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starry-nights-garden · 1 year ago

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NCT Dream as the Demon hiding under your bed

✧ NCT Dream all members x gn!reader ✧ genre: humor, crack, fluff ✧ warnings: none

Mark:

the confused demon

does not know why he is here

one day wakes up under your bed, hits his head, crawls out and startles the shit out of you

he’s as clueless as you are as to what he’s doing here

laughs awkwardly, attempts to introduce himself and keeps switching back and forth between english and korean

????

maybe the awkwardness is the reason why you’re not scared of him when he explains that he’s a demon

“So I guess I’m supposed to take your soul?” - he figures someday

you just shrug it off and agree because ever since he suddenly moved in with you you two have become pretty good friends

also he’s very cute and seems clueless as to how a demon is supposed to behave, so you secretly don’t think he’d ever be able to take your soul

plus, you know he’s taken a liking to you and his soft spot for you won’t allow him to harm you

really you kinda just chill in your room all day and watch series or play games??

he’s more like a brother you get along with super well than a demon trying to kill you

however, when other demons find out that he’s not doing his job, they decide to do it for him

you can trust him to always hide you well and keep the other demons at a distance

he will do everything he can to protect you from them

Renjun:

the annoyed demon

has been living as a demon for so long that he’s kinda getting tired of it tbh

especially if he ends up choosing a person who doesn’t give up their soul so easily

unfortunately, you are one of those people

so when he realizes this, he just begins to dread the whole thing aksdjfölka

however, he takes his duties as a demon very seriously, and his pride won’t just let him ditch you - he has to see this through until the end

when he finally reveals himself to you, because you just will not give him any kind of opening to steal your soul otherwise, you are understandably scared at first

however, when he offers to grant you your biggest wish, you start to wonder if it’s worth making a deal with him, because surely he must want something in return?

you stay suspicious and start asking questions to figure out what exactly he is

and in the end this discussion is being dragged out so much that he simply lets out a deep sigh and admits everything lol

but since he already promised to grant you a wish, you decide to trick him and wish for him to be your loyal servant until the end of time

which, in your dictionary means he shouldn’t be able to take your soul in the first place, and in his eyes it means that he might still have a chance

so here he is, your own personal servant, who you also just made a pact with

you make him do stuff like bringing you snacks or doing your work for you at first, receiving death glares in exchange

however, at some point a weird tom-and-jerry like friendship starts between you two, and you actually start enjoying spending time with each other

he keeps joking about how he will simply murder you and take your soul while you’re sleeping at night whenever you annoy him in the slightest

but he says that with such an adoring smile on his face ????

technically he shouldn’t be able to do that, as it goes against what you wished for - he’s still Renjun tho, so you can never be too sure…

and no matter how well you get along in the end, he will still end up taking your soul one day

Jeno:

the soft-hearted demon

one night you wake up to him, looking all scary and threatening, on top of you, pinning you down to your bed so you can’t escape

you’re obviously scared and don’t know what’s going on

you try to scream, but no sound will come out when he covers your mouth with one hand

and then suddenly you see his features become very soft and the tension leaving his body

has a mental breakdown in the corner of your room because your eyes were wide with fear and you looked so scared and he just isn’t cut out for this whole demon lifestyle

disappears after that but realizes he’ll get in trouble if you reveal his identity, now that you know his face

so he returns one day, politely knocking on your window pane until you let him in :’)

you’re obviously suspicious and scared at first, but then he starts incoherently rambling about his worries

you understand nothing

he panics and eventually leaves again?????

he really is NOT cut out for this…

eventually he HAS to return to you though, because he’s in danger, and you’re also now in danger of being found by other demons

explains himself a bit more coherently this time and out of guilt he offers to protect you???

wasn’t he supposed to take your soul instead???

you’re not sure how this bundle of soft feelings and internal panic is supposed to protect you, but he also refuses to leave with a huge pout on his lips so you decide to let him stay for now

when other demons start swarming your home a bit after that, he makes sure to ward off every single one of them

you grow closer and you come to trust him eventually, feeling reassured that he can protect you

Haechan:

the troublesome demon

technically pretty smart, because he takes the time to observe and get to know about you first

however, when you can’t sleep and keep rolling around in bed and getting up and lying down again several times the very night he was planning on surprising you in your sleep to take your soul, he loses all patience

lets out a huge groan eventually and crawls out from under your bed, wordlessly goes to the kitchen to get chips while mumbling something about needing snacks to calm down, and then sits next to you to watch you fall asleep

obviously NOW you can’t fall asleep because there’s a stranger in your bedroom??? eating your snacks???

he does not explain anything, he just sits there grinning to himself while snacking away

only when you scream in terror that you’re going to call the police, he gets up

“Whoa there, no need to go that far.”

explains that he’s just some apparition and you’re actually already sleeping and you’re just having this hyperrealistic dream to process some kind of hidden worry??

decides that he could just have a bit of fun with you before doing his work, so he crawls out from his hideaway every other night to chat with you

eventually he also convinces you to play games with him and to cook midnight snacks together

he originally made this all a part of his plan to get you to trust him but actually?? spending time with you??? is a lot of fun??

also maybe he’s developing a little crush on you and he can’t decide if that makes it more dreadful or more fun to take your soul later on

he ends up getting really attached to you and clings to you all the time

that is until one night, another demon comes to take your soul and he protects you, ending up explaining everything to you

becomes your personal guardian and gaming buddy after that

Jaemin:

the responsible demon

one day he simply appears and starts telling you what to do??

nags you to do your homework and teaches you how to do taxes

gets really annoying when you don’t do your chores

“I cannot have you live like this.”

lists 74385723 reasons why you should keep your house clean and take care of yourself (literally who askeddddd???)

threatens you to take your soul on the spot if you don’t do what he says aksjdflka

actually very caring and means well, but just cannot watch you procrastinate on stuff that needs to be done eventually

at this point he doesn’t feel like an intruder anymore, so you just accept that there’s this supernatural being somehow supporting you in getting your life together

he also doesn’t really give you the time to figure out that maybe keeping him around could potentially be dangerous to you

either way, you actually come to appreciate his efforts in motivating you, and as he too gets more used to you and takes a liking to you, his words become more gentle

that doesn’t mean he will let you slack off and procrastinate on things that are just stressing you out unnecessarily because you keep not doing them

also has weirdly specific household tips and tricks for you??

if you attempt to cut into your sleep time by staying up too late, he will literally pull you to your bed and not let you get up again until morning kjsdflkas

forces you into taking good care of yourself, and he’s somehow both the nicest and the most annoying being you know

but as a responsible demon, he still has to do his job of taking your soul eventually

however, there’s still some time until then; after all he has to make sure you’re eating three healthy meals a day and that your tax return is filled out correctly

Chenle:

the melancholic demon

tells you in detail about how life on earth was 800 years ago

you think you’re having a fever dream when someone suddenly emerges from under your bed and starts off a conversation with “You know, back in my days…”

dude, you’re like 20, what are you talking about???

really, he’s been wandering this world for hundreds of years, not aging physically due to him being a demon

and now he’s here to take your soul - he doesn’t literally tell you that though

instead, he starts openly explaining how he’s taken the souls of many other people and how you can’t escape him anyway, due to his experience and knowledge of the human mind

basically he’s explaining to you in the most chill and unfazed way possible that he’s about to kill you, while throwing in some memories here and there, feeling nostalgic

you’re in for a very long night, because this guy just won’t stop talking and sharing his wisdom, and at times it seems like he doesn’t even care if you’re listening or not

at some point asks if you happen to have a good bottle of wine at home??? kind of like a last supper he wants to have with you??

what is wrong with him

eventually you join in on the conversation and he finds what you’re saying so interesting that he takes an instant interest in you

maybe he won’t take your soul right away?

you somehow end up talking until sunrise, and to your surprise he simply crawls back under your bed and disappears? you feel even more like you just had a very long fever dream now

however, the following night he returns to talk to you again, claiming that he had so much fun and for as long as you manage to entertain him he will spare you

obviously you feel very pressured now, maybe even so pressured that you fail to find something to talk about at all

rest assured though, he’s been in this for long enough to not let any chance to enjoy the small things in life slip away, so he always helps you out in finding a topic for a conversation

Jisung:

the awkward demon

has no clue what he’s doing

like that villain who always explains his grand plan of evil to you before actually executing it, except make it very awkward and also there is no actual execution of the plan that follows

he’s a shy bean and who even ever thought he’d do well as an entity designed entirely to take people’s souls???

and it’s his first time taking someone’s soul too, so he’s just very anxious, and what if he embarrasses himself??? (like that’s the part he should be most worried about???)

anyway, he has a super-foolproof plan (at least he thinks it’s foolproof), which already fails at step one

so one night you’re lying in your bed, about to fall asleep, when you hear something rustling under your bed

you don’t think much of it, but when you hear the noise again you decide to get up and take a look

you turn on the lights and find a person hiding there in plain sight, eyes squinting because it’s too bright and holding a huge bag of sweets in his arms

he’s very dumbfounded

eventually he holds out the sweets to you and goes “Let me take your soul in exchange for these treats!”

you start screaming, because there is a complete stranger under your bed and how did he even get there??? so he finally jumps out, slamming his hand over your mouth

“Shh!! What if someone hears us or finds out I’m here?”

eventually changes his bribe into you shutting up about him in exchange for the sweets, and also slips up somewhere in between, revealing that he is - in fact - a demon

now he feels so guilty for inconveniencing you that he’s unable to take your soul

therefore he simply surprises you every night with a new supply of sweets

he still has a lot to learn, sigh…

#nct dream reactions #nct dream imagines #nct dream fluff #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #nct reactions #nct dream scenarios #nct imagines #reaction #fluff

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randomnameless · 10 months ago

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Lyon trying to trick Priam into becoming one of Fomortiis' servants, only to give up once he realizes Priam has too much experience and knows that any offer of easy power always comes with a terrible cost, deciding to go look for someone more guillible>>>Lyon being a perfect guy with no flaws and whose main trait is simping for the Renais twins; never thought i'd have to praise the Awakening Spotpass nostalgia-bait chapters of all things, but Heroes certainly has a way of setting bars unbelievably low.

TBH,

For some characters, the FE13 spotpass/DLC stuff has better characterisation than FEH!

Or...

FEH wants to sell alts, when FE13 wanted to sell "nostalgia" (that's totes why i bought all those packs back then lol), so FE13 could be close to the source material than FEH who wants you to feel bad for Lyon and his tragedy, thus buy alts where he's happy or lives his dream of being a "friend" to the twins.

IDK if FE13 Lyon was Lyon or already Fomortiis or whatever, but it's indeed more interesting to have him be the one who wants power at all costs - even if he had nice intentions (save the world, become the twins's friend) - and destroys everything he once hold dear (the twins, Grado, the world).

As my favourite FEH character says :

Lyon: “Thank you, Eirika. You were always…so kind. The Demon King will claim my flesh as a vessel for his resurrection. Before that can happen…I want you to kill me. I’m sorry, Eirika. I’m already-“ Evil Lyon: “Oh, please…Are you done turning your failings into some sad epic of personal tragedy… It’s time we started then. I have a ritual to complete…and some nuisances to kill.”

As long as they can make money, Heroes will continue to uwufy characters, regardless of canon (see Reinhardt).

But I stand with Fomortiis here, Canon!Lyon's failings led to his resurrection, it's not an epic tragedy, it's, at its core, the story of someone who wanted to rely on "cheap" power to gain everything he desired, and who was arrogant enough to believe he could count on and master said "cheap" power.

(cheap as in an easy way to get power)

#anon #replies #Magvel stuff #Lyon stuff #I'm glad to see more people realise what's wrong with FEH!Lyon tbh #after his shit of a fallen alt I lost all hope lol #i mean not to gatekeep or prevent fans from making their ocs or anything #but to me canon!Lyon is the one who relies on Fomortiis to become stronger than Eph and shag Eirika even #if he his more polite than Valter #Lyon was a victim of his own ambitions and of course of Fomortiis #but the thing still stands #as long as people are too ambitious and want cheap power Fomortiis can return #madness/evil in the hearts of men create disasters #in FE8 it frees Satan #but in the other FEs it triggers karmic retribution via dragons or gods or whatnot

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willowwhispersspeakeasy · 3 years ago

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hi hi, can you please do the dog boy/person mc but with the dateables? thank you!!

sequel to this request

Dateables with dogboy! MC

warnings: reader will be gender neutral this time (but im still calling it “dogboy” bc I think its cute~) mild power play, mild pet play themes, no horny this time

Diavolo

oh you are simply the cutest mc! he was worried at first, your already kind nature now being blindly trusting. and it would seem you’ve decided to view him as your “master”, which he doesn’t mind. you need someone to look after you and he’s happy to receive your attention.

“come here pup!” Dia pats the top of his thighs, grinning as you bolt towards him. he laughs as you throw yourself into his lap on the couch. he rubs your back at your ears as you buzz with excitement.

hes going to spoil you with affection for these 24hours. he won't let you leave his lap, absolutely not. hes going to call you all of the cute names too. puppy, baby, good boy, good girl, anything and everything.

Barbatos

oh dear, what an interesting turn of events. Barb is calmer then Dia of course, gentler with you. he’s a busy demon and having you on his heels like a lost puppy, while cute, is a little difficult to deal with.

“what is it little one? you’re still following me.” he sighs, setting down the tray he was carrying.

“’m sorry master... I just feel safer when im with you.” you admit shyly. Barb is taken aback, his many years as a servant hes never been seen as the “master”

“come here little one, I'm sure I can find a use for that cute boundless energy of yours.” he smiles softly, opening his arms and letting you attach yourself to his side.

Solomon

he offers to turn you back first. he can finagle a spell of some kind to speed up the process. if you refuse and want to stay a pup he will be intrigued, but leave you be.

“well if you don't want me to change you back why do I still find you attached to my hip?” he mused teasingly. Solomon was gentle as he rubbed your ears, smiling as your tail began to wag.

“’cause I wanna spend time with you master!” your hand flew over your mouth at your unplanned honesty. Solomon raised a brow, chuckling.

“oh? maybe your “master” should teach you some tricks hm? now, sit.” he instructed, pointing at the ground at his feet. you followed without hesitation, looking up at the sorcerer’s mischievous grin. “good dog~”

Simeon

how adorable~ Simeon is smitten with this turn of events. you are just so cute and you refuse to leave his side. at first he doesn’t treat you any differently then usual, but when it becomes clear you are much needier for his affections he will indulge you.

you lay with your head in the angel’s lap. his fingers gently petting your scalp and rubbing at your ears. after a fun playdate with Luke you were now exhausted and needy for cuddles.

the angel hummed an old hymn, turning the pages of his novel. the smell of him and the gentleness of his touches lulling you into a soft slumber.

Luke

hes worried. mc? are you okay? you’re acting just like a dog? are you going to have to stay like this? Solomon and Simeon will have to reassure him that in a day or so you will return to normal.

the little angel laughs wildly as you pin him down and roll around the hill. he doesn't get a chance to play much, seeing as hes always around adults all the time. you pretend to growl at the grass, tail wagging as he laughs once more.

you spend the rest of the day picking flowers and berries. playing games about adventures and magic and fairy tails. Luke finally falls asleep on your tummy, belly full of sweets and dreams heavy with imagination. Simeon thanks you after you turn back, thanks you for letting Luke be a child. something he doesn't get to do much.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me x reader #obey me fluff #obey me x mc #gender neutral reader #obey me dateables #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #obey me Luke

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myafterlifeisbetterthenyours · 3 years ago

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Can you do Stolas with an imp and the imp falling for Stolas but hiding it, Stolas eventually finding out and confessing he felt the same? With Stolas being *ahem* himself per say

Stolas with Imp S/O

Youd worked all over Hell, in many occupations. From cooking to cleaning and a wide variety of maintenance.

And with your extensive experience in so many fields, it wasnt difficult to get a job serving in the prestigious Goetia Palace.

You got used to your duties quickly, thoroughly cleaning the east wing when lord Stolas walked by.

Now you'd only had a brief interaction with the owl Demon during your time at the palace, but by all rights he seemed a decent fellow, at least by Demonic Overlord standards.

However, as he passed by he was confronted by his wife. His wife, Lady Stella, went off on him, demanding to know if he'd prepared for a gathering later that day.

You knew about the gathering, and it was very clear Stolas had not prepared for it.

You watched as the owl sputtered and tripped over his words as he desperately tried to explain to his wife why he hadn't prepared for it.

You don't really know why you did it, most Imps would give an arm and a leg to see a noble being given a thrashing by there wives.

But Stolas didn't deserve such a thing, so you stepped forwards, apologising on his behalf.

Telling her you were still new to the job and he was helping you with an urgent matter and that's why he was unable to prepare for the gathering.

Stella stared at you for a long moment and just when you thought she'd say something, she smacked you clean across the face.

Between Stella's inherent strength and your small size, the smack sent you into the nearest wall.

Stella told you coldly to never distract her husband again, and NEVER address her in such an insolent manner ever again.

Stolas was indignant, yelling at her that that was completely unnecessary. Getting her to out of the room he rushed to your side, ensuring you were alright.

Asking if you were alright, you told him It hurt like Hell, but you'd gone through worse. You had a chuckle before the owl thanked you for stepping in like that, asking why you'd do such a thing.

You told him up front, he was probably the best boss you'd had and you couldn't just watch him be chewed out like that.

After that incident, you found yourself with a day off. Although it was explained by a scheduling issue, you always thought of it as a thank you, from Stolas.

After that, however, Stolas seemed to keep you close, personally asking you to attend to tasks he was unable to, and over time you grew to be his go to Imp when he needed something important done.

You quickly made yourself indispensable to the Prince, using your diverse skill set you could handle just about anything he threw your way.

You would organise his day to day, tell him when and were something important was happening, you were basically his personal assistant and as such you were basically attached at the hip, doing everything and anything to support your Prince.

You spent the majority of your waking hours with the Stolas, and much to your growing dread, you found yourself falling for the Prince.

I mean he didn't make it easy on you. The fucking owl seemed to go out of his way to be as adorable as possible, acting like a big child. And it didn't help that he was genuinely kind to you, caring for you as more than just an asset. He treated you like a respected being.

And getting such attention from a noble, was... intoxicating.

A touch, a smile. The Owls harmonious laughter at some stupid joke you made, it was borderline addictive.

But as much as you may... crave~ his attention, you could never reveal these feelings.

You may be his favourite Imp, but you were an Imp none the less. You were so far beneath him there was no chance you could even hope to gain his attention.

And as much as that tore you up inside, you accepted that. Deciding instead to channel that affection in a way that would best serve your prince.

Stolas was quite fond of you.

He was so used to people only helping him in return for something, But you were different. You served him while asking for nothing in return.

His colder, aristocratic side would say you were just doing your duty, just serving like a good little Imp should.

But he could tell. You went above and beyond serving him, helping him in every endeavour he faced.

Over time, he noticed you becoming more affectionate, being more open and light hearted, treating him more like a friend than a Prince, like everyone else did. Something the Owl found intoxicating in its own right.

Of course he had his Owlet for unconditional love and affection, but your affectionate had this strange affect on him. You were kind to him, asking nothing in return, and that made him all fuzzy inside.

But just as he came to enjoy your affection, feeling like he had something to make the cold and cut throat reality of nobility bearable, you pulled back. You became more formal, like all the others in his life that served him.

And while at first he had hoped it was just a temporary hiccup, it quickly got to a point stolas couldn't take it anymore.

The owl ended up using every trick he could think of to figure out just why you'd pulled back.

It was somewhat underhanded, but one night, after you'd said goodnight, Stolas used his Grimoire and observed your unconcious mind. But he never would have expected what he saw.

He got a full view of how you viewed him.

He didn't know if he should be flattered or shocked, as in your eyes he was on parr with a diety.

He was this being of pure mercy and kindness, so far above you, you held your feelings back because you believed there was no way you could get close to him.

Your dream slowly morphed to reveal how terrified you were of admitting it, an all consuming fear that such information would destroy the relationship you held as the most important thing in your life.

Stolas was in shock.

Afterwards he spent the whole night thinking about you.

He couldnt deny he had strong feelings towards you.

After all, you'd always gone above and beyond for him, you were his most trusted and beloved servant, and... he liked to think of you as his friend.

But now that he knew your dedication was fuelled by love, it gave him a whole new perspective to your behaviour.

The way you smiled at him.

The way you laughed at his jokes.

The way you stuck close to him, the way you got defensive on his behalf, so much so you'd started fights with other staff members whom had disrespected him.

All these actions had once seemed so innocent, seemingly coming from your deep sense of loyalty and commitment.

But now, he knew they came from a place of love and devotion.

He spent the whole night thinking it over, pacing his office, deep in thought.

But no matter how hard he thought about it, he always reached the same conclusion.

He loved you.

He knew it was crazy. After all, he had a family. He had a loving- er... Well, he had a wife.

He had a beautiful daughter, and yet here he was, having unknowingly fallen for an Imp.

He went over it a hundred times and every time he thought about it he simply couldn't deny his feelings for you.

You were kind, loving and selfless. Youd always seemed to put his needs above your own And for Stolas, whom had never know selfless love. He realised it was all hed ever wanted.

Now Stolas had to decide what to do with this information.

Unfortunately Stolas couldn't keep a secret from you to save his life, you could simply read him to well.

And it wouldn't take long for him to crack, finding it impossible to keep such a major secret from you.

He'd get you somewhere private, using the excuse of business to get you alone.

Once he was confident you wouldn't be interrupted, he'd basically pin you to a wall, the owl hesitating for a moment before telling you, he knew.

You tried to play it off, telling him you didn't know what he was talking about.

Only for Stolas to snap at you, telling you, you knew exactly what he was talking about.

He leaned in close, whispering he knew you loved him.

You tried to stay composed, but internally you were freaking. Doing your best to keep calm and play it off.

The problem was Stolas was so close, you could smell his morning coffee and he was staring right at you, not giving you any time to calm down and think of a clever excuse.

But you couldn't. You couldn't lie to his face.

So you confessed, you confessed to loving him. You confessed you loved him more than anything, more then you knew how to handle. So you hid it from him.

There was a long silence.

You expected him to drop you, throw you to the side and tell you to get out of his sight, or maybe just kill you then and there.

But he didn't, instead he... he kissed you.

He planted a deep passionate kiss right on the lips, and... and you just couldn't help but return it. You wrapped your smaller arms around his neck, giving him your all.

Breaking the kiss, Stolas cupped your cheek and you were left stunned once again, when he told you... He loved you too.

You were so happy you were almost in tears, holding Stolas so close you almost feared you'd snap him in half, the two of you sharing a moment of joy and warmth.

You pressed your forheads and for the first time in both your lives you held someone you knew loved you for you close.

You held each other close for a long while, Stolas pressing you against his chest. Leaning back, you just smiled at each other.

It was a warm little smile, a smile you gave to someone you cared for deeply.

Scratching your neck, you asked him "What comes next?"

A devious little smile crossed his lips as he stared down at you, a predatory glow to his crimson gaze.

He carried you briskly to the nearest bedroom, carrying you to the bed he dropped you, pressing you against the bed.

Sliding his hands up your shirt, he purred down at you, "After all you've done for me, I think it's only fair..." He licked his lips, "I return the favour."

He stripped you down slowly, trailing kisses across your body.

You spent the night together, wrapped in throws of passion, Stolas doing his very best to bring you as much pleasure as possible.

You went at it long into the night, you pouring all the love and affection you'd repressed for so long.

There being one particular moment where the owl lost his mind when you flipped him over, pinning him down and took control.

You went at it until you collapsed in each other's embrace.

The next morning was like a whole new reality for you two. You held each other close and just relished the new found love you had for each other.

Your relationship would continue in secret, the both of you desperate to keep this new flame alive. Your position as his right hand Imp enabling you to stay close and be with him in private without raising any suspicion.

The two of you had frequent little 'rendezvous', where ever, when ever you wanted too without much issue.

Stolas' favourite was having a quick romp in the car on the way home from a meeting.

As amazing as your romance would be, there would always be a risk hanging over, something you were always cautious of. Although your concerns were dismissed by Stolas and you really found it hard to stay focused around him.

But as perfext as your relationship was, it would all come crashing down when you were discovered by Stella.

Now Stella's reaction could vary drastically depending on the nature of there marriage.

If Stella genuinely loved Stolas, she'd likely loose her shit.

Going off on Stolas while also likely try to kill you.

The family would be divided much like with Blitzø, although this time you would actually be there to support Stolas emotionally, not to mention you'd likely have a decent chance of getting along with Octavia.

But If there union was, say, more business than personal. Well... terms could be reached.

She'd still likely freak out, but Stolas could temper her fury before it could get out of hand.

They could reach an accord, you and him could be together so long as your relationship never sees the light of day.

After that, your relationship went up a notch, Stolas not having to hold back like before, he would basically go feral with you, spending every available second wrapped in a passionate embrace with you.

#helluva boss #headcanon #helluva boss headcanon #x reader #helluva boss x reader #helluva stolas #helluva boss stolas #stolas x reader #stolas #stolas deserves some love #stolas is a big softy

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Would you write a Jiang Yanli time travel fix-it? I can't help but think somebody not in possession of the full story for once might be interesting?

Jiang Yanli closed her eyes forever, and woke up in her own bedroom, years before.

“I think I’ve heard stories about this,” she said blankly to her ceiling.

She had, too – stories in the marketplace or in travelling shows, told time and again in plays and puppets: the reborn hero, wronged in their first life and able to re-do it in their past to better their destiny. Women who were tricked into bad fates triumphing over those who schemed against them, men who collected all the treasures they had been denied before…

Why was she sent back?

There was saving her parents and sect, of course, and naturally that in turn would avert the terrible fate suffered by Wei Wuxian, who turned to demonic cultivation to save them all and then inexplicably succumbed to it. Saving Wei Wuxian would save her husband, and therefore, she hoped, save her own life.

Only – she didn’t know anything.

Anything.

She hadn’t accompanied her brothers to the Cloud Recesses, she hadn’t been sent to the indoctrination camp, she’d been away visiting her grandmother when the Jiang sect had been attacked, she’d been sent to shelter in safety for the entirety of the Sunshot Campaign and communicated with her brothers on the front line only through letters that could not reveal any details…

Even afterwards, when she married Jin Zixuan and could finally be allowed to learn things about Lanling Jin, she’d become pregnant so quickly that there hadn’t really been much opportunity to do any of the work of being mistress of a sect, especially not with Madame Jin there to worry and fret about the next heir being born healthy and strong.

She didn’t even know what time she’d come back to!

Jiang Yanli stood and lit a candle, trying to examine her body – it was her childhood bedroom, so it was before the fall of the Lotus Pier, but how old, exactly, was she? Not a child, in her teenage years…maybe she should have been vainer in her youth, because she honestly couldn’t quite tell.

It was easier with her boys. She knew every event in Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s lives, every bruise and scrape and growth spurt – if she could see them, she’d be able to figure it out, surely.

She considered her door thoughtfully, but – no. It was late at night, and they would be asleep, surely.

A rumble of thunder came from outside her window, the pitter-patter of rain abruptly beating against the wall, and she sighed and gave it up. Surely there was nothing that she could do tonight that she couldn’t do tomorrow.

Not that she knew exactly what she could do at all. Warn her parents? It wasn’t as though they didn’t know of the threat of the Wen sect already. Give them dates, times, for the few incidents she did know? Why would they believe her? Wouldn’t they just assume she’d had a bad dream?

It was a problem.

She settled down in her bed to consider it.

And so it was, a few shichen later when the pre-dawn light would have started peeking around the horizon if it hadn’t been suppressed by storm clouds, that she was awake when a servant ran over to her room. “Young Mistress!” her maid hissed excitedly outside the door, clearly longing to get her attention but under orders not to wake her up. “Young Mistress, are you awake?”

“I am,” Jiang Yanli said, opening the door. “What’s the matter?”

“Your fiancé is here and demanding to see you! He’s flown all night!”

“My – fiancé?” Jiang Yanli asked blankly, and then realized: this must be before the Cloud Recesses, before the engagement to Jin Zixuan had broken. But if so, why was he here? “I’ll go to meet him.”

“Hurry if you want to make it before your mother wakes up,” the servant advised, and that was a very good point. Such a request was highly inappropriate.

Jiang Yanli rushed to the greeting room, unable to resist a smile when she saw Jin Zixuan standing there: fifteen years old at most, not even wearing a cloak and soaked through to the bone from the rain. He looked like a bedraggled yellow puppy – even the vermillion mark on his forehead, which was made of paint that resisted running, had disappeared.

“Jin-gongzi?” she said, remembering at that last moment that she couldn’t call him A-Xuan.

He turned to look at her, his eyes wide and wild and terribly sad.

“A-Li?” he said, and Jiang Yanli couldn’t help smiling broadly as tears came to her eyes.

“A-Xuan?” she said. “Is it you? Did you…?”

“The last thing I remember is the Qiongqi Path –”

It was him.

Jiang Yanli threw herself forward into his arms with a sob. She was the same height as him was at this point, he’d had a late growth spurt, but it didn’t matter one bit, not to either of them.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said in a rush. “I woke up tonight –”

“Me, too. I was in my room – I came here at once.” He looked at her. “We have to change things. Everything!”

“Of course,” Jiang Yanli said. “But how? I’ve been thinking all night. The Wen sect is still too powerful right now, and who would believe us?”

“The Nie sect would, probably,” Jin Zixuan said. “And I’m sure we could convince A-Yao to help – I don’t remember when he was thrown out of Jinlin Tower, just that it was my birthday some year –”

“We’ll figure it out,” she assured him. “I was thinking –”

“A-Li!” her mother howled from behind her. “What are you doing?!”

“Right,” Jin Zixuan said, going pale. “Step one: survive your mother.”

#mdzs #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #my fic #my fics #oneiriad

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chilling-in-the-dark · 4 years ago

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The Batboys As Vampires: Part 1 Bruce Wayne

This is a yandere story; it mentions elements of obsession, possessiveness, death, and it hints at noncon If any of this is triggering for you, I understand, and you don’t have to read it.

Bruce had been given another name when he was ten days old, but he had forgotten it long ago, as was often the case with those of his kind, as they took on new names to blend in often they would forget the ones they were born with.

Bruce’s father had been from a long line of purebred vampires, but he’d veered off tradition when he’d fallen in love with a woman from the Greek village he’d been visiting. Themis (Thomas as Bruce would refer to him much later in life) had been so sure about his love that he’d turned her the night they’d meet, and after a century together, they’d had a son. Bruce was born in Pompeii just eight years before the volcano erupted.

The small family had been happy, that is until the day the volcano blew erupted, his father having been quite old knew what was going to happen as soon as he felt the ground rumble below his feet. They’d sent Bruce on ahead because, at the time, he was still young enough to travel in daylight. After all, the magic in his blood wouldn’t truly sink in until he was older. Typically it was somewhere around age twenty, but Bruce was a bit of a late bloomer and hadn’t turned until he was thirty-five.

Nearly two millennia passed before he’d meet you, Alfred had been by his side for almost all of that time, though seeing as Alfred was one of the first vampires, he chose to serve him. Bruce wasn’t under any illusions the man before him was more powerful the Bruce could ever hope to be, the only reason Alfred listened to Bruce was that he’d chosen to.

Though you didn’t know anything about the dynamics of vampires when you came to be a maid in the Wayne household, it was not the first manor house you’d served in after being born in Victorian London, there had been no other choice for your lot in life. You were the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, one who couldn’t let your birth sully his good name, so he’d done everything in his power to see that the only place your mother could go was the workhouse. Luckily by the time you were old enough to be put to work, they’d started sending children out to smaller homes where they could be trained in a trade.

For the girls of the workhouse, that meant becoming a domestic servant, while the boy’s learned to be all manner of things, such as tailors and carpenters, among other things you couldn’t quite remember. Having tried your best to suppress all memories of that place, of the cruelty you’d faced there, and of the night’s, you couldn’t sleep because you’d longed for a mother you’d only seen in passing.

You learned quickly why Lord Wayne couldn’t get his servants from the nearby village, some of the more superstitious locals whispered things about him secretly being a monster, but you’d never really believed in things like that. People were monsters enough on their own.

Things had gone well enough for the first year of your service to Lord Wayne, even if it’d taken you a while to get used to doing your job at night, because of Lord Wayne’s apparent allergy to sunlight. He wasn’t the harshest Master you’d ever had; in fact, when it came to his servant’s, he was one of the least strict you’d ever seen, though that isn’t to say he’d tolerate laziness or jobs half done. Still, if a servant finished their work early and did their job well, they were more then welcome to spend their extra time however they liked.

You favored wandering the grounds, though your preferred spot was the pond out back, its calm clear waters mirrored the heavens in such a way that it almost looked like they had fallen to earth. It was there that you spoke Lord Wayne for the first time, sure you’d seen him in passing while doing your work but had never had a conversation with him. Lord Wayne had been sweet and charming, but something about him made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Bruce had fallen for you fast, and hard it seemed because, after that first meeting, he’d found himself drawn to you when he’d told this to Alfred the old vampire just smiled. Bruce knew you were meant to be his, and he’d tried to court you the normal way, but it seemed that you were immune to his charms.

It was time for Bruce to move on anyways because the Locals were growing more and more suspicious of him as time went on, so Bruce devised a plan, one that would kill two birds with one stone.

It was a few months later that Bruce informed his staff that he was going to America where he intended to be the founder of a new city, Gotham, he’d planned on calling it. Lord Wayne had written all of his staff recommendations, nearly everyone except for you. You watched as your colleges found new employment and left one by one until you were the only member of staff left. Well, there was Alfred, but Lord Wayne intended to take with him to America.

You made you your mind to confront him about it as soon as you finished your duty’s today, only you never got the chance to because Lord Wayne appeared before you in the familiar servants’ quarters, just as you were getting ready to start your work. Your face turned beet red when you looked over at him and found that he was naked as the day he was born.

“My Lord, what are you doing?” you squeaked and tried to turn away from the scene only for Bruce to grab your chin with near bruising force and make you look into his eyes. The vibrant blue of his eyes seemed to be replaced by a glowing purple, which you found yourself praying was just the moonlight playing tricks on your eyes, because the rumors around town about him being some sort of demon couldn’t possibly be true, could they?

You didn’t get long to linger that thought; as a second later, you had much bigger things to worry about, like the fact you couldn’t even control your own body. You stood there frozen in place until Lord Wayne took your hand and started to lead you down the stairs and through the main door, all the while your mind was screaming at you. Why was this happing to you? This was just a bad dream right, any moment now, you’d wake up in a cold sweat and let yourself have a laugh about allowing the rumors get in your head.

After what seemed like an eternity, you stopped before the small pond where you’d first spoken to Bruce. Tonight, it seemed as if someone had scattered an entire kitchens worth of herbs across its typically mirror-like surface, but you didn’t have long to take it in as Bruce removed your cap and unpinned your hair. When he was satisfied he’d gotten all the pins out, Bruce grabbed your bodice and tore it clean in half shift, corset and all leaving your upper body exposed to him while the lower half was still mercifully covered by your petticoats.

If you could move, you’d be shivering, and not only from to chill that always seemed to invade the air around your Master. Though you could still cry, it seemed as tears started to stream down your face as he removed the last of your garments. This was worse than anything you’d ever been forced to endure.

Satisfied with his work Bruce turned his attention back to the pond, he used his fangs to draw a single drop of his own blood, letting it fall into the water, watching as it died the whole pond red. He smiled with satisfaction, but if you could move, you’d be trembling with fear.

Satisfied with the condition of the water, Bruce turned to look at you and produced another drop of blood using the same method as before; he was old enough that a single drop of blood is all it’d take. Vampires had to be at least two hundred before they gained the power to turn another, but the older they were, the more potent their blood would become, and the less it would take.

Still not knowing what was happing, you found your mouth opening against your will so that Bruce could force his blood into your mouth. It tasted acidic, and it burned as it went down your throat. The second the blood settled in your stomach, you could feel that something was wrong, but you couldn’t tell what.

Bruce smiled, knowing that in a few days’ time, you’d be fully turned and by his side forever. Bruce took you by the hand and lead you into the water, where he’d perform the ritual that would tie your souls together for all eternity.

That night you lost everything, your innocence, your hope, and worst of all, your humanity.

Tags:

@yanderepeterparker

@idkmanicantenglish

@prettyafghan

@neon-phosphorecsent

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codynaomiswireart · 3 years ago

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Gauze in the Wound - Part 24

“‘In sterquiliniis invenitur’ – in filth it will be found. This is perhaps the prime ‘alchemical’ dictum. What you need most is always to be found where you least wish to look. … In rejecting our errors, we gain short-term security – but throw away our identity with the process that allows us to transcend our weaknesses and tolerate our painfully limited lives. …In participating in the process, the alchemists identified with the exploratory hero, and turned themselves unconsciously…into ‘that which redeems.’ This identification was complicated by the fact the the alchemist also considered himself as partaking of the state of matter – as belonging in the ‘state necessitating redemption.’ This basically meant that the alchemist viewed himself, at least in part, as occupying the same category as ‘matter’ (as well as being that which could become ‘gold,’ and which could aid in the transformation). … The alchemist was an unredeemed, suffering man, in search of an inexpressible ideal.”

~ Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

“‘But I am not your judge. We must go to your true judges now. I am to bring you there.’ ‘My judges?' ‘Why, yes, child. The gods have been accused by you. Now’s their turn.’ ‘I cannot hope for mercy.’ ‘Infinite hopes – and fears – may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice.’ ‘Are the gods not just?’ ‘Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?’”

~ The Fox and Queen Oruel, Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

------------------------------

“Cursed short arms!” the un-man grumbled, reaching to pull himself up the rocky slope. What had begun as such a delight in wearing the boy’s form was now becoming annoying as he climbed his way up the mountain. While Zhan Tiri did have some of his additional strength to assist him, even that couldn’t make up for the smaller stature he now donned. But it would be worth it soon. Soon he would be back in his original body, and then he could really get to work!

“And as for the boy,” he thought aloud as he pulled himself up. “He’ll still be useful until I can get the actual Moonstone for myself. If he behaves, I might even let him join me as a disciple! Now wouldn’t that be nice – the Heir of Demanitus as my servant! Ha ha! Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any competent servants.”

The un-man scowled now, thinking of his previous pawns. “Curse them,” he spat, gripping another rock. “Inept fools. And Gothel! That traitorous, vain, sniveling coward! Stuck around just long enough to get her hands on the incantation, and then what did she do? She went and hoarded the Sundrop for herself! Fah! I should’ve figured. She was always the worst of my followers. Tromus may still be of some use I suppose. And Sugracha…Well…” the demon grinned wickedly. “She had her chance…and I’ve made use of what was left.”

Zhan Tiri gave another grunt of exertion as he finally reached the top of the rocky gorge he’d been scaling. The land had changed a bit since he’d last been there. The trails leading up to Janus Point had become rough and overgrown now. He could remember the days when it was well-worn from those who traveled there to engage in dark rituals. Now it was all a deserted wasteland – nearly forgotten like a bad dream by those living in the kingdom below.

“But not for long,” he thought as he adjusted the mirror strapped to his shoulders, continuing his hike. “Soon, their nightmare will rise again!”

---------------------------------

Varian blinked, his brain trying to catch up with what had just happened, like suddenly waking up from a dream. He felt like he couldn’t move. Part of him didn’t want to move. A part of him wanted all time to freeze here like this. He almost didn’t care if it might all be an illusion fed into his brain.

Xavier was here. Ruddiger was here. His friends were here. Xavier said it would be all right now.

But-

Varian nearly shoved Xavier away, as panic began to bubble up from the depths of his mind as his train of thought went from a standstill to rushing a million miles an hour.

“Wha-What are you doing here!?” Varian asked Xavier, looking up wide-eyed at the blacksmith, the boy’s fists clutching in desperation at the man’s shirt.

Xavier only smiled reassuringly at Varian. “It’s all right Varian. We figured it out. You’re going to be all right. We’ve come to get you out of here!”

Varian continued to stare at him, shaking his head in disbelief.

Noticing his apprentice’s demeanor, Xavier laid his hands on Varian’s shoulders, trying to steady him. “Easy Varian, easy. It’s all right. I’m here now. Really! You’re going to be ok.” Xavier then looked to study the vines that bound Varian’s wrists and ankles, holding one of them in his grasp as Ruddiger also gave them a sniff. The raccoon’s fur stood on end, and he hissed as he detected the dark magic pulsing within the glowing tendrils. Xavier’s brow furrowed, and he began reaching into one of his pockets.

“Wait, what’re you doing?” Varian asked.

“Don’t worry Varian,” Xavier said, pulling a small folding knife from his pocket. “I’ll cut you free, and then we can-” “NO!” Varian screamed, grabbing Xavier’s wrist to stop him before he could make the first incision. “No no! If-if you tamper with the vines, he might notice you’re here and-” Varian’s voice cut out, he swallowed hard, and Xavier could feel the boy clutch even tighter at the fabric of his shirt. “‘He?’” Xavier repeated, becoming still. “Who is ‘he’? Varian, what’s going on? Who did this to you?” But Varian’s expression began to take on a faraway look again, and Xavier could see Varian was struggling to breathe. “Z-…Zhan Tiri-” Varian just managed to choke out. And then, the boy began to hyperventilate, grabbing Xavier again, and shouting. “Wh-why are you here!? You need to stop him! You’re just wasting time with me! Why did you just let him-!? He could be…I-I can’t! Why did you come here!? No! No no no! He’s going to get away-!”

“Varian!”

Varian stopped shouting, but now only shook his head as he buried his face in his arms. “Varian!” Xavier tried again, trying to snap Varian out of whatever attack he was experiencing. But the boy only continued to quiver and breathe in quick, shallow breaths.

Just like that one day…

Xavier was unsure about what was going on, and Varian mentioning Zhan Tiri had not escaped him, but this much he knew – Varian needed help now, and he had to bring him back around before they could do anything else.

“Varian,” Xavier said again, this time in a much calmer tone, and giving Varian’s shoulders a comforting squeeze. “Varian, look at me, please.”

There was a long pause, and for a moment Xavier thought Varian wouldn’t comply. But soon enough, Varian managed to bring his face up to look Xavier in the eye, the boy’s expression utterly pained.

“It’s all right,” the blacksmith said. And again, like before, Varian opened his mouth to protest such a notion.

“N-no! No no, it’s not all right!” Varian cried, curling in on himself again. “Don’t lie to me! Can’t you see that we’re-!?” But Varian then felt himself being pulled into another hug, his mentor’s strong arms wrapped around him protectively. “Shh, it’s all right, Varian. It’s all right,” Xavier repeated again, as if the soul-crushing reality had no bearing on them in the present moment. Which of course was ridiculous, Varian thought. But in that moment, Xavier sounded so confident, that Varian almost believed him. “It’s all right.”

Xavier then pulled away again, steadying Varian’s shoulders. “I need you to breathe with me now, ok?” But Varian shook his head. “No! I can’t-! We- He’s going to-!” “Breathe in,” Xavier continued on, gently but insistently. When Varian didn’t respond at first, he tried again. “Breathe in…” Varian then also felt Ruddiger nuzzle into his side, and the little creature looked up at Varian with sad but encouraging eyes. “Please!” he seemed to be saying.

Finally, Varian felt his resistance start to give way, and though faltering at first, Varian managed to get in a slower inhale.

“Good,” Xavier said, a tone of relief entering his voice. “Now, breathe out…” And Varian did, though shakily. “Good. Again, breathe in… Hold… Breathe out…”

This went on for another few repetitions, and Varian did try to mirror what Xavier was telling him to do. But constantly Varian had thoughts flit in and out of his mind that caused his breath to hitch when they hit him. “We’re running out of time! I’m trapped here and I can’t get out! Why did Xavier come for me!? Zhan Tiri’s going to use me to come back, and it’s all my fault! It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault! It’s-”

“It’s all my fault…” Before Varian could think to stop himself, his voice betrayed his thoughts, and he could feel tears gathering at the corners of his eyes at his quivering words.

“No, it isn’t, Varian,” Xavier tried reassuringly. “C’mon, stay with me now. It’s going to be all right. I’m sure whatever’s going on, we can-”

But Varian shook his head. “No! It’s-it’s not going to be all right!” he cried, and through his sobs he began to tell Xavier everything; everything about Zhan Tiri slipping through the warp in time and space the other night, to meeting Zhan Tiri in the depths of his psyche, to how Zhan Tiri tricked him into believing he was really Lord Demanitus, and how – worst of all – Varian had believed him when he talked about them using the Moonstone’s power to go back in time and undo all of the bad things that had befallen Varian, and all the bad things that he himself had done.

Varian wanted to blame Zhan Tiri for all of this. He had been a liar, after all. Was it Varian’s fault that he had been deceived? Didn’t that make it better? Weren’t his motivations good in the end? That is, to go back and set things the way they should’ve been?

…But no. Varian knew the truth. Zhan Tiri wouldn’t have been able to entice Varian into his plans if Varian wasn’t already vulnerable to it. True, there were circumstances that were beyond his control. Perhaps it wasn’t all his fault. But some of it definitely was, and it also didn’t help that he had been so bitter towards everyone, driving away those who wanted to help him. If only he hadn’t been so desperate to run away from what had already been stamped into his history, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this even bigger mess now.

If he had only hung on instead of let go the other day when Rapunzel had appeared. Not that it was really her, probably. But if he didn’t give in to his anger…his hatred…

“…I’ve ruined everything…” was all Varian could say as he came to the end of his account, and he sat back with his shoulders drooped, and hands dropping from Xavier’s shirt into his own lap. Varian was so tired – physically and emotionally. He could feel the weight of all he had done pressing down on his already tired shoulders, and sling itself round his chest like lead-heavy snakes. And he was so useless now, too. Zhan Tiri had a hold of him. Even if he wanted to use his powers against Zhan Tiri now, the vines clinging to him would only channel it for Zhan Tiri’s own use. And in here, in this dark place, he had no access to alchemy or tools or anything else he might be able to fight back with.

“…You have to go.”

“What?” Xavier asked, clearly surprised by Varian’s words. Miserably, Varian looked up at Xavier through his bangs.

“You need to get out of here. Both of you.” Here Varian turned also to Ruddiger, who looked up at the boy with bewildered eyes. “Y-you’re just wasting time here. Zhan Tiri isn’t going to Old Corona. That was another lie to throw you off his plans. He’s going to Janus Point to-” Varian swallowed. “He’s…he’s going to try to use my magic to bring himself back – all the way back – where the veil is thin. You have to catch up to him before he can-”

“We’ve already tried, Varian.” “What?” Varian asked, looking at Xavier in astonishment.

Xavier frowned. “Varian, after Zhan Tiri made sure he got passed the guards, he used your magic to trap us here in Molson’s Grove with a great wall of black rocks. We can’t go anywhere.” “No…” Varian whispered, hugging himself. Yes, he had felt Zhan Tiri call upon his powers a couple of times earlier that evening, but he had no idea (and dreaded to think of) what the warlock had used them for. “That is,” Xavier said, once again setting his hands on Varian’s shoulders. “We can’t go anywhere without you. We need you to take down that wall, Varian.”

“B-but I can’t!” Varian shouted, grasping one of the vines in his hands and holding it up, as if Xavier needed a visual aid to get the situation through to him. “Look Xavier! I’m trapped here! And-and without my doppelgänger I won’t be able to get out!”

“That’s why Ruddiger is here,” Xavier explained, and Ruddiger immediately pricked up at the sound of his name. “The dark mirror has no affect on him, and he brought you back from the dream depths before. I have a hunch that he can also help to get you out of here, bypassing the need for a doppelgänger swap!”

Varian stared at Xavier, then at Ruddiger. Could Xavier be right? Could such a trick really work!?

“But first,” Xavier began again, reaching once more for his pocket knife.

“N-no!” Varian tried again to stop the blacksmith, grabbing at his wrist. “What if that makes him know you’re here!? What if he-?”

Varian then stopped, Xavier turning to look at him with an expression that Varian had never seen on the blacksmith before. Or, at least, not this intense. Varian had seen something similar to it when Xavier had been in battle before – a steeliness and determination that would make most anyone flinch if it were directed at them. But this time…

“We have to try, Varian. No matter what it takes, I won’t leave you here like this. I won’t let Zhan Tiri do this to you!”

Before Varian could say anything else to this, Xavier firmly but gently pried Varian’s hands from his wrist, and brought his hand down to lay the first strike on the eerie, glowing vines.

-------------------------

Zhan Tiri staggered, feeling as if a dart had just suddenly been lodged into his chest. Had he stumbled into something in the dark and not seen it? Was there a hunter or a bandit nearby that had taken a shot at him?

But as Zhan Tiri looked down to examine where the pain came from, he found no arrow or dart sticking out of his avatar. Although, he did see beneath his clothing the dim glow of green, indicating that some sort of injury had been done to him, even if only a small one. “How in the-? Aaah!” the warlock cried, feeling the incision hit deeper. What was going on!?

With haste, the demon pressed his fingers against his temples, and focused his concentration along the vines that extended out his back and into the mirror. There, he of course saw the alchemist – disheveled, weak and distressed, as he should be – but he also saw-

“Aah!” the un-man cried again, a third blow nearly causing his legs to buckle from underneath him, and breaking his concentration for a second. “No,” he hissed to himself harshly. “Why that meddling old-!”

Thinking quickly, the un-man again sent his consciousness down the string of vines, and conjuring a few more from his back in the process. It may take a lot out of him in his current form, but he was too close now! He could not afford to lose this chance!

“I’ll make you pay for this,” the demon growled as he launched his counter-attack.

----------------------------

Varian’s eyes widened in horror as Xavier delivered that first blow to the vine. As the steel of Xavier’s knife struck the glowing tendril, sparks spewed up from where he had managed to make an incision in the thick skin. However, Varian also noticed something else as Xavier braced himself for another blow. The knife had begun to glow green as well, and Varian managed to catch sight of what looked like steam rising from its handle. He could also see Xavier setting his teeth to keep himself from dropping the weapon as he began to feel the pain.

“NO!” Varian screamed, trying to catch Xavier’s wrist again to stop him. “Stop! Stop! It’s hurting you!”

But Xavier only responded with holding Varian back with his free arm, and bringing his hand down for another cut, grimacing as the knife glowed even brighter.

Varian remembered what Xavier had said – about when he had crushed Mila’s hand all those years ago. It was an injury that caused her to give up blacksmithing for good.

Was Xavier really about to-!?

“XAVIER, PLEASE! STOP!” Varian cried again, but Xavier brought the knife down for yet another strike, his hand itself now also starting to look green. If he kept this up for much longer, and if he tried to cut all of the vines this way…

In desperation, Varian tried to summon some of the magic inside of him. He had to try to do something to help Xavier before the man permanently crippled himself on his behalf. But as Varian felt the magic well up inside of him, he also felt it leave him, like water down a drain. Instead of the black rocks doing as Varian wanted, they sprang up to form a kind of cage around Xavier, with even more vines snaking their way between them to grab at the blacksmith, causing Xavier to drop his knife. Varian tried to make a lunge for the fallen blade, but was suddenly jerked back as the tendrils holding him dragged him away across the floor. Ruddiger then made his attempt for the knife, but flinched back as his snout got close to the heat rising from it. He then had to scurry and dodge as another vine tried a grab at him, and began chasing him around the chamber.

“You fools!” a voice boomed around the chamber, causing Varian to flinch at the sound of it, for Zhan Tiri of course would use his own voice. “Did you really think you could stop me now? I won’t go down so easily!”

Xavier looked frightened only for a moment as the situation sank in. But then, the man summoned again that steely determination from before, and resumed struggling against his bonds. This only caused Zhan Tiri to chuckle at the blacksmith’s futile efforts.

“Ah, so this is the best that Demanitus could leave behind for his vanguard, eh?” the demon’s voice said mockingly. “An old codger who barely understands the great mysteries he proports to love, and an impulsive child with a ruined life. If only you both weren’t so annoying, I could hardly have asked for better conditions!”

At these words, Xavier looked over at Varian, noticing that the boy had ceased struggling to get out of his own bonds, and now lay there limply on the floor again, like when Xavier first found him here.

“Varian!” Xavier shouted, but Varian didn’t appear to hear him. “Varian, don’t listen to him! Don’t give up!”

“Oh yes, that’s right old man,” Zhan Tiri interjected again, a smile in his voice. “Keep leading the boy on with false hopes, as usual.”

Xavier glared at the cursed mirror’s gateway.

“Honestly, do you really wish to tell the boy that he can come back from all this? From all he has done? Even if you were to get out of here, even if you were to defeat me, what would be left for him? He belongs to me now!”

“There’s still his father!” Xavier said. “We still have to free him!”

There was a long pause after this, only to be followed by another smiling tone from the demon as he said, “You really are cruel, aren’t you master blacksmith? Why can’t you just admit to the boy that his father must be dead now?”

Xavier couldn’t see Varian’s face from the way the boy was laying, but he did see Varian’s side seize up at these words, his breath stopping.

“You don’t know that!” Xavier retorted back.

“But if he were?” Zhan Tiri continued. “If he were dead, there would be no one left for the boy. He feels it himself – after all he’s done, no one else would be there for him. Nobody else would love him. It would be a shame to even associate with him on any level! Well, aside from his jailor of course. And if his father were somehow still alive, what would he say once he was free? He certainly wouldn’t be proud of the boy, now would he?”

At these words, Varian finally did move, but only to curl himself into a tight ball, the guilt of everything clearly crushing him into the ground. Ruddiger tried to get to him from where he had taken shelter in a basket in the corner, but the vine that had stalked him kept him at bay.

Xavier looked between the dark mirror and where Varian lay. Varian really was believing what the un-man was saying! Xavier knew that if Varian only thought about things for just a moment – really thought about them – all of this darkness would be dispelled. Of course Quirin really loved Varian! He had sacrificed himself for his son, after all! And as for the others? Varian may not realize it, but despite those out there who would write him off as hopeless and irredeemable, there were also those who were willing to give him another chance should he but ask for it and take it. But Xavier knew that doubts coupled with grief and guilt could be a terribly oppressive force. Life could not be expected to always be solved by purely rational means. Certainly not irrational, but sometimes merely thinking and rationalizing weren’t enough.

…Sometimes, you had to act.

“I would be there.”

Another pause followed Xavier’s words.

“What?” the demon asked, but Xavier ignored him.

“Varian,” Xavier called his name again, and Varian just managed to look up at him from his circle of torment.

“Varian, listen to me – you are still my apprentice. No matter what happens, you can always come home to me, all right? And-”

Now here Xavier said one of the last things that anyone in that room expected him to say, and if Varian had heard him say it months or even a few weeks ago, he would’ve been deeply offended by it. But as things were now…

“And I forgive you, Varian.”

Varian appeared to be thrown for a few full seconds, his brain also trying to catch up with what he just heard. “What?” the alchemist asked in a small voice.

“I forgive you, Varian,” Xavier repeated. “For any wrong you have done to me, it’s over now. It doesn’t need to cling to you anymore. You can let it go.”

Varian blinked at his mentor, then grimaced, shaking his head. “No! Y-you don’t mean that!”

“I do Varian.”

“No you don’t!” Varian almost screamed. “Stop lying to me! How could you just say things like that!?”

“Exactly!” Zhan Tiri chimed in. “He’s just saying whatever it takes to sway you into doing whatever he wants you to do! Especially with how he is now, how could anyone say that it’s over when he’s here like this?”

“Oh, you mean like this?” Xavier asked, his eyes scanning the vines and black rock cage around him as if they were somehow not that bad. “Oh Varian, I’ve been held by far worse chains and prisons than these.”

“…Wha-what are you talking about?” Varian asked hoarsely.

“Do you remember, Varian? When I told you about Mila? What I had done then, the guilt that I had felt – those were some of the worst things to have ever held me in bondage. Worse than the Saporians, and worse than even Zhan Tiri’s now. Granted,” Xavier said through gritted teeth as Zhan Tiri threateningly tightened his grip, “they are quite terrible. But while we may physically be held captive here, our hearts need not be, Varian. Mila set mine free, as well as her own, all those years ago. How could I not do the same for you?”

For a flickering moment, it looked like the light almost came back into Varian’s eyes. Could it be possible? Could he…could he really be forgiven for the things he’d done? Could he really, in another sense, “go back?”

But his thoughts were interrupted with another eery chuckle from the un-man. “Oh, my my my, what nonscensical fluff we are witnessing this evening.” The demon scoffed at Xavier. “Oh please, master blacksmith! Do you really mean to continue to insult the boy’s intelligence, or tempt him with pie-in-the-sky thinking? And even if it were true. If ‘your hearts could be free’ as you so pathetically claim, what good does that do, hmm? Hmm? Would the boy not still be in the same circumstances as he is now?”

A dreadful pause followed, and Varian lost all hope again. Of course Zhan Tiri was right. Even if in this moment Varian somehow believed Xavier’s words, he was still in the same situation as before. He was still imprisoned. He was still an outcast, a criminal, all but an orphan. Nothing would really change for him.

“So was Mila,” Xavier now continued, earning another surprised look up from Varian. “So was I. Granted, you could claim our circumstances were on a smaller scale, but the loss was still real. It affected both of our lives in a deep way. When Mila decided to forgive me, her outward circumstances did not change. She never-” Xavier swallowed the lump in his throat at the memory. “She never practiced her smithing craft again. But her willingness to forgive set her free from remaining trapped in that moment. She did something new instead. It wasn’t in her plans. Her loss wasn’t fair. But she made her choice. She chose for change on the inside, and that allowed for change on the outside. It changed her life, and it changed mine. She let go of her anger and bitterness, and was able to strive for good – to wish for another’s good, and for her own good, even in the given circumstances. She didn’t wait to feel good about me or about herself before she did that. And she- Gah! Mmph!”

Varian’s eyes widened in fright as Xavier’s mouth was suddenly gagged with more glowing green vines that sprouted up. “Ugh, that’s enough of that,” Zhan Tiri’s voice came again, trying to sound bored with the situation. …But Varian could tell by the urgency of Zhan Tiri’s action, that it was more than mere annoyance that prompted him just now. “You really do talk a lot for such an old man. I’m surprised you aren’t winded by now. But, no matter. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve wasted enough time with this nonsense, and the boy and I have important business to attend-”

“N-no.”

Varian could feel Xavier and Zhan Tiri’s attention turn to him as he weakly said the word.

“‘No?’” Zhan Tiri repeated mockingly. “No? What do you mean, no?”

Varian struggled to sit up, bracing himself up with his hands. “I…I said, ‘no.’ Y-you’re not going to use me for your plans. I refuse to- Aaah!” Varian crumpled, as he again felt the squeezing sensation around his heart, and his hair began to dimly glow.

“Have you forgotten, child?” the demon purred in his ear as Xavier watched on in horror. “I still have my foothold in your heart. You willingly gave it to me. You cannot refuse me now.”

“No!” Varian hissed through gritted teeth. “I-I can! I won’t let you!” “Won’t let me do what?” the un-man cried, now truly exasperated. “Won’t let me get revenge on those who wronged us both? Won’t let me make sure that the scales of justice are balanced in our favor? Would your father really want you to leave unpunished those whose acts led to his demise?”

…This was where the demon made his crucial mistake.

It was like when Varian faced the Seporian spy back in the forests of Equis; when he tried to use Varian’s father’s fate as a point of leverage.

“Dad…” Varian thought to himself, feeling his heart break all over again as he thought about him. He knew Quirin wouldn’t have wanted this. Whatever Varian may have thought of himself, his dad gave up everything to keep him alive. Even if Quirin himself were somehow still alive, he had no idea in the moment what was going to happen when he pushed Varian away from the explosion of amber. He didn’t know whether or not he would come through all right. And if the worst turned out to be true, would Varian let his father’s sacrifice for him be in vain? That is, would he lose sight of what was good and give up the real fight?

And what about Xavier? Whatever doubts Zhan Tiri had sown about the purity of the man’s intentions for Varian, the boy couldn’t deny that Xavier gave up a lot for him. Varian’s eyes landed briefly on the blacksmith’s burnt hand. That and hearing the emotion in the smithy’s voice at the idea of someone not being able to forge again, it was enough to let Varian know that Xavier was making all efforts short of giving up his own life as well to help him. Though, under the current circumstances, that opition may not be far off either.

…And Varian would not let that happen.

“No!” Varian cried again, and once more trying to summon his powers, the rocks around Xavier starting to glow in tandem with his hair. “I won’t be your puppet in your plans! I won’t listen to you any more! I won’t-”

Varian then gasped, feeling Zhan Tiri tighten his grip harder around him, and feeling his magic begin to siphon back out of him again while Xavier struggled to try to reach him. “No!” Varian though in desperation, and began to push back against the force pulling at him, the two now grappling together in his heart. “No! You won’t let you take me! I’ll fight you-!”

“You’re too late boy!” the voice now thundered in his mind, and repeated again, “Your father is dead! Your enemies have gotten away with it! And nobody is left to love you! You feel that anger, that bitterness, that grief in your heart! Let it out! Show them all! Embrace the power that you have been given!”

Varian could feel his heart being torn in two. He couldn’t keep this up. He was losing the fight. He couldn’t do this on his own!

“NO! PLEASE!” Varian found himself crying out, to anyone or anything that may be listening. “PLEASE! DAD! XAVIER! RUDDIGER! SOMEONE! HELP ME!”

At these words, Varian felt the tear in his heart rend all the way through. He gave a sharp cry, his eyes rolled to the back of head, and then he was enveloped in utter blackness.

--------------------------------

…..

……….

……

“Varian…”

Varian gasped, his eyes snapping open at the sound of his name. He expected when he opened his eyes to see the dark mirror chamber around him, and to feel his body aching from the tight vines and the grip of Zhan Tiri’s binding spell. But, to his utter astonishment, Varian felt and saw none of these things. Instead, he felt only shallow, cool water around him, and saw above him a sky ablaze with stars, giant planets, and the dancing stream of the Aurora Borealis.

“Wait…I’m back here!?” Varian thought in utter surprise, quickly sitting up and looking around him. Once again, he found himself on the smooth waters of the celestial plain from his dreams. Immediately, Varian thought to look for the white stag, or Ruddiger. Perhaps one of them was somehow here with him. But though Varian turned to look all around him, and strained his eyes to see as far as they could toward the distant horizon, no other figure was in sight on that vast, flat land.

“What do I do now?” Varian wondered aloud, remembering how difficult it was for him to go anywhere the last time. What was he supposed to do this time? Should he try to wake up? He needed a guide back to the waking world last time, but perhaps he could manage it now?

In any case, Varian knew had to try something. He had to try to get back!

Tentatively, Varian moved to push himself up onto his feet. As he stood, Varian tried to decide on which direction he should go. As he was pondering this, Varian suddenly caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. Varian’s head whipped round, fully expecting to see Ruddiger coming to his aid at last. But instead-

“Aaah!” Varian yelped, staggering backwards. What he saw was a face! A face floating a few yards away, looking at him. As Varian watched, the full figure of a person materialized in front of him, and other figures also came into view in the same manner, all glowing with silver light. Varian never gave much thought to ghosts, and for a moment he hoped that he was just seeing things. But when he dared to look away, then look again, blink, and rub his eyes, and the vision didn’t go away, he felt himself begin to panic. His courage failing him, Varian fled in the other direction away from the frightening apparitions. But to his horror, more figures began materializing there as well!

Varian then turned to his right, and began running, but he was soon blocked in again by more figures looming in out of thin air. All of them were facing towards him in a large circle, and soon Varian was completely hemmed in by the large crowd.

And what a large crowd it was indeed! There had to be dozens of them, perhaps hundreds! Men, women, and children. Who were they!? What was going on!?

One of them stepped forward to approach Varian, and out of reflex the boy held up his arms to shield himself. But alas, this only caused him further dread, for as Varian went through the motion, he saw a terrible phenomenon before him.

His arms were see-through! He was a ghost!

Varian stared in horror as his eyes followed his arms and he looked down at his body. Despite the ghost-like behavior of the figures only moments before, somehow the tables had turned. Or, perhaps, a readjusting of Varian’s senses had taken place. He now had the haunting idea that perhaps the figures were not the ghosts here, but he was. Did they materialize to his senses just now, or was it vice versa? Had they been in full existence there already, and he had been the one who materialized to their level of reality?

Before Varian could consider more this frightening prospect, he was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts as he felt the touch of the figure that had stepped towards him. He had been so caught up in his fear that he hadn’t noticed the figure draw so near to him! The touch of the man who approached was firm, but warm, and as Varian’s eyes snapped up to look the person in the face, he was startled to find that…he actually recognized him! Though he had never seen him in person, Varian had seen a small portrait of him in his father’s belongings.

The man…looked like his grandfather!

“Wait, what!? No!” Varian thought to himself, his voice failing him to say anything as he stared agape at the man. “No no! It’s-it’s not possible! He can’t be-! He’s not even-!”

Another realization then hit Varian like a thunderclap, and he looked again at the other faces around him. In some he could see the resemblance to either of his parents. Others were total strangers to him. But this much he somehow knew – these were his past relations! All of them! In one way or another, they were related to him. He was seeing his family tree extending back years into the past! Varian had never met any of his relatives outside of his parents, and he hadn’t really given much thought about them in recent years. But now…?

Being an alchemist, Varian had heard of those who believed that they could manufacture human life in a lab. Get the right ingredients, have the right conditions, and boom! You’ve created life. Varian never really found such experiments appealing. He was more for the practical, applicable sciences like mechanics and chemistry. Sure, he’d dabbled a bit in biology (as he did to know how to create Ruddiger’s transformation serum), but otherwise he didn’t really give much thought into what went into making a person, artificial or otherwise.

But now, in seeing the legions of past relatives around him, Varian saw brief but poignant glimpses of all the blood, sweat and tears that had gone into assuring his existence throughout the centuries prior. All of the sacrifices that were made so that he could get the chance to walk the earth. All of that went into making him.

“Oh no-,” Varian found himself whimpering aloud, his voice finally returning to him if only for a moment, and he quickly pulled himself away from the figure of his grandfather. Varian buried his face in his hands, overwhelmed by the feeling of transparency that he now felt (both figuratively and literally). Did they know? Did they all know? And was this how it was to end for him? Was he dead, and this was his final judgment?? Surely, they all must be ashamed of him, and must be wondering if it was worth all the struggle to produce him at the present end of the family line. What a disgrace he must be to them.

“G-go away!” Varian cried as he felt another hand try to touch his shoulder. “Get back! L-leave me alone!”

“But you need help, dearie,” a feminie voice replied from somewhere in the crowd, and Varian flinched at the sound, for it wasn’t so unlike the sound of all the singing he had heard the other night; when he had heard the stars after his powers had awoken inside of him.

“N-no, I don’t!” Varian lied in a cracked voice, wishing for once that the dark, deep ocean underneath him would swallow him up, if only to get away from the unbearable eyes all watching him. But those around him didn’t seem at all fazed.

“Easy Varian, easy,” came a deep, masculine voice, sounding not so unlike the comforting voice of Xavier, and Varian again felt a gentle hand laid on his shoulder. Quivering, Varian finally dared to look up again, meeting several faces this time as the spirits crowded round him. “Don’t be afraid. You’re welcome here!”

Varian blinked, looking about him again. He was so very confused. “Wh-where are we? I don’t understand! Am I-?” Varian swallowed hard. “Am I dead?”

“No, Varian. You’re not dead.”

At the sound of this next voice, the crowd around Varian parted a little, allowing one of the figures to pass through to the front. Though Varian was surprised, as the figure that came forward was not a solid silver like the others around them, but appeared to be a translucent ghost like himself. The figure was hooded, and also carried a small, sleeping monkey upon its shoulder.

“Oh no,” Varian thought as the figure came closer, and he caught sight of the little primate companion. “We’re not going THAT far back in the family line, are we?”

Fortunately, it was not the little creature who addressed Varian, but the hooded figure as he pulled his cowl back and revealed his face. “It’s good to finally meet you, Varian,” he said, kneeling down so he was eye-level with the boy. “I only wish it could be under better circumstances.”

Varian’s eyes studied the man’s face. There seemed to be something of a resemblance to his father in the man’s features. Or, at least, in the features Varian could still see, for nearly half of the man’s face was covered with metal plating.

“Who are you?” Varian asked.

“I am Lord Demanitus,” the man replied. “And this,” here he indicated the monkey. “Is Vigor, my familiar. Do not worry Varian. We are here to help you.”

#tts #rta #fan fiction #gitw #gauze in the wound #varian #xavier the blacksmith #ruddiger #zhan tiri #lord demanitus #forgiveness

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quazartranslates · 4 years ago

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Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH128

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 128: The Dream of the Holy Nun (XVIII)

{cw: helminthophobia}

The atmosphere was stagnant in the dark, and the night watchman’s exhaustion and confusion was truly written all over him. His deformed body was bent, seeming as though it was about to be destroyed by the weight of his soul.

The truth of the disaster of the new moon was so heavy that this Holy City, once known as the "hometown of God's brethren", had fallen into sin. No soul was left pure white or innocent.

The night watchmen were still struggling in vain for the ignorant residents - they couldn't tell the truth, which would destroy the Holy City’s last remaining peace and plunge the city into despair and sin, but if they didn't tell the truth, they couldn't persuade everyone to stay awake on the night of the new moon, and as long as one person fell asleep... the consequences would be like a hungry wolf getting into the sheepfold, and after dawn, the whole city would be a hell on earth.

Therefore, they could only choose to guard silently, make humble efforts, persist desperately, and try their best to make everyone who woke up forget this nightmare.

Qi Leren took a deep breath and the cold air entered his lungs, suppressing the discomfort in his stomach. A gloomy cold spread from his lungs throughout his whole body, making him feel like he was in a refrigerator.

Su He's cold and gentle voice sounded: "The disaster of the new moon couldn't have started suddenly without warning. Please recall, did anything special happen eight years ago?"

The night watchmen shook their heads.

"We’re also exploring the cause of the disaster in the new moon, but there’s been no evidence so far... There is only a suspicious rumor that eight years ago, the Lord's wife gave birth to a baby girl."

Qi Leren instantly got an inkling. Eight years ago, a baby girl? The blonde girl who tried to trick the memento brooch out of his hand happened to be seven or eight years old, so…

"About the baby girl, tell us about her," Ning Zhou suddenly said.

Qi Leren looked at him with puzzlement. Although the night was too deep for him to be able to see Ning Zhou's expression clearly, there seemed to be a vibrato in his usual cold tone just now. What was he worried about?

The night watchmen looked at each other. Finally, the leading night watchman said, "We’ve never seen the baby girl. This rumor came from the Lord's castle. It’s said that the Lord's wife was pregnant eight years ago. At that time, no newborn had been born for 13 years. It was even rumored here that there would be no more human beings born. If one was born, they must be a demon. Therefore, the Lord and his wife concealed this matter and only the closest servants knew of it. The maid who was ordered to take care of the child revealed it to her relatives because she was afraid. Later, the child was born on the new moon. From that day on, the whole city fell into a nightmare, and the maid disappeared with the new moon..."

"Has anyone seen this little girl in these eight years?" Qi Leren asked.

"Occasionally, some people say that they’ve dreamed of a little girl with blue eyes, long golden curly hair tied into two braids, and white roses in her hair. She looks dignified and holy, just like the portrait of the Virgin in the Vatican," said the night watchman.

Blonde hair and blue eyes, a portrait of the Virgin Mary... Qi Leren’s mind flashed to the figure of Maria in Ning Zhou’s half-field…

Ning Zhou went to the Vatican at the age of thirteen because Maria had died that year, just eight years ago.

Was this really a coincidence?

Qi Leren once again looked at Ning Zhou in the dark. Perhaps at this moment, only he understood his inner worries and fears. This field originally created by Maria to protect the Holy City had now become a hunting ground for demons, and the most terrible thing was... They couldn't be sure if Maria's dead soul had returned here, but had been polluted by demons’ energy and become evil.

If it had, it was the most ruthless mockery of fate for a pious holy nun.

"Dream..." Su He muttered to himself.

Dream? Come to think of it, everything that was happening here was related to dreams. Even the little girl would peek into his memory from dreams…

"The Witch of Nightmares? My friend and I have studied the data of the human world’s first demon invasion. At that time, the old Devil King’s most trusted witch was called the Witch of Nightmares, as she was good at manipulating dreams. If she didn’t die in the disaster 22 years ago, she must have fallen asleep then awakened eight years ago. It makes sense," Su He said slowly. "I'm afraid the cause of the disaster on the new moon is that she’s polluted this dead area created by the Holy Nun and is slowly recovering her strength until she can escape from here, or..."

Su He looked in the direction of the church grounds, eyebrows furrowed.

Dr. Lu suddenly covered his lower abdomen and said with a pale face: "My stomach hurts..."

Qi Leren, whose stomach had also been feeling uncomfortable, was also suffering from stomach pain. Cold sweat dripped down from behind and instantly soaked the clothes on his back. There was something there, as if something was rolling in his stomach!

Dr. Lu spat out a mouthful of blood. In the blood, a blue-black butterfly that had grown from a pupa was hatching from a chrysalis. The soft butterfly wings stained with blood quickly became dry in the wind, and it fluttered its wings and flew.

The Witch of Nightmares? Thinking about it, when she pretended to be Su He in the library, she had poured tea for him and Dr. Lu. At that time, they drank it without worry and the Rain-Day Clothing skill hadn’t been triggered.

Qi Leren, who had no time to dwell on it, took out the holy water Ning Zhou had given him a long time ago and drank it down. The stomach acid and blood fumes in his stomach settled slightly, but it still had him in a cold sweat. He didn’t know when Ning Zhou had rushed to him from the roof and held his shoulder to check the situation. Qi Leren handed him one third of the remaining holy water: "To Dr. Lu."

The butterfly hatched from Dr. Lu's stomach flapped its wings in the night. A childish laughter came from the butterfly and said in a sweet voice: "It's useless, even if the holy water can temporarily suppress it, you two will die in an hour because of the toxins."

Dr. Lu was in enough pain that he nearly lost consciousness. He used "Doctor’s Orders" once on himself, but his skills had no effect on this strange witch poison-medicine. Qi Leren's condition was a little better, but he was also shaking and unable to stand. If Ning Zhou hadn't been holding him, he would have already fallen down.

"Isn’t it painful? This kind of pain will get worse and worse as time goes by, until you can't even breathe. It's really pitiful. This feeling of slowly dying may be more painful than being eaten alive." The Witch of Nightmare's voice was still innocent and sweet, but her tone was full of grim malice.

The night watchman roared, "Is that you?! The one who made all this!"

The butterfly gradually changed into the outline of a little girl, and she giggled and said, "Oh, I remember you, you really are a poor worm. Whenever I see you trying your best to maintain this false peace, I can't help but want to laugh. Thanks to you, those ignorant fools have continuously sent me the power of dreams for the past eight years."

The Witch of Nightmares clapped her hands and praised the night watchman. The crisp applause made the night watchman roar and he went forward to fight with the phantom without thinking, but the witch's butterfly spread its wings and flew high above the air: "I hate places with lots of people. It seems you can endure for a while. I’ll give you the antidote in exchange for you bringing the field memento you hold to the old site of the Vatican."

"Sorry, madam, we don't believe a demon’s promises," Su He said lightly.

"I have no interest in your lives, but if you need a promise, well, I'll give you a devil's contract." The witch's butterfly flapped its wings, and the blue spots scattered from its wings and changed into a blank sheet of paper with a contract written on it.

Ning Zhou glanced at it. The contract required that the Holy Nun's field memento be exchanged for two antidotes, and the witch promised not to harm the contractor on the way to and from.

Su He turned his back to the witch and mouthed: Promise her.

"I’ll bring the memento," Ning Zhou said coldly.

"I can't agree to that. I don't want to be given something by the Holy See," the witch's voice became cold and disgusted.

"Then let me bring him," Ning Zhou said to the witch.

The witch's butterfly paused for a moment, then slowly flew to Ning Zhou and circled around him: "You remind me of someone... Okay, but this gentleman who controls the field must stay here and must not leave here until the contract is fulfilled."

"Fine," Su He said lightly.

After adding the contract amendment, the transaction was established.

Although Qi Leren's pain was so great that he’d lost the strength to speak, his brain was still awake. Everything was going according to their plan. Although the poisoning exceeded their expectations, they had planned to let the witch take one person away and then wait for her to offer to exchange hostages with the field memento. The poisoning was painful, but taking risks would make the witch let down her guard.

"Come on, follow me." The witch's butterfly flapped its wings in the night and the blue butterfly scales gave off faint fluorescence, floating like powder in the night.

Ning Zhou put Qi Leren's arm around his shoulder and led him forward.

In the heavy night, the pain beat on the body wave by wave, suffocating him from pores to bone marrow. He tried hard to stride forward, but his strength was gradually lost from the pain. He almost fell down from his legs giving out several times as Ning Zhou pulled him along.

"I can carry you," Ning Zhou's voice sounded in the dark.

Qi Leren shook his head. At this time, when he didn't even have the strength to embrace Ning Zhou's neck, he still wanted to say that he was walking. In fact, it was simply Ningzhou carrying him forward.

As he was holding him Ning Zhou paused, and the pain made this short moment become infinitely long... He hugged him against himself and strode forward.

The world was quiet with only one person's footsteps. Qi Leren trembled in the severe pain, struggling to keep breathing, and his will became fragile because of pain. Finally, he abandoned rationality and logic, leaving only pure instinct.

In the dark, memories rolled in pain, and Qi Leren remembered the cold and damp hole in the Witchcraft Sacrifice. At that time, he had just been rescued from the lake, so he was cold and in pain as he was held by Ning Zhou and carried forward step by step.

That dark road was full of his innocent sweetness and shy snickering, so warm, so gentle, and so joyful.

When the past and the present overlapped, he suddenly discovered that the mood at that time was no different from that of today.

Pain blurred his line of sight and his thinking was replaced by absurd imagination. He looked intently at the starry sea above his head, the eternal wilderness and the vast expanse. They seemed to be in a long river of time, and there was no future without the past. In only this short island of time, they were pulled by the net woven by the goddess of destiny. The two from different worlds met at that moment, were soaked by joys and sorrows, and sprouted feelings that they dared not admit.

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#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

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saphyhowl · 4 years ago

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Mischief Chaper two-Master & student

Warning: the MC has rather cruel intentions at some point, while there is no obvious violence there is a description of ill intent towards another person. Please be careful, because it could be triggering.

Chapter one here & let me know if you want to be tagged :)

Learning from Mitsuhide was much more exciting than I had anticipated. The history lessons were interesting, but nothing was as thrilling that the relationship that had sprouted from our long days spent together. It was no friendly relationship. Somehow, we became allies in mischief. It all started with small lies and meaningless teasing. Neither of us would have suspected that it would bring us closer.

It was a normal day, without much happening out of the ordinary. Hideyoshi walked past me in a hurry and then walked back to face me.

“Do you know where Mitsuhide is? I swear if I find him I will show no restrain,”

I shook my head feigning concern. I did see Mitsuhide passing by the same corridor a few minutes before Hideyoshi arrived.

“While I do understand you want to knock some common sense into that scheming head of his, I fear there is a much more urgent matter at hand,” I answered.

Hideyoshi’s angry expression switched to full concern.

“I only heard bits of conversation, but I think it involved Ieyasu and Mitsunari. I also heard the word sword and lesson,” I trailed off.

“What are they up to again?” Hideyoshi muttered as he left to find Ieyasu and Mitsunari.

“Oh, and Hideyoshi, I thought I heard Masamune would be present as well, as a… What did they call it? Supervisor, could that be it?” I added.

However, I doubted Hideyoshi heard everything. The moment he heard the name Masamune, his pace quickened. Silence returned in the empty corridor and I resumed my cleaning session. I heard the rustle of clothes behind me.

“My my, I never thought you would be such a well-trained liar. A peculiar skill for a shaman is it not?” Mitsuhide appeared behind me.

“I learned from the best. Also, I could not risk losing such a skilled teacher. You have yet to teach me so much Mitsuhide,” I answered with a wicked smile.

Mitsuhide said nothing. He only returned me the same impish smile.

The next day, I was free to do what I please. Oh, the joy of a day off! While I could hone my teasing skills, there was no fun doing so if Mitsuhide was not there to witness or assist me. I walked aimlessly and heard some servants’ gossip. It was about a prisoner, who was suspect to have caused the incident at Honno-Ji. He still had not spoken yet. I left the maids to their gossiping and slid out of the main building. I swiftly made my way towards the prison. I had tucked a few rice balls in my sleeve. Now I only had to trick the guards.

“You are not allowed to enter!” the guards repeated, even after I had tried to convince them I had a shaman duty to fulfill.

“Then I have failed Mitsuhide,” I sighed, “What will he do to me? Crossing Mitsuhide is as if having a death wish. Last time I returned empty-handed… No, I cannot tell you what happened.”

I closed my eyes and exaggerated a bit the shaking of my hands. The guards glanced at each other and then looked back at me.

“5 minutes!” One of the guards said as they both stepped aside to let me pass.

“You are too kind. I’ll make sure to sneak you something tasty from the kitchen for your night shift,” I answered as I bowed to them. I beamed at them with the most innocent smile I could manage.

A wretched smell filled my nose, the temperature dropped as I got deeper into the prison. Some prisoners stretched out their hands towards me, clinging onto my clothes. Some others shouted. I pushed on until I found the one prisoner I intended to use for my benefit.

I was not keen on torture. I preferred mind games, less harmful and surely less messy.

“Who are you?” the prisoner asked.

“A shaman. I am here to warn you. I had an auspicious dream about you,” I explained.

“You were sent by them to seduce me,” the prisoner interrupted.

“No, I have better taste.” I snapped back, “I came here to warn you. You see, my dreams have a way of telling what may happen,” I continued looking at the prisoner intently.

I saw how his resolve flickered, it was just for the split of a second, but I knew my words had revived his hope to escape. The more the hope grew in his gaze, the crueler my intent became. But the law of this world is cruel. It is either me or him. To win their trust I have to show them that I am as capable of being monstrous as they are, if not with weapons then with my wits.

“Prisoners like us must have each other’s back,” I whispered offering him my most heartfelt smile.

The man smiled back, the warmth in his expression reminded how inhuman I was slowly becoming. I will never forget how my fakeness gave him a last moment of solace.

“Tell me your dream. Maybe we can find a way to save us both,” he said as he crawled nearer.

“First, I must know where your loyalty lies. I have already risked too much by coming here,”

The prisoner’s lips quivered. I needed more effort to loosen his tongue. I reached for the rice balls and placed them in his hands with a compassionate smile.

“Trust me, how could a shaman ever be loyal to a demon, hm?” I asked as I tilted my head.

The prisoner ate the food with such a voracity, I am sure he did not notice the strange after taste. He whipped his mouth and then told me to come closer and so I did. The name of his master flowed out of his mouth. All the details he spilled I absorbed them. The more he talked, the more difficult and strained his voice became.

I stood up before he was done. I bowed politely as his unconscious body fell to the ground. No, I did not kill him. He may sleep for a while and forget he just sealed his fate with that loose tongue of his. I left the prison with a skip in my steps. Little did I know, my mischief did not go unnoticed.

I went back to my room to gather a few books I needed to return to Mitsunari. On my way,I met Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi. They were talking in what I found a rather surprisingly civil way, no teasing and no threats. Hideyoshi caught sight of me.

“There has been an incident. I would rather you stayed in your room until we find the culprit,” Hideyoshi explained.

My eyes went wide.

“What happened?” I asked.

Mitsuhide interrupted us. While he wore his usual unreadable mask, I noticed the tension in his voice.

“I see you have some books. You’re on your way to see Mitsunari, I suppose. Stay with him until I get you. I will make sure my precious student is not left unguarded until we resolve this mild incident,”

Hideyoshi objected but Mitsuhide gently pushed me passed them to get me on my way. Soon, I was sitting with Mitsunari, reading to pass the time. I must have dozed off at some point, because when my eyes opened someone was carrying me. I wriggled a little and noticed that Mitsuhide had indeed come to pick me up, literally.

“My dear, for such a wicked creature you sure sleep peacefully,”

Mitsuhide’s breathe tickled my ear as he whispered to me. I peered at him innocently. But his expression made it very clear that my act had no effect on him.

“How much do you know?” I asked.

“Everything. You have some explaining to do,” Mitsuhide said as he walked towards my room.

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikemen sengoku mitsuhide #ikesen mitsuhide #ikesen fanfic #ikesen hideyoshi #ikemen sengoku hideyoshi #ikesen mitsunari #ikemen sengoku mitsunari

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tinydooms · 4 years ago

Text

Original Short Story: written in early 2016 while I was minding the doors at Handel and Hendrix in London (in my glamorous past life). Content Warnings: demons, assault, demonic sexual assault, murder.

The Death of Andromeda Ashton

Now darling, you know that there is a big empty house on this property, away up past the formal gardens; you can just see it from your window when the leaves are down from the trees. Ashton Manor is its name, so called because my ancestor, Joseph Ashton, built it centuries ago, when Queen Anne ruled this isle. A solid English manor house, with wings stuck on it during the reign of the Georges, built of grey stone and with hundreds of windows peering down at us like so many curious eyes. It is the country seat of the Ashton family and has been for almost three hundred years. But we do not live there. Not anymore.

I can see impatience in your face. I know all this, is what you’re thinking. Patience, dear one, for I am going to tell you why.

They were great collectors, the old Ashtons were, and as the years went on they filled the Hall with all manner of treasures, ancient books and paintings and sculptures from far off lands where strange gods were worshipped and men look nothing like you’d believe. Every generation of Ashtons contributed to the Collection, until one day, one of them brought home something monstrous.

The house is empty now, its windows stare unseeing; its treasures are locked up and guarded by an aging caretaker. All know that it is abandoned, most of its treasures still inside, though some were safely moved to London around the time Queen Victoria died. But never, in eighty years, has anyone broken in to steal anything. There are too many stories about the place. You’ve heard some of them, of course. The crying that can be heard in the east wing. The singing heard on stormy nights. The dark figure that prowls the corridors and the woods by the park, thinning the packs of rabbits that live there. The woman sinking into the lake. Yes, I can see by your eyes that you know of what I am speaking.

Her name is Andromeda Ashton. She lived here many years ago, when the house was an open and happy place. She was the darling petted baby daughter of older parents, born when her elder siblings were almost grown and had thought their parents were passed the age of engendering children. Her eldest sibling, Henry, was already well into his first year at Cambridge, her sisters away at school. The closest brother in age was Edward, seven years older than she, a quiet and thoughtful boy.

Now, because she was the baby, and in no small part because she was a beautiful, intelligent little thing, Andromeda was given license to behave in ways that were most unusual for a girl of her class in that time. She had a governess and a tutor, learned Greek and Latin from childhood, and could always be found prowling the family Collection or reading books by great explorers and renowned antiquarians. By the time she was eighteen, Andromeda was widely considered to be one of the brightest Ashtons for a generation. What a shame, people said, that she was not a boy and could then use that pretty head of hers. What a shame such remarkable intelligence was all for naught.

They need not have feared, for Andromeda had plans for making her mark upon the world, in the form of her family’s Collection. She may not be allowed to attend Cambridge like her brothers or study theology like Edward, but she was allowed and encouraged to contribute something to the Collection. And it would be more than just her portrait, which showed a slim, wind-pale girl with dark hair and eyes, gazing at the painter with a fiery intensity. No, Andromeda had not spent her life reading the tales of antiquarians for nothing.

Now dearie, you know that there are many stories of ghosts and legends in these parts. The hills are as dotted with stories as they are with sheep. On the eve of her nineteenth year, Andromeda began to collect them. With her father’s blessing and the help of her former governess, a project was begun: to compile the county’s folktales. It was no small task. For months, Andromeda could be seen riding from farm to farm, speaking to laborers and landowners alike, and writing down their stories. The Crone of Tetley. The Wailing Well of St. Edmund’s. The Fenbury Witch. She recorded them all, never realizing that she herself would one day become such a whispered story.

“I don’t know how you sleep at night, after hearing these tales,” her mother said once.

Andromeda smiled. “They are not true, Mother! They’re silly superstitions that came about because people in the past had no learning. People tell stories to ascribe meaning to what they do not understand, that’s all. There’s no truth to them.”

This, my dear, was Andromeda’s firm belief: that superstition had given way to science, and that all the ghostly tales of the past, while amusing and interesting, had a rational explanation. It was to be her undoing.

Now, as is sometimes the case with amateur antiquarians, Andromeda began to be curious as to the truth behind these stories. There was one in particular that caught her fancy, and that was of the Chalice of Tilbury St. Bartholomew. What’s that? The what? I knew you would ask; it’s certainly not talked about anymore. Not since-no, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story goes like this: centuries before, at the time the plague first appeared in England, there was an alchemist who thought he could escape the illness by coming to the countryside. And where did he come? Why here, of course. Tilbury St. Bartholomew, though in those days the name was rather different. It was whispered that this gentleman-I use that term lightly, for he was no such thing-continued his strange experiments in his cottage, and that he not only practiced alchemy, but the dark arts as well. You’re skeptical, I see. So was Andromeda. What were considered the dark arts then is known as science now, of course. But for all that, the villagers were afraid of him. It was said that he conjured devils, and that one such devil was contained in a silver cup he kept with him in his bedroom, ready to do his master’s bidding. Village maidens dreamed of a dark shape coming into their beds at night, bending over them and stroking their hair. The alchemist leered at them in church on Sundays, leading to speculation that his demon was kept for the hunting of women. Unease and unrest grew in the village, yet the alchemist continued his work unmolested.

But when the plague finally came to Tilbury St. Bartholomew-for no part of the country was left untouched-the villagers said it was the judgments of God upon them for allowing an evil sorcerer to live unhampered in their midst. The alchemist was dragged from his home and burned at the stake. The village maidens breathed sighs of relief, for though the plague raged about them, the dark creature came to their chambers no more. The alchemist’s cottage was burned, too, and the silver chalice was lost. No one knew what became of it.

Andromeda, though, had her suspicions. She was a learned young lady, and figured that there had to be some record somewhere of a necromancer and his effects. I don’t know what sort of research she did, but one summer evening, when her brother Edward was visiting from his Cambridge seminary, she asked him to ride out with her. No one knows where they went, but when they came back, Andromeda looked quite pleased, and shortly thereafter presented an ancient silver goblet to the family.

Why did she want it, you ask? Why, if such demonic stories were attached to the thing, would a young lady wish to bring such an object into her home? Come, child, haven’t you been listening? Andromeda was not a believer in such things as demons. She was an active and intelligent young lady, and it rankled that she could not use her brains to their fullest capacity. A book was all very well and good, you see, but a treasure such as this cup was a real asset to the Collection, and it gave her a measure of fame, besides. She wrote the card for it herself. Silver chalice, English, circa 1330. What a find! Everyone in the family and many people outside of it admired the discovery.

All of this is common knowledge. You can find Andromeda’s book in any bookshop in the county, and the local historians will tell you about the silver goblet. They will also tell you that the goblet has been lost under strange circumstances, and when pressed for an answer, they will sigh and tell you it was a great tragedy. For you see, darling, very few people know exactly what happened to the Ashton family in the months following Andromeda’s discovery.

Most of what I know comes from Edward’s personal diaries, and they are to be treated with much caution. He lost his mind that year, you know. But I think he was saner than anyone knew.

Nothing went right for the Ashtons after Andromeda’s discovery. First Mrs. Ashton, who had never been strong after the birth of her daughter, succumbed to illness, soon followed by Mr. Ashton, so that Henry, the eldest son, living in London, found himself head of the family. That was in September. Then there began to be problems with the livestock. Horses went mad, sheep began to die for seemingly no reason, and the gamekeepers reported outrageous amounts of dead rabbits and birds in the woods. The servants began to complain that tricks were being played upon them, for it seemed as though they were being pinched and grabbed at by unseen hands. Edward recorded in the days that followed his mother’s funeral, was the sense of being watched when you knew you were alone, of a cold breath at the back of your neck, the creak of a chair that only creaked when sat in. There was a presence in the house, he said, and everyone knew it. But no one spoke of it.

Andromeda was not spared. Alone in her room at night, as she lay in bed, she felt the gentle caress of fingers across her cheek, in her hair, running over her body, cold as a breath of winter air. She told herself that she only imagined the icy kisses on the back of her neck, on her shoulders and breastbone. They were the products of a fevered mind, surely, imaginations brought about by grief at the death of her parents. She ignored the caresses. What’s that, darling? She must have been very brave? Yes, or very foolish.

By late November, the events had become too real to ignore. When serving tea to visitors, Andromeda would feel whispery fingers on her thighs, and moments later her stockings would loosen as her garters untied themselves. Something tugged her hair as she brushed it, or grasped her hand as she reached for a pen. At night, the sensation of someone cuddling close to her became unbearable, until she jumped for a light, gasping. And then she would hear it: a soft, cold laugh.

At last, after one such night, Andromeda swallowed her pride and told Edward what was happening. He was a priest, or nearly so; of course he would help her.

“It has only been since we brought home my goblet that this has happened,” she told him as they walked through the portrait gallery. “But artefacts cannot truly contain demons. Can they?”

Edward rubbed his hand through his hair, eyes straying to Andromeda’s portrait, swinging in its frame against the far wall. “We cannot know what devilry a sorcerer can conjure when he goes against God. I fear we made a mistake in unearthing that cup, Meda.”

“What must we do?”

“We must put it back where it was. As soon as possible.”

They agreed that Edward would write to one of his teachers, Reverent Dr. Padgett, to come assist them in exorcising the demon. The letter was duly dispatched. The reply came by telegram the next morning: Dr. Padgett would arrive that evening on the six-thirty train. They would commence their business immediately.

That afternoon, Andromeda asked the servants to leave the house for the night. She found them eager to do so. None of them liked to say how relieved they were to be away from the house and its unseen occupant. At half past six, the head footman was dispatched to the station to collect Dr. Padgett. In the back of the carriage was his own trunk, for he had no intention of remaining alone with the family in the house once he had safely delivered the doctor. It was a cold, windy evening, and later he said that his master and mistress could not have picked a worse night to be alone in that house.

All of this is fact; you can find the records in the village police archives, if you’ve a mind to. But what I’m about to tell you know, darling, are the words of a madman. You see, the only two people who know what happened in that house are Andromeda and Edward, and the latter was in no fit state to speak coherently of what happened for some months afterwards. Besides, his tale was dismissed by doctors and magistrates alike as being too unbelievable to come from a sound mind.

What Edward said was this: believing that Padgett would soon arrive, he and Andromeda set about making preparations for the exorcism. The house was empty, but the air around them seemed heavy, oppressive. As there were no servants to light the lamps, they sat in near-darkness. Their black mourning clothes must have made the scene even darker. Once or twice, Edward felt as though something touched the back of his neck, but there was no one there but Andromeda, sitting on the sofa by the window, peering out into the windy dusk.

“Perhaps we should bring the cup here,” she said, at last. “Perhaps Dr. Padgett will be willing to go out with us immediately.”

“Certainly,” said Edward. “Shall I go for it?”

“No.” Andromeda stood, smoothing her black skirts. Edward says that her hands were shaking. “I feel certain it has to be me.”

Though neither of them said it, the fact hung in the air that Andromeda was the one to have meddled in what she should not. Still, Edward, being a kind soul, rose from his seat and put her arm through his.

“We will go together. Come now, little sister, chin up. Everything will be all right.”

The silver cup was in one of the many rooms that housed the Collection, deep in the bowels of the cold house. I’ll show it to you one day, if you like, through the window. Night was falling fast as they walked through the halls, the strong wind driving dark clouds before it as it screamed around the manor. The lamp in Edward’s hand flickered in the draught, and his diary says that it was with some relief that they gained the Collection rooms. Leaving Andromeda by the door, Edward moved across the room to light the lamps, thinking to bring some cheer to the evening, if cheer were at all possible.

It was as he was lighting the lamps that Edward heard the screams. He ran to the door to see Andromeda lying in the corridor, beating at something unseen with both hands. He ran to assist her and all at once found himself picked up and flung back into the room he had come from. Undaunted, he picked himself up and made to run to his sister, only to again be thrown down by the unseen creature. It must have been terrible, fighting such a force while Andromeda’s shrieks echoed through the halls. Edward says that she twisted this way and that as though grappling with something. He made for her a third time--and this time, Andromeda was thrown down on the floor, gasping, and the thing, the monster, the demon, grabbed Edward by the neck and dragged him back into the Collection room. He was sure it would kill him. But it did not. A moment of white hot pain, and Edward found himself pinned to the floor with an arrow through the leg. Where the dart came from, he did not know. He could not move. Apparently satisfied that the young priest would prove no further nuisance, the thing returned to Andromeda. Helpless, crying with pain and horror, Edward heard his sister’s screams renew, growing more and more awful until they were drowned by a low, terrible laugh. Then there came the sound of a body dragging, and Andromeda’s shrieks faded as she was carried away.

Dr. Padgett, arriving an hour later, found Edward, alive but in a terrible state. Having asked his driver to wait at the door, Padgett was able to send for a medical doctor, and a search was made for Andromeda. It did not take them long to find her, for though the wind continued to buffet the county, there was no rain. You know where they found her, of course, my dear, for you can see her there still, some nights. She was in the lake, just under the water, her dark hair a loose cloud around her, her heavy black frock covered in hundreds of tiny gashes, her shoes and stockings gone. Her eyes were closed, her skin bleached of color in the green water. She was quite dead.

For months afterwards Edward screamed in the night, howling that the monster had come for him. Certainly in the mornings he was covered in scratches that had not been there the day before. A team of doctors agreed that his mind had been shattered by his sister’s murder, for they did not believe that anything but a mortal man could have done such a vicious thing to the Ashton children. The best thing for him, they told Henry, was to retire to the coast in the care of a nurse. And so Edward never returned to Ashton Hall.

And the cup that had started the horror? Dr. Padgett conducted a search for it, but it was nowhere to be seen, though Edward swore it was in the room when they were attacked. No one knows what became of it. Perhaps it had gone, and the demon with it. I see the doubt in your eyes, dearest, and I have to agree with you.

Ever after, the servants whispered that there was something still haunting the rooms and corridors of the hall, and the gardeners swore they saw Andromeda slipping out of the lake on icy winter nights. Henry’s family certainly never felt comfortable in the Hall, and so it was shut up. And so it has remained for these eighty years, and who knows if we will ever return to live in it? But one thing I know for certain: on nights when the wind blows and the moon is dark, shapes can be seen moving in the windows of the Hall. And out in the lake, a dark-haired Victorian lady floats just underneath the water. Watching. Waiting.

#original fiction #my writing

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bestworstcase · 4 years ago

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What would you have thought if Madam Canardist was designed and characterized without the racially negative stereotypes against the Romani people and voiced without an accent?

she’d be a completely different character in that case.

her basic role in the story, as a character accompanied by a disguised/shapeshifted demanitus, who ends up facilitating the important exposition in lost and found, is completely fine on its own. so, i wouldn’t have a problem with a different, hypothetical non-racist character filling that role

in the context of... sticking with canon and the episodic cartoon format and trying not to deviate too much from the canon plot, here’s how i’d design that character:

1. obviously just... completely scrap her canon visual design. i think she should still be a woman of color, because there aren’t enough women of color in tangled. actually you know what this is all hypothetical so let’s get real self indulgent with it and say she’s voiced by and modeled after ciara renée, Because Reasons.

2. she’s still named canardist, but to lean more into the pun, demanitus’s shapeshifted form is a duck, not a monkey. [in english, a “canard” is an unfounded rumor, story, or hoax, and in french, a “canard” is a duck. :P]

3. she’s a village bard and team corona first encounters her in her hometown of fortuna. rapunzel and eugene are on a date, rapunzel sees this woman chilling with her lute and her slightly deranged looking duck by a fountain or something and is like !!!, and canardist not-very-begrudgingly agrees to perform, like, the epic ballad she’s composed about the town’s history.

4. it turns out that the history of fortuna’s founding is absolutely fucking bizarre, like this town is a total weirdness magnet and all kinds of utterly bonkers stuff has happened and when canardist finishes the tale eugene is like hahaha, yeah right. canardist, put out by his skepticism, is like “look my duck is psychic fortuna is just Like This okay” and eugene loses it.

5. rapunzel is intrigued by the psychic duck and wants to pay for a fortune, but canardist is like no way, your boyfriend is a jerk, get lost, so they go. they stop in the market to pick up supplies on their way back to the caravan, discuss eugene’s cynicism, hear some rumors about the thieves who’ve been terrorizing the town lately. rapunzel persuades eugene that they should loop past the fountain again and apologize to canardist for him, you know, laughing in her face and insulting her pet, and when they get there the duck is gone and she’s distraught because two kids grabbed him and ran off. cue the rest of the canon plot of vigor the visionary, with the girls and everything. except vigor is a duck.

6. in the end, they bring vigor the duck back to canardist, and to thank them, she offers rapunzel one of vigor’s fortunes. it’s vague and confusing and won’t come into play until, let’s say happiness is—when we (and rapunzel) realize that it was warning her not to fall for the illusory happiness offered by the lorb idol. eugene is still skeptical, insisting that the “fortune” was vague and it only lined up with the events on the island by coincidence.

7. now—fundamentally, bards were chroniclers. they recorded history. and canardist, being a rather good bard, figured out pretty quickly just who rapunzel is and, after team corona left fortuna, decided “you know what? that’s history in the making. i’m going to follow them and write down what happens.”

8. so she hops a ferry across the sea and waits for them on the other side. rather than the whole lombard’s pass / telescope theft / nonsense with the curse, the episode after peril on the high seas is shenanigans with canardist being all, “i want to join your group and chronicle you” while team corona is like um. there’s a b plot with vigor the duck kind of terrorizing eugene/following eugene around and refusing to be shooed away; the a plot maybe has to do with a clash between canardist, who’s accustomed to nobility paying her for the privilege of having her chronicle their lives, and rapunzel, who has Uncomfortable Feelings about being important enough for a professional bard to be wanting to travel with her and write about it; maybe they still have to cross lombard’s pass, canardist helps (she’s a bard, she’s well traveled, she probably knows a trick or two), and at the end of the episode it’s like—okay, rapunzel’s not comfortable traveling with what’s essentially a biographer, but she and canardist come to some sort of agreement to go their separate ways but with the understanding that canardist is going to trail after them and interview people about what they did and at some point, when she’s ready, rapunzel’s going to give her side of the story.

9. canardist gets tied back into the narrative in brothers hook. this time it’s not because she’s following them, but because hook hand’s a friend of hers and she, completely independently of team corona, decided to show up and support him at his big gig for king trevor. it’s a much more amiable meeting and, after hook foot leaves, rapunzel decides to invite canardist along. because she’s doubling down on her decisions in the great tree, she feels more secure than she did the last time they met and letting canardist chronicle their journey no longer seems as scary. so canardist takes hook foot’s place in the party.

10. her presence then becomes yet another thing putting pressure on cass, because the thing is... it’s clear that cass is just a footnote in the story canardist is chronicling. she’s not important, in the context of the history they are making. rapunzel is. cass is on track to end up as rapunzel’s nameless bodyguard in this ballad canardist is writing and she tries not to let that bother her but it really really does.

11. i think it’s sort of funny if canardist gets just, completely skipped over by all the whacky evil shenanigans in the shell house. because tromus recognizes that vigor the duck is demanitus and he’s like okay, that’s a grenade i’m not going to touch with a ten foot pole, and zhan tiri is like yeah good call, so canardist ends up just like, sipping tea and casually strumming her lute and making small talk with tromus while the rest of team corona gets terrorized by mirror demons and time-twisting tops and lotus dreams.

12. so lost and found. there’s some tension in the group because canardist wasn’t harmed by anything in the shell house and that has eugene feeling just a mite suspicious, and maybe cass is backing him up too to distract attention away from what she went through and her “do i take the moonstone or not” dilemma; and partly to smooth it over canardist is like look, rapunzel, eugene, take vigor, he has something he wants to show you.

13. by this point everyone is sort of used to canardist talking about vigor like this even though he is, to all appearances, a slightly deranged duck, and rapunzel is insistent that canardist is completely trustworthy so she’s like okay!! sounds great!! and drags eugene along. the maze stuff happens. vigor reveals himself to be demanitus. it’s basically canon except he’s, you know, a duck. also it just occurred to me that i never specified what kind of duck i’m imagining when i say duck so i feel the need to do that now:

one of these guys, but like, a little bedraggled and crazed-looking. it’s the red eyes that really sells it.

14. anyway vigor also reveals that, yes, canardist knew he was demanitus the whole time; turns out she comes from a long, long line of bards stretching back to an ancestor of hers who knew demanitus and agreed to protect his undying birdbrained duck vessel until such time as he was ready to emerge. eugene feels bad about distrusting her, they make up at the end of the episode, she slips him vigor’s fortune about one of the group turning traitor in the dark kingdom. he’s like, fuck.

15. destinies collides happen, cass gets the moonstone and fucks off, for the rest of s3 canardist’s role is like... she and vigor stick with the group, she’s still chronicling them, but she also, because of her own history with demanitus, is able to help fill in some of the gaps; she reveals to rapunzel that gothel was once a servant of demanitus—and betrayed him for zhan tiri, and then betrayed zhan tiri for the sundrop. basically she’s how we get more of the the gothel+zhan tiri lore we were all craving in s3

16. other s3 stuff—maybe with her help team corona starts sketching out a plan for dealing with zhan tiri immediately after race to the spire, rather than putting it off until plus est en vous. maybe she gets to be a kind of foil to cass; as a bard, she’s always the one telling the story—never participating in it directly—and perhaps she has some complicated feelings about that that could parallel cassandra’s feelings about always being in the shadows, just a footnote, just a bit player, never someone the story is about. maybe she can have a cute bonding moment or two with varian the demanitus fanboy or xavier the legends buff. also whacky vigor and canardist shenanigans during lost treasure are mandatory. anyway the point here is, she’s not just yeeted out of the story

#rta #this post ran away from me somewhat rip #but yeah to get rid of the racism you basically have to throw out the whole suitcase and start over so #tangled-dreamer-97

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kandyrezi · 5 years ago

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Hi! I've been reading your yandere headcanons and they are great! I was wondering if you had the time, would you do headcanons for a yandere Strange Boy from Pocket Mirror?

( a/n: thank you nonnie, i hope you enjoy these! c: )

[ ♡ / ♢ ] Yandere!Strange Boy HCs;

- : - : - : - : - : - : -

• What an unfortunate predicament you’ve found yourself in – to become a puppet in center of attention to a centuries old demon who tricks people with tempting wishes and offers in exchange for a small price to pay, namely – their soul, then making a game out of making humans suffer in misery and despair if they don’t bend to his will. How unfortunate indeed.

• The strange boy hides his wrath behind a gleeful facade masked as mental torture in form of theater plays. He’s like a chess player – always ahead of the game and knowing exactly which moves to make. You’ve managed to keep his interest by beating him at his own games. At first, you’re just a tool, an idiotic munter with a half a brain to him, he only wants to break and absorb your soul, to see you crumble into nothingness – because that is all you ultimately are.

• But the more you keep running, and running – outsmarting him each time and not falling for his mind games, he begins to get infuriated, as well as just interested how far precisely he will be able to push you to the limits. You’re always twisting his own words and finding loopholes in them, trying to tempt the devil; don’t you realize it’s inevitable you’ll always lose against death itself?

• He’s the type to keep tabs on you at all times – though it might just be a more fancier way of spelling out ‘stalking’. He’s also extremely sadistic; prying you open from inside out to prey on your past mistakes and deepest insecurities, taking chances to taunt and make fun of you at every opportunity.

• The strange boy can control his own creation, Enjel, with ease since he created her and can predict her moves way ahead before she can even think about them. Nothing but a doll to do his bidding for him. The others before you have been useful yet a boring bunch – they’ve abided exactly by the contract then perished once their time would inevitably run out. He wonders how you’ve managed to last this long, truly a mystery in of itself.

• Your first encounter with him might or might not be in the real world, but he favors keeping you trapped in the consciousness of your own dreams to ensure you won’t ever be leaving his sight. He uses your worst fears against you – trapping you in claustrophobic rooms mirrors staring back from every corner, a distorted version of yourself where you feel only terror and hopelessness. He leaves you in isolation, but still talks to you in riddles, out there where you can’t see him, but only hear his voice as he asks, isn’t fate just unfortunately fickle?

• He has his servants, the pumpkins, keep an eye on you as well. Almost no corner is safe from his mischievous, glowing gaze. His rare displays of anger only show if you’re purposefully ignoring him, you dare look away when he’s speaking to you? He might strap you to a chair or tie you to a pillar so you’re forced to look. All eyes only on him.

• He never comes to your aid unless you’re on the brink of death at the hands of someone else. He’s going to be the one to decide your fate, not any of of the others. He violently torments anyone who becomes a continuous nuisance towards you, be it phantom of a real person or just a farce construction.

• He sometimes floats a little too close and uses his staff to place it underneath your chin and make you look up at him, in a teasing, non-threatening manner. He never touches you directly; he almost... desires to do so by how close he gets only separated by a strand of hair, yet it never actually happens.

• He (m o c k i n g l y) calls you nicknames such as “little prince/princess” or “pretty girl/boy”. He can also mimic anyone’s else voice to near perfection and he will use yours to throw your own words back in your face. He might intentionally let you run from his grasp just to keep interesting to a certain point, but don’t think for a second he won’t toss you away if your reactions become boring to him.

• Unless… he decides to keep you around indefinitely as a pet. He did it to Henri after all, what’s one more amusing human on his list?

#strange boy (pocket mirror)#yandere x reader #pocket mirror (game)#strange boy #pumpkin king #male yandere #stalker yandere #rpg maker horror #pocket mirror #yandere #ficlets

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alarawriting · 4 years ago

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52 Project #15: The White-Haired Boy

They called him Alyn Ysmai, the White-Haired Boy. In the village he came from, it was said he had fallen from the sky as a child, carried on a shooting star. His skin was white as the clouds, and his hair as white as the Moon, and his eyes the golden color of wild animals. From earliest days, it was said that the Lady of the Moon had marked him for her own, for his sight in the darkness was like that of the night beasts, while the sun blackened and blistered his moon-white skin. Later it became even more apparent that the Moon had favored him.

None could resist the charming spell of his words, his eyes. Like the Moon, he mesmerized. All the young women and not a few of the young men threw themselves into his arms, desperate for his love. Not a few of these killed themselves afterward, too, when he abandoned them for a new lover or cruelly rejected them.

In the 25th year of his life, he still had the form and features of a boy, but a boy so beautiful none could take their eyes from him. To men who had never before considered another male attractive, he seemed almost a woman in his beauty, and they gave him anything he asked. He was as precocious in mind as he seemed slowed in his growth; when 13, he completed his Passage to manhood by trickery, and since then had made three fortunes and become Captain of a vast Company, specializing in the acquisition and sale of information, as well as the dispatching of skilled assassins. All the other Companies in the city of Tylar trembled in fear of Alyn Ysmai, and his every word was law. Some grumbled, quietly, that Alyn Ysmai sought to make himself a Lord, as they had in some of the barbarous lands of Lysar. But they grumbled this very quietly indeed, or they vanished, never to be seen again.

In truth, the charge had teeth. Alyn Ysmai held a kind of court, where people seeking favors from him came to grovel and beg. Sometimes it pleased the White-Haired Boy to grant their requests. More often, it pleased him to shred their feelings, humiliate them, ruin them, or else steal their souls and make toys of them. Few, few women dared go to him; ever since the Captain of a rival Company killed herself for love of Alyn Ysmai, none who sought men for their night's pleasure, male or female, went to the White-Haired Boy unless their need was very great. The old and hardened, the men and women who loved only women, these were the only ones safe from loving him, and these faced other dangers of the soul instead.

There were those who said he was the son of the Lady of the Moon, one of the star angels fallen out of the night sky. Others said he was a demon from beneath the ground, with his skin that could not bear the daylight. It was people possessed of the former opinion that Alyn Ysmai surrounded himself with.

One day in his 25th year, as the White-Haired Boy held his "court", an old woman was brought to him. She had the reputation of a seer, but none of the psychic Companies would take her, claiming she was a charlatan who prostituted whatever Gift she had. Her only son had betrayed his Company and broken his bloodpaper, and so a deathpaper had been placed on him. She had come to beg Alyn Ysmai to use his influence to save her son.

His gold eyes bored into her own, and it seemed to her he could see all she desired, and more; all her pains, her tragic memories, all her deficiencies and the weaknesses in her heart. Almost, she cringed from his gaze-- she was not a very brave woman. But though she was not brave, and though she might be called a trickster, still she loved her only son. So she bowed deeply, instead. "My lord of the white hair, my humble bones groan with the honor you place on my shoulders, agreeing to lower yourself to see me. Words cannot describe my gratitude and humility..."

"Then don't waste them," Alyn Ysmai said, and his smile was as cold as ice. "I am not terribly fond of lowering myself to see gutter trash like you, old woman. Apparently you convinced my assistants that you were worth my time; either you've got a treasure unheard-of hidden in those rags, or you've a silver tongue. In which case, it would look very attractive if I melted it down and made a necklace out of it. So which is it?"

The woman quailed at his vicious words, all the more terrible for the mild, somewhat bored tone they were spoken in. Trembling, she prostrated herself at his feet. "O most noble lord, I have had a vision concerning your exalted self. Poor as a seer though I might be, still it is said that the gods may choose base vessels for their lofty messages, and who can gainsay the will of the gods?"

"Oh, you have a vision. Concerning me. No doubt, something about how I will be successful in love, or achieve wealth, or something. Since if you came with some doomsaying prophecy, you wouldn't expect a gift for it." He yawned, ostentatiously. "You have no way of knowing how tired I am of every halfwit who fancies herself a seer telling me things about my future anyone could have guessed from looking at my past. If this is another of those tedious predictions, I don't want to hear it."

"No, no, nothing like that, noble one! My vision concerns your true nature, and your rightful position among the people of Tylar. Indeed, the people of all the land of Taldyr!"

"Oh, don't tell me. I'm the chosen of the Lady of the Moon, right? I do get tired of this. Guards..."

"Wait! My lord, you don't know your true nature-- it's even greater than anyone had predicted!"

That had gotten his attention. He leaned forward slightly, gesturing to the guards to hold their places. "So tell me then, base vessel of lofty messages that you claim to be."

She dared not look at his eyes, or he would discern the truth of her message soon enough. She had to make him believe it. "My lord, as you know, four days ago was a night with no moon. It was on that night that I dreamed. I dreamed I went out into the street and looked up at the sky, and I could not see the Lady's face. I called out, 'My lady Moon, don't leave us behind! Don't leave us in darkness!'

"Then the stars spoke to me. They said, 'You fool! You call to the sky for the Lady, when she dwells on the same ground as you? Your brains are addled, old woman!'

"I asked, 'How can the Lady be on the same ground as me? Surely any ground I walk on must be too unworthy for her exalted self...'

"They replied, 'Do not overestimate your importance, gutter slime. Your actions are so totally meaningless that they can have no bearing on the Lady's actions.'

"But then one of the stars said, 'Wait, brothers and sisters. Feeble, old and unworthy this piece of human trash may be, but she may yet perform a valuable service for us. After all, she is not the only human who does not know what magnificence walks among them.'

"'That is true,' said the other stars. Then they said, 'Our Lady walks among your people, in the very streets of your city, trapped by her enemy the Sun and unaware of who she truly is. We will give you a task worthy of far better than you, old woman, and no gods shall help you if you fail it. You shall find the Lady and inform her of who she truly is, and ask her to take her position of worship. For if, trapped on Talla in the body of a human, she does not receive the worship of her loyal servants, she will pine away, and the Moon, her visible manifestation, will fade forever from the sky.'

"'But she cannot be among the people of Tylar!' I protested. 'For her loyal worshipper and chosen servant, Alyn Ysmai, would surely have found her, seeing as he knows all that transpires in this city!'

"They laughed. Then they said, 'Oh, yes, Alyn Ysmai knows everything-- except the secret of his birth. Perhaps you have forgotten, old woman, that in other countries, the Moon is worshipped as a man. As lord of desire and love, the god you call the Lady of the Moon is not bound to the shape of a woman-- she contains within her the essence of the masculine, as well. Go and tell Alyn Ysmai that he is no mere servant of the Lady of the Moon-- he is the Moon, trapped in the form of a white-haired boy on Talla, bound by his enemy, the Sun. He must know himself for what he is and be worshipped, or he will never achieve the strength to break the bonds the Sun has placed on him and return to his rightful place in the heavens. Tell him, old woman!'

"And then I awakened. I feared to come to you at first, believing my dream only the foolish fancy of an old woman. But then I remembered the legend, that the touch of the Sun corrodes your skin. There have been others favored of the Moon, but it is the birthright of all humans to touch the Sun and be warmed. If the Sun is inimical to your existence, my lord, then you cannot be human. Your substance is of an entirely different nature, and the Sun is its ancient enemy.

"Is it true, my lord? Does the touch of the Sun truly burn your skin? Are you the Moon in human incarnation?"

Alyn Ysmai stared at the old woman, shocked to his core. Always had he believed he was touched by divinity, but never that he was divinity himself. Could he believe that? Dared he believe that? If he was not the Moon, and claimed to be, would not she withdraw her protection from him, as punishment for his pride?

Yet-- if he was the Moon, it would explain a very great deal. It would explain his power to see into the hearts and sometimes the minds of others, knowing what they felt as if it showed on their faces even when they showed no sign, and sometimes knowing their thoughts as if they had spoken them, even when they had made no sign. That was no seer's power, no psychic's trick-- that was a far greater power than the humans of Talla had, and he had it. Why? Why did the sun sear his skin? Why was he so pale, as if all the color had been drained from him, when even the babies never bronzed by the blue-white sun were born brown? All around him had black or red hair, curled tightly, loosely, or waving-- his was white and straight as moonlight. All around him had eyes of black or brown-- his were tawny gold. The men of 25 years that he knew were muscular and tall-- he was yet small and slight, with the beauty but not the strength of a woman, as if he were yet a boy. Why?

If he were the Moon, trapped here by the Sun-- oh, that would explain it all. A deity in human form could not be expected to look human. The Sun's substance would corrode the Moon's skin, naturally. And he could not grow to full manhood as long as he remained ignorant of his true nature.

No wonder people loved him whenever he wished, if he was the god of desire and love. No wonder people threw their reason away for him, lost their willpower to his, when will and reason were gifts of the Sun, if he was the Sun's ancestral enemy. It all made beautiful, perfect sense. He felt a sudden rush of warmth for this old woman, who had shown him the truth of what he was.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's all true. Now that you tell it to me, it's so obvious I wonder how I could have failed to see it before. I am the Lady of the Moon." He stood, and graciously helped the old woman to her feet. "You've done me a great service, old woman," he said. "Is there any service I can do for you, as a token of my gratitude?"

"If you would, my exalted Lord," she whispered, her eyes cast at the ground. "My dear and only son, the delight of his mother's old age, has had a deathpaper placed on him by the Athysuvyras Company. If you would only use your great powers to make them rescind the papers and let him join a new Company..."

"I'll do that," the White-Haired Boy, now revealed as the Lady of the Moon, told her. He took from her the details of the case, and dismissed her. Then he dismissed all those who sought an audience with him. Turning to his subordinates, he said, "You've heard what she said. Do you believe it true? Will you accept me, not only as your Captain, but as your goddess?"

As one, all of them bowed deeply. His second-in-command, a woman he had never found attractive enough to seduce but who loved him deeply, said, "We will follow you even to death, my Captain and Lady, my god. Command us, and we will follow."

"Then we all go to the temple of the Moon-- to My temple, tonight. There are a few matters I wish to discuss with My priests." Already he had shifted into the dialect used only in myths and religious services, the speech used by the gods to mortals.

***

In the temple, the Lady's priests awakened as their goddess's manifestation first began to brighten in the sky. They went about their duties as if this were a day like any other, until they heard a clamor outside.

One of the priests went to the door, and saw there the White-Haired Boy, followed by a hundred or more. It was well-known that Alyn Ysmai was the favored of the Moon, and so the priest opened the gates. "What brings you to the temple this fine night, sir?" he asked.

Alyn Ysmai looked at him with an expression of cold fire, and the priest suddenly wanted to wilt into the ground beneath and die. "You will address Me with proper respect," the White-Haired Boy said. "It has been revealed to Me today that I am your Goddess, taken flesh in the form of a human male. I wish to address all of My priests. Call them from their duties and have them assemble in the main courtyard."

Stunned, the priest managed to stammer, "Y-yes, my lor-- my Lady..." He turned and ran, to bring the news to the other priests, his mind in turmoil. How could it be that they had not divined the presence of the Lady in their midst? Something had gone terribly wrong.

The priests came out from the chambers where they worshipped the Lady with their bodies, men and women with disheveled hair and hastily-donned ceremonial clothing. Hairbrushes and makeup flew about as they tried to restore themselves to the beautiful aspect they should present, before their goddess should arrive.

Then finally the White-Haired Boy strode into the room. He had dressed in the garment of a priest himself, and was made up to be unbearably beautiful. None who looked at him could disbelieve that he held feminine essence in himself, nor could they disbelieve that he was Desire incarnate. His followers mingled with the priests and prostrated themselves in the courtyard, except for the bodyguards who stood behind him. In his pale white beauty he seemed to glow like the moon itself, and this is what he said:

"Listen, priests of My temple! Today it has been revealed to Me that I am not merely the favored child of the Moon. I am the Moon herself, taken flesh in My male aspect. The Sun, my ancient enemy, has trapped Me here, giving Me a male shape in a place where I am worshipped in My female aspect. But look at Me! Can you not see in Me the duality of My nature?" His voice became seductive, his whole body sensuality incarnate. Every lover of women saw a woman in him, while every lover of men saw him as a man, and all adored him beyond belief. "Is there anyone here who does not desire Me? Who does not think Me beautiful? Who would not die for Me, should I ask it?"

"No one, Lady, no one!" the prostrated priests and followers chorused.

He beckoned to one of the followers. "Stand up and be counted!" he called to him, and the man stood. "Do you not love Me?"

"Yes-- yes, my Lady! I will do anything for You!"

"Take your knife and plunge it into your breast for Me, then," Alyn Ysmai said.

Mesmerized by the burning gold eyes and the beauty, the man did so, and died with a cry of anguish and ecstasy as his own knife pierced his heart.

As the man fell dead, Alyn Ysmai said, "From this day forth, all of you will direct your worship to Me, to My fleshly aspect, as well as to My heavenly manifestation. You will obey My every order without question, and serve the desires of the flesh I wear. If I tell you to break all your bloodpapers, to murder your employers, to make the streets run with the blood of those who worship My enemy the Sun, you will do it. And I will reward you with My presence, and with fortune in love, so long as you please Me."

***

They built Alyn Ysmai a throne in the temple, and brought him the finest brocades to wear, the finest delicacies to eat. He enslaved the hearts and minds of those who opposed him, or claimed he was no god. If they hated him too much to be enslaved, his followers and priests would compete to devise new and interesting ways of putting them to painful death. People broke their bloodpapers and murdered their employers at his order, just as he had said, and when deathpapers were placed on those who had committed the crimes, his worshippers would rise up against that company and devastate it. The streets ran with the blood of those who worshipped the Sun, or sometimes, any god but Alyn Ysmai. Those who earned his gratitude had great rewards granted them, and led enviable lives. Those that disappointed him were required to abase or humiliate themselves, or sometimes to commit horrible suicides.

And through it all Alyn Ysmai grew very bored.

He showed no sign of aging, of developing a more manly body. Worship satiated him, but gave him no mystic strength to command the heavens, or any other of the great powers that should be his by right. And his pleasures had to grow progressively more unusual to appeal to his jaded soul.

Finally, one night he had a dream.

In the dream he saw a woman, and she was mirror to himself, with long hair the color of moonlight, and eyes the color of night. Her body was perfection, and more than perfection, and he fell immediately in love with her, desperately and completely.

"Alyn Ysmai," she said, and her voice was the music of the night. "I've heard a great deal about you."

"Have you?" he asked, and his mouth was dry.

"You're very beautiful," she said. "Truly, you are favored." And she smiled at him with biting sharpness. He could not tell if her smile was a mockery, or if she meant what she said. For the first time, his gifts deserted him, and he could tell nothing about her, affect nothing of her.

"You are also very beautiful," he managed.

"Yes, I am, aren't I?" she said, and stepped toward him.

She drew him into her embrace, and it was like nothing he had ever experienced. It was more real than any dream he had ever had-- more real, in fact, than reality had ever been. And when she took him in love, there was more pleasure than he had ever imagined, more than he could easily comprehend.

Then she faded like smoke out of his arms, leaving him unfulfilled and despairing. He called out to her... and realized that he was awake.

Desperate with unfulfilled desire, he summoned one of his priests, a beautiful woman trained in all the arts of pleasure, to his bed. But she was empty, hollow, after the woman of last night. He felt dirtied by her touch, and experienced no enjoyment, only the release of a physical pressure. His mind and soul were left as unfulfilled as before.

For hours he lay in bed, throughout the burning day, trying to regain the dream he'd lost, but to no avail. Finally, sick to the soul, he rose with the moon, dressed, and glanced out the window.

She was standing in the courtyard below.

Alyn Ysmai was down the stairs faster than anyone should be able to move. But when he reached the courtyard, she was gone.

"Did you see a woman here?" he demanded of a priest passing by. "A woman, with hair and skin as light as my own?" In his desperation, he forgot the terms of godly address, and spoke just as he had when he was thought an ordinary man.

"No-- no, my Lord," the man said. "I saw no one."

"Did you see her?" the White-Haired Boy demanded of other priests, searching the entire courtyard. "Did you? Did you?"

Finally one said, "I think I saw a woman like that heading out the gates, my Lord."

Like a man possessed, Alyn Ysmai headed for the gates, searching for the woman. Already he knew that he would never know pleasure, real pleasure again, never enjoy anything in life again, until he found her. Without her, his life would be empty and meaningless. And when he found her, she would become the reason for his existence. He would worship her, as he himself was worshipped, and give her everything he had, and in return she would give him pleasure far beyond the domain of mortal men.

So he went into the city, and demanded of passersby that they tell him where she had gone. He had none of his bodyguards, but the force of his need was such that even those who hated him answered him readily. It did no good. The fragments he learned indicated that she had somehow drifted out of the city, like a flower blown on the wind. He turned and left the city, hiking out into the wilderness to seek her out.

In the day he sheltered from the sun under the rich brocades his worshippers had given him, and still he searched. In the night, he drove himself without food, without sleep, crossing the wilderness alone, and still he searched. And for days and nights he searched, until days turned to weeks, and then to months, and then to years. And still he searched... for his life would not be complete until he found her again.

In the city, his worshippers tried to follow him, but found that the moon was too dim to find him by-- it clouded their vision, somehow. And slowly they awoke, as if from a dream, and realized that their goddess in male cloak would not be returning to them. So they resumed the old patterns of worship, and the life of the city returned to the way it had been, before the arrival of the White-Haired Boy.

***

In the heavens, the Lord of the Night, master of sleep and dreams, and his sibling the Lady of the Moon, stood in the palace of the sky and looked down. Alyn Ysmai still continued his desperate quest for the woman who had stolen his soul-- she who was none other than the true Lady of the Moon, herself.

"I'm not sure I should have let you enter his dream," the Lord said. "You've stolen his soul, sister, and doomed him to wander all Talla, searching for you."

"Surely you don't think the punishment was too extreme," the Lady of the Moon said, surprised at her brother. "The White-Haired Boy brought chaos to the city he dwelt in. He toyed with the hearts and minds of others, and destroyed people for no better reason than his own pleasure, or to alleviate his boredom. If anyone on all Talla could be called evil, it would be Alyn Ysmai. Surely you must realize how much he deserved his fate, brother! I did nothing more to him than what he did to countless others."

"I know," the Lord said gravely. "For what he did, the White-Haired Boy deserves a thousand punishments, and I don't grieve to see him tormented the way he tormented so many others. But I question your motives, sibling."

"My motives? Why do you question--"

"When he won the hearts of all his family, so that they spoiled him and gave him all he desired, you smiled on him. When he tricked people of their birthrights and of their bloodpapers, you clapped your hands in delight like a small child. And when he played with the hearts and minds of others, enslaving people to his desires, robbing them of will, making them his toys, you laughed and beamed down on him. He was your favored child, agent of your pleasures and your manipulations. It wasn't until he grew arrogant enough to believe himself you, to steal your worshippers and rain blood in your name, that you grew angry enough to punish him." The Lord of the Night gazed sternly at his sister. "You destroyed him, not because he was evil-- for he was evil even before he took your temple, made so by the gifts you gave him. No, you destroyed him for the sake of your own pride."

And the Lady of the Moon could make no reply, for it was true.

***

They say the White-Haired Boy lived a long, long time, and spent all that time searching for the Lady of the Moon, never finding the cruel goddess again, nor regaining her favor. Some say that he wanders Talla still, calling her by the name "Beloved," calling to her as he searches. If you cross his path, these say, he will doom you to a devastating and unrequited love, to make another share his anguish. Others say he died a long time ago. But even those turn aside when they see a pale form in the distance, on a moonlit night, or when they hear the wind crying a name.

***

Translator’s notes:

Aside from the Great Diaspora, when the people of Laon fled their original homeworld, and the world of Scamara, which according to their legends wasn’t settled by willing Laon’l, there is very, very little evidence of Laon’l space travel prior to being contacted by the Galactic Confederation. This is understandable; prior to the Diaspora, the Laon’l perceived space to be the realm of demons, while the chthonic realms of their planet’s depths were understood to be the realm of their afterlife, cradled in the peaceful bosom of their Mother. After the Diaspora, Laon’l saw space as the realm of their tormentor, the Daishenéon Emaroth (the title translates as either “Great Empress” or “Greatest of Demons”.)

However, it cannot be denied that on the new world of Laon, the technology for space travel existed, and the Laon’l leadership has always tended to be conservative and controlling – a combination that often leads free-thinkers, iconoclasts, and members of minority cultures to flee their homes. The Laon’l leadership is known to have suppressed any knowledge of individuals fleeing Laon, in the past, but archaeologists have found evidence of attempts to build spaceships. Until now, however, we’ve found no evidence on Laon’l presence on any world other than Laon and Scamara.

This particular legend comes from the continent of Taldyr on Talla, and has been understood by the Taldyrese to be fictional, or possibly to be based on the actual exploits of a charismatic leader with albinism. However, there are certain factors that suggest that this is not the case.

- The White-Haired Boy is presented as unusually sensitive to Talla’s sun. The blue-white sun of Talla is in fact a serious problem for the rare Tallese albinos, and for humans of the “Caucasian” subgroup and Draigoili of the “anthela” subgroup, but only Laon’l are known to actually die of radiation poisoning from a full day of exposure to the Tallese sun (during summer, or near the equator, and on a cloudless day). The exaggerated sensitivity the White-Haired Boy supposedly had to sunlight in legend sounds significantly more like Laon’l sensitivity to the Tallese sun than to the sensitivity Tallese albinos exhibit.

- The White-Haired Boy, if he existed, would almost certainly have had to be psionic to demonstrate the abilities he supposedly had. This might simply be a convention of fiction – on Earth, another low-psi world, legendary figures have abilities that in reality would require powerful psi, as a matter of routine. But Alyn Ysmai is actually the only Tallese legendary figure to demonstrate abilities that seem to fall in the range of telepathy, telempathy or expathy; most Tallese trickster figures or legendary heroes have abilities that cannot be explained by psionics, such as shapeshifting, flight, abnormally high strength, et cetera.

- “Fallen from the sky as a child, carried on a shooting star” : any version of the Alyn Ysmai legend that covers his childhood at all makes reference to this part of the legend. The resemblance to a spaceship crash-landing is obvious.

- “had the form and features of a boy”, references to the femininity of the White-Haired Boy – Laon’l are significantly more neotenous than other humanoid species, and typically have less sexual dimorphism. To a Tallese of a thousand years ago, a Laon’l of 25 Tallese years would look much more like a teenager, and would appear more androgynous than the average Tallese teenager.

- Talla’s star is visible in the sky of Laon, often during the day. It’s one of about ten stars that writings of Laon’l who believed their species should return to space spoke of attempting to reach.

- Laon’l and Tallese are not interfertile without modern genetic engineering, and some variants of the Alyn Ysmai legend make much of the fact that he fathered no children. No variants claim that he did have children. With the amount of coitus, the number of partners the legends suggest he would have had, and the social status he had, it’s implausible that he wouldn’t have had children if he were fertile at all.

Of course, all of this is circumstantial evidence; without access to Alyn Ysmai’s remains, we have no way of proving for certain his species. However, it’s fairly strong circumstantial evidence.

Given the value to identifying evidence of pre-GalConfed Laon’l space travel, we suggest that an archaeological expedition to Talla to attempt to determine whether the White-Haired Boy actually existed or not, and to potentially recover whatever may be left of his remains, should be funded within the next five years.

#52 project #laon #talla #galconfed universe

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thestarkerisobvious · 5 years ago

Text

The Thing That Lives Under The Bed

art by @starker-stories story for @mrstarksbaby

Chapter Two: Fifteen

4: Masters. Rivals. Lovers.

Bit by bit Peter pieced it together, from the stories he heard while nestled in Tony’s arms to the multiple pilgrimages to libraries in the long Spring and Summer when Tony was gone.

Simeon the Elder was the only name Tony produced that appeared in any history books, and was said to have died on September 2nd, 459 AD, although Tony claimed to have “vexed” him for more than a decade. But his stories of Bishop Berthwald, that had tasked him to do it, made it sound like he had served in the “realm of men” for decades, maybe even a century, before that. Tony’s sense of time made it difficult to calculate.

It was in the monastery that the books existed to “Conjure” him to the realm of men, although sometimes he described them as scrolls. Certainly they would have been copied into books by the second century, Peter’s research said.

It was hard to say what surprised Peter the most, that it was a monastery full of Christian monks that had summoned the demons to earth in the first place, or the fact that Tony’s main job had been to watch over the henhouse.

“But there were many of us then, so many. We had different tasks. All of us were conjured to protect the monastery against raiders, but when the walls were finished there was little need for that. Some of us built bridges, others great towers. Many spread themselves over the oceans to bring back news of oncoming storms. Some could travel over borders and spy in the courts of kings…”

But what kings, and what borders Peter could never determine, nor could he find the name of the monastery that Tony spoke of. Whatever names he knew were not the names that were recorded in history.

“We were so strong then, we were so well-fed. Entire fields of cattle were dedicated to our consumption, and the bodies of apostates and heretics and enemies. And we feasted upon the vapors from the infernal regions from which we came,” Tony had explained one night as he held Peter in his arms, Peter’s back pressed against Tony’s chest. Peter had no idea what “vapors from the infernal region” tasted like, but he remembered how Tony’s arms had tightened and his mouth began licking and kissing against Peter’s shoulder, neck, and ear. Whatever that kind of feeding was, it made Tony hungry just thinking about it.

“Many times a year. Walpurgisnacht, All Hallows Eve, the night before the Christ mass. That magic is long lost, it was lost before the monastery fell. But it was good. Many spirts still roam the earth at All Hallows Eve, seeking someone who knows the ritual of the Great Feast. I was so strong then. I took the form of a human and lived feigned that way for years, even in summer months, made strong with that power. Brother Herman disguised me as an acolyte and kept me in his monk’s cell for years.”

“To do what?”

“To be his lover.”

Peter was glad he was facing away from Tony then, he didn’t want the man to see his face just then.

“How did you escape? From Brother Herman?”

“I did not escape. I did not wish to escape. Simeon the Elder had broken with the brotherhood and left the monastery, and I was summoned to find him. When I reported he had become a stylite with dozens of disciples the Bishop was furious. I was sent to vex him. I lived at his side for nearly a dozen years…”

“Wait. Is that how he lived on a pillar for so long? With magic?”

“No. People. The people provided him with everything he needed. They came from miles around to see him. They would have brought him anything, provided him anything. My poor sorrowful scholar. He joined the monastery because he craved solitude. He left the monastery because he craved solitude. He climbed to the top of the pillar certain he had found solitude – and an entire village worth of people formed around the pillar to celebrate his solitude. How he suffered.”

This was the first time, Peter discovered, that Tony had learned the trick of causing an emotion in a human, then feeding off the emotion. He would frighten Simeon with terrifying images, then feed upon the fear. Or give him erotic dreams and feed upon the morning guilt. (“Oh he loved it when I played the shy novice, craving touch but not knowing how to ask for, how he loved teaching me the art of touch, over and over and over again,” Tony murmured, his lips brushing against Peter’s neck. Peter pretended not to notice.) Or drain the man of his fear of large crowds so much that he would forget he feared large crowds, only to descend into the village that had grown up around his pillar, be filled with hatred and fear, and then ascend the pillar to feed Tony once again.

“For twelve years you did this?”

“I cared for him so. Drank the pain and diseases from his body and took away his desires to hurt himself. He fed me in questions, so many questions. We spoke, we disputed, we discussed for hours under the night sky. Berthwald desired him to return to the monastery, return to his bed. I did not wish him to go. The brotherhood despised his constant questions. I loved them.”

“Did you… disobey the Bishop?”

“I could not disobey; Berthwald’s magics were too strong. But he never directed me to convince Simeon to return to the monastery, only vex him until he returned. I only did what I was told.

“I convinced him to throw himself from the pillar, this I was tasked to do. But I was not tasked to let him fall. I protected him, only let him break a few bones. Feasted on his pain. Nursed him back to health. For so long we lived this way,” Tony said lovingly. Peter wasn’t sure if he was jealous or horrified.

“Until the Bishop made you kill him? That’s just terrible!”

“I took him gently. Took all the light from his mind, so that he would not suffer. I loved him so. But not as much as Berthwald. When I returned to report of his death the bishop fell into a fit of grieving. He cast me into the ground. And there I stayed. The next time I was summoned it was to the shores of the new world, and I was the servant of Ebenezer Post.

“But that’s so wrong… he was in love with Simeon, and he made you kill him, and then punished you for killing him.”

Tony shrugged his shoulders. It was strange, feeling that gesture as Tony held him close. He had felt it often. Tony seemed to take every decision the monks at the monastery made as a matter of course.

“If only he had stayed with the order until Michaelmass of that year he left, of was the year after? Each of us were forbidden to harm any of the monks that dwelled within the monastery. That was powerful magic, bindings of that caliber were almost impossible to break. It was a common thing among us, for the monks to send us out to kill other monks. “To creep into the beds of rival lovers, or beloveds that had fled their beloveds. If a spirit was fed and powerful, we could consume the entire body, making it disappear right under the blankets before the sun rose.”

“It need not be painful,” Tony said, when Peter shuttered in his arms. “If they did not wish their beloved to suffer. First you must consume the light from their brainpan,” he said tenderly, combing his finger’s through Peter’s hair. “Then the light from their organs, one at a time,” he put his hand over Peter’s heart, then ran in slowly downward. “Unless you were told to make them suffer. Then you did it in reverse…”

“Stop,” Peter snapped, and Tony removed his hand from where it was caressing over his stomach, and moving lower.

Of course, he had wanted Tony to stop talking, not touching him…

But there was no way to tell him that, so they just stopped talking altogether. It was a tactic Peter took many times that winter. When things became too complicated, he just close his eyes and went to sleep, letting Tony feed again. The feedings had to happen nightly and lasted for hours. Tony said it was because Peter wouldn’t let him prey on the animals that lived nearby.

But it was winter, and mostly the only animals Tony asked for were the cats and dogs.

That was why Peter only allowed Tony to take them back to the dream of the castle a few more times. Tony couldn’t really feed there anyway. When they were there they spent most of the time exploring the castle hand in hand, Peter telling Tony every detail of the book Dracula, Tony describing the monastery he had lived in and the similarities of architecture. But they always wound up back in the ornate bedroom, and Peter wasn’t entirely comfortable there. There always seemed to be voices there, echoing in the other rooms, solemnly intoning things Peter didn’t want to hear. Besides, Tony always seemed to want something there, something Peter didn’t understand and was afraid to ask.

Besides, Peter reasoned by daylight, why did they have to meet in dreams at all now? They spoke just as easily awake as asleep. (And that, secretly, was the reason he didn’t allow Tony to take him there anymore. Things had changed the night they spoke in the castle, changed drastically. When Peter went to sleep Tony could barely speak in sentences of three words, when he woke up Tony was speaking in paragraphs. All because of what they had done in the dream. If they did something else in the dream, what else would change?)

It had been February 2nd when Tony was strong enough to climb upon to the bed. In very short order winter began fading away and longer days made Tony weaker. Night after night he would cling to Peter, sometimes to hungry to speak, feeding from his wrist or his fingers for endless hours. Tony would appear to him shirtless, and Peter would wear his short-sleeve pajamas wrapping his arms around Tony’s frail body, giving him all the skin-to-skin comfort he could manage. (Peter wanted to take off his own shirt. Every night he promised himself he would, but when Tony arrived he always chickened out.) Soon they realized there was no helping it, Tony would have to go back to darkness to sleep until the fall.

“I should have been yours until Walpurgisnacht,” he moaned. “As you grow older you will be stronger. As you grow stronger, I will grow stronger. Read the books that make you cry, the ones that make you laugh, the ones that make you angry. You must feed me so much when I return to you. I’ll grow strong. I’ll stay.”

Those were the nights that Peter found himself holding Tony and not the other way around. Stroking his hair and his face and kissing his forehead. Squeezing him tight, tangling their legs together, holding him until his arms ached. Letting Tony lap his tongue into his mouth for as long as he wanted. Promising Tony, over and over, that he would eat a lot and exercise constantly, making himself strong for when Tony finally returned. “And I’ll read a lot, I’ll read so much, lots and lots of books to make me sad,” he promised. “And books about the endangered animals, and animals going extinct, they make me so angry. I’ll read them all, I promise.”

“Will you cry for me?” Tony whispered. It was almost April, and his voice was becoming very faint. He licked a long wet stripe up Peter’s cheek and over his eye. They both grinned at the joke. They had both agreed that, when Tony was licking his face, crying was impossible.

“I’ll try,” Peter whispered against Tony’s mouth, parted his lips willingly when Tony’s tongue sought him out.

It was difficult, in those moments, to remember that Tony wasn’t really kissing him, but merely feeding.

Especially when Tony’s hand cupped his face with gentle tapered fingers, or combed those fingers through his hair.

Especially when Tony held him close.

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Peter turns 16 soon.

But for that chapter you will have to wait until next week.

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Master Post

#The Thing That Lives Under The Bed #Demon!Tony #But not THAT Demon!Tony #Starker #Von's Moodboards #TheWitchway writes stuff

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