#they can’t prove i’m carrying it without a search which as far as i’m aware they can’t legally conduct without a valid reason

[riotshotguns]

shitty employers teaching me to be sneaky as usual

[dear-mrs-otome]

As someone who can’t read Japanese, could you please spoil Faust’s route? I’m really curious!

I can, sorry this took me awhile to get all down!

I’ll give you a summary of Faust’s route below the cut, so for those zooming past BE WARNED. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

SPOILERS AHOY!

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE THE WHOLE ROUTE SPOILED IN DETAIL???

I MEAN IT - A GIANT WALL OF TEXT EXISTS BEHIND THIS CUT, ALL SPOILERS…

Faust’s route begins as all of the ‘Act 2’ routes do - just as MC is attempting to return home after her month vacation in the past, the door to the Louvre appears to malfunction and she’s forced to remain in the 19th century until Comte can figure out what is going on.

Life carries on much as usual for her, as she tries to keep her spirits up, when one day in town she stumbles across a church on the edges, presided over by a kindly priest (Faust) who seems impressed by her generosity towards a poor woman he’s given medicine to whose son is suffering from a mysterious epidemic that’s begun circulating the city. One night she attends a party with Comte when a critter of some sort steals her hair ornament. Chasing after it, she winds up in a graveyard, where to her horror she sees a figure digging up a fresh grave. She tries to run, is caught by said figure (Faust), and bitten until she faints. (First CG)

She wakes up in the church from earlier and the kind priest who claims he was merely a Good Samaritan seems willing to help her get home. Soon though it comes to light that she is the woman staying with Comte, and Faust drops his ‘nice’ mask and reveals himself as a vampire - biting her once more to observe the effects and proclaiming he will abduct her to be his new guinea pig, curious about her as a person both from the future and who has been living with vampires.

Waking up in Vlad’s castle now, she meets the Terrible Trio and struggles to deal with her situation now - Faust feeds on her for the purposes of observation again, and she goes on a hunger strike briefly, defiant and unwilling to accept being captive. Only when Faust threatens the other residents of the mansion does she reluctantly settle down, and they butt heads over their wildly different philosophies on life - Faust’s mission to grant humans eternal life, her proclaiming God gives us only that which we can handle, and Faust’s disagreement.

To prove his point he begins bringing her to the church with him disguised as a nun, where she witnesses firsthand the cruelties of fate in ways her 21st century self had never encountered before - children orphaned senselessly, people coming for confession bearing the crushing weight of guilt over their own poverty and misfortune. She begins to realize how she may have been wrong, but she and Faust continue to disagree over their different viewpoints. MC still believes that hope is real and necessary, whereas Faust is a committed cynic.

She slowly comes to lose her fear of the other residents of the castle as well, as they are nothing but kind and welcoming to her, though she still is unsure of what to make of everything and remains defiant.

The arguments between her and Faust come to a head when the son of the woman MC met that very first day outside the church comes around, seeking Faust’s blessing to send him on to the next life and refusing the medicine and help offered him. Faust reacts harshly to the man’s willingness to quietly acquiesce to his fate, to MC’s horror, and when she asks him if he has nothing of hope left Faust assures her it’s long gone. When she spots Napoleon and Sebastian later, she dithers for a bit but eventually tries to call out to them, only to have Faust intercept. Still unsettled from their argument earlier, he reiterates to her that she belongs to him and bites her on the church altar, as if to prove that bad things happen to good people no matter what.

Things are strained between them after that, not helped by MC’s increasing suspicions that the strange rumors of ‘resurrections’ going on around the city in the wake of the disease are somehow Faust’s work - an accusation that clearly wounds Faust upon hearing. She meets a young university student, Alex, who desperately wants to be Faust’s assistant and is studying the epidemic. Days pass as they continue working at the church and the orphanage, until one day the disease strikes even there - and finding Faust’s medication is running out, over his protests and concerns MC volunteers to help him make more, the two of them working day and night together to develop and manufacture enough to save the children.

They’re successful, save for one girl Lina who is still very sick that they bring back to the castle to finish nursing to health. They succeed, but afterwards MC falls ill with the same sickness and collapses...only marginally coherent of a desperate Faust doing all he can to save her life. (2nd CG)

She has time and evidence to rethink some of her assumptions about Faust, realizing that despite his best efforts to crush whatever heart and kindness he has it remains. There’s more to him than just icy logic. And when she asks him about his past he finally tells her some of it - that he was abandoned as a baby, raised in an orphanage by a kindly nun, and that when she fell ill he sold himself into slavery to provide her with money for medicine. It made no difference in the long run though, the woman still died...and Faust remains the cynic when they discuss hope and happiness and how MC still clings to these things.

Rumors abound about Faust’s miraculous work stopping the epidemic at the orphanage, as things return mostly to ‘normal’ for them both, working at the church and such. They’re each grappling with changing feelings for each other, Faust suffering his first bout of bloodlust, when one morning Faust collapses in agony bleeding from his mouth horrifically, falling unconscious for days.

Everyone at the castle is fretting, Faust growing weaker and weaker, as Vlad explains his theory that Faust has altered the timeline too much by stopping the plague at the orphanage and the universe is attempting to set things to right again by erasing him from existence. He claims the same thing has happened to him before when he tries to change world events too drastically - the difference being that as a pureblood he can’t die. Faust, however, can. 

He proposes traveling back in time and attempting to nudge humans here and there, make tiny alterations to the timeline to achieve the same goal of saving the children without the backlash falling on Faust, and MC insists on going along - realizing now that she’s faced with his death, she can’t bear the thought of losing him.

Going through the door in the castle with Vlad, she ends up first back at the mansion shortly after her own disappearance (where she assures Comte she’s doing well, thereby explaining why the mansion wasn’t losing their minds this entire time) and recruiting Comte’s help fiddling with the timeline. Upon the next passage she’s ripped from Vlad and dumped far in the past - where she witnesses firsthand little Johann’s heart and faith breaking upon the death of his beloved mother-figure nun, and then the natural disaster that crushed a town he frequented as a young man. This was the moment that solidified for Faust his determination to fight against God and Fate with all he had, and kicked off his obsession with discovering eternal life. (3rd CG)

After one more timey-wimey meeting with the Past!Faust at the point when they were nursing little Lina, where she offers him some much-needed words of encouragement, MC finally finds herself in the recent-enough past to travel around Paris with Vlad and encourage people to be more aware of the spreading plague. She even urges Alex to be more wary, prompting him to start developing his own medication from notes he’d taken from Faust.

Back in the ‘proper’ time, their efforts seem to perhaps have paid off...they return to find Faust gone, and after searching frantically around the city they find the orphanage has been set aflame on the strength of rumors that the plague spread from there. (As if the universe has manufactured some new tragedy instead for it, she realizes) Faust had gone into the blaze to save the last child, but comes out horrifically burnt and near death.

They take him to the church, where things appear dire...but Faust admits to finally seeing hope and accepting this outcome, just glad that something good has come of it all. MC refuses to accept his death though, and after Faust nearly dies again she cuts herself and he eventually revives. After he recovers, Faust corners her into confessing her feelings for him and admitting his own in return, before they finally consummate their love.

MC returns to the mansion as she had promised Past!Comte she would, happy to see all her friends again. A few days pass before Faust and Charles come to collect her, setting off an amusing set of interactions between the Mansion Boys and the Dastardly Duo, but it culminates in a scene where Faust thanks Comte humbly for his assistance with the timelines and for his consideration of MC. The couple then has a late-night conversation at the church where they’re both working again about the future of their relationship.

In Faust’s dramatic end, he asks MC to accompany him as he returns back to the place of that town that was destroyed, Faust making peace with his feelings surrounding the situation and reiterating his love for MC and how she’s helped him to see hope - before he asks her to help him with a different sort of ‘eternal life’, AKA having babies with him.

In Faust’s romantic end, he explains a bit about what motivates him to take on the role of a priest, and then he takes MC back to the castle where he intends to make love to her - saying that he can’t ever lose her but can’t stomach the thought of anyone other than himself ever biting her so he will have to work all that much harder to achieve his dream of eternal life so that they can continue to thumb their noses at God and Fate for all time together.

------

Even long as this is I’m clearly glossing over things - it’s a very busy route! And it’s complicated by the time travel stuff, which thankfully doesn’t get TOO complicated. If anyone’s interested in hearing my thoughts on Faust himself I’m happy to share, just let me know...I think he’s a fascinating complex character that definitely won’t be for everyone, but I am happy he exists in the IkeVamp cast and glad for this route.

[animeyanderelover]

You’re not being strict at all! Is it okay if I request Kurapika and fluff with prompt 40. “What I am doing? I’m punishing myself. Why? Because I upset you earlier.” Thank you and keep up the good work at your own pace!

🥺💔.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, kidnapping, self-harm, slight violence, strict behavior, controlling behavior, Stockholm syndrome

Prompt 40: “What I am doing? I’m punishing myself. Why? Because I upset you earlier.”

He had messed up. He had messed up big this time. What had he been thinking? Why had he said those things to you? It had been almost in his reach if hr wouldn't have been such a jerk. Your love had been almost in his reach after months of impatiently waiting.

You had started coming around, had been more willingly spent time with him, searched for comfort in him as well as protection. He had cherished the moments he had finally been able to hold you in his arms without having to endure your struggles, your screaming and the salty tears which had always fallen down your pretty face.

He could have had it all, he could have spent this evening with you, just being lazy and cuddly with you, maybe reading a book together or just enjoying each other's presence.

But due to his faults it all had turned out differently, with you having locked yourself up in your room and him cowering outside of the house, at the front door to be specific. He just couldn't stand it anymore. For hours your whimpers and cries had now filled the house, torturing Kurapika more than he had expected.

You were in pain because of him and each of your wails had hit him like a rain of bricks. It had simply been unbearable for him, his heart had been in too much pain to stand this anymore. So he had thrown himself out of the house, not wanting to face you for the time being. He guessed his face was most likely the last thing you wanted to see right now, the still lingering burning feeling on his cheek being a dreadful reminder of it.

But even outside, guarding still over you, he didn't seem to be safe from you and your haunting weepings, almost echoing through the silent and chilly air of the forest. Why were you still crying? Why hadn't you stopped yet? Hadn't he promised to keep you safe from any sort of pain? Hadn't he been the one who had wanted to adore you like no other and give you the same fuzzy and amazing feeling you always gave him?

But he had broken that promise, he had hurt the one person he loved more than anything else. How could he? He didn't have the right to call himself your protector. And the worst was that he was too much of a coward to even face you right now, to at least try to comfort you.

He hadn't even apologized to you, you had just screamed at him to leave...and he had. Without turning back, without muttering a word. He had just left you mourning lonely in your room. What had you screamed after him when he had done this?

"Come back here! A-Apologize to me! Please...Kurapika!"

He had ignored your pleas, hadn't found the courage in himself to turn around, to give you a hug and apologize to you like you had begged. You hadn't wanted him to leave, you had recently become a bit jumpy with everything around you. You needed him. And he had known it, so why?"

"You're such a horrible liar. You promised to not leave me...You're truly a cold-hearted monster...Well, they say what you hunt and kill, you become. You're no better than them."

He was, wasn't he? He couldn't get these words out of his head, your trembling voice, the audible hurt and feeling of betrayal in it. When exactly had he sunken this low? Had he really...? He couldn't believe that you had compared him to them, the criminals he had been hunting down for years now. Normally he might had gotten angry at you, but not this time. Your words had striked a vulnerable soft spot in his heart and he remembered he had frozen when he had heard these words before rushing away. He hadn't wanted to show you his tears.

It hurt...Someone make it stop. The painful squeezing in his heart, the non-stopping tears flowing down his face, your cries which he seemed to hyper-aware of. His head was pounding, the blood feeing like it was kicking him. It was too much. "Stop this." He pressed his hands over his ears, ripping on his hair whilst doing so. The pain didn't even seem to register itself in his mind, there was simply no place for it anymore. "Please make it all stop. No more. I can't stand this. I hate it."

How much time had passed by? You didn't know, there was no clock in your room. But judging from the fact that it was already dark outside, inky darkness being your only comrade in the killing silence, a lot of hours must have passed by. And he still hadn't come to apologize.

You felt betrayed by this, you had layed hours crying in your bed, waiting for him, to hear footsteps walking up the stairs and him just taking you in his loving embrace and apologizing to you for what he had said.

You knew he hadn't meant it, he had obviously been stressed out by something, his eyes having given his emotions away. Granted, he might have overeacted a bit when you had tried to make him relax, ending with him spitting some really mean words at you.

"What do you understand about me?! You don't know anything!"

"Don't interfere with my business! If it wouldn't be for me, you would have been completely helpless! You're nothing without me!"

If he would have yelled this at you a few weeks ago, you would have snapped back at him. But now these words had hit so differently and you knew why. You had started gaining feelings for him, you had always feared that you would start developing Stockholm syndrome some day.

Back then you had told yourself you would fight it with all your mind, but instead of this you had just given in. You didn't know why. Maybe because both of you had been tired from the constant fights and arguments. All you wanted to live was a peaceful and happy life, just like him. And recently you had started feeling happy again, after you had realized your feelings. And he had been glad too, shown you much more love and care due to you not fighting back anymore. You knew that this was wrong and you would never get your freedom back. But if it meant that you could finally find a way out of your misery, you would accept it. What was so wrong with wanting to be happy, even if it was just an illusion?

You couldn't sleep despite your eyelids feeing like stones. As soon as you closed them, imagines of the fight earlier started to flash before your eyes. You had slapped him, you couldn't believe that you had done it. Sure, you had been agitated and had done it a lot of times before, but the moment you had seen Kurapika's confused and shocked face, hurt flashing his eyes, you had felt like you had just received a slap in your face as well.

Why had this to happen right now, after everything had finally started to feel better? Wy had destiny to be so cruel? All you wanted was storming to the blonde and make him apologize and afterwards dragging him to bed so you two could just savor the closeness to each other. That's all you wanted, it was so cold without his warm body pressed against yours, not to mention the loneliness. You felt empty in that moment, laying quiescent under the blankets, heart heavy and eyes burning from all the spilled tears, the sound of heavy rain outside being the only thing disturbing the silence.

You turned around a bit, staring with saddened eyes at the spot where he would have been by now. But you were only greeted with emptiness, not with warm and lovingly grey eyes which you longed to gaze into right now. You wanted this whole stupid thing to end right now, imagining very well that Kurapika was suffering currently as well. And if he wasn't the one who would prove to have the courage to do the first step, you would do it. Finding him surely couldn't be hard, he was most likely lingering somewhere in the house, hunching somewhere down and feeling terrible about what had happened.

The storm had gotten worse, but Kurapika was barely able to recognize anything around him right now. He was too deep caught in his own emotions and thoughts to even acknowledge it. He didn't realize the cold and chilly air which caused chills and goosebumps to appear anywhere on his body nor that he had started to tremble, the coldness stinging like a million tiny needles. Not even the wind who whipped the water painfully against his face, he did not realize and even if he would have, he wouldn't have cared. The only thing that had been stuck in his mind for the last few hours had been one and only one thing. "(y/n)."

"Kurapika...?" It was barely above a whisper, the wind threatening to carry the small sound far, far awy without Kurapika even hearing it. But he did, he had longed to hear this voice more than anything for a long time, calling his name softly out like this. He tensed up slightly and yet his body seemed to somehow relax as well when hearing the lovely melody of your voice, gifting him a warm tingling in his freezing body. He slowly turned around, tracing his eyes over your shocked form, standing in the doorframe. And for the first time this day, he managed to crack a small smile upon seeing you. It was tired and exhausted, but still a sincere one. "You shouldn't be outside here (y/n). It's very cold. Go back inside."

You didn't listen to him, instead staring with wide eyes at him. He was soaked from head to toe, standing in the center of the storm and being mercilessly hit from the lashing wind and the cold water. His lips had turned a slightly blue shade and it was obvious from the way he was shaking that he was freezing to death out here. He appeared to be exhausted and his voice sounded hoarse, dark circles around his eyes who were glowing in a dull red, having lost the normal flames burning inside of them. It was the first time you had ever seen him this done.

What was he doing here?! Had he been all this time outside, enduring the slaps of the storm?! "What are you doing here?" You looked like you were in absolute disbelief, not understanding why he would risk getting sick and catching a terrible cold when there had been the choice of just going inside in the warmth again. But he had somehow locked himself out of the house, you not getting why he would do this.

"What I am doing?" His face twisted shortly into a pained expression before he quickly overwrote it with a strained smile, saddness still radiating off from it. "Isn't it obvious?" It was, you somehow had a solid guess what all of this was about, but you hoped you might be wrong about it. But your hopes were erased when he said his next sentence. "I'm punishing myself."

No. Please everything, but this. "W-why?", you managed to croak out, tearing up once again when seeing him in his currently pathetic condition. All this just to punish himself? He couldn't be srious! "Why? Because I upset you earlier."

If it wouldn't have been for the sounds of thunder, splashing rain and whistling wind, you were sure the silence would have been a too heavy burden for you to carry in that moment. It only lasted a few moments, but for you and him it felt like a whole eternity. He let out a breathy laugh, rubbing one of his hands through his wet hair. "You shouldn't waste your time with me. Please go back to bed. It's already very late. You should sleep."

"No...not without you." Four small words, spoken in a quiet voice yet they hit Kurapika with unexpected lot of force, worsening his current headache even more and making him once again dizzy, but this time not only negatively. "What?" His voice was quivering, Kurapika feeling his vision blurry even more due to tearing up once again after he had thought he had wasted all his tears the last few hours.

"Come back inside Kurapika. Let's talk about it. You...We don't have to do it this way. Look, I'm sorry for annoying you earlier and hitting you. I should have given you space. I-I don't want this silent treatment anymore. Please just apologize as well and go back inside. Let's forget this incident. Okay?" You wanted to move outside and walk to him, but his sudden demand made you halt.

"Stay there! Please..." He was thankful for the heavy rain who had smeared his face all over with it's cold liquid. It made it nearly impossible for you to differ raindrops from his real tears. "Why would you apologize to me? You didn't do anything wrong. Whatever you did, I deserved it. You should have slapped me more if I'm being honest. I'm the one who was wrong. I-I'm sorry. All I really want is to protect you, but maybe you are right. Maybe I am just like them. Maybe you aren't safe because I'm a threat to you as well. I'm terrible, aren't I?"

He was cruelly mocking himself by now, feeling worthless. He hadn't been able to protect his clan and apparently he wasn't even able to protect you from himself either. Was this how he was supposed to live? Alone with the knowledge that he couldn't protect anyone?

"Prove it to me then." He gave you a mildly confused look. Proving what? "Show me you are sorry by coming back. I don't care if you see yourself as a monster. Granted, I saw you for a long time as some sort of demon as well. You took me away from everything and everyone I loved. I still hate you a bit for that. But...but if you don't stop all of this instantly and get inside, that makes you in my eyes indeed a terrible person!"

Never once before Kurapika had ever considered the thought whether he deserved you or not. But he couldn't help, but feel like he didn't in this moment. He had hurt you, you had cried because of him for hours and yet...you...you...

"Promise me you won't do something like this again. That's all I need. Just do it for me." You were pleading him, eyes holding the pain of a person who wanted someone else back by their side. You wanted him back. How could he say no?

Trying to wipe away his tears wasn't very useful, they just streamed down his face as soon as he had removed them with his damp sleeves. "I promise. It won't happen again."

He barely managed to walk straight through you, hours in the cold had gifted him with a terrible headache and constant waves of dizzyness, leading him to collapsing right in your arms as soon as you had successfully brought him inside again.

"Kurapika! Are you fine?! What am I saying, of course you're not! Wait, let me help you!" Walking up the stairs seemed to be too much for you now, he was too heavy and you were scared both of you might end up falling down. So you settled for the nextbest option. The couch, where you quickly threw all the blankets over him you had.

"I'll be right back! I'll just get some towels and new clothes! Do you want some hot tea? I can make some hot tea for you if you want too! A hot-water bottle sounds like a good idea too! I'll make you one! Maybe also-"

Your hasty talking was interrupted when you felt him suddenly tugging you back to his side, slowly sitting up and burrying his head in your chest. You were flustered by his sudden clingyness. "Kurapika? What's wrong?"

"I don't need towels, new clothes, hot tea or a hot-watter bottle. I don't want it either." His voice was slightly muffled, the vibrations tickling you a bit. He sounded really drowsy and exhausted, but still seemed to possess enough strenght to successfully pull you down so that you were sitting right next to him.

"The only thing I truly need and want right now is you. Stay with me. Don't leave me. Please never leave me. If I have you, that's enough. Then I don't need anything else."

[writingwithacupoftea]

A family reunited

Summary: Shelby family dinners always bring some drama with them...but none of the brothers expected their sister, Y/N, to join them. After all, she had been missing for 5 years.

Word Count: 3147

A/N: First time writing a fic with a word count over 3000, baby!!! All of the brothers are actually in this but, let’s be honest, Tommy always gets more attention in my writing than anyone else. Let me know what you think of this one, and enjoy!

Part 2

Sometimes you can be better off not knowing the truth. Because the knowing the truth can make your worst nightmares an inescapable reality. A reality that can bring everything crashing down around you.

And that's how the Shelby clan felt about knowing the fate of their sister, Y/N.

Y/N Shelby was 23 when the war began, one year Tommy's junior. Before her brothers left for France, she left them with the promise of having their Mother's favourite sponge cake waiting on the table for them when they got back. She would have to save her money and actually figure out how to make it, but Y/N swore that she'd do it (somehow, even if it did turn out to be an atrocity).

But when the boys stepped through the door of the Shelby residence again in 1918, there was no cake waiting for them. It had been four years, they reasoned, maybe she'd forgotten. Even that didn't seem to sit right with the brothers, however - Y/N always kept her promises, no matter when they were made.  

It was like a dark cloud was looming over the house, but none of them could see what had caused it. Something wasn't right at number 6 Watery Lane.

After embracing Polly and Ada, who had tears flowing down their faces at the mere sight of them, Tommy immediately asked where Y/N was. Their silence had told him everything. Not waiting for an explanation, Tommy stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.  

It was no secret that Y/N and Tommy shared a close bond; they always had each other's backs and always made time for each other. Despite there only being one year between them, Tommy was especially protective over Y/N, as he didn't want anything to happen that might risk her leaving him alone. He couldn't cope without her, for Y/N was both his rock and his light, even though she carried her own darkness with her.

It was dusk when Tommy finally returned, wanting answers. Polly simply presented him with the letter that had been left for herself and Ada on the night that Y/N vanished, for that was all she knew. It said that she had to go away for a while, to not tell Tommy, John or Arthur as she didn't want to worry them, and that she'd be back home as soon as she could. The letter was dated back to 1916. Two years ago. And no one had heard anything from her since.

Tommy refused to look up at his family after reading the letter over and over again, not wanting them to see the tears that glazed his cold blue eyes. He grabbed his bag (effectively hiding the shaking that had taken over his hands) and mumbled something about going to unpack, before retreating straight up to his bedroom, actively avoiding the pitiful looks being sent his way.

The only other time the family saw Tommy that night was when he walked through the parlour and back out of the front door again. They assumed that he was going down to Charlie's yard, where Y/N and Tommy always went together to talk. It was their special place, for they both possessed a deep-rooted love for horses and always found themselves wandering back to their Gypsy roots. When they were both younger, the siblings would be out for days on end riding in the open air. What a distant memory that was now.

According to their uncle, Tommy didn't leave the yard until the sun was fully risen the next morning.

***

Y/N Shelby had been well known to the Birmingham Police from a young age: she had a, quite frankly, remarkable ability to escape the officers no matter how tight of a spot she had managed to get herself into. She was a listener, and had an impressive memory for information that could be of use at some point in the future. Her brain, in combination with her physical abilities to slip away from or outrun trouble, made her an absolute nightmare for the coppers of Small Heath.

She built up such an impressive reputation that, during the war, she had been asked to put her talents to good use. Y/N was recruited as a spy by British Intelligence, and went undercover in Germany to retrieve vital information which ultimately helped the Allies to win the war.  

It was an opportunity that she would never have been able to resist. Her brothers had always treated her as an equal when it came to the family business (although Tommy was sometimes unwilling for her to take part in certain activities); it had annoyed her immensely when they went away to fight and she couldn't do anything to help.  

(She had tried to become a nurse with Ada, but was also kicked out because she couldn't stop laughing when her sister had started laughing).  

But this was her way around it and, as far as she was aware at the time, her brothers would never have to know about her dangerous escapades.

However, not even Y/N Shelby was the perfect criminal or spy. In the March of 1918, she had been on the verge of completing her latest mission when the plan had gone awry. Instead of using her limited time to escape, she had ensured that the information she had gained was communicated properly to her associate. This decision left her with an open police case in Germany, and Y/N was forced to go into hiding.  

As that fact hit her, only one word came to mind: shit.

***

For a year after returning home Tommy searched for Y/N, and turned up nothing. She seemed to have disappeared without a trace. His desperation fuelled his ambition: Tommy wanted to make it big, not just for money but for status and connections. This, he hoped, would provide the opportunities to dig deeper and give him access to speak to the right people, so that he could find out where his younger sister was.  

Because despite the slight shadows that lurked in the back of his mind, he clutched onto his conviction that Y/N was still alive somewhere. He didn't believe in much these days, but he would always believe in his sister.

But in 1920, even Tommy was starting to have his doubts, though he refused to admit them or accept them. His search was beginning to become futile and none of his fucking contacts had been able to turn up everything.  

And so Tommy began to spiral further and further downwards, for Y/N wasn't there to stop it and he didn't have the strength to do it alone.

By the time 1921 had rolled around, the family had pretty much given up all hope that their sister was still alive. However, none of them wanted to be told that harsh truth. What they didn't realise, though, was that it couldn't be further from the truth.

***

Polly Gray wasn't a woman to be easily shocked. She had seen and done too much in her time for that.

Having been settled in her new house (courtesy of Thomas) for a few weeks now, she knew exactly who had her new address – she had only given it to the people that she actually wanted to hear from and knew that they weren't a threat. So, when she didn't immediately recognise the writing on the front of an envelope, worry took over her. However, upon closer inspection of the handwriting, she stopped. Polly knew that writing, but she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She ripped the envelope open, and what was contained in that letter shocked her more than anything that had happened over the last three years:

Polly,

DO NOT SHOW THIS LETTER TO ANYONE OR TELL ANYONE ABOUT WHAT IT CONTAINS. It's not sensitive or anything, I just want to keep it a surprise. A secret between us girls, just like the old days (I've written to Ada as well).

As you can probably tell, it's Y/N, and I'm alive and well. I'll explain more when I get home - I'm on my way back to Birmingham now.

By the time you get this, I'll be arriving in two days' time. I'll come to the address that I posted this to, I know that's your fancy new home. Then, how about we organise a little family get together? You know I've always been one for the dramatics (although I promise me disappearing off for 5 years wasn't completely intentional).

I can't wait to see you again soon; I've missed you all so much.

All my love,

Y/N Shelby xxx

(P.S. in case you don't believe that I am who I say I am, I've enclosed my Mother's necklace that Tommy gave to me on my 16th birthday, to prove my identity.)

And there the necklace was, sat at the bottom of the envelope. Silent tears began to roll down Polly's face and a smile, as big as the day that Michael returned to her, brightened her features.

Y/N Shelby was coming home. And, boy, were those two going to have some fun telling her brothers...

***

The day that the 30-year-old turned up on Polly's doorstep was a blur of tears, hugs and gin.  

Y/N had been introduced to Michael, who they couldn't really avoid because he lived there, but who was more than happy to keep their secret. Just being with Polly again made her realise that she was finally home.  

Whilst Y/N already knew a lot about what had happened since she left, having kept tabs on the family through her various contacts while she was away, the next day Polly helped to fill in some of the gaps in her knowledge. Polly also told her about how torn up Tommy still was about her absence, and it was enough to nearly send Y/N running straight to him. But then her aunt reasoned that it was probably better for Thomas to pass out in shock in her home, where they could set up lots of cushions as a crash pad, as oppose to on the hard streets of Birmingham.

And so the planning commenced. It was decided that Polly would host a dinner for the whole family, telling everyone that she needed to put her new house to good use, and that they could combine it with a proper welcome for Michael.

As the day drew nearer, Y/N could feel butterflies in her stomach constantly. Her excitement at seeing her whole family again was almost overwhelming. Yet she dreaded having to tell them all the truth about her prolonged disappearance.  

But, honestly, the excitement won over her nerves every time.

***

When Y/N heard her brothers' voices booming through the house, she had never been more grateful that she was running late in getting ready (as usual) and didn't have her makeup on yet. She hadn't been able to stop the tears falling from her blue eyes as the familiar sounds of her family's squabbling travelled up the stairs like music to her ears.

Everything was ready for the night that she had dreamed of for nearly three full years.

Fuck, I'm still in my pyjamas, Y/N realised, and hurried about getting ready.

Having memorised where the creaky steps were earlier that day, Y/N creeped down the stairs silently, clad in the most gorgeous midnight blue dress that she had ever seen. When she looked in the mirror, with her makeup on and hair done, she had realised how much she had grown up since she last saw her family.

But she had no time to think about that now, for it was nearly her moment.

Lingering in the doorway with a glass of champagne, and sending Polly a wink, she felt her heart rate shoot up as her aunt stood up with her own glass.

"Now, before we have dessert, I'd like to make a toast." She paused, looking around the table, her own happiness threatening to overflow. "To family."

"To family!" The brothers and Michael chorused.

Stepping into the light and leaning against the doorframe, completely unnoticed by her siblings, Y/N waited until the noise had died down before gently repeating the toast: "To family."

***

It felt like time had stood still.

Arthur, John and Finn's heads whipped around to see where the voice came from. Tommy had frozen completely, tensing up as he heard his sister's voice for the first time in seven years.

"Y/N/N?" Arthur whispered, not believing his eyes.

"Hello boys," Y/N said with a smile and a teasing glint in her eye. "Did you miss me?"

John stood up slowly and made his way towards her, and Y/N stretched her hand out towards him after putting her glass down. Her little brother tentatively placed his hand in hers, and she squeezed it, reassuring him that she was really there. She saw a couple of tears form in his eyes, though he refused to let them fall. John started to laugh, wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted Y/N up, spinning her in circles and hugging her tightly. Still laughing, he exclaimed "Oh my fucking God!" and placed her down on the ground.

Y/N was next almost knocked flying with a hug from Finn, who buried his head into the crook of her neck as he cried silently. "Look at you, eh! Almost as big as me now, aren't you?" Y/N placed a soft kiss on the top of her youngest brother's head and rubbed his back soothingly. Over Finn's shoulder, she saw Arthur approaching her, seemingly lost for words. His hand cupped her cheek as he ran his thumb over it, before finally saying "Now what sort of time do you call this, young lady?" Y/N collapsed into giggles as Arthur placed a rough kiss to her forehead.

As Finn and Arthur pulled away, Y/N's eyes found the only brother who hadn't yet greeted her and who she was the most anxious to see. Tommy still hadn't moved, his eyes fixed firmly on the table in front of him, but Y/N could tell that they were cold.

"Tom?"

There was silence. After what felt to Y/N like a lifetime, Tommy spoke quietly and slowly. "I don't want to look up and find that you're not really here. That this is all in my head. I don't think I could bear it." His voice cracked slightly as he uttered the last sentence and, for the first time since the war, the family saw their brother's vulnerability as clear as day. It was a stark contrast to the Tommy Shelby that they'd gotten so used to being around.

Y/N cautiously walked over to her beloved elder brother, as if he were a spooked horse, and lowered herself into the seat beside him. She observed his eyes flit over to her as the chair creaked, so quickly that if she had blinked at the wrong moment she would have missed it. She smiled gently at Tommy. "Well I'm afraid you're going to be stuck with me for a while now, Tom, so you'd better start getting used to having me around again."  

As Y/N gently placed her hand on top of his, Tommy's entire body relaxed and at the same time something ignited in him. He felt alive for the first time since the war, and yet so at peace at the same time.

Suddenly, Tommy grabbed her hand in his, pulled Y/N to her feet with him and brought her into a bone-crushing hug. A thousand emotions and lost words were communicated in that one embrace, in that one moment, even. Tommy clung to his sister like she would vanish again if he loosened his grip. It was only when she whispered "I'm here now, Tom" in his ear as he stroked her hair that he relinquished his hold on her.

Tommy pulled away only slightly from Y/N and held her face gently in his hands. "My sweet girl," he breathed, a small smile gracing his lips. Y/N brought her hand up to his and held it there, the sibling simply enjoying the moment of being together again, tear tracks staining both of their faces.

The silence was broken by Arthur, who gruffly announced: "I need another fucking drink." The whole family started to laugh, the reality of the event finally sinking in.

"Yeah, you pour us all another drink, Artie, while I go and get your pudding." Y/N skipped towards the door.

"Y/N/N we don't fucking care about pudding now, you dick, just get back here now," John shouted after her.

"Bloody hell, no need to shout, John boy, I'm only going round the corner." She leaned around the doorframe, making sure to keep one hand on it to reassure Tommy. "Anyway," Y/N continued, "I've got to give you three your coming home present!"

"Our coming home present?" Arthur chortled.

"Yes," Y/N replied, matter-of-factly. "I believed I promised you lot cake" and she entered holding a cake exactly like their Mother used to make.

The three eldest brothers simply smiled fondly at their sister, shaking their heads.

***

An hour later, the family were all crowded into Polly's living room, having consumed the entire dessert. The gramophone was gently playing music in the background, as no one had bothered to take the record off once Arthur and John had finished dancing with their sister (they had claimed that they needed their toes stepping on to bring them back to reality).

The Shelbys and Grays spent some rare time together as a family that evening. No fighting, no arguing, no business: just talking and reminiscing and laughing.  

But now the night was drawing to a close. Finn had fallen asleep, the overwhelming emotions of the evening having finally caught up to him. Arthur and John were drunkenly singing in the corner of the room, yet they occasionally looked over at their sister, wanting to check that she was still there. Tommy simply felt complete again. For once his silence did not come from an attempt to conceal his true emotions, there was no point in trying that again tonight; he was just cherishing the moment, wanting it to last forever.

As for Y/N herself, she couldn't remember ever feeling so content before. She felt like she was on cloud nine, curled up to Tommy's side as they sat on the sofa together, watching the flames dance around in the hearth. His arm was around her shoulders, holding her close to him, and every now and again Y/N felt him place a soft kiss on the top of her head.

She knew that she had a lot of explaining to do. But that could wait until the morning. For now, they were a family reunited, and none of them could wish for anything more.

[sevsnapeposts]

Snapetober Day 2: "You have to let go".

hello everyone. this one was a hard prompt but i managed, and it hurts a little. poor Sev has a lot to carry, huh? so yes, this is from his POV. again, you can read it over in ao3 if you'd like, and also if you'd be kind enough, go give me some kudos over there. thanks, hope you enjoy~.

Day 2 - "You have to let go".

--

"I'm very disappointed, Prue".

It wasn’t easy to say those words. Severus knew well what it was like to hear those words, what it was like to feel like a failure, to feel like he had failed others, but he knew that this was the best way to reprimand her, to let her know that what she wanted to do was wrong.

"Isn't my current state enough of a warning that you shouldn't get involved in such things?", he continued. He was standing on one side of the desk, his arms folded, his expression serious and cold; meanwhile, Prue avoided looking at him, also with her arms crossed and a frown. The fact that she wouln’t look at him made him more upset. “Can't you see where I'm in because of my stupidity? I thought you’d know better than this”.

Prue was still quiet, very interested in the cobblestone of his office. Severus couldn't blame her immature behavior; after all, she was only 16 years old, and the fact that he, of all people, was the one who spoke such harsh words to her must have made her very defensive.

The man sighed, flopping into his chair. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the impending headache without potions or spells.

"I can't take care of everything, Prue. I have to look after Draco, and also tend to Dumbledore, and don't forget Potter, plus myself all the bloody time because Voldemort is getting more and more impatient”, he told her in a whisper. He was about to add something else to show her that he trusted her, but his choice of words proved to be the wrong one as Prue bolted to her feet, turbulent green eyes, a sea of emotions behind them.

"Do not worry for me, professor", she blurted out, in that shaky voice that always came out when she was upset. “I know how to take care of myself. I will not waste any more of your time with a burden like me”.

And with that she hurried out of the office. Severus sighed again, knowing it was useless to go after her and try to reason when those eyes filled with tears and the girl drowned in her own isolation.

Still, that didn't stop him from feeling bad. It wasn't his intention to make her cry, much less make her feel unwanted or that he saw her as another dead weight to carry. He simply wanted to show her that holding grudges only poisoned one’s soul, that excessive pride would only harm her, that the Dark Arts were unpredictable and extremely dangerous especially when some used them as an emotional outlet. He knew about that, more than he liked to admit.

Severus could understand that Prue hated her parents and was offended at the fact that they were now looking for her nonstop due to finally noticing the incredible witch she was. He could understand that she wanted nothing to do with them, that she loathed the very idea of looking at her mother. He would allow her to stay with him for the rest of her life if she wanted to (romantically or not), once things settled down, as long as she didn't go back to her hell-turned-heaven home attempt.

But what he would never allow was for Prue to go tangle herself among the Dark Arts, looking for something to get her payback for the suffering they had put her through. She was obsessive, it was in her nature to be so, and Severus knew very well that once the first curse was cast, once the Dark power was discovered, she wouldn’t return.

Nevertheless…

He was being a hypocrite, right? Telling her all those things about resentment and envy, treating her as if he were a saint, as if he had gotten over his own demons.

He would never really act upon it, because he was far above those caveman impulses, but Severus didn’t deny his dark thirst for revenge and was aware that no matter how long it had been since then, deep down he wanted to return every little thing they did to him.

To Voldemort, for killing the woman he loved the most.

To Dumbledore, for putting him in the situation he put him in, taking advantage of his pain and regret.

To Lucius, for inviting him to his cult of idiotic and intolerant cretins when he knew that he himself was an idiot and a cretin in a desperate search to belong to something, to be someone.

To James Potter and Sirius Black, for everything they did to him, for making his life more miserable than it already was.

To his father, for every humiliation, every tear, every blow. Not only for those that had left marks on his skin, not only for those that had left marks on his memory, but also for those that had adorned the body of his mother.

And in those moments when he was drowning in his misery, Severus also wanted to blame Lily, and her mother, and Prue, for how unfair life was. For everything bad that happened or had happened to him. He straightened up and buried his face in his hands, his head pulsing hard, the urge to do something stupid and irrational and potentially dangerous almost overwhelming his firm discipline.

Emotions were strong, especially the negative ones. As powerful as the Dark Arts themselves, capable of destroying everything in their path, leaving nothing but pain and destruction where before had been love, friendship, kindness.

Wrath, hatred, loneliness, envy. Severus felt them strongly, being transported from his heart to the tip of his fingers, urging him to pick up the wand and de-stress with some of his old student, teenager habits.

"Let go", he growled to himself, like a warning, like an anchor. There was no one else in there to tell him so, but he had him, as little as that seemed at the moment. He squeezed the wand, which he had taken almost without realizing it. “You have to let go”.

Grudges were strong, but he was stronger. He had learned to be. He knew that many were his mistakes and his alone.

It wasn’t Lily's fault that she had ended her friendship.

It wasn’t her mother's fault that she had been terrified and made bad decisions out of fear.

It wasn’t Prue's fault that she misunderstood him. She was a girl, just a girl who had always been displaced and put last. If anyone was to blame for making her cry it wasn’t her and her insecurities and her overthinking, but him, for not being careful. He had told her not to repeat his mistakes and yet he found himself repeating them.

He had already broken Lily's heart by calling her a Mudblood. Did he, too, have to break Prue's, making her feel that she was a burden to carry, to understand how to choose his words better?

Another sigh, and Severus finally put the wand back in one of his robes’ pockets. He wiped away a hot, angry tear that had trickled down his cheek when he least expected it. The headache was still there, more intense than before, but much less than what it could have become.

He managed to avoid catastrophe, and he would soon drink something for the bloody malaise he felt. It was still too early to go after Prue, but he knew that when she came to her senses, as much as he did, he would be able to explain things to her and steer her away from her misdeeds. If necessary, he himself would set the example, and make his peace with everyone who had ever hurt him, for her.

[still-busy-being-mortal]

the rising of the moon

word count: 4544

rating: G

fandom: the mechanisms

warnings: major character death

summary: They've lived so long together, perhaps it is only fitting they die alone.

story notes: so this came about as a result of wanting to cry MORE about the mechs. don't ask me why.

features raphaella spouting unnecessary science jargon, ivy being emotionally repressed/depressed, drumbot brian holding a conversation with himself, and the toy soldier being actually emotionally intelligent.

——————

JONNY

It’s a quiet day aboard the starship formerly known as The Aurora. Most of the crew is out, and she’s drifting slowly through a dusty asteroid field. Ivy has stayed aboard to read, and Drumbot Brian was designated ship-sitter, so he’s stayed on as well. When enough time has passed (Is it days? Or decades? No one knows anymore, and no one cares. They are all so tired.), Brian hits the alert switch that will tell the Mechanisms to come home.

Ivy feels the gentle vibration in her brain --the pulse of The Aurora’s beacon-- and she puts her book down before walking slowly to the navigation bridge. Marius’ hand starts to buzz, messing up his note-taking; he apologizes to the rather fascinating asteroid-dweller he’s interviewing and takes his leave. Ashes feels their chest hum, and they turn away from their beautiful, fiery meteor shower.

[read more on ao3, or continue below!]

One by one, the Mechs find their way home. It takes some longer than others, but they all return eventually. Or they should; right now, there are only seven crewmates in the navigation bridge.

“I’m sick of waiting--where the hell is Jonny?” Tim whines.

“I guess he decided to stay in the asteroid belt?” Marius says.

“Woulda been nice to let us know,” mutters Ashes, “So we’re not all sittin’ here for ages.”

Brian stands and raises his hand. “All in favour of leaving and returning in a few decades?” They all agree, so he pilots Aurora away from the asteroid field.

Time goes by, and they do not hear from Jonny. Of course, members of the crew sometimes stay away for long periods of time, but that doesn’t mean their absence is not felt. And Jonny hasn’t appeared to try and contact them at all.

After a while, they vote to return to the asteroid belt. When they arrive, they split up, communication devices in hand.

Ivy combs through her memory, trying to summon any knowledge she has on Asteroid Field 01.18.20. The Toy Soldier moves methodically from meteor to meteor, searching for their lost comrade. Raphaella interviews any inhabitants she comes across, axially coding their qualitative responses to identify patterns in the data. Tim goes to a bar for a drink, irritated at Jonny’s latest antic.

He walks into some nameless, backwater joint and sits at the counter, flagging down the bartender with a lazy wave. He orders and waits, mechanical eyes roving the establishment. And then he freezes.

On the far wall hang a few dozen photographs, all dusty and poor quality. Above the photos is a crudely-done banner that simply reads “Cheers to Our Past Patrons.” One of the pictures is of Jonny.

When the bartender returns, Tim asks: “What’s the deal with the wall of fame, then?”

“Oh, that,” they answer tiredly. “Just sum dark joke the old owner thought up. Them’s the folks who kicked it in this here bar, you see.”

Tim was confused. “You mean those people died here? That can’t be right; my friend’s up there, and he can’t d--he’s alive.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Don’t know, pal. We had to bury most of thems out back, if you reckon you want to check.” He chuckled darkly and went back to drink-making.

Tim quickly finished his drink and went out the back door. He debated alerting the other Mechs about this development, but decided he might as well see for himself first.

He found the makeshift graveyard quickly, small rusty mounds amid the equally rusty asteroid outback. Some displayed names on roughly carved wood planks, but obviously none of them said “Jonny d’Ville” (Tim laughed at the idea of Jonny carrying around an ID). Most were unmarked, however, so he started to dig.

He used his hands, too impatient to try and find a shovel. He came across bodies and bones in various stages of decay, but none that had any chance of being Jonny. About fed up with this ridiculous idea of his, he decided to dig up one more grave. He shovelled dirt and rocks out of the way, until his hand hit something hard and cold. Something metallic. He pulled on it, and came away with a belt. Christ , he thought.

He quickly scooped away the rest of the dirt, revealing the corpse of Captain First Mate Jonny d’Ville. Dead. Tim stumbled backward, hand fumbling for his comm. “Um, mates, I-I found him.”

The Mechanisms were different after that. Yes, Nastya had gone Out long ago, but they had never actually come across her dead corpse , so it wasn’t the same. Marius had examined his body and declared him fully, completely, and irrevocably dead. They had held a funeral, but they were all too much in shock to really remember it. All they knew was that they were down a crew member, without a captain first mate, and terribly aware of their own mortality.

ASHES

About half the crew was in Raphaella’s lab, helping her with some complex kind of experiment. Raph was mixing two viciously green liquids together, while Marius was unspooling wire from a large bobbin. The Toy Soldier was holding an ultraviolet light against a motherboard, and Ashes connected the motherboard to the chartreuse concoction using the wires. After pouring all of the chemicals, Raphaella pulled on some rubber gloves and pulled out a small pocketwatch from her shirt. “Are we ready?” she asked gleefully. Without waiting for an answer, she started the countdown. “Five! Four! Three! T--curses!” The pocketwatch slipped from her gloved grasp and fell into the churning beaker. All at once there was a flash and a bang, and the lights went out. They stood in complete silence for a minute, before the backup generators flicked on.

The Toy Soldier clapped its hands, “That Was Jolly Good! Can We Do It Again?”

“No, TS, look, I got goop on my--wait!” Marius shouted, “Where’s Ashes?” They all turned to look at where the quartermaster had been just moments before. The floor where they’d been standing was a scorched, intricate, dark pattern of swirls. “What the hell is that ?”

“I Do Not Know, But I Will Go Get The Archivist!”

TS returned with Ivy, who took one look at the patterns on the floor and asked: “Who is it that has been time travelling?”

“Time travelling?!” Raph exclaimed.

“Yes,” Ivy said, “Those marks are a perfect exemplar of the evidence left behind when one has been forcibly transported forward or backward in the time continuum. Which one of you did it? Did you happen to bring back any books?”

“It wasn’t us: it was Ashes.” Marius said, “And we don’t think they’ve come back yet.”

Ivy grew very pale. “That is highly alarming. There’s a less than 0.1% chance that a time traveller ever comes back if they do not return instantly after the outset of their journey.”

“Y-you mean Ashes might not...” Marius trailed off, “...Wait a second! That doesn’t make sense! We don’t experience time linearly!”

“That may be true, but we are not forcibly moved through it either. We are at the whim of the narrative flow, and any alteration to that usually produces negative results.”

The Toy Soldier flashed through many emotions at once, though its face never changed. “So Quartermaster O’Reilly Is...Gone?”

“We can’t prove that yet!” Raph cried, fluttering around the lab and grabbing various scientific instruments. “Maybe if I can pinpoint when exactly they’ve been transported to, we can...we can bring them back.”

“That’s quite a long shot,” Marius said.

“What is science if not a shot into the ignorant dark?” Raph replied, rigging up a technological monstrosity. She aimed the thing at the charred spot and clicked a button, causing the machine to emit a pulsating, whirring sound. “Oh, you all might want to close your eyes.”

With a burst of green and a harsh dial tone, the thing spit out a strip of paper. Raph grabbed it and read it intently. She dropped it suddenly, eyes distant and empty. “They are gone.”

The room burst into a cacophony. (“What do you mean?!” “Gone How? Gone Forever ?” “It was statistically unlikely that they could have returned.”) Raph picked up the paper and pressed it onto the lab table. Most of it was meaningless words and numbers, but Raph pointed out a string in the center: “RESULT) DATE: %& INFINITE ROUNDING ERROR $! _ LOCATION: SINGULARITY!UNIVERSAL IMPLOSION. ANALYSIS) CHANCE OF TERMINATION: 100.0% +-0.0 R = 1.0”

“They’re gone.”

RAPHAELLA

The crew was far more disorganized after Ashes left. With no one to maintain inventory or keep the crew in line, The Mechanisms started to fall apart. Raphaella tried for a while to build some kind of time-travelling device, some way of defying the inexorable march of the story, but it was in vain. She was left with only one option; one experiment she hadn’t tried yet.

She carefully laser cuts some metal from the starship once known as the Aurora. She sits in Nastya’s former workshop for hours, bending and twisting and fabricating until she is left with wings; wings more breathtaking than any she has possessed before. Once on, they fan out behind her in a starburst of blue and metallic grey.

But her crew will never see them. In the cover of darkness, she steals away to the airlock. The ship is currently sailing past a black hole (Raphaella has the Messier number and NGC identification memorized, but that’s not her concern now). With one final look backward at the place that had been her home for millennia --the place she thought she would call home forever -- she casts herself into the black hole.

Ivy finds the note she left, succinct and unmincing as ever:

“Addressed to whoever finds this first:

After a brief review of prior literature, I have found extensive holes (no pun intended) in the study of singularities, specifically as it relates to a singularity’s effect on a humanoid body and mind. I seek to rectify this, as well as explore the possibility of horological manipulation, though perhaps my methods are not entirely replicable. It is every scientist’s dream to be on the cutting edge of research, and so I initiate this experiment joyfully. Also, black holes are hypothesized to have magnificent magnetic fields!

Yours,

Dr. Raphaella La Cognizi”

TIM

Tim, Marius, the Toy Soldier, Brian, and Ivy wait. They do not wait together, and they do not know what exactly it is they’re waiting for, but they wait nevertheless.

Time passes.

Brian pilots the ship towards various planets, pointless battles, dying stars. One day, the remaining Mechs arrive at a lawless sea-based war occurring on a planet composed entirely of liquid obsidian. They commandeer a ship (which they dub the ‘Dawn’) and spend decades wreaking havoc as the most formidable group of pirates. But Tim knows something is wrong.

“Tim, take out that vessel off the starboard side.” Brian orders from the prow of the Dawn.

Tim smoothly preps, loads, and positions a cannon to aim directly at the enemy ship in question. He lights the fuse, and the cannon fires. The crew watch as the projectile hurls through the air, arcing like a cold meteor into the distance. They watch it come down towards the enemy vessel. And they watch it miss.

The crew turns to stare at Tim. He’s not nearly as mortified as they expected. In fact, he’s perfectly serene.

“Um, Tim…” Marius starts slowly, “D-did you know you, uh...missed?”

“Yep.” he responds, popping the ‘p’.

“Did you mean to?”

“Nope.”

“And...you’re not upset by that?”

“Not especially.”

(“That’s a fascinatingly abnormal psychological response,” Marius mutters under his breath, jotting something down in a notebook he appears to have produced out of nowhere.)

The crew continues to stare as Tim goes below deck to his bunk, humming slightly.

Tim has known something was off for a long time now. His aim started to err by nanometres, then by millimeters, then more, until he was missing entire ships like today. He’d panicked at the beginning, of course, but now? Now, he was ready to be done.

He’d felt the pressure building up in his head, behind his eyes. He got spurts of tunnel vision randomly, and sometimes his vision just went to static. He gradually lost the ability to see some colors, as the electronic rods and cones went out one-by-one and refused to self-repair. But he wasn’t nervous or distressed or alarmed; he was excited.

You see, he’d been saving something for a special occasion. He didn’t know what ‘special occasion’ entailed, since the Mechs never consistently celebrated holidays or birthdays, but permanent death seemed like a pretty good one. He rooted around in his rucksack, and withdrew a set of shiny silver keys; keys he’d stolen a long, long time ago. These were the ignition keys to the largest gunship existence will ever see, and Tim planned to go out with a bang. That evening, he told the crew he wanted them all to return to the starship so he could be dropped off somewhere. They all agreed, since they didn’t have any real cares anymore, and they set off for the planet Tim had etched into his memory.

Tim sits in the cockpit of the gunship, the planet itself already ruined and smoking from fighting his way to get here. The Mechanisms were long gone, as he’d told them to leave without him. He hadn’t exactly said he wasn’t planning on coming back, but he thinks they understood. With one last grin of pure, unadulterated madness, he kicks the gunship into gear and blasts off.

The ship goes too fast to comprehend, and in an instant he’s shooting across the cosmos, shattering stars and razing entire systems of planets. The universe has never before witnessed such complete and utter desolation. Tim doesn’t process much during this rampage...until he starts to die.

He doesn’t know what he hit, but something has jolted the gunship just right, and he’s flung out the front glass. He knows he should die instantly, and he is, but his eyes are moving faster. They’re replaying his life, backwards, and he wants to groan with the cliché-ness of it all. But then it’s over. Or, almost over. At the very end, so fast, so short compared to the millennia he has lived, he catches sight of a young man in a trench. Bertie. A face he will never forget no matter how much longer he could have lived. And in the moments of blackness before he stops forever, he thinks about Bertie, about what comes next.

Faith is a moot point when you’re immortal, since you’ve quite literally come into contact with gods and demons, eldritch horrors and cosmic powers. But here, at the end of his wretchedly long existence, Tim wonders if he will ever see Bertie again. If he will ever see Jonny, or TS, or Ashes, or anyone ever again.

He dies blind, with their names on his lips.

IVY

Exposition: Ivy is quite spectacular at suppressing her emotions. She’s also skilled at identifying patterns, so by the time Raphaella left, she knew what was going on with 98% certainty. Without much fanfare, she packed her bags (5 for books and 1 for everything else), said goodbye to Marius, Brian, and the Toy Soldier, and left.

She rifled through her memory archives for the quaintest library she knew of, and headed there.

Rising Action: And so time passed.

Ivy read, and organized, and wrote, and...existed. Nothing happened, and nothing changed. Carmilla must have made an error in her mechanization because she’d never been the best at processing feelings, but she was happy, she thought.

Climax: A war came, and her library was attacked. With the numbest, most detached sense of purpose imaginable, she loaded an escape pod with random books she thought should be preserved and fired it out into the void. She didn’t even know she’d been hit until she’d fallen to the floor, blood streaming from a massive wound. She knows she is dying; she’d seen the patterns.

Denouement: Her brain whirs slower and slower, until it stops. The end.

MARIUS

They are not a crew any longer. Brian has firmly rooted himself on the bridge, more robot than man now. The Toy Soldier wanders the ship, searching for its friends who are playing the best game of hide-and-seek that the universe has ever seen. Marius putters along, doing some maintenance, writing down his thoughts, and waiting for his death.

He’d always known this life of theirs couldn’t last. Besides the conceptual and moral implications of an eternal existence without consequences, it didn’t even make sense physically . There was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, and he was surprised his more rational-minded crewmates didn’t question it more. But now his theory had come to fruition, and his crew, his family , had slowly dropped off one-by-one, like leaves from an autumnal tree.

He’s at a bit of a loose end now. With no people left to talk to, no minds to pick, he doesn’t feel any sense of purpose. It’s not depression--he knows that; it’s more of a...cosmic futility.

He feels one last pull, one last tug of the all-pervading narrative, a tide of finality, urging him towards a certain door. He knows this door, knows what it means when he opens it. But he also knows all things come to an end eventually, so why not go out doing what he always did? Providing the comic relief.

“Time this for me, will you, Aurora?” he calls out. He turns the handle and steps inside.

BRIAN

Since Jonny’s death, Brian has been at war with himself. He supposes he’s always been at war with himself though, and his current moral quandary reminds him uncomfortably of his first.

Sitting on the bridge alone, he decides to have a conversation.

“So the crux of the problem is that we can bring people back from the dead, correct?”

He flips his switch. “Correct.”

He flips it back. “But the dilemma is whether we should bring the Mechs back or not.”

“Also correct.”

“Which we shouldn’t, because they wanted to die.”

“No, we should. We want them alive, right? Using magic is definitely the easiest way to achieve that.”

“But we need our family to be happy. God knows how long it’s been.”

“Is the end goal their happiness or our happiness?”

“If I answer that, will I change your mind?”

“Is altering the end goal really the moral way to win this argument?”

“You know what? Damn you.”

Time passes, and each crewmate’s departure only makes Brian’s contempt for his own inner hesitation grow. He spends years staring out into the cosmos, thoughts whirling just as fast as the dust and gases beyond the glass. He wonders if he will ever die and join his family, or if the degree of his artificiality will render him truly immortal. He hates that thought more than most anything else.

He stops smelling the smoke of Ashes’ fires one day, and wonders if his olfactory systems are shutting down.

He stops feeling the rumble of Raphaella’s experimental explosions, and wonders if his nerve endings are rusting.

He stops seeing the flash of Tim’s gunshots bounce around the corridors, and wonders if he’s gone as blind as the gunner himself.

He stops hearing Ivy’s narration, and wonders if his auditory fluids have finally trickled away.

One day, the lone violin that has been echoing throughout the empty starship fades out, and Brian feels his heart stop.

It restarts of course, but Brian knows.

He knows that it’s finally, finally time. Soon, very soon, there will be no more life aboard this ship. No life, where there had been life for eons. No life, where there had been life immortal.

His sense of taste has never come into doubt, because he can still taste the acridness of the Toy Soldier’s cooking wafting on the air. He decides it’s only right to bid goodbye, so he makes his way back to the kitchen. On the way, he passes the Doctor’s old laboratory. He briefly considers destroying it, bringing down the whole ship in a blaze of fire and brimstone, but he knows that isn’t right; it wouldn’t fulfill anything.

In the kitchen, the Toy Soldier is pulling something pink and grey and on fire out of the oven. “Hey, TS,” Brain says gently, leaning against the doorframe as his heart falters again. “I-I’ve got to talk to you.”

The Toy Soldier spins around. “Drumbot Brian!” it shouts joyfully. “How Have You Been, Old Chap! I Have Been Playing Hide-And-Seek With The Rest Of The Crew For A While Now, And They Are Definitely Winning! Have You Seen Them?”

“Oh, TS,” Brian says sadly, “We’re all who’s left now. Don’t you know? The others have gone.”

He sees the Toy Soldier’s wooden eyes soften, betraying an agedness he’s never seen before. “Of Course I Know, Bean. But What Have We Been Doing This Whole Time, If Not Pretending?”

Brian smiles sorrowfully, and TS matches it. “I just wanted to let you know, TS, that now it’s my turn to go.”

“I Know.” It salutes him. “Goodbye, Drumbot.”

Brain gently returns the salute, and leaves.

He stumbles through the ship, heart failing rapidly now, but he makes it to the airlock. He knows deep down that there’s only one way his story could end. His whole existence has been framed by empty solitude, with his family providing the best aberration one could wish for. With his body more an empty metal frame than a robot now, he opens the airlock and casts himself back into the cosmos, from whence he came, and where he would die.

THE TOY SOLDIER

Its friends are all gone away now, and it knows this. There is no more laughter aboard the starship once known as the Aurora. There is no more gunfire or explosions. There is no more music. The cold mass of metal drifts through the void of the uncaring cosmos, with no living being aboard.

But The Toy Soldier has to be sure; it has to guarantee that it is truly all alone now. So it visits its friends’ final resting places.

It spends some years gazing out the front windows of the ship. The thrusters have been broken for a long time now, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t know how to repair them, so it just sits and watches. It wants to see the Drumbot, so it pretends that it does. Soon enough, out the starboard porthole, it spies him. His metal is rusted and warped, frost rendering most of his face unrecognizable. A drum is still looped around his shoulder. The Toy Soldier tethers itself to the ship and goes outside for a moment, drifting towards the robot. It lays a wooden hand on his deformed chest, and feels that his heart beats no longer. It carves off a long curl of wood from its side, and places it in Brian’s frozen hand.

It returns to the ship. It hadn’t known where Marius had disappeared to, but now it feels the force of the narrative driving it towards a certain room. It opens the door, and a handful of mangy octokittens hiss at it and scurry away. There’s nothing in the room besides a pile of crumpled clothes, a broken violin, and a metal hand, but the Toy Soldier could recognize that style anywhere. It gently twists one of its own wooden hands off, and lays it on the mound.

The Toy Soldier knows that Ivy went somewhere far away, so it closes its eyes and pretends that it’s there. When it opens them again, it finds itself in the charred ruins of some great marble building. At its feet lay bones, a metal flute, and a mess of circuitry, untouched by the ash. The Toy Soldier reaches up, removes a piece of wood from the back of its head, and lays it besides the flute.

The Toy Soldier has a harder time finding the gunner. It’s drawn this way and that, chasing an intangible trail through the stars and galaxies. All of the planets it passes are devoid of life. Finally, finally, it stumbles across an enormous, gaping wreck of a starship, all mangled and smashed to pieces. The ship is so large, it’s drawn smaller asteroids into an orbit around it. On one of these rocky satellites, the Toy Soldier spies a body: a skeleton covered in a long brown coat with a guitar slung across it. A pair of mutilated, metal eyes rest in the skull. The Toy Soldier smiles sadly, removes one of its own wooden eyes, and slips it into the pocket of the coat.

It knows it cannot follow the science officer into a black hole. It does manage to find the sketches of the wings Raphaella designed, so it gathers them up, takes two chunks of wood from its back, finds Raph’s keyboard, and casts everything into the nearest singularity.

After pretending to be at the end of space and time, it finds itself there. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. It removes two segments of wood from deep within its chest and places them in the nothingness, along with the strings of an old electric bass it had found. As it winks back to the ship, it catches the faintest scent of gasoline.

It returns to the asteroid Jonny had died on, the start of their ignoble demise. It visits his grave, in the taupe dirt of the desert behind the backwater bar, and sees all of the trinkets and mementos the crew had left behind. It knows none of them left anything during their makeshift funeral, so that means each of them must have slipped away at some point to come here on their own. Ashes has left their best lighter, Tim a pair of dogtags. Marius left behind all of his notes of Jonny’s disaster of a brain, and Brian has deposited some sun-scorched piece of space station. His harmonica has also found its way here, somehow. The Toy Soldier slowly, slowly reaches into its chest and removes its wooden heart, laying it down atop the mound of dirt and memories. It walks away, and knows that it can finally, finally stop pretending.

AURORA

There is no record of where the Toy Soldier went next. It certainly did not return to the empty ship once known as the brilliant Aurora. The lifeless, soulless, music-less ship drifts on alone through the cosmos, rusting and warping until no one could tell it had ever been a ship at all. Eons pass, and whatever memory the universe might have had of The Mechanisms has been utterly lost.

Until the misshapen mass gets stuck in the orbit of a planet. Molded and formed by the planet’s gravity, the ship is reborn as a moon. And all at once, she comes to life.

As dawn washes over her, the young moon hears a voice. “Hello, dear,” a woman coos, “My name is Dr. Carmilla.”

[itslieutenanthawkeye]

A Knight’s Oath

Day 6 of Jeankasa Week 2021: Royal AU

AO3

Sir Kirstein aids the princess of Hizuru escape a coup d’état organized by the marleyan Jaeger brothers.

There isn’t one inch of my body that isn’t yelling this is wrong, not one bit that isn’t shouting at me to return, to go back to my chambers, cover my ears with both hands and ignore that letter until the signal comes from within the palace. I came here to do a job: become her close guard, infiltrate the institution, take down the royal line.

That one job could have me swimming in silver. One job would be enough to buy myself that lifestyle I can only dream about. One job, and I could leave knighthood behind, buy myself a castle, a royal title and a woo wife to go with it. A pretty young wife with dark hair and big eyes and a whole army of servants to fulfill our every wish.

And yet here I am, walking with more purpose than ever before in my life, heading towards her.

Like most upper class Hizuran structures, the Azumabito royal palace is built atop a tall stone base. It’s an intricate maze of buildings, rooms and sliding doors that I’ve spent two years memorizing. I should know, better than anyone, how hard it’ll be for us to sneak out. Even if we do it without anyone being aware, even if nobody knows what the princess has found out.

“Jean, over here.” her voice calls from behind one of the doors. I follow like a bee searching honey. I enter the place where she’s been waiting for me and encounter her wearing the peasant clothes I procured for her a couple of days ago. She’s as lovely in them as she was the first time I saw her, sitting atop a high throne next to the regent, Kiyomi Azumabito, wearing a wonderful kimono of red fabric and golden threads.

Her mother, a pure-blooded Azumabito royal, fell in love with an eldian man, and in the process of marrying him, she also fell into disgrace and was expelled from the balance years before conceiving the princess. After a wave of plague that caused the death of the shogun and his closest relatives, however, Kiyomi had sent a contingent to bring back the princess’ mother to serve as regent until the princess came of age.

Stories say Kiyomi found a ten-year-old princess orphaned, living of scraps she found in the field near her home. Her parents were also killed by the plague. Some people say they starved, some others that they were murdered. However they died, the princess came back to the ancestral home of the Azumabito alone and Kiyomi took her into her care. Even I am aware of the love the woman has for her adoptive daughter, how much she cares for her safety.

It was her the first to find out about Marley’s plans to overthrow Hizuru��s royal line, of the spies sent by Marley in the shape of knights for Hizuru’s princess. It was Kiyomi who came to me, asking for help for the princess. She knew my involvement in Marley’s plans gave me a lot more intel than any other servant could’ve collected…and because she saw the way I looked at the princess that day our delegation arrived, two days ago, and how I’ve seen her every day since. She figured out quickly how much affection I carry for the princess and knew, barely one year after my arrival, that I would never leave her adoptive daughter behind.

“Are you ready?” I ask, putting on the peasant clothes, hiding the katana Kiyomi left in my room in the folds of my own hizuran clothes. “Your highness, are you ready?”

“I don’t want to leave.” She says; she’s turned away from me, giving me what little privacy she can while I change. “I can’t leave Kiyomi. I can’t leave the people of the palace behind.”

“Many of your servants are traitors, princess,” I remind her, tapping on her shoulder to indicate I’m decent again. A slight tremble travels her back and I curse myself; I’d forgotten how reserved hizuran people are when it comes to physical touch.

She turns around and faces me, resolution clear on her face. “Traitors or not, a ruler owes herself to her people,” she says, more dignified than any other royal I ever saw in Marley. “Traitors or not, I cannot leave them alone. And Kiyomi—”

“You heard their plans, princess,” I say, wondering how many times I’ll have to repeat the same thing to get her to forget that commitment to the people the Azumabito care so much about. “The moment the clock hits twelve, the guards will be at your doors. Zeke plans on executing you at dawn, on the morning of your eighteenth birthday. It’s either that or be forced into marrying his brother.”

“And I must let Kiyomi’s head hang just for the sake of escaping?”

“Mikasa,” I say; using her name feels strange. It’s a lovely name, but also forbidden. No knight is allowed to address the princess by her name, nor try to give her orders, let alone try to convince her to follow a plan she doesn’t agree with. The princess widens her eyes in brief shock, but nods, inviting me to continue. “You’re the last of your line. Kiyomi is willing to sacrifice her life for you.”

The princess lowers her head. “I can’t leave her.”

“If you can’t respect her wishes, at least do it out of pity for me,” I say, in a last attempt to get her moving. Time is slipping away from us, and Eren’s retinue must be making its way across the mountain roads already. “I’ve given up everything by just being here. If you stay, I hang with you, dishonored, tortured first.”

The princess looks up at me, her eyes stone-cold. “You came here under false pretenses, betraying mefirst. And now you’ve betrayed your country by being here. How can I be sure you won’t betray me again?”

Ah, how can I assure her without looking like a lovesick fool?

“I’ve served your palace for two years now, haven’t I?” I say. Mikasa nods, her gaze softening somewhat. In an act of boldness, or perhaps a leap of faith, I take a hold of her hands and fall to my knees. “I’m well acquainted with you now, princess, I cannot bring myself to leave you behind or betray you even if I should wish it.”

“Why, though, Jean?” she asks, and the mention of my name from her lips wraps me up like a warm blanket. Suddenly I remember again why I don’t care about the lost wealth, about that castle and title, about the group of nameless women I could’ve wooed into marriage. It’s her. Just her.

“Because you deserve to live. A great leader deserves to live,” I reply, bringing the back of her hands to my lips. I graze them briefly; a royal courtesy from Marley, never performed hereabouts. Royalty in Hizuru barely touches each other, and I can feel her trembling at the mere touch of lips against her hand. “I mean it when I say I won’t betray you, princess. I’m devoted to you as I haven’t been devoted to anything in my life. All I can hope for is that you believe me.”

“I believe you, Jean,” she says after a moment of quiet introspection. “I’m not sure why, but your face always seemed honest. From day one, even when you were scheming against me.”

I can’t help but to smile. “I’m willing to use my whole life to convince you I’m no longer scheming.” I say, standing to face her, holding her hand still. “Are you ready, princess?”

A sad smile adorns her face as she nods, and I’m forced to not focus too much on her face as we sneak out of the castle. Apart from being well-educated, she’s been trained extensively in martial arts and acrobatics, so sliding across the various rooftops of the palace and jumping from one terrace to another proves an easy task for her. She looks back at me at a point, her pale face illuminated by the moonlight, and I manage to give her a tight, ridiculous smile in encouragement.

I’ve seen plenty of women before, but she is by far the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever witnessed. But her beauty is just one of the things that have drawn me to betray my homeland’s coup d’état against Hizuru. I met her when she was sixteen, and I nineteen; these two years, I’ve seen her grow into a fair, kind ruler, one that cares more about the wellbeing of her subjects than the wealth of the family mines or the expansion of her land.

At seventeen, she convinced the council to abolish arranged marriages for women, recognize divorces requested by wives as legal, increase taxes for royals and establish a free education system for the entire country. I know she had in mind to establish free healthcare within her fifteen-year plan. All in all, she is a great leader.

Then there’s the fact that she’s extremely good at sparring. And I’ve always had a soft spot for women that are good with swords, especially women who can beat me in a fight.

I guess, in a way, spending my days with her, being with her…it all makes me want to be better. Before Hizuru, before the princess, all I thought about was ways of getting a comfortable life. My whole childhood, I’d spent it scamming people. Then knighthood had seemed a good way to find myself a relatively wealthy wife or become rich by taking down a king, or by plundering a town.

Just being by her side makes me a better man.

I want to keep being that better man.

I also want to keep seeing that pretty face of hers. I want to keep hearing her rants. I want to keep sharing my thoughts with her. I just want to be with her.

___________________________

Hizuru’s capital is surrounded by tall mountains. It’s thanks to my military training that I know which rivers the Jaeger brothers will use to invade the city, and which ones will give us safe passage to the sea, where a boat provided by the queen of Paradis Island awaits. Hizuru is a large nation, however, and the possibilities of our escape plan going sour are high. Still, I cannot let any of my insecurities show on my face. I took it upon my shoulders to protect the princess, to take her to her new home to keep her from being executed, forced into marriage, or tortured to death by the royals who had aided the Jaeger brothers conspire against the Azumabito.

By the time the sun begins to climb the mountains, we are miles away from the capital. And yet, we can hear the execution bells ring across the watch towers. Heads are starting to roll in the palace, the bells across the Hizuran Mountain Pass tell us, and one of them must be Kiyomi’s. Mikasa sits next to me on the motorboat, crying into her sleeves, leaning slightly against my arm.

“I’m sorry.” I manage to muster. “I wish I could’ve done more.”

She shakes her head, not looking at me. “Why did your people do this to us?”

I say the first few words that come into my mind. “Greed…I’ve never interacted much with the Jaeger brothers, but I know that the eldest wants power, and the mines in Hizuru are too rich to ignore. And the youngest cannot stand monarchies. He says people in them aren’t free.”

“Why decide to impose a dictatorship instead? What kind of hypocrisy is that?” she asks, although it’s clear she doesn’t expect me to answer her. “Why kill the council members? Kill Kiyomi? Our people are happy, and I wanted to work to make their lives better. I really wanted to. Why invade a foreign land that has rightful rulers with the excuse of freedom?”

“I wish I could explain it all,” I say, and the sight of the tear streaks on her face turns me into a rambling idiot. “I’m sorry, princess. I’m sorry I was with them. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to stop them. I’m sorry I came into your palace with—”

“You’ve already said you’ll spend your whole life making it up to me, won’t you? It is a promise, isn’t it?” the princess replies, and something inside me tells me she might be too tired to hear my apologies. She took the news of my original plan badly and stopped talking to me for a whole week, not being able to just look at me in the eyes, with fair reason. We spent so many days together with me as her guard, we became friends over those long nights of study, our few sneaky expeditions outside the palace, the times when I brought her street food for dinner in our chambers, the times when she’d sung for me and Kiyomi from behind a white canvas…

All those memories of friendship are stained now, covered with the mark of my initial plan to help the Jaeger brothers with their coup d’état. “I mean to fulfill that promise, princess,” I say, more convinced than I thought I would. “I’ll do anything to redeem myself from the initial betrayal.”

“What if I ask you to raise an army for me?” she asks, wiping the tears off her eyes with the back of her hand. “What if I say that you will prove you’ve redeemed yourself once you help me gain my throne back?”

Her face has acquired that solemn expression she uses whenever she addresses the council. And, like the council members, I cannot bring myself to say no to her. “I-I will try my best, princess. I do not have any influence, and I’ve no money to offer. But I will raise you an army, I will do my best.”

“Do you promise?”

“I could swear on my knight’s honor, princess, but you and I know I don’t have any. I’m a traitor to you and to my own homeland, remember?” I admit with an awkward smile, scratching the back of my head. “I’m lucky enough as it is that you trusted me enough to come with me.”

Mikasa smiles, then wraps my hand with both of hers. “There is one way you can assure me.” she says, her eyes not meeting mine. The sunlight is bathing us both; we’ll enter the lowlands soon, and speed will be of essence to avoid getting captured. Perhaps my concern for speed is what keeps me from realizing her face is dangerously near mine for the first couple of moments.

“What way?” I manage to stammer.

“An oath on your soul,” she explains. “It’s not a thing we do often here, though.”

“Is it like a blood oath?”

The princess shakes her head. “It’s something a bit deeper than that.”

I swallow hard, wondering if she’s going to force me to cut my finger off, or something worse. I don’t have any gripes if that’s what it takes to convince her I would fight to gain her trust back, but I can’t help being concerned about the health implications of cutting a finger off in the middle of a river.

“I’m not going to ask you to cut a finger off, Jean,” she half-sobs, half-laughs, guessing my thoughts. “It’s nothing as ghastly as that.”

“From the way you’re talking, it seems like a big deal.”

A soft blush travels her cheeks. “It is,” she says. “It’s a soul promise. We don’t touch each other here, not after you’ve left childhood behind. Let alone if you’re from a royal family. These oaths only happen behind closed doors, or at weddings.”

“What kind of oath is it, princess?”

“Kiss,” she says, closing her eyes. “You close the oath with a kiss, and your soul is bound to that person.”

“A k-kiss?” I manage to say, realizing at last how close she is sitting to me. If I must be honest, for the most part during my first year on the job, I paid little attention to hizuran traditions. It wasn’t until she started talking to me more that I began to care for the country I was hired to take down. And despite paying more attention to the country she loves so much, I have never heard of such an oath. Could it be that she just wants to feel someone else’s skin on hers?

A smirk appears on my face, and she seems to guess what thoughts are going through my head. She withdraws from me, narrowing her eyes dangerously. “It’s not like I want to!” she says, her cheeks burning red, her murderous expression only increasing my smile. “Stop looking at me like that!”

“I’m sorry!” I say, coughing to clear my throat. Her hands are still holding mine. “I didn’t mean to disrespect you, princess. Please, tell me about this oath.”

“No.” Mikasa replies, shaking her head. “You are clearly not mature enough for it.”

“Please, princess.” I say, and she gives me a serious glance before sighing in defeat.

“If you do it, it’ll be important. You cannot back away from this; you must fulfill it even if it takes your life. Your promise will be bound to your soul; and your soul is bound to me.” Mikasa hunches her shoulders and exhales, her eyes set on the mountains we’re leaving behind, her eyes longing for the warmth of the castle, the voice of her caretaker.

Her home crumbled in the lapse of a few hours; all her friends in the palace, her adoptive mother, the members of the council that cared for her…they’re all dead by now, or tortured, perhaps, to get information on her whereabouts. Kiyomi is probably getting the worst of all. And that’s when it hits me: I’m all she’s got left. Me, one of the knights sent to infiltrate her palace, gain their trust, and stab them in the back.

What a grim scenario that is.

“Princess, please look at me,” I say. She turns to face me, and my lips press against hers for a couple of seconds. When we part, her eyes are as wide as plates. “I promise I will not fail you.”

She nods, her hands clutching mine, her cheeks tinted pink. “Thank you.”

I let go of her hands and wrap her face with both of mine. Then, I press my lips against hers. This time, when we part, her eyes are closed. “I promise I am bound to you, blood, bone and soul.” I say, then kiss her again, a little longer this time. “I promise I won’t rest until you get your throne back.”

She smiles at me. “You’re splitting your soul into a lot of little pieces there.”

I kiss her again, and this time her lips move against mine, her arms wrap around my shoulders. Many times these two years I dreamed about kissing her –no, I’ve imagined doing a lot more with her, if I must be honest. But it was all fantasies, half-built while I looked after her during royal events, while I guarded her in her sleep, while we had our quiet dinners.

“I swear, my princess,” I say as we come apart once more, grazing her cheek with the back of my hand. “I swear my soul, heart and body are yours, from now until I the day I’m ripped from you.”

“That sounds a lot like a wedding vow.” She points out, holding my hand in place against her face.

I smile. “I’m sorry, princess.”

“Don’t be, please,” she says, then places a quick kiss on my fingers. “You can call me by my name from now on, you know. I’m not a princess anymore.”

“You’re always a princess, though.”

She shakes her head. “You and I are fugitives,” she says, setting her eyes on the mountains again, a fire burning bright behind the grey curtain of her eyes. She wants revenge; she wants to gain her throne, her homeland, back, and rain fire upon the ones who dared to lift a finger against Hizuru.

And all I want, I realize with a bit of embarrassment, is to keep her safe, stay by her side.

“I’ll raise an army for you, Mikasa.”

“We’ll raise it together. I believe in your oath,” she assures me, leaning forward to press her lips against mine for a long moment. “And I swear to you that when I get my throne back, I will give you all the lands and wealth you desire.”

“I could do without all that.” I say, shrugging, eliciting the first smile I’ve seen from her in a while.

I want to protect that smile, I think as our boat picks up speed. We’ll enter the lowlands in a couple of miles, and it’ll be a race to get to the ocean. The island is the only safe option for the princess now; the only safe place for the both of us. Despite my oath to her, all my mind can think of is a peaceful life with her. No luxuries, no armies, no grand schemes for power. Just the princess and I, sharing our lives in a quiet cottage by a river, hidden away from the world on Paradis Island.

It’s a fool’s dream, I know.

“I’ll keep you safe.” I assure her, giving her hand a little squeeze, hoping this isn’t too much touching for someone like her.

To my surprise, she squeezes my hand in return. “And I’ll keep you safe.”

[lokisxmischief]

the rubble or our sins (Loki x Bucky)

Mentions: angst, flashbacks of trauma (torture/abuse) self loathing, torture...otherwise nothing else but some WinterFrost fluff

Loki had always felt so alone and for the longest time, he had come to terms with what seemed to be his fate; his destiny. He didn't say anything to anyone about it, about how he felt so low and worthless, he didn't dare out of the fear that he would be judged and that he would feel so vulnerable. It was better for him to keep every single emotion that he felt bottled up and pushed as far down as possible into the dark void of his soul; getting a broken heart for the umpteenth time just didn't seem worthwhile to the god and he knew that he might not survive further hurt. He was determined not to let anyone in and did all that he could to ensure that he kept that promise to himself, but there would soon come a day that he would find no matter how hard he tried or how much he denied it, that lock and chain was about to come off to free his guarded heart. It had just taken getting captured for that to occur, a very unexpected but not out of the ordinary day for the God of Mischief.

Shut up...

He could still hear Thor's voice saying those words to him and he recalled being smashed into the floor by the Hulk. The battle of New York was fresh in his mind and he remembered that he had managed to escape custody after the tesseract had skated closer to him. This was about all he could remember right now and a muffled groan emitted from his lips, the muzzle tight against them. Not quite the getaway location he had wanted to have, but at least he was now away from his brother and all of his avenging friends; those mortals that had fought them for the case weren't exactly the best kind to be in company of either. In fact, Loki didn't trust them as far as he could throw him and he could throw them pretty far, especially with his powers.

There wasn't much more than that Loki could remember. He had woken up in a bit of a daze and had somehow ended up in the middle of nowhere, the chains that his brother had placed on him in the Stark Tower were still intact and the muzzle still latched around his mouth. Cuts and bruises on his face were slowly healing as well. That much was clear to him.

Alright then give me the case...

Whose voice was that echoing in his head? What case exactly? Loki couldn't recall if it had been something he'd witnessed or was directly dealing with. Oh yes, he did remember something else. Stark had collapsed onto the floor, possibly dead after that. Maybe, he wasn't sure. After all, he had seized the opportunity to make a break for it as the tesseract skated on over in his direction. A subtle turn of his boot and he had bent down to grab it, teleporting the Hel out of there.

One thing was for sure－this recollection of bits and pieces of the past twenty-four hours was going to get real old, real fast. Only time would tell how quickly it would all come back to him. Perhaps this lack of memory was a side effect of the mind control; seemed as good an explanation as any.

Now, Loki knew that he had two options. He could idly sit here on the ground, waiting for some miraculous rescue to happen (to him, that seemed laughable) or he could attempt to figure out some sort of plan to get himself to a much more pleasurable locale; he chose the latter, as most in his predicament would do. Of course when your wrists had handcuffs around them, that wouldn't be all that simple but using most of the muscles in his thighs, Loki had managed to push himself up off the ground and back onto his feet. Step one, done. It was time to carry on and just as Loki was about to try this whole teleport-away-from-your-problems thing over again, the sudden realization hit him. It hit him real hard. The tesseract; where was it? He had held it this whole time up until now and glanced all around in the area that he had his crash landing but he couldn't seem to find it.

Oh just lovely, he had seemed to have lost it. There was no apparent blue glow coming from anywhere nearby and so he moved quickly, chains or no chains, to find that ever so precious blue cube and hopefully before anyone else could, if there was even any other form of life in this vast area. Perhaps some wildlife at most, it didn't seem as if there'd be any humans around. It was far too quiet though and he knew that fact in itself could be a bad omen. He would need to keep aware of his surroundings, as he's always done before.

I'm not going anywhere without it. I simply refuse to leave it behind and besides, it's not like I can go anywhere with these damned chains restricting my power.

That very thought and his impending actions would soon come to be a mistake, but he would find out just how bad of a mistake all in due time. With the wide open scenery, a large field that went on for miles into the horizon, surrounded by acres of bushes and forest, Loki was an easy to spot target, though he wasn't worried. He kept his senses keen as he continued to search for the tesseract and surely he would find it before any danger could see him. Doing that said task was easier said than done, but he was up for the challenge. He trudged through the rough, uneven soil (which was in obvious need of being cultivated) and kept walking around in hopes that he would soon locate the cube. Several minutes spent wandering about the land and after making a fair distance from the crash site, it had proved to be unsuccessful. Curses, all of that trudging through rough, itchy stubble for nothing. Alright, maybe he was being dramatic about that, as he did have his tall leather boots and pants on to protect him from that but he was kind of in a rush here. If you couldn't make a scene for yourself, who could you make one for? Needless to say, Loki was getting rather annoyed in being unable to locate the cube, let alone the very fact that he was stuck out here and couldn't get these forsaken chains off. It would've been a blessing if they could have just broken off with the impact of his fall; must have been some damn strong material. Seriously though. Where in the bloody nine realms was that tesseract? He wasn't in the mood for playing the intergalactic version of that popular Midgardian game 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" This day was starting to crack his top ten worst days ever. Probably should have stayed in bed this morning, but it was far too late for that.

He neared the outer edge of some forest, about a good two miles south of where he had originally landed and pondered if it could've bounced all the way into the thicket of the shrubs and trees, then quickly shook off the notion. There was no way his landing would've given the tesseract that much momentum and a bad feeling formed in his chest, knowing exactly where the cube was now. In fact, he had a rather strong gut feeling about this, especially after having searched the whole radius of his landing spot and not seeing a single sign of the tesseract, not even a hint of its blue glow. Someone was nearby and had taken it, that was the only reasonable and most plausible explanation. Fantastic. He wasn't alone, though now he wished he was. Things could only get worse, much worse from here on out. A little danger was just what the doctor ordered though, perhaps Loki could get free of his shackles. At least he hoped that would happen.

"Looking for this?" A gruff male voice queried, flashing the trickster god an encased tesseract; in a black briefcase, the lid lifted up enough to provide a little peekage. Loki had turned himself in the direction which he heard the voice and glared at the man. How dare he take what was (rightfully) his? It was at that moment Loki made an internal oath to himself that he would get his payback for that. Oh, and would they ever be sorry. Many others stood behind him, hinting that perhaps he was in a position of authority over the rest; still not the highest rank of the group though.They were dressed in all black, had guns and knives on their person and overall, just had this vibe that told Loki they meant business. There was something familiar about these men too, as if he had seen them someplace before. Where exactly that was though remained a mystery.

Think Loki, think real hard, he urged himself. Nothing was coming back to him just yet. Norns, how hard did I hit my head, he had wondered, frustrated that he could barely recall things yet.

All he knew so far was that the Avengers had caught him, he was to go back to Asgard (after his brother stuffed his face with his friends whilst he waited outside chained down by Mjolnir without even thinking to offer him some nourishment) and would have to soon learn of what Asgardian justice would be served to him but that of course was before he had managed to nab the tesseract and ended up here in this mess now. All of the other details were still fairly foggy; or perhaps some weren't, but he didn't wish to remember certain things. Horrors, trauma. The fact that he was now looking at these men, their faces could almost give you nightmares. Those sorts of things.

"Oh look, he can't run his mouth and he's powerless right now. How lucky for us. Take him in boys," the man ordered, a dark expression on his face. The others nodded and did as they were told, struggling a bit as Loki attempted to shove them away and as one got closer than he should've to him, he made a swift move to grab his knife from his side. He could stab his way out of this, couldn't he? Sure he could and that's what he did. Or at least he tried to, only getting the one he had borrowed the knife from. Another man in the group had knocked it out of the god's hands and had soon knocked the currently powerless god out with one quick, brutal punch; might've helped that he had brass knuckles adorned on his hand, that and hitting him in just the right spot.

"On my way down to coordinate search and rescue..."

Captain Rogers? Why in Valhalla was he hearing his voice right now? Of all the times that it could be happening, spiraling down onto the ground as he blacked out. Another memory it seemed to be. Perhaps a good hint as to where he had seen these men before. Loki's vision had blurred in those brief few seconds it took for him to be rendered unconscious and following the sound of Cap's voice, he had heard one of the men chanting the words 'hail Hydra'; the others repeating it back to him for some apparent reason. Hydra－that seemed important to remember and he hoped he would upon awakening. Two of the men then grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him up to their van, where they picked him up and tossed him into the back of it. They chained him down to the floor just in case he would wake up before they returned to base and to be on the safe side should he attempt to escape from them. They had plans now for him and the cube; especially the cube. Horrific, unspeakable plans. To them, there was no time to waste and so they immediately sped off, heading back to their base after covering their tracks and the very spot where Loki had landed earlier.

Two hours later. Hydra base.

'Hail Hydra'.

Those words echoed in the god's mind repeatedly as he gradually came back to consciousness and he didn't know what exactly it was, but something about them gave him bad vibes. Loki groaned as he awakened more and his head ached a little (no thanks to that hard hit he had taken). He shook the awful feeling off, his long raven locks falling out of place; however so slightly. It wasn't like it mattered much anyway as his hair had already been disheveled from his earlier crash landing. Though his bruises and cuts had healed up. He squinted his eyes shut a couple of times, before allowing them to remain fully open and looked around at his surroundings. When he did that, he saw that he was in some dark, dingy place and got the sense that it had once been abandoned for some time; until these men took it over. This place certainly wasn't a five star resort, nor did it hold the pristine, golden status of the palace back in Asgard. It reeked of this strong, musty scent, causing the trickster to scrunch his nose up in disgust and the walls were stained with what appeared to be blood and probably many other substances－honestly, Loki didn't want to know what else was on the walls. He was sure that he'd hurl if he did. The floors were filthy, obviously in major need of a thorough cleaning and then some. Hel, it was probably better to just burn this place to the ground; that's how bad it was.

Where exactly was he and why was he here? It was the last place in the whole nine realms that he'd rather be. Wherever it was.

Loki kept thinking on those words and the longer he did it, the clearer things started to get. He soon recalled that some men dressed in black cargo pants and a shirt to match had a scuffle with him, which he told himself he would've won was it not for his shackles and he presumed that he was now in their base. Lovely, just freaking perfect. Cuffs sunk into his wrists, making his pale skin red around the edges; that annoyed him too, even if the marks would quickly heal once he found a way to get them off. He had to make a plan and make one fast, he could hear men's voices nearing the cell that he was locked up in. The muzzle had been taken off of him for some reason (though he was thankful for that), but with minimal options available to him Loki decided that he would need to put his smooth talking skills to work.

Loki took a deep breath in and became focused on the task that lay ahead. Well, here goes nothing.

The men stopped in front of Loki's cell with dark menacing expressions on their faces. One of them soon opened the door up, standing in the doorway to block the exit. Foolish mortal, as if that could ever work－especially if the god's powers weren't restricted, then he would really be in for a treat. "Well, well, well, look who's finally awake," the man sneered, stepping further into the cell; he rested his left hand on his belt, keeping close to his weapon. Two others followed behind him, their hands being kept close to their belts as well. Something was definitely up and Loki's senses perked up more than they usually were. Now more than ever it was important for him to do what he needed to do in order to remain aloof in regards to the situation.

"I had a long nap, no thanks to you . Now, if it's all the same to you, I would like to leave this dreadful place. That won't be a problem will it?"

Today that sass would not help him through this predicament he had found himself in. The men shook their heads in refusal and inched themselves closer to the god. This was not going to go well for him but regardless of that, Loki smirked mischievously. Oh, what fun this would be.

"Unfortunately, it will be a problem. We're not quite done with you yet trickster," an agent informed Loki, a threatening tone to his curt, gruff voice. Yes, such fun indeed. Loki was ready for a little chaotic action and now he was about to get it; ready or not. Shackled or not, he was going to put up a fight. There was no way he would allow these beings to touch him again and as the one in front of him went to grab his neck, the god held his restrained hands up to block the movement and then kicked his right foot outward to make contact with the man's stomach. He tumbled over from the strong impact but then before Loki could get to the other two, one of them had pulled out a shock device and tazed Loki with it. Excruciating pain formed in his side, his Jotun physiology keeping him conscious throughout the ordeal. While he did everything to fight the pain, a collar was wrapped around the god's neck. It was fastened tightly and once secured, the other man pulled on the chains that had been restricting his hand movements since his arrival, urging Loki forward with him with a rough, impatient yank.

Loki kept plotting his revenge for this less than ideal treatment he was receiving. This was no way to treat Asgardian royalty, let alone a god. The agent who had placed the collar around his neck, pulled a remote out from his pocket and brought it to Loki's attention. "One wrong move or another snarky remark and that collar will shock you. Unless I push the red button on this remote, then you'll die. Your head will blow right off of your shoulders," he warned him, a wicked grin on his face as he stared down Loki. It was almost as if he was daring the god to mess up again and to be honest, he was hoping for it.

Loki glared back and resisted as much as he could, his feet practically dragging along the cold, damp concrete flooring. His legs didn't want to go any further and he felt like a stubborn mule and to the Hydra agent, that's exactly what this god was to him. No more resistance. A shock soon jolted onto Loki's bare neck, causing the god to clench his teeth together as he fought his hardest not to make a single cry of agony nor a plea of mercy. They wanted to break him and he wasn't about to let them. He would rather die than give up and let his guard down. If bending him to their each and every whim was their plan then they would have to do so much better than that. After all, this god had been through and survived worse. Much, much worse. Far greater pains and tortures that they could never have thought of themselves. Pathetic beings, once he broke free of these restraints, they would be sorry. They would all be sorry.

As Loki was led down the dingy, dim corridors, many agents now surrounding him, he glanced around through the spaces between bodies and saw a bunch of large equipment in one room. He narrowed his blue-green eyes more as he noticed more agents in the room, gathered around something or perhaps, someone. The further down the corridor he went with his 'wardens', that's what he decided to dub them, the more Loki got a better view of what was going on in this particular room. There was a man with long dark brown hair that fell inches above his shoulders, who was also bare chested (revealing his metal arm and the scarring that went along with it on his shoulder) and his wrists were restrained to this chair. His expression seemed blank, as if he had no emotion whatsoever; presumably in an attempt to not feel anything. Maybe he didn't. How could anyone feel anything in a place like this? Especially with company like these horrible, awful men. It was deemed impossible in Loki's perspective.

Curiosity started to get the better of him and the god wondered what they were doing or about to do to this man. No, it didn't matter and it wasn't like he could help him anyway－even if he wanted to. He had his own problem to sort out and wished not to take on the burden of some complete strangers issues. Whatever was about to happen to him would just have to occur. No matter how bad it could be. No matter how broken this man seemed to be, as if he had been through Hel and back just as Loki had been several times over. He could sense that this handsome stranger had bottled up so much pain but he wasn't about to let his guard down for any of this. Not now, not ever.

"Wipe his mind and start over," the voice of a higher authority ordered, his gruff voice bouncing off the glass panes of the inner windows. Loki watched intently as the agents slid a mouth guard into the man's mouth (most definitely to muffle the sounds that were impending) and then hooked the machine up to him, lowering what seemed to be some sort of torture device onto his head. Norns only know what horrors would come of that, it was something that Loki didn't want to know of. Within seconds, the tortures had commenced and cries of agony were expelled deep within from the man's diaphragm, causing Loki to pause in his tracks out of pure trepidation as he watched the scene play out. No, how could they? Monsters. Then again, given what they had previously done to Loki himself, he shouldn't have been so surprised. He was being urged forward and shoved by the men both in front and behind him, but this god wasn't about to budge; no matter how much they shouted at him to move. Tremors filled his mind, then his body and soul as the horrid flashbacks of his own tortures came back.

Thanos. The Other and the Chitauri. It was all coming back to him now, whether he wanted it to or not. The awful pain he had felt, longing for death to capture him into the dark void－it certainly would have been better than what he had gone through. Burn after burn, weakening him greatly. That was the best way to torture a Jotun after all. His eyes had become dark and circles had formed around them. His thin lips were horribly chapped and his skin profuse and sweaty, and his teeth had rotted; making the once healthy prince appear like the poster child of malnutrition now. Should his mother see him like this, it would surely break the Queen's heart more than it already was. After all, she had thought him dead, unaware that after her son's suicide attempt he had been resurrected－only to be used a pawn in the Mad Titan's game of chess and everyone knows that the pawns don't survive for long; luck would have to be on their side if they did. "We will bend him to our will. Keep going until he breaks...." Thanos kept burning him again and again, then over and over. Loki had fought so hard to not let a single plea of mercy or cry of agony spill from his lips but as time went on, the young prince didn't know how much more he could take. His memories had been messed with and he was reminded so brutally that he would never be a king, that he was nothing. His dreams were meaningless and so childlike, hating himself even more than he already had. Maybe that was why he swallowed his pride and let his captor, his abusers place him under mind control. What more could he lose now? He had nothing.

The longer Loki heard the screams of this man, the more he froze in place and the more his own trauma played over and over in his head; much like a stuck record. He couldn't hit the record player to reset it, his hands were restricted and even if he could, would it even work? His eyes pinched themselves shut, pushing back tears. His legs shook, weakening like jelly and his hands soon followed suit, the chains rattling against themselves. Deep within his heart, Loki knew that he was so broken, so damaged. Who would ever want someone like him? At best, he figured that he was beyond repair and deserved to be kept in the cellar under lock and key, never to be seen again. Worthless. Monster. Unloved. So much hate and negativity flooded his mind at this moment and he bought his lies, the ones of his abuser. His father never saw him as 'worthy', he wasn't equal to his brother and now, he was a wanted man. He didn't want to attack New York, but he had to go on with it for the sake of his plan to forewarn of what was coming. The very plan he had concocted while he fought back against the mind control and it was unfortunate that the Avengers hadn't seen through. Not even his own brother, who had spent an entire lifetime around him. Loki would never tell Thor, but it hurt him deeply that he didn't and couldn't realize this. If only all of them had read into his actions and his carefully chosen words a little more, maybe then things would have been different. Perhaps he wouldn't be stuck here now.

Loki didn't want to admit it, but he was petrified. One way or another, he was going to get himself out of here and would find his way back home, if he was even welcome back to Asgard at this point and maybe, just maybe, he would free this man of his pain as well. Whatever his name was, he longed to learn this and hoped that in time he would. He was so tragically stunning and the god wanted to heal his tortured soul. Realizing what he was thinking, the god shook himself out of the brief trance of positivity he had put himself under.

No wait, what am I thinking? I don't care about this mortal. I don't care about any of them. A monster like me doesn't deserve love. Besides, he probably wouldn't want me anyway.

"Come on, keep moving!" A hand lurched Loki forward and the god growled lowly, giving the mystery man one last look, his expression so stoic once the torture had ended. A man spoke some seemingly random words to him in what Loki believed was Russian, and caught a glimpse of him getting out of control, wincing in pain as each word was spoken. It was clear to the god that this was definitely some sort of mind control they put him under and he knew then that the both of them had more in common than previously thought.

No, I will not feel anything for him. I will remain stone cold, it's better this way. For both of us.

Still, Loki couldn't help but keep thinking about him as he carried on down the corridors to a similar room that his newfound crush, whether he admitted it or not, had just been seen in. Great, more torture was coming his way or at least Loki figured that was about to happen if he didn't comply to their every command. He knew too that he would have to get the tesseract out of their possession, fearing what these guys would do with such power. Then again, he hoped that it would destroy them as they messed with the very thing they didn't even understand. After all, they weren't powerful enough to possess such intense energy and they would never be.

~~~~~~~~

The Hydra agents had shoved Loki down into a chair, where they pinned his wrists down on the armrests. There was no way he was going to escape this newly fresh Hel, not in this moment and definitely not on their watch. It was deemed close to impossible without a solid plan as they had a literal god in their possession now and though they knew what he was capable of should he break free, it didn't phase them. In fact, they held this sense of hope that they could bend Loki to their will and get this trickster to be on their side; to fight alongside them. No matter what it took for them to convince the god to do so. They imagined how powerful Hydra could be with a potential ally like Loki and how greatly this would help their cause for global domination. First of all, they would need to get some information from him by any means necessary－ about him and about the tesseract, which they had plans to turn into a bomb. A new face had entered the room, a tall dark and brooding man with a muscular build. He was dressed in the same attire as these other agents and there was a dangerous expression in those deep brown eyes of his. As he neared the group, one of his allies had referred to this man as 'Rumlow.' and seconds later, an agent soon informed this Rumlow guy that Loki was ready for his interrogation. Well, as ready as one could be when it was forced upon them.

Seriously, couldn't a god just go home and indulge in his favourite Shakespeare play? Apparently not, as he was stuck here with men who were about to attempt to pry information out of him.

Of course, that didn't mean that he had to tell them anything and that was exactly his plan－ he wouldn't give them any information. Torture him if they shall. He could handle it, that's the lie he was currently telling himself. Surely mortal men couldn't do that much damage, could they? He was about to find out. Rumlow got close to Loki, almost getting right in his face; might as well have been, he was just mere inches away.

Personal space? Ever hear of that Rumlow? No, I didn't think so. By the Norns, this was turning out to be quite a tedious day.

He had sat down on a grey metal chair in front of the god, the back of the chair facing Loki and had rested his arms on the top of it. "Alright Asgardian, tell me everything that you know. Now," there was an urgency in his deep, gruff voice. Pushy much? Loki thought so but he soon realized that he could have some fun with this and so, in his typical snarky fashion he did. Everything you say? Loki had thought, a small smirk forming on his face. Alright, that is what you'll get. It's just too bad he hadn't specified. "Well for starters, you really lack a sense of fashion. I mean, don't get me wrong. Black is always in style but not in those clothes and that hair cut? It's so ten years ago and don't get me started on your living conditions. Do you not have any dignity or self respect left in yourselves. Such a shame."

That was the first strike and without a single warning, a shock wave was sent coursing through Loki's body; moving from his neck and spreading rapidly from there. Loki's icy genetic makeup kept him from passing out, forcing him to feel the pain in full consciousness. It was almost completely immobilizing and it would have been, if it wasn't for the device being on a low setting; that didn't mean it tickled though, he certainly wasn't laughing here. He had a good feeling that the more frequently it were to be done, the higher that intensity would rise. That potential threat wasn't going to stop him from being his stubborn self though. Loki possessed the sort of strength that most only long to know and with the experience of the curve balls that life threw at him, he rightfully earned it. Emotionally and mentally strong, the kind that didn't matter on Asgard or even Midgard it seemed. Quite unfortunate.

'You can handle this Loki, it's nothing you haven't been through before', the god kept telling himself, clenching his jaw together in an attempt to endure the pain. The truth was, he wished that he could pass out and cursed his Jotun physiology for not allowing that and maybe it was for the better in this case. Who knows what these men would do to him if he were unconscious? Loki shook those dark, gloomy thoughts away, not wanting to know. "Not that. You know damn well what information we're seeking. What do you know of the tesseract? How do we harness its energy," Rumlow growled, evidently furious with this god's sass. This apparently wasn't the kind of game he wanted to play. What a poor sport. Ah that. Too bad Loki wasn't planning on giving it to them, not even a teeny tiny little crumb. He wouldn't dare break down, for as long as he possibly could anyway. There was one thing he would tell them though－how foolish they were. Not that they would listen but Loki just wanted to put it out there; just for the sake of it.

"You're not strong enough to hold such power. You see, these stones are not meant for mortal beings and it will destroy you if you touch them. The radiation they contain is far too much for your weaker forms," Loki informed them, a smug expression on his godly features.

That was clearly the wrong thing to say as yet another shock jolted through his body, much stronger this time; as he had anticipated. He fought tirelessly to not show any sign of breaking, bending to their will. He was stronger than that and much wiser than to subdue to their stupid little game. It didn't matter how high they turned up the intensity of these shock waves, he would never give in.

"You know, I'm tired of hearing his smart remarks. Keep shocking him for a while and maybe then, he'll be ready to cooperate," Rumlow ordered, the agent nodding to accept his command. His peer looked at him, arching a brow out of curiosity. "What if he doesn't cooperate after all of that?" Rumlow smirked darkly as he glanced back at the man. "Then we'll kill him."

There was a nod of understanding from the man and then all attention was soon put back onto Loki, the torturing commencing promptly from that moment forward. Little by little, the pain became greater gradually by a minute or two each time the agent amped things up. Loki kept a brave facade painted on his face, staring the man down with a vengeance. No breaking, don't you dare. Not for these men, not for anyone. After several minutes, the device had been maxed out and Loki was just barely cracking under the agony, a small groan escaping from his throat; he tried to suppress it but it insisted on coming out. Damn it.

He gritted his teeth and his fingers grabbed onto the edge of the armrest, his knuckles turning white. Tears threatened to fall from the surface of his eyes, he begrudgingly pushed them back with a few blinks. His limbs began to shake or maybe they weren't. At this point, he really couldn't tell anymore nor did he want to; weakness would not be shown, not today. He needed to distract himself as he knew that they were going to draw this out－there was just this uneasy feeling that told him so. His mind had chosen to think of that mystery man he'd seen earlier and something told the god that the torture was like this for him, perhaps even worse. Whoever had it worse out of the two of them mattered not, it was just plain sickening for either one of them to have gone through it. Loki knew what it was like having your mind erased, where all of the most pleasant memories (even the dreadful ones) that one kept tucked away for safekeeping being distorted or turned to something that seemed to be all too good to be true. He knew of the heart wrenching pain that was felt, just knowing that he'd never see his loved ones again, the ear piercing, glass shattering screams and how terrible it felt to be tortured, conditioned into the very thing that all feared－a monster, a villain.

I just want to go home, but nobody's home...end this pain...

It was clear to Loki that this man also had no home to go back to but that was nothing. Nothing but a thing of the past and evidently Loki empathized with that, never really feeling as if he belonged anywhere. Not Asgard, not Jotunheim and definitely not here on Midgard. A lone wolf exiled from the rest of the pack. How he wished things could be different but knew that they would never be. How could they? He would forever be an outcast, the forgotten son. That sense of belonging was so far out of reach to him, it wasn't funny. Enough was enough. Loki had decided that he was going to break free from this Hel and the only way to do that was to make them think that he was finally ready to give them what they sought. He would have to act the part and he was all for it of course as it meant that he got to be his mischievous self.

Cue the dramatics. Lights, camera, action!

Loki slowly let his emotionless mask down, showing expressions of pain and anguish on his face. A single tear rolled down his cheek, the god allowing it; just this once. It was part of his grand scheme after all. "Alright stop! I'll tell you..just...just please stop," he screamed out, seemingly trying to keep his breathing even. Rumlow made a motion at his compadre, which had given the man the go ahead to cease the torture. Loki panted heavily, fatigued from the multiple shocks and tilted his head down towards the floor in the hopes of appearing as if he were played out from the past event; not daring to make eye contact with anyone. He soon heard footsteps and the chair shuffling around him, being moved out of the way as Rumlow and his fellow agent neared the god, they were about to do something to him but Loki wasn't sure what just yet. It didn't matter, he had a plan. He always did. "You have three seconds to talk or we won't hesitate to shock you again." Such an empty threat.

The man who held the remote now stood in front of him and before he could even push the button once again, Loki lurched his legs forward (a grand mistake on their part not tying them down) and knocked the man down on his back onto the cold, hard concrete floor. The god smoothly caught the remote between his ankles, and tossed the device up into the air, all while hoping that no one else would catch it before he could. Luckily, even bound to a chair he was much faster than them; thank you superhuman speed. His right hand now held onto the small black device and he flicked the switch on it that soon freed him of that damned collar. He felt his power coursing through his body, coming in strong and as his healing factor replenished his godly strength. At that moment, Loki broke himself free of his restraints; his seidr blasting the cool metal off of his wrists in green shimmers of mystical swirls.

The God of Mischief was back, baby. Damn it felt good, so bloody good.

Loki cracked his knuckles while wearing a playful smirk on his face and he soon strutted his way over to Rumlow, more than eager to go a round with the man. More green coloured mystical swirls glowed around Loki's fingertips and he kept his eyes locked on Rumlow; who had his gun out and ready to fire. He rapidly shot a few bullets at him but Loki just kept approaching him; not giving a single care in the world. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. It was so laughable in fact. The bullets might as well have been made of rubber, as they bounced off of the god, his skin immune to such attacks. "Oh dear, did that not work. Too bad," Loki retorted, using his seidr to throw Rumlow back against the wall. Others came for Loki, but one by one they failed miserably, this god far too much for them to handle. Daggers were flying about the room, maiming the men enough so that they couldn't move. Some of them were rendered unconscious from the intense blast of Loki's magic, while others were as good as dead; having been too close to the power. Rumlow now struggled to get back up, groaning lowly in pain. Loki wasn't finished with him just yet. He tossed the man into the very chair that Loki had been restrained to, chains magically restricting his movements.

"My my, haven't we been misbehaving far too much Rumlow. That's saying a lot coming from me too. In fact, I think you should sit here and think about what you've done. Oh, and I'll be taking this back now," Loki taunted, a smug smirk on his face as he glanced from Rumlow to the table where the briefcase that housed the tesseract was. The god walked over to the briefcase, opening it up and grabbed the tesseract out of it. Finally, he had retrieved it and maybe now he could get out of this horrid place. Oh right, he had one last thing before doing that. It was time to burn this place to the ground or at least destroy it in some way, shape or form. There would be one thing, or should he say a person, that would stand in his path to freedom though－that mystery man he kept denying he had feelings for of course.

He was a little bit dangerous right now, his mind trapped under the effects of the brainwashing. Loki cat walked his way out of the room, his magic transforming his torn up outfit back to its former glory and he kept that smirk on his face, making his journey down the corridors that led to the main control room where he knew he could really make a statement; a big bold statement as a matter of fact. He knew that there was equipment in there that would cause the place to self-destruct as long as the right, or wrong in this case, information was entered. Of course, Loki had managed to grab that information as he retrieved the tesseract, sneakily reading a sticky note that was poorly placed under some panel. That would be their mistake, one that would cost them their lives at the worst case scenario.

Just as Loki was about to turn the corner, he felt an intense stare on his back and he slowly spun around, that smirk deepening. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw that familiar man looking at him with murderous intent－this wasn't the same man whose eyes had been flooded with pain, regret and that expression that told Loki he felt so lost. Loki raised his hands up defensively, careful not to make any sudden moves. It's not that he was afraid of this man, he just knew better than to trigger him. The last thing he wanted was to hurt him but if he needed to, then he was more than ready to defend himself. It seemed as if this man remembered seeing Loki around as well, there was a puzzled expression that had formed on his face. He glanced away, then back to the god; certainly feeling so befuddled right now. There was something about him that made him feel as if he wasn't alone, but he couldn't put a finger on exactly what it was. That moment of reminiscing was short lived, as one of the free agents who hadn't been in the room with Loki had come along and re-calibrated this man with a little jolt, giving some orders in Russian for him to kill the god. No matter the cost, even if it meant his own life in the end.

Alright, it was time for a fight and as Loki saw the man draw a knife from his side, he too summoned his daggers into his hands. This would be such fun, Loki loved to do this dance. Both of them did a running start at each other, their blades clinking and clanking against the others. This man managed to give the god a little shove and then kicked his legs out from under him, pinning him down to the floor. From there, he started to punch him, leaving cuts and bruises scattered onto Loki's alabaster complexion. As that metal fist rose up above his face again, Loki used his magic to freeze it in place, just inches above his face and threw the man off of him. "Snap out of it. I don't know who you are but I can tell that this isn't who you are," Loki stressed, hoping that he could get through to this man. It seemed at that moment, he might as well have been talking to the wall. He was soon charged at again, but was prepared for it and searched for some sort of object he could use to knock him out. There was nothing of use and so Loki opted to use his own fist, hitting the man with all of his strength; wondering why he hadn't done this sooner. An act of faith perhaps that this brainwashed assassin would come back to reality. As good a reason as any, one could suppose.

He was now rendered unconscious and Loki hoped that upon his awakening, he would no longer be under the control of Hydra. Loki picked him up and slung him over his shoulders, teleporting the two of them to the control room and then entered the information his keen mind had absorbed, that soon began the self destruct sequence. Now, Loki was highly intelligent and so he knew better than to just up and leave it like that. Someone would surely try to stop this and that's the exact reason why he locked the whole system down with a spell that only he could break.

'Self destruct sequence in one minute. Fifty nine seconds. Fifty eight. Fifty seven.

Time was ticking and Loki went over to the back exit, awaiting the arrival of any agent who dared try to stop this; his newfound crush still passed out over his shoulder. He was confident that he could get out of there in plenty of time. Teleportation was a thing for him after all. Loki glanced down to the countdown clock, it's large red numbers diminishing more and more.

Forty five seconds remaining. Tsk, tsk. Not a single soul was there yet, it was such a shame; the god had hoped to see the grim look on their faces as they learned that they couldn't stop this. Looks like they were all going to be disappointed today. Tragic.

Time got away, getting less and less and with only thirty seconds left, Loki was certain that no one was going to show. Until he was pleasantly surprised as several agents entered the room. "What took you so long?" A cheeky grin on his face, stretching from ear to ear. Needless to say, not a single soul in Hydra was impressed. The men all glared at the god, some of them soon rushing over to the main controls to stop this. It ended in hysterics for Loki as they got shot back from the force of magic that was placed over the controls and he flashed them a cocky grin, as they moved quickly to surround him. Obviously they hadn't learned from the last time. "Oh I'm terribly sorry fellas, I'd love to have another bout with you but I'm afraid that your time is up," he informed them, motioning to the clock that now said 'five seconds' on the screen; the voice over soon repeating that.

Without further adieu, Loki teleported himself and this broken man out of the base. Just in the nick of time too, as the whole place exploded inward and then went outward with a ground shuddering blast; nothing but rubble left behind, a few miraculous survivors as well. "You're safe now. We're both safe now."

That was a promise in which Loki intended to keep, for as long as he possibly could. No matter what happened to him, he would see that this man wouldn't suffer because of his past.

~~~~~~~~~

Several miles away from the base and Loki had carefully rested this handsome stranger onto the ground, looking down at him in awe. He went to caress his strong jawline but quickly hesitated, deciding that if there were to be a moment like that, then it should occur naturally and while the man was awake. Loki didn't know when this man would wake up though and so he used a spell on him, touching his fingers to the man's temple as he did so, hoping that it was enough to do the trick. A low groan was heard seconds later and the man's face scrunched up in the slightest way. His eyes fluttered open and for the first time as Loki was face to face with him, he was able to gaze deeply into that sea of blue. He looked back into Loki's eyes, the two of them having this unspoken understanding of the fact that they had something in common; only Loki knowing what that was. "Who are you," the man asked, his voice soft as it flowed out of his mouth like the smoothest of chocolates. Fair question.

"I am Loki." That's all the god replied, unsure if he was deserving enough to note that he was of Asgard. It didn't feel right to him at this time and maybe it never would; perhaps in the future it would be fathomable. Hopefully. Loki. It seemed like an odd name to someone who grew up in the forties, but it had a nice ring to it nonetheless.The man nodded and before he could say anything more, Loki soon asked him the same question, wishing to learn the name of the one who had him feeling so...infatuated. How that was even possible, Loki didn't quite understand. "James Buchanan Barnes, but I prefer Bucky." Finally, a name to put to this stunning face. "How did we get out here? You're not with Hydra, are you?" Another reasonable question and now it was time for the god to do some explaining, which he hoped wouldn't seem too far fetched to Bucky. "Well you see Bucky, I uh, I had a crash landing here, those details aren't too important though and after that I lost something important to me but while I was searching for it, Hydra, as you call them, captured me and it wasn't long until I saw you in their base. They were doing unspeakable things to you and," Loki paused, pondering over whether or not he dared to finish that sentence. He didn't wish to trigger nor upset Bucky. It seemed as if Bucky had gotten the picture though, a small smile that was followed by a saddened expression in his eyes soon formed on his features.

"Ah yes. The brainwashing. It's been my whole life ever since the forties and I don't like talking about it. It's just a living nightmare to me." Bucky glanced away, feeling ashamed of what his life had become and Loki felt his heartbreaking from the sight. No, there was no way that he was going to let him suffer alone－it didn't have to be that way. "I caused the base to self destruct and got you to safety, once I freed myself from those...agents. You're welcome for that." Silence. A brief one. Bucky nodded in response. "Thank you Loki."

His voice was so lovely to hear, even in the worst of circumstances. So alluring. What am I doing? Love is such a childish notion but here I am falling further and further for him. I am but a fool...a fool for him. Bucky, my Bucky. Might as well take the plunge. He was already this far gone after all and if something was going to destroy him, then it might as well be Bucky and his newfound and ever growing feelings for him.

Loki held his hand, his metal one, and looked dotingly into his ocean blue eyes. Bucky had flinched slightly, wanting to pull his hand away from Loki. "I hate this part of me." Fortunately for Bucky, Loki could understand why; their left arms both reminders of how different they were compared to the rest of their worlds. Loki gave it some thought for a moment and though he hated his Jotun heritage, despised it actually, he had soon decided that perhaps it would help his cause if he shared a small detail about himself as well. Hopefully he wouldn't come to regret it. "It's okay Bucky, I know what you mean. I hate a part of myself as well but I can't show you. I don't want to hurt you, but please be grateful for that. I was born an ice cold monster, at least that's what I've been taught about the inhabitants of my home realm. Jotunheim." That was enough of showing the slightest vulnerability, Loki figured. He loathed feeling that way.

Bucky looked back at him and there was a tiny smile on his face that went in hand with a subtle nod. It seemed as if he had understood and thankfully for Loki, Bucky never pressed him to show him what exactly he was talking about. There had been obvious distress in the god's eyes as he shared that information, a familiar emotional distress in which Bucky had experienced each time he went through the mind wiping, the experiments. All of it. The horrors were still so fresh in his mind and they would forever be; it seemed as if there was no escape, perhaps not until Loki had almost miraculously appeared in his life and rescued him. They both kept an ardent gaze on each other, Loki's emotions only intensifying the longer he looked at Bucky. He was drowning in these feelings and to be honest, he seemed to be perfectly alright with that. Never before had there been this much passion burning through the god's body and he longed to know how those lips felt against his own, slowly leaning forward while caressing Bucky's left cheek. Did he feel the same way as the Aesir prince felt for him? There was only one way to find out. Loki brushed his lips up against Bucky's, getting a little teasing in to feel out the moment; a little flirting method of his. "Forgive me," he whispered against those luscious lips of Bucky's.

He pressed a tender kiss to his lips, gradually becoming much more voracious as he pulled the man closer to him. Bucky felt a spark jolt through his body as the god's lips made contact with his, gently caressing them in a passionate, sincerely loving bout of affection. He wrapped his arms around him, tangling his right hand into those long, loosely curled raven tresses. Never before had he felt so alive than he was in this moment and he hoped that feeling would never go away. Maybe it didn't have to. Low moans escaped from them, breaths swapping between the two of them in faint pants. After lingering in the kiss for a few moments more, Loki gradually pulled away and looked back at Bucky with a dazed expression in his shimmering blue-green eyes. Beautiful. Ethereal, so ineffable. That seemed like the only way to describe that kiss and yet, it still didn't seem fitting.

"That was..nice," Bucky softly spoke, still in awe of what had just happened. It had been far too long since his last kiss and he was thankful that if some random person was to give him one, it had been this tall, dark haired god; who just happened to be insanely attractive too. Loki smiled a little and licked his lips for a brief second, nodding in agreement.

"Yeah. It was."

Things remained unclear for Loki though, despite the kiss that the two of them had just shared. He wasn't certain if this was simply just a kiss or if this now meant that the two of them were something more than whatever this was. Had Bucky just been as starved as Loki himself was for some form of affection or did he kiss him back because he genuinely liked him back? Answers were needed and the sooner he got them, the better it would be. They could go on with their lives after this if need be.

Could Loki live on without Bucky by his side though? He told himself that he could, but knew deep down that he wouldn't want to. He didn't want to feel alone anymore, that had grown quite old to him. Don't make it so obvious. Probably a little late for that though, considering you just kissed him Loki!

He knew what needed to be said now. There was this comfortable silence floating around in the air as the two of them continued to gaze into each other's eyes. Now seemed as good a time as any to say something, anything. "Bucky, I don't know where I'm going from here but I do know that I would like to be in your company wherever I end up. Won't you join me," he questioned, a small glimmer of hope shining in his eyes.

Naturally, he was preparing for heartbreak. Rejection. Thank you for that dear father, both of them and every traumatic event in between.

Bucky stayed silent for a moment but not because he was thinking of a way to gently break it to Loki that he didn't want that. In fact, it was the complete opposite. He couldn't, for the life of him, think of some clever and flirtatious thing to respond with. Maybe he didn't need to be so articulate though. A simple word might just suffice here. His hands held onto Loki's as he deeply gazed into his eyes, a warm smile on his face. His expression was full of hope and he had a good feeling in both his gut and his heart that this felt like the right thing to do.

"Yes." It was just one word but it spoke volumes. There was happiness and love locked within those three letters, along with a sense of trust. To Bucky, it seemed like a risk to take but what was there to lose when you've already lost everything and everyone from your past life? When you lost who you once were? He was more than ready to take the plunge. At first, Loki was rather surprised by this answer but then as he realized it wasn't a lie, a soft smile grew onto his face. Finally, someone had accepted him and was there to understand what it felt like to feel like you don't belong anywhere or as if you're some kind of freak show. No longer would either of them feel so alone and perhaps in time, they would admit that this was the beginning of a wonderful love story. That there was an unspoken thing going on between them from the very moment they'd locked eyes. They would end up being more than glad that they had found each other and though there would be the odd fight, it would never get in the way of the special bond the two of them would come to form over time. It was apparent that this would rapidly grow into the kind of love that many sought out but was so rare to find. True love, soulmates if you will.

[peaceoutofthepieces]

Sink Or Swim

tag list: @cleocc @feeling-kinda-so-so @hopelessromanticvirgo @dreamy-slytherin @adora8 @lockerfivethreefive @painfully-oblivious @poeticinemaa @jjustonemorething @saraben00 @wedarkacademia @coolguyssyndrome @hischbabe @suckerforsobbe @tayspots @starmansander @theah0lt @zoenneforever @invisibleme @chibibanane

~^~

Sunday, 12:40

Song: Peter Manos - In My Head

Lucas is surprised his dad hasn’t come to tell him how pathetic he is yet. He supposes it isn’t necessary. Lucas is more than aware of it himself.

He’d dragged himself out to go to the bathroom and get breakfast and managed to avoid a run-in. Now he’s curled up in his bed with the covers pulled up to his neck, trying not to feel too sorry for himself.

It isn’t easy.

He’s tempted to call Kes, but he’d called him yesterday, and he doesn’t want to be so needy. He’s thought about messaging Isa, but he isn’t really sure what he would say. He’s sure they’re all busy anyway. Possibly even hanging out together. Without him. As is likely the new normal already.

Lucas had been so sure he’d found his new normal already, too, but nothing feels normal about his situation anymore. He feels more stupid than anything. He doesn’t know what he’s been thinking. He doesn’t know how he has managed to mess everything up so massively already.

Jens was offering him friendship, and of course Lucas went overboard with it. Of course he’s a fool.

He’s spent the weekend rewatching the vlogs. He’s already in that deep.

It goes against all his rules, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He can’t get any of it out of his head. He can’t stop feeling Jens’s hands on his hips, or his breath on his ear. He can’t stop remembering the pump of his heart when Jens has done nothing more than smile. He can’t stop imagining what Jens might have done, if Lucas hadn’t pulled away from their dance, if Lucas had made up for it when Jens pulled him down to sit in front of him by leaning right back against his chest. He can’t stop considering all the possibilities that have never been possible in the first place.

He can’t stop seeing Jens with her, looking entirely at home.

He’d avoided Instagram entirely yesterday, resisting the temptation to open Jens’s message or stalk his page or Jana’s for any possible torture. He hates how dramatic his heart is being. He knew not to expect anything, and he’d let himself get much too carried away anyway. Jens had just seemed so close and so possible. Now Lucas is realising the boy is probably even more like Kes than he thought.

Lucas is long over that, but there’s still a leftover sting regardless, even as he cringes at his own thoughts and thoughtless actions. It makes him feel worse, sometimes, now that the feelings have slipped away, to look back at it, but he can’t quite bring himself to regret it.

It’s given him plenty of time to come to terms with everything. With himself. He can’t exactly bring himself to regret something that taught him so much.

It just obviously hasn’t taught him enough.

It’s in moments like this where a little of that self-hate returns with full force, and he can’t help wishing that he was just normal. It wouldn’t feel like this, if he was just crushing on a girl who didn’t return his feelings.

He might have no proof to back this up, but he feels pretty sure of it all the same.

It would be fine, if he thought it wouldn’t mess anything up with Jens. He’s mostly angry with himself because of how much he’s already letting it affect him. He had run from the party without even saying goodbye, and he hasn’t responded to the message that Jens had so sweetly sent him afterwards. Or to the second message Jens had sent him yesterday, saying that he hoped Lucas got there safe and was having fun. He’d laughed at the irony of it. He doesn’t know how to explain to Jens that he’s completely miserable, and that he hadn’t gone anywhere in the first place.

He’s lying in his bed in Antwerp, and he’s giving in and clicking on Jens’s Instagram story.

It’s a video of him at the skatepark, flying up the ramp towards the camera, grinning as he jumps off his board and pushes the person away. The responding giggles sound like they come from Robbe. He looks as beautiful as ever, and Lucas wishes more than anything that he could join them. The pained twist of his heart isn’t entirely strong enough to make him want to stay away. It’s just an additional ache.

He escapes the app in a rush and opens Spotify, hoping to distract himself. His fingers twitch, tempted to draw, but there’s already a cramp in them. It was all he’d done yesterday. He’d needed to get his thoughts out, needed to put his emotions on paper, in something real, and endless sketches had poured out, inspired by the past few weeks. He’d sketched Sander first, stood in the art shop with his camera and his smirk. He’d sketched Luca, taking care with her curls and her glasses, one eye closed in a wink, adding extra details as he refused to pour out his mind’s main focus.

It still hadn’t stopped him from creating a dozen sketches of Jens, most only half-completed, the image lost midway as another one came to the forefront.

He needs a break from feeling like this, for a while. Before he remembers that he has to return to school tomorrow, where it will be unavoidable.

He doesn’t get very far, unable to make up his mind, before a notification pops up at the top of his screen and destroys any notion of forgetting his feelings.

Jens has messaged him again. Undeterred, it seems, by Lucas’s previous lack of response.

hey, you’re probably still busy but I was wondering what time you would be back? I’m at the skatepark with the boys, and we’ll probably be here until late, if you wanted to join for a while

Before Lucas can even take this in, another message appears.

you’re probably staying with your friends until the evening though, so don’t worry about it

Lucas blinks at the message with furrowed brows. At first his heart twists, thinking Jens has changed his mind and is politely telling him not to come after all. But the rushed manner in which it had been sent makes him doubt himself, and he rereads it again, searching for the purpose of it. The meaning behind it. Another thought comes to mind, but he can’t quite let himself entertain it. That can’t be right.

There’s no way that Jens is nervous.

It sounds an awful lot like he might be, though, the more Lucas reads it over. He begins to feel a little bad. He hadn’t thought too much on what his distance might feel like to Jens. He hadn’t considered the idea that he’s being unfair. It isn’t Jens’s fault, that Lucas feels hurt. He couldn’t possibly know. Lucas hopes that he doesn’t know. To Jens, it probably feels like Lucas is ignoring him now that he’s with his friends in Utrecht. That he simply takes a back seat. Lucas is the terrible person for knowingly hurting him this way.

He can’t help but smile slightly, and then his hands are moving on their own, opening the message and typing a reply.

I’m already home

It appears as ‘seen’ almost instantly, and it takes just as little time for the typing bubble to appear.

you left early? is everything okay?

I never went

He watches the texting bubble appear and disappear a few times before quickly typing out another message.

came home to my dad waiting for me. he found my (very small) stash. wasn’t pleased.

The typing bubble doesn’t appear for long now.

shit

grounded? I was wondering why you hadn’t replied

Lucas hadn’t even realised that he was creating the perfect out for himself. It’s that simple. It probably makes sense, that his grounding would include a lack of phone privileges. It isn’t too extreme, especially if it includes the idea that he’d already gotten it back. He could let Jens believe that his father had dished out that mini, extra punishment. He won’t even be lying. Not really. He just won’t be mending Jens’s incorrect assumption. Skipping over a tiny detail.

yep. I am to remain in this house indefinitely

fuck

he couldn’t be convinced to let you out for even an hour?

Lucas blinks.

Could his father be convinced?

Can Lucas?

He doesn’t have to think about it too long.

let’s check

He locks his phone and slips out of bed, suddenly eager. Determined. Still, he’s slow and quiet as he opens his door, and he winces at the faint creak of the hinges. He tiptoes up the hallway towards the kitchen, running through what he should say, giving himself a bit of extra time. He needs to go into this with patience. He needs to stay resolute. His father will shut him down the instant he blows up, so he simply needs to keep his cool. Throw in some persuasion. It’ll be difficult, probably, but not impossible. Hopefully.

Only his father isn’t in the kitchen, or the adjoining sitting room. Lucas furrows his brows in confusion and moves back down the hallway. The bathroom is unlocked and empty, and his father’s door lies open, proving without any doubt that the room is unoccupied. He’s completely alone in the flat.

His heart thrums and his mind races in time with the quickening beat. He’s not the most passive person in the world, and he wouldn’t let himself be walked over, and he’s not a model citizen. This isn’t too far past his realm of disobedience.

His father is already beyond pissed, and while Lucas initially cringes at the thought, he shrugs it off.

Might as well go the extra mile.

He heads back to his room and pulls a sweater on over his t-shirt, a light pastel green Isa had once bought him. He snatches his denim jacket from the hook by the front door and swipes up his keys as he shrugs it on. He hesitates for half a second before returning to collect his skateboard from his room, and then he’s off.

I’m on my way

Jens’s response is instant.

fucking nice :D

Lucas’s lips quirk, and he shakes his head slightly, and feels unbearably fond. Jens is so easy. Everything he does is so easy. He’s a steadily burning flame, bright and warm and sure, and Lucas is another brainless moth. Drawn in and set alight.

He doesn’t even know how he’s managed to develop such a ridiculous crush so quickly. He just hopes he can get rid of it in the same manner. Maybe he should be giving himself more time, especially now that he has a genuine excuse. He could have stepped neatly away from Jens for a while with the excuse of his imprisonment and Jens would understand. Lucas knows he would. He knows that would be the best thing to do. It’s unfair to Jens and himself to indulge these feelings, the excitement and the urgency and the pleasure at the mere idea of seeing him.

But Lucas has been miserable the past few days, and it’s starting to make his head whir in much more dangerous directions. He just needs to appease it for a moment. He just needs to see Jens once and let his heart quiet.

He’ll be pleased, at this stage, to see any of them. It makes sense for him to want to join as many of these outings as he can. He’s just beginning to fit into this friend-group.

The skatepark is relatively full, as to be expected for a Sunday afternoon, but it takes Lucas no time to find them. His eyes seek out Jens automatically and he finds him easily where he’s now sat at the top of the half pipe, laughing at someone Lucas doesn’t bother looking at and occasionally glancing at his phone. Lucas has to pause for a second and gather himself, squashing down the mixed emotions that bubble up and plastering on a smile.

It’s only when he’s halfway towards him that he does a double take, catching sight of white-blonde hair. His smile slips into something more real, and some of his familiar bounce returns to his step as he heads towards them.

“Yo, Lucas!” The cheer comes unexpectedly from Moyo, and Lucas twists around until he can see him, jogging in the same direction to meet him as he finally stops next to Jens, kicking up his skateboard and catching the tip in his hand.

Jens smiles up at him, left eye squinting more than the right against the sun. He’s still wearing just a shirt and a deep red hoodie, but he looks soft and warm and pleased as Lucas sits down next to him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Lucas returns, feeling uncharacteristically shy, nerves twisting in his chest. The party and the hours before it skim through his mind, and then the hours after and all of yesterday when he’d attempted to purge himself of all unwanted feelings, pushing this boy away in the process. He doesn’t deserve the easy friendship Jens has handed him. He’s taken advantage of such an innocent thing, and Jens has absolutely no idea. He wouldn’t look so fond if he did.

“You got grounded?” Moyo questions him as he swings up next to them, dropping down on Jens’s other side with furrowed brows.

Lucas shrugs, twisting his hands together in his lap. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“What? Why?”

Lucas twists around to look at Robbe, who has finally detached himself from his boyfriend long enough to notice Lucas’s presence and migrate over. Lucas catches Sander’s gaze over his shoulder and Sander brightens, slipping around Robbe to greet him. Lucas allows him to clasp their hands together with a grin, but ducks away when he moves to ruffle his hair.

“My little protégé. I was starting to think these idiots were never going to let me see you again.”

Lucas huffs, shaking his head as Sander simply drops down to sit cross-legged behind him. Robbe looks at Lucas and rolls his eyes fondly, and Lucas watches with a twist in his stomach as he sits down behind Sander, wrapping his limbs around him and letting him settle back against his chest. “You say that like I listen to them.”

Sander raises his brows at this, nodding approvingly, and this is when Jens makes a small noise in the back of his throat, strangled with confusion.

Lucas looks at him to see him glancing between him and Sander in deep concentration. “Have you already met?”

“Yeah, on Thursday at the art shop,” Sander says easily. “We had a very educational chat.”

Lucas snorts, thinking of the mini lesson Sander had given him on all his favourite dead, supposedly-gay artists as he led him around the store and then to an ice cream stand down the street, instantly winning Lucas’s heart. It may not have been the most educational experience, but it had been enough for Lucas to learn that Sander is someone he could get along with.

Jens swivels to look at Robbe. “You knew about this?”

Robbe hums. “Yeah?”

“Since when?”

“That night?”

Sander takes in Jens’s expression of utter betrayal and snorts, and Lucas can’t help but raise his own brow in amusement as Jens turns his pout towards him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucas tilts his head. “Why was I supposed to?”

Jens struggles to form a response to that, pout deepening, and Lucas really wishes he’d stop doing things like that. He wishes he would stop treating them as if they are so close, the way Robbe and Sander are close, sharing everything automatically and having a sunk-in understanding. He wishes Jens would make it easier for Lucas to let go of this idea of something more between them.

Sander knocks his leg against Lucas’s arm to get his attention, and his expression is dramatically serious. “Jens just gets a little jealous,” he mock-whispers, loud enough even for Moyo to hear him and let out a snort.

Jens’s pout shifts into a scowl and he rolls his eyes, and Sander knocks a leg against him instead in some semblance of apology. He raises his brows at Lucas, however, in a silent ‘told you’.

“What, you don’t seriously think Sander is going to steal me away or something, do you?” Lucas can’t help but tease, raising his brows in interest.

Moyo butts in with a laugh of his own, gesturing at Sander and hitting Jens’s arm. “Sander is basically a part of the group anyway, man. Where would he go?”

“That’s not the point,” Jens mumbles, mostly under his breath. Before anyone can question him on it, he’s turning back to Lucas and asking, “How’d you get your dad to let you out, anyway?”

Lucas shrugs, smiling sheepishly. “I didn’t. He wasn’t there, so I just left.”

“Ahh, a little rebel,” Sander teases.

Robbe huffs a laugh. “A match made in heaven.”

“Don’t encourage them,” Jens protests, leaving Sander sticking his tongue out at him. His gaze turns concerned as he looks at Lucas. “Won’t that make it worse for you when you get back?”

Lucas isn’t sure it can get much worse, but he can say with certainty that this is the happiest he’s been this weekend. It’s bad. This familiar warmth flooding through his chest under Jens’s gaze. It would probably be best for him, to be locked up at home.

But he can’t bring himself to regret this, either.

He gives another shrug, allows himself to smile, allows himself to enjoy how easily Jens returns it when he says, “It’ll be worth it.”

[hiscyarika]

Kir’manir: Chapter Four

Cuyanir

vb. to survive

Word Count: 4.5k

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x Reader

Summary: The Mandalorian must find a way to rescue the child and escape Moff Gideon.

Warning(s): Violence, Injury

A/N: Hey it’s been a while. Sorry about that. All of my inspiration for this series died for a while, but I was glad to be able to pick it up again at the news of the trailer that’s coming. This is a much shorter chapter than normal, partly because of my lack of motivation, but also because I felt that trying to put an entire episode into one chapter was a bit too much. So this chapter and the next will both cover the events of the last episode of season one. I really hope that you guys enjoy this, and here's to season two!

Masterlist

Tag Lists

Chapter One: Beroya, Chapter Two: Narudar, Chapter Three: Ruusaanyc

Gif by @bestintheparsec​

As the Mandalorian looks into your eyes, he sees that they hold the same dread that tightens his chest. A silence falls over the cantina, and even the scores of troopers outside are deathly quiet. It’s an eerie feeling, and he knows that he needs to find a way out, a way back to the child before the worst can come to pass. He watches as you peek out the window, and he turns to do the same, finding countless blasters poised to fire. Shooting your way out isn’t an option, he knows. Not when the numbers are so blatantly in their favor.

“We have to find another way out,” you say, looking back to him. He can tell that, despite your worry, you’re doing your best to keep calm, schooling your breathing and focusing on the task at hand, even if it means stating the obvious next step. He nods in understanding, looking around the cantina for another exit route.

“There isn’t another way. We have to fight,” Greef says from where he stands behind another wall. But the Mandalorian cannot accept that certain death is the only option.

“What about the sewers?,” he suggests. His covert could be the key to getting out.

“The sewers?,” you ask incredulously.

“The Mandalorians have a covert down in the sewers. If we can get down there, they can help us escape,” he explains, and while he doesn’t expect any argument, he still finds himself relieved that you’re immediately on board with the idea.

You nod. “Great. Now we just have to figure out how to get down there,” you say.

“Checking for access points,” he replies, pressing a button on his vambrace to activate the scanner on his visor. It beeps softly in his ears as he looks around the cantina, and he just hopes that there is a direct route. If the three of you have to leave the building, the chances of survival plummet.

“What the hell are they waiting for?,” he hears you muse softly. He’s vaguely aware of the quickened footsteps of troopers, but he pays it no mind for the moment, knowing that they’re not approaching the cantina. “Mando we gotta go,” you call, your volume rising with the urgency in your tone, “They’re setting up an E-Web.”

“It’s over,” Greef relents solemnly.

Still Mando doesn’t look outside, and finally the visor trills as it locates the access point to the sewers. “I found the sewer vent,” he says.

You don’t hesitate, following quickly after him as he makes a swift break for the vent. He pulls one of the heavy chairs away from the wall, grunting with the effort as he throws it to the side and out of the way. You do the same with the other, and he moves to help you as you haul it away from the vent. Barely taking a second to catch your breath, you both begin to pull at the grate. You even plant a foot against the wall for leverage, but it’s no use even with your combined strength.

“It’s assembled!,” Greef warns, “How long until that thing’s cleared?”

The Mandalorian stands again, letting out a huff of air. His mind is running at hyperspeed trying to figure out how to clear the way.

“Blow it,” you tell him, but he shakes his head.

“I’m out of charges,” he replies. He then moves to try and pull at the grate again, but he hears you pick up the heavy repeating blaster that you’d brought with you. Standing once more, he moves out of the way as you position yourself in front of the vent, firing at the metal grate in hopes of blasting straight through it. Once you’ve done some damage, you bring your foot down hard on the grate, but the effort is still fruitless.

Again, the man from the TIE fighter begins to speak. “Your astute panic suggests that you understand your situation. I would prefer to avoid any further violence, and encourage a moment of consideration.” Interest piqued, the Mandalorian begins to move slowly back towards the window, but makes sure that he’s shielded by the wall in the event that the troopers open fire.

“Members of my escort have completed the assembly of an E-Web heavy repeating blaster,” the man continues. But the Mandalorian feels his heart skip a beat as the strange man speaks your name. What shocks him is not that he knows your name. It’s hearing the name of the planet you were born on.

The same planet he was.

He’s not sure how to process this information. That your parents were lost to the same attack as his. But how could you both have suffered this way and ended up on such different paths? Surely the Mandalorians wouldn’t have taken him but left you behind. And then a thought crosses his mind.

Maybe you’re dar’manda.

But he has no time to think about it.

“Or perhaps, the decommissioned Mandalorian hunter, Din Djarin, has heard the songs of the Siege of Mandalore, when gunships, outfitted with similar ordnance, laid waste to fields of Mandalorian recruits in The Night of a Thousand Tears,” the man outside says. At this, he steps forward, knowing that the threat has grown much more if this man knows his name. He ignores the way that your head whips around to face him, now that you know the information he had once refused to you. Very few people in the galaxy have ever had access to it, and he wracks his brain trying to figure out how this man could possibly have learned his name. The hairs on the back of his neck bristle and his body tenses. He lets out a heavy breath, suddenly far less confident than he had been about your escape and survival.

“I advise disgraced magistrate Greef Karga to search the wisdom of his years, and urge you to lay down your arms and come outside. The structure you are trapped in will be razed in short order and your storied lives will come to an unceremonious end.” It’s now that Din allows himself to look at you, and he can see that you’re just as confused and on edge as he is. But there’s something between anger and determination swimming in your eyes. He knows that he can’t give up yet. There’s still the sewer vent, if only he could find a way to clear the grate.

“What do you propose?,” Greef calls to the man outside.

“Reasonable negotiation,” comes the simple answer, though Din surmises that it won’t be so straightforward.

Greef scoffs. “What assurance do you offer?”

“If you’re asking if you can trust me, you cannot. Just as you betrayed our business arrangement, I would gladly break any promise and watch you die at my hand,” the man grins maliciously at this, “The assurance I give is this: I will act in my own self interest, which at this time involves your cooperation and benefit. I will give you until nightfall, and then I will have the E-Web cannon open fire.”

“I say we hear him out,” Greef offers.

“You can’t be serious. We’ll be dead the minute we open the door,” you retort, an incredulous look on your face. You don’t even consider the suggestion.

But Greef is quick to counter. “We’re dead if we don’t. At least out there we’ve got a shot.”

Din watches you pick up your heavy blaster again, poised to try once more to blast the grate open. “We can’t trust him. We’re outgunned and outnumbered. It’s suicide.”

“What about you, Mando?,” Greef asks, clearly looking for someone to be the deciding vote.

“I know who he is. It’s Moff Gideon,” Din answers. It took him some time to put all of the pieces together, but he’s sure.

You go still and tense at the words. “No. Moff Gideon was executed for war crimes,” you say in disbelief, but he can see in your eyes that you know it to be true.

“It’s him. He knew my name,” Din tells you.

Greef is unconvinced. “So? What does that prove?”

Din turns to him then. “I haven’t heard that name spoken outside of the covert since I was a child,” he confesses, and he can see that the admission piques your interest.

“On Mandalore?,” Greef pries further.

“I was not born on Mandalore,” he explains, and he can’t help but turn to look at you instead, searching for any sign that you might know who he is now. That you remember him from your shared past. But he finds no hint of recognition in your eyes.

Greef carries on, still confused. “But you’re a Mandalorian,” he says, clearly having a fundamental misunderstand of what it means to be a Mandalorian.

“Mandalorian isn’t a race,” you reply, sure and confident in the statement.

“It’s a Creed,” he finishes.

And then he’s taken back. Back to the day that the battle droids and gunships destroyed his home. The screams mixed in with blaster fire and toppling buildings. He remembers his parents, running through the streets in hopes of finding shelter. He remembers calling for his father as he was placed in that cellar, the lonely darkness that followed his mother’s last goodbye, her last “I love you.” The explosion that took them both so soon after his own safety was ensured.

And then the doors opened, and his childish hope made him believe that somehow it might be his mother and father coming back from him. But instead he was met with the sight of a battle droid, blaster aimed and ready to end his innocent life without hesitation. It was one of the few times that Din can remember being truly terrified, but still he’d braced himself. So young and yet staring death in the face with more courage than anyone his age should have to muster.

But even after a blaster went off, there was no pain, and he’d watched as one of the Mandalorians took out the droid, silently offering his hand. Din had taken it, not knowing that doing so would change his life in a way that he never could have imagined. And even as he’d clutched onto that Mandalorian as he flew away, watching his home become smaller and smaller in view, nothing could have prepared him for the path his life would take him on with the tribe.

Din breaks himself from the onslaught of memories then. He has to focus on the task at hand. There’s no time to dwell on the past. “I was a Foundling. They raised me in the Fighting Corps. I was treated as one of their own. When I came of age I was sworn to the Creed. The only record of my family name was in the registers of Mandalore. Moff Gideon was an ISB officer during the purge. That’s how I know it’s him,” he finishes explaining. He tries to shake away the anxiety swells in his chest, a frequent gift of these memories. There are still nights that he lies awake thinking about his parents, about the destruction that he’d witnessed at such a tender age. And the old screams mix with newer ones, creating nightmares that tear him from his sleep and leave him in a cold sweat.

“That’s how he knows who we all are,” you continue, and he studies you closely for a moment. But even as he searches his memories of the attack and growing up in the Fighting Corps, he can’t remember you. It’s odd. You’re not the kind of woman he’d forget. But there’s no time to discuss the past when danger lurks so closely in the future.

“He says he needs us, which means the child got away safely. I was worried when the ugnaught didn’t respond, but if they’d captured the kid, we’d already be dead,” Din deduces, suddenly feeling a bit more relief. As long as the child is safe, then he can handle the rest. To Din, that’s the only thing that matters, even if protecting the little one costs him his own life. He knows that he has to keep the kid safe.

“Try them again,” you tell him, standing again and moving to the side of the window, your eyes carefully watching the troopers that now stand without Moff Gideon. Din rolls his eyes though, as Greef takes a shot of whatever glowing alcoholic drink sits in front of him, though he can’t say that the behavior surprises him.

He brings the comlink on his wrist closer to the helmet. “Come in, Kuiil. Kuiil?,” he tries, but still he’s met with the same silence from before. “Nothing,” he tells you.

You don’t turn away from the window. “They might have jammed the link,” you reply, a rising sense of urgency in your tone. The time to act is quickly approaching, and still there’s no clear path of escape.

But then there’s the sound of the child’s excited chittering on the other end of the link, and for a moment Din has hope that the ugnaught managed to get away safely with the ship.

“Kuiil has been terminated,” IG-11 informs him.

---

You feel your heart sink when you hear the droid’s words, and you find yourself mourning the sweet ugnaught that you’d barely known. For all his hard work and the strife he’d endured at the hands of the Empire, this was not the way that he deserved to die. But you’re grateful for him, because you know that the child would have already been lost without him.

“What did you do?,” you hear Mando snarl into the comlink, and while you understand his aversion to the bounty droid, now is not the time for such hostility. IG-11 is just as worthy of your gratitude as Kuiil now. He’s the only reason that Moff Gideon hasn’t taken the little one and killed the three of you yet. You’re able to look past your own wariness. The Mandalorian should too.

The droid comes onto the comlink again. “I am fulfilling my base function,” he says.

“Which is?,” Mando demands.

“To nurse and protect.”

You’re not sure what the droid plans to do now, but somehow you have faith that the baby will be protected. If that’s the only good thing that comes out of this failed mission, then you’re okay with that. Even if it means your own death. Anything to keep Moff Gideon from getting what he wants.

But then you hear blasts in the distance. You press yourself against the wall, giving yourself a better look at the perimeter without making yourself more vulnerable to the troops outside. As you look down the street, you’re able to see large plumes of smoke in the air. Whoever is causing the damage is coming closer. “Look!,” you call to the Mandalorian, watching as the troopers turn towards the new attacker.

You move away from the wall, able to get a better look at what’s going on. The attacker comes closer, and you’re finally able to see that it’s IG-11, riding a stolen speeder with the child. The droid jumps off of the speeder, letting it glide forward and crash into the unsuspecting troopers. You duck at the resulting explosion, but quickly stand again.

“Cover me!,” Mando calls to you, and you silently nod, grinning to yourself as you hop onto the bar. You sit on your knees, aiming out the window and opening fire on the troopers. The droid has given you a chance. You won’t waste it.

Your eyes never stop moving, your mind working in overdrive to determine where the worst of the threat is. But you’re always honed in on the two men and the droid, making sure that none of them are taking more fire than they can handle, and that the child isn’t harmed. Metallic clanging meets your ears, and your eyes move between the Mandalorian and IG-11. Cursing under your breath, you take aim at the troopers that have turned on the droid, and you feel your heart leap into your throat as he falls to his knees. You start to move off of the bartop, ready to rush out there and grab the child yourself if it becomes necessary.

But the stormtroopers start taking heavier fire, and you have to laugh triumphantly when you see that Mando has picked the E-Web cannon off of its mount, cutting their ranks down in just a short amount of time. It’s impressive, really, and you’re just glad that he’s so quick on his feet. You suppose it’s part of the reason why he’s gained such a reputation in the Guild; there’s hardly a situation that he can’t handle.

IG-11 slowly rises again, and a breath of relief is released from your lips, knowing that the kid is still safe. Not another second passes though, and you’re thrown to the ground by the force of a blast. Without looking you know that there are stormtroopers in the cantina. You peek up over the side of the bar, finding a death trooper among them. It’s nothing you can’t handle, but you’re cornered.

After the shock of the explosion has worn off, you stand, opening fire on the five troopers. You hit two of them before you duck down again to avoid their own blaster fire. It doesn’t take you long to dispatch the other three.

You turn to look out the window when you hear the sharp sound of the beskar taking a hit. Your heart drops to your stomach as you watch Mando face off with Moff Gideon. There’s nothing you can do as the Moff changes his aim, shooting at the crate of ammunition that sits just a few feet away from Mando. You drop your heavy blaster, opening your mouth to warn him, but the damage is done before you can scream.

The explosion blinds you for a few moments, but once the smoke has cleared enough for you to see outside again, you feel like you’re going to be sick. The Mandalorian lies on the ground, unmoving. You mutter frantically to yourself as you take the smaller blaster from your thigh holster, spewing cursing and prayers alike as you run to him. There’s no hesitation to your movements as you grab him by his front and haul him up.

Hooking your arms under his, you drag him with his back to your chest into the cantina. To your relief, IG-11 and Greef Karga follow soon after. “Stay with me, Mando. Come on,” you plead, taking him over to where the sewer grate is. You grunt with the effort, but eventually lay him down against one of the chairs you’d displaced earlier.

“This is our only path out. Can you clear it?,” you hear Greef ask the droid, and you’ve never been happier to see an IG unit than you are now. Now that you no longer need to worry about an escape route, you turn back to the Mandalorian, knowing that he’s the one that needs your full attention.

“Stay with me,” you tell him, looking him over to find any injuries that you might be able to treat. You just need to get him back on his feet long enough to get out. If he has such faith in his covert, then that’s good enough for you. You just have to get to them.

Mando’s chest heaves with labored breaths as he turns to look at you. “I’m not gonna make it. Go,” he orders.

You shake your head. “No. I’ll carry you out if I have to. We’re all getting out of here.” You keep your voice calm but firm, your hand coming to cradle the back of his neck, feeling for any head injuries that you might be able to find with the helmet still on. Your stomach twists into a knot as you bring your hand back. The wet warmth you’d felt was blood. But you can’t reach the wound without taking the helmet off.

“Leave me,” he pleads, gasping for breath. You feel panic rising in your chest.

You know he can’t, but you ask it of him anyway. “You have to let me take the helmet off,” you tell him, though you make no move to remove it yourself. You could never compromise him that way, not against his will.

At your words, he startles, grabbing onto your wrist despite the fact that you haven’t moved. But you understand the immediate need to stop you from doing anything. “No. You leave me,” he insists. Behind you, you can hear IG-11 working on removing the grate. You wish there was a way to speed up the process. “You make sure the child is safe. Here,” he gasps, using his free hand to pull something from around his neck. He then drops a necklace into the hand he’s holding onto. You don’t recognize the strange creature that the pendant is molded into. “When you get to the Mandalorian covert you show them that. You tell them it’s from Din...D-Djarin,” he instructs shakily. He has to take a moment to catch his breath. “You tell them the Foundling was in my protection...and they’ll help you.”

You close your fist around the necklace, shaking your head. You consider for just a second what it would mean to leave him behind. You’d be responsible for the child, and you have no idea what the Mandalorians will do if you bring them this necklace and speak his name. The idea of speaking his name for the first time after leaving him to die alone makes you feel sick.

“Not like this. I won’t let you die,” you tell him, and to your surprise, emotion wells up in your chest. Your voice breaks and you feel the beginnings of tears burning at your eyes. You can’t let him go that easily, not after everything that the two of you have been through trying to keep the child safe. And the idea of being left alone with a kid with powers you can’t even begin to understand: it’s terrifying.

You can’t do it.

“Let’s go. You’re coming with me,” you say, trying to lift his nearly dead-weight on your own.

“I’m not gonna make it and you know it.” It’s harsh, final. You don’t want to admit it, but he’s right.

Before you have a chance to react, flames come rushing through the door of the cantina. You instinctually throw yourself on top of Mando, shielding his body with yours. Sweat immediately beads across your skin as the intense heat of the flames hits your back. You lift your head when the attack ceases, and you’re only vaguely aware of the fact that the Mandalorian holds on tight to you as you look up towards the door.

When you see nothing, your gaze quickly shifts over to the IG unit, who still works on opening the path to the sewers. Your heart pounds in your chest as you try and figure out what the next move should be. You hate this, the way that you’ve allowed the situation to affect you so severely. In the midst of any other job, you would have found a solution by now.

Mando grunts in pain, trying to draw in a decent breath. “You protect the child. I can hold them back long enough for you to escape. Let me have a warrior’s death,” he says. The tears welling up in your eyes blur your vision then, though you can’t tell if they’re caused by panic or emotion at this point.

“I won’t leave you here,” you tell him, conviction dripping from every word.

“This is the Way,” he breathes. You know you can’t argue with him anymore.

Another wave of fire comes through the door, and you press yourself close to the Mandalorian, your forehead touching the spot on his helmet where his own forehead would be. A single tear manages to escape your eye.

When you look up again, you gasp at the sight of an incinerator stormtrooper. Your gaze flits between Mando, Greef, IG, and the child, and in just the couple of seconds that it takes, you realize that there is a very real chance that none of you will survive the next few moments. There’s not enough time to react. The trooper raises his flamethrower again.

As he releases the flames, you once again shield Mando, thinking that your death is imminent but at least in doing this he won’t be in the direct line of fire. You wait for the searing pain that you’re sure will result from being burned alive, but it never comes.

You lift your eyes, able to see the child pull himself to his feet, his arms raised as he looks to the wall of fire coming right for all of you. To your amazement, the fire never reaches the baby, and is instead held off by some invisible shield, one you know to be the strange powers he possesses. You sit up, trying to find your blaster. Maybe you’ll be able to dispatch the trooper yourself while the kid holds the flames at bay. But the little one, with just a motion of his hand, sends the fire right back at the stormtrooper, blasting him backwards and out of the cantina.

You don’t have words. You’re frozen in place, only broken from your state of shock when you hear the grate being kicked in. “Come on! It’s open, let’s go!,” Greef calls to you. You look at the child, finding him unconscious much in the same way that he was after he healed Karga’s wound.

“Go,” Mando implores you, struggling to breathe. “Go.”

You hesitate, looking to Greef and IG-11 for any kind of assistance. You still hate the idea of leaving the Mandalorian to die alone.

“We have to move. Now!,” Greef tells you.

“Go,” Mando tells you, one last time. He squeezes your forearm, which he is still holding onto from when you’d protected him, and though every fiber of your being screams against it, you rise from the floor, taking the child from the droid. He’s in the satchel again, sound asleep.

You hold the child close to you, placing the necklace that the Mandalorian had given you inside the satchel with the little one for safe keeping. “Escape and protect this child. I will stay with the Mandalorian,” IG says.

Reluctantly, you nod, holding the child in one arm and picking up your heavy blaster with your free hand. “Promise me you follow...with him,” you reply firmly.

“You have my word,” the droid replies.

You let out a soft breath, making your way over to the opening in the wall. There’s a moment of pause, and you take one last look at the Mandalorian, knowing full well that what the droids brings could be a body. You have no idea what means IG-11 has to treat Mando. “Goodbye,” you breathe, hardly audible.

And with that, you descend into the sewers, leaving the Mandalorian behind.

---

Permanent Tags: @bestintheparsec​ @hail-doodles​ @aerynwrites​ @murdermewithbooks​ @themandjalorian​ @longitud-de-onda​ @readsalot73​ @lovingtheway​ @talesfromtheguild​ @mystical-934​ @tiffdawg​ @lokiaddicted​ @adikaofmandalore​ @blue-space-porgs​ @forever-rogue​ @hansoulo​ @fleurdemiel145​ @cable-kenobi​ @opheliaelysia​ @pedropascalito​ @creamysacrilege​ @bandofmarvels​ @paryl​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @agentmoonshine1​ @randomness501​ @starlight-starwrites​ @keeper0fthestars​ @stilllivindue2spite​ @hdlynn​ @theocatkov​ @coonflix​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​ @wickedfrsgrl​ @frietiemeloen​ @liadamerondjarin​ @pancakefancake​ @someplace-darker​ @dontjudgemedude @mistermiraclee​ @pynch-bug​ @kaetastic​ @chrisbostonevans​ @mrpascals​ @f0rever15elf​ @themandadlorian​ @din-damn-djarin​ @knittingqueen13​ @oloreaa​

Kir’manir Tags: @adlerorzel-blog​ @sinnamon-bunn​ @kristalhi​ @frantheseer​​ @icanbringyouincold​ @canoodlincanary​ @heytheredemonsitsyourgirl​ @rzrcrst​ @roxypeanut​ @mrsparknuts​ @afootnoteinyourhappiness​ @deputytrash​ @altarsw​ @irreplaceable-ecstasy​ @luminarahan​

[hoe-imaginess]

Kakashi Hatake x blind!s/o

STOP this was so cute I had to write immediately. Chose Kakashi because he jumped at me and demanded it

and thank you so much!! (hope you’re staying safe as well!!!)

~

With the sun going down, the glow of activity in Konoha’s streets was diffusing. Shopkeepers closed their doors for the evening, and vendors packed their merchandise and disassembled their stalls.

Kakashi strolled through as the village quieted itself. One of the shopkeepers, recognizing him, waved in greeting. He waved back, sluggish despite having taken a relatively early leave from work. 

Though the hour was a rare but generous one for Kakashi to find himself on the path home, he was exhausted to his bones and had to more than once remind his feet to carry their own weight and stop dragging along the dirt. 

He loosed a sedative breath. 

Paperwork had done in him that day, and though the notion of sliding under his sheets and picking up a novel he was close to finishing was a tempting one, he didn’t think he could scroll his eyes over another inch of lettering without going nauseous. He decided he’d let his pillow have his attention the rest of the night. He needed sleep, desperately. 

And so deciding, took a shortcut down a narrow alley which would bring him closer to his street. Turning out of the the alley, he glanced another shopkeeper, stooped to the ground and gathering something in their hands. 

When they stood, unaware that Kakashi—who was himself errant of his surroundings, courtesy of exhaustion—was at their heel, their pivoting motion put them in his path and they collided. The shopkeeper’s belongings were knocked from their arm’s clutches.

Senses returned, Kakashi managed to snatch one or two of the tumbling items, which he now saw were various books and pamphlets, before they toppled down into a heap with the rest. 

“I’m sorry,” he uttered quickly, going on his haunches to retrieve the others, as he did so, noticing the shopkeeper bent down with him. “I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s okay,” she said, her hands roaming over the ground in search of the fallen objects. He was too muddled by his own inattentiveness to notice the oddity of her seeking movements. “I didn’t see you, either.”

Only once they’d gathered her capsized belongings did he glance up to greet her with his eyes, and only then as he took his careful inspection did he understand why her previous comment had been fastened with such a... nimble, humorous undertone.

She was blind. The glaze of cloudiness over her pupils was indicator enough—a paleness unlike those of the Hyuuga, Kakashi saw—but not the most telling demonstration; though she faced him, she didn’t appear to be looking at him, her eyes idling somewhere around his chest, centering where they felt most agreeable without the proper perception to guide them. 

“Sorry,” he muttered again, now stranded with an advancing fluster, and stood to his feet slowly, rising in punctual fashion only when she followed suit. 

“It’s okay,” she insisted again.

Behind her on the shop windowsill was a box, which she reached for and claimed with surprising precision. Once she’d slipped her reclaimed books inside the box she proffered it to him, and realizing, he carefully placed his own salvaged items along with hers. 

“I wasn’t paying attention,” she granted, smiling kindly, eyes still settled comfortably on a horizon of her choosing, somewhere under his chin. “I might have heard you coming otherwise.”

“My fault, really,” he amended. “I was... I’m sort clumsy when I’m tired.” 

But the desire for sleep had absconded his head, and the uncomfortable debacle pumped alertness back into his system. It was silly of him to be so debilitated by this, he knew, yet the pulsing nervousness in him went undisputed.

Another box filled with books caught his attention, previously stocked and placed against her shop door. 

“Can I help you with all of this?” Unthinking and without a reply to inspire him, he bent to take the box. “Are you packing up for the day?”

The box included scrolls swathed in metal clasps. She knew he’d claimed it in his arms when the clasps rattled noisily against one another. “I am,” she said. “These are the things I keep out here, on display. And I appreciate the offer, but I can manage. I live a ways down.”

Her nod in the direction at her back confirmed that assistance would take him in the opposite direction of his home, but a searching and restless energy had curtailed his desire to go there.

“I really don’t mind,” he insisted, a touch of over-enthusiasm in his tone. A kind description of willingness in his expression clearly would do no good; he would have to compensate how he could to win her assurance. But he swore he could hear the sheepish skittering of his own voice, and hoped she didn’t hear it, too.

“I do it every day on my own,” she said, with what he presumed was a practiced patience; she still smiled at him, but there was a curve in her lips now that was aware of his fluster and unabashedly amused by it. “Don’t go out of your way.” 

Readjusting the box already in her grasp to rest upon her hip, her free arm extended to him, inviting his relinquishment of her other possessions. 

Fearful that his persistence might offend, but unwilling to so carelessly resign, he debated his next move until his hands decided course for him; they held the box to his chest resolutely. 

“It’s the least I can do,” he said, moving, making his foot falls pointed and auspicious as he took a step in her desired direction. “I’m off work early today, anyways.”

“If you insist,” she yielded with a little laugh, still committed to her friendly smile.

He watched her carefully as she walked in tandem at his side, holding his tongue when he saw some foreboding dip in the terrain’s evenness, or a fellow villager on a direct course to bump into her. But each of these encumbrances she remedied flawlessly, with an unhurried detour in her gait or an acute twist of her body. Clearly she had been telling the truth when she mentioned this being normal routine. Kakashi was almost convinced that she had memorized each and every step of the route.

“Kakashi, is it?” she spoke up, pulling his focus from external anxieties.

“Uh—yes.” Before he could form his next inquiry—though given its presumptuous nature, it would have been a hesitant one to produce, anyways—she anticipated his puzzlement, and granted him mercy by way of an unprovoked answer.

“I’ve heard your voice before,” she explained. “It’s easy to remember voices. Once that’s the only thing you can go off of, at least.”

There was no self-pity in her voice, which in turn, invited none from him. He imagined that was a purposeful tactic of hers. 

“But it’s also the chakra,” she went on. “Everyone’s is a little different. Not by much. I’m not a sensor by nature, but I rely on it now. The body will adjust, give a little in one respect when it feels a lacking in another.”

Kakashi looked at her. She was still smiling her little smile, as though this wasn’t the first time she had reasoned through the phenomena and wouldn’t be the last. Nor was the explanation without a sort of confidence; she appeared to have no qualms of her condition, and spoke of it with such steadfast acceptance that it was no doubt she gave it much thought at all anymore.

It was a nice thing, he decided, but it returned to him a meek warmth of shame that he had been so blatantly skeptical before, that he had made such a show of charity in response to his own preconceived doubts.

“That’s interesting,” he replied. “So... you weren’t a sensor at birth? Or at least, as far back as one can really remember that sort of thing...?”

A sweet chuckle sounded from behind closed, smiling lips. “Exactly. I don’t remember much, but I do know when I first started noticing.”

The proceeding conversation put him at ease, made the guilt he felt for trudging along in a hopeful correction of his earlier embarrassment slowly ebb away. She was kind, and clever, too, with an unfairly natural quick-wittedness about her. She made him laugh more than once: a genuine laugh that felt good and warming to be loosed through his wearied body after such a long week. 

“I can take it from here,” she said, and came to stop in front of a house. 

Kakashi slowed at her side to give the abode a quick admiration: small, but modest and seemingly comfortable. Potted plants lined her windows, well-nurtured vines and flowers sprouted over the edges. 

He entertained no hesitation when she reached for the box in in his hands; he gave it over, but, feeling suddenly restless with its desertion, stuff his hands into his pockets to keep them from fidgeting. 

“Thank you,” she told him. “I hope this didn’t put you on too much of a detour.”

“Not at all.” He swore her eyes were higher in their post now, though not quite where they could yet make an imitation of eye contact. But Kakashi found it comforting, in a way, and for his own indulgence would resign it as something purposeful and not coincidental. 

“You live near my shop, don’t you?” she was asking. 

He nodded. “I do. A bit farther down...” Without prompting, he knew what should be offered to mark a pleasant end to their short—regrettably short, if he was being honest—chat, and to secure they might be granted another one soon. “I’ll make sure to stop in when I can. I read quite a bit. Is that all you sell? Books and the like?”

“Among other things. It’s a little ironic, isn’t it? Why own a book shop if you can’t make use of the books? Most people get a laugh out of it.” As if to prove a point, and furthermore soften the vexatious innuendos, laughed at her own notion. “I have my reasons.”

Though he was curious to hear those reasons, the sun was going down behind them, orange and warm, but a reminder nevertheless, that their encounter was a chance one and better left concise for the time being. 

“I’d like to hear them at some point.” He would settle on saying that much. Another lukewarm suggestion, a way to tease a future promise of reunion.

“I’ll be happy to tell you. Do stop by, when you get the chance.” 

“Will do.”

“Goodnight.”

“Yeah, goodnight.”

He waited until she had felt her way up her porch, opened her door, and closed herself inside—all of this, while still supporting boxes under each arm—then he set about back the way they had walked.  

The attentiveness to conversation which usually suffered him through unwanted dialogue had diffused, yet that adrenaline, the one which kept him as engaged as his duties usually needed, still remained. Clearly, it hadn’t been unwanted dialogue after all. 

There was a comforting hum relaxing his limbs as he walked, making the hands buried in his pocket slump cozily with the ease of gravity. Liable as he was to avoid trivial contact which exasperated him when he could, especially with his job making sociable demands of him already, this brief run-in had been all parts trivial but none exasperating. 

Had such an incidental thing really been so eventful that it continued to swarm over him long after he had left her? Long after he had walked by her shop again, taken a good few minutes to admire it, before heading home?

It was like a little glow, one that hadn’t been there before, clinging to him now that they had parted. 

Even when he arrived home and climbed methodically under the sheets, the glow went with him, straying his mind from the invitation of sleep and instead recounting the evening’s events. 

Piecing together every little facet of the encounter was like a game, a silly and overkeen game which kept his brain up far longer than his body would have liked. 

What was that thing she had told him as they walked, about having in her collection one of the oldest scripts written on The Land of Fire’s river systems?  And had she really been returning his attentive glances, as though she had noticed him staring, or was that a trick of his mind? Had he said goodnight first? Or had she? And did she have that same smile on her face when she said it? 

Some of the answers were stolid in his memory; others he fought to elucidate, for no reason other than the fact that he wanted to appreciate their encounter in its true, undiluted form. 

Such confusing and superfluous thoughts. He was being so stupid, he told himself. Stupid. 

But when he twisted under the sheets and finally set his mind to finding sleep, little inklings of memory, her face, her smile, her laugh, continued to ripple beneath the surface. 

[theriverpersonshadow]

Lamia Drama/Deltarune Semi-Crack Fic

The not-awaited, not asked for Lamia Drama X Deltarune crackfic that absolutely no one wanted, but might now find they want!

I played Deltarune Chapter 2 and just decide to write some silliness for fun. This is extremely non-canon to everything involved. Spoilers (kinda but not really) for DeltaRune Chapter 2.

Warnings for swearing, an extremely brief moment of existential dread, and one sexual joke.

As always, the species of lamia I use come from @vex-bittys

If this is your cup of tea, maybe buy me a Kofi?

           Susie stared up at the sign in front of them. “Kris. This…. Is this a fucking pet shop???” Susie said. The sign said “Caring Coils” and had a picture of someone part skeleton, part snake.

           “No! It’s a spring shop!” Lancer said. What else could “Coils” mean?

           “U-Um… I… I don’t know where this building came from???” Ralsei said. As far as he was aware, they had seen neither snakes nor springs on their journey, but apparently this was in Castle Town now! Somehow!

           Kris walked in. It was surprisingly bright for something in the Dark World, eerily similar to what it’d be like in the light world, but given that the main inhabitants seemed to be the apparent offspring of Jockington and Sans, just… What was even happening here.

           “Are these, like, half skeleton, half snake?” Susie said, walking up and knocking on the glass holding the Mamba. A dozen or so snakes suddenly tackled the glass, hissing at her. “Okay, not gonna lie, that’s kinda cool. You think they bite?”

           Kris just stared at the sign on the glass enclosure saying “Please Ask Before Handling – We Bite – Highly Venomous” until Susie got the hint.

           Regardless, Susie hummed, seriously contemplating sticking her entire hand in there anyways. “Hey. Hey Noelle, you dare me?”

           “SUSIE NO!”

           “C’mon, does venom even work on monsters?”

           “Hah! Clearly you know nothing. Monsters do not have blood and nerves to shut down the same way humans do,” Berdly said, strolling over to the Mamba enclosure. “They don’t even look that tough. Look! They’re worm- AAAAAAAAAAAA;LKJSDFLK;JDFA!” He had stuck his hand in there and immediately gotten himself bitten by like 13 Mamba. He flapped his wings, running around the room and sending bitty Mamba flying absolutely everywhere. Tiny battle cries filled the room as they chased after Berdly.

           “Um… Kris? Should we help him?” Ralsei said, watching the chaos.

           Kris answered No, deciding to instead head into the back. Unlike the skeletal-snakes who were snake sized in the front, this area seemed inhabited by skeleton-sized skele-snakes. Kind of. Most were shorter than Kris, except one Cobra who zipped directly by them with a weaponized mop in hand. Kris peaked back – looks like the cobra dude was mopping up the little skelesnakes. Cool, that’s been settled.

           They got a few odd looks as they browsed the area. It had snake things, and child things. Presumably for snake children, which most of these seemed to be. If not for the supplies and price tags, it’d be easy to mistake this place for an orphanage – which Kris could understand, who would want a Sans X Jockington baby?

           Oh hey, that one might be an adult. A particularly grumpy looking  skele-snake looked them up and down, them immediately flipped them off, “Oh great, I thought I was done with human shit. Or whatever the fuck you are.”

           Kris flipped him off back. What meaningful dialogue.

             Meanwhile, Ralsei was trying to figure out what he should do. In the few seconds Kris had left, Suzy had broken another enclosure completely and even more snakes were running around, not at all helped by Lancer and Rouxls mistaking the new lightners(?) for worms and trying to eat them. Berdly had been swiftly knocked out by the tiny swarm.

           Thankfully, something answered Ralsei’s prayers. He didn’t expect his newly found angel to be a 12-foot-something long version of the things causing chaos, but he literally started mopping up the little ones and depositing them into boxes. As soon as that was done, he gave them all an exhausted, withering stare, “Why. Just… why.”

           “Worms are tasty!” chirped Lancer.

           “These are not worms, we’re lamia,” the new person said. He sighed, straightening himself, “Where are my manners. I’m Nikolai. Apparently the rest of the staff disappeared, somehow, and I have no idea where we are, so forgive me if I’m a bit… in need of several of wines.” His “staff” uniform had been replaced by gold and white robes… and a small golden nametag declaring him “staff”.

           Rouxls pushed himself to the front. “I sympathizeth with thee mostly fullily, thine fellow worker of high class and generallyeth most terrifying stature.”

           “… I think I’m having a stroke,” Nikolai said.

           “Hey Yooooo. I Heard Someone Was Wanting Wine (alcoholic)? I Have Some Battery Acid Right Here!” the Queen said, holding her glass cup of battery acid. It exploded in her hand. “Oops Lol (amused)”

           “… I… I give up,” Nikolai said, laying his head on a table. Several of the bitties were chirping and giving praises, trying to tell him not to give up, but the Mamba were also trying to knock the box they’d been placed in off the shelf by all ramming the side of it at once. The chaos refused to be contained any longer.

           Ralsei looked at Nikolai sympathetically, going over and patting his back, “H-Hey, it’s okay! I’m sure between the two of us and Kris we can keep… order… Oh dear.” Everyone had scattered. It seemed that only The Queen, the unconscious Berdly, and Noelle remained in the room with them.

             The Queen looked into the bitty Papython tank. “Hey Is That You Trousle?”

           Trousle looked up at this new lady with the cool glasses, nodding.

           “Sorry You Came Eleventh In The Dragon Cards The Deckening Mini-Tournament Game But Dang Getting That Much Out Of Like A Billion People (Exaggeration) Is Dang (Damn) Impressive!” The Queen said.

           Trousle’s eyes widened, how did she know that?

           “Oh Yeah And Here Is This (based on search history: Sexy Dom Bitties).” It was a small domino with Mettaton legs sticking out from it.

           Trousle was silently screaming, but being him had the perk that he didn’t have to hold in his screams! They were silent by default. So he was just screaming and completely blush-colored in the face.

           “Oh And Emo Thrash Metal (based on search history: Emo Thrash Metal).” She deposited a small broken chunk of the Thrash Machine that had thrashed her giant robot’s ass which was inexplicably wearing eyeliner and had “it’s not a phase mom!” written on it.

           Meanwhile, Susie had joined Kris in flipping off Hux, and then Liam came.

           “Tch. I don’t know what you troglodytes think you’re doing, but we’re closed. Get out,” Liam hissed, putting himself between Hux and the intruders. They were not closed, but could you really be “open” when you had accidentally planeshifted to another dimension without the majority of your staff?

           “Yeah! Fuck off!” Hux hissed, throwing a double birdy.

           “YOU GUYS WANNA GO?!” Susie yelled, foaming at the mouth and drawing her axe. Liam looked injured, but if he was going to go around picking fights, she wasn’t going to stop him!

           “Oh please,” Liam said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, smirking far too smugly. “I would obviously win.”

           “OH IT IS ON!” Susie said, surging forwards. She and Liam both turned out to be too adept at dodging for this to go much of anywhere, and Hux and Kris just spent the fight insulting each other even after Susie and Liam got so mutually carried away they left the battlefield.

           Lancer had found some new kind of paradise: a plastic hammock full of dubious, blueberry snot flavored salsa! He paid no mind to the other person using the weird spa, just jumping in and plopping into the vat of goo.

           Oozy blinked owlishly at Lancer, then started laughing, “Kid? Kid, what are you doing?”

           “I’m claiming this spa as mine, you minty fresh bundle of mouthwash.”

           “Um… This… is my bed?”

           “No it’s not! This is a hammock, not a bed!”

           “… can’t argue with that logic,” Oozy said, shrugging. He wrapped lightly around Lancer, purring. That said, he couldn’t quite resist the urge to tease, “Wow, easiest snack ever.”

           “Thanks!” Lancer chirped.

           Rouxls Kaard then skidded down the hallways without ever adjusting his Trademark Pose, “HALT WORMTH! THEE SHALSTH NOTS EAT MINE PRINCETH.”

           Oozy, being a little shit, looked Rouxls in the eye as he lightly pressed his teeth to the back of Lancer’s head and audibly said, “Nom.”

           “NOOOOO! UNHAND HIM, THINE UNCLEANETHEST OF HEATHENS!”

           “Naaaah.”

           “I’m slimy!” Lancer chirped.

           Meeeeeeanwhile, Keith was laughing maniacally in a mix of sheer disbelief and genuine amusement as he dodged kicks from a living checkers piece, a small army of Pawns at his side. Too bad they weren’t from the same game.

             Some of the Queen’s butlers helped Nikolai and Noelle clean up the storefront from the burst of chaos (and Berdly). They still weren’t sure how they got there, but y’know what, even Nikolai cannot contain this, so he lets the kids who are old enough play around the area with some supervision.

           The Mamba immediately flock to the Dojo, Liam leading the charge, to prove their superiority over all. Berdly gets his ass beat there again. There are Papython in the bakery and Kings in the café, and, well, just lamia generally everywhere.

           A lot of the younger ones flock to Seam. Every child’s dream come true: a giant plush toy that can actually talk to you and he’s kind of just a big fluffy grandpa!!!

             Eventually just Kris and Hux are left inside, locked in a battle of wills and insults.

           “Like you’d even know what it’s like to not have fucking control of shit! To always be told what to do and what to be, and if you can’t, no one gives a fuck about you!”

           Kris: Act:

           Understand.

           They understand, they understand far too well.

           …

           Kris: Act:

           Kidnap.

           The snake boy is going home with them now. He screams, but he does not get a say in this. Bye.

[aiorevelations]

A Number, Not a Name: Part 18

Enjoy everyone!

4 months earlier:

Regis scanned the fragment of paper spread out across the table before him. Not even a month ago he was a desperate man chasing the shadows of his lifelong mentor. What he’d found in the jungles of South America had been nothing short of a profound revelation. The ancient words inscribed held the key to changing humanity. From the very beginning, he had believed deep within his soul that what Professor M spoke of was true. He couldn’t explain it. He just knew it. Though he’d never have suspected that the place which possessed what he sought was merely some speck on a map. A hamlet of small-town America. In the end, though the where didn’t matter. What mattered was that he attained his goal. Failure was his greatest fear. After what he’d sacrificed to get this far he wasn’t about to fall short an inch away from the finish line. Like Professor M had. When he stumbled upon he’d found a broken sickly old man barely clinging onto life. Filled with regret and sorrow that though he literally held in his hand the culmination of his life’s work, he would never live to see it. Regis had vowed that would not be his fate.

Fate, however, was a funny thing. Previously Dr. Blackgaard had possessed adequate resources yet lacked the knowledge he required. Now just when he had attained the necessary knowledge his funds were depleted. Alas Professor M had died, weighed down in debt, and without any assets to further fund Regis’ research. Dr. Blackgaard was one to keep his research away from prying eyes. The last thing he wanted was to inform anyone of his discovery. Who knows what might happen. Word could spread to the general public if that happened it was game over. Blackgaard was well aware however that the little venture he was starting in Chicago wouldn’t provide him with the funds he needed. The choice was before him. Either choose not to share his work and lose any chance of funding or take the chance and inform potential investors of his findings. When put that way there was only one option - the latter. “Blast” he muttered under his breath.

He rolled up the parchment and stood up from his chair, grasping his walking stick as he sat up. Pacing back and forth on the wooden floor he tried thinking of someone who would work as a potential investor. Blackgaard’s mind raced. Too many people had their motives and agendas they were trying to serve. The last thing he wanted to be was someone’s puppet. He’d rather give up his work altogether than be a pawn in someone else’s game. It has to be someone who has enough resources yet can be easily fooled. Someone obsessed with power and ambition that they’d do anything to obtain it - even trust a complete stranger. A person who is so full of themselves they’d never think anyone could bring them down. Sasha meowed, interrupting Blackgaard’s thoughts. He stooped down and picked up his faithful feline companion. Softly, he stroked her neck and behind her ears, prompting a deep purr from Sasha. “Oh, Sasha…Now, who do we know who’d be aware of someone like that.” 

Blackgaard had a long list of reliable contacts. Men and women spread across the globe. People who were aware of plots and schemes of power and the people behind them. Blackgaard’s polished shoes thudded on the packed earth as he circled the jungle cabin, left exactly as it had been when Professor M died. Professor M’s research notes and documents were packed carefully in boxes that were neatly stacked. His personal effects and clothes were strewn throughout the room. 

Regis placed Sasha down on the floor and walked to where Professor M’s trunk was located in the corner of the small hut. He opened the lid and searched through it until he found a notebook. He scanned over the pages looking for a particular name. An old contact of theirs who Professor M had known even before he met his esteemed mentor. They had come to value her greatly. Every secret or scheme going on she always found a way to find out. Finally, Regis' eyes landed on the name he was searching for. Blackgaard knew she was the answer. 

…..

4 months earlier:

Liana stared blankly ahead. She was busy pouring coffee yet her mind was somewhere else. Today would have been Erik’s birthday. She tried to push it to the side and carry on waitressing, but the memories would come flooding back. Picnics in the park. Splashing each other in the lake. The way he’d shower her with flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day. 

Liana had known she’d never be able to have peace until her father and all those responsible answered for their actions, but she at least thought with time she’d be able to have a sense of healing. Instead, the more time passed the more angry she became. She should be spending these years with Erik. If he was here she was certain they’d have been married by now probably with children. Living a happy and beautiful life. She’d been robbed of that life and forced to live a cold and lonely one. 

“Liana!”  Hearing her name, she snapped out of her thoughts.

“Uh sorry. Millie. What is it?”

“You’re pouring coffee all over the counter.” Liana glanced down and saw she’d overfilled the coffee cup, causing the liquid to flow all over the countertop. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She set the decanter down and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser.

“Are you okay? You’ve seemed distracted all morning.” 

She wiped up the spilled coffee. “I’m fine.” Liana picked up the coffee cup and walked to a table by the shop window. 

She set the piping hot coffee on the table. “Here you are, sir.”

“Thanks so much” the man graciously responded.

“Would you like anything else?”

“No, this is good for me. Thanks.”

“Of course. If you need anything please let me know.” She forced a smile and began to walk to another table where two women were waiting to order. Halfway to the table, she stopped. Her eyes were drawn to the television mounted in the corner of the room. An image of a man’s face caught her eye. His familiar features, grey hair, wrinkled skin, piercing black eyes, matched the image she’d seen in person on multiple occasions. One of the faces seared into her head for the last nearly five years. There was no mistake, the man was none other than Davit Dalmar. Below his image was the headline “Breaking News: Davit Dalmar, CEO and founder of Dalmar Petroleum, announces run for Krudian parliament.”

Liana found herself chilled to the core seeing his face. It took her back, back to that night. The worst night of life. She holding her dying boyfriend in her arms, knowing there was nothing she or anyone else could do. She bit back her lip and took a deep breath. No, she wouldn’t break down, especially in a Budapest cafe. 

What was that expression? The past has a way of catching up to you. She’d always planned to go back. To go home. Deep down she knew what she had to do. That pain. That anger. That overwhelming feeling of loss. It was still there. Burning in her soul stronger than ever.  She knew she’d never be able to move forward unless she went backward. Nevertheless, when it came to confronting her past she’d find herself paralyzed. Unable to go back. Memories of Krudia, her father, Eric haunted her. Every street or shop in Bulin came with some painful reminder. The very thought of stepping off the airplane filled with her dread and terror.

But now seeing Dalmar had served to remind her of the men she’d left behind. And of what she’d lost. He was a monster. Him and her father both. She felt another wave of anger surge through her. In what world was it fair that Erik was dead and Norvan and Dalmar were still breathing? How could someone be so heartless as to take him from her without a second thought? How could people, like her father and Dalmar, find pleasure in killing others? She may have thought the removal of some malevolent individuals necessary but never took pleasure in their demise only in the justice being served. One thing couldn’t be denied: her father and Dalmar were insane. They had to be brought down. Any reservations or fears she had, Liana knew she couldn’t wait any longer. She was done running from her past. 

…..

Present-day:

Jason woke, tied to a chair. Ropes dug into his wrists. Beads of sweat trickled down his face, or perhaps blood, though he wasn’t sure which one. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. He appeared to be in some type of warehouse. Above him, warehouse pendant lights flickered the only source of light in the room. 

It all came flooding back to him—what he'd prayed had been only a nightmare—The car chase, men shooting at them, Tasha slumping forward on the steering wheel ….

Tasha. His heart began to race and a sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Where was she? He prayed she was still alive. He frantically glanced around him but saw no one. 

He couldn’t help but wonder if his earlier actions had caused this. 

He struggled to loosen the ropes that bound him. Straining he turned every which way trying to free himself. It was no use. He let out a scream of frustration and lowered his head. A feeling of helplessness and utter loneliness consumed him, His head throbbed but the physical pain he was experiencing didn’t compare to his overwhelming guilt.

It’s my fault. The words stabbed through his mind. I got us into this. I shouldn't have acted recklessly—Why didn’t I just stick to the plan? Why did I have to be so stubborn? He shook his head. I wanted so desperately to prove myself that I ended up screwing everything up. If I get out of this I’ll probably have to resign. The last thing the NSA wants is someone who can’t complete a routine mission, let alone their first assignment. Who knows, maybe that’s probably for the best anyway. Donovan saw right through me. My flaws and weaknesses…how careless I could be…and I proved him right. Now not only is the mission ruined but Tasha’s life is in danger because of me. If she dies I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

He glanced up at the ceiling. Right now he didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere. His whole body felt numb.

There was nothing he wanted to do, nowhere he wanted to go. Nothing mattered anymore, except doing everything he possibly could to right his mistake. To make sure Tasha was safe and if possible successfully complete their assignment.

Whoever was behind this would probably hurt him. The thought barely registered in his mind. He knew he should feel something. Dread. Fear. Anxiety. But he didn’t. All his thoughts were turned to Tasha. They could do whatever they wanted to him. It didn’t matter. He would willingly sacrifice his life without hesitation if it meant they didn’t touch her. At that moment he knew he was powerless. There was only one thing he could do. He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

…..

Tasha’s eyes darted around the room, her eyes landing on the metal door to the side of her. She felt something digging into her skin and realized she was tied up. Tasha lay against the wall struggling to recall previous events, how she’d ended up here. Her mind was blank. The last thing she remembered was leaving with Jason for the gala. She looked down at her clothes. Instead of the dark blue dress, she remembered she was wearing light pink pajamas. She looked around the room. The floor was layered with dirt. Cobwebs hung from the corners of the room. Jason was nowhere in sight. Who knew where he could be. For all Tasha knew he could be lying dead somewhere or being mercilessly tortured. 

The door creaked open causing Tasha to look up. An older muscular man entered the room followed by a tall brown-haired woman. 

It didn’t take a genius to guess what they were probably after. Information. Luckily, Tasha thought, she’d been briefed and trained how to resist such efforts. She sat up in her seat and braced herself for whatever was coming, though she couldn’t help the shivers that traveled down her spine. 

Milena’s eyes met Tasha’s. Tasha tried to read them yet they seemed nearly expressionless. The man’s on the other hand were easy to read. They were deathly cold.

Milena spoke. “I have to say that was quite a showing back there. Very impressive. My hired men are known for their efficiency. You and your associate were their hardest targets ever by far.” She crossed her arms. “So congrats.”

Tasha kept a blank expression on her face. "You might as well just skip to the end. I’m not saying anything.” 

“Who said anything about getting information? I’m not so stupid as to waste my time trying to get intel out of an NSA agent.”

Elias walked over to Tasha “Never saw that coming did you?”

Tasha looked him directly in the eyes. “Can’t say I didn’t. If I was in your shoes I wouldn’t waste my time either.” Fear trembled through her, but at the same time, there was a defiance in her eyes. Even in face of danger, she wasn’t one to submit or hold back on fiery comebacks. 

A dark chuckle escaped his lips. He glanced at Milena. “I like this one. Too bad we can’t keep her around.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be the best company anyway.” Tasha glanced at the metal door beyond Milena and Elias. There was one question she had to ask. Though a possible answer filled her with dread. Life had a funny, even almost cruel way of unfolding. Not even a few hours ago Jason and she had been going at it and now here she was worrying over his safety. Though she was still deeply angry and upset at Jason for what he had done, all that mattered to her right now was that he was alright. “Is…he okay?”

“He’s alive if that’s what you’re asking,” Elias replied.

 A wave of relief washed over Tasha. At least she and Jason were both alive. When it came down to it that alone only mattered. A dark thought crept into her mind. But then again who knew what their captors had in mind for them. Perhaps it would have been better for him not to survive, that might have been a merciful fate.

Elias stepped closer to Tasha. Then, from under his black shirt, he unslung a small black pistol from his belt.

Tasha’s mouth began to run dry and her heart began to race. Elias twirled the gun on his finger, only increasing Tasha’s uneasiness.

She ignored him, keeping her eyes fixed on Milena. “You know, you seem like a straight shooter so I’ll cut to the chase. Why exactly do you need us? If you’re not after information I fail to see the point.” 

Milena gave a small laugh. “Aren’t you a fast talker? Trying to hide your fear?”

“No, my boredom.”

Milena clasped her hands. “Let’s just say I need you both for a plan of mine.”

Tasha eyed her confusingly. “What kind of plan.”

“That would be giving things away now would it?”

“What things? Are you working for Dalmar?”

Pain flashed across Milena’s eyes at the mention of his name. It was only there for a second and was gone as soon as it came. Not before being noticed by Tasha. “Dalmar, that monster. Heck no! Your whole plan of bringing him down is still happening. You and Edward are just playing a different role than you originally planned.”

Tasha found herself shocked by Milena’s revelation. However, she made certain not to show her surprise to those in the room. Basic training - never show your opponent what you’re thinking. 

Milena turned to Elias. “Would you give us a moment?”

 He glanced from Milena to Tasha and back to Milena again. He placed his gun back in its holster. “Sure.” The door clanked shut behind him.

“I know what you may think of me and I can’t say I blame you. I’d probably feel the same way too…but I just want to say that I admire your tenacity. I respect what you’re doing.”

Tasha leaned forward. “Really. I would never have guessed. If you respected my mission, why interfere with it?”

“Trust me. I had my reasons. The justice I’d get from your NSA wouldn’t be enough.” She spoke, a hint of sadness showing in her eyes for a brief moment. 

From the first time she laid eyes on her Tasha could tell that the woman standing in front of her wasn’t a hardened criminal. That there was something beneath the surface. It was obvious now she’d suffered some tragic painful event in her life. Dalmar’s doing most likely. Tasha thought for a moment about how to respond. She knew the words she’d say would probably not change her mind or course of action, but she had to try.

Tasha spoke softly. “I know what horrific things Dalmar is capable of…Sometimes it seems that men like him just end up walking away but that’s no ex—”

“Excuse for me to take the law into my hands. Yeah, I figured that speech was coming. Guess what, I don’t have time for it.” Milena said strongly before turning around and walked across the room. Well, that went well but pretty much how I expected. Tasha thought as Milena shut the door behind her as she exited the room, leaving Tasha alone once again. 

[cursed-ice-spirits]

HPMA PROFILE: ASTRID REES

Profile Template by @hogwartsmystory​ (I’M SORRY FORGOT TO CREDIT YOU)

IDENTITY

Birth Name: Astrid Lord

Current Name: Astrid Rees

Gender: Female

Age: 17 

Birth Date: October 10th, 1993

Species: Metamorphmagus

Blood Status: Half-blood

Sexuality: Lesbian

Alignment: True Neutral 

Ethnicity: Vietnamese / Greek

Nationality: Greek

Residence: Ipswich, England

THE MAGE

Wand: 

Hornbeam.

Dragon heartstring 

14 inches

Pliable 

Hornbeam selects for its life mate the talented witch or wizard with a single, pure passion, which some might call obsession - more kindly - vision, which will almost always be realized. Hornbeam wands adapt more quickly than almost any other to their owner’s style of magic, and will become so personalized, so quickly, that other people will find them extremely difficult to use even for the most simple of spells.

Hornbeam wands likewise absorb their owner’s code of honor, whatever that might be, and will refuse to perform acts - whether for good or ill - that do not tally with their master’s principles. A particularly fine-tuned and sentient wand.

Animagus: N/A

Misc Magical Abilities: 

Caldwell Veer - Ability to HOST spirits. Spirits can possess her partially and fully and speak through her, even use her body regardless if she gives permission or not, and she is 100% aware of what’s happening when she’s possessed. This is more of a passive ability than anything without the spirit magic, and is more likely to work against her than work with her. While Perseus and Theseus can protect her from spirits with horrible intentions just fine, if she is without the control of her body for too long, she can be more vulnerable, and her Greek ancestors can often… get carried away while controlling her body. 

Boggart Form: Herself staring out blankly with hollow eyes. She’s not doing anything. She’s not saying anything. She’s just standing there, like a husk.

Riddikulus Form: Laughter. Laughter spilling out from herself, eyes glinting, strong and proud. And in control of herself. Laughter, as she spun around and danced with glee

Amortentia: (What do they smell like?) Raspberries, roses and chamomile

Amortentia: (What do they smell?) Strawberries, honeycomb, lemon cheesecake, thyme and freshly cut grass

Patronus: Drakon

Patronus Memory: Unknown. 

Mirror of Erised: A family that actually loves her

Specialized/Favourite Spells:

Non-verbal magic. Mute. 

Curabitur verbum, a spell she created herself to summon words above her head to translate her sign language

Ebublio, learned as a just in case, and in an attempt to destroy a horcrux

Nebulus, learned to conceal her from sight if she ever needs to make a quick get-away

Relashio, learned because she hated being grabbed and will use it without hesitation

Sonorous, learned to project her classmates’ rude words and get them in trouble

APPEARANCE

Faceclaim: Veronica Ngo (base for artbreeder)

Voiceclaim: Phillipa Soo

Game Appearance: N/A

Height: 6’2

Weight: 170 pounds

Physique: Tall and lean, with muscles as someone who specializes with dual swords. She’s strong, and it shows. (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Eye Colour: Black, shining blue in the light (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Hair Colour: Black (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Skin Tone: Light tan (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Body Modifications: Ear piercings on both earlobes and three helix piercings. The helix piercings are gold bands that curl around her ear and the piercings on her ears are intricate crystals.

Scarring: A large V-shaped scar on her back, and a scar over her right eye

Inventory: 

Wand

Wood Carving tools

Thick sticks of wood

A knife 

Two gold rings that can turn into her swords 

A rose pin with a hidden knife 

A handkerchief that she never touches with her bare hands

A hand mirror

Fashion: Black and red. She dresses like a goth, with ripped leggings and black attire, chokers, spikes, boots, and fingerless gloves. She wears bits of red, but her most obvious red clothing is her flannel, which she wears around her waist during hot weather. She would go for more simple and practical black clothing if she is in a school or home setting, but will relax into a more intricate clothing if placed in a formal and fancy setting. It is noted that she will never wear colors other than red, as she thinks it doesn’t fit her. 

ALLEGIANCES 

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Ilvermorny House: Horned Serpent 

Affiliations/Organizations:

Slytherin House

Chosens by Aphrodite

Olympia School of Magic (school by @kathrynalicemc​)

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Professions:

Undecided 

HOGWARTS INFORMATION

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: E

Charms: E

DADA: O

Flying: O

Herbology: A

History of Magic: E

Potions: E 

Transfiguration: O

Electives:

Magical Theory: O

Ancient Runes: O

Quidditch: Chaser

Extra Curricular: 

Quidditch 

Gladiator Dueling Club (formerly; in Olympia)

Arts Club

Dungeons and Dragons club

Favourite Professors: N/A. No opinion

Least Favourite Professors: N/A. No opinion

RELATIONSHIPS

Father: Jacob Vincent Lord

Pureblood

Slytherin

Black hair, black eyes, light tan skin

Natural Legilimens 

Researcher in mind magic and legilimency. Isolated himself away because of what happened during school, and handed the family to Rebecca.

Conceived her one day when he was venturing in Greece and had a one-night stand with a greek woman, who abandoned her at an orphanage

He has no idea of her existence. It is only when she showed up out of nowhere that he knew. He does try to be there but Astrid is distrustful of everyone around her so it’s awkward

Mother: Unknown Greek Woman

Jacob does not remember much about the women he conceived Astrid with, but he did remember she was a beautiful woman with dark brown curly hair and tan skin

Her intentions of abandoning Astrid at the orphanage are largely unknown, regardless if it’s good or bad but nonetheless, she was left there.

There is not much known about her, but what is known is that she is from a bloodline of two Greek heroes in greek myths, Perseus and Theseus, son of Zeus and Poseidon respectively

It is unknown where this woman is right now, but Astrid does not want to meet her, so it’s unlikely she ever will.

Love Interest: N/A

Best Friends: N/A

Rival: N/A

Enemy: Velia Caldwell and her followers

Dormmates: N/A

Pets: None

Closest Canon Friends: TBD

Closest MC Friends: None so far but do let me know if you want to be. Fair warning, it will take a while for Astrid to warm up to you

BACKGROUND/HISTORY

Before you get to know Astrid, you must get to know her father. Jacob Lord, the man who got expelled while searching for the fabled Cursed Vaults. Despite years after the Cursed Vaults were long broken, the trauma was still there, of being stuck in the portrait and putting his sister in danger. So, for the next few years after his sister graduated, he chose to isolate himself

His sister handed the Head position to him until he returned, and one of the places he went to clear his head was Greece. While at a bar, he met a woman that will later become Astrid’s mother. Months later, Astrid was born

She was abandoned at an orphanage, and as a child, she was loud and proud, never afraid to speak her mind. She was isolated and a loner, and years of bullying built up layers and layers of trust issues, and rendered herself mute. She stayed at this orphanage until she was old enough to attend Olympia School of Magic. She did not trust anyone, but slowly, slowly, she made herself a home at Olympia.

Until one day, one of the followers of Velia Caldwell traveling in Greece for a mission spotted her. While they can’t take their anger out on Rebecca’s children, they can take their anger out on Jacob’s, and so while she slept, she was taken from her home and to Britain, the memory of her life erased.

Led to believe she was given up to them, she lived in bitterness as she was treated as a weapon. They trained up her powers, and used her to summon spirits to her mind, and as her powers grew, her two ancestors slowly slipped into her mind, until the time was right. 

Perseus woke up first, wielding her swords, and used them to cut through and kill. Theseus woke up next, advising her on what to do next. She fled through the floo, carrying the handkerchief the followers insisted on protecting, and landed in Ipswich

Shortly after, she was found by a staff of Hogwarts, and taken to attend Hogwarts, where the events of her meeting her biological family took place

PERSONALITY

Manipulative: In order to survive the orphanage and Velia’s followers, she needed to be manipulative. This is a defining trait of hers, as she puts on layers and layers of masks to hide. She can turn from quiet and calm, to cruel and merciless in seconds. She’s a good liar, and she knows how to use people and get them to do what she wants. Add it to her ability as a metamorphmagus, she can twist people and use them easily. It’s not to say she’s a bad person per se, she’s just a traumatized girl who uses this to defend herself, not that it’s an excuse if she ever hurts someone

Distrustful and Paranoid: With how much she’s been through, it’s honestly no wonder she’s built up trust issues. She doesn’t trust anyone around her, and it’s only after a series of tests that allows her to trust you. She can distrust the right person and be proven of her suspicions… or she distrust the wrong person, and it can lead to consequences

Reclusive: Combined with her trauma and her trust issues, she would rather stay away from people then to interact with friends. She’s quiet and she doesn’t mind being alone. She’s not sullen though, she’s just quiet, and a loner. 

Self-Loathing: If there’s anyone Astrid distrusts more than anything, it’s herself. She does not think she deserves to be loved and upon discovering that she’s a lesbian, she believed that she doesn’t deserve that kind of love.

Protective: Those who pushed and pushed to gain her trust proved themselves as trustworthy, and Astrid is protective over these selected few. She keeps them close to her heart, and she can and will fight fiercely for them. But she knows what’s her fight and what’s not. 

Intelligent: Astrid is smart. She needed to be. She invented a spell that allows her to communicate with others and she has no hesitation in using the magic she can use and manipulating it to something out of the box. She takes in everything that went unnoticed by everyone else. It’s not like it’s hard. Everyone ignores the quiet person 

MISC

As stated before, Astrid is a selective mute. She doesn’t like to talk and prefers not to. She communicates through sign language, which she later makes a spell to help translate it. 

Astrid struggles at magic. When it comes to a real fight, she’s more likely to use her swords or base her magic around them. Her grades are what they are because she worked to get them where they need to be but in reality she’s only average. 

When it comes to learning new spells, she will have to practice them over and over again in order to get a handle on how they work, and due to being mute, she’s a master at non-verbal magic, so if she masters a certain spell, she can cast it without a sound or warning.

She’s ingenious enough to create a spell, but she needed the magic to make it work, so therefore she’s jealous of anyone who can get it on the first try. 

She learned her skills in sword fighting from the gladiator duels at her former school and although her memories of her former life were erased, her body still remembers how to use her swords and she won’t forget it if she continues to polish it up. It’s her proudest skill 

Her ancestors can only speak through her, not to her, and because she is very aware of what happens around her when she’s possessed, they often take over her body to advise her. Due to being children of Zeus and Posiedon, they would often argue over what’s best for her, and the constant switching of control leads to horrible headaches. 

She hated her will being taken from her. It’s her biggest fear. That one day, it’ll be taken from her too long that she will forever become a husk, as that’ll happen if she’s not in control for far too long. 

Astrid is noted to look a lot like her father, a fact that she resents once she finds out, not because she hated her father but because she couldn’t bear looking like someone who she believed had left her all alone. Once she finds out that he didn’t, she grows into it as time passes by. Her looks are the main reason how her biological family came to know who she is. 

She has a wood carving hobby. She likes playing with her carving knife when she’s bored and when she’s struck with inspiration she can be seen whittling away at some wood. That’s why she carries it around. 

Interested in Ancient Greece for very obvious reasons

The moment Rebecca saw her, she knew she’s Jacob’s daughter and was furious that he let her grow up without a family, as he knew what an impact it had on her. When Astrid is settled, Rebecca set off ready to make a man regret being born, only to realize he didn’t know

When it comes to her manipulation and masks, think of Claude from Three Houses, except she’ll be wearing a different type of mask, but the intention of appearing as someone you aren’t stays . Generally, she’s quiet (obviously) and she can be helpful, but she’s aloof. Of course, that is but a mask. Get past one and you’ll know she’s bitter, and she’ll want you to stay away from her. Get past another, you’ll know she’s a lot softer than you think. 

[clairecolemanoriginals]

Prologue

Rain pelted hard against the windowpane, melding with the sound of gunfire. A battle raged on the doorsteps of the small town. The women were forced to stay behind, as usual, to tend to the children while their sons, husbands, and fathers fought for their homes. Screams of the wounded could be heard on the wind haunted the worried. For days, the women sat in their homes with the crying children waiting for silence to come. All she could do was stand there and look out the window at the chaos that insured. Even as she waited for silence, she dreaded it. There was no way to tell which side was winning, to her, all dying men sound the same.

A loud crack echoed in the winds of the storm startling the dreamer awake.

Yellow streetlights shone through the translucent curtains. The pale lighting proved enough light to see around the room. Clothes, video games, and junk food packages littered the floor. On the bed, two figures could be seen. The first a young man, dead asleep the sheets pooled around his narrow hips. The other was a young woman who eyed the room wide-eyed, the sheets clutched tightly to her chest. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her skin in the mood light and her heavy breathes broke the silence.

She sighed heavily; another night went to waste with the consumption of alcohol.

Dessera barely remembered where she was or who she was with for that matter, but the pounding in her head suggested that she wasn't at her apartment like she had hoped. Swinging her feet off the side of the bed and glanced around the room. What she saw disgusted her. At the center of the room was a gaming chair with open packages of all types of food. A soda bottle lay on its side, its contents having been spilled on the floor and never taken care of. The urge to puke washed over her at the sight and she took a deep breath as she looked for her clothes. She quickly found her discarded clothing next to the bed where the man had tossed them, and she pulled them over her body. The tight dress was a nuisance as she danced around trying to get the zipper up her back. As she stumbled around, she stepped on an empty package of chips and she froze at the sound. She glanced over her shoulder at the man on the bed, scared she had brought him out of his sleep but to her relief he simply shifted around in his sleep to hug his pillow.

"Typical." She muttered as she searched around his room for her clutch. She found it slightly tucked under the bed next to her thigh holster. Her eyes widened, remembering that she had been carrying. A cloudy memory crossed her mind of the man seeing the gun on her inner thing and calling her a badass. He had been way too drunk to even care about the fact that she'd had a rather small 9mm strapped to her throughout the night. She strapped the gun back to her leg, this time with the weapon on the outside and her dress over the top of it, not caring if it was covered or not.

She left the house as silently as she could, being careful to lock the bottom handle before she left to be courteous. Just like her dream, the weather seemed to be unforgiving in its downpour on her. Not that she minded. She loved the rain, preferred it to the hot days of summer. She did not like to be too warm and it was easier to layer up than cool down. Before she stepped off the porch, she checked her phone for the time and saw that it was three in the morning. And that she had 18 missed calls, 30 unread text messages, 3 voicemails. Panic bubbled in her chest as she brought the phone to her ear to listen to the message.

'Serra! I need help. I just got done with a hunt but I'm severely injured. Your place is the closest. I am headed there now, hopefully, I don't bleed out before you get this. Hurry! Please!' The answering box beeped and asked her what she wanted to do with the message, and she starred at the phone. The message had come through over thirty minutes ago and it was quite possible she was too late.

"Fuck!" She exclaimed. A chill ran through her body and she desperately wished she had a coat, but she couldn't think of that. Her little sister was very possibly bleeding out on her porch, and she needed to get to her as soon as possible. Luckily, there wouldn't be anyone on the roads at this time of the day and no one to question why she was running through the street.

As she ran, her heels dangling from her fingertips, she thought about where she was. Looking at all the signs she passed her foggy brain was able to tell her she was not too far from her apartment and her sister whom she hoped was still alive. She smelled like the guy she had woken up next to and it was suffocating her. Her friends had convinced her to go to the club last night and she had gotten very drunk on scotch. She danced the night away, and some of the mornings, the rest was a blur in her mind. She knew exactly what had happened after her fourth round. Her flirtation skills must have come out because she vaguely remembered catching the eye of some other highly intoxicated guy in glasses. He had been attractive, so she went for it. Next thing she knew she was waking up in a dark room from an extremely weird dream. Just a typical Sunday morning for her.

A loud honk brought her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see a very expensive looking car inches from her legs. She looked around and realized she had run into the middle of an intersection in her haze. Stumbling out of the way, she yelled her apology and continued on her way. The pounding in her head still had not ceased and it was beginning to make her nauseous. "Fuck this hangover." She grumbled to herself shielding her eyes as the car she had almost run into pulled up in front of her.

"Miss?" A car door slammed, followed by the opening of an umbrella, and she stopped her feet where they were. "Miss? Are you alright?"

"Stop. Stop right there." Before the man could get any closer to her, she brandished her heels at him threateningly. All her running had tossed everything in her stomach and while she had been ignoring nausea for the last 5 minutes, she couldn't hold it in any longer. Without hesitation, she leaned over and, let the contents of her stomach hit the pavement. The man stopped where he was and held up his empty hand to show her, he meant no harm. She stood straight, eyes squinting as she wiped her mouth with her free hand and eyed him up and down looking for any signs of a supernatural being.

"Um... are you ok?" He asked her, tentatively taking a step closer. She lowered her 'weapon' after a moment, satisfied that he wasn't anything dangerous, and nodded. She met him in the middle and dropped her hand to her side, letting her heels dangle again.

"I apologize. I'm a hunter and not feeling the best. Can't be too careful." She stated in a rush and looked up at the man.

"That's alright, but is it normal for you to hold someone at heel point at 3 in the morning? Especially since you have a gun on your hip?" He inquired amused. She took a moment to really take a look at him and she realized that he was in a suit and tie. His features were hard to see in the low-lit street but assumed he had a mischievous look on his face from his tone of voice. She could see that he had dirty blonde hair, high cheekbones, and piercing blue eyes.

"What can I say, strangers bring out the best in me and I wouldn't need my gun to take you down" She finally answered.

Surprised by her blunt response he asked "Well, are you ok? Would you like a ride?"

"No, I'm alright. My home is close to here, I can walk just fine. Thank you for your concern." She gave him a small smile and made to go around him. A gentle hand shot out and caught her by the arm, stopping her. She looked up at him with wide eyes, a small flicker of fear started to grow in the pit of her stomach. Just because he was in a suit and showed no supernatural signs didn't mean he wasn't a threat. However, he knew she had a gun and that she was a hunter. He would be stupid to try anything. She let her fear simmer back down and turned it into a cautious awareness.

"Are you sure? You seem upset. I promise I mean well and you clearly can handle yourself." He was trying to look her in the eyes, but something told her he could see right through her attempts to hide her miserable state of mind. She was annoyed with herself for getting into the situation that had led to this. She knew better. On top of which her so-called "friends" had left her there.

"I live a ten-minute walk from here. I'll be alright." Her reply seemed to be lost in the pouring rain, but his ears seemed to pick up on her words.

"It's pouring and you're soaked. Allow me to get you to some heat before you get sick." His grip on her arm tightened for a second before falling to his side. She looked him dead in the eyes. There was no lie in his eyes, and she could tell by the tone of his voice that he held no ill will towards her.

"Alright. But if you pull any funny business, I will use my gun." She threatened, pointing at him with one hand and patting her gun with the other.

"I believe you." The man chuckled, seemingly unfazed but her threat. With a nod, she allowed him to help her into the car. He turned the heater up the moment he got in and she eagerly placed her hands against the vent. She was still on her guard but with her gun on her thigh, she figured she would probably be alright with this man.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure. Do you mind me asking why you seem so upset that you run into the street?" He asked her as he set off in the direction she pointed to. She glanced over at him, wondering how the man didn't question why she was barely dressed and out so early this morning. He glanced at her, a look of pure innocence on his face and she raised an eyebrow at him in suspicion. Does this man live under a rock? She thought to herself before she responded.

"I...went home with a man earlier this evening and decided not to stay the night." She told him as she stared out the window, completely missing the knowing smile on his face. This was all the information she was comfortable sharing with him. They lapsed into silence aside from the directions she gave him.

In reality, the car ride was only maybe three minutes long, but it felt like an eternity. She had her hand on her weapon the entire time as a precaution, but he made no move towards her. As they pulled into the apartment complex, she directed him in the opposite direction of her apartment. There was no way she was going to let him see which apartment she was in, especially since her sister was there injured. He pulled into a vacant spot and she turned taking the seatbelt off. He put the car in park and looked over at her.

"Thank you for the ride." She said as she put her hand on the door handle.

"Of course. I assume you would like me to leave the parking lot before you go to your apartment." He stated and she laughed. That is exactly what she had planned on asking him.

"How did you know?" She chuckled, shaking her head.

"Lucky guess. Here," He reached behind him into the backseat and grabbed the umbrella he had placed on the floor. "take this. No need to get any more soaked than you already are."

"...thank you." This time she was shocked by his genuine kindness and took the umbrella from him. She smiled and opened the door. As she stepped out of the car, she opened the umbrella and held it over her head. Before the man could say anything more to her or ask her name, she gently closed the door and made her way over to the walkway. He gave her a small nod and a smile before he turned around and pulled out of the spot. As he turned back around to face her again, she saw a flash of dark hair and horns and a chill ran down her spine. The moment she registered what she had seen though it was gone, and the handsome young man's face was back smiling at her. He waved goodbye at her and she stiffly waved back.

Was she just seeing things or had that man been a demon?

[fmdminaharchive]

❧ you’re like spring.

date(s): february-march 2021 mentions of: daisuke (briefly for happening reasons), jiah (extensively for gay reasons) word count: 1,712 (475 words composition, 748 words songwriting without the lyrics) warnings: none details: partial composition and full lyric verification for ‘the spring’. minah makes music again, it’s more of the same yet different. she’s also grossly in love, though she’s well aware there has been a time she wasn’t. also little extra bits of the whole Process because i can and they’re cute

“how about another spring song?” the creative director suggests and minah is quick to agree.

sure, she has some thoughts on that statement. the expected release date they gave her is late may, pushing near the end of spring but she can’t say she’s surprised. sure, these songs usually do best around early to mid april, when spring is fresh and the temperatures are slowly creeping up together with the bloom of flowers but she wagers that either bc doesn’t give her solo comeback enough priority over whatever else is planned earlier in the year or they’re aiming to recreate the same effect ‘hopefully sky’ had. 

it’s kind of ironic, minah thinks, the implied image of a late bloomer bc throws in her lap. 

she doesn’t mind it, it kind of suits her in ways.

➽───────────────❥

being informed that she will be working with the same producer she worked on for ‘hopefully sky’ and ‘being there’ only further confirms minah’s suspicions, they’re fully intending to let her stick to her niche. it’s not a bad thing persé, she likes her music, she likes the producer, the whole process will undoubtedly be a delight. but paired with the fact she had been purposely left out of writing for her debut album last fall, minah can’t help but feel bc doesn’t yet trust her quite enough. not enough to write on something important as an album, not enough to write on something she hasn’t done before.

which just means she has to prove herself.

when minah shows up for their first studio session, she shows up prepared, reaching for the acoustic guitar kept in one of the corners of the room

one eyebrow of the producer quirks up. “were you asked to compose it yourself? i thought i was, that’s why i prepared some things-”

minah just shakes her head, smiling serenely. “i wasn’t. but i have something i want to let you hear regardless.”

the guitar parts aren’t all that much, no bells or whistles. but minah likes to think that’s their charm. her instrumentals never are too flashy, not taking the foreground but instead serving as a gentle, guiding hand. the strums and chords are meant to be a base, to frame and support her voice rather than to be the main attraction.

the simple melody reminds her a lot of her busking days back in busan. sure, for the most parts she played and sang popular songs, ones that would be recognized by passersby and hopefully bring a smile to her face. but when things were slower, wen there weren’t as many people around, minah could spend stretches and stretches of time playing around with chords, improvising their structure as she went, their gentle hum to fill the silence until people came by again. it was a comforting sound, a comforting feeling.

of course, this time it’s not mere improvising, not tangent of chords that escape her memory the moment they fade out into the air around them but it still feels that way as she plays the song for the producer, a light-hearted, warm feeling teaching from her fingertips to her chest. 

when she finishes the song, minah puts the guitar beside her again, looking expectantly at the producer. “it’s not a full song-” she starts, sentence trailing off, searching for some sign of approval or dismissal, whatever comes first, whatever will tell her if she was right to go out on a limb.

“it’s not.” the producer agrees with a nod. “but it could be.” another beat of silence. “it will be when i turn it into one.”

the excited squeal that escapes minah is one of victory.

➽───────────────❥

“you know, i already wrote lyrics to go with it too.” minah brings up a little while later, by now both of them with a cup of coffee in their hands, having spent the last hour or so properly writing down the guitar part she had played earlier and fiddling with ideas how to expand on it.

“well why didn’t you say so earlier, go ahead, i’m listening.” 

so minah quickly pulls out the piece of paper the lyrics are written down on. they’re her words, she has sung them a few times but she doesn’t feel confident enough in her memory to do it entirely by heart just yet. 

she picks the guitar up again from where she had left it, leaning against the side of the table, placing her fingers against the fingerboard and strumming the strings, playing the same chords she had played before but this time accompanied by her voice. 

i think spring is coming again almost sick of the cherry blossoms once again, i face a lonely season as the wind blows

in terms of sound, the song sounds as warm and comforting as it’s spiritual predecessors ‘hopefully sky’ and ‘being there’ had, the sweet, family-girl charm minah had initially wrapped the general public around her finger with. lyrically, however, the tone is a bit more somber, lonely and longing for the happiness her surroundings seem to have found. it puts it smack in the middle of both her self-written songs from last summer and the tone of her first album and her portal collab with daisuke from last winter. a pretty clever way to bring together the two sides of her sound she has released so far if she says so herself.

that flower is so pretty, it makes me lonely that couple is smiling so brightly making me so sad why is it so beautiful? why am i jealous? everything’s spring spring spring but me

of course, the lyrics are hardly relevant for minah in the moment. she is entering her second spring together with jiah, their relationship having started roughly a year ago, when spring was creeping up on them much like it is now. 

but feelings didn’t need to be lived to write about them right, to be able to convey them all the same. minah’s entire ‘epilogue’ had been drenched in the sorrow of heartbreak while she was on cloud nine. much the same applied to this song, there is none of the longing for a spring romance, not when she has all of that right in the palm of her hands already, not when she gets to wake up stroking the messy strands of hair out of jiah’s face and kiss the tip of her nose.

you’re spring, spring spring spring you, where did you go? you’re spring, spring spring spring the spring wind is blowing

minah gets it, she really does, why spring is generally seen as a romantic season, the slow bloom of the world stirring awake after the winter. cherry blossoms showers during walks in the parks, couples huddled together due to the last remnants of cold wind. spring is romantic in it’s very existence. it’s soft, it’s comforting, a gentle welcome after the slumber of winter. 

and because of that, jiah is spring too. the pink hues of her flushed cheeks and the radiance of her smile, the tingling sparks of heat left across minah’s skin. she’s warm without ever being overwhelming, like the slowly rising temperatures giving the flowers time to adjust and bloom.

i’m dreaming of a fun love will my sweet love ever come? after another lonely day the wind blows

it hasn’t always been like that though, minah has been familiar enough with the bittersweetness of cherry blossoms. she’s a notorious workaholic after all. for as long as she can remember, she’s always been busy with something, be it her career or her family. it had left ample time for epic romances when she had been far too all over the place to open up her heart and whatever sparks did fly quickly fizzled solely due to the fact minah didn’t have the capacity to nurse a budding romance among everything.

so it isn’t like she doesn’t understand, it wasn’t like she has never kicked the ground scoffing watching the loved-up couples in springtime. minah knows the feeling all too well. so she knows how cathartic songs like this can be. sometimes you just need to be bitter for a bit before carrying on with life.

when the warm spring wind brushes my cheeks will spring come into my frozen heart as well? is it love?

minah has found her own love in the spring, only just a year ago, after watching the seasons slip by so often without much romance of her own. 

so minah hopes. she hopes that anyone who will relate to the song hearing it now will find their own spring love eventually. maybe not this season but possibly next, or the one after that.

even if not for many more springs, with every passing year, they’ll be one spring closer to that, and isn’t that enough reason to keep waiting? 

➽───────────────❥

a few weeks pass after that, minah doesn’t really keep track of the time where is so much she’s doing anyway but sooner or later, she finds the same producer waiting for her after she leaves vocal practice for lipstick’s upcoming comeback. 

“c’mon, i need to steal you away for a second, there is something i want you to listen to.” he explains briefly and minah is quick to follow the familiar path to one of bc’s in-house recording studios. 

of course, she knows this is about her solo comeback. she however doesn’t know if her draft got the bc stamp of approval. she might just as well be faced with an entirely different song.

as she takes a seat in one of the office chairs, the producer pulling up a file on his computer gracefully named ‘the spring’ minah feels pretty sure of her case though.

“i finished your song.” he simply says before pressing play.

it’s her song indeed, both of those parts are true. it’s hers, the familiar guitar strums in the background and a demo of her lyrics on top of it. it’s also a song, a full song this time, the blanks that were still missing from her rough draft filled in. 

minah really likes it.

when the song comes to an end, she turns to the producer and smiles. “i like the accordion.” she laughs. “it’s a nice touch.”