#v: 0

[null-hydrangea]

This image was doing numbers on pinterest and I just realized that I forgot to post it on THE robot enthusiast site ever.

[edorazzi]

Page 42 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which Felix might have lost his magic, but everything he learned from balancing Misfortune could just pay off... ☯️✨

Also, I'm aware there's a slight layering issue with the text in the first panel - unfortunately my tablet broke this week so short of delaying the page there's nothing I can do right now! I hope it's not too distracting and I'll replace the image when I have it sorted! 💕

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Weekly updates each Sunday! You can also read ahead early on Patreon, and/or buy me a Ko-fi if you'd like to support my work (or help me afford a new tablet! ; w; )! 💖

[pixlokita]

Huh

[renjunniez]

nct dream ❥ when i'm with you

[catfortress]

Welcome to Cat Fortress Blog !

• • • Here is simply where I will post drawings and possibly animations regarding my TF2 fan AU, Cat Fortress !

• • • Main Acc: @evangelina830

Basic stuff!

• No NSFW asks pls (bloody, yes ! But no sensitive topics or lewd reqs pls.)

• Asks open in April!

• Silly requests are encouraged, but please don’t go overboard ! (U know what I mean…,)

• Yes I will draw ship art ! :D dont be shy.. (I love to draw silly cats holding hands.. so yes please! As long as the ship isn’t gross…)

Also I am not super fast with asks lol I appreciate your patience!

Enjoy your visit…. =^.^=

More info under!

Tags I will use!

• #:3 - Artwork

• #:V - Doodles

• #:0 - Animation

• #:D - Answers

• #:] - (Fan?) Artwork

• #:> - Characters

• #:P - Cats info

Names!

• ⚾️Scratch - Scout

• 🪖Biscuits - Soldier

• 🔥Zoomies - Pyro

• 💣Demomew - Demoman

• 🥪Fluffy - Heavy

• 🛠️Enginya - Engineer

• 💉Meowdic - Medic

• 🎯Snipurr - Sniper

• 🚬Snap - Spy

• 📁Ms Pawling - Ms Pauling

Others so far ofc…

• 🎙️Adminhisstrator - Administrator

• 🩵Scratch’s Ma - Scout’s Ma

• 🪻Zhanclaw - Zhanna

• 🥀Beanislava - Bronislava

• 🌾Yawna - Yana

• 🫐Fluffy’s Mama - Heavy’s Mama

• 🥾Saxton Tail - Saxton Hale

• 🫒Charles Kneading - Charles Darling

• 💚Maowgaret/Maowggie - Margaret/Maggie

• 💀Whiskers - Merasmus

• 🐟Fried Fish Tramp - Fried Chicken Tramp

• 📋Furball - Bidwell

• 📕Fuzzy - Reddy

• ✈️Trots - Jerry

• ❤️Redmond Meoww - Redmond Mann

• 💙Blutarch Meoww - Blutarch Mann

• 🩶Gray Meoww - Gray Mann

• 🎀Olivia Meoww - Olivia Mann

• 🎈General Patton Dough - General Patton Doe

• 🧸Georgia Washington Dough - Georgia Washington Doe

• 🎤Tomcat Jones - Tom Jones

• 💜Mrs DeGrowl - Mrs Tilly DeGroot

• 🌷Mrs Mowndy - Mrs Mundy

• 🍅Mr Mowndy - Mr Mundy

• 🍷Loaf-Nah - Lar-Nah

• 🍵Furr-Bel - Bill-Bel

This blog is still quite new - stay tuned ! Mrow….

[cypryus]

Saw this man and went 👀

Crow belongs to @itsxroxannex

[nightwonder7]

I love your Norton and Ithaqua's beefs so much XD thank you for making those!!!!! Your artstyle is so expressive and moveable, the comics are a joy to read! :D

Aww thank you so much!! ;//W//; I'm so glad to hear! How this beef came to be was actually so random cause it's such an unlikely duo. But they are fun to draw, and I love it whenever people are referencing the comic where it all started XD

[uwuchidraws]

If drugs are so bad why are the depressed suicidal rockerboy and his dying merc boyfriend doing them too huh??🤨

[chrliekclly]

i was trying to practice that college aged dennis hair and i legitimately misspelled penn this way help

[infinitystation]

literally in tears over this picture. he's giving me a hug,,,,,,,,

[mecachrome]

not sure whether excerpts from oscar's book have alr been posted here but i found some of the quotes from the author's exclusive interviews with j.sera & rené quite interesting and thought i'd gather them in one place ❓__❓

i always love hearing insights on his karting days and how his unique rc bg & transition from australian to european karting shaped his racecraft... also notable that Every Single person who ever speaks about oscar is just like "well more than anything... he was SMART" 😭 obsessed with baby oscar already learning to dispense his energy in understated / calculative / strategic ways... more below the cut:

another thing i find quite interesting is how because oscar started karting in a relatively smaller scene that wasn't quite as competitive or talent-heavy as in europe, he was always too young/small for the classes he competed in (as with rc racing). of course he was never quite as egregiously undersized as lando but it's kind of fun that they have very similar karting lore in that aspect. not from the book but self-provided visuals:

also love how much the seras talk about his style, from his smooth inputs and clean driving to how much open-wheel potential he exhibited from the very beginning T__T

as for rené's insights on oscar's time at prema, i also find them interesting because while they corroborate a lot of surface level details about his junior campaigns that we're alr familiar with it's cool to be reminded of his growth from f3 (zero front row starts, winning more off consistency and competitor error than any personal dominant performance) to putting it all together in the second half of f2 (consecutive run of poles/fr wins to end the season).

also interesting to hear that THE most angry rené ever saw him was after his f3 monza penalty, because oscar's demeanor & reactions to adversity get discussed a lot and while he's always been very level-headed and i'd argue his core personality has not changed much if at all over the past 5 years, you can still see how he was just that touch less filtered and more defensive during his junior days. oscar is definitely still someone who refuses to take blame if he knows he wasn't at fault and who will never give credit to others when the work was mostly done by him ("i was the one driving" re: mweb helping him) but there has been a fairly noticeable growth curve from the guy who said he felt Physically Weak at the fr finale because of how nervous he was, who said he was grateful to be in school because it distracted him from his "habit of overthinking" that he was trying to get rid of, who complained extensively at monza about the novalak / beckmann incidents and then said "seems to be quite a common theme with liam if i'm honest 😐" re: continued contact in the press conf, to the guy today who reacts to deleted laps with a dry 👍 and stealthily downplays racing incidents to the point of not even calling them "incidents" at all.

there's also a bit from rené about how close he is to chris piastri and how he traveled to melbourne from italy Solely to attend his 50th birthday party, and basically how the piastris are just Good People and that oscar's demeanor is what sets him apart. which i thought was sweet :')

also bonus interesting media quote from laurent rossi, which i've seen before but don't remember in its entirety — specifically the part saying that the other academy drivers "weren't as curious" and basically calling oscar the only smart one of the bunch.... 😭😭😭 this freaking guy

[edorazzi]

Page 35 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which the cat's out of the bag, and it might break the two heroes apart! 😰🧨

Index | Start | Prev | Next

Weekly updates each Sunday! You can also read ahead early on Patreon, and/or buy me a Ko-fi if you'd like to support my work! 💖

[hitlikehammers]

Early November, 1984 and all Eddie wanted was to light up behind the Byers' place in peace🚬

he went all that way and all he got for it was a maybe-dead💀-but-definitely-unconscious-king👑-slash-maybe-babysitter(?), plus some shithead children directing his van���� to those fucking abandoned labs that may as well be lit up in neon lights screaming 🚨THIS IS A FUCKING TRAP🚨

Eddie shouldn’t be here. Like, not in a it’s forbidden kinda way, but more in a, there’s no real reason for him to fucking be here.

Save for the obvious.

It’s just…after the whole dead-not-dead thing with the youngest kiddo, the property around the Byers house has kinda turned into no-man’s-land; easy place to get high when Eddie wants a change of scenery, basically, with no one trying to break his nose, or call the pigs.

Or snatch his supply.

But when he hears that fuckface Hargrove call out, the tone on him—and Eddie’s real sensitive to tones, he can guess between the lines for everything he can’t read—he perks up; listens in. Stays put out of sight.

(And no, he does not cream his pants when Harrington calls back, Jesus; taunts like the cocky prick that he is—

And no it is not a close thing or…whatever.)

Point being: he hears more than sees what happens. Up to and including a gaggle of literal fucking children dragging Harrington toward wha Eddie thinks is Hargrove’s eyesore of a car, one of the sheepies crossing around like they’re planning on driving it, and Eddie’s not one for the rule of law or anything—definitely not if it’s Hargrove’s property that’s on the line—and fuck yes Eddie’s driven without a license, and far below the age to get one, but, but—

He’s tripping over himself to turn the keys in his own ignition and swinging the van around quick enough to kick up dirt before he leans over and throws open the passenger door.

“Hey,” he hisses, low but not quiet, he needs them to hear but he doesn’t know if Hargrove’s gonna storm out any second, it’s a delicate balance; “hey, get in,” and he’s crawling over the seat to open the back, too, to push things to the side to mostly leave it flat, tossing blankets to the middle with no care for their cleanliness because there’s no time for that shit, there’s no time and then he’s grabbing the hinges of the doors and flinging his whole top half around to eye this hoard of strange ankle-biters and what’s revealed quickly to be their still-weirdly-attractive-when-beat-to-shit charge in Steve Motherfucking Harrington, trying to project some degree of meaningful trustworthiness, because he is trustworthy, here and now, but they’re kinda in the fucking clock of crazy-eyes-Mc-West-Coast stumbling out of the house, so Eddie’s kinda gotta urge these rugrats with real feeling, waving his hands to the point where his fucking wrists hurt:

“Get in.”

And of course these little urchins still and just, raise a fucking eyebrow at him. Like they’re not working on an inexact sort of fucking timeline—

“Who the fuck are you?”

Yeesh. He wasn’t off when he said they were ankle biters; the little lambies have teeth.

“I just wanna help,” Eddie tries to say it with as much of the genuine concern that he really and truly feels, and not get weighed down with the probably-suspicious-off-the-bat vibe of pulling up in a random van just to start the exchange out with waving some strange kids into the back of it.

Jesus, that sounds terrible, wow, okay.

He gets it.

“No,” oddly, not the ringleader girl who eyed him first but it’s the curly headed boy now who stands up, squares his shoulders, and stares Eddie down with an only-slightly-less-menacing glare. “No, you’re not gonna hurt Steve.”

“I don’t want to hurt him, I swear,” Eddie’s honestly surprised by how unmuddled his tone bleeds put as desperate, versus irritated by this motley crew of munchkins trying to fight him when he is risking his own neck to help them.

And…King Steve, but then: can he be that motionless, hanging awkward from the noodles limbs of a handful of preteens (at most)?

“I just want to get you out of here, somewhere safe,” Eddie bites his lip, wonders where the fuck he intends to go and realizes he was probably just going to drive toward his home and hope for the best; “Er, somewhere safer than here,” and they don’t fucking budge, little assholes, and Harrington doesn’t fucking twitch, and just, just…

Ugh.

“Come on,” he urges them again, just shy of begging; lets how fucking nervous he’s getting seep clear into his tone a little, but he honestly doesn’t think he’d have convinced them to move if not for the crashing of something in the house behind them, and—well.

Nothing like impending doom to speed shit along.

“I wanted to drive,” the redhead’s muttering with a scowl as they heft the body they’re barely keeping off the ground and awkwardly feed Harrington head-first up to Eddie where where he’s crawled properly into the back of the van to help, and Eddie thinks these little fuckers just might be more wild and feral and insane even than he originally would have guessed for how they make to scramble behind their Steve; only just manages to steady and lower the royal body as careful as he can before the hoard clamors in and denies Eddie so much as a moment to press his finger under Steve Harrington’s flop of bloody hair and touch below his jawline where those stupidly infuriating moles of his speckle his skin, marks that Eddie’s hasn’t ever really paid attention to ever, nope, Eddie only needs now to assess whether he’s just accepted a dead fucking body into his van but: no.

Maybe a little sluggish, but pulse’s strong. Which: Eddie doesn’t care about past the legality of it all. Beyond getting saddled with a murder charge or some other bullshit.

No other reason. Of course. Yeah.

The only thing that floors him more than the Hardy Boys-plus-Girl on steroids tearing onto the cushions around where their unconscious charge is laid out, as Eddie shifts into gear and makes to get the fuck out of dodge, like, yesterday, is the even-louder voice in his head that asks probably the most pressing question:

The fuck did the King do, and how, and why, to make these children this loyal?

What follows all that is quite arguably—actually more than that; definitely a strong contender for—the most surprising thing that’s ever happened to Eddie. That could maybe ever possibly happen to Eddie, in any circumstance for any reason within any universal construct or reality. And he’d been really marinating in his Munson Doctrine this year, too, having been forced to reevaluate some shit after the letter arrived to hammer the most disappointing nail in the coffin of Eddie’s first senior year, but then…fuck everything, then there were the stupid little sheepies and their stupid gorgeous goddamn babysitter—which still, still: what the fuck was that, who the fuck even was Steve Harrington?—and Eddie’d barely even put the ink down to dry before all of them banded secretly together and shredded that motherfucking document before it could even properly take root in Eddie’s brain.

All while something else entirely started to take root in his chest, in his hea—

Well. Something. Something that wasn’t even remotely recognizable inside his most recent—and most polished to date, if he does say so himself—draft of the Doctrine like, at all.

Which is the point.

Because Harrington was indeed alive, and did indeed wake up, and clocked Eddie quicker than expected, even by name—Munson? What the fuck?and hell if that hadn’t fluttered between Eddie’s ribs an indefensible amount that no one would ever know about ever, thank you very much, but still: Jesus H. Christ—

But all his own humiliating discombobulation at the not-even-hands-just-voice-and-presence-of-the-golden-boy aside: it’s a damn good fucking thing Harrington wakes up, and is definitely not dead, because Eddie knows where the King lives, and he knows he’s not driving in that direction but had instead been foolish enough to give these shitweasel munchkins the benefit of the doubt here, like that there maybe was a safe house or some shit, fucking sue him, he was a little prepccupied, yeah—by the threat of a chase with that Hargrove fucker and then by the absolutely spectacle of Harrington screeching at the wayward waifs like a harried mother at the stovetop, because fuck, but Eddie nearly crashes them into three ditches and at least five trees for for trying to watch and he can’t even pretend otherwise—but the end result is definitely not a fucking safe house, and these little asshats have directed him in the wholeass wrong direction, if the undeniable fact of the old abandoned labs at the edge of town looming big through his windshield, looking at least slightly less abandoned (as if that’s not goddamn terrifying in and of itself), what the fuck has he literally driven into, is he an accomplice, and to what, and just, just Jesus—

“Hey.”

Eddie is honestly wholly jolted out of his spiral for a lot of reasons, here. The low tenor exhale of a sound in a voice too kind and open and invested, to much like music given what it does to Eddie, what music means to Eddie and what this voice shouldn’t fucking mean too straight out the goddamn gate. The proximity of a body close enough to feel the warmth of each breath. The indefensible feeling of it being nearly erotic out of nowhere and with no justification at all—just the reality of Eddie’s world right now, to feel the barest brush of the side of a body alongside his, leaning forward where he’s still in the driver’s seat. All of that would tip his world at the very least into a different sort of spiral pattern, breathless in a completely other way.

But.

What knocks Eddie hardest and most effectively in one go is the hand on his shoulder, braced to comfort and steady, and the realization in the flesh of how fucking big it is, how the span of that palm, those fingers, because Eddie knew those hands looked big, not that he’d studied them with any real…attention or anything but feeling them was something entirely other, and the touch, the touch is…is—

“Hey,” and Harrington’s breath is close enough then to tickle Eddie’s hair, goddamn: “breathe.”

And where Eddie hadn’t been wholly aware that he wasn’t, y’know, doing the breathing thing so well, either for the absolute insanity of the evening or the ominous spread, all proper D&D-style foreshadowing of nope don’t go there not now not ever waiting where these menaces had directed him to drive; but whatever the reason, where Eddie now takes a gulp of air in now that fucking burns, there’s Harrington, leaning over a little more, a second hand on Eddie chest to steady him as he falls all while he’s fucking squeezing Eddie’s shoulder, only a second before he’s getting ready to jump out of the van like he wasn’t just beaten unconscious like, five fucking minutes ago.

What the actual flying fuck.

If Eddie weren’t a goddamn idiot, he’d put the van in reserve before anyone could get out the back, fuck the way they’ll be thrown against the sides, at least they won’t be walking—willingly—into whatever the fuck’s waiting, all angry red and kinda…pulsating in the distance in a way that may or may not be a trick of his own paranoid mind, and then spewing little glowing motes into the air like lightning bugs.

Which could be charming, if it weren’t way fucking past the season for that shit.

And in fairness, the whole experience of Steve Harrington touching him and leaning close and breathing near him and telling him to breathe? That shit does carry him through—mostly—the hours that will follow, cliche and genuinely fucking embarrassing as it is, as it will be, to acknowledge at all.

But in the now—

“Thanks, man.”

And…oh, well, fuck.

As in point number one: that hand—bothhands—really are distracting as all hell but then also, simultaneously, very much point number two:

What the actual fuck.

“What?”

Apparently sending Eddie-usually-eloquent-enough-to-spin-some-pretty-bullshit-on-demand-Munson reeling outta nowhere is this fucker’s MO. Probably for the best that Eddie’s been writing him off as a pretty airhead for years now—if for nothing more than his own sanity.

Or else, like…relatively speaking.

“You got us here,” Harrington gestures out the window and…yeah.

“Here?”

That’s the relative part. And the insane part to be thanked for. Because where they’ve ended up is definitely the DoE labs that were supposed to have shut down or whatever, after people disappeared and came back and disappeared again and also didn’t and were never gone and fake bodies and whatever.

No one thanks anyone for bringing them to a place like this.

“And it’s more than I could have asked someone to do,” Harrington’s going on like it’s a casual thing, a favor like walking his goddamn dog and not more like what’s actually staring them down inside the fencing, namely the building that doesn’t look as abandoned as advertised by half, and definitely doesn’t at all look like the only thing it’s missing is a big neon sign blinking TRAP! FREE TRAP! IN THE MARKET FOR A QUICK PAINFUL DEMISE AT THE HANDS OF THE WORLD’S SHITTIEST TAINT FACTORY EAST OF ARMPIT-IAPOLIS? STEP RIGHT UP! ALSO REMINDER: CLEARLY A TRAP!

“Harrington,” Eddie doesn’t love the way his voice trips over a bonafide gulp. “Steve.”

He also doesn’t love how much feeling sneaks into that part because one, where the fuck’d that even come from and two, he…

Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever said this guy’s first name out loud. As in…ever.

He doesn’t love how nice it feels, how scary but bubbly-warm it tingles at the base of his throat and the pit of his stomach.

So there’s all of that.

Still set inescapably under the threat of the non-existent-but-no-less-real-neon-sign-of-death and…stuff.

“We know what we’re doing,” Steve’s pats Eddie’s shoulder again, moves the hand from his chest like he’s pulling away, like he’s leaving to go toward the trap and Eddie whips his head around just in time to catch Steve shrug sheepishly and add:

“Like, mostly.”

It is not at all lost on Eddie, how Steve doesn’t even try to sidestep that he’s walking into the gaping maw of probably death, here.

That might be the most terrifying part of this yet.

“I could,” Eddie’s voice is a crackle, so he tries clearing his throat, licking his lips; “I could at least try to help.”

That comes out a little stronger, but not steadier, and he doesn’t really think he’s making his point very well at all.

But then there’s Steve, and his hand back full on Eddie’s shoulder, saying:

“You could,” like he believes that; “and we’d be grateful,” added in like he means that too.

And most unbelievable of all of it, what he tacks on last with a squeeze of his hand and a lower pitch for no reason Eddie can figure save to catch inside the clench of his pulse so it takes to jittering like fucking mad as the King himself exhales:

“I’d be grateful.”

And what the fuck does that mean, said with eyes so bright when the night’s so dark?

And what the fuck does it mean when Eddie’s heartbeat starts jittering, a butterfly between cupped hands, until:

“I need you to be safe though,” and the words have physical form, brush Eddie’s frizzled curls straight behind his ear like…tenderness, delicate.

What. The. Fuck.

Eddie blames the way his heart goes form butterfly to battering ram, ready to crack through his ribs for no reason save a feeling he can’t justify, but’s too real to pretend away as less when he half-fucking-moans:

“What about you?”

Because Steve’s shepherding the kiddos. He’s keeping Eddie on the sidelines, safe. He’s charging into battle with a handkerchief and a bat and a goddamn pair of rubber gloves found from somewhere, sticking out his back pocket like he’s flagging in day-glo, holy hell—

But who takes care of Steve?

“I’ll see you at school,” Steve winks, leans this time to bump one shoulder straight to Eddie’s and then he’s jumping out the back of the van, and he’s moving too fast and—

“Harrington,” Eddie calls, suddenly forgetting he’d ever been trying to keep quiet, to avoid attention of whatever they’re going out to face, Hargrove or harbingers of worker fates, or both at once; “fuck, fuck,” he hissed as he trips over shit that got shifted back in his way as he stumbles to the doors and yells:

“Steve!”

And it’s like maybe saying his name does something to Steve himself, too, because he pauses, and even for the distance, the little curve of his lips isn’t a smirk, it’s a smile.

It’s fucking beautiful.

And then he’s saluting cockily before he turns on his heel with just one last parting shot;

“See you on the other side, Munson.”

And the tunnels beyond only let him watch so long, see so far. The weird shit in the air, and the bandanas he can see a scuffle over, to make sure they’re tied over noses and mouths, lit by weird pulsing colors, obscene squelching noises he can hear the echoes of even this far back and just, just…

Typical eldritch fuckery from a monster manual.

That doesn’t belong in real life.

It’s a fucking trap, Admiral. Good fucking god.

And Jesus H. Christ, but Eddie hadn’t even had the chance to light up tonight as he’d planned, as he’d explicitly driven out to do.

For fuck’s sake.

>>>part two 💚

For @miraculousmultifan, who requested Post-S2; 'Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST—very late, obviously, and MID-S2, rather than post but it ENDS UP being post-S2, promise 🖤

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yesdangerpls @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

divider credit here

[mysteryanimator]

Left to right: April / October

Your favourite artist’s fav artist ✨

Wow we’re almost at the end of the year and I’ve literally only drawn Mizrak and Olrox HAHAHAHAH but I learnt and improved so much from it. Ngl I’m really impressed that I can do this stuff!! Thank you to these tragic gays for being my muse and thank you for the nocturne team for being a foundation of inspiration! I only hope one day I’ll amount to the same skills they have and have a place in the industry and do cool stuff like that :DDD

Onto the next year for bigger and brighter things!

[ragingbullmode]

we slowly coming togetherrrrrrrr 😋 !!!

[assortedsouls]

Xue Meng feels arms catching him, or rather dampening his fall. His eyelids are heavy and his shizun's voice sounds far away. It's cold and he's tired. He doesn't want to stay awake, but it has been such a long time since he heard Chu Wanning's voice and even longer since he heard him speak to him in that tone. Immediately, he's thrown back to his younger years, before his life turned into a nightmare. The good thing with that is that he obeys his shizun's words. Eye as wide open as he can manage, he uses what little strength he has to get back on his feet and then towards the pavilion. Something that would've been impossible without Wanning's help.

Orders are said, but he isn't really listening, and then he's seated, or rather slumped in a way that he remains upright. Everything hurts and he is covered in blood, both his own and others', exhaustion seeping into his bones. Sleep. He wants to sleep, but he can't. He's here for a reason. He needs to remember something.

It's almost like Chu Wanning can read his thoughts, because just as he has thought that he needs to remember something, his shizun asks why he's here. "We... we fought... went head... on. He just... disappeared..." Xue Meng knows Taxian-jun wasn't obliterated, it he had been, so would he himself. Had he used some kind of talisman or something to escape? Possible. The only thing he knows is that they battled head on and as they had dealt their last blow, both using impressive might, and the dust from it settled, Taxian-jun had been nowhere to seen and Xue Meng severely injured and already dazed. His first thought had been to return to Sisheng Peak, to check on Chu Wanning.

Spitting out more blood, not sure if he'll survive or not, but Chu Wanning is still alive and if Taxian-jun isn't here, he can finally escape. "Leave... you should... leave, whole you can. Be free... safe... please, Chu-gege..." Gege. Only once when drunk, in his youth, had he called his shizun that, immortal-gege, but now, it passes his lips again. This time, he is a grown man and no wine is involved, just injuries.

𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆: @assortedsouls — XUE MENG

Xue Meng had pressed himself and his horse as much as he could. The horse was clearly exhausted, but the rider looks even worse: face drained of colour and gaze unfocused. The young man is swaying, but looks towards Chu Wanning, like he just noticed him. "Shizun..." he says in a low, but desperate, voice. Looking like he's about to retch, Xue Meng spits out a mouthful of blood before his body starts sliding to the side.

THE BAMBOO GATE of Red Lotus Pavilion is always unlocked – a secret known only to few, a taunt that never became a temptation. He'd wait for weeks in silence for that gate to screech open, for the dog to howl in a mix of wild joy and anxiety, for the familiar heavy footsteps to follow. But it's silent today, and the dog sounds half-crazed.

❝ You— ❞ a shocked gasp falls as he rushes towards Xue Meng without much time offered to take it all in, to allow the realization to finally dawn on him. He catches his former disciple in his arms, the half-conscious body is too heavy, and his arms too weak to support it, but it's purely instinctive to hold on for as long as he can. ❝ Xue Ziming, don't you dare pass out now! ❞ an angry voice snarls as Wanning helps the man up, leading him towards the pavilion.

❝ Water, ❞ he demands once inside, ❝ and a towel. ❞ The maid looks terrified, but she only has a split second to crack under her master's burning gaze. Mumbling something about his majesty – a problem for him to deal with later, once Xue Meng is fine, once it's all over. A cold palm brushes against the man's forehead, to soothe rather than help, after helping him sit down – there's nothing he can really do other than offer a brief respite. Spitting out blood spells damaged meridians, an issue he can no longer fix, an issue no one here can fix anymore.

And then it comes, the shockwave of finally coming to grips with reality: if Xue Meng somehow made it here, who the hell is Taxian-jun fighting? If Xue Meng is here, wounded and exhausted, then...

The restless heart inside him howls madly in sync with his useless protector outside.

❝ Why... why are you here? ❞ is all Chu Wanning can manage. After years of separation, the unspoken agony shared between master and disciple, it's all he can put into words before giving away the sudden horror at the possible answer.