#where he's trapped in the room with the son and the boy is just chasing him around the room for hours

[nexus-nebulae]

every day i wish that Rats SMP was a cartoon bc it would make the greatest show ever i think

[spacecadet-ticklesinspace]

Tickletober Day 2: Chase

Fandom: Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Pairing: Peter Quill and Yondu (platonic)

Summary: Even though Peter may be older now, he never quite learned not to antagonize Yondu.

(This story takes place after the second movie in a setting where Yondu survived ❤️ :) Gotta show some love to Dad Yondu and his "adopted" son Peter Quill ❤️ :))

"Could you drive any slower?"

"Boy, if I hear one more word out of you."

"Seriously?" Peter motioned outside the windshield with one hand. "We'd be there in half the time if you'd simply increase the speed!"

"Quill!" Yondu shoved Peter's hand out of the way. "I ain't running her on full speed! Until we get those new parts for the engine, this is the speed we're staying at!"

"We have a whole hoard of killers breathing down our necks!"

"Ya don't think I know that!"

Peter threw his hands up and started to walk away.

"Don't you walk away from me boy!" Youndu turned his chair. "You started this fight now you'd better dang finish it!"

Peter whirled around. "I don't need to finish any dang thing with you!"

"To blazes with you!"

"Well . . . to blazes with you too!"

Yondu turned his chair back around with a huff.

Peter glared daggers at the back of the blue Zatoan's head. No matter the circumstance, the captain of the Electra had a way of dancing on his nerves and boy did it get under his skin today! Here they were, limping along in space, all because Yondu refused to risk burnout and run the engines at full power after their recent encounter with an enemy ship. They were sitting ducks out here when a simple increase in power would have them to the nearest port within a couple hours. Worst of all, Quill's ship and crew were waiting for him with a possible death trap behind them.

Peter tightly gripped the tin cup in his hand. "Why don't you ever listen!"

Yondu didn't even flinch when the tin cup collided with the back of his head. All he did was stare dead ahead for exactly three seconds before he finally shouted out, "That's it!"

Peter stumbled forward as the Electra came to a full stop and two crimson red eyes landed on him. If Yondu brought his ship to a complete stop, he was mad. Very very mad.

Quill immediately scrambled up. "Crap!"

Before Yondu even stood, Peter was already down the hall. He could hear those familiar boots stomping after him as he desperately tried to loose Yondu in Electra's halls

If other Ravagers on board the ship didn't move out of his way, Peter shoved to the side with a loud, "Move!"

One unlucky soul even got shoved into an opening that he could not pull himself back out of.

"Coming through!" Peter shouted back to the angry cries behind him with just enough time to slide under two Ravagers carrying a box of supplies across his path.

Just as the younger half human scrambled to his feet, a high pitched whistle reached his ears.

Quill's sleeve was snagged. He slammed into the wall behind him, unable to move from the arrow pinning his sleeve to the wall.

The sea of Ravagers around him parted to reveal Yondu's storming figure.

"L-look Yondu, I'm sorry. My temper got the the better of me and I-I-ow!"

The blue skinned Zatoan swiftly snagged his arrow with one hand and Peter's ear with the other. "Kraglin, take over."

Yondu's second mate nodded before quietly leaving the room.

"The rest of ya, back to what ya were doing!" Yondu's crimson eyes found Peter's green eyes. "I've got some business to take care of."

A solid yank pulled Quill forward to the hall.

"Ow! Can you not pull so hard!"

Yondu yanked Peter's ear even harder as they continued walking.

Quill cried out. "Look, I said I was sorry! I shouldn't have gotten so mad!"

Without a word, Yondu shoved Peter into the captain's quarters. "I've had enough of your crap."

The younger half human stumbled to the floor.

A loud thud followed as the door behind Yondu snapped shut. The blue skinned Zatoan stepped forward.

Peter held up a hand in front of him. "WaitwaitwaitwaitWAIT!"

With one sharp whistle, that same hand became stuck to the floor where the arrow embedded itself.

Peter's second hand then became pinned between Yondu's knees when the captain knelt to the floor. "No matter what ya always gotta run that mouth of yours."

"Yondu?"

The blue skinned captain leaned closer to Peter. "Blah blah blah all day long."

"Yondu."

"Well I've had enough of your yabbering."

"Yondu please.

"Ya got something ya wanna say then say it," Yondu hissed as one hand grabbed Peter's chin.

"I---am so so sorry and it will never ever happen again---."

"Shut up!"

The next sound to fill the room was a very loud screech as Yondu dug his fingers into Peter's ribs.

"This'll shut your yap!"

"YONDU PLEHEASE! IHIM SORRYHY!"

"Sorry doesn't fix disrespect boy." The blue skinned Zatoan latched both hands onto Peter's ribs and squeezed.

Another screech shot out of Peter's mouth just as he arched his back.

Yondu kept up the harsh tickling on Quill's ribs for a few moments longer before jumping down to shake his hand into the middle of his stomach. "Stay with me Quill."

Peter's knees shot up to his chest before slamming back down. "NOO! YONDU PLEHEHEHEASE!"

"Ya gonna keep sassing me."

Peter shook his head.

Yondu moved down to dig into Peter's lower belly. "Swear on it."

"AHHH! IHI SWEAR! I SWEHEAR!"

"Why should I believe you boy?"

"NAH, YONDU PLEHEHEHEAHAHASE!"

"Again." Yondu's hand grabbed onto Peter's side and squeezed in time with his words. "Why should I believe you?"

Peter desperately thrashed side to side in the captain's hold. "I DOHONT KNOHOW!"

Yondu jumped back up to Peter's ribs. "Wrong answer."

"SHHH--!" Quill snorted. "YOHOU OLD BAHAG OHOF CRAP!"

Yondu immediately latched onto Peter's most sensitive rib.

"NAHAAAA---!" Peter fell into silent laughter.

Yondu pulled his hand away. "Stay with me boy."

The younger half human beneath him collapsed into a pile of exhausted giggles.

After letting him catch his breath, Yondu gripped Peter's chin again. "Now, are ya gonna behave?"

"Yehes."

The blue skinned Zatoan yanked his chin forward. "Yes what?"

"Sir! Yes sir!"

Yondu studied Peter's face for several seconds before letting it go in favor of yanking out his arrow. The blue skinned captain stood and put his arrow away while Peter sluggishly rolled onto his side. "Come on, I didn't even get ya that much."

Quill made no response.

With a shrug, Yondu turned and strode toward the door. "Klinger'll come get ya for supper.

Peter held up his hand and made a very rude gesture at the blue skinned captain.

Yondu just chuckled. "Love ya too boy."

After flicking off the lights, Yondu stepped into the hall, leaving Peter alone to rest on the floor of his cabin.

[valeriianz]

Parent Trap AU part 2! told from Robyn and Orpheus' perspective haha. (part 1!)

“Lemme see!”

“Quit shovin’!”

Robyn hovered above Orpheus, forcing the boy to crouch low so they could both poke their heads around the corner to spy on their dads.

Hob and Dream had been dancing around each other all week. Smiling and laughing and even touching each other with more and more frequency (a tap on the shoulder, a hand on the small of the back, even shoes brushing under the table). The twins’ masterful plan to make Hob and Dream fall in love again seemed to be going well… but just before anything earth-shattering happened, anything concrete, the two men seemed to remember themselves and backed away. To the utter bewilderment and anguish of the twins as they retreated back to the drawing board. 

(Literally. It was a large crayola canvas that Orpheus had in his room to doodle on).

Robyn didn’t get it. It was so obvious Dream– the father he’d always known existed somewhere– still had feelings for his dad. It had been hard to tell, in those first couple days pretending to be Orpheus, but once he’d started earnestly asking Dream about Hob, forcing him to recall stories from the past and watching as he’d smile or laugh softly to himself, his gaze far away and misty, it became clear.

But then Dream would shake his head, clearing it, and change the subject.

Robyn and Orpheus had felt that connection between themselves instantly. That zap of recognition like, “Ah-ha! We were meant to find one another.” Why was it so difficult for Dream and Hob to see it?

Robyn huffed. Grown-ups.

After briefly parting for a couple days, Robyn found himself back at Orpheus and Dream’s luxurious home, under the pretence of one last stay to reacquaint themselves to the idea of shared custody or something along those lines, the boys didn’t really understand it, but what they did understand, was that their dad’s would be sleeping under the same roof. But only for a few days.

And after chasing Cori out of the house (good riddance, the pompous git. The boys made sure to give him hell), Robyn and Orpheus knew they had to utilise their time well, plotting their biggest scheme yet.

They, along with help from Dream’s butler, Mervyn, had set up this elaborate dinner that– oh no, Robyn and Orpheus wouldn’t be able to attend, leaving their parents to dine alone. Orpheus had set the scene: candlelight dinner, serving their dad’s favourite dishes, and (Merv’s idea, bless him for taking interest in the boy’s tomfoolery) soft jazz that would eventually transition into a very special song.

“You’ll see,” Mervyn had winked at the boys as he set up the playlist. 

Robyn and Orpheus watched now, as their fathers sat down for dinner, perplexed at the absence of their sons (Dream looking exasperated and Hob scanning the room knowingly, biting down a smirk). The table was clearly only set for two people, and Robyn had done a fantastic job (in his opinion) of decorating with candles and flowers– he had studied that old photograph of their dad’s, copying the layout of the table they sat at there.

Mervyn came out and poured the wine, which is when Dream inquired where Robyn and Orpheus were.

“Afraid they couldn’t make it,” is all Mervyn said, as if the boys were very busy, tied up in meetings and paperwork and whatever else grown-ups did.

Hob propped an elbow on the table and let his head fall in the palm of his hand, shaking it slightly and fully smiling now, amused.

Robyn grinned too.

It took them a moment to finally start talking, but they fell into it, eventually. Discussing the boys at first, “little tricksters…” pranking Cori, stealing his glasses, setting the dog loose while they had wine and cheese on the terrace, and finally spooking his horse while he and Dream were out riding so the horse galloped wildly into the brush, knocking the ridiculous blond American off his saddle and into the mud.

Hob tried hiding his snickering behind his hand as Dream recanted these events to Hob, but Dream caught him with a woebegone sigh.

“It’s not funny, he sprained his wrist.”

Hob took a deep inhale, gathering himself.

“After all that wine and cheese, I hope he shit his pants, too.”

“Hob!” Dream snorted inelegantly, slapping a hand over his mouth, which only set Hob off again, laughing in earnest now.

The boys had to move away once they heard the squeaking of their own muffled laughter, both hands over their mouths, wheezing through their teeth.

“You’re just as bad as them,” Dream finally spoke after the giggles had worn off.

Hob shrugged noncommittally, mischievous grin still on as he took a long sip of his wine.

“You like it,” he said confidently, eyes sharp.

Dream said nothing, popping a forkful of beet and pear salad into his mouth.

After appetisers was dinner, then dessert. The time ticked away slowly and the boys eventually moved from their vantage point to the kitchen, asking Mervyn how it was going and the butler shooing them out with barely anything to go off of.

But it was going well, as far as the boys could tell. The conversation between Dream and Hob was flowing steadily, Dream giving out his smile more and Hob unable to take his eyes off of him. The grand finale was coming up and Robyn and Orpheus held their breaths as the jazz flittered out and in its place, a violin came up and both Dream and Hob seemed to seize up at the same time.

Orpheus was beginning to think this was a bad idea, especially as his father sat up ramrod straight, his fingers drumming on the table's surface. And Robyn’s dad looked…

Well, he looked– tortured, was a pretty close description. His lips had parted and he kept looking between Dream and his own hands, which he had begun wringing out in his lap.

“You’re just too good to be true…Can’t take my eyes off of you…”

A male’s voice crooned through the speakers, but Robyn and Orpheus paid it no mind as they silently watched their fathers.

Finally Dream met Hob’s gaze and held it. The boys held their breath, too. Wondering what was going to happen now.

“Do you think they know?” Hob asked quietly, so quiet that Robyn barely heard him speak.

“It’s our wedding song, of course they knew,” Dream sighed, casting his gaze up to the ceiling.

It was Hob’s turn to tap his fingers on the table, thinking, and making his mind up about something as he pushed his chair out and stood.

Orpheus took Robyn’s arm and shook it as Hob stepped up to Dream, dipping slightly and offering his hand.

“Dance with me?”

Dream stared at Hob’s hand, lips parted. Robyn felt himself shaking with the effort to remain calm.

Dream swallowed, Robyn could see from here.

“Do you think this is wise?” he asked in a whisper, eyes flicking up to Hob.

After a moment of tense silence, nothing but the song quietly playing, Hob took a long breath.

“It’s our song, we can’t not dance to it.”

And as if that was sound enough logic, Dream carefully took Hob’s hand, fingers elegantly curling around it, and allowed himself to be pulled up and led to a spacious spot away from the table.

Hob took the lead, using his hold on Dream’s hand to pull him close, the other hand circling his waist and causing Dream’s eyes to flutter shut as he willingly stepped closer, their bodies nearly touching, his own hand resting on Hob’s shoulder.

Robyn and Orpheus could barely watch now, from this angle. They scooted back out into the hallway to find another spot where they could see more clearly.

The only other option was from above, a loft directly above the dining room which was Dream’s study, a place Orpheus wasn’t allowed to be in by himself, but he figured this was a good enough excuse to break that rule.

Orpheus led the way, quiet tiptoeing turning into a full blown sprint up the stairs and around the corner, shushing themselves as they got to the door of his father's office and quietly pushed it open. The music was louder up here, closer to the speakers that hung from the ceiling, so they wouldn’t be able to hear their fathers if they spoke, but they could properly spy on them now without being seen or heard.

Robyn followed Orpheus’ lead and crouched down, crawling forward on his tummy and poking his head out through the railing and peeking below.

Dream and Hob were still swaying to the music, just as close and eyes open, gaze locked to each other. They had picked up momentum now that the song was more than halfway over, the second chorus coming in with trumpets and bringing the rhythm up to something more infectious, more daring as Hob’s grip around Dream’s waist circled around the small of his back, holding him tighter as he began to spin them around the room.

Dream’s long legs kept up as Hob visibly loosened up, leading them in an informal waltz. Robyn caught his dad’s wide, toothy smile every time he turned and he could see his face clearly. His eyes seemed to sparkle. 

Orpheus nudged Robyn. “I’ve never seen my father smile like that.”

Robyn had noticed that Dream was smiling, too. But it was lips only, parting every now and then, like he was holding it back, biting his bottom lip afterwards to keep it at bay. But his eyes lit up in a way that was almost unrecognisable, focused solely on Hob.

Hob’s hand on Dream’s waist dropped, taking his other hand suddenly and taking a step back, turning Dream in his hold so his back was against Hob’s front, and spun him out, Dream following along with a surprised yelp and laughter that the boy’s heard from their vantage point.

When Hob pulled Dream back in, they were closer than before, chests flush together and noses bumping fleetingly. 

The song was coming to an end, fading out as Hob and Dream slowed in their dancing to a standstill. 

Orpheus gasps next to Robyn. “They’re gonna kiss.”

“Shh!” Robyn bumped his elbow to his brother’s side. 

The boys held their breath as the song finally ended and another one started, instrumental jazz again. The men stood so Robyn and Orpheus could see both of them from the side, watching with bated breath as Hob brought up Dream’s left hand and kissed the knuckles, eyes glued to Dream’s.

Hob said something, his lips moving, unable to make out from here, but Robyn could see how Dream’s eyes widened as Hob dropped his hold on the other hand, moving his up to cup the side of Dream’s face.

Hob leaned in, agonisingly slow, eyes half-lidded. 

And was met with Dream turning his face away, so not even the boys could see what expression he gave off.

Hob’s head dipped, defeat radiating off him, his forehead resting solemnly on Dream’s temple.

Robyn had to bite his tongue to hold back the groan of frustration that bubbled up in his throat. All Orpheus’ and his hard work!

Dream swallowed again, his jaw twitching, saying something, to which Hob shook his head, finally dropping his hands and ripping himself away.

“Hob, I’m sorry…” the words barely made it up to the twin’s ears, spoken by Dream, broken and thick.

Hob shook his head again, a painful, false smile plastered onto his face as he took another step back, then another, putting more and more distance between them.

“No…” Orpheus bemoaned, sitting up slightly. “What’s happening?”

Hob said something, quiet, before finally turning around and walking out of the room.

A long, heavy moment permeated the air, made doubly awkward as the music continued to play.

Dream stood, wrapping his arms around his middle.

And the boys simultaneously rolled onto their backs, staring blankly up to the ceiling.

So they missed the way Dream wiped a hand over his eyes, took a steadying inhale, and ran after Hob.

[sunshine-and-moonshine]

Au Where I Make Cod Characters Act Like Characters I Simp For From Other Fandoms

Requested: No

Warnings: Blood Drinking, Voyeurism, Ghost has 3 sons (all fully grown and 25+, their names are Payton, Quentin, and Rowan), small bit of ✨spice✨, Dub-Con touching, Reader is called “Wife” and “Woman” in Soap’s part (if you know who Eddie Gluskin is, you know why), torture, tarantula, tarantula crawling on the reader, mentions of gore, blindfolding, abduction

Ghost - Lady Dimitrescu (Re8)

Ghost stares down at you, on your knees before him, shaking in fear while looking entirely out of place on his expensive rugs with your dirty and tattered clothing, covered in filth from the village outside, scratches all over. Looked like you had tumbled with a Lycan or two, he was almost impressed that you had survived such an encounter.

Ghost sighed as he sipped his wine, the rich taste of a maiden’s blood soaking into his tongue, a burst of beautiful flavor on his senses, like fireworks behind his eyes. He looked to you before looking away again, golden eyes narrowed like a snake’s. He was pretty sure you wouldn’t make good wine. But looks could be deceiving, perhaps he should sample you to be sure?

He heard you squeak and his attention snapped back to you, agitation melting away when he saw that one of sons was was currently kissing and sucking along your neck while another was pushing his hand into your pants, the third palming at your chest while nuzzling his face against yours. Surprisingly gentle for his boys, it seemed that they liked you more than the usual manthings.

He sighed again, deciding that maybe he could keep you around, if only to amuse his rowdy boys.

Soap - Eddie Gluskin (Outlast: Whistleblower)

He saw you. He saw you he saw you he saw you. He knows you’re there, hiding from him. You heard him chase you up the stairs, slammed the door in his face, damn near breaking his nose before locking it behind you. He had to break it down, an easy feat but it had given you plenty of time to hide from him. No matter, the room was only so big.

“Come out, Love. You’re hurting my feelings.” He cooed into thin air, hoping to soothe you like you were some sort of wild animal that got trapped in the asylum. “I just want to love you, can’t you see that?��

Something shifted to his right, he jumped towards it, scraping his elbows on the cement only to find it was a kitten darting through the rubble. He clicked his tongue, annoyance beginning to take hold when his patience started to wain.

“Darling, stop running from me! We’re going to miss the ceremony!” He called, standing to his full height again, brushing dirt off of his makeshift vest. “I want to make an honest woman of ya! Marry ya and fill you up with my bairn.”

Another shift, this time inside a locker. He took care not to focus on it as he checked his pocket for the spare lock he kept for situations just like this.

“You’ll look so pretty, swollen and full of me. And our babes will be so beautiful. I hope they look like you.” He said, trying to make it look like he wasn’t walking towards you, his fingers clenched tight on the lock, stroking the smooth metal. “Maybe with my eyes though. Just a little bit like me so everyone knows who ya belong to.”

The lock clicked in place and he felt your panic in the air before you showed it, but then you were banging on the inside of the locker, chanting a soft “no” again and again like that would get you out of this mess. If he looked close enough he was sure he could see your tears.

“There you are, My Lovely Wife.” He purred happily.

König - Asa Emory (The Collector)

König watched as you squirmed, silent as the grace as you sniffled and sobbed, frightened beyond belief. You’d woken up chained to a ceiling by your wrists, stripped naked save for your panties and the blindfold over your eyes. You couldn’t even remember how you’d gotten here. One moment you were in bed, the next? Here.

And the worst part was that something was crawling on you, sticking to your skin no matter how hard you tried to shake it off, making it’s way up your body. Every step it took with it’s furry legs sent you further into a panic attack. It only amused König as he watched one of his beloved tarantulas walk upon your skin. It made for a lovely picture, he’d have to do this again sometime.

He just couldn’t help himself when he saw you, all wide eyed and scared as he chased you through your house, dead family members and pets all over, slipping in their blood and guts with every turn. He didn’t even know you were home when he started laying his traps. Didn’t even know you existed.

But he was glad you were there. From the second he saw you, he wanted to know what you looked like naked, blood running down your body as he touched you, made you enjoy his touch. He got so excited that he ended up slamming your head into the ground a little too hard when he wants to knock you out. He hoped your brain didn’t suffer too much damage, he wanted you to be able to remember this. Remember your fear.

Maybe he’d paint your pretty face after this, just to watch your tears ruin the makeup, smearing it down your face as he fucked you, all pain and no pleasure. Poor little Fehler. His little Bug.

You shouldn’t have come out of your room.

Alejandro - Brahms Heelshire (The Boy)

He could hear you, trying to stifle your sobs as you crawled under barbed wire and through bramble, your sniffles of pain and fear echoing in his ears. It was almost…cute, how you thought you were being quiet. But so sad for you, Little One, he heard you loud and clear.

His hand clasped around the back of your neck, pulling you out of the bushes and into his arms no matter how hard you squirmed and squealed, pushing at him with your cut palms, bits of glass and thorns digging further into your open flesh. He’d need to bandage that for you.

He cooed in your ear, trying to soothe you as his hands patted your face and belly, trying to calm you down as you sobbed. His sweet Nanny, come to watch over him. And he’d watch over you just the same now that he was out of the walls. Once he got you back into the house and tied down onto his bed. Maybe he could calm you down like that, with his tongue between your legs, drawing sweet noises from your lips instead of the fearful ones you were making now.

He lifted his mask up just above his nose, burned nose nudging against yours softly, voice cracking from disuse. “Kiss?” He whispered, watching you shrink in on yourself with frustration. You kissed the doll’s head, but not him?

He sighed, deciding he would have to work on that later as he hauled you over his shoulder, ignoring the pounding on his back as you cried and screamed. No one would hear you. Not ever again. You were his, and nothing would take you away from him.

[spectralsleuth]

You mentioned that the Hamato household in LSoW and LSoE looks like a wizard's house and that it is filled with furniture that Yoshi inherited from his family... Can you imagine how much historians and antique collectors would be just going gaga about all the priceless stuff in the Hamato home. Like every room has original hand-crafted tables, desks, etc. that can be dated back hundreds of years, the walls have scrolls and weapons crafted by famous masters from 300 years ago. I can just imagine that Yoshi agreed to an interview in his home and, never mind his turtle kids, someone points out the furniture and wall art and people go nuts! This aging action star is just casually mentioning how his sons used to teeth on the chair legs and antique collectors around the world die a little, all while he is sitting on an old chair that was made from a rare tree in Japan worth as much as a down payment on the house and just sipping tea like it's nothing.

Yoshi tapped his foot irritably.

"I really don't understand what the problem is- you sound like my Grandfather." Not a flattering comparison.

"You're not even using a coaster." The camera man looked as if he was in pain, and Yoshi could honestly say that he had not had this much chit-chat from any crew member he'd ever had in his home.

The house was still in a slight state of disarray from the move- there were boxes in the master bedroom stacked to the ceiling, and Blue and Purple had not been separated long enough to be convinced of the benefits of their own bedroom. As a result, both of their bedrooms were half unpacked and mixed together.

Yoshi wasn't particularly passionate about separating the two, but considering every single day it seemed they broke into screaming matches and biting, you would think they would enjoy having their own space as much as Orange and Red did.

It was not so. He could barely get them to sleep in their own bed at this point, but since they were only eight he thought it was prudent to take the separation slow. (At least that was what Dr. Harper had said, when he had floated the idea of encouragement via booby traps and spray bottles by her.)

"It is a piece of furniture- it is meant to be used." It wasn't often that Yoshi thought he was mistranslating English- but he thought this might be one of those situations. The confused looks the Vanity Fair reporter was giving him was selling that impression, and he did not much care for it. "I set things on it? I put- items, in the drawers?" What was the other word for items- funny words, like, oh what was it. "Knick knacks." Sounded like a word for underwear if you asked him.

"This is from the Meiji era." The camera man explained, reverently removing Yoshi's coffee mug from the polished wooden surface. A lost cause, since there was already many overlapping rings of differing shades of brown covering the surface.

There were chips and scuffs covering the top, small marks where Red had rolled over the top during chases with his brothers and left shell-shaped divots, and where Blue and Purple had scratched with idle claws while watching the Mr. Nye TV show. There were crayon marks on the sides, where Orange had run off of his paper with his crayons. He was a good boy and did not draw on furniture on purpose, but accidents happened, and Xander often could not keep up.

"Yes, my great great grandfather commissioned it. I believe from the Emperor's carpenters, to celebrate the new constitution and property they bought in- well, I honestly do not recall. Is this relevant?" Yoshi asked wearily, feeling a twinge of displeasure at even starting to sound like his Ojii lecturing on history.

"There's only about fifty pieces made total in this style- there's no nails in the construction, look it's all joinery on the shelves-" The camera-man was saying, and to Yoshi's displeasure the reporter was still recording using the small device in her hand.

"I thought we were discussing my new movie." Yoshi pointed out, not plaintively, because he was a grown man with four children. "I mean, I have older furniture than that in the bathroom."

The camera man paused, and stared at him. "... Sorry?"

"The bathroom." Yoshi pointed out, and (sensing another translation issue possibly), said "It is where you piss."

"Piss!" Orange yelled from the hallway, where he went sprinting by with the tap-tap-tap of feet.

"DO NOT REPEAT THAT!" Yoshi called out. He was drowned out by Blue and Red fast on Oranges tail, screaming with laughter. It was nice to hear Red's laughter for a change, but since his eldest was also chasing his brothers with a stock pot and a spoon, Yoshi thought he should intervene. "Excuse me, one moment."

Red was only willing to trade the stockpot for a yardstick, which he began beating on Blue and Orange's shells respectively. Since his two youngest were giggling wildly, Yoshi left them to it and turned on cartoons in one of the bedrooms for them to watch when they grew tired of hitting each other.

By the time he got back to the Vanity Fair crew, they had gathered in the hallway, and were being shown the bathroom by a very pleased looking Purple.

"Ah Purple, excellent work my son- ah. I was kidding about the furniture-"

"No you weren't." The cameraman accused, looking frantic and pale. "This is a silver backed oriental mirror from under- oh I don't know. Kōmei? Ninkō?

"Kōka." Yoshi corrected, hating himself. "So, both probably."

Purple tugged on the cameraman's sleeve, and (looking hesitant) the camera man bent down to listen as Purple cupped hands around his snout in order to whisper in his ear.

"YOU WRITE ON IT?" The man gasped, looking appalled.

"I have raised a tattle-taler." Yoshi said mournfully, as Purple looked smugly at him from behind the reporter's legs. "Why don't you go help smack your brothers you snitch?"

Purple's tail started thumping against the cabinet at the idea, and he dropped to all fours to put on speed as he darted out between Yosh's legs and down the hall.

"Why are you so obsessed with furniture anyway?" Yoshi asked the cameraman after Purple had disappeared down the stairs, and he heard Blue and Orange start squealing in delight.

"My parents own a museum exhibit." The camera man said idly, pulling the mirror back from the wall enough to peer behind, and make a wounded noise. "It has the manufacturer seal on it still."

"Oh course it does. All Hamato furniture is authentic."

"It has crayon on it." The camera man looked close to tears.

"Yes?" Yoshi didn't understand the question. He looked at the reporter, who was still recording and writing furiously. "You are going to want to put this into the article, aren't you?" Yoshi sighed.

The reporter gave him a winning smile. "I think our readers would enjoy this very much Mr. Hamato."

[llondonfog]

Please Tsum Lilia being a little menace and all of Diasomnia pulling a Heartslabyul to keep up but the moment silver’s sleeping spell hits him, making him konk out, the tsum just cuddles close to him

ANON PLEASE THAT IS THE SWEETEST IMAGE AND IM LOSING MY MIND??

Tsum Lilia is an outright TERROR— he's torn through the kitchens with the same nuclear level of destruction as his fae counterpart, bounces around in the high rafters of the Diasomnia common room where no one can fetch him (how did he even get up there?!), and somehow manages to soundly beat a large portion of the freshmen gamers although how he managed to do it by bouncing his tiny body against the video game controller, they're still not sure.

No one can tame him! The creature seems to shake with a silent glee as it tsums (coughs, zooms—) away from Sebek's grasp, and even somehow has the speed enough to bound in circles around Malleus' spells to trap it in place! The dorm has become a veritable zoo of students racing about to capture the mischievous little beast, trying to keep furniture from toppling as it knocks into them with delight at the chase, and poorly avoiding a tripping incident in the halls by some kind of hazardous waste concoction that the tsum has left trailing in its wake from the kitchen wreckage.

They're at this for hours, and still no one can report to Malleus-sama that they've corralled the tsum, not even Lilia himself! But to be honest, while they've been running around trying to correct the damage that's been done, has anyone actually even seen it lately? It's Lilia who ends up opening the door to Silver's room and finds his tsum happily cuddled up in the arms of his napping son, seemingly content to have the boy's cheek squashed up against its own. The tsum blinks up at Lilia before closing its eyes in what he can only guess is its attempt at showing happiness, nudging ever closer to the warmth of the slumbering boy.

Lilia remembers what that's like— remembers the days when his son was so much smaller and could be held close just like that.

He closes the door softly and cheerfully reports that he has no idea where the tsum could be, leading to a collective groan from the gathered student audience, and a contemplative look from Malleus himself.

There's no harm in letting them sleep a while longer.

He's certain that they're both having the sweetest of dreams.

[samoankpoper21]

My Monster

Word count: 883

The small, spiky red haired boy watched as the older, much taller version of himself focused on putting white chocolate frosting on cupcakes that were to be served for dessert later. "Poppa?"

"Mm?

"Are Saori and I monsters?"

"What?!" Satori exclaimed as frosting shot out the canister, messing up the perfect swirl Satori was working on. "Who told you that?"

"Some kids at school told me that Saori and I are monsters because we have bright red hair, brown skin, and weird color eyes." Trying to remain calm in front of your son, Satori inhales through his nose and asks, "And what did you do after those kids told you that?"

"I roared and chased after them." Pausing for a brief second, Satori snorted and threw his head back laughing. Yup. He's most definitely my son.

"I'm hooome." Forgetting about the moment, Satoshi and Saori rushed to the doorway as a cacophony of momma filled the air. You chuckled trying to juggle with retaining what the kids were saying to you, the bags of groceries, all while slipping your shoes off. You looked up to see your handsome, goofy, husband's silhouette fill the doorway instantly causing you to smile and feel warm inside. "Hi baby."

"Hey love." Satori came forward and grabbed the bags of groceries that you were holding leaning forward to give you a kiss. You smiled into the kiss and wrapped your arms around him wanting more until a chorus of ewws filled the room. You both began to laugh when you questioned, "Did you guys do your homework?"

"Yes momma."

"I'll get dinner started so daddy will help you wash off." You felt Satori's hand gently grab your forearm as he quietly said, "On second thought, I can do dinner tonight. You just got off of work and the kids miss you."

"Eh? Are you sure? Babe really it's no trouble. It's my turn to cook anyway."

"It's ok. I got it." He gave you a sad, soft smile before kissing your cheek and trudged toward the kitchen. All these years of being with him you automatically knew that when something was bothering Satori he needed to keep his hands moving. You peered down at your son and daughter with their bright red hair and melanated skin both confused as to what just happened. You clapped your hands to grab their attention and shouted, "Who's ready for a bubble bath!!" Saori squealed and ran away while Satoshi, his mind forever wandering and processing, slowly made his way to the bathroom to prepare for bath time.

Dinner and bed time went down surprisingly smooth. You flopped down on the bed after your shower both of you heaving a sigh of relief. Satori instantly wrapped his arms around you, kissing the back of your neck, pulling you closer to his bare chest. "Satori?"

"Baby, did you think I was a monster when we first started dating?"

"What?" you turned over to look at your husband, confused as to where this question was coming from. Satori had this distant look in his eyes as he continued. "I'm just sayin'."

"I didn't think you were a monster per se but I did find it odd that you wanted to date me out of all the girls you used to be surrounded by."

"Those girls didn't like me. They were using me to get closer to Ushijima-kun." A beat of silence passed as you sat up staring at your husband, noting the hint of sadness in his eyes. "My love," you ask. "Where is this coming from?" Satori finally peered up, pushed himself to sit up alongside you and say, "Some of the kids in Satoshi's class called he and Saori monsters."

"WHAT?!?!! Oh hell no! Do I have to kick some kid's ass!?!?!?!" Seeing how riled up you were, Satori couldn't help but laugh his signature laugh. He wrapped you in his arms, trapping you between his legs, his bare chest against your back trying to get you to calm down. "I don't know who the fuck they think they are calling MY FAMILY monsters." Satori chuckled telling you, "Shush you're going to wake the kids."

"You're the one with the hyena laugh." He stifled his laughter as he wrapped his long arms tighter around you. Words alone couldn't describe how much he loved you, how he was so grateful that you were his and wanted him and him alone. He peppered kisses on the back of your neck, behind your ear until he felt your breathing evening out. "You were triggered when Satoshi told you that huh?"

"A little." You turned so that you were facing him, grabbed his face and say, "You're not a monster. Kids and people put a negative label on those that are different. And, as twisted as this may sound, even if you are a monster, you're my monster; and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world." Satori smiled, leaned forward with his eyes closed gently bumping your foreheard. "I love you." he whispered.

"I love you too." You kissed him, Satori soon finding himself laying flat on his back, you hovering over him with your hands on the headboard. He cocked his eyebrow as you breathlessly say, "Let me show my monster some lovin'."

Author's Note: GAWD THIS ENDING IS SO CRINGE 😂🥲🫣 ASDJDAKDSLKAD Anyway hope y'all enjoyed this 🥲🙃🤣

[neodracunyan]

The Perfect One|Yandere!Wednesday's Infidelity AUs x Male!Human-ish!Reader

Chapter 1 - Caught in a Mouse Trap

Location: Mickey Mouse's House - Somewhere in Danger Zone City(?)

Date: ??/??/????

Time: ??:?? ??

No POV

After Mickey Mouse have taken the young toon boy to his own home as his own, he took him into the guest room and tucked him in bed before placing a kiss on his forehead and leaving the room to head to bed himself, even though that he had a hard time getting a good night sleep.

The cartoon mouse had never felt so much happiness ever since he bumped into Y/n on the streets and his cute expression on his face and how he has the same kind of ears he has. He still remembered about his tragic backstory when his neglectful parents left him at the orphanage that made his life a living hell with the other orphaned kids and the caretakers treated him horribly and he promised to take good care of him for now on till the end of time.

He has been dealing with his own problems when he found out that his beloved sweetheart was hanging out his rival, Mortimer Mouse that broke his own heart that drove him to the path of committing suicide by injecting a dangerous and deadly drug into his bloodstream while walking down the darks streets to await his own death.

He would have died if not for a young rapper named Boyfriend (W.I) that made an attempt to stop killing him over a broken heart and just move on with his life, which somehow worked when Minnie showed up before Mickey was about to attack Boyfriend after their rap battle as she told both of them that Minnie never loved Mortimer and it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Mickey was glad that Minnie didn't cheat on him with Mortimer and thanks Boyfriend for helping him out, but the happy moments did not last long as the Devil himself known as Satan refused to let Mickey have a happy ending and decided to torture him over and over again, causing him to create many, many reincarnated versions of himself until he was released from his chains and was forced to be in a world, where no living soul is there to keep him company.

That is until Y/n showed up and Mickey will not let anyone, or anything happen to his own child or else he will show no mercy to anyone who dares to take him away or harm him and send them all the way down to the fires of hell.

When he wakes up, he is going to treat his new adopted son a tasty breakfast to welcome him to the family as he closed his eyes and went into a peaceful slumber, hoping that Y/n will have some sweet dreams tonight.

However, on this night, Y/n is gonna have a nightmare that will change his life forever, or in the case, he will never go to sleep ever again as the young toon boy snuggled against the soft pillows on his own bed, dreaming about having a lovely picnic on a beautiful day with Mickey and Minnie Mouse with the birds chirping, the bees buzzing and the flowers around them are in full bloom.

Everything seemed happy at first when Y/n smiled happily with Mickey and Minnie, but then something strange began to happen as everything around him turned his dream into a nightmare with the birds and animals dead, the flowers wilted and the whole world around him went from full color to black and white. But the most terrifying thing he saw was when he saw Mickey and Minnie went from happy to a darker moment as Minnie shown to be very sad and crying tears of sadness while Mickey is shown to be smiling in an unhinged grin on his face and his eyes are ghostly white as he attempted to grab the boy with a syringe in his hand.

Y/n made an attempt to run away from Mickey, but Mickey started chasing after him, which led to them in the same abandoned town that was looping over and over as Y/n is being chased by one of his favorite cartoon idols with Mickey laughing like a lunatic as he continues to chase him down with the syringe in his hands.

But then suddenly, as Y/n continued running for his life from the deranged Mickey Mouse, he soon found himself in the dark void as he slowed down to catch his breath and Mickey was nowhere to be found.

Y/n then started walking around in the void to find somebody that can help to know what's going on, not knowing that things are about to go from bad to worse when he spotted someone in the distance as he walked closer to find a weak and fragile old man with goat horns that seems to be freezing death and is using an old cloak to keep himself warm.

Y/n then walked up to the man and starts to ask him what's going on here, not realizing of who he is really talking to.

Y/n: Excuse me, sir? Are you okay? Can you tell me what's going on here?

The old man looked up to Y/n with a tired look in his eyes as he spoke back to him with all the strength he had to speak to the boy.

???: Young boy...didn't your own parents ever tell you, never to talk to strangers.

Y/n: My parents left me and never returned. They never loved me because of who I am.

The old man was surprised to hear that from Y/n as he was intrigued by Y/n's appearance that reminded him of a very familair mouse toon that he met a long time ago.

???: I see.... you're not a normal human child, are you?

Y/n: Nope. I'm actually half human and half toon and no one seems to like me because of my toon-like appearance.

???: I can tell...would you care to sing a little tune for me...it's been a while since I heard someone sing with such a beautiful voice.

Y/n: Sure...I guess so....I have been practicing ever since I was in that orphanage that I ran away from, but I'll do my best, sir.

???: Excellent....

So then, Y/n accepted the old man's offer to sing a tune for him, unaware of what the strange old man is about to do to this boy as he seems to be interested in learning more about this boy as Y/n begins to sing a lovely to him.

Song Plays - Versiculus Iratus - Vs. Satan - Wednesday's Infedility - Part 2 - FNF Mod

As Y/n begins to sing with the old man singing along with him, the toon boy soon began to feel like something's not right as the old man began to laugh evilly and Y/n soon found himself chained up tight and the old man revealed himself to be none other than the devil himself as he tricked the boy into thinking that he was a weak, fragile old man and the boy was forced to sing with him while his body began to change form overtime during the song.

He began changing into many different versions of himself such as him being an art sculpture, a puppet, a space man from another world, etc. and the cycle kept continuing by the end of the song, where Y/n is dealing with a lot of pain while he is sleeping in bed inside Mickey's house.

But then, just as Satan was about to take the boy's soul, Y/n suddenly disappeared from the dream world by some sort of cosmic energy, taking the boy away from the Devil, which got him angry that he lost the boy and almost got his soul.

Satan: Damn it! I almost had him!

???: Up to your old tricks again, Satan.

Satan looked to see Darku coming out from the darkness, all dress up in casual clothing and a hoodie to hide his true form as his face is nothing but pure dark shadows. Darku was known to be the Ruler of his own shadowy realms of all things evil and chaos known as The Dark Zone and he's not much like Satan as he is a much more serious version of the devil and doesn't try to take innocent people, even young children like Y/n for his own amusement.

Satan: What are you doing here, Darku?

Darku: Oh nothing, really? I was just minding my own business until I saw you tormenting that poor boy and you were about to take his own soul. So, my brother, Creation took the liberty of saving the boy and take him somewhere where you won't harm him again. Well, at least for now.

Satan: Why would you and your brother do something like that?

Darku: It's our job to keep the balance of both good and evil and you just keep taking innocent souls here just for your own amusement. You should know better than to do to something like Y/n, who has not committed any act of sin that would bring down here when death has arrived at his doorstep.

Satan: I can do whatever I want because this is my domain, I make the rules here and that boy soul belongs to me!

Darku: You may rule your own world, Satan, but that does not excuse you for taking another innocent soul like you did to Mickey and a young man named Boyfriend.

Satan: Grr...Fine! You and your brother may have saved his life, but I'm still coming after his soul, even if I have to send my minions to go after him.

Darku: True, but don't get too cocky, Satan, because if you keep up this charade, me and my brother will have no choice to but to punish you and your minions by sealing up the gateway to your realm and free all of the innocent souls that you captured for 500 years.

Satan: No! I will not spend another 500 years being trapped here without grabbing another soul. I can't wait for someone to die and be brought here to hell. It's just so boring!

Darku: Well, get used to it, Satan. I will not tolerate this kind of nonsense from you. If me and my brother, catch you in the act of harming the boy again, we have no choice but to seal the gateway to Hell for another 500 years. The only souls you'll be getting will be the people who are sinful to the great Lord himself. This is your last warning, do you understand? I'll be watching you.

With that, Darku then vanished into thin air, leaving Satan alone in the pitch-black darkness as he is furious that Darku and Creation stopped him from getting Y/n's soul. They may have saved his life from getting his soul from the Devil, but he's not gonna be stopped that easily as he plans to send out his best minions to capture Y/n to get his soul.

So, with that, the Nightmare has truly begun for the toon boy...

End of Chapter 1

To be Continued in Chapter 2

Note: To those who are reading this chapter, sorry if this chapter is really boring and not very interesting but I'm trying my best to write this story and the next chapter will be different when Y/n meets the one cosmic entity known as Creation that will tell him to go meet someone that can help him get away from W.I. Mickey and Satan until they find some allies to help them in order to defeat them.

So I hope you all understand my constant struggles of making this book and my other books that I'm working on.

Thank you and have a great day,

NeoDracunyan

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 73

Remember a time when the height of action for this series was a teenage boy having to dodge getting grabbed by the members of a murderous conspiracy? I’m trying to pinpoint in my memory when exactly it began escalating. Himatsubushi maybe.

Why, remember last time Akasaka got into a physical altercation with someone he got pretty thoroughly trounced?

Now he’s apparently just a human wrecking ball. I know that it was the cicadas that woke Irie up out of his unconsciousness, but I’m sort of enamored with the idea that Akasaka beat the Mountain Dogs chasing him so soundly that the sounds of their beating woke him up.

Well it’s not looking too good for ol’ Irie. At least he doesn’t seem to be seriously injured from the crash.

*Studio applause* There she is! Back in the story once again. Also, what the hell is up with the Mountain Dogs who shot Irie off the road? The way they made it sound, they were seemingly right next to Irie when he went off the road, and then one was made to sound like he was again right next to Irie. But somehow Kasai and Shion got to him first! Did he get to Irie, go “hey buddy,” slap him on the shoulder and just peace out?

I was joking man! When and how did they fit this tracker on to Irie’s coat? If they had Irie dead to rights this hard why didn’t they just snatch him up? Did they plant the tracker on him when he was unconscious from when he went off the road? Again, why not just grab him? There’s going to be the implication soon that this is all according to Takano’s plan, but I must impress upon you how ridiculous this notion actually is.

“Like rats in a trap.” Except you had no idea that they were hiding Rika at the Sonozaki house, this is entirely new information you have. If you’re going to try to play this off as this is all according to your inscrutable scheme why not just let Irie make his escape from the clinic? If they somehow at some point attached this tracker to his coats collar, why not just keep an eye on him that way? “Like rats in a trap.” YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING RIKA WAS EVEN THERE! It is extremely lucky for you that it worked out this way at all!

I know that it’s been firmly established that the Sonozakis are really just opportunists who never really perpetrated the more heinous deeds that get laid at their feet. However, you think that the others of the gaming club got escorted to the torture shack and were given a moment’s pause at the implication of it all? You could probably play off the secret security system in the murder basement as the rich family having a security system. But once Rika and Hanyuu went to the secret room past the location where Satoko was tortured to death in Meakashi you think that they’d be harboring some serious questions about Mion’s family. Or do you think it’s a remnant from the days of the dam war? Even so.

You all probably thought I was joking when I said the Mountain Dogs have a nearly inexhaustible supply of vans at their beck and call. At risk of sounding like a nitpicking nerd, when do you suppose Satoko had the time to set up these traps at the Sonozaki home? Do you think she was up until all hours of the night just tinkering away setting up these snare traps? Did she start doing this at four AM on the dot when they had Ooishi start his part of the plan? This is somehow not the most ridiculous this section will get by the way.

I decided to look at this section in the manga, and I have to say it’s actually somewhat more vexing there than it was just reading about it in the visual novel. The timeline of events in the manga is the Mountain Dogs shoot Irie’s tires, and he drives off the road. Where he gets out of the car and sure enough, there the Mountain Dogs are to chase after him. But then Kasai and Shion get in-between the two, and whisk Irie to the Sonozaki house. Then it plays out the same, there’s the tracking device planted on his collar, Takano and the Mountain Dogs track him to the Sonozaki house.

[ridiculousblogging]

Session 4

Posting my D&D sessions’ notes here so that I can find them again

(continuation of day 3 in Barovia)

we take the fight to the winery

first, we wander into the fields leading to the winery

then we get fucking surrounded by a mega huge crowd of tree bois

like evil spikey tree bois

we dip the fuck out of those fields that lead into the winery and walk right in, locking the door behind us

we come into the wine vats-area thing

like ya know where they brew the wine in those super big barrel thingies?

There.

and there are 4 big barrel thingies here

there's an evil druid on the one side pouring his evil juice

aka poison

into the barrel thingy that's full of wine

we go "Hey, stop that"

homie is like

SCREAMS IN GIBBERISH

we go, "What the hell was that?"

homie is like

SCREAMS IN GIBBERISH BUT LOUDER THIS TIME

(ya know, it's just like the most helpful thing ever)

actual game quote: "Sprechen Sie, Common?" -MiMeow

and then he finally says in common

"go away"

BITCH. WE JUST GOT HERE.

anyways

we proceed to come take away his evil juice but he casts a lot of smaller tree bois

we kill them bc duh

and then more start pouring out of the nearest barrel thingy

once my character realizes this and gets a clearing to move there

she blocks the hole in the barrel with her bootilicious butt

no more tree bois from this barrel

lol

and of course to add insult to trapping the trees in the barrel

she's filling that barrel with hella farts

bc I am definitely a mature adult

the farts keep on ripping as we mow down those trees

eventually, Dad makes me roll to see how the farts are going

bc of course he does

I roll low on the percentile, so my character

sorta...

accidentally...

SHITS DOWN THE SIDE OF THE BARREL BC SHE WAS STRAINING TO FART FOR SO LONG

man that stinks

literally.

we eventually wipe out the trees and then the druid thereafter

we do however leave my shit pile on the floor

we travel the rest of the ground floor and then upstairs before taking a short rest in an upstairs room

we travel down to the basement and sneaky sneak into the wine cellar

there is 1 druid and like 8 mega tree bois

we nearly get 3 players killed in that room and I was out of spell slots as a healer

so I grabbed Kas (who had 1 hit point left) and carry him to safety while I also have 1 hp

Cat Damon runs up after us, also with 1 hp

MiMeow supercharges her attacks and beats the shit out of the remaining tree boi

Kaida blows up the druid to finish him off

Kas decides to blow a hole in the side of the poisoned barrel and flood the entire winery???

like whyyyyy?

Kaida steals the dead druid's staff

they come upstairs and we all hear these awful awful screams and shredding noises

we are gathered in the main room then

ankle deep is poisoned wine

that may or may not have my character's shit floating in it

then there's a knock at the front door

and low and behold

it's the winery owner and his wife and 2 sons

they pay us and we explain that the druids were for sure the ones that destroyed the place

and that they also poisoned at least some of the wine so like try to be careful?

we go outside and see hundreds of those mega tree bois laying shredding all around the front of the buildings

but we didn't do that

so who did?

we go back to Villaki and its night time when we get back

we barely make it into town when a werewolf that was apparently tracking us has to be repeatedly shot at to chase it away from town

we sleep in the hotel and get rewarded for finishing our quest

(next game to pick up on day 4 in Barovia)

[kunoichi-kame]

hehehe huehuehue

Wu shoves his way out of the trailer to greet this...'stranger.'

Yes.

Stranger.

Her body is adorned in what remains of bandages. A long staff rests in her hands.

He slouches his posture. In the most elderly voice possible, he creaks, "Hello, stranger, what brings you here?"

The large snake tilts his head up.

"You know why I'm here," she hisses. "Revenge."

Wu pulls away. "I assumed you were dead! Locked away in your tomb, mummified...How did you find me?"

"It's a long story, Wuzy. Quite the feeling, when you get dug up, overthrow some man who's leading my tribe, find connections...send out one of my babies."

That small, bright blue snake speedily slithers to her.

Lloyd chases after the family pet.

"Hey, you can't just take her from us!"

The snake woman strokes the smaller serpent. "You assumed she was a pet," she scoffs. "Did you know that she's several months away from her legs coming in?"

The what?

Lloyd backs away. "You know what, you can keep her."

Cole's footsteps are heavy in the sand. "Hold up, what's going on?"

Wu gestures to the serpentine woman. "This is Aspheera...my childhood best friend."

-----------

Aspheera slithers through the junkyard.

Wu stays by her side.

Pretty much everyone else had thrown their hands up and gone to bed. This is Wu's problem.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she says smoothly. "I have one request. If you do not fulfill it, then I will hurt you."

"I assume that if I fulfill it, you will harm me either way?"

"Perhaps."

"Then why won't you attack right now?"

She stops in her tracks.

"I still want what I want."

He stops and leans on his staff.

"You know you can't have forbidden Spinjitzu."

She hisses in his face.

The end of her staff is an inch away from the tip of his nose.

"...because I do not have it on me. If you don't mind, I can ensure my pupils fetch it."

He saved his rear, right?

She backs away. "I feel thisss may be a trap, Treacherous Deceiver."

"Then I suppose you'll never get it," he counters.

"Fiiiine."

She never truly grew up, did she? She seems mature in her presentation and mannerisms, but quite jovial in the way she speaks and responds to things. Forever young...which makes sense...she was mummified. Preserved to be forever in her early adulthood.

For a moment, he kinda feels bad for her.

She starts a coughing fit.

Wu raises an eyebrow as she wipes something on her bandages.

"Are you alright?"

"No organs, just dust and spices."

"Perhaps you can rest and we can discuss the details in the morning," he whispers. "You traveled a long way, did you not?"

Aspheera immediately takes the opportunity, curling up on the ground.

Wu hesitantly sits down next to her.

"You feel the need to watch me?!" she hisses.

"Yes. You are defenseless...and you were once my friend. I will keep you company."

"What would I need defenssse from?!"

"The adolescent Fangpyre that infest these grounds."

Her gaze softens.

"Ssso you'll treat me like the queen that I am? And guard me?"

"Yes. I will. So long as you promise you won't enact your revenge yet."

"A powerful queen, with the son of the First Spinjitzu Master on her side..." she yawns and closes her eyes. "I like that."

Sure. Wu can agree to that.

Sure.

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

Lloyd snuck out of the shed to get some water.

Wu isn't in the living room?

He can sleep in the trailer!

The small boy tiptoes into Jay's room.

Even though the sliver of floor is small, he likes it. He likes looking at the shelves mounted on the walls. He can just kick Nya off the floor and tell her to get on the couch or someth-

She isn't on the floor.

Where else would she be sleeping if it's not the floor?

Then the sight on the bed...he screams.

Nya picks her head up. "What?"

"You two...you're sharing a bed, and hugging, and sleeping while hugging...you two are actually dating?!"

Still groggy, she sits up. "And?"

"I feel like I've seen something I shouldn't."

Nya's eyebrows furrow. "I think there are worse things you shouldn't see. Like murder, sex, drugs...murder...Now, what'd you come in for?"

"I wanted to sleep on the floor but I won't now if you two are...doing that."

"Cuddling? Sleeping next to each other? Didn't your parents ever do this?"

"Yeah but you're not my parents!"

She rolls her eyes and flops back on the bed. "Whatever. Sleep in here. Don't. I don't care."

He stares at the two figures nestled under blankets, facing each other.

It kinda does remind him of when he was really little and he'd see his parents be affectionate. Sometimes his father would cry and his mother came to comfort him...

Screw it, he'll go grab a pillow and a blanket, it's floor time.

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

It was Zane's turn to get the bed.

Yet, he's not even asleep.

It's two in the morning and he's video-calling Pixal.

He's not even sure how many hours they've spent talking.

"Okay, next question," Pixal says excitedly. "How did you find your gender?"

Zane's slightly taken aback. "How did I find it?"

"Yes! I found mine when I was learning about society and I realized I wanted to be called 'she.' Did you do the same?"

"Good for you!" he laughs. There's a faint sparkle in his eye.

He likes her. So much. The joy on her face, her excitement to speak to someone just like her, yet so different...

"I'm not sure how I found mine. I awoke one day knowing that my name is Zane Julien, my pronouns are he/him, and a few other notable pieces of information. I never thought much of my gender, I suppose. I am aware that I am perceived as male, but I feel no need to firmly enforce the role one way or another. I am indifferent to my gender as a whole, I guess. I simply...exist? If the concept of gender could cease to exist I would be alright with it."

She seems awestruck. "That's a new one! I like hearing about others' experiences. One moment, let me think of another question..."

"Can I ask a question?"

"Go ahead!"

Zane tugs at his collar for a moment. "This has been bothering me ever since I discovered I'm an android...are all robots autistic? Or is it just me? Because in media, autistic people are often likened to robots or the robots are autistic coded and this bothers me very much but then I look at myself..."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not autistic. I think. There are only two people in the world like us though, as far as I'm aware. So I suppose the sample size is too small. Of all the androids in the world- only two, mind you- statistically half of them are autistic. Because there are only two of us. Isn't that quite the insufficient sample size?"

"It is," he giggles.

"And regardless, you are a person, that takes priority over what you're made out of," she reassures him. "Perhaps you simply are who you are. Your physical creation bears nothing on who you turned out to be and the nuances of how you experience life."

He smiles. "Oh, did you ever find the next question?"

"Yes! How did you get your name? Mine was an acronym, but my dad lets me write it as a normal name on paperwork."

"I don't know. I am just Zane. It may be an acronym, it may mean nothing."

"Okay! Next, did you get to choose how tall you are? I got to choose within reason-"

"I don't know that either..."

He's frowning.

"Oh dear, did I upset you?"

"No, there's just so much I don't know about myself. Who built me, why I was built, why I look the way I do- did I get to choose my appearance? Did my maker choose it? So many unknown factors."

Pixal readjusts herself in bed. "Tell you what, would you like to have lunch tomorrow? We may be able to answer some questions. Not every room was destroyed and I think you would have the clearance to enter."

"I would like that a lot. Tomorrow as in when the sun rises, or the next-"

A pillow collides with Zane's face.

"Go to bed," Kai mumbles. "If you're not sleeping, why'd you get the bed?"

Pixal seems concerned until Zane waves it off. "When the sun rises," she answers.

"I will be there, then," he whispers.

"Alright. See you then. Bye!"

"Bye."

The call ends.

Zane clutches the phone to his chest.

He didn't wanna end the call.

His heart most certainly beats.

It's a warm and fuzzy feeling.

He's excited to see her tomorrow.

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

Wu awoke with a long rope of scales wrapped around his neck, a rattle brushing against his cheek.

He carefully tries to remove-

"If you try anything, I will strangle you to death," she murmurs.

Good to know she trusts him.

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

Someone jumps on the bed.

"Mom, wake up, I want food."

Nya cracks her eyes open.

Lloyd's bouncing on the bed.

"Okay? I don't cook. Ask Zane."

She closes her eyes and covers herself back up.

"Mom, mom, mom-"

"Why are you calling me mom?"

"Because if you two are actually dating, I need a new and improved way to make fun of you. Seeing you two together reminds me of my parents so. Mom, mom, mom, mo-"

Nya shoves him away.

He turns his attention to Jay.

"Da- ahhh shit!"

Nya laughs. "Yeah, he's kinda static-y now."

Lloyd starts poking at Jay.

The older boy won't wake up.

Lloyd frowns.

"I'm trying again tomorrow."

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

Zane excitedly gets dressed for the day.

He layers his new sweater over a white dress shirt.

Bow tie? Should he wear it? He rarely gets to wear it, only for job interviews. It's cute though.

He's putting the bow tie on.

Oh! Maybe he should layer less, actually, he still needs to wear his hoodie...

He can wear the sweater and bow tie another day, it's fine...

No. He's wearing the bowtie. He wants to look cute and presentable under the hoodie.

Thinner sweater maybe?

Cole enters the shed.

"Where are you going? Got a date?" he chuckles. "Haven't seen you wear that bowtie in forever."

"No!"

He looks like a deer in headlights.

...he answered that too defensively, didn't he?

Why? It's not a date.

"No...it's a simple lunch meeting. I would like to look nice."

"Do I need to come with-"

"It's a personal affair. The Borgs would like to look at me."

"So you got all dressed up to...?"

"I may walk out with answers. And I would like to look presentable."

Cole nods. "Okay, well I'm taking care of our jobs issues."

They both stand in silence.

"Have fun with that, friend! If that is your way of asking for help, need I remind you that half of my face is gone?"

"Fineeee. It would just be easier if you showed up instead of me trying to explain why you can never come back or whatever."

"You have this. It will be fine."

"Alright."

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

Wu watches as Zane and Cole walk out of the gate.

He had been listening to Aspheera's rant on every way she could kill him for a good while now.

She stopped when she saw the two boys leave. "Are those your pupils? Are they retrieving the scroll for me?"

"Yes. That is two of them. Three of them will stay home, for one of them is currently unconscious, another lacks powers, and the third needs to be protected. Let me go speak to the last one, it appears he did not get the message..."

She watches as he runs off, searching for Kai.

Kai's at it again, throwing fire at trash.

"Fire- Kai, is it?"

"Yeah, Kai."

"Kai, I need you to leave. Aspheera thinks I asked you to fetch the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu-"

"The what?"

"-It's not important, what I need you to do is to leave the premises so she thinks you're doing that."

"What's in it for me?"

"I'll reimburse you for your travel. Any amount you ask for."

The fire burns bright in Kai's hand. "Mkay, deal. Need me to bring anything back?"

"That will not be necessary, I plan on luring her far away from here."

Kai smiles. "So, you're paying me to go dick around? Sweet. Think I like you just a little bit now."

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

Nya stares at her water bottle.

She can tell the water to move, and she can tell it to stop, but she can't tell it how to move.

She really should talk to Kai about what Wu said about their mom...

She really should tell at least someone about what she's been going through.

She almost told Jay. On a whim. Drunk on some combination of teenage hormones and just wanting to make her crush feel better, to distract him from the issues that plagued him at that moment...

Crush? Boyfriend? Not sure anymore. They agreed to take things a bit fast given everything going on...maybe if it's fast, it isn't too soon for her to trust him with this.

Or she can tell Kai first. She should tell Kai first.

But then again, as playful as Kai was at times, with things like 'magical sexism' to reassure her that she's right in feeling it's unfair that she lacks powers, he is a smug son of a bitch sometimes when it comes to the subject. Oh, he's the sibling with powers! He's great at blacksmithing, he can somewhat control the flame, just barely.

Oh god. She was the jealous sibling, wasn't she?

No. She's telling Kai- never mind, he's getting ready to leave.

Fuck.

Welp, guess she's telling Jay first instead, she can be petty later.

...assuming Jay wakes up any time soon.

Getting a True Potential seems horrifying. You turn into your element, then crash for a solid what, twenty hours? At least? And the scars...the scars look brutal. Do they hurt?

Does the True Potential itself hurt?

She can hear the crackle of static as Jay moves under his blanket.

That's gonna take some getting used to.

If Jay's always generating static, and Kai's body temperature- which was already above average- feels burning and sickly now, what would happen to her when she gets hers? What about Zane? Or Cole?

Maybe it's best not to dwell on it.

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

"Can you at least leave Ash behind?" Lloyd begs.

Aspheera looks down at him. "Ash never exisssted. I know it has some sort of name, but not Ash."

"Then where'd that name come from?"

The snake woman sighs. "It'sss a mangled version of my name. She was never your pet. She was a pawn. I controlled her half the time. I tried sssending messages through her. But I was communicating my ideas through a baby..."

"And?"

"Young serpentine are weak! A baby Constrictai cannot strangle a man to death, much less drill through the earth. A baby Venomari may cause some disorientation, but hardly anything close to hallucinating. A young Fangpyre? Those things, they get their job done but it takes daysss for their venom to work itsss full effects. And Hypnobrai...if I wasssn't one, I'd hate them! We can control our young all we want, and it is helpful to ssspy on others, but communicating through them isss terrible! Their hypnosis powers are terribly weak."

"So...Ash was never our friend?" Lloyd pouts. "But I fed her so many potato chips..."

"And they were deliccciousss, but...say it with me now, little boy, she never exisssted!"

Wu hands Kai a handful of bills, before noticing who his nephew is with.

He shoves the money into the teen's hand, running up to the two of them.

"Lloyd, get away from her!"

"Why? She's nice to me! Kinda..."

In moments, Lloyd finds his uncle's hands wrapped around his waist, picking him up.

She puts her hand up. "I won't harm him. After all, he did treat my pawn quite niccce. Dare I sssay like a queen? I would, however, like to ask for sssomething. A bag of potato chips."

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

Pixal eagerly takes Zane by the hand, showing him around the tower.

Even the wrecked areas.

He pulls his hoodie off, draping it over his arm.

She gasps before recomposing herself. "I've never seen you outside of a uniform. You look adorable!"

He can feel the remaining half of his face burn.

How can he even do that?

"Anyways, here's a partially remodeled room. It used to be storage for spare parts, but as you can see, it is empty now."

"I think Kai said that this is where he got his True Potential."

"His what?"

"It's a power thing."

"Ah! That would explain the footprints that were burned into the old carpet."

"Oh!"

She gestures for him to follow her out of the room.

He eagerly follows.

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

"Can I have something to eat?" Jay mumbles. "Or drink. Or both."

Nya hands him her water bottle.

He slowly sits up.

Oh.

He looks down at the bottle in his hands.

Okay, it's okay, he already wasn't a fan of his electrocution scars and generally tried to cover them up. He'll just keep covering these up. And he was already considering buying some sort of gloves to ground out his electricity.

He picks up his hand, looking over every little branch...

And his nails still seem kinda messed up? No longer claws, but they need trimming.

"You okay?" she asks.

"I think? Ummm. Shit, need to file my nails or something. Bothers me."

"I think I have some nail clippers. Need me to get them?"

He nods, then takes a swig from the water bottle.

She gets up, leaving the room.

While waiting, he throws the blankets off.

Static pops as the fabric falls away from him.

He's wearing the same thing as yesterday...ew, it smells like burnt flesh. Lightning powers are fun, aren't they?

At least he doesn't smell as burnt as Kai did.

He grabs a new set of clothes and heads to the bathroom.

The electrocution scars are everywhere. They're the worst on his forearms and calves, but they branch out all over, meeting on his chest and back like hands laced together.

A few branches travel up his neck...and over his chin...one long strand travels up his face, still tapering off into branches at several points.

And it couldn't even be bothered to line up with the scar on his eyebrow?!

He continues checking for scars.

There's a big one on his lower back. From the tail? He can't even tell what sort of scar it looks like, it's just a large, pinkish discolored patch of skin and it looks like it hurt.

It's fine, most of it would be covered by clothing, and he wears makeup so it's fine...

Still, his lip pulls back in disgust.

Fuck, the fangs are still there?

Actually, maybe that one's for the best. It's either that or lose teeth again. Bleh.

And his hair is so poofy, he can't get it flat, if anything, trying to pat it down seems to make it worse as static makes it stick to his hand.

Man. True Potential? Kinda terrible. Three out of ten, would not recommend unlocking it, and zero out of ten, would not recommend getting bitten by vampire snakes.

He should get dressed.

Nya waits on the bed with nail clippers and a granola bar.

Text from Kai.

'u want this ?'

It's a picture of a toy gun.

'4 missions'

'be serious,' she responds.

Jay plops himself on the bed.

She tosses the granola bar at him.

"So. How are you doing?" he asks as he unwraps the snack.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. It's been all about Kai passed out, I passed out, Zane's an android, Cole needs a break, Lloyd's got some magical destiny. What about you though? How are you holding up?"

She puts her phone down. "You know, I never got to show you that one trick. Wanna see?"

"Yeah! But what's that gotta do with how you've-"

The granola falls out of his mouth as his jaw drops.

She's holding up the water bottle.

The water twirls and dances in its confines, creating small spires, before thrashing into the side of the bottle.

"How are you doing that?!" he asks, scrambling to get a closer look.

"I think I have...powers...of my own?"

"You need to show Kai! He'll be so proud of you! You need to show everyone, come on-"

"Everyone else left. I think Lloyd's still home, but Cole left to deal with job stuff, Zane's doing something at Borg Towers, your parents are getting groceries, Wu bribed Kai to leave, and Wu...oh boy."

"Show them when they get home!"

"Finish your snack, don't forget to trim your nails-"

"Don't change the subject! This is huge!"

"I'll change the subject if I wanna change it," she snickers.

He's practically looking at her with puppy eyes.

"Okay," she sighs.

"And wait, that was like, two days ago? How long have you been able to do this?"

"A few days? Kinda?"

He's in her face. "Tell me all about it. Don't you see how cool this is?! And you said nothing?!"

"I just didn't know when it'd be a good time."

"Right now's a good time."

His face is so eager.

What can she even say?

"So it started when you guys went to deal with Fugidove..."

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

Wu and Aspheera walk around outside the junkyard.

Quite far, actually. Into the sea of sand and nothing.

"I'm aware of your plan," she says smoothly.

"You are?"

"Yesss. You plan on double-crossing me, correct?"

"I-"

"And don't lie, I can read you well."

"Then why haven't you attacked yet?"

She smiles. "To be honessst with you? It buys me time asss well. I want to savor my revenge. I want to overthrow the King of Snakes, Pythor, and then use my newly acquired power to smite you!"

"Pythor? He should be locked away..."

"Sssomeone has been unleassshing the unholy, thossse of us who have been locked away for years! Little did he realize that some of us wouldn't work together."

Wu stops in his tracks. "Who is it?"

"He calls himself Master Chen."

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

Zane found himself sitting on a table.

"You're sure this isn't an inconvenience?" he asks quietly.

"Not at all! To be frank with you, I've been spending most of my time playing computer games," Cyrus Borg answers.

Pixal pulls out the emergency phone. "Zane, do you have a favorite food?"

"I told you last night, I adore making-"

"No, I mean to eat."

He contemplates it for a moment. "Soup?"

"What kind?"

"What is there?"

She leans in and shows him the phone.

He points to the screen. "This one?"

"Okay! I'll have it delivered."

Borg gets closer to the table. "Pixal, my dear daughter, would you mind exiting the room? I believe Zane will need some privacy."

She nods.

The door closes quietly behind her.

"Your daughter is lovely," Zane murmurs.

Borg smiles. "Isn't she? I haven't seen her this happy in...I'm not sure how long! She normally isn't this chipper, but she's excited to have a friend."

Zane seems lost in thought, smiling dopily, thinking about when she'll return to the room.

He's caught off guard when Borg asks him to take his shirt off and lay down.

After complying, he's given a few words to calm himself down.

Then a cut is drawn from under his chin, down his neck, then almost in a square across his chest.

Don't think about it. Do not think about it. Close your remaining eyelid. Pretend this is normal.

A panel of skin is pulled back from his chest.

"Wow! Your switches are so compact," Borg coos. "They're stored exclusively in your chest...everything else is artificial bones and organs..."

Something pops open in his chest.

"I won't tamper with your switches, but you may, if you'd like."

Zane turns his head away. "I'd rather not look at it. What are the switches?"

"Humor, on-off...maybe let's not mess with that one...memory-"

He perks up. "Memory?"

"There's a chance it'll erase your memories." The inventor leans a little closer. "Although, it appears to already be off."

"Turn it on. Now."

"Are you sure? It might cause more harm than-"

"Sir, I only remember the last two years. As much as I do not want to forget again, I want answers. I want to know where I came from."

There's hesitation in the air.

Borg's hand hovers over the switch.

He flicks it on.

Zane's eye widens.

He lays still for a moment.

He covers his mouth in shock.

Then the tears start rolling.

"Are you alright?" Cyrus asks.

Zane quietly nods.

Then he stops.

He rubs his eye.

"I'm not sure, actually."

"What is it?"

"I forgot about my dads..."

"Who made you?"

Zane sits up. "Doctor Julien created me. My name was chosen by the previous master of ice. He liked the name Zane...I think his name started with a Z too? But...my dads taught me how to cook, they took care of me, they shaped my moral compass...they both had a hand in who I became..."

"Are they still alive? Could they be searching for you?"

"They've both passed on. They told me that if any grief was too much to bear, I could turn my memory off. I suppose that's when I woke up remembering nothing..."

Cyrus goes across the room just to get a tissue for the boy.

As Zane tries to clean up his face, Cyrus gently closes the switch panel back up.

"Do you have a favorite color?" the scientist asks quietly.

"White, followed by icey blues and any shade of pink. Why?"

"Just wondering. I may need to put in some staples to hold your skin together while the sealant dries. They can be colorful if it'll make you feel better."

Zane wipes his nose. FSM, he's crying a lot and it won't stop.

"What about the missing section of my face?"

"I can repair that, although the color won't be a perfect match. It'll just end up looking like a nasty scar!"

"I can live with that so long as I look human."

He's instructed to lie down again.

Once again, he complies. This time though, he doesn't have to talk himself down. He's already numbed to it, lost in thought.

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

Lloyd is curled up on the couch, watching cartoons on Nya's phone.

Jay watches as she shows him everything she can do with water...which isn't much.

Yet, everything earns some sort of "wow" from him.

As she lets the water fall, she explains the events of the last twelve or so hours.

"Yeah, so some snake woman just showed up looking for Wu, then they ran off together earlier."

"I thought he hated them."

"I think he still does. I don't know."

Then the doorknob jitters.

Nya scrambles for her phone, trying to make it look like she's just teaching Lloyd how to use it.

Cole enters the room.

By the Master, he needs a break.

"Guess who doesn't have a job anymore?" he groans.

"It's fine, Zane got us new jobs," Jay laughs.

"Yeah, but do you know how bad that looks? No-call-no-show for four days-"

"Cole. In the months you've known me, how many jobs have I been fired from?"

Cole starts counting on his fingers.

The count quickly surpasses ten.

"Uh."

"And people still hire me!"

"I guess."

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

Chen was released from his island.

Dear Master...

Then he's releasing god-knows-what.

"I know you didn't really send for the scrolls," Aspheera hisses.

"I'm not concerned with that right now," Wu sighs. "Chen returned?"

"He helped me out of my tomb. I rejected his help for he seemed weak...tell me, why does he matter so?"

"He wishes to strip all elemental masters of their powers-"

"Oh. That sounds like it would benefit me."

"No, it wouldn't. He would take over the world, and the balance will be thrown...well, off balance! He loves to use Serpentine in his games but he doesn't care about them. Including you."

"And you care about me?" she scoffs.

"I cared about you once. I can care about you once more if you agree to do the right thing. Help me fight Chen."

"I've noticed your new attitude towards usss. What? Did I scare you that much? I hurt you and made you turn your back on an entire raccce? But now you want my assistance."

"You can turn on me when we're done, but I need to trust you, and I need you to trust me, because if Chen wins, there's no world for you to take over, and...as much as I am hesitant to trust your kind, I do understand that to lose all Serpentine, so many lives would be lost."

She pets the baby snake wrapped around her arm.

She honestly forgot it was there.

"I suppose I can send sssomeone to spy on thisss Chen fellow...where do you think he would be?"

The old man rubs his forehead. "Alright, I'll need you to learn how to operate a phone, the internet, and you need to research Chen's Noodle House."

"You'll buy me an expensive glowing screen? Like a queen?"

He weakly smiles. "Sure. Like a queen."

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

Zane arrived at his temporary home when night had fallen.

Half of his face is lighter, and he knows there are bright, white staples holding it together.

Until the sealant dries.

Right.

When he enters the trailer, he's greeted with nothing but smiles.

He's happy. His face is fixed more or less. He has a container of leftover soup! He sat down with Pixal for a time, chatting away...

And yet, too many thoughts linger in the back of his mind.

He's happy he remembers. He really is...yet how could he ever forget? Just like that. And what happened? It took cutting his skin open to access his switches, so how'd he even turn it off in the first place? How could he choose to turn it off, in the first place?

How could he be so foolish and choose to forget his parents...

He has answers. He does. But now he has questions for himself. He can remember choosing to forget, but he can't stop beating himself up mentally for making that choice.

"You okay, buddy?" Cole asks, sitting with Zane outside the shed.

"Yes. I believe so."

He touches the scar going down his face.

Maybe he just knocked the switch off? And he's misremembering, trying to rationalize it...

"Is it about the scar? It doesn't look too bad. Shit, go talk to Kai and Jay, I think they're having a dick-measuring contest over their scars right now."

"What do reproductive organs have to do with scars-"

He catches sight of Cole's slight smile.

"Figure of speech, I take it?"

"Figure of speech."

Zane smiles for a moment. "It's about more than scars. I'm so...happy? I have answers, I remember my parents, my dads, the people who raised me and shaped me, they taught me so much...and I threw it all away. Why would I do that? All to end a ridiculous headache? Because I cried a little bit too much?"

"People...do certain things to deal with grief. I think as long as you have free thought, you're not exempt from that."

"If it's not too much to ask, how did you grieve?"

Cole closes off his posture ever so slightly. "It's not too much to ask."

He brushes his hair out of his eyes.

"When my mom passed, my dad just couldn't deal with it. He couldn't be home and look at where she should be. So he'd leave, stay with his performing buddies, sometimes for days at a time. He couldn't just stay home! He never thought maybe his son was hurting too! I was left to take care of myself for weeks at a time...so I started climbing mountains to take my mind off of everything. Then eventually that turned into me walking out altogether. And I haven't heard from my dad since."

"Why would your father neglect you like that?"

"People deal with grief differently. It's not always right. Not at all. But...the human brain is weird. Y'know?"

"My brain is code."

"And it still did weird shit just to get rid of the pain, didn't it?"

"Yes...yes it did."

Zane finds himself pulled into a hug.

It's unexpected...but not unwelcome.

"It doesn't make you a bad person that you did that. The only person you hurt was yourself," Cole murmurs.

"No. I hurt my parents by not preserving their memory, their legacy! Isn't that awful?"

"You still exist as their legacy regardless. You're still their mark on the world. Just like how no matter how much my dad wants to forget my mom, I'm still here."

"...I doubt your father wishes to forget her."

"And I doubt you wanted to forget your parents, you only wanted to forget the pain."

Zane looks down at the ground. "I suppose."

"I gotta go talk to Wu, how about you go check in with Kai and Jay? I bet you'd win, you have whole staples in your face!"

He watches as Cole leaves.

Perhaps he can go crack some jokes.

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

"My scar extends to my face!" Jay shouts.

Kai doesn't seem impressed. "Okay, and? Look at my hand! You can tell some of the skin fucking melted here!"

They're at the kitchen table, holding their arms out.

How many times they've reiterated the same points, it's hard to say.

Zane gently pulls up a seat.

He politely watches the two argue.

"The tip of my tongue is still split!"

"My eyebrow scar isn't just a cut, it's burnt too."

"My eyebrow scar came from the lid of a tin can!"

"I have a cut across my knee from the time I dropped a hot sword."

"I have a weird torn patch of skin from growing a tail, then it falling off or being jammed back into my body or whatever."

"My arms and legs don't even have hair follicles anymore, the melting is that gnarly."

"My electrocution scars go so far that it looks like they're holding hands on my back."

"My burn scars literally look like flames."

"And? Mine look like trippy lightning."

"Some customer once got pissed at me and tried sword-fighting me. Guess where the cut on my shoulder came from?"

Zane leans in. "I kind of look like I've been reanimated," he says quietly.

His roommates stop and look at him.

Kai reaches out and pats him on the head. "Zane wins."

"Yeah, you win," Jay echoes. "I mean, you had your chest torn open! Gross."

Kai lightly slaps Jay. "Not gross, just uh, extreme? Our organs stayed inside our bodies. You win."

Zane giggles ever so slightly.

This is comforting.

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

Cole approaches Wu by the gate.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I had no idea that lady was following us, if I knew-"

Wu puts his hand up. "It isn't your fault. You did not know. You weren't even influenced to keep the infant around. I apologize."

"So what happened? And where'd she go? What's going on?"

Wu sits back in the lawn chair. "Aspheera was awoken recently. She was entombed centuries ago, she knows nothing of your family history. She, a Hypnobrai, overthrew the current Hypnobrai general. She understood that your family had a connection and that was it. She did not know how far back it went, or who you even were. Simply that you existed, that there was a connection there, and that she could exploit it for her plans. She had no interest in you, however."

"So why follow me them?"

"She wanted to get to me. She knew your path would cross mine eventually."

"What did she want from you?"

"Revenge," the old man chuckles. "But, we made an arrangement. We've called a truce, for now, it's quite a long story. We are to meet back at the monastery...which means I must propose to you, will you come with me tomorrow as well?"

"To the monastery?"

"Yes. To live there. All of you pack your bags, I have rooms for you already."

Cole clutches his fists tight. "I need to ask the others."

Wu nods, stroking his beard.

Cole runs off, approaching the trailer.

Maybe Ed and Edna were just a bit relieved by the news.

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

It's midnight.

Most of the junkyard is quiet.

Lloyd can't sleep.

He has to go with his uncle, doesn't he?

He could run away again but...

God fucking damnit, how did he get attached to these people?

He's just gonna sleep and pretend none of this is happening.

But he can't sleep.

Ever so quietly, he gets up off the floor.

He looks over the two people sleeping in the bed.

They fell asleep talking. It almost looks as if they're still conversing, faces to each other.

The child nestles himself in between the recently declared couple.

Nya tries pushing him away tiredly.

He stays.

He stays until the sun washes over the three of them.

He feels safe.

 Cole peaks into the room to wake the three of them up.

Lloyd scrambles out of bed, not caring where he throws his blankets.

"We're going fast," Nya mumbles as she sits up, tossing Lloyd's blanket at Jay. "So let's have the ' future kids' talk."

Jay is still laying down, clinging to the joy of his warm bed. "I don't mind having-"

"After last night, I don't want them at all."

"Hm. Good talk."

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

Zane helps pack away clean laundry.

Cole packs up their blankets.

Nya makes sure to grab the butcher knife that Zane made sure to get out of the old kitchen.

Kai grabbed the toiletries.

Jay said bye to his parents.

They were noticeably alarmed by the way their son lightly crackled.

The kid really needs something to get the static situation under control.

Lloyd pulled the Ramen Helper box out from under the bed in the guest shed.

Yeah, Ash was never a pet and all that...

He still misses her.

He's still gonna hold onto the box. Just in case.

Soon, everyone was at the gate.

Jay stayed behind for the longest.

He could stay, ignore the whole magical destiny...might even be a good thing. Might save Lloyd.

Trash and junk shift ever so slightly.

Countless red snakes peek their heads out, as if to give their own goodbye, before scurrying back into the shadows, some of them seemingly sizzling in the sun.

It's almost as if the very location is saying bye.

Time to be guided away by Wu.

Fun.

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

The monastery is grand.

Grand undersells it, if anything.

Sitting at the top of a mountain, at the end of a million steps. The building is adorned in gold and marble and ivory, surrounded by a high stone fence.

A pile of scales and bandages rests by the gate of the fence.

Wu carefully pokes Aspheera, gesturing for her to move over.

She hisses at him before anything else.

Grumbling something under his breath, he opens the gate, letting his newfound pupils in.

Aspheera tries to follow, but he stops her, blocking the woman off.

She frowns. "Wuzy, if you want my help-"

"I am not letting you endanger my students."

She tries passing him but her face is met with a heavy, fifteen-foot-tall wooden door.

The old master proceeds to let his pupils into their new home.

The recreation room is small and cramped, with only a single couch to sit on. There's virtually nothing else in the room.

Then that leads into a sparsely decorated hallway.

The two rows of doors seem to go on forever.

"Not to be an ass, but where are our rooms?" Kai whispers. "There's a lot."

Wu pauses. "My father created a room for each elemental master, in the hopes that they would all be on the same side. So yes, we have many extra rooms. All tailored to your elements."

"Great, but again, our rooms?"

Wu looks over the doors.

It takes a moment.

One by one, he points them out.

"Fire, Lightning, Ice, Earth, Water, Green."

Kai tilts his head. "Water?"

Jay starts nudging Nya.

Kai's brow furrows. "Jay, what do you know that I don't? Nya?"

Nya steps forward, gripping her water bottle.

"I would've said something about this yesterday but you were gone forever soooo..."

She holds up the water bottle, showing Kai her little 'trick.'

All her brother can do is stare.

Shock? Disbelief? Pride?

"We're talking about this later-"

"Why do you think I held off on this for so long?"

"So long? Nya, how long have you been able to do this?"

"...a few days."

"And you told Jay but not me?!"

She backs down ever so slightly. "Yeah? Just yesterday. We've all been so busy and I wanted to show you but then you left so I figured okay I'll show my boyfriend-"

"Boyfriend?!"

Cole puts down the box of clothes on the floor.

He grabs Kai by the shoulder. "Hey, hothead, cool down."

Kai starts heating up, ignoring Cole. "You didn't tell me any of this."

"I'm sixteen, I don't need to run my life choices by you," Nya bounces back.

Kai's hands had caught fire.

He starts trying to put it out.

"It's not about running your life choices by me, it's about being open and...sis, I know you've never been the most open person but you know you can talk to me. You never thought you could talk to me about these mysterious water powers or liking a boy?"

Jay grabs Nya's hand. "In her defense, we spontaneously decided to date at like three AM one night."

"...you two were together at night?"

"Where did you think I was sleeping?" Nya asks quietly.

"On the couch?! I didn't think you two were...oh god...you didn't run anything by me or ask for any sort of advice oh FSM holy fuck please tell me you two didn't-"

"No way in the cursed realm were we doing that on my parents' property," Jay snickers. "Calm down."

Kai clutches his chest. "Heart attack only partially averted," he playfully gasps.

Wu clears his throat. "Let us put interpersonal conflicts aside. Please, I am sure you are all tired of carrying your belonging. You may begin unpacking, get acquainted with your rooms."

Everybody puts down their boxes.

All belongings were haphazardly thrown in, only sorted by item type. All bedding went in one box, all clothes in another.

Doorknobs turn. Doors range from being thrown open to carefully cracked open.

Kai's room is cold.

It has its own AC and heater.

It doesn't feel great, but should he turn it off? Maybe he kinda needs to cool down right now...

The blankets are sparse, too. The bed has sheets and nothing else.

He's the master of fire, why is his room cold? He can handle hot.

Do masters of fire have a limit to how much heat they can handle?

...maybe some of them need to be cooled down when they're emotional.

Cole's room seems average. Normal bedding, normal decor...then he sees the window.

The window contains a small balcony covered in a small layer of gravel.

How...thoughtful?

Cool. Rocks.

He closes the sliding door on the balcony.

That's when it clicks.

The frame of the sliding door is thick.

And now, looking at his bed and dresser, those are made of some sort of heavy metal.

Everything in the room seems to be reinforced to account for super strength.

Zane's room is much like Kai's, yet the opposite all at once.

It has its own AC and heater.

The bedding is almost lavish. Layers of thick, soft blankets.

Ever so carefully, he inspects the blankets to see which ones can stay.

Then he found his favorite blanket ever.

Jay's room was somewhat average at first glance, much like Cole's.

Every outlet and switch has some sort of rubber covering. There's also a noticeable lack of metal in most of the room.

Nya's room has a large window.

There's a lot of cheesy inspirational quotes scattered around the room.

Was someone in here before?

She barely remembers her mom, but the quotes seem to fit the vague outline of a person she can remember.

Wu did say that their parents were the only ones he could get to side with him...

Oh hey look, there's a cute little novelty water fountain. She should probably put a dome or something over it so it doesn't do anything weird.

Lloyd feels alone in his room.

It's big. It's pretty.

It's full of artwork depicting destinies and scripts and scrolls.

He's alone.

He hasn't known the others for that long, but even that one time they left him alone for a few hours one night, he felt cold and unsafe.

Hey, they're all sleeping in the same hall. If he feels lonely, he can just pester someone.

Still. This big room, all for a little boy. It makes him feel small.

He knows that he's small, he takes advantage of it all the time, but feeling it is different.

But hey. At least he has his own room.

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

Boxes were slowly sorted out.

Clothes were obvious, but blankets and pillows, not so much. That was more of a dibs situation.

Kai wanted most of them, he barely had sheets in his room.

Jay wanted at least one because half his bedding felt like shit.

Cole and Zane had to play responsible and help split up the debate.

Meanwhile, Nya just...stared.

She got her stuff.

It's just weird being in this room.

She barely even has an element, yet here she is, in her element-assigned room.

Nobody noticed that Lloyd exited the building.

Not until Wu started yelling.

Of course, this drew everyone into the rec room- living room, whatever- to see a little boy holding the hand of a large snake, carefully leading her under the roof of the home.

"Why? I left her outdoors for a reason!" Wu scolds.

Lloyd goes from alarmed to mischievous. "Because I'm evil. I need to be around evil people."

"Remove her from these grounds-"

The old man is met with a hot hand on his shoulder.

"I think he's trying to do something nice," Kai whispers.

"To the wrong person!"

Zane steps up. "Do you by chance have any spare bedrooms? I'm sure she would like one."

"No, you cannot-"

"Found it!" Jay shouts. "It's the only bedroom that's unlocked outside of ours."

Cole helps Lloyd guide Aspheera down the hall.

"She's manipulating you!"

"Nah, it's just the right thing to do," Nya deflects.

The spare room is relatively blank and boring.

God, there are so many rooms.

Lloyd watches as Aspheera hoists herself up on the bed.

It seems rather difficult.

But when she's up there, she seems content with herself.

"Thisss is fit for a queen!" she gasps.

Lloyd pats her on top of her head.

He trusts the snake.

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

"I'm sorry," Kai groans.

He's sitting on the small couch with Nya.

"I just wish that you trusted me. That you could talk to me again."

"It's not that I don't trust you, we've all just been busy. I had the chance to tell Jay before you, and even then it was like emotionally pulling my own teeth."

"It's not even about the powers. It's about everything. You got a boyfriend- I didn't even know you had your eye on anybody- and you never opened up for me. But you went ahead and opened up to him. I couldn't give you advice or-"

"Right, because you've had sooo many girlfriends," she snickers. "It was spur of the moment. I liked him. He liked me. We kinda knew. We also knew that some weird snake guy was gonna show up and do god knows what so...we're both aware we're going fast, but only because we don't know how long any of us have."

Kai knows his sister isn't big on receiving affection.

He scoots closer to her.

He wants to hug her or pat her on the back or just do something to comfort her...and maybe himself.

"As long as I have a say in it, we'll all be around for a long time. Don't worry about that."

"Says the guy who got kidnapped."

"I still made it out. Partially because of you."

She smiles.

Jay passes by.

"And you," Kai starts. "Come here."

Jay slowly starts backtracking his way to the couch.

"I trust you with my sister. I don't hate you. I'm not mad at you. Hate to admit it, you're my dorky little friend. But if you break her heart, I'm gonna burn you alive. Slowly. And painfully."

"That shouldn't be an issue," Jay nervously giggles. "No offense but I think Nya's more likely to break my heart."

"And you love that," Nya laughs.

Jay pokes his fingers together. "Maybeee."

Kai smiles.

"Now that all of this is out of the way, wanna go make sure Lloyd isn't running off?"

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

They found Lloyd sitting at the top of the steps, outside of the tall gate.

Kai sits down with him.

"You look like you're thinking about something," Kai mumbles.

"Yeah! Evil plans," the child answers, before returning his gaze to the ground.

Kai is really warm. Not unpleasantly so. He feels safe.

His hug feels safe.

"I know I'm not the nicest to you, I know I'm not Cole or Zane or Nya or even Jay. I know that. But if Wu tries to make you do anything you don't want to, I'll make sure we haul ass out of here immediately."

Lloyd looks up at his...big brother figure? Is that what Kai is?

"So if I don't wanna do my chores, we can leave?"

"What? No. I mean if Wu tries to make you fight your dad or kill Aspheera or something. Something big that you don't wanna do."

Lloyd smiles softly. "Okay."

Okay.

It'll be okay.

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

Sparring.

Their first day after settling in, they had to spar.

It wasn't great.

They had to get into more lightweight clothes, then put on pads and helmets.

Jay tried making a case for why he should at least keep his arms covered.

It was a no-go.

Zane legitimately flat-out hates how exposed he feels. He could care less about his "scar" or the exposed staples along it. He doesn't like how the air feels on his skin, it was deeply uncomfortable.

Opposed to Jay, he kept quiet.

Kai asked for a sword.

He got told he wasn't ready for it.

He's not upset. Not at all. He didn't want the sword at all. There's no reason for his hands to get hot like this. Nope.

Cole was the only one who seemed remotely okay, as he's used to wearing tank tops around his home, and he wasn't expecting a weapon, but even then, he had to double-take and ask: "You expect me to hit them? You...you see the difference here, right?"

"Hey! I have muscle! You only have to worry about the other two!" Kai shouts.

Cole looks down at him. "I'm not saying you don't, but I don't think blacksmith muscles can compare to magic elemental super strength or whatever."

"No hitting. Not yet," Wu says.

He starts instructing them on their stances.

Most of the lesson was based around form.

It was kind of boring.

Then, Wu shooed Zane and Cole away.

He wanted to see what Kai and Jay could do, seeing as they unlocked their True Potentials.

Nya ultimately had to run outside with the fire extinguisher.

Turns out Kai can't control electrical fires.

If he can, he currently doesn't know how.

He made it worse.

Zane was the first one to go back inside the building, trying to mask his eagerness to change into something else.

Cole stayed behind, watching Wu scold the two who made the fire.

Kai and Jay both tried pinning blame on who messed up worse.

"Cut them some slack," Cole says. "They've only had full access to their powers for a few days."

"Hey, I've been practicing," Kai scoffs.

"All you can do is dribble fireballs."

"And it looks cool!"

Jay frowns. "You can't get mad at me for not practicing. I was resting after turning into pure lightning, then you sprung this moving stuff on us. I didn't have time."

Wu shakes his head. "Neither of you have anything near a good grip on your abilities."

"Like Cole said, it's only been a few days," Nya says from the doorway. "Leave them alone."

Wu turns to her. "You don't understand. Time is of the essence-"

Nya raises an eyebrow. "Is it really? We haven't heard anything about Lloyd's dad other than their destined battle, oooooh ominous. Where is he?"

"I'm not sure, he may still be in the underworld, but how much time you have is unknown."

"Mkay but you can't expect us to be perfect right out the gate, even if we're on a time crunch, we need practice," Kai chimes.

Zane comes back outside, dressed in his favorite combo of a button-up shirt and a sweater.

This is better.

He tugs at his sleeves, trying to adjust them. "May I ask, with this time crunch, how do we achieve True Potential? How do we get to it faster?"

Wu has no answer.

"When you are one with your element? When you are most honest with yourself in a time of danger? I am...not entirely sure."

"How'd you get yours?" Jay asks.

Silence.

Kai coughs.

Wu continues to look around at his pupils in a panic.

"You have powers...right?" Nya asks.

"I can perform Spinjitzu-"

"Like, the stuff that created the world?" Cole asks. "How?"

"Everybody has the potential to use Spinjitzu, but only some have elements to hone into theirs, and even fewer can use it to create."

Kai starts playing with his hair. "So what's your element, then?"

"...I do not have one per se, but I believe I embody creation, as my brother embodies destruction. I cannot do much with this ability, however. Only the four elements of creation can come together and create something substantial."

"May I ask what you can do, then?" Zane inquires with a small smile.

"It can mostly be likened to parlor tricks-"

All eyes are on him.

Wu shrugs. "Nevermind that. Truth be told, I never unlocked my True Potential, and I am unsure if I can even have one."

Silence falls over the five students.

Kai was the first one to the door.

He doesn't seem angry, just annoyed.

"You've been riding our asses about ours? Get yours in order first," he mumbles.

Nya follows after him.

Slowly, they start making their way back inside.

Wu stays in the courtyard, surrounded by the training equipment.

A thousand years, and he never found his True Potential.

He knows he's not a perfect person...he knows...

But, he does need his students to be well trained.

How can he do that though when he managed to fail himself on so many levels?

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

Lloyd watches Aspheera.

She's asleep.

She sent 'Ash' back home to the Hypnobrai den, then sent out a new one of her 'babies.'

They are in fact not her children. Lloyd doesn't know much about the birds and the bees, but when she told him she has no organs, something didn't quite add up about her babies.

Turns out, serpentine often take care of their young in a large community. Some parents may bond closer to their children in particular, but many are open to caring for all children.

He's not sure why he cares about her. Maybe it's just to piss off Wu.

It can't possibly be just to be nice, right?

Maybe he's just drawn to her evil ways.

So, here he is, watching her sleep.

'Sleep.'

She's actually awake, watching through the eyes of her 'baby,' slithering through the streets of Ninjago City, searching for Chen's Noodle House.

Wonder what would happen if they just ordered takeout from the place.

Fuck, now he's hungry.

He gets off of the chair he'd pulled over to her bedside.

Something lightly thuds against the floor.

It's the Ramen Helper box.

Ever so gently, he picks it up and nestles it under her arm.

Fuck it, in his mind, Ash did exist, she's right here.

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

The kitchen is small.

Clearly, Wu was ill-prepared for a group of teens to live with him. There isn't much to eat.

Zane helps Lloyd find a snack.

"...and apparently, you know how snakes are cold-blooded? Turns out the ones like Aspheera are immune to the cold!" Lloyd rambles on to Zane.

Zane can't help but smile at the boy's enthusiasm.

He's hardly even cussed in the last five minutes.

Is Lloyd...actually happy?

"I see you've found kinship," Zane chuckles.

"She's big and evil, just like me! I wanna be like her when I grow up."

"Perhaps you will be even better than her."

Lloyd hops up on the counter. "I hope so!"

Zane repeatedly checks the fridge.

There's not much to snack on alone, nor to make a snack.

Hm.

"Would you like some cheese?"

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

Nya tries controlling water out of a faucet in the bathroom.

So far, no luck. The most she's gotten is water sprayed in her face.

Is this how her brother felt when he gained his powers?

One faithful day he started setting up the blacksmithing equipment, but then...something happened.

Sparks flew.

The flames grabbed at Kai's hands, as if they were trying to pull him in.

He pulled away in a panic.

Then the flames returned to normal.

It surprisingly left little burning. At least, not as much as one would assume.

From then on, it took months for him to be able to keep the fire at bay, to make it listen to him, even if only enough to make it so it didn't burn him alive.

And his powers stayed like that for years.

Will she have to rush toward her True Potential? It took years for the others to get theirs- Zane and Cole don't even have it yet!- but here she is, just barely learning of her abilities, and now she has to try to become water or whatever?

It'd be great if her mom was here to guide her, but then again, her mom was never around for anything, was she?

...she shouldn't be thinking like that. The woman went missing. What could a missing, possibly dead person even do?

Let's try it again.

Hand under the faucet.

Water flows around her hand.

Droplets turn into small streams as they snake up her arm.

Then they fall, deciding to drip onto the floor.

This is gonna take some time, isn't it?

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

The night is quiet.

Thoughts are loud.

Nya stares at the campy inspirational quotes on the walls.

She wants to cover them up.

There's a light tap at her door.

"Come in, I'm not sleeping," she says, staring at the ceiling.

The door barely clicks twice, once to open, once to close.

Jay crouches by the bed, his face lit up in moonlight.

"We need to talk."

She sits up and pats the mattress.

He takes the offer to sit next to her.

"Um...I was thinking and...holy shit we just rushed into a relationship oh god-"

"So you wanna break up, I take it?"

"Nononono. No! I just wanna talk."

"About?"

"You."

She purses her lips.

Was she doing something wrong?

"Me?"

"Yeah, you! Like, we just talk about you. I know we spent days in my room worrying about my problems, but what about you?"

"You know about my problems right now."

"Still. I just wanna hear about you. Let's backtrack just a bit, maybe we can go slow now. Just a bit. And talk."

"We talk all the time."

"We talk, but do we really? Do you talk? Like, I don't know, you said you were bi but never brought it up before or after-"

"Because I usually don't act on those feelings for anyone. In any way. Not even the slightest verbal acknowledgment."

"...so why'd you do it with me?"

She looks away. "Because you were hurt and scared and...I just wanted to make you feel better. I didn't think we'd be dating by the end of the night. I just thought you needed to hear someone call you cute. From someone who already thought you were really cute."

"Wait, so did you do it just to make me feel better or do you actually like me?"

"I said it then and I'll say it again now. It was both."

The gears in his head are turning. "And if I was never bitten, and I never locked myself in my room..."

"I never would've told you."

"Why not?!"

She brings one knee to her chest. "Dunno, I'm just not an affectionate person like that."

"Oh, so you're aromantic? I can make that work-"

"No. It's something else. I mean, I like giving hugs and holding your hand and maybe I did want to kiss you...a lot...but being on the receiving end is difficult."

Jay gives a small hum. "Is it a sensory issue?"

She sighs. "No. I don't know. I guess I'm just used to being alone. I love my brother, and I know he tried his hardest, but he was still just a kid trying to take care of another kid. It wasn't even a huge age difference! He was five trying to take care of a two-year-old. So I'm used to fending for myself with my brother being the only backup. I've only ever trusted my brother..."

He looks her in the eye. "Do you trust me?"

She stays quiet for a moment.

She does like him a lot...

She wouldn't mind letting him hold her hand.

"I do, but it's hard."

"It's hard to trust me?"

"It's hard to let myself trust you. But. I do trust you."

"Okay. So we can work on that. What makes it hard?"

"Letting my guard down. Being open. More open than I am with the others. I feel vulnerable."

"Okay, okay. See? This is progress. Examples?"

"I wouldn't mind letting you hold my hand," she whispers, reaching out for him.

"Do you want me to start asking before I do stuff like that?"

"For the time being? Sure."

"Can I hold your hand?"

"Yeah."

He gently takes her hand in his.

It's okay. She's safe here.

She knows that. She's known that.

She trusts him, and letting her guard down isn't gonna cause some third party to come in and hurt her.

"Can I give you a kiss?" he whispers.

"You can," she giggles.

She didn't expect the kiss to be on the back of her hand.

Still, surprises yielded no danger.

This is nice.

She moves slowly.

She's pretty sure she knows what she wants to do.

Within moments, he finds that his girlfriend's(?) arms are wrapped around him, her head resting against his shoulder.

"Can I hug you back?" he asks, halfway panicked.

She nods silently.

Hands reach her back.

He feels like he could lose his breath at any moment.

He liked her because she was big and strong...this is different though.

Is this love?

Still deeply infatuated with her when she's vulnerable.

She's not weak though. It had to take a lot to let her guard down like this, right? That's strength...

His train of thought is interrupted by a slight chuckle coming from Nya.

"Hm?"

"Nothing," she mumbles. "Your skin is super dry. I don't remember it being like that before."

"Yeah, dunno. I blame the snakes. Why's it funny?"

"It isn't. Just making a mental note. Let's get you a skincare routine. Okay? We can shop around this week."

"I'd like that," he squeaks.

Neither of them are sure how long they stay like that, arms wrapped around each other.

Nya won't let herself fall asleep like that in his arms though.

Not yet.

"Jay?"

"Mhm?"

"Were you ever gonna tell me your feelings?"

"Not unless you told me first. It's silly but uh...I thought you were unapproachable. At least romantically."

"I kept a picture of us as my phone's background, you never got the hint?"

"I mean, I got other hints but um...dunno. You're pretty. And strong. Like, I only told Cole how I felt about him because I thought he was asking me out, but if that never happened, I wouldn't have told him either. I just assume the people I like wouldn't have the time for me unless they said so."

"My bi disaster," she giggles.

"And you're my...bi enigma?"

"I'm a disaster on the inside. I've seen plenty of attractive people come into work, I just ignore it. Not like I'd see any of them again. And no random stranger could get me like you do."

"Same," he murmurs.

Wait.

She mentioned the job.

"Shit! Nya, your job!"

Sparks start flying off of him.

She pulls away from the hug.

"Calm down, you're gonna start another electrical fire."

"You're not stressed about your job?!"

"I was but I kept it buried. I got so caught up in everything that I forgot about it. I texted and resigned though."

"And you never said anything?!"

"No, I wasn't trying to start anything over that."

His hair poofs up from the extra static.

It's taking a lot for her to not giggle.

He looks cute.

"Nya, whatever you learned tonight, please apply that to everyone else, you can't just keep everything bottled up."

"Okay," she whispers. "And you should calm down before you start a power outage."

He looks down at his hands.

They're sparking badly.

"Sorry," he sighs, trying to put them out.

She lays back and looks at the ceiling.

"So, we're taking it slow now. Okay."

"Can we cuddle, or is that too fast? What do you think?"

She looks at her boyfriend(?).

"Yeah. Just for a little bit."

It was in fact not for a little bit.

She wanted affection but she wanted to also be the one keeping a guard up, so she decided to be the big spoon.

It took both of them by surprise when the sun rose.

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

what if while ao3 is down i just copy paste all 36 chapters and 100k+ words of the no wu au into a tumblr post

[panharmonium]

this is legitimately one of my top five favorite kakashi scenes.

i love seeing kakashi break the rules in the name of doing the right thing, and this scene especially is particularly satisfying to me, because his moment of defiance here is, to my mind, long overdue.  

one of my eternal frustrations in early naruto is how the leaf village administration gives kakashi the job of caring for a group of super high-needs children and then continually makes that job as difficult for him as possible.  they task him with being solely responsible for the development and well-being of three twelve year-olds - a group that includes naruto (a walking disaster with a god’s power trapped inside his body) and sasuke (a genocide survivor fixated on killing his own brother), BOTH of whom are being hunted by different groups of supercriminals - and then the village keeps getting in kakashi’s way or dropping the ball or actively ordering him to prioritize other things.  

so much of what goes wrong with the kids in this period is the result of other people interfering with kakashi’s work or being negligent or endangering the kids/putting kakashi in impossible positions.  team 7’s first big mission sets the tone for everything that comes after, with someone else’s lie putting kakashi in a situation where he has to single-handedly protect not just the client who deceived him, but the three children who were supposed to be the clients’ other protectors.  and after that, the list just multiplies:

ten anbu operatives can’t manage to protect sasuke’s hospital room from orochimaru’s minions, so kakashi has to do it himself and then whisk sasuke out of the village for a month, leaving naruto in the hands of a substitute and sakura with her parents

genma orders sasuke to chase after gaara when the chunin exams blow up, saying “you’re at chunin level already,” which forces kakashi to immediately dispatch more kids to bring him back, because “ffs NO i do NOT want him out there doing that why the fuck would you tell him to do that?!” 

aoba runs his mouth off about itachi when sasuke is standing RIGHT THERE, instantly undoing all the work kakashi just did to prevent itachi and sasuke from coming anywhere near each other (and thus sending sasuke to that disastrous first encounter, the outcome of which ultimately leads to sasuke’s defection)

jiraiya decides he should let sasuke try to fight itachi himself, “out of respect for the boy’s feelings,” leading to sasuke ending up in a tsukuyomi coma

tsunade orders kakashi to drop his teaching work and leave the village on a mission even though a) he’s just gotten out of his own torture-induced coma and b) sasuke is having a crisis that kakashi is trying to manage

and then when kakashi gets back from that mission and finds out that surprise, all of this meddling has led to a disaster, tsunade tries to order him away AGAIN

but this time - he just says no.

he walks right out of her office.  he turns his back on her.  and there is NOTHING i love more than seeing kakashi embody the philosophy that he’s chosen to adopt as his guiding light: those who break the rules are scum.  but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.

it’s not that he doesn’t understand where tsunade is coming from here.  but he knows she’s wrong.  she’s making her decisions based solely on concerns about the Leaf Village being in a tight spot - feeling like they can’t turn down missions because they’ll appear weak and thus become vulnerable to attack when they’re already operating at half strength.  she sends a group of twelve year-olds to bring sasuke back because supposedly the village can’t spare anyone else, “even if it means letting the sharingan fall into orochimaru’s hands” - but like.  it’s not the sharingan.  it’s a child.  sasuke isn’t just a repository for his hereditary jutsu; he’s not a pair of eyes to be passed around from one wielder to the next.  he’s a human child.  

tsunade doesn’t know sasuke.  she’s new to the situation and doesn’t know enough about it to understand how serious it is.  i don’t even think she was still in the village when the uchiha massacre occurred; the timeline makes it sound like she left long before that.  she doesn’t really understand who sasuke is or how much trouble he’s in - she makes her decision because she feels like her first priority has to be the well-being of the Leaf as a whole, not the individual people who comprise it.  kakashi, though, who a) lives his life by a very different philosophy and b) does understand sasuke’s situation, would not have dealt with the issue like this, and if the village had let him do his job from the beginning, things wouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place.

kakashi is horrified that tsunade sent a bunch of twelve year-olds out to fight orochimaru’s ninja, and i think he’s also probably angry and/or frustrated about having been ordered out of the village in the first place.  he was dealing with the situation before tsunade sent him away.  he interrupted the fight between sasuke and naruto even though he himself had literally just gotten out of the hospital, and then he continued addressing the issue with sasuke privately (unlike jiraiya’s non-attempt to address it with naruto, when he said he was going to give naruto a talking-to but actually flaked out).  kakashi knew sasuke was struggling, and he was doing all the things a teacher is supposed to do to address it, but then he was ordered away, and even though it was just for two days, it was enough time for everything to go to hell.

if people would just let him do his job - if the administration would let him focus on the task they themselves assigned to him - things would be different.  but everybody wants him to do everything.  they want him to be everywhere.  they want him to protect the nine-tails jinchuriki (who is also kakashi’s dead teacher’s son), and train the last surviving uchiha (which is a task only kakashi and his sharingan can perform), and give equal attention to a third kid, for good measure, and they want him to do it without stepping away from any of his other burdens, all while other people around him constantly frustrate the progress he makes.

so this time, when tsunade tries to send him away, he refuses.  he disobeys her orders and walks out of the room.  he doesn’t care about the rules or what he’s “legally” obligated to do.  he knows what the RIGHT thing to do is, and so he rejects his new mission in favor of rescuing the kids.

i love these moments.  i love when we’re shown so clearly the person kakashi has chosen to be - someone who does what’s right, not just what he’s told.  he made an active choice many years ago to adopt that philosophy, and he’s been living by those new rules ever since.  he's wiser now than he was when he was a child - sometimes you have to break ranks to do the right thing.  sometimes you have to buck the system, even if it means you might face severe personal consequences.

he had one of two choices: either save the mission or his comrades.  of course, according to the law of the village, you cannot abandon a mission.  but to save the life of his comrades, he put the mission on hold.

kakashi may have spent a good chunk of his childhood trying to reject everything the subject of that story stood for, but none of his attempts to harden his heart ever stuck.  he is, in the end, his father’s son.

[abraxos-and-ataraxia]

Land and Sea

My submission for @elucienweek2022 Day 4 - Parallels

Pairing: Elain x Lucien

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: NSFW, this is purely filth at the end (please be gentle, it’s my first attempt at smut, the eris knife play doesn’t count)

Summary: Lucien is the youngest of seven sons, wholly uninterested in his father’s crown.  He spends his days exploring the farthest reaches of the sea, chasing the feeling that something is missing.  Elain is the second Archeron princess, beloved of the people, but trapped in her role.  She seeks an escape from the marriage she must one day commit to, until the day she finds something more than anything she ever dreamed of.  Two parallel lives finally intertwine in a meeting of chance, fate intervening at the intersection of land and sea.

* * * * *

Elain walked briskly down the hallway, her slippered feet quiet on the stone.  With any luck, she could leave the castle before Lord Graysen arrived.  Her handmaiden had rushed into the room not five minutes prior, squealing about how grand their carriage looked.  Nothing had ever sent Elain fleeing faster.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like him.  In fact, she hardly knew him.  As a child, she remembered Lord Nolan—Graysen’s father—frequenting the castle to discuss a future marriage.  At ten years old, she hadn’t understood it.  As an adult, she understood it just fine.  And she had no interest in living with the stern old man or his son in their horrible manor.  She loved her home, and she wasn’t ready to leave it.  Not for a boy she didn’t know, at least.

Perhaps if she loved him, she mused, darting into the servant’s passageways.  But Graysen had only come to the castle once, and he made no effort to speak with her.  Even while eating an entire seven course meal at her side.  He was far more focused on politics and pandering to her father.  She couldn’t abide a marriage to such a man.

Passing the kitchens, she waved to the scullery maids, some of whom she’d grown up with.  The girls grinned, laughing when they realized where she was heading.  “Run faster,” they teased.

“I’m trying,” she said breathlessly, picking up her pace.

Everyone knew that Elain preferred flowers to politics, especially her father.  The King usually let her escape in peace, but she wouldn’t put it past him to enforce her attendance today.  For her betrothal.

By some miracle, or due to her unexpected speed, the door wasn’t barred by her father’s guards.  Elain blew through it with a wild grin, leaning against the door once it was securely shut behind her.

The ocean breeze left the tang of salt on her tongue, tugging at her bronze curls.  Elain couldn’t resist the pull, skipping down the steep steps to the small strip of beach below.  It wasn’t much of an escape, with the castle walls enclosing either end, but it was her sanctuary.

Though if her father knew she had a rowboat hidden away, he likely wouldn’t let her go unescorted.

Elain kicked off her slippers when she hit the sand, digging her toes past the scorching upper layers to the cool grains beneath.  She sighed, closing her eyes as she tilted her face to the sun, just another flower seeking warmth.

The rolling waves called to her, whispering her name.  Elain, the surf whispered against the rocks.  Elain, cried the gulls.  Elain.

She followed.  The water was warm, splashing her ankles unexpectedly.  She laughed, the sound freeing her to explore along the shore.  As she walked, Elain found iridescent shells, and she bent down to pluck them from the sea.  She ran her fingers over their smooth edges.  The sunlight glinted off the surface of the water, blinding her for a moment.  And when she opened her eyes, she was confronted with something much, much larger than a shell.

She shrieked, tripping over her feet to fall backwards in the sand.  There was a man.  In the water.  And he was naked.  Elain slapped her hands over her eyes in an attempt to protect her modesty, or perhaps his modesty.  Someone’s modesty, at any rate.

Elain waited, panting nervously, but nothing happened.  Clearing her throat, she risked a peek through her fingers.  He was gone.  She blinked, rubbing at her eyes.  Had it been an illusion?  Scrambling to her feet, she scanned the water.  What was better, a naked man or a vision?  Maybe Graysen wouldn’t want to marry her if he knew she was hallucinating things.

When she caught a flash of red, Elain peered at the rocks more carefully.  There.  Was that…a head?  She splashed through the water to reach it.  Rounding the collection of boulders, Elain found herself thigh-deep in water, face-to-face with something straight out of a myth.

An expanse of deeply tanned skin made her blush, but she quickly realized that the man wasn’t naked, because his lower half was covered in scales.  Long red hair fell in a wet tangle over muscled shoulders, partially covering a face so stunning, she couldn’t quite think of words to describe it.  A horrible scar drew her gaze to one side of his face, but she found that she was more intrigued by his eyes.  One gold, fashioned of gleaming metal, the other russet—a combination that had her mouth dropping open in wonder.

But not even the shocking amount of skin on display could distract her from the shimmering tail beneath the surface.  Gold and ruby and every shade in between, covered with scales so small they looked like dewdrops trickling up to his hip bones.  Sheer awe drowned out her embarrassment, allowing her eyes to rove over every inch of him, from his powerful muscles to the feathery edges of his golden fins.

He looked up at her warily, and she realized that she must have startled him earlier.  “I’m sorry,” she blurted, stumbling back in the shallows.  A wave splashed her upper thighs, making her yelp.  He moved forward quickly, hands extended to help steady her against the surf.  On instinct, she accepted his hold, allowing him to hold her hand as an ordinary suitor might.  Ordinary?  She wanted to laugh.  This man—merman, she supposed—had a tail.

Those unusual eyes blinked up at her, “Why are you sorry?”  His voice, melodic and deep, startled her.  Everything was startling her, it seemed.

“I scared you,” she said, shrinking back.  “I didn’t mean to scream.”

“And I did not mean to cause any distress,” he replied, shifting closer.  “I must apologize for ruining your joy.”

“No,” she exclaimed.  “Don’t apologize, please.  I just…you’re so beautiful.  I’ve never seen anything like you before.  You haven’t ruined anything, I promise.”

His lips twitched, almost a smile.  “You find me beautiful?”  The words rolled over her skin, leaving tingles in their wake.

Elain shivered.  “Yes,” she breathed.

“I suppose I can accept such a compliment, coming from someone as lovely as you,” he said, smiling fully.  The flattery sent a blush blazing over her cheeks.

In a desperate bid for propriety—not that there was anything even remotely proper about the dress clinging to her legs—Elain gave a small curtsy in the water, ignoring the way the water climbed even farther.  “I’m Elain,” she said shyly.

That beautiful face appeared to glow.  “And I am Lucien.  You are the princess, yes?”

“How do you—”

Lucien’s cheeks darkened, and he dropped her hand, looking away.  “I have been…watching the people of your city for some time.  They speak of you often.”

“Good things, I hope,” Elain said, smiling despite herself.

“Of course,” he ducked his head.  “I am a prince, myself.  But my people do not speak so well of me.  I was…curious about you.”

“Your people?”  Elain was fascinated.  But being in the water for so long led her to shiver a bit.

Lucien caught it immediately, hands extending once more.  “You are cold,” he said, reaching to interlace their hands.  He pulled her towards him, towards the sun-warmed rock beside him.  “Sit, please.”

With Lucien’s steady hands helping her, Elain clambered on top of the stone.  She adjusted her legs, finding a comfortable position before looking down.  Lucien waited patiently, face tilted up to her like she was the sun.  Her breath left her in a mighty gust.  No one had ever looked at her like that.

“I am sorry for staring,” Lucien murmured.

She blushed like a tomato.  “I was staring earlier,” she confessed.  “That makes it even.”

“Do you ever feel,” Lucien started, then stopped, uncertainty clouding his expression.  “Do you ever feel as if there is something waiting for you?”

The words hit her so strongly, she trembled.  Yes, she wanted to scream.  She had always felt that way, always longed for something just out of reach.  She’d been trapped by expectations for her whole life, unable to ever find the missing piece.

Lucien seemed to sense all of that and more, for his face softened.  “I feel as though I have finally found it,” he said, so softly she almost missed it.

A part of Elain was ranting that this was insanity.  She had met a naked fish person and was now confessing her feelings?  But for whatever reason, this felt more right than any of the conversations she had over letters and fancy dinners.  And some part of her felt the same way as Lucien.  Some itching feeling had settled, as though the mystery beyond the horizon had finally come to find her, instead.

“Yes,” she breathed.

* * * * *

All his life, Lucien had been told never to go near the mortal realm.  And for the most part, he had obeyed.  But as the years passed, his resentment for the politics amongst his family had grown, and Lucien had drifted farther from his home.  He explored the farthest reaches of the sea, chasing the feeling that something was missing, something vital.  He found shipwrecks and islands, sunken cities and unbelievable creatures.  But somehow, no hidden treasure filled the void in his chest.  The void that tugged him towards land.

He started slowly, listening to the conversations of men aboard large ships and small fishing boats.  He hid behind rocky outcroppings and watched children swim, families laughing together.  He swam beneath the bustling docks of the city, watching the organized chaos and laughing at the sailors' humor.  But he still couldn’t find what he was looking for.

Until her.

Something had drawn him to the secluded beach beneath the castle.  Something that tugged fiercely, burning as bright as the sun.  He followed that pull, unable to resist it, even if he could not understand what it was.  But the second he saw her, he knew.  Mate.

All of his experiences with mortals had helped him understand them better.  He knew they did not have mating bonds in the human lands.  They had marriages and affairs, but nothing nearly as powerful as the mating bonds.  So when Elain actually spoke to him, he had all but bitten his tongue to keep from claiming her as such.  He knew she wouldn’t understand.  But now that he knew she felt the same inexplicable pull, he couldn’t stay away.

Lucien visited the palace nearly every day, meeting Elain on the beach and talking as long as she could allow.  It was awkward at first, like their first meeting had been.  She’d blushed every other word, and he had stumbled to find the right thing to say.  But slowly, talking with her became so easy, the words just poured out of them.  He told her about his home, his people, his customs.  He told her about the world he had seen, the world he wanted to show her.  He told her about himself, his pride and joy and loss and pain.  He told her about the scar.  And she listened.  She listened and she told him her own tales, of her childhood and her friends.  Of her struggles and hopes and fears.  Together on the beach, they found that they were more similar than appearances had led them to believe.

His heart nearly broke when she cried during his stories.  She touched his scar, pouring her heart down the bond without realizing it.  He knew he had to tell her about mates, and soon.  Not just because of Elain’s impending marriage, but because he couldn’t stand keeping the truth from her.

Somewhere in the midst of sunshine and smiles and stories, Lucien had fallen in love with Elain.  He’d fallen in love with her laughter, with her fondness over her sisters, with her easy joy and kindness.  He’d fallen in love with her blush, with the way she would snap at him when she disagreed, with her upturned nose and clever humor.  Lucien didn’t know how to stay away from her.  He didn’t think he could, even if he tried.

After a month of postponing the betrothal, Elain told him to meet her at midnight.  Tucked behind the rocks, Lucien watched the shore, waiting for her to appear.  Lamplight appeared, quickly extinguished as she raced down the steps and across the sand.  Splashing sounded, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Elain finally landed in the circle of his arms.

“You’re here,” she breathed into his skin, lips whispering over his shoulder.

“I promised I would be.”  When Elain finally moved back, he tilted her chin up, the moon reflecting off the tears lining her beautiful brown eyes.

Before he could open his mouth to ask, Elain was sobbing against him.  “Tomorrow,” she gasped around the tears.  “They’re sending me away tomorrow morning.”

Lucien tightened his arms around her, but he forced himself to ask, “Is that what you want?”

“No,” she said, fingers digging into his back.  “No, I can’t stand it.  I want to be anywhere but here.  I want to be with you, Lucien.”

He leaned back again, needing to see her face.  Her eyes were determined, even lined with silver.  “I love you, Elain,” he said softly, needing her to hear it.

She laughed, the sound soothing him as much as her words, “And I love you.”

“We’ve talked about this,” he reminded her.  “I can’t take you back to my home, you would never survive there as a human.  Just as I would not survive in your homeland forever.  Someone would find out eventually.”

“You’ve traveled the whole world, surely there’s somewhere we can be safe together,” she pleaded.  “I would go with you, no matter how far.”

Lucien looked back at the castle, wishing, not for the first time, that he could remain in human form indefinitely.  But as he’d told Elain, it was impossible.  A few hours at a time, he could manage.  Anything more was a gamble.  Especially since he’d never tried it before.  His father had long since banned the practice of shifting forms, deciding that the risk was too great as the human realm grew.

Thinking hard, Lucien cast his mind over the places he’d seen on his travels.  The human lands were vast, but not all of it was occupied.  He’d once stumbled across a collection of islands, wholly uninhabited.

He blinked.  An island.  It had been several years, but the last time he’d traveled nearby, there was an island with very few humans.  It would be perfect for them, if they could find it again.  And if he could get her there safely.

“What is it?  I know you have an idea, you can’t hide these things from me,” Elain poked his chest.

“There’s a place nearby,” he started.  “An island we could build a home on.”

Elain perked up, pushing out of his arms and splashing through the water.  “I have a boat,” she called excitedly.  “We can go right now.”

He laughed when he saw it, a small rowboat tucked under a tarp on the beach.  “What about supplies?  You should get food and water and clothes, Elain.  We won’t be coming back,” he reminded her.

Elain nodded, expression fierce.  “I will.  And then we make our escape.”

* * * * *

Several hours at sea in a small rowboat taught Elain two things: she loved Lucien very much, and she was a victim of seasickness.

She loved him more when he didn’t seem to mind that second thing.  In fact, when she was so miserable during a sudden rain shower, Lucien hauled himself into the rowboat.  She was too busy hurling her guts over the side of the boat to notice when his tail turned into legs, but once she recovered enough to recognize who was brushing her hair, she’d nearly fainted at the sight of…other things.

Even now, as the rowboat neared the shore of a quiet island, Elain found herself blushing.  Lucien had been so nonchalant, but she couldn’t set aside her lessons in decorum so easily.  She’d never seen a man before.  Let alone one who looked like Lucien did.  She wondered if all men were like him.  The memory made her squirm.

“What are you thinking about?”  Lucien teased her, swimming alongside the boat with a wide grin.  The quirk of his lips said he knew exactly what she was thinking about.

“Nothing,” she hissed, covering her head with her arms.

“Elain,” Lucien said, voice lowering.  “Have I ever told you about my sense of smell?”

“What about it?”

“That it is remarkably good.”

Elain huffed, glaring over the side at him.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he grinned, moving until his face was mere inches away from hers.  “That I can smell what you were thinking about, and it wasn’t nothing.”

For a moment, Elain sat still, puzzled.  Then she froze, legs clamping together against the wetness between them.  “No, you can’t,” she barked.

Lucien’s smile grew impossibly wider, eyes flicking down to her legs and back up.  “Should we check?”

Her cheeks were on fire.  She twisted away from him, unable to look at his face.  “That’s horribly improper,” she hissed, pinning her glare on the horizon instead.

“Elain,” he purred, circling the boat to float in her field of view once more.  “I’m very curious.  What kinds of things excite you?”

She buried her head in her arms once more.  “You’re a horrible bastard,” she growled.

“I’m a horrible bastard who loves you very much,” Lucien said, and she could hear his smile.  Despite herself, Elain found an answering smile forming on her lips.  “And I can’t help it if I love the scent of your arousal as well.”

“Lucien,” she wailed, clamping her arms over her ears.

“Elain,” he said, laughing again.  “One day, I am going to strip you of your propriety as well as your clothes.”

* * * * *

Elain thought she’d have time to adjust to seeing Lucien in all his glory.  In reality, she had about ten seconds.  The boat hit the sand, and Lucien hauled himself out of the water alongside it, the seawater drying until his scales dissolved in a flash of light.  Suddenly faced with two long muscled legs and the glaring manhood between them, Elain sat back down in the boat with a thump.

“Are you alright?”

“No,” she hissed, averting her eyes.

“Would it help if I told you it’s alright to look.”  Rather than teasing, like he’d been before, Lucien sounded sincere.  Elain blinked, peeking at him through her lashes.  She found Lucien kneeling in the sand, his expression earnest.  “I promise it’s alright.”

“But we’re out in the open, anyone can see us,” she whispered.

He just smiled.  “The island is abandoned.  The closest humans are across the strait, in a small fishing village.  I can take you later,” he said.

It should have been reassuring, but her mind caught and held on his final words.  I can take you later.  She clamped her thighs shut tight.

Of course, Lucien didn’t miss the movement.  His soft smile turned crooked.  “Anything you’d like to tell me?”  She blushed harder, making him chuckle.  Lucien reached out a hand, fingers playing with a curl of her hair.  “I’ll stop teasing, but I’m not putting on pants, Elain.”

“That’s only because you don’t have any,” she muttered.

Lucien grinned, standing up suddenly.  She squeaked, closing her eyes, but not before getting another glimpse.  “I’m going to explore a bit.  There’s a stream not too far from here, and it will be good to have a water source.  Come find me when you’re ready,” he said, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

Elain hummed her agreement, trying not to combust while she waited for his footsteps to fade.  Gods.  Lucien was going to be the death of her.  On the one hand, he was right.  There was no one around, so why was she so afraid of him?  She’d grown used to his naked chest, though that had taken a few days.  Perhaps she just…needed more time.

She looked towards the forest, seeing the branches swaying in Lucien’s path.  Or perhaps she just needed a bit more courage.  She’d gotten this far, in a boat with a merman on the run from her engagement.  Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to go and kiss the male she loved.

Even if he had no pants on.

* * * * *

She followed the stream until she stumbled across a waterfall.  Centered in a small clearing, clear water tumbled down over a fall of rocks, splashing into a deep and wide pool.  Elain gasped in awe, bending down to trail her fingers through it.

“I’d say this is the perfect place,” Lucien said from behind her.

“You could swim in this, right?”

He crouched down beside her, and Elain kept her gaze fixed on the water.  “Absolutely.  And you could swim with me.”

“I couldn’t,” she laughed.  “I don’t have any swimming clothes.”

“Why wear anything at all,” Lucien grinned at her, sitting down and extending his legs in front of him.  When his feet hit the water, the scales reformed.  She hated to admit she was more comfortable with him this way.  Elain opened her mouth, ready to explain, but Lucien stopped her with a finger at her lips.  “You know I would never do anything you don’t want,” he said, eyes searching hers.

Elain nodded fiercely.  “Yes, of course I do.”

He smiled softly, “What if you swim with me?  I’ll have my tail, and you can wear your swimming clothes if you must.”

Biting her lip, Elain nodded again.  She stood, watching as Lucien slipped fully into the pool, tail moving just enough to keep his shoulders out of the water as he waited for her.  She bit down harder, thoughts roiling.  She wanted him, she couldn’t deny that, but she was just so unsure about what to do.  She’d been taught how to be proper and ladylike.  She had no guidebook for this.  She didn’t want to do anything wrong.

All she knew was that she wanted him.

Taking a deep breath, Elain peeled her dress off, tossing it on the ground beside her.  Lucien’s eyes were wide, tracking over her shift.  Elain realized it was nearly sheer in the sunlight, and it would be even more so once it was wet.  She found that she didn’t care.

With a grin, she leaped into the pool with a splash, sending Lucien laughing.  His arms wrapped firmly around her, pulling her into him as he kept them afloat.  “Can I kiss you,” he asked, voice as soft as flower petals on her skin.

Elain didn’t bother answering, tilting her head and pressing her lips to his.  He groaned, falling into the kiss alongside her.  His arms were a warm band around her waist, crushing her chest to his.  The cold water had the tips of her breasts tightening, and Elain found that pleasure spiked through her when they rubbed against him.  Biting back a moan, she did it again.  In response, Lucien’s tongue invaded her mouth, a rogue wave overtaking her with pleasure.  She wrapped her legs around his waist on instinct, legs brushing over the velvet soft scales of his tail.  She clamped down on him, something driving her forward.  Faster, faster, her heart beat.  The heat between her legs grew every time he swept through her mouth, every time he nipped her lip, every time he breathed her in.

She gasped, breaking away to suck in air, but Lucien was undeterred, pressing his lips to the line of her jaw.  Her neck burned at his touch, his mouth blazing a trail to her collarbones, lower.  She moaned his name when his lips enclosed the aching tip of one breast, the heat of his mouth scalding her through the thin fabric.  The water roiled around them, his tail whipping through the water as he lifted her up.

Elain arched at the touch of teeth, a wild sound escaping her at the sharp bite, followed by Lucien’s soothing kiss.  She panted heavily, fingers scrabbling at his shoulders.  “Lucien,” she said hoarsely.  “Please.”

Those lips found their way back to her neck, her ear.  His teeth scraped over the lobe, making her shiver.  “Tell me what you want, Elain,” he breathed.  “Anything.”

“I want you to touch me,” she said.  She ignored the voice inside her that clawed for more than that.  The voice that wanted everything from him.

“I am touching you,” Lucien smiled against her skin, running a hand up the length of her back and into her hair.  His fingers caught on the strands, tugging lightly, sending lightning singing through her veins.

The heat within her roiled, and she snarled, “More.”

Water lapped against her as they moved, until Lucien pressed her back against a smooth rock at the base of the waterfall.  Droplets of icy water kissed her brow, in stark contrast to the warmth of Lucien’s skin.  “I need to tell you something,” he said, moving away from her.  He slicked a hand over his head, pushing damp ruby strands out of his eyes.

Elain felt feral, reaching for him again.  “Tell me later,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his jawline.

“No, I—it’s important,” he stuttered out, even as her fingers abandoned their grip on his shoulders in favor of trailing down his chest.  “I’m your mate.  And I know you don’t know what that means, but let me explain.”

She leaned back, frowning.  His eyes met hers, the russet one dark with lust.  His metal eye clicked and whirred, narrowing in on her face.  “Alright, tell me.”

“It means that I’m yours, destined,” he said, fingertips lifting to trace her cheeks.  The touch sent butterflies loose in her stomach.  “And you’re mine.”

“Like marriage?”

“Like forever,” he corrected softly.  “It means I bind my life to yours, giving up immortality to stay by your side.  Because we were made for each other at the dawn of the world.”

Elain’s heart warmed, warring with the fire at the apex of her thighs, a fire that wouldn’t abate.  “Is that why I want you so much?”

Lucien’s nostrils flared, as if he could scent her arousal even through the water.  “Maybe.  It’s not why I love you, though.”  He pressed a featherlight kiss to her forehead.  “I love you despite the bond.  But I know that the wanting is a part of it.  Once we do this, we are bound to each other.”

Her eyes widened, catching up with the information.  “You mean that if we sleep together, you lose your immortality?”

Lucien grinned.  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, laughing slightly.  “For you, I’d do anything.  I will gladly tie my life to yours so long as I can spend it with you.”

“You…want this?”

“Elain,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers.  Her eyes fluttered shut.  “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”  He kissed her over and over, her heart pounding.  “I want to sleep at your side so I can watch you wake with the sun,” he said, nipping her lower lip.  “I want to braid your hair and hold your hand.”  Elain gasped for breath when he licked into her mouth, utterly consuming her.  “I want to tease you and hear your laughter each and every day until eternity takes me.”

“I want you, too,” she breathed.  “I want all of you.”  Elain looped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

“Then tell me how you want me,” he growled, the words vibrating through her.

“I want you on the grass,” Elain said, grinning.

Lucien obeyed, giving her a boost out of the water before following.  Together, they watched as his tail dried and transformed.  Elain blushed but didn’t look away.  This time, she reached out, fingers trembling.  She traced a line down his heaving chest, using barely any force to push him onto his back.  Lucien’s eye was dark, the pupil swallowing any hint of russet as he watched her move lower.  Her finger found the seam of his thigh, moving farther south to tease at the dusting of hair on his thighs.  Elain watched as the throbbing length of him twitched, begging for touch, and finally decided to oblige.

Elain wrapped her hand around his hardness, fingers just managing to touch.  He was hotter than she expected, scalding her skin.  She touched him carefully, afraid to mar his velvet softness.

Lucien’s hand wrapped around hers, surprising her.  He tightened his fist, forcing her grip to follow suit.  Under their joined grasp, his cock twitched again, jerking upwards towards his belly.  She watched, a thrill going through her.

“Elain,” Lucien gritted out, pleading.

“Show me.”

So he did.  His hand guided hers, leading her fist up and down his rigid length.  They started slow, but gradually sped up until Lucien released her entirely.  On her own, she squeezed him tighter, watching his torso tense up, hips bucking into her hand.  When she grew curious enough, Elain bent down, licking up the bead of moisture that formed on his tip.

In a flash, she was on the ground, Lucien pinning her to the grass.  “Sorry,” he choked out, releasing her and backing away.

She grabbed his cock with one hand and he froze, hovering over her.  “I want your fingers.  On me,” she commanded.

Elain waited.  When he finally moved, she let him go, watching his proud length bob in the air.  Lucien crawled over her, resting one elbow on the grass beside her head.  “Tell me if you want me to stop,” he said, eyes flicking between hers.  His hand ghosted over her hip and down her thigh, fingers curling under the hem of her wet shift.

“Don’t stop,” Elain whispered.

The words set him loose, his hand tracing her inner thighs until he stopped at her undergarments.  The fabric was stuck to her, both from the water and her own slick.  Lucien traced a finger down her slit, and her hips lifted of their own accord, demanding more, more, more.

Lucien crushed his mouth to hers, lips parting as he slipped the fabric aside, fingers finding her apex with unerring accuracy.  She gasped for air as he rubbed slow circles, fingers sliding in her wetness.  A ball of molten heat settled in her lower stomach, flaring hotter as Lucien moved faster, pressing harder against her.  “Let me hear you,” he said, words spilling into her ear, nearly inaudible over the sound of her pulse.

She moaned at the feeling of his fingers sliding into her, walls stretching to accommodate two of them at once.  “Louder,” he murmured, finding a spot on her neck that made her shudder.  His fingers kept sliding in, until finally he curled them upwards.  Elain screamed, everything contracting at once, her whole body dissolving into the heat at her center.

“Lucien,” she said, a hoarse rasp.  His fingers slid out, then back in, starting a pace that threatened to drive Elain wild.  Slick sounds met her ears, making her blush.

He kissed her cheeks, grinning madly.  “I love that you’re blushing even with my fingers so deep inside you,” he crooned, making her face flame hotter.

“I don’t want your fingers anymore,” Elain bit back, fighting a moan.  When he pressed his thumb to her bundle of nerves, she lost the battle, a groan escaping her.

“Oh?  What do you want, then,” Lucien teased, pulling his hand away.  She whined softly, hips lifting in search of his touch.

“You,” she said, eyes darting down to his length, still hard.  Elain couldn’t stop blushing, but she knew what she wanted.

Lucien chuckled, settling his hips between her thighs.  His cock brushed against her, and she gasped at the same time as him.  “You’ll have to take this off, then,” he said darkly, hands pushing at the shift still covering her, if only barely.  The wet fabric had turned translucent, her pink nipples showing through the fabric plastered to her skin.  It was already pushed to her waist, so Elain arched her back and lifted her arms, helping him take it off entirely.  “I love the way your skin flushes,” Lucien murmured, pressing his lips to the blush across her chest.  He moved down to her breast, circling the tip until she huffed an impatient breath.

“Lucien,” she demanded, hands spearing into his hair to direct him where she wanted.

Before she could even attempt to move him, Lucien sucked her nipple into his mouth, pulling hard.  His teeth scraped the bud, making her wail.  Elain’s eyes shut, stars bursting across her darkened vision, and she panted between her teeth when he rubbed his cock against her, too.  This male was out to kill her.

In retribution, she bucked her hips, soaking him with her slickness.  Lucien moaned around her, vibrating the sensitive tip of her breast.  When he finally released her with a wet pop, Elain scrambled, fingers digging into his arms.  “Now, now, now,” she begged, pleaded, demanded.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, brows furrowed.

Elain simply rocked her hips again, her heat threatening to pull him inside her whether he wanted to or not.  “You won’t,” she asserted.  “You won’t hurt me, Lucien.  Please.”

Gritting his teeth, Lucien fisted his cock in one hand, guiding himself to her entrance.  Elain held her breath, waiting until the tip squeezed inside.  She inhaled, fingers finding purchase on Lucien’s shoulders.  Her fingernails left half moon indents when he continued pushing in.  The stretch left her gasping, but the pressure building within her core sent blinding pleasure arcing through her.  He moved so slowly, allowing her heat to swallow him one inch at a time.  Until his hips pressed against her own.

Elain threw her head back, arching into him.  The movement sent his cock throbbing against her walls, and they both moaned.  “Elain, wait,” Lucien gasped out.

“No more waiting,” she said, lifting her legs to squeeze him between her thighs.  She rocked her hips, or tried to, because Lucien pressed his body down to hold her in place.

“Are you sure?”

Elain lifted her head, biting down on his lip, just enough to sting.  “If you don’t start moving,” she threatened.

Lucien’s hips snapped into hers, the sudden movement making her choke on a gasp.  “You were saying,” he teased, pulling out of her again.

In response, she clasped his face in her hands, bringing his lips down to hers.  Lucien set a hard pace, his cock dragging over every inch of her with every thrust.  His hand found her breast, pinching the tip between two fingers and twisting enough to set her moaning.  She clenched involuntarily, making Lucien tremble.  So she did it again, and again, and again.

Finally, Lucien leaned back, releasing her lips and breast so he could haul her legs over his shoulders.  When he thrust again, he hit a new part of her, a part that made her shake uncontrollably.  He aimed for it every time, and Elain writhed helplessly, fingers clawing at nothing but air.  She thought her pleasure had already hit its peak, but Lucien proved her wrong once again.  His fingers found the bundle of nerves at her apex, rubbing a hard and furious pattern while his thrusts turned wild.  “Come for me, Elain,” he growled, that voice hitting parts of her previously left unexplored.

Elain shattered with a scream, fingers ripping into dirt and grass.  And Lucien followed her, his groan piercing the silence of the clearing.  Unbearable heat filled her in spurts, and his cock pulsed, twitching hard against her walls.  She nearly came again from the sensation.

Lucien collapsed, half on top of her, pressing his lips to her neck.  His kisses traveled across her face, and she smiled when he found her mouth at last.

“So, my darling Elain,” he said, the words rasping over her skin.  She shivered pleasurably, even as she mourned his loss when he slipped out of her.  “Should we build a house now?”

[hd-cluefest]

H/D Cluefest 2022 Anon Masterlist

Thank you to everyone who participated, read, kudosed, reblogged, and/or commented. It's all of you who make this fest amazing and so worth every minute of work! A big thank you from all of us mods; we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Now, without further ado, the anon masterlist.

📂 [Podfic] A House on Fire, E, 01:06 h

Podfic from P1013's fic, House on Fire. For the last five years, Auror Draco Malfoy has walked into his office with hardly a glance at the illusioned window taking up the back wall. It looks out over an imagined London, a perfectly bright and brilliant view of the city that hides the smog and rain and dirt that clings to the city like a patina of time that can never be worn away. It's always a perfect summer's day with soft, white clouds that float through the painfully bright blue sky like a dream. He likes to imagine the gentle breeze that ripples the surface of the Thames brushing across his skin, since he'll never be able to actually feel it. After all, his office is located on the second floor and is, therefore, underground. Or at least that's what he did before the seventh of October, 2009.

📂 [Art] a living thing, G, Digital Art

The closest house is miles away, and the red clay earth eats sound. He had married Draco, had moved here in hopes of a perfect love, a fantasy romance, but something is terribly wrong with this place. Draco is nervous, and tells Harry with his eyes not to drink the tea that his mother serves.

📂 A Love Like Salt, E, 24.6k

Grimmauld Place has been acting strange; locked doors won’t open for Harry and he could swear the rooms are shifting around to trick him. Is the house just up to its old tricks or is there something more sinister afoot? And what's with all the Draco Dazes?

📂 a study in endings, E, 27k

Auror Harry Potter is sent to investigate Malfoy Manor where Draco Malfoy has been sequestered, alone and unseen for years after his parents’ mysterious deaths. After abruptly being snowed in, Harry is trapped within the eerie manor with no company save Draco, his family’s secrets, and several ghosts. What is the Malfoy family hiding? And is Draco in on it?

📂 Blink and You’ll Miss it, M, 10k

Lucius Malfoy is missing and Auror Harry Potter’s been assigned to the case. Really, Harry couldn’t give a toss about Lucius bloody Malfoy, but for some reason, Harry can’t help but try his best when Draco looks so excited every time they find a new lead. Where is Lucius Malfoy and why doesn’t Harry mind looking for him as much as he thought?

📂 [podfic] Chasing Shadows, E, 09:35 h

The murder of Lucius Malfoy seems impossible—no cause of death, no traces of spell-work, no potions in his system. The only leads Harry and his partner have are the trail of missing wizards the deeper they go. That and the help of the victim’s estranged son who now spends his time bartending at a queer-friendly Muggle pub. A case fic featuring a closeted Harry Potter, an out-and-proud, tattooed Draco Malfoy, and a murder mystery that seems to lead to more questions than answers.

📂 Cold, M, 6.7k

When Harry suddenly falls ill due to an unknown cause, the healer informs both Harry and Draco that he is dying. Will Draco be able to save him in time?

📂 [Art] Dancing with the Enemy, G, Digital Art

All across Britain magical portraits are going to sleep and not waking up again. Draco Malfoy, portrait magic expert, is tasked to assist auror Harry Potter during the investigation. Is it a curse, failing magic, or something more sinister?

📂 Draco Malfoy and the Broken Room, T, 7.3k

A drunk and morose Draco gets trapped in the Room of Hidden Things with Potter of all people. Now, he’s got to figure out how to make peace with the Golden Boy long enough to get out.

📂 F*ck!, E, 28.6k

Harry is trying to enjoy his busy life as a Healer (in spite of his dreadful lime green robes), when something mysterious happens. Why on earth is Auror Draco Malfoy suddenly appearing out of thin air in Harry's kitchen? And why is he always injured? Harry needs to investigate. And also get a new pair of robes, but one thing at a time.

📂 Heartlines, T, 22.3k

Just as Draco Malfoy's life seems to be getting back on track, the magic at Malfoy Manor goes haywire. One Harry Potter is assigned to the case, finding that nothing is obvious. The flare ups are unpredictable at best, downright dangerous at worst, and why has a Hogwarts first year gone missing at the same time?

📂 Memento Mori, M, 24.5k + Origami

Seven is the number on my door. It’s the amount of scars I bear on my chest. It’s the time I wake up every morning. Seven is how old I was when father beat me for the first time, and seven years later I felt the force of a Cruciatus by the same hands. —— When Draco wakes up from the Incident of the DoM with no memory of what happened and what he allegedly did, he needs to find the missing pieces of his life. All between balancing his duties, his despise for the Wizarding World dearest Saviour, Longbottom, and dealing with those warm green eyes that haunt his mind.

📂 Memory Lost | You Found, E, 30k

After his Auror training, Harry's assigned to guard the Department of Mysteries - specifically the room where Malfoy is being held in comfortable captivity. Yet no one will tell him why, and what's more concerning? Malfoy doesn't remember Harry at all. To uncover the mystery, Harry must travel all the way to Egypt where he discovers a magical community living in the great pyramids and a long held secret that is dangerous to anyone who knows it.

📂 My Best Friend, the Serial Killer, E, 37.3k

Draco’s best friend and flatmate Pansy Parkinson is a lot of things: she’s beautiful, intelligent, doting, and a bit unnerving…but Draco loves her all the same, even if he has to clean up after her bloody – ah, messy romantic breakups more than usual. He doesn’t mind, after all, what are best friends for? But Draco starts to question just how far his love can go when Pansy brings home her next victim – ah, boyfriend, Harry Potter.

📂 Operation Dragon's Shenanigans, E, 14k

Harry's in love with Draco, but it's complicated. Even more complicated than 'I'm in love with my ex-archnemesis and I get dizzy every time I see him smile'. No matter that Harry's an Auror, and always loved a good mystery, he's still having trouble figuring Draco out. And he's the only one who can see that Draco isn't a regular human. So, as he's done every year since he was eleven, Harry sets out to solve the mystery of 'Why is This Shit Happening to Me?'

📂 [podfic] Owl in a Day’s Work, M, 52min

Owls have vanished across wizarding London, but Auror Draco Malfoy is on holiday, so surely that’s someone else’s problem?

📂 [Art] Search & Find at Narcissan Blooms, T, Digital Art + 634 words

You should have known Auror Potter would be useless when you agreed to shadow him on this case. Yet, here you are, standing in Malfoy's stupid Apothecary and investigating a murder. It's up to you to solve the case, so you might as well start looking around... A Drarry I-Spy Investigation: can you spot all four clues?

📂 surely some revelation (is at hand), M, 12.2k

In a dystopian society where peacekeeping dementors are employed to stamp out resistance by damaging souls of the dissidents, Draco strives to do what's right. Or: Harry is in a cult and Draco becomes the cult leader.

📂 Swallowing the Sun, T, 6.9k

Getting sent to investigate the thrilling report of Malfoy's morning paper going missing isn't high on Harry's agenda, to be honest. Malfoy's a time-waster, and a pain in the arse to the whole department. Or is he?

📂 The Ever-Changing Room, E, 33.7k

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter have been married for five years, and everything's grand—until Harry disappears one day without warning. He's left behind three letters and the whole of the Wixen World demanding to know where he's got to, including Draco. Unfortunately, Draco's not a very good detective. Hermione is, though. Or: Draco travels Europe looking for their ever-elusive husband.

📂 There's a strange love inside (it's getting louder), E, 31.7k

Professors Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have worked together at Hogwarts for ten years, and in this time they've managed to become sort-of-not-quite friends. After all, it's been fifteen years since the war and everyone is a bit tired of old rivalries. When Draco goes missing and Headmistress McGonagall asks Harry to go into the Forbidden Forest to find him, Harry doesn't think much of it. Until he both finds more than what he'd bargained for, and not what he'd originally set out to find.

📂 Twist and Turn (Until We Find Our Way Out), T, 22.2k

We believed it was just a myth, the Elder Wand. But over the years we have come to confirm that it is, in fact, real. This project will contain research of the powers of the Elder Wand. We have obtained the subjects who have had the Wand in possession. Precautions have been taken to make sure no other Masters has been created during the concealment of the subjects. At no other time in history has more than one Owner of the Elder Wand been recorded at once for a longer amount of time. We hope to learn more about why that is during this project. Because of this unique opportunity, we must make sure the subjects do not eliminate each other. The subjects’ importances in this project can not be understated.

📂 (Un)Anticipated, E, 8.4k

Though he won't ever admit it—not even years later, when Draco's giving Harry shit about it right before they go to sleep, the bedside light just dim enough to hide the worst of his blush—it takes Harry an embarrassingly long time to realise that something is wrong. It's not like he's trying to pull regularly. If he wants to get laid, he gets laid. He is, after all, Harry Potter. But it's not until it's a Saturday morning, and he's languidly stroking himself off in the shower with long, slow pulls that he feels deep in the pit of his stomach, that Harry realises that he's been at this for quite some time, and while it feels amazing and his toes are curling and his balls are pulled up tight… Nothing's happening.

📂 What is this, fucking Jeopardy?, E, 20.5k

Draco is struck by a wayward curse of unknown origin and keeps trying to get Curse-Breaker Potter to help him. It’s rather frustrating that he seems to be so busy… and that Draco can only speak to him in questions. Draco’s at his wit’s end trying to get oblivious Potter to realise why he’s bothering him, and Harry won’t stop making obscure Muggle references. Like the last time, when he just stared at Draco before yelling “What is this, fucking Jeopardy?!” before walking away.

📂 [Art] Where is my newspaper?!, G, Digital Art

Where does Draco's newspaper always disappear to? He's sure to have seen it just a minute ago. Same as the last times...

📂 winter happens, like a secret, E, 26.9k

Shortly after moving in with Harry, Draco is repeatedly haunted by a dream. He sees snow, he sees his father’s gardens, and he feels the presence of another person, someone he yearns for. With Harry’s help, he slowly starts unravelling the mystery of the dream and discovering secrets about the Malfoys far worse than anything either of them could have imagined

[hintofelation99]

The Justice League Hangs out with Duke

Bruce: Duke, it's time we had the talk.

Duke: Uh... nope. No thank you. I'm not getting the sex talk from Batman.

Bruce: What? No! The Robin talk.

Duke: But, I'm- I'm the Signal now? Isn't it a bit late for a Robin talk?

Bruce: Son, it's never too late, not for this.

Duke: Um. Ok.

Bruce: When Dick, Jason, and Tim first started as Robins they created a tradition. A tradition that continued with Stephanie, Damian, and now you.

Duke: And that tradition is?

Bruce: Taking down the Justice League. By being annoying and slightly terrifying.

Duke: OHHHHHH. Is that why no one from the Justice League talks to me?

Bruce: Yes, yes it is. But don't worry. I made an arrangement that will allow you time alone with league members to continue the tradition. You have a week to prepare.

——————

Duke: Cass, what do I do?

Cass raises an eyebrow at Duke.

Duke: For the Robin tradition thing. I have to take down the entire Justice League in a night using creative, outlandish, and original methods. But it's already been done by Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, and Steph. So what do I do? How can I be better than all of them.

Cass smirks: Take them down too.

Duke looking at Cass like she's crazy: What?

Cass: Take. Them. Down.

Duke: Holy shit, you are terrifying.

Cass just smiles and leaves.

-> One Week Later <-

Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, and Steph gather in the Watchtower.

Duke: Hey guys, Batman just wanted to go through some training exercises with everyone. He'll be a little late. Harley and Ivy escaped Arkham and are trying to grow penis shaped shrubs in all the public parks. But, don't worry he asked me to go ahead and start with out him.

Green Lantern: Why are you leading this meeting?

Duke: Batman is running late and he wants me to practice leading meetings.

Green Lantern, glaring suspiciously at Duke: Are you about to do that stupid Robin tradition where you torture all of us?

Duke: What Robin tradition? Also, I'm not even a Robin? I'm the Signal.

Green Lantern continues to glare at him.

Superman: Calm down Green Lantern, the Robins never do this in front of each other.

Every League member seems to relax at this.

Duke acting confused: Uhhh, yeah. Ok, we have a few housekeeping things to do according to the list Batman left. So, I'll have everyone pair up for sparring while I handle these individually.

------

Everyone is in the training room working out or sparring. Duke approaches Tim.

Duke: Hey Tim, Bruce wanted you to look in to that Bludhaven case. Is that ok with you?

Tim: Yeah, why wouldn't it be?

Duke: Oh, I just thought it might be difficult considering what Dick did.

Tim: ...What did he do?

Duke: Wait, you haven't noticed? Oh no, I'm sorry I shouldn't have said anything.

Tim: Duke. Tell me what he did.

Duke: Well, Jason said that he replaced all your coffee with decaf.

Tim: THAT BASTARD. No wonder I've been feeling so tired! I'm going to kill him!

Duke: Wait, just stop! I heard that he hid all of it in Green Lantern's room.

Tim: Wait, why there?

Duke: Something about you being afraid of him.

Tim: WHAT?! I'm not afraid of the Green Nightlight! I'm gonna find that coffee then make Dick pay.

Duke: Oh, well cool, good luck!

------

Green Lantern: Um, what are you doing in my room?

Tim: Where is it?

Green Lantern: Where's what?

Tim: You know what I want. Give up now or face the consequences.

Green Lantern: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Tim: Fine. Consequences.

------

Steph, sparring with Duke: So, what's it like being the first meta bat?

Duke: Not too bad, but I could do with out the whole 'predict the future' thing.

Steph, laughing: What? You can not see the future.

Duke: I bet you $50 I can

Steph: Your on.

Duke, makes everything around him light up and uses a weird voice: In the next thirty minutes Green Lantern will flee the Watchtower in fear. Soon after Dick will be attacked by Tim.

Steph, snorts in obvious disbelief.

Steph: That was so fake-

Green Lantern runs out of the tower looking terrified.

Steph: No way.

Tim tackles Dick and they start fighting like three year old's on the floor.

Steph, handing Duke $50: Holy shit Magic Man.

Duke makes things light up and does the voice again: Oh my god.

Steph, looking excited: What?!

Duke: The- the sushi. The sushi you brought today, it's made from-

Duke pretends to choke back a sob.

Duke: It's made from the fish who was the maid of honor at Aquaman's wedding.

Steph: HOLY SHIT.

------

Steph and Aquaman sit beside each other for lunch, she pulls out her sushi and looks at Aquaman sadly.

Steph: I am so, so sorry for your loss. But just know that her sacrifice is not in vain.

Aquaman, looks confused for a second then sees the sushi: NOPE. Not this again! I'm leaving.

Steph: Wait! I'm sorry!

Aquaman leaves as Steph tries to chase him down.

------

Jason is laughing and filming as Dick and Tim fight.

Duke, whistles: Man, imagine if that video went on YouTube.

Jason, looking confused: What?

Duke: I'm just saying if the video of Red Robin and Nightwing fighting like kids ever got on YouTube, it'd go viral. Oh and they would be so pissed!

Jason, laughs: Too bad B would kill me if I uploaded this.

Duke: Yeah, I guess so. And you can't upload it here because then Superman would get in trouble.

Jason: Why would the boy scout get in trouble?

Duke: Cause he always uses his YouTube account on the Justice League computer. So it'd look like he uploaded it and B would find out that Superman watches cat videos while he's on monitor duty.

Jason, smirking: Huh, so you're saying if I upload this on the League computer I'd piss off Bruce, Tim, and Dick and get Supes in trouble?

Duke, acting innocent: Huh, I guess so.

-> A Few Minutes Later <-

A call from Bruce comes up on the main computer.

Superman: Hey Batman, what can I do for you?

Bruce: You, Red Hood, cave now.

Jason: What? Why me?

Bruce: Because I saw that little home video you uploaded of your brothers.

Jason: What, that wasn't me!

Bruce: I could hear you laughing while you filmed.

Jason: Dammit.

Jason and Clark leave for the cave pouting like kids.

------

Duke: Hey, Black Canary?

Black Canary: Yes Duke?

Duke: I'm sorry to do this on such short notice, but I'm very worried about Dick and Tim.

Black Canary: Why?

Duke: Well, Tim keeps claiming that Dick is out to get him. Something about Dick messing with his coffee? And Dick feels like he's just being attacked for no reason and is worried about Tim's health. Is there anyway you could intervene?

Black Canary, looking sighing and looking exhausted: Usually I have three days of preparation before dealing with bats.

Duke: I know it's just-

Duke gestures to Tim and Dick rolling on the floor fighting.

Duke: They really need help.

Black Canary: Alright, I'll see what I can do.

Black Canary attempts to intervene only to get pulled into the fight. Now the three of them are tangled in a huge, confusing fight, that's filled with yelling and hair pulling.

------

Duke: Damian! Quick!

Damian: What is it Thomas.

Duke: I think somethings wrong with Dick and Tim and maybe even Black Canary. They're all fighting and won't stop! Can you help me contain them so that we can figure out what's going on?

Damian: Fine. I shall help.

Duke: Ok, just try to herd them into this containment cell.

Damian joins the fight managing to get everyone, including himself, into the containment cell. As Damian is trying to leave Duke closes the cell. Damian angrily yells and bangs on the sound proof walls.

Duke: What? Sorry, can't hear you! My hand slipped!

------

Wonder Woman: Very well done Signal.

Duke, acting innocent: Hm?

Wonder Woman: You tricked Red Robin into scaring Green Lantern away, then into fighting Nightwing. Once that fight broke out you tricked Red Hood into uploading a video to the internet using the Superman's credentials. By uploading that video he caused both himself and Superman to face Batman's wrath. You also used the fight to trick Stephanie into annoying Aquaman to the point of leaving. Then you involved Black Canary in the fight, which was her downfall. And, as a final touch, you managed to get Robin into the fight and trapped all in a containment cell. You successfully eliminated 9 foes with one trick.

Duke: You mean 11.

Wonder Woman: What?

Duke: 11. You see, I didn't trick Red Robin, I tricked Nightwing. I had a week to prepare. In that week I convinced Dick that Tim needed to cut back on the caffeine and that Dick should help by switching all of Tim's coffee with decaf. I also convinced him to hide that coffee in the watchtower, in Green Lantern's room. So that was all true.

Wonder Woman: But, that still does not make 11?

Duke: It does. Because This morning I moved the coffee. I replaced the Flashes decaf with Tim's ultra caffeinated coffee. You see Tim has it specially manufactured to increase the caffeine levels. And, while Flash doesn't usually drink his coffee in the morning, he's always running late and forgets, he does drink coffee during training breaks. Which is now. So in about five minutes we will have an incredibly caffeinated speedster in the Watchtower. And since you're the only one around right now with a chance of catching him, that's your problem.

Right as Duke finishes Flash runs by, majorly hyped up on caffeine.

Duke: Checkmate.

------

Martian Manhunter: It appears that I am the last remaining League member.

Duke: Yeah, I don't really understand this tradition but apparently every Robin ends it by picking a favorite league member.

Martian Manhunter: Out of all the League members, why have you chosen me?

Duke: Your smart and have a lot of cool powers. Also, I dunno, I hear you sometimes feel like an outsider with the league. Cause, the whole martian thing. And I know it's not the same but, sometimes I feel like an outsider with the bats, being the only meta and all.

Martian Manhunter: You have chosen me so that we may bond over our lack of connections?

Duke: Uhhhh, yeah?

Martian Manhunter: Hm. Very well, I assume that this is your “Robin Weakness”. Apparently every Robin has one.

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

<- Previous |

[toasterwords]

Irena was chosen by lot to be the lindwurm's wife, after it devoured the third and last of the princesses. Prince Viktoras came himself to inform her.

Convenient, she thought, that the lottery had drawn Irena, from the lower city, poor and almost kinless. An only child, her mother dead, her father old and feeble.

And the bride-price that the crown prince brought with him was enough to support her father in comfort for the rest of his days. Irena could take it and be free of this house, of the burden of his care, of watching him slip away as he forgot her face more and more often. Or she could be carried away by the guards the prince had brought, and leave nothing behind to help him.

She had no power here, and she was wise enough to know it.

Her father, sitting at the kitchen table, stared mutely as the prince set the money on the table in front of him. Irena had to pick the box of coin up herself.

"I need time to make arrangements for my father," she said to the prince.

"Of course," he said. "You have half an hour to prepare yourself before we depart for the palace. Be sure you do not go more than a house or two away."

"I won't make trouble for you," Irena said. "It would only upset him more."

She looked Prince Viktoras in the eye until he looked away, and it satisfied her, just a little, to know that he was ashamed. Then she took the fine enameled box that held her bride-price, her blood-price, and walked next door with it. Widow Simoniene made the evil eye in the guards' direction, but took the money and the key to the little house and agreed to look after Irena's father.

Irena went back home with a heavy step to say goodbye.

"She thinks she'll move in, and rent out the big house," Irena told her father. "She doesn't need all that space, now that her sons have moved away. You won't be alone without me."

Her father wasn't speaking today, and Irena wasn't sure how much he understood. But he held Irena's hand tightly, looking over Irena's shoulder at the guards in the doorway. Irena clutched it back for a moment, then pried her father's fingers off and turned away.

She didn't look back as she left him. Her father had taught her pride, and she hoped that he still recognized it.

***

The walls of the castle loomed around her like the bars of a cage. She was received in state, like she was yet another princess. The king and queen and courtiers seemed embarrassed by her dress, work-worn, and her braid, falling down her back for lack of pins. But if they had wanted her to be more presentable, she thought, they should have given her more than half an hour to put her affairs in order.

After a hasty formal greeting, she was ushered away from the royal family and put into the hands of a half-dozen maidservants. They spread out the three dresses and two petticoats that she'd brought from home, and began discussing how to refine them by the morrow. Irena was deposited into a steaming bath, with one junior maidservant to help her.

A knock came on the door while Irena was still bathing. The maidservant rose to answer it, and returned with a bundle of fabric in her arms.

"The Lady Astrauskaite has sent you some of her dresses," she said. "And says that you may have them altered if they suit you, or do what you like with them if they don't."

Irena knew the name. Duke Astrauskis' daughter. Betrothed to the prince who had come to collect Irena. The betrothal that had sparked all of the princess-eating in the first place.

Was it sympathy, that had prompted the gift, or pity, or condescension? No doubt she had been at the blighted reception. But without knowing who in the crowd the lady had been, Irena did not know if the fuss had led her to flinch or to sneer.

She did not know, either, if Lady Astrauskaite had wanted to be betrothed to Prince Viktoras. If it pained her to see other women eaten because the king wanted his heir wedded to her, and the lindwurm demanded to be given its bride first.

"Is there a way for me to speak to the lady?" she asked the maidservant. "To thank her?"

The maidservant hesitated. "A note would be most appropriate."

"I cannot write," Irena said. "Is there no way to speak to her in person?"

She wanted to know if this was meant as a kindness. It might be easier to have someone write a note for her, and go to her death pretending that it was. But she would wonder, and it would niggle at her, and she did not want to go to her wedding and her funeral wearing a dress given to her out of condescension. She might be poor, and she might be trapped, but she had too much pride for that.

"Not that is proper, just to give thanks. But-" The maidservant's eyes were sad. "You are not scheduled to dine with the royal family tonight, and Lady Astrauskaite is not either. There would be nothing wrong with one woman extending an invitation to another, especially if they were soon to be sisters-in-law."

"Then I would like to do so," Irena said.

***

Lady Astrauskaite was taller than Irena, and much plumper, which meant that the borrowed dress Irena chose to dine in had to be discreetly brought in with pins. The lady's hair was bleached yellow, and her complexion hidden with white powder. She looked as uncomfortable as Irena felt.

"Thank you for joining me, my lady," Irena said, with a very cautious curtsey. The pins in the dress pricked her if she did not move rigidly and with care.

"Please, don't," Lady Astrauskaite said, which made the face of the steward following behind her pinch unpleasantly. "We are future sisters. After tomorrow. And after my wedding, of course. So you can call me Rugile, as a sister would."

"Yes, my lady," Irena said, unable not to look at the steward's sour face. "Thank you. You may call me Irena."

The table was small, for intimate conversation, which only made the dinner more awkward. The food was splendid, soft white bread and creamy cheese and rich meat-packed soup. It sank to the bottom of Irena's stomach like stones.

Within two courses, Irena felt sure the dresses had been a kindness, because everything that Lady Astrauskaite said was kind, and without sneer. She asked after Irena's health, and after that of her family, and she seemed genuinely distressed to hear about Irena's father. She diverted them after that to light anecdotes, tales of tutors and horses and amusing court mishaps, and winced anew with guilt whenever Irena lacked the grounding to laugh at a tale.

After two whole courses, Irena cleared her throat. "My lady, what can you tell me of the lindwurm?"

Lady Astrauskaite went still, then set her spoon down, looking Irena in the eye. "What do you already know?"

"That the queen was barren for ten years, and she went to a witch to open her womb. And that because the conceiving was unnatural, so was the birth, and while one child came out healthy and whole, the other came out as a lindwurm. And that it is confined to the palace, and horrible to look upon. That's all that we in the lower city know."

"It's not so terrible, once you get to know it."

"Except for the eating its brides."

"Yes." Lady Astrauskaite picked up her napkin, and began to twist it in her fingers. "It wasn't the witch's fault, you know. She told the queen to eat one of two flowers, and only one. Red for a boy, or white for a girl. And she ate the white first, but then she thought of her husband, and how he needed a son, and ate the red as well."

"And the queen told you this, my lady?"

"Yes. In confidence. The king would be furious if he knew."

There was a silent question in her gaze, asking if Irena would keep that confidence, and Irena nodded back. She knew of angry husbands and angry fathers, though her father had blessedly never been one. You never told them what you knew.

"She went back to the witch, she told me. After the lindwurm was born, and again, in desperation, after the second princess was wed and eaten."

"And what did the witch tell her?"

"The first time, that the lindwurm could only be made human if someone was found to trade their one skin for the ten it wore. And that of course was impossible, because who wished to be a lindwurm? The second time, she gave up another way, but it would require great courage from the bride."

She looked Irena in the eye. Another silent question, and again, Irena nodded.

"Tell it to me."

"As the queen told me that the witch told her, when you retire for the wedding night, you must have ready a tub of lye, and a tub of milk, and a stack of ten birch rods. And you must be dressed in ten layers of dresses. Then, when the time comes to undress, you must take off one layer at a time, and tell the lindwurm to shed a skin in exchange for each one. By the time you are both finished, the innermost part of the lindwurm will be exposed. Then dip the birch rods in lye, to beat it into the right shape, and bath it in milk, to give it a new skin. And last and most importantly, you must lie and embrace it the whole night through, as a woman embraces a lover."

"But there was the third princess before me," Irena said. "Did she not try this?"

"No," Lady Astrauskaite said, her gaze downcast. "I told her what the queen told me, and I had the tubs and the birch rods ready. But she had told me twice that she was not sure that she could embrace the lindwurm, that the last piece seemed the hardest. And at the wedding she tried to flee. The lindwurm gave chase, and she- she was caught and devoured."

Where had she thought to run, in this crumbling old castle? Maybe it had seemed less of a cage to a princess. But she'd been caught in it nonetheless.

"I will not run," Irena said. Clearly she could not. "And if the other choice is to be eaten, of course I will try the witch's spell."

Lady Astrauskaite smiled, worn and relieved. "The dresses I sent to your rooms should be enough to bring you to ten layers. I will bid the servants have the tubs ready in the marriage chamber, and the birch rods with them. They gave me no argument before, and will not now, though they might have looked askance at you."

Of course they would obey her. They hovered nearby even now; surely they'd heard everything. And surely they would snatch just as eagerly at a chance to be rid of the lindwurm.

***

Despite the hope that Lady Astrauskaite had offered, Irena could not sleep the whole night through. It was difficult to think about herself being eaten. But it was easy to think about her father waking without her, confused and distressed by her absence. Any explanation the Widow Simoniene made would confuse him more, or upset him if he could understand it.

Irena dressed herself in her ten layers, her own well-fitting dresses on the bottom, Lady Astraukaite's larger, more splendid dresses on the top. By the time she had put the tenth and last one on, the ones below padded it thoroughly, so that she seemed to fill it out the same way that a rich woman would.

The wedding was a thoroughly dismal affair. First there was a feast, tediously long, interrupted by faltering speeches between every course. Every speaker proposed a toast to the happy couple, and Irena, who had never had more than a single glass of watered wine in a night, had to struggle to keep her head from spinning.

She wasn't even seated close to her intended spouse, for the lindwurm had a table of its own, away from the grand one where Irena sat amid the royal cousins. Food enough for ten men went down the great creature's gullet. It was scaled like a snake in mold-colored grey, with stiff ridges along its spine. There were legs near the front end, powerful and clawed, and above that the head of a dragon.

Though the servants kept its table laden with steaming roasts and sweetmeats, it kept its eye on her, staring with unabashed hunger. Only when Irena met its gaze directly did it look away. No one else at the table seemed to acknowledge its presence. Nor hers, for that matter. Only Lady Astrauskaite tried to speak to her, and quickly was diverted.

If the feast was dismal, the wedding ceremony was more so. Prince Viktoras escorted Irena to the dais from one side of the hall, and the queen, pale-faced and stiff-backed, walked with the lindwurm from the other. The priest's hands trembled as he turned the pages of the holy book.

"Irena Kazlauskaite, do you take this-" He had to pause there, take a deep breath, and then continue. "-This lindwurm, to be your wedded spouse, your protector, to love and to obey?"

"I do," she said, and was proud that her voice sounded clearer and stronger than his.

"Lindwurm, do you take this woman to be your wedded wife, your helpmeet, to love and to protect?"

"I do," said the lindwurm. Its voice grated like stones rubbing across each other, and it still stared at Irena with nakedly hungry eyes.

She stared back, watching the restless twitching of its mighty coils, which could each trap a man within them, and the flex of its forelimbs, which had dragged its length effortlessly down the narrow aisle. It could tear the castle walls to pieces if it wanted to.

And why hadn't it? Trapped within these hallways, confined in rooms that must be entirely too small for it? For a creature so strong, the castle was no cage at all. Irena would have torn her way free and fled to the countryside long ago. She looked at the hunger in its eyes and felt an echo of it in her own heart, imagining how easily it, unlike her, could break loose from its prison.

Yet it stayed, pretending to princedom, dragging her into its farce of a royal wedding. She wished she could know why.

The priest finished giving his blessing. The young prince and the queen retreated, along with the trembling priest, from the dais. A forced, ragged cheer rang out from the assembled witnesses. She tore her eyes away from the lindworm's body, and saw it tear its eyes away from hers.

There was no glad chivaree for the newly-wedded couple, only a solemn procession to the top of an elegantly-appointed tower. It was well-furnished, Irena saw as they wound their way upwards, but the furnishings were all damaged, fabrics torn by claw and tooth, wood cracked and splintered by the lindwurm's terrible tail. The enormous bed was new-made, with fresh sheets, but she could see where it, too, had scuffs and scars on the bedposts.

By the fire, two tubs sat waiting. One was filled with yellowish lye, the other with fresh white milk. Ten birch rods lay in a neat stack between them. Irena glanced back at her grim escort, and caught sight of Lady Astrauskaite, who nodded to her from the rear.

Then they all left, and the door slammed shut, and Irena was alone with her new spouse.

"My wife," the lindwurm said, in its stone-on-stone voice, coiling up very near to her.

"My name is Irena," she said, looking up to meet the lindwurm's eyes. "As we are married, you may call me by it. And what am I to call you by?"

The lindwurm reeled back from her. "I have been given no name. I should have the mirror to my twin's, but they will not grant it to me, for the priests say a monster cannot be baptized."

Irena was trying too hard not to show her trembling to spare time for pity. But at that phrasing, she looked at the lindwurm anew.

"The white flower was to be for a girl," she said, remembering the tale Lady Astrauskaite had shared with her. "And the queen ate that one before the other. Your name should be Viktorija."

"Yes," the lindwurm said, drawing closer. "You know the tale. The misborn child of greed and folly, trapped in a shape that no soul desires."

Irena looked up to meet those hungry eyes, now closer to starving. "If you feel so trapped inside that skin, why do you not exercise what freedom you do have? If you do not want to seem so monstrous, you should not eat the women you marry."

The lindwurm turned her head away. "It is this form. In it, there are urges that I cannot resist. When I desire something badly enough, I am driven to devour it. I desired flowers, as a child, and I devoured the garden my mother planted for me. I desired books, when I learned they held knowledge, and I devoured the library when Viktoras took me to it. And I desire humanity, and the love that humans feel for each other, and so-"

"And so," Irena echoed. "I will tell you now, I may know a way to free you from that skin. But you must do as I ask, and it may hurt, very badly."

The way Lady Astrauskaite had spoken of it, Irena had thought that the key would be trickery. But she had not thought then of speaking civilly with the lindwurm. It was one thing to lie to a monstrous creature, one who would be a man and a prince at the end of it. It was a very different thing to deceive another woman.

"You do?" The lindwurm turned towards her with amazing speed, eyes wide, claws gripping the floor so hard they left grooves in the wood. "No matter how it may hurt, I will do everything that you ask."

"Then first, you must shed a skin."

The lindwurm sagged a gainst the floor, the joy going out of her. "It is not time for me to shed, and I cannot force it to begin. Even my own claws cannot tear this terrible hide."

Irena thought back to Lady Astrauskaite's phrasing. She would have to act as closely to the witch's words as possible, if she was not going to fall into the same trap as the queen.

"I will show you," she said, turning her back to the lindwurm and reaching for the buttons of the topmost dress. "I will remove this dress, and you will remove a skin in exchange for it."

The air prickled around her like there were invisible eyes in every corner. As she stepped out of the dress and turned back around, she saw the lindwurm shaking herself out of her skin. Only the uppermost of its layers, for it must have grown many to be so impenetrable; but the skin beneath it was less scuffed, and the ridges softer-looking.

"This changes nothing," the lindwurm said, and then she fixed her hungry eyes on Irena again. "But you wear another dress beneath it."

"And I will take that one off, too."

She watched, this time, as the lindwurm reached behind her head and fumbled with the ridge down the back of her neck, the same way Irena's fingers fumbled on her buttons. The skin fell away in one layer, head and forelegs and tail peeling off together. Irena could feel the magic, watching and listening all around.

And so it went, dress and skin, over and over another eight times, until at last Irena was standing naked in the center of the room. The lindwurm's skins, softer and more tender with each layer, were piled behind her. And she stood in front of that pile, a raw, skinless thing, pitiful and helpless. She was only vaguely human in shape, yet, with her face as long as a horse's and her lower limbs bound together by ropes of muscle and sinew.

She trembled and whimpered with pain at the wood of the floor and the heat of the fire, agony against bare and oozing flesh. But her eyes were still hungry, fixed fast to Irena. Hungry and full of hope.

Irena swallowed her disgust and picked up the birch rods, to dip in the lye. It seemed cruel, when just the air and the floor pained the lindwurm so terribly, but there was no other choice, unless-

Unless one was found to trade their one skin for the ten it carried.

She had not dwelled upon the witch's first answer, any more than the Lady Astrauskaite had, or the queen. For those who had power in their own right, only one of the ways the witch had offered seemed worth the dwelling. The way that let the lindwurm's shape, even now, be chosen and defined by another.

She could feel the magic even more strongly now. It prickled against her skin, nearly burning between her shoulderblades. If was as if there were buttons there, too, waiting to be opened.

Irena's own obligations were discharged. Her father was in safe hands, his dotage well-funded. All that held her in place now was the threat of force, the cage of the castle looming over her.

Behind the lindwurm, her skins lay on the floor in a thick and fetid pile. If Irena could step out of her own skin, and don those, no bond or obligation would ever tie her down again. For what walls, what force of arms, could hold the lindwurm?

Her heart full of hunger, Irena dropped the rods pressed her fingers against the back of her neck, to the place where the magic burned. But no seam or button came clear. The magic seemed to lean in closer, listening intently. It had waited, she remembered, for them to voice the exchange, each of the ten times before.

"Viktorija," she said, "will you make a trade with me? My one skin, for the ten of yours?"

"Yes," Viktorija answered, and her voice was small, and cracking, but full of joy. "I will make that trade with you."

Irena reached to the back of her neck again. Her skin came apart cleanly at her touch, without pain. She stepped out of it, as she had stepped out of the dresses, and cried out immediately at the feel of splintered wood on her skinless feet, and the draft from the fire against her skinless flesh. Viktorija was much stronger than she was, to endure them with only whimpers.

Walking towards her, Irena held her skin out, open all down the back. Viktorija reached out and took it, and it wrapped itself around her, splitting her lower limbs into two legs, remolding her face and her arms, imposing a woman's shape upon her formless flesh.

She stood, still trembling, and lifted up the first of her own scaled skins for Irena to step into. Irena felt her legs fuse together as they entered the tail, her flesh painlessly elongating to fill the space as the much-larger skin closed over her. Then the next skin, and the next, each layer of scales less tender, until the last one went on, and she was so encased in the lindwurm's armor that nothing in the king's whole armory could have broken through.

The skin closed, but the magic was still there, hanging in the air like a persistent damp. Irena felt her forelegs shaking, and her head was heavy; she looked at Viktorija, who was shaking too.

Stretching out her heavy coils, she fought exhaustion to wrap them around Viktorija. Then she crawled up onto the bed, pulling Viktorija up with her. Curled around her, on the soft, claw-shredded mattress, Irena fell swiftly and soundly asleep, embracing Viktorija like a lover.

***

They were roused in the morning by the creak of the door. The king and queen entered, fearful, and Prince Viktoras and Lady Astrauskaite walked in after, both downcast with concern. But they all looked in amazement at the bed, and who was in it.

Irena looked down at herself and Viktorija. Her own scales gleamed black, sleek and shining, instead of the mold-colored mottling that Viktorija had sported. And while Irena's own hair had been straight and dusty-colored, her skin weathered and her face thin, Viktorija was plump and noble-pale between Irena's coils, with a snub nose and a round face and chestnut hair falling in long curls.

"But," Lady Astrauskaite said, her eyes filling with tears. "The birch rods, and the lye, and the milk-"

"The witch's words were true. Here is your sister, my lady, Your Highness, and here is your daughter, your majesties. Last night she traded me her ten skins for my one, and we are both more comfortable in our new attire."

The king's hands worked at his sides, tightening into fists, then loosening when he looked again at Irena's coiling black bulk. "I would rather a daughter and her wife than a daughter and another lindwurm. I had been told you meant to save my child, but you have only traded for her troubles."

Viktorija was stirring now in Irena's coils, her eyes blinking open. She smiled at her family, and three of the four smiled back. Even the king's hard face softened.

"My father-to-be, be glad," Lady Astrauskaite said, sweet and coaxing. "You have a daughter, to please your wife with, and your son has a sister for the two of you to spoil. Irena has done this for us, as a loyal servant of the crown."

"Yes," the king said, drawing back his ire. He raised his gaze to meet Irena's eyes. "What do you want from me for this service?"

Irena unwound herself, gently, from Viktorija, then slithered off the bed. She dug her claws into the much-abused wood of the floor and gloried at her strength when it splintered and broke.

Her bride-price would keep her father fed for life, and she trusted the Widow Simoniene. There was not a feather's worth of weight upon her. "I want nothing but my freedom, Sire. And for you to treat your daughter well."

"I will make sure she is cared for," said Lady Astrauskaite, looking at Irena fondly, without fear. "For she will be my sister, just as I will still consider you."

Irena looked at her closely, trying to tell if there was any longing in her eyes. But there was only only relief and gladness in her, no appetite for claws and scales. And her hand was so firmly wrapped around the prince's that he was very clearly where her paltry human hunger lay.

"Yes," Irena said, to her and her alone. "Care well for her. She would have endured terrible pain to take this shape, and it would be wrong to let her suffer more now that she has it. As for myself, I will go into the countryside, and I will be free."

The king and queen stepped one way, the prince and his lady another, and Irena surged past them and through the open door. Winding her way down the staircase, she felt her tail bash against the walls, and delighted in the way they cracked with each blow. Half-walking, half-crawling, she emerged into the ruined garden at the foot of the tower and made for a gate in the wall.

It wasn't big enough for her full bulk, but that didn't matter. She pushed her head through, and thrust with her shoulders, and the masonry broke around her without even a strain of effort. Heart pounding more and more joyously, Irena slithered out through the hole she'd made.

The sky was blue above her, bright with morning sunlight, filled with the scents of earth and beasts and flowers. Irena paused for a moment to take it in, raising her head and twisting up and up on her own coils until she could see the rippling fields stretching away from the walls. As she lowered herself again, she saw a flock of birds in flight, winging their way over those fields towards a forest beyond.

Irena started after them. She would see what freedom tasted like, and savor it.