#what is she going to do but locust behaviors

[1ore]

im already doing PR work for fungi, hiveminds, and parasites with the endeme but what if i did PR for crop pest species too. im thinking about tyranids and zerglings and how they hold up a mirror to colonial settler fears. you are afraid of everything the eye can see being extracted by a foreign invader? of the very landscape around you becoming biologically, functionally, culturally, socially uniform? what if the terrible things i did to other people... happened 2 me....

the endeme keys into impaired ecosystems that are artificially kept in the first stages of succession, and that's the reason it is monstrous and scary 'successful' (like most weeds and pioneer species, it is not competitive and becomes second banana to whoever comes after it.) but i think it would be funny to meet it from the other end and play off of fungal and viral crop diseases. maybe there are some funny little guys who are, like, not a big deal until you put a monoculture in front of them. like normally there isn't a giant interstellar bug in the sky but you razed + converted an entire planet into its favorite food. what did you expect.

[ddarker-dreams]

Nexus V.

Yandere Blade x F Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, possessive behavior, codependency o'clock, implied/mentioned not SFW, coercion and mommy issues. Word count: 10.1k.

Nexus index.

Time is a way to measure reality. 

It allows the woefully inadequate mind of a sentient being to process a sliver of something greater. The senses are a sieve that retains what little they can of the universe’s riptide. Considering this, it’s no wonder the Aeons tend to keep to themselves. How long would you entertain the whims of a speck of dust? You’d gain nothing from it. The dust cannot understand, it lacks the means to properly perceive you. It simply wishes to find a nice, comfortable spot to occupy its days. It can loathe, revere, or fear you, it matters not; for in the end, it’s nothing but a speck of dust. 

So why do the Aeons occasionally make themselves known? What do they stand to gain? Further power, enlightenment, entertainment? 

They should’ve just kept wading through the stellar sea. 

Specks of dust shouldn’t be allowed to wield even an ounce of their power. 

All it does is let them destroy themselves and others in new, horrific ways. 

The white rings around your mother’s pupils shine. 

She subjects Kafka and Blade to concurrent curses. Cutting, snipping, trimming; their psyches are flayed one layer at a time. How she does so rivals a butcher preparing a tender cut more than a doctor performing a delicate surgery. Inky blots propagate along Blade’s vision. From this limited perspective, you can’t determine Kafka’s condition. Not that it would matter, you can barely comprehend what Blade’s going through. 

Mother has to be forming a link, right?

Ideally, both parties consent to a link’s formation. This grants stability and lowers the chances of complications. An unwelcome link is treated with the same hostility as an immune system that’s noticed a germ. It’s sought out, identified, then exterminated. The host may suffer malaise for a time, but if their body is in working order, the problem will sort itself out. 

There has to be more to this, you surmise. Mom, please, don’t let this be the end. You can’t. Not you. 

The disease inflicted on Blade metastasizes; Kafka is likely facing a similar predicament. Memories swarm around him like locusts, buzzing and biting. 

The Zhuming is the womb from which divine weapons are born. It is the warden to the subdued Flint Emperor, whose flames once burned hot enough to rival the stars. These flames will one day exterminate the rampant borisin, the young boy is certain. Whether it be in his lifetime or not doesn’t matter. No child deserves to be made an orphan. He can’t undo what’s been done to him, but he can help prevent it from happening to others. 

“If you believe you are up to the task, I will take you on as my apprentice. What you do with the knowledge I impart is your decision.” 

This Foxian lady sent to retrieve support for the fight against the borisin loves to chat. There’s rarely an instance where a grin can’t be found on her face, wide enough that her eyes must squish to accommodate her exuberance. 

“Just focus on what you want to do, and let fate take its course."

Those who belong to the short-life species cannot grasp a nebulous concept such as ‘fate.’ This sentiment is commonly found among his fellow Artisanship Commission members. It doesn’t deter him — if anything, his resolve is strengthened. His life won’t be as long as theirs, but it will burn hot and bright before it extinguishes. 

“The borisins must pay the price for their evil.” 

One day, a lady with long, silver hair, who has conquered the moon and brought it to heel, approaches him. The air around here is crisp, contrasting the sweltering air of the Zhuming. She reminds him of the winters he experienced on his home planet. He had forgotten how frost stings. 

“A talent such as yours shouldn’t be left to drown amidst a mediocre sea. After this visit, I’m bound for the Loufu. A seat will be made available for you. Come and reach your full potential, or, languish here where your accolades will fade from history’s recollection.” 

The Shard Sword, Starfall Reverie, Cloud-Piercer, and Baiheng’s recurve bow were no longer what he treasured most. Those monumental accomplishments don’t enrich lives, it ends them. Standing here, where the ocean’s blue is more brilliant than the artificial sky, is where he’s found something akin to peace. The Scalegorge Waterscape has become a gathering place for friends. Laughter, sparring, and the burning of liquor are shared beneath the moon’s watchful eye. 

He raises a cup to his lips and silently wishes this joy could last forever. 

“Do you remember?”

This voice interrogated him unceasingly for answers they both knew he couldn’t give. Again and again, he’d undergo a punishment disguised as a lesson. Frost didn’t just sting, it imparted necrosis, yet what is decomposition to an immortal but a joke? Again and again, his flesh would be pierced, organs punctured with expert execution. His body wasn’t allowed the privilege to rot. 

Again and again, he’d be swallowed by death, only to be spat back up, as it’s unable to digest him. 

"Listen, I can always kill you again, otherwise I can't bring you back."

What he thought to be prey standing in his way turned out to be apex predators. A woman who could render him useless with her words alone and a suit of armor that reflected the sun in his weary eyes. He had to get his fill of death before considering her offer. It sounded too good to be true, but he was reminded that the universe has enough instruments to perform the threnody he so desperately wishes to hear. 

“Having trouble settling on a gift? Hm… I suppose that’s to be expected. Any off-world flora you leave behind will shrivel beneath the planet’s atmosphere, unless it possesses special qualities. It’d be a bad omen to give her a lotus that can wilt. Why not try a different approach?”

He stands solitary on the cragged terrain around the LOTUS-EATER. Though she’ll soon emerge to gaze up at the starless sky, his wait won’t end there. It’ll bleed into the next day, then the day after that, on and on the cycle will spin. Destiny’s Slave promised this vortex would end so long as he remained patient. Once he fully bows down before her, damnation will be her crown. The weight of his burden is to be shared by two. 

He considers the iridescent crystals in his bandaged hands. 

He thought the joy he found in creation died the same day ▇▇▇▇▇ did. 

This emotion’s resurrection, however…

… If it’s a sin, then what’s another addition to his list? 

“Listen, Blade, snap out of it.”

The swarm falls silent. 

Bright screens, the thrum of the oxygen generator, sterile colors. Kafka towers over him, implying that he’s fallen to the ground. Her complexion lacks its usual glow. While Blade stands, she reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a portable blush. She dusts the rosy powder over her cheeks. 

“That was unpleasant,” Kafka sighs. She snaps the container shut. “I guess that’s to be expected from one of Noct’s Emanators. It seems you bore the brunt of it, though.” 

Mom, an Emanator? You think. Maybe… maybe that means she had a chance to get away. This was a diversion that she used to go into hiding. Faking a corpse is within their skillset, Silver Wolf can hack reality itself. I only looked at it long enough to confirm her identity. 

Blade places a hand on his throbbing head and grimaces. His vision alternates between different degrees of blurriness. Kafka’s positioned in front of him, which prevents you from seeing the area your mother occupied. You pray to anything that might listen for her to fucking move already.

“That trip down memory lane was a red herring,” Kafka says. “She bought herself enough time to complete her real objective.” 

Even Kafka thinks so! 

Instead of explaining further, she leisurely reaches for her lipstick. Your frustration boils over. You aren’t the only one feeling impatient. Blade hasn’t uttered a word, but his typical apathy ebbs and flows irregularly. Kafka hums a tune as she smears the rouge pigment along her puckered lips. This whimsical attitude shows no signs of tapering off. 

Blade exhales sharply, belying his annoyance. He’s near his limit as well.

Kafka clicks her tongue. “Don’t be so impatient, you two. I’m dolling myself up.” 

…‘You two?’

“Yes. Now, let me assess the damage,” Kafka switches from looking at Blade to inspecting his psyche. She gasps, playing the role of a melodramatic damsel perfectly. “Oh my. Ania did a number on you.” 

This woman is insufferable, always playing coy. I swear, the next time I see her—

“Your memories of [First] Phaeales, the visceral emotions she stirs up in you; they’re growing fuzzier by the second, I presume? In an hour or so, they’ll be gone altogether. Hmm… ‘gone’ might not be the best word to describe it. Sealed away might be more appropriate.” 

A premonition too cruel to put into words coils around you. 

No, no, no. 

“Can you fix it?” Blade strains. The hypothetical Kafka suggested encourages his mara to writhe and hiss in dissatisfaction. It crawls around his head, murmurs near his cochlea in a scratchy voice, demanding a quick fix. To be deprived of you is unacceptable, it insists. This sentencing must be overturned. It wants you, needs you and will destroy anything to have you. Himself included. 

Pandemonium wreaks havoc inside his head, it’s like he barely exists. The warring influences rip away as if drawing and quartering him. 

“I can’t, no. It’s beyond my abilities,” Kafka’s smile is all teeth. “Fortunately, I do know of someone who can undo it.” 

His mara hushes so it may hear her out. 

“Contact them,” he snaps. 

“You’d get all bashful if I did. Besides, I don’t think she’d do a very thorough job if she knew the context.” 

Kafka stares Blade in the eye and tilts her head like she’s posing for the camera. “Isn’t that right, Miss Phaeales?” 

You think you might be living in a nightmare. 

Please, no…

Blade’s heart lurches inside his chest at your mention. 

“Listen, Bladie. Until [First] Phaeales undoes her mother’s seal, you’ll be unable to remember the past twenty-four hours. The second the seal is undone, this memory, on June 8th, 2153 AE, starting from Eris’ local time of 0223 and concluding at 0214, will resurface in your consciousness. It will play for her so she’s fully caught up.” 

How could something this awful… ever happen…? 

The edges of the memory fade and curl inward like burning paper. 

“I’ll throw in some advice, just for you, sweetie. He’s bound to get tongue-tied around you, so remember to be patient,” Kafka’s suggestion is muffled. “Oh, and another thing. You might want to get a headstart while you can.” 

… 

You can’t breathe. 

The room performs for you, rippling side to side, hypnotizing as a pocket watch. A white blur whirrs by. Clink, clink, clink, it crashes, spurting its innards in a splatter of red and glimmering gold. The sound itself seems delayed, echoing a moment too late. It isn’t in time with the opal shards that scatter like teeth along the polished floor. The deluge is offbeat, dissonant, yet the song continues.

You can’t breathe. 

The percussion is ousted, making way for the woodwind section. The flutes raise and raise in pitch. This tocsin sounds shrill and consistent, stabbing your eardrums, and vibrating your bones. Dizziness makes for a distracting audience member, its dry, unblinking eyes landing on you. It opens its maw impossibly wide, tearing the tendons around its cracked lips, and swallows your head. For some reason, it cannot go past your neck, so it contents itself with gorging on your cranium like it’s sucking candy. 

You can’t breathe. 

There’s something living inside your throat. A parasite, leech, or slug, maybe. It wriggles back up whenever you try swallowing, like jello on a wobbling plate. The tiny hairs along its gelatinous body tickle your esophagus. You’re always on the precipice of choking, but not quite. It delights in the warm and moist cavern you’ve provided. 

You can’t die because it wants more from you. 

You can’t be reduced to a husk because your vitality sustains it. 

You can’t breathe, you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe—

Something awful touches your skin and you want to burn the residue it leaves behind. 

“[First].” 

You scramble back until your spine hits a cold, solid surface. A hand retracts. 

What is this thing before you? It’s tall and has eyes like vats of blood. You see your reflection held captive inside the crimson miasma. The woman it shows resembles you in some ways and doesn’t in others. She looks afraid. Sickly. Lost somewhere between the junction of life and death. Traipsing, testing the fraying line’s integrity. One wrong step guarantees a plummet to inconceivable depths. 

“[First].” 

“Don’t,” you rasp, your voice wobbling like a transmission with a poor signal, “Don’t you fucking dare come near me!” 

He listens. For now, at least. You’d be a fool to mistake stalling for surrender. You press your back into the wall hard enough to ache. The enclosed space seemingly shrinks around you. You press a trembling hand over your heart, feeling how it hammers against your chest cavity. The room’s air is stifling. Your sympathetic nervous system can’t decide its course of action. Should the little oxygen you’re inhaling go to your brain or your heart? Delegation is a tricky endeavor. 

Blade’s gaze eats you alive.

He’s starving and you’re the only thing that can fill him.

The manifestation of his mara frightened you less. 

 Mom, what have I done? What can I do? 

“You should sit,” he says. You want to rip his vocal cords to shreds. “There’s nowhere to run and you know better than to fight.”

As if he had to remind you. 

The Shard Sword. So that’s the name of the terror he wields? You’ve read about it in history books, there are entire chapters dedicated to the High-Cloud Quintet’s exploits. Even if he were unarmed, you wouldn’t stand a chance. Any flesh wound will heal, any organ will stitch itself back together, and any death will be a temporary visit he’ll saunter back from.

Blade takes a step closer.

How do you get out of this? How do you get him to stop? What would get him to stop? 

What could he possibly want more than you? 

Oh.

The answer unfurls like a body bag. 

… There is one more thing, isn’t there? 

You thread your psyches together with a thin string. It’s too weak in its present state, the weight of your goal will make it snap instantly. You need to fortify it as best as you can. Otherwise, there is no place you can go where he won’t find you. The prismatic shards that record his history are no longer indecipherable, each moment is visible to you, forming a macabre mosaic. 

The second you finalize this link, he’ll know. Your touch isn’t a stranger to his mind anymore. Nothing about you is. 

You recall the shattered opal goblet a few feet away. 

You let your knees buckle like they’ve desired all along. You fall toward the jagged shards and you brace yourself. It happens as swiftly as you expected — his inhuman speed allows him to catch you easily. He steadies you against him, holding you up since the strength leaving your body wasn’t an act. 

Your hand brushes over a sliver of his skin. 

You wanted me to show you what it’s like to die, you think. It isn’t beyond my means at all, Yingxing!

The Synalink is a success. 

He might want you, but his longing for a permanent death eclipses that. 

This is a scenario unlike any you’ve ever built before. The dimensions are simple, you’re creating one static scene. It isn’t a vast galaxy with trade, economies, and conflicting ideals, teeming with planets that house millions of individuals who each have their own role in the story to play. Grass doesn’t have to blow just right, there aren’t bystanders whose conversations you need to generate and perform maintenance on. 

The stage you’ve built is, at its core, nothing. A vacuum you’ve molded into a cube and placed him in the middle of. 

You’ve cut off stimuli to each of his senses. He can’t perceive anything, because there’s nothing to perceive. 

His psyche shows no signs of resistance. This is what he wants, isn’t it? Total absolution. The loss of self, to be undone and woven into the universe’s indifferent tapestry. Every factor has aligned in your favor like a once-in-a-millennium syzygy. Your newfound knowledge of his past, his most innate desire being death, then the amplification physical touch brings. 

This isn’t an unknown pathogen, it’s a welcome salvation. 

You just have to maintain it. 

Your main hurdle is finding a way to do so while navigating the physical world. The slightest deviation could have catastrophic consequences, his acumen is that competent. How long can you sustain this Synalink if you don’t dedicate your entire attention to it? There’s no point of reference. For all you know, it could be impossible. 

Regardless, you have to try. 

Reopening your corporeal eyes, you find yourself in the private room. 

The Stellaron Hunter, who uses the alias ‘Blade,’ stands behind you like a cocked gun. 

He isn’t moving. The white rings in his eyes match yours. His vitals are consistent with what you see in clients immersed in Synalinks. Low respiration and heartbeat, and the paralysis of limbs so as to deter unwanted motor functions.

You hold your breath, shimmy out of his loosened grasp, and then cautiously take a step back.

Your heels crunch down on a stray fragment from the broken goblet. You cringe.

You expect the worst when you gather the courage to look at him again. 

Still nothing. 

Keeping your back against the wall, you awkwardly slide toward the door leading to The Lounge. 

The burning question of what to do next sears your mind. You have no faith or trust in Chrysus. There’s Caicias, but he’s in Mele. The fastest nectar guide would still take two hours, factoring in the repairs being done to the one in Thelx. Even if he did make it here, what could he do? Help you negotiate? Would Blade even give him the chance? You’d be condemning the elder quadrant leader to certain death. 

Who is in your star system? You’ve heard that the Astral Express has had run-ins with the Stellaron Hunters, but they could be millions of light-years away. Then there’s Kafka. If she goes too long without hearing from Blade, she won’t just sit around and let you scheme. Silver Wolf could hack into the LOTUS-EATER’s surveillance system or use thermal imaging to gauge the situation. 

The price of hope is too steep. 

Your fingers grope blindly for the door’s switch. You refuse to take your attention off Blade for a split second. You feel a protrusion, start to flick it up—

Sparks fly from the wall like frantic fireflies, joined by chunks of dark debris. Strands of your hair blow aside as if subject to a wicked gale. Sediment scratches at your skin. Out of instinct, your eyes squeeze shut, shielding you from what they can. A figure towers above you. You can’t see him, but you can feel him. The torment, bloodlust, and yearning are so prevalent that they may as well be in the room alongside you. 

Through a looking glass, you saw the reflections of a wretched life.

How he fell victim to a friend unwilling to accept a comrade’s untimely demise. That for this incursion, death would never grant him permanent residency. Over a thousand times, a swordmaster gripped by madness tested this ordinance, her strikes colder than winter’s wrath.

He’d lose a piece of himself each time, leaving a mangled afterimage of what he once was.

A sinner rendered mara-struck and immortal — a shade that will dye you his accursed color. 

Blade pins your wrists above your head. It hurts, but you’ve learned there’s pain worse than this. 

“Open your eyes.” 

It isn’t a request. 

You hesitate for as long as he allows. Ultimately, you have no choice but to give him what he wants. Scarlet eyes reward your reluctant obedience. Leering, glowing. Your chest heaves beneath the burden of each breath. Something wet and warm trickles down your cheek. It titillates the flames of his mara as if it’d been lathered in oil. He shackles your wrists with his gloved hand and drags the other downward. Over your temple, cheekbone, then finally, your chin. 

He tilts your head up. 

Neither of you speak. 

How? How did he break free? 

You didn’t sense any fluctuations, nothing that’d warn of your incoming fate. Your control didn’t slip, it was pulled out right from underneath you. 

Isn’t death what every segment of his psyche seeks? His rationality, morality, and base instincts were all in agreement, a unanimous jury that didn’t require deliberation. 

What unforeseen note upset this triad? 

Your reflection in his eyes is drenched in red.  

“Haha… seriously?” You laugh a humorless laugh. “Me?” 

Blade doesn’t respond. You don’t know if he heard you. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He is the author of whatever happens next. 

A butterfly with injured wings loses none of its original beauty. If anything, it’s made easier to admire, now that it can no longer fly away. You have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and not a word to say that’d make a difference. This futility reassures his mara. That which was held above its head has been made to crawl along the ground. Blade seizes total control of himself as his mara slinks away. Cognizant of his bruising grip, he releases you. Without his crushing support, you collapse like a house of cards. Your knees hit the ground. 

You sink down further and squeeze your head in between your hands. 

It hurts, mom, it hurts. Why couldn’t you give me up one more time? ‘My’ life never belonged to me in the first place, anyway. You should’ve granted the shift in ownership when it was still a choice. 

… I’m scared. 

There is no getting out of this, is there?

Metal clinks by your side. Dazedly, you inspect the sound’s source. A silver dagger rests beside you. It’s small in build, yet pointed as a weapon should be. Your attention flitters between him and the blade. What is this? A pitiful attempt to level the playing field? Has he not humiliated you enough? Taken everything that wasn’t yours to give? 

Sensing your confusion, he explains, “Sins should be punished.” 

You grasp the hilt. 

It’s heavy. 

“What… are you even saying…?” You murmur. Is he referring to your mother? “It’s ‘permissible’ to take life, according to you.” 

You recount his creed with the venom it merits. 

He falls silent. 

“Not yours… not for free,” he drawls. “I’ll pay any price.” 

Transactions benefit both parties. What’s there for him to gain? 

You stand on unsteady legs.

Blade’s countenance is an impenetrable fortress. The violent waves have settled, leaving still, murky waters. Is it twisted affection swirling in his gaze? Guilt? The celebration of a long-fought battle? You don’t know. You don’t know what to think, feel, or do. You’re just numb. What will you be after this? Your mother likened their designs for you to a ‘retractable leash.’ Close, but not quite. 

You’ll be more of a portable oxygen tank. 

Kafka can’t always be there to soothe Blade’s mara, but you can. You will. You have to. It’s a duty that binds more than marriage. 

If transactions benefit both parties, then… 

What he’s offering to pay for here is you. 

Your eyes drop down to the dagger. 

The currency will be blood and flesh. He’ll let you kill him, however you want, for as long as you want. Ten, one hundred, one thousand times or beyond, until you feel the scales have balanced. The blank canvas has given you the tools to create your final masterpiece. Once the paint dries, the roles will reverse. The subjugated will become the subjugator. It isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. 

You raise the dagger, his cold heart your target. It’s yours. A gift, a burden, an unbreakable vow. 

You plunge it down, and—

—He doesn’t even flinch. 

The tip of the blade rips his shirt, but not his flesh. 

You toss it aside and shake your head. 

“Has anything worthwhile… ever come from killing you…?” 

Blade doesn’t respond, but you know he heard you. 

He furrows his eyebrows, your question hanging over his head. Whatever he expected, this must not have been a possibility he accounted for. Had he been anyone else, he might conflate mercy for forgiveness. He isn’t, though. He knows the crippling weight of guilt. How it secretly imbues you with a craving for more, so you can finally be crushed to death, instead of being forced to roll the boulder onward. 

Each slice would be for him as much as it is for you. 

If that’s penance to him, you will never grant it. 

“My mom…” you trail off, not because you don’t know how to complete the sentence, but because finishing it will finish something inside you. “Is she…?” 

Blade’s memories have made their way back to him using you as their bridge. You could parse through them, but you don’t want to. You don’t think he’ll lie. He hasn’t lied to you as far as he knew. The truth is worse and the truth is what you’ll get. The emotions you pick up from him hint at what you already know. They nibble at you as piranhas would. Notably missing from the onslaught is any iteration of guilt or its distant cousin, regret. 

He’d die a thousand deaths to pay the fee of having you. What’s a little more bloodshed to someone who views death as enviable? 

“Never mind,” you murmur. “Forget I asked.” 

He won’t. 

He refuses to forget anything about you ever again. 

For now, he’ll pretend otherwise. 

You’ve decided that from this distance, Eris looks like a marble. 

It’s just a little black sphere, infused with the occasional stream of gold. You center the image in between your thumb and pointer finger, making minuscule adjustments until it fits just right. Once you’re content, you hold it there, squinting your left eye so this speck’s the main focus. 

As of the latest census in 2155 AE, the planet Eris is thought to have a population of 2,912,840. 560,432 in Ade, 1,510,781 in Mele, an estimated 200,400 in Arc, and 641,227 in your home quadrant of Thelx. Each of those numbers can be attributed to a living, breathing being. Someone with their own family, history, ethics, dreams, and struggles. Your fellow Nymphalians, descendants of prisoners dumped on a dark and frigid planet to die.

You thought you’d given them your life before. In a pretty, metaphorical sense, that could be made into poems for generations. 

Your conversation with Destiny’s Slave reassured you that no, there’s nothing pretty or metaphorical about what awaits you. No one will be penning sentimental poems detailing an ascetic’s life led in solitude so that the people may prosper. You’ll be a cold case. For a week, your name will be a hot topic on primetime television. A headline sprawled in large font across news media companies. ‘Tragedy Strikes: Eris’ [First] Phaeales Kidnapped, IPC Implicates Stellaron Hunters,’ or something to that effect. 

Then another calamity will occur and you’ll be pushed from the public’s consciousness. 

You might get a special mention on anniversaries. The first, fifth, tenth, fiftieth, then the hundredth. Podcasts will do deep dives. Books will be written. Forum boards will swap theories. Who knows? An anonymous user might guess the truth and be labeled a conspiracy theorist for their troubles.

You pinch your thumb and pointer finger together, smushing the faraway planet from your perspective. 

“Boom!” You exclaim in a whisper yell. “Is that how easy it is to you?” 

He doesn’t respond. 

You turn away from the sheet of glass separating you from the limitless depths of outer space. 

“The silent treatment, huh?” You muse, drumming your fingers against the window pane. “You saw this future and worked oh so hard to procure it. What? Having second thoughts, now that it’s here? That’d be a shame.” 

There’s something ugly living inside your heart. It’s been there since you were born and will remain until you die. Maybe it lives inside everyone, you can’t say, you can only speak for yourself. Kindness isn’t inherent, it’s learned. Practiced so that it may be honed. Otherwise, the steel grows dull and rusts. Sharpening means losing layers of yourself against a whetstone. Those layers are worth losing, you’re told. Spite, vengeance, hatred; they’re all so, so ugly. Little imps that should be sandpapered away. 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, that sort of platitude. It’s nice bumper sticker material. Something to slap on a graphic tee or coffee cup, maybe. To be fair, practicing the antithesis isn’t so simple either. 

You don’t want his eye, it’ll grow back.

You don’t want his life, he’ll just be born anew. 

You don’t want him, but from now on, he’s all you’ll get. 

“Are you curious about the deal I made with Elio?” You probe. 

Blade sighs, likely preparing himself for the vitriol you’ll slew his way. 

“I don’t need to know.” 

“You want to know, though,” you smile thinly. “I could feel you brooding from rooms away. What? Does the thought of me speaking to another man displease you that—” 

He rushes forward and lifts you by the collar of your blouse. You don’t waver, if anything, you could get drunk off this emotional outburst. His nostrils flare and you can feel his warm breath fan against your face. Your heart whirrs strong against its bony restraints, adrenaline blasting throughout your system. 

“That mouth of yours is testing me,” he chuckles, although he’s far from amused. “Have you forgotten the position you’re in?” 

“Have you?” You scoff. His grip tightens. “Go ahead. Choke me, ravish me. You can’t bring yourself to though, can you? Want to know why? Hm? You’re holding out for the slim, impossible chance that I might return your fucked up feelings, even if just a little bit.” 

Scornfully, you whisper, “Elio was generous enough to answer some of my questions. The extent of the Stellaron’s influence, the true perpetrators behind the nectar guide bombing, why you’d get so pissy whenever Lear swung by… in retrospect, it’s painfully obvious, really. Messing with the LOTUS-EATER’s noise-canceling software is child’s play for Silver Wolf. Did you enjoy eavesdropping on us? Probably not, huh?” 

He growls your name, low and menacingly. It’s a warning.

You ignore him. Maybe you shouldn’t, but you do. 

“I never told him,” your lower lip trembles. “Because of you, I’ll never get to, either. You want to pay a price? Have your sins punished? Start by listening to this!” 

His mara bubbles up as if it were magma. For someone unraveling from the inside out, he doesn’t look the part. Emotion and vitality have drained from his face. His complexion is that of the dead man he wishes himself to be. Pale, vapid. He wants you to stop, yet the only way you would is if he tore out your tongue. To do so would guarantee he’d never get to hear those three words directed at him. He must consider that fate harrowing indeed if he allows the means for you to utter your next sentence. 

The finger you pricked all those years ago tingles. 

“Lear is the only one I’ve loved. The only one I’ll ever love. He gave me a life; you’ve destroyed mine. How could you ever compare, Yingxing? How can you even come close?” 

You wrench yourself free from Blade’s grasp. He lets you. 

His hands remain where you once were. Gradually, they fall, as do his shoulders and head. It’s peculiar. You’ve come to be so in tune with his emotions, picking up on frequencies only you can hear. This pitch falls silent. His mara is too. The infighting over where he should begin and end calls for a temporary cease-fire. Neither madness nor sanity care for victory, their attention has been cast elsewhere, to a more prominent problem. 

“It is.” 

You narrow your eyes. “What?”

“Earlier, you asked if it’s that easy for me,” he says, plainly. “It is.”

Your system absorbs the implication as well as it would cyanide. 

“Eris and all of its inhabitants are strictly off-limits. I figured you'd already heard this.” 

“I have.” 

“Then—” 

“It’s not loyalty that ties the Stellaron Hunters together,” he interrupts. “It’s the pursuit of individual goals which just happen to align.” 

Blade saunters forward. You bristle, awaiting unwanted physical contact, yet he brushes by your shoulder. His footsteps echo throughout the ship’s hollow corridors. You pivot, intent on following his every movement. He gazes out the window, your home planet his point of interest. The little black and gold marble orbited by four moons, far away from any star. 

“Goals change, lotus.” 

His eyes find yours in the window’s reflection. 

He’s bluffing. He has to be. 

“You’ve sought death for over 700 years,” is your uneasy reply. “Surely, you wouldn’t risk the one avenue you have to reach it.” 

“Didn’t I already betray that expectation of yours?”

Death is no longer what every segment of his psyche seeks, as it’s the one place he can’t have you.  

“... You’ve stopped running your mouth. Clever girl,” Blade flexes his fists by his side. The leather glove on his hand creaks as he does so. “If you think this an empty threat, I have a suggestion.”

Blade grins from ear to ear. 

“Repeat any of what you just said to me and I’ll prove it isn’t.” 

It’s as if his mara forms tendrils that slowly slither up your body. It caresses your thighs, your midriff, and your chest. Breathes against your nape and coils around your neck. You can’t find the strength to move. It wishes you would so that it’d have an excuse to hold you tighter. Squeeze harder. Sink into you deeper. 

You glower at him. His mara keens, finding the expression delightful. 

“Look at me like that any longer and I’ll take you up on your suggestion.”

You pinch your eyebrows together, belying your confusion. 

He wets his lips with his tongue.

“‘Choke me, ravish me,’ was it?” he muses, chuckling breathlessly. “Who am I to deny such a tempting offer?” 

Finally, you muster the effort necessary to break free from his hypnotic stare. You’re overcome with the need to scrub off every part of your skin he’s touched. You want the residue gone, purged from your flesh. Nausea floods you like a broken dam. 

You let him touch you, you let him kiss you, you let him fuck you.

He can’t have anything else. 

You don’t know what more there is to take. 

His eyes are heavy on your back as you leave the room. This spaceship’s decently big, but it’s not enough. A universe could separate you, but it still wouldn’t suffice. You’ll create any gap you can, illusionary or otherwise. You speed through the ship’s main corridor until you near what’s to be your room. Before you can open it, your hand stills.

Elio said we’re to leave on a job the second Silver Wolf starts distracting the IPC’s blockade, you think. That should be any minute now. 

Your blood freezes over.

After this ship makes the jump, you’ll never see Eris again. 

Or Nona. 

Or Lear. 

Will Nona continue to pursue her studies without you there to teach her? Is there a reason for her to? She’s come so far since you first met. That harsh, untrusting girl with a permanent scowl blossomed into something truly special. 

“Seriously? You’re supposed to be my mentor?”

“Alright, lemme set one thing straight. I’m here to save up enough to leave this shithole. If that hurts your feelings, go and cry to mommy about it, I couldn’t care less. It’ll be bad press to ship your latest Arc rescue back over, after all.” 

“Why do you care about this planet, anyway? Beyond whatever sense of purpose you get from playing the hero, I mean. All anyone here ever does is complain and half-ass things. ‘Let’s give anarchy a shot guys, but like, a nice version of anarchy, where we all hold hands around a campfire and sing songs.’ It’s hilarious.” 

“The first time I made it to Thelx’s border as a kid, I thought I was hallucinating. I asked my older travel buddy, ‘What’s with these tiny, floating yellow spheres?’ She didn’t even spare me a glance, she was so enchanted. ‘That’s light,’ she said. ‘Take a good, long look. You won’t be seeing much of it.’ I remember how angry hearing that made me. Not just what she was saying, but how she said it. Like she’d given up. Like that was acceptable.” 

“A cargo ship bound for Rosiz is heading out in three cycles. You and Lear could come with me, y’know. Elope, or whatever. My contact would allow it. Probably. Hey, don’t give me an answer right away. Geez. At least think about it.” 

“Yep, I’m still here. Surprise! My other plans fell through, what can I say? Apparently, Rosiz is run by a weird blood cult. I don’t want anything to do with that. Guess you’re stuck with me a while longer. What’s with that look? Yeah, I still think this planet’s a shithole. But, you’re here, so… it’s 5% less shitty, give or take. Lear brings that up to a whopping 15%. Yes, he gets a value of ten. Have you tasted his cooking?” 

Will Lear ever know how much it meant when he comforted the haughty and naive girl you once were? How without him, all you ever would’ve known was loneliness? You were a handful, there’s no doubting that. It’s a miracle he put up with you. 

He had the softest voice when you were kids. 

“I’m supposed to play the princess? But… but… I’m a boy, and you’re a girl… so shouldn’t you…? Ow, ow, stop pinching! Okay, okay! I’ll be the princess! Eh? Whaddya mean ‘you’ll kiss it better?’ Miss Phaeales? Miss Phaeales…?!?!?!”

“I’m back from work, my wife. Huh? Husbands don’t say that? No no no no, you can’t play the husband, I have to play the husband! Lemme try again! Ahem. From work, I have returned… woman… I’ve married. That’s no good either? This is so complicated!”

“I dunno why you like Connect Four so much. I mean, we could play Monopoly, but you always steal credits when I look away. No, that's not allowed! … You’re just ‘being a capitalist?’ What’s that mean? Cheater, or something?” 

He didn’t lose this soft quality when he became an adult — his tenderness was the air you breathed. 

“‘What do I want,’ huh? Where do I begin? To be a part of you, I guess? Ah, if I’d known you were going to grin like that, I wouldn’t have said anything. W-Well, of course I want you. I just don’t think the phrasing’s right. You’ve always viewed yourself as a commodity. I don’t want to reinforce such a terrible thought.”

“It’s… so good, so warm, so… fuck, please, don’t look at me like that. I can’t believe… that I get to do this with you. You’re beautiful, you’re everything…! I’ve always loved you so much. So, so much. Is this okay? Is it really okay? If it is, then please, let me pleasure you.” 

“Quit messing around with me already. There’s no way that was your first time. Because, I mean, you’re so sought after, y’know? You must’ve had tons of opportunities to— ow ow ow, again with the pinching?! Alright, I get it, I get it! Pfft, stop, don’t make it weird. Okay, fine, hearing that does make me a little happy. Aaand there you go, making it weird. No, I’m not possessive. You said you don’t like possessive men, so… what? Of course I remembered that. I remember everything you say. Wait… are you embarrassed? I didn’t… didn’t think that was possible… one sec, lemme get my camera…” 

You swore an oath not to cry.

You didn’t when packing the few items Blade approved of, or when you negotiated with Elio. 

It’s not that you don’t want to. Should your resolve slip for a second, you grow dangerously close to drowning in a puddle of your own tears. There’s plenty to cry about, plenty to mourn. Once you start, though, you don’t think you’ll ever be able to stop. You’ll waste away as your body’s wrung for all its worth. Should that happen, you won’t be able to uphold your end of the bargain with Elio. 

There’ll be a lot more to cry about then. 

For this reason, you don’t turn back. 

Your deal with Destiny’s Slave consists of two elements. 

First, you are to serve as Blade’s ‘field partner,’ offering him your unremitted support however he sees fit. And second, you pledge the full extent of your psionic abilities to further the Stellaron Hunters’ mission. This second condition perplexed you, but it wasn’t like you had many bargaining chips. For so long as you cooperate, Eris will remain unharmed and the nascent Stellaron neutralized. 

Kafka had called to ‘celebrate your inauguration.’ You braced yourself for the worst, but she was surprisingly amicable. 

“Have you really never considered your utility outside of parlor tricks?” She wondered. “The power to create fantasias and read memories certainly has its uses, no?” 

“I just don’t see how it’d contribute much,” you replied. 

“If it stopped there, maybe. Should you be able to replicate Ania Phaeales’ seals, though… that’d come in handy.” 

You gritted your teeth and read between the lines. They want that too, huh? 

You’ve since worked tirelessly to understand how such an anomaly is possible, much less replicable. Silver Wolf provided an updated version of the Arbiter training software to aid your endeavors. You’ve tried and failed hundreds of times. Deleting fragments of a person’s psyche has disastrous results, as you once hypothesized. If the Stellaron Hunters wanted a foe lobotomized, they wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of obtaining you. 

The holographic screen floating before you presents an error message. 

‘Generated psyche #643, Garçia Chamora, has been rendered comatose from suffering damage to his cerebral hemispheres. Press here or say next to generate a new psyche.’ 

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. 

This job on Rosiz requires a nobleman’s lifelong fealty to be sealed, you think. If I can’t figure this out before then… 

Your stomach jumps to your throat like you’re in a free fall. 

Leaning back in your chair, you swipe the screen away. You look at the digital clock in the ship’s common room. It reads 2:05 a.m. This shift to a twenty-four-hour time has been a pain, but you think this number means it’s late. While glancing around the uninspired decor, your eyes land on a solitary figure. 

Blade sits on a beige couch with his arms and legs crossed, his eyelids shut. You assume he’s asleep. There are plenty of comfortable beds he could veg out on, but wherever you are, he isn’t far behind. You don’t get why he’s playing prison warden. He can’t think you’re stupid enough to try escaping with almost three million lives dangling over your head, can he? Perhaps he’s getting off on your suffering. 

Whatever the case, you loathe having to breathe the same air as him. You wish he’d fuck off already. 

You’ve barely spoken to one another since he made his threat. If it has to do with the upcoming job, you’ll give a few curt words and nothing more. He’s never been outgoing, so without you initiating conversation, hours trudge by in tense silence. You’ve recently made the unfortunate realization his input on your mother’s seal would be useful. He was under it for two years, there must be some information you can glean from him. You need anything you can get.

The thought of asking him for assistance, though… it makes you sick. 

“What?” he asks, his voice gravelly from unuse. 

You tense. He could tell you were looking at him without opening his eyes? 

“Nothing,” you reply. 

He grunts and that’s the end of it. You pull the holographic screen back up, eager to distract yourself. Except, all you can focus on is the #643 in the bottom left corner. You’ve already made that many attempts without any progress? One of Kafka’s contacts is going to help sneak this ship onto Rosiz in two days. You’re running out of time. 

You spare Blade a quick glance. Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t moved. 

Every muscle in your face scrunches up as if you’d bitten a lemon. 

Just get it over with, you tell yourself. 

“Blade?” 

He makes a noise to prove he heard you. 

“Can I… ask you a few questions?” 

“That depends on what they are.” 

You exhale shakily. “When your memories of me were sealed away, what did it feel like?” 

His mara murmurs, discontent at this reminder. He appears outwardly unaffected. 

“Why do you want to know?” 

You play with your skirt’s hem, picking at a loose thread. This is what you were afraid of. 

“Knowing will help me understand and replicate the seal better,” you explain. Then, you hastily add, “For the job.” 

All is silent. You shift in your seat. 

“That isn’t my concern,” is his eventual answer. 

Your jaw drops. “Wh— are you serious? You wouldn’t want to botch a job, would you?” 

“It wouldn’t be me ‘botching’ it,” Blade says, coolly, evenly. “It would be you.” 

You gnash your teeth together but bite your tongue. As callous as he’s acting, he isn’t wrong. He doesn’t owe you anything. Especially after you said what may have been the worst combination of words to him. You refuse to regret it, but you can follow the cause and effect. 

“You really don’t care about what’d happen?” You press, breathless. “Eris is my home. You lived there for months yourself, experienced the culture… does that mean nothing?” 

“Why do you ask questions you know you won’t like the answers to?”

Blade hasn’t so much as opened his eyes. You just don’t get it — you’ve peered inside his mind multiple times and still struggle to understand him. To what extent does he care about you, if that word even applies here? Does it stop at your physical well-being? Can his current nonchalance be attributed to your diatribe, or would he have acted this way regardless? He doesn’t make sense. He’s an enigma.

You decide to try another approach. 

“What about Nona? You’d still feel nothing then?” 

Finally, he opens his eyes. The warm hues feel cold. 

“I hold no ill will toward your student. I’d consider it a shame,” he says. Despite his impersonal word choice, he isn’t being sarcastic. That must mean something. Before you can expand on this, he smiles. It’s far from kind. “I see you’ve omitted your boyfriend from this thought exercise. A wise choice.” 

Your heart skips a beat.

Ah, fuck. 

“A word of advice, girl. Manipulation isn’t your forte.” 

It feels like a struggle between life and death to maintain eye contact. 

“Negotiation, though, you’re half-decent at,” Blade muses. He inclines his head to the side. “Well? Make me an offer.” 

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth. What do you have to offer? In a business setting, you can lowball some figures, that’s how everyone starts. You doubt he’s interested in money or stocks. There’s your Synalink ability, but there’s no way he’ll put himself in a vulnerable position like that again. Everything’s been taken from you. Your business, assets, connections, leverage; all you have are the clothes on your back. Still, if he’s entertaining this conversation, there must be something. 

Goosebumps erupt all over your skin. “Are you… propositioning me?” 

“Oh? That’s how you’ve chosen to interpret it?” he raises an eyebrow. “If that’s your offer, I accept.” 

“No, I’m not—!”

“I know. Calm down,” he interrupts your panicked exclamation. “You’re easily rattled when exhausted.” 

Your heart’s pounding so loud in your ears that it’s difficult to hear him. 

“Relax. The next time I take you, I want you willing.” 

The next time? Is he delusional? Has he suffered long-term memory loss? You’d sooner saw off your hand than sleep with him ever again. You come dangerously close to voicing this, but ultimately decide against it. You need him in an agreeable mood. This seal — have you been set up for failure? You can’t imagine why they’d bother. Still, there’s no singular script, as per Elio’s own admission. It’s a string of possibilities loosely connected by little choices. If one script isn’t followed, that means another has taken center stage. 

Should you be unable to deliver, that future has been accounted for as well. 

It’s a future that can’t come to pass.

Blade speaks your name. 

“Come over here,” he says. 

Your eyes widen and lips part, horror painting itself across your countenance. 

He clicks his tongue. “Trust your own intuition. You said it yourself, didn’t you? That I’m ‘holding out.’”

You fight the urge to wince at the quotation. He’s the one who mentioned it, not you. This can’t count as an infraction on your behalf. Taking a deep breath, you start trekking over, counting each step. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… ah, it didn’t take anywhere near long enough. 

He pats the spot beside him. Once you’re situated, an arm coils around your shoulders, tugging you into his side. Your heart thumps away. This is reminiscent of the evenings you spent together in your office and on the balcony. The high you received from sex would fade away, replaced by this nice, soft haze. Talkative as you were then, there was something about those moments that kept you quiet. You’re not sure why. 

Maybe it’s because you realized you’d finally met someone lonelier than yourself. 

“You’ve hardly eaten or slept. That I can understand,” Blade says. “What I don’t get, however, is why you haven’t cried.” 

“I can’t.” 

“You’re often on the verge of tears. Like now, for instance,” he points out. You struggle to swallow the lump in your throat. “Why not let it go?” 

Something already broken in you shatters beyond recognition.

“What good would that do?!” 

Your fingernails dig into your palms hard enough to bruise the sensitive flesh. 

“I’m nothing, I-I have nothing, I’m—” you laugh and laugh, making your throat feel scratchier than it already is. “I wanted to do so much…! I was stupid. So stupid! I actually thought that I could— could find a way to fix things, if only I kept working, kept trying! There isn’t a way. There never was a way. We’re greedy, we’re awful, we’re ignorant. A planet like that… a universe like this… so long as we’re in it, it’s fucked, it’s all fucked.” 

You shake your head. “I may have hated her, but I still wanted to be her. To outdo her. Prove that I could’ve done it better, that change was possible, so she’d have no excuse. I couldn’t do either. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d just be delaying Eris’ inevitable fate like she did.”

Your shoulders heave with each painful breath you take. 

“Did she feel vindicated in the end? Think that by saving me once, it’d make up for all the times she didn’t?”

Whether you’re talking to him or yourself, you can’t tell anymore. It doesn’t make a difference. Speaking the truth aloud doesn’t make it any more or less real. It just leaves a bitter taste that’ll never go away. 

“If she cared so much, why did she never tell me?” You whisper, your voice cracking. “What was she so afraid of…?”

What was I so afraid of?

Tears trickle down your face in a free flow. The drizzle shifts to a torrential downpour, no matter how hard you try shaking or shutting it off. There’s no point in telling him this. You’ll probably regret it, somewhere down the line. 

You faintly register how your body moves without your input. Blinking the wetness in your eyelashes away as best as you can, you see gold patterns. There’s weight around your shoulders too. Weight and warmth. The scent of blood and anise. 

He’s pulled you into an embrace against his chest. 

You twist and jerk your limbs around, attempting to purchase freedom you can’t afford. You yell at him, curse him, beg him to let you go, and still, his grip never relents. He just holds you there, your struggles amounting to nothing, your pleas falling on deaf ears. His grip doesn’t feel tight until you try wriggling yourself out of it. Then, and only then, are you hit with the realization he could crush you so easily. It must take a great deal of self-restraint to avoid doing so. 

The fight leaves your body and you tremble like a leaf in the wind.

His large hand runs over your back, slow and steady, as if his touch were destined to soothe rather than destroy. 

Your well of tears runs dry eventually. 

“When you live for others, you’ll die for them too.”

Blade’s statement doesn’t make you feel better or worse. It washes over you without soaking in. Whether it’s a warning for you or condemnation for yourself, you don’t know. Perhaps the two overlap in an unsightly hybrid. 

Some time passes before he speaks again. 

“The day that man drew his weapon on you, I felt something stir, as rousing from a long slumber,” Blade reveals. “I assumed it should remain undisturbed.” 

This is your chance. You detach yourself from him enough to look him in the eyes. He loosens his grip just enough to allow this, but no more. The vice would tighten should you try extracting yourself further. You wipe away the moisture clinging to your lower eyelashes with your wrists. Since he’s sitting, he isn’t towering over you. This small detail aids your waning resolve. 

“What made you assume that?” 

His bandaged hand cups your tear-stained cheeks. You wince, but allow him his indulgence. 

“Instinct,” he murmurs. 

Your eyebrows pinch together as you think. That wasn’t what you were expecting. You guessed that’d it feel like something significant was missing — a gaping hole. That the individual would want to fill it. Curiosity is the sentient being’s natural state, after all. Especially since this should’ve been an element of itself the mind wishes to reinstitute. Yearning, affection, and care; even if it’s a vestige of the full experience, these positive emotions shouldn’t set off alarm bells. 

Unless the mind decided it was worth suppressing. 

Maybe your mother wasn’t using the influx of memories inflected on Blade as a ‘red herring.’ Kafka adores messing with you, she could’ve floated the idea because she knew you’d hear it in the future. What was your mother doing then? Pulling up key instances throughout Blade’s life, specifically those with heightened emotions and long-lasting influences… 

What if it’s not so much altering memories, but altering the mind’s perception of them? 

The Arbiter training software is bound to your movements, which allows it to manifest with a few hand gestures. The screen displays itself close to your right. You’d prefer to figure this out elsewhere, but Blade doesn’t appear interested in letting you go anytime soon. He silently observes as you pore over the generated psyche. You’re too focused to comment on how creepy he’s being. 

Liliana Kokot. 34. Short-life species. Citizen of the planet Punklorde. Witnessed the murder of her parents at a young age. Came to despise gang activity. Joined police academy. Assigned to the Homicide Unit by age 25. Discovered possible connections between the police chief and organized crime. 

You pull out the prismatic shard containing her parent’s murder. 

The mind has mechanisms to inhibit trauma that’d otherwise obliterate it. Repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, and regression to name a few. In the same way, prisms have multiple sides. The one which refracts the most light will change depending on how it’s angled. 

You adjust the shard without changing its shape. Eventually, you find a side that deems this memory too much, beyond what Liliana can handle. It’s easily absorbed back alongside the other fragments. Except that now, the mind chooses to repress the memory, deep down in the subconscious where it cannot do irreparable harm. 

A ‘seal.’

“I get it now,” you wave the screen off. “It’s similar to a heart transplant. Mechanical valves aren’t integrated as smoothly as tissue valves. The body’s more willing to accept what’s similar to it in composition, as is the mind.” 

“You don’t look less troubled,” Blade notes. 

You scrunch up your nose. 

“I mean… this is— I don’t even know. It undermines what makes a person, well… who they are to the very core.” 

“When you accepted Elio’s deal, you knew you’d be an accessory to criminal activity. How is that any worse than homicide?” 

Blade’s refusal to sugarcoat the truth slashes through you like a phantasmal sword. Perhaps not a thousand times, but close enough. 

“This is your price, lotus.” 

You want to avert your gaze, but you don’t. It’d feel wrong, somehow. Cowardly. Hypocritical. 

No longer can you dwell on the currency itself. What matters now is ensuring you pay your dues on time. 

Your debt extends beyond Destiny’s Slave. There’s another proprietor you must settle with, for even the slightest peace of mind. 

“Blade— no, Yingxing,” you correct yourself. His muscles stiffen, his true name having gone unspoken for so long devoid of contempt. “I may have made a deal with Elio, but… I haven’t personally made one with you. I’d like to change that.” 

You can tell you’ve piqued his interest. 

“I swear on everything that is sacred to me that I’ll remain by your side until my final breath. In return, regardless of if I’m alive or dead, you’ll never harm my home or the people who inhabit it. Intentionally or otherwise.” 

His long, dark eyelashes flutter shut as he mulls over your proposal. He doesn’t take long. Soon enough, vermillion bores into you again. Candle wicks flicker inside them, alight with an emotion you refuse to name. 

“How do you finalize deals, Miss Phaeales?” Blade asks, moving aside a stray strand of hair from your face. 

It’s like the air’s been knocked from your lungs. He couldn’t have known, right? The ripples born when those two words are stitched together? Your chest feels tight and hollow all at once. It’s like your internal organs have liquified, leaving nothing but shapeless viscera. This isn’t the right voice. It should be softer, a tenor’s pitch, not a sonorous bass. 

“M-Miss Phaeales?”

You blink away a fresh set of tears. 

“A promise? Miss Phaeales, I don’t know if I can.”

“Hand me the dagger from before.” 

“I don’t really get you, Miss Phaeales, but… I wanna.”

He does, after a moment’s consideration. 

“It’s my fault, I should’ve killed that man, and now she’s in that criminal’s debt, because of me…!” 

You prick your pointer finger with the dagger’s tip, just enough to create trickling blood.

“Everything you just said — I can tell you believe it.”

He mirrors your actions. His skin quickly mends itself back together. 

“So why… why do you look so sad?”

I had so much to say, you think, bitterly. So, so much.

Blade’s bandaged hand falls to your lower back, where it softly pushes you forward. His gloved hand envelops your face, the leather refreshing against your feverish skin. His lips descend upon yours. You may have called the kiss tender had you known nothing about him. You do know him, however, as fate has decreed he’d get a better future at the cost of yours. It’s as if everyone was in on the joke, leaving you the odd one out. 

He murmurs words in between kisses that you fight desperately to unhear. 

When you pull back for air, you notice how madness surges and retreats in his eyes, as if it were ocean waves washing against the shore. 

The likeness helps. 

Pretending the red shade’s a brilliant blue instead comes easier. 

The next time he kisses you, you cautiously kiss back.  

A/N: i thought i'd feel satisfied when i finished nexus' last chapter, but i actually feel rather sad JTFSIKL i cannot overstate how much i enjoyed working on this story. it scratched a sci-fi itch i've had for over a decade now. when writing longer works, it's rare for me to not get caught on snags that sap my inspiration away. that never happened with this story though. from start to finish, i was contentedly tip tapping away on my keyboard.

i became enamored with this idea of a yandere story that didn't just revolve around the MC and yan, it just wasn't until i started outlining nexus that i had an excuse to explore this concept further.

the main cast of n darling, nona, and lear (an anon affectionately dubbed them the lotus trio, which is a term i loved enough to hijack) has become close to my heart. for that reason, writing this chapter physically hurt at times 😭 i wanted to swat blade away like a fly and have everything end nicely. from the very first sentence though, i knew this would be a tragedy, so it'd go against the Themes to pull a power of friendship ending.

at first, i worried about the reader's ability to empathize/connect with n darling, since her status and abilities aren't universal. like at all. the solution presented itself rather naturally. n darling, at least to me, stresses that simmering anger women feel the need to hide for professionality's sake. her experiences as a child where she's given responsibilities beyond her age's capacity, then in adulthood, where she isn't taken seriously (chrysus) or unintentionally infantilized (caicias). i'm sure many afab individuals can relate to some extent.

my primary interest was in having these two deeply frustrated individuals crash together and spill debris everywhere. i was given a little more liberty with blade's actions and dialogue, due to miss phaeales' id inducing presence, which drew out more than he'd normally give. as for blade's characterization, if he isn't in the throes of mara madness, i really can't see him being a hellion 24/7. he feels more somber to me when lucid.

of course, that changes if the right buttons are pressed... but that isn't exclusive to him.

since the final chapter is divided into three main scenes, i wanted to fully explore the three predominant ways i picture a yandere version of blade acting. the first is his guilt and shame, the second, his mara-induced sadism, and the third, a more neutral self where reason prevails.

i hope that you enjoyed reading nexus as much as i enjoyed writing it!! although the main storyline is finished, i'm by no means done with the universe as a whole. i'm planning a little epilogue for starters. then maybe some side stories from blade's perspective ?? who knows, the motivation's still there, so anything is possible.

thank you again 💖

-sincerely, lock.

Tag list: @99-nct @pixiestixes (idk why the tag thingy won't work but an effort was made) ...

[pigeon-behavior]

Very curious to hear what's wrong with Palomancy. I've adopted 2 parrots from their sister organization, and aside from being a little too strict in their adoption screening process I haven't heard much criticism about them.

(if this is an annoying ask please feel free to ignore & delete)

No no, not annoying. It's not exactly easy to find this information, so I'm not surprised when people don't know it.

Palomacy is in bed with PETA. You know, the rabid ARA organization known for stealing loved family pets from back yards and front porches (sometimes in a 10 minute stretch the owner was gone) and euthanizing them while refusing to return them. PETA believes no one should own pets, that no one should eat meat, that no one should ride horses or work dogs in the jobs they are bred for. They're willing to lie to get you to align with their beliefs. They're willing to compare animal rights to the Holocaust.

In this article from Palomacy in 2022, you can see them outright quote PETA. https://www.pigeonrescue.org/2022/05/31/a-pigeon-tale/

This is not something an organization should be doing lightly. If you have any clue what PETA is talking about, your goal should be never going within a hundred miles of them. But the reason I found out about this connection in the first place was during some digging some years back, during which I found the head of Palomacy (I don't know if she still is) exchanging tweets on Twitter with a representative of PETA.

Again, these people are so despicable. I would never willingly talk to them in public. Just being near them is like... tainting.

Beyond the PETA connection, Palomacy has a few other issues. They won't return found racers, last I heard. They have been known to descend like a cloud of murderous locusts on anyone who has a differing opinion than them. Their care and behavior advice is truly not great. Their housing advice is probably the only thing I don't feel the need to nitpick for them. The rest is either better designed for parrots, or wildly inappropriate behavior to try on an animal in general, like struggle-cuddling.

I think that they have their place. I wouldn't disappear Palomacy from the face of the earth if I had the chance (unlike PETA). But I know they hate many things they shouldn't (like ethical companion breeders - to them every breeder is pure evil) - and that they are giving out a lot of advice that is harmful.

And I don't want to be associated with them lol

[jerzwriter]

Body Positivity:

TW: body shaming, fatphobia, skinnyphobia, eating disorders, and the like.

I'm so fucking angry and triggered right now, and I need to vent. I was at what was supposed to be a fun family event, and because I didn't want to completely blow up, I stepped outside. But I am SO PISSED that I need to get this out. While trauma dumping on a toxic website is probably not the best idea, I literally have to vent, or I'm going to explode, and I REALLY HOPE someone will read this and learn something.

I think the body positivity movement has been great—and I wish we had something like it when I was growing up because, trust, it was non-existent. But, like many things, it's great on the surface, but a certain segment has morphed it into something that is as destructive and hateful as the behaviors/actions that led to the need for such a movement.

Some background, so you understand my perspective. I've struggled with my weight my whole life. I've been everything from a size 6 to a size 22. I'm very tall, and when I was at my thinnest (mostly because I was starving myself), people came up to me constantly to tell me how amazing I looked. I'm talking friends, family, co-workers, people at the club, and strangers on the street. I was literally dangerously underweight. My family doctor, who had treated me most of my life, was begging me to get help.

I wound up getting help for what turned out to be an eating disorder and moved past that as much as I could. Since that time, my weight has fluctuated from average, to "a few extra pounds", to very overweight. While I am usually OK with myself and try to be positive about my body, it can be hard. I don't like the way I look right now, and I’m ashamed to say that because I don’t feel that way about others. Beauty is not a number or a size, and I know that, but I am my own harshest critic. It doesn’t help to have the voices of many people, people who were supposed to love me, in my head constantly at these times.

“Do you think you should wear that?”

“Oh, that dress is so becoming on you!” (Meaning: it hides some of your fat!)

Or my favorite, coming home in an outfit that I felt so good about that I thought I looked adorable in, just to have my mother (and later my husband) say something like:

"Perhaps you should retire that until you lose some weight." or "You actually went out in that?"

(PS - I am divorced and barely speak to my mother)... I'm doing so much better, but I know I'll never be 100% comfortable, and, as with most things, the voices seep in when I'm at my lowest. So I GET IT. I get it big time.

But - on to today.

We have a wedding taking place later this week, so the family has descended like the buzzing locusts they are. The ten women in the bridal party, of all shapes and sizes, are at my house for a get-together, and they began complaining about how ugly the dresses are. (They really aren't the nicest dresses.)

The eight anti-dressers were commiserating when one, we'll call her Obnoixous Bridesmaid (OB), loudly announced that another bridesmaid had to shut up and leave the conversation because she's thin (we'll call her Thin Bridesmaid—TB), and therefore has no business being there. I should point out that TB's contribution to the conversation was the dresses were cheaply made and "is so damn shiny" and, for the record, OB is not thin but not overweight.

So another bridesmaid, who is extremely close with TB, jumped in to defend OB, going on and on about how much she "hates" TB for complaining when "everything" looks good on her. TB looked like she was going to burst into tears but stayed silent. It morphed into four grown-ass women bullying TB, so I stepped in and told them all to shut the fuck up. Minutes later, TB left the room, and I found her in the bathroom in tears, saying she wanted to go home and skip the rest of the events - up to and including the wedding.

I went back to the room where the 4 were still mocking TB, and I told them I was appalled by their behavior and they could shut the fuck up and apologize, or they could leave my house. I was told I should understand because I'm a "big girl," too, and therefore should be on "their" side.

Are we fucking kidding me here?

I should point out that 3 of the 4 asshole bridesmaids are well aware that TB has dealt with a serious eating disorder that stems from being body shamed by grown-ass men in her family when she was a mere child. She's dealt with outright abuse and trauma, and they know how bad it's been. She doesn't walk around mocking other's bodies or bragging about how "good" she looks; in fact, she struggles to feel positive about her looks at all.

Body positivity should be about everyone loving their body, no matter its shape and size, and never subjecting ANYONE else to shame because of theirs. When the fuck did it became "fat chicks have to stick together and fuck them skinny bitches."

I'm so on fire I had to step away before I ended up on the evening news. On a micro-level, I'm disgusted with these people, and this has put a total damper on the wedding events this week.

But on a macro level, I have seen this time and time again. Yeah, our society is fucking horrible when it comes to how it treats fat people, especially fat women, and that should change. But it's as fucking wrong to be skinnyphobic as it is to be fatphobic. Perhaps, ESPECIALLY AS FUCKING WOMEN, we should be uplifting and supportive of one another. PERIOD. Don't we see that the obsession to be thin and eating disorders stem from the same fucking toxic place that shames fat people? That's where it is BORN.

I'm so sick of seeing this trend in everything. Every movement I'm involved with is dealing with this... YES, be proud of YOU, ESPECIALLY if you're in a marginalized or maligned group. YES! DO IT! I've got your back in every way! But don't fucking turn it into an us vs. them... even with people you supposedly love! Don't become the fucking monster you profess to hate.

Is asking for human decency really too much? I'm literally shaking.

We really, really have to do better than this.

[yanderes-galore]

Can I request gears with jd, kait and Gabriel with reader kissing them on the check as a gratitude and running away because of embarrassment

I can try, these are short reactions and not that intense due to the prompt but I hope you enjoy :) @krystalkitdemi helped me a bit for their overall reaction.

Yandere! JD, Kait, Gabriel with Darling kissing them on the cheek

(Short Reaction HCs)

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Clingy behavior, More light-hearted than most content I do, Tame HCs, Delusional behavior, Dubious relationship.

JD Fenix (Gears 4)

JD would be stoic yet shocked.

His reaction is more internal, similar to his father.

In terms of how it happened, you are both no doubt fighting The Swarm and looking for Kait's mother together.

JD ended up saving you from a Swarm Snatcher before you were taken away.

Caught up in the moment, you end up clinging to JD.

He's surprised by this alone.

His body freezes momentarily as the threat is gone.

He's always had an... obsessive crush over you.

You just hugging him is enough.

But then you kiss his cheek.

It's nothing long, just a quick peck before you realize what you did.

JD notices your cheeks flush quickly before you release from him and run off.

JD desperately wants to grab your hand and pull you back, but he stops himself.

He... almost doesn't believe what happened.

He uses his hand to touch his cheek in shock, unsure what to think.

Then his own cheeks flush when no one is around.

JD... finds himself wanting more.

You've given him a taste of what he could have with you.

Just a small peck on the cheek was enough to make his mind rush with all sorts of thoughts.

On the outside he seems like his usual focused self.

On the inside? Fanboying, fantasizing, and pumped.

Eventually he collects himself and follows you to continue the mission and keep you safe.

Just a small amount of affection... and he's hooked.

If only you knew what you woke up inside him with just a small kiss.

Kait Diaz (Gears 5)

Kait would be more emotional and reactive.

She'd be more likely to reciprocate on the spot.

Truth is, her crush is a lot less hidden.

She doesn't try to deny it, she loves you and is easily flustered.

Kait most likely saved you during a mission with Del sometime around Gears 5.

You had been fighting The Swarm and before a Warden could take you out, Kait took it out.

In response you embrace her, Kait quickly hugging back with little hesitation.

Kait would've been fine with just a hug.

Any affection fuels her desire and makes her able to cope with the fact you aren't together.

Then you kiss her cheek.

Kait also just... can't believe it.

Her cheeks are red and she begins to wonder if you do feel the same.

Then you run off due to the realization of what you did.

Unlike JD, Kait quickly follows you.

She calls you back over, telling you it's okay.

She doesn't want things to be awkward... in fact...

You deserve to know how much she loves you.

Kait would definitely pull you over to her and hug you again.

Honestly your small act of gratitude might be enough to make her obsession boil over.

She'd confess on the spot.

She'd tell you everything about how she feels, trying to justify your little peck.

And I mean everything... including following you around and any similar behavior.

Then, perhaps, she'd ask for a little more?

It's up to you if you accept her confession right now or not...

She definitely isn't going to let you go when she's so close to having you now.

Gabriel Diaz (Gears Tactics)

Gabe would play it off but be more attentive afterwards.

He'd want to play it off around the others but adores the affection.

Ever since he picked you up in his crew to take on Ukkon, he's developed a bit of an... attraction to you.

There have been times you all have saved each other in your group.

It's the Locust War and the COG won't help Gabe.

However... This time Gabe saves you from a Locust Kantus.

You freeze for a moment but Gabe manages to kill the Locust before they can touch you.

He comes to check up on you in a soft tone, asking if you're alright.

Only for you to hug him tightly.

Gabe hugs back, confusion on his face yet he enjoys the affection.

He... had no idea how much he craved this, actually.

Then you kiss his cheek.

Gabriel's eyes widen, glancing at you before he notices the shock in your eyes.

You go to run off but Gabe stops you, a smile on his face.

He brushes it off in a playful manner, he knows people were looking but he just states you must've been excited.

He then pats your back, an affectionate (yet dark) look in his gaze as he releases you.

He acts like it wasn't a big deal, yet Gabe finds himself craving more of that love.

He didn't realize how much he needed you until now.

Afterwards, Gabe's protective and attentive nature over you increases.

He wants to be the one to protect you... to love you... to care for you.

After that kiss, he's convinced you're the one for him... you just can't be with anyone else...

Once Ukkon is dead, Gabe plans to show you exactly how he feels for you... even if it's suffocating and intense.

[ginza-division]

The Crossroads

Several years after the tragic death of his younger sister, the Catholic priest, Masa Judice, realized that no matter how hard he preached, no matter how many sins he absolved, no matter how hard he worked to teach his flock the right way, things still didn't improve. After weeks of meditation and praying, Masa realized that the only way for these fools to understand what awaited them if they continued down their wicked path, was to show them firsthand. And if words couldn't convince them, he'd have to resort to more... extreme measures.

Gathering many able men and women of all shapes and ages, he put together a secret group of individuals who obeyed him, and only him. And he had only one mission for them: to find and bring forth those lost sheep who were stumbling around in the darkness into the light.

"And if you have to set their homes on fire, or bathe the streets with their blood to get them to obey, then you have the permission of The Father to do so." - Masa Judice

1. "The Father"

Full Name: Masa Judice

Age: 41

Position: Leader/Judge

Bio: After usurping power from the former priest of his church, this cunning Catholic priest created a secret gang hellbent on bringing the Word of God down on those foolish infidels who refused to listen. And if they still refused to adhere to God's law, then he'd personally see them absolved of their sins, one way or another.

"My children, these locusts are infesting our garden. They seek to pollute it with their rotten way of thinking. Go, and teach them all the error of their ways. ...And remember, The Father loves you." - Masa Judice

2. "10"

Full Name: Juu Judice

Age: 17

Position: Second-in-Command

Bio: The adopted daughter of Masa. He found her out on the street whilst walking around Ginza. After a failed attempt at robbing him, he brought her back to the church and fed her, telling her she'd never go hungry again if she joined his flock. She agreed, and the Catholic priest began molding her into a sadistic, merciless killer who obeys Masa's word to the law. She has an intense hatred and loathing for Sumire Shinomiya of Shinagawa. She hates her for not only stealing away the attention of Max Soukoku (whom she has sworn her undying love for) but also because she blames her and Scorpion Den for the death of her biological parents after they accidentally bombed a government building, with her parents inside.

"We're going to play us a little game. I'm going to count to 10, and you're going to run and hide from me! If I can't find you after I'm done counting, you win! But if I do find you, you lose. ...And trust me, you don't want to lose." - Juu Judice

3. "Nyan"

Full Name: Kahori Maeda

Age: 24

Position: Caretaker

Bio: For as long as she can remember, Kahori has always been fascinated by cats. It eventually got to the point where she ended up believing that she was one! Unfortunately, this sort of behavior got her locked up in a mental institution. Fortunately for her, Masa heard of her situation and got the prison to release her under his custody. After giving her a place in the church with a nice comfy armchair, next to a lovely warm fireplace, as well as some animatronic cat ears and paws created by the Scientist, Kahori has sworn her undivided loyalty to The Father and will tear into anyone who dares go against him, not forgetting to self-mutilate for any ousted intruder...

"Father Masa gave me a home. He gave me a cozy spot by a fire where I can sleep all day if I want. He gives me all the fish I can eat. And when I do a good job, he even gives me pats on the head! This church is Father Masa's home, and it's my home too! I won't let you or anyone else take it from me! Nyan!!!" - Kahori Maeda

4. "Cassiopeia"

Full Name: Tora Yamaji

Age: 18

Position: Member

Bio: The illegitimate child of a rich nobleman and a poor woman, Tora was forced to wear a mask for most of her life under her father's orders so no one would find out about his infidelity. Her mother ceded her parental rights, allowing Tora to live with her father. However, she was frequently insulted and told that she was "ugly beyond repair" daily by her father and her peers, causing her to develop low self-esteem.

Masa, having heard of her, had Juu bring her to him and had her mask removed. With his gift for words, he convinced her that it was not she that was ugly, but this rotten world, that couldn't see the true beauty she possessed. After a week of this, Tora pledged her loyalty to The Father and made the decision to join the Church, along with her mother. A year later, she and her mother inherited her father's estate. According to the rumors, he mysteriously died in his bed...

"Tell me something... do you know what love is? ...No? For a long time, I didn't know what it was either. I didn't even know it existed. ...That is, until I met someone. He made me realize something... all the money and power in the world, it's meaningless. My father had both, but he was quite possibly the ugliest person I ever had the displeasure of knowing. Good looks and such, that's not what's important. All that matters in this life is what's in here, in my chest, the only incorruptible place. Ugly I may be on the outside, but on the inside, I am the most beautiful person to ever walk the Earth! I am Cassiopeia!"

"...And that is why you are going to die now. It's not money or power that guides my hand. It's not the promise of a better life. It's not even because you deserve it for the horrible things you may or may not have done. No, the reason I kill... is for love. But not just any love. No, it's love for a man. A man you know very well: Father Masa." - Tora Yamaji

5. "Dr. Saw"

Name: Chimaki Nakagawa

Age: 34

Position: Doctor/Torturer

Bio: Blood... blood is what drives Chimaki. Ever since she was young, this curious woman has always wanted to know how things move and work. A former assistant of Ritsuko Okada's, she was expelled from Chuohku and locked up after she tried to cut open her former mentor, fascinated with her cool and cold nature. Fortunately, she was released from the asylum due to a lack of space and because she wasn’t considered a flight risk. Oh, if only those poor fools realized that a certain Catholic priest had made her a deal to join his gang, where she'd be able to benefit from the services of Juu and the Bros...

"Let's see... a trim of the shears here, a blow with the hammer there, and... there! Perfect! ...Oh, stop screaming, you baby! I'm only taking out some of your blood! Be glad it's joining my collection! ...And it's such an excellent color too. At the hospital, I had trouble getting these sorts of things off victims. People would start questioning if one of the patients was suddenly missing one of their toes. But thanks to Father Masa, I get to study and experiment all I want with no repercussions!"

"And hey, be glad I'm the one you're dealing with now. You don't want to know what would happen if Juu got her hands on you. Ha, I swear that child could teach me a thing or two about torture... Now stop screaming already! It's annoying me! Hmm... maybe I'd better sew up your vocal cords. It's not like you'll be needing them anymore, anyway." - Chimaki Nakagawa

6. "The Bros (I and Am)"

Name: Manobu Kita and Kuri Kita

Age: 21 and 16

Position: Member/Church Boy

Bio: These two brothers have been through the best and worst of times together. Growing up in a broken home with their drunk and abusive mother, the two only had themselves to rely on. Having enough, the two ran away from home and developed scams to make ends meet. Kuri would often pose as an innocent child to get victims to lower their defenses, while Manobu would then rob them afterward. Eventually, the law caught up to them both, and they were both charged.

However, before they could be sent away, Masa persuaded the police to release them under his custody. Offering them a home and food in exchange for their services, the brothers agreed. Kuri now serves as a young church boy, while Manobu works with the gang. Though they don't fully believe in much of what The Father preaches, they figure this is better than going back home to their mother.

"You know the drill, chump. Empty out your pockets, and we'll let you go!"

"If I was you, I'd listen to my brother, pal. I know I look scary, but trust me, you don't want to see him when he gets mad. You may think of us as nothing more than petty thugs, but we're good folk, we are! Our hands to God!"

"Yeah! It's just... well, hard times have a way of turning even the most decent folk bad, ya' know? It's not our fault we were born into a house with a good-for-nothing drunk as a mom."

"True that. If not for Father Masa, who knows where we'd be right now..."

"...Hey bro, this is all this guy has on him!"

"...Seriously?! That's all you've got?! *sighs* Well then, about that promise my brother and I made about not hurting you..." - Manobu and Kuri Kita

7. "The Scientist"

Name: Ippei Fujimoto

Age: 35

Position: Inventor/Torturer

Bio: Believe it or not, this young man actually did not plan to join Masa's church or gang. Unlike most members of the Crossroads, he was born into a good family, had a good education, and was blessed with a good job as an electrician. Unfortunately, messing around with dodgy equipment was bound to end badly. One evening, while working in his workshop on a blown-out, old speaker, Ippei got the kind of electric shock that could plunge half a city into darkness. And though it blinded him in his right eye, it gave him an epiphany. And he now has such an in-depth understanding of electricity that he sees himself as the god of thunder and lightning!

Wanting at all costs to be able to send out electric shocks to his critics, he applied to The Crossroads, offering his technical know-how to find a way to make his dreams come true via the shortest possible circuit.

"No, no, no! The charge still isn't high enough! Damn it, maybe I should have listened to Chimaki and waited for a thunderstorm to try this out. These defibrillators need a bit more work it seems. ...Oh well, trial and error, that's all it is. Thanks for your help, pal! A shame you got burnt to a toast, but your contributions will be remembered! ...At least until Father Masa finds me another poor soul I can use these on." - Ippei Fujimoto

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 11x16: Details

Okay, let's talk details. This will be somewhat lengthy, so get comfortable.

***As always, spoilers abound below for the episode. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

We start with a somewhat blonde walker, staring at the camera. Perhaps not the most Beth-ish walker, but I did take note of her. Then we see Lance walk out of the manor house. There's a lot of smoke, someone dead on the ground, and of course there are the locusts.

Let’s talk about locusts for a minute. The instant I saw the locusts, I knew they were a biblical symbol. Actually, at first, I hoped they were cicadas. That would have been a much more direct resurrection symbol. But hey, I’ll take locusts. I do think they are pointing toward Beth’s return, but they don’t represent her directly.

In the bible, they typically represent the bad before the good. The plagues that preceded the Israelites gaining freedom. Moses was the Christ figure then. And while he had already arrived when the plague of locusts hit, they preceded him leading his people into the promised land.

Also, there are locusts (much bigger, scarier, badass locusts that eat people rather than plants) in the book of Revelation. They precede the Second Coming. But they’re a negative symbol. They tend to eat/kill anything they swarm. They’re pests. And this meaning is driven home when Leah hears them and smiles. As if she thinks they’re HER symbol. She’s about to be the plague that hits Maggie. Unfortunately for her, it doesn’t go that way. But clearly, she feels inspired by them.

Overall, I think they represent the CRM. Like a swarm of black insects, they mow down everything in their path and leave devastation behind them. Especially when Elijah said, “they’re getting closer,” I thought this. The CRM and a war with them draws near. And with them, comes Beth.

Which is why I say they do represent her, but indirectly. They’re clearly the “act of god” referenced in the title and the time stamp. Negan calls them that too, but with different words, saying they’re a message from the Man upstairs.

Interestingly, he, Annie, and Maggie are standing by a river that looks a lot like the one in Find Me when they have this conversation.

In the Old Testament, the locusts were one of 10 ‘acts of god’ that spurred the pharaoh to release the people and led, in the long term, to them inheriting the Promised Land. I can’t help but think the locusts really are a symbol of Leah. What happened in this episode is the act of God that will lead to the war with the CW, and eventually lead TF to Rick and Beth through the CRM. Also these:

All this self destructive behavior and relationship stuff works for the Leah dynamic.

John the Baptist ate locusts (which we saw in this episode) and wild honey (story Maggie tells Eugene in S5) and he was the forerunner of Christ. So, I do think these locusts are a forerunner of Beth. But they’re also a negative symbol, which means they’re more like forerunners of the CRM. But Beth comes with the CRM, so it amounts to the same thing.

They’re often associated, especially when swarming, with drought. So they may also foreshadow the “no water” aspect of the CRM war.

I don’t at all think Hershel will die, but him being taken and his life being threatened could be what they’re using for the ‘death of the first-born’ plague. The darkness could be figurative. Like, the darkness of the war with the CW.

We see a timestamp that says 19 hours in one act of God (locusts) later. We see Maggie talking taking Herschel somewhere that he doesn't want to go. One detail here is that he she asks if he has everything including piggy pig. So, obviously, a pig reference. I believe this is some sort of stuffed toy that Herschel favors. Because he immediately looks up at her and says that he's not a baby.

Then we see Lance flipping his coin and the man who calls tails. I talked about that yesterday. In terms of the coin, the year on it is 1982 and the president on the front is fictional. He’s meant to be Pamela Milton’s father, who apparently served a term as president in TWDU. 

My fellow theorists figured out that the 1982 on the coin would coincide with the presidency of Ronald Regan. We’ve had more than one reference to him on the show. We think it’s because he was shot and survived. He’s associated with events of the 10:10 clocks. Several high-profile assassinations or attempts are, but he’s one that’s always mentioned.

The other thing about the coin is that it has a buffalo on it. It’s a Native American symbol, and we’ve seen those in conjunction with the Revolution theme, the French and Indian war, etc.

Anyway, to extend the buffalo symbol, the way they’re often thought about where Native Americans are concerned is that they were hunted almost to extinction. So, they represent famine, and the destruction of the Native American way of life. Could represent the CW (and by extension, the CRM) destroying the lives of smaller groups of people.

Then we see Max and Eugene waking up together. I really love their little romance. She's reading a book called Smashing Atoms. I'm not sure what the significance of that book is, but I'm sure it’s intentional. I'll keep an eye on that.

The other thing that struck me about the scene is that it's pretty much a repeat of the scene he had with Stephonie/Shira. Because he's been so heavily paralleled with Daryl, I'm seeing significance in that. So watch the scene first with Eugene and Shira. She was not his true love. She was an imposter and somewhat evil. Then we see a repeat of the scene but this time he's with his true love and he's truly happy and in a healthy relationship.

I think the same will be true of Daryl, but on a much larger scale. We already saw the equivalent of Eugene in Shira. Only it was Daryl and Leah, and it was more than just a single scene. It was multiple episodes over multiple seasons. Now that Leah is gone, we will see a repeat of that, only this time it will be Daryl and Beth. Daryl with his true love and in a healthy relationship.

Next, we see Daryl, Gabe, and Aaron helping clear a building with some CW soldiers. They keep whispering to each other about what they can do to get out of this. Daryl says they need to head north, away from their group, and then take their chance when it comes, to take care of things.

This is where Daryl mentions Charleston and its super suspicious. The other thing we've noticed is the clock on the wall, which points to 4:22. That's a 22 mention, but it also strikes me a little bit like the Grady clock. The one that was ticking one Beth woke up. No, it's not exactly the same thing. But we saw the secondhand of the clock ticking between four and five, and here the hand is in the same basic location. So, this could be pointing toward Beth’s imminent appearance.

I also noticed a lot of papers on the table in this scene. At least some of them are sheet music. So, we have the suspicious clock, sheet music, and the mention of Charleston all in the same scene. Hmmm.

We see Marco and Elijah stop on their journey with Maggie and look up toward the locusts. They say, “they seem to be getting closer.” So again, I think this is probably a foreshadow that CRM is getting closer. They find Lydia who says, "oh, you made it." Very close to Beth's, "we made it," in Still. I also noticed Lydia is still wearing her yellow vest here, which makes her a Beth parallel.

Maggie stops and talks to Herschel about choices. Not necessarily a TD thing, but it just reflects the conversation between Daryl and Gabriel in 11x09 about whether choices matter, and who is making them.

Lydia leads them to a hole in the ground where Negan and the other people from the Complex are hiding. The hatch gets stuck, and Elijah helps Lydia open it. I really feel like this is a foreshadow of something. Of course, it's kind of sweet because their romance is still blossoming. Remember, Lydia equals Beth and Elijah equals Daryl. So, from a birds eye view, we have a situation where people TF trust and care about are hiding somewhere. Lydia is the only one who knows where they are, but she can't get them out without Elijah's help. I kind of think this is going to be a high-level template for Beth and Daryl in some way. Not sure what it points to but it felt very intentional to me.

We then see Lance talking to Leah about killing Maggie. A couple things I noticed here. As I said above, Leah smiles when she sees the locusts. Almost as if she's taking some sort of inspiration from them. But that just shows that Leah is pretty twisted. I mean, who takes inspiration from a plague of locusts?

I also noticed that Lance says he'll need to see Maggie after she's dead. He emphasized the word see enough that I thought it might be an instance of the ‘see no evil’ theme.

Maggie talks to Negan and asks him and Annie to watch Herschel and stay behind while she goes and ends things with Lance. The scene was actually very interesting. Negan said he didn't want to stay in a "whisperer wormhole." I'm not sure exactly what to make of that. Me and @galadrieljones have sarcastically talked about how they mess with time in TWD and that sometimes there's no way to explain it logically, unless they actually go full sci-fi/time travel in the show. And they wouldn't do that.

But we’ve literally used the phrase, "full wormhole" before. So it was really weird to hear Negan say it in the show. Overall, it might just be a way to suggest the time slippage that they are messing with. We also learn in the scene that Maggie is starting to trust Negan again. So, seeds that will probably lead to the Maggie Negan spinoff are being sown here.

 When Negan also says of the locusts, "if that is a sign from the man upstairs…" they gave us a wide shot of the scene, and we see that the three of them are standing beside a river. It actually looks a lot like the river from Find Me.

By now, it's become clear to Daryl, Aaron, and Gabriel, that Hornsby wants them dead. They enter a junkyard with the CW soldiers. There are tons of TD symbols in this junkyard. First, we see a spider. That generally represents something sinister going on, I think. But we have the blue tarp, a green car that looks a lot like the green gremlin from 7x04, school buses, a snake, and even greenery growing out of "dead" cars.

I found it very interesting that both Aaron and Gabe were shot, though not mortally. After all, they're the two Sirius characters/Beth proxies. And both were shot. The snake was also interesting. It was totally random with no reason for it to be there, other than to give a sinister vibe. But remember that we did see a snake in Still. So all of these symbols or callbacks to Beth and Daryl.

I was thinking that there might be a mini template going on here. They go into the junk yard (kinda like the land of the dead) and both Sirius characters (Gabe and Aaron) are shot. Kinda like Beth was. Then I notice that Gabe and Aaron specifically separate from Daryl. Just to different parts of the junk yard, of course, but they don’t stay together as a group. Could symbolize Beth and Daryl’s situation. Then, in the middle of all this fighting, we see the snake. We saw the snake around Bethyl in Still. And then, in the end, of course neither gunshot was fatal, and they come back together to go save their family (Maggie). 

Maybe I’m reaching with that, but I feel like it’s exactly the kind of thing the writers love to do. Take it or leave it.

Back at the Commonwealth, we see Max finally get a hold of some files from Pamela’s filing cabinet. Sebastian comes in and nearly ruins her plans. He does seem to buy what she says and not push any further than that. But I think that later on, if Pamela realizes somebody was snooping, Sebastian will probably remember this and throw Max under the bus. So, it’s setting up the first real drama here.

We see Connie, Eugene, Magna, Kelly, Max and Rosita into looking over the files and trying to figure out what to do. Magna brings Zeke in to try and get more people to spread the word. I noticed that Connie says she doesn't want to write about until they have deciphered what the files mean. She said they need a “key” to solve this. So, more key theory. She says she’ll write about Sebastian's cash grab and blame it on Pamela.

At one point, Zeke says he has people “ready to ride at dawn.” Which is the new Dawn theme. At one point, Eugene also says, "the aforementioned uprising." He’s talking about what's going on at the CW, but I can't help but apply that to the revolution theme and the war with the CRM, which is coming.

Back at Hilltop, the men in black attire (special ops guys) go into the manor house. Explosives go off and most of them are killed. This was a trap set by Maggie and co. I did notice in the background that what looks like paper money gets blown out of the manor house. So, there's more of the cash theme going on here, but Maggie is blowing it up rather than grabbing for the way Sebastian does. And unfortunately, in this scene, Marco was killed. Shot in back of the head by Leah. I was sad about this bc I really liked  him.

I have to say, Leah had a very Terminator-esque vibe here. She stalked forward with an almost robotic deadliness, clutching her gun. Just kind of interesting since they had two different actors from the Terminator franchise on the show in the last two years. No idea if that's intentional, but it's interesting.

Next, we see Daryl, Gabriel, and Aaron looking for Lance. This is where they see the railroad ties in the trees and then Leah's bracelet and Daryl realizes that she’s involved. He tells them all to split up so they can cover more ground.

Meanwhile, after Marco is killed, Maggie realizes Leah is there to kill her. I had to chuckle about this because it didn't make much logical sense. Maggie keeps telling Lydia and Elijah to go and that she would lead Leah away from them. Elijah says, "I'm not going to leave you." (Beth’s exact line from Alone.)

But then Lydia says they can take care of themselves but will find the others and then come back for Maggie. And that's what they do. So right after insisting they aren’t going to leave her…they leave her. Again, it doesn't look much logical sense, but I don't think that's the point. I think they were just trying to set it up so that Maggie would be alone and captured by Leah.

So, Maggie is walking through the woods on her own. And we see another blonde, Beth's walker. This one is very, very Beth-ish. Not only is she blonde, but she wears a yellow shirt and over it, some sort of grayish sweater or jacket. So, this walker definitely represents Beth. What does this mean?

I think we could interpret it in a few different ways. In a broad way, the walker probably shows that something about the sequence has something to do with Beth's arc.

 Another way I think we could look at it is that because the walker equals Beth and because Leah is an anti-Beth, the walker also equals Leah. It’s a very quick foreshadowing that’s fulfilled before the end of the episode. If the walker equals Leah/Beth, and Maggie kills it, well, right after that, within a few minutes, she comes in contact with Leah. And by the end of the episode, Leah is dead. The only reason Beth is actually involved in this particular thing is because Leah is the anti-Beth.

At the very least, all these things are entangled somehow. It she's not entirely clear how we should be interpreting them yet.

Meanwhile, Leah hits Maggie in the head and she wakes up in Leah's cabin tied to a chair. Trust me, my fellow theorists and I could go on and on about the significance of Maggie waking up in this cabin. And interesting symbols abound. There's a diamond shape behind her. There are both red and green curtains on the window between them. Etc.

One thing I immediately noticed was a parallel to 6×13. This scene is a total replay of when Maggie and Carol were taken by Paula’s group in S6. Specifically, when Maggie was taken apart from Carol and sat knee to knee with the dark haired woman. Her name was Michele.

And as I thought about this scene with Leah being paralleled with that one, I got the feeling it had a lot to do with Hershel. He wasn’t specifically mentioned in this scene with Leah, but she did say she’d kill everyone Maggie loved. And Maggie specifically left Hershel with Negan to protect him.

Even during that part, I got the feeling it was a template. Maybe just as simple as it being about Maggie and Hershel being separated (him kidnapped or whatever).

Back in S6, Maggie was pregnant with Hershel and even vomited during this scene because of it. Paula and her people needled Maggie about how stupid she was to have gotten pregnant. We even found out that Michele’s boyfriend was one of the savior-gang that Daryl blew up on the road.

So, Maggie didn’t directly kill him, but it could correlate to Maggie having killed Leah’s family here. So, I’m not saying that scene in s6 pointed to this one with Leah. But rather, they both point not something in the future with the CRM war. In which Hershel will be in danger, and it will lead to Beth in some way.

Back to the Leah scene. Maggie gets loose and they proceed to attack one another. One thing I noticed during their knockdown, drag-out fistfight was that Leah flipped her blonde hair at least two or three different times. 

It really felt like they were trying to emphasize that blonde hair. But, of course, Daryl arrives and shoots Leah and then Lance. He and Maggie escape through the green-curtained window.

At the end, the three communities are taken over and the ocean ciders actually taken prisoner. We see means people climbing out of the pit. There's actually a major emphasis on the latter. They used to climb out here. So, matter theory. We see Max put the files back and then Pamela come in looking upset because the article has come out in the paper. The end on Lance's coin being flipped.

In the insider part of the episode, AK says that dad wasn't at all conflicted about shooting Leah. Between her and Maggie, it was no choice at all. It was always going to be Maggie. I could have told you that, but it’s nice to hear it from the showrunner.

She also said that Hornsby was having no good very bad day. That made me chuckle, because it's a lot like a children's book that I grew up reading. But then Angela goes on to talk about luck and how our characters want to believe the world is within their control, but often it's not. 

So we have Angela, the showrunner, emphasizing the luck theme, which is something we saw around Beth at Grady. I also noticed that during the time she was talking, it showed the scene where Lance told his men to call out heads or tails, and the man said tales. So just felt like another excuse to point to the idea of a coda.

That's all I have for today. Anyone seen anything I missed?

[keezree]

Favourite grasshopper facts!! What are they!! Go!!!

#1 fact: They're cute!!!

I'm not super knowledgeable on grasshoppers but some interesting things i found out-

-Grasshoppers and locusts are basically the same, depending on their environment/situation. When their hind legs are touched/rubbed against by other grasshoppers it causes them to produce more serotonin which changes their behavior and appearance.

-It makes them seek out other grasshoppers en masse and they become very hungry and very horny. This is how swarms start.

-They stridulate similar to crickets, and while they can tell intensity of the sound, they're not good with recognizing pitch.

-Their ears are on the first segment of their abdomen, close to their hind legs.

-they can be many amazing and wonderful colors, including pink!

-they go through incomplete metamorphosis, meaning that when they grow, they retain the same shape/form through bigger and bigger moults until they reach their adult stage.

-sometimes after mating the male grasshopper will just sort of hang out on top of the female as she walks around doing something called "mate guarding."

It's a way to prevent other grasshoppers from scraping out their spermatophore and ensuring their babies are the successful ones.

- grasshoppers can mate from 1 hour to 48 hours straight (woah!)

That's all i can think of for now but yee!

[cassiusbedah]

Sacred Spider Rock, Canyon De Chelly,  Navajo Nation

Spider Woman and Spider Rock 

According to Navajo legend, Spider Woman lives at Spider Rock in Canyon De Chelly.  She was first to weave the web of the universe. She taught the Navajo how to weave, how to create beauty in their own life and to spread the "Beauty Way" teaching of balance within the mind, body & soul. On the other hand Spider Woman has a bit of a dark side. But let's start off with the bright.

In the Navajo creation story, the first world was small and pitch black. There were four seas and an island. In the very middle of the island was a single pine tree. Ants, dragonflies, locusts and beetles lived there and made up the Air-Spirit People of the first world.

The second world was known as blue, where life was given to Spider Woman & Spider Man. Only their inner spirits or souls were made. Their physical bodies were made later to contain their spirits when they evolved into future worlds.

In the third world the holy ones advised Spider Woman that she had the capabilities of weaving a map of the universe and the geometrical patterns of the spirit beings in the night sky.  At first she did not know what they meant, and was not told how it could be done. Curiosity became her energy and driving force to learn to weave as the holy ones instructed.

On a beautiful day when she was out on the land, exploring and gathering food, she came upon a small young tree. She touched it with her right hand and wrapped her fingers around one of its branches. As she was letting go, a string streamed out the center of her palm and wrapped around the tree branch. She was not quite sure what the string was. At first she shook her hand to release the string, but it would not break free. She thought if she kept wrapping the string around the branch it might let go.  

Spider Woman started maneuvering and manipulating the string into various shapes. At this particular moment, she knew this was the weaving the holy people instructed her to do. Immediately she broke the string with her left hand without hesitation. She sat and thought carefully about how to use her new gift. For the rest of the day she sat close to the tree and wrapped the string into various patterns on other branches of the small tree.

The holy ones heard about Spider Woman's new talent and came to visit her. During the visit the holy ones instructed Spider Man to construct a weaving loom and also create the tools used in the various processes of weaving. At this time Spider Woman began to sing the weaving songs, given to her by the holy ones. The songs empower the weavings and the weaving tools.

Dine (Navajo) of today live in the fourth world, known as the "Glittering World". Young weavers are instructed to find a spider web in the early morning, glistening with sunlight and sparkles. They are told to place the palm of their right hand upon the spider's webbing without destroying or damaging the web. At that moment Spider Woman's gift of weaving enters the young weaver's spirit, where it lives forever. 

Spider Woman's dark side.  Navajo elders warn young children that Spider Woman is always on the look out for mischievous and disobedient children. When she finds them, she spins them tight with her web and takes them to the top of Spider Rock. There she boils and eats them. Their left over bones melt in the sun which create the white bands at the very top of Spider Rock. Yikes. Kids, be on your best behavior!   

Neptune (Latin: Neptūnus) was the god of the sea in Roman mythology. He is most identifiable as a tall, white-bearded figure carrying a trident, a three pronged fisherman's spear. Fittingly, he is often pictured with fish, as well as with horses, another animal with which he is closely linked since he was also thought to oversee the sport of horse-racing. These horses drew the chariot in which he was said to travel over the sea. Like many of the figures of Roman mythology, Neptune was appropriated from the Greek tradition, and became analogous (but not identical) to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea.

Contents

1 Origins

2 Mythology

3 Function

4 Worship

5 Legacy

6 Notes

7 References

8 External Links

9 Credits

The worship of Neptune, as the Roman version of Poseidon, is another example of cross-cultural assimilation in the ancient world where a great deal of dialogue and syncretism among different civilizations took place—not merely strife and warfare.

Origins

The theonym neptune seems to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European base *(e)nebh- meaning "moist", which forms the base for the Latin nebula, referring to "fog, mist, cloud."[1] Originally Neptune was a god of the ancient Italians, who did not identify him as a sea god, as they recognized no god of the sort. Rather, Neptune was said to rule exclusively over fresh water. Neptune is one of the earliest Roman gods to have been identified with a Greek deity. His connection with Poseidon was officially sanctioned in 399 B.C.E. when the sibylline books ordered a ceremonial meal (or lectisternium) in his honor to win his good favor, as well as that of a limited number of other Greek figures such as Apollo and Hercules.

It was once thought that the Roman conception of Neptune owed a great deal to the Etruscan god Nethuns, who held jurisdiction over wells and later on all bodies of water in that mythological system. However, more recent linguistic research has suggested this is not the case, as Neptune was already worshipped by Latins and Italians before the Etruscans had developed Nethuns; thus, it is more likely that Nethuns was influenced by Neptune.[2]

Abilities

He can withstand any amount of water pressure.

He can generate water from his body.

He can use sea waves as a form of teleportation.

He can breath underwater.

He can communicate with sea creatures.

How these two meant and had a son. It was most surprising. On the Navajo reservation the young braves enjoy racing their horses. Neptune, the God of freshwater is also God over Sport of Kings and was said to enjoy the horses. It was here he saw, Spider Woman. She was refreshing to him, Interesting. Unlike the females of his Pantheon she had morals. It took Neptune many moons to lay with her and when he did he swore he'd seen the stars and the moon move. It had been special and he'd wanted to stay with her. She'd disappeared after that night. It wasn't until sometime later he learned she'd birthed a Male Babe, named Cassius. Cassius was a brave male. He had the same abilities of his Father, and ingerited those of his Mother. For a long while he lived in the rocks on the nation nation until she booted him from the cave and made him go out into the world. Cassius is now in the world finding his own.

[eruthiawenluin]

Content in link under the readmore:

Mike Mazzeo, head of Rochester’s police union, is claiming that it’s appropriate for officers to manhandle, handcuff and pepper spray a 9 year old girl—who wasn’t suspected of any crime— while attacking those demanding accountability. Not only is what we’ve seen a clear use of excessive force, it appears that the girl’s 4th amendment rights were violated, which seems to be of no concern to Mazzeo. This comes on the heels of Mazzeo defending the officers that mocked, suffocated, and killed Daniel Prude. This is clearly unacceptable. It is impossible for people in Rochester to trust their police force with Mazzeo leading the police union. Mazzeo has to go—we call on you to use your power to force his removal as president of the Rochester Locust Club.

Why is this important?

We’ve come to expect police union leadership to defend cops’ violence and abuse—but now Mike Mazzeo, president of the Rochester Locust Club, is saying it’s appropriate for a 9 year old—who wasn’t even a suspect—to be manhandled, handcuffed, and ultimately pepper-sprayed by police officers.

It’s beyond excessive use of force, and it appears that the child’s 4th amendment rights were violated. But Mazzeo thinks the cops’ actions were appropriate:

• “Those officers in those scenes, they broke no policy. There’s nothing that anyone can say they did that’s inappropriate.”

• “I don’t know who could do any better job.”

• “It resulted in no injury to her. Had they had to go and push further and use more force there’s a good chance she could have been hurt worse.”

No community, especially its Black and brown folks, should be expected to trust or respect a police department with someone like Mazzeo in a position of leadership.

Mike Mazzeo is the same police union leader who defended the officers who mocked, suffocated, and killed Daniel Prude. Mazzeo is also suing the state of New York to stop it from releasing the disciplinary records of Rochester police officers. Mazzeo’s defense of these officers—and his defense of the officers who killed Daniel Prude—are textbook examples of the playbook police unions use to shield violent and dangerous cops who are caught abusing their power and breaking the law:

• When police are caught doing something that is clearly wrong, say they were following protocol and blame their training.

• Deceive and lie to obscure and confuse the truth about what happened.

• Attack city officials, activists, and others in a position to hold police accountable.

It’s not just outrageous for Mazzeo to justify these officers’ violent actions towards a 9 year old girl—it’s a big part of what helps violent and biased police continue to get away with abuse. If Mazzeo can say these things and remain the leader of the police union, it virtually guarantees that Rochester police will continue to be unaccountable and violent. His behavior and way of thinking encourages police brutality, and it makes accountability for police and necessary reform impossible.

Mike Mazzeo has to go. Please join us in calling on Rochester’s Mayor, Chief of Police, City Council members, and Police Accountability Board to force Mazzeo’s departure, now.

[theusurpersdog]

He Would Make a Monster of Me

In the same way Dany’s political struggles reflect her personal misgivings, the way she interacts with everyone around her is a reflection of her internal struggle. Through the bonds/professional relationships she forms with Daario, Missandei, Hizdahr, Skahaz mo Kandaq, and Reznak mo Reznak, we see several different sides of Daenerys, as well as further understand what appeals or attracts her. While Daenerys was always going to make certain choices, the way she interacts with people close to her helps to push her into being a darker person, more paranoid and less willing to help.

Skahaz mo Kandaq and Reznak mo Reznak

Skahaz, more commonly referred to as the “Shavepate”, and Reznak are the two advisors Daenerys has that are highborn Meereenese. The way Daenerys interacts with the two of them offers a lot of insight into her thought processes; while she has a general distaste for both men, Dany much prefers the Shavepate and listens to many of his suggestions, while completely ignoring Reznak, even though on the surface they are the same. So, what is the difference?

The Shavepate firmly rejects Meereen; getting his nickname because he shaved his head, swearing off the hairstyles that are Meereenese tradition. While Reznak is also loyal to Dany, he does no such displays of elaborate commitment. Both men try desperately to keep Dany’s favor, showering her with all sorts of compliments and never daring to speak out of turn, but the Shavepate realizes something that Reznak does not; Daenerys’ hatred of Meereen is easily exploited. Because of this, he is able to keep Dany blind to all of his schemes and becomes a much more valued advisor than Reznak, even though Reznak would be a much more trustworthy ally for Dany.

Before I get into how Dany being manipulated by the Shavepate affects her arc, I want to make the case for the Shavepate’s duplicity. A Dance with Dragons is so detailed that a lot of people seem to miss how he works behind the scenes, but the more you re-read the more it stands out. The most suspicious thing he does is the implication that he is the one who poisons Dany’s locusts; I won’t lay the case for that out here, because the Meereenese Blot essays have already done that. Of course, that’s not a confirmed detail, but it makes much more sense than Hizdahr poisoning them; and as I’m about to argue, fits perfectly in line with the Shavepate’s previous actions.

Every chance he gets, the Shavepate tries to lead Daenerys towards violence as a solution to her problems. When the Sons of the Harpy kill one of Dany’s men, he suggests torture:

“Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”

“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him.”

It’s implied that he’s been torturing people before this, but he escalates the violence by involving innocents this time. As I laid out in my last post, this does nothing to help Dany; all of the information learned from the torture is false, and only works to turn the Nobles against her. Yet, through the entire book, Skahaz fights to keep torturing. That only makes sense if he is trying to sow discord between Daenerys and her enemies. He also suggests to Dany that she kill Hazzea’s father to keep the secret from getting out; while it’s easy to argue that the suggestion was made in good faith, it’s equally likely he hoped Daenerys would get caught killing one of the poor Meereenese and turn her remaining allies against her. And even if the suggestion was made in good faith, it does not speak well of him that he would kill a man for grieving his daughter.

And when Daenerys is tempted by Xaro Xhoan Daxos to leave Meereen, this is his reaction:

Reznak mo Reznak gave a piteous moan. “Then it is true. Your Worship means to abandon us.” He wrung his hands. “The Yunkai’i will restore the Great Masters the instant you are gone, and we who have so faithfully served your cause will be put to the sword, our sweet wives and maiden daughters raped and enslaved.”

“Not mine,” grumbled Skahaz Shavepate. “I will kill them first, with mine own hand.” He slapped his sword belt.

Reznak’s reaction is the one you would expect Dany’s advisors to have; having turned their backs on the most powerful people in the city, Reznak and Skahaz should depend on Dany to protect them. Yet Skahaz encourages her to leave, not fearing for his safety if she were to abandon the city. That suggests Skahaz has many friends to keep him safe, even though he has never mentioned these powerful friends to Dany.

And, even more suspiciously, he slowly builds himself an army right under Daenerys’ nose, with her permission. The Brazen Beasts are technically sworn to serve Dany, but they wear masks and change every day, and she thinks to herself she has no idea who they are. In practice, they would be the Shavepate’s men; that’s made clear through Quentyn and Barristan’s chapters after Daenerys leaves, when Skahaz uses them to stage a coup. The more you go through Skahaz’s actions and analyze the advice he gives Dany, it becomes abundantly clear he has a lot going on behind the scenes - none of it particularly in Dany’s favor.

Yet she doesn’t notice any of it; yes, she has general suspicions, but she is much more wary of Reznak, even though he has none of the red flags Skahaz does (him begging her to stay is more than enough proof that he is loyal to her; if he were going to betray her, it makes no sense to try and keep her if she would willingly go. And it also suggests he has no other allies or backup plans; he needs Dany to stay). She overlooks Skahaz’s strange behavior because she wants to listen to him; she wants to torture and punish the Meereenese nobles so she lets him, and even though she isn’t seriously tempted to kill Hazzea’s father, she isn’t repulsed by the idea (as she should be) because a part of her wants to believe he is a liar and deserves to die.

Daenerys is very good at resisting many types of flattery, never being fooled by Hizdahr’s compliments or Xaro Xhoan Daxos’ proclamations of her beauty. But she is easily fooled by the flattery of agreement; she gives Skahaz far too much power because he shows as much distaste for the city as she does. In previous books, there were hints that Dany did not take kindly to being disagreed with, like when she snapped at Jorah or Barristan, but it was always tempered by her own indecision; when she asked them for advice, she genuinely didn’t know what she was going to do. But she knows what she wants to do in Meereen, and just needs someone to tell her it’s okay, which Skahaz is eager to do. By simply disliking Meereen, Skahaz can convince Daenerys to do almost everything he asks, while gaining status and power.

Daario Naharis and Hizdahr zo Loraq

Daario and Hizdahr are Dany’s two suitors through A Dance with Dragons, and the way Dany responds to them, loving one and feeling nothing for the other, is incredibly insightful as to what drives her. I talked a lot about Dany’s hatred of Meereen in my first meta, and her relationships with Skahaz and Reznak works as a great illustration of that; and on the surface, the same is true of Daario and Hizdahr. But, while Hizdahr’s Meereenese ties definitely influences Dany’s opinions of him, her apathy towards him isn’t driven by it; she isn’t attracted to him because she simply isn’t. Yet she feels an almost magnetic pull to Daario. This contrast is very telling.

The relationship Dany has with Hizdahr is notable for how little is actually there. Through her chapters, much is made over the marriage that may or may not happen, depending on Hizdahr following through with 90 peaceful days, but almost all of the thoughts Dany has focus more on the idea of marriage itself, and how that would ruin her relationship with Daario; Hizdahr himself isn’t very important to her. Unlike everything else connected to Meereen, which Dany absolutely hates, she feels nothing strongly (positive or negative) about Hizdahr; perhaps because he is quick to disassociate himself from traditional Meereenese things, shaving his hair, abandoning his tokar, offering to marry her, quickly obliging to the requests she makes to change the wedding customs, and so on. She thinks to herself how annoying it is that he always asks about the fighting pits, but in a playful way that is more jest than anger. I say all of this to make one thing clear: Daenerys has no moral issue with Hizdahr. He may or may not be a better or worse person than Daario, considering he owned slaves and is looking out for himself in stopping the killings and going along with Dany, but that’s not what turns her off to him (it does bother her when they attend the fighting pits together, but that is after they have entered a loveless marriage). Throughout her chapters, she thinks to herself that he is handsome and well-spoken, even charming. She just doesn’t love him:

Hizdahr took her by the shoulders as tenderly as if she were a baby bird. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was light and dry and quick. Dany felt no stirrings.

"Shall I … kiss you again?" he asked when it was over.

"No." On her terrace, in her bathing pool, the little fish would nibble at her legs as she soaked. Even they kissed with more fervor than Hizdahr zo Loraq. "I do not love you."

Oppositely, Daenerys is passionately in love with Daario, who she does have moral issue with:

“He would make a monster of me,” she whispered, “a butcher queen.”

He has a sellsword’s conscience, she realized then. That is to say, none at all.

Further, Daario’s amorality is what she finds attractive in him. GRRM’s POV structure means that we see the world through Dany’s eyes, therefore everything we know is filtered through her understanding; and all we know of Daario is his outlandish physical appearance, that he is a sellsword, and that he is a terrible person. Dany doesn’t know anything about his life, how he grew up, or any other personal details.

Barristan brushes this off as young girls always wanting the hottest, flashiest man to be with (which says a lot more about him than her. . .), but there is a lot more going on. A huge part of why she is attracted to Daario is how guiltless he is. As I’ve tried to detail through all the books, Dany has these impulses to “be a dragon”, to sack cities and conquer continents, burning whoever gets in her way; the only problem being how awful she feels about the collateral damage. I’ll get into it even more in my next meta, but Daario is very similar to Daenerys, but he has none of the moral hang-ups she does. He is living proof that her worst impulses are okay. So, after Hazzea’s death, when she is questioning her own morality for allowing that to happen and has to chain her dragons, she uses Daario as an escape.

She knows that she could never sleep with him or marry him, and at first barely allows herself to think of him; she intentionally sends him away from her, and only lets herself lust after him but not act on those feelings. But the more she has to commit to Meereen, the more she begins to break her own rules. And when she has to make the ultimate sacrifice and commitment to Meereen in marrying Hizdahr, she finally gives in and sleeps with Daario. The more Daenerys gives to Meereen, the more she allows herself to escape into Daario. This isn’t strictly bad – Daenerys is giving a lot to Meereen, and everyone needs some way of escaping.

But Daario isn’t a pure escape as much as he’s an excuse. At the end of A Storm of Swords, Daenerys makes the choice to stay in Meereen, temporarily giving up her pursuit of the Iron Throne. But when she made that choice, she didn’t fully understand the weight of it, thinking she could still be the mother of dragons. But Hazzea’s death makes her realize that she has to give up that part of herself; and from that moment forward, everything Dany does in Meereen is one more piece she has to give away. And on the surface, she is giving these pieces away, sacrificing her dragon nature for the good of her people. But the more pieces she gives away, the more intense her affair grows with Daario. The more she ties herself to the city, the more she withdraws from it:

On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart.

Daenerys’ dragons are too big a temptation for her to really give up, and Daario is the way she holds onto that piece of herself. And while she feels forced into giving up her dragons, mostly by her own feelings of guilt, Daario never makes her feel ashamed of that part of herself:

And who would ever dare to love a dragon?

She found herself thinking of Daario Naharis once again

Missandei

The relationship between Daenerys and Missandei is one of the most complex bonds Daenerys has, and is one of many that pulls her in two different directions. Missandei looks up to Dany as a mother, and even convinces Daenerys to see herself that way. But underneath the maternal themes of their relationship, it reveals how inherently childlike Daenerys still is at heart, in both good and bad ways.

When I say “childlike”, I don’t mean immature, petulant, or stupid. The way Daenerys interacts with Irri and Jhiqui is much better at illustrating those aspects of Dany’s character, since her handmaidens are similar in age to her, yet Dany treats them very different than she treats herself. In her first chapter, she thinks this:

Dothraki were wise where horses were concerned, but could be utter fools about much else. They are only girls, besides. Her handmaids were of an age with her

Daenerys is often dismissive of Irri and Jhiqui, largely because of their age, yet doesn’t see herself as a young girl even though they are the same age. She can see all the flaws of youth in her handmaidens, but can’t see them in herself. This is best on display when Irri and Jhiqui argue over Rakharo:

“Rakharo is blood of my blood. His life belongs to me, not you,” Dany told the two of them. Rakharo had grown almost half a foot during his time away from Meereen and returned with arms and legs thick with muscle and four bells in his hair. He towered over Aggo and Jhogo now, as her handmaids had both noticed. “Now be quiet, I need to bathe.”

Daenerys’ impatience with Irri and Jhiqui’s crush is intensely hypocritical, considering her own near-obsession with Daario Naharis.

But her relationship with Missandei brings out a different kind of inner child in Daenerys, and the way the two interact is fascinating. In Meereen, Dany is constantly arguing with everyone; Skahaz and Reznak are out for themselves and she fights with them often, Hizdahr tries to make her more Meereenese, Daario tries the opposite, and Barristan pushes her toward Westeros. Amongst all the fighting, Missandei is the only one who always agrees with Dany:

Only the little scribe Missandei seemed to share the queen's misgivings.

only Missandei seemed to hear

The way that Daenerys and Missandei always agree draws an interesting connection; to see through Dany’s eyes is to see through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl. This isn’t entirely bad; Dany looks at things with a clarity that only children can. She can look at something horrible, like the Unsullied in Astapor, or the poor Lhazareen women, and instantly feel sick over it; unlike the adults around her, who find it easy to justify horror. And when the sick people from Astapor are outside the walls of Meereen, it allows Dany to be the only one unconflicted about helping them.

But it can also be an extremely negative character trait. The same clarity that Dany uses to help people also forces her into a certain simplicity; children see the word in black and white. She fails to see her own responsibility in what happened to the Lhazareen women, fails to see the patterns she perpetuates with the Unsullied, and so on. Particularly in Meereen, this becomes a problem. In Dany’s eyes, her deciding to stay should be the end of her problems; she chose to do the right thing, so why is everyone fighting her on it? She doesn’t understand that even though the city being taken from the Masters was a good thing, the savage way it was done leaves scars. Looking all the way back to A Game of Thrones, it’s clear that Daenerys doesn’t understand that sometimes doing the right thing is hard. She spends the whole book trying to fight this truth about herself, constantly trying to seem, to be, older than she is. But she can’t, because it is the only reason she chose to stay in Meereen:

“I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”

Back when I wrote about A Storm of Swords, I said Daenerys may not be capable of happiness; the same pervasive melancholy that defined Rhaegar seemed to follow Daenerys, too. And this is why: the young girl in her wants too many different things. She’s impatient and selfish, wanting to take what is hers, to sail to Westeros and sit the Iron Throne. But the conquest makes her feel tired and weary; war does not sit with her. So she tries, many times through every book, for peace; but peace does not sit with her either. She cannot be happy. Unless something breaks; a piece of her gives up, making way for her other desires.

Betrayals

In every relationship she has, Daenerys is constantly searching for signs of betrayal. Since the House of the Undying, she knows she is destined for two more betrayals (under the assumption Mirri Maz Duur was the first), and when Ser Jorah’s treason was revealed at the end of A Storm of Swords, Daenerys starts to grow genuinely paranoid:

“What if Daario has betrayed me and gone over to my enemies?”

Other nights she tossed in her bed, imagining that he'd betrayed her, as he had once betrayed his fellow captains in the Stormcrows

Has Reznak made common cause with Hizdahr and the Green Grace and set some trap to snare me?

The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?

It gets to the point that all Daenerys can see is potential slights against her:

The tumblers who came next failed to move her either, even when they formed a human pyramid nine levels high, with a naked little girl on top. Is that meant to represent my pyramid? The queen wondered. Is the girl on top meant to be me?

Daenerys has been worried ever since Mirri Maz Duur “betrayed” her, and the Undying made it worse, but the precarious politics of Meereen serve to push Daenerys over the edge, where she has trouble trusting anything and starts to treat people in a way that would cause their betrayals.

Foreshadowing

Quaithe reappearing in Dany’s life instigates her obsession with prophecies and betrayals by giving her a new set of riddles:

“Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.”

Through this series of metas, I’ve mostly focused on the foreshadowing that comes from Dany’s character development, and ignored breaking down some of the more blatant author attempts to clue in his audience. But A Dance with Dragons really pushes those elements into high gear, because Daenerys already has one set of prophecies, and then receives another quite early in the book and is left pondering what it means through all of her chapters.

And that’s actually very unique within A Song of Ice and Fire. While there is plenty of prophecies, they are almost never actually told to someone; the prophecy of Azor Ahai isn’t given to Stannis, he hears it and makes it his own, and the same thing occurred with Rhaegar and the Prince that was Promised. The only other character to actually be given a prophecy is Cersei (I’ll write more about that connection some other time . . .); so the choice to have Dany know that certain things will happen to her, and have her struggle to understand what it all means, is very interesting.

One thing I think people forget is that Dany’s interpretation of her prophecies is entirely fallible; just as Cersei is convinced Tyrion will be her valonqar, Daenerys interprets some of her prophecy wrong in an attempt to put it behind her; wanting to believe that Ser Jorah and Brown Ben Plumm are her second and third betrayals so she won’t have to fear anymore. But I’m very convinced Jorah is not Dany’s betrayal for gold; he himself says many times that he didn’t do it for money, and even Dany’s subconscious knows that (this excerpt is from her hallucinations on the Dothraki Sea):

"You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold."

For home. Home was all I ever wanted.

I believe Dany still has two more major betrayals coming in The Winds of Winter or A Dream of Spring. I’m not sure of what her betrayal for gold will be (perhaps Euron, since there seems to be a connection drawn between her loves and betrayals?), but A Dance with Dragons offers many clues as to her betrayal for love, which I am convinced is Jon Snow. Starting in A Storm of Swords, Dany starts to notice that her dragons fight often amongst each other, mostly due to bullying by Drogon; considering Drogon has always been a stand-in for Daenerys herself, I don’t think it’s too much of a leap to assume this foreshadows how she will interact with the other two “heads of the dragon”, Jon likely being one.

A Dance with Dragons is also the book that changes how Dany will come to Westeros; before, she was very focused on how she would be received, worrying about bringing Dothraki and thinking that she wanted people to cheer her on. But the choice she makes in her last chapter means that can’t happen anymore. Not coincidentally, A Dance with Dragons is also the book that has a lot of imagery of Daenerys and wolves:

Dany would make a poor meal for a wolf or lion, but even a poor meal was better than none.

"The Lamb Men. Would that lambs had teeth."

"That would make the wolves more cautious, no doubt."

My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows, she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb.

All of these examples are illusions to the Starks, but there is one particular instance that can only be Jon:

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry.

I tie this specifically to Jon because of the context in which it is said (these lines fall directly before the above quote):

Poison. It had to be poison. The honeyed locusts. Hizdahr urged them on me, but Belwas ate them all. She had made Hizdahr her king, taken him into her bed, opened the fighting pits for him, he had no reason to want her dead. Yet who else could it have been? Reznak, her perfumed seneschal? The Yunkai’i? The Sons of the Harpy?

Daenerys is contemplating the idea of her lover killing her, and then hears a wolf howl that makes her feel sad and lonely.

[scullyfemme]

Tasting More Than Wine

From the prompt sent in to @baronessblixen: M&S going to Napa Valley for a case, eventually they visit the wineries, get drunk and make out like there’s no tomorrow

I hope you like this!

s7 | 2k words | Mature | Tagging @today-in-fic | Read it on Ao3

---

In hindsight, they probably should have expected this from a case involving a winery.

“Oh, please stay for the wine tasting!” Mrs. Lancaster clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture that didn’t quite fit her upper-crust style and demeanor. “It’s the least we could do after you saved our crops. Free of charge!”

Mulder and Scully both stumbled over their words as they tried to refuse the offer.

“Oh, that’s-”

“We just-”

“We have our-”

“Our flight.”

Mrs. Lancaster simpered. “Why, that’s not until tomorrow!” She moved between the two and hooked each of their arms in one of hers, surprisingly strong as she led them into the ornate building. Inside, a crowd of other upper-class strangers were mingling before the tasting.

“Mrs. Lancaster, we couldn’t-”

“Oh, what the FBI doesn’t know won’t hurt them!” She winked before slipping back through the doors and closing them, virtually locking the two in with some of California’s most affluent.

It was one of the top wineries in the region with very “exclusive” tours and tastings. And by exclusive, they mean expensive. So much so that it was nearly only millionaires who could afford to attend in their crisp linen shirts and thousand-dollar sundresses. Which meant that Mulder and Scully — in their department-store business wear — stuck out like sore thumbs.

Everyone in the room seemed to give them a once-over at the same time. All drew the same conclusion that whoever these two were, they were not worth their highly valuable time. But the tasting soon started, which gave them something to do.

Mulder and Scully, as usual, stood apart from the crowd. They hung near each other and made no attempts to try conversing with the people who likewise were not interested in conversing with them.

Mulder looked around at the women in the room, who reminded him of his childhood summers at the Vineyard. The older women resembled his mother’s DAR friends in their pristine dresses and perfect, sparkling jewelry. The younger women — who were few and far between — made him think of the privileged, prissy rich girls from his boarding school and Oxford days. Ignoring the five S’s of wine tasting, he downed his next sample like a shot. Scully noticed.

Scully, meanwhile, observed the men in the room. Unlike Mulder, she hadn’t had much childhood experience with rich people. But she’d rubbed elbows — well, more like jabbed elbows — with a fair few in med school. The older men who used their status as esteemed doctors to try and take advantage of her, who didn’t care one lick about a patient’s well-being as long as they got their paycheck. The younger men who slept in class while their fathers paid for their grades, then would shamelessly hit on her as if she wanted anything to do with them. She downed her next sample like a shot. Mulder noticed.

Half an hour later, the two were on the verge of tipsy when one exceedingly brave soul decided to debase himself by speaking to them.

“So, are you two…” The younger man eyed them both up and down in assessment. “Businessmen?”

“Uh, FBI agents, actually,” Mulder said while Scully bristled at the fact that the man’s eyes had lingered on her chest for far too long.

“Ah.” They could both see the man’s mind failing to connect the dots between FBI agents and super-expensive wine tasting. “Well, if you’ll excuse me.” He left without waiting to see if they would.

“Must have been hoping to close a deal,” Mulder muttered.

Scully rolled her eyes. “If it weren’t for the alcohol, I’d say this is the worst thanks we’ve ever gotten for a case.”

He chuckled. “Then what would you say is the worst thanks we’ve ever gotten?”

She thought for a moment. “That time we were drugged and the whole town left.”

“I wouldn’t call that a thanks.”

“Well, it was still a pretty shitty end to a case.”

His eyebrows shot up at her curse. Her tongue must have been loosened by the alcohol.

“I’d say chasing a bug man through the California vineyards is pretty shitty,” he countered.

“Mulder, it wasn’t a bug man. It was a swarm of bugs.”

“No, I told you, Scully, it dissolved into a swarm after I shot the bug man.”

“Mulder, that doesn’t make any sense. How could one giant bug — or bug ‘man,’ as you put it — just dissipate into thousands of smaller bugs? Just because you shot it?”

“Wh- It left after that, didn’t it? And what about those fish that, uh, that school together to form one big fish?”

“They don’t actually form one big fish, they just look like one big fish in order to scare away predators.”

“Okay, well what if these bugs did the same thing? Or used to do the same thing, but now actually forming one big bug was the next step in the evolutionary chain?”

“That’s not how evolution works. And where does the ‘man’ part come in? You specifically said it was a bug man, Mulder.”

An older woman wearing a pearl necklace shot Scully a horrified look as she walked by, overhearing the conversation. Scully resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her just to show her what she thought of this upper-class decorum.

“So you’re saying you’d rather believe it was...what? A plague of locusts? In Napa Valley?” Mulder asked.

“I never said it was a plague of locusts, Mulder. But infestations happen all the time. I still don’t even know why we were called out for this case in the first place instead of an exterminator.”

“Well, apparently if you own the best winery in the Valley, you can have the whole of the FBI at your beck and call.” Mulder’s tone was dry as he sipped his wine.

“Here, take mine.” Scully offered out her glass.

“You don’t like it?”

“Smells like vinegar.”

He had to agree, but at this point alcohol was alcohol. He knocked it back and put her glass down nearby, not noticing how she eyed him.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The man who was leading the tasting spoke gently but still managed to gather everyone’s attention. “If you’ll gather ‘round, our next bottle is quite the specialty.”

Mulder went to follow the crowd, but was stopped by Scully pinching his jacket sleeve to hold him back. He looked down at her curiously, and she tilted her head as she turned away, indicating for him to follow her. He obliged, watching with raised eyebrows as she checked to make sure no one was looking before swiping an open bottle of wine and ducking out the side door. Stomach twisting with giddiness at her behavior, he quickly followed.

The side door led to the large processing area of the winery, which was thankfully empty at this time of day. Their quick steps slowed to a leisurely stroll as they got farther from the door, both feeling fueled by adrenaline as if they’d escaped some monster as opposed to rich people who couldn’t care less that they were gone.

“I hope you didn’t grab the bad wine,” he joked, sticking his hands in his pockets as they moved through the warehouse-like space.

Scully sniffed the open bottle before taking a large swig, making a loud pop sound as she pulled it away from her mouth and offered it to him. “S’alright.”

He tried to ignore how his heart skipped a beat as he watched her drink, clearing his throat before taking the bottle. “Where are we going?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. I just figured you were getting as tired of being around those people as I was.”

He nodded thoughtfully, taking a swig from the bottle. As he handed it off, he noticed her eyeing him with an unfamiliar expression. He thought he knew all of Scully’s looks, but this one was different. It was a cross between intrigue and...desire? No, that couldn’t be right.

But the way she averted her gaze, her cheeks flushed, made him wonder if maybe that was the right guess.

They rounded a turn and found themselves in a surprisingly secluded corner with a machine that could easily function as a bench for the two of them to sit on. Scully sat casually with her legs apart — the way she often did while in pants — and drank from the bottle.

They sat quietly for a while, passing the bottle between them. It was a companionable silence, both mulling over their separate issues with the people at the wine tasting. At one point, mind slightly numbed by the wine, he spoke up.

“We should probably stop drinking if we want to be able to drive back to the motel.”

With a look of defiance, Scully swiped the bottle from him and took a large gulp, holding eye contact the entire time. Mulder shifted in his seat, wanting to look away but feeling trapped in her gaze. She pulled the bottle away with another pop and continued staring him down. The room felt hot — nearly suffocating — and he wondered if she could hear how irregular his breathing was.

She arched a brow. “Only one of us needs to drive.”

He dropped his jaw in mock offense, grateful for the opportunity to play off how turned on he was. “So you’re just gonna keep drinking without me?”

“Mulder, this is thousand-dollar wine. It shouldn’t go to waste.” She smirked. “No matter how bad it is.”

He huffed a laugh and stole the bottle back, watching her raise her eyebrows in question as he took a sip. Eager to remark, he pulled the bottle away too quickly, a drop of wine rolling down the neck. He quickly caught it with his tongue on instinct, used to doing so with his beer bottles. What he wasn’t used to was Scully’s expression, which had rapidly switched from curiosity to something drastically different. He stared back at her, thinking how his desire was mirrored in her expression, as he slowly lowered the bottle to rest beside him.

In the blink of an eye, they both leaned in, lips crashing together with the urgency of two people who wanted each other more than they cared to admit. Her nails dug into his shoulder as his hand gripped her hair. They’d kissed before — minor ones, like the one at New Year’s. But this was messy and hungry, nothing at all like their previous encounters. She was straddling him before he’d even realized she moved, her hands grasping at any part of his torso she could reach. His hands moved in a similar way, both of them desperate to touch each other — to feel each other — as much as they could.

Scully moved from his lips to his jaw, then down his neck with fervor. He let out a sigh that was almost a moan. He swore he felt her grin against his pulse before grinding down on what was now a prominent erection. His moan wasn’t stifled this time as he tugged her back up by the hair and captured her lips with his again. Her hands wandered down to palm him through his pants, eliciting another moan before she started working at his button and zipper. Was she—?

The loud sound of a door slamming shut on the other side of the large warehouse interrupted them, making it so he wouldn’t find out what she was about to do. They both froze, then jolted apart for fear of whoever was here finding them like this. They righted themselves as quietly as they could, then ducked down in hopes of staying undetected by the intruder. Mulder didn’t dare look over at her as they both tried to calm their heavy breathing that was caused by multiple types of adrenaline.

Heels clicked loudly on the concrete floor, never coming near them as their owner briskly walked from one door to another. The second door clanked shut just as loudly.

They stayed stock-still, listening for any hints that there was anyone else in the room. After a few moments, they both let out equal sighs of relief. Mulder looked over at his partner, who was eyeing him with what he could clearly identify as lust. But there was reservation there, too. Maybe due to almost being caught. Maybe due to the fact that they’d almost just fucked for the first time in a winery. After seven years, it was far from how either of them had probably imagined their first time.

“We should-”

“Yeah.”

They stood up straight, fixing their hair and clothes even further. Scully glanced up at him, then mimed wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb, a sheepish expression on her face. Mulder took the hint and ungracefully wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He eyed the lipstick that came off with a small smile.

They started heading for the nearest exit but Scully stumbled a bit, grabbing his arm for support as she steadied herself. She kept a hold of his arm as they continued walking.

“Jeez, Scully, how much wine did you have?” He teased.

She didn’t respond, instead turning her head away from him so he couldn’t see her expression. Maybe it wasn't the wine.

“I think we should get back to the motel.” Her tone was casual, but her grip on his arm was suggestive of something else.

He swallowed thickly. There was no way he could drive their rental in this state of inebriation and arousal. And Scully was definitely in a similar — if not worse — way.

“Maybe we should call a cab.”

She smirked. “Maybe Mrs. Lancaster would be oh-so-grateful enough to lend us a limo.”

[theliterateape]

Why Can't We Just Share the Last Slice of Pizza?

by Don Hall

I had the first TV dinner in possibly forty-years a few weeks ago and it was kind of incredible.

Sure, it was a Hungry Man® chicken and mashed potatoes concoction and had more sodium than a bucket of sea water but it was still oddly delicious and covered in a gravy comprised of nostalgia and gluten. I didn't buy the frozen tray in a cardboard box. No, my wife has, in the pandemic, taken to rebranding her self as a 'resource locator' otherwise known as a 'dumpster diver.'

It sounds odd but I'm convinced that when the Second Great Depression takes hold, I'm married to the most resourceful and extraordinary partner on the planet. She finds brand new shoes, genuine Shriner fez's, and food. Cans of food thrown away. Expired bags of pretzels. And still-frozen TV dinners.

The nostalgia of consuming this marvel of the fifties, the fully-prepared dinner, ready to heat and eat in front of the television comes from my youth. In terms of economic status there were times in my earliest days when we were 'poor'. Now, mom wouldn't let us use that word to describe our situation. She preferred to say we were 'broke'. That distinction was my first lesson in reframing your perspective to fuel optimism.

Whichever it was called it was common practice growing up to eat TV dinners and mom would cut each portion in half (even the weird lava-like brownie or apple-crunch) so we had a meal the next day as well.

When we couldn't afford a Swanson-manufactured meal, she'd make what she called 'Spanish Rice'—Minute rice, a green pepper, tomato sauce, and Tabasco—another rebranding that certainly made this odd and rough cultural appropriation seem both unsavory and about as white as it could be.

Mom worked hard. My recollection was that she was often working several jobs and doing the best she could to keep us in clothing and food with a roof over our heads despite the fact that the minimum wage at the time was $1.60. She also had a way of reframing things so that, at no point, did we feel like we were missing out on much.

On top of that raising me could not have been easy.

We moved around a lot so I was always the new kid in school. Even with teachers and administrators, there is a tribal imperative to put the new members in their place, establishing the rules of behavior and assigning the slot for the newest members. I was never much of a conformist so this dance of going along to get along didn't take. All of which made my struggling mother's life one of battling the powers that be to protect her less than socialized monkey-son.

There are stories. The time I was forbidden to speak in class so I drew pictures of a butt and a butt pooping to silently curse some kids out. The incident of my failing to stay put during classes and finding escape routes during lunch that caused an epic battle as the Vice Principal decided to ban me from the Free Lunch program out of pique and spite. The summer when I was caught beating up Cub Scouts because they wouldn't let me join due to my mother's financial inability to buy me the requisite uniform.

There's an image I have in my head of my tiny mother almost coming to blows with a much larger woman because the woman called us "poor white trash." We were white but my mother wouldn't abide her children embracing the twin ideas of us being poor or being trash.

“No, Donald. You cannot just eat the last piece of pizza. You need to learn to share.”

In Chicago there's a thing called 'dibs.' 

Sometimes it snows big and the streets are plowed but the parking spots are all but obliterated by small mountains of snow. The diligent among residents get their shovels out of the garage and clear out the snow from in front of their homes so that they will then have a place to park. They have done the work, so they feel entitled to the benefits of that labor.

The problem lies with those who do not shoulder in and remove the snow yet still feel entitled to park on public streets that they, after all is said and done, have paid for with their tax dollars.

Thus 'dibs.' The shoveler decides to put a lawn chair or card table or statue of the Virgin Mary in the spot they have labored over so when they come home from work, the spot has been saved for them and them alone.

It all sounds silly until you look at from an economic perspective. There are more cars in Chicago than there are legal places to park. It's a fact. The demand for spaces is greater than the supply. Parking tickets cost drivers thousands of dollars a year and the 'ticket dicks' are as numerous as the homeless. When it snows and the plows come through there are suddenly even less spaces than there were the night before.

Given the city will clear the roads but not the curbs the solution for half the population is to carve out their own space and the other half parks wherever they can. Those who take the spots but do not shovel are capitalizing on the labor of those who do and it pisses them off.

“No, Donald. You cannot just eat the last piece of pizza. You need to learn to share.”

I was thirteen. I was growing. I ate like a fucking locust with the table manners of the Cookie Monster. There it was—the last piece. I wanted it. My sister was small and weak. What was she gonna do?

“Offer your sister the last piece.”

“…do you want the last…”

“YES!” she barked and shoved the whole piece in her mouth.

“That’s NOT FAIR! We coulda split it! That’s not sharing, that’s theft!”

That’s Capitalism. Cut throat. Haves and Have Nots. It is simply not in human nature to share. In all of recorded history there has always been, in every society and civilization, when approached with abundance, a small percentage of those at the top and a much larger percentage at the bottom. Call it what you want—winners and losers, the One Percent and the Ninety-Nine (great name for a prog rock band), Bourgeoisie and Proletariat—it all amounts to the same dynamic.

It occurs to me that in the fight to get people fired from their jobs for tweeting arguably terrible things the double standard in place is exceptionally capitalist. On the ‘cancel culture’ side is the idea that people should be held accountable for their words in the world and, if they cross the line, then employers should fire them. On the other side, these same people will scream that an employer who decides that a kid wearing the costume of his culture or using grammatically incorrect language cannot be fired.

Both are individuals putting themselves and their ability to express themselves at the center of a business that has little to do with the individual. Everyone should have the right to their own specific identity as they see fit but no one should have the right to exert themselves above a business that pays them a salary in order to center things on them.

It’s frustrating. Economic class is the true great divider in the world. Because it is so ingrained in the human experience to live with those who have the cash and many who do not, economic class seems an unassailable unfairness. It’s an immovable and undeniable trait in societies of every stripe. 

The landlord who leverages herself to get loans to buy an apartment building, fix it up to be livable, and rents it out to people has shoveled the snow. The tenant who claims it is unfair to be evicted from that apartment building because they cannot pay the rent is parking wherever there is a spot.

And it pisses everybody off.

No, it is neither race nor gender that is the engine of inequity. It’s almost entirely economic class.

Since the existence of class is so ever-present and unmoving, we focus on other things to change society. The battle to curb billionaires has never really taken hold despite the obvious problems they present. So we focus on race, we focus on gender. We spend our energy ignoring that most of inequity that exists between humans is about economics and find as many differences between those of us on the Have Not side as we can.

Why is it so hard to get rid of billionaires and that pernicious One Percent? Because we all want what they have. We all want the last piece of pizza and the parking space. We all want the luxury of luxurious things. We resent the things we'd have to do to get that luxury so instead we tear at anyone and everyone to gain whatever slice we can.

No one wants to shovel out that goddamned parking space. Trust me. In thirty years of living in Chicago, I shoveled tons and tons of snow to get that coveted spot. I never did the 'dibs' thing but I empathize with the fury at someone taking that spot I've labored over. 

Study after study indicates that it is economic class that holds us back far more than race or gender but the road to power is through a perception of grievance these days and the only evil when presenting poverty as the problem is human nature. Men and women can be demonized. That game has been around for-freaking-ever. African Americans can demonize whites (but not black Americans because African immigrants in America do, on average, far better economically than whites). We can go the People of Color vs White People but, in order to make that case, Asians have to be ignored or made white-adjacent. 

No, it is neither race nor gender that is the engine of inequity. It’s almost entirely economic class. Not that acknowledging that will change anything.

The utopian ideals of Socialism and even Communism sound better than Capitalism. The problem is the humans are built from the DNA to compete. Compete for resources, for sexual partners, for jobs, for shelter. Competition is as instinctual as our desire to procreate and Capitalism is a competitive sport. Throughout history, progress toward learning to truly share that slice of pizza is slow because it goes against our very nature. Not impossible and thus worth the effort but fucking S-L-O-W.

A friend recently posited that maybe I have gained some wisdom in my aging. He then switched and decided that maybe what we think is wisdom is just age plus exhaustion. Whichever it is, I have learned to share. I've also learned that in order to share, I have to assume my offer of the last piece of pie is going to be taken and stuffed into my sister's mouth. I can be wounded by the gesture, I can even be annoyed by it. I have to let it go.

I'm comfortable with the concept of enough. Meaning, if I have enough to share, I have enough to survive. Even if it's only enough of my mom's Spanish Rice.

There will be those, always those, who are so imbued with the need to compete that there is never enough. There will be those, perpetually those, who have not had enough and are willing to tear it out of the mouths of those who have.

And there will always be those, unendingly those, who are fine parking in the open spot knowing that someone else put in the work and not caring enough about anyone else that they take up the space and benefit from the labor without contributing.

On the best days, I don't run into them.

[doktorpeace]

🖊 please introduce us to Erato, I know they're in a masks campaign but I have no idea what else

Oh, gosh, I feel like I talk about them too much as is but I can’t say I’m not glad to have the excuse. This is gonna be really long cause tbh I’m just gonna dump like, a bunch of their lore lmao.

Erato is my Masks: A New Generation character in a campaign being played alongside @twerkyvulture (As Amanda ‘Megafauna’ Ghorbani, The Transformed) @draayder (as Josephine ‘Rattlesnake’ Short, The Reformed) @spitblaze (as Les ‘Void’ Hawking, The Doomed) @heedra (as Enid ‘Frag Beetle’ Day, The Scion) and @skarchomp (as Parker ‘Cobalt’ Andrews, The Legacy) with @dykeceratops as our GM. The current arc features @mechanicalriddle as Zoe, The Nova as a guest member. Here’s a group shot done by @tredlocity. Clockwise from the top left: Cobalt in blue, Erato in the track suit, Les in the cloak, Zoe with the mismatched eyes, Enid’s the big robot, Amanda’s got the scales and claws, and Josephine’s got the mask and tonfa.

To get back to Erato specifically though they’re an Anti Metahuman/Metahuman Suppression Weapon created by the in universe tech group Wright Industries, founded by Ingrid Day, Enid’s mom. They’re generally stronger, faster, and more durable than humans and can copy the superpowers of others for 5-10 minutes by touching them thanks to what is basically a meta-stem cell transplant interacting with other parts of their systems. (Also, I 100% swear to god that I did not consider ‘Robot Hero Who Copies The Powers Of Others’ is literally fucking Mega Man despite loving Mega Man a ton until after I had hashed out the concept with my GM’s assistance. Only once Abby said ‘oh like mega man’ I was like ‘wait, shit’.) I’ll tell you some about them as a person before unloading their history onto you, lol. Being an android built for combat and kept in an underground research lab, kept on a rigid schedule, constantly taking tests, physical, mental, written, oral, ethical, etc. etc. etc. and under constant supervision Erato lacked for real interactive experience before the campaign started only really ever getting to takl with authority figures and their sisters. They were very passive and observational, owing in part to their power set requiring a lot of adaptation to make the most of. They’re naive and very bad at exercising discretion in decision making, sometimes they overstep boundaries when talking with people without meaning to, and they’re really emotional! They have trouble dealing with strong emotions cause they haven’t managed to discover coping mechanisms that work well for them, they tend to get angry kind of easily and need time to blow off steam. But they’re also very genuine, honest, and well meaning. They are almost never mean, rude, or snippy, they do their best to do well by others, and have a strong sense of justice paired with a deep distrust and dislike of the current legal system in universe. This is in part due to the conditions of their creation (and in part because the intent behind it was kind of right!) and in part due to Enid’s life being threatened by a representative of the state while they and their teammates were in jail after being arrested following a huge brawl with an anti-methuman terrorist group. They’re also very willing to put forth the effort to improve as a person and to mend relationship wounds, almost always apologizing first to Enid when they fight and genuinely trying to work in advice and feedback they get from others, which they often get from Les and Parker. They’re also relatively educated, from the tests of their creators, from home and public schooling, from personal research, but that doesn’t undo their naivety. They also just straight up lack some very basic and/or common sense knowledge. Like, they don’t know what a bear is. Why would you teach a battle android working in a densely populated, extremely built up city about wild animals? All in all they’re kind of inexperienced and immature and make mistakes a lot but they’re (usually) very willing to admit their mistakes and to try and improve and get better. They genuinely and truly want what’s best for others and are learning to value them self as much as their teammates. They’ve also taken it upon them self to start doing humanitarian work in their free time over the summer. In a fight Erato is adaptive and quick witted but tends to put themself in more danger than is necessary. They also sometimes use more extreme force than the others believe is called for, but after the first time they did they and Parker had a real heart to heart about it, Les helped Erato learn and practice some coping, centering, behaviors they could do even under pressure and Erato did their best to adapt. That said they Fucking Hate The Keeper So God Damned Much Because Of How Much Suffering He’s Caused Their Friends And How Much Danger He Presents And Would Kill Him With No Remorse. So they don’t intend to apologize for ripping his arms off whatsoever. They and their sisters, collectively known as The Muse Units, were made to work as a group and as a proof of concept that atomized units could replace traditional police for use against metahuman criminals and to slowly phase out The Registry, the legal department which handles general metahuman based laws. If successful the units could be mass produced and improved upon, rapidly replacing current, error prone, law enforcement. At the time of their development, between late 1999 for blueprint drafting and until mid 2002 when the project was shut down, they were the cutting edge for AI development aided in no small part by Ingrid’s technokinetic powers allowing her to make advancements few others could. (As a note Erato’s body was finished being built in early 2001 but their unique personhood didn’t really come to fruition until February 18th, 2002, so that’s what I consider their ‘birthday’.) Ultimately, however, while a few of the Muses excelled some did not perform to expectations, the project fell behind schedule, investors lost interest, and a minor scandal involving a casualty happened, resulting in the project being shut down. The Muses were placed in indefinite storage, the data gained from their short existence used on other projects such and some of the tech advancements used to inform future decisions by the company. And it would have stayed that way, if not for the fact that in 2018 Ingrid Day was revealed to be The Locust in a conflict where Enid tried to defend her against a militia group who had been hired to take her down, being shot and presumably killed in the process. As The Locust she had been terrorizing Boston for over a decade trying to take it over and being involved in the deaths of over 70 people. (Which irl btw would make her like, the 8th most prolific confirmed serial killer of all time, Yikes!) Wright Industries, desperately needing to prove their hard stance against metahuman criminals and needing a PR stunt to deflect from their connection to their former CEO re-awakened Erato. They weren’t the most powerful or best performing of the Muses, but they were above average, obedient, and had an easy enough to monitor and control power set with little risk for property damage to boot, the perfect choice. Erato then took to the streets of Boston acting basically as a vigilante, following orders, stopping minor crimes, and sometimes working alongside the police. They attracted the attention of The Viceroy, a semi-retired 56 year old hero who never registered in spite of it being compulsory legally. They both have the ability to copy the powers of others, though he can just by sight, and he has body elasticity too. These make him durable and extremely adaptable, add to that his detective skills and he’s something of a local Boston legend. He took them in as his Protégé. Though they remained distant for quite some time with Erato still coming and going between his place and Wright Industries, having promised not to reveal his assistance to the doctors who Erato reported their work to. It was this way for about a year and a half before the campaign started and Erato began living with Viceroy full time, no longer wanting to go back to Wright Industries as they began to think more independently and consider what they wanted for them self more. During this time Erato had chance encounters with each of the other characters a few times as they also did minor vigilante work, peaking with a villain who is a member of Superhuman, an extremist pro-metahuman group, attacked the school that Josephine, Les, and Amanda all attend. After that incident Erato was prompted by Viceroy to contact each of these other young potential heroes to form a team, The Upstarts. Additionally during this time Viceroy took in Enid who had been abandoned by her biological father and had been getting bounced around foster care. Over time the three of them have become kind of a weird family, living in a warehouse full of cats with a couple of bedrooms grafted on and an ultra secret basement lair underneath full of advanced stuff Viceroy makes. Though Erato and Enid have definitely had their ups and down, more recently in the story (and we’ve been doing this campaign for well over a year now) they’ve been putting in serious effort to better their relationship and be good adoptive siblings to one another. I love their relationship a lot, they’re good kids.

That gets us up to the start of the campaign but hoo boy, I’ve been writing for like, an hour now. Since then Erato’s helped take down a nazi-aligned terrorist organization, they’ve got a boyfriend in their teammate, Les, and they’ve made friends outside of their core group of teammates. They’ve also enrolled in school doing well on some classes and poorly in others, namely learning how to Code and Woodworking. Currently they’re at a sleep away summer camp for superpowered kids called Camp Justice, about 10 miles outside of Boston. They really, really hate it there. Constant supervision, being made to do tests, things scheduled out against their will, inability to leave the area? Yeah that certainly reminds them of something. The difference between it and school, which does share these features, is they wanted to go to school. They very much Did Not want to go to camp. As a result they’re finally going to have to start facing the trauma they’ve got from their origin and also actually tell the others other than Les and Amanda about their sisters. Whiiiiich...Enid saw one of them disassembled and showed off in parts at a school science fair display set up by Wright Industries to gauge interest in students. And she hasn’t mentioned this to Erato...for 4 months Uh Oh! Lastly, here’s my tag I use mostly for art I make of them, it includes some texts posts and picrew dumps too though, lol. Feel free to look!

[yanderes-galore]

May i request yandere Reyna Diaz concept??😳😳

I can try... but it's going to be a bit difficult since human Reyna has such little screen time from what I've seen. Hope you like my small little analysis here :)

Yandere! Reyna Diaz Concept

(Gears 4/Human! Reyna Diaz)

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Trust issues, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Fear of loss, Trauma, Mentioned death, Threats, Dubious companionship/relationship.

For this concept I plan on focusing on Human! Reyna.

I'm not entirely sure if Swarm Queen! Reyna is even Reyna due to the theory of Myrrah possession.

So for this short set of HCs/concept... I will not include Swarm Queen! Reyna.

Since childhood, Reyna has been used to running and hiding.

She grew up rather isolated due to her birth from a lab facility.

She was taught how to hide, fight, and survive while keeping away from the COG.

Growing up she was considered a "Stranded", even during the Locust Wars.

She met Gabriel during such a time.

Soon enough she had a daughter with Gabriel, Kait.

Reyna never knew her mother... said mother was Queen Myrrah herself.

With some background down... I can now guess her yandere type.

Reyna would be attached to a fellow Outsider, a friend of Kait's, or someone she survived alongside with before meeting Gabriel.

Reyna has trust issues due to her father telling her not to trust anyone.

Due to this, Reyna most likely will be a slow yandere in terms of obsession growth.

She's a fierce warrior and tactician... which implies Reyna knows her way around surviving.

Perhaps she's good at tracking the whereabouts of her darling in case they run off?

Reyna would fall under the protective yandere category before becoming Swarm Queen.

She doesn't trust many and has her own close circle she calls family in the Outsiders group she's in.

Her yandere behavior may even be worse after Gabriel dies of Rustlung.

Reyna can be very caring once she trusts her obsession.

She doesn't really trust others around you due to her own experiences.

The only exceptions would be Oscar, Kait, JD, and Del.

If she met you when Gabriel was around, she would trust him around you too.

In a way, her obsession mirrors how she was treated by her father.

She wants to help you survive... she wants to hide you away... all for your protection.

It's all a very familiar concept for her.

She hates her father, but his teachings root themselves deep within her.

Safety is something she'd do anything to achieve.

Other Outsiders even notice Reyna become threatening or overly paranoid about you.

After Gabriel's death, she's become leader of this group.

This allows her to have more power over you... to keep you away from harm, of course.

She isn't too bad when she's human.

She genuinely is trying to care for you like how she was taught.

She cares about you...

The security is just meant to protect those she calls her family...

To her, the suffocating protection is better than the alternatives.

[lilithsgayadoptednephew]

Holy Hands

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!   Not Rated Graphic Depictions Of Violence F/M, Other Complete Work

Master List

Chapter 7

"Man I could've swore he was gonna kill you right there. I can't believe you actually stared him down" Acacia walked in front of MC as they made their way to the meetup. MC had texted Diavolo to meet them and he'd been more than happy.

"Well Lucifer's always had a soft spot for me. He's got a thing for me you know."

"Whaaaaat? No way. How do you know?"

"It's not like he hides it," MC shrugged. "I don't really lie to him, I trust he'll figure it out if I do. In return he doesn't lie to me." MC paused. "But I have a suspicion that's because he doesn't think I'm worth lying too." They scowled at the floor.

"Well...do you like him ?" Acacia grimaced as if the thought made her ill.

"I love him." That was the shortest, most honest answer they could give. "It's kind-of complicated."

"Ok well spare me the details then," Acacia raised a hand as if to physically block out the thought of their sibling liking someone.

"We're here" MC announced to the meeting room. Diavolo sat at a very official looking meeting-table with Barbatos at his left hand...and Lucifer at his right.

"Hello! Please please have a seat!" He greeted them jovially and gestured to the other two chairs at the table.

The humans took their seats, Acacia to MCs right.  One trying very hard not to look at Lucifer and the other staring at nothing else.

"You said you had some questions about your stay here MC?" Diavolo got the ball rolling.

"I have questions about the attack that led to my stay here, my Lord." Acacia gave MC the side eye when they said 'my lord' but they ignored it.

"I see…" Diavolo was cautious but didn't seem upset by the inquiry. "Well what would you like to know?"

MC and Acacia looked at each other. They'd practiced beforehand to make her feel better, but she still squirmed in the presence of the unfamiliar men.

"What was the creature that attacked MC?" She asked.

"Well I've already told you, it's been identified as one of Abaddon's giant locusts."

"Why did it attack?" MC countered smoothly.

"Those beasts are unpredictable, there's any number of reasons why it could've attacked you. Perhaps it was hungry."

"But it didn't try to eat MC!" Acacia was getting loud now. "It just tried to murder them! We wanna know why!" She slammed her fist on the table, making Diavolo raise his eyebrows and Lucifer's frown even deeper.

"Abbadon has refused to give a statement so for the time being this is all we know." Diavolo stated as if it were the end of the discussion.

MC didn't move.

"What aren't you telling us?" They asked coldly.

Lucifer interjected indignantly, "You dare accuse Lord Diavolo of lying?" He stood from his chair, four wings stretched high above his head to accentuate his size and power.

"Now now Lucifer, I think they have a right to be suspicious. We have hidden things in the past." Diavolo placated. Lucifer reluctantly sat back down. "What makes you think we know more?" He asked kindly.

"We don't think, we know." MC retorted in a voice like stone. Unbreakable.

"Should I escort them out my Lord?" Barbatos spoke up for the first time

"If you do we'll just come back." Acacia warned, MC placing a hand on her shoulder.

"We will get our answers." MC affirmed.

Lucifer was practically on fire, he was so angry. The insolence! After all Lord Diavolo had done for them they dare threaten him?!

Barbatos simply waited for an order.

Diavolo calculated for a moment, never taking his eyes off the siblings.

"Very well, there's no real sense in hiding it." He conceded.

"My Lord you must not reward this behavior!" Lucifer protested.

"I will conduct my business with the humans on my own terms thank you." His response was uncharacteristically cold. Lucifer shut up immediately.

"So?" MC urged, hand intertwining with Acacia's.

"The attack, yes, we have reason to believe there was...Divine involvement." He stated carefully.

MC and Acacia processed the information.

"Like...like God?" Acacia asked cautiously.

"Oh no nothing that direct…"

"Then what" Diavolo's attention turned back to MC.

"Well, angels haven't interfered in human affairs for many thousands of years but...there is reason to believe an angel organized the attack."

"Why?"

"That we still don't know." MC scrutinized the words. He'd been almost ashamed to say them. He was telling the truth, they didn't know why.

"Well why was this so important you had to hide it? What does it mean?"

"You can't even comprehend the ramifications of this" Lucifer interrupted. "It was pointless to tell you, I hope your search for answers was worth it."

Lucifer was unusually cruel in his tone and posture, so much so that Acacia put it together.

"Dang you're different around Diavolo. Chill out."

"I'm sorry" Diavolo shook his head, "you must forgive his outbursts...he is feeling a little targeted by this whole situation."

"Please my Lord...do not speak in my stead." His face blushed bright red in embarrassment at Diavolo's words.

"Well it's true, the mark we found was that of Michael wasn't it? I believe you two have quite a history." Lucifer was visibly squirming now. A welcome sight after his angry outbursts.

"Michael?" MC was not expecting such a high-ranked angel to be after them.

"Yes...and if it's true then it could mean another conflict brewing between realms." There it was, the reason this was an issue worth hiding. The reason Lucifer had been tearing his hair out and stressing in silence.

This could be a sign of another war.

Acacia seemed confused, "No...that's ridiculous. MC's not important enough to start something like that. No offense"

"None taken"

"Well we don't think you're the cause, but the attack could very well be a sign or symptom of rising tensions."

There was silence for a few beats before Acacia spoke up.

"So...that's it?"

"What do you mean 'that's it?'" Lucifer spat, still embarrassed from Diavolo's call-out."

"I mean is that really the big secret you've all been hiding?" She waved her hands wildly over her head as she spoke.

"As I suspected you don't fully understand the ramifications of this." Diavolo sighed. "We are facing a possible conflict among forces far beyond your perception. It could uproot not only our lives but the lives of everything in creation. It's an existential threat that we have no answer for and no way of pursuing one."

MC and Acacia exchanged a knowing look.

"That's pretty standard on Earth." MC shrugged.

"What?" Diavolo deadpanned.

"We're always being existentially threatened by forces beyond our understanding." They clarified.

"Yellowstone could blow!" Acacia suggested.

"We're overdue for a shift in magnetic poles causing world-wide loss of power."

"A rogue blackhole could swallow the solar system."

"Anti-vaxers could lead to another black plague that wipes out humanity"

"The dinosaur meteor incident could happen again!"

"Tensions between bratty entitled world leaders could lead to a nuclear world war."

"And don't get us started on global warming!"

The Demons just stared, what could you say to that?

"The thing is," MC concluded, "we've always dealt with huge looming threats we know nothing about. It's kinda silly to worry about this one if there's nothing we can do."

Diavolo looked to Lucifer for guidance. The prideful man just stared at the table.

"Well…" he cleared his throat, "I guess that concludes the meeting" his voice was unusually tight and he left rather abruptly. Barbatos followed close behind.

Lucifer watched them go. He looked back at the siblings and his entire demeanor had changed. Where he was irritated and entitled he was now pensive and stoic. He seemed like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He followed Diavolo out of the room.