#those tricks in the entirety of the last decade

[raskies456]

on second thought, most of y’all never did actually figure out the whole aphobia being perpetuated by joke posts equating asexuality with cringiness thing so idk why im surprised to see so many of y’all falling for the same exact shit when it comes to polyamory

[aziraphales-library]

Hi! I love this blog so much :0

I was wondering if you had any fics where Crowley's and/or Aziraphale's wings get clipped or broken?

Thank you! <3

Hello! We have a #wing injury tag you can check, and here are more wing injury and wing loss fics. Mind the tags on these, folks!...

7:41pm by CaspianTheGeek (M)

When Aziraphale disappears from Crowley's arms, the demon needs to find him. But it's not as easy as he would hope. "“Crowley. Crowley something’s wrong.” It was a whisper. Aziraphale’s eyes looked pained. He watched Aziraphale seem to shimmer in front of him. No. He tightened his grip on the angel. “Crowley, something is pulling me, I can’t. I can’t-” Aziraphale looked at him, fear growing in his eyes. His hand came up but it was already shimmering again. Crowley forced back memories of Aziraphale in a bar on the day of the apocalypse. “I’ll find you, Aziraphale. I promise I’ll find you.”"

To Build a Home by 1Lunabug7 (T)

They thought that they were safe, they had tricked the entirety of Heaven and Hell after all, but after Aziraphale suffers a traumatic event, leaving him mute and unable to move without assistance, Crowley realizes that they will never be safe. Now, he has to take care of Aziraphale and not crack under pressure. Will Aziraphale ever be the same again?! Or will Crowley lose him, as well as himself, forever?!

The Sins of Love by FeatherBlack (T)

Crowley goes missing for a decade and Aziraphale isn't sure whether or not he should be worried. That is, until Crowley crashes onto the floor of his shop in a state almost worse than death.

To Plant New Seeds by momentia (E)

It's sometime later, still dark or maybe dark again, when the door to his flat opens. He wakes, startles, then whimpers. Every tiny movement feels like the knives are still hacking away at him. Where was their cold efficiency then? No, they'd wanted him to suffer. They'd succeeded. "Oh." That voice again, and in the room this time. Crowley would weep, but he's not sure when he last stopped. "Oh," Aziraphale says again, "oh, Crowley." "They took them," Crowley moans, pitiful even to his own ears. "They took my wings."

Crossing a Line by Bookwormgal (T)

The world should have ended four years ago. That was how it was written. The Great Plan was very clear on that much. Six thousand years after the creation of the world, the Anti-Christ would arrive on Earth. And after his eleventh birthday, when he came into power, he would lead the demons into the Final War. All of humanity would perish while angels and demons clashed in one final glorious confrontation. But no one had accounted for a few little snags. Like a couple of traitors. Or a disobedient Anti-Christ. And then, as if the Apocalypse not happening wasn’t already bad enough, Heaven and Hell couldn’t even punish those to blame for that entire mess. That was unacceptable. If Michael couldn't have the promised War and if she could not kill at least the demon involved, then she would at a minimum make him suffer. She could at least make him suffer until he wished that holy water could end his miserable existence.

Behind Glass by EdosianOrchids901 (M)

After a summoning, Crowley manages to stagger back to the bookshop and collapse into Aziraphale’s arms. He’s incoherent, injured, and clutching a pair of bloody scissors. What exactly happened to him, and how did he escape?

- Mod D

[12pt-times-new-roman]

these class and equipment updates brought to you by brennan what the fuck

Nydas is a College of Swords bard, and he has at least 10 bard levels (he likely has 13/1 bard/sorcerer levels)

Cerrit has studded leather armor of psychic resistance, giving him resistance to psychic damage. The armor does not have any additional bonuses to AC, making Zerxus' combined +4 between his armor and shield all the more impressive

Zerxus is an Oath of Redemption paladin

Quay has at least 10 bard levels, so his level combo is either 10/4 or 11/3 bard/warlock. They are an archfey warlock.

Zerxus has a Holy Avenger. Who the fuck IS this guy?? that's two legendary items at least, plus whatever bonuses his armor and shield has (either they're both very rare or one rare/one legendary).

lore:

"Keep the blood of the master's chosen. He lives." Whatever the fuck Zerxus did, whatever backhanded deal Asmodeus tricked him into agreeing to, has marked him as the "chosen" of the Lord of the Hells.

The forces of Vespin Chloras/Asmodeus attacked the labyrinth that houses the city's batteries and engines, and when that happened, the Arboreal Calyx engine asked to draw 30% of the city's total power. Either the engine did this automatically in some sort of failsafe, or the attackers tried to give it that much power, but regardless, when it didn't receive that power, the devil that the Ring of Brass were fighting coughed up some blood in a display that Laerryn "had seen once before."

"Stars. It's something deep from beyond, some powerful divinity. You feel a part of you go out farther than you've ever felt before, and you, for a moment, feel a breath. "Zerxus." And it fades... you could swear... you were so deep in that moment, that rage, it's ringing in your head but it's the horrifying feeling of something on the tip of your tongue... it sounded proud." the Luxon??? (edit: no, it was Evandrin.)

"But I... I like it here!" oh my fucking god quay you are going to kill me. was the voice crack necessary, sam?? was it???

"I don't sleep, I meditate for a couple hours a day. So when I say that this is all I've thought about for a decade of my life....." this is such a cool take on elven trances.

Laerryn needs 50% of the city's total power, presumably to move Avalir in its entirety to another plane, and is willing to short the Replenishment to do so. She asked Quay to cover it up and prevent anything from being reported on it until the city lands, at which point she would enact her plan, and I get the feeling that this is not the first time she's asked this of them. "There are a multitude of stories of mortals traveling to the plane of the fey and falling in love with fantastical fey beings. But there is one story of a fey traveling to this plane and falling in love." Your honor I love them

"You asked to not remember, and I obliged." PATIA????

So Patia aided Xerxes in completing a True Resurrection ritual in a last-ditch attempt to bring Evandrin back. It failed, and the weight of realizing that Zerxus could do nothing more to save Evandrin was too much for him, so he asked to forget and that was it.

Evandrin agreed to go with Laerryn when they agreed to jump to another plane (a celestial plane), and when he came back, something went wrong — his essence or soul or something got trapped by the Tree of Names.

"Evandrin went to this plane and came back different. Yes or no?" Yes. "And you want to send this entire city, with our families, to this place?" Yes. "...I leave." fuck. yes. you fuckin' get em bird man.

The Ghau Drashari's deal with Avalir stipulated that it carried the Tree of Names. "If the wizards intend to fly along the leylines, perhaps this could be a good thing. A tree to protect Exandria, to scribe the names of those things beyond that should not come... the tree is not a wall, it is a pen. It is scribing runes of protection, and as you travel the leylines the blossoms fall, and protect your world from all the things outside it. For 292 years, Avalir has been writing a spell on the surface of the world to keep it safe... the Ghau Drashari believe in protecting this world, and centuries from now, when their order is shattered, only the last three syllables of their name will remain."

[whythinktoomuch]

i. apocalypse now & then

Kara touched down, her boots meeting the earth with a metallic clunk that was promptly swallowed up in the dust and utter grayness of her surroundings. The warnings came immediately—insistent beeps, bright red numbers and figures flashing before her eyes.

“How’s it looking?” asked the tinny voice in her helmet, and Kara sighed.

“Yeah, you were right. Place is infested,” she said, studying the mess of debris and desolation that seemed to feed directly into the faint horizon in every direction. “Kryptonite readings are off the charts. There’s either a tower nearby, or mines just planted all over. Maybe even both, if i’m Iucky.”

Alex let out a harsh breath. “Look, I know you’re not going to leave until you find those people, but you better watch your fucking back out there, okay?”

“Hm… don’t I always though?”

“You ask that every single time, and every single goddamn time, I have to re-mind you of all—”

“All right, all right…” Kara said, rolling her eyes. “Just stop worrying so loudly already, jeez. I’ll keep you posted the entire time.”

“Like that was ever an option.”

“Love you too,” Kara said breezily, and she began her search.

She explored the area in proportioned sections, slipping periodically into x-ray vision, keeping her feet drifting an inch off the ground at all times. You just never knew these days. By now, Kara had stepped on enough lead-wrapped kryptonite mines for one lifetime, which coincidentally had been the same number of times it took to gray almost the entirety of Alex’s head. Or so Alex claimed anyway.

Apparently, over two decades of this sort of living could do that to a person: make them older, but also, steal away every last bit of their sense of humor. 

--

Whenever Kara happened upon a particularly extensive blind spot—jagged slabs of lead piled on top of each other—she took her time. Carefully sifted her way through all that rubble, with a spare bit of rebar or her heat vision from a safe distance. Calling out to any potential survivors that could have been trapped underneath. But as she steadily neared hour two of her search, it was starting to look like a lost cause. That whoever had sent that distress signal must have since succumbed to the environment, like so many others already had done before them.

Then Kara heard it.

Whipping her head around, Kara strained her ears to their very limit, all the while silently cursing how muffled everything sounded in this godforsaken suit of hers. It took a minute or so to hone in on it, but she finally made out the distant voice.

Help us. Save us. We’re down here.

Kara snapped into action, already hurtling full-speed toward the source of the cry. “Alex, I found them.”

“About fuckin’ time,” Alex said, but the note of relief carried through the speakers loud and clear. It always did, of course, given the scarcity of such a feeling as of late. “All right, get them out of there, and hurry your ass up. You’ve already been out there for too long.”

The voice grew louder and more distinct as Kara approached it, and eventually, she could even distinguish other people in the mix—their whispers, the muted beats of their heart seemingly punctuating every word, and all the shallow breaths of air in between. She counted at least five separate individuals, five more lives that she could potentially save from this impossible landscape.

But by the time Kara reached the point where the voice was sounding from below rather than from the distance, her excitement had all but waned, receded back into the ever present anxiety hanging in the air.

“… Fuck,” she huffed out, staring at the large swathe of broken rock and dirt and twisted metal beneath her, the letter K spray-painted all over the surface in a faded green. “Alex. They’re in a mine-rigged shelter.”

“Forget it then. Just get out of there,” Alex said, all rather predictably. “We can send an extraction team with defusers in the morning.”

“But that’ll take too long,” Kara protested. “It would take days, just for a task force to cover all that distance, and these people need help now.”

“No. I want you to put down a marker and come right the fuck back home,” Alex said. “That’s your last kryptonite filtration suit! If anything happens, if you sustain even the slightest bit of damage out there, you could—”

Kara cut the feed and swiftly locked her comms from all available channels, employing one of the few tips Winn had passed onto her before he died. Because Alex didn’t understand. How could she, when she wasn’t the one who had to listen to these desperate cries for help from people just barely out of reach.

She floated outside the presumed blast radius, planted her feet firmly to the ground, and went to work. Uncovering the buried shelter bit by bit, one sizable mass of charred rubble dug up after the other. It wasn’t easy. The kryptonite in the area, though not exposed, was much too close for comfort even through her suit. And it made the sun hotter, everything heavier, and Kara’s progress as slow as it could possibly be.

But all that—the sweat gathering on her brow, the soreness burning up her lower back—was a very small price to pay when weighed against the lives of at least five people in need. So, Kara kept going. She kept burrowing deeper into the earth with her bare hands, until the sun was but a small twinkle above her head and her fingertips were brushing against a patch of warmed metal.

And she could hear them better now. They were so close.

Kara pressed her palm against what had to be the outer wall of their shelter. “Hey, can you hear me in there?”

“Please help us!” came the frantic response, only somewhat muffled now. “Please get us out! We can’t breathe in here!”

“Okay! Okay… I’m gonna get you out, okay?” Kara shouted back, heart thumping hard in her ears. “Just… hang on.”

A quick once-over was all it took to determine that the wall before her—like most other surfaces nowadays—was naught but a few inches of commercial steel, coated in a thin layer of lead. And as such, all it would to take, of course, to break into such a structure was—THUNK!—a single punch from the Girl of Steel herself.

Kara ripped a hole in the wall, using her heat vision to melt down the edges as she tugged the entire thing apart. Eventually satisfied with her efforts, she was just about to crawl through her rather crude but functional doorway when the speakers in her helmet abruptly flipped back on.

“—him back to life, and just… throttle him for showing you that trick!” Alex was practically hollering in her ear. “Why would you ever need to do that anyway? The whole frickin’ point of the—”

“Whoa, Alex, Alex, it’s fine! I’m fine! Just shh!” Kara hastily cut her off. “I’ve pretty much got my foot in the door already, okay? So, I’m helping these people whether you like it or not.”

“Yeah, you fucking better,” Alex said with a scoff. “I want to look these people in the eye while you explain to me what was so goddamn special about them that you had to…”  

And Kara barked out a laugh, shaking her head in wonder as Alex continued to chew her out in a way that only sisters could, apparently. “Hey, you can do whatever you want, okay? Just let me bring them home first.”

“Fine. Just don’t kill the comms this time.”

“Oh, I would never.”

“Kara, I fucking swear to—”

But the rest of all that swearing quickly faded into the backdrop, as Kara finally poked her head into what should have been just another underground refuge from everything their world now had to offer. Because ten feet below from where she had burrowed her way in, was not a handful of dehydrated people waiting to be rescued—only masses upon masses of thick coils and plates of smooth black metal shifting about.

That’s when Kara realized that it’d been quite some time since she’d heard a cry for help. And soon after that was when a muted click! sounded, then somewhere down there in the midst of all that darkness and mechanical movement, came another loop of voices calling out to her.

“Oh shit…” Kara whispered, and at least ten sets of glassy eyes flicked up to stare at her. The pre-recorded voices immediately cut out, and the entire room lit up in a vibrant green as the machines all powered up with a collective hum. “Shit, shit, shit, you were right!”

“Right about what?” Alex demanded, but Kara was too busy heeding her long overdue advice of getting the fuck out there to respond.

Kara burst from the ground in a flurry of dust and clattering scrap metal, already heading for the horizon at full-speed. She needed to put as much distance as possible between her and the decoy shelter. It was nothing short of an honest-to-Rao miracle that her sudden escape hadn’t tripped any of the mines on-site, but now, it was only a matter of time.

Still hurtling away, Kara threw a glance over her shoulder just in time to see the first three drones break through the surface, already mindlessly chasing after her. Then the third and the fourth crashed right on through after them, which abruptly led to a series of rapid beeping, which abruptly led to a violent disturbance in the air that stole away all the sound from the world and knocked Kara right out of the sky.

(next part here)

[19gumi]

WHEN THE SUN SETS | KUROO TETSUROU

Summary: Kuroo hates the way he can never tell what’s on your mind (and also, you eat your cherries ridiculously slowly)

Genre: Fluff (childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining)

Word count: 1.8k

Porcelain plates now stained with chocolate are neatly tossed to the side, bearing the remnants of the croissants Kuroo treated the two of you with. Secluded in your favorite part of the park, you try to get one last whiff of the sweet pastry that you ate a little too quickly for your liking, making a mental note to pay that bakery another visit soon.

The final beams of sunlight graze your face as you observe the birds above you, hurrying to find a shelter before the rosy sky hues turn dark blue. You’ve missed their renowned song – the winter fell into a silence after their departure, sometimes too deafening when paired up with the freezing December cold.

Your field of vision is obstructed by a muscular arm reaching for the cherries in the bowl placed beside your head. You observe his Adam’s apple move as he swallows the fruit, eyes focused on the horizon sprawled in front of him. And then they suddenly shift to your figure, your head soundly placed in his lap.

“You okay?” he asks, thumb rubbing circles in your shoulder.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Dunno. You seemed lost in thought.”

You’re about to respond when his body abruptly shifts under yours, the motion prompting you to sit up straight. Kuroo’s hand flies to the back of his head, and you assume he’s received a hit to it.

That is shortly proven to be true when a distressed mother shouts after her son who you don’t even notice at first, standing a foot away from the two of you. His arms are folded behind his back, lips pouting as his eyes search for the ball he had previously been playing with.

Kuroo’s furrowed brows shift back to their original shape, face muscles relaxing as he takes in the sight of the kindergartener. The mother pants as she approaches the two of you, crouching down next to the child that you assumed wasn’t more than 5 years old.

“Hi, I’m very sorry to have caused-“

Kuroo swats his arms in the air. “It’s not a big deal really, didn’t even hurt.” He then smiles at the kid, extending his hand towards him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kuroo.”

The kid buries his head in the crook of his mother’s neck as a response, refusing Kuroo’s handshake. She spots the ball and sends him off to pick it up, sighing deeply.

“He gets shy sometimes,” she chuckles, scratching her forehead.

Couple of more apologies and one goodbye later, the sun now long hidden and the moon greeting you (this time only one half of it), Kuroo wishes he could take a peek at your mind.

He knows that’s not possible, though, leaving him with the only option of staring at the side of your face, alluringly illuminated under the evening sky. Admiring the faint glint in your eyes, he sighs when he realizes he is about to go to bed with the same unanswered questions another night in a row.

Kuroo is too lost in the way his fingertips itch to sink themselves in your cheeks, his body starving for that addicting warmth of yours – the one he sensed once for the first time many years ago and never wanted to let go of again.

You turn your head around unreasonably quickly – he’s unprepared and so, so exposed. The look in his eyes is soft, way too soft for you to have a full view of it. He hasn’t said a word, but the faint burning in the pit of his stomach convinces him he’s spilled the most tender secrets of his.

“You know,” you begin, reaching for the bowl with cherries behind you. You chew painfully slow, he thinks, the time that it takes for you to swallow the cherry seeming like an eternity.

“That child from earlier,” you continue at last, fiddling with your hands in your lap. “He reminded me of myself when I was his age.”

Kuroo doesn’t know what he was hoping for, but your words do cause a change in his stance. “How so?”

And there you are, flashing him your signature smile one more time. The enigmatic one, the exact one that he’s been trying to decipher unceasingly.

The same one that causes him to miss serves in practice.

The one that keeps him from entering the world of his dreams at night, but also the one that makes him feel like he’s living the sweetest fantasies of his when he gets to see it up close.

“Just like the birds we watched earlier, the pink sky alerts everyone that it’s time to find a shelter for the night,” you glance at him, to which he nods, prompting you to continue. “My mom would always tell me to go straight home once the sky changed colors, and you know I always followed that rule.”

“Yeah, I remember going home and sulking during dinner because I didn’t get to spend more time with you.”

He mouths an ‘ouch!’ when you poke him in the ribs, clutching at his chest. “Dramatic much?” you chuckle, rubbing circles in his back.

“Anyway,” you continue, retracting your hand. “Sometimes I’d lose my toys just like that child from earlier did, but I wouldn’t have enough time to look for them. The street lights would already be turned on and I didn’t want the monsters to catch me.”

Kuroo lets out a hearty laugh. “Monsters? What monsters?”

You shift your eyes towards your hands, which he sees as a chance to inch closer, just enough for him to feel your shoulder against his.

“Dunno,” you say. “But I knew once I’d reach my mom’s arms that I was safe. She’d always nag at me for forgetting to wash my hands – when in reality I didn’t, I always remembered to do it. But I guess I craved that noise which served as an additional proof that I was secure between the four walls of my room, when the silence of the night was the loudest.”

“Well aren’t you a poetic one [name],” he teases, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

A hush descends between the two of you. Kuroo can feel his lips bruising as he chews on them, unsure whether to verbalize the words that could possibly hint at the desires he held close to his heart.

In the end he does it anyway. “It’s way past sunset now, though. So why,” his voice cracks, before he swiftly disguises it as a cough. Or at least he tries to. “Why aren’t you rushing to get home? What if as we speak, the monsters are actually coming to get you?”

It’s your turn to stare at his side profile now, your pulse forming an unsteady rhythm in your throat as you study the slope of his nose, unsure of what was about to come next.

A confession? Were you really ready to ruin a decade long friendship just because rather than playing catch with him you wanted to kiss his lips instead?

His question is silly, you aren’t that eight year old child anymore – the one who’d run away and leave their friends in the street the same instant the clock stroke seven-thirty.

It’s way past seven now, air breezy and short of any sunrays piercing through it, but not even the scariest monster in this world could make you budge from the tranquility surrounding you in this very moment.

It’s almost as if the thought of a life without Kuroo Tetsurou horrifies you more than anything else that’s out in the wild, waiting for you.

“That’s what I was wondering too”, you sigh. “It might be because you’re here.”

And just like that, your secret is disclosed; it’s a simple statement that makes your lungs feel lighter, the burden of having to bear it within your chest for so long now easing with every exhale you take.

He gulps. The arm around your shoulders seems to have become stiffer, too. He’s already close enough for you to feel his breath on your cheek and all you wish for is to lean into his embrace, all of this talk turning your eyelids heavy.

“But I was there all those years ago as well. What changed?”

“Well, for starters, I was what, eight years old?” you scoff, meeting his eyes momentarily before you let your head fall on his chest, inhaling deeply. You have yearned for the scent of the fresh new leaves ever since they wilted last October. “I guess I wasn’t in love with you back then, Tetsu.”

It’s silent. You think it’s unfair – everything you’ve built over the years rapidly slipping through your fingers, just because of one sentence full of longing, anticipation. But then his arm travels down to wrap itself around your waist, the other one finding its way to the nape of your neck.

It’s not the first time he’s heard those words leave your mouth - his imagination has deceived him multiple times already. He’d wake up only to find himself clinging onto his pillow, providing enough heat to trick him into thinking it belonged to you.

However, your scent is way too real for everything to be fake this time around; it simply can’t be. The words he’s been longing to hear are there, the confession lingering in the air only for him and the trees around you to know.

All it takes now is for you to learn his answer, even though the way he’s pulling you into his body gives you an idea of what it might be.

“Do you know why I never went home before you did?” he asks.

“Mm. Why?” your voice is muffled by his hoodie, the vibration sending chills down his spine. He’s convinced now. This is truly his reality he’d always been wishing for.

“Because you were there,” he tilts his head, moving your chin so you can look up at him. He’s grinning, and if he didn’t just admit he was in love with you, you’d probably be now telling him how lame you thought he was. “I couldn’t understand it then, the way your presence made me feel at peace. I realized what it was only when we started high school. I didn’t want to say anything, though.”

“So?”

“So,” he says, his hand leaving your waist to join his other one on your face, lightly squishing your cheeks. “I’m very much in love with you, too.”

His gaze momentarily shifts to your lips, before it’s back on your eyes. “I really want to kiss you, [name].”

The entirety of your body heat accumulates in your face, and his fingers effortlessly melt against it, your body sinking into the grassy earth as if it’s sand.

“Do you?” you ask, your thumb grazing his bottom lip.

“Yes. Can I?”

You nod, and Kuroo swears his heart skips a beat. Hypnotized, he allows his eyes to flutter shut, ready to memorize all the various flavors you have to offer.

When finally he gets to savor your bare, delicate skin - sweeter than anything he has ever tasted before, it’s like the world stops for the both of you.

Or maybe you only drift to your own, each swipe of his tongue guiding you through a new route, the destination of which has yet to be discovered.

[nntssy-old]

Time Heals

Written for Writer's Month 2021, Day 12 - Time. 

Fandom: Gintama Characters/ships: Hijikata/Mitsuba, Hijikata/Tae, Hijikata&Gintoki, Kondou&Sachan Word count: 4396 Rating: T? Also on AO3

They say time heals all wounds. If they haven't healed, there hasn't been enough time.

He already left her behind once. But this time was different. There will be no spicy crackers sent to their headquarters every month. There will be no peeking over Sougo's shoulder while he's reading the letter that came with them. There will be no hope that she'll be able to find her happiness one day despite everything. There will be no chance for him to atone for ruining the only chance at happiness she had got.

Every once in a while Hijikata goes to the stash of crackers she had been sending them and takes a pack. The pile is gradually decreasing — he suspects Sougo is eating them too, although he has never seen him do it.

He bites on one of those crackers and thinks about what he could have done differently. About her spending the decade alone in her house, after everyone she knew and cared about left her behind. He could have stayed with her. They could have taken her with them to Edo. They could have found some way to get her a proper medical treatment…

His vision gets blurry, but he blames it on the damn spice. Because he has no right to cry after everything he had or hadn't done.

He finishes the pack by adding some mayonnaise occasionally. Both his eyes and taste buds burn by that time, but he feels a little bit better. For the time being.

*** 

It is the middle of the day, and the chief of the Shinsengumi is nowhere to be seen, but there's some minor thing the vice-chief can't do without him. Knowing Kondou's habits, Hijikata goes straight to the Koudoukan doujo. Next stop would be Snack Smile.

There is always a ladder or something else left near the enclosure wall — usually from the back side of the doujo — that Kondou probably used to get in. This time it's a few crates stacked upon each other. He jumps on them and over the wall easily, and, indeed, here he is — the commander of the Shinsengumi, lying unconscious on the grass, no doubt after being discovered hiding under kotatsu or something. The vice-chief doesn't feel sorry for him one bit — his stalker of a superior had it coming.

After a sigh, Hijikata just grabs at the back of Kondou's jacket and drags him towards the exit.

He has done it a few times before — before Mitsuba's death, that is. But now, for some reason, the situation brings the memories of a more distant past — how he dragged Sougo to the doujo practice back in Bushuu.

Passing by the front side of the doujo, he glances at the porch, and for a moment he sees her — Mitsuba — again. Seeing him away, as she used to back then, and smiling. Startled, he even drops the cigarette out from his mouth.

But as sudden as it appeared, the vision goes away, and it's Otae who is sitting on the porch.

"Good afternoon, Hijikata-san," she says to him with a smile. "Good work, as always." But then her face and tone change to concerned as she adds, "Are you alright? You look pale… like you've seen a ghost."

He might as well has seen it.

Hijikata tries to compose himself again, but all he can muster is a nod in response, not even the usual apology for his superior's behavior. He proceeds with dragging Kondou-san away in silence.

For the next two months, he sends Yamazaki on the dragging-Kondou-back duty.

***

He hasn't been to Mitsuba's grave since the funeral. A good chunk of the Shinsengumi was present then, with Kondo and Sougo doing all the speeches, so he just mixed in with the crowd and didn't stand out much.

He brings her a bunch of her favorite flowers. He didn't do anything like this in her life even once. In retrospect, he probably should have. The flowers are of the wild kind, and while in abundance in the countryside, it's not so easy to find them in a big city. But there aren't many impossible things for Hijikata once he sets his mind on something.

He sets them near the gravestone and looks at her name etched on it. Looks at the dates. Thinks how in between those numbers there is an entirety of human life — her life — even if it was a rather short one. Thinks how one day he too will be reduced to just a name and numbers on a stone — and that's a best-case scenario. Thinks that, if he ever gets a proper burial, he would like for it to be here, next to her.

Hijikata barely suppresses the urge to touch the stone. His throat feels strained.

In a hindsight, he should have probably brought the spicy crackers with him. But there are many things he should have done.

Hijikata leaves without saying a word. But his imagination decides to play tricks on him. Because turning away, he catches a glimpse of Mitsuba in the corner of his eye. She looks saddened.

***

It's late autumn, and they are still a bit shorthanded after the Itou incident, and there's no one brave enough and available to get the chief back, so Hijikata goes himself for once.

He hesitates a little bit before getting over the wall. Like a damn thief. Or worse — stalker.

From here it's the usual routine: locate Kondou-san, grab him, pay respects to the hostess, leave.

Otae is sweeping fallen leaves with a broom near the entrance. He raises his hand in a silent greeting.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Hijikata-san," she says with a smile. But there's something else to it. Hesitance? Concern? Sadness? "I'm sorry… Gin-san told me about what happened… I'm sorry for your loss." She bows her head.

Someone has his tongue a bit too loose.

"There's no need…" he starts, but he's unsure of what to say.

"He also told me that I might have reminded you of her. I'm sorry."

That damn Yorozuya!

It is true that the first time — the very first time — he saw Otae, she reminded him faintly of Mitsuba. But he has given it a thorough thought recently and came to a conclusion that the similarities were rather superficial. Both were in charge of their younger brothers after being orphaned, which made them mature faster. There are also devotion to a proper lady image and a slight similarity in the hairstyles. Also the smile, the kind of which makes your heart skip a beat — although he is pretty sure that with Otae it's because of fear half the time. That's about it. Mitsuba was a delicate and humble woman. Meanwhile, Yorozuya calls the Shimura girl a gorilla woman, and he's… not entirely wrong, as much as Hijikata hates to agree with him.

Kondou lets out some grunting noise breaking a rather awkward silence. Talk about gorillas. He seems to be coming about though, so it is time to leave.

"Apologies for the disturbance," Hijikata says as he turns towards the exit.

"Take care," he hears her voice in response, slightly muted.

***

Next time is less awkward. Or so he thinks at first.

"Hijikata-san, you're dropping the ash all over the place," she reprimands him. 

It startles him a little bit. But luckily, there's no threat in her voice. He's not quite sure what he can do about it though — it's not like there's a—

"Here." She holds out an ashtray towards him. "I keep it for when someone like Otose-san visits."

Hijikata stands there for a moment, holding Kondou by the back of his collar and looking uncertainly at the object, but then taps the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, while Otae is still holding it.

Somehow, the gesture feels way too intimate.

***

There are usually several bottles of sake stored under a certain loose piece of flooring back at his quarters. They are there in case he needs some time alone to unwind after an especially stressful day. Or to drown away his sorrow and guilt — like in today's case.

Recently he has relied on his stash perhaps way too often. The amount that usually lasted him for months he now drinks up in a matter of two or three weeks. He has forgotten to restock, so right now there is only one half-empty bottle. Not enough to calm all the intrusive thoughts. 

But it's too late into the night, and Hijikata isn't in the mood to go anywhere or deal with anyone, so he will need to make do with what he has. He hopes that it at least will dull the anguish inside of him.

He doesn't even bother with getting a cup, just uncorks the bottle and drinks straight from it.

From the corner of his eye, he can almost see Mitsuba again. She looks concerned. With a hint of disapproval. 

***

This time it is tea.

"Oi, Hijikata-san, would you mind joining me for some tea? I prepared too much because I thought Shin-chan and others were coming, but it seems they're running late. We wouldn't want it all go to waste, would we?" Her voice sounds way too innocent. "Please, I insist."

Otae isn't a woman who will take no for an answer, and he isn't feeling very adventurous today, so he props unconscious Kondou's back against the wall of the doujo, and reluctantly joins her at the porch. The ashtray is already waiting at his side as he sits down.

They do some small talk — well, mostly her — about the weather and the sorts of tea — but otherwise sit in silence, sipping on the hot liquid, watching the clouds pass by. 

It's not uncomfortable. Rather soothing actually.

Perhaps having a calm moment like this wouldn't hurt every once in a while.

***

Next time when Kondou is missing from the Shinsengumi compound, it is right on time for the quarterly reports, and Hijikata is drowning in the paperwork. Reading a particularly lengthy account of accomplishments, complaints, and suggestions from the 1st Division — Sougo apparently does it on purpose — he finally snaps and goes looking for his chief who is supposed to do at least part of this. 

But Kondou is nowhere to be seen at the doujo either. Hijikata has done two circles around the building, checked all the pits, but the usual perpetrator is nowhere to be seen. But Otae is clearly at home today, so her devoted stalker is probably somewhere inside as well. He is starting to lose his patience.

Hijikata cautiously knocks at the main door.

"Excuse me," he starts, trying to suppress the irritation in his tone, but the door slides away too quickly for him to finish, and now he is standing face-to-face with Otae. At a rather close distance. Perhaps too close. He even forgets about being annoyed.

She smiles at him in a greeting, without saying a word, and puts a finger to her lips as in saying "be quiet". The smile on her face is a mischievous one. She gestures for him to go towards the west side of the building. It almost feels like they're accomplices of some sort. But he just wants his chief to get back to work — there's nothing wrong about that. 

As Hijikata follows her directions and goes around the building, she slides the door open there and points under the floor. He squats down and looks under it. It's pretty dark out there, and it takes time for his eyes to adapt.

Once they do, he is able to discern two silhouettes lying on the ground facing each other. Now that he listens carefully, he can even hear some muffled sounds and their muted voices. There's also a faint smell of natto and potato chips.

One of the people hiding under the floor is unmistakably Kondou-san. Another seems to be the Glasses Ninja girl who usually follows Yorozuya around. And they're playing Uno of all things. While Hijikata has been buried in paperwork in a stuffy room back at the headquarters. His blood is about to boil.

"Sarutobi-san..." Otae meanwhile has bent over the wooden flooring to peek under it, her body half-suspended upside down.

The two stalker buddies turn right away. Their faces are pale like they've seen a ghost.

"I wondered why we had problems with rats recently," Otae continues, "but perhaps it is because of all the food crumbs the two of you are leaving around." 

"Kondou-san," Hijikata says in turn, trying to sound polite despite the anger, "if you're feeling bored, there's plenty of reports for you to read back at the Shinsengumi compound." He is grabbing at the hilt of his katana. Otae has already jumped to the ground next to him — he doesn't even ponder on when she has managed to get her naginata. 

But the ninja is fast. She grabs Kondou by the collar and swiftly crawls away in a perpendicular direction. By the time he and Otae catch up to them near the other side of the building, the so-called Sarutobi-san is already jumping over the wall carrying the chief of the Shinsengumi with her arms under his knees and back. 

Hijikata lets out a sigh.

"Any idea where they might have headed?"

~~ Intermission 1 - Sachan ~~

She was hoping to find Gin-san at the doujo today, especially after he loudly proclaimed such an intention yesterday.

But it seems there's only Otae-san now, doing the chores in the yard, not even her brother or Kagura-chan are hanging around. And Sachan doesn't even have any work today to busy herself with.

While thinking of what to do, hanging on the ceiling, she hears a rustling sound from somewhere under the floor. Perhaps Otae isn't completely alone after all.

Avoiding being noticed by the hostess, Sachan crawls under the floor, and indeed, Kondo-san is also on duty today — well, not on his proper duty duty — snacking on some potato chips and watching Otae's feet from afar. She decides to sneak up on him. It is so easy to startle him that she has to forcefully cover his mouth so as to not betray their presence.

"Ah, it's you, Assassin girl," he says in a muffled voice.

"You seem to be bored."

"I'm not bored, just taking a break!"

"Do you want to play some Uno?"

They start playing, but the chief of the Shinsengumi seems to be as unlucky in games as he is in love. Which, of course, gets him frustrated. She occasionally forcibly covers his mouth again to prevent him from getting too loud.

Suddenly, while they are still engrossed in another round of the game, her instincts kick in, and Sachan feels some sort of dangerous presence. Perhaps, even a killing intent.

"Sarutobi-san..." she hears a very familiar voice, as if right on cue.

Sachan turns to the voice — Otae's head is upside down as she is looking at their hideout under the floor — menacing aura and all. But she's not alone. There is also the Demonic Vice-Chief of the Shinsengumi right beside her, looking angry and just as his nickname suggests. Each of them alone would look like pretty bad news right now, but together... they are like a match made in Hell.

Sachan doesn't even hear what they have to say, her self-preservation instincts taking over, and all her senses telling her to run. She grabs Kondou-san by the collar of his jacket — in an act of solidarity, or perhaps she has already grown rather fond of him to just leave him behind in the imminent danger — and retreats.

Jumping from roof to roof, with protesting Kondou in her arms, she thinks that her love rival and the vice-chief actually look rather good together. She wonders what is the relationship between the two.

Sachan drops the chief of the Shinsengumi off at his headquarters. Literally. Through the roof.   

~~ Intermission ends ~~

Next time Hijikata is unlucky enough to come just before lunch.

She sees him from the east side of the building even before he's able to find Kondou-san. Out of courtesy, he comes closer to ask her. But his stomach betrays him in a rather loud voice.

"Oh my, Hijikata-san, you must be hungry. We are actually about to have some tamagoyaki. Why don't you join us?"

Oh, shit, the infamous abused eggs. They are slowly becoming a local legend. Of the horror kind.

"No, I'm in a hurry actually…"

"Oh… But you can't work on an empty stomach, can you? Wait here, I will bring you some." And she rushes back inside before he even has a chance to stop her.

Hijikata ponders on how rude it would be to refuse now. And what body part he should protect from the punch. But before he comes to any conclusion, she's already back with a small plate and a radiant smile on her face.

Otae doesn't take no for an answer. But he isn't even capable of saying no to such an enthusiastic face. Perhaps because he just has difficulties saying no to women in general. Yes, that must be it.

It's just burnt eggs, how bad could it be? Not to mention he has his emergency bottle of mayonnaise with him.

~~ Intermission 2 - Gintoki ~~

"Look, he's about to put mayonnaise on it!" Kagura lets out a loud whisper, peeking through a slightly open sliding door. "Ew!"

"Shh, maybe it will cancel out somehow. The more he eats the less we will need to. Until Shinpachi makes some normal food." Gintoki's head is just above hers, as he's peeping in the next room as well. He is expecting Otae to stop Hijikata from desecrating already desecrated eggs any moment now.

But it never comes.

"He's eating it!" Kagura exclaims.

Hijikata is sitting with his back towards them, so they can't see his face. But lately, the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi has been looking… not his best. He has reasons for moping around, but it has already been like half a year since the death of Okita's sister.

Like you're the one to talk when it comes to coping.   

They keep watching as Hijikata finishes his plate, without either choking or puking. He is about to return the plate and doesn't even look like he's in a dire need of a bathroom.  

"Hijikata-san, you need to take better care of yourself. If not for yourself, then for people who care about you," Gintoki hears Otae's quiet voice suddenly.

Says the woman who is about to give him a food poisoning.

"There are fewer and fewer people like that lately," Hijikata responds in a bit of a grave voice after some pause.

As he returns the plate, their hands — Otae's and Hijikata's — touch. The man freezes.

"You're… mistaken," she responds. There's seemingly an eye contact, and the vice-chief looks somewhat surprised.

Gintoki hears Kagura hold her breath and lean in a bit closer. Like she's sometimes doing when watching a romance drama.

Coming to his senses, Hijikata is visibly flustered and suddenly in a rush to leave. So much that he almost drops the plate. But still, it doesn't look like diarrhea is the cause.

"It seems Kondou-san is not here today… So I'll be on my way… Thank you for the meal." The vice-chief bows exaggeratedly and turns away to leave.

"Here goes our hope of salvation," says Gintoki after Hijikata isn't in sight anymore, but the possibility of food poisoning isn't what occupies his mind at the moment.

Otae hasn't moved from her place yet.

Kagura turns away from the door. She seems to be contemplating something. Perhaps processing what she has just seen. Gintoki follows and can't help but plunge into thinking as well.

Meanwhile, Kondou slides from under the kotatsu, looking rather sleepy. 

"Has someone called me?" 

~~ Intermission ends ~~

It is late into the night, and the silence seems too loud again. Hijikata is thinking about opening up his stash — he has restocked recently after all.

He gets one bottle out and is looking at the label, contemplating.

People that care about me, huh?

Kondou's concerned face comes to his mind. Sougo hasn't tried to kill him as much lately either. He remembers Yamazaki and his other subordinates exchanging glances when he was shouting at them while still being hungover. Even Yorozuya hasn't been as cocky when they happen to cross paths lately.

You're… mistaken. 

Eventually, he decides to put the bottle back.

Perhaps a cup of tea might be better.

As he's about to head towards the kitchen, Hijikata catches a glimpse of Mitsuba in the corner of his eye again, but the vision disappears as soon as he turns his head.

He's pretty sure there has been a trace of a smile on her face this time.

***

It's early spring and another drag-Kondou-back-to-work day. 

Hijikata is making a circle around the Koudoukan doujo in search of his superior. He's about to pass by the main entrance, expecting to see the irresistible — as in you have no chance of resistance — owner and her charming smile.

But it's Yorozuya's uncouth mug instead.

"Yo," he says simply.

Hijikata gets startled.

"What are you doing here?"

"Were you expecting to see someone else, eh, Hijikata-kun?" says the silver-haired samurai in his insufferable tone. "Someone prettier maybe? With a ponytail maybe? Am I not enough for you, Hijikata-kun?" He pauses but then adds with an even more shit-eating grin than before, "How were the tamagoyaki last time?"

Hijikata is reminded of accidentally touching Otae's hand instead.

You're… mistaken.

"I… You…" He is considerably flustered — there's no way around that — but for what reason?

"She went out to buy some groceries. Must be back soon," Yorozuya adds simply, picking at his nose, not even looking at him.

Hijikata calms down — more or less — and just goes past the other man, intending to proceed with his search.

"You know… if there's such thing as Heaven" — there's seriousness in Gintoki's voice that makes Hijikata stop in his tracks — "she probably just wants for you to be happy. Just as you did for her."

He remembers Mitsuba's concerned face conjured by his imagination.

"I know," he responds out loud without facing the other. But in actuality, it is a rather fresh thought in his mind. 

"You wouldn't want to disappoint her, would you?"

He didn't think of it like that before. Not explicitly, at least.

"Anyway, the Gorilla should be just around this corner. Otae has knocked him out just before leaving," Yorozuya says in a more casual tone.

Hijikata finds Kondou-san just where he was told. He grabs his superior by the collar and proceeds to the exit, raising a hand in goodbye to Yorozuya, still without facing him. The vice-chief's mind is deep in thought.

As he's turning out of the gate, Hijikata comes face-to-face with Otae. Again.

She's smiling radiantly. While he feels like he's getting flustered for the second time today.

"Good afternoon, Hijikata-san. Are you leaving already?"

He only manages to say something barely intelligible in response. He can almost hear Yorozuya laughing.

"Too bad… Thank you for your hard work anyway."

He nods and proceeds with dragging Kondou-san away past her. There are a lot of things on his mind. 

***

He comes to visit Mitsuba again.

He brings her a bunch of her favorite flowers. He always forgets their name, so there are certain difficulties when talking to the florists, but he is persistent in trying to describe them to the best of his ability. There aren't many impossible things for Hijikata once he sets his mind on something after all.

The grave is well tended to — Sougo must be visiting much more often than he is. And he better be.

He sets the flowers near the gravestone and looks at her name etched on it.

"Long time no see."

That's not exactly true. She has come to him — to his mind — quite often, almost every time he was left alone.

Hijikata sits down in front of the grave and starts talking. 

He starts with little things: the stuff that has happened recently, how is Sougo doing, how are Kondou and the others.

He talks, and talks, and talks. 

He bows his head and apologizes for not visiting sooner, and more often in general. He voices all of his regrets. The things he should have done. Apologizes for both the things he had done and the things he hadn't.

He promises to take good care of Sougo.

He tells her of all the connections they have made since coming to Edo. Yamazaki. Matsudaira and his daughter. Yorozuya. The Shimura siblings. Tells her of the weird rivalry Sougo has with the China Amanto girl. How their days are almost never dull.

He tells her all this so she doesn't have to worry. So she can rest in peace.

In the end, he asks her permission for him to move on. Not to forget — because her image will forever be ingrained in his heart. But he also feels that there is still some place for others too. To move on, for the sake of the people who depend on him. Who — just so happened — care about him, as hard as it is for him to acknowledge this. 

Then Hijikata sits in silence, with his head down, for a long, long time, as if indeed waiting for someone to answer.

When, in the end, he stands up, he feels lighter. Like the cage around his chest has finally broken.

"I will bring the crackers next time," he says with a smile before turning away to leave. After a few paces, he stops and slightly turns back to look at the grave.

He sees Mitsuba in the corner of his eye again. She is holding the flowers and smiling. He intends to keep it that way.    

***

The spring is in full force now, and the trees are blooming.

He doesn't remember when he stopped even thinking of sending someone else to retrieve the chief of the Shinsengumi from the Koudoukan doujo. 

For once, he decides to enter through the front entrance.

It doesn't take long for Otae to notice him. She's already waving at him. And, of course, smiling. And he cannot but smile — just a little bit — back.

They say time heals all wounds. If they haven't healed, there hasn't been enough time. Or the right words haven't been said yet. Or, more importantly, heard.

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

Why do you hate Trump? Because Misha does?

Um, no.

I have never liked that orange megalomaniac. Long before he took office, back when he was just a failed businessman and reality television personality, I thought he was creepy, entitled and self absorbed. From his predatory comments about his own daughter (the interview he did just after she was born, saying that he hoped she’d inherit her mother’s large breasts) to his constant demeaning comments and actions toward the women in pageants he attended, to his conduct on his reality show-- which always seemed to be especially belittling to women and people of color ... I have NEVER liked him.

Then, during the entirety of his election leading up to his 2016 win, I saw the this country backslide through history, undoing decades of progress with his constant vitriolic rhetoric on anyone who dared disagree with him. This man mocked the disabled, bragged about abusing women, lied and lied and invoked fear and hatred of minorities as his only means of securing office. Anything even vaguely resembling a political-claim never came to fruition. He didn’t complete his wall, and Mexico didn’t pay for it. He didn’t “drain the swamp” in the government, and he didn’t revamp middle-America, giving new life to the average blue collar citizen, ultimately “making America great again”. And whenever he failed to do any of these things, he just blamed the democrats. As if simply blaming someone else for his failings, explained everything away ... and his followers believed him. He constantly tricked people into buying into his hatred, to the point of him being no better than a cult leader at the end of his term. And just like a cult leader, he was able to brainwash his people into going far beyond the realm of morality-- something that they would not have done otherwise. If he were truly interested in the politics of this nation, and if he truly cared about this nations’ people-- even if it were just for the ones who supported him, he would not have run his entire presidency on the basis of hate, because all that did was make this country a regressive joke in the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of so many of its citizens-- and it ultimately led to the death of so many of its citizens.

Over these last two elections, it became obvious that Trump would say or do anything just to win--showcasing how he truly doesn’t care for anyone besides himself. I was stunned when people actually praised him as being a religious, God-fearing man when time and time again, he showed us that he was morally reprehensible. I was sickened when he would flip flip on issues just to gain favor of whoever happened to be sitting in front of him at the time, and I was ashamed that so many people could overlook his obvious shortcomings as a leader (or even-- just as a good human being) because their own deeply ingrained prejudices against people of color and women were too strong.

The people who put him in office were also the racists that hated Obama because he was black, and the sexists who hated Hilary because she was a woman. That’s it ... that’s all that mattered to them. It had nothing to do with politics. If it did, those same people would have abandoned Trump a long time ago because none of the promises he made to them, came to be.

I wish that this was solely a political argument, because if it were ... well, I would happily debate the good and the bad of Hilary, the good and the bad of Obama-- and the good and the bad of every other political leader in this country because that would have nothing to do with race or sex ... but again, Trump didn’t win because of politics. He won because of prejudice ... and that’s also exactly why he lost in 2020. His hatred fueled so much pain and death and anger over the last four years that when finally given the chance, the people of this country who suffered because of his hate, were finally able to vote him out.

And how did he respond? By saying that the election was rigged. That the vote was stolen from him ... that America’s ideals were under attack. Even though the irony of it was-- he was the only one attacking anyone! What too many right-leaning individuals fail to see is that this is not a game. We are not one team being pitted against another during a playoff game. We are one country, and we should try to work as one. But Trump made it a game, and he made it about winning and winning alone. He acted like once he got that championship ring, his work was done and then all he had to do was claim himself “the greatest” from then on out. And if that point was ever contested, then he would spit fire and fury, acting as if his words had no real consequence; as if he were just defending his honor. But they did have consequence... and we saw that consequence come to a head on January 6th at the capitol.

So-- no, I don’t hate Trump just because Misha hates Trump. Unlike Trump-followers, I don’t choose to hate things just because someone I admire, does.

I hate Trump because he highlighted the fact that in this country, you can be elected to the highest office in the nation without any political foundation or knowledge. All you need to be is an old white man who feigns support of other old white men, by knocking down every other person who is not old, white and/ or a man. Trump won because he dug up this country’s deeply prejudiced roots, claiming that the reason any American was “suffering” in any way is because we worked so hard to bury those roots.

I hate him because he is a liar.

I hate him because he is a racist.

I hate him for not caring about politics or law or justice.

I hate him because he never loved or appreciated this country beyond what it could do for him and his overinflated ego.

I hate Trump for so many reasons, and absolutely none of them have anything to do with Misha Collins.

But I do love the fact that Misha hates him too.

[mira--mira]

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

[the-great-bbe]

How about something with Rhaenys/Garlan?

Setting: Regency Era!AU, “I have nothing to give but my heart so full and these empty hands.” “They're not empty now.”

Note: Marei of Oldstones is the Westerosi version of Marie de France, a 12th century poet whose work influenced the Arthurian Cycle. And yes, it was a common pastime for learned ladies to discuss the phallic imagery ever present in medieval romances lolol the tumblr instinct has been around for centuries

--

It begins as simple admiration. He is Margaery’s favorite chaperone, as Willas can’t keep up with her merry chases and Loras enables her chases to become proper misadventures. So he is the one that Mama sends to court when Margaery becomes lady companion to Crown Princess Rhaenys. And what a court it is—Queen Regent Elia rules with grace and glitter, and all the courtiers gossip enough to make dear Grandmama herself lean in. Here Garlan can train with the finest of knights, read from the royal libraries, discuss with like-minded lords and ladies about the progressive new laws that the Queen Regent is putting forward...

And then there is the Princess herself. 

Tall, with rich olive skin and black ringlets cascading down her back. Her face is soft and round, balanced by full lips and large eyes—oh, her eyes! Garlan has never seen such eyes outside of paintings, an impossible shade of black-violet. And when he first sees those eyes, she is smiling at him. He cannot help but smile back.

--

It’s not just that she is beautiful, of course. Her mind is a treasure beyond words. One day she and Grand Maester Tyrion have a three hour long debate about the origins of dragons in the courtyard. Garlan nearly swoons like a green maid to hear the strength of her arguments, the logic she wove like silk in a loom. And even Tyrion concedes defeat to her, as most people end up doing to the Crown Princess. When Rhaenys takes her leave to give her mother company, Garlan bows. “An excellent battle, Your Highness. I’ve never seen a Field of Fire through words alone before and yet we all are blown away.”

“Thank you, Ser Garlan.” She smiles and there’s faint dimples in her cheeks; the sight nearly makes Garlan swoon again! “Care to escort me to the Queen’s apartments?”

Of course. Her hand is a warm weight in the crook of his arm and truly, Garlan is surprised she is not betrothed yet. She is eighteen, of age to take the throne in her own right were it not for her father in the sanitarium on Dragonstone, and easily the loveliest creature on the gods’ green earth. Perhaps she will marry Lord Robb Stark for his bloodline, or Ser Joffrey Baratheon for his riches. Had Willas not eloped with Leonette Fossoway to Braavos he too would’ve been a contender. Grandmama will probably throw the Tarly girls at Garlan, or perhaps a girl from the Riverlands...

“Your eyes seem far away, Ser. Does anything trouble you?”

Garlan shakes himself. “It’s nothing, Your Highness. I’m simply wondering when I shall become an uncle.”

“Yes, I hope my wedding present to your brother Lord Willas and his wife Lady Leonette survived the ship to Essos.” Her gaze flickers away for a moment, then she squeezes his arm. “Join my lady mother and I for tea? Perhaps you can give your perspective on elopement, as my dear brother Aegon intended to run off with Shireen Baratheon in their “doomed romance” when we’d much rather just give them Summerhall.”

--

“Ser Garlan! Do join us!” Rhaenys sits on a large picnic blanket with Marg, a gaggle of other ladies and Rhaenys’s fearsome cat Balerion. Prince Oberyn, Rhaenys’s uncle and practical second father, keeps watch over them and nods at Garlan. They are in the shade of a gigantic plum blossom tree given as a gift from the Emperor of Yi-Ti, and there’s a few petals fallen into her hair. Unthinkingly, Garlan sits by her side and brushes them loose, and he shivers from the feel of her hair between his fingers. Rhaenys asks, “Tell us, have you read the words of Marei of Oldstones?”

“Yes, her poetry influenced the Arthurian Epic did she not?” Epic tales set in the Dawn Age of heroes and fair maidens and wretched monsters. Garlan remembers being still in leading strings, listening to Papa read him and his siblings a passage before bed each night. 

“We were discussing some of the themes in in the Epic and other tales of its kind.” Marg gives him a grin that sends a shiver down his spine. Gods, what is she up to now? “About the imagery of a knight rescuing a princess from a tower. What do you make of it?”

“I...”

Sansa Stark hides a giggle behind her folding fan. “It’s always a giant tower, so very large and impressive.” Then she and little Allyria Dayne dissolve into giggles.

Garlan tugs on his collar. Rhaenys is looking at him expectantly and he can’t ignore his future queen. But really! Marg is still grinning and Garlan narrows his eyes at her. Oh, he’ll get her for this. “It is quite a juxtaposition of imagery. As Lady Sansa said, the tower the knight must handle is always a tall and imposing one. Yet...”

“Yet?”

Garlan prays to the gods for guidance. “Yet the knight must enter the tower. So truly, what function is the imagery in this context?”

Walda Frey—Loras once called her Fat Walda at a feast and she gave him a split lip and a black eye, so now Garlan defers to her as the very best of Waldas—whispers to Marg, “Better than just scaling up and down its walls in its lonesome.”

The ladies giggle and Garlan wants to sink into the floor. Then Rhaenys laughs. “Well put! Thank you for indulging us.” She pauses, then cocks her head and Garlan wonders when the mild spring day got so warmer so quickly. “Indulge us again: do you prefer the sword, or the joust?”

“I prefer handling two swords at once, although I am no green boy when it comes to the joust.” Marg might just choke to death on her stifled giggles and Garlan hopes that she does! But there’s a hint of red to Rhaenys’s ears, and what mild flirtation ever hurt anyone? “At the next tourney, I’ll do my best to impress you.”

“Perhaps I’ll give you my favor as a good luck charm. We can’t have me being unimpressed, can we?”

Indeed, they can not. Garlan would love nothing more for her to admire him, as he admires her.

--

“Your Highness,” Garlan licks his lips, as they are as dry as a Dornish desert. His words catch in his throat. Then Marg in the stands motions at him to continue, Prince Oberyn himself sends him a wink...and he says, “I crown you, Princess Rhaenys, as my Queen of Love and Beauty.”

The crowd erupts into cheers. It was a very hard joust won, as Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard nearly dislocated Garlan’s shoulder and Lord Robb was no one to be trifled with. But at the end he threw even his brother Loras down to the dirt—as if his trick of using a mare would work on Garlan! Not after the tourney at Longtable where Garlan broke his nose!—and won the crown of jonquils and morning glories. They look so beautiful in Rhaenys’s hair, almost as beautiful as Rhaenys herself.

Rhaenys’s reply is nearly lost beneath the deafening roar, but Garlan hears it all too well. “I am honored and delighted to be crowned by such a noble and true knight as you.” And her favor, tied neatly around his arm beneath his armor, seems to catch alight.

He has nothing to offer her, other than this crown of flowers and his hand in the dances to come. He is a second son of a family with many mouths to feed, with no kingly descent or heirloom sword. She shall marry someone worthy to take his place at her side as Prince Consort, and he...he shall content himself with the feeling of her hand in his.

He bows over that lovely hand and kisses her knuckles. 

Later that night, after hours of dancing and feasting and laughing and chasing, he kisses her knuckles again. And again, and again, and again. Until Rhaenys pulls him up from his knees and kisses him with lips as soft as spring and rich as wine. Beneath that plum blossom tree with no one to witness them other than the moon and stars reflecting in her impossibly beautiful eyes, no other sound than their shared breath against each other’s lips and Garlan whispering “I think I’m in love with you.”

He kisses her before she can tell him they cannot be. He cannot bear it.

--

“Do you love my daughter, Ser Garlan?”

Garlan can hardly breathe before the presence of the Queen Regent Elia Martell. So much of Rhaenys’s bold beauty is from her mother, and the Queen Regent has decades of power behind her piercing gaze. But he is no liar. He jerks a nod. “With all my life, Your Majesty.”

She nods, as if it were a foregone conclusion. She is not wrong in that, as the entirety of Kings Landing must know that Garlan would gladly die for Rhaenys, and live for her as well. Even Papa knows, and Papa hardly knows anything! After an eternity of being sized up and raked over the coals of the Queen Regent’s eyes, she sighs. “You are not my first choice, but you are not my last. If my daughter consents to it, I give my blessing to officially court her.”

Truly? Truly?! Garlan gapes like an idiot, or perhaps some ill-bred fish. And the Queen Regent laughs; she sounds so much like Rhaenys. “I encourage you not to make that same face when you ask for her permission.”

Garlan, after bowing and scraping as much as he can without fainting, eventually leaves the royal solar. Marg immediately tackles him and cackles that her hopes have gone swimmingly, and her best friend shall be her sister. Then she pulls him along to gods know where while Garlan’s head reels.

He? To court Rhaenys? To hold her hand in his and not let it go? Garlan’s knees nearly give out, especially when Willas and Loras both clap their hands on his shoulders. “Grandmama will finally be proud of us, I think,” Loras boasts.

“Her Highness has not even consented yet!”

Marg rolls her eyes “Garlan, I love you, but you are as thick as molasses. Now go confess your love to her!” She practically shoves him towards Rhaenys’s plum blossom tree. “And kiss her! With tongue!”

He stumbles into the tree and nearly into Balerion. The cat blinks up at him to say he is a fool, then slinks away to a laughing Aegon’s arms. “Ser Garlan! Are you alright?”

“Y-Your Highness, I...” Garlan peeks around the tree to see Rhaenys on the other side, standing with something hiding behind her back. She catches his questioning gaze, and flushes a pretty red before revealing a knitted scarf. “For your brother, my princess?”

“For you, actually.” She bites her bottom lip before puffing herself up. “I intend to ask my lady mother the Queen Regent if we would be allowed to court. With your consent of course! I would never presume that you would wish to—”

“I was just given permission by Her Majesty to ask for your permission.”

They stare at each other for a moment, before Rhaenys giggles into her palm. Garlan melts, and finally asks, “Would you like me to court you, Your Highness?”

“Yes.” She presses the scarf into his hands, and leans up to murmur in his ear, “And please, call me Rhaenys.”

He shivers. “Rhaenys.” All is right with the world it seems, just from the sound of her name on his lips.

--

Garlan smiles despite the tears in his eyes. “Rhaenys, are you sure? I have nothing to give but my heart so full and these empty hands.” 

“They're not empty now.” Rhaenys squeezes their hands together.

Then she cloaks him in her house colors, and Garlan is hers, hers forever and always, just as he was always meant to be.

[luminashdawnwing]

Trading Favors (Part III)

Part I

Part II

“Fine specimens, yes, fine specimens indeed.” Ta’nir intoned, deft hands running over the entirety of the ardenmoth wings Luminash had presented to him, letting out excited little sounds of admiration with every trick of the light - dim as it was under the Revendreth sky - dancing along the iridescent, intricately patterned wings. It was as Ta’vik had said: obtaining the moth wings has been scarcely a challenge, although the beauty of Ardenweald had almost tempted Luminash into staying longer than he had intended.

The air was cool and damp, the heaviness of imminent rain lingering in the air, much like the overcast days of early winter the magister recalled from his days studying in Dalaran. The sky today, though, was an eerie blood-red slashed with wispy black clouds, far from the calm of distant Lordaeron.

Luminash cleared his throat, having had far too much time now to admire this foreign sky and the black and gnarled foliage of the forest below. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the Ghostlands, although it scarcely had the same reek of decay and desolation, and he’d had enough of looking at it.

“I am glad you approve, Ta’nir, but to the matter at hand?”

“Oh! Yes! The dagger and your bauble, yes!” With eminently gentle touch, the Broker folded the delicate wings, one lying atop of the other, and strode to a small metallic crate. After he traced an intricate line with the tip of one finger along a sigil of some sort, a trail of white light in its wake, the crate’s lid slid open. Not removing anything from the box, but rather carrying the box itself, a display case for what was within, the Broker turned back to Luminash.

Inside the box was a smooth-cornered cube, its surface a pale gray, like the stones of Oribos, and bearing the Eternal City’s crest on one side. The others were marked by a carved honeycomb pattern, familiar to Luminash from the soul tethering monoliths throughout the Shadowlands. If the Broker could smile, Ta’nir surely would have been beaming with pride.

After peering into the box, curiosity painted on his face, Luminash lifted his eyes to the Broker, “Was this smuggled from Oribos? I understand why your associate directed me so far afield, in that case.”

A laugh, and a shake of the head from the Broker, flame-like anima swishing behind the brazen mask, “It was recovered elsewhere, which makes it all the more interesting. You seek the peel back the shroud cast over the First Ones, yes? Their hands did not only touch Oribos, or the four realms to which you mortals have been granted passage. No, this was not from Oribos, but that is all I will say.” Crossing his arms over his chest, the magister nodded, his lips pulled back in a slight smirk, “The secrets you Brokers keep grow tiresome, but there is little I can do, is there? Can you at least, Ta’nir, since I have provided half of my payment to you already, tell me what this little box is?”

“Once you get the dagger I require, it will be your key. You may have heard of the waystone that has allowed some mortals passage in and out of the Maw, no?” Ta’nir narrated with a flourish, motioning between the contents of the small crate and the ground below, as if the black soil were the roiling darkness of the Maw, “Not all need be so large and flashy to do their job. There are paths through the Shadowlands, dancing along anima strands, points where the soul may be bound and quickly recalled.” He snapped the box shut, remarkably making not a sound, simultaneously sudden and startling, but still having the gentle touch of the appraiser, “A key is useless without knowing to where a door opens though, isn’t it? I will provide the key, and Ba’net the doors.”

“Fair enough, then. I expected as much.” Luminash gazed into the gnarled black forest the Night Market skirted as Ta’nir placed his treasured keystone back among his other treasures, “Let us get to business then, shall we? About this dagger you require…”

                                          **************************

The Chalice district estates reminded Luminash much of the more noble quarters of Silvermoon, when they still stood. An estate nestled deep in the forest was all well and good for land, but it had always been more effective to mingle - and plot - with others when visiting one’s manor in the city. He had always hated being disturbed on such visits, even while he found pleasure in the joy of intrigue.

The magister flexed his hands, watching as they tendons worked under the pallor of Venthyr skin. Stepping from the passage between homes, towering above the cobblestone streets, the blood-red glow of their windows illuminating the way below in an eerie light, he began to make his way towards the foot of Castle Nathria itself, the border of the Chalice and Redelav districts black and red velvet coat flowing behind him with each step. Truly, his tailor must have been the envy not only of the Chalice nobles, but even the Redelav houses! Dangling from his neck, visible to any passers-by, was a sinvyr sigil of an eye, its iris a brilliant red.

Every footfall led Luminash closer to the estate of House Bloodwatch. The quicker this was done, the quicker he could let his illusion fall - these had never been his strongest skill, but occasionally did have their uses. None of the other Venthyr in the district’s streets paid him any mind. House Bloodwatch had been in decline for so long that when one of the aristocrats did deign to notice him, it was with a look of contempt and pity alone.

Ta’nir had filled the magister in on the house, but seeing how truly beneath the others it appeared to be was almost a shock. A remarkably long string of failures to free souls in their care from the burden of their crimes left them unable to sire new members of the house, their numbers dwindling. Coupled with that, because they had not been able to unburden those souls, their anima stores dwindled with their numbers. Only a few true nobles of the house remained, and but a handful of retainers. Their prize, the dagger Ta’nir required, should be easy pickings.

Passing by the dilapidated stables, a lone Venthyr attendant accompanied by a handful of dredgers - Luminash could smell the lingering scent of the muck pits even at a distance, earthy and damp, like clay - the only presence, and they too ignored what appeared to be one of the last members of House Bloodwatch entering the manor’s front door, a brief flash of magic from the magister’s fingertips enough to break the lock. Even the stone fiend messenger hunching on the mailbox at the bottom of the pockmarked and rain-eroded steps paid this no mind, its stone-carved eyes glazed over, whatever anima it once had now lost.

The first thing - aside from a tableau of decadence in disrepair - that Luminash noticed was the dead silence. He had expected some sort of security, even just an attendant or a dredger servant, but there was no one. And so, the magister doffed his cloak of subtlety and began to search, chests, drawers, cabinets thrown open, tables and desks scoured, even the rug thrown aside. The main floor held nothing of note, only tarnished sinvyr and other relics of better days long gone by. Finally, he set his sights on the mirror, its glassy surface smooth and shining with an inner crimson glow. He ran his hands along the frame, fine wood, nearly black as tar, whatever polish it had once possessed dulled with age. Surely the dagger must be somewhere beyond.

About to step through, Luminash hesitated. There had been a scuffling outside, he was sure of it, and just in time for the door to burst open, admitting three Venthyr - one man, two women - the magister bent the light around himself and cloaked himself from view, shuffling into a distant corner where, though unseen, he might not also be felt.

“It looks like others have beaten us to it, Grigori,” the taller of the two women mused aloud, stepping deliberately into the room, hand on the pommel of a short sword hanging from her belt, “No stone left unturned.”

The man cursed under his breath and slammed a fist on a table that Luminash had swept clean of its contents moments before during his own search, “Ransacked, more like! Unprofessional, sloppy! Even the Master’s lapdogs should have more class than this.” Scoffing, he turned his attention to the mirror.

“My thoughts exactly,” the second woman added, following her companion’s gaze and stepping up to the mirror, mere feet from where Luminash stood, his magic cloaking him from view, “Nelyne, shall we?”

Nelyne, the first woman to have spoken, and the evident leader of the trio, nodded, pulling her sword - a bloody red piece with spines jutting from its blade - from the loop on her belt, “Go, Natali, I will follow. Grigorii, do see if anything is left down here that we may use.” With her command given - polite as it was, her voice left little room for interpretation, it was a command - she followed Natali through the mirror, its surface rippling, a glassy pond disturbed by a stone.

Luminash found himself holding his breath as Grigori examined the mess he had left behind in his haste, waiting for the inevitable moment when the Venthyr would notice the faint bending of the room’s candlelight in the corner near the mirror and expose him.

“Nothing, nothing at all. House Bloodwatch is truly in more decay than I thought…” Grigori muttered to himself, opening and closing drawers and cabinets, emptied of their contents some time ago based on the dust, clearly only remaining as an outward show of wealth for whoever might visit the manor.

At that moment, in the throes of Grigori’s annoyance, the magister made eye contact. The Venthyr narrowed his eyes, fixed directly on Luminash’s position, a lip curled ever so slightly in suspicion. Without thinking, the magister broke from his hiding place, a wave of arcane power bursting from an outstretched hand, enough to knock the Venthyr back and slam him against the wall. He slumped, a slight groan escaping his lips as Luminash, cloaked again in warped light, leapt through the mirror.

                                          **************************

Sword clashed against dagger, the sound of metal on metal ringing in the stone-walled hall. At one end had been the goal, the only place left unsearched in this depressingly sparse excuse for a manor, the study of Lord Ivan Bloodwatch. How far the great could fall! Nelyne had hardly expected him to be home, today of all days, when most of the nobles with any aspirations dancing in their fool heads were at the Countess’ court for a long-awaited fete. She had also hardly expected him to be so skilled in knife fighting.

“You upstarts will not take it from me! You cannot!” Ivan shouted, a snarl exposing his jagged teeth as he pivoted away and thrust again with his dagger. Its blade swirled with anima, a torrent that wreathed the rest of his body, much to Nelyne’s annoyance. She had already landed a few blows, which should have been enough to end the fight had Lord Bloodwatch not had its protection.

Worse still was the source of the anima. Natali lay still on the floor near the site of the clash, a deep wound in her stomach, the thrust of the wicked dagger enough to slay her and draw all of her anima into the hand that did the deed. Sinfall knew Bloodwatch was trying to claw itself out of the muck of its decadence, but did not yet know how. Until now, when they lost one of their own.

“You are the only upstart I see, Ivan! What do you think you will gain with this tool of yours? With that in your hand, any of us could be your victim! Who, even in Nathria, would trust that?” Another swipe of the blade, dancing away from Ivan’s anima-wreathed dagger, another strike at him sliding off Natali’s essence and not striking home.

“By my hand, Bloodwatch will rise up! When I have taken the anima of the traitors and deliver it to the Master, oh, he will exalt us!” He lunged at that, ducking under Nelyne’s sword and knocking her off balance, followed by a burning in her side. Falling back to rest against the wall, she clutched the wound left behind by Ivan’s dagger, clenching her teeth as she saw the flow of anima threading from between her fingers and into the weapon.

Ivan laughed, a vicious madness in his eyes as he prepared to thrust the dagger again, its blade and his very body growing more engorged with anima. Nelyne closed her eyes and spat at Lord Bloodwatch’s feet, a curse with what she thought would be her last breath. The expected attack never came.

                                          **************************

Lord Bloodwatch, dagger in hand, strained against the bonds Luminash had woven around him, screaming in his fury, “The Master take you! You cannot do this!”

“No, no, I have heard more than enough from you.” With a twitch of his hand, Luminash further constricted the space around the Venthyr, his mouth clamping shut. He could only pierce the magister with his eyes, their yellow glow seeking to stab into his heart, as the elf approached and casually plucked the dagger from Ivan’s hands and swept it across the trapped Venthyr’s throat.

Falling to the floor beside Natali, freed from his prison, he gurgled his last, anima flowing out in a sudden torrent and drawn into the dagger, now in Luminash’s hands - his own now, the illusion of the Bloodwatch retainer dispelled.

“You are…” Nelyne sputtered, “You are the ransacker, aren’t you? A mortal.” She offered a dry laugh laced with pain as her anima still trickled out, “Timely intervention, but curious that you are here at all.”

Luminash only nodded, half-listening to the dying Venthyr. His mind was elsewhere, probing the secrets of the dagger in his hand, a vessel surging now with the power of death. He could feel the anima straining within to be free - it could not just be from the two slain Venthyr - and also the path by which it had come. The enchantment was not simple, but not terribly complex, either, and with a few manipulations…

Nelyne gasped loudly as she felt a sudden jolt, like lightning, surge through her, radiating from her wound, the flow of anima reversed, intensified, as the dagger was drained, most of the power overflowing, a cloud of deep crimson bursting forth from what now was just an ornate knife. Once the anima haze had lifted, Luminash slipped the weapon through a loop on his belt and, kneeling to pick up Nelyne’s sword, offered it back to the Venthyr.

Still struggling to stand, Nelyne took her sword with a nod of thanks and pushed herself up and off the wall, finally releasing the site of her wound, now repaired with the surge of anima she had received, “You came here for his dagger, did you?”

Luminash nodded, “Part of a deal I made. I am afraid I cannot part with it.”

Nelyne slipped past Luminash and approached the door to the late Lord Bloodwatch’s study, “If it still possessed its stolen power, I would not let you keep it. In return for my life, though, I am inclined to offer...leniency.” She deftly picked the lock, before Luminash even noticed the lockpick in her hand, “We were here for his life, and intelligence, nothing more.”

“And who are you, exactly?” Luminash followed Nelyne into the study.

“You may call me Nelyne. My companion is - was - Natali. We serve Prince Renathal.” Much more orderly than Luminash had in the main hall downstairs, the Venthyr began to take the study apart, piece by piece, one drawer and cabinet at a time.

“The rebel prince? I have heard of his efforts. Admirable, in the face of such odds.” Luminash chuckled, “I can respect that.”

“Good. Now kindly stay out of the way, mortal. The faster I find what I am looking for, the sooner we can be gone from here.”

The room itself was small and dingy, much like the rest of the house, though at least its cabinets were full of papers, from correspondence between nobles to receipts for business dealings. On what must have been Lord Bloodwatch’s writing desk was one such receipt, which caught Luminash’s eye: a deal with the Broker Ta’nir for an anima siphon blueprint pilfered from Bastion. Surely asking for the dagger was not a coincidence - damage control on Cartel Ta’s part, perhaps? Whatever it was, it mattered little now with the dagger’s power drained.

Rolling up a small stack of papers and shoving them into a pocket within her coat, Nelyne pivoted on her heels and strode purposefully to an unassuming chest tucked between two sparsely-populated bookcases. Throwing it open, her eyes widened, “Well, cast me into the Maw! It is true…”

“What is?” Luminash asked, joining the Venthyr in examining the contents of the chest. As far as he could tell, it was but a box full of broken chunks of stone, most as large as a book, but some far smaller.

“Sinstones, mortal. Blackmail. Our old names, those we left behind, have power, and our dear ambitious Ivan amassed a great many once belonging to the true Venthyr the Prince has gathered to Sinfall. Come, we must deliver this news immediately.”

As Nelyne rose and rushed from the room, Luminash lagged behind, his gaze drifting over the sinstone fragments. Sure enough, etched in the surface were names - many times only pieces of names - and lists of deeds ranging from purely prideful and selfish to the outright monstrous.

“Mortal!” Nelyne shouted as the magister snapped back to reality, “We must be gone!” A male voice, indistinct, piqued Luminash’s ear. Had Grigori come to?

He turned to face the doorway to the study, “Could we not just part ways now? I have business to which I must attend - the deal, you’ll recall.”

A laugh came then as Nelyne strode back into the room, Grigori at her heel, glaring fiercely, “Oh no. You have seen just a bit too much to be left uninvolved. Surely you can see the threat hanging over our heads if other houses, even minor ones like Bloodwatch, are allowed to muster their resources for the Master.”

“Given what Lord Bloodwatch was saying about this dagger, and if what you say is true about the sinstone trove here…” Luminash sighed, “Ta’nir can wait then, very well.”

“Then come,” Nelyne smiled broadly while Grigori only glared, squinting through the pain of what no doubt was a very sore neck, “Join us at Sinfall.”

[kbstories]

Axiomatic

ax·i·om·at·ic (adj.)

Self-evident; unquestionable.

The best part of battle is the afterparty.

(Or: Remember that banquet Luffy promised? This is it.)

Tags: Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Partying

Set in Wano. Spoilers for all of Wano. Read Chapter 2 here.

***

“What do you think?”

Lipstick glides over thin lips, the wax malleable and smooth as it leaves a coat of rusty red in its wake. Killer makes sure it’s perfectly even before he glances elsewhere. In the mirror, Kidd’s face is all scowled impatience.

One last run-down – eyeliner, mascara, lipstick: done, done and done – then Killer grabs the mask waiting for him. “Alright, let me see.”

Their eyes meet and Killer sighs. Metal over skin-and-bone, Kidd’s arms are crossed; his shaved brows push together further. As if Killer doesn’t indulge his every whim by the regular.

“I’m looking. Show me again.”

Kidd grumbles, “Watch.” He opens his arms, reveals an unbuttoned shirt tucked into his favorite patterned pants, glinting gold over black under a double-belted cinch at the waist. So far, so very Kidd.

No, the point of discussion is the frankly massive coat slung across his neck: Nice soft-looking suede on the outside and glossy-grey fur on the inside, it hugs Kidd’s shoulders in all the right places to then cascade down his back in a display of near-ridiculous opulence.

Extravagant, over-the-top, flashy. It’s hard to tell which type of animal had to die for this. There must be a lot less of ‘em now, with this monstrosity in the world.

Kidd is swiveling it back and forth with critical glances to the mirror, the coat wooshing with the motions. Killer takes in the fluid glide of fur over Kidd’s exposed chest, the contrast of impeccable couture against jagged scars. Loses himself for a moment or two imagining how it would feel like to run his hands over both.

An appreciative hum. In Killer’s educated opinion, Kidd looks damn near sinful.

“Yeah?”, Kidd asks and Killer nods. “Yeah. Heh, told ya the detour’s worth it.”

Perhaps it was, although sifting through Onigashima’s treasury whilst bleeding all over heaps of shiny expensive everything might’ve been a case of skewed priorities. There’s no need to talk about what-could-have-beens, though – they’re here, they’re rich and they’re long overdue at Strawhat’s banquet.

Killer’s practically done, tight jeans under a shirt that’s done up to the third button and left to flare open otherwise. It’s not his old favorite (that one stopped fitting him a good year ago) but similar enough, patterned in geometric black-and-white shapes. Definitely one of his fancier ones, not that anyone will care one way or the other where they’re going.

It’s… been a while since it’s been anyone other than them and their crew. Pirates are pirates, allied or no; Killer eyes the scythes neatly stored next to the bed.

Kidd is touching up his lips one last time, the same shade as Killer’s. “Bring ‘em. That Roronoa guy keeps throwing you weird looks and I’m not allowed to kill him.”

Yet goes implied. Killer isn’t wearing his mask and so he doesn’t roll his eyes. “He’s got every reason to”, he reminds his captain, focusing on the heavy clasps of his weapons to keep the memories at bay. The red mark on his chest stings, stuck in the limbo between a healing wound and a fresh scar for a few days still.

A testament to his failure that Killer won’t hide. If Zoro hadn’t stopped him that day his hands would be stained with blood that cannot be washed off, not entirely.

Kidd’s eyes are on him, dark. “I don’t care.”

Resentful as always. Killer reaches for him, digs his fingers into the fluffy lining of that coat and oh, the fur is as soft as it looks. “I do, though.” A firm tug, one Kidd follows until Killer can kiss him, careful not to smudge anything.

“No killing of allies today, ‘kay? We just came back from a war. The crew’s tired. I’m tired.”

“Mh” is all Kidd has to say to that, a grumpy huff against Killer’s lips more than anything. Kidd does give him a proper kiss, however, and Killer knows he won this one.

All he can ask of Kidd is to try, anyways – with two equally hot-headed captains and a whole host of morons around to rile him up, there’s bound to be blood eventually. The trick is to make sure everyone’s drunk enough not to take it too personally.

A pinch to his ass tells Killer he was caught scheming. Kidd smirks, tells him, “We’re getting wasted tonight”, all triumphant like it’s the best idea he’s had all week, and Killer doesn’t miss the emphasis on we.

“Two Emperors down! Strawhat better bring the good stuff tonight or this alliance is over.”

Killer groans, “Kidd”, but he’s smiling, too. Before he can be called out on it, Killer shoves his mask into Kidd’s hands, metal clanking against metal. “Make yourself useful. We’re late.”

Kidd’s laugh is more of a cackle than anything else – “Yes, darling”, said in that sarcastic lilt Killer knows all too well – yet Kidd complies. His hands, organic or otherwise, handle the mask they’ve built with care and precision. Soon, Killer’s vision is narrowed down to dots, the audio filter of his helmet kicking in soon after.

Killer rolls his neck and hums, satisfied. “Ready?”

Kidd throws a final look at himself in the mirror, grinning into the collar of his new coat.

“Hell yeah. Let’s go.”

*

The banquet is a sprawling, messy affair that swallows the entirety of the ramshackle village the Strawhats picked as their home in Wano Country.

From the moment the Kidd Pirates get there they are surrounded. Wherever Killer's eyes roam there are knots of people drinking, eating, laughing and crying, sometimes simultaneously – there, at the heart of it all where the crowd is thickest, burns the largest bonfire Killer has seen in a while, perhaps ever. Smiling faces all around and for once, it doesn’t make Killer’s stomach drop because they’re genuine.

Survivors of SMILE just like him, caught in the rush of real emotions for the first time in who knows how long. Killer has a pretty good idea how that feels like.

Next to him, Kidd is so tense he’s stalking, gaze intense, oozing Haki to keep people away; Wire’s hand is clenched to bloodlessness around his trident while Heat exhales a bit of smoke with every breath and yeah, Killer gets it. Can’t help it himself, either, scythes kept close to his sides to make sure they’re there.

The thing is: They don’t do these kinds of things. Parties, yes, many and often but not like this. Killer can count on one hand the amounts of times the population of any island was actually happy to see them, much less willing to send them off with one big feast.

Actually, he wouldn’t need to count at all because it’s simply never happened. Even filtered by his mask it’s… a lot to take in at once.

The entire damn country is here, it seems, all breathing a collective sigh of relief so monumental the air itself carries their joy. For all that the Kidd Pirates were in this for revenge and glory, Killer can’t deny it’s rewarding to see a nation so ravaged by an Emperor’s greed do whatever they want for the first time in decades.

Finally, a few familiar faces start popping up. Some of the samurai greet them with nods of their heads, overly formal like the people from Wano tend to be; here and there they spot the distinctly branded yukata the members of Trafalgar’s crew are wearing and, rarer but all the more noticeable, those animal people Strawhat dragged along from somewhere.

Minks? Or something? Killer is inclined to say it doesn’t matter if they didn’t have the habit to jump on them out of fucking nowhere. Looking for bone-crushing hugs and wet-nosed kisses, of all things, and– Oh no, he did not sign up for this.

Much less for whatever that group of cat minks are gearing up to, staring at the holes in his mask with eyes nearly swallowed by black, round pupils. Killer is absolutely, solidly convinced he doesn’t even want to know what that’s all about.

“Captain.”

And yeah, his tone is a little more alarmed than he truly means it to be. It gets Kidd’s attention, though – himself having fought off a dog mink enamored with his metal arm not too long ago – and he barks a laugh even when he ramps up his presence to an almost stifling degree.

“C’mon, I feel Strawhat up ahead.”

To nobody’s surprise, they find him smack dab in the middle of everything. Strawhat and his crew are lounging around the bonfire, there’s no other way to describe it: All broad smiles and flushed faces amidst the chaos, completely in their element, and it’s hard to tell if it’s the closeness to the bonfire or the vaguely impressive amounts of empty bottles lying around already. They’re certainly boisterous enough for it to be the latter, even Jinbei.

And no, Killer hasn’t quite processed that turn of events yet. The strangeness of seeing someone of that caliber wheeze into his mug with laughter as his (new?) captain takes a disturbingly big bite out of an even bigger chunk of meat is… not helping things, in that regard.

What a bunch of weirdos. In the safety of his mask, Killer allows himself a small smile.

From here the flames seem to reach for the sky, tinged in warm pinks and oranges by the sinking sun and there, very faintly, Killer can make out the first stars. He can’t remember ever seeing them, not with the factories running over night as well.

“Spikey!!”

Ah. Killer’s head turns with Kidd’s and it’s a good thing, too, because there’s a stretched arm coming for his captain – Kidd bites out, “Nope, no, Strawhat”, red eyes going wide – and Killer manages to side-step it in the last possible second. One, twice it wraps around Kidd, fancy coat and all, and then the rubber recoils.

“Killer!”

Oh my, Killer thinks mildly as he watches him go. Behind him, half their crew is flabbergasted and the other half is in stitches. “Captain’s gonna be in such a mood”, Heat says to Wire, and it just sends them into another fit of chuckles.

For Killer, finding a drink becomes his top priority. So much for keeping things peaceful.

>>Chapter 2.

[rocinantescoffeestop]

@whumptober2020​​: Day 21 – Infection

Fandoms: Psych & Fringe Characters: Shawn Spencer, Peter Bishop Universe: Pre-Canon (both accounts, ~1998 (both around 21-22)) Summary: Shawn ignores the signs of an infection. Thank god another runaway genius is there to steer him in the right direction.

Despite the churning of his stomach, rent was steep and Shawn’s bank account too low to cover the expense it posed, so he geared up for yet another shift at the twenty-four-hour diner down the road. Being already a month late in payments and in the bad graces of his landlord, Shawn summoned all the strength he could, wiped at the sweat beading his forehead, and took to the streets (on wobbling feet). Worse comes to worst, he could always run to the restaurant’s toilet, should he need to unload.

He walked into the diner at eight-fifty-two in the evening, punched in, and prepared for a gruelling, overnight shift.

The night began, thankfully, uneventfully. Shawn wearily rubbed circles of a paper towel into the countertop until ten-thirty p.m. when a young man, maybe a year older than Shawn if that, sauntered in. He made a beeline for the bar stools, slid onto the vinyl, and hunched over a scrap of paper. Shawn eyed the new brunette half-attentively. Swap the rumpled M.I.T sweatshirt for a leather jacket, throw on a cowboy hat, and maybe he could pass as an Indiana Jones impersonator. Shawn bit back a laugh at the thought. Though the young man was handsome in a charm-your-parents sort of way, there was no matching the great Harrison Ford.

Movie references aside, Shawn itched his wrist, tugged down his sleeve again, and shifted across the bar to greet the newcomer. Upon closer inspection, he noticed key features of the young man’s: dark circles under the eyes, a stain on the sweater’s left sleeve, the lack of order to his hair.

“How’s work at the garage?” he asked, coming to a stop directly across from the newbie. It might have taken him a few decades, but he’d finally understood how he wanted to use his gifts (who knew it’d take running out on his childhood home to figure that out).

The man looked up, confusion frozen in the shining blue of his eyes.

“Grease stain,” Shawn said, nodding to the man’s torso.

"Astute of you,” he muttered.  “Where’d you learn that party trick?”

Shawn shrugged. “Well, when you work here long enough,” he dismissed. How easy it was to pretend his dad hadn’t had influence on his life. Like he wasn’t the reason Shawn was fifty states East of his stomping ground; like he wasn’t the reason Shawn could derive intimate life details from other people; like he wasn’t any of that, all of that was Shawn’s doing. How easy– how addicting it was to have agency over his own life. “What can I get you?”

“Coffee.” Not even a hesitation. Shawn lifted his brows but turned around to grab the brewing pot with the black handle. His left arm smarted with the motion, but other than a grimace in response, he ignored the pain.

He threw a reply over his shoulder, “I’m guessing, not decaf?”

“Right again.”

Shawn topped off a ceramic mug with delicious smelling French roast, spun carefully around, and slid the mug across the counter. “Any milk or sugar?”

The young man smirked. “Why don’t you try to guess that as well?” he asked, already slipping his fingers through the handle. Shawn made a show of holding his hand to his head and scanning the guy up and down only to release his position with a dramatic gasp and drop of tension.

“You prefer it black,” he announced.

“Couldn’t be more wrong,” was the answer. “Cream and sugar, please.”

Shawn ducked down to the fridge and pulled out a handful of cream pouches. He piled them onto the counter where they promptly skittered apart from one another. One tumbled over the other edge of the counter, yet before it could fall, the customer stuck out his hand and caught it in his palm.

“Nice catch,” Shawn said. Absently, he brought his right hand to his left wrist and scratched through the shirt sleeve.

The man cracked open a cream container. “”Nervous tick?” he nodded to the itching.

Shawn jumped out of his head and right back into those sky blue eyes. “Oh!” He disengaged his fingers from scratching and pulled his sleeve down once more. He chuckled. “Uh, no, just itches. You don’t have sugar yet.”

“Or a spoon.”

“Stole the words right out of my mouth.” Shawn chuckled again. “I’ll go get you one.” He disappeared into the back room, coming out five seconds later with a spoon and sugar dispenser. He set the sugar before him and handed over the spoon. A quick “thanks” received, Shawn parted for the position he’d left mid-clean, not that he wanted to finish the job. His knees shivered with strain, and his stomach rolled with nausea. He reached out to steady himself on the espresso machine.

“You okay over there?” Shit, the guy saw. Shawn pressed his lips together, waiting for his vision to clear of black spots, before calling back a (supposedly) reassuring ‘yeah’.

“Tripped,” he dismissed the stranger’s concern. Eyeing the rag within reach, Shawn snagged it with his good hand before and wiped the excess sweat from his brow before spinning on his heel and facing the customer. “So. You got a name?”

“Peter,” he said casually before shaking the stirring spoon towards Shawn’s lapel. “Don’t employees usually wear name tags?”

Shawn glanced down at his shirt. He bared a breathy laugh. “You’d think,” he smoothed over. “Yeah, I forgot mine.” Again. Thank god the store manager wasn’t working this night, so Shawn could skate by without so much as a mention, let alone a lecture about responsibility to maintain business dress code. It’s just a name tag, he’d roll his eyes, which in itself received a bark back. “Usually, it’d say ‘Shawn’ right there,” he pointed to his chest, “just imagine it. And if my manager asks, I always have it on.”

“Gotcha,” Peter said. Shawn only wished he’d heard it. The black spots resurged upon him with a vengeance. He jerked away from the counter’s edge, eyes squeezed tight, wrist flaring in pain. “Shawn?” But queasiness washed over him like the downpour of a storm front. The entirety of both his legs morphed into jello.

“Fine, I–” Suddenly, the walls and ceiling switched places. The black spots in his vision won out. The last thing he felt was the floor.

[rollingthunder06]

hero

hi yes i am aware mine collapses are kind of a trope now but i still wanted to write my own so deal with it. persephone goes into an unstable mine after her (in her mind stupid) husband who was inside when it fell. tw for blood/ichor, scars, mentions of death

————————————-

“How are you still standing?!”

Persephone ran to her husband, shifting his weight onto her. Hades was a big man, but good thing she was gifted with adrenaline. “I’m a strong man, lover. Besides I needed to see you again.” His voice sounded like it hurt to speak, he winced as he breathed. This wasn’t good.

She couldn’t pick apart his wounds, just see the bright gold staining head to toe and mixing into a haze with tears blocking her vision. “Well ya got me,” Her words die as he looks at her smiling, ichor tricking down his face from a rather deep gash on his head.

Persephone’d seen mine collapses before, hell she’d been in them several times herself. The wounds heal, but there this was so much blood. Too much blood.

He touched his bloody hand to her cheek brushing through the curls that had fallen out of her snood. “I love you.”

Persephone choked, a lump forming in her throat. She knew Hades, she could read his eyes. He thought he wasn’t going to be okay. Her husband thought he was going to die.

“Don’t talk like that. I ain’t done with ya yet old man.” He laughed, a low, wheezing and heart wrenching sound. “C’mon we just gotta get out, then you’ll be okay.” She tried walking but barely made it a few steps before Hades stopped.

“I can’t lover. Hurts..” The world was pulled out from under her. Hades collapsed, and she fell with him. Her heart hammed while his barely beat. “Hey, Hades, c’mon. You can’t do this to me.. please, Hades please.” She begged, kissing him, touching him, shaking him, anything that might get him to open his fucking eyes.

“Please you asswhole, wake up. Ain’t funny, please,” Tears started falling. Someone screamed loud enough to wake Tartarus. It took Persephone a moment of looking around in confusion to realize it came from her.

Every fiber of her screamed in rage. Why the fuck didn’t he go in with the foreman? Why did he push those shades out when he could’ve saved himself? Why can’t he open his fucking eyes for her?

It felt like a train ran her over, everything stung. A tearing pain in her chest turned tears to sobs. Turned kneeling by his side to keeping herself on his chest so she could constantly hear her husband’s faint heartbeat.

She sobbed, begging him. Praying to him. Praying to Hecate, Thanatos, Hermes, anyone. Hoping they would hear her cries and come to help.

She tore herself apart for not being able to hold his weight long enough to drag him out of the mine. She screamed in the darkness, and the earth rumbled after each rage.

Dust fell along with small pebbles from the ceiling of the mine, and the goddess quickly shut her mouth. Hades wouldn’t survive if the mine came down again even if she would take the brunt.

She was a sobbing, raging mess, clinging to her barely breathing husband as a lifeline. A sticky coating of his ichor covered her skin and dress. She kissed him, trying to make a hint of color come back to his cheeks. It didn’t work, nothing fucking worked.

How could she just sit here and let him bleed? But how could she leave him to go get help? If the cave collapsed again without her to shield him, there was no chance he’d survive. At least now there was a chance.

There was a chance one of the other gods herd her. There was a chance the workers were getting help. There was a chance he would live.

The ground shook.

She dove on top of him

Rocks pounded, a loud banging, stones digging into her skin, crushing her body spread across her husband’s. She felt each one fall and hit, until a sharp pain hit her neck and everything went numb.

Persephone couldn’t move. Her head pounded, but everything below was painless and the thick layer of rock on top of them wouldn’t be easy to move even if she had the strength to try.

No one was coming. They were going to bleed out down here and there was nothing she could do about it. Even immortals had their limits. If they had help they’d be fine, just chalked with scars that would fade over a couple decades. But now the second collapse stoped it was silent.

No one was coming.

She should’ve gone for help when she had the chance. Why in hell did she think she would be fine on her own? Who was she to think she could play hero for her husband?

Nothing to be done now

“Shut up.” She spat at the invisible voices. Her throat burned and barely made a sound.

Just relax, shut your eyes

“Shut up.”

No one’s coming to save you

She’d prayed to the entirety of the Gods, how could it be possible no one heard her? Maybe they just didn’t care. Most of them were asswholes anyway. It wouldn’t surprise her if they’d heard and ignored it, decided just to let them die.

Persephone, daughter of Demeter, Wife of Hades

Goddess of Spring, Patroness of the seasons, Queen of the Underworld

You are no hero

They were right.

The air was thick her lungs, it burned to breathe, she just wanted to stop. If no one was coming why not just stop? She couldn’t save them, she couldn’t fucking move.

Persephone kissed Hades’ bloody cheek, barely feeling him breathe at all. At least they were together. At least one of the last things they’d said was i love you. Gods, why hadn’t she said it back? Why did she have to be a smartass when she could’ve just said I love you?

“I love you.” She mumbles, her alto reduced to worse gravel than before. Gods she hopes he heard it.

The cavern shakes again, a loud sound blending in with her headache to the point she couldn’t tell it apart. She wouldn’t survive getting hit again, so she closed her eyes. It was better to go out sleeping than it was to be crushed.

Hades was there when she shut her eyes, standing in their wedding field. He held his hand out to her and they sat, watching the sun set.

“I tried, Hades.”

He kissed her head, holding her closer.

“I know, lover.”

She sighed, and looked at him. No scars, no scrapes, no blood, just him. Her handsome husband. He wiped her cheek, and she felt tears replace the ones she didn’t know were there.

“I love you.”

If this was death she didn’t mind it. Why did the mortals fear it if dying was like this? This was peaceful, she was in her husband’s arms, what was so bad about this?

“I love you too.”

The sun set and everything went pitch black. Everything ached. It was hot, where was Hades? Why was she alone?

Sharp pains hit her everywhere, wasn’t she dead? Why was she feeling all this pain? Why.....oh.

Her eyes shot open to blinding lights, and she hissed in pain. She immediately shut them and felt around wherever she was.

Silk? Was she in their bed? More importantly how did get there?

Her hand stopped, hitting something large and warm, and familiar.

Hades.

Persephone shot up, desperate every part of her violently protesting. Hades was on his side of the bed, covered in bandages but alive. Tears started falling and she sobbed, wanting to hold him but not wanting to wake him up.

“Lay your ass back down sis.”

She snapped her gaze to the doorway where Hermes was perched. “Hermes?” Her lungs still burned, and her voice was nothing more than hoarse whisper. “You came?”

“We can talk when you lay down. You need rest ya almost died.” She did as instructed and Hermes chuckled. “Leave up to you two to find a way to die.”

Persephone glared, moving closer to Hades despite her body’s begging to stay still. “But i will give it to ya, both woulda’ been gone if you didn’t buy me more time to get there.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Maybe not on purpose but tough ass vines saved the two of you from being crushed.”

How? It didn’t make any sense to her, but at the moment thinking was a little too hard. Breathing was hard, simply feeling was exhausting.

She felt warm fingers curl against hers. Hades’ fingers, her husband’s fingers.

He was going to be okay. He was alive. She didn’t give a damn if her body hurt like this for the rest of her life it would be worth it for keeping him alive.

“He’s gonna be okay, sis. You should sleep, you need it with all the drugs Hecate put the two of you on.”

She raised a brow at him. “I beat her by a few minutes. How else do ya think y’all woulda’ gotten patched up? You know me,”

“Good but ain’t that good.” She finished, immediately wincing from the burn. Hermes kept talking, but Persephone drifted in and out of consciousness until all was silent.

It was blank, no dreams claiming her head yet, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t ache in her head. She didn’t feel anything really.

Anything other than the weight of her husband’s hand in hers.

[phykios]

the marble king, part 3 [part 1] [part 2] [read on ao3]

Troy, 1453

“No.”

“Perseus.”

“No!”

“Then I shall go without you.”

“Then I wish you luck on finding safe passage.”

She glared at him, and he returned her gaze in full force. “You know it to be the most strategic action to take.”

“Were you not the one who told me in the first place, that the despotes were incompetent fools?”

“They are.” She shifted on her lackluster cushioning before their campfire, the place where the great brazier of Chiron’s agoge had once stood.

The journey to Sigeion had taken them merely a day, thanks entirely to Percy and his skills at navigation. Annabeth had been somewhat less than helpful, choosing to spend the bulk of the voyage sulking at the back of their craft, rather than assisting him, though of course, he did not need it. After night and the city had fallen in its entirety, the two had resolved to seek out the centaur Chiron in order to tell him the news, and to ask his guidance on what to do, yet when they arrived on the shores of that familiar site, to their dismay, the camp had entirely vanished. 

Where once had been a small but thriving little town, now there lay naught but sand and stone. This safe, sacred place for demigods, built in the shadow and memory of Ilion, was gone, with no indication of where, when, or how. Gone were the vast vineyards and olive orchards which had fed and watered them; gone were the horsetrack and the amphitheater wherein they had honed their skills; gone were the temples and monuments, the Big House and all the little villas where he had worked and eaten and laughed with his friends and companions.

Aeneas had left a burning city behind him, his son in hand and his father on his back, but there was nothing here save for untouched earth and windworn stone. 

There had been a fountain in the villa set aside for Poseidon’s children, a gift from an absent father who thought to forge a stronger bond with his only child in decades, one that Percy had hoped to use, but that was gone as well, as was the great stockpile of weapons and armor and ambrosia. Nothing of the home they had once known remained. 

They had, Percy and Annabeth, agreed to take their rest in the place where camp had once stood for three days, in order to rest, recover, and plan their next course of action. Annabeth, always thinking several steps ahead, had recalled a hidden cache of supplies further inland, and had gone to fetch them while Percy made use of his skills and prepared them their dinners and their sacrifices. Of course, as one might expect, their proposed plans were quite at odds, and their tentative alliance had met its very first obstacle.

Staring into the fire, Annabeth drew patterns in the earth with the burned point of her stick--be they battle plans or rude words, Percy could not tell from his vantage point across from her. “Understand me well, Perseus, this is not a strategy I enjoy.”

“Then let us travel North,” he said, “to Aachen.”

Scowling, she threw the stick into the fire.

“We need to get word of this attack to the Twelfth Legion.”

“To Tartarus with the Twelfth Legion.”

“They are good people,” he pointed out, “and what is more, they have the fighting force we need.”

“The Latins have had Constantinople beneath their boot for the last two hundred years, and now you want to go crawling back to them and beg for their help?” Lifting her chin, she pierced him with her gaze from across the fire, furious and arresting. “Do you forget your history so easily?”

“As you said, it has been two hundred years.” The insult dealt by the Twelfth Legion in the form of the Fourth Crusade, he knew, was a particular point of contention for her, but, to Percy’s mind, there was no point in dwelling on it, for no man alive today could remember the events of such a far-off past. What was more, he knew the Legion personally, had even fought with them, a fact which Annabeth had, apparently, never forgiven him for. “I can send a message to Iason, or Franko--”

She scoffed. “As if the Legion would ever deign to assist a pair of wayward Hellenes. They would do what all Latins do, force their practices and their laws upon those who cannot fight back. Look at what they have done to you!” she said, gesturing to his arm, where the mark of the empire had been branded into his skin.

Despite his best attempts, he found himself bristling, rising to her challenge. “The Legion is the only place left for demigods now.”

“No,” she shook her head, “The agoge can’t have--it can’t have just vanished into thin air. Chiron is out there, somewhere, with all of our siblings and friends.”

“And you would disrespect them by throwing in your lot with the Christian kings of the Morea? Men you do not even respect?”

In fury, she rose from her seat, fists clenched. “For all that the despotes lack, they have one trait that deserves our support: their name. The Romans will rally round Thomas, and if not him, then Demetrios will serve our purposes equally as well.”

He narrowed his eyes. A woman of many plans was this Annabeth Fredriksdotter, and he knew her well enough to know that this barely scratched the surface of what she had in store. He knew her to be a woman of great ambition, as he had witnessed many times over the years, and one whose military mind was quite unmatched. She took great pride in her plans, and in the sharing of them; even in such a difficult situation as this, surely she had something more than simply making their case to the guards at the Hexamilion wall and hoping for the best. 

“You know that they will not listen to you.”

“Then I will make them listen.”

Percy had no doubt that she could, one way or another. But something about the way she spoke gave him pause. How would a woman such as her endeavor to get a man like Thomas Palaiologos to listen to her? What great women often must do to get great men to listen to them, he supposed. “You plan on entering yourself into marriage with one of them.”

Rounding out her jaw, she sat back down, arms crossed. “And what of it?”

“You think you can compel Thomas to try his hand against the Turks.”

“Theodora once did the same for her husband,” she said, “and from her efforts the riots of Nika were quelled.”

“Wives can work many miracles indeed,” said Percy, “I do not argue that point,” though he wished he had a reason to. For some odd reason, the idea of Annabeth wed set his blood pulsing in ways he did not understand.

“Well If I must be married to a Christian, let him be one I can use.”

His heart pounded in his chest, his tongue numb in his mouth. Annabeth wed to a Christian--he nearly snarled at the thought. “Then shall I call you empress already?”

She blushed, visible even in the firelight. “Stop it.”

“I am merely giving you the respect that you seem to believe you deserve, Basileia,” he sneered. He did not know from where this anger had come, harsh words tripping off his tongue before he could stop them. “Does her imperial majesty Ana Zabeta bring a great dowry into her marriage beyond her military strategy and her plan to manipulate her husband?”

“I said, stop it.”

Percy had been preparing a jab at her future sons, heirs to a measly handful of rocks and ancient gold coins, when he looked at her--truly, looked at her.

He had never known her to be anything less than intimidating. Even as children, she would not hesitate to push him around, a challenge he had welcomed and met with equal parts animosity and laughter. Their constant bickering had been legendary, and not just because of their respective divine parentages. It seemed that the two of them could not bear to spend more than thirty minutes in each other’s presences without devolving into some useless debate which served no purpose but to whet their appetites on the rivalry which had stretched all the way from the contest of Athens. For all his posturing and complaining, it was not a relationship that he hated. In fact, he would go so far as to say that, after some time, he had come to enjoy her presence in his life, despite the vitriol and insults that they slung at each other. On any other night, he would have continued to push her, because he could, because that was their practice with each other. 

Tonight, however, she shivered in the cool breeze despite the heart of the fire, pulling her shawl about her. Her perfect posture slumped, and even the perfect curls of her hair seemed deflated, falling limply down her shoulders and back, a far, far cry from the careful manner in which she arranged it. Her face, burnt and peeling from the sun, was hardened, yet the cracks in the surface were easily distinguished the longer he looked at her. 

He sighed, shrugging off his own coat, before standing and going to her, wrapping it around her shoulders. “I apologize,” he said. “I did not mean to upset you.”

Even looking at her now, shivering and slumped and just this side of defeated, in his heart of hearts he knew that she would make a fine empress. No man could turn down her proposal, and should the Palaiologai refuse, then they deserved whatever fate was coming to them.

Rather than refuse, she drew his coat around her as well, in a manner so unlike her. 

“It is alright,” she said. “I take no offense.”

Theirs was an acquaintanceship long and storied, but one which would not survive this new and strange world, should they keep to their ancient ways. “I do not wish to fight with you anymore,” he said, and to his great surprise, he meant it. 

“Nor I you,” said she, softly. “Please, sit with me here.”

 He blinked, stunned, as though another cannonball had just struck the ground near his feet.

“It’s not a trick,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Sit. I am cold.”

Stiffly, he lowered himself to sit next to her, perched on the edge of her rock. Annabeth was most skilled at close quarters combat, he recalled, and she could, most likely, kill him sitting down as well. But threaten him she did not, instead, she merely scooted closer to him, extending one arm of the large cloak so that they could share.

And, well, it was a cold night.

They sat, huddled together before the campfire, as the smoke carried the sparks towards the heavens. After some time, she laid her head upon his shoulder, her hair so soft against his bare skin, and he thought he could feel her heartbeat against his side, as furious as a war drum--or perhaps that was his own. “I, too, am sorry,” she said, with no trace of malice. “You were correct.”

“Annabeth, admitting she was wrong? The world truly is ending,” he teased, then froze at his inappropriate jest.

Still, she laughed, huffing a breath and jostling him with an elbow. “About the Palaiologai, I mean.” Sighing, she ran a corner of his cloak through her fingers, picking at the loose thread there. “The despotes really are incompetent fools who have run their territory into the ground all in the name of foolish fraternal in-fighting, and no man in his right mind should follow either one of them into battle. If the princess Zoe were older, perhaps, she could be the figurehead that we need, but I don’t believe that would be a moral course of action.”

“I agree,” said Percy. “Let us leave the poor girl out of this.” The porphyrogenita was merely four years old, younger than his own dear sister; he shuddered to think of someone so young drawn into a conflict like this. And yet, of course, she was a girl--no doubt the Catholics would have some nefarious purpose in mind for her when she came of age. He thought again of marriage, that damnable contract, and his face grew hot. 

“I just…” 

Percy did not think it were possible, but Annabeth moved herself even closer into his one-armed embrace at the sudden gust of wind, dark and chill, as their campfire wavered threateningly. She must have bathed herself in the sea earlier, he thought, as her hair smelt of salt, and smoke from their fire, her curls tossed wildly by the waves and the wind, an altogether not unpleasant scent. 

Then, so softly, so quietly as though he thought he might have dreamt it, he heard her whisper, “I just cannot believe that they’re gone.”

The case of the missing camp was peculiar indeed, and Percy was somewhat ashamed at how few thoughts he had spent on his vanished friends. He could only handle a single calamity at any given time. Annabeth, he knew though, had run away from her home far in the North when she had been a young girl, and had spent much of her childhood on these very shores, with all of her siblings and friends surrounding her. No doubt she was worrying herself sick over their whereabouts and their health. “Wherever they are,” he tried to assure, “I am sure Chiron is taking good care of them. Perhaps they are even searching for us, and this may be the first place they seek.”

“No,” she shook her head, which only served to slot herself further against his side, and Percy tried very very hard not to shiver at the press of her warm body against his, “I do not mean our fellow demigods.”

“Then of whom do you speak?”

She lifted her head then, looking at him incredulously. “The gods, Perseus.”

He frowned. “Annabeth, I saw them--”

“I know that you believe you witnessed something, but it can’t have been what you thought. It simply can’t.” 

“Rachael witnessed it as well,” he pointed out, “and you know that she has a clearer sight than either of us.”

But she would not hear him. “I wish to go to Athens.”

“Athens? Annabeth, that is nearly as dangerous as the Morea--”

“I must go to the Acropolis,” she insisted, eyes wild as though some madness had possessed her. “My mother will be there, I can feel it. And when I get there, I will make a sacrifice in that horrible building for which they cannibalized the mighty Parthenon, and there she will speak with me.”

Truly, a part of him envied her faith. There had been a time when he had had the same enduring faith in his own father, in the power of the gods and in their enduring legacy--that the very same siege which had broken his faith so surely had not even shaken hers was nothing short of miraculous. 

“I wish I felt the same as you,” he told her, “but I cannot let you go to Athens alone.”

“You should come with me, for perhaps you may be able to speak to your father there as well.”

The warmth of the fire deserted him, as if it had been snuffed out, and even Annabeth’s body no longer provided him comfort. Jaw clenching, he turned his face away from the sea, away from the sweet scent of her hair, glaring off into the black night. “He will not be there.”

“Well you yourself said that we could not attempt the Isthmus of Corinth; therefore, by that logic, Athens would be the next place to go. You know as well as I do how the Athenians venerated your father, despite him losing the contest. If you go to the Erechtheion, perhaps he may come to you--”

“He will not,” said Percy. Along the shore, the waves thrashed against the sand, striking stone and splitting earth.

“How do you know he will not? Are you so certain that our families have abandoned us that you will not even attempt to reach out to them?”

“I know because I have already tried.” Without the proximity of her body, he felt the night chill ever more keenly, and he wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to warm himself even as his half of the cloak fell off his shoulder. Let her have the whole of it, then, he thought. The cold only reminded him more of his resolve.

“When on Earth did you have time to go all the way to Athens?”

“Not Athens,” he said, staring at the grains of scorched sand at his feet. “Thera.”

Her eyes widened. “Santorini? That’s even further!”

“I caught a current.”

“And you lecture me about waltzing into danger.”

“Well, Annabeth, when you somehow learn to breathe underwater, please do tell me, so I can take you on all manner of thrilling excursions.”

She glared, crossing her arms. “Oh, I apologize, my lord, for we cannot all be blessed with partial divinity. Some of us are relegated to our pathetic mortal talents.”

“No, it is I who must apologize, your imperial majesty,” he snipped, “for those born without your dazzling intellect and your natural talents must then rely on our divine gifts in order to even the score.”

It felt wrong, to say things he privately believed in such cruel tones. She furrowed her brow, unsure how to respond to his taunts.

“But it matters not,” he said, before he let slip any more inconvenient truths that he carried. “I used my blessing to stay beneath the waves--neither the Venetians nor the Ottomans ever saw me.”

“And did you find it? Your father’s palace?”

As a boy, Percy had often dreamed of visiting his father’s palace. Most days, it was enough to know that his father was alive even, after a lifetime of questions and insults and uncertainty, let alone that he was a god. Yet still, he dreamt of seeing it for himself, of disappearing into the deep blue water, of following the currents into the heart of the ocean, a map that only the children of the sea could read, and arriving at the gates of his father’s home, of their ancestral seat of power, and one fine day, his patience was rewarded. He would never, as long as he lived, forget the sight of the sea god’s court as it unfolded before him: the grand buildings, the walls encrusted with pearls, the abalone floors, and above it all, the great golden dome which reflected the light as it filtered through the water, as though the sun itself rested beneath the waves. 

There were few sights as beautiful, and few places he had ever loved as much, for the court of Poseidon had, after the war, welcomed its wayward son with open arms. Perseus of Constantinople, he was nothing but a penniless soldier with a knack for fishing; Perseus, son of Poseidon, was a hero and a prince of the highest order. He had been honored with a great feast at the palace, and had danced and made merry with many beautiful nymphs and nereids, had drank with his father and felt his gentle, fond approval, like a hand upon his brow. His mother loved him without abandon, his friends at camp were as fast as any man could hope for, but there had always been something in him which longed for the sea, something which had only been satisfied far beneath the surface. 

“Yes,” he said. “I found it.” It was in the same place as it always had been, that grand building, the great court of the Aegean. “It was deserted. As much a ruin as Troy.” 

“I’m so sorry,” she said. 

He had never once known the palace to be empty, not even during wartime. There had always been sea creatures out and about, minor gods, nymphs, naiads, even simple schools of fish, darting hither and thither in their ancient roadways. But as he swam about the coral halls, the cracked columns encrusted over with barnacles, he found them not just devoid of people, but of power, of the very memories of joy and laughter and light, the softly glowing fields of algae like ghosts in the cloudy deep.

“Thank you,” said Percy. 

What an odd pair they made, the two of them. As different as they were, as bitter as they could be to each other, however, he knew that they were, in fact, more similar than some would have guessed. He knew that she much shared his determination and his drive, his stubbornness and grit, and the need to know and understand on one’s own terms, so he was not at all surprised when she then said, “But I have to see it for myself. I will not be able to rest until I have tried.”

“I understand.” For he did, and he knew her well enough to know that there was very little which could change her mind once she had set herself to a course of action. “Tonight, we shall rest. Tomorrow, we set sail for Athens.”

She smiled at him then, soft and trembling, and it was as though the heat of the fire grew warmer. “Thank you, Percy.”

“But let it be known,” he said, “that I do not approve of this plan.”

“You will regret those words after I have spoken to my mother,” she said, putting on haughty airs in order to, he supposed, counteract the weakness she had just shown to him. 

“I pray that I do.” He knew, deep within him, that she would not find what she sought in Athens, but he simply could not bring himself to fight with her further. Let her find her despair on her own. When she fell, he would be there to catch her, and then they could forge a new course of action together, and stronger for it.

Something in the stars above drew her attention, for she lifted her face to the heavens. In the light of the fire, he could see the long, graceful column of her neck, the flickering shadows playing against the pale expanse of her skin, and he looked away. It would not do to look upon an empress as such, nor a woman who may very well soon be married. “I shall take the first watch,” said she. “Rest, now. I will wake you when it is your turn.”

“As you wish, your majesty,” he muttered, turning away, though his heart thumped in his chest as he watched her fight off a smile.

[fanyiyimdzs]

Mo Dao Zu Shi: Chapter 3

Masterpost

Previous chapter

Wei Wuxian’s first thought was that perhaps the Lan youths’ flag formation contained mistakes.

If the things he invented weren’t deployed with the utmost care, they had a habit of producing disaster—that was why he had specially checked that their yin summoning flags were error-free. Stiffening as several powerful arms began hauling him outside, Wei Wuxian allowed himself to be dragged so he wouldn’t have to waste energy walking. When the mob finally arrived at the eastern hall, it was quiet, a marked contrast to daytime, despite the fact that there were hardly fewer people now than there had been then. Every household servant and family member had come, some still in their sleeping clothes, sporting nests of tangled hair, eyes terror-stricken. Lady Mo sat paralyzed, as though she had just awoken from a nightmare, her cheeks streaked with tear stains. The corners of her eyes were still watering when Wei Wuxian was hauled in. Immediately her glimmering, sorrow-filled gazed began to shine with the vengeance's chilly light.

On the ground laid what appeared to be a human body, draped in a white cloth that left only the head showing. Lan Sizhui and a few of the other Lan juniors surrounded it, bent over in scrutiny, speaking in whispers, grave expressions etched onto their young faces. Their words were just loud enough to leak into Wei Wuxian’s ears.

“...he was discovered less than half an hour ago?”

“Immediately after we finished dealing with the walking corpses, we rushed over here and found his body lying in the hall.”

The body belonged to Mo Ziyuan. Wei Wuxian’s eyes swept quickly over the corpse, but, drawn back again, his gaze couldn’t help but linger.

The corpse did resemble Mo Ziyuan, yet it also did not. The shape of his face, his eyes, nose, and lips, clearly belonged to the young man, but his cheeks had been hollowed out, his eyes and eye sockets protruded grotesquely from the plane of his face, and his skin was parched and wrinkled. Compared to the youthful, round-faced Mo Ziyuan of yesterday, it was as though he had aged a couple of decades in the course of the night. All his blood and flesh had been sucked dry, rendering him nothing more than a thin husk wrapped around a frame of bone. The living Mo Ziyuan had been ugly; Mo Ziyuan’s corpse was not only ugly, but decrepit.

Wei Wuxian was still scrutinizing the body when Lady Mo suddenly charged toward him. In her hand, a dagger flashed, gleaming with the cold moonlight. Lan Sizhui, sharp-eyed and deft of hand, blocked the incoming strike before it landed. Before the youth could open his mouth, Lady Mo shrieked, “My son died a terrible death tonight! I must avenge him! What are you doing? Why are you trying to stop me?!”

Once more, Wei Wuxian hid behind Lan Sizhui. Squatting, he said, “What does your son’s death have to do with me?”

During the day time, Lan Sizhui had watched Wei Wuxian make a scene in the eastern hall and then heard the garishly embellished rumors concerning the poor man swirling through everyone’s mouths. Fully of immense sympathy, he couldn’t help but defend him. “I’m very, very sorry this occurred, Lady Mo. But the state of your son’s corpse, the fact that his blood, flesh, and spirit have been sucked dry, means that he must have been killed by a demon. Your nephew couldn’t have done it.”

Lady Mo’s chest heaved as she spoke. “What do you people know? This lunatic’s dad is a cultivator. Of course he’s learned all kinds of evil tricks!”

Lan Sizhui turned and glanced back at the apparently shellshocked Wei Wuxian. “That’s, um, Lady Mo, you don’t have proof, so let’s—“

“The proof is on my son’s body!” She stabbed her finger at the corpse lying on the ground. “Look at it yourself! Ah-yuan’s remains have already told us who the killer is!”

Without hesitation, Wei Wuxian snatched the edge of the white cloth and pulled it away, revealing the entirety of Mo Ziyuan’s corpse. Yet something was missing.

His entire left arm, from right under his shoulder, had severed itself from the rest of his body, grown wings, and flown away!

“See?” Lady Mo said. “Today, right here, didn’t you all hear what he said? That lunatic said that if Ah-yuan touched his things again, he would chop off his arm!”

Overcome with emotion, she covered her face as she sobbed. “But my poor Ah-yuan never touched any of that lunatic’s things in the first place. Not only did he throw around baseless accusations against my son, now that deranged bastard murdered him in cold blood!”

“‘Deranged bastard!’” “‘In cold blood!’”

How many years had it been since Wei Wuxian last heard comments like these lobbed his way? They were almost like old friends. He pointed at himself, but he had no reply to give. He wasn’t even sure whether the problem laid with him or with Lady Mo. He had made plenty of outlandish threats when he was young—that he would extinguish entire families, entire clans, that he would vanquish millions and blood would flow in great rivers and dye the lands and seas red. That sort of thing. But most of the time, they had been empty threats, said only for the sake of saying them. If he could actually do those things, he would have long enjoyed dominion over the entire world of cultivation. On the other hand, Lady Mo wasn’t trying to avenge her son. She was only trying to find someone upon whom she could vent hateful fury.

He wasn’t going to further entangle himself with her. After a moment of pondering, he stuck out his hand, groped around Mo Ziyuan’s chest, and pulled out a piece of folded-up black fabric. Spreading it out, he found that it was a yin summoning flag.

In a fraction of a second, his heart flashed with ice, and he muttered, “You were your own victim. How can someone like you expect to live?”

Once Lan Sizhui saw what Wei Wuxian had pulled from Mo Ziyuan’s chest, he also understood what had in fact happened. Viewed in light of the day’s ruckus, it wasn’t difficult to guess the chain of events: Mo Ziyuan had been humiliated by Mo Xuanyu’s crazy display, and had gone looking for his cousin to get even, his heart brimming with resentment. But Mo Xuanyu had wandered off outside—no one in the house had caught even a glimpse of his shadow the entire afternoon. Thus, Mo Ziyuan’s next plan was to catch his cousin when he returned at night and teach him a lesson while no one was watching.

But when night fell and the young man snuck outside, he passed by the western courtyard and caught sight of the yin summoning flags that had been stuck atop the eaves. Even though he had been warned for the umpteenth time not to go out in the middle of the night, that the western courtyard was forbidden, and that touching the black flags was even more forbidden, Mo Ziyuan had assumed the Lan cultivators had only said those frightening things because they were afraid that someone would steal their valuable treasures. Completely unaware of the flags’ ominous effects, he inadvertently transformed himself into living bait. His dirty habit of stealing his mentally ill cousin’s symbols, seals, and spiritual tools had grown into an addiction. As soon as he laid eyes on anything of a similar nature, he became unbearably agitated and couldn’t rest until it was in his soiled hands. Taking advantage of their owners’ preoccupation with the walking corpses, he quietly plucked one of the flags and took it away.

The flag formation required six yin summoning flags. Five remained in the western courtyard, drawing all manner of dark creatures towards the Lan youth. But they were protected by the many spiritual tools they carried, whereas Mo Ziyuan, though only in possession of a single flag, had nothing to keep himself safe. Like most other predators, evil spirits went for the softest, easiest flesh, so naturally they were drawn to the defenseless youth. If there had only been walking corpses tonight, that would have been one thing—he probably would have suffered a few bites at most, and couldn’t have died in less than half an hour. Quite unfortunately, however, the flag had unintentionally attracted something far more frightening than a few walking corpses. It was precisely this unknown evil spirit who had killed Mo Ziyuan and robbed him of his arm.

Wei Wuxian raised his wrists to his face and found that the cut on his left hand had healed. It seemed that the sacrificial contract had indeed tacitly recognized Mo Ziyuan’s death as the product of his hard work. After all, he had invented and popularized the use of the summoning flags—even if it had been a bit roundabout and accidental, he could be perfectly well said to have killed Mo Xuanyu’s cousin.

Though Lady Mo knew somewhere deep in her heart that her son had a few little...problems, she absolutely refused to acknowledge that he had played any role in his own death. At once stricken by anxiety and shame, she grabbed a teacup and charged Wei Wuxian, hurling it at his face. “If you hadn’t made a scene and slandered him in front of so many, would he have gone outside at midnight? Your deranged attack caused all of this to happen!”

Wei Wuxian had long expected her to strike at him and easily dodged and hid. Lady Mo then charged at Lan Sizhui, screeching, “And you! You herd of useless things! You came here as cultivators to excise evil spirits. But what cultivation? What exorcism? You couldn’t even protect a child! Ah-yuan was only in his teens!”

The Lan juniors were still young and hadn’t had more than a couple of real-life experiences expelling walking corpses, so had not cottoned on to the fact that something here was strange until it was too late. They had no idea that there would be an evil spirit so vicious and fierce—at first, they had been guilt stricken, believing they had made some kind of oversight. Subject to such savage abuse from a woman so ignorant she couldn’t tell black from white and blue from red, they began to develop a sickly complexion. Since they had been born into a highly distinguished clan, they had never encountered anyone who dared treat them so terribly. Yet neither could they defend themselves: the teachings of the Gusu Lan Clan were extremely strict, and it was an unbreachable taboo to raise a hand against an ordinary person, who could not fight back. In fact, they weren’t even permitted to be rude. Thus, though their hearts tossed and turned with unhappiness, they all forced it down, suffocating themselves until their faces were tinged with green.

Wei Wuxian found the scene unbearable. “After so many years, the Lan family is still like this,” he thought to himself. “They’re still affecting that stupid, undying self-restraint. Hmph. Watch this!”

He spat at Lady Mo and said, “Who the hell do you think you’re screaming at? Do you think they’re your servants? These people traveled through half the country in order to help you for free. What exactly do they owe you? How old is your honorable son? He should be at least seventeen this year, right? And he’s still ‘a child?’ How old does he have to be to understand human speech? Yesterday, didn’t these cultivators say several times not to touch anything or approach the western courtyard? Because your son couldn’t stop himself from pilfering what isn’t his, as though he were a starving dog stealing chickens in the night, you’re blaming me? You’re blaming them?”

Lan Jingyi and the others exhaled, and their complexions began to return to a healthy color. On the other hand, Lady Mo, both heartbroken and resentful to the extreme, thought only of the word “death.” Not of her own death, of course. She had no desire to accompany her son. Rather, she thought of the death of every other human being on earth, especially the people in front of her. Following her habit of ordering around her husband, she grabbed him and said, “Call everyone in! Every single person!”

Perhaps shaken by the loss of his only son, he pushed her without warning. Lady Mo toppled to the floor, stunned.

In the past, she hadn’t even needed to touch her husband to make him follow her orders. If she only raised her voice a little, he would do whatever she wanted. But today, he had the temerity to strike back!

All of the servants grew white with terror as they saw Lady Mo’s expression. Trembling, Ah-ding helped her up. Lady Mo, shaking and clutching her hand in front of her chest, said, “You...you...you piss off too!”

Her husband behaved as though he had not heard her. Ah-ding ran to Ah-tong and shot him several meaningful glances, but Ah-tong, unable to endure the chaos, was busy attempting to drag the master of the house outside. Once the household had finally quieted down, Wei Wuxian prepared to inspect the body again, but before he was able to catch more than a glimpse, another blood-curdling shriek pierced the air, slashing its way from the courtyard through the doors of the eastern hall.

Everyone inside surged towards the exit. All they found were two bodies on the ground, twitching and spasming. One was Ah-tong, who sat paralyzed but still alive. The other had fallen and looked as though all of his blood and flesh had been sucked clean off of his bones. His skin was wrinkled and withered, and though his left arm had already disappeared, no blood trickled from where it was once attached. The state of his corpse was exactly like that of Mo Ziyuan’s.

Lady Mo had just shaken off Ah-ding’s supportive arm when she saw the fallen body. Her eyes grew wide and numb. All the fury-fueled strength within her finally expired, her world grew faint, and she toppled toward the ground. As Wei Wuxian happened to be standing near her, he caught her before she struck the stony floor, then passed her off to Ah-ding, who had rushed forward to help. He glanced at his right hand and found that another gash had vanished.

Lady Mo’s husband had barely left the eastern hall before perishing right where all the crowd now stood, and it had all happened in the blink of an eye. Even many among the Lan juniors had gone white. Lan Sizhui was the first to compose himself. He hurriedly asked the paralyzed A-tong, “Did you see what it was?”

Unable to pry open his mouth out of terror, Ah-tong would not answer no matter how many times Lan Sizhui asked, but only shook his head without end. His heart burning with urgency, Lan Sizhui allowed the other servants to carry Ah-tong inside, then turned to Lan Jingyi and said, “Did you fire the signal?”

“Yeah, I fired it,” Lan Jingyi replied, “but I’m afraid if there aren’t any seniors in the area who can rescue us, it’ll take our people at least an hour to get here, even if they rush. What should we do? We don’t even know what it is.”

Of course, neither could the Lan juniors flee. If, upon encountering an evil spirit, the juniors of any clan deserted the scene, caring to protect only themselves, then not only would they bring great embarrassment upon their clan, so much shame would hang around their necks that they could never again look anyone in the eye. The terrified members of the Mo household couldn’t flee either—the evil spirit would most likely hide itself among them, rendering the effort completely pointless. Gritting his teeth, Lan Sizhui said, “Be on alert and wait for help to come!”

Once the rescue signal was fired, it would not be long before other cultivators came to offer support. In order to avoid an incident arising over his rebirth, Wei Wuxian’s most reasonable course of action would have been to disappear into the night. If whoever came didn’t recognize him, all would be well, but if they happened to be someone he had once known or fought, who knew what could happen?

On the other hand, the curse was still on his body, so he wasn’t able to go far. Moreover, the thing that had been summoned was unusually ferocious—it had robbed two people of their lives in such a brief period of time. If Wei Wuxian departed so carelessly, by the time help came, Mo Manor might already have enough corpses to line an entire street, among them a few of the Gusu Lan Clan’s children by blood, each missing a left arm.

After pondering this problem for a little while, Wei Wuxian thought, “The faster the battle, the faster the outcome. Time to act.”

Next chapter

Masterpost

[southwindscoffee]

Um so I had an amazing year

You cannot get poor enough to help poor people thrive or sick enough to help sick people get well. You only ever uplift from your position of strength and clarity and alignment. – Abraham/Esther Hicks

 So.

 I had an amazing year.

 And I’m embarrassed to say it because I’m not dumb. (At least I hope I’m not.) I look around and can see suffering. Upheaval. Sickness. Poverty. I’m not denying those things exist or minimizing anyone else’s experience.

 But I wanted to share why I had an amazing year with the intent of uplifting someone else.

 Maybe you.

 I’m ending the year feeling happier, healthier, richer, more creatively fulfilled, and closer to my family than I have in a very, very long time. I credit this to a few small but key things—and overall, to one book.

 Last year about this time I listened to Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’ve lost track of how many copies I’ve bought of this book. Maybe four? At least two hardback copies, because I gave one away. Simply stated, the audio changed my life.

 Just—if you’re sick of listening to yourself complain about your bank account or weight or whatever, and you’re serious about changing things, go read/listen to this book.

 AND THEN ACTUALLY DO WHAT HE SAYS. The little, dumb, tiny changes. Because they add up.

 Last year I got sick of complaining about the same things year after year. And since I mostly complain in my journal or in my own head, it was a very boring place to be. I got sick of wondering why the balance in my bank account didn’t change, why I wasn’t losing weight, and why I wanted to write so much and wasn’t getting anywhere, even though I tried.

 But these things (richer, slimmer, more creative) were also what I really desired, deep down inside. I wanted to feel more financially stable, healthier (defined by weight loss), and to write more. (Well, I already wrote plenty. I wanted to write stuff and put it in public where people could actually read it.) These dreams felt very special and secret, but I think they’re somewhat universal—at least for authors.

 (Please note: I know that mental health can get in the way of taking any action at all. I’ve written about my depression and anxiety before. If this blog entry makes you feel overwhelmed, please know I’ve been where you are. Focus on taking care of yourself in whatever way you can and don’t worry about all this aspirational ambitious stuff I’m writing. Because the aspirational and ambitious can simply be getting out of bed and taking a shower. I’m proud of you for hanging in there.)

 After listening to Atomic Habits, I decided to do the following macro habits all throughout 2020—and I checked these off on a little grid in the James Clear journal:

 1. Take my vitamins.

2. Save $5 every day.

3. Write 10,000 words per week.

4. Post a blog entry every Wednesday and Saturday.

5. Go to the gym 3-5 times a week.

 I thought that these were things that could get me to my goals—richer, slimmer, more creatively fulfilled. And overall—happy.

 I also had some habits I already did. These were:

 1. Meditate for 10 minutes every day. (I usually use a guided YouTube video).

2. Write three pages longhand as Morning Pages (per Julia Cameron). (Incidentally, I’ve done this for decades and credit it to the reason I don’t get writer’s block.)

3. Take a Swedish lesson on Duolingo.

 I just wanted to keep these up.

 I have lots more habits … like brushing my teeth or whatever (and I actually floss because I bought the stuff and leave it out where I can see it), but the ones above are my more unusual habits.

 Well, what happened?

 1. I took my vitamins. Boring, but I’m also quite healthy, so maybe it helps my overall wellbeing. I haven’t been sick all year. I keep them by my bed where I see them and remember to take them.

 (Yes, I wash my hands all the time and don’t touch my face. And yes, I stayed home in quarantine. Yes, I wore a mask when I went out. But I think taking vitamins helped.)

 2. I ended up saving $5 every workday not every day. I either transferred the money to a Capital 360 account because it’s hard to transfer it back or put $5 into a Stash account. I sometimes would skip Starbucks or something similar and feel virtuous about transferring the $5. Other times I just transferred it.

 At the beginning of the year, the Capital 360 account had $5. It now has $806.

At the beginning of the year the Stash account had $50. It now has almost $2500. (Buying $5 here and there in March when the stock market was down ended up making about $500 over the year, a 23% increase.)

 Um, so that’s like $3200 I just kinda now have. Incidentally, $5 per day is $1825 over the course of the year, and I’ve almost doubled that because I invested it, not just saved it—and also sometimes I’d transfer like $10 or $25 if I was feeling wild. Over the months, I saw how the account balance would get close to an even number (like $500), so I’d transfer enough to make it that amount. And it just kept going.

 (Also, I’m not intending on this to be money advice. Go talk to someone who actually knows. My thought process was to hedge my bets with doing both safe and speculative—a savings account that earned interest and then various stocks. I also wasn’t spending money I needed for food, shelter, etc. I barely felt the expense, but I very much feel the accumulation of savings.)

 There really is magic in just starting to do something small, because it really does compound and snowball into good things. 

 Maybe in the grand scheme of things $3200 isn’t that much. To me it feels like I have this cute little cushion I literally created out of loose change in a year.

 Honestly, it feels like a lot, not “cute” or “little.” If I don’t compare myself to millionaires, it’s kind of amazing.

 What would happen if you transferred $1 or $2 a day? By the end of 2021, see how much you have…

 Another money habit: I wanted to stop buying so much online and one-clicking so many ebooks—even free ones—because it was just too much. I had like 800 unread books. So I kept track of the days I didn’t buy anything or download any books. My ecommerce moratorium ended up being streaks of time I didn’t buy anything and then a day where I would buy everything off of Amazon or whatever all at once. Not sure it did much except make me feel marginally better. With ebooks, while my TBR count is less than what it was at the beginning of the year, it isn’t the zero I’d hoped it to be. But I seriously read about 300-400 books—about 1-2 a day. (I read fast and don’t sleep.) My “read” pile jumped from 800 to 1100. Not sure what to make of it except I read so much and it was really fun. So, I still have about 680 books on my TBR pile for next year. That can be another habit to work on.

 3. I’ve written more than 530,000 words this year. The habit I tied it to incidentally, was opening my laptop. If I open my laptop—and that’s a habit I record with a tick mark on a grid—it’s a lot easier to get into the document and start writing. So the way I trick myself to write is I tell myself all I have to do is open my laptop. Simple. I check off the box that I did it and I feel virtuous. To reward myself for actually getting the word count, I have a little jar with binder clips in it and every 1,000 words I put a binder clip in a small old milk bottle. Then I can see the words add up.

 I also did a spreadsheet to know what I’ve written this year. I’ve never done one before because it felt too quantitative rather than qualitative. Writing is supposed to be this outlet for me, not something to beat to death with statistics. But I’m glad I did it because writing can be so amorphous. Putting parameters on it made it feel real.

 Oh, and I’ve finished one book, set to be published in February. I have a contract for another, and it’s (today) at 77,000 words. Three more books are 50% or more done. And I did NaNoWriMo. So, yeah. It was a productive year.

 I also learned that I like juggling projects. Focusing on one can make me stagnant. If I get stuck on one, moving to another really seemed to keep my momentum going.

 But I’m now focusing on getting them done and shipped. One at a time. Because they’re all just so close I can feel it.

 4. Before this year, I’d published eleven blog entries from 2017 to 2019. This year, I’ve posted 97, not counting this one. I missed a time or two at the beginning, but um, yeah… That’s a big difference.

 The reasons I wanted to focus on posting blog entries were multifold. I’d felt “out of it” as far as publishing, having worked on one book for so long that wasn’t gelling. I’d felt frustrated and jealous of those who got their work done. I needed the instant gratification—so to speak—of putting something out there while I worked on projects that took longer. I also wanted to inure myself to the fear of putting myself out there. With each entry—still—I feel fear, but I wanted to do it anyway. So that when the time comes to publish more fiction, I can go, “yeah, I’ve hit publish (literally) 100 times, what’s the big deal?”

 My guiding point for writing a blog post has been my gut feeling—tempered by wanting to reach out and help someone else. But to keep up a streak, there is a document on my computer called “Default blog post.” This is what it says in its entirety:

 Default blog post

 I told myself I just needed to post a blog every Wednesday and Saturday.

 Here is me keeping that promise.

 If you see that, well, you’ll know how the week is going.

 Is there an endgame here? What am I going to do with these blog posts? I can see me taking some ideas and expanding on them and creating some sort of nonfiction/self-help kind of book. I’ve always wanted to do that. I do see them as steppingstones to something bigger.

It also lets me be okay with imperfection. Typos. “Think-Os.” Whatever. This is me with no editor.

 5. So, the gym. Well, until it closed, I was going. My trigger was that I just had to check in. That was how I checked the box. Like opening the laptop, actually getting to the gym is the hard part. Once I was there, it was easy.

 But the gym closed and is still closed. Like all of us, I needed a Plan B. (C? D?)

 I’ve done short walks and long. Currently, I’m just working on doing pushups. I can do a lot of pushups with my knees on the ground. But I can only do a few “real” ones, so that’s what I’m keeping track of. I’m focusing on doing them slowly and properly, not faking my way through them. Faking them is easy, but I’d rather be able to do them right and have the actual arm strength. My trigger for when I do them is when I close my journal, I have to get down and do pushups. (Currently it’s seven.) To someone else that goal might be ridiculously easy. To me, it’s rather difficult and a little embarrassing to post, but whatever. I’m being honest.

 I’m ending the year a few pounds lighter than last year—and lighter than I’ve been in years—so I’m calling it a win.

 With the other habits, meditating keeps me happy as does dumping my brain in the morning pages. Oh, and I’m on day 622 in a row of Swedish on Duolingo. It feels like I’ve taken about a semester of college Swedish. Not enough to actually converse with someone but getting the hang of it. I’m motivated by a desire to go to Sweden and see some ancestral places—and actually understand some of the language, even though I know most Swedes speak better English than me.

 With COVID-19, like most of us, I’ve spent more time at home, but I’m temperamentally suited to that. I know it’s hurt extroverts hard, but as far as I’m concerned, I got to see my family more—even when I went to the office for work.

 What am I looking forward to next year? I like the habits I started for 2020. I just want to keep these systems up, because they seem to be working for me. I hope that by using these systems I end up with four to five books happily published in 2021 and I look forward to seeing how the exercise and money habits work out as well.

 This entry is about two or three times my usual blog entry, so if you made it this far, thank you. I hope it inspires you to take a small action and then keep taking that small action over and over again. They really do add up.

 I wish you the most amazing year ever in 2021. Know that it’s possible.