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really-fanny-longbottom · 6 months ago

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echoes of the past

summary: a new rebellion in the court of nightmares brings the revelations from the past to the surface.

warnings: angst, mentions of death, loss, grief, forced marriage, violence, blood and fights.

words: 8.2k

rhysand hated this day.

he wished he had the power to be able to skip it every year.

as always, he found himself unable to sleep.

so, without the intention of disturbing his beautiful mate who was sleeping peacefully next to him, rhys slipped out of the room and went to his office, where he made sure to fill a glass to the brim with his most expensive whiskey and add three ice cubes before sitting in his black leather chair.

he sighed, passing a hand through his face and through his black hair, his violet eyes piercing into the painting on the wall.

the painting that caused pain in his heart every time he saw it but would never dare to get rid of.

not only because of the person who had offered it to him but also because of the two persons who were represented in it.

the two people who were dearer to him than anything in this world — his mother and sister.

the painting was remarkable.

his sister was sitting in a wooden chair with her long black hair loose over her shoulder, a violet dress with small sparkles at the ends of the fabric matched the color of her eyes, a silver star-shaped pendant decorated her neck and a pair of matching earrings in her slightly pointed ears.

his mother was standing next to the chair with one of her hands on her daughter's shoulder. she was wearing a shiny black dress with a small golden necklace decorating her neck while long earrings of the same color took place in her round ears.

their wings were beautifully painted with dark tones and a light red on the membranes, and both females had a tiara resting on top of their heads to match with the color of jewelry they wore.

rhys' favorite part was how feyre managed to portray the motherly love that filled his mother's eyes and his sister's innocent and caring smile.

it was just like he remembered.

feyre gave him the painting as one of her gifts for winter solstice.

the painting was given to him in the privacy of their bedroom, as feyre darling, thoughtful as always, felt that receiving the painting in front of their family might have been too much for rhys.

so, she gave him the gift after everyone went to their own rooms when the night of celebration came to an end.

there, rhys stared at the painting with tears in his eyes and a sinking heart.

when feyre had asked him to see his mother and sister, he had no idea it was for this reason.

there weren't enough words to express how grateful and loved rhys felt that night.

the painting now hung on the wall of his office behind his desk next to the painting of feyre that rhys had placed there after they moved into the river house.

the most important females in his life gathered on the same wall and how he wished it wasn't just on the wall that they were side by side.

it had been so long, but rhys remembered that day as it had been yesterday.

today marked the anniversary of their death — one hundred and ninety-seven years, to be exact.

one hundred and ninety-seven years since the day that changed his life forever.

one hundred and ninety-seven years of longing.

gods, how he hated this day.

his glass has already been refilled three times since he sat down in his chair, but before he could continue to drown his sorrows, several knocks on the door sounded throughout the office.

"come in," rhys said without taking his eyes from his loved ones.

heavy footsteps reached his ears after the door opened and stopped when they reached his desk.

with one last look at the beautiful females, the high lord turned in his chair and to find his brothers.

the males were wearing their illyrian leathers and weapons.

at the sight of his brothers, the ones he loves so dearly and went through so much together, he knew something was wrong.

because it wasn't his brothers that rhysand was seeing.

it was his general and spymaster, he realized.

rising to his full height and placing an air of indifference on his features, rhys assumed his role as high lord "what is it?"

"the court of nightmares." azriel began by telling him, "my spies haven't detected anything this past week. no fighting, no commotion, not even a sound. nothing."

the hairs on rhysand's arms stood up, and a shiver ran down his spine.

to an outsider, this would seem like a good sign, a sign of peace — it wasn't.

silence in the court of nightmares was worse than any reports of violence and screams.

rhys braced himself — they all knew what this meant.

cassian broke the silence, and his general's voice filled the office. "it's happening again," he said while crossing his muscled arms over his chest. "they're preparing for a new rebellion."

rhys let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, "not this again," he leaned against the desk before continuing. "why do they keep doing this?"

"have you noticed that it always happens around the same time?" azriel asked him, making his brother's gaze meet his, "the first rebellion happened on this same day one hundred and ninety-seven years ago. the second rebellion also took place on this same day, one hundred and thirty-four years ago."

"as did the third and fourth rebellions." cassian finished his brother's thought, "always on the same day."

"the same day that your family was killed, rhys, and you became high lord." azriel completed.

"you think it's related?" rhys furrowed his eyebrows, confusion in his voice.

"i'm not sure. i think if it was related to you, you would be the target of their attacks, but you're not and never have been."

"exactly," cassian continued, "instead, they attack each other, and it's always the same two groups: the nightmares and the dreamers."

they never discovered the reason for the rebellions.

no one ever spoke, not even when interrogations were carried out.

when the first rebellion happened, rhys and his inner circle assumed it was due to his ascension to the throne and that one side defended him as the new high lord while the other side opposed him.

but the truth is that it continued to happen, so that thought no longer made sense.

but the fact that it always happens on the same day his family left this world?

it couldn't be a coincidence.

whatever it was, had to be related to the events of that day.

rhys turned to look at the painting one more time.

longing and pain always invaded him on this day. he had no doubt whatsoever that if they were here, things would be very different.

after a long minute of silence, rhys turned and met both his brothers' gazes and began to say, his voice serious and firm "these rebellions need to stop. the last one caused too many deaths, and we can't continue to tolerate them."

rhys still remembers when he received the report of the fourth rebellion.

that one happened during amarantha's reign, and with rhys trapped in under the mountain and azriel, cassian and mor trapped in velaris, it meant that there was no one to stop them, leaving them at each other's mercy for days until they decided to put an end to it.

that was the most violent and bloody rebellion of all and caused a high number of deaths.

"i want answers. i want to know what is causing these rebellions, and we are not leaving without getting them first."

cassian and azriel nodded their heads in agreement before cassian proceeded to speak. "feyre and mor insist on coming with us."

"very well," rhys said and started heading towards his office door and down the hallway with his brothers right behind him "let's get this over with."

•••

the hewn city didn't look like the hewn city.

the well-known court of nightmares was ruled by chaos with violence, shouting, and despicable activities as its style.

silence and peace were unknown to it's inhabitants.

but it was the first one that was happening when the inner circle arrived.

silence hovered over the interior of the mountain, making the footsteps of the newcomers echo throughout its entire extension.

not a soul was in sight, making the place not only look abandoned but cursed. it was as if there had been a war a long time ago, and it had exterminated everything and everyone who lived there, leaving behind the taste of destruction in the air.

while walking, no one dared to speak with the thought that it might be an ambush.

that thought was proved false, when minutes later, on the other side of the mountain, on a level below them, rhys and his family found two armies facing each other with armor on their bodies, weapons in their hands and the promise of blood written in their eyes.

keir was in front of what appeared to be the nightmares while a young man with dark hair and skin was in front of what could only be the dreamers.

the moment rhysand prepared to speak, a war cry filled the air, causing a tremor through the mountain walls.

the two armies advanced.

and so the fifth rebellion began.

•••

two hours.

it took two hours for them to declare the fifth rebellion over.

no deaths had been caused this time, only leaving both sides injured and much angrier after being doused by the high lady who used her powers to distract them while they were separated by the high lord and his brothers.

those who were involved in the fight were taken in turn to the room where azriel was carrying out the interrogations but despite the male's persuasion and insistence, none of them broke.

rhysand couldn't understand why no one was talking. it was as if both sides had made a pact with each other not to reveal what was happening even if they fought each other until they shed blood.

with the interrogations over a few hours later, the inner circle began heading to the meeting room where they would finally speak to keir.

with a little luck, perhaps he would be the one to give in and finally reveal the reason behind all of this.

however, their paths were interrupted, as they passed by the orphanage, they came across something that caught their attention.

azriel was the first to see it.

to his right, a large painting of a young female encased in a gold frame rested against the wall of the mountain.

several bouquets of flowers of all types, shapes, and colors occupied the place at the foot of the painting.

azriel found himself captivated by it.

he was never an admirer of art, but of course, he could tell when a painting was well executed, but this one — this one was a true work of art.

the painting captured the beauty and details of the young female in a stunning way.

azriel could feel her sympathy and generosity through it. he could feel that she had a good heart, that she gave warm hugs, and had a sweet voice accompanied by an even sweeter smile.

azriel also didn't miss the sparkle in her eyes, which was rare considering the place they were, but it was there.

he couldn't look away — she must be the most beautiful female he had ever seen.

'the artist who painted this must be very talented,' azriel thought.

but the shadowsinger wasn't the only one captivated by the painting — feyre was too.

the high lady went through every brushstroke represented in the painting, every detail that the artist managed to represent, and it was simply incredible.

feyre had always appreciated art, she never had the opportunity to see much of it in her life but she had no doubt that the painting in front of her was the best she had ever seen and that not even herself, with all of the time in the world at her disposal, would ever be able to recreate such piece.

she could admire the painting forever, and if it weren't for the movement she caught in the corner of her eye, she probably would have.

to her left, feyre saw an old female wearing a black dress and her hair in a bun coming out through the orphanage door.

the old female carried a bouquet of lilac tulips in her hands and feyre saw her lowering herself to the foot of the painting where she rested her tulips next to the other flowers and began to organize the floral arrangements.

seeing that her family was still observing the painting, feyre decided to approach her.

she stopped to pick up a fallen flower in front of her before approaching the female and crouching down beside her.

feyre was aware that this was not the type of behavior she should display in the court of nightmares, but after witnessing what had happened earlier, she did not care how she was seen in the old female's eyes.

"here," feyre said gently as she lifted the flower towards her.

when their eyes met, the female didn't shrink from who she was staring at. it was as if she didn't care that it was the high lady who was at her side.

"thank you," she replied in a quiet voice before taking the flower from feyre's hands and adding it to a bouquet of flowers that matched it.

feyre looked around and took in all the flowers around her, there were dozens — if not hundreds — of them.

but the ones that stood out the most were tulips, especially lilacs tulips.

she shifted her eyes to the painting, which was now so close that she could see details she hadn't had before — it was even more beautiful in this proximity.

when feyre looked at the old female again, she noticed her crooked posture and dark circles under her red eyes, revealing tiredness and sadness.

it was after a long moment that feyre dared to ask, "who is she?"

the old female stopped her movements, and without taking her eyes off the flowers, she hesitated before calmly responding, "y/n."

ignoring the female's hesitation, she continued, "is she your daughter?"

she let out a sad little laugh and arranged the flowers again as she replied, "something like that."

feyre gave a weak smile at the statement and watched her start a flower crown for a few seconds before her voice filled the air around them again. "i don't think i've ever seen you before. who are you?"

still without meeting the high lady's eyes, she said, "my name is agatha. my children call me mother agatha," she smiled a little before continuing. "i'm responsible for the orphanage and for all the children and teenagers who live there.

before feyre could respond, a sensation appeared on her back, and when she turned around to find out the cause of it, she saw that it was her mate.

it was rhysand who asked this time, "is y/n one of the orphans you take care of?"

if agatha was surprised by the new voice, she didn't show it. the female remained calm, just as she had been when feyre crouched beside her.

"not exactly," agatha paused for a few seconds and feyre watched her swallow the lump in her throat before speaking, "y/n wasn't an orphan but i took care of her, yes. her parents were noble and had no interest in her when she was a child, so i took her in. i took care of her, educated her, kept her warm and her belly full."

agatha continued working on the flower crown while finishing her answer, and this time, the old female eyes met the high lady's blue ones for the first time. "so, yes, in a way, she was my daughter," another faint smile made its presence on the female's face. "all my children are."

"that's very nice of you" cassian told her.

at the sound of the General's voice, Agatha lowered her eyes again and focused on finishing the crown.

feyre saw the change in the female's face. she saw sadness coming back to her eyes and couldn't help but feel guilty that she and her family could be the reason for it.

"where is she now?" azriel asked.

agatha didn't respond. she didn't even look at azriel, whether out of fear or lack of interest, none of them knew.

to her silence, morrigan spoke, "you don't know where your children are?"

silence.

"i thought you were responsible for them" she added.

more silence, and then. . .

agatha stood up faster than any of them could have predicted, sadness had left her face that was now dominated by anger.

agatha could be old and a simple inhabitant of the hewn city with no powers, but courage was not something she lacked as she stood up to the most powerful group in the night court, if not prythian.

she stared at the blonde female without blinking, "i do everything i can for those children. but unfortunately, i can only hold them in my arms until they turn eighteen. after that, they are on their own, and you can thank that to your terrible father. his rules, not mine."

morrigan was lost for words — no one in that despicable city had ever dared to speak to her like that.

before things could escalate, rhys put an end to it by apologizing for his cousin, making agatha calm down.

rhys took a step forward, making the female's eyes move away from morrigan and focus on his violet ones.

"today's rebellion. do you know what caused it or the previous ones?" he asked calmly but with his high lord voice present.

agatha showed signs of discomfort at the question and again, hesitated to answer.

azriel recognized that behavior — he has seen it many times throughout his life.

that was the behavior of someone who knew what was going on but was too afraid to speak.

"tell us," he said with a look of indifference on his face.

agatha didn't respond, what led to Cassian crossing his arms over his chest before speaking again. "we need to know. don't you want your children to be safe?"

agatha looked at the ground for a few moments before looking at the male and slightly nodding her head.

the children were her weakest point, and as she said moments before, she would do anything for them.

"it happened a long time ago. after the first and second rebellions, i thought it would stop, but. . .it kept happening."

rhys nodded for her to continue.

"even though it happened a long time ago, it's still a sensitive issue for us. usually it's just shouting and small fights but when this day comes. . .well, you've seen what sometimes happens."

"the day my family died and i became high lord." rhys added.

confusion flashed across agatha's eyes at the male's words, and this time, she didn't hesitate to respond. "oh, that's-"

before agatha could finish, new sounds began to invade the interior of the mountain.

the inhabitants returned to their daily activities as if a rebellion had not happened just a few moments ago.

a few meters away, keir stood, talking to another lord and the sight was enough to make agatha shrink and turn her back to avoid being seen.

with her eyes focused on the other side of the mountain, she asked in a low voice, "if i help you, will you promise to stop the rebellions? i want my children to be safe."

feyre was quick to assure the old female that everyone wanted the same.

when agatha showed intentions to speak, she was interrupted again, but this time with a younger and closer voice.

"mother agatha?"

the group turned at the sound of the new voice and were met with the boy who had led the dreamers' army.

"dain," Agatha said almost in a whisper.

dain was young and tall, he had blue eyes that contrasted with his dark skin and hair, muscles were visible under his clothes and a sword rested on his right side while he carried a large wooden box with both hands.

"is everything okay, mother agatha?" dain asked, his eyes scanning the group.

agatha smiled at his words, placing both hands on the sides of his face before saying, "yes, my boy."

the boy was quick to reciprocate the smile, and when she noticed the box he was carrying, she asked while lowering her hands. "you're still going?"

"of course," the boy didn't hesitate to say. his gaze drifted to the painting, and with a sad smile, he added, "she would've kick my ass if i didn't."

the two shared a heartly laugh at the his words before the old female became serious again, a thought forming in her head and with a last look to the group she said to her boy "they're going with you. take them to harry."

dain's eyes swept over the group, an tone of annoyance appearing in his voice. "oh, he's not going to like that."

"i know, but they want to know the reason for the rebellions," dain's mouth opened, ready to protest, at his small action, the female placed a hand over her heart, "i know, but they can stop them and it will be safer for all of us, especially for the children."

"mother ag-"

"please, dain."

"but-"

"i know, believe me, i know, but it's the only way." the old female begged and the suffer that appeared on her face was enough for the boy to give in.

"okay," dain agreeded defeated, knowing he couldn't say 'no' to the female who did everything for him.

agatha smiled and addressed the group. "go with dain, he will take you to harry, who is another one of my children," she let out a sigh before continuing. "he won't like to see you, but he will tell you everything. it's safer that way."

she gestured to the people around them with her head, and it was then that the group noticed how many people were already there.

too many eyes and ears.

after the old female kissed the boy's head several times and he complained but with a smile on his face, the group, now with one more member, began to head towards the outside of the mountain.

it was cassian who asked the question everyone wanted to know "where are we going?"

dain, leading the group, didn't turn or look at any of them, his smile was long gone, and now an annoyed expression was on his face when he answered.

"spring."

•••

they had arrived at spring about ten minutes ago.

dain was very vague about where they were going, only sharing that they were going to a house that was nearby and that they would have to walk due to the wards that protected the house.

the next few minutes were filled with just the wind hitting the leaves of the trees and the flapping of the wings of some birds flying nearby.

"do you know the reason for the rebellions?" rhys broke the silence.

"everyone who lives in that hell knows. shouldn't you know? you are the high lord, after all." the boy questioned him.

rhys deflected a tree branch that was in his path before replying, "i know they happened on the same day my family died, and i became High Lord."

dain stopped in his tracks, making everyone else do the same.

he laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.

he turned to face the people behind him before focusing on the violet-eyed male. "with all due respect, high lord, but no one cares about you or your family. not in the hewn city, at least."

rhys didn't react. not even a muscle.

he knew that he and his family, including the inner circle, were not liked in the hewn city, but hearing those words from the boy's mouth had an effect that he had not anticipated and for some reason, he didn't like it.

before turning back to the front, to lead the group through the rest of the way, he added, "the rebellions are not because of you. they never were."

and with that, dain continued his way.

silence returned, bringing awkwardness with it.

the group looked at each other, no doubt trying to digest the boy's words. rhys nodded, signaling for them to resume their walking.

however, the silence didn't last long "so, are you going to tell us who harry is, or are we going to have to wait to find out?"

dain turned his head slightly in the direction of the general's voice, and it only took a few seconds before he replied, "he's my brother."

azriel asked this time, letting his curiosity get the better of him. "what did agatha meant when she said he won't be happy to see us?"

dain laughed again, his response only increasing everyone's curiosity. "it's not just him, no one will be happy to see you."

"why?" morrigan asked, but the only response she got was a disapproving look from the boy in front of her.

the same look agatha had given her.

when she repeated the question, the boy once again preferred silence to talking to her.

realizing she was being ignored, the blonde female locked eyes with her family, only to see their confused looks.

feyre decided to intervene and asked, "does this have anything to do with the female in the painting?"

"y/n?" azriel added.

and once again, without them being able to predict it, the boy turned quickly, letting the box fall to the floor with a loud noise and his hand reaching for the hilt of the sword. "don't you dare say her name! You have no right to that."

the gesture surprised everyone, while rhys raised his hands in the form of surrender to calm the boy, cassian and azriel placed their hands on their sword and knife, respectively.

azriel was aware that if a fight broke out, the boy didn't stand a chance but he was also aware that the boy in front of him was the same one who had led an army against keir's just a few hours ago and managed to emerge unharmed and for that same reason, azriel wasn't going to underestimate him.

he studied the boy. the centuries he spent as a spymaster helped him to perfect how to read people effortlessly.

azriel got all the necessary information in a matter of seconds.

he noticed how dain's hand was squeezing the hilt of the sword too tightly, revealing that he was nervous; he noticed how the boy's eyes did not show violence but rather hurt and suffering and how his breathing was rapid, showing the fear that ran through him.

the boy didn't want to fight — he simply wanted to make a stand.

when azriel realized that dain wasn't going to swing his sword, he spoke again, "it is because of her, isn't it?"

dain's eyes looked away from azriel, and he stared at the ground, making it clear that the topic of the conversation didn't please him, but that didn't make the shadowsinger stop.

"something happened to her," the male felt his family's eyes on him, but his attention was focused on the boy. "agatha spoke of her in the past, and so did you."

the male's last words made the boy's eyes dart to theirs, thus regaining his attention, and it was then that azriel took the opportunity to ask one last question.

"what was she to you?"

dain was taken by surprise, and everything he felt at that moment was revealed on his face, allowing the inner circle to read him like an open book.

when the young male opened his mouth to speak, several sounds appeared in the forest around them, and before the group could prepare themselves, three figures emerged from behind the trees.

two of the figures wore silver armors with black cloaks and swords in their hands. the third figure, the one in the middle, wore a black suit and looked extremely similar to dain, except that he was taller and more muscular.

"harry," dain said.

harry's blue eyes swept over the group, and he didn't hide the displeasure he felt when he recognized them.

meeting his younger brother's eyes, harry asked through gritted teeth, "what are they doing here?"

dain crouched down to pick up the wooden box that had been forgotten in the grass before returning to his full height and replying, "they want to know the reason for the rebellions."

"no," harry was quick to respond, "leave. now."

"harry-"

"i said no. they're not welcome here."

before harry could say anything else, dain interrupted him, grabbing his arm gently "mother agatha sent them," that was enough for harry's eyes to soften slightly "she believes they can stop the rebellions."

feyre realized in that moment that agatha was more respected and considered than she had thought.

a mere mention of the old female's name and the males in front of her calmed down.

a fight wouldn't happen today.

regardless of what they thought of the situation, they would respect the wishes of the female who had raised them.

"for mother agatha." dain gently let go of his brother's arm and received a slight nod.

when dain and the rest started to make their way back to the house, the group followed them, disappearing silently through the forest.

•••

as they passed the wards, a mansion and a vast garden came into view.

green dominated the garden — several bushes, plants and trees surrounded the mansion, a stone fountain was in the center with some ducks swimming in the crystal clear water.

several lilacs tulips beds were along its entire extension.

the mansion was white, with tall windows and a large oak entrance door, several vines decorated the corners of the house and the roof.

but that wasn't what caught their attention.

it was the children, teenagers and even adults — all females.

the children played with each other, some girls painted while others read and some older ones did gardening, all while smiling and talking.

no signs of fear or pain.

as they approached the mansion, it was then that the inner circle realized that this was not a simple mansion.

above the oak door, a white signal with black words came into view: 'y/n 's association for young girls and females'.

it was a shelter.

•••

the entrance to the mansion was majestic, just like its garden.

the hallway was painted with white walls and golden lines, some tall vases in light shades of blue were leaning against the walls with various flowers and a bright chandelier hung in the middle of the room.

a white carpet stretched from the front door to the end of the hallway where a staircase was with two sets of stairs on each side, one on the right and one on the left.

but what stood out most were the various paintings in golden frames that decorated the walls.

Paintings that represented the same female over and over again — y/n.

there were paintings in which the young female was alone and others in which she was accompanied.

the inner circle's eyes swept past them all and recognized some of the people accompanying her.

a painting where y/n was with harry, another where she was with dain and a third one with the two boys on either side of her.

the three of them had their arms around each other's shoulders and big smiles on their faces.

one contained y/n with agatha and rhys recognized the emotion that occupied the old female's eyes as it was the same one he encountered every time he looked at his mother in the painting — maternal love.

everyone was smiling — Azriel realized — genuine, sincere and warm smiles.

both in the paintings in which she was alone and in those in which she was accompanied, y/n smiled just like everyone on her side — as if her smile was contagious.

his eyes focused on the last painting at the end of the corridor.

y/n wore a blue dress with silver sparkles, her hair cascaded down her shoulders and a graceful smile filled her face.

"she lit up the room when she walked in, no matter where she was."

azriel found dain beside him, his blue eyes directed at the painting and not at him.

dain continued, without moving his eyes even as the shadowsinger watched him. "that was her. always smiling, always seeing the good side of things even when there wasn't one."

"what was she to you?" azriel repeated the question that was left unanswered by the boy.

one of Dain's hands touched the painting, his eyes now shining with tears, "everything," he swallowed the lump in his throat "she was everything."

not giving azriel time to answer, the boy disappeared into the hallway.

before azriel could realize where dain went, his attention was caught by the voice of the boy's older brother.

"my office is this way."

•••

the inner circle was sitting in front of harry's desk, except azriel who preferred the back of the wall to the comfort of the seat.

he despised the group and if it were up to him he wouldn't tell them anything, that was clear in his eyes, but out of respect for mother agatha, harry decided to respect her decision.

"y/n was born in the hewn city, just like me. i met her at the orphanage after my parents died. y/n had already been there for a few years, her parents were noble and close to the keir and had no interest in her so they left her to fend for herself until mother agatha decided to take her in."

"when i initially went to the orphanage, i was problematic. i got into a lot of fights and messed up a lot until. . ." harry paused for a few seconds, clearing his throat before continuing, "until y/n decided to intervene and gave me a big lecture about what i was doing with my life."

harry let out a weak laugh, his eyes distant with memories of the past, "we became inseparable, even though she was a few years older than me."

harry picked up a pen from his desk and began twirling it between his fingers, distracted by the movement, until the high lady caught his attention.

"what happened?"

the pen stopped and harry let out a long sigh before leaning against the back of his chair, running a hand through his hair.

"she turned eighteen and that's was when she first bled. suddenly, her parents were very interested in her, suddenly, she was the most valuable 'thing' they had." he said that word with disgust.

the memory of what had happened to morrigan half a millennium ago invaded the inner circle's minds.

a long time had passed, but those events would haunt them forever.

harry gripped the pen so hard his knuckles turned white.

"keir was trying to form an alliance with the spring court. he believed that he and the former high lord had the same. . ." harry twirled his hand in the air as he searched for the appropriate word, ". . .ideals."

morrigan winced slightly — she knew what that meant.

the truth-speaker had fallen victim to keir's 'ideals' and no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to forget the feeling of those nails on her skin.

harry leaned back from his chair and rested his arms on the table as he faced each member of the night court in front of him.

"he decided to use y/n as a mean to achieve his goal and sold her in marriage to the high lord's eldest son."

rhysand sighed loudly — he never understood how anyone could be in favor of this but before he could say anything, azriel, still leaning against the wall, intervened.

"we never heard about the former heir getting married."

harry snorted, "of course not. do you really think Keir would let someone ruin his plans again after the fiasco with the autumn court?"

harry concluded, his eyes travelled to morrigan, in time to see the female looking down at the ground.

"she married that bastard five days after turning eighteen." harry added with a disgusted face.

"what about her parents?"

harry laughed loudly before facing the High Lady and replying with the truth she didn't want to hear.

"her father was the first to accept the offer when he heard the amount of money the high lord was going to pay for her."

"where are they now?" Cassian asked, this reminded him of losing his mother and the actions that followed it.

"they were killed in the first rebellion. i made sure of that."

harry's eyes settled on rhysand's face and as he followed his line of vision he noticed what he was looking at.

feeling the boy's eyes on him, rhysand asked "what was she to you?"

harry didn't hesitate to respond this time "my big sister."

azriel was surprised by the answer. he had assumed, from the way harry spoke about y/n, that he had feelings for her.

but now as he watched the young male, he realized that he had misinterpreted it.

What harry had in his eyes wasn't romantic love — it was sibling love.

with his brother still looking at the painting, azriel finally pushed himself away from the wall and approached him, directing his eyes to what caught rhys's attention.

the high lord of the night court was looking at the painting where the young female was with harry.

y/n was sitting on the floor with a much younger harry sitting between her legs as she read him a story.

the young boy had the biggest smile on his face.

a smile that, by the looks of it, had disappeared a long time ago.

"do you recognize her?" harry asked rhysand.

the male found a set of blue eyes already looking into his violet ones. "should I?"

the response that followed caught everyone off guard, especially rhys.

After the conversation in the forest, the group had already come to the conclusion that the reason for the rebellions involved y/n.

but just that.

everything else still remained a mystery, and no matter how many hypotheses rhys had thought of on the way there, they couldn't be further from the truth.

never in a thousand years, would rhys and his inner circle have guessed the true reason if it weren't for the male in front of them.

"you should," harry began, his eyes darkening, letting the anger behind them show, "considering it was your father who killed her."

a heavy silence filled the hall and the air became cold like a winter night.

and that time, no one disguised their reactions, now, it was the inner circle that could be read like an open book.

"what?" the high lord's voice trailed off, at that moment he was not the most powerful being everyone claimed he was.

his heart was beating so fast he could have sworn everyone in the room could hear it.

"she was at the mansion that night," harry clenched his jaw, his anger no doubt deepening, "the night you and your father killed tamlin's family for what happened to your mother and sister."

rhys' mouth opened in shock. the only regret he had from that night was not being able to stop his father from killing tamlin's mother.

harry felt the weight of several eyes on him "when we found out about the attack on your mother and sister, it was almost the end of the day. we knew your father was going to retaliate. we tried to send a message to y/n, to warn her, so she could run away, but. . .," harry sniffed "it was already too late."

a short silence filled the office before aki spoke again. "the news of her death arrived a few hours later."

"that's not possible." morrigan said.

harry stood up so quickly that his chair hit the floor at the same time his hands hit the table" my sister was innocent and he took her from me!”

rhys's throat was dry and when he finally managed to calm his heart enough to speak, every word that came out was scratchy.

"i didn't know about her. my father never mentioned a female in the heir's room."

his eyes were still fixed on the blue ones, the boy's face didn't show what he was feeling and when harry didn't speak, he continued.

"the only thing my father said when he left tamlin's eldest brother's room was that he had already taken care of the little heir."

harry's face contorted in pain and the male backed away from the table as if its material had burned him. his mask of indifference fell, his eyes shining with tears.

harry turned his back and, taking a hand to expel the tears before they stained his face, he revealed the last secret.

the secret that would forever haunt the inner circle and rhysand's reign.

"your father wasn't talking about tamlin's brother when he said that."

rhysand's heart dropped.

feyre clapped a hand over her mouth.

cassian's knees almost gave out.

azriel took a step back.

morrigan held back her vomit.

harry let out an ironic laugh and stared at the ceiling as he uttered the following words "things could be different. the hewn city could be different. you had the power to change everything. you still do but you choose not to."

and then, his eyes met the blonde female "especially you."

morrigan watched the young male.

"you were born and raised in that prison. you, better than anyone, know the hell it is. how females are treated, how you were treated."

morrigan's brown eyes began to shine and she gripped the arm of the chair so hard that her nails left marks.

even so, she didn't interrupt the male — nobody did.

fed up with games, harry let the tears fall this time, and the relief that action brought him was immeasurable.

he let out another ironic laugh, but this time so loud that feyre jumped a little from the chair where she was sitting.

"you don't know what they do, do you?"

the question was directed at morrigan. she wasn't enjoying all the attention being directed at her, she wanted to go back to being ignored, just like she was in the forest.

"when girls become 'eligible' for marriages, their parents chain them to the bed at night," he studied the female, and with her attention all on him, he dropped the bomb "so they can't escape. so they can't pull a morrigan."

the truth-speaker needed all her strength and concentration not to vomit.

"you got out, butt the others didn't. not all females have the luxury of having a cousin as a future high lord." harry finished the last sentence with his attention shifting to the male in question.

rhysand didn't protest.

"what about you? you had all the potential to be a better high lord than your father. yet you've sat on the throne for almost two hundred years now and the only thing you care about is your precious velaris."

deep down, they knew harry was right.

they all knew that not all people in the hewn city were bad like keir, some of them were good.

Like y/n.

"my sister was a dreamer," harry glared at everyone, "and she died in her worst nightmare."

'i was a dreamer born into the court of nightmares. so i got out.' morrigan's words echoed in her mind.

she got out — y/n didn't.

how many more females like y/n would there be? How many more like her would come?

"this conversation is over," harry said, heading towards the door, "you are welcome to stay and watch the ceremony. after that, i want all of you out of here."

harry didn't wait for a response as he left the office and slammed the door, leaving his almost guests to brood with guilt.

•••

sunset had finally begun.

the garden was full of people, all of them dressed in white and with a lilac tupila in their hands.

rhys, azriel, cassian, feyre and morrigan were in the last row behind everyone.

final arrangements were still being made while everyone waited for the ceremony to begin, giving Rhys time to be tormented by his thoughts.

the secret was out.

after almost two hundred years, they had finally discovered the reason for the rebellions.

not because rhys or his family.

but because of a young female, who was loved and important to many, and had fallen victim to a terrible fate.

the high lord's heart was heavy and he could not remove his eyes from the painting that stood in the center of the garden.

The painting everyone was looking at.

another painting of y/n but now one where they could see the small swelling of her belly.

rhys always knew that his father was a horrible male, and in certain situations, he considered what he did to be horrendous.

but this? his father was a monster.

before rhys's thoughts could torment him any further, harry's voice filled the garden.

"today marks another year. another year since our y/n left this world and joined the stars."

"everyone says that when we lose someone we love, the best thing we can do is give it time, that with it the pain goes away and we finally begin to heal."

"but I think all of us who were lucky enough to know and love y/n know that's a lie. The pain will never go away and the void she left on us can never be filled."

with harry's speech made, dain began his "this was y/n's dream. this shelter was her idea when she was still a teenager. she always said that one day, she would build a shelter for young girls and females, so that they wouldn't be victims of their own families."

"where they could be whatever they wanted. where they could be more than just wives and mothers. where they could be free and in charge of their own futures."

"unfortunately, y/n was never able to fulfill this dream on her own, so harry and I, who had the greatest honor of being her little brothers, decided to do it for her, and d for all of you, ladies."

"y/n was one of the best people I've ever met and it was impossible to know her and not love her. she will never be forgotten and her legacy, without a doubt, will live on forever."

mother agatha came out of the crowd and stood between the boys. "it is tradition to use white roses in these celebrations, but everyone who knew y/n knows that tulips were her favorites. especially-"

"lilac tulips" several voices said in unity, followed by some giggles.

"exactly," agatha said with a small smile, "so it will be with her favorite flowers that we will honor. . ." her voice broke and she took a few seconds to compose herself "that we will honor my daughter tonight."

harry placed a hand on the old female's shoulder and gave her a small smile before crouching down to pick up a floating lantern and lighting it.

"although the loss of y/n causes us great pain, none of this would be possible without her" harry kept his eyes on the lantern. "i would give anything to see her one more time but i know she is okay. i know that she is watching over us."

"and i know she and her baby are together, in peace. that's all i need."

"as you know these ceremonies are to celebrate y/n's life, so, today two hundred and eighteen floating lanterns will be released because that would be the age she would have if she were still with us."

dain passed a lantern to agatha before grabbing his own. everyone started grabbing the lanterns and attaching the tulips to them.

when the moon was high in the sky and the stars were shining brighter than ever, the lanterns were finally ready.

harry raised his lantern and with his bright eyes and a calm voice "to y/n."

"to y/n." a union of voices was heard.

several floating lanterns began to fill the starry sky.

the light from the lanterns allowed everyone to see the dozens of lilac tulips that floated with them.

it was a magical view — all this for one person.

harry's words weighed more and more with the truth in them.

they only found out about y/n today but rhys and his family had no doubt that her memory would haunt them forever.

the five of them looked at the painting one last time.

the beautiful female in a white dress with such a warm smile and hands that caressed her small baby bump.

they would never forget it.

her name.

her face.

her smile.

they would never forget what they could have saved.

a/n: thank you for reading! i had this idea while rereading acomaf and decided to give it a try.

masterlist

general taglist: @emryb @fantasyandshit @azrielover @shadowsingercassia @brieflyclassymortal @lilah-asteria @meul-a @lure-of-writing @pruvii @olive-main @mybestfriendmademe @anuttellaa @mrsjna @lively-potter @mrsjna @avajustreads @littlelou22 @talesofadragon @circe143 @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @dark-chaos-314 @tequilya @scoliobean @saltedcoffeescotch @charlotteintumbleland @dark-chaos-314 @agirlwithwifiandalaptop

*if you asked to be tagged and you weren't, it's because I couldn't find your blog.

the beautiful dividers belong to @cafekitsune

#acotar #acotar fandom #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #inner circle #cassian #rhysand #feyre cursebreaker #morrigan acotar #acotar fic #acotar fanfiction

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craigslisthorses · 1 year ago

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Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP)

Breeds with HYPP; Quarter Horses, American Paint Horses, Appaloosas, and Quarter Horse Crosses.

HYPP

"An inherited disease of the muscle, caused by a genetic defect. A mutation in the sodium channel gene. Sodium channels are pores in the muscle cell membrane which control contraction of the muscle fibers. When the defective sodium channel gene is present, the channel becomes “leaky” and makes the muscle overly excitable and contract involuntarily. The channel become “leaky” when potassium levels fluctuate in the blood. This may occur with fasting followed by consumption of a high potassium feed such as alfalfa. Hyperkalemia, which is an excessive amount of potassium in the blood, causes the muscles in the horse to contract more readily than normal. This makes the horse susceptible to sporadic episodes of muscle tremors or paralysis."

GENOTYPE

HYPP Positive= H/N and H/H

HYPP Negative= HYPP N/N

HYPP horses with H/N genotype means they are heterozygous carriers, carrying one copy of the HYPP gene. If you bred a mare who is H/N to a stallion who is N/N, you would have about a 50% chance the foal is H/N as well. However if you bred an H/N mare to an H/N stallion you will have about a 25% chance the foal being N/N, a 50% chance it will be H/N, and a 25% chance it will be H/H.

HYPP horses with the H/H genotype means it is homozygous, carrying both copies of the HYPP gene. 100% passing the HYPP gene to it's offspring.

I made a thing in case it helps the visual learners out there

IMPRESSIVE (but not really)

Let's talk about the QH stallion, Impressive. All horses that have a HYPP positive gene of any kind, all descend from this horse. Impressive sired 2,250 foals and they estimate he has around 50,000 living descendants. No dilution of lineage will remove HYPP, as it is a dominant trait and will show whether you are 5 generations back or 2.

HYPP SYMPTOMS

HYPP varies in severity, it's not always equal and every horse may have different reactions. HYPP can be confused for tying-up or even colic, they may have difficulty breathing, muscle tremors, sweating, weakness, tremors. In more severe cases the horse may collapse from paralysis of the muscles in the airway and can result in sudden death.

Not every horse who is HYPP positive may display symptoms, making this disease sometimes hard to detect.

IS IT CURABLE?

No. HYPP may be managed with diet and certain medicines for maintenance but it cannot be cured. H/H positive horses have poor prognosis and can be much more difficult to manage.

VIDEOS OF HYPP ATTACKS

CW: Horses in distress, videos may be hard to watch for some.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

Sources (and if you want to read more); AAEP , UCDavis, Tri-State

Is there anything I forgot? Anything to add? Just covering the basics of this disease and what it does to these horses.

#HYPP #education #get learnt #quarter horses #halter horses #impressive #health #horse care

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mai-komagata · 6 months ago

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Vulcan skin color meta (why its not green)

In the past i've seen a lot of discussion about whether we should or should not draw vulcans as green, mostly centered around antisemitism. I want to start out by saying this meta is not gonna go into much of any of that. Regardless of whether it is antisemitic for vulcans to be green or not, the truth is they aren't. They also aren't quite human colored. It isn't a technical limitation; they aren't shown as green in the show or cartoons even when orions are green. This meta will mostly concern 3 questions:

in universe, why are vulcans not green when their blood is green?

in universe, are vulcan mucus membranes and other colored tissue like lips and nipples green? If not why not?

What color would a vulcan blush (do vulcans blush?)

If you are interested in this exploration, read on!

Why are vulcans not green when their blood is green?

Ok, maybe we should ask a more fundamental question: why are humans not red when our blood is red? Humans absent melanin don't look red. We look whitish, except for veins that look greenish/blue. Why is that? Well yes, all our non-pigmented innards are largely filled with red fluid, but our skin absorbs red light, so it isn't reflected back into our eyes. our skin reflects and scatters blue/green light so we see the bits near our skin that are green/blue after your remove all the red. Additionally, most people have varying amounts of eumelanin (which gives us brown/black coloring) and some much smaller amounts of pheomelanin (which is red). but yeah, we don't look red despite being sacks of red fluid because we are a bag of red-absorbing white film with black/brown/red coloring. But like, vulcan skin could be different. it could mostly absorb green light. It could have a lot of pheomelanin that would counteract the green color. A more pinkish base skin color could be advantageous in the hot Vulcan temperatures at blocking more infrared and prevent overheating, for example.

This would have the end effect of giving the skin this yellow cast vulcans have in the show via makeup. it is not green, it is not red, but something in between. Vulcans could then have eumelanin on top of that that give us normal deep shade variations from tuvok to stonn. Because of the predominance of eumelanin, characters like tuvok would not appear as yellow as whiter vulcans. There are other skin pigments vulcans could have that we aren't even considering. There are selenium based melanins that have higher skin uv protection, which could add even more pigments and change the color of vulcan skin even more.

Ok, but are vulcan mucus membranes and lips green?

First thing to note is human nipples and lips aren't red b/c we just have our blood just hanging out right there. We have red pigment (i.e. pheomelanin) that is making them red. (and other amounts of eumelanin just like all skin, which can end up looking purplish in certain skin tones). Look I like a green vulcan penis fanfic as much as anyone else, but we are shown no evidence that vulcan lips, nipples, tongues, mucus membranes in general would be green. If we go by the previous section, and assume vulcans want greater sun protection, they could have large amounts of eumelanin and less translucent skin to ensure they still look reddish on the outside. But vulcan skin doesn't have green pigments in it as portrayed by the show. And it doesn't seem biologically advantageous to have green pigments just for lips/inside the mouth when all your other pigments are red based. Ok, but maybe this is a technical limitation, maybe they just couldn't make red lips on actors without a lot of unnecessary makeup. Maybe. But in none of the cartoons are vulcans shown having green lips, and Orions *are* shown having green mucus membranes in the cartoons even when they couldn't for technical reasons make them all green in live action. if this was the intended coloring of vulcans, they would have colored them that way. But they don't.

Can they at least blush green?

Well, the first question here is: why and how do humans blush? So the way humans blush is by increasing bloodflow to their skin deep capillaries. There is suddenly a lot more red closer to the surface, so there aren't as many layers of skin to absorb the red and more of it peeks through. Humans vasodilate for a number of reasons, including shedding excess heat, any chemicals in our bloodstream that increase bloodflow, and for social signaling.

So in theory, vulcans that vasodilate would look greener. Unlike paler humans that often have complementary pheomelanin in their skin that would make them look redder than normal, vulcans wouldn't have green pigments making them look greener. The red pigments would still be there to counteract some of the green. So i don't think a vulcan would ever look as green as a tomato-red human, but if they had a reason to vasodilate their skin would darken/green with the green blood.

But do vulcans have the autonomic processes to blush when embarrassed/angry/etc? That is an interesting question. Social signaling in Vulcan would be very different. Most animals don't blush. Babies don't blush. We know also that Vulcans have much more conscious control over bodily functions than humans do. So it is possible Vulcans (specifically post-surakian) don't blush at all. Or maybe they only blush if impaired, like during pon farr. That said, maybe there are other reasons they turn dark yellow/greenish like hyperthermia, intoxication, allergic reactions, hives, etc.

#star trek #vulcan meta #vulcans #star trek tos #star trek meta #star trek tas #star trek lower decks #star trek prodigy #star trek voyager #star trek strange new worlds #spock

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spacelazarwolf · 7 months ago

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shakshuka - maghrebi

cookbook: jewish flavors of italy

total time from start to finish: 50 minutes

rating system

difficulty: 2 this recipe required chopped veggies and some sautéing, and it does require a couple of different timed steps (like watching the eggs to make sure they don’t overcook... oops...), but overall it wasn't difficult to make. the recipe did call for harissa, which i found (hechschered) at my local international market, or felfel u ciuma. you can make the harissa yourself, it just takes some extra time. i don't know if you can find the felfel u ciuma in any international markets.

rating: 5 absolutely fucking delicious. 100/10.

this particular recipe comes from the libyan jews of rome. there is a substantial population of libyan jews in rome because of the increasing levels of persecution faced by the jewish community in libya in the 20th century, culminating in violence and pogroms during and after the six day war, until around 6000 libyan jews were airlifted out of libya to rome by the italian navy in 1967. the refugees were forced to leave their homes, their businesses, and most of their possessions behind, but despite these hardships, libyan jews have become an integral part of the roman jewish community.

and i can’t mention libyan jews without mentioning david gerbi, a libyan jew who has spent years trying to restore synagogues and cemeteries in libya and hopes to eventually make libya safe enough for libyan jews to return. so far his attempts have been met with a lot of violent pushback, but b”h someday they will get their home back.

recipe:

shakshuka:

preparation: 15 minutes cooking: 50-55 minutes serves 2-4

ingredients:

3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tsp ground cumin or caraway (i used cumin, which is most commonly used, but the author of the cookbook likes to use caraway)

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp felfel u ciuma or harissa

3 red, yellow, or orange peppers; stems, seeds, and white membranes removed, and flesh cut into 5mm (1/4 in)-thick strips

2 ripe vine tomatoes, diced, or 10 cherry tomatoes, halved (optional) (i used 2 cans of diced tomatoes)

500g (1lb 2oz/generous 2 cups) passata (an italian tomato puree, you can use pureed tomatoes but passata is a bit thicker)

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh italian parsley

4 eggs

sea salt and black pepper to taste

bread to serve

many middle eastern cuisines claim this dish as their own. libyan jews are no exception, and those who migrated to italy took it with them. shakshuka has become popular all around the world and today, many of rome's kosher restaurants have it on their menus, reflecting not just the city's large libyan jewish population but also the food of israel, where shakshuka is very well known.

put the oil, garlic, 1 tsp of cumin or caraway, paprika, and felfel u ciuma or harissa (i used harissa and added an extra tsp) in a large, non-stick frying pan, stir and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes. (before this, i sautéed some yellow onions)

add the peppers to the pan, stir, add a pinch each of salt and pepper and cook, covered, over a low to medium heat for about 15 minutes until the peppers start to soften.

add the tomatoes (if using) and toss for 5 minutes, then add the passata with a pinch each of salt and pepper and cook for another 20-25 minutes, covered, and stirring occasionally. remove the lid, add half the parsley, and the second tsp of cumin or caraway, stir and taste for seasoning. you can cook the eggs in the mixture straight away, or make the recipe up to this point and keep the sauce ready in the fridge for up to 3 days.

when you're ready to cook the eggs, make four dips in the sauce (reheating the sauce if you've made it ahead of time) with the back of a spoon and gently break an egg into each one. cover and simmer over a low to medium heat for 6-8 minutes until the egg whites are just set but the yolks are still runny (oops...)

sprinkle with the remaining parsley and, if you like, a little more cumin or caraway. serve hot, ideally with bread.

harissa (from saffron shores):

4 large red bell peppers or pimientos, seeded, deribbed, and cut into pieces

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tbsp caraway seeds, toasted and ground

1.5 to 2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

extra virgin olive oil as needed

in a meat grinder, food processor, or blender (you could probably also use mortar and pestle, it would just take longer), grind or puree the bell peppers or pimientos. strain, pressing on the solids with the back of a large spoon. you should have about 3/4 cup puree. stir in the garlic, spices, and salt. add oil for spoonability.

alternate harissa (also from saffron shores):

3 dried ancho chili peppers, soaked in hot water for 1 hour

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground

1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and ground (optional)

1 tsp salt

cayenne pepper to taste

extra virgin olive oil for filming

drain the peppers. in a blender, combine the peppers, garlic, and seasonings, puree to a paste (could probably do in a mortar and pestle). pack in a hot sterilized jar and film the top with olive oil. seal and refrigerate for up to 6 weeks.

felfel u ciuma (from jewish flavors of italy):

6 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 tsp chilli powder

1 tbsp paprika

1/2 tsp sea salt

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp ground caraway (optional)

2 tbsp water

simply combine all ingredients in a small bowl and stir well to create a paste.

#jewish #jumblr #avishai cooks

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ashblooddragons · 1 month ago

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My Heart, My Ruin (Chapter 3/?)

(Sorry! I know it's a day late but yesterday was my family's Thanksgiving so I didn't have time to write sadly. but I got this chapter out today so hopefully it is alright lol)

32 ac Dragonstone

Rhaella's pov

Me and Rhaena stand side by side as we watch two dragons feast upon horses, pigs, and what seems to be a squid but I can't be sure. We've both been desperate for a dragon, we both have been feeling a pull at our souls for far too long to ignore.

“How do we do this? Especially while wearing such unfit clothes?” Rhaena asks, turning to look at me and our outfits.

I'm wearing a light blue dress with silver embroidered flowers and dragons along the sleeves, neckline, and hem of my dress. And of course, the necklace Uncle Maegor gave me for my nameday all those years ago.

And she is wearing a lovely dark navy dress with silver embroidery of dragons and stars along the sleeves, neckline and hem of her dress.

Mama gave them to us only a week prior as a set stating. “You two are so close, you may as well match every once and a while.”

And to be fair she's not wrong, we both have many ‘friends’, mostly ladies whose fathers wish to get a in with the royal family. But no matter how much gossip, walks in the gardens, or some other mundane activity they bring me or Rhaena's way, we would both pick to play and explore with each other. She truly is my best friend in this whole world.

“I mean we don't have to fly on them, we just have to claim them, the flying part is more of a special thing to add on. Plus yours isn't nearly large enough to be saddled and ridden yet.” I say pointing to the blue dragon Rhaena had had her eyes on, it is no larger than a horse it would take at least two more years before she could fly upon the beast.

“Yeah I know that, but you want Meraxes, she is the size of mountains. She could swallow you, me, and my little dragon to be in one fell swoop! So we need a plan, at least for your future dragon.” She says pointing towards Meraxes.

I think for a moment trying to figure out how we can achieve our goal and not be jerky for the dragons this afternoon. I then notice the distance between the dragons, because of Meraxes size compared to the wild blue dragon, it made me believe they were closer than they actually are.

“There is no need, you go to your dragon, and I'll go to mine.” I say confidently starting to wake down the hill we were watching the two dragons from. That is until Rhaena pulls me back looking scared

“What if I forget the words? What if you forget the words? What if we both do and we're both fried? What if even though we do everything right they still don't choose us?” She rambles off in such quick succession it is near impossible to understand what she is saying.

“Calm down, Rhaena,” I say gripping her shoulders, making her look me in the eyes trying to calm her down. “Where is my fearless little sister? Surely my little sister will face a dragon. I mean you are the one who pranks grandsire and great aunt Visenya, if you can prank them I think…no, I know you can claim a dragon.” I say which seems to calm her.

I know I got through to her when I see that fire and mischievous look come back to her eyes replacing the cold and fearfulness that used to be there.

“Alright, let's do this.” Rhaena says before practically running down the halls towards her gorgeous blue dragon.

Looking at the dragon from this viewing point and not the far distance I usually do, I can see why it has caught Rhaena's attention. It is a beautiful baby blue with silver accents and white spikes and membrane. When its scales are caught in the light of the sun it makes a breathtaking shimmer that appears as if the stars are made by this dragon, and this dragon alone.

My attention is quickly turned though by the colossal that is known as Meraxes by her growl that seems to either shake the ground, terrifies me to the point my knees are knocking together, or both…most likely both.

I feel as if my very soul is vibrating when looking at the white and gold beast, her scales appear to shift between white and deep silver depending where the light catches them, but her spikes, horns and membrane are gold just like the molten gold of her eyes. She is a gorgeous dragon, one I know will be mine.

I walk closer to her taking slow and calm steps trying not to startle her. The thought rises a giggle from me, for why would this beast large enough to be mistaken as a mountain be frightened by me a little girl of only ten?

I'm now right in front of Meraxes feeling the warmth of her breath against me, I'm so close with each breath she takes my hair is either pushed into my face or blown past my shoulders. I thought I would feel panic when I came this close to her, but instead I feel a wonderful calmness, a warm and kind feeling, the feeling of being whole.

I feel her nuzzle against my chest, she is obviously trying to be gentle but when you’re the size she is well it’s quite hard to be gentle. I finally decide to reach out when she starts to purr against my chest. I feel the warmth of her scales, they are smooth with only a bump here or there from her war days.

I can’t fight the smile that comes to my face at the very thought that I have a dragon.

I'm startled out of my musing when I hear a cheerful squeal. I quickly turn and see Rhaena doing a happy dance which consists of her jumping and fist-bumping the air.

“I GOT A DRAGON!” She screams excitedly as her blue beast watches, and I swear is dancing in joy with her if the sway and tail swishes are any indicator.

I start walking towards Rhaena when she starts running over to me and Meraxes. Though I think the dragon wouldn't hurt my little sister, as she probably feels the bond I have with Rhaena, I would rather be safe than sorry.

Rhaena stops and gives me that mischievous grin of hers before saying cheekily. “So is it fair to assume you tamed that mountain you call a dragon, or am I to wait a bit longer for the flames to leave her maw?”

I can't help but roll my eyes and giggle, for Rhaena truly is just a cheeky thing always ready with a joke.

“Yes, I succeeded as well, though I don't know if I want to take her for a fly yet.” I say looking behind me to watch as Meraxes eyes Rhaena curiously.

When I turn back I find Rhaena pouting with her infamous puppy dog eyes. I already know what she's going to ask me before she even asks it.

“Please! Oh please can we fly back to the castle?”

I sigh looking back at Meraxes trying to decide if I'll give in or not. When I turn back I find I can't give one, for Rhaena knows I know the commands for she and I both take the same classes with the Dragonkeepers.

Finally, with a groan I nod and start walking towards Meraxes. I know I made the right choice when I hear Rhaena's happy chatter as she talks to her dragon about how she will need to follow us.

I stop and look at the ropes wondering how intact they are after all these years without use and being worn down by the weather upon Dragonstone. But with one touch I can feel their intact and could hold both me and Rhaena easily.

“You go first, I'll be right behind you in case you slip.” I say moving to the side so she can climb up.

She only nods before starting her climb with me quickly following behind her. I feel the burn of the ropes as I pull myself up, it feels as if no time passed from the time my feet were on the ground and I was sitting upon the saddle.

I try and catch my breath before turning to Rhaena to ask if she is secure. When she nods excitedly wrapping her arms around me I quickly turn around commanding Meraxes to take to the skies.

“Sōvegon!”

Me and Rhaena scream in delight as Meraxes runs towards the cliff edge before leaping off and extending her wings. When we're in the sky I feel this immediate calmness that comes through me.

“Look, mine is following us! She listened!” Rhaena says excitedly as she points to her dragon trying its best to keep up with us.

I smile, nodding, and look forward again, noticing we’re almost to the castle. I search for a spot large enough for Meraxes to land, it takes a bit of time but I find one close enough to the castle that we won’t have to walk far. I barely make out the shapes of Father, Mother, Grandsire and Uncle Maegor as we land.

They all start running towards us as we slid down Meraxes extended wing. Mother is the first to reach us grabbing both of us by the shoulders and checking for injuries.

“Are you alright? Neither of you are hurt?” She asks before kissing our brows and hugging us close.

“We’re alright Mother, we both claimed dragons.” I say hugging her back and taking in her scent of oranges and cinnamon.

“Yes, we can see that, Darlings.” Father says from behind Mother marveling at the sheer size and beauty of Meraxes before turning to Rhaena’s dragon. “Though I do believe that one is wild.”

Rhaena giggles running over to Father with a smile that could outshine the very sun. “I’m gonna call her Dreamfyre because her scales look like stars when the sun catches them.”

I’m soon distracted when Mother walks over to the now curious Aegon stopping him from rushing towards the dragons. I turn to search for the one face I was hoping to see after claiming a dragon and it doesn’t take me long to find him as he is already moving towards me.

“You claimed Meraxes, you have a dragon.” He says with a smile, but for some reason, it seems pinched, forced like he isn’t truly happy.

Instead of trying to find out why he is upset I decide to answer. “Yes, isn’t she lovely, Kepus?”

He only hums looking anywhere but me. This confuses me, he has always said I’d claim a dragon one day, that he would be so proud of me when I do, but he doesn’t seem proud he seems angry.

I get no time to inquire about this strange behavior as his wife comes walking out asking questions about dragons and such. I feel the same ugly feeling I always do when she is with Kepus, the one I never get rid of no matter how hard I try. So instead I turn to pet Meraxes along her jaw missing the way my uncle turns to me with a proud smile that finally showed once he pushed through his jealousy.

Series Masterlist

Special thanks to @sugutoad For making the header for this fic! I swear I'd be lost without you girly!

TAGLIST: @sugutoad @ilikefelines @sachaa-ff @classicsimpforaaronwarner @mmogurl

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just-my-latest-hyperfixation · 9 months ago

Note

Congratulations on 1k! It's impressive how many different genres your AUs have covered with such fun stories

For the ficletbuild a prompt game, perhaps F "Where's your sense of adventure?" + 🧜‍♂️Just add water? Vibes and item are dealers choice :)

Thank you so much, I love trying new things and exploring different universes and themes. Hope you like what I've come up with, I've been wanting to write this for a while. 🧜‍♂️❤️

Night swimming

Rated: T

Words: 1,000

Tags: Established relationship; mer!Steve Harrington; sexually explicit language; nudity

Notes: Bonus drabble to Just add water

“Okay, not to sound ungrateful,” Eddie mutters, huddling deeper into his flannel. Summer is well and truly over and the nights are getting chilly, especially out here on the water. “I appreciate this whole three-month anniversary surprise date, I really do. But couldn’t you have gone for dinner and a movie perhaps?”

“Nah,” Steve smiles. He stops rowing, pulling the oars into the boat and leaving them floating on the surface of the moonlit lake. “It had to be here. This is where I fell for you, where we first kissed. First made love. C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Back at the shore, probably.” Eddie pretends to shiver, even though his face has gone hot at Steve’s casual mention of their first time. “Where all of that stuff actually happened, by the way, so I still don’t get why you needed to row us out here. Now where’s that surprise you promised me?”

“Patience,” Steve scolds, leaning closer on the rickety bench so that he can press a kiss to Eddie’s lips. “I'm getting there.”

Then, without further preamble, he starts stripping.

“What the-” Eddie blurts as Steve’s sweater hits him in the face. “No way, forget it. We're not fucking in the middle of the-”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, who said anything about fucking?” Steve rolls his eyes, shrugging out of his jeans and underpants. “We’re going for a swim.”

And then, before Eddie has a chance to stop him, he dives headfirst into the dark lake. Eddie yelps and clenches his eyes shut as the boat rocks. When he opens them, Steve is just emerging again. He laughs and shakes the water from his hair, happy like a fish in the water, which … okay, yeah. That's actually an apt comparison, considering the giant, glistening tail and the fucking fins that have taken the place of his legs.

You'd think that after three months, a guy would get used to his boyfriend being a real-life mermaid. No such luck, apparently, because Eddie still finds himself as dumbstruck as the first time as Steve swims closer and casually rests his arms on the edge of the boat. The patch of scales on his temples shimmers in the pale light.

“Not coming in?”

Eddie grins, trying to ignore the way his heart hammers against his ribcage.

“Nuh-uh, fish boy. Don't wanna freeze to death. You have fun, I'll take care of the food.”

He has just bent over to retrieve the huge picnic basket from the hull of the boat when Steve says, “Oh, you thought that was for you?”

Eddie whips his head up, mouth already open around a question- … which turns into a garbled half-scream when he sees what has appeared beside Steve.

A gleaming pair of eyes, each roughly the size of a saucer.

Eddie blinks. The eyes blink back. There's two pairs of lids on each, the inner one a thin, translucent membrane.

“She's been dying to meet you,” Steve smiles. “Say hi?”

“Hrrrrrrgh,” Eddie says.

The creature makes a sound - a long, high-pitched trill. Steve chimes in with a laugh of his own, and wait, do they think this is funny?

Steve sees the scowl on his face and tilts his head. “C’mon, Eds, don't be like that. You've seen her before.”

“Yeah, from a distance,” Eddie squeaks, finally finding his voice again. “Not like this. Jeez, warn a guy! What happened to meeting the family first?”

The creature makes an affronted sound and Steve pets her large, arrow-shaped head.

“Of course you are family, he's just a bit confused,” he tells her. She grumbles and he turns to Eddie with a chuckle. “Uh-oh, you'd better apologize.”

Eddie stares. Steve’s eyes flick down to the picnic basket.

“Ugh, alright,” Eddie mutters. He reaches down to flip the lid open, steeling himself for the sight of slimy fish heads, only to be met with… “Fruit? She eats fruit?”

Steve shrugs. “She's an ombi- … obvy- … she eats everything, really. Oh, give her the watermelon, she loves those.”

Eddie obeys, because why wouldn't he? If your mermaid boyfriend tells you to feed the friendly lake monster a watermelon, you feed the lake monster the goddamn watermelon. It's only logical.

The melon is about as large as his head. He lifts it, and a long neck comes curling out of the water, until those eerie eyes are level with his - and then higher still, so he's looking up at them. It's a weird feeling, being face to face with this creature who's so much older than him - older than the lake itself, maybe - holding out the fruit to her like an offering. Awe, he realizes. He's feeling awed in the truest and most original sense of the word.

And then she bends down and plucks the melon from his hands. Something crunches and Eddie shrieks in surprise and disgust as a shower of juice and seeds descends on him. The creature swallows, blinks her glowing, double-lidded eyes at him one last time, and then she's gone, slipping back under the surface of the lake with barely a ripple.

“Huh,” Eddie exhales a shaky laugh. “That went pretty-”

The world tilts.

His scream turns into a wet gargle as he hits the water, but Steve has him under the arms and is pulling him up to straddle his tail before he can go under. He sees Eddie’s shocked face and laughs, gently combing dark strands soaked in lake water and melon juice out of his face.

“That went fantastically,” he says, grin wide and brilliant and incredibly proud. It makes Eddie’s heart kick in his chest, just a little. “She really likes you!”

Eddie spits out a mouthful of water.

“What, really? Is it just her or do all of your family members have such an odd way of showing it?”

Steve hums, a bit nervously perhaps, and pulls Eddie's shivering body closer to his chest.

“Well, wait until you meet my mom.”

More celebration ficlets

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie brainrot #steddie fanfic #fanfiction writer #fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #1k followers #Hype's 1k follower ficlets

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sandyca5tle · 3 months ago

Text

Slime HRT - Supplimental

So, I’ve been asked to make this supplemental entry to the journal covering all those little changes that happen over the course of a transition that fly under the radar while the bigger things happen or happen so gradually that you don’t notice it until six months down the line. They also asked me to include any other things that could help other people going through a similar transition, or to just add any other notes that I didn’t include in the regular ones, so that’s what this is going to be!

To start, a slightly weird one: Clothes! It took a while before I began to have any issues with these if I’m honest, but after a while, particularly once my slime started to become more prominent (so around the 10 month mark) my slime was very noticeably seeping through my clothes, making them damp at best, and soaked through at worst. Comfort wise this wasn’t really a problem - the wet clothes on my slime wasn’t super noticeable - but they did cling a bit.

The real issue was that it essentially stained all of my clothes, and overtime they all became slightly more orange over time, especially the lighter shirts. So I started wearing tank tops (since initially my shoulders hadn’t quite changed) and wearing waterproof shorts and pants (underpants for the non-brits). Of course once more of my body changed, I also had to get waterproof tops as well - which actually proved the harder of the two. I did also buy some waterproofing products so I could keep using some of my favourite clothes, and just to help sure up some of the new clothes I was buying. Fortunately I’ve had no issue with my now more acidic nature, which I’m guessing is due to the same membrane that stops me dissolving anything I touch.

The other note about clothes is that certain clothes aren’t as good of an idea as you’d like. Foremost - bras, the typical ones at least, do dig a little into your shoulders - and I don’t mean in the human way of ‘oh it’s too tight’: if they’re doing their job at all, they will dig in a bit. And of course, digging in here means at least partially breaking through your outer membrane. It’s not painful, certainly not in the way it is for humans, but you do notice it. I’ve found the best solution is (waterproof) sports bras, but honestly since my chest changed, I’ve found the need for bras has decreased, since I can kinda control my chest like I can the rest of my body, so I can kind of do the bra’s job for it - basically my chest only moves as much as any other part of my body does at this point, so in the same way my arms don’t flop around everywhere when I move, neither does my chest.

Tighter clothes are fine so long as they’re not too tight, since things that are too tight really mess with my shape now, and of course since the fluidity of my body has been one of the best things about my transition so far, having my movement at all restrained isn’t super fun, so I’ve tried to find stuff that is a nice middle ground. I can’t comment much more since I just don’t own that many tight clothes, but I had a couple and tried them out, and yeah, it’s neat to see how they affect my body now, but not all of them are as comfy now (not fun to have your goo squeezed through the material of your clothes, or at least unpleasantly weird, particularly for daily wear/use).

I also think it’s worth noting that I basically forgo clothes while at home/in private, particularly now that my transition is basically complete, partially ‘cause I don’t wanna have to worry about them getting messed up by my goo/the waterproofing wearing out, but also because they aren’t particularly conducive to the ways I want to, and can now, move. My outfits may be fairly open that might accommodate an extra limb or two, but if I turn into a ball of slime or a puddle, or some other less humanoid shape, the clothes at best get in the way, at worst could get damaged. I have, of course modified my clothes to account for more permanent things, like my tail and wings, but that’s only because I still feel a little awkward in a humanoid form not wearing anything - even if they’re nothing really to see now - just one of those things that has been baked into me… pluuuus I’d rather not find out firsthand what the legal ruling is on that, and either way, I don’t wanna draw any more attention than I already do, so I’m sticking with clothes in public for now.

Relatedly to clothes, I’ve noticed that my body temp is lower, and I’m definitely cold ‘blooded’ now, in the sense that I don’t produce my own internal heat. Fortunately I don’t particularly seem to need to keep my body temperature up, just so long as the outside temp doesn’t get low enough to start actually freezing my body. I did look up the freezing and boiling points for maple syrup (since that’s the closest thing to my own makeup) and basically I don’t have to worry about boiling unless I fall in an oven or something. But as I said, freezing is more of an issue, but I found a place in the city that helped through some of the colder winters called T.H.E.M.S, where those of us creatures who can’t manage the heat - snakes, lizards, and ofc slimes etc. can last out the winter with heat lamps and the like.

Linking back to the clothes, they do very little to help anymore, since they can’t trap heat if you’re not producing any. Does mean I can basically wear whatever outfit I want regardless of weather, since bundling up isn’t gonna do anything - yes - but similarly means that I can’t do much to ward against the cold. Also means I can’t bundle myself up in bed and be warm that way either, unless the room is already warm, so that kinda sucks.

On top of all this, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ register a little differently, although that might be more no longer having the human symptoms of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. I will however say that I do still shiver, although as with many things now, it’s subtly different. From what I can tell, it feels like parts of me are kind of vibrating? My guess is to produce the same effect as shivering, vibrating/moving to create heat. It does create a weird kind of minute rippling effect across my body, but it does help stave off the cold a little, so that’s useful.

I do have to note: Early on, you’d think that your human body will help maintain heat, but that’s not super true - you maintain just enough heat to keep your human body alive, but your slime parts aren’t heated nearly enough, so yeah, either prepare to bundle up, or go visit T.H.E.M.S (or a similar place) which is also a good place to meet other creatures, which I’d definitely recommend, lotsa fun peeps out there.

Continuing with at least tangentially related things: weather. As a slime, the weather kinda affects you a little differently. The worst is cold, since yeah, no internal heat source/production can cause you to solidify, but a windy day can also be awkward almost from the start of transition. While early on you’re sheltered from the negatives of being a slime, your skin pretty quickly becomes more fluid-like, which means that wind will ripple and blow your skin, and later on the surface of your slime. It does get a little better as you become slimier, since the self-adhesive nature of slimes means that the wind affects it a little less, but you’ll still definitely end up rippling a bunch. Of course, this also means you really have to watch out when the wind gets really high, as you can lose mass to the wind, so definitely be careful of that.

Rain is probably the next most awkward. Slimes are, depending on material of course, mostly water, even more so than humans and we kind of absorb things easily especially water (We can to some level stop things from entering our bodies, but on the whole small things are just naturally absorbed). What this means in rain is that you start taking in a bunch of water, which initially is good - slimes need a lot of water to survive - however if you stay out to long, it’ll keep going and you’ll get diluted, which is not fun, feels kinda like bloating, and you get really heavy. Worst case you’ll start to lose mass as your slime can’t hold itself together properly. Once you’re inside/out of the rain, if you can, you’ll either have to wait out for the excess to be processed, which takes bloody forever, but does give you a decent amount of mass, or wrap yourself in something absorbent to draw the water out - however I would recommend avoiding using a towel for this if you only have one or two, as you inevitably also sop up some slime too, so the towel will need quite a few washes to be usable again (I’ve actually had to get a bunch of towels to deal with washing ‘nd stuff, me and the towels, although it can be nice to sit with the water and just let it all absorb)

The last notable weather is, of course, the sun, or I suppose I should start with warm weather generally. Really warm weather is, plainly, sticky, and honestly I think that’s more because of my subspecies - it’s like heating up sweets, they get all sticky when heated, so in the same vein since I’m very sugary (being a sap slime and all) I also get sticky. Fortunately, unlike with human skin, the stickiness isn’t as much of a problem, mostly just makes me adhere more to myself, meanwhile the heat makes me a little meltier overall, which again, not super a problem, just means that I’m ‘stringier’ when I move and change shape. This actually makes changing shape a little easier to do, but harder to hold individual shapes if my body isn’t used to them. I’ve also noticed I can tolerate higher heats better, I’m guessing since my body doesn’t need to hover around 37 degrees, so if it gets close to or hotter than that, it’s not a problem for my body now, asides the aforementioned stickiness and ‘melting’.

A quick thing to mention with regards to the weather, particularly sunny weather, is my hay fever - something I suffered from before - has completely gone. I don’t know if this is just ‘cause I’m now part plant, so ofc i’m not bothered, or because my immune system/immune response has changed now that I’m a slime, but either way, definitely a boon!

Continuing to the other side of sunny weather, rather than just the heat, is the sun itself which has become a new best friend of mine. Over my transition, I noticed that, slowly, my otherwise amber slime, had begun to get these small green flecks throughout it. I didn’t really think much of it at first, asides from checking in to make sure i wasn’t something strange, only to find out at my most recent appointment that they’re little pockets of chloroplasts/chlorophyll (I can’t remember exactly which) so I can actually photosynthesize!

Now, for full transparency, I don’t think this is something that all or even most slimes’ll get, pretty sure it’s just because I’m a plant based/connected slime (being sap) so unless you’re in a similar situation don’t expect to be photosynthesising. It is a little interesting since I’m not a part of a plant that would normally have the ability to photosynthesise, but I am absolutely not complaining.

What this does mean is mostly that I have extra energy on sunny days, as at the moment the concentration of photosynthesising cells in my body isn’t high enough to really act as a supplemental for food, especially as I am more active than other plants (oh, that feels nice to say/write), although the doctor did say that I might be able to get a greater yield by increasing the surface area of my body, and when I suggested that doing some stuff with my wings might help, he didn’t shoot it down. Also given my core is the same colour, I’m hoping that that will up my photosynthetic capabilities, haven’t had a good day to try it out yet though.

I guess the next thing to talk about is food. Obviously as I’ve mentioned above, a small amount of my energetic needs are met by photosynthesising, but that hasn’t been/isn’t enough to sustain me, so I’m still eating ‘food’ to keep myself alive. Early on I mentioned that my tastes, and dietary requirements, had shifted a little, meaning I was eating more sweet foods, and avoiding savoury, and particularly salty, foods more. Turns out the former was only during the transition, as my body needed the extra sugars to alter my body, both for energy, and for the sugary nature of my body. The latter, however, has remained, salty foods in particular remaining an infrequent indulgence, and while I can now enjoy savoury foods, I’ve noticed that my enjoyment is based less in texture and flavour (the former hasn’t changed, arguably it’s gotten more detailed, while the latter… ehhh they taste fine, but I’m not jumping to the chance to have them) and more on the amount - bacon, while still something that can taste really nice, is much less enjoyable than a steak, even one done less than great - fuck, even a burnt one can be better than bacon now, which has been particularly weird to get used to, although it does help if I disable my ability to taste for that.

What I have worked out fairly easily is that for things that don’t have a particularly good taste, or texture for that matter, my enjoyment of them comes now from a third factor - mass - specifically how much of it is there. And this extends beyond what human’s consider food as well, sheet metal, what little I've been able to get a hold of, has been really wonderful. Honestly, metal’s density makes it really good for me, since it’s a lot heavier than a lot of other things I could be eating for the size. Aluminium’s kinda like popcorn, or like prawn crackers, or stuff like that, it’s the ‘light, fluffy’ of metals, well, aluminium foil at least, cans are more like crisps. I could make a whole section on what all manner of objects are like to eat (and honestly I might in the future….), but that’d prolly add too much for this entry.

It’s also worth adding that I’ve also found watery foods - watermelon etc. - are also very nice and filling/they feel good to eat, so I’ve been eating more of those when I can. I’m guessing it’s because it helps with my increased need for water, as well as just being food, so they satisfy a couple of my new bodies needs.

A good thing to segway into from food is to talk about hunger, as well as other similar processes that I’ve noticed changing.

Hunger in particular is an interesting one. I don’t really ‘get hungry’ like humans do, it’s more of just a general constant low-level background feeling that I should eat? But it never really has spikes in the same way human hunger does. Additionally, if I don’t eat for a while, asides from a slight increase in awareness of my ‘hunger’, there isn’t really any pain or physiological issues that come from it (I tested this for a couple days, making sure I did have food if I needed it ofc, but I was curious). I now realise I should have asked about this, to work out why exactly slime hunger works like this. It is also worth adding that - from what I can remember (it’s been a few months since I had a stomach, which is about when I think this changed for me) - the ‘hunger’ doesn’t really feel like hunger in the same way…. I’m not really sure how to describe it, and hunger is definitely the closest analogue, but like, to the left a little.

Moving on from hunger/hunger-like feelings, of course, with my new non-human, and fuck non-animal (i think, i don’t know the taxonomy of a slime), a lot of things have changed, and I think the most notable is how ‘breathing’ changed.

I mentioned before about how I no longer breathe since I lost my lungs, which is still cool and super useful, however, as with any living being, I still need to respire to produce energy to live. To this end, instead of actively breathing, oxygen is absorbed through the outer membrane of my slime, oxygenating my cells. Of course, as previously mentioned, I also photosynthesize, so that also helps provide some of the oxygen for respiration (which I still think is super cool), so together I actually have a pretty good system going - much like other plants do (hehe, still feels nice to say that). However, much like other living beings, slimes produce waste/excess, despite my particular subspecies seemingly having a setup perfect for cycling gases for energy production - but plants aren’t perfect systems either, so I guess it makes sense that I’m not as well. Excess gases seem to be stored in little bubbles all throughout my slime, while waste is released from my slime, much like exhaling, except sometimes it’s more oxygen than carbon dioxide, and instead of coming out of one hole, just kind of permeates out of my body..

Next, relating to self regulation/maintenance (it’s tenuous, but work with me here), is hygiene. Lack of teeth means I don’t have to brush my teeth anymore, but the main thing is washing. I mentioned at the start of my journey that showering was a little weird because the water would get absorbed by my slime and kinda like, indent and ripple it, but it also helped with hydration - yeah that still happens, and honestly, high pressure showers are kinda unpleasant because of it, huge amount of sensory stuff - can be nice at times, but equally can be unpleasant. This has meant washing (which yes, I still have to do - despite my acid dissolving most foreign dirt and stuff, grime still builds up, so I have to clean that - it is however required less regularly though from what I can tell) has primarily taken the form of baths, and let me just tell you they are amazing now. Half fill a bathtub with warm soapy water, climb in, and just relax; let go of all shape and form and just kinda mix with the water in the bath… it is heavenly just being liquid and only gently moving about to run the water through every part of yourself. Weirdly the water weight gained from bathing like that is kinda nice compared to that gained via rain, and it’s nice to just kinda let it sit and be processed by my body, which I guess is similar to humans - liking showers vs disliking rain.

Another typical thing that’s somewhat changed is sleep. I don’t really get tired in the same way, so this means that I don’t really need to sleep nearly as often to keep my body from keeling over from exhaustion. Recently too, I noticed that the same thing has kind of extended to my mind as well - can go for much longer without getting mentally exhausted… so long as I don’t do anything too mentally taxing. Usually it’s my mind that calls it quits first over my body, but I can go a lot longer without rest now.

On the note of exhaustion, not breathing or having any musculature means I don’t really tire anymore - liked to the above tiredness, though obviously I have a limit to how long I can go before I do run out of fuel - but it’s much more like that, more of a running out of energy, rather than feeling out of breath or strained in muscles. Honestly I kinda feel like I’m cheating - I get to be all fluid and stuff, shape my body almost however I want, and I can run for way longer than a human without being tired.

What feels even more like cheating is that I don’t really feel pain any more. Ok, that’s not strictly true, but my pain response is quite different now. The most clear example of this was when I tripped and fell, and a metal bar went through my hand - there was of course a conditioned reaction of horror, pseudo pain, and panic, however after I calmed down I realised there actually hadn’t been any pain really. I tested it later with a knife, stabbing various parts of my body to experiment with how it felt, finding that yeah, being stabbed really didn’t hurt (it should be noted there was an amount of hyping up and worry and concern about it, given I was going to stab myself but hey it worked out). Of course, as part of this experimentation, I was curious about… more major wounds…. and so, after working up even more courage, I cut off a finger - now that hurt. I obviously can’t compare to what it feels like for a human body to lose a finger, never had that happen while I had one, but it definitely hurt a bunch. After reattaching the goo that had been my finger, and reshaping it into the digit again, I tried cutting off a piece of my hair, which similarly hurt, which was kind of unexpected, but it did hurt a little less than losing my finger. What I worked out is that slime pain response is tied to loss of matter, rather than breach of outer membrane or other such events like it is for humans. It’s definitely an interesting thing to have one of your fundamental responses reworked without you even really noticing it.

One thing that has become a pain though all of this is those little things humans can do that my new physiology just doesn’t allow for anymore, namely: sighing. You know that thing that humans do where after a long day/something tiring, they take a deep breath, and just kind of ‘let it all out’ - yeah, I can’t do that any more, and it’s honestly a little frustrating. I will say, I think it’s another hangover from when my body was human, as I tried to emulate breathing to see if it would help, and, asides from being very manual, didn’t really give the same feeling of relaxation that I used to get from exhaling like that, which sucks. I can still get the same feeling from just kinda, letting my form go a little, relaxing my solidity, but that’s not always practical if I’m doing stuff.

The other things that don’t really match up from being a human, are thoughts and feelings. Obviously, humans/those with human bodies often feel things in their head or heart when thinking or feeling things, however I’ve noticed that those feelings have shifted to all be centred around my core, which is odd, but affirming. There are still occasional phantom-like feelings sometimes, where the brain and heart roughly used to be, but they’re usually not as connected/fainter.

It would be remiss of me to fail to mention the few involuntary things/instincts that I have picked up over the course of my transition, especially if this is going to inform other slimes in the future. I’ll start with the most recent, which is basically what amounts to a reconfigured survival instinct - if something is going to hit my core, I reflexively move it out of the way. This is the most straightforward, it’s basically the ol’ hammer-knee reflex test, ‘cept y’know, with my core instead.

The other instincts are less… familiar to those with a human body. The first is predation instincts - which arguably humans would know, but I can’t really think of any moments I felt it while I had a human body, so, I think it will be somewhat unfamiliar to others undergoing this too. Now, despite what people might think, slimes are predators, or at least some of them are, and my subspecies is clearly - I’ve figured that likely, being a sap slime, the method was to sit in/on trees pretending to be sap, then either drop onto pray below, or just trap them when they came to eat the ‘sap’. Kinda makes me happy that even the type of slime I picked has kind of ‘mimicry’ stuff going on, which is kind of sister to shapeshifting, even if this kind in particular is only minorly related, but it still makes me happy. This predation instinct manifests in two ways - one, I now kinda like hanging out up high, and have found it quite nice to sometimes just climb up somewhere high and sit adhered to the surface (although there are some conflicts with my fear of heights, although I feel like the latter has lessened somewhat (because falling is less likely to be lethal now? Or because it’s my nature now to be up high?)). The other is I very much like throwing myself at people, or at very least have the impulse too. Interestingly, while of course in nature this is specifically for hunting, I’ve found myself drawn to do it even to friends - not to eat them, but like a slime-specific kind of hug, very all encompassing, I just want to leap at them and wrap my whole form around them to hug them. I do understand though, that - without warning, that would be at best surprising, and at worst taken as an attempt to eat them, so I’ve restrained myself from doing it to anyone, settling for more traditional ways of hugging.

The other instinct actually links into the pain I mentioned above, but I think I have an instinct to make sure I preserve as much mass as possible. The finger cutting I mentioned earlier, took more effort to get myself to actually do it than stabbing a knife through my body, literally, stabbing my torso just took a little bit to point out to myself that there was nothing to damage, meanwhile to cut off my finger, I was having to psyche myself up so much because my mind was just screaming at me not to (and y'know what, it was right, fuck that hurt). From there I kept noting what hurt and what didn't, and what triggered that survival-esque instinct, and it was always those things that would or could cause me to lose mass.

Something a little lighter next (lopping bits off myself isn't exactly a happy topic): emotions! Turns out that different species show emotions differently, and we slimes definitely have some fun ones. First, it is worth noting that since I tend to maintain a humanoid shape, face included, I still emote like humans too, but I've now also got the slime ones too!

I'd say the most notable one is anger, which was definitely an interesting discovery the first time it happened. The easiest explanation is that I ‘fizz’; air bubbles shoot up through my body, popping once they reach my head, whenever I get angry, the more angry the more dramatic the fizz.

Blushing's definitely changed too, although it kind of feels the same; instead of blood rushing to my face, my slime kinda condenses around my cheeks (wondering if the location is a hangover from being human, or if all slimes have this), becoming more opaque. Basically instead of red, I now blush orange.

While there are more, those two are the main ones, and the others are less distinct, nor that easy to describe, so I'll save the space here.

What I will quickly add here, since it's at least tangentially related to emotions, is that I've found a couple new ways to stim with my new body. One is just idly altering my shape, usually just my hand, but honestly anything is fair game (look forward to seeing how that'll change/alter with shapeshifting), while the other is fiddling with my core. Do have to be careful with the latter, given if I mess up I could have to reform myself - don't think my core is liable to crack if I drop it, but I'd rather not find out.

Going to round this out with the things I couldn't work out where else to put them, starting with audio/hearing.

Firstly, I'm pretty sure I can hear better, or at the very least, my audio location is better, since my hearing changed I can much more accurately pinpoint a sound. Figure that this is ‘cause that's how slimes would hunt naturally - slimes don't innately use sight to navigate, it's all vibrations, and sound is a really good one for that. The negative side of this is areas with lots of various sound sources can be really overwhelming, which has been something I've had to learn to manage, but it's something even some humans struggle with, so there's plenty of resources and info to help so it’s been something fairly easy to learn to cope with, compared to other things I’ve had to throughout this.

What has been interesting has been finding my strength diminish as I've become gooier, after all, my muscles have literally become syrup. While this has been a little annoying at times, especially early on, I got used to it, and, as I got more goo I found that slime strength is apparently proportional to how much mass a limb has, but less in the ‘more muscular’ sense, and more in the same way a denser piece of wood is better for leverage, if that makes any sense. It's not that more mass makes me stronger, it's that it makes my body more capable of lifting/moving things, it's a little hard to explain without a demonstration or diagram but hopefully that has all made sense with just text.

Lastly I do want to talk about something that isn't strictly slime related, but is something I've had to deal with within my transition, is my less than human shape I've taken. The main three that I’ve got sticking around are talons instead of feet, a tail with a fin, and wings. Obviously everything is made of slime, but when I get on my shapeshifting meds, I plan to add more texture and stuff to them.

The feet I've shaped for myself took some getting used to. They're kind of like bird feet - talons as I said above - and as such they kind of reworked how I walk around, and I definitely had some issues balancing with them at first while I learned how to manage them. I probably would have given up and just stuck with human feet if it hadn't felt so right walking around with my talons(feels nice to say that). I wish I could articulate the feeling better here but it's just that very simple feeling of ‘this is how I should be’.

I also shaped myself a tail, which was one of the earliest phantom limbs I had, and it's similarly been wonderful to have. It's about as long as I am tall now (yeah, it's big, but I had to put the extra mass from shrinking myself somewhere (ignore that I seem to be able to squirrel mass away in my core and let me have this)) which is just super great… except for the fact that the human world has strongly not accounted for tailed individuals in their design of public spaces. Now, I could just shrink my tail down to fit, but damn it, I just got it, I'm not getting rid of it ‘cause humans are slow to adapt! But yes, it's been nice having the improved balance, especially with new feet and gelatinous legs, and grabbing things with it is also good fun, as well as quite useful too, and the fin is fun to flex.

Finally, wings! Much like the others, it feels really nice to have them, and stretching them out is quite euphoric. My only complaint is that, due to their consistency, I can't actually fly with them. I have tried making them more solid and the like, but they just don't seem to be able to get me off the ground. I think the extra mass kinda stops the additional strength from being able to provide any more lift… or maybe I'm just too nervous about them not working.

And with that I think that's everything I need to add into the journal here, and hopefully this helps anyone else with their treatment! So with that, guess I'll see you all in the next entry! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This took a while to get together, but hopefully I've now covered the majority of things that cropped up in my mind long after I'd written them down in their entries and added more of those little moments you get over a transition.

This is the actual last diary entry solely dedicated to the Slime portion of this, and as I said before, although there will be at least a couple more stories we have planned that are slime based, the next proper entry to this story will be the beginning of Shapeshifter/Polymorph hrt

First - Last - Next Side Story Collab - Mimic meets Slime

Tag list under the cut (let us know if ya wanna be added)

@calliecwrites, @friedsputnik, @now-entering-the-goop-zone, @scrubbinn, @lilacinthefog,

@mint-and-authoress, @losttodreams, @redroversendjayover, @ariathelamia, @kanithecatdemon

#slime hrt #slime girl #non-human hrt #species hrt #therian hrt #otherkin hrt #humanity replacement therapy #transgender #my writing

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