#they should bring linh back if anything

[bronte-deserves-better]

Ancillary

New fic up y'all!

Title: Ancillary

Wordcount: 7064

Summary:

adjective: ancillary

providing necessary support to the primary activities or operation of an organization, institution, industry, or system.

-

“You’re giving up on Sophie because you think you’re not capable of helping.” Tiergan can taste bitter tea and sharp iron when he bites his lip. “You- fuck you. Fuck you, Bronte. You don’t get to give up.”

“To assume I could do anything is a fool’s hope.”

“Then let’s be fools. Let’s be fucking fools! I don’t care if it’s hopeless. I don’t care if you’ve never done it before. You owe it to Sophie to try.”

-

Or, Sophie shatters from guilt. Tiergan can't seem to accept this, so he begs Bronte for something that no one has ever tried before; to heal a mind with the inflictor separate from the telepath.

(Set in the same universe as Common Denominator, but you don't need to read that to understand this.)

-

Tags: @cogaytes @gay-otlc @you-have-been-frizzled

---------

Tiergan Alenefar is, before he is anything else, brave.

He’s lived through things that would shatter any lesser elf. He’s loved and lost time and time again. He’s struggled and fought and bled to rebel against this unjust system that has tried so hard to break him. Tiergan has held friends weeping for lost lovers, children with no one left to care for them, rebels bleeding out in his arms. He has raged and stormed against the injustices of the world. He has hidden his true self under cloaks and masks of darkness for years upon years, knowing the scorn he would face if it came to light.

It is not fair that he’s had to be so brave. But to live in this world as himself means being brave before anything else, brave before he is kind or gentle or any of the things he wishes he could be instead.

The point is, Tiergan is a grown elf, and a tough one at that. He’s weathered worse than this before.

But-

But Leto is so horribly calm about all of this, as if any of it is something that can be fixed. As if this isn’t a child they’re discussing, a child who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, who is gone, far beyond their reach.

And Tiergan can’t seem to breathe.

Sophie is shattered. Like Prentice, only this time there’s not even a whisper of hope for her healing. There is no miracle to save the Moonlark, only the helpless grief of adults who should have protected her.

Sophie. His brave, brilliant prodigy, who endured far more than should ever have been asked of her. She was so young. So, so young. Younger than Wylie. Younger than even Tam and Linh. A child who they gave life, who they brought into this world, knowing it would be cruel to her. How can he be surprised that it was too much to endure?

“Tiergan?” Squall asks. She’s not supposed to use his real name in Collective meetings, but he can’t bring himself to care. “You look….”

“Bad,” Wraith finishes for her.

He almost laughs. It’s such a horrific understatement that it’s nearly funny. “I need-“ Sophie back, Prentice to remember me beyond fragments, to feel okay for once in my life- “I need a moment.”

“Okay, Tiergan.” Even cloaked in ice, Squall’s expression speaks so clearly of pity that it almost burns. He doesn’t need Squall’s sympathy. She has her own grief to worry about.

Forkle- Leto- nods, and Tiergan hurries out.

He’s Tiergan Alenefar, rebel, lover, father, mentor. He’s brave before he is anything else, and he doesn’t need anyone, not even Prentice.

And yet-

Bronte doesn’t answer his door when Tiergan bangs on it. Instead, it’s a tall elf he’s never met, their red hair pulled back into a sharp bun, mouth twisted into a frown.

“I need to see Councillor Bronte.” Desperation tastes bitter on his tongue, colors his words with fervor.

“Councillor Bronte is not taking visitors at the moment.”

“Please,” Tiergan half-begs. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, only that he has to do something. “It’s incredibly important.”

Her expression doesn’t change. “He is not taking visitors at the moment.”

“Tell him it’s about Sophie Foster.”

“Very well. Shall I tell him it’s you who is asking, Sir Alenefar?”

“Please,” he manages.

She nods. “Just a moment.”

It’s Bronte who throws the door open the second time, sharp blue eyes immediately fixing on Tiergan. His hair is mussed, his clothes wrinkled, and there are dark circles under his eyes, shadowed by grief. He looks exactly as wrecked as Tiergan feels.

“Come in,” is all he says.

Tiergan does. Stepping over the threshold of a Councillor’s castle should feel terrifying, or at least important, given his history with the Council, but he feels nothing at all crossing Bronte’s.

Bronte leads him through to a surprisingly plain kitchen, gesturing to one of the chairs. “Sit.”

He does.

Bronte sets the kettle on the stove. “What did you need to talk to me about so urgently? Elora mentioned Sophie.”

“I- I need you to try to heal her.”

Even from behind, it’s clear how Bronte stiffens. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Not alone. But no one ever said that the telepath and the inflictor had to be the same elf.”

“I cannot inflict positively.” His tone is flat.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that better than any elf living. Would you question me on my own ability?”

“I would.”

“You would be wrong to do so.”

“I don’t care,” Tiergan snaps.

“You should.”

“I don’t.”

Bronte sighs deeply. “I know that you are grieving, but you’re asking me for something impossible. Having me attempt to heal Sophie’s mind would be an exercise in futility, Sir Tiergan.”

The title is a bit of carefully manufactured distance. Maybe it would have worked on any other elf, but Tiergan is burning with grief and rage and dangerous guilt, and he can’t bring himself to care. Before he hardly knows that he’s moved, he’s across the room, grabbing Bronte’s collar and yanking him around to face Tiergan. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to give up. Just because Sophie was only another subject to you doesn’t mean you get to just turn your back and refuse to try! I cared about her, even if you never did!” He spits accusations like knives, rending his own throat in the process.

Bronte doesn’t rage or shout back. He just looks…tired. “Tiergan-“

“I loved her!” Tiergan nearly shouts. “I was her mentor! I was supposed to protect her!”

“You can’t protect someone from their own guilt, Tiergan.”

The words hit like a knife to the gut, frissyn on the everblaze of Tiergan’s anger. He finds himself suddenly unsteady, grip slackening.

Bronte reaches up and pulls Tiergan’s hand away from his collar. His grip is achingly gentle as he leads Tiergan back to the table and sits him down again.

Tiergan hates him so, so much.

“Here.” He can hear the clink of a mug being set down in front of him, loud in the silence of his grief.

He doesn’t bother asking what’s in it. Bronte doesn’t elaborate, only tells him “Drink.”

It turns out to be tea with a hint of something stronger underneath. He swallows, and it scorches his throat. The burn is almost a relief; it isn’t as if the physical pain cancels out the ache in his heart, but it distracts him from it, if only for a second.

Across from him, Bronte sits with his own mug, staring into it as if a way out of this whole mess can be found at the bottom. For a long moment, that’s all there is: Bronte sat across from him, his throat burning from heat and alcohol, the handle of a mug clutched in his sweaty hand.

“I do wish I could help,” Bronte says finally. “I will not lie. Sophie was my prodigy as well, and- she did not deserve this. But I will not give you false hope. I was not made for anything but destruction.”

Tiergan wants to scream, but he lacks the energy. “You were.”

“I wasn’t.” His voice remains horribly calm.

“You were,” Tiergan insists. “No one is made only to destroy. No one. I don’t give a shit if you think you’re a monster. You don’t get to use that as an excuse to be one.”

“I’m not-“

“You’re giving up on Sophie because you think you’re not capable of helping.” He can taste bitter tea and sharp iron when he bites his lip. “You- fuck you. Fuck you, Bronte. You don’t get to give up.”

“To assume I could do anything is a fool’s hope.”

“Then let’s be fools. Let’s be fucking fools! I don’t care if it’s hopeless. I don’t care if you’ve never done it before. You owe it to Sophie to try.”

Bronte sighs.

Tiergan downs the rest of his drink. His chest burns with grief and alcohol. “You owe it to her. And you owe it to Oralie. Are you such a coward as to not even try and save your best friend’s daughter? The child your own brother tried to kill?” It’s cruel beyond reason to bring up Fintan and Oralie, to hurl the baseless accusation of cowardice. He can’t bring himself to care.

By all rights, Bronte should have thrown him out on his ass for that. Instead, he lets out a long breath, shoulders tight with repressed emotion, and dryly remarks “You aren’t pulling your punches.”

“As if you and I have ever pulled punches with each other.”

“As if.”

“You owe Sophie,” Tiergan repeats. “You owe Oralie. You owe me. You let Prentice’s mind be broken,” he reminds.

“And when I fail, what will you say then? Will you claim again that I don’t care for Sophie?”

He swallows hard. “No. I- I could forgive you for failing. I couldn’t forgive you if you didn’t try at all.”

“And what telepath will be willing to risk their sanity for this fool’s hope? Or have you forgotten that a broken mind can easily drag others down with it?”

“I will.” Tiergan cannot find it in himself to be afraid. He’s been taught his entire life that to read a broken mind is perhaps the most dangerous thing a telepath can do, and yet that is nothing in face of his desire to see Sophie healed.

Bronte sighs again. “You’re out of your mind.”

“I know.”

“This is idiotic in the extreme.”

“I know.”

“And I’m going to help you go through with this insane plan. Stars help me.”

Tiergan laughs, bitter and whiskey scented. “The stars can’t help us now. Have they ever been able to?”

An answering smile, bitter as hemlock and black coffee. “They’ve never smiled upon me. We can only hope that they do now.”

-

Tiergan doesn’t want to tell anyone what he’s doing, but Bronte pressures him into at least calling Wylie. “You’ll regret it if this goes wrong and you left him without a goodbye.”

“I won’t be sane enough to remember that if this goes wrong,” Tiergan says, but he hails Wylie anyways.

His son picks up instantly. “Dad? Are you alright? Leto told me that you left the meeting and no one had seen you since.”

“I’m-“ the words stick in his throat. He can’t lie to Wylie. “It’s been a hard day,” he settles on. “I’m safe, don’t worry. But Bronte and I have a plan to see if we can fix Sophie’s mind.”

“Dad, no.”

“Wylie-"

“I know how dangerous it is to attempt to read a broken mind. That’s why no one could heal Dad’s mind until Sophie.”

“I’ve done it before,” Tiergan admits. It’s something he’s never told anyone, the way he monitored the shattering of Prentice’s mind, watched the memories fragment smaller and smaller.

“There’s a difference between that and a mind healing though, right?”

“There is, but please just trust me on this one, okay?”

“Okay,” Wylie concedes. “I trust you.”

Tiergan’s heart aches. “Thank you. I love you so much. You know that, right?”

“I know. Be careful, Dad. Be safe.”

“I will,” he promises.

“Thank you. I love you.”

“Love you too.” He ends the call and turns to Bronte. “Let’s go.”

-

Grady doesn’t look happy at all to see them. Tiergan can’t blame him. He’s just as good as lost his second daughter, and here they are to stir up more grief.

“Lord Ruewen,” Bronte greets.

“What do you need?”

His tone is hostile, but Bronte doesn’t snap back. “Tiergan and I would like to attempt to help Sophie, with your permission.”

Grady says nothing for a long moment. Then, finally, “She’s in her room.”

They make their way up the stairs in silence.

Sophie is curled up in the center of her bed, rocking quietly back and forth. He could almost believe that everything is normal, that she’s just lost in thought, if it weren’t for her eyes. There’s no spark left behind them, brown eyes staring off into space with the same vacant expression Tiergan saw on Prentice’s face for over a decade.

He swallows bile at the back of his throat.

“How are we doing this?” Bronte asks.

“I think I need to be connected to your mind while I search into hers,” Tiergan answers after a moment’s thought. “That way I can signal you to inflict when we need.” He’s not sure how well this will work, if he’s honest. Connecting to an Ancient mind while probing another is…less than ideal. It would be easier if he had someone else to do this with. Easier with a cognate, like almost everything in telepathy. But Tiergan is stubborn and brave before he is loved or trusting, and he lost his only chance at a cognate years ago.

Bronte is kind enough not to point out how difficult and improbable every part of this is. If he did, Tiergan might have punched him. Here, with Sophie in front of him, it’s impossible to see how he could do anything but this. She was his prodigy, and he failed her. He has to make this work.

“Let’s give this a try, shall we?” Bronte manages to make it sound casual, but Tiergan knows him well enough to read tension in the set of his jaw and stiffness of his shoulders.

He nods. “Can I enter your mind?”

“Go ahead.”

Tiergan closes his eyes and pushes past Bronte’s barriers; his mind is a castle, thick walls of stone shutting out the world around him, but Tiergan is the sly fox creeping through the drainpipe, the bird slipping through an open window.

I’m not going to be able to do this is the first thought he catches.

You are. We have to.

Oh, hello, Tiergan.

We are going to do this.

If you say so.

I do say so.

Bronte’s mind falls quiet at that, and Tiergan takes the chance to throw himself headfirst into Sophie’s. Funny, that, how the only time an impenetrable mind can be read is when it’s broken.

Instantly, he’s caught in a storm of shards. He is no longer the fox or the bird, all guises stripped away in the maelstrom of Sophie’s mind. No cloak or gloves can shield him from this blizzard, the swirling chaos of a mind slowly tearing itself into pieces.

It hurts. Oh, how it hurts. Tiergan had forgotten the pain of a broken mind in the months since Prentice’s rescue and subsequent healing, but it all comes rushing back now. Sophie’s mind resembles Prentice’s in the very early days, large, jagged shards tearing gashes across Tiergan’s shields.

He forges onward, though he can feel himself bleeding away with every step. The nook. He has to find the nook. He has to heal Sophie.

He’s so cold. Her mind feels freezing to him, sapping away at his strength with every motion. He has to find that nook. He knows it will be here. He knows Sophie knows how the Black Swan train their Keepers. She’ll be there, hiding away in that nook. He’ll find her, and he’ll make this right.

He’s starting to go numb with cold, aching, draining, stealing away the warmth and life from him. He can’t feel his hands. Does he have hands here? They should sting with the chill, but they don’t.

He’s- he’s looking for something. Something warm, he thinks. It’s so cold.

It’s so cold, and so dark. He can’t find the way.

Bronte, he calls, and finds no response. Bronte! Bronte, please. Please.

He’s not sure he knows what he’s pleading for anymore.

Sophie. Bronte. Leto. Wylie. Prentice. Names float through his head, and none of them mean anything.

He’s so, so cold. Why is it so cold?

Around him, there’s something. A rush of warmth, a glimmer of light in the endless dark. It hits him like a wave, rocking him into its soft embrace. The shards around him coalesce for a brief moment, shielding him from the rush of wind. Sheltered. Safe.

He curls into the embrace for an infinitely long moment, then another, before he hears another voice.

Tiergan.

Tiergan. That’s his name.

Tiergan, come back to me.

He knows that voice.

He latches onto the thread of light, pulling himself towards that glimmer with all his strength.

Come back to me, the voice repeats. Come back, Tiergan. I still need you here.

He pulls and he pulls and he pulls, and the thread moves under his hands, and finally his head breaks the surface of the darkness.

-

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Prentice’s face. Concern is written into every line of it, furrowing his brow and twisting his mouth into a frown. In his eyes, Tiergan thinks he catches a glimpse of something stronger than concern, something that he doesn’t dare put a name to.

It takes a moment after that, but eventually the scene resolves itself into something coherent. He’s laying on the floor, cradled in Prentice’s arms. Bronte is kneeling next to them both, expression unreadable. Sophie is still on the bed. Standing around the rest of the room are too many people for him to make sense of, though he does note that one of them is Wylie.

“Tiergan,” Prentice says softly.

“Hi.”

“Are you alright?”

He can’t answer that. He doesn’t try.

Livvy takes that moment to announce her presence by demanding “Are you fucking stupid?”

“I-“

“You tried to heal a broken mind by yourself,” Forkle says. He sounds disappointed, but Tiergan doesn’t dare look at him.

“I should point out that technically I was also here,” Bronte says. His voice is strangely raspy.

Forkle sighs “You are not a telepath, Councillor Bronte.”

“I never would have guessed,” Bronte deadpans back.

“Anyways!” Livvy waves a hand in dismissal of all that. “Tiergan! Are you fucking stupid?”

“He is,” Wraith says.

Tiergan tries to glare at him but can hardly muster the energy.

“Clearly,” Blur agrees. “What were you thinking trying this by yourself?”

“I doubt he was thinking at all,” Forkle says, and oh he’s angry. He never, ever takes that tone with Tiergan. “If he had been, he would not have attempted to enter a broken mind without even another telepath to serve as a guide.”

Tiergan winces. He…probably deserved that.

Prentice’s arms tighten around him slightly, and Tiergan can read forgiveness just from that gesture. “He meant well.”

“We did,” Bronte rasps.

The knowledge of his failure burns worse than the tea and whiskey earlier, and maybe that’s why he says, “I’m not sorry. I- if there was even a chance that we could help, I had to take it.”

Beside him, Bronte nods. It’s a drastic change from the Councillor who was telling him he was a fool for this hope not even an hour ago. He wonders if Bronte is willing to be a fool for a chance to heal Sophie just as much as he is.

He looks around the crowded room. “What are all of you doing here anyways?”

“Wylie hailed me and told me you were planning something foolish,” Forkle explains.

Tiergan looks at his son.

“I’m not sorry,” Wylie echoes his earlier words. “I knew you’d need help.”

“And he was right,” Prentice murmurs. “I barely got you back, Tierg. If we had been any later…” He lets that sentence trail off as if he can’t bear to finish it.

His eyes are stinging, and he turns to press his face into Prentice’s shoulder. Prentice curls a comforting arm around him, hand finding its place in his hair.

After a moment, he feels another set of arms encircle them both, a familiar presence at his back.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“I forgive you,” Wylie says, so, so soft. “It’s alright, Dad.”

Silence, broken only by Sophie’s faint muttering and the creak of her bedframe.

Bronte’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Would now be a bad time to mention that my side of the arrangement seemed to work?”

“What?” Forkle sounds incredulous.

“I said, my side of the arrangement worked. I was able to inflict positively on Sophie.”

Tiergan sits up so fast that his head spins and Prentice has to steady him. “What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, you were the one pushing me to try. But yes, I seem to have achieved what I could not for these past five thousand-odd years.”

He thinks back to his time in Sophie’s mind and quickly puts the pieces together. “You were the warmth I felt towards the end.”

“I assume so.”

Then-

“This is possible,” Tiergan breathes. “We could heal Sophie’s mind.”

“What are you talking about?” Forkle demands.

“When I was in Sophie’s mind, it was…freezing.” He shudders, remembering the bleak and infinite cold. “It grew warmer towards the end, soon before you arrived, and I felt sheltered. It was like I was shielded from the worst of the memory shards.”

“That’s not-“

“Anything is possible when it comes to Sophie,” Tiergan reminds him.

Prentice nods. “A shattered mind retains some level of consciousness for years after the break, particularly strong minds. I should know.” His voice is wry, and Tiergan reaches for his hand to give it a comforting squeeze. “It’s entirely possible for Sophie’s mind to instinctually protect Tiergan from the worst of the damage.”

Bronte clears his throat. “If this is helpful to your telepathic investigation, the emotion I was using was love.” He looks intensely embarrassed to be saying that, and Tiergan can’t help a faint snort at the idea of unbreakable, aloof Bronte being embarrassed about anything. Still-

“If Bronte’s inflicting and Sophie’s mind can shield me from the worst of it, then I could stay in her mind long enough to heal it. This is still possible.”

“I know you’re grieving,” Forkle starts, “but this is madness, Tiergan.”

“Don’t tell me what can and can’t be done!” Tiergan is burning again, grief dripping from his words like blood from an open wound. “Don’t you dare tell me to give up! I’ve done this song and dance before, Forkle. I waited. I was patient. I was all the things I should be. And I am tired of losing people!”

“I know, but-“

“No! You do not get to tell me what’s possible. You forget, Leto, that I am just as capable as you.”

“And you forget that I taught telepathy centuries before you were even born. I have seen more than you can imagine. Hard as it is for me to say this, and as hard as it is for you, it would be foolish to continue to pursue this.”

“Do not talk down to me. You think age means you’re wiser than all the rest of us,” Tiergan accuses. “You think you know best just because you’ve got a handful of centuries on us. All you are is a coward, afraid to fight for what you believe in.”

Forkle reels back, genuine hurt blooming on his face. “I am merely pointing out that you are putting your own life in danger for a false hope.”

Squall coughs, as if trying to intervene. Tiergan ignores her. “It’s not a false hope. And Sophie is worth it. I would risk my own mind a thousand times for her- for any of them! They’re children, Leto.”

“You would let your loved ones grieve you like you’ve grieved them for a mirage, a dream that cannot be?”

That was a low blow. “Don’t you dare use Prentice against me. I thought you were better than that.”

Prentice squeezes his hand tightly. He squeezes back.

Forkle sighs. “What I mean to say is that you won’t be the only one hurt if you risk yourself for this.”

“I know. But we all run that risk. Where is the Leto who asked me if I wanted to change the world even if it meant risking everything? Where is the elf who laughed as we ran from the Council’s emissaries? Where is he, Forkle? Have you grown old and afraid?”

“I’ve grown more cautious,” Forkle corrects.

“And I’ve grown tired of caution.”

“Fine! But do not expect me to approve of your insane schemes. I refuse to let you tear yourself apart over this.”

“As if this isn’t something worth tearing yourself apart for!” Tiergan tears himself free of Prentice’s arms, climbing to his feet to face Forkle. “You’ve asked me to risk myself for our cause again and again. You’ve asked me to be quiet and patient and let myself lose the most important person in my life, all for Sophie. And now you ask me to give up on her?”

“It is impossible for us to heal Sophie’s mind.”

“It isn’t! Which you would see if you could get your head out of your own ass for more than a few seconds at a time!”

Forkle raises an eyebrow. “Have we devolved into childish insults, then?”

“Being calm about this doesn’t make you better than me,” Tiergan hisses. “You don’t get to act superior because you care less.”

“I care more than you could ever know!”

“Then don’t try to tell me I shouldn’t try and help my prodigy!”

Forkle falls silent at that, and Tiergan does the same, only the sound of both their heavy breathing filling the quiet.

“Can I suggest something?” A quiet voice says from the door, and they both startle.

Edaline steps inside. Her eyes are shadowed by grief and sleeplessness, but she holds her back straight and her head high. “I admit I’m a bit on Tiergan’s side here. I want to see Sophie healed as well. And I’m not an expert on telepathy. But if Tiergan can’t do it alone, could he do it with a Cognate?”

Forkle is already shaking his head. “He doesn’t have one.”

Gnawing regret wraps itself around Tiergan’s chest, making it hard to breathe. He’s brave, and independent, and he’s never needed a Cognate, but-

But he never should have told Prentice no.

“I’d be willing to try,” Prentice says quietly. “We’re not- we weren’t ever Cognates, but we were compatible, once. And I managed to pull him back before.”

Tiergan turns, hardly believing his ears. “You would?”

“Of course. Sophie doesn’t deserve this. No one deserves a broken mind.” His voice softens. “And I love you. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Oh. Tiergan has to cover his mouth, afraid that if he doesn’t, he might start sobbing.

“Touching as this is, can we all make a decision?” Bronte grumbles. “At some point the rest of the Council are going to start wondering where I’ve gone.”

“I still think this is foolishness,” Forkle sighs. “But I have also known you long enough to know there’s no dissuading you.” It’s as close to permission as he’s ever going to give.

“I don’t want you to do this,” Wylie admits. “I don’t want to lose you guys.”

“You won’t,” Prentice promises. “I won’t even enter her mind. I’ll just be here to guide Tiergan.”

“Your dad will pull me back if anything happens,” Tiergan agrees. It’s not a reassuring lie- he knows that Prentice will save him if he needs saving.

It takes a long moment, but Wylie finally nods. “I love you. Dad.”

“We love you too,” Prentice murmurs, opening his arms for a hug. We.

Tiergan tries not to overthink that too much as he, too, hugs Wylie, and then gets hugged in turn by every member of the Collective, Livvy, and even Edaline.

Forkle is the last to hug him, and when he touches their foreheads together, Tiergan receives a quiet transmission.

I’m sorry I made it sound as if I doubted your capabilities. I don’t. I simply worry that you take on more than you can handle.

I know, and I’m sorry I called you a coward. You aren’t, it just…frustrates me that we can do so little sometimes.

I know. Be careful.

I will.

He steps away, settling onto the bed. Prentice takes his hand- an unnecessary gesture, but it does make him feel better.

Bronte sits on the other side of the bed, grim determination written into every line of his face. “The plan is, Tiergan enters Sophie’s mind, and Prentice connects his and my mind, is that correct?”

They both nod.

“And you will tell me when to inflict?”

Tiergan nods again.

“Lovely. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

This time, it’s Prentice who nods. He reaches a hand out to Bronte’s forehead, closing his eyes as he does. Tiergan watches him, the concentration in his furrowed brow, the determination on his handsome face.

He hardly feels it when Prentice slips into his mind. Prentice is no probe, but Tiergan’s mind trusts him so absolutely that there’s hardly a barrier for him to cross anymore.

Can you both hear me? Prentice asks.

Yes, Bronte’s mental voice says, and it’s cold like steel and autumn wind.

Yes, Tiergan confirms.

Tiergan, I’m going to tether you like I did before, so I have something to hold onto if I need to pull you back.

Okay. Tell me when I can go.

A beat, and then that should be good. He can feel a bit of Prentice’s mind wrapped around him, strong like braided rope but not heavy.  

I’m going into Sophie’s mind.

He braces himself this time, but it still hurts. It always hurts. All those years of sneaking into Exile to read Prentice’s mind have taught him that. He can already feel himself being torn apart on the jagged edges of Sophie’s mind, that insidious cold stealing in and sapping his strength.

Maybe he should have waited until he was less exhausted to do this.

Oh well. He knows that if he asked, Prentice would be more than happy to pull him back. None of the others would judge him for wanting a day or two to rest. In fact, they would probably be glad for it. But this moment is so tenuous, so fragile, that he’s half-afraid that if he doesn’t take this chance, there will never be another. He has to do this now.

He forges onward.

Bronte, I need you to inflict just a little bit.

There’s a rush of warmth around him, and the storm of memories relents slightly. When the warmth fades, it leaves behind a trail leading further into Sophie’s mind.

He follows it deeper into the storm, though he knows his mind is starting to bleed strength. He has to get there. He has to.

He makes his way through the shards, through the storm, through the cold, occasionally transmitting a request for more inflicting if he loses the trail. All through it, Prentice’s strength holds him tightly, though the connection thins and grows more tenuous the deeper he goes. He has a feeling that he’s being pushed around by the currents of Sophie’s mind, guided one way or another. Whether there’s any real intent behind it is another question entirely. Prentice talks about having some level of awareness while his mind was shattered, but for all Tiergan knows it’s different for minds broken by guilt vs. by other elves.

He doesn’t know how long he walks for, strength bleeding away into the cold, pieces of memory tearing at him, the faint trail of warmth all he can focus on. His thread of connection to Prentice stretches thinner and thinner, and he’s afraid that it will break. Yet he presses on, and on, and-

He can hardly feel Prentice anymore.

It’s then, as he’s most afraid, that he stumbles over some sort of invisible threshold into a small, warm corner, sheltered from the gale. The nook! Tiergan has never actually been this far into a broken mind- he knew it was a fool’s errand to search in Prentice’s without an inflictor, and he’s not sure he could have managed it alone even if he had tried.

Sophie, he calls softly. Sophie, it’s me. I’m going to help you fix this, okay?

It’s a futile message, with no one to hear it, but he says it anyways.

Let’s collect some nice memories, alright?

He starts to pull and gather little scraps of happiness and love and pride around him, a tiny nest of good things. Though he’s too far swallowed in Sophie’s mind to hear Prentice or Bronte anymore, Bronte must be inflicting, because warmth swells around him and with it a swirl of memories. He pulls those in as well, tucking them safely into this sheltered little corner.

There we are. Come back, Sophie. It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault. You did so well.

Another swirl of memories in response to his mental voice. He catches glimpses of several involving him and tucks those close to his heart.

You’re going to be alright. I promise, we’re going to make it alright.

His strength is slipping and fading, but he refuses to stop now. Not when he’s so close.

Tiergan was not made to be gentle or kind. The world has forged him into someone who is brave, who is stubborn, who is resilient before he is loved. But he is gentle now, as much as he remembers how to be, gathering up Sophie’s memories and tucking them around her like a blanket over a child, transmitting reassurances and praise and pleas to return. He is stubborn, and he is gentle in his stubbornness. He refuses to let Sophie’s story end like this, another empty bedroom in a too-quiet house, a teenager with vacant eyes that will never again hold light.

Something kindles at the center of his little nest, a single spark, and he feeds that with memories and warmth and reassurances. It grows, slowly at first and then quickly, and then turns to a tidal wave of warmth, sweeping him up and cradling him oh-so-softly. The wave bears him up, up, up, memories knitting together around him, a mind collecting itself again after being torn to pieces, and he’s swept away into the dark.

-

Tiergan, a voice calls, soft. Tiergan, come back to me.

He drifts, exhaustion dragging at his limbs and mind.

Tiergan, the voice calls again. You need to come back, Tiergan.

Another voice joins it, younger, more frantic. Tiergan! Tiergan, wake up!

The fear behind it jolts him into action, and Tiergan blinks his eyes open. What he intends to say is “Did it work?” but it comes out as more of an incoherent mumble.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Prentice says, and he’s smiling, but his eyes are lined with worry. Tiergan realizes that for the second time today, he’s laying across Prentice’s lap. It’s not a bad place to be, but-

“Did it work?”

“Tiergan!” Sophie cries, and he gets his answer. He sits up slowly, head spinning, and is immediately crashed into by a sixteen-year-old ball of blond hair and worry.

“It worked,” Bronte says dryly as Tiergan wraps his arms around Sophie and tries not to pass out. “You did faint immediately afterward though.”

Tiergan just glares at him, too exhausted to muster a snappy reply.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie whispers. Her face is buried in his shoulder, his ribs practically crushed in her embrace.

He could cry from relief. He’s been hurting so long and in so many different ways; having Sophie back is like having the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders, if only for a moment.

“It’s alright,” he whispers back. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

“You risked your sanity to do that for me.”

“And it was worth it. It was worth it a thousand times over.” Tiergan can still feel the ache of his mind, temples pulsing with a headache, but he would bear worse for Sophie. For any of the children, actually.

Sophie doesn’t answer, just clutches him tighter.

“You should go hug your parents,” he nudges gently.

“Thank you,” Sophie whispers, and then she’s gone across the room into Edaline’s arms.

Tiergan takes the moment to turn to Bronte, who looks a little lost. “Thank you.”

He waves a hand in dismissal. “You did the hard part.”

“And you did something you didn’t know you could do.”

“You were right. I owed it to Sophie to try. Besides, I’ve discovered something new about my ability and gotten my prodigy back. I would say both of those things are more than worth the effort.”

“Still. Thank you.” There’s so much more that Tiergan should say there, apologies that he owes for the bitter words he spat, but he’s so tired. He can’t seem to put his thoughts into words.

“I was cruel to you, and you still helped,” he manages finally.

Bronte blinks. “You say that as if you and I have ever been kind to each other.” Tiergan doesn’t answer, and he goes on. “You said cruel things to me, yes, but nothing I haven’t heard before, and certainly not the worst anyone has ever said. I think that’s something you can forgive yourself for.”

“That seems like a low bar.”

“It is.”

“Then- I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. You care for Sophie, and I care for Sophie. That was all that we needed for this.” He glances at Prentice, and there’s something old and tired and very nearly guilty in his eyes. “Thank you as well, Mr. Endal. It cannot have been easy to work with me, but I respect that you were willing to.” Before Prentice can answer or Tiergan can tell him to fuck off, he gets up and walks over to where Sophie has just finished a tearful reunion with her parents.

Wylie chooses that moment to come sit by Tiergan, expression unreadable.

“Hi,” Tiergan offers.

“I’m furious with you,” Wylie informs him.

“…Fair.”

“I’m going to yell at you once you look like you aren’t going to fall to pieces.”

Tiergan winces a little. “I’m sorry, Wylie.”

“You promised you would be safe.”

“I know.”

“You lied.”

“I know.”

Wylie sighs, sounding impossibly old and exhausted for a kid of only twenty. “Can I have a hug?”

“Always.”

Wylie is taller than him now, but he still folds himself into Tiergan’s arms like so many times before. Tiergan feels Prentice wrap his arms around the both of them from behind, head leaning on Tiergan’s back.

We’re also going to talk about your tendency to throw yourself into danger at some point, his voice murmurs in Tiergan’s head.

To be fair, you supported me doing that this time.

I helped you because I knew you were going to do it with or without me.

I was, Tiergan admits. I wouldn’t have succeeded without you, though.

I know, Prentice teases. You need me.

I do.

Well, I’m here, and I’m never leaving you again.

Never?

Never. What kind of Cognate would that make me?

Tiergan’s breath catches. Do you think we still have a chance at that?

I don’t know. It seems like we do, though. His voice is suddenly hesitant. I know you had your reasons for saying no before, but I will always want to be your Cognate if you ever want to pursue that kind of bond. At the same time, I never want to pressure you into something you don’t want.

Tiergan is brave before he is loved, stubborn before he is gentle. But he can be gentle in his stubbornness, and maybe he can also be loved. Maybe, just maybe, he can set down his courage for a while and let himself be held.

I always wished that I hadn’t turned you down, he admits. I wasn’t ready. I’m…still not sure if I am. But I’d like to try.

Cognate Inquisition on Monday, then?

I hope it’s not so dire as that!

Prentice laughs aloud at that, drawing them some strange glances. “No, not at all. Not at all.”

“It’s rude to have all of your conversations telepathically, you know,” Wylie tells him.

“Sorry,” Prentice smiles.

“Your dads have always been like this,” Livvy laughs. “Dramatic idiots.” She says it with such raw fondness that Tiergan can’t even be mad about being called an idiot.

“I’m going to need some embarrassing stories about them when they were my age to make up for this.”

“And I’ll be happy to provide that!”

Prentice glances at Tiergan, eyes crinkling at the corners in that way Tiergan has always loved. “We’re in trouble, I see.”

“Oh, definitely. We’ll never know peace again.”

“I think I can live with that.”

“If it means we’re all together and alright, I can definitely live with that,” Tiergan agrees.

Prentice draws back slightly, only to lean forward again to rest their foreheads together. The gesture makes his heart skip and his breath catch in a way he’s sure Prentice can hear, but Prentice doesn’t pull away. Are you alright?

I will be, Tiergan promises. Every part of him feels raw, scraped thin, but he’ll heal. He has Sophie and Prentice and Wylie. He doesn’t have to be quite so brave anymore. Are you alright?

Nearly losing you scared me. But I’ll be alright too. We’re going to be okay.

We are. Wylie is still angry at him, he knows, and he owes him more than a few apologies for the events of today. He needs to talk things over with Leto, make sure he hasn’t damaged their friendship too far with his sharp words, and he still owes Bronte another apology. There’s also the matter of what caused Sophie to shatter in the first place and what they can do to help her, not to mention the Neverseen to fight and a world to change. But all of that can come later, and he knows he won’t be facing it alone.

For now, he leans his head on Prentice’s shoulder and listens to Livvy tell Wylie all about the incident involving Councillor Noland, several highly poisonous scorpions, and a sack of selkie dung, and in the background he can hear Sophie hailing her friends and Bronte and Leto commiserating about ‘kids these days’, and he knows he’s going to be okay. They're all going to be okay.

[booasaur]

The Wilds - 1x04 || 1x08 - requested by @theno1fangirl​

[gay-otlc]

Empty Space

Oh? What's that? You were having a good day? Not anymore. Have some post-Flashback solreef family angst :D

Content warning for kidnapping, grief, cursing, can't really think of anything else?

Word count: 1497

Read on AO3 (if the link doesn't work this time I will commit a felony)

Linh is crying, and Wylie is aware that he should comfort her, but he doesn’t. Just sits there, perfectly still. Too stunned to move. Something’s not registering in his head, the words Tam and kidnapped are too incompatible. They absolutely can’t go in the same sentence, but they were definitely together when Sophie calmed down enough to explain what happened. And he knows that his life has been batshit, especially since Sophie came into it, but this… this is too much. Marella walks over and puts an arm around Linh, and Linh sinks into her girlfriend’s embrace like she'll die if she lets go. She whispers meaningless comforting words, well aware of how little they help.

Wylie's aware he should join in on the hug. He's too busy being numb to play the role of a caring older brother.

Maybe if he was better that this “brother” thing, he could have protected Tam.

In the distance, the Vackers are yelling at one another about Alvar. He can’t bring himself to care. The other three continue their argument as Biana storms over to Wylie, tears on aer cheeks, and sinks down next to him.

“This sucks,” ae mutters, picking up a twig from the ground and breaking it in half. Ae throws the pieces as far as they can go. Is ae angry? Ae doesn't even know right now. Ae just wants it to stop.

”This sucks,” Wylie agrees, and his voice sounds hollow. It’s the first time he’s spoken since he got the news.

Biana pulls out a fistful of grass. As ae shreds it, ae says “I’m sorry about Tam.” That's something ae hasn't even gotten around to grieving yet. After Alvar? It's just too much, so ae shoves it far away to deal with later. Ae'll miss Tam, though, the quiet boy who cared so much even if he isn't always the best at showing it. Even so, ae could tell he loved Wylie, and Wylie loved him, and- ae's sorry, that's all ae can say.

Wylie's surprised to hear himself say ”I’m sorry about Alvar.” It feels strange, offering condolences to a Vacker. Yesterday, he might have laughed at the thought. But right now? Ae isn't Alden Vacker's daughter, and he isn't Prentice Endal's son. Ae's just someone grieving aer brother and he's someone grieving his.

They sit there for... neither of them really knows how long, it could be two minutes or two hours, when Marella walks over, half carrying Linh. "Is it okay if she comes over to my house?" Linh won't leave her, won't risk losing another person.

Is it okay, what a stupid question. Nothing's okay. But Wylie nods.

"Bi, want to come?" Marella asks.

It's better than going back to Everglen, joining the rest of aer probably-still-fighting family, so ae nods and lets Marella pull aer to aer feet. Wylie watches them leap away before the thought crosses his mind that his dads must be worried and he can't just sit on the grass forever.

When he walks back into Solreef, Tiergan’s face lights up. Xe'd been trying to keep xyr mind off of the fact that xyr kids might be in danger, and utterly failing. Relief washes over him. "You're okay," xe says, and Wylie realizes that xe doesn't know. Of course he doesn’t, but until now, it hadn’t quite hit Wylie that he would have to tell his dads what happened to Tam. Tell them that he's not okay, that Tam is gone and of course it's not okay. But he's silent as Tiergan shakes Prentice, asleep on xem. “Wake up.” Not wanting to wake up, he holds up a middle finger. Tiergan chuckles. “Wylie’s back, wake up and say hello to your son.”

Prentice actually opens his eyes at that. He smiles and rushes over to hug Wylie. Somehow, the gesture makes him tear up, so he pulls back. “Linh went over to Marella’s house.”

His dads nod, glad for the explanation. “Tam’s with her?” Tiergan asks to confirm. Wylie looks down as he shakes his head, unable to make eye contact.

”Where is Tam?” Prentice asks. Judging by the look on Wylie's face, it can't be good. He reaches out to squeeze Tiergan's hand.

He opens his mouth, but instead of an explanation, a sob slips out. Then another. Then he’s finally crying and Prentice is wrapping him in a hug and Tiergan joins and his dads are here for him but it doesn’t matter because Tam’s not here and his family is still broken. He should probably explain, he knows, but he doesn’t say any of that. Tiergan shoots a panicked glance over Wylie’s head. Prentice, equally unsure as to what the hell is going on, transmits What? Xe only shrugs. Worst case scenarios swirl through his head, panic pulsing through his veins. "Wylie? What happened?" Prentice asks, voice unsteady.

Wylie steps back and takes a deep, shaky breath. Whatever Tiergan was expecting, it was not for him to say "Tam's with the Neverseen. He didn't- didn't have a choice."

Before the words even finish registering, xe laughs. Which is not the reaction he should have, he knows; who hears that their son got kidnapped and reacts by laughing? There's no humor in it, only bitterness, as xe drags xyr hand down xyr face. "Fuck!" He shakes his head as if that can expel the idea of Tam, gone. "This can't- this can’t be happening. Fuck." Weight settles on xyr shoulder, and xe's vaguely aware that it's Prentice's hand, but cannot bring himself to care.

He wraps xem into a hug and tries to say something, anything, but whatever bullshit condolences he was about to give die in his throat. Instead, he echoes Tiergan's sentiment. "Fuck."

"I can't keep doing this," he chokes out, voice muffled into the fabric of his shirt. "I cannot keep losing people!"

"I know, we've- haven't we been through enough already?" Fuck, just when Prentice thought he was about to catch a break. After having your sanity shattered, missing out on over half your son's life, learning said son had a band of murderers after him, who had already murdered your wife... one would think the universe would finally let you be happy with the family you'd cobbled together, but no. What they had, they were a fucking family, and now they had lost a part of it.

When Linh stumbles into Solreef, she half expects Tam to be curled up reading in his usual armchair. Which is stupid, and she knows it's stupid, but that doesn't stop her from hoping for it. Or from flinching when she realizes he's not there. Instead, Wylie is sitting there, knees curled to his chest, and Prentice is perched on the arm of the chair, an arm around his son. Tiergan is glaring at Forkle through his imparter and muttering, but Linh can't bring herself to care what exactly xe's saying. She walks over to Wylie instead, sitting on his other side.

Prentice blinks, only just processing that she's here. "Thank goodness you're safe," he says, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. She nods. It's nice to know he cares, but she's not quite as glad that she's safe. Even though it would also mean being with a group of murderers, she wishes she could be with her brother.

Tiergan is dangerously close to throwing his imparter across the room. "What is the point of being in charge if you're always gonna elect to never fucking do anything!? My son is with the Neverseen and your solution is to 'sit tight and assess the situation.' Any other fantastic advice? Gonna pull an Alden and tell me there's no reason to worry?" Before he can respond to that, xe hangs up.

"I imagine Forkle's being as helpful as ever?" Wylie mumbles, knowing the answer before Tiergan nods.

"Somehow even worse." He rubs xyr eyes. "Linh, I... it's good to have you back."

Unlike Tam. No one says it, but they're all thinking the words.

Eventually, Prentice insists they try to get some sleep, even though he knows full well it will not work for anyone. Linh's bedroom feels so damn empty without Tam. Their whole life, they've never not shared a room. When they moved into Solreef, Tiergan offered to give them separate rooms, but they both declined. And now he's... she doesn't even know where he is, could be on the other side of the fucking world, and Linh is here, and they've never felt further apart. Without Tam snoring, this room is too quiet, and all Linh can hear is her roaring thoughts, worrying what could have happened to him in the mere hours he's been gone, and would could happen the longer it takes to rescue him.

The house that was finally starting to feel like a home, people who were finally starting to feel like a family, now has a gaping hole in it. The empty space is suffocating.

[cudan2]

One Last Surgery

Spring Break Shadowing Part 5.1

Carlisle Cullen x Reader

Word Count: 2,043

Summary: You finally find out the reason for going to the children’s hospital, but you’re more distracted than usual today and Dr. Cullen can tell. 

A/N: Tell me why part 5 of SBS takes up over half of the whole series? I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for 5 months because I keep adding more to it smh. Now it’s too long so I’ve decided to split it up into 3 parts (in addition to parts 6 and 7). I’m making the final edits the rest of this part now - 5.2 should be posted in like two days.

Anyways, this is technically the beginning of  #1 and #2 on my headcanon list.

Masterlist

XXX

Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital is only across the street from Doctor Cullen’s office, but it seems to take forever to get there. You trail the doctor like a lost puppy through a skyway and a series of corridors before eventually reaching the right building. Different is definitely an understatement.

Gone are the linoleum-tiled floors, the abstract paintings lining the hallways, and the stark white walls. Instead, there are bright colors everywhere you look. Artwork featuring various galaxies and planets scatter throughout the hospital, and giant stars are imprinted along the floors; even the whole atmosphere just feels different.

You don’t get much time to analyze the differences though. Doctor Cullen is wasting no time to reach the destination, and his long legs aren’t making it any easier to keep up.

“Not that I don’t like surprises, but any chance you can tell me what we’re doing in the children’s hospital now?”

“Impatient, are we?” Doctor Cullen chuckles. He stops at an elevator and pushes the up button, only giving into your question once he catches a glimpse of your pout. “Alright, you win. Are you familiar with a cleft palate or cleft lip?”

The elevator dings, the doors sliding open with it. You shake your head no and get on the elevator with him. He presses the button for the floor and then leans against the wall, arms outstretched on the handrail, and gives you an explanation. 

“A cleft is a gap or split occurring in the roof of the mouth, upper lip, or both. It is due to improper joining of the tissue during fetal development. There are no definitive known causes as of right now, but it’s believed that the environment and genetics can play a role.

The hospital has its own craniofacial team, but I was asked to join this particular case given its more complicated nature. Hanna became one of the first patients I treated when I came to Columbia,” Doctor Cullen finishes fondly, a smile gracing his lips.

“What makes this case complicated?” you ask.

“Hanna was born with a bilateral complete cleft lip and palate, meaning her lip cleft is two-sided and continues into her nose. It took quite a few surgeries to repair the lip, but now the next step is to repair the palate.”

The elevator reaches the floor and dings. You follow Doctor Cullen out and continue prodding him with more questions, which he is more than eager to answer. It’s incredible how knowledgeable he is. Granted, it is his job to know these things, but you couldn’t begin to imagine yourself being able to even scratch the surface of these topics, not to mention give a mini lecture on it.

You’re soon standing at the door to a patient room while the doctor asks Hanna’s parents if you can observe. They readily agree, and Doctor Cullen motions for you to come in.

Inside the room, you see an infant that can’t be more than a year old – Hanna.  She’s sitting upright on the bed, leaning against who you assume to be her father. You notice two fading scars going up into her nose above her lip. Her mother is waving a stuffed toy around her, but Hanna’s attention is fixated on the blonde doctor.

“Y/N, allow me to introduce you to Hanna’s parents, Anthony and Linh Pham. And this is Doctor Giselle Adamou, who will be working with me on the surgery,” Doctor Cullen gestures to the older doctor in the room.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” you say politely.

Pre-op goes differently than what you’ve gotten used to observing this week. There is no case presenting given the lack of residents on the case. If anything, this is what you would expect out of a non-teaching hospital.

Doctor Cullen re-explains the procedures to Hanna’s parents, but halfway through, Hanna crawls to the end of the bed where Doctor Cullen is and attempts to stand, arms outstretched as if to say, “Up! Up!” Bewilderment is not a word you would have associated with him, and yet you catch the brief widening of his eyes that betray his usually calm demeanor.

“I think she wants you to hold her,” Linh comments.

“I can see,” Doctor Cullen muses. “Do you mind?”

“She’s all yours.” Linh picks her daughter up from the bed and hands her to the doctor. The sound of Hanna’s elated laughter fills the room, and you can’t stop a small smile from appearing on your own face. A cute baby and a gorgeous doctor? You don’t know who to thank for the sight.

Meanwhile, Hanna starts playing with various pens in Doctor Cullen’s breast pocket while Doctor Adamou continues where her colleague left off. You try to pay attention, you really do. Like Hanna though, your attention lies on someone else, and that someone else happens to be Doctor Cullen.

The more you study him, the more the minute features you never noticed about him before seem to pop out to you. Under the bright fluorescent lighting of the hospital, the dark purple circles under his eyes are more apparent than ever. How ironic for the preacher of health to lack sleep himself. His eyes, which you normally consider to be a vivid golden, are darker than you initially thought them to be. They are liquid pools of dark amber, speckled with dustings of gold and flecks of black. There isn’t a single blemish on his face that you can see either, further confirming your belief that this man is truly the most attractive person you have ever met. Either that or he must have one hell of a skincare routine.

It’s unnerving how young his appearance is. Skincare and diet can only do so much for a person, right? Doctor Cullen has to be at least 35 at the minimum, yet he could easily pass off as someone from your own school.

“Any last minute questions?” you hear Doctor Adamou ask and snap back into reality. By missing nearly everything the older doctor talked about, you already know you’ll be so screwed if and when Doctor Cullen decides to interrogate you on this case.

Neither parent has anything left to say, so Doctor Cullen gives a reluctant Hanna back to her mother. She lets out a cry and his expression softens.

“I know, sweetheart. I’ll miss you too, but I need to get ready for your big surgery, okay? I promise you’ll see me again in a few hours.” His soothing voice does wonders for her. In an instant, Hanna quiets down and her frown is replaced with giggles and smiles again. She waves the two of you off, and you both take your leave with Doctor Adamou trailing behind you. You’re not even halfway out the door yet when Doctor Cullen starts testing your knowledge again.

“Y/N, what procedure will we be doing to repair Hanna’s cleft?” 

You do not have this one in the bag whatsoever. You wrack your brain for information that could help you, but Doctor Adamou interjects before you get a chance to say anything.

“Why does it not surprise me that you’re treating students like interns already, Carlisle?”

“I am merely advancing the education of next generation’s doctors,” he responds.

“Whatever you say,” she laughs. “Don’t scare off Y/N though, or we won’t have any doctors left in the next generation.” She turns to you after picking up files from a nearby counter and says, “You come running to me if he pushes you too hard, alright?”

You grin. “For sure.”

“Good. I look forward to seeing you both in the OR,” she says before heading off.

You like Doctor Adamou. Each surgeon you’ve met here so far has had such different personalities, yet each also has the charisma and confidence to take control of a room and command respect. You, on the other hand, could barely get your own friends to listen to your own words. How are you ever going to get on the level of all the amazing doctors around you?

“She saved you there,” Doctor Cullen comments, leafing through Hanna’s charts as he walks you into an empty elevator to the operating floor. Oops, it’s just your luck that he noticed your lack of attention during the pre-op. “It’s unlike you to be distracted. Penny for your thoughts?”

The elevator doors shut, and he looks up from the chart, his eyes falling onto yours. He has that twinkle in his eyes again – the one that brings warmth to your cheeks and could make anyone weak in their knees. You know it’s silly, but a single look from him could make you spill any of your deepest and darkest secrets, yet a part of you also knows that he would keep it. You’re not naïve – you know it’s dangerous to put so much faith into a man you only met this week – but there’s something about him that told your instincts to trust him from the very beginning.

Call it intuition, or maybe it’s just plain stupidity, but you sure as hell aren’t going to tell him about how you got distracted because of his pretty face.

You hesitate for a moment and let out a sigh. “How do you do it?” He quirks a brow, momentarily perplexed, and you attempt to find the right words. “How do you make all of this look so easy? How do you know what the right thing to say is? Or trust that what you’re doing is even right? How did you know if this was all meant for you? This is really dumb, but it seems like everyone here was born for this job, and then there’s... me.”

There’s a slight sense of dread starting to form in your stomach. You’re unsure if what you asked even made any sort of sense and wonder if you gave too much away. Giving any reason to second guess your abilities is like digging your own grave when it comes to this career. Expressing uncertainty is one of the biggest taboos of the cutthroat world that is pre-med because schools would not accept students that aren’t absolutely, totally, and completely sure about this path.

You’ve wanted this for so long, yet there’s still a part of you that doubts if you would be enough.

Rather than going straight to gowning and scrubbing in for the surgery, Doctor Cullen grabs your hand and leads you down to an abandoned hallway, only letting go once the two of you are hidden in an alcove away from any prying ears or eyes.

“What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for surgery?”

“We have a few minutes to spare. Y/N, please know that I understand how you feel,” he says softly. “There was a time when I questioned my own abilities as well… whether my perseverance could overcome adversity. It took quite some time to reach where I am today.  However, without enduring those trials and tribulations, I would not be here. With time comes experience, and it is that experience that allows me to perform my job the best I can.”

His voice reminds you of a gentle breeze, rustling the leaves of a tree on a cool summer night when he continues speaking in hushed tones. It brings a blanket of reassurance, a sense that things would eventually be alright.

“I have said this before, but I see enormous potential in you. You still have a great deal of time to grow and develop your skills. It’s easy to get caught up in comparing yourself with others, especially given today’s societal standards, but I believe you are much more capable than you may think you are. Everyone’s journey is different and yours may not necessarily be as linear as you would prefer. In due time though, I have faith that you will succeed.”

What he says is exactly what you needed to hear.

The swell of tears pricks at your eyes and start blurring your vision, but you blink them away quickly, fighting the urge to wrap your arms around the doctor. 

“Thank you, Doctor Cullen.” Your voice is barely above a whisper.

“You’re very welcome. Now, I believe there’s a little girl waiting on us.” 

XXX

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@jelly-fishy-babie @notahappytree @anxiousgoldengirl

[appleciders]

Rachel + Leah + Water, the Director’s Cut!

Okay, so I made this gifset exploring Rachel and Leah and the ocean, but because there’s a ten gif limit and a major point of gifsets is for them to look nice, I had to sacrifice a lot of the behind the scenes thoughts and initial versions that came along the way. I still wanted to talk about them though, because I found a lot of them really cool, so I figured I’d stick all that in this post. It’s gonna get long, so you can find the rest under the cut!

So first up, we have Leah as we first see her in the water. (I’m using shitty screenshots because tumblr has a 2mb limit for gifs on text posts and I don’t feel like compressing these down lmao.) Here, she’s face-down, unconscious, floating on a fragment of the plane. This is the first time we see any of the girls in the water.

As Leah gives her dramatic speech talks to the detectives, we see flashbacks to the girl’s lives pre-island. There we see that one of them already has a very strong relationship with the water already, in her before-life: Rachel.

Rachel, as we know, is a diver. We see her take a magnificent tumble into the pool, but when she surfaces, her coach is sternly head-shaking. She corrects Rachel’s form, and after she walks away, Rachel echoes the correction, clearly frustrated with herself. 

Back to Leah. We next see Leah waking up on her lil chunk of flotsam. When she realizes what the hell’s going on, she does what we all would do and starts screaming in terror.

Her panic gets interrupted by Jeannette’s classic Raise Your Glass ringtone. (This was my alarm for two years in high school, and when I watched this for the first time I did have an out-of-body experience). She swims her way over to the Hello Kitty suitcase and—irrationally—unzips it, but we’ll cut her some slack because she’s in some serious shock. As she tries to get the phone, it slips through her fingers and starts spiraling down to the bottom of the ocean. She dives after it.

Unfortunately, she quickly runs out of air and has to give up. She then spots Jeannette floating nearby, checks her out, judges her to be “just a little roughed up,” and then sees land and has a big oh-thank-fuck moment. Because we saw Gretchen’s team placing all of the girls, we know that Linh and Leah were the only two that were put out in the open water. The other girls were put in the beach, or, in Martha’s case, near the shore. This was probably done to quell some of Leah’s suspicions about the crash, but it does give me a couple questions about how they got the other girls wet—did they hose them all down? Pour a couple buckets over their heads? Bob each of them up and down a couple times in a big net like fries in a fryer?? 

Anyway, not important. 

Next that we see, Leah has pulled Jeannette/Linh in from the water. (My Australian parents, who can never pass up an opportunity to give ocean safety tips, chimed in at this point in our first watch to say “See how she’s doing it! You always want to hold someone from behind and pull them in that way. Good job, well done.” So there’s some approval for you, Leah.) As Leah nears the shore, Dot and Toni come tearing in and they help pull the two of them out. 

The rest of the episode after that really only concerns fresh water—Toni and Shelby set out in search of it, to no avail, and Nora helpfully plugs Diet Coke reminds us multiple times that sugar’s heavier than water, so “sugar sinks.” We do set up a goal for the next couple episodes, though: Rachel says, “I'm gonna swim out to the plane tomorrow. See if I can find anything,” and Leah volunteers to come with. Rachel gives her a nod of respect.

Moving on to episode two, we have Rachel and Leah’s (iconic) first real conversation. Rachel says she’s still going out to the wreckage. Leah looks out and looks back at her, incredulous, and says, “Rachel, the water’s insane.” Here’s a big recurring association—the water and “insanity.” (I use insanity here because that’s the language they use, along with psycho/crazy. In no way does that reflect my actual beliefs about their behavior nor am I condoning the way they use those words.) Leah points out the rip current (“well done,” said my mum), and explains her very brief stint as a norcal surfer. Rachel still looks set on going, but then Leah says:

Turns out, Leah can be as ripe with foreshadowing as Fatin. This marks the appearance of their second main association with the ocean—death. After she says this, Leah turns Rachel’s attention inland, and the two agree to climb a big hill to scope out their situation.

Episode two is also obviously Rachel’s episode, so we see a lot of her relationship with diving. 

We see her plunge over and over and over again, drilling technique and form, but despite all her hard work, we learn her coach advised her to quit the team. Instead, Rachel throws herself in twice as hard, and ends up with an eating disorder. By the time the nationals come around, she’s too physically weak to dive safely, and she ends up hitting her head as she goes down. She surfaces in the pool with blood flowing around her.

She refuses to see that as the end of her diving career. She says she’s gonna “get back out there” and “be fucking great again” and she tells Nora at the end of the episode that she needs her to let her believe that.

In episode three, we finally see Leah and Rachel’s trip out to the plane! Nora comes along with them, her relationship with Rachel smoothed over after the events of ep two. “Nora’s a good swimmer,” Rachel explains as she invites her, “We were both water babies.” Water’s clearly been central to Nora and Rachel’s identities since they were really young. 

The three of them make their escape from the rest of the girls as the topic of building a shelter comes up. “Not interested in putting down roots!” Rachel calls. In keeping with the elements theme, Rachel isn’t looking to be grounded. She climbs super high into the air and she dives deep into the water, but earth isn’t her thing. (See: the quicksand scene. Whoops.)

Anyway, the three of them paddle out into the water. Rachel dives down, scopes out the plane, tells Nora she doesn’t expect her to “fucking free dive in open water,” and then looks to Leah and asks if she’s ready. Leah reluctantly agrees. 

We get our first shot Rachel swimming down into the ocean and our second shot of Leah (first the phone, second the plane). In the wreckage of the plane, they discover the black box, affixed to the wall. They keep trying to wrench it free, but it’s stuck, and Leah—who’s primary activity is, like, reading—keeps having to surface for air. Rachel gets frustrated and grabs her leg, holding her down. 

Leah screams and fights, but Rachel doesn’t let go. We cut away, and when we see them again, they’ve emerged victorious (Rachel) and drowned as dogs after a bath (Leah and Nora) with the black box in hand. Later, Leah mutters the above line to Fatin, calling Rachel a “psychopath.” For those keeping score at home, here’s where we refer back to the association between water and “insanity.”

In episode four, the ocean benevolently bestows a bag of takis upon Nora, and we have our whole shelter-building shebang. It’s all very land-based until Leah and Fatin go head to head, which ends with Fatin smearing her blood all over Leah’s face. Leah, with her usual flair, strips off her clothes as she walks into the ocean. She stays down there, passively letting the water wash the blood from her face.

This shot parallels a couple things. First, the drifting blood visually parallels Rachel in the pool after her diving injury. Second, we have Rachel staring out at the water where Leah’s disappeared and going, “Man, that is some real Virginia Woolf-type shit.” Dot has no fucking clue what she means, so Fatin interprets: “It means that bitch is crazy. She said you were the psychopath of the group.” Now it’s Leah who’s done something in the water that’s been deemed insane. The water and “insanity;” the water and accusations of insanity within their relationship. 

Those accusations pop up in episode five, but the episode is pretty focused on the inland search for Fatin, and revolves around fresh water, not salt water. (That could be a whole nother post lol.) It’s in episode six where we again see these two return to the ocean. 

Rachel is diving in the ocean! For fun! She’s picking up pretty shells (which granted isn’t the safest thing to do in the pacific, cone snails are not our friends), and she’s grinning, and she’s generally enjoying herself. With the, uh, finale situation, we’re probably not gonna get to see her smile for a bit, which is sad, because she should get to do this more often! This shot visually echoes her diving for the plane and Leah diving for the phone, except she can be in a better mood because there is no end goal. 

So she goes diving, ends up finding a bunch of mussels, gathers ‘em up, and brings ‘em back to camp. They all chow down, but wind up with serious food poisoning. Martha and Toni ring death’s doorbell a couple of times. Rachel blames herself—she’s the one that went swimming out there, she brought the mussels back. Again, we see that connection between the ocean and death.

And that association comes back bright an early in ep seven! The tide surges higher than they’ve ever seen, taking down their shelter and leaving them all scrambling. 

While Leah convinces Fatin that her life is more important than her suitcase, Rachel is left with a decision: help Nora, screaming to her from where she’s clinging to a rock for dear life, or grab the black box. In a move that contrasts Toni’s immediate and unquestioning aid of Martha, Rachel picks the black box. 

After, when they’re debriefing, Nora’s quick to bring it up. She doesn’t hide her hurt. “It happened so fast,” she says, “we all acted irrationally. Like Fatin, who jumped into a rip current to save her toothbrush. Or Rachel, who left me for fucking dead.” I think this counts as a double whammy for the “insanity” and death count—I think “acted irrationally” is as close as Nora gets to calling anyone crazy, and is honestly a better descriptor of all the other instances of “insanity” that we’ve seen, and the ocean was the source of the very real risk to Nora’s life. 

(Honestly, I think Rachel thought she was making a rational choice here—just with some grim fucking calculus. Still, given that nobody’d responded to the black box by then, I think it was a decision fueled by the need to keep hold of hope more than actual rationality.) In a fun contrast to the rest of the episode, it’s Leah that keeps a level head in this situation. 

The rest of the episode is low on water scenes, though Leah’s paranoia about Shelby is fueled by her sneaking off to the water, which could fall under the “insanity” category. It also marks where Nora begins to take an active role in breaking apart Rachel’s fantasy about diving again. 

Ep eight has one of the best montages in a series of great montages, with the playing in the water scene! A plane has seen them, they’re gonna be saved, and they all get to get high and act like kids. 

I have this lingering and probably irrational concern that the entire water play scene is choreographed and that it’s chock-full of foreshadowing. Like I know to some extent they likely were just like “yeah guys go goof off in the water,” but like...the wave pulling Rachel and Nora apart here...I mean.... (Rachel is probably gonna get more blood on Dot in the near future, too. ) That aside, their horseplay gets interrupted when Leah notices some blood on Dot, which Rachel realizes is her own period blood.  

Fatin then chimes in with her ever-gleeful foreshadowing: “Shark week for Rachel.” So while this whole encounter with the water actually seems mostly good for a change, it’s colored by the tie-in to what we know is coming.

In ep nine, reality has set in that rescue isn’t imminent. Everyone’s starving, Leah has started to spiral, and Rachel’s unusually skittish. By the tide’s edge, Nora asks for her help fishing, but Rachel refuses, saying that she’s weak. Nora flicks water at her, and Rachel flinches, clearly scared.

Starvation seems to have triggered Rachel’s trauma around the water leftover from her diving accident. In response, Nora reaches out a hand and says, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Meanwhile, Leah’s spiral has reached critical. She starts ranting about the ocean and the water and pushes past Dot, sprinting into the waves:

And so she’s taken to heart the way they think Jeannette’s body “escaped” the island—the tide—and it’s been spun like cotton candy in her head. She’s right, technically—Jeanette/Linh’s body was moved off the island by boat, and there’s definitely an argument that if they really did all swim out Gretchen’s team would save them, or at least try to. This is also a very real suicide attempt. So it’s kind of a culmination of the threats of death and mental health issues that’ve been wrapped up in the ocean since the start.

On Rachel’s end, Nora has taken her up to a cliff. Rachel calls the whole thing “borderline insane,” walking up when they’re so low on energy, but Nora tells her she needs to make a truce between herself and the water. 

“You’re afraid of it now,” she says, and Rachel replies that, “All it ever did was make me sick.” Nora immediately surges forward to say “That’s not true!” Rachel, incredulous, says, “Isn't this what you want? For me to hang it up? For me to forget the whole fucking diving game?” Nora says, “No. I don't know. I don't want you to forget you.” She then tells Rachel she should dive off the end of the cliff, that she marked it to make sure it’s safe. Rachel says she can’t.

There’s a lot here. First, there’s the first time we’ve seen of Rachel explicitly call herself sick. In episode two, even in a treatment center, she still denies it, says she’s just an athlete who knows what it takes. But now she’s reached a place where she acknowledges her eating disorder—and also probably her recent illness with the mussels—and ties it directly to the water. It’s the reason she’s sick.

Nora’s fear that Rachel will forget herself also just hammers home how central the water has always been to Rachel’s identity. Cutting herself off from the water would be cutting off a core part of herself. (...whoops) And we’ve seen that it does bring her actual joy, when she’s allowed to relax with it, but she’s had such traumatic associations rolled up into it now. Nora doesn’t want Rachel to do diving as a sport anymore, because of how badly it’s hurt her, but she does want Rachel to keep diving and swimming as like, a form of unevaluated personal expression.

At the moment that Rachel’s refusing to jump, she and Nora hear shouts from the mainland. They see Fatin and Dot screaming after Leah. Confused, Nora asks, “Where is she going?” but Rachel understands immediately, with absolute certainty, without needing to be told—“To fucking drown to death.” Seven episodes after Leah called heading into the water a death wish, she’s finally proving it true. Rachel squares her shoulders, takes a few deep breaths, and sprints into a dive. 

Unlike all her other dives high altitude dives we’ve seen her do, this dive isn’t qualified based on aesthetics. This dive matters because of what it will do, not on how it looks. And what it does do is bring her into the ocean, where she needs to be for her friend. So with strong strokes, she swims out towards Leah.

When she reaches her, she takes hold of her, pulls her into her chest from behind. She begins to swim with her back to shore. This rescue directly parallels Leah’s rescue of Linh that we talked about above. It also, as the Out in the Wilds podcast insightfully pointed out, really calls Rachel and Leah’s relationship back to the beginning. Whereas Rachel had initially held Leah down in the water, putting her in danger of drowning, Rachel here pulls her out of the water, saving her from drowning. Together, they make it all the way back to the shore.

Finally (and, like, if you’ve made it all the way down here? bless you. thank you), we have episode ten. The ocean doesn’t really figure into episode ten until the very end. Rachel has had a long episode of healing—she’s happy to be full and she’s in a good place with her sister and things seem to be going pretty okay. She decides to heal her relationship with the water, too. She heads out, telling Nora that she’s “Just gonna float, Nor. Just float.”

Just floating. After all the times we saw her plunging into the water, purposefully, with frustration, with drive, with so much to prove and with so much sacrifice and self-abuse to prove it with, Rachel finally just wants to float. She wants to let herself relax. She wants to let the water carry her.

Of course, that means there has to be, like, a massive marine carnivore waiting to mistake her for a seal.

Visually, this shot really parallels the opening shot of Leah on the fragment of plane. Instead of being face-down, though, she’s face-up, and she’s conscious, just not of the threat from below. 

The shark bites.

In a horrible parallel to Leah’s Virginia Woolf moment and Rachel’s diving accident, we see blood pool in the water. Rachel is pulled under. The girls on the land start screaming and running toward her. We know Rachel doesn’t die, but this is still a near-death experience, one that probably cost her her arm. Leah, covered in dirt and her own blood after crawling out of the pit Nora led her into, can only stand and watch, shocked and horrified.

So that got! Way longer than I meant it to! And honestly most of this was condensed into very concise tags in a post I made a few days ago! But if you made it all the way down here, you’ve now seen everything I wanted to fit into that gifset but couldn’t. Thanks for sticking with me, friend <3

[bookwyrminspiration]

Shortly after Tam and Linh’s introduction in Neverseen, Mr. Forkle brings up that Tam has broken multiple bones at the Exillium due to ‘careless risks’ and it bothers me to no end that this was never, to my memory, expanded upon or explained further. This is mostly because I feel like it implies that either A) Exillium was such a dangerous environment that students were easily seriously injured or B) Tam’s worryingly reckless. Honestly if it’s the exillium and it really was just that dangerous there, I feel like everyone on the council should be fired. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on this?

oo, i'd forgotten about this! broken bones--and just severe injuries in general--are pretty rare, so tam having a history of snapping his skeleton really does stand out.

i remember Forkle telling Tam he'd stopped applying himself to his studies/school when he got to Exillium, which was why his performance was subpar--especially compared to the stellar scores he got on the Foxfire entrance exam. This could be a part of that.

so! let's look at both the points you bring up:

1. Exillium is dangerous enough students were frequently hurt. Looking at it, I think it's less Exillium was outright dangerous and more they weren't supportive, if that makes sense. Like it was up to the students to make sure they were okay and to get through the lessons, so if Tam was injured that was on him. He was the one who didn't follow the directions/do the lesson right/listen properly. Which is dangerous in and of itself, just not in the same way.

There were three coaches to take care of an entire host of banished kids, they quite literally couldn't pay enough attention to everyone. Tam also had a bad reputation, so i doubt they wanted to deal with him any more than they absolutely had too. (note: curious if tam had a bad reputation only because he was a shade or if he did something else and people attributed it to him being a shade). I don't remember Linh having a history of injuries, so either she was extraordinarily careful (which I can see with her history with her ability), or Exillium wasn't dangerous enough to hurt students that frequently and the problem was with Tam.

2. Tam is worryingly reckless. I think this one is more plausible, him maybe even going out of him way to get hurt to prove that no one there cared about him or any of the other waywards. Or a part of it being that he really just didn't care. So what he broke a bone? He's out in the middle of nowhere attending a shitty school where everyone hates him, what's one more thing. Why try to be careful when everything else is already so bad? or maybe having a broken bone got him out of a certain activity at Exillium and it was a benefit, but the way it's structured I can't imagine they'd be that lenient and considerate to let an injured wayward rest.

But we've never seen him behave that recklessly or carelessly when we met him and throughout the later books. So, either he was just clumsy and grew out of it (unlikely as he was very skilled beforehand), it was the environment at Exillium and now that he's out he's not in that kind of danger anymore, or he was making a point and now he has a different point to make. I personally think it's a combination of him trying to prove a point and also just not giving a shit about anything he did. And now he has something to work towards, and real, concrete goal that he can focus on. he doesn't need to destroy his body to say what he wants anymore.

jumping back to the first point: i think regardless of what allowed Tam to break his body so frequently, the council should have consequences. Those are children that they've just sent out of their society to fend for themselves with one provided meal (not a single piece of fruit counts as a meal), falling apart tents, and undersupplied medicine. On top of that, I'm pretty sure they can just...stop showing up to Exillium; it was made a challenge to take the bead to come back tomorrow, but I think they could just not take it and never come back. That's a whole child just on their own in the world. Unsupported. The Council should be absolutely ashamed of that place. There's more I could say about this but I'll stop for now.

I'd forgotten about Tam breaking several bones, but I can think of several reasons how that might've happened. It's a very interesting opportunity to explore just how horrific the concept of Exillium is, even on the surface level, so thank you!!

[crymeariveronceagain]

Tiana(Tam/Biana) Headcanons

Tam and Biana hail each other at like 3 am. They’re both awake, 85% of the time. Neither of them need to ask why.

Biana kisses Tam more than Tam kisses Biana. Mostly because he always asks and Biana always takes that as an opportunity to kiss him first. 

The two of them are constantly holding hands. Like, literally. They’re going somewhere? Hand-holding. They’re on the battlefield? Hand-holding. Sitting on Grady and Edaline’s huge couch? Hand-holding. They’re not big on PDA, but they have absolutely no qualms on holding each other’s hands constantly. 

Tam is the kind of boyfriend who will bring you food when you’re having a bad day. No questions asked. Bad day? Food. The answer is always food.

Biana is the kind of girlfriend who will take you clothes shopping because “Honestly, Tam, you need some color in your wardrobe, and a dark blue or something would bring out your gorgeous eyes so much they could kill anyone in a seventy-foot radius.”

Alden doesn’t approve of the two of them. He’s never liked Tam. Biana knows this and flips her father off whenever she catches him quietly glaring at her boyfriend.

Biana does not like quite the same kind of music as her boyfriend, but she is always 100% willing to listen to his.(Mostly because he sings it, quietly, sometimes, and she just falls more and more in love with him.)

Tam’s parents love that he’s dating Biana. Honestly, any association with people in “such good standing” makes them ridiculously proud. It’s the only thing he’s ever done that they actually approve of. Tam hates it. But he decides if anyone is worth making his parents proud for, it’s Biana.

Tam lets Biana do his makeup, sometimes. She usually goes for that classic emo-boi look. He always loves it.

Tam knows how to braid hair. He learned how in Exilium, when Linh asked him for help. But now, he’ll do super intricate braids on Biana’s head. She literally will not take them out for days.

They only cuddle when they’re alone. They don’t like the idea of people watching them collapse into a pile of needing each other. 

But when they do cuddle…Neither of them are the little spoon. They’re a complete tangle of limbs, flung on top of each other, usually without adequate pillows, so someone ends up with an aching neck, but neither of them would complain, because it’s so warm and soft and good, even if someone’s back is a little achy in the morning.

Tam texts Biana when he’s half asleep. It’s always garbled messages that he sometimes rereads in the daylight and doesn’t know what he was even trying to say. Biana screenshots every single one. Her favorite reads, “French fries are just manicured potatoes. Humans eat potato toes.”

Biana likes drawing flowers on Tam. Like, whenever she’s got a pen, or eyeliner, or something, she’ll start drawing flowers on the nearest part of him she can find. And he won’t wash the drawings off for days. 

One day, he tells her that he’ll get her flowers tattooed on his arm. She flushes hot pink and tells him that he’ll definitely look emo.

His emo-ness is something Biana constantly lighthearted pokes fun at. He is emo, so emo, and she loves how over-dramatic he is, but she will always make jokes about it. He always rolls his eyes. 

Biana gets girly-girl jokes from him, too, but they’re so light-hearted that she can never find any reason to do anything but to huff or roll her eyes at him. She’d gotten teased and bullied at school, before, because  she isn’t… tough, not like people think tough girls should be. She wears dresses, she likes dresses, she wears makeup, and she loves it. She loves high heels and hairstyles, but people have told her she’s too girly. Tam jokes, once in a while, but he still calls her “Princess” with eyes that sparkle like her eye-glitter.

[author-luna]

Villain!Sokeefe/Ruewen family AU

Hi there everyone! A little while ago, a friend and I were talking about Sokeefe and what might happen in book 9, and then I had this idea for an AU where Sokeefe as well as the Ruewen family (Gardy, Edaline, Sophie and alive!Jolie) have been villains all along.

The idea couldn’t leave my mind so here I am.

Word count: 2.9k

Trigger/ Content warnings: mentions of nightmares

Please don’t hesitate to message me / tell me in the comments in case I should add any warnings!

My idea for it was that during Keefe’s time with the Neverseen, they were able to get him on their side

They make him work as a double agent, while thinking he is loyal to them

His joining is fueled by the fact that he feels like the Black Swan isn’t doing anything to help them nor are the utilizing them how they should

He knows that they could defeat the Neverseen in the bat of an eye, if only the Black Swan helped them reach their full potential by not sheltering them

But Keefe has his own agenda, which involves shattering both the Black Swan and the Neverseen

In his opinion, both organizations are hopeless and the best way to actually achieve what they want is a different approach

His plan is to get both the Neverseen and the Black Swan to destroy each other as well as the council, leaving the elvin world exposed

Then, in mits of all chaos, a new organization should take the position of power and work to redefine the elvin values and society

He has thought quite far ahead, but a lot of stuff is still up for debate and he doesn’t really mind because he knows he’ll come up with something in time

After he comes back, he finds it harder to play pretend than he originally thought it would

He can’t bring himself to think about the betrayal everyone would feel after they find out

Even worse, how Sophie would take it all in

After all they’ve been through and how she still trusted him, he can’t take any risks

One day though, when he and Sophie are both hanging out together and the topic of the Neverseen comes up, he can’t take it anymore

It slips out of him before he can even think about it

and suddenly it’s quite, too quiet and yet so unnervingly loud because the blood is rushing in his ears and the air is swirling and Sophie is just shocked

he scrambles to explain what he meant, cover up or anything

but then Sophie just starts shaking and oh god he really messed up didn’t he-

he is convinced that she hates him now but then the shaking turns into faint giggles and the giggling turns into soft laughter which then erupts into a laughing fit and he just wants to call Elwin so he can check on her

after a little while Sophie calms down and sits down, her hands in her lap and her eyes looking at him expectantly

at first our boy is just confused but the she tells him to sit down and explain

when he looks at her like she went insane she tells him that she knows him, he would never do that if he didn’t find value in it

so, he sits down and tells her all about it

from the very start, how he spend his stay to how they recruited him and about why he joined and his own plans

Keefe talks for a while, and when it all come to end, he is surprised by how much better he feels, almost like a weight has been lifted off him and he could finally breathe

Sophie stays quiet for a while, her eyes looking into the distance

Keefe stars fidgeting and pulling loose gras out of the ground because the silence is heavy and he thinks that she definitely hates him now

when Sophie finally looks at him, she is smiling, s m i l i n g and he thinks she finally went crazy

she seems to have read what he thought on his face because now shes pouting and she hit his arm in a playful manner, which leads Keefe to throw a handful of grass on her and suddenly they’re rolling around, chasing each other and laughing like normal people

when they finally stop to catch their breath and they find themselves under Calla’s tree which is ironic, Keefe thinks

the silence now isn’t heavy, it’s comfortable like they've came to a silent agreement

when Sophie speaks up, Keefe can’t help but feel nervous

he is expecting a lecture, a list of things he already knows, maybe even a screaming match because that’s what he deserves

instead, Sophie just whispers a single phrase

‘I trust you’

and it’s enough to bring tears to his eyes because she still trusts him, she isn’t going anywhere and she is still his friend

and then they talk for hours

it’s about everything and nothing in particular

they exchange stories and jokes, laughter echoes through the air followed by a light hearted silence and for the first time in ages Keefe feels like everything might turn out good and he dares to hold on that bit of hope he usually tries to suffocate

Sophie herself feels the same

she thought about yelling at him or scolding him, but deep down she knows that it doesn’t matter

and when she said she trust him, she meant it with each fiber of her body

a little voice in her head tells her that she’s laughing with the enemy and that she’s foolish for trusting him, that she’s a traitor herself for doing it but she snaps back saying that maybe she wants to be a traitor and that she doesn’t care, and the voice shuts up

for the next few days, the voice keeps whispering that she is the enemy as well because she’s trusting Leefe, but whenever she says that maybe she wants to be the enemy, the voice shuts up and that makes her think

Keefe made good points, his plan could use some improvement but the point still stands

her thoughts are constantly running and circling back to the same question ‘Where do I stand? What can I do?’

and at night, the overthinking gets to her

her dreams are haunted by what if’s, but one dream stand out to her

that night, she dreamt of her friends, her family, Keefe and herself in a future where there is no Neverseen

in her dreams, her friends and her were at the beach in San Diego, Linh is playing with the water and everyone is just having fun

when she turns around, she sees Grady and Edaline laughing with her human parents and she hears her human dad’s barking laugh echo as he retells a story from her childhood

she feels a hand on her shoulder and when she looks up, Keefe is standing besides her, looking fondly at the scene

he notices her staring at him and he looks down to her,a soft smile on his face as he whispers ‘We did it Foster’

she jerks up from sleep and she could swear that she can still hear the laughter, smell the water and feel the lingering touch of Keefe’s hand on her shoulder

that night she realizes that this is the future she wants, one where she doesn’t need to hide her human self

she lays awake for hours, and the next morning she finally makes a decision

in the night, when she lays awake, she mentally reaches out to Keefe, and when he opens his mind to hers, he is confused

but with an unbelievable determination she tells him that she is joining him

there is a lot of arguing from his side, but Sophie expected as much

she tells him that if he doesn’t want her to work with him she’ll join the Neverseen on her own so he gives up for now and tells her he will make arrangements for her to meet the others

after the meeting, they take Sophie in as part of them

obviously they don’t trust her from the start and she has to work very hard to earn their trust

they give a lot of assignments that involve morally questionable things that Sophie at first refuses to do but gives in

wherever she goes to these type of missions, she mentally seeks out the comfort of Keefe’s mind, who gladly will distract her, comfort her and talk to her until she feels better

it isn’t a pleasant thing for her to lie to her friends so openly, and she often struggles with hiding it, but Keefe is always right there to help her

they keep talking at night, just basking in the security of each other’s mental presence

because sometimes, things don’t seem that bad when you have a friend by your side

Sophie’s telepathy gets even stronger with the help of Gethen, who teaches her how to hide things securely from Fitz and Mr.Forkle

‘Gethen is okay I suppose’ Sophie begrudgingly admits one night during their nightly hangouts, after Keefe asked her about their training session

he teases her and laughs at her when she threatens to mentally slam a pillow at his head, but secretly she find that his laugh is quite adorable

after the Nightfall fiasco, Vespera and Gisela finally start trusting Sophie more because she kept up the facade so well

they call a meeting with her to ‘formally introduce her’ and during the meeting, she’s a bit nervous

of course, she has been kinda member all this time, but now being officially part of them was making her giddy with nerves

they do the protocol of introducing her to everyone, making her swear herself in, talk about her position yada yada, but the only thing she can focus on is Keefe's hand that intertwined itself with hers under the table and three familiar hooded people in the back

at some point during the meeting he had grabbed her hand to stop her from tugging on her eyelashes and to keep her grounded and steady, and to be fair, the soft circles his thumb kept tracing over her knuckles and the menatlly reassuring things he said to her were soothing and kept her from freaking out

but as much as she wanted to focus on the meeting, her attention kept going up to the three hooded figures in the back

she couldn’t help but feel like she had seen them before, their posture and presence so familiar

she was so distracted she barely noticed how everyone left the room, leaving only Gisela, Vespera, the hooded figures, Keefe and her in the room

when Keefe squeezed her hand, her attention snapped back to the room and she noticed that the figures came closer

Gisela suddenly asked her and Keefe to keep calm since they would now let them into the identities of three of their members

once the hooded figures let down the hoods, Sophie might have yelped in surprise and Keefe might have pulled her closer,just to put his arm around her and there is a tiny chance that Sophie buried herself deeper into his comforting side hug

in front her stood her parents, her elvin parents and with them their daughter she saw them mourn

it didn’t make sense to her how Edaline smiled at her and how Grady sheepishly scratched his neck and especially not how Jolie, the Jolie form the pictures and Prentice mind, shyley waved at her

Gisela and Vespra left them alone and told them to explain and sort it out

the moment they left, Keefe and Sophie started bombarding them with questions

finally, Grady and Edaline explained that Jolie had joined the Neverseen a while before she joined the Black Swan and how she recruited them

her death and all the mourning was just an act to keep everyone from questioning them when they try to get information or when they try to spy on the council

Jolie told her about how she was able to make herself a new identity under the name Trix

upon asking how she could be Trix if his ability was being a Guster and Jolie being a Conjurer jolie answered that she kept gusts of wind stored in the void that she could use and redirect to her liking

they tell them about their positions and how they actually always assisted them in some way, and Sophie feels abit betrayed for not knowing earlier

her and Jolie talk for a bit, getting to know each other and Sophie decides that Jolie is quite amazing

Edaline notes that they should go before someone notices their absence and Sophie takes her home crystal, leaping her and Keefe back to Havenfield

for a second they stand in the living room, hands intertwined and faces close

and before they could speak, they hear someone clear their throat and Sophie lets go of Keefe’s hand in embarrassment

Keefe is a bit upset, he already missed the way Sophie’s hand had fit into his own and the comforting feeling of rubbing his thumb against her knuckles

with a glare, Grady sends him home

after Gardy leaves him alone, he smirks to himself and makes it his mission to hold Sophie’s hand often

now time skip to Unlocked

at first, Keefe didn’t plan on telling Sophe where he’s going because he still was convinced that he is a danger for her

but 2 nights away from the lost cities and he suddenly found Sophie towering over him, hand on her hips and a glare so deadly he probably would have been 6 feet under

sheepishly, he asked her what she was doing here and she just punched his arm

cue an hour of lecturing about how they were in this together and he shouldn't have left without telling her

that’s when it dawned on him

why was she here, and if she was here with him, who was in the lost cities

she sat down besides him, setting down a backpack and saying that she was also a runaway

for the next month or so, they wandered around the world

with her teleporting, their birthfounds and Keefe’s new abilities, they had no problem at all with traveling and staying undercover

in the lost cities, Grady and Edaline helped keep the suspicions at bay

they covered for them and made sure no one found them

cue another showdown between the Neverseen and the Black Swan

this time, it’s a full force one and everyone instinctively knows that this battle is the last

all the intelligent species hold their breath as the war rages, gnomes and elves fighting on each side with all they’ve got

there are losses of course, but the biggest one is when Sophie and Keefe suddenly appear in the middle of everything

their friends stop and look at them with bewilderment, and it soons turns into shock when Keefe takes out a microphone like thing and tells everyone to freeze

as the battle stops, Sophie whistles a tune and Silveny descents from the sky

she lands in front of them and gently, Keefe helps her up and sits behind her

their friends would love to follow them with their eyes, but their gaze is fixed into the distance, and so, they don’t notice how Silveny flies them up to the middle and how Sophie starts expanding her mental grip on everyone

when she finally has everyone listening to her, she takes turns with Keefe to tell them about the future, how both the Neverseen and the Black Swan can’t guarantee a good life for them and the council even less

they end their little speech with them asking their friends to trust them, and Keefe sends everyone but Fitz,Biana,Linh,Tam,Dex,Marella,Wylie,Stina,Bronte Grady and Edaline to sleep

they land and talk with their friends, telling them everything that has happened, from them joining the Neverseen to their time in the human world

and as they stand there, all the stories told and feeling laid bare, they hold each others hands

they know that there is a high possibility of their friends not forgiving them or even not wanting them back

they also know that they might have to leave the elvin world behind forever

that's why they hold each other, because they know that as long as they have each other, the world can throw anything at them and they will get around it

because when Sophie lovingly whispered ‘As long as we have each other, we’re invincible’ after Keefe woke up from a nightmare, it was a promise

and as Keefe whispered a ‘It’s us against the world’ back, it was a mutual understanding,a promise and a reassurance that tells the world ‘We belong with each other, each a heart and a soul that is stronger together’

so when Biana breaks out into a sprint to hug them and everyone joins, hugs exchanged, laughter echoed and stories told, they don’t let go

the future might be uncertain, but it’s a bit better if you have friends with you to stand against the uncertainty

[shellyseashell]

GOLD RUSH

Chapter Three - Not As Bad

Note: @kotlc2021collab here’s the third chapter!

Masterlist

TIRED OF LINH and Marella and deciding to get some work done, Sophie had left the cafeteria after she finished her lunch. She had promptly gotten a text from Grady, saying that they needed to talk whenever she was available. Since she still had fifteen minutes until lunch ended, she decided to call him.

“What did you need to talk about?” Sophie asked once Grady had answered.

There was a silence on the other side, and for a minute Sophie thought Grady might not have heard her. But before she could repeat herself, there was a sigh and Grady said, “It’s about Iggy.”

Sophie froze. Iggy, her rabbit, had had health problems in the past, but they’d never been too serious. Still, bringing up Iggy and anything negative made her heart pound. She’d had Iggy for years, ever since she had been adopted. He’d been one of the things that had helped her adjust. Why she’d been allowed to get a rabbit and not a dog, she didn’t know. “What about Iggy?” She was almost afraid to ask.

“He’s sick again,” Grady said, confirming Sophie’s fears.

Taking a deep breath, Sophie leaned back on the shelf behind her. “How sick?”

A pause. Sophie’s heart felt like it was trying to escape her chest, and she was sure she’d get kicked out because of how loud it was pounding. The silence was too long. And then, “He’s probably not going to make it, Sophie.”

There it was. Her worst fear confirmed. Iggy was dying.

“I’m sorry I told you during school,” Grady said quietly.

“No, I’m the one who called you,” Sophie said. “Thanks — thanks for telling me. I’ll see you at home.”

She hung up. Sophie stifled a sob as she slid down the shelf and curled her knees up to her chest. The library was most definitely not the place to cry, but she didn’t have the energy to get up. Iggy was dying. Iggy was dying. It was the only thing she seemed able to think of, and she didn’t even hear the footsteps approaching her.

“Sophie?” Out of all people, it had to be her.

Wiping tears off her face, Sophie stood and leveled her glare at Biana. She was surprised to find the girl looking at her with concern. “What do you want?”

“Are you okay?” Biana ignored her question.

Sophie crossed her arms over her chest. “Like you care.”

Biana glared at her, but her expression quickly softened. “Look, you’re clearly upset about something. Better to tell someone what’s wrong, even if it's someone you hate.”

Sophie had a lot of arguments against that logic, but the fight had drained from her, and she slumped back down on the ground. “Iggy is dying.”

Biana sat down next to her. “Iggy is your rabbit, right? Fitz has told me about him.”

Sophie nodded. “I’ve had him since I was adopted. He’s had health problems in the past, but they’ve never been that bad. Now, though . . .”

Biana placed a hand on Sophie’s arm. “I’m sure your parents will do their best to help him.”

It was the only thing they could do.

Sophie let out a sob she muffled with her arm, and Biana did something unexpected. She hugged Sophie. Wrapping her arms around her and pulling her to her chest. Sophie stiffened, not expecting that sort of affection from Biana, but soon softened and started crying.

Biana let her cry. She let her cry and cry and cry some more. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there sobbing, but somehow, when her breathing was even and she could see again, Biana was still there. Though she hated Biana, there was something oddly comforting in curling up against the girl and letting her comfort her. She didn’t want to leave.

But she knew she had to, and she might as well not make this awkward.

She pulled away from Biana, ignoring how she looked disappointed. “What were you doing here anyway?”

“I was coming to do research,” Biana said with a small grin. “Guess you had the same idea, huh?”

“Yeah, until the whole ‘Iggy is probably going to die’ thing,” Sophie said, her eyes welling up again as she choked out the words. Sophie coughed and blinked away the tears. “But we should look for some books while we have time.”

Biana nodded, and so they got searching.

They didn’t talk the rest of the time, each girl absorbed in their task. As Sophie flipped through the various books, her mind wandered to both Iggy and Biana.

Iggy, because she didn’t know what she’d do without him. Of all the animals to die, it had to be him. Not that she wanted any of them to die — each death brought on a wave of grief, even if short lived. At this point, she should have been used to animals dying and not being able to do anything. It was a normal occurrence. Still, this was Iggy, and Iggy was different.

And so was Biana. Biana, her enemy, had seen her crying and hadn’t laughed. She had comforted her, and made sure she was okay. She didn’t know where the sentiment had come from. For as long as she could remember, it had always been a constant rivalry. Biana hated Sophie, and Sophie hated Biana. Neither had ever been bothered by it, and neither questioned their feud. But now, something about Biana felt different. She didn’t seem as bad. She almost seemed nice. Like they could be friends.

Sophie wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

———

THAT NIGHT, ONCE her homework was done and cross country was over and she had nothing to occupy her mind with, Biana found her thoughts wandering to Sophie. She’d never lost a pet, and the closest she’d come to losing someone was when her mother divorced Alden, and that hadn’t been awful.

Though she couldn’t sympathize with what she was going through, Biana knew Sophie holding in her feelings wouldn’t work out in the end.

She used to bottle her emotions when she lived with Alden. It often resulted in her snapping and letting her emotions out at once. Which usually meant yelling at someone and only rising the already high tension between the family. But when Alden was finally gone, she had finally let go of all her emotions, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She hoped Sophie wouldn’t do the same.

Biana sat leaning over the counter in the kitchen of their small apartment, that they had moved to to get away from the memories of Alden. Della cleaned the kitchen in front of her, and Fitz sprawled out on the couch behind her.

The apartment was only a few rooms. The kitchen and living room combined, one half of the room holding a couch, some chairs, and a TV. The rest held the table and kitchen, a counter with bar stools spreading the two. Down one hall was the front door, and down the other were four bedrooms — Fitz’s, Biana’s, Della’s, and a guest room, which would sometimes double as Livvy’s when she was spending the night and felt Fitz and Biana wouldn’t want her sleeping with their mother.

Tonight, though, Livvy wasn’t there. It was just the three of them.

Della looked over to her. “You alright, Biana?”

“Huh?” Biana said, snapping out of her thoughts. “Oh, yeah, fine, I guess.”

Della placed the dish in her hands down and turned her full attention to her daughter. “What’s up?”

Biana sighed, and explained what had happened today. Once she had, Fitz said, “I should go check on her,” and left to his room.

Biana stared at the counter in front of her, trying to sort out the knot in her stomach. She didn’t understand why she was so worried about Sophie. Sure, she knew grieving a pet couldn’t be easy, even if they hadn’t yet died. But she had never cared about what Sophie felt before, so why should she start now?

“You seem to have a lot of thoughts about this,” Della said.

Biana nodded. “Yeah. I guess — I’m just so worried about how Sophie is handling it, and I don’t know why. We’re not friends, we don’t get along, I hate her.”

“And why’s that?”

Biana sighed, ready to give the reasons she always did, but paused when she couldn’t remember what those reasons were. Clenching her jaw, she glared at the space in front of her.

“That’s what I thought,” said Della. “You don’t actually hate her. You just feel like you do because of some rivalry or something that happened when you were younger. But you don’t hate her.”

Biana considered this. Honestly, she couldn’t remember ever really, truly hating Sophie. And she knew what hate felt like. It was the blood boiling, gut clenching feeling she got even thinking about Alden. The one that made her want to punch something and run away. The one that had torn apart her family and stopped her from having a childhood.

She had never felt like that with Sophie. It was always a slight disliking — annoying, but something she could deal with.

Maybe she didn’t hate Sophie. Maybe she was so similar to Sophie, liked her more than she should, and didn’t know how to process that, so she channeled it into hate and anger. In the past, channeling her emotions that way had not gone well.

Biana nodded slowly. “I — I don’t think I hate her.”

“I didn’t think you did. You should try talking to her, being her friend.”

Biana nodded. Maybe she should.

As if Sophie had read her mind, she got a text from her then saying, Want to come to my house after practice tomorrow to work on the project?

Biana, a smile on her face, replied, Yes.

Taglist: @salt-warrior @pai-shodown @cinderswrench @shadymcsilverbangs @cindersassasin @healing-winston-pratt @just2bubbly let me know if you want to be added or removed!

[cadence-talle]

Dream of Endless Shadow

a dark!Tam AU, written to go along with @lemontarto‘s dark!Tam drawing. Make sure to go look at it if you haven’t seen it yet! 

Wordcount: 2,274 

Trigger warnings: Death, non-graphic violence 

Taglist: @everyonehasthoughts, @clearlykeefitz, @loverofallthingssmart, @a-lonely-tatertot, @enbies-and-felonies, @molly-sencen, @lemontarto, @appalyneinstitute1, @ruewen-and-rising, @silver-snow, @linhamon-roll, @hyperlollypop, @never-ever-too-many-fandoms, @keeper-of-the-lost-queers, @impostertamsong, @vibing-in-the-void, @yeetersofthelostcities, @mistythegirlfluxmess, @diamond-dreamerr, @we-have-no-bananas-today, @an-absolute-travesty

Laughter floats through the air and up a sweeping cliff, gathering around a pair of figures standing at the edge. Linh glances back at her brother, hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She’s smiling- she’s always smiling. Tam wonders sometimes how she can be so happy, looking at all they’ve lost. 

“Come on,” she says, holding out a hand. “You’ll be fine.” 

Tam quirks an eyebrow. “You can���t guarantee that.”

Linh raises a hand in the air, and the water below them rises with it, a huge shimmering bubble. She grins at Tam. 

“Yes I can. Just jump.”

The sun beats down on his back as Tam stares down at the ocean. It’s safe- he knows it’s safe, but he can’t stop his fear. Linh is always the brave one, anyway. 

She charges ahead while Tam stays behind, rushing around corners before he’s made sure it’s safe. He doesn’t understand, really- how she can be so happy, so fearless, so Linh. 

“Come on,” Linh says again, grabbing his hand. “On three, okay? One…”

She’s amazing. 

“Two…”

She’s powerful.

“Three!”

And Tam knows that they’ll be fine as long as she’s by his side. 

He takes a deep breath and jumps. 

-/-

Tam glares down at the dark streets of Atlantis, eyes tracking barely-visible figures on the ground below. He could probably see better if he dispersed the shadows, but that would blow his cover- and besides, he can see well enough. 

Well enough is pretty much all he’s getting, these days. He can see well enough, he can sleep well enough, he’s eating well enough. 

Well enough isn’t good, of course, but Tam doubts he’ll ever be good again. 

Finally, the person he’s looking for exits the shop underneath him. Tam was a little surprised when he found Ruy Ignis in a flower shop in Atlantis, but he supposes it makes sense; it’s not like anyone knows what he looks like. Tam only recognized him by his voice, and even that took a couple visits to figure out. 

Ruy turns the corner and enters an alleyway to the side of his shop, humming something under his breath. With a quiet grunt, Tam wraps shadows around the man and drops to the ground a few feet away. Ruy makes a sound of surprise and summons a forcefield.

“What-” 

Tam releases the shadowflux he’s been holding in his hands, and it slinks through the forcefield to wrap around Ruy’s neck, hovering just a few inches above the skin. The man’s eyes go wide as he scrambles to get away. Tam clenches a fist and it moves closer to Ruy, shrinking little by little until it’s a hair away from the skin. 

He chose shadowflux not because it was easy for him, but because it hurt. Tam wants this man- all of the Neverseen, really- to feel pain, to feel what he’s been feeling for days now. This hurt, this ache, always there but never healed. Not really. Tam forces the shadowflux closer, and-

“Tam!”

Sophie and Biana rush into the alley, both clad in dark tunics and capes. Biana has a throwing star in her hand, but she’s not looking at Ruy- she’s staring right at Tam. 

“What are you doing here?” Tam growls, relaxing his hands just enough to let Ruy breathe. Sophie narrows her eyes at him. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” she says. “Where have you been, Tam? We’ve been worried sick!”

“I’ve been out,” Tam replies. “I’m fine.”

“Right,” Biana says slowly. She turns to Sophie. “Can you bring Ruy back to the Black Swan? I’ll stay here.”

Sophie nods, shooting Biana a quick smile before grabbing Ruy’s arm and leaping away. Biana turns to Tam. 

“This is what you’re up to?” she asks. “Trying to kill people?”

“They deserve it,” Tam answers. Biana shakes her head. 

“Maybe so, but we don’t do that, Tam. We don’t kill. If we do-” her voice breaks slightly, and Tam can tell they’re remembering the same thing. “We’re just as bad as them.”

“Then I guess I’m bad.” Tam responds, curling the shadowflux back into his palms. He sighs. “I just want to avenge her, Bi. I want to- to destroy them as much as they destroyed me. As much as they destroyed her.”

“Linh wouldn’t want-”

“Don’t pretend like you know her!” 

Biana takes a step back, eyes wide. Tam only realizes how loud he’s shouted after the fact. “You didn’t know her,” he adds more quietly. “No one knew her like I did.”

“Maybe not,” Biana says slowly. “But I still loved her. She was amazing. Kind, talented, fierce.” She looks at Tam, staring straight into his eyes. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to be sad. She would have wanted you to keep living, not take other lives away.”

“I-” Tam shakes his head. “No. I can’t. I have to- to do this.” To do anything, he adds in his head. Biana lets out a long breath. 

“Okay. Just- promise me you’ll be safe, okay? You shouldn’t have to die for her.”

“I know,” Tam says, because he does. “I promise.”

It might not be a promise he can keep. 

-/-

This was supposed to be standard. 

They’d received word of trolls being attacked in the woods off Brackendale- and while, of course, no one had gotten hurt, Sophie had decided to check it out anyway. Something’s been shifting lately, some sour wind sweeping into the Lost Cities and bringing with it the smell of death. The Neverseen are braver, now, and they need to be careful. 

They weren’t careful enough. 

They’re ambushed almost immediately when they move into the woods. Black-cloaked figures drop down from the trees, surrounding them on all sides. Next to him, Tam hears Linh growl, pulling water from the air and forming it into a ball, ready to attack. Marella summons fire, Keefe and Fitz grasp throwing stars, Dex readies his newest gadgets and Sophie gets ready to inflict. 

This time, they’re not going to lose. Not again. 

And for a moment, it seems like they’re winning. Most of the Neverseen are already on the ground, unconscious or held down. Tam can’t recognize most of them- he thinks one of the only ones left standing is Gethen, but he can’t be sure. 

It’s odd, for the Neverseen to be taken down so easily, but Tam chalks it up to their little group simply being stronger now. He turns to watch Linh, swinging water in a sweeping arc and knocking a woman to the grass beneath their feet, and smiles slightly. 

And then-

It doesn’t happen in slow motion. Tam doesn’t see the throwing star coming, doesn’t hold out a hand to try and stop it. Linh is upright, and then she’s not- she’s fighting, and then she’s lying on the ground with a piece of silver metal embedded in her neck. 

Linh is alive, and then she’s not. 

Tam doesn’t even get to say goodbye. 

-/-

The first few days were the worst. 

He didn’t do anything but sit on the couch in Tiergan’s living room, staring blankly at the wall as he relived that moment over and over again. 

A flash of silver, a small cry cut off too soon. Blood staining the grass and getting on Tam’s hands as he rushes to her, too late. 

Too late. He’s always too late. 

Nightmares and sleepless nights bleed into empty days, and Tam doesn’t care. He feels time slipping away, feels himself get weaker (he’s not eating. what’s the point, when she’s gone), feels shadows wrap around him. 

They’re shockingly cold, but at least feeling cold is feeling something. 

So he falls backwards into the shadows, letting them surround him, crush him out of the half-dead state he’s been in and back into his own body. And slowly, the sadness recedes. It’s not gone, it’ll never be gone, but Tam has managed to cover it up with something else. 

Anger. 

Rage is what gets him off of the couch, what gets him to eat, what gets him out of the house. Anger is what makes him track down each and every member of the Neverseen and kill them. 

Or, try to. Someone always shows up to stop him. 

At this point, Tam is sure they’re tracking him somehow. Sophie, Biana, Keefe, Dex- someone is always there, telling him to slow down. 

Stop, they’ll say. You’re going to hurt yourself. This isn’t safe. 

And Tam knows it’s not. He can feel the shadowflux creeping through his veins; a cold, tingling sensation. It doesn’t hurt, not yet, but it will eventually. 

It’ll take over, eventually. 

Tam doesn’t care. 

He’s standing on the edge of the cliff again, the one he and Linh used to come to when they went swimming. It’s clouded, today, the water below gray and upset. No more sunny blue days. 

Sunny blue days disappeared a long time ago. 

Tam came here to find some long-lost part of Linh, to remember, but all it does is hurt. Hurt and hurt and hurt again, and it never stops. 

It never stops. It’s never going to stop. The only way is-

The water below is dark. It won’t catch him this time. 

Tam takes a shaky step forward. 

A flash of silver, a small cry cut off too soon. Blood staining the grass and getting on Tam’s hands as he rushes to her, too late. 

And a laugh. High and cackling. Tam knows that laugh. 

“Gethen.” 

And he turns away from the cliff. 

-/-

They’re at a human picnic spot, sharing a piece of fruit the gnomes gave them for lunch. Linh’s laughing at something Tam says when a screech echoes through the air. 

A hawk has just picked up a mouse in its talons, carrying it through the air and towards a tree branch. Linh gasps and stands up, but the humans on the other side of the clearing are faster- one grabs a rock and hits the hawk in the wing. It goes crashing to the ground, and the mouse scurries away. 

The humans leave, laughing, as Linh rushes over to the bird. 

“It’s hurt,” she says, gently lifting a wing that is bent in a way no wing should ever be. “We need to help it.”

“It was going to kill that mouse,” Tam points out. “You didn’t want it to do that. Why are you helping it now?”

“Because it’s hurt,” Linh says, glaring at him, “and it was just trying to find food. And even if it wasn’t-” she shakes her head- “it’s a living thing. If you can help a living thing, you should.

“If you just leave it, it could die. No one deserves that, no matter what they’ve done.” 

Tam sighs, crouching down next to her. “Fine. How can I help?”

-/-

The security at Gethen’s prison cell isn’t very good. 

The goblins at the door didn’t even give him a second glance as Tam moved through the door- although, to their credit, Tam is pretty sure he still has a reputation as “Sophie Foster’s friend.” 

Still, he doesn’t get any questions as he moves through the stone-lined walls and stops in front of a chilly cell. The man inside gives him a sharp smile. 

“Tam Song,” he says. “I’ve been wondering when you would come to visit. Last time we talked you seemed a bit… unstable.”

“Last time we talked I tried to kill you,” Tam says bluntly. “Now I’m here to finish that.” 

He summons shadowflux, ignoring the chill that runs through his whole body. He’ll deal with that later. Right now, all that matters is his sister’s murderer. 

Gethen laughs. “You always were stronger than the rest of them,” he shrugs. “I’m not surprised to see you’re the one who went insane.”

“I’m not insane,” Tam growls, pushing the shadowflux closer to the man. “You killed my sister. Now you’re going to pay.”

Gethen’s eyes glint and he starts to say something, but Tam pushes the shadowflux into his skin and whatever he was going to speak is lost in a scream.

A flash of silver, a small cry cut off too soon. 

 Tam narrows his eyes and forces the shadowflux closer, pushing it into the man’s brain. 

Blood staining the grass and getting on Tam’s hands as he rushes to her, too late. 

Gethen’s body goes limp, but his eyes are wild and Tam knows he’s still in pain. 

A laugh. High and cackling. And-

Gethen falls to the floor, his chest no longer heaving. He’s gone. 

He’s gone, and Tam should be happy. Linh is avenged. She can move on now. She can be satisfied.

Linh wouldn’t want this, Biana’s voice whispers in his brain. It wasn’t for her. It was for you. 

“No,” Tam bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, falling against the cold stone wall. He’s so cold- everything is so cold. “No, no, this was for her. This was for revenge.”

But he can see Linh, leaning over that wounded hawk. She looks up at him, straight at Tam, and her brow furrows. 

No one deserves to die, no matter what they’ve done. She says, shaking her head. She stands up, moving toward Tam. What have you done, Tam?

“I just wanted them to hurt,” Tam whispers. “I wanted them to die.”

Linh frowns sadly and the memory dissipates. Tam sinks to the floor, head in his hands. The floor is cold, the walls are cold, he’s so cold- 

Shadowflux moves toward him, burrowing under his skin. Tam lets it, lets it move through his bloodstream and into his heart. 

Everything is cold. 

[theunmappedstar]

I'm genuinely angry with the people who've spammed her comments, especially the ones calling her a hypocrite??

people will not like to hear this, but this is more than spamming: this is harassment. let me explain before you get angry and scroll or consider debating me on this, please. 

laura and shannon are two separate adults with two separate occupations and two separate minds and no link to the other whatsoever except for the fact that laura’s work was recently commissioned for the series by S&S. any actions or comments that laura has made are entirely on her. this mistake was not made by shannon, but rather laura. shannon has no way of dealing with it because she cannot mend something she didn’t break in the first place. no one has gone to laura’s page and recreated the actions that are happening on shannon’s page - and honestly, i’m not asking you to, because the way that a large part of the fandom is approaching this is truthfully immature and disrespectful.

bringing up concerns such as this should be direct messages or emails to the person or the company under which they work. in this case, laura is self-employed and does not work underneath any other boss than herself, so something would have to brought directly to her if anyone wanted a statement or anything further from her.

now, i’m queer. we know this. i’m not in any way saying i speak for all gay people when i say this: but i personally don’t care that laura was used as an artist. reason being? she isn’t harassing queer people, she isn’t using any platform to spread this hateful view, she isn’t using her money to donate to anti-lgbtq organizations, and the action of blocking fans who had queer content, while hurtful, was better than what most homophobes would do in a situation like that. laura took that path because people began bringing up solinh to her after the sophie/linh flashback art was released, and were curious as to if she would draw other lgbtq couples. laura’s response was simple: to block the corresponding pages from her feed because she did not like the content. 

let’s compare this to another issue we see today: JKR. JKR is using her platform to publicly spread these hateful views - laura has never made homophobic posts to try and sway followers. JKR harasses those who do not agree with her, and laura hasn’t engaged in these debates. JKR has written and released a transphobic book, while laura hasn’t made anti-lgbtq art. JKR has created and sold homophobic merchandise under her name and given the profits to anti-lgbtq organizations, whereas laura has made no such content.

the difference between these two actions, while both are fueled by homophobia, is that one was done in a manner that was meant to only affect the person taking the action in the first place (laura), whereas the other is pushed to the public and meant to create division (JKR).

JKR is a homophobic creator. laura is a creator who is homophobic.

i’m not defending laura’s views. it is shitty that she’s homophobic, period - but i’ve personally learned as a queer person that i cannot change everyone and that sometimes, if they aren’t fucking with me, i can let them live. they don’t want to listen to my words and be swayed by them, just as i don’t want to listen to theirs and be swayed - so, we’re not talking. we’re not touching one another: and that’s cool. it’s better that she block content she doesn’t personally want to see, rather than, say, her using her income from these commissions to support anti-lgbtq organizations. 

now that we’ve got all that out, back to the beginning of this: laura and shannon are two separate adults. just because S&S hired her does not mean that S&S shares laura’s beliefs nor does it mean that shannon herself shares those beliefs - in fact, there is confirmation directly from shannon that she doesn’t. she said it herself. “i want to be clear that i want everyone to feel welcome and supported in this community, including LGBTQIA+ fans”.

the actions you are angered by were taken by laura. yet somehow people have managed to ricochet another adult woman’s problems onto shannon. i’m genuinely confused on how we got to the conclusion that shannon has to somehow make laura apologize... when shannon in no way dictates the actions of or even speaks to laura.

the way that these comments are being created and published is just... irresponsible. because shannon had nothing to do with laura’s actions and she should not even be apart of the equation that has been created.

shannon herself has said enough. she has addressed what she needed to and affirmed that she supports us. she does not need to address the issue because the issue was not created by her. if you want a response to the issue, that is on laura and laura alone.

[a-lonely-tatertot]

Finding Home

A/N: HIIIIIII IM BACK BOIS! Anyways this is a shorter chapter I didn’t wanna mess with outline so you get tiny chapter. sooo woot woot for like barely 2k words? But like the doc im writing this on is at like 19k and 29 pages i am in shock. trying to get back a consistent updating with this so uh yeah dont keep your hopes up tho- working on ch. 7 rn hope you enjoy! As always betaed by the glorious @bookwyrminspiration

words: 2208

tw: none

wattpad ao3

Chapter 6: These Secrets Stain Us Red

They had gotten off the bus at the last stop before Kull, stepping out into the cold air. Sophie glanced at the trees in the distance turning orange and yellow. Distantly, she remembered when she was younger this was her favorite season, how the leaves would fall and crunch at her feet, and how it was actually somewhat bearable to be outside. She smiled at the memory as she held Linh’s hand, walking quickly to the gas station, her stomach already grumbling.

“Linh?” a voice called from behind them as they stood in line. Linh swung around, trying to find the source of who called her, nearly startling Sophie into almost dropping her water. The mystery person stepped out from behind a small cluster of people with an overly energetic wave. “Linh! It is you!” he called.

Sophie watched as Linh’s eyes landed on the man and her whole expression shifted. As opposed to the man’s own happiness, Linh seemed to put a wall between her real emotions and the rest of the world, her face betraying nothing. “Hey, Sameul!” Linh said in pretend excitement; Sophie knew that her words carried an undertone of malice.

This Sameul was not the man Sophie had seen in the memories, but from Linh’s reaction, he seemed to probably be involved in whatever Linh was in.

“That’s me,” Sameul responded, clearly not getting Linh’s annoyance like Sophie was. “Geez, it’s been what, how many months since I last saw you?”

“Yeah it’s been a while,” Linh said, her shoulders rigid and her jaw set. Who the heck is this guy? she thought. Their name was called and Sameul followed them to go pick up their food. Sophie tried not to feel trapped with the way Linh’s eyes darted.

Sameul smiled ruefully, “Last time I saw you you had a little backpack and were running out the door in the middle of the night.” Linh took in a sharp breath and stuttering to a halt, her tray of food almost dropping. Sophie raised her eyebrows, more confused than ever. There was a beat then a sharp ring interrupted the weighted silence and Linh’s eyes widened with relief.

“Oh Sam, I’m sorry, that’s her sister calling. She’s really gotta take that. Why don’t you come with me?” Linh asked, more of a command than a suggestion. Reluctantly, Sophie pressed accept on her phone, ready to unleash the crazy whirlwind of shit that she had found out on one completely unprepared Amy. “What up checking in blame Tina she was worried,” Amy said, boredom concealing her concern.

“Uhuh sure Tina was worried,” Sophie chuckled. “Anyways, Linh is being super suspicious.”

Amy made a startled noise, “O-okay then so not well.” 

Sophie nodded even though Amy couldn’t see her, “Yup, also uh side note, totally did not watch another one of her memories.” “Sophie! It’s like you’re trying to do it on purpose!”

“It was an accident I swear!”

“Mhm, yeah, definitely.”

Sophie grumbled, “Oh screw off. Anyway, I was in this bathroom and her knuckles were all bloody like she had punched something. And then this guy came in and said that she wasn’t allowed to be reckless anymore, but from what I saw it was like she was living with some other runaway people I guess?”

Amy was silent for a moment. “Well damn.”

“Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “You shoulda seen her when this guy recognized her while we were getting food; she got like scary tense and for a moment I thought she was gonna water power him.” “Water power him? Really? That’s what you’re calling it?” Amy said. Sophie could practically hear her raising her eyebrow. “At that point just call it water bending.”

“I refuse to call it that.”

“How dare you; you’ve disrespected our childhood.” Sophie laughed. “But seriously,” Amy continued, and she knew she wasn’t going to like what she was going to say next, “Soph, what happened to telling her about the memories? Instead, you just spied more.” “She’s the one with the sketchy past!”

“That you don’t have any right to!”

“She’s been weird and I need to figure out why. Once I do I’ll tell her everything.”

“No, you don’t need to figure it out yourself! You need to talk to her and she will tell you if she’s ready to.” “Don’t tell me what to do Amy. She lied to me. The first night we were together we talked about how we got here and she lied to me like it never happened.”

“This isn’t war Sophie. Just because you’re scared, just because she lied doesn’t mean you get to invade her privacy. She’s not the enemy Sophie, she’s your girlfriend.”

Sophie hung up and her phone buzzed twice more while she watched Linh walk back over to her. This wasn’t Amy’s problem, this wasn’t Amy’s life, so screw her for trying to tell her what to do. She had the abilities and she was sure as hell going to use them. “Sam left,” Linh said with a clearly fake smile. “Said he should probably get back on the bus and didn’t want to intrude.”

At that Sophie raised an eyebrow, she didn’t need to use her telepathy to know it was a lie.

Stepping on the bus felt like placing the weight of the world on her shoulders. She knew that man was something to Linh, or Linh was something to him; maybe he was what Linh was running from. She didn’t have regrets when she reached carefully out to Sameul’s mind and glanced at what he said to Linh. Maybe she should’ve regretted it, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She needed to know, when she had left the Lost Cities it was her way of saying “I will not be lied to even if it seems better that way”. So much had been kept from her and here she was, getting things from the source instead of waiting for someone to tell her.

The words, “You haven’t changed Linh,” rang in her ears as she pulled back, not letting any emotions show on her face as Linh followed behind her. Linh didn’t say anything so Sophie didn’t say anything and they settled into a tense silence as the bus around them buzzed with noise. Sophie tried to think of something to say as the words played on repeat in her head but Linh beat her to it.

“You never told me much about Mari, about what she means to you,” Linh said. Each word seemed rehearsed as if she had said it in her head a thousand times before speaking the words into existence. “I didn’t know you cared,” Sophie responded quickly before she could think it through.

“Tell me about Mari?” Linh asked softly.

Despite what Sophie was hiding from Linh and what Linh was hiding from her, she couldn’t stop herself from talking. The words may have meant nothing as she rambled on about her life there, only meant to be a distraction, but she let them spill from her lips without hesitation. She talked of Tommy, Angie, and Mari, of her weekly game nights, of the regulars at the diner. The people she had come to love yet when the time came she didn’t hesitate to leave ‘cause she was scared. Scared of the permanence of it, scared she’d lose herself in the dream of it. And how when she burned those bridges all she felt was a gaping hole in herself. As she talked she thought of the people she had left in the Lost Cities; how she burned it all like she had when she was young and reckless and angry burning her mark, the moonlark, into the ground desperate to prove something, desperate to mean something. But now she was afraid of that, tearing everything to shreds, burning it to ashes because she didn’t know how to mean something to someone. She thought of what Amy had said and briefly wondered if she would ever be able to just talk about something instead of treating everything as a mystery she was destined to solve. Eventually, her words lulled Linh to sleep and she let out a soft sigh of contentment as she laid her head on Sophie’s shoulder. Sophie glanced at Linh, only allowing herself a quick look at her girlfriend’s soft and relaxed face before staring out the window watching the gravel pass, not allowing herself time for her guilt and sadness to rise. She wasn’t allowed those feelings. With every fiber of herself Sophie dreaded and couldn’t wait for the moment they stepped off of the bus into Kull, the town with as weird of a name as people.

An hour later, as the sun started to fall behind the trees and the sky began to turn dark, that moment came and Sophie found her entire body filled with anxiety. They made their way to the front, Sophie in front of Linh, her hand stretched behind her holding Linh’s hand like a lifeline.

They were the only ones getting off and within seconds they were left standing on the dirt road, the bus was long gone. The air was cold, and the wind blew lightly, tossing around Sophie’s ponytail. Neither spoke to the other, standing in silence, staring at the buildings in front of them. It felt like they’d break a spell if they moved, if they talked, so Sophie didn’t. But Linh did (a spell didn’t need to last an eternity in her mind, just for the moment that it was intended for). Linh squeezed Sophie’s hand three times, dragging her out of her haze to stare at Linh confused.

“It’s a human thing,” Linh said sheepishly. Distantly Sophie remembered Amy teaching her, three squeezes, “I love you”. Four squeezes back and Sophie had said, “I love you too.” She didn’t have time to think if it was a lie because with that she started walking, entirely on autopilot, the familiar route to Mari’s house ingrained in her mind. It was after hours, so there’d be no point going to the diner. So she dragged Linh down main street, taking a left about halfway down, and then it was another block til she found herself outside the door on the white porch of the bright mobile home with her whole body buzzing. It was almost too much to be there; staring at it again it was like nothing had changed. But something had, because she didn’t have a key, and so she knocked with all of the impulsive courage she had left.

Three rapid knocks.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five seconds.

The door opened with a creak.

It wasn’t Mari.

There was a man, about her height, hair pulled in a bun and silver bangs over glasses. He was familiar, why was he familiar? Linh drew in a harsh breath of air and squeezed Sophie’s hand as tight as she could. That was when the puzzle pieces fell into place. That’s when it all made sense. The man standing in front of her was someone she hadn’t seen in two years other than in the memories she had unrightfully stolen from him. The man standing in front of her, still with his signature silver, was Tam Song.

Amy’s phone buzzed next to her, pulling her away from rereading her homework question for the eight time. Ever since Sophie’s call and her following silence Amy couldn’t focus; she tried to distract herself, and pulled herself away from texting Linh and telling her everything Sophie had told her. It’s not my place, she would think. It’s not part of the plan. Her phone unlocked and she slowly processed the photo and message. It was a picture of Sophie leaning her back against the gas station with her hand holding her phone to her ear. It was just like her co-conspirators to be that dramatic they had to send a photo too.

-Operation Collect the Dumbasses-

Braincell Holder: You know we heard that call. Pure of Heart Dumb of Ass: I thought we said that I would start this conversation? No Thoughts Head Empty: Yeah well you took too long. Braincell Holder: Not the Point. The Mental Stability: And the Point? This felt too pointed, Amy thought. Way too pointed and directed at her. Her phone buzzed again. Braincell Holder: Having second thoughts? Only slightly, Amy thought, but no no this needed to happen. The Mental Stability: No Pure of Heart Dumb of Ass: Thank the fucking ancients we can move on No Thoughts Head Empty: We’ve got a Phase 3 to begin

Phase 3, which they already had planned, would be the hardest to set up. Everything had to be just the right timing and just the right place.

Incoming call from Braincell Holder

Amy smiled as she accepted the call and long red hair popped into the frame. “Where is she?” Amy asked.

The redhead grinned, “She’ll be here in a minute, you know how Mrs. Sparkly Justice is; she’s got meetings but she said she’s got a friend who wants to help.”

Amy smiled, their little band of conspirators and their plan was working better than she could’ve imagined.

“So,” Amy said, “Where do we start?”

[an-absolute-travesty]

Royal Screw-Ups

It’s time, the final chapter is here 

*Sobbing*

I won’t get too sappy on you guys here, since I got pretty sappy at the end of thing on Wattpad

But yeah. Thanks if you’ve been reading this long. I have more plans for this world (i have some plans for a few oneshots) but for this moment, we are closing out this story

If you’re looking for the rest of the story, it can be found on my wattpad @ohwowhatethis, under the tags “kotlc fic” and “keefex” on my blog, or under the cut on my pinned post

Tag list (tell me if you want to be added or removed, just for this story or as a whole): @you-are-the-vacker-legacy @ruewen-and-rising @lemontarto @a-lonely-tatertot @clearlykeefitz @percabetn @vibing-in-the-void @sewersewersewercouch @everyonehasthoughts @imaramennoodle @enbies-and-felonies @blxckh0les42​ @rainbowtay-11 @callas-starkflower-stew @impostertamsong @appalyneinstitute1 @stars-and-splendor @anna-without-an-e

Chapter 8:

Word count: 3,677

Warnings: swearing, cassi-ass being an ass, destruction, fire, chaos, etc.

Three months of planning later, servants scurried around the property in preparation for the ceremony the next day. A glass dome had been built in the center of the property to house it.

Tam and Linh had arrived soon after they had their first meeting, luckily Tam and Fitz weren’t as lovey-dovey in real life as they were in their letters. However, Marella and Linh very much made up for it. The moment they met the guard and the princess had a connection, the sweet talk was almost too much to bear.  

In fact, all of them had grown quite close over the past months. Who knew low-level treason could bring people together so. 

Of course, not nearly as close as he’d like with a certain person, but closer for sure. Every week they met back up at the library to work out bumps in their plan, clean up the absurd amount of paper Keefe used in drawing out his first plan, or just sit and talk. Today would be their last before the big day. 

Keefe watched over Dex’s shoulder as he made his final tinkers on the device he had been working on.  

“How’s it looking Techmaster?”

“Eh, having more metal makes everything easier but...it’s one use only, so I can’t test it. We just have to hope for the best.”

“Well, I have faith in you. Your genius brain could make anything.”

Dex rolled his eyes. Keefe wanted to subtly touch him to see if his blatant flirting had been noticed, but it felt wrong to. He had been stuck in the dark for the last 3 months. 

Everyone else ran their lines around the room. Everyone besides Sophie who, as typical of her, looked half way sick in the corner. 

Keefe sat down next to her on the floor.

“Alright, what’s up Foster, have you acquired a stomach bug?” 

She giggled. “No...it’s just…” She sighed. “It feels wrong, y’know? I mean...I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“You’re really doing the opposite of hurting people though, I mean you’re making them happy.”

“Not happy, hysterical. Yeah it can be happy, but not in the way we’re doing it. Trust me, it’s not fun to watch.”

Keefe thought for a moment.

“Hey...your parents have that griffin, right?”

~*~

The sound of a wedding march echoed through the castle lawn as Sophie was led down the isle by her father. Keefe guessed she looked quite lovely in her dress, Biana, who stood as her maid of honor, was looking at her more like a husband would than him. He stood frozen at the alter, Fitz beside him as his best man and everyone else interspersed within the crowd for optimal dramatic effect. 

Sophie reached him at long last. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t look sickly this time. Her face steeled with determination gave him confidence. 

The guy marrying them together was one of Cassius’ officials. Keefe didn’t bother to remember most names anymore, but this one was a...Moland? Noland? Something like that. 

Everyone winced in unison as the man started talking, Keefe’s ears began to ring a bit at the volume.

“Lords and Ladies, we are gathered here today to celebrate the joyous union of our young Prince Keefe Sencen and the lovely Miss Sophie Foster-Ruewen.”

Keefe only realized he was fidgeting when Fitz subtly reached out and held his hand down from where it had been tapping on his leg.

“We are honored to be joined by so many friends and family. The Goom and Bride are overjoyed you all could be here to participate in this most important occasion.

“There are few greater joys in life than finding someone we truly connect with. Creatives have many names for this, a spark, clicking, but let us say today what it truly is: love.”

Keefe looked out into the crowd, he caught the eye of Dex. The redhead’s brow was crinkled and his cheeks flushed slightly. He pat the pocket of his coat in confirmation. 

“Love is what these two young souls have found in each other. In love, our truest selves are revealed. We open ourselves up and break down our walls. The veil we present to the public is lifted so we can be loved for who we are, not who we pretend to be.”

Keefe struggled to not roll his eyes. He took a final look around the room, each person nodding as he met eyes with them.

“Over these months, our Bride and Groom have developed a strong bond. This bond will only get stronger throughout the course of their marriage. Let us revel in the joy and love displayed in front of us today. May we treasure these memories as Prince Keefe and Miss Sophie get set to begin their new life together.”

Keefe took a deep breath, knowing the next words out of his mouth.

“If anyone has cause to object the forming of this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

3, 2, 1…

“I object!” 

0.

Stina first. “This marriage was meant to be mine! She’s just a dirty commoner!”

“How dare you!” Fitz cut in before anyone else could. “I object because I love her! Sophie is meant to be with me. Maruca has admitted her love to Keefe, let her marry him!”

Biana gasped dramatically. “Maruca you snake! You knew I loved him.”

“You only loved his title!” She screamed, standing up to match the rest. “And Fitz, if you’re so concerned with what Stina has to say about Sophie, you should hear what Wylie has to say.”

Fitz walked in Wylie’s direction and he stood. “Why you little-”

Just then, Keefe heard it. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.

BOOM.

An explosion burst a small part of the glass dome’s ceiling. Sophie let out an ear-splitting whistle and the griffin flew straight through the hole as the glass fell. Screams erupted through the room as the animal landed on chairs and destroyed the alter. 

The screams only got louder as the room was lit up as bright as the sun before swiftly being plunged into darkness. Those involved in the plan used the opportunity to gather themselves at the exit. With the exception of Biana and Marella who, if all went as planned, stood prepared by the very flammable reception tables. 

The darkness lifted and people quickly ran out, some of the more stuck up nobles guided by guards. Once everyone was out safely, Keefe watched as a red glow started and grew. Marella wasn’t visible, but anyone paying attention could see the two sets of footprints forming in the grass.

People ran farther from the dome swiftly filling with fire. It spread quickly, but before it could reach the outside, Linh yelled. 

“Everyone back up!”

She pulled water from a nearby pond, making a large wave that, while it put out the fires, crushed the dome in its entirety. 

~*~

Two hours later, the guests sat huddled in the ballroom of the castle, many wrapped in blankets and eating soup the kitchen served to recover from what they had been through. Through the window, Keefe saw the Ruewen parents attempting to calm their griffin after taking a long time to wrangle it. 

They were good at keeping secrets, they brought the animal here in the first place. 

Just as he started crossing the room to go talk to Dex, he felt a heavy hand grip his shoulder.

Cassius looked at him with a glare that could kill ten men. He wordlessly guided Keefe in the direction of his office and the prince obliged. 

When Keefe walked in the door, it was messier than he had ever seen it. Even his father himself was disheveled, his typically slick-backed hair uncharacteristically sloppy and his tunic smudged with soot. He sat down at his desk and heaved a sigh.  

“Do you know why I brought you in here?” 

“Because my wedding was destroyed?”

“Because we are going to plan a new one. I need you to collect everyone who had objections to get this idiotic drama cleared for the records. I’ve sent for Councillor Bronte, he can officiate you. You will have a wedding today, whether you get the ceremony or not.”

“One problem with that, Biana and Marella haven’t been found.”

Technically the truth. They were to hide in the Queen’s Gardens until further notice, but the Guard Force didn’t know that. 

Cassius was silent for a moment, his face hidden in his hands.

Then he started convulsing.

No, not convulsing.

Laughing.

“Of course!” He got up from his chair in one movement. “Of course they haven’t been found! Why am I even surprised anymore.” He threw his hands in the air. “Nothing ever goes right!” He spoke through his teeth as he pushed everything off of his desk.

“MY MARRIAGE” He cleared a bookshelf with one arm, dumping the junk to the ground. 

“MY LEADERSHIP!” He knocked over his chair.

“MY SON!” He grabbed the painting from the wall and threw it down. 

“ALL DISAPPOINTMENTS!” He pushed over his desk, it landed with a loud crash.

“And now this too? Nothing ever goes right! No matter how hard I try! No matter how much work I put in! Everything ends in failure!”

“It’s a good thing this was my wedding and not yours then.”

The door behind them opened without a knock. 

“King Cassius, is this a bad time?” Bronte looked at the office with contempt. 

“No, now works.”

Despite not being formally invited in, Bronte sat down on the overturned desk and pulled out a folder of paperwork. 

“So...we’re trying to do an emergency wedding, yes?”

Cassius nodded.

“And from my understanding, there were 1,2...4 objections that haven’t been cleared?”

Cassius nodded again.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t perform a wedding. Legally or morally considering the fact that fate itself seems against this union. It is traditional, when a wedding goes so badly, to accept that something in the universe is not accepting of the marriage and call it off.”

“I understand, Councillor. However, I am the goddamned king and you will do as I say!

Bronte was unfazed.

“Actually sir, with only a month until the coronation you have resigned some of your duties, as is customary. You don’t have full control over the law at the moment, you signed a contract.”

He pulled said contract out of his pocket, displaying the signature, before putting it back in.

“Prince Keefe and you now have split control, as you had when you had a spouse. You both must agree if you are to override a law.”

Cassius hid his face once again.

“Go. Get out of my sight.”

Keefe turned to leave but his father grabbed him.

“Just Bronte.”

The man shrugged and closed the door behind him.

“Keefe...do you know why I was so eager to get you in as king?”

Keefe said nothing. That was one thing he couldn’t figure out himself. 

“I am a shitty, shitty, king. I was never made to rule. Your mother? Yes. Yes she was. Me? No. Not at all. I thought I could do this job, I thought it would be cushy, I thought I’d have all the power in the kingdom as well as riches upon riches without having to work. I was wrong.

“I wanted to train you to do this better than I ever could. I wanted to make sure you were going to be prepared.”

“No.” Keefe’s eyes started to water in anger. “You wanted to train me up to take your job as soon as possible. You didn’t want the responsibility so you decided to hand it off to your child. It’s just like...it’s just like Mom. You were the judge and the jury but you were too much of a coward to be the executioner or even a mourner. You hand off all your problems for someone else to deal with. You’re a fucking coward and nothing else.”

“I cared Keefe!-”

“NO YOU DIDN’T.” Tears streamed down his face. “You never cared about me, you never cared about Mom, you never cared for anything or anybody but yourself. 

“I don’t love Sophie and I never will, but you tried to make me marry her because you loved the idea of the strong son with a quiet woman. That shows how much you care.”

“It was what I thought was best.”

“WELL YOU WERE WRONG.”

Keefe walked out and slammed the door. 

~*~

Keefe went to his room and sobbed. He rarely indulged himself in crying but today was one of the days he let himself. It was maybe an hour later, when he was out of tears and just laid staring up at his ceiling, that he heard a knock on the door.

When he opened it, no one stood there. Just a small note in scratchy handwriting. 

“Meet us at the library, midnight”

~*~

Keefe carefully sneaked through the castle halls, only the candle he held lit his way. He slowly cracked open the library door.

“SURPRISE!”

Suddenly a whole group of people attacked him in a hug, rainbow lights filled the normally dull room. 

“W-what is all this?”

“It’s a surprise party silly!” For the first time since he’d seen her, Sophie looked truly happy. “We don’t have to get married! And we got out of it without any serious injuries.”

Fitz pulled him over to a table. “C’mon, Bi stole some leftover cake no one ate from the kitchens.”

He looked around for Dex hoping to see his beaming smile and instead saw him sitting solemnly in the corner. He didn’t look Keefe’s way. 

“Hey Fee, are you okay?” Apparently Fitz just now noticed his still puffy face.

“Yeah um...just my dad being a jerk again. Don’t worry about it.”

Fitz shrugged it off, he knew about jerky dads.

Or he used to, anyway. That bastard Alden ran away a long time ago. 

Keefe tried to partake in the festivities but he found it hard. He was going to be king in a month, and hopefully a good one at that. Just about anything was better than Cassius. He should be celebrating right now. But...there was still something bothering him. 

It was approaching the wee hours of the morning as people slowly trickled out. Wylie had long since dropped the rainbow lights. They had been celebrating for hours, Dex was silent nearly the whole time. 

“Alright.” Fitz said through a yawn. “I’m tapping out. Night Fee. Last one standing has to clean everything up.”

Keefe nodded. When he finally left the room and they were all alone, he approached Dex. Still silent in the corner.

“Okay, what’s going on Techmaster? You seem down.”

“No it’s just...it’s hard to explain.”

“Take your time, if you’d like.” Keefe sat down criss cross in front of him.

His lips went pouty in a way that made Keefe realize he was staring at his lips.

“You’ll think I’m weird. And clingy. And jealous. Honestly I shouldn’t even be saying any of this right now but I make bad decisions at 3 A.M. I guess.”

“Hey, you can tell me anything.” Keefe started to reach his hand out to Dex before remembering he shouldn’t read his emotions. Dex grabbed it before he could pull away. A lot of sadness and hurt there. He quickly stopped reading, though their hands stayed locked. 

“It’s just...there’s this person. This guy. And...and I thought maybe he liked me but now I think he has a boyfriend. I’m not sure though.”

Keefe’s heart dropped. “Well...boyfriend status can be changed.”

Dex chuckled. “I don’t know, they have nicknames for each other and everything.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Looks serious.”

It was silent for a moment, then Dex spoke.

“Look...don’t worry about it, alright? It’s really no big deal. I’ll get over it, I guess.”

“Maybe he likes you back.”

“I highly doubt it. I’m...I’m not good enough for him. I’m just a servant. He deserves someone better.”

“Why does being a servant mean you’re bad? I’ve met some nobles that are real assholes. You’re way better than all of those fuckers.”

Dex laughed again, wow Keefe could listen to that forever. 

Dex sighed. “You know what? Screw it.”

He seemed to steel himself before saying his next sentence. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. 

“Are you dating Fitz?”

“What?” Keefe laughed awkwardly. “No, no, no. He’s just a friend.”

“Oh. Then...who were you talking about at the gardens? I- I thought it was Fitz and you guys got together and-”

“No, goodness no. Fitz is great and all but...well he’s just not my type. And he’s been dating Tam for a while now.”

“Oh I uh...I didn’t notice.” Dex’s face flushed furiously. “Who were you talking about then?”

Keefe met his eyes. “Depends, who were you talking about?”

He didn’t answer but his silence spoke more than any words could.

Keefe scooted closer and cupped Dex’s face in his hand. He looked into the boys periwinkle eyes.

“Dex, can I kiss you?”

“Please?”

And they did.

When Keefe heard descriptions of kissing the same gender, they always said that it felt wrong somehow. But this...this only felt right. Like he had been waiting his whole life for the moment when he met the gardener boy’s cracked lips. They weren’t soft, and the kiss was a bit awkward, but it just felt...correct. Keefe chased the kiss slightly when they finally had to pull away. 

A shy smile spread across Dex’s face.

Keefe leaned back in.

~*~

Keefe walked out onto the newly-built stage in front of the castle and looked upon his people. His ceremonial robe was itchy and too large for him.

Cassius was no where to be seen. He had just...run away. The day of the wedding was the day he broke. The kingdom had been sovereignless for the last month, coronations couldn't be rushed. 

Typically the previous king would place the crown upon the head of the new ruler. Because Cassius seemed to run away in the night with nothing more than a clump of riches, Keefe got to choose who would crown him. 

“Friends and subjects of the Kingdom of Eternalia,” Oralie started. “Today, we crown a new ruler. A ruler to put the people first. A ruler who will not sleep until every one of his people is fed. A ruler to unite us.”

Keefe never realized how long winded Oralie was. Looking into the crowd, he spotted Sophie. She wore a sour expression.

Sophie never was a fan of Oralie, she wouldn’t tell him why. 

“Prince Keefe has shown a care for his people deeper than any king before him.”

She could say that again. Keefe found Dex in the crowd, absolutely beaming.

“In the time I have had the honor of teaching him in my lessons, he has shown a willingness to learn. An ability to adapt. And a knowledge of the system as well as its successes and failures deeper than anyone else his age.

And yes, it is truly a shame that a king must be crowned this young, but I have no doubt that in time he will do right by our great kingdom.”

Oralie walked over to him, her pink flowy dress trailing behind her. She picked up the ceremonial crown off the pillow that a servant was holding.

“Prince Keefe of Eternalia, do you promise to uphold the law and do what is right for your people to the best of you abilities?”

“I do.”

“And do you promise to preserve the honor of our nation?”

“I do.”

A loud voice came from the crowd.

“AND DO YOU PROMISE TO NOT LET CASSI-ASS BACK INTO THE THRONE ROOM?” Keefe could tell it was Marella, but no one else had to know that.

He cracked a smile. “I do.”

Oralie chuckled too.

“In that case, Keefe Sencen of Eternalia, with this crown I deem you King of Eternalia. May you have a long and peaceful reign.”

The heavy crown was placed upon his head. The crowd cheered and chanted, his friends yelled the loudest. Keefe saw as Fitz lifted Biana on his shoulders, they all hugged and screamed excitedly. 

Who he noticed most of all was Dex. His bright smile in that moment was worth everything he’d been through. 

Maybe he had found someone he didn’t mind being with.

~*~

Like most days, it was a somewhat quiet day at the castle. 

Keefe looked up from his painting to study the gardens, once called the Queen’s Gardens, but that was ages ago. The wall that once surrounded the beautiful landscape was knocked down a very long time ago. 

Keefe smiled as he spotted Dex tending to some ivy that had grown on one of the ancient statues. Even being a king couldn’t keep his husband from assisting the gardeners. 

Tomorrow, some old friends were visiting. That in itself wasn’t particularly special, as they visited at least twice a year (usually more), but tomorrow was special because it was the anniversary of the Great Wedding Destruction as historians had come to call it. 

How many years had it been? 300? 400? One tends to forget. 

After 50 years or so, they admitted to planning the whole event. By then, Keefe had already convened with the councillors to pass same gender marriage and gotten married to Dex. The law couldn’t exactly do much, it had been a while and no one was injured so any fear of being charged with treason was history.

A few minutes later, Dex trudged into Keefe’s art studio. 

“Hey lovey, do you know where I put the high-power garden clippers?”

“I hope in your lab, but you might want to check the kitchens.”

“Why would they be in the kitchens?”

“Heard some buzzing coming from there and last time I saw the nieces they had frosting all over their faces.”

Chaos ran in the Dizznee family. 

Dex sighed as they heard a loud bang followed by an “Oops.” from downstairs. 

“Gosh if Rex doesn’t pick up his children soon...I won’t do anything but I’ll be sour about it.”

Keefe chuckled. “You might want to go check on them, wouldn’t want them to break your invention. If they haven’t already.”

Dex hummed noncommittally. “Whatcha drawing?”  

“Just a boring landscape...that happens to include a dragon.”

Dex leaned over the easel. “It’s a very pretty boring landscape that happens to include a dragon.”

“Thank you very much, dearest.” Keefe leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “Now you may want to actually check on the girls. I don’t think Elwin can heal severed fingers.”

“Yeah, okay.”

As he walked from the room that used to be Cassius’ office he yelled, “Emily! Leah! Please don’t be killing each other-”

Keefe just smiled. He did that a lot nowadays. 

He hoped these days would last forever.

[stellarune]

(Part 2. Please let me know if you want more because these are really fun to make, but I don’t want to take up your time/askbox if you don’t like them.)

Tam wakes up slowly and even then he isn’t really sure he’s quite awake. His head’s a bit foggy and wherever he is doesn’t feel farmiliar... then again, he hasn’t quite opened his eyes yet, so maybe it’s just his head playing tricks on him.

And while he certainly doesn’t want to open his eyes quite yet, the way his right arm is draped over a foreign object is making him too curious to resist.

It takes a few blinks for the fuzzy shapes to become solid ones.

Slowly, Tam’s eyes follow his elbow up to where his forearm and hand lay rested in... someone’s lap?

“I slept on the floor, if that’s why you’re hitting me with all that wonder, Bangs Boy.”

Following the torso up with his eyes, Tam is greeted with the sight of Keefe who, no doubt given how grumpy he looks, isn’t lying. His eyes are still looking at the book in his hands and he’s leaned back against the headboard. It’s almost like Tam isn’t even there.

Tam clears his throat, trying to remember what exactly happened last ni- oh.

Keefe turns to him- which Tam hates because not only has he realized he probably made an idiot of himself last night, but there’s zero question that he definitely has a raging bedhead. And morning breath. Oh no.

“You good, dude?” Keefe questions.

Holy shit please stop looking at me.

Tam’s embarrassment is only worsened by how awake and out together Keefe seems to be. He can feel his cheeks turning pinker.

Tam clears his throat and nods before realizing he should probably apologize or something. “Yeah- uh-“ he clears his throat again- “and I’m sorry for... uhm, last night.”

Keefe’s face doesn’t change from his blank expression and already wide eyes. He shrugs. “All good. Better you came here instead of lost your shit without anyone around to help. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” It’s at this point that Tam is realizing he should probably either sit up or, at the very least, take his arm off of Keefe. But he doesn’t exactly have anywhere else to put it and he knows the second he sits up he’s going to get a head rush. He doesn’t move yet.

“Your fingers?”

“Huh?”

Keefe grumbles and sets his book beside him- probably on a nightstand- before gently picking Tam’s right hand up. He holds it like if he makes one wrong move the bones will shatter into a million pieces.

Tam forces himself for focus on his still purpleish-black fingers. They look like the have no blood in them, but they feel normal. He tells Keefe the former.

“That’s good.” Keefe puts Tam’s hand back down, but doesn’t let go of his fingers and it takes all of Tam’s mental strength not to stare at the way Keefe is almost holding his hand.

It takes so much mental strain, in fact, that he almost misses when Keefe starts talking again.

“Elwin said that they seemed fine. All the blood is circulating fine.” Keefe is playing with them now. “But, he’s wondering if you have any shadowflux stored in them? He said that’s probably why yiur nails turned black- you stored shadowflux in your fingers too long- or, that’s what he thinks, at least.”

Tam thinks for a moment before answering. “I don’t think so... it should’ve all gotten out the last time I did it.”

Granted, the last time he’d let the shadowflux into his hands so he could use it easier was when they were fighting over Keefe with Gisela so he’d needed a lot. Still... he was pretty sure he’s used it all up.

“You’re sure?” Keefe asks. Stupid Empaths.

“I said I think.” Tam huffs, before slowly taking his hand away from a Keefe’s and pushing himself into a seated position.

As expected, everything goes dark and he can’t see for a minute. Thankfully, the boy next to him doesn’t say anything. He can probably feel the dizziness.

“What time is it?” Tam changes the subject in hopes of forgetting about the night before.

Keefe looks to his side. “Almost 12.”

“Fuck. Linh’s probably freaking out.” He reaches into the pockets of yesterday’s pants, but they come back up empty handed.

“She knows you’re here.” Keefe chuckles before Tam can completely lose his mind. “Elwin called Tiergan just after you took the sedative, remember? And she called me not that long ago to ask how you were doing.”

Tam isn’t sure how to respond to that. “Oh.”

Keefe snorts before reaching a hand over to Tam’s hair.

Right...

“Damn, Tam-Tam. I didn’t know you had such a serious bedhead. Your bangs aren’t even in your eyes.” He’s laughing now. Like he thinks it’s funny that he can see Tam’s forehead.

Tam’s face gets hot again, but he’s already intruding enough, so instead of asking for a brush or comb he reaches up to his head and attempts to smooth down the hair.

“You’re gonna scratch your scalp off if you keep trying to brush your hair with your creepy Shade hands like that.” Keefe comments, however he makes no move to give Tam an alternative option.

Tam stays silent and is saved from having to come up with a response thanks to the door being kicked open. The sound it makes when it hits the wall is so loud he practically jumps out of his skin.

“Not that I don’t enjoy listening to you two get along for once,” Ro sounds bored, “but Elwin just made lunch and he wants to know if he should bring it up here or if you two wanna come down and eat at the table- which he won’t be at because he has to continue making Bangs Boy’s medicine.”

Tam isn’t sure what to be more shocked at- the fact that Elwin made him lunch, Ro calls him nicknames too, or that he needs medicine for... something.

“I’ll bring it up.” Keefe answers before Tam can really get a grip on everything. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and his stride is so long that he’s at the door within a minute.

Before he leaves however, he turns back to Tam. “Bathroom is two doors down and my hairbrush is by the sink, on the far left.”

And then he and Ro are gone.

(yes, i love them p l e a s e keep them coming i am l i v i n g for this)

this is. adorable ?? and also keefe just stopping his teasing bc he knows scary powers ??? y e s  i love that sm

@a-lonely-tatertot

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

HELLO... i am back

yes aditya gets a treat because otherwise indus is going to murder him and then transfer him far far away and never unground him ever and we can't do that to a baby. also i hope no actual murder of chickens occur in their plot thing but it could also be something Worse so Yikes!

i wish yao didn't know what a hickey is but. welp he would. actually this makes me propose a situation (nsfw-ish? implied nsfw?): nyo china buys encyclopedias for yao to read and one very old one has a section with a full diagram of sexual intercourse. it isn't porn, it's those diagrams where the skin is missing and serves as a view into the organs of the human body but just in a... position. so 8 year old yao reads all about sex and goes to nyo china being like "hey so sex is for making babies right? so if i want children i have to have sex right? there's no opting out of it?" and nyo china is like fuck it the kid might as well get his sex ed + introduction to adoption stuff now since he knows about it already. then the next day a teacher has a badly hidden hickey and yao is trying to figure out how the fuck that happened before he remembers that certain animals bite each other during sex and asks nyo china about it.. and then boom. (the encyclopedia part was unfortunately inspired by irl events 😔)

but anyway imagine yao mistranslating the code.. and being like "wtf why do you want to BITE people" and india + iran being like ??? and then they get an unfortunate sex ed that night (baby! yao's mildly inaccurate version: "sometimes weirdos like biting each other during sex many animals do this as well and this is called a hickey. sex is this thing that adults do for fun and sometimes to reproduce. but you should only bite other people and have sex with them if all of you are interested and not just because you want a baby, because there are other ways of getting one. if they try to have sex with you or bite you or touch you in Bad Touch areas you should -" "kill them? and get an adult later?" "yeah exactly" "how do you know this tho??") then yao probably tries to find the sex encyclopedia to bring to school to show india and iran but nyo china threw it out because it was 20 years out of date and said that pluto was a planet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

also YES MISS VIETNAM DESTROY THE PROPERTY OF THE RICH... CUT HIM DOWN TO SIZE imagine getting 2 entire ass houses at 18 lol and there was actually a person who was going to get a mercedes in my class. apparently his parents were buying 2 and wanted him to pick the one with the colour he liked more as a gift at 18 and keep the other for themselves. he asked us which colour Mercedes was better, someone accused him of being a braggart, and then there was so much drama... i am glad i am no longer in that class. rich people.

also yeah miss vietnam is definitely one of those nice but strict teachers!! she'll definitely be kind to everyone but she won't tolerate bullshit and god knows yao is full of it. but also imagine vietnam teaching india's class and then yao pouting to india about the assignment he got a b on (a slight improvement from the c) only to be met with "what? she's so nice and smart lol you're just an asshole i kind of want to make friends with her tbh" and yao's like How Dare You Backstab Me Like This? but yes she really forces him to Think instead of just letting him be and that's very good for him!! and she gets an intellectual outlet too :D

also yeah like linh is going to struggle.. how do you write "he's a complete asshole but tolerable and intellectually fun after a while" in a GOOD manner?? this rec letter will probably be full of phrases like "a spirited personality given to debate" or something

This is also a late reply :’)

I wasn’t really thinking about anything specific for the plot; I was really just trying to find a word that was slightly similar to hickey and decided on a dead chicken lmao. But honestly, it would probably be something like “I’m going to bring a (dead) chicken to class for show and tell and you two need to act horrified and cause a ruckus because it would be fun and it would scare the other kids :)”. (this is probably bullying, so in an effort to make them slightly better kids, an alternative plot is that a stray cat has been coming to their school and in order to make friends with it, they feed it a whole-ass dead chicken Nyo China got from the butchers and was planning to cook for dinner. The teachers are horrified and confiscate Yao’s backpack for fear of germs and salmonella.)

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OH MY GOD nyo China, miss, please, he’s young. But the encyclopedia reading is so accurate o-o small and independent Yao + voracious reader + lots and lots of books about Everything + nyo China’s hands-off “it’s never too early to know” caretaking/parenting strategy = what other things has he been exposed to... (let’s face it he’s probably said the F-word or insulted someone in Mandarin without meaning to, but came off as a disrespectful little chaos ball) BUT THE BADLY HIDDEN HICKEY and the ANIMALS BITING EACH OTHER salk;fsdl;ksdjl way to unconsciously roast your teacher lmao. I love nyo China’s no-nonsense way of approaching Strange Questions Asked by Eight Year Olds but I do not know how to feel about her very direct answers 😭 Also, I am very sorry for your personal loss 😔.

Scene 3 is 100/10 canon now. “weirdos who bite each other during sex” Yao thinks hickeys are weird, and good for him. Also the little summary!! Of course Yao pass on everything he knows to India and Iran... at least it’s not a fucked up version of sex-ed, even if it may have some small inaccuracies. rip outdated encyclopedia. Also “ ‘kill them? And get an adult later?’ ‘yeah exactly’” GOOD nyo china thank you for doing at least one thing correctly

also your class is crazy??? A MERCEDES oh my god... how do his parents love him so much? My parents probably wouldn’t even trust me with a second hand from 2005 lmao. Also, wtf rich kid, why would you be crowdsourcing opinions for YOUR car? (ngl I kinda think he was bragging too 😂, but drama? Do all these people have nothing else to do besides gossip smh)

Vietnam has a blacklist of Confirmed Assholes she needs to keep an eye on and Yao got on the list in the first few days after being very tryhard and simultaneously arrogant, so he just assumes she’s naturally mean because he never saw the other side of her. But then he starts hearing reviews from his friends who all say she’s their favorite teacher so far and he’s all like “????? Excuse you???” Also yes go get her friendship Aditya hopefully it will mellow you out a little as well “A spirited personality given to debate” YES YES YES! That sounds like such a nice phrase but it’s just code for “loves to argue with me and that’s cool I guess”. The recommendation makes Yao glow (to admissions) despite how much Vietnam thinks it’s bad and also how much bs-ing she thought she did. Admissions officers think Yao’s amazing and contributes greatly to the classroom environment and Vietnam is like “yeah, in a way, as long as you don’t mind someone who thinks every word you say is somehow wrong and will fight you to prove it lol. just take him, I’m trying to get rid of him”

Since there’s essays involved I’m assuming she teaches either history or literature? Kinda on the fence because I feel like she’d be good at giving a no-nonsense version of history filled with interesting details and prompts that make you think (and also hosts monthly debates on controversial issues), but I also want Yao to be as un-confident as possible in his abilities in her class, and I feel like he would be less comfortable/sure of his answers and thoughts in a lit class than a history one. I’m not sure though

[impostertamsong]

Learning To Be Happy Again

You get an early release because Imma be real busy tomorrow and plan to not be as active (or not active at all). 

Also, a little warning for this one. Lord Cassius is not nice in this chapter, and I’m pretty sure this counts as emotional abuse, so, yeah. Also, just general angst.

Chapter Two: Guess What Happened? You’ll Never Guess

I wake up in a cold sweat, blanket tangled around my legs. 

“Keefe, are you okay?” Elwin’s voice comes from behind me.

“Oh, uh, yeah. It was just a dream.” I look over at Elwin. Even in the dark light I can tell he’s worried, but it’s not the kind of worry I’m used to. When Foster’s worried it feels more like a swarm of butterflies constantly surrounding the target. This feels like being snuggled in a warm blanket on a cold day, and I feel the need to tell him everything about the dream. It’s something I’m not used to, so I stop talking a little abruptly.  

Almost on cue, Elwin says, “Do you wanna talk about it?” I nod, but don’t say anything. “Well, okay, what was the dream about?”

“Well,” and then words just start pouring out of me. Though, despite my photographic memory, I can’t describe it quite right. All I can really say is: “It was dark, and I was being held down by shadows. Tam was there. I couldn’t move. It was so, so dark.” Elwin wraps his arms around me, and that odd worry feeling gets stronger. I can’t help but hold onto him like the world depends on it. This feels like something I should know, but don’t, and it doesn’t bother me. When he starts whispering that I’m okay, and that it’ll all be alright, it takes a lot of energy not to just completely lose it. What is this new feeling coming in? It’s so soft, pale pink and pure comfort. This feels familiar, but not at the same time. It’s like the feeling I used to get when my wonderful, beloved mother would comfort me, but less contained. 

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” Elwin whispers, pulling me out of my thoughts. I guess I started crying at some point, because tears are streaming down my face. 

“Thank, thank you,” I croak. 

“Is it okay if I leave you now?” Elwin moves to get up, but I grab his sleeve. 

“I, the dark. Can, can you stay with me?” He nods and then moves to get up again. 

“I’m just going to bring my bed over here so that I can be nearer to you, alright? I’m not leaving.” I nod shakily. But he could leave, I wouldn’t blame him. I mean, who would want to deal with a mess like me? I’m sixteen and afraid of the dark. How lame is that. 

“I’m back,” Elwin whispers. His hand takes mine and squeezes it. “Wake me up if you have another nightmare, okay? I don’t mind.” 

“Okay, goodnight, Elwin, and thanks,” I whisper back. The room is too quiet for speaking at a regular volume. 

“Goodnight, Keefe.”

I don’t have any more nightmares. 

The morning is uneventful, and soon I’ve changed back into my own clothes, Elwin’s hugged me good-bye, and I’ve light leaped to The Shores of Solace. 

“I’m home, Father Dearest!” I call through the house after I’ve closed the door. Said person is sitting in a chair, looking rather worse for wear. When he sees me, he stands up, and his face grows dark. 

“Why did nobody tell me you were awake?”

“Uh, I dunno. Probably just forgot or something.” 

“Forgot? Forgot? How could they! I’m your father!” He’s properly upset now, just the warm welcome I needed. “How long have you been awake.”

“Since yesterday afternoon, I think.” 

“Yesterday? That long? Why did you stay the night?” 

“Elwin wanted to make sure everything was stable, just in case.” 

“Elwin. Why didn’t he tell me!” he grumbles.

“I, I don’t know.” I scratch my neck. Dad looks there and sees the scars. 

“What. Is. That.”

“Oh, uh, it’s just a tattoo I got on the way back. Pretty cool, huh.”

“Don’t you dare joke with me.” He glares at me. 

“Um, it’s actually from the incident. They won’t go away. Elwin tried.” 

“Oh did he. I’m sure he tried very hard. You know, why didn’t you listen to your friends and stay behind. This wouldn’t have happened if you had. You would be fine and… unmarked.” He sneers the last word. 

“Yeah, and if I had, I’m sure they would’ve found me, or Tam would be dead.”

“Does that Song boy mean something to you?” 

“Well, no.” Why would he ask that? “But I wouldn’t want to have someone’s death on me. And Linh doesn’t need that anyway. Tam is all she’s got.” 

Dad sighs heavily. “But now you’ve got those marks. How’re you supposed to be successful with imperfections. You have enough.” 

“Well, I think I’m pretty great, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My words are empty, but that doesn’t matter. 

“Oh? Do you need me to repeat them? Your art, for one, is getting in the way of your success. Your mischievous outlook on life has given you more detentions than awards. You care more about your friends than your own family. And now these scars.”

“I don’t care.” And I don’t. How could those be imperfections if they’re all the things that bring me joy? 

“Go to your room. Now.” Dearest Daddy ever the forgiver. 

I flop on my bed and sigh. 

“So, you had a nice chat with Lord Snootypants then?” Ro is standing in the corner. 

“Mhm. Just the most wonderful welcome home you could ever expect. I got reminded just how much of a disappointment I am! Just what a kid wants to hear.” I laugh, the idea that I could have avoided this whole thing by hiding ricocheting around my brain. “It’s my fault isn’t it. I could’ve stayed behind and not furthered Mommy Dearest’s legacy for me or whatever.” Ro is silent. 

“You can’t let his words get to you,” she says wisely after a few moments. “Even if that were true, who knows what would’ve happened.” 

“Who are you, and what did you do with Ro? You didn’t get her personality right, impostor.” I sit up and point dramatically at her.

“I can be serious, weirdo. But tell anyone, and I’ll coat your pillow in some of that flesh eating bacteria. I hear it also goes through hair pretty quickly.” 

I screech. “Not the hair, Romhilda!” She glares at me, and I laugh. 

My imparter rings, breaking the light feeling. “Hey, Foster.” 

“Hey. You’re back at your house?” 

“Yeah, I am. Got a lovely welcome too!” 

“Oh, Keefe. Are you alright?”

“Just peachy!”

“Keefe.”

“Really! I’m fine, Foster. Don’t worry. I can tell you know.” She smiles slightly, cheeks slightly pink. 

“I still will, you know. I bet Forkle ingrained it into my DNA.” She laughs coldly. A familiar laugh. 

Dinner is tense and quiet. We’re having soup, so the only sounds are spoons on bowls. As soon as I finish, I stand up quickly and put my dishes away (after cleaning them, of course) and go to my room. 

“Let’s ditch this place.” I start gathering stuff before Ro even answers. 

“And where do you plan to go?” Ro has her arms folded. 

“Elwin, I guess. I don’t feel like bothering anyone else. And I get the feeling he cares? I dunno. Maybe it’s a stupid idea.” I stop rushing around the room and sit at the edge of my bed, face in my hands. 

“Naw, let’s go! Screw your dad!” Ro stands taller and smirks. “C’mon! Finish packing!” 

I smile. “Okay!” 

After a while, I go through the bag I’ve packed to make sure I’ve got everything. “Mrs. Stinkbottom, sketchpad, pencils, clothes, yup. That’s it! Let’s get out of here!”

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