the only remaining amulet Storyteller managed to save while travelling the world. So he gives it to them, and the Defenders are reborn! It's...only Nikki as of this point. But you gotta start somewhere I guess.

Anyway so fun fact that cat that was actually a Smurf Defender who got trapped in his animal form? That's Azrael. No one ever learns this but I consider it important to know.

Back to the actual storyline, remember those girls that got caught in castle captor? Yeah they spent ANOTHER 500 years there and this is around the time they FINALLY manage to escape. Those two girls are trying to find their way to the village, and in the meantime Kronos is wreaking havoc on nearby kingdoms. He completely demolishes the kingdom of the Pix (a group of elemental pixies who kept their land alive) and creates what the smurfs eventually dub the Deadlands. The five princesses only manage to survive because Kronos uses the oldest sister to travel to the next place (she's now the queen. Yes she's an ice elemental. Yes this was canon to Defendersverse BEFORE Frozen EVER came out. Disney stole my ice queen/j) which was a pair of elven kingdoms who were on the verge of war with one another. Oh, did I say on the verge? He took over one of the kings and everyone turned into orcs and killed one another. Except for the halfblood duke and his older pureblood sister, who he uses to travel BACK to the smurfs' village and just. Kind of resides inside the brain of the halflbood duke for a while.

Now we're back at Smurfs' village! Random pockets in space and time start to appear and suck humans through them, said humans landing in the village. They're given the option to stay and any who agree are turned into smurfs and adopted by members of the village. The Defenders is now six members strong and some of them even found some of the missing amulets before they ever landed in the village.

THIS is where the crazy stuff starts to happen. Bainbridge, known now very popularly as The Golden Gargoyle, is being sent to the village to be protected from humans who keep trying to steal him and melt him down for his magic. Kronos' current host (Raja) happens to be one of the Defenders now (He was bitten by one of them in Kronos' attempt to get him killed so he could find a more powerful host, but it didn't go as planned. Just imagine the "A LLAMA? HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!" thing but instead it's a tiger, because that's essentially what happened) And he gives away to his host that Bain is actually a titan. Nobody else knows this for a VERY long time.

Kronos eventually lets go of Raja and possesses Brainy. At some point in time two of the closeted gay kids get caught by Brainy, and Kronos decides to have some fun since finding his body is taking so long...he starts a literal war in the village and uses Brainy's own internalized homophobia to spark it. Approximately fourteen years of chaos follows and Kronos gets stronger as he gets to feed off of all the insanity. FINALLY the chaotic internal magic turns Brainy into a massive bumbling monster that completely demolishes the village and all of the smurfs flee to the Ranch (which is heavily fortified and monster Brainy can't get in. By the way they call his monster form a Wendigo.)

WendiBrain wreaks more havoc for a bit and eventually Kronos gets bored and leads Bain and the Defenders on a massive chase to one of the farthest islands on the archipelago the smurfs live on. There he fully takes over WendiBrain and announces what his plans are, which snaps all of Bain's memories back into place and he's able to go full beast mode...there's a huge battle between Bain (Who gets Really Fekin Big™️ ) and Kronos (Who Bain rips out of WendiBrain, causing Brainy to turn back into himself but covered in scars, and causing Kronos to grow to the biggest form he's able to take on with what bits of his body he's found.) And the gods all have to come down to protect this archipelago because this is the place THEIR Titan decided to call home and they aren't about to let it get destroyed. Bain finally permanently kills Kronos and the village eventually starts to rebuild itself. Did I mention that Bain essentially created a new god to take Achelois' place by falling in love with the sixth Defender and unknowingly turning her into a Goddess? And that they have a baby? That baby is also a god and when Kronos is permanently destroyed he takes on the role of the God of Chaos (but you know he's a good guy now) because can't have balance without chaos.

And that's the main outline that doesn't include super small but super serious details such as

● Bain getting turned into a statue by Hastor and a group of smurfs actually going into space to get a material they need to bring him back but then Bain forgetting everything that's happened in the past 200 years

● Scruple actually being Gargamel's nephew and unknowingly being an amazingly powerful wizard, who gets even more magic crammed into him by being his uncle's experimental guinea pig

● Nikki biting their best friend because they went feral after their amulet chipped (and then said friends keeping her lycan powers)

● Scruple being rescued from his uncle and turned into a smurf

● A group of kids finding some teleportation crystals (see second live action movie) and travelling to 2020 California, and their parents following them only to get trapped as humans for a month

● Gargamel and the other villains ganging up to get rid of the smurfs only for Gargamel and Grandpa to get killed by an explosion

● Fitz, a mad scientist turned Time Demon being thrown into the smurfs' village and giving them electricity, and teaching someone how to build sewage so they have running water

● Scruple having a mental breakdown that causes a blizzard that drops 20 feet of snow on the village the day Gargamel died

And more, including a third generation who is responsible for their parents even being removed from the human realm and turned into smurfs to begin with because of a time machine, and Hastor having a redemption arc!

[shadowboxmind]

idk if anyone else has read the Titan’s Forest trilogy, but I just finished Tides of the Titans and can I just say [spoilers kinda]: Hunger deserved better. Like, everything else that happened, cool, whatever, but Hunger! She deserved so much better and she was punished for something that’s not even really her fault. And Aforis. Poor Aforis. He deserves the world.

Also the winged were described as people with leaf wings but the description in this book just sounds like... a dragon? A wyvern if y’all want to get specific but hmm I’m confused

[leviiattacks]

May I request a Levi x Reader angst fic? Just barely any fluff, mostly angst going on lol. The reader is a traitor, formaly working for Marley, but betraying them in secret and putting their loyalty on Paradis. The reader is also a shifter and married to Levi for a couple of years. That love and care however is gone once readers identity is found. He truly despises them, insults them, maybe a bit violent with them, and outright tells them that they mean nothing to him anymore and hate them to bits. Readers punishment is to hand over her titan to Erwin, and they agree instantly, broken over everything, believing its all their fault. Once Erwin inherits Readers titan, he breaks down and screams, crying, because Reader was innocent the whole time. They never betrayed Paradis. Never killed anyone, never harmed anyone. They finaly know why they betrayed Marley, the abuse being to much for them, enough to just leave them behind for Paradis. Just... loving and caring as they all saw them. But now the damage is done. They wont come back, they're dead, believing that they died, hated and despised, with no one to mourn their death. Everyone regrets everything.

author note :: i was thinking of leaving this in my drafts but i already wrote it and may as well post it. it didn’t end up going the way i hoped but yeah i hope it’s ok anon. anyways ANGST. ANGST, ANGST. as always i love feed back :-) ⟹ all of the headings with the years are just meant to mean it’s a different moment from that year so those moments don’t happen right after each other i hope that makes sense!! word count :: 7.2k warnings :: canon typical violence, death

845, i.

Everything is falling in place when it shouldn't.

Sun never makes itself known in Liberio yet here it is shining down onto the bustling streets. You half expect for it to crash down and burn into the hundreds of civilians going about their daily business yet nothing of the sort happens. It's typical sunlight and you curse yourself silently for your sinister thoughts.

Secretly the voice at the back of your mind still whispers frantically but you don't wish to hear what it has to say. Instead you choose to drown it out with the sound of Zeke's voice. Finally deciding to pay attention to what it is he's been droning on about for the past ten minutes.

"Soon, soon, soon." He sighs dreamily looking a little delirious.

"Soon?"

Your question catches him off guard, he lightly shoves you with his elbow scoffing in annoyance.

"Did you sit here to not even listen to me?" He turns to take a sip of whisky and the hearty gulp he chugs shows his mild irritation. You assume he's been rambling on about Marley's plan to infiltrate Paradis. You have to admit that the idea of destroying those demons from the inside is amazingly well thought out. However it's all he's been able to discuss for the entire week now and frankly you're getting a little exhausted of it.

"I zoned out..." Quietly placing your glass back down onto the wooden counter you sigh closing your eyes. It's too early to be drinking and you don't trust Zeke enough to slip into ignorance and leave yourself vulnerable. Men are to not be trusted, especially Eldian men. The thought of Eldians triggers your flight of fight response, you want to shrivel up into a cocoon and never come out until the world is rid of the monsters. The lowest of the low, the dirt in between the crevices of Marleyan soldier's boots. That is what Eldian's are.

It's ironic coming from you, your entire family labelled as undesirable Eldians yourself but you, you know you're different. An honorary Marleyan is what you will become. What you are. The treacherous imps who are but an ocean away are the true evil.

Eyes flicking to Zeke he's lighting a cigar. Old habits die hard and he's yet to quit this self destructive custom of his. You couldn't care less if he chooses to cut his lifespan short by ten years, it's his own choice to make. A disgusting cowardly choice but it's a choice fit for an untamed man like him.

The Island Devils are said to be the bad apples but you can't help but stare at your fellow citizens from time to time and wonder what it is they could be hiding. If a demon slipped through the cracks you wouldn't be surprised. Sly in nature, persuasive in tone, that is how devils go about their daily lives alone The hymns they drilled into you all the way through elementary school echo and rebound in your mind.

Locking your bitter thoughts away you have to push yourself to not punt Zeke in the mouth when he teasingly blows a puff of hot smoke into your face.

Fingertips grazing with his he freezes at the sudden contact giving you the perfect opportunity to slip his cigar away and take it in between your lips. You allow for it to linger there but you aren't foolish enough to inhale its contents.

"Zeke, my dear friend. We shall soon be met with the fruits of our own labour but I assure you that discussing Marley's plan constantly will be of no benefit for you nor I."

The day you and Zeke had met had been at warrior training camp. Zeke was a miserable, unmotivated oaf. Always tripping and falling behind the rest of the warrior cadets. You felt rather bad for him, if you were born as unskilled as him you don't know what you would have made of yourself. Zeke, the only child of his parents ironically only ever ended up rising through the ranks after handing them over to the Marleyan government. His father and mother had been conspiring an escape plan but were executed immediately alongside their fellow team members once Zeke had outted them. Unexpectedly he was spared, the fact he turned on his own parents showed where his loyalties were. To his surprise, he was even allowed to continue his training with the other warriors - only this time everyone kept an increased distance away from him. The warriors weren't informed of what he had actually done but everyone had a gut feeling. Everyone apart from you stuck with that feeling. You thought strategically, If he were to become an enemy in the future you knew being close would come at your advantage.

The day you and Zeke had met your mother died, his mother passed away the same day. At least that's what he had told you.

The two of you bonded over the little things, told each other stories about your life at home. Reminisced about what it was you missed.

Then it all came crashing down the day Zeke confessed. The day he told you he killed his mother and father by handing them over to Marley. Your knees buckled underneath you, crashing the floor he tried to grab at you but you thrashed around in retaliation kicking and screaming not understanding why he did what he did. Yes, they were traitors but they were his parents and if the monster had the nerve to turn on the people who gave birth to him who's to say he wouldn't do the same to you or to Marley.

Zeke doesn't know it but ever since then you take the opportunity to sneak the occasional glance at him. Every single time you narrow your eyes in malice. If there's a man in Liberio who you don't trust in the slightest it's him, he must think the feud between the two of you from childhood has been put at rest but it hasn't.

Zeke takes another swig of his alcohol. On this occasion he downs it entirely slamming the glass down with vigour.

"ONE MORE GLASS BARTENDER!"

846, i.

Another day of extensive training is about to end, your back is layered in uncomfortable layers of sweat and the same can be said for your forehead. Kneeling down in the under layer of the forest you're hidden waiting to strike. Going up against the elites is nerve-wracking but you're sure you can pull it off so long as you stay calm during this game of hunters against prey.

It's simple enough if you can conceal yourself and stay out of sight. The robust trees that surround you act as decent enough camouflage and your green cape paired with them lets you veil yourself, keeping you further into the foreground, blending into the environment.

No one will be able to catch you if they can't see you.

All of a sudden your previous thoughts are thrown away when you sense something in the atmosphere has changed, the hissing of the wind behind you isn't natural.

Turning to your side you don't bother to cover up the sound of leaves rustling and branches cracking, your priority is slipping away fast enough to hide again, a tug can be felt at your cloak and your reaction time barely covers for you, your gear fastens itself to a low enough tree branch and the descent is mind numbing. Your breakfast churns in your stomach but you ignore the uneasy feeling, leaping and diving wherever you find a small enough gap. You believe you can outrun your huntsman.

That is until you sneak a glance back and your muscles nearly tense up in pure astonishment, you've been kicked in the teeth just by the man's presence. Captain, Levi slinks behind you weaving through the gaps with increasing speed, he's gaining momentum and all the while his face stays relaxed, this isn't even his full effort.

Terrified you dart upwards and then left, a corner comes into view - Levi should assume you've turned into it and so you rashly choose to dart back down. Much to your hard luck you find that his senses are well adapted, the direction of the wind is enough for him to trace your whereabouts.

The pursuit resumes, and he stays disturbingly relentless.

Arm shooting to the right you think perhaps making it look like you're aiming to fly somewhere else again will completely catch him off guard, he can't expect for you to pull the same trick twice.

Setting your plan into motion your finger pulls at the trigger but you startle when the cable doesn't come out, it's jammed. Panic seeps into you and to make matters worse your gas is running out.

Without warning you're thrust into the body of a nearby tree, the bark scrapes against you and scratches begin to form anywhere you've made contact with the jagged surface, you want to admit defeat but the warrior inside of you denies Levi the pleasure of seeing you beg. In its place you deliver a harsh kick to his thigh, you're aware he's injured it and you're certain there are no rules to say you can't play dirty. Your boots hammer against leg hard enough for him to give out and let go of your body, but then you realize you lost this game from the very moment your grapple hooks broke, you have nowhere to hold onto.

Before you can even let out a shriek of horror Levi's shot back to you, he frantically accelerates and by a miracle humanity's strongest is able to grab a hold of you again. This time you don't dig your heels into his leg and you allow for him to clutch you by the torso.

Within a minute the two of you descend towards the forest floor and Levi throws you into the dirt furiously.

"You could have died. Being foolhardy will only lead to an early death." He barks as he directs his blade towards your neck.

"Am I dead yet?" Whispering back your gaze isn't trained on the blade but right up at him.

His nostrils flare up, his hair sticks to his forehead haphazardly and the knuckles that hold his pointed blades are white in tangled dissatisfaction.

Grabbing you by the hips he flings you over his shoulder choosing to not continue with the confrontation.

"I know what you're up to." His voice is still rugged from the pursuit and it takes you a split second to register what he's said.

Your eyes widen and your breath hitches in your throat, no way, there's no way in hell he knows. He's sharp but he's not a mind reader.

Your position means he can't read your face seeing as you're facing his back, instantly steeling your features you let out a breathy laugh.

"And what may that be?" Silently you pray he's worded himself ambiguously to catch a slip up.

"Being gutsy, you think that makes you a good soldier. It doesn't."

Relief floods you. He doesn't know.

"Soldiers need to be brave." Your retort makes him grumble.

"If  you die with no meaning by being reckless what's the purpose of being a soldier?" His question has you stopping and thinking on what the correct answer is.

Unable to think of an answer you ask another question.

"Are you saying your previous comrades died without meaning?"

"No. Their deaths fueled me slay more titans."

"So if I died back there who wou-" He swiftly cuts you off showing no inclination of wanting to hear what it is you have to say.

"I'll cut your tongue off if it's stupid." He clearly isn't serious about the threat but he does mean it when he warns you to not overstep.

Despite the consequences you say what's on your mind. "I just wanted to ask who would give my life meaning if I ever died. I don't have siblings and my parents died long ago."

Silence follows and the crunch of his boots against the muddy leaves tells you he probably doesn't wish to answer your question.

"Sorry-"

"I would. I would give meaning to your life." He says it with such ease you almost want to admire the enemy but you know he's said it because he feels he has to.

"You barely know me but I hope one day you can stop thinking everyone has to rely on you." You say it with taunting understanding.

Another bout of silence follows. Only this time the two of you feel warmly comforted, he doesn't understand how you've seen through his facade but it's easy for you to spot another liar.

846, ii.

Brows drawn back you observe your surroundings attempting to mask your scrutiny. The place is running amok with uncontrollable Eldian folk. The stench of unadulterated sin makes itself known but you seem to be the only person able to smell it. Eren bumps against the table you're sat at and your face twitches a little but you say nothing. You're yet to get used to these people's lack of manners.

At least that's how you force yourself to think. To be truthful, you don't quite understand what it is these people have done wrong. Ever since you've arrived you've been nitpicking at every single minor inconvenience or possible issue. A girl stole a potato and broke it into uneven pieces to share and you attempted to twist the story in your head to make her look like an unfair, greedy voracious demon but... you found yourself finding very little to actually be angry at. These people are essentially normal in every way of the word, they aren't demons and you can't help but feel yourself slip away from everything you once knew as reality. You're finding it difficult to believe what years of Marleyan education taught you, the hymns that were once drilled into your brain permanently are but a vague memory.

You feel disgustingly under-dressed and out of place, you don't belong here not when you're meant to hate these people, not when you're meant to despise them. You should be fighting the urge to shove their heads onto pitchforks or to skin them alive and feed them to pigs. Everyone back in Marley told you to control your impulses but now you're here and you've settled down even having the opportunity to converse with these individuals, share their pain, share their loss, share their suffering, you wonder why you have no impulses to control. Have they brainwashed you? Or is it that you're the real demon in this situation?

Fingers mingling with each other on your lap you sit hopelessly alone. Interacting with the so called enemy is much harder than you expect. Worry consistently bubbles in the pit of your stomach and every night is spent tossing and turning evaluating then reevaluating who the bad guy really is. At first the task of daily interaction isn't a big deal, you find it easy enough to approach members of the team and fake interest in their lives until the original plan falls through. You do become invested in your team members lives and stories that it comes to the point where you don't have to force yourself to smile at their jokes or to sympathize with their tales of grief. You become one of them and you swear you're meant to feel like a traitor but eerily you feel like you belong.

Nevertheless you try your best to stick with what you know. You're nothing like Zeke, you're loyal, capable, faithful and trustworthy. Never will you turn your back on Marley.

Rising to excuse yourself from dinner you think you've just about made it and escaped finally able to hide away in the confines of your bedroom but your lips form into a straight uncomfortable line at the feeling of someone's hand latching at your wrist. You're halfway down the hallway just a few more steps away from your bedroom. You hope it's one of the rookies.

"Oi, come here."

Head shooting backwards your eyes land on Levi, his dark curtains fall in front of his eyes - you note that he hasn't trimmed them as he usually does. Despite his size his grip is firm and your wrist squirms around a little trying to manoeuvre out of his bruising grasp. He seems to notice he's underestimated his strength once again and loosens his hold on you. Narrowed eyes analyse your anxious form, they're grey and in this lighting almost glow appearing silver. For a brief second your mouth is left ajar by the delicate but rough manner of his face.

"Everything Okay?" He doesn't typically seem to care very much about anyone, the question activates your senses and you're on full alert but the eye contact you make with him seconds later slows down the gears in your mind, they only whir and hum in anticipation completely coming to a halt.

"Yes, yes everything is okay." You're playing around with the hem of your shirt and you silently question when you were ever this nervous around anyone. You're a Marleyan soldier for heaven's sake not an unrestrained, unsupervised child left to play in a park.

Despite your clear inability to cushion and shield yourself from your Levi's stabbing gaze you attempt to appear as nonchalant as possible.

"I'll be going I just feel a little —" At first you had thought to fake you were ill but at the feeling of a sudden strike of pain you hold onto your stomach, the ache burns into your abdomen and without permission it travels higher up towards your ribs. "A little unwell." You manage to wheeze out. Hand placed onto a nearby cement wall your thought process is hasty speeding up by the second. Have they figured you out and had you poisoned? No, you barely ate anything today.

You hunch over feeling the bile crawl up your throat, on reflex you clamp your eyes shut not wishing to anger a superior by acting insolent and disposing of your dinner in the hallway. Shaky palms reach hesitantly for your lips and you force yourself to keep it in. Levi would commit a murder if you heaved and gagged letting it all out in front of him.

You motion towards the door trying to emphasize that you can handle yourself in the privacy of your room. Tears bite at the sides of your eyes and your vision is so blurred you can only make out the faint outline of the man who was just in front of you.

"Relax. I'll clean it." Your hair is brushed away from your face securely held back and you can't hold it in any longer, the acrid storm surges through your throat, you retch at the harsh sting it leaves behind. Breathing heavy, perturbed and anxious you gasp in all the air you can get.

"I knew you looked ill." His hands hold your jaw gently, the pads of his fingers are calloused but his touch remains soft. A tissue dabs at your mouth wiping away the excess untouched sick.

Just like the sick which surged through you less than a minute ago you feel something else entirely tear into you. You can't put a finger on it but it's dangerous for you to not feel contempt.

847, i.

Your heart accepts what your mind has been ignoring for months on end when Levi looks you square in the eyes after a heart wrenching expedition. The vacant look on his face is enough for the guilt to consume you whole but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know of your sins.

The wagon of corpses reeks of death and desperation. It's rotten and the smell is sickening. Forcibly you  stop yourself from feeling any more grief. The despair isn't yours to go through.

Your first ever personal loss outside of the walls and you've learnt Paradis is not home to demons. Cheeks burning in mortification you can't formulate any thoughts on your own accord, instead they continuously emerge in bursts and finally a single thought sticks out from the rest - Are you aiding in the destruction of innocent human life?

The both of you are sat on guard duty with the corpses, half of the team has been wiped out in one sweep. Your trembling hands don't seem to want to steady any time soon and you sit there with your guilty conscience strangling you slowly, your airflow is getting shallower. Shorter, quicker breaths leave you. The imaginary gash in your chest is bottomless, and your lungs push and pull in a power struggle.

Levi's coarse hands abruptly hold onto yours and the floodgates open again, he doesn't know what you've done to him, done to his soldiers, done to his people. If he knew who you really were, would things be different?

"This was out of your control."

Do you tell him?

The question sits in your mind for a while until you shake your head. He takes it the wrong way and think you're responding to him.

"This was not your fault." For the first time in months you've heard his voice crack under pressure.

"Pe- Petra she- I could have taken one for the team and died instead of her." All that remains of your dear friend is her blood soaked cloak. Her body was one of the few that had to be hauled away earlier to decrease the carriage's load.

The fabric still smells of Petra, smells of honey and chamomile and the simple soap offered at the base, but it still smells of her.

Firm hands grab your shoulders and Levi's fingers dig sorely into your flesh.

"Don't."

"But I- I didn't contribute as much as her and she has family who are alive." Hiccuping you try to bare with the fact that you'll wake up tomorrow and not see her preparing breakfast for everyone else. You know you could have propelled her out of the way just in time if you hadn't been so taken aback by the entire situation.

"You were her comrade. She made the choice to die for you."

You want to reach out, sob into his chest and yell that you regret it all, scream and tell him about the secret you've been hiding. A sorry excuse of a comrade you are to let her die on the battlefield not knowing your true identity. The tears roll down your cheeks and Levi feels his heart constrict and squeeze as he comprehends the lack of regard you have for your life. "It should have been me." Is repeated over and over again, your eyes are raw and bloodshot, the vicious wind sinks its teeth into you.

"Then die."

"If you're willing for her life to have no meaning. Die." The words he spits out are as cutting as the bitter wind. He feels cheated and you're finally able to come to your senses.

He's faired much worse but you doubt he's ever acted out the way you have in front of another person. In this never-ending void of darkness locking away the dull ache caused by deafening loss is the best choice for everyone.

Much like the night you had been sick he takes a grip of your jaw and directs your face towards his, this time he's not as gentle as before but you conclude that it's because he's drained, completely exhausted from the battle. The eyes are the windows to the soul but Levi's window panes are shattered, completely crushed by the weight of the constant burden he has to carry.

"I'm sorry." You croak out the apology. He grits his teeth because he doesn't want you to apologize but he doesn't voice out his opinion. As a substitute he presses his arms against you, the terribly raw panic is murdering you. Levi's gruff voice is a mixture of faux irritation but mutual understanding.

"Cry." He allows for your head to loll against his shoulder.

As the dark envelopes both you and him the scent of the dead only becomes more and more pungent, recalling fond memories of Petra and the others you know your heart settles on a decision before your mind does. You're a two timing back stabbing traitor for this. What you hated Zeke for you have become yourself.

Disloyal, unfaithful and fickle.

That day you place your loyalties with Paradis.

847, ii.

Levi's wiping down one of the kitchen tables, you're kneeled on the floor scrubbing vigorously. The others have already given up, panting they've left using the excuse of fetching water from a nearby well. Your back aches but you find cleaning reassuring and somewhat of a decent distraction.

"Why do you like to clean?" You're used to Levi asking you abrupt questions by now, after all the two of you have been acquainted for well over a year now. Through that year he's learnt about you and you about him. When in the midst of what looks to be humanity's final year's, twelve simple months is enough to form a bond worth a decade.

"I'm not good at a lot but I am good at cleaning."

"You know that's not true idiot." The tone of his voice indicates that your answer doesn't please him.

"But I do think I'm good at cleaning? Maybe not as good as you but I am half decent."

"Not that. You're good at much more than half the people I've ever met." He sneers, his footsteps edge towards you. "Purely being a good person is a talent these days."

You suppress a flinch because you aren't a good person at all. Neither are you that middle ground between good and bad. Rough around the edges and uneven, you're shards of glass ready to slash and hack away at him if Marley somehow lures you back.

The confession, if you could even call it that catches you by surprise and anger fills you. You almost want for him to not trust you and call out your bluff. It's a little unnatural how badly you want for him to realize the truth.

Your head turns up to stare at the man who's a few steps away from you. "Or am I just good at acting genuine?"

You don't even mean to snap at him and you don't even realize you have until you see his eyes widen and mouth part in imperceptible surprise. Biting your tongue your attention is diverted back to the wooden floor. Driving your washcloth into the crevices and dips of the floorboards you ignore Levi's leather shoes which now stand right in front of you.

"Are you questioning my judgement of character?"

Be born in Marley, That's what you had done, trained to destroy people you thought to be devilish entities, foolishly chose to grow attached to the so called enemy. Your mind lingers onto a specific thought and you're deathly afraid to be thinking it in the first place but there's no more avoiding it.

Falling deeply in love with Levi is your worst mistake to date.

"What I did. It was out of my control." you reply, voice hard.

"Not disclosing what it was?" He asks.

Your silence is his answer. Kneeling down to where you are he disarms you, the washcloth is taken out of your hands and he places it onto a table.

"You are a good person." His voice is brusque and he states it like it's a fact, something you should know. Hot tears threaten to spill over, he's stupidly naive for not rethinking that opinion of his. Lips thinned and eyes watering you don't know how to feel.

"Levi. I'm sure you'd like to think that but I am not."

"You love the members of the corps unconditionally I can see it in the way you look at them."

"Sometimes you look a little sad when you stare." The last sentence he adds in has your pulse racing. He's right, you often feel miserable thinking about how everyone would react knowing who you really are.

"I'm not interested in bad people." He sounds distant saying such warm words and it takes a moment for them to actually sink in. You don't quite believe you've heard him correctly. The dread sinks to the bottom of your stomach and the feelings you've buried at the back of your mind hit you like a tsunami. The thought of him feeling the same way for you, is agonizing.

"Stop being ridiculous." The uncertainty is killing the both of you.

"Loving you is not ridiculous, if you don't feel the same way you can say that and I'll step away. We'll be back to normal."

"No, no, no. You don't get it. You're just saying that." Your voice quivers and the intensity of this new revelation is too large for you to cope with.

"Why would, you," He begins, voice just above a whisper, "ever think that way?"

"Why would you even look twice at me?" You reply.

"Because I worry for you."

"You worry for everyone."

"I worry for you the most."

Instead of letting you respond to him this time he carries on speaking.

"We both know we feel the same."

You already knew you were in love with Levi, you didn’t need for him to tell you. You knew you were in love when you tried to memorize his facial features, you knew you were in love when his laughter was the cause of your laughter, you knew you were in love when you threw yourself in front of that abnormal for him.

That's when you begin to understand what all his signals meant. You now knew why he'd let you stare so intently, you now knew why he laughed particularly hard when it was you who had made a joke, you now knew why he scolded you and nearly broke down at the sight of your injured arm after that specific expedition.

You know it. He knows it. You both know what this will lead to.

But you still lunge onto his lap, you still press your wobbly lips against his. You still choose to surrender yourself to him and he still reacts by taking a hold of your shaky hands which lay on his chest. He envelopes them in his warm grasp. Slowly but gradually the ice thaws and dissolves. Heartbreak, anguish and suffering when one of you loses the other will be the end of your romance, you're sure of it. Hell, the both of you are in the middle of a war but your heart flames up thinking of all of the possibilities.

Perhaps it'll play out the one way you wish for it not to.

Could your ending be in betrayal?

848, i.

"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded hus-"

"Cut the crap and kiss me." Levi's crude interruption isn't appreciated by Erwin but everyone knows Levi doesn't care all that much for formalities and hates being in the spotlight for too long.

Gripping him by the collar of his suit your lips are a centimetre away, he stops you tightening the hold he has on your waist. His lips gently press against your collarbone and his breath meanders towards the shell of your ear.

"Swear you won't die on me."

Gulping you look away apprehensively. You know you can't promise that.

“Oi, I’m expecting an answer.” His voice flickers slightly.

Forefinger holding your chin up you see your soon to be husband close to tears, he valiantly blinks them away. Levi has never been one to make his pain public and your heart twists in your chest as you realize just how much of a hold his feelings for you have over him.

"I can't promise that, you know it'll only hurt more." The strange bitter taste in your mouth won't let you comply with his request and by measuring his reaction you see his eyes cloud in an unidentifiable emotion, you're sure it's nothing positive.

"We may not have a happy ending Levi but we'll always have a happy middle."

Levi scoffs in derision, he has to think your attempt at being meaningful is ridiculous.

You lean into him and it's all so heart-wrenchingly familiar yet foreign. His body sags comprehending that not everything will go the way he wants it to. One of you is guaranteed to leave first.

Hands finding purchase in the cloth of his white dress shirt Levi doesn't cringe at you creasing the fabric as he usually does. He allows for you to call the shots this time, your lips brush faintly against his before you nosedive into him. No resistance is felt and he replies almost immediately. Everyone applauds as his fingertips press into the back of your skull and you find that this is all incredibly hideous. The innate disloyalty you feel, you throwing your entire life away for this man but you find yourself not caring. To hell with that miserable life crammed with sin.

Levi smiles against your mouth, you assume you're meant to magically smile back but you can't make yourself. It's uncomfortable relishing in the undeserved happiness knowing it won't last forever.

The world you live in isn't ideal nor is it forgiving.

Momentary joy is all an antagonist can hope for.

849, i.

Jean can’t take his eyes off the newly weds.

You’re cooing into your Levi’s ear gently, his cheeks flush scarlet at the feeling of your hot breath against his skin and he scolds you for having the gall to rile him up in public.

Jean sniggers finding some sort of odd delight from the interaction - he’s never seen the Captain this content and at ease.

849, ii.

You don't know why you've dragged yourself out of bed just to stare at your husband's face but you have, despite the toll life has had on him he seems sound for once. His breathing peaceful yours is anything but that. When it's dark the weight becomes heavier, your skin tingles and your throat burns aching for release.

Eyes blurring your hands shake reaching out for him but you can't find the courage to make contact. Nothing will ever warrant plaguing him even more with your existence.

The memories become increasingly bitter.

"If we make it out of this alive we'll have children and they'll look just like you."

"I want them to look like you." had been your reply.

Levi winced not seeming to like the idea.

"No, I want them to look like you. You're beautiful."

How wrong he was for thinking that.

You, beautiful? He'd stab himself ten times over if he knew just who exactly he had said those words to.

850, i.

Zeke had betrayed you after finding out who you were to Levi but you half expected that he would tell him the truth at some point regardless of that fact.

Tear stains travel through the mud and grime on your face, Levi's eyes are indifferent as he twists his wedding ring off his finger flinging it into the surrounding rubble.

Without your permission he yanks your arm forwards intending to take your matching ring away but you hold on digging your heels into the dirt beneath you.

"You disgusting bitch. Give me it."

You scream, high and awful, he continues jerking at your arm the muscle throbs crying out for him to stop but he doesn't and no one steps in to put a halt to any of it. Levi having had enough grabs at your neck ruthlessly. In any other circumstance he'd be labelled callous or cruel but everyone on the battle field shares a similar empathy for their Captain. Neither they or Levi had expected your disloyalty.

"I said give me the ring if you know what's good for you." His fingers slide around your neck, his seemingly low words cling onto the little respect he has left for you.

"No." Your defiance has his eyes hardening in and posture tensing. "I'm not handing it over."

Levi says nothing, he only holds onto your throat tighter, if he really keeps at  it your windpipe will be crushed in no time. You know he's holding out on purpose, he's still giving you a chance. He expects for you to stand your ground, say you never deceived Paradis, say something, anything to make him let go of you.  

"Marrying you... It just happened somehow. I know it was selfish of me." He squeezes harder. "I know it was. I'm sorry Levi." Gasping and breathless you clench and unclench your fists finding it too difficult to explain.

Your mouth opens, you want to tell him you haven't seduced him like he thinks you have, tell him you dropped that plan of yours long ago but then you falter at the last second.  It's typically hard to tell when Erwin's infuriated but it's painfully obvious when you make eye contact with him over Levi's trembling shoulders. It's enough to tell you to give up. Enough to tell you that you're beyond redemption, you've ran and hid long enough.

"Hand over your titan." Levi says nothing to Erwin's proposition, the hold he has on your neck loosens but his silence is sickening. It means he agrees.

This is fate's idea of a cruel joke.

But you agree, on the basis of one condition.

"Fine but-"

Levi cuts in, all regard for you devoid from his system.

"You're in no place to be making demands." He snarls, his patience quickly running thin.

However Erwin urges you to continue speaking taking you aback.

"If it's not too much maybe we can accommodate your final wish." Erwin had always been thoughtful in nature and you thank him for even bothering to show you a sliver of benevolence.

Everyone's looking, all eyes are on you. Some are blinking away tears, others are disgusted unable to stare at you for more than a few seconds at a time. Levi falls into the latter.

Brazen with not an ounce of shame you mention the ring again. "Let me keep it." Your left hand covers your right and underneath the flesh is the last symbol left of your union with Levi.

Whispers and murmurs orbit you, none of them are kind and Levi loses it.

His reflexes are paralyzing, he's back at it clawing your neck mercilessly but you don't scream or shriek as you did previously. You take it, you let him unload his frustration.

"Levi. Let it go for the sake of humanity." Erwin says pointedly. Irritation pricks him, he wants this over and done with and your rebelliousness doesn't look as if it'll be tamed any time soon unless you're given what you want.

Levi's face is crimson, the fresh blood from the expedition still steaming. "Y/N, I'll saw your arm off if I have to." But, you know he's already given into Erwin's orders when he throws you to the ground letting you crash and wheeze for breath.

850, ii.

Levi's been appointed to guard you for your final night alive. The room feels wistful as you think back wondering if the life you lived was respectable.

"Why did you stare at me when I slept? Did you think of killing me?" Half commanding and half pleading his voice cracks. He coughs attempting to cover it up.

You jolt not expecting the interaction at all and you're not the slightest bit surprised that he had seen you all those nights staring so deeply. He'd always been a light sleeper. You turn your head up hoping he's looking at you.

He isn't.

"I wanted our children to look like you. I think you're beautiful."

It's now his turn to recoil, only he does so in repulsion remembering the familiarity of those words. They had left his own lips not too long ago.

"I'd never have children with the likes of you." He sounds tense then.

You understand. No one would want to have children with someone as hated and as despicable as you.

"I know." You whisper faintly.

850, iii.

When Erwin's eyes glaze over unable to focus on anything in particular Levi assumes it's him growing used to the titan powers. What he doesn't expect is for his Commander to bang his head against the floor unrelenting screaming your name.

Pairs of hands move to stop him but he thrusts them aside wailing. Levi stresses trying to figure out what it is you could have done in the wake of your death.

But Erwin Smith. Courageous, brave Erwin Smith, who never cracked at loss of life for the sake of humanity, who always eloquently spoke to everyone around him at all times, finds himself slumping down to his knees and weeping for you.

The warm blood from his self inflicted assault still trickles down his nose, a tremor shakes through his entire body when he thinks of breaking the news to Levi.

The edge in Erwin’s voice grows dangerous.

"We made the wrong choice."

Erwin can't word it any better than that.

But Levi understands right away, he wishes he didn’t, he wishes he was ignorant enough not to.

Hange sticks an arm out aiming for his shoulder but he stumbles away nearly falling back into the floor not wanting to be touched by anyone.

He finds that he is not human enough to cry. It’s that or he’s not human at all without your presence.

854, i.

Levi has grown old without you, lived to see months and new seasons without you by his side. Over time his eyelids have become heavier, the corners of his mouth naturally droop and he remains perpetually somber.

Sometimes you visit him in his dreams, each time you make a silly comment about how his grey eye bags make him look like he’s been punched in the face. “Levi Ackerman, I swear if you don’t sleep soon!” You cushion the blow by whispering sweet nothings, reassuring him that you still think he’s beautiful. 

Occasionally you add in that you don’t blame him for the past, but those conversations only last for a few seconds at a time.

“I don’t blame you.” It always starts off with the exact same phrase. 

“I should have listened to you.” Levi’s tone is stern and uncompromising .

“Lev, I was never going to tell you to spare my life. You tried to listen to me, I could tell you wanted me to deny it.”

Levi refuses to answer you, he still thinks he’s at fault.

Not a day goes by where he doesn’t think of that ring. He regrets throwing it away recklessly into the rubble.

Some day he’ll return to Shiganshina to find it. The idea sounds laughable but he has to find a reason to smile as he fights for his life.

That is what Levi thinks as two set’s of jaws snap shut onto his legs, a flurry of red surrounds him. His throat constricts at the feeling of his thighs being ripped away from the rest of him.

“I tried.” He whimpers to no one in particular, eyes blank and losing meaning.

“I know Levi, I know.” The same voice from his dreams soothes him.

“Do not despair. Find me again in another world.” The biting wind adds in.

Levi’s eyelids flutter shut unable to do much else.

He’s unsure if he has the courage to face you again in another lifetime.

[feather-dancer]

Tales of Arcadia Fanfic Recommendations - Part 6

I do admittedly have things left to read in my tabs I’d normally prefer to clear out before posting one of these but when you sail past the 30 mark I think it’s about time to get it out my drafts, yeah? Most importantly means this will be out before Rise of the Titans comes and emotionally destroys us all.

Needless to say soon as this is posted I give it 24 hours before 7 starts, we’ve got some amazing writers in this fandom and there’s a couple I juuust want one more chapter before I feel I can recommend it. Hope you find something you enjoy :)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

If at all interested in my own writing you can find it here!

General Trollhunters

Romeo, Question Mark - Jim is figuring himself out and has a question for Toby though nervous of how he might react. Honestly the support Aromantic’s need when they’re either questioning or coming out, Toby is a gem.

By The Book - After his dad left changing his world Jim had moments in his life where he needed to wrangle things in a way he could understand them with some moral support along the way that wasn’t there to do it for him, just give a light nudge the right direction. Comes with light Jilaire fluff.

That I Could Fear a Door - Jim was pulled from the Darklands whole but you cannot escape the trauma of your experiences quite so easily. It will take a little time, a lot of patience and perhaps the right ear to listen but with it can come hope.

Lest Back the Awful Door Should Spring - Sequel to the above, Jim’s capture to be sentenced by the tribunal echoes his experiences in the Darklands a little too closely sending all his careful progress hurtling back in one fell swoop. Is it any wonder he chose a false freedom that Unkar offered?

Façade - The confirmation that Mr. Strickler is not the man you thought he was probably was not going to be an easy one, Jim’s thoughts sit ill after that dinner.

Fashion - All changelings take root somewhere in a human life before their changeling one succeeds it and Nomura is no different. She felt love she could not understand and the ache of loss will follow for as she meanders through this world by the Whisper Man’s orders and her own volition of needing to belong somewhere. She will try her hand with the humans and the trolls, paint the road with blood as much as indulging herself with the arts and even risking her heart until everything leads her to Arcadia’s doorstep.

In Deep Trouble - What happened in the Deep during Season 2?

Aftermath - Just after the finale of Season 2 the Market trolls are forced to run leaving their homes behind and follow the Trollhunter they had dismissed so many times into the great unknown before them.

Don’t think - Jim weighs up his options and attempts to settle his thoughts before making the final decision whether or not to go through with using Merlin’s potion.

Nocturne for a Trollhunter - Jim learns a new hobby that gives him another way to relax that doesn’t involve cooking, one that follows him beyond Arcadia.

The Asteroid - A rare 3Below fic for my lists if centered on a certain hedge witch and Wizard. The end of the world is coming but not by Morgana’s hand and Merlin certainly never warned Douxie about it so if this truly is the end then it’s the best time to bring your loved ones close so you won’t be going out alone. Yes it’s Zouxie.

A bright future so it seemed (but that light grew a little less bright) - Claire’s parents (Or more specifically Ophelia) set her on the perfectionist’s path early, even a little slip can feel like the end of the world

Rest, Master Jim - You might be able to escape the Darklands but you cannot escape the consequences of being trapped there for so long as easily.

General Wizards

Not Found - So why did neither Douxie or Archie find the two remaining changelings in Arcadia or bring back the sole Akiridion when Merlin asked?

Place of Power - A lovely bit of shameless Zouxie fluff in that brief period the gang was at Hex Tech before the plot came to get them.

Bitter Water - Only two of the old team remain in Arcadia and those were Jim and Krel, the rest having left to pursue educational pursuits and in one particular case kept away for Nari’s safety. For the Akiridion he is still here with reminders of his heritage and what it took to have this life on earth chasing him all the way. It’s always good to have friends with a listening ear and hot chocolate.

Together, Dearest - The very act of resting is a potential invitation for nightmares and Nari is no different but when once more in the waking world you will find you’re not alone, there are hugs available.

The Night Belongs To Us - Lovingly described Skraelroc fluff during their long hunt for Merlin and the strangeness that can be observed on clearer nights.

Nineteen Plus Nine Hundred, Give Or Take - 900 years is a long time by anyone’s standards but perhaps during that Douxie can figure out how to truly live.

Twelfth Century Wizard, Twenty-First Century Witch - The follow up to the above, when you’ve lived a long and interesting life things can still pop up in odd ways... Even if you haven’t quite mastered the sacred art of texting yet.

ERAS TÚ (It was you). | Tales of Arcadia One-Shot - Would you want to live forever if it meant leaving everyone behind? Jilaire.

the only way for us to go - From his rescue from the streets of Camelot to the eventual guardian of this realm, Douxie has come a very, very long way. Through the frustrations of trying to learn magic, the belittling of others, the faith of Morgana and the power of music his experiences throughout 900 years truly make him what he is.

lay down your head - Even the mightiest can be plagued with the not so humble migraine. Skraelroc fluff.

Stricklake

Merry Christmas, Doctor Lake - Some Christmas gifts are worth going all out for and getting your friends and family to help out to make it extra special.

Grocery Run - After the incident where Merlin dismissed Strickler for being a changeling it is time for an excuse to get out the house for a bit and have a frank discussion about their relationship, the future beyond the incoming battle and lingering insecurities of two worlds colliding.

Alternate Universe

Fashionista, How Do You Look? - An AU that very much takes the term very literally here where everyone is human, Skrael, Bellroc and Nari are fashion designers plus many other ToA characters we know and love are either in the industry in some way themselves or on the fringes because of their jobs/who they know. Sometimes you work with catty bitches and want to kick back and watch the fireworks you know? Contains friends to almost to enemies to friends to maybe we’ll get our shit together this time but the odds aren’t great Skraelroc. There’s also a Zouxie oneshot in this collection that was a gift for meee because of the corner I dug in the AU.

Atlas, Fallen - When a star falls from the sky it is a punishment so when Atlas suddenly finds himself amongst the humans he had observed from above for countless ages in a flesh body like theirs he fears his Mother is punishing him and unable understand what he did wrong. While trying to find his way back home he gets a crash course in what it’s like to be human making friends along the way. Slow burn Jilaire.

she once was a true love of mine - I put this under the AU section even though it wavers between that and not, a mixture of classical Arthurian mythos and the glimpses of the Camelot in Tales of Arcadia where one kingdom collapses from war another strengthens by taking their princess as queen. While Arthur might have turned her head once it is the sibling that seems to be catching Gwen’s eye of late as much as her thoughts. Morgwen but in the department of pining.

Pulled From The Ocean - AU doesn’t quite fit this one but it feels a bit more fitting than general. A little oneshot snapshot of Jim living with deafness and the contrast of one world that falls easily into supporting that whereas the other tries their best but it makes the slip ups sting even more.

you are a stranger here, why have you come? - Fate is a funny old thing, something happens a little bit differently such as a father not leaving alone and everything can change so drastically. Nari’s fondness for children strikes again and this time it involves a 5-year old Jim Lake Jr. ending in the Order’s care and their foray into found family. Somehow Jim is even more of a disaster and as likely surmised from the fact I write this trope myself I am very weak for it.

go into your local forest and you will find a friend and a boy - Toby was unlucky in the friend department and by the time he is ten he still feels miserable and lonely having to endure Steve’s increasing bullying all the while. This is of course until he finds a blue half-troll hiding out the daylight hours munching cans in the local woods...

[nikibogwater]

What did you think of Nari's characterization in ROTT?

Disliked it, as with most of the other things in the movie.

The short version of it is this: In Wizards, Nari's primary character traits were empathy and compassion for others. In Rise of the Titans, her primary character traits seem to be just a general lack of awareness for what's happening around her, and a tendency to make light of very serious situations.

Now before I get into the long-form answer, I will preface by saying that the writers of RotT were at a severe disadvantage when writing for characters who were introduced in Wizards because Wizards was still in production at the time. So I understand why Nari ended up feeling like a completely different character in the movie, and I am not shaming anyone for it. But the fact of the matter is that I found her characterization in Wizards to be much more appealing, and if that characterization had carried over to Rise of the Titans, I think I would've had slightly warmer feelings towards the movie. But let's get down to brass tacks now, because I've actually been dying to talk about this. This is gonna be a loooooong boi, so I've put everything under the cut to avoid clogging people's queues (I'm just really passionate about this bean goddess, okay? 😅)

When Nari is introduced to us in Wizards, she is quietly watching the arrival of our heroes at the castle. She doesn't make herself known to them, but it is clear she is very interested in what's happening. She does not make any other appearance until the Arcane Order launches their assault on Camelot.

Nari's first spoken words are, "Merlin! This is all my fault!" and as one would expect after hearing this, she is very obviously distressed and feeling guilty for putting everyone in danger. Merlin tells her they need to escape to the past, and that he needs her help in order to do it. Nari's response is to begin charging her magic as she says "I will do what I can."

After our main characters are thrown back in time, we're introduced to Nari as she was in the past. Although she is allied with the Arcane Order in their war against humanity, it's clear that she displays the least amount of malice out of the three. In fact, it's revealed that Nari has always been rather fond of humans, and has even reached out to them in friendship a number of times. After resurrecting Morgana, Nari is the one who does most of the explaining and introductions, showing a bit of a playful/mischievous side as she pokes fun at Bellroc and Skrael. ("I told you she would, Skrael! So old, and they still haven't learned manners.")

During the Battle of Killahead, we see Nari watching the war from a distance, and it's clear from the expression on her face that she is not liking any of this. Though she does briefly aid her siblings when they join in the battle, she reveals afterwards that she can sense the pain and suffering they have inflicted on others--and she doesn't believe the Order's ambitions are worth that. She abandons the Order, presumably spending the next 900 years in hiding, before seeking Merlin's protection.

Once our heroes have returned to the present, Nari becomes a bit more involved in the plot. She expresses genuine sorrow over the destruction of Arcadia Oaks High ("Your beautiful school-home was crushed!") and is clearly distressed by Jim's agony as the shard in his chest begins to work its dark magic. ("Poor soul! Your corruption...I feel it worsening.") After Jim is taken by the Order, we can see her comforting Toby in the background. She continues to show great concern and empathy for the people around her, and is still eager to help wherever she can, though her magic doesn't seem to be combat-oriented. She is also shown to be somewhat timid, hiding behind Merlin or Claire during confrontations with the Order--she is very clearly terrified of her old allies, and seems to want to avoid direct contact with them. When Douxie is struck down by the Order and is falling to his death, it is Nari who runs to try to save him before anyone else--apparently, if someone is in need, Nari's first instinct is to rush to their aid.

So, from all of that, we can gather that Nari, as she was characterized in Wizards, is intelligent, curious, cautious, gentle, empathetic, and very aware of what's going on around her. She is also a little playful and wild, but never to the point of disregarding what's happening or how others are feeling.

In Rise of the Titans, Nari remains consistent with this characterization for all of...seven minutes.

Initially, Nari is still very much herself in this scene (though I wish we could've been told what exactly made her want to stop running and face the Order head-on. Again, in Wizards, it was abundantly clear that that was the one thing she did NOT want to do). When Douxie expresses his anxiety about the situation, she takes him by the hand, offers him a reassuring smile, and says, gently but firmly, "No. No more running, Douxie." Excellent interaction. 10/10. Five stars. That's also the only time in the movie where Nari displays any level of awareness regarding Douxie's (or anyone's) feelings/wellbeing.

The body-swap scene is when Nari's character just completely swings in the opposite direction, and she becomes near-unrecognizable as being the same character from Wizards. Douxie, being our favorite Self-Sacrificing Idiot, swaps bodies with her at the last possible second, causing the Order to take him instead. Nari, now stuck inside Douxie's body, seemingly doesn't think much of this development at all. In fact, her first response is to giggle playfully. UM, NARI. NARI, SWEETIE, YOUR BIG BROTHER IS IN THE CLUTCHES THE MOST EVIL BEINGS KNOWN TO MANKIND. LIKE, THEY LITERALLY KILLED HIM THE LAST TIME HE RESCUED YOU FROM THEM, WHY ARE YOU NOT MORE WORRIED ABOUT THIS?! Up until this point, Nari has never been shown to underestimate the Arcane Order--she seems all too aware of the kind of violence and destruction they are capable of, which explains why she was so terrified of them in Wizards. But in Rise of the Titans she seems to just....not really care anymore? The entire time she is in Douxie's body, she doesn't express the slightest amount of concern for him, or for anyone around her. She just keeps doing...cutesy forest gremlin things, like singing to her flower, batting at a light fixture, and antagonizing Archie (she's definitely not the only character who was severely lacking in empathy in this movie, but this is an essay about Nari, so I'm not going to bother touching on everyone else). This is a direct contradiction to her characterization in Wizards, where she was shown to care deeply for the people around her, and displayed genuine distress whenever they were in danger or suffering.

Nari also persists in being pointlessly cryptic for the entirety of the movie because....reasons. Before the Order breaks Douxie's body-swap spell, she tells Jim, "Trollhunter make ninth configuration--the Kronosphere will make right." Which, of course, doesn't help him in the slightest. And when they finally succeed in rescuing Nari, she doesn't elaborate or explain this at all. She just says it again. Listen, I can get behind Nari being Insanely Ancient, and maybe a little out of touch with modern trends, but I'm fairly certain that Wizards Nari at least knew how to communicate. She never showed any inclination towards being cryptic or mysterious on purpose, at least. We're never given any explanation for Nari's sudden lack of clarity, so I guess it was just there for plot reasons. Which makes it that much more infuriating.

Also I don't know why, but the little "Hehe!" Nari does when Douxie pulls her into a hug kind of grinds my gears, because Nari, love, this is a really serious moment, you were just snapped out of mind control and your siblings are currently rampaging across globe in giant magical mechs, why are you giggling like a four-year-old and not, idk, SOBBING IN A MIXTURE OF RELIEF AND HORROR BECAUSE YOU WERE ALMOST PART OF WHAT DESTROYS THE EARTH?! AS THAT WOULD BE A MORE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO WHAT JUST HAPPENED????!!!!! But that's just a stupid little nitpick.

Now this is not me saying that Nari's characterization in the movie is objectively bad. Actually, it's kind of fitting for the Tales of Arcadia brand of humor--Super ancient demigoddess who houses the power to completely destroy the earth is also kind of a clueless ditz and needs to be babysat like a toddler. If she had not been introduced in Wizards, I would've been fine with this. But, much like the rest of the movie, Nari's vastly different characterization felt a tiny bit like a betrayal, and it consistently bothered me in every single one of her scenes. It also kept me from feeling the full impact of her death--seriously, I didn't cry at all when she was killed. Which....yeah, I'm just as surprised as you are.

So anyways, if you've made it this far, thank you so much for the ask, Non! Normally I have a bit more self control than to just....essay-dump like this, but honestly I've been thinking about this for way too long, and I had to get it out of my system. 🥴 And to anyone who really liked Nari's characterization in RotT--that's totally valid! Again, I don't think it was a bad characterization. It was just very inconsistent with her character as she was introduced to us in Wizards. And I just happen to prefer Wizards Nari over RotT Nari. 🌿✨

[honestsycrets]

The Milkmaid VII: Bright Lights

❛ pairing | ivar x reader, harald & ivar (friend?ship)

❛ type | multi

❛ summary | reader finds her way while ivar argues with a dog. 

❛  tags | pregnancy themes, supernatural intervention, ivar being a bad dog owner, he’s a pet boy okay, just not today, angst, but not dark?, i’m not @lisinfleur 😂 

❛ sy’s notes | no really he argues with a dog. i was gonna post a gif of ivar on this but my 5B gifs are real s h i t t y. redo.

He should throw your stupid dog down a well. Maybe, if he were lucky, Mimir would shake the knowledge out of the damn thing. But no, instead, he has no more leads to go on than he originally had. The kings stand considering from which direction the dog came from.

“He came from behind the barn,” says Harald.

“He came from the barn,” Ivar scoffs, jerking his finger in the direction. “You think my slave was hiding away in some barn in the cold of night?”

“Maybe if she were hiding from you.”

“That is so helpful,” Ivar snaps at the other king. His men, deep in the woods, shout: there is nothing here! Ivar then turns to Harald with that knowing, all too cocky scowl. He hates it, when he is right. “Do you know what is back there? Brush. Woods and wolves.”

“I’m sure you know what is back there.”

Ivar leers back to the other king confident of his astringent purpose for saying that. Ivar grips his crutch, hobbling a bit closer. “What are you saying, hm?”

“I am saying these things have a way of recurring.”

These things, Harald suggested, is the death of royal children. His child, Freydis’s child, and now… Ivar holds Harald’s gaze for a stubborn few moments before he hisses, not bearing to waste his time with the old king.

“I don’t know why I brought you Harald,” Ivar walks away from the other kind. Harald, now dressed, follows Ivar toward the line of trees. “You have no faith in the gods, no faith in anything.”

“Here I am,” Harald’s expression smooths over from bunched up wrinkles to a state of relaxation, despite his companion’s jabs. After this many years, he became used to the constant jeer of kinds underestimating him. “Are we checking in the brush?”

“If we have to.”

The woods hold their own secrets. Deep in their hearth, past the arching trees and branches that nipped the sky, there had to be something. At the very least, all it could hold, is a vast amount of nothing. He has nothing to gain from continuing to deny Harald. They find themselves following Vala’s tiny steps that carry them deeper and deeper before they stop. Vala turns in a circle. Then sits.

Stupid dog.

“The dog doesn’t know,” Harald grumbles. “Look at him, he is confused.”

Ivar glares at the dog, wondering why, why hadn’t he picked a grown and well-trained dog. He had to pick this thing. Because you wanted him so much. He shouldn’t have let you pick the dog-- you knew good, domestic things. Things of war, protection, and-- this, not so much.

The pup scratches the grown, sniffing and turning, whining and whimpering. And Ivar wants nothing more than to boot him with the butt of his crutch. The dog yips and Ivar’s about had it. He whirls around-- and finds the dog sitting there looking right back at him.

Pest.

If he had been smart, he would have chosen a well-trained hound. But no-- because his heart is weak when it comes to the complaints of his woman, he chose a creature that was as useless as it was cute.

The sun disappeared behind the fjord. You were left with the chill of night as Kattegat’s temperature plummeted below comfortable levels. Too cold to move but too afraid to let the fire run out, you chucked remnants of wood you gathered into the dismal fire until there was nothing but scraps that the fire would snap apart, cracking into its dying breaths. With nothing else to give to the greedy flames, you fold your hands into your woolen dress and pray tight lipped prayers to Frigg.

A small light, barely a flicker, caught your attention out of your peripheral vision. At first you thought it was nothing, perhaps the flicker of an animal’s eyes. If you stayed very still, the wild beast would leave you be, or you so you hoped. It would be tragic, you thought, for the wolves to have two of Ivar’s children. You your legs in a little tighter and curl into the Asvaldr’s plump belly, even as he whines impatiently for your attention.

“Shh, what if it is a beast?” you smooth your hand over his muscular body. “We shouldn’t worry about it, morning will come soon enough.”

Despite your pleads, Asvaldr’s limbs flailed with his attempt to get up. When he does, he effectively thrusts you to the dirt floor. Your hand snaps to your stomach with precaution, resting on your hip. “Asvaldr what is it?”

It was then you saw it for what it was.

A whimsical bouncy flourish of light between the wall of thick trees over a prominent rock. You swing your legs around, using the ground to shove yourself up. Asvaldr clopped closer so that you might hold his reins to support your stance.

���A wisp?”

Asvaldr clops a closer, dragging you along with. It had been some time since you had seen one of these things. The bouncy lights that dragged you, so you heard, to your fate. You chase the wisps into the untraveled path of the forest that way, hanging onto your master’s horse, and praying to the gods the wisps path is a good one.

Well, chase is being kind, when you walk like that.

Ivar’s eyes chase the edges of old trees. They are tall, well grown, wild. All the good plants are wild and free to hold spirits that are just as wild and free. He moistens his cracked lips for the fifth time, debating--

Perhaps Harald had been right. Perhaps you wanted to run to get away from him. Everyone else shared that sentiment. Margrethe, ran from him. Freydis then-- she tried to run from him.

At least he took care of that one. He made sure she didn’t run.

“Ivar!” Harald paces until he finds something, lackadaisically whistling at Ivar. Ivar takes his crutch and jabs it into the hard dirt, carefully scaling the mountain side to where the other king was. He stood about the crispy remains that weren’t yet cool. “Ashes. She was here.”

The stupid little shit yips at his feet. They scan the surrounding area for clues that you had been there. Moist poignantly, he finds, is an overlooked trail leading away from the campsite. He realizes that there is something there-- better than a burnt out campsite or sweep of luck.

A bouncy red flame.

It held his attention for longer than it should have. “Thank the gods,” he finds himself raising the hammer of Thor to his lips, placing a kiss to it, before setting it back upon his sturdy chest.

In looking at Harald, he realized that the old man did not see what he saw. But it was there, jovial and light. “And where are you going?” Harald called out to him. Harald growls a half hearted response and disappears into the trees behind his so called friend. It had better been a lead.

“Come on, old man. You’re falling behind!”

Ivar believes in the ways of the gods and the norns. There is not a fate that lay before man that was not woven from their fingertips. From the strong standing trees to the ones that have collapsed and bore their craggly roots, the trees have an understanding with the nine worlds that humans did not. Humans unlike Ivar, whose faith was uncrackable.

He pressed down from the rolling hill down toward the fjord, scaling with a curse behind every step, because his crutch was complaining as he moved down the hillside. How he could walk the battlefield freely, like a titan, and now plummet to the ground with sand was beyond him. He breaks his fall on his elbows, and to his surprise, his bones don’t crack. He knows Harald is watching him agape as he hurries on his forearms.

“What are those?” Harald at last sees it with that dumb, lost expression splattered across his face. “Is there a Valkyrie here?”

“Do you see a Valkyrie?” he looks to the sky, then across the streaming waters that washed by, searching for the sight of a swan. There was none. He can’t help tease. “Perhaps its all that ale you’ve been drinking.”

Harald’s face is flat and free from a response, just the small, scoffing laugh as he looks about.

At least, Ivar knows, it isn’t in his head this time. Last time-- as it were -- was Freydis’s lies. At least now, here, he knows that Harald sees exactly what he sees. The wisps, fireballs of the norn’s might, leads down from Norway’s rise and drop to the lapsing waves of the water to the grainy shore.

“Hold this,” he hands the crutch he’s been crawling with to Harald.

The scouts he’s gathered fall in a defensive position around the kings. Harald stuffs the crutch under his arm, following Ivar, who now snakes over the ground toward the rocky bend of the beach like he’s fifteen again and innocent to the world despite the men around him. He can see his brother’s long bodies splashing in the cool water against the warm orange that reflected on the sun. Then Hvitserk and Ubbe would come with their spears and Ubbe would show him a feast of fish while Hvitserk had none. Sigurd would have one.

Nostalgia isn’t a good taste on his tongue. That boy-- the one who dreamed of being able to hunt with his big brothers? He’s not a boy he wants to know. He doesn’t want to know the boy that would have rathered slit his throat if only it wouldn’t destroy his mother. So he turns his head across from the still waters and looks toward the forest. At the banks of the waters, he recognizes a decrepit sight-- not from anything he’s ever seen, but something he’s always felt.

“As much as I hate to break up a good moment,” Harald kneels down, holding the crutch over his trousers, “We were hunting your very pregnant slave.”

“Shht,” Ivar snaps back to Harald. “Look there.”

“Look where?” He lurches then, grasping Harald’s wrinkled face and jerks it into the right direction across the waters. A long, grated sigh breaks free from his lips. The waters do not look deep, no. It strikes Harald as strange, as he knows he’s passed by here with his warships, and they’ve been deeper still than the crystal clear waters before. He turns toward his men to shrill something-- when he finds the only company they have is the cold chill of the sea.

Ivar looks back at him, reclining on the palms of his hands, before his head tilts-- and a shit eating smile makes its way up his face. He clicks his tongue like a man would after a lost animal.

“...I’m the donkey then.”

There is a cabin.

It is a thin looking thing that would make anyone question why it was still standing. It’s heavy brown wood stands, but it has clearly been burned by the crispness of its black edges. Someone did not want it to stand. But there it was, proudly displaying a shield that spun above the top of the double doors. Pure blood red with one lone symbol: a raven soars the expanse of the shield.

“This must be your father’s cabin,” Harald says, verging on a dry laughter. Ten years, and here he was, static in the same position he’s always been-- behind Ragnar’s legacy. He sets his hand over a twig like fence that reflects Ragnar and Lagertha’s condition prior to taking up raiding once again. Ivar cradles the crutch, using it like a horse’s bit, over Harald’s throat.

The farm’s gate is shaky at best. When he looks out to the fencing, he recognizes a wispy figure dashing into the gate. That handsome, cut jawline with curls. Inquisitive eyes free of any exhaustion. If he were asked, he knew it could never be.

But it looks like him. It’s his father’s whimsical young figure that dashes in, kissing the soft cheeks of a girl he’s never known, and a brother he wish he never had. Another figure stands at the gate; his energy wispy and white. Athelstan, he recognizes the name, not the body.

“So it seems. Have you been here before?”

The girl stops from watching her father and her brother. Harald pauses, helping Ivar off his sodden wet back, and onto the ground. Ivar upright, the crutch fit under his arm. He’s taller than he’s ever been. More handsome than he’s ever felt.

She offers her hand, and Ivar can’t help look up to it in question. The girl-- he’s never known her name. Only that she was at the midpoint between girlhood and crossing into womanhood.

“You’re my brother, Ivar. I am Gyda,” her voice, it’s softer than the waves that lapse the shoreline. “Have you come here to look for someone?”

“My w--” Ivar stops himself. “My slave. She’s with child.”

“I see.” She hovers there, transparent, but defined in features that paint her energy a rich gold. She was radiant. “I sent Baldur after you to help you find her.”

His heart catches in his throat. A quick glance around reveals nothing. There is no boy next to Harald and he. Harald, sensing the discomfort, glances around the farm to the cooing animals. To the handsome visage of Ragnar and Bjorn, ducking and weaving. Ivar recognizes a pang of longing across his friend’s face. Harald steps over the wooden gate.

“I don’t understand.”

She smiles. “My nephew.”

Somewhere, through the mist, he spots the fireball of light. Something in the deep of his mind reminds him of that cursed little soul: Baldur.

@tephi101 @alicedopey @supernaturalvikingwhore @tootie-fruity @titty-teetee @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla @ethereallysimple @deathbyarabbit @deathbyarabbit @readsalot73 @natalie-rdr @lol-haha-joke @lisinfleur @hissouthernprincess @marvelousse @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol @vikingsmania @wish-i-was-a-mermaid @lif3snotouttogetyou @gruffle1 @cris101071 @gold-dragon-slayer @babypink224221 @wonderwoman292 @naaladareia @beyond-the-ashes @generic-fangirl @chinduda @laketaj24, @peaceisadirtyword, @ly–canthrope @cris101071 @daughterofthenight117 @unassumingviking @ladyofsoa, @inforapound @winchesterwife27 @feyrearcheron44@readsalot73 @squirrelacorngliterfarts @gold-dragon-slayer @medievalfangirl @sallydelys  @bluearchersstuff @affectionrabbitt @whatamood13 @notyouraveragegirl17 @igetcarriedawaywithyou @unacceptabletatertots @ivarandersen @stra-vage @tgrrose @cookies186 @learninglemni-blog @theleeshanotlouise @soiproclaim @msmorganforever

[hopeatermeetsgodzilla]

Chapter 24

Earlier that day...

“But come on, it’s fun! And it works!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that my headaches have been getting worse lately, and you and Ni smashing things on my head to either get my attention or as petty vengeance for telling you what to do doesn’t help.” Ichi started, rubbing the bridge of his nose as San whined.

Rodan turned toward from the rock he was sitting on. “Wouldn’t have expected you to get headaches.”

Ichi turned toward him, momentarily startled. Rodan hadn’t said anything since last night, and had kept his eyes on them the entire time they were debating on who was going to go retrieve what they pretty sure was a bomb- they had settled on Ni-, and they were now waiting for their brother to come back, Rodan perched on a rock not far away and looking out at sea.

Ichi eventually nodded. “It’s a stress thing. And you don’t realize how much proving to you we’re not lying is stressful.” Rodan hummed in response, turning back toward the sea with a frustrated expression.

Just in time to see Ni coming out of the water, flipping his braid out of the way and dragging something metallic behind him. He trudged out of the water and up to them, stopping a few feet to flip the object in front of him before crossing his arms. “There’s something wrong with that thing, but I can’t put my finger on it. Thoughts?”

Ichi frowned, bringing the shell closer. “... it’s a bomb.” He finally realized. “Humans made a bomb that can suck out the life of their planet.”

“How?”

“You know how planet with life on them have this... thing in the air? The thing that the life actually breathes?” Ichi asked Ni, who nodded. He ripped one of the components out. A broken, transparent box with a crumpled spherical object in it where the explosives should’ve been. “That was used to destroy it.”

“Hey, uh...” San started hesitantly. “... had the Xiliens figured how to do tha-”

The trio froze as Rodan got off of his rock, crawling on all four toward them. How he was so comfortable with his own bestiality, they’d never know. He slowly moved to where they were, hesitantly looking at what was left of the bomb. He then breathed in the air, eyes closed in concentration, before they blew wide open in shock. 

Death on this planet had a very distinctive scent, and there was no doubt he was able to say where it was coming from. “So... still believe humans can’t cause wide-scale destruction?” San asked, tilting toward an horrified Rodan.

Horror slowly shifted to anger. “Those vermins...” He muttered, fists balling as heat started rising. “Was it not enough for them to rip away everything I had for me once!?” He roared, black smoke exiting his mouth, a sudden burst of heat melting the ground under his claws.

He gasped, the temperature going back to something bearable. Ghidorah was watching him, looks of confusion, surprise and concern was all over their face. One of them started coming near him, and he gave into fear, letting the wind carry him away from them. He needed to think.

San made a move to start following him, but Ichi taking a hold of his arm stopped him. {Let him be.} They watched as the distant silhouette removed layers of clothing, before jumping into the volcano’s mouth. {We’ve given him a lot to think about.}

Ni hummed in agreement, before frowning as he saw something glitter, back on the the rock where Rodan sat. He walked up to it, frowning as he saw the necklace he had given a while ago. He picked it up, twirling the shard in his fingers as he looked up to the top of the volcano. What would their firebird do?

It took until the sun was starting to disappear over the horizon for Ni to get his answer. A sudden, screeching call sounded for them, snapping the three out of their laziness. He immediately snapped his head up toward the mouth of the volcano. Despite the black smoke that had started rising, he could still make him out. [Rodan’s calling us.]

San immediately floated up, holding the necklace tight in his fist as he dragged Ichi up. (Come on, brother Ichi, let’s go!)

{Yes, yes. No need to be impatient.} He told him, floating up as well and taking Ni’s hand. He opened a portal, allowing them to appear just a short distance away from where Rodan was sitting. He was currently dressing himself. Ichi started talking. “Firebird-”

“Wait. You three wait here.” Rodan told them, still not facing them. For some reason, they obeyed, floating there, watching as Rodan finished dressing, before getting up and turning toward them. They nearly flinched at blazing fury in his gaze.

“...Are you mad at us?” San asked in a far too small voice. “You left your necklace behind...” Neither of the three would admit to sagging in relief when Rodan shook his head, his frown lessening by a small bit.

“Not at you three.” He then added.

“Then what is it?” Ichi asked. He frowned as Rodan extended his hand. He looked at his face, searching for any sign of what was going through his head, but the only thing those yellow eyes betrayed was cold rage.

“I will let you go, on one condition: you help me get my revenge on humans, and I will help you claim the throne.” Ichi’s eyes widened at that, as both Ni and San snapped his head toward him, waiting for their leader’s decision.

“Excuse me?”

“You let me help you destroy humanity.” Rodan repeated. “And in exchange, I will light the way and pave the road to the throne for you three to claim.”

Ichi closed his eyes, letting thoughts run through his head. 

He could almost touch San’s giddiness. The initial plan had worked beyond all hope, and that their dear little firebird would be the one heralding their conquest for all to ear was the icing on his cake.

In contrast, Ni’s recurring paranoia was almost silent. There was the doubt of how far his loyalty would go, but Rodan’s loyalty itself was unquestioned, if only because Ni knew how far wrath could carry one.

As for Ichi himself... Rodan had more than proved himself. If he could survive his nest dying, and not break down in despair no matter what, it already made him preferable to every single one of their former associates.

And that wasn’t counting on the sickly sweet satisfaction of one of the former weak king’s friends becoming their servant. Ichi composed himself. “We accept your offer, Rodan.” He put his hand in his, his brothers following suit by putting their on top of his.

Rodan nodded, bringing Ghidorah closer and allowing them to stand on the rocky surface. Before Ichi could say anything, he knelt, voice dropping to a whisper. “I swear my body, mind and soul to you. From now on, I solely dedicate myself to paving the way to your conquest. And if you deem my work inadequate, then I shall lay my neck bare to your fangs. King Godzilla is dead, long live King Ghidorah.”

King Ghidorah. Oh, how Ichi loved the sound of that one. “Fire bird, look at us.” Rodan raised his head, looking at the three of them with something close to adoration. His brothers were clearly affected by it, Ni lowering his guard at the look, and San was barely not bouncing on the spot. Ichi allowed himself to smile. “No need to be so uptight.”

“You’re the King, now.” He answered. His voice had taken a low, smoky quality to it, probably in an attempt to make his voice seem softer, submissive even. Ichi had to strangle off a purr at it. “The least I can do is show reverence.”

“Perhaps when we’re in private.” NI started, bending down to put his hand under Rodan’s chin. “But you didn’t show reverence to the former king when others were watching, and you shall do the same to us, understood?” Rodan nodded, letting Ni drag him up. “Good.”

San was the next to move, wrapping his hands around behind their servant’s neck. “You dropped this earlier.” He said softly, tying the necklace around his neck. Rodan hummed softly, bending his head and lifting his hair out of the way. San giggled, bringing his hand to Rodan’s cheek. “Good boy~”

Ichi took a few steps back. “For your first order... how about you get us back into reality?” The sudden wind that blew around them nearly startled him.

Rodan looked at them, still looking so very vulnerable despite doing something that, in any other context, would be an intimidation display. “Anything else?”

“Where did the humans in the flying machines come from?” San asked, grabbing Rodan by the shoulder, circling him and effectively turning him around so he was facing the horizon. “Approximatively speaking.”

That hardened him right back up, eyes sharpening as his gaze locked onto whatever they could see of the land from the Island. “They came from further up North. There’s powerful Titans that live on this continent, if I remember properly.”

Ni raised an eyebrow at that, taking a few steps forward. “Which powerful Titans? We need to know which ones we’re going to be controlling.”

“Behemoth, the forest’s protector. Scylla, the ice sculptor.” Scylla? Oh, they hadn’t even started their conquest and it was already looking like tons of fun. “Godzilla was in the middle of culling the beetles when hibernation started, so there should be a few left alive.”

Ni narrowed his eyes. “Are the beetles dangerous?”

“They were able to kill one of Goji’s sister. It’s what prompted the culling.” Rodan answered. “There is also Camazotz, the night bringer. And finally... Methuselah, Guardian of the Earth.”

San perked up at that. “One of Terra’s Guardian?”

Rodan nodded, turning back toward them. “Yes. I doubt I’d be able to wake him up, however. We’re of the same standing. Only a King he would recognize can control him.”

Ghidorah chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, firebird~” Ichi purred. “You won’t be the one waking them up. We will be.”

“Our songs don’t work like your calls.” Ni stated. “Whoever hears us has to listen. You’re the exception that proves the rule, and we know how to carry our voice.”

“This said...” San cheerfully started, grabbing Rodan by the hand and making him spin until he was facing the horizon again, his arms wrapped around him. He could feel the smaller one tense, and what he could see of his face had flushed to glowing orange. “If you want to sing with us, we wouldn’t complain~”

“I doubt I’d be able to add anything.” Rodan started, shrugging out of San’s grasp. “I’m still pretty new at this whole Call thing- AH!”

Ichi chuckled as he lifted Rodan high in the air, sticking his hip out and sitting him on it. “Once again, you’re not the one waking them up, firebird. We are. We’d just like you to lend us your anger.”

“Just because we can draw on other’s emotions to do our bidding doesn’t mean it’s easy.” Ni added, taking Rodan out of Ichi’s arms and putting him back on the ground, turning him back toward the horizon. “It’s easier to force them.”

“All we need is for you to lend us your anger, and we’ll take care of the rest.” San finished. “You write the lyrics, and we compose the tune, if you may.”

“... so I just have to sing with you.” Rodan repeated, Ghidorah nodding as they dragged him close to them again. “... Alright. I’ll try.” He closed his eyes, thinking of everything humans had taken from him, and where his loyalty currently lied. And then he opened his mouth, a discordant melody of wrath and pain and vengefulness and promise poured out of it.

And then Ghidorah sang.

[mochideleche]

You can’t keep away from fate | CH6

Pairing : Percy jackson x demigod!reader

summary : The daughter of destiny- literally, along with inevitability, compulsion and necessity. Being the child of a primordial goddess doesn’t really assure you a quiet calm life but when you return to new york after five years of being shipped off to boarding school, your once mundane life says goodbye.

A/N This part is a very long as i’m trying to fit each book into one part, but then nobody would want to scroll for 70 miles so i’m going to half ‘book 4′ in half. If your confused as to where the story started, it starts after the titan’s curse during the spring and this one starts at the beginning of battle of the labyrinth. Also please feel free to ask any questions about the story because I have a lot planned but sometimes forget to explain all the little things so please do comment your queries, I hope you enjoy! 

contents page

Percy wasn’t exactly hoping for his last day before camp to go as badly as he had expected it to go. If somebody had told him that 2 empousa would should show up, nearly slice his head off and explode his new school and blamed it on him, he wouldn’t be surprised but thoroughly disappointed. And to add to that, if someone had told him that the mortal girl- who he now knew as rachel, had seen the whole thing, written her number on his arm and demanded he explained what the hell what had happened, well he would’ve just stayed in bed that day. 

But he couldn’t do that. He had his orientation day at his new high school but he wouldn’t have mind to miss that. It was the fact that after his induction he would be making his way to camp half blood. Camp half blood. oh how percy missed the place, with it’s white greek buildings, strawberry fields and forest filled with dangerous monsters- it was his favourite place on earth. Even better, the day after he arrived, you would be there.

You were meant to go along with annabeth to pick up percy and bring him to camp but your flight got delayed and you wouldn’t arrive until the next morning. Percy was sad, he’d missed you, despite practically talking on the phone every other night - when you were just about to go to sleep and percy had just got home from school  (due to time difference), he wanted to be able to see your face, see you in front of him and be able maybe to hold your hand, hug you...

But before percy could get lost in his thoughts annabeth began to talk to the cab driver. 

Percy almost forgot that she was in the cab with him. once she had seen rachel and then witnessed her write her number on percy’s arm, she had suddenly given percy the cold shoulder. Percy had no idea what she was angry about. He wanted to talk about what had been going on at camp but annabeth refused to reply to him- only giving him blunt answers or just shrugging her shoulders. 

“Just here will be fine” annabeth said and the taxi driver was the most confused, but as soon as she offered him a wad of cash he kept his mouth shut. 

Annabeth and percy hiked up to the top of the hill and as they reached the summit, percy laid his eyes on the view in front of him. Normally the sight would make him warm to the bone but something was different- like there was tension in the air but he didn’t have time to think about it as he was suddenly attacked with a hug.

Shocked, percy just stayed very still until he looked down to see Y/H/C hair and smelt the fragrance of magnolias. 

“Y/N!” Percy exclaimed, and immediately wrapped his arms around you. 

Percy was surprised, happy- no not just happy, he was overjoyed. Here you were, physically in front of him, he couldn’t have asked for anything else in the whole world. 

“I thought your flight got delayed!” Percy asked, of course he didn’t really care, all he cared was that you were there and he didn’t care as to why. 

“Surprise!” you said, stepping back and smiling up at him, “It was only delayed for an hour- so unfortunately i wasn’t able to make it to pick you up but i’m still here!” 

Percy smiled at you, staring at your pretty face as your coffee coloured eyes crinkled with your smile, “yeah, you are” 

“I’m going to speak to Clarisse” annabeth spoke up and began to walk away.

Percy snapped this head towards her, it was almost as if she just said, i’m going to eat my socks. 

“What why?” Percy questioned, looking at you to see if you were equally as confused but this didn’t seem to phase you.

“We’ve been working on something, i’ll fill you in later” and with that annabeth ran off. 

“What was that about? Annabeth and Clarisse? you must be joking-” but percy paused to see that your eyebrows were furrowed and your eyes were focused on his arm.

He looked down panicked to see if had suddenly spurted an extra limb but as soon as he saw the black marker, he hid his arm behind his back. 

“Is that a number?” You asked, eerily calm. 

“It’s not what you think” Percy sputtered but your eyes narrowed on his, you made him very nervous.

“Who’s is it?” you demand but managed to keep your voice levelled. 

“I-uh” Percy couldn’t bring himself to speak. You looked- well Percy couldn’t tell. You were angry for sure but it was more like a calm angry, the most scariest kind. Percy knew that you could probably kill him on the spot but you didn’t move a muscle. 

“You what?” you queried, raising an eyebrow, gods percy was terrified. 

Percy slumped and looked away from you, there was no way he would be able to explain what had happened if you were staring daggers at him. 

The two of you decided to walk down to the green into the camp as percy explained. Well more like you just began walking away and percy had no choice but to trail after you like a lost puppy. But he did seem to notice that as he neared the end of his story your stance seemed more relax, hopefully you weren’t as angry anymore. 

You turned to face him, a sad look on your face, “well i’m glad you’re okay” she said, then a small smile tugged at the corner of your lips, “can’t have you making a fool of yourself in front of some empousa can we?” 

“Well i’m sorry princess, but if you didn’t notice they were very intent on killing me and i had to protect rachel”  Percy protested, nudging you.

“Easy work” you shrugged, then you gave a laugh, “i’m joking... or am i?” and you broke out laughing again and this time percy joined you, he couldn’t have stayed angry at you for a second, even if he was just pretending. 

....

If anyone had told percy that things would just get worse after he arrived at camp half blood, well- at this point he was kind of expecting it. He felt as if the gods were just seeing how much he could take but he wasn’t at all in the least surprised. 

After grover’s trial, the dodgy quintus guy, falling into the labyrinth and having to go on a quest when he was sure he’d get at least a week of relaxation before anything tried to destroy him, percy was feeling pretty depressed. 

And even worse, that just meant less time to spend with you. But that wasn’t only effected by the fact Percy had to go on a quest. 

You hadn’t been seen for the majority of that day or the day before. Only during activates and quick moments between them had percy seen you. You hadn’t even been at dinner the other night and percy was very confused. But annabeth had assured him that you were just doing what she called, “Field work for chiron” 

“You shouldn’t worry, Y/N is very capable of taking care of herself” Annabeth was saying as her and percy had taken a break from talking about their quest strategies. 

“Field work?” what kind of field work?” Percy questioned, totally ignoring annabeth’s notion to not ask about the subject again. 

Annabeth huffed, “Why do you care?”

Percy felt the anger rising in his chest, “Of course I care! If there’s a titan army out there and she’s all alone, i’d be worried to death if anything happens to her!” 

Annabeth looked at percy, it seems as if she had only just taken notice of him and was looking as if she was evaluating him. She shrugged, “chiron’s got her scouting the borders, we’ve been getting a lot of attacks recently...” 

she trailed off as if re-deciding that maybe she shouldn’t tell percy, “anyways, Y/N is one of the most powerful demigods i know, she’ll be okay” 

The coldness in annabeths tone began to soften as she saw percy’s scrunched up eyebrows and frown, “she’ll be back tonight, you can ask her then” 

And sure enough you were, after dinner you and percy sat at the dock and this time the naiads gave the both of you enough space, perhaps they sensed the tension between the two of you and thought it would be best to stay clear just in case a fight broke out. 

“You feeling okay? I know i wouldn’t be if i’d have to go in the labyrinth- i’d be way too claustrophobic” You said trying to make conversation.

“Thanks for making me feel so much better” percy mumbled, and you faced him.

“This must suck, i mean, you did just get here...” 

and so did you, percy wanted to say, i don't want to leave you just yet, but percy didn’t say anything like that. 

“Yeah, sucks worse than having to clip hades toenails”

“Percy!” you laughed, and the sound brought a smile to percy’s face.

You leaned an elbow on your crossed legs and rested your face on your palm. 

Percy stared at you, the reflection of the moonlight on the river landed on your face, making it seem as if you had the flowing face of a naiad- a much prettier naiad though, percy thought.

“I’m sorry” you said suddenly, the soft look on your face faltering slightly, “I should’ve told you why i wasn't around as much”

Percy blinked. At first he was slightly angry, not at you- angry at how chiron had made you go out in the forest by yourself. Percy had no doubt that you could handle anything that came at you- with your elemental powers, goddess radiance and killer swordsplay, he wasn’t worried about monsters hurting you. He was angry at the fact that this had taken you away from him. 

But now he understood, if anyone should take on this task, it should be you. 

“You don’t need to apologise,” percy said, breaking eye contact with you and leaning back, “But you should’ve told me so that i could’ve gone with you”

You gave a soft laugh and percy turned to you to ask something sarcastic like, what’s so funny, you don’t think i can fight monsters just as well? but then he saw the sad smile at your face, “percy, i didn’t want to give you another thing to worry about” 

You were right, percy did have other things to worry about. 

Just the thought of it made him want to hurl, on his 16th birthday percy had to make a decision that would save the world or end it. 

But then looking at you, sadly gazing into the river made percy think. Just how nice life would be if all he had to worry about was exams or if he got onto the swim team or not? He wanted an easy life, then maybe he could’ve got all the time he wanted to spend with you. Percy got angry- why did it have to be him? what did he do to deserve this fate?

You wrapped your hand gently around percy’s wrist, it was only then percy noticed he was making a mini whirl pool. 

He stared at your dainty hand and perfectly manicured nails, gods he loved everything about you, and then looked up into you coffee coloured eyes. 

“I know it will come out okay,” you said sweetly, “you can do this”

“yeah but i’m not the daughter of a primordial goddess who can sword fight with both hands and make people stop breathing by just looking at them” 

You rolled your eyes, “I’ll show you how it feels when i suffocate monsters” 

“No need princess,” percy smirked, “you take my breath away every time i look at you” 

Your cheeks tinted red and you turned away from percy, he burst out laughing. 

But his laughter was cut short when a wave of water rose from the river and drenched him. 

Percy was left sputtering, spitting out the water that had entered his mouth and blinking the droplets out of his eyes. He then lifted up his hand to send his own wave on you but you were smiling dangerously at him, 

“Try it, and you’ll breath your last breath”

He slowly lowered his hand, “alright, you win, this once princess” 

“This once he says” you mumbled under your breath, laughing as you and percy began to make your way back to the cabins. 

...

You stood by zeus’ fist that morning along with everyone else to send off annabeth and the rest. You were worried. It was obvious since everybody else was- the labyrinth wasn’t exactly all fun and games, it was built to be a living death trap. and the fact that your friends were going in there with no reliable way of getting around made you nervous. 

But at least you didn’t have to go on the quest, let alone lead it.

The day annabeth had received the prophecy she had begun to break down. You took her to the big house so that nobody would see your best friend in a panic attack and tried to calm her down. 

You rubbed her back soothingly, “annabeth, i know you can do this- you are the smartest person i know, and a child of athena- you can do this” 

She sniffled back a sob, “i have no idea what i was thinking, how are we going to get through that maze just on my gut feeling?” 

You stared at annabeth sympathetically- you had no idea. 

“Well maybe it’s one of those things when you just don't think about it” you suggested, shrugging your shoulders- you really couldn’t think of any other better ideas, “Maybe you do just have to feel it” 

You thought that idea was absolute centaur poop but it made annabeth laugh, “yeah, maybe” 

You nodded encouragingly, “well let’s start now, try to take your mind off the quest so later you can think clearly and strategise” 

Annabeth sat quietly, she wasn’t replying but you could tell she had agreed and was willing to take her mind off the labyrinth, you tried to come up with conversation. 

“Have you heard anything from nico then?” 

Not the best topic- it could’ve been worser than to talk about than the quest but it seemed to distract annabeth well.

“No, not really- I think percy has though, he mentioned a dream he had of nico”

You nodded, percy had told you about this too. Nico di angelo wasn’t someone you had met but percy had naturally told you about it. You felt sorry for nico, for a boy so young to go through so much- you couldn’t even begin to understand how that must feel. 

You couldn’t blame him for going rogue and something in your gut told you that he should be found before he could fall into luke’s hands.

“Speaking of percy,“ annabeth began and you looked up to see that she was no longer crying, “has he been mentioning that rachel girl anymore?” she asked, a slightly malicious tone creeping into her voice.

“Annabeth, that wasn’t his fault, besides it was her who wrote her number on his arm. And no, he hasn’t...” you trailed off trying to avoid annabeths analysing gaze. 

You must admit on the day percy came to camp and you saw the number on his arm- you were upset.

It was no secret now that you liked percy- with his dark hair, dreamy sea green eyes, golden personality and kind heart, you couldn’t help but swoon over the son of Poseidon.

And you supposed that percy wasn’t really exclusive to you, half the camp had a crush on him too, so it was a dead give away that people in the mortal world would find him just as attractive. 

You didn't bring up anything, you didn't really think that percy had ‘the hots’ for you- you just thought that came with the hero persona, but the certain things he did- calling you everyday, sneaking to the docks at night with you, calling you princess. 

That made your heart palpitate

And annabeth being annabeth saw through you right away. 

She admitted to you that she too once had a little crush on percy but she was still hung up on luke that it just felt wrong, and she supposed due to that her crush died out and well- the rest is history. 

“Well i’m just saying you need to be careful, percy is rather oblivious to most things and if he’s going around letting any girl write their numbers on his arms-”

“Annabeth,” you smiled.

“I’m just saying,” she reasoned, lifting her hands up in a shrug, “if he turns out to be trash and breaks your heart, i won’t even think twice about throwing him under a pegasus stampede” 

You laughed, gods how you were so lucky to have annabeth as your best friend. 

And now due to that you were dying from anxiety as you watched her re-check her backpack and standing strong with determination. 

you gave her a hug, “Don’t panic, im sure things won't be too bad,” total lie. “Stay safe okay?”

Annabeth nodded grimly, “Thanks Y/N, you keep safe too” 

She stepped back and began to talk to chiron, percy approached you next.

You looked up to him, “Try not to do anything stupid while you’re gone okay?” you did your best to not let your voice get stuck in your throat and tried to sound upbeat and confident for percys part. 

Percy scoffed, “Please, we all know i can’t keep that promise” He looked uneasily to the side, despite seeming so laid back you knew how he was really feeling on the inside. 

You tried for a laugh but it kind of sounded pathetic, so you just hugged him instead.

No words were needed but percy hugged you back, tighter this time. His arms wrapped around your waist as if he was hugging you like it was your last- no no no don’t be pessimistic.

You tried to let go multiple times, planning on stepping back but still feeling percy’s arms stay like solid iron around you, but finally you had the courage to detangle your arms from under his and stepped back so you could look at him.

His sea green eyes stared sadly at your face, you tried your best to control your blush. Even at a time like this you still got butterflies over him. 

Annabeth called percy, the rest of them were already at the entrance, her voice acting like a pin to your little bubble. You caught the flash of disappointment in percy’s face.

he turned back to you and gave you a little bow, “Until next time, princess” 

You stifled a giggle, “adieu” and covered your face to stop the other on-lookers from seeing your blush as percy and the rest clambered into the fissure. 

...

How many days had it been? 2 3? percy couldn’t tell, for all he knew a week could have gone by and it would have only felt like half a day. Time went by differently in the labyrinth, percy knew that- but he didn’t exactly think it would be so disorienting. Having not seen the outside world for a while it felt off having to sleep everyone and then since they didn’t even know when night time was. 

They were taking camp and percy had just finished his shift and had begun to sleep but of course that only meant nightmares. 

He was back at long island, in the forest near the camp. He didn’t know how he knew but he could just feel it. He felt worried for a second, if he was having another dream about luke and he was already near camp half blood- but as soon as he saw a petite figure standing against the trees, he doubted that this was a nightmare at all. 

You stood feet shoulder width apart with your arms crossed casually but you were  peering through the trees with a determined look. Percy had seen that face before, it was the face you wore every time you were duelling with him. 

That couldn’t be a good sign. 

you were wearing a grey cami tucked into washed out jeans and with a flannel tied around your waist. You looked amazing and percy wished that he could just stare at you all day- but a sudden gust of wind blew past him, it almost threw him off his feet. Percy stumbled back and looked at you. Naturally you were unaffected, the wind only succeeding in blowing back your long hair which was tied up in a tight ponytail. 

You scrunched your nose in distaste and begrudgingly flicked out your hands, the two drakon bone blades extending to their full length. You began to stride forward, spinning the blades in you hands like jedi do in starwars- percy was very envious of that, and set off in between the cluster of trees. 

Percy followed behind you, trying to keep his distance just in case you swung your sword through his torso. Percy didn’t know if you could still cut him whilst he was dreaming but he wasn’t really willing to find out. 

Another gust of wind came but this time it blew away from you, percy had a thought that maybe you were the one summoning the harsh winds. He watched as the wind carried a few stray leaves up with it and it dancing through the trees out of sight. 

Percy remembered you mentioning to him one time that when you controlled the winds you could feel everything the wind felt. You’d told him that when you were with the hunters of artemis, they had taught you how to use that ability to scout out monsters who were hiding. And that didn’t make him feel any better. 

He looked over at you, your face was calm but your eyes were narrow as if you felt something was wrong. Then the calmness of your face disappeared when a small look of shock painted your face. You immediately began to look around as if you could sense something was watching you, then you looked directly at percy. 

Percy wasn’t new to his dreams interacting with him, but that was when he was dreaming about gods who were omniscient and all powerful. But his thought was cut short when a humungous wind pushed through you.

This time, you were taken aback as you lost your footing and hand to bring your hands to your face to shield yourself from the twigs and leaves that came with the gust. As it died down you bounded down into the trees. 

It was for a quick second but percy had caught it and it made him nervous- the scowl on your face. 

You were one to not ever lose your temper, more like you let it boil behind a scary calmness. Percy had never seen you shout or show any reckless anger so seeing that scathing stare you gave whatever you were chasing made him worry. 

He followed you, at much difficulty as you were a very fast runner, the trees became a blur in his side vision and you hair flickered behind you like a horse’s tail when it was anxious. 

Then you skidded to a stop, percy would’ve bashed straight into you if he didn’t stop about ten feet behind you when he saw your target. 

It loomed over you, about 12 feet tall and was as wide as the width of three of trees in the forest surrounding you. Percy almost thought it was a tree but it inched forward, lifting the thing percy thought was its unnaturally arm up over it’s head. Then with speeds that couldn’t be possible for a thing that size, it brought it down. 

Percy shouted out your name but that was pointless, you couldn’t hear him, neither did you need his warning. 

You crossed both swords as the limb, which percy now saw was a huge wooden club, made contact with you. You stumbled under the weight but you pushed back and the club went up in flames. 

As cool as it was, it was totally pointless, cyclopes were fire resisant- in order to work in harsh conditions, but that wasn’t what you were going for. 

The eruption of fire sent the cyclopes into confusion and he bent down to examine his newly lit stick. Now Percy could see it’s ugly face, distorted and wrinkled as if it’d spent a life time frowning. It’s singular beady eye blinking slowly in confusion. 

Seeing a cyclopes attack you, made percy feel sick. Cyclopes were supposed to be good, like percy’s brother tyson and the cyclopes that worked in his fathers forges. Seeing this was just a whole type of wrong. 

The second the cyclops faltered you disappeared from under his club and jumped onto the tip of it and began running towards it’s arm. The fire didn’t affect you, and neither did gravity seem to be pulling you down - comes with the perks of being as powerful as a minor goddess, percy thought.

You continued on you path even as you passed onto the cyclops’ arm, and as you did, you dug both your swords into it, opening his limb as you dashed towards it’s head. 

This shook the cyclops out of it’s daze as a frown made its way on it’s face. It raised it’s other hand to swipe at you but you were now perched on his shoulder. 

Percy had seen some pretty gruesome things, but this was next level gross. Blood was flowing everywhere, parts of the fire on the club were being doused out by it and when the cyclops moved percy could see parts of white bone. 

disgusting. 

The cyclops looked more confused than in pain as he turned towards you, craning his neck so that he could face you and his multiple chins being put on full display. 

And when percy thought he had seen enough, you took both your sword and cut the head off the cyclops. 

The head fell to the ground and rolled towards percy like a great boulder in an avalanche. He barely had time to scramble away, just missing it as the cyclops’ eye stared lifelessly at him. 

Percy turned back to the body which was now dissolving into yellow dust, and you began glide to the ground gracefully, before landing on your feet. Despite the grace in you descent, percy noticed on how you stumbled a little bit under your own weight and how you were breathing heavily. 

he instinctively began to walk towards you, wanting to let you lean against him and tell you how badass you were but as he did, you looked up- you stared right at him. 

Then percy woke up - back drenched in a cold sweat, breath heaving as if he had actually run beside you and the picture of your coffee coloured eyes staring right at him, burning in his mind. 

[creacherkeeper]

[ID: a header showing the words “Kosis & disability” with a drawing of the main character. the word “kosis” is in original font, made to look like mossy stone. the “i” is speckled and distorted. the character has lavender skin, dark teal hair, and a white and purple striped sleeveless turtleneck. one of their hands is on their head and the other is over their stomach. they are crying with a grimace. the image is distorted and blurred to give it a look of unreality. end ID] 

so kosis is the game i’m working on, as i mentioned yesterday! like i said, this one is a visual novel as opposed to an educational game, but it still deals heavily with disability and mental illness, so i wanted to talk about that a bit 

summary: kosis is set in a world full of magical mushroom forests and adorable villages. but one day our hero comes across an ancient demon temple in the woods and learns the titans of the old world are rising again - and they don’t have much time to save their village 

spoiler warning below the cut! discussion of mental illness, cw for medication 

so as some of you may know, i’m schizophrenic. i have been since i was a kid. diagnosed & started treatment at age 20. growing up, i never saw positive portrayals of characters like me. schizophrenia was this scary thing, and characters with it were often violent, misguided, and wound up ... not okay, in the end, to put it lightly. this really affected my mental health, as still to this day, i get nervous disclosing my diagnosis & have a hard time seeing myself with a happy ending 

kosis is my answer to the problem i have with schizophrenia in media. though not always a happy game, kosis has a main schizophrenic character that is not overly dark, is not horror, and does have a hopeful ending 

at the beginning, the player has no reason to doubt anything that happens in the world of kosis. this world has fantastical creatures and giant glowing mushrooms - why not a demon temple and long-dead titans? but, as the game progresses, the player is meant to suspect something is off. through a mechanic called “assessments”, the player realizes that the hero doesn’t always come to logical conclusions. plus, no one else in the village can see these demons. and when our hero gets attacked, they’re the only one who seems to see any actual injuries  

i wanted to show schizophrenia in a fictional world to replicate what the experience is like for some of us. when in an episode, the things we’re thinking and seeing feel very real and logical. if i set the game in our world, the player could understand fairly easily what was real and what wasn’t. they would start to doubt the hero much earlier. but, in the world of kosis, there’s no reason not to go along with our hero’s perception - at least for a time 

it’s important to me to show that our hero, even when they’re frazzled and afraid, is never a danger to anyone else, and still cares deeply about their friends and village. mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, but there is an idea in (american) society that mentally ill people are dangerous. i want our hero to be sympathetic and for their thought process to be understandable. if you thought titans were coming back to destroy the world, you’d probably be frantic to stop it too. i want to show that our hero is coming from a good place, but delusion, hallucination, and paranoia leads them to the wrong conclusions, and therefore the wrong actions as well 

medication is used in the game to help the hero once their mental illness is discovered. this might be controversial to people with psychiatric conditions. but the game is based off my own experience. meds aren’t for everyone, but they’ve helped me get to a stable and healthier place. in the game, i emphasize that there are side effects to the medication that the hero may not want to tolerate forever. they choose to go on meds themselves, and also reserve the right to go off them in the future if they feel like its right. meds arent the ultimate or only answer - they also have their family, friends, and community to help them through it. though some of our hero’s actions are confusing, mostly the people around them are concerned and want to help. as much as i wanted to show some of what its like to live with schizophrenia, i wanted to model how the people around us can act with care and concern rather than derision or fear 

while the ending of the game isn’t strictly joyful, it is a hopeful ending with our hero in a place of healing and surrounded by friends. mentally ill people deserve to see themselves with happy endings too. too many stories told about us end in tragedy. i wanted kosis to be different 

future updates, including art, screenshots, and discussion will be posted to this blog under the tag “kosis game”! 

[aspoonofsugar]

Hello! What are your thoughts on the latest chapter of AoT ?

Hello anon!

It happened what I thought it would aka Eren freeing Ymir and the Rumbling starting, so my general thoughts have not changed that much since the ones I had on chapter 121.

What this chapter added to the previous ones is Ymir’s backstory which touches on many concepts we have already met in the manga.

Ymir is a character who shares her main flaw with Historia like the chapter reminds us:

Frieda’s thesis is that since the world is full of suffering people should be kind with each other. This is also what society should ideally be about. However, the chapter presents a very different truth. Society and humans are the ones who end up creating much of the pain and suffering and Ymir’s story is in a sense the embodyment of this.

Ymir sacrifices herself for others’ sake, but it is precisely because of this that she ends up being used by others and suffers. At the same time her situation doesn’t change no matter how much power she obtains and how much her status rises.

As a matter of fact her backsory makes clear that it is not the lack of strength the reason why she doesn’t change her own situation:

Ironically, she is a character without a spine who is literally given one (and titan powers are said to be somehow connected with one’s will), but she still spends all her life as a slave despite having all the power and ability to free herself and to do what she wants.

In short, Ymir proves once and for all what the series has already made plenty clear aka that it is not through becoming stronger physically that a person becomes free. There needs to be an inner change.

At the same time, I would like to highlight two other and hopefully more interesting points.

1)

Once again, we are back to this line. King Fritz tells Ymir that she was born to be a slave, while Carla (and Eren completes her statement in the Return to Shiganshina arc) says that a person is perfect and free for the sole reason of being born.

It is obvious that these two philosophies are in opposition. Eren in this chapter conveys to Ymir his mother’s thoughts:

Ymir is a human and as a human she was not born for any particular reason. She was not born to be a monster, a slave or a God. There is no hidden meaning in her birth and so no specific destiny she must fulfill. She can choose. This is the beauty of Carla’s vision of the world. Her son does not have to be special or to prove that he is worthy. He can just be human and in this way free.

The same goes for Ymir and for Historia before and after her:

Eren is back at telling traumatized girls that they can just be people.

However, what about Eren himself?

As I have already mentioned when commenting chapter 121 Eren’s powers seem to enforce a vision of the world which is deterministic and impossible to change:

In short, Eren might go around trying to free individuals he sees suffering because of the weight of their fate, but he himself seems to accept a pre-determined future (even if we must first discover what he has seen and what he wants to do in reguards to it) and a specific role.

After all, Eren is called both a devil and a God and is dehumanized both by allies and enemies alike. However, he seems to have accepted it and he has actually encouraged such a behaviour by cutting ties with people who are genuinely trying to understand him and to help him. Hange, Mikasa, Armin and even Zeke all tried to communicate with him, but he has shut everyone down.

In short, it is as if Eren can clearly see that it is wrong to dehumanize others by giving them roles they don’t want to fulfill, but he accepts that such a thing is done to him.

I would like to highlight that this is not the first time something like this happens:

The whole point of Historia and Eren’s parallelism in the Uprising is exactly this. Eren thinks that it is alright for Historia to be a normal girl, but he is horrified when he turns out to be a normal person himself.

Eren overcomes the situation thanks to his loved ones’ encouragement and later on he seems to have accepted his mother’s point of view after talking with Shadis. I wonder if right now he has somehow gone back to his old habit. If it is so, I would not be surprised if in the end someone were to tell him what Carla did and what he himself told Ymir aka that he is just a human being.

2)

This is the only moment in her life Ymir was ever told that she was free. However, “freedom” here means that she is banned from her own community and forced to live in the forest alone waiting to be hunted (in a sense she is “sent to Paradis” before this term was invented).

In short, Ymir is given a pretty definite choice between being a slave in society and being free in the nature.

This idea of freedom as a reality without social restrictions or bonds seems to me a little bit too simplicistic and it is ironic because it reminds me of the world inhabited by titans our protagonists were determined to fight in the beginning of the series.

So what does the series want to convey? That the world dominated by natural forces which was seen as an obstacle in the beginning is actually better than human society? Or maybe there is an alternative the story must still explore?

What is sure is that this chapter seems to put a lot of focus on this opposition:

Eren says that he wants to destroy this world where individuals use each other and after Ymir wakes up and starts crying out of what is probably anger the rumbling starts. An angry and destructive reaction seems right when it comes to Ymir after all what she went through. However, an obvious question arises. What comes after the destruction?

This chapter underlines once again that society is wrong and that humans are the real monsters and Eren seems determined to destroy such a world. His feelings resonate with Ymir who accepts to help him.

However, the necessity of a change and to fight to obtain said change is an incomplete answer. It is incomplete because it does not consider the necessity of building something new and the positive things which are born by human connections (let’s also highlight that this is ironic also withint the chapter itself because in the end what gets through Ymir is not Eren shouting about changing the world and destruction, but he calmly telling her that she has been waiting for someone to help her hence it is his ability to establish a connection).

Eren reminds me of this definition of anarchism offered in Psycho Pass:

In the series this conversation continues by highlighting that a certain character fits only the first part of the definition. In short, this character was focused only on the destructive part and not on the constructive one. I would not be surprised if Eren were the same.

Eren and Ymir in this chapter seem to both grasp that there is something wrong with the way things are currently and are both trying to change that, but their wish for change asks for massive destruction (at least it is framed this way so far).

Basically, we come back to what I have written in the meta linked above:

In other words there is no doubt that what  Eren is doing will be fundamental to change the current corrupted  system, but at the same time I think his pov needs to be integrated. I  think Eren is missing a piece of the puzzle and that someone else should  give it to him.

Eren is a person who has decided to rebel to the way things are right now, but in this way he has started assuming some behaviours similar to the ones he is supposedly against. At the same time, his rightous anger at the world needs to be integrated with something else which is more constructive, but for this to happen other characters need to wake up as well and to open their eyes to what is really happening.

Thank you for the ask!

[peter-pan-hoe]

Go For The Head

Infinity War Rewrite. Endgame didn’t fucking happen. (:

Word count: 3k

Warnings: violent, reader injury, character death, I don’t think there’s any swearing which is weird because I swear like a fucking sailor normally.

Tag list: @kaitlynpcallmebeepme @fairydustparker @sammysgirl1997 @allison0609 @loveisfriendship @sideshawty @purplekitten30

Also just like a thing, I don’t think I’ve actually posted new content since like before last Halloween so thanks for waiting this long and thanks for sticking with me through my bullshit. I can’t promise that I’ll have regular content up like i did last year but I’m glad to be back and I’m glad to be writing again.

Thanks you guys xx

These things were everywhere.

The beasts poured through the barrier, ripping themselves to shreds as they did.

As they fought on the battle field I could see their wounds from the barrier.

Pink flesh visible under tough grey skin and armour.

The war cries of those around me mixed in with the Wakandan chants. The huge man with the club shouting to meet his tribe’s rhythmic response.

It was epic.

Thor had had a serious upgrade since I’d last seen him. His hair was much shorter, one of his eyes had changed from his deep blue to a strange gold, his hammer, Mjolnir had been replaced by a huge battle axe.

He gave off a bigger “God” vibe than he used to.

I watched from the clearing’s edge as he took down hundreds of the aliens and their pods and regretted that I’d become distracted when one of the alien creatures got a hold of my leg.

I screamed as it bit down, tearing into my skin and muscle with its vile teeth, dragging me back a bit then tossing me aside like a dog with a toy.

It came at me again, but I swung hard with my sword as its face neared mine and sliced its jaw from its head.

Its body flopped down onto my lower legs with a heavy thud and I looked around for any others before laying back on the ground to catch my breath.

A blur of red and orange swooped over me.

Sitting up and turning I saw it was Wanda. Diving into the forest after The Vision where he sat, weak and wounded against a fallen tree.

She ran to him and crouched by his side, gently sliding her hand up the side of his face in a tender display of affection and worry.

  “Are you okay?” she gasped.

He didn’t have time to answer before the stone in his head glowed brightly and he groaned and tensed up in pain.

I cried out as I shoved the aliens body from my leg and pulled myself up from the ground before limping my way over to them.

  “What?” Wanda held him as his breathing quickened. “What is it?” she asked.

I stabbed my sword into the ground and leant on it to try and take some weight off of my torn up leg.

Vision looked around fearfully before answering. “He’s here”

A horrible feeling washed over me as fear seeped into the air like a thick miasma.

Everyone could feel it.

All voices seemed to cease as we listened to the leaves in the strange wind, the trees groaning awfully as they twisted.

A harsh shiver ran up and down my spine as I looked at Steve staring up into the sky.

He raised his hand to the com device in his ear, warning anyone not with us.

  “Everyone on my position,” he said. “We have in coming,”

Everything was still for a moment as we all froze to listen, waiting.

And suddenly there he was.

Further into the forest than I was, but I could see him trough the gaps in the trees, just past Steve and the others.

Wanda must have seen him too as she took up defensive stance over Vision, her red sparks flying between her hands as she readied for attack.

  “Cap,” Banner said from inside the Hulk Buster suit. “That’s him,”

  “Eyes up” Steve readied his shield. “Stay sharp” he said before charging Thanos.

The giant lilac coloured man walked calmly forward, knowing he was more powerful than any of us combined.

Bruce reached him first, running at the titan with his fist ready but Thanos simply waved his hand and Bruce was lifted into the air.

I watched on in horror as he became transparent, phased straight through Thanos and was tossed behind him, merging into the cliff there, half exposed.

Like the stuff of nightmares.

Steve was next.

He was running at full force but was lifted into the air and thrown aside into the ground.

One by one we all made our attempt to take down Thanos.

T’Challa, leaping into the air was caught by the throat and punched into the ground.

Sam firing his guns as he soared head on, Thanos used his gauntlet to take out the tech in Sam’s suit and he came crashing to the dirt at his feet.

  “Wanda” Vision breathed as I pulled me sword from the ground and began running at Thanos. “It’s time,”

  “No,” she said firmly to him.

I charged.

Sword in hand, ready to swing hard I skidded down to aim for Thanos’s legs but he caught me.

I saw purple sparks like Wanda’s red ones as I was lifted and slammed into a tree.

I lay on the ground for what felt like years trying to breathe again.

I was severely winded, and some ribs were definitely broken.

Blacks spots flashed across my eyes as I tried to look around me.

I felt a thump in the ground and saw Bucky land nearby me.

  What did I miss? I thought.

I strained my neck as I tilted my head up to see Okoye’s spear zip past and embed in the dirt.

The ground rumbled and shook. Looking to my side I saw the ground had erupted around Natasha and she lay trapped under giant shards of rock.

I couldn’t hear anything but harsh, sharp ringing and my pulse thumping in my skull.

The ringing in my ears didn’t let up so I lay on the ground in defeat, staring at Bucky, laying, unconscious by my side.

My hearing started to clear, and I could make muffled screaming.

  Steve?

I turned my head to see him holding back Thanos’s hand, holding his hand open so he couldn’t make a fist to use the gauntlet.

Steve was amazing.

Holding back an alien five times his size, so much more powerful than anything we’d ever seen.

But it wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t do anything but watch as Thanos struck Steve’s head.

A sickening crunch told me Steve was dead.

His body dropped to the ground before Thanos simply stepped over him only to be met by a huge blast of Wanda’s power.

She held him back while she used the same power on Vision’s infinity stone.

I don’t know how long they struggled against each other but there was a beautiful shattering noise followed by a blast of warmth.

I felt myself be pushed slightly by the blast.

Vision was gone.

The stone was destroyed.

I closed my eyes in relief.

We were safe.

  “I understand my child,” I heard a voice. “better than anyone,”

There a pause before I heard Wanda reply.

  “You could never,” she spat.

  “Today I lost more than you could know,” It must have been Thanos speaking. “But now is no time to mourn,”

I shifted slightly and opened my eyes to see him stroke Wanda’s head before moving past her to the small crater where Vision exploded.

  “Now,” he breathed. “There’s no time at all,”

He raised his arm and the gauntlet was adorned in rings of green light, swirling with symbols and ancient text.

He twisted his arm like he was turning a dial and the shrapnel from the blast began reforming around a ball of flames.

I was pulled back to my original place on the ground and Vision was back.

I looked over to Steve and saw his chest rising and falling as he woke.

  “NO!” I heard Wanda scream before she was thrown through the air where she landed on my torso.

I grunted as the shock seemed to wake me up from the trance I’d been in and I suddenly had the strength to move again.

Rolling onto my side I leant up on my elbow to see Thanos with a darkened and colourless Vision in his hand, the Mind Stone in his other.

He tossed Vision away like he was merely trash.

I froze once again.

Thanos brought the stone to his gauntlet and like a magnet to metal; the stone zapped into place on the back of his hand.

Light engulfed his body, running through and around him in a magnificent display of colour coursing through his veins.

The glow subsided, and he paused to admire his completed gauntlet before he was hit by a huge blast of lightning.

  “Thor,” I gasped.

There he was, soaring down from the sky and threw his axe full force at Thanos.

Thanos reached up to send a blast of energy in retaliation that was no match for the axe.

The axe ploughed straight through the energy and lodged itself into Thanos’s chest.

I sat up as Thor landed on the ground, calmly in front of Thanos.

I gently pushed Wanda off myself so I could get up.

Thor, is his huge Asgardian Godly size, was just barely the same height as Thanos when he was brought to his knees.

  “I told you,” Thor panted. “You’d die for that,”

Thanos’s face morphed into a silent scream as Thor pushed his axe deeper into his chest.

He breathed heavily and started trying to say something to Thor.

I hissed in pain as I rose from the ground, sword in hand.

  “You should have gone for the head,” Thanos whispered as he raised his hand.

  “NO!” Thor cried and then

CRACK

The sound of bones breaking echoed slightly.

The titan’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped, lifeless to the ground.

I tugged my sword from his skull and looked at Thor in shock.

  “Did… did I do it?” I could barely make a sound. “Is it over?”

  “Y/N I…” Thor looked at me in surprise. “You… I think so,”

I could feel my body shaking as I looked at my sword in my hand, dripping in purple blood.

I let myself fall to the ground.

Steve crouched down by Vision’s body and turned him over as Natasha came running around the corner.

I noticed that everyone was up on their feet.

All except myself and Wanda who just stared at nothing.

I looked at the gauntlet still on Thanos’s lifeless hand.

  “Can we bring him back?” I asked. “Vision I mean,”

Wanda’s head shot up at the question.

I looked up at Thor.

  “Can we give him back his stone?” I asked. “Can we use the Time stone to bring him back?”

He leaned down and pulled the gauntlet from Thanos’s arm.

  “I know someone who can,” he spoke with a plain face. “Maybe I can bring back my people too,” he spoke mainly to himself then.

  “Are those things still attacking?” Natasha asked. “The chitauri all dropped dead when we nuked their ship back then, in New York. Are these guys a hive mind too?”

  “I think they have stopped,” T’Challa spoke.

  “Who needs medical attention?” Steve asked with a small smile.

There were a few groans and laughs as all of us rose our hands.

  “Well then let’s get Vision up to the Shuri’s lab and go see some doctors,” He sighed. “Sound good Your Highness?”  

T’Challa gave a gentle nod before walking away.

Everyone followed suit.

Steve hoisted Vision over his broad shoulders as I groaned, clutching my bruised and broken ribs.

 3 days later.

 I stood leaned against the window frame of Shuri’s lab looking out over the field.

The destruction was incredible.

Huge mechanical wheels had left enormous trenches around the place.

The alien’s bodies had all been put into one of the trenches to later be burned, all the bodies of the Wakandans who perished we all laid out and identified, ready to be returned to their families for burial rites.

  “Y/n,” I heard Bucky’s gruff voice call from behind me.

I turned away from the window and watched as he walked around some desks to get to me.

  “You doin alright?” he asked, putting his hands on my shoulders so I faced him properly.

He looked at some bruised on my face, fading after the days of care and amazing Wakandan technology. His eyes trailed down to where my hand rested on my side, hugging my sore ribs.

  “Yeah I’m okay,” I smiled. “Just thinking,”

I looked out over the fields again and Bucky followed suit.

He dropped one arm and wrapped the other around my shoulder.

  “What ya thinkin’ about?” he asked.

  “how bad things could have gotten,” I reached up to hold his hand on my shoulder.

He pulled me tighter and sighed. “We don’t know what would have happened. All we know is that its over and we’re safe,”

Our conversation was cut short when a ship appeared in the sky.

Sharp and angular, pointed like a wide arrow head, adorned with blue and yellow patterns.

The ship curved in its decent, facing away from the city as it landed in the field, safely avoiding the piles of bodies and debris.

  “What now?” Bucky lowered his arm as he looked down at the ship.

A hatch opened and a ramp was lowered.

Seven figures slowly made their way from the ship and I recognised two of them instantly even at such a distance.

It was my dad. My dad, Tony Stark and the spider kid.

  “He’s okay,” I breathed a sigh of relief.

I felt a little nervous at the sight of my father.

After the dispute of the Accords I’d sided with Steve and left with him and the others.

I’d emailed on and off with Dad in my time on the run, because while we had differing opions on everything, I still loved him and he forgave me for my siding against him.

I was about to turn to head out to meet them when I saw two smaller figures running from the city out into the field to the newcomers.

It was that strange tree creature and the talking raccoon.

Thor was walking a little behind them too.

  “Let’s go,” I took Bucky’s arm and began leading him out.

When we got outside most of our people were there too.

Bruce hugged Tony, Steve and Tony awkwardly shook hands before hugging.

When my father saw me it looked like he choked.

I ran over and hugged him.

  “I’m so sorry,” I mumbled into his chest. “I’ve missed you so much. Were you in space? Who are these people?”

   “Easy kiddo,” he chuckled. “I got kinda stabbed so I’m a little tender,”

  “You were STABBED?” I stepped back and started looking over his body for evidence of injury and saw what looked like bandages under his tshirt wrapped around the middle of his torso.

  “Alright alright,” he put his hand on my face. “Calm down. I’m okay. We can talk about it later,”

I nodded and looked for the spider kid, Peter.

I found him, stood off to the side staring at us all like a child at the circus.

I now realised Dr Strange was among the people who came from the ship.

He was taller than I expected, and his cloak seemed to flow around him as if it had a mind of its own.

I stepped over to the kid and put my hand on his arm, snapping him out of his daze.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Y/n Stark” he squeaked with wide eyes. “Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Are- are you…okay… are you okay?”

I laughed at the boy stuttering nervously and moved to stand next to him, putting my hand reassuringly on his back.

  “Yeah I’m okay,” I rubbed my hand up and down his back. “Let’s get you inside, yeah? Get some food and water?”

He gulped and nodded shakily.

He nervously looked up at Bucky standing next to me but gave him a respectful nod and scared smile.

  “C’mon,” Bucky Held out his hand for me to take.

We’d started walking when I heard Tony ask, “Who’d we lose?”

I stopped and turned.

A few faces dropped.

  “The Vision,” Steve spoke.

  “And Gamora,” a man behind Tony added.

It was now that I actually looked at the other people that came out of the ship.

The man that spoke seemed human enough. Brown hair and eyes, a red leather jacket.

There was a man beside him, completely shirtless. But his skin was grey with red patterns covering him head to toe.

A small woman was behind him, black hair, HUGE black eyes and… antennae?

And a woman with blue and purple skin. She also looked like she had a few mechanical enhancements too.

  “Who’s Gamora?” I asked. Looking from face to face.

The man in the red and the blue woman spoke at the same time. “My girl,” he said. “My sister” said the blue woman.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Steve said respectfully.

  “We also lost Loki and Heimdall among half the Asgardians,” Thor spoke up.

Tony looked like he wanted to make some snarky remark about Loki but when he looked at Thor’s face, he restrained himself.

  “We have the stones kept safe up in the lab,” Bucky spoke, breaking the silence.

  “All of them?” The man in the red jacket looked astonished. “you shouldn’t have them so close together,”

   “We have them safely contained separate from each other,” I said. “The point is, we have the stones, we can bring anyone we lost back,”

  “We have a logistics team working on a plan to do it,” Steve explained.

  “You won’t need a whole team,” Dr Strange stepped forward.

  “What do you mean?” Bucky asked

  “I am the keeper of the Time Stone,” Strange continued. “I know how it works, I can do it myself,”

Looking from face to face I saw a look of relief and hope wash over everyone.

I squeezed Bucky’s had and gave him a smile.

  “Alright then,” Steve nodded as if in thought. “Let’s go inside, get everyone fed, get any medical help any of you need and then we’ll figure out how to get our people back. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good,”

[buttsonthebeach]

The Same Kind of Scar

I had the joy of writing about Rhaella and Solas again for @scharoux! You guys ready for some angsty post-Trespasser reunion sex?? Because I always am! Thank you for the commission, friend <3

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions

Pairing: Rhaella Lavellan x Solas

Rating: Explicit

**********

The Vir Dirthara was lovely and still and it broke Rhaella’s heart to stand there, all alone, and to think of Solas, and what he had done.

It had been weeks since she was here last. Weeks of slowly acclimating to the idea that her left arm was gone forever, that she would never again pick up a bow as her father had taught her before he died. Before her magic manifested. Weeks of adjusting to the idea that the Inquisition was gone, scattered to the winds by the Exalted Council and her own decree.

Weeks of slowly adjusting to the reality that the man she loved was the Dread Wolf.

The truth was, such an idea still didn’t feel like reality. Maybe that was what had drawn Rhaella back to the eluvians. When she walked the Crossroads with their vivid colors and brilliant light - when she was in a world unlike the one she’d always known - she could almost begin to believe it was all true. She could almost make it feel real.

No matter what happens, what we had was real.

He’d said it himself. And then he’d left. He left, and he left, and he took, and he took. The shattered library around her was proof enough of that. Rhaella headed to the large central chamber with its fountain-like structure and walls of books, the ancient dust forming a soft layer on her bare feet. He destroyed all of this. He destroyed the world their people had.

But he did it because he had no other choice.

But he did not feel the need to elaborate on that. Not really. Not to her.

Rhaella reached up and squeezed what was left of the arm that had the Anchor. It ached all the time. It ached in places that didn’t exist anymore.

He kissed me as he took it.

But he still left.

Rhaella slumped onto the stone bench encircling the fountain, still cradling her left arm. She was hollowed out with grief. She was tired of trying and trying and trying to understand everything that had happened - to piece together all of the signs and understand how she had never been able to piece them all together before.

Most of all, she was tired of trying to understand how it was that she still loved him, after everything.

Rhaella was still slumped, her eyes downcast, when air around her twisted and crackled with energy. When the Librarians that had so terrorized her and her party when they first came through here reappeared. When she did notice them, it was too late - she was up, but she was stumbling - her magic was flooding her body but she did not cast quickly enough - and the towering, writhing forms of the Librarians were already on her, claws razor sharp, rending, tearing, shredding, piercing -

When the last thing Rhaella saw as she hit the ground and her vision faltered was Solas, she was certain she was dying. He was gone. That was the one absolute fact of her new reality. He was gone, and he was never coming back.

“Hold on,” Solas said to her, desperate. “Please, vhenan, hold on -”

His hands felt warm and real on her cheeks. At least her dying mind had given her that comfort. Rhaella let her eyes fall closed, and sank into the inky blackness.

*

Rhaella was surprised to wake up. She was even more surprised to wake up on soft linen sheets, with a thick, soft blue blanket covering her. She was surprised to see grey wrought iron above her, and beyond that a cloudless blue sky. She was surprised to hear the dull roar of water in the background. She was, in fact, not entirely sure she had woken up at all. It was only when she ran her standard checks to confirm that she was not in the Fade that she accepted it. This was real. She was alive, and she was not lying broken on the floor of the Vir Dirthara either. So she had been rescued - and the last person she saw -

Rhaella would have lurched upright if it had been possible, but her ribs and stomach protested immediately at the strain.

“Fenedhis.”

She cradled her midsection, feeling out the band of pain wrapped tightly around herself. She’d been healed, even if the process was not yet complete. The healing had been done magically. And if she probed the lingering aura with her own senses, she recognized the signature of the spells.

“You are awake.”

So she knew, really, that it was Solas. She knew before he appeared in the archway opposite her bed, framed by the billowing cream silks that served as a door. Similar openings served as windows all around her. The weather was mild - too mild for anywhere in Thedas this time of year, where half the continent was bound in snow, and the other half was still hot and humid. So where were they?

Rhaella tried to pretend she cared more about that than she did about the sight of him - the richly embroidered, forest green tunic he wore, the buttery doeskin breeches. The sight of his elegant hands, carefully folded before him. The exhaustion plain on his eyes, even at this distance.

Vhenan.

“You saved me,” Rhaella said.

“Yes.” He did not come any closer. A breeze picked up, carrying with it the smell of water - a river, a little brackish, somewhere close by. That must have been the source of the dull roaring, too. Was that a new scar on Solas’s cheek?

“How did you know where I was?” she asked. She did not move either. Her right hand was clenched in the sheets. She could feel the ghost of her left hand longing to mimic the motion.

Solas lowered his eyes.

“I have my ways,” he said.

Rhaella could feel the fingernails that weren’t there, digging into the palm that was gone. Her rage was thick in her throat.

“Of course you do.”

Solas raised his eyes again. He tried to make his face impassive but Rhaella saw the way the left corner of his mouth dipped down.

“You must be hungry. Let me bring you something.”

He turned and was gone, and Rhaella’s mind was whirling. Solas. He was here. He’d saved her, brought her here. He was not wearing the ornate, ancient armor, or the wolf pelt, as he had been before. He was not wearing the careworn, dust-colored sweater he’d worn around Skyhold, either. He was somewhere in-between. They were somewhere in-between, she realized once she cast her senses out further. This was the Crossroads. A particularly stable piece of it - not rootless and drifting like the other places she had been. She saw no eluvians nearby.

When she rose and went to the nearby window and looked out, she saw waterfalls pouring down from high, slate-grey cliffs. Tufts of lichen and ferns clung to the rocks surrounding them, and the building they were in seemed to rise above it all, as if it was formed from the mists rising off the falls. There were flowers, too, pinks and blues that she could not recognize at this distance, and if she stared at them long enough she could almost forget how much it hurt to see him, standing there, his high cheekbones and his soft sadness and she wanted to reach out and touch him and she wanted to scream and it was that contradiction that brought Rhaella to her knees in that beautiful, out of place building.

“Rhaella -”

The footsteps behind her were hurried. Solas was at her side before she had time to compose herself. He was kneeling, close, but not touching.

“Your injuries - are they - ?”

“I’m fine,” she ground out. She did not look at him. She could not look at him. She had to look at him. She had been looking for him all this time -  and now that she found him she could not look at him. She could only cling to the windowsill with her remaining hand and try to breathe. She had imagined this over and over and over again, and yet she had never fully imagined how much it would hurt to see him again, and to know that she still really loved him, in spite of it all.

“Rhaella - ” Solas began again.

“Why?” she said. She was outside herself, watching it all unfold. Them, the wrought iron, the billowing silks, the waterfalls. “Why do you have to do it?”

When his silence stretched on, she brought herself to look at him at last.

“Come with me,” he said when their eyes met. Rhaella rose and followed.

He took her to one of the terraces of the fantastical structure, where there was a small table. It was tucked away from the waterfalls but their roar was still audible, and it echoed everything rattling around inside of Rhaella’s own head.

The food was simple. Foraged dandelion greens and poached fish with slices of lemon. She picked at it. She wondered if he made it himself. And while she picked at it he talked. He talked about Elvhenan in more detail than before - the politics, the depravity, the dangerous experiments with the Void, with the Titans - about why it all had to end. How none of it was supposed to be like this. How it all had to go back. How their race had fallen so far in the millennia since the Veil rose, how he could not stand to see it.

Rhaella pushed the greens around on her plate. She had been able to listen passively to most of that. The gods were never really gods to her. This part did not bother her. But that he still arrived at the same conclusion - that the only course of action left to him was to reverse all of it - that their people were broken now -

That she could not stand.

She looked him dead in the eye when she spoke.

“You used to travel around this world with me and see so much beauty in it. You would help me cut and press the plants we found. You would help refugees. How can you throw all of that away?”

Solas’s jaw tightened. “Were you not listening? It is for the best that they -”

“It’s for the best that we all die? Really? That’s the conclusion that you’ve reached?”

He had to look away at that. “I have to set things right.”

Rhaella felt a scream building in her throat but she swallowed it down. He was looking away. There was a weakness there - a soft, vulnerable place where she might be able to crawl inside his armor and find the man she loved.

“Solas - I know you don’t believe that destroying everything is setting things right. Could you really let all of our friends die? My whole clan? Every elf in every alienage in Thedas? Every mage who is only just finding out what life outside a Circle is like?”

He was still looking away. Rhaella could not stand it any more. She reached across the table and rested her hand on his forearm and he was so tense, like he might spring up at any moment.

“You would really let me die?” she asked.

That was when the coiled energy in his body unwound, when Solas stood, breaking the connection between them. He was all pent up rage, his fists clenched, his power radiating off of him in waves, just like that day in the Exalted Plains when he killed the mages who tortured Wisdom.

“This world is broken, Rhaella,” he said. “Think of how many times you and I talked about that very subject - about the mistreatment of mages, of elves, of spirits, of the poor and downtrodden everywhere in Thedas. I made a mistake when I created the Veil. I will - I will do better this time.”

Rhaella was a hunter before she was ever a mage. She knew when she was on the trail of wounded prey. She stood. She came around the table, standing close to him now.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Rhaella said. “You’re really going to just let me die? I am just another casualty to you?”

“Stop,” Solas said, voice harsh.

“No. Say it, Solas. Say that I’m just another mistake. Someone who should never have been born. A member of a fallen race that needs to be eradicated so it can be built again. Say it.”

“Do not do this, Rhaella.” He was holding tightly to both her arms now, and his voice was lower and more gravelly than she had ever heard it before, and their auras were sparking together, both roiling with tension.

“It’s true. You just won’t say it,” she said. She was floating outside her body again, carried away by her own anger, her own pain. “I wish you would have just let the Anchor kill me, Solas. I wish you had let me die in that cell in Haven without ever waking up. At least then I would not have to live with the pain of loving a man who thinks I’m disposable.”

Solas’s breath hitched. His hands tightened on her arms. And then he crushed her to him, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

It was an angry kiss, teeth and tongue from both of them, and Rhaella was so swept away in it that she let it happen, at first. Then she regained herself. Shoved him away.

“No,” she said. “You can’t just push this aside. You have to admit it. Admit that I’m disposable to you.”

“I cannot do that.”

“But you can let me die, along with everyone else I have ever loved?”

“You -” Solas made a frustrated sound, turned away from her, scrubbed his face with his hands, turned back. “How can you not see that I am trying to do this for the benefit of our people? For you?”

“Because it isn’t! Because it is about you and your pride. You made a mistake and you can’t bear the sight of it. You think I am a mistake, and you can’t bear to admit it.”

Solas turned back.

“What I cannot bear,” he said. “Is to live in a world where I must watch you grow old and die while I live on. I wish it could be different, that I did not have to go down this path, that I could take you with me and that we could live a thousand lives together, but I cannot - and I cannot exist in a world where I know that time will inevitably rip you away from me.” Each motion he made with his hands as he spoke was sharp. A staccato punctuation to the awful things he was saying. “I would rather destroy this world and watch it burn than have to endure a thousand years alone in a world filled only with memories of you.”

His voice was shaking, and when Rhaella looked into his eyes she saw the same raw wound that had been aching inside her chest for weeks now. She could barely breathe. She closed the distance between them, and this time she was the one who kissed him. The kiss blossomed into another, and another, and another, and with each kiss she felt his need, his grief. They were reflections of the need and grief that sat heavy within her. Of the hunger blooming in her blood.

Solas all but sobbed into that kiss, dug his fingers hard into her waist, lifted her up, set her on the small table, knocking her plate aside. It shattered on the stone terrace. Her hand was already under his tunic, desperate for his skin.

“Rhaella.” He said her name like a promise. Like a prayer.

“Vhenan,” she said.

They looked at each other. The moment stretched on, suspended gem-like in the air. Rhaella felt things shift inside her. The anger transformed into something she did not quite have a name for. Its fire remained - but it was a fire that wanted to cleanse and heal, not destroy.

“I need you,” she said.

“I need you,” he replied.

Rhaella locked her legs around his waist and kissed him again.

The pure-burning flame inside her expanded, grew, began to consume her, as Solas’s hands found their way under her clothes, as he pressed her back against the table, his body heavy on top of hers. This was familiar. They’d shared passionate kisses. She had felt the effect they had on him - felt the way he would shift his hips from side to side, seeking friction for the swollen up shaft laying against his thigh. She’d seen him turn discreetly away after they finished kissing and readjust himself. But it had never gone further than this. There wasn’t time. Not before.

Rhaella didn’t want a single barrier between them now.

She pulled up his tunic, but there was only so much space between them, and it was difficult with one hand.

“Off,” she said.

Solas made an indistinct sound. He kissed up and down her ear, bit, sucked, and Rhaella couldn’t think of anything but how good that felt for a moment. Solas leaned back and his hands went to her clothes and started pushing them aside.

“Off,” she said again, pulling his tunic up as high as she could.

He made another indistinct sound. Impatiently, he pulled his tunic up and over, baring his torso and its patterns of freckles and scars, its lean muscle. Rhaella coveted every inch of it. She coveted every inch of this man. She sat up, got to her knees, and started kissing his chest, breathing in the scent of his skin. Solas gasped, and then clutched her to himself, bowing his head so it rested near hers. She bit down his collarbone. It was hers. All of it was.

Solas sucked in a sharp breath, and then Rhaella’s world spun. She was in his arms, and he was carrying her up the stairs to the upper part of the building, to the room where she’d awoken. Then she was on the bed, and he was on top of her once again, kissing her, mouth moving against hers with the same rhythm as his hips as he ground down on her. She was the one who gasped when they parted. She was hot, slick, all-too-alive after weeks of numbness. She never wanted the feeling to stop.

She and Solas fumbled for each other’s pants at the same time. She knew that one of them should stop, wait, be patient, but she didn’t see how that was possible. They had both endured years and years of loneliness, and it was time for all of that to end. Eventually clothing was shoved aside and there he was, naked and perfect before her, his skin pale and yet flushed pink everywhere, just like her own. His freckles extended along his thighs, the vee of his lower abdomen, to where his cock jutted upward against his belly, thick with desire already. Rhaella curled her toes into the bed, reached for him at once, felt a shiver of excitement at how heavy and hot he was in her hand, how soft and full the rounded head of him was, how it was as slick as she was between her own legs.

Solas made a gutted sound at that first pump of her hand. If Rhaella had been at all worried that she was clumsy, not good at this, that sound would have reassured her. The way he hollowed out his body, rocked himself into the tunnel of her hand, buried his head against her neck, would have reassured her.

“Rhaella,” he said, voice harsh. “Enough. Please, enough.”

He was iron-hard in her grip. He was holding back. Already pushing close to his own edge. That made her cunt clench tight, her heart beat even faster.

“I need you,” she said again, spreading her legs, tilting her hips up. It had been so, so long - since that one boy in her clan years before - she did not know the exact angle, did not know how their bodies would fit together precisely, but she knew they would, and she needed them to - needed this the way she needed light and air and water.

Solas made another low, harsh sound. He braced himself on one arm and reached between them with his other hand, reached between the petals of her sex and found her wet and wanting and pressed two fingers inside and his touch was like lightning, commanding her from the inside out, making her whole body arch. She was one circuit of need and fulfillment and denial as he pushed the fingers in and out, crooked them, curled them, made muffled noises against her throat. She knew the high, whining sounds she was dimly aware of had to be coming from her. She didn’t care. She only cared about the feeling of his fingers spreading and fucking her and how it hurt - it had been so long - and yet it wasn’t enough.

“Now,” she said, over and over. “Now, now, now -”

Solas knew what she meant. He knew because he’d known the same loneliness, the same longing, for all these years. He pulled his fingers out and she only had a moment of emptiness before he pushed himself inside, and then that was the only feeling there was - full, full, full.

He paused when he hilted. He rested his forehead against hers and just looked at her. It was another moment that seemed to be suspended in time, full of facets that changed from angle to angle. Rhaella was happy and angry and protective and vulnerable and powerful all at once in that moment. That first moment that she and Solas were one in body. The whole world was his blue, blue eyes.

“I need you,” he said, and it was nearly an apology. “I need you, I need you now, I need you fast and hard, vhenan, I fear I may not be gentle enough -”

Rhaella pulled him down, tried to erase every gap between their bodies, wrapped her legs around him so her heels dug into his buttocks. She raked the nails of her right hand down his back, and longed again for her left hand, so she could mark him fully.

“I need you, too.”

It was the simple, awful, beautiful truth. He was wrong about so many things. Broken in so many ways. But she loved him and she needed him and she was never going to let him go again.

Solas’s breath hitched once. Then he gathered himself and started to move in her, slow at first, his thickness overwhelming at first. But her body adjusted, opened to him, and he seemed to feel it, and he pushed one of her knees back, opened her further, and then he went more quickly in and out of her. Rhaella bucked into him every time, urging him faster, never wanting that feeling of him pumping in and out to end. They did not speak, at least not with words. It was only a flurry of movement, groans and sighs, haphazard kisses, the soft slap of their bodies joining over and over. She felt herself growing tight again, approaching a precipice, her whole body getting hotter and hotter each time he glanced off the sensitive place within her with a well-timed stroke. But Solas’s jaw was growing slack, too. He was panting, losing his rhythm, inches from falling apart, she was going to see him fall apart, that thought made her tight, tight, pulsing with need -

Solas made a strangled sound, pulled out of her, she had a brief sight of his cock swollen and rosy and glistening before he hauled her back and up by her hips, threw her legs over his shoulders, and thrust back inside her, and that angle was everything Rhaella needed. He was everything she needed. She could watch his body at work, what the wonder in his eyes as he looked at hers, could feel every exquisite inch of him in perfect detail, and he was hitting all the right places, and then he dropped one hand between them and pressed on her aching bud and she fell apart, came so hard around him she couldn’t see. She clenched and clenched around him and she was shaking and so was he, and she opened her eyes in time to watch him come too, and it was the loveliest sight she’d seen in a long time - his parted pink lips and his flushed cheekbones and the tears in the corner of his eyes and the sheer relief in his whole posture as he buried himself deep inside her one last time and filled her.

There was one more moment of stillness when it was over, a moment that seemed to stretch on longer than a normal one, a moment that felt heavier and more important than so many of the other moments before it. Rhaella lay there, sore, tired, overwhelmed, happy, confused, and looked up at Solas, and he looked down at her.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I love you so.”

They were the words she had been searching for when she went into the Crossroads. The words she had been searching for even before that, maybe. He had said them before but never quite like this. Never in a place that was his own. Never when there were no secrets between them.

Rhaella waited a breath or two before she answered. She wanted to commit every detail to her memory. The sheets beneath her. The roar of the waterfalls. The scent of green and growing things drifting in on the breeze. The rise and fall of Solas’s chest, the feeling of him softening within her. She wanted to remember it all.

“Then we start there,” she said. “We start with that. We start with the fact that I love you, too. And we find a new path.”

Solas took a deep breath and let it out. Then he leaned forward so he was on top of her again and planted one sweet, lingering kiss on her lips, and then he curled himself around her and held her close, and Rhaella felt nothing but peace for the first time in a very long time.

[theonyxpath]

Scion Hero art by Marco Gonzales

Greetings, true believers! Meghan here, with an excerpted preview of the Nemetondevos pantheon from Scion: Mysteries of the World. The Nemetondevos are the Gods of Gaul, a pantheon destroyed long ago by Caesar and only now beginning to return to the World. This preview gives you a rundown of their basic cosmology and current situation, followed by one of their Gods. Enjoy!

Cosmology

The Nemetondevos have no unifying Overworld. Their Sancta make up thousands of individual realms connected to the World via their nemetons. This has given the Nemetondevos a particular interest in preserving the natural Earth, as without it their realms would be eternally isolated, and so the stereotype of “druid as conservationist” is not without merit.

Most of these Godsrealms feature a “downward” theme (caves, pools, roots), but only the Wheel serves as the Nemetondevos’ Underworld. There, souls of the dead ride what looks like an incomprehensibly massive wooden Ferris wheel, weighed down by a lifetime of memories. When they reach the bottom, Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, so they can ride the Wheel back up to their reincarnation. Memory, be it mortal or divine, is the fuel that keeps the Wheel spinning, and the Wheel moves the universe. Its upper half reaches into Taranis’ realm in the sky, the only Gaulish Overworld that fits the term literally.

Titans

The Materes gave form and immense power to primal concepts, creating the Titans of the Nemetondevos. The Gaulish Gods mostly dealt with these beings in prehistory one way or another. Perhaps that void left Fate to invite another pantheon to step into the role of the Nemetondevos’ eternal enemies.

The Nemetondevos’ approaches to Titans have always been as varied as the Nemetondevos themselves. Andarta made war on them, hoping the sacrifice of another Titan could create a World-altering nemeton and put the Gauls back on top. Esos put them to use, as Orgos serves as the Wheel’s center. The Gauls had no qualms about slavery, and the Forester knows the value of using natural forces to power industry. Belenos, ever an idealist, wished to see the Titans reborn into something benign, if not benevolent.

Orgos is death itself, whom the Romans conflated with Dis Pater (a Mantle of Hades). He coupled with the Materes to birth the Nemetondevos, and thus is the ancestor of all Gauls, mortal and divine. His Underworld, Dubnolissos, was a miserable place where the dead were stagnant and forgotten. When Esos bound Orgos into the workings of the great Wheel, it carried the souls back into the World while Orgos struggled to break free.

Unfortunately for Orgos, even though the Wheel stopped spinning when the Nemetondevos fell, his wooden prison did not break. But he is not entirely powerless, as his titanspawn, the Ankou, still do his bidding. These skeletal, scythe-wielding figures in wide-brimmed hats drive carts to collect the dead who have gone astray, a mockery of the wagons devout Gauls were buried with to ride to Belenos. They return these souls to Orgos, that he might break the Wheel’s bindings and return Belenos’ realm to his own control. Purview: Death. Virtues: Dominance, Fecundity.

The Tarvos Trigaranus: The decapitated head of the massive bull is buried deep beneath the World. While Andarta sacrificed the monster to create the first nemeton, the bull’s head still holds some power, creating the horrible tarasques that crawl out from beneath the earth. These nightmarish titanspawn resemble dragon-lion hybrids with spiked tortoise shells and a scorpion’s stinging tail, echoes of the Tarvos’ madness and cruelty.Purview: Beasts.Virtues: Dominance, Rapacity.

Primordials: The Materes

The Materes are not just mothers; they are motherhood. These three Primordial women, also known as the August Nurses, birthed the World and its earliest inhabitants. But they are more than just producers of life: they ache to protect and nurture their offspring well after the children grow to no longer need them. Like many mothers, they have difficulty admitting their children have reached that point. Their milk allowed the first bull to grow into the colossal Tarvos Trigaranus, which trampled mountains until Andarta slew it. The Materes themselves reside in a Terra Incognita deep beneath the World, where they sired the myriad Gaulish deities until their lovers fell to Caesar.

Callings: Creator, Guardian, Healer

Purviews: Health, Fertility, Passion (Maternal Love)

Religion: None

Unlike other pantheons in the World, the ancient powers of the Nemetondevos truly did go away. This left their mortal worship in the lurch, and while their priests, the druids, retained their remarkable knowledge, they could no longer access their Gods’ powers. Prayers were met with an eerie silence. Mistletoe stopped growing on the sacred oaks. The water of holy springs cured thirst, nothing more.

Over time, worship of the Nemetondevos faded. The druids had refused to write their tales down, believing their strong memories would power the Wheel upon their deaths. When the Wheel stopped, they lost their motivation to teach their lore to apprentices, instead moving on to other pantheons to share their gifts and wisdom. Votives and religious artwork became little more than names and pictures with no context. Movements tried over the centuries to reconstruct the old beliefs and rituals, but without the aid of sacred writings, Scions, or miracles, these efforts were futile on both scholarly and divine levels. On the rare occasion some definitive key to the Gauls’ beliefs popped up, it was met with an “unfortunate accident,” with a Scion of the Theoi not far behind.

With the Wheel turning again, their only religions are the cults of their Incarnate Scions. Some spread the Nemetondevos’ true rites, unearthing their Godly predecessors’ memories in their rebirth; they might quest for moments of revelation by seeking places where those Gods’ nemetons once were or hunting down clues in Terra Incognitae where lost lore might linger. Such moments are much more common the closer Scions are to the Memory end of their Virtue track. Insular druidic orders are happy to relearn their own faith’s funeral rites to keep the Wheel turning. Other cults are global organizations searching for returning Gaulish Gods to aid and protect. Still others labor over secret plans of revenge against the Theoi.

Belenos, Keeper of the Wheel

Alias: Vindonnus

Belenos, reviver of the dead, keeps the universe moving. The weight of memory turns the great Wheel, which moves the stars, the sun, and the World. Those dead who are buried with carts, wagons, or chariots (anything with a wheel) ride spectral vehicles from their graves on sacred days. When their souls reach a nemeton of Belenos, druids bless their passage onto the great Wheel. This impossibly massive wooden structure takes them to his divine realm, their memories of life weighing them down. Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, and the purgation of these souls lightens them to rise back to the World to be reborn.

Belenos himself is the oldest of the Nemetondevos, first son of the Materes. His nemetons are circular, and his incarnation would be surprised to find his followers using henges and other megaliths for his rituals. Such monuments are either new to him or older than the God he was, but he doesn’t mind the change of venue. He gets a kick out of making cryptic references to people’s previous lives that only he, as Belenos’ incarnation, remembers. Those who meet him (and recall the experience) say he wears a friendly smirk, like a man listening to a joke he’s heard before but loves to hear again.

As keeper of the Wheel, he alone knows when and where a God or Hero reincarnates. He frequently leads other Gaulish Scions to their former Birthrights, sometimes acting as a Birthright guide himself. His own incarnations are no exception; the Virtue of Memory drives them to help their fellow Nemetondevos find themselves. The firstborn of the Gauls is likely to be the first reborn, too; some people think he must be for the Wheel to start turning again at all.

Callings: Healer, Liminal, Sage

Purviews: Death, Health, Stars, Sun

[creeperdoodle-blog]

Art of Betrayal

Chapter 1: Betrayal.

Early morning mist gently rose from tall, green grass. Ancient trees bowed inward as if they slept. Rolling hills were illuminated by the soft glow of fires, scattered about over miles and miles. Small villages decorated the hills, sheep and cattle resting near their young. The dark sky was dotted with stars, streaked with wisps of galaxies far beyond their own. Mountains rose to the east, a pink hue beginning to lighten the sky around them as the sun began it’s ascent. It was peaceful there, quiet. Or it was.

Swords clanged loudly in the deep canopy of trees, men screaming, shouting orders. The darkness the night cast upon the lands had risen, tendrils of shadows whipping wildly, smashing against massive trees and downing them. Streaks of molten black decorated the ground where ever the shadows smashed, leaving blood and pieces of soldier spread across the grass. There were many soldiers, their spears steady, thrusting into the darkness around them. But the blades pierced nothing, the shadows turning into smoke with each thrust. But their target was not the shadows that tore their brothers to shreds around them, but the demon who they needed to subdue had melted into the darkness and could have been anywhere.

Blades flung from the darkness, the shadows around the area the soldiers were in was darker than the rest of the forest, clearly being fed with maliciousness. Men were dropping left and right, blades from the dark, the shadows moving on their own accord. There were only two men fighting the soldiers, and those two men had already killed half of the unit.

“Come round! Don’t let them escape!”

The soldiers lit torches in an attempt to snuff out the shadows. Some shadows retreated, but others were solid, too solid to be chased away. But with light surrounding the soldiers now, the flash of icy blue could be seen, burning out from the shadows at them. More soldiers rushed forward, their torches piercing the inky darkness, encircling the demon and his pet. They had called in the mages, the men and women unused to combat. They stood back, tomes in hand, chanting and whispering their spells. Each mage produced a cloth, dipped in herbs and blessed. As they chanted, the cloth lifted into the air, strange characters burning into them. They were attempting to trap the demon and his second in their circle, surrounding him with talismans. Talismans were crafted by mages, people who could heal and defend, but didn’t have raw strength like others with abilities. Most mages kept to the towns, crafting potions and healing injured travelers, yet sometimes, the mages would find their way into the military. They’d developed talismans long ago, a piece of paper with a defensive spell cast on it, a strong spell. The talismans were strong enough to completely rid any super soldier of their abilities. And the Demon of Arcturus was not just any random super soldier, he was one of the most powerful men alive.

The mages stepped forward in unison, the soldiers closing in. The shadows ceased with every inch forward, the talismans working more than well enough. The smaller the circle of soldiers became, the more light was cast on their prize. There he stood, his second at his side. He looked like a feral beast, icy eyes reflecting the torch fire, wild and murderous. His second in command, Brom, stood behind him, his back to his commanders, his gaze calm as he assessed their predicament. Varia slashed out towards one of the spears, a wicked and curved blade in hand, smacking it to the side.

“Surrender, demon! There does not need to be anymore blood shed this day!”

Varia’s grip tightened on his sword, his eyes sweeping over the soldiers, the mages behind them, subduing his powers. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, his feet shifting against the grass, slick with blood. He would attack. He would attack over and over again until he was killed, or he was triumphant. He would win, he had to win. Failure was not an option. The Demon of Arcturus did not lose. He would paint Er Rai with their blood. He would blanket their people in darkness. He would bring the country to heel will nothing but his sword and his will. He was Varia. He was the Demon of Arcturus.

A gentle touch to his shoulder snapped Varia from his murderous thoughts. His eyes turned back towards Brom, catching the mans soft brown eyes with his own sharp gaze. He felt all blood lust leave him then, able to read the others gaze. They wouldn’t win this. As they stood there, surrounded, more soldiers were crashing through the trees towards their position. More and more mages were joining them. The sun was rising. They would lose if he attacked. Varia lowered his gaze to his sword, allowing it to drop to his side, before he let it go. The moment Varia dropped his weapon, Brom dropped his daggers as well, the assassin lifting his hands in surrender.

And with that, the Demon of Arcturus and his Reaper were captured. Something that should have never happened, did. How had it come to this? How had the greatest warrior Arcturus had ever seen been captured? Why had he gone to Er Rai with only Brom? He was no mere foot soldier, he was the Demon of Arcturus, one of the titans of the world.

Varia had been born with a dark gift. A malevolent, odious gift, one that struck dread in all who ever opposed him. Throughout the world, there were many special people. People who could craft a potion that could heal a wound in a day. People who could spark a flame with a flick of their wrist. Others, however, could destroy countries with their abilities. Varia was one of them. He had been gifted with the powers of Yreyr, the demon god himself. He controlled darkness itself. He could blanket the world in shadows, and few could stop him. He was the best Arcturus had ever made, the best they would ever have. He was the Demon of Arcturus, the shadow lurking behind the throne. He was everything Arcturus was and more, a honed sword that they would thrust at their enemies. No one was respected more than the Arcturian commander. Varia was their hero, the reason the people of Arcturus remained.

Arcturus was a vast country, frozen and dead. A thick layer of ice coated the grounds, an endless echo of fear and death always drifted on the wind. The strongest of people inhabited the lands, a breed of humans who didn't seem phased by the constant struggle to live or the frost that would forever threaten their lives. Arcturus couldn't grow crop, and only certain trade vessels were strong enough to pierce the ice of their shores. Arcturus built their fortune on war. The land had never been kind, and those who lived there were even less so. The isolated country had one purpose, and that was conquest. They preyed on smaller, weaker countries, stealing their resources and killing their opposition. Farmers didn't exist in Arcturus, not for crops or livestock. Arcturus traded men for goods. The breeder program was their source of income. Men and women unable to fight in their military would contribute their bodies instead. Children were produced solely for war, shipped off to the towers of the Vaalar at birth. There, they were vigorously trained from the moment they could walk. Trained to fight, to kill, to accept the violence that was born with every Arcturian. Varia was the face of the Breeders. He had risen so very far, he had become so good at what they used him for. He was everything the Breeders weren't meant to be. He was the exception, he was the goal every child in the program had. Without him, Arcturus would have fallen long ago. Yet, despite all he had done for them, despite who he was and what he meant to the people, Arcturus itself feared him.

Varia should have known. The moment Arcturus sent him to Er Rai without a full regiment of men he should have known. Distrust had been beaten into him, but his loyalty was strong. Arcturus was all he ever knew, they were the family he never had. They gave him a purpose, they needed him. When they told him to go with Brom, his second in command, alone, he should have known. He shouldn't have been surprised he had stumbled upon an ambush. He shouldn't have been surprised that instead of killing the Demon of Arcturus, they took him and Brom hostage instead. He shouldn't have been, but he was. For Varia had never meant to be what he had become. Even for a place that prized military prowess over everything, there was no place for people who didn't know how to keep their head down. Varia was too much everything Arcturus was, and the Arcturian government was still too young to consider conceding its power. Steel was not suppose to have emotions, weapons had no need for hearts. There was no forgiveness in Arcturus. No failure, no compassion, only duty, war, and death.

The two were paraded through a small camp like trophies. The camp itself wasn’t impressive at all. It was built in a vast field, not anyplace Varia would have taken high profile hostages himself. The camp itself was unguarded by terrain, no mountains, no trees to shelter them. But that had it’s advantages as well, especially if this was used as a staging point. For every potential enemy that could see the post, the soldiers could see them as well. It would be impossible to take by surprise, but not impossible to surround. Varia nearly scoffed at the encampment. But the deeper into the forest of tents they moved, the reason why they had became clear to him. Elven ruins stood in the center of the camp, stone rising into the blue sky, and dipping deep into the soft earth. There the soldiers had built their cells. It was certainly better than tying him and Brom up outside.

Er Ria'an soldiers sneered at the two, spit at the men who had caused so much death the past decade. They were high profile captives, two men who should have never been caught, in theory. Yet here there they were, thrown into small, individual cells, with other prisoners of war. Their cells were completely covered in talismans. Varia was absolutely covered in them. They covered his cell, covered his shackles. This outpost was more than ready for someone such as him, they were waiting for him. It was almost insulting to someone like Varia. For someone so small, his arrogance was nearly as large as the shadow he cast. He did not need his abilities to be dangerous. They certainly helped, but he had not gotten as far as he did relying on his powers alone.

Varia had been small at birth, so small he had nearly been cast out onto the ice and destroyed. Something had stayed the Vaalars hand, and he was taken to the Tower of Nazapul, where he began training to kill before he could even speak. 'What a shame', they all said. 'You could have made more money warming the beds of soldiers.' Varia's attractiveness was something he had struggled with his entire military career. He stood no more than an inch or two higher than five feet. Deep black hair brushed his shoulders, as dark as the shadows he wielded. And his eyes. No one had ever seen eyes so piercing. The lightest shade of blue, nearly white, imitated the ice of the lands he fought for, a stark contrast to his dark hair. And the hate that gaze held could stop a man dead in his tracks. A scowl always graced his sharp features. He had to conquer his appearance to become the Demon of Arcturus. He trained harder than the rest, lashed out in violence more often, spilled blood as many times as he could. Soon his looks had left the minds of the people of Arcturus, replaced instead with awe at his conquests. It had been one of his longest battles, one that many would not understand, and more would turn their nose to. By becoming the Demon of Arcturus, he had to shed the beautiful face he possessed and replace it with something fiendish instead.

Now, they'd been stuck in the cell block for nearly two days. Varia sat in his cell, head leant back against the cold wall, carved with whorls and ancient elven text. He had spent his days in captivity staring at the characters, trying to make sense of them. But elves no longer lived in Arcturus freely. Varia was learned, for a breeder, but elvish was not a language many could speak or read outside of the isolated elvish communities that now existed elsewhere. Varia spent the first full day there, tracing the patterns, committing them to memory. They meant nothing to him, no more than drawings on the wall. But despite Arcturus’ greatest efforts, they could not remove his fascination with the world outside of the ice.

But now it was day two. He had long given up trying to decipher what the writings meant, and now he sat, attempting to plot an escape. The prison had slowly begun to fill up. Petty criminals. Thieves, mostly. No one near on his level of importance. He wondered who they had contacted. He must be kept alive for some reason. Perhaps HE was on his way. The hero of Er Rai. That would be just his luck. The other prisoners bickered and whispered, raking their tin cups along the metal bars, shouting at the guards, wept. His eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, his mouth turning down into an almost disgusted scowl. He would surly go mad if he had to wait any longer, sitting in here with men like these. He wanted to smash his head into the wall, to clear his head, to draw a guard into his cell. Anything, so long as he got some goddamn quiet.

So there he sat, no longer able to think of a plan to escape. Instead, he took to brooding. He sat in the corner of his cell, his legs pulled to his chest, his cheek resting against the wall, eyes focused on the markings before him. However, as his ear rested against the stone wall, he caught something. Something faint, but certain. His lips pursed, before he shifted slowly to his feet, holding his hand as if to shush someone, though nothing would truly have stopped the criminals from their incessant arguing. He recognized that sound... The sounds of death filled his ears. Screams of soldiers, the sounds of blades slicing through flesh. The base was under attack. Varia narrowed his eyes, before his relief flooded him. Of course they’d come for him. They’d never leave him behind to die. He was Varia, their greatest commander, one of the only soldiers Arcturus didn’t consider expendable. As the sounds of fighting grew closer, he moved to the cell door, leaning his cheek against it, trying to get a good view of the door. The door to the prison was kicked open moments later, two soldiers entering the prison. Two Arcturian soldiers.

A sigh of relief left Varia, his lips turning up briefly as he recognized the soldiers. He had trained them himself and recognized them from one of his former units. He stepped forward, his arms outstretched, welcoming his own rescue. Before he had a chance to greet the men, they were already in front of his cell. It took Varia only a moment to notice that they were armed, a crossbow aimed directly at his chest, as well as Brom. For a moment Varia was still, and all was quiet. His eyes turned to Brom, before back to the man before him. His brows furrowed in realization. They were not here to save him, they were here to silence him. As that sunk in, his gaze grew cold once more, all hope, all surprise fading away. He couldn’t hear anything, he couldn’t see anything except the man standing before him. The crossbow loaded, the bolt aimed to pierce his heart. The Arcturus colors of the mans armor burned his eyes, the sigil on his chest was blinding. A sigil Varia also wore.

Before Varia had a chance to react, the soldier who had aimed at him was thrown to the side with such a force, the man rag dolled, blood spilling out of a fresh wound in his side. The blood spattered across Varias cheek and nose, the wetness on his face causing him to rear back, away from the bars of his cell. The soldier was dead, the second man was apprehended by Er Rai soldiers, but Varias eyes were focused on the soldier who had drawn on him. The mans face was twisted in horror, a silent scream permanently etched on his blood soaked face. The blood from his wound was seeping under the door, soaking the bottoms of Varias boots. What had Varia possibly done? Why would his own country send someone to kill him, rather than liberate him? Varia was NOT expendable, and had he not recognized the man, he wouldn’t have believed it. His eyes drifted from the mans face, down his blood stained armor, and to his wound. It was a clean cut, straight through the soft spot of the metal armor the man wore, and into his side, and straight through his heart. Varias scowl darkened as a familiar voice boomed through the prison cells. His mouth twisted in a sneer as he realized fairly quickly who had saved his life. "You’re not as important as you thought, Varia."

An icy gaze turned to the door, the light filtering in nearly causing him to wince. Silhouetted in the door way was none other than the Hero of Er Rai. Maddox. Er Rais captain. Varias arch enemy. The only man he had never been able to kill. Heavy boots stepped over the body of Varias own soldier as the man stepped in front of Varias cell. Varia was easily dwarfed by the man, and Maddox so loved to remind him of that. As Maddox drew close to the bars, he slumped down, placing hands on his knees as he exaggerated his crouch, now face to face with the dark assassin. "Now tell me. Why would Arcturus want their own, precious commander dead?"

The captain was built like a god, and he was reminded of such often. Tall, muscular, but not overly so. Deep pools of green shone with ill intent and mystery from a bronzed face. His jaw was strong, his nose was strong, high cheekbones and a flashy smile that was certain to cause women and men alike to melt. His hair had been dark when he was young, but living for years in Er Rai and Nihal, the harsh sun had lightened it. It was unkempt, but in that attractive way that made tavern wenches swoon. He was every bit the hero Er Rai claimed him to be. His broad shoulders blocked the light from the outside as he stood before Varia, raising to his full height. It never hurt to remind the little demon how much smaller he was.

“You’ll want to watch those bodies. That one is rather proficient in pilfering bodies for useful means of escape and killing.” Maddox said absently to Sabre, his own second, pointing at Brom as he considered his wayward rival, Varia. To be honest he wasn't quite sure why he had saved the brat. It wasn't like Varia was going to be grateful for the gesture and having Varia alive definitely proved more troublesome than the male dead. Had it been pride that had spurred him? He had always been hot-headed and short-sighted compared to others. More than likely he had just reacted to seeing the enemy invading, regardless of who their target was. But while Maddox was a lug head in many ways he knew himself well. Yes, he had reacted on instinct and charged after the enemy. Yes, he had a powerful need to protect others. These things had contributed to him killing the soldier that had aimed at Brom and Varia. But that hadn’t been the reason he had saved them.

“You know, it becomes a lot harder for me to take credit for claiming your head if your own country is out for it as well. Not that I expect you to tell me the truth of why that is. Maybe they just realized it was ridiculous to have a dwarf as their star player….” Maddox said, rising to his full height and taking stock of the prison. Varia had likely been brought here because it was little known and not a likely place for spies to look, but clearly that plan had backfired. * We’re taking them back to the capital. At least if someone comes looking there it wont be a slaughter. We’ll move any other prisoners of note as well. * Maddox said to Sabre in Er Rain. * And here I thought we could finally have a visit where you weren’t dragged into battle. * Maddox shook his head at his friend as his eyes fell again on Brom, narrowing slightly for a moment.

Sabre had thought the same, that much was evident from his face. But both he and Maddox had known better. Sabre had visited for a very specific reason. Intelligence. That’s what he did. He was a senior intelligence office from Nihal. Not to mention 52nd in line for the crown, but that didn’t matter. He would never be king. The Navari family was massive, no doubt Sabre’s taste for multiple partners stemming from his blood line. He had only arrived to Emeriss several days prior with a small detachment of men. He and Maddox worked together more often than not, and he had planned to stay. His trip home had been brief, to attend a wedding for some cousin he had never met. His father was an important man, and despite trying his hardest to put an ocean between him and his father, General Navari had demanded it so. And thank the Gods he had. Maddox relied heavily on the information the spies from the great, desert country provided.

While he was there Sabre had traveled to the prisons, as he often did. Varia’s campaign focused primarily in Nihal, and lately he had been pushing south once more. It was a strange move, one he didn’t understand, but hoped to. Varia was generally quite aware of his men who were injured and he rarely left anything except corpses behind, but this movement south had been…. Sloppy. Compared to Varia’s continued aggression in the east, it was unusual. They had found several injured soldiers left behind, not killed. That was the first sign that Varia wasn’t even in Nihal. The second had been less a sign and more an absolute. Being abandoned by ones own general did nothing for loyalty, and one of the men had been eager to give away everything he knew about the situation. Varia had been pulled from his command post weeks ago, a green general taking his place. Explained the sudden retreats and loss of ground. But that wasn’t anything unusual. Varia was an important man, he would often be called back to Arcturus for a number of political endeavors. He was their hero after all, and their high commander.

The weapon. That was what had concerned Sabre, and that’s what he returned to discuss with Maddox. A great weapn, whispers of it had been passing through Arcturian ranks, and this soldier had heard them. He didn’t know what it was, how it worked, or even if the rumors were true. Arcturus kept most things close to the chest, so the fact he knew anything at all was impressive. The war had almost grown desperate. Varia and Maddox both refused to give ground. With either of them alive, the war would likely never end. It would make sense Arcturus would find a way past him, besides Varia. It had been ten years and both men were quite evenly matched. This weapon could speed up an Arcturus invasion. He had left immediately. Sabre couldn’t have known if the weapon was real, but hearing Varia was in Er Rai with only Brom at his side was enough to convince him. Varia WAS the weapon already, it only made sense if the two were tied somehow. Now, with Varia and Brom both alive and captive… everything suddenly seemed to be falling into place.

Sabres eyebrows raised as Maddox spoke to him, his immediate protest caught in his throat as he considered the possibilities. Maddox knew what he was thinking. Sabre didn’t give much indication of what went on inside his mind, but Maddox knew the man well enough to know what he thought. Bringing Varia to the capital was madness, plain and simple. The little psycho was more than capable of completely eradicating the royal family, and parading him into the great walls of Emeriss was practically gift wrapping the city for him. Sabre opened his mouth to argue with the captain, catching himself once again . He shot a glare in the direction of their prisoners, before he gently took the captains arm, stepping outside of the prison with him. “Are you mad? Taking those two to the capital is crazy. What happens if little psycho escapes? Then Emeriss burns with him leading the charge.” Sabre had never met Varia, or his second in command. If he had, it was unlikely he'd be standing there today. He was capable of combat, and fairly efficient, but he wasn’t bred for battle like Maddox and Varia were. If Varia escaped, their only chance would be Maddox. Maddox was fully capable of stopping Varia, but the impressive captain hadn’t been able to kill him. Where ever Varia went, there was carnage. Emeriss was a beacon, a shining example of what wealth and military could accomplish. The walls were high, the city was alive, and people were happy. The city had never been taken, not by anyone. Emeriss was impenetrable, but allowing that man, that killer into the walls would mean destruction. Sabre had learned long ago to trust his gut, and the unsettling feeling of dread that was swirling inside of him was too strong to ignore. Something would happen, something they wouldn’t be able to recover from.

“The only other place to take them is Lyons, but that means going through the light forest where we will surely lose them. The road to the capital is mostly flat terrain, not ideal for an assassin and fugitive to try to escape across. We may not like it but it’s the only option. Besides, I think the king and queen took the princess to the coast for her birthday.” Maddox assured his second in command as their prisoners were escorted out. To be honest, Varia slaughtering the royal family was the least of Maddox’s concerns. Varia, in Maddox’s experience, was a sword to be pointed at the enemy before you. Like Maddox, Varia was power, not subtlety. This was too elaborate a plot if it was one intended to deceive them. No, Varia’s surprised was real, which meant the betrayal was real. Varia wasn't likely to try and do Arcturus any favors. If it was just Brom, Maddox would agree, but this was something else. "Very well.... But let's hurry. I don't like the idea of traveling with him when the sun sets." Sabre said, watching the two men as they were loaded. Traveling with Varia at night, with that sneak of a second in command could turn into a blood bath.

Varia was still as several soldiers moved to his cell, the door swinging open as they moved on him. They didn’t release his bindings, nor remove the talismans that subdued his powers. They drug him from his cell, reminding him once more he was no longer in control. His eyes burned into sabre and Maddox as he was taken to them. He flinched at the light, a hiss leaving his lips as he was pushed into a mobile cell, one drawn by horses. The cell consisted of only him, Brom, and two other captives. Apparently the only ones worth anything. His gaze moved down towards the bloody body of the soldier as he was forced to step over him, his gaze darkening as his eyes focused on the sigil the man wore. His own sigil suddenly felt so heavy, burning into his flesh, reminding him of all he had done for the country he came from. Why had they done this? If they could send a man in to murder him, they could have sent a man in to free him. What had he possibly done to warrant such a betrayal? Did they think he'd defect? Did they no longer trust him to keep the horrors he'd witnessed to himself? The possibilities were endless, but despite how his mind raced, trying to find any reasonable excuse for Arcturus, the fact remained. There was no mistake, there was no misunderstanding. Arcturus had meant to kill him, after all this time.

A small hand clenched into a fist against his bindings, his gaze raising to focus on his second in command. For a moment, his gaze seemed accusing, as if he knew it had to be Broms fault. It was a brief moment, before his sharp gaze became hollow once more. He had been warned by many. Varias influence traveled far in Arcturus, and honestly, it was a wonder that they had found a soldier willing to kill the small man. Many people had warned Varia, warned him that the loyalty and respect he demanded would be seen as a threat to his tyrannical country. They warned him, and he had disregarded their words. Despite the loyalty of the troops, his loyalty was strong, unbreakable. He’d committed unspeakable acts in the name of Arcturus, they knew he was loyal. He was not competition for the country, at least he hadn’t meant to be. Realizing that he was as expendable as every other soldier made his stomach twist with anger, his deep rage burning brighter than ever as he considered just how easily it must have been for his country to turn on him. His anger was just, and the rage he had lived with his entire life had suddenly shifted towards those who had made him this way. Even if he managed to escape the clutches of his nemesis, he had no where to go anymore. He was a wanted man in every country, but his own.

“Forgive me, this is my fault.” Brom said under his breath to Varia as the cart got under way. “You should have killed me before...because they hadn’t come for us until now and your influence in the south….I’m sorry I didn't anticipate this.” Varias lips had drawn into a tight line, his usual scowl dark on his features as he sat still, his small body lurching as the horses began to pull their mobile cage. He could feel the eyes of Maddox and Sabre burning into his back, knowing both men likely knew what was happening in his mind. He'd never imagined such a betrayal. He'd given everything to Arcturus, he was their sword. His rage had found a new target, wanting nothing more than to watch Arcturus burn before him. But even then, even after a blatant assassination attempt, he knew his rage wouldn’t last, not towards Arcturus. As Brom spoke to him, Varia remained quiet. The man's words hardly made him flinch, but he took them in. His influence in the south... It was true, Varia commanded thousands of men, and had their trust and loyalty. He wasn't unforgiving, but he produced results, which is what mattered to them. "How could you have convinced me of such a betrayal, even if you had foreseen It? I would have never listened." He finally replied. The things he knew, the things he'd witnessed and been a part of in Arcturus could make the country crumble before him. Arcturus had always been wise in choosing enemies, so why had they only sent two men after him? He was the Demon of Arcturus, one of the great titans of their time. He was not an enemy one would willingly choose.

It was true, Brom probably couldn't have convinced Varia of Arcturus’ betrayal. Varia, before now, had supreme confidence in his place and mutual loyalty between himself and Arcturus. Which made Brom pause in his actions a moment before continuing, speaking even softer. “Are we sure it was actually Arcturus?” Brom questioned, though his tone indicated that he didn't really have a doubt. The timing seemed random and Maddox’s arrival too well timed. Perhaps they had both jumped to conclusions they had been set up to. “Perhaps this is a ploy. A trick to make us think we’ve been betrayed and to divulge information.” It was a long shot, but they had to exhaust every possibility. Brom had little love for Arcturus itself, but neither was he keen to get into bed with their enemy. “I didn't recognize the soldiers. We only assume they are Arcturian because of the uniform...but as we’ve seen, it would not be hard for our enemies to get a few uniforms and pretend…” The only question was whether they believed Maddox would sacrifice his own soldiers for such a ploy. “Maddox may not have been informed….strengthen the ploy…” Brom murmured to his commander. “We should be cautious in what we say, wait until we have more concrete…”

“So, the mighty do fall.” Brom cut off his words as one of the other prisoners slid closer and threw an arm around Brom’s shoulders, trapping him as the man’s wrists were still shackled. “I hear ya’ll some big bad generals...but here you are with the common thieves and thugs. I ‘spose you all are killers, eh? Dunno how such pretty things like you could be so important you need such fancy jewelry.” The prisoner spoke, his bound hands reaching forward to pat the talisman on Varia’s wrist. "I would be willing to agree Arcturus wasn't behind this if I hadn't recognized the man that pulled a crossbow on me." The small man said, icy eyes shifting up and focusing on the backs of the captain and his brunette friend. "Regardless, Arcturus may believe I'm expendable, but with the situation we've found ourselves in, we have the best opportunity we could ask for. We don't want to seem too complacent. I don't want Maddox suddenly realizing he's handing the royal family over to me on a silver platter, not yet." Varias hellish gaze shifted back, now focused on the thief who had so boldly spoken to them. "I'm sure he doesn't expect me to come so quietly." In an instant Varias boot has smashed into the other prisoners chest, a sickening crunch echoing out as the man's sternum cracked. The prisoner gasped, his grip on Brom loosening immediately, his arms reaching around himself to try and defend against the tiny man, but it was too late. Varia was on him in a moment, his knees pinning the man against the floor of their caged carriage, Varia’s shackles clanging loudly as he smashed his fists into the criminals face. Blood splattered upwards, the man coughing and sputtering, before Varia’s hands found themselves around the mans neck.

Brom leaned out of the thief’s grasp as Varia attacked him, seeming completely at ease with his commanders violence. The other prisoner was squeezed into a corner, trying to avoid the melee as much as possible. Whatever designs that one had, it did not include helping his fellow thief or causing a ruckus with Brom and Varia. Sabre had turned the moment the struggle began, pulling the carriage horses to a stop. "Goddamnit!" He shouted. The envoys guards rushed forward, one man shoving a key into the door, no doubt thinking he could break up the brawl. Sabre leapt from the carriage, grasping the man's shoulders and yanking him back. "Don't open it, are you mad?!" He snapped, before turning to watch. The thief’s eyes were wide, focused on Sabre and Maddox, bulging from his face. His flesh had already begun to turn purple, his legs kicking wildly beneath Varias hips, but to no avail. Varia was strong, especially for his size. He had learned quickly that overpowering another man in hand to hand combat was near suicide, instead relying on being faster than his opponent. Even now, the man was much larger than him, thin, but taller, Varia was easily able to drop the man. With a broken sternum, and the shock of such a sudden attack, Varia had taken the man down with hardly any effort. As he squeezed the life from his victim, Varias eyes were wide, like a predator closing in on its helpless prey.

The darkness swirling behind a normally calm and attractive gaze caused a chill to run down Sabres spine. He could hear the man choking, the jerking of his legs lessening to mere twitches, his eyes blood red as his vessels popped. Sabre turned to Maddox, his eyebrows furrowed. "We can't take him out of there.... not here and especially not in the capital." Any other pair would have rushed to the cage, tried to break the two men apart, even open the cage to get them out. But though the guards did rush the cage and fumble with the keys with intent to pull the men out and apart, Sabre stayed their hands. The guards clearly were unsure about this choice, trained to believe that every prisoner was important, if only for the bounty on their heads. The thief in question seemed to have a pretty hefty one, considering how distressed everyone looked about it. Except Maddox, of course. The male seemed nonplussed that a person was being strangled right before him. They were seriously going to let the man die before they opened the cage. Well, it was probably a good plan, considering.

Maddox had been relaxed during the brawl, only looking to Sabre as the man harshly spoke to him. It was clear enough to anyone that Sabre was most uncomfortable traveling with the two. So, with a bothered sigh, Maddox strode towards the cell. “Now now, Varia, that’s enough. You’ve proved your point. He’s not worth as much dead and I’ll get reprimanded besides. Be a good boy and let him go would you?” Maddox said as he took a dagger from his belt and pointed it at Varia’s arms. But as he spoke he didn't look at Varia but at Brom. Varia wouldn’t give a shit about his words, and Maddox knew that. He also knew that getting his commander hurt and putting him at a disadvantage was not something Brom was keen on. So as a white power swirled along Maddox’s blade, Brom moved forward to grab Varia’s shoulders, pulling him back slightly, his lips near his commanders ear. “If they are too wary of us we wont find an opening.” Brom whispered so only Varia could hear, keeping an eye on the blade in Maddox’s hand. “Maddox also fully intends to shatter your arms just to make a point. We don't want to be any more at their mercy.” Brom added, for he saw the same feral glee in Maddox’s eyes as was likely in Varia’s. Even if it meant blasting apart the head of the very prisoner Maddox claimed was so valuable, he would gladly suffer the reprimand if it meant causing damage to Varia and distress to Brom. So he was disappointed when Brom coaxed Varia away, his eyebrow cocking in amusement as Varia shoved the man into the floor, flopping back to sit in his seat, his posture reeking of a teenage attitude. Maddox turned to Sabre, patting him on the back. “Don't worry so much, you’ll give yourself ulcers. We still have another little lamb for the tiger here to vent his anger on.” Maddox said, winking at Varia. “Besides, it’s not like we betrayed him. He might be ready to have a proper conversation by the time we get home.”

Sabre groaned as Maddox spoke, rubbing the back of his neck. "Gods, little psycho is going to give me an aneurysm before we get to the capital." He grumbled, glaring over his shoulder at the two men. Brom met his gaze. Sabre held it for a moment, before he looked to Maddox. "Its a shit idea still, but... the sooner we get to the capital, the better. The last thing we need is psycho one and psycho two getting the upper hand. I'll feel much better inside the walls of Emeriss, with the bulk of your military." Sabre grumbled, glancing towards Varia briefly as they began the train once more.

The caravan continued, and gave Varia plenty of time to think. That was never something he was allowed, time to think. Brom was right. He had to try to remain calm, something he had often struggled with. In Arcturus, there was no such thing as a childhood. Boys never had a chance to learn to keep their anger in check, in fact, they were encouraged to lash out with extreme violence. Varia remembered those days fondly, despite how horrific that was. But it was the only time he had ever received any form of positive attention, even borderline affection from any adult in his life growing up. Varia had been the best of them all, not just in his sector, but spanning across the country he was known for his violence. Lashing out was a way for him to gain himself small acts of kindness, like an extra ration at dinner, or an extra blanket during the especially frigid nights. But what he craved the most, was the silent looks of approval. The nods and excited whispers the adults shared whenever he was especially vicious. Even now, with a decent education and a general understanding of his abuse, even as a grown man, he still viewed those moments as some of his greatest. Arcturus had seen a great potential in him, even at an early age. He had taken the country by storm, overcoming his obstacle, smashing the assumption that because he was small, he was weak. It was part of his notoriety in Arcturus, part of the reason he was regarded so highly... or at least, used to be. He was a hero, someone other children in breeder facilities would look up to, whispers of his conquests would echo down hallways across the country, and even in other places. He had been so important, his face was plastered on propaganda posters, his techniques used to train new soldiers. Now he was here, in a country he had vowed to destroy, in a small cell with a half dead thief, treated as if he was some common criminal, and his country had made their stance on the matter perfectly clear. But what would he do, if he even escaped?

It was a long walk to the capital and Sabre set a grueling pace. He wasn't kidding about wanting to get there as quickly as possible and put those two behind sturdier bars. Maddox was less concerned, instead worrying over why Varia had come into his grasp in the first place. For how angry Varia was, it didn't seem to be a trap laid by him. Varia was good at a great many things, but acting wasn't one of them, not that Maddox had ever seen. So if this was a trap then it was one that was using Varia without his knowledge. Which meant Brom probably also didn't know anything, for Maddox couldn't see the assassin participating in such a farce without letting Varia know. Which meant Arcturus had more than likely abandoned the two, or had some plan which necessitated that appearance. Whether or not Arcturus planned to reclaim the general and assassin, a plan that discarded Varia so easily was one to be wary of. Maddox pulled one of the courier bird from its cage and whispered a message to it before sending it off. He would put the capital on guard just in case and have them gather more intel for him. If Brom was here then it was likely something big and not at all requiring much finesse or stealth. Hopefully something like that would have made waves enough that his spies would be able to pick up something. Maddox came up along side the cage, smacking it behind Varia. “Sulking still? You should be honored. All the greatest of evil countries have it turn against them. You should see this as them acknowledging your skill. But I suppose that you wont sit and die quietly for that small bit of acknowledgment?” Maddox’s eyes slid to Brom who glared back, wary of where this conversation was going. Maddox smirked and Brom tensed even more. “Besides, it’s not like you didn't know you were in bed with traitors and liars from the start. Perhaps you would like to make an honest start? Make Arcturus feel the pain as well? It’s not betraying them if they cast you out first.”

The glare Varia had cast over his shoulder at Maddox was seething with pure hate. He knew better than to give into taunts and prodding from the enemy, and even though Maddox made a point, the condescending tone the captain took any time the two men exchanged words was infuriating. "I don't plan on dying just yet., Captain." He spat out at the man, shifting his small frame away from the bars, distancing himself from Maddox. As Varia rebuffed his offer, Maddox turned his attention to his worry-wart second. “At this rate we’ll need to set camp.” Sabre spoke as he nodded to a smaller group of guards, only four of them as they moved towards the capital ahead of the caravan. Maddox frowned at the prospect of setting up camp, not wanting to be out of his warm bed another day more than necessary. But as he looked to the darkening sky he had to agree. It was getting late quickly, ominous clouds gathering in the distance in the direction of the capital. Maddox sucked his teeth in annoyance before climbing atop the cage housing Varia and Brom, looking around. Double annoyance. There were few ideal places to camp in this area with a forest to their left and rock faces to their right. “What do you think, mister Assassin? Cliffs or forest for camp?” Maddox asked the male below him, squatting down closer to the other.

Varia turned his gaze from the never-ending fields to Brom instead, trying to figure out if the general was going to do something concerning. He considered for a moment lashing out. He could almost reach Maddox, but that wouldn’t work. The prat was standing atop the bars precisely because he knew there was nothing productive to be had in attacking him there now. Brom turned his gaze to Varia briefly. Varia caught the look, before he turned his head away once more, deciding instead to resume his brooding, but he had an idea or two. The forest was clearly ideal in that the shadows would be deeper and thus easier for Varia to control. When they got loose as well it would be easier to muffle Broms own footsteps and for them to hide than on the cliffs. On the cliffs as well Maddox’s power could have more devastating effect if used on the rocks themselves. By the same token Brom could make easier use of rocks himself to make a weapon. Well, he could use a tree branch too but it would take more time. “I vote the cliffs if I were you. Wouldn’t want to be caught in a dark forest with a demon after all.” Brom said with a smirk, wondering if Maddox would take his suggestion as genuine or not. Maddox stroked his stubble in contemplation. “Mmmm, I agree. The forest would be best.” Maddox said, straightening despite Brom’s look of bafflement. “Sabre, let’s set camp around the next bend a little ways in.” Maddox called to the other, jumping down from the cage and heading over to the other. He knew it sounded nuts considering the cons of the forest, but it wasn’t a random choice nor one to be contrary. Between the cliffs and the forest, the forest was still the safer of the two. The cliffs, apart from being crumbly, was incredibly windy this time of year and would make it hard to start a fire and speak to one another. Besides, it wasn't like the forest didn't have its share of creatures not common to the colder Arcturian wilds. They could try escaping if they wanted, but they might find it safe to stick with Maddox and his troops than traipsing through a foreign wilderness.

Sabre had listened to Maddox, despite his protest swelling in his chest. Brom was absolutely right, he did not want to be caught in the forest with Varia, especially at night. But Maddox knew Varia better than he ever would. Despite the fact every encounter they had ever being murderous, Maddox had known the little demon for years. They had exchanged many words, and could read one another like a book. If Maddox felt safer in the forest, even with the demon of Arcturus in their party, Sabre would comply. Just beyond the path was a small clearing. Not small enough to park the rolling cell, but large enough to start a fire and even sleep. Once they had finished setting up, Sabre allowed himself to finally sit. He sat across the fire from the cell, making sure his eyes remained on the pair lurking just beyond the orange glow. A heavy sigh left his lips, as if the greatest stress had just been removed from his shoulders. As the two guards they had left moved off in search for food, Sabre craned his neck around to eyeball Maddox. "Think little psycho will talk?" He mused, though he already knew the answer to that. Maddox met his question with a smirk and a cock of the eyebrow. “Go on. Try.” Sabre’s golden eyes met ice from across the fire, his attention leaving Maddox as the other moved towards the cage.

Sabre tilted his head as he watched that hateful gaze follow the captain, a hand reaching up to rub against his short beard briefly. "I'd always thought you'd be taller." He called out suddenly, causing Varias eyes to shift from Maddox to him. Varia felt a ball of anger well in his chest, something not uncommon to him. A crooked grin spread across Sabres lips as Varia reacted to him. It wasn't much, but being able to tear his concentration away from trying to murder Maddox with his eyes was enough for Sabre. "Why would Arcturus try and have you killed, Varia?" Varias scowl darkened, a huff leaving his nose. He had a million answers to that question, but none he was certain on. One stood out above the rest, though. That same warning Brom had given him so long ago. But he wasn't dumb, and he knew the Nihalian wasn't either. He knew Sabre could piece it together, if he hadn't already. Instead of providing an answer for the man, he turned his gaze away once more, watching the flickering shadows dancing across the ground. "Perhaps you aren't as effective as you used to be. Becoming soft in your old age." It was a blatant jab, not even half true. Varias cruelty knew no bounds, and only seemed to worsen every year. But he was old... at least for a commander working for Arcturus. They usually were dead by now, and usually by Maddox’s hand. Yet here he was, a living, breathing devil.

Maddox, for his part, perched atop the cage once more, throwing a soft pack under his butt for cushion. He polished his sword as the others searched for provisions and Sabre harassed the prisoners. Maddox seriously could not understand how someone as easily rattled as Varia had managed to stay alive so long and get as high a rank as he had. Then again, Maddox wasn’t very much different when put around the right set of people, so maybe he understood all too well. It was that short temper that gave Varia his violence, after all. A similar temper fueled Maddox’s power most of the time, though it was harder to intentionally make it flare. Maddox wasn’t sure if that made him more or less dangerous to others. As the sun crept further down the horizon and the shadows grew around them, Maddox finished cleaning his sword and plunged it between the bars until the hilt caught on the top. It was long enough to almost go through to the bottom. Maddox leaned down on it gently, smiling as it vibrated very slightly. “More than likely they got tired of him losing to me all the time.” Maddox suggested, smirking down at the angry Arcturians. “In case it wasn’t clear, any funny business on your parts will result in an unpleasantly messy death and thus an end to our little game of cat and mouse.” Maddox informed the two below him.

Varia couldn't help himself this time. Being Maddox’s prisoner was bad enough, but the mans constant taunts had begun to wear on his already short temper. "Losing to you?" Varia hissed, craning his neck upwards to scowl up at Maddox. "I have never lost to you. I'm a living, breathing example of your own weakness, Maddox." Sabre chuckled to himself, prodding at the fire as Varia finally spoke. Maddox had an infuriating way about him, especially if he targeted someone individually, like he seemed to do with Varia. It maybe appeared to be all in fun, but Sabre knew better. Varia was right, Maddox hadn’t been able to kill Varia. Yet, Varia had never been able to kill Maddox. The two men were constantly at a stand still, something that not only seemed to frustrate Varia, but most likely frustrated Maddox as well.

"Look Varia. Maddox mentioned it before, but we're willing to give you a chance to help bring Arcturus down. We wouldn't offer that to just an--"

"Shut up." Varia snapped over his shoulder, cutting Sabre off, before he glared up at Maddox once more. "If you're going to kill us, get on with it. I'd much rather be buried than to have to listen to you and your little friend any longer."

Maddox grinned a crooked grin down at Varia, his eyes darkening. “Well that’s not incentive for me to kill you is it? I’d much rather inconvenience and annoy you with taunts. If you want to be killed you’re going to have to work a little harder for it. Perhaps I haven’t killed you yet because you’re still too weak for me to bother with.” Maddox suggested, knowing it was a lie. But he couldn’t tell Varia the real reason he hadn’t killed him, even when he had the opportunity. True that Varia was strong as the devil and much of the time they were evenly matched. But there had been very key times where Varia could have dealt the killing blow or else Maddox could have. The reason they were still alive to taunt and haunt each other’s careers, had little to do with the ability of one or the other. But unless Varia defected, the truth could not be revealed. Maddox too had things he needed to protect and as long as Varia professed to be his sworn enemy, Maddox had to keep hoping the other died in other suspicious circumstances. “While you’re taunting then could you also provide food and water? This climate is not exactly cool for being carted around in a metal cage.” Brom said, kicking the underside of where Maddox sat. Maddox, who had been tense with the desire to do as Varia wanted, released some of his power into the ground beneath them, creating a perfectly round indentation under the cage. Maddox glanced at the assassin who raised an eyebrow at him. Maddox whistled to one of the other soldiers to fetch some water. Some wild boars were turning over a few fires, so those would be ready when they were ready. “I suggest you talk some sense into your master. This offer only lasts until we get to the capital. After that you’ll die right along with him.” Maddox said as he was tossed a few water skins. One he guzzled down himself, the other he poured over the two prisoners below. “Let me know if you want more water.” Maddox smirked.

Varia growled, an unnatural sound, especially coming from someone so small. He had pressed his back against the bars of the cell as Maddox poured the water down over them. A loud cackle erupted from behind them, coming from Sabre. He'd always admired the sheer boldness of Maddox, and it was especially present now. Watching how easily the captain dismissed the Demon of Arcturus and his second in command was impressive. "You truly think either of us will give you any information? Or are you just wasting all your time and all of these resources JUST so you can parade me through Emeriss?" Varia spat, wiping water from his face, flicking it upwards towards Maddox. It was funny, watching the two titans bicker and take jabs at one another, though Sabre was more than aware that the only reason blood hadn’t been split was because Varia was restrained. "Come on, Varia. What do you even owe Arcturus? They've done nothing but abuse and use you your entire life." Sabre called out, not intending to drop his attempt at gathering information from the small man. "Who even are you? I said to shut up." Varia snapped back towards Sabre. "Tell me about the weapon." Sabre called back, not affected by Varias harsh words this time. Though the glare Varia had focused on Maddox was harsh, the sudden twitch in his eyebrow was apparent to anyone who was looking. Slowly, Varias gaze turned back towards Sabre, eyeing the man fully. "Ah, I see. That's why you've kept us alive."

Maddox sucked his teeth in mock annoyance. “Damn, I suppose you do know something about that then. Shame. Now I owe that fool there a gold coin, and you’ve earned yourself an extended stay in Emeriss with the lovely master torturers. I had planned to kill you flat out, myself.” Maddox said, studying Varia. Maddox couldn’t tell just yet whether Varia actually knew anything about the weapon or only the rumors Maddox himself had heard. Maddox knew very well how people such as himself, while considered invaluable and essential, could easily be left out of the loop on important military matters. If that was the case here, Maddox could only imagine how much more so it was in Arcturus. Which left an even more disturbing possibility. “That’s the crown’s interest, yes. There have been a few rumors of some new fancy weapon, out of pace with what we’ve seen. Something so big we thought you might know a thing or two.” Maddox looked away from the two below him and to Sabre, his brow furrowing in mild concern. “But he might be a grunt….” Maddox thought aloud, resting his chin on his hands atop the pommel of his sword.

“Reaper, you know their treachery better than anyone. Tell me...between the two options which is more likely? One: you and the demon here are actually the trigger for the weapon, allowed to come into our custody in order to get you into the city and set it off with the royal family there….or two: sacrifice you to ensure all of your enemies, Arcturus’ enemies, would gather in one place to see your demise, so that they could launch the weapon and kill everyone, including you two with them?” Maddox looked down at Brom who quickly looked away, his mind having not thought of the second option and didn’t want to show the concern of its truth on his face. “They wouldn’t need to kill everyone, only you. Once you fall, so does much of the resistance and worry of Arcturus. I’d say we’re a trap for you more than the crown. So it might be a good idea to abandon us here, now, while you have the chance.” Brom suggested in a calm reasonable voice, but Varia could sense his stress. He knew why. It was because the truth was, in both of those cases, whether they were a trap for Maddox or a lure for a bigger haul, neither option left them alive. If their country had been trying to kill them off for awhile, this would just be a more useful way of doing so. Brom looked over at Varia, tapping his foot for his attention. * I think they are right, Arcturus plans to kill us * Brom signed to Varia. It was common in Arcturus. Often the blizzards and frightening ice storms made it impossible to hear another speak. The Arcturian military had taught every one of it’s soldiers hand signs, a way to communicate without speaking. * Think about recent promotions, military movements….we’ve been isolated. *

Varias gaze dropped as Brom signed to him, confirming what he had already gathered. Arcturus wanted them both dead, and the sudden reality of it hit him like a ton of bricks. A defeated sigh left him, lowering himself back onto the seat, small hands rubbing at his face. Varia knew everything, or at least he thought he had. Up until recent events, he had never once thought of the possibility, or at least given it any real thought. He was too important, too valuable to Arcturus' cause. Without him, they had no one able to stand up to Maddox, and no one willing to commit the atrocities needed to secure their conquest. As if by magic, everything he had been given in secrecy over the years bubbled in his throat. He had never even humored the idea of sharing such important information before, but there it was, resting on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spilled. And what if he did? Could it even be stopped at this point? Who knew how long ago they had stopped feeding him proper information, he hadn't been to see the bomb sites in nearly six months, and as far as he knew, they weren't even prepared to launch. But those weren’t the only secrets he knew. There were many, MANY more. If Arcturus was so adamant to see him dead, perhaps the information he held frightened them... or perhaps just his very existence, his vengeful, powerful existence frightened them.

The tension in the air had suddenly shifted, causing Sabre to squint over the fire towards their prisoners. Maddox’s head turned downward, able to sense the change in Varia’s mood better than most. 15 years of knowing one another, though their encounters had been violent and bloody, had the unwanted affect of knowing one another better than most. He could feel the turmoil brewing in Varia, stronger than it had before. A deep silence had fallen over the camp, the faint murmur of their guards and the soft licking of flames being the only noise for a long, long moment, before the small commander let out another deep sigh.

"If this has been their intention all along, then I'm afraid my information may no longer be of any relevance to you. If the bombs are ready to launch, then I had been cut from the inner circle months ago." Varia suddenly uttered, his voice soft and small, no longer stern and confident as it normally was. Sabre immediately stood as Varia spoke, recognizing the opportunity and knowing just how quickly it could turn sour once more. Maddox’s face didn’t shift, but his eyes flickered to Sabre briefly, giving his second in command a short nod. He quickly moved closer to the cell, still maintaining a safe distance. He crouched, golden eyes focused on the back of the Demon of Arcturus. "Anything you could tell us could potentially bring Arcturus to heel. After all they've done to you, after all you've done for them, casting you aside like they're doing is the stupidest thing they could have ever done. I know you want to see them burn. Help us make that happen." The new silence around them was uncomfortable, the inward battle Varia was waging with his own thoughts and morals was evident by the vicious scowl on his face. He knew Maddox was right, he knew Sabre was right, and he knew Brom had been right so many times before. He had just been so blinded by his own forced loyalty he hadn’t seen it before. But now it was clear to him. His eyes finally lifted from their spot on the floor, raising up to lock with Maddox. "If you've been hearing whispers of the weapons, then nothing will save Emeriss. If I were you, I would send word to evacuate the city, though I doubt there will be enough time to save them all."

Bombs? Maddox heard the word but it didn’t quite register what the other meant. In a world of magic and power, something as archaic as ‘bomb’ didn’t really have a lot of meaning. People had tried in the past of course, to harness immense powers into a compact form. But those experiments had always proven too unstable, unreliable. In an age where your opponent could be born with a gift that could easily render all your efforts meaningless, such research into things like ‘bombs’ had become obsolete. Or so Maddox had thought. He was sure that he didn’t understand the magnitude and implication of what Varia was calling a ‘bomb’, but he didn’t really need to. Even if the Arcturians hadn’t found a way to harness a particular power into a portable and detonatable form, even if they used the archaic versions, it would still be devastating. The world had moved on to much more terrible and yet civilized ways of killing people, that they had little protection against such crude forms of mass destruction. Maddox hardly heard the rest of what Varia and Sabre were talking about. He had spent all of his life fighting against the atrocities of Arcturus. He had risked and sacrificed much to stand against that great monster that had betrayed and destroyed his family. Aside from Varia, Maddox had thought himself doing a pretty damn good job paying them back with interest for all they had done. But now he saw how futile his efforts had been. How each of his victories had been hurling them ever faster towards this great defeat. ‘Nothing will save Emeriss.’ Words that did not need to be said but which voiced a truth that Maddox already knew. “It was all for nothing then?” Maddox asked softly in Arcturian to no one in particular. Despair and rage built inside of him, pressing against the walls of his skull, unable to be released in a way that would make him feel better, would stop this.

“Is this as far as your resolve goes?” Brom asked, kicking up at Maddox again, though there was more anger in his action now. “I will not die in a cage beneath your stinking feet because you can’t accept a small outmaneuver!” Brom shouted at Maddox, not caring or noting that he was slipping into the dialectic of their small village. “Have you forgotten? Your purpose was never to save or serve Er Rai, but to defeat Arcturus and the council. If you were going to fold so easily I should have let Varia kill you.”

Varia and Sabre both turned their heads as Brom and Maddox began their exchange, Sabres eyes on his friends, concerned for the man, and Varias focused on his second, stern and suddenly full of questions. Before he could snap at the pair, Sabre had already called the remaining guards to them, standing to urgently whisper to them. If Varia recommended evacuations, then he would fucking do just that. They perhaps didn’t have the time, but Emeriss wasn't leveled just yet. As the men moved to prepare their mounts, Sabre moved back to the cell, peering up at Maddox, though he spoke to Varia. "Anything you know can help us. Even if these.... bombs have already been used."

Varia glanced over his shoulder to Sabre, before turning his head back to eye Brom and Maddox. He didn't quite understand the dialect those two were speaking. It was Arcturian, of some sort, but many places in Arcturus had their own dialect. The country spent many years not in contact with small villages, so it was natural that several languages formed. With a scowl, Varia turned his head back to Sabre. "I toured several facilities in Nihal and Arcturus with the inner circle, but... I'm afraid I hardly paid any attention." Varia said, before leaning back against the bars once more. "Though, I do know where the sites are located. Even the ones here." Sabre sighed heavily, not necessarily surprised Arcturus had bases in other countries, but especially surprised they seemed to be building bombs in these places. "If they have these... facilities here already, could they launch an attack from them?" Sabre asked. Varias nod made Sabres stomach clench, turning his gaze back to Maddox.

Maddox stood, thinking. Brom was right of course, Maddox knew. Even so, it didn’t ease the guilt and feeling of failure in his chest. It was just his pride, but that had been all he had for a long time. Even if Er Rai was second or third in his heart, it had still given him the opportunity to strike back at his enemies. That he had failed to protect them seem like poor gratitude indeed. He was dimly aware of the riders preparing to leave. He registered that Varia was confirming more bases, more bombs yet to be dispatched to carry out their dangerous purpose. But the question was what to do about it. His immediate thought was to hunt down these places and destroy them, but finding them would be difficult. Even if they did, then what? Most of his troops were in the capital, probably soon to be destroyed. What army did he have to storm such places, to hunt down the masterminds and slaughter them? Not to mention that if there were bases even in Er Rai, then that meant that there were traitors in places Maddox had barely set eyes on. People that he had protected had been working all this time to undermine him.

Maddox worked it out, the riders off and away in the direction of the capital. Brom looked to Varia, trying hard not to shrink under the other’s probing gaze. There were a lot of answers those eyes demanded be produced, and with due haste. “Why are you hesitating when you have an ace up your sleeve?” Brom asked Maddox in the same dialect. Maddox turned his head from his hand and looked down at Brom with a raised eyebrow. “Me and Varia. We’re all suppose to be dead now. The dead can move around a lot easier than the living.” Brom reminded him. As if Brom had hit upon something profound, Maddox’s eyes grew wide and he looked towards the direction of the capital. “Sabre, what time would we have arrived in the Capital if we kept going through the night?” Maddox asked, even while doing the calculations in his head. At the standard speed, even with the wariness of the new prisoners making them slow a bit to watch them….about….

One moment it was night, the next it was as if the sun had forgotten something and shot out of bed. The entire landscape lit up before them, blinding them for a moment as darkness chased the sun back to bed. But even temporarily blinded Maddox felt it in the wind. Like how a tsunami pulls the water out to sea before engulfing the land, so too the air seemed to rush towards the capital as if sucking in a big breath. Maddox blindly reached for his sword and pulled it free of the cage, yelling at those nearest, meaning only Sabre and the cage’s inhabitants, to get down and brace themselves. It timed it as well as he could based on feel, but even then knew that beyond their little group, most would not survive.

The blast from his sword hit the shockwave like a wall and split it, but not before tossing Maddox and company, cage and all, backwards across the fire which had guttered out. The forest around them flattened, a few young trees half-springing back while older ones cracked in half. Maddox hit the ground hard, the pain from one of his arms indicating a possible break. Brom had leapt to cover Varia, the cage providing protection as well as its own dangers. A branch had slid through and cut Brom on the side. Deep enough to need attention, though not enough to bleed out quickly.

The combination of Brom selflessly shielding Varia, Maddox’s shield, and the cage had saved Varia from any sort of serious wound. He had smacked his head against the bars of his cell fairly hard, resulting in a slow trickle of blood beginning to drip down his forehead, but he was fine save that. Sabre had been blown back by the force of the shockwave, smashing his back against a tree, which, surprisingly, withstood the blast. A shaky breath left him as the dust finally began to settle. The cell had tipped onto its side, the small crater Maddox had made causing that, and it had slid quite a ways before being stopped when its wheels caught on upturned roots from a tree that had been ripped from the ground. Laying in the dirt where it had slid, were the talismans used to prevent Varia from being able to access his abilities.

Varia slowly shifted to his feet, his eyes glowing through the red staining his face, his gaze turning towards the north. In the distance, now visible from the shattered trees, was Emeriss. Or at least where she had once stood. It was too far to properly judge the extent of the damage, but the glow of the city assured the group that Emeriss was burning. It stood stark against the blackened sky, glowing a deep, blood red, and though the forest had grown eerily silent, it was almost as if they could hear the screams. Varia wiped at the blood on his face, turning his back towards the glow in the north. That bomb was meant for him and Brom. He knew that, and so did his current companions. He could feel his anger bubbling in his gut once more, but the sudden surge of power he felt rush through his frame snapped him from his homicidal thoughts. His eyes moved downwards towards his own shadow, watching as the dark began to twitch and twist, as if it were stretching. He was no longer weakened, and now, coupled with his own anger towards his country, the shadows in the immediate area grew darker, as if answering a silent call from their master. Without a word, a tendril of shadows lifted from the ground, now solid, swirling angrily as it lifted, wrapping around the bars on the door. With a sudden jerk, the door was ripped from its hinges, the damaged steel groaning as it smashed into the ground several yards away, effectively releasing Varia into the dark forest. A quick glance towards Brom was given, eyes taking in the blood blossoming on the mans side, before Varia was on the move, stepping out of the cage, and turning a harsh glare towards a wounded Maddox.

Sabre had moved towards his friend, still disoriented from the blast itself, his hands shaking as he gently touched him, assuring himself Maddox hadn't died in the sudden explosion. He had hardly noticed Varia, his ears ringing so loudly, he wouldn't have heard if someone shouted directly into them. But as he peered down at the mans mangled arm, the shadow he cast on his partners body suddenly darkened, twisting, before pulling away from him, and towards their left. Sabres eyes quickly shot up, widening as they fell on the form of Varia, the demon of Arcturus, looking exactly as that. Varia had begun to move towards them, not pausing as Sabre suddenly held his hands forward. "Varia... what are you doing?" He managed to get out, as the tiny man stopped next to them, staring down at his foe. "That bomb was meant for you, Varia. We can help you, you know we can help you. If you're going to take the fight to Arcturus, you'll need all the help you can get. Maddox is just as powerful as you, and you can--"

"Shut up." Varia cut him off, before slowly lowering to a crouch next to Maddox, his eyes moving over his body, before resting on his arm. "Get up. We need to move. Arcturus will be sending in troops to assess the damage done, and we need to be far from here when they arrive." He suddenly said, causing Sabres eyebrows to punch together in confusion. Was he.... not going to murder them? His mind was suddenly filled with questions, but a sharp look from Varia quieted him. He glanced down to Maddox once more, before slowly shifting to his feet. By the time Varia came over to him, Maddox had at least managed to lift himself into a sitting position. There were still significant black spots in his vision and the world spun besides. That was not including the pain radiating from his arm and head from the recoil and being thrown. But all of this was less problematic than the drawback from his power which had left him feeling incredibly weak. Even if he wanted to leap to his feet he couldn’t. Usually he didn’t expend so much power and so the consequences were usually limited to a small area of his body. But that shockwave had been strong and to counter it even as much as he had required almost all of his strength to push back. So even as Varia came closer, radiating danger and malice, Maddox could do nothing to stop him from whatever he planned to do. Luckily, perhaps, Varia had awareness of the situation enough not to kill his strongest ally at the moment. Even so, Maddox glared up at him as the other suggested they get a move on. “Having the demon of Arcturus shown concern….I’m regretting saving your ass already.” Maddox spat. Varia stared down his nose at Maddox, and for a long moment Sabre truly thought he would kill the both of them, which would be the end of both of them. Maddox was in no position to defend himself if Varia suddenly turned on him, and the fact that Varia hadn't already attacked him made the situation even more obscure to Sabre. But soon his attention turned towards Brom as his second hauled himself from the cage, allowing Sabre to take a deep breath.

Besides the four of them there wasn’t a living soul about. If any animals had survived the blast they were long gone, and all of the soldiers were unaccounted for. At least, in total. Bits and pieces of some were strewn about, most had probably been blasted pretty far. Brom slowly got to his feet, shuffling over to the others, still gingerly holding his side. “Can you move?” Brom asked Maddox on the ground, taking in the other’s injuries. “Are you offering to carry me?” Maddox returned. “Not while you’re conscious.” Brom bit back, glancing around again. Brom turned to Sabre. “We need a cave, someplace safe and little known. Is there such a place around here?”

"The old smugglers underground trail passes through this area. I haven't been since it was raided, and that was a long time ago." Sabre said, squinting into the trees. "I'm certain it's been overgrown by now, but it shouldn't be to difficult to find." Sabre watched the pair of Arcturians closely, before a heavy sigh left him. "We could travel most of Er Rai underground in the passages. There's structures and water... and its difficult to find an entrance, and even if someone did, it'd be difficult to find us." Sabre offered, causing Varia to finally turn his head away from Maddox to scowl at him. "I intend to take you two as far as your next town, no further." He said, before turning away from the group, snatching a bag from the remains of their camp. "I can't be too sure, but the passage was should he near. It’ll be marked with a boulder, and a symbol..." Sabre said, reaching down to draw the piece in the dirt below his feet, though his eyes continued to follow Varia as the commander busied himself. "We need to keep our eyes open. It's safe there, and we need to look over wounds, and not in the open."

Brom studied the marking Sabre made in the dirt closely before rubbing it out with his foot. “We’re moving in two minutes.” Brom said to the pair before going to help Varia scour the remains of the camp. Varia, barely looked at him. He felt if he did he would begin asking questions Brom didn’t want to answer just yet. He wasn’t sure what that language was, or when Maddox and Brom became so friendly. He was half convinced he didn’t want to know. After all, two betrayals in one day could very well tip the scale in his already fragile mind. He ignored the other, not speaking as he packed what he could, before turning back towards Maddox and Sabre. Maddox was leaning on Sabre heavily, but was at least on his feet. It would have to be good enough, for they couldn’t linger much longer.

Varia turned from the burning city once Brom joined them, the two of them slowly picking their way over downed trees. Maddox and Sabre lingered for a moment, both men turned towards where the great golden city once stood. Shadows flickered across the remains of the forest floor, drawing emerald eyes to them. Maddox drew a deep breath, before he turned, leaning on his partner for support as the two began to move after the Arcturians who hadn’t turned back, away from Emeriss. Away from Maddox’s home. Away from the city that was meant to never fall. He didn’t look back a second time.

[marchived]

a god’s pawn. or, how morrigan was convinced to help in the third titan war. tw for: manipulation, implied death. sorry hades ure an asshat

she is in a temple, somewhere far, far away from new york. dust lines the floor & cobwebs outline every corner. whatever relics or paintings it might have had were long gone, & she can assume they were looted. or maybe, she muses, some other demigod had sold them for spare drachma.

the idea amuses her. she certainly would have.

still, it provides shelter against the start of the storm. rainfall is light, yet she knows better by the sounds of thunder & flashes of lightning. she assumes her uncle wants her out of his sight, but it’s just a passing wonder ( she is well aware that the gods have no time for stray, runaway demigods. isn’t that how she “ recruited ” so many of them? ).

she settles down amidst a pillar, ignoring the cloud of dust that awakens with her every move. oh, that would get annoying; she doesn’t quite fancy waking up to dust in her lungs.

so after a second thought, she decides to tug the hem of her coat up around her nose.

& she comes to in a forest. the grass beneath her is muddy, & rain pounds harder around her body. her ears hear murky sounds; is that thunder? or the clash of metal on metal? something about it makes her nauseous.

“ you haven’t heard, i suppose. ” ah. a familiar voice, yet she takes her time sitting up. hair is plastered to her face, to scarred cheek, before she decides to face her father. he looks unfazed by the weather, gaze upon some far away point down below.

“ of what? ”

“ of the earth mother. her fated awakening. ”

a pause. “ i — ”

“ no, of course you haven’t, ” he says. anger spikes at the dismissal in his tone; so self assured, so confident, so bored. “ you’ve been off & about as you please. ”

“ every monster i’ve come across has talked about it. do you think they’ve ever been good at keeping quiet? ” she asks, demanding & quiet. “ so, sorry i haven’t come around to help yet. ”

“ if she rises, she will destroy the earth. ”

“ & when your father rose, he swore it too. ” mouth settles into a thin line at the titan’s memory, but she presses on, “ yet look who stopped him. percy jackson has done it before. he will do it again. ”

“ are you sure of it? ”

“ no, but i can’t bring myself to care otherwise. ” a careless shrug, as she leans onto her arms behind her. his own mouth twitches in annoyance, a downcast expression in his eyes. “ i’m sick of the gods, really. ”

& yes, she does relish in his anger then. serves him right, really, for abandoning her mother in the first place.

“ she will rise at camp half - blood. ”

those words send alarm bells ringing through her head. if she were to rise there... “ & nothing would be left, i presume? ” careful question to pack a thousand emotions, & his cold, answering smile is enough.

“ there will be nothing left of anything familiar if she rises. ” if. if if if. this was a test, something in her sings, for how far she’d be willing to go.

“ then i shouldn’t care, should i? ”

“ do you care for the place that serves as a home, however short that time might have been? ”

“ the bad far outweighs the good, ” she spits out, because fuck you for your birthday present & fuck you for what you put me through & fuck you for what your whole family put the others through. he goes quiet, gaze finally settling on her.

“ even castellan? ”

blue eyes & welcoming smile & fast reflexes & best swordsman & her counselor & friend, luke castellan. the name makes her stand, if only to stop looking at hades. “ you don’t get to bring him up, not after you used him. ”

“ we used him? ”

“ your kind drove him to it, ” she whispers, & she hates how her voice trembles. “ if it hadn’t been for your carelessness & recklessness maybe — ”

“ so you will let the earth mother destroy the one place you had good memories of him, ” hades says, & she fights the hate that builds in her chest. this was a test, a question of her will.

how dare he. how dare he make luke a bargaining chip, how dare he make a point using his name. oh, she is angry, but...

... warm spring days. campfire nights spent singing. days he had spent helping her with her axe. sharing breakfast & lunch & dinner. you are the sister i never thought to have.

“ fuck you, ” she says instead, & finds herself unafraid of the dark laugh he gives her in response. the world tumbles beneath her feet —

— & she wakes up with the familiar sensation of falling, too familiar, even if years & years had passed.

but, to her dismay, she is still in the same, dreary old temple. “ the least you could have done is take me there, ” she murmurs to the dust.

but she still packs her things. still decides to brave the rain.

decides one last time, she will be a pawn.