#there are moments where he could easily go down the same path as luke

[paintdlady]

Every time I see a gif of little Percy Jackson flossing, I can’t help but think: “this kid is going to make a misery goddess choke on her own poison.”

[happynowyo]

Free choice

Fandom: House of the Dragon

Pairing: Aemond x Lucerys

Summary: The new generation of gods follows the same path, so Aemond and Luke should face their own fate as the new versions of Hades and Persephone.

Warnings: angst (but with happy ending in the second part)

Word count: 2k

Aemond didn't like to go up to the surface and pretend to be someone ordinary, clutching a glass of wine in his hand at some fancy bar in New York, Berlin, or Sydney. Aegon was excited about such pastimes and travelled easily through countries, hiding from his mother's strict supervision, but Aemond was too used to the dark solitude of the underworld to feel comfortable among the noisy crowds of the livings, who annoyed him with pointless clutter.

He looked to the core and felt the presence of death everywhere he went, and invariably brought a plume of asphodels around him. Light and quick to envelop, like a fog, granting a moment's forgetfulness.

He had once worried about being tormented by his own loneliness, as the ruler of Hell he was doomed to be in the underworld, avoiding the feast of life. No fun, no joy. Aemond remembered the grief and sympathy that splashed in his mother's eyes when she escorted him away for the first time, using Otto as a guide. God of deceit and trickery - Aemond had mentally blamed his grandfather hundreds of times for giving him blind hope for the best, fueling his belief for years that he might get something different. There were hundreds of choices, he could have been a patron of seers or doctors, but instead he took on his heaviest burden.

His eyes went blank and his movements were smooth and unhurried. There was nothing in hell but countless souls, like an assembly line, waiting for their fate. The bleak fields and the deadly rivers - Aemond had studied all the scenery during the first week and had long since stopped noticing it, shutting himself off completely. He concentrated only on business, on the exhausting routine, occasionally allowing himself to see his sister and brothers, but even that didn't save them from the grave coldness that was destroying their relationship.

Aemond was hiding his envy deep down inside, where even blind Themis couldn't find it, and yet he agreed to attend Luke's party on his eighteenth birthday. The lavish feast Rhaenyra had thrown was worthy of all praise, but it wasn't the painted decorations of the manor that caught his eye. It was the air of life, the energy and hope in Luke's eyes, the joy that drew his attention. As Aemond stepped closer, modestly handing over a pendant with a ruby as a symbol of kindred courtesy, it seemed to him that a chasm separated them was far deeper than the one in which the icy Cocytus had been held.

— Does Rhaenyra still hold you close, like a child? I've heard Jace is doing quite well, and the exhibitions he curates are very popular, but it would be hard to expect otherwise from a god of truth and a patron of the arts. Maybe his success will be an example to your mother.

Luke could hardly remember the last time he'd seen Aemond. They'd spent a lot of time together as kids, learning tricks and playing teammates against Jace and Aegon. The accident that led to the loss of Aemond's eye separated them, leaving Luke with boundless guilt. They began to see each other less often, and Rhaenyra contributed to this by limiting their trips to King's Landing. Luke had almost convinced himself that he didn't care about how Aemond lived, but his interest returned instantly when Aemond turned eighteen and the Moirs determined his lot as the new head of the underworld. The new Hades.

Luke was familiar with the order of things. Some events were inevitable and repeated from generation to generation. Hades and Persephone determined the fate of their descendants and condemned them to the same bond. Their new versions were drawn to each other in the same way and went through the same stages of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance. The result was always the same - a new marriage and a new division of the year.

Deep down, he held out hope that he would be the one to play the role of the new Persephone, just as he feared it with all his heart. Luke was no fool and judged his chances soberly. His mother was a fertility goddess like Demeter, and she had enough children that one of them would be Aemond's partner. It could have been Luke. And he wished, in a way, that it had turned out to be true, and he saw it as an opportunity to mend their former bond with Aemond and get rid of the resentments that hung as a burden between them.

He preferred not to think about the fact that he really liked Aemond, even when he was alone with himself. It was wrong. Incest had been practiced in their family for generations, but Luke kept thinking it was wrong. Dirty. And therefore especially attractive. At night he closed his eyes, imagining how Aemond could jam him in an empty room, press him roughly against the wall and kiss him, claiming his rights, and Luke's body instantly gave a reaction. Every single time. Desire pierced through him and pulsed just under his skin, preventing him from being distracted by anything else.

Or anyone. He tried, really tried, to go on dates with someone else, and it never worked. He was bored, he felt empty, and his thoughts kept going back to Aemond. Ever since he started spending almost all of his time in the underworld, their meetings had become almost priceless because of how rare they were. Once or twice a year. And Luke always waited, deluding himself with the hope that during the next break he would forget Aemond, put him out of his mind and fall in love with someone else. But each time he continued to be like a naive puppy, greedily catching his uncle's every look.

His birthday was a good reason for the whole pantheon of gods to gather in King's Landing. Aemond was going to show up, and Luke was ready for it, nervously searching the spacious hall with his eyes, where guests were feasting noisily, but eventually he met him near the garden alone. The gift from Aemond became a pleasant surprise and brought a faint blush to Luke's cheeks. The ruby pendant looked so much like a pomegranate seed sparkling in his palm that Luke was glad for the fact that Aemond could not read his mind.

"Take me away. Forget about everyone else and take me away, hide me in hell itself and lie to everyone. Mark me, make me yours. Let me be there and bow my head obediently, swearing allegiance for decades to come."

In some way it was an opportunity to close the gestalt and make things right between them. To be close again. In his best dreams, he called it "sacrificing yourself," because few people in reality would agree to voluntarily go down to hell for six months. But Luke's selfishness was strong enough to make him admit the truth. He wanted Aemond for nothing, and all the reasons "why not" were losing all meaning when he saw the ice in Aemond's blue eyes or the luxurious platinum of his hair that Luke wanted to burrow his fingers into.

And now, alone with him in the garden, Luke felt the expression "blind love" at its fullest. He didn't know much about Aemond, there had been no games or trusting conversations between them for a long time, and Rhaenyra would probably have wrung his neck personally for the very thought of leaving his old life behind and sacrificing everything for the bleak emptiness of Hell, but he was willing and ready to risk anything. Aemond seemed deep and interesting, he remained incredibly attractive, and the long scar didn't ruin his beauty at all. Lucerys was sure he could bridge the gaps between them after a while and love Aemond even more, if he had the chance.

— We're all still children to our parents, aren't we? Even when we grow up, — Luke remarked softly after a long pause, turning his back so that Aemond could clasp the ruby chain on him.

— Maybe. But my mother looks at me differently now. She only sees death, but I can't blame her for that, — Aemond answered with a note of familiar melancholy in his voice, and Luke nodded briefly, understanding the implication.

Aemond was the death itself, and the wilted lush rosebuds from the nearest bush were the best proof of that. Luke ran his fingers lightly over them, and the flowers immediately bloomed as before. It was so strange and so fascinating. They were opposites in nature. One was diligently giving life to everything around them, and the other was taking it away, coldly and mercilessly. Luke suddenly wondered if anything could grow in the underworld but asphodels, whose ghostly scent he could smell on Aemond, and then realized that he had never seen them in person. Only in pictures from old books.

— Do you think I could grow something in your realm? There are different laws there, obviously, but my power would remain the same there. Would I be able to use it? I've come across passages in the diaries of our previous generations. I've read that this had happened.

Luke turned back and stared at Aemond, studying him. So simple and naive, so young. So alive. Aemond would have given a lot to feel that way just once more. The subtext lurking in his nephew's words was all too easy to detect. Fate itself was bringing them together again. Aemond didn't believe anyone was capable of loving him, and he was convinced that pure and soft Luke would simply wither away in the underworld within weeks. He wanted something different for Luke, something better. Just as he wanted for himself.

— Hell is alive, as strange as that sounds. It can change to suit its master. New rooms may appear at the snap of a finger in my house, fields of asphodels alternate with fields of fire. But it's all darkness and chaos, it's primordial energy, much older than us. Even if you grow something there, even if I were to allow it, it would die soon. Don't get your hopes up, Lucerys. You should stay on the surface, here, with your family. Keep the others happy, keep the soil alive after the winter. It's better for both of us.

Aemond's cool fingers gently touched Luke's collarbone, tracing the ruby pendant, and instinctively gave him the creeps. Luke felt like taking a step back, but he forced himself to stay where he was. All sounds instantly disappeared, as if he had gone deaf, and there was no longer the chirping of birds, no sound of the spring breeze, no sound of waves from the neighboring beach. There was only Aemond, with his emphatically perfect posture and endless hollowness in his eyes, with a smile so sad that Luke swallowed hard at the bitterness that gathered on his tongue and squeezed his eyes shut to hide the appearing tears.

The hint was so blatant that Luke could physically feel his heart breaking. He was often referred to as Rhaenyra's favorite. A spoiled child who had been bathed in attention and compliments since childhood. In fact, he often faced rejections, but this one.. This one was the worst.

The phantom touch continued to burn his neck, even when Luke opened his eyes and stumbled into the void. Maybe that outcome was to be expected. Aemond wasn't blind, and he had certainly noticed the admiration in Luke's eyes. The way Luke reached out to him and spun around, constantly trying to strike up a conversation or get a share of his attention. But Luke was young and inexperienced and deserved something better than Aemond could ever offer to him.

Part 2

[christiansorrell]

Play-By-Blog #6: The Isle by Luke Gearing

Welcome to my ongoing play-by-blog of The Isle by Luke Gearing! We are playing this adventure with its original system, The Vanilla Game (adjusted somewhat to fit the format). You can check out the Play-By-Blog Repository to get all caught up if you wish.

How Play-By-Blog works:

I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM.

You vote in the poll to help decide the character's course of action.

I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up next week.

So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!

Notation:

[Text in brackets is out-of-character/GM text!] "Non-italicized quotes denote text from the original adventure!" "Italicized quotations denotes NPC dialogue."

Our character: Medon Girou - Magic Cutpurse

Our map: The Isle

[You can use the link's above to find Medon's Character Sheet and map of the Isle. On the map, you are currently at B.]

Now, back to the adventure!

[Our first tie vote! To adjudicate this, I went through and found that the majority of folks wanted to take a violent approach focused on attacking the monk (there will be options to not necessarily kill him, if the fight goes that well) so we'll be going with Option #3: Strike Now with your Katana, cast Sticks to Snakes when you are able]

This was not the reaction you were expecting, not from a supposed man of god anyway. You look down at the slash the monk drew across your side. Its not a flesh wound... yet. For a split second, your mind is torn between two courses of action, fleeing or fighting. No, you need to fight. There's no future where fleeing gets you inside that monastery.

You draw your katana and strike out at the monk, now at the top of the stairs between you and gently rolling waves of the cove below. You slash out, slicing easily through is robes, revealing an aging set of heavy sailor clothing beneath. He barely avoids a wound, but he's on the back foot now. Even just one well-placed slash could take him down [Attack Roll: 6 - Success, below AV of 11 and above enemy AC of 2] [Damage Roll: 5 - Monk has 5 Flesh, 0 Grit remaining].

You turn and run further up the raising path leading back up towards the isle proper and the monastery beyond, hoping to position yourself for casting Sticks to Snakes, if you are able. He may not allow you that luxury. He slashes at you as you go, but misses [Free Attack Roll: 19, Failure - over AV of 10].

[Next round begins! Initiative: 2 - Even, player goes first!]

Now's your chance. You look down at the monk, still standing near the top of the stairs overlooking the cove. Small shrubs, grown in the rough patches of dirt between the rocky outcroppings, have been torn away with the recent transport of cargo. Branches and small sticks litter the path.

With your offhand, you cast Sticks to Snakes, muttering a hurried incantation and gesturing with crooked fingers at the ground below the monk. You feel the arcane power welling up inside you and traveling down your arm and off towards the monk, but something's wrong. It's too much and it's not right, not focused in the form you needed. There's just too much [Spell Roll: 10 - Failure, over ST of 8. The spell is now Corrupted.] [Miscast Roll: 3 - "You cast a random spell on your original target, in addition to your original spell."] [Random Spell: Wizard Eye].

The energy leaves you. An ethereal floating eye, visible only to you, appears immediately to the side of the man's head [Wizard Eye miscast]. In the same moment at the monk's feet, five sticks [2d6 roll of 5, 2 of which are venomous] wriggle to life, turning into living snakes. They surround the monk, following your command - to attack! Four of the snakes strike out and land their bites along his calves and ankles [Attack Rolls: 6, 2, 3, 6, 6 - 4 successes (including 2 venomous)] [Damage: 1 each for 4 total] [Saving throw versus Death (due to venom): 4 - Success, 13 - Failure]

The monk cries out in pain, beginning to kick down at the snakes before his body quickly weakens and a bloody foam forms at the side of his lips as he coughs. He yells out once more towards the monastery, weaker than before. The knife falls from his hands and he looks to flee, his dying mind panicking, but loses his strength as he goes, falling down the stairs and lying still in a dead still heap at the bottom [XP Granted: 50].

There is just the sound of the waves against the rocks and the soft slithering of snakes at your feet.

After a moment, the snakes revert back to sticks and the Wizard Eye fizzles. You head down the stairs to check the body. Other than the fishing pole, sack of worms, and fish in the bucket, the monk has little of value on him. Around his neck is a piece of twine holding an unusual iron seal, you take it. It doesn't look valuable but it looks esoteric, specific - the kind of thing the right person may want very badly or that could get you into places you would normally be barred from. Lots of stories you could cook up around why you have this seal, why you should be let into the monastery.

Beneath his robes, you find his arms and chest to be covered in tattoos, the kind commonly seen on lifelong sailors. What brought this man to this monastery and to this god? Well, perhaps he's in his heaven now, after attempting to defend this holy place.

You find some old rope along the jetty and roll down a large stone from above the cove. You tie the rock to the monk's torso, after carrying both to the furthest end of the jetty, and push the rock over the edge. With a deep crack, the monk's body whips off of the wooden slats at your feet and out and down into the sea.

You rest for some time [Grit healed: 1d6 roll of 5 - fully healed] before venturing forth. The midday sun hangs high overhead.

[This was a fun one! I lot of interesting roll results leading to some unexpected outcomes, for sure. I was going to have options to keep the monk alive and question him which would have worked when he had 1 Flesh remaining but those venomous snakes back a big, deadly bite! See y'all next week! - Christian]

[PBB #7 is up now!]

[jasontoddiefor]

A gift for @thenegoteator :D

It took a Temple to raise a child, and Mace Windu was very much aware of this. However, it did not explain what Ahsoka Tano was doing at his door in the middle of the night. Ahsoka had deep bags under her eyes, which wasn’t too much of a surprise considering the current living arrangements of her lineage. While little Luke and Leia were relatively well-behaved newborns, they were still only a few weeks old. If their human caretakers didn’t wake up at every single little whimper, then the togruta with the superior hearing certainly would.

“Do you want to come inside?” Mace asked, not letting his confusion show. He was used to people coming to his door at the oddest hours.

“If—if I can?” Ahsoka replied as if only now becoming aware of her actions. In this, she reminded Mace of her Grandmaster and the many nights Mace had found Obi-Wan coming to his doorstep during the first months of Anakin’s stay at the Temple.

“My door is always open, Padawan,” Mace said – and watched her wince.

Ah.

So there was the problem.

“Caleb is currently sleeping in my bed as Depa is away,” Mace explained. “So please keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake him unnecessarily.”

The boy had already had a hellish enough month behind him, he needed all the rest he could get. Even though the war was officially over, enough planets refused to surrender, drawing out the battles until they had nothing but children left to sacrifice. It weighed on Mace’s shoulders, making him wonder whether he wasn’t too old to carry such burdens still.

Ahsoka nodded and followed Mace inside. He couldn’t recall whether Ahsoka had been in his room before, but from the way she eagerly looked around his quarters, taking in the sight of old instruments, books, and holos, he guessed she hadn’t. Well, at one point in their life, every Jedi had set a foot inside Mace’s quarters, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Ahsoka tore herself away from the sight and looked at him with surprise. “I—yes? That would be nice.”

“Then I will make a cup. Do you have any preferences? I believe I even have Obi-Wan’s favorite blend here.”

Mace had no idea whether he had bought it or if Obi-Wan had just left it here from himself when he came over. Knowing the other man, it was likely that the latter was the case. For a man claiming to be so very polite, Obi-Wan could be a right brat.

Mace’s kitchen was small, with only a few cabinets and one shelf, two cooking tiles, and an oven. He wasn’t much of a cook himself and preferred to eat in the cafeteria with everyone, frequently taste-tasting what the Initiates had prepared. He selected two uneven cups Depa had made for him when she’d been young from the shelf. Why she had decided to pick up pottery of all hobbies was beside him, but he supposed that she found the motion soothing. Devan did enjoy parkouring through the lower levels and Echuu was quite content playing the guitar to calm himself.

Perhaps Mace should focus less on why all three of his Padawans had decided they wouldn’t follow him into theatre so they could continue to make fun of him. Setting the water to boil, Mace searched through his cabinets until he found Obi-Wan’s favorite blend. The fruity tea was far from the blend he preferred, but Mace prided himself on being a good host. While he waited for the tea to finish steeping, Mace enjoyed the quiet of the night. For all that there were few sounds as dear to him as that of people walking, or in the case of some younglings and few selected Knights, running, down their large hallways, Mace could appreciate the quiet when the world came to rest.

With two finished cups in hand, he returned to the living room, where he found Ahsoka curled up on the sofa, no longer studying his quarters for any hidden secrets.

“Thank you,” she said when she accepted the cup from him. She held it in her hands as if to warm them, letting the steam hit her face. She breathed in once, twice, finding her rhythm again. Mace waited until she’d calmed enough to speak up.

“What brings you to my door, Padawan Tano?”

Ahsoka flinched and appeared to make herself even smaller as if attempting to vanish. When it became apparent that it didn’t work, that silence hadn’t been what she had sought him out for, she let out a sigh. “You keep calling that.”

“Calling you what?” Mace asked, his brow raised, playing oblivious.

“… Padawan.”

“Are you not? I was under the impression that you had returned to the Temple.”

“I did, but I still left,” Ahsoka replied. “I left and I was convinced that I had to leave and that it was good that I did. I still think I had to leave the Temple behind.”

“Then why are you torn?”

Ahsoka’s hold on her cup tightened and so, perhaps in wise anticipation, she set it on the table and buried her hands in her robes instead, hiding their twitching from view. Mace could trace all her mannerisms to her teachers and couldn’t imagine what it must be like to purposefully rip all those pieces from yourself when they had become so ingrained in your very being. Even Dooku, who’d fallen so far from their beliefs, had been unable to fully rid himself of Yoda’s lessons. Maybe it was for the best. Hope had become a scarce commodity during the war, yet Mace considered the possibility that in a decade, they wouldn’t be imprisoning a Sith anymore.

“But am I still a Padawan? A member of this Order?” Ahsoka asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she shook like the leaves on the trees in the courtyard.

“Has your Master told you anything different?”

Ahsoka paused. “…. No.”

Seeing that realization was settling within her, Mace nodded. “Then you should not doubt him. You are a Jedi, Ahsoka Tano, and you will remain one as long as you live by our tenets.”

That teased a startled laugh from her. “Compassion for all except people who cheat at push-n-pull?”

As if transported back ten years, hearing Anakin say the same, Mace snorted. “The similarities between you and your Master astonish me every time. Yes, Padawan Tano, compassion for all.”

This seemed to calm the youth as she reached for her cup again and emptied it slowly. “It’s good.”

Mace smiled into his own cup. “I’d be insulted if it wasn’t. Obi-Wan forced me to memorize all the steps for making it.”

The then young Knight had been frazzled, and Mace honestly couldn’t tell what it had been about and had forced Mace to learn how to make this tea until he’d more or less collapsed on Mace’s sofa, completely knocked out until morning when Anakin had picked him up.

“He does do that,” Ahsoka agreed. “I think this is the only thing anyone can make reliably now.”

“Sleep-deprived much?” Mace inquired.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe. I love Luke and Leia dearly, but they are demanding and need a lot of attention.”

That was honestly kinder than Mace would have described newborns at her age.

“There is a reason why we usually don’t have children this young in the Temple,” Mace said. “They are very handful. Do you get enlisted to help very often?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No, Obi-Wan, Skyguy, and Padmé got it covered, and I’m mostly just helping out somewhere else.”

She trailed off a little. This, perhaps, was another issue, but one that could be equally easily dealt with.

“Thank you then for going where you are needed,” Mace told her.

Ahsoka blinked. “Huh?”

“You will grow into a specific role someday, Ahsoka, and that needs time. Do not feel as if you need to earn back your place in the Temple. You don’t need to earn yourself a home you have always had. For now, trust me when I say that everyone you’ve helped is glad that you were there. It is an admirable quality to have a sense of where you are needed. Do not see it as being the odd one out.”

This was the hardest lesson to teach and learn, the fact that there was a path out there for you, but that it took time to see where it would lead. Too many of their Padawans now felt utterly lost without the structure the war had provided them with.

“Oh. I guess if you say so.”

“Yes, I do say so,” Mace agreed. Then, eyeing Ahsoka’s empty cup, he added on, “do you want another?”

“No.” Ahsoka yawned. “I think I might best head back.”

“You can also sleep here if you want, and don’t mind Caleb hogging the blanket. I won’t go to bed tonight anyway.”

Ahsoka squinted at him as if attempting to discern whether he was lying. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really—”

“Ahsoka, go to bed.”

Clearly feeling better already, she saluted and, after Mace showed her his bedroom, made herself comfortable in it. She took off her shoes and tossed her robe over a chair before climbing into the bed. Ahsoka had barely laid down when Caleb already turned around to curl around her, clinging like a little monkey. After a moment’s apprehension, she relaxed and was fast asleep. Stealing one last glance at the two Padawan, Mace returned to his living room, looking through the incoming reports.

Hectic as the aftermath of the war was, as much effort as caring for their children was, Mace wouldn’t trade it for a single thing in the world.

[astaroth1357]

The MC Accidentally Kisses the Brothers

Due to incredibly popular demand (and because it’s a cute prompt).

Lucifer

It was just a childish prank, but pretty much all of Satan’s pranks were childish at their core (even the more homicidal ones).

This one wasn’t even that bad in the grand scheme of things. The angry boi was just trying to see if he could get Lucifer to fall down the stairs...

...admittedly, saying it out loud makes it sound much more cruel than intended. But this is Lucifer we’re talking about. A tumble down a flight or two wouldn’t leave him too injured… Unfortunately for Satan, he wasn’t the only one who took a tumbling.

The plan was pretty simple, put an enchantment on the stairs to the Conference Hall, lay in wait, and trigger it right as Lucifer was leaving a meeting. He’s always the last to go, so it should have been foolproof.

But the MC hung back to leave with Lucifer that day and just so happened to jump forward right as Satan was timing his step… getting themselves thrown down along with him.

Fortunately for them both, the firstborn’s reflexes were astounding. He was already holding the MC in his demon form and cushioning their fall before they could even hit the first stair. And it was quite a long way down…

By the time they hit the bottom, Lucifer had them fully wrapped up in his wings and Satan couldn’t what had happened until they unfolded… whereupon he saw the MC laying on top of Lucifer with their lips far FAR too close together for his liking…

Yeah, that backfired pretty hard and Satan was left fuming over it for days… Not that Lucifer minded in the slightest.

Mammon

Sometimes when Mammon does his photoshoots he brings the MC along as one part cheerleader, one part pit crew. It’ll be their job to hold onto his stuff, make sure he has enough to drink, and generally stand there and be impressed by his awesomeness until they leave.

Well that day things had been going well… until a particularly nosy worker started hovering around the MC too much for Mammon’s liking.

He tried to put it past him, since he had a shoot to do and all, but he snapped about halfway through when the guy kept trying to force a conversation with the very not interested MC.

Oh, he was ready to tell him off. He made the photographer stop mid-shoot just so he could march over there himself and give that asshole a piece of his mind! He was going to absolutely tear him to shreds and then-!!

Okay, that didn’t exactly happen because right as he got up to the MC, ready to start shouting, our lovable moron tripped… again…

But unlike the first time, where he more or less face-planted the floor, this time he smacked lips first into a surprised MC in front of the jerk he was trying to scare off.

… Yeah. He meant to do that.

And that’s exactly how he played it off, keeping his lips right where they were and flipping the other guy off so he’d leave them alone (which, thankfully, he did).

Totally what he intended to do and he'll swear so to this day.

Leviathan

… how in the world do you mess up the Kabedon?

Levi had seen the move done hundreds of times before in anime. It’s a very simple concept: put someone up against a wall, put one of your hands by their head, and just lean. That’s it. Not rocket science.

Levi had been mentally preparing himself for this moment for days… He may or may not have even practiced this (very simple) move in his room countless times. He genuinely thought he was ready to try it on the MC.

So, on one of those rare days he went to RAD, he gave it a shot. He waited until he and the MC were walking alone together, got them up against the wall, annnnd…

...rather than touching the wall next to them, his hand completely missed any sort of hard surface because in his panic he stopped them right next to a blind corner…

Naturally, his body fell forward some but since there wasn’t that much space between them by that point he uh… he… well he now knows their preferred Chapstick.

No matter what the MC’s reaction ultimately was, he leapt away from them like he just licked an electric fence and bolted.

His embarrassment genuinely cannot be overstated... He practically broke a window in his attempt to get the hell out of there and back to his room, where he didn’t leave for three days straight… Poor Levi...

Satan

It started out as easily one of the best days of his life. 

The MC, the exchange students, and the Royal Court had all decided to surprise him on his birthday with a Devildom-style cat cafe… Kitties were on practically every surface around him! 

Admittedly, Satan had been pretty distracted throughout most of his time there. There were just so many kitties for him to see that he sort of forgot about the MC in the process…

So in order to get his attention a little, the MC thought it would be cute to pick up one of the furry bundles and hold it in front of their face, doing that little thing where you pretended to “talk” for the cat and even waved one of its little paws at him.

They hadn’t predicted that Satan would find the display utterly, heart-meltingly adorable...

He attempted to plant a kiss on top of the furry critter’s head at the exact time that the MC brought the cat down their face entirely.

It took Satan a second or two to register that his lips were not, in fact, on a cat. And when he pulled back to see the MC’s shocked expression, the full gravity of his actions smacked him in the face like a falling log…

Cue a flustered rush to apologize while the MC hid their face back behind the confused kitty… Getting an accidental kiss in front of the prince of Hell and literal angels was pretty dang embarrassing...

At least the incident was taken in good spirits by most of the people in attendance (minus Luke, who was desperately trying to give MC his bottle of holy water like it was pepper spray by that point). 

Though after that point, Satan noticed that his “guests” kept passive-aggressively giving him cats until he was literally so buried in fluff he could barely move… probably not related, though. Probably.

Asmodeus 

It was another party night with Asmo and the MC at the Fall having a good time.

Now, Asmo was no stranger to Demonus and other assorted demonic beverages. You could say his tolerance is decent enough, but get a few too many in him and he does start to get a little off…

And a drunk Asmo is a very troublesome Asmo. 

The MC, bless their heart, was pretty much playing the sober babysitter to their demon friend when Asmo decided that he HAD to leave the club and get cupcakes right then. Being the good person they were, MC agreed to go with him, as long as he promised to stay with them and not wander off…

But they somehow managed to lose him within three blocks from the club. All they did was check their phone for directions and the guy bailed!!

Little did the MC know, while they were frantically searching for him Asmo hadn’t run away completely… He had just decided it was a great idea to play hide-and-seek at 2am and hid behind a nearby building.

It was his drunken giggling that eventually gave away his position, but he jumped out from behind the corner right as the MC was rounding it. Naturally, they both to collided. If hugging hadn’t been an instinctual action to Asmo by they point, they would have fallen down…

All they did ended up doing instead was getting caught in lip-lock due to Asmo’s sudden vice-grip.

Apparently he laughed and laughed all the way back to the House but his memory of it is pretty hazy… He’ll just have to get the MC to reenact it with him a few dozen times, that ought to jog his memory!

Beelzebub 

The MC was helping Beel out with his workout yet again and things had been going well.

Since Beel is pretty much a one-man army, his weights and routine are usually waaay too advanced for any human to be able to handle. So the MC is less his spotter and more a casual supporter/motivator than anything else.

And motivation was just what they were trying to provide with a fun little experiment of theirs… 

Ever heard of the “carrot-on-the-stick”? Well they decided to try something like that… literally. Just replace the carrot with a roast ham!

They put ham on a fishing pole, set Beel up on a treadmill, and dangled it closer or farther away based on his speed. In theory, it wasn’t the worst idea in the world... but in practice…? 

Well. Someone should have told them not to stand in front of him during this little trial...

Their motivation experiment did work for a few minutes… But soon enough Beel’s stomach got the better of his (marginal) self-control. They just weren’t expecting him to leap over the top of the treadmill...!

The smart thing to do would have been to drop the fishing pole or to just keep it still so Beel could grab the meat, but the MC reflexively drew the pole back behind them… thus putting them right in Beel’s path instead.

And that’s how they ended up caged under lord knows how many pounds of Beelzebub, thankfully kissing their lips rather than trying to chew them off…

Needless to say, Beel climbed off of them, red as a cherry, and the MC let him have that ham before the two agreed to never try this again. Whoopsie!

Belphegor 

Belphie likes sleep. 

Belphie likes cuddles. 

Belphie likes cuddling in his sleep.

Really this was bound to happen eventually…

The MC and Belphie were having a nice nap together in the attic and there wasn’t anything nefarious about it. Just two people snuggled up together in the same bed.

...snuggled up very close together in the same bed.

So close, in fact, that when the MC finally woke up and rolled over some to reposition themselves, they felt the soft lips of their companion brush up against their own.

They, of course, had the appropriate reaction of shock and embarrassment to this… but this cheeky fucker just smirked at them and let one eye slip open.

“What…? Is that it? It’ll take more than that to wake me up…”

Never mind the fact he was awake the whole time...

He really should have expected that pillow to the head, but after they struck the first blow, it was on now.

Don't worry. As it would turn out, an impromptu pillow fight also wakes him up just fine. Who'd have guessed?

[firelxdykatara]

ppl love to forget that katara: 1. has her own taste, 2. developed around aang, he needed her for his development and vice versa, 3. ZUTARA IS SHIP BETWEEN AN OPPRESOR X OPPRESSED!!! Ignoring all of the development they had with their respective partners and the trauma Zuko caused Katara!!

In the infamous words of one Luke Skywalker: amazing. every word of what you just said was wrong.

It’s actually kind of ironic that you bring up Katara’s taste, since, throughout the show, we have examples of the guys she likes, to greater or lesser extents in canon--Jet (explicit romantic feelings on her part, word of god that jet was her first kiss--a kiss that would have been consensual, incidentally, something you should keep in mind for later) and Haru (she denies the crush, but that could just as easily have been because of the abomination he’d been growing on his lip rather than denying those feelings ever existed), both of whom have much more in common (in terms of both emotional and physical maturity, and physical appearance) with Zuko than either of them has with Aang.

Zuko’s book 3 hairstyle is almost exactly reminiscent of Jet’s, even, if not quite as floofy.

(This is probably in part because of Jet’s function as a foil of Zuko within the narrative, particularly given their book 2 encounters, which I think just further solidifies my point that, were it not for extenuating circumstances [like the fact that Zuko was introduced as an enemy and they had significant obstacles to hurdle before they could be friends], Zuko would have been exactly Katara’s type. Had they met under different circumstances, she could have been the girl he went on a date with in Ba Sing Se. Just something to think about.)

So, yes, we’ve established that Katara has her own taste. Her tastes seem to be boys with great hair who are taller than her, the same age or older, and of a similar maturity level.

Aang falls short (heh, short) on all counts. So it isn’t Katara’s taste in boys that led her to be interested in him. Hm!

Next, you claim that Katara ‘developed around Aang’--that she was necessary for his development, and that he was necessary for hers.

Let’s take a moment to examine that, shall we?

I will absolutely grant you that Katara was necessary for Aang’s development--only to a point, of course, but we’ll get to that later--but was he really necessary for Katara‘s growth? I suppose I could grant you this on a generous technicality--he did, after all, provide her with the means to finally leave the South Pole and find a waterbending master to teach her (although she wound up largely self-taught anyway). But that had nothing to do with his relationship to Katara and everything to do with the structure of the plot--Katara and Sokka find Aang (and he never would have gotten out of that iceberg without Katara’s own righteous anger, so even that leads back to her own power), and then they go on a quest to find teachers for the Chosen One and save the world.

The story could not have begun without first finding Aang and then providing means for the other main characters to travel with him (or, in Zuko’s case, chase him), but this has nothing at all to do with Aang’s relationship to Katara. Aang was not a mover in Katara’s developmental arc--if anything, he acted as an obstacle more often than not, his actions ranging from innocent but obnoxious (playing and flirting with girls rather than helping with chores like picking up vital supplies, leaving Katara to do all of the quite literal heavy lifting and keeping her stuck in the role of caretaker that she’d been thrust into following the death of her mother), to deliberate and harmful (hiding the map to Katara and Sokka’s father, a truly selfish action, regardless of his lack of malicious intent, and one for which he never actually apologized), to somewhere in between (”she didn’t really mean that” he says to the man refusing to train Katara because she’s a girl, when yes, she very much did mean that, and Aang was no help in finally getting the old codger to eat his words--Katara had to shove them down his throat her own damn self).

While Katara’s overall arc wasn’t exactly big and dynamic (like Zuko’s redemption arc), or in-your-face (like Sokka getting force-fed Respect Women Juice and his eventual growth into a tactician and leader), it was very much present and woven into her character--and Aang had almost no part in it. He provided her with the means to get to the North Pole, but left Katara alone to fight the patriarchy herself. He messed around while Katara took it on herself to do the chores and keep the Gaang alive, but he did almost nothing to decrease that burden so she could grow out of the caretaker role. (Contrary to popular shipper claims, Aang didn’t actually teach Katara to have fun. She already knew how to have fun. But she couldn’t indulge, because she had a responsibility to her family and her tribe, and later to her brother and Aang and Toph, and Aang goofing off and trying to get her to do the same only added to her burdens rather than subtracting from them.) He provided Katara with the necessary motive to learn to heal herself, but he certainly didn’t seem to learn from the experience of accidentally burning her, preferring instead to claim he was never going to firebend again, despite already knowing, at that point, that he was going to need to master fire along with the other elements to become a fully realized Avatar and defeat the Firelord.

He didn’t help Katara keep them alive during The Desert. (In fact, he ran off, leaving her to desperately try to keep Sokka and Toph from succumbing to the heat while worrying for his safety.) In The Painted Lady, Katara makes the decision to stall the Gaang and do what she can to help the Fire Nation villagers on her own--Aang agrees to help her when he finds out, but he wasn’t actually instrumental in her making that choice. The Puppetmaster was, again, Katara finding a master of her own, and having to deal with the fallout from that. And in The Southern Raiders, Aang was--perhaps unknowingly, if I’m being generous, because he is a child and could not reasonably be expected to fully understand the implications of what he was asking her to do or why it was impossible--actively impeding Katara’s development! She desperately needed closure, something he could not understand and actively belittled and dismissed. The only reason he relented in the end (but not without a condescending ‘I forgive you! Does that give you any ideas???’ parting shot lmao) was because Katara was planning to take Appa anyway, and letting her go (and hoping she’d just magically wind up doing things his way) was easier than trying to fight her on it.

While Aang’s existence was necessary for Katara to start down her own path, she needed neither his guidance nor his approval to follow it--and absolutely nothing would change about Katara’s arc if you removed their romantic relationship entirely.

Possibly because the only changes needed to do so would be to remove the two times Aang kissed Katara without her consent (which, hopefully, no one would actually miss), and the epilogue kiss (which was awkward and unnecessary to begin with, since ending the entire show on a romantic kiss as the final shot kind of missed the point of the story to begin with, but that’s another discussion). None of these kisses (which are the only moments in which Katara’s feelings for Aang are so much as addressed; do note that addressing them, or hinting that they needed to be, is not the same as saying she exhibited any sign of reciprocating them) altered anything about Katara’s behavior, her personal arc, or (and perhaps most critically) her relationship with Aang.

It’s that last point that is really damning, as far as ‘Katara obviously had feelings for Aang, she kissed him in the finale!’ goes. Because she didn’t ‘obviously’ have feelings for him. And the fact that he kissed her before the invasion and then she forgot about it (she literally had no idea what he was talking about during the play’s intermission until he reminded her that he’d kissed her) is pretty clear evidence that she didn’t actually have feelings for him. Not the kind he had for her.

I’ve been a teenage girl. I know what it’s like to be surprise!kissed by your crush. And I absolutely for a full fact know that I had not completely forgotten about that kiss three months later and had, in fact, spent most of my waking hours thinking about it and remembering it and trying to talk to him about it. Now, granted, I was not in the middle of a war, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have needed reminding about the fact that the boy I’ve supposedly been developing feelings for had kissed me and showed clearly that he had those feelings for me too.

At the very least, if Katara was harboring feelings that she was worried about approaching until after the war, her relationship dynamic with Aang should have shifted. But it didn’t. She acted the exact same way with him after the Day of Black Sun as she did before it--that is, as a mother figure and a caretaker, responsible for his wellbeing. (And it’s clear she never took him down off the pedestal she needed him to occupy, either--let it not be said that the unhealthy aspects of their relationship only went one way.)

And book 3 is, incidentally, where Katara went from being vital to Aang’s development to being detrimental to it--or, rather, Aang’s refusal to let go of his attachment to her (despite ostensibly having done as much at the end of book 2) was. Because despite having been told by, perhaps, the greatest authority left in the world on Air Nomad culture (even more than Aang, who had left his temple with a child’s understanding of his culture that was never able to mature because he got stuck in the ice berg while his people were wiped out) that he had to let go of his possessive attachment to this girl who never even expressed the possibility that she might harbor romantic feelings for him to begin with, after Azula killed him and Katara brought him back, he went right back into the mindset of Katara is mine, it’s just a matter of time.

And the narrative validated him for it.

Notice how, during Ember Island Players, Aang says the following (emphasis mine):

“We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.”

First of all, if you go back and watch the scene, it’s clear it wasn’t a mutual kiss. Aang sprang a surprise kiss on Katara, which left her shocked and unhappy after he flew off. (The decision to have her looking away and frowning was a deliberate one on the part of Bryke, who wanted Katara’s feelings kept ambiguous. Heaven forbid you allow the animators to make it clear that this fourteen-year-old girl who was just kissed without her consent by someone she’d never once demonstrated romantic feelings toward might actually have some. Heaven forbid she have a little agency in her own romantic narrative. But whatever.)

Second, he says he thought they were gonna be together.

He thought.

He never once even asked Katara what she thought--or even how she felt. He just assumes. He assumes that if he kisses her, she’ll kiss him back and they’ll get together. He assumes that she must have feelings for him, even though her body language is closed off and she told him with her words that she did not want to talk or think about this right now, and kisses her regardless of those signals, upsetting her and leading her to storm off.

And the narrative rewards him, because despite the fact that they don’t have a single significant scene together after that second disastrous kiss, Katara just decides off-screen that she Does Love Him Really and walks onto the balcony to make out with him.

The upshot of all this being that, while Katara was indeed instrumental to a lot of Aang’s early growth and development, Aang was not necessary for her own arc, and their romantic relationship (such as it was) actively hampered Aang’s development in book 3, while removing it would change absolutely nothing for Katara (except saving her from some painfully embarrassing memories).

As far as your third point, I’m simply not going to get baited into explaining how reducing Zutara to an ‘oppressor/oppressed’ relationship is not only insulting to interracial couples irl (not to mention any other couple with a potentially unbalanced dynamic of societal power, since there are many more axis of oppression than just racial), but demeaning to Zuko and Katara, their personal arcs as well as their relationship development together.

However, I will point out that Zuko was not responsible for any of Katara’s trauma. She did not find violence and fighting in bending battles to be traumatic--in fact, she reveled in it. She enjoyed fighting against Zuko at multiple points (especially noticeable in their battle at the end of book 1), because she wanted to fight--she always had--and once she had the ability, she was ready to throw down with anyone who gave her the slightest reason. (Including, by the way, her own potential waterbending master.) Aang’s death at the end of book 2 was Azula’s doing, and while I think that contributed to Katara’s extreme reaction to Zuko joining the gaang, it was not something for which she actively blamed him, and it wasn’t something she believed would be repeated--she let him go off alone on a journey to find the original firebending masters with Aang well before she chose to forgive him. So she already trusted Zuko’s intentions and that Aang would be safe with him.

Finally, because this has gotten long enough already, I hope you now understand that Zuko and Katara getting together would not require ignoring any of their development with their canonical romantic partners. We’ve already established that Katara’s arc wouldn’t change in the slightest if all of Aang’s romantic advances were removed, and I haven’t even gotten into how Mai meant nothing in the grand scheme of Zuko’s development because I’m pretty sure that’s just self-evident. I mean, the video compilation put together by Nick showcasing Zuko’s journey throughout the series doesn’t include a single scene with Mai, though it does include several with Katara, and even Jin makes an appearance--because Katara, and even Jin, played key roles in Zuko’s personal journey, while his relationship with Mai happened entirely off-screen and her only real function was to showcase just how unhealthy trying to force himself back into the role of the Crown Prince was for him.

What development, exactly, is there between them to even ignore?

At any rate, I’ve gone on long enough--I hope you enjoy the fact that you activated my wordvomit trap card right when i was about to go to bed, anon, because I just spent two hours writing this instead. In case you’re interested in the TL;DR: at the end of the day, there was no meaningful, mutual development in Kataang’s romantic relationship, and those romantic feelings that did exist were largely one-sided and ultimately detrimental to Aang’s development in the final third of his overall arc. Meanwhile, Mai meant nothing to Zuko’s journey--rather like Aang’s romantic overtures, she could be removed from the show completely and nothing about his story would change--while Zuko and Katara were both vital to each other’s overall storylines, arcs and development. This, coupled with the fact that Zuko never actually traumatized Katara and, in fact, helped her achieve closure from the biggest source of her own trauma, means that Zuko and Katara have better and more believable build up that could potentially lead to a romantic relationship than either of them have with their canon romantic partners.

So no, anon, I didn’t forget anything--I think you may have, though. Perhaps a rewatch is in order? Make sure not to close your eyes for the back half of book 3 this time.

[blush-and-books]

always you-shaped thoughts inside my head

so, we found wonderland, the amazing fanfic by @pink-flame ended this week. as a result of my deep and sorrowful mourning, i wrote a fanfic for a fucking fanfic. yes, everyone, we have reached that point. so if you’re one of the unfortunate souls who hasn’t read it then you can start here and do not read this if you don’t want spoilers babes!!!!

anyways, i don’t want to talk about how much i cried when i wrote this. moving on. title from find u again by mark ronson ft. camila cabello and once again THANK YOU @pink-flame FOR THIS WORK, I LOVED IT, I LOVE YOU, ENJOY

A/N: the first part of this is a reimagining of a scene from the story, and the second part is more of a deleted scene. grab tissues if you’re one who cries easily. also tagging @bluefirewrites because i kept texting you while writing this

Julie doesn’t know in what timeline she thought that going to the bookstore would be a good idea. 

Even with her back flat against the wall and Luke’s book clutched identically between her hands and the palms of every other eager fan in the room, she felt like she was too close. Like this was a mistake.

She was the one who insisted they don’t look for each other. 

But here they were. Him, with a poem that crossed time with the silent, lost plea for her to come back to him; her, who chose to answer the call even if she knew she shouldn’t have. Julie should have realized that she couldn’t avoid him forever. Their paths were meant to cross in every universe. 

When he takes the stage, she doesn’t shatter. Yet. 

People are swamped beside her and Flynn on all sides, and she still feels like it’s just the two of them. Once he’s in her line of sight, it’s only him in the room, only him that exists. 

In a world where she’s jumped to and from across time, Luke may be the most real thing she’s ever known. 

The words he says as he reads and answers questions hit her ears as just a series of tones and syllables that are achingly familiar. He’s laughing through one of the book’s anecdotes and suddenly she’s back in the arcade, laughing with him at the pinball machine. He’s talking about the rush of playing their first sold-out show, and she’s back in the greenroom as he heatedly kisses her up against a wall after she spent so much time fighting for him to love her again. 

He’s reading about his parents, and she’s back on that pull-out couch that was only comfy when he was in it; listening to him whisper about their fragmented relationship. 

But then a 20-year-old pokes him about the poem. And he says he loves her -- well, not explicitly, but he says it’s about love -- and the other shoe drops. 

Tears inundate her eyes. 

“I have to go,” her voice shakes as a sob threatens to rip through her words. Flynn offers to join, but Julie needs fresh air and to be alone and to just let her tears fall onto the asphalt of an alleyway without feeling the need to explain herself. She will always be alone in these emotions, in this heartbreak, and that’s okay -- she just doesn’t want anyone to act like they get it.

So she passes her book to Flynn, urges her to get it signed, and flees out the side door. 

Right before she’s out, the 20-year-old presses on about Find Me: “Well, what if they came to you now? What if they found you? Wouldn’t you be happy to see them?”

The exit slams shut behind her and she doesn’t get to hear his answer. 

--

“Well, what if they came to you now? What if they found you? Wouldn’t you be happy to see them?”

Flynn watches intently as Luke’s eyes darken. The book feels heavy in her hands, and she feels like she is suddenly intruding on an intimate moment between Luke and Julie -- even with Julie gone. 

She didn’t always understand what happened with her best friend. But this was clearly a mind, body and soul situation. 

Luke has to clear his throat and blink rapidly before answering. “God, sorry, that one caught me a little!” The audience chuckles. “No one’s asked me that so far on this tour. That’s a good question. I probably think about it more than I should, but… I mean, first of all, they wouldn’t come and find me. I know them well enough to know that Find Me just… Went out into the universe with no expectation of a response. But if they decided too, I… I’d wanna make sure they were happy. And I’d probably thank them one more time for everything they did when I was younger. I would probably be in shock, honestly. I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

Flynn is wiping her nose with a stray tissue from her purse before she can even register that she’s started crying. 

The random people in the back row with her send her strange looks, wondering why she’s getting so emotional, but hearing Luke talk about her best friend like that… 

“Do you still love them?”

God, this person won’t give him a break!

The rockstar visibly tenses up, and the easy grin plastered on his face breaks. That’s when his manager hustles onstage and announces that they are going to start the signing; and everyone needs to start lining up. 

Flynn has to fight to get farther up in line, but it’s worth it when she reaches him.

“Hi,” he smiles, “who should I make it out to?”

The word makes her tongue feel like lead. “Julie.”

His head snaps up, and he’s fully looking at her for the first time. There are a thousand Julie’s in the world, but he knows it’s his. 

“I’m her best friend,” Flynn continues, shifting her teary eyes down to her converse because fuck Julie wasn’t kidding when she said his eyes were intense sometimes. 

“Flynn.”

“Oh... She told you-”

“Where is she? Is she here?”

She’s not even looking at him, but he sounds so desperate, and the water in her eyes swells as she glances at the exit off to her side. “Not right now. But she wanted me to get this signed for her.”

Luke’s Sharpie doesn’t move across the inside cover. In fact, he’s frozen; staring off in the distance with what Flynn is sure must be a whirlwind of emotion that he didn’t ask for. Flynn isn’t sure how to handle it -- they’re in public, and she’s minorly concerned she just sent him spiraling, and they don’t even know each other -- but she feels the need to relay a message since he’ll never get to hear it from Julie himself. 

“She…” Luke looks back up at her; eyes boring into hers in a way that could tug the truth out of anybody. As she blinks, an enthusiastic tear drops onto her cheek, and she instantly lifts her index finger under her eye to catch anything else. “Fuck, my eyeliner. Sorry. Anyways-”

The words get caught in her throat again, so she has to take another deep breath. Helping star-crossed lovers communicate when they are almost thirty years apart is more emotionally taxing than she anticipated. 

“She’s really proud of you,” Flynn finally manages with a voice squeakier and higher than she ever wants to hear it again. Another tear falls from her other eye. “She loves y- your music, and hopes that you have everything you wanted and she’s so proud of you for everything you’ve built.”

At this point, the crumpled tissue in her hand has been helping her dry her eyes because standing in front of Luke Patterson and trying to tell him that the love of his life still cares -- still watches from afar, still wants the world for him -- is making her realize the emotional turmoil that Julie must have been feeling all this time. 

How did she do it?

In front of her, Luke is rubbing his hands over his face and audibly takes a deep, sniffly breath in. Turning to the same woman who got onstage to transition the event before, he informs her: “I need to get some air.”

“Luke, where are you-”

But he’s already forcefully pushing himself back in his chair, grasping the book off of the signing table, and darting out the same exit that Julie stormed through ten minutes ago. 

When the manager turns to look at Flynn -- she bolts away and towards the front entrance. If Julie and Luke are about to meet in that alleyway, she doesn’t want to intrude. Even if she already fucked up both of their plans to never see each other again. 

--

Julie is still hyperventilating and sobbing in the alleyway when the emergency exit loudly flings open against the wall of the bookstore. Her arms are wrapped tightly around herself with a childish prayer to have Teddy Luke in her arms, because at least then there would be a little piece of him to stay with her when the rest of him is gone.

She’s expecting Flynn, or an employee on their smoke break, but not-

“Luke.”

“Julie.”

A whimper leaves her lips at hearing him say her name for the first time in so long. His own eyes are glassy, and even though he’s so much older his eyes are still the same. He’s still her Luke, and that’s such a dangerous idea to touch in this timeline but she can’t let it go. 

“I’m so sorry,” she wails, trying to avoid looking at his heartbroken expression for too long. “I know, I said we can’t do this, I just-”

“Julie.”

“Did you want me to find you?”

Air puffs from his mouth in a harsh sigh as he takes a few steps closer to her; incredulously focused on the fact that she’s there, in front of him, real. “I- Of course, of course I did, Julie. I just didn’t think you’d come. But I wanted you to know I was looking.”

Her eyelids fall shut. More tears are pushed out, and she doesn’t know if she’s crying or laughing because of course Luke would look even when she told him not to. He respected her, and he respected her wishes, but he could never help himself from pushing the boundaries. 

Achingly, she’s always been so grateful for that trait in him. 

But now the two of them are awkwardly standing only a few feet away, and the urge to just feel him, assure that he’s solid in front of her is becoming all too real. 

Gravel rolls under the soles of her shoes. “I loved the book,” she confesses. “All of the stories. I mean, I’m sorry about the- About your splits-”

“I shouldn’t have even tried with them-”

“But everything else, just…”

How does she say it?

“When- Back when, in the other timeline, and you guys were ghosts… Those stories were the kind of thing you had always wanted. You were so determined to get it, and-” She sniffles. “I’m so glad you got it.”

His lips turn downward. It’s a flash of the familiarly frustrated Luke who is trying to make a tough decision, but in this case, she doesn’t know what that decision is. All she sees is the wince at her saying it was what he wanted, and how happy she was that he got it, and-

A conceited part of her contemplates if he’s about to correct her, tell her that life hasn’t been great, say that he would have rather had it differently; but he doesn’t want her to think her sacrifice was for nothing. 

Oh, God, please say he’s happy. She doesn’t think she could handle anything less. 

“It’s thanks to you,” he responds instead, gulping down any more that threatens to come up. “You saved me.” Beat. “Are- Are you happy? Is everything in this timeline okay?”

Well, in her head, not exactly. Of course she still had her dad and brother and Flynn, but Sunset Curve never stayed together, she erased Carrie’s entire existence, and everything felt just a little tilted on its axis. Julie felt like a stranger in a world of her own creation. 

She yearned for the days back in Wonderland where everyone belonged. They were a little scarred and a little broken, but they were home. Her house from the original 2020 timeline was her home. Luke was her home, and he was right in front of her; the only security blanket she has right now. 

Once again, she finds herself bursting into tears and wanting so badly to reach out to him, to give him a hug and tell him she wishes that she stayed in bed in Wonderland with him forever. She wants to jump back down the black hole and go back to 1995 when things made more sense than they did now and Luke could be hers again; and not a distant love that could never materialize in the present. 

Julie, miraculously, holds herself back. But watching Luke’s hands flinch at the sight of her crying doesn’t make things easier. 

“Please don’t cry.” His voice is a whisper but the words hit with a force that almost buckles her knees. “Julie, please, take a deep breath.”

She takes in a breath that makes her lungs expand into her ribs. “I’m happy,” she lies through her teeth as she breathes out slowly. “I’m happy. We’re happy.”

“Good.” 

Tears are running down his face. She recalls a time where it was easy for her to hold his face and swipe under his eyes with her thumbs until there were no more tears for her to kiss away. 

In unison, they clear their throats and shift their eyes. The air changes; they know they’re in a public place again, and Luke is an adult musician, and he’s with a fan. He holds his hand up, the one that has the book, and shakes it a little back and forth. 

“Flynn said you wanted this signed?”

A watery smile blooms on her face in spite of the bitter moment. “Yeah,” she nods. “Thought it could be another memento.”

To put emphasis on the idea, she lifts up onto her tiptoes and tilts her voice up. Make it a more positive moment. Don’t dwell. Stop crying. 

You can’t change things now. 

Luke pops the cap off with his teeth, and toys around with it in his mouth like it’s one of his marked-up guitar picks as he holds the book open and scribbles something (probably illegible) on the inside of the front cover. 

Then, once he’s done there, he starts flipping the pages around like he knows where every detail of the story is and marks up certain pages with… Something. She doesn’t know. After he’s made his wanted notes, he writes something out on the last page before firmly shutting it and returning it to her possession. 

“Thank you,” she smiles simply as she pulls the book from his hands and carefully assures that their hands don’t overlap. If she touches him, she falls apart. 

Luke hums in response. 

Stupidly, Julie decides that moment to open up the book and see what he wrote while he’s standing right in front of her. But she isn’t thinking about him, or looking at him -- she’s looking at the inside cover. 

We were always meant to find each other. Don’t forget that - please. 

Yours,

Luke

When a tear drops on the page, she quickly turns farther into the book because she doesn’t want her feelings to ruin his beautiful, even if messy, words. These words are all she’ll have after today. 

The few pages in the book that he made notes on were just little things that she never knew she needed to hear. 

The chapter about his first sold out stadium show? Thought of you the whole time

When he heard he was nominated for a Grammy? Wanted to call you first

The night he won his first Grammy? Almost thanked you in my speech

The last page he wrote on was the Acknowledgements page. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t that long. Luke kept a core circle of people and that was that. But below that short list, in bold, black letters:

To Julie Molina, who sacrificed everything so that I could be able to tell these stories. I wish she could have been a part of them. 

Her tears slip from her face so clear and quickly that she’s surprised her tear ducts are generating such a mass amount. The words replay in her head, in Luke’s voice, over and over. The affirmation that he wanted her with him all this time. 

But she had to go again. This had to be a one-time thing. This hurt too much for her to put either of them through it again, and besides -- now she had closure in his own writing; with her tears notarizing each word. 

“It’s time, Julie,” she mutters to herself. “It’s time.”

To say goodbye. Again. 

But Luke never answers. It’s dead silent, even though cars should be racing on the road behind them. When she looks up, Luke is frozen to the spot. Everything is, except her. 

“Time is a funny thing isn’t it? Just when you think you have a handle on it, it manages to surprise you.” 

It’s Willie, but not actually Willie. The one who was giving her the clues and trying to lead her in directions all over 1995; the one who she hasn’t seen in a really, really long time. For a moment, she doesn’t believe it. 

But he tells her that fate is in her hands. This is her choice. And despite the doubt that lingers uneasily in her chest, she can’t help but be desperate for this to be real. 

“Why not you? Who better than Julie Molina? Teenage girl with a good heart and music in her soul. Braver than most. Why not you?” 

Julie jumped across time to save her boys, and now she is willing to make the trip again if it means there’s a chance of saving them all. 

But there’s one more thing she wants to do. Just before everything either is perfect again or goes to complete shit. 

Spinning away from Willie, she takes a second glance at Luke’s still frame and softens her face into a smile. He had been looking down at her while she was reading his notes with tears in his eyes and a sad grin on his face. 

No one is looking or judging anymore -- so she stands on her toes and throws her arms around his neck, squeezing him close even if he can’t hug her back. She’s been dying to do this since she saw him in the bookstore. 

And it feels like coming home. 

“I’ll find you again,” she whispers into his ear that probably isn’t listening. “I promise.”

And without any more hesitation, she turns back to Willie with her chin up and shoulders back. 

“What do I have to do?”

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

The book never finds its way back to her the way that the bear does or the way that the ring does. 

But that’s okay, because the bookstore does, and she’s with Luke when she registers that they are walking by the bookstore on their way to meet everyone at one of their favorite diners. 

By now, Luke had been told everything. She felt herself starting to fall in love with this third Luke just as she had all the others, but could never tell if he was falling back in love with her. Julie found herself -- while this timeline was infinitely better than the old one -- pining for Luke to come back to her and love her like he did in two other lifetimes. 

Their hands were brushing each other’s on the sidewalk when the bookstore sign met her eyes. 

“Jules?” 

Her feet are glued to the cement; her eyes are glued to the alleyway. Luke approaches behind her and lays a hesitant hand on her shoulder. 

“Jules, are you- Is everything okay?”

“Can we take a detour, really quick?”

And suddenly, he’s letting her lace her fingers through his and pull him through traffic -- no crosswalk in sight -- across the street to stand in front of a bookstore that has zero meaning to him whatsoever. Julie selfishly revels in his calluses rubbing her knuckles and doesn’t make a move to let go unless he will. 

He doesn’t. At least, until they hit the alleyway.

“Julie, what is this place? Why are we out here? Is this… Did I like it here, or something?”

They never spoke much about the Luke’s of other timelines. Julie quickly caught onto the fact that he got uncomfortable when she talked about guys with his name and face that he knew virtually nothing about even though he felt pressured to know everything. 

But he dealt with her when she had moments like these. She never thanked him properly for it.

“It wasn’t like that,” she shakes her head, “we were here in the other 2020. The one where you were older, and this huge Grammy-winning solo musician. The one that was a result of what I did in 1995.”

The exit door is still rusty on the hinges. The brick is the same shade of red, and-

“Okay… And? What did you guys do?”

His use of third person is a clear message. “Him and I had made this promise in ‘95 that we wouldn't find each other, right?” “Because he would be old.”

“Yeah. But he published this book and had a whole signing tour called Find Me, and Flynn told me we should go, and… Basically, I had a mental breakdown at seeing him, and then he came back here and signed the book for me, and we talked, and-”

Her voice cracks. Her eyes feel wet. 

Fuck. 

Can’t she make it one timeline without sobbing in an alleyway?

A familiar hand rubs up and down her back as she stares, firmly, at the spot where her and Luke were so vividly standing and talking and pining for the other. 

“Jules, hey, look at me.” 

Because it’s Luke -- because it’s her Luke -- she listens to him, and rotates to face him. The soft fabric of his shirt hits her cheeks as he presses his fingers into the cotton and lifts his hand to wipe the tears from her face in a gesture that tempts her to cry more. Instead, she tries to laugh it off. “God, I really need to stop having meltdowns in alleyways, huh?” He stays quiet; looking at her in a recognizable Luke way that reminds her of all of their loving times in other lives. But she can’t get her hopes up. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like when I talk about it. Sometimes I just-”

“You need to,” he nods. “I get it.”

Her feet are planted identically where they were in alternate-2020. But Luke is in a different spot, because this is a new Luke. One that’s right in front of her, lightly holding her arms; not one that’s a few feet out of reach. 

“He told me that we would always find each other.” Her voice is watered down, and quiet, but Luke is close enough to hear it. 

“Well, he was right, wasn’t he? We did it. For like, the fourth time, according to you.”

And then, she’s hit with a Luke Patterson smile. She sees it all of the time now but it never gets old because he’s young, and he’s happy, and he’s here. 

Her lips turn up to reflect it, and in a shocking turn of events: Luke instigates the hug. 

They are nearly best friends, so they’ve hugged before. But this one is different. 

His arms fold around her shoulders and tug her close and snug into his chest so that his chin is nearly resting on her hair. This leaves her able to press him close to her with her arms wrapped tightly and lovingly around his waist -- almost, dare she say it, like he was a teddy bear. 

“I never said I’m sorry,” he murmurs into her forehead. “Or thank you, for that matter.” “For what?” “I’m sorry you went through so much for me. For us. It still affects you a lot and I’m sorry you have to carry that alone.” His chest rises and falls under her cheek as he takes a deep breath, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of feeling him breathe or hearing his heartbeat. “And thank you for loving us enough to do it. You sacrificed a lot.”

She is too choked up to verbally comment -- but she squeezes him tighter, almost tempting her arms to swish through him. 

They don’t. 

And Luke continues talking after a moment of a peaceful silence. “It’s kind of cool, though, for me to think about this person I have in the universe. You know? The whole thing with us finding each other. I always have you, no matter where I am. You’ll be out there.”

“Always,” she sighs into his chest, because she can’t help it. It took them a few tries, but here they are: In the same timeline, with full family and friends and lives, in a reciprocated hug. 

“Always.” Luke repeats the word, almost feeling it out in his mouth. “Well, thanks for doing it again. Maybe let me do the work next time. You need a break.”

God, this Luke is always so good at making her laugh. Ghost-Luke was, too, but the other Luke’s and her were always swept up in emotionally-taxing situations for her to be laughing like she could when she was with this Luke. 

It was almost as if this one had practice. Maybe those other lives were kicking in.

He was her final Luke, hopefully. 

As she props her chin up on his chest, she gives him the widest grin she’s worn all day. “I would appreciate that. Just don’t take too long.” Her forehead nuzzles itself into his neck as she settles herself back into his arms; fully content to be wrapped up in him for as long as he will let her stay. “I’ll get worried.”

A soothing hand over her hair is all the confirmation she needs. 

“Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll be there.”

[geshertzarmeod]

In Other Lands Character Arcs

(Spoilers Abound)

I’m thinking about how the character arcs of all three main characters from In Other Lands center largely on moving away from what their families expected of them, even as each of them doesn’t necessarily think moving away from that is possible. And how it’s their relationships with each other that help them move in the directions they actually want to move in, and believe in their abilities to forge their own paths and lead fulfilling lives. Even if it’s not what their parents or home communities think a fulfilling life entails. This culminates in their refusal (along with Golden) at the end of the book, to let anyone else influence them when it comes to deciding where to be stationed. They’re ready to choose their own paths, together.

There’s something deeply appealing to me about this as a queer person, even as queerness (as defined by orientation or gender) is not actually a central factor in the shifting of each character’s relationship with their families. Actually, the character who comes closest to that is Serene, who is presumedly straight, but whose pushback against the rigid gendered expectations of her society so challenge her community that she and Golden are essentially banished at least for a time. This is only tangentially queer, I’d say, because she does this not for herself, as she seems to proudly fit & identify with elven womanhood, but recognizes the false limiting of manhood within her society and fights fiercely for Luke, Elliot, and eventually Golden, who I’d say is GNC for sure. For Luke, it’s not his being gay but his being monogamous and waiting longer than they expected (though he’s like, still 17!!! that’s still young!!!) to become sexually or romantically active that is off-putting to his family. For Elliot, his father is shocked not to see him with a man, but to see him happy (cue my tears). 

I was just thinking this after reading Girl, Serpent, Thorn especially, but I really love when queer books parallel queer narratives of shame and struggle and difference and growing pains, with queer characters, but about issues unrelated to their being queer (especially when they’re about magical/fantasy elements). Then we get to relate to queer characters and see them process a lot of the feelings we have experienced, but also get to see them be loved and value and supported unconditionally in their queerness. Anyway, for an individual analysis:

Luke Sunborn

First, because I know a lot of people might not have read it, I’m going to quote Luke’s perspective from Wings In The Morning:

There were reasons Luke hadn’t kissed anybody. The Sunborns, as a family, loved life and loved love, and treated it as a game. It was fine for them: it worked for them.

Luke had always known that a riot of brightness and different loves and leaving someone laughing was beyond him. He wanted kindness and steadiness: he did not want someone who would leave. He wanted love that would last. (location 2527 in my kindle book, I can’t tell what page)

Luke, the Sunborn champion, expected to excel in battle, and love (read: have sex) freely and easily and non-monogamously, becoming an avid reader because of Elliot - something his father is shocked by and a little ashamed of. Learning Elvish because of both of them. Breaking border camp rules, threatening superior officers, to protect Elliot, and to support Serene, even as he continually complains about it and, on paper, would always argue that those choices are Not Okay and Very Bad. Luke, whose bashful shyness around his crushes, whose concern over his first kiss, whose choice of Elliot as a partner, is incomprehensible to his family, snapping, “I don’t want anyone else,” at the elves. He’s chosen Elliot, even as Elliot still doesn’t at all believe it at that point, and he’s happy with that decision. Elliot’s his choice, and only Elliot. Notorious Sunborn sexual voracity be damned.

Luke’s journey is also largely about him working through his external, and later internalized, biases against magical creatures. It’s pretty clearly an analog to xenophobia, and Luke expresses more disgust, disdain, or fear, the more different a culture is from the one he grew up in. This obviously becomes internalized against himself, when he realizes he is half-harpy. He literally represses his wings from coming out, he sees harpies as monsters and includes himself within this. It’s awful, and it’s sad, and it’s a mixture of Elliot’s meticulous research and adamant arguments that harpies are people, and that Luke isn’t a monster at all (and neither are harpies and other non-human creatures), and Serene’s calm acceptance of him, that helps him move through this. 

This xenophobia, although clearly ingrained since childhood, don’t seem to be coming primarily from his family (certainly not from his mother) but from the culture of the borderguard in general. To me, it is implied that his father might at least casually buy into a lot of this, although he would never extend it to his son. It also is an interesting dynamic as related to the other two’s relationships with family, because Luke coming to love and accept himself, and to open his mind about non-human creatures, is actually him coming closer to his mother, rather than moving away. In my view, a part of why he bought in so clearly to this prejudice coming from the general bordercamp culture is because he was pushing away from his parents in the first place - he saw his parents being so wild and free in a way he knew he could never be that he pushed himself into the opposite side, into “reason” and restraint and conservatism. What he needed to learn was how to hold his more “traditional” wants and needs (although like, he’s kind of wrong about that. Elliott Schafer is not the traditional kind quiet love he’s imagining, and he didn’t want that anyway) while still celebrating all of the different approaches and cultures and loves out there, and that’s what he’s learning alongside Elliot and Serene. And he does this partially because Elliot’s love for him as a half-harpy is, according to his previous beliefs, just as wild and out there as his mother’s affair with his biological father, or all of Elliot’s flirting with various magical creatures. And as he accepts Elliot’s love, he accepts that too.

Serene-Heart-In-The-Chaos-of-Battle

From the first moment we meet Serene we know she ran away from home to join the border camp. She’s chosen to join the humans, to fight alongside men, to learn about the borderlands from a human perspective and use that to create an alliance and to create peace. She enters a world where she is looked down on, where she is sexualized and punished for trying to swim shirtless, and has to fight hard to take the classes she wants and have the opportunity to prove herself as she wishes. Instead of deciding her parents and community were right and going back to the elves, she digs her heels in and with Elliot and Luke’s help, fights back, fights to excel at the border camp and make things different and better, and prove her detractors wrong. 

Not only that, but she learns to respect men in a way she was not raised to do, learns to treat men as equals and partners, always defending both Elliot and Luke when her community disrespects them. This prepares her for her relationship with Golden (although Elliot still helps her along a lot, especially with their written correspondence) and ends in her and Golden essentially eloping after Golden ran away to fight alongside her. It’s also important that she accepts Golden fighting alongside her. That was not at all a given, especially as even towards the middle of the book, she seems to be thinking of human men as capable of fighting and strength and other “womanly” qualities, but not necessarily believing the same of elven men. She’s chosen a nontraditional path and a GNC partner in Golden, and for the time being, her closest family is not her blood but her beautiful boyfriend, her swordsister, and her loved and loving best friend Elliot.

Elliot Schafer

Last but the opposite of least is Elliot. What Elliot learned from his family is that he will come to nothing, that he will be forgotten, and that he will not be loved. I am so angry on this child’s behalf, for the ways he was neglected not only by his parents but by everyone before Serene. The ways his father had no interest in him because all he wanted was Elliot’s mother back (and I love Elliot’s observation that even if his mother did come back, his father wouldn’t know what to do, and would not be happy). The way his teacher literally accepted a small bribe to just...... leave him at the entrance to the borderlands, and none of the students cared. The way his mother not only left when he was a child but knew who he was the second she saw or even heard about him at the bordercamp, and never bothered to tell him, or show any interest in him whatsoever.Elliot has been taught, over and over again, that he is unwanted and uncared for. That he has to go it alone, and fill his own needs.

Elliot learns to respect Commander Woodsinger and to know that while she doesn’t necessarily love him, she knows him, and appreciates who and what he is, and sees value and strength in it. She, unlike his previous teachers and school professionals, understands him, and likes him, and values him. She’s not warm, but she’s a positive presence in his life, and part of him learning to believe he has value just as he is, and not just because he spitefully decided it to go against what everyone else has told him, but because it’s actually true.

He didn’t want his parents and his peers and the adults who have let him down to be right about this, so he does dream of being loved back. But he shows himself fully prepared to be the one who loves more in relationships, especially with Serene. He’s ready, at first, to take all she’ll give him, and revel in each part of it, even if it doesn’t match up to his love for her. It’s not until the moment he turns down Serene’s final advance (when she’s clearly settling for him) that he realizes how much he wants to be chosen first. And he believes that’s possible, and worth waiting for (and that in the meantime, he will help Serene up and help her find what she truly wants too).

Elliot knows Serene loves him. She shows him he deserves love, and in his devotion to her, Elliot begins to excel and challenge himself and learn to see his brand of obnoxiousness as something that might not be everyone’s taste but isn’t inherently bad. He trusts Serene to love him, at least as a friend, but he doesn’t trust that Luke will, because Luke reminds him of all of the kids who hurt him in the past.

And that’s why the slowest arc of this whole book is probably Elliot realizing that Luke.... actually likes him. Actually wants to be around him, and enjoys his presence, and even like-likes him - loves him even. It just can’t compute for him. And so we get basically an unreliable narration for most of the book regarding Luke. Elliot’s “aha” moment about Luke rewrites years of his life, shifting his understanding of so much of their lives together. And it solidifies Elliot’s discovery that he can be loved exactly as he is, obnoxious and annoying and all. He’s found people who love him for it, and they’ve chosen him, and they’re going to stick around.

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: The Star Wars Wednesday Menace

(This came from a crack-treated-seriously idea I was throwing around with -- and at -- my friends where Vader didn't suppress his Anakin side as much as he thought, and he keeps finding himself amused by the trouble that pesky Death Star Pilot causes. Sometimes he lets him escape on purpose, just to see what he'll do next. He kind of tries to stealth-train him, like Maul and Ezra)

“Oh, the Force is certainly with you, boy.” 

Vader easily sidestepped the blade with good humor and parried. “But you are no Jedi.”

“I will be!” the Boy snarled.

Oddly, that seemed to make Vader almost falter.

“You’re...very certain that’s what you want?” he asked suddenly. He caught the Boy’s blade on his own and held it effortlessly. “Have you truly considered the cost of such a commitment?”

The Boy -- one of these days Vader was actually going to learn his name -- glared up at him from those too-familiar eyes. “Scared of what I’ll become, Vader?”

It was a childish taunt, and not one that should have rankled. And yet, somehow, it did. What would the Boy become? Vader pressed his attack a little more forcefully than he needed to. The Boy stumbled, barely able to parry in time.

“You are naive!” Vader snarled. “You play at war like it’s a game! Knights and dragons, like the child you are!” He swung, and the Boy ducked quickly. “Do not be so quick to swear oaths of loyalty to Orders you know nothing about! You do not yet know what you will be asked to sacrifice in return.”

The Boy was taken aback by this. He drew back a foot or so, holding the lightsaber in a guard position. He was cautious now, more so than before. He tilted his head and blinked slowly -- curse him, why did he have to look so much like Anakin he had once imagined his child might? Why was he so familiar? 

“You aren’t talking about me, are you?”

Vader cursed himself, and the Boy, and that inconvenient soft spot he’d inexplicably developed for an enemy. 

“Your insight serves you well,” he grudgingly allowed. “Behold: a cautionary tale made flesh. Do not put your trust in the wrong people, Boy.”

“Will you stop calling me that?!” the Boy protested.

Vader scoffed. “I do not know your name. What else would I call you?”

The Boy opened his mouth to argue, and abruptly closed it again. After a moment, a shrewd light entered his eyes. Vader had seen that look before. It usually heralded the little Rebel doing something infuriating and yet endlessly amusing.

“I’ll tell you my name, Vader,” the cunning brat offered, “After you tell me why you’re a cautionary tale.”

“You are blackmailing me?” Vader casually twirled his lightsaber and circled the Boy. “Ha! You imp. Very well, but do not think I’m going to let you live long enough to tell your Rebel friends.”

The Boy mimicked the twist of his blade -- much more smoothly this time! He was progressing! -- and flashed a cocky grin. “Yeah? That’s the same threat you made the last time I escaped. And the time before that.” 

“True, that is true,” Darth Vader acknowledged. “You are becoming quite accomplished at that.”

Indeed, the last time I did not even have to help you “escape”. 

He thought for a moment, then switched off his blade. Their battlefield was so cluttered with the collateral damage of a Rebel skirmish that it was not difficult to find a still-smouldering piece of an AT-ST to sit on.

Why did he feel the need to advise this young Rebel? What purpose did it serve to coddle him so much? If he was just going to take him as his apprentice either way, he didn’t really need to put so much effort into winning his trust, did he? Well, perhaps he did. It was clear that the Boy was learning in leaps and bounds from their little game, though he would no doubt be loath to admit it. He wanted to outdo Vader. Spite was a very effective motivator.

And besides, perhaps playing the mentor just a little more than usual would serve to make the Boy drop his guard just that little bit more. 

That didn’t mean it was a story he liked to tell. But he had come too far to back down now.

“I...once trusted a man to save my family from imminent death,” Vader said slowly. Reluctantly. “I first went to the Jedi. Yes, your beloved Jedi, for help. And they advised me to “let go” and allow my pregnant wife to die.”

He sensed confusion from the Boy. Then disbelief and suspicion, slowly leveling out into recognition that he was telling the truth. That, and dull horror. Well, that was a bit more validating than he’d expected, wasn’t it?

“The Jedi failed me, Boy. And so I turned to the Sith. He had the power to preserve one’s life force, by drawing on the Dark Side of the Force. He still does, in fact. I have witnessed it.”

“Oh. Great.” The Boy shuddered. “That’s...good to know.”

“Such was my thought. But as you do not seem to understand yet, despite your accent clearly marking you as coming from Tatooine, nothing is done for free. There is always a price, Boy. Always.” Vader turned the hilt of his saber over in his hands slowly. “To prove my loyalty, I was commanded to kill the Jedi. All of them. And I did so, without question: he insisted that I wholly cut myself off from my past so that he could be assured of my future loyalty. Only then would he fulfill his side of the bargain.”

The Boy took another step back, repulsed. “You...you killed hundreds...thousands of Jedi...because someone told you he refused to save your wife and baby otherwise? You just handed your family over as hostages because somebody said they could help you? That’s a Hutt’s bargain, are you nuts?! Why didn’t you just take her to a doctor?!”

Anger crawled up Vader’s throat like acid. The Boy did not know what he was talking about. Nor did he seem to remember to whom he was speaking. You will learn, my reluctant apprentice. 

“Doctors do not understand ailments predicted by the Force,” he said harshly. “No one else was willing to help me but an old mentor and scholar with seemingly noble purpose. Does that not seem familiar to you? I rashly swore my allegiance just as you seem to have.”

With a hiss, the Boy’s lightsaber flicked off and hung useless at his side. He sank into a crouch, just watching him. Those eyes, Anakin’s eyes, held a terrible, knowing, look. A haunted look.

“He didn’t save her, did he?” the Boy whispered.

He sounded as though he wanted to be sick.

“No, Boy. He did not.” Vader’s fists tightened over the hilt with a creak. “But by then, I had cut off my own retreat. There was nothing else left but my vow to his Order.” 

It burned, even letting someone he intended to take as a padawan know anything about his past. It burned to admit that he had been deceived. That he had met the fate he tried to avoid on the path he took to escape it. It stung that this Rebel’s child was nearly the age The Baby would have been.

The Dark Side flickered warmly around him, taking his pain and anger and sorrow and exchanging them for raw power. Padme was gone -- forever beyond his reach. As was the child he had never gotten to meet. To hold.

“That’s why you killed him?”

Vader looked up in time to see the Boy grit his teeth and turn his face away.

“It’s not fair.” 

“What is not fair?”

A spike of anger, bright and sharp, burst through the Force for a moment.

“Why was my family less important than yours?” the Boy challenged. “Why, Vader?! I lost my father because you thought you might lose your family?”

“I did lose my family!” Vader roared. He leapt up, blade at the ready again. “What do you know of such matters? Tell me! What would you have done for a chance to save your father, Boy?”

He brandished the lightsaber threateningly. “Speak up! Look at you. Look at me! That you are so eager to avenge him is answer enough.”

He stormed forward before the Boy had a chance to stand, and leveled his sword at the Boy’s throat. “Do not be so quick to deal out judgement, Boy,” he hissed, “You are already blindly following a path not unlike mine.”

The Boy stared mutely up at him with wide, panicked eyes. His presence in the Force reeked of fear, and the Dark Side absorbed it eagerly. Darth Vader contemplated killing him then and there. But his hand would not move. He knew full well that he couldn’t make himself do it. Not when he’d already put in this much effort to teach the boy.

With a disgusted sound, the Sith deactivated his lightsaber and turned his back on the Boy.

“Go,” he growled, “Before I change my mind.”

The Boy scrambled to his feet and wasted no time in getting out of range. Strangely, at the very edge of their battlefield, he hesitated.

“Leave me!” Vader snarled at him.

There was a limited time before his temper snapped. If the foolish child didn’t get out of the way, he would only have himself to blame.

“Skywalker.”

The world stopped, like an unwound clock. Even the motes of dust seemed frozen in place. Blood roared in Vader’s ears as he slowly turned to look up at the boy at the top of the crater.

“What did you say?” 

The Boy raised his chin.

“My name. It’s Luke Skywalker.”

He didn’t wait to see if the name rang a bell. He didn’t stop to ask if Vader remembered his father yet. He just ran.

Darth Vader stood motionless in a field of debris.

Skywalker.

Skywalker?!

LUKE.

The name that she’d picked!

The face that seemed so familiar-

His eyes-!

Barely twenty. 

He was barely twenty.

The pieces fell into place almost too quickly, carried along on the reproachful whisper of the Force. Light Side or Dark, he could not tell.

And you just let him go like this? 

Vader whirled.

“Luke!” 

[stanning-reyna]

BOTL One-shot

“I know someone who can help,” Percy had said. Help isn’t exactly the word Annabeth would use to describe what Rachel had done so far. She had led the trio right into Luke’s forces in the arena of Antaeus, which they had narrowly escaped from. Sure, she could see some sort of path through the maze, but how could Annabeth even know that it would lead them to Daedalus’ workshop? 

She thought all this over as she kept watch for monsters while Percy and Rachel slept on the hard ground of the labyrinth. Though it was the middle of the night, she was wide awake. Her mind was too busy going on about recent events to be tired.

On top of the practical issues, Rachel gave Annabeth a sour feeling. After years of training, Annabeth had finally received a quest. She had Percy by her side, alive. But then here comes some mortal who’s put no effort in whatsoever, and she gets to lead the quest? Annabeth and Percy had always gone on quests together, it was what they did. This random girl isn’t a part of that. Some part of the situation sent a pang of sadness through Annabeth’s heart, but she decided to ignore that feeling. She couldn’t, however, ignore the tears now rolling down her cheeks.

Out of the silence, she heard footsteps coming from down a dark tunnel to her left. Annabeth’s right hand flew to her dagger as she readied herself to face a monster, her other hand wiping the tears from her face. Out of the blackness walked a figure. As it came into the light, she saw that it was none other than Percy. Annabeth whipped her head around to check the spot he had been sleeping in only moments ago. He still lay there, his body moving softly as he breathed in his sleep. 

Annabeth quickly turned her attention back to the person in front of her. He looked like Percy- curly, unruly hair fell against his forehead and he wore a dirty Camp-Half Blood shirt. 

“Come on,” he said. He sounded like Percy too. “We gotta go.”

She took a moment to look between the two boys again. Sure enough, there were two Percys. Annabeth immediately began racking her brain for any myths involving doppelgangers, clones, or anything of the sort, but came up empty. Maybe it was the shock of seeing two of the same person in front of her that stunted her brain from thinking properly. Or maybe it was the fact that Percy was holding his hand out to her and with his eyebrows scrunched together like that he looked so cute- yep, that was definitely distracting her. 

“Annabeth, let’s go,” he said, his voice more insistent than before. Annabeth found herself taking his hand and pulling herself up to her feet. Something about this isn’t right, a part of her brain pointed out. She didn’t listen. It felt like something was calling her to leave with Percy.

He motioned towards one of the tunnels and she snatched her backpack up off the ground before following him. In silence, they walked down the dark, curving path. A few minutes passed and Annabeth spoke up, asking, “Where exactly are we going?”

“To find Daedalus’ workshop. That’s our goal, right?” he responded casually. Annabeth looked at him to see if he was joking. They both know just how well it had gone the last time the two of them went searching alone. But he seemed to be completely serious about it, as if he had forgotten about nearly dying in a volcanic explosion.

“Find his workshop, get Ariadne’s string, and bring it back to camp.” Annabeth recited the steps like she had for weeks. It will go better this time, she decided. What are the chances that they would end up in a volcano twice anyways?

The tunnel they were walking in took a steep slope downward. It seemed to go down forever in front of them, reaching into the deep darkness of the underground. Something about it seemed more ominous than the other tunnels in the maze.

“I don’t think we should be going this way,” Annabeth whispered, stopping in her tracks. She didn’t speak too loud for fear that something horrible would break out of the eerie silence. 

“This direction is as good as any,” Percy said as he grabbed her arm, tugging her forward. Her feet stayed rooted in the ground. He didn’t usually dismiss her thoughts so easily, and she wasn’t about to let him start.

“There’s something about this that isn’t right. Let’s go back before it’s too late,” she said firmly. She may not be an expert on navigating the labyrinth, but she had the common sense to avoid whatever was down that tunnel. Her words didn’t seem to make Percy budge.

“Don’t you trust me, Wise Girl?” he replied softly. 

She did. She really did. He’d had her back countless times before on quests, never once failing her. She felt the same feeling from before calling her to follow Percy. After a few moments of hesitation, she did. How bad could this tunnel really be? Surely the two of them had faced worse before.

They began their decline into the earth. The little lights that had lined the path were dimming as the air began to rest heavier on Annabeth’s skin, making her feel sluggish. 

Percy grabbed her elbow and motioned to a narrow entrance to their left. His warm hand sent sparks rippling across her skin. She walked towards the opening, feeling lightheaded and tingly.

She thought she heard a noise in the distance, like a person yelling, but couldn’t quite make it out. Percy pressed his hand to her back, soft and supportive, nudging her forward, and she stepped into the even darker side tunnel.

“Annabeth!” a voice cut through the air from somewhere far away. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“We need to hurry,” Percy whispered into her ear. Annabeth felt her feet moving forward, automatically obeying the command. The sneaking suspicion that something wasn’t right entered her head again. Something about that distant voice made her question if she should keep walking, but the growing fuzziness in her brain quickly pushed it away.

“Annabeth!” they called again, this time close enough for her to hear their footsteps. Before she knew it, Percy was practically dragging her down the tunnel as they ran from the voice. Her head was spinning now and she felt herself stumble. Percy pushed her through a door to their right before her legs buckled, landing her on the floor.

The voice was louder than ever before, possibly just down the path from them. Annabeth’s vision was slightly blurred, but she could make out Percy standing above her. She must have been imagining things because it looked like his figure was changing, growing long and gaunt, almost skeletal. 

He pressed his hands into her shoulders and she felt a sharp pain like claws digging into her skin. She tried to writhe out of his grip, but his hold tightened. Everything around her was spinning now as her brain seemed to fill with cotton. 

Suddenly an image sparked in her mind, though she had no clue why it had appeared. It was a memory of a hot summer’s day, paddling in a canoe on the camp lake. Percy was next to her in the boat, splashing her with water as she tried to navigate. Annabeth remembered how close she had felt to him that day. There was no quest to complete, no monsters to worry about, just her and Percy spending time together.

She found herself giggling despite the still stinging pain in her shoulders. Sure, her vision was thoroughly blurred and she couldn’t focus her mind on anything other than the memory, but that was alright. It was a happy memory, and she felt happy. Whatever was going on around her could wait.

“ANNABETH!” the voice screamed again, now so loud it hurt her ears. Something pulled her up to her feet as a loud screeching sound filled the space around her. She knew that sound- it was a monster dying.

After a few more moments of detachment, Annabeth noticed her vision was coming back into focus. She could feel her hand pressed against the cold stone wall, holding her upright. In front of her stood Rachel, a distressed look on her face.

“You alright?” the redhead asked. Annabeth nodded slowly, still dizzy.

Percy came into her view, covered in monster dust. “You know, when we said ‘watch for monsters while we sleep’, we didn’t mean for you to follow one back into the maze,” he said. 

Annabeth blinked and looked at the ground. Right where the distorted Percy had been only moments ago was a pile of dust. He had been a monster. Annabeth had seen cyclops that could change their voices, but she had never encountered something that could change its appearance like that. It sent a shiver down her spine to think that just minutes ago she had taken the hand of a monster that intended to kill her.

Rachel cleared her throat and Annabeth looked back up at the two. The bewilderment on both of their faces told her that she was the only one who had seen it as Percy. This will be a long explanation, she thought. She just hoped that they never ran into whatever that was again.

AN: So for some reason I’m obsessed with the idea of a monster that takes the shape of your loved ones and lures you to your own death. And I finally finished writing about it! I hope you enjoy 

[gffa]

Hi Lumi, thanks for not turning off anons yet, I've wanted to message you for months but I am crippling shy and couldn't bring myself to do it off-anon, haha. I just wanted to ask, do you read any of the Star Wars comics? If so, can you recommend any? I am new to the fandom after The Mandalorian and I really want more Darth Vader content, if you have any recs I'd be very grateful! I love your blog and literally every piece of content you post! Thanks Lumi!

Hi!  I’m glad that I left anon on just for this then!  I do indeed read a lot of the Star Wars comics, though, I go in fits and starts with them, like a lot of people do. 😂 My recommendations are: - Star Wars 2015 (by Jason Aaron) + Darth Vader 2015 (by Kieron Gillen) - I put these two together because the first 6 or so issues are meant to be read concurrently, they’re events crossing over into each other and showing different aspects from different points of view, and I think it really helps to enrich both stories if you’re alternating between the two for at least six issues. Beyond that, they’re both just really, really solidly good comics!  They’re set just post-ANH, where Luke is discovering more about being a Jedi, where we see Vader discovering the identity of the pilot who took out the Death Star, where Leia is dealing with the political stuff of the galaxy, etc.  They’re probably still some of the best comics that SW has put out, imo! - Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 2017 (by Charles Soule) - This is the second Darth Vader comic series (so pay attention to who the author is--the current ongoing one is by Greg Pak, which is solidly good, but hasn’t yet hit the same heights as either of these, for me) and it’s set in the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith and this is easily my favorite SW comic.  Soule really digs into the connection between Anakin and Vader, how they are very much the same person, how the first volume of Darth Vader comics is about who Vader is during the OT, the Soule one is about flaying him open to understand just how he cannot face what he’s doing or the other choices he could have made. It’s over the top drama (it’s SO DRAMATIC and I LOVE IT) in a way that really highlights just how awful Anakin has become, that he is crushing even more of himself and you can see him losing still yet more and more, eventually leading to something like the OT version we know from later. - Obi-Wan & Anakin by Charles Soule - This is only five issues, as well as I generally recommend reading it two or three times, because Soule is actually pretty solid about not always spoon-feeding you everything and how the narrative arcs and parallels are more subtle than you’d expect from Star Wars.  The art in this one is stunning, the worldbuilding has a ton of cool details, you get to see bb!Anakin considering leaving the Jedi Order and why he decides to stay, as well as some really fascinating connections to how the Jedi see the galaxy and how Anakin sees it. - Age of Republic by Jody Houser - There are eight issues of this maxi series, each one focusing on a different character, and they’re all really interesting and have some amazing character moments.  My favorites are the Obi-Wan and Anakin ones, there’s a lot you really get to see about their relationship and how supportive it actually is, but all of them have really great looks at the characters they’re focusing on. - Jedi of the Republic: Mace Windu by Matt Owens - Okay, fair warning, the art for this series is not going to be for everyone, there are some seriously wonky panels in it, but the story itself is a great look at Mace’s character.  Both for the bits of backstory about him and for about how the Jedi look at the galaxy, that Mace Windu is such a rich, wonderful character and deserved a look at him like this.  Bonus, Kit Fisto is hilarious in this comic! - Star Wars Adventures by multiple authors - Basically anything in the Adventures line is worth reading!  Most of them are fairly light stuff, not super deep, they’re meant to be cute stories, but I’ve enjoyed all of the ones I’ve read and the prequels ones usually have some moment that’s completely batshit in a way that’s totally true to Star Wars.  They’re kid-focused comics, but really, really adorable ones. - Clone Wars Battle Tales by Michael Moreci - Speaking of dramatic fun, this mini series is just an absolute scream, they’re totally ridiculous in the way that I would read a hundred issues of them.  Plus, you get some really great Jedi moments or Anakin hilarity moments and I’m always down for that, too. - Kanan: The Last Padawan by Greg Weisman - Speaking of gorgeous art!  Never will you see a woman as beautiful as Depa Billaba in this comic, my goodness.  But you also get the story of bb!Caleb going through Order 66 and the trauma of running in the galaxy as a former Padawan who had their Master gunned down in front of them and, boy, did this comic know how to make it hurt.  There’s some cool worldbuilding in there, some amazing looks at the Jedi pre-Order 66, and just a whole lot of feelings. - Shattered Empire by Greg Rucka - This is a four-issue mini-series with a) gorgeous art and b) a whole lot of connective tissue/aftermath for the galaxy post-Return of the Jedi.  Rucka’s writing is solid here and you get a good variety of different characters and the paths they’re starting down and what they’re planning to do next, and it’s just a very solid read. - Poe Dameron by Charles Soule - I really didn’t expect to love this comic as much as I did, but Soule really knocked it out of the park and created a funny, moving, interesting journey for the character.  Even if Poe’s not your usual fave, the work this comic put into being interesting and connecting various things and telling a fun, actiony story really was good. - Age of Rebellion and Age of Resistance are both solid mini-series that I would definitely recommend!  My heart beats for the prequels, so I’m more focused on those, but if you’re interested, these are great looks at individual characters, too. HONORABLE MENTIONS: - The Princess Leia comic by Mark Waid is one I haven’t reread in awhile but I remember greatly enjoying it.  I’ve enjoyed Soule’s current 2020 Star Wars ongoing comic, though, because of the pandemic, it hasn’t had a chance to get a ton of issues out yet. I enjoyed the Darth Maul mini series by Cullen Bunn and, if you wind up liking Aphra from the first Vader comic, she gets her own spin off comic that’s really solid, too!

[austennerdita2533]

I was doing some idle musing on Rory's boyfriends and Austen heroes, and what I came up with was that Jess is part Mr. Darcy and part Frederick Wentworth, and Logan is part Henry Crawford and part (in his best moments) Henry Tilney. Any thoughts?

I think those are good Austen-to-GG-boyfriend classifications all around!

Jess has quite a few of Darcy's social anxieties in that he doesn't seem to like being around large groups of people at once, prefers to keep to himself, and doesn't talk or open up easily. Both characters also have a propensity for being taciturn and standoffish at times. They can rub some the wrong way as a result. In addition to that, they're introverted intellectual individuals who have embarrassing or disappointing relatives (i.e. Lady Catherine, Liz Danes). Their first "I love you" declarations are on par in Disaster Fireworks, too, don't you think? I mean, Darcy point blank calls Lizzie's entire family an embarrassment who is beneath him in social class AND manners and then still excepts her to accept his hand in marriage, which is so unbelievable it's hysterical, and Jess tells Rory he loves her after pulling a cross-country disappearing act that ended their relationship only to disappear AGAIN immediately after he blurts out the words, not even pausing long enough to blink, or like, to roll down his window so she can shout her reply at him as he drives by on his way out of town. It's next level Don't Do This romantic foolishness on both their parts. They deserve an award or a badge of honor or something to commemorate their mutual totally-bungled-that idiocy. 😄

Like Wentworth, Jess is the "suffer in silence" type. (I'd argue he takes after Luke in that way.) They both venture off on their own paths after they experience heartbreak, finding themselves, making something of their lives. For Wentworth, that means going to sea and amassing a fortune. For Jess, it means writing a novella and later working at Truncheon. And clearly they have the whole pining for the girl they love thing in common. Plus, there's that sense of mutual understanding that ripples through those two dynamics. Something that exudes "I know you better than anyone" energy because words aren't always necessary. They fall short. As Wentworth writes in his infamous letter to Anne at the end of Persuasion: "You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others." Jess and Wentworth are able to notice things about Rory, about Anne, that everyone else overlooks. Or plain don't see. The connection they share never truly dwindles no matter how much time has passed, either. It burns beneath the surface like an ember, waiting, flickering softly in the dust of what once was, of what still could be, perpetually on the cusp of catching flame again.

I'd also make an argument for Jess having some Mr. Knightley in him as well. They're both emotionally repressed as hell, for one. The frustration is rife, I'm telling you! Jess has a hard time expressing, sometimes showing, his feelings for Rory and I've always thought that falls in line with Knightley's "if I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more" vibe. And while Jess doesn't lecture in the same way that Knightley does with Emma, he isn't afraid to ask Rory the hard questions, he doesn't hesitate to deliver the harsh truths she needs to hear. Jess challenges Rory to be better, to be true to herself, in the same way that Knightley does with Emma.

Onto Logan now. I definitely see a lot of Henry Tilney in him and a decent amount of Henry Crawford as well. I've always considered Tilney to be Austen's most charming, sociable, good humored, and extroverted hero, and I think that tracks well with Logan. He's also outgoing, seems to have no trouble making friends, and when he puts his mind to it, will and can charm the pants off of almost anyone he meets. (Gilmore grandparents, especially. But he's no slouch with Luke, Lorelai, or Christopher either, is he?) Tilney and Logan are both bright, witty men with active playful minds. I think those traits act as catnip for Rory and Catherine, it's what attracts them. They like the stimulation. The never-know-what-they're-going-to-do-or-say spontaneity. It's adrenalizing emotionally, intellectually, and sexually. Another similarity between the two men is that they each have fraught relationships with their fathers who have an "image" or "expectations" for their sons to uphold. The fathers view their name, or the social strata where they belong, to be superior to that of other people. Tbh, Mitchum Huntzberger and General Tilney should form their own Cad Dad Club because they're both cads. 😂

Henry Crawford and Logan share a considerable amount in common, too. Wit, attractiveness, and considerable charisma aside, they also both come from wealth. They're privileged, entitled, and have essentially had free reign to indulge their whims and vices throughout their lives without many consequences. I think Crawford's more wanton in his exploits with the opposite sex than Logan, though. The man doesn't just flirt he seduces. And he does so without much remorse. Granted, I know Logan was a bit of a playboy, a casanova, or whatever you want to call him, when he and Rory first started up but he commits to her eventually and loves her. He does his best to make her happy. And he is a present, caring, devoted boyfriend most of the time (the bridesmaid shagfest and jetting off to base jump, cliff dive, I forget the specific thing rn when he's upset, notwithstanding) whereas Crawford's feelings/intentions with Fanny are a little more hazy. It's hard to know whether he was actually in love with her or if it was about the chase, since she wasn't responding to his advances in the the way he'd grown accustomed or had hoped she would. Fanny never trusts Crawford. Rory does love and trust Logan, so there's a marked difference there.

In addition to Tilney and Crawford, I also think it could be said that Logan has some of Mr. Willoughby's good traits. They're both passionate individuals, for one, and aren't afraid to show it. They lay it all out there. Go after things. Live life to the fullest. I admire that in both of them. Fanny and Rory needed a little bit of that in their lives, I think. It pushed them out of their comfort zones. In a good, productive way. That said, the men's zest and spontaneity could teeter into recklessness as well, which is behavior they both exhibited in different ways and at different times.

I'm sure I could come up with more if I thought about it longer but that's all I've got for now.

Anyway, thanks for the ask, sweets! This was fun to muse over! xoxo

[ruewrites]

Thrones are Built on Lies Chapter 11: Cracks in the Surface

AO3

Ship: Solomon/Asmo, Diavolo/Lucifer

Word Count: 4075

Warnings: None

A/N: We gettin closer to the coronation babyyyyyyy! As always, comments are appreciated! If you wanna reach out and talk or invade my inbox as well you are more than welcome to!

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Solomon had never cooked by himself before.

Solomon had never been in a kitchen before.

When you were royalty you didn't need to cook for yourself, you had people to do it for you. So here he stood, in the kitchen, when no one else was around, staring down the vastness in front of him. He clapped his hands, illuminating the kitchen and grabbed the first pot he saw.

Cooking couldn't be that hard right? All you had to do was mix some things into a pot and hold them over a fire. Easy.

Rummaging through the cupboards and pantry was an interesting adventure. Solomon was familiar with some of the foods and spices, but others were completely foreign to him. He did manage to find the beef which he grabbed in two handfuls to throw into the pot. Surely that was enough right? Now that his hands were sufficiently covered in residue, he went towards the vegetables and spices.

Honestly, this cooking this was rather fun. Perhaps he could start doing it more often. It might give him more points with his new family. He could be alone with his thoughts and the sound of the knife hitting the cutting board below him.

Which reminded him, he needed to find a blacksmith. Surely there must be one in the main hub.

Solomon only added water when he realized that the food may burn after it sat in the pot for a while. It tasted fine from what he could tell, and he was contemplating eating some of the food when he heard someone come down the steps.

"What are you doing?" Asmodeus asked, gracefully descending the staircase into the kitchen, "It's so late."

"I could be asking you the same question," Solomon smiled, lifting a bit of his creation to his mouth with a ladle.

"I was actually on my way to see you, but I wanted to check to make sure Beel wasn't about to sneak anything from my wedding."

"Our wedding."

"You're acknowledging it's yours now?" Asmo's voice came out a bit shocked, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Of course, it is ours is it not? As for what I'm doing, I figured I'd try my hand at cooking to earn a little more favor with your family," he turned back to the pot, stirring it a little more, and scratching along the bottom to unstick some of the food.

As he did so, Asmo's slender arms snaked around his waist and his head rested gently on his shoulder. It wasn't like his vice grip grasps in the past. Thus one was gentle and, dare Solomon say, fond. His old self would be surprised to see himself relaxing into Asmo. His old self would have never pictured him this comfortable in another's grasp.

"It is ours," Asmo said softly, gently squeezing Solomon's waist. Solomon found his free hand moving downward to squeeze one of Asmo's. Slowly he brought the ladle from his pot up to Asmo's mouth, and his pretty lips opened to accept his offer.

Then he started sputtering. Arms quickly let go of Solomon's waist as Asmo turned away from him.

Solomon turned quickly on his heel to pat Asmo's back, "Did you choke?"

Yes, it was a dumb question. He realized that as soon as the words left his mouth. Of course he was choking. Was he really that poor at social interactions? He was a scholar, a great king, an incredibly intelligent man, and all he could come up with was 'Are you choking?'.

Spoken like a true gentleman. One that fell face first down a mountain only to be attacked by wild beasts that is.

"No," Asmo weezed, "What the hell did you do?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Solomon, darling, are you trying to poison my family?" he gestured towards the pot with disdain and attempted to right himself, "That is nowhere near edible! Did you eat that?"

Solomon blinked a few times, staring at Asmo as he pulled away, glaring up at him. He wasn't really sure how to respond. Surely it wasn't that bad. "I did, are you sure you're not overreacting a little bit?" he asked.

"Over-? No! Are you serious? You ate it?" Asmo gasped, grabbing at his arm, "I'm not even sure the meat is cooked through properly! Well now I'll have to stay with you for the night and take you to one of our healers!"

"But I feel fine," Solomon frowned, as Asmo tugged on him, "Why were you looking for me this late anyways?"

Asmo stopped for a moment before letting go of him in favor of cleaning out his pot instead. "Well, I was hoping I might be able to spend some time with you. I've heard your sleep schedule is terrible and I figured I could visit your chambers."

Solomon moved closer so that their bodies were inches from each other, "That still doesn't explain to me what you want."

"Well I couldn't sleep," his voice came out in a similar fashion as when Azazel spoke to him. It set off small alarms in his mind.

What had he gone through?

"And I figured that perhaps I could-?"

"Something tells me your brother wouldn't be too happy with that," Solomon said, leaning against the counter on the other side of him. Their rooming situation hadn't changed from when Solomon first arrived till now, and he figured with how protective Lucifer was of his brothers that it wouldn't until either after the two of them were joined or until Lucifer trusted him. The latter was a long shot and, at the moment, seemed like it would take more time than what Solomon possessed in a lifetime.

Asmodeus frowned. His eyes darted back and forth, trying to think of an excuse that might work, but the longer he thought about it the more he realized that he was right. "He wouldn't have to know," he tried to reason, "Diavolo might be able to talk him down."

"And if he can't?"

"Don't think about it."

Solomon could have laughed. Stubborn was a good word to describe Asmodeus. He knew what he wanted, and he wasn't going to give up easily. In that way, the two of them were similar. He couldn't even be mad when he felt himself give in.

"Alright then," as he spoke, Asmo perked up, "What is it that you wanted to do?"

"I wanted you to hold me," Asmodeus responded quickly, "I just, want you to touch me, just for a little bit. So perhaps you could come back to my room with me?"

Asmo went to grab his hand once more and gently tugged him towards him. His fingers brushed against the silky, flowy fabric of Asmo's night attire.

Solomon allowed him to tug him towards the staircase and down into the caverns. Asmo's room wasn't what he'd been expecting. Flowers and vines neatly crawled up his bed and to his canopy. Moonlight seeped into the room, illuminating bits of the bed and the floor. He stripped himself of his shirt, realizing that it had gotten a little dirty in the process of his cooking adventures, and slung it over the chair in front of Asmo's bureau.

When he looked up, he saw that Asmo's eyes were on him, tracing every line on his body. "You have a lot of markings," he commented, lounging on his mattress. He shifted a bit as Solomon settled next to him and once more let Asmo pull him closer. "Do they mean anything?"

Solomon waited for Asmo to cling to him first before touching him. He probably wouldn't be heading back to his room tonight, not with the way Asmo was clinging to him. It was almost like he was afraid Solomon would disappear if he let go. So, he slung his arm over the smooth curve of Asmo's hip. "They're runes. Ones that I've found interesting from books I've read."

"There's so many of them."

Solomon shuddered as Asmo slowly traced along one of the inked paths. It reminded Solomon of how he traced the runes back in the cavern. His own hands wandered up and down Asmodeus' back and along his hip, encouraging him to snuggle closer.

Warmth.

It was the only thing he could think of. It spread from his core and along every spot Asmodeus touched him. He swore he was in some sort of trance.

"You're always so cold," Asmodeus murmured, "I don't understand why, you're always wearing long sleeves. I thought you'd be warm."

"You're always warm," Solomon yawned, "And soft. It's very calming." He felt Asmo's hands trail from his chest, over his shoulders, and to his back and his long lashes fluttered against him. He flushed, feeling a bit hotter than normal.

Crickets chirped outside and the occasional hoot of an owl resounded in the distance.

"This is nice," Asmo murmured.

It was nice.

***

"Did he say how long it would take to get done?"

Simeon and Luke had both accompanied him into town. Luke trotted behind, scurridly writing down time stamps and what had been done at those times.

"Hopefully not too long," Solomon twisted a ring on his finger, "I'd really like to get it to him as soon as I can. Before the coronation, preferably."

If the universe would have the smallest bit of pitty on him, he would be able to present Asmo with the gift under the stars a few nights from now. It would be a proper way to give it to him, and an acceptable form of an apology. He just needed things to go smoothly.

Simeon kept his stride, not even daring to fall behind him. He could feel him analyzing him, looking over his motions in order to come to a conclusion. "I think he'll enjoy it."

How did he always know?

"How are you holding up back there Luke?" Simeon turned his head to look at his apprentice.

"I would like to slow down, it's hard to write and walk!"

"And that is why you're practicing now."

Luke huffed under his breath and Simeon craned his neck to look over the notes. He always enjoyed seeing where he could offer praise and note where he could improve. Solomon realized that Simeon had been doing nearly the exact same thing to him here in Arcadia. Had he intended to coach Solomon on how to be a good husband?

Sneaky.

Solomon sat down on the steps of the palace, not quite ready to return inside. It had been a while since he just enjoyed the sunshine, and the weather was perfect. New days, new beginnings. It felt as if he’d had two new beginnings since being here, and he was sure these wouldn’t be his last.

Soft warm hands laid over his eyes, and soft breath caressed his ear, “Guess who.”

Luke made a retching noise as Solomon reached for his hands, “Asmodeus of course. Those hands would be hard to not recognize.”

Laughter surrounded him as Asmodeus moved to sit next to him. He set a few pictures down in his lap. Simeon patted his shoulder as he passed them. He wouldn’t stick around when Asmo came and take time away from the two of them bonding, especially not when they’d been getting along rather well recently.

“Mammon said he saw you heading out to the market this morning, so I waited for you to come back.”

Oh his smile was contagious.

“I wasn’t even aware he saw me,” Solomon said, not minding when Asmo decided to scoot a little closer, “What had you waiting for me to come back?”

“I’d always wait for you to come back,” Asmo leaned in and his soft lips brushed against Solomon’s cheek, “But, I did want to show you my attire for our wedding.” He fingered through the papers on his lap, pulling out one from the center of the pile. It wasn’t quite a suit, but it wasn’t a dress either. It was pretty, and Solomon caught himself slipping into thoughts of how lovely it would look on him.

“I based it off my mother’s dress, I remember that I used to love looking at it.” Solomon had never heard Asmo sound so whimsical. He was somewhere else, and Solomon wasn't entirely sure where he went.

"I've never heard you talk about your mother before."

Asmo's eyes lit up, "Oh she was wonderful. She's the one who taught me how to sing. Don't tell my brothers, but I think she was the best mother."

"You all had different mothers?"

"Well, for the most part. Lucifer and Satan shared one, she was the queen, and then the twins and Lilith shared one," Asmodeus traced his wedding attire as he spoke, carefully and ever so precisely, "I don't think any of them got along well, each of them wanted us to be father's favorite even if Lucifer was the crown prince. But they only stayed in our lives up to a certain point, if they hadn't died in childbirth."

Solomon remembered his mother and his father. They'd both done their jobs and molded him into the ruler he was supposed to be, but he hadn't been ripped from them by another person. "I'm sorry."

It was all he could say, and he hated it.

"It's nothing you had any control over. At least I have memories."

He'd been so excited to show Solomon his plans and to continue their planning, but now the mood was completely changed. With hesitant motions, Solomon reached over to touch his hands, "What do you remember?"

"Her voice," Asmo started, "And the way she held me when she sang me to sleep at night. I remember her taking me to see when the twins and Lilith were born. I remember her explaining that Belphie was sick. I used to always want to help take care of him, and I still do even if doesn't want much to do with me as of late. I also remember how she used to kiss my forehead and tell me how everything would be okay. That I was perfect, no matter what father said"

Asmo sunk into Solomon, looking down at his lap as they sat together. Asmo played with his hand, flipping it around in his own, training along his fingers, and squeezing. "I miss being touched like that, feeling safe in someone else's arms."

Was he meant to hear that? Solomon almost missed his words. Carefully, he slipped the papers out from under Asmo's hand and looked over the designs. "I bet she would have loved to see you in this. I didn't know her, but I think she'd be proud."

Asmodeus squeezed his hand a little tighter and it made Solomon relax. The words had felt awkward tumbling from his lips. But luckily it seemed like he'd said the right thing. "If yours looks this wonderful, I'm excited to see what mine will look like," he continued.

***

They weren't the only two scrambling to get preparations done. Servants were running inside and out decorating the palace for Lucifer's coronation, under Barbatos' watchful eye. He'd been seeing more and more of the crowned prince's stressed expression as he, Diavolo, and Azazel had been spending much of their time in the main hall. Azazel had assured him in passing that they would still have time for their regularly scheduled meetings, but they hadn't been lingering on Solomon's mind as of late.

He had other things to focus on.

He also had some internal things to sort out.

His opinions and feelings surrounding Asmodeus had started to change. That much was evident. Yes, he was still high energy and hard to keep up with at times, but he was also incredibly kind hearted. Solomon had always been physically attracted to him, that hadn’t changed. Something else had started to bubble up inside of him though. It was a feeling that was unfamiliar to him. It started in his core and spread up into his cheeks and made his chest tighten.

He didn’t dislike it, but it was a new feeling, one that reminded him of how Asmodeus felt.

“Mammon, sit still.” Azazel’s voice was harsh, but the sound of the wooden rod swishing at Mammon’s shins was harsher. He yelped and pulled his legs out of the way and straightened his posture. All of them had been lined up in the main hall. Despite having his own seat, Azazel was wandering up and down the row, eyeing up each of them. As soon as Mammon had been reprimanded, he couldn’t help but note how Levi had scrambled to fix his own posture. The room was tense, and Solomon was trying to keep his own composure.

Who would have known that a coronation rehearsal would be so intense. His coronation rehearsals hadn't been this strict. Then again, Solomon was also an only child.

Asmo’s fingers twitched as he stole glances towards him. Touch meant something to Asmo, and Solomon knew he wanted to touch him. If only he could indulge him in this moment.

“This coronation will be a momentous occasion. Not only will the crown be passed on to Lucifer, but it will also be the precursor to a new kingdom joining us. We are putting the end to an era, and entering a new age,” Azazel placed his hands on the back of Solomon’s chair, a wide grin spread across his face, “It’s a time for celebration. I think it’s also fair to say we could allow ourselves to loosen up a little.” His gaze glanced towards Belphegor and then to Asmodeus, his smile faltering, “But I expect you to look like the strong rulers you are, even if adjustments need to be made.”

Asmo flinched, but Azazel moved away from him and towards Belphegor, “This also meant that you shouldn’t wear your mourning attire. It’s a joyous occasion! Act like it.”

“Says you, I say when I’m done mourning.”

All eyes shifted down towards Belphegor, who was refusing to look at Azazel.

“Your father would want you to enjoy the moment.”

“My father is not the one I’m mourning,” he snapped, “Since all of you have forgotten, Lilith is still dead.” He threw a pointed look towards Asmodeus, “But I suppose I’m the only one who cares that our little sister is gone.”

Silence pierced the room. Lilith hadn’t been brought up all that much since Solomon had been there, and he hadn’t really brought it up. It was like glass, and every time her name had been mentioned, a long crack appeared in the smooth surface.

“Just like the youngest of the family to get hostile when he’s told that he can’t do what he wants,” Azazel’s tone was even but filled with venom. Each word had been punctuated.

A little bit of life flared into Belphie’s eyes as he stood up. Honestly it had been the most alive that Solomon had ever seen him. He stood face to face with his uncle for a moment, before turning briskly and leaving towards one of the corridors.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

“Somewhere where the memory of my sister won’t be insulted.”

The door slamming echoed through the room and ended the conversation. Beel went to follow but Azazel cut him off, “You’re not going anywhere. He can throw his temper tantrum on his own.”

“Actually, I think we should end here today. Productive practice will not come from a situation like this,” Lucifer stood and Diavolo followed, looking a bit more concerned, “We can continue tomorrow.”

Azazel nodded curtly, but Solomon could tell he was struggling to hold his tongue, “As you wish.”

Asmodeus also went to stand quickly, he’d been so focused on Belphie and Azazel’s confrontation, that he hadn’t noticed that Asmodeus had turned away. Solomon felt that he should have followed him, he wanted to follow him, but Azazel caught his shoulder.

“My brother wasn’t happy with them for a reason,” he growled, “Of course, they all have their little flaws, but I have no doubt they would have ruined the crown if they’d been allowed to interact with him too much. It only takes one bad egg to ruin the bunch.” His gaze wandered over towards Diavolo who tried to strike up a conversation with Asmodeus and a few of the remaining brothers to try and lighten the mood. Beel was missing.

“I told him the twins should have been separated as well, he would be so disappointed to see how soft his descendants are becoming. Hard work is going down the drain.” Solomon barely felt Azazel let go of him, and he almost didn’t realize that he left. He was standing alone from the group, he felt like a stranger again.

Until Diavolo looked at him. He offered him a smile and waved him over, and those feelings started to ebb away. He couldn’t help being drawn into the group with Diavolo’s charismatic smile.

“I can’t believe it’s almost time, it’s like the days didn’t even exist,” he said as Solomon took his place near Asmodeus.

Lucifer nodded in agreement, “Life had seemed to go rather quickly lately.”

“And all of your brothers are going to play their own parts,” Diavolo brought their attention towards Asmodeus, who seemed to perk up a bit from earlier, “And Asmo will be singing, just in case he hadn’t told you.”

“I was going to tell him,” Asmo hummed, “I just hadn’t found the right time yet.”

“And he hasn’t heard you sing yet,” Diavolo shot a look to Lucifer who nodded.

“You are correct, he hadn’t heard you sing Asmodeus.”

Solomon had never seen Lucifer look this calm this close up. He was almost afraid to ruin the moment by speaking. Perhaps Diavolo did have some sort of magical abilities, but he did admire their relationship.

Maybe it was possible for good things to happen in arrangements like this.

Maybe he’d been a little too pessimistic in his views.

His eyes shifted back towards Asmodeus, who was already looking to meet his eyes. A soft finger went to interlock with his own. “Look at you two, putting so much pressure on me.”

“Yeah, if ya flub up, you might lose your fiance and embarrass yourself in front of all sorts of people,” Mammon cut in, poking at Asmo’s nose.

“Oh puh-lease, you should be focused on making sure none of your golden decorations are dull. No one likes underwhelming decorations,” Asmo bounced back quickly. He was witty. Perhaps it came with the territory of growing up with so many siblings, but Solomon still liked it nonetheless. It was endearing, and added to the growing list of things that Solomon had started to enjoy about him.

“Oi! I make sure none of my babies are ever dull! You watch your tongue!”

“And my voice hadn’t failed me yet, so maybe you should watch yours.”

His mother had been a singer too.

Had he learned from her?

Or was it something he picked up to carry her with him.

Regardless, music must have been important to Asmo. Solomon was positive that he would sound perfect. If he had learned anything about his fiance in the time he’d spent here, it was that he strived to be perfect. After all, he’d done so much to garner Solomon’s attention, even when he hadn’t been there for him, even when he’d been terrible. He still promised Solomon perfection, promised that Solomon would fall in love with him.

Maybe he was right. Maybe Solomon was falling in love with him. From the way he went to cover his mouth when he laughed to the way his eyes crinkled upwards ever so slightly when he smiled. He had a wonderfully melodic laugh, one that Solomon could listen to for hours. He was witty in his responses and graceful in his motions.

He’d still hold him later when he asked. Solomon had seen how bothered he was during Azazel and Belphegor’s confrontation, and Solomon wouldn’t mind helping him take his mind off of the entire situation.

After all, he was trying to be better for Asmodeus, because he deserved better.

For the first time since coming to Arcadia, Solomon genuinely felt like he belonged.

For the first time in his entire life, Solomon thought that he might be falling in love.

[aureutr]

I posted 1,782 times in 2021

233 posts created (13%)

1549 posts reblogged (87%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 6.6 posts.

I added 2,399 tags in 2021

#reblog - 1500 posts

#star wars - 229 posts

#fanfiction meta - 136 posts

#dinluke - 125 posts

#a closed book - 117 posts

#lmao - 86 posts

#crash and burn - 68 posts

#skydalorian - 57 posts

#writing - 41 posts

#aww - 40 posts

Longest Tag: 123 characters

#also sure the galaxy is huge why couldn't there be a subset of humans on a random planet where they can all get knocked up?

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

From a conversation on the Dinluke discord:

The Lars farm is burned down when Luke is 14. Maybe it's the Empire, maybe it's the Hutts, maybe it's some other miscellaneous bad guy. But Luke survives and before Obi-Wan can find him he instead runs across someone else's path. The path of a no-good space pirate scoundrel who, in another timeline, was well known for trying to corrupt Force sensitive youngsters:

Hondo Ohnaka

How they end up running into each other is nebulous but Hondo offers Luke a job on his ship and Luke, not having any other prospects, accepts. Of course Hondo fully intends to double cross this farm boy the moment he gets what he needs out of him. But then it turns out that the kid is a brilliant mechanic and Hondo's ship is in rough shape. And there's just something so familiar about him. Once he actually hears his last name (Hondo has a habit of half-listening and talking over people after all), that cements it. This is his son Skywalker now and the galaxy isn't getting this one. He calls Luke by his last name almost exclusively because he misses annoying the crap out of Anakin (and Obi-Wan but though Luke knew Ben Kenobi he does not know any Obi-Wan).

They proceed to go on all sorts of space adventures. Lots of them involve Luke getting them into tight spots due to his lack of experience, Hondo getting them into tight spots due to his insistence on double crossing people, or Luke talking Hondo out of double-crossing people at the last minute. Luke gets scrappy "street" smarts and also does the Luke Skywalker classic of finding the best in people.

Now, I also think that they would eventually run into the Ghost Crew after maybe a year of traveling together. Kanan would nearly have a heart attack over A) Hondo found another Force sensitive kid B) the kid is the same age as Ezra and they are both the perfect age to feed off of each other's chaos energy and C) the kid's last name is WHAT!?

Kanan becomes Luke's Jedi master reluctantly, since he's still training Ezra, which means that Luke ends up joining the Ghost crew. And Hondo, begrudgingly, sticks around as well. Plenty more chaos to come.

Of course, the showdown with Vader goes a BIT differently when you have Hondo screaming "Ezra! Skywalker! Look out!" from the sidelines and Vader has to do a hard reboot sequence because A) is that HONDO!? B) SKYWALKER!?

This also puts Luke in Ahsoka's and Rex's paths and I am soft for anything that has them meeting. <3

Anyway this is not necessarily Skybridger but it could super easily be that too if you wanted.

210 notes • Posted 2021-09-16 20:39:11 GMT

#4

Din: Okay, pull!

Luke: *Force yeets a Stormtrooper into the air*

Din: *shoots them down* Okay, pull!

264 notes • Posted 2021-07-01 03:09:44 GMT

#3

It says “JUICY” in Aurebesh

Shamelessly traced from this:

498 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 21:27:45 GMT

#2

Han, holding up Grogu: stinky

Luke: no!! don't be mean!!!

Han, swaying him back and forth in the air: stinky bastard man

Luke: No!!!!!!!!

Din, not looking up from chopping veggies with the Darksaber: naughty boy. brat...kid

Luke, distraught: NOOOOO!!!!!!!!

587 notes • Posted 2021-06-22 01:17:36 GMT

#1

Disney: Here is a Star Wars show about a bounty hunter.

Fans: Is is Boba Fett?

Disney: It's not Boba Fett. Anyway he's a Mandalorian and he never takes off his helmet and he's a no-nonsense bad boy. EXCEPT ALSO

Fans: :O!

Disney: He's got a secret heart of gold and cares for a child. He also helps out people beyond just what the job calls for.

Fans: He's like inverted Luke Skywalker!

Disney: Yeah, exactly! And they get to meet for a couple of minutes, too. Anyway, he--

Fans: And then they kiss!

Disney: What? No--

Fans: And they are the only ones who can really understand each other because of their similar traumas and need to take care of others. And the Mandalorian hasn't been touched by someone in so long because of his armor and Luke is the perfect person to break him out of his shell.

Disney: Wait--

Fans: And they raise their strange green gremlin son together and go on more space adventures as they heal each other and care for each other and talk about their feelings and live happily ever after and...

1961 notes • Posted 2021-05-04 15:34:32 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[californiannostalgia]

In honor of The Tower of Nero’s Loser Gods, here are my favorite Greek God character study snippets from Were I That Burning Star and a fact easily forgotten (we named our crowns ourselves) that I loved writing most.

.

Artemis

Her voice began to climb. "Century upon century upon century of loss, and we changed. We are everlasting, and they are not. Did you honestly expect us to endure it without going mad? Do you truly think I did not weep for my loved ones, and for the thousands of souls I never gave myself the chance to know?" 

.

Hermes

It had been May’s choice that drove her to madness. It had been Luke’s choice that drove him to his death.

It’d taken him a long time, but Hermes had come to terms with it. He couldn't have saved them. Their fates had never been his responsibility. It had always been theirs. He would mourn. He would remember. But he would not dishonor them by regretting the choices they’d made for themselves. Regret was a choice that belonged to them. Whether to love them, their choices and all? That was his.

.

Aphrodite

It was a burden, but at the same time, it was a blessing. They could offer her a throne, the world, a weapon for her hands and the promise of respect—it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t trade away this Love for anything.

.

Ares

Athena was here.

"Yes," he said.

The war goddess had come to face him.

"Yes," he said again, then roared, “YES!”—in approval, in delight, in uncontrollable exhilaration that burned like wildfire through him. He summoned his broadsword and drew the blade from the scabbard in one clean motion, the sharp sound of slithering steel serving as his own clarion note of challenge. “YES, ATHENA!”

.

Athena

She fantasized about it. When the day came, she would fight her fiercest against the justice of a rising world order. She would fight and she would lose, but part of her looked forward to the end. When responsibilities both wanted and unwanted left her shoulders, would she still be herself enough to look her newborn counterpart in the eyes and pull them closer to whisper, weighed down with pride and sorrow and all the complications newborn deities had no hope of understanding, “I was justice once”?

.

Hephaestus

“Their hatred made me something else," he acceded, thinking of Hera and the throne he'd engineered to be a trap. "Something I did not want to be. So I sought to get myself back, but couldn't remember what that looked like."

He fitted the new parts into place. He tried to say it right. "Maybe there is no kinder original of myself to reclaim. Maybe they killed that. But I have been. Trying. To be something other than what they made me. I think that matters, somewhat. So I don't believe I will become them.” Hephaestus weighed his words. "I don't think he ever noticed, or tried, to be less him. So I don't believe you will be anything like him either."

.

Dionysus

“We chose wrong,” Ariadne said, “but I am content with where I have arrived. I have enjoyed moments I would not have had if I hadn’t chosen wrong.”

Dionysus closed his eyes. She smelled of honey and old books and dusty paths traversed by very few.

“I have regrets,” the goddess of the labyrinths said, “but I do not regret you. Do you regret me?”

“No,” he said.

.

Hestia

Hestia still remembers the day Rhea nudged them outside, father and newborn. Immortal children are born walking, but Kronos offered to hold her hand. They found themselves a shady spot at the edge of an overgrown forest, and he told her the story of how her uncles had claimed the four corners of the world as their own. She remembers being entranced—not by the tale, but by the way his voice slowly climbed in excitement, his face and hands taking on a life she hadn't seen on him before. He smiled upon the conclusion of the story. She asked for another.

Hestia remembers Kronos in a way her brothers and sisters do not. It is a curse she will never share with them.

.

Demeter

"I did not choose my lovers to become a parent. I did not want to be a mother. My mother did not wish to be a mother, either. Reproduction is an unfortunate side-effect of intercourse." Demeter smiled bitterly. "My mother’s life was consumed by her children. I believe she hated us as much as we hated her.”

Apollo remembered Rhea and her tie-dye headbands—her warm, callused palm on his forehead, absorbing his pain. “That isn’t true.”

“Love and hate aren’t mutually exclusive, nephew. I can love her for her kindness and hate her for failing to save me. She can hate me for the sorrow I brought upon her, just as much as she loves me for the joy.” Demeter raised an eyebrow. “As an insignificant mortal once said, we contain multitudes.”

.

Hera

No, she thought with vitriolic fury, no you don’t. She had spat curses into Kronos’s face as he had unhinged his jaw. She was no coward. The Titans had not managed to cow her. She would not be cowed by her husband.

She concocted the most poisonous curses and bestowed them on his demigod children. Here is what I think of your legacy. She arranged the most painful deaths for his mortal lovers. Here is what I think of your infidelity. When he came to her in a rage, she pushed him into a wall and tore at his lips with her teeth. You do not scare me, she thought, high on adrenaline and victory.

“Do I scare you?” she asked, giddy with the power she had discovered for herself.

.

Hades

After the victory, there must have been a reason—when they drew straws to divide the world, and Poseidon looked like he had been saved and Zeus looked like he might smile—there must have been a reason he didn’t contest the draw. Must have been something that made him say, yes, I will take the underground.

He held the keys to the prisons incarcerating their most hated enemies—himself acting as jailor, judge, and executioner—and only then did he realize how utterly satisfying it was to have the proof of his safety be himself.

.

Poseidon

He embarked on the war slightly crazed and considerably scared. He ended the war entirely too crazed.

The sea swallowed him up and he devoured it back. The white-capped waves and salty shores became his lungs, his heart. Fault lines and volcanoes ran on the heat of his blood and the force of his temper. The ocean’s depths were never dark, not in a way that he feared. He raced with his passions and raged as a storm. He laughed at the world that knew to fear him.

Learning kindness came later. Much, much later.

.

Zeus

Tomorrow he might close his eyes and trace the King Cannibal’s palace etched on the backs of his eyelids. Tomorrow he might feel an immovable weight crushing his chest and pushing down his shoulders.

But today he held up a hand to shield his eyes from the southern sun and kept looking up, tracing clouds and chasing falcons. He pictured leading his brothers and sisters back out into the sunlight. He imagined lying down in the grass and having his siblings sit beside him. He was unable to visualize their faces, their height, the way their hands might move when they spoke. But if he succeeded—when, not if (it was foretold, he could do this, he would)—maybe he could learn.

He stared up at the bottomless blue sky and dared to dream of freedom.

.

Apollo

I looked upon the carbon duplicate of Demeter's apathetic despair, crystalized into a glass jar holding lightning. I realized I was exhausted of trying to be heard by the thing behind the glass walls, because he wasn't ever going to hear me, was he? Not really.

"I used to love you." A painful lump got stuck in my throat. I swallowed it down.

My father kept staring.

"I hate that I was born as your child," I said as a farewell, and I walked away.

[vislorrturlough]

Scaramouche!

"Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined. It means recognizing that History is time filled with possibility and not inexorably determined-that the future is problematic and not already decided, fatalistically."

- Paulo Friere

For as long as Loki can remember, tapestries have lined the walls of Asgard's palace.

When Loki was a child, the Allmother sat by his bed one night and explained the significance of the tapestries that lined the walls of their home.

“The Norns weave the tapestry that assigns our roles,” she told him. “So that we may fulfill our fate and serve Midgard as we are meant to.”

The tapestries stretched across all the walls of the palace, covering vast miles of golden wall with breathtaking imagery depicting life and death and love and hate and everything in between. They pictured Loki too, who moved from boy to tragedy to a vicious and cruel man.

“So I have a role too? And Thor?” he asked. She smiled at him with fondness. The Thor on the tapestries seemed brave and strong - Loki could never imagine his brother, still a boy himself, to become that hulk of a man someday.

“Of course, Loki,” she said. “We all have roles. I am a mother, and a magician. Thor will be a great hero. Your father, a beloved and wise king. This is what is sewn into our destiny, to be enacted until Ragnarok and again after that. In a cycle, unending and unwavering.”

He yawned, obscuring the nervousness bubbling in his chest and curling the silken covers around his shoulders. He knew what the tapestries said Loki would do. He had hoped that maybe - “What’s my fate, mother?” he asked quietly.

Her smile, previously relaxed, became firm and serious. His heart was racing, thinking of that man, and of the awful cruelty that was depicted to come at his hands. “We all have a part to play, my dear. And every story has a villain for a reason.”

--

Despite common misconception, Loki Laufeyson never lived in the moment. In fact, Loki found the moment particularly difficult to pin down. Once you begin to think “Hey, I think this is the moment!” it wasn’t the moment anymore, and Loki already had four tabs open on his phone about the relativity of time and he didn’t need anymore.

Loki lived in the future, which was why he was that very moment getting his fair share of serotonin from the Schrödinger’s Night Out with Sigurd and Lorelei he was planning. 

“Sigurd definitely won’t come out if Lorelei isn’t,” he explained to Verity as he paced hurriedly around their absurdly fancy flat, which he paid for entirely and in return, Verity didn’t ask where he got all the money. “Which means I need Lorelei to agree first. One problem with that!”

“Lorelei hates you?” Verity asked, as she planted an orange tree in Stardew Valley.

“Lorelei hates me!” Loki agreed. “Which means I need to sweeten the pot.”

Verity glanced up at him suspiciously. “How are you going to do that?”

He grinned, and picked up a pen so he could start dramatically gesticulating. “Bisexual women! They’re always fascinated with me. And by the end of the evening, I’ll have established a system where I transport their attention from me to Lorelei and get her many dates. Like a Ford factory.”

She glared, turned back to her game. “You’re a walking hate crime.”

“Was that a lie, Verity?” he teased, collapsing on the couch and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She tried just barely to shrug him off. “Was it a lie when I said bi women are fascinated with me? Was it?”

Verity narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t say anything, and in response he burst into cackles of laughter.

—

Lorelei claimed to be very insulted that Loki thought bisexual women liked him more than her, but he knew well that she knew well that she looked like the straightest girl alive and really, that was her own fault. Once Lorelei was a confirmed booking, Sigurd swiftly followed, because he’s nothing if not a simp, and thus Loki had now established the perfect evening. A pricey club, two people who could barely stand him, and himself. 

Although he never really enjoyed it. He’d never planned to.

Anticipation was a drug, really. And as previously established, the moment was very boring indeed. And this moment, Loki found himself crammed against Sigurd, who while very attractive and an owner of some very firm abs, was covered in sweat, and only slept with Loki when he was desperate anyway. Loki squinted up at him, and tried to figure out if he was desperate tonight.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Sigurd shouted over the music. 

Loki smiled at him genially, and proceeded to turn quickly around and elbow his way to the smoking area.

The initial smack of fresh onto his face was divine. He closed his eyes and smiled in satisfaction, continuing to move forward. The music was more muted out here, and the sound of voices and laughter blurred into itself until nothing was anything anymore. Peace! The lights were all different shades of pink and green, and they cast an ethereal glow over the throngs of young people with cigarettes in their hands, all here, all living now.

Loki bumped into someone.

“Shit!” he yelped, watching in horror as  her cocktail spilt down her crop top. “I’m so sorry! Oh my God!”

She’d flinched a bit during the incident itself, but the alcohol had seemingly tempered any stronger reaction than that. Lightly brushing at her (now soaked) top, she only laughed lightly and smiled at him. “No worries, dude!”

He pulled out his best prince charming grin (practiced in the mirror and finely tuned). “Please, let me at least buy you another drink.”

“I’m not going to say no to a drink!” she laughed shyly, and they traipsed inside to the bar. Sigurd seemed to have vanished, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Lorelei getting very close to the DJ, so maybe if Loki had any luck he was crying in the gents or something. Usual affair, really.

He bought them both mojitos, and they fought their way back through the crowd to return to the smoking area. “I like your necklace,” he said, because his mother had always said women liked having their jewelry complimented. Sif had later said that they didn’t, but Sif was as much a woman as Loki was a man, so her opinion didn’t count.

The girl giggled. “Thanks, it’s a crucifix.”

“Oh sorry!” Loki said. “I’m not from around here. That’s the catholic thing right?”

“Do you guys not have catholicism in Britain?”

Ugh, mentioning Asgard would dance a bit too close to the possibility of ‘Oh man, anyone ever told you you look like Thor’s evil brother?’. Loki chuckled instead and rolled his eyes. “I was pretty sheltered. It was like, a weird cult?”

“Oh wow! That’s so interesting.” She had a sympathetic sort of look on her face, and Loki quickly buried the irritation that bubbled up in his chest. The sympathy wasn’t for Loki anyway, just some fake man who grew up in a cult. Did he think Asgard was a cult? God, he was glad he didn’t have a therapist

“Yeah, I don’t really believe in it now, you know?” he lied easily, smiling at her. “It’s hard to have faith when it’s like, you never see any proof.”

She nodded understandingly. “Yeah, lots of people say that nowadays, what with superheroes and Asgard and all. I don’t know, I kind of think the fact I don’t have proof makes it more important.”

“Oh yes?” Loki asked. “What do you mean by that?”

She looked up at the lights, placed her free hand on the crook of the elbow of the hand holding her drink. For a second, Loki saw ancient and revered philosophers! He decided that they’d had it all wrong. Screw the forums, they should’ve done all their philosophising in smoking areas.

“It means something, you know?” she explained slowly. “Like, of course we believe in the ground and the sky and all. Those are right in front of us, we can’t deny that. Same with science, or aliens, or Asgardians. But believing in God requires a certain kind of faith. I’m going beyond seeing and believing. I’m just believing. God has a plan for me, and I believe in that.”

Loki nodded slowly. A fate? One set, but controlled by a benevolent creature and entirely unknown? It wasn’t true or real of course, but there was a beauty to it, that Loki, who’s path was clear and determined, appreciated. The alcohol (he and Lorelei made a habit of spiking drinks they bought on earth with Asgardian liqueur, so they’d, you know, work) was beginning to blur his awareness anyway. “That’s beautiful,” he said kindly.

She giggled, quickly touching her necklace and looking at the ground. “Haha, sorry! I study theology, it’s kind of a thing.”

“No, no!” Loki laughed, giving her a wide grin. “It was very interesting! Where do you study?”

They got into a long conversation about Sarah’s (her name, Loki found out eventually) degree, NYU dorms and a guy she hated in her seminars, before he noticed Lorelei making a beeline towards him, her hand around Sigurd’s wrist. 

“Hey,” she said, before frowning at him and glancing at Sarah. “I’m going home with a girl named Angelica. She’s goth and plays bass. So you need to take Sig home.”

“I’m literally an ancient hero. Of legend,” Sigurd interjected.

Lorelei turned and glared at him instead. “Well, you need to take Loki home.”

“Oh well, come on then Sig!” Loki said loudly, ignoring his scowl. “Thank you for such a lovely conversation, Sarah darling. Have a nice night!”

“Thanks Luke!” she laughed, not being not obvious about checking Sigurd out. Oh God, she probably thought he was dating Loki. Yuck, how mortifying. “See you around!”

“Go get a taxi,” Lorelei told him, before wandering off to a girl with a septum piercing and docs, which Loki considered quite basic, especially for Lorelei.

They didn’t get a taxi. They walked five minutes until Loki ducked around a corner, ignored Sigurd saying “Aren’t we getting a taxi?” and grabbed his arm before dragging him through the spaces in between the universe and dropping him on the bean bag in his living room. A solitary pringles can rolled quietly and hit Loki’s foot.

“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” Loki muttered, kicking it away.

“I hate you,” Sigurd growled, pinching his nose and clearly trying not to throw up. Loki didn’t know why, it wouldn’t be any major downgrade from how the room was currently. “And I hate that. You’re such a fucking prick Loki.” 

Time to make his exit before Sigurd regained enough strength to cause him bodily harm. “Bye honey!” he trilled, and Sigurd’s growl was cut off as he made his way to his own apartment. He didn’t wake up Verity, she had work tomorrow, so he just kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed, surrendering to unconsciousness.

--

Verity and Loki had moved in together for two reasons. 

1) Loki spent most of his time at Verity’s. He had a separate shelf in her fridge for his energy drinks and his salsa, and a special place at the bottom of her spice cupboard for his snacks. He told Verity she had full ownership over all the snacks and could have them when he’d left, but she never did. Instead she got the little clip things she used and pinched the bags closed carefully, putting them to the side for the next time he came over. It was thoughtful, and Loki didn’t know what to do with it, so he never mentioned it. He got bored quite easily anyway, and most of his ‘friends’ had a very limited tolerance of him, so most days he found himself on Verity’s couch, playing Uno and eating Oreos.

2) Verity’s flat was bad and small and Loki’s was perfect and expensive, and if he spent all his time with Verity, they may as well hang out in his sketchily acquired penthouse. Plus, paying her rent made him feel useful. It was like a payment for all the little clips on his packets of Doritos.

He didn’t regret it. Except he thought that perhaps he might be as close as he could get to regretting it as he lay in bed listening to her pounding viciously at his door. 

“Are you alive?” she yelled through the mahogany. He groaned just loudly enough to be heard, and she banged one more time for good measure before her footsteps quickly petered off towards the kitchen.

He sighed in frustration, rolling off his bed with just enough basic athletic ability to land on his feet. His vision blacked out for just a second, and his head very much rejected the idea of being on his feet. Had he shifted through space while drunk? That was so dangerous. He should have gotten like, a driving ticket. A magic driving ticket.

He stumbled into the kitchen and stared blearily at Verity. “What are you cooking?” he mumbled.

“Eggs,” she replied without turning. “Want some?”

“Hmm.” He stares at the clock. One in the afternoon? That wasn’t too bad. Verity must have just gotten in from work though, which made him feel bad. Oh, how he missed the days when he had no shame and also no friends. “No thanks, I don’t want to throw up.”

“I thought alcohol didn’t affect you?”

“Human alcohol doesn’t.” He sat down on one of the tall swivel chairs at their counter and spun around. Ow, oh fuck, that wasn’t a good idea. He grimaced and placed his pounding head in his hands. “Lorelei and I spiked our drinks with something we got from Asgard.”

“Huh.” Verity sat opposite him, eggs piled onto the plate she set down in front of her. She’d cooked the yokes, the heathen. “Did you have a good time?”

Loki stared at her. “I feel like I’m being interrogated by my mother.”

“Oh honey,” she teased, grinning through a mouthful of eggs. “Oh sweetie. Wear protection!”

Loki dramatically re-enacted retching, and she choked on her eggs. A just punishment for her crimes, he thought.

“Ew,” he moaned. “I had to see Sigurd’s flat last night. It was disgusting.”

“I wasn’t being serious?” she stared at him. “I didn’t know you actually slept with-”

“Ew, ew, no,” he interrupted. “I was just detailing how he’s far too disgusting to ever consider as a sexual object. I would probably sleep with Lorelei though.”

“As if she’d sleep with you.”

“I’m forever alone!” he cried “Like the meme!”

“If you think referencing memes from 2008 is going to help you get laid-” she got up, pulled the dishwasher open and put her plate in without washing it off. Awful dishwasher etiquette, and Loki was from a place where they washed dishes with magic, so she had no excuse. “-then I think you might be beyond help.”

“I’m waiting for the right person,” he mumbled, squinting in the light streaming in from their egregiously large windows. “Like America. I ship America and myself.”

“America’s a lesbian,” Verity said.

“I’m a woman sometimes!” He got up and opened the fridge. “It’d be perfectly possible if she could tolerate me.”

“Which she can’t.”

“Yeah,” Loki said in faux-disappointment. “Ergo, forever alone, I’m mister lonely, involuntarily celibate, and sent to the friendzone.”

He shut the fridge, no bacon in sight, and stared at the front of it trying to consider his next move. He could head down to the store, but also he couldn’t, because he couldn’t imagine bringing himself to put on something other than the shorts he was currently in that said ‘BAD WITCH’ in bright green, metallic lettering on the back (a gift from Kate) and also he was pretty certain a drink had been poured on him the night before, judging by the smell of lager and the way his fringe had congealed into a hard point overnight. He wasn’t in any fit state to walk down the street. He had standards to maintain.

Yes, he was an illusionist, but he was a hungover illusionist with a headache, thus he opened up DoorDash and ordered McDonald’s. 

“Vee?” he called down the hall. “Do you want anything from McDonald’s?” 

“Ew,” she called back. “No.”

He placed his order and looked back up at the fridge. They had a shared calendar printed out on that kind of slippy photo paper so they could use whiteboard markers on it and make sure to not double book having people over. Last time it had happened, Verity’s cousin had to top-and-tail with Thor on the couch, which was a weird experience for everyone, but mostly for Daniel. Currently, the calendar was pretty sparse, since it was early April, but Verity had written something in for Sunday. ‘Easter - Mom’s House’.

He stared at it, confused. He didn’t turn when he heard Verity’s feet pattering back into the kitchen. “Hey, I didn’t know you were religious.”

“Huh?” Verity had flopped onto the couch and was fiddling with the remote control, probably trying to turn on Dr Phil. “Not really, what do you mean?”

“You’re going to your Mum’s for Easter?”

“Oh I guess.” The Judge Judy theme song streamed from the TV. Loki stood corrected. “I don’t believe in it or anything. It’s just tradition.”

“Huh.” He glanced out onto the street. It was lively. They were in pretty central Manhattan, and usually when you looked onto the road it was hard to see a part of the path that wasn’t covered in black throngs of city goers. He sometimes wondered where they were going, had they plans, or were they just wandering, aimless and free? Loki had always thought it would be night to wander off and see where his feet would take him if he didn’t walk with direction or intention. “Had an interesting conversation last night.”

“Yeah?” Verity responded mindlessly, staring at the TV. 

“About religion. With a girl in the smoking area.”

“Dude.” Verity leaned over, effortlessly butch. “Conversations about religion in a smoking area? I’m putting my foot down. Either you download Grindr or find a therapist.”

“Both of those options are severely limited by the fact that I am a divine being and a world renowned criminal,” he replied. “Do you think guys on Grindr are into my evil vibes, actually?”

“Guys on Grindr are definitely into your evil vibes.”

“Thanks Verity,” he said, turning and heading towards the door. “You always have my back. Maybe I’ll find a bae after all.”

He grinned at her sounds of indignation and headed to his room to sleep his headache away.

--

Loki had always been rather a superior child. He had no need for childish matters of ‘bravery’ and ‘heroics’, instead favouring his intellect and insight. His mother said he was a bright young man, thank you. So he cared little about Thor informing him he was too small and weak to spar with him and his friends. However, he had in return let Thor know that he would be instead spending some time with his very close friends, who Thor did not have an acquaintance with and who thought Loki was very cool and interesting indeed. Thus, appearances had to be upheld.

He peered around the corner of the great, awning entrance to the Bifröst control room. Lord Heimdall had his back turned, but Loki was not a fool. A child, but not a fool.

“Your Highness,” the Watcher called out, turning to face him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He inched forward, the tips of his fingers trailing the chilly gold-plated walls of the gate. “I was bored,” he lied.

“Very well.” Heimdall set down the Key and sat heavily down onto its platform. “Would you be able to keep me company during my break?”

Loki lifted his chin, glanced around himself and headed to sit beside him. “I suppose I can grace you with my presence, for some time at least.”

“Have you a full schedule, your Highness?”

Anger and indignation built in his chest. Loki whipped around and scowled at him. “I’m very busy.”

Heimdall’s playful expression sunk with practiced ease into something serious. “My apologies. Of course you are, my prince.”

Loki crossed his arms. He knew that Lord Heimdall knew all his business, all of everyone’s business, but it struck him like a spear to his chest to have been mocked over his… lack of desirability. How dare he? Loki may be a boy, but he was his prince. It was not Heimdall’s place to mock him. 

He struggled to think of something dignified to reply, and the pressure of the silence between them built into a garotte that tightened around his neck. He daren’t look at Heimdall, imagining a mocking grin staring down at him. It was unlikely, and would be utterly out of place on the man’s face, but Loki would rather avoid the possibility altogether.

“How is your brother, your Highness?” Heimdall said to break the silence.

In a fit of rage, Loki slammed his palm against the platform. His eyes watered with the pain of it. “Why does everyone only care about what Thor is doing? How Thor is? I am not a vessel through which people may be updated about my brother’s status!”

In his anger he’d turned to glare at Heimdall, and was horrified to find the man’s face transformed by pity. Loki scowled in disgust, and stared at the wall in the opposite direction.

“I did not mean to imply anything as such, your Highness,” Heimdall explained carefully. “I merely asked out of having nothing else very interesting to say. Perhaps I should have asked how you are?”

Loki hesitated, glanced back up. “I’m well,” he mumbled shortly.

“That’s good to hear,” Heimdall replied, staring ahead, out the gates and down the Bifröst. Loki wondered if he saw that which lay in front of him with more clarity, or if what his tangible eyes caught was nothing different to everything else he saw. “Is there anything in particular you would like to speak about?”

Loki was silent for a moment. A topic had been weighing on his mind, one he hesitated to bring to his mother. A heavy topic indeed. “Heimdall?” he asked. “Why am I destined to be a monster?”

It had been a burden to bear, acknowledging what was written upon the tapestries spun deep in Nornheim. When mother had first told him of his destiny years ago, it had seemed like a childhood game, but everyday the gravity of his situation held him just a little firmer to the ground. All has its place, his mother had told him, and your place is important. It is against you that others will shine.

It coloured everything he did, and how others treated him. Thor still loved him as a brother, but everyday his pride in his own journey grew and Loki could only stand and watch as he looked on his brother with a little more suspicion, held him at a slightly further distance. Loki’s cruelty had been encouraged, not in a direct way, but in the ways in which his parents and carers were cruel towards him. Like a knife being sharpened. 

Heimdall did not move. “Everything has its duty. Our world is not much but an elaborate play, and we act according to our roles so that the other realms may live in our image.”

“But why me?” Loki pressed. “Why can’t I be the hero?”

Neither mentioned what lay between them. A man and a child and a destiny for two corpses, having slain one another, to lie in the middle of their world as it burned.

“I’m sorry, my prince,” Heimdall said quietly. “Perhaps take some relief in the fact that you needn’t worry over who you will be. The Midgardians in particular struggle with virtue.”

“Really?” Loki muttered, head in his hands. “Isn’t it very freeing for them?”

“Not as such,” he replied. “In return for their agency, they are burdened with the duty to be ever kind and charitable to one another, or be damned for their failure to do so. It's simpler for us. Our fate is predetermined, and while you may be the villain, you are doing your duty as such and can rest easy knowing that it is a moral and just thing for you to be.”

Loki was silent for a second, staring morosely ahead. “But I don’t want to be the villain.”

“I’m sorry, Prince Loki,” Heimdall replied, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But the tapestries have already been spun.”

--

The Allmothers, in their omnipowetful ability to be incredibly annoying, always called him when he was in the middle of doing things. In this case, a lovely girl named Amelia who had told him he looked like Timotheé Chalamet.

She screamed, causing Loki to whip around with a curse only to find Gaia staring at him through his mirror, disgust on her face and her right eye covered by Loki’s Blondie postcard that Verity had bought him from some emo shop.

Gritting his teeth, he looked down at Amelia, who seemed to be sinking into some form of shock. “Oh man,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry. Uh, I kind of have to take this. Another time maybe?”

She looked up at him in speechless horror before turning quickly and climbing out from under him. Before he could even look up at her he heard the slam of the door. He glanced up. Huh, at least she’d taken her shirt with her. Loki was a feminist after all.

With a sigh, he turned to face Gaia. “My Lady!” He greeted with gritted teeth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She held his gaze for a few awkward seconds.

“Okay,” he said. “I would say, if anything it’s your fault that you decided to just turn up in my mirror without any prior warning. Really? You can’t expect me to be celibate. I’m Loki.”

She graced him with a performatively regal sigh and a significantly less regal eye roll. “The Allmothers have a task for you to complete, Loki.”

“Don’t you always?” He grumbled, pulling a hoodie on to cover up some of his nudity. Amelia may have only lost a shirt, but Loki was already down to his boxers. He was a feminist, after all.

“There is a great treasure in the belonging of one of our own, one who dwells in the realm of Midgard.”

“In English?” 

The Allmother paused. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Your first language is the tongue of Jötunheim.”

“It’s just a-, it’s just a phrase, okay? Anyway, can you get to the crux of it? I was busy.”

“You aren’t busy anymore.”

He threw his arms out dramatically, making sure his irritation was painted clear on his face. “Thanks for that, by the way!”

“We would like-,” she continued, gathering her composure. “-for you to retrieve the ancient sword, Gram. It’s power is too great for us to allow it to remain out of our grasp. We have waited too long already, and time is of the essence.”

“Gram?” Loki asked. “You mean Sigurd’s sword?”

“The legendary sword Gram does indeed lie in the hands of the hero Sigurd-”

“But Sig loves his sword,” he interrupted. “He’s going to hate me if I take it for you. That’s narc behaviour.”

“This is your duty, Prince Loki, to your people,” Gaia said sternly. “You are, and have always been, a narc.”

“Hey, fuck you-”

She was gone in the next second, and Loki was left staring at his face in the mirror, and the way the skin underneath his eyes was grey and sunken, which made his eyes pop in a sort of consumption-chic. He looked a bit like Maleficent, he thought in an attempt to distract himself from the dread of the task that now lay before him and the inevitable broken friendship (he didn’t have many to break left).

But without all the milf energy. Loki didn’t have any milf energy, which was probably the source of most of his problems

--

Often, Loki found the easiest way to avoid all of his issues was to pretend he was a funny, quirky little guy living a funny, quirky little life. Oh Loki, he’s the token evil teammate, the funny comic relief in stories about other people, relegated to side character (but hot enough that all the fan art and fic was going to centre him). This allowed him to get away with his faults, which were many and numerous, by playing them off as the work of that darned scamp, Loki. This situation however, was one that worried Loki, as Sigurd was nothing if he wasn’t two things; 1) absolutely unenamoured by Loki and everything Loki had going for himself, and 2) in love with that fucking sword.

Loki sat down cross-legged on his bed and contemplated the choices he could make here. He could take the sword, and try to manipulate the situation to make Sigurd look like he was overreacting. Take the sword to the flat and mess around while he showed it to Verity. But, he knew, Verity wouldn’t play along, because her moral compass was ever on the straight and narrow and anyway, she’d know he was lying. 

Lorelei would side with Sigurd over him, because she didn’t trust the Asgardian establishment and they all knew that the tentative little bit of control that let them languish in something resembling a real life on Midgard rested on Sigurd having enough power that Asgardia would rather leave him alone than bother. Losing Gram would put that in jeopardy, and Lorelei wouldn’t trade a shoelace for Loki, nevermind her happy ending. He knew well enough that this theft would be unjust, would put all of the power into the hands of the already powerful. He knew this, and he knew that Sig and Lorelei? Wouldn’t hurt a fly, really. For all the three of them pretended to hate each other, Loki knew they were good people, and they just wanted to live their lives in peace.

He could simply refuse. Not take the sword, let the Allmothers deal with it some other way. He could say it was above his pay grade, which it was.

Except, he couldn’t. Not really. He had duties that Sigurd and Lorelei couldn’t possibly understand. That idea couldn’t push its way forward from the back of his mind, as if constrained by something, writhing back and forth to break free. Or was it? Or was that an excuse, a claim to someone that he was trying, still, to do the right thing, and that it wasn’t his fault when he failed to.

He sighed, and stood up. His wardrobe was a mess, but it was an organised mess, and anyway it was a bright, sunny day outside and he could find his dragon scale armour easily from the way it glinted in the light at the back of his slogan t-shirts. 

--

Sig had moved all the dirty washing from his desk chair. Loki didn’t have high hopes that it was for any reason other than playing PC games though. Sig was really into, like, Call of Duty and Halo. Were they PC? Loki didn’t know. He preferred superior gaming experiences, like Professor Layton.

Lo and behold, Loki found the mysteriously disappeared dirty clothing on Sig’s couch. For a guy whose feats and adventures were written down in legend, he really had some drab taste in furnishings.

Loki moved silently through the flat, letting just a little bit of his seidr seep into his steps to cushion the noise. He didn’t turn on any lights, instead relying on a little bit of patience to let his eyes adjust to the dark. His Jotunn heritage, dare he say it, came in handy at times like this due to the Jotnär having pretty decent night vision. This was in order to do crimes and eat children, his nursemaid had informed him when he was small. Well, Loki was doing crimes, but the jury was out on the eating children bit.

Loki was an expert catburglar, tales of his stealthiness were scribbled on the walls of ancient Midgardian caves, the remnants of long extinct societies, all of which he had outlived. Thus, he cleverly noticed the Guitar Hero™ plastic guitar and stepped over it.

Loki knew one thing about Sigurd. He was paranoid. Thus, Loki had a suspicion about where he would put Gram, and if he was correct he knew this job wouldn’t be easy.

He eased open the bedroom door, and watched as the hero of the stories he had been told as a babe snored while laying on his front. Huh, great ass.

Loki mentally smacked himself. Bad!

His attention was then quickly snatched by the gleaming sword that lay against the left bedpost. Ding ding, we have a winner! Sigurd both expected his sword to be stolen and expected to have to fight off home invaders, and so he kept his greatest asset (other than his ass) right next to him in his most vulnerable times. Loki was his worst nightmare, well usually, but even more so at this moment.

He crept forward, stepping carefully over strewn clothes. Wait, was that Lorelei’s blouse? Ugh, he didn’t want to think about that. He’d much rather they remain entirely celibate in his mind.

Loki crept closer, and reached out to grasp the hilt of the sword silently.

“...What the fuck? Loki?”

He should have run, probably. Teleported, gone invisible, maybe should have even jumped through the window. That might have thrown Sigurd off the scent right? Prince Loki, God of Trickery and Harbinger of Ragnarök wouldn’t have just leapt through a window. Well, the window was seventeen floors up actually, so maybe a regular burglar wouldn’t have either.

Anyway, what happened was he stood stock still, unable to move a muscle or turn to face Sigurd, as if he were labouring under the delusion that Sigurd was a creature that tracked prey by movement. He looked like something out of Looney Tunes, which wasn’t fantastic for his dignity.

“Loki,” Sigurd snapped again.

He turned, and winced at the look of outrage on his friend’s face. Sigurd was sat up on his elbow, his other arm on his comforter. He looked like he was ready to attack someone. Loki was pretty sure he hadn’t expected it to be - well, Loki.

“What the fuck were you doing?” he said. “Were you stealing Gram? Why? For who?”

Ouch, that hurt. He may have been stealing it for someone else, but it was a bit upsetting that Sigurd had immediately disregarded the idea he was working in his own interest.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. “The Allmothers send their regards,” he finally admitted drily.

If anything, Sigurd’s outrage grew. “How- How could you?”

A bit dramatic, Loki thought. Sigurd leapt out of his bed, and Loki didn’t have the chance to step back before his shoulders were in Sigurd’s bruising grip and his back pushed hard against the wall. “You know what this means,” Sigurd said, his disgust evident. “You aren’t stupid, Loki. You know what you’re doing.”

Oh, that was it, wasn’t it? Loki wasn’t evil because he did evil things. He was evil because he knew they were wrong before he did them, and he did them anyway.

“I have to,” he mumbled weakly. Was that a lie? Verity would know. “I have no choice.”

“Yes you do,” Sigurd said, releasing his grip and stepping back, “Yes you do, you’re just too much of a coward to admit it. You’re so desperate to play happy families. I can see it in you, and so can Lorelei. All you want is to be useful to people, even if it’s for the Allmothers, who treat you like shit. You do their fucking dirty work and they kick you around and you love it, because you get to be part of their rotten little story.”

Loki stared at him, suddenly feeling utterly, entirely tired beyond belief. Sigurd could not tell him anything that he did not tell himself.

“You’re a coward. You’re a fucking coward who does everything the Allmothers ask of you. One moment you sneer at them up there, in Asgard, and pretend that you and me and Lorelei are all in the same boat, but the next moment you bare your neck to them. One day they’re going to ask you to hurt someone you really care about, and you know what? You’ll do it. They’ll ask you to hurt Thor, or Verity, and you’ll do it without a second thought because you’re a coward, Loki, and you always will be.”

His breath caught in his throat. “I wouldn’t hurt Verity.”

“Yes, you would. If someone put it on a tapestry you’d do it in a fucking heartbeat.”

“I see, well,” he paused, looked to his right to avoid Sigurd’s gaze. “I’ll let you get back to sleep I suppose.”

Sigurd reached out to grab him, but he was gone before he had a chance.

—

Received FRI 2:08

Verity: hey u coming back tonight or what

Verity: im assuming ur working

Verity: if u are there’s leftover pasta bake in the fridge. Ik you hate leftovers but its on offer. Im off to bed, night!

Received FRI 11:02

Verity: hey called lorelei to check in on you and she says you and sig aren’t talking. She didnt seem thrilled w you either. U ok? 

Verity: call me if you get the chance ok

Received MON 15:47

Verity: yh ok this is cringe but please call. Im worried

Verity: you usually lmk when youre gone this long and sig was being suspicious

Verity: i asked him if hed seen you and he like laughed

Verity: idk maybe hed be more concerned if something had happened but u guys dont exactly have a normal expectation for health and safety in the workplace

Received WED 23:21

Verity: please call i’m worried

Verity: please

Received THU 18:54

Verity: you’re a fucking idiot

Verity: I hate you

Received THU 19:02

Verity: i didn’t mean that

Verity: sorry.

Verity: please do call. please

--

Verity wasn’t the only one texting him, which would have done wonders for his ego if it had been anywhere near still intact, but she was the only one who’s texts he kept re reading, scanning them obsessively and trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing.

The thing that nagged him though, was how would he know what the right thing was?

All his life, the right thing was whatever was in stride with where he was determined to end up. The path had been laid out for him - all he had to do was walk it. But, though the Norns had written out his beginning, his end, his great misdeeds and stories, they hadn’t written about things like whether he should get KFC or not, whether he’d be good at Mario Party or what dog breed was his favourite (alsatian). They had never had the name Verity Lewis brush their lips.

Because this world was untethered. It simply wasn’t important enough for the Norns to have seen. Did that mean that they were free, here? Was that bad or good? To Loki, who despite everything had spent an eternity comfortable in the knowledge that he knew what would happen, and that the future was clear to him as long as he could stand in the halls he’d grown up in and stare at the tapestries on the walls, the idea of absolute undetermined fate was deeply terrifying. It caught in his throat, wrapped around his heart, squeezed the warmth out of his chest. 

But Sigurd was right, and so he had a decision to make.

There were people walking around under him, where he sat perched on the roof of a Soviet era apartment building in Brno. They didn’t know what would happen to them, how many kids they’d have, whether they’d marry or how they’d die. They didn’t know any of that, and that meant they could decide.

Huh.

--

He stumbled when he flashed in, and his hand reached out steady himself against the wall. The lights were off, but after a couple of seconds he heard a slight clutter from Verity’s room. Taking a deep breath he made his way to the kitchen and sat down at the bar. He didn’t bother to switch the light on, instead just collapsed into the chair and placed his head in his hands.

The lights switched on. “Loki?”

He peeked at her from between his fingers. Verity stared at him as if she couldn’t quite decide whether to be angry or happy. She was squinting (she wasn’t wearing glasses - she must have been asleep). He must have looked suitably miserable because instead of launching into a tirade she narrowed her eyes and slowly moved to sit opposite him, as if trying to tame some vicious creature. Apt, perhaps.

Their silence hung very heavily. “I’m sorry,” Loki eventually said, mortified to hear a crack in his voice from disuse.

She watched him carefully. “I forgive you,” she replied. Not ‘it’s okay’, because Verity found lying, even unconsciously, very difficult. “Can you tell me what’s up?”

By ‘can’, Loki knew that Verity was asking as if this was something related to his work for the Allmothers, but he found that even though this wasn’t any secret mission detail he was forbidden from sharing, he still found it hard to describe.

“I mean,” he muttered, breaking away from her stare. “Where would you like me to start?”

“Wherever you want to?”

He swallowed. “I had to steal something from Sigurd. Gram-” She opened her mouth and he jerked his shoulders defensively. “Please let me just explain. The Allmothers asked me too. I knew that if I did it it would put Sig and Lorelei’s relative safety at a significant risk. But,” he paused, bit his lip, horrified by the lump in his throat. “Even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and that all of you, all of my friends, would think less of me because of it, I had to do it. I had to do it because if I don’t do things that are wrong, that are bad, I am not filling the role that I am set out to fill, that I have always been set out to fill.

“There are tapestries, in Asgard,” he explained, a wobble entering his tone. “They’ve been there since before me, before my parents, before anyone. They were woven by the Norns, who see all of the past, the present and the future. They were woven so that we, who will be images of all the people of the Nine Realms and who will serve as a reflection of their large and varied communion, could know where we fit and what roles we are to play. And I’m a villain, Verity. I am the bad guy, because someone has got to be. There are people who actively choose to be bad and evil and selfish all over the shop, and someone has to represent them in the grand scheme of things. And, mainly, I have to keep everyone’s hands clean by making mine dirty.”

Her hands reached steadily out, grabbed one of his and held it between them. They were tears threatening to fall now, and they choked up his voice.

“So I do what the Allmothers ask me to, and I antagonise Thor, and I play my part as the bad guy of the story so that one day that story may be told to children as they are tucked into bed, so that they know that immorality causes you nothing but strife. I am supposed to have that strife, and through this my immorality is good and right, because I am an example.”

He paused. “Sigurd said I would hurt you, if they asked me to.”

“Would you?” she asked.

A second passed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d rather not risk it, but I thought you at least deserved an explanation for my sudden disappearance.”

She leaned back then, stared out their windows and onto the road beneath them, still busy despite the hour. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Dare I ask?” he chuckled wetly.

Her voice was firm. “I think that’s bullshit. I know you’re telling the truth, that you might hurt me if your Moms asked you. But I think you don’t know that that’s not true, which is why it’s registering as right to me.”

He squinted at her in confusion.

“You believe it,” she explained. “Which is why it’s registering as true to me. But that doesn’t mean you would, it just means you don’t think you’re a good person, and that’s not news.

“You see yourself as some kind of cut-out character with one trait, a yin to Thor’s yang or some shit, but you only think that’s all real because people have told you it is. Who’s to say those tapestries are anything? I think that you - all of you Asgardians - are terrified of being unmoored, so you make up shit like this so that you don’t have to grapple with morality.”

He tried to interrupt, but Verity continued. “You’re all terrified of life, so you pretend it’s one big play you’re putting on for our benefit, with roles and lines so that you needn’t make ‘em up. But you know what? Why don’t you just try? Try to improvise. Break away from it all. Maybe those tapestries do mean something, but maybe they just come true because you all keep doing what they say.

“You’re not the bad guy in a play, Loki,” she told him, her voice full of emotion and her hand rubbing his. It was just enough to keep him tethered to reality, he thought. “You’re my friend. You’re funny, and flippant. You don’t like to talk about your emotions. You don’t have great self-esteem and you kick ass at Jenga. You’re playing a part, but you know the thing about actors? They have lives when they get off the stage, and you could too.”

--

His boots echoed across the ground as he climbed the short hill to his destination. It was dust, not dirt, that he trod on, and the air was stale and cloyed in his lungs. It was the kind of air that felt like it didn’t blow, but just hung in the air for eternity, older than you by indescribable amounts.

No one went here. It was unplottable by some working laid down long before even the beginning of Asgardian history. It had taken Loki four days to crack, because 1) he’d spent all of his non-eating, non-sleeping time in the last couple of days focused on it, 2) he’d already made a groundwork as a teenager before his mother had told him off for meddling in things he shouldn’t have been and 3) he was pretty fucking good. Really, the only reason he hadn’t touched it before was because as he became a man, he grew to respect the Norns. Things had changed.

“Hello!” he called, not surprised to find the three women staring at him, likely well aware of his arrival for at least eternity, or something.

“Liesmith,” Lady Verdandi spoke in a low, powerful voice. “You have come to rattle the chains that you feel resting upon your shoulders.”

“Yep,” he responded, popping the ‘p’.

“These chains,” Skuld said in a tight voice. “Are imaginary.”

“No actually,” he said, beginning to pace around the room. “You see, I don’t really care if they’re ‘imaginary’ or whatever. I actually am just here to let you know that I’m just going to be kind of doing my own thing from now on.”

“Your ‘own thing’?” Urd sneered. “ You do not have your ‘own thing’. The fate we have laid out for you is everything you are.”

“Everything I am is just a mask.  A mask that you put on me!”

“Oh? That implies something on which a mask can be put. Is there anything under your mask, Loki? Do you even know?”

“Well, I guess I’m going to find out,” he ground out. They were sat down, staring up at him, and he felt unnervingly like he was still a child who had been summoned to his father’s study to receive an admonishment for troublemaking.

“You will find out,” Verdandi explained calmly. “That you are mistaken, and that you will play your part in the fate that will become and will end and will begin again, whether you try to fight against it or not.”

“So that’s it then?” Loki said softly, although his voice still echoed across the ancient walls that enclosed him. “There’s no path to grace for me. I’m your villainous fool, cast in this grand play so that your heroes may show their virtue in my vanquishment. I’m good when I’m bad, and I’m bad when I’m good.”

He paused, and stared her down.

“Well, I’m afraid I’d rather be bad on my own terms, actually.”

Verdandi had opened her mouth to say something else, probably something even more patronising, but before she had the chance Loki had stepped between reality and left Nornheim and its frigid, stale air behind him.

--

“Saw you coming,” the Watcher said when Loki stepped out in front of him. 

Loki smiled. “Naturally,”

Heimdall sat tiredly on the Bifröst’s lock. Loki noticed with a sort of jolt that Heimdall was getting old. Maybe they all were. “What is it you would like from me, my prince?” 

“Oh nothing really,” he answered. “I just thought I should let someone know that I will be unable to complete the most recent mission that the Allmothers have given me. In fact, perhaps you could let them know that I’m putting in my two week’s notice, so to speak? Although I’m not really giving them any notice, let alone two weeks.”

“Oh? Might I ask what has brought this on, your highness?”

Loki crossed his arms. “I’m trying this new thing called ‘making your own destiny’. All the cool kids are doing it.”

Heimdall nodded. He wouldn’t have been able to have viewed Loki’s conversation with the Norns, but he would have seen what Verity had said. “I wish you luck, dear child,” he said softly.

Loki’s smile turned quiet and genuine for just a moment, before he turned away and took a few steps. Wait! He had something else to mention.

He looked back at Heimdall.

“By the way, maybe I am going to kill you someday,” he said. “”But I promise that I’m going to try my damndest not to.”

With that, he stepped back into New York, and headed towards Dominoes to pick up their pizza. They were doing movie night, he and Verity. They were going to watch Legally Blonde. Loki thought about - What was her name? Susie? Sarah? He thought maybe she was right, in the end. Maybe it was a gift to believe in what can’t be seen, and thus a gift to follow darkened paths. But the path that brought him home felt warm and reliable, just like it always did.