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cordonian-literature · 4 years

Text

The Aftermath - Ch. 1

The Met

Summary: Riley and her husband take a visit to a museum while their kids have lessons

Word Count: ~2.0k

Warning: Mention of character death

*All characters belong to Pixelberry, except those that are unique to my story (I’ve also used some characters and fictional instances from Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”*

Catch up here!

After giving Eleanor, Gabriel, and Theodore breakfast, Riley made her way to the kitchen of their New York penthouse and began making turkey sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, for what she hoped could be for a picnic in Central Park in the late afternoon after the kids’ practices.

The sound of the mixer didn’t allow Riley to hear her husband walk into the kitchen. She feels his stiff arms around her waist and chuckles.

Kissing the back of her head, Theodore asks, “Making a treat for me?”

Riley laughs, removing herself from his grasp to preheat the oven on the other side of the kitchen. “For the kids.”

Theodore looks into the bowl. “Isn’t it a little early to be making dessert?”

“Actually,” Riley goes back and stops the mixer. “I thought we could go on a little picnic?” She looks at her husband thoughtfully. Bringing her attention back towards the cookies, she continues, “After Gabe’s soccer practice and Ella’s dance class, of course.”

“Of course,” he repeats. He watches her put the cookie dough in the fridge. “We should ask the kids.”

Riley turns, holding a piece of bread in her hands. “Do you think they might not want to go?”

“Nah, I’m sure they do.” He walks up to her and collects her in his arms. “But I had other plans for us today.”

A shy smile spreads across Riley’s face. “Which is?”

“A visit to the Met. They’ve a new exhibit.”

“With the kids?” she removes herself from his embrace with her free hand and goes back to making sandwiches.

“We can ask them to come with.”

“And if they don’t want to?”

Theodore laughs. Letting go of Riley, he goes into the fridge to grab an apple. “Gabe’s old enough to watch over Ella for a couple hours. We’ll bring them back dinner.”

Gabriel had just turned ten, and Eleanor was still many weeks away from turning eight. Even though her husband argued that they were old enough to be somewhat self sufficient, Riley still felt nervous leaving them alone.

Noticing the concern on her face, he suggests, “We could also just go during their practice times if that’ll make you feel better, babe.”

“Thanks, Theo,” she smiles, eyeing the apple. “I just... get worried sometimes. Especially for Gabe.”

Theo gives an understanding nod and takes a bite into his apple, but not before Riley notices the irritation on his face. After ten years, she no longer let it bother her, unless Theo’s annoyance of her and Liam’s son got excessive. She understood that it was difficult for Theo to raise a child that wasn’t his, especially when his wife made it very clear that she was still in love with the father of that child.

Even though Theo agreed to parent Gabriel with Riley, he was glad that they had their own daughter, Eleanor, so he could at least be a father to her in the ways that he wasn’t with Gabe.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that, right?” Riley turns to fully face him, wanting to keep her husband in a good mood, she tries to explain herself. “It’s just that I don’t want them to do anything foolish or—.”

“Riley. Babe,” Theodore looks at his wife, in her old, dark tank top and a worn pair of jeans. “I know. I worry about them, too. I wanna keep them safe, too.”

Riley smiles and gives her husband a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers. Turning back to the counter, she finishes making the sandwiches as Theo stands behind her, eating his apple. “I’ll leave these for lunch then, if we’re not going on the picnic. We can get Chinese for dinner, and maybe the cookies could be a snack for later today?” She looks at Theo, and he nods in silent agreement.

-------

Ella and I raced down towards the elevator, Mom and Dad trailing far behind us. We hold the “close doors” button and leave them on our floor as the elevator falls towards the lobby.

We tumble out, giggling, but Ella freezes and cries, “I forgot my water!” She starts throwing things out of her bag and onto the lobby floor. When Mom and Dad finally come out of the elevator, Mom starts laughing.

“Forgot this?” she holds out Ella’s bottle to her and helps her put everything back in her bag.

The four of us walk together towards the waiting limo. Once we’re inside, Mom and Dad turn to us.

“While you guys are at practice,” Dad begins, “Your mother and I will be seeing a new exhibit at the Met.”

“Ou, take pictures for me, please!” Ella requests.

“We’ll pick you up on time, promise,” Mom reassures, caressing my cheek. “You both have your phones on you, yes?”

Ella and I pat our pockets, signaling where we put our devices.

We reach the indoor soccer courts first. Mom gives me a quick kiss on my forehead and Dad gives me a pat on the back as I fumble out the door with my large bag. I wish Ella good luck during dance practice and head inside.

I played until I could barely breath. I skipped some of the water breaks, my body wanting to keep moving, so when everyone was hydrating themselves, I continued to dribble and chase after the ball. During the third water break, coach yells at me to “Sit the hell down!” so I relent and down my water in one breath. My parents are planning a trip to Italy next week, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to lose that much practice time; I was motivated to work ahead.

After practice, I wait in the lobby with some of my friends. We talk, but we’re not fully engrossed in the conversation: everyone either has their eyes glued to the doors or to their phones, waiting for their parents to give the signal that it was time to go home.

I turn on the ringer of my phone and sit back on the bench, waiting for my parents. Dad was usually the punctual one, but since they’d gone to visit a new exhibit, I guessed he wanted to spend a little more time there; Mom and Dad weren’t always free to be able to do things together.

I take a nap while I wait, but when I wake up, I realize that I’ve been waiting for almost half an hour. Ella’s session would end in a couple minutes, so I shoot her a text hoping that she would see it as soon as she got out.

Hey.

hi. r u guys on ur way?

No. Mom and Dad haven’t picked me up yet.

rlly? whats taking them so long?????

I’m going to check their location

She leaves me on read.

It says “loading” but then says unavailable. The Met has wifi right?

weird

Can you check, please?

yessir

After a few moments, she texts me back.

it says the same for me :(( im worried

Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a reason

I sit in the lobby, trying to calm down Eleanor through text and wave goodbye to all my friends as their parents pick them up. After another half hour, the next set of lessons start for the older kids. The receptionist steals glances at me before finally saying, “Hey Gabriel, is your mom coming to pick you up today?”

“Um,” I look down at the phone in my hand, contemplating whether I should call one of my parents. “I’m not sure.”

“What about your dad?” she asks.

“No, they should be in the same place. They usually pick me up by now.”

“We have your grandmother as an emergency number. Want me to call her up and make sure everything’s alright?” she suggests. I want to say no, that there’s no reason to worry, but the sense of dread in my chest threatens to yield tears.

“Sure,” I allow.

My mother’s mother lives in Northern New Jersey and visits often, since it’s not too long of a train ride — she’d drive, but parking was difficult, and our reserved underground parking spots in the building was already filled with Dad’s cars. The receptionist introduces herself, then waves me over to talk on the phone.

“Hell-o!” Grandma greets. “How was practice? Everything okay?”

“Good. Yeah everything’s fine,” I say. “Practice ended almost an hour ago, but I’m still here. And Ella says that Mom and Dad haven’t picked her up, either.”

“Uh oh,” she says, and I can hear her face fall. “Do you want me to come pick you up? You both can stay with me tonight. Then we will call Mama and tell her you guys are alright. How does that sound?”

I give a sigh of relief. “Yes, please. I’ll tell Ella.”

“Okay, baby. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

I fill in my sister, but she doesn’t reply to my texts.

Twenty minutes later, I throw my bag into the trunk of Grandma’s Buick and slide into the back seat next to Ella. She stares at her lap, and I know she’s feeling the same amount of worry and confusion that I am.

When we reach Grandma’s small town, she asks us if we want dinner. When both of us say we’re not hungry, she still grabs us McDonald’s.

Mom and Dad don’t answer our calls. We even call Dad’s assistant, but she also says that she hasn’t heard from him.

We eat dinner quietly, with Grandma giving us encouraging kisses and pep talks while we talk about our practices. Afterwards, we go into the living room to quietly watch some Netflix while Grandma makes some apple pie. The smell of it baking in the oven makes me nostalgic for something unknown, and it reminds me of the cookies that Mom was making earlier today. I hear Ella sniffle, and turn to see her silently crying.

After desert, Grandma gives us some of Mom’s old baggy clothes to sleep in. Ella gets to sleep in Mom’s old room while I sleep in the guest room. My eyes burn from the amount of tears I held back today, and its almost painful to close them.

...

I wake to the smell of pancakes and a familiar rumble in the pit of my stomach. I brush my teeth, but don’t bother to fix my hair. Ella eats quietly on the island in the kitchen. I slide onto the seat next to her and watch Grandma start making another pancake.

“Good morning!” she says to me. “Could one of you please turn on the news in the living room?”

I allow Ella to keep eating and walk towards the little doorway that separates the living room from the kitchen. Turning on the news, I increase the volume. The image of police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks from a helicopter view flash on the screen while a female reporter narrates the incident.

“On the evening of May seventeenth, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was bombed by an unidentified group. Investigations are underway and the city has been closed off, including trains and bus routes into and out of the city, along with roads and bridges.

“Many dead bodies have been found, and many others are severely injured. CEO of Blaise Enterprises, Mister Theodore Blaise, has been found dead. The whereabouts of his wife, Riley Brooks, are unknown. Senator Nicolae Adebayo sustained serious injuries, as did many other persons.”

Ella’s screams drown out the sound of my heart thundering in my ears. Grandma rushes towards her and collects her off of the floor and into her arms. I stare at them, the reporters’ voices and the smell of the pancake burning melt into the background as I take a shaky breath and allow my tears to fall.

#the royal romance #cordonia #liam x mc #drakewalker #hanalee #maxwell beaumont #olivia nevrakis #choices trr #trr riley #riley brooks #liam rys #chocies fanfic #trr fanfic #trr fandom

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beautifulterriblequeen · 4 years

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I’m really intrigued by Rayla’s moonshadow assassin peers. I especially am interested in Andromeda because I think she is the only other girl in the group? Do you have any headcanons in how these teen/young adult assassins interacted? Do you think Rayla isolated herself from them because she was always iffy about taking a life? Also TDP finally colored their map and I know you live maps, find any new cool stuff? I especially love how there’s a frozen sea north and a spinning sea south, imagine the powerful Magic’s that channeled to make them.

Okay, so I jumped straight to the map, did 80% of it, and wandered away for a few weeks. I apologize, anon. Let’s get this going again:

I’ve got a few headcanons on the Moonshadow assassins! It seems likely that they hang out mostly with each other, when they hang out, to reinforce their teambuilding and to give them some socialization, since assassins tend to keep others at arm’s length. So I kinda figure they tend to roam as a pack on their evenings out in the village, if they’re not married to a non-assassin like Runaan is.

I think that could be part of the reason that Rayla might not have hung out with the others as much, too: Runaan wanted to be either training or at home with Ethari, so Rayla probably spent a lot of time doing those things just because he did them. And when Runaan was doing more serious training or missions, that’s when Rayla had her free time to run around the forest and make adoraburr friends.

Runaan could’ve probably insisted that she do something more assassiny with her free time. Shadow an assassin, do more studying, practice certain prescribed skills on her own. But he didn’t. He let her play. Soft assassin is soft!

Listen, anon, I have a fun headcanon for you about Andromeda--and by fun, I mean it’s really angsty half a second after you start thinking about it. Ready?

What if: Andromeda is Runaan’s half-sister. If they’re both Lujanne’s children by different assassin dads who kept dying in battle, but a Moon mage needs an assassin leader partner to defend Xadia with, and Lujanne knew her son Runaan wasn’t old enough to lead yet, so she burned through three or more husbands protecting him until Runaan was well trained enough to lead the assassins himself and had fallen in love with a mage who adored him and would be his partner in her place.

Andromeda looks a fair bit like Lujanne, too:

Along with Runaan, they all have long hair, side tails bound in silver cuffs, and some form of braids. Andromeda’s hair is sectioned in front similarly to Runaan’s. Her accent sounds more British than Scottish, though she only has the one line: My eyes for truth. And Lujanne and Andromeda are the only two Moonshadow elves we’ve met who have medium blue horns, while Runaan’s are dark blue. Almost everyone else’s horns have purple or pink as their base color.

But then, see, Andromeda went on Runaan’s mission, and she died. Her spirit was the most aggressive in TTM, usually closest to Rayla with her sword out, as if she hated Rayla the most. If she had a vested family interest in Runaan’s mission succeeding, and then it went pear-shaped because of Rayla, that would make sense.

No matter if she’s related to Runaan or not, she’s wearing horn cuffs, so she was in a dedicated relationship of some kind, and that’s so sad. Someone’s missing her the way Ethari’s missing Runaan. :’((((

Anyway, it’s just a headcanon, but since you asked, there ya go.

Okay, on to my thoughts on the map, of which I have a normal and healthy amount:

The Map Border:

Everyone doodles in the borders. I love to see what they put there.

Starting in the upper left and going counter-clockwise, the five human crowns are cool

Cornucopia swirls center left look like an homage to Cabbage Man from ATLA

Bait is staring at Evenere. his home? Or maybe he just wants to eat the dragonfly on its logo

Human defender has a beard. Hairagorn. He's very heavily armored but has no helmet. Long hair is braided to rest on front of shoulder, like the blond elf in the painting at the Moon Nexus. Old timey hairstyle?

He’s defending Katolis Castle specifically. I wonder if the little white building is kinda random or if it’s supposed to represent the Banther Lodge. Nah, I have a better guess: that’s where Viren grew up

The crack in the map looks meta. It's been repaired somewhat. Makes me wonder if it's an in-world map, whose, who ripped it, and who fixed it. Sir Phineas Kurst seems like the kind of guy to almost shred his really cool map

The star behind Zym's egg has seven points

The two ships on the southern waters are western and eastern respectively. Tidebound elves from Singapore? Jack Sparrow would be proud

There is land just south of the Dragontail, wonder what’s there?

The leaves around the human figure are small and numerous while the Moonshadow elf has fewer but bigger leaves

The elf is standing in the way of one of the six leaves growing out of the rune rose and that leaf's curly tip seems to have been replaced with a curl of the elf's very long hair

The human pose is more offense and the elf pose is more defense. But the elf has two swords, and one has some wicked hooks in it.

Elf has 4 fingers instead of 3 so whether it’s in-universe or meta, they were drawn by a human :DDD

The elf's braid winds around their horn and I think that's clever

High collar shirt under protective layer, bracers and elbow gloves, bare biceps, complex shoulder getup, ornate hair that's butt long and partly braided, two long slightly curving swords... horn cuffs too. This is a Moonshadow assassin in the same gear Runaan's got, poised to defend the Xadian half of the map as the human is poised to defend his side

The rune rose isn't a compass. It has a two sided pointer and six primal runes. Just decorative I guess. ;)

More lettuces on right center.

Maybe a portaling caterpillar on the center knot? Little bug pal, I see you

“The Five Human Kingdoms” lettered in red, “Xadia” in blue. Giving me Stratego flashbacks. Even the flowers on their banners are color coded

Banners in the corners are similar but Xadia has more fluttery tips

Thunder drawn all attacky top center, does he have anything to do with the Frozen Sea being frozen?

Compass rose under Thunder’s wing

Dick island near the compass. Well, Duren is the breadbasket of the human lands. A most excellent cartography joke! 10/10 would chortle wholesomely again

The Human Kingdoms:

Neolandia

Capital Eboreus seems to be a lake city below a mountain and I'm here for all the Lake Town refs.

It's also the eye of the elephant shape

Not a lot of trees, mostly grasses or desert. Only borders Duren across a couple rivers/estuaries/sea channels

Heart shaped island next to elephant trunk

Land generally broken into several sections by sea/rivers

If it’s rivers, they seem to generate from the capital’s lake and flow in several directions. And they say there’s no magic left in the western lands! ;)

But if there was exactly one source of freshwater in a desert land, it makes sense that you’d find a way, magical or mechanical, to spread that lifegiving water in as many directions as possible so your people can thrive so kudos to Neolandia’s ancestors/Tidebound elves/whoever managed that, it’s brilliant

I can and will make up explanations for anything on a map. I adore worldbuilding

Del Bar

Two named locations. Since Del Bar’s national symbol is a serpent, I guess Serpentongue is the capital.

Hinterpeak is a sweet name. Looks like Helm's Deep with that retaining wall. What’s it for? Are there dwarves in this land? Is it an Earthblood stronghold? Maybe it’s like the Mines of Moria, and the Earthbloods were chased out and/or killed inside and now it’s full of nasty orcses but someone left a MacGuffin down there so *nudges hero* Off you pop.

Nice forests around the southern mountain range but northern DB is more arid or grassy lands like Neolandia.

Considering that crops grow well in Duren, which is farther north, I assume there is a massive meteorological gyre over the human lands, with a southern wind blowing down over the western realms and keeping them icy until the mountains of Hinterpeak block and divert them, protecting Evenere. The winds don't blow eastward without warming right up-- and causing thunderstorms in Katolis how about that-- because there is a warmer side to the gyre over Katolis and Duren, blowing tropical warmth and moisture north and providing rain for trees and crops alike. Most years, anyway.

How does the weather fail in Duren for seven years in a row, anyway? That seems like a Thunder issue. Unless it’s a Sunforge issue, which I’ll get to below.

Ahem.

Borders Neolandia, Duren, and Katolis across rivers, but most border is coastline.

Serpentongue probably got its name from the two river heads around it

Cluster of dead little cracks spawns a single river. Looks like someone cracked the tub and it drained away. I wonder how much of this landscape has been affected by the Mage Wars. Big watery basins have flooded and other spots seem dead. The lands may or may not actually touch depending on how deep some of these waterways are

Evenere

Looks like someone punched holes in the land with a giant pencil to make it a separate island. Broken outline with scattered islands

That Pawprint Isles has only four toes

Moon-shaped island is very crescenty indeed

Are these isles home to refugees or outcasts from Xadia? Listen, I want pirates and that sea looks pretty Caribbean to me

No capital city, hmmm what's that about? Is it underground, does it move? Maybe Fareeda’s capital is on the back of a world turtle and she’s constantly on tour around the island?

That arm of land ending in a peace sign, please can we get surfers

The hills emanating from that claw shaped headland look like something is sleeping under the island, hello yes I am here for giant immortal creatures please

Katolis

its capital is also called Katolis, the only human realm to use the same name twice

Weeping Bay could be a ref to the tears the humans shed after they reached the west. Or the Moonshadow elves as they left their forest for the east. Or both. Both, in this case, is bad but balanced

Boomerang island next to the Dragontail

The river the Dragaang rode on was going uphill

The watery slash in the land between Katolis and Del Bar is awfully straight. So is the one between Del Bar and Neolandia. I call magical warfare.

Katolis has a bunch of mountains in the east, part of an old natural border before the lava one appeared

Mt Kalik is probably volcanic. It's a standalone mountain and it's really tall. Rex Ignius maybe? Oh, probably not, I think I see him peeking on the other side of the map

The trees of Duren and Katolis are different then the western lands. Softer green, deciduous. And the land itself is yellower, warmer in tone

Forests centered on Mt Kalik

The Moon Nexus looks like an eye on a dragon head near the Dragontail, and Evenere looks like a severed wing (Yes I am still wondering where Luna Tenebris went, why do you ask)

Weeping Bay looks like the most natural body of water in the western lands

Three red little trees scattered around the Katolis map. Fruit trees? How very Moonshadow.

Duren

The only land border among all the human kingdoms is between Duren and Katolis. Maybe it used to be further south along the river?

Capital is Berylgarten, set on a lake. Beryl is a stone that’s usually green, blue, or yellow in color, very gardeny

Second smallest realm but the breadbasket of the human lands. Has several little forests and great tilled fields

Being a farmer in Duren is probably as awesome as being an assassin in the Moonshadow Forest; you do what you do for all your friendly kingdoms

Northernmost land is cold and craggy, named Skall's Hook along the sea

Third ship in the Frozen Sea is icebound and crushed. Looks western, indicating no possible passage

Lots of colored trees and shrubs as if fruitbearing, I keep comparing Duren to the Yakima Valley in Washington State

Where the lava reaches the Frozen Sea, it melts the ice next to Duren's mountains

Northern Xadia:

Lux Aurea

Most of the center lands of this map has warm tones for its ground. Maybe that’s because of the long reach of the warmth and light of Lux Aurea’s Sun Nexus, and only the lands that are just too far from it are truly cold and icy. It would explain why Duren is a breadbasket realm so far north--it’s just across the border from Lux Aurea.

If there’s anything to that, then I suddenly worry for the fate of all the human lands now that the Sunforge has gone dark. It’s early summer now in Xadia, and crops in Duren will be ripening soon... Unless the sun’s magic was helping them grow. This coming winter could be rough. Next winter, people will die. Unless they can purify the Sunforge again.

Also, I have to wonder if Duren’s seven years of famine had anything to do with Sunforge shenanigans. They’d have happened at Khessa’s command, and we know she despises humans. If she was responsible for all the struggles that humans had to go through without enough food for seven years, and then their desperate attempt to fix the problem by invading Xadia for a Magma Titan’s heart which extended and exacerbated the war, I can see why Aaravos might feel Queen Khessa deserved to die

The city’s shaped kinda like an Egyptian pectoral necklace on this map, and that’s super pretty and not at all ominous

Also that’s a lot of gold for a whole city and I wonder how they got it all

The Shiverglades and the Shards

These areas are north of Lux Aurea and seem cold but not very icy, even though the Frozen Sea is right there. More thoughtful glances at the Sunforge over this one. Is it warming the land, or not warming the sea? Both?

Shiverglades is a play on Everglades, so this is a cold swamp, which sounds super fun I’m sure. Permafrost, tundra maybe?

The Shards seem to be rock islands with ice mountains. Glaciers are cool.

I wonder if something broke those islands off on purpose. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy worldbuilding? Yeah, well, I like world-wrecking, too.

Storm Spire

Has a good view on everything that happens for miles, including Lux Aurea, the Midnight Desert, the Shiverglades, the Black Tundra, the Uncharted Forest, and Drakewood.

Defensible position, no other tall mountains nearby

Also able to alert others to danger, especially since Avizandum could teleport like lightning

The Midnight Desert

It’s pretty big! And it looks like it’s littered with ruins of columns and dead palm trees. Like something else used to be in that great space and then something Very Bad happened to it. Maybe there was one great city where all the elves could mix together, and then it got utterly obliterated and the elves all fled to their respective safe places around Xadia. A city of black stone, back when Aaravos wore a crown? Now pulverized to dust and surrounded by not one, not two, but three primal nexuses? Hmmm...

All the wisps could be heat from the sand, or spooky spirit hints, or just an ominous sign of danger from the snakes below, but the overall effect is that the land is unhealthy if not cursed

The oasis is marked, and it must contain a spring since it runs a river out to join the river that passes through the Moonshadow Forest

Also the actual oasis kinda resembles a blue lizard which is adorable and probably also terrifying

Moonshadow Forest

The Silvergrove is the only village marked in the forest, so in keeping with the other lands and general map legend rules, it’s likely the capital/central village for the Moonshadow elves

The village is marked by four round-roofed homes between two tall leafy trees that shelter and hide them. It’s a hybrid balance between the blocky manmade castles of the human lands and the actual forest around them, showing a blending with nature that even the Sunfire city of Lux Aurea did not embrace, with all its golden buildings

It’s a good-sized forest, and it kinda stretches thin to the east but there it tentatively connects to the Drakewood Forest

Moonstone Path to the west just chilling in the lava like a blank alignment chart. Moonstone Path is Chaotic Hot.

Southern Xadia:

Ruins of Elarion

Elarion is a city, and it’s been lost to the humans for a thousand years

The building outlines are squared-off towers like the more modern castles in the west, suggesting that humans in Xadia built for strength and defense as soon as they could. They felt vulnerable and created protections in their architecture. The three elven cities we see also play to their strengths, but those strengths include magic. Elarion’s humans had to find a different strength, and they went with craftsmanship and ingenuity

It seems to be the only human city from before the border was drawn

“Ruins” doesn’t necessarily mean no one lives there at all, but it’s been emptied of humans and no one else has maintained it since

It had a great position on a vast lake, with sheltering hills and easy sea access

Sea of the Castout

This inland sea has five inlets and outlets. It’s hard to be sure which is which with some of them, with the way the water is drawn on this map. But I’m kinda liking the idea that all the water swirlies are places where Tidebound magic has been placed over the millennia, so the water can do whatever it needs to do depending on circumstances. That goes for the human lands, too. Katolis backward river, you’re off the hook.

With a name like "Castout,” I wonder if it was some kind of universal toilet to flush away things you didn’t want--including humans--who might wash up near Elarion and start to build there. Yeesh.

The rivers that flow into this sea pass through or near the Moonshadow Forest, the Midnight Desert, the Storm Spire, Drakewood, and the Uncharted Forest. That’s a lot of drainage.

It’s pretty far from the Tidebound Archipelago, so maybe its name is referencing Tidebound elves who have left their home colony

Was this always a sea, or did something that Xadia wanted to forget get flooded and hidden in the depths?

The land around it seems open and hospitable. It could be a good place to build/rebuild in a time of peace.

The Far Reaches

Open grassland with low hills

Two of the hills look like giant boot prints

Several colorful trees which I hope are fruit trees

Bounded by two rivers from the Sea of the Castout

Looks homey tbh, great spot to retire to get away from everything if there were a war that really shook you up

Ocean Point

There’s a Star rune here, and it could mean many things

The closest other marked location is Elarion

If this was where Aaravos lived of his own free will, I can see why he’d take a shine to the humans. They were his neighbors.

If he is imprisoned here, it’s literally the furthest point in Xadia from the other elven realms, with the Moonshadow Forest being the closest one and Umber Tor not too much further but in a totally different direction. If they were trying to isolate him physically with a portable mirror to watch over him, that’s a good spot for it

Possible location that the cube is leading Callum toward? Portal to the Star Touch home plane? Aaravos’s seaside B&B? Trap street?

Eastern Xadia:

Drakewood

Umber Tor looks to be the tallest mountain in all of Xadia, save possibly for the Storm Spire. It’s more traditionally mountainy, with a nice snowcap. Since it’s labeled, I’m guessing it’s the Earth Nexus, under which an Earth Archdragon sleeps

Also there’s a giant yellowish-brown dragon chilling next to the Tor. Yeah, he seems nice. Rex Igneous, I presume?

Or maybe not, since the neighboring forest is called Drakewood. Maybe this woods is just where a bunch of Earth dragons hang out? Ezran and Pyrrah flew off and returned with a crew of Sun dragons from somewhere, so dragons must have communities too

The mountains that edge the sea are shaped roughly like a stone dragon in flight

Drakewood seems to be the forest closest to Umber Tor, with both deciduous and evergreen trees, though there’s a huge swath of wooded land here, to the north and to the southwest. I wonder what the locals consider the border where the Drakewood becomes the Uncharted Forest and why. The way the evergreens are drawn almost looks like a border, a sort of kingswood set aside for a specific use. Rex Igneous’s best toothpicks?

Uncharted Forest

Okay this is a properly magical name, very mysterious. But uncharted by whom? People with charts? This might be a Sir Phineas Kurst name, which is outsidery, and it makes me wonder if the locals/neighbors have their own name for it, which the human explorer never learned, a la “Thunder” for Avizandum

Maybe “Uncharted Forest” just means no one ever turned those trees into charts though, old growth ftw

If no one lives here, will someone move here? If someone lives here, who are they? Earthblood elves? Moonshadow elves? Humans? This mystery, it calls to me

the trees are mostly deciduous and fill basically all of this whole section of land, up against the mountains and the rivers, so it seems very fertile land indeed

Earthblood elves could live here, but there is no city marked. Maybe because we haven’t gotten that far in the show, or maybe that’s the wrong sort of descriptor for how the Earthbloods live and organize. Maybe the whole forest is their city, like Pando, the interconnected quaking aspen clone forest

The northernmost part of this forest lies right between the Storm Spire and the Tidebound Archipelago, so it might get a regular flyover route for migration or messages

Yes, this forest is the most interesting place in Xadia to me, I desperately want to learn more about it

Black Tundra

Yeah this place isn’t ominous

Similar to the Shiverglades, but where that has shrubbery, the Black Tundra has single dead trees and creepy curving spikes. Scorched? Poisoned? De-magicked?

The water north of this area isn’t frozen, and with a lake to the south and a river and a moderate mountain range, the whole area looks like it would otherwise be decently habitable, but instead it’s cold and black

Is climate change a thing here, or will we get a nice horrible disaster instead?

Tidebound Archipelago

These islands have dotted lines around them, like they’re submerged at high tide, or maybe made of shifting sand that literally moves around like sand dunes across a desert, or perhaps they’re exactly at sea level with half their civilization in the air and half underwater or in cool bubbles, or maybe the islands actually float

Maybe the Tidebound elves even sank them on purpose for defensive purposes

The archipelago is about even latitudinally with the Storm Spire Lux Aurea, Berylgarten, and Eboreus so they probably get pretty nice weather

There’s no ice in sight here in any direction along Xadia’s east coast, so presumably the prevailing current is a warm one

do they have bridges connecting the islands? Ferries, animals who give them a lift across?

the islands have quite a bit of space on them. I wonder if there’s a big population, maybe a shifting population? Do Tidebound elves migrate up and down the coast like gray whales and return to the islands for certain holidays or social events?

This is probably the hub of the Tidebound elves’ culture, but the sea surrounds the whole land and infiltrates it with many rivers and lakes. The Spinning Sea and the Frozen Sea are pretty firm Do Not Enter signposts, but a determined Tidebound could get around either one if they wanted to

What I’m not seeing here is a city. Either it’s not been marked yet, or that’s not a thing that Tidebound elves have in their culture. If they don’t have a city, they’re possibly migratory in family groups, or maybe they stick to small villages like the Moonshadows do, but with even less central leadership

#asks #map of xadia #i love maps okay #xadia #andromeda #rayla #runaan #lujanne #moonshadow elves #moonshadow assassins #tdp angst #angst #through the moon spoilers

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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Loving the sailors while hating the beach (White Demon’s Love Song, Part 3.)

Series description: A new job was what the reason you found yourself on a lonely roadtrip on the western coast, ending up in the woods of Olympian Peninsula. Yet a sudden car malfuction was what cause your unplanned stay in Forks. To your surprise, there was a lot of sinister things going on under the veil of fog.

Part summary: As you spent another day with the mysterious man who invited you to stay at his place as a sign of his selflessness, you started to notice that Forks really is a strange town. And on top of that, that Jacob might be hiding something.

A/N: NCIS Forks be strong in this chaper, oh boy.

Tagging: @missdictatorme

Word count: 4.2 K

Twilight playlist: ✨ Twilight Crackheads ✨

Series masterlist: H E R E

The night fell on Forks slowly, almost as if it was lurking around for some time before covering the streets. For some time, you've been sitting in a super-small cubbyhole named the 'Administrative office'. Administrative up your ass, you barely didn't knock off the brooms you've been sharing the room with. It shouldn't surprise you that you were falling asleep while writing small numbers into the boxes. You've also picked up a few phones - for such a small town, there was a lot of cars just suddenly breaking down. But Jacob sometimes even took small jobs around in the smaller towns around forks - like La Push, Beaver, and Sappho.

It wasn't even nine hours when you were snoozing with your head in your palm because you've simply fallen asleep. Also, it was weird to see Jacob walking around the whole building, checking on the heating - as if he wasn't turning the heating on in such cold. It was summer and the city was still cold as hell. And this mechanic wasn't turning on his heating system? What kind of crazy he was? The man has woken you up after ten minutes, sending you to bed - yet you didn't know that he didn't walk to bed that night. As soon as he heard snoring coming out of the visitor's bedroom, Jacob made sure the door to the small flat were locked before he ran into the woods. It was time to check with the other guys - Jared and Paul, two of his friends from Sam Uley's spent their whole day on the northern route, trying to find out something more about the unwanted visitors of Forks.

At first, the werewolves weren't entirely sure if there was any vampires close at the moment. If it wasn't just some... Re-awakening of the spirit animals. That was until two days ago - now, the whole packs have transformed once again. Every night Jacob had turned into a wolf, he growled sadly when he realized there was someone he hadn't heard before - first, it was Quil alone. The man was confused, as most of them. Both of them were praying for Quil to be the last. But he wasn't - Embry and Seth coming right the night after Quil's turning. Leah was the last to join. In the meantime, Sam's pack turned at once as well. It was just like five years ago.

'Welcome back to the game, chief.' - Seth's happy and joyful voice started to talk inside Jacob's head. As he was getting closer to the manger of the Calawah river, he could hear two other wolves joining him. It was Embry and Seth - rest of the pack got their tasks the last night and went on a watch and tracking the vampire pack. Jake could hear most of the things Quil and Leah told them. - 'We know they are here. We captured the smell...' - The leader mumbled to Seth, running along the river. They weren't sprinting because there wasn't a reason to do so. Quil nor Leah hadn't smelled the rotten tomato stench the whole day, as if the vampires had suddenly disappeared into the thin air.

'Don’t worry, Jake. We'll take all of them down.' - Embry answered from the other side. Dear Lord, Jacob almost didn't notice that Embry is there, even if he knew that he's coming. He could be so quiet at times. - 'I'm silent like death, yeah, suit yourself.' - Embry answered Jake's flow of thoughts, making a few pampering sounds. This was how the wolves were laughing. To some, it could sound almost horrifying, but it made Jacob giggle as well. Giggling, when the boys were in their animal forms was a wild combination of growling and strange throat sounds. - 'Yeah, but admit, it's strange. No stench, no track, we can't find them. It's like playing blind man's buff.'

The vampires seemed to be poking around in the woods as if they were trying to find a blind spot. Maybe they already did find some. But Charlie, when Jacob was calling him earlier, didn't report any missing person. Yet all of them were sure that as soon as the vampires find the smallest cranny in the defense, it will go down. As soon as they smell a chance, it will go down. At last, this half of the pack was on the meeting point. Sam was already sitting there, watching Jacob approaching the estuary of the Bogachiel and Quillayute rivers. - 'Keep it down for a moment, alright, boys?' - Jacob asked Embry and Seth, who were waiting in a respectful distance. Embry was almost always quiet and Seth, even though there was a huge grin on his face, knew better than talking to alphas communicating. - 'I have news from Quil and Leah. They were walking the trail up at Calawah. What about your people?' - There was no greeting needed - the russet wolf simply shook his head at the bigger, black one. - 'Nothing. It's like searching for a ghost.'

Jacob had to say, that even if he wasn't in Sam's pack anymore, he liked that Sam kept it simple - no matter what happened, Sam never gave anyone too complex orders. - 'Nothing on our part of the territory as well. We will be trying to search through the North, there's lesser of us. Would your pack take the South?' - Jacob planned on trying to search through the whole Northern region, up to the Ozette Lake. There was a lot of tricky canyons smaller rivers, pounds and the vegetation was thick there as well. There was a suspicion that maybe, this time, this group of vampires was hiding next to a water source. He already had experience with the leeches hiding in the sea, why wouldn't they bivouac in a lake? - 'Sure. I'll send Jared and Brady to Hoh Ox, Lucas, and I will go a bit western closer to Oil city. We'll gather here in the morning and give all the information to Seth so he can tell everything to the morning patrol, okay?' - Without answering the question, Jacob and the rest of his small pack got up, running through the ice-cold waters of the river.

Most of the night, it was quiet and calm - sometimes, when the silence was too long, Seth started to throw in some jokes. Most of them were pretty cringe, but some made Jacob snicker under his breath. It was almost time to regroup and set to the meeting point when the whole pack felt it through Embry's eyes. The fur on the back of his neck stood up, his whole body tensed, and growls unintentionally escaped through his tests. Just as he saw a woman standing on top of one huge cliff, looking down on him, the pack tried to get to Embry's position as soon as possible.

The animal wasn't holding anything back - as soon as it saw the woman, it sprang forward to kill her. But she just leaned her head to her shoulder, furrowing at the sight. It appeared as if she wasn't even taken away by seeing such a huge wolf. Based on the stench, she realized this wasn't just some wolf, but she hadn't even flinched. - 'Embry, don't!' - Jacob cried out just when Embry made his way onto the cliff, trying to take the cold woman down. Yet just when the wolf almost caught her ankle in his mouth, she jumped down while still studying every move the animal made.

She wasn't supposed to attack, no. Her posture was strictly curious, careful - the woman might tease them a bit, see how they react, but she surely wasn't about to strike back. She was a scout, sent there by her pack to study the animals. Sam's pack might've encountered another one. - 'Back off, Embry. She's just playing with you!' - Seth, who realized it as well, called out. - 'He's right. wait for us and then we'll try to chase her down!' - Jacob yelled at his friend and jumped onto the lake's beach, circling at the woman's back. It didn't take too long until Seth slowly walked out of the woods on the other side. The woman was quietly scanning all of them and Jacob's size certainly did surprise her. Embry was huge - but Jacob was even bigger.

'We won't catch her, no matter what we do. She isn't going to attack.' - Seth realized and started analyzing her back. At this, the woman smiled and started to lean her head just like Seth was. The pack was still closing on her, but as soon as she would feel threatened she'll simply run away. - "Interesting." - She mumbled and closed her eyelids a bit. - "We don't wanna hurt you. We won't be attacking you or your packs - we just want free access to the city, that's it." - The woman cried out. A terrifying grin appeared on her face for a second as the thought she might succeed. The deep growling came from everyone's mouth at the same time, giving her exactly the answer she needed. - "So you have chosen death. I'll tell it to the others." - And with that, she disappeared. As if she wasn't there, as if she just disappeared into the thin air. The wolves watched each other. The scent didn't lead them too far into the woods, it was as if the woman was just a dream.

Forks, 9:00 a.m.:

You were sleeping in the bed, safe and sound. Your mouth tasted disgusting, and you had a slight headache - you didn't even want to see your damn hair. Even if you knew it was just a lie, the room felt too warm for a moment. For the first time during your road trip, you weren't feeling cold. Lazily, you searched for your phone and read through the news and such. Then your eyes flought to the clock - oh Lord, Jacob had to open the workshop already, hadn't he? And there you were, laying in the bed, covered in a thick blanket.

Never in your life before, you had dressed as quick as you did that morning. Just when you wanted to run into the bathroom, as you opened door to your room, you heard snoring shaking every piece of pottery. With a straight face, you looked at its source - it was the man himself, somehow puzzled on his small sofa - his hands and one of his leg were laying on the ground, his hair was way messier than yours and also, the blanket was too small for someone like him. Jesus, he must've come back so late, you didn't even want to stop yourself.

As you were tiptoeing around the sofa, you noticed something - his feet. They were covered in soil and needles as if he was walking around in the woods barefooted. What was he doing late, in the woods, and barefooted? Was he searching the best location for a grave? Was he checking out his secret killer case hidden in the woods? With risen eyebrows, you locked yourself in the bathroom. At first, you thought he was just working late. That was it. But the soil on his feet made you insecure. Quickly, you brushed your teeth, combed your hair, and sneaked out of the flat. For a moment, you were thinking about walking to talk to Charlie.

While standing in front of the back door, you were biting on your lower lip and tried to figure out what to do. But in the end, you closed the door again and walked to the 'Administration office' to work on another part of the messy paperwork. Dear Lord, Jacob was bad with bureaucracy. In this, he was honest with you. Sometimes, you couldn't even read what was written down on the paper - so you were re-writing the text and sums on a fresh document while lamenting about his messy handwriting. Jacob came in barely half an hour after you. Yet the man was so quiet he almost gave you a heart attack as he stood in the cubbyhole's doorframe. - "Morning to you too." - The man grinned at you when you finally realized he's standing there and yelled out loud for the God's sake. - "Am I looking that bad?" - The man looked all over his body to see if there was something wrong. He was now looking way better than when you saw him laying on the sofa.

His hair was put into a man bun once more, he changed his clothes and presumably took a quick shower. You didnt know what was hiding under these socks. - "I just... Didn't hear you coming. I was really into reading your 'Volkswagen repair... Re-hair..'. Fuck, I can't read it." - With that, you sighed and tried to figure out the hieroglyphs once again. Jacob grinned at your attempts and drank a sip out of his mug of coffee. Silently, you looked him in the eyes - there were deep, black circles. Well, you weren't surprised. Sleeping on that sofa must've messed with him. Yet even the color in his face seemed to be fading away. - "Man, you have coffee?" - You cried out instead of asking him weird, personal questions. - "Uh, I don't wanna break it down to you... But most people have coffee at home or at work. You want some?"

And he brought you the promised cup - along with a slice of apple pie from Mrs. Peterson. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Jacob was working on his cars, humming most of the songs playing on the radio, while you finished the first few months of that year's paperwork. With an overly concentrated face, you categorized the papers into files, thoroughly writing the months they've containing. That was it for the most part.

Sometimes, when your ass started to hurt, you walked around the workshop, and once, you were so courageous that you took your jacket and walked into the freezing Forks. You never walked too far - but dear Lord, wasn't it cold? The mist wasn't supposed to come out of your mouth in August. It couldn't be more than 46 degrees outside, Jesus Christ. And Tacoma was even more on the North.

You've discovered a few peculiarities on your way. There was a real good looking steak restaurant, a library, and a local high school... Which didn't look like high school at all, in your opinion. For the locals, it was clear as a day you weren't from Forks - mainly because anyone who was from the North wouldn't be shaking because they felt cold. The more courageous ones even stopped you, mostly the older women living in the town just so they could brag about talking to the new girl in town. However, they were respectful and nice, always laughing at your attempts to joke.

"Huh. I was thinking about searching for you. I thought you might've frozen somewhere." - Jacob hummed from under the car he was working on at the moment. It looked like an old minivan. Oh, you'd like seeing me freezing somewhere, might as well get your goal easier, huh? You thought to yourself. You also noticed that the radio was playing the Sea Wolf song (which you've heard at least ten times since you arrived at Forks) and that Jacob knew every word of the song. Well, he couldn't be considered a singer, yet this was slightly against your care of this huge man being a killer. What killer would be singing a love song so blatantly? - "I just met some lady named Karen Newton? She was nice, but I couldn't get out of the conversation, dear Lord." - "Oh, old Mrs. Newton? She's super nosy. What was she asking you about?" - Suddenly, his face appeared from under the car as he was searching for his rug. - "The basics, I guess. Why I'm here, what's my name, how old I am... She seemed very happy when I told her how old I am." - Throughout the small talk, you've taken off your jacket and sat on the 'Administration office's' chair while looking at Jacob drinking a whole cup of super hot coffee. His eating and drinking habits were making you a bit uneasy, but whatever.

"Dear Lord. I'll tell you why is that." - The man sat on his small chair as well, looking back at you. - "She has a son named Mike. And she's trying to find him a girlfriend... Again. Do expect the boy suddenly appearing here soon." - Oh. Okay. So she wasn't just nice... She was trying to figure out if you're good enough for her son. Mrs. Newton didn't seem to be thrilled by your career choice, but her eyes started to shine when you answered her question about having a partner. - 'No, I'm single.' - You told her. That was a misstep. - "But, worry not, even though he's not on my list of favorite people, most people say he's a nice guy." - "Unbelievable!" - A squeal came out of you as you started to laugh from the bottom of your belly. - "I'm here one day and you already think about who I should date. Oh God, that's why I don't like small towns!"

Jacob smiled into his mug. He hadn't seen someone laugh so hard for a long time - and honestly, it was nice to take some time off the vampire-hunting thing to think about stupidities like dating and such. - "I just think that two weeks is a lot of time. This seems like fun." - The man mumbled and climbed back on his small assembly bed. You couldn't understand how the thing could be still standing on its small wheels under his weight, but you weren't wrapping your brain around it too much. - "I also saw a pretty dope steak house like... Five minutes from here." - Okay, this was interesting. His head appeared from below the car once again. - "Do I look like I'm looking for someone to date? No, thank you." - With that, he disappeared again, leaving you to sit there with a subdued expression.

This was straightaway rude. There was the cold, annoyed man once more. And yes, it almost ruined your day. Jacob just flipped at least by 180° in front of you, showing you the fed up man once again. It was the mysterious Bella, wasn't it? Also, who was asking him out on a date? There was a cool-looking restaurant near the workshop and you didn't want to cook all the damn time. Dear Lord, you were in the temptation to spit something about split personality disorder, but you just sipped your coffee to keep your mouth shut. - "All I'm saying is that instead of sitting there the whole time and cooking all the time, we might at least consider take out." - Well, you were firing in the same tone as he was. Under the car, he muttered out a few curse words. The man realized he might go too harsh after you.

It was just... It sounded like a date proposition, to be honest. And there was a lot of going on for Jacob at the moment - the stress of shifting again, a vampire hunt... And to be honest, he still didn't get over what happened with Bella - so even though you didn't have any idea about who the hell she was, you were right in this. - "Sure. Take out sounds good." - Jacob told you when you were sitting in your cubbyhole once again, continuing to do your job.

The rest of the day was more or less quiet and calm - Jacob finished the minivan and started to poke around with your Beetle, at least until an old man came for the car. As you got to know when he introduced himself, this was Mr. Newton and Karen's husband. When he realized who you were, he started to apologize for his wife and the bunch of super-weird and awkward questions. He promised you that in any case, his son won't be asking you out just because Karen liked you. No way in hell.

It was that evening when Jacob finished half of the first step with your car - he cleaned most of the inside, mainly around the engine, and started to make a specific list. Said list was meaningless to you since you didn't know jack shit about cars. But Jacob seemed to know what he was doing, so you just continued with doing what you were doing. When the Sea Wolf were playing for the seventh time, that day alone, you were already sure about every word in the chorus. You were singing it along with Jacob.

When it got late, it was time for you to perform a subtle observation of Jacob's behavior. Around the same time as the previous evening, you pretended that you're sleepy as hell - and told him you're going to bed. And since you got to the bed, after a proper hot shower, it was the waiting game from that point on. You've been pretending that you're sleeping and you did so for such a long time that you almost fell asleep for real. But creaking of the floor made you aware that he ended his work in the shop. For a moment, it seemed that he's listening if you're sleeping. After a few pretty convincing snores, you've heard the door creaking again and the door to the small flat locking. With your breath hitched, you tiptoed to the window, leaned your thighs into the warm hearing, and looked from the window - you've heard him locking the garage, so the only possible exit was right under your window.

And he soon came out - he was half-naked, dressed in some torn pants, barefoot again, looking around as if he was making sure that there's no-one who would be watching him. There was a small moment where your breath hitched completely. What in the world was Jacob doing there, without a t-shirt when it was still just 46 degrees there? Quickly, he ran to the woods - and he didn't come out for the whole half an hour you've been looking at the exact spot where he disappeared.

Your throat got swollen as you climbed under the blanket again. Sure, you had the suspicion he might hurt you at some point, but you knew that the fear is irrational for the most part. You've been just freaked out by large dudes since... That happened. This was making you feel very uneasy and unsafe. Who would disappear in the woods dressed like that when it was so damn cold? How long was he just walking around? Or what was he doing in there?

Could he be a killer of sorts? Was this man dangerous? Did he hurt someone before? Bullocks, you stopped yourself. Charlie seemed to be fond of the man. And he was the crown cop of Forks. No way in hell police chief would be in on this as well... Or would he? The terror was making your sleep very bad. You were waking up every half an hour because you had pretty vivid, intense nightmares.

It was at around three in the morning, you've been up for some time, when you heard Jacob walking into the flat, locking the door behind him. He was... Limbing? It sounded as if he had trouble walking straight - he knocked something over on his way to the sofa. When he crashed there, a loud sound made you aware he did so, you heard him whine for a while before he got up again - presumably to put some clothes on. Then, after some time, you heard his body falling onto the small sofa once more. With closed eyes, you've been listening to the whole process and the silence after. After another hour of laying in the bed, not letting out a single sound, you carefully got up. Deep snoring was residing through the few rooms Jacob had in his flat. You've opened up the door carefully, making sure it won't creak and stuck your head out. With a furrow, your gaze scanned the sleeping man.

Again, his hair was let down, the blanket was too small for him and his whole feet were covered in the soil. Did he think you won't notice? As you closed the door, you sighed against your will. There has been something going on in Forks - and Jacob was heavily involved in this. You decided to observe him for at least two days, to make sure he does this regularly and then... What will you do then? As you laid under the blanket again, your legs got cold and you finally realized what you had to do.

You had to follow him and see what was going on.

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double--plus--good · 4 years

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I Still Love You - A Zutara Fic, Chpt. 3

What? I’m still writing this nonsense? Duh.

Hope ya’ll like it! I’ve been busy with getting back to work and what not, I’m sorry if I’m late or messy!

Chapter 3

All around them were people laughing and dancing; music played loudly on every street and children were playing games for small prizes or treats. People bartered for beautiful pottery and silk robes and others were lined up for delicious smelling foods of a wide variety. It seemed as though everyone in town had come out for some fun as the team had some trouble maneuvering around the square without running into waves of people bustling through. The Fire Nation capital had become a much livelier place in six years and everyone stared in awe at the sight before them.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people out at once here!” Exclaimed Aang, looking at every direction with enthused curiosity and awe. “The whole village must be here. There’s so much to do and see. It’s incredible!” The Avatar hopped around each corner they passed, looking into the kiosks and shops with excitement, pointing out various weapons and outfits and instruments he found fun or interesting. Sokka joined behind him, exclaiming everytime he found a new kind of sword or meat he wanted to try. One by one, each member of the group seemed to find a new item that caught their attention and they began to examine various stores for similar objects or foods.

Zuko made his place in a corner where he watched his friends all gawk and amuse themselves with the village’s offerings, smiling at their excitement and taking in the fun from a distance. He leaned against a wall with his arms crossed, laughing when Aang and Sokka would fool around and get chased out of weapon and clothing stores, forcing Suki to stop whatever she was doing to bail them out. He also watched in slight horror but also with some weird pride and amusement when Toph managed to buy out an entire food stand and actually finish everything they had offered.

Most people would think he was making judgement at his friends or sulking to himself while he was abandoned by his group but in reality, Zuko enjoyed watching his friends get into odd or rambunctious shenanigans. He loved to hear them laugh and seeing them dancing around, acting like fools. It brought him some sense of peace within, like they aren’t afraid to be who they are fully and he could be who he was with them. People often took his silence and distance as uncaring or self absorption and many people had difficulty approaching him at first whenever he’d roam outside of the castle. His appearance never helped either as people took his intense stare, closed body language, and muscular build as a sign of aggression. Add on top of it his passionate outbursts and quickness to irritation and he was someone most people tried to avoid as often as they could, but, his team always knew better and never maliciously made him feel like he was soulless or an untamable, destructive force. They allowed him to just be in the same way he does for them. They all balanced one another and brought each other new perspectives and peace of mind. Some, of course, more than others. And because of this and their interactions out in public, many of Zuko’s citizens started coming out more often to greet him in their city. They praised him often and reconstructed their roads and shops so that it was better suited for a lord to walk through.

People became less afraid to ask him questions and for favors when he came out and often offered him gifts when he found solutions or visited them. He always kindly declined which only heightened his popularity with the people. When he could, he’d help in construction or refurbishing and even assisted in their celebration preparations when he could. He was a devoted leader to his people and that was also why his birthday celebrations became bigger and bigger every year. But as the years went by, they saw less and less of him. No one ever took it as malicious or rude behavior but, just like his advisors, many people felt as though he was isolating himself in his work. So when he comes out for the celebrations, they make it a point to make it as grand as possible, hoping that he’d stay longer than the previous ones.

Today, many of the people bustling about only made short interactions with him. A few children had asked him to help them reach items in kiosks and a few grandmothers had asked for his help lifting things into their carts but the others merely bowed or waved happily, respecting his boundaries while he was with the saviors of their nation [as they called them]. It was a little surprising to him as he hadn’t been out in the last few months but he just assumed it was for the preparations. He didn’t mind it at all, though, and enjoyed the time he had to watch over his friends and city.

“So, are you going to just watch people and brood or are you going to at least join me in this shop so I can buy a new robe for the festivities this weekend?” Katara wrapped her arms around one of Zuko’s and smiled up at him. Zuko blinked slowly, snapping out of his gaze enough to look down at Katara and blushing slightly at her smile. She laughed some and pulled him swiftly into the small store that sat beside them before he had a chance to fully snap out of his daze or protest. “You’re a terrible liar so I know you’re going to tell me if I look good in something.”

Zuko followed as best as he could, raising his arm to deflect the clothes that were bashing against his face from above and tripping over loose articles on the floor. He then looked up and blinked in confusion as they ran through the back entrance into another building and out that one’s entrance into another alleyway.

“H-hey!” he called to Katara, unable to get her attention. “Katara! Where are we going?!”

Katara paid no mind to him and continued towards the edge of the street which led to the surrounding mountain side and forest. She stopped when they got into the shallows of the forest and looked around them before letting his grip go. Zukp placed his hands on his thighs and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Are we done here? What the hell was that all about?” he managed between sharp breaths. Running wasn’t usually such a problem for him but somehow, being whisked away like that tired him out something fierce. ‘I’ll have to work on my stamina next time’ he thought to himself, waiting for a response from Katara.

Katara looked back at Zuko after a few minutes of silence then collapsed into his chest, panting gently.

“Woah, woah hey…” Zuko fell against a tree and sunk to the floor, cushioning their fall with his hand. He panted along and looked down at Katara, frowning. “You….you alright?” he managed breathlessly, pushing away some fallen strands of hair against her face.

Katara leaned into his touch and gripped the side of his robe, pulling herself up to his shoulder. “Fine...I’m fine.” She pointed to the water pouch that was strapped to her hips and gestured vaguely. “I was bending while we ran. Holding them down with water whips and ice can be tiring.” She reached up and wiped her forehead up and pushed her hair back. “Your stamina sucks, Zuko.”

Zuko couldn’t help but laugh at her as he leaned his head against the tree, looking up. “Hey, you caught me off guard. I could outrun you any day. I’ve proven it a few times in the past.”

The two laughed softly amongst themselves and managed to catch their breath.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.” Katara sat up enough so she was face to face with Zuko, their noses almost touching. “I kind of acted on instinct.” She placed a gentle hand onto his chest, brushing off some leaves from his robe. “These guys...they were watching us since we left the palace and kept inching closer to you. I’m pretty sure Suki and Toph noticed them too. One of them started drawing a sword and then more people started looking toward you with something sinister in their look. I didn’t want us to be making a big scene especially while people were so busy around us. I just kind of took off. I figured, if they wanted a fight, they’d have to do it away from civilians.” She paused and looked down in thought. “They didn’t reach us through. Toph and the rest must have noticed and held them back.” She looked back up at Zuko, surprised by his skeptic look.

Zuko raised his brows and took a hold of the hand Katara had placed on his chest. “Are you sure they were going to attack? Not that I don’t trust your judgement Katara but we haven’t had anything like that happen in our city for a long time.”

Katara looked down for a moment and thought, furrowing her brows. She bit her lip softly then nodded, turning back to gaze hard at Zuko. “Definitely. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure they were.”

They sat in silence again as Zuko stared back at Katara with as much intensity as she was and gripped her hand harder. His mind raced to find the next best plan of action but to no avail. He shut his eyes and leaned his head back again, letting go of Katara’s hand and sighing.

“We’ll have to act carefully. I’m not sure if I want to raise any suspicion in my court especially if they’ve been there since we left. They could be spies and acting under the guise of a soldier or servant.”

Katara nodded and rested her head against his shoulder again, her eyes peering to the opening of the forest. “I’ll let the team know when we make it back to the city. Maybe we can come back later in the day or night to check out the area.”

Zuko reached a hand up and began to pet Katara’s hair absentmindedly, staring up at the sky with a soft yet puzzled expression. “That’d probably be a good idea. Who knows how many of them are out there or what they really want. I gotta be honest, I don’t really feel like it’s just me they’re after. Aang’s here, not to mention Toph being a well known general and Sokka being the Ambassador to the Northern and Southern water tribes, I might just be step one.” He felt Katara tense up and slipped his free arm over her waist. “Hey, hey.” he hushed her softly and kissed her head softly, caressing her cheek. “I didn’t mean to worry you like that. Everything will be ok. We’re a tough bunch of kids highly skilled and trained with armies to back us up. We can handle a few idiots with swords.”

Katara sighed and shut her eyes, leaning into the kiss. “I know that. I do. It just gets so exhausting sometimes.” She buried her face into his chest, letting her tension fade away as she melted into him. “We can’t go anywhere without having to be on our guard. It’s so frustrating. And I feel so useless in this. You and Toph have a whole army, Sokka has the trust of both major water tribes, Aang is the freaking Avatar and Suki has a whole squad of warriors and is in line to lead Kiyoshi island.” She made a fist in her hand, staring bitterly ahead of her. “What do I have? A healing clinic? Great. I mean, I’m a powerful bender! I’m the reason the Avatar even escaped the ice and saved the world. I taught him almost everything he knows!” she sighed and turned her head back to face Zuko, her frustration growing into contained fury. “It’s not to say I’m jealous or that I’m not grateful for what I have but I’m rendered useless! Aang won’t even let me go with him on peace missions and Sokka won’t clue me in on any decisions being made for the growth of our nation. Like, what is with them!? I’ve done

Zuko reached his hand to Katara’s chin and pulled it upward so she was face to face with him again, looking deeply into her bright blue eyes.

“Katara. You are the most stubborn, dramatic, and hot headed person I know. Your tenacity and gaul are entirely the catalyst that brought us into an era of peace and you should be proud of that. You have done so much for our world and no one has given you any credit for it.” He pressed their foreheads together. “You’ve got to start being loud again, maybe even louder than before. Remind everyone who the hell you are and what you have done. You are the furthest from useless especially in our team. I wouldn’t doubt for a second you could beat these guys on your own. We’re going to set this straight starting with protecting my kingdom. You have the Fire Lord’s support, Master Katara. Make these assassins your bitch.”

Zuko smiled when Katara laughed and stared at her mouth before brushing his thumb over them. Her face went dark red and she stopped laughing.

Then, he leaned in and she leaned in. He reached his hand up and cupped her cheek softly and she placed her hand over his. He pressed his lips onto hers gently and she pressed hers to his softly. Her lips were soft and sweet, like the first time they kissed; like the last time they kissed too. His lips were warm and savory, like the first time they kissed; like the last time they kissed too.

A breeze blew over the trees and rustled its leaves, causing a few to fall around them. Around them was a quiet and tranquility that seemed to follow them whenever they were alone. Everything felt balanced in the world again. Everything was peaceful, like a dream that caught them in a haze.

“We’re a good team.” Katara whispered softly against Zuko’s lips when they pulled apart for a moment before they pressed them together again.They lingered for a few seconds, unsure of who should fully pull away first but decided they should part at the same time. They stared at one another for a while longer, coming to from their haze slowly but surely. And, as quickly as it was over, Zuko pulled them up to their feet and moved Katara by her shoulders an arm’s length away from him, his eyes wide in shock and his face a deep crimson.

Katara took an extra step back for good measure and held her hands behind her back, avoiding eye contact with Zuko and burning a hole into the ground as a sweat drop raced down her cheek.

They sat in an awkward silence for an eternity [it felt] and kept making quick, shy glances at one another. Zuko cleared his throat and rubbed his neck, looking to the edge of the forest where it opened to the city. “We..should get back to...back to the team. Our team. Our good team. Cause we’re a good team. Together. All fiv- six. Six of us. Suki… Suki she’s…. She’s on our team too. Ahem” He groaned to himself and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Katara, with her face still burning hot and red, looked up at Zuko then ahead to the city, her eyebrows pushed up slightly like she was sad but her eyes half lidded like she was tired. She was so, so tired.

“Yeah.” She muttered, a gentle breeze pushing her hair into her face which helped to cover up the red for a short second.

They looked at one another one last time before Zuko started towards the city. He stopped, however, as Katara spoke again.

“Cedar and Cypress.” she said softly, crossing her arms over her chest and looking to her feet.

Zuko looked up at the trees lifting his brows and shook his head. “Uh, I think they’re pine or something. I’m not too sure-”

Katara sighed and smiled to herself. “No. You. Cedar and Cypress. It’s….” She looked to the city again and gave a weak, half smile. “It’s a fragrance from a small town Aang and I went to. We saved them when he and I first met and ever since then, they’ve gifted us with bottles of their fragrances. Cedar and Cypress is the one we gave you on your first year anniversary as Fire Lord.” She walked to his side but kept her focus on the city. “It suits you.”

Zuko didn’t move his gaze from the trees but a chill ran up his spine when she stepped next to him because he could still see her without looking at her. He made a fist in his hand and remembered the first time he used the fragrance she gave him. He only ever used it around her, although it’s his favorite.

“Thank you” he managed in a low, broken voice. “It’s….it’s my favorite.”

“No Zuko, thank you.”

He didn’t see it but he knew she smiled a little brighter before making her way to the city with him following right after.

They caught up with the rest of the team near the shops they had escaped from. Everyone seemed focused and tense as Katara and Zuko approached them, like they were on their guard. Sokka approached the two missing members, putting his boomerang back into its sheath on his back.

“Are you guys okay? We saw two guys run by with swords. Suki was able to take them down but they escaped in a cloud of smoke. It was kind of wild.”

Zuko looked past Sokka to the rest of the team, looking for any signs of confrontation. They almost had sand and first on their clothes and some messy hair but it didn’t seem like they got too involved. He then shifted his attention to the surrounding crowds and buildings. Nothing seemed to be too disturbed and people seemed more confused than anything.

“No one got hurt did they?” he asked Sokka, still looking around the area.

Sokka shook his head and looked towards the end of the street going to the edge of the city. “No, most people didn’t even notice I think. Everyone was just surprised at the smoke. Aang’s already calmed the crowds and Toph tried to feel for their running but it’s like they just vanished.” He turned his attention to Katara, placing his hands on her shoulders.. “We thought you guys might have gotten caught in their attack or something. We couldn’t find you anywhere. Did they hurt you?”

Katara shook her head. “I took Zuko away through the dress shop here. I noticed them approaching him with their swords and didn’t want to cause a scene. I froze them down and kept them encased until we were far enough to keep a safe distance between us. I figured they would still try to chase us but if we got far enough ahead we could figure out a combat plan out of the city.”

“That explains why they were soaked.” Sokka gave her a firm nod and looked back to the edge of the city. “I think they’re just some thugs trying to cause a scene. I’m not too worried about it. What do you think, Zuko?”

Zuko looked to Katara then back at Sokka and shook his head . “I don’t think so. They knew we were here and waited way too long. Katara says they may have even followed us from the palace. Most people don’t wait around as long like they did and try to attack in broad daylight. But, if they’re long gone, I’m not too worried about them returning anytime soon. We’ll keep our guard up and stay together as a precaution.”

Aang made his way over to Katara and took her shoulders, looking her up and down with a worried expression on his face. “Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

Katara sighed and pulled his hands off of her shoulders, raising a brow at him. “I’m fine, Aang, really. I’ve definitely been through worse. A lot of jogging trying to protect the Fire Lord from a couple of swordsmen isn’t much danger” She gave him a gentle but tired smile and let him pull her into a hug. When she hugged back, she kept an eye on Zuko and her brother as they discussed how to go about maneuvering the palace in smaller teams and how to communicate to one another if they’re separated, her cheeks red and mind wandering aimlessly.

Toph, who stood just a few feet behind Aang and Katara, leaned her head slightly toward them as she felt Katara’s heart beat match Zuko’s rhythm. Suki watched Toph as she made an intrigued yet somewhat sour face and looked up to catch a glimpse of Zuko’s cheeks warming up as he tried focusing his attention on Sokka but was being distracted by Katara’s facial expression. She looked at the three members of her team and went wide eyed before looking to Sokka in hopes that he was catching onto the heaviness of the air. Sokka flashed Suki a knowing raise of his brow and began to walk towards the city center, rubbing his neck. Zuko figured it was from dealing with the assassins; Suki, however, knew otherwise and walked quickly by his side, snatching his hand. The rest of Team Avatar followed shortly behind.

The walk back to the palace was awkward and stiff. Sokka and Suki were the only ones talking and they did so in hushed voices to one another, walking with hips attached. Toph stayed close to Zuko, tracking his pulse unbeknownst to him. Zuko would glance a few times at Katara and Aang and looked away quickly if either one of them made eye contact with him; the rest of the time he was looking around the village, keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity or anything out of place. Of course, with the preparations for the big celebration in a couple of days, it was hard to really distinguish “out of the ordinary” from everyday.

When they reached the palace, they were greeted by Zuko’s advisors who escorted everyone but Zuko to the dining hall for an early dinner. Zuko was told there was a pressing matter needing his attention. He excused himself from his teammates and followed his advisors to the strategy hall where most of his political meetings had been taking place.

The team sat in silence for a little while as their plates were being sat in front of them by servants and shifted eyes to one another awkwardly. Toph, growing impatient, spoke up.

“Well, since no one’s going to make the first move, how about we talk about the fact that there were assassins today and our Fire Lord over here isn’t really taking that seriously?” She picked up her sake and took a sip of it as she waited for everyone to answer.

“I think we need to trust Zuko on this. If he felt threatened I’m sure he’d let us know.” Aang responded after some silence following Toph’s question had blanketed the team once again. “Besides, he did seem concerned. I think he’s just trying to keep peace for his people. If he wants to be discreet about it, I think we should follow him on it.”

“Aang’s right.” Katara started, picking up her rice wine and taking a small sip of it, immediately feeling the small drops burn her throat and chest. “When...augh...When Zuko and I were in the forest, we both agreed that they might have followed us from the palace. We’re both concerned that maybe they’ve infiltrated the staff here. We should be cautious and keep this to ourselves unless it becomes something big.”

“I don’t know, I think Toph’s right. I don’t think we’re taking this attempt seriously enough. I mean, they didn’t attempt-attempt, but they definitely had plans to try threatening him at the very least. No one unsheathes a sword without some kind of intention.” Sokka chimed from his place on Suki’s lap, balancing his drink on his forehead with laser eye focus. “And if what you say is right, Katara, we have more reason to be worried and discuss this. If they’ve infiltrated the palace, none of us are safe. We’re all important figureheads here for the most part and who knows what they really wanted. I mean, the flipping Avatar is here unofficially, maybe they were really trying to get to him!”

Katara flinched at Sokka’s “important figurehead comment”, scoffing and downing the rest of her drink, wincing at the bitterness and burning. “But making a big deal is only going to draw more attention and panic, Sokka. I think we’re all just on edge since it’s been awhile since we’ve had any kind of threat against us but I trust Zuko knows what he’s doing. And anyway, he hasn’t said anything yet. He was whisked away immediately after getting here, we don’t know if he has a plan or something.”

Aang stared down at his drink for a moment, his eyebrow raised as he listened carefully to Katara. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt somewhat angry at what she was saying but made every attempt he could not to show it. He sighed softly and sipped his tea.

“Katara’s right. I appreciate your concern Sokka, but I wasn’t the one who had the attempt made on. Zuko hasn’t gotten the chance to tell us anything and I’d like to include him in this discussion. The only thing we know is he wants this to be kept between us as a team and that we might not be able to trust the staff. With that said, I think we should drop the subject and try to enjoy our dinner and company. It’s been awhile since we’ve all had a chance to be with one another like this, we should really live in it.” He reached over and gripped Katara’s hand, smiling at her warmly, letting her know he had her back.Katara smiled back and leaned her head on his shoulder, sighing softly and shutting her eyes.

Toph shrugged her shoulders and downed the rest of her drink, remaining silent for the duration of the conversation.

Sokka looked up at Suki with a concerned look and sighed, then took his drink and downed it, sitting up quickly. “Fine. But as soon as Zuko comes back, we’re discussing this.”

He leaned against Suki’s hands, which pressed themselves gently onto his back as she kissed his cheek. “Of course Sokka, we all know that.” She said gently, her eyes peering over at Katara and Aang, watching as Katara’s eyes suddenly opened and she reached to pour herself another cup of rice wine, her cheeks red. Suki looked at Sokka and nudged him slightly, nodding her head towards his sister, who finished her second drink and had sat up straight, burying herself in her food immediately after, the redness on her face only worsening.

Katara stared down at her bowl of rice, shutting her eyes for a moment again and watched the image of Zuko holding her shoulders as the leaves fell over him play in her mind. She took a deep breath and slowly opened them again, taking a scoop of her food and shoving it nervously into her mouth, chewing vigorously to cope with the recurring image and the embarrassment it brought her.

Aang watched her curiously and Toph listened quietly at Katara’s rapid heartbeat.

#zutara #zutara fic #zutara fan fic #zutara fanfiction #avatar: the last airbender #avatar #zuko #katara #aang #toph #sokka #suki #atla #atla fic #2020 #zutara 2020

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spacereadinglesbian · 5 years

Text

This is the pride month gift exchange for

@golden-geeks-art !! I’m so sorry it was late!!! I hope you enjoy!

Word count: 1104

Dear Cyrus,

I remember the first time I took you home as my boyfriend. We were sitting in my blue Honda Accord outside my house for 15 mins, you were so worried that your hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I tried everything in my body to help you calm down, I knew deep down how much my parents would love you, they’d love you because I love you. We finally made it inside, hands intertwined and the smile on my moms face never vanished that night. We talked through dinner, which was chicken parmigiana at your request, and then headed out for ice cream. The ride to ice cream in my moms mini van consisted of 90’s pop, and of course your all time favourite Stacey’s Mom. Later that night when I took you home, we sat in my car for another 15 mins, but this time it wasn’t filled with nerves and shakes, it was filled with sweet kisses between I love yous. When I got home, my parents wouldn't stop talking about how amazing you were.

Do you remember when we first came out at school? It was worse than when you were meeting my parents. Everybody at the school thought we were lying because I was jock that played basketball and baseball and you played chess and did theatre, so to shut them up I took you in front of the cafeteria and kissed you like my heart depended on it. We then got called into the principals office because “that type of PDA does not belong in schools.” We got three days of detention, and just spent it playing chess, and making corny jokes. Jokes on the school tho, we got 3 extra hours to spend together for 3 extra days!!

Cy, we’ve been through a lot of shit together, and to be honest I don’t know why I’m writing you this letter. It could be because I know once summer ends we may end, it might be because I just want to reminisce on all the moments we had together. But it also might be because we’ve had so many memories that they never stop playing in my head so I feel like writing them down. And if you think this letter is over, you thought wrong. I haven’t even gotten to the log cabin at your camp in Maine.

The summer after we started dating your parents invited me to go up to a cabin in Maine with you guys. I was a little hesitant to go, I heard that Maine was a weird conservative state that hates gays, but I was wrong. On our way to the cabin we stopped in s city called South Portland, while there we saw three churches with pride flags being flown. We also got to see the pride parade when we were there, and it’s a feeling I’ll never forget. I know we weren’t home, but at that moment I thought I could make a home for us there in that park. The further north we drew into the Maine more conservative it got, until we stopped in a small town called Farmington. I remember that we were scared when we got there, but your parents said to go walk around town and she what it’s all about so we did. Hand in hand we walked around a small town in northern Maine and went into every shop we could. When exploring we found out that Farmington was the most liberal northern town in Maine, we knew that we belonged there. We walked into a souvenir store and the first thing we saw were gray hoodies with the words Farmington, Maine in rainbow lettering. Best $60 we ever spent, then we made it to Moosehead.

I thought Farmington was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to Moosehead. Our cabin was surrounded by pine trees and a beautiful lake, escorted by dirt roads. We could see the sunrise from our bedroom and spent the night watching the sunset in the lake. We were far away from everything, but had everything we needed at the same time. At our time in Moosehead I fell more in love with you than I ever thought possible. I fell in love with our bike rides, and lake swims. I fell love with 4am coffee on a porch swing and root beer floats on the porch steps. But mostly importantly I fell in love with your smile through it all. When we left I promised that one day we moved up to Farmington Maine. And I’m going to keep that promise.

I know right now that promise seems far fetched. It seems far fetched because we’re leaving each other. Leaving each other sounds so permanent, and I hate thinking that it’s permanent, because it might not be. We’re both leaving pursue our dreams that we had far before we met one other. You’re going to New York to major in education and minor in physiology. When you go to New York live. Don’t think about me. Go to parties and go to bars. Go to book stores and go to book coffee shops. Get that cute boys number no matter how much it may hurt. It’s going to get me too, but remember we’re both leaving, we’re leaving to help our futures. While you’re sipping coffee in the streets of Manhattan I’ll be up in Orono, Maine at a record shop hidden behind miles of trees. I’ll be listening to new music and hearing new sounds, and if in the long end we end up together, thank god. But if the universe has a different path for us that’s okay too, because we had this. We had swims in the lake and trips to the ocean. We had books stores at 1am and coffee at 4. We had whispered I love yous underneath blankets and drive in movies.

Cyrus, I know at the beginning of this letter I said I didn’t know why I was writing it, that’s a lie. I know why I’m writing it. If one day we don’t end up together you can look back and remember what our love felt like. And if we do end up together we can read it to our children and tell them the story of why we live in Maine. But I wrote this letter to tell you that I love you.

I will always love you.

Chase every dream you have Cyrus Joshua Goodman.

With the most love in the world,

Theodore James Kippen

Ps: thanks for teaching me how to love someone

PPS: thanks for loving me back

#pride month gift exchange #andi mack #cyrus goodman #tj kippen #tj x cyrus #tyrus #disney

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shazyloren · 6 years

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At The Bar, We Meet

Summary: Dany's had three bad first dates in February alone, perhaps she was only meant for her pink vibrator after all. That's until someone else arrives at the bar having an equally bad time of it.

Notes: As you know, I am taking part in a challenge on tumblr by user @jonerysfics and @mhysaofdragons in which for seven days from Valentines day I am uploading a new one shot. The prompts have been provided and the stories have all been written and I gotta say you're in for a lot of Jonerys content. So Day 3, 16th February, which is when I'm uploading this, the prompt I chose was 'Bad First Date'. This is my spin on a situation many of us find ourselves in on Valentine's day.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812064

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“What’s wrong with me, Viz?” She sighs as she swirls the content of her glass in her hand. “Am I just some sort of freak magnet?”

Daenerys Targaryen had just returned from her third bad date of the month and given it was Valentine’s Day tomorrow it was safe to say she’d be spending it alone with a bottle of Rose and her pink vibrator.

“Nothing is wrong with you, Dany” He implored from the other side of the bar, filling her drink to the brim again. “You’re gonna meet the man of your dreams one day, I promise you. None of these men deserve the average woman let alone you. Your my sister, the best a man could get, I got your back don't worry about it!”

“Thanks” She puts a smile on, thankful for the niceties but in all honesty she just wanted to sit and wonder what had gone wrong.

One of them, had worked at a pet shop, which was fine, until he’d said that he takes the python to bed every night so it gets used to him. There was no way this side of hell she’d get in a bed with a snake that wasn’t attached to a man.

Fucking weirdo.

She shuddered to just think about it.

Another only wanted sex and told her outright from the minute they sat down in a fancy restaurant, turned out she’d arranged a date with a sugar daddy who was willing to give her £3000 for sleeping with him. Not the man to bring home to Rhaella Targaryen.

And then the one she’d just ran from, offered her a gift of his fingernail clippings and a Manchester United shirt. Daenerys didn’t know which one she was more disgusted by, her father never speak to her again if she wore the shirt and the nail clippings was just outright gross.

One day, I’ll date someone normal.

“Scotch, neat please” She hears a northern accent sound from the seat next to her, a sound which she associated with a bad day. At least she wasn’t the only one.

“Coming right up, sir” Her brother nods and fixes the man up with one. Dany turns sideways to glance at the man who has just decided to sit next to her and when she does, her eyes widen with feint recognition.

I know you…

“Jon?” She asks, unsure if it really is him. He turns and looks at her, his eyes confused for a moment while he sips his drink. Then, it clicks into place.

“Daenerys Targaryen?” He becomes nervous, shakily putting his glass down, and they both know why that is. Time flies, this was a blast from the past she had not been expecting.

Damn, he looks like a right snack … she thinks to herself. Jon Snow, she used to go to High school with him over ten years ago. He was a lot smaller then, in terms of muscle, but she could see his arms and torso almost pulsating through the shirt he had on now.

“How have you been? You look great” She almost smiles suggestively, sipping her own drink. She was eighteen when she last looked into those eyes. I sucked his dick in the school toilets in year 10, 15 years old and way inexperienced . Her luck with men clearly hadn’t changed that much. He says he's been good and thanks her for the compliment. “I haven’t seen you in what, twelve years?”

“About that, I just turned 30” He confirms, a look of reminiscing present on his face.

“What you doing in town anyways? Last I heard you’d flown to New York to work” She asked interested more so in his sudden reappearance in town than the lame dates she’d been on. Anything to stop being traumatised by fingernail clippings...

“Oh, I came back years ago” He said with a chuckle, gruff and causing a slight tingling in Dany's ears. “It was a great experience but, I missed home. My sister Sansa fell pregnant with her partner at the age of 20 and I just decided to come home and work and be a good uncle”

“I get that, my friend Missandei is always travelling the world, comes home every few months. Nothing like the comforts of home, she says” She sighed, looking into her once again empty glass. It was strange how the conversation seemed easy.

“You want a refill, Dany?” Viz asks.

“Go on then, brother. Give Jon one too, put it on my tab” She asks and Jon nods in appreciation. “So why you at the bar then? You haven’t happened to finish up a bad date like me? Or should I say I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible”

“Actually, yes” He laughs to her surprise. Maybe today was the day the universe turned on decent people . “Redhead, nice girl or at least I thought so, she wanted me to do the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp with her at Hotel Paris on Baelor’s street”

“Gods above” Dany’s wide eyed response got Jon laughing. “I thought mine was bad”

“Let me guess, hair strands given as a gift?” Jon snorted.

“Close, nail clippings” The laugh on his face dropped as if he was going to be sick. He asks her if she was being serious, she nodded. “He also gave me a Manchester United Shirt so I had to dip on him, I should’ve known something was off when he didn’t want gravy on a roast dinner, what kind of moron doesn’t want that?”

“There are some strange folk around” Jon agreed, both of them kinda silent for a moment. However, Jon instigates the conversation once again. “How about yourself, what have you been up to?”

He’s hot…

Really fucking hot...

Like bend me over your knee and fist me like I'm nothing hot...

Daenerys, behave yourself…

“I run a non-profit” Dany replies, trying to temper her feelings. “It’s for helping women who’s been apart of domestic abuse get their life back on track, help with hygiene and food and school for their children, other than that I work on my father’s board of executives for his solar company which develop more economical ways to create electricity”

“So long story short, everything you wanted to do in high-school didn’t happen” He laughs, they both have to. A familiar memory of her dancing outside the school toilets to entice Jon in, ringing through their minds. What a wild and free-spirited individual she was then...

“I did not become a dancer, no” Daenerys found it really easy to talk to him, perhaps it was his familiarity. “Instead I just become a woman who has every aspect of her life going accept the one she has an interest in working”

“Pah, relationships are shit anyways” He grumbles and Dany can't help but chuckle at him. The distant memory of a redheaded girl leaving him for some other hotshot man came into her mind.

“You're not still upset about her, are you? Ygritte?” She giggles. His solemn silence answers it all. “Jon, that was Year 12”

“Still hurts” He shrugged, striking her as the type to never get over something truly. “Never met anyone like her since”

“Yes, the lying and cheating type is hard to come by” She cackles before gulping the last of her drink. If she wasn’t careful she’d fall off of her chair. “Look, there’s someone out there, bad dates just mean you’re getting through that shit to find them. Optimism!”

“Urgh, I hate that word” Well at least he’s honest…

“Jon” Dany stated plainly. “You do realise you’re a bit of a snack, yeah?”

“I’m a bit of a what?” He blinks, unaware of what is about to come out of Daenerys mouth.

“A snack” She nods. “Look at you, that curly hair still looks as well maintained as it did at our Leavers ball, your eyes are deep and mysterious, you clearly work out, your accent is gruff and sexy and you smile like a child who just found a stash of cupcakes, you’re a total snack”

“Here we go” She hears her brother mumble and walk off to serve other customers. Shut your face, Viz.

“Okay, that’s a lot to process” Jon chortles, but he knows it’s meant in good fun.

“It’s suppose to be a compliment” Dany speaks sincerely, a hand placed on his knee to show her sincerity. “Any girl who acts a fool, or turns you down, or cheats on you, is a fucking moron”

Well done, Daenerys, just open your legs why don’t you, cut to the chase .

Daenerys wasn’t finished. “And anyways, last week I went on a date with a guy who wanted to put me in his bed with his pet Python, so it can’t ever be that bad”

“People are indeed strange” He agrees once more. Fucking hell if he smoulders at me one more time I'm taking my knickers of now and he can fuck me against the bar .

They were quiet after that, just a small groaning of the jukebox behind them playing tunes and the sounds of snooker cues hitting balls. Dany looked around, anywhere but Jon while she collected her thoughts.

Why not?

That’s all she can find herself to say. So what if she sucked his dick once all those years ago, so what if it’s only because they’ve both had bad dates and they were just looking for a bit of human contact. It’s just sex right, she should at least ask or she won’t get.

“Hey Jon”

“-Dany”

They both realised they’d spoke at the same time.

“Sorry, you go first” Jon offered.

“Oh, okay” She nodded, her eyebrow rising as a little smirk appeared on her face. “You wanna get out of here?”

If there’s any justice in the world, you will say yes, Jon Snow.

There’s a moment where she thinks she’s fucked up, but when the same smirking expression is sent back to her, she knows there’s only one place she’s going tonight, and that was the backseat of her car.

“Depends” He shrugs before stepping off of his seat and whispering in her ear. “Are you going to be a bad girl for me?”

Dany starts giggling, completely surprised that her evening was going to be not all bad and actually looked like quite a promising night. The prospect of showing Jon Snow how she'd improved since the blowie in the school toilets days filling her with fire and want. “Is the sky blue?”

"Excellent" Jon grins, gulping his drink and smashing it on the table. He hops off of his bar stool, guides Dany off of hers and smacks her behind with glee when she begins to lead him out the door, a wave goodbye to her brother.

Now this was going to be a good evening...

#Jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jon x daenerys #jonerys #fanfic #jonerysvalentine #mhysaofdragons #game of thrones

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evansrogerskitten · 7 years

Text

What If

Dean x Reader

Dean's been in love with you for months. What will it take for him to admit how he feels?

Warnings: Perfect storm of angst, fluff, smut, and a happy ending. Includes a canon type hunting injury and Dean being adorable. WC: 6050 On AO3 Thanks to my awesome beta @andromytta

This is my first commission for @mrs-meghan-winchester based on the song What Ifs by Kane Brown. Thanks for trusting me with this, I hope you love it :)

From Dean’s POV

I don’t know when it started.

It wasn’t right away. I mean, when we first met I thought you were really freakin’ hot- all soft skin, and pink lips, and curves in every place I wanted to hold onto. Sam had to smack me so I’d stop staring and that’s when I heard you laugh for the first time. You hadn’t even said a word to me yet and that laugh- fuck, yeah maybe that was it.

Our first hunt together six months ago, the one where you killed the wendigo just moments before it turned Sam and me into Sunday dinner, yeah then I was impressed. You were so pretty but the strength you had to kill the monster all the while getting back up to rescue our dumb asses was just so awesome.

That may have been it. Beauty plus strength plus the laugh. Yeah, that’d do it.

But here we were on another hunt in another small town- northern Colorado this time- and laughing with you made everything worthwhile. Even if I was terrified of losing you.

The diner was noisy for a Wednesday at four-thirty but there was fresh coffee and promise for a good dinner. Sam buried his face in his plastic menu as you burst out laughing again. Sometimes he got kinda sick of us when we were goofing around and laughing. Tough shit.

“You’re ridiculous, Dean,” you giggled, swatting my hand away from the little plastic bin of sugar packets. “And no sugar for you.”

“Alright, you wanna give me some sugar then?” I nudged you, grinning as you laughed even harder. It wasn’t that funny. But sometimes we got in these moods and I could make you laugh for hours. I loved the way your nose would crinkle up at the bridge and tears would spark right at the edge of your lashes as you gasped for air.

Sam smiled sympathetically at the waitress as she came over. “You ready to order?”

“Yeah, I’ll have the greek salad with chicken,” Sam responded, handing her his menu.

I bit my lip as you stifled your laugh. The older woman raised her eyebrows and waited for you.

“Oh ummm, a cheeseburger. With sweet potato fries please.”

I smiled at the waitress. “Same for me please, darlin’. Normal fries though.”

You waited until she walked away before elbowing me. “Flirt.”

“Whatever, she was like sixty.” I scoffed. “Why? You jealous?”

Another exasperated sigh from my brother before I paid him attention. “Sam, your eyes are gonna get stuck in the back of your head if you keep rollin’ them like that.”

Sam ignored me. “Can we please talk about the plan?”

With mention of the hunt, all joking was over for you. There was nothing in the world more serious to you than killing monsters.”Okay, we know which house they’re squatting in. I was able to get a glimpse from the neighbor’s backyard today.”

You pulled a hand drawn sketch out of your jacket pocket and traced a path across the paper with your pointer finger. “We can go through the fence right here, and then they’ll be boxed in. Dean and I can take the back, and Sam you flush them out from the front door.”

Sam nodded, looking over your outline. “Looks like a good plan to me.”

You looked over at me with a small smile expecting my approval. I slung my arm over your shoulders.

“What’d we do without ya, sweetheart?”

You grinned as you folded up the map, sliding it in your pocket before looking up at me. “Dean, at this point you could never live without me.”

Shit. For a second I looked down at your lips, like I had a hundred times, memorizing your mouth all over again. A hundred times I almost leaned all the way in, almost pressed my lips against yours, almost kissed you like you deserved.

But we were in a twenty-four hour diner, with my grouchy brother across the table and the lady waitress refilling our coffee. I cleared my throat and looked away, ignoring the slump in your shoulders as I brought my arm back to my side.

“So, we got a plan. Good.”

There had been six months of that. Six months of lingering hugs and missed kisses and lying to myself, lying to you. I was a fucking coward. I was just so afraid of losing you. What if it all went to shit, and it always did- apocalypse or hell or knife to the chest- what if we found ourselves missing each other when it would’ve been easier if it’d just never been? That’s why I never told you.

We finished up dinner over small talk, and at nightfall we drove out to the house where the monsters were holed up.

“Dumbass werewolves.” I shook my head. Assholes were snatching people walking home from night services at the church down the block. Typical.

I shut off the ignition as I parked the Impala down the block. Turning in my seat, I expected your grin, amped up and ready to kick some ass. But you were looking out the window, your brow scrunched up like you were worrying about something.

“Hey sweetheart, you okay?” I reached over the seat and put my hand on your knee.

Sam’s eyes widened and like an idiot he cleared his throat awkwardly and flung open the door of the car. “I’m gonna get our stuff ready.” Note to self to beat whatever that was out of him later.

Your eyes were soft when you turned to me, something serious churning in your beautiful head. I gulped as your fingers tightened over mine. “Dean, I…”

For a moment, I thought you were going to say what I was absolutely terrified of but was dying inside for. Instead you lied.

“Everything is fine. I’m just not feeling like myself.” You smiled, shaking your head with a little dismissive laugh at yourself, and dropped my hand before reaching for the door handle. “Come on, let’s go kill these sons of bitches.”

It was an awesome fight and you were as amazing as always. First hopping the fence so quick while my old ass lumbered over it like some old age cripple, then barreling into the den and taking out two on your own. You were such a badass. Sometime I wished I could just watch you. Your arms were so graceful as you put all of your momentum into each hit and stab. Strong and beautiful. The monster didn’t even know what hit him as your knife got him perfectly between the shoulderblades.

“That was awesome!” You cheered as we got back to the car. I was glad to see the worry from earlier was gone.

“Hell yeah.” I chuckled. “You were awesome.”

We were both smiling as we cleaned the blood from our knives. Besides some bruises and a small cut on Sam’s cheek, we’d come out of the fight pretty good.

“Look out!” You hollered as you threw a bloody towel at my head. Good, you were laughing again.

I evaded it by inches, laughing as I chased you around the car. “C’mere sweetheart!”

I captured you, my fingers grabbing your waist and corralling you against the side of the car. Your giggles were coupled with these cute little gasps as you fake tried to squirm away from me until you settled against me with wide eyes. Whoa, your face was so close, just inches from mine. You took in this shaky breath and I realized I wasn’t breathing. Moments passed as my eyes memorized every inch of your mouth again, my tongue licking across my own lips unconsciously in preparation. I leaned in and when your eyes met mine I felt like I was going to pass out. Shit, this is it.

“Guys?” Sam yelled from the other side of the house. “Dean?”

“Damnit.” I groaned, rolling away from you.

“Hey, there you are.” Sam walked around the corner from the dark yard. He took in the sight of us, our backs braced against the side of the car and raised his eyebrows. “You guys good?”

“Good!” You announced and shuffled past me. “It’s all good.”

Once you couldn't hear me I glared at Sam.

“Dude!” I growled at Sam. “You dumbass! I was gonna finally kiss her!”

Sam laughed. “About damn time.”

I pulled three beers out of the cooler, tossing cans to you and Sam in celebration. You smiled and leaned against Baby and took a sip, and I nodded at my two girls safe and sound. Hunching down, I started repacking the trunk. Maybe I could talk to you about how I was feeling, maybe it was time. Maybe we had a chance despite all this hell.

Fuck you, Winchester.

I didn’t see any of it until it was too late. Just heard the sounds- the growl, your scream, the thump of your body smacking against the side of the car, and Sam’s yell as he pulled the rogue werewolf off of you and stabbed it in the chest.

Like those damn dramatic movie sequences, my reality slowed down. Seriously not as cool in real life.

I lurched around the car and fell to my knees, pulling you into my arms. Your cries sputtered into these sad whimpers, and then you were half conscious, not responding to me as I shouted your name. As I tried to hold you closer my hand met blood and I started to panic.

“Sam! Door!”

“Oh god.” Sam gasped as he looked down at your bloody torso. He wrenched the backdoor open and helped me slide in, your body bleeding out in my arms.

“No, no. You’re gonna be okay. Stay awake, sweetheart.” I instructed as you fought unconsciousness, your eyes bleary as they met mine before rolling back in your head agan. I held you tight as Sam started the Impala, tires squealing as we left the dead wolves behind. You made this half gurgle, half whimper noise and I felt the tears spring into my eyes. No. NO.

“You’re okay, sweetheart, you’re okay.” I repeated over and over, holding you as tight as I could. “We’re almost there.”

My shirt was warm and wet as I held you against my chest, and I knew you were losing too much blood. “Faster, Sam! I’m gonna lose her.” Your pulse was slowing and my arms starting shaking from panic and adrenaline. This is bad.

“You’re okay, sweetheart, you’re okay.” I repeated over and over. You had to be.

Sam probably set a world record for driving through that damn town so fast, but it was all too long for me. As soon as the Emergency Room attendant saw all the blood they pried you from my arms and lifted you onto a gurney. A security guard pushed us back as we tried to follow. The glass doors closed and we saw a nurse climbed up the side of the rolling gurney. I choked back a sob as I saw them start to perform chest compressions as they moved you down the hall.

I don’t know how long we were there. Seven hours? I convinced them that I was your husband and Sam was your brother, using all of our Smith aliases as proof. That at least kept us in the loop. They’d resuscitated you, miraculously finding you had no major organ damage. At some point Sam went and got me a clean pair of jeans and shirt as your blood had started to crust on my clothes.

“Here’s coffee.”

I took the styrofoam cup from Sam. He settled down next to me on the vinyl couch, clearing his throat as he sat back.

“Sam, question.”

“Shoot.”

“When we got to the house, do you know why she was worrying?” I kept my eyes on the sliding glass doors, willing the doctor to return with good news. “I thought she was gonna cry and then you jumped out of the car.”

“Uhhh…” Sam paused. “She ummmm...she was going to talk to you about you two. How you guys feel.”

I looked over at him in surprise. “What?”

“Yeah, she asked me for advice yesterday. She said that she wanted to talk to you but didn’t know if she should.”

I scoffed as I shook my head. “Well of course she should.”

Sam didn’t reply and I didn’t know what to say next. If you, when you woke up, then I wanted to hear from you, not from my brother.

“Mister Smith?” I jumped to my feet as the doctor came out, Sam right behind me.

“Your wife is stable. We were able to stop the bleeding. It’s a miracle she didn’t have any internal damage but we did have to do some minor surgery, so she has quite a few stitches. Honestly I don’t understand how she didn’t have organ damage, I’ve never seen anyone survive a cougar attack like that.”

“Yeah, it was bad. But she’s okay though?” Well the cougar thing was a lie but as long as you were okay.

“She’s alive. She’s very strong, a real fighter,” The doctor smiled. “She’s sedated but you’re welcome to come see her if you’d like. It’ll probably be a couple hours before she wakes up.”

Sam and I followed close behind as he led us to your room.

“Oh god.” I muttered as the doc slid open the glass door to your little cubicle, revealing you unconscious and pale on the pale blue hospital sheets. The doc left us alone with strict instructions not to wake you.

“Jesus christ, baby.” I stepped up to the bed and took your hand, lifting it carefully. It was cold and I covered it with both of mine, bringing it up to my lips. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Sam went to the other side and took your other hand, squeezing it softly as he avoided the wires on that arm. “Hey. Dean and I are here. We’re not leaving you, so just get better...Oh, and I killed the last werewolf.”

I looked up and glared at him. “Really?”

“What?” He shrugged. “You know that’s the first thing she’d be asking us right now.”

I shook my head to dismiss him. For a few minutes we stood there, staring down at you like you’d wake up and say, Nevermind asshats, I’m fine!

“You okay here for awhile?” Sam asked after a few minutes as he set your wrist on the bed next to your hip. “I’ll give you guys some time.”

I nodded. As he reached the door I stopped him. “What if I screwed up, Sam? What if...I lost all that time with her…”

Sam set his hand on my shoulder and smiled as he looked down at you lying in the hospital bed. He was far too calm. “It’s not too late, Dean. She’s alive. You can still tell her.”

I nodded, swallowing as my throat threatening to close up. I pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down, taking a deep breath as tears slowly fell down my face now that we were alone.

“Fuck.” I cried, my forehead resting on our joined hands as all the stress and worry came pouring out. “I’m so sorry this happened.”

I should’ve told you before but I didn’t have words. Here I’d been in love with you- fucking head over heels absolutely terrified completely in love with you- and I missed my shot. I let you think you weren’t anything when you were everything.

“Sweetheart,” I started. “I’m gonna keep saying I’m sorry cuz I am. I know you wouldn’t want to hear it a bunch of times but get used to it.” I smiled, watching your face for a smirk and a roll of your eyes.

“Sam...I...Sam told me months ago that I should tell you how I feel. And I didn’t cuz, well you know our lives. What if I messed this up? What if we fell for each other, and then we lost each other? What if it all went bad like it always does?”

I paused, wishing you would wake up. I had to whisper around the lump in my throat. “What if you are the best thing to ever happen to me and I never told you that I love you?”

You didn’t respond so I took a few deep breaths. “Fuck, I’m such a mess.”

My thumb moved over the smooth skin on the top of your hand and I listened to the beeps of your heart monitor. It must’ve been fifteen minutes before I spoke again.

“The first time I heard you laugh, it felt like my world opened up. My life is always these black nights and fucking monsters and blood and gore. But you, you being with us, even as just my friend, you’ve made my life liveable. Your laugh…” I smiled and looked up. You eyelids were fluttering and your breathing was steadier.

“Sweetheart, can you hear me?” I stood up, holding your hand between mine as I looked at your face. After no response I continued. “I...I should've told you so long ago how I felt. Remember that time in Oregon? How we played pool for hours and then all the whiskey shots and you were dancing all around...God, I wanted you so bad that night. Or after the vamp fight in Missouri? When you caught me changing clothes half naked and well, it should’ve been awkward but it wasn’t and I really really wanted you to stay.”

You didn’t respond but I kept talking, telling you every time I regretted missing my chance. “Oklahoma City, when we were sitting on Baby’s hood and drinkin’ beers out in that wheat field. I thought you scooted closer to me on purpose. I should’ve kissed you cuz that sunset was perfect.”

I took another deep breath, running my fingertip along the small pale scar on your jaw that you got from a pissed off spirit. “All those nights in the bunker, with your long sweaters and your short shorts…twice I actually went to your room at night. Twice I almost knocked. You walking around all naked legs just drives me crazy, sweetheart.”

Your lashes were still wiggling, so I continue my confessions. “When you fell asleep in the library, Sam was gonna wake you to tell you to go to bed but I told him no. I wanted to have an excuse to carry you. To hold you against me like that. I remember your arms tightened around my neck and you said Dean all soft and sweet. It took all my self control not to climb into bed and just hold you all night.”

“Oh, the roller skate rink in Wisconsin! When you were undercover, skating around and showin’ off and you bit it and scratched up your knee,” I started laughing. “You were embarrassed and played it off tough, but you pouted a little when I was helping you clean up your knee. And well, it was adorable.”

“Hunting, of course you’re a fucking ninja. You just amaze me. I’m not lying when I say that besides Sam and I, you’re the best there is. I mean, who else could do some kind of crazy yoga twist bullshit and take two vamps heads at once? Only my girl.” I smiled and looked down at the bed.

“When you’d talk about your parents dying, or when you’d comfort the families of people we couldn’t save…” I nodded. “You use your grief for good. Which is a weird way to compliment someone I guess. Except I know how hard it is to deal with all of that, so it’s good that you don’t keep it inside like I do. I admire that.”

I slumped back down into the chair, my own exhaustion creeping up on me. “The little things, like you always remember the pie, and you’re careful not to scuff up the car. You help Sam with stuff, like you always remember the right kind of coffee he wants and his damn rabbit food. You keep us sane. When we’re home and I hear you laugh all the way down the hallways...it’s like...it’s like I miss you when we’re in different rooms.”

“Baby, I just...all this time...what if I was made for you and you were made for me? Fuck that might sound cheesy, but what if this is it? Like we should’ve been together all along?”

Fluttering eyelids continued to be my only response so I scooted the chair forward and rested my arm on the bed, setting my head down but still gripping your hand tight. I found the heartbeat in your wrist, and just focused on you still being alive as my eyes closed.

I woke to fingers softly running through my hair. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was as I opened my eyes. You’d sat up partially, one hand resting on the back on my scalp while your other hand was still tight in mine.

“You’re awake?” I sat up straight, grimacing as the quick motion tweaked a crick in my neck. “Ow. How long have you been awake?”

“A few minutes.” You said quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine! How are you?” I leapt to my feet. “Lemme get the nurse.”

“Dean, it’s okay,” You gripped my hand. “I’m alright.”

“Really?” I took a chance and brushed your hair away from you face. “Werewolf got ya.”

My breath caught in my throat when your cheek moved into my hand. “But you saved me though.”

“Guess it was my turn.” I grinned.

You smiled and nodded, before looking down at your lap.

“What?” Please talk to me.

“Dean, I...yesterday I wanted to tell you how I felt and then I thought we could talk after and then the damn werewolf and now this…” You looked around the hospital room before looking up at me. “I thought that I’d have time and then I didn’t and I just kept thinking what if…”

You were too cute when you were babbling. Words weren’t enough now.

You made this cute little sigh as my lips pressed against yours, a hand reaching out for my collar to pull me closer. I put everything into that kiss. Every word I’d never said, every touch I’d kept to myself, every other kiss I’d dreamt about. Your lips moved against mine, soft and warm, letting me lead you slow until I pulled away for a moment. Your eyes looked into mine, and I smiled.

“What if that’s our last first kiss?”

You smiled and little tears of happiness flooded your eyes as you nodded. I wrapped my arms around you and pulled you tight against me so I could kiss you like I’d always wanted to. Apparently I liked chick flick moments after all.

You were smiling as we parted.

“What?” I asked.

“Thank you.”

I smiled and kissed you again before standing up straight. “I’ll see if we can get the doc in here so I can take you home.”

I was halfway out the door when you called out to me.

“Dean, tell Sam I say thanks. Oh, and one other thing…”

I rested my hand on the doorway and waited with a smile.

“I wasn’t pouting at the roller rink in Wisconsin, it was just really strong disinfectant.”

I nodded, chuckling as I turned away.

“Wait.” I took a few steps backward to see you giggling. “Were you awake that whole time?”

“No, in and out.” You smiled, resting your head back on the pillow. “But it was the best dream I’ve ever had.”

I stepped back into the room to kiss you again, this time your hands resting on my face. “You’re gonna turn me into a sap.”

“Ha! Too late!”

I left the room with the biggest smile on my face, ready to find the doc and get you home.

Four days later we rolled into the bunker’s garage. I wanted to take it easy getting back even though you said you were fine curled up in the backset, wrapped in the blankets we took from the motel. You needed time to heal. And I’d waited this long for you, I’d wait as long as it took before you were finally mine.

Sam and I went on only one hunt in the next three weeks. I wanted to be home if you needed me. I knew you were going stir crazy being in the bunker but there was no way in hell you were going hunting until six weeks had passed, doc’s orders.

The letters on the webpage in front of me had started to swarm and I sat back from the table. Sam was on a case with Jody, and I’d agreed to do some research for them since I insisted on staying home with you. Yeah, you were almost better. But I also didn’t want to be away from you.

“Hey.” You smiled as you walked into the library. I groaned inwardly at the sight of your gorgeous legs in those short shorts. My mind immediately went to my fantasy of those strong thighs around my ears until I realized I was staring.

“Hey sweetheart.” I shut my laptop and smiled. “What’s up?”

You sat on the edge of the table next to me and took my outstretched hand with a smile.

“Ummm...okay. So Dean, I…” You finally met my eyes and I realized it wasn’t all nerves. “We’ve been home for weeks and I know you’ve been letting me heal. But all you’ve done is kiss me the whole time and I…”

My shoulders slumped as I realized I’d disappointed you. Here I confess my love and then you think I don’t want you? Nuh uh, baby, never farther from the truth.

“I just wanted you to heal before I made a move.” I confirmed, pulling you closer to me. “Trust me, I very much still want you. So much.”

You bit your lip and I groaned audibly this time as you looked down at me with those beautiful eyes, dark with decision and desire. You paused before those soft naked legs straddled my thighs. I set my hands on your waist and kissed your neck a few times, reveling in your short little tugs on the hair at the back of my head.

“Are you sure?” I asked. Suddenly I realized that yes, I was worried about hurting you but I was also a little bit scared. This was it. And fuck, it was gonna be amazing.

“More than anything.” You nodded, your eyes bright and clear as they looked into mine. “I want you, Dean.”

Oh god yes. I pulled you tight against my chest as I kissed you, aggressive and thorough like I’d been dying for. Yeah we’d been making out since the hospital but I’d held back. Nope, no more of that.

I groaned as you rocked your hips forward, my dick growing harder with each gasp you made against my lips. I nuzzled my head into your hair, smelling your shampoo, and sweat, and the intoxication that was quite possibly going to kill me. Your lips moving down my neck made little kissing and sucking noises and I grew impatient with the sweater in my way.

“Too many clothes,” I grumbled, prompting you to giggle as you leaned back and pulled the sweater over your head.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” I said in awe as I moved my hands up your ribcage and over your bare breasts. You moaned as my palms covered your nipples and I looked up in amazement. I needed to hear that sound again. And then again and again, as much as possible.

“You’re wearing too many clothes too.” You frowned in the most adorable way. My hands left your body to pull my black t-shirt over my head. I chuckled and lifted you up onto the table, pulling the little short shorts down so you were bare.

My lips met yours again as your naked hips pushed up against mine. I had you naked. Finally. Fuck, if we were gonna do this, I was gonna do it right.

You gasped as I settled you on your back, my lips and fingers discovering your skin as I moved down. I quickly learned which combination of suck and bite on your nipples got you to make that beautiful moan again.

“Dean.” You moaned, and damn that made my cock so hard. Thank god for the acoustics in the Letters library cuz I loved that noise in surround sound.

“You’re so soft, baby.” I earned a few more moans before I kissed down your stomach, smiling when light kisses to your ribs made you giggle. I kissed the tender pink scars across your skin, squeezing your hip when you tensed up. “Just relax.”

You hummed in agreement and closed your eyes, your legs parting so I could lean down between them. I kissed your knees, getting another little giggle. Sighs of satisfaction as I kissed your inner thighs, taking my time to get to the good part. Your eyes were open when I looked up.

“You’re so beautiful.” I said before tentatively licking your folds. Slowly I moved my tongue, learning what twist of my tongue or suck of my lips got reactions. Each of your moans got louder as my tongue got more aggressive, and I pulled your hips forward. This was finally happening and I was going to rock your world.

“Oh fuck!” You cursed, your hands grabbing the edge of the table. “Dean, yesssss!”

I found just the right rhythm as my fingers joined my tongue, and I groaned as I appreciated your body, your back arching over the wood as my lips went back to sucking your clit. I smiled as your gasps turned to long drawn out moans. Seeing you like this, right on the cusp on orgasm, right where I had always wanted you for me- well, you looked a million times better than I ever imagined.

“Come on, sweetheart.” I encouraged, my tongue circling your clit as you reached that edge. I could feel you clenching around my fingers and I groaned. “Fuck, you’re amazing.”

You gasped and grabbed the hair at the top of my head, and I moaned my approval as you steered me back in place. A minute later you were shaking on that table, an orgasm rushing through you, your pussy seemingly in love with me now as well.

“Holy shit!” You shouted as your hand came up to brush your hair out of you face.

I snickered and stood up, taking your hands to pull you up against me. You moaned as you tasted yourself on me, and we got momentarily distracted by deep kisses and lingering hands. You smiled and pulled away when I rutted up against your thigh. God, I needed to feel you.

“Your turn?” You smiled, moving your hands down my chest.

I grinned. “Baby, as much as I want that right now, I need something else more. Like now.”

You shrieked as I scooped you up, careful with your tender injury as I carried you down the hall to my bedroom. Your lips never left my neck as you spoiled me with kisses.

When we got to my room I set you carefully on the mattress. You watched with wide eyes as I pushed down my sweats.

“You’re looking at me like I’m fresh meat.” I laughed, setting my knees on the bed and crawling over you.

You laughed and nodded before this breathless sex goddess voice replied, “Well, I am hungry.”

Neither of us could keep our composure after a few seconds and we both burst out laughing, the joyful sounds ending as our deep kisses returned. Damn. Just damn.

“How did I get so lucky that you’re mine?’ I whispered as I kissed down your neck.

Your fingers curled around the back of my neck and you took a deep breath. “Maybe I was made for you and you were made for me.”

I looked up at your face then, seeing all the love, the words, the moments, and the need we’d been holding onto for all that time.

“I love you. Like more than even makes sense to me, sweetheart.”

You nodded and smiled. “I love you too, Dean. Much more than I can say.”

I always thought it was super cheesy when in the movies or TV people would say that ‘oh, they made love.’ That was always kinda dumb to me. Until that night.

I thought I was going to cry as I slid deep inside of you, both of us groaning for a moment as we just felt each other. Fuck it was too beautiful. That want that had building up for so long was overwhelming. I held you tight against me as I pulled almost all the way out, both of us groaning louder as I pushed back into your warm, strong heat again. I could feel you clenching around me on the third thrust and I gasped, my mind an endless stream of ohfuckthisisgoodohfuckgodbabyyes as your hips raised up to meet mine.

I met your eyes as I felt you start to lose it, your nails digging in my shoulders. Kisses faltered to just lips on skin, and whispers of I love you. My hip twitched randomly and I felt my body giving way for you, like it’d follow you anywhere you wanted.

“Dean!” You cried out and I watched your face in awe as the orgasm erupted inside you. You’d never been more beautiful to me. Your moans reached something deep in me and I groaned, thrusting into you harder and harder until I came, white stars in front of my eyes as my body trembled over yours. I heard you gasp, groan my name and I muttered, “Oh god, yes yes baby, yes,” as I finished.

I have no idea how long I was laying on top of you, all hormone drunk and jello limbs. My lips found yours and I thanked you, a long kiss saying everything I should've before. Now you knew. And you loved me too.

I rolled you with me as I settled my back on the mattress, not wanting you farther away from me if I couldn’t be inside you for the time being. I listened to your breathing calm as I played with a strand of your hair. Closing my eyes, I smiled as your fingers meandered across my chest, resting over my heart.

“Dean?’

“Yeah sweetheart?”

“What now?”

I smiled and kissed your nose, looking into those eyes now bright with hope for our future.

“Now we do our thing. Be together. Hunt. Have amazing sex.”

You responded with a giggle and an affirmative “Hell yeah.”

I took a deep breath and paused for a moment, before tightening my grip on your arm.

“And maybe, well maybe one of these days I'll go and change your name.”

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, looking down at me with a grin before bursting out laughing. “Oh my god, you are such a sap.”

“What? Don’t you wanna be a Winchester?” I teased. There was that perfect laugh in response.

“I want to be yours.” You smiled, leaning down and pressing your lips to mine.

“Well good thing that you already are.” I replied softly.

I gazed at the bunker ceiling as you settled against my chest with a happy sigh. There wasn’t any question. You were everything. My laughter, my ninja, my strength. And now we both knew this was it and that we were meant to be.

I chuckled as I thought about what an idiot I’d been.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking, what if it all worked out after all.”

The room was quiet for a minute before you spoke.

“You’re so mushy, Winchester.”

“Oh that’s it!” My fingers went for your good side, your giggles music to my ears. We spent the rest of the evening in bed laughing, kissing, and making up for lost time.

Thanks for all the lovely feedback Click here if you need more Dean

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whispersandwhiskerburn · 7 years

Text

An All Hallows’ Haunting

Summary: Dean, Sam, and Reader take on a case featuring one of America’s oldest ghost legends: the Headless Horseman...who rides on Halloween. Pairing: Dean x Reader Word Count: 6,745....holy shit, how did that happen? Warnings: A few pieces of language, a bit of suspense...nothing really. Author’s Note: I tried to make this extremely canon-style in characterization, plot, everything. This is a late contribution to my dear friend @plaidstiel-wormstache‘s Halloween celebration (thanks for the prompt, patience, and proof-reading!). I actually met her last Halloween when she asked me to beta a The Nightmare Before Christmas x SPN fic , so when she hosted, I had to get a TNBC prompt for this fic: “She’s the only one who makes any sense in this insane asylum”. Look for it along with some familiar characters from Burton’s animated holiday classic. Feedback is always appreciated!

“Seriously, you guys don’t do anything for Halloween?”

You had found the Winchesters on a hunt back in January, and you and Dean had officially gotten together in April… this was your first fall with them and you couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. The younger one smiled wryly, “let’s just say it carries its own brand of nightmares.”

“Yeah, once you’ve dodged Samhain himself, the whole idea of celebrating the season kind of loses its shine…plus, you know, we’ve been kind of busy.”

You nodded, understanding. In the past few months you had been there as Dean darkened under the curse of the Mark and had helped the brothers patch it up after Sam had gone behind both of your backs to get it removed by Rowena. You understood why he had done it… and you couldn’t feel bad about it, no matter what happened with Amara.

You were thankful to have Dean back. You weren’t ashamed of that.

You tried to get them back to the lighter topics—a role you were used to filling with the Winchesters. “Come on! Costumes, candy, trick or treating, pumpkins… pie?” Dean chuckled, and you smiled, “fall has its plusses. Halloween’s only a few days away, and we haven’t made any plans!”

“Don’t get me wrong, Y/N, if you’re planning to dress up, I’m all in for that.” Dean quit wagging his eyebrows long enough to dodge the French fry his brother tossed at his head.

“Sorry you two—your dress up activities are going to have to be postponed. It looks like we might have a case.”

Dean sat up, and so did you, ready to be a bit more serious. Sam was scanning the computer screen in front of him.

“Charlie” Sam struggled with her name and all three of you flinched, “flagged this when she uploaded the men of letters files and a bunch of the hunter’s journals that we pulled out of Bobby’s storage—a reoccurring haunting. Dean, you remember the Morton house with the janitor guy who showed up every leap year?” Dean nodded, and you shrugged.

“Kinda like that. Except the pattern on this one is much more spaced out, which is probably why no other hunter has ever caught it. Apparently, every 24 years there’s a rash of beheadings on Halloween near a place called Tarrytown, New York, about a half hour north of Manhattan. The residents link it to a local legend and get this—the spirit of a headless horseman.” Sam scoffed the last words and Dean shot a quizzical look at you.

“You mean the dude with the pumpkin chasing the goofy looking guy in the cartoon?”

“You’re talking about the short story by… Irving, I think?” You thought back to your community college English class— “’The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. You’re telling me it’s real?”

Sam nodded, closing his computer. “According to Bobby, which is good enough for me. Looks like the horseman’s due to ride this year, so I’ll see you in the garage in ten?”

You slid back your chair, standing up at the same time Dean did. As Sam stalked off down the hallway, you pulled Dean close for a quick kiss.

“I’m taking a rain check on that dress up challenge, Winchester.”

He settled his hands at the nape of your neck, his fingers threading through your hair. “Oh, really? Have you got a French maid costume lying around somewhere?”

You kissed him again, then leaned back as your hands slid down his back to land on his narrow hips.

“Maybe. But now that you’ve put the idea in my head, I’m not gonna rest until I see this ass,” you squeezed his cheeks, and he settled his hips closer into yours, “in cowboy chaps.”

He was already leaning in for another kiss when he processed what you said, and leaned back to laugh—one of those good belly deep laughs that crinkled the corners of his eyes and brought an involuntary smile to your face. With everything going on, it was good that you were still able to make him let loose like that.

“Now come on, Cowboy. Let’s go take care of this horseman.”

He gave you a good ol’ boy wink and drawled, “yes ma’am.”

Trailing the Impala through the northern part of the country on your motorcycle had been a visual treat. You’d always enjoyed a long ride, the music in your one earbud the modern kind that Dean hated, and you could never get enough of, and the fall colors in the trees were just incredibly gorgeous.

They’d stopped a little way past Chicago for the night, and despite the good food, Sam and Dean had been in an irritable mood. Dean hated traffic and Sam had been trying to do research on the case, and had found that separating the fact from the fiction when it came to this famous ghost was a bit of a headache.

“It’s like researching Bloody Mary all over again,” he grumbled as they set off in the car again the next morning. You were relieved to get back to the drive—the brothers were less likely to be whiny when they actually got to the job.

You were surprised when you saw Dean flash his blinker, signaling a turn when the sign you just passed said Tarrytown was straight ahead. When he slowed at the next stop sign you pulled up beside driver’s door as he lowered the window, putting one foot on the ground as your bike idled.

“Sam’s found a current address to a contact from Bobby’s journal—a guy named Jack Bones. He lives kinda off the beaten track, but since we’ve only got two days till Halloween, we figured we’d stop there, see if he could fill in any blanks.”

You nodded your agreement, and Dean pulled out on the road again with you following.

It wasn’t a full ten minutes later when you reached the end of a rough driveway and found a huge garden, overflowing with pumpkins, complete with a sign detailing prices. You smiled, looking around to find the rustic house and it’s wrap-a-round porch. You decided immediately that you liked it, and whomever had decorated the porch with fall mums.

You had parked closer than the boys and you were already leaning down to smell the bright flowers when you heard the door slam on the Impala.

“Hello, there. Are you here to buy a pumpkin from the Pumpkin King?”

You looked up to see the skinniest man you’d ever laid eyes on—his eyes were sunken in, and for a moment, he seemed more like a walking skeleton than a human being. Then he stepped out into the sunlight, and you could see his bald head and wide welcoming smile.

You returned his smile, “no, sorry. I’m looking for a Jack Bones, not a Jack-o-lantern.”

You saw Dean and Sam out of the corner of your eye as they walked up behind you and you stood up.

“That’d be me—call me Jack. Doll?” He called back through the screen door into the house, “were we expecting company?”

“Not to my knowledge.” The feminine voice was followed by striking older lady with shoulder length auburn hair wearing a colorful sundress despite the chilly October air.

Sam took a step forward, smiling disarmingly. “Hi, my name is Sam Winchester, this is my brother Dean, and this is Y/N. We heard your name through Bobby—”

“Singer. Yeah he mentioned you two boys as well.” The smile was gone from the old man’s face and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Where is he? I’ve been expecting him for days.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks and you saw a hint of pain flash across their faces. You took Dean’s hand on instinct, squeezing it in support. You saw Mrs. Bones walk closer behind her husband, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Jack, but Bobby died almost three years ago.” You kept your voice gentle, sad to give the news. You’d never met the man who had helped raise the Winchesters, but you knew he had been a great man.

Jack nodded, his smile tightening to a thin line. “I thought that might be the case. It sure is going to make this thing harder though.”

The silence then was thick and awkward until Mrs. Bones stepped in front of her husband, “I’m sorry for your loss. My name is Sally. Would you like to come in? I’ve got an apple pie cooling off—and I’ve always found that hard news and hard times are made lighter with good food.”

Jack seemed to shake off his melancholy and turned to look down at the woman beside him, smiling. “Thanks, Sally.”

He turned to face us, “I always listen to her--she’s the only one who makes any sense in this insane asylum of a town. You folks come on in and we’ll talk about what Bobby left you to do.”

Sam stepped up on the porch and Dean followed, your hand still folded inside his.

“Local tales differ on who the Hessian is—it gets tangled up with the Sleepy Hollow legend that made the town famous, but Irving didn’t write that story until 1819, after the Horseman had already ridden once twenty years before that.

“The real story gets mixed up with that quite a lot.”

Jack was leaned back, having swallowed his slice of pie in about four bites, and seemed ready to tell a story. Dean had scored two slices with a compliment to Sally’s cooking, and she looked on him fondly as he obviously relished every bite. You and Sam were more interested in what Jack had to say than the pie, but you were both taking small bites to be polite.

“I noticed—trying to separate fact from fiction online was difficult. If it hadn’t been for Bobby’s notes, I wouldn’t have believed there was really anything supernatural here.”

Sally laughed at that, “oh, there’s definitely something supernatural here. The Hessian’s ghost gets hyped up for the tourists, but we grew up here—we know the truth. The Hessian is the boogeyman that parents frighten their kids with…until the 24-year mark get close, then the newest generation gets told the truth.”

You put your fork down, sliding what was left of your pie towards Dean. “That was delicious, Sally, thank you. Can you two tell us what you actually know for sure about this ghost?” Sally nodded, then gestured to Jack to do the talking.

“Well, what is generally known by everyone who grows up here and who is willing to believe is fairly straightforward. The horseman, we call him the Hessian, was 24 years old when he was executed by beheading. The man was a murdering coward in life: he killed his superior officer to advance in the ranks of the British army, but when the battles started to get heavy with the Continental Army, he deserted his men. Most of his battalion died. He was captured, tried, and found guilty before being executed on Halloween in 1775.

“Except he comes back every 24 years—this will be his tenth visit. It always starts on the full moon in October when the Hessian rides away from where the battle was fought and into the woods. He rides again every night after that, retracing his desertion. And on October 31st, at least one person in the surrounding area loses his head, quite literally. Then the Hessian vanishes for another 24 years.”

Jack gathered up the empty pie plates after Dean scraped the last of yours clean. He moved to the sink to wash them off and Sally picked up the narrative with the smoothness of a couple who has been together for a long time.

“It’s not the full story, but it’s enough detail to convince most kids to stay out of the way of the Hessian. Not that it does much good. The victims of the horseman are found along his ride, but most of them go missing from their homes, and sometimes they are tourists.”

Dean spoke up for the first time since the pie appeared: “there’s got to be something connecting them.”

Jack turned around, wiping his hands on a towel as he smiled, “yeah, Bobby said the same thing. I didn’t believe in the Hessian at all when I was a kid, but that ended when I saw him myself.”

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Unlucky.”

Sally muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Mr. Stubborn maybe.”

Jack came back to his chair, either not hearing or not acknowledging his wife’s comment. “I’ve been around for three visits from the Hessian so far. The first time, I was barely a toddler, so that one probably shouldn’t count…but growing up hearing the stories, I always assumed they were complete crap. So, when the next visit was due when I was 26, I decided to find out the truth for myself.”

“And I told you not to. ‘It’s a mistake, Jack!’ I believe were my exact words.” Sally’s voice was scolding, and you couldn’t help smiling at Dean. They were honestly shaping up to be relationship goals.

Jack still pretended not to hear her and soldiered on.

“That year, ’67—the same year as that car of yours, I think—the full moon was early in the month, more than ten days before Halloween. After hearing so much about it my whole life, and then watching the whole town close up early superstitiously for six days in a row and the bars filled with gossip and whispers, I went out to see for myself what was going on.”

He went silent again and his eyes took on that look that older people always have when they look back on the past.

“We’ll leave it at the fact that I saw him that night. If you three are going after the Hessian, you’ll see him for yourself, and you’ll understand why I don’t try to describe him now.

“In 1991, the town prepared to weather the Hessian’s rides and kills again the best way they knew how—spread the truth to the next generation, close up the town early, laugh it off to the tourists… the usual.” Jack shook his head, his face grim.

“Three people died that year. I knew the Hessian was real, that he was coming, and I did nothing, we all did nothing. And three people died. When Bobby Singer showed up a few days into November and started asking around, it didn’t take him long to find me.

“He sat where you are right now,” he gestured to Dean’s chair, “and the two of us talked about the Hessian and ghosts and the supernatural until he convinced me that the victims had to have something in common.

“So, we started digging. And we didn’t stop until we figured it out. Bobby promised he’d be back this year, or he’d send you boys to finish the job. The horseman’s been riding the past two nights, and the night after next, anyone who has ever ducked a responsibility that resulted in the death of someone else is going to end up as headless as the Hessian.”

You and Sam looked at each other wide-eyed. You hoped you heard wrong, “you mean the horseman goes after cowards?”

Jack made a face like he didn’t know how to word something. Sally stepped into the silence, “not really. The horseman’s victims all have something in common—they had willingly chosen to do something, then failed, and their failure resulted in at least one death. One woman who was beheaded last time was a foster mom and the child accidently drowned when she wasn’t paying attention, another was a safety inspector who signed off on a building that was structurally unsound and collapsed on three people a year later.

“We think he’s not just reliving his failure when he rides away from the battle every night after the full moon. We think he’s also administering the same judgment he received against anyone who committed his crime, since so many died because he abandoned his post.”

The tenseness of Dean’s shoulders wasn’t something you’d seen since the Darkness had been released…which was probably part of the problem. His mind was at the same place yours and Sam’s had gone—Dean, having lost the Mark and released the Darkness on the world, was exactly the type of victim the horseman would go after.

“Are you three okay?” Jack was quick.

Dean stood up from his chair, nodding to Jack and Sally, “thanks for the pie and the help.”

Then he turned and walked out. You shot another look at Sam, gesturing to the older couple, hoping he would come up with some kind of explanation, then you followed Dean outside.

He was leaning against Baby, his eyes on the trees across the road, but much further away.

“Dean, you okay?”

Dean’s eyes didn’t even attempt to meet yours. “Oh, I’m awesome. It’s just been a long two days on the road, and apparently, we’ve got to find a way to kill a ghost when we don’t have a body to salt and burn. And, oh yeah, my neck’s on the chopping block, or Sam’s might be, depending on who this horseman decides to blame for Amara.”

“Hey,” you cupped his cheek, waiting for him to look at you. “Even if that’s all true, we’ve faced lots worse and come out on top. We’ll get through this too.”

You heard the door shut and Sam was walking out to you. Dean shifted slightly, and you backed up, giving him his space.

“I made our goodbyes and got directions to the place where the horseman rides. I also got Jack’s number in case we run into any trouble, or so we can tell him when the job’s done.”

Dean nodded, opening the car door and sliding in. “Let’s go find a hotel and make some kind of plan then.”

He slammed the door shut in a way that telegraphed that his head was still up his ass, so you walked towards your bike. You shrugged at Sam’s raised eyebrow, knowing he’d probably get an earful on the way into town.

As much as you loved the man, sometimes Dean spent too much time and effort dwelling on guilt and things he couldn’t control.

It had been a tense night. It had started as a somewhat reasonable discussion of possible solutions and past cases—everything from a woman in white, to a racist truck, to apparently even a ghost ship that hunted down people who killed family members… the Winchesters really did have quite a resume on spooks.

Soon it had devolved into sullen silences as Dean’s mood continued to worsen as he dwelled on the Amara situation and the guilt he and Sam shared for releasing her. You felt a part of the guilt, but not as much as the boys—it always seemed to you like, ever since they saved the world the first time, they could never get that weight of responsibility off their shoulders.

You had a different outlook. You did what you could, while you could, and let the rest take care of itself.

In the end, it was a grim group that headed out after sunset. According to Jack’s information, we could count on the Hessian to ride tonight, and he only ever appeared along the same path, but not always at the same spots along that path—apparently, he would vanish and reappear as he went.

Sam had gotten a map, and the plan was for the three of you to spread out along the line Sally had drawn, since the ghost wasn’t attacking anyone tonight or tomorrow, and try to spot him. You’d meet up after midnight when the ride was over and compare notes, and, hopefully, figure out a way to gank the bastard tomorrow night.

On the television, Janice Huff had predicted 56° F temperatures tonight, so you had dressed accordingly as the boys suited up in their flannels. Dean was staying with Baby, you took your bike, and Sam was dropped off in between the two of you. He was the fastest runner of the three of you, so it was the most logical way to go, but you could tell it only worsened Dean’s mood.

Something else for the man to worry over.

You were brooding over Dean—his weird connection with Amara, the guilt and pain inside him, his stubbornness—when you realized that a mist had crept over the ground.

That had not been a part of Huff’s weather forecast.

You gripped your salt-shotgun tightly in one hand and opened the video group call you’d set up between you and Winchesters with the other.

“Guys, you seeing this?”

Static.

“Dean? Sam?”

Nothing.

Awesome.

You tucked the phone away and straddled your bike. The mist was getting thicker and the temperature seemed to have dropped at least five degrees in the last few minutes.

You started the motorcycle, and instead of reflecting the light from your headlamp, the mist seemed unaffected by the bright light, but the darkness above the mist was pierced, letting you see nearly 20 yards away—just in time.

He was taller than you expected.

The horse was more shadow and mist than real, but the horseman on his back was much more substantial… or as substantial as a spirit ever seemed to be.

The shoulders seemed far too broad without a neck or head on top. His uniform was mostly navy blue, but covered in mud and scratches. The sound of hooves was thundering, drowning out the growl of the bike between your legs and the pounding of your pulse in your ears.

You raised your shotgun to your shoulder, the hair standing up on your neck as he drew closer seeming to aim straight at you, even though you knew you were several yards to the side of his path. You calmed yourself with the knowledge that the Hessian was only going to ride straight by. He was going to keep going. He was not going to attack you. He was—

He was right on top of you.

And he knew you were there.

It was an unnerving sensation—he had no eyes, no reaction, he didn’t once break stride, but he was aware of you. And his awareness was cold, cunning, and powerful.

You pulled the trigger without any conscious decision to do so.

The shot seemed deafeningly loud to you, as if everything else in the world had been muted. Your aim was dead on, and the ghost vanished immediately following your shot, leaving you alone on your bike.

Alone except for the lingering malevolent feeling of being watched and the slowly dissipating mist.

It took a lot to shake you up, but you were officially dreading this hunt. Despite your attempts to make light of your encounter with the Hessian, the boys, who hadn’t seen him last night, had picked up on the fact that something was off.

It might have had something to do with the new screaming nightmare you had added to your collection. It was part of the job, but, somehow, this hunt was different.

Sam was trying to be logical and supportive—asking details, treating you like a witness or a victim on a case in an attempt to gather information and help you get past it.

Dean was playing the part of angry-protective lover.

“If he’s intelligent, and capable of deviating from his pattern, that might be a good thing. It means we can distract him from his pattern, agitate him. We’ll get him to chase us across running water or onto hallowed ground—either one should be the same as salting and burning the bones.”

“Good. This son-of-a-bitch has got to go. But no more splitting up.” Dean had nearly had a heart-attack after hearing your shot last night and not being able to get a call through to you.

You were glad he had gotten over his brooding spell, but this suffocating over-protectiveness wasn’t really an improvement.

“We’ll get the job done, Dean, whatever it takes. I definitely got the feeling he’ll remember me after last night, and we all know that you two will make tempting targets for him considering his preferred victims. I agree that drawing him in shouldn’t be too difficult.” You fought back an internal shudder at the thought of being in that presence again, then scolded yourself internally.

You’d faced so much worse than this ghost.

You realized that you had been pacing the small area between the beds and the door in this crappy motel when you saw the worried glance the brothers traded.

“Guys, I promise, I’m fine. He didn’t touch me. I’m just…antsy.”

“Maybe you should stay behind, Y/N—”

“Dean—” Sam tried to warn his brother off… rather pointlessly. Dean was nothing if not stubbornly protective.

“If this thing has singled you out, maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

You stopped your pacing with your back towards Dean, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath as you focused on the thought, he means well, he means well, he means well.

“And when you thought you or Sam might be the natural target? Did you think about tucking tail and running? Were you willing to take the coward’s way out and risk other people’s lives because of a possibility that you might be in danger? Be like the Hessian, you mean?”

You turned around to see him shifting uncomfortably on the bed and avoiding eye contact with you, because he knew that he would never have backed down from a hunt for that reason. Sam was pointedly looking at his computer and pretending he couldn’t feel the tension in the room.

Tonight was the last night the Hessian would ride without killing someone, at least traditionally. You had a feeling that your attack on him last night might have changed the status quo, but you didn’t have time to cajole Dean with reason.

Sometimes, the man needed to just be told what was what.

“I was on the job before we ever met, Dean. We all know the risks.” You gentled your voice, feeling guilty; you knew his reaction was instinctual and not intentionally insulting, “besides, we know the Hessian isn’t actually limited to his path—his victims get taken from their homes and hotels and left along the way. Staying away wouldn’t keep me any safer, and it certainly wouldn’t help gank this bastard.”

You went and sat next to him, and he finally made eye contact with you.

“So, let’s work together and figure out why he felt so much stronger than any other ghost I’ve ever tangled with. Sam? Any ideas on that?” You turned to face the younger Winchester as you threaded your fingers with Dean’s squeezing in confirmation that the two of you were okay.

He squeezed back.

“Well, there’s his age. Very few ghosts we’ve ever met have been haunting for 240 years. Then there’s the fact that he only seems to manifest for a week or two every ten years, which means he’s not really struggling with the pull of the veil and the mortal world the way most vengeful spirits do, so that might explain why he still seems methodical and not…” Sam trailed off, trying to think of a way to describe the average vengeful spirt you hunted.

“A rabid dog? On ghostly steroids?” Dean offered, and the three of you chucked, the tension finally easing a bit in the room.

Sam nodded, “exactly.”

You thought it out a bit, “and then there’s the fact that he seems to be linked with Halloween. If the legends are right, he was killed on the day, which is all kinds of supernaturally significant: crossing into the spirit world on the night when spirits have the easiest time crossing into the mortal world? And the full moon seems to have a role in this haunting and lore from all over the world links the lunar cycle with supernatural events. It’s no wonder he seems so much more than most ghosts.”

Dean squeezed your hand again, and you realized some of your inner dread had seeped into your voice while you spoke.

You forced yourself to sound more gung ho as you pulled your hand loose and clapped them together, “alright then! Let’s find us some old school holy ground or special running water to get rid of this thing once and for all.”

Dean studied you for a moment, and you knew he could see right through your false bravado. He let it go though, pulling out your computer bags from beside the bed so that you could join Sam in researching.

“Sounds like a plan, sweetheart.”

It had taken a few hours, but you had found a suitable plot of holy land: the site of a colonial church. Dean had taken a certain amount of sadistic pleasure in the idea of forcing a redcoat onto that land to kill him, which you had laughed at, telling him that the ghost’s uniform had actually been blue.

It had been the last moment of frivolity of the evening as you headed out to set up the trap.

Dean had wanted to have Sam on your bike and the two of you in Baby for the taunt and chase scene. You had told him that was stupid, and you weren’t letting Moose ride your girl. You had both backed off when Sam pointed out that the best method would be to keep everyone in one place, since the Hessian might have the ability to separate individuals anyway.

No need to make it easier on him.

You took the backseat since Sam had such a hard time fitting back there without laying out like he was going to take a nap. You had decided to start off where you had seen the horseman last night, and you waited with the car off, all of your eyes peeled for any sight of the ghost or of the strange mist that had preceded him before.

It didn’t take long for the anticipation to burn away to the boredom of any other stakeout.

“Here’s what I don’t get. Why did he go to you in the first place?”

Sam seemed almost disappointed, though whether that was a weird type of jealousy for a missed opportunity or just that he was stumped over a thought he’d apparently been chewing on for a while, it wasn’t clear.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dean turned to look at you, confused at your tone.

You kept your eyes out the window, even though the dark country view and the deserted lane wasn’t what you were really seeing.

“It’s another part of the job. We all accept responsibility when we take on a case. We promise ourselves that we’ll save everyone. We promise we’ll keep our loved ones safe.

“But we’re human. We hesitate. We make mistakes. And in this life, that means people die. It’s always been that way.”

You turned to look at Dean, hoping he would really listen to you. He needed to hear this even more than you needed to say it.

“So, when we lose people—family, like your parents, like Bobby; friends, like Kevin and Charlie, strangers like the ones that draw us to the cases we take on… we feel guilty about it. Even though we do all we can, we still feel like it’s all our fault, like we’ve failed in our responsibilities and someone else paid the price.

“And as long as we’re hunters, it will be that way, until we pay the price ourselves.”

There was a moment of silence in the car, then you continued in a low voice full of certainty. You understood your role in the world, and you understood this ghost.

“That’s why he’ll come after us. Not Amara or the Mark…it’s because we spend our lives taking on impossible fights, and we don’t back down even when we lose.” You looked back out the window, noting what might be the first wisps of mist.

“This guy ran before the fight and died because of it. Even if we weren’t actively hunting him, he’d probably be coming after us because we’re everything he should have been and didn’t have the strength to be.”

A silence descended in the car again that lasted much longer than seemed necessary.

“Damn, Y/N. Deep much?”

You shot a smile at Dean, then pointed towards the thickening mist creeping over the ground. “Looks like we’re about to get this party started, so the philosophical discussions are going to have to be put on hold, boys.”

A moment later the sound of hooves began to vibrate the frame of the vehicle and the mist parted enough to see the insubstantial shadow horse and the much more intimidating headless rider cantering towards them.

“Go, Dean, now!”

Dean cranked up the Impala and hit the gas, shooting down the road. Despite the growl of the 550 horses under Baby’s hood, the supernatural soldier still seemed to be gaining.

“Dean, he’s gaining, go!”

“We’re almost at the church site, how far off is he?”

“50 yards…45 yards… C’mon Dean… 30 yards… 20…”

Dean’s wheels squealed as he turned almost 180° to stare back at the Hessian. The three of you piled out of the car quickly, Sam passing out the salt guns just in case.

Your heart was hammering, watching the horseman come barreling towards you and feeling that awful intent bearing down on you, calling you.

“C’mon, you son of a bitch, c’mon…”

Dean’s mutter grounded you, kept you from panicking as your pulse matched the pounding of the ghostly hooves—and when the sound cut off, so did your heart.

He was gone.

Barely five yards from the boundary line, the Hessian vanished from the lane.

But you could still feel the eyes, the malevolent power in the air, mixing with the mist and raising every hair on your skin.

“Where is he? Can you guys see him?” Sam and Dean didn’t respond, and you looked around frantically.

You were alone.

You pulled your salt-shotgun up to your shoulder and fought back the fear.

“Dean! Where are you?!”

The mostly full moon cut through the ghostly mist as if it wasn’t there and you turned and twisted, wishing you had your back to something, wishing the Winchesters were here.

Then you saw him, looming out of the mist in front of you.

The Hessian, unhorsed, beheaded, and wielding a one-handed sword and standing stock still. It was impossible to say that he was looking at you since he had no eyes, but every muscle and instinct in your body tensed for the fight you could practically taste in the air around you.

You braced and fired, pumped the gun to reload and fired again, all in seconds, sinking two rounds of rock salt center mass in the spirit in front of you.

“Y/N!” Dean was coming.

The Hessian vanished, but the presence was still there. But now, so was Dean, with Sam right behind.

“Are you okay? He snatched you somehow. The church grounds are about 10 yards that way.”

“He’s here somewhere. I got him with rock salt, but he’s not gone. I can tell.”

“There!” Sam pointed at the stalking figure of the headless man and all three of you aimed, but only Sam and Dean got a shot off this time. The ghost vanished, but the anger in the air seemed to increase, the mist having risen from ankle to waist high.

“Guys, we have to get him closer to the border line, force him over somehow.” You started backing towards the direction they came from and you fell into a familiar formation, you leading the way, Sam watching the retreat and Dean between the two of you, alternating from side to side to cover as many angles as possible.

“He was supposed to chase us over the line. How the hell do we get him across now?”

You could see the car ahead and knew you were close to the boundary line, but Dean had pointed out the main problem now.

“I’ve got an idea. Can you two buy me a few minutes? Keep him distracted.” Sam passed you, heading for the Impala while you and Dean went back to back to narrow the angles.

“C’mon you British asshat! Aren’t you sick of running away like a little bitch?”

You loved the man, but Dean was never good with subtlety.

The Hessian formed right in front of him, sword swinging at neck height for the decapitating blow. “Y/N, duck!” You dropped and rolled, coming up on one knee with your gun up. Dean was blocking the sword strokes with his shotgun, but each hit drove him back a step, the power of each swing enough that Dean was quickly losing ground, the sound of metal on metal clanging through the air.

You couldn’t get a clear shot off, so you got up and ran closer, not knowing what you were going to do, but knowing you had to do something.

“Y/N, take this!”

Sam was there, knocking your gun away and shoving something cold, heavy, and metallic into your hands.

“Clothesline him!” He pointed to one side of Dean who, you now realized, was deliberately losing ground to draw the Hessian closer to the border line.

You ran, gripping the metal in your hands tightly as it dragged then went taunt.

“Dean, hit the ground!” Sam’s voice was loud and just in time to avoid hitting Dean with the chain that you realized was stretched between you and Sam. Dean dropped, and though you expected the chain to go through and dissipate the ghost, instead it hit him square in the back, hard enough that you and Sam both swung closer towards him, your momentum dragging him forward.

The chain wrapped around the horseman, dragging him forward the last few feet and across the border onto what used to be church property in his time, and what was still considered hallowed ground.

The chain grew hot in your hands as the Hessian shook and burned, the air growing sharp as the cold intelligent hate you had felt since his appearance crystallized into a mind-piercing screech of pain.

He flickered, flickered, and vanished.

The chain fell to the ground, the mist vanished, and, most telling of all, the malevolent feeling that had been present for every moment of the Horseman’s presence was gone completely.

You flexed your hands, slightly burned and sore from gripping the chain, as you walked closer to Sam and Dean just a foot away from where the Hessian disappeared.

“You guys okay?”

Dean was standing up, brushing dirt off his knees and his now very scarred gun. He nodded briefly, but couldn’t seem to find words. Sam shook his hands, ran them through his hair then shrugged, “I’m fine. You?”

You nodded then kicked at the heavy chain laying on the ground, “what is so special about this thing?”

Dean leaned over and picked it up. “It was Bobby’s. We used it before on a ghost—a buruburu, actually.”

He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts as he hauled it back to the trunk, so you turned to Sam for further explanation.

“It’s an iron chain etched with spell work. When he didn’t follow the plan, I had to think fast.” Sam shrugged, like it had been no big deal to make that leap. As much as you could admire the looks of them, sometimes, you were amazed by the brains alone inside these Winchesters.

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you did. Anyway, you’d better call Jack, let him know that Tarrytown’s Hessian is gone for good.” Sam nodded, taking his phone out as you walked over to Dean.

He had just finished putting away his gun and the chain, but when he heard you, he turned and pulled you into his arms. You felt the shudder of relief go through him and relaxed a bit yourself now that it was over.

It had been a close one.

You stood up on your tiptoes and found his mouth with yours, pressing a sweet slow kiss to his full lips. Just as it was starting to heat up, you leaned back and gave him your coyest smile.

“And as for you, Monsieur Cowboy,” you said in your best approximation of a French accent, “I believe we have some Halloween plans back at the bunker.”

Dean’s smile was predatory as he pulled you into another kiss, “oui, m’dame.”

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#1500ghouls #HalloweenStories #spn fic #dean x reader #canon style #sfw #headless horseman #haunting #halloween fic #so long #it's been forever since I posted #feedback would be great!

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octaviainthewasteland · 7 years

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from December to August

Fandom: Free!

Characters: Nanase Haruka, Matsuoka Rin

Summary: They folded the blanket, trying to shake the wet sand off, and for some time they did not talk, listening to the quiet wash of the waves, to the rustle of the sand beneath their feet, to the creak of sneakers, as they climbed the stairs.

Written for Maki @hinadoria Thank you @free-exchange17 for organizing the exchange!

You can read it on AO3

P.S. Maki, please tell me if I’ve put the correct nickname of the giftee on AO3

In the beginning of December, two young men, hidden from the view of an occasional passer-by, sat on a blanket, the corners pressed down by heavy backpacks, on the beach of a small coastal town Iwatobi.

Every winter Iwatobi was becoming a little ghost town, like any other resort town. Picturesque narrow and curvy streets were empty when artists cleaned their stands with watercolor landscapes, caricatures of celebrities and tourists, and postcards. The souvenir shops hid fake-gold and carved wooden figurines in boxes, so they were not just collecting dust on the shelves. Five-story buildings on the outskirts were emptying out, because no one was renting an apartment, while small villas by the beach were standing like forgotten exhibits in the museum's closet, with hollow black windows, electricity and water supply piped off, a canopy covered with tarp to protect from leaks of long winter rains and tramps that try to sneak in to spend the night. The sand seemed gray beneath the cloudy sky, and only a few brave men were walking around the embankment, wrapped from head to foot. Damp northern wind could find the smallest gaps – dare to go out without the scarf or do not zip up jacket and you’re doomed.

From the quay down to the sea, a staircase of wide concrete slabs was descending, edged with rocks, huge, faded and cracked under the sun and wind. At the bottom stood a crooked feeble foot sprinkler. Nonsense, of course. While climbing up the stairs, again one would end up with a shoe full of sand.

During the summer season, local people worked or escaped somewhere amidst the wild beaches and bays, away from the quay, crowded with beggars, thieves, and tourists. Yet in winter this place was always deserted, and since school days they stopped here, open to the winds and cold, and heavy salty air, that clamped their hair and salted their lips. There was a distant smell of fish and seaweed, from the market down the road. Haru used to accompany his mother to that market, she would squint, examining the mackerel, and he would look those fish in the eye, black and blank.

For some reason, he has never gone there without his mother. Instead, he went to the little store closer to his house, not that it was objectively better or worse. Sometimes Makoto would bring him groceries, but Haru had no way of knowing where he bought that, and he did not care enough to ask.

They sat leaning on their backpacks, watching the smooth dark surface stretched towards the horizon, occasionally disturbed by tiny ripples. Rin was glancing at Haru sometimes from the corner of his eye, maybe a bit jealous of how Haru’s unperturbed beauty matched the calm melancholy of Iwatobi. His skin that was almost translucent, all colors washed out by the gleaming waters of the swimming pool; his short black hair twisting underwater like some kind of wicked kelp; his face of sharp features, crinkle between brows, pointed chin, bony fingers and eyes of the palest blue. The high winter sky, pierced by a single cold sunbeam.

They were both pathetically poetic, yet Rin was just a tad more vocal about his thoughts.

Haru pulled the puffer coat over his knees and wrapped his scarf around his mouth so that only his reddened nose and the tips of his worn-out sneakers were sticking out. Rin snorted: like a neglected street kid, this punk was still wearing the same sneakers he did back when he was sixteen. Those were good shoes, sure, and the soles were still intact, but the thing was that Haru could have afforded five or ten pairs of new ones, he was just being difficult. Same swimming trunks, same sneakers, same hat with threads sticking out.

“You’re coming by tonight, right? Gou would be happy to see you, you know.”

Haru murmured something in reply, but it got muffled by the thick scarf. He was not bothered by being alone at the house, and then guys would often show up anyway. Nagisa would finish all his food for the week and would not even attempt to be subtle, nonchalantly dropping his sleeping bag in the living room. To be honest, Haru did not mind. It was nice.

It was a bit too early for them to be around, though, with the end of the semester and the middle of finals. Rin and Haru earned a small break after a competition, and they were chosen to be in the national team, and it meant that for the first time they were on the same team, and they’re off in a couple of weeks. It went without saying to board the train and find themselves on the Iwatobi station on a chilly morning. The station is a bit of a strong word; there was a stand with the name, a bench and a little pastry shop nearby.

They ended up on the beach, and Haru thought that he should have first gone to his house to turn on the heating. By the time he would come back, it would be nice and warm. His parents were in Korea, but they promised to come around for Christmas. Before their arrival, Haru had all the time in the world to himself. Constant traveling and locker rooms, and shared showers, and double motel rooms – it was tiring. Rin did not seem affected; he raveled in socializing, team-bonding, interviews.

They folded the blanket, trying to shake the wet sand off, and for some time they did not talk, listening to the quiet wash of the waves, to the rustle of the sand beneath their feet, to the creak of sneakers, as they climbed the stairs. Rin grinned and let out a loud ciao and shoved his shoulder, urging him to come to the dinner at their house. Haru waved him off, thinking about nothing – everything – and promptly realized at his doorstep that there was nothing to eat. On some bizarre whim, after dropping off his belongings, he got his wallet and rushed back outside. Not to the nearby store, a small pink building wedged between a used-items store, money from sales of which go to cancer research, and a building that was filmed either by the business school or by a local religious cult. On the door, the inscriptions were duplicated in English, although no one from staff spoke any of it. Haru passed it, heading down to the market. In summer the town turned into a lazy beehive of charred sweaty bodies in colorful shirts and straw sunhats, and the market turned into another attraction, red and golden paper lanterns, stalls with games, souvenirs, glass decorations and street food.

Now it was dead. No stalls, no music, no people. He just stood there, trying to remember the feel of his mother’s hand, the push of the crowd, the color of Rin’s yukata.

They had not talked much, both so busy, changing locations and phone numbers. Then they met at those trials, and Rin immediately went for a hug, and Haru somehow realized he was so so tired. Before he could remember that hugging back is a thing, Rin withdrew, and like a fool, Haru almost chased after him – next moment they were surrounded by people, who were for some reason amazed that they knew each other. Unabashedly, Rin blurted out that obviously Nanase Haruka was secretly his biggest fan, and everyone laughed.

Somehow afterward they never parted.

Haru came back home yet again without any food. He briefly considered delivery, but then decided to just go to sleep earlier.

Then the doorbell rang, and he knew who it was, and he stumbled at the door, the hand not quite touching the knob.

Who was he kidding? He always opened that door, and he always let him in, and followed him, run after him. All the teenage angst and ‘I wanna swim with you’s and knowing looks shared before races.

Rin was everywhere and everything and Haru let him shrug and complain about inside being even more freezing than outside, and put the food on the table, berating him for breaking Gou’s heart by being a freaky hermit.

At the end of August, two young men sat on a small balcony of a cheap hotel room, drinking Pocari and Coke, in the middle of Tokyo.

Summer was hot and sweaty, and they were both in shorts and tanks, Rin’s hair in a ponytail, he stretched over his plastic chair in a dramatic exhausted pose. Bandages were clinging to their skin, and they were waiting until the conditioner would bring the room to a less scalding temperature.

In two days they had to move: Rin back to Australia, Haru to semi-finals in Europe.

Haru got up, wincing, feeling the dull ache in his muscles. Without command, his fingers reached out and brushed the tanned shoulder, hooking the strap of the tank top.

“Rin,” he said, soft and easy.

Rin smiled with his eyes still closed.

#free! gift exchange 2017 #rinharu #rin matsuoka #haruka nanase #haru #hinadoria

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grumpyzutara · 7 years

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The Path of Least Resistance

Most soulmate AUs in the ATLA universe have all been done, I just hope you enjoy this unoriginal take. Part 1 of 4 for the Soulmate Series.

(1) (2) (3) (4)

It was a searing pain unlike anything Katara ever knew. She bolted up from her sleeping roll in the family hut, screaming. Her family quickly woke up to find her curled in on herself. When her mother unwrapped her, they gasped at the burn that had formed on her face. Fresh and colored, they expected to smell burnt flesh but oddly didn't.

This was how her family knew she had a soulmate somewhere in the world.

Not everyone was born with a soulmate. It was debatable whether having a soulmate was a good thing or not, when you took on every wound the other had. The older couples enjoyed knowing that they would die together, but the young kids always had trouble coming to terms with the process.

Katara thought she didn't have a soulmate. In over 10 years, she hadn't obtained anything that wasn't of her own doing. There might have been a few bruises or small cuts that she didn't remember, but they were easy to dismiss.

This was not easy to dismiss. It wasn't even easy to stomach. The raw pain – what could be happening to the other person then? What situation were they in?

They slipped Katara a sedative and she started to dose off, that or pass out from the pain.

"We need to find her soulmate, they need to be protected too." Kya said while wrapped in Hakoda's arms. "Let's say they're an Earth Kingdom boy and the Fire Nation just attacked his town. Or even a Northern Water Tribe girl who got too close to the fire out of negligence. But what if it was something worse...I can't help but think it is something worse."

Hakoda rubbed her shoulders, "But where would we start? The colonies? It could be a kid in the Fire Nation for all we know. All we can do right now is care for Katara."

"I had really hoped that she had lucked out and didn't have a soulmate like Sokka. I know they say it's not linked to being a bender, but I think it must. We both fell in love on our own. No destiny but our own." Kya sighed, sinking back into his warmth, wishing for a simpler time. The war was closer to their doorstep every summer and now Katara was the last waterbender of the whole tribe.

"Yes, I'm thankful that you found me. And whoever is her soulmate will probably be just as thankful when Katara finds them."

Katara's family helped her recovery, but a scar lasted on her face. Her left eyesight wasn't as good as her right and her left eyebrow was completely gone. The only good thing about the scar was that she didn't have to think about looking good for a future suitor; her soulmate would have the matching scar. What a pair they would look like.

But then a series of events changed everything. The Fire Nation attacked, killing her mother. She found the Avatar in the ice. She felt this urge to leave the Southern Water Tribe.

So Katara left the only place she had ever lived.

Sokka and Aang were chatting on top of Appa when something in the corner of her good eye caught her attention.

"Is that a Fire Nation ship?" She asked, moving to get a better angle.

"Ya, and it looks like it's headed toward the village. We need to turn back, now!" Sokka yelled, clamoring for the reins in Aang's hands.

"They'll be looking for me. What should I do?"

Katara evaluated the situation. She couldn't resist the urge pulling her away from home. It was telling her to run, sprint, swim, anything to get toward their destination faster. It wasn't hard to convince Aang to make an airbending display, taunting whoever was searching them to follow but they outpaced the ship easily.

When they made landfall in the Air Nomad Islands, Katara figured the draw of the horizon would settled down, but if anything it was stronger. This is how it was for weeks. They traveled through all sorts of lands and islands, meeting hundreds of new faces – none with scars like hers and a constant drive to something in the distance. Though they never caught wind of who was following them, word kept making it to them that a Fire Nation ship was in the distance, following their path.

It was a weird type of pull. It would be like taking 5 steps forward and 1 step right, only to turn and go 12 steps in the other direction. She couldn't get a handle on where she needed to be. It wasn't a specific location.

Now a year after leaving the Southern Water Tribe, months after the victory in the Northern Water Tribe, after seeing Ba Sing Se fall, Katara no longer felt the pull. She almost sat down on the packed dirt floor of the Western Air Temple, she didn't want to move a muscle. So she waited.

The banished Fire Prince Zuko had a different handle on this whole soulmate business, he liked to call it. He wasn't sure that it was real. If it was he felt extremely sorry for the person who had to endure his burn with him. At least he had a warning before the burn. Then he had to ignore the subtle desire in the pit of his stomach to drop everything and search for his soulmate.

But the search for the Avatar was more important.

Some days, he wondered if the Avatar was his soulmate. The clues to where the Avatar was and the need to chase someone aligned more often than not. It would be an ironic twist of fate. But none of the whispers of Aang's name mentioned a scar, only a bald head and arrow tattoos.

He chased both the Avatar and his soulmate all over the globe, always missing the group by a day. He gave up for a time in the Earth Kingdom, went where his Uncle wanted instead. But he had an epiphany in Ba Sing Se. If his soulmate was working with the Avatar, would he join or keep with his mission of capturing the Avatar?

There was only one way to find out. This time, focusing on where he was pulled, he found the group in a few days. It was tricky figuring out how to get under the cliff and once he reached the main level he didn't know what to do. His entrance sure caught everyone's attention though.

"Hi, uh, Zuko here. I've kind of been following you guys?" He shuffled his feet, feeling awkward until his eyes locked on a girl with a familiar scar.

"You!" Shouted everyone. Katara was shocked to see someone with a matching scar, to finally see her soulmate. Sokka was upset that the rumors were true and the Fire Nation Prince following them was also Katara's soulmate. Most others were just upset to see that he had found them at last.

"Alright, everyone quiet down. What's all the hollering about?" A small girl stomped her foot, shaking the whole temple.

After hashing out motives and future goals as a team, Katara and Zuko sat alone on the edge of the floor, looking out at the canyon. What was there to say? It was obvious that they were supposed to be soulmates, but it's not something you can just jump into.

"I thought you hated us. Our group. Our mission to stop your father." Katara said in a hushed tone.

Zuko didn't look at her when he replied. "At first, I did. I wanted to end everything you wanted to achieve...but I didn't realize it was you. Then I – well, in the years since you got your burn, how did you think I got mine? What are your guesses?"

"Sometimes I would think it was a careless mistake. Other times you had been tortured. I could never figure it out." She slid over, bumping her thigh with his. "Want to tell me the truth?"

"My father," he started to say, falling short on his words. "When I was young, all I ever wanted was my father's approval. But then I said the wrong thing at the wrong time and it went down from there...In the Fire Nation we have duals for our honor called Agni Kai. And I had to go up against my father who decided a just punishment was to burn me instead.” Zuko couldn’t stop the flinch when Katara's hand softly touched his scar. He noticed that she was touching her face as well. Their physical connection.

“It’s weird. They feel so similar, but because I can’t feel my hand, it’s off.”

Zuko's hand slid under hers, feeling her burn for the first time. She was right. Familiar but different. That’s what Katara was. They had felt the same physical incidents that had shaped their lives, but had taken two very different paths.

“Do you think we can make this work?” his voice was quiet and unsure, he felt so bare before her.

“Yes Zuko, I think we can make this work.” She leaned up and kissed his burn before getting up. “Now, let’s see how good you are in sparing. I’ve heard quite a few rumors.”

Zuko popped up, “The same goes for tales of the last Waterbender from the South.”

#soulmate series #zutara #my writing #technically part of #zutara week 2017 #just a month late

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respheal · 7 years

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Let me share with you the adventures of a mage called Wesley Fitch and his group of friends allies companions:

This is sort of in the middle of the adventure but it’s the only one I’ve written up so far, so to fill you in: we’re all cursed and doomed to die probably within a month (or less). We’ve been journeying around various countries trying to find a way to break the curse, usually getting nothing more than a hint pointing us to the next piece of the puzzle. Recently, one hint indicated that more information about the curse--if not the cure itself--might be found in the northern country of Lod.

And so:

We were trying to catch a boat to Lod from this port town, and the only boat going to Lod was this little ship called the Pygmion on its maiden voyage. We tried to buy tickets, but the only tickets were 100 gold each and the five of us only had a total of ~130 gold (100 of that belonging to our gunslinger, Otto)

So we pulled away from the ticket booth to figure out what to do when we notice this young man sitting on his luggage with a ticket sticking out of his back pocket. After some deliberation, we sent the thief, Buddy, to go steal the ticket. He succeeded, but we still needed four more tickets.

However, someone noticed us steal the ticket and came over to us with a deal: “I'll provide the tickets, but in exchange I want you to steal a magical artifact for me, a gem with powerful curative properties: The Heart of the Desert.”

Seeing no other option, we took the deal and boarded the boat.

As we were waiting on the boat to leave, we noticed the man from earlier--from whom we had stolen the first ticket--trying to get on the boat, but he couldn't find his ticket. We felt bad about it but couldn't really do anything, but then a nice man paid for the missing ticket. (During this exchange we learned that the man was an artist who had been commissioned to restore a painting in Lod.)

Anyway, we're all on the boat now, and Wesley uses Detect Magic to identify the bearer of the magical gem. We figure out that it's that guy who just bought the artist a ticket.

We speak to a guard and learn that the trip will take two days, so we decide to run the heist on the second day and spend the first day just mulling about on the ship. Otto, who had the artist’s ticket, ends up getting access to a VIP suite while the rest of us are basically crammed into a glorified cargo hold with the hapless artist (whose name, we learn, is Atticus). Ryla, the bard, and Wes discuss certain magical situations while Mogar (the barbarian, a beast woman) lurks on the deck and winds up stopping Atticus from jumping off the boat.

The second day of the trip rolls around and we make plans for stealing the gem. Our plan is to find the gem and then have Ryla create a distraction with her lute while Buddy steals the gem. Wes gets a little closer to the man to try another Detect Magic to find the gem, but instead he learned that the man doesn’t have it on him. However, he does overhear the man’s conversation: The gem could cure the curse afflicting the group, but the man intends to bring it to Lod to cure everyone afflicted (not just us).

Suddenly we've got this dilemma: let the man keep the gem (and we're not 100% we'll be able to save our own hides if he does--we've probably only got weeks left to live) and risk getting in trouble with the man who sold us the tickets?

After some debating, Wes says, "We'll decide later, but I want to at least see this gem--maybe we can figure something out."

So the heist is on.

Ryla and Mogar stay on the passenger floor in case we need a distraction (and to reduce the number of people getting potentially caught) and Wes, Buddy, and Otto head on up to the VIP floor of the boat where there's four bedrooms. Detect Magic again: one room has three artifacts, another room has just one, none in the other two.

I figure this guy probably has more than just the ruby so we check out the room with the three artifacts.

One of the artifacts is a bracelet on the dresser. Wes checks it out and identifies it as a useful enchantment allowing one to take upon oneself another’s bad luck (In DnD meta, it allows you to take someone else’s critical fail). He pockets it because why the heck not.

The other two artifacts in the room are in the safe, so we ask the thief to have at it

.......................He fails. Miserably. He sets off the alarm.

Thinking quickly, Wes yells at Buddy and Otto to hide. They both dive under the bed and Wes uses Disguise Self to pretend to be one of the boat guard.

At this point I should mention that Disguise Self has been a bit of a meme for this campaign. In fact, just before this Wes basically swore off ever using it again because of the disastrous situations it’s gotten us into previously (mainly the event in which he impersonated the captain of the knights to steal Buddy’s pet lizard...thing, ended up getting chased down and nearly killed by the same captain a couple days later for the impersonation and a myriad of other small crimes we had committed up to that point (we are not good people)).

But here we are, and the Disguise Self shenanigans return. Wes is now one of the guards keeping order on the boat.

Another real guard shows up at the door and Guard!Wes pretends that he had already been investigating the room. Guard!Wes directs the guard to go check out one of the other rooms, which the guard does.

In the meantime, Ryla and Mogar are still downstairs. They hear the alarm go off and, realizing that of course that's us, they try--horribly--to make a distraction, mostly by arguing over who's going to punch who--Mogar would probably accidentally kill Ryla and Ryla wouldn't do much to Mogar.

Back upstairs, while Wes is trying to figure out how the heck to get Otto and Buddy into the other room to find the gem, a woman rushes into the room freaking out about her stolen bracelet--this is her room.

"Ma'am--M--MA'AM. PLEASE. Let us do our investigation!" Wes tries to convince the woman to leave the room, even trying to suggest the impropriety of him being alone in the room with her, but the woman ends up insisting that she stay in the room while the investigation happens, so out of frustration Wes casts Sleep on her.

..Unfortunately it ends up being the strongest Sleep spell he's ever cast, so a couple people on the main deck and a random passerby in the hallway also pass out. So people are just randomly collapsing to the ground on this boat now. A patrolling guard catches the random man in the hallway as he collapses, but at this point the guard is starting to panic: there’s alarms going off, the passengers are restless and panicked, there’s a “fight” going on downstairs, and now people are randomly collapsing.

Guard!Wes convinces him to go check out the downstairs--Never fear, Guard!Wes is here to watch over things. The guard, relieved at the show of authority, runs off downstairs to break up the fight.

With the woman fast asleep, Otto and Buddy come out from under the bed and we make a new plan: Otto is going to have to get caught.

Otto runs out into the hallway at full speed. Guard!Wes sticks his head out of the door, looking as if he had just been in a scuffle, and yells, "He’s getting away!”

The guard who was in the other room we were trying to get into runs out, sees Otto, and gives chase.

Otto's got a peg leg, mind you, but by sheer force of adrenaline he books it down the hallway, just out of the guard’s reach at all times, and ends up drawing several other guards into the chase allllllllllllll over the boat.

So now you've got this yakety sax chase scene going on, and in the meantime, Buddy and Wes run into the other room and sure enough--there's another safe

Buddy's losing determination at this point--too much stuff going on and we’re not even sure if we’re doing the right thing (we definitely aren’t). Even Wes is starting to have a bit of a crisis at this point, but he pushes Buddy into opening the safe--there's sort of no turning back at this point.

Buddy tries to pick the safe lock once, fails...

Twice...fails again.

We're really panicked at this point.

But on the third try he gets it, and there's the ruby.

We hear footsteps in the hallway

Buddy dives under yet another bed and Wes pockets the ruby and then goes to the door. A guard is there, saying that they've captured Otto, but he doesn't have the stolen bracelet on him. However, he looks pretty shifty (he does), and they think he's got accomplices on the ship, so they're rounding up all the lower-class passengers to investigate and Guard!Wes needs to come help.

On the way down, Wes stuffs the stolen bracelet in a vase while the real guard isn’t looking (intending to frame someone else for it later--likely the artist).

After all the passengers are rounded up, the guards are commanded to frisk the passengers looking for the bracelet, so Wes rushes over to "frisk" Ryla and Mogar, but really to let them know that it's him in disguise

...........IN THE MEANTIME:

Back in the room where Buddy is still hiding under the bed, never having found an opportunity to escape unnoticed, two men enter the room: the owner of the ruby, and the artist. Turns out that the nice man asked the artist to join him in his room for a painting session. Very "paint me like one of your french girls" if you catch my drift.

This is going on while Buddy's under the bed and he's dying inside a bit here. During this painting session, the man decides to show the artist his prized treasure to give the artist some inspiration....

He looks in his safe......and freezes.

The gem's been stolen.

He freaks out and runs out of the room to alert the guards. The artist, saddened that the man didn't even look at his painting, leaves despondently, giving Buddy a chance to escape.

After frisking the passengers and, of course, finding nothing, Gaurd!Wes takes a moment to duck out of the commotion to undo his Disguise Self spell in the shadows of the deck. He comes back out of the shadows, back to normal, and spots a woman on the deck who hadn’t been there previously. He asks the woman how long she’s been there since he hadn’t seen her before and the woman briskly states that of course she only just got here, her shift on deck just barely started. Wes, still slightly perplexed, leaves to go meet back up with Mogar, Ryla, and Buddy. (Otto is, at this point, on the deck in a stockade, getting food thrown at him.)

At this point we’re all mostly gathered back together and mixed in with the rest of the cabin-fare passengers. We notice that the passengers seem a bit nervous and there’s muttering, but we don’t have time to worry about that because the man who originally asked us to steal the ruby finds us and demands to know if the heist succeeded.

Wes, who currently has the ruby hidden in his robes, says, “No. We weren’t able to crack the safe.”

“You’re joking,” the man replied flatly. “If you’re lying, you will regret this.”

“How about you tell us what you really plan to do with the ruby to convince us to steal it for you.”

At this point, there’s a sudden outburst. The man from whom we stole the ruby crashes into the cabin and yells that his ruby’s been stolen. This would have been extremely bad, if we didn’t get worse news immediately after. The muttering of the passengers grew to a fever pitch and we could no longer ignore it: “What’s the captain thinking? He’s going to run us right into that iceburg!”

We break away from the man and run to the ship’s bridge, but two female guards are blocking the door. We ask to see the captain, but they insist that the captain is fine and is piloting the ship without issue. Seeing no other option, we initiate combat with the guards--and quickly realize that we’ve met before: the guards are actually mermaids who tried to kill us on a previous adventure because they reaaaaaaaaaaaaally hate men (Incidentally one of the nice mermaids turned Ryla into a mermaid as well in this previous adventure--she’s fine as long as we splash water on her every once in a while).

Now even more compelled to get through to the captain, we dispatch the mermaids (non-lethally, which, like many things, is bound to come back and bite us in the butt later) and break into the bridge--unfortunately the captain is out cold, and the only guy with a chance in hell at piloting the thin is currently in the stocks--Otto.

Buddy runs down as fast as he can to the stocks, picks the lock, frees Otto, and they run back up to the bridge--but it’s too late: the ship crashes into the iceburg.

The ship starts sinking and we really have no way out of this. The bow of the ship hoists into the air as the stern sinks into the icy depths. Some of the passengers make it to life boats, but our group has no such luck and, in the end, we find ourselves dangling from the boat’s rails along with the artist and the man we stole the ruby from, Rory.

Seeing as we're pretty much screwed, we throw the man a bone a confess that we stole the ruby--sorry! And that we stole the artist's ticket--also sorry!

Mogar yells, “What is this, confession hour?!”

We fall into the water.

Fortunately, Ryla gets her first opportunity to try out her mermaid form and gathered enough floating debris from the ship to keep us afloat. We save Atticus, the artist, as well, but Rory is lost to the depths. While we’re left floating and freezing, Ryla swims to land (which fortunately isn’t far away at this point), and puts together a rescue party in time to save us.

In the end we made it to Lod, and nearly everyone who might have caused problems for us further down the road perished, so all in all we were lucky...

...Except at this point Wes checks his robes.

The ruby, the Heart of the Desert, is gone, lost in the ocean forever.

(To be continued...?)

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #dnd campaign #honestly when I put together Wes' sheet I had no idea he'd be such a habitual liar #and actually sort of good at lying #it's scary #he's also a butt monkey

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eldbitch-horror · 7 years

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Lost Aggressive Youth (Part 1)

Read it over yonder way if ya would like, or to leave a kudos! Feel free to reblog with commentary or critique! Commissioned by the lovely @thisismydesignhannibal :3

A small boat drifted lazily along he east coast, traveling “The Great American Loop”. It’s destination was Baltimore, and it was nearly there. A young man sat on the deck of the boat, admiring the large buildings in the distance. They would be reaching port within the hour, and he couldn’t wait. Despite the fact, the home they were going to wasn’t much of anything, outside of Baltimore and just barely livable. It was good enough though, and a nice change from all the people at home.

Once the boat was in port, he quickly helped get it docked, the shipyard workers greeting his father by name. He had connections everywhere from the Navy apparently. He was quick to run up the dock, glad to be able to stretch his restless young legs. The boat ride had been long, and his cheeks were rosy from the sunlight, freckles dark over his cheeks and nose. His hands were already calloused at his young age, worn from working on the boats with his dad. He loved it though, even if he had scars riddling different parts of his body from it. A large one on his hand from a motor, a few scattered on his arms from stray branches while he ran like a wild child in the woods. A few bruises on his knees and shins, mostly from crawling around for various play and boat work.

“William, you be back home by sundown, you got me?” his father called, and Will yelled back to him as he ran up the grassy trail,

“Yes daddy, I promise!” he then ran off down the shoulder of the road, towards the little town. He had some change in his pocket, and ice cream sounded amazing. Mr. Crawford scolded him for coming into the store barefoot, but was glad to see him. As he walked to the counter to pay for his cone, skillfully balanced two ‘scoops’ of ice cream that would probably satisfy a mammoth, a young man stepped past him. Will was about to object and yell at him for cutting, when he spoke to Mr. Crawford,

“I’ll pay for it, and I need the wine mom usually comes in for.” Mr. Crawford let out a sigh at this, warning him he wasn’t supposed to give it to him due to his age.

Will pursed his lips, “hey! I can pay for my own stuff, guy.” His drawl still hung on his words, not very thick, but present.

The young man sighed, and looked Will up and down, as if examining him. It made Will squirm internally, though he kept a brave face on the outside. He glanced to his roaming eyes, red eyes? It had to be the sunlight. Amber eyes most likely. He quickly looked away, too distracting. He instead observed his attire. A suit? A casual suit all be it, but still a suit. Who wore a suit to Crawford’s Mercantile and Goods?

“What is your name?” the assertive boy asked, and Will found himself replying easily,

“Will.”

“I’m Hannibal, and I didn’t mean to offend you. You are more than capable, I’m sure. I would like to though.” Will considered this for a moment, rocking on his bare heels.

“Fine, but you gotta let me do something for you.” They didn’t take charity, his father drilled that into him since he was little. The corners of Hannibal’s eyes crinkled softly, and he gave a slight nod,

Hannibal didn’t even make eye contact though as he paid, and simply walked out. Will inwardly shrieked, who did this guy think he was?! He quickly lapped at his ice cream, thanked Mr. Crawford, then chased Hannibal down the weed infested sidewalk. “Hey! Hey wait up!” He insisted, jogging up to him to keep up.

Hannibal stopped and waited for him to catch up before he started walking again. Will almost dropped his ice cream, and quickly lapped at it, putting large dents in the giant scoops. Hannibal was only a little revolted that even with being out of breath, Will still insisted on scarfing down the unhealthy treat.

“I have to think about what you can do for me.” He said calmly, “I wasn’t running away from you.” He explained, hands slipping into his pocket as he led the way now down a gravel road, veering away from town.

“A-ah! Hey, I don’t got shoes on!” Will announced as he jumped to the shoulder of the road, feet relieved to be in the grass. He could handle walking on just about anything, but rocks were an exception for sure. “I didn’t say you were running away, I told you to wait up.” He retorted. God forbid Hannibal get the notion he wanted to be friendly with him.

Was it really the kids fault though? He lived a very unstable life. Especially with northerners. They seemed to move at the drop of a hat, and by the time he got back from up north, his friends down south had moved on and found new friends, and by the time he got back from down south, his friends up north did the same thing. He learned quickly that there were only a few people who would stick around. The guys at the boatyard would listen to some of the things he said, and his dad was always ready to listen. Or at least hear him. Will had a bad habit of info-dumping about random things he read or watched. Especially if it had to do with dogs.

Those were his best options for company. So he wasn’t going to just jump into investing himself in another person, especially close to his age. The only reason he was even near this guy was because he had paid for his ice cream, and he was definitely not going to get in trouble for accepting someone’s charity.

#Hannibal #Will Graham #Fanfiction #Teen AU #finally posting after forever #sorry y'all

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mystery-moose · 7 years

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FIC: Angus McDonald and the Flight of the Flying V (6/?)

[AO3 link]

They’ve come a long way, but even ten years after the world was saved, they’re still not quite where they should be. A whim, a missing painting, and a handful of near-death experiences help a flip wizard and his apprentice bridge the gap.

Taako does his best. Angus takes some risks. Introductions are made, bonds are tested, and lessons are learned — better late than never.

Taako was a real asshole sometimes. (Okay, most times.) It was a part of his personality he had no intention of ever fully excising. You go for the goof, you commit to the bit, and if some people can't take a joke, that's their problem. He knew Angus was fully aware of this, so Taako wasn't bothered when he didn't speak to him for the next few blocks. He simply twirled his umbrella and followed along quietly to wherever it was they were going.

He didn't have to be a detective to figure it out; the southern edge of Neverwinter butted up against the World's Teeth, the mountains separating the northern and southern halves of Faerun. They were heading towards those mountains along the main thoroughfare, and when the train station came into view, Angus turned to him and smiled.

"Feel like a day trip to Rockport?" he asked.

Taako shouldered his umbrella and grinned. "Why not?"

Getting tickets seemed easier these days — there were two larger trains on parallel tracks, and they operated in sync with each other. By the time they finished paying and stepped out onto the platform, the Rockport Limited was pulling into the station. Angus was a little disappointed ("I hoped you'd get to see the Neverwinter Express, it's totally different.") but Taako was happy to bask in the nostalgia of one of his more memorable escapades.

The train itself was new, since the Reclaimers had trashed the last one pretty thoroughly, but it was largely the same. Fancy gilded exterior, very ornate, with lots of gold and bronze, and an equally plush interior, full of wood and silk and velvet. The train had been Rockport's baby, Angus explained — they'd been the ones to spearhead the tunneling operation, and it was the sole thing they could lord over Neverwinter — so they'd spared no expense in its reconstruction. The only difference Taako noticed was the lack of the empty archway in the dining car. Guess after Jenkins killed someone with it, they reconsidered the whole port-wand pleasure-room thing.

Their conductor was a friendly halfling, cheerful and pleasant and totally boring. No fun goofs to be had at his expense. Angus must have noticed Taako pouting after the halfling led them to their table in the dining car, because he snorted under his breath.

"Sorry you don't get to be mercilessly cruel to someone this trip," he said after the conductor was out of earshot.

"Just nostalgic, is all," Taako said, glancing out the window as the train began to move. "'Sides, not like Jenkins didn't have it coming."

"You didn't know that at the time."

"I had a hunch." Taako tapped his temple. "Elven intuition. You wouldn't understand, being human and all."

Angus smirked. "Uh-huh."

"You wanna play keep away with your notebook for old time's sake?"

"No, I'm good."

As their waiter approached with two full trays of goodies in his hands, Taako nearly did a double-take; he was an absolutely gorgeous dark elf, broad shouldered and built like a house with luscious Fabio-esque hair. He smiled and offered them their choice. Angus took a muffin and coffee, plus a newspaper. Taako took a blueberry scone and a cup of tea. The waiter poured his tea, smiled again, and then took the two trays and headed down the car to another occupied table at the far end. Taako leaned out and watched him walk away. When he settled back into his seat, Angus was shaking his head.

"What? I'm married, I'm not dead."

"Gross, sir."

"Do I have to bring up how you were looking at Silvia? Oh, I'm sorry." He leaned forward. "Lieutenant?"

Angus' grin disappeared and he turned his attention to the newspaper. Taako grinned and took a bite of his scone.

"Y'know," he said with his mouth full, "that sorta dom-sub stuff ain't really my bag, but you chase your bliss, Ango."

"I'm not listening," Angus said in a sing-song voice.

"Right. I'll leave you to your paper. I won't say another word about Silvia." Taako leaned in an stage-whispered, "Miss Hayden, if you're nasty."

Angus rolled up his newspaper and smacked Taako upside the head with it. He started laughing again, and Angus blew out the exasperated sigh he used when he wanted to stifle his own laughter.

The journey was thoroughly uneventful. After they'd taken lunch (and Taako had asked the waiter to bring him a hot towel just to watch him leave a couple more times) they'd retired to the sleeper car. Taako had dozed lazily while Angus read the paper, then they'd played a game of cards where they both cheated mercilessly, and after a few hours, they pulled into Rockport.

Last time, Taako had killed a weird crab monster, stolen a bunch of shit he shouldn't have, thrown a serial killer off the back of a runaway train (well, that was Magnus, but he'd been present for it) and then saved hundreds of people by teleporting said train into said serial killer's private garden. It was wicked awesome.

This trip was pretty good too, though.

Rockport was a fishing and farming town, largely, and that much hadn't changed; it still smelled like fish when the wind blew from the west, and like flowers when it blew from the east. The ticket seller at this end was still the spitting image of Tom Bodett, though a fair bit older than when Taako saw him last. He probably recognized Taako, too, considering how he turned on his heel and walked away the moment he saw him.

It wasn't nearly the size of Neverwinter, but Rockport still qualified as a bona fide city — there were wagons traveling up and down the white cobblestone roads, many pulling cargo trailers full of crates. Stalls and small markets were set up all along the main road from the train station toward the city center, hawking everything Rockport was famous for, which was mostly beef pasties, fish and chips, or bouquets of lupines. Not so many souvenirs of the Rockport Limited anymore, Taako noted. Made sense; if Neverwinter had built their own, it couldn't be that special.

Angus led them off the main road into a narrower side street. Taako narrowly avoided a puddle as he stepped alongside Angus.

"So who are we visiting in Rockport?" he asked.

"There's an artist here," Angus explained, adjusting his glasses as he walked. "He's sort of a historian. Rocco, the owner of that curio shop? They introduced us."

"And this artiste will know... what?"

"Well, the curator gave me the broad strokes—"

"Nice."

Angus rolled his eyes. "—but after talking with Rocco, I'm sure this wasn't about the money. I want to learn more about this painting, and about who painted it."

"What's it even a picture of?" Taako asked, realizing he didn't know the first thing about what they were doing.

"It's a flock of birds flying above the Sword Coast. They say it's the pinnacle of the proto-naturalist movement in the art world."

"'They' being stuffy old professors and ultra-nerds."

Angus opened his mouth, then closed it and shrugged. "Yeah, basically."

"And it's worth a lot?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Shyeah!"

"How much?"

"A lot."

"We talkin' six digits? Seven?"

Angus hesitated, like he didn't want to say it out loud. "More like eight or nine."

Taako stumbled a bit and caught himself with his umbrella. "Pumpkin?"

"Yes, sir?"

"That's a lot."

"Yes, sir."

While Taako's mind reeled at the amount given (and idly fantasized about how he'd waste it) he followed Angus down the road a few more blocks to a shabbier, dingier part of Rockport. A place where the roads had a few more potholes, the wagons were fewer and farther between, and if anyone bothered to clean the streets, they did it a lot less frequently. Not quite a slum — Taako knew slums — but certainly less well-to-do than anywhere they'd been today. Hell, he was pretty sure that shady curio shop was in a better neighborhood.

Angus stopped in front of a four-story apartment building. There were no wagons on the road, no one walking the streets. Taako suddenly felt very alone, isolated, like there was no one but him and Angus on the whole block.

"Your fancypants art historian lives here?" he asked, glancing around.

"Yep." Angus started up the stone steps. "I think he got caught up in some scandal, years ago. Kicked out of the university."

"No shit."

"Pretty sure he helps Rocco forge the occasional painting," Angus said idly, opening the door. "Or at least do some clean-up work if they're damaged. Fetches a better price that way."

The place was empty, no one in sight. There was a small foyer with doors on either side, a short hallway leading deeper into the building, and a stairway leading up. Angus led the way upstairs. Taako kept glancing around. He heard the occasional signs of life, but they all seemed distant. Nothing sounded close by. It made him nervous. Brought back memories of his time on the lam, after Glamour Springs, when it seemed like even silence and solitude were out to get him.

They walked up four more flights of stairs, and Taako was about to start complaining about it when Angus stepped in front of a door at the top.

"This guy might be a bit... nervy," Angus said diplomatically. "Try to go easy on him, okay? I really need his help."

Taako straightened his back, crossed his heart, and held up two fingers.

Angus stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and knocked on the door.

It slowly swung open.

Angus' eyes widened. He looked at Taako. Taako looked at him, then gestured at the door. Angus held his hands up like how should I know?

With a gentle push, Angus opened the door. "Uh, Mr. Wendell? Sir?"

The apartment was a mess. It was hard for Taako to tell how much of it was always like that. There were paintings propped up along every wall, four or five deep in some places, and paint cans and palettes strewn everywhere. Drop cloths lay in a haphazard pattern on the floor, though paint had still spattered onto some exposed hardwood. A number of easels, one folded up and tipped onto its side, lined the near wall, opposite the windows. There were old takeout boxes on the small kitchen counter to the left, dirty plates on a tiny table to the right, and in the corner, a large trash bag filled with what looked like stale popcorn. It really made Taako feel a lot better about the state of his own home.

Angus walked in, examining the place intensely. Taako took the time to check himself out in a stand-up mirror on the far wall. As he stepped towards it, his nose wrinkled.

"You smell that?" he asked, sniffing the air.

Angus didn't answer. Taako sniffed again. It smelled like something burning. Or... not burning. Charring? Like meat seared too long.

"Taako."

He turned around. Angus was staring at a space beyond the kitchen counter. Taako stepped closer and followed his gaze. An old human man, bald with a grey beard and spots on his forehead, lay face down on the floor. A pool of red surrounded his head.

Oh, good.

"That's not paint, is it."

Angus reached into his jacket and drew his wand. A new one, Taako noticed — fine grained wood, with a longer handle built for a duelist's grip. Nice.

Wait. He sniffed again. Is it wood? Charcoal? Or... is it even a smell?

Taako looked down. Something wasn't right. He was definitely picking up something, and if it wasn't a smell... he reached up, tapped his temple, and cast True Sight.

The ring appeared immediately, a series of invisible, glowing runes stretching from the door to the far wall and back again. Like a summoning circle, or a—

Angus stepped forward, towards the body. Taako's eyes widened as Angus stepped onto the runes.

"Don't!"

Too late. Taako threw himself forward, tackled Angus to the floor next to the corpse, and popped his umbrella. The space behind him flashed and flared as the air itself caught fire. There was a sudden breeze, like an inhale, as the oxygen in the room fed the blaze.

Taako rolled over. His boots were on fire. He kicked at the flames angrily — he loved those fucking boots, god damn it — before Angus cast a light ice spell over them. The boy pushed himself to his feet, eyes wide and hand up to shield them from the waves of heat.

That incantation must have been some serious shit, because the fire wasn't going out. It was getting bigger, growing hotter with every passing second. The drop cloths were already ash, the hardwood floor was charring to black, flames were licking up the walls and flowing across the ceiling, and everything in the apartment that was combustible (which was everything) was catching fast.

Taako held up his umbrella and fired a Ray of Frost at the inferno. It did about as much as good as spitting into it. He swung it from side to side and tried Ice Storm. It melted before it even fully formed.

"We gotta go!" Angus shouted, glancing around. "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go—"

"Go where?!" Taako shouted back, waving his hand towards the fiery expanse between them and the door.

Angus didn't answer. He had already found their exit. He ran past the kitchen counter, stumbled over an empty paint can, and made it to a window. He tried to open it, straining against the jam, then looked down.

"It's painted shut!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Taako cursed, shoving him aside. He raised his umbrella and fired a spell which blew out the window and most of the wall with it. He turned to Angus and grabbed his hand, and he didn't have to say a word — they both jumped.

Taako popped his umbrella again, and the Featherfall enchantment kicked in immediately. He and Angus floated gently to the ground. The air cleared and the heat faded as they fell, but Taako could still feel it like a forest fire at his back.

As soon as they touched down, Angus turned around and looked up. The fire was spreading fast, already licking past the top of the hole Taako had created.

"Is anyone else in there?" he asked.

"Nah, don't think so," Taako said, shaking his head. Then he looked at Angus, who was starting for the steps. "If you think you're going back in there—"

Angus spun on his heel. "We can't just leave!"

"So call the fucking fire brigade, dingus!" Taako yelled, throwing his arms up.

Angus clenched his jaw. He held his wand straight up and, with a fairly intense use of Prestidigitation, fired a bright, screaming flare high into the sky. Taako stared up at the fire, at the holes it was burning into the roof, at the pillar of heavy black smoke rising into the sky, and scowled.

It had been such a nice day, too.

#the adventure zone #thezonecast #taako #angus mcdonald #fanfiction #post-campaign #mystery #adventure

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shadow-wasser · 8 years

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WIP Fic Whenever: Atlamorphs 1

WIP Fic Friday Whenever is a place where I will put a ‘quick and dirty’ first draft of either a short story or a chapter from a longer story. This will hopefully encourage me to improve my writing output. An Animorphs/Avatar: the Last Airbender Crossover. Yes it’s strange.

A Visit From Above

I’m Sokka. No, I don’t have a last name. I’m from the Southern Water Tribe, and my life used to be pretty normal. Or sort of normal. Or… well, kinda. Actually, not really. I mean, it was normal for a while, but then the Fire Nation came and… whatever. Let’s just say that I have a pretty good reason to hate the Fire Nation.

What’s important is that one day, my sister and I found the Avatar. I know, crazy, right? He wasn’t even an old man or anything; he was just a kid named Aang. And after that we ran around, all the while chased by the Fire Nation, trying to get to the North Pole so my sister and Aang could learn waterbending. I was hoping to find my dad, who had left to fight the Fire Nation. And I had to protect Katara, ‘cause you know, she needs me.

I kinda thought my life couldn’t get any weirder, what with all the crazy kings and angry firebenders and giant spirit monsters.

Well, I was wrong.

The day started out pretty average. Or, at least, it was as average as life got for us. We were making good progress across the northern Earth Kingdom, but my sister constantly insisted on stopping to practice waterbending. You see, we’d just left the North Pole, where Katara and Aang had been training, and now she was a certified master. You’d think once she became a master she’d chill out for a bit. But no, not Katara. It was like she had to be better than anyone, even Aang!

By that point, we were really far into the Fire Nation territories, and evidence of war was everywhere. Ruined and abandoned towns and cities reared up from the ground, some of them so old they were already decomposing. Aang brought Appa down to one of these, next to a small dam and pool. Once, it was probably used to stock fish for a town but now it was covered with scum and smelled like rotting seaweed. Yuck.

But I guess smelly water is fine for waterbending, since we had no sooner unsaddled Appa than Aang and Katara went to it. They practiced their waterbending forms until nightfall, and by the end of the day, Aang’s legs were shaking and Katara barely had the strength to lift her dinner to her mouth. Obviously, they picked me to take first watch.

Frankly, I doubted that we even needed a watch. What Fire Nation patrol would be anywhere near this ruin? Everything valuable had long been looted out, and it’s not like it occupied a crucial military position. I thought it was a travesty that I wasn’t allowed to sleep, especially since I was the one who made dinner! I even made a vegetable dish for Aang! It was ridiculous…

I sighed and leaned back, gazing up at the stars. And the moon.

It’s a long story.

Anyway, I was thinking about the stars (and her eyes) and the constellations (and her hair) and the stories around them (and her lips). The stars in the northern hemisphere were different than the ones I had grown up with, and I wasn’t quite sure how to navigate by them.

After a while, my eyelids began to grow heavy. I began to think: Ah, what did it matter? How could you navigate with these stars? They move around too much, all glowy and colorful…

Wait a minute. Colorful, moving stars? Stars didn’t move like that, so unless I’d already fallen asleep and was dreaming, there was something definitely wrong.

Suddenly, I felt wide awake. I sat up and stared. No, I wasn’t imagining it. A huge blue star was moving around, flashing crazily right above me. My mouth dropped. What in the world was that?

“Guys!” I hissed. “Guys! Something’s happening!”

“Hwazza?” said Aang, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Fire Nation?”

“No, I… I have no idea.”

“Oh, wow,” said Katara, staring at it as she stood up slowly. “It’s beautiful.”

Aang got to his feet, staring at the light. “I… I think it’s coming closer.”

The three of us stood together, not quite sure what was going to happen. Aang picked up his stick and I scrambled for my boomerang. And as the glowing shape came closer, it was revealed as… well…

The only things I had ever seen that even came close to it were the Fire Nation warships, all shiny metal and thrumming engines. But other than that, I didn’t really have a reference. I had no clue what I was looking at.

It looked… sorta like a giant scorpion-bee. It had a body, I guess, and wings, sorta, though they didn’t flap. And it had a tail, like a scorpion bee. And it was all metal, with glowy blue bits.

By that point, I would almost have preferred that it was a Fire Nation machine. Because this… thing, whatever it was, was way freakier than anything I’d seen from them. Of course, being the great warrior I am, I was ready to fight it anyway.

As it got closer, all of my danger sensing hairs prickled. “It’s gonna land,” I whispered.

And it did land, touching the ground with a quiet crunch.

We stood there for another moment, waiting for it to do something. Aang was the one who stepped forward, staff at the ready. You know, ‘cause he’s the Avatar. Handling weird stuff is in his job description or something

“Hello?” he called. “Hello?”

(Hello.)

I blinked. I knew I had just heard someone say ‘hello.’ But at the same time, no one had said anything. It was like a voice inside my head, with no sound. I looked at Katara. Her eyes were like saucers.

“Aang,” I said, and my voice was not strangled with fear (okay, maybe a little). “Maybe you shouldn’t go up to the weird flying mind-talky thing?”

“No, Sokka, I think it’s a spirit,” replied Aang, his eyes wide. “And it’s hurt. See, it’s burned.”

He pointed, and yeah, there were deep, melted burn marks on its… um… front-part. My first thought, which believe me made much more sense than the truth, was that it had been attacked by the Fire Nation.

“Are you okay?” called Aang. “I won’t hurt you.” He put down his stick and held out his hands, to show he was unarmed (not, of course, that it mattered with Aang).

(I know.)

“I’m the Avatar. How can I help you? What do you need?”

(Do not be frightened.)

“I’m not.”

Speak for yourself! I thought, because, alright, I’d seen a lot of scary stuff (like the Fire Nation attacking the Northern Water Tribe, or giant Canyon Crawlers, or Aang in the Avatar State), but this thing? It was terrifying not because I knew what it could do to hurt us, but because I didn’t.

A thin arc of light appeared, like a doorway lit from within, opening slowly in the smooth side of the thing. I stood there, thinking how I had to protect Katara and keep her safe from the whatever-it-was, so I stepped in between her and it. The opening grew, like a crescent moon at first, then a full, bright circle.

And out stepped a…

Well, I guessed it was a spirit. It wasn’t all that much stranger than Hei Bai, to tell you the truth. The weirdest part was that it had no mouth.

It had four legs with hooves, and a body like a foxalope, and two arms and a head kinda like a person, except for the lack of mouth and the three slits for a nose. Also, it had eyes on stalks like an octoslug, coming out of the top of its head, in addition to these big green eyes that were where you’d expect them to be. The spirit was blue, all over, and had a really long tail, with a sickle at the end. The sickle looked sharp. And you know… deadly.

Then, it staggered, and fell to the ground. Aang immediately went to its side, and I saw Katara run over and kneel down. “No! Katara!” I said. “That thing could be dangerous!”

“Sokka, it’s hurt! Look, its side is all burnt up.”

The spirit’s side did look pretty burnt-up, but frankly that wasn’t what I was worried about at that moment.

“But Katara…”

“It’s a spirit, Sokka! We need to help it!”

(You cannot help. I am dying.)

This spirit’s voice was not like Hei Bai’s. Hei Bai, at least, had the decency to roar out loud where I could hear it properly.

Aang gasped. “What? No, please! Let us help you. What… what should we do?”

“I’m a healer,” stated Katara without preamble. “Show me where it hurts and I’ll-”

(No. I am dying. There is nothing you can do.)

Then, just for an instant, I felt it. The pain, I mean. From the spirit. It was awful, and I found myself running up to the creature, even sheathing my boomerang. I guess… I felt sorry for it, but at the same time I figured that since it was so badly injured, it couldn’t hurt us. Much.

Katara quickly drew up some mucky water from the stock pond and pressed it to the spirit’s side. It closed its eyes in what I assume was gratitude.

(Thank you. But please. I have to warn you.)

It sounded like bad news was coming, and, judging by the looks on Aang’s and Katara’s faces, I didn’t think any of us wanted bad news.

“What is it?” asked Aang, sounding like he didn’t want to know the answer.

(There are others coming. Yeerks.)

“Yeerks?” I said it out loud. It was a weird word, and it didn’t sound pleasant. “What’s a Yeerk?”

(They are aliens. Beings not of this world. From the stars.)

I frowned. He could have just said ‘spirits’ and been done with it. I mean, there was a time I wouldn’t have believed it, but a lot of things have changed, after meeting Aang.

“And the Yeerks are coming?” This was Aang. Of course, he would take it all in stride, being the Avatar and all.

(Yes. They have come to destroy you.)

There was a quiet moment, through which I could only silently curse. The Fire Nation was taking over the world, the comet was coming at the end of the summer, and now? Now we have a freakin’ invasion from the Spirit World!

“What do you mean?” asked Aang, his voice cut through with anxiety. How could I blame him? Spirit World stuff is his responsibility, after all.

(The Yeerks are different. They are not like you or I. They have no body. They live inside other species. They are…)

The spirit seemed to be at a loss for words. So it closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. Suddenly a picture popped into my head. I saw a gray-green, slimy thing like an octoslug, only no tentacles. I grimaced. It wasn't a pretty sight.

(They are almost powerless without hosts. They- )

There was another blast of pain from the spirit, making me twitch. There was also a feeling of sadness, and despair. I felt another spike of pity for it. After all, Spirits were people too. Well, not really. But close enough

“I’m so sorry,” babbled Katara, still intent on her healing. “I just- I’ve never seen burns like these before. And your chi is... different. I’m not quite sure how to even start.”

(I do not blame you. But please listen. The Yeerks are parasites. They must have a host to live in. In this form they are known as Controllers. They enter the brain and are absorbed into it, taking over the host's thoughts and feelings. They try to get the host to accept them voluntarily. It is easier that way. Otherwise the host may be able to resist, at least a little.)

“You mean they… possess people?” That was Aang again.

(Yes, in a sense.)

I groaned. An army of Spirit-octoslugs, taking over your mind! NOT what I had been expecting that morning, not at all.

(We had hoped to stop them,) the spirit continued. (Swarms of their Bug fighters werewaiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mother ship and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us - they had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought, but... we lost. They have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me and my ship.)

“Okay,” I said. “Most of that made absolutely no sense, and… wait. Soon? They’ll be here soon? How soon? Like, right now?”

I drew my boomerang and looked around hurriedly, half-expecting the octoslugs to burst from the bushes ready to eat my brain.

(Soon. We do not have much time.)

Katara’s hands went to her mouth in horror, withdrawing her water for a moment. “What do we do?” she asked breathlessly.

The spirit smiled. Don’t ask me how I knew it was smiling, with no mouth. It was something with its eyes. (I sent a message to my home world. We Andalites fight the Yeerks wherever they go throughout the universe. My people will send help, but it may take a year, even more, and by then the Yeerks will have control of this planet. After that, there is no hope. You must tell people. You must warn your people!)

“Warn them that evil spirits are taking over? Oh MAN. You guys really could have chosen a better time for this! We’re kind of in the middle of a war right now, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Aang and Katara glared at me. “What?” I objected.

I looked back down at the spirit, and was met with a pair of strikingly green eyes. (Perhaps there is a way to better your chances,) it said. (Go into my ship. You will see a small blue box, very plain. Bring it to me. Quickly! I have very little time, and the Yeerks will find me soon.)

Ship? I looked up at the big, metal object. That thing is a ship? Like the Mechanist’s airship?

Aang got up and walked in, while Katara went back to trying to heal the spirit. I continued to glance around, waiting for the Yeerks to arrive.

After a few moments, Aang came back out of the ‘ship,’ holding the box and looking pale. It was a very small box, not much wider across than Aang’s palm. I wondered what could possibly be inside.

“Here,” said Aang, handing the box to the spirit.

(Thank you.)

The spirit held out the box, and we all looked at it. To tell you the truth, other than its bright color it wasn’t much to look at. It was featureless, except for some sort of writing around the top. I didn’t know the language.

(There is something I may be able to do to help you fight the Yeerks.)

“What is it? Some kind of spirit weapon?” I asked.

The spirit looked up for a moment, and I felt his confusion, but then he continued. (I know that your planet is undergoing war, and this will be difficult. But I may be able to give you some small powers that may help.)

We all looked at each other. Powers? I was no bender, but if he could help Aang…

(If you wish, I can give you abilities that no other human being has ever had.)

“You mean like… a new kind of bending?” Aang’s eyes were wide.

(No, this is not your ‘bending.’) answered the spirit. (This is a piece of Andalite technology that the Yeerks do not have. A technology that enables us to pass unnoticed in many parts of the universe - the power to morph. We have never shared this power. But your need is great.)

“Morph?” wondered Katara. “What’s… morph?” She looked at Aang, who only shrugged.

(To change your bodies,) the spirit said. (To become any other species. Any animal. You will only need to touch a creature, to acquire its DNA pattern, and you will be able to become it. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are . . . limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But there is no time to explain it all . . . no time. You will have to learn for yourselves. But first, do you wish to receive this power?)

Before I could even process what the spirit was saying, Aang bowed deeply and said; “Thank you, kind spirit. We are honored to receive your gift.”

I looked at Katara, who nodded with fierce determination in her eyes, putting her water away.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “How do we know that this… morphing thing is even safe to do? You said there were problems and dangers! I’m not about to enter some spirit war without even knowing what I’m doing!”

“You shouldn’t turn down gifts from spirits, Sokka,” said Aang calmly.

(I am no spirit.) said the… not-a-spirit. (But time is short. We must-)

The two stalk eyes floating above his head suddenly turned upward, and my gaze followed them. Two bright red stars were moving through the night sky.

(Yeerks,) said the not-spirit, and I could feel his hatred.

Then the not-spirit looked at me again. (There is no more time. You must decide!)

I looked at Aang and Katara, who looked back at me, their expressions hopeful. I groaned, and, though the rational, logical part of my mind protested, nodded. Sometimes, I’ve learned, you just have to accept the impossible.

(Each of you, press your hand against one of the sides of the square.)

I did, as did Aang and Katara. Then the not-spirit did as well, placing a blue, surprisingly delicate hand with too many fingers on top of the box.

(Do not be afraid,) the not-spirit said.

Something like a shock, only not painful, seemed to run through me. A kind of giddy tingly feeling.

(Go now,) the not-spirit said. (Only remember this - never remain in animal form for more than two of your Earth hours. Never! That is the greatest danger of morphing! If you stay longer than two hours you will be trapped, unable to return to human form.)

“Oh,” I said. “Great.”

Suddenly, I felt a wave of fear from the not-spirit. It was looking up with all four eyes now, searching for something.

(Visser Three! He comes.)

It was said with such vehemence and terror that I jumped. “Vis- Visser what?”

(Go now. Run! Visser Three is here. He is the most deadly of your enemies. Of all Yeerks he alone has the power to morph, the same power you now have. Run!)

Aang stood up, and Katara quickly followed. “I’m not running,” he said, his face grim. “You said these Yeerks are possessing people. So we’ll fight them!”

The not-spirit made the smiling eyes again. (No. You must save yourselves. Save yourselves and save your planet! The Yeerks are here.)

“But we can fight!” objected Katara. “I can waterbend, and Aang’s the Avatar! We can help you!” She gripped the lid of her waterskin.

The not-spirit turned its large eyes on Aang. (If you are truly the Avatar of this world, then it is even more vital that you survive. You cannot win this battle, as you are. Wait, and you will find the right time. Now, you must go.)

“Aang!” I said, looking up. The two big red lights had been joined by something else. Something big, and black, blocking out the stars.

Katara looked up, and gasped. She got to her feet and ran, stumbling over the rough ground. Appa was on his feet and bellowing, confused.

“We need to saddle him!” yelled Katara.

“Be quick about it!” I yelled back. I cast my eyes around desperately. “Where’s Aang?”

“I don’t know!”

“Look, see that wall over there? Get Appa behind it!”

Katara nodded and grabbed Appa’s reins, leading him over the rubble.

“Aang!” I called. “Aang, where are you?”

“Right here,” panted Aang. “Sorry, I… I got delayed.”

“Aang, quick, help us saddle Appa.”

The saddle was on him in about two seconds, and we got on.

“Yip yip,” I called, and we took off, Aang looking behind him at the strange not-a-spirit and his ‘ship.’

We weren’t too far away when a light, as bright as the sun but red, blazed into life back where we had left the spirit. Katara gasped.

“Turn around,” said Aang, his hands clutching the rim of the saddle.

I stared at him. “What?”

“Turn-”

“I heard you!”

“Sokka, I think he’s in danger. We need to go back and help.”

“Aang, he wanted us to leave! And when a spirit says ‘go away’ it’s probably a good idea to go away!”

“But-”

“I don’t want to get involved, Aang. This is spirit stuff.”

“No, he wasn’t a spirit.” Aang had that odd look in his eye, the look of being far, far older than he appeared. “He was something else.”

“But he said he was from another world,” objected Katara. “What else could he have meant?”

“He didn’t mean the Spirit World,” insisted Aang. “He meant something else. Something that wasn’t our world or the spirit world.”

“Well, like what?” I asked. The whole thing sounded ridiculous to me.

“I don’t know, but… when I stayed with him, he gave me a vision. He showed me a lot of things, about the Yeerks, and himself, all jumbled up. I’m trying to make sense of it, but… I think there are a lot of worlds. Not just two. And he came from one of those. Up in the sky.”

A shiver ran up my spine. Lots of worlds? How many could there be? Dozens? Hundreds? I suddenly felt very, very small. I didn’t like the feeling.

“Please, Sokka, he needs us.”

I paused, and looked back. The red light was still shining, like a fire but unflickering and far brighter.

“Aang… it… it’s not our problem. Let’s go.”

Aang stared back at me, looking hurt as we soared farther and farther away from the strange… creature.

But running away wasn’t going to help.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #fanfiction #animorphs #crossover #wip fic #fanfic extra #my fic

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