#this is my most cringe attribute i fear

[skully-bones]

i walk into any game w/ romance elements and seek out the prickliest most emotionally stunted man i can find, ask if anyone is gonna put a ring on it, and don’t wait for an answer

[captainremmington-13]

A Lady Made of Snow

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own The Hunger Games franchise, the images above, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, or any of the characters in this fic other than Bellova. I also do not condone the beliefs or actions of Coriolanus or Bellova.

SUMMARY: Coriolanus’s academic and professional life is blossoming. But his wife continues to be his biggest obstacle.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: THIS IS A DARK CHAPTER. It contains violence, verbal/physical abuse/, mention of murderous intent, Coriolanus being horrible, HEAVY ALLUSIONS TO SEX, NONCON, swearing

A/n: IM ALIVE YIPPEE i’m so sorry for disappearing i went on a trip and i was also facing MAJOR writers block but i’m back!!!

“Congratulations once again, Mister Snow. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow on your first day as an official Gamemaker.”

Beaming, Coriolanus shook Dr Gaul’s hand and quickly exited the office. He was elated, relieved that he’d finally received the promotion he’d worked so tirelessly for.  

Finally, he’d be able to make some real change. Sure, it meant more office hours, but it was more than worth it.

As he rode home, Coriolanus was already brainstorming ideas to bring to the meeting the following morning. He knew he needed to immediately prove he was worthy of the position, despite having worked with the other Gamemakers for almost a year. 

When he arrived inside the Reginelle estate, he took off his coat and practically shoved it into an Avox’s arms. He ordered her to get him a glass of red wine, and to bring it to his Bellova’s. Nodding quickly, she did as she was told, and he relished in the obvious nervousness in her body language. 

Now that he was officially the man of the house, he held a significant amount of power over every matter revolving the Reginelle fortune and property. In most ways, he had more power than Bellova herself.

Which was extremely satisfying. 

Pushing open the bedroom doors, he immediately spotted his wife sitting at her vanity, brushing her hair slowly. Her movements seemed robotic, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. When she was under the serum’s influence, she was obviously not functioning as a normal human would. 

But somehow, nobody noticed. Or at least, they attributed it to her lingering grief, not to any unnatural cause. 

Bellova looked over her shoulder, and smiled at Coriolanus. “Hello there, handsome. I missed you.” 

Coriolanus didn’t return her smile. “I’m sure you did.”

His fingers worked quickly to undo the buttons of his dress shirt. Though he wanted to change into his sleeping clothes as soon as possible, he was still careful to preserve it’s condition. After all, it had cost at least a couple hundred dollars.

As soon as he slipped on his silk robe, he spoke again.

“I had a meeting with Dr. Gaul today.”

Coriolanus barely suppressed a grin when Bellova’s eyes widened in fear at the mention of the Head Gamemaker. 

“W-What about?” she asked softly, setting down her brush. 

“She promoted me. I’m now officially a Gamemaker.”

Bellova breathed a sigh of relief. “Congratulations, my love,” she said gently, walking over to him. “I’m very proud of you.”

She looked so vulnerable, the dim light of the room casting an angelic glow across her face. She was clad only in a cream white nightdress, the fabric tantalizingly translucent. Though he despised her, it he still found her body to be irresistible.

Coriolanus sat down on the edge of the bed, and pulled Bellova into his lap. She immediately curled up against him, the romantic gesture making him cringe. Her clinginess always irritated him, and he would reprimand her often so she would behave at least decently in public. However, when they were in private, it took even more effort to keep her hands off of him. 

But he supposed that using her desperation for his own pleasure wouldn’t hurt.

Coriolanus lifted Bellova off of his thighs and let her fall backwards onto the bed. She giggled, blushing like a schoolgirl. She truly was enamored with him. 

“You’re so pretty, Coryo,” she simpered, reaching up to cup his face with one hand. He didn’t reply, simply pushing the straps of her dress off of her shoulders. 

Just as he let the fabric slip past her chest, Bellova let out a pained cry.

Coriolanus snarled in frustration. He was so close to letting out all of his pent-up feelings out, but now, he had to deal with the real Bellova. 

He didn’t move from his position over her as he reached into his back pocket for the serum. He watched, almost bored, as she writhed beneath him, her eyes squeezed shut.

As soon as Bellova stopped twitching and her eyes opened again, a smile spread across his face. It was cruel, the immense enjoyment he got from her fear and helplessness.

But he didn’t give a fuck. It was what she deserved. 

Bellova’s lips immediately curled into a sneer. 

“Get your hands off of me.” 

Coriolanus rolled his eyes and didn’t respond. He tugged her nightgown off of her body, making her gasp and shudder. One of her hands shot upwards, but he grabbed her wrist before she could grab his throat. 

“Say whatever you want to say now, you feral bitch, before I put you back under.” 

“You’re calling me feral, and yet you’re the one who’s desperate to fuck me.” Bellova’s smirk was infuriating, but Coriolanus refused to give her the satisfaction of a visible reaction from him.  

“You’re a pathetic man, Coriolanus,” she spat, her voice shaking with pure hatred. “One day, I swear, I will make you pay for everything you’ve done. You’ll regret that you were ever fucking born.”

Coriolanus threw back his head as he laughed, and gripped her left shoulder so tightly that he was sure it would leave a mark. The needle of the syringe was a mere inch from her neck, threatening to puncture her at any moment. 

“You don’t scare me anymore, Bellova.”

Bellova averted her gaze from the needle, and her piercing grey eyes cut into his with a burning intensity. When she spoke, she sounded exactly like her old self: confident, vengeful, and wickedly intelligent.

“Good. That’ll make you much easier to kill.”

As the needle pierced her skin and Bellova let out a scream, Coriolanus’s stomach churned unpleasantly. 

It was harmless threat, he was sure of it. 

But it still shook him to his core.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Within a month of working as a Gamemaker, Coriolanus had established himself as one of the sharpest young minds in the Capitol. 

The combination of his effortless charm and impressive intellect had made him instantly popular. Hardly anyone remembered the incident that occurred regarding him and the 10th Hunger Games. He had buried that as deep as possible, and covered it by establishing his reputation as the bright, young Gamemaker who was destined to succeed. 

His University life was also flourishing. He had a great report with all of his instructors, and was well-liked amongst other students. His grades were stellar, as he knew they would be, and put him on the path to graduate at the top of his class.

The only challenge he faced was dealing with his wife. 

Though the serum was still effective, it continued to wear off during the evening. Bellova would scream and yell as loudly as she could, cursing at him and occasionally pleasing for someone to help her. Luckily for him, Coriolanus had smoothly lied to everyone working in the Reginelle estate, saying that her cries were a result of a mental disorder she’d developed from intense grief. 

He knew they were all too scared of him to question it.

However, as more time passed, the enjoyment he felt from seeing her distress diminished. It simply became irritating, and he no longer got pleasure from seeing her suffer mentally.

So he decided it was time to tame the beast that was Bellova Reginelle once and for all.

It didn’t take long for him to convince Dr. Gaul to begin working on a stronger serum: one that contained effects that would subdue his wife for the rest of her days. She understood the importance of eliminating threats. After all, she’d encouraged him to continue his practice of poisoning his opponents.

The serum would take at least two weeks to develop. Dr. Gaul insisted that she needed adequate time to test it, and ensure that it worked exactly as intended. 

“No mishaps this time,” she had said with bone-chilling determination. “Your bride will never be a bother to you again.”

So Coriolanus had to accept the fact that Bellova would fight tooth-and-nail for her freedom for several more nights.

But he would never let her have it. 

His career was just beginning. He could not let the citizens of the Capitol discover that he was deeply involved in corruption and scandalous acts. It would ruin him before he truly began to climb the social ladder. 

After all, Snow was destined to land on top. 

And in his case, getting to the “top” only meant one thing:

becoming the president of Panem. 

✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊❆ ‧

TAGLIST: @daenerysqueenofhearts, @squidscottjeans, @euphemiaamillais, @gracieroxzy, @effectwalker, @vxnilla-hxrddrugs, @mystargirl-interlude

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think in the comments! Again, I am so sorry for disappearing. I promise to try to write more consistently going forward <3

Also, let me know if you want to be added to the tag list! (I had to add some of y’all to a comment instead becuz tumblr won’t let me tag more people for some reason☹️)

[sophieinwonderland]

I joined the SC server out of curiosity because this nonsense has been on my feed all week and fffucckkk why is anyone taking them seriously, theyre just cringe kids (and even cringier adults) who feel like such garbage about their lives they wanna bully systems because they see how much happier we are in ours.

I love this community so much, everyone please take care and remember to do a cleansing ritual to remove these pathetic people from your feeds

On this note, I'll remind people they can block tags if they need to. I try to tag most of my posts about the sub or its server with #r/systemscringe or #systemscringe.

I personally do take them seriously. At least for the harm their misinformation can do. Sure, they're a bunch of clowns, but their misinformation can do real damage.

I believe @cambriancrew was talking not too long about medical forums they're in discussing denying treatment to patients who have DID. This is attributed to the false perception of a mass amount of fakers. A perception driven by places like r/systemscringe.

And disturbingly, some of their members are in medical fields, like this user:

This is what truly terrifies me about these cringe communities.

When you're seeking treatment, you don't know who the people are you're being treated by.

Maybe u/manditobandito isn't someone who gets to decide whether you can get the pain relievers you need, or even life-saving medical treatment. But someone from these communities could be.

They could decide that because you're plural or have a dissociative disorder, that you're malingering and must therefore be faking whatever other conditions you say you have.

And these people won't be basing this on their education. No. Your physicians won't have much more education into mental illnesses than most random people you meet on the street.

Especially for DID, which is barely covered in actual psych classes.

They'll be basing it on what they've heard around.

Think for a moment about the type of misinformation they typically spread, like what I recently debunked over here...

My fear is medical professionals hearing lies like this be repeated and deciding "well, the patient can hear their alters and has fictives so they must be faking," and choosing to deny patients much-needed treatment.

And to be fair, these cringe communities are only one small part of the problem.

But they are part of the problem. And the misinformation they spread can cause real damage.

[elysian467]

Reader's Rant

Okay so I had finished reading the Legacy of Gods Series few days ago so here are my thoughts(after lots of thinking,psychoanalysing and self arguing)

1)RINA PROMOTING MISOGYNISTIC VIEWS:

•The "virgin trope" is seriously not a trope at this point when each and every book has this.She makes it seem as if the fmc has commited blasphemy(What's her obsession with this word anyways.Its everywhere in her books.The blasphemy😯) if she has slept with someone before the mc.Wth!?And every male character is a casanova.Like we will find virgin Mcs hot too okay?? Especially in Ava's case like I thought okay finally we have a fmc who has had a life before mc but no?Like she makes it seem Ava have a grandiose sex life and later makes her a virgin too!?Like its okay to have experience and its totally okay to not marry the first guy you sleep with.

I also think that having literally ALL men experienced in EVERY SINGLE THING is also so frustrating.Like it would have been cool if Eli or Creighton were not u know??She makes it seem as a chore the men have to do the second they turn 18

•Another example of misogyny is the extreme sense of ownership they have for all the women in their life. Like the dad's are seriously crossing limits.Protectiveness is cute but the no-twat-is-good-enough-for-my-princess shit is exhausting.Jeremy and Landon are wayyy too controlling.Its literally offensive.You will HATE such a brother and dad for life and beyond.

•She made all women literal doormats.Enough said. (except Ava,Ari and Maya-who she turned into a villain because she has a life so she should not be the good sister)

•The fmcs had all sort of problems, worries,insecurities blah blah which could not be cured by besties, family, friends, therapists nope!They could only be cured within 2 chapters at most once the perfect mc decides to help!

•Over possessiveness.Hated it.Like listen I can still somehow get Killian's jealousy towards Remi(by dark romance standards ONLY) but Creighton has been close friends with Remi since birth and how he literally does not allow a single friendly touch!?And his insta posts each statng MINE MINE MINE repeatedly felt embarrassing and cringe rather than hot and when he tells her to stop following people like WHAT!?

2)UNFULFILLED TROPES AND PROMISES:

I am the kind of reader who gives great attention to the blurbs and tropes before reading a book.

•God of Pain is a grumpy x sunshine.Now I believe this was mentioned due to the appeal and popularity of the trope but Annika is not a sunshine at all.Sunshine character is not one which ACTS and pretends to be happy,outgoing and perfect while she has her insecurities,fears and troubles eat her up inside(her words)

•God of fury has been said to have the trope mafia prince x GOLDEN BOY which is not accurate.Anyone who has read the books should know this already ig.

•God of war which happens to be my fav from the series has false claimed tropes too.Like it was NOT a marriage of convenience.Eli forced the proximity upon Ava by forcing her to marry him(I believe forced proximity means both leads who hate each other are forced to be closer)and the sunshine point is similar as that of Annika.Imagine if someone is searching for a stand alone marriage of convenience and forced proximity....they'll be sad,angry and frustrated u know(Not me.I loved the book)

•Being an apathatic sociopath and selfish narcissist is different.Research your attributes Rina.

•Rina literally backtracks upon Eli's feelings in gow.Repeatedly mentions how Eli had no feelings for Ava before Uni.While she had stated in Royal Elite epilogue how Eli kisses new born Ava,calls her pretty,is asking Aiden for marriage pact,stares at her.Even in gow Ava mentions that he caused guys disappear even when she was in HIGH SCHOOL."Yeah he had no interest at all"😑(THE LAST LINE WAS SARCASM.YES SOME PEOPLE NEED IT TO BE SPELLED OUT.your welcome)

•Mia's selective mutism was played with totally wrong.AGAIN RESEARCH RINA!

3)PROBLEMS IN THE BOOKS

•The extremely perfect mcs who are geniuses(Einstein who?),strong,attractive all the positive attributes who can think of other than a heart ofc.Like is it wrong if at least one mc has worked hard for the way they are!?Nope these are born perfections who can cure world hunger but will not because the world does not deserve it. Fmcs have all sorts of issues(other than being spineless,submissive doormats.Not Ava,Ari,Maya) which will be cured by the MC!Yeah!(Though the way Eli helps Ava is actually book perfect,heart warming and realistic.Its quite real that her parents and Cecily babied her and could not handle hard decisions that could benefit her)

•BRATS PLAYING GODS!All the mcs are over privileged brats who have done nothing but be born to "earn" their "god" status.Like they are literal UNI kids.Like they were all spoiled brats basically criminals who were setting things(buildings) on fire and hurting and killing people like what!?

•THEIR AGES AND THEIR*ahem* ACTIONS!?Their ages in their respective books:

Killian(19)-Glyndon(19)😱😲😵😶 Creighton(20)-Annika(17-18) Jeremy(23-24)-Cecily(20) Landon(23)-Mia(18-19) Nikolai(19)-Brandon(23) Eli and Ava had time skip so it was okay(29 and 23)

Like their ages are seriously concerning.I especially wanna talk about Creighton and Annika.Annika is literally a child and her book basically had her having some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

I ABSOLUTELY HATED how creighton won't let Annika speak or talk to him without him adding the numbers iykyk.LIKE I hate how I have read soo many posts yet none mentions it!!?And how Annika is shown to have been cleared of her problems after she has sex !?And Creigh acts like a divorced 38 year old guy with an adult kid while Annika is has 0 personality(Haters can go cry a river)I really wanted Annika to leave him u know?And what was that soap opera shit with the gun and crying and sobbing and kidnapping(Which is okay because she revealed to Ava,Glyn,Cecy that its her fantasy😑)and because we are going all in so lets add suicide shit too.And yeah she was ready to kill herself yesterday and is sunshine and rainbows today yeah!!

Killian has had loads of experience in every kind of sexual activity with both men and women and in clubs and whatnot at 19 and he is bored of all that now😂😑

Ohh I almost forgot!Its literally sooo stupid and meaningless that the girls experience whatever fantasy they shared during a drunk night with each other😂😂😂Like Rina basically wants to sorta convey that the girls "wished" for it😂(Think before you wish folks!)

Zero family dynamics other than the fathers making a one chapter visit talking about the Everlasting love for their wives,their doormat of a princess daughters and zero say in all the "emotional trauma" ALL of them have(they wish)

Landon favourism was not good.Especially in gof where it should have been Niko's moment.

Its enough for today I think.

I am not posting it as a hate post.It is RANT as stated,a critical analysis.(Being going through a book hangover from Gow....partially cured through the MADDEST OBSESSION OMG YES!!!)

One last thing!!!!I get that its the creator's wish and whatever but the fact that Rina isn't writing a Remi (An Mc with emotions!!!!)Ariella(Strong fmc!The blasphemy! )and Maya Ilya book sorta shows how she can't change her formula.

•THEIR AGES!?These are their ages in their respective books:

[scrylirious]

Hi, I read your fic "The Tillamook Burn". Your writing haunts me. I feel unsafe. The way you describe things is so beautiful. Your Jason Todd scares me. Somehow, your Dick Grayson scares me more. I want them to be happy together, but I need them to bite each other. I want to eat your words. The fight in ch. 2 made me pause to tuck my feet in under the covers out of fear. Dick describing Jason as a creature. Zofia describing Jason as Dick's dearest one. My nerves are on fire. Thank you for writing. I really enjoyed it.

oh wow damn thank you so much, genuinely. you yourself write beautifully judging by this ask.

i love to scare people. i want to write fear in excess until it’s soaking the story. it’s like slathering grotesque amounts of butter onto a slice of hot toast. is it necessary? no. is it possibly a disservice to the bread to hide its vibes and own attributes under the overwhelming spotlight given to the butter? yes.

what am i talking about.

i want a gotham that’s scary and laden with corners. i want the atmosphere itself to crackle and boom with ozone and smog and electricity.

i want a jason todd that toes the line between born-right and died-wrong. i want a jason todd that licks his teeth and cringes at how sharp they’ve become. i want a jason todd who can’t recognize his fingers, who still has dreams of being 5’6” and cant reconcile with it when he wakes up, who is so hungry and hurt and afraid that he snaps his jowls at the only hands that ever loved him.

i want a dick grayson who can’t figure things out and it makes him dangerous. i want a dick grayson who pries open his chest and unplugs his heart from the arteries and veins around it just to offer it to the first person he decides deserves it most. i want a dick grayson who bucks and kicks and chafes, only to come crawling back angrier and sadder and less.

happy together, yes. bite each other, YES. i’m glad you enjoyed the fight. i’m sorry that it scared you. i hope to scare you some more.

[funkymbtifiction]

hey charity :) congrats on your retirement. it’s been great checking in from time to time. if anyone ever doubts an se-dom’s ability to tackle difficult subjects, just wanted to share that i’ve stuck with my low-ni career plans and am currently halfway done with veterinary school. well on my way to being the wildlife vet i envisioned myself to be, even on the bad days. even at 30, but i’m certainly an oddball in this program. i’m the one of very few people i’ve met that doesn’t seem to care about grades at all, and i’ve been coping with the miserable lifestyle through lots of skateboarding, music, and rock climbing. just staying as physically active and engaged with the present as possible, and cutting class to visit wildlife vets in the region to remind myself why i’m here.

i tend to not think about mbti/enneagram much these days, but i had a couple lingering questions. please redact anything if you think it’s too personal.

i’m not sure i’ll ever settle on my enneagram type; really i’ve been between 6 or 7 for years, what with the massive fear of commitment, which has always felt very 7-ish, to the point of abandoning people/relationships etc, massive fear of being trapped. but i seem to lack optimism; and then there’s the growing fear of living in my mentor’s shadow when i’m through with school, but also knowing that i need to learn from her in this field - this push/pull approach feels very 6-ish and wanted to confirm it. i have a protective streak that i’ve always associated with 8 in my tritype, and an intense sense of being ‘different’ that my mom says i’ve clung to since toddlerhood which i associate with 4. and i was about ready to say, okay, 684 so/sp and close that chapter for good.

but earlier today - i had a reaction to something that struck me as almost 1-ish, and i wanted to get your thoughts on it. [...] so, i spent some time reading your enneagram page today, and the more i read about 1, the more i cringed. i’m attributing it to a cornered fi-te, but i’m also wondering if maybe i’m wrong about the 8-fix and if that could be a 1-fix? i would not say i suppress my anger at all. but, most of my anger is directed at justice. like when i was a scrappy little kid, i usually would only fight if i was cornered and needed to stand up for myself, or to protect another person. though i would challenge the boys, i guess, to fight if i felt like i needed to prove myself about something. and while i no longer physically get into fights, i verbally do, if i have to. ie, i believe in being confrontational and direct to solve problems; and while i complain a lot about systems that i perceive as broken, i also do what i can to try and change them. 

a suppressed inner critic? yes. and it’s true that nothing ever is quite perfect to me - i see flaws in most things. but i also wouldn’t want things to be perfect. there’s beauty in the mess. but. i’m my own moral authority. and if i don’t listen to my conscience - i pay the price. can’t sleep. nightmares, etc. i certainly resent myself for holding myself to those standards. it’s exhausting. the rest of the world doesn’t have to follow my code though (unless i’m wrapped into a situation, like this morning). and i wouldn’t even necessarily want them to - it’s just me.

so then i don’t know that 1 makes sense for esfp. or if what i’m seeing really isn’t 1 at all. which brings me back here once again. given the rigor of any medical program, i suspect i’ve been looping se-te a lot lately, and i guess fi popping up could’ve just startled me.

any thoughts?

thanks in advance for your insights, and all the best!

If you’re still confused about your core type, at this point I would forget about tritype altogether and spend time digging into your core fears, motivations, studying the Enneagram more deeply, and seeing what explains most of your personality (core, wing, stacking). 6 and 7 are quite different; there is some overlap, but 6s are core super-ego types, and 7s are core assertive types, and that distinction is HUGE. 7w6s are self-confident second-guessers, and 6w7s are insecure second-guessers. 7w6s are positive leading into reactivity, and 6s are core reactives striving for positive thinking. Super-ego comes with guilt-trip inducing “should” thinking; assertive types comes with re-framing and justifications for their actions. (6: I don’t deserve that, I’ve been horrible vs 7: I deserve to get what I want, I’ve done enough!). 6s have to justify what they want to themselves and others, 7s just go get it. Finally, under stress, 6 moves to 3 and hides away from their anxiety through ‘doing’ (working). 7s move to 1 and become more critical of themselves and others. 6s have to learn to grow toward 9 and develop a peaceful mind; 7s have to learn to move toward 5 and become more objective and know that they don’t ‘need’ everything they want.

That being said… I don’t know how useful this will be, because I’m double super-ego (possibly triple, I still consider a 2 fix often), but having a 1 fix is a constant chronic frustration with the world and everything in it not being good, or right, or proper enough These things make me angry. People being selfish makes me angry, junk in people’s front yard makes me angry, seeing that a series’ title texts on my bookshelf is not in alignment makes me angry, boredom makes me angry. I run a constant “judge” machine in my head, evaluating everyone and everything and how they ‘ought’ to be. (Why was that person so rude; that’s wrong. Withholding forgiveness—also wrong; someone claiming to be moral while cheating on their wife is a hypocrite; why must everyone swear so much?, it’s so crass and vulgar.) It extends to self-judgment: I’m a lousy person for not being a better friend, not doing the dishes every night and leaving them piled up (what a mess!), I should not have lost my temper, I should stop arguing with my dad, etc. If I fight with a friend, I used to (not as much anymore, I’ve learned to cope with this) go over everything they said, and everything I said, and self-reproach for anything that was unfair, mean, or selfish. 1 fixes in other people, I see as – critical, judgmental, frustration (everything isn’t quite perfect and everyone ‘should’ be better people than they are), self-righteous anger. Etc. It’s very different from my father’s 8 fix, which is all about power dynamics. Don’t give people an inch, they’ll walk all over you. YOU set the agenda! Be strong! Good/bad is what I say it is, and what’s smart. Not as much self-reproach, self-judgment, or recrimination. Other people are the problem, in many cases, because there’s less ruthless inner critic / nitpicking of self. Short fuse, non-apologetic for blow-ups. “Sometimes force is necessary.” Completely understanding 8 cores/fixers and seeing them as fine/relatable.

Heart fixes are tricky and when last, hard to figure out since it’s a non-issue – just present in conjunction with the other two. 7s are pretty much always heart-last, 6s can be either gut or heart last. But image/heart relates to how you want to be seen and what you show other people. Do you want to be seen as good and think of yourself as better than others because they are less generous and selfless than you? 2. Do you want to be more successful than others and impress them, so you re-frame things to sound good? 3. Do you want everyone to know you’re different, unique, broken, and can’t be fixed, but that’s fine because at least it makes you not like most normies? 4. Etc. Finding a heart center for a head type is hard, because we don’t “do” feelings, we avoid/ignore them/suppress them.

Avoidance of commitment is very much a core 7 trait, and how energetic you seem in staying active, cutting class (no thought of “will this affect my grade?”), and staying not-bored would suggest 7. A 6 would be more fearful of the consequences of those things, and feel duty-obligated to force themselves to do them. But the real test is how good your attention span is. 7s have less attentiveness than 6s, who are linear thinkers.

Regarding your situation with your roommate, you did recoil in a 1ish way, but 7s also have a line to 1 and often, strong feelings about right/wrong in specific areas that hit them wrong, especially as a Fi user. Are you moralistic in this way ALL the time, or just some of the time?

[gifsbysimplysonia]

Ahead there be

So I'm not sure I've ever laughed harder at the opening line of a story:

Matthew Murdock is a pervert.

lmaoooooooooooo cuz that's not the Matt I know? Granted, it's limited to the Netflix series and his appearance on She-Hulk, but like, that's not the dude I know so to click on a cut and be told that straight up? Amazing. Love it. Not a lot of the fanfic I read is comedy, and this definitely isn't either, but I love when a comedic line is tossed in here or there and this captures my attention and makes me wanna find out WHY / keep reading. Then the 2nd line is just as good:

Matthew Murdock, the fearless and fearsome Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, is a pervert, and he knows it, revels in it, and is not ashamed of it.

So again, expectation subverted because most folks I come across in the fiction I read would NEVER admit to being a perv, let alone take pride in that fact? I myself am quite repressed and do my best to keep my tendencies/preferences as tightly under wraps as possible out of FEAR of being judged. But apparently, Matt let's his freak flag fly and wants everyone to see so GOOD FOR HIM!

It was probably guaranteed from birth, probably written down somewhere in the cosmos with the headline Man Loses Sight, but Not of Your Clit.

Absolutely amazing line lmao "Man Loses Sight but Not of Your Clit" I promise you I'm going to be thinking of that for YEARS.

...you watch a movie as it leads you through a random storyline of twists and turns that includes a handsome hero, a damsel in distress, and a passionate, but horribly choreographed love scene that simultaneously makes you cringe and squirm at the heat that briefly runs through you.

I like the judgment here cuz I am the EXACT same way. Not just, like, with love scenes but fight scenes as well but ain't it annoying that even if it's cringey and awkward, it's still a turn on? lol

Matt’s ass is decidedly not flat, and it is yours to grab whenever you see fit.

As someone who appreciates a man's peach, I appreciate attention being called to this cuz I feel like Matt does NOT get enough credit for this attribute of his.

Out of the blue, your phone vibrates on your coffee table in front of you... The man always has a way of knowing when you're thinking of him.  “I can smell you, you know,” he says the second the call connects, not bothering with a hello.

Talk about being SLAPPED in the face! Like, the way I would combust if the man I wanted greeted me like that?!?! Somehow melting into the couch from embarrassment before poofing into Thanos dust. LORDT, that is SO DAMN HOT!

Matt is one of the most eloquent men you’ve ever met, especially when he’s in front of a jury, smile and sharp words sailing throughout the courtroom in a display of confidence you know is sometimes forced. But even while he seems so put together in public, you know his real persona is someone who is a little rougher around the edges, and he’s not always one to beat around the bush when he has something on his mind.

Excuse the language but I effing love this SO MUCH cuz I feel like, with the Matt stuff I've read (which hasn't been a lot), there's rarely dichotomy explored. Here, we have public persona Matt who is well put together and unassuming but powerful when he needs to be versus private Matt who is a PERV-O and has absolutely NO problem saying exactly what he means, letting you know what he wants, and pursuing it (which can apply beyond the love life). It's SO GOOD, this is delicious, as Gordon Ramsay would say, "FINALLY, some good fcking food" when it comes to this character!

“I made popcorn. That's probably what you’re smelling, I guess.” “It’s definitely not the popcorn,” Matt remarks, and the voice sounds almost teasing as he refuses to tell you what he meant. Your eyes narrow suspiciously for just a moment. “What kind of movie are you watching?”

The way I would NEVER tell him lmaooooooooooo if he's gonna embarrass me, I'm gonna make him work for it.

"You could tell the actors just weren't into it, and the sounds they made were so fake and cringe-worthy." "Interesting," he murmurs, the sound low in your ear. "But obviously you still somewhat enjoyed it." Something in the way he says it causes your whole body to freeze, every square inch coming to an abrupt halt. The breath in your chest stutters, lungs almost refusing to move as your mind struggles to put things together.  How would he know you– No. No. No. No.

Yeah. I'd die lol just die.

“Please tell me you were lying when you said you weren't talking about the smell of popcorn that’s wafting through my apartment.” “I think we both already know that’s not what I was talking about,” his voice has deepened exponentially as he replies, and it almost sounds like a growl. “But if that’s what makes you feel better, then sure, we can go with that.”

I wouldn't ever admit it in the moment, but as a reader? I LOVE that he's beating around the bush (ha!), teasing, drawing this out. The tension that's building has my jaw clenched and me hugging my pumpkin pillow TIGHT cuz I know I'm gonna have to scream into it soon.

"You'd be surprised just how much I can pick up on when I'm focused," Matt says bluntly before the tone of his voice changes into something more heated. "And I assure you that the way you smell when you're wet isn't something I'll ever be able to ignore now that I've had my mouth on you."

Ded. Ded, Ded, Dedski. 2nd combustion. I'm just now realizing that she didn't UNDERSTAND when he said he could smell her the first time, and I must be a perv cuz I knew EXACTLY what he meant as soon as he dropped the line lol

“Speaking of movies, do you know what we should try doing together?” “What?” You ask hesitantly, not sure if you actually want to hear his answer. “I swear to God, if you say something dirty, I'm going to–" Matt takes no pity on you, his reply absolutely salacious as it cuts you off. “Watching porn.”

Me reading this section

liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike holy hell. Sweating.

I don't wanna keep quoting the rest because OMG, the mouth on this Matt Murdock. I'm someone who REALLY enjoys dirty talk (I'm very aural), and the dirty talk in this fic is UNMATCHED. His ideas, the way he unabashedly describes in detail what he wants to do to her? Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike, y'all. You need to read this for yourself.

Understand I don't even read Matt Murdock stuff but this came recommended from @savemefromanepicoftimewasted and I trust her tastes even if they are for characters I don't read like that and BOY HOWDY! This story HITS!

"I'm a block away," Matt tells you, breathing sounding slightly strangled. "Do you think you're ready for me?" Your whole body is fucking burning.

LFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

I really wanna quote the end of the story because it's so eloquently and beautifully written, the picture Matt makes arriving, but y'all need to go read it for yourselves because it is *chef's kiss* 👩🏽‍🍳💋

I can't BELIEVE how much I enjoyed reading this story. It is a true testament to talent that it is SO HOT but so well written, descriptive, and delves into a character study of Matt Murdock all at the same time.

@courtforshort15 ? Brilliant work. Thank you SO much for creating and sharing. I've already come back to this one OFTEN and I really do appreciate you so much for publishing this one

Dirty Little Devil

Pairing: Matt Murdock x AFAB Reader

Word Count: 2,400

Summary: Matt Murdock is a pervert, and he is completely unashamed to admit it.

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of sex

Masterlist

Keep reading

[thecosmicsleep]

in regards to that post about creating for others:

i want to point out that i know we're all tired. i am so, so very tired. and it can feel daunting to reblog something from someone and feel like you need to comment on it somehow. that's not what i mean by engaging.

i've started out by just reblogging art that comes across my dash more. no real comments except my organization tags right now. because i don't always have the energy to say what i like about something, but i do know from my perspective as an artist that just the simple fact that someone reblogged it for others to see is enough of an engagement (most of the time).

i can't speak for everyone, of course. some people don't consider it engagement unless there's a comment about the work. but i'm making small steps for myself to start engaging in things more.

i miss feeling like this is an online community, not just somewhere i go to distract myself. and a lot of that is my fault, and it's my job to rectify the rift i've created between myself and others. but i do feel like some of it can be attributed to how we've started interacting with things on this site.

we've changed the rules for engaging with posts—whether intentionally or unintentionally—spoken or unspoken—and there are a lot of reasons for that. one of which i feel is the weird fear of showing how passionate we feel about something because it's "cringe." it's "cringe" to comment on someone's post; it's "cringe" to be so enthusiastic about something; it's "cringe" to be a person in a public space revealing something we care about. it almost reminds me of growing up and learning by osmosis that to show you care is to admit to weakness.

and i've seen it said before, but this is the "cringe" website. this place mostly started as a place to go to nerd out over one thing or other. this is a space meant for being enthusiastic and passionate about things. and yeah, it might've gone too far in one direction at some point—forgetting that celebrities and creators aren't our friends or people we know personally and don't owe us anything, or feeling like a criticism of a favorite piece of media is a personal attack on us comes to mind—but i do feel like we've pivoted too far in the opposite direction. or we're at least heading there.

i don't know. this got away from me. anyway, engage with the people around you. it goes a long way to feeling less lonely and feeling like you're a part of something, which is what most of us are looking for.

[discluded]

This is one of my favorite pics of them both I love this sequence its the way Apo’s Beautiful face lights up and the cute way that he is smiling i want to squish him and smother him with love. The way that I was pulled in by Apo the first time I saw him bc he is one of the most gorgeous man that I’ve seen, but slowly and surely I started to read a lot of things about him and the stuff that he wrote and still writes so encouraging, full of love and support is what he always shows towards the people that he holds close to his heart and to his fans, is what still keeps me here. He is part of the select few actors that are genuinely so beautiful inside and out, I sometimes fear that a person like that can also feel lonely or sad 😔without showing it , and I know I as fan can’t do anything about it. All I can do is show my support and love online. I want Apo to just be HAPPY and be LOVED bc my man has shown nothing but that towards us. I adore him sm 😔💓.

https://twitter.com/mpranw/status/1590491804889395200?s=46&t=5BfifdWh-_Zw99a9dgx60w

My consolation is the fact that he seem happy right now and I’m happy that he found his person in Mile the one person that seems to understand the side of him that people/ peers of him from his past deemed “annoying” or “weird” I’m happy that he found his yin to his yang, his safe place and like he once said (I thought I was weird but Mile is weirder 😆) his person, the one individual that sees Apo as we see him, A great actor & and the most beautiful man that is not only super handsome but also an amazing human being(the cutest if you ask him ) ❤️ manifesting nothing but success and happiness for both MileApo ✨

Your message is so sweet 🥰💕💛💖 Apo definitely feels his fans' love towards him.

With everything he's gone through, the protective instinct towards him is very strong. The fact he's so kind and puts so much positive energy out into the world after what he's gone through says a lot about the type of person he is. You can't change how others act, but you can work hard to promote the type of energy and goodness you want to see out in the world.

Apo is very good at drawing his own boundaries and taking care of himself too, which I admire. Leading by example is important! It feels more weighty when the person you admire also says: "Don't settle. Don't let others treat you badly."

And yes, lol, Mile is... delightfully weird. I really love Apo wouldn't settle for someone who merely "put up" with his quirks and found someone who delighted in them, just like the way Apo hypes up and delights in Mile's absolutely cringe jokes 🤣 They truly are each other's biggest cheerleaders and protectors.

It makes me think of this (falsely attributed to Lao Tzu but oft-repeated quote):

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."

Apo says: Be kind to yourself as you would be to others. Love yourself and take care of yourself first and foremost. 🥰

[yiling-daddy]

Yes, that was me! I can definitely expand on my thoughts re: how Madam Yu’s behaviour reads differently to me due to my traditional, Chinese upbringing.

There is a lot of subjectivity as to whether Madam Yu can be read as abusive, and this reading is often influenced by culture—hence you often see completely off-base takes floating around. However, to me, the way that cultural context influences the reading will actually change depending on the relationship, so I will discuss each one separately. Most of the culturally insensitive takes are about her being an abusive or uncaring mother (she’s not), or that she’s a spurned woman (it’s more complicated than that), so you can skip down to the JC, JYL, and CSSR sections for that.

Madam Yu and Wei Wuxian

As a trend, I think western fandom tends to simplify Wei Wuxian’s dynamic with the Jiang family into an entire adopted family. Consequently, Yu Ziyuan gets perceived as this two-dimensional, evil stepmom figure—but I think this doesn’t capture the truth.

There’s a bit more variability among Chinese audiences when they read the Jiang family dynamic, partly due to our deeper familiarity with wuxia tropes, but mostly because there's a mediocre Netflix translation colouring the western interpretation. Though many Chinese fans do view them all as a sort of family unit and read Madam Yu as a stepmother, I do not. To me, Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli view Wei Wuxian as family—but Madam Yu does not. Madam Yu views him as a servant, a disciple of the sect, and an outsider at the dinner table—and it’s not wrong for her to do so. It’s not gracious, but it’s not unfounded. I don’t think Wei Ying ever gives any indication that he views her as a mother, either.

If you agree that they don’t have anything like a mother-son relationship, all these insults/complaints that Yu Ziyuan levels at him—that he’s the “son of a servant”, that Jiang Fengmian is weird for openly favouring Wei Wuxian over his own son, etc.—these start to make sense? Like, it’s shitty to listen to, but none of it is wrong. Suddenly it reads less like pointless insults and more like actual points.

Additionally, if we consider that Wei Wuxian is a disciple of the sect who goes around and raises the ire of the Wen clan, corporal punishment suddenly looks very normal (again, within the culture). Hence, when I watched the donghua and CQL, I hated seeing Wei Wuxian getting whipped, but I didn’t perceive this as abuse—especially because of the political nature of the decision.

But it is definitely still possible to mistreat a disciple.

In CQL, you see Madam Yu throwing an unnecessary amount of vitriol at Wei Ying. In the novel extras, it's revealed that she regularly whipped him but never whipped the other disciples, indicating that it wasn't normal corporal punishment. She also whipped him for absurdly stupid reasons. To me, this signals that she tended to abuse her authority over him. Even if you don’t view her as an abusive mother to Wei Ying, it's fair to read her as an abusive authority figure.

Importantly however, "abuse" is a loaded word suggesting a violation of social norms, and again, the situation is complicated because the social norms of the setting don't match those of the modern world. Madam Yu is not overstepping her bounds as master of Lotus Pier—hence, people do not think very much of this treatment in-universe, including Wei Ying himself.

Madam Yu, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli

Okay, when I first watched CQL, I cringed when Madam Yu started dragging her family because she sounded like My Actual Chinese Mother. I felt for a second like I had transmigrated into Jiang Cheng’s body and I was experiencing his agony firsthand!

Madam Yu reads very realistically, and I think this is why it gets personal for a lot of Chinese people when this fandom discusses her character. Yes, she belittles and hurts her children for their perceived failures, but many Chinese people can tell you that this is just a common parenting style. And while it might look like bullying to an outsider, this behaviour is usually motivated by love. It is often also motivated by fear that the child’s future will be substandard. This is textually obvious when you consider what exactly Madam Yu yells about:

She snaps at Yanli to stop peeling lotus pods, because she shouldn’t act like a servant. If Yanli keeps behaving so passively, what kind of role is she going to fall into in the future—especially given that she is not a cultivator?

She berates Jiang Cheng for always being inferior to Wei Wuxian no matter what he does. If Jiang Cheng is constantly overshadowed by Wei Wuxian, what will that mean for his future as sect leader? Or his future status and reputation among the sects?

I can do these Chinese Mom Translations because parents in real life will actually say things like this out of concern for their children (insults included), in an attempt to motivate them... and it really does light a fire under our asses. I attribute many of my personal successes to this parenting style. Thus, when I see posts like “Madam Yu didn’t show any sign of caring for others” or "Madam Yu was a purely selfish and arrogant person" or “Madam Yu is an abusive mother and nothing else"—well, I can tell most of these people are not Chinese, or if they are, then they likely did not have a traditional upbringing.

While I don't think these uninformed readings of Madam Yu are necessarily racist, I do think they they are unpleasant for Chinese fans to constantly see. For those of us in the west that had this type of upbringing, we often struggle with trying to frame and process our relationships with our parents. For me, this was partly due to the emotional baggage of my upbringing (Jiang Cheng winning!!!)... but it was also because white society kept telling me that my parents didn't give a shit about me when obviously they did. That’s fucked up to experience. It reeks of cultural imperialism. Thus, when I see Chinese people getting annoyed at these Madam Yu takes, I’m not surprised. This is unfortunately a fictional discussion that very much resembles a real one for us.

Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Fengmian, and Cangse Sanren

A lot of people view Madam Yu as a spurned woman and assume that is her motivation for constantly antagonizing Wei Wuxian and her husband. But because I assume that a lot of her chaotic yelling stems from her concerns as an Actual Chinese Mother, my take is different.

Remember the scene where Madam Yu catches Jiang Fengmian scolding Jiang Cheng just after praising Wei Wuxian? She drags Jiang Cheng up to his father and, in both CQL and the donghua, says something to this effect (paraphrased from memory):

This is your son, the future master of Lotus Pier! Even if you don’t like him because he was born to me, his surname is still Jiang!

And in CQL, she also says this right after berating Jiang Cheng for not measuring up to Wei Wuxian:

But it’s not your fault. Your mother is no match for his mother.

Yu Ziyuan isn’t angry about Cangse Sanren because she’s jealous; she is angry about Cangse Sanren because she thinks Jiang Fengmian’s feelings for her are jeopardizing his competence as a father to Jiang Cheng. Viewed in this light, it also makes sense why Yu Ziyuan is hostile to Wei Wuxian in a way that alienates him from the family—constantly calling him the son of a servant, pointing out the rumours about his parentage, etc. She’s not doing this because she hates Cangse Sanren or Wei Wuxian; she’s doing it because Wei Wuxian’s presence in the family is threatening Jiang Cheng’s future in her eyes.

Bonus: Did Yu Ziyuan love Jiang Fengmian?

Yes! In both the donghua and CQL (I ashamedly admit I don’t clearly remember the novel), I thought their final moments made it quite evident that they cared for each other. They fought together, died together to protect their home, and reached out to one another in their final moments.

But when I rewatched Madam Yu’s scenes in CQL and the donghua, I realized we got other hints that westerners probably missed. I'll focus on CQL:

Right before Jiang Fengmian sets off with Yanli for Lanling, Madam Yu sees them off. She gives Yanli some snacks and then—without making eye contact with Jiang Fengmian—says that she’s also giving them medicine in case someone gets a headache. Jiang Fengmian pauses, because it’s obviously for him.

This is recognizable behaviour for a lot of Chinese people. I can’t tell you how many times my mother got apoplectic at me, and then the only follow-up was her going out of her way to make me my favourite meal. The chaotic yelling you see between Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan is also pretty typical to many Chinese parents, and again, the follow-up in my household was often one of them going out of their way to do something for the other.

This is just how the culture is in a lot of families. “Sorry” isn’t expressed in words; it's expressed in actions. “I love you” isn’t expressed in words; it’s expressed in actions. In Chinese culture, the dominant love language is acts of service. It's fleeting, but we get glimpses of that kind of love between Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian. 

[aetherdecember]

Okay, this should be my last post on Turning Red, but I had to share some observations since Disney is making me think about my younger years.

I think it’s fascinating how Encanto and Turning Red handle similar subjects but with different responses. Especially concerning their main protagonists.

In Encanto, Mirabel is raised within a family culture of having gifts and using those gifts to serve the community. Those gifts are a blessing.

Turning Red shuns the gift and tries to get rid of it. It’s a curse.

Mirabel seems more mature than 15 because of the expectations of her family.

Mei is more or less allowed to be herself (sorry, I wasn’t paying close attention to this movie after the Daisy Mart scene... that scene murdered me with how hard I cringed).

At the end of Encanto we see that maybe those gifts weren’t quite the blessings they were made out to be (extremely simplified, there’s a ton of context I’m not unpacking here).

At the end of Turning Red we see that the gift isn’t exactly the curse it was made out to be.

Both are shaped by the experiences of those who have/use them.

Both had gifts that were given but perspective is what defines the experience of those who use them.

Ultimately, I relate to Encanto more because I lived with the responsibilities and pressures of meeting my family’s needs. As a teen, I was mute for several years because I felt my voice wasn’t worth sharing, that no one heard me anyway so I stopped talking. We’d moved recently too, so it wasn’t like I had friends to help me past that phase. Instead, I became the person my parents needed me to be. As the oldest, it was my duty to help support the family in every capacity possible. Whether that was financially, through service, or staying out of the way. Years later, I realized I was picking up my parent’s fears and acting upon it without anyone asking me to. At the time though, I didn’t know, and it was reading, writing, and discovering fandoms that brought me out of my muteness, but most days I still wish I didn’t have a voice.

And forgive me if I project my experiences onto Mirabel, but compared to Mei she doesn’t have the same social support outside her family. At least, we don’t see any friends or other teens in the movie. (Realistically I know they’re there, they just look so similar to the adults that you can’t easily pick out teen without studying the characters in the background closely.) Given how family centric the Madrigals are, it seems like Mirabel kept her friendships/social interactions mainly within her family.

Mei on the other hand has a tight knit friend group. She’s allowed to express herself without fear of judgement among them. She still has to balance her family’s expectations, but she’s not stuck in an echo chamber of what her family wants. By the end of the movie, she’s allowed to choose what direction she wants to go. That’s probably the only part I resonate with because I also managed to choose my own direction.

I just think it’s cool how those differences portray different attributes of being a teenager.

[diziaddict]

UPDATE: First Look At Destan

Hello again. Yes it's been a while since I last posted but I've just been so overwhelmed with university that I haven't had the time to write a review. Over the past few weeks, I've watched the first 8 episodes of Destan and I'm hooked! The series trailer instantly caught my attention but left me feeling unsure of what to expect as I had never watched a Turkish period drama. It's safe to say that I was pleasantly surprised and will definitely be eagerly waiting for new episodes.

If you're looking for period dramas with subtle romantic undertones, this is definitely the show for you. It portrays the romantic relationships in a way that doesn't obscure the plot, meaning it is an important aspect of the show and each character's life but never derails the narrative or prevents anyone from achieving their goals. The drama and plot-twist elements keep you on the edge of your seats and the general storyline is interesting with every episode so far exceeding my expectations.

The series utilises multifaceted characters to depict historical events and does well to ensure a relatively transparent portrayal of every character's perspective. This isn't to say the depiction remains unbiased, but at least the audience will understand the antagonists as they often have somewhat justifiable reasons for their actions. Both Batuga and Akkiz are portrayed by extremely talented actors (Ebru Sahin is personally one of my favourites!) and have adequate chemistry but, then again, romance isn't the focus of the show so this is forgivable as it allows the plot to flesh out.

The show aims to portray prejudices upheld during that period in a sensitive manner, ensuring no current communities are targeted. As such, it strives to present somewhat reasonable backstory for any discrimination enforced by a character. For instance, Ulu Ece was her husband's second wife and as such feels justified in forcing Tutkun to be Kaya's second wife. She believes the similarities between herself and Tutkun validates imposing the same hardships she endured.

I wasn't sure if the writers or actors could successfully and tastefully execute a total gender reversal of the main characters but was impressed at how well they pulled it off. Most of the time the scripts end up written in a way that appears tacky or actors are unable to fully emulate the intended effect so appear cringe-worthy. My fear when such shows attempt gender reversals is that it becomes over-exaggerated to the point where there is an absence of femininity or masculinity so the character eventually becomes a stereotypical caricature of tomboys or effeminacy. This series, however, manages to entrench such modern concepts into the societal structures of ancient communities in a believable fashion.

Akkiz is the hot-headed warrior with both beauty and brawn. Unlike traditional Turkish female leads, she isn't deterred by brutality or gore but is instead inclined to resort to violence when necessary. However, she isn't a psychopath and still retains benevolence (just not altruism). Akkiz is bold and unconforming, often vocal with her opinions regardless of class, status or power. On the other hand, Batuga is disabled and thus physically disadvantaged but makes up for this with his quick wit and intelligence. He is more soft-spoken and prefers to express his opinions through actions and not words. Of course most of this timid personality can be attributed to Batuga's obligation to appear mentally incapacitated.

Something I really appreciated was that neither Batuga nor Akkiz judged or criticised the other for their peculiarities and instead treated each other as equals, disregarding society's rigid hierarchies and expectations. While most characters (well intentioned or not) patronise Batuga for his supposed 'deficiencies', Akkiz doesn't spare him from manual labour and instead treats him utterly the same. This isn't due to any illogical delusions or wishful thinking but because she knows he can adapt to overcome these challenges. Batuga is so accustomed to being viewed as inferior due to his physical handicaps that he never realised how much he craved her honesty. Likewise, Batuga is patient and willing to compromise for Akkiz. He values her input and can look past the enmity between the Gok and Dag tribes. He shows great understanding and prioritises her feelings. Having been raised in an environment where your societal standing is constantly considered of greater importance and superiority over others, it comes as a refreshing surprise that Batuga is not so egotistical.

Overall, this is shaping up to be an amazing show and I am genuinely excited to see where it takes me. From next week onwards I'll try writing reviews every week if my schedule will let me!

[arashikitten]

What the Shadows Bring to Light

   Wukong liked to think he had a sixth sense when it came to certain things. In a way, he sort of did, what with the golden eyes and demon sensing capabilities. But he also liked to think that he had a sort of foresight, an ability to know if something was wrong regardless of whether or not he was there if or when something bad happened.

   It was something that had grown even stronger as he started to train Qi Xiaotian, which he attributed to the kid’s almost uncanny ability to stumble upon powerful demons, most of whom hadn’t been seen in well over 300 years. Seriously, the kid’s ability to get into trouble would have almost been something to be respected, if not for the fact that he made it very difficult for Wukong not to leap into battle to help whenever Xiaotian got even a little hurt. Xiaotian needed to learn how to do all of this himself: eventually, he’d need to grow out of the Monkey King’s shadow.

   Which was why he’d been attempting to ignore the overwhelming feeling of wrongness that had been slowly creeping up in the past three months. It had started when his friend, the daughter of one of the dragon families, had called Xiaotian in a panic during his training. Something about a giant monster destroying the city, they needed the kid’s help to stop it, the usual. No reason to be worried.

   But then Wukong got a glimpse of the creature from the kids phone, and suddenly there was a swirl of familiarity mixed with deep seated unease. He knew, knew, that he had seen that creature somewhere before, but every time he tried to remember just who or what it was,he came up blank.

So, he’d let the kid go and fight. An uncharacteristic sense of worry settled in his gut, as if trying to warn him that something, something was wrong. Wukong, for the first time in almost twenty years, was unable to go to sleep that night. Worry and anxiety were a crushing weight on him, his mind wandering down dark paths as he attempted to lull himself to sleep.

This led to him being rather… irritable the next day, snapping at Xiaotian in his sleep deprived state. The look the kid had given him, frustrated and confused and hurt, caused a tidal wave of guilt to crash over him, and he had cringed slightly before offering the kid a bag of peach chips as an attempt at an apology. He’d taken them, and hurt and frustration were replaced with concern that just made Wukong feel even shittier.

At least the kid had been ok.

This tension, this oppressive anxiety, continued for three months, fluctuating in severity. Sometimes, it was barely noticeable, nothing more than a small buzz in the back of his head. Other times, it was thick and heavy, covering him like a weighted blanket, stifling the air from his lungs and making his ears ring. There was an ever present danger, lurking beneath the calm veneer of his training with Xiaotian, and it scared the hell out of Wukong. Something, someone, was after his successor, and Wukong had a feeling that whatever it was, it would be much more powerful than the Demon Bull Fam.

And then, last night, something changed. He’d been jolted out of a restless sort of sleep in a panic, terror and worry and dread suffocating him in the beginning of a panic attack as visions of Xiaotian laying bloodied and burned on the ground flooded his brain, shoving out any thoughts of calm or peace that tried to tell him that his kid was safe, that wasn’t- isn’t real, his kid was alive-

Macaque. Wukong’s blood froze. No. No no no nononono. Macaque was dead. He’d been dead for years, gone like dust in the wind. He’d been there, he’d been the one to do it. He’d seen the light vanish from Macaque’s eyes, heard his final breath.

Macaque was dead.

But even through those self-assurances, even as he replayed the memory on loop in his head, he knew. He knew Macaque was alive and well, that he was still out there, that his kid was in danger-

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the creeping dread lifted. Fear, terror, concern, they all flooded him like a village before a demon, leaving him tired and drained and confused as hell. The dread-feeling, the ever-present anxiety that Wukong had begun to just accept as a part of his life now, just disappeared, poof! Even the low humming, the slight buzzing in the back of his head, was gone, and for the first time in three months, Wukong’s head was quiet.

Wukong sat back on his little cloud, head in his hands as he sighed. He was being ridiculous. Macaque was absolutely, 100% dead. He’d been there, he’d seen it with his own two eyes: Macaque was dead. Gone. Absent from the world of the living. He couldn’t hurt Xiaotian.

His kid was safe.

——————— ——————— ——————— ———————

   The next morning, the kid had shown up to Flower Fruit mountain at exactly 12:30. He seemed happy, bouncing around the cave with his usual boundless energy. There were no injuries that he could see, aside from a small bruise on the kid’s forehead that he got from running into a tree on his way here. The kid was happy and appeared to be fairly relaxed, no hidden worry or fear in his eyes to suggest that anything bad had happened.

   In fact…

   Wukong surreptitiously activated his demon sight. Xiaotian’s aura, which always glowed the same golden color as his own, was way brighter than Wukong could ever remember seeing it. Even when the kid had first lifted the staff, when his aura had first flared out like a small supernova, it hadn’t been as strong as it was now.

   Just what had happened?

   “Hey, Xiaotian. Did anything… particularly strange happen last night? Anything that you can remember?” The kid stopped what he was doing and looked up at Wukong curiously.

   “I… I don’t think so? Why?” Concern overtook curiosity, and Xiaotian blurted out “Did something bad happen? Did someone from the court of Heaven send you a message?! DID-“

   Wukong shoved a peach chip at the kid’s face, effectively shutting him up. Wukong let out a heavy sigh.

   “No, kiddo, it’s nothing like that. It’s just….” Wukong fell silent. That nagging worry, the concern and protectiveness surged back, like the waves at high tide. He didn’t want his so- his successor to freak out, as the young human was prone to doing.

   Wukong closed his eyes and let out a small sigh. He’d have to tell Xiaotian eventually. Better to rip the bandaid off now.

   “You know how I have the ability to see demons? Even when… even when they’re in disguise?” Xiaotian nodded, of course. He was still a massive fan boy, after all.

   “Well… that ability, it’s not just limited to seeing demons in disguise. I can also sense them from miles away, regardless of whether or not they’re in sight. Kind of like- like a um, a spider-sense, if you will.” Xiaotian nodded along, looking fascinated, as Wukong continued.

   “Basically, depending on how close the demon is, how powerful it is, and how malicious it is, I’ll get this sort of… buzzing in the back of my head, or my ears will start to ring. Usually, most demons are barely strong enough to set it off, and even if they are able to, usually they’re too far away for me to notice.” He looked down at Xiaotian and braced himself. This was going to be difficult.

   “The past three months… it’s been going off constantly. And it was… It was loud, way louder than just about any other demon I’ve faced. It… it was strong enough to trigger that little warning in my brain, from… from all the way in the city, I think. For something to trigger it that much, from that far away…” Wukong trailed off at the dawning look of horror on Xiaotian’s face. Shit. Shit. This was not going as planned.

   Xiaotian looked up at him, eyes wide and shining with clear concern and apprehension, and Wukong knew he needed to say something before the kid worked himself into a full-on panic. Now.

   “But then, something… changed, last night. Do you remember, earlier, when I said that one of the things that determines how strong the… the “sense” is, is how malicious the demon or whatever triggering it is? Well… last- last night, the activity, or intent, or, or whatever, it peaked for a bit, before just… vanishing. Completely. I’ve never felt anything like it before, and I was wondering, if you… if you knew anything about it? About why… about what was triggering that demon sense?” But the kid was already shaking his head, an uncharacteristically serious look on his face as he did so. Damn.

   “I don’t think so… I mean, the only demons that have attacked the city in the last three months were some small fry and the Demon Bull fam, and even they’ve been pretty quiet…” Xiaotian trailed off slightly, and worry stewed in Wukong’s gut. Even an hour later, as he waved the kid off, it lingered in the dark corners of his mind, like a poison. Something bad was going to happen, he could feel it.

   And Wukong had a bad feeling that it would have something to do with the vision of Macaque he’d had last night. He could only hope that Xiaotian would stay out of it.

————— ————— ————— ————— —————

   Stupid. He’d been so, so stupid. He’d known, known that something bad was going to happen, and he’d been right in all the wrong ways.

   Wukong had never wanted to be so wrong before. Not like now.

   It had been about three hours after the kid had left Flower Fruit when he’d felt it- that punch to the gut, heart being crushed, no air in his lungs feeling that sent him to his knees, gasping for air that just wouldn’t come as panic drenched him in a massive tidal wave. He’d known, with absolute certainty, that something had happened to Xiaotian, that his kid, his son, was badly hurt, that he needed to be there, he needed to help-

   Wukong couldn’t remember ever flying that fast before. He’d zipped down Flower Fruit Mountain like lightning, rushing over the city to where he knew Xiaotian’s apartment was. He needed to make sure his kid was okay, he needed to protect his boy-

   The scent of blood, warm and metallic and nauseating, overwhelmed him as it was accompanied by smoke and burned flesh. Wukong felt his stomach turn as he leapt off his cloud, ducking into a nearby alley to empty his sensitive stomach. Good Gods, what had happened? What had happened to his successor? His scent was woven in to the blood and burned flesh scent, ripe with terror and pain and oh, Gods, his kid was hurt-

   Wukong rushed out of the alley to see the apartment, and immediately a new, fresh wave of horror overwhelmed him. The front wall of the place had been blasted to smithereens, the rubble littering the sidewalk around him. There were cracks in the pavement beneath his feet, interspersed with dark scorch marks and, to Wukong’s mounting horror, small bloodstains. Small fires still burned all over, stinking of smoke and burning plastic. The human fire department was there, along with police and an ambulance-

   Wukong’s breath hitched. Xiaotian. Xiaotian was in that ambulance, he was sure of it.

   He needed to get in that ambulance. Now. He needed to see, needed to assess how bad the damage was, needed to make sure his boy was alive-

   Wukong rushed back into the alleyway, quietly transforming into a small butterfly, before making his way over to the vehicle. One of the windows, up at the front, was still opened slightly. Good. Wukong slipped in to the driver’s side, and landed on the back of the driver’s chair for a moment. There were two doors leading to the back, both of which were shut. Luckily for Wukong, there were two small, square windows that he could just barely see through.

   What he saw made him sick.

   His apprentice, his successor, his kid, was laying on a stretcher, bandages covering his head, arms, and chest. His jacket and headband had been removed, as had most of his t-shirt, throwing the small parts that hadn’t been bandages yet into stark relief. There were some parts of the skin that were blackened, blood still seeping through the cracked and burned skin. The skin that wasn’t burned, bandaged, or bloodied, was pale and wane, sickly looking, like that of a corpse. Xiaotian’s dark brown hair was a mess, covered still in dust and debris and sticky with blood. An oxygen mask covered the boy’s mouth and nose, and Wukong couldn’t stand to look anymore.

   He flew off of the driver’s chair to land quietly on the floor, curled up slightly in the back corner as he tried to just… process what he’d seen.

   The world had been muted, blurred to him. Darkness creeped at the edges of his vision, everything becoming an indistinct blob of color and shadow. The ringing in his ears reached a new pitch, interspersed with a low, hollow thumping sound that he would later realize was his own beating heart. He heard the sounds of the ambulance starting up as though he were underwater, muted and drowned out by that ever present ringing-thumping in his ears that only seemed to grow louder as he saw, over and over again, visions of Xiaotian happy smile turning into a broken look of terror as fires consumed him, leaving nothing but a burnt husk comprised of only ashes and bones….

   Wukong jolted forward as the ambulance came to a stop. When had they started moving? When had they arrived at the hospital? Wukong couldn’t remember.

   He heard the sounds of the stretcher being moved, heard the sound of wheels on pavement as he flew from his little spot on the floor to the still-open doors of the vehicle, fluttering around as doctors and nurses swarmed his kid. They, along with Wukong, rushed into the hospital, pulling him towards the emergency care center.

   Wukong started lagging behind them. He was too small, his wings wouldn’t beat fast enough, and the Emergency Care doors slammed shut before he could reach them, echoing with all the grim finality of an executioner’s blade.

   Wukong stared unblinkingly at the doors. He felt numb, muddied and blurred and overwhelmed in a way that left him fluttering slowly to the clean, cold white tiles of the hospital floor. Too much. It was all too much. His kid was hurt. His kid was in critical condition. His kid was in pain. He’d seen his kid, just a few hours earlier, healthy and happy and alive on Flower Fruit Mountain, safe and sound and there-

   And now he was hurt. Now he needed an oxygen mask just to breath. Now, he was burnt and bruised and broken, his only kid, his child-

   Wukong’s breath hitched. He was no longer in the hospital. He was no longer transformed. He was in an alleyway right next to the hospital. The sky had grown darker, swirling with pinks and reds and oranges as stars slowly began to make themselves known. Tears were streaming down his face, warm and wet, leaving damp trails in their wake. He was crouching over, hands covering his mouth as quiet sobs shook him to his core. He could see each little crack in the pavement, each small blade of grass that was struggling to come up through the concrete and reach for the sun.

   He hadn’t remembered leaving. He hadn’t remembered transforming back. He hadn’t remembered much of anything, really.

   It scared him, not knowing what had happened.

   It scared him, the possibility of finding out what had happened.

   His kid. His boy. His son. Wukong had known, for a bit know, that he cared about Xiaotian as more than his successor. But this…. Gods, he didn’t even know how to begin to process this.

   Guilt came rushing in. He’d known. He’d known that something bad was going to happen, he’d felt in his very bones that his son was in danger, and he’d foolishly let him go with false comforts that the kid could handle himself, that Xiaotian was strong, that his friends would help him.

   He remembered, now, sealing away Xiaotian invulnerability. What the hell had he been thinking, doing that? Why had he ever, ever thought that was even remotely a good idea?

   And now, Xiaotian was paying dearly for it.

   Whispers began playing in his head, a polyvocal taunt that attacked from all sides. Your fault, they whispered. It’s all your fault. You could’ve been there, you could’ve gone with. You knew something was wrong, yet you waved him away to his doom.

   And just how many times has he had to fight alone? The voices taunted him, as fresh guilt rained down upon him. How many times did he leave training with you to fight some demon on his own? How many times did you let him go? How many times did he get injured because of your negligence?

   Wukong couldn’t breathe under the weight of the voices. He couldn’t hear anything else, he couldn’t see through his tears the setting sun. Your fault, your fault, your fault-

   “WHY??!!” The voice, that all too familiar voice, cut through the whispers like a knife. Wukong felt his blood run cold.

   Macaque.

   Macaque was here. Alive and well.

   Macaque, a dangerous, very much not-dead creature, was near Xiaotian. Xiaotian, who was put into the hospital. Xiaotian, who had severe burns all over his body. Xiaotian, who was either in critical condition or a coma, and as such unable to fight back should Macaque decide to kill him.

   Hell no.

   Wukong stood up. He felt cold, empty. Anger flowed like the stream of a winter river, sharpening his vision to a pin-prick sort of clarity. He saw, clearly, each blade of grass, each window of every building, each little dust particle in the air.

   His ears were deaf to everything but the sound of rushing water (or was it his own blood that he heard?), the silence settling over him like a blanket. He heard nothing, not even that dull ringing that had tormented him through the day. The rushing water, the dull beat of a war drum (or was that his own heart?) stayed, however, a symphony of soon to be bloodshed as Wukong slowly floated up from the sidewalk.

   His golden eyes were empty of everything but cold, clear rage as they landed on the dark form of the Six-eared Macaque, who was on his hands and knees, trembling. Good. That would make the next part all the easier.

   Wukong raised his fist, ready to send Macaque flying. He would not fail Xiaotian again. He would end this, this string of failures, starting here and now with this final blow-

   Only for Macaque to raise his head to the heavens, face twisted in fear and regret and agony and loss, and scream, “WHY DIDN’T YOU TAKE ME INSTEAD??!!? WHY?? Why did- didn’t you…. why didn’t you t-take me in… why didn’t you take me instead? Why……”

   Wukong stepped back in shock as Macaque shook with sobs, his paws clenched against the concrete of the rooftop. Rage was undercut by confusion, then suspicion? Just what was Macaque playing at? Just what was Macaque, who was a certified lone-wolf, who despised any form of bond with another being, doing having a mental breakdown on top of a hospital?

   “Why did…. why did Xiaotian have to be the one to suffer because of my mistakes?” He heard Macaque whisper, and Wukong felt the world disappear out from under him.

[bcdrawsandwrites]

For Unity by @jaywings and me

Rating: T Genre: Friendship, Angst Characters: urGoh, skekGra, skekSil, skekSo, skekTek, skekVar, urVa, urSu, urSol, urZah, possibly others… Warnings: A LOT OF VIOLENCE. Description: One was as vile and repulsive as his brethren. He murdered, and maimed, and reveled in it. The other was as slow and indirect as the rest of his brethren. He hated his dark half as much as the others did theirs. But who they were did not matter, for Thra saw its moment, and seized its opportunity. Beta Reader: ThePrairieNerd

—~~~—

Chapter 8: One, That Became Two, That Became One Again Summary: In which the Wanderer takes the first steps.

—~~~—

His hand was empty.

As he made his way through the Dark Forest, guided only by the light of the Sisters, urGoh found himself rubbing his thumb over his calloused palm repeatedly; the shard he'd carried for only a few days had felt almost like a companion to him. And yet it had shattered beneath his fingers, leaving nothing but sparkling dust in his hand—gone in a mere moment.

And what a strange moment it was.

The shared memory threatened to return, but urGoh pushed it aside. Dwelling on it would do nothing but fill him with an unhelpful, unreachable ache of longing. Instead he focused on the absence of the crystal shard, reflecting on just why it had taken that exact moment to shatter. Had the connection he'd felt extended to the shard, and corrupted it, causing it to break? Or... had the shard served its purpose?

The more urGoh thought of it, the more it seemed to be the latter, and the more unsettled he felt.

It wanted them to unify. Not just the tiny shard—the Crystal. All of Thra. A Mystic uniting with a Skeksis... who ever thought of such a thing?

The idea of working alongside the Conqueror was not something that brought urGoh any comfort, no matter how Thra urged them to. He would, he would certainly try, but he did sometimes question the wisdom of this world. After all, could a creature who had killed so many others truly decide to stop within a matter of days? Could such a monster actually change his ways, and so quickly?

"You better... have a good idea... of what... you're making us... do," he grunted to a passing tree, which merely shuffled its roots in response. "This meeting could end... very badly."

The idea of a Skeksis conversing with a Mystic was absurd to begin with, but to willingly bring the most vile of their kind so close to the Valley to meet again? What a terrible idea! Why had he agreed to this?

But at the same time... he couldn’t shake this feeling—that moment, when they both recalled the same campfire, with the same Gelfling telling the same story, because they...

The sudden ache in his chest made him stumble, and he shook his head, keeping his gaze trained forward. No—he couldn't keep rethinking this. His path had been decided, and there was no turning back now.

As urGoh walked, the first rising sun cast strange, flickering shadows in the trees, winking in and out of view and slipping through the leaves as though they were following him. One shadow broke away from the rest, twining serpentlike partway down the trunk of a tree before a shape landed in front of him with a thump. UrGoh backed up a step, squinting hard.

The first Brother was at his eye-line, and he could not see the figure that confronted him, save for a looming, spiked silhouette. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it was skekGra, having changed his mind and abandoned all sense, returning to attack him again.

“A plod-stomping urRu,” the figure rasped in a low voice. “In the Dark Wood.”

It had to be a Skeksis, but urGoh didn’t immediately recognize it. Sunlight glinted off the edge of a wicked dagger it gripped in its claw.

UrGoh raised a hand to block the light and attempted to duck to one side in order to clear his vision, but the creature simply moved with him with a fluidity that he did not expect.

“This looks like valuable pickings,” it went on. “A Mystic’s floundering tongue would be the trophy of trophies. And the head of a Skeksis would come freely with no miserable squabbling.”

“You are… bluffing,” urGoh said. No Skeksis would purposely bring harm to another Skeksis, surely? Especially by attacking their Mystic counterpart. They seemed to prefer open confrontation.

A beaked, reptilian head was suddenly thrust in his face, eyes narrowed under a mask made from the skull of some unfortunate creature.

“Am I?” the Skeksis spat.

UrGoh shuffled backwards, his tail dragging through the leaves, still trying to get a good look at his aggressor. The mask had revealed the exact identity of this Skeksis, though it was someone he’d never met—nor, truthfully, had wanted to meet.

“How did you… know I was here?” he asked, hesitantly. Had this creature caught sight of skekGra?

The Hunter hissed through jagged fangs. “I followed your lumbering footsteps for miles. The blundering Mystic disturbed the rakkida pack I was tracking.”

“Oh. I am… sorry,” urGoh said uncertainly. He didn’t have much love for rakkida, vicious as they could be, though the thought of more deaths attributed to the Skeksis gave his stomach a sickening lurch. “Perhaps if you go after them now… you will find them again.”

“But they’re no longer a worthy prize,” the Hunter sneered. “They were scared off by a Mystic.”

He lunged suddenly, faster than urGoh could have prepared for, but withdrew with a snarl almost within the same second. A large arrow had sprouted from the ground at his feet.

“Leave this place, skekMal,” the deep, resonant voice of the Archer rang out, as the Mystic stepped into view. He had strung his towering bow, another arrow nocked loosely in the string but not yet pulled taut. “The forest is not yours to command, much as you think it is.”

The Skeksis clicked his teeth. “All who trespass into the Endless Forest beyond their piddly settlements invite death from the shadows.”

“I see no shadows,” urVa growled. “You stand in the light of day.”

UrGoh could see a shadow, however: the one standing before them, cloaked in death.

As they were speaking, the sun had risen higher, now leaving the Hunter in plain view. He stood up straighter, rattling the morbid trophies that hung from his belt—skulls and pieces taken from previous victims that urGoh did not immediately recognize, and he tried to look away, for fear he eventually would.

"I am a Lord of the Crystal, and master of these woods, in light or in darkness," skekMal snarled. "I can hunt what I wish, whenever I wish, hidden or not!"

"I see." UrVa returned his arrow and unstrung his bow. Then, his eyes always upon the Hunter, he marched forward until he had situated himself between skekMal and urGoh. He lifted his head, a challenging gaze piercing his other half's eyes. "Hunt me, then."

For a long moment, the three of them stood silently, skekMal and urVa both eerily still, each a corrupted reflection of the other. Only urGoh moved, glancing back and forth between the two, wondering which of them was truly mad enough to make the first move.

SkekMal suddenly lunged his head forward, letting out a vicious howl, and charged. While urGoh cringed back, urVa stood his ground, and the Skeksis bolted in a wide arc around them, rushing into the depths of the Dark Forest. UrGoh kept an eye on him until his form melted into the trees, while urVa regarded the situation with an almost detached calmness. Finally the Archer turned away, his long bow thudding against the soft ground as he moved on without comment.

"Um... thank you," urGoh said, blinking and trailing after urVa. "I wasn't sure... what would happen there."

"SkekMal is a dangerous creature," urVa said plainly. "His actions can be unpredictable, even among the Skeksis… But even he would not be fool enough to attack..."

UrGoh waited for him to finish; when he did not, he merely followed, keeping an eye on the path ahead.

"You have been wounded," the Archer said suddenly, and urGoh gingerly touched the scratches on his snout.

"My... other half," he mumbled, and urVa gave a quiet hum. They walked in silence for a few minutes longer. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but nor was it much of a companionable one, and it inescapably put him in mind of their previous journey toward the Valley together. It felt like countless trine ago. Had it really been only a few days?

"For what reason do you take the path through this forest, urGoh?" urVa asked.

"Hm. Other than... my being... a Wanderer?" UrGoh slowly turned his head, giving his companion a wry smile. But urVa did not spare him another glance; he didn't seem to be in such good humor this morning, and urGoh sighed. "I am... returning... to the Valley."

UrVa stopped, lifting his head as he faced urGoh at last. "Again? Your wandering path rarely leads you home. What brings you back this time?"

Glancing back the way skekMal had fled, urGoh frowned. "I have... something important... to discuss with urSu."

"A better conversation would be had with the mountainside."

UrGoh cast his gaze downward. "Perhaps. But... even a mountain may eventually give in... if it is worn down enough, or if something large... should impact it."

"Hmm." The Archer closed his eyes. "I see you are still concerned with the plight of the Gruenaks. If the Master has already given his verdict on the subject, I fear nothing but the voice of Thra itself may change his mind, my friend.”

“The Gruenak devastation… has… passed.” UrGoh could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “I return with… a different matter.”

Briefly urGoh considered telling everything, and glanced down at the forest floor to contemplate his words. But the light cast by the first brother upon urVa created a looming, dark shadow behind him, and he shuddered. No. He could not speak here.

"I see." For the first time that morning, a smile crossed urVa's muzzle. "I am keen to see what you believe can move a mountain."

"As... am I." UrGoh blinked. The Archer’s wording had struck him. “You wish… to join me?”

“I will. Perhaps it is now time I returned to the others, as well,” urVa said. “But please… no poetry.”

“No,” urGoh said mournfully. “I… lost it all… in an unintended swim.”

“Ah. That is certainly a shame.”

The two resumed their journey, urGoh confident in knowing that it would not split at the Valley entrance this time. He felt that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders—but was almost immediately replaced by another one as the enormity of his task set in. The thought of trusting any Skeksis was still a rather foreign concept to him. How in Thra’s name might his brethren be convinced?

—~~~—

He looked like an idiot.

He certainly felt like an idiot, especially among the other Skeksis who probably hadn't set foot outside the Castle in who knows how many trine. SkekGra was uncomfortably aware of the mud on his claws, ashes on his armor, the cuts on his face, and the myriad of twigs and leaves clinging to his robes. He could feel the burn of their stares. Would there be a time when he wouldn't traipse back to the castle drenched in all manner of filth?

SkekGra had hoped to return unnoticed, but he should have known otherwise. It was getting too late in the day, and the castle was far too busy. He managed to climb back up through the catacombs unnoticed, but was spotted by guards as soon as he reached the first of the more populated floors of the castle. Now he could only trudge through the cold stone halls like a Podling before the Deturge and hope he wouldn't be questioned.

And also, once again, to make the choice between food or sleep. His cramping stomach suggested which one should take priority. Hastily, he brushed off the worst of the grime and headed for the Banquet Hall.

"So... the murdering scourge of Thra... is afraid of me..."

The deep, slow voice, the chirping of desert insects, and the crackling of a fire echoed in his head.

"The Crystal is fractured... It felt like pain, emptiness, incompleteness... Have you not thought... that it needed to be healed?"

An image of the great Crystal, once a pure, shining white, now bled a deep violet. The memory of the Crystal of Truth dragged down to the Scientist's lab in heavy metal claws, pulsing against the cruel restraints.

"It never occurred to me..."

Someone prodded at his side, hard, and he picked up an urgent, whispered, "Lord Skeksis-ah!"

SkekGra jerked upright, blinking in alarm, his warrior's instinct fighting to take in every aspect of his surroundings. He was seated at his place at the banquet table. Several Skeksis around him were croaking with laughter. There was an upturned bowl of soup in front of him. And his face was dripping.

A Podling face looked up at him anxiously—the one who had poked him awake, no doubt. SkekGra waved him away, heart shriveling slightly in embarrassment as he mopped up his face with a dry part of the tablecloth. Irritably he noticed the others were still cackling. What were they laughing about? He could do an entire series of paintings about the stupid things each and every one of them had done. And whom at this table hadn't ever buried their face in a bowl of soup?

Too bad his own stupidity seemed to be coming more frequently as of late.

After shaking off the mortification, shoving some amount of food in his mouth, and regaining some strength in his limbs, it was of course time to attend the Ceremony of the Sun once again. He stood at his place in the circle, his gaze unwavering, letting strength flow into him that he knew was never theirs to take, and spoke to no one. He did not catch skekTek's eye, ignored any jeers presented by the others, their own insults forgotten as soon as they garnered no response.

"Lord Conqueror!"

A voice called out to him in the corridor as he made his way to his chambers, and he finally stopped, looking down to see a Vapran Gelfling rush up to him. He gave a start as he recognized this one.

"Conall," he greeted, the name slipping out before he even realized that he knew what it was. Strange... he'd never cared much about learning their names.

The Gelfling dipped forward in a bow as he reached him. "My lord, I've just returned from the battalion of Gelfling sent back to the Caves of Grot to rout out the Gruenak stragglers. They told me that no one had reported to you about it, so I immediately sought you out. We..." He swallowed nervously, as though unsure how skekGra would take his next words. "We- we didn't find anything, my lord. And the Grottans swore that they had offered no further protection to the traitors."

Again, the voice returned to his mind: "You spared two. Two of the hundreds... that fell by your swords."

He swiped his tongue over his jaws, and gave his response in almost a trance. “Let them escape…” he muttered.

Maybe they did escape, he thought. Maybe they left those foul caves and found a place to settle, far from conflict.

The Vapran, meanwhile, quailed away from him, face paling and ears flicking back. "N-no, my lord, we did not intend to, but we had orders from Emperor skekSo to return. I'm so sorry, my lord. We won't give up. Every time we're sent out again, we'll keep a watch for them. We'll track them down eventually, and make them pay for eluding the army of the Castle of the Crystal!"

SkekGra's stomach wrenched. "Yes. See that you do."

“And I… I wanted to warn you, my lord…” the Gelfling wrung his hands. “The guards have been saying strange things. Things… about you.”

SkekGra gave a sniff. “I think I can handle a few Gelfling rumors. Now, attend to your duties, Vapran.”

He took his leave from the young guard and, in a haze, found his quarters and loomed in the doorway like a dark shadow.

Oh, Thra, it was a disaster in here. Someone would have to take care of this.

He crossed into the room, placed his weapons carefully beside his wardrobe, and promptly turned to collapse face-first onto his bed.

"You feel... guilty, Conqueror."

Another sickening lurch to his insides.

Vaguely he grasped at the tattered wish for a sleep with no dreams, no visions, no haunted words, no drowning Mystic idiots or cries from the Crystal to rip him from unconsciousness. He wasn't built for this nonsense.

Oh. And I promised another meeting with the Wanderer in some Thra-forsaken corner just outside the Dark Wood.

Eyes tightly closed, his tongue snapped a sharp curse and one fist beat against his bedcovers. When had this become his life?

—~~~—

It was the phrase that skekGra fell asleep to, and blearily woke several hours later with it still running through his mind. He pushed himself to his feet, and finally exchanged his sodden robes for clean ones—the others had been through a lot, he noted, as he laid the forlorn-looking clothes out flat on the bed—and sheathed his weapons back in their proper places before strolling from the room.

Not wanting to have to navigate another conversation or lecture from anyone this time, he took back ways around the Castle, slipping unseen into the Scrollkeeper's library to swipe a map, and then retreating down through the catacombs to undergo another unpleasant crawl out through the Teeth of Skreesh.

An unexpected scent hit his nostrils before he reached the way out, however, and he tensed. Gelfling? He could have sworn he caught a hint of stale Gelfling scent. But that was impossible—Gelfling had always been forbidden from coming down here. Anyone who broke that rule would be thrown from the Castle, along with any members of their family, and with such a black mark on their record would likely never be able to find civilized work again.

He shoved the matter aside and continued on his way.

It would be nice, he thought, to not have to leave the castle like this again. But at least it was secretive, as no one considered that anyone in their right mind would use this path.

"It's been a long time since I've been in my right mind," he muttered, swatting a dangling branch out of his face. Consulting the map he'd borrowed, he pinpointed the unlikely spot for the Wanderer's planned meeting with whatever Mystic he could drag out of its hole, and started off on a path southeast from the Castle.

Was he ready to meet another Mystic?

His teeth clicked. The tips of his fingers twitched. There was a prickling at his back as his spines rose.

He didn't fear the Mystics. What was to fear? The Wanderer himself had stated that anger was not natural to them. And aside the Hunter's strange counterpart, he doubted that they even had a concept of weaponry.

It was the wrongness of it all that unsettled him so. The knowledge that he would have to look into some creature's beady eyes and see the distorted, meandering reflection of someone he knew. Which one would it be?

And why did he dread this decision more with every step?

—-~~~—-

The third Brother barely broke over the horizon as urGoh and urVa neared the Valley. The Archer paused as they drew closer, and for a moment urGoh feared he would turn away again.

However, urGoh quickly spotted the reason for it, and could only stare as urSol the Chanter approached them along the trail, stopping in front of them.

“...Chanter,” urGoh said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. “You have… left the Valley.”

UrSol inclined his head, a slight smile on his face. “I have taken four steps beyond the border. Hardly a long trip when compared to the Wanderer.” He looked up, his eyes shadowed. “Did you find what you were looking for, urGoh?”

UrGoh paused, his neck dipping slightly as though weighed down.

“...No,” he said after a moment. The Chanter blinked in sympathy, and urGoh went on. “But I did find… something else.”

UrSol's gaze turned to urVa, regarding him with a tipped head. "You found... the Archer."

"...Yes," urGoh said. "But that is... not all. I must speak... with urSu."

At that, the Chanter heaved a sigh. "I may speak in many voices... but none of them can reach Master urSu." Yet he smiled at urGoh, and continued, "But that does not mean the Wanderer will not succeed." With that, he resumed his original course, passing the other two Mystics and heading up and away from the Valley.

Though urGoh knew he could not delay long, curiosity overcame him and he turned to face the Chanter. "Where do you... go?"

"To seek new songs outside the Valley," the other said without turning around. "And new company. But I will not be gone long. Perhaps a few trine."

"Avoid the forest," urVa said, eyeing urSol seriously. "No song is worth an encounter with the monster that lurks there."

UrSol paused. "I fear not the shadows," he said, and did not stop again.

With the departure of the third Mystic, the two made their way further into the Valley, watching as the slow life of their fellows went on as usual. UrZah the Ritual Guardian did not look up from his sand painting, though the Weaver waved in greeting as urGoh and urVa passed by. While urGoh was glad to see the other urRu again, his mind dwelled on other matters. "Where... do you suppose..." he began, but trailed off when he saw the Archer had stopped. UrVa's gaze was turned upward, and urGoh followed it, blinking in surprise.

UrSu stood on the ledge above them, regarding him with an expression urGoh could not read.

"Wanderer," he said. "You rarely return home without purpose." He did not question urVa's presence, and urGoh's mane prickled.

"I have come... to show you something," urGoh said. "Something... of great importance..."

"And what have you brought to our Valley?" urSu asked.

"I did not bring—" urGoh nearly said “him,” but caught himself just in time, "—the… important thing... with me. You must come with me... beyond the Valley."

The Archer snapped his head toward urGoh alarmingly fast, eyes wide. Every other urRu within listening distance did the same, their heads raised and snouts pointed almost accusingly at urGoh. UrVa opened his mouth to speak, but urSu was faster.

"It is one thing for other urRu to leave the Valley," he said. UrSu's gaze had an uncharacteristic hardness to it. "I have permitted some to leave... against all counseling, whether from clouded judgment and dissatisfaction, seeking perpetual solitude, or a futile wanderlust… the Storyteller, the Swimmer, and the Monk, passed beyond our sight... the Archer, living alone, the Peacemaker… the Chanter, ever guided by his ill-formed emotions, storming off after another argument… And to say nothing of you, Wanderer, as it’s in your very name.” His gaze never left urGoh. "But to ask for me to pass beyond the Valley’s borders…”

"He would be killed," urVa said plainly. "A Skeksis would surely seek him and swiftly kill him. To take his power."

UrGoh looked him in the eye. "But you... have faced your own dark half, and driven him away."

The Archer regarded him for a moment before humming and turning aside.

"Master urSu," urGoh went on, facing his leader again. "This is of... vital importance. Thra itself... demands it."

UrSu heaved a long sigh through his nostrils. "Thra has not spoken to me of such things."

"Thra... has spoken... to me."

The Valley went still. Without looking, urGoh knew the others were staring at him, and he knew how absurd his claim sounded. But he continued to stare into urSu's eyes, his own gaze serious, pleading. If urSu would not at least see what he was going to propose, there was no hope of his ever listening.

The Master returned his gaze for an agonizingly long moment, and urGoh held his breath. But slowly, slowly urSu turned away, his heavy steps plodding across the wooden walkway. Heart suddenly heavy, urGoh lowered his head, shutting his eyes against the sheer frustration and sadness welling up within him.

A better conversation would be had with the mountainside, indeed.

"Show me, then."

Straightening, urGoh spun around as quickly as he could, almost falling over himself, to find urSu watching him again and leaning heavily on his staff.

"Show me what Thra has shown you, that it has kept secret from me."

UrGoh blinked stupidly, his mouth falling open and throat producing no sound.

"Then I want to see as well," urVa said somberly, shifting the walking stick that doubled as his bow. "Lead the way, Wanderer."

The knot in his chest loosened itself a little, the burden easing, and urGoh nodded. "Yes... right... away."

—~~~—

What was he doing?

Every step brought deep dread seeping back into his bones, displacing the relief he’d felt, his jaw set with his teeth clenched together.

Not one of them spoke. The calm camaraderie that urGoh had felt with urVa on the trek back to the Valley had vanished, replaced by a cold fragility, three slow-moving figures set on a single destination, all lost in their own reveries and none too happy to be going.

This was a mistake. The thought wound itself through urGoh’s head and felt heavy on his tongue, as though desperate to be spoken aloud to send the others home. He glanced behind him to see urVa’s face set in grim determination, his eyes slowly roving from side to side as though to watch for threats. UrSu by contrast had his gaze set straight ahead, watching neither urVa, urGoh, or their surroundings for that matter.

This was a mistake. I am leading both of them into a Skeksis trap.

UrGoh slowly shook his head, tossing out his mane. A trap? No. SkekGra could not restrain and capture three Mystics at once, particularly when one of them was the Archer. And he certainly couldn’t kill them without harming himself, along with a highly revered and feared Skeksis in the Hunter, and his own Emperor.

Unless the death of Emperor skekSo was the point.

UrGoh glanced again at urSu, with urVa following in his wake. This was why the Archer had come along—to grant the Master all the protection he could offer. But skekGra did not even know that urGoh had planned to bring urSu to the meeting place. UrGoh hadn’t told him.

“And he’s… changed,” urGoh said aloud, as though speaking the words might make him believe them.

“What did you say?” the Archer said evenly. UrSu said nothing.

“I said… so much... has changed,” urGoh said, his fingers curling.

UrSu spoke up then, still gazing ahead. “Eternity does not change. The stars, the planets, they sweep across the sky in an endless rhythm. We are nothing to the great expanse of the universe, the creatures who dwell here even less so. Our lives are a whisper that makes no impact, until we are called to act by a mediator of the cosmos.” He tilted his head to look straight at urGoh. “So what is it, Wanderer, that you wanted to show us?”

The Master’s response had drawn the small party to a stop—uncannily close, urGoh realized, to the meeting spot he had set up with skekGra. UrGoh drew in a deep breath and slowly, slowly, turned to face the others.

“We are here,” he said simply.

“And there is something… waiting for us?” UrVa’s face had darkened, though his expression was not altogether readable.

UrGoh hesitated. “I am… not sure yet. I… will go check.”

He turned quickly to avoid the looks in their eyes and pushed through the bracken and curtain of leaves up ahead, coming to a stop when he reached a clearing and a strong, sour scent hit his nostrils.

The forest here was silent, as though nothing wanted to reveal its presence.

There was no doubt. SkekGra was here.

As he had this thought, a nearby branch shifted and suddenly the Conqueror was there, slipping out into the daylight, eyes bright and accusing. He tilted his head up, taking a sniff of the air. With a jolt urGoh remembered how much better senses of smell Skeksis had than most other creatures he knew—certainly better than Mystics.

“I thought you were bringing maybe one Mystic,” skekGra growled. “What kind of trickery is this? Was this a trap?”

UrGoh stretched his neck higher, looking the Skeksis straight in the eyes. “Those I have brought… fear a trap from you.”

The Conqueror went rigid, his eyes aflame with fury and horror. “How many others did you tell about me?!”

“None… yet.” He held unwavering eye contact. “I have told them… nothing. But we discussed... that we should share our revelations... with the Mystics. So I… have brought them.”

“What, all of them?” SkekGra shook his head hard. “We didn’t discuss anything! This was your idea, which you simply flung at me while I was in a hurry—”

UrGoh interrupted. “It is… time.”

Before he could change his mind, he turned and let out a low note from deep in his throat, the sound reverberating through the trees and causing the leaves to tremble. SkekGra cried out and flung his hands over his ears, baring his jagged fangs.

Before urGoh’s call had faded, urSu and urVa strode through the trees and stood behind him, the disheveled Skeksis in full view.

Neither Mystic betrayed any hint of surprise, though the worn, spiralling creases in their faces had hardened. SkekGra, however, looked alarmed; in a flash of sunlight he had drawn three blades—a short sword along with two daggers clutched in his secondary arms—and dropped into a defensive stance.

At some point, out of urGoh’s sight, urVa had nocked an arrow, though he did not yet draw it.

No one spoke. No breeze blew, the atmosphere heavy and taut as if the air itself were the Archer’s bow. UrGoh felt as if the slightest movement would snap the fragile strings holding them all at bay and the clearing would erupt into chaos.

He made the tiniest gesture toward skekGra, his eyes on the two Mystics.

“Here… is what I wanted you to... see,” he said, his tongue lame in his mouth. He half-expected the Archer to run him through with an arrow where he stood, perhaps not even bothering to loose it first.

"...A Skeksis," urSu said, and urVa tightened his grip on his bow.

"Yes," urGoh replied, twitching his tail in a vain attempt to rid himself of the excess tension in the air. "This is the skekGra, the Conqueror... my other half."

"This was a terrible place to meet it," urVa said, his voice a strained growl.

"Why?" skekGra asked suspiciously, and if it were possible, the tension only increased in the small clearing. Something was going to snap. "If you're worried about the Hunter, I don't think he comes out this far."

"He... hmmm." Slowly urVa lowered his bow, but only by a fraction. He doesn't, was probably what he had been planning to say, but he'd evidently thought the better of it, not wanting the Skeksis to know what he was actually worried about.

"Can you stop pointing that thing at me?" skekGra demanded, glancing from urVa to urGoh. "You’ll end up hurting him too, you know."

"Your weapons are still drawn," urVa retorted.

At that, skekGra pulled back slightly. "Listen, I don't know which ones you are, but..." He ground his teeth furiously. "...But my Emperor would have my head if the others found out I attacked you. I'd be attacking one of my own."

UrVa did loosen the pull on his arrow upon hearing that, lowering the weapon in surprise, but urSu's gaze hardened. "I do not believe it. No Skeksis has honor."

"This again," skekGra growled, but slowly sheathed his weapons. One talon, however, rested on the hilt of his sword.

"What does it mean, again?" urVa questioned, this time turning to urGoh.

"SkekGra and I met yesterday," he admitted. "It was then... we decided... to speak with you."

The Conqueror clicked his beak sharply. "Oh, yes, this was truly something we agreed upon, with full understanding of each other."

Slowly urSu turned his gaze upon urGoh. "Is this... what Thra spoke to you of?"

"Thra... spoke to us." UrGoh took a small step, merely shuffling his feet, realizing moments later that he had moved slightly closer to skekGra. "Both of us. We... were given... visions."

There was silence for a moment.

“Thra does not give us visions,” urVa said. “We are not truly a part of this world.”

"Any vision received by a Skeksis is sure to be one of corruption," urSu said, finally looking skekGra in the eye. Apparently the Conqueror could see a certain something in the Master's eyes, for he took a step back.

"I... I did see corruption in my vision," skekGra admitted after a moment. "Thra itself falling apart at the seams. Death everywhere. Even the Skeksis..." He swallowed. "We rotted where we stood." His gaze grew distant for a moment, before hardening, as he looked at urSu accusingly. "I'm sure the same was happening to you lot as well."

"It was... a warning," urGoh said quickly, before a fight could break out. "Thra showed me... that the Crystal... needed healing."

For a moment urVa and urSu were silent, the two turning their gazes upon each other. UrSu's face was unreadable, but urVa raised an eyebrow in interest. "Yes," he agreed. "The Crystal... does need to be healed."

"But not by one of our own," urSu said. "That is not our destiny."

"So what do you propose we do?" skekGra snapped. "Sit around and hope someone patches a bandage on it?!"

UrSu glared at him. “Nor is it a task that the Skeksis will accomplish. We must wait for the Crystal... to call."

"That is not... what Thra... told us," urGoh said. "It said... we must strive... for unity. All of Thra. The Gelfling—"

"The Gelfling have Aughra to aid them," the Master interjected.

"Aughra yet slumbers." UrVa said. His head lowered, but only for a moment.

"It is not our call."

"Oh, listen to yourselves!" skekGra snapped, teeth bared in a hiss. "Do you Mystics ever do anything other than mumble, walk in circles, and chant nonsense? When are you going to do something about all this?”

"A Skeksis would lecture us on taking action?" UrVa’s gaze was piercing.

The Conqueror’s eyes flared. “If even one of you bitter, long-necked sloths would stand up and act, you could march up to the Castle of the Crystal itself, and—!” He faltered.

UrGoh stared at his dark half. What?

He shook his head—it wasn’t important now. "What the Conqueror means,” he said, “is that... we are taking steps... to solve... the problem."

"The only steps we must take are the ones that will lead us when the Crystal calls us," urSu said simply.

"Thra... has told us otherwise." Looking between the Master and the Archer, urGoh curled his tail around his legs, mentally preparing himself for what he would say next. "Thra... wants us to unify... not just the rest of Thra... but the Skeksis... and the Mystics... together."

UrVa lifted his head, his eyes wide, while urSu's expression did not change. More alarmingly, he raised not only his head, but his entire body, his four hands braced against his staff. At his full height he towered over skekGra, and the Conqueror's feet dug into the dirt as though he wanted to be swallowed by it.

"It... is not... our... time."

The words hung heavily in the air, the solid weight of them bearing down on the shoulders of everyone in the clearing. UrGoh felt they would crush him, and nearly sank to the ground.

"Do you believe it, Wanderer?" urVa said, finally breaking the deafening silence. "That we should unite with our dark halves?"

"...Yes," urGoh replied, and froze at the look urVa gave him in return. Only then did he remember the encounter with the Hunter, a Skeksis who showed none of skekGra's fear of harming his own kind. "Um... Thra... told me..."

"Was it indeed Thra?" urSu stared down at him; he had not lowered himself in the slightest. "Or was it a product of your endless wanderings?"

"It's true!" skekGra blurted. "I saw it too. Thra won't leave us alone about it!" He gestured toward urGoh. “Show them the thing you had last night, that little glittery crystal shard! That looked important.”

“I… can’t,” urGoh said dolefully, glancing down out of habit at his empty hands. “It… shattered.”

“Oh. That’s helpful.”

UrSu stared at skekGra again, unmoved, and the Skeksis visibly balked. "I do not believe a Skeksis would be granted such a vision. Thra... has not said such to me."

"I wonder why," the Conqueror snapped, regaining his composure at once.

UrSu slowly dropped back into his normal posture. He looked wearier than urGoh had ever seen him. "A Skeksis is not to be trusted," he said finally, and turned to urGoh. "You must never again speak with your other half."

"What?" urGoh said, stunned.

"UrSu is right." UrVa took a step forward. "Was it not you yourself who spoke of the evils this creature has done? The blood he has shed?"

Even without looking, urGoh could feel skekGra's gaze upon him. His toes dug into the grass, his tail curling tightly. Once again, he saw the two Gruenaks huddled in a corner deep in the Caves of Grot, still mourning their lost family member. Even more, he could still see the shoreline of the Silver Sea, drenched in red with more than the light from the setting suns. "I... did... speak of such things."

"Our shadows... have reveled in bloodshed." There was nothing accusatory to urVa's voice; it was steeped in sorrow. "We should not wish to join with that."

UrGoh shook his head. “We… would not—”

"Nghhh—you’re missing the point!" skekGra cried. "You think I'm glad about the things I've done? Will none of you cretins believe me? Thra is... it's... look, I don't want that future it showed me, either! All right?"

UrSu and urVa's stares were upon him again, boring into him for a long while, until even urGoh felt uncomfortable. It was urSu who broke the silence: "Even now... you prove that the Skeksis act only in self-interest, and can do nothing good."

Something bolted up from the tip of urGoh's tail and all the way up his spine, and his chest burned. "At least... he does... something!" he snapped, glaring at the Master. When urSu stared back at him, he was tempted to back away, but held his ground. "We have done... nothing... to help Thra... for hundreds of trine. What does it matter... if something is done... in self-interest... if it is done at all?" His tail lashed, and he did not wait for a reply. "SkekGra... has decided... to join the cause... of Thra itself. That, I believe, is good. What... have you done... Master?"

Silence hung in the clearing. It was broken not by speech, but by a strange, soft crooning sound that emanated, to urGoh's shock, from the Conqueror's throat.

The Skeksis stepped forward, leveling himself with urGoh once again.

"There is one more thing we could try," he said lowly, and urGoh wasn't sure if it was meant for everyone to hear or for him alone. SkekGra looked down at him, the corners of his beak folded in a grim line.

And he held out a gloved hand.

"...Ah..." urGoh couldn't keep the single word from escaping with his breath. Icy claws like his dark half's talons pierced his heart, driving deeply into it. His eyes locked on the offered hand, and all it implied, and he couldn't move. The other two Mystics were like statues as they watched the proceedings.

"UrGoh?" skekGra prompted, and urGoh wondered if this was the first time the Skeksis had used his name. "UrGoh—take it, will you? This doesn't look good."

He felt as though he were drifting away on the tide, at the mercy of the waves. To take that hand was to offer alliance—friendship—to this creature that had slaughtered hundreds, thousands, and relished their suffering. To sever himself entirely from his own kind and tie himself even further to this shattered perversion of a being that differed from himself in every way. All in a bid to save this world from darkness.

He reached out and took skekGra's hand.

A great surge of feeling erupted through him, a warmth, a light as brilliant and blazing as the Crystal of Truth had once been. UrGoh took an astonished breath. This feeling… he hadn’t felt like this since—

In an instant he was jarred from the vision as skekGra pulled his hand away and the world returned to normal. Dazed, urGoh forced his focus back onto urSu and urVa. What had they seen?

“There!” the Skeksis said beside him. "You want unity? There's some unity!"

UrSu blinked at them slowly. “I did not see unity,” he said. “I saw hesitation—a lack of conviction. And a desire for selfish victory rather than benevolence.”

UrGoh bristled; next to him, skekGra cried, “WHAT?”

He went on, “I held a Mystic’s grubby hand and this is your reaction?! You only see what you want to see!”

UrGoh shifted uncomfortably. “We’re… working on it,” he said.

The Master shook his head, slowly, as though sorrowful. Finally, he turned away. "You... neither of you… will ever understand."

He started to leave, but glanced back only once. “If you decide to come back, urGoh, you may not be welcomed… unless you can convince me you have changed your mind.”

With that, the Master stamped his staff into the ground, and headed back toward the Valley without another word.

Frustration welled up through every fiber of urGoh's body. All four of his hands clenched into fists. He turned to urVa, ready to speak again, but his voice died when he saw the Archer's expression.

"...You believe I should join with the Hunter?"

There was a faint, desperate hope to urVa's voice. Hope that urGoh would prove him wrong.

For a moment, urGoh wanted to say no, that he would never ask his friend to even attempt such a thing. But he knew—he knew he could not waver.

"Yes."

UrVa stared at him, and silently turned away as well, his bow striking the ground sharply beneath him.

Once again, the clearing was silent, and urGoh could only stare hollowly at the spot where his companions had disappeared through the woods. Something was again bubbling up within him, but it was neither anger nor frustration. It filled his stomach and chest and throat until it finally burst through his mouth in a booming, echoing call.

Birds and fliers scattered from their roosts, and the tension was finally gone.

"Well," skekGra said, startling urGoh—he'd almost forgotten the Skeksis was still there. "So much for that."

Gritting his teeth, urGoh sighed through his nose before swinging his head toward skekGra. He felt exhausted—more than he had been in a long, long while. To his surprise, skekGra did not look the same, but was instead watching urGoh with an expression he found hard to read.

"...Did you feel it too?" he finally asked.

It took urGoh a moment to remember. “Yeah,” he admitted. “For… a moment.”

SkekGra nodded slowly, then hesitated. "And... did you really mean what you said? You think I'm... I'm better than the Mystics?"

UrGoh tipped his head, embarrassed and a little ashamed. "You... act more than any of us... certainly." Oddly, he found strength in his own words. "I believe... you can be good. What is the point... of unity... if you cannot?"

SkekGra gave what might have been a laugh, but without any humor. “Good? What is your definition of ‘good’?” He fiddled with the hilt of his sword. "I dunno. I'm... still figuring this out." His tail flicked. "...Now what?"

"That..." urGoh began, and paused. "...I do not... know." He tilted his head one way, then another. "We could... talk to... the Skeksis?"

Staggering back, skekGra grabbed his bony chest with his talons. "Do you have a death wish after all?!"

UrGoh frowned, a tendril of irritation curling in his own chest. “No.”

“You must, or that wouldn’t have even crossed your mind!” SkekGra’s beak snapped. “Those lumbering Mystic friends of yours were merely disappointed. Set foot in the Castle of the Crystal and they’d tear us both apart!” He paused dramatically. “Tear us apart separately, so we’d feel each other’s pain as well as our own!”

Raising a brow, urGoh said skeptically, “They would not… do such to one of their own.”

The Skeksis’ nostrils flared. “Oh? So sure, are you? And what of skekNa’s counterpart, urNol? What is he, the Herbalist? Noticed anything missing about him lately? I suppose his hand dropped off of its own accord? His eye vanished overnight through some… some fluke?”

UrGoh lowered his eyes. He had received word of the Herbalist’s plight, but had not looked into it. He remembered skekGra’s previous lamentations about the cruelty of Skeksis punishments and, for the first time, began to wonder…

SkekGra drew himself up higher, his eyes dimly lit with a familiar sort of victory. It was a light that flared and then died once more, as the realization of what that victory meant sank in. “Thra may have chosen to unite us, but the others will never be convinced. Never, Wanderer. It’s not in their natures!”

UrGoh’s breath caught. “And yet… it is in… ours?”

That gave them both pause.

“This was never in my nature,” skekGra said quietly. “I shouldn’t still be here talking to you. I should follow the winding trail of those urRu to see where you things like to vanish beyond our sights. I should bring you all to the Castle in chains.”

They looked at each other.

“I would… like to see you attempt… to chain up the Archer,” urGoh said mildly.

“Who’s chaining up longnecks?” a cantankerous voice demanded, making them both jump. “What’s all this racket?”

Both skekGra and urGoh spun around, the former brandishing his weapons again instinctively. But just as quickly he lowered them, and urGoh raised his head in astonishment.

Before them stood an old crone, her mane of gray hair curling around two spiraling ram horns and framing a face that once had three eyes. One eye had been put out over a thousand trine ago, while another was dimly lit, but still seeing. The leftmost eye, meanwhile, darted accusingly between the Skeksis and Mystic before settling on the latter.

“Well? Why are you shouting up the forest while some of us are on important business?”

UrGoh realized his mouth was hanging open.

"...Mother... Aughra,” he said. “You’re… awake.”

“Yes, awake and needing to know what’s going on beneath the stars rather than through them,” the old woman replied. “And you can start by telling Aughra…”

She stopped, turning to eye skekGra and then back to urGoh.

“What disaster has befallen Thra that a Skeksis would consult with a Mystic once again?”

[bjy-on-ao3]

Fic Friday: Over Indulgence

It’s Friday again so that means it’s time for a new fic and time to get erased from a new tag on tumblr! This week I have an x Reader in the Hades (Supergiant Games) universe with one of my favorite gods from it!

As usual, you can find a link to the AO3 version in the Masterlist section of my blog!

Over Indulgence (F!Reader/Dionysus)

Potential Warnings: Aphrodisiacs, Dubious Consent, Drugged Sex, Public Sex

You didn’t often make trips into the heart of town - usually only when necessity called for it. It wasn’t as if you didn’t like the people in town, just you much preferred the quiet of your home on the outskirts of town near the fields and woods in the distance. Yet, you couldn’t resist the draw of the celebration held in town that eve. A grand celebration to give thanks for a bountiful harvest of the grapes your home was known for. Other crops, too, but none were as special to the townsfolk.

As you surveyed the throngs of cheery townsfolk, your gaze passed over the dais and chaise that had been arranged as a symbolic place for the god most beloved for a town whose livelihood depended on the profits of vineyards. Expecting to find it empty, your face twisted in surprise and your eyes widened when you noted it was occupied. No townsperson would dare to sit upon the chaise - to do so would’ve been an immense sign of disrespect or stupidly misplaced bravado. 

The man sprawled languidly on the chaise could hardly be mistaken for one of the townsfolk. He sat with one leg bent at the knee and the other stretched out comfortably. Long, dark hair fell to his shoulders and tied off neatly, as vibrant and glossy as the grapes and leaves that festooned it. He was dressed in a pale violet tunic that flowed and rippled like water at the hem. A cloak fashioned from the fur of a wildcat was draped over a body so flawless at a glance it seemed nigh impossible to exist. Sitting there casually, oozing relaxation and confidence, the man could be none other than one of the gods descended to join your quaint little town festival. You had no doubts about that.

Nor did the townsfolk you noticed eyeing the reclining man with reverence and cheer. Some seemed so awed they were near dumbstruck. Others raised their drinks happily, many deep in their cups, toasting the man. Some chose not to look at all, as if fearful it might be an offense to meet his eye. The truly bold or lascivious stepped closer, trying to engage the god, seeking his wisdom and blessing or his company for more untoward purposes. 

You couldn’t say you blamed them, whatever reaction or intention. By his looks and the seat he had so boldly claimed as his own, there was only one god he could be: Lord Dionysus, God of Wine himself. The town’s festival was receiving a very special blessing. Or perhaps Dionysus simply couldn’t resist a party where wine and fun were freely flowing.

Soon, the initial shock settled and you finished studying the beautiful god on the chaise. You turned on your heel, intending to go about exploring the rest of the celebration and hear what your fellow townsfolk had to say about such a rare happening. But before you could go far a deep, booming voice, rich and smooth as a well-aged vintage, caught your attention.

“Heeeeey,  you there.”

Your brows knit with curiosity and confusion and you turned back, trying to discern who was being addressed and who had spoken. Your eyes fell on the god upon his makeshift throne again to find his easy-going gaze directed at you. You glanced back over your shoulder briefly, as if searching for someone or something behind you. Surely you weren’t the object of his attention, right?

“Yes, you,” he called again. “Come here, would you?”

A sudden tension crept up your spine, but you pushed it down stubbornly. There was no need to fear the god that allowed your home to thrive. Besides, from the accounts of him, Dionysus was a far more benevolent god than many of his kin, much loved by his worshippers. Though still, you couldn’t stifle the nervousness rising in your chest, unsure what he could want with you.

You stopped a respectful distance from his seat, mind racing. You were all too aware of the hush of the townsfolk surrounding you, certainly chattering and wondering about the same thing you were. “Where have you been hiding all night, babe? Think I’d have noticed a pretty thing like you before now, you know?”

The informal, familiar way in which Dionysus spoke was a surprise. Intimidating as it was to be so close to an actual deity, the air of his honeyed tone was warm, almost calming. Heat spilled across your cheeks, echoing the rosy glow on Dionysus’ own as you processed his words. But you knew he expected an answer, and you found your tongue quickly to give him one.

“I just arrived, my Lord Dionysus, it’s been a busy day,” you explained, trying to keep your voice level and polite, cringing internally at the stiffness. “What can I do for you?” You added. Surely he hadn’t called you over just to compliment you.

“You can come a little closer. I promise I won’t bite too hard,” Dionysus joked, flashing a charming grin your way.

Puzzled, but unwilling to disobey, you inched forward slowly, carefully. Why did you need to be closer? You could hear him clear as day already. Were you speaking too softly?

“Little bit more.” Another short distance fell away between you until you were standing just in front of him, feeling even more daunted so very close to him. Up close the immaculate details that identified him as a god were impossible to miss and his frame was larger than you had thought at first. “There we go!” He exclaimed cheerfully. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

Brows sinking again, you took in the short chaise that he was spread over, trying to decide where it was he meant for you to sit. “Um, where?” You blurted out, turning back to him.

“Where else? Right here, babe!” He declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world while giving his lap a welcoming pat.

You could already hear the uptick in the surrounding whispers at the god’s loud answer. “Oh, right, my Lord,” you said, half-distracted by the gossip you knew was forming. But how could you deny the whims of a god?

“You can just call me Dionysus, babe,” he instructed as you sat down on his lap gingerly. He paused, a hand on your hip as he adjusted his position and yours along with it, and you felt the flush on your cheeks deepen. “So tell me, what do you think of the party?”

You didn’t answer at first, carefully considering your words, and trying not to focus on the fact you were sitting rather intimately in God of Wine’s lap. “It’s lively, for sure. We don’t have many like this.”

“Oh?” There was surprise in his tone as if he couldn’t fathom the idea. “What a shame. Why not?”

“The grape harvest isn’t usually this plentiful. I guess everyone wanted to thank, well, you,” you mused, reminding yourself of who you were having such casual conversation with as if were some routine, normal thing.

The answer seemed to please Dionysus and reinforce his cheer. “Glad I dropped in then! Can’t resist a party, especially not one in my honor,” He said. “You seem a little stiff, babe. Let me help take the edge off.” He noted, lifting one arm.

Your eyes flickered to the golden cup in his hand you had missed - though with the column of smoky haze drifting from it you weren’t sure how - as he raised it to his lips and took a drink from it. To your bemusement, the level of liquid in the small cup didn’t seem to have gone down at all. Just what kind of wine was in that chalice?

You had only a moment to wonder before he took hold of your jaw gently and leaned forward toward you. Your eyebrows shot up when his full lips met yours, though you didn’t try to wriggle away or stop him. His fingers squeezed a little tighter on your cheeks until your lips parted. With a brief brush along your bottom lip, his tongue slipped into your mouth, along with a hot mouthful of wine.

Half in surprise, you swallowed the wine - a taste almost overly sweet. His lips remained sealed over yours for a minute after, tongue content to tangle with yours and explore before he moved back. “There we go, that’ll do the trick right quick,” Dionysus assured you, lounging back against the chaise.

You weren’t sure just how quick he meant, though you knew already you felt warm all over. You attributed that to the heat of his body and the unabashed fashion in which he had thought to share the wine. “I gotta say, babe, you’re even sweeter than the wine. I think I need another taste.”

“If that’s what you want, Lor-, I mean, Dionysus,” you corrected yourself swiftly, though your face was burning even hotter at his shamelessness.

He bent forward again, his hand curling in the hair at the nape of your neck, and he kissed you again. The second was deeper, more feverish, and even without a mouthful of wine, a syrupy, alcoholic taste persisted on his tongue. All around you - despite the sensual distraction - the sense of eyes on you was almost tangible.

When the kiss ended, you were out of breath, feeling as if a fire was seeping into your blood, for a multitude of reasons. His face remained close to yours, violet eyes half-lidded and focused on you keenly, his breath tickling your skin. “Erm, people are really starting to stare,” you said in a hush. People had been watching with half-interest before, but you were positive their attention was growing much more intense.

“Don’t mind them, babe. Just pay attention to me,” Dionysus dismissed easily.

It was simple for him to say, sure. He wasn’t the one who would get questioning looks or an earful demanding why you had been making out with the God of Wine while sitting in his lap so brazenly. Even with that thought in mind, you felt like you didn’t care quite as much as you should. Something was muting the sense of embarrassment you imagined you ought to have.

“What was in that wine?” You asked, suspicious. 

The warmth only grew and your heart beat faster in your chest, unrelated to your company or the many eyes glued to you. A light sheen of sweat beaded on your skin and a sensation like pleasant tingling or prickling swept over you. It was the strongest and hottest where your body pressed close to his.

“Just a bit of nectar, babe. Good stuff. Sweetest drink you’ll find,” he boasted without batting an eye.

“I feel a little.. off. Kind of hot,” you explained, your words coming out in almost a pant. What in the world was going on?

“Hot? Ooooh, right, it’s a bit of an aphrodisiac. Forgot how it affects you mortals,” Dionysus remembered, his voice becoming puzzled for an instant before returning to a casual manner.

“Oh, I-I see,” you stammered.

The heat was more and more distracting, as was the pulse between your thighs that beat in time with your pounding heart. Just as distracting was the feeling of something long and stiff making its presence known beneath you gradually. You would have been shocked how quickly it took effect if you had been in a less bothered state of mind.

Dionysus considered your state of distress, taking another sip from his chalice while he did so. “Don’t worry, babe, I can help you out,” he decided, in a casual tone one might use when lending someone spare change.

Your face and skin burned more when he adjusted the folds of his flowing tunic and your own - the both of you remaining well covered to anyone not nearby - until your core was pressed more snugly against something hot and hard, growing more so as the seconds ticked by. “Di-Dionysus,” you said in a gasp, gaze flitting about worriedly. “What if-what if they notice?” 

“Let them. No one’s going to make a fuss. Did you forget who you’re talking to?” He reassured you nonchalantly.

Your lips twitched and you opened your mouth to protest again, but your will to argue died as a more tangible wave of heat rolled through you. The need to quench the burning in your belly and your cunt was suddenly outweighed the potential mortification of fucking a god where all your neighbors could see you. The feeling of said god pressed thick and willing so close to where you craved him did little to dampen your growing need. “A-alright,” you gave in with a groan, leaning forward and pressing your face into his neck. 

With a short chuckle, Dionysus shifted you in his lap subtly until you felt the head of his cock slide between your folds, already wet from the potent effect of the nectar-spiked wine. He splayed one large hand along the curve of your ass and back against your skin, his golden goblet clasped casually in his other hand. The touch made you shudder, drawing in a deep, aching breath at the anticipation building alongside the lava in your blood. With a short, smooth half-roll of his hips, pulling you down towards him, he sheathed himself inside your dripping heat.

Your reaction was instant, a moan leaving your lips and immediately drowning in the cool skin of Dionysus’ throat. His length stretched you deliciously, enough that if the aphrodisiac hadn’t ensured your cunt was soaked, you were positive it would’ve been uncomfortable. Instead, the sensation of fullness was bliss, your pussy already clenching around him, even as he remained buried inside you unmoving.

The purr of Dionysus’ voice broke through the cloud of lust and fire, clear as a bell. “So tight and wet. You’re making to tough to leave it at just this, babe. Easy, just relax,” he soothed, though you could hear a husky strain that made his voice all the more enticing.

For a while, being filled seemed to be enough to satisfy the nectar piquing your desire. The burning in your gut faded to a low, steady smolder, and you breathed a relieved sigh. You sat up slowly, realizing finally that your current position slumped against Dionysus was far more telling than anything else. With some of the demanding hunger satiated by Dionysus’ cock stretching you, your anxiety returned to the townsfolk.

When you took in Dionysus’ face again, his cheeks were an even rosier stain and you imagined it wasn’t just his spiked wine. Your heart continued to beat an irregular pace in your chest, and you felt overly warm, but at least you were able to think somewhat straight. Enough to notice the people around you were well aware something was amiss between you and Dionysus. 

Dionysus, on the other hand, was remarkably unphased aside from the warmer glow on his cheeks, sitting with a mirthful, almost sleepy expression, coolly taking long draws from his cup. He flashed a few smiles to some folks who wandered closer to snoop or catch a better look, thinking themselves unseen, and sending them scattering. His hand on your skin rubbed back and forth absently. How often he did these kinds of things to be so at ease? Though it occurred to you he had no reason to fear what mortals thought of him or his escapades. He was right - no one was going to make a fuss over something a god did, whether or not it was right in front of them.

You made the mistake of squirming in Dionysus’ and adjusting your position, making him hum in pleasure and his cock twitch inside of you. You bit your lip viciously, another surge of heat striking you like a bolt of lightning through your spine. The aphrodisiac hadn’t been completely satisfied - only temporarily sated, waiting to reawaken at the slightest provocation. “Oh fuck, Dionysus, I feel like I’m on fire again, worse,” you whimpered.

The cheeky smile that flickered over his lips for a second was lost to you, already distracted again. “Gotta speak up. What do you need, babe?” 

Was he teasing you? Had he known that just a bit of cockwarming wouldn’t satisfy the nectar’s potent effects? Whatever the case, there was no resisting the returning fog of heat and desperate arousal, giving you a mind to do anything to abate it. “You. More, just more, please,” your voice sounded wild to your ears, needy.

“Can do, babe.”

Abandoned was any pretense you were behaving - you weren’t of a mind to care anymore and Dionysus hadn’t been bothered from the beginning. He set his chalice aside, careful not to tip it and spill out its endless contents. Both hands cradled your hips in a firm grasp, fingers rubbing ticklish lines over your burning skin.

“Shit, you’re gushing now, babe. Nectar really did a number on you,” he acknowledged, beginning to rock his hips against yours.

Each stroke of his cock was euphoria all its own, the heat fading each time he filled you, only to come roaring back when you were nearly empty. You bent forward, clinging onto his biceps with little shame, panting and whining low. “Fuck, fuck, so… hot, More, harder, Dionysus, please,” you begged breathlessly, grinding your hips against his, trying to match his unhurried pace.

“More of me? If you insist..” Dionysus dipped his lips towards your ear, hot breath tickling the shell of your ear. “Mm, you feel so good,” he purred, his words making the maddening tension and heat in your abdomen swell.

His hands clamped tighter over your hips, pulling you more roughly against him each time he pushed forward. His hips canted harder, his cock sinking even deeper. He moved you again in his lap, as easily as if you weighed nothing. The new angle added more friction to the buck of his hips, brushing your clit and a spot inside that had you clawing at his arms and your toes curling.

“Oh.” The word was a surprised gasp, a realization of just how good the new sensation was. “Right there, right there,” you chanted pleadingly. “Don’t stop.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dionysus promised, a groan of his own punctuating his words as your cunt pulsed around him especially tightly.

With each roll of his hips, your control over your voice shattered more and more. It was too much to contain the cries trying to escape and even burying your face against him was doing less to dampen them. One of Dionysus’ hands abandoned your hip, tangling in your hair and tugging your head back so your noise flowed free. It was his turn to press his face to your neck, lavishing it with feverish, open-mouthed kisses and nips.

Any embarrassment or dignity you had possessed fled at the blooming tension in your gut and the ache of Dionysus’ cock pounding into you. You bucked your hips more urgently against his, egged on by the spiked wine and the lusty groans and growls ghosting over your skin. “Oh, Dionysus, fuuuck,” you crooned, your grip white-knuckled on his biceps as you bounced more wildly in his lap, sweat coating your skin.

“Get it all out, babe,” Dionysus breathed thickly, placing a sharper bite on your throat. “Louder. Let everyone know who’s making you feel so good.”

You couldn’t help but oblige him, caught up in the full pull of the aphrodisiac and the overwhelming sensations Dionysus wrung from you. The drone of the onlookers was drowned out completely by the volume of the lewd noises and words leaving your mouth. “Dionysus, Dionysus... oh fuck. I feel like I’m going... to explode,” you gasped out between moans.

Dionysus’ grunts and curses filled your ears, a complement to your bawdy chorus. Harder and faster you chased the tension, winding it tighter until it was on the edge of snapping. Just a little longer, a little harder, a little more friction, that was all you needed. “Aaa, Dionysus, I’m cumming, fuck, fuck, fuuuuck.”

When the hot coil finally burst, you thrust your hips even more desperately against Dionysus’, your cunt squeezing his cock for all it was worth and trying to draw him closer, deeper. Your words died away, a slew of obscene screams tumbling out in their wake.

“Almost there, keep making those noises,” panted Dionysus, his lips skating over your pounding pulse. “Feels so damn good.” 

His grip in your hair stung, and his tight grip on your hip was sure to leave a mark later. His breath came in more and more ragged puffs. The steady tempo of his hips faltered, becoming sloppy and wild. “Fuck, babe, I can’t take it anymore. Here it comes,” he growled.

He continued to drive into you, hard and deep, as he came, only stalling when he had spent every drop of his cum inside. You became incapable of contemplating much else other than the tingling rapture beginning to die away and the hot, wet feeling of his cum and his cock filling you up.

When Dionysus reclined back against the chaise again, he didn’t bother to withdraw, dragging you back with him. You slumped boneless and exhausted against his chest, finally free of the sense that you were going to spontaneously combust.

“Feel better, babe?”

 “I think so. Sore, but better. Not burning up anymore.”

“Hope you don’t mind keeping me company and drinking with me a bit longer?”

“Gladly. Just… maybe something a little less, ah, potent for me for now?” You agreed. You weren’t going to admit that weren’t ready to face the flood of questions your fellow townsfolk surely had. And just maybe you were interested in seeing if you couldn’t convince Dionysus to take the fun to a more private setting.

[missluthorwillseeyounow]

Never To Touch And Never To Keep

Westenray AU (NBC Dracula)

A/N: So, here it is, the Westenray AU where Henry Cavill is Lucy’s beard. Fair warning, I didn’t really watch much of the show, just the Lucy scenes, and not even all of those. Basically, this is a peeled-back modern AU of the whole story, without the Dracula stuff. It’ll follow canon for a little bit, unfortunately *cringe* but I need a happy ending for my gays.

Also, this gets quite dark before it gets better. TW: gaslighting, attempted suicide, poisoning, and manipulation. Like for real, guys, I promise a happy ending, but if any of these trigger you, please don’t read it.

Lucy and Mina have been friends since they were fifteen. Lucy's father is an affluent businessman, and Lucy grows up with her every whim catered to. She’s at the center of everyone’s attention. All heads turn whenever she enters a room, and she accepts the adoration as her due.

She and Mina meet at boarding school, and the bond between the two girls is immediate. 

That first year is spent in bare feet and nightgowns, dancing idly to Fleetwood Mac, drunk on youth and the vodka Lucy stole from the headmistress’ office. In the acrid scent of illicit cigarettes being passed from one to the other, and the soft curve of Mina’s lips under Lucy’s fingers whenever she slips the cigarette into Mina’s mouth.

Mina is quiet and earnest, where Lucy is vivacious and impertinent. Mina gently chastises her when she breaks yet another boy’s heart, and Lucy merely laughs. 

And when Mina breaks Lucy’s heart and falls in love with Jonathan Harker, Lucy just laughs and laughs, and cruelly breaks another boy’s heart in retaliation.

Between the two of them, Mina is the more logical one, whose head and heart are grounded and centered, while Lucy is a creature of flight and fancy -- the one who flits from one thing to another, the charming social butterfly who lights up any room she walks into and creates a spectacle to hide every insecurity she keeps inside.

Lucy lives with bravado, but retreats behind a glittering mask. Mina, she thinks, is the one who is actually brave, the one who is unafraid to live her life as herself.

At the time of this AU, they’re around 21, and Mina and Jonathan are engaged. They're still quite young, but they've been together for years. The "perfect couple", it was only a matter of time before they got married.

Mina is in med school at this time, when she meets Alexander Grayson.

Grayson is a wealthy businessman, the new owner of the hospital where Mina’s father had practiced before he died. He encounters Mina once, at a benefit for the hospital’s cancer ward. Mina speaks to him in her gentle, forthright way, and Grayson is immediately drawn to her.

The encounter leaves an indelible mark on Grayson, and he decides he has to have her.

He’s no stranger to manipulation, and he comes at the problem on all sides. The key, he knows, is isolation. If she has no one left to turn to, Mina will come to him.

Harker, he thinks, is easy enough. With his uncertain finances, the young man is insecure and doubts his place in Mina’s esteem or at least in her social circles. It’s easy enough to see in the way his teeth grit and his jaw tightens whenever Lucy delightedly plucks on this particular insecurity like a note well-played.

Grayson buys into Harker’s graces through his wealth, offers him a career in which he can succeed. The work keeps Harker rewarded and therefore docile, out of the shadow Mina’s condescending friends, and high on his own sense of self-importance for the first time in his life.

His seduction of Mina, however, requires more thought and subtlety. He applies himself to discovering more about her, the things that interest her and resonate with her.

He finds out about her admiration and respect for a prestigious doctor, Gabriel van Helsing, and he extorts van Helsing into offering his mentorship to Mina. He finds out about her passion for helping children and starts a charity for children in need, and offers her the chance to be more involved in the project. 

Through it all, Grayson places himself as the supposed catalyst of her advancement.

And Mina, grounded though she is, is still fallible. Grayson seems to her a kind man, misunderstood by some perhaps because of his brooding disposition, but still -- a good man. And he is attractive, that’s undeniable. Enigmatic, charming in a mysterious way.

Slowly, but surely, Mina is lured in.

Because Grayson presents himself as a pleasant and urbane gentleman, most people rarely suspect him of anything nefarious.

Except for Lucy. 

Like recognizes like, and Lucy has used her own charm to get her way enough times to know when people use it for their own machinations.

Grayson knows that Lucy is less susceptible to his manipulations and will be more difficult to eliminate as competition.

However, he learns that his intervention is not required. Someone like Lucy, whose emotions overrule even her own penchant for manipulation, will set her own self on fire. All it takes is a few whispers in Mina’s ear, and Lucy orchestrates her own destruction.

Lucy has been hiding her feelings for years, and she's become adept at it. But Grayson’s arrival has thrown Mina into turmoil and by extension, Lucy is thrown into turmoil as well.

And Lucy, when backed into a corner, always lashes out. She barely hides her resentment for Grayson, alienating herself from Mina, who thinks so highly of him, for the first time in their friendship. Not even her disparaging of Jonathan had lowered her in Mina’s esteem, but this causes the first real point of contention between the two of them.

For the first time, Lucy feels her slipping away, and her reflexive response is to pull closer, fearing the loss of Mina in her life. She holds fast to the bond between her and Mina, and clings to her friend.

And one night -- an ordinary night that finds Lucy stretched out on Mina’s bed as usual, their faces inches apart as they seek each other under Mina’s covers like they always do -- Lucy, grateful that no matter what contention they have about one man, they still find each other, becomes brave enough, desperate enough to close that familiar distance between them and press her lips to Mina’s.

"We could be so much more.... I've always loved you, Mina."

"Has our whole friendship been a pretense?!?"

Grayson’s insidious whispers flare in Mina’s mind, and every moment of their friendship is called into question. Every embrace, every sweet word, and every barb thrown at Jonathan viewed in the light of this new and terrifying revelation.

"You need to leave."

And leave Lucy does, feeling small and worthless and hollow, as if a crater has opened up in the middle of her chest. This is not a feeling she knows -- not this shame and this hurt and this dejection. 

She’s suffered for Mina before, the heartache of seeing the woman she loves in love with another. But this.... it feels as if all the love she’d kept in her heart has been spit back at her in acid. 

It rankles at her skin, and claws at her pride, and so Lucy does what she knows best. She claws back.

Harker is almost laughably easy, a pawn Lucy moves with disturbing ease -- she almost feels sorry for Mina that she loved a man whose loyalty can break with a pair of tear-filled eyes and a silk robe. Almost.

When Mina catches them together, as planned, Lucy catches Mina's eye with a level look over Jonathan's shoulder. She pushes Jonathan off, his erection twitching unsatisfied between them. Lucy rises to her feet, slipping on her silk robe -- never taking her eyes off Mina -- then brushes past her without another word.

And Mina... Mina knows Lucy. She knows how cruel she can be, and has long accepted it as a part of her, but never has that cruelty been directed at her.

This, more than anything, seals it all in Mina’s mind. 

The two most important people in her life have betrayed her, and it feels as if the very foundations of the life she’s known until now have been shaken.

The only person she can confide in, who listens to her and comforts her with a solemn touch of a hand, is Grayson.

And Grayson thinks, now that he has her, he means to keep her.

He makes her happy, makes her smile and laugh, builds her back up when her life is at its lowest. When she cries at her losses, he embraces her, and bids her forget about them.

A year later, Mina discovers she’s pregnant, and her Alexander is overjoyed. It’s a difficult pregnancy and keeps her weak and bed-ridden for most of it. Through it all, Alexander is the one person she can depend on.

It’s an even more difficult birth, but Mina immediately falls in love with her baby. But her pregnancy took its toll on her body, and she’s still having a hard time bouncing back. Her energy flags more and more, and at first, she attributes it to the enormous stress of juggling her studies and a new baby. She's just stressed, Alexander says, maybe they should go for a vacation.

A vacation smack in the middle of her training?? It’s unthinkable at first, but as Mina finds herself more and more fatigued, she relents. Perhaps it will do her good.

During the vacation, without the stress of med school and all the worries at home, Mina finally has some time to think about her old life before this whirlwind romance she’s found herself in. As much as she loves Alexander and their baby, she knows there are some things that were left unresolved, and she’s been covering them up long enough.

When they return from the vacation, Mina begins to write letters:

Dear Lucy,

You cannot imagine how much I long to see you again. Today will make it a year, nine months and fifteen days since we last saw each other. I can't believe it's been that long. Remember when we had that fight in chemistry class and you didn't speak to me for three days? Before our separation, that was the longest we'd ever been apart. I miss those days.

Every letter I have sent to you has returned unread and unopened. I know you don’t want anything to do with me anymore, and after the way I treated you, I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see me again. But still, it doesn't erase the yearning to see your face again.

I miss the nights we would sleep in each other's beds, talking until midnight. Your face -- your dear, loving eyes and your beloved smile -- would be the last thing I saw before falling asleep, and the first thing to wake me in the morning. I never knew what a blessing that was, until I was deprived of such a gift.

Too much has happened. We both hurt each other, I know. You hurt me -- yes, it still hurts -- but I know, I hurt you first. I realize now that what you did was born out of anger and deep pain, because of what I did.

You were never anything but loving toward me. My sweetest friend who always stood by me, always lifted me up, and gave me whatever happiness you could. With others you were always so cold, so cruel, that I could hardly believe you were the same person, because with me, you were so soft, and you took such great care to be gentle.

And I cast you aside. I treated you as if your love as something to be ashamed of, when really, I did not deserve any of it. You betrayed me out of pain, but I betrayed you without provocation. And I am so sorry. God, if you could only know how much I regret everything I said that night...

My infant daughter is sleeping beside me as I write this. My daughter, Lucy. Can you believe it?

She is so beautiful. She has a shock of jet-black hair that is resistant to combing (I can already tell we will have problems with that), and such mesmerizing grey eyes, and the cheekiest smile. She reminds me of you, but that might be because I love her so much.

I've named her Lucy Alexandra Grayson. After Alexander, and after you. Her father likes to call her Alexandra. I'm afraid he doesn't like your name, my dear, but he can't stop me. I've taken to calling her Lucky, as I confess, there has only ever been one Lucy for me, and always will be.

And anyway, Alexander is far too happy, spending time with the baby. He's so proud of her, and it makes me happy to see Alexander happy. He spends all day with us, and is devoted to me and my happiness. He tells me every day that Lucky and I are everything to him.

Oh, Lucy dear, if you could only know the joy I feel at this moment. I wish you were here so i could share this with you. I so wish that you could see Lucky. If you did, you would love her, I know. She is perfection. I can hardly believe that she came from me. That I made something so beautiful and precious.

Oh, Lucy, today my joy knows no bounds, save for one. I feel as if you should be here. Your presence, as warm and sorely missed as it is, would complete my happiness.

Love, Mina.

Mina feels better during the vacation, but when they get back home, she becomes worse. Fatigue sets in quickly, and she gets daily headaches so bad that she has to stay home. She finally admits that her body is having a hard time bouncing back and handling the stress of it all, and after spending several sleepless weeks thinking about it, Mina finally agrees when Alexander suggests she take a break from medical school. This way, she can stay home and rest. Her body can recuperate, and she’ll have more time with Lucky.

What she doesn’t know is that her symptoms are not part of an illness. Grayson has been slowly introducing medication into her system. Nothing life-threatening, or anything that would raise alarms. He’s much too careful for that. But enough that its effects keep her weak and drained of energy

After they returned from their vacation and Mina had expressed her desire to reconcile with Lucy, Grayson had decided that it wasn’t safe yet to stop drugging her, and so the small doses of the medication resumed.

As for the letters, Lucy never receives any of them. Grayson makes sure of it. He even takes precautions to make sure that every email, every text is blocked. Now that Lucy has excised herself out of Mina’s life, he’ll make sure she remains that way.

As for Lucy herself, in the passing years since their separation, she’s made quite a few changes.

Lucy has always been...  aware of the effect she has on people. She knows she appears as a charming coquette, and as she makes her own way in the world, she uses that to her advantage. In fact, she delights in it.

She rarely lets anyone see how clever she is until it's too late, and by then, she's already destroying their lives or their reputations. It makes people underestimate her abilities, and she gets to still play in her glittering little world.

Lucy meets Nick at a friend’s bachelorette party.

When they first meet, he’s a stripper hired for the night. 

It would have been easy to dismiss him then, but Lucy, clever as she is, sees his potential and cleans him up.

She had been planning on using Nick’s past as a stripper and her role as his benefactor to hold over him as blackmail if needed, but she soon realizes that he genuinely does not give a fuck about that.

“What are you getting out of this, then?”

“Aside from the suits and the Maserati? Honestly, I’m just along for the ride. This beats dancing Friday nights at Hunk-O-Rama. Besides, you’re cute.”

Lucy laughs derisively. “You’re not my type.”

Nick throws his head back and laughs even louder. “I have a feeling you don’t hear this a lot, but you’re not my type either.”

Aside from Mina, it’s easily the closest relationship Lucy has ever had. Nick is one of the few people perceptive enough to really see her, and surprisingly enough, he’s not enamored by her. Which works well enough for both of them.

Nick sees Lucy for the mess that she is. When they’re not in public, he treats her like an annoying, reckless little sister, and it amuses him to watch her wreak havoc and play her little games. When she doesn’t annoy the crap out of him.

Nick, however, knows very little about Mina.

All he knows is that she’s a sore subject. He's deduced by now that Lucy was in love with her, but beyond that, he lets Lucy keep her secrets.

As for Mina, over the years, Grayson’s manipulations become more and more overt, and it becomes harder and harder for her to leave.

As Lucky grows up, Alexander showers her with affection and spoils her, making the little girl devoted to him. “Daddy’s little girl” he calls her.

"Mummy, why are you and Daddy fighting?"

"Daddy wasn't being nice."

“But Mummy, Daddy's the nicest! He loves us. He says so all the time."

Mina tries to leave once, when Lucky is 7 years old. She tries to take Lucky with her, but her daughter runs to Grayson and clings to him. “No! I want to stay with Daddy!”

And Grayson levels Mina a look, daring her to separate her child from her father, or leave her behind.

From then on, Grayson keeps Lucky close. She hears him whispering things into the child’s ear (”Mummy’s sick. She’s not well.”) and it reminds her so forcibly of the things he used to whisper in her ear. 

That’s when she knows. She has to leave, for her daughter’s sake.

She takes some of the pills she keeps in the cupboard, carefully calculates enough to make her sick but not kill herself. She only needs enough to be taken to the ER, and put in a temporary psych hold.

It's dangerous, her plan. She could actually kill herself, and if she's on psych hold, Lucky will be left alone with Alexander, and though she's sure Alexander won't hurt her, because Lucky is his bargaining chip to get Mina back, she can’t be sure of what he’ll be putting into her daughter’s head.

Her attempt fails when Grayson brings in a doctor friend of his to help her instead of taking her to the hospital

He performs gastric lavage on her at home to flush the drugs from her stomach. As Mina lies on her bed, lethargic with the tube in her nose, Alexander grips her wrist and murmurs under his breath "You are everything to me. I won’t let you go."

As Mina recovers, she finds herself locked in her room. She asks in vain for Lucky, but Alexander’s only reply is that “She shouldn’t have to see her mother like this.”

Days pass, and the sense of urgency and panic rises, unstoppable, in Mina’s throat like bile. She knows she has no choice. When she’s strong enough, she pushes herself out of bed, locks the door to buy herself time, and breaks one of the windows. She picks up one of the shards, and thinking of her beautiful little girl, Mina cuts through the flesh of her wrists.

It takes a while before Grayson and the doctor realize what she’s done, and she loses enough blood that the doctor decides she needs to go to the hospital or she will going to die.

Once she's at the hospital, she asks a kind nurse to contact Lucy, but she’s told that Lucy’s number is unlisted. The nurse tries the business number, but gets the usual run-around.

And so, as a last resort, Mina gives the nurse the address to Lucy’s family home, hoping and praying that someone there -- Lucy’s father or her mother -- will see her name and remember it. Then she gives the nurse a bundle of letters. The ones that were returned unopened, and the ones she wrote but didn't send because she knew by now Lucy wouldn't read them.

The nurse kindly agrees, and Mina wishes she could tell her everything, that it could help her and her daughter. But Alexander is too influential, and he has Lucky with him, and Mina will not risk her daughter.

The letters are forwarded to Lucy. Nick hands them to her over the breakfast table. But when Lucy hears who they’re from, she goes silent and refuses to open them.

"Do what you want with them. Take them, or they'll end up in the fire. I won't read them."

Nick reads them. The next day, he approaches Lucy again, letters in hand. "The letters, that Mina wrote you..."

Lucy doesn't even look up from her cup of coffee. Her jaw twitches. "I don't want to hear it."

The letters drop onto the table next to her plate. "I think she may need your help. I think she's being abused."

Lucy applies herself to recovering Mina and Lucky, as well as sinking Alexander Grayson, like Nick has never seen her apply herself to anything before.

Nick loses track of how many people Lucy bribes, threatens or blackmails to get Grayson arrested and the charges to stick, or how long it takes for her to get Grayson’s properties seized and his assets frozen. 

He’s lost count of how many times he’s seen Grayson’s face in the news, getting condemned and absolutely dragged by every news outlet Lucy and her family have access to. 

Nick also has no idea know how she managed to get a decent-sized portion of Grayson’s fortune back for Mina and Lucky -- and honestly, given Lucy’s pervasive, systematic destruction of everything Alexander Grayson holds dear, he’s kind of afraid to ask.

As Lucy’s “business face”, Nick has to field everyone from the press to the lawyers. Fortunately for them, he’s a competent son of a bitch, and he tells Lucy the one time she’d asked "Don't worry about it, kid. Your family is my family."

Lucy doesn't quite know what to respond to -- the declaration that Nick considers her family, or that he thinks Mina is her family. "They're not my family."

"Sure, whatever you say, babe." Nick just laughs and walks away. "Oh, and I better get a raise after this."     

Nick, however, does suspect that Lucy’s almost manic focus on sinking Grayson to the mud is at least partly so that she doesn’t have to deal with Mina being back. The fact that she had stashed Mina and Lucky in one of her summer homes, hidden away from her, is evidence enough of that. 

Lucy says it’s to keep them out of the public eye, and while that’s true enough, there is also some truth to Nick’s theory.

Ruining Grayson is easy. Revenge is easier and altogether more satisfying that hashing out old feelings that never really died -- just got shoved to the back of her mind, and only came up whenever Lucy was with another woman and, instead of red hair, she'd see Mina's black curls; or when she said the wrong name in the throes of an orgasm.

And looking across the courtroom at Grayson with a triumphant smile on her face is infinitely easier than looking Mina in the eye.

Lucy puts off visiting the summer house as long as she can. But she has to eventually, to let Mina know how the trials went

For once, Lucy, the social butterfly who can charm birds off trees, has no idea what to say. Mina is quiet too. She wants to tease Lucy for her awkwardness, and if it had been 8 years ago and the Lucy of old, she would have.

Now all she can really do is stare at Lucy and drink her in, cataloging every feature that has changed or remained the same 

In the end, Lucky saves them. The little girl looks up at Lucy with a sweet smile "Hi! You're Lucy!"

Lucy can only stare at her for a second before shaking herself with a nod. "I am."

"We have the same name! But my Mummy calls me Lucky."

Lucy finally meets Mina's eye. "So I've heard."

Lucky quickly warms to Lucy, and Lucy, who has never spent more than an hour with any person younger than herself, finds herself feeling strangely attached to the child.

Lucky is what brings Lucy and Mina together.

In truth, they're each so desperate to know the other again, to somehow find their way back to how things were before that night. They've both changed so much, but they both want to see how much has remained the same, how much they can still salvage and patch together.

It's too much to say, but too much to leave unsaid, so they focus the affection they can't give the other on Lucky

Lucy and Mina are never quite alone together at first. Lucky is usually a buffer between them 

Then one day, Lucy brings Lucky a whole new wardrobe of dresses and Lucky tries them on for her and Mina one at a time. As Lucky flounces off to change into another sparkly tulle dress, Mina chuckles, “Remember that time we got drunk and we snuck into the the props room in school and tried on all of the costumes for ‘Hamlet’?”

Lucy smiles. "I remember having to drag you there because you were too scared of getting caught.”

"And I remember you trying on every gaudy thing you could find. Just like Lucky.” Mina laughs, her eyes softening. “I swear, sometimes I think she's your child." 

Lucy looks away for a second, but Mina murmurs "She reminded me so much of you all those years."

Lucy hides the tremor in her voice behind an arrogant smirk. "She's amazing then."

Mina looks at her, eyes clear and bright. "She is."

Nick joins them some weekends, and Lucky adores him almost as much as Lucy. On one particular visit, he comes bearing some “sensitive information” for Lucy.

When Mina had first been rescued, she had asked Nick if he had any information on Jonathan Harker. When he reported this to Lucy, she had tasked Nick to find him. Not out of sentimentality for the man, she couldn't care less about Harker. But for Mina...

Nick finds Lucy and Mina in the sunroom, talking quietly. Mina is reaching over to brush a non-existent stray hair out of Lucy's face, and Lucy is smiling in a way Nick has never seen before. Gentle, almost tender. 

And this is the woman who has left a trail of broken hearts a mile long behind her.

Nick almost doesn't interrupt them -- but then Mina leans forward, bringing her that much closer to Lucy... And the smile disappears on Lucy's face like water evaporating. She pulls away abruptly, her eyes sliding away from Mina's to find Nick in the doorway.

He holds up the folder for her to see. Lucy rises and leads him to her office, where they won't be overheard. When Nick hands her folder, she scans it silently, her jaw tight. The file contains all of Harker's information, including how to contact him. 

"He's unmarried and working as a writer for a newspaper."

Lucy closes the folder and hands it to Nick, her eyes stony. "Give it to her."

Nick blinks and pauses. "Are you su--"

Lucy silences him with a sharp look that berates him for daring to question her. "Give it to her."

Nick's lips narrow. "Yes, ma'am."

Lucy cringes inwardly. She knows she was a little bit too blunt with Nick, but honestly she's in no mood to be nice. "Oh, and have my team prepare the jet."

"Where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here."

Lucy flies off to see a frequent bedfellow in Paris for a week. She heads to Italy for another the next week. By the time she gets back, she’s informed her that Mina and Lucky are gone. Nick tells her that he gave Mina the file on Jonathan and she left the next day.

Lucy arrives home to an empty summer house, and finds that she misses Mina and Lucky too much. She misses Lucky's mischievous giggles and Mina's light laughter. She misses having tea with Mina in the sunroom, and sitting in the library while Lucky reads her old children's books to her.

She misses the days spent on the lake, Lucky swinging into the water from the old rope on the tree, and somehow managing to coax Lucy along with her, while Mina, quietly radiant in her white linen dress, sips tea and watches them from the dock. She used to laugh whenever Lucy and Lucky emerged dripping wet from the lake, hair stringy and waterlogged, dresses stuck uncomfortably to their skin, but having the time of their lives.

Everyday there just reminds her more of what she doesn't have anymore. So she goes back to her home in the city. It's not much better there, but at least there aren't any reminders of Mina or Lucky there

Mina calls her several times, but Lucy ignores each call.

When they were younger, she used to listen to Mina talk about her relationship with Harker, not a secret between them, except one. And Lucy was just content to listen because it kept her in Mina's life.

And while she doesn't want to lose Mina again, she thinks she's grown up enough to set limits on what she can or will take. And she doesn't think she can take hearing about Mina's new life with Jonathan. How she's rebuilding her old life with him, and shaping her new one around it.

She does allow herself some bitterness over the thought of how perfect that new little family would be. Mina and her old love, Jonathan, a perfect new father for Lucky, to replace the twisted one she got.

It's perfect for them, she thinks. Absolutely fucking meant to be. A happy ending after the hell Mina went through. She deserves that, Lucy thinks as she downs yet another glass of wine

And Lucy bets that within the next six months, she'll receive a call from Mina asking her to be her bridesmaid. A year later, Lucky will be getting a new brother or sister.

On nights like these, when Lucy drowns herself in enough wine to numb the crater in chest, Nick has to scoop her up and take her home himself.

On one such night, she doesn't come home to an empty house. Mina's waiting for her there. She follows Nick to Lucy's room then gives him a small smile. "I'll take it from here." 

Lucy is half passed out, but Mina manages to get her to drink some water and helps her change out of her clothes. Then she tucks Lucy under her covers and slips in with her.

Lucy's eyes open blearily, "Aren't you going back home to Jonathan and Lucky?"

Mina smiles at her. "I left Lucky with my cousin, and I'm sure Jonathan can manage without me."

Lucy mutters something into her pillow.

"What was that?"

"He doesn't deserve you."

Mina brushes her hair back "Then who does?"

"No one."

"You think too highly of me."

"Rightly so."

"Even after..... even after the way I treated you that night?"

"That night wasn't your fault," Lucy mumbles sleepily, voice slurred from the wine. In vino veritas. "It was my fault. It was me -- my feelings. I was responsible for them, not you. I was doing so well before that, and you, you my darling brilliant Mina, are so stupid when it comes to love. You would never have known anything if I hadn't opened my stupid mouth - or kissed you with it."

Mina's eyes search hers in the dim light. "Would you never have told me? Would you have kept it a secret from me forever?"

Lucy nods, making herself slightly dizzy. Her eyes close and she murmurs. "If I could go back, I would never have kissed you."

Mina doesn't speak for a while. She just listens to the sound of Lucy's breathing even out to sleep. She just stares at Lucy. "It's funny. I often think about things I regretted about that night. I regretted the way I acted toward you, the things I said.... But that kiss was the one thing I never regretted."

When they were at the summer house, there were several moments when Mina almost got carried away and kissed her, her eyes flicking down to Lucy's lips, lush and candy-pink. She's spent nights reliving that kiss over the years, trying to recall details of it, but it's been blurred by time and guilt and confusion. 

She wonders how she never knew how Lucy felt. She wonders if Alexander hadn't been manipulating her, if she would have said the things she did. If she hadn't been so in love with Jonathan then, would she have kissed Lucy back? 

She looks at Lucy now and wonders if she would taste the same.

But every time Mina lets any hint of these thoughts show on her face, Lucy looks away.

Lucy -- who, even after all these years and all this turmoil, has opened her heart and home to her and her daughter -- shows all the fear of a trapped animal whenever Mina looks at her with want in her eyes, and closes herself off.

Mina knows she's damaged that beyond repair. Lucy -- dear Lucy who never kept a secret from her but this one -- showed one moment of vulnerability and Mina had all but slapped her in the face

And she still knows Lucy well. Lucy always lashes out from hurt at first, but after, she hides in dark corners where no one can see, like a heart-hurt little kitten seeking the comfort and safety of being unseen.

So she doesn't bring it up in the morning, when Lucy pads softly into the kitchen where Mina is making her breakfast and the hangover remedy she came up with in college.

Lucy looks up at her gratefully, if a little confused. Her eyes are a little cloudy, and her perfect hair tousled just enough for Mina to want to run her hands through the golden mess. 

She knows she can. This is Lucy, and since they were teenagers, touch has been a language between them. Mina's heart twinges, and she wonders if this is how Lucy felt all those years ago, wanting to touch her as she always does, but this time with a lover's hand, each nerve ending coming alive with the stark difference.

Lucy watches her with a question on her lips that Mina can almost see, even as she hesitates, her mouth fearful and unwilling to open. 

Mina reassures her with a gentle smile as she places a plate of Lucy's favorite scrambled eggs in front of her. She leans forward and kisses the top of her head. They don't have to talk about it now.

Hope is a cruel thing to entertain, she knows from years living with Alexander. And she knows that sometimes the best defense from it is to reject it.

And right now, she knows they're both brimming with it. The rigidly suppressed hope in Lucy's eyes, marshaled by years of emotions never expressed, and the answering hope in Mina that prays she still feels the same way

This is not a conversation that can be had while Lucy is hungover and barely awake. Lucy waited for her for years before that kiss, then the duty of waiting fell to Mina. She thinks she can wait a little bit longer for Lucy.

After breakfast, when her wits are more collected, Lucy sits with her feet curled up on the wicker love seat, and Mina sits opposite her. Lucy's no longer drunk, but she nurses a cup of tea in both hands, gripping the porcelain as if her life depends on it

"Why are you here, Mina? Shouldn't you be at home with Jonathan and Lucky?"

Mina regards her with a tranquil look. "I told you, Lucky is at my cousin's place. And Jonathan... I don't know where Jonathan is."

At that, Lucy looks up. "What do you mean?"

Mina shrugs. "I haven't seen him since the day I went to visit him."

"Haven't you moved in with him by now?"

Mina casts her an exasperated look. "I've been living with my cousin for the past few weeks. You would know that if you answered any of my phone calls."

Lucy is quiet, and Mina ducks her head so she can meet Lucy's eye. "Did you think I moved in with Jonathan?"

Lucy looks up at her, and there's something almost accusatory in her green eyes. "You went back to him."

Mina gives her a level look. "Of course I went back to him. I loved him for years, Lucy. I owed it to Jonathan to see him again. We were together since we were teenagers! We were engaged to be married, before Alexander. I owed it to myself."

Lucy has turned away again, not wanting to meet her eye, and Mina wants to shake her. "..... But Lucy, above all that, I owed it to you."

“Me?? You went back to your old lover for me?" Lucy scoffs, tears forming in her crystal eyes. Her voice breaks, but Lucy is always Lucy, and her words bite back, even if she's hurt -- especially when she's hurt.

"Forgive my skepticism, Mina, but I fail to understand how returning to the man you loved first, the man who could have given you everything I never could -- the first man you chose over me -- could possibly be about me."

"Because!" MIna can feel her voice rising out of desperation and frustration and anger and love at this woman who owns her heart now. "Because you deserve the truth.... Because you deserve to look me in the eye and know beyond a doubt that I'm telling the truth when I say I choose you. Not Jonathan. Not Alexander. You."

Lucy's mouth drops open, and Mina feels a sense of satisfaction that she has managed to render Lucy Westenra, of all people, speechless. 

"I went to see Jonathan, I let him hold me in his arms, and I knew that what I feel for him, even what I felt for him then is not even half of what I feel for you. After all these years. After everything we've all been through -- you are the one I choose.... It might not mean anything at all to you now, after what I did to you, but I know now without a single doubt that it's the truth. And so do you. I choose you, Lucy."

Lucy just stares at Mina, her eyes wide. Her hands are shaking so much, Mina fears the tea in her cup will spill. She crosses the room and kneels down in front of her chair. She takes the cup carefully from Lucy’s hands and sets it down.

Lucy has looked away from her again, like she does now whenever Mina tells her the truth, with her eyes or her words. Mina almost sighs, because she was right. She has damaged this beyond repair.

But then, Lucy's trembling fingers catch her own in a fearful, hopeful grip. "Please tell me it's real. Tell me you're telling the truth."

“Oh, Lucy...”  Mina reaches up and her fingers curling around the nape of Lucy's neck. She brings their foreheads together, until she can practically taste the salt of Lucy's tears. "I love you. I'm so in love with you."

Finally she kisses her, the taste of Lucy touching her lips, unadulterated by blurry memory and guilt. This time, it's Lucy who hesitates, who is still beneath Mina's mouth, and Mina knows the terror of Lucy that night, whispers the same prayers Lucy did into the kiss of so many years ago.

Then Lucy's mouth parts beneath her with a soft sobbing moan, and bliss floods Mina's whole body. She never knew bliss tasted like Lucy and her tears. She laughs into the kiss, her own tears slipping from her closed eyes to Lucy's waiting lips.

Lucy's hands, greedy and fearful, grip onto her dress and haul her up into the chair above her. The love seat is small and cramped, but Mina doesn't care, not when Lucy holds her like she's never ever going to let go, like she's afraid Mina will change her mind. 

She imagines that it will take some time, for Lucy to truly believe that she's here to stay. So Mina holds her gently and firmly, like a cherished thing, pushes her down into the soft cushion of the chair just so Lucy can feel her weight, the permanence of her and her choice. 

Mina will wait and she'll show her. She will show Lucy every single day of the rest of their lives.