#until dawn you are such an important part of my life god bless

[sasha-whos-askin-racket]

Just sent my little brother a youtube video depicting the new Until Dawn ending and now we are theorising like crazy and this is genuinely the most conversation we have had with each other in over a year.

When the original game came out, I was 12 and he was 8, and he's turning 18 next month and I haven't lived with him in over three years, and we've only spoken a handful of times since our dad died, but I so much as mention Until Dawn and now we're yapping away endlessly and this is SO IMPORTANT TO ME.

[void-writing]

Mummies Alive!: Reanimated

Since I refuse to be normal about this show, here's a general outline of what MY iteration of Mummies Alive, which I have creatively given the subtitle of "Reanimated" because I am hilarious.

Some General Plot Notes:

I'm keeping the designs because they slap and the general tone because I love that good 90s cheese, but I'm rewriting for a more cohesive story and more accurate myth references. Basically, I'm letting my Egyptology fixation run wild.

I give a justification for Scarab's name being...uh...Scarab! Erasing a person's name is like a big deal in ancient Egypt! We see this most famously with Hatsheput and her successor/nephew (I think) who tried to literally chisel her name off of every structure in Egypt to erase the memory of her. This is what Amenhotep does to Scarab except MORE (because he's the Pharaoh and has that kind of power both spiritually and politically). As in Scarab's original name gets power-washed out of reality itself and even people who knew Scarab before (like the Mummies) don't remember what his name used to be and just call him "Scarab." Personally, I find this fitting given that Scarab is a man who has misplaced aspirations of grandeur and having his name and memory super turbo erased from even memory itself would be an excellent fuck you from Amenhotep.

And on the note of Scarab, I justify his scarab beetle theme with the idea that Scarab stole power from Khepri in ancient times, the sign of that manifesting as the scarab-shaped mark/tattoo we see on his back in the show. This is what gives him the power to create life-sized shabti in the volumes he does and is a vital component to his plan for using the Pharaoh's spirit to grant himself immortality. In ancient times, Scarab used the power he stole from Khepri to rob Rapses of his Ka (aka, his life force, killing the poor boy) and then using that stolen ka as like...an appetizer, which consequently gave him enough power to survive most of his three thousand five hundred year living entombment. From there, Khepri's power served as emergency life support for Scarab until Harris Stone cracked the seal of his tomb (given that Khepri is notably the god of resurrection, so it stands to reason that Khepri's power could do that). Scarab then ate Stone's Ren (and possibly the rest of his soul) because he had lost his godsdamned mind in that tomb, which allowed Scarab to not only regain his sanity, but subsume Stone's identity and buy himself some more time.

Similarly, the Mummies are also powered by Khepri! You see, Khepri noticed Scarab stealing some of his power but was unable to directly interfere to take it back because he's part of Ra and Ra is busy 24/7 unfortunately. So when Rapses is reborn and Scarab tries to hunt the boy down again, Khepri sends a little of his power the Mummies' way to call them back from the Field of Reeds to redeem their lifetime's greatest failure. Hence their battle cry/incantation "With the Strength of Ra," because in this case, they literally were given power by Ra himself.

The Amulets are going to be Important Plot Points in my Season 2 as not only are they juiced by Khepri's power, but they're originally finely crafted magic items that each bear the blessing of an Egyptian deity. Ja-Kal's is Horus (obviously), Rath's is Wadjet, Armon's is Khnum, and Nefer-Tina's is Sekhmet (because really that makes more sense given Nefer-Tina's occupation as a warrior in service to the Pharaoh as Bastet seems to be more home-oriented) that gave them special abilities reflecting their patron deities. These powers are separate from the armor and weapons they wield in the modern day, which were gifts from Ra of the Dawn (aka, Khepri) as part of their revival. After season 1, the Mummies will be set on a quest to renew/re-earn the blessings of their patron gods so that their Amulets keep functioning properly. There's also going to be a bunch of others floating around that pop up for Plot Reasons.

Season 1 will be largely made up of the original episodes (though some of the original episodes will be in Season 2) and will be used to establish the world, the characters, mechanics and whatnot. Season 1 will also be largely defined by Presley's "refusal of the call" stage in his hero's journey, culminating in a two part finale where Presley can deny the truth of his situation no longer. Remember the eclipse in episode 4? That's a big part of my season 1 finale, as is that incredibly underutilized time Scarab impersonated Amenhotep.

Season 2 will have a few of the original episodes sprinkled in but will largely be my own original concepts. This season will be defined by Presley stepping into his role as Pharaoh and going around to get the favor and support of various gods in the pantheon. This will also be where the bulk of the Amulet Plot Line will be. The season finale's final battle will be set up as a mirror of the Season 1 finale but meant to showcase how far Presley has come from the defenseless kid he was in the first season.

Season 3 will be Scarab's third act breakdown and descent into madness as he stoops to consorting to Apep, the Chaos Serpent (also known more commonly as Apophis). Still noodling on what this will look like story-wise, but it's looking like it will feature a lot of the more primordial-leaning gods (Nuhn, Geb, Nut, etc) that were just casually dropped in the original series.

Walter, Elaine, and Amanda will also have larger roles! Walter will be experiencing most of the Mummy Nonsense from jump, serving the narrative role of being Presley's "non-chosen sidekick/best friend". Elaine, meanwhile, does not conveniently lose her memories and elbows her way into the plot (after learning an important lesson about the sanctity of secrets in situations where exposing the truth would put innocent people in danger). Hiding the Mummy Nonsense from Amanda will be a more deliberate effort for the first season as she will be investigating the events of the first episode to discover what really happened to her exhibit (and not conveniently oblivious to the Nonsense going on around her son), finding out the truth in the second season and helping from there to actively fight Scarab.

I'm also keeping Kimas because this is MY STORY and I WILL KEEP MY LITTLE GREMLIN SON IF I WANT!

The Original Episodes: What Will Stay, What Will Change, What Will Go

The Keep Category (i.e. These episodes will largely be unchanged except for some pacing and story details)

"Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra"; "The Bird Mummy of Alcatraz"; "Body Slam"; "The Egyp-Tsu Kid"; "Missing Ja-Kal"

The Change Category (i.e. episodes that will remain the same on core concept and story but the execution will be changed)

"Sleepwalking Like an Egyptian"; "Pack to the Future"; "Good Bye Mr. Cheops"; "Dead Man Walking"; "Miscast"; "Ghouls' Gold"; "Pepped With Good Intention"; "Object of His Affections"; "My Dad the Hero"; "Family Feud Parts 1 - 3"

The Scrap Category (i.e. episodes that are either "completely scrapped" or "scrapped for parts," the latter will be bolded)

"Kid Scarab"; "Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Huxley"; "The Gift of Geb"; "High Nuhn"; "Water, Water, Everywhere"; "Honey I Shrunk the Mummies"; "Who's Who?"; "We've Got One"; "Show Me the Mummy"; "Sleight of Hand"; "Tempting Offer"

The Overhaul Category (i.e. the "Change" category but on steroids)

"Paws"; "The Curse of Sekhmet"; "Loss of Face"; "The Prince & The Presley"; "Dog Bites Mummy"; "Reunion"; "The Face in the Mirror"; "A Dark & Shrieky Night"; "Monster Truck Mania"; "Tree O'Clock Rock"; "True Believer"; "Desert Chic"

The Undecided Category (i.e. episodes that I haven't decided what to do with yet)

"Married to the Geb"; "Eye of the Beholder"

Character Profiles: The Mummies

Ja-Kal:

Amenhotep's second cousin, a hunter he holds in high regard for his loyalty and general level-headedness, as well as his skill with a bow. He lived a humble but comfortable life with his wife, Tia, when Ja-Kal was asked by Amenhotep to lead the Prince's personal guard. When asked, Amenhotep said he wanted his son to be surrounded by people Amenhotep knew he could trust with the boy's safety.

Was given the Falcon Amulet of Horus as a sign of the Pharaoh's trust and favor. The Amulet expanded upon his already impressive skills as a hunter by endowing Ja-Kal with intuitive knowledge of his environment and the terrain as well as the power to see in total darkness.

He's duty-driven and loyal, but also longs to be a good father and husband, though he struggles to find a balance between his duty to the Pharaoh and his duty to his wife. In fact, when his son was born about a year before Scarab carried out his scheme, Ja-Kal nearly resigned from his post as the leader of the Prince's guard so that he could devote his full attention and energy to his family, because Ja-Kal knew that between his family and the Prince, the Prince was bound to take precedence and he didn't want to do that to his wife and son. Tia convinced him otherwise.

Ja-Kal still somehow equates all of his life advice to hunting metaphors.

Ja-Kal has a younger brother, Arakh, with whom he has a tense relationship. Between the two, Ja-Kal always had an easier time finding success and Arakh grew to resent Ja-Kal for it.

Rath:

A scientist, swordsman, and mage all in one, and immensely proud of that fact. Initially, he was brought on to be Prince Rapses' tutor when the boy was about five. Even after he became an official guardian, Rath's primary role in Prince Rapses' life was that of a tutor, though after the incident that led to Rath becoming a guardian, he was permitted by Amenhotep to school Rapses in the art of magic.

Rath proved himself an effective guardian when a mystic threat posed a danger to Rapses and Rath disposed of it by his own skill. As a symbol of his position, he was given the Cobra Amulet of Wadjet, which gives him a venomous bite and the ability to temporarily transform his head into that of a cobra (you know, that thing he does like...once, in episode one).

Rath is kind of arrogant but smart enough that he almost earns the right to be that smug. He lords it over his fellow guardians and adults but still demonstrates a great deal of patience with those under his tutelage. While Rath is a genius and he knows it, he also understands that there is much more for him to learn. The biggest difference between the canon!Rath and the one I will write is that Rath will not be as dismissive of new advances in sciences.

Before Rath was the Prince's tutor and guard, he was a research partner with Chantra, a sorceress whose skill with magic easily matched his own. Together they devised a powerful new method of spell casting that could draw power from gods and living souls directly and without incantation or permission. Rath was more interested in this concept in the theoretical, whereas Chantra always pushed to apply it despite its dangerous and heretical nature when used straight.

Armon:

The first to be part of Rapses' personal guard, Armon was a renowned warrior who served Amenhotep in one of his many campaigns to Nubia, even losing his right arm defending him. Up until Rapses' birth, Armon was part of Amenhotep's personal guard and they were even on friendly terms. There are some stories that say that Armon was one of the first people the Pharaoh let hold his newborn son, which only lend credence to the rumors of Armon and Amenhotep's close friendship.

Unique to the other guardians, Armon was given the Ram Amulet of Khnum following his discharge from the Pharaoh's army and acceptance into the Pharaoh's personal guard (and later into the Prince's). This was done as a way for Armon's valorous actions in defense of his Pharaoh to be honored. The Ram Amulet allows Armon to walk freely over all terrain, including water.

As a warrior, Armon is an exceptional fighter with or without his right arm. He's skilled in wielding all sorts of weapons but Armon truly excels in hand-to-hand combat due to his raw strength and his skill in wielding that same strength, even against opponents stronger or larger than he is.

Compared to Rath, Armon is not especially book smart, but he's by no means stupid. More academic subjects go over his head sometimes, but out of all the guardians, Armon understands and reads people the best, spotting things others might miss or asking questions that may have been overlooked. (Armon was the first to grow suspicious of Scarab, sensing his ill-intent and underlying resentment towards the Pharaoh)

Armon's love of food stems from being the son of a royal chef and he has a long mental list of recipes he learned from his mother (who is said royal chef).

Nefertina:

(I'm not opposed to changing her name because the "tina" bit really feels like Western writers trying to signal to the Western audience that she's a woman. I haven't figured an alternative out yet, so I'll continue calling her "Nefertina")

Now, in my telling, Nefertina never hid her gender because as it turns out, ancient Egypt wasn't quite as sexist as modern interpretations might portray (this isn't to say that it was free of sexism entirely, as women were barred from certain professions, like being a soldier and posts of great and overt political power, but it wasn't as restrictive as we might imagine). Still, Nefertina was a bit of a stand out because women weren't warriors in any capacity, but she was more interested in chariot driving than combat anyway, so that didn't bother her much. Given my research, it's pretty doubtful that women were barred point blank from driving chariots (though the Pharaoh's chariot specifically may have been a stretch for anyone other than the Queen, but sources are unclear). Still, regardless of whether or not she was allowed to do the things she wanted, Nefertina was no push over and had plenty of fighting spirit.

Initially Nefertina was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, but gained favor from the Pharaoh after she successfully defended the Queen and a three-year-old Prince Rapses from an attempted assassination with little more than a footstool and a hair pin, giving the Queen time to escape with her son and raise the alarm. As a reward for her courage, Nefertina was given the chance to take up a position in the Prince's personal guard, gaining the Lion Amulet of Sekhmet as a sign of favor, and unilateral permission to drive whatever chariots she wanted whenever she wanted.

Nefertina is a talented tactician who uses her environment and cunning to her advantage while also using pure strength and blunt tactics. However, her youth and inexperience compared to the other guardians often leads Nefertina to take a "brawler approach" over a strategic one even though she does have the talent for it. She's something of a wild card, as likely to use a clever trick with her environment as she is to pick up the nearest blunt (or sharp) object and go to town.

Nefertina is hot-headed and passionate. She often feels she needs to earn her place/prove herself amongst her older male comrades and this can lead her to get a bit defensive in the face of judgement. Which is a little silly when put against the fact that Nefertina regularly serves as Ja-Kal's second in command (and also as his lancer from a meta-narrative perspective), filling in for the leader in blue when he's unavailable.

So, essentially, the order in which the Mummies joined the Prince's personal guard goes as follows: Armon, Ja-Kal, Nefertina, Rath.

---

Next post will be an episode-by-episode guide for what my seasons will look like. I'll probably only do Seasons 1 and 2 for now because Season 3 is still largely blank, but I will welcome any questions on this :)

[aerialflight]

Fic Rec (it's been too long and I read a whole lot of fics)

I've read so many fics these past couple of months and my need to share them to the world has seized me by the throat. Please enjoy and support these fanfic writers! They are the best. XD

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[Naruto]

Nine-Tailed Foxes are Dead by RowlettLesbian

Ship: Shikamaru/Naruto

For Konoha, it's been one month since the preliminary Chunin exams. For Naruto, it's been six. And he wasn't in Konoha.

At the end of his ordeal, Naruto walks into the Chunin Exam finals without his left arm.

Shikamaru is very concerned. And, eventually, very precious to Naruto as they work together to solve the mysteries of Konoha and bring kindness to the Shinobi world, one adventure at a time.

(I would die for this fic. I know the summary sounds doom and gloom but IT'S NOT. This fic made me fucking cry, I don't think I've ever read a fic that characterized Naruto so right. He's so full of hope and love and develops into the best version of himself and I'm so HERE FOR IT. And it's not just Naruto, Shikamaru is absolutely amazing here along with Kakashi and surprise surprise Ino, I can't BELIEVE it took me this long to stumble across this fic. Also THE WORLDBUILDING IS TO DIE FOR!!! And the plot! Is! So! Interesting! Just, everything about this fic is just amazing so please PLEASE read this!!!)

The End of the Uchiha by RowlettLesbian

Ship: Naruto/Sasuke

“I promise, little electric spirit of this shrine,” he whispered into the soft dirt and fallen leaves, “I will never gain the eyes. I will never pass them on. And I will make sure the eyes end in my brother, so that they can’t hurt anybody anymore. I will be the last Uchiha, and see to the end of the Copy-Wheel Clan. Then all of the hatred here can stop, and my family can rest peacefully. I promise, little shrine.”

Sasuke is more than his brother thinks he is. He's more than any Uchiha has ever been. He will kill his brother, but it will not be vengeance.

It will be mercy.

(Same author as the one above, they are the gift that keeps on giving. Seriously, HOW did I NEVER FIND THESE FICS before now??? One of life's greatest mysteries. The author's sense of humor is so on point here along with the atmospheric writing that's so vivid in the mind. Their writing style is so recognizable to me now and makes me fall into the world they're creating, it's stunning. Sasuke here makes me want to hug him and the idea of him living like a feral ghibli character has me LIVING. Check the tags of the fic, all of it is true, hand to god. Please give all of the author's fics a shot, it's a rabbit hole I'm thankful I fell into!)

mil fantasmas (gritan en calma) by LegaciesandMemories

Post-Tsukuyomi, something in Uchiha Sasuke's mind shatters. The same night, Yamanaka Ino falls asleep and doesn't wake up for 15 days.

---

In which Ino and Sasuke both wake from the aftermath of the Uchiha Massacre with the ability to see ghosts, and no one is prepared for the fallout.

(This fic has arrested my curiosity and eagerness to know what will happen next. These poor kids need so many hugs and Ino is getting the spotlight she deserves. I am so excited for this fic and what it has in store! Please read! XD)

Lichtenberg Figures by Asteroid_Duck (JustThatOneGirl1815)

Name: Kakashi Hatake Rank: Jounin Status: Missing Nin Missing Since: June 15th, 271 AD Note: Flee on Sight . . . Haburashi looked his team in the eyes— three, fresh out of the Academy genin— and resolved to teach them as best as he could. And right now, his lesson was simple: “Stay. Away. From. Kakashi. Hatake.”

(Dimension travel fic with a slice of Kakashi being an absolute troll and dealing with the shitty hand he's been dealt with. Seriously, the man has the worst luck in all of Konoha. Also, the mystery of the other Kakashi's history has me leaning by the edge of my seat, I need to know.)

The Governess by Ysmirel

Ship: Kakashi/OFC

"“What,” he finally asked, “is so funny?”

Ibara bit her lower lip to keep the chuckles in, still smiling and making absolutely no effort to get more space between them, seemingly perfectly at ease within reach of a trained shinobi. Her self-control wasn't all that good, as she ended up snorting and was overcame once again by another fit of laughter. “I just- It's just-” She struggled to speak, trying to catch her breath and wiping away tears of mirth with the hand that wasn't still holding onto his vest. Finally, she looked him in the eye and said, with a smile that was all teeth and without a hint of her previous drunken stupor, “and who's going to believe you?”

As he stood there, stunned by her words and change in demeanor, he realized with dawning horror that she was right."

In which Kakashi finds himself at the other end of the troll shtick, and he doesn't appreciate it all that much.

(It's so hard to find self-insert fics with a fresh concept these days, especially in the naruto fandom. Not that I don't enjoy and devour a lot of self insert fics like it's going out of style, but it's just so nice to find something new and shiny and really damn good. I'm so pumped for this fic and how it's going to develop so please join me in rooting for this fic!)

half a league (until the valley of death) by SpectersShadow117

Kakashi can think of no reason for Sasuke's inexplicable and drastic change in behavior. He doesn't like the desperate, haunted gleam in his student's eyes, and he also doesn't like the nagging feeling that he's missing something very important. Aka: Future Sasuke goes to Past Sasuke and gives him a reality check with Specific Intentions, but as with most Uchiha, his methods leave much to be desired. (Featuring: Childhood trauma FTW, Konoha's shitty care of orphans, and absolutely no one having a fun time.)

(Sasuke wanting to change the future out of complete and utter spite has me LIVING. Sasuke is such a Mess here and the twist on the time travel premise is so good and the kid is so Traumatized and Desperate and Not Having A Good Time. Naruto and Sakura developing as better ninjas and Kakashi trying his best makes me want to scream. Also, how Sasuke thinks about Itachi makes me want to cackle. I am 100% down for this. I am rooting for this kid, go get them! XD)

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[Harry Potter]

fruit loops in time (circle around me) by justprompts

Ships: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius

"This is Crabbe, and Goyle," the blonde boy says, pointing at the two boys next to him. "And I'm Malfoy, Draco Ma - "

Ron laughs, and Malfoy immediately bristles.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" Malfoy says, angrily. "No need to ask yours - "

"You're honestly so cute," Ron interrupts, yet again, shaking his head. "So tiny. And so angry, all the time. It's adorable."

Alternatively Ron Weasley, Time Traveller Extraordinaire, is stuck in the same seven year Hogwarts Loop, repeating the same thing over and over again. Naturally, he's so done with everything.

(This is the greatest hp fic I've ever read. I LOVE RON WEASLEY and by the time you read this fic SO WILL YOU!! This is the fic I WISH I have the ability to write. I read this entire fic aloud to my brother and we spent literal hours howling and talking about how utterly insane and incredible this fic is, it's amazing. This is hands down my favorite Ron Weasley. You Can Pry This Fic From My Cold Dead Fingers.)

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[Boku no Hero Academia]

Kacchan's Cult by Ourliazo

Pro Hero Ground Zero is attacked, originally meant to be de-aged out of existence by a desperate villain but is instead launched into his 14-year-old self.

But Katsuki is a fucking pro so whatever, time to fuck up someone's day. And sure, maybe he's only one man, but that's why he conscripts the entirety of the UA student body into tearing down some criminal empires.

(It's time travel, crack, and Bakugou being his usual explody, competent self. What more in life do you want? Seriously though, please read. I'm obsessed with this fic and having a Good Time!)

Cleaning Crew; Teaching Kids to Value their Safety, for Fun and Profit by Reavv

Takenaka Hideo is a thirty-two year old, in mild desperation for money, who has just been hired as a new janitor for UA's support staff. He has a quirk that lets him find lost objects, a liaison with the police because of it, and desperate desire for competent co-workers.

Oh, and he's already lived a previous life, in a world where quirks and heroes didn't even exist.

Not a big deal, though. It's not like you ever see the janitor playing a big part in action movies. He's here to get paid, and that's it.

On the opposite side of the equation, class 1-A has to wonder at the new UA cryptid that always seems to show up when things are on fire, and who keeps trying to convince them to let the adults handle the fire extinguisher.

(A great deal of fun packed into one fic. That is how I title this fic and nothing will change my mind! Hideo just wants to quietly do his job and not get in the way. I Relate. Please read!)

Poltergeist by WriterGreenReads

Class 1-A is haunted.

Well, not really.

I AM dead, though.

World's friendliest poltergeist, at your service.

(I don't know how I got so sucked into OC fics, but I found some fantastic fics along the way so I have no regrets. The author really tries to push the premise and I just love all the interactions and dynamics that form as the fic gets further in. And the OC character and all the hijinks they get up to cracks me up! At the same time, it's pretty heartwarming and it's practically a friendships galore fic! Definitely recommend it!)

invincible by supercrunch for Engrin

Ship: Bakugou/Midoriya

This is the way the world works: the sun rises in the east. The strong come out on top. Bakugou Katsuki rockets through life like a comet and Midoriya Izuku stumbles after. If he believed in such things Katsuki would say it was written in the stars. That some god of war had looked at him and said this one. That he’d been passed along a line to get his blessings – genius, willpower, fearless ambition – and dropped off on earth.

Then, of course, there is the question of Deku. The spitfire runt. Deku, no matter what the world does to him, never stops hoping.

Until, of course, he eventually does.

(Katsuki broke him. Snapped him in half like a twig and now has to scramble to put Deku back together. “We can do this, Deku," he says slowly. "There are so many mysteries that never got put to bed. Criminals roaming around looking to hurt people and you and me, we can fix that.”

There’s a long pause. The comforter slips a little off Deku’s skinny shoulders and drowns him. “You mean like a team?”

In that split second, Katsuki makes a decision he’s never even considered. He swallows his pride. “Yeah, Deku. We’d be a team.”)

(If there was any other way canon could've gone, this is the story I would've wanted. It's perfect.)

Inadvertent Wilderness Therapy by Cacid

Following an unfortunate encounter with a teleporter on the last day of internships, Bakugou Katsuki and Hakamata Tsunagu spend some quality time in northern Canada.

In no particular order they will: build ugly survival shelters, stalk rabbits, run from polar bears, reflect on the chemical composition of trees, insult each other, and complain about krumholtz.

(THESE TWO. TOGETHER. IN THE WILDERNESS. IN FUCKING CANADA OF ALL PLACES. I still can't believe this fic actually exists and just how INVESTED I became in their relationship. Blue Jeanist instantly became my favorite ranked hero with this fic alone. HIS SENSE OF HUMOR IS TERRIBLE, I LOVE HIM SO MUCH FNIEWOPAF. BAKUGOU DOES TOO. IT'S FUCKING INCREDIBLE. *incoherent screeching into the wild*)

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[Stranger Things]

Baci D'aria by RabbitDarling

“Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.” ― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

Steve learned a lot at his Aunt's side before she passed but his favourite thing she taught him was baci d'aria; special little spells that you created from the heart and put into the food you shared.

In opening his heart and gifts to those around him Steve slowly finds himself a family in a way he never thought he'd get to experience. One by One he collects pre-teens to trail in his wake like ducklings and Steve can't even refute it by the time he realizes what has happened.

(This fic is so soft and Steve is just collecting people and winning them over with his magical food (literally). I am always a sucker for heartwarming, good for the soul fics so if you want to make yourself hungry and feel all warm and gooey inside, read this!)

(Don't Fear) The Reaper by TeaFourTwo

Ship: Steve/Billy

He looks down at the blood on his hands and on the floor and wonders why the memory hasn’t broken yet, why he isn’t back in Starcourt mall with control of his body again, wonders if he's even still alive at all. Is this hell then? Or perhaps purgatory? It certainly isn’t heaven, that’s for sure. None of this makes any sense…but then what's new—nothing in Billy’s life makes sense anymore.

Billy laughs then, loud and long and unhinged. It's the only sound in the whole house, and it bounces off the walls like a fucked up echo, like the world is laughing with him.

“Jesus christ you’re insane…” It’s Max’s voice and it’s shaking. It only makes Billy laugh harder, because Max has it all wrong. Billy isn’t crazy, it’s the rest of the world that’s insane.

--

Billy dies a hero of sorts. He wakes up back in his bed on Saturday morning, the third of November, 1984...nearly nine months earlier.

(Billy is stuck in a time loop and it's slowly driving him crazy. And the fic shows just how much influence Billy did have in the plot and how doomed the world is without him in it. Great character exploration with Billy's character and all the ways he's so messy and human. Definitely recommend it!)

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[Knives Out]

The Road Less Traveled By by UisceOneLove

Ship: Marta/Ransom

If Harlan wants to leave Ransom to be on his own, fine. He'll show him just what Ransom Drysdale is capable of.

or, where Ransom chooses to prove his abilities through means of the non-homicidal variety and finds himself becoming exactly what Harlan was hoping he would.

(I found this fic out of sheer chance and god, Ransom is just, so fascinating to me as a character. Marta of course is the Best here and I will forever stan her. Seriously, this is such a good fic! Please read!)

-

[Haikyuu!!]

Sky Full of Stars by grilledsquids

The Hinatas are twins. They're practically identical.

But while Shouyou seeks out Karasuno's volleyball team to become the next Little Giant, Natsu is scouted to to play soccer for Shiratorizawa. While Shouyou sets his eyes on playing volleyball at the highest level possible, his sister wonders how much longer she can play soccer... and if it's worth it to keep going.

A Natsu-centric story featuring: Shiratorizawa VBC shenanigans, too many soccer OCs, mild teenage drama, a little bit of plot, and Semi Eita not knowing what a period is.

(It's just!! So cute and wholesome!!! The Shiratorizawa volleyball team is so fleshed out along with the OC characters for the girl's soccer team and I swear, it's been a long while since I've laughed this much at the sheer shenanigans that happen in a fic. It's surprisingly hard to find good gen fics in this fandom so finding this gem made me so happy! If you want a fic that brings a smile to your face, read this!!)

like water by speakingincode

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, and when Tooru looks at him, he can read My best friend’s an idiot off the crease of his eyebrows. “Are you telling me you spent the last three years weirdly obsessed with Kageyama – I still remember the time you made us play him on a dumb whim, you know – and now you’re at his beck and call? Are you okay? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m— I’m not at his beck and call! I said no last week. It’s… It’s like you said. I get bored easily. I saw him at the park a couple weeks after they played Nationals and called him a perfect little tyrant, and he pestered me into spending time with him after,” Tooru says. “I’m not a monster, Iwa-chan. If he wants the company of his cool, handsome ex-upperclassman that badly, who am I to begrudge him?”

Or: Oikawa doesn't know why Kageyama keeps asking to meet him on Saturdays. He also doesn't know why he keeps saying yes.

(The fact this fic is canon-compliant and covers post-canon too makes me want to shout to the heavens. Fucking incredible! One of the best Oikakage fics ever and it's a crime how it's not at the top of the ship tag. Please please read!!)

twist into your shape by kakkoweeb

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

The only thing better than sweets were sweets containing paper that told you whether your future would be good or bad--or in Kageyama and Oikawa's case, paper that somehow caused you to live inside each other's bodies.

(Everyone probably already read this fic but it needs to be said, you need to read this fic. How these two try and manage each other's lives and slowly start to care about one another is so beautiful and sincere and I am ready to wrestle anyone to the floor and comply them into reading this fic. Doesn't matter if you like the ship, you will become a fan if you read it, I promise. Please please read!!)

Take the Long Road Home by pepperfield

Ship: Kuroo/Sawamura

When Azumane Asahi goes missing before his engagement meeting with Kozume Kenma, what other option is there but for Daichi to impersonate his brother and fake his way through a first date with Asahi's fiance?

Okay, let's be realistic - there were probably at least four other options.

Unfortunately, Tetsurou couldn't come up with any of them either, so now he's here flirting with Kenma's future husband while trying to keep his web of deceit from collapsing.

It's going to be an eventful day.

(I got obsessed with this ship alongside Oikakage and SO WILL YOU. THE POTENTIAL. THE BANTER. THE FACT THEY'RE BOTH DORKS AND THE FIC HAS IDENTITY SHENANIGANS DANCING ALL OVER IT!! I had so much fun reading this and these two are MEANT TO BE FENIWPAF. If you don't see the potential of this ship, you will now.)

a misunderstanding a day keeps the boyfriend away by bartallen for betuls

Ship: Kuroo/Sawamura

Kuroo doesn’t fall in love hard and fast like many others do – he falls slowly, and very very softly. Most of the times he doesn’t even realise he’s in love with someone until it’s too late.

(Kuroo is the dumbest man alive and I've never related to someone so hard in my life. God help me.)

You like me. by roseknight

Ship: Daishou/Kuroo

Kuroo nearly lived a Daishou-free life, and sometimes he looked back and wondered how much better and how much worse that would've been.

(I didn't even know who Daishou was until I read this fic and now I can't unsee the potential this ship has. I'm a ruined woman and I regret NOTHING.)

Kings of the Road, Kings of the Universe by EzzyDean

Eight magical captains, one bus, an entire summer (and country) waiting for them.

What could possibly go wrong?

(The magic of friendship meets the magic of a summer road trip meets pure magic.)

(CAPTAIN SQUAD IS THE BEST SQUAD SOMEBODY PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEND ME SOME CAPTAIN SQUAD FICS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS SQUAD IT'S A PROBLEM AAAAHHHHHH!)

宿縁 : See You Soon by MissKiraBlue

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

Upon arriving at the train station of death, an impure soul is granted a second chance at life against his will. Reincarnating into the body of Kageyama Tobio, a 15-year-old boy who recently committed suicide. Tobio's soul will depart at death and the soul needs to slip in to replace it. If the soul's reformation succeeds, he’ll reenter the cycle of rebirth and regain the right to be reborn. He will have three months to accomplish this task.

“Even though you had enough of life,” the soul whispered into the void of the room, “you were still afraid to hurt your hands, Tobio.”

Afraid of giving himself a scar, if he survived.

He touched his pulse and grasped life and couldn’t help but pity Kageyama Tobio.

"You wanted to die and now I’m here making you live again," he whispered into the night.

(I'm not even exaggerating when I say out of all the fics in this entire goddamn, too long list, this is the fic I'm anticipating and heart eyeing the most. It's only starting, but I already cried on chapter fucking 2, the power of this fic, holy shit. The author also wrote the hq time loop Every Tomorrows series, which I have an undying love for and am full on praying for the day it updates, so you KNOW this fic will be just as good. (Anybody who hasn't read this series, where the hell have you been?? Read it!!) Just, everything about this fic hurts me and something in my chest just aches when I read this fic. Go into it blind with an open heart and I swear to you, it's going to change your life. I'm already calling it. Seriously though, please please read!)

-

[Crossover]

Learning to Fly by Asteroid_Duck (JustThatOneGirl1815)

Fandoms: Boku no Hero Academia, Naruto

The number three hero is a walking (well, flying) contradiction in every sense of the word. This includes his teaching skills. Why had Tokoyami agreed to this internship again? Oh right. He’d thought he was actually going to learn something. …….remind him to never be so optimistic again. . . . OR, Kakashi Hatake is reincarnated as the pro hero, Hawks. Tokoyami Fumikage suffers as a result.

(The reincarnation fic I never thought I needed and it's so good!! I've never really paid attention to Tokoyami and this fic sent me headfirst into loving him. Their dynamic is so interesting and I just love how their relationship develops. Also, Kakashi trolling the poor kid made me cackle, it's great! Definitely recommend it!)

Si Vis Pacem by athenoot

Fandoms: Boku no Hero Academia, John Wick

Everything has a price. That's what John has always known and will forever remember, even in death.

Which is pretty ironic considering his current circumstance.

Instead of a grown, scarred, weary body belonging to a man as cruel and broken as him, he's inhabiting a younger, smaller, unblemished one belonging to a child with strangely colored hair, and is living in what seems to be a superhuman society.

Well. May it never be said that John isn't a strategist. He can live with this. Maybe.

(Somewhere out there in the universe, he's certain he could hear the laughter of his enemies from beyond the grave.)

-

Or: John Wick is reincarnated as Midoriya Izuku. The world should probably watch its back.

(This should be one of the crackiest fics I've read in a while, but it's taken so seriously and I'm so HERE FOR THIS. John Wick being John Wick in a world of quirks and heroes is the GREATEST, honestly, he's so badass. Bakugou, I feel for you, you must be so fucking confused lol. Bakugou trying his best to be a good friend is one of the best things about this fic. Trust me, this fic will make your day, promise!)

A Girl's Mind is a Dangerous Place by clenastia

Fandoms: Naruto, Fairy Tail

Natsu wakes up in Sakura's body. It only gets worse from there. Also known as: In Which Natsu has No Idea what to do with Boobs.

(I binged this in two fucking days, I couldn't put it down. This fic reminded me why I liked fairy tail when I was younger and why Natsu is honestly such a great protagonist, god. And the fic does that thing, you know, the Thing where when two worlds collide, the characters struggle to acclimate and adapt to a completely another world with different rules and mindsets against their own. This fic is seriously one of the best when it comes to that aspect, it's incredible. I am going absolutely feral over here for this fic to update, I'm waiting in the wings, ready to pounce like a tiger, all the metaphors man. For the love of god, read this fic.)

Give me a landscape made of obstacles by Melise

Fandoms: Naruto, Natsume's Book of Friends

Kakashi Hatake isn’t who he says he is.

Because the truth is that he’s actually a youkai in disguise, a wolf spirit named Madara who stumbled across the Hatake clan during the Warring States Period. Intrigued by the shinobi he saw, he’d proposed a temporary alliance in which he would offer the clan protection in exchange for their teachings.

Decades later, Madara is surprised to find himself inadvertently summoned to Konoha by the last living member of the Hatake clan. Sakumo Hatake, who is mourning the recent deaths of his wife and stillborn child, doesn’t want to be alone anymore. So with his permission, Madara takes the place of Sakumo’s deceased son in order to watch over the last Hatake.

(Fusion in which the youkai of Natsume’s Book of Friends all exist in the Naruto world. No knowledge of Natsume’s Book of Friends required).

(Before this fic, I only had a very vague idea of what Natsume's Book of Friends was, and honestly, I still don't know much about it. But I didn't really need to know to get into this fic. I love the worldbuilding and the relationships Kakashi forms, both supernatural and mortal. I love how Kakashi's inhumane ways affect others around him, whether to stress them out or become used to the strange. You can go straight into this fic without knowing anything and absolutely still have a fantastic time. I definitely recommend this so please read!)

[jezy]

My Ben 10 Reboot/Grim Dawn OC-- Libra Renov! :D

Warning! Some of these parts have uncomfortable stuff, so if you don't like it. Might wanna either scroll down faster or endure it if you still wanna read it.

Libra has a lot of expertise with being a Sage of Illusions but she's also a healer and wild card in case missions go south. Which is about 50/50 percent most of the time.

She's also one of the smartest sages there is. But she sometimes focuses on the puzzles way too much so she doesn't notices anything going on around her.

Libra has a few friends but they're just a bunch of royal jerks. Except Hex, she liked him when they've met. Disa and Libra are friends too, but she trusts Hex more than anyone.

Before Libra died, she was a human with wavy chocolate brown hair with deep blue eyes and fair skin. Now, she's an aetherial with messy black charcoal hair with glowing green eyes and her skin's pale white.

She is an adopted royal, let me elaborate : Her real parents' kingdom got dethroned by another kingdom in ledgerdomain. The king and queen who has a tomboy daughter which they don't like, and resulting for said daughter to left them with no heir. So when they dethroned Libra's parents, they took toddler!Libra under their wings and taught her how to be a girly-girl princess.

At first, Libra loved it but when she grew older she became a rebellious child (in secret) and would often read her adopted father's books about magic without permission.

When she met Hex (when she first sneaked out for the first time), she realized she can be so much more than just be a useless princess in her kingdom. She could help people on the front instead of doing it behind the walls of the castle.

So ever since then, whenever she gets the chance to do something rebellious, she would do it using illusions as distraction then she helps the people in need with a disguise. (Like Robin Hood).

Her adopted parents didn't liked it obviously and were trying to figure out who would do such a thing. They still haven't found out it was her.

Libra & Hex are the "friends to lovers" couple. They're glue you can't easily separate and will hurt you if you hurt one of them.

When she found out that she's getting arranged marriage to Hex's younger brother, she didn't liked it. Yes, she knew about Hex's younger brother, Spellbinder, but she didn't liked him like that.

So when Libra & Hex became 18 years old, they eloped to Cairn and became Sages since then. They're not exactly married in legal standards, but they don't mind it one bit.

When Hex gets pissed at someone, its Libra's job to calm him down.

Since she's the only thing that stands between Hex and his anger to the whole multiverses. That is, when she died in the first cataclysmic war.

Libra deeply cares about Hex and is deeply hurt whenever Hex does something he regrets. Like, cursing his brother when Spellbinder forcefully kissed her lips.

Of course, Hex hid away from her for a few years because of the fear he'll hurt her too.

This made her depressed and longed for him, even to the point on not eating or sleeping because she misses him too much. Till Disa slaps her from her depression and yells at her to get a grip.

Libra was slightly thankful for her, even though it hurts like hell. She now learned a lesson that Hex would come back. Which he did, and Libra basically sprung out to crush him with her hug.

Libra cried rivers when Hex came back, as well as him.

After that, they now have more love to each other. Which is a blessing for the other sages since they now feared/despised Hex because of what he did.

They were peaceful, until the cataclysmic war....

Now, the cataclysmic war isn't just some war, it was a war between The Gods of Cairn and The Aetherial. (I'll probably make a post about the Aetherials and Gods of Cairn, since I can't explain everything in here)

It affected everyone even The Sages, half of the faction died including Libra. Who got trapped inside the spell of the Handmaiden Shield and burned alive by the aetherfire the aetherials had caused.

When she died, her soul got flung down deep into where the aetherials (now just spirits) had now reside. When they noticed her and found out she wasn't one of them, they tortured her for eons till they came back to take over the world. But she held it together for as long as she can take.

That was until... Theodin Marcell, The Master of Flesh, had began experimenting & reanimating the bodies of humans. He searched for test subjects (alive and/or dead) and found Libra's corpse in an ancient graveyard, and decided they will make her their most perfect masterpiece.

And so he did, first they forced Libra's soul to go into an aether crystal (a sort of physical form of aetherials). Then, he sliced open Libra's body's chest and planted the crystal inside her heart. Then he started reanimating her.

When she first came back to life, she was strapped naked in an electric chair. She tried to get out obviously until she saw Theodin Marcell coming down.

"Ah, so you're awake..."

"What do you want with me?!"

"The higher ups of the Aetherhold has accepted my request to test on you, Miss Libra Renov..."

"That still doesn't my question bastard!"

"The higher ups also want you to join our army. A special soldier, if you will."

"I'll never join you! Not after what your kind has done many eons ago!"

"Of course, I know you won't accept, so we'll do it the hard way instead..."

"Wha--" Then she screamed. Theodin had activated a switch that activated the electric chair. There were iron nails, nailed through her hands, and seemingly connected to the wires up to the switch. Making her feel the pain through her nerves system.

It hurts like hell, it felt like she was on fire. Her organs felt on fire, her brain-- Everything felt like on fire.

Theodin kept doing this to her till she threw up bile onto herself. Coughing up the remaining bile in her throat.

"Hmm, interesting, a human body can take so much of electricity before they perish. But you however, since you were blessed by the gods, you can take so much more..."

"What the hell does that mean?!"

"That means, I have to do more experiments on you. But since you just woke up, I'll let you rest. Tomorrow, we will continue, and by then... You will sooner or later become a masterpiece....."

She only glared daggers at the possessed man as she was dragged away to a cell. They threw her and pinned her down, then they chained her up against the wall to make sure she doesn't escape.

Her hands felt numb from the electrocution, her body was shivering from the cold and shaking from the electricity. Her brain felt dizzy, if she focuses too much on an area, she would throw up.

Whatever the hell Theodin has in store for her, she'll endure it. She won't break from him. She'll get out and escape as soon as she finds a way how.

Besides, how worse can it get?....

Surely it won't be too much for her? Right? She's seen disturbing things, she has the confidence that she won't break.

Oh how wrong she was...

How very wrong she was...

The next day, when she was being escorted to the experimentation room. She tried to escape.

There were many aetherial possessed soldiers and once they saw her, they started shooting at her. Unfortunately, she was hit multiple times and died.

But that wasn't the worse part, the worse part was when she started to wake up. What she saw was scarring.

Her body's opened up like some frog in a science class, she could see her organs and everything from her perspective. Bloody equipment on a table, her beating heart, and Theodin poking and putting something inside her. It was enough to make her nauseous.

"Oh? Awake already?"

She was freaking out and started to squirm a lot.

"I suggest you don't squirm, unless you want an important organ to get cut from your recklessness."

She immediately froze from his words.

"Good pet." She growled at that nickname, she was very disgusted by him.

She tried to look around for any places where she can run, or anything nearby that she can use to break out of her confinement.

But she couldn't do anything, she knows that. She can't escape and she'll just bleed out if she somehow miraculously did. She was trapped.

She had no choice but to stare at what Theodin's doing to her for hours, mortified. And when he finished stitching up the slices he made, he did one more thing.

"Oh, and since you tried to escape. A little torture will be necessary."

And so he did, by stabbing her leg unexpectedly, in which she screamed. He kept doing this to different parts of her body until she began crying and whimpering.

Her face was covered in cuts and limbs that have stabs all over them. There were a few close calls to her neck making it look like scratches.

"Oh, you're crying? That's pathetic."

"...."

"Still not answering?"

"....."

"Whatever, because of your recklessness you got shot down by our troops. So I suggest you stop being stubborn and just accept it. You can't escape. And if you do, we'll be coming after you."

Those words slowly drilled down into her brain, she tried to ignore it but couldn't. In the next few days of those horrible electrocutions and mortifying tests that include getting her shoulders dislocated in the process, she was beginning to starve.

Theodin doesn't cares though so he just ignores Libra's whimpers of starvation and continued on the experiment. Even if it means Libra gets slammed like a bruised ragdoll.

There's more, more worse than that. When Theodin realized he couldn't do more experiments on Libra due to her lack of energy. He feeds her near-expired food, by literally shoving it down her throat till she chokes on it.

She absolutely doesn't likes it and tried to escape once after that. But she got stabbed from behind her and died once more.

Everytime she tried to escape, she keeps dying. And everytime she was brought back to life, she was punished. Either it was electrocution, beating her up, stabbing her randomly, or really painful whips in the back.

Her brown hair became darker until it was charcoal black due to getting electrocuted many times, her skin was so pale that you would barely see the cuts in her face. She has spots of burns on her skin when aetherfire was shot at her, body that has stitches everywhere, and her hands was beginning to glow bright green due to prolonged exposure to electricity.

Her head hurts, a lot and her chest feels funny every time she exhausts herself.

She cries in her sleep everytime, she can't take it anymore. She is in so much pain, so much stress. That she didn't even saw the worst part that happened to her.

"Fuck you..."

"Oh my, how dirty your mouth is."

"Screw. You. I can tell whatever I want to say."

"Oh my... Don't tell me you've forgotten one of the rules of your faction... That would be very disrespectful of you."

"Wait, the rules??"

"Yes, don't you remember the faction you joined and its rules?"

"My faction? Yes, my faction!... The err... S..So...The Sorcerers!"

"You meant 'The Sages'?"

"Wait, 'Sages'??? I thought--"

"Oh don't tell me you don't remember, The Sages of Cairn? The faction you dedicated your whole life into."

"Of course I remember! Its just err..."

"You seem to have forgotten your faction."

"N-No I don't! I do remember them!"

"Oh then please, tell me all about it."

"Its..erm, ugh! Why can't I remember?!"

"So you don't remember anything? Anything in particular. Your friends, your family, even your lover?"

"I...I don't remember....." Then laughter erupted from the man, as she tried to remember.

That was the worst part, she couldn't remember anything. Her memories full of holes, fuzzy dreams with no meaning to her, and sometimes nightmares would crawl into her mind. The only thing that she held onto was her name and the name of her lover, Hex, but memories of them being together was long gone.

And soon, Theodin had managed to succumb Libra in her weakest point. Where she was easily manipulated by the aetherial....

After a couple more years of experiments, torturing, etc. She was empty both inside and out. Her eyes were dull of life, her vision (sometimes) was such a haze but she didn't really cared.

Theodin had turned the once stubborn Sage into one of his mindless (very scarred soldier) soldiers for battle.

She couldn't feel pain no longer. After what she went through, she slowly became numb to pain. Which was good for Theodin Marcell, as they now have a perfect masterpiece, ready to go and do their bidding.

But the downside is that she became a masochist so every wounds inflicted to her, was a pleasure for her instead of pain. So she had to wear a mask, so people won't find out she loved the pain on herself.

She became a Mage Hunter, a mixture of an Inquisitor and an Arcanist. She disguised herself using illusions (that she vaguely remembers) and infiltrated the barracks of The Black Legion.

She then proceeded what Theodin tells her to do, smuggle the aetherial spirits to people who are the weakess mentally and with most negative emotions.

After Malmouth had fallen she continues hunting down humans for Theodin to "make a masterpiece" out of them. That was until Hex arrived.

One day, she received a mission to protect Warden Krieg in his home. So she used a rift to get there quickly, and when she did...

She saw none other than Hex who's fighting aetherials at the moment.

She stood there staring at him, thinking about how familiar Hex is to her. Though, she didn't know it was him. Until she decided to call out for him when he was finished with killing the aetherials.

"...Hex?"

That immediately caught Hex's attention and saw Libra standing there, shock mixed with confusion.

"How do you know my name?"

"I..I don't know, but I remember someone named Hex.... I'm not sure.... I just called out to you..."

"Well people don't know my name unless--"

"I'm Libra..."

That made Hex shut up quickly and come up to her with widened eyes before hugging Libra. Her mask was quickly swept to the side as Hex kissed her.

The hug and kiss really made her feel nice and warm. Like, they've been doing this for who knows how long.

But soon, the warm feeling disappeared when he let go, "How can I know you're Libra??? She died eons ago..." He said with sadness in his voice. That was a good choice, being skeptical was a good choice.

"I don't know either.... I can't remember anything, my memories are filled with holes..."

"Can you remember maybe a little bit?"

"Well, I've been getting nightmares more recently... My dreams were always different but I think I remember burning in one of them..."

"So it really is you... What happened?"

"I'll tell you, but first, we need to go somewhere and then we can talk."

Hex only nodded and followed her to a hidden place. That was when she told him everything she remembers so far, after the end of her talking Hex looked like he was going to rip Theodin Marcell into two. Which makes her scared.

She doesn't want to lose the only warmth that she has now, she needs to protect him. That was how she betrayed the aetherials and helped Hex with his missions.

This doesn't please Theodin though....

But she doesn't care, she's obsessed with Hex's warm feeling and she doesn't want to lose it.

Even though her memories is filled with holes, Libra felt like she belongs to Hex.

And since Hex is now together with Libra again, he can help her with those hole-filled memories.

And maybe now she can slowly remember what they used to be...

Here's the current gacha design for Reboot!Hex and Libra (Since I can't draw, lel)

Hope you enjoyed it!

[prettyboongi]

Slow and Steady

Reader x Jeon Jungkook 

Word Count: 2,288 

Genre: Smut (like the bulk of this is pure smut, I wish I was kidding lol), some crack 

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Explicit sex (what more can I say?) 

Summary: While spending some time with Jungkook’s parents, the question of grandchildren is suddenly brought up. What will this lead to...?

[A/N: So this was one of those fics that stayed in my mind for awhile and I have to plot figured out in my head. But the challenge was actually writing it out. I realized that I waited too long to get this done and finally got myself to sit down and wrote whatever I felt right. I’m not too experienced writing smut so I’m kinda embarrassed putting this out haha. But nevertheless, I would like to thank @jjk-oppa​ for this request, I’m so sorry for taking so long and I really hope you like this sweetie!]

Recently, Jungkook made the huge decision to go on a long hiatus. Being a former member of a successful idol group, Jungkook was blessed to find even more success as a solo artist. 

But even as popular and beloved as he was, he started to feel a bit burnt out. He was in his early thirties now and didn’t have as much energy for performing as he did as a young 20 year old. He thought going on a long break would allow him to take care of himself and explore different passions. And best of all, he will get to spend more time with you, his loving wife of three years. 

To better kick off his hiatus, the both of you decide to go to Busan to visit his parents. While there, the two of you and his parents made the most of the visit. On the first day, Jungkook took you around his favorite childhood spots and took you and his folks out for a nice dinner. On the second day, you and Mrs. Jeon spent most of the afternoon cooking, your mother-in-law even teaching you family recipes. While the two of you bonded, Jungkook and his father spent the day out and reconnected with old friends. 

This was exactly Jungkook needed. He needed this time to reconnect with his old self and take the time to appreciate the little, but important things in life. And having a wife like you by his side made it all the better. 

On that second night there, the four of you were enjoying a nice homemade dinner at home -courtesy of both you and Mama Jeon. 

Conversation was going great until Mrs. Jeon brings up something she’s been meaning to ask. 

“Jungkook, when are you and Y/N going to give us grandkids?” 

Jungkook chokes on his water while your eyes widen at such an abrupt question. 

“What brought this up?” Jungkook asks, wiping the mouth with the back of his hand. 

His mother innocently beams at the both of us. “Well, you two have been married for a while now. Don’t you think it’s time.” 

You turned your head to Jungkook, who looked completely mortified, then looked back to your mother in law. 

“Uh, well we had talked about having children before,” you said, struggling to keep your voice steady, “but with Jungkook being busy with his career, it’s been hard to, you know,  focus on that.” 

Mrs. Jeon dismissively shook her head. “But now he’s taking a break, isn’t he? So, it’s a perfect time.” 

You didn’t have a choice but nod at your persistent mother in law. You then tried to focus on finishing your food, hoping to end this embarrassing conversation. 

Staying quiet for the most part, your father in law finally spoke up. “Yeah, you two hurry up and have kids already. Before I become too old to play with them.”

Later that night, the two of you were getting settled into bed in the guest room. Jungkook was changing into his pajamas while you were sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing lotion onto your legs. 

There was an awkward silence between you two. You were still pretty embarrassed from the evening’s conversation. And if you were embarrassed, you knew that Jungkook felt way worse. 

After a long moment, Jungkook finally broke the silence. 

“Hey,” he began, “I’m really sorry about dinner. You know how my mom can be sometimes.” 

You turned your body slightly to face him. “It’s fine. I know that it came from a good place.” 

Another moment of silence fills the room before you speak up again. 

“Honey, do you truly wanna have kids?” 

“Of course, Y/N, I just been so busy-” 

“Better yet,” you interrupted him, “do you wanna have kids… with me?” 

A puzzled look flashed on Jungkook’s face. “What kind of question is that?” he lets outs a laugh, “You’re the love of my life. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise.” 

You smile soft at his sweet words. “That’s good to know. Because I don’t think I could’ve chosen anyone better to be the father of my future children.” 

Jungkook has always been crazy about you. But it was at that moment that he never wanted you so bad since your wedding night.

Jungkook walks over to you on the edge of the bed. Cupping your face, he slowly leans in and places his soft lips on yours. Your hands slide upward from his defined chest to his strong shoulders, pulling him more towards to deepen the kiss. It doesn’t take that long for your kiss to become passionate as the two of you savored in each other’s taste and continuously crashed your lips against each other. Jungkook took his tattooed hands off your face to grab at your hips while your fingers twirls his shiny black locks. You gingerly bit and licked his lower lips and, in response, he suddenly forced his tongue into your mouth, causing you to moan into his. 

Eventually Jungkook broke away from your lips and looked at you with such intensity in his eyes. 

“I want you so bad, Y/N,” he whispers seductively. 

The huskiness in his voice made you want to melt right then and there. Two of have been together for so many years and he still never fails to warm and tingly inside. 

He grabbed your hips once again and guided your back on the queen sized bed. While hovering above you, Jungkook leans to kiss you for the second time. Your mind is lost in total lust; the feel of his tongue aggressively playing with yours made your private region increasingly wet. Still keeping his mouth on yours, Jungkook slid his hands under your oversized t-shirt and started kneading your perky breasts, paying special attention to your hard nips.  

Feeling the special care done on your tits, you started to sinfully sigh into his ear. Instinctively, you rubbed your thighs together, adding pleasure to your aroused pussy. 

“Please,” you said breathlessly, “just fuck me, Kookie.” Hearing her use that nickname she exclusively uses during intimate moments like this, he got the message that you were absolutely ready. 

With his hands still massaging your breasts, he asks you, “Do you really need me to fuck you, baby?” Soundlessly, you nod in response. 

On that cue, Jungkook sits up and gets off the bed. “Before I fuck you, I want you to suck me off.” He pulls down his plaid pajama pants, revealing his engorged cock. Obediently, you moved yourself closer to his large member. Your fingers gently massage the base of his cock as you begin to lick the already leaking tip. Slowly but surely, you’re able to engulf his entire penis into your mouth. It is then, you diligently went to work on him. Jungkook did his hardest to keep his moans low, but the way you were sucking him and the feel of your wet tongue on his cock drove him nearly insane. He grabbed your hair and moved your head in a bobbing motion. 

“Fucking God, Y/N,” he says between pants, “Can I come in your mouth?” With your mouth filled with him, all you could do was nod in approval. With one final thrust in your mouth, he came down your throat and you immediately swallowed. 

He suddenly pulls you by your underarms and clashes his lips to your, sucking all of the leftover spit and cum off your mouth. He didn’t know why but he really loved tasting himself on you. You grab the hem of your shirt and tug it over your head. Jungkook eyes your beautiful naked body before nearly tackling you on the bed. He pulled the last of the clothing you had on -your panties- and gazed at your lying figure. 

“God, you’re so gorgeous, Y/N,” he sputters out. 

Getting shy, you blushed and looked away from him. It absolutely drove Jungkook crazy whenever he saw you get all bashful before him. Without warning, he flips you over and gets you into the doggy style position. He slightly lifts up your hips and slowly enters you from behind. 

“Mmm,” you quietly groaned. 

Once fully inside you, he repeatedly pumped in and out of you, gradually picking up speed. The faster he goes, the more you find yourself a whimpering mess. You covered your mouth with your hand, muffling your loud moans. 

After a few minutes of rough pounding, he goes farther inside you, hitting your sweet spot. 

“Ah!,” you cried out. 

“You like that, babygirl?,” he asks in a low voice. 

“Yes,” you answered weakly. 

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I like it.” You loudly gulped from salivating so much. “Please go deeper.” 

Without skipping a beat, he pushes himself farther inside you. He knew that you loved it when he fucked you at a slower but much deeper pace. 

You bite your lower lip to keep yourself quiet but it didn’t stop your moans spilling out. You pushed your towards him, ultimately finding a rhythm with him. 

“Oh, you feel so fucking good, baby,” he grunts. He finds his hand on your nipples and gives them a slight tug. This causes you to involuntarily clench around him. 

The room is soon filled by the two of your’s frantic panting, while trying not to be too loud for anyone to hear. 

“I’m gonna cum again, Y/N,” you hear Jungkook say. 

“Come with me then.” 

After a few more deep pumps, you feel your orgasm explode through our body as well as your husband’s burning cock pulsating inside you. You two ride out the last of your climax before Jungkook slowly pulls out you. You can feel his load spilling inside of you. 

Tired and sweaty, Jungkook collapses on your equally damp form and the both of you end up passing out from your hard work. 

Hours later, you wake up with Jungkook’s arm wrapped around your waist. You looked out the window and saw that dawn was just breaking. Despite the majority of the sweat from before had already evaporated, you still felt sticky and gross. Gently lifting Jungkook arms off you, you quietly got off the bed. You walked towards your suitcase by the door and pulled out your white bathroom. As you slip the robe on you, you hear Jungkook shifting on the bed. Looking back, you find him sitting up, sleepily rubbing his eyes. 

“Good morning, honey,” you sweetly greet him. 

“Morning,” he groggily answers back. “What’re you up so early?” 

“Oh, I’m just about to hop in the shower.” You stop and think for a moment. “Um, do you wanna join me?”

With that question, Jungkook is now fully awake. Taking a shower together? At his folks home? I mean, having sex was already risky enough. He thought about declining the offer, but then he remembered the fun you two had earlier. And then he saw how good you looked in your bathrobe. 

He cheekily smiles at you. “Sure, why not?” 

Even though you knew his parents were still asleep, the both of you stealthily walked to the bathroom down the hall and locked the door behind you. 

Minutes later, the two of you are at it again: passionately making out inside the shower stall. Your hands gripped at Jungkook’s back as the hot water turned the entire bathroom into a sauna. With your back on the wall, Jungkook grabs the back of your knees and lifts your thighs to the sides of his hips. You respond by tightly wrapping your legs around him and your arms around his neck. Jungkook proceed to fucking you senseless like before, roughly pounding you while gripping your shapely waist. 

Thinking the shower was loud enough to muffle any other sounds, you let out all of the shouts and moans you had to hold in hours before. 

“YES JUNGKOOK! FUCK ME! PLEASE DON’T STOP!” 

Jungkook was too busy enjoying your tight pussy to notice that you were being a little too loud. 

When you feel the heat of your orgasm, you let out a small shriek and quiet yourself by biting onto Jungkook's shoulder. Jungkook hissed in pain and came inside of you once again. 

The intensity of it all was a bit overwhelming, so much that you were tearing up. Jungkook notices your teary eyes and smiles. 

“I love you, Y/N.” 

All choked up, you somehow managed to respond. “I love you too..” 

Later in the morning, you and Jungkook were enjoying a nice breakfast with his parents. The two of you were super upbeat and practically glowing, thanks to your night and early morning of passion. As you two ate and conversated with his parents, you two played footsie under the table as if you were young kids in love. 

“So was your sleep last night,” Mrs. Jeon asked before taking a bit of her food. 

You and Jungkook exchanged looks and smiled playfully. 

“Yeah, we have a very peaceful night’s sleep,” you slyly answered, “Right hon.” 

Jungkook mumbles in agreement, his mouth too filled with food. 

Mr.Jeon snickers to himself. “Yeah, sure you two did.” You and Jungkook's eyes widened at the old man. You watched your mother in law hit her husband's shoulder roughly and glared at him. 

It doesn’t take long for you to put everything together. “They heard us,” you screamed in your head, “they fucking heard us!”

You hid your face in your hands, “Oh God…”

Mrs. Jeon nervously laughs. “Don’t be embarrassed sweetheart. We’re just happy we’re gonna be grandparents soon.” She shoots you a kind smile but you just wanted to die. 

Thank god today was the last day of the so-called “much needed” visit. 

[chasingforeverandaday]

Can I ask for #23 from the fluff writing prompts please? “I’d rather live in the woods with you than in a mansion with some (boy/girl/person) I barely know.” I mean, it’s just screaming gendrya at me! Thank you!

Well, how does some Regency era AU sound? This one ended up a full on one shot, because I fell down a rabbit hole real fast. Also I got to write Robb, which was super fun because I never write Robb. He may be a bit out of character, but I feel like if any of the Stark siblings would understand Arya’s conflict of love and duty, it would absolutely be Robb.

half agony, half hope

There are times that Gendry Waters thinks his life would be so much simpler if he’d ever actually learned how to say no to Miss Arya Stark, sister to the Lord of Winterfell. He can stall her in her impulsivities yes, or can sometimes talk her around to his point of view on a matter, but straight up denying her when she looks up at him with those big grey eyes and the pout he always wishes to kiss from her lips?

Stronger men than him would capitulate without question.

Stronger men have.

So when she barges into his smithy one June morning, he steels himself for whatever new (potentially scandalous) misadventure she has in mind for them. But the stricken look on her face as she quietly requests that he close up early and meet her in his personal quarters ignites a panic in his belly, and he hustles the other customers out as quickly as he can after she leaves.

Door locked and forge cooled for the day, he hurries through washing up and finds her in his rooms, pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. He can see the exact moment she notices his presence, as her head whips around to his and her face crumples. Terror seizes in his veins and he crosses the room in two strides to pull her into his arms.

She doesn’t fight him, just lets herself be held for a moment before wrapping her arms around his waist so tightly he thinks she’ll never let go. A shudder passes through her slim frame, then one hand reaches up to bend his neck downwards, her mouth seeking his.

Gods know he’d be happy to kiss her forever, but something must have shaken Arya badly for her to show up unannounced and ask him to abandon his work. Pulling away to lean his forehead against hers, he asks, “Love, what’s wrong?

A tiny voice he’s never associated with Arya Stark whispers, “How quickly can you be ready to leave?”

“What?” Utterly bewildered, he pushes her back farther so he can read her face, but she just burrows her face into his neck, clinging onto him like a limpet. Cautiously, he moves them to his narrow bed, sitting on the edge as she falls into his lap, all the while never letting him go.

She looks up at him then, eyes a little harder, a little more sure as she takes his hands in hers. “Run away with me. Gendry, please, we need to go, and it needs to be as soon as possible.”

“I don’t understand, I thought we had more time, that I had more time to…” Prove myself worthy of you, let myself learn to let you go, something, anything but be forced to watch you choose between me and your family.

“My mother’s invited suitors from houses Frey, Dayne, and Arryn to Winterfell, and I heard her tell Robb earlier that she won’t be letting me reject all of them.” Turning away as she speaks, Arya curls into him more, making herself look even smaller if that were even possible. “She intends to have me wedded and bedded by the end of the summer, seems to think it will curb my more unladylike tendencies.”

“Arya, you’re only twenty two for gods’ sake. She can hardly be that desperate to be putting you on the shelf already!” Almost as an afterthought, he mumbles into her hair, “And I like your unladylike tendencies.”

A sad smile on her face, Arya cups his cheek with her palm as she stays seated in his lap. “I know you do. I think she just wants me to be someone else’s problem now. Besides, all my siblings but Rickon have made good matches and are married. But what my mother said isn’t the important part.”

There’s a subtle shift in her voice as she draws herself fully upright, the pain replaced by something a little more hopeful. She’s finally looking at him again, her grey eyes searching his.

“Because Robb…” she took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders before looking him straight in the eye. “Robb told her he thought I should have more of a choice. He said that yes, I should marry, but that it didn’t have to be one of them. He told her that none of them would make me happy, and that I should marry a man who made me smile, not grimace every time I looked at him.”

Rubbing a hand up and down her back, Gendry cannot help but wonder, “That’s good, even I know that’s a good thing, but why…?”

“Because Robb walked out of his study and found me standing there, pale as a ghost I’m sure. He took me back to my room, and he told me that he thought I shouldn’t be forced to marry a man I didn’t love.” One of her hands comes to rest over his heart, fluttering rapidly at her touch. “Somehow, he knew about you and me, because then he told me he’d been thinking about commissioning you for some ironwork around the estate, and perhaps I could go to town to speak with you about it, since neither he nor Bran could do so today.”

The pieces fall together, and a little of Arya’s hope finds a home with Gendry. “So you think he’s giving us his blessing, and we’re running away.”

“I know he is, he just can’t come out and say it because of who he is.” Threading her fingers through his own, Arya holds their clasped hands together like a talisman, pressing a light kiss to the back of his before looking up with a smile. “We’re going to Gretna Green, and we’re going to get married like we’ve wanted to for three years, and then I’m going to actually learn how to keep a house and run your smithy, and we’re going to be happy, Gendry, so incredibly happy.”

“Aye, in our tiny little home with two rooms and no grand paintings or pianos or anything fancy like what you have up at Winterfell.” He knows that Arya says she has no care for those things, but he needs to remind her of the difference in their standing, just one last time before they make this choice that will alter their lives forever.

“Stupid boy,” she giggles, poking him in the nose with the first true grin he’s seen on her face this afternoon, “I’d rather live in the woods with you than in a manor with some person I barely know. I mean, ideally we live somewhere with a forge for you, but as long as you’re with me, I’m hardly going to be picky.”

Bending down, Gendry allows himself to brush a quick kiss to her lips, a promise made without words. “Give me a few days, so I can finish up my orders and get everything ready so I can leave. Just don’t say yes to any other proposals, and we’ll be saying our vows in a fortnight.”

-/-/-

A sennight later, as she prepares her horse for the journey as surreptitiously as she can, the stable door creaks open. Terrified that it will be that one stablehand who always tells her mother when she leaves the estate without asking permission, Arya hides in the shadows of Nymeria’s stall, peeking out into the center aisle into the hazy, pre-dawn light.

It’s Robb, carefully shutting the door behind him. He walks straight up to her hiding place and holds out his hand to her, a small smirk on his face. “Come out sister, we’ve not much time to waste.”

Slowly, she leads Nymeria out of the stall, fingers tightly gripping her reins. Her brother looks older than she’s ever seen him before. He looks like a lord in a way he never has before, one with the world weighing on his shoulders. But then her eyes meet his, and he smiles at her, and Robb is her big brother once more.

Dropping Nym’s reins, Arya throws herself into his arms, trusting that he will catch her implicitly. She’ll miss this, she thinks, having a brother she knows she can depend on.

When they finally pull away, Robb reaches up to wipe a tear she hadn’t even noticed from her eye. “There now, this won’t be the last time we see each other, little sister. Besides, one would think you’d be happier to be heading off on such a grand adventure with your blacksmith.”

Laughing wetly, she replied, “I am, trust me, I am anxious to start our lives together, I just…” here she shrugged, fidgeting her hands as she tried to gather the words to express herself. “This is the last time I’ll be in Winterfell as Arya Stark, or maybe ever if Mother reacts the way I think she will when she finds out. I’ll miss it here, even when Gendry and I have a new home. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“You’ll always have a home here, for as long as I’m the lord. Probably after too, as you and I both know you’re Little Ned’s favorite auntie. But I think you’ll be far happier living wherever you and your husband end up than you would locked up in a London townhouse with whatever ponce our Mother has handpicked for you.” The disgusted face he made at his own words made her smile again, which she knew was exactly why he’d done so in the first place.

Serious again, Robb placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze as he said, “I’ve grown to love Jeyne, I have, but I’ve never looked at her the way your Mr. Waters looks at you, or you look at him, and neither has Sansa’s husband. You’re incandescently happy whenever you’re near him, and I can always tell when you haven’t spoken to him in days because you’re so quiet, like you’re holding in all of your thoughts until you can share them with him.”

He sighed before continuing in a soft tone, “If you hadn’t found him, hadn’t fallen in love, then I would try to arrange a marriage for you that could lead to your overall happiness in life. But you did. You fell in love years ago, and I’m glad that at least one of us gets to experience that joy in this lifetime.”

Moving to hold her hand in his left, he reached with his right into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out an envelope. “This is the information for the accounts I’ve had set up in your name in London.” He placed it in her hand and looked her square in the eyes. “You may not be marrying with a proper trousseau, but this way you won’t be entering this marriage without your dowry. You don’t need to worry about Mother’s reaction either, I’ll take care of it. Jon will meet you in Scotland, I’ve already sent him an express explaining everything.”

Shocked at all the things he had thought of and put in place for her, Arya could only manage to sob, “Robby, I…” before hugging him again.

Her brother pulled her close once more, placing a kiss on her brow before pulling away. “I love you, and I’m sorry I cannot do more. Be happy, Arya. Be happy and one day when we’re old and grey, you’ll tell me stories of all your adventures with the man I know you love and the adorable little children I’m sure you’ll have. Now go, the tasks I set for James cannot take much longer, and you have quite the ride ahead of you.”

With that, Robb helped her onto her horse and led her outside as the sun rose. After he let her go, Arya pushed Nymeria into a trot, determined to make her way to the closed smithy before the people of Wintertown fully awoke. She only let herself look back once, barely able to see the figure of her brother as he waved her off into her future.

[mushroom-cartel--writing]

to be [a]sundered

Summary: Kugisaki Nobara is blessed. She will never know.

Relationship(s): Kugisaki Nobara & Reader, Kugisaki Nobara/Reader

Note(s):

Here’s the link to read this on AO3! (You know the drill, extra tags, different notes, the format I intended, etc. Oh. And the comment section.)

There’s manga spoilers in this fic alongside headcanon.

So far, out of my menial amount of JJK fics, this one has probably been the most enjoyable to write. With Nobara’s background I can play around because it’s just there.

|||

“I’m going to Tokyo,” she says. Come with me.

“No.” Can’t, sorry.

Mahito touches her soul.

Kugisaki Nobara is blessed.

She will never know.

The first time she introduces you to her friends, Saori nearly gouges your eye out with a sugar spoon and Fumi spills the contents of her cup across the table.

“I have cake,” you say, offering a cutesy box to Saori who’s still got the sugar spoon trained on you. “It’s baumkuchen. An old acquaintance gave it to me for free but I figured it’d be too much for just one person.”

Nobara, giggling, just offers you a seat and asks for more tea.

On the outskirts of the village there is a shrine.

They say it houses a god that blessed their lands long ago and watches over them to this very day; they hold a celebration in its honour every year, a small share of the harvest season’s best crop is offered up to appease the god.

Her grandparents say it houses a malevolent wonder-terror who feasts on the soul of its worshippers once the sun goes down; her grandparents say the aforementioned god and malevolent wonder-terror are one and the same, born from a wish made by humans.

You laugh when she tells you the crap people have come up about your home. (You appreciate the free food, though.)

You are not a god or something malevolent. You’re you.

Not quite divine but too powerful to sniff at.

Humans cannot see or sense you. Not even those who can bottle their negative energy, the ones you occasionally see passing through the village. Usually, you have to will yourself into existence. But she can regardless.

Spirits, the weak and strong, good nor bad, fear you. Your presence sets their survival instincts off, running immediately when you try to approach them. She has to give chase and incapacitate them for you when the hunger becomes agony.

You taught her well, it seems.

Too well.

Mahito touches her soul and it burns, burns, burns.

-

Kugisaki Nobara was barely old enough to be out on her own, but her grandparents trusted her to stay safe. The village was small, everyone knew each other, word spread fast, so if something happened to her on her small excursion… Well, no one would come looking for her, would they?

It was a lie when she said she was just going out to play with friends at the park.

Nobara didn’t have friends.

All the other kids were boring. She didn’t like their company. Whenever there was a big gathering, she’d try her best to avoid them and hide from the adults in bushes.

Despite knowing this, her grandmother let her go.

She hated being cooped inside with nothing to do and today was perfect! The humid air made her clothes stick to her skin but at least the wide-brimmed straw sunhat she snatched from her grandfather’s shed protected her from the sun’s wrath. It meant her peers would be over at the river halfway across the village; people wouldn’t go back to working on their fields until it cooled down a bit later in the day; they wouldn’t see her; and she’d be on her lonesome.

She wanted to laugh to herself. Everything was coming together.

Finally, she could check out that place she’s been meaning to visit ever since she first heard of it: the derelict shrine.

Her grandmother warned her to stay away from it, lest she give her name away by accident to the being living there and have her life stolen, but Nobara, inwardly, thought it was a load of cow dung. She’d die? Hah?! It was all superstition! (She would never admit it did spook her a bit.) Besides, things like vampires and witches and ghosts didn't exist in the first place. She’d be fine.

Humming with a skip in her step, Nobara made it to the shrine in due time.

“Hello?”

“Why hello there!”

She took everything back.

You had to be a ghost with the way you snuck up on her soundlessly. You kept insisting you weren’t. You glided along the floor.

You had to be a ghost. And now you were serving her snacks and tea. Inside the shrine. Inside what was, supposedly, your home.

“Why don’t I believe you?” she voiced aloud.

You stared at her, face deadpan, and poured hot water over your hand. She watched your skin scald. “Does this answer your question?”

Kugisaki Nobara at five years old was a bit of a skeptic, contrary to her personal beliefs.

“No. Not really.”

-

11:25 PM →

You emerge from the gaping hole where her left eye was blown out alongside a good chunk of her head, something writhing and fierce and oh-so familiar.

Ah. Right. This feeling; this foreign dread dawning upon him, piercing Mahito innermost; your dull but irritated eyes trained on the cursed spirit akin to a lizard eyeing up a cockroach. You’re like him, possessing a soul that absolutely cannot and should not be touched.

Shit—that means she too—

Hahahahaha.

You don’t even need to spare him another glance. You know what he’s thinking. You know what he’s done.

You won’t be as lenient with him as Sukuna was.

But here’s the thing. Although a student may surpass their teacher one day, the teacher might not relay all that they know to the next generation to ensure the safety of their student and those around them. However, Mahito is nothing to you. Itadori Yuuji, on the other hand, is important, so you grab him and throw the boy behind you.

“Reverberate,” you intone, bearing the exact same wounds as her.

His senses are heightened a thousandfold, but not nearly are they even close to yours.

You shove a nail of hers into yourself, saying, “Plunge.”

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, ithurtsithurtsithurts, hurtshurtshurtshurtshurTshURtsHURTS.

“Quietus.”

“We’re soulmates, you and me.”

She bursts out laughing. “Like from those cheesy dramas?” Nobara asks. Because. She needs to know. Whenever she’s around you, everything feels… right. It’s hard to articulate. Her heart doesn’t rush when you graze her skin but the particular spot where contact was made always tingles with a reassuring warmth; you’re real, not a fabrication of her imagination. She doesn’t fantasise about you like the way her peers do with the object of their affections. Your very presence makes her comfortable. “Are you having second thoughts?” she jeers, poking you hard in the ribs. (She’s still bitter about your decision.)

The intended jab has no effect.

“No,” is your reply. “What I mean is that your soul and mine are the same. If something happens to you, I’ll know.”

“What? You think I’m gonna be some part of a demonic summoning ritual where I’ll be a human sacrifice?”

“Time and distance makes no difference.”

“So if I just say the word…?”

“That… that’s not what I…” You sigh and scrub the gunk from your eyes.

How are you supposed to explain the whole situation to her?

Oh, yeah, about a couple aeons ago there was a being who tore themself in two—one part immortal, the other mortal—in order to understand their reason for existing. Their immortal self would be stagnant and observe their mortal self who would continuously live, die and reincarnate, until the latter, under their own volition, sought the former out and then a conclusion would be made between the two on whether or not they would remain as separate entities or rejoin together as one again.

Your original self (you and her; her and you) wasn’t great at planning ahead, that is plain to see. They didn’t think about the consequences, they just wanted an out. And fast.

Well look at you now. Distorted beyond reason. You’re an exercise in self-destruction. You stopped considering it being a miracle that you could wake up every morning by yourself and do what you wanted: the novelty was short-lived. You want to die but you’re at the point where it’s easier to convince yourself you do not than to focus on how you will off yourself somewhere that no one (and nothing) can find your undecayed corpse because the company you keep will become worried if you let the happy facade slip.

“Never mind,” you mutter.

-

She was ten when she first saw the skull.

It tumbled from your billowing sleeve as you rummaged around your pockets, rolling to a stop at her feet.

She lifted it up. “Whose is this?”

It was a weird skull, not like those she’d seen in her textbooks. She thought of asking Fumi about the skull later, when school started back up, but the idea was literally snatched from her mind when you saw exactly what she was holding.

In your hands, the skull seemed smaller. Inconsequential. Another another weird quirk of yours: carrying around random things. Maybe it was a model? You told her to forget about it and stowed the skull away—back into your sleeve—and dragged her along the beaten path you insisted on walking.

The next time, she was thirteen and helping you clear up your home. Fumi was there too.

They’d been going through a closet stuffed full of old junk and out the skull tumbled, right into Fumi’s lap. Rightfully so, her friend screamed. It took you several minutes to calm the poor girl down, her view of you now askew. Nobara was on your side when Fumi tried convincing you whomever the skull belonged to deserved a proper burial out in the forest and you refused.

No matter how hard she tried, you would not budge.

And that was that.

(From then on, whenever you made yourself visible to Fumi, she regarded you warily before seeing the way you looked at Nobara like she hung the stars and the moon.)

The last time the skull made an appearance in her life, Nobara had just turned fifteen.

A strange pair of men were at her door at the crack of dawn, rousing her grandparents, which prompted them to drag Nobara out of bed at such a god-awful time of the day. They all sat at a table soberly, discussing her future while Nobara found her attention gravitating to you.

You were playing with a stray cat in the garden, its stomach presented to you eagerly so soon after it deemed you safe, and making the most disgusting cooing noises she had ever heard to it with a dopey grin.

It was only at the call of her name that her head snapped back forward.

Yaga Masamichi was a strange one, tinkering so openly with a corpse in front of her deeply superstitious grandparents, but, strangely enough, it was his companion, a shock of white hair and bandage, that caught her eye. The young man was looking your way.

Not at the cat pawing up at thin air. Oh no. The blindfolded stranger’s gaze was dead set on you; she saw his brow raise minutely as Yaga and her grandparents continued talking, her tools of trade that was cobbled together from old sheds and the local hardware store bared flat on the table; she watched him watch you rub the cat’s belly before you lifted it high into the air like a parent would to their child. It was obvious what the situation playing out was: you had caught on to the stranger’s sighting of you long before she did. To emphasise the fact, you even babbled to the cat, “Higher, higher! Oopsie-daisy!!” before letting it back down and nuzzling it against your face, affectionate and close.

Yaga only noticed the change in atmosphere when the cat’s meows suddenly went quiet. But the other one (white hair, bandages, feels wrong, rotting flesh and fresh) grinned, slapping an enrollment form on the table.

“You. Leave that thing behind when you come to our school,” said Gojou Satoru, his introduction earlier all pomp and a wellspring of positive energy memes a stark comparison to now as he continued watching you, all but ignoring her grandmother shouting up at him to stop spouting nonsense.

(“What drivel! My granddaughter surely won’t—”)

She went back to spacing out in your direction.

Without hesitation, you dropped the cat into your gaping maw and swallowed it whole in one gulp. The first cursed spirit you managed to catch by yourself. Your ability at masking your aura was improving. That was good.

The skull peeked out of your hoodie’s pocket, the many orbits winking at her.

Screw the rules, you were coming with her whether the bureaucracy liked it or not.

-

At this rate, she’s going to die for sure.

You know what to do.

You’re one and the same. If Mahito touched one half of your original self and corrupted it, reason dictates that giving her body (the container) yours will fix her. But there’s a problem.

The implosion practically ruined her chances of survival, reducing it to null.

Not even a high grade sorcerer could hope to reverse the damage. Bone is a special material. Bone takes time to be cultivated or to grow. For a jujutsu user, especially, a substitute of different material won’t cut it. Bone, like the soul, contains an essence of sorts, it’s one of the few natural conductors of negative energy humans can have.

Your point: bone is not easily replaced.

Kneeling over Nobara, you grab from the air the object you were entrusted with over a millennium ago for safekeeping.

“Oi, oi, oi, you. You. Freak-god-thing.” You regard Itadori Yuuji with disdain. Or rather, the lone eye and accompanying mouth that’s on his cheek. “Is that what I think it is.”

“What? Are you objecting? Or worse—obstructing?”

“I don’t know about you or the brat, but you’re gonna fuck up the girl if you do that.”

“And since when did the King of Curses grow a heart?”

“I fucking didn’t, you prick.” The eye manages to scowl without a brow. “I’m just saying… You are sending her to condemnation.”

“Says the finger shagger,” you retort. The mouth disappears; Itadori Yuuji has an indescribable expression on his face but you know he won’t try and stop your hare-brained idea, he wants what you want.

You know what you’re doing.

You’ve had to do this a few times before.

It will work.

“Hello?”

A child? Who in their right mind would—

You freeze in your tracks. It’s them, your mind exclaims. It’s them. Them. Them. Them.

… Her.

You walk up behind her, beaming.

“Why hello there!” you chime, so, so happy.

[nukyster-blog]

Changing Course Chapter 27) Raven named Utstøtt

.-.-.

He should be exhausted, but Ivar was wide awake, back in shackles and frustrated. Worrisome thoughts ate their way into his subconscious like maggots feasting on rotting flesh. Everytime he closed his eyes, images appeared; of his mother waving her last goodbye, his one-eyed father being eaten by a flock of ravens, and of the fair-maiden, walking past him into her dread filled future. Even Piglet’s dark eyes and temper came into view.

Ivar could no longer pinpoint who he was. He had been a lot of things; a prince, a despised brother, a cherished son. A disgrace. 

He’d become a lot of things, too; a slave, a savior, de martelaar, the bloody bear of Kattegat, a cursed one. 

And he was and always would be a cripple, nature’s mistake. Possibly a changeling and the reason for his father’s absence. 

He held so many titles. Too many, and he no longer knew which one to hold onto and which one to throw away forever. What use was it to ponder over his royal blood, as it had been spilled countless times by his masters? 

But to embrace the title of a slave? Never. The Giant could flog him over forty times, break his useless legs and spit on his grave, but he’d never fully bow to the rulers of De Haar. 

Another toss and turn, another long sigh of frustration, and Ivar crawled on his side to stare in envy at his sleeping companion.  

Although spring had kindly rid the shed of cold, after twilight, Piglet still turned into his shadow. No longer would she cling onto his body for heat, but she’d sleep at his side. 

It no longer bothered him, not even that high pitch weeze she’d make as she’d fall deeply asleep. Or how her stone cold feet always managed to find their way up against his knees.

  There was a level of trust from her behalf and it was an odd and unfamiliar sensation to receive such a gift from someone else. It was a fragile treasure, one he’d broken countless times. Yet the shards and shatters always magically seemed to restore, as he’d proven his loyalty to the slave maiden. 

There was this strange balance between them, one that at times made him push her away and yet drew him closer and closer. 

“Why?”, he whispered to the sleeping form of Piglet, “why do I bother to care for you? You are just a soil skinned slave”. 

His words were meant to sound harsh and insulting, but they came out so hopeless and quiet. 

.-.-.

Ivar had been very wrong about one thing. He most definitely hadn’t missed cleaning chamber pots. Retching, his back arched against the stone well as the stench of human waste mercilessly filled his nostrils. 

What should be a miracle actually felt like a punishment; at dawn the Giant had released him from his chains, hoisted Ivar on his shoulders, and tossed him into the midst of the cobblestoned centre. 

He’d been freed and turned into the laugh of the town, as he’d suffered his way through the chamber pots. The stench already sank into his skin and Ivar was fully aware that the Giant unleashed him only to torture him. Yesterday, he’d been able to cleanse his body for the first time in months, and now he stank even worse than before. 

Even Piglet, queen of poor personal hygiene, scrunched up her nose as she rapidly dumped his breakfast at his feet. 

Ivar did not blame her and, frustrated, he whipped at the flies circling around his head. 

After fulfilling his duty, the Giant picked him up again and carried him over to the entrance of the castle. Dropping him to the floor like a sack of shit, he handed Ivar a bucket and a cloth, indicating that he’d better start scrubbing. 

This task was less revolting and allowed Ivar to embrace the meager glimpse of daylight. Although his stiff muscles and knees ached, he counted this moment as a humble blessing. To be outside, breathe in fresh air, and be able to observe the residence of de Haar. Small children playing silly games around the well, carts bringing in new livestock, the linen maidens handing out loads of fresh laundry.  A peaceful scenery, a delight for the eye. 

But that wasn’t what filled Ivar’s heart with content. Now that he was deployed to another part of the Castle, he was able to observe far more interesting aspects; the specific amount of guards and their route. Without drawing any attention, he was able to glance at their weaponry. From the main entrance, it was easy to view the main gate and how it was being watched by two guards. Two, it took two full grown men to open the gate. Now that was a very important discovery, as this meant Ivar wouldn’t be able to escape during nighttime, when the gate would be closed. 

‘Unless I grow wings’, Ivar thought to himself as he enviously glanced up at the circle of ravens flying high in the air.  

Ivar pulled himself onto the fifth step of the stone stairway when his ears perked at the sound of  distressed squeaking.  

A hatchling lay in the middle of the main entrance, ready to be stomped to death. A little puzzled about the baby bird's previous whereabouts, Ivar crawled closer to inspect the tiny little thing. 

It looked hideous, mostly bald with tufts of light feathers. The baby bird was defenseless and incapable of fleeing as the limp wings lacked strength and feathers, it’s eyes hadn’t even opened up yet. 

Ivar glanced up again, scanning the rooftops and walls until his eyes rested on a raven’s nest submerged in between roof tiles. Two ravens flew on and off to provide food for their offspring. Neither of the parents seemed aware or bothered by the unfortunate youngest who’d taken a massive tumble down. 

The heavy footsteps of the Giant marched close and without any hesitation Ivar picked up the bundle of cold naked flesh and stored it inside the pocket Piglet sewed in to smuggle food.

 Meaty fingers raked through Ivar’s hair and yanked him up onto his knees with a pained hiss. The Giant was not pleased with his slave taking a break. With force, Ivar received the cloth back in his hand while his face was shoved into the dirty water of the bucket. Reliving vividly how he’d nearly drowned inside the well, Ivar squirmed, gasped and whittered. 

The threat of drowning was short but powerful and the moment his lungs were allowed to fill themselves back up with air, Ivar’s hand turned into fist and dutifully began  scrubbing the entrance of De Haar. 

.-.-.

Piglet was in a state of pure bliss with so many new animals inside the shed. Sheep with lambs, a flock of chickens, and six young calves were stored inside, all with hungry mouths to feed. 

“You’re working yourself to death for those stupid animals”, Ivar felt the need to tell her.

  Of course, his statement fell on deaf ears and Piglet happily slaved herself through countless troughs of fresh water, bales of hay, and handfuls of grain. She then still remained strong enough to fill up Ivar’s trough and announced he stank. Which he did, there was no denying that. 

“Use this”, Piglet said as she handed him a black lump of lard, motioning by scrubbing her own arm and face, “it helps”. Ivar recognised the structure of the lump; it came close to the herbal soaps their elderly made in Kattegat. It was a time consuming process, not to mention very delicate work. 

Ivar pulled the tunic over his head and scrubbed the greasy lump over his smelling skin and washed himself. As he rid  himself from the stench of human waste, Piglet came back with supper. 

“Piglet, you know a lot about herbs and ointments”, Ivar stated, referring not only to the soap, but also to the professional way she’d tended his wounds. “How do you know all of this?” 

Piglet paused, shoving a handful of potato into her mouth and chewed slowly, buying herself some time, because by the Gods, his question meant revealing something about herself.

“Before you, there was another cripple, but not her legs. No-”, Piglet tapped her index finger against her temple a couple of times, “in here. She meant no harm, but she talked. All the time, never shut up”, Piglet gestured towards the stairs, “I slept up there, called her Rattle-mouth. Her real name was Mabelia, not that anyone cared. She taught me about plants, herbs, soap, how to disgust men, keep them away. She was my friend”, Piglet added, sincerely. 

“Was?” Ivar noticed how she’d spoken in the past tenses. 

“The Toothless burned her alive”, Piglet whispered bitterly, “everyone knew about her special gifts. She knew things. She helped people, she cured sickness, wounds, colds. Never asked for anything in return. She saved lives, until she couldn’t. And the Toothless blamed her for that”.

“Who died, Piglet?” Ivar asked, “who’s the one she couldn’t save?”

Piglet stared at him but seemed to look right through to him: “his son, born in breach, never able to draw his first breath.” 

The Giant lost his son. Oddly enough, that made the man seem less untouchable and more human. 

“She was accused of witchcraft. Toothless stated she purposely murdered his son for her Lord, the devil. She burned the same day his son was buried. Mabelia Rattle-mouth at the stake with her tongue cut out, all because she failed to save his son.” 

“Yet you survived”, Ivar stated sharply, “you were her friend. A witch’s friend.”

“I spoke lies, that she bewitched me, that she talked to the Devil night after night. I caused her to burn, saved my own skin.” Piglet told her story pragmatically but the guilt that crushed her was unmistakable. It took over her whole being, she seemed to shrink and cower away. 

  Ivar wanted to lash out at her, because that had been a gutless act on her behalf. Although it wasn’t his betrayal, her confession felt like a stab in the back. For he’d taken a flogging for Piglet, one that nearly caused him his life and left him scarred forever. He’d never expected her to return the favour, but to hear her say she’d sold out a friend, yes, that put her in a completely different light. 

Yet, all the poor young woman had done was simply survive. No doubt, Mabelia would have burned without Piglet’s lies, for failing the Giant’s son.

A muffled squeak eventually broke the silence between Ivar and Piglet. Ivar had completely forgotten about the baby bird hiding in the safety of his tunic.  During the day he’d been so focused on his tasks, the small animal warming up due to his body heat, becoming a small bundle of warmth, skin and a heartbeat. 

Ivar picked up his tunic and scooped the bird up. In his large hand the bird seemed even smaller and so fragile.

“You’ve saved a bird? Why?” Piglet asked curiously, as Ivar never before showed much care to any of the animals aside from the pigs. And that care had only been there because it had been his task. 

Ivar shrugged, still unable to answer that question for himself.

  Piglet leaned in for a closer look. “Does it have a name?”

“He,” Ivar snapped, “it’s a he and he does have a name: Utstøtt.” 

Piglet’s brows furrowed as she hadn’t learned that word yet, “what does that mean?”

Ivar’s fingers petted the small beak of the bird, “Outcast.” 

.-.-.

Over the course of days, Utstøtt’s feathers started to flourish and his eyes opened. That was how Ivar understood his subconscious reasoning for saving the young bird. Instead of growing ink black feathers as all ravens do, Utstøtt’s feathers were white as snow. Another abnormal feature was Utstøtt’s eyes. His right was milky and pupil-less, while his left eye was icy blue. 

Had Utstøtt’s fall from the nest been an accident? Or had the parents deliberately pushed their offspring from the nest? In the animal world there was no place for abnormalities, nature could be cruel, allowing the parents to either eat or kill their young.

Or abandon them in the woods, to let the wolves do the dirty work for them. 

Neither Ivar nor Utstøtt should be alive, because they didn’t stand a change in this cruel world. They both had all odds against them, but Ivar knew from experience that sometimes the damaged ones can rise. 

So, he did his best to keep Utstøtt hidden inside his tunic. Collected worms during his tasks outside and chewed the boneless, wiggling things up to feed his pet raven. 

Piglet was appalled by the way he fed the bird, yet touched by his will to care for Utstøtt. She brought him scraps of beef and chicken so he no longer had to chew on worms. 

Utstøtt turned out to be a smart bird, oddly aware of when he needed to remain quiet and still inside Ivar’s tunic. While at other times, he’d poke at Ivar’s chest and caw, indicating that he was hungry. With his good eye, he’d stare up at Ivar accusingly if he took too long. 

And so, another chapter started in Ivar’s life, that of being a foster of a white, one-eyed raven named Utstøtt. 

.-.-.

A/N: So, for this chapter I had about 6 tabs open about ‘ravens’, and then 3 more about ‘how did they make soap before soap?’ This chapter felt a bit all over the place, but I didn’t feel like cutting it up in pieces and adding extra ‘space’ purely to make it more organized. Basically I didn’t want to bore myself and I needed to get a lot of thoughts/information/background and Utstøtt into the story. So yes, most of all happy with the chapter. Hope you enjoyed it too:)

Xoxoxo Nukyster 

The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane

The tagged ones:@youbloodymadgenius​ @xbellaxcarolinax @saldelys​ @shannygoatgruff@pieces-by-me@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa@readsalot73@lauraan182 @conaionaru@sarahh-jane@peachybonelessIf you’d liked to be tagged, please let me know:)

[legolaslovely]

Helios and Morpheus

A/N: Here is my part of our collaboration for the Durin’s Day Gift Exchange for @linane-art ! Thank you for brainstorming with me and being so supportive and patient. You made this even more exciting than I thought it would be, and let me tell YOU, I was thrilled about it all in the first place. I hope you enjoy it. I am so excited to share it! :)

This is somewhat loosely based on Greek Mythology, AKA it’s an Alternate Universe! Rated Gen. Get ready for some LONGING and some FLUFF.

LOOOOOKKKKKKKK AT @linane-art​ ‘s ARTTTT LOOOOOK AT THE PERFECT BOYSSS!!!! Thank you for giving us SUCH gorgeous works. 

The link for Fili is HERE!! And Kili is HERE!! Please go give @linane-art​ some love!!!!!!

Helios and Morpheus

Tell us of the impossible lovers, O Muse.  Those who defied Fates, Furies, and Almighty Zeus, Who found forever hidden in distance between, Paradise more perfect than Elysian serene.

Tell us of Helios, the God of Golden Sun Who rides in his chariot before night’s begun. His radiance shines as he watches and he waits For God of Dreams, Morpheus, to fly from his gates. 

Perfumed with his poppies and directives to spare, Roused only by his One with the rays in his hair, Morpheus stars in dreams prophetic and divine, Telling his love in sleep, “You are mine, you’re all mine.”

One alone rules the day as sky’s singular light. Another’s domain lies in the darkness of night. As stubborn as star-crossed, fierce as Cronus, they were, Bridging the cosmos for a love that was most sure.

Book I

To those below and above, he was known as Morpheus. To those around him, however- to his parents and his brothers, the Oneiroi- he was Kíli. To himself, he was a dreamer.

One could suppose that’s how it all began.

From very early on in his eternal life, he was known around the cosmos for his talent of deceit. But the true-hearted Kíli only deluded with his physical appearance. With a bit of concentration and a blink of time, he could shift from his godlike form into any other imaginable. Those below often said that no other was more skilled than he in representing the gait, the features and the speech of men, but little did they realize, Kíli could manifest as much more. Truthfully, he just thought the world of men had very tiny imaginations, even in their dreams. 

And so, his talents were put to use. Zeus commended him and dubbed him the leader of the dream makers, called the Oneiroi. He was to spend his nights flying through the world of men, delivering messages from the gods to their pupils through their dreams. Instead of using his skills for amusement, for playing pretend and hiding from his brothers, Kíli- Morpheus- would exhaust himself and his power by playing messenger boy for the King of the Gods.

Still, Kíli learned to have his fun. 

You see, though Kíli was explicitly told what message to send to whom, the how was entirely up to him. He could morph into a towering cyclops and poke the belly of his recipient until he listened. He could make a pit stop in the sweetest dream of the prettiest semi-divine woman and make her fall in love with him just before night’s end. He could even visit Hades to make ghost children into brave soldiers, or Hephestus to take a lesson in sword forging. As long as he delivered his messages on time, he had the power to do whatever he wanted.

But it all ended with the rosy-fingered dawn.

Every night had its end. For others, that was a hopeful thought, even a prophetic one, but for Kíli, it just meant he’s run out of time. His freedom was stripped away by the clouds painted orange. For a long while, some thousands of years, he stomped back through his gates like a tantrum struck child, furious at his forced time-out. He’d grunt at the guards and leap over the Rivers of Forgetfulness and Oblivion, and lock himself in his cave to sleep among the poppy seeds until he received the orders for his next outing.

In the recent millennia, however, he’d been risking everything to hide behind the lock of his ivory gate and watch the black night sky lift and glow indigo, then violet. He’d wait to see the golden chariot cross the cosmos, pulling aside the curtain of night to reveal the bright blue day behind it. He’d heard the stories all his life. He knew what happened in the universe that took his time away from him and turned it into day. But he only recently saw the phenomenon for himself and since then, he never wanted to miss the show.

It wasn’t the glittering coat or glistening mane of the thundering horse that he was interested in. It was the one inside the solid gold chariot that first caught his eye. It was Helios, God of Sun, he wanted to watch because, though he was almost blinded by the sunny halo every morning, Kíli was sure Helios was smiling at him.

Book II

Helios was happy. Though others often wondered how he could be.

Those above pitied him for his status. It was unjust for the God of Sun- the deity of something as important as creation, light, and life- to be considered a minor god. He would never see the world below from the peak of Mount Olympus. He couldn’t watch the measly humans through the silver, puffy clouds. Sure, he had his own clouds to peer through way up there on his own throne, but they weren’t as pretty as the ones that surrounded Mount Olympus. Not at all. Helios only had regular clouds. What a shame.

It may have been that those below pitied him even more than the Olympians. Helios was alone. Yes, he had power, eternal youth and breathtaking beauty, but he’d never share any of it with anyone. How sad! To spend the light of day watching the world below, only to be so distant from it. Poor, lonely Helios.

Solitary and depressed, but never forgotten. For who could forget the sun?

In return for his service and out of their pity, the gods above gave him the most beautiful land to shine on and watch over. Artemis kept her trees tall and her meadows vast so long as Helios kept them green. Demeter graced the farmlands, encouraging crops to grow up to the light of his rays. Even Poseidon, grateful for the glimmer of warmth Helios left on his sea, returned the favor and controlled his waves whenever the halo of sun crossed the sky at day’s end.  And sometimes, Zeus would throw some thunderbolts and give Helios a day of rest when he especially deserved it after weeks and weeks of impeccable radiation.

Helios was the only being who couldn’t understand the world’s view of him. Between those generous gifts from the higher gods and the worship and prayers from the humans below, how could Helios ever be unhappy? In his opinion, he had it made. 

Because he was a minor god, he didn’t have to deal with the problems of Olympus. He was glad the fabricated kidnappings, adulterous adventures, and cannibal snacking rituals were kept way over there on that mountain and his warm, serene hours were spent way over here on his very own throne. He shined his brightest on his own. 

Still, that didn’t mean he disliked watching the humans from afar. On the contrary, he adored them.

He smiled down on them as they wept in his name. He peeked through the dreary, grey clouds and gave them warmth as they built his temples stone by stone. Attentively, he watched as they danced and sang for him, begged him for his blessings and thanked him for his creation. In their words, he was gracious. He brought joy to mortals. Again, their words, not his.

He was given all this simply for being beautiful. He was pure light. He ruled the sky for thousands of years and was grateful, never wanting any change.

Then, as randomly as an autumn leaf falls to the ground, his lands brought him something new. Or rather, someone. As Helios crossed the sky and brought the dawn, he looked down on his endless estate and spotted this someone watching him. It was not a farmer, nor a thief or human forced to wake before the day. 

Instead, it was clear this Dark One enjoyed the night. He stood unshrinking from the black sky and smiled at Helios, clearing any blame for his bringing the sun. This someone, this Dark One was happy to make his sacrifice to Helios- a ritual the Sun God had never enjoyed until now. Now, it was a gift.

Never in his eternal life had Helios pulled on his steed’s reins to slow the sunrise. It wouldn’t work. His chariot would plow on with its duty with time warping speed, never paying a hair’s attention to the Dark One in the shadows. There was no time. Dawn must come.

With that, Helios crossed the sky, eventually losing sight of his someone below. When he leapt from the gold to gold, from the chariot to his throne, he searched for the Dark One, but his own light stole the shadows and his someone was nowhere to be found. His passing eras slowed to hours. During the time of his reign, he watched the humans find Aphrodite, Hestia, and Hera and when the night came, he himself found his Dark One waiting for him every morning.

Book III

Morpheus had the ability to enter the dreams of any and all. He could punish the dastardly with nightmares so garish and haunting, his victims would change their ways in the morning. Or he could gift the selfless with visions of peace and profit, the lonely with companionship, or the sick with health. Over the span of his existence, he’d delivered messages and prophecies to billions- humans and gods alike.

Tartarus, he could even sneak into Zues’ dreams and feel the power of the King’s Thunder if he felt like it. But Kíli valued his immortality too much for such a thing.

Bottom line: Kíli could visit all who dreamed. Which was everyone. Or so he thought.

It was really just his luck that the one he so wanted to meet- and even eavesdrop on if Kíli was honest- was out of his reach. Contrary to popular belief, the sun never slept and neither did the god who powered it. 

He didn’t understand why. What did Helios have to do during the night? Where did the Sun God even go when darkness came? Wasn’t there time for the Golden One to rest?

Kíli was determined to find out.

When darkness came on the Winter Solstice, the longest night, Kíli flew as fast as he could to the dreamers through the lower lands. He delivered a curse here, and a revelation there. Then, dressed in his best disguises, he climbed up to Mount Olympus to greet the two gods he was meant to visit. His foretellings were clear and concise. There was no time for any mix ups or confusions which, despite Kíli’s best intentions, were a common occurrence with drowsy recipients. 

After all his duties were finished, he tumbled down to his gate with time to spare. There, hanging onto the delicately etched ivory pillars, he waited alone. The night hours he so treasured ticked slowly past- slower than ever before. More than once he leapt from the ground, wings waving and flapping when he was sure he saw a speck of light coming from the east. But he realized his eyes were only playing tricks on him in his anticipation, and eventual boredom.

Still, he didn’t leave his post.

The sky remained dark for so long, Kíli was sure he’d gone blind trying to make the smallest stars into the golden halo he longed to see. He wondered why nothing was happening, why the blanket above wasn’t lifting to indigo, then violet in preparation for Helios. Had something happened to the Golden One? 

He panicked. 

It was unbelievable. 

For ages, Kíli wished for eternal night and cursed the morning Sun, and now all he wished for was the scalding rays to burn his skin. He’d welcome such a painful end if he could see the Sun God one last time.

Then, there was light. 

Real light, nothing Kíli’s eyes or drowsy mind could create. This was it.

His waving wings let him hover just above the ground, his bare toes dipping into the tall grass. He had to be careful, he had to time it right if he wanted a chance to speak to Helios as he crossed the sky and brought the dawn. If his actions weren’t perfect, his flesh would sizzle and leave his bones unsheltered to melt in a matter of seconds. Helios’ light was his end. So he must stay in the shadows.

After such darkness, Kíli could only see a white blur crossing the sky, but after years and years of watching the sunrise, he knew well how Helios’ shining steed cut through the night like a rapier. He raced up to meet it, his every muscle jolting in tandem to flap his wings with enough speed and precision to shoot him to a height that took his breath from his body. There, on the level, he waited.

That was his mistake.

The chariot barreled toward him with such graceful speed, its very own wind left Kíli reeling through the air.

       “What are you doing?” He heard.

He found his balance and his rhythm and darted from the heat on his back. It singed the very tip of his wing, but with the breeze of his flight, the fire and pain didn’t travel upwards. So he flew on, grabbing hold of the chariot’s edge.

       “No!”

Kíli realized, but it was too late. Of course the gold of the chariot would be as blazing as an open flame. He hissed in pain, but flew on until he matched Helios in his flight.

He called the Sun God’s name, letting it grace his lips for the first time. “Helios!”

       “Are you daft?” Helios cried, yanking on his reins with a force that turned his knuckles white, but the horse didn’t slow.

       “I’m Morpheus!”

Helios laughed. His eyes sparkled, glittering like the brightest stars in the sky, like the loudest, most dazzling thunderbolt Zues ever threw had been captured inside the golden head of this god.

Kíli knew Helios was beautiful. He knew of the creamy skin, the aureate halo, and the smile as curved and irresistible as cumulus clouds. But he didn’t know of the blue eyes. They struck him and slowed him down.

Still, before he burned, before he circled back and raced to his gates, flying through without a look back, he heard Helios yell something to him. He saw Helios smile at him, as he’d seen every morning for hundreds of years. But this time, his Sun was close enough to touch.

Book IV

Helios’ days were all the same. It was clockwork and routine- the paths he took to and from the farthest corners of Poseidon's ocean, how long the trek took, when and where he’d begin and end. He knew what he’d see along the way. There were never any surprises because nothing was ever different. 

At least that was the case until Morpheus loomed by his gate for the first time. His first appearance had been unusual and indeed gave Helios pause at first, but even that had become something expected after thousands of years of his Dark One’s presence. 

Morpheus flying to his chariot before dawn, however, that was unexpected. A surprise. Even a fright to Helios that jarred him like nothing else he’d ever experienced. It left him with so many questions. Helios wasn’t used to having any such thing. He was the Sun. He had all the answers. He was the steadiest thing in the cosmos. He was arguably the most dependable god.

But now that Morpheus had flown to him, Helios was unsure. He sat in his throne and glowed dimly over the day, diverting most of his energy to all the questions now crowding his headspace.

Why, he asked. 

He’d spent his eternity thus far watching all beings under his light. They were predictable. He was never surprised by their actions. And yet, Morpheus, God of Dreams, left him flabbergasted without a single answer as to why he’d risk his life to speak to a god in the opposite domain. What was the point? What did he want to say? Wasn’t he terrified?

But Helios’ most important question was: Had Morpheus heard him?

He hoped so. For when he wasn’t wondering and pondering, Helios was dreaming. Well, he guessed he was dreaming. He’d heard his humans talk about it in his temples, running to his altar after a night of his blessing their sleep and revealing himself to them in a vision. It was as if they’d truly seen the god, Helios, and had even spoken to him, though it was obvious such a thing was impossible. Helios never strayed from his post.

But he dreamed on with his eyes open and his rays shining. Just before his mind’s eyes were wings twice the size of Morpheus’ body and black as the fur of Cerberus. He even went inside his fantasy and touched the wings with his fingertips, leaving them with what he hoped was a pleasant warmth. As his dream Morpheus leaned into his touch, even closed his eyes to it, Helios’ halo shone ever brighter to the lands below. 

Then, as if clouds filled the sky, more questions would clog Helios’ mind and his rays would dim as he asked himself why.

So the day went on, sunlight ebbing and flowing until his steed grew agitated. Sparkling hooves stomped into the ground, the glistening tail swished and the impatient head bobbed, strong neck arching tight in anticipation. Dusk was approaching, as was Helios’ long ride. But even after his exhausting day, he leapt into his chariot, ready to work through until dawn when he’d see his Dark One again.

       “Come to me tomorrow,” he’d said. 

He hoped it with every glittering speck of himself.

The reflection of his chariot shimmered in the ocean below as he passed through the sky. His steed took him past mount Olympus and over the thatched roofs of Corinth, then Larissa. He passed wide meadows and gentle creeks, waiting patiently for the chance to fly over Morpheus’ gates. Though the Dream World spanned much of the Underworld, Helios knew exactly where the horn entrance would appear at the break of dawn. He knew where Morpheus would be. 

Morpheus.

It left the great Sun God trembling, for he was aware of the danger his Dark One faced. If all didn’t unfold perfectly, Morpheus would be no more. And it would be Helios’ fault. Even in all his uncertainty, he was sure of that.

Leaning over the side of his chariot, Helios kept his eyes glued to the ground. He stayed low, remained as dim and cool as he could without giving himself a mortal chill. He waited. All things familiar glowed underneath him until the horn gates of Morpheus’ Dream World glittered in his rays. But Morpheus wasn’t leaning on the post. Instead, he was already flying through the air to meet the chariot. Helios’ gut sunk.  His Dark One was wasting his energy. He should have waited! 

It was too late now.

As Helios’ golden horse loped on, quickly surpassing Morpheus’ own swift speed, Helios reached out with a cool hand and dragged his Dark One safely into the seat of his chariot. Then he slid to the opposite side, pulling his limbs as far from Morpheus as the chariot allowed.

The two gods stared at each other. Morpheus was squinting at him, even in Helios’ dim light.

       “You told me to come back to you,” Morpheus said. “You told me to return at dawn.”

       “Yes,” Helios said.

Morpheus scooted closer to him, moving his hand to the back ledge of the chariot to pull himself along. “Why-”

       “Don’t!” Helios cried, dragging his Dark One’s hands into his own. “Don’t touch the chariot. It will burn you.”

Morpheus latched onto him. “But you’re not burning me. How is that?”

      “It’s only dawn. My rays aren’t as powerful now.”

Morpheus was watching him through narrowed eyes, taking in his every feature as if he’d never seen another being before. Like he’d only ever dreamed them, and never actually saw or touched. It took every bit of Helios’ power not to shrink from his gaze. No one had ever looked so closely at the sun.

Morpheus reached for him and ran his icy fingers around Helios’ ear, tucking his shining hair around it. “You’re so warm.”

       “Sorry.”

       “No,” Morpheus was quick to say. “It’s pleasant. You feel wonderful.”

Just below them was the shore of the western ocean. Dawn would soon pass into full morning. They didn’t have much time.

       “Why did you come? It was dangerous for you,” Helios said. He shifted in his seat to shelter Morpheus from the light creeping up to his back. They were close now, closer than any two opposing gods had ever been.

       “I’ve spent so long in the shadows,” Morpheus said. “I wanted to feel your light.”

Helios grinned. Everyone in the cosmos wanted to feel the light of the sun. But he’d keep himself from all the world, he’d let it all freeze over if it meant he could safely shine on his Dark One for the rest of his eternity. Just for a moment, he leaned closer to imagine what it would feel like.

       “I wanted to see you, but you don’t sleep!” Morpheus said, bumping the tip of his nose to Helios’ cheek. He jerked away and hissed, rubbing his sizzling face. “You heat up quick,” he laughed.

       “You must leave,” Helios said with a wince. “I can’t slow the dawn.”

       “I know. But here, take this.” Morpheus reached to the nape of his neck and untied the sticky stem of a single poppy from his hair. He placed it in Helios’ hand and folded his fingers around it. “Tomorrow when the moon rises, I want you to smell this. It’s one of mine. Bring it up to your nose and take a deep breath. Think of me and I will come to you in your dreams.”

       “I’ve never dreamt anything before. I’ve never even slept.”

Morpheus reached for him, but stopped himself before he could touch Helios’ scalding skin. He closed his eyes to the blinding shine. “Then I’ll fly to your chariot every day at dawn.”

       “No. It’s not safe for you.” The poppy was wilting in Helios’ hand without its maker. “I’ll do as you said. As long as you will come to me.”

       “I swear it. There’s no place else I’d rather be.” One eye creaked open and Morpheus smiled before it clamped shut again. “You sure are bright.”

       “You must go.”

His black wings rose above the chariot and opened like wide wooden doors before Morpheus blindly leapt from Helios’ side and dove to his gates. There, he disappeared before Helios’ own rays could burn his flesh.

As the Sun God was delivered to his throne, he held tight to his poppy and dreamed with his eyes open about what the night would bring.

Book V

It was rumored Morpheus’ wings had the strength of a thousand soldiers. Though the feathers were lush and silky, the arching bones crowning the tops- extensions of his own spine- were not to be trifled with. How else would he fly through the cosmos from city to city and even to Mount Olympus to deliver himself to the dreams of his recipients? The wings were so robust, so legendary, and yet his flight was as silent as an owl’s, for what good were they if they woke his dreamers? 

Tonight, however, his wings were still. He had his scroll, his list of messages to deliver and beings to visit, but instead of rushing out of his gates to tend to his duties, he stood just past the lock to his Dream World. For the first time in his endless existence, he didn’t know where to go. 

His most important dreamer didn’t have a regular resting place. As far as Kíli knew, Helios traveled in his chariot all through the night, distributing his light around the universe. It would be impossible to pinpoint his exact location, never mind catch up with the soaring chariot. The only thing Kíli could do was wait to be summoned.

Still, Kíli couldn’t even be sure Helios would be able to dream, or even sleep for that matter. His poppies worked wonders on ailing humans, but he’d never offered one to a god before. It was forbidden by Zues. As was his and Helios’ affair. He knew they were treading a very dangerous path.

Usually, Kíli would be terrified of Zues. He would hide in the shadows of his Dream World, only emerging from it to take orders from the King of the Gods. He’d take his notes with his head down and wings wilted, never quite looking the Maker of Thunder in the eye. Every interaction made him quiver down to his soles.

Now, however, with Helios in his sights, he wasn’t scared. It was as if he had a secret weapon that left him powerful and fearless against anyone who stood in the way of him finding his very own Sun. Nothing mattered beyond his One who glowed and lit up the sky, bringing hope to all in his domain. Kíli felt that now.

So he stood at his gates, daring Zues to threaten him or his love and hoping with every inch of himself that his poppy would work. He waited for Helios’ call.

He closed his eyes to listen.

The wind rustled in the grass and tickled his feet. A cat yowled in the dark. The warm stuffy silence of night muddled his mind. 

Then all was clear. When he opened his eyes, Helios was in his arms, asleep.

His plan had worked.

As expected, the Sun God was warm. Kíli had felt this kind of residual heat before when he entered the dreams of sleeping humans who were wrapped up in too many quilts during the night. However, this kind of warmth wasn’t so oppressive. Instead, it was a balmy comfort that washed over his lap and up his arms. Kíli, the God of Dreams who only came out at night, was feeling the Sun for the first time.

Meanwhile, Helios, who never slept and never left his post, conquered his fears and did so for Kíli. He was peaceful. The poppy had worked and it had given him rest. That knowledge only added to the rush Kíli was feeling in his chest as he pulled Helios closer, protecting him, lest he regret placing his trust in his Dark One. 

Though Helios was not shining, not even glowing, Kíli was still stunned by his beauty. It wasn’t dull or dimmed in the night, but magnified. This close and without his rays, Kíli could see his true beauty- the lines in his lips from his own heat and those around his eyes left by his gleaming grin. Even now, in sleep, Helios smiled and Kíli didn’t miss the dimples in his cheeks and how the left one was deep enough to cradle the tip of his forefinger. 

Kíli took this chance to touch the god, not to take advantage of him, but to appreciate him while there was time to be had, while he was unwatched. He ran his fingers through the silky golden hair, down the strong neck and over the proud, smooth shoulders. It electrified him like the night air never could. Then, after what felt like hours of staring and contemplation, Kíli even dared to kiss his Sun’s head. His lips lingered over the warm skin as he held Helios tight to his chest.

With that, Helios sighed. “Where am I?” he asked, working to focus his gaze on the one above him.

       “You are in the arms of Morpheus,” Kíli said, smiling down on him. “Which is to say, you are asleep.”

       “Morpheus.” Helios wriggled closer, wrapping his arms around any part of Kíli he could reach. “If this is a dream, then let it never end. There’s nowhere else I wish to be.”

Kíli hummed. “You’ve come over to the dark side then, hm?”

       “If that’s where you are, yes. I’ll follow you there.”

Like most things in the world of the gods, Kíli’s flowers affected all beings differently. He was happy enough that Helios had fallen asleep at all, so he couldn’t blame the virgin dreamer for his honeyed state. If Kíli was honest with himself, he didn’t at all mind his Sun’s sweet words, though he knew they were coaxed out by the power of his poppy.

Helios sighed again. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

       “You’re quite the romantic in your dreams,” Kíli said.

Helios grinned. It was bright enough to make Kíli’s heart soar, but not to blind him as it had when they shared the sky. 

       “Have I won you over, then?” Helios asked.

       “Do you think I’d risk my life just to speak with you if you hadn’t already?”

       “Twice!” Helios said with a wagging finger. “You did it twice.”

       “Yes, I did. And I’ll do it again every morning hence if it will allow me the privilege of holding you again.”

The Sun God let his head flop on Kíli’s arm. “Now who’s playing the romantic?”

Kíli would do anything to see those blue eyes more clearly, but as Helios talked on, his lids fluttered shut, lashes feathering against his cheeks.

       “I must have- had too much of the poppy. I did as you said, but the first… it didn’t do anything. I needed to see you, so I...” He laughed. “And now I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

Kíli caressed his cheek. “It’s all right. You can relax, I’ll be here.”

Immediately, the Sun turned to sand in Kíli’s arms, burying his forehead in his Dark One’s chest. Again, Kíli felt immeasurable pride. One of the most important beings in the cosmos allowed himself to be cradled and cared for by him. It made him return to his earlier wishes of wanting the night to last forever.

       “Morpheus-”

       “Call me Kíli.” He smoothed the line between Helios’ brows with his thumb as he explained, “It’s the name my mother gave me. Only when Zues gave me the Oneiroi, did he give me the name Morpheus as well.”

       “But that’s not who you are.”

       “No.”

Helios said his name. His real name. A lazy tongue flicked its way through the consonants and soft lips curled around the sounds with a smile. Then Helios said it again. “Kíli.” He leaned into Kíli’s night-cool touch that grazed the rounds of his golden cheeks and the cliffs of his thick brow. It rumpled as he said, “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t empower the sun. I’ve always been in the sky. Alone.”

       “Not anymore,” Kíli said.

Helios hummed and sighed and sank further into Kíli’s arms as if the disease of his loneliness- an ailment he never knew he had- was cured irrevocably. “Kíli. If you are Kíli, then I must be someone as well. Give me a name, Kíli.”

       “Your name is perfect just the way it is.”

He opened his eyes. “But it wasn’t given to me by anyone who matters.” For the first time, Helios reached up to Kíli and stroked his cheek. The touch was long overdue, but Kíli could forgive it because of the tenderness it evoked. He leaned into it, distantly listening as Helios continued. “Call me Fíli. Similar and yet opposite, just as we ourselves are. I’ll be your Fíli.”

Kíli snorted. “I should call you ‘Silly’ instead-”

He squeezed Kíli’s arm and chuckled. “Just give me this.”

Kíli wasn’t in a state to deny him anything. He’d fallen too far too quickly for such things. So he nodded.

       “Will you give me something else?”

       “Anything.”

Ever so gently, Helios- Fíli- led Kíli’s lips down to his own. Kíli gave him his kiss. In one moment everything between them changed. The cosmos parted and opened the way to a new universe of their own, one in which they could live in harmony and without fear, pain, or isolation. After millenia of giving- Fíli giving life and Kíli giving fantasy- they together stole it all for themselves. They gave each other the impossible. 

But Kíli felt himself begin to fade. 

Fíli held onto him like a stubborn serpent.

       “Don’t leave me,” Fíli said against his lips.

       “I won’t. It’s you who are leaving me.”

       “No.”

Kíli chuckled and his cool air blew over Fíli’s face, making him shiver. “It’s not your fault. You’re waking up.”

       “Stop me.”

       “I can’t. Not even you can slow the dawn. But we have forever now, Fíli.”

Fíli kissed him again. Even on the edge of his dream, the sun inside him was rising, leaving his flesh hot in Kíli’s arms. He would be untouchable in a matter of minutes.

       “Will you come to me again?”

       “Every night,” Kíli assured, risking his fingers to feel Fíli’s smoldering cheek once more. “And I will wait at my gates for you every morning.”

       “Not for too long, Kíli. I won’t have you scorching your wings again.”

       “You’re starting to sound more like yourself,” Kíli said with a scoff.

Fíli smiled. “I’m still your Fíli. And there’s still nowhere else I’d rather be than here in your arms. But you’re right, we both must go.” 

Yet Fíli’s only movement was to kiss his Dark One again. Then he watched until Kíli was a blur in the darkness.

Book VI

When Fíli opened his eyes, he was in his chariot. From the look of the waving blue mountains ahead, he could tell his nightly quest was about halfway through, meaning his trusted steed hadn’t even noticed his mind’s absence. After all, the horse knew the route as well as he did. It was an encouraging display that simultaneously left him bitter with disappointment. While it was made clear he’d be able to remain in Kíli’s Dream World for longer nights in the future, it only reminded him how short tonight’s visit had been.

He didn’t want to wait- not for the day to pass or even the night hours to fade before he could see his Dark One again from high above. But alas, even Zues himself suffered from such impatience for not even the King of the Gods could accelerate time. 

What did comfort Fíli, however, was Kíli’s love of the night. Though Fíli was bored by its boring darkness, his love- yes, his love- relished his freedom under the starry sky. It was his time to thrive. Fíli could imagine him, dream of him flying through the cosmos as he leaned back in the seat of his chariot. Maybe one night, the two would cross paths, he thought.

But when he wriggled down into his seat, something crunched. It set off a familiar smell. He reached up, startled to feel something in his own hair, and gently pulled at not one, but three poppies that were neatly tied and tangled together. Kíli must have left them in his golden waves just before he faded away from the dream. Rolling the stems in his fingers, Fíli smiled, bringing too high a dawn for the middle of the night. But he couldn’t help it. These were a promise from Kíli for more nights like this one in a universe of their own. 

They’d make a life for themselves in the short hours before dawn. Helios and Morpheus, known to only themselves as Fíli and Kíli, would love for eternity.

[houseisekai]

House Isekai: Shadowbringers - Act 2 Finale: God Shattering Star

House Isekai Shadowbringers AU Masterlist Here

—

Time is running out for everyone in Fodlan and House Isekai. They must act now and destroy TWSITD and Rhea before their worlds merge. No matter what, they cannot stop. No matter who they lose on the way.

[Spiderweb - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

Byleth swung open the door to the capital building, looking for Lahabrea.

(Edelgard) “Professor?”

(Claude) “Everything alri-?”

(Byleth) “Where is that son of a bitch, I want answers NOW.”

(Yuri) “You mean Lahabrea? Pretty sure he’s upstairs-”

Byleth stormed past them, leaving everyone confused.

(Dimitri) “Perhaps we should get everyone else to follow as well.”

They nodded and gathered their respective classes and the members of House Isekai.

Sitri and the School-Living Club members were the first to arrive, seeing Byleth in a nearby room to confront Lahabrea and Sothis.

(Lahabrea) “Is something the ma-”

(Byleth) “What the hell is going on with me and Sitri?! Why are we seeing other people’s memories?!”

(Lahabrea) “...”

Sitri stepped forward as well, pressing him further.

(Sitri) “And you never said why you brought me back. How am I important to any of this?”

The house leaders and representatives came into the room, seeing the interrogation happen.

(Lahabrea) “To the first question, the Zanado Tower is what’s making you remember.”

(Claude) “When we were inside it, we could hear and access past memories, ones we didn’t experience in this...timeline? I think...?”

Lahabrea nodded.

(Lahabrea) “Correct. Every single voice you’ve heard of yourself, it is a memory, something that happened before in a previous timeline before it was wiped out. As to why you and Sitri have access to House Isekai’s memories...is because of me.”

Lahabrea turned to face the House Isekai representatives, and only found eyes that viewed him as a stranger. Shaking his head, he continued his explanation.

(Lahabrea) “The voices you have been hearing, were times I spent with them. Each loop caused their memory to wipe, no matter what we did to prevent it. When Sothis and I reversed time ourselves, we must have caused some catastrophic damage that...well, made you.”

(Rean) “Are you calling Byleth a mistake?”

(Sothis) “Not a mistake. An accident. If things had gone to plan, we would be the ones in this situation instead of him. Though, it is a blessing that he does not have full access to what we’ve been through...”

(Lahabrea) “We’ve been experiencing the same memory flashes as well, and our guess is because the Tower is failing and merging all of our worlds together is how we’re able to see their memories. I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon.”

(Yu) “The Tower has already shown up in our world. How much time is left for the others?”

(Sothis) “We have no idea. That being the case, we should NOT allow it to merge any further, the Tower is barely holding itself together as it is. Who knows what will happen if it is allowed to continue.”

(Yuuri) “More importantly, some of our worlds should NEVER be allowed to merge...”

Yuuri stiffened while Doomguy looked around the room and shook his head.

(Kazuma) “Yeah, we’d be downright screwed if either of theirs merged with Fodlan. Hell, any of ours, really. So, what’s the plan on stopping it exactly?”

(Lahabrea) “Before we were attacked, I mentioned a plan to wipe out Those who Slither and the Church. Our reasoning is this-”

Lahabrea pulled out a crystal and tapped it, displaying a small light of two spheres that were side by side. He pointed at the sphere on the left.

(Lahabrea) “This sphere is the Tower. It represents what our past self did to cause the events happening now.”

He pointed at the second sphere.

(Sothis) “The second sphere is the timeline that should be separated, what should have happened without any intervention.”

The two spheres merged together.

(Lahabrea) “The two merging is what’s making us even have this conversation.”

(Sitri) “So...if we remove the first sphere, the second sphere will be fixed?”

(Sothis) “That’s our best guess, yes. If we kill Rhea, her angels should be at a complete loss. And if we kill Those Who Slither, than we can rest assured the Javelin of Liberation will not be activated.

(Dimitri) “I don’t believe we’ve seen that Javelin but...it sounds familiar.”

(Edelgard) “Indeed, and it wasn’t because of the message in the crystal.”

(Lahabrea) “Everyone excluding House Isekai has had experience with it...It’s what caused us to be here to begin with.”

(Kazuma) “So we’re dealing with a buncha nutjobs with a nuclear bomb, fuckin’ fantastic.-”

(Sothis) “-And as to why we brought Sitri back.”

Sothis turned to Yuri.

(Sothis) “You recall your time in Abyss with Byleth during the school year?”

(Yuri) “How could I forget? First time I had met them and House Isekai...Ah, I see. You’re referring to the incident with her body.”

(Sitri) “M-My what?”

(Ainz) “Long story short, Aelfric wanted to bring you back to life, while Rhea originally tried the method to bring Sothis back. That’s what we were able to gather.”

(Sitri) “I...remember somewhat Rhea mentioning that. I sacrificed myself to make sure Byleth survived. And Rhea always did treat me as one of her own...”

(Minako) “That’s how she treated Byleth too, until she realized he wouldn’t cooperate.”

(Akira) “We wanted to bring her to justice until, well, all of this happened.”

(Edelgard) “It was part of the reason why I wanted House Isekai to join us in the war. Though it seems what I did had been unnecessary...”

Byleth looked away from Edelgard. At the beginning of all this, he wanted her dead as much as Rhea. Now, he had no idea how to feel, having access to all of Lahabrea’s memories. Or, his memories. He didn’t really know which one was right, or if there was a right answer.

(Sothis) “The reason why we brought you back, is because you CAN channel this loop’s Sothis through you.”

(Byleth) “What?!”

(Sitri) “Is...Is that why I’ve been able to see the past memories too?”

They nodded.

(Lahabrea) “What I went through, Sothis was with me every step of the way. So what she remembers by being with Byleth, you remember. After all, she’s a part of us.”

(Yu) “So she’s still alive for us after all.”

(Sothis) “As I have said, though I am not seen, I am always with you.”

(Sitri) “But h-how will I be able to? What can I even do?”

(Lahabrea) “...We don’t honestly know, other than its possible. We just have you as a trump card to use against her, more than anything.”

(Edelgard) “That’s...reassuring.”

(Minako) “Not like we have a better plan.”

(Lahabrea) “Anyways, about stopping Rhea and Those Who Slither...That’s not going to be an easy task. They are both using technology they should not have access to, and you’ve seen how lethal angels and inquisitors are.”

(Minato) “And how fast the Agarthans converted the dead into that...thing.”

(Yuuri) “Both of them want each other dead, with us caught in the middle.”

(Sitri) “And we’re the only ones who can stop it.”

(Kazuma) “Not like we can exactly wait for them to kill each other and let them sort it out either...”

(Lahabrea) “Well, all we really need to do is kill the leaders and the rest should scramble...We hope.”

(Sothis) “In the past, killing the leaders effectively put the factions out of the picture. So that part is consistent every loop at least.”

(Rean) “Then, who do we go after first? We can have Valimar teleport us the-”

(Lahabrea) “No. Valimar takes too much energy, and we’re going to need him at full strength. I have an idea to have both of them show up at the same time.”

(Sothis) “But we will not depart unless everyone is ready. Once we go through with this plan, there’s no coming back.”

Everyone stiffened their backs.

[The King of Lions - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

(Lahabrea) “We will be using the Tower to teleport and attack the Church head on. A massive energy spike from it will catch Those Who Slither’s attention and cause them to teleport to us. We will be dealing with a two front battle, and it will NOT be pretty.”

(Sothis) “Some of us may not be coming back alive.”

(Everyone) !!!

(Minato) “...”

(Minako) “...”

(Yuuri) “We can’t just teleport in front of Rhea?”

(Lahabrea) “Over the last 5 years, we have no idea what she’s done to herself, nor what it will do to Byleth. The angel blood is still infecting him after all.”

Everyone turned to Byleth.

(Byleth) “When’s it going to fully take over?”

(Sothis) “Our best guess is if the Tower collapses. What we did only stalled it anyways.”

(Dimitri) “So our only options are to wait around and die, or charge headfirst into danger.”

(Yuri) “...There have been worse ideas.”

(Claude) “So this is the point of no return, eh? Guess we better hurry, unless ya know, we wanna watch our world burn down in front of our eyes.”

(Rean) “Let’s get going. It’s time we end this.”

Everyone left the room, except for Lahabrea, Minato, and Minako.

(Minato) “...You’re really the Byleth we spent our time with in those memories?”

(Lahabrea) “...Yes.”

(Minako) “Then you must already know what happens to us.”

(Sothis) “We do.”

(Minato) “In that case...thanks for everything.”

That was the last thing he said before they walked out the door.

Lahabrea walked outside to the plaza and waited patiently for everyone to gather.

...

As Sitri walked down to the Infirmary to gather any medical supplies for the upcoming fight, she could hear a voice call out to her.

“Stop...!”

She quickly spun around to see if anyone was in the room, but there was nothing.

(Sitri) “Huh...?”

“Stop...them...!”

The voice sounded like a young female’s but...it wasn’t familiar to her. 

Byleth came into the room and found Sitri looking confused, her head constantly shifting side to side.

(Byleth) “Are you okay?”

(Sitri) “O-Oh I’m fine. I thought I was hearing someone...”

“...”

[Return of the Night - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

(Byleth) “This is the first time we’ve spoken in length, isn’t it?”

It had just dawned on Sitri. It was.

They didn’t say anything at first. They weren’t sure what to talk about.

The first time they could actually speak to each other as mother and son was right before they were going to march into death’s door.

(Sitri) “...I’m proud of you, Byleth.”

(Byleth) “For what?”

(Sitri) “For...For becoming the person you are. Jeralt raised you well.”

She smiled.

She was worried how Byleth was going to turn out when he had no emotions being born. 

(Sitri) “Look at you. From what the others had told me, you went from a mercenary with a stone face to a beloved teacher loved by everyone. You’ve led and unified people from different worlds under your banner...And now you’re going to save everyone too.”

Byleth smiled. It nearly sent Sitri into tears. She ruffled his white hair and hugged him.

(Sitri) “I’m so sorry we couldn’t get more time together.”

(Byleth) “That’s not your fault, Si-...Mother.”

Mother. That was the first time Byleth had called her that. She had been waiting so long to hear herself called ‘Mother’ from her son. Not that she was ever expecting to anyway.

(Byleth) “Jeralt would’ve been so happy to see you again.”

He let go and clenched his sword.

(Byleth) “I can make him proud by finishing this at the very least.”

She shook her head.

(Sitri) “Nonsense. You’ve already made him proud, my son.”

The two smiled at each other before there was a knock on the door.

(Sara) “Hey, we’re ready to go.”

Byleth nodded and headed out first. Sara was about to follow before being stopped by Sitri.

(Sitri) “You’re...Sara, right? Sara Valestein?”

(Sara) “I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Eisner.”

Sara formed a smirk on her face as she held out a hand.

Sitri firmly shook it before bowing.

(Sitri) “Thank you for taking care of my son.”

(Sara) “Psh, being honest, he was keeping me in check most of the time during the academy. I was a whole mess for him and the other staff. Hah, him and Megumi would have to rope me in from strangling Sete-...”

It was then Sara realized she hadn’t seen Seteth or any of the other Church staff. Were they going to have to-

Sitri realized what was going through her head and put a hand on her shoulder.

(Sitri) “It...may be a bit strange coming from someone you barely know, but you’ll get through this.”

(Sara) “Hah...Thanks. Once this is over, remind me to get you a drink.”

Sara winked at Sitri before pulling out her pistol.

(Sara) “Now, let’s going.”

[Dangerous Words - FFXIV: Shadowbringers]

Sothis prepared a portal as the four houses and House Isekai all got their weapons out.

(Lahabrea) “This is the plan, we go in and strike as fast and hard as we can.

Ainz, Slayer, your groups will cause as much chaos as possible to distract the strongest members. We have no idea where we’ll be teleporting in.

Akira, you and the Phantom Thieves will scout out ahead for Rhea and try to estimate their fighting strength.

Class VII and the four houses will take care of the grunts as everyone advances, giving support to Nazarick and Slayer.

Yu, Minato, Minako, Kazuma, your teams will provide backup and scans when you get the chance.

Sitri, Yuuri, your groups will be helping any survivors, if there is any. If there aren’t, keep your head down and pick your targets carefully.”

Slayer nodded and brought out his pistol and gave it to Yuuri. Miki and Yuki got a bows from Alliance soldiers.

(Lahabrea) “Myself and Byleth will be taking on Rhea ourselves. We’ll no doubt be attracting the attention of the Agarthans, and they’ll teleport in when the moment is right. We cannot afford to let them take us off guard again.”

Everyone nodded. They understood their roles, but whether they were confident or not was an entirely different story.

The Persona Users looked determined but nervous. Some of the user’s legs were shaking.

Ainz nodded to his subjects and they all got on one knee and nodded.

Slayer pumped his shotgun and checked his ammunition.

Class VII activated their Arcus units and readied themselves to run in.

Sitri and the School-Living club members looked extremely nervous, but they refused to hesitate when lives were on the line.

The four houses had a mixed reaction of all the above.

(Sothis) “Opening the portal, get ready everyone, we have NO idea where we’re landing!”

Sothis’ hand gently waved over the air, slowly opening a massive portal, similar to Valimar’s spirit portal.

The ground around them shook ever so slightly, since it was using energy from the tower.

Doomguy and the denizens of Nazarick were the first ones to jump in...

...

Gates of Enbarr, Adrestian Empire territory...

Catherine finished cutting down the last of these glowing orange soldiers.

The last one she split apart exploded into light particles, just like all the rest.

They had been sieging this city for months now, but it seemed like they were finally breaking through to get to Edelgard.

She sighed as she sheathed Thunderbrand and looked to the skies. It was a bright white, and at this point she was sick of looking at it.

It made the area around them freezing, despite the fact buildings and debris directly next to her were on fire.

And the skies reminded her of...

She reached for her head. These flashes of voices were getting worse by the day. It was a mixture of her voice and...strangely enough, her fellow Inqusitors and the former students.

Just what the hell was it? Even Rhea didn’t seem immune from this, yet she refused to comment everytime it was brought up.

She heard footsteps behind her and saw several knights approach. Catherine frowned.

These weren’t the knights that she served with back then. They were “blessed” by some form of magic to turn them into “angels”. Part of her wondered if it was some cruel joke to call them that, since she had seen their true forms.

Not to mention her and the other Inquisitors had been given this “blessing”, though it seems they could at least control it. 

Shamir, Seteth, Flayn, Cyril, and Alois were currently elsewhere, so it was just her for now.

Shaking her head, she motioned behind her.

(Catherine) “Clean up this mess. Lady Rhea and I are to make our way to the throne room.”

As if on cue, a brighter light shone behind Catherine, which she immediately dropped to one knee.

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea! We have been waiting for you-”

(Rhea) “Rise. For this day is a glorious one. We have finally broke this long siege, and will kill that girl for her insolence!”

Rhea was wearing some form of ritual combat armor, though it didn’t look to protect her that much. Not that it was an issue for her, however.

More of the orange glowing soldiers teleported in behind and tried to swing at Rhea, which she effortlessly blocked with her shield hand, turning around batting them all away as if they were flies.

They were shot into the wall, breaking through solid concrete and exploding into light particles.

(Rhea) “Hmph. Whatever these are, they have done well to defend Enbarr for this long. But now that we have arrived, they are destined to fail. Come, Catherine. Nothing stands in our way now.”

Catherine nodded and followed Rhea closely behind.

...

Several of the knights had finished the skirmish in the city plaza, killing off the last of the phantom soldiers.

One of the knights turned to the commanding officer and sheathed his sword.

(Knight) “Sir, this area is clear.”

(Knight-Captain) “Understood. Inform Lady Rhea-”

A portal interrupted the Knight-Captain as it formed behind him, making everyone unsheathe their swords.

(Knight) “What the hell?!”

(Knight-Captain) “INFORM LADY RHEA THE AREA IS NOT CLEAR, REPEAT NOT CL-”

The Knight-Captain’s torso exploded into bits and pieces as Doomguy emerged firing his shotgun.

Before any of the other Knights could respond, the entire squad was taken out by a mixture of lightning magic, knives, and sharp claws.

Ainz emerged behind Doomguy, followed by the rest of Nazarick, donning battle equipment.

(Cocytus) “SHALL WE MAKE A BET? I CAN KILL MORE OF THESE DISGUSTING CREATURES THAN YOU.”

Doomguy smirked and took out an assault rifle in response before noticing the Knight-Captain’s legs were twitching.

As he unloaded his rifle into the legs, the rest of House Isekai began teleporting in, immediately rushing to their roles.

Byleth and Lahabrea rushed to the Throne Room with the Phantom Thieves hopping on the rooftops above them.

As the Black Eagles rushed in, their clothes changed once more, similar to the Phantom Thieves.

(Edelgard) “Hm, I could get used to this outfit.”

(Bernadetta) “M-Mine looks embarrassing! It feels so light like I’m wearing nothing!”

(Caspar) “I’m a little jealous, you got nothing to restrict your movement, meanwhile I’m in such heavy freakin’ armor!”

(Linhardt) “...Come to think of it, did we ever get an explanation of how we could suddenly start-!!!”

Linhardt was cut off as he tripped over onto the floor, reaching for his head in pain.

(Dorothea) ?! “LIN-”

Dorothea was the second to follow, and eventually the rest of the Black Eagles fell to the ground.

S.E.E.S ran with the Blue Lions before they fell over as well. The same thing happened with the Golden Deer.

(Petra) “W-...What is?!-”

(Edelgard) “Goddess, my head! Why now?!”

...

(Minako) “Hey, what’s wrong?!”

(Minato) “Shit, not good, knights incoming!”

Squads of knights closed into their position before Valimar stepped in front of them.

(Rean’s voice) “We’ll take care of them, get moving towards the throne room!”

(Junpei) “What, but there’s too many of them!”

(Sharon) “Not to worry, we can fix that!”

Class VII moved into defend the Blue Lions, Minato and Minako nodding at each other.

They ran first, and the rest of S.E.E.S quickly followed.

...

Sitri, Yuuri, Kurumi, Miki, and Yuki ran through the streets and found the Golden Deer and Investigation Team engaged with the enemy.

Yuuri took aim with Doomguy’s pistol and pulled the trigger, the recoil almost hitting her in the face and scaring her.

The shot narrowly missed a knight which caused him to look over to their direction.

That distraction cost him his life as he was split in two by Yu’s Persona.

(Yu) “Thanks!”

(Hilda) “R-Really...hard to fight with this...damn headache!”

(Claude) “Ugh, it’s like the tower...only a thousand times worse!”

The Golden Deer toppled over in pain, trying to fight through the voices in their heads.

(Kurumi) “Come on!”

Kurumi ran into the fight with her shovel, going for the Knight’s legs while they were distracted fighting the Investigation Team. Eventually the rest of the group joined into the skirmish.

...

As Lahabrea and Byleth got through the streets unscathed, they heard Futaba’s voice.

(Futaba) “Oracle here, nothing detected on the way in! Heck, I think they’re expecting you two!”

(Lahabrea) “Any signs of soldiers fighting the Church?”

(Futaba) “...No, we’re the only ones here, aren’t we?”

(Byleth) “Lahabrea?”

(Lahabrea) “Understood. Keep your eyes peeled for the Agarthans, we’re moving in to engage Rhea.”

Lahabrea turned to Byleth.

(Sothis) “We use the Tower to spawn...let’s call them Phantoms to keep them occupied at Enbarr as we gathered House Isekai.”

(Byleth) “And what are the consequences?”

He didn’t answer, which made Byleth angry, but he had no time to press him further. They were right on the doorstep of the capital building.

Catherine and Rhea stood outside on top of the stairs, waiting for them.

Catherine saw them approach and drew out Thunderbrand.

(Rhea) “They’re mine.”

(Catherine) “L-Lady Rhea?”

(Rhea) “You will keep our guests occupied.”

She pointed to the right as Agarthans teleported near the stairs.

(Catherine) “...Understood.”

[Insanity - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

Lahabrea and Byleth stopped at the bottom as Rhea walked towards them, dropping her sword and shield.

(Rhea) “You...!”

Rhea started glowing into a bright white as her voice grew deeper.

(Rhea) “I should have killed you when we first met, seeing how you turned out. Another DISAPPOINTMENT.”

The two unsheathed their swords, Sothis appearing behind them.

(Rhea) “M-Mother...?”

Sothis prepared spells in her hand, making Rhea’s eyes twitch.

(Rhea) “No...NO! THIS IS AN ILLUSION. HOW DARE YOU MAKE A MOCKERY OF MY MOTHER...!”

Her figure began growing into colossal size, wings sprouting from her back as her limbs grew longer and longer.

“I WILL TEAR YOUR HEART OUT!”

The Immaculate one leapt forward, roaring as the claws swung wildly trying to hit them.

Byleth and Lahabrea rolled out the way on opposite sides, narrowly dodging the attack.

While the two ran towards her, on the rooftops, more Agarthans teleported in.

(Agarthan) “Lord Thales, do we make our move?”

(Thales) “Not yet. Our enemies seem prepared for us this time. For now, we observe.”

The Immaculate One spun around and flew into the air, blasting fireballs from her mouth at the two.

Lahabrea activated the whip function of his sword and absorbed the attack as Sothis helped negate the attack with a magical barrier, while Byleth hopped into the air.

He swung at her wings, slice getting deep enough to make her fly unbalanced, and forced her to fight on the ground.

When the Immaculate One landed, Sothis fired Thoron from her hands, aimed directly at her head. Another fireball cancelled the attack out as it exploded into a dust cloud.

Using the dust cloud, Lahabrea charged in, deactivating the whip and moved to gouge out one of her eyes.

Digging her claws deep into the floor, the Immaculate One scraped across the floor and fired massive chunks of debris at Lahabrea.

Diving onto the floor, he managed to dodge in time, but left him open to attack.

Instead of going for the kill, the Immaculate One swung her claws to her left, catching Byleth’s sword in time and knocking him away.

(Immaculate One) “HERETICS! YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR TREASON AGAINST THE CHURCH!”

(Lahabrea) “Rhea, listen to me, why are you doing this?!”

(Byleth) “The hell are you doing?-”

(Immaculate One) “SILENCE!”

Byleth swung his sword at her once more, which she stood perfectly still, her skin hardening before the impact came, making it bounce off.

Her jaw swung open and caught Byleth’s leg before he could run, slamming him to the wall of a nearby building.

Before being able to make the next move, Sothis teleported in front of her and casted several ice spells, all of which shot into her face.

Most of them bounced off, but one pierced through her nose, making her stagger backwards, and giving enough time for Lahabrea to get up and run over to Byleth.

(Lahabrea) “What are you doing lying around?!”

Thales and several Agarthans teleported in behind them readying a spell before Byleth sprung to life, both of them deactivating their whips.

(Byleth) “GOT YOU!”

Thales barely had time to react as he activated his barrier, blocking the whip.

His subordinates were not as fast, as the three that teleported with him were decapitated, their heads rolling onto the floor as their bodies collapsed into the debris pathetically.

(Thales) “Hmph, expecting my trick to work a third time was on me.”

He floated into the air and fired a spell at both Byleths and the Immaculate One.

Sothis tanked the spell by activating her barrier while it didn’t seem to affect the Immaculate One.

He tried to attack again before several bullets made their mark in his arm, before he could pull his shield up to block all of them.

(Akechi) “REMEMBER US, ASSHOLE?!”

(Kasumi) “This is for Jeralt, you bastard!”

(Akira) “OPEN FIRE!”

The Phantom Thieves unleashed a hail of gunfire, causing Thales to go on the defensive, and drew him away from Byleth and Lahabrea’s fight.

(Lahabrea) “Rhea! Stop this madness! You and the others have been seeing the memories too, haven’t you!”

The Immaculate One roared in response, gearing up for another attack.

(Byleth) “She’s too far gone to listen!”

(Lahabrea) “Is this the legacy you want to leave for Sothis, nothing but blood and destruction?!”

(Immaculate One) “DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF WHAT SHE WANTS! YOU HUMANS WERE THE ONE WHO SPAT ON HER KINDNESS! WHO MURDERED HER IN COLD BLOOD!”

She jumped into the air and landed near them, sending debris flying towards their direction.

Lahabrea and Sothis cut and blasted them apart while Byleth slid underneath them to get closer.

The Immaculate One tried to attack Byleth, with Lahabrea seizing the opportunity and wounded her arm by cutting deep into it, with Sothis firing fire spells into the wound.

She roared in pain as she tried to harden her skin, leaving herself open again to Byleth.

He activated the whip function and took out one of her eyes by slicing across it, making her blind on her right side.

She opened her mouth and shot out fireballs wildly, hitting Byleth and Lahabrea.

(Sothis) “Tch, Byleth is right, we can’t reason with her! We have to-AGH!”

...

Thales kept taking hits, more than he was able to. The bullets in his arms weren’t doing him any favors.

Akira, Makoto, and Kasumi, Morgana, and Yusuke were relentless with their attacks, never giving him the chance to breathe.

Ryuji and Ann’s Persona forced him to expel more magic than he had to in order to combat them and block their attacks.

There were too many of them to keep track of, not to mention that one in the floating object giving tactical support.

(Thales) Wait a minute, there were ten of them, where are the other tw-

He wasn’t able to finish his thoughts as he felt something sharp hit his back and another bullet his his leg, making him fall over to the ground.

(Haru) “Nailed it!”

(Akechi) “Slippery little bastard.”

Everyone pointed their weapons at him, Akira doing the talking.

(Akira) “Surrender, it’s over!”

(Thales) “N-Never! IF I AM TO DIE, THEN YOU ALL WILL GO WITH ME!-”

Thales raised his hand and it glowed for a moment before Akechi shot him several times in the head.

(Akechi) “Shut the fuck up already!”

(Kasumi) “W-Wait, what did he-”

The white skies suddenly had a massive cloud of darkness appear above them.

(Ryuji) “Oh SHIT!”

The Immaculate One was about to make the killing blow before being driven to the floor by voices flooding her head.

Lahabrea and Byleth were forced onto the floor, and realized what was happening.

(Lahabrea) “No...NO!”

...

Everyone stopped fighting and saw the dark cloud begin to brighten up.

(Ainz) “What is that...?”

The three houses’ headaches grew worse as they saw the skies.

(Claude) “N-Not...good!”

(Dimitri) “Is...that?-”

(Edelgard) “Damn it all, THE JAVELIN!”

Doomguy was the first to respond, grabbing his most powerful weapon: the BFG-9000 and fired indiscriminately into the air.

(Rean) “I-Is attacking it even going to do anything?!”

(Yu) “Better than not trying anything at all!”

Yu sheathed his katana and crushed a tarot card, summoning Izanagi and fired several spells. The rest of the Persona Users and Denizens of Nazarick did the same.

(Sitri) “What can we-AGH!”

“STOP...!...THEM!”

That voice again. Who was-

(Emma) “Wait a second, was that Sothis?!”

(Kazuma) “You heard that too?!”

The voice was...Sothis? Why was she telling her to stop them, it’s not as if she needed that pointed out to her.

...Unless-

Sitri didn’t have time to think as she was driven to the ground.

(Minato) “...Hey sis.”

Minato calmly walked over to Minako.

(Minako) “Yeah, it’s time.”

She cracked her knuckles and threw away her Evoker. Minato did the same, catching Aigis’s attention.

(Aigis) “W-Wait what are you?-”

(Minato) “Don’t worry, you’ll remember.”

Thanatos formed behind them, roaring into the air as the skies began to grow into a blinding white light.

(Aigis) “WAIT, MINATO, MINAKO-”

S.E.E.S was about to move towards them before Thanatos blew them back into the ground.

(Rean) “Uh, what are they doing?!”

(Ainz) “They’re just summoning their Persona, now keep focusing and-”

(Kazuma) “HEY, INCOMING!”

The Javelin began to fly downwards, but Thanatos flew up and caught it, breaking apart and roaring in pain.

Minako and Minato were brought to their knees, their body parts slowly disappearing into light blue particles, just like Megumi.

(Yuuri) “What the- THEY’RE GOING TO GET KILLED!”

(Yu) “Wait, is this how they...?-”

(Aigis) “PLEASE, DON’T LEAVE US AGAIN-”

Both of them turned to her and smiled.

(Minato) “See ya around, Aigis.”

(Minako) “...Goodbye, everyone. It’s been fun.”

Thanatos roared a final time as it absorbed the blow, exploding into light particles.

Minako and Minato followed suit, and shattered before everyone’s eyes.

The three houses finally had the pressure released from their heads, and struggled to catch their breath.

Byleth, Lahabrea, and the Immaculate One were getting up, completely dazed.

Sothis teleported in front of the Immaculate One, arms outstretched.

(Immaculate One) “...M-Mother...Is...that you?”

The one eye had caused her vision to go blurry in combination with the voices finally stopping.

Sothis embraced her, caressing her head.

(Sothis) “...Sleep, my daughter.”

Bright lights formed in Sothis’s hand, Thorons firing from both palms, one hand impaling straight through the Immaculate One’s eyes, and another through her brain.

Her body fell completely limp, and the pale white skies vanished into night, the only light being from the fires in Enbarr.

The battle was over.

[Song End]

(Catherine) “LADY RHEA!”

She tried to advance further, but saw Knights collapse to the floor left and right, with Agarthans retreating upon seeing that Thales was dead.

Those voices in her head had completely stunned her, making her fighting capabilities reduce to almost none. If she stuck around any longer, she was going to get killed.

Swallowing her pride, she grabbed Thunderbrand and retreated.

Byleth and Lahabrea slowly got up, looking at each other.

(Byleth) “The...The voices stopped.”

(Lahabrea) “That they did...”

The rest of the group reunited where Lahabrea and Byleth were.

(Kazuma) “So...we won?”

(Sitri) “We did but...Minako and Minato.”

Everyone quickly realized that they were nowhere to be seen.

(Aigis) “...They’re gone.”

S.E.E.S looked down, not in the mood to celebrate their victory.

Many of them were reaching for their heads, their memories coming back in full force.

(Aigis) “They’ve been gone just...just like Megumi.”

(Rean) “What...?”

(Ainz) “...So their fates were sealed from the start.”

(Akira) “No...!”

Aigis turned to Yu.

(Aigis) “You all knew, didn’t you?”

The Investigation Team looked at each other, then back to S.E.E.S.

(Yu) “We...didn’t know how to bring it up. We had met you when you came to Inaba and...you told us of their passing.”

(Yuki) “Even more of us are gone...”

(Everyone) “...”

(Lahabrea) “What matters is that we all survived and-”

(Everyone) !!!

[Paradisaical Predicaments - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

Everyone had to reach for their heads as the world began to shake violently.

Sothis’s voice was loud and clear for everyone.

“No, NO!”

(Kazuma) “The hell, there she is again!”

(Lahabrea) “Wait a second, Sothis?!”

(Yuri) “You mean THAT’s the goddess?”

(Sothis) “This loop’s Sothis right, what is she talking-”

She was interrupted as multiple people dropped to the floor. First was Class VII, then Ainz’s.

(Akira) “What the hell is happening now?!”

(Yu) “Wait a second, i-is it?!-”

(Ainz) “A...A tower?!”

Lahabrea and Sothis’ eyes went wide.

(Lahabrea) “It can’t be...”

====

Great Tomb of Nazarick...

(Guard) “A TOWER HAS EMERGED IN THE DISTANCE, EVERYONE, ASSUME COMBAT ROLES!”

Several skeletons and demons scattered around the area, preparing for an assault on the tomb.

Without Ainz and the Floor Guardians, this was going to be an extremely difficult battle for them.

Thor’s Military Academy, Branch Campus...

(Juna) “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!”

(Kurt) “A-A Tower?! Where did it even come from?!”

(Altina) “The materials do not match any known signatures we have in our world.”

(Ash) “Well, it oughtta be interesting at least.”

(Musse) “H-Has anyone seen Instructor Rean, I haven’t found him anywhere!”

====

(Kazuma) “I THOUGHT YOU FUCKING SAID KILLING THEM WOULD BE THE END OF THIS!”

(Sothis) “This can’t be right!”

(Lahabrea) “H-Hang on, I’m thinki-”

The skies suddenly turned back into a pale white, the temperatures dropping rapidly.

(Rean) “The Javelin didn’t hit, right?!”

(Ainz) “We’d be dead if it did!”

“Stop them...!”

(Sitri) “S-Sothis...?!”

“STOP THEM!”

PART 4: END

—

[Escape - Darling in the FranXX OST]

The forecasted rain wets us

What should I say to you, as you tremble? My soaked blazer is cold and heavy

I feel as helpless as a chick who’s left its cage. I felt that my dreams were on the other side of the heavy clouds

I digested only the sweet pain that spread in my chest

I wonder if it’d be better if I’d never met you

Hey, I can’t even see the stars

Hey, my tears won’t fall either

—

ACT 2: ENDED

[nana-n-nono]

Starborn

cw: mentions of death, mild injury, fire, lmk what else

SBB says: This thing is gigantic and got completely out of hand (at a word count of 7726 oh my god) but I hope you like it anyways and find some interesting lore points! Please do yell at me in the ask box! I'll try to have Jeno's up in less time but honestly it probably won't come out until end of August just before the event ends anyways lol.

They say in Soladium that being born is as instantaneous and explosive as a supernova. Jaemin always thought that was a bit odd, considering supernovas only occur when stars die. There's never an explanation either, when he asks. It's always, you'll understand when you're older.

According to the history books, the kingdom of Soladium was birthed the same way. It appeared entirely overnight. One day there was barren land under twin suns that were far too hot for life, the next a single sun and a brilliant realm built of white gold and molten lava. People questioned of course. Where did the second sun go? How did they do this? The first king answered none of these, instead going forth to conquer surrounding realms with swift and deadly force. These realms were by no means small either, the ancient lands of Tonitrua and Beongae being some of the lands razed. Soladium was fearfully hailed as a kingdom built in a single lunar cycle and as an empire built nearly as fast.

Now, those days seem like only stories, exaggerations from history. Memory is imperfect in that way. But Jaemin, and really every royal of Soladium, knows they're real. Knows that Soladium on the surface may seem like a cheerful, festive kingdom built on the foundations of honesty and sincerity, but that it lives on a foundation of bloodshed and deceit. It's hard to reconcile at times. You would look at someone like Jaemin and think, how can he be lethal?

True, Jaemin does not look particularly deadly. He's tall but he's not broad like his brother, nor does he seem clever like his sister. Often people will whisper that Jaemin was raised as a carefree child and that his parents spoiled him despite his status as the second prince, the second heir to the throne. Jaemin's inclined to agree with them to some degree, he was spoiled and he is carefree. But like everything in Soladium, that which is bright is built on something dark. And he is no exception to that rule.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Concentrate. Feel the heat around you. Feel it rise, heat always rises. Feel the intensity, that life breathes into—

"Your highness?"

Jaemin's head snaps up, a pure deer in the headlights look on his face as he's startled out of his training. The messenger sighs to themselves, fondly of course. It's well know that the second prince will get wrapped up in anything, and that he needs to be reminded of his other duties. But no one has the heart to tell him to stop, not when he looks so excited when he succeeds. Not when he looks so absorbed, eyes locked into whatever he’s studying when he’s concentrating. Jaemin clears his throat. “Yes?”

“I apologize for the disturbance, but your mother is requesting your presence in the courtyard.” The messenger sweeps into a bow and then straightens up, opening the door. Ah, so then it’s an immediate summons. The prince sighs, getting up and dusting off his trousers. Casual wear for the day, stuff he can run in since he had morning training with the weapons master. He nods to the messenger to lead the way, following closely behind. What could mother be summoning him for?

Even before entering the courtyard, Jaemin could sense his mother. Not through heat sensing, though he could do a bit of that as well, but rather through sheer presence. The queen was a formidable woman, even by Petramus standards. Tall, regal with a hard set jaw and narrow eyes. She was terrifying, at first glance. But underneath all that was a woman who based her strength in kindness, someone who was never afraid to stand up for justice and happiness. She didn’t back down on anything, didn’t back down from anyone. Though Soladium was a patriarchal society, the queen stood on equal ground as her beloved the king, and Jaemin admired that so.

The ideal behind marrying a Petramus princess to a Soladium prince was to form political alliances, of course, but also to try and instill a new set of values in the children of their union. Soladium’s undying determination and pride, Petramus’s stone cold analytics and cleverness. But it seemed there was still some way to go, with the first prince falling more into Soladium’s habits while the first princess fell into Petramus. Jaemin, it seemed, sort of fell into neither. An oddball.

As soon as Jaemin steps into the courtyard, the quiet chattering ceases and the queen turns with a beautiful smile. "My baby," she coos, reaching her arms out from where she sat. Jaemin immediately steps into her embrace, pressing a kiss to her temple as she does to his.

“Mother.” The queen gestures to her side to the empty space reserved for him. The bench is quite small, especially considering the size of the queen’s skirts that flare out but Jaemin still manages to sit down without accidentally sitting on the silken fabrics. “What is it?”

“My baby,” she repeats, but it’s different. A touch sadder. Jaemin leans into her touch when she cups his face with one hand, thumb caressing his cheekbone. "Oh, my precious Jaemin-ah."

He stays quiet, unsure what to say. What to ask. There have been few times in his life that his mother has taken this tone. When his grandfather died. When he was so ill they thought he may not survive. This tone is always accompanied by the pain of loss, potential or real.

"As you know," she starts softly, "You'll be fifteen soon." Between when he sat and when she began speaking, all the servants had stepped away to the edge of the courtyard, leaving only the two of them. Jaemin nods. Of course he knows, it's his own birthday for one but for two it's his Blessed day, so the entire court has been preparing for this. His birthday is happening in only a few days, but the planning for festivities has been so much longer. Months of color design, decor placement, outfit tailoring, inviting foreign royals. Of course Jaemin knows.

He also knows that Blesseddays are special. They're secretive and sacred but after a Blessed day, people change. They grow into themselves, whatever that mean for them. For Jaemin's older brother that meant becoming more confident and bold, bordering brutally honest with every passing day. Jaemin's older sister embraced her innovative spirit, devoting all her time to strategy and intelligence. That wasn't to say they weren't those things before their Blessed days, but after... It was like they'd been shocked into realizing their life purpose or something. It was, frankly, a bit terrifying for a young Jaemin. And just a bit lonely, though he'd never admit that.

Jaemin doesn't know what any of that has to do with the queen calling him today though. The way it works is that three days before the day of celebration, the person in question (Jaemin in this case) is brought somewhere (of course he doesn't know where yet) by the last person in the immediate family who had their Blessed days (Jaemin's sister in this case). Then they undergo some kind of ritual for the three days and emerge on their birthday to undergo a more public ritual. The public one is more for appearances than anything else, but it's an important ending to the whole process. The only part the queen needs to play is in the public ritual so... What's the whole point of this?

She doesn't say anything for a while, for a time that seems to stretch on and on though it's likely no more than a few minutes. Jaemin has his father's eyes but his mother's smile. A smile, no matter how small, is always the warmest thing in a room. A smile that embodies Soladium, as he's been told again and again. He offers this smile to her now, as reassuring as he can.

"I just wanted to see you," she says finally. Some part of Jaemin is confused and maybe a little disappointed. This seemed like something so serious and yet...? But he just smiles wider and tilts his head in her touch, childlike despite no longer being a child. Young, but not a child. That just seems to make her sadder, though she still smiles and boops his nose with her free hand like she did when he was a toddler. "You'll always be my baby, okay? No matter what, you'll always be my baby."

Jaemin really doesn't get it, maybe this is a nostalgia for him growing up? Still, he nods and replies, "Yes mother."

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Jaemin is awoken just as the sun begins to peak out from over the mountain tops. The break of dawn, three days before his birthday as promised. His sister, dressed in white robes with simple gold trimming herds him out of his room, ushering him into a bath first before dragging him down the hall, down the stairs, down down down. Jaemin has never been this far down. Jaemin hasn't seen another living soul since he woke up either, not in the bath, not in the halls. No knights, servants, gardeners... no one. His skin prickles at the loss of heat.

He's dressed in grandeur unlike his sister. A white shirt of satin, hand sewn with thread that is so fine and delicate it looks more like it was woven into the shirt rather than sewn in. Gems embellish the hems on the sleeves, the bottom of the shirt, the collar. And then simple slim fit trousers, in the same fashion except with some extra curling embroidery creeping up his legs. For once, he looks every bit the prince he's meant to be. And yet he feels so vulnerable, the satin unusually light and thin.

"Jaemin." His sister stops at the base of the stairs. How long have they been walking while he got caught up in his thoughts? A long ways down if the endlessly spiraling stairs above him have anything to say. It's entirely pitch black down here too, not a single light in sight. Jaemin only knows to turn to his sister by sound, by instinct. By...

Oh.

He inhales sharply. When he was first introduced to the idea of heat signatures, Jaemin was confused. Which was unusual, because nearly every living person in Soladium can pick up on heat signatures one way or another. But Jaemin had no idea what they were talking about. He was a rare case, someone who could not innately tell where heat was coming from. So they trained him from the beginning, and now he's made enough progress that if he concentrates, he can pick up strong heat signatures. But only strong ones. His sister's is not very strong, but what she's standing next to...

It's blinding. It's so, so very bright and Jaemin wants to take a step back. Something they teach you about sensing heat is to avoid things that are too hot. Most things will not fall in that range. Certainly not humans, at their internal 37°C count. Not even boiling water at 100°C. The limits alter per person but the general consensus is to cap out around 300°C. Some of the more talented individual can push it to 500°C. But this... Jaemin feels like his skin is melting, his throat is closing up, his eyes--

"Jaemin," his sister says softly. And just like that, he's back in darkness, gasping as he collapses onto the cool stone floor. For a few minutes, there's just the sound of Jaemin's wheezing. Deep breath in, hold, breathe out. Do it again.

"I won't be going any further with you. For the next three days, you'll be here alone. This place has everything you need, food, clothes, water, baths. Anytime during those days, you need to confront it. It doesn't need to be now, and it doesn't need to be in the last hour. But you must. If you don't..." She sounds so far away, echoing softer and softer. Jaemin wants to call to her, but he can't. He still can't breathe. Everything is unsteady. It's too dark, completely and utterly dark, and yet he still feels light fading around the edges of his non-existent vision. "Be brave Jaemin." A pause, so short it might not be a pause at all really. And then infinitely softer, so soft that he can barely catch it. "Until last light."

——————————————————————————————————————————————

When his eyes open again, Jaemin is 100% sure he's awake and yet it doesn't feel like it at all. Right. All consuming darkness. How Jaemin didn't break his neck walking down somehow eludes him, he's always been clumsy. He slowly gets up, but his body isn't stiff as expected. The stone beneath him is hard and cold, and yet he feels like he's just slept on the softest, warmest bed in the whole world. He rubs his eyes to try get some sensation out of them, but. It's just dark. If he strains his eyes to see then it'll definitely hurt him later. So instead he closes them, to try and trick his brain a little.

He doesn't really want to stand with how his legs gave out earlier... Earlier? How long has it been since his sister brought him down? God he doesn't know at all. He's not hungry though, so maybe it hasn't been that long. He stretches his legs, wiggling his toes and by the feeling of it, he might be okay to stand in a few minutes. But for now he just keeps stretching, slowly but surely waking up every part of his body.

After he feels enough blood in his limbs, he stands and though he wobbles a bit, he's stable enough to not fall over. He'll take that win. He doesn't recall at all what this area even looks like, so he just takes a step in a direction. There's faint heat signatures around, but most of them are near muted completely. Not entirely bizarre since Jaemin doesn't have a good track record of heat tracking anyways, but definitely inconvenient. He wants to squint but-- oh wait. His eyes are closed. After a momentary battle of what to do, he settles for scrunching up his nose and stepping towards a cluster of signatures, small ones. When he feels around them, he thinks ah okay, so this is food. It's simple stuff really, bread rolls, some fruits, a block of cheese. Probably? It feels like that anyways.

To its left are something that feels definitely like clothes, though he has no idea what kind. They’re soft though, so it probably doesn’t really matter. Who’s going to see him anyways in all this?

Somewhere further left is a kind of hallway that Jaemin finds by feeling along the walls. There at the end, the heat signature rises to a more normal view. A hot spring maybe? It’s close to that if it’s not. A slight misstep confirms it though, and Jaemin, disgruntled, hauls himself out sopping wet.

After changing into some dry clothes, he finishes cataloging (which isn't much, just a lot of soaps and an actual bed) and then sits on the floor to just... Ponder. His sister said he needed to face it, but what is it? His own weaknesses? And then there was that bright light. He's fairly certain that it had to be a hallucination or something. After all, if he saw it after being in the dark for so long, wouldn't he go blind? Or... Is he blind? No way... Except there's no way to tell because even with his eyes open, the darkness is as thick as ever. Fear sinks into his blood, cold as ice. But he shakes his head, it can't be. It can't be.

He stretches himself out on the bed, apprehension still crawling on his skin when he settles. There's a lot to consider here. So, Jaemin thinks, let's take it step by step.

First: Jaemin must complete some kind of task during these three days. His sister mentioned it doesn't matter when, only that he do it. Caveat? He has no idea how time is passing here.

Second: There are faint heat signatures all around but they're muted, even the hot spring that should be very bright. Could the mysterious light have something to do with that?

Third: What happens if he doesn't complete the task?

Third: What happens if

Third: What

Jaemin blinks, suddenly dizzy in his attempt to sit up. It's as though the bed is pulling him down, coaxing him to rest his head and close his eyes and let go of this thoughts. Oh, he thinks as he sinks back down. Maybe it's been a day already. Maybe it's night now. There's no reason for him to be sleepy though, he thinks even as he yawns. After all, doesn't that mean he was asleep on the floor longer than expected...?

——————————————————————————————————————————————

"Jaemin-ah!"

He turns, blinking. It's not dark anymore. Not at all. In fact it's very bright, so much so that Jaemin should be squinting against the shine. And yet he isn't, instead slowly twisting around with a growing smile. He knows that voice anywhere.

"Jeno!" And there in full view is Lunaste's only prince, eyes crinkled in their usual moon crescents. Jeno looks good as always, wearing a tighter fitting formal shirt tucked into newly tailored dark pants. On his ears sparkle the mark of an heir, small gem from Lunaste's mines. They're a shimmering dark blue, not unlike the night sky before the sun fully sets down. Jaemin half runs over to hug his best friend, reveling in the clean and cool feeling that Jeno always gives off.

"What, did you miss me that much?" Jeno laughs, squeezing Jaemin just as tightly. "C'mon, let's go sit. It's been ages since I last saw you."

Jaemin genuinely has no idea where they are but Jeno seems to know it well, so the younger boy just follows behind with a spring in his step. They don't walk long, just enough that Jaemin gets a bit whiny to Jeno's endless amusement. "Jenooooooo--"

"Shush you big baby, we're almost there." Jaemin's pout does nothing but make Jeno smile wider, tugging them both along until they're suddenly in some kind of clearing. A huge meadow? Jaemin's never seen it before, in either Soladium or Lunaste. But he just accepts it, trusting Jeno. The older boy takes them to a patch of grass that's mostly clear of flowers, laying down first and gesturing for Jaemin to join. It's nice out here, a light breeze ruffling the grass and the suns not too bright. Wait. The suns?

"Jaemin-ah." Jeno's voice sounds so far away. Jaemin looks to his side, and yet there's no one there. He sits up, looking around but Jeno's no where to be found. The meadow is still there though... As is a plume of smoke, slowly encircling the edges of the horizon. "Jaemin!" The boy scrambles to his feet, heart racing as he hears his best friend yell. "Jaemin!!"

"Jeno?" Jaemin yells back, eyes widening in horror at the smoke approaches. And where there's smoke, there's fire. The meadow's burning up. And Jeno... Is nowhere to be found.

"Jaemin you have to run!" Jeno's voice sounds more strangled, like he can't breathe. Did he get caught somewhere?

"Jeno! Jeno where are you!" Jaemin coughs as the smoke starts to crowd where he is, ash falling onto his skin and burning him just like real fire. There's no where to go though. Even as Jaemin turns, he's confronted with more smoke, more fire. "Jeno!"

"Jaemin you--" The rest cuts out, the flames roaring too loudly. Jaemin swallows dryly, crouching down to the floor. What can he do? He's going to be completely surrounded soon. There's no where to go--

"JUMP!!"

Jaemin's eyes snap open at the feeling of a hand on his elbow hauling him up. Jeno??? He's scuffed up, scratches and blooming bruises across his cheek and on his hands. Jaemin hesitates, mind racing too fast to comprehend but Jeno whips around with his eyes blazing. "Jaemin trust me. You have to jump." Jump where? The solar prince looks down and oh. There's a hole, about two times his width. It seems to go straight down, just down down down endlessly. Jaemin's logical brain doesn't understand, but his instincts do. And his gut trusts Jeno.

So he jumps.

Down

down

down.

Jaemin gasps, hands clenched tight in the sheets as his eyes fly open. Where is he? Why is it dark? Is he underground, is this--

His voice is barely above a whisper. "Jeno?"

Silence stretches endlessly, swallowing his soft call.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Jaemin doesn't really dream. Or at least he never remembers his dreams, so this is really unusual and quite frankly very unpleasant. He'd taken a long bath right after waking up, wincing at the sensation of hot on his skin but settling in after anyways. He's awake now, definitely.

The dream... Well, maybe nightmare would be more appropriate. Jaemin shudders thinking about how vivid it was, how he still feels his throat closing up at the vague thought of ash. Soladium residents have some heat resistance, sure, but that sensation was... Like being surrounded by...

The sun.

Jaemin blinks, understanding slowly coming through. The sun! But wait... Wasn't that just a legend? Two suns? One shot down--

No. It was never fully explained what happened to it. Jaemin just assumed it was shot down as part of the story, but in fact... What if it wasn't?

This is crazy. Jaemin, you're nuts. You're losing it. And yet in his heart he knows he's right. Something about this ritual has to do with the sun. The second one that vanished without a trace the day that Soladium was established.

You need to confront it. It. Not yourself, not them, but it. A non-human entity.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Jaemin spends the rest of the day not thinking. Honestly his head hurts, waking up with a hammering heart and a confused brain was not been a great way to start the day. And then all that thinking immediately after in the bath... Yeah, Jaemin's calling it for day 2. He still has at least 24 more hours in day three. And then... Does he technically have part of his birthday? Maybe?

He spends the day nibbling on apples and cheese and crackers. Another thing, the food is always prepared in easily eaten bites. Apples are sliced, sometimes peeled. The cheese is always cubed. Weird. Magic isn't really prevalent in Soladium, not really. The only thing really would be their heat control. Even the heat sensing doesn't seem that magical, more a byproduct of adaptation to the landscape. But there's definitely something magical about this whole thing. It's a bit unsettling.

Like the previous night, Jaemin starts to feel the pull of bed at some point, probably around the peak of the lunar cycle. He yawns as he settles down, curling up on his side and falling asleep.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

It smells like earth. Like damp earth. Jaemin doesn't hate it, but he's not the fondest fan either. Rainy days are nice, and he like them just fine, but they're not his favorite. That's just how it is. But he likes them when he can be with Jeno, then it's fun. Running around with Jeno chasing him is fun. Spending the day inside talking over snacks is fun. Finding new hiding places and cozying up is fun.

"Jaemin-ah."

"Jeno-yah."

Jeno's always been there. Jeno is reliable, like how the lunar cycle always follows and leads into a solar cycle. They may be princes of different realms, but somehow they're still best friends. Constant letters, excuses to visit. Sometimes the queen dowager of Lunaste will whisper to the reigning queen of Soladium, ah they're kindred souls.

"Jeno, I'm scared." It should feel scary to even admit that and yet it doesn't. It just comes out. Jaemin still has no idea where he is, has no idea where Jeno it. Everything's blurry, like he's looking at it through some thick frosted glass. But Jeno's there, he knows it.

Jeno doesn't ask why. Doesn't say that it's going to be fine. Instead he says, "But are you going to let it stop you?"

Jaemin almost wants to say yes. It's infinitely scary to think that perhaps the thing he has to face is what he thinks it is. But it's infinitely more terrifying to think that if he fails, he might never be able to see the people he loves again. After all, no one knows the cost of failure for the ritual, only that if you fail you don't come back the same. Or at all sometimes.

"No," he says instead. "No, this is something I have to do. To move forward." To be with everyone, with you.

Jeno smiles and Jaemin feels a warm hand over his own. "That's right. It's something you have to do."

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Jaemin takes a deep breath. He hasn't tried to heat sense much outside of what's necessary, but even then he's gotten so familiar with the space he doesn't need the sensing to tell him where everything is. But he has a feeling he should try again, maybe it'll show him what's there.

Sitting in the center (or what he thinks is center) of the room, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Concentrate. Feel the heat around you. Feel it rise, heat always rises. Feel the intensity, that life breathes into objects. Take a deep breathe in, do you feel the warmth in the air around you? Stretch your senses out, feel for the things around you. Exhale slowly, do you sense the warmth of your own breath, your own life?

Slowly but surely the heat signatures return, muted as they were before. Jaemin furrows his brow, hands clenched into tight fists that rest over his knees, legs crossed in front. He can feel that prickling on the back of his neck, warm across his back. He peeks open his eyes a little at a time, seeing heat wrap around in wisps. The signatures of the ordinary objects have all but disappeared. The only one left is the one seemingly behind him, emitting curls of heat that flutter around the room before vanishing. It's much too bright to be the bath.

He doesn't turn around immediately, he'd be a fool if he did that. "I'm not sure if you can speak, but I..." He pauses, unsure how to say what he wants to. In the end, he settles for a simple, "But I'm ready." Jaemin squeezes his eyes shut again as the light starts to flash, brighter and brighter until the entire room is engulfed in white.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

The first thing Jaemin registers is screaming. A mix of voices, adults and children, men and women. Incoherent, though he picks up a few repeated words. Run! Hurry!

He's afraid to open his eyes, but he forces himself to and it's definitely not within the castle. It doesn't even seem to be a dreamscape, with how vivid everything is. Jaemin finds himself in the center of a jostling crowd, everyone seeming to sprint in the same direction. He turns to what they're fleeing from and...

He sees the lion emblem of Soladium. He sees gleaming gold breastplates over white chainmail. He sees a soldier slam his sword into someone who is fleeing, and watches as red stains the pristine silver metal.

Jaemin's going to throw up.

"Nana! Nana what are you doing standing there? You have to run!" What? What the hell, how can this be? It's Jeno, but he's... Younger. A lot younger. Is Jaemin that young too? Only seven, maybe eight? And how can Jeno be here, he's not a resident of Soladium. But wait, is this Soladium? Or...? "NANA!" Jaemin feels himself being yanked along the stream of people.

"Je- Nono, what's going on?" Jaemin can barely keep on his feet, tripping over himself often. Jeno's hand pulling is the only thing keeping him upright. "Nono, wha--"

"There's no time, we need to get out of--" There's a fuzzy sound, not unlike TV static.

"What??? Out of where? Where are we??" Jeno's younger look alike looks at Jaemin like he's crazy. He repeats the word, but again it's just static. Jaemin's really losing it. Jeno twists down an alley, escaping from the crowd but still moving. It's a little like going down the stairs with his sister, Jeno just keeps taking him down and down and down. At some point they enter some kind of tunnel, barely big enough for them. Jaemin has to crouch a little as he walks.

It's dark.

"Nono?" Jaemin can still feel his touch on his wrist, but he can't see him and Jeno doesn't answer. After what seems to be hours but could be minutes, they stop.

"Nana." The voice speaking is soft, a blend of an older sounding man and a young boy. "Nana, I'm gonna go ahead okay? Wait for me here?"

"Y-yeah," Jaemin-- Nana-- says quietly. "Come back soon?"

"Always."

And then Jaemin is alone.

For minutes. Then hours. Maybe a day has passed. He doesn't know, he hasn't moved. A voice inside whispers ever so faintly, maybe he won't come back. But Jaemin believes in his best friend, or this person who looks like his best friend. So he waits.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

"Jaemin?" He blinks, yawning. When did he fall asleep? Is he still in the tunnel? He can't be, it's too light out. The air is too fresh. Jaemin snaps awake, scrambling up. He nearly headbutts the person above him, who rears back just in time to avoid breaking their nose. "Jesus!"

"Wh-- Where am I? What time is it?" Jaemin tries to calm himself down, taking stock of what's around him. It's some sort of courtyard like area, but there are people everywhere. In the same clothes. Yellow blazer coats and black pants, white button up shirts. A uniform?

"You're at school and it's twelve thirty." Jaemin snaps his head to the side to look at Jeno, who's rubbing his nose lightly. "Damn, I think you actually nicked me a little with that iron head of yours."

"Jen?"

"Huh?" Jeno stops touching his face and Jaemin almost wants to cry at the sight of his best friend. Jeno from Lunaste has near perfect pale skin, his mole stark against it. Jeno-- Nono-- from wherever had the youthful tan of carefree boy. This Jeno looks just like he'd expect a teenager to, skin a bit pocket marked from acne scars, uneven redness all over, more freckles and moles. But it's Jeno, it's definitely Jeno. Jaemin really is going to start crying. “Jaem what’s wrong?”

Shit is he crying? Like for real? Ugh, gods that’s embarrassing. He shakes his head, pressing his sleeves to his eyes and heaving a breath. “It’s nothing Jen,” he mumbles. At least it’s just light sniffles and not full blown sobbing. That would be hard to justify. “Just tired and yknow how it is.” Why’s he talking like this? Maybe it’s just a tic of this Jaemin.

“Ah.” Sweet, understanding Jeno, who never questions when he doesn’t need to. “Yeah that assignment was pretty rough, I was going to strangle Hyunseok when he almost deleted our files. Here.” Oh a handkerchief. It’s just like Jeno to be a little old fashioned like that. Jaemin takes another minute to collect himself, stuffing the cloth into his pocket.

For a minute it’s just quiet and peaceful. A light breeze drifts across, ruffling the grass and just barely shifting Jaemin’s bangs. This is nice, yeah. Jaemin leans back on his palms and tilts his head up. It’s warm.

“So Jaem, I was asking about Friday? Cause I know you said you had student council stuff—” does he? “and you know how caught up you get when Donghyuck slacks off.”

Jaemin doesn’t even have to think about it for a second. “I’ll make time for you.” He always will. But of course he can’t say that part here, this isn’t his Jeno even if the beaming, crescent eyed smile he gets looks so familiar.

“You’re the best Jaem!” Jeno grabs a bag and slings it over his shoulder, offering a hand out to Jaemin. “Thanks for always being there for me.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin says with a smile so genuine it hurts his cheeks. “Of course Jen, always.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————

How much more must he go through? Somehow it feels a little like he’s been through countless iterations, countless universes. Him as a gangster, Jeno as the innocent bystander. Jeno as a celebrity, him as a devoted fan. Sometimes it’s Jaemin who is cruel and heartless, sometimes it’s Jeno who’s broken and hurting. And yet always the same, Jaemin and Jeno, Jeno and Jaemin. Tied together, always faithful to the other. Not once does Jaemin regrets getting shot at, getting strangled, getting screamed at if it means he can protect Jeno. He never regrets stealing or lying or smashing things if it mean staying with his best friend. Always, he thinks as he fades out of yet another life. I will always be there for you.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

“Sir.” Jaemin turns to see a squire, stiff in their naivety. “King Jeno has requested your presence.” The mere words send shivers throughout his skin, but he nods and dismisses the boy before spinning on his heel.

King Jeno is every bit as regal as Jaemin knew he would be. Midnight black hair coiffed just so under his crown of silver and white gold, dark sapphires embedded as accents. His expression is cold, something Jaemin himself has only seen once in his fifteen years. Somehow he suspects this version of himself has seen it far more often. Jeno looks almost bored, but his voice simmers with anger. “Na Jaemin.” Jaemin swallows but keeps his head bowed where he kneels. He hears a kind of clicking, not loud enough to be shoes but certainly loud enough to be a threat. Jeno’s rings most likely.

“Report.”

Jaemin still doesn’t raise his head as he speaks. In his memories, there are too many blood splatters to ignore. “The Southern Isles have refused to relinquish their control over the pass, they say that… that they won’t unless their demands are met.”

“And what are their demands?” The temperature seems to drop another ten degrees. Jaemin doesn’t want to say it, but he know when Jeno sounds sickly sweet like that… there’s no room for arguments.

“They’ve demanded that their prince be returned to them, no matter what. And that… and that you be removed from power your majesty.” There’s more of course, but those are minor compared to this. Jaemin knows that the Southern prince with caramel skin and a halo of golden curls is alive, but perhaps not for much longer. He prays he’s wrong, but he’s known Jeno for far too long.

For too long there is silence. Jaemin is almost shivering with how tense he’s gotten with every passing second. And then Jeno laughs, a soft chuckle that is so icy, so unlike his own Jeno, that Jaemin almost wants to curl in on himself and scream because it’s wrong. It blows into full, body shaking laughter and Jaemin can’t help flinching when he feels rather than sees or hears Jeno come close. A cold hand tilts his chin up and he meets Jeno’s eyes. Dark, black not brown.

“Is that so,” Jeno says softly. Jaemin doesn’t try anything funny. Jeno’s technically unarmed now, there’s no one else around. Just them. Jaemin could so easily overpower the King if he tried. Jeno isn’t special here, he can’t predict what will happen. And they’ve always been equal in strength. Jaemin could end it all, save the people from war. But he doesn’t. Not that he can’t, he doesn’t. Because this is Jeno, who he chose. “Na Jaemin, what are you?”

“I am your right hand, your majesty. Your shield and your spear to command as you see fit.” A practiced answer that spills as easily as oil over ice.

“Yes, that’s right,” Jeno coos, tapping Jaemin’s cheek. Has Jeno ever been this cold? Physically or otherwise? “You do as I ask.” Jaemin’s heart is hammering so hard he’s surprised Jeno can’t hear it. “And now I ask of you this.” Jeno leans in close, voice a sly whisper. “Kill the prince and send his mangled remains to them. They want to make demands of us? Of me? No. Jaemin-ah, show them who we are.”

Kill. In all the universes, Jaemin has killed before. But this is the first time he’s been asked to by someone he loves. The first time he’s been asked to kill someone he cares about.

Show them who we are. We, Jaemin and Jeno. Jeno and Jaemin.

Jaemin swallows and whispers back, “As you wish, your majesty.” And later, when he’s in the dungeons with a far familiar face glaring at him, spitting insults at him, when he raises his sword high and brings it down with all his force, all he can think is that he promised he would never turn his back on Jeno, no matter what.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

It’s quiet after he plunges the tip into the southern prince’s chest and Jaemin welcomes it. A brief respite between universes, somewhere he can rest. These breaks never last long, some hardly over a minute or two. Jaemin closes his eyes and waits, waits for the next universe to wake him up somehow. But instead he hears a voice, one that echoes like thousands of voices speaking at once.

Have you made your choice?

Jaemin blinks slowly and then stumbles back. Oh, so he’s in a corporeal form for this. Okay. It should be burning hot and blindingly bright, given that he’s staring directly at a sun. Neither sensations occur though and he tentatively steps forward again.

My choice?

The sun rumbles.

Yes. Your choice on your will.

My will?

Yes. That which makes you strong and that which makes you weak.

Oh…

You must decide now. Your will is what you are, but you may choose another way. Be warned child, your will is the strongest and weakest you will ever be. Your other cores may save you from those extremes, but you will never fully involve yourself in your fate. You may end up simply drifting along, always feeling away from yourself.

I don’t want that.

Most do not. However it is an option.

Can I… Can I ask a question?

Of course child.

Why was it always Jeno?

I cannot answer that.

What? Why?

It is simply not my place to do so. I can only answer questions about you.

Was it something I chose?

Yes. In a way.

…

In the last one. Why didn’t I stop him? Would I… would I do that in real life?

That I cannot tell you. I can only show you what could be, given the strength of your will.

What is my will?

Do you not know? Hm... A pause, as if the entity is pondering how best to answer this. You, Na Jaemin, third child of King Na Seomin and Queen Lee Minyoung, are destined to be the strongest ally. Your loyalty knows no bounds. Once you have chosen a person or a cause to dedicate yourself to, you will do so endlessly. Without question, without fear. Regardless of who you might hurt to achieve the goals they've asked of you. Regardless of what might be taken away. You will do what is asked, if that person is who you've chosen. That is your will.

That doesn't sound very good...

A will is neither good nor bad. It is, like everything, something that is altered based on what you choose.

…

It seems you’ve made up your mind.

Yeah. But one more question. Who are you? All of you?

Ahh, but you already know this do you not?

Just checking.

The entity chuckles. Are you ready to make your choice?

“Yeah,” Jaemin says with a smile. “Yeah I am.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————

“… Min”

Huh?

“Jae… min…”

Oh that’s his name.

“JAEMIN!”

“Gods above what!” Jaemin snaps as he opens his eyes, annoyance vanishing in an instant at the sight of Jeno’s tear streaked face. Actually, looking around, everyone was in various states of distress. His mother had her hands over her mouth, silent sobs wracking her shoulders as she leaned against his father who was pale but wearing an expression of pained pride. “Wh-why are you all crying??”

Jeno’s face contorts in a way that would be funny if not for the fresh wave of tears dripping down his cheeks. “You were gone for so long, I thought— we thought—”

“Gone?” Jaemin echoes, brows knitting together as he tries to piece it together. It must be his birthday right? The ritual shouldn’t last longer than that.

"You— you were— Gods Jaemin," Jeno hiccups, hands wrapped tightly around Jaemin's in his lap. "You were gone, you were—" Jeno can't finish it, instead sobbing again and releasing Jaemin's hands to pull him into a tight hug. Jaemin automatically raise his arms to wrap around Jeno's shaking shoulders, neck getting uncomfortably wet with tears. Jaemin turns slightly to his parents for clarification.

"You were dead, Jaemin," his mother says in a broken but somehow calm voice. She was just sobbing a second ago, how has she collected herself so quickly?

Dead? He was... dead?

"Your h-heart wasn't beating," Jeno cries, "A-and you weren't breathing and— Jaemin. I thought, we thought—"

Oh.

"What... What day is it?"

"It's the day after your birthday."

After?

No wonder... There's never been someone who didn't complete the ritual after their Blessed day. He... Wow.

"I came in," his sister says with an odd detachment, "on the dawn of your birthday. Like I was supposed to. And you, you were just laying there and gods..." Her voice cracks. "You were just laying there and you were so cold."

"When I saw Jaehee in her ceremony, she was sitting there like she was dead too. But she was warm when I touched her, and she opened her eyes immediately. And I saw— I saw the sun in her eyes so I knew. But you," Jaehyuk swallows. "You just didn't. We tried to look but it really was like you were dead Min, your eyes were so empty."

Jaemin squeezes his best friend tighter, throat closing up. "B-but I, I just accepted it like noona said to?"

"Accepted? Jaemin, I said confront. What do you mean accept?"

"Huh?"

"Jaemin-ah," his father says now. "When you meet the second sun, you should have seen yourself in different scenarios." Jaemin nods, that he did. "And you should have always made the same choices." Again, he nods. "And then the final scenario is the hardest, it's the one where you choose. And then you wake up."

"You, you didn't talk to anyone?"

"What?" No one seems to understand. Not even his father. "You spoke to someone? Do you mean in the final judgement?"

"No! No, I mean... After. After I made—" Jaemin shudders at the memory. "After I chose, I spoke to someone. To it."

"You..." Jaemin's sister was always the clever one in the family. "You spoke to it?"

"To them, yeah."

"THEM??"

"Gods them! Yes!" Jaemin reels back, earning himself a yelp from Jeno who gets tugged along. "Them. The second sun isn't just a sun. It's, it's our ancestors."

"WHAT," Jaehee shrieks, lurching forward as if to grab Jaemin's collar to demand what he knows. Ah, so this is what they meant when they said strongest and weakest. Her thirst for knowledge, her willingness to do anything to get it. How similar it is to his steadfast devotion.

"Stop that!" Jaehyuk hauls her back. "Stop, you're scaring him."

Jaemin's... Not scared. But he doesn't understand. "So none of you have spoken to them?" He's met with three mirrored head shakes. "Wow..."

"So what happened then?" His mother asks, the voice of calm despite how frazzled she looks. Jaemin's never seen her like this, pajamas underneath a coat, hair undone. His heart swells at the sight, at how much she loves him.

"They asked me to make my choice. They uh, they told me what my will was and how it might be... hurtful." And they mentioned something else but that's for Jaemin's ears only.

"That's it?" Ah ever shrewd, his sister.

"Yes."

"Why does it matter," comes a muffled whine. Oh shit, Jeno. Jaemin reels back but is held in place by his best friend. "He's not dead, he passed your stupid test. Isn't that enough?"

Evidently not for everyone but no one seems to want to challenge the Lunaste prince. It makes Jaemin wonder what happened when he was dead.

"We should give Jaemin some time to rest." His mother is the first to collect herself, standing and lightly dusting off her skirts. His father is quick to follow, always one to support his wife. "Jaemin-ah, although it's late, happy Blessed day." Jaemin hears the proud, unspoken happy birthday my baby.

Jeno stays behind though, unwilling to let his best friend out of sight. Jaemin understands it, he would be the same. For a while it's just quiet, Jeno clutching onto Jaemin and trying really hard, it seems, to not cry again. And it's like at that sight, Jaemin loses all his strength and pitches forward, pressing his face into Jeno's neck and mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Jen, I'm so so so sorry."

Jeno just pulls him in closer and buries his own face into Jaemin's neck. Jaemin will pretend that they're not both shaking, even though there's no one to pretend to. Cause it's Jeno.

"Don't you ever do that to me again," Jeno whispers fiercely, voice thicker and more ragged than usual. "Na Jaemin I swear I will pull you back just to kill you myself."

Jaemin laughs at that, shaking his head. "I won't. I'll never leave you Jen."

"Don't promise things you can't keep," Jeno sighs back. But Jaemin knows, feels it hot in his chest, that this is one promise he's never going to break. Not even on his life.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Notes:

- A lunar cycle is just one night. The only special time terms are solar cycle/lunar cycle instead of day/night. If it's a week, it's still called a week.

- While this event states that Jaemin/Jeno have only recently discovered they are princes, this blurb is slightly separated from that. This blurb is set in the full AU but is twisted slightly to fit the bot, thus both Jaemin and Jeno have been princes from birth. So just, don't think about it too hard?

- Inspiration: Stars are born from nebulas in which the gas and stardust in the nebulous cloud begins to collapse in on themselves from the gravitational pull. Stardust is from the death of other stars. This got a little out of hand but those various scenarios Jaemin goes through are like his own lives and deaths, so when he dies in them or when he kills in them, they "piece" together to form his will which is his strongest trait. Jaemin's a unique case where he always chose the same thing. Often people will kind of alternate their choices and whatever is strongest/gets picked the most often becomes their will.

- In the final dream sequence, Nana is Jaemin's ancestor. Naming conventions differ in the past, children would receive a nickname (Nana) and then once they became adults they would receive their formal name (Jaeyoon). In Jaemin's current timeline, you receive the name you live with when you're born. So when Jaemin was born, he was named Na Jaemin and that's just it. I can explain it more if it's confusing. Really I just wanted an excuse to make a Nana and a Jaem compared to Jaemin, yknow?

- The final dream sequence serves as the final judgement by the second sun. It weighs more heavily than others with higher emotional stakes. The reason why people lean into their attributes so heavily is because of this last scenario. In their minds, they have already played through everything that could be and will not deviate from their choices. Thus people of Soladium are considered rigid and stubborn.

- The second sun doesn't always choose to enhance positive attributes. Though Jaemin and his siblings received (in order) loyalty, cleverness and determination, others in Soladium history have received things like ruthlessness, deception and fear. Generally speaking, what attribute is chosen is what the individual's core value is, and has a lot to do with nature vs nurture.

- Don't @ me about plot holes lmao

[snowflake-of-destruction]

A long one this time since I’m “cheating” again and posting a selection from a random old draft so I’m not empty handed.

The spray of hot water from the showerhead seemed like a blessing from a god who’d been listening to the appeals Hayner had made over hours of practice in the overcast and heavily damp--but not raining, naturally, since Roxas had promised to call struggle practice if it rained outright instead of misting on and off. Hayner adored his friend and could think no wrong of him usually, but he was beginning to develop the paranoid delusion the help of several hidden, trained water spirit monsters had been enlisted to soak up the water in the clouds and keep the rain at bay, since he knew from the pictures Olette had sent him that it had been storming heavily on the other side of town all afternoon. 

Roxas kept saying he couldn't control all the weird monsters that still periodically appeared in Twilight Town, but those white zipper mouthed haunted onesies sure seemed to answer to him, and that Vanitas guy who'd dropped by last tournament had conjured three demon bunnies that he ordered around like servants, so it sure seemed like monster training was part of the whole "keybearer" deal. Roxas had explained the different between Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed and the special situations in the latter groups--Vanitas's relationship with the Unversed and the lesser Nobodies attuned to different masters that had once been more powerful Nobodies-- but it all seemed like semantics, excuses, and gibberish. To be fair, Hayner had a hard time paying attention when it had been explained because Roxas had ripped off his shirt after practice, and was standing with his Twilight Town University Tanukis struggle jersey slung around his neck, hair matted in ways that shouldn't have been attractive but were, and arms crossed behind his head, making it difficult to focus on anything but the muscles in his arms, the progress of a bead of sweat rolling slowly down his chest, or the flex of his stomach as he spoke, especially when the warm sound of his voice was so much more interesting than words. 

If it had been strategies for their first match of the upcoming season which included a face-off for Hayner against Dawn State's champion struggler, Edward "Edge" Geraldine, he could have retained it. That was important. The ins and outs of what legions of mutants could be trained and by whom? Unless Roxas was going to tell Hayner how he could master his own mutant army, or at least cop to being chief mutant wrangler himself, it was not nearly as interesting as wondering how likely he was to be able to pass it off as testing Roxas's reflexes or just seeing what what the look on his face would be if he kissed him right then in the middle of the struggle lot. Not that he would actually do it. He respected boundaries.

Hayner knew it was pathetic to still be crushing on his best friend when Roxas had been dating the same guy for “longer than he’s been alive” as Kairi had put it (however that worked). Axel had been a constant right from the start, already wrapped around Roxas--literally, hugging him from behind, arms wrapped loosely around him and chin resting on the top of Roxas's head while he wore a rather superior look that already knew Hayner wanted what he had and that reveled in rubbing it in, or so Hayner read into it at the time--when Hayner first awkwardly, unnecessarily introduced himself to him, handed him the picture of them from the fake Twilight Town Sora had given him that he was reluctant to pass on as much as he thought Roxas should have it, and told him, "I feel like I've known you my entire life." 

Hayner tended to write Axel out of that memory though, except when he was feeling especially masochistic, and only remember Roxas smiling so wide it crinkled the corners of his eyes and his voice warbling with emotion he'd rarely show easily in such force in times after, at least not directed toward Hayner, as he replied, "Please, can we pretend you have? I don't think my heart could stand it if we ever had to be strangers."

The friendship had continued like it had started. Roxas and Hayner were connected by invisible ties, instantly in sync, inside jokes about things that never actually happened already understood and able to finish each other's sentences. They challenged each other both to be better and, in other ways, so much worse than they were separately (The incident where they switched out the scheduled movie for the outdoor theater by Tram Common with a home video of various Twilight Town denizens not aware they were being filmed sprang to mind, as did the incident with Seifer and the feathers). 

Even so, it was always Axel who had Roxas's greatest devotion, and he'd go spiraling back to the redhead like they were magnetized, even when they fought, even the year Axel took off with his ex-boyfriend ("His best friend! Isa's just his friend like you're mine!" Hayner remembered Roxas's protestations well, and the shadow of doubt and pain in his eyes that Hayner had cursed himself for not being quite selfish enough to encourage. "And they're not on vacation. They're on a mission. They're looking for someone. Axel invited me to go. I was the one who said I wanted to stay here") and they only kept in contact by gummi phone. Roxas loved Axel more than his own life; he said as much, often and with vehement determination like he expected arguments.

It wasn't that Hayner didn't want to argue, but the injustice of Roxas being skateboard in the sky, face scraping the pavement in love with Got It Memorized the Former Kidnapper instead of him was matched by the fact that Axel wasn't a jerk, a cheater, or any of the other things Hayner had tried to paint him as in his mind in the beginning. Axel was constantly mocking him, that Hayner had been right about, but, other than that, he was, as much as Hayner wished it weren't so, a pretty cool guy, funny as hell, always had your back in a fight, and loved Roxas to the point of stupidity--and Hayner was forced to respect it...mostly.

Hayner tried to tell himself that he and Roxas were too similar in all the ways that would make them get on each other's nerves (too much to prove always, too impulsive, too quick to lose their cool, too used and turning everything into competition and too committed to always being the winner) and too different in ones that would leave them working up hill when it came to trying to carve out any long-term plans as well as soon scrambling for things to talk about other than taste in bands, boards, struggle, or what a dick Seifer could be--and even those sometimes failing after Roxas had shifted to offworld music rather than local, solar boards over skateboards, and had seen a "entirely different Seifer" during his brief relationship with Xion. Even knowing each other well enough to predict each other's thoughts was a curse when you thought about how hard it would make necessary white lies or trying to end a fight when you weren't yet completely sorry, particularly considering that, when Hayner reflected on it, he found he didn't regret any mean comment he had made in his entire life. 

Hayner also tried the tactic of reasoning with himself that he loved Roxas, but wasn't even really in love with him, or even consistently in lust as Roxas could ruin any effect he had with a single flash of self awareness, the kind that tended to solidify to outright conceit and smugness (gods Roxas could preen when he remembered he was pretty) that left a bitter edge in Hayner long after it faded. Even with all these tactics though, and every bit of good advice he could tell himself, Hayner couldn't shake that feeling he'd had since he first laid eyes on Roxas in the alternate Twilight Town's group photo outside the Old Mansion. He knew in his bones he was born to love that face as surely as if soulmate imprints had stepped out of science fiction and become real alongside the magic and aliens that had come to populate Twilight Town.

Hot water made everything seem better and brighter, loosening tight muscles and sweating out every problem until it existed no more. The memory of the fall he'd taken during practice, particularly brutal to his pride if not physically devastating, when he'd spun at a bad angle that made his left knee buckle, the ankle underneath it scream, and threw off his center of gravity swirled down the drain with dirt and grit picked up from the struggle lot pavement. Soon after it went the mud Roxas had smushed through his hair when he'd ruffled it after practice, laughing and ducking away as Hayner swung at him with the bat still in his hands and managing somehow to carry on laughing harder even while wincing in pain when the bat connected with a crack. A large purple splotched bruise had already been forming by the time Roxas left the locker room after the post-scrimmage strategy talk,  still covered in a layer of half dried sweat and with his hair sticking up more than usual on one side (Roxas didn't shower on campus after practice. Hayner only made the mistake of asking about it once. Roxas showered at home. Hayner had been informed of this with a wink form Roxas and a cheerfully lewd remark about how Axel liked him dirty). Hayner was sure he'd feel guilty when he saw the bruise in full form next time he saw Roxas, but, in the moment, Hayner had thought Roxas deserved it--and even more once he started questioning where Roxas had gotten mud in the first place and what implications it had for the theory Roxas was controlling weather. 

Lathering shampoo through his now mud-free hair and scrubbing harder at his scalp than necessary to also banish continued thoughts of his blond best friend, Hayner found himself startling and nearly slipping on the slick tile of the shower floor when he heard none other than the voice he was trying to banish calling out tentatively, "Hey! Hey? Sorry for bursting in on you."

 Hayner recovered, head snapping from side to side comically as if he'd find Roxas lurking in the corner of the stall when he should have known from the distance of the voice that Roxas was likely  on the other side of the locker room with the actual lockers and benches. If that was the case though, why was Roxas apologizing for bursting in? 

Hayner was still puzzling through it when Roxas continued shouting to him, this time something with a lot higher stakes in possible meaning. "Axel's already left for Wonderland and I thought you might still be here." 

Hayner let out a strangled noise of confusion that would have been him playing it cool and asking what he could help Roxas out with if his voice hadn't betrayed him. Shampoo dripped into his eye and it took him a second to even register the burn.

"I'll just sit out here and wait for you I guess, if you don't mind?" 

Hayner was concerned he had actually slipped in the shower and hit his head and was now suffering from a dying dream or concussion. 

"You're awfully quiet." The trepidation was back in Roxas's voice, and it caused an answering sympathetic flutter of nerves to tingle down Hayner's body and rest low. "I'm not talking to a stranger, am I? Or a ghost who turned on a faucet? That would be embarrassing."

"I'm here," Hayner found his voice but it refused to cooperate beyond those two words. His body was slightly more tractable, agreeing with his brain that he needed to wash the shampoo out of his hair and attend to washing the rest of him as swiftly as possible and not keep Probably A Dream Roxas waiting. He turned the water temperature up even higher. Maybe if he boiled himself until his flesh melted he might find a backbone under his skin and actually be able to carry on a conversation (and be able to follow through with whatever Dream Roxas was proposing so he wouldn't be left with a regret that would follow him until he died). 

“Do you have a cold? Your voice sounds a little weird.” 

“Weird how?” He squeaked and then overcompensated like a sitcom character, rumbling, “Weird how?” in a gravelly tone as he turned off the water and reached for his towel.

“Less like listening to a recording of my own voice,” the wry and completely nonsensical in Hayner’s opinion, reply came, Roxas’s voice quieter but a lot closer.

“I never thought we sounded alike.” Hayner finger combed his hair and wrapped the towel securely around his waist before performing a mental countdown to pysch himself up before stepping out of the stall to meet what turned out to be a complete stranger. Hair too long and a shade too light to be Roxas’s falling over the collar of a pale blue and  sunflower print kimono jacket Roxas wouldn’t be caught dead in. The absence of a tan and the addition of freckles were further confirmation of an eerie but imperfect doppleganger, but the dumbfounded look with lack of recognition in the eyes was the real cincer.

“You’re not Roxas!” Two voices chorused in near unison.

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character:

Dynamics of Spiritual Life:Reacting To Evil Thoughts and Desires

Q: How should we react to the evil thoughts and desires whispered by Satan?

A: Involuntary evil thoughts, fancies, or associations of ideas usually are the result of Satan’s interference. Just as a battery has two poles, there are two central points to our hearts. These two poles work like the two poles of a battery; one receives angelic inspirations, while the other is susceptible to the suggestions of Satan.

Satan attacks those believers who are trying to increase their belief and devotion. If such believers are scrupulous and sincere in their feelings, then Satan attacks them from all directions. When dealing with disbelievers, who follow Satan voluntarily in the indulgences of their whims and desires, he whispers to them strange and abnormal ideas. In this way, he encourages their disbelief and learns new ways to struggle against the true religion and to waylay all believers.

Satan attacks us from all directions:

When Satan was cursed by God for his disobedience, Satan asked for respite until the Day of Judgment, also desiring permission to try to lead human beings astray in the meantime. God granted this request, and Satan then replied: Then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them and from their right and from their left, and you will not find most of them grateful (7:17).

Satan does everything he can to mislead us. As God manifests all of His Names on us in this testing world, we are very complex beings. We have been sent here to be trained and developed into a mirror of God, and in this way to earn eternal happiness. In order to do this, we must train and develop all of our God-given feelings, skills, and abilities. If we do not bring all of these under control (e.g., our intellect, temper, greed, obstinacy, and lust) nor direct them toward lofty goals, but rather allow these feelings to be abused for disagreeable purposes, our present and future life will endangered. This is also true if we do not bring our natural animal desires under control by satisfying them in ways acceptable to God.

Approaching us from our left, Satan employs our animal instincts and faculties to tempt us into sin. When he approaches us from the front, he drives us to despair over the future, he whispers that the Day of Judgment will never come, that whatever religions say about the Hereafter is no more than mere fiction, and that religion belongs to the past and therefore is irrelevant to our present and future. When he comes upon us from behind, he tries to make us deny the Prophethood, the existence of God and His Unity, the Divine Scriptures, angels, and other fundamental matters of belief. Through such whispers and suggestions, Satan tries to sever our connections with religion and steer us toward sin.

Satan cannot use these means to seduce believers who are devout and believing. Rather, he approaches such believers from the right side and encourages them to be ostentatious and proud, to take pride in their virtues and their good deeds. He whispers to them that they are the best of believers, until feelings of conceit and desire for praise take over in the person. When such a point is reached, these believers begin their journey on the road to perdition. For example, if a believer prays the superrogatory prayer at night and then boasts that he/she has done so in the hopes that others will praise him/her, or if a believer begins to take credit for his/her accomplishments and good deeds while criticizing others behind their backs, then such a person has fallen under the influence of Satan. We must do our best to resist Satan when he comes upon us from this direction.

Another of Satan’s ruses is to make trivial things seem important and vice versa. If believers dispute with each other over trivial matters (e.g., using prayer beads when glorifying God after the daily prescribed prayers), ignoring the fact that their children are being dragged along the road of disbelief and materialism, or that their children are drowning in the swamp of immorality, this is an indication that Satan has successfully seduced them.

Satan suggests disagreeable thoughts and desires:

When Satan fails to seduce devout believers he then whispers disagreeable thoughts and desires to them. For example, through the association of ideas, he pushes believers toward developing negative concepts of the Divine Being or of contemplating disbelief or disobedience. When believers dwell on such thoughts, Satan then will pester them until doubt springs up about their beliefs or until they despair of living a virtuous life.

Another ruse Satan employs is to cause good, devout believers to suspect the correctness or validity of their religious acts. For example a believer may ask him/herself: Did I pray correctly? Did I wash my face and hands thoroughly while making my wudu’? Have I washed the correct parts of my body the correct number of times? Believers who are pestered by such involuntary thoughts, whims, and doubts should know that their hearts play no role in these questions. Just like thieves who attempt to rob the wealthy and strong countries that try to control resource-rich countries, so Satan makes a last-ditch attempt to seduce believers by troubling their hearts.

We can compare such an attack to a person who has high tempera-ture. We know that the antibodies that are formed in the blood of an ill person inhibit or destroy harmful bacteria or germs. This is what causes the temperature of the body to rise. Similarly, a heart troubled by Satan’s evil suggestions defends itself by struggling against them. Thus, it is not the heart that generates such thoughts, nor does the heart approve of these thoughts, nor adopt them. A reflection of something unclean is not itself unclean, and it cannot make others unclean. In the same way, thinking about disbelief is not the same thing as actual disbelief.

We might even say that Satan’s evil suggestions are actually of benefit to believers, for they cause us to remain alert, to struggle against our carnal selves and against Satan, and to progress toward ever-higher spiritual ranks.

How to Keep Free of Satanic Suggestions

In fact, the guile of Satan is not great (4:76). It is like a cobweb that appears in your pathit cannot prevent you from progressing, and you should not attach any great importance to it. Satan only suggests or whispers, he dresses up sinful acts as something desirable, presenting them in cheap, shiny paper. Believers must never accept his invitation. When Satan resorts to whispering, we should realize that he is using his least powerful weapon and ignore him. If we pay attention to these distractions, we may be defeated. Like a commander whose fear causes him to hallucinate and dispatch his soldiers to the front, leaving the flanks exposed, believers who listen to Satan weaken their ability to resist not only him, but their carnal selves. In the end, these are the believers who are defeated.

Believers who want to avoid this trap should distance themselves from sins, all of which Satan tries to make attractive. Heedlessness and the neglect of ones worship open the way to Satan’s “arrows”: If anyone withdraws himself (or herself) from remembrance of the All-Merciful, We assign unto him (or her) a devil as a comrade (43:36).

In order to protect ourselves from Satans attacks we should remember the All-Merciful, think about holy and blessed events, and try to live a pious life. If you hear Satan whispering to you, then seek refuge in God. He is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. Those who fear God and ward off (evil) when a passing notion from Satan troubles them, they remember, and behold, they see (7:200“1).

The Messenger advised: “If you become angry while standing, sit down; if you are sitting, lie down or stand up and make wudu’.” Once while returning from a military expedition, the Prophet called for a halt in a certain place. His companions were so tired that they slept through the dawn prayer. When everyone awoke, the Prophet said that they should leave immediately, for “Satan rules here”. The Prophet also said that Satan flees when the call to prayer is heard.

Satan also uses indecent thoughts and events to lead believers astray. He torments us by enticing us with illicit pleasures. On such occasions, we must remind ourselves that indulging in any such pleasure will engender remorse and may endanger both our present and future lives. We must never forget that life in this world is no more than a passing toy, a comforting illusion, and that the real or true life is that of the Hereafter. When some Companions hesitated to take part in the summer expedition to Tabuk because of the scorching heat, God warned them: The heat of Hell is much more intense, if they would but understand (9:81).

When Satan whispers evil thoughts, believers should realize that he is at his weakest and that he can be ignored. Dwelling on such thoughts only exaggerates and aggravates our weakness and susceptibilities. We also must avoid being careless and be sure that we do not neglect any aspect of our worship; such oversights attract the attention of Satan. If we remember the All-Merciful, focus on holy and blessed events and live a pious life, then will we be able to resist Satans call.

[yahwehscholar]

Proverbs Chapters 1-5

Hello friends. I started reading Proverbs this morning, and would like to share a few points and a few scriptures with you, if you'd like to take the time to read.

Wisdom is the first word that stands out to me, in Proverns 1:2. Wisdom is given a voice, and is trying toge tevwryone's attention. Wisdom is why the woman let the serpent deceive her, because she came to the conclusion that it would make her wise. Look at Genesis 3:6. Wisdom is a keyword, and this bible groups it with insight. "To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight." We should pay attention. Proverbs 1:7 "The fear of Yahweh is thw beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction." So that's where we need to start, with his great name יהוה.

Verse 8 continues, listen to your father and mother. Good advice. Proverbs 1:19 "Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain, it takes away the life of its possessors."

Wisdom is personified here, and she is crying out in the street. She wants to be heard. She's looking for people to listen to her. Proverbs 1:23 "If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make my words known to you." Spirit is another keyword for me. What this is saying though is to be humble and accept discipline and use it to improve yourself, not to become bitter. We all are imperfect. But we can improve, if we listen, and it goes on to describe what will happen to those who do not listen.

Chapter 2 starts out by telling us that we need to listen to wisdom, if we seek insight and understanding diligently, good things will happen. Proverbs 2:6 "for Yahweh gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." Wisdom comes from Yahweh, along with all other good things.

My ex who I parted ways with recently was my spiritual advisor, and he didn't like the word wisdom very much. He associated it with the choice to eat the fruit, and that both were bad. I disagree. He'd say "Don't eat the fruit!" When I tried to weigh the options to make my decisions and look at it from all the angles. Which I encourage everyone to do, to think things over and make the choices for yourself of what is good.

Proverbs 2:9-11 "Then you will understand righteousness and justice, and equity, every good path, for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will watch over you, understanding will guide you." These things are what is good, and we should strive for them. Equity, discretion, righteousness, and understanding. Even if everyone else in the world is living however they want, I will keep these with me. The reward or the consequence, hopefully at the end of the days, is recorded at Proverbs 2:21,22 "For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it." It's about our life, and the quality of it. It's our decision what side we're on.

Chapter 3 brings up steadfast love and faithfulness as being important enough to "bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." Proverbs 3:5-7 "Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes, fear Yahweh, and turn away from evil." Theae are some well known verses. Trust is very important, almost another keyword but I haven't really looked for it much before.

I like the scripture at Proverbs 3:11,12 "My son, do not despise Yahweh's discipline, or be weary of his reproof, for Yahweh reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights." We need to be able to accept criticism and le tit make us better. We can't see ourselves as clearly as other people can. Think about it for yourself always first, but be willing to listen to the advice of others. It doesn't mean you have to act on it. Knowledge is power, right?

Chapter 3 goes on further to discuss wisdom. Proverbs 3:18-20 "She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her, those who hold her fast are called blessed. Yahweh by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the heavens, by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds dropped down the dew." A tree of life, how could this not be talking about rhw end of the days? It brings up a "tree of life" also in Genesis and Revelation. And that's basically the end reward, to have a land to inherit and a life to live. Yahweh is the one who has the power to give us those. Which we have know, sort of, but I want things to be so much better than they are now. It starts with us all as individuals, though.

Proverbs 3:27 "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it." That's good advice. I am a giving person, and I believe that's how God-fearing people should be. Do what's right because it's the right thing to do. Proverbs 3:29-32 "Fo not plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend for a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of violence, and do not choose any of his ways, for the devious person is an abomination to Yahweh, but the upright are in his confidence." A few "Do Not"s, which make complete sense to me. Don't stir up trouble for no reason. Don't be devious.

Chapter 4 starts off with more exhortations to listen. Proverbs 4:18,19 "But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until fully day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness, they do not know over what they stumble." That's the truth. Proverbs 4:23-25 "keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you." Jesus also talked about the spring of life welling up inside of us, when he talked to the woman at the well in John chapter 4. Don't lie, Yahweh is the God of truth. He expects us to live in the truth and to be honest in all our dealings. Don't try to make people believe things that aren't true, don't be devious.

Chapter 5 gives a good explanation against adultery, Proverbs 5:20-23 "Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and embrace the bosom of an aduleress? For a man's ways are before the eyes of Yahweh, and he ponders all his paths. The inequities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast on the cord of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray."

There's another verse in Proverbs 6:32 "He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself." Isn't that the truth. But I don't want to go into chapter 6 yet. I will later.

I pray that if you don't already, you know the difference between Jesus, who called himself the "son of man," and Yahweh, who is God and the one who sent Jesus to save the world from sin. The name Jesus even means "Yahweh is salvation." Why would God name himself after himself? The trinity does not make sense, it only causes more problems trying to make Jesus, who was a man (even though he had a prior existence), into God.

Yahweh is the only one I pray to. And I know he answers my prayers, like with this job. Maybe he doesn't answer all my prayers right away, but that's why I try not to ask for much, just to have his help doing what needs to get done. It's a struggle out there, life is complicated, this world is still upside down. We need all the help we can get, and the cool thing is Yahweh wants to help us. I pray for wisdom for all of you, and myself. Each of us individually has to seek it though. Don't be quick to judge other people ad treat thwm harshly, but judge for yourself what is right and wrong and hold yourself up to high standards. Live like you're the example, the one doing g a good job.

Depression is hard to handle, I know. I've been there, I'm still kind of in a funk. Writing this is really helping me focus on that good things of Yahweh, and I can't wait for the promises to be fulfilled. To live in a world cleansed by Yahweh the One True God of love, truth, justice, righteousness, and wisdom. To have his blessing back on this world. I'm looking forward to that.

[heretyc]

ANOTHER short list of games that i recommend giving a try because we need something to do during COVID [a lot of words and images, be careful]

I am One Bored Bitch who likes to play video games if I’m not writing fanfiction/poetry, caring for my animals or making memes. 

As much as I enjoy Outlast, this list is different compared to my other one simply because the games here don’t behave like Outlast at all. 

Access to PlaystationNow has me exploring new horizons and now I need to share my excitement. :D There will be lots of images and some spoilers, so be warned. I will try my damnedest not to reveal too much.

1. Vampyr

This game feeds my intense love of Victorian [?] London. It has an awesome storyline, the best aesthetic, and a hot protagonist. [His sister is lowkey cute, too. All of my homosexual/lesbian/bisexual homies, rise up]

You play as Jonathan Reid,

a vampire-turned surgeon who spends the game searching for the guy who turned him. He served in World War l until he got turned, so you know he’s a badass. 

The game was created by DONTNOD, and if you don’t know who they are, they created Life is Strange. This game behaves a bit like LIS - you have choices to make, and those choices have consequences - so it causes you to be careful and save the game before you make a decision.

What makes this game even more chaotic is that it takes place during the Influenza Epidemic [How fun! HOW IRONIC!] and the World War. The environment is also interactive; you can help the citizens around you, or feed off of them and kill them. [There are a couple of assholes, so the ‘kill’ option is so handy.]

It’s on XBOX, Steam, and PS4 [it’s free on PS4 if you use PSNow.]

◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼

2. [You saw this coming] Until Dawn

Ohhhh DEATHHHHHHHHH-

I’ll shut up now. But the intro is fucking amazing, you can’t tell me otherwise.

Until Dawn is a chaotic shitstorm that takes place in the Canadian mountains. That’s all the info you need.

...No, I’m kidding. But this will be long with a lot of images. There is a lot of explaining that needs to be done.

Until Dawn consists of 8 protagonists who you have to keep alive. I mean, you don’t have to, but that’s how you get the best ending.

There is Sam, one of my favourite characters,

Josh, my second favourite,

The Twins, Hannah [Left] and Beth [Right], sisters of Josh, 

Mike who I thought was an asshole at first but that changes,

Jess, the girlfriend of Mike,

Emily, the ex of Mike and a queen, but let’s be real, she can be a total bitch,

Matt, the boyfriend of Emily and the soft boy we all love and appreciate in this house,

Chris, my third favourite character,

and Ashley, who I despise [players of Until Dawn most likely know why],

So Mike, Emily, Ashley, Jess, and Matt were in on a prank that involved Hannah and Mike, because Hannah loved Mike but he was in a relationship with Emily at the time, and it went wrong due to Hannah running out into a blizzard. 

Josh and Chris are in drunken stupors and Sam is busy scolding her friends for being dickheads, so Beth runs into the cold Canadian climate to find her sister.

They both die under weird circumstances, and the game takes place a year later. 

I warn you, and I mean this; this game is INCREDIBLY gorey and will make your jaw drop due to the amount of plot twists and jumpscares. And we thought Outlast’s jumpscares were bad? Puhleeze.

The best part of this game is that YOU BEFRIEND A WOLF!!!!

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. HIS NAME IS WOLFIE AND HE IS A GOOD BOY!!!!

Unfortunately, this masterpiece is PS4 exclusive. Horrendous, I know. :(

◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼

3. Assassins Creed Syndicate

Another game based in Old London. Oops! Not really. This is not an Oops whatsoever.

This is the first game I played on my PlayStation 4, and it’s something I play quite a lot. 

You play as two protagonists. They are twins.

Evie, the brains of the two who plans before taking action,

and Jacob, the lovable asshole who uses his fists in every situation possible,

They are master assassins trying to take back London from a hipster asshole with a very stylish mustache,

I’ve noticed that Ubisoft really hates hipsters. It’s funny.

This game will make you question your sexuality because you will love both Evie AND Jacob. It’s hard not to.

Not only that, but there is a character who is trans and a TOTAL BABE,

I love him, you love him, my dog loves him, God loves him, Aliens love him-

[His name is Ned, please treat him with respect he is a very beneficial ally :(]

It’s on PS4, XBOX, and Windows. Yum.

◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼

4. Life is Strange: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

It’s not very long, but it’s a treasure that you need to experience!

You play as a BLESSED LITTLE BOY NAMED CHRIS, WHO I WANT TO SPOIL AND HUG,

His imagination is very vivid, so you can expect to play as a superhero and find stuff to help make him a costume.

His dad is a fucking asshole, a piece of shit, a- 

[Please read on as I call his dad every insult under the sun]

It’s free on Steam. Get it here. There is a definite spoiler below because I think it’s important.

Before you play, please be warned that Chris uses his imagination to cope with losing his mother and abuse from his father. You will experience this in the game, and that’s why I felt the need to warn you. It may bring back PTSD flashbacks or disturb you in general.

As someone who was abused by their father, I 100% sympathize with Chris and used my imagination to cope with my situation too. I kinda blame my upbringing for having a vivid imagination :/ 

◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼

Before you play any of these, I recommend looking at short playthroughs, or reviews before you spend your money! You’re gonna wanna spend your money on something you’re gonna play, right?

Enjoy. x

[lisinfleur]

Modranect

The Request: A fiction with Hvitserk or Ubbe for the prompt: Celebrating Modranect with a newly acquired Saxon bride (I exchanged for wife, ok?). Author’s Notes | Here is something I’ll have to study! Thanks for the opportunity! All knowledge is welcome! Universe | Vikings Pairing | Ubbe x Christian Princess! Reader Info | Viking Age AU, Saxon! Reader, prompts designed by @honestsycrets for 2019’s Holiday Event; Part II for Deal Words | 1393 ⁑ Warnings: Religious differences. Keep in mind I’m still learning about my own religious and please, do not rely on my information to learn! I’m a learner too… Sorry for any mistakes.

It was almost a year ago you were seeing those men coming into your lands, dealing with your father and brother to settle their fate after you denounced their treason. Some months more and you would end your first cycle along with the man that saved you from dishonor and even, from death.

Around a month after your marriage, your brother in law indeed came with his men ready to banish your husband and his men from your lands. But with the death of your father you stood for your claim to the lands and with Ubbe's fierce glare and his brother's murderous blues, your brother in law didn't refuse to sign the documents necessary to officialize Ubbe as the heir of your father's lands: your brother in law had his own territory and as long as Ubbe promised to never cross the boundaries of his kingdom, your father's lands were a good price to pay for their warranty to never have to share a table with you once again. Your whole family had delivered you to the wolves without knowing the wolves weren't the monsters they believed they were...

Instead, the wolves were embracing you... And more and more you were feeling like one of them.

But you couldn't help but feeling nostalgic when that part of the year arrived. Christmas was close and it was your favorite date of the year with all the decorations and the tree, the dinner and...

"Why are you bringing a tree into our castle?" you said, taken aback by the sight of your husband and his brother Hvitserk carrying inside parts of a tree recently chopped.

You noticed some servants making colored cookies; others were braiding straw in familiar formats, like lambs or boars... But you didn't think it was a thing... Was it?

Did pagans have their own Christmas Eve??

Ubbe giggled and Hvitserk as well, answering your question.

"We're preparing for Modranect tonight, sister."

"Mo... Moda...ran... What?"

The two of them laughed at your attempt to speak that strange name Hvitserk had pronounced without any difficulty and Ubbe came closer, caressing your face with his free hand.

"Mother's night..." he said, smiling at you with words you could understand. "It's the first night of the twelve days of Yule, the winter solstice. It's the shorter day and longest night of our year cycle... We celebrate Frigga and the female ancestral spirits tonight."

"And we stay awake to warrant Sun won't be devoured and will come back in the morning!" Hvitserk said, smiling.

"Yes. We stay up all night after dining with our families and we celebrate when Sun comes back in the dawn to welcome her from the dark path she went through," he explained.

And you looked at them with curiosity in your eyes.

"We used to do very similar things... To celebrate Christ's birth," you said, not knowing if you could speak of your old traditions among them.

Hvitserk scoffed.

"They call it Chrismas, Ubbe," he said, mocking the name.

"Christmas..." you corrected him with a sad tone. "It used to be my favorite part of the year. The only time when my family would be together without fighting or mocking on each other, without my sister boasting around because she got married to a rich man or father speaking to me as if I was something disposable. I would always earn a new dress to use and we would have a beautiful dinner with at least one dish of my favorites to eat..."

Hvitserk's smile diminished. There was so much sadness in your voice.

"The only part of the year your family could be together was this day?" he asked "What a terrible family you had, woman..."

"Stop it, brother, let her go... Here, take the leaves and sticks for the slaves to make the festoons and go check on Ivar for me," Ubbe said, holding your hand. "Come with me, dear, let me show you everything," he completed, with a smile.

Walking beside him, you started looking at how they were decorating the castle and trees around remembering you so hard of the Christmas decorations.

"It represents Yggdrasil, the tree of life," he said, speaking about the tree you were looking at. "The gifts and food are for the forest creatures... To invite them in peace or ward them off our houses. And some are for the Wild Hunt, as asks for blessing and fruitfulness," he explained as you were following him, seeing as some of them were placing food and drinks outside as he spoke.

"Our families will reunite and feast and celebrate together, and wait until tomorrow to receive Sun once again because from today on, she'll be on the sky longer than the Moon and the days will slowly become warmer again," he said.

You had so many questions! And his stories were so interesting...

"And what do you eat? We had some foods I'll miss this year," you said, remembering the pies and your favorite sweets.

"We eat what we can produce with the products of the soil at the season and what we have produced and stocked for the winter during the hot parts of the year. Bread, cakes, cookies, ham... We share our stocks and keep each other warm to survive the Winter and see a new Spring."

"And what are these?" you asked, walking faster towards a tree where some of those cute straw animals were hanging, decorating the leaves. "They're so cute," you said, picking one little straw goat in your hands.

Observing how perfectly the straw strands were braided to make the horns and the ribbon that was tying the body of the lamb together.

"The sacred animals of the gods; the Goats of Thor, God of Thunder, and the Wild Boar of Frey, God of Fertility. We honor our gods representing their sacred animals and sacrificing them for their honor. A boar is being prepared to be sacrificed and roasted for the feast today. And I can teach you how to make these little animals if you want. I make them since I was a child," Ubbe smiled.

They weren't the senseless demons your father spoke so hard. Their culture was so rich! There were so many stories and details and customs like yours...

"Would you teach me about your gods, husband?" you asked, causing Ubbe's smile to become bigger when he cupped your face.

"I've made many wishes for this Yule, wife. And I can see the gods had heard me, cause one of them just became true," he said, caressing your face. "I'll surely teach you everything you want to hear, and tell you all the stories of the gods and their lands, their tales and their lessons, with pleasure, my love."

He kissed your forehead and you nestled into his arms against his chest, holding the little straw goat in your hands. You wanted to become closer to that man who became something so important in your life. A life that he saved and that, somehow, you thought his gods gave back to you.

"What other wishes you made, husband?" you asked, curious.

"Blessings upon us all... A wife to my brother Hvitserk because he needs to settle down and stop drinking that much... Less pain for Ivar. More love for Sigurd... An heir for us..." he said embracing your body and landing his hand over your belly softly.

And the thought sounded beautiful to be heard. You smiled at Ubbe with tenderness touching his hand over your belly with yours.

"I like the sound of this... I think I have my Yule's wish," you smiled, feeling when he nestled his face against your neck, softly kissing your skin.

"Then we should go home, celebrate and feast together... And provide the means for the gods to give us what we want... Don't you think, wife?"

You blushed, becoming red from your hair to your tiptoes, giggling with the tickles of his kisses on the crook of your shoulder.

"You're right, husband... You're right."

An heir was a beautiful desire.

But it should be made...

And it would be literally a pleasure to work on realizing this dream of your husband.

And maybe the next Modranect would have one more reason to be thankful for, sleeping in your arms and filling your heart with even more love.

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