#this one goes out to all my brethren with anxiety

[suprsingr]

does anyone else have the thought that someone could just toss a grenade in your car every time you roll down the windows or do i need to move up my therapy appointment

[cameronspecial]

rafe x ocd reader. Maybe there at the mall and something’s happens inside of one of the stores, rafe brings her to the fitting rooms to calm her down .

Death By Clothes Rack

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x OCD!Reader

Warnings: OCD Compulsion and Obsessions

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 1.0K

Masterlist

Rafe didn’t truly understand what OCD was until he met her, like most of society, he thought it was just something that made people annoyingly tidy. Meeting Y/N gave him a better comprehension of what anxiety disorder is. It is much more than what the media portrays and Rafe knows this because of his first-hand experience of seeing how distressing the obsessions and compulsion can be for his girlfriend. His fingers are laced with hers as they walk through the boutique. Y/N is looking for a dress for one of Rafe’s work events. She finds a classy black dress and goes to try it on in the changing room.  Upon seeing it doesn’t compliment her in the manner she wants, she returns it to the wooden hanger and walks back to the rack with Rafe in tow. She mindlessly places it onto the bar and begins to walk away, but stops when she spots something that gets her obsessive thought train going. The dress she just returned to the wrack is facing the wrong direction and not in the right spot size-wise. 

What if someone’s feelings are hurt because they thought they were trying on one size, but it is another so it doesn’t fit them? What if someone cuts their hand on the paper tag sticking out of the dress? Another error the girl has made. What if someone accidentally pulls too hard to fix her mistake and the whole rack comes down on them? These things could happen and it would be all her fault if they do. She has to make sure it doesn’t happen. Her first order of business is to remove the dress she put back and fix the direction it hangs, then she finds the section for its size and places it between two of its brethren. She notices the unequal distance between the hangers, which begins the urge to rectify the problem. Metal grinds against metal as she moves the hangers half an inch apart from each other. Her breathing quickens once she realizes there isn’t enough space for all the clothes to be spaced evenly. Rafe notices the internal struggle in her mind, knowing she is debating how to get everything the perfect way she wants it. To get it in a way that no one would get hurt. He hovers his hand over her right shoulder because he knows when she goes through her compulsive cycle that she doesn’t like to be touched, yet he still wants her to feel comfort from its presence. 

“Darling, can you come with me please?” he begs, holding his hand out to her. Her hand freezes on top of the next hanger, “I- I- I can’t. I need to fix it. It needs to be fixed. Someone can get hurt.” Rafe nods in understanding. He lifts a finger to beckon over a sales associate. “What can I help you with, Sir?” He gives her a tight-lipped smile, “I was wondering if you can look over this rack and make sure no one touches it until we get back. My girlfriend is worried that something will happen if they touch it.” The associate tilts her head at the strange request but immediately agrees to do as asked when Rafe flashes her his black Amex card. He turns toward Y/N, “Darling, this nice lady is going to watch over the rack for us. Now, will you come with me?” Even with her back facing him, he can tell the gears are turning in her head before spinning around to look at her boyfriend. “Okay.” Her hand laces with his and he leads her to one of the changing rooms. He pulls the curtain across the bar to give them privacy. He hesitates to place his hands on both of her shoulders, silently asking for permission to touch her. She bobs her head. He can feel her shoulders relax at the contact. 

Her feet bring her closer to him and she rests her face against his chest. His mouth dips to her ear, “Tell me what’s going on through your head.” “I’m so so scared someone is going to get hurt because of something that I did,” she cries, tears beginning to pool in the corner of her eye. “I don’t want to be the cause of anyone's suffering.” Rafe’s hold tightens around her, “I know you don’t, I know. I promise you, Darling, that it is unlikely for someone to get hurt because the hangers are wrong.” 

“But it’s not impossible though. What if something does happen?” 

"I’ll be honest. I don’t know what would happen if it did. I do know though that if it did that you didn’t mean to and that’s okay because accidents happen sometimes.” 

“They do.”

“How about this? You trust that the sales associates know how to properly hang the items in their stores, right?”

“Yes.”

“So how about we ask one to fix it for us and we can know that it was done properly. Would that help?” 

He feels her breathing start to even out and this reassures him that he is helping. “Can we please do that?” she whispers. He runs his fingers through her hair, “Of course, Darling. Let’s go.” So the couple goes back out to the floor and gives their request to the sales associate. They watch as she removes each hanger, handing it over to Rafe to hold while she arranges everything. Once she is finished, Rafe asks Y/N to wait for him in the car. Y/N complies with his invitation, needing a break from being out in public. He turns to the associate he learns is named Kira. “Thank you so much for the help, Kira. My girlfriend has OCD, so sometimes she gets stuck in a compulsive cycle that can just get worse. I really appreciate you being so understanding and helping us. You get a commission, correct?” he verifies. Kira nods, “It was really no trouble going through all that. I could tell something was wrong and I’m glad I could help. To answer your question, I do work on commission.” “Perfect. I’m going to make some calls to a women’s shelter and ask them to send over the size clothes they need. Would you be able to pick stuff out for them? You can get them as much as they need,” he offers. Kira grins, “I would love to help you do that.” “Great, I’ll be in contact then,” he confirms before leaving the store.

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming

[hornime]

hq as my discovery weekly | part one

warnings: this is completely sfw, combo of fluff and angst

characters included: kenma, akaashi, oikawa, suna, koganegawa, ushijima, bokuto, kuroo, hinata, kita, terushima, iwaizumi, osamu, kageyama, sakusa

a/n: this was a random idea i thought of but i think it’ll be really cute haha. maybe you guys’ll find some new songs in the process! totally encourage anyone to use this idea if they want cus this was super fun to write!

playing... one through fifteen / sixteen through thirty

↪ “cotton candy lemonade" by blu detiger: kenma kozume

i've been up too long, something's wrong / watch the rising sun / turning all my nights to days

i've been on my own, come find me now / i'm lonely to the bone / but I don't feel so low when you're around / let's run away from home

you'll bе my kaleidoscope, my color in this life / watching thе world fade away

kenma is not the most extroverted and he’s in his head a lot, so he’s someone that might not always see the ‘color’ in things that exist around him. but when it comes to you, well, you’re someone that makes him look up from his screen a little longer than usual.

↪ “love affair” by umi: akaashi keiji

don't overthink this is love / maybe it's just a crush

i hope what I feel is enough / maybe this is just lies

i wanna know how to feel, what to feel, what's right / i never know / 'cause when it gets real, I just run away / and hide from you

akaashi gets anxiety. he used to be certain about a lot of things—his intelligence, his skill, his happiness, but most important to him was his feelings for you. he’s overthinking again, he knows it, but he’s getting an uncontrollable itch that maybe this is all in his head; he doesn’t love you, he just think he does. but when you’re in his arms, breathing even and eyes fluttered shut, he remembers what you always told him: it doesn’t matter what he knows, it matters what he feels. and he feels like the luckiest man alive.

↪ “coke” by iii addicts, danice: oikawa tooru

come closer, i been eyeing you from way over / so it's time i come for some closure

had to let her know that you could lick this / shake it up, it's gonna probably gon' bust

why, tell me why / why am i not satisfied / every time i cross that line / i feel it, i feel it

oikawa feels like tantalus: a man constantly reaching for a goal just out of reach, straining his muscles and screaming his voice hoarse just for a glimpse of an unattainable destiny. he’s desperate to get ahead, and while he may be running at top speed at all times, the finish line doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. his worst fear is that, some time he’ll slow his pace and look back and realize he hasn’t gotten very far at all.

↪ “baby powder” by jenevieve: suna rintaro

i'll put up with you babe / there's somethings I won't take / baby don't feel me false / yeah that turns me off

you're making me so high now / you're everything I'd ever want / you're keeping me so dry now / you're everything I'd never want uh

plastic on the floor but it ain't for me / ima go up to the place that i'd rather be

suna is straightforward. he won’t deal with your bullshit, and he learns that you won’t deal with his either, which makes you so appealing. when he starts letting more and more of you in, he feels you slipping through his fingers. you wanted to be friends, so you treat him as one. he doesn’t remember when he started wanting more.

↪ “chandelier (instrumental version)” by paquin: koganegawa kanji

instrumental so no lyrics lol

koganegawa is bubbly. he’s a bouncer: he bounces between social circles, bounces colors behind his eyes, and bounces back after adversity. he’s an amiable guy, and it’s landed him plenty of friends and opportunities, but best of all, it’s landed him you.

↪ “l-over” by u.s. girls: ushijima wakatoshi

my lover has no heart / magic moving blood around that body / he's cool to the touch / i don't see him much / but when I do, he does nothing for me

can you imagine trying to get / some satisfaction out of a stone?

spare me any talk of your future life / i don't know what I'll do without you

ushijima is stubborn. he’s deadset on achieving his goals for the future, and if you can’t work with them, you better work around them. you’re tired of how he grounds you; you thought it was a blessing at first, having a guy that knew what he wanted and would always act as a constant in your life, but you’ve started to see that he’s not a lighthouse anymore, he’s an anchor. he’s an anchor that’s chaining you to the ocean floor and will drown you if you, even for a second, stop kicking your legs to stay afloat.

↪ “magic!” by リアムMAZE1981: bokuto koutarou

and when you smile at me that way / well you can warm the coldest day / it's magic

and all i have to do is think of you / to make the music start to play / then i dance down the street / and the people I meet stop and say hey hey

and when you want me you just clap your hands / and I'll be with you right away / then we'll float on a breeze / while the leaves in the trees softly say hey hey / magic ways, my friend / you love the girl with magic ways and it's true / i might as well give in

bokuto is bright. he tramps around the world with the light of the sun illuminating his face. there is nothing in the universe that could ever drag him down, especially not with you around. you’ve cast some kind of spell on him, he’s sure of it, because your very presence makes him certain that he’s immortal. he must be, because when he’s with you, he’s withstanding the heat of a thousand suns that erases the darkness in every shadow, corner, and crevice of his life. 

↪ “i hope that u think of me” by pity party (girls club): kuroo tetsuro

i hope that you dream of me baby / nightmares are what dreams are baby i-i-i / i think I'm fallin' out of love

you tell me that it's easy to be / you tell me that it's easy to be with me but you lie-i-i / why do you lie all the time?

kuroo is focused. he takes note of everything when he’s working on a task, down to dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s. he often finds himself with tunnel vision, unable to think of anything but the current responsibility at the top of his every-growing to-do list. somewhere along the way, he lost track of you—must’ve loosened his grip on your hand and your fingers fell through empty space. he’d look for you, back in the void, but he’s busy. he keeps moving, unaware that you’ve turned back, walking in the opposite direction as him to find the life before him that you barely remember.

↪ “the leanover” by life without buildings: hinata shoyo

kiss me, break my mind, close the door / black steel, break my mind, close the door

if i lose you in the street / i say, i say, i say, i say, i say, i say / wassup, wassup with you? / wassup with your friends?

hinata is unfazed. he knows that, when things go bad, there’ll always be something there to right them. so when your paths diverge—maybe your schedules don’t work out, your dates get canceled, your nights home become more and more sparse—he’s not worried. not one bit. because at the end of the night, he knows that you’ll always find your way back to one another, and you’ll always greet him with open arms. and he’ll always do the same.

↪ “ladyfingers - edit” by funding secured: kita shinsuke

instrumental so no lyrics lol

kita is polished. he works hard during the day to be with you at night, dancing in little circles in the small kitchen of your shared home. he looks at you with fondness and appreciation, thanking his stars a million times over for granting him with someone like you. he’s a tree, stable in the harshest of gales, but even trees like to sway with the wind sometimes.

↪ “black madonna” by cage the elephant: terushima yuuji

makes no difference here, so let's be real / black madonna, my black flower / nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide / you're not havin' fun, i think that you should ride

climb so high, don't hear a sound / don't you forget what goes around, comes around / climb so high, tell me how to feel

call me when you're ready to be real / black madonna, my hallelujah

terushima is hedonistic. he’s never concerned himself with thoughts of the future, or of the past, or of anything, really. all he can think about is making each moment as willing to be lived as possible. you, on the other hand, are practical, too practical in his opinion, and he wants you to let loose, lighten up a little bit. maybe in the long run, it won’t be the best idea to let him take you by the hand and on a midnight adventure, but you haven’t thought that far ahead yet. guess he’s already rubbing off on you.

↪ “mother nature’s bitch” by okay kaya: iwaizumi hajime

everybody / please give a warm welcome to / to this current mood

here i am / easy to please / here i am / okay with it

here i am / desperate for attention / here i am / being mother nature's bitch

iwaizumi is hardworking. he does the best he can with everything he tries; sometimes that amounts to something and sometimes it doesn’t. most times it doesn’t fulfill his expectations, as high as they are. when you’re around, his borderline hatred for himself disappears. when you’re there to tell him how great he’s doing, the tension in his shoulders dissipates. 

↪ “smithereens” by rasharn powell, ab001: miya osamu

found my power / and my brethren / in a tussle with the world itself

see if I’m david, you’re goliath / there’s some power in defiance / put my heart in a slingshot / we been cycling away for days

searching for freedom always / likeness of an orgasm been had / empty with a peace that just don’t last / petite mort, then born again

osamu is pioneering. he opened a small business and eventually branched out, managing chains of his restaurant across the nation. it may not be a flashy job, but it’s a solid one, and a draining one. there are days of back-to-back shifts, afternoons overwhelming catering orders, and nights spent sleeping over on a cot near the kitchen. when he dreams, curled up with the smell of onigri still lingering in the air, he can only think of ‘what if’ he’d chosen another path, a path with a more obvious end, a more obvious definition of glory. but he still wakes up at dawn, conquering his own corner of the sky, knowing that his life, while it may be small, is not insignificant.

↪ “must be” by lou phelps: kageyama tobio

must be the henny on the ice / must be the diamonds that I buy / might be the shit that I write / whatever a n**** do and say, that's what I like

i'm on the cloud as i walk the front door / that's a boost, that's true, that's loo

yeah, um, i'mma need my space / 'cause you's a bum-bum, can't be standing next to me, uh / forgive me for my sins / don't tell me this is wrong if it feels right

kageyama is cocky. he’s good at what he does, amazing, actually, and he sure as hell knows it. he’s surrounded by people that make him better, people that he makes better, and he can’t think of a place he’d rather be. he’s on his way to carve his way into the moon and he’s not going to tolerate anyone that wants to keep him on earth.

↪ “jealous” by eyedress: sakusa kiyoomi

you could have anyone you want / why would you want to be with me? / you know, I'm nothing special

don't tell me about your problems / if you're not trying to solve them / don't ask me for my help

sakusa is independent. he’s not one to see himself as part of someone else’s orbit, opting to act like a random rock, floating in space with no origin and no destination. he’s worried that, if he gets too close to you, he’ll end up getting drawn in by your gravity and either crash land or burn up. neither seems appealing, and the idea of a safe encounter hasn’t even crossed his mind, so he’s going to keep moving on an endless trek towards the stars.

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part XXVI

Cordelia stood beside the window in the old study with James on her left. The warmth from the fire did nothing to ease the chill that had settled in her bones after returning from Cecily and Gabriel’s house without Lucie. It’d been three hours since their return. Who knew how long that meant Lucie had been enduring whatever misery she’d been dragged into. Her stomach clenched and she grimaced as if in pain at the thought of her dear friend, alone in that horrid place. 

James, upon hearing her or sensing her distress, took her hand his, entwining his fingers with hers so their palms pressed together. His hands were warm against her cold skin and she let herself lean against his shoulder. The contact helped to relieve some the anxiety enough for her to listen to conversation around her.

Will leaned over the table with both hands firmly planted on the wood. A look of destructive rage and distress ebbed his features into someone Cordelia hardly recognized. He hadn’t been himself since word arrived to them of Lucie’s capturing. 

Tessa sat on the sofa, her hands clutching each other in her lap as if she were praying. She hadn’t spoken much since the news. Her features didn’t twist in fear or anger or sadness. She looked like one of the pale shells Cordelia had found on the beach once. A fragile, beautiful thing with the sound of the ocean raging inside of it. 

Magnus stood at the table beside Will. They both studied the ring that James, Cordelia, Alastair and Thomas retrieved from Tatiana’s cold finger, now sitting on the handkerchief Cordelia used to pry it off. Grace had quickly explained the significance of it once again to the adults before going after her brother who was being seen by Brother Zachariah in an adjoining room despite his pleas to help find Lucie. Jesse was his name. His affection for Lucie seemed to run far deeper than that of a friendship. Cordelia could see it in his beautiful, sea colored eyes, the concern for her friend. Not just concern, the desperation. A painful, consuming thing desperation can be and it was swallowing the young Blackthorn boy whole. Between Brother Zachariah, Grace, and Will, they managed to convince him to go and be treated to be sure that his resurrection brought back the Jesse Blackthorn of old and not a new weapon being used by Belial for whatever his plans might be. 

“I still don’t understand why one of us can’t just put it on and summon the bastard,” said Will, his dark hair spotted with strands of gray fell in his face uncharacteristically. “If he wanted someone, why not come for one of us? Why my Lucie?”

Cordelia watched Tessa shudder and close her eyes at his words. She understood now what plagued Mrs. Herondale. It was not sadness, anger, or fear— perhaps a mixture of all of those things, but more importantly, there was guilt. 

“We have no idea the power this rings manifests,” said Magnus, curiously. “All we know is that Tatiana might have used it to contact Belial or he might have used it to contact her. If one of us were to put it on, we’d have no idea how to make it work.”

“So what should we do with it then?” Will demanded.

“I’m thinking,” said Magnus.

“Think faster,” said Will. “My daughter is trapped only the angel knows where with a prince of hell who plans to use her as a conduit of some sort. We don’t have time to sit and stare at it as if it’s going to rise and tell us what to do.”

“I understand your paternal concerns and while I sympathize, do not think for one moment if you continue to raise your voice at me in that condescending way I won’t turn you into a silent wall ornament until I figure out the best plan,” said Magnus without taking his eyes off of the ring. 

Will moved back a step, voluntarily or not, Cordelia wasn’t sure. He had the good sense to bite back whatever was prepared to come out of his mouth next, but by the straining muscles in his jaw, it took a lot of effort. 

James’s hand tightened around Cordelia’s. As much as she was drawing strength from him, it appeared he was drawing strength from her as well. She offered what she could and still felt as if it weren’t enough. 

“There is something,” said Magnus quietly. “A spell. If there is anything tethered to this ring, it will reveal it.”

“Then why haven’t—“ Will took a deep breath through his nose and started again. “All right, is there a reason why you’re hesitant to do this spell?”

“Yes,” said Magnus and undid the buttons around his wrists so he could move his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. “It’s a revealing spell. It requires a lot of energy, energy that will leave me vulnerable and weak, but it will give us the information we seek.”

“Is it dangerous?” asked Tessa, the first words she’d muttered in over an hour.

“Only for me,” said Magnus, with so much kindness in his voice that tears sprung to Cordelia’s eyes. 

“Magnus,” Tessa breathed.

“When your first child was born I thought you two idiots for bringing a helpless, vulnerable little creature into a terribly unfortunate world such as ours,” start Magnus as he stretched his fingers. “But the little bugger made the two of you so happy that it all seemed worth it. It made all the bad seem a little bit better. I didn’t possibly think you’d need anymore. Then the second one came along and your happiness tripled. I asked you once, why risk it? When you could lose everything so easily, why risk it? Do you remember what you said to me?”

Tears brimmed in Will’s eyes as he looked at Magnus. “Because a moment of that kind of pure happiness is worth a lifetime of sadness. That if I were to lose everything, if all I had left was the one memory of holding my child for the first time, I’ll have been grateful.” And to Tessa he said, “I am so grateful.”

Magnus nodded. “On each of their birth nights I made a silent promise to do whatever I could to protect and watch over them and do whatever I could to help in their times of trouble. I secretly prayed they’d have a lot more sense than their parents but it appears the apple does not fall far as the saying goes.”

James grimaced. “Just keeping life interesting.”

Magnus shook his head. “For this to work, I need absolute silence.”

“Would you like us to leave?” asked Cordelia.

“No,” said Magnus. “Just stay quiet. 

He placed both hands inches above the ring and closed his eyes. At first nothing happened except Cordelia could feel the hair on her arms and neck rise to attention. She looked down at her arms at the tiny bumps that rose along her skin and noticed that James’s was doing the same. The air filled with an electricity like a brewing storm as blue sparks started to dance from Magnus’s fingertips. 

The ring on the table began to rattle with enough force that the table shook beneath it. Soon Cordelia could feel the ground tremble beneath her feet. 

“Reveal yourself,” whispered Magnus. “Who do you belong to?”

A picture fell from the wall inches behind Tessa, if it were not for Will’s quick movement, the thick frame would have landed on her head. He held her against him and settle back in the far side of the room where nothing could fall on them. 

James, in a similar fashion, wrapped his arms over Cordelia’s head and his own. With limited visibility over his shoulder, Cordelia watched as the ring exploded with light, highlighting Magnus’s face with it’s blinding radiance. 

“What is it you want?” said a voice from the ring that Cordelia felt she faintly recognized.

“Your help,” said Magnus, eyes still closed. “We need your help, Tatiana.”

“Tatiana,” said Will before Tessa hushed him.

“And why should I help you, downworlder?” 

“Because we’re going to destroy the demon that murdered you,” said Magnus. “The one who took you away from your family. You can help us, if you can provide us with the information that we need.”

The ring went silent for a moment. Still rattling and glowing as the only sign that Tatiana was still there. The whole room seemed to hold their breath as they waited for a reply.

“What information do you need? 

“Did you communicate with Belial through this ring?”

“No,” said Tatiana. “This ring belonged in my family for generations. It is nothing more than heirloom.”

James cursed into Cordelia’s ear.

“Is there anyway for us to communicate with Belial?”

“Only if he wants you to,” said Tatiana.

Magnus’s breathing hitched as his teeth grit together. “Is there anything you can tell us to help us fight against Belial?”

“Does he already have the child?”

“Yes,” grunted Magnus.

“Then you are already doomed.”

“No,” said Magnus. “There must be something we can do. Anything you can tell us.”

“Arriving up here, manifesting himself the way he did, exerted an extreme amount of his power, he’s likely recharging in the Shadowrealm now. As with all great evils, Belial was spawned from one of the seven heads of the great dragon Tathamet. He lorded over the Realm of Lies in Hell, and was mentored by Mephisto, and like his mentor, he is always in the shadows.

“A long time ago, the Lesser evils came to be discontent with the Prime Evils’ focus on humanity after the events of the Sin War, furious that the Great Conflict had been apparently abandoned. In the midst of this period, Belial and Azmodan saw a chance to overthrow the Prime Evils and take control of Hell for themselves. Belial manipulated Azmodan into making war against the Prime Evils. The two evils made a pact with their brethren, assuring them that humanity would not stand in their way in the course of the Great Conflict. Ruling over hell itself wasn’t enough for Belial, soon after he vested his time and efforts into Garreth Rau. An orphan with a spark of nephalem legacy in his blood, Rau was twisted by the Lord of Lies, becoming a powerful dark mage in servitude to Hell. Rue’s personality and memories were over written with the persona of the Dark One, an insidious and jealous mage. Belial planned to use Rau and his followers to build an army on Sanctuary, and after conquering the mortal realm, use it to launch an invasion against Heaven itself.

“Belial’s plan was foiled by Cain and his allies. Despite possessing overwhelming power, The Dark One succumbed to Cain’s resourcefulness. The persona of the original Garreth Rau briefly resurfaced and drove himself to suicide. It appears Belial is trying to enact his plan once again.”

“How do we stop him?”

“You can’t,” said Tatiana. “The only way to stop him was to keep him from possessing the child. Now that he has what he wants the only one who can stop him is the child.” 

Tessa sobbed into Will’s chest and James’s arms wrapped tighter around Cordelia. She had little means of consoling him as she felt as if she were shattering herself. 

Lucie, she wanted to scream. Her name is Lucie! Not the child! 

“I wish you luck,” whispered the ring. “If I may ask for one small favor for my knowledge?”

Magnus’s hands shook as he held onto his power. “What is it?”

“Please, please give this ring to my daughter,” said Tatiana. “I would like to be with her in the only way that I can.”

“I’ll see that it’s done,” grimaced Magnus.

And just as the door to the library burst open, Magnus released his grip on the ring and collapsed backwards into the awaiting arms of Matthew who has just come through the door with Christopher on his heels. Through a curtain of blond curls, he looked around the somber room and said, “What’d I miss?”

(A/N: Thanks for waiting for this one guys. The story of Belial is not my own. It was pulled from a source and I kind of elaborated on it a bit. hope you guys enjoyed this and I’ll see you again on Friday!)

[carewyncromwell]

At last, my friends, we’ve come to the end! This is the final part of my POTC AU. *cue the confetti and noisemakers*

I’ll be creating a masterpost for this AU in the next few days, so that it’s easier to start at the beginning, but before we jump right in, I want to thank those people who contributed to the POTC AU during its development by creating content for their own characters -- @hphm-brooke, @danceworshipper, @rosievixen, @smarti-at-smogwarts, @theguythatdraws, @dat-silvers-girl, @that-ravenpuff-witch, @hogwarts9, @drinkyoursoupbitch and @samshogwarts -- as well as my dear friend @cursebreakerfarrier, whose character Jules I roped into this thing at the very start before having any concept of how big this thing could get and I feel so blessed to have been able to write for. I also just want to thank you all for the overwhelming flood of support you guys have sent my way for this project -- I truly have loved every minute of it, and I hope to finish some of my other unfinished projects as well as create other fresh new material for you guys in the near future! I love you all! xoxo

One last time -- previous part is here, and full tag is here!

x~x~x~x

Even with McNully’s brilliant ploy giving her an extra smattering of glory to cement her position, Carewyn had still initially feared the crew who had been on the HMS Lion would take her to task for her insubordination of Cutler Beckett. It turned out she really needn’t have worried.

“Lord Beckett may have been chosen by the King to take charge of the Empire’s anti-piracy campaign,” said Carewyn’s old lieutenant when she questioned him about it, “but he selected you as the Admiral of the fleet. Therefore it’s only right that we, as your subordinates, follow your orders -- whether they contradict Lord Beckett’s or not.”

“Even though I’m the sort of person to threaten the King’s chosen representative with my pistol?” asked Carewyn, her eyebrows raised.

“Even if you did far worse than that,” said the lieutenant, his eyes blazing with resolve. “Your orders saved a lot of our men’s lives out there, when Beckett’s no doubt would’ve led to their deaths. It’s only right that we protect you -- that the Navy protects you -- just like you protected us.”

His boyish face broke out into a broad smile. “We won’t betray you, Admiral. None of us will.”

With the Navy’s defeat at the hands of the Pirate Lords, Carewyn charted a course straight for London. The fleet had just started the month-long journey when about three days in, the Flying Dutchman emerged out of a gigantic wave and pulled up right alongside the HMS Royal. The Navy’s sailors immediately prepared for a fight, as they knew that the Dutchman was no longer under their control, but Carewyn held the order to attack, instead allowing the ship to approach.

The sailors on board the Dutchman were unrecognizable to Carewyn’s eyes -- gone were the barnacle-encrusted, shark-or-fish-headed crew members she’d seen before: all she saw were a band of very human, though admittedly very dirty and ragged-looking pirates. Sticking out amongst them was a handsome, clean-shaved man with a stylishly-embroidered coat, a brown ponytail, and discerning brown eyes, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a shorter, stockier man with very long curly dark hair tied back in a ponytail that swished around behind him like an oddly sentient tail. It was these two men that came aboard, when Carewyn invoked the right to parley with the Dutchman’s Captain in her office.

Percy shut the door to Carewyn’s cabin’s door behind the two men, taking off his tricorn hat just as the pirates, Ben, and Carewyn already had now that he was indoors. It was only once Carewyn, Percy, Ben, Jacob, and Ashe were alone that the two Navy officers and ex-Navy veteran dropped their professional masks and the two pirates dropped their intimidating glares, and Jacob and Carewyn ran forward, throwing their arms around each other and squeezing tight.

“Jacob!” Carewyn breathed against his shoulder as she clung to her brother.

Jacob cradled his younger sister close, absently trailing his hand through her hair in repetitive strokes. “Oh Wyn -- my brave Wyn...”

Carewyn pulled away just enough to look at Jacob. Her eyes trailed over his face, down to the long scar on his chest exposed by his slightly open shirt, and over his curly ponytail, which was currently squiggling like a ribbon in mid-air behind him.

Jacob smiled a bit sheepishly.

“Seems all sailors on the Flying Dutchman become a bit more ‘sea-like’ upon tying themselves to the ship. Rakepick’s hair kind of went all ‘jellyfish’ when she was captain -- probably because of her talent for shocking betrayals,” he added with a rather nasty smile. “Ashe thinks that my hair’s been evoking an eel. Fortunately I reckon I won’t start sprouting gills or turning green unless I actively shed my humanity and ignore my role as ferryman like Jones did...”

The severe look on Carewyn’s face made the smile slowly slide off of Jacob’s face.

“Jacob...when Jones was captain of the Dutchman, he wasn’t allowed to visit dry land but once every ten years,” said Carewyn, her voice betraying the anxiety she felt despite her best effort.

Jacob’s eyes grew a little more solemn. “...I know.”

Seeing the pain in his sister’s eyes, he immediately swooped in and trailed a hand through the hair near the front of her face.

“Wyn, I already planned for this. The whole reason I left you on Isle de Muerta is that I wanted to get Jones’s heart and force him, any way I had to, to release you from the contract.” He swallowed. “...I knew I’d have to be prepared to follow through, if I was going to threaten Jones’s life -- that I’d have to be prepared to become captain of the Dutchman myself, if it came to it.”

Carewyn looked if possible even more upset. “...You mean you planned this? You were really going to kill Jones, to stop him from impressing me into service?”

“I was not going to condemn you, Wyn,” Jacob said in a very forceful, pained voice. “I couldn’t let you suffer because of my mistake -- ”

“Two wrongs do not make a right, Jacob,” Carewyn shot back very harshly. “Jones may have been heartless, but he was still a person!”

“If you disregard the tentacles and claw, anyway,” Ashe said rather coolly. When Carewyn whirled on him with a very reproachful look, he spoke again before she did, “Carewyn, your brother had his fair share of conflict about the whole thing. He hated the thought of killing Jones and joining the crew of the Dutchman. He hated the thought of not being free to go where he wanted, to lose so much time with you...with me.”

Ashe’s eyes were very stony, but they still flickered over to Jacob, narrowing slightly with something oddly resigned. Carewyn’s gaze softened significantly.

“...I hated it for him too,” the merman said lowly. “I still do. But I hate the thought of Jack having died there on that deck more. I hate the thought that Rakepick would’ve actually managed to kill him this time, and there would’ve been nothing I could’ve done to stop it. Your friend the Pirate King couldn’t save your brother’s life, but she did prevent him from dying...all because she, like me, couldn’t bear the thought of you two never seeing each other again.”

His lips actually turned up in something of a weak, wry smile upon Carewyn.

“I understand your frustration -- your brother can be amazingly thick -- ”

“Oi!” said Jacob, a bit offended, but Ashe ignored him.

“ -- but I’ve been very fortunate to know the same intense, selfless love from Jack that he feels for you. I’m not going to act like it’ll be easy -- I mean, even if I’d be able to stay on-board on the Dutchman with Jack while he’s here in the land of the living...whenever he goes to the next world as ferryman, I won’t be able to follow. But I can always meet up with him at sea, in my regular form -- I can always catch up, given the proper time...just like I did while Jack was serving under Howell Davis. Until then, I’ll just find someplace to wait.”

Carewyn considered Ashe for a long moment, her blue eyes rippling with a rather indiscernible expression. Then, looking a bit more determined, she strode right up to Ashe and took hold of his shoulders.

“You won’t have to find a place,” she said. “You’ll have one with me.”

Both Jacob and Ashe looked taken aback.

“You’re family, Duncan,” said Carewyn with a smile. “And everything I’ve ever done -- everything I’m doing now -- is for my family...my blood one and my found one.”

She glanced at Percy, who beamed, before turning her gaze back to Ashe.

“You’ll always have a home with me, when you don’t have one with my brother,” she said very firmly. “Always.”

Ashe looked faintly stunned. His eyes trailed over Carewyn’s face, analyzing every inch as if he’d never seen anyone quite like her. His gaze flitted back over to Jacob, whose face had broken into a very warm, tear-choked smile.

Seeing the intense emotion in his partner’s face, Ashe couldn’t help but bow his head and clear his throat as he struggled to keep his composure.

“Ahem...well...that’s...nice.”

He glanced at Carewyn out the side of his eye almost hesitantly. The Admiral’s smile softened that bit more, becoming more sympathetic, and finally Ashe’s face slowly broke out into a very small, soft smile too. He brought up a hand and rested it on the crown of her head, lightly messing up her bangs.

“Guess I’ll just stick with you in the interim, then,” he said airily, “considering the Brethren Court’s instructions.”

Percy blinked in surprise. “The Brethren Court?”

Jacob nodded. “We took a vote and our Pirate King decided that a ‘representative’ should deliver the Court’s demands to the Admiral and the British Crown. Originally the plan was to have Ashe and me rendez-vous with you, and for Ashe to stay with you until ‘the terms were met.’”

“Jack would’ve done it himself if he could, but of course, he sort of needs to stick to the sea, unless he wants to waste his ‘one day every ten years,’” added Ashe.

“What terms did the Court decide on?” asked Ben, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I assume they want pardons for themselves and their crews...but just pardoning a mob of pirates isn’t going to fix things on its own.”

Jacob nodded. “Aye. The Court requested a ‘path toward reintegration’ -- one that includes pardons, as well as a job that suits our sailing and, er... ‘financially-inclined’ talents and can be used to build a future for ourselves and any families we may want to support. Amari’s First Mate said there would only be a 58% chance that the King would accept those terms, but he hoped that you ‘being put under duress’ by a pirate while submitting those terms in writing might improve the odds slightly -- ”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Carewyn very primly.

This startled both Jacob and Ashe. Carewyn exchanged a wry smile with Ben.

“We’re already heading to London right now,” said Ben, his smirk noticeably broader than Carewyn’s. “The Admiral plans on requesting an audience with the King himself.”

“With Beckett gone, I’m in the best position I’ll ever be in, to make my move,” Carewyn said, her blue eyes flashing with determined fire. “I’m done with staying silent -- I intend to convince the King to give every pirate the chance to start their lives over.”

And so Carewyn sailed for London with Ashe, Ben, and Percy as her entourage. Meeting King George I would be a formidable proposition for anyone, but Carewyn fortunately was able to prepare a little ahead of time. The Weasley family had grown up near London, so Percy was able to give Carewyn some advice of how to approach the King --

“His Majesty was born and raised in the Holy Roman Empire, so English is not his first language. There are some rumors that he really doesn’t even speak English at all, but I think that’s highly exaggerated -- anti-German sentiment more than anything, you know. One thing that’s for sure, though, is that what he says goes. He’s even ostracized his own son and heir, so I’ve heard, since he was more popular with the British people. But he also can’t stand the Tories -- they never quite accepted his claim to the throne, over the Stuarts...honestly, there are a lot of people who’ve never really warmed up to the man...”

“And financially?” asked Carewyn.

Percy considered this. “...Well, the King’s very wealthy, certainly -- everyone knows that. But I suppose profit would always be advantageous, for the sake of the Empire...”

Carewyn smiled wryly and shook her head. “The Navy has been commanded by the East India Trading Company more than the King himself, as of late. Beckett once equated money with power, and I think there was a reason. If the King’s been leaning so heavily on the Company, that tells me that it had financial resources the Crown is in desperate need of, so the Crown’s own coffers currently depend on the Company’s success.”

Ben got an delighted, devious glint in his eye.

“Bet he’ll be absolutely thrilled to hear what happened to his fleet, then,” he said sarcastically.

Ashe and Carewyn exchanged a smirk too.

“I reckon you could play to that desperation,” said Ashe dryly. “A lack of or loss of wealth is a very common fear among men, I’ve found.”

Carewyn nodded in agreement. 

Within twenty days, the HMS Royal docked in London, a few days ahead of schedule thanks to the almost miraculously clear weather and friendly winds. Carewyn then traveled with Percy, Ashe, and Ben to Kensington Palace. It was only one of many castles owned by the King, but according to Percy, it was the one King George I had renovated the most, so Carewyn sussed out that it was likely his favorite of his residences and so, in her opinion, the best place to seek him out first. Her intuition turned out to be spot-on -- as it turned out, both King George I and his son the Prince were there, and although the King was occupied with his Ministers and couldn’t meet with them until that evening, Prince George Augustus was eager to meet the famous Admiral Weasley and requested an audience in one of the royal drawing rooms.

The Crown Prince of England was an amiable and warm, but not a very clever or intellectual man of about forty years. He expressed a lot of interest in Carewyn’s experience as a Navy hero, sounding rather like a child as he questioned her about facing off against the likes of Orion Amari and the crew of the dreaded ship Revenge. Carewyn did have to tailor her stories somewhat, but after a while, she was able to get Prince George comfortable enough that they ended up talking casually over a game of Cribbage, where Carewyn gleaned a few other helpful insights. For one, Carewyn learned that both the King and Prince knew several languages, the first being French, which was the preferred language at court as well as among royals abroad. She also found out that the royal family had never visited the colonies themselves, and that King George I’s leading advisor on matters of business -- the First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Walpole -- had been personally putting more stock in the East India Trading Company than on investing any additional money into the colonies. From the sound of things, he believed as Cutler Beckett did in the power of money over noble ancestry, and yet the Prince conceded that his wife and father both thought well of him and that he was relatively amiable.

When Carewyn finally got her audience with King George I, she sure enough encountered Sir Robert Walpole. He was a broad middle-aged man with a powdered white wig curled into ringlets who stood beside the gray-wigged, tiny-eyed elderly King -- and the news of Cutler Beckett’s fate and the outcome of the confrontation at Shipwreck Cove visibly troubled him. As Carewyn had thought, the Crown had been counting on the East India Trading Company’s profits to flow back toward England to offset the national debt brought on by the War of Spanish Succession and Britain’s other conflicts...and so, when she made her proposal to the King, she felt rather confident.

“Votre Majesté...the scourge of piracy is indeed a threat, not just to the lives of our citizens, but to the Empire’s prosperity. But the East India Trading Company is a business -- they’re not trained in military matters, nor do they know how best to use the resources of the British Crown to combat this problem. They’re not equipped to deal with sensitive matters of state, which truthfully, I believe this to be. We don’t need to get England tied up in another military conflict...particularly when there’s a much more cost-effective alternative.”

King George I raised his graying eyebrows with some interest, but did not speak.

“And what alternative would you suggest, Admiral?” asked Walpole, looking rather curious himself.

“Investing in the colonies,” said Carewyn very firmly. “There’s still a lot of undeveloped land out there -- a lot of trading potential in beaver skins, lumber, and tobacco -- the possibility of wealth that’s been left untapped by the East India Trading Company, with their intense focus on Asia. These men who have become pirates, many of them, were privateers under us during our War against the Spanish. They know shipping and are in need of honest work. They’ve asked for it explicitly. I say that we offer pardons to those pirates who would be willing to work for a new trading company in New England -- one that can be for the colonies what the Company in India already is.”

Walpole frowned deeply in thought, considering the proposal. King George straightened up slightly in his throne so he could peer down at Carewyn with a beady eye.

“You believe, truly, that these criminals would want honest employment?” the old man asked.

His voice was very quiet and laced with a husky German accent. Apparently Percy was right to think the rumors that he couldn’t speak English weren’t true, but he seemed a bit uncomfortable with the language, all the same.

Carewyn smiled at the King. “Oui, mon roi. Beasts can survive on human flesh alone, but humans need a home and money in order to live well. Et les pirates...pardon, I hope that word is correct...sont juste les humains.”

King George’s tiny eyes softened noticeably.

“Your French is very poor, Admiral,” he said in rather smug amusement, “but your word choice is correct.”

He looked at Walpole. “What say you, Earl?”

Walpole considered his answer. “...It could be an interesting proposition -- were we able to locate someone who’d be willing to put his name, reputation, and estate on the line, to fund such a company...”

“I volunteer.”

Ben took a step forward and gave a low, but clipped bow to the King.

“Lord Earl, Your Majesty, this is Captain Gordon Cooper, of the HMS Royal,” Carewyn introduced him. “He was instrumental in helping me lead our men during the battle at Shipwreck Cove.”

“I already have a small sum of money saved up, your Majesty -- enough to purchase one or two ships of my own, to start with,” said Ben. “I truly believe that the profits I could make with those two ships just from offering safe passage to the colonies would be enough to fund the purchase of another. All I’d need would be some collateral to pay a crew for each ship in advance.”

"A standard ship would only need about ten well-bodied men to sail it and transport its cargo efficiently,” Carewyn said quickly, seeing the slight hesitation in the King’s expression. "I’m no expert in finance -- ” she inclined her head respectfully in Walpole’s direction, “ -- but in order to settle more land in the colonies, trees would have to be cut down...which means more lumber to transport back to England. If the people Captain Cooper’s ships are transporting are settlers who are incentivized to build homes there -- possibly with the promise of land ownership -- then their arrival alone would spark a boom of lumber sales. That could then pay back the investment several times over.”

Walpole’s lips spread into a smile, one wryer than the King’s. He was clearly a much more discerning man than either of the two Georges, but he seemed pleased by the proposition, nonetheless.

“...Indeed it could,” he granted. He glanced at the King. “I daresay old Townsend would be pleased to have some financial leverage for his talks with the Spanish and French...”

“Mm...”

King George I gave a short, pompous nod before turning back to face Carewyn and the others.

“Very well. I grant my favor.”

Walpole inclined his head to Ben. “Captain Cooper, the Crown grants you and your Company permission to sail. We shall provide you a loan of 10,000 pounds sterling for your first twenty sailors and any necessary ship repairs, to be paid back with interest within a year. If your sailors complete a successful -- namely, profitable -- round-trip expedition to London on board those ships, then they will receive a full pardon from the British Crown for their past crimes and be permitted to continue working as part of your Company.”

Carewyn’s companions’ eyes all lit up.

“Understood,” said Ben, his face consumed by a huge grin.

“Admiral Weasley will deliver the terms to the pirates -- quietly,” said the King with a stern eye. “I expect written reports and good results.”

Carewyn’s face burst into a brilliant smile too, which she tried to obscure when she brought an arm up to her chest and gave a low bow.

“Mais oui. Merci, votre Grace -- we’ll work hard pour England, et pour vous aussi.”

The King’s eyes sparkled with the trace of a wry smile. “Vous etes un garçon très divertissant, Amiral. J'espère que votre français se sera amélioré lors de notre prochaine rencontre.”

With the King’s blessing, Ben purchased the ships needed in London and, with Percy’s help, prepared them for their first expedition. Carewyn returned to the HMS Lion with Ashe, taking it out to sea just far enough that the Flying Dutchman could emerge from the water and pull up alongside the Navy ship. Carewyn relayed King George I’s decision to Jacob in her cabin, and the Captain of the Flying Dutchman was so overwhelmed with pride that he threw his arms around his little sister and squeezed her with all of his strength. Carewyn, however, found herself unable to celebrate.

“What’s wrong, Wyn?” said Jacob. He tilted his head to look at her, his eel-like ponytail twitching almost curiously behind him. “You did it -- you convinced the King. The Lords at Shipwreck Cove, all the people who live there, will be able to live normal lives again, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“I know,” said Carewyn lowly.

Despite herself, she just couldn’t meet her brother’s gaze. Her eyes lingered on his shoulder.

“...I just wish I could’ve given you that kind of normal life too,” she admitted.

Jacob’s blue eyes darkened. Bringing up both of his arms, he encircled Carewyn and held her tightly against his chest as he rested his head on top of hers. Carewyn bit her lip, trying to hold in her emotions as best she could.

“I wanted to bring you home,” she murmured. “The whole reason I wanted to fight for a world where pirates could be forgiven was because I wanted you to be able to come home...you and Bill and Charlie and Jules and Orion...”

Jacob squeezed Carewyn that bit tighter. Both Cromwells were crying now, even though they both stubbornly fought to keep themselves from breaking down into full sobs.

Ashe shared a grim look  with Jacob over Carewyn’s head. Then he came up beside both of them, resting a hand on the crown of Carewyn’s head and leaning his forehead against his lover’s, and hummed something low under his breath. The resonant bass tone seemed to slowly calm Carewyn’s heart and breathing and help the tears ebb.

After a moment, she took a deep breath and looked up at Ashe with muted gratitude, before she turned back to her brother.

“...Now that I’ve done my duty and made sure the Crown’s terms were delivered, I intend to send in my resignation to the Navy. I can’t support Ben’s new Company while I’m still Admiral without worrying about a conflict of interest, after all.”

She offered a weak wry smile, which then slowly morphed into a much more gentle one.

“Besides...I think I’m ready to finally stop fighting.”

Jacob’s teary eyes softened fondly. “Then live, my sweet Wyn. Live in peace and happiness...”

With a heavy breath, he picked up the Dead Man’s Chest he’d brought with him back off Carewyn’s desk and faced Ashe.

“I’ll need to head to the next world soon,” said Jacob. “Would you...?”

Ashe inclined his head in a solemn nod. “Give it to me, Jack.”

Very carefully, Jacob placed the Chest into Ashe’s open hands, trailing his own much dirtier, faintly trembling hands over his lover’s once he’d taken it. His eyes darted from Ashe to Carewyn, looking heartbroken and almost starved -- like he longed so much to never look away from them again.

“Be safe,” Jacob mumbled, “and...please, keep a weather eye on the horizon for me?”

“How dare you ask me that.”

Ashe trailed his lips along the side of Jacob’s face in lingering, messy kisses, only pausing briefly to look him in the eye, blazing brown on blue.

“I will always wait, Jack. I will always find you again.”

Carewyn’s eyes were just as soft as she reached up into the inside pocket of her jacket and slowly withdrew a familiar star-like, sapphire-and-diamond pendant for Jacob to see.

It was the one he himself had given her on Isle de Muerta.

Jacob’s eyes flooded with more tears as Carewyn wrapped both of her arms around her brother’s neck, hugging him tightly just as she had then.

“We’ll be there, Jacob,” she murmured. Two streaks of tears slid from her closed eyes. “I promise.”

Jacob delivered the British Crown’s terms to the Brethren Court at Shipwreck Cove within two days, after he’d returned from ferrying the proper souls to the next life. Within a month, a ship full of twenty sailors had arrived in London, ready to man the red-and-blue-painted ships Ben Copper had purchased. The two ships set sail for the colonies, the first up to New England and the second down to the Caribbean, which allowed Percy to return home to Port Royal and go about his duties as Commodore and Ben to finally be reunited with his love Wendy Gordon and propose marriage as a free and prosperous man.

Once the two ships returned to London another month later, the first wave of pardons was signed. From there, Ben’s enterprise -- the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company -- grew, taking on more ships that then proceeded to employ the once-most-wanted criminals in the world and give them a chance at a new life. And Carewyn -- retiring with full honors from the Navy and settling in New York City with Ashe under her real name for the first time since she was a child -- visited the dock every morning to see every ship that came in.

The first ship to New York brought Ellie Hopper. The once-Pirate Lord of the Mediterranean Sea ended up colliding with the soft-spoken third son of the well-respected horse breeder Johan Schaefer in upstate New York, and the two were married within a few years.

The second ship brought Merula Snyde and the stylish Frenchman Andre Egwu. The captain of the so-called “most powerful ship on the seven seas” continued as a merchant, breaking off from the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company to buy her own ship and engage in the tobacco and sugar trade between New England and the southern colonies. Andre opened up his own clothing shop in Philadelphia and soon became one of the most sought-after tailors in Pennsylvania.

The third ship brought Bill and Jules.

When Bill caught sight of Carewyn at the dock, he practically barreled his way down the ship’s gangplank and shoved a good ten people aside to reach his best friend. The two gingers and Jules then clung to each other for what felt like hours, tears of joy streaming down their faces as Bill trailed a hand through Carewyn’s now-loose-flowing hair and Jules fawned over Carewyn’s pretty new dress.

Bill and Jules also brought a letter from Charlie with them --

My twin, Carey,

I’m sorry I won’t be able to give you this news in person -- but I won’t be accepting my pardon for a while yet.

At Shipwreck Cove, I met a woman named Sarahi (I don’t believe you know her, but she knows you, and Orion spoke very well of her), who grew up in the area of the Pacific Ocean. According to what she’s said, it’s been left largely in chaos since the death of Bartholomew Sharp -- sea serpents, carnivorous sirens, giant squids, the whole lot...and as Pirate Lord of the Pacific, it’s my responsibility to manage things there. But hey, you know I’ve never been afraid of a little adventure! Particularly when I’ve got a good crew on my side. My First Mate Barnaby’s injuries have completely healed, so we, Sarahi, and Samantha O’Connell will be heading out within the next three days on the new and improved Revolution. Sam and Sarahi helped me paint some red dragon wings on the sides, just as a flourish!

I miss you so much, and I miss Bill already, just writing this -- but I know that we won’t ever be truly apart, even when I can only see you in my mind’s eye. I know you’ll probably be worried about me, Carey, but please don’t be. I’d trust my crew with my life -- I already have, honestly, and they sure haven’t let me down yet! I can’t wait for you to meet them. I reckon you’d probably “mother” the hell out of Barnaby, and Sarahi was really happy when I told her how good of a singer you are, so she’s very excited about the prospect of singing with you. And Sam...I reckon you and she will get on famously.

Remember, Carey...we’re family, now and forever! You’ll be in my mind and heart always, until I sail up into New York Harbor and see you again! If Bill hasn’t given you the biggest hug ever for my sake, then give him a good kick to the shin and remind him. Take good care of him, Jules, and Percy for me. Love you so much.

Your brother,

Charlie

Bill and Jules Weasley ended up settling down and starting a family of their own in New York City, just twelve blocks away from where Carewyn and Ashe lived. It was not uncommon over the years for both Carewyn and Ashe to pick up babysitting duties, though Ashe most frequently would just use his particular talent for singing to put any fussy children right to sleep and then drop them off in either Carewyn’s or Jules’s lap.

Over the next six months, more and more red-and-blue ships passed through New York Harbor, dropping off more pardoned ex-pirates so they could start new lives in the colonies. Then one day, toward the end of spring, Carewyn left the brick house she shared with Ashe as if to head for the dock as usual, only to stop mid-step at the sound of someone shouting her name.

“Carewyn!”

She turned around, her ginger hair flourishing behind her as if in slow motion.

A man had just leapt off the back of a carriage he’d been hanging off of without the driver’s knowledge and was now running toward her. Carewyn squinted, taking in his unfamiliar dark ponytail and sailor’s clothes -- then, within seconds, she recognized the handsomely smiling, bearded face and his shining, galaxy-like eyes.

“Orion?” she breathed.

Her heart seemed to seize up, as if it were being squeezed in someone’s hand and yet being given wings at the exact same time. Then she threw herself into a run, and it slammed against her rib cage, as she ran to him, flat-out ignoring how her knees kept getting caught in her hoops and her heeled shoes pinched her feet.

“Orion -- ORION!”

She just about tripped into his arms. Orion caught her and swooped down on her, burying his face in her hair.

“Carewyn...” he murmured against her neck.

“Orion,” said Carewyn.

Her voice was strained with the effort of trying to contain her joy. It felt like she was being stretched at the seams and probably could’ve exploded from all the intense emotions beating at the edges of her heart. She secured her arms around his neck and clung to him -- she brought her lips up to the side of his temple and kissed it, resting her forehead against his briefly before finally pulling away enough to look him in the face.

Orion was beaming from ear to ear as he brought up a hand to trail his thumb gently along her cheek.

“...Carewyn Cromwell...I don’t think you’ve ever looked more fair.”

Carewyn smiled. “Does that mean you like my new look?”

“Yes,” said Orion, his eyes grazing her black-and-white-striped dress and the diamond-and-sapphire pendant tied with a black ribbon around her neck briefly, “but that’s not why you look so fair. You’ve been my moon goddess, previously...but now you are Libertas, personified.”

Carewyn laughed, her face contorted with confusion. “What?”

“Libertas, Carewyn,” repeated Orion, his huge smile never faltering. “The goddess of freedom! Freedom is the most beautiful thing, Carewyn. I’ve longed for it all my life, but never could truly have it, whether because I lacked the means of survival or because I was a pirate who could only live on the run. And when we first met again, on the Artemis...the thing that hurt me the most, seeing you again...was knowing that you were trapped by your position -- enslaved to the duty that made you hide who you were and march lock-step with the likes of Cutler Beckett. But now you...in this moment, here...you are free. It shines in your eyes, on your face -- it radiates off of you like a star, Carewyn. Better still -- because of you, I am free. For the first time in my life...I’m completely free to chase my heart’s desire...”

Orion’s smile seemed to shrink slightly, not out of lack of happiness but out of something almost like nerves, as he reached into his lone remaining belt and slipped out a familiar black-lidded compass.

"McNully, Skye and I have been offered salaried positions with the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company,” he said a bit more seriously, “so I may have to return to sea in the future, but...”

When he opened the compass, its scarlet arrow was pointed right at Carewyn.

“...My heart’s desire has not changed. I would always return, if you...”

He trailed off, his tone oddly shy for how calm his face appeared. The once-Admiral’s red-painted lips spread into a bigger, fuller smile too as she rested her hands on top of his.

“I wouldn’t have married you in the middle of a storm if I didn’t want to build a life with you, Orion Amari,” she said gently. “Or is it Cromwell now? We may want to make a decision about that...”

She smoothed some dark hair out of his eyes.

“I already told you that I want you to have a home. If you need to fly like a bird...then I’ll be your nest.”

Carewyn placed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. His black eyes softening, Orion brought up a hand to hold the back of her head, holding it in place. He kissed her chastely in return once, twice, and then deepened the kiss on the third go. After he released her, he lingered, his lips brushing up against hers as he smiled down at her.

“...My dear Bedlam maid...I will always follow your song home.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes sparkled affectionately. “Then I’ll never stop singing.”

“See that you don’t,” said Orion, his black eyes glittering with some wry amusement. “I do believe I said I’d envisioned a life for you where you married a man that you could sing for.”

Carewyn laughed quietly, but after a moment, she brought her forehead beside her husband’s, her arms secure around his neck as she held him close and sang for him.

“So now these two are married, and happy may they be, Like turtle doves together, in love and unity.

All pretty maids, with patience wait, that have got loves at sea – I love my love because I know...my love…loves…me.”

[crashingmeteorz]

the original residents of the secret airbender city of mùchéng

continued from here.

so i imagine that 20 or so airbenders make it to mùchéng. more than half of them are 12 or younger, so a lot of the journey to the north mountains and the subsequent settlement is spent comforting the cries of young children. it’s tough, for the adults, however, because not all of them even are adults.

the youngest non-12-year-old is the patient and gentle madhur, who is 15. the nuns used to say they were born floating about like dandelions, because that’s how soft and loving they were as a child. madhur gets along beautifully with the younger kids, but unfortunately gets shouldered with a lot of undue responsibility because of this. some of the other teenagers try and point this out and help them, but the adults are far too busy trying to figure out how to keep their culture alive, which, you know, fair. madhur has an extreme sweet tooth, which the children relate to, of course.

next is the 17-year-old headstrong anila, who never quite felt like she fit in among the other airbenders. interested in material things like jewelery and pretty clothes, anila often dreamt of leaving her culture behind, and began traveling as soon as she was able. however, she was home when the fire nation attacked, and managed to smuggle out a couple of kids, meeting up with the group later. now that her people are gone, anila deals with survivor’s guilt, feeling she doesn’t deserve to be the one carrying on the air nomads traditions since she shunned them. however, it’s her appreciation for and understanding of earth kingdom societal norms that ultimately helps them survive, and she is one of the first to raise a family with an earth kingdom man, although not until her late 20s. she also helps with the kids, and can be stricter, but sings lovely lullabies to them at night.

kavi is 19 years old, and is a nervous wreck. he doesn’t even know how he survived the invasion, much less with the young monk boy he’d been mentoring on his back, but hey, it happened. he means well and loves his people, but he’s terrified to leave mùchéng, and thus spends most of his time learning to construct homes and pathways in the mountains with the materials they’ve gathered, so that he can be of some use. quiet children flock to him, as he is very good at understanding their fear and anxiety, soothing them with stories of their people.

ishani is a 25-year old airbender woman who invented a move at 16, gaining her arrows that way, and is very confident in her abilities. sticking to a strict moral code and somehow feeling she is personally responsible for the reestablishment of the air nomads, ishani often stresses herself out with the weight of her responsibilities. she and anila butt heads often, but as time goes by they become very good friends, learning from each other and appreciating each other’s stances. ishani helps anila to appreciate her culture more, and anila helps ishani to loosen up.

simran is a 33-year-old non-bending monk who left behind his great love at the temple, and feels guilt for mourning her more personally than anyone else. the genocide leaves him in a crippling depression, and for years he lives in a gray, empty world, despite his fellow nomads’ best efforts to help simran. however, as time goes by, he finds new love in their small city growing into something more.

reva and jamyang are a lovely wlw couple in their mid-40s. a very powerful pair of benders who happily cared for the air bison, they were devastated when their noble steed, jaya, died in one of sozin’s traps, affording them time to escape. they tell the children the stories of the air bison and how they were the first airbenders. reva, the more adventurous of the two, eventually tames some of the animals on the mountain so that the children may learn the joys of caring for another life. jamyang, meanwhile, the more creative, paints beautiful murals depicting different aspects of airbending culture: their animals, their foods, their most famous benders, avatar yangchen, all of it. reva and jamyang are basically everyone’s moms.

danish is in his early 60s and is very strict. he spends most of his time trying to figure out how to communicate in secret with the outside world, and let the other air nomads know that they’re alive and safe in a compound. though not harsh with children, they simply are not his cup of tea. however, being a fan of oral tradition, when asked, he will gladly go on long tangents about his journeys between the air temples atop his lovely bison dorji.

lina is a non-bender nun in her mid-to-late 60s who, like danish, is very strict, but in the opposite sense. she and danish bicker like an old married couple, danish insisting they reach out to their brethren, and lina insisting they do not do that, and instead focus solely on their new life here. lina studies earth kingdom culture intensely, wanting them all to blend in should anyone ever find their city. lina will often play story-telling games with the children, which are actually ways of getting them to memorize important details about the earth kingdom.

finally, the 80-year-old lhamo, a compassionate and wise woman who passes away a few years after mùchéng finally begins to look like a home. she guides these air nomads into the new age, offering advice and a shoulder to cry on at all times. because of her frailty, the adults are always insisting various degrees of “don’t bother her”, but lhamo seeks out company and somehow always knows what’s bothering you. she finally passes when a storm blows through mùchéng, threatening to tear the little wooden city apart, and lhamo practically controls the storm, bending the wind away from them with the help of the other benders.

so these are my mùchéng founders! i’ve been thinking about them for a long time, and am pretty happy with how they turned out. let me know what you think! also, huge shoutout to @zarakem for always supporting this headcanon. it meant a lot to see your consistent support 😊 if anyone would like to know the meaning behind the airbender names, they’re below the cut!

madhur: a masculine and feminine hindi name simply meaning “sweet”, with the scripts मधुर. this felt appropriate, especially with madhur’s personality being very sweet, and their love of sweet treats.

anila: the feminine version of the hindi name “anil”, which means “air, wind”. it’s spelled with the scripts अनिला. i liked this name for anila, because it would have been just another way she felt trapped in her culture. eventually she lives up to her name, incorporating both her culture and her personal choices into her lifestyle.

kavi: a masculine hindi name meaing “ wise man, sage, poet” with the scripts कवि. kavi is very wise, but often gets ignored because of his shyness and anxiety. his storytelling prowess is what draws the children to him, which is why i chose this name.

ishani: a feminine hindi name meaning “ruling, possessing”, with the scripts इशानी. ishani is a pillar of leadership for the survivng nomads, and has always been a leader-type. however, her name felt kind of like a pre-determined destiny, and caused her to at first be bossy in her youth. she quickly sheds this trait.

simran: a masculine and feminine hindi name meaning “recollection”, with the scripts सिमरन. simran makes it his mission to memorialize his lost love, and the other airbenders as well. he becomes a living memory, in a way.

reva:  a feminine hindi name meaning “one that moves”, with the scripts रेवा. reva is adventurous and constantly learning new things, and perfectly fits her name. 

jamyang: a masculine and feminine tibetan name meaning “gentle song” with the scripts འཇམ་དབྱངས. being a storyteller, jamyang’s voice often feels like a gentle song. she’s also a very kind and loving soul, befitting her name.

danish: a masculine urdu name meaning “knowledge, learning” with the scripts  دانش. danish is a knowledge-seeker, and wishes to find the other airbenders. he devotes most of his life to studying texts and traditions.

lina: a feminine hindi name meaning “absorbed, united”, with the scripts लीना. lina’s whole goal is for the surviving air nomads to blend in with the earth kingdom and mesh their two cultures, so this felt like a fitting name.

lhamo: a feminine and masculine tibetan name meaning “goddess”, with the scripts ལྷ་མོ. lhamo is the fearless and graceful elder of these surviving nomads. she felt like no less than a goddess to me. 

jaya: a feminine and masculine hindi name meaning “victory”, with the scripts  जय. a brave and devoted air bison, jaya sacrifices herself, true, but her beloved airbenders escape. she considers this a victory.

dorji: a feminine and masculine tibetan name meaning “diamond”, with the scripts རྡོ་རྗེ. danish is kind of pretentious and considered his air bison to be a beautiful gem of an animal, mostly because she belonged to him. he misses his diamond dearly.

[rueitae]

Ransom

Read my whumptober collection on Ao3

vampire and werewolf au

~~~~~

For the third time since he began his walk, Lance loosened the tie around his neck. Though he’s already fiddled with it twice, it still feels far too restrictive, choking him. 

Just as the trio that follows him feels equally suffocating.

He’d love nothing more than to get them off his figurative tail, but to do so risks the wrath of his oldest brother, so he has to stick with his current plan. But as he gets closer to the cafe, the anxiety in his heart grows. He bites his lip, only to hiss in pain. 

What kind of vampire bites his own lip?

“Hey, Mosquito,” a teasing voice calls from the end of the alley, shaking Lance out of his thoughts.

Pidge leans against the red brick of the cafe, a smug grin plastered on her face. 

Lance bristles, heat rushing to his cheeks, fear momentarily forgotten. “Just because you heard my mom call me that once does not mean you can use it too.”

"But that's what you are, right?” she says, kicking off from the wall and walking towards him. Her own fangs glint off the light from the street lamps. Though they serve a different purpose than his, they are just as deadly. “Annoying, always buzzing around my ear?"

A shadow in his periphery catches his attention. Like a flash of lightning, Lance remembers what he has to do. 

“Good to see you too, Pidge,” he says quickly, meeting her halfway. He takes her arm - gentlemanly, he’s a vampire not an animal - and guides her out towards the heavily populated street. “Let’s find a seat at the cafe.”

She goes along with him, though gives him a good sniff from his midsection up to his neck. “You’re scared,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, my cousins don’t know where I am. They’re not gonna come and beat you up.” She grins teasingly. “Besides, they know I can take you in a fight.”

That’s exactly the problem, Lance frets. 

“You should give them a phone call, just to tell them where you are. You can even blame me,” Lance offers, quickening his pace. Almost to the street. Almost to safety. 

Pidge frowns and stops, dragging Lance backwards and facing her. “Okay, you’re acting weirder than normal. What gives?”

A flash of movement in the alleyway tells Lance he’s out of time. “Run!” he yells, yanking Pidge forward.

He doesn’t get two steps before two cloaked figures block their exit. Sharp claws dig into Lance’s arm. Pidge has finally realized she has all the reason in the world to be afraid. 

“Leave her alone!” Lance says as firmly as he can, stepping between them and Pidge. “She isn’t involved in our fight!” 

“Perhaps not,” a familiar, sinister voice says from behind. 

Lance’s blood runs cold as he turns. They’d sent Dimitri to tail him, one of the leaders of his coven. His brother was dead serious about kidnapping Pidge. 

“But she will agitate the dogs,” Dimitri continues smugly as he approaches. “And that will be plenty enough to ensure they make a mistake, and a mistake on their part means they will finally be out of our territory.”

Pidge growls. “Territory that you stole. Great Uncle Alexandre was keeping this town safe for hundreds of years while you ungrateful bloodsuckers were sleeping blissfully. He died on a pyre so your coffins wouldn’t get flushed down the river!” 

It happens so quickly even Lance with his superhuman reflexes can’t stop it. 

Dimitri snatches Pidge from his protective grasp and holds her to the alleyway wall by her neck, her legs dangling in the air and kicking against the brick. Lance moves to help her, but strong hands wrap around his arms, holding him back. 

“It has been hundreds of years since I have tasted wolf blood,” Dimitri airs. Lance’s heart skips a beat at the implication, but it breaks him more to see Pidge’s usually sharp eyes filled with fear. 

Dimitri lowers her to his eye level and leans in closer. “Let us see if the blood of a country wolf is as pure as a city one.”

“Stop! Don’t! Please!” Lance begs. 

“Let me go!” Pidge shrieks. 

Her cries are silenced to a pitiful whine when Dimitri sinks his fangs into the veins in her neck. 

Lance falls to his knees. “Don’t hurt her, please. She’s not even lived two decades.”

Dimitri takes a long, agonizing sip before removing his fangs from Pidge’s skin. She slumps over, exhausted and unconscious. Dimitri carries her easily. Lance is relieved he doesn’t suck her dry.

“What power,” he says, examining the palm of his hand. It sparkles with a green glow, the extra quintessence from Pidge that Dimitri’s body can’t contain. “You were holding out on us, Lance, trying to get the first bite out of her.”

“I wasn’t!” he hisses. “Pidge is a friend. I wouldn’t hurt her like that.”

“A friend indeed,” Dimitri says snidely. “It was your friendship that brought her to our attention. Now you’ll do your part to see that the dogs leave the city. Assuming she won’t want to rip out your heart, make sure she stays in the guest room.”

~

So hours later, that’s where Lance is - sitting by Pidge’s bedside waiting for her to wake. 

True to Dimitri’s word, it truly is one of the guest rooms. She has a large bed all to herself - a modern one with all the comforts of soft pillows and warm blankets. Pidge has no wounds other than the bite marks - which makes Lance snap part of his chair off every time he looks at them - so as long as she rests, she’ll recover.

Recover enough to go home once the ransom is paid, for the werewolves to leave the city. 

He places a cool, wet cloth over her forehead, having soaked it in the wash bin for the fifth time since being placed on caretaker duty. There’s no sense in trying to escape with her from here, not when they’re surrounded by far more ancient and more powerful of Lance’s brethren. 

He’s really screwed up this time, putting her in this situation. He should never have agreed to meet her tonight. Curse his soft heart for thinking he could warn her - just so long as he could see her again. More than blood her presence is addicting and hanging out with him seemed to make her happy - and that’s all he wants for her. 

Pidge moans and Lance sits up on alert from this first sound she’s made since arriving here. 

Lance takes her hand, desperate for more of a response from her. “Pidge?” He just wants to know if she’s okay. 

Amber eyes flutter open and find him. He can tell her brain works overtime from the puzzled expression on her face, trying to remember and figure out where she is. 

“You’re safe for now,” Lance assures her, squeezing her hand in comfort. “My brother wants you alive.”

Pidge’s eyes burst open and she bolts up, looking around wildly. “W-where am I? What did your dumb relatives do to me?”

“The basement of the Castle,” he says regretfully. “I’m so sorry Pidge. I tried to tell them not to do this. They’re… talking with your cousins now to negotiate your release.”

Worse than seeing her still, Pidge shakes, uncertainty all about her. “O-oh. I see,” she says, not looking at him. She laughs humorlessly. “Not exactly the cool vacation I hoped for when I came to town.”

Heart breaking for her, Lance moves to sit on the bed with her, wrapping her in a hug. “I know. I’m so sorry… h-how are you feeling?”

Relief fills him when she leans back into him. “Kinda groggy still. Transforming last night for the full moon took a lot out of me to begin with.” Her small hands grab a fistfull of his suitcoat. “I hate this stupid war. When they let me go, come with me to the country. You don’t have to deal with their idiocy anymore.”

The offer of an idyllic life in the country is temping. Though he’d lose everything he loves about the city, the people, the conveniences, his family - he’d gain Pidge and we would have to pretend to be a bully towards the werewolves anymore. His mother would approve, he knows it. 

But then he wouldn’t know if he’d see her ever again.

Before he can answer, the door unlocks. In walks both Dimitri and Lance’s own brother, the leader of their entire coven. 

Pidge snarls, and if not for the strength of his arms around her, would have attacked the two most powerful vampires in the city. 

“Let me go!” she demands. “I’ve had enough of your stupid city politics. You’re all killing each other needlessly!”

Dimitri licks his lips, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “Recovered already. Werewolf regenerative abilities are truly astounding. Shall I take another bite of her, Boss?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Lance interjects before his brother can say anything. 

The Boss, as he wants to be known by these days, chuckles darkly. “I think my little brother might have a problem with you sucking more life out of his wolf. You’re right, of course, to be active so soon after losing so much blood is a feat… a very valuable one.”

“N-no,” Lance gasps, a heavy pit falling to his stomach. “Please don’t. You promised you’d let her go.”

“I promised to set her free once the werewolves pay ransom. They refuse to pay.”

Lance feels the exact moment Pidge freezes in fear, because her claws dug into his skin. His pants are ruined but he doesn’t care at all. How could they not pay to take her back? She’s family - visiting family at that!

“You can’t be serious,” Lance pleads. “At least let her leave the city if her cousins don’t care. Let her go home.”

“Not possible. The terms are set. Either the werewolves vacate the city, or the she-wolf remains with us,” his brother says business-like, before grinning devilishly. “I’m sure she’ll be quite fine in your very capable hands.”

Beside him, Pidge shakes with rage, her eyes full of tears. “I’m going to kill you,” she declares through a sob filled voice. 

“Threaten the Boss again and I’ll slap a silver collar on you like the dog you are,” Dimitri growls, taking a step forward. 

The Boss puts his hand out, bidding Dimitri to cease. “Keep her here, Lance. It will be much better for her health.”

They leave, locking the door behind them. 

Pidge shudders, a tiny whimper escaping from her lips. “What… the quiznak was that? How can anymore be so… so…”

“Cruel?” Lance supplies, and he sighs when she gives him a confused look. “Look, the more detached a vampire is from society the worse they get. My brother hasn’t seen a mortal other than to feed for at least a few centuries. He’s nuts. I know that.”

Of everything Lance expects Pidge might say or do, flopping back down onto the bed is not one of them. She doesn’t speak right away, just breathing, chest fluttering with the sobs she holds back. Lance keeps a hand on her back, lighting rubbing.

“I can’t just stay here,” she eventually says. “I might never get to leave. I do-don’t want to become a replenishing feast for your family.”

Lance has never felt so helpless. Not only can he not help her, he can’t comfort her that something like that won’t happen - because it absolutely could. He can’t even imagine how Pidge is feeling. 

So he just holds her, muttering a thousand apologies that don’t even come close to making things right.

[zenobiaofbyzantium]

Life goes on.

Yeah it does. You’ve got to keep doing what you’re doing. I know. However it doesn’t change what one feels, does it?

Yesterday after the quake, I couldn’t focus on anything. After trying to read a sentence over three times and still not fully comprehending, I gave up. I just tried to force myself to relax.

I listened to music, rest, watch a historical documentary; basically had done some things that normally comfort me. None of them worked at all.

So I did the only thing that could comfort me, I checked the earthquake bags. Food, water, medicine, clothes, important paperwork... I triple checked everything. Later I warned my family about what to do during and after an earthquake, checked the news and social media...

At night, it was really hard to find sleep. I tossled and turned for hours. I opened an old TV show on my iPad, tried to sleep while listening to it. Around 3 am I passed out but I kept waking up to a minimum sound.

Anxiety sucks, as we all know. Every disorder has its own awful aspects as the anxiety disorder does. I knew there were thousands of people like me, feeling uneasy and anxious. I knew that there aren’t any ways to exactly determine when and where an earthquake occurs. I knew there were over 15 millions of people are in the same situation as I am. But knowing these things did not change my feelings.

It made me feel deeply sad, in the morning, when I realized there are a lot of people on the face of this earth that are living under the imminent danger of a catastrophe whether it’s of nature or man-made. Invasions, storms, floods, droughts, civil wars, avalanches, fires... In this day and age we can forecast some of them. Sometimes knowing can be a curse. Waiting for a bad thing to happen to you and your loved ones... It’s indescribably hard. I wish that upon no one.

I’m not going to go into details of the current situation. Basically, there has been an expectation of a major earthquake -or more than one- in the region having an impact over 7 according to the Richter scale, anytime in next 25 years. It’s huge. It’s expected to cause deaths over hundreds of thousands -probably close to a million or more, depending on its epicenter- and destruction resulting in millions of dollars losses. So there is that.

We, as the residents, have nothing to do but be prepared and vigilant. Earthquake bags, safe environment in our homes, knowing the gathering areas... All we can do. I am not even going to talk about what people in power to do something can do. Because I am well aware they don’t give a shit. Excuse my language.

I cooked today. I cleaned my room, made coffee, cleaned the kitchen, did some planning. None reduced my anxiety but I know there is nothing I can do, so... I don’t know... I guess I just came to terms with facts. I am not living in the most dangered area, so I hope to continue living with my loved ones and wish no harm comes to anyone.

As you know, I started to my MA degree in history. Classes started on the 16 September. I have several assignments, therefore I have to focus on them. Nothing else I can do.

I prepared filter coffee, got some chocolate, get on my desk. Not completely ready to face it all, but I have to move on. That’s the healthiest thing, is it not?

So my fellow brethren, that’s the tea for today. I hope you all are safe and sound, and most importantly happy. Take care. Will keep you guys posted as much as I can.

Zee out! 🖖🏻

[gimmesumsuga]

Pink Panther (m)

Hybrid AU Pairing: Jin x reader Rating: Explicit  Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, oral sex (female receiving), impregnation kink, unprotected sex, dirty talk  Word count: 13K 

Below is the belated birthday fic I wrote for my precious @rbuns!�� I hope you like it, bra, and I’m so sorry it’s so late *squishy hugs* <3 <3 

“Oh pants!”

Scrambling to catch the pen that’d leapt out of your hand at the sudden call of your name, your eyes dart across your crowded desk to the red, blinking light of the intercom which had just spoken to you so abruptly.  At least you presume that that’s what it is that’s flashing at you so; it’s a little difficult to tell underneath the stacks of paper that lay so haphazardly around it.  

Pen now safely tucked behind your ear, you actually have to resort to rising up out of your chair in order to find the damned thing, your heart fluttering nervously as you hastily try to remember which button it is that you’re supposed to press to reply.  You jab at the largest one, hoping for the best.

“Y-yes, Mr Kim?”  

You can’t remember the last time your boss communicated with you via anything other than email - apart from perhaps the odd pleasantry as he’s breezed past your desk on his way in and out of the office at each end of the day - so it seems only fair for you to lay the blame for your rustiness with the intercom system solely on his broad shoulders.

“Can you come in here for just a moment, please?”  

“Sure thing!” you agree compliantly, head bobbing up and down to an otherwise empty office, releasing the intercom button only to assault it again a mere split second later with a hastily blurted out, “Sir!” in some poor attempt to claw back any semblance of professionalism.

Honestly, you’d think that after so long working here that you’d know how conduct yourself properly.

Briefly pausing to check your reflection in the little mirror that you keep stashed away in your top drawer for moments such of these you ensure that there are no lingering gloops of mascara in the corner of your eyes, and as you round your desk a moment later, straightening out your skirt, it’s only very narrowly that you manage to avoid snagging your stockings on its pointed, wooden corner.  

You swear you wouldn’t be so much of a bumbling idiot if it weren’t for the fact that your boss, Kim Seokjin, is quite possibly one of the best looking men you’ve ever laid your eyes on.  As someone who’s fairly awkward at the best of times, coming face to face with someone who’d look more at home on the centre spread of a magazine than an office is more than a little problematic, and it’s with a frustrated sigh that you have to turn back halfway when you realise that you’ve left your diary back at your desk, open faced with a half-drunk cup of coffee resting on its pages.  

“Come in!” A voice calls from inside the office immediately after you’d meekly knocked its door, and it’s with a continuing coyness that you push it open and slip inside, shutting it behind you with a gentle ‘click’.  

Seokjin’s office is as dimly lit as it always is whenever you come in here; blinds drawn, no light save the small desk lamp that sits atop his pristinely organised desk and  the faint glow of the laptop computer which illuminates his face.  Your employer doesn’t look up on your arrival but you can tell from the twitch of the rounded ears nestled amongst his pitch black hair that he’s aware of your presence.  

Quietly, you wait for him to finish whatever he’s doing, holding your diary close to your chest and squeezing it as a way to calm your anxiety.  

As a hybrid of one of the most elusive and aggressive big cats of the world, Kim Seokjin has always intimidated you slightly.  You’re not sure where the feeling stems from, as it’s not as if you’ve ever witnessed him acting unpleasantly or unkindly in all the time you’ve worked for him - rather the opposite, in fact.  He’s quite the charmer when it suits him, entertaining clients with his enthusiastic sense of humour and disarming them with his good looks, usually over a lunch or dinner at one of the many fine dining establishments Seokjin so often likes to frequent.  You’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve witnessed him close a business deal before he’s even made a start on his steak; rare, bloody and marbled with thin slivers fat, just the way he likes it.  

But now, sat silently amongst the many potted fauna that decorate and humidify his office, Seokjin’s similarity to the stealthy predator that makes up part of his DNA is all too apparent.  It has you making an unconscious effort not to breathe too loudly; a prey response that comes so naturally that you don’t even realise you’re doing it.  

“Turn the light on, if you like.”  He speaks so suddenly that you almost jump, your eyes darting over to the light switch to the side of you before returning straight to him.  He’s yet to look up from his laptop, his fingers softly tapping on the keys to provide the only sound in the otherwise silent room.  

“It’s alright, Sir, I’m sure I’ll manage.”  The keys fall silent and Seokjin looks up, his eyes immediately finding you from across the room.  You’d think you’d have gotten used to the yellowy green of his irises by now - that they wouldn’t unsettle you so - but they still do.  It’s not so much the colour that stirs a confusing mixture of emotions within you, but more the way they gently glow back at you in the semi-dark; a constant reminder that he’s a creature far more superior and impressive than the simple human-being you are.

“Come and sit, then,” he beckons, gently shutting his laptop with one hand and gently gesturing to the chair opposite him with the other, “You needn’t stand on ceremony.”  Muttering a quiet ‘thank you’, you sink yourself down as delicately as possibly, very aware of the way he’s watching your every move, hands now neatly folded in his lap.  

“You needed something?”  Nervous, you force yourself to look up and meet his eyes across the table and try not to become distracted by the gentle curve of his month.  He has the most impossibly thick, heart-shaped lips, and you know if you start looking at them now you won’t be able to stop.  

“Were you saving that for later?”  Seokjin nods towards you, one of his eyebrows lifting with amusement when you frown, bewildered.  “The egg mayonnaise down the front of your blouse.”  You follow the direction of his eyeline, looking down to see a pale yellow stain several centimetres long descending from the top of your breast right down to where your nipple approximately lies, left there from the lunch you’d eaten at your desk a good number of hours ago.   

Memo to you - next time don’t just check your face before coming in here.  

Embarrassed, you emit a high-pitched titter, your cheeks turning as fuschia pink as your shirt.  

“Always good to have a snack on hand,” you joke lamely, and it’s only knowing that it’ll do no good that keeps you from attempting to brush it off, settling with clenching onto your diary a little bit tighter instead.  

“Very true.”  It’s a relief to see that Seokjin is smiling when you glance back up, rather than looking down his nose at you in judgement.  You smile sheepishly back, feeling glad when he starts speaking again to get you back on track.  “I’m sure you’re already aware the biennial gala is taking place tomorrow evening.”  

Of course you’re aware; you’ve been putting little notifications on his calendar about it for weeks along with helpful facts and figures regarding the company’s latest reported revenue, estimated profits and record low staff turnover.  ‘KS Developments’ has always been a company that prides itself in treating its employees well, and it shows in the numbers.  The cafeteria alone - which is free to every worker - is a good enough reason to stay loyal, nevermind all the various other benefits you can accumulate as time goes by.  

“It’ll be a good opportunity for us to network and impress other potential clients,” Seokjin continues, rising from his chair and walking round to the side of his desk, his eyes looking elsewhere around the room as he speaks.  “Especially certain political officials that aren’t so keen on further pursuing our ambitions for an increase in the availability of social housing.”  

He pauses, sitting himself on the corner of the desk nearest to you, and you try not to stare as his long black tail flicks out of the way to make this possible.  The base of it - which emerges seamlessly from his specially tailored dress pants - is thick and sturdy looking, tapering along its length to end at a significantly slimmer, rounded tip, and the fur with which it’s covered looks just as soft and glossy as the hair which sits atop Seokjin’s head.

Your fingers begin to fidget restlessly around your diary as you wonder what it might feel like to touch, despite knowing how taboo this would be considered in hybrid society.  

Realising he’s waiting for some form of acknowledgement from you you hastily nod, feeling your cheeks begin to flush once more under his gaze.  You hope it isn’t too obvious.  “I understand governor Mun hasn’t exactly been forthcoming lately.”  Seokjin smiles wryly, head cocking slightly to the side.  

“That’s one way of putting it.”  

It never ceases to amaze you that there are still some people out there fighting against long-standing hybrid law and legislation.  It’s been over a decade since hybrids were supposed to have been given as equal rights as their human counterparts, and yet discrimination remains rife within some provinces - particularly the poorer ones - with some hybrids living in wildly overcrowded accommodation just to get by.  

As one of the big names in housing development, CEO Kim Seokjin has been almost solely responsible for driving forward the call for affordable, suitable living for his less fortunate hybrid brethren -  though frequently at the cost of his own profits.  His humanitarianism is just another thing to add to the list of things you admire about him; another thing to make you slightly breathless and blushy in his presence.  

“Anyway,” he continues in the next breath, gently flicking his head to shake his bangs out of his eyes, “The shareholders have expressed a desire for me to take someone as a companion to these sorts of events from this point forward.  They seem to think it’ll make me more ‘approachable’.”  It takes a great effort for you not to laugh as Seokjin adds the inverted commas with his fingers, rolling his eyes and looking decidedly bored by the whole idea.  

You can’t quite understand why the board is suddenly so concerned with whether or not Seokjin has someone trailing along with him to these sorts of things.  He’s always gotten the job done before now and always kept profits high, so what does it matter?  From what little you know Panthers tend to be quite solitary creatures - preferring to be left to their own devices except when absolutely necessary - and now you think on it more that description does indeed seem to fit what you’ve observed of Seokjin.  He very rarely emerges from his office to mingle with the rest of the office, and you’ve never seen him socialising in anything other than a professional capacity.

“So, this is where I need your help.”  He turns his feline eyes on you, looking at you expectantly as you do nothing but blink back, feeling completely lost.  

What exactly is he asking?  Is he expecting you to find him a date?  Surely someone as handsome as him shouldn’t have any trouble finding a willing woman, even if it is short notice.  Why does he need your help to do it?!  

“Uh…” you begin, casting your eyes downward at your diary before glancing back up, wetting your lips, “I’m not sure that’s in my job description-”  A nervous chuckle; you probably shouldn’t have said that. “-But I guess I could ask around the office for you? I know-um-Susy from contracting is newly single, maybe she’ll-”

“You have plans tomorrow night?”  Seokjin interrupts, his otherwise flawlessly smooth forehead wrinkling into a shallow frown.  “I checked your calendar earlier and I didn’t see any prior social engagements listed.”  

You very nearly choke on your saliva.  

“M-me?!”  Your boss laughs merrily, clearly tickled by the look of sheer disbelief written on your face.  You can’t blame him; you must look ridiculous with your eyes almost bugging out of their sockets and egg mayo slopped down your front.  

This has to be some kind of bad joke.

“Are you aware of anyone else who knows the ins and outs of our company’s day to day runnings better than you or I?”  Your mouth flops uselessly for a second, an anxious sweat breaking out of your palms.  

“Well… n-no,” you admit quietly and Seokjin smiles, pleased at having been proven right.  

“Then I think you’ve answered your own question.”  

A beat passes in which you desperately try to get your head around the prospect of Seokjin actively seeking out your company.  Admittedly, it sounds as though you’ve been picked purely for practicality rather than any other less ‘professional’ motivations, but hey, that’s better than nothing, right?    

The man sat before you must mistake your silence for hesitation rather than dumbfoundedness because after a second or two more passes he speaks again, blinking twice in quick succession as he leans slightly toward you.

“Unless, of course, the idea of spending an evening with me is so abhorrent that you refuse.”  His sentence draws to a close with a laugh but you swear this one doesn’t sound quite as natural as the last.  It's a little strained, a little forced, and you notice the end of his tail twitch where its hanging behind his legs, when previously it had rested entirely still.  

Does he really believe there’s a chance you might actually turn him down?

You're not sure what to say.  The idea of it certainly isn't unappealing; hanging off Seokjin’s arm for a night must be many a woman's dream, yourself included.  But what the hell are you going to wear?  And what on earth will everyone say when they see you there with him?  You'd rather people not get the wrong idea and presume that you've slept your way into position you're in - you worked hard and drank a whole lot of coffee in order to climb up to sit at the desk you do now.    

“So, can I count on you?”  Well, when he puts it that way, how could you ever refuse?  

“Sure, why not,” you reply with a light shrug of your shoulders and what you hope is a convincing smile, trying to sound as light and breezy about the whole thing as it’s physically possible to do so whilst your chest feels as though it’s constricting with anxiety at the very same time.  

Seokjin looks pleased, his lips curving into a relaxed smile that’s so attractive you’re sure it must pose some sort of health risk.  

“Excellent.  It’s due to start at seven.”  It’s a good job you already know all the finer details about it seeing as though you’re barely listening - distracted by the way his thumb is rhythmically running back and forth along the edge of his desk.  “Of course, we’ll be arriving fashionably late.”  You look up again at the humour in his voice, caught off guard by the playful twinkle awaiting you in his lemony-lime coloured eyes.  

“So if I get there at, say, half past?”  Seokjin lightly shakes his head as he pushes himself to standing from the desk, taking a moment to straighten out the crease that sitting has left in his waistcoat with a sharp tug on its hem.

“I’ll send a car to come and collect you,” he says as though to do so would be the most ordinary thing in the world, rounding his desk with his tail swaying gently behind him.  He sinks back down into the comfort of his leather chair and re-opens the laptop, and as it quietly whirs back into life you make the most of his momentary distraction to take a good, long look at him.

It should be criminal, really, how good-looking he is.  Seokjin is so perfectly put together that you’d struggle to identify a single flaw even if you were granted all the time in the world in which to stare.  All hybrids seem to be graced with beauty - genetically engineered all those years ago to appear as aesthetically pleasing as possible - but even amongst his kin Seokjin stands out amongst the rest.   

Granted, you might well be a little bit biased, but that’s not something you’ll readily admit out loud.  You’ve kept your crush a well kept secret for months now even from your most well-trusted colleagues, so you’re not about to start spreading it around now.  You’d probably get laughed out of the building for even entertaining the hope that he’d ever look at you in such a way.  

“It might be an idea to refresh yourself on our latest initiatives, just in case.”   Startling, you try not to make it too obvious that your bottom had jumped an inch off your seat, and it’s with a pink tinge of embarrassment on your cheeks that you obligingly nod your head when Seokjin looks back at you.  If he’d noticed your staring then he doesn’t pass comment on it, and for that you’re grateful.  

“I will, Sir.”  He nods back, eyes returning to the glowing screen in front of him in what you presume is an indication of your dismissal.  “Is that everything, Mr Kim?”  

Slowly, Jin lifts his gaze and fixes you in it from across the table, fingers falling still.  Is it just your imagination, the way it seems to slowly rake over you?  

The blush on your cheeks rapidly begins to deepen into red in front of his eyes, and this time Seokjin does indeed appear to notice.  He smirks slightly, placing an elbow on the desk and running a finger and thumb across his full bottom lip as he stares back at you until you’re fighting against the urge to start squirming in your seat.

Does he mean to seem so seductive, or is it just your attraction to him that’s altering your perception and turning his innocent actions into something they’re not intended to be?

Your voice is breathy when you next speak.

“Sir?”  

At the sound of your voice your employer rather abruptly returns his attention to his laptop and begins tapping so rapidly at the keys that for a moment you have to question whether the past five seconds had actually taken place.  The roiling of your blood as it thrumbs through your veins can’t just be a product of your imagination, surely?

“That’ll be all, thank you,” he tells you distractedly, a frown appearing on his face as he reads something that must be displeasing to him.  You hope it isn’t one of your earlier emails - though even when he’s disgruntled you have to admit that Seokjin looks far more handsome than your average man.  “I’ll see you tomorrow evening, then.”  

Pausing on your way to the door with your diary held close to your chest, you turn around to flash him a fleeting smile, surprised when you find him watching you once more.  

“I’ll look forward to it.”  He smiles softly back at you, one ear twitching.  

“So will I.”  

“Coming, coming, coming!”

This can’t be your ride already, can it?  You can’t have been in the shower that long, right?

Hurrying towards your front door in nothing but a too-short towel, a trail of wet hair dripping down your back, you hastily kick aside the empty pizza box that almost trips you up along the way.  It skids across the floor to join another that lays hidden in the shadows under the sofa, and it’s with a cringe that you think to yourself that you really should tidy the place up before one of your neighbours ends up calling environmental control.  

You peep through the spy-hole of your door and feel your body physically sag with relief when it’s a familiar face that greets you on the side.  Well, a familiar chin, anyway. Taehyung is too busy looking up at the ceiling at first for you to really see him properly, but when his sensitive ears pick up the sound of the chain lock sliding out of place his head snaps back to attention, a big, beaming grin on his face.  

“Hi,” he greets cheerfully as you pull the open the door, ensuring that your towel is sufficiently tightened around your bust with your free hand.  Not that Taehyung bats an eyelid at your state of undress when he sees you; the two of you have been friends long enough that you being half-naked isn’t anywhere near anything a new thing.  “I brought you your mail!”  

Enthusiastically, the canine hybrid thrusts several envelopes towards you, and when you receive them with a thank you and a grateful smile Taehyung’s grin grows ever wider, the happy wag of his tail turning into a frantic pounding against the doorframe at the simplest of praise.  

When you'd first moved into this apartment block you never would've guessed you'd end up making such good friends with the hybrids you live amongst.  Even now it’s not very often that hybrids and humans occupy even the same neighbourhood - let alone the same building - but when you'd started working for KS developments and the opportunity had arisen for you to pay so little to live somewhere so spacious, you would've been an idiot to turn it down.  

As far as you're concerned the purpose built scratch pillars about the place simply add to the apartment’s individuality and charm, and you know you could've been faced with far worse customisations to live with if you'd chosen a place on the ground floor.  You’re not sure you could’ve ever adjusted to sleeping underground like Jungkook does in his cosy little burrow downstairs.  He'd invited you down there once, and frankly it'd felt far too much like being buried alive.  

“You going somewhere?” Taehyung asks as you usher him into your living room, discarding the mail on top of the pile steadily growing atop of your coffee table.

“Remember that gala I had to help set up for work?”  You don't need to beckon your friend for him to automatically trail behind when you head towards your bedroom, and as you fling open your closet and start to rake through the disarray inside Taehyung plants his bottom on the end of your bed, watching you with a tilted head and amused smile.  

“The whole mini bruschetta or salmon mousse debacle?  How could I forget?”  Taehyung laughs when you shoot a withering look over your shoulder at him.  

The days you'd spent endlessly stressing over which canapes would better compliment the over-priced prosecco chosen by the shareholders aren't ones you particularly want to recall.  

“Continue.”

“Well for some unknown reason my boss has decided he wants to drag me along to suffer with him.”  Would a pair of jeans and a nice top do, maybe?  You consider the sequined top dangling in front of you for less than a second before shaking your head and skipping past it, delving into the more formal section of your closet where some of the few dresses you own hang.  

“Like a date?”  Tae sounds far too pleased at the idea for your liking, and you roll your eyes at the burgundy monstrosity that's just fallen from it's hanger to crumple on the floor at your feet.  

“As if,” you scoff as you neglect to pick it up.  You, dating Seokjin?  You wish.

“There's bound to be plenty of eligible bachelors there though, right?  Some men with which to mingle?”  

Oh god, why didn’t you think to sort your outfit out sooner when you still had the time?  There’s nothing… literally nothing.  You're doomed.  Doomed, doomed, doomed.  “Stop,” Taehyung suddenly speaks up, gesticulating wildly, “Go back - the lilac.”

“This one?  The turquoise one?” you chuckle as you pull the full length halter neck from the closet, its hem dragging the carpet, and Taehyung huffs at your gently teasing tone.   Being totally colourblind is definitely one of his least favourite canine traits, but you can't deny that he has good taste.  

You’d almost forgotten that you’d ever bought such a beautiful dress as this - although, you’d think that the pain of spending a whole months pay cheque in one fell swipe of your debit card would be something that’d stay with you.   It’s never been worn, either, just brought home and hidden away at the back of your closet after you’d regretfully deemed it far too glamorous for the likes of you yet had been unable to force yourself into taking it back.

“Anyway,” you sigh, smoothing out a crease in the fabric with a brush of your hand, “Why are so obsessed with getting me paired me off?”   You wander off into the bathroom to change and pay no mind to the carefree shrug of Taehyung's shoulders as you go, the volume of your voice rising in order to still be heard.  “Remember that Yoongi guy you set me up with?  The one who hissed at me when I accidently spilt his coffee?”

“Who doesn’t get a little grumpy now and then?!”  Tae shouts from the other side of the door whilst you're wriggling into your underwear - a fancy powder blue set that you save solely for special occasions.  Somehow wearing pretty lingerie always helps you feel just that little bit more confident on the inside, even though no one but you knows you’re wearing it.

“Then there was that hedgehog guy who ended up curling into a ball every time he tried to kiss me...”  

“Joonie’s just shy!”  Yeah, you'd kind of figured that one out for yourself.  Every time it’d happened he wouldn’t come out for at least a good five minutes, and each time he did he’d be a stuttering, blushy mess behind his spectacles.  

“And don't even get me started on Hope.”

“I told you he was a ferret before you agreed to meet him, what did you expect?!”  You emerge from the bathroom with your dress fixed in place save the flapping of your halterneck straps, eyeing Taehyung with one eyebrow raised.  

“I've met rodent hybrids before, Tae, and he was a whole different breed.”  You turn on the spot clasping the soft cotton to your bust, knowing that he'll come to your aid even without your asking.  “He was like… a critter on crack.”  

“Oh c’mon,” Taehyung laughs whilst he ties the straps into a neat bow with his long, delicate fingers, “That’s a little harsh.”  

“Harsh, maybe, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”  Granting him a generous smile, you make your way over to the full length mirror that stands neglected in the corner of your room and take a bracing breath, your good mood slipping the moment you get there.  Truth be told you usually try to avoid looking at yourself wherever possible, and the fine layer of dust covering your mirror’s surface seems to convey the aversion you feel at your own reflection.  

Tonight, however, self-critique seems a necessarily evil, and its with tightly pressed lips that you take in every inch of your appearance, aware that Taehyung is watching you closely.  He knows just as well as anyone how much of a hard time you give yourself over things like this.  

It’s certainly not the worst thing you’ve ever seen yourself in.  It’s unfortunate that the halter straps seem to draw attention to the broadness of your shoulders, but you suppose you should at least be grateful that the length is generous enough to still hang below your ankles.  Part of the reason you tend to shy away from dresses in the first place is that they always seem to be at least 3 inches too short for you; calf length becomes knee length, knee length to thigh length and thigh length to… well… something far too indecent to wear out of the house.  

It’ll do.  It has to.  It’s not like you’ve got anything else.  

“Fine then,” Taehyung announces huffily, interrupting your ongoing mental monologue of self-criticism, “You’re on your own from now on - you can go along tonight and find someone all by yourself, seeing as I’m such a poor matchmaker.”  

You turn from the mirror with a weak smile and a slight quiver of your chin, and when your friend realises how vulnerable you’ve suddenly become his expression instantly softens, puppy ears folding down at the tip in sympathy.  

“Honestly Tae,” you sniff as he takes you in his arms and gives a very gentle, tentative lick of your cheek.  You’ll never forget the way you squealed the first time he’d ever done that, horrified by the wet strip of saliva he’d left upon your face, but now you take it for the comfort that it’s meant to be and lean your head on his, careful to avoid his ears. “I’ll just be glad if I can make it through tonight without facing total humiliation, never mind a date.”

Thankfully, Taehyung has managed to cheer you up a little by the time your ride actually does arrive just a little over half an hour later on.

It’s impossible to stay miserable around your hybrid friend for very long - not when you’ve got such boundless canine energy to contend with - and Taehyung’s dogged insistence in shoving his head in your lap for scratches behind his ears had turned out to be a very good idea despite it having cut into your much needed preparation time.   Turns out that running your fingers through his soft, glossy brown locks is just as relaxing for you as it is for for him, and thanks to that affectionate little interlude between the two of you you’re in a far better state of mind than you were before as you leave your apartment with Taehyung in toe, locking the door behind you.  

His ears pin back a little as he wishes you a forlorn goodbye, but the soft sway of his fluffy tail behind him reassures you that he’ll be fine on his own.  He was for years before your arrival here, after all.  

The smartly dressed man who’d knocked at your door some minutes ago to summon you downstairs is now stood to the side of a gleaming black car parked neatly alongside the curb,  and it’s with a dip of his torso that he opens then holds the rear passenger door in an invitation for you to climb inside. Embarrassed by the formality of it all, you mutter a thank you as you place your bottom on the slippery leather and swing your legs inside, trying not to wrinkle your skirt.  

You’re not used to this kind of treatment.  You’ve always taken buses, not chauffeur driven cars, and being referred to as ‘m’am’ is a bizarre occurrence you’re not likely to feel comfortable about any time soon.  This is all very foreign; the atmospheric lighting, the new car smell.  Even the -

“Oh!”  You immediately want to slap yourself in the face for allowing yourself to sound so surprised when you abruptly become aware of Seokjin’s accompanying presence within the car.  In the dimness of the back seat you’d neglected to notice him sat merely a metre away on your arrival, his body twisted towards you, back pressed against the opposite car door, and it’s with a nervous swallow that you take in the way his long legs are so casually spread, the black material of his dress pants pulling tight across his crotch.  

“Good evening Mr Kim,” you manage to choke out, dragging your wandering eyes upward to his face whilst a blush rages on your own - though it’s hardly an improvement from where you were staring just a moment before.  The unnatural glow that comes from Seokjin’s feline eyes as they travel the length of you up and down leaves you feeling just as flustered - just as exposed under his appraising gaze.

He passes no comment neither positive or negative when they eventually settle on your face, and you can’t decide if that’s a good thing or bad.  Blinking when the engine starts, his full mouth curves into an easy smile whilst the end of his tail taps against the seat that separates the two of you, a distracting ‘thump, thump, thump’ that’s a far more sedate rhythm than the frantic beating of your heart.  

“Just call me Jin tonight, please,” he asks of you once he finally speaks, his voice as smooth and melodic as always. “There’s no need for us to be so formal outside of office walls.”  You nod obligingly, too eagerly, and the inquisitive eyebrow he cocks at you turns his expression into something so roguishly charming that you actually have to look away for just a second in order to collect yourself, turning your face to the window as you order body to calm the hell down.  

He’s just a man, for god’s sake.  Just a good looking, sophisticated, intelligent, altruistic man whose genes are mixed with that of a predator that’s as majestic as it is deadly.  A man that’s sat right across from you smelling like some sort of heaven and oh god you’re so fucking fucked.

“I - uh -”  You desperately grapple for some semblance of conversation, one of your restless hands tucking the hair you’d spent so long curling into gentle waves behind an ear.  “I like your shirt,” you blurt out when he turns his head to face you, currently in the process of retrieving a black, opaque bottle from inside an inconspicuous minibar that’s been built right into the partition that separates the two of you from the driver up front.  “It suits you.”   Sure, you might be grasping at straws, but that doesn’t mean the sentiment of your words is in any way disingenuine.  

There aren’t many men who could pull of a bright pink shirt but Jin is clearly one of them; the colour compliments his smooth, honeyed skin perfectly and turns his otherwise entirely black ensemble into something undeniably eye-catching.  There won’t be a single eye that doesn’t turn his way when he walks into the room tonight, you’re sure of it.  

Pleased by your compliment, Jin smiles as he straightens up and places what you presume must be champagne between his thighs, freeing up both of steady hands to remove the cork with a satisfying ‘pop’.  You jump, and he laughs gleefully.

“Thank you.  It’s one of my favourites,” he tells you whilst the remnants of his amusement are still fresh on his face and in the tone of his voice.  Jin retrieves a glass, too, and slots it into your hand, filling the delicate flute with sweet smelling bubbles before you can refuse.  He serves it with such a flourish that you know it must be something he does often, managing not to spill a drop even when the car momentarily lurches.  

You expect him to pour himself a glass too, but Jin merely places the bottle back in the fridge and then leans back in his seat, seemingly content to watch you take a meagre sip from yours, his hands folded in his lap.  It’s as sweet as it smells, and though you don’t usually enjoy champagne you can certainly make an exception for this one.  It’s delicious.  

“That dress,” Jin begins, and you feel your stomach tense in anticipation of what he’s going to say.  Does he not like it?  Is it not dressy enough?  Too much?  “The colour really brings out your eyes.  Beautiful.”  

“T-Thanks,” you blush, glancing down into your glass as your mind races to work out what exactly it is that your employer is referring to as beautiful; your dress, your eyes… you?  Frankly you’ll take any available option - each is more than you could’ve ever have hoped for.  

“You’re welcome.”  Jin’s gaze follows the delicate flute in your hand as your raise it to your lips and then lets it linger there thereafter for a just a beat too long.

“Are you not having some?”  Jin shakes his head where it’d been slightly tilted to the side,  jet black bangs falling waywardly across his forehead before he smoothes them back into place.

“I prefer to keep a clear head for these sorts of things.”  

“That sounds smart,” you agree, yet you still go ahead take another sip of champagne directly afterward.  You’re not sure you’ll be able to cope with tonight’s inevitable rollercoaster of emotions without some sort of alcoholic lubrication to ease its passing.  

“I’m a smart man,” he smiles humorously, one ear flicking and rotating to the side, and when he notices you watching the movement his smile broadens, expression turning playful.  “A clever cat.”  Trying to withhold your giggling by pressing the back of your hand to your mouth proves an utterly fruitless attempt but Jin doesn’t seem to mind, observing you as they spill forth with a fond look that you entirely miss.  

He says nothing more after that, lapsing into silence for the remainder of the journey once your chuckles die down enough for you to slowly sup your drink, and it takes you by surprise, how comfortable it feels to sit side by side with him like this, employer and employee.  It isn’t until right before you arrive at the venue that Jin makes you very nearly choke on your last mouthful of champagne, his tail vibrating with pleasure when you snort with laughter in response to the impromptu rendition of the ‘pink panther’ theme tune that he hums from between his lips.  It’s embarrassing to have him see you this way; red in the face and shuddering with the force of your amusement, yet when Jin starts to laugh too - a full-bodied, joyous sound that only serves to make your sides ache all the more - you can’t find it within you to care.  

Perhaps you might be in for a better night that you’d first thought.  

For the most part, you prediction proves to be right.  

Sure, there were more stares than you would’ve liked when you’d entered the hall with one of Jin’s warm hands planted squarely in the small of your back, but the reassuring circling of his fingertips through the thin fabric your dress had been enough to push back most of the anxieties that’d plagued you - long enough for you to get your hands on second glass of wine, anyway.  You’re infinitely grateful that you’d followed Jin’s suggestion of reading up on the latest in’s and out’s in of governmental policy in advance.  Having just that little bit of extra knowledge to drop in amongst conversation has saved your ass more times than you can count throughout the duration of the night, and has converted the sceptical looks of those who are far too well-to-do to class as your peers into friendly smiles, firm handshakes and one seemingly sincere invitation to lunch with a gaggle of women you never would’ve dreamed of rubbing shoulders with before.

Not that you’re intending to take them up on their offer, of course, but still.  It’s nice to know you have options.  

With every new person that you meet and somehow manage to charm, you swear that you can see a gleam of something that looks a little bit like pride shining in Jin’s eyes - each little bit of praise or approval they bestow on you seeming as much of a pleasure for him to hear as is it for you.   You dismiss his subtle glances at first, convincing yourself that the warmth you feel in his gaze is simply a figment your imagination, but it seems to keep on happening, and the more it does the easier it is for you to start to believe that each little press of his fingertips to your shoulder or your waist must carry some secret, hidden meaning for just the two of you to share.  

“Where’ve you been hiding this one away, Seokjin?” the primped and polished woman stood to your right to you enquiries during the next lull in conversation, her many rings glinting under the opulent ceiling lights.  She peers at him past the rim of her tipped glass with her round, owl eyes, a sickly sweet smile on her lips, “I’d thought I would’ve heard if you’d have finally found a mate!”   Your face flushes immediately on hearing her presumption, the blood in your veins  burning all the hotter when you take in the way Jin baulks, blinking rapidly.  Clearly you've been misreading him all night if this is how strongly he reacts to her innocent mistake, and it hurts more than you care to admit.  

“Oh, no,” you interject quickly, and all eyes turn from Jin to you, “I'm not - we're not - I'm just his secretary.  No one important.” You catch Jin frowning in your peripheral vision as the woman nods in understanding, serving you a simpering smile.  He must be irritated that she'd even made the presumption in the first place.  How ridiculous of her.

“In that case!”  She steps towards Jin,planting herself right between the two of you and effectively dismissing you from the conversation so abruptly that you find yourself scowling at the back of her stupidly permed head, infuriated by her rudeness.  “Let me introduce you to this darling girl I know.  Her father is one of the up and coming names in interspecies relations and I just know you'd make such a perfect match!”  Before either of you know what's happening the woman is tugging on Jin’s arm to lead him away, nails like talons digging into the fine tailoring.  He twists slightly in her grasp to be able to look back at you, full lips parted in an expression of mild alarm and about to speak when you shrug and smile wryly.  

“I'll catch up with you in a bit,” you assure him, trying to put on a brave face.  It's not as if he's under any obligation to stay right next to you for the entirety of the night, after all, as much as you wish that he would.  Jin nods just once, decisively, his ears turned toward the woman who's starting to look appear ruffled by your boss’ unwillingness to be led away.  

“Don't go far, ok?  I won't be long.”  Obediently, you return his nod, and Jin flashes you a smile before finally turning away and cupping his captors elbow in his palm and leaving with her, disappearing into the crowd and leaving you on your own.  

Scanning the room, the rim of your glass pressed to your bottom lip, you try to discern how best to proceed.  You could try to mingle, maybe chat some more with the party goers you’ve already met so far.  Networking is probably a good idea - the smart move - but without Jin stood beside you as a safety net you can't quite bring yourself to do it.  

Instead, you end up loitering by the buffet table as you so often used to do during the social events of your youth, intent on finding out whether you should have indeed chosen the bruschetta over the salmon mousse as Taehyung had so vehemently insisted you should.  

It's with great pleasure that you discover that your judgement had proven to be correct; the mousse is light, fresh, and not overly fishy.  Still, you suppose the various feline hybrids in the room would enjoy it even it was.  Even more so, perhaps.  

“-that the girl who arrived with Kim Seokjin?”

Your ears prick up whilst you're busy leaning over the impressive spread laid before you, helping yourself to a delicate paper cone full of fries, and realising they must be talking about you, you subtly glance over to see two young women stood together further down the buffet table, one of whom is most definitely looking in your direction.  

“Think so.”  There's a pause, then, and for a second you think they're done before the other pipes up again, bemusement in her tone.

“She's pitching a little out of her league, isn't she?”  You hold back a snort by shoving a fry into your mouth, turning to face away from the women to look about the room but keeping your ears firmly tuned in to the conversation.  

They're not wrong, to be fair; you've thought it yourself a million times, sat at your desk, staring at his office door.  Seokjin is, and always will be, well out of your reach.  

It's just a plain and simple fact, so you can't really begrudge them for thinking the same.  

Your eyes rove the room, searching for him, but wherever your employer is it's somewhere out of your sight.  There's been a good turn out tonight, and you're grateful for it.  The more connections Seokjin makes the louder and more influential his voice will be when it comes to making a difference and pushing for change.  He'll be pleased that so many came.  

“What do you think she is?”  You only just catch the woman's voice over the ambient music this time around, pitched low and conspiratively.  “A giraffe?”  

The corners of your mouth curl in a smile of understanding - they're wondering if you're some sort of hybrid.   How original of them to pick up on your above average height.

“Nah she'd have the funny little horns,” one of them murmurs back, and it's almost as though you can feel her eyes running over your profile, searching for some sort of hint as to what species you might belong to.  

Why the hell did you decide to wear heels tonight?  You should've known it'd probably make you tallest woman in the room, only a bare inch or two smaller than even Jin.  

“Anyway, aren't giraffes pretty skinny?  She's got to be something fatter than that.”

Ouch, now that hurt.  Your guts lurch unpleasantly at the sound on their tittering laughter, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes when you hear the words ‘elephant’ and ‘hippopotamus’ being thrown around.  You discard your half-eaten cone of fries back so abruptly onto the buffet table that they spill, haphazard across the white table cloth, your appetite well and truly destroyed.   Try as you may, you can't fight the shamefaced blush you can feel creeping upward onto your face from the neckline of your dress.  

“Oh god, what if she's not even a hybrid at all?” one woman laughs cruelly, barely even bothering to lower her voice anymore, “What if that's all her?”

God, why did you ever agree to come to this?  Why did you think for even a second that you'd belong anywhere amongst these perfect, pretty half-humans?  How much of an idiot could you have been?  

As the harshness of their snickers permeate your ears, you can take it no longer.  Impulsively, you rip your shoes from your feet to place your soles on the polished parquet flooring and then begin your brisk exit, searching for Jin along the way and all the while fighting back the tears that constantly threaten.  

Every instinct in you tells you just to walk straight out, to flee with your non-existent tail between your legs, but your loyalty to Jin makes you unwilling to leave without at least making your excuses - whatever you end up lying that they are.  

When you finally spot him from across the crowded room, you really wish you hadn't been so bothered.  

He's stood at the bar, deeply engaged in conversation with another hybrid; a female, feline hybrid.  She's stunning - slender as a matchstick with a bone structure that you can only dream of, the tips of her pointed little ears just visible poking through the long brown waves of hair that reaches down to her behind.  From a carefully placed slit in her shimmering golden dress a graceful tail emerges, an appendage that's currently busying itself with playful curling its way around Jin’s, whilst she herself touches and fawns over his arm, batting her eyelashes prettily.  

They look perfectly matched, yellowey eyes fixed upon one another, and all of a sudden you can no long hold back the tears.  She's not over-reaching, she's not aiming too high by flirting with your beloved employer - not like you.  

Why did he invite you here?  What was he hoping to prove?  Was it just some display of hybrid-human solidarity to make him look good?  Perhaps that's why he asked you; you were the most desperate, pathetic looking human to hand.

How cruel he's been tonight, with all his little touches and smiles, all the little looks that'd made your hopes soar so high.  How could he do that; call you beautiful?  Didn't he know how much that would mean?

A sob escapes you involuntarily, and even from across the room you see Jin’s ears swivel in your direction at the sound, his eyes landing on you just as you're pressing a palm to your mouth to keep any further sounds in.  When he sees the tears streaking down your face he immediately frowns, his eyebrows furrowing, and it's with horror that you watch him turn away from the woman he's speaking to with no explanation before he starts to make towards you, parting the bodies that block his path effortlessly.  

What are you supposed to say to him? What excuses are you supposed to give as to why you're a sodden, blubbering mess?  You're insecure, you're hurt, you're jealous.  None of those things are appropriate to say - certainly not to your boss, not to him - so you opt for flight instead of fight, heading towards the exit paying very little mind to the people around you who've begun to stare.

They've had a good laugh at you tonight anyway.  Why not give them one more?

You hear him call your name but your bare feet don't stop, slapping noisily against the floor in your haste, and you've almost reached the exit when suddenly a firm hand takes a hold of your arm and drags you to a halt, spinning you to face them.  

Jin repeats your name again, gentler this time, his eyes full of concern as he assess the state you've gotten yourself in.  

“You're leaving?”  You shrug your shoulders limply and sniff to try keep your nose from running, heels banging against the side of your thigh.  It's too hard to look at him right now; you feel so stupid and ashamed.  “Why’re you so upset?”  Again you decline to reply, nibbling on your bottom lip with your chin hung low until Jin takes a firm hold of it, lifting your gaze with his thumb and forefinger until you have no choice but to look straight into his eyes.  

He regards you for a moment, ears flicking restlessly as he takes in your glassy eyes and miserable expression, and then finally the heels that you hold in one hand, dangling at your side.

“Love,” he says softly, still holding onto your chin, “Put your shoes back on.”  You blink stupidly, taken completely off guard by his use of such a term of endearment.  

“W-what?” Jin glances down at your shoes meaningfully, a small smile curling one corner of his lips.

“Put your shoes.  Back.  On.”  He repeats it slowly, announciating every syllable, and you'd swear he was asking you to take off your clothes by the way your mid-section suddenly fills with heat, your tears ceasing with an alarming suddenness.

You blink, nodding your head as far as his grasp permits before he lets go, allowing you to bed and slip your heels back on foot by foot.  When you straighten again you're instantly three inches taller, yet you feel smaller than ever on the inside as you meet Jin’s eyes and find his expression to be utterly unreadable.  

“Come with me,” he utters after a moment, before turning on the spot and striding off without another word, already certain that you'll follow.  

You do, of course.

You've no idea where he's leading you, but it isn't far.  Back through the entrance hall that's mostly deserted, Jin then silently veers off to the right to a door that lies just beyond the stairs, and as soon as he's pulled it open he's caught onto you by the elbow and dragging you inside so unexpectedly that you almost stumble - right into a line of coats.  

He pulls the door shut behind him, plunging you both into darkness, and you feel your heart rate begin to rise at the uncertainty of the situation you've suddenly found yourself falling into.  You hear his smart, pointed shoes click on the floor as he turns to face you, but that's the only other sound you hear save the growingly laboured nature of your breaths.  

His eyes open, and for a second the only light you see is the glow of them, yellow reflected beautifully back at you until there's the click of a light switch and the space in which he's enclosed the two of you becomes illuminated.  More than a cupboard but not quite a room, if you arms were just a bit longer you could probably touch each side, and in it hangs the various coats, scarves and umbrellas of all the guests elsewhere who'd arrived so suitably dressed for the god-awful weather you've been having.  

“Talk to me,” he commands softly once your eyes have finished darting around the room to fall when they land on him, “Tell me what's happened, and maybe I can help.”

Jin must sense your temporary unease with the situation because he makes no effort to come any closer to you, slipping his hands into his pants pockets as he regards you where you remain braced against the wall of coats, eyeing him.  

“I'm just being stupid.”  Of course, your immediate defence is self-depreciation, as always.

“I don't believe that.”  A small smile appears on Jin's face as he tilts his head slightly.  “Clumsy, maybe.  Messy?  Most definitely.  But stupid?”  A frown replaces the momentary fondness that'd graced his expression.  “Never.”

Your mouth flounders for a moment, totally at a loss for anything you could say that won't serve to embarrass you further, and when you come up with nothing you simply sigh, running your fingers back through your hair.  

“I just…” Another sigh, and when you look up Jin is just watching you expectantly, waiting for you to continue, tail swishing gently behind him.  “Some women were making fun of me.  Two hybrids.  They were trying to work out if I was more elephant or giraffe or if maybe I'm just… just... “  You gesture up and down yourself with a grimace. “This.”

Jin continues to listen quietly whilst you dissolve into a rant, the volume and pitch of your voice rising as you go.  “I already obsess enough about being too broad, too tall.  I'm not petite and pretty like that other girl, nothing like her, and I never will be.”  

Jin remains silent for a moment when you finally run out of words, and god, you wish he’d give you just some kind of clue as to what he’s thinking.  Unfortunately, Jin’s face is as handsome and impassive as always, and as the seconds tick by you start to scold yourself more and more for allowing your mouth to get so carried away.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Jin eventually starts, tongue wetting his bottom lip, “I’d say you sound a little jealous.”  

Are you really so easy to read?  You should’ve known he’d see right through you with those shrewd eyes.

Your mouth opens to reply, but before you can Jin takes a step forward and speaks over you, tilting his head to the side as he looks up and down.  

“Love, you have no reason to be.”  Another step towards you, and this time you take an involuntary step back, sinking back into the coats as you look up at him with trepidation.  Jin approaches you as a predator would stalk its prey, his eyes heavy lidded, long, black tail sweeping slowly from side to side behind him, curled tip gently sweeping the floor.  “I meant it when I told you were beautiful.”  

As Jin comes to stand directly in front of you, looking down the finely sculpted bridge of his nose and into your eyes, it feels as though the very air around you is thickening; so full of tension that it’s difficult to breathe, your chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow little breaths that hitch when he cautiously reaches out to touch you, running the back of one long finger down your cheek.  

“Y-you did?” you ask breathlessly, leaning into the palm that comes to cradle your cheek as he nods, thumb running the width of your bottom lip from one side to the other, “That’s… good to know.”  

‘That’s good to know’?  Really?  Your cheeks flush with embarrassment at your own lameness, but you can’t find the heart to be too hard on yourself.  How is anyone supposed to string a sentence together with someone as handsome and enigmatic as Jin stood right before them, his eyes dark with hunger?  

“And why’s that?” A teasing smirk appears on Jin’s face as he continues to caress you, and you feel your stomach clench with nerves when you realise that he actually wishes for you to answer.  

It’s now or never, you suppose.  

“I… uh…”  It’s too hard to look at him while you say this so you drop your eyes to look at the rounded tips of your patent shoes and take a deep breath, forcing the words past your lips before you have chance to back out.  “I’ve been harbouring a bit of a crush on you… for quite some time.”  Jin softly laughs, pinching the cheek he’s been holding and making the heat blazing in it burn even hotter.

“I know.”  You sharply look up.  “You may be beautiful, and smart, and articulate.”  He pauses, smiling broadly, “Most days.”  Jin’s smile beams all the more brightly when you laugh at yourself, glancing away for just a second before your eyes are inevitably drawn to him again.  “But you’re not the most subtle.”  

“I’m not?”

“You tend to stare.”  You can’t help but laugh at yourself again, embarrassed at how obvious you’ve been but Jin’s tenderness filling you with so much happiness that you’re unable to care. “Not that I can blame you.  Who wouldn’t?”  Jin chuckles at his own narcissism, but you don’t begrudge him for having a healthy ego.  If you were him, you’d be confident too.  He’s gorgeous - too gorgeous for you - no matter what he might say.

Another moment passes, and as the two of you continue to look into each others eyes the playful atmosphere begins to fade, the smiles slipping from your faces.  Jin’s hand descends from your jaw to the column of your throat as he regards you quietly, and when you shiver at the feel of his fingertips grazing your sensitive skin his pupils visibly dilate, his gaze darting downward to fixate on your lips.  

There’s a little voice in the back of your head that keeps nagging at you that this is likely a very bad idea.  If the two of you go down this road there’ll be no turning back - at least not for you - and you know there’s probably a good reason behind the saying that you should never dip your pen in the office ink.  What if things become awkward between the two of you after this?  What if it gets so bad that you lose your job?  

Jin’s nose brushes yours as he leans in to bring your lips into contact, and suddenly all those worries melt away much as your body does against his when he closes any remaining space left between you, curling his free arm around your waist.  

His kiss is tentative at first; a soft, exploratory meeting of your mouths that soon escalates into something harder and more urgent when your fingers find their way into the front of his shirt, twisted in the fabric to pull him even closer.  You eagerly grant his tongue entry at the very first press of the muscle to your lips, and Jin devours you like a man that’s been starving for the taste of you, pressing your harder amongst the coats when you moan into him, his body flush to yours.  

A brush of something unfamiliar against your leg startles you, jerking you out of the kiss you'd been enjoying so much to look down in alarm as Jin huffs a breathy chuckle against your temple.  All it is is his tail, gently brushing up and down the only part of you it's flexible enough to reach, and it's with a smile that you watch as the end of it curls possessively around your ankle, disappearing under the long hem of your dress.  

He flashes you a charming smile, but before you have time to smile back Jin is planting his mouth over yours and hiding it beneath his own.  A roaming hand slides down from where it'd rested on your throat to drift tantalisingly over the swell of your breast, and when your body tellingly presses forward into his palm, Jin begins to knead and grope and squeeze through the fabric, fixing your bottom lip between his teeth when they part in a breathy moan.  

Pleased by how eagerly your body responds to him, Jin's other hand takes a firm and generous handful of your behind, squeezing it so hard as his hips surge forward into yours that if you weren't so distracted by the movement of his pelvis that you might've gasped in pain.  

Disentangling yourself from his wicked tongue, you try to cling onto the thin sliver of sanity you have left that's telling you that this is hardly the time or the place for Jin to be tugging on the fabric of your skirt, bunching it his fist, raising the hem off the ground higher and higher.  The withholding of your lips does nothing to deter him; if not your mouth then he still has plenty of other places to kiss.  Greedily, he presses his lips to every inch of skin he can find, lapping up the taste of you.  

“M-mr Kim,” you plea, releasing handfuls of pink shirt to place your palms flat against his firm chest.  If you were more resolute in your will you'd try to push him back, but as it is it's hard enough to keep yourself from grabbing onto him further, your head tipping back against the wall as the tip of his tongue dips into the shallow dent at the base of your neck.  “Jin…”

“Hmm?” he muses curiously, nose nuzzling into you whilst his mouth travels across the tops of your breasts, his eyes closed.  

“We-we-" The sudden feel of his erection pressing into your lower abdomen momentarily stalls your thoughts. “Not here.  We shouldn't.”  His eyelids peel back to look up at you before he slowly straightens back to full height, still holding onto the bunches of your dress.  He hooks it up higher as he speaks to you, a dark, lustful look in his eyes as he purrs your name.  

“You've waited long enough for someone to show you how beautiful you are,” he tells you, leaning forward to press his forehead on yours.  By now he's gathered your dress up in a ball of creases to sit where his hand is rested at your hip, exposing the length of your legs to the eyes he runs over you, and when they linger at the tops of your thighs you know he's visually devouring the patch of slick that's darkened the baby blue of your underwear to navy.  “I won't wait a second longer.”

Your last ounce of resolve vanishes as you watch him trace his bottom lip with his tongue.  Hands trembling, you slide both of them into the back of his dark tresses, and when he feels your fingernails dragging at his scalp Jin seizes your mouth with a feral growl.  

“Take these off for me,” he orders lowly, words smothered by your lips as his free hand snaps at the waistband of your underwear.  You do as he says, tugging at them with one hand as you wriggle to encourage the sodden material down your legs, and Jin smiles into your kiss when he feels you wobble in your heels, stepping out of your underwear one foot at a time.  

“The door,” you murmur, and Jin grunts in response.  When he'd first tugged you in here you'd noticed it didn't have a lock, and whilst you were glad of it to begin with, now you're rather wishing it did.  “S-someone could walk in…”

His movements coloured rough and urgent with desire, Jin plucks you by the hips from amongst the coats and turns you around on the spot before then walking you briskly backward until your back slams into contact with the door, your tongues tangled together throughout.  He pushes his groin against yours with a circle of his hips, showing complete disregard to the likely smear your dripping arousal may leave on his smart suit pants, and when your fingers inadvertently find the roots of his ears in amongst his hair, scratching behind them, he wrenches his mouth from yours to let out a stilted, needful moan that has your core clenching with unadulterated desire.

He wrenches your fingers from his hair with his one unoccupied hand and pins your wrist to the door, palms flat, the dangerous look in his eyes making you simultaneously do the same with the other even without his command.  

“You better not move, then.”  You nod, breath bated as he steps back ever so slightly and then abruptly sinks to his knees at your feet, his gaze fixing hungrily on the glistening sheen that covers the tops of your thighs.  “Open up for me, love.”  Swallowing back the nerves that are turning your stomach topsy-turvy, you gingerly shift your feet further apart, encouraged by the firm hand Jin has placed against your inner thigh, gradually sliding upward to the spot you're aching for him most.  “That's a good girl.”

You blush profusely at his praise, biting your lip as you watch the way he so thoroughly examines your core before sliding an exploratory finger through your folds, collecting up all your sweet nectar and then depositing it straight into his mouth.

You're transfixed, panting with excitement as you watch him lick up every drip, more kitten than panther, his tail shuddering with pleasure at the flavour of you coating his tongue.  

“You're just as delicious as I thought,” he muses up at you before delving between your legs with no prior warning, yearning for a better taste, his fabric filled fist keeping your hip pressed firmly to the door as you let out a high-pitched yelp, body jolting.  

His pouty lips locate your clitoris with startling accuracy, his nose pressed to the mound of your pubis as they wrap around the hard little nub and he begins to suck fiercely at it, flicking with the tip of his tongue till your hips are twisting uselessly under the press of his hand, your head thrown back against the door, fingers twitching with the want to tangle in his hair and drag him even further in.  

“Oh god,” you moan through clenching teeth, your pelvis rocking forward, pleasure flooding through your core and making your legs begin to quake.  The sinful noises he's making between your legs, the way in which he eats from you as though you're his very first and last meal; it's all too much, and when he presses a finger inside your velvety walls they contract greedily around the intrusion, craving more and more and more.  

He pumps it in and out of you, waiting till you're mewling and whimpering before adding to the stretch with a second probing finger, his tongue lapping messily at your clit. When he begins to curl those two fingers inside you - seeking out the rough bundle of nerves that have you crying out on its discovery - it takes barely any time for him to bring you to your high.  

Pleasure wrecking your body is a series of shudders and shakes, you release your orgasm onto his face, a fresh gush of wetness coating his lips and his chin so that they shine when he tilts them up to look at you, smiling with satisfaction.

Jin wipes his mouth as he rises to his feet, and you can only watch with rapidly rising and falling chest as the gorgeous man in front of you slowly removes his jacket.  With no sense of urgency at all he turns to hang it nearly amongst the other coats, and when he turns back towards you he's in the process of rolling up each of his sleeves to reveal strong, caramel coloured forearms.  

“You’re so pretty when you cum,”  he tells softly you as he comes back towards you, a very obvious bulge to the crotch of his pants that he briefly runs his palm across, his dark bangs hanging in front of his eyes.  “But I bet you'll look even prettier doing it on my cock.”  

Jin’s words make you groan past your bitten lips, a fresh wave of want washing over you regardless of your freshly fucked out state.  You want him, you want more, and you want it now.  

Unable to keep your hands to yourself for any longer, you make a grab for his shirt.  Hastily, you untuck it from his pants whilst Jin smiles on, amused by the needy way in which you grab and pull at him.  He lets you unbutton almost all of his shirt, too, enough to let it hang open for you to begin to placing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses across his flawlessly smooth chest whilst your hands are tugging at his belt.  

“So eager for me, aren't you love?” he chuckles, running a hand through your hair, but you're long past the point of blushing now.  You wipe the smirk of his face with a hard and passionate kiss as your hand sneaks under the waistband of both his boxers and his pants, swelling with pride at the way he grunts out a moan into your kiss when you wrap your palm around the girthy length you find hidden inside.

You stroke him keenly within the confines of his boxers, pre-cum smearing on your fingers as he once again slams you back against the door with a renewed fervour.

God forbid anyone be standing right outside; they'd easily be able to discern what was going on.  

“You want it that bad, huh?” he hisses when you squeeze him firmly, rolling your hips against his.  “Fuck.”  Jin snatches your hand out of his boxers with his sharply uttered curse and then grabs a hold of your thigh, hooking it up and over his hip before shoving his pants and boxers down around his thighs, cock releasing to press directly against your mound whilst you grab at the magnificently wide breadth of his shoulders for support.  

It's hot and it's heavy and it's so close to being inside that you're practically burning with the need for it, grinding yourself against him and mewling like some sort of cat yourself.  

“You'll get it, love, don't you worry.”  Jin releases your thigh knowing that you'll willingly keep it in place despite however it may ache, looking down as he takes his cock between thumb and forefinger to guide it between your legs, your core contracting with excitement when you feel the swollen head begin to nudge its way inside.  

“O-oh fuck!” you curse at the momentary burn of the stretch as he breaches you with the entirety of his length with one strong, upward thrust, smacking into your cervix and then pausing there with a minute rocking of his hips whilst you both become accustomed to the intensity of having Jin's cock nestled so deeply inside you. “Oh god, Jin, fuck, you feel…”  At a loss for words, your head flops forward to rest on his, both of your brows already covered in a thin coating of sweat.  The kiss that Jin plants onto your lips is strangely chaste, yet the voice he speaks in following it most definitely is not; hoarse and full of barely contained desire.  

“I haven't even gotten started yet, love.”  Grabbing at your thigh and hitching it as high as he can, Jin slides out of you all the way to the tip and then thrusts back inside with a grunt of exertion and a banging of the door, and when you call out his name, fingernails digging into his shoulders, he does it again, and again, spearing you on his cock with a pace that gradually gains more and more speed til he's fucking into you so savagely that it's all you can do to hold on and try not to break apart.  

“Do you know many times I've imagined sitting you on my lap in my office chair and having you bounce up and down on my cock? Or bending you over my desk and making you cum so hard you're begging me to stop?” Jin grunts through clenched teeth as he takes you like the half-animal he is, the feline points of his canines visible between his parted lips.  

Not expecting a reply from you save the strangled moan you so willingly give, he continues,

“Do you really think I would chose a fucking house cat over you?  You think I'd want someone like her carrying my legacy, my kittens?  I would break her, my love - not like you.”  

Convinced you've slipped into some sort of delirious fever dream, you let your eyes slip closed and Jin's words wash over you from where you've tucked your head at the curve of his neck, whimpering with pleasure as he enters you again and again, aiming for your g-spot and finding it almost every single time thanks to the angling of the position in which he holds you flush against him.  

“She could never take my cock like this, love - fuck - not like you.”  Jin lets go of your dress and it tumbles to hang around where you're joined, darkening with the juices of your lovemaking as his thumb makes contact with your clit, rubbing it in circles.  Your blood aflame, your flushed skin prickling with ecstasy, you cry out for him, smothering it against his throat.  

He's breathing hard now, struggling to keep up such a pace yet never does he falter.  

“She could never nurture my young so beautifully as you.”  Your pussy clenches hard around Jin’s cock at the thought of him wanting to claim you so completely as to impregnate you and fill you full of his seed, and when Jin feels he groans loudly, somehow growing even harder inside, stretching you even further.

“Fuck, you’d look so good all swollen up with my litter.  Say the word, love, and I’ll breed you over and over and over.” He punctuates each word with a sharp thrust of his hips, rubbing even harder at your clit, and as he clamps his teeth into your neck in a savage bite of your flesh you very nearly lose your mind, dangling over the precipice of your orgasm and longing to fall.  

“Oh god, Jin, please!  Please do it, please!” you beg of him, grabbing with one hand at the back of his hair and tugging so hard that Jin detaches himself from your neck with a near-roar, his tail lashing wildly behind him.

“Yeah?  You want me to cum in you?  Want me to fill you full of my kittens?”

“Please, please!”  It's an empty threat, though Jin might not know it.  Your birth control would make pregnancy a near impossibility but the thought of it turns you on regardless, and as you continue to beg and plead for Jin to fill you full of his seed it seems to be doing the same for him.  

“Cum for me again, love, cum with me,” he grunts as his rhythm becomes increasingly unsteady, sweat beading down his brow, “Milk it out of my cock - show me how much you want it.”

A well-aimed flick of his thumb against your clit and one more thrust inside, and you're cumming so hard that there's white flashing behind your eyes.  You call out Jin's name as your core clenches around him over and over again to bring him to his undoing, and it's your name he groans out too as he spills out every drop of his essence inside of you, his head nestled in the space between your breasts.  You can feel it leaking out, spilling down the inside of your thighs even as it keeps on coming pulse after pulse, Jin’s ears quivering as his whole body does the same, and you too are shaking as you cling to him, trying to catch your breath.  

“Are you alright, love?” he asks softly as he stands to full height, placing your foot back on the floor as he very gently eases himself out of you.  Body aching all over, you limply nod your head, still too high to properly formulate coherent reply.  

Your dress falls immediately back into place as Jin steps back, and if it weren't for your swollen lips, the stains maring its front, and the glaringly obvious bite mark at the base of your neck, you might've actually been able to conceal what the two of you have been up to.  Not that you particularly care; you'll happily wear his mark like a badge of honour, so smitten are you with the man who's stood in front of you carefully buttoning up his shirt, smiling.  

“Satisfied?”  Again, you nod, grieving the loss of the sight of his chest as its hidden away and Jin chuckles, tail flicking happily as he shucks his jacket back on, too, leaving his shirt untucked.  Walking back over to you, he tenderly brushes your cheek with his thumb, briefly glancing at the mark on your neck he's left behind.  “And do you believe me now, when I say that you're beautiful?”  

Your lips twitch into a playful smile that Jin returns, and when you press your lips to his in a kiss that lingers you almost swear you can feel him purr, chest rumbling with contentedness.  

“Will you take me home and try to convince me again if I say no?”

[didanawisgi]

A Kabbalistic Perspective on the Yoruba African Tradition

Kurt Browne

Introduction

I was brought up in Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies as a good Roman Catholic where any association with ‘strange’ religions or beliefs was frowned upon. One day my father came home and mentioned that he had been to a “Sango” ritual. (Sango is one of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon.) Although this excited my curiosity at the time, my interest in African religion lay dormant for many years.

I was sent to England to continue my education and was introduced to Kabbalah by a friend. Subsequently as a student of Kabbalah, I decided to look at African religious beliefs for universal principles. Because of my memory of Sango I decided to look at the Yoruba tradition in some detail. (The Yorubas live in the South West of Nigeria in West Africa.)

One of the problems in researching African religious traditions is that most of the texts have been written by Europeans. Very few texts on religions have been written by African scholars and even fewer by practising exponents or priests of a particular tradition.

The text which I found invaluable was written by a practising Ifa priest, C. Osamaro Ibie – The Complete works of Orunmila – The Divinity of Wisdom. Ifa encompasses the “revelation, way of life and religion taught by Orunmila…..This knowledge is endless, ageless and eternal.”

Orunmila is the youngest of the Divinities created by Olodumare (God). He knows the secrets of Olodumare. The author tells us that, “This work was embarked upon at the insistence of Orunmila who expressed undisguised anxiety for his followers to know more about him”. It reveals the true account of life both in heaven and on earth.

God’s Decision to Create

Orunmila has revealed that Olodumare created all the Divinities to assist him in the management of the planetary system and that they all owe total allegiance to him. The Divinities all have free will, up to a point, and regard themselves as servants of Olodumare sent by Olodumare into the world to help him make the world a more liveable place for mortals so that through them, the Divinities, man may be able to appreciate how Olodumare loves his creatures.

In Kabbalah we are told that the reason for existence coming into Being is that God wished to behold God. There then followed a process of unfoldment which culminated with the Kabbalistic model of the Tree of Life with it’s four worlds.

In the Yoruba tradition there is no such obvious unfoldment. First there was Olodumare. Oludumare then decided to create his servants and it was so – 200 lower Divinities were created. They were the first inhabitants of heaven and they all “lived normal lives in heaven, each in the image which took after Oludumare own.”

Later Oludumare decided to create man and he sent one of his favourite divinities, Death to fetch the clay with which man’s image was to be moulded after those of the Divinities. Oludumare then cast the human image in clay and told all the Divinities to close their eyes. All the Divinities did as instructed except Orunmila who was peeking. Olodumare caught Orunmila and as he shut his eyes. Oludumare told him to keep them open since nothing spectacular was ever done without a living witness. That is why today another name for Orunmila is Eleri Ukpin or Eleri Orisa meaning God’s own witness.

As Kabbalists we note:

There is God (Oludumare).

God lives in Heaven.

God wills to create.

God creates the Divinities with both passive and expansive qualities in His own image.

All owe total allegiance to Him.

God chooses to create humankind in His image.

Death, one of God’s favourite creations, fetches clay.

God forms man and breathes life into him.

The story continues:

Following the creation of man, Oludumare decides to “carve out the earth”. Man was considered too young and inexperienced to found this new abode, so the Divinities were sent to establish earth with their knowledge, experience and discretion.

After creating man, heaven was becoming too populated so Olodumare decided to send the Divinities to Earth to “form it”. Olodumare then decides to become pure Spirit, only connectable through Spirit. To the Kabbalist, a separation is taking place. God is moving out of Creation into Azilut and beyond, connectable through Spirit and physical earth is being formed. It is interesting to note the injunctions placed on the Divinities with regard to the establishment of Earth.

No one is to take advantage of Oludumare’s physical absence. They must always show respect for Him. The golden rule must be adhered to. That is to say. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The First Attempt to Establish Life on Earth

Olodumare sends Arugba, his maid, (messenger, the feminine principle) to inform the Divinities that they are to report to him in order to go on a mission. Orunmila who practices divination every day is told to prepare a special meal for a visitor. Arugba visits all the Divinities in order of seniority and delivers her message. When she reaches Orunmila’s house, the last one, he invites her to a meal and because of his hospitality she confides in him Oludumare’s plan. She advises him that when he goes before Olodumare he should ask for four things: the chameleon; the multi-coloured hen and God’s Divine bag, Arugba.

Orunmila goes before Olodumare and his four wishes are granted. He puts into the Divine bag a snails shell, Arugba, the chameleon and chicken plus a sample of all the plants and animals he can lay his hands on. Note that the Divine bag had the capacity of accommodating anything, no matter what the size and also could produce whatever was required of it. (Could this be Da’at?)

All Divinities leave for Earth via the Palm Tree which has roots in heaven and its branches spread over water below. (An inverted Tree of Life) The Divinities cannot go any further. Orunmila, the youngest, leaves heaven last and meets his brethren on the branches. He too waits. Arugba then calls to him from within the bag and tells him to turn the snails shell downward towards the water for within it is the foundation (yesod) soil for Earth. He does as instructed.

The water below begins to bubble and within a short space of time heaps of sand begin piling up around the branches of the Palm Tree. After many heaps are formed, Arugba again calls to him and advises him to drop the hen down. The hen sets to work scattering the heaps and after a large area of ground is spread Arugba calls to him to set the chameleon free to test the solidity of the earth. This Orunmila does and the chameleon walks on the earth proving its firmness.

Note – Orunmila is then the first Divinity on the earth. The Palm Tree is considered the first creation. It has its roots in heaven and is respected by all Divinities. It is the root of their genealogy. All Divinities spread out from the Palm Tree to establish their homes in different parts of the earth.

The Beginning of Conflict on Earth

Orunmila, being the youngest of all the Divinities stayed with and served all of his more senior brethren which were Ogun – the Divinity of Engineering; Sango – the Spirit of Lightening; Olokun – Spirit of the Bottom of the Ocean.

The presence of Arugba as the only woman created many problems for the Divinities. They fought over her and it brought out the worst in them. There was confusion and this led to acrimony. Orunmila left earth to return to heaven to complain to Olodumare. Olodumare sends Elenini or Obstacle to earth to verify Orunmila’s story. This he does.

The Return of the Divinities to Heaven

After Orunmila’s departure, the Divinities refused to co-operate with each other. “Life became intolerable as there was no medium for commercial exchange”. (This point puzzled me until I realised that Orunmila provided service amongst the Divinities and with him gone, an agency or mechanism for service was required, hence money.)

The Divinities go back to heaven and ask God for money to do business with each other, Ase or Divine authority with which they could cause things to happen and for mortal servants. God grants their wishes.

When God sent money into the world, Orunmila was the only Divinity to “conquer” it. His older brothers were envious and resorted to open aggression to destroy him.

There was complete pandemonium on earth over the sharing of money and news got back to Heaven about the commotion. God dispatches Death to bring back the perpetrators, but He only succeeds in removing the followers of the Divinities.

Olodumare then sent Elenini into the world to “come and finish them up”. He was given the instruction to bring all the Divinities back to Heaven. He starts with the most senior of Divinities, Ogun, and turns him into a leaf and does the same with all the other Divinities. Then finally he comes to Orunmila.

Orunmila through divination is told about a powerful visitor and he prepares a huge feast and procession for Elenini. On his arrival, Elenini is feted and he is moved by the hospitality. He comments that if all the Divinities were as magnanimous as Orunmila, earth would be a wonderful place.

He gives the bag containing all the Divinities to Orunmila and proclaimed that from then on he was to have authority over all of them. As soon as Orunmila freed them they went back to their old ways. News of these atrocities reached Heaven and Oludumare decides to personally intervene. Orunmila is told in a dream that he and his followers are to climb up the sacred Palm Tree to

Heaven. As soon as this was done Oludumare released the dike holding rain in the sky and the ensuing downpour of rain flooded and consumed the world. So ended the first attempt to establish life on earth.

This Ifa account of creation though differing in detail from the creation myths with which we may be more familiar, i.e., Genesis, or Norse and Greek mythology, has enough points of principle that are identical:

The Supreme God

A Tree of Life

Divine Image

Idea of Form and Force

Four Worlds

Creation through the Will of God

A heavenly hierarchy

As Above, so Below The Flood

A new beginning

The Ifa teaching is consistent with universal wisdom. The means whereby mankind learns of its true nature and heritage. Different lands and diverse cultures shape the form and detail but the true unalterable content remains the same.

——————————————————————————–

Note

One of the Divinities who did not figure prominently in the first attempt to establish life on earth but to whom all Divinities pay allegiance is Esu. Esu’s role is to test man’s sincerity. He reports regularly to Olodumare on the deeds of Divinities and mankind and is a good friend of Orunmila. Esu is the bringer of retribution and has power of Life and Death over humans and can cause calamity to Divinities who do not acknowledge him and offer sacrifice.

Esu plays a major role in the second attempt to establish life on earth

[o-hybridity]

how would you make a tabletop system like D&D that's crunchy for players, but not a huge pain in the ass for the DM to make monsters?

This is the Eternal Question, and it cuts pretty close to the core of my basic principles of design philosophy! I don’t know if I have a definitive answer but I can springboard into a meandering explanation of the things I’ve done to wrangle with this exact problem. Here goes:

for a while I thought there was a game that answered that question perfectly, and it was called Dungeon Crawl Classics. I don’t hold that belief now (Zocchi dice…), but we can loot an important principle from its couple of good design decisions:

1. Every player gets one really good toy. DCC’s chief virtue is that it found a way to make Fighters a fun choice, not just the choice that’s less mentally taxing than being a spellcaster, and the way they make that work is by giving the role an inherently textured core mechanic called Mighty Deeds of Arms. Instead of giving them a flat ascending to-hit bonus that’s just numerically better than the other classes get, Fighters in DCC roll a separate Deed die that scales with level alongside the attack roll and add the Deed die to the to-hit roll and damage, and if the Deed die comes up 3 or higher they also pull off a maneuver that improves their immediate tactical situation.

Swashbuckling chandelier swings, disarms, feints, coating your foe in lamp oil, and basically anything Jackie Chan has ever done besides just hit guys count as Deeds, and the only things you need to make them happen are your own imagination, GM fiat, and the will of the dice—just so long as the effect isn’t “do more damage.”

Altogether, the method requires even less bookkeeping than your standard D&D fighter, while being way more versatile and giving the player something to actively play with and find new implementations for every time their class role is relevant.

Spellcasters in DCC similarly put some wrinkles in the Vancian procedures by getting rid of conventional spell levels, turning each spell into a range of effects keyed to the results of a casting check, and letting casters burn their physical stats temporarily to pump up a single casting attempt—and that’s before we get into mutations and faustian pacts. The role falls into some of the same pitfalls it always has: spellcaster players have to juggle a lot more functions than fighters or thieves and at the top of their game they’re still going to make wilder shit happen than the other classes, though it balances out a bit by making casting itself a higher-risk affair.

The trouble with DCC’s classes is it tries to spread about 2.75 really good player toys across five classes, and when it comes to thief stuff it can’t really come up with anything all that good.

So Digression 1: What makes a really good player toy? How do we fill out those empty spaces in the party roster with cool stuff for players to use that isn’t a headache to keep track of?

In my humble onion, a good player toy needs to be flexible, haptically engaging, low-bookkeeping, and freely usable but not strictly predictable. To be flexible, a player needs to be able to apply the toy in a range of play situations—getting too attached to pre-defined mechanical effects is toxic to flexibility. A haptically engaging toy prompts the player to engage with something physically at the table to use it; die rolls are the most obvious but there’s lots of options ranging from the nifty to the balls-out bizarre.

There’s also some mechanics that I think are inherently more satisfying because the things they make you do with numbers has kind of an inherent pleasure that feels kinesthetic—I get warm, kind of stimmy feelings thinking about roll-high-but-not-too-high dice pool systems.

Low-bookkeeping toys are pretty self-explanatory; if it requires resource management or tracking multiple modifiers across different locations on the character sheet, those elements need to be doing extra work to make themselves memorable. The Goblin Laws of Gaming’s spellcasting system introduces a bookkeeping element in that you have to track your caster’s accumulated Dooms, but any caster only ever gets 3, the last one is pretty final, and they all translate into memorable moments of play.

When I say that a good toy is freely usable but unpredictable, I mean that the mechanic should tempt the player to use it often—because it’s powerful, because the results are exciting or cool—and temper that eagerness to toy with it less with anxiety over whether they’re going to blow one of their limited uses on a whiff or a no-sell when they could need it later and more with the question of whether it might blow up in their faces this time. Spellcasters in DCC or GLOG are way more equipped to cast all day long compared to their D&D brethren, and that leaves caster players in a position to have more fun with their role, but there’s always the lingering possibility a spell might pop off wrong and now you’ve got a lobster hand. Even when a PC gimmick doesn’t work in the player’s favor, it should make the next moment more exciting. Non-events are poison to gameplay.

Something to keep in mind in reference to player toys: nothing obligates you to make these toys all fit into a single coherent reference frame or “preserve game balance.” What you’re looking to do here is create what game devs over on the digital side of things call Incomparables—play elements that you can’t meaningfully “balance” because you can’t meaningfully convert one into the terms of another.

All of this is building up to point 2. Monsters are self-contained toys for the GM to play with. Like how you’re not obligated to have player toys all fit together neatly into a balanced and 100% shared language of play, monsters can and should operate on their own distinct mechanical plane, and not every monster will be able to fit within the same framework of rules matter.

By that token, I strongly encourage anyone looking to break out of the framework of play you’ll find in a WotC book to ditch as much of the content  in your statblock that carries over into the character sheet as you can. Give ‘em hit dice and hp totals, sure, give ‘em an AC rating and I won’t complain, to-hit bonuses even if you’re feeling nasty, but skip the ability scores and saving throws and proficiencies, and remember that there’s a special circle in hell for designers who give monsters big piles of feats that you have to dig back and forth through the damn book to find and make spot play decisions around (admittedly that’s not the problem it used to be back when 3e was what everyone was doing, but damned if I’m going to let anyone forget that it was a thing).

That sounds like heresy, but here’s the wild thing: there’s a whole armature of play to D&D that nobody uses and it would make the whole affair so, so much simpler if we did, because D&D is built to be a player-facing system, despite appearances. The original mechanic’s been buried under ability score modifiers, saving throws, attack rolls, and skill DCs, but it’s still there, baked into the dice and the stat spread.  Roll a d20 and compare the result against the relevant ability score; if it’s equal to or lower than the stat in question, you done did the thing. High rolls within the margin of success are better than low ones; use this to determine who comes out on top in a contested action when there’s a tie.

Bam, you’re done. That’s your core task resolution mechanic. The great thing about this is that it takes a huge amount of pressure off the GM to pin down extraneous numbers. Your monster doesn’t need an AC score, just a penalty it applies to a player’s attack check. Same with to-hit bonuses, just applied to the roll the player’s making to avoid or resist the attacks it has. Same with exceptional (or exceptionally shitty) base abilities like strength, speed, and intelligence. You don’t need to so much as think the phrase “Passive Perception.” All of that lets you pare down a monster’s statblock to a pretty spare couple of lines that you can fit on a notecard, leaving you room and time to come up with mechanical texture that’s actually fun.

Additionally, using stats this way leaves plenty of room to come up with fun implementations on the players’ end. Stat damage rules begin to make a lot more sense when you strip away all the derived values and re-center your players’ attention on those 5% probability increments. Rolling high but shooting for less than a target number is one of those mechanics that’s really satisfying to then carry over into some kind of direct numeric result. Just narrowing things down to a smattering of possibilities for martial characters, n this framework you can set up mechanics for defensive fighters to convert a failing attack roll into a substitute AC score for the next round, while a more buckwild berserker type who plays more for risk/reward sets their hp total to whatever the die result is—that 1 hits, but now your timetable for the fight’s shifted drastically, but if you hit high, you can pull in a killer second wind. In short, you have an infinite canvas for crunch if that’s what your players are into.

[whatscallion]

Summary: The aftermath of Thor celebrating another day lived with his fellow Avengers and realizing just how pitiful they are. First person and Taika-Influenced. 970ish words.

Pairing: None LOL this is all Thor

A/N: This is my second submission for @blackberrywidow‘s follower celebration! CONGRATS AGAIN, BABY HEN BITCH!!!! You deserve all the followers c: 

Time: 1:30am on a Friday

Place: Smith’s Bar

I am, without a doubt, disappointed.

In a realm boasting the universe’s mightiest heroes ( of which I doubt because I have fought many a mighty hero and they could squish these tiny ones ), I am alone. I am a traveler far from my own realm with nary a familiar creature in sight. Familiarity is there, of course, for animals often are descendents from those much larger, pointier, and angrier beings I’ve tussled with.

Those I have surrounded myself with are considered infants - small, soft, loud, and almost always unhappy unless there is food or love involved. And even then, the optimism runs thin.

Stark, who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, has bettered himself as a mortal through countless ways, yet I can see the recklessness in his martyr mentality. It is admirable, though I know my father would roll his one ( 1 ) eye at the idea. Such brilliance in a short man - I cannot fathom what goes through his mind, zipping around like these agitating scooters in the city. Or whatever they’re called. He didn’t have anything to drink, yet he’s curled up sleeping under the table. I wonder if this is the first time he’s actually gotten proper sleep in a fortnight. I’ll ask him later as he’s complaining over the lack of strength in the coffee brewed. Such stuff is truly disgusting. I don’t understand how Midgardians can drink it willingly.

Rogers, a man from an era existing only in the history books children tote around, sleeps much like my father did - arms crossed over his chest, head tilted back and mouth open to let out an uproarious snore. He’s seated across from me, this symbol of freedom and democracy, and I can only think of his audacity at chiding me for my own attire. Surely he could’ve dimmed his own patriotic colors, even if it is against the wishes of the masses. Romanoff had spoken once of a suit made of the midnight sky - I should ask him about that when he wakes. It took only three glasses from my own reserve to see his decorum falter into that of childish giggling and slurring. He deserved the respite.

Speaking of Natasha, she had stayed awake a lot longer than I would’ve guessed - becoming the last one to succumb to the nectar of the gods. Though her stature is shorter and more lithe than that of Stark’s, a war brews beneath her skin in a way only I can relate to. While I remain this brute, she is pure elegance in lethality. I grow envious at times, catching glimpses of her work, be it physical or otherwise. It was no wonder she’d outwitted my clever brother, and unlike anyone else who has accomplished such a feat, she has remains humble. Somber. Stoic. Absolutely terrifying, and I’ve no doubt she could kill me in my sleep. Me. A demi-god. Dead by a mortal’s hand. I pray to Valhalla she needn’t ever do that.

Banner. Oh, Banner. I don’t really know where he is at the moment, but I hope he’s doing well and is at least not very angry. And doing something with his PhDs ( whatever those are ).

Where even was the archer?

Such thoughts plagued me as I looked towards the bottom of my glass, obviously scowling at the way my hand felt all too big. These people were so small - it was a trait I couldn’t get over. But what they lacked in height, they made up for in ingenuity. Companionship. I am reminded over and over how these Midgardians are far more heroic and selfless than I could ever be.

It’s a thought that hinders me as the rest of the mead is finished, the glass quietly set back upon the tabletop. Though the beverage was something of a social lubricant, it now stifled my muscles, making me want to succumb to the very slumber my patchwork brethren were fully enjoying.

But they deserved such rest, whereas I had yet to achieve such a reward. There was still so much for me to do, and all those things resided outside the doors of this homely ( albeit shady, as the young Peter Parker would’ve said ). It was just a matter of grunting my way through a stretch and trudging onward.

“Hey, buddy-” Ah, the tender. The stout purveyor had been such a good sport throughout the evening’s discourse and uproarious hilarity. Truly, he was not being compensated well enough for his patience in serving those who protected this realm.

“Yes, good sir?” Something spoke to me - telling me to stay at the table despite this small, unnecessary feeling to simply flee, leaving behind my compatriots.

“You gonna pay fer all this mess?” Mess? He must be confused, surely-

Oh.

I finally looked beyond that of my family to find that the Midgardian term “rowdy” was somewhat of an understatement. Why weren’t things here built with the same sturdiness as Asgardian effects? I don’t quite recall that many broken chairs, the cracked glasses, nor the oddly lopsided billiards table. Had that really been our doing?

“Oh, uh . . .” Words began to fail me, so some kind of entity overtook me, forcing movements through my limbs without my knowing. All I knew was that I needed to get out that door as soon as possible and without any obligation to the situation.

“You can’t just finger-gun your way out of this!” It was the last thing I heard before that heavy door slammed shut, sealing away any anxiety that had been induced by the monetary debt I ( but really, my friends ) owed the tender.

A sigh heaved through me, and relief flooded in.

“That was far too close. I wonder what Volstaag would’ve done . . .”

[cerneala]

Ooohhh prompts! Can you do something with the Supreme Deity and Elizabeth? I’d love to see your take on them.

This is actually the first time I’ve written the Supreme Deity while she’s in the spotlight; usually I’ve got her in the background doing god things. This was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you like it!

Standing in front of the mirror, Elizabeth eyes her reflection critically, searching for a stray hair or unsightly wrinkle in her dress. She is meeting with her mother today — her true mother, not the woman who had birthed her this cycle — and the Supreme Deity will use any flaw she can find to belittle and degrade her. She purses her lips as she tucks her hair behind her ears, then smoothes it over her shoulders, then holds it up off her neck and turns her head from side to side. With a frustrated groan, she lets go, and the silver strands settle neatly around her face, only the jagged cut of her bangs from Chandler’s attack marring the otherwise sleek appearance of her locks.

There is nothing to be done, she decides. Her dress is elegant in its simplicity, pale lavender and sleek and form-fitting without being provocative; it makes her look like royalty, which she is on two counts, yet approachable, a kind princess instead of a haughty noble. It is also, to her bemusement, something that the Supreme Deity would approve of, which is exactly why she’d chosen it. Anything to make this meeting go smoothly is what she’d do, because the stakes are high not just for her, but for her friends and loved ones, too. Elizabeth gives herself one last glance before turning on her heel. It is time to leave and Mael is no doubt waiting to escort her to the Celestial Realm.

“Lady Elizabeth,” the Archangel greets her cordially, and she smiles when she sees the simple silver charm at his neck because she knows who put it there and is glad that the two of them are working through their issues.

“Mael,” she replies warmly, “how are you? I haven’t heard from you in quite some time.”

He returns her smile with a faint one of his own.“I’m well, thank you.” There has been a time where he would have been hard-pressed to speak to her so freely. Part of her wants to ask after his other half, but she refrains because she knows that the answer will be along the lines of busy.

“Shall we get this over with?” she asks instead, and he nods and extends his arm.

Elizabeth takes it, feeling suddenly nostalgic. Mael had been her personal guard 3,000 years ago, the only one deemed powerful enough to protect the princess of the Goddess Clan. She has no doubt that Ludoshel had arranged it, perhaps out of a genuine desire to aid Mael in winning her affections or perhaps to keep an eye on her, but Mael had been kind to her, if a little bashful. Now, instead of the melancholic devotion from so long ago, he is calm and assured as they rise through the clouds. And she is glad for him, if still pained by the ordeal he suffered to earn this peace.

“Her Majesty was in a good mood when I left,” he says, breaking Elizabeth sharply from her thoughts, and she turns her head to look at him curiously. “She seemed to be looking forward to your visit. I hope it goes well.”

She murmurs a noncommittal agreement, because, as always, the view of the Celestial Realm spreading beneath them is breathtaking. The orderly streets of the main city stretch out in a grid of white stone, the red-tile roofs vibrant and the gardens moreso, bursts of color and life that keep it from feeling bleak. At the highest rise is the palace, an ornate building of white marble and gold, towers spiraling like grand sentries, looking down on the citizens below. They land in the courtyard, the guards bowing to her in honor of her lineage, and her mouth goes dry as her wings dematerialize.

Anxiety makes her palms sweat when they enter the throne room, which is grand in size due to the sheer height of their queen. She remembers her life before, sitting by her mother’s side during meetings with those who came for aid or to deliver reports, so similar to her time as the third princess of Liones. But those times of affection faded with the war, until their cataclysmic argument led to Elizabeth relocating to Stigma. And then had come the curse, which destroyed any lingering goodwill between them. That is why the invitation, addressed to the princess of the Goddess Clan — not the princess of Liones — had come as such a shock.

Surely the Supreme Deity had disowned her with the curse. Surely there was someone else being groomed to take her place. Those were the thoughts that had kept her firmly rooted in Britannia, acting as Margaret’s assistant and aiding in her recovery; being used for so long as Ludoshel’s vessel had left her weak, and the queen-to-be, still bearing some of the scars from the battle at Camelot, had wanted Elizabeth near for comfort and counsel. When they had received the letter that summoned her back to the Celestial Realm, Margaret had frowned, but had told her only to be safe and do what she could to ensure peace.

There, on the throne, sits the Supreme Deity herself, her ten wings — so purely white that the feathers are almost undefined — folded elegantly to her back, the ever-present halo of light obscuring her face and bleaching her already pale hair until it gleams like finely-spun silver. Elizabeth’s anxiety gives way to something akin to resolve; while she does not expect any talks of peace to go well, she has to make the effort. Britannia is still recovering from the second Holy War, and those wounds will fester if left unattended. The herald announces Elizabeth’s arrival, Mael bows, and then the two of them step outside, the doors closing behind them and leaving Elizabeth to face her mother alone.

There is a tense moment of silence before the Supreme Deity leans forward, her voice like the chiming of many bells when she says, “Daughter mine.”

“Mother.” Elizabeth curtsies, waiting until the queen straightens to stand up again. “I’m pleased to find you in good health.”

“I am certain you are.” The Supreme Deity laughs, and it sounds like music, high-spirited and lovely. “I had expected you to storm in and curse me for all you have endured. You were always a willful child, yet now it seems that you have lost some of that fire.”

Elizabeth takes a deep breath. “I did not suffer half as much as Meliodas. I was given times of peace, while he was forced to carry his sorrow for thousands of years.”

“Do not speak of him to me,” the queen snaps, and Elizabeth nearly flinches. Instead she meets her mother’s gaze evenly. One hundred and seven lives — one hundred and six painful deaths — have turned her to steel, and steel does not bend.

“I must,” she says sharply, “because that is why I have come here. Despite your every attempt to part us and all of your misgivings, he has done nothing but prove you wrong. It was Meliodas who broke our curse, and he is fighting to bring peace to the Demon Clan, just as I am fighting for it here.”

A blast of power almost knocks her to her knees. “You would speak to me of peace?” The Supreme Deity stands, magic crackling around her, lightning sparking between her wings as a sharp cold radiates through the room. “While you dallied with him, your brethren were slaughtered by his kin. Your alliance with him nearly cost us everything, and because of him we lost Mael to a demon wizard’s scheme —”

“That wasn’t his fault!” she cries. “What Gowther did, he did to avenge his lover. If we had not been slaughtering civilians, Mael would not have killed Glariza and he never would have been cursed! You cannot blame Meliodas for that!”

“Silence!” The command is a whip, lashing Elizabeth into stillness. “I have heard of this from my Archangels, and they all tell me the same. Because Meliodas pursued you into Stigma, Mael was taken to ensure the strength of the Demon Clan. Because he was lost to us, we were forced to use the Coffin of Eternal Darkness and were nearly destroyed. All that we have suffered is due to your liaison with the Demon King’s son.”

Elizabeth trembles. I will not cry. Not here. Not now. “Mother,” she begins, and then takes a deep breath, “I did not come here to reopen old wounds. The curse is gone. Mael is returned to us. The war is over. Nor did I come to beg your forgiveness for who I love.”

“Then why have you returned?” Her mother’s voice is frigid, and Elizabeth remembers suddenly and clearly the love and warmth she had been shown as a child, and her heart aches.

“Because there must be peace between the Clans. Already the kingdoms of Britannia are meeting with the king of fairies and the queen of giants to establish a treaty. The demons will be doing the same soon. We cannot stand alone because of a war that was waged three millennia ago.” Elizabeth squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. “We must meet with them, so that the horrors of the Holy War never visit the world again.”

The Supreme Deity laughs scornfully. “Peace? There cannot be peace while the demons exist.”

“But why? What have they done that was so terrible?”

“They live.” Her mother’s words stun her into silence. “They are a dark and vile race, selfish and war-mongering. Do you think that they will allow peace when all they know is violence? Are you truly that naive?”

Elizabeth frowns, thinking deeply. Then she says slowly, “You are wrong, Mother. Four of the Ten Commandments died for peace. Gloxinia and Drole fell to defend me and the Seven Deadly Sins from Chandler. Monspeet was killed by Mael, as was Derieri, who was trying to save him from the Commandments. Prince Zeldris only wanted to be reunited with the woman he loved. And Meliodas took the Commandments and fought the Demon King to break our curse. For every crime they have committed upon us, we have done the same to them. They might not be innocent, true, but neither are we.

“If you still choose to wage war upon the Demon Clan, the Goddess Clan will stand alone against them and their allies. And I will no longer fight for you. I have had enough of this war, and I will do what I must to see it end.”

Several heartbeats pass in silence so thick it is suffocating. The Supreme Deity does not move, does not seem to breathe, and Elizabeth prepares herself to fight if she must. Three thousand years of living and dying and living again has left her yearning for a life spent without the curse, and she will not die here. Then the Supreme Deity returns to her throne and sits, though her her body is stiff and her power still looms in an unmistakable threat.

“It seems that I have no choice but to consent,” she says coldly, “or I will need a new heir. I will send an envoy to meet with the other Clans, but know this: should the Demon Clan prove treacherous, and they will, I will renew our efforts to remove them from the Earth. As for your Meliodas,” the queen pauses, and her voice is cruelly amused when she continues, “Warm his bed if that pleases you, claim to love him all you wish. I will neither give you my blessing nor stop you. If my curse could not, then I will not waste my time.”

Elizabeth hardly believes what she is hearing. Her mother does not move from her edicts often, if at all, and for her to do so now leaves little doubt that there is an ulterior motive to her words. Still, any show of ingratitude will only make things worse, so Elizabeth bows her head. “Thank you, Mother.”

The Supreme Deity waves her hand. “If that is all, you are dismissed.”

Elizabeth curtsies again before leaving the room. Outside is Mael, waiting to escort her back to Liones, and she knows from the sympathy in his eyes that he had heard every word of their exchange. Yet he says nothing, offers no pity or condolences as they begin their flight, and for that Elizabeth is grateful. She must speak of this with Meliodas. Her mother is surely planning something, and together they will be able to figure out what it is and how to handle it. Her goodbyes with Mael are brief when they land, her mind preoccupied with the meeting with the Supreme Deity.

There had been a time, so very long ago, when the two of them were close and Elizabeth idolized and aspired to be all that her mother was: graceful, poised, a kind and benevolent ruler who only wanted to protect her people. As Elizabeth had grown older, she had seen the cruelty beneath the beauty and they had grown distant, and the curse had destroyed whatever love had been left between mother and daughter. She cannot afford to be distracted by what could have been, not with Margaret’s coronation needing to be planned, yet she finds herself torn between wariness and yearning all the same, and her heart is heavy as she ascends the steps to the castle, where her family is waiting for her.

In the Celestial Realm, the Supreme Deity rests on her throne, lips curved into a cold smile. If her daughter will not abandon her foolish infatuation with Meliodas, then she will bind them together in a wholly different way. Alliances can be made with marriage, and that union is, as the humans are fond of saying, until death do us part.

[bdfanfic]

On His Mane’s Secret Service - Chapter 12

The morning dawned cloudy and ominous, with dark clouds looming from the west. Ra’Jirra was up with the sun’s rise and leaned out of her window, taking in the morning’s coolness, while noting the odd glow of red that underlit the clouds. The morning sun’s rays shone on them from somewhat underneath. She wished Dar’Amon was here with her, but that would have to wait till after today’s big meeting, and her wedding tomorrow.

While it was true that she no longer felt the anxiety over the outcome of this meeting that she once had, she was far from feeling confident. It felt more like a situation that was out of her hands, and that no matter what happened, her vague fears of a genocide of her race were unfounded. And there was that nagging feeling that the Hist had something of their own to say, through her.

She closed the window and went to the bathroom to begin her morning routine. She put on the special underwear that she’d bought specifically for this occasion - more a bodysuit really, in the same shade of blue as the translucent Raba. Once she’d carefully pulled the Raba on over it, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She was happy with the look. Not as blatantly sexual as nothing at all, but something about wearing normal underwear also hadn’t felt right either. That felt like you were peeking through a dress.  This, however - it was as if it was how the Raba had truly meant to be worn. The bodysuit reminded her of her climbing outfit, close fitting to the point of being a second skin, allowing her complete freedom of movement. While leaving little to the imagination, it felt right. No doubt Isdra would raise an eyebrow over it.

She stepped into the sandbox and wiggled her toes. Things were going to happen today. Big things. She felt it. And like a spot of warmth in the back of her brain, she felt the Hist there, standing by and waiting to talk to her - to talk through her. They didn’t press, but they were there, calmly waiting for the proper time. It gave her an added feeling of confidence. She wasn’t alone. 

Outside her room two guards waited for her to emerge. They escorted her to the main palace, where Isdra and the Mane greeted her personally. Devline too was there, along with other palace dignitaries. She saw Em speaking with someone, but she wasn’t allowed time to join them.

“So, how goes life for my latest concubine, Ra’Jirra?” asked the Mane after she bowed to him. “Still setting fashion trends I see.”

She looked down at herself and smiled back. “Sorry, it just felt… right. I hope I don’t offend.”

Isdra, dressed traditionally in just the Raba, shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a conservative. But I must say, that looks better than the underwear - if you’re going to have to wear something under it anyway.”

“Thank you. Have the others arrived yet?”

“I understand they’re on their way,” the Mane replied. “But we will seat ourselves at the table now as the hosts. If you would join us, we’ll go in.”

Ra’Jirra, as the junior member of the triumvirate, followed them into the inner chamber last. This was a large room, though not as large as the main hall where she had been first Presented to the Mane. In the center, a large triangular conference table had been placed with her Khajiit side facing the entrance. The Mane sat in the center of course, with Isdra on his right and Ra’Jirra taking the seat on his left. She noted the symbols carved into the table for each of the races, and was pleased to see that the Argonians would sit nearest her. Their tree symbol seemed appropriate, and she wondered if it was some official insignia or just the carpenter’s whim.

“I will lead the discussion for our part, Ra’Jirra,” Isdra said. “The Mane, as befits his stature, will probably not comment directly. If you have something to say, let me know with Tail-Speak and I’ll clear the way for you. Understand?”

Ra’Jirra nodded.

“Don’t worry too much, Ra’Jirra,” the Mane assured her. “This will be a closed-door meeting. While we will try to follow normal diplomatic protocols, there are no set rules here. The Dominion will present their case first, as the proponent of the question before us. The Argonians will follow, and then Isdra will present our introductory statement. From then on, we simply will talk.”

Ra’Jirra was about to respond when a horn sounded from outside the room. The three stood, and she saw the three Argonians, with the Histess, Quill-Weave, leading as they entered the room. Isdra indicated the side of the table nearest Ra’Jirra and they took their seats, though she noted that Quill took the seat right next to Ra’Jirra rather the center seat. Perhaps the Argonians followed a different standard of order though. They had just sat down when another horn blast signaled the arrival of the Altmer, whereupon they all stood again.

Number One entered with two others: a female Altmer behind him and a tall male Dunmer behind her. They took their places at their side of the table as expected, with the female to Number One’s right and the Dunmer to his left. All were naturally resplendent in gold, silver and crimson.

They stood facing each other for a moment, until the guards had gone and the large entry doors were shut, whereupon all sat and the meeting began.

“As hosts,” Isdra began, “we have claimed the privilege to set the agenda today. Number One, since this meeting was your proposal, I suggest you start by introducing us to the question before us.”

“Indeed, Prime Concubine,” Number One said, rising in his turn and using her position as a title.

Ra’Jirra had to admit, she liked the sound of it. Prime Concubine. But he was continuing…

“Before we begin, please, if you would, excuse my partner Lisidra here a moment as she erects a ward of silence around the room.”

The Mane nodded and Lisidra cast a spell, sending glowing runes around the chamber which embedded themselves into the very walls. When she was satisfied, she returned to the table and Number One began to speak again, though the Dunmer rose from his chair and began casting another spell. As Number One outlined the issue, the Dunmer cast the vision of the future she had seen before, and she listened only halfheartedly, though she noticed the Mane and Isdra were completely engaged with the incredible vision of the future cast in front of them.

Lightly, Ra’Jirra felt the tap of a tail on her rump. She turned to see Quill-Weave eyeing her. Her tail encircled the Argonian’s own and they began to communicate silently in Tail-Speak.

“Look familiar?” Quill-Weave’s tail motioned.

“I’ve seen it before before,” Ra’Jirra’s tail responded.

“It’s exactly the same,” the Argonian noted.

Ra’Jirra renewed her focus on the images being cast. Quill-Weave was right. This was not just another vision of the same future. This was exactly the same vision she had been shown months ago on the island of the Dominion submarine.

She nodded back to Quill-Weave and reached her tail behind the Mane to Isdra and requested permission to speak. However, it was denied. Isdra said they must wait for the presentation to conclude before interrupting. Ra’Jirra concurred in Tail-Speak and tried to concentrate on what Number One was saying…

“We’ve shown these visions to the Argonians, as well as your Agent Ra’Jirra,” he was finishing. “As we’ve explained already, they are not a guarantee of the future, but they are the most likely outcome if we do not take action. Already the Humans are advancing beyond what you or we can match. You Khajiits are clever, I freely admit, with your adaptations of the Human technology. You are quick to grasp and revise their inventions. But you do not create technology yourselves as the Humans do. As for the Argonians, you appear to shun technology completely, preferring agriculture to clockwork gears, fuel and engines. Surely you must see the danger inherent in this. Even without these visions, the future looks bleak for our species on Nirn. The Humans will continue to advance, and we will fade into obscurity and eventual extinction. The time has come to act.”

“As for us in the Dominion, we have striven to do so on our own, trying to sew discontent between the Hammerfell and Cyrodiil factions, and we have had some success doing so - despite some interference.”

At that, he smiled directly at Ra’Jirra who nodded in agreement, smiling back even more easily. She was rather proud of her “interference”. But Number One was finishing up.

“By pitting Human against Human, we had hoped they would assist in mutually assured destruction and allow the world of Nirn to return to its former glory days from before all this technology advancement began. We therefore had to use less than scrupulous methods, admittedly, but without doing so the Humans would have seen their true enemy and refocused on us. As the last of the skilled magic users on Tamriel, we and our brethren the Dunmer, Bosmer and other Mer are best positioned to be able to fight the ever growing menace of the Humans, but we cannot do it alone. We need your help. And that is the crux of this meeting. Will you help us, militarily or otherwise, to bring the Humans and their vaunted ‘technology’ to heel? Will you save the future for your own posterity by joining us? Or will you slowly fade into irrelevancy, obscurity, subjugation and extinction under the yoke of the Humans?”

With that, the vision faded and Number One sat back down, the Dunmer mage that had called up the vision taking his seat again too.

The room was silent. The Mane and Isdra had not seen the vision directly before, and seeing it firsthand - so lifelike before them that they could nearly touch it - was a powerful experience, Ra’Jirra knew well. It had affected her similarly once.

Isdra stood. “Thank you, Number One of the Dominion. You have stated your case well. Next I would like to call on the Histess of Argonia to speak. What is your opinion of what you have seen, Quill-Weave?”

Beside her, Ra’Jirra watched the Argonian stand proudly and clear her throat.

“I thank you for inviting me to these proceedings, Mane of the Khajiit. This is truly an historic meeting between our kind. A meeting of equals, rather than one race lording over the others,” Quill-Weave began, with an eye to the Dunmer.

Ra’Jirra didn’t fail to understand the meaning, the Dunmer having once enslaved the Argonians. But Quill-Weave continued.

“However, I fear you are all under a mistaken impression of my role in Argonian society. Though it’s true that we hid the role of Histess from the outside world for thousands of years, yet I am not in any way a ruler of my kind. I am, in a real sense, merely an interpreter of the Hist. I will certainly tell those back in Argonia all we say and do here, and they will listen to me, but they are under no obligation to follow my recommendation - for that is all I can possibly provide.”

Number One was about to interrupt, but Isdra motioned for him to sit back down, and he did so while Quill-Weave continued.

“But as to the Question, my personal feelings on it are ambivalent. I represent life, as does the Hist. Life has no fondness for war, and surely it is war you propose. Yet on the other hand, this technology as styled by the Humans raises much concern for us. We are not blind to their progress and encroachment on our beloved homeland. Even now as they grow in number, they begin to create settlements ever closer to our borders. War may well come. There is a growing restlessness among our kind. Surely some will agree with your assessment. In fact, they already do. Your demonstration was most impressive.”

“But you, Histess,” Isdra interrupted. “What are your thoughts?”

“I follow the Hist in all things, Prime Concubine Isdra. If you knew them as I do, you would understand.”

“And what does the Hist say?” Isdra asked.

Quill-Weave looked at Ra’Jirra when she replied. “It is not given to me to speak for the Hist in this matter. I was given a different task by them when I agreed to come here. That task has already been accomplished. Now I watch events transpire, and will report back to my kind - if I survive.”

“If you survive?!” Ra’Jirra blurted out, suddenly forgetting her circumstances. “What do you mean?”

“Ra’Jirra!” Isdra scolded her. “Please do not interrupt. You will be given your turn to speak at the proper time!”

Ra’Jirra sat back, chagrined and nodded.

“Is that all you have to say, Histess?”

“For now, yes,” said Quill-Weave, and resumed her seat.

“Then it is time for the Khajiit to speak,” Isdra said, standing. “You give us much to contemplate, Number One of the Dominion. But we have questions of our own. I would like to start with a simple one. What is your goal in this meeting? Is it a declaration of war you would have us sign? How do you envision our role, should we agree to this… alliance?”

“Each of our races,” Number One responded, rising to answer officially, “has their own special gifts. We should use those gifts to the fullest. The Khajiit are unequaled in the art of, shall we say, surreptitious knowledge aquisition. Indeed, before us here you bring one of the most talented of those agents you are known for. Yet she has been removed from that post. That is a mistake we would suggest be remedied. No, we would not expect, nor even request, any outright declaration against the Humans. Instead, we would hope that you would direct your agency’s efforts against them instead of us. Let us know what they are planning. Stop thwarting us in our own machinations against them. And provide us with your own derivative technology, so that it might be used against them. But the time will come when warriors are needed. When that time comes, the unleashed fury of the beas… I mean, tailed races would be unstoppable.”

Ra’Jirra snorted derisively at the faux-pas. Yet she was surprised to hear that Number One was actually supporting her return to the HMSS. Maybe she had misjudged him?

“I see,” Isdra said as Number One resumed his seat. “Do you still call us Beasts then?”

“We may,” said Number One standing again and, realizing he had committed a blunder. “I will not deny some of us do. Others have come to respect both the Khajiit and Argonians as equals. We would not come to you as we have otherwise. Surely you must know we - just the three of us Mer - could bring the walls of this palace crashing down with magic if we so desired. But we do not. We are here to request - no, to ask you to consider joining us as equal partners, bringing your own talents to join ours.”

“Racism is a thing we all must deal with,” Isdra nodded. “We are not immune ourselves. You answer honestly, and that is commendable. All know of the Altmer disdain for the other races, but we have plenty who feel our own racial superiority. That you come to us thus as equals, having accepted our requirements, speaks well of your intentions.  But now I must ask a single, simple question of the Histess.”

Number One retook his seat while Quill-Weave rose again. “Yes?”

“The Hist are unknown to us, Histess. But we gather they have their own sense of things that we do not. For my part, I do not question their existence, even if I don’t understand them. I have just one question of them, through you, if you can answer it.”

“I will answer to the best of my ability and in all candor,” Quill-Weave said.

“The visions that we have seen today, they are impressive and extremely worrisome. You have seen them some time ago already, and have surely consulted with your Hist.  My question is this - is what we have seen true? Will this future come to pass if we do not join this alliance?”

Quill-Weave closed her eyes, and Ra’Jirra knew exactly what she was doing. She was speaking with the Hist. She stood as a statue for a full minute before opening her eyes again.

“The Hist does not doubt it’s veracity. In fact, they guarantee it is truth. They not only believe that this future will come to pass, they believe it is inevitable - regardless of our actions here today or in the future. What you have seen, though millenia away, is not in doubt.”

[new2otomelol]

SCM - The Mate - Chapter 5

The Reveal

For some reason I feel as a prisoner walking behind Zyglavis on our way to the Heavens. “Calm down Rhea, you’re not in trouble.” Hue whispers in my ear. I try to relax, but so much has happened in the last few hours that I expect more issues to compound at any given moment. Zyglavis looks over his shoulder as we walk through a door that leads to a long and beautiful hallway. “We’re here, now, Ms. Castille, I advise you to calm down, his majesty just wants to speak with you.” Wow, am I really showing that much apprehension?

We arrive in front of two large golden doors that open automatically as we enter the dais. “Welcome my child, I have been expecting you.” A rather tall and beautiful god stands before me as Zyglavis and Hue respectfully bow to him next to me. I smile nervously and respond, “h… hello.” The king walks around me as if to appraise me, making my anxiety and nervousness sky rocket.

“Can you tell me why it is that I cannot sense you? I’m able to determine many outcomes and situations because I can sense all of my children, but you… you are special somehow.” Crap, uncle, I wish you were here right now, but, there’s no going back. “I may have been your child a long time ago, not anymore.” The change in my tone is more direct and stern. Hue and Zyglavis shift in response to my change in attitude. “Oh my, is that so? Why is that? You must be honest with me, I can at least tell when you lie to me.” Anger seeps through my veins when I think of all my fallen brethren at the hands of the old gods.

“The first king of the heavens made a deal with us to keep us safe and hidden for a reason, respect that!” The king gasps which causes the gods next to me to take a step back. “What did you say? The first king?” I sigh and respond, “yes, the first king. I know how the ‘universe’ selects a king when the need arises, especially during the Heaven’s Rift event. Your highness, I don’t mean to sound harsh, I just ask you to respect an old pact that has been in place for a long time now.”

The king frowns for a second then gives me a concerned look. “Rhea, you’re in danger. You may think you are no longer my child, but the soul of a goddess lies within you. The dark king will stop at nothing to defeat us and your power is what will fuel him. I promise you that I will protect you and no harm will come to you, but I must know what you are. I can sense you are not human, my dear one.” Hue and Zyglavis both gasp at the king’s statement. I feel sorrow as I consider telling him the truth. Should I? What will happen to the few of us that are left?

Tears fall from my eyes as I stand there in front of this regal being. I feel warmth surround me as Hue’s arms embrace me. “We’re with you Rhea, no harm will come to you. Please, confide in us.” I nod and stare at the king. “Your highness, this goes against everything that my kind has taught me… you must promise to keep us safe, to not hunt us or use us like animals.” The king gives me a curious look. “I can promise you that, I would never do such a thing.” I step out of Hue’s embrace and approach the king. “Please, this is important, if anything happens, let it be only me and not the few of us that are left, I beg you!” The king holds me by my shoulders, a strange and relaxing power flows through me; he then stares straight into my eyes. “You have my word.”

I take a deep breath and speak the truth, “we are legend to all, creatures that no longer exist; creatures thought to have never existed. We have a human exterior, but we shift to our true form, well, at least for me that holds true, but to my brethren, they hold more of a symbiotic relationship. Your highness, I am a dragon.” The king’s eyes grow wide and suddenly Zyglavis speaks up, “but that can’t be, those creatures have never existed…” I face Zyglavis, “WE DO exist and there were many of us in the beginning, until your kind hunted us down for sport. Many dragons died fighting battles for you until they got bored and turned on us. Your former king realized what was going on and he erased all trace of us from the heavens and protected the few that were left.” I look to Huedhaut and notice him staring off into the distance as if trying to compute everything I have just mentioned, but to my surprise he doesn’t look upset or disgusted.

I feel a soft touch on one of my hands and turn to see the king’s hand upon mine. “Rhea, I promise your secret is safe with us. Can you show me your dragon side?” I take a sigh of relief and look around the room. “I would love to, however, there’s not enough room in here for me to do that.” The king smiles and snaps his fingers; the environment around us shifts and we now stand on a beautiful and vast flowerbed. “We are far from the palace and completely secluded. I have placed a barrier for you.” I grip the king’s hand and nod. “Thank you, but, I need to change out of my clothes.” The king nods and I hear a snap behind me that must have come from Hue. Suddenly I am wearing nothing but a robe. I let go of the king’s hand and walk towards Hue. “Please, don’t be scared of me.” He flashes me a warm smile. “No matter what you are, you are still you, Rhea.”

I walk far away from the gods and stand in the center of the beautiful field. I focus my senses and feel the heat rise from within. I disrobe slowly as I feel the black and purple scales cover my body. The numbing pain surges within giving way to the familiar feeling. I let out a roar and feel wonderful to be able to transform once again. I turn around and look upon the three gods. Their look at me with amazement and wonder. I slowly approach them, extend my wings and retract them to my sides; I get up close to the king and lower my large head to him. It’s funny to see how tiny he looks from above. He approaches me with grace and touches his small hand to my snout. “Never have I seen such a beautiful creature.” He states as he smiles and continues to pet me. Hue approaches the other side of my head and stares at my eye. “Rhea, you truly are magnificent.” Their acceptance fills me with overwhelming happiness. Zylavis is the last to approach me, touching the area behind my ear, I feel ashamed to admit, but now I know how a dog feels, soooooooo good!

The king steps back ensuring to be within my sight. “Can you fly?” I slowly stand up on all fours and walk away from them to have clearance. I flap my large wings and make a small run for it in the opposite direction to take off. I fly around the gods and breathe out a bit of fire to the side. I land a few seconds after that and transform to my human self. As I am about to pick up my robe from the ground, I hear a snap and notice that I am now wearing a beautiful white dress that is tapered to my body on the top and flows freely below me. My long hair is now braided and placed to my side with flowers placed within. Man, now I know what Disney princesses feel like.

I smile as I approach the gods. “Thank you for accepting me and thank you, your highness, for keeping your word.” I bow to him. “Rhea, all creatures are my children and you and your kind will always be protected. Now, do you have something you want to tell me?” He gives me a devious look. Could he possibly know? I decide to take the risk and come out with it. “Yes, your highness, our kind cannot simply date as humans do. We have what we call ‘mates’ because our bonds are predetermined and unbreakable. I have lived now for more than three centuries and for the first time felt my bond, which I cannot deny.” He gives me a knowing look. “Truly interesting my child, so you are immortal as well.” I nod. “He looks to Hue for a second and back to me, “this mate of yours, am I correct to assume that you would give your life to protect?” I nod without hesitation and he flashes me a smile, Huedhaut looks at us with a confused expression.

“There are no laws prohibiting that as this is something entirely new. I will allow it, only if Hue agrees to it as well.” The king smiles as he sets his eyes on my mate, which looks completely surprised. “I… uh… don’t mind.” The king laughs and snaps his fingers again taking us back to his throne room. “Right, I’m sure there’s more to it all my child, but we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that in the future, now, about the dark king…”

To be continued...

[steveskafte]

OLD DYING DOCTRINE "It's not the end of the world." That's a simple saying, but one that never rang true in my childhood. I grew up surrounded by folks seeking signs of something, call it the Last Days or the End Times. Getting ready for an impeding second coming and a rapture away – religious version of an alien abduction, if you will. For a kid like me, always apt to worry what's next, that created a lot of anxiety around the meaninglessness of the moment. Some say you should live every day like it's your last, but if we did just that, we'd spend our days saying goodbye and working out who'd get our stuff. When I was ten years old, I read an article that calculated the probability of an existence-ending asteroid collision with earth, then spent the next week doing nothing but waiting for it to happen. Eventually, I woke up and realized that life goes on, and waiting for the end is always a sign of sickness. There's a man I know who believes his farm will be our only salvation when the end comes. Your typical doomsday prepper philosophy. But though I'm all for being prepared, and having the skills to survive – there's something hollow in his heart that gives him away. He's been depressed for a good two decades now. He says cruel things to people, places personal beliefs over love, and hides himself behind a mask of faith. He'd rather give up, it's been clear for a while. He thinks his life is a failure, and has doubts about how he raised his kids. But when he was young and I was younger, he was full of joy and often showed it. The man had hope that was infectious; now it's buried and he's only marking time. When the faithful start talking of Heaven, his brethren never see the warning signs. To them, he's not suicidal, he doesn't want to die – he just wants to get closer to God. When I grew up and shook off that childhood anxiety, I started realizing how good the world had been all along. For all the obvious misery, there were endless things to love and reasons to wish it lasted forever. When I started exploring abandoned places, I saw them like reminders of that old dying doctrine I'd been raised on. They'd reached their last days, residents gone like victims of some rapture – but here I was, still living in their absence. The certainty of those who said the end was near had broken down, when it didn't come in 1989, or the year 2000, or in line with any of their countless predictions. Many of those folks are long dead now, still preaching in the grave or up in the clouds, who can know? They lived a life that was only about people, current events and society at large, and hollow of themselves and nature. They didn't know what I took years to realize – that the world will end with or without you. It could happen while you're shivering paranoid in the basement, but I'd rather have it happy when I'm walking in the woods. Consider this my gift for the end. March 23, 2022 Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Year 15, Day 5246 of my daily journal.