#turns out when you have an animal that makes nests out of mud in small places

[teenysnel]

The whiplash you experience when you’re reading a Wikipedia article about a group of wasps and you see this

[mamadoc]

The next chapter of my most popular story, Catch of a Lifetime, is posted. Lucy and Tim *finally* make it to their first date!

Here’s how it starts:

At 6:02 Lucy heard a knock on her door. She and Jackson had rushed home, and she barely had time to change her clothes and curl her hair, but she was ready.

“Sorry I’m late,” were the first words that fell from Tim’s mouth as the door started to open. It’s a good thing he was ready to say them, because once he saw Lucy, his mouth became dry, and all other thoughts were erased from his mind.

Lucy was wearing the green dress she had purchased a couple weeks prior when she had a girls’ day with her friend Rachel. It was a deep, emerald green satin dress with a v-neck that came down just to the edges of her breasts. The skirt dress extended down to her ankles where it flowed like water around her legs with a slit or two that occasionally allowed her muscular legs to show through. Her hair was curled into long, loose waves that she had partially pulled back. She accessorized with a simple gold St. Michael pendant that the West family had given to her, small gold hoop earrings, and her favorite oval moonstone ring.

“Come in,” she said. Then she laughed softly and said, “You’re not late, it probably took you those two minutes just to come up the elevator.”

“If you’re not early, you’re late,” he replied when his brain started functioning again.

“Ah. There’s the control freak again,” she sing-songed.

Tim rolled his eyes and decided to change the topic. “You look absolutely beautiful.” Then he suddenly remembered the flowers that were still in his hand. “These are for you.”

“Thanks,” she said. Lucy let her eyes wander up and down his frame. He was wearing black slacks with a matching black suit jacket. Underneath the jacket was a dark gray button-up shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned. As she leaned forward to take the flowers from him, she popped up on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re looking very handsome yourself,” she said. Then she giggled for a moment. “Particularly since you running the bases at Dodger Stadium less than an hour ago.”

Tim smiled. “I try.”

Lucy grinned back at him. “I’m fairly certain it would be impossible for you to not look breathtakingly handsome regardless of what you wear,” she said as she was looking for a vase. Finding one that would work, she stretched, wiggling her fingers while up on her tiptoes to reach it.

Tim came behind her and easily took the vase out of the cupboard. “Hmm… Quite the compliment from a woman that has made me speechless more times than I can remember. You just seem to get more beautiful every time I see you.”

They moved together to the sink where Lucy filled the vase with water and trimmed the roses’ stems. “It is oddly satisfying to break your brain every once in a while.” Then she paused for a moment, tilting her head to the side. “Do you think that will wear off as we spend more time together? That I won’t be able to stun you the way I have?”

Tim was standing right behind Lucy with both hands on her waist. Lucy could feel the rumbling of his voice against her back and the warmth of his breath next to her ear when he spoke. She felt that familiar tingling feeling spreading from her waist to her entire body. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but I can’t imagine a situation in which I don’t think you’re absolutely gorgeous.”

Lucy turned her head just slightly toward him. “Even when I wake up after a sleepless night and my hair looks like a small animal made a nest in it?”

“I’m sure I’ll love that bedhead look of yours. Especially if I was the cause for the sleeplessness.” He whispered the last part into her ear and then started kissing down the column of her neck.

Lucy felt a shiver go down her spine. “Okay. What if we’re out on a hike, and I fall into a big mud puddle and tear by pants?”

“Still beautiful,” he mumbled into her collar bone as he continued to kiss her.

“What if I have a stomach bug, and I’m pale and sweaty and have spent hours bowing to the porcelain throne?”

“Then I sit there with you and hold back your hair. I’ll wash off your face and cool you off with a soft washcloth. And you’ll still be beautiful.” He had reached her shoulder and then started kissing back toward her neck.

“What if I’ve had a rough day at work, and I come home covered in scrapes and bruises?”

“Come home?” he repeated in a whisper right in her ear. “If you’re coming home to me, then I’ll be the luckiest guy in the world. I’ll kiss every scrape or bruise, and you’ll still be the prettiest woman I’ve ever met.”

Lucy put the last rose into the vase. The two dozen red roses towered over the tulips and daisies he had brought earlier, but they were each associated with equally happy moments for Lucy, and she loved having this physical reminder of the time they had spent together. She turned around to look at Tim. He kept his hands on her waist as she twisted. She smiled up at him, studied his face for a moment, and then asked him a question that had been on her mind for a full three weeks. “You could have almost any woman you wanted. Angela has mentioned a few times that hundreds of women have thrown themselves at you. Sooo… Why me? There’s nothing special or particularly interesting about me. There are plenty of thinner or fitter or more beautiful or smarter or more… basebally women out there. Why me?”

Tim looked deeply into her eyes, and then breathed out her name. “Lucy… The answer to that may take more time than we have, but I think you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” He moved his hand to cup her cheek and stroked it gently with his thumb. “You’re very interesting and special. Beautiful. Smart. Strong. Caring. Athletic. Kind…” With each word he planted a tiny kiss around her face. “And… Distracting,” he said with one last kiss on the tip of her nose. “We’ve gotta go. I love spending time with you here, but I have plans tonight.”

Lucy’s eyes fluttered back open as she felt him move away from her. He had practically kissed and complimented her into a trance. As her eyes started to focus again on the stunning man standing in front of her, she shook her head a couple times and took a deep breath. Blowing out the breath, she said, “Yeah. Right. Plans.” She stepped over to where she had set down her clutch purse. “Any chance you’re going to tell me what we’re doing now?”

“Not a chance in the world. Let’s go,” he said while putting gentle pressure on her lower back.

Read more here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51183676/chapters/137827918#workskin

[bugoutpest]

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During swarming season, mature termites shed their wings and can be found swarming around your home, in crawl spaces and along the foundations of your property. Often, you will be able to see mud tubes, which are used as a means of transport between the termite nest and the food source.

Termite infestations can go unnoticed for years, until it is too late. The best way to protect your home from termites is to have it regularly inspected by a pest control specialist.

Cockroaches can carry bacteria and germs that cause food poisoning and diarrhea. They also secrete a substance that can stain surfaces and produce bad odors. They also trigger asthma and allergies in humans.

Originating in the tropics, these pests regularly enter buildings to find warmth and moisture. They hide during the day and become active at night. They are able to survive in colder climates if conditions are right and can move easily from room to room.

They can fit into cracks as small as a dime and move throughout a home or building searching for food, water, shelter and mates. They are attracted to pheromones left by other cockroaches which help them locate these things. They are omnivorous and feed on any living or nonliving matter they can find.

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Adults are hard to see without magnification and their eggs are tiny, white ovals that fall off pet fur or furniture where they land and hatch into larvae within two days. Larvae live in dark places, such as carpet, cracks in floorboards and pet bedding. Optimum conditions for survival and growth are warm, moist winters and springs. Regular vacuuming, washing pet bedding and securing cats and dogs can reduce flea populations. Trimming lawns can also make it harder for fleas to hide in the grass.

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Bed bugs are wingless, oval-shaped insects that grow to 4-5 mm in length. They are reddish brown in colour, and turn a darker blood red when they have recently fed.

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[magnoliamyrrh]

and the.... it wasnt the second dream. i had other ones in-between. but in this dream

the world was collapsing, again. i was with my friends, but they werent really the same people, moreso blends of different people ive known throughout my life. we were in a shitty motel somewhere in the mountains when it caught us, the collapse of "civilization." no more electricity, no more internet, no more nothing. i remember confusion, but we didnt go insane or nothing. we just figured, wed have to learn to survive

and so, the dream spanned weeks, months, years. at first, we were still living in the motel. animals had started coming closer however, and plants were starting to take it over. we would go hunting, foraging, in the beggining stages of trying to see if we could plant. i remember going down to the river to gather water. mostly, we would use the wood around to set up fires in the inner countyard of this motel, and cook and keep ourselves warm.... it was not a bad time. i remember, there was time for storytelling, for my friends singing, for play as if we were children - i remember trying to keep some strange little creature, something in between a squirrel and a racoon if you could imagine, as a pet, having the time to run around with it and play with it. i remember the shine of the full moon, and how many starts could be seen above - much more than before the collapse

i remember the months passing, it was like i would wake up in and out of conciousness after watching the world go by in fast-forward mode, we stared building outside of the motel, feeling it was past time we keep living in it. my little pet went missing one day, and no matter how much i searched for it i couldnt find it. but in searching for him, i realized, we were taking care of many creatures in our motel-turned home. three little alligators were chilling on the top second floor, intertwined between the wearing wooden bars of the walkways; you could play with them, snap their mouths shut and open. wed feed them fish. birds would come and make nests, vines had started covering areas. all odd sort of rodents and other beings would make their way in and out - the motel was no longer a place just for humans; it seems we had learned how to coexist much better... i remember giving up my search for my little pet, figuring hed either been eaten, or returned to the woods,and walking into the meadow in which we were starting to build. a fireplace, tents were set up, the sun was shining, people were carrying wood and mud and starting to build what seemed to be small huts, and a larger one

time was passing, as if in a daze, as if on fast forward. storms would come and pass, good weather and bad weather, the sun would rise and set, the seasons would change. i remember, we had raised up almost fully the main hut, but it still had some missing patches in the roof and sides. we were inside, sitting around a fireplace on the ground, on blankets, another one wrapped around me. i was making some sort of weave, or perhaps pottery, something we would need, anyway. a storm had come, rain above which you could see through the pathes; but it seemed to bother none of us. warm summer rain in the summer months, i remember only peace and happiness, someone playing an old guitar among slow and quiet conversations and laughter

and time passed again, work kept happening, but i do not remember either pain or extensive tiredness, doing what i could while others did the same. i remember the shining sun, the crops growing, the thick grass and its smell. i remember coming back to myself, still sitting on the ground of the hut, through now it was long finished, decorated as well with rugs, pots, weaves, hanging herbs, and all matter of other things. many more months must have passed it seemed, many years had passed

the smell of the fire and grilled food filled my nose, and i was holding some sort of large beautifully decorated weaved plate. someone told me to watch out and catch, and before i knew, on this plate i had caught several thin, long fish which they had tossed out of the fireplace they were cooking on. looking at them i felt i fully woke up from another fast-forward daze, looking at them and my surroundings in amazement. some children next to me were laughing at my good catch and seeming confusing after snapping out of my daze - my children, the children of the group, who knows, they were still my children though. i remember looking at them and smiling, extending to them the plate, each of them grabbing a fish before running outside to play. looking down at the plate myself, grabbing one of the long fish before passing it on to others. someone who must have been a good friend of mine smiled at me gently, as if saying, its alright; its alright, we have indeed made it. realizing, there were many more now than there were before. sitting around the fire eating, working, people moving in and out of the hut, what was once a small survival settlement had become a small village by now. the warm summer sun was high, and as i took a bite of the fish and looked around, i was surprised by how good it was. by, indeed, how good all of it had turned out. how "civilization" had collapsed, and yet, we seemed to be managing to live in a much more civilized way than before

[tobegiggledat]

That Which She Alters

18+ CONTENT AHEAD MDNI

✦pairing: Shapeshifter!Mirko x gn!reader

✦warnings: no quirks au, background Fuyumi x reader, uncanny valley, identity crisis, brain-washing, dubcon, angst, cheating (done by reader sorry), memory gaps, possession?, kissing, oral sex (f.receiving) aphrodisiacs, Jekyll Hyde type shit

✦word count: 3.4k

“Fuyumi!” The name bursts from between your teeth, and it's sharp; leaving a tingle across your aching lips as it passes into the dark labyrinth of trees amidst you, bouncing from leaves to bark then seeping within roots.

Yet, those very trees were ample of life the morning your trail began, a net of rich, blooming green, filtering the slivers of sun through webs of sticks and meshing with grey wisps across the sky—but as night struck, those features soon became suffocating.

The innocent path of wood is tall and menacing, but you persevere in hopes of finding your girlfriend, long lost among the thicket despite her claiming she’ll return back to camp in a few.

It's been over half an hour.

A dimming light flashes from between your fingers, trembling with each twitch that strikes your nerves, its yellowish hues illuminate a small distance ahead of you, revealing the layers of rock and mud caked on the ground and at your feet.

The air is dry and stagnant with faint crunches of leaves fluttering through the breeze, but nothing more, not a hoot, not a breath nor a shutter…

For a moment, you assume the forest lacks any inhabitants, devoid of nests, footprints or any other indications of wildlife—that is, until a small, pale animal appears on your trail; a bunny with two reflecting rubies that watch with intrigue, but it makes no effort to close the distance.

You're uncertain if you want it to though, its pupils emanate a foreign knowledge, a profound understanding of this wilderness and the motives of those who engage with it—the sight of that unwavering gaze stirs something within you, fear or curiosity, you can't quite place.

But as it makes small leaps deeper into the dark, you inch closely behind, shining your flashlight just ahead of it to make sense of the direction it's leading you.

Unlike a hare, it moves slow and steady; short furry limbs navigate the land with familiarity, ears propping upright when rounding certain areas and body stilling to sense the terrain.

Whether it's best to trust your own instincts or those of a random rabbit, you'll find out, but as of now it's better than complacency.

Eventually its pink paws stop at the edge of a cave, and it swiftly turns to face you with its narrow eyes returning to your form just as it did in the beginning.

Thick patches of moss gather along the inside, glistening with dew drops and stretching way past the end of your light and further than your eyes can see.

“Is this where she is?”, you ask hushedly as if it withholds a secret from you.

Though, the bunny remains still, whiskers flaring and nose making the slightest twitches, it eyes you more intently and you think it may have only blinked now and never before.

Twitching, flaring, twitching, then nothing.

It blinks once more, and the result that follows is bizarre; its limbs suddenly expand outward while molting to become flesh-like, curving into human shapes and branching into five individual digits, sharp and darkened at the tips.

The creature unfolds itself until upright to expose it's nude form, snow-white strands crown its head in waist-length wisps with additional sprinkles of smaller hairs adorning the rest of its bronze features. Perky breasts protrude from its chest while a milky bush is gathered at the center between its thighs, but to call it a woman wouldn't be quite right.

And its alien scleras are the biggest give away, black with those same red gems and swirls of gold at its center.

It's a mockery of human form that has you reeling backward, unease settling in your gut and swarming throughout your intestines in a disturbed churn, your nerves alight and jittering across your bones.

As you stumble further and further away from it, it creeps closer in awe like an infant; wobbling and touching and gawking to make sense of the world around it.

The sudden extension of exploratory fingers toward you finally gives you the muster to turn away completely, legs bolting the way you came without a moment for your head to follow.

“Fuuyuumii!”, you breach the air with more shouts, words slurring between the heavy breaths that escape your exasperated lungs.

Though, you don't feel the creature on your heels, in fact, you think the creature may have never moved at all, but you fail to gather any courage to look back.

Your flashlight catches a distant figure, which you quickly make out as your girlfriend, her pale skin and locks illuminating from the brightness as flashes of turquoise gaze in your direction.

You dash to wrap her tightly against you, she's rigid in shock initially but her shoulders droop as she returns the gesture, softly. “Where have you been?” you question meekly against her shoulder, cheeks pressed deeply into her collar before pulling away so that you can face her.

“I’m not sure, I got lost on the way back to camp”, her tone has an edge of shakiness, while her fingers tug at your shoulders as she anxiously glances around. “I’m just glad I was finally able to find you.”

“We should head back home”, you quickly follow up. “After everything that’s happened—It’s too much for one trip, and I miss my bed.”

“Yeah, I’m with you on that”, she says against you.

“Good. I know the way back to camp.”

✦✦✦✦

It was supposed to be a break from long hours at office desks, just a moment with yourselves and nature, but the ride back to your shared condo is plump with tensity and confusion as you process the events of tonight’s trip—especially the pressing oddity that lurked in that forest.

Was that creature a mere figment of your fatigued, panicked brain or was it another one of the universe’s many secrets?

You don’t know, but you can’t bring yourself to get Fuyumi involved- not that your encounter sounds believable in the first place.

Some mysteries are better left unsolved, the forest is long behind now, and the moment your body emerges past that final line of stifling oak you purge yourself of all the moments that manifested from it.

An immediate sleep is in order; no shower nor drastic change of clothes, you plunge beside Fuyumi onto your queen-sized mattress and leave the fate of laundry and unpacking, for tomorrow morning.

Sleep inevitably takes hold of you in a violent storm, but an odd dream accompanies it.

Fuyumi is there, and so is another you, yet you watch things unfold like an outsider, viewing the entirety of “yourself” as if that body weren't the very one you inhabited.

Fuyumi tenderly cups your face, much like she does when you're awake; with dainty but careful fingers, while her lips mesh into yours in a messy collision, wet and dripping past the sides of your teeth.

Her eyes flicker open when she senses you—the observer—near, and she beams at the sight, exultant in how her movements do the utmost to petrify you.

The blotches of red throughout her hair begin to fade away as the strands fall past their usual shoulder length to rest against her waist. Sapphire irises become crimson, yet her insidious grin remains painted across her mouth.

She's shifted into that awful thing from the forest—the wretched creature has even followed you into your slumber and embedded itself within your subconscious.

The other you doesn't seem to have the slightest inkling of protest as its eyes remain transfixed on the creature’s lips, welcoming of the change and begging for more of the creature's affections.

It's those upturned lips that stain your psyche as you jolt awake into the next morning.

The sheets are stirred and empty where Fuyumi once laid, the distant clatter of pans and fizzles of running water give you an idea of what she's been up to while you were dreaming.

The eerie display from the night before rests fresh on your mind, but it's just a dream and nothing more.

At least, it's what you tell yourself as you dally toward the source of the racket, trailing after the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee, and settling at the table before a plate.

“Morning”, you chirp, eyeing the array of your favorites, each prepared in an individual tray for consumption.

“Hey, how'd you sleep?”Fuyumi smiles before settling in a seat across from you, her hands swiftly reaching for a fork and knife.

“I slept okay”, you bring a bit of food to your lips and she follows suit.

“Really? I’ve been up since 3 a.m. trying to make sense of everything”, she chimes, and you realize her eyes reveal just that, with slight discoloration at the base and protruding veins evident from beneath her lenses.

“Now that I think about it, I did have a weird dream”, you say quietly.

“What was it about?”

“Nothing special, it was similar to what happened yesterday.” You decide to exclude the much odder details. “What about you?”

“Well, with the little time I did sleep I don’t think I dreamed at all.” Fuyumi swipes at the edge of her left eye.

You hesitate, lips pursing before you speak. “Did you see or hear anything weird when we were separated?”

Fuyumi takes a moment to ponder. “No…it’s more weird that I didn’t hear a peep, not even the crickets or anything”

“Yeah, I didn’t hear much either…” Your gaze travels to your half-eaten meal, transfixed on the ridges of your plate, your fingers gripping the edge of it tightly.

Your focus starts to strip from you in small, light waves.

“I think I was only………but…..” Fuyumi’s voice becomes distant, background noise to the flurry of thoughts that begin to surge your mind. “so dark…..”

Why did that thing in the forest lead you away? What would it have shown you had you stayed?

You want to go back to it one day…

“Did you hear me?”, she finally snaps you out of your haze.

You stare at her blankly. “No, sorry.”

“I said I think I was only gone for around 20 minutes or so, but it felt like hours really—especially since it was so dark, I might’ve been walking in circles.”

“Oh, right..”, you respond quietly, yet Fuyumi seems to catch on to your abrupt change in attitude.

“Are you okay, you seem pretty out of it?” A worried glance follows her question.

“Yeah, Yeah. I’m fine, I—“, you shut your eyes for what feels like a few seconds.

Just a few seconds, you’re certain…

✦✦✦✦

“What?” Fuyumi’s mouth is slightly agape now, eyebrows retreating to her hairline and the whites of her eyes exposed.

“I’m fine”, you repeat but it feels like you’ve forgotten something—like time has passed but you're not sure how much.

“No, before that—I’m confused, what made you say that all of a sudden.”

“I didn’t say anything—”

“You did. I asked what you were thinking about and you said ‘someone else’ with a disgusted look on your face.” Her lips quiver a little at that.

“That can’t be”, your head begins to shake on its own. “How could I have said that when I don’t remember you asking that question in the first place?”

For a moment, her features twitch toward the center, but she soon looks away, eyes glistening and ear tips glowing crimson.

“I don’t even understand what you meant by that a-a-and now—”, her voice cracks as she's cut short by tears. “You’re acting as if you never said it.”

You can only watch at first, too befuddled to string together the right words.

“I’m sorry”, you finally attempt to ease her worries. “Everything’s been…so weird since the trip, but I’m not lying to you. I may not remember, but I know I’d never say anything to purposely upset you.”

She seems temporarily appeased by your response, but you don't want to trouble her any further.

“I’ll take care of the cleaning, you should get some sleep”, you offer, hastily gathering the dishes to begin cleaning them straight away, she returns to bed at your advice.

The scorching water that passes through your fingers does little to keep you grounded in reality as you comb through your memories to process what transpired.

You don’t remember.

No—what Fuyumi claimed you said doesn’t sound like you at all.

It couldn’t have been you. Something or someone must’ve taken hold of your body—you felt it, a brief fog before you faded away to the backseat of your mind.

And the albino rabbit is the first culprit you can think of, but to pin it all on a creature you aren’t sure even exists is absurd.

It’s too early to tell, but the feeling of alienation that accompanies the idea of having a secret side of yourself is one you’ve never felt before.

What if you have more instances of you potentially uttering words that go against your ideals while never knowing what led you to say them, or sometimes what was even said?

Losing control is…frightening.

It can’t happen again, you mustn’t speak until you regain control, or at least determine the root of it.

Despite your suggestion, Fuyumi still hasn't gotten a wink of sleep, tossing and turning beside you in silent increments.

You want to say something, but every attempt you make to reassure her is quickly caught between your cheeks, after all you don't have an answer. What good will false understandings do in the end?

It’s best to sleep you think, and you drift beside her, at last.

✦✦✦✦

Rumi. Rumi. Rumi.

Her name sticks and drips from your tongue like syrup.

You feel as though it’s been intrinsic to you all along.

You just hadn’t noticed it yet.

She smiles, teeth pointed and glistening, and your skin flushes to life as if you’ve been dead since the beginning.

You arouse from your dream only to wish your eyes never parted.

But then the warmth of your girlfriend beside you snaps you right out of it.

That couldn’t have been the real you—you would never betray Fuyumi.

You love her, more than you’ve ever loved anyone before.

It was just a warped reality crafted by your fear-stricken mind—yes, dreams tend to implant and intensify feelings that never existed initially.

That must be it.

It's evening. Fuyumi stirs gently in her sleep suspended between unconsciousness and consciousness but she ultimately reaches the cusp of being awake.

“Hey, you up?”, you whisper, trying to rouse her.

“Mhmm”. She faces away from you with her eyelids still closed.

“I’m gonna get us something to eat, any suggestions?”

“Mmm”, she grumbles softly once more.

“Rumi?” You ask in hopes she answers this time.

She replies just as sleepily, “Ruumi?”

Your heart nearly swoops from your chest. “Yumi, I meant.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll just look for something downtown, see you in a bit”, you say lastly before taking off on the road.

When you get there, the streets are brimming with stationary cars, some returning from another day's work while others roam the roads with the same intentions as you.

Driving allows another opportunity for wandering thoughts, and your mind welcomes the most grievous of them despite your refusal.

The stoplights gradate from bright yellow to just as bright ruby when you decide you feel…empty.

Your true home isn't confined within cement structures and walls—being amongst the woods is what you crave, and while it was scary at first, leaving it gave you time to realize how much you miss it.

You hear the tree's gentle coos as they ride the breeze from somewhere far away, urging you back in convincing whispers, traveling from your ear to your synapses and welding themselves there.

But the thought of leaving Fuyumi behind fills your heart to the brim with stone, your chest heaving to rid the weight of betrayal.

Maybe home isn't too bad as long as she's there as well…

You return with dinner a half hour later, just as promised, steaming rice and curry in hand. Fuyumi has already placed the silverware and she begins plating a portion for the both of you.

The kitchen lamp above casts a halo along the ivory strands across her cheeks as they shape her delicate, yet furrowed features, and it has you smiling gently despite her never noticing it.

She’s always been so…lively, and it’s so easy to see, especially up close; glowing blue-bordered irises so enthralled by the littlest of things.

Dinner will be calm, you think as you gently shut your eyes once basking in the scenery….Yes, the day will end as smoothly as it began…

✦✦✦✦

Your hand rests tightly on a steering wheel the moment you part your eyes.

A gap in your memory is evident, but you can't bring yourself to care.

Flashes of Fuyumi's wet, sticky cheeks ring behind your eyes, her lips parted and nose blemished with scarlet hues.

You can't bring yourself to care.

You drive for hours, following the roads despite not knowing where they’ll take you.

Little do you know, you are unconsciously guided to the forest she inhabits.

Rumi.

Her essence flows throughout your body, silky and smooth.

You can't feel the ground beneath you as you drift toward her in avid steps, weightless as all doubts slip from your limbs—you'll reach her any minute now.

The path to her seemingly unveils itself; branches twisting and coiling away from certain parts, and rocks tumbling to collect at the edges.

You reach her terrain, and go rigid; your nerves jostling beneath your skin at the sight of her while your insides knot in a mixture of glee and awe.

Her nude form stands proudly on a rock amidst a sea of glowing moss, which stretches past the cave's entrance and illuminates her figure and the pale hairs across her body.

“I’ve been expecting you”, she purrs softly, yet her voice still lingers in your ears like an echo way past the moment it trickles from her lips.

“What did you do to me?”, you meekly manage to muster the question while under her intimidating glare.

Her lips become upturned, with her pointed fangs most prominent.

“Come”, she beckons you without raising a finger.

Your body moves mechanically toward her, and upon closing the distance, she seems to hover over you akin to a deity, gloriously granting you an opportunity to relish in her presence, her assertive aura unwavering.

Your lips are at level with her core, the glossy folds twinkling with golden undertones and emitting a potent, unfamiliar aroma. The first waft is sweet and sharply so, sending a tingle up your nostrils with each breath, but it fades away into something you can’t quite place—addicting in a way that keeps your thoughts looping for what it may be.

“You want this, don't you?” Her palm delicately rests against your check, and the clashing of her skin with yours sends heat flaring across your features.

“Yes, please.” The plea slips along your tongue without so much as a thought, lust-blown irises batting upward for approval.

“Say it, and you'll be mine”, her tone droops, low, husky and into the wind.

And with the growing heat inside you, you have no choice but to follow her command. “I want you, Rumi, no one else”, you utter, relinquishing your fate to the whims of a borderline goddess.

She obliges with tender but swift movements, claws interlocking at the base of your skull to pull you forward, and you're overwhelmed with her scent, nose burrowing into the hair near her clit as your lips become slick with her juices.

Her intoxicating fragrance surrounds you in a thick cloud, permeating your better judgement with want.

A bit of her arousal seeps past your teeth and onto your tongue. The taste is entrancingly tangy as it satiates a hunger that is unknowingly subdued deep within you.

With more eager smacks and slurps, your mouth is increasingly sticky with spit and her fluids, you gather her flavor hoping to quell the damp spot that’s also growing between your legs. It amplifies into a near untamable throbbing, yet your hands scramble to find purchase on her thighs, too enraptured by the task at hand to ever relieve yourself with a fumble of your fingers.

Your tongue makes desperate motions across her cunt, chasing the rush of endorphins that accompany each of her half-murmured praises and gasps.

As she inches toward climax, the grip on your scalp becomes bruising, but the pain isn’t enough to dissuade you from bringing her to release, in fact you welcome it as it meshes with your pleasure in a masochistic manner.

She lets out an appreciative cry that makes your skin tingle before clamping around you in a final arch of bliss. She twitches gently as you continue to lap at her throughout it, then releases you from her hold with a smile.

The view from below is alluring; her clumped wisps clinging to her glowing, damp skin, plump lips parted and heaving while her hungry glare mimics the sparkle of rubies in a pool of black.

You get it now—those moments where she can never seem to leave you be.

This has always been the true you.

You’ve felt this way since the beginning, you just hadn't noticed it before.

[underthehedge]

Ok time to learn about Pancrustacea

Right so I've explained on that "don't eat cicadas if you're allergic to seafood" post a bit but I love a weird factoid so: Insects are actually a weird subgroup of crustaceans.

"But how?!" I hear you cry, "what forbidden knowledge is this? surely it cannot be true!" I imagine you say because I've decided you're all incredibly melodramatic about Arthropod taxonomy like I am. First things first, let's start with some key players.

Arthropoda - a group of animals with exoskeletons and jointed (arthro-) legs (poda), your bugs your crabs your spiders your millipedes etc. Nature's crunchy bois.

Hexapoda - insects, springtails and a couple of other small arthropods, all notable for having six (hexa-) legs (poda). Flies, cockroaches, ants, moths, get stickbugged etc.

Crustacea - a massive group of arthropods that includes crabs, lobsters, water fleas, copepods, woodlice, brine shrimp, seed shrimp, scuds, mantis shrimp, barnacles and also a bunch of secret ones you've likely never heard of. Nearly all of them live in the water.

Chelicerata - not so relevant here but that's your spiders, your scorpions, your ticks, your mites, also now found to apparently includes horseshoe crabs which is a bit of a mind fuck.

Myriapoda - Centipedes and millipedes and a couple of their less famous cousins, name means "ten thousand feet" which is a bit of an overstatement but these lads sure do have a lot of legs.

Ok so if you don't know how Cladistics works, well you can google that but briefly, taxonomists organise groups of animals by descent: who's closest related to who. Groups can be monophyletic, polyphyletic or paraphyletic, but the only valid taxonomic units are monophyletic ones. I'll put a short explanation under the cut, with pictures and alt text.

Aaaanyway, so there are many different groups in the Arthropoda and their relationships to each other is A Whole Thing, taxonomists have been puzzling and fighting over it for centuries at this point. Traditionally, morphological analyses have come up with various possible configurations for the trees, like grouping Hexapods with Myriapods into Tracheata because they both breath through tracheae as opposed to Crustaceans which breath through gills. Alternatively, based on some shared features of the simple eyes it was the Crustacea and Hexapoda that were in fact sister groups, which they called Pancrustacea; there were good arguments for both. There have been a lot of competing theories but genetic data is much easier to obtain now and has confirmed and refuted many of the well reasoned theories based on morphology alone, which is great.

It's also sometimes throwing a rather exciting hand grenade into the fruit salad of existing theories, as with the Pancrustacea hypothesis. In the 2000s people started to work on that, collecting genetic data for key genes and comparing them across groups, building trees and finding that...wait what? Pancrustacea was right, but also, it wasn't. Pancrustacea clearly formed a monophyletic clade but uh, not quite how people thought it would.

Genetic data showed that Hexapoda are definitely not the sister group to Myriapoda, but they were also not a sister group to Crustacea, because when you work out the trees they're sat firmly within the Crustacea as a sister group to either the Remipedia, Branchiopoda or Cephalocarida.

Remipedes are weird centipede looking swimming crustaceans that are found in coastal cave systems, they're small, blind and kinda elegant if you go look up a video.

Cephalocarida are weird tiny looking buggers that live buried in mud, grow no more than 4mm long and generally look a bit like a worm. Some phylogenies put these with the others and other's say they go with the crabs instead. Idk.

And then there's the Branchiopoda, a large group that you're probably familiar with if you've ever raised sea monkeys, triops, fairy shrimp etc. They live in a number of habitats but almost all prefer temporary pools and lay special eggs that can survive desiccation.

These are all undeniably Crustaceans but...they're all apparently closer related to Hexapods than they are to crabs and lobsters for instance. The exact relationship is kinda fucky to work out, even with genetic data but it's kinda like people looked at humans and great apes and said "ah, we are similar to them, they are a group and we are the sister group to that" except eventually it turned out that, despite superficial similarities between the chimps(and bonobos) and gorillas, actually, humans and chimps are closer related so we're not cousins to the great apes, we are literally great apes.

So either Hexapods are crustaceans or we have to evict like, half of all Crustacean classes from Crustacea.

Ok so in this imaginary tree, A, B, C and D form a monophyletic group all descended from (1). A and B also form a smaller monophyletic group descended from (2), and likewise for C and D from (3). Shit nests like Russian dolls.

If you decided to group A, B and D together though, that would be a paraphyletic group as it doesn't include all descendants of (1), excluding C for no good reason. This has happened a lot in the past before new information has come to light, it is not a valid taxonomic unit but the names are sometimes preserved out of habit, e.g. most people don't include birds when they say "reptile", but birds are totally in that group.

If you decided to make a group from B and D because you think they look kinda similar that's a polyphyletic group, like grouping birds and mammals because they're both warm blooded. This is not a valid taxonomic unit at all.

[mrs-theirin]

also! you still havent told me about eden's exes *nudge wink*

only took me a full year 🤡

all the others (& you)

ship: hawke x varric (among others) wc: 1,494 rating: t notes: it’s about all of eden’s relationships what more could you want

[AO3 link]

age 4 

Frayed, dirty, and perfect. Dust collects on her stuffed animal like cobwebs in an attic. 

A tiny Eden Hawke wraps her small hands around his knitted face and calls him, “bubby,” baby-speak for, “boyfriend”. She loves him. She loves him as she loves cake, as she loves bubble baths, as she loves when her father creates explosions from his staff, orange and red and yellow sparking in a dance of flame. 

When the neighbor runs away from her, screaming about danger Eden doesn’t understand, she’s forced to leave Bubby in that same attic, collecting cobwebs like the rest of it all. It hurts just as bad as any breakup.

~

age 9 

Now taught to be cautious around others, Eden is scared to speak. A goddess with golden hair and eyes as green as emeralds walks by her home every day, and she is enraptured. She doesn’t understand what she feels, not really, but she stares, bright blue eyes following the girl as she passes.

On a day where the sky opens up and rain pours from the clouds, the girl slips. Ever helpful, Eden rushes to her aid, helping her to her feet with blush spreading as far as her neck. Hands brush. The girl’s normally sunny hair is darkened with mud and Eden sees her for what she really is, an angel fallen from grace. Dirtied from the mud, the girl looks much more human.

Attainable. 

They have a short relationship, but a sweet one. Neither realize the gravity of their quick pecks on the cheek or playful hand holding. When the girl moves to a new home, Eden feels hollow and alone. Her angel has returned home, and she is shackled back to the cold, dark house, instead being directed to the role of big sister. The twins are two years old now, after all. Someone has to look after them.

~

age 14 

With the new ability to control her magic, Eden is allowed a little farther out of the house. Only permitted to roam the grass fields beside their home, she frolics, relishing in the way the tall grains of wheat tickle her skin. 

When two brown eyes peek out at her through the grass, the same color as his skin, she screams and falls to the ground. A wide, gap-toothed grin follows, and a warm hand helps her to her feet, steadying her as she regains her balance. He’s 16, old enough to wander out by himself, he says. She wouldn’t know, she replies. 

“Can I show you something?” he asks. 

Daring a quick glance at her house, uneasy, she nods slowly, tightening her grip on his hand as he drags her away, running at top speed. With her feet pounding against the ground, her black hair flying in the wind, the wheat whipping against her skin, she has never felt more alive. He is not just showing her what it is to be free from her house, he’s showing her what it’s like to be free. Free of worry, free of cares, free of responsibilities. He whisks her away to a secret spot by the water and returns her a different girl.

When it’s discovered Eden has been running off unsupervised for months—and with a boy, no less—she’s forbidden to leave the house. The boy looks for her every now and then. One day he stops coming.

~

age 15 

A girl with hair as red as the fire Eden can conjure replaces her last, and Eden is as grateful as one can be. Soft kisses shared behind bales of hay enlighten her. Nights of brushing each other’s hair, hands gentle and caring, hushed giggles falling from their lips. She is beautiful.

I love her, Eden thinks, and for once in her life, she is sure. 

When the girl makes snowflakes with her magic, Eden is certain. She understands. She won’t run. She won’t scream. She channels the same energy Eden does, beautiful and bright, warm and cold and free. Papa warns Eden of the danger of their magic, but she doesn’t mind. They’re safe. In the hidden reaches of the Hawke barn, they’re safe. No Templar can touch them there.

When her love calls, she comes. When she beckons, she obliges. So young and hopeful, they feel as if they'll float together forever. 

Eden feels the weight of a thousand pounds settle on her chest when her love is taken away, finally revealed as a mage, and swears she’ll never love another the way she loved her.

~

age 17 

Brown hair that falls in front of his eyes like waves, eyes as dark and stormy and blue as the sea, lips as pink as a ripe peach; Edward Colmes is a god among men. A perfect gentleman, poised and refined, with a grin as charming as his speech. Eddie, he says. Call me Eddie. 

Eden is trapped. 

His mouth casts a spell of its own, without magic, filling Eden’s head with thoughts of love and devotion. In just a few months, Eddie has Eden wrapped around his finger tight. In a moving sea of danger, uncertainty, and doubt, Eddie is her shore. 

It takes three years to notice anything’s wrong. 

Eddie’s hands are possessive, not caring. Eddie’s eyes are predatory, not loving. His mouth is devouring, not gentle—devouring like the ocean during a tsunami, destroying everything in its path, looking as beautiful as ever as it does so. Being around Eddie is like being in a haze, surrounded by fog that seeps within and creates doubt, that turns thoughts into vague ideas, that twists resentment into need of reassurance. Eden loses possession of her thoughts, handing them over to Eddie with apologetic fervor. 

When she’s 21 years old, her father pulls her aside. “Songbird,” he warns, warm brown eyes gentle and worried. “That boy’s no good for you.”

Instead of listening, she locks the door to Eddie’s cage herself, content to be caged for the rest of her life. Eddie visits with another’s lips whispering across his own, and she pretends not to notice. Eddie is gentle when he murmurs, “Edie,” into her ear, his kisses anything but gentle as he moves down her neck, to her chest, and below. 

He is slow and tender and kind when he touches her, his thin fingers trailing down her uncorrupted body, and he is even sweeter when he is the first to take her. To claim her as his. He is all of these things, and yet, Eden feels a dark nest of horrible feelings and insecurities boiling in her chest, growing into a terrible pit in her stomach. 

She hears, I love you, but he says, I own you. 

She hears, You’re mine, but he says, You’re mine. 

When she’s 22, he says, I’ve found someone new, and she hears, You were never worth anything anyway.

~

age 31 

In Varric’s arms, she is worth everything. 

He lies, but not to her. Never to her. 

When her name is spoken on his tongue, it is like honey and wine and good bread shared with good friends. It’s like standing on top of a building to scream your love to anyone who will listen, it’s the rush of standing outside in a storm, it’s everything good wrapped into one little word: Eden. 

When he sees her, really sees her—not Hawke, not the Champion, not the impossible legend the citizens of Kirkwall have built up over the years—it is like being stripped of every insecurity she’s ever had, of any grief, fear, anger, any negative emotion she’s ever felt in her life. She’s a new person when Varric looks at her. 

His gaze is full of admiration. When he looks at her, there is no possession, no lust, no need for control. He is looking at her, not what he can get from her. He is looking at the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs, at the way her lips curl upwards when she’s up to no good, at the way her chest rises and falls when she’s deep in thought. 

Stolen glances across the table during Wicked Grace are enough to get her heart pounding, galloping in her chest like a wild horse. Eden doesn’t have to prove herself to Varric; he’ll love her at her highest and at her lowest, when she’s painted with purple and red, when her face is bare and her lips are that perfect shade of pink, when she’s beaten down and bloody and bruised. He loves every scar, every blemish, every weird mole, because he loves her.

And she loves him. More than Bubby, more than the blonde goddess, more than the boy in the fields, more than the red-haired mage, and certainly, definitely, more than Edward Colmes. 

More than herself. 

More than anyone can possibly love another. 

And she thinks, maybe, just maybe, all the others were worth it, if it meant she can have him now. 

[snowbellewells]

Self-Promo Sunday: “A Litter More Than They Bargained For”

Hey there friends and shipmates! I’ve taken a couple of weeks off on the Self-Promo Sunday posts, but I was looking back through some of my older pieces and found this fluffy one shot offering from a couple years ago. (It was part of the amazing @cspupstravaganza event in 2019.) I didn’t make it any cover art before, so I’ve added that to it as well. Taking place sometime post- season six; Hope is present and a toddler, but Henry is still there as well. That makes it canon divergent future fluff, I guess? Apologies if you’ve read this one before, but maybe you’ll get a little smile from revisiting it.

Also available on both AO3 HERE and on ff.net HERE

“A Litter More Than They Bargained For”

One pet she could have handled. One pet would have been perfectly manageable. A single, sweet-natured, reasonably well-behaved small pet - maybe a cat or a rabbit or even a hamster - wouldn’t have really changed anything about their lives in the seaside house or their daily routine that much. In fact, she and Killian had already been discussing a surprise for Hope in the form of a kitten from the litter her mom and dad’s barn cat had recently birthed, completely charming their pre-schooler upon her first visit to them at her grandparents’ farm.

Somehow, instead, all of Emma’s best-laid plans had been inverted and overturned, as so often seemed to happen in their chaotic magical town. When they had gone into the station that particular morning, they had found a large, mud-caked, burr-riddled dog tied to the bike rack and whining pitifully upon first sight of them. Emma was too disgruntled at the culprit for figuring out that their whole three person department were soft touches for strays as she charged foward to untie the poor beast, to even realize that the critter was already rooting into her affection. Needless to say, rather than their intended adoption, they had managed to take in a shaggy, slobbery mixed breed almost as large as a Shetland pony, with at least some Irish Wolfhound in its ancestry, according to the shelter attendant.

Gleefully mimicking that last declaration in her toddler voice, Hope had leaned over out of Killian’s arms to reach for where the huge hound lounged panting on the exam table, tongue lolling and tail thumping happily as she babbled, “Wolfie! Wolfie!” and patted along the dog’s back and shoulders as well as she could.

The thick, scruffy grey fur covering the animal’s lanky form did indeed resemble a wolf to some degree, and Kililan chuckled good naturedly at the easy moniker their daughter had seemingly bestowed. “Well, it would seem our little love has already christened her, Swan,” he commented lightly.

Emma wasn’t fooled by the casual demeanor covering her True Love’s words. She felt her last chance of finding a more suitable home for a dog of that size outside the town limits (preferably with acres for it to run) fade as she realized that her husband, as well as her little girl, was already attached. Killian wanted this dog more than he would admit.

Reaching out to stroke the gentle giant’s head resignedly, Emma reluctantly admitted to herself that the poor stray really was a sweet dog, despite her astonishing proportions and the amount of extra responsibility she herself would no doubt be taking on. “Hear that, Wolfie?” she questioned, looking the dog in the eyes rather than either member of her family, whom she could feel nearly vibrating with excitement beside her, “I guess you’re as good as ours.”

Henry only confirmed the permanence of the decision when he got home from the high school after his editors’ meeting for the school paper. Though a dog had never been something he had particularly asked for - they had spent so many of his growing up years being flung from one realm to another, either trying to rescue some member of their family, or seeking the needed magic item to fight some new villain, that it hadn’t left a lot of time for house training puppies or taking one for leisurely evening strolls. Still, as Henry came up the walk and saw Wolfie stretched out on the porch, Hope cuddled against her side and Emma and Killian curled together on the porch swing, the way her nearly adult son’s face had lit up and he’d rushed forward in excitement had shown Emma that kids didn’t really grow out of loving dogs, no matter their age.

Ruby, or perhaps the irrepressible brunette’s inner wild animal, seemed to find their new addition, and the rather obvious name Hope had latched onto, especially entertaining. Due to Wolfie’s size, the Jones clan now ate outside at the patio tables when they stopped for breakfast on the way to drop Hope off at Ashley Hermann’s Pumpkin Seeds Daycare, and before Henry took off for class and they headed on for the station. Her mother’s best friend didn’t even try to hide the fact that she saved back either bacon, sausage, or ham especially for Emma’s pet each day, laughing when after about a week Wolfie came to her the moment she exited the diner’s front entrance, before she could even reach their table, and began nosing at her pockets for the expected bounty.

However, it was Granny herself who startled them with a matter of fact question about a month after Wolfie had joined their family. The diner’s proprietress had come out to wait on them herself that morning, a real nip in the air as November neared, and explaining that Ruby was lying in for a while after the full moon the night before. Her half-spectacles perched on the very end of her nose, eyes sparkling with every bit as much pep and mischief as her exuberant granddaughter when she neared their table, sleeves rolled up to her elbows despite the chill and a pencil tucked behind one ear.

“The usual, Captain?” Widow Lucas asked with a playful nod to Killian, “or are you and your crew feeling adventurous this morning?” While awaiting their answer, she reached into her apron for her order pad, also pulling out a juicy ham bone for Wolfie.

“Here you are, darlin’ girl,” she continued, bending to offer it to their canine companion, much to Wolfie’s approving delight as she barked a ‘thank you’ and took the treat into her drooling jowls with an almost humorous care, then immediately dropped to hold it between her massive paws and began gnawing away.

When Granny stood to face them again however, a knowing smirk was painted across her face, taking their breakfast order seemingly long forgotten. “You don’t have a clue that dog is carrying a litter of pups, do you?” she asked, shaking her head at what she seemed to think was their dense naivete.

Crossing her arms, Granny watched a variety of reactions cross the four faces before her. Henry looked awed and curious, while Hope practically bounced on Killian’s knee asking, “Puppy? Puppy! We having a puppy?” 

Killian’s brows rose in surprise, and Emma was already shaking her head in disgruntled exasperation. “Really?” she sputtered, narrowly eying the diner owner as if she might be playing some sort of elaborate joke at her expense.

Then, plunking her head down to rest on her arms crossed on the table, she sighed as her daughter contiuned to chortle in delight and Henry and Hook laughed heartily, in spite of their manful efforts to hold back for her sake. “Why am I even surprised?” Emma muttered. “Of course, she is.”

***

From there, they learned that apparently the shelter owner did not have it out for them, but that it can be genuinely hard to tell when a dog is expecting until they are quite close to their due date. It also turned out that Granny’s lupine sixth sense had been right on the money. Within another couple weeks, they could see for themselves that Wolfie’s stomach was rounding and she was nesting in corners throughout the house, particularly favoring the warmth of the laundry room between the dryer and the wall. Seeing as how canine gestation was only eight or nine weeks from start to finish, and their mother-to-be was already showing, it was a bit of a scramble to prepare, knowing the litter of pups would soon be on its way.

As had become typical since Wolfie’s arrival, this too went well beyond what they had expected. On the night they returned from Hope’s Thanksgiving Play at the preschool to tiny yips and whimpers greeting them the second the door opened, the entire Jones family was stunned to discover eight small wriggling bodies jostling for place against Wolfie’s exhausted form where she lay curled into the mound of old blankets and towels they had created for her once her fixation on her laundry room nest become plain. Various rather wetly bedraggled and squirming balls of grey, black, white and mottled mixes of those three colors in coat greeted their eyes, prompting Killian to comment rather drily, “Well, now there are nearly enough of us to crew a pirate ship.” He chuckled, shaking his head, as he added, “Mayhap we can give them proper nautical names this time, rather than letting Hope call them the first word that pops from her mouth.”

“Paaa-pa!” their daughter protested indignantly, stomping her little foot on the linoleum tile and placing chubby fists on her hips. “I did not!” In her two braids, beaded headband, and fringed brown “Indian” dress from the play, she made more an adorable than a threatening sight as she intended, but Killian nodded to their daughter dutifully all the same. “My apologies, little lass. Of course you didn’t. I must have been mistaken.”

Emma rolled her eyes and shook her head at his mannered playfulness with Hope, though her heart warmed inside her as well, loving that their little girl had never known anything but a devoted, adoring, present father, who might have to be pulled back from spoiling Hope at times, but would never let her down or abandon her. The two of them could melt her every defense, just as Henry had always done. Even if it did sometimes leave her trying to be the voice of reason, Emma didn’t truly mind.

Henry, for his part, snorted inelegantly at their nonsense, crouching to pet a nervous-looking Wolfie on the head and scritch under her chin the way she liked. “Don’t worry, girl,” he mumured soothingly. “We won’t hurt them. You’re all safe here.”

Her son grew thoughtful for a moment, mulling something over, then looked up when he asked excitedly. “What if we did pick nautical names for them all? Like Jack and Jib and Scurvy?” He was grinning from ear-to-ear now, as his Author’s love of wordplay awakened - an expression Killian quickly mirrored.

“Aye, lad, those are great! And perhaps Scoundrel and Buccaneer as well?”

“Hey, hey, guys,” Emma broke in, trying to stop their now-steaming train before they got any more carried away. “Let’s not get too into naming them. The families who adopt them may not be looking for pirate dogs.”

But her husband and son were already on a roll, adding Barrie (in a nod to the Englishman who had created Killian’s literary counterpart) and Doubloon to the list of potential puppy monikers, and not paying her words the slightest bit of attention.

***

Finding homes for their doggie brood proved more difficult than Emma had hoped. If nothing else, it had worked out that they were being weaned just in time to join a family for the perfect child’s Christmas present. And, much as she had intended for them to have a quiet little tabby kitten padding after her through the house rather than a train of panting, yipping, running and tumbling balls of shedding fluff, the pups were sweet and incredibly cute. So she couldn’t understand how every time she thought she had someone poised to take one home, it fell through at the last moment.

With a sigh, she turned away from the sidewalk where old lady Hubbard was walking away. Still cradling Cutlass and Matey to her chest, one in each arm, Emma crossed the porch to sink onto the porch swing with a dejected air. She bent to press a kiss into each of their soft, fuzzy foreheads, murmuring what good babies they were and that it wasn’t their fault. Intellectually, Emma knew it was rather ridiculous to be trying to comfort two puppies who were now playfully rolling and tumbling in her lap, not the least bit concerned at the interview’s outcome. They really had been particularly good as their potential new owner had arrived to meet them; sitting calmly without barking or jumping up, sweetly licking the elderly woman’s fingers affectionately when she offered them, and looking even more adorable than usual with their coats freshly bathed and brushed, so black and silky that their fur nearly shone. All their neighbor had seemed able to focus on though was that they might get under her feet and cause her to fall. When Emma had spoken to her before, the older lady had seemed so anxious for some company now that the last of her many children had left the house, but once she had arrived to see the puppies, all she kept saying was, “I’m all alone out there. If I fell, I might lie for days, unable to get up, and no one would know.”

Emma shrugged her shoulders and ruffled the pups’ fur once again; annoyed, but not sure what to make of the situation. Standing, she was about to take the two little rascals back inside when Killian arrived home for the evening.

“They’re both still here?” he asked curiously, one eyebrow arched in question.

Something niggled at the back of Emma’s mind with his question, whispering that he didn’t seem especially suprised. Shaking her head in silent answer, Emma ushered man and dogs back into the house and headed toward the kitchen, where she still had all of the dog dishes to fill.

“Ah well, Love,” Killian replied, something about his voice just a shade too nonchalant. “Perhaps it’s for the best. As energetic as these scalliwags sometimes get,” he laughed and scratched Matey’s belly when she rolled over to bare it in supplication, “they might have proven a walking hazard to one of advanced years.”

Emma was about to question him further, shocked that Killian had hit on exactly what had stopped the potential adoption, but at that moment Wolfie and the other six of her offspring burst into the kitchen and set up a chorus of barks and howls for their dinner, toenails clicking on the floor and tails thunking against the cabinets. So it wasn’t until later that night, as she was speaking to her mother on the phone, bemoaning yet one more failed attempt at finding the pups permanent homes, that the niggling puzzle piece at last slid into place.

“Well,” Snow offered hesitantly, “I’m sorry it fell through, Sweetie, but you know Mrs. Hubbard isn’t all that steady on her feet these days…”

Suddenly, it all added up: Mrs. Hubbard’s unexpected concern with puppies tripping her up around the house, how Ashley had at first thought they might take one of the puppies, only to be convinced by someone that mice would be much more fitting for class pets at Cinderella’s daycare, and how Aurora and Philip’s second child, Hope’s little friend Rory, had suddenly decided she wanted a white Persian kitten whose hair she could put a pink bow in, “like ‘Rie from ‘Ristocats” Aurora had explained in her daughter’s own words when she’d called to tell Emma.

“Oh my word!” Emma shouted, startling her husband, kids, and the pile of dogs sprawled over them in the living room where they were watching tv. “It was you all, wasn’t it? My whole family has been working against me this entire time!”

Looking sheepishly guilty, Killian and Henry both wordlessly shook their heads in denial. Her mother floundered for a defense for a few seconds and then simply fled by ending the call. But when Emma’s eyes came to rest on her daughter, Hope merely grinned widely, a shameless glint of mischief in her green eyes, and nodded her head in confirmation.

“Why?” Emma sputtered.

“Then the puppies are all ours!” her toddler chirped happily, falling back against Wolfie’s shoulder with a giggle, to which Wolfie merely huffed at the impact, then nosed Hope a bit further from the edge of the couch, as if she had one extra pup to watch out for and was making sure the child didn’t fall.

“We’ll see about that,” Emma grumbled, staring each of them down in turn. But, when she flopped down on the armchair in the corner, trying to hold onto her righteous indignation, and Scoundrel came over to check on her, pawing at her leg until she picked him up, and then nudging his grey snout flecked with white patches into her armpit as he stretched out across her chest and promptly fell asleep, Emma was smart enough to know when she had lost the fight.

They were the family with nine dogs now - an entire seaworthy crew.

Tagging a few who may enjoy (or enjoy again!): @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @thisonesatellite @artistic-writer @hollyethecurious @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @thislassishooked @therooksshiningknight @spartanguard @shireness-says @ohmightydevviepuu @ohmakemeahercules @scientificapricot @gingerchangeling @teamhook @revanmeetra87@resident-of-storybrooke @elizabeethan @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl @stahlop @lfh1226-linda @xsajx @donteattheappleshook @darkcolinodonorgasm @winterbaby89

[darkhymns-fic]

saints

On the night of Lloyd’s fall, everything changes.

Or maybe, it just all shifted to where it should have been to begin with.

[Based off Lloyd's Side Story]

Fandom: Tales of Crestoria/Tales of Symphonia Characters/Pairing: Lloyd Irving/Colette Brunel, Lutesse, Raine Sage, Genis Sage Rating: G Mirror Link: AO3 Notes: I loved the potential of this side story (even if it's messy) and might write more for it, but for now this is what I was able to get out with my first impressions of it.

--

He woke up to the sound of crying.

Opening his eyes was a struggle, the throbbing in his head so persistent, like someone forever knocking on a locked door. At first, he wanted to keep them closed, hoping the darkness would help somewhat. But it still came to him in even rhythms, still knocked and knocked, until finally Lloyd had to let the light inside.

The house he was in… he didn’t recognize. The ceiling covered in crossing wooden beams, the oak finely polished to a near shine. Yet still, the knocking wouldn't cease. If only he could stop thinking…

Near the ceiling were the tips of bookcases, and of course, they were filled with books, their bindings ranging from pristine to frayed. Sometimes there were figurines on the shelves, of tiny animals mostly, seeming to have been designed by a careful hand.

They weren’t important.

Instead he looked to his left, to a girl that was seated at his bedside – and only then did he realize he was lying in a bed, the covers tucked up to his chin. Something was also wrapped around his forehead, though he could barely see what.

She saw he was awake, blinking the tears from her eyes. “Lloyd?” she called, moving closer. Oh. It was her hand on his head, so soft. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingers, how they helped make the throbbing lessen, even if just for a little bit. “Does it hurt? Are you okay?”

Maybe just then, he was still too hurt to say anything. Or maybe he did, and he’d forgotten.

But he remembered looking at her, watching her cry, and thinking, I’m sorry.

He didn’t know why he thought that, but still, he knew he was the reason for her tears. He must have fallen asleep right after, lulled by the warmth of her hand. Never had he known what it was like to be safe like this.

That had been Lloyd’s very first memory.

.

.

.

--

When Lutesse had been told of Lloyd’s fall, she hadn’t moved from her study. Not right away, at least.

“Is the wound serious?” she had asked of the messenger, eyes still focused on her work – a great tome that she penned into, words carefully scribed, leaving no blots of ink in their travel. Raine had always admired the woman for her studiousness, her dedication to her people, to keeping their isolated village intact, and for accepting both her and her little brother in.

Still, she had thought the elven matriarch would have raised her head up at the news.

“It very well may be,” she said, hand clutching at her staff. She remembered how light Lloyd had felt when she carried him, how different his face looked from before… “His fall was a long one, but he must have grabbed onto the cliff side at one point. It looks like he’s suffered from a concussion. I have him at my home currently, if that is alright.”

Lutesse continued to write in her book, her robes barely making a wrinkle as she sat at her chair.

“I’ve given him as much healing as I can,” Raine continued.

Lutesse finally placed down her pen on the desk, turned her gaze to the half-elf.  “Then all there is left is time. I trust your talents, such as when the Chosen had been injured.” The praise she would give her was always wonderful, yet right now, it was hard to appreciate, remembering the shaking of a small boy in her arms, how the blood fell from the gash on his head… It had been harder than usual to close it up with First Aid…

“Speaking of the Chosen, I have not seen her today.” There was no question being asked, yet Raine heard it in her tone.

“She is also at my home, with Lloyd.” Another grip on her staff. “She feels…responsible for his fall.”

Lutesse raised an eyebrow. “Ah, now it all makes sense. Perhaps this is karmic retribution for what he has done to the Chosen.”

Raine held back any expression from her face. She had…said something similar when Genis and Colette had called to her. Of the gods and their ways of punishment. Only now did she taste the bitterness of it. “Perhaps,” she repeated, yet could not resist adding, “But he is only a child still.”

“And our ways during childhood shapes us. Maybe even more so for humans.”

Then why…? Raine was quick enough to hold her tongue. “Yes, of course.”

She half-expected orders from Lutesse to bring Lloyd to her home, or to a healing place within the village. She fully expected her to order the Chosen to return to her home for certain.

But instead Lutesse simply nodded and went back to her work in runic transcription. “Thank you for all that you have done for this village, Raine.”

Followed by the thoughtful scratching of pen against paper, the gentle creak of the oak chair she sat on.

Seeing that as her cue to leave, Raine bowed, then headed out the door. At least, this would be the first time her and Genis would have company staying over for the night…

--

Colette had always been told that she was meant for much more, that she had been created in their image, her power so great that it could even rival that of a god’s, for only the elves could make something so divine.

Yet, try as she much, she couldn’t remember her very first day of being alive. Wouldn’t a god-like creation recall something so simple?

It had never been made a secret to Colette just what she was. It was clear to her when she went to the Great Pasca Tree as a child, hearing its whispers in the rustling of its leaves. No elf or human could read the mana as well underneath their senses, not like she could. It was in the way everyone surrounded her, a respectful distance away, wherever she went, and always following Chief Lutesse.

It was the respect one gave to a holy structure, to a sacred altar – not to a living, breathing person. But then again, she was not a person. Once, long ago, she did not mind. She couldn’t mind at all. A Chosen like her did not need feelings.

Though she could not remember her first day of living, she could remember something else – of when she had first lied.

As she stood before the Tree, the warm bark underneath her hand, Lutesse had asked her, “Do you hear its lament?” The elven woman was regal in her bearing, but her eyes holding so much less. Colette could feel it, like ice pricking her skin. “Do you hear its cries, Chosen?”

She did not tell Lutesse about how the Great Pasca Tree was enjoying the sunshine, how it thought Colette’s hand tickled at its trunk. She did not speak of how the Tree could feel the skitters of squirrels over its boughs, and only hoped that the birds making their nests on it could do so with a bit more gentleness.

So instead, she nodded to Lutesse, and said, “Yes, of course.” She knew, somehow, that was the only acceptable answer.

But hearing the thoughts of trees on the wind was not useful to her now, not their musings of the world at large, or their eagerness of the storm they could feel brewing in the currents, giving them much coveted rain.

The Great Tree could not tell her if Lloyd would be alright.

“Colette, you’re still here?” Genis had asked of her, staying a few feet away from the bed that Lloyd laid in. It happened to be Genis’, one that Raine had said would be better for his size. The boy had been huffy on that but didn’t voice any obvious complaints. “Sis said she would take care of him.”

Colette, seated in a small chair that Raine provided, said nothing, just squeezing Lloyd’s very still hand. “I want to make sure that… he’s…”

“But… but he tried to kill you!” Genis shouted suddenly. She could hear the strangled gasp in his throat. “I…I mean…”

No, because that was true, wasn’t it? Until she had tripped instead.

“Sorry… I can go and make us some food and just…” Genis said little else. He couldn’t, and so walked away, leaving the room quietly, until his footsteps were followed by the soft clicking of the door.

Colette wondered what was wrong with her.

She gripped Lloyd’s hand so tightly, her thoughts feeling so fuzzy and weak.  What could she have said to Genis? How could she tell him what she saw as Lloyd fell? It was my fault. If only I wasn’t clumsy…

And did it even make sense for a divine creation to do something so simple as tripping over a root, to barely miss the hands that just brushed her shoulders before falling over the edge? No, it could only mean that she had done so on purpose. That she had wanted to make Lloyd fall after all that he had done to her; pulling at her hair, calling her names… getting closer to her than anyone ever had.

The fear she saw in his eyes as he fell changed her then. And suddenly, she was crying for the very first time. It was strangely so very relieving.

She kept crying, even as she saw his eyes open for a brief moment, saw the way he looked at her then before he fell right back to sleep.

How the glaze in them, along with that fear, was gone.

--

When Lloyd had been found, he had been curled up underneath the Great Pasca Tree, his shirt frayed, his brown hair dirty with mud and twigs.

Humans were not allowed near the Village of Keepers, but Lutesse had halted the guard’s swords, drawn to silence the yelling of a child who looked to be no older than eight years, who scurried back until his back hit the trunk of the giant Tree. One guard noted he held no vision orb around his neck, which was an oddity all on its own.

It irked her, for a human to taint something so holy and sacred with their presence, but she held herself back as well. As she looked into Lloyd’s eyes, she saw something hollow, something very painful… and so very useful.

“Have him cleaned up and deliver him to my home,” she had instructed, looking down at the boy for just a moment longer before turning away. “Do not harm him.”

She had heard the echoes of protests, saw it in her retinue’s faces before biting it away. Oh, how she understood, but they could not see the possibilities of the future such as she. They could not fathom that even a worthless human could be a key for their own glorious destinies.

In short time, Lloyd was placed within a room, complete with the comforts one needed, but when she went to him, he was merely seated on the floor, knees tugged into his chest. His clothes were clean and well-presented, but his hair was still unruly, making her frown. Whether the blame could be assigned to her people tasked on cleaning him up, or the boy himself, she couldn’t really determine just yet.

She went to retrieve a comb on a nearby dresser, then walked towards him, deftly grabbing him by the arm to lift him to his feet. “On the bed. We will get those tangles out.”

“L-Let go!” the child shouted. But her appearance belied her strength, and so the boy was unable to break free. She pulled him to a seat beside her on the carefully arranged bedsheets, then went to run the comb’s teeth through a forest of russet knots and twists. A whimper left his throat, followed by a glare at her.

“Move your head,” she ordered, one hand on his chin to make him face forward. But she had seen the look in those eyes; more filled with pain than hatred, something that the boy had been taught.

Humans always did breed ugliness in their own kin.

“Your name,” she demanded as she continued to brush, seeing tears pinprick at his eyes as she did so. “You must have one.”

Small hands clenched at his knees, fingers pulling at the fabric of his shorts, but he didn’t try to struggle. He bit his lip, looking pointedly away. “Lloyd.”

She nodded. “Suits you,” she said. Another tug at the brush, but Lloyd tried his best not to whine. “We found no one else nearby. Do you know of where your parents may be?”

Nothing from Lloyd, again just looking forward, letting her continue with her small torture of hair detangling.

Or did they send you here? she questioned, but not aloud. Of course, it all made sense to her that the Order would be involved in this. But the barbaric ways of humans were always so plainly obvious – the latest being about their fascination with exterminating so-called Transgressors. Such self-destructive beings, like a snake eating its very own tail.

“If you can’t remember your parents, or your home, then it seems you have no other place.” She gave a smile, small and barely imperceptible. “You will stay here.”

She saw a conflict within Lloyd’s expression; a mixture of relief, of dread, of pain once more. If her suspicions were correct, this would be the best outcome for him and those who raised him. But also… the ugliness of humanity all residing in this one child. What better way than to show the Chosen what meaning her sacred duty had?

A sword must weather fire and tension before becoming strong. This would be for her own good – if she survived this lesson.

“Then it is settled,” she announced, finished with her brushing. The boy’s hair was still not perfect, for it curled in peculiar waves, but she decided it was for the best. Another sign of the chaotic nature of humans. “The hour is late, so be sure to rest up for tomorrow.”

She made to leave, but then saw his eyes flick to her, for a moment, different once more.

“Why… are you being nice to me?”

Again, that confusion and pain within him. He seemed to struggle to get the words out, as if something held him back, something unnatural. Perhaps there were healing artes that could rectify such a thing… but no, this was to her advantage. Besides, it would be educational to see the effects of whatever Lloyd had been through to see played out before her.

“It is our duty to extend aid to those in need,” she said, intoning an old elven adage, albeit an adage that was only meant for elves. And with that thought, she decided to ask Lloyd a question of her own. “And you know what I am, do you not?”

Lloyd hesitated, hands gripping the mattress beneath him. “An elf.” He paused. “You’re all elves.”

Ah, was the venom in his voice natural? Or another of the vile lessons bestowed on him? It didn’t matter. He would be useful either way.

“We are,” she confirmed for him, brushing back a lock of his brown hair from his forehead, only to have it spring back to the front again. She shrugged. “And you will learn to live with that reality, Lloyd.”

But that was then, barely a year ago. Now, Lloyd was not here. He was staying at Raine’s, sleeping away an injury, with the Chosen by his side.

Lutesse had gone to his room, seeing his unkempt bed (despite how much she had told him to keep it fixed) the wooden swords laying against the bedside, the figure of a woodland bird on his desk, one that he had silently asked Lutesse to purchase from an elven merchant in a rare moment of quietude.

Either way, there was no real loss. They would continue with their plans, teaching the Chosen to manipulate the Trees correctly. She had already seen the worst of what humanity could be, all through the actions of Lloyd. She did not deny for a moment that his fall was an attempt on the Chosen’s life.

If the Chosen had died this night through his actions, it would simply be a hinderance. They would make another creation, this time with steadier feet. And if Lloyd died this night-

If he died… it would not matter.

Still, Lutesse stayed at the doorway to his room, remembering the feel of his hair underneath his fingers. Sometimes, the boy would have nightmares while he slept, and she would simply stay at his side, bidding him to sleep so that she could finally rest herself.

She would only know in the morning what his fate was. It’s karmic retribution, she had thought firmly.

Yet, throughout the night, she could not sleep.

--

Genis had been the only one besides Colette to have seen Lloyd’s fall.

It was hard to be close to the sullen child, to one who would barely say a word and keep to himself. Genis had heard the other elven children talk about humans, and with the only human he had ever seen acting just as the stories said; bitter and withdrawn, with a rashness to his actions that made him seek out Colette, Genis had thought he had known all there was to Lloyd’s nature.

But he didn’t understand what Colette had seen in him.

The Chosen had always been different herself, always pointedly separated from the other children. Lutesee, who retrieved the girl from her classes for her own lessons, kept that separation intact. But where the Chief would appear, the boy named Lloyd would soon follow.

Lloyd didn’t seem to care about the sacred distance, always crossing over a line and getting too close, reaching for anything of the Chosen to grab or push.

And Colette would never pull away, eyes drawn to him instantly over everything else.

It was at the Great Pasca Tree where he had found them both. Genis had gone searching for the Chosen, an inquiry from his sister as the hour was getting late. Colette almost always hung around the Tree, even after her lessons on the tuning of the Great Trees had been completed for the day. He didn’t talk with her much, half-worried he would be in the way, half-concerned that the human part of him would infect her somehow.

But not only Colette was there. Lloyd was too, standing beneath the tree, craning his head up to see the branches. Colette had been standing right behind him, the wind ruffling her hair, showing off her pointed ears.

Genis could not hear what they were saying to each other, or if they were saying anything at all. The sunlight was in his eyes, colored pink from being so close to the horizon. Colette was moving closer to Lloyd, and when Lloyd turned, the shadows of the leaves above him seemed to cover his face. But Genis remembered how often the boy would hassle Colette, how he’d push her down, or reach for her hair to pull roughly. Sometimes, it would take an elven guard to slap the boy’s hands away.

Colette was too close to him, and in his fear, Genis shouted, “Look out!”

Lutesse had taught them that humans couldn’t be trusted. It didn’t make Lloyd any different, even if she took him in. Even if she…

Colette turned towards him, and suddenly Lloyd shook his head, something painful in his eyes that could now be seen. His hands, as if they were being pulled from him, reached out to Colette to grasp her by her hair once more.

And then Colette slipped out of his grasp and ran. Lloyd followed, and soon Genis followed too, the incantations to fire spells hovering on his tongue. But he was still learning his magic artes and couldn’t remember just how it went…

All three ran down through the forest, past the glades and meadows, until they reached the edges of cliffs, until Genis had to brush away large grass stalks to finally get to them both.

It must have been a miracle from the gods, to have Colette suddenly dodge from Lloyd’s hands, to have him fall from where he had meant to push her into instead. Genis had at least thought so, seeing their work at play just then, as if a hand had pushed Lloyd over instead, while nudging Colette out of the way.

But Colette, the Chosen, didn’t seem to think so. It made Genis question so much more than he was comfortable with at his age.

Once Raine was home, he had seated himself at the kitchen table with her, kicking his feet against the chair legs, pushing away a lump of a mashed potato in his plate with the air quiet around them.

“Don’t play with your food, Genis,” Raine had said, though her tone was light, barely reprimanding at all.

“I made the food…” he argued, just as weakly back. Still, neither wanted to speak on what was unsaid, of the sacred Chosen staying with them, watching over a boy who they knew had jus tried to murder her.

He had seen it. And yet, he felt conflicted. Isn’t this what humans were like?

“Raine,” he said, his voice soft compared to the night wind blowing outside. “Was this supposed to happen?”

His sister took a long time to respond, that at first, he thought she hadn’t heard. But when he raised his head, she had a pensive look on her face, eyes occasionally glancing back towards the door that led to the room where…

“It just happened,” she told him. “We’ve healed him, and now all we can do is wait.” Raine reached out to stroke her brother’s hair, eyes gentle. “Nothing more.”

Genis wasn’t satisfied with the answer, but he would have to accept it. Raine didn’t like it when he went against her too often.

He wondered why the gods could be cruel sometimes.

--

When Lloyd slept, all he had dreamed of was something so dark. Not like the way the moonlight would shine through his bedroom window, making him feel slightly calm, or the way the shadows of that giant tree near the village would fall over his face when he looked up at it. This was the darkness of a cramped room, the shadows of hands keeping him still, all while his head continued to ache and ache.

And then suddenly, the headache was gone.

Lloyd woke up once more, this time to that darkness that was much more comforting than the other. He could see the moonlight peeking outside through the branches of nearby trees, but noted how much smaller this window was. He blinked again, wondering at this room, at this place with all its unfamiliarity.

He turned, and found Colette next to him, seated on a small chair, head laying on the bed. Her hand was still against his forehead, still so soft and warm. It shifted the linen bandage wrapped around him, its knot tied to the left side.

“Colette?” he whispered, feeling so weak, remembering when she had cried earlier.

She woke up easily, telling him that she must not have fallen deeply into sleep at all. “L-Lloyd?” she stuttered, all while her hand kept steady on him. “Lloyd…”

He wondered just then how he knew her name, how he recognized his own. But, he had to be sure. “You mean…me?”

At that, Colette blinked. Her other hand reached for his blanket, gripping it tight. “Yeah… you’re Lloyd,” she said. In the moonlight, he could see the pointed tips of her ears poking out from her golden hair. It was fascinating, making him wish he could reach out and touch them. “You had an accident, and it was… Don’t you remember?”

Lloyd furrowed his brows, tried to think about it – and was then met with a wave of pain thudding in his head. He winced. “Agh… it hurts…to think…”

Colette (a name he knows, that he keeps) continued to stroke his head, the rhythm of it already brushing away the dull pain he had been feeling. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have…” He saw her struggle once again to speak, swallowing hard. “What about Genis… or Lutesse?” Her eyes were such a wide and bright blue that he didn’t want to look away. “What about them?”

Lloyd thought on those names she said, felt something tug, but then – nothing. He shook his head. “I don’t know...”

Colette bowed her head, looking away. “It’s my fault…”

But there was one thing Lloyd knew for sure, beyond his own name and hers. He didn’t want to make her cry again.

So he sat up, doing his best to push away the heavy blanket off his shoulders and reached for both of her hands. “Hey! Why are you so sad?”

Colette raised her eyes to him, bright with tears about to form again. That gaze flicked from their interlocked hands back to his face. He saw confusion in them, which only heightened his own.

“Because…I messed up,” she admitted softly. “And you don’t remember anything.”

On some level, Lloyd knew she was right. He didn’t remember this house he was in, or the glade that lay outside of the windows. He didn’t know why he was even here at all, sleeping to the warmth of her hand on his head.

“But I remember you,” he said, feeling more confident in that than in anything else. “At least, I think I do. Is that weird?”

Colette looked conflicted, back again to their hands and to his face. She seemed to struggle with something, and it only made Lloyd want to keep reaching out to her

“You live with Lutesse… and I live with the other Keepers.” She pressed her fingers into his palm, carefully, as if this was a new sensation. “If there’s anyone you should remember, it should be her…”

“Why should it be?” he asked, almost bluntly.

Maybe it was too much, because suddenly, the tears she held back fell down her cheeks, dripped onto the backs of their linked hands.

“But it’s my fault! If I made you this way…” A sniffle, all as she tried to blink away her tears. “I didn’t mean to change you.”

Lloyd blinked, understanding – at least slightly. It was that word she used: changed.

But was change that bad?

He looked to their hands again, at the way they fitted against each other, at how tightly hers clung to his. “Maybe I don’t totally get it… but, I just know that I feel happy right now,” he said, and felt a smile on his face. Somehow, he knew that it had been a very long time since he’d done something like this. “Yeah, I feel happy. Isn’t that good enough?”

Or maybe, he was just being really dumb…

Colette stopped her tears, unable to wipe them away as they kept holding hands. But she never let go or try to slip away her fingers from his. So he saw those tears fall within this quiet room, as the wind continued to rustle the trees outside.

“You’re happy because…why?” she asked him.

Lloyd had to think on that answer carefully, because all he knew was that the fuzzy warmth in his chest didn’t leave, that it had started ever since he woke to her stroking his head. “Because you were here for me, weren’t you?” he asked her in turn. He squeezed her hands. “I don’t remember what happened before. Maybe I don’t want to… But whatever I did to make you cry, I promise to never do that again!”

He grinned then, feeling so sure of himself, more freeing than ever before. It was like something had been lifted off him, like a fog that he had never known he was living inside of in the first place.

He knew he had Colette to thank for that. He knew that so deeply in his heart, even if she didn’t believe it herself.

She cried a bit less, and Lloyd would have waited with her so patiently to wait for her to finish – until he felt a sneeze sneak up on him and had to turn his head away to the side. “Ah-choo!”

The sound was so sudden it made Colette gasp, staring at him.

“Er, sorry… Guess I got a cold or something…” Maybe that was why he was in this bed?

And something about what he said made Colette’s lips twitch, made the shine in her eyes sparkle just a little differently. Until she was finally giggling.

“You’re…really silly…”

There was that smile that he wanted, that he hadn’t known he wanted so much until right now.

“If you think a sneeze is funny, maybe you’re the silly one here!”

As he expected, it made her laugh more. Even if most of his memory was a blank, he knew he had never liked a sound so much before.

She’s such a dork, he thought, rubbing his thumbs against her hands.

Another gust of wind made him remember that it was still nighttime, that the hour was probably very late. He did have some questions on what exactly happened, on where he was, but he was also very sleepy and slightly cold. Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown off that blanket…

“Aren’t you sleepy?” Colette asked, maybe seeing the question on his face. She yawned then, and it made him wonder… How long had she been up tonight?

“I think you’re the sleepy one!” And so he scurried back just a bit on the bed, all while still holding her hands. “You can sleep here if you want.”

It only made sense to him. He didn’t want to let her go.

If Colette had any protests to it, she didn’t say it. Even as she stared at him, head tilting just a bit to the side. It showed off more of her pointed ears that he knew was different from his own. He liked those differences, wanted to know more about them.

“I should be…” she started to say, but she paused, and Lloyd used that pause to gently nudge her towards him.

“It’s okay. We can worry about stuff in the morning, right?”

Little did Lloyd know was that each word he was saying, each gentle squeeze of his hands against Colette’s was like a sun peeking through dark clouds that had covered the sky for so long. And who wouldn’t be drawn to such a sight and feel its warmth on their skin?

“Yeah!” she agreed, the lightness in her voice so new and refreshing. She practically stumbled onto the bed, nearly hitting Lloyd’s chin with her head. “S-sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it!” And Lloyd really didn’t want to worry about anything anymore. He wondered if he even could, with the smile continuing to stretch his cheeks.

It took a while but soon they both settled underneath thick blankets, in a home that wasn’t their own, in a bed that didn’t belong to either of them. Something about that made Lloyd eager and excited. When Colette laid down next to him, seeing her eyes and ears so up close, she asked him, “Does your head still hurt?”

The bandage around his head shifted again, felt a bit tender, but that was it. “Not really,” he said. “But, can you stroke my head like you did before anyway?” It had felt really nice.

Colette didn’t hesitate, already reaching out to dig her fingers in his hair, petting him so gently that it already made him so sleepy. “This is nice,” he heard her say.

Lloyd knew he never wanted to let this feeling go.

It was only in the morning that Raine and Genis went inside to see the child that was the Chosen, and the boy that had once held such hurt in his eyes, cuddled against each other in bed, both looking so small. Yet they slept peacefully, even as the sun streamed in through the window, illuminating their faces.

All throughout the night, they still held hands.

--

.

.

.

The Great Pasca Tree had been the one to find him first.

Lloyd had woken up to cold and darkness, but the branches that stretched out over him shielded him from the rain, their shivering leaves settling down the sharpness in his head. Back then, his head had always hurt, no matter what he did. Even afterwards, when Lutesse would comb his hair, when he’d be in classes, when he’d try to practice with his new swords, trying to drive out the ache that would continually dull and throb.

Except, sometimes, it would hurt less when he came to the Tree, craning his neck until he could see to the very top of it, so far back that he would have fallen backwards if not careful.

“Do you hear them too?” a voice had asked him once. The Chosen was next to him, the girl that was so distant from everyone else, the one that he was always drawn to.

But she always knew where to find him first. Behind the schoolhouse where he escaped to be alone, to the training grounds where he’d practice with the swords by himself, even to the gates of his home with Lutesse, when he’d see her searching for him…

She was clasping her hands in front of her, eyes flicking from the branches to him – seeing him, or wanting to. “Pasca says they hope you will feel better today.”

The tips of her ears poked through her hair, wishing he could just touch them instead of tugging at them, wishing he could just hold her hands instead of pulling at them both. But something about the girl made him want to know her, even through the awful pounding in his head, through the shouting that told him to do awful things.

All this time, he had felt so broken. So broken that he didn’t know what to say.

A shout from far-off made him panicked, made Colette run off, and Lloyd had only wanted to follow her. And as he left the shade of Pasca’s branches, his headache grew worse, until he felt that his very skull would shatter from the intensity.

He had rushed after her, (to push, to grab, to beg) and then he had tripped, or maybe he had meant to jump off all along to get rid of the pain that wouldn’t leave, and as he fell and fell into a chasm that seemed to stretch on forever, that made him see her face last as he went and-

He woke up to the sound of crying.

He looked to his left, to the same girl that was seated at his bedside – and only then did he realize he was lying in a bed, the covers tucked up to his chin. Something was also wrapped around his forehead, though he could barely see what.

She saw he was awake, blinking the tears from her eyes. “Lloyd?” she called, moving closer. Oh. It was her hand on his head, so soft. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingers, how they helped make the throbbing lessen, even if just for a little bit. “Does it hurt? Are you okay?”

Never had he known what it was like to be safe like this.

Never had he known what it was like to be this happy.

That had been Lloyd’s first and precious memory.

[whumpster-fire]

Athanasia Part 3: Trust Born of Desperation

Tansy’s story continues! More “comfort” except really it’s just field medicine whump because she’s still pretty terrified of John.

Tansy’s refsheet

Part 1

Part 2

CONTENT WARNINGS: Animal Whump, monster whump, mention of past animal cruelty, infected wounds, amputation mention, marginally competent caretaker, painful caretaking, potty emergency

Jonathan Markeley stared at the strange animal in disbelief. When he’d first found her, he half expected the little creature to speak to him. It wouldn’t be much stranger than anything else. He’d thought better, and dismissed it as fantasy… but there was no question she could understand him, at least more than an animal should have been able to. He watched the way she flinched at the word ‘cut,’ her ears flattening.

“Damn this night,” he muttered.

Her foreleg was near ruined, broken so badly the bones came out the skin and then left to rot until the wound was a mess of pus and scabs and dead skin and flesh. It should have just closed on its own, if the creature had the same power to heal from nearly any wound that he did, but in the state she was in he had a hunch she was so starved and weak that she couldn’t. And she’d bitten down on the limb like she was trying to chew through it, like she knew what he was suggesting.

He supposed he could try it right now, just the little hatchet he used to cut firewood and the old floorboards. Perhaps it was better to – he knew a wound that festered like that could go bad fast. He’d lost friends, comrades, like that. Just a small wound, but just a day later a man’s whole arm could be weeping foul pus, and another day and he’d be dead. Nothing a surgeon could do but cut it off. A hatchet was crude, but the mess she’d make of her leg trying to chew through it would be no better than the mess it was now.

He also knew that it was a terrible idea. Whether or not she was trying to get him to cut it off now, it would end with blood everywhere, and a panicked animal trapped in a small room and screaming fit to wake the dead. He still had his ears peeled in case the innkeeper’s son was on his way up after the noise she’d just made. If she was discovered, that wasn’t good news for either of them.

Better to take her out into the fields to do it. That way the poor thing would have somewhere to run. But the thought of releasing her half-starved to death and with only two good legs was heartbreaking. What would she do in that state besides starve? Now that he saw how bad the wounds were he had half a mind to bring the hatchet down on her neck instead. But he had a feeling that wouldn’t work. Not if she was like him. Not that he knew for certain that losing his head wouldn’t kill him. Probably not, but he didn’t plan to try it. And he was worried he’d end up finding out if he was caught with whatever she was. They’d put her in that cage on an executioner’s gibbet for a reason. Probably not a good one, but likely one they’d punish him over.

The sentence wouldn’t be death at first, most likely. Lashes, branding, or mutilation. But if they didn’t run him out of town before the marks healed, if they found out… witchcraft would be the first word on every tongue.

But he had to try something. He couldn’t just leave her to drown in the mud. And he’d already taken the risk by bringing her in here. He figured he’d clean and dress the wound as best he could for the night and pray that it improved or at least didn’t get worse. But he knew it wasn’t going to be easy, or pleasant, for either of them.

~~

The creature tries not to bite. She tries so, so hard, but he is pinning her down and grabbing her and wrapping a cord tight around her muzzle She thought he wouldn’t hurt her… she thought he wouldn’t hurt her! But he has to. She knows he is trying to help her, but knowing does not make the fear go away. She growls and hisses, and snaps at him, but she closes her eyes and holds still for just that terrifying moment before it is too late and she cannot bite him anymore.

He takes the tools, one by one, and holds them over the fire. She remembers the agony of being pinched and torn and cut by hot metal, and struggles and writhes in his grip, but he is too strong, and he has to bind her good legs to her body.

It hurts. It hurts so much. He is touching the wound, and digging in it with metal tools and cloths soaked in boiling water. Small pinchers pull out maggots and bits of dead skin and flesh. Shears snip away skin and fur and little bits of the jagged edges of the bones, and the hooks and blades poke and prod and scrape. She clenches her jaw so hard her teeth are nearly broken further, and writhes and thrashes around.

“Sshh… ssh… you’ve got to hold still. Hold still or it’ll hurt more.” His voice is tense with concentration. But she cannot hold still. It hurts too much… it hurts too much…

But finally it is over. He holds her leg straight and wraps it up tightly in cloth and straight bits of wood and metal. Fresh blood wets the cloth, but he wraps more over it, and the red spot stops growing eventually. It feels a little better. It has the sharp, stinging pain of a fresh wound, but the pressure on it helps some. He wraps her broken back leg like this too, after washing her again. It still cannot bear her weight, but it does not hurt quite as much anymore.

He cuts away the cords binding her legs and jaws. But she does not bite or try to run. Her weak struggles, and just the fear itself, and the cold because she is still soaking wet and it is only really warm close to the fire, have left her so tired she cannot move. If not for the constant crashes of thunder outside, she is not sure she could even stay awake. She drinks a bit more water when it is offered, but she barely thinks about it.

But he takes more dry rags, and rubs them back and forth over her fur, soaking up the worst of the water and fluffing it up. She is still damp, still shaking, but he pulls the thin blanket off one of the beds and wraps her up in it, and pulls her into his lap. He feeds more wood to the fire and sits with her next to it. The wind outside keeps howling in the chimney and stirring it and sending sparks through the room. She flinches every time, and eventually he gives up and moves her to the other bed.

The creature almost falls asleep in his arms. The pain and the noise of the wind and the storm, and the feeling that this is still dangerous to be this close to a human, slowly fade away. She is so tired… so tired… but she is roused almost too late by the nearly painful discomfort of her bladder. She does not notice the feeling at first, because it has been such a long time since it mattered. Even in the old cage there was no choice besides trying to only wet the bedding in the corner farthest from where she had to sleep, if she wasn’t hurt too badly to get up when they threw her back inside. The new cage was so small there was no choice at all. She was glad the floor was only bare wire even though it cut and scraped her paws. And they gave her so little water that she did not have to go very often.

When she does notice, it is sudden, and it almost hurts. She kicks and claws frantically at the blanket, afraid she will not even be able to get it off of her in time, and as soon as she is out of it she scrambles to the edge of the bed and crashes painfully to the floor. She has always had the instinct to only relieve herself far from the nest or burrow so predators cannot follow her scent as easily, and never, ever inside. And an ancient memory, almost forgotten, surfaces as well. This is a house, or something like a house, and she remembers that the entire inside is like a bigger nest. She limps aimlessly around the room, starting to panic. There is no way out. The door is closed and the man with the whip is somewhere on the other side, and the window is barred with wooden shutters and anyway she cannot jump that high with her leg hurt like this. They will know she is here and they will find her and do something worse like locking her in another cage and throwing it in a pond so its weight drags her down, but she cannot wait any longer!

She is about to give up and hope that a wet spot will not be discovered under the bed, when a hand stops her from going under and pulls her back. “No. No, not there, not there. Can’t believe I didn’t think of this… damn it...” The man drags something else out from underneath, a small metal basin, and holds her over it.

“Well, it’s good to know you’re housebroken, at least,” he mutters after he sets her back on the bed. “If you have to go again, wake me up. Don’t try to use it by yourself, it’ll tip over.”

She blinks slowly at him. The words are little better than noise. Her eyelids are so heavy it takes all of her strength to keep them open. She drags herself to the far end of the bed and collapses, too tired to even turn the bedding into a makeshift nest. Her fur is still damp, but she makes only a halfhearted attempt to groom one paw before she curls up and buries her face in the blankets.

It is still cold in the room. She is not shaking as badly, but she still occasionally shivers, and curls up into as tight a ball as she can. But something soft and heavy is laid over her, with just her head poking out. Slowly, the shivering stops, and sleep finally takes her.

~~

Jonathan was exhausted after the day’s journey. The storm had made travel miserable, and he’d gotten into town much later than he’d hoped. He didn’t sleep in a real bed often, and usually when he did his head barely had time to hit the pillow. But tonight he tossed and turned for a while. He was afraid his movements would wake the creature curled up at the foot of the bed, and when they didn’t he had to check twice to make sure she was still breathing before his mind let him sleep.

He still wasn’t sure what she was. He’d thought the strange creature was a cat at first, when he saw her lying there in the mud by the side of the road. But when he got closer, it was clear even in her bedraggled state that she wasn’t quite like anything he’d ever seen or heard of. He’d known from the instant he saw those eyes up close, from the instant his lantern went out and he saw that they weren’t just reflecting the light but glowing, that she wasn’t anything normal. Even then he’d thought she might have been some sort of marten or something, just… different, in the same way he was different from other people. But now that he’d gotten her cleaned up, he was sure that if she even had a kind it was nothing he’d ever seen nor heard of.

She had the long, slender body of a marten or a polecat, but she was a bit bigger – at least, as far as he could remember since it was a long time since he’d seen a marten. Probably about as long in body as a cat, but skinnier. Much skinnier right now, and she felt as light as a feather. With her fur soaked and plastered to her body with mud it was heartbreaking how the skin clung to her bones, but now that she’d been bathed and dried it was harder to tell. Her paws seemed a bit like a cat’s, but with all five toes, and longer and more spread out, and the forepaws seemed almost like they could grasp things. The claws were mostly blunted or broken, but the intact ones were hooked, and sharp as needles.

She didn’t have the tail of a polecat or even a marten, though. It was longer than her body, long enough that she could wrap it around herself like a scarf, and covered in bushy, fluffy fur with a pattern of ash-white and charcoal gray rings along its length. This pattern continued onto her body, where it became a series of dark stripes than ran approximately crosswise like a tabby cat’s, but branched and merged and broke up irregularly. At her belly they faded to speckles of gray just a bit darker than the rest of the fur, but they continued into a pattern of irregular banding on her legs.

He’d never seen an animal with a head quite the shape of hers. The snout wasn’t the broad triangular shape of a polecat or stoat; it was more slender, a little like a fox’s. The skull seemed unusually wide even with the fur slicked down, and more so now that the long, fluffy fur on the sides of her head had dried out, but long whiskers extended just as wide. Her ears were an unusual teardrop shape that was at its widest an couple inches out from her head, and tapered to a narrow, but still rounded tip. They seemed too big for her head, and twitched and swiveled when they weren’t flattened against her skull in fear.

And then there were the eyes. They weren’t the beady eyes of a stoat or polecat: they too seemed enormous even with her fur no longer slicked down. They had the same slit pupils as a cat or a fox, and were the same unfortunately-striking yellow as his own – not amber brown, but a color like the eyes of an owl or a hawk – and the iris took up the whole eye, with the white only barely showing when they moved.

There was a piercing intelligence in those eyes. He’d only caught glimpses of it, because most of the time the poor thing was on the edge of passing out, but in those moments that it was clear she understood him, her eyes were so inhuman and yet more human than any animal he’d ever seen. The way she’d cried was so human.

And they’d locked her up. They’d starved her and left her rotting alive, and by the looks of it tortured her.

It was enough to make Jonathan wish he had any of the powers he’d been accused of possessing in the past. Anything more than the power to merely stay alive.

A/N: Jonathan didn’t totally think the whole hiding a wild animal in his hotel room all night thing through. Or the attempting field medicine on a wild animal in a hotel room thing through. He’s lucky Tansy’s as well-behaved as she is.

[winterknight1087]

Hardly the Villains

Summary: Roman is the superhero Prince, who fights against the Dark Sides, consisting of Green Menace, Viper, and Shadow Wing. What happens when Roman discovers the real identity of these villains will change his outlook of them.

Word Count: 4868

Warnings: sympathetic Remus, sympathetic Deceit/Janus, fighting, injuries, cursing

Pairings: eventual romantic LAMP, romantic Demus, brotherly creativitwins, brotherly anxceit

AO3 Link       My Writing

@rosesisupposes I am so sorry this is a little bit late! 2020 ended the same way it went. But still, I hope you enjoy your @sanderssidesgiftxchange present! It was a fun challenge to work on a superhero fic focused on Roman and Remus!

"Here hold this."

The masked hero barely had time to catch the thing thrown at him, much less identify what it was, before the stick of dynamite blew up in his face. If it were any other super villain, then this would have been the end of the hero. Yet, Green Menace didn't seem to get the memo that he was supposed to try and kill the hero.

The hero let out a squawk as, for the third time this week, his face and hair were covered in cartoonish ash. He heard the cackle of the villain as Viper told Menace that they needed to go.

"Til next time, Princey." Shadow Wing announced.

“Stop flirting and let’s get out of here.” Viper stated to Shadow, not caring if the hero heard or not. The hero did hear, but he also couldn’t see Shadow’s reaction as the villain scooped up Viper and vanishing into the shadows.

"Well, this was fun!" Menace cackled before pulling a paint brush out of nowhere and painting a tunnel on a wall.

The hero knew better than to go after Menace at that point. All of Menace’s powers followed cartoon logic. He had flown straight into too many walls to know that only Menace could use those dumb paintings to travel. So, the hero sigh and flew off.

 ****

“Like honestly, does that fiend have any idea how hard it is to get that gunk out of my hair?” Roman scrubbed his hair with the towel around his head.

His boyfriend didn’t even bother looking up from his book. “I highly doubt that he knows considering that he is smart enough not to be here after your fights.”

“Sure, I have to take a shower anyways, because of normal fight dirt, but that fiend just has to give me that dumb stick and I have to spend 5ever trying to get the stuff out of my hair!”

“You could try asking him not to hand you the stick of dynamite.”

Roman gave the book Logan was holding determinedly in front of his face, the glare meant for the nerd. “Right, yeah, sure. Something like ‘Excuse me, fiend I fight at least three times a week, can you like not hand me your explosion gunk sticks? Thanks boo.’ How’s that sound?”

“Sounds perfect, RoRo! Just make sure to use your please and thank you’s!” The third boyfriend said, swooping in with a plate of cookies.

Logan finally lowered his book to glance at his watch. “Hmm, you are getting faster at washing that stuff out of your hair, Roman. Patton usually has eaten half of his baked goods before you return.”

Roman managed to let out an offended squawk before the windows suddenly blew in, knocking the bug screen inside the house. The gust of wind responsible seemed to spin around Patton before vanishing. The man let out a small giggle before the chaos appeared.

Remus was shrieking as he scrambled through the window. Logan managed to count to two before a furious looking goose followed the chaotic man in. Remus was already running down the hall to his room, but the goose didn’t seem to be deterred, even if the goose had to make its nest and raise its chicks outside this fiend’s door. The goose would get its revenge eventually.

This time, Logan got to ten before the front door was thrown open with the other two. Janus barked at Roman to help him before sprinting down the hall. Roman shut his eyes to let out a breath, but a crash and something shattering sent him after his twin and twin’s boyfriend. Virgil let out his own breath before saying something that couldn’t be overheard by a loud beep.

“Patton, stop trying to give me a filter! It’s not going to happen and I think a murderous goose deserves a swear or two!”

“What did Remus do this time?” Logan asked, unnervingly calm about this entire situation.

Virgil ran a hand through his hair. “Jan told Remus to get out more and enjoy the sunlight for once. Remus pulled out his meme skills and informed us he went to the park. Then as Jan was congratulating him on going outside, Ree pulled out the goose and it did not like that. We’ve been following the idiot and goose since 4th Street.”

“I’ll go grab the three of you some water then.” Patton hummed as he went back into the kitchen, ignoring the screeching and thumps from further down the hall.

“I am pleased to hear you are getting exercise at least, Virgil.” Logan commented, returning to his book.

“I swear the rat is going to give me a heart attack one of these days, and then I won’t hear the end of Jan’s whining.”

“I do not whine.”

Logan lowered his book, questioning why he was even bothering to try and continue reading. “Also, why would Janus whine to you if you were the one to have a heart attack? I would assume he would whine to the rest of us, as I doubt he would whine to his boyfriend.”

“Janny, you would 100% whine that I was making the rat look bad.” Virgil stated, rolling his eyes.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

A voice at the front door cackled. “But Janny makes you go red and it’s cute!”

Logan raised an eyebrow at Remus, who now stood at the door as if nothing had happened. “Did you climb out your bedroom window to avoid the goose?”

“No,” He grinned. “I climbed out to avoid my bro bro twin. Pretty sure he’s still screaming at my door. Where’d Goose Janus go?”

“Well, Janus is right there, however, I am unsure what has become of the goose.”

“Nooo, that’s Human Janus. I asked about Goose Janus.”

“Do not call me Human Janus either.”

“VeeVee, your brother is being mean to meeeeeeEEEee!!!!”

Virgil rolled his eyes at the two of them. “Where is the goose, Jan? I don’t want to be running after the rat and a goose across town again.”

“Roman managed to get it into a pillowcase. He had the top clutched for dear life while screaming at Remus. Which means, we should probably get out of here before the goose is released.” Janus commented.

“Oh, you three are already leaving?” Patton asked, carrying three water bottles.

“Patton, you are amazing.” Janus stated, snatching a bottle from him and downing it in a single gulp.

Virgil rolled his eyes at the figure going for a second water bottle. “Probably for the best. Prince Whines a Lot isn’t exactly agreeable after… work.”

“Oh, OK. We’ll see you guys later then!”

With that, Virgil shoved the other two out the door, muttering that he wanted to go lay down and not move for the next year. The two left in the living room could hear their third partner ranting at a door down the hall, oblivious to the fact the resident was gone. There were also muffled goose noises that worried Patton.

Logan sighed, setting his book aside. “I’ll call Animal Control to come get it. You want to go inform Roman that his twin is gone?”

“M’kay.”

 ***

 Roman’s day had been absolutely terrible. He had gotten a flat tire, some dragon witch at the store stole the entire stock of Crofters before telling him off for being in her way, and he accidentally dropped his phone so it now had a giant crack on the screen. So, when he walked in to see muddy footprints and what he would argue was the stench of a dead rat in the wall, in the summer, he was not exactly kind as he turned to face his twin.

Remus was curled around his laptop, furiously typing away on it. Roman noted the muddy boots that made the muddy footprints were hitched up on the coffee table, spreading the filth there too. Remus muttered something about ripping someone’s ears off and shoving them up their butt and that was the line for Roman today.

“Are you serious, Remus! This place is a disaster! When I left, it was spotless! And what is that smell?! Did you run a secret trash dump in here while I was gone?”

“Oooooh, that is an interesting idea.” Remus cackled, still not looking up.

If Roman had the ability to shoot laser beams out of his eyes, Remus would have already been a crisp of a crisp. “What are you even doing?”

“Hacking into a multibillion company for a sweet payday.”

Roman managed to get halfway through an eyeroll before realizing what his brother was actually doing. “Great, I’m going to have to burn that couch!”

Remus finally glanced up at the other, eyebrows knit. But before he could ask, his phone let off a ding and he decided that was more interesting. He snatched it up and started grinning. Roman watched Remus quickly throw everything into his backpack. He jumped up and grabbed a duffle bag that Roman hadn’t noticed. If Remus was covered in mud, the duffle was mud disguised as a bag. Remus sang out a ‘smell ya later, bro bro’ before he was out the front door, leaving Roman in the middle of the mess.

Roman took a deep breath as the door slammed behind his twin. He took another. One more deep inhale and he let out a frustrated scream into the arm desperately trying to muffle it. Now his throat hurt on top of him needing to clean up the mess his idiot of a brother left behind.

“Come on, Roman. Mom is paying off your car payments and rent for letting the bastard stay here. And you like not having to use 85% of your paychecks just to pay for those. Plus, the bastard spends most of his time out of the house with those irritating friends of his. It’s fine! It’ll be fine!”

He kept muttering this to himself as he angrily cleaned up the mud. Once he got as much as he could up, he took a seat (on the opposite couch as he now had to get rid of his favorite couch) to Google how to get rid of the stench. Like honestly, what did that bastard do to make it smell so bad in here? Roman thought it would be a bit better once some of the mud was gone, but nope, still just as bad.

Almost louder than Remus’s snoring, the Hercules song Zero to Hero started blaring from Roman’s work phone. He was instantly on his feet, heading to his room as he pulled it out of his pocket.

New message:

Human Computer: The Dark Sides are robbing the regional Walmart financial offices. That is two streetlights left of the so called ‘lame’ coffeeshop, Prince.

Moral Compass: Aww, I just put on the new episode of Steven Universe Future though!

Human Computer: I am sure they will apologize if you inform them of this. Prince, have you seen the message or am I going to have to hack your personal phone and laptop to get your attention?

Prince: 10-4 nerd

Roman grabbed his katana before rushing out the back door. He grinned as he twisted the watch face and pressed the newly appeared button. Sometimes making Logan watch cartoons and daring him to make cartoon gadgets was worth the mutterings and frustration Roman faced from his partner. The hero costume shimmered around him, concealing his identity as he took off into the sky.

Roman could hear the alarms going off. Even if Logan hadn’t specified where it was, Roman would have known where those fiends were. He knew that Patton would give him the scolding of the century if he knew, but Roman welcomed this attack. It gave him a means to take his frustrations off on some villains who constantly tormented the town.

“Sorry, Princey. Can’t let you go any further.” A voice commented behind the hero as he took in the scene.

“Oh look, it’s the talking shadowling.” Roman commented, turning to see the villain.

Honestly, seeing Shadow Wing always took Roman’s breath away upon first sight. Long wings were stretched out, barely flapping in order to keep the person up. Shadows were cascading down the wings, mimicking black flames falling to the ground. As for the villain, Shadow always reminded Roman of Wesley in his full Dread Pirate Roberts getup from the Princess Bride.

“Ooof, pretty sure you used that insult last week. Running out of creative material there, Princey?” That insufferable smirk!

“At least I have a variety, Raven Boy.”

“Mmm, creativity is not my department. Anyways, what’s up with the big knife you’ve got there? Wanna try slicing shadows?”

Roman had enough time to pull out the katana before the strange ball of frozen darkness was dangerously close. He barely managed to slash it. He still preferred Shadow’s cold blobs over being handed the explosive gunk stick Menace always handed him. Roman watched Shadow take off into the sky before swooping down close to the ground.

A ball of darkness landed right before Logan, or as he was in his own hero costume-the Human Computer. The villain was already rising back up into the air, ignoring the fact that he had just barely missed the hero’s sidekick. Roman threw himself into the fight, angry about the day, sure, but this villain just went after his boyfriend! There must be vengeance!

“Oooooooh, Shadow really does have interesting flirting methods!” A new voice commented.

Shadow threw some of his shadows at Green Menace, who was eagerly cackling. Roman quickly scanned, searching for the last of the evil trio. No sight of Viper. Then Menace’s voice forced Roman to turn back to seeing what the villain was cackling about. He did have to admit Menace and Shadow seemed to be close friends at the very least. Why does that hurt Roman?

“Let’s get this over with. I have SUF to watch.” Shadow commented.

“Okie dokie, bro-kie!”

“Say that again and I am sending you to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and leaving you for the eldritch horrors down there.”

“Pleasssssse, even they would ssssend thissss trash back to ussssss.” Ah, there’s Viper.

Menace was grinning as he pretended to wipe away a tear. “The two of you really understand me.”

Roman twisted the katana, mentally mapping out how to try and take these three down. It was always a difficult fight but Logan and Patton were better ground support while the dark trio kept to the skies, out of reach of almost everyone and thing. And because Roman was certain of this fact, he didn’t see the safety hazard strike him down.

All Roman knew was one moment, he was getting ready to whap Menace and the next, he was in a huge crater, staring up at four figures in the sky. The air was knocked out of him and his body did not want to move for the next year. Before he could reorient himself, the new figure knocked an entire building on top of Roman, trapping him under rubble. Not that the hero noticed as he lost consciousness.

 ***

 The three villains stared in shock at the new figure. The new enemy hummed disinterestedly at the pile where the hero had landed. The new figure turned to look over the three standing before them. He had planned this entire take over and subjecting these three useless tools to his will. Half of his plan was already complete, now just to deal with the amateurs.

All three of them had lost the easiness they had with the hero. Now, they look furious. In fact, Green Menace looked like he was about to rip the world apart with his teeth. The new figure didn’t place much thought on that, expecting that reaction.

“Now then. You three idiots see how a real villain does it.” He stated. “I will be merciful and offer you positions as my lackies, but this is now my town.”

Shadow was already pulling all of the shadows towards him as Viper hissed at the newcomer. “No, you will not. This is our home. We will not let anyone else terrorize our home. We might not be heroes to the people here, but we will not let someone come terrorize the town we have under our control.”

“Shadow, Viper.” Menace’s voice was chillingly serious. “Now.”

Shadows shot through the air, stealing the sunlight and replacing it with waves of fear and terror, as a long snake managed to coil around the newcomer. However, Green Menace was the most terrifying to onlookers and the new villain. Menace was out for blood and would not rest until the bastard was twenty feet under for hurting his twin brother.

 ****

 “…kidding me?!”

“What else were we supposed to do, Vee? Leave him there?”

“Take him to the house the two of you share! Hate to break it to you, but your brother is a complete dumbass; I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he doesn’t know the truth. So, he’s not only going to wake up after a massive fight, in a strange place he has never been in, he’s also surrounded by his enemies!”

For all the luck in the world, of course this was the first thing Roman heard as he gained consciousness. The hero tensed as he opened his eyes only the smallest amount to see the trio of villains standing in front of him in a dark room. He desperately wanted to look around and see how much danger he was in, but that would require that he open his eyes and if they weren’t torturing him because they thought he was still unconscious, then he wasn’t going to let them know he was awake.

“I agree that he probably hasn’t figured it out yet, but if we left him, rescue services would have found him and if one of our identities are revealed, all of them are. What do you think the government’s first reaction to having the superhero Prince unconscious in some hospital would be? Hmm? We are working with what we can do. We wouldn’t be able to make it to the twins’ house without being spotted. We have our tunnels to get here.”

Wait… That meant… They knew where he lived. Oh no, they knew where he lived. That meant Remus would be in danger as well. It meant Logan and Patton were in danger. It meant that Virgil and Janus were in danger. It meant that everyone Roman knew and cared about were in danger because of these villains.

“I know that this entire situation is bad, but we’re doing the best we can. Even the walking ray of sunshine and nerd said this was the best option.”

Pound. Pound.

“Where is he?! How badly is he hurt?”

Roman’s heart might as well have stopped in that moment. These villains could do whatever they wanted to him, but he will not let these fiends harm a hair on Patton or Logan’s head. In an instant, Roman was on his feet, and shoving the closest figure to him against a wall. As he looked at the face he had pinned, his heart might as well be stopped as that would be a kinder fate than this. The face he saw, was the face of Virgil Storm-Ekans.

Roman stepped back in pure shock as his eyes swept to the other two villains, taking in all three shocked faces. Standing in front of him were both his brother and Remus’ friends, but also the trio of villains, perfectly mashed together. His twin brother in Menace’s sparkling green and black costume probably found in some thrift store, looking like some knock off Luigi. Janus in Viper’s black and yellow suit complete with the dumb cloak and hat. And Virgil in… Virgil in a black Wesley outfit with huge shadow-y black wings wrapped tightly around him.

“I-No… Noo… This isn’t- it can’t”

Patton appeared, blocking Roman’s vision from the three he hated. “Roman, hey, hey. Shhhh. It’s OK. Come on, let’s get you back on the couch. You’re OK, your safe.”

Roman was gently forced onto the couch before Patton started to heal the injuries he had. Soft blue light shone from his hand as each wound healed and vanished. Roman’s eyes were still trying to take in the mess, however. A creak pulled his attention to a set of stairs to see Logan calmly walking down, looking at something on his phone.

“Lo, do you have information on who the hell Orange Traffic Cone was?” Virgil asked, his wings fluttering nervously as they unwrapped from around him.

“I was going to ask the same of you. They were obviously some kind of villain, so I assumed you three would have more information on who or what they were.”

“Well, isn’t this a wonderful situation we have.” Janus grimaced. “I doubt they will be returning, however.”

Logan adjusted his glasses as he glanced over at Roman, pleased to see the boyfriend was healing up well. “Well, after that impressive show of power, I doubt anyone will try to take over the town from you three. I do wonder how the three of you gained so much power though.”

“We were the ones to find the dumb radioactive stone and spend more time around it, Logan. Proximity to the source of all of our powers.” Janus commented.

“Ah, that does make sense. It would also probably explain the extra developments as well.”

“Call them what they are, Lo. Mutations. Freaks like me… us have mutations.” Virgil spat.

Logan looked over the other, noting that the wings were tightening around the youngest of the group. “You are not a freak, Virgil.”

Virgil scoffed, “Yeah, right.”

Logan narrowed his eyes but could tell that it would take a while to improve the other’s confidence, so decided to try and improve the mood. “You are not a freak, Virgil. I know you do not accept it right now, but hopefully in time. Now, Remus, a question I have been meaning to ask. Did you really dump cow manure on the executive’s desk?”

“Wait, was that what was in that disgusting bag of yours?!”

“It was bull shit!” Remus cackled.

“What-what is going on?” Roman intruded, weakly. “Is-is this some kind of prank or a dream?”

“Roman, have you truly not realized who the ‘dark sides’ are?” Logan asked, curiously. “Did it not occur to you that if you got superpowers, at very least your own twin brother would also develop some powers as well?”

“But-but- they’re evil!” Roman screeched.

“Hardly.”

Remus knelt to look his twin in the face, concern filling the red-tinted hazel eyes. “Ro- did- do you really think that? Do you really think us evil?”

Words would not escape Roman’s chocked throat, but that seemed enough of an answer to the rest of the room. Virgil and Janus instantly backed away, granting Roman more space as Logan moved forward and took the seat on Roman’s other side. Remus looked at his twin in so much shock and pain that Roman wanted to lie through his teeth.

“Roman, while these three may violate legal codes, they are hardly evil. They are more like Robin Hood than some evil monster.”

“But today-“

“We were stealing from Walmart to give money to a homeless shelter full of full-time Walmart employees, Ro. What happened with that rando was unexpected. We still don’t know who they were or what their intentions truly were.” Virgil said, softly.

Patton took Roman’s hand into his. “RoRo, have you not even wondered why despite all those fights, you never actually ended up hurt? Not even a bruise most times.”

“That literally every hit that would actually hurt missed? Like I get thinking that of Remus, but of Jan and me?”

“But- what about you throwing one of those dark snowballs at Logan earlier?!”

Logan barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Roman, I’m not sure you’ve realized yet, but Patton and I knew who these three were. Virgil was tossing me a flash drive that I designed to aide them in hacking through complex security measures that I was able to use to further hide the true amount they stole.”

“You were helping these fiends?!?”

“Well, it’s not acceptable that a multibillion company lets their employees live in poverty.” Patton softly admitted.

“Why-“ Roman was just so lost and confused. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why was I left out?”

“Most of us thought you already knew. Virgil pushed for a verbal confirmation that you knew before letting the idea that you didn’t know rest. It’s not like we made any effort to discuss work out of very specific locations, which rarely intersect between all of us.” Logan answered.

Roman ran a hand through his hair, trying to process all of this. The rest of the room glanced around at each other. A silent agreement to give the hero a moment was passed around. Once they seemed to understand the decision, Janus glanced at Virgil before turning to Patton.

“Hey, literal sunshine. Can you possibly take a look at Virgil’s wing and see if you can heal whatever happened to it?”

“I’m fine, Jan.”

“Bullshit. Don’t make me pull the older brother card on you, little shit. You only hold your wings that close to you when they are hurt.”

“If you’re hurt, I can fix it! You don’t need to be in pain!” Patton said, jumping up.

“Seriously, I’m fine, Princey over there was the one who got hit with an entire building.”

“Vee, let Pat look at your wing. Traffic Cone did a pretty bad number on you, trying to knock you out of the air.” Remus said softly.

“Come on, kiddo. I’ll need access to your back to see if the joints are alright, but you’ll feel a lot better afterword!” Patton said.

“Ugh, I can see the fight is already lost.” Virgil muttered, before taking his black shirt off.

Roman had a lot of information to process, but that didn’t happen as he saw how ripped the other was. He had thought Virgil was hot and Shadow Wing hotter, but seeing the two combined, yeah, Roman was gay. At least he was also poly so could ask his partners if they were interested in romancing a certain shadow. Which if his super gay mind could actually remember anything, he would remember that they were actually already pushing to ask Vee out.

“OK, you have a bruised muscle and some of your feathers are gone. I also think you have a broken bone somewhere around here.” Patton said, pulling Roman out of his gay panic.

Janus immediately moved over, looking over the feathers before letting out a breath. “You are one lucky bastard, Vee. It’s mostly tertiary and a few secondary ones. But that means you were close to getting taken out by that knife.”

There was a small mischievous cackle near Roman. “So bro bro. You crushing hard on Virgil yet, or do Jan and I need to undress him some more for you?”

“REMUS!”

“Whaaaaat, I’m just trying to set up my bro with my hoe’s bro.”

 ****

 2 months later…

 “Oh come on, Princey. Surely you can do better than that.”

Roman was glad that most people couldn’t see details of them from the ground. If they could, they would see that Prince had a huge smile as he dodged his boyfriend’s shadow ball. It wouldn’t do him any harm, and in fact all of their boyfriends found comfort in the gentle cool kiss of them by now. No, Roman was determined to tag the sensor on the other’s arm, indicating that he won the game today. Can’t win if Virgil won.

Below, Remus and Janus were breaking into an Amazon warehouse to steal food, blankets, and clothes to donate to various homeless organizations. Once they were done, the two of them would join their third partner in crime to ‘escape’ from the Prince while the Prince pretended to hate them. Prince would fly off, talk to police about what happened, watch the Human Computer bury the actual amount stolen so that the company would just write it off. The Moral Compass would gently push a calm acceptance upon everyone so that there would be less struggle to hunt the villains down.

Then, the three of them would go and change out of their hero costumes and pick up the trio from their downtown townhouse. They would go home, order pizza, and watch movies all night, laughing and having fun. The next day, they would spend the day dropping off items at various homeless shelters. Roman would see how much it meant to the shelters to receive the donations, and it would make him wonder why he ever thought the trio were evil. Then the group would split so Remus and Janus would head to the townhouse while the four boyfriends would head to Roman’s planning a nice night with their partners.

And honestly, Roman wouldn’t have it any other way.

[kingburu]

[FIC] Birb Funeral

Someone asked me a long time ago what would happen if in the Dearly Departed universe (where Jason is a Son of Hades and Nico is a Son of Jupiter, and everyone is conveniently where I wanted to place them) what would happen if Bianca ended up in Camp Jupiter and Nico ended up in Camp Halfblood. I wrote this a while back for funsies and probably won’t expand, but take an au of an au!

tl;dr: Godswap AU where Jason is a Son of Hades, Nico is a Son of Zeus, and they grew up as childhood friends!

A storm hits first. In twelve-year-old Jason’s ten years at Camp Halfblood, he’s never seen anything as abrasive and harsh as the dark clouds that consumes all winter sunlight, dimming the heavens as though he’s staring at his father’s domain itself. Thunder and lightning boom like a commandeering force, and the rain rattles against the magical barrier around Camp Halfblood, like pelting against hollow tin, but falls on campgrounds like a soft shower.

It rains for three days straight, weakening Hestia’s hearth, cancelling Capture the Flag, and irritating all of the Apollo Cabin, who grow antsy without the sun. Jason is nonplussed by the storm, comforted by the additional shadows that linger—but he’s never quite liked the silence it forced in Cabin Eleven. The silence that used to be comforting, but now hurts as he has to look at the empty bed—the one that reminds him his own chest feels empty, too.

 On the third day, the eagles appear.

 Jason’s already awake, inspecting the other demigods without cabins of their own as he hears the righteous call of three bald eagles flying through the forest. Other campers wake to their squawk, if not the thunderous storm as it seems to boom louder and demand their attention.

 Then, a little boy appears through the forest, sopping wet and looking meager and small as he wobbles through the trees, with a nest of dark hair and bright blue eyes that reminds Jason of the days before the storm. He’s dressed in a ratty pair of jeans, caked in monster blood and—other blood, that immediately worries Jason—and a bright shirt with a lotus symbol on it. The eagles cry out again, encircling the little boy, and flank to either side of him like royal guards.

 Jason jumps as those blue eyes scan their small crowd—widening as they make contact with Chiron—but then turns to him.

 One of the eagles nudges the little boy, who stumbles forward.

 “This,” the little boy says curiously, “is Camp Halfbird, right?”

Halfbird, Jason thinks, puzzled, and he swears he sees both eagles puff their chests out with pride. He doesn’t get to contemplate long—of all the people that are surrounding this little boy, those blue eyes are fixated on him, waiting for an answer. “It’s actually Camp Halfblood—but, yeah, welcome.”

 “Oh,” the little boy says, and his shoulders heave. “Finally.”

 And he collapses forward. There’s a cry in surprise—and out of reflex, Jason steps forward and catches him. His eyes trail over to the may stains on this boy’s shirt—the monster blood, the human blood—and he hears Lee Fletcher crying out for someone to get ambrosia, nectar, and all the works.

 “Wait,” Jason hears himself saying, and the older son of Apollo stares at him in disbelief.

 “Why would we wait, Grace?” Lee demands.

 Jason props the boy up on his arm, the nest of dark hair bobbing as they move. “Because he’s snoring.”

 *

 Upon carrying the little boy to the infirmary, they all discover their newest camper has a vice grip and refuses to let go of Jason. Beckendorf, a much older camper, tries once while Jason takes this boy who can’t be older than nine or ten, and Jason’s head almost comes off with it. They stop trying when they hear a little sob. Jason thinks he hears a name—Bianca?—and confines himself to carry the boy to one of the cots.

 Jason has to rock on his feet and stand to the tips of his toes—and practically falls over as he sets the boy down, arms still bound around him, but eventually manages to wriggle out of the grip. He stares at the boy, puzzled, as this new demigod just rolls into a ball, expression unseen.

 The eagles caw outside—and from the window, Jason sees them soar past the window, evidently deciding to remain close.

 “Jace,” Lee says, which startles him, “why don’t you get him some new clothes?”

 Lee’s already washed his hands, rubber gloves on, and is picking up an arm to inspect this boy. He wrinkles his nose as his hand stains with mud.

 “Oh—okay,” Jason says—and he stays just long enough for Lee’s apprentice and little brother, Will, pull a twig out of dark hair.

 Jason sprints to the Big House. On his way back to the infirmary, he watches as both eagles spread their wings and shriek, glowering at him. Jason cringes, staring at them with hesitation.

 The door opens, and Will pokes his head out curiously. He stares up at the rooftop and mimics Jason’s expression. “You think they’re going to stay long?”

 “Hard to say,” Jason mumbles uncomfortably. He takes a thoughtful step towards the infirmary and the eagles make another sound of displeasure. A loud moan comes from the infirmary—childish and feeble, and the eagles suddenly cock their heads to that instead. Jason takes the distraction to climb the porch steps and sighs with relief. “Guess it depends on how long this kid wants to stay.”

 Will pats his shoulder sympathetically. “We’ll find an animal that likes you eventually.”

 *

 New campers, of course, fall under the jurisdiction of Cabin Eleven, and Connor and Travis insist that this new kid already imprinted on Jason, despite not being the head counselor. Jason knows that this kid is recovering from whatever journey brought him to Long Island and the last thing he needs is to be at the mercy of the Stoll Brothers’ pranks, so he halfheartedly agrees.

 The storm subsides pretty quickly after the kid arrives, and business seems to resume as usual. People are already placing bets on what cabin this kid belongs to—if he belongs to any cabin, and Jason tries very hard not to hope that this kid belongs in the cabin that the eagles and the obnoxious storm suggest.

 He spends most of the time in the infirmary, passing on his sword-training classes to Clarisse—and the boy wakes up just long enough to be spoonfed ambrosia and change into a clean shirt and pants. Every day, they find at least one twig in his hair while they’re not looking. He doesn’t speak very much at first—eventually Will and Lee decide to just let Jason handle this kid on his own to tend to other campers who are at the mercy of Clarisse’s sword training.

 On the third day of this kid’s arrival, Jason walks up the porch of the med bay and the eagles squawk angrily, per usual. Jason opens the door and notices the kid perk at his arrival, in contrast to the screaming eagles.

 “You feeling any better?” Jason asks.

 The blue eyes stare at him carefully, then nod. He squints thoughtfully at Jason, then speaks for the first time since arriving during the storm the other day. “They keep screaming death when you walk by.”

 Jason blinks. “They?”

 The boy gestures to the roof. “Lark and Sparrow.”

 Blond eyebrows furrow together. “Who?”

 “Lark and Sparrow,” the boy repeats.

 It takes a moment, but Jason’s eyebrows raise, puzzled. “You mean the eagles?”

 “Yeah.” The boy nods, then pauses. “They had an older sister—Cloud, but—well, she…” The boy’s eyes moisten and his gaze falls to his hands sadly. “She didn’t make it.”

 Oh. Jason doesn’t quite consider it a superpower, but he can pick up on the tone of a mourning soul, even if it’s for an eagle. Lark and Sparrow, the eagles (Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever get his mind wrapped around that) clearly love this little boy very much. Unfortunately, no one at camp speaks bird, and they’ve gone almost a week now not knowing this boy’s story—even if he wants to tell it.

 Jason retrieves a stool, setting aside the ambrosia sundae. “Do you…want to tell me about Cloud?”

 The boy raises his head curiously, evidently surprised to be encouraged, and then nods. “Cloud was their leader. She’s the one that found me first in—in the accident. And then she promised me that the four of them would get to camp. She—” His voice cracks. “—she couldn’t keep that promise.”

 Jason flashes a look of concern. After a few meals of ambrosia and clean clothes, the boy looks better, but feeling better is another story entirely.

 “Lark’s a good listener though, I think she makes Sparrow feel better,” the boy continues.

 The edge of Jason’s lip curls.

 “What?” the boy asks, and he blinks.

 “Nothing—I’m glad they got you here safe. I’m sure Cloud is proud,” Jason reassures. He reaches for the ambrosia sundae and at this point, the boy knows it’s for him. “I’ve never met birds that were named after other birds.”

 The boy shrugs nonchalantly. “Names are names. Did you know that Hades named his dog Spot?”

 Jason makes a face, watching as this boy pluck a cherry off the sundae and plop it in his mouth. Of all the deities the boy could have chosen (before they checked to see if he actually understands what’s going on—the death of Cloud the Eagle seems to suggest he does.) “I’ve—actually never thought about it that way.”

 “It just sounds cooler because it’s Greek,” the boy says. “Like your name. Otherwise, people would be walking around calling you Healer.”

 “I’m. Sorry, what?”

 “Your name,” the boy repeats, and it’s impossible not to stare at the bits of whipped cream at the corner of his lip. “Jason.”

 “You know my name,” Jason says slowly, on eyebrow arched in the air. This boy has been silent for the last two days, taking in his environment with wide, curious eyes. Jason had seen the boy’s mouth drop when Grover had come to check on him.

 The boy’s cheeks flush, and he quickly nods. “I heard the other two say it.”

 The other two, the boy said. Not Lee and Will. Jason blinks once again. “You know my name and you know the meaning behind my name.”

 “It was in the Argonaut Expansion pack,” the boy continues. “The trivia in the wrapper.”

 Much like Lark and Sparrow, Jason tries to connect the dots in his head. “You mean Mythomagic?”

 The sundae falls from the boy’s hands, and to Jason’s surprise, those blue eyes suddenly glitter with excitement. “You know Mythomagic? Do you play? Do you have a favorite character?”

 He’s vibrating in his seat, and Jason actually leans back to keep ice cream from falling on him. Jason reaches over and dabs the melted ice cream with a tissue. “I’ve dabbled. You’ll see some of the other kids playing Mythomagic here. It helps them understand our world better. Our—hey. So. Do you…understand how you got here? What’s going on?”

 The boy stares at him, puzzled, evidently confused.

 “So you and I—this entire camp,” Jason says slowly, “we’re halfbloods.”

 “Halfbirds?”

 “Halfbloods,” Jason corrects. “Demigods. It means that we’re half human, half—”

 “Half god,” the boy finishes with an excited whisper. His eyes glitter again. “Like Mythomagic.”

 “Yeah, exactly like Mythomagic—”

 “Oh my god,” the boy says again—and the way he vibrates in the bed would make Jason think he was never healing in the first place. “My dad was a god? Oh my dad!”

 Jason stares at the boy in surprise. For a kid that had emerged from the forest covered in blood and spoils, this is the quickest he’s ever seen a demigod recover from learning about their parentage. This kid is acting just like he sounds—a kid—and is now grinning from ear-to-ear.

 “Who’s your parent? Apollo? Aphrodite?” The boy claps his hand on the mattress, then leans close to Jason with a gasp. “It’s Thanatos, isn’t it? That’s why Lark and Sparrow keep screaming death!”

 “Um, Hades, actually—” Jason peels the ice cream sundae away from the bed before it can spill, unable to hide his surprise. Most people didn’t list gods outside the main twelve, let alone mention his dad’s lieutenant of all people. He expects the boy to gulp and shirk away at first—like other kids did when they realized they were suddenly standing with the child of the King of the Dead, but the boy’s hand fall and he stares at Jason with even more fascination.

 “He has 4000 attack power,” the boy whispers in amazement. “5000 if someone else attacks first.”

 Jason blinks, yet again confounded by this boy’s enthusiasm. “Yeah—I think I heard that. You’re not…scared?”

 The boy doesn’t hear him. Instead, he’s mumbling again, evidently still stuck on Jason’s parentage with utter amazement. He falls silent, then looks back up to Jason with hopeful eyes. “Can we hold a funeral for Cloud?”

 This time, Jason’s lips fold into the familiar shape, aching almost, into the first smile that he’s had in a long time. “Is that what you want?”

 The boy nods up and down. “A funeral for Lark and Sparrow’s sister, and maybe a funeral for my—” The boy cuts himself off, the excitement suddenly waning. Jason can see it in the boy’s expression, something hitting him like a freight train, and it looks more solemn and more mournful than it did for Cloud.

 Oh. This boy has seen death recently—and not just for the sister of someone else.

 Jason reaches out and places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Blue eyes look back up to him, sadder than the bouncing boy from before.

 “We’ll give Cloud a Grecian funeral, just like in Mythomagic,” Jason says quietly. At the M word, the boy cocks his head back up, eyebrows furrowed. “And another for whoever else needs one. Whenever you’re ready.”

 The boy sniffles, his eyes swelling with tears once more.

 “Whenever you’re ready,” Jason repeats.

 “Okay.” To his surprise, the boy throws his arms around Jason like the first day, vice grip and all.

 Jason hesitates—but then folds his arms around the other boy, patting sympathetically as he hears the sniffles grow louder.

 *

 After Will and Lee give the okay, Jason plans a funeral in the woods for Cloud the Eagle—which quickly goes awry from the Grecian traditions that he had planned when Nico explains Lark and Sparrow’s constructive notes. Two of the notes include burying part of their sister “like humans do”—with things that she held dear. Nico whips a feather out of his hair, insistent that it came from the late bird, and explains that Cloud’s favorite items included bird seed and bottle caps.

 Thus, Jason instructs Nico to fill a lunch box with bird seed and bottle caps (there’s a small intermission where Jason watches Nico lecture Lark and Sparrow about eating their sister’s afterlife food) before placing the eagle feather gingerly on top, then listens to Nico and the birds deliver a eulogy for their fallen comrade.

 Grover plays the reedpipes as they lower the lunch box into the ground, and daffodils sprout over the mound. He’s touched, of course, that someone would care enough to want to hold a funeral for an animal of nature.

 “Will Charon accept bird seeds?” Nico asks worriedly.

 Jason doesn’t miss the way Grover suddenly squawks on the reed pipes, evidently amused by the question. He places a hand on Nico’s shoulder, not missing the way that Nico inches closer into his bubble. “Um, animals are out of Charon’s jurisdiction.”

 Nico frowns, clearly upset.

 “They usually get reincarnated. Sometimes as plants, or as new animals,” Grover explains. Jason has to hold back a sigh of relief—he doesn’t know how much more he can talk about death, but Grover is charmed enough. He gestures to the eagles. “Maybe a lark. Or a sparrow. Or—”

 “Or a raven?” Nico asks.

 Grover nods sagely, flashing a look that Jason has always received growing up. Then he ruffles Nico’s hair. “You sure know your birds, Nico.”

 Nico shrugs, the worry about Cloud not reaching the Underworld dissipating. Then, he notices what Jason has been wary of since the young demigod’s arrival. Nico gestures to Lark and Sparrow, who’d given Jason the stink eye since arriving at camp. “Why don’t they like you? They keep calling you the Deathbringer.”

 Jason cringes, and he notices Grover do it too. “Yeah—well, animals aren’t fond of me. They sense death.”

 Another frown curls against Nico’s lips, and the next look that the flashes his birds causes them to behave and stand erect. “But you just helped them bury their sister.”

 “Yeah, tell them that,” Grover mutters, and he nudges Jason affectionately.

 “I am,” Nico assures, and he climbs to his feet. The eagles squawk nervously—and then Nico turns around, his blue eyes fully on Jason. “And you’re so cool.”

 Grover spills into a grin, and Jason’s eyebrows raise in confusion. He can hardly call spending the afternoon filling a lunch box with bird seed and fending off grouchy birds cool. “You think I’m cool?”

 Unabashed, this boy stares at Jason with the same intrigue as he did when Jason started comparing Mythomagic to their lives. “The coolest.”

 Red flourishes in Jason’s cheeks, and Grover is elbowing him again. Before he can open his mouth, Nico turns to his pet eagles, hands on his hips like a doting mother.

 “If you two can’t respect Jason for holding a funeral for Cloud,” Nico says in his best parenting tone, “then scram.”

 Both birds make a sound, evidently shocked, but Nico places a hand in front of him, halting their speech.

 “No,” Nico says, “I’ll be okay here. Please go home.”

 Jason watches in utter disbelief as both birds pick themselves up, glaring at him, before flying away.

 Grover pats him on the shoulder. “You don’t want to know what they said.”

 Nico falls to his knees again and pets the daffodils over Cloud’s makeshift grave. His eyebrows furrow together, evidently troubled at the departure of their friends, but seems set on his decision.

 When he gets over his stupor, Jason clears his throat and walks up behind Nico, finally able to get close to this little grave that he helped make without prying eagle eyes. He kneels to the ground and pats a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s get you settled in at Cabin Eleven.”

[abluescarfonwaston]

Shapeshifter Au -12

Masterpost

He cawed out to Geralt as he approached. Geralt held out his arm to land on and he did.

“Still too close?” Geralt asked glancing down at Ciri and Roach’s drooping forms. Exhausted. Ciri was half asleep in his arms.

He nodded sadly. He’d found a scout camp not an hours fly behind.

Geralt looked down at Ciri and Roach. “We can’t stop.” His face pinched painfully and he glanced at him. “Jaskier-“

He nodded.

He could shift. He could ride.

They pulled off to the side and he shifted. A few hands taller than Roach with black stockings over his chestnut hair.

Thank you. He told her pressing his neck into hers.

That’s my line colt.

I’m older than you Roach.

I’d never have guessed.

Geralt shifted the tack over to him and he did his best to tolerate the feeling. The few times they’d done this it was bareback and he wasn’t a fan of the way it sat on his back. But it would be better in the long run. Probably.

“I know you’re not a fan of this.” Geralt waved to. The whole situation really. “Thank you.”

He stopped his grooming of Roach’s withers to bump Geralt reassuringly. I might not enjoy being ridden -like this at least- but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it in a pinch. It’s fine.

Tell him he owes me so many apples for this. And some clover grass.

You know you’ll get sick if you eat too much of that. Hm. Apples tho. Not as good as lamb but-

Well that was progress at least.

I’ll make sure he knows Roach.

You’d better.

And they were off.

He wasn’t proud of how quickly he tired but his bones still ached from shifting into the wolf. Less. It hurt less now. But the insistent throb of it wore at him as the hours passed. The grime that still matted his hair itched. Hunger rumbled his belly. Lamb sounded so good right now. He could eat one whole right now, wool and all.

We’re here. Roach interrupted his. Frankly too vivid daydream.

Here? He asked as Geralt turned him off the road into the pinewood forest.

The road home.

Home. They were almost home. He surged forward with it.

“Jaskier.” Geralt grumbled at him.

How much further? What’s it like? What are they like?

She whinnied a laugh at his excitement. Two or three days still colt. Doesn’t have enough grass. Scorpion’s fun.

Days?

The ache in his toes grew that much more noticeable.

They continued on.

Geralt pulled him to a halt and he let his head fall forward panting. They jumped off.

The saddle and bit were removed.

Geralt brushed him down. Picked his feet. He felt. A little cleaner.

“Staying a horse?” Geralt rubbed his neck soothingly as he finished.

No. He leaned into Geralt and let the form collapse under him.

Geralt caught him with a sigh and pet his long ears.

“Does he do that a lot?” Ciri asked. “Turn into a rabbit?”

Geralt shrugged and set about making camp one handed. “He shifts small when he wants to be carried.”

That was. Probably not inaccurate.

No fire again. Geralt had passed him into Ciri’s arms at some point. Her warm hands soothing the pain of the day and he did his best to keep her warm in turn while Geralt worked.

“What else can he turn into? Can he turn into a shrieker? A unicorn? A dragon?”

“I don’t know what a shrieker is. Unicorns are extinct. If he could turn into a dragon he would have by now just to show off. It’s just animals. Bears, wolves, rabbits. The like.”

“What about the griffin?”

Geralt paused. “I don’t think the griffin was. Natural.”

“Why?”

“Because he.” Geralt hesitated as he carried the blanket over, settling behind her. “Didn’t recognize me.”

She looked up at him questioningly as he reached down to pet between his ears.

“But he remembers you now. Right?”

They both nodded.

“So why’d he forget?”

Geralt shrugged.

“Don’t you care? It could happen again! Why didn’t you ask him when he was human!” She turned back to him. “And why haven’t you become human since then!”

He folded his ears back and shrunk down. He. He just-

“If it happens again I’ll deal with it. He isn’t much of a fight. When Jaskier wants to talk about it he will. Talking isn’t his problem, it’s getting him to stop.” He clucked at Geralt. “See?”

He clacked his teeth together a few times before pointedly flopping on Ciri. Look how comfortable I am. More comfortable than you are. Be jealous Geralt. I’m happier than you.

Geralt shook his head at him like he was being Over Dramatic! Which he Was! Because that was his Thing!

“He looked a mess in human form. Probably has some big plan about how he’ll get all fancied up and win you over with his charming smile and music.”

Yes that was the plan.

Ciri’s face scrunched up at that. “Why?”

The drama! He wanted her to like him! He wanted to make a better first impression than the one his dirty unkempt appearance would make. He wanted her to like him at least a fraction of how much he liked her!

“Because he’s an idiot.” He snapped at Geralt’s fingers. “An over dramatic idiot who thinks he has to put on a show to make you like him.”

She studied him. He wiggled his pink nose adorably. Which probably proved Geralt’s point.

“You’re making a production out of this. So it had better be grand reveal or I’ll be immensely disappointed in you.” She threatened him with a yawn.

He purred in agreement as Geralt pulled up the blanket.

“How much further?” She asked curling into Geralt.

“The evening after next we’ll arrive.”

Almost there. Just a little bit longer.

A little bit longer and they’d be home.

 “Fuck” Geralt shifted out from under them, shoving him awake. “Bandits.”

“Nilfgaard?” Ciri whispered grabbing him around the belly which wasn’t comfortable. Support the rear Ciri! This was going to hurt his back!

Geralt crouched over them. Listening. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Plan?” She squeezed him tighter and – nope nope nope! His leg kicked out and she dropped him with a pained start which he was very sorry for except hide- hide –hide run and hide run and hide.

“Jaskier!” He heard his cub whisper shout after him but-

Run hide! Run and hide! Run and hide!

Rabbits were not brave.

He squished himself under the dense cover of a bush and waited.

“What have we got?”

“Horse and a guy with his kid.”

“Easy enough. Let’s make this quick aye? Baz was making dinner.”

Easy. They thought it would be easy. Like Geralt couldn’t lay ruin to them. Wouldn’t lay ruin to them.

Ciri would witness more bloodshed and Baz would eat alone wondering where his unlucky companions had gone.

It was the wolves all over again.

Hungry said the bellies. Easy said the eyes.

It would be a slaughter.

Rabbits where not brave and he wasn’t sure Jaskiers were either. But they were idiots so he darted between their legs and shifted.

He sniffed them loudly and they froze. Eyes and then heads slowly turning towards him.

I have rules about violence Gentlemen. The words coming out a deep growl. Protecting my mate and cub does fit within that framework. But I’d really rather not. If its all the same to you.

They shuffled away from him, clutching their weapons.

He slammed his paw and roared at them. They turned tail and ran. Roach whinnied her terror.

‘Chase!’ The bear and the wolf and the griffin screamed. ‘Hide.’ Whispered the rabbit. It was all that kept him still.

He turned and walked back to their camp. The stragglers fleeing.

Geralt was soothing Roach with axii. Ciri yanked on his arm as she spotted him. Adrenaline and fear rolling off her.

Geralt turned and he watched the tension drain from his shoulders. “Jaskier.”

He smiled back at them. Watching as the axii faded from Roach’s eyes, replaced with recognition. She settled back to her search for grass.

“That’s Jaskier?” Ciri asked. Doubtful.

“Hm.” Geralt confirmed.

She studied him before stomping up to him, hand tucked under her armpits against the cold. “You kicked me!”

He rumbled apologetically but I couldn’t breath and you were breaking my back.

She glared at him. He nosed at her, slowly shoving her into his side. She allowed herself to be tucked into his fur with only a token of protest. The fear scent fading.

“Jaskier.” Geralt returned from their things holding – oh Geralt. “You can’t play like that?” Holding his lute.

He shook his head and dragged Geralt by the arm into his side as well. That would only be significant to us Geralt. Ciri wouldn’t know what the hell we were on about and I’d still look like a disheveled mud rat. Besides she’d get cold and your bedroll’s not big enough for all three of us. Really man.

Geralt plucked a few of the strings. They were painfully out of tune. Really. Had he done any maintenance at all? He glared at Geralt as he curled around them dragging the blanket up over them. Geralt glared back.

“You can’t play like that?” Ciri questioned from insider her burrow of Geralt, fur and blanket.

“It was. What I told him the first time he shifted in front of me.” Geralt explained adjusting them so he was comfortable.

“Oh.” He felt her petting his fur under the blanket. “How’d you met?”

“I’d been hired to retrieve a family heirloom from an infested crypt but it’d been stolen by a group of bandits. I tracked them down and retrieved the sword. But I found something else there too.”

“What?”

“A little lark with a broken wing, clutching a lute like its life depended on it.”

“This lute?”

“No. That’s later.” He told her. “I bandaged it up and kept it in a nest in my saddlebag until it was healed.”

She yawned and sunk heavy into his side.

“Then I woke up and the bird and lute were gone. A single crown on my bedroll where it normally slept.”

“And then, a few months later, I met a boy in Posada, the valley of flowers, at the edge of the world.”

He listened to Geralt recount the tale until sleep pulled her deep under.

“You should have told her that story. You’re better at telling stories.”

Yes. I am. But I like your version quite a lot too.

“You will be human again right?” Geralt mumbled into his fur. “I want you to be whatever you are but I miss knowing exactly what you’re yelling at me for. I miss your stupid raunchy pun infested songs and how you’d complain about your feet being tired but you still wouldn’t shift because you wanted to talk. About nothing. You just wanted to talk.”

Geralt’s hand clenched in his fur and he rubbed his snout against him reassuringly.

“Is it something I did? Is this about the mountain? The griffin? Did I-“

He shoved him slightly to cut him off. Shook his head.

Not everything’s about you Geralt.

“Right. But you will be human again. Someday?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” He listened to Geralt drift off. “Okay.”

He’d get a bath and a haircut and he’d tune his lute and practice some scales and he’d figure out the prefect thing to say and do so that she’d love him even just a tiny fraction of how much he loved her.

That wasn’t how it worked but he needed her to like him. To not be disappointed or disgusted by him.

He longed to be simply human. Then at least he wouldn’t have had a choice. She would have known exactly what he was from the start. No tricking her into thinking he was helpful like a horse or a hawk or as soft as a rabbit or as worthy of trust as the white wolf. He would have just been Jaskier. Simple and human.

Would she feel tricked when she saw him? Would adding a human face mean she wouldn’t trust him to keep her warm? Wouldn’t trust him to listen to her if he too could speak?

He was just Jaskier and he wasn’t sure that had ever been enough.

It would have to be. He couldn’t be anyone else.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t put his best foot forward. Or at least his best paw until he made that jump.

[wallwriterstuff]

They Want Us To Burn || Alec Volturi ||

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, mild horror, mentions of blood and death. 

Words: 6263 

Summary: So this turned out to be a little longer than expected but I found once I started writing I couldn’t stop so...

From Alec’s point of view, this is what happened the day the Witch Twins burned. 

He took a deep breath, pressed a palm into the soft dirt beneath his knees, closed his eyes, and thrust his head under the surface of the water. The springtime meant warmer weather, but the rivers were still filled with water left over from the winter snow melt. The perfect place to bathe after a frankly awful day. He’d tended to the allotment in the early morning, his back to the sun as it rose since he had no time to admire the beauty of spring if he wanted to plant enough crop to harvest over the summer and autumn months. The late morning to early afternoon gave him time to hunt and check the snares he’d set in the woodland surrounding their home, and after a quick lunch that Mother had prepared, he was off to the fields to earn a pittance for his labour that would help pay the taxes due to the maddeningly fat bastard of a Lord who owned the land their small village was settled on.

The fields were not a nice place to be for Alec, but he’d been turned away from every other job he’d tried to get to earn some coin. He wanted to provide for his family the way he saw other men doing, and as the only man in his household it was his duty to do so, but he could only earn so much if he acquired no skill. His father was not someone Mother spoke about often but he knew he was a foreign born soldier. Whether he was dead or alive, Alec couldn’t bring himself to care. He didn’t want to be anything like a man who had abandoned his family without a second thought, but he could admit that perhaps their lives would be far easier if the man had stayed and taught him some sort of craft. The butcher’s son was already working at their store as was the cobbler’s boy, and the blacksmith’s son? Well, he was being apprenticed to a man in London of all places, sure to make quite a fortune.

His free hand ruffled and ran through his hair, once, twice, three times over, and then he resurfaced with a quiet gasp. Alec liked to swim when he could. There was a lake deep in the forest, perhaps more of a pond, but it was crystal clear and large enough for him to get a few laps in. He’d learnt by accident. One of the few friends he’d had before they had been driven away had pushed him into the river while they playful fought one day, and jumped in to save him when he realised he couldn’t swim. Underneath the water everything was silent. There was nothing and everything all at once, and obscured kingdom of quiet he liked to visit when the real world got to loud. Most of the time now he was too busy working to provide for his Mother and sister to visit his pond anymore. 

Wiping his wet hand over his face and across the back of his neck, Alec blinked the water from his eyes and refocused his eyes on the surrounding greenery, letting sound drift back to him as birds twittered and sung their sweet songs in his ear. Fledglings would be preparing to fly the nest soon enough and Jane would want him to come with her through the forest to help any who had fallen back into their nests again he was sure.

Alec shivered, feeling the water dribble down his spine as he ran his hand over his torso, under his pits. He was awfully sticky after working in the sun all day to till the land, ready to plant the potato crop that would sell at market and go to the Lord’s household. He had never seen the nobles house up close, but he’d heard the rumours from servants who came to market to restock the kitchens. The place was supposed to have high ceilings, long tables feasts that could feed the entire village could be held at and multiple rooms.

 Once he deemed himself clean enough, he sat back in the grass, resting his forearms on his knees and letting the sun dry the water droplets still clinging to his hair and skin, the damp strands now sticking down around his face. His hair had grown considerably and was just starting to creep past his shoulders now. He’d have to cut it again soon to keep it out of his eyes when he was working. The pay wasn’t great and nor was the company, but it provided enough for him to pay taxes mixed in with the income from the milk and cheese they sold from the goats.

The men he worked with varied in age, but Alec was by far one of the youngest. He was in his fourteenth summer now and notably smaller than those he worked with, yet still they gave him a wide berth as though he were the biggest and roughest of the lot. Jane was treated the same when she went to market to sell the cheese she worked so hard to make. Nobody dared come near the witch twins. The very name repulsed him, made bile rise in the back of his throat and his face scrunch in disgust, but there was no way they could rid themselves of the moniker now. Alec grabbed a fistful of grass, tearing it from the dirt and scrunching it in his hand with a huff. 

There’d been more name calling today, more taunts and jabs from the villagers trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn’t Jane. His sister rose to the bait almost every time, years of torment turning her bitter and hot-headed when they were forced to go into the village square now. Jane enjoyed snapping back, her words equally as barbed and making some of the toughest men recoil in shock at how wicked her words could be.

Alec didn’t like to give them the time of day, but that didn’t mean their words simply bounced off of him. Sometimes, like today, when he was already hot and bothered and just wanted to feed his family, their words lingered longer they should.

Not using your devil powers little witch boy?

Maybe he can’t without that freak of a sister near him. Ha! Imagine! All that power and he’s impotent unless there’s a little girl telling him what to do!

Better not rile the witch up, he’ll make your crop fail you know.

How do we know you aren’t tampering with this harvest devil spawn?

He tossed the scrunched up grass into the river, watching the babbling stream carry it away from him. Sometimes he wished he could do that. He wished he could just drift downstream and find someplace new, someplace nobody knew him or his reputation so he could start a fresh. Alec couldn’t honestly say he fully blamed the villagers for being suspicious of him or Jane (things did have a tendency to happen around them after all) but they never meant any harm. In fact, if anything bad happened it was because bad things had been done to them first and foremost. Still, it did scare him just how bold the villagers were becoming, and how out of control it all seemed to be. Just the other day the farmers youngest, no older than six, had hurled insult after insult at him, and Alec really had no idea how it had happened but he was certain it was an accident when the boy had turned and trod on that hoe. He hadn’t physically put it there, but…well it definitely hadn’t been there before either.

It had always been chalked up to coincidence by Mother – it was her favourite word nowadays. When the boys who had cornered Jane at market had complained they couldn’t breathe Mother had reminded them the day was hot, and the air thick. When the girl who had given Alec hope that perhaps he might have won her favour humiliated him in front of her friends, Mother had said it was a coincidence that she awoke the next day with horrendous boils on her face, sore and bursting and leaving ugly scars behind. Alec could safely say he never decided to do any of those things, but he had felt…different, when they happened. He could remember being angry, being scared, and feeling his fingertips tingle, his mind strangely warm, and then it was all over and something good had happened to those who had been good to him, while misfortune followed all those who had done him or his family wrong.

“Alec! Alec!” Jane’s voice was frantic, breaking him from his thoughts so suddenly it was jarring. He blinked owlishly, head swivelling to the right as he tried to gather his bearings. Jane was running towards him, the beautiful braid Mother had spent so long doing for her this morning now flying everywhere and her dress was tattered, stained with mud. The closer she got, the more he realised her head was soaking wet, her lip split and chin stained pink, like she’d had to wash blood off of her face. He shot to his feet, grabbing at his shirt and throwing it on haphazardly.

“Jane what happened to you!” he demanded, shock and anger fighting a violent war inside of him. His wide eyes took in every battered inch of his sister, his fingers curling into her upper arms as he hauled her into him. Jane never cried, so why were her eyes so wet? She shook, holding tightly to him as he tenderly stroked her hair. It was soaking, sopping wet compared to the rest of her. Her dress was hanging off of one shoulder now. Clearly whatever had happened had been violent, and the thought anyone might have harmed his sister drove him to near madness.

“Th-th village b-boys, they tried to – they were – they tried to-“ she stuttered, gulping for air and unable to get the words out. Alec tried to be patient, cupping her face in his hands and pressing fleeting kisses to her cheeks and forehead.

“Shhh sister, hush now, you’re safe.” He promised, brushing some wet strands of hair from her face. Jane sniffled, closing her eyes as she took some deep breaths, her slender fingers wrapped around his wrists. Given the way she’d run to him he didn’t think she was too badly hurt. There were no bruises on her skin he could see, just her split lip that looked to be quite sore.

“They tried to make me confess to witchcraft.” Jane whispered, sky blue eyes peering up at him and swimming with anxiety. She smelt something awful, like urine and barn animals.

“Make you confess?” Alec repeated, his tone growing darker as his eyes narrowed. Jane nodded, sniffling again and swiping her hands nervously down her dress. Jane was unflappable. She had a comeback for every occasion, a tongue sharper than any sword and a temper that was all consuming and violent as fire. It didn’t suit her to seem so afraid and meek before him now.

“The son of Godwin cornered me at market with his friends, and they dragged me to that boy Edgar’s house, you know the place that owns all the sheep? They kept – kept dunking my head under water in the sheep’s trough.” She told him, her voice starting to shake as her eyes went big, “I swear to you Alec I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know how the Smith’s boy began to choke.” Jane began to cry again, looking alarmed and pale as she fell into his chest. Alec wrapped her tightly in his arms, somewhat frozen in shock himself. It wasn’t the first time those around Jane had suddenly found it difficult to breathe, but someone choking was far more sinister. He doubted it would be forgiven or explained away as easily as their other coincidences had been.

“Jane we must go.” Alec said firmly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and marching with her back through the grass towards the dirt path that led to home. His mind raced, his concern growing as Jane didn’t bother to argue with him as she usually would. He took a sharp inhale as his sister stumbled beside him, falling to her knees and trembling head to foot.

“I killed him Alec. I think I killed Harold the Smith.” She whimpered, eyes shining with tears. He stilled, a shiver running down his spine. Dead? She had killed the blacksmith’s boy? He was due to go to London! He was his family’s pride and joy! This would not be taken lightly.

“Sister…how did you escape?” Alec asked quietly. Had the other boys just let her go once they had seen what she’d done to her friend? How many had witnessed the Smith boy’s demise? Was it gruesome? Alec found a morbid fascination with that last question, part of him hoping it was for all the torment they’d endured at his hands but knowing that the very desire to so much as hit him was a sin in itself. To wish a gruesome death upon someone…maybe he was the devil’s boy after all?

“They all just fell.” Jane whispered back, staring up at him from the floor.

“Fell?” he questioned. She nodded slowly, wiping furiously at her eyes before shooting to her feet. Suddenly, Jane was tugging him by the hand, the skirt of her dress kicking up clouds of dirt as he hurried to fall into step beside her. “Jane what do you mean they fell?” he repeated his question, voice slightly more panicked now.

“I don’t know brother! They began to bleed and then they fell! I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t mean to do it, you have to believe me!” she insisted. Alec nodded placatingly.

“Of course I believe you sister, but what you’ve done is…the village will not forget this.” He fretted, mind quickly turning to Mother. She would be waiting for them to return home, perhaps cooking supper as they hurried along. They had to get home fast, pack what meagre belongings they owned and flee. If Jane had truly killed the boy…the penalty for murder was death by hanging. Depending on the state that she had left the other boys in after her “trial” they might just torture her all over again before giving her the rope.

“Brother do you…hear that?” she asked, stopping suddenly. Alec paused, straining his ears until he caught it. It was a cacophony of loud, clambering voices, muffled by distance but slowly growing clearer. It was like listening to the raucous shouts of the villagers when they gathered to celebrate the Shrove Tuesday feast, but as the words of their chant became discernible Alec felt his blood run cold.

“Burn the witches!”

“Alec…”

“Run.” He whispered, staring with wide eyes at his sister. Jane’s jaw clenched shut, her eyes shining with tears. “Run Jane! Run now!” he bellowed, tugging on her hand to force her to keep pace with him.

Find Mother and get into the forest.

Find Mother and get into the forest.

He repeated the instruction to himself like a mantra. Protecting his family was all that mattered now. Their fate was certain, their place in the village now painfully clear. They were nothing more than scapegoats for all the rotten luck that befell others. Jane panted beside him as he focused his eyes on their house, forcing his legs to move faster. He didn’t dare look back, barreling in through the door and shocking Mother so badly she screamed, dropping the ladle into the pot she was busy cooking supper in.

“Alec what on earth-“

“Mother we must leave, the villagers have come for us!” he snapped, pivoting on his heel to reach for his bow. He wasn’t the best shot, but he would have to make do. His family needed him to rise to the occasion, to be the man of the house, to protect them.  

“But Alec why would they-“

“Mother there is not time! We must flee to the forest now! We can survive out there, I know we can, please!” he implored. Mother was too shocked to move for a long moment until she heard the shouting, Jane’s shrill cry to warn them of their impending visitors startling her into grabbing the skirt of her dress and hurrying towards the door.

“Hurry, hurry! Jane, come quickly!” she held out an arm and Jane immediately took her hand, Mother ushering her on ahead of them as Alec darted out of the door, nocking an arrow as he went and drawing back the bowstring. He let the arrow fly towards the crowd, a few angry shouts and screams as it landed near their feet ripping through the air. Alec could see the shining ends of pitchforks, the sharp curves of axes, the butcher holding his butchers knife up so the metal glinted dangerously in the sunlight. How could such a cloudless, bright day herald such a terrible fate for them?

Turning swiftly, he pelted towards the treeline, seeing his mother and Jane close to reaching the first few trees up ahead. His hand gripped his bow tight, heart racing as the blood in his body began to roar in his ears. Was this really it? What if they couldn’t get away? No, no he couldn’t think like that. He brushed quickly past his family, holding back the branches in their way and letting them fall back into place beside them. He moved much faster over the familiar hunting terrain, dismayed by just how slow his sister and Mother seemed to move. Tree roots tried to trip them, the patchy canopy sending beams of light to guide their way and leaving the forest unbearably humid. It hadn’t always been this warm had it? He could feel himself sweating again.

“Dammit!” Jane cried in frustration, yanking the skirt of her dress off of the sharp twig it had been snagged on, ripping the material. Mother crashed to the ground, hissing at the sting the impact left on her skin. Jane helped her back up as Alec reached back for another arrow. The villagers sounded close again, closer than he wanted them to be.

“We have to move faster, there’s a blind not far from here where we can hide till they pass.” He said, voice quiet but strained. Jane nodded determinedly, but Mother merely pushed her forward.

“Go there then.” She said, her eyes watering. Alec felt his own eyes widen. His chest refusing to take in air for a moment.

“No.” he whispered as Jane hurried to his side, gripping his arm tightly.

“I am only slowing you down.” Mother insisted, her hands bunching her dress into fists. She approached quickly, jerking like a puppet whose strings had been pulled tight. He couldn’t respond to her hug, her body warm against his and heart beating all too hard against his chest, body frozen. She cupped his cheeks and kissed the top of his head, a shaky smile crossing her lips before she repeated the motion to Jane.

“Mother no.” Jane begged, “Please come with us please!”

“We can make it Mother.” Alec said determinedly. He wouldn’t leave her behind. A real man would save all of his family, wouldn’t they? How could he leave the woman who had given him life? The woman who Jane looked so much like, with her golden hair and soft features. He shared her blue eyes. He still whispered her stories to Jane on nights nightmares kept her awake. He needed her still. He needed her always. Mother twisted her head sharply, the villagers sounding far too close as branches snapped under foot and animals scattered into the depths of the woods to avoid their wrath.

“No, we cannot, but you can. Go now my loves, look after one another. I love you always.” Her words broke on a soft sob and before either of them could react she darted back and to the right, moving diagonally away from them and beginning to bundle rocks in her arm. Jane tugged at his hand, but Alec could only watch as Mother, her blue eyes frantic when she realised they still hadn’t moved and she screamed for them to go once more. Her arm reared back, and a stone pelted the first villager through the break in the trees square in the chest. Coughing and spluttering, the cobbler clutched his chest and doubled over, heaving for air. Alec nocked his arrow and drew back the string, letting it loose without a second thought as his lips twisted into a snarl.

He didn’t recognise the man who went down, the arrow embedded into his shoulder. A swarm of people were advancing now as Jane shrieked at him to move, but Alec barely heard her. He could feel it again, that warmth in his mind, the way his fingertips tingled. His arm wheeled back and forth, nocking arrows and letting them fly. He wasn’t even aware of the obscenities he was screaming now at the villagers who were lunging for them, his ears buzzing as the adrenaline pounded through him at an alarming rate. His eyes were laser focused; tunnel vision pinpointed on Mother as she was shoved to the ground, landing hard on her elbows before she was pushed onto her back. The world seemed to move in slow motion after that, his throat feeling raw as he screamed and screamed, feeling the wind pick up around him as the stones Mother had once held as her only defence now rained down on her prone body.

Jane went down next having propelled herself forward to try and save Mother. She was tackled and pinned by the arms by two burly men that in the back of his mind, Alec recognised as some of the farm hands he worked with. He reached his arm back, furious now as they struck his twin across the face so hard the wound on her lip reopened, spilling bright red blood and making her eyes flutter. He grasped thin air, his blood running cold as he realised he was out of arrows. They were sticking out of various limbs, but it wasn’t enough to stop the mob coming for him, and he swung his bow up and around in a wide arc to catch the first attacker in the face. He was barely seeing faces anymore, each villager a blur as they rushed him. He was forced to the ground on his front, face smashed into the dirt once, twice. There was a sharp sting that ran through his nose, followed by a deep, fiery throb, something hot and wet running down into his mouth and making him choke and splutter.

“Jane!” he croaked her name desperately, vision blurring at the edges and staring to fade rapidly as an explosion of pain ricocheted through his ribs, his legs. He had failed. He hadn’t saved anyone. Mother was dead, Jane was…alive? Slung across the shoulder of the man before him, her hands bound and body limp, his sister’s chest rose and fell as she was carried like a sack of potatoes away from him. Alec couldn’t find his feet, feeling them drag over the sticks and stones littering the forest floor, his shoes sliding through something slick and wet. His blurry eyes could barely make out the discoloured, red splotch that was all that was left of Mother as he was dragged past her, two hands gripping his biceps too tightly and cutting off the blood flow in his arms as he was hauled along. Knowing he had failed made it a lot easier to accept the darkness creeping in on him.

He could almost pretend everything was normal when his eyes opened again. Jane was shouting profanities and curses at the top of her lungs, iron rattling as she shook her shackles and slammed the chain into the bars holding her in a cell. Every part of his body hurt. From head to toe Alec felt a deep-rooted ache, his very bones throbbing in protest of his every breath. The skin around his mouth felt tight, dried, congealed blood covering his skin. He closed his eyes with a wince as the image of his bloodied and beaten mother came to mind. She wasn’t Mother, not like that. She’d looked like one of those slabs of meat strung up outside of the butchers, battered and red with blood. He’d failed. Mother would never again sing as she cooked, which he had always claimed annoyed him but never confessed that they were songs he hummed to himself to pass time in the fields. She’d never patch up his clothes again, citing her favourite sewing rules to an unimpressed Jane, who simply didn’t have the patience for activities such as sewing. Never again would she sit with him when he couldn’t sleep, stroking his hair and reminding him of just how wrong they were, that her twins were her most precious gift and could never be a curse.

Alec felt the grief so acutely it stung in his chest like an open wound, a sharp, red hot knife plunged into his chest again and again and again. Jane’s shrill screaming was ringing in his ears, rattling around his brain, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything other than lie there, in too much pain to move. Internally though, he egged her on.

Curse them all, sister. Summon whatever power the devil has bestowed us with and bring nothing but chaos to this wretched place.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed sprawled on the floor, but the stone was uncomfortable and began to turn his limbs numb. Alec found himself grateful for it, the pins and needles making his pain worse only briefly before his sprawled figure was simply numb to every physical sensation, and it was marvellous. A quiet sigh of relief escaped him and he closed his eyes, willing his mind to do the same as his body, to shut down and let everything go. He could hear the hustle and bustle outside, an animated kind of buzzing. A strange kind of anticipation filled the air and he knew what it was for, though he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. Everyone knew what happened to witches, and he had maimed many villagers with his arrows to only add fuel to the fire. Their ending would not be pleasant, their parting from this world all too soon and all too painful. He prayed the numbness in his body would last.

“Alec?” Jane’s voice was hoarse, her screaming having worn down her throat. He stared at the stone ahead of him, heart aching in his chest as his eyes burned with tears. She sounded so afraid, so uncertain and saddened. The cells stank of human waste, of old blood, the straw on the floor long since mangled and discoloured by various stains he didn’t want to think about. He managed to take block out the foul smell so it no longer made him nauseous at least. It wasn’t until Jane called his name again that he found the will to respond.

“Forgive me sister.” He murmured.

“Alec.”

“I have failed you. I failed Mother. I cannot save you.” His voice was oddly thick, the air unable to escape his crooked nose and making some syllables come out a little garbled, but Jane understood him nonetheless. She always had. Without a word, she curled herself onto her side and reached her hand through the bars of her cell, stretching her hand as far as it would go across the floor towards him. Alec swallowed, shakily reaching for her. There was no pain, his body far too numb to it now, he couldn’t even feel her skin against his, but he held fast and tight to her hand like it was a lifeline, his only anchor in a world that suddenly didn’t make sense anymore. Why them? Why did they have to suffer? Why couldn’t people have just been nice to them? They remained silent, the dark aura that emanated from Jane only growing worse as time wore on and the sun began to dip in the sky. It was like watching a storm cloud grow more violent, lightning crackling around and waiting to strike.

Alec on the other hand finally got his wish. Everything stopped. The grief that was held heavy in his heart disappeared, but so did everything else. They were building his pyre, time was marching towards his death but…it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He had been a good son, a good brother, given time he might have even been a good man, but fate had decided for him and who was he to argue with such powerful forces? When the door slammed open Jane’s grip on his hand tightened, but Alec could only stare blankly at the alderman pointing a gnarled finger at the pair of them. The farm hands he worked among came striding for his cell.

“Get up witch boy, meet your reckoning.” He knew Alfred well, had thought they were perhaps friends. Huh, what an odd situation, to be put to death by a boy you had worked with. He didn’t move, merely stared unblinkingly back at them until they forcibly dragged him to his feet. No pain, nothing. His brain had shut it off by now, and everything else had shut off to as he stumbled out between them, Jane thrashing and snapping at her own escorts behind him. He squinted against the bright light of the torches held aloft by so many of those who had shunned them. He did not feel fear or dread, when he saw the stake driven into the ground, a platform of wood surrounded by logs and branches from the very forest they’d tried to escape into. Perhaps the rope was rough, perhaps it wasn’t. He tested its strength, tugging lightly so the rope was forced to strain a bit against the wooden pole forcing him to stand straight. It didn’t give an inch.

Jane was forced to submit, Alec watching as they drove a fist into his sister’s gut to incapacitate her long enough to tie her down. She struggled viciously, her eyes murderous and flashing over each and every villager before them with her teeth bared. Alec traced the bruised and bloodied visage of his sister one last time, committing the image to memory before turning to face the crowd. Whole families had gathered, some looking excited while others looked morbidly fascinated, like they wanted to be somewhere else but couldn’t bring themselves to ignore the spectacle.

“Alec, Alec look at me.” Jane snapped. He turned his head, dead eyes finding hers for the last time. He had failed her.

“I love you, Jane.” He said, and even though his voice was devoid of emotion he knew she understood just how much weight the words carried.

“There is nothing to forgive Alec, I love you to.” She promised.

“The witch twins have plagued us for long enough! Sickness has befallen our children, our crops have failed, diseases have riddled our livestock, and now they have taken the lives of five young men!” the alderman cried. So Jane had taken down five of those boys had she? Good. The crowd was screaming, the families of the boys shouting curses and thrusting their torches high. Alec knew he should be afraid, but what he could now to stop this? Perhaps the afterlife would be kinder to them? Surely God would know they had never intentionally caused harm to another living being?

“Burn the witches!”

“Purge this village of the devil children once and for all!”

The alderman nodded placatingly, his hand rising and falling in a calming motion to settle the eager crowd. Beady green eyes met Alec’s very briefly, and Alec stared back, unblinking, unflinching.  

“For their crimes against our village, the crime of witchcraft, we sentence these two devils to burn at the stake! May God free their souls from the wretched evil that consumes them!” he spat, tossing his torch down onto the branches at Jane’s feet. She let out a blood curdling scream and Alec felt the first flicker of something ignite in him as more torches followed. It rained fire for a few short seconds, and then the acrid smell of smoke was filling his nose, choking his lungs. There it was, fear, anger, despair, disgust. It roiled in his gut like an angry serpent.

“You’ll all burn in hell! Each and every one of you will burn in hell for this!” Jane screeched, struggling viciously as the flames began to lick upwards. The dry kindling caught quickly, bringing his death closer and closer as Alec began to squirm, gritting his teeth. It was growing uncomfortably warm, his eyes burning and lungs spasming as he tried to breathe around the thick, foul smelling smoke invading his airways. He coughed, eyes narrowing on the flames nearing his feet. Jane’s screaming changed in pitch and tone, the anger and malice her voice had once conveyed replaced instead by agony and terror. His head snapped to the right, seeing the leather of her shoes melting into the wood as the flames reddened and charred her ankles, bright orange fire steadily crawling up her dress. His eyes watered, his own feet now hot, burning hotter and hotter as the flames grew higher. They licked at his skin like a thousand angry bee stings. Alec could feel his flesh bubbling and melting slowly as the fire penetrated layer after layer of skin until his very bones felt like they were starting to curdle in the heat.

He couldn’t contain his voice anymore, a strangled scream escaping his lips as he tossed his head back against the wood, trying to move his feet away from the flames encroaching on his skin. He had never felt pain like it and he silently begged for it to end, for something to douse the flames and cool him down. He felt sick, his mind growing fuzzy from lack of air, though he was painfully and shamefully aware of the way his bladder voided once the fire reached his thighs. The torment seemed eternal, stretching on and on as his flesh peeled away, his fuddled mind conjuring images of Mother peeling potatoes to go into their dinner, teaching him to do the same. He would do anything for her to wake him now from this nightmare. The flames leapt suddenly with a gust of wind, pushing through his shirt and onto his chest, but he couldn’t even scream anymore, not enough air in his lungs. His body sagged against the wooden pole, his brain struggling to process the sensations anymore as he finally, mercifully, went numb to it all once more. Vaguely he understood that this was the end, that he was close to passing from this world to the next.

Black shapes flitted in and out of his vision, dancing across his eyes. His ears were ringing with the screams of the villagers, and a deranged, choked laugh escaped his battered lips. Demons, it had to be demons. Maybe they were the devil’s children after all and he had sent a welcome committee to escort them all to hell? He prayed for it in that moment, as muddled as his thoughts were he thought of the demons and how their claws might rip into those who had done this to them, thanked his father for the blissful numbness that had overcome him now and stopped him feeling pain. The demons hovered over him now, pale as the moon and shrouded in darkness, vividly red eyes beaming down at him. His eyes fluttered shut, waiting for the inevitable. He had expected it to perhaps be quick, a slash of the creature’s claws through his throat maybe. It certainly started in his throat, liquid fire pouring into him and forcing his blurry eyes back open in shock. He couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, but his eyes wheeled desperately to find someone, anyone who could stop this.

The fire built and built, and then it overflowed, pouring through his veins and spilling down into his chest, encasing his heart and flooding down to the tips of his toes until his whole body was encased in a burning more vicious than anything he’d endured up until that point. His voice was too broken to make a sound, but his mind suddenly seemed to fire up, working faster and more efficiently than ever before to try and process the agony he was in. As his vision faded again, he felt his body tremble. He was trapped inside of his mind, unable to open his eyes anymore and encased in a shell of burning flesh, being torn apart and remade from the inside. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Was this hell? Was this what the rest of eternity would be like? Where was Jane? Had death been kinder to her? He hoped it had. Whoever had done this to him, whatever awaited him at the end of this ordeal, he used his last coherent thought to make a solemn vow.

The world is going to pay for what it did to us sister, and our enemies will know no mercy from my wrath.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

lord, consecrate this ground (if you can't consecrate this love)

Summary: On the run as everyone they know and love are turned to vampires or die in the process, Padmé and Obi-Wan search for a safe haven. They are followed by a shadow with unfinished business.

Notes: Vampire AU. Blood, injury, fire, death, manipulation. Canon-typical violence. Codywan and Anidala. Open ending. I have no excuses for this. 

AO3

“Stay with me, Padmé.” Obi-Wan shuffles her arm further up around his own shoulders, choking on the hysteria rising in his throat. He has taken most of her weight on himself already but her knees are beginning to become unwieldy. “You must stay awake.”

Her voice is faint, wavering and thin. “We’re not going to make it.”

She is almost certainly right. She’s lost too much blood; thick rivers of it trickle from her throat into Obi-Wan’s collar as they stumble toward the church courtyard. It will dry tacky on both their skin, if Padmé even has that long. Anakin nearly ripped the meat from her shoulder when he bit down. “We’re almost there.”

“I’m not going to make it,” Padmé rephrases, and then says, stronger, “But you might. You should--”

“I am not going to leave you behind.” Obi-Wan interrupts, steely. He ignores the shivers running up and down his spine, the stickiness of his own blood smeared across his jaw, stuck in his beard and hair. Padmé had been too far gone by the time he’d arrived to notice his injuries on top of her own. If Ahsoka had been with him, maybe Obi-Wan would have made it out unscathed--but Ahsoka has been gone for weeks.

She’d left with Rex, promising they’d find a cure. Their ranks have been dropping like flies ever since. Obi-Wan wonders if the same thing that happened to Cody happened to Rex, too. If one night Ahsoka woke him to go hunting and his eyes had been yellow. If, like Cody, he’d grunted and cried out in pain before his teeth elongated and his voice turned into an animal snarl. If something in his blood, like the blood of his brother, changed him overnight. If Rex, like Cody, disappeared within seconds. What would Ahsoka have done if Rex had lunged at her like Cody had at Obi-Wan? Would she have fought back? Would she have had the strength to end it, the way Obi-Wan did not?

Cody’s hands had been so tight when he’d gripped Obi-Wan close. The touch was not unfamiliar; Cody's saved him from monsters a dozen times over, held him when he bled, and called him back from the dark when things were bleak. Obi-Wan hadn’t even realized what was happening at first, distracted by Anakin’s disappearance on his last patrol route as he had been. He'd though Cody had noticed a threat Obi-Wan had missed and was protecting him from it, like Cody always did. It wasn’t until Cody had slammed Obi-Wan‘s head against the wall to make him pliant that he’d understood.

The creak of the gates to the courtyard shrieks through Obi-Wan’s skull. There are eyes in the darkness beyond them. How many vampires followed them here? How many are hunting them for sport?

How many of them used to be their friends?

Padmé’s legs give out a few feet from the church’s front steps. Obi-Wan, weak from his fights with both Cody and Anakin, goes with her when she folds to the earth. Her skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent, veins standing out blue under her eyes. It makes the gaping redness of her wound all the more sickening. She whimpers when Obi-Wan shifts to secure her in his arms.

“It’s--it’s no use, Obi-Wan.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Listen to me.”

Obi-Wan, heart in his mouth, collapses back from where he’d been trying to lift them both. If he has to, he’ll drag her body over the threshold. He’ll crawl his way to salvation. He’ll lie here in the mud and the blood and let them take him if he could just save Padmé. If he could just save someone, just anyone.

Padmé looks like hell but she will always be beautiful anyway. Even with blood matting her hair to her neck, her eyes blaze with fire. “I’m going to die. One way or another.” She shakes his shoulder when he goes to disagree. “Listen. I’ve lost too much blood. We both know it.”

“We’ll stop the bleeding. If you last until dawn, just two hours, we can get to a hospital--”

“He didn’t leave enough blood for me to survive, Obi-Wan.” She sounds tired, resigned, the way Qui-Gon had when Obi-Wan had pulled the vampire Maul off of him. He’d been the first person Obi-Wan had lost to the monsters. Maul had been the first vampire Obi-Wan had ever fought.

Qui-Gon had told him, after he’d dispatched Maul, exactly what Obi-Wan would have to do to a bitten victim who wouldn’t survive the night. His voice matched Padmé's tone, regret and determination but no fear to be found.

Obi-Wan’s stomach turns, dropping straight to his toes. Bile rises and he swallows it back. The ashes from the fire he’d set to keep Cody off of him as he ran clog his nose now. His skin feels gritty, grimy, tacky. The blood welling at his own puncture wounds is slowing.

“He planned it,” Padmé tells him, gentle as a lamb. A breeze picks up around them, blowing the smells of musty pews and incense towards them from the church’s waiting doors. They are ajar, just a little. Last night Obi-Wan and Cody had taken off for the nest Anakin had pointed out to them rather recklessly. It has only been a day, just twenty-four hours. It feels like a lifetime. “If I don’t want to die, I have to drink from him to survive. There’s no choice.”

“He didn’t have the time.” obi-Wan protests even as some small part of his mind begins to scream louder and louder. “Anakin could only have been turned for perhaps a day, he couldn’t have planned so well for--” For your murder, he does not finish. Padme’s empty smile, thin and bloodless, tells him she understands perfectly.

“My Ani has always been a quick thinker.” She shakes her head and for the first time Obi-Wan realizes tremors are running through her body where she lies limply against him. “It’s no use, Obi-Wan.”

“Cody--” He coughs, throat suddenly too dry. The ash from the factory he’d lit must be blowing towards them from miles away. He is surrounded by it, drowning in it. “He turned too, before I got to you. He--I think he wanted to do the same thing to me. He tried.”

Cody had been violent, yes, but only enough so that he could contain Obi-Wan. He’d tried to restrain Obi-Wan’s arms rather than break his bones. He’d pushed in close--Obi-Wan can still feel his lips moving, whisper soft, against his skin. Then the teeth had broken through and Cody had clamped down. The air had tasted of despair and victory and Obi-Wan couldn’t quite tell which had been worse. Cody’s fingers had been so careful where they twined into his hair. Cody’s mouth had been so wet and so red when Obi-Wan had flung him back with a cross pressed to Cody's chest.

“We’re all alone,” Padmé whispers. “Oh, Obi-Wan.”

Anakin’s eyes had matched the yellow of Cody’s when Obi-Wan had pulled him from Padme’s side. He hadn’t been hard to track down once Obi-Wan had shaken Cody from his trail; Obi-Wan had just followed the bloody footprints. Anakin had been wild, feral, an animal rather than the man Obi-Wan called his brother. Somewhere beyond them, as they fought, Obi-Wan could hear Lord Sidious’s cruel laughter. He’d called his new vampire beautiful, said he would become the perfect killer.

Anakin won’t be so beautiful now, Obi-Wan realizes with distant regret. Not with the scars from the holy water Obi-Wan had splashed in his eyes.  

“You might survive--”

“I won’t. You will. You need to get inside--consecrated ground--”

She’s losing consciousness. If Padmé goes, Obi-Wan really will be alone.

“We’ll both go.”

“You can’t--even--lift--yourself…”

“We just need to last until sunrise in the church. Then we can get to the hospital. And Ahsoka might have found something to change Anakin back…”

Padmé does not answer. When he looks down, her eyes are closed. They remain that way even as Obi-Wan shakes her. His own body is weak and weary; he stumbles when he lifts them both up but gets his feet under himself all the same. Every step towards the church feels like a league. His bones are made of lead.

Obi-Wan perseveres.

They collapse into one of the pews nearest to the arched doors. Sluggish as he is, it takes Obi-Wan more than five minutes to arrange her comfortably on the hardwood. Her eyes stay closed, but her chest still rises. It is more difficult than he’d like to take comfort in the sight.

"Padmé,” he tries, knowing it is no use. She just has to survive until dawn. “We’re safe now, Padmé. Consecrated ground.”

She does not move. It’s alright. Obi-Wan tells himself, tells the swirling fear and worry in his gut. Let her rest. She will need her rest.

He must be more dazed than he’d realized, because only a light scuffing footstep on the church's stairs makes Obi-Wan jerk back to himself. He pulls Padme up further against his chest, pillowing her head as he listens. The barriers of the church will stop anyone will ill intent from entering, but the doors are open and if Obi-Wan just cranes his head around he can see--

“Obi-Wan.”

No. Please, for the love of all that is holy, no. Don’t let it be--

But it is.

Cody’s smile is bright white against the night. His yellow eyes gleam. Obi-Wan’s blood still drips from his chin. “Obi-Wan. Be a dear and come outside with me.”

“You’re not Cody.”

The man--what was once a man--sighs and spares a look over his shoulder to the cloying blackness of the courtyard and the street beyond the gates. “Anakin will be here soon, after he’s finished wrecking your home and all you love dear for what you did to his face. I’m sure when he calms down we can all have a nice long chat. Family therapy, maybe?”

“He is not Anakin any longer.” Obi-Wan repeats, “And you are not Cody.”

The thing wearing Cody’s face shrugs. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe I am.”

“No.”

That striking smile widens and Obi-Wan feels sick. Padmé’s breath barely stirs the hairs on his neck as he clutches her close. “Maybe I am what Cody has always been and you were just too blind to see it. Did you think of that yet?”

Obi-Wan grits his teeth. Faint spots have started to rim his vision. He won’t spend his last few minutes on Earth arguing with a monster pretending to be the man he loved.

“Did you wonder if I always wanted to do this, Obi-Wan? Have you asked yourself if all those moments alone, stolen chances and gentle touches and longing looks, if during all of them I wanted to do this to you?”

His resolve breaks. “Stop. Cody would never harm me.” I loved him, he doesn’t say. Cody loved me too much to hurt me, he doesn’t say.

“I’ll admit ripping your throat out is such a pleasant idea,” Cody continues conversationally. His light, airy tone contrasts so badly with Padmé’s rapidly cooling body pressed to Obi-Wan’s that it makes him retch. “The change happened so fast and I was so hungry and you--oh, Obi-Wan, I always hunger for you the most.”

“Stop.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. It makes a poetic kind of sense, doesn’t it? Me being the one to turn into a vampire and kill you? After all, you’ve spent your entire adult life killing my kind and now you love one. It'd be a fitting end for me to tear you to pieces.”

“Stop it!”

“But then…” The vampire trails off and Obi-Wan cannot tear his eyes away as not-Cody shifts his weight, affecting a thinking posture that is an exact copy of Obi-Wan’s own. Cody taps his chin and smiles again. His fingertips come away crimson. His incisors are so long, so sharp. Obi-Wan knows they are serrated like a blade. They sawed into his flesh and he had screamed. “Then you got interesting. You had to play dirty and you did it so wonderfully. I like that about you, Obi-Wan, I always have. But you couldn’t end it--not with me and not with Anakin. You’ll fight and claw and scream but you won’t hurt us, not in a way that matters. Not in a way that lasts. You love too deeply for that, sweetheart.”

The truth stings, cleaving into Obi-Wan’s heart. He has always been too weak. “Stop,” he whispers, so soft he can barely hear himself. “Please just stop.”

“It was that exact second I realized it would be much better if I could keep you. I do, after all, love you.”

“How could you?” Obi-Wan snaps even as he feels his resolve leech away like the warmth from Padmé’s heart. The wind outside roars around the church's walls and Obi-Wan could swear he hears scratching at the stained glass of the windows, like the tap tap tap of razor sharp claws searching for a way in. “How could you love me, you monster?”    

“Come and let me show you how I love you, Obi-Wan,” the monster who used to be Cody coaxes. His teeth are very, very white. “Step out of the light and let me show you.”

[unnamedelement]

even the WORDS studio ghibli steampunk inspired 4th age au is intriguing to me - I’d love to hear more about it!

I am so pleased you asked and I will talk about it forever. Basically, the idea is just something I write on--a paragraph or two here or there--when I'm feeling down and need a pick-me-up, though I haven't done so since May now as I've been so busy! It's set in a 4th Age Middle-earth in which all the basic things are the same, except that the technology advanced slightly differently, as if every major cultural and intellectual hub in history hadn't been wiped out in the first two ages. I mean, they have been, but the ideas were revisited and propagated instead. Which puts us in a bit of a steam era, a bit more modern warfare, I suppose (I imagine it as, like, Legend of Korra equivalent technology, but subtracting the radio broadcasting). I call it Studio Ghibli inspired because, in my head, thats the way its "animated," with similar color palettes to, say, Howls' Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. The same sort of observational attention to detail, but not overwrought, and an air of the magical in the every day... It's really just a domestic sort of thing, with an added twist of the Straight Road being shut for purposes that aren't entirely clear to me yet but, somehow, tie into the technological aspect. It, at least, explains to me why the elves are so goddamn committed to technology and Middle-earth in the 4th age, in this universe, in a way that aren't in non-AUs because, well, Tolkien. The lore of this ridiculous sandbox is only very slowly evolving, but giving elves unresolvable sealonging is a certain type of hurt/comfort that is highly attractive to me. Whoops. And it is Legolas- and OC-focused, of course, because that's just who I am as a person. There is also a university in Minas Tirith because I say so, and because I need to project my woes about academia somewhere, but I try to justify this to myself by tying it into that preservation and propogation of knowledge aspect. Anyway, that was way more than you asked for! Ah well. Here is the first scene I ever wrote in this AU, because I've never actually shared it publicly, I don't think. I believe @roselightfairy has been the only one privy to my nonsensical AU drafts thus far! I usually just ramble about it in tags, but you caught me this time, ha. Thanks again for asking!

Legolas twisted the ring on his index finger distractedly as he waited for the train. It had been a long day in Minas Tirith and he was ready to return to Ithilien, to take in the rolling plains that edged the river as they flew past, for it was always only then that he could reflect, in uninterrupted silence, without hobbit tourists at his heels or the accidental shove of an impatient lady in the shops.

There were too many people in Minas Tirith for Legolas. Accordingly, and much to Aragorn and Gimli’s chagrin, it was not his favorite place.

But they understood, and that was all he could ask. He tried to schedule all of the city errands on the same day or two, because longer than thirty-six continuous hours in Minas Tirith and he became an absolute nightmare with which to coexist. For the most part, his friends and family had accepted this and he was trying, after all, but that did not make it any less obnoxious for the rest of them.

It did not help that the only place in Gondor with Sealonging-certified healers was on the fourth level of the city. A wildly insensitive choice, in his opinion, though he kept that perspective well enough to himself after Ithildim and Gimli had tried to advocate, a few years before, for the relocation of the clinic to the Healing Houses on the Sixth, in a string of rejected proposals at City Council.

Gimli would not look at Aragorn for a month after that, and so Legolas had quit his whingeing and suffered in silence the abrupt buffeting that occurred in the busy streets after his appointments. He made it his own prerogative to schedule at the end of the day so he could spend the morning with enough wherewithal to do his errands and take care of whatever sundry things he had managed to commit himself to. It kept him relatively sane and it kept his friends on speaking terms and, so, that is what he did. (And it was not as if any of them had control over the West-way being shut, so there was no point in any of them falling out over it.)

Legolas heard the heavy-huffing of the train approaching long before its lights rounded the bend of the river. He preferred to walk to the stop at the Docks than get on at the Gates because it gave his mind time to settle. Waiting that close to the river after therapy was, perhaps, not his brightest idea, but the pros outweighed the cons and what Ithildim didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Besides, it was Summer, and the cattails were up again all around the station, and a family of osprey had made the light pole by the river their nest, and it did lift his spirits to watch these things alone as the world moved on about him...

A few more people rushed the small platform as the rumbling of the train on its little steel bridge above the banks increased. Legolas only readjusted his ring, unbuckled the satchel in his lap and rummaged around for the hardtack he had bartered for Ewessel. (She would have no idea how many pieces were there originally—what she didn’t know also wouldn’t hurt her). He was just tugging on the pair of oversized leather earmuffs Gimli had given him a few years prior when he started taking the train routinely when two pairs of very familiar shoes suddenly appeared in his line of sight, and he froze—

There was no point in hurrying—he had been found out so he adjusted his earmuffs and tucked the hardtack into his cheek, noticing vaguely that the sturdier pair of boots were well-shined and dirtless, while the more slender, elvish ones were caked in mud along the edges and splashed up the shins.

He had thought Ithildim was in the Emyn Arnen buildings today. He had seen him head off that way through the trees and he had obviously been there for that was forest mud and yet here he stood with Gimli, clearly just come from their Minas Tirith office so...

He had apparently been wrong. It would not be the first time he had lost track of other people’s schedules.

The train rolled up slowly, then, and Legolas finally looked up from his seat on the bench to find Gimli at eye level—glaring at him with arms crossed—and then, looking further up, was Ithildim—hair neatly pinned back despite his other uncharacteristic untidiness—and he looked down on him with a bemused and mildly irritated expression.

Legolas did his best to offer a guileless smile.

It did not work, and Ithildim pulled him to his feet. “I thought your appointment was at 4(?), auren.”

“It was,” he said, and he shrugged. He was tired and did not want to talk yet. “I prefer walking the plains for an hour or so after, to calm my mind. I did not know you would be here.”

“You do this every time?” Ithildim asked with eyebrows raised, and then Gimli was chivvying them forward as the train doors opened and the inward-bound commuters poured out and the outward-bound ones moved forward.

“I did not know you would be here,” Legolas only said, shrugging, as they found a small table in the back of the car and piled around it.

Ithildim opened his mouth to ask again but Gimli interrupted—

“That is answer enough, Ithildim,” he said softly. “Leave him be, hm?”

“But—”

“He is always back to himself by the time he gets home, is he not? Let him do what he needs to do. He is his own keeper, Ithildim.”

Legolas was no longer watching them, and he instead stared out the window as the train moved forward and he was rocked slightly as it picked up speed. He did not notice the sound of a crinkling bag or the half sandwich Gimli slid in front of him. He did not notice Ithildim watching him wearily but intermittently as he arranged his notes on the small table, comparing a neat chart to x’s drawn on a map spread across its surface.

Outside, the sun was dipping dark but his mind was far away, and his mouth felt dry as he finally blinked and turned away from the flashing landscape.

Gimli had placed a reassuring hand by his thigh as he leaned over Ithildim’s map, and Ithildim was watching him unashamedly, silver eyes narrowed as Legolas glanced at him.

He pulled a travel mug from his backpack and handed it across the table to him.

“I take medicine for this now, you know,” Legolas said quietly, and he considered the coffee and tilted his head, waiting for Ithildim’s reply.

“I know,” he said immediately. “But you have that look in your eye that you get when…”

“Ithildim, he is his own keeper,” Gimli interrupted firmly, and Ithildim looked away. “That being said, Master Elf, it is summer again—“

“I know that—“

“—and the weather folks are predicting a mighty storm this week, which is probably why you are like this.”

Legolas picked up the coffee without a word and reluctantly drank it, and he twisted his ring again as Gimli continued:

“I’ve told Aragorn again and again that he would be much better served employing you lot for storm prediction than the fellows he has but…” he trailed off, and Legolas smiled.

“But he thinks it is unethical to use a bunch of Sea-longing elves for the protection of king and country, yes,” Legolas finished. “Honestly, those of us who are afflicted are going to suffer whether or not he consults us, so I’ve never understood his reticence.”

Ithildim looked up again and was finally smiling. “You are a bit like a barometer, in that,” he admitted. “Gimli has a point here.”

Legolas laughed. “So, what? We wait until I become uncommunicative and morose and a general pain to be around, and then we send Aragorn a warning letter? What, set smoke signals?”

“This is our stop,” Gimli was saying as he folded up Ithildim’s map and notes and shoved them into his hands. He stood up and gestured at the elves to join him. “Normal people would use the message systems, Legolas, but since you refuse to—”

“Really, Gimli?” Ithildim had pulled Legolas to his feet and was dragging him by the hand out the door. The wind was heavy beneath the eaves of the trees that overhung their stop. “We are lucky he only uses birds. Otherwise it would be constant updates about the exchange rate of rye, or flash-pictures of bread, or flowery descriptions of some lady he met in the gardens!”

As they started down the side path to the houses they shared with Saida and the children Legolas laughed again. “It is mushrooms I am fascinated with right now, Ithildim. It is painfully obvious sometimes that you do not listen when I speak.”

“Mushrooms?” he asked, turning to Gimli.

“That is his current passion project, yes. Have you not been in the downstairs bathroom recently?”

“Thank you, elvellon. I am so relieved someone listens to me.”

“Eru, Legolas, you know the downstairs bathroom is supposed to be for Ewessel so she doesn’t slow anyone else down in the mornings.”

Legolas had walked past them now and was several feet ahead as the main house came into sight. He shrugged and turned, walking backward. “It was her idea, Ithildim. You can take it up with her. I am in her good graces now, and I am not playing with the fire of adolescence to tell her no on your behalf.”

Gimli was laughing now and then Legolas had turned and took off toward the house. By the time they arrived a few minutes later, the lights had all been turned on or lit and Legolas was at the kitchen table with Ewessel herself, helping her with her schoolwork.

He barely looked up as they entered. “Stew on the stove,” he said quietly, and Ithildim sighed to hear the distance in his voice.

The door swung in again as Saida came in with Alfirinion at her heels—

“Smells like rain,” she announced as she slipped off her shoes and dropped her bag to the ground.

Alfirinion was just unloading his bag and armful of books onto the table inside the door when the house shook with a loud crash of thunder, and the building sound of rain—gentle to pounding and persistent—began to beat at the house.

Ewessel looked at Legolas, who had gone still beside her, and turned to her family. “I have known for days it would rain tonight. He is better than any weather report, if you are paying attention.”

“Ewessel,” Saida said with quiet admonishment, and she walked up and pressed a kiss to her niece’s forehead before settling down beside Legolas. “How about an early night?” she said to him quietly. “We can talk about our project tomorrow evening.”

Legolas cleared his throat and looked at his hands. “Yes, I think that would be good. The table isn’t…”

“Ewessel will set the table, won’t she?” Saida said lightly, and Ewessel closed her ledger and sprang to her feet. The dining room and kitchen were suddenly in motion and Legolas sat silent in his seat, until he dropped his head, defeated, into his hands, waiting for the sound of the rain to stop sounding like the crashing of waves at the shore.

“Tell us next time you notice, child,” he could hear Saida saying from the stove, and there was muttering under breath before Ewessel and Alfirinion were back in the room, placing a bowl at each seat.

There was the scraping of chairs around him, and then the feel of a cool glass pressed against his hand.

“It is just water, Legolas,” Ithildim was saying at his shoulder. “Drink, auren. The wide world is still here.”

And so he drank and ate and listened to his friends talk.

Alfirinion had had an argument with a peer at Rangers (though he had won, because debate team and shadowing Arwen over the summer had apparently paid off), and Ewessel was displeased no one wanted to see her forestry project (which, to be fair, was a log covered in mushrooms she had taken from Legolas’ project in the bathroom, so no one was particularly empathetic). Saida had made progress on curriculum redesign in her department at the main university, and Gimli and Ithildim had gotten clearance to start a project they were partnering on, to bring heated, running water to a new town outside Osgiliath.

Legolas, however, had only made stew. Had run errands for the family and for his business. Had gone to his appointment. Had lost himself to the wind and left his family fumbling.

But the stew was, at least, enjoyed, and that was better than nothing...

After dinner, everyone gathered in the sitting room to listen to Alfirinion practice his closing arguments for his competition and, eventually, Legolas fell asleep between Ithildim and Gimli on the couch. The last thing he was aware of was someone slipping headphones over his ears and dropping the needle on the phonograph so his senses were flooded with crackling birdsong, and then there was a blanket about his shoulders, and he was gone.