#which I cannot even begin to comprehend

[daphnebowen]

happy bday to the one and only walker scobell!! you’re genuinely funny and soooo soooo good at playing percy Jackson. (And probably the other things you’ve been in but I haven’t seen anything else with him in it haha) I can’t wait to see all the other amazing things you’re going to do with your life. here’s to you cutie!

he’s such an adorable lil boy who will surely grow up to be a heartbreaker one day! Love you goofball!! (like a little brother, because you’re just a little too young for me haha)

[knbposting]

kagami has red hair he's so cute he has fun little eyebrows never change king

[theropoda]

dear followers, i'm writing on the behalf of a woman, a sister, a mother, a grandmother, named wafaa who has been speaking to me on tumblr from the dire situation in gaza. i'm here to share her story, her plight with you, her campaign with you so you can help her. her house has been bombed, the place she grew up, her place of work, her husband's place of work has been bombed, where her children grew up, her family (three generations of people, which is 15 people including a newborn infant) doesn't have anywhere to go.

she has already lost precious people in her life, lost precious people who were her world, her sister, her brother's son... she can't bear to lose any more people than she already has! she is already wracked with a grief and sadness i genuinely cannot even begin to comprehend. none of us can. yet she still has hope in god that through us, people across the world, can help her family escape this situation. let us not let her down.

i know you're all struggling with money right now. already struggling with bills and food. but donate what you can afford, still. even if it's just a single dollar! because it all adds up, it all adds up in the end. when wafaa first contacted me i believe her campaign was at around €13,000 out of €50,000, but now it is at €21,465! it all adds up. we can keep this going, with donation matches, by spreading this campaign, sharing even if you can't donate. so please. help her family, with whatever little you can.

(verified by nabulsi)

[lovphobic]

oh so its just radioactive waves from a worse time in my life

[flagellant]

For the past few years I've been enchanted by the idea of the divine as intrinsically horrific and dehumanizing, but not in the usual assumption (pun intended), where the intrinsic dehumanization and horror comes from something like "A god looked at me and I turned into stone" or "I, a mortal, looked at a god and got turned into a laurel tree".

I've been thinking about it in the opposite direction. Where being a god is intrinsically horrific and dehumanizing.

To put it another way: I've been writing a lot from the perspective of divinity where the god experiences godhood in the way a haunted house experiences househood. You were created by mortals for comfort, for condolence, for safety, for sympathy. You were built with all the care and special attention to ensure that you would last a long time--longer than your inhabitants would live, but that's fine, because they'll leave you descendants.

Except you, unlike the average house, have a brain. Have hands. Have a stomach which can hunger but never starve. You cannot die, but you know what death is. You see humans and raccoons and spiders and trees and rocks and everything else in this whole world die all the time, but it will not touch you.

How many years do you think it takes before your mouth starts to salivate like your gut's gone sour? How many endings do you have to witness before you begin to stop caring when things you paid attention to die? How many times do you hear your name contort and twist under the weight of different empires' languages before you stop recognizing it as yours anymore, and cease answering when they call?

How long does it take before you stop being capable of interacting with the rest of the world in a way that a person can understand, can safely comprehend, would ever want to experience?

And how much of that, do you think, do you let happen on purpose, because the alternatives were all too much to even begin to imagine after one too many mountains turned to sand before your eyes?

[aajjks]

Promise (m)

synopsis. Your boyfriend finds out a secret you’ve been keeping from him.

warnings. Yándéré, prégnáncy, tóxíc rélátíónshíp, ímménsé jéálóusý, cómplícátéd rélátíónshíp, côntróllíng jk, pósséssívénéss, dárk, flúff.

note. new manipulator in town LMAO.

You are a stupid lying cunt.

How could you even hide a such a big thing for him? Do you really underestimate him that much did you really think that he wouldn’t find out?

Jeon Jungkook is a man that cannot be underestimated, and you should’ve learned your lesson a long time ago. It’s been four months since that argument and he’s been really patient with you.

He let you go, even though you kept on rejecting his efforts to try to get you back… he doesn’t understand why you don’t want him back.

Yeah, he gets really jealous and sometimes those things that piss you off, and you need space from him, which he doesn’t blame me for, but at the same time, he doesn’t understand how you don’t get him.

He just loves you very much.

And he doesn’t want anyone flirting with you and when someone flirts with you, despite knowing that you are taken, he punches them in the jaw, breaks their face, and then you get angry at him for being violent.

It is a vicious cycle, he knows.

But people should know better than to test him when they know that you are taken by him. Why is it so hard to comprehend for anybody?

And why the fuck do you have to take the other persons aside all the time.

He has given you enough time, now it’s time you come back to him.

So he’s invited himself into your house with the spare key had he had, but he’s seeing right now, this new avatar of yours— nothing could’ve ever prepared him for this.

A baby bump.

“Y-You are pregnant yn…”

You step aside, allowing him in, but there’s a hesitation in your movements that he notices.

Once inside, he stands awkwardly near the door, watching you. His eyes scan you like he’s trying to piece together what’s been going on in your absence. Then he sees it.

Your shirt is loose and slightly stretched over your stomach. The curve is small, but it’s there. He freezes, his chest tightening as his gaze drops lower.

You’re pregnant…

It’s barely a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity before he speaks again, his voice barely above a whisper. “YN… what is that?”

You look down at your stomach, and the briefest flicker of hesitation crosses your face. You’ve been hiding it, hoping no one would notice. But Jungkook has always been able to read you better than anyone else. He steps forward, his eyes widening as the realization hits him like a freight train.

“You’re…” His words catch in his throat as he takes a step closer, then another. He reaches out, trembling slightly, like he’s afraid to touch you, but his hand finally lands on your stomach.

His fingers press lightly, almost too gently, as if waiting for you to pull away. “You’re pregnant?”

The word hangs in the air, a heavy, suffocating silence following it. You take a deep breath, but your words don’t come easily. “Jungkook, I—”

“No,” he interrupts, his voice dark, almost broken. He’s still standing too close to you, his hand still resting on your belly, as if he’s afraid to pull away. “You’re pregnant?”

Yes, he knocked you up.

He looks at you, his face a mix of disbelief and something darker. His jaw tightens, and his eyes begin to search yours as if looking for answers.

“You’re hiding it from me?” he asks, his voice dangerously soft. “You’ve been carrying my child and didn’t think I had a right to know?” His voice cracks with emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me, yn?”

There he goes playing the victim.

You snap, your anger rising as his words hit too close to home. “Tell you?” you scoff bitterly, stepping back from his touch. “You think I should’ve told you? After the way you’ve acted?”

You glare at him.

“Every time someone looks at me or even breathes in my direction, you’re out there fighting! Every damn time someone flirts with me or looks at me the wrong way, you act like the world is ending! Do you really think I want to deal with that, Jungkook? Do you think I need that in my life?”

His face falls, his jaw tightening, and he takes a step forward. “You think I fight because of jealousy?”

His voice is low, strained. “No, I fight because I don’t want anyone near you. You’re mine, yn. I’ve always wanted you. I can’t stand the thought of someone else touching you, looking at you like they have the right to.”

Why don’t you get it???!

You shake your head, frustration bubbling over. “You’re insane, Jungkook.”

Yeah he’s fucking NUTS.

“You’ve never trusted me, and you’ve never respected me! I don’t need you to fight for me. I need you to stop acting like a damn kid every time someone looks my way. I need you to grow up!”

His hand twitches at his side, like he’s about to grab you, but instead, his fingers curl into a fist, his anger evident.

“WHY DONT YOU FUCKIN GET IT YN????” He screams like in anger.

“You think this is easy for me? I see someone trying to get too close to you, and my first thought is you’re mine, don’t even think about it. That’s how it’s always been.”

“I don’t care about the rest of the world. I only care about you. I don’t care who looks at you—no one gets the right to. Not while you’re with me.”

Your eyes flash with rage. “You never let me breathe, Jungkook! You’re so obsessed with controlling everything, I can’t even be a person anymore without you over my shoulder, making sure no one looks at me. It’s suffocating. And now…” You glance down at your stomach, your heart pounding.

“Now you show up and want to control this too?”

Jungkook stands still, his gaze flickering between you and your stomach. His expression softens for a brief moment before it hardens again. “You think I’m controlling you?”

“I just want to protect you. Protect us. Do you understand? We’re going to be parents, yn. You’re not just mine in this moment. You’re carrying our child, and I’m not letting anyone take you away from me. Not ever.”

You stare at him, the anger still simmering beneath the surface, but something else bubbles up now too,

something more vulnerable.

“I didn’t know what to do, Jungkook. I didn’t want to feel like I was trapped. I didn’t want to be constantly under your watchful eye.”

Jungkook steps closer, his expression shifting from anger to something softer, almost desperate. “I’m not trying to trap you. I want us to have a future. Our baby is part of that future. You don’t have to do this alone.”

You cross your arms over your chest, not ready to give in. “You always say that, but your actions never match your words. You overwhelm me, Jungkook.”

He will never understand!

His voice lowers to a whisper as he steps even closer, his hand hesitating above your stomach, unsure whether you’ll allow it. “Please, let me be part of this. Let me be the one who helps. I’ll change, yn. For you. For our baby.”

Can he change?

For a moment, there’s silence, thick with the weight of everything between you. You’re not sure if he can change, but you’re not sure you want to walk away from him either. Your breath catches in your throat as his fingers finally touch your belly, a gentle caress that somehow feels like both a promise and a plea.

“I’ll protect you both. No one will ever hurt you again,” he murmurs, his voice soft now, as if he’s finally beginning to understand the gravity of what’s happening.

When you don’t respond, his tone gets more desperate.

“Please baby…”

You look up at him, eyes still angry, but now there’s something else there too. Something you can’t ignore.

“Promise me,” you whisper.

“I promise,” he says, his hand pressing against your bump, his eyes full of resolve. “I’ll never let anything or anyone take you from me again. You’re mine, yn. Always.”

Will he be able to keep his promise? He’s not sure.

[parfaitblogs]

can I ask a blurb of post prison spencer and sunshine reader? She works in the BAU as the media liaison and when she rescues him in the episode 300 he looks at her and is like angel? Am I in Heaven?

spencer reid x sunshine!reader. fluff/hurt/comfort. also angst if you squint. i should’ve just slapped smut in here to make it a quinfecta! 0.5k words. gn!liaison!reader. set during '300'.

a/n: thank you for sending me back into orbit by getting me to rewatch those two episodes. i need spencer reid biblically. unfortunately that's not what this blurb is about. but i was audibly barking every time i pictured him. i am terribly sorry for keeping you on edge about when this was going to be posted </3 i wasn’t sure how happy i was with it for the longest time. thank u for the request ♡

spencer reid who accepted his fate the second he was taken hostage. because honestly, the likelihood of his team finding and rescuing him in time was slim to none, and he had lost wars to hope too many times before.

spencer reid who tried to stall his death with a speech, trying to dull the uncomfortable ache in his chest thinking nobody was coming to save him. maybe he could lie his way into believing his team had found him, and he would picture their faces before he inevitably died.

spencer reid who definitely did not expect the awfully loud gunshot — one, then two — ringing throughout the air, followed by panic and yelling. who wished he could've been relieved to see each face of his team slowly appearing in his view, followed by more gunshots, and the promise that he was safe.

he had already accepted death. 

but, spencer reid who's entire facade changed the second you came into view. no gun in hand, because you never were expected to need one, which was even more horrifying to him than the fact that he had been milliseconds away from his own death.

spencer reid who stared at you like he was but a planet and you were the sun he was orbiting, something he knew he'd get teased for later. but right now you were here and he was watching you attempt to unbuckle each leather strap holding his limbs into place, strained laughter escaping him every time you failed because your hands were shaking so hard.

spencer reid who's face fell when you finally met his gaze to get the leather strap holding his head in place, and he could see the tears brimming your eyes and he could hear the sniffles you were intaking to keep your emotions at bay. an achingly painful contrast to the facade he was used to seeing on you.

spencer reid who asked "what's wrong?" and who's heart ached when your response was "i thought i was going to lose you". spencer reid who's heart probably shouldn't have then stuttered like that in his chest at your admission, and he definitely shouldn't have allowed the rush of hope at your words.

but, worse than that, he realised he had accepted his death without thinking, and if he died, he was leaving you and perhaps that was worse than any situation he has been in before, in all fifteen years he's at the bureau.

and you, who's vision was awful from the tears you were attempting to keep at bay, yet you stared at him for a beat, taking in every graze and bruise on his face the best you could to commit them to memory, before wrapping both arms around him and pulling him into you. spencer reid who sobbed in your arms; a scenario you had never even considered the possibility of because spencer reid did not cry anymore, and prison had fractured him in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend. but he was here, and he was crying again, and sad sight or not, he was feeling.

spencer reid who thanked you over and over again for finding him, because no, he really didn't want to die. 

your reblogs and replies are always appreciated dearly ♡

[rel124c41]

LABORATORY LOVE. jade leech

It makes perfect sense that you are failing potionology, you come from a world without magic! You just wished your failures weren’t the recent entertainment to a certain vice-housewarden.

tags: developing relationship, character analysis, teeth analysis, teasing, potion accidents, 5 + 1 trope, comedy of errors, suggestive themes, & getting together

word count: 21,656

Since the beginning of your impromptu enrollment in Night Raven College, classes have taken your dizzy brain and swirled it around like mixed cake batter. Uncaring of your blunders, the courses march on. You have had multiple professors pull you aside for hush conversations about how: magic might not be something you should be studying; you’re showing great difficulty with this section, my door’s open for extra help; do you have any hobbies, perhaps you should look to pursue one of those. 

You wonder if they knew you were from another world entirely along with being magicless, their tone might change. Compared to others, you were leaps and bounds above where you should be. 

Not that you are aware of your competence. And, even then, it is never enough. Which is admittedly very frustrating. You do not like to be viewed as a failure or incompetent. 

Back at home, you were always on top of your studies, kept yourself afloat on a little canoe. In Twisted Wonderland, your limbs grow fatigue with how harshly you have to tread water to stay afloat. Constantly, you felt ready to drown. You manage to withstand it though, avoiding going under by keeping water a fine line across your chin and bottom lip. 

And, even then, that is never enough.

I. The scarab beetle was added before ginger root when the correct order is ginger root then scarab.

To be fair, you are tired beyond belief. You had to pull off your gloves multiple times to rub sleep out of your eyes. Switching up the order of the ingredients … This is one of the stupider mistakes you have made in Professor Crewel’s class. To be thoroughly fair, the anxiety about your recent situation coupled with sleeping on the uncomfortable spare bed in Leona’s room has been starting to kill your restful nights. 

What a well devised strategy. Chip away at the mental fortitude of a person by taking away physical comforts. Azul Ashengrotto truly knows where to point the arrow notched in his bow. 

You just wish he had chosen anyone other than you.

Yawning, you deposit the comatose scarab beetle into the cauldron. One second it is a black freckle on the gray-blue mixture, and then the next second it has been dissolved down to the bone. It ate it as quickly as acid does, you think awestruck, I’m glad I’m wearing gloves. Said gloved hand holds itself outstretched towards Ace, your lab partner, as you murmur, “Okay, hand me the ginger root now.”

“Huh? I already handed you that though,” Ace says, looking up from the logs of cinnamon he is cutting as instructed.

Usually you two have Grim do the physical labor, cutting up ingredients, while you and Ace uptake harder tasks. However, Grim is not free, called in for an impromptu shift during school hours. Part of you cannot comprehend how that is possible – to work during school – but another part of you cannot comprehend magic, so really the whole globe, this Twisted Wonderland, is incomprehensible. 

An incomprehensible globe where you make friends with the stupidest of the bunch. 

“No you didn’t; you handed me the next ingredient that had to go in.”

“Yeah, which was ginger root. Don’t tell me the fumes in here are making you stupider, Prefect. Your brain fried or something,” Ace asks. He tilts his head in a taunting way that is not effective due to the anemone sprouting from his skull.

“Says the one with the anemone coming out of his brains.”

“Hey! Just because you’re being forgetful doesn’t mean ya get to insult me!”

“Please don’t play smart with me right now. I just need —.” Your words fall out of your mouth as you catch the sight of ginger root sitting pretty on your side of the lab table, untouched and not in the potion. You blank, dumb, until a sudden heat wave washes over you.

Not a blush though you realize as a smoke cloud of brimstone blooms up mushroom-like from your cauldron. Your once squinting eyes widen in fear.

The potion releases a wave of gas as it evaporates away in seconds. It feels like getting punched with heat after opening an oven. As you stand there looking at the bottom of your cauldron, mourning your potion, you suddenly hear laughter in the midst of this new humidity.

“... No — HAHAHA — No fucking way! HAHAHAHAHA!!”

Dread fills you first upon hearing it. Whatever has Ace laughing and pointing at you is definitely not a positive in your book. Sevens above, you are not dealing with being potion-ed cat ears again. It must be something physical on you at very least. Because, Ace has not stopped pointing and bursts out between his bellows, “Now you match the part of looking like an idiot! HAHAHA!”

Annoyance quickly shoves dread to the side. Gut-instinct guides your hand before your brain can catch up. Clutching ginger root, you reel back your arm ready to whack Ace with it until a certain hand shackles your wrist. Shit.

“Ace! (Name)! Once again, this is unacceptable behavior from both of you. Did your parents pick you off the streets and neglect training?” Ah, you recognize those dog analogies anywhere. Curling in on yourself, you turn around to give Professor Crewel a sheepish smile while he keeps your wrist hostage.

“Sorry, Professor Crewel.” 

You would be delusional to think your potionology professor has a soft spot for you; he probably only sees you as a nippy Pomeranian or a Retriever freshly showered in mud. The scowl on his face is something you have come to be familiar with from August to November. 

Crewel sighs, “Luckily, these supplies are not hard to obtain. I’ll be sending both of you to fetch more ginger root and scarabs from the botanical gardens.” His steely eyes aim at you. “And Prefect, I suggest retrieving a hat for yourself. An unsightly look is one step away from a disorganized headspace. Try to be a bit more mindful, pup.”

“Yes, Professor Crewel.”

You have no idea where the fashion advice came from. However, you are not going to dig yourself a deeper hole by asking the Professor what he means by unsightly look and disorganized head. Besides with the way Ace is still biting down a grin, you expect that you will privy to it soon.

“Dismissed.” Professor Crewel sends you on your way.

As soon as you two round the cauldron, you and Ace are both immediately on one another. He grabs the back of your neck as you kick his shin. Idiot! No you’re an idiot! Says the idiot! Ace pinches your cheek as you give him a Chinese burn, grabbing his forearm and twisting it in your grip. I can’t believe you messed that up! At least I’m not signing contracts to cheat! Stumbling to the door, kicking and fighting with each other, you just barely catch the glimpse of Deuce sending a wince of sympathy your way. 

Ace sticks his finger in your ear. His spit-coated touch sends a shiver down your spine. Breaking your whispering, you caterwaul just as you push Ace and yourself out of Crewel’s classroom, “I’m gonna kick you where the sun don’t shine, asshat!” Ace’s cackles are the last thing the classroom hears before the door shuts firmly in place.

The botanical gardens are not somewhere you find yourself often. The mere size of it intimidates you greatly. Plus, it has so many dangerous things lurking inside of it like lion tails, man-eating plants, and carrots that when plucked incorrectly can send you into a coma just from a single scream. For your own growing trepidation, you choose to stay out for safety reasons.

Though splitting up is not your idea, you still concede to it. The guilt over your sleep-addled mistake speeds up your agreement. After all, it was you who switched the order. Thus, you walk around the botanical gardens looking to grab dandelion root (which came before the scarab beetle and ginger root) while Ace gathers a single scarab beetle. 

At least Ace takes up the more perilous task for you. Scarab beetles when provoked flicker on and off in a brilliant light display of red until it explodes. If the mage cannot match the rhythm of beeping reds with the light of their magic pen, the scarab self-destructs. It is hazardous for you to anywhere near an alive scarab. Besides …

Danger finds you like a faithful, old friend.

Standing on the little bridge that curves over the miniature river, danger arrives at your side like a mistress. “So pretty,” someone whispers breathlessly. You choose to ignore this, thinking someone is appreciating the flowers. Pamphlet in hand, you worry your bottom lip and consider which side of the bridge you have to walk down to find the dandelion roots. 

“He-Hello there, Prefect. Quite a nice day for a stroll, don’t you think?”

Caught off guard, you turn to see who is addressing you. It is one of those Octavinelle twins. He holds an empty  jar in his gloved hand. However, you are unsure of which one you are dealing with.

“Ah … yeah,” you twitch as you respond. Where the hell is Ace? You would rather not be alone with a mage that you saw send multiple students to the infirmary only two days ago. You remember it vividly: all the students rushing forward to tear up the contract, as Azul stood on the table, saying with fake direness, “Dear me, I really didn’t want to resort to violence, but alas. Jade. Floyd. Play with them for a bit.”

You shift your eyes away like one might avert the gaze of a stumbling, rabid raccoon. “Sure is … a nice day?” Truthfully, you don’t think you have had one of those in Twisted Wonderland. Your day has just gotten worse in the twin’s presence.

Under the canopy of black walnut leaves and palm washingtonias, you assess all your escape routes. Whichever twin this is, he is looking at you so intensely, eyes half-lidded and the faintest dusting of pink on his cheeks. It takes only a moment for you to realize he is staring at what lies on your head, but you have enough time to map your escape route.

“Well, it was nice seeing you –,” you start, heading down the bridge, in the opposite direction of the Octavinelle twin. You just barely make it a step and a half when he catches you off guard again.

“You have Potionology this period, yes? It is a Wednesday after all.” How the hell does he know that? 

Yet, hearing how he structures his words, you think you finally recognize which one it is … Jade, who had said to you just yesterday, “And if you’re in need of lodgings, feel free to come and speak with us. Reservations for guest rooms in Octavinelle dorm starts at 100 thaurmarks a night.” The last conversation that happened between you two. Eyes pinching down, you think, he’s such an asshat for saying that to you who is very much broke beyond broke.

“Yeah, I do.” You resume your steadyfast escape route. You can clearly hear Jade walk over the wooden bridge, following after you. 

“If my deduction is correct, it seems you have been caught up in the potion accident. What a most unfortunate turn of events; potionology is often a tricky subject for students to grasp.”

Yeah, and without magic or a basic education on this stuff, it’s impossible for me.  You send Jade a wary glance. Now matching strides, you really have no choice but to converse with him or your friends will probably suffer more during their shifts. “Yeah, I messed one up.”

But no one says you have to be verbose during it. 

You ponder on why Jade is so interested in the multiple sea anemones blooming from your head. When your scuffle with Ace finally ebbed, the Heartslabyul student turned on his front-facing camera so you could finally see what made you look like an idiot. A glowing crown of blue sea anemones form around your head.

You cringed, your matching visage on Ace’s phone doing the same. Of course you are not spared any break from humiliation; when you come back to your temporary lodgings, Leona is probably going to laugh up a sandstorm. Ugh … you hate that stupid lion!

Jade says, “I’ve noticed this happens to you frequently. In August, you gained cat ears and could only speak in crying meows. You were deaged down to a toddler on September 14th. Then in October, you underwent a body swap with your friend, Ace Trappola, for a full five days; Thursday through Monday. Am I correct?” How the absolute fuck does he know that?

“...Yeah.”

“You know, Octavinelle is always willing to help those in need. I, myself, can offer –”

“No thanks.” You glance at the pamphlet and take a sharp left turn. Jade follows.

“My, what a harsh rejection. How audacious of you to deny me when I am scheduled to train Deuce and Ace later on tonight. But, I suppose if that is how you feel –”

Begrudgingly, you turn around and frown, “Be easy on them, won’t you? Bye, Jade.” Snapping your pamphlet open wider, you continue on your way. 

What an idiot. You already stuck your neck out enough for them by signing Azul’s contract. Keeping polite conversation with Jade? You could do that. However, you will not take up another deal with Octavinelle anytime soon, unless … well, no, you think to yourself. That hovering ‘unless’ probably won’t happen with Jade. Whatever Jade needs, he can find elsewhere.

Dandelion roots should just be down a little farther; another right turn and you should be upon them. At least that is how your route would have gone if you were not grabbed and spun around by your shoulders. You stare into Jade’s dilated eyes in shock.

“Prefect,” his voice comes out more growl than speech. He soothes his fake humanitarianism voice with a cough and repeats, “Prefect. Just hear me out.” The vice-housewarden almost sounds desperate to keep your attention on him.

“Okay.” You try to ignore the close-lipped smile on his face as you fold up your pamphlet. “Okay.” Dandelion roots are one of the few non-sentient plants in this twisted wonderland, so you can pause your search for Professor Crewel for a mere moment. “I messed up a potion today, but I don’t need your help with it.”

Tutoring … from anyone. You despise the very thought. Before, you were so capable and so independent; now, you have to waver and bend yourself to the assistance of everyone in this alien world. God, you cannot even protect yourself from your day to day. The entire world outscales you like a final boss compared to a NPC.

“Are you absolutely certain? Who knows what kind of misfortune can fall upon you at the hands of a botched potion? Who knows, you could find yourself breathing in poisonous gas or having your intestines turned inside out. What an excruciating sensation.”

A whole body shiver runs down your spine. The fact that that is not out of the realm of possibility makes you loathe your existence in this world even more. Still … “What do you want from me?” … you have Ace and Grim at least making sure you aren’t blown to bits by an exploding cauldron.

“It is just a simple matter of the fungus growing from your head.”

“Fungus?”

Jade’s voice turns so fond that it startles another shiver from you. His lovestruck gaze fastens itself to the apparent mushroom crown sitting on your skull. “Entoloma Hochstetteri mushrooms. The non-scientific name is blue pinkgills.”

Bored and tired, you yawn. Jade glances down at your mouth with pervertish intrigue. It might just be the same amatory he regards the blue pinkgills with staying in his eyes. However, you can imagine him mocking you about having to sleep in Leona Kingscholar’s room so you screw your mouth into a frown.

And, as if reading your body language with ease, Jade offers, “If you are still having troubles with your lodging, I’d benevolently suggest a trade.”

“A trade?”

“A room in Octavinelle, free of charge; all to yourself and your dire-beast for the full two days left in your contract. In exchange, you will give me the Entoloma Hochstetteri blooming from your head. An item for another item. Fair, yes?”

“No.” You straighten your posture. “I want something everlasting; not just temporary satisfaction.”

“Oya? Whatever did you have in mind?”

This is something you have been pondering about for a while. Truthfully, you were considering it your very first week after the encounter with the overblotted creature in the mines. Taking a deep breath, you announce your only term, “I want protection against overblots.”

Jade’s optics grow, dilating and blinking in surprise. It is … simultaneously an extremely well thought out and dumb request. Protection is something you need. But with Jade, someone you barely just met, providing you protection? You neither seem like the type to trust people too quickly or too hold out trust until the very end. 

Immediately on detective mode, Jade tries to figure out your aim. “Overblots are very rare phenomenon. Do you –?” 

“Tell me more about these pinkgills,” you suddenly interrupt, noticing that he is slipping into doubt over this deal.

A hand covers over his erratic heart, and a small sliver of teeth peek through his smile. “Ah, I’d be delighted to. Blue pinkgills are quite mysterious. No one knows if they are edible because no one has dared to try them. There is a peninsula that features them on their currency as well. It is the only country to have a piece of currency featuring a mushroom on it; I’d be delighted to have the opportunity to visit it someday.”

“That’s really interesting. Are they rare to cultivate,” you ask, faking genuine curiosity. 

“Unfortunately, yes. They are native to that one peninsula and thus –”

“Hard to come by? Rare?” 

You supply Jade with the words he is looking for. Subtly, you remind him of the fact these limited mushrooms are just a person’s deal away. The blue halo on your head becomes more and more enticing to Jade by the second. Blue that also bleeds with the color, such a psychedelic hue that almost hurts to look at.

You look like an angel under it … You? Jade hesitates at his train of thought; that is not the conclusion he thought his mind would go to. 

“What a surprise fufu; you are not as brainless as I intentionally presumed, (Name).” Smitten emotion slowly drains from his dual-eyes as he takes in your visage whole, not just the prize hanging above your head.

This is good. Jack could protect me but he is only a first year mage. Ace and Deuce do a good enough job. Grim is only food motivated. Jade did send multiple students to the infirmary by himself. This – “I’m glad to prove such an intelligent mage such as yourself wrong. It’s the first time I have ever done so.” – This is good. This deal will keep me alive and safe.

Jade shakes the hand you have offered up to him. However, before you can end the contact, he yanks you towards him. A groan of pain bleeds from you as you are pulled chest to chest with him. Chin pinched skyward by his other hand, you look into two halos, one gold and the other umber.  

Right away, you clock it as an intimidation tactic, so you do not let yourself appear frightened. Compared to those overblots you faced … 

“However, it would not be fair if I did not receive something everlasting as well. Not just temporary satisfaction.”

Subtle eyes dart around the botanical gardens, trying to find Ace, but halos are all you see. “Okay, what do you want on your end?”

“It is quite common for you to find yourself caught up in the misfortune of a poorly made potion. I want to be there – to watch you struggle and to watch you be powerless. That is all you need to give me.”

“I … I can do that.”

“Then, it’s a deal.”

When you met Jade officially in the cafeteria, you picked up his subtle habit of bringing his hooked index finger up to his mouth before he could smile too wide. When meeting with Azul in the VIP Room, he was very subdued and subservient unlike his twin, listening instead of laughing and nodding along instead of nagging vexed. Now when making a deal with the vice-housewarden, you find yourself peering through a tear in the fabric that envelops him day to day.

For the first time ever, you get to see Jade smile with all his teeth. They curl down and up, reminding you almost of cat claws, with an acute sharpness in each individual tooth. They ensnare you.

II. Your basilisk's egg was not incubated at the correct temperature of 2300 degrees fahrenheit.

Your basilisk’s egg is colder than the collective’s by many, many degrees. Honestly, you blame this one on Professor Crewel for not putting the much needed comma between the two and the three; it was completely natural of you to assume 230 degrees fahrenheit was correct when 2,300 is an outrageous temperature. Regular incubators in your world could not even reach that level of heat!

When you cracked the unfertilized eggs of a serpent king into the cauldron, you sheepishly noticed how much lighter the shade of red yours is compared to others. Almost the pink of a flamingo’s feathers, not red like cranberries, not red like everyone else’s. 

Already too late though; the pink-hued yolk has already sludged into the cauldron. Gravity, such a conniving bastard. You can only watch helplessly as impact is made; the eggshell in your hand is now empty. 

Then, all the liquid in your cauldron rises up like a geyser. 

“Woah!” 

“Holy shit!”

“(Name)!”

Ducking behind your hands, you yell back at Ace, “I didn’t!” That is all you get out before the potion shower lands all over you. You spit out what got into your mouth, “mean to … bleh!”

Magenta sludge drips off your uniform in thick plopping sounds. It is the consistency of a milkshake and you shiver when you realize some has definitely gone down the back of your shirt. 

“Why are both of you clean,” you whine, disassembling the poorly made umbrella your hands made. They drop away from your temple, coated in magenta. Shaking the potion off your gloves, you frown at seeing how both Ace and Grim are unaffected by the geyser that just drenched you. The clumps of potion in your hair make your frown evolve into a grimace.

Grossed out at the sight of you, Ace winches and waves around his magic pen. “Used-a protection spell. Dude, you look ridiculous, haha. Doesn’t that burn?” 

“No, it’s oddly really cold.” 

Definitely the consistency and temperature of a milkshake. You strip yourself of your gloves, carefully folding them inside out. “Ugh, this is going to take forever to wash off.” You do not even know which part of your body to start shaking off like a dog. Your one good lab-coat and your one good uniform, ruined and presumably stained.

An alert shiver zigzags up your spine, and you turn around just in time to see Professor Crewel come out of his horrified stupor. 

As he stands up from his desk, you get this overwhelming urge to run away. You have to physically focus on planting your feet down so this psoriasis itch does not cause you to turn tail and flee. It’s my fault, so I need to accept punishment. Unconvinced by your self-loathing, your body shakes in jitters, ready to rush out of the room should mental resistance let up.  

You are unaware of it, but those emotional cactus pricks of needing to run away from danger will follow you all day long today.

Once finally released from Crewel’s classroom — you had to scrub down everything from the floor, use the emergency shower to peel sludge out your hair, and are given the briefest pat of sympathy on the shoulder — you run into Ace on his way to his club meeting. Is it really that late, you think. Grim left to attend all your other classes, skimping out on the cleanup that was ‘so not his fault! see ya!’ Now you wander, weighing if you should go to Octavinelle first or Ramshackle first. Find Grim or Find Jade?

“Can I join ya,” you ask as you slot yourself next to Ace in the hallway. If Floyd is at practice, you might be able to ask him where Jade is which ends the search for one person. However, it a mute point when you realize:

“It’s kinda a coin-toss if Floyd shows up or not,” Ace responds to your question, both of you standing in the doorway of the gymnasium. Where’s Floyd was what you had asked. Diligently, you search the crowd now. With his height he should be easy to spot; you worry your bottom lip with your teeth. There is really no way you can contact Jade as you do not have his number or know his schedule.

What an asshat. You bet Jade just loves the idea of you squirming around to find him. While he can descend on you like a vulture without any forewarning with his sixth sense for entertainment, you have a harder time locating him. 

Without any warning, you suddenly sidestep away from Ace. The redhead raises an eyebrow curiously before his expression drops in shock. In the spot where you were standing, Floyd trips and hits the ground hard.

“Woah!!” You and Ace shout in unison. 

On the ground, Floyd has the same expression of shock that you two do. Though, it slowly morphs to sadness as he rubs the back of his skull. Seated on the gymnasium floor, rubbing his bruise, Floyd grumbles sullenly, “Why ya do that, Shrimpy? I just wanted to squeeze ya. Haven’t seen you all December.”

Ignoring that, you ask, “Floyd, do you know where Jade is?”

“Ya wanna see Jade?” That relights the eel’s energy. He smiles like he knows something you don’t – which is probably a lot of things, considering where you come from and where you are. “Sure, I’ll take ya. I wasn’t feelin’ basketball practice anyways.”

So, thus you end up following Floyd and Ace like a duckling. Thinking to yourself that this will have to be what happens more in the future. Find someone who knows where Jade is, glue yourself to his side after you messed up a potion, conclude a trail of test runs that borderline on torture. Yet … it is worth it to some extent. 

Vividly, you recall each instance where Jade Leech put himself between you and your faithful friend, Danger. He protected you with a variety of spells the first years have not learned yet in NRC’s curriculum. It really is a valuable deal. 

After Azul Ashengrotto’s overblot, talk between you and Jade has been sparse. It is not like the two of you are going to become friends. A mouse does not become buddy-buddy with a cat. There will never be mutualism between the two species.

Your train of thought slowly ebbs when you realize Floyd, Ace, and yourself are nearing up on Jade. Floyd seems to be crouching forward, in a way that you assumed he did earlier when trying to ambush and scare you at the gym’s entrance. This should be interesting, seeing if Floyd could succeed in getting the jump on his twin. At least it would have been if you didn’t feel like a sword sliced down your spine, spreading heat all over the planes of your body.

“Shit!” You shriek, rushing and bumping into Floyd, seconds before someone yells:

“Hey! Look out!”

In the exact spot you were standing, a framed portrait makes a crashing descent. Well, it would have been crashing if not for a lilac spell wrapping itself around the portrait. Quick and alert, Jade holds out his magic pen, levitating the talking portrait while you and Floyd gather your bearings.

“Geez, Shrimpyyy, what was that for,” Floyd groans, rubbing his arm with a sour look. “You’ve been more like a jumpin’ fish than a shrimp. All skittish and squirmy.”

“I’m sorry, I just felt – Jade, cut it out!”

It is not that Jade is doing anything particularly mischievous. However, when the spell rotates the portrait to face you instead of with its back facing all of you, a shiver that is painful and palpable burns all your pores. The portrait is of a lich, rotted gray skin with curling yellow horns and piercing red eyes.

The voice that comes from the portrait sounds like dark corners of a dangerous night. “What are you mortals looking at?”

Run away, each branch of the nervous system agrees in unison. Terrified, you push off Floyd and rush behind Jade, innately remembering he is supposed to protect you. 

“Wh-What are you doing, (Name)?” Ace asks, glancing at you in confusion. 

The Horned King seems just as skeptical towards you. Jade, raising a perfect eyebrow, looks back at your cowering form and the portrait. 

You can see all the calculations erasing, rewriting, and improving themselves in his head. His million and one hypotheses about the world around him.

“Hm, this is curious,” Jade murmurs just as the person who dropped the portrait calls out:

“My bad man. Stupid spell.” Over the railing of the stairwell, the student setting up the portraits sends you all an apologetic look. Then, noticing the nefarious grin on the vice-housewarden’s face, says quicker, “I’m so sorry about that!”

“Nonsense, I think this has caused an interesting revelation.” Slowly, Jade levitates the portrait up to the student who is very skittish to carry it on with his own spell. “Prefect, how do you feel right now?”

“I don’t know how to describe it … Like a bunch of fire ants just crawled on my skin and bit me all at once.”

“Seems you do know to articulate your thoughts.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, Jade.”

He smiles as if you have just complimented him. “Did you mess up a potion beforehand?”

Your eyes squint in suspicion. “Yeah, I uncooked my basilisk egg. How did you know I messed one up though?”

“Simply an observation. I think the potion causes you to have a heightened sensitivity to danger. You knew when danger was coming and rushed away from it. Foresight?”

“I suppose, who knows,” you say, watching the portrait like a bunny in a burrow might watch a predator, waiting for it to slip away to another area. Tension ebbs from you as the other student takes it and begins his task of rearranging them. You step out of the protective shadow of Jade Leech.

“Who knows,” you repeat, intrigued. “Maybe if I mess up a potion like this again, I can call our deal off. I won’t need your help.” A smile comes up to your face, imagining yourself independent.

Jade only scowls. You wonder whatever for but —

“What did you do to mess up the potion, (Name)! Please, I need it! This would be like an alarm for whenever Riddle’s nearby! I could get away with so much!” Ace squeezes your shoulders with a bruising intensity. 

Ripping yourself from him, you stumble back. A soft ‘ow’ parts your mouth when you collide with something, spine to chest. Jade’s gloved hands come down upon your shoulders unexpectedly, pinning you in place. “Basilisk eggs are a delicacy. They aren’t hard to obtain but they are certainly pricey. However, if you are ever serious about your inquiry, Ace … Azul’s office is always open to help.”

It seems that Ace’s sense of danger is alive and well too, for he takes several steps back at Jade’s words. “Well … when you put it like that, heh. I suppose I’m alright.” His eyes shift to the hold Jade has on your shoulder, not shaken off or side-stepped.

“But you were so eager before.” Jade frowns, putting on an act. He looks awful sorry to see Ace skirter away like a crab poked by sticks at the beach. It is a mere masquerade.

“Naah, I’m good. Have fun, (Name)!”

“Ha-Have fun?!” You sputter indignant. 

But Ace has already left with Floyd in tow. Basketball practice waits for no man. Left alone in the hallway, you shudder in the delicate embrace of a dangerous predator. 

“Have fun … what an appropriate saying.” Jade leans down over you with a smile. You should have known from that smile alone it was going to be bad. And it proves to be bad! Because, of course, it has to do with mushrooms again.

Jade takes you hiking. Apparently, his club starts around the same time as Floyd, and Jade is nothing but meticulous about schedules. So, you are going to be alone in the mountains with Jade … it does not take a magical potion to know that it is a new episode of a true crime podcast waiting to happen.

You tell the three Ramshackle ghosts if you do not come back to treat Grim kindly as you zipper up the hoodie Jade said you would need. The knock on your building’s door sends a shiver down your spine that burns. Like a lightning bolt of prickling pain that makes each pore tingle with fire. You are starting to regret this contract.

“So what exactly am I going to be doing?” You ask Jade as you two make your way down a beaten trail. A heightened sense of danger seems quite trivial for a walk in the woods.

“I was rolling the traits of the potion over in my head,” Jade says, his back to you as he leads the way. “And I was thinking, what a perfect opportunity to unearth the mystery of blue pinkgills.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one has gathered up the courage to test if they are poisonous or not. Being poisoned is an obvious endangerment to a body’s health, don’t you agree?”

“You can’t be serious.” His back never turns. “Jade, no way!”

The smile in his voice is palpable as he teases, “I am only joking. After your potion wore off, the blue pinkgills you gifted me decayed instantly.”

You breathe a short-lived sigh of relief. “However, that doesn’t mean your potion can’t be utilized on this hike.”

“I’m not going to eat a single mushroom.” You vow.

“Nothing of the sort. The hypothesis I want to test out is a bit different.”

Hypothesis? This relationship via contract is akin to a type of scientist’s experiment. Before you can think about the roles of yourself and Jade, your entire body is engulfed with a terrible sense of burning like each particle suddenly was torn in two. It is an appropriate reaction when you realize an entire uprooted tree is rocketing towards you with high-speed velocity. 

“Shit!” You shriek. That is far as your body stays your own. Each atom of the muscular system is possessed by the potion. The potion puppets your body and you find yourself successfully leaping over the horizontal tree-trunk. One hand plants itself on the wood; your legs bunch up to your stomach and then you are catapulting yourself over a log. 

When you plant yourself on the opposite side, feet landing perfectly, your gaze hardens into a glare. “What the hell, Ja–!” An uprooted bush tries to ambush you. Shrieking, the potion puppets all but your fearful vocal cords.

“Now, let’s see,” Jade muses, waving his magic pen. His gold and olive eyes study you. “If I attack from both the front and the back, does it react simultaneously?”

“Jade!”

“Excellent, it does,” Jade celebrates with a sadistic gleam in his eyes.

So, thus it begins. Your first real experiment with Jade and he is throwing an entire forest at you. Frantically, your body jumps and leaps out of the way of roots that try to sweep your legs and rocks that try to cut your arms. You even do a front flip to avoid a particular rock being thrown at you. You don’t know how to do flips unless on a trampoline! Nine of our ten times, you land on your butt performing them; yet, on solid ground you just completed your first front flip on land. Precise yet abusive, your body is puppeted by the potion and Jade’s ministrations. 

If you had known you were going to be attacked, you would have never chosen Jade as your protector.

Suddenly, in the hurricane of foliage and earth, all it changes track and aims away from you. Each individual part – rock, tree branch, colt of dirt, flower and mushrooms – splits. Ignoring your body, the hurricane slips behind you in a frenzy. Wind magic maneuvers your hair in the same direction of all that flying fauna. Then, a fist is in front of your face. 

Your body does not dodge. Rather, it plants itself like stone, sensing all the danger is gone.

You hear all the uprooted discord crashing behind you. Each rock lands like a meteor into the ground, tree branches nosedive down like crashed airplanes, and flowers are shredded apart like brittle paper. It is like when the hatch of a truck’s cargo bed opens on the highway, everything crashing yet the front seat is all calm. All is calm besides the paused fist inches from your nose.

Jade’s leather gloves. The ridges where leather sits to make the indents and folds of his knuckles. You are not graced much time to analyze the sight, to analyze the fist that most certainly would have broken your nose into a bloody pulp.

Deliberately, Jade straightens out. A lot of momentum had been used when rushing towards you, aiming his gloved fist like a tracking missile. Unraveling himself from his crouching position slowly, his dual-colored eyes fix you with an intrigued look. He withdraws his fist to rest by his side. “Hm.”

Now that everything is tranquil, you realize how ragged your breath is as you question back, “Hm?”

“The spell did not have you jump out of the way when I went to attack you. Perhaps it could not differentiate between all the foliage around and a person.” The same hand, that would have swirled up all your nasal tendons and bones into some crude red salad, moves to rest quizzically under his chin. 

Chest pounding, you spit out, “I don’t get it.”

A diagram blooms by the left side of Jade’s head. Despite your words not being an invitation to explain, he does deliberately like you are some foolish student. Like you are someone stupid. He is probably using some elementary magic too, two figures, one red and one blue, appearing from the simple spell. “It is quite simple,” he says slowly.

Asshat, you think.

“Since your botched potion has increased your sense of danger, I decided to test what kind of variables would get a reaction from you.” On the diagram, the red figure has wormlike lines squirming out of its head. 

“I threw a wide variety at you: clumps of dirt, mushrooms, tree branches to whole trees, even the smallest flowers you would dodge.” In the hand of the blue figure, a gold ring has surrounded his fist and crude drawings of all that Jade listed start to throw themselves at the red figure. Wildly panicked, the red figure hops and twirls around to avoid everything. “However,” Jade continues, a frown forming.

“When I added myself to the mix,” the blue figure suddenly appears in front of the red figure, posed like a superhero about to punch through an impenetrable wall, as all the crude drawings of rocks and trees clatter to the diagram’s ground, “I anticipated the usual reaction,” the red figure finds itself in comatose, “the reaction changed though. You didn’t move. In fact, you stood there almost confidently.”

By now, you finally manage to get your breathing under control. With your first solid breath, the diagram of magic starts to flicker into nothing. Crossing vexed arms, you hypothesize aloud, “Perhaps it has already worn off.”

Electricity sparks harshly on your nape; a sudden thought forms. Move your head right now, your bones and flesh say in unison. Involuntary, your neck tilts until your left cheek collides with your shoulder. A whooshing sound darts past your ear. You watch stunned as the bullet-esque rock Jade controls with magic buries itself into a nearby tree. As if it was fired from an assault rifle!

“An incorrect assumption; you are still responding so we’ll rule that thought out.”

The adrenaline that keeps you docile, almost sedated like a syringe-given drug, slowly drains from your body. Your typical attitude resurfaces and – “You –!” A skirmish between shock and anger pulls your face into a constipated look. “You could have killed me! What if that went through my head!”

“Please,” he tuts with pretend exasperation, thoroughly amused at your reaction. “I’m a capable mage who has mastered many tricks. Losing control on something as tiny as a pebble is never going to happen. Besides, I am to not harm you or risk losing my entertainment.”

Like you would believe that. Which you tell him, stomping your foot and pointing an acute nail at him, ��Like I have any reason to believe a grand lie like that! I think you’d laugh over my injured body if you got the chance. You know what, Jade? Deal off! I’m not going to be used like a lab rat.”

Having said your piece, you whirl on your feet. There is a lot of debris and a fallen tree or two … no more accurately ripped and thrown tree or two you will need to climb over, but you are going back to Ramshackle. Tucked in a safe bed, letting this potion shed from your system, that is where you are going to. If only your wrist was not grabbed.

Shouldn’t I have yanked my wrist away before he could touch me, you think, glancing up from the point of contact into a pair of deplorable eyes. Who the hell does he think he is, batting you with sharpened paws as you squeak and scurry back and forth in a rodent panic. 

The cat keeps his teeth hidden as he says, “Now, let’s not be so rash. After such a strenuous exercise, the natural course of action is to stop and replenish yourself; not exert yourself more by taking a long, long walk back to the school. I’ll prepare something for us.”

You yank your wrist back. “No way – what you want me to eat those mushrooms; help you identify which one is poisonous or not? You’re sadistic.”

“I have been called worse. However, must I remind you what you stand to lose if you call off our contract?” Your feet pause in their retreat but you dare not turn around. “It would be most unfortunate if this ends so early too.” 

Part of you imagines how his face splits into a grin like those shapeshifters in old horror movies, splitting a jagged line across his features; perhaps he even tilts his head seductively to the side so the sunlight catches his enamels in a perfect way; you know from tone alone his smile must be the cat who got the cream.

Which is why when you turn around, you keep your eyes focused on his knees – trying to avoid looking at the thigh straps of his outfit. You almost feel a bit patronized when Jade says, “If anything happens to be poisonous, I had some Ipecac medicine on me.”

You try your best to not look so sad and slouched when you follow Jade.

From the impromptu clearing where trees were ripped up, or perhaps it was all planned down to last detail even this intentional clearing, Jade unloads his backpack. He sets down this small, portable grill table, unfolding the legs to stand upright. Miniature chairs for two with a pine green and sea green triangle patterns are propped upright. Exceptional care is taken when he removes his blue jacket and white hoodie, leaving himself in a black turtleneck. 

Just how strong is the guy, you wonder, watching him pull out of this out of a seemingly bottomless backpack. It is only when the hoodie is gone that you get the answer. The sharp curvatures of his biceps are visible because the turtleneck is so tight. A hormonal part of you squeaks in fear like a mouse.

You busy yourself with poking the fire Jade has started in the grill’s belly-like canopy. Whatever chunks of logs were thrown at you now stir under your ministries, distracting yourself from the man of the hour. As you prod with your lone stick, Jade starts to prepare your shared meal.

“So, why do you think it happened?”

“Hm?” Jade looks up from the kebab stick in his hand.

“Why do you think I didn’t move when you went to punch me?”

“Ah,” Jade adds another mushroom to his equally odious, fungi version of Vlad Tepes’s impalment displays, “I have several running theories. Though I most strongly attribute it to confusion.”

 “I quite understand what a fist in my face means.”

Jade laughs. “I’m glad but rather I am hypothesizing that it was confusion over me, the flesh I’m in.”

“That makes no sense; I definitely react to people. I reacted to Floyd, and you and him are cut from the cloth.”

“Yes, however there were many variables in the air. As a result, the possibility that the potion saw me as an outlier is not so far-fetched. You were so focused on all the soil and rocks; thus, you ignored me.”

“But the potion reacts to impending danger or whatever is trying to harm me. And I totally see you as a danger.”

“How kind of you.”

“Ugh!” You push the logs more aggressively and fire pops in bigger bursts.

“You reacted to Floyd just fine. When the talking portrait fell, you side-stepped. However, these were all separate instances and not together.”

You consider this, face scrunching. Jade does have brilliant deductive skills; now contemplating it, it is not so far-fetched like he said. Perhaps the potion can only react to living things and similarly only react to non-living things. Yet when Jade grabbed your wrist … you start to ponder on that … but your thoughts disintegrate when Jade starts to fill the grill-plate with his mushroom kebabs. 

“I’m not eating those.” Your face keeps that scrunched up expression. 

“While not equal to red meat, mushrooms still are a good source of protein. Truly, after your little squabble with nature, I think you might find you quite enjoy these.”

“Not a chance in Hell. They don’t look appetizing at all.”

“Have you ever had them before?”

“No but —.”

“How will you know you don’t like them if you never try them?”

How annoying; Jade sounds like every adult you ever met in your life. Really, you are fixated on wearing this scrunched look like a model with the latest trends. Nose wrinkled and brow furrowed, you look down at the arrangement of your presumed next meal. “I’m just a picky eater. You don’t have a sandwich in that bag of yours?”

“Afraid not,” Jade apologizes without an apologetic expression. “I find relying on nature to remind me of home; a hunt is a hunt no matter whether below or above.”

“So you must have some berries on you or something,” you deduct, trying to find yourself an out.

“Afraid not.” Again, this is said very unapologetically. “Though you are most welcome to wrangle yourself a worm out of the ground. Maybe that potion will help you locate a squirrel that you can overpower.”

“You’re lucky you don’t have this potion on you, or else you could sense my foot’s about to hit your crotch.”

“So violent,” Jade smiles behind the fist which curls up to his mouth, “Please, I implore you: try.” Now he is just teasing you instead of being malicious. 

You punch the side of his thigh then go back to observing. There is a decent char on each mushroom now that is more a golden brown than a deep caramel brown. 

“You know, if you brine and deep-fry gray oyster mushrooms, they take on the texture of fried chicken. The taste is similar enough when a simple illusion spell can get the pickiest eater to try them.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Your spine pricks with that familiar, forbidding sense.

“Oh no, you misunderstand.”

Jade says before he starts leaning in to regale you with a story of how he managed to trick Azul their freshmen year to eat mushrooms for five months straight. Azul’s comfort food almost ruined evermore. It is odd to see such a mélange of fondness and sadism on a person’s face but Jade wears it well.

Eventually, you are graced with other food: grapes that Jade has in his backpack. Apparently there are some ducks a little ways down the hiking trail that Jade feeds. They aren’t the type to hibernate or fly south for the winter, the Twisted Wonderland version of mallards. Excited, you implore him to show you them as it is only right after tormenting you so, paying you back for the maltreatment.

He says you need to raise your price for torment or else the entire school will abuse you, but he takes you to the ducks all the same. 

III. The measurement for Eastern bat’s blood was off by 1.5 ounces. 

“Usually when you hold out a hand, there is something in it to offer up,” Jade says analytically. In front of him, your right hand is outstretched.

This world really is out to get you. Not only are you fumbling along in a university that requires a knowledge of foreign, elementary knowledge and has an entrance exam people only pass with Willy-Wonka-ticket luck, but the units of measurements are completely alien to you. Incorrectly, you drained your Eastern bat for half a second too short. Blame can always be pinned on Ace just shrugging when you showed him the beaker; Jade probably will tut and tell you to uphold responsibility. 

So, facing him now empty-handed, you say sullenly, “I messed up a potion.” You try your best to ignore the absolute glee that overtake Jade’s features. “You … The effects when … Well, just take off your glove, touch my hand, and you’ll see.” 

Today is going to suck majorly. Part of you cannot comprehend what odious, monstrous things Jade Leech will do with. Your foresight with him really needs improving; Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden is an enigmatic mystery to you. When flesh mets flesh, the touch of it stings you like a jellyfish. 

His hand is nicely manicured you observe. Just an appropriate enough free edge of the nail to be unamusing yet secretively sharp if need be. His nails won’t cut you up into ribbons without speed and force. It is also a cold hand that feels like resting your cheek on silk when feverish.

Must be because he is cold-blooded and winter is still being stubborn. Taking a deep breath, you look at Jade who is looking intently at you with intrigue. “Was this just an excuse to hold my hand? How quaint, Prefect,” Jade teases when nothing extraordinary eye-catching happens.

Shouldn’t he know to observe the subtleties? You decide to embarrass yourself further by answering, “Just be patient and observe.” Then, hands still stacked upon one another, you turn a bit towards the open hallway you had stopped Jade in.

As the nominated test subject, you had drank the potion when Crewel instructed you to in potionology. Nothing happened and you were given an F. Then, humiliated in front of the class, you realized later that the potion’s intended effects were skewed slightly.

It had taken a lot of trial and error to realize the effects of the potion when first infected. Upset at Ace for not thoroughly reading the measurements, you had taken him by the shoulders and shaked him. In retaliation, he took your cheeks and squished them together to cut off your bemoans. You pinched his cheek in retaliation and then Grim suddenly caterwauled that you two had … disappeared?

Like you said, it took a lot of trial and error. You experimented with Grim, Deuce, and Ace outside the hallway in the main yard. Seeing if it worked skin to fur, seeing if the effects lasted after a quick high five, and figuring out it took a constant touch between two to work but did not work on a third touch.

Now, you have to explain to Jade that both of you are under an invisibility potion that is skewed. So you demonstrate by reaching out and slapping the nearest student across the face. It takes you a while to sum up the courage, the crowd swimming past you. Jade almost grows impatient and tries to retract his hand. Yet at the moment, you remember Schönheit’s face. It feels so satisfactory after being pushed around all the fucking time (especially during VDC) to watch the Pomefiore student stumble in shock. Your hand stings pleasantly.

Jade flinches in surprise and you quickly squeeze his hand tight. Having the contact break after striking a random student is not ideal. 

Background Pomefiore student – you decide his name is C – holds his flushing cheek and whirls around, head on a swivel. He finds no culprit. “Hey! … did you just – Um … Who did,” C’s hair shakes back and forth with his frenzied head turn, “Someone … Someone just hit my beautiful face!”

Behind you, watching C with you, Jade starts to chuckle. The knuckle of his left hand comes up to his lips as he fruitlessly tries to cork laughter. Then, inhibition escaping him, he is suddenly laughing like an amused teen instead of some super villain. His shoulders bounce in time with his mirth.

“I see,” he says a bit breathlessly after his laughing fit. “We are under a potion of invisibility.” His eyes track the Pomefiore student. “A potent one too if that student was not able to even sense us.”

C has already left so you release Jade’s hand slightly, still keeping them sandwiched on one another. “Exactly. Unfortunately, it only works with skin to skin contact. We were supposed to brew something that turned a person invisible but this one requires a second body.” 

For a moment, Jade’s eyes burn with a dangerous intrigue. Dread fills you like a river. Part of you surmises that you will not be able to predict what malicious actions he will have the two of you perform to terrorize the entire school. As if wanting to pry your ribcage open, Jade repeats your explanation to make sure he has all the available information, “So no one can see us or hear us as long as we touch?”

You shrink away at the dangerous lilt in his voice, so Jade takes to interlocking your fingers together. “Yeah, that’s the basics of this potion.” You look at your interlocked fingers as if they are a threading nest of rattlesnakes instead of fingers embracing.

“How quaint. Typically invisibility potions and spells are traceable through the wisps of magic they leave behind. Perhaps that side-effect is neutralized because you are magicless.”

“Maybe … I don’t really know.”

“Hm,” Jade studies your desolate look. “Let us be on our way then.”

“Wait!” You dig your heels into the ground. “Where are we even going?”

“To my dormitory. I need to retrieve some supplies before we utilize this potion’s potential.”

“Wait!” You dig your heels into the ground. “Why can’t we just interlock elbows!”

Finally, that seems to reel Jade out of his steadyfast mission to bring you to some second location. Gold and umber eyes glance down to your intertwined fingers. The bridge of repeating Zs which the heat from you and him met together. His hold is not so outrageously tight where you have no choice to stay.

“It would be most unfortunate if you were to slip and lose your grip. With a tighter hold like this,” he readjusts your contact to passive hand holding, your fingers unlocking from one another, “I’m assured that we will not break contact.”

“I guess that makes sense.” You … mourn? that you no longer get to hold his fingers equally in yours. But you asked for interlocking elbows. You grimace. “... Hey! Why do you say that like I’d trip! You could trip too.”

“With all the trouble you stumble into, it would be imprudent of me to not prepare for you falling in the literal sense. Do not worry though; I will be there to catch you.”

“Who says I want you to catch me? Hell, I think you’d catch me, only to fake out, and then drop me a second later.”

“Fufufu, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Ugh, don’t smile like that.”

So, doubly regretful and relieved that your hand-holding formation got a new look, you allow yourself to be dragged off to Octavinelle. This you could probably achieve without hand-holding but you like the secrecy. Plus, you got to flip off Riddle Rosehearts and Leona Kingscholar without repercussions. Eventually, Jade steers you towards the bedrooms located in Octavinelle. Wholly relying on him, you give him a withered olive branch of trust to not torment or abuse you too much. 

“Do you share a room with someone,” you ask as Jade lets go of your hand. The door to his dorm is closed currently, so secrecy lives on. Your eyes are glued to the opposite side that Jade did not walk towards. 

“My brother and I signed up for a double dormitory in middle school.”

“Makes sense,” you say. Sheets scrunched up, shoes and crumbs peppered all over the place, and a horrible sense of cleanliness? You doubt Jade would put up with this from another else but his brother. 

Attention drifting, you turn and watch Jade shift through a thick binder on his desk. He takes it from this apparatus of gold that sits on his neat desk. Teal with golden edges, it is one of three heavy binders. Seriously, the thing is at least a good eight inches thick with papers. “What’s that?”

The smile on Jade’s face tells you that is either going to regale or inform you about something sinister. Each sharp, serrated edge gleams like secrets spoken under candlelight. Though gloveless, his hand still perches under his chin. That tunnel of fangs opens. “Simply some information I have had to collect for Azul. It dates all the way back from our first year, down to Orientation Day. Would you like to see?”

Curiosity kills the cat; too bad you are more like the lab rat. Your eyes drawn down to the now open binder thoroughly intrigued. “Wouldn’t Azul be pissy at you for showing someone such valuable information?”

“Perhaps. But, I thought you disliked each housewarden with a vengeance.” Seeing you are still unconvinced, Jade assuages your worry, “All this information I have collected painstakingly by myself. It is under my jurisdiction who I choose to share it with.”

“And that just happens to be me,” you ask, anticipating some catch. Still, you shuffle over to the desk quite eagerly. “What do you get out of showing me this?”

“Just the pleasure of seeing you squirm.” 

“Ha. Ha.” You laugh dryly. Electing to ignore that little comment, you turn your attention towards the binder’s pages. 

Painstakingly proves to be an appropriate way to describe how detailed the pages are. Reports upon reports of different students stare at you, even with photographic identity in the top corners. It looks more like a report on prisoners than something a student has made. As you flip through, you do spy dates from last year. The margin of notes detail a number of things: past deals made with Azul Ashengrotto, a list of allergies, schedules of classes for each individual student, and a few have their Unique Magics column filled (which you have been told most mages keep those specific spells very private). Some students even have a column labeled Weaknesses on them. 

“God, this is,” you say awestruck. You flip through some more. In alphabetical order, Bucchi, Clover, and Diamond are the ones you recognize first. You wonder if at the beginning there is a section detailing Al-Asim too. The absolute punctiliousness of Jade has some students taking up ten to fifteen pages. “This is –”

“Terrifying?” Jade incorrectly supplies the word.

Attention finally broken from the binder, you look up at Jade who is leaning into you slightly. There is an unreadable iota of something in his eyes. Was he hoping to scare you away? “No, not at all.”

“You’re not off put?”  

“I’m more impressed by it. I mean, I know how Night Raven College is now. Trust me; been pushed around since day one by students and the classes. This … This is what you have to do to survive here.” You overlooked the page you are on, some random Ignihyde student with a D surname. “I don't, however, think sunlight is an allergy.”

“Trust me,” Jade takes your hand, “for students of that dorm, you would be convinced otherwise.”

“So, what are you going to do with this?”

“We are going to be adding to it.”

So, that is how you and Jade spend your day. Trekking through the hallways of Night Raven College and sometimes even walking unnoticed through certain dorms, you both collect information on students. Filling in the blanks in Jade’s sheets and dating new, unexpected information that you happen to stumble upon. 

It is fairly entertaining. Yours and Jade’s preferences towards entertainment are obviously different, but … this is fun. Jade keeps it fun. Initially, you thought intel gathering would be dull and tedious like bird watching, bidding time for a certain student to let something slip. Somehow, you find yourself stifling chuckles that no one could have heard anyways.

This impromptu espionage is much better than how you would have originally spent your afternoon. Leaning into Jade (just to make certain you stay physically touching) you joke about all the embarrassing scenes you two stumble upon. Night Raven College students really are magnets for trouble. You are pleasantly shocked when Jade, smiling with all his predator teeth, suggests you go up to a student and give them a wet-willy. 

You never knew Jade could be this fun to hang out with!

You understand that Twisted Wonderland is an eat or be eaten world. And, as Floyd calls you, you are a shrimp. A shrimp with a drizzle of cajun sauce and seasoned with red pepper flakes to be the most appetizing for: picking on, abusing, and just overall suffering from overblots, potions, and plain old magic. It feels nice to regain a bit of power. To see that even mages have weaknesses is a nice balm to your endless ache. To laugh at their misfortune for once.

For the first time in a while, you do not feel that weight of being a failure. That everlasting pressure of having the lowest marks lightens. With an eel at your side, you find yourself a bit elevated on the food chain with certain privileges. 

Hand in hand with Jade, you two find yourself walking down a corridor. You have taken to holding a few of your own notes in your non-dominant hand. In front of Jade, his binder is hoisted by a levitation spell as his pen works on writing the information he finds useful. 

The binder is under an invisibility spell; so are your notes. However, this kind of magic leaves a trace of smell that high-ranking mages and beastmen are privy to. Magicless as you are, you do not notice a shift of fragrance in the air but you take Jade’s words at their face value. 

His levitating pen has been consistently moving across pages. Even when Jade turns to you, smiling widely and joking about today’s events, his pen keeps moving like a restless shark. So, you are wholeheartedly caught off guard for Jade to suddenly halt in his steps. The pen dots its punctuation then hovers still as death in the air. “Jade?”

“Shush,” Jade snips. You almost have half the mind to remind him that no one can hear you under the botched potion. Instead, you turn your attention towards what has stolen the smile off Jade’s face and grabbed his attention so thoroughly. 

An Octavinelle student happens to be walking out of a classroom. He has blonde hair swept messily like a tumbleweed and that recognizable armband on his biceps. No one you recognize though. Someone Jade must know, given how intensely he is staring. Before you know it, the binder has been magically closed.

“(Name).” You turn when he calls your name. “May I suggest a little detour? Won’t take longer than a minute.”

“Uh yeah,” you nod dumbly. “Sure.”

So, where the Octavinelle student exits, you and Jade enter. No one notices you entering as is the new normal. It seems to be an after school project group. A few students have pushed two laboratory tables together and are in the middle of writing notes. Jade makes a bee-line for the table which worries you – having been content with hiding in backgrounds and shadows with him.

On the table, there is a coffee thermos right where the only empty seat is. None of the mages are alert enough to notice Jade unscrewing the thermos’s top. You are acutely aware of each move Jade makes though. Paralyzed, you observe like a student watching their scientist experiment combusting. It feels very similar to watching a burning train-wreck, enough to make your jaw drop. 

In the pocket of your stunned silence, Jade delicately tucks the black strand of hair behind his ear. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down thrice; a deep phlegmy sound vibrates out his throat. When Jade (out of all the students in Night Raven College!!) hacks up an impressively huge, light yellow spitwad which falls out of his puckered lips into the awaiting cup of coffee. 

When he straightens up to you, black hair split behind his ear and framing his cheek, he smiles with the satisfaction of a job well done. “That is all I needed to do. We may carry on; I believe jurisdiction of our next rendezvous falls upon you.”

You get to pick the next student you two humiliate or gather notes on … you know this, it computes in your brain, but … you gape at Jade with a wide mouth, “Who are you and what the fuck have you done with Jade?”

Because gathering information on students and maliciously keeping them in a binder? You can imagine Jade doing such a thing. Taking the opportunities that this botched potion has given him and causing a bit of mischief with you? Well, that is what you are doing right now so it is very easy to imagine. Jade spitting into a student’s drink as a form of revenge or entertainment? Even after seeing it with your own eyes, you cannot fully believe it.

“I assure you, I have not undergone any body-swapping potion at this time.”

“I just – Dude. Dude,” you huff out a laugh. “That was –” Then, suddenly, you are laughing uncontrollably. It is really an advantage that this potion makes you invisible to the ears too. “Hahahaha!! Oh my – hahaha!!” 

It surprises you a second time when Jade joins in. “Fufufu … heh … Hahahaha!”

In the afterglow of shared laughter, you and Jade look at each other. His eyes are sharp like his teeth. There is a sensation in the air; you can only akin it to walking on a balancing beam and being brave enough to walk across the soft foam for the first time. Like you are trying something new, here with him.

“I just can’t believe you would do that. You of all people.” Your eyes linger hard on the thermos.

“I do admit it is a bit juvenile of me. Typically, Floyd spits in drinks while I add a certain fungal toxin. This was a bit more personal.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side.” Yet, you have a smile glued to your face. As does Jade. The hand holding does not help with your growing fluster.

Yet before Jade can respond, the door to the classroom is thrown open. The Octavinelle student comes stomping in with a vengeance. Irritation on his face and phone in his hand, he howls, “Fuck Azul Ashengrotto!” You happen to share this sentiment wholeheartedly. “I swear, I cannot even piss without him needing to know! Why did I get saddled with the worst housewarden!”

One of Azul’s contractees, you think just as a student from the table pipes up, “What does he need from you this time?”

“Ugh,” the Octavinelle student groans. He sits down in the empty stoll with a thud; his arm comes up to rest on the table but he does not grab the thermos. “‘Parrantely, our vice called out for his night shift. So, Azul has to schedule three guys just to replace one.”

The Octavinelle student takes a big sip of his coffee. You watch the smile grow on Jade’s face, teeth gleaming. As he sets down the thermos, he continues complaining, “It’s so unfair. I have to drop everything I’m doing just at the drop of a hat for this bitching guy, or else ‘there will be repercussions for breaking contract terms’. What bullshit.”

“Didn’t you break your terms last week,” a Heartslabyul student questions.

“Yeah, when you skipped your shift to go Foothill Town for the weekend,” another Octavinelle student, different from the blonde, pipes in.

“Yeah, I was supposed to taste-test some potion for our vice. Told them I had a family birthday to go to; he won’t find out.” 

“I already found out,” Jade leans in and whispers, his breath warm on your neck. He gives a discreet little point towards the thermos. You stifle a chuckle behind your papers. As Jade pulls away, he looks awfully pleased.

“I mean,” the blonde Octavinelle student continues, “the guy’s a total creep! Who knows what would have happened if I drank that potion; would’ve seen me walking around with a third arm or gills. My housewarden and vice are two peas in a pod: complete and utter monsters.”

Laughter blooms up from the table in agreement. Features wilting, you cannot find yourself agreeing with the student’s sentiment. Sure, you can see that description fitting Ashengrotto for how utterly horrendous and repulsive he was during his overblot. But Jade? Well, he is not innocent-incarnate but a monster is a bit much.

If Jade overblotted, would I share that sentiment? No, I don’t think so. You do not get to entertain that thought further as the Octavinelle student, who is not blonde, pipes up in agreement, “At least Azul has some humanity about him … Jade?” The student fakes a shiver. “Wouldn’t be caught dead alone with him.”

Eagerly finishing off his second sip, the blonde Octavinelle student jumps to add his input, “Have you seen how he looks smiling – it’s like a rabid animal trying to appear less rabid. If you’re going to undergo a transformation potion, at least have it do the job.”

“He’s only got himself to blame for having zero friends, looking like that.”

The hand in yours suddenly squeezes at those words. Concerned, your gaze flickers up to Jade. For a foolish second, you really are expecting his face to pull into that familiar grin of shark daggers. Prideful that his reputation is kept so neatly and undamaged. 

A scowl is not what you are expecting to see. His nose and upper lip twitch like he is pushing whatever is bubbling to the surface of him back down. Just as quickly as the twitch happens, it goes. A firm lid now placed over Jade’s expression, he turns demure to you and politely says, “Shall we take our leave?”

You can only nod along, confused over the whole ordeal. 

You and Jade have this thing going on – no, it is not the potion contract; it is actually something that happens specifically outside of contractual hours. You both have started to smile at one another when spying the other walking down the hallway. To be honest, Jade smiles, you mostly stick your tongue out at him or throw him a peace sign depending on your mood. 

The thing is Jade’s grin has always been big, revealing all his predatory teeth and causing wrinkles to form under his eyes. The next time around, passing by one another near the gymnasium, Jade smiles. He smiles tight-lipped, some subdued version of himself. 

IV. No mistakes were in the mixture, but it had been splashed on you all the same.

“Grim!” You caterwaul as two bottles of salamander eyes fall into your cauldron. 

Ace has been teasing Grim for the better half of this assignment. Something about your low stash of food or something else because really, anything about you two is fuel for teasing. The verbal sparring mattered little to you as you were managing to get this potion right for once! At least, it mattered little until Grim decided to hop over the desk attached to your cauldron. 

Down, those two bottles drop into the cauldron with an expressive ploop!; liquid hits you in the backsplash. All you can think about at that moment is what you are going to owe Professor Crewel. You refuse to be scavenging the mountains for salamanders to pluck the eyes out of. 

Furious and with canary yellow droplets rolling down your face, you reach across the top of the cauldron. Your fingers hook into Grim’s collar, pulling him towards you as the fireball he was going to strike Ace with evaporates on his tongue.

“Myah!”

“You little –”

“What’s your problem, Henchman!”

“My problem is that you just messed up the first potion we’ve ever done correctly in this class! How could you be so careless! Do you have any idea what it took to pull my weight and make that without a mistake!”

When Grim refutes that Ace called his legs stubby, you swear you could almost combust into flames like the King of the Underworld. It would be a fitting reaction. Yet, all you can do is shout, “Your legs are stubby! You’re short! God, your height being teased should not cause you ruin a perfectly made potion. We are a team; this comes out of your grade too you know! Seriously Grim, I can’t –” And then, you cannot even shout anymore in reaction. 

I can’t breathe, you realize with wide-eyed panic just before your legs give out beneath you. “Henchman!” You manage to safely deposit Grim on the ground in midst of your rough fall. However, it does not curb your impending face-plant away. 

Why can’t I breathe, you think. You try desperately to will yourself to breathe automatically through your nose or mouth, eagerly willing to take up the torch for your stressed brain. Nothing. Instinctively, your hand flies up to your throat. Under your fingertips, serrations that open in twelve inch wide cuts brush against your hand. You feel rubbery bristles and sleek skin not wet from blood. 

Huh? You do not get to ask about it as a spell suddenly lifts you off the ground. Second later, you are dumped inside an empty cauldron Deuce has summoned in the midst of discord and you are dampened by the raincloud Professor Crewel has summoned over your head. 

Fresh air, you think while breathing in water. You are knocked out momentary reprise, your new found respect for life after being able to breathe again, when voices suddenly start shouting. 

“(Name), are you okay!”

Over your right shoulder, your vision is swallowed by Deuce’s frantic expression. Half of his goggles are pulled up to his forehead but the left side still suctions to his skin, extending up his eyebrow unnaturally. Quizzically frantic, his eyes race over your body. 

“I’m fine now, I think –”

“Bad dogs!” You do not finish the sentence. Professor Crewel uses some sort of spell and you watch vindictive as Ace’s and Grim’s heads are pulled together by harsh magnetism. They fall to a heap like knocked over bowling pins. “This is a laboratory! Not a playground! To be standing on desks like that is completely unacceptable!”

“Grim was the one jumping around; he ended up knocking over everything!” Ace jabs a finger in the direction of the dizzy dire-beast. 

“He called me stubby! No one insults the Great Grim and gets away with it!” Grim aims a tiny, blue flame in the direction of the Heartslabyul student. A tiny one is only a forewarning of more to follow. 

“Enough the both of you! Your absolute foolishness lead to —

“Ow,” you cry, pained. You had only meant to join in on scolding Grim, not interrupt in such a piercing fashion. Wincing, your dominant hand flies up to your mouth. Strings of metallic red connect your finger to your lip, and you wonder what you are going to do now as the rain washes away the red. 

Because that potion you were brewing correctly … “You dogs and your insolence led to one of your classmates becoming a merfolk.” … was a mermaid transportation potion. 

Now that panic has dwindled away, you suppose it makes sense your momentary lapse of breath. The rain cloud slowly dissipates over your head. With the water in the cauldron reaching the top, there is no more reason to keep it raining indoors. You take the opportunity to survey the damage of another disastrous potion accident. 

The complexion of your tail is a mixture of olive gray with yellow undertones. Truly, you are not sure how to describe the texture of the canvas besides resembling a stingray or perhaps a shark. Your tail breaks off into the shape of an uneven boomerang. Against the rough cauldron’s innards, you definitely feel a dorsal fin scraping on the cast iron.

The crowns of your teeth have elongated into sharp points which is why you keep your jaw hanging open. You are not going to risk biting off your tongue, unaware that magic could repair it. 

“Henchman, you have teeth just like me!”

Oh, you love Grim dearly like an annoying little brother, but you yearn for nothing more than to bite him hard. Painful enough where he learns his lesson. Your lips pull up into a smile when Professor Crewel hits him on the head. Then, you drop your open maw into a crude caricature of a frown when Crewel turns around. You don’t want him to misread your smile; you promise you are not finding this situation funny.

Because, to you, this is the worst. Your legs – your tail – no, your legs feel disgusting. So conditioned to have two separate legs, the innard combination of muscles and bones melting together causes a shiver up your back. Absent of piggy-toes to wiggle, lower limb bones suddenly hollowed out of you, fat and epidermis shifted into something supernatural. Get me out of this body! 

Your pyramiding nausea must be shown on your expression; Professor Crewel gives you a sympathetic look for someone you thought so apathetic. He surveys you before saying, “It will take until after school for me to have the reversal potion brewed. Even then, I cannot keep you in the laboratory.

“Usually, I would pin the responsibility on you two mutts,” he sends a glare at Grim and Ace, “but then I would risk endangering the Prefect further. Perfect.” You grow more very nauseous because you know where this is going. “I think it would be ideal if you stay in Octavinelle for the time being.”

You must be an edible species of mermaid right? Maybe, with enough begging, you could convince Deuce or Grim to set a fire underneath the impromptu aquarium tank you sit in.  “Ashengrotto can escort you. My 2C class is next period.”

You can’t even drown yourself; a whimper breaks your lips. In a kiss that is more a punch, your forehead and the side of the cauldron met like two angry lovers. “Just cook and eat me,” you moan sullenly.

“Yay, sushi!”

“Grim!!” Deuce shouts, mortified. 

When Azul does come in next period, five minutes before the bell like the attentive student he is, you glare at him over the side of your cauldron. It takes all but seconds before his stunned expression to melt into that sinister, scheming smirk. He really is such a snake even after his overblot. You would normally say this little favor is going to cost you an arm and a leg, but you already lost two legs. No way are you parting with an arm. 

“My, it seems you have gotten yourself into an unfortunately tight spot, Prefect. I’ll be happy to write up a contract that alleviates you from this certain predicament.”

Now, it takes luck and hard coordination, but you manage to splash Azul just as he finishes his sentence. It feels like stretching out a knot in your leg when you use your tail to propel water out of your cauldron. 

As Azul simmers in shock, you snicker in satisfaction. Serves him right. 

Soon enough, you are brought to Octavinelle. Hypothetically, it would take Azul two days to finish a reversal potion, which is better than most students who would need five days. But since Professor Crewel is working to ‘alleviate you from this certain predicament’, there is no need for a contract. Thus, the housewarden carries your cauldron through the school with magic.

There are so many questions running through your head that you and Azul remain silent during the trip to the Hall of Mirrors. Are you going to get dumped outside in Octavinelle’s waters to fend for yourself, or are you going to be thrown into the pool left to starve? What can you even eat in this form? It is already so hard to talk with the fangs in your mouth. Blood stains your lips like lipstick. You are deathly afraid of biting off your own tongue.

This is the worst potion accident I’ve ever had, you sulk, chin on the edge of stone. You want an easy life like everyone else but destiny has deemed you a magnetic force for chaos. Like there is something sweet in your blood or on your skin that attracts misfortune to you.

No one else in your first year class had experienced either a multitude of potion mishaps or a multitude of overblotted students. There has to be something in you that causes misfortune to suction to you with eagerness.

It is only when Azul speaks, carrying you through the Hall of Mirrors, do you stop your petite mopeness session. “Now, Octavinelle’s pool is never emptied so it will take some time to arrange it to be closed for the day. As a housewarden, it won’t take more than an hour. In the meantime, you are going to have to swim outside the dorm.”

“You can’t just keep me in the cauldron? I figured you shove me in some broom closet.”

“Now, do you really think I'm so cruel?”

“I do.” 

A scowl moves Azul’s lips. As he carts your cauldron through the mirror, violet sparks shimmering on the bottom like bugs drawn to a bowl of overripe fruit, he smiles cruelly, “Well, I’m glad to prove your expectations right.” Then, without any care, he vindictively dumps you out of the cauldron and into the mirror’s tensile surface.

“Asshat!” You manage to shout breathlessly before you find yourself on the other side of Octavinelle’s mirror.  

The pressure of water is unfortunately reliving to the pressure of suffocation on your chest. In the cauldron, you felt mildly asthmatic. It is certainly easier to breathe now. Which you do, you take a deep breath and then into nebulous waters, you shout out your frustrations. “ugh … UUUGH! AAAAAGH!!” Left alone in the blue, you sink down and down like a stone with each of your thoughts.

Hollowed out the bones in your lower limbs and trapped in skin made of dermal denticles, you eventually force yourself to learn to walk. 

It takes a great deal of try and fail, rinsing and repeating the process. Stubbornly, you refuse to just lie at the bottom of Octavinelle’s water to die and join a whale’s skeleton … or just wait until Azul comes to retrieve you, fake sympathy on his tongue … the mere notion of the latter causes your teeth to grind.

Thankfully, the waters are empty of any merfolk. A dagger named Embarrassment would have punctured your heart if otherwise. Having your multiple face-plants into sand and multiple collisions with reefs being seen by a single spectator makes you grimace. Eventually, you learn to use the yellowish-gray tail with the dexterity found in a squirmy newborn. 

An average person would have taken longer than an hour to learn the motions. You take to it like a duck to water. Impressively, it takes you only twenty-five minutes. Of course, you are arrogant of this fact. Limbs bruised from the rocks you have crashed into and mouth salted with the sand you accidentally swallowed, you sulk. Terribly miserable at the bottom of the sea, thinking yourself the biggest fool in Twisted Wonderland, you sulk at your falsely perceived failures but keep at it.

Moving with a tail mimics the sensation of sprinting. It is a constant motion that you must fall into smoothly. Once you start, you cannot risk a slight falter because that will send you barreling back to the ground. You must be confident about your motions. 

Tail oscillating back and forth, you push yourself off the seafloor for hopefully your last time. You wade gently off the seafloor like a bumpy airplane hopping off the runway. And then finally something happens in your abdomen and in your legs. Finally! Finally, you manage to find your rhythm. 

As if pulled there by an invisible thread, you find yourself swimming over to Octavinelle. Unconfident about your agility, you keep to the eastern side of the dorm, away from the towering spirals that look like a homunculus birth between a crab hand and an octopus, and you keep yourself away from the main building, wary of what could happen if you interact with other students. 

You wrap yourself around stone structures shaped like pointy fish-heads. Glide up the natural pattern of stairs made of the seabed floor, testing your ability to elevate yourself. Brush your hand briefly over a certain gray stone shaped oddly like a circle head with two circular ears, reminding yourself of that mouse creature you saw in the mirror days ago. Then, you turn yourself on your spine, belly up, and propel yourself towards the tunnel in Octavinelle with experience that grows second by second. 

The ‘skies’ are filled with starfishes suctioned to the edges of purple-gray arching stone, a school of moonfish with shining silver bodies with the edges of their fins kissed by orange sunshine hues, and moon jellyfish that move hypnotically like a multiple aliens made of clouds of milky-coral intestines. How phantasmal and pretty.  

Despite being in another world full of alien creatures like beastmen, mermen, and fae, at least the ocean has not changed that much. Now, impromptu and unplanned, you are thrown into the chance of a lifetime. Despite yourself, a smile grows on your lips.

Flipping yourself belly down, you glide over the tunnel system. It is a sectional hallway of Octavinelle that goes from the main building towards the dormitories. The unique faucet about the long hallway with the overarching ceiling is that the ceiling is made of glass. 

You meant to swim over the glass structure but you stutter in your motions when you make eye contact with a certain someone walking down the hallway. Even when separated by a barrier, that mountain landscape of smiling fangs manages to send a shiver down your spine. Why is that asshat’s eyes half-lidded like that?

Regaining yourself, you swim fast inches above the tunnel and ignore Jade Leech who watches you fondly in Octavinelle’s aquarium hallway, a few school books in his hand. You come to regret it later because:

“You broke contract terms earlier,” is the first blasted thing out of Jade’s mouth when he enters Octavinelle’s pools just as Azul exits.

“How so,” you grumble. After his classes, Azul retrieved you from Octavinelle waters with all the grace of a dog owner picking up their mutt from a park after hours of neglect. He leashed you with a spell and dropped you into Octavinelle pools. Now, lying on your back, you glide aimlessly in water like an adrift pool-float.

Didn’t matter where you were though as you knew Jade would come find you. But – “Earlier, when we made eye contact through the tunnel, you swam away like a shy clownfish.” – seems you forgot how rigorous people in this specific dorm were about terms.

Mouth opening to defend yourself (more correctly, lie and say you did not know how to stop), a certain tantalizing scent catches your attention. Flipping yourself upright, you glance towards the edge of the pool when Jade stands on the steps, ankle deep with his pants rolled up and footwear off. In his hands are two steaming plates.

“Oh thank God, I’m starved,” you say, swimming over.

Yet Jade chuckles, “Food is for well-behaved fish who uphold their contract terms.”

“Oh God,” you groan. “Listen, I didn’t know how to stop.” A lie but you tack on, “And it’s not my fault I wasn’t with you. Azul dumped me into Octavinelle. He pushed me in there like a bird kicking her chick out of the nest.” 

“Still, I would have come to retrieve you had you not darted away. Did I perhaps frighten you?” 

“Jade, just tell me what you want to hear and I’ll say it. I’m starving.” You had not realized how famished your new body had grown in such a short time. Swimming is a rigorous exercise but you never thought it would hollow out your stomach so thoroughly. 

“My, what an opportunistic sentence. Anything I want you to say … just like that? Sevens, which of the hundred self-deprecating phrases could I move your tongue into?” The smile he aims at you is a perfect mimic of some villainous character reveling in the downfall of a hero.

“You’re a pain in my ass, Jade. You know that? A real thorn in my side.” 

“A leech on your ankle?”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

“Of course. Any self-respecting person should be able scrutinize and recognize who they are in the eyes of those on the outside looking in.”

“Then you must know I see you as a real asshole for not feeding me.” 

You hold up your hand to accept the plate. At the end of this verbal maze, you will be rewarded with food. Like a mouse who is eventually given cheese after all those twists and turns. However, you do not expect his next sentence:

“You’re hurt.”

Are those the words you must repeat? “I’m hurt?”

Jade shakes his head at you. You watch in surprise as he sits on the edge of the pool, leaving his ankles in the water. You have never seen him look so casual in his dorm uniform. Sure everything is tightly buttoned and hastened in place, yet there is an air of permissiveness around him. “Your arm,” Jade clears up confusion as he sets the plates down. 

When you check the appendage, Jade’s words are proven right. A mark that is sure to turn violet and black runs across your forearm. Must have happened when you were trying to learn how to swim, bumped too hard into a coral reef perhaps. 

“Oh damn, that is going to ache tomorrow.” Hissing through your fangs, “Shit.”

Jade hums in consideration. “Give it here.” He gestures to your arm.

After a moment’s hesitation, you extend your forearm so it rests in Jade’s hands. You expect him to dig his nails into the area, to test what will make you wince. However, he just carefully maneuvers it in his hold, mapping out the bruise’s perimeter with his eyes. Then, he unclips his magic pen from his breast-pocket. 

You rest your head on your shoulder, peering up at Jade with tired eyes. Violet light orchestrates a ballet across his feature, dipping and pirouetting on each sharp curve. It reminds you of how he fought in the violet drenched nightmare of Schoenheit’s overblot to keep you safe.

As the perimeter of your bruise shrinks, you realize something and have to force down a twitch.

Oh.

Oh!

Juxtaposingly, it seems so natural and it seems so artificial. You have feelings for Jade Leech?

‘Please, be serious’ you want to chastise yourself. However, it feels like something that has grown inside your heart naturally. However, it too feels like it was something born of blasphemous methods that would offend Mother Nature. Perhaps that is your own hesitation to admit to having a crush.

Bruise completely gone, lavender light falls away from his face. “There we go.” He looks up from your arm to your body. Seemingly, his eyes flirt about to assess whether there is any more mark from your old, faithful friend Danger you have inevitably fallen into. Does he think you are a failure? The thought makes you sick. You don’t want Jade to ever think that about you.

As you take back your arm from his lap, curling and twisting it experimentally, you thank him.  He responds,“It’s no trouble at all. I uphold contract terms … unlike others.” 

“Oh, climb off it.” 

When you enunciate your sharp ‘t’, Jade’s eyes are magnetized down to the rows of razor daggers in your mouth. If Jade Leech could look stunned, you think this is the closest you have ever seen him do so. A subdued version of the facial expression. 

“What,” you ask. “Something on my face?”

“No, no,” Jade smiles like it is nothing. He picks up the plates previously set aside. He balances each like a veteran waiter, showing you the beef wellington he has cooked for you two. It is paired with a brown sauce underneath the pastry. “I’m glad to see that my preparation was prudent to all the changes the potion did.”

“You aren’t going to change into your mer-form? Show me how to eat and swim correctly so I don’t injure myself?” 

“Now, I don’t want to be too honest with you.” You simply swipe your plate, because God, an honest Jade Leech is scarier than a dishonest one. 

When you head out of Ramshackle the next day, waving goodbye to the ghosts and dire-beast on your shoulder, you come to an unexpected stop on the rickety porch. “Huh, what’s that,” Grim asks as you lean down to pick up the two mysterious jars. Underneath glass, a hundred or so slimy salamander eyes peer at you. And you suddenly recall what you had bemoaned to Jade, Crewel’s going to have my head if I can’t replace his supplies.

Around the neck of each jar, a periwinkle bow has been tied with expert care. You know which dorm that color signifies. For the first in a long time, you walk the hour trek from Ramshackle to Night Raven College feeling light like a feather.

V. Lilies were selected and arrogantly substituted for asphodels.

“So, how did this come to be again,” Jade asks … just for clarification.

Even though it was Grim who grabbed the lilies, it can still be attributed as your fault. If you were in the right mind to speak, you would blame yourself. For one, you used poor judgment to trust Grim would be able to handle selecting ingredients. Secondly, when handed the lilies, you did not check if they were the shape of asphodels. In your vocal absence, Grim clarifies to Jade, “My Henchman messed up the potion!”

“You little weasel!” Adding injury to his insult, Ace whacks the back of Grim’s head. 

“Ow!” Grim cries on Deuce’s shoulder. “Well, they did! Myah, it's not my fault they put it in.”

“You’re the one that picked out the wrong flower, so you’re ultimately at fault,” Deuce sighs. Turning back to Jade, the freshman laments, “Though, we’re not quite sure how one little flower could cause such a big difference. Or when it’s going to wear off.”

With the last sentence said, Deuce sends a wary glance to you. All of them know about the contractual agreement between you and Jade. Obligations stitch you two side by side until the effects of a botched potion wears off. However, he thinks this time should be the expectation. 

“I hope it never wears off,” Ace snickers, undeterred by the glare of Deuce and Jade. 

Originally, none of them knew if the potion was working wrongly, which is quite ironic. Working wrongly … ah, what an odd way to put it. But, when Professor Crewel dipped the rectangular slip of perfume-testing paper into your cauldron and it came back a neon pink instead of a dull orange, you knew you had to make the venture to find Jade Leech. 

Even if I breathed in just a sniff, I have to do this, you griped when your trio asked why you were even heading in the direction of Octavinelle. Sadly, it is an obligation. Your contract has you and Jade spending a large amount of time together.

Out of all the mishaps, this one crept on you silently. Without any forewarning and without any subtlety. One minute you were standing idle by the Mostro Lounge’s entrance and then, Deuce cringes at the memory, you were like this.

“Jade, can I have another kiss pleaseee?” 

Clinging like an eel with captured prey, your arms are wrapped tightly around Jade’s waistline. He cannot seem to pry you off. In honey-laced tones, you bat your eyelashes prettily up at Jade as you ask for your second kiss from him. Hopefully this one will be reciprocated. 

As if the entrance to Mostro Lounge was enchanted with a changeling circle, something shifted in you when you saw Jade. In the crowd of waiters and customers, you found Jade working. Your pupils dilated; your breath hitched; Cupid’s arrow pierced into the cotton-candy red of your beating heart. At the sound of a flustered breath, the trio only got a second to view your visage – a magical cocoon of lovestruck emotions wrapping around you – before you run up to Jade, calling his name in phony passion. 

The first kiss you stole, lip to lip, when you two collided in greeting. The look of disbelief on Jade’s face had Ace sputtering with laughter. 

Deuce was quick to explain everything before Jade … Well, it was difficult for Deuce to tell what Jade was even thinking, or perhaps plotting.  He cannot stomach hypothesizing upon the torment you might be subjected to because of how you are acting. Would Jade feed you poisonous mushrooms for all your non-consensual actions – non-consensual on both parts, you hardly seem right in the head. 

For your sake, Deuce hopes Jade goes easy on you. Speaking of the eel-mer.

In response to your amorous inquiry, Jade tilts his head to look down at you. His eyes are unreadable shields. Though his voice has a tint of minacious teasing in it, “Perhaps we should find another activity for you to take part in? Dishwashing perhaps?”

Grim makes a whine at the memory of dishwashing months ago. Deuce breathes a sigh of relief, dish-washing duty is a low price to pay. It seems Jade might actually be merciful to your unfortunate soul.

“I’d get down and dirty with you in some bubbles.”

Deuce’s face pinches in worry. 

“HAHAHA!” Ace full blown cackles, holding onto his stomach. “Oh, this is great!” He exclaims, sneering at both you and Jade. 

That passive mien on Jade’s face has not even dimmed once at your prevetish intents. Polite disinterest is a mask welded firm to his visage. “My, what a crude innuendo. I must inform you, Mostro Lounge is rather firm on its policy on keeping professional conduct.”

You frown at this sentiment. One could even call you distraught over it. But then something sparks in your lovestruck brain, and you lean harder into Jade like you are trying to fuse yourself to his skin. “Well, is there anything else in Mostro Lounge that is fir–umph?” Jade’s hand covers your mouth swiftly. 

You waste no time, pressing a kiss to the glove and staring up at him with half-lidded eyes.

Composure not slipping for a second, Jade turns to your friends who look on with expressions ranging from horrified to amused. Ah, Isn’t amusement most gratifying when found in the horrifying … Jade thinks so wholeheartedly. With a slight incline of his head, the vice-housewarden says, “As per our contract, I’ll take (Name) for the time being. You three are welcome to stay and enjoy our new spring menu.”

Your friends give various grumbles as Jade guides you away. Deuce even yells out a quick, stay safe, which makes sense when one is in the presence of a predator. However, your entire body is lax and void of tension. You follow after Jade, looking like you would follow him to the ends of the earth.

It is world-altering, tray slipping and dropping glassware type of world-altering, accidentally burning their hand on a hotplate type of world-altering to the staff of Mostro Lounge to see their second boss (and to some their own vice-housewarden) walk arm in arm with the Ramshackle Prefect. The rumors will infect the school for at least a whole semester. Yet despite the obvious euphoria flowing out of the Ramshackle Prefect as they cuddle up to Jade Leech, the side profile of the eel-mer is frozen in polite apathy. 

His cheeks aren’t even pink when the Prefect presses close to him. And you are attractive to have a few admirers who would enjoy having you cling to them. Courteous, Jade opens the VIP room up to you, but you drag him in, refusing to be separated from him for a moment.

When the door clicks shut – thankfully Azul happens to be either in the kitchen or on the floor – with you pulling Jade’s hand and stumbling backwards towards the couch like it is a bed and you two are on your honeymoon, Jade’s stone composure fractures. It all comes spilling from him like an ocean free from the hold of a petite water bottle.

“Fu-Fuck (Name),” his voice trembles against his unoccupied gloved hand. Jade’s skin hue rockets from pale to pink to a red that makes him seem like he is overheating. Resolve wavering, Jade allows himself to be magnetized down to the couch. 

In the sweetest voice that would put sirens to shame, you croon in his ear, “Jade; my lovely Jade; my strong Jade; mine, mine, mine.” You start to press deliberate kisses over his neck, seeing how much resistance his bowtie is going to give to your ministrations.

Jade is on his knees for you. His hands may be planted by your shoulders, but his lower body is completely off the couch. Amorously, you wrap legs around a slim waist and wrap hands around a forest of teal locks. He won’t kiss you back; he cannot find it in himself to, not when you are under a potion’s effect at least. However, he moves his head to an angle like a pleased cat to allow the kisses you litter on his neck.

“Take this off. Jade, off.” Vexful, your fingers pry at the bowtie fastened properly to his uniform. The white article is unapologetically firm against your inexperienced tugs. “Please.”

Something alive wiggles in Jade’s stomach like a spiral. Air crackles with a snap of fabric; the speed Jade rips his necktie off is intense. He undoes his silly bowtie with the eagerness of a highly anticipated Christmas present – good; because, under this potion, you are so eager too.

“(Name), you’re so …” He stops himself, not knowing whether you will remember this later.

As kisses burn his skin, Jade hopes he never scares you off. During Idia’s overblot, he had been so selective with how he fought to protect you – not wanting to mimic the ugliness you say you found in people who overblot. You, with a magic broom in hand, had asked him to abandon his post as vice-housewarden to help you find Grim; he would have abandoned his entire education for you like how the Mermaid Princess abandoned the sea all those centuries ago.

That train of thought is so dangerous though.Your friendship is so incredibly dear to him. Jade wants to take it slow. 

Human courtship works in such mysterious ways that he sometimes feels like a failure at the methods and execution on his end of things. If he were to be truthful with you, pull back the floorboards of his facade to show you the concert of lovebugs thudding in their moshpit underneath … ah, he hopes so passionately to never scare you off. 

As two of his dress-shirt buttons are undone, Jade leans his cheek against your temple. Like an efficient undertaker, he will bury himself under pleasantries to make himself appear more human and subdued. Even in dishonesty, he will love you honestly.

Your teeth are dull. His are not.

Said teeth burrow themselves into the juncture of his neck. Groaning, Jade is ashamed to feel his toes curl in his socks at the bite of such a prey. Sevens, he is stronger than this. 

With spit and teeth, you start to suckle and break the blood vessels in his skin like they are merely thin glow-sticks. He feels each thread of his self control break with them. Serrations from his clenching hands are made in the VIP couch as Jade lets you paint a hickey on his neck. 

The violet in his future bruise is sure to make a perfect matching garish for the color scheme of his dorm uniform.

You take exceptional care to hold your protector gently in your hands as you bite like a rabid animal. Like squishy dough, his skin rounds itself up and into the empty space of your mouth. It is a warm sensation that causes even his knuckles to tingle with the blooming heat.

“(Name)?” Your name falls husky out of Jade’s mouth. He did not think his vocal cords could wither to something unprofessional. “Uuh,” he moans from the sarcophagi of his throat when you chomp harder. 

“So beautiful, so gorgeous, so … so Jade.” You punctuate these sentiments with pecks that move up to his cheek. When you say the last one, you cradle the left side of his face in your hand. You press your lips to his cheek as if trying to fuse with him. 

He kills sentimentality from his voice thoroughly, but Jade has to know, “So Jade? Is that good?”

“It’s perfect.”

Jade drops you off at Ramshackle when your body slips into sleep. When he arrives at his dorm, he lands hard, supine on his mattress. Floyd glances up from his phone, not used to seeing Jade lie in bed so haphazardous without doing his whole routine. Lying in bed, the eel-mer takes his finger to press on the growing bruise on his neck – your own personal attack on him.

“I just had the best day of my life,” Jade muses. A smile wide and wicked blooms on his face as he looks at the ceiling. It only disappears when a pillow is thrown at him.

Reversed I. Jade rarely makes mistakes, but he had forgotten which came first: the live, squawking chicken begging to not be killed or the still, docile egg which could not voice the same plea, begging to not be killed.

Walking out Crewel’s class, having just aced a potion with your lab partner Ace (no pun intended), your eyes expand in surprise when you see one of Octavinelle twins stalking on the opposite wall. Grim bristles in your arm cradle and Adeuce falls silent in their conversation. Tension paints the air. Especially when said twin says:

“Ya breakin’ contract terms, Shrimpy. Can’t believe I gotta do the chase-and-catch act with ya.” His bored look morphs into a smile. “Though Shrimpy’s probably super fun to squeeze. Too bad Jade won’t let me.” His look morphs right back into boredom at his last sentence.

Whiplashed by his chameleon-ing expressions, you stand there numb. His words also make you pause because as far as you are concerned, you are not breaking any terms. The potion you just made went off without a hitch. Bsides, if it went wrong, you would be heading to Octavinelle, obedient to your terms. 

“How am I breaking the terms? I haven’t messed up a potion since …” Since that time you were acting like a spellbound lovestruck fool, “since you know.” 

You trail off. All you know about the last incident comes secondhand from your trio, having woken up in Ramshackle the day after with no recollection of the events. Stricken by only the prologue of a story you do not know, you went about classes in Night Raven College with a lingering sense of uneasiness for two weeks. You think to yourself, Jade must be livid, and start anticipating his revenge at any time. Yet, in the interlude of this horridly put together fantasy comedy that you have been thrown into, teal hair and sharp teeth never make an appearance until now. 

… And the appearance is flipped like a mirror and yawning out, “Uuuh, yeah ya did. If one of you messes up a potion, you guys gotta be with each other.”

“But I haven’t messed up –”

Grim leaps out of your arms when you are grabbed but you do not have the luck to make your own escape. 

Floyd ignores your words. “So, ya get to come with me, lil Shrimp,” he exclaims with a happy lilt, pulling you hard by the forearm. How the hell does a guy of his stature have the strength of a bodybuilder! “Tired of Jade being all boring and not comin’ to find ya. So, I thought I helped!”

“Oh, no, Floyd, that’s not our contract terms. The terms are –” You are cut off abruptly.

“Ya callin’ me a liar, Shrimpy?”

“EEK!”

The face in front of you – that leans down and covers you in a heavy shadow – is reserved for breakers of Azul’s contracts and those who have messed up majorly in Floyd’s book. Unbeknownst to you, you are the breaker of Jade’s sensitive little heart – he has been bemoaning how he probably scared you away two weeks ago, much to Floyd’s annoyance – and that means you have majorly, in behemoth portions, messed up in Floyd's book. 

Staring into those pin-prick eyes and open mouth leer, you almost feel your bladder go slack in fear. With how nice, although a bit devious, Jade expressions have been around you, seeing this twisted version of those features makes you shudder. Don’t forget how vulnerable you are, it warns.

Luckily, there are three glorious idiots in this world that love you dearly. So, when one of them goes, “Hey, my Henchman ain’t no liar, liar!” you relax just a bit. Though Grim’s bravery quickly vanishes with a squealing EEK! when Floyd looks over your shoulder to make eye contact with him.

“Now, you’re someone I can squeeze, Sealy. Don’t get so noisy, ‘kay?” Those hostile eyes land back on you. “Don’t make me drag ya, ‘kay?”

“Hey, you can’t just talk to them like that!” Deuce defends.

“Ya tellin’ me what to do, Little Mackerel? I can talk to anyone however I want.”

“No, you can’t –”

“You can talk to me like that!”

Everyone, even you turn your own head, stares at Ace with wide-eyed expressions. “Hey! Sue me for having self preservation. I for one wouldn’t make such a stupid deal.”

Bristling, you bite back, “I literally devised a plan to save you from a deal with Azul months ago, asshat.”

“That was Azul; not one of the twins. ‘Sides, I’m sure Jade is so eager to see his little boyfriend/girlfriend again. Probably needs another kiss,” Ace teases with a shit-eating grin. 

Your eyes go small in anger, a poor rendition of Floyd’s but still powerful. For these past two weeks, Ace has been referring to you as Jade’s partner and been hinting at more below-the-belt activities. Who knows what could have happened in Octavinelle, you and him all alone for a full day, he teases for the duration of fourteen days, hands steepled in mischief. Just as you open your mouth, ready to rip Ace a new one, you are lifted off the ground like a mere household pet.

“See! Crabby gets it!” You wrestle and twist in Floyd’s tight hold. “Ya both just need to kiss it out!”

“I think the phrase is talk it out,” Deuce adds helplessly as you dragged off by a 6’1” eel, screaming:

“Ace. Ace! When I get my hands on you! ACE!” 

Thus, you are once more brought to Octavinelle against your will. Instead of being cradled by a cauldron full of water and Azul’s magic, you are held tentatively in Floyd’s arms as you wiggle and thrust in hopes to escape. He does not break your ribs or your arms luckily. You whack Floyd with all your might the entire way.

Heels dragging across linoleum, you watch the ground move under you like an escalator. Floyd is still effortlessly dragging you, much like a body-bag. Already, you have tried to bargain with Floyd on getting your tedious freedom. Offering up pieces of candy you have in your pocket, labor you could perhaps do in the Lounge; offering up one day to ransack Ramshackle of any objects he wants, labor you could perhaps do by helping him complete parkour tricks or basketball. 

His mouth twists in contemplation when you offer to let him use the rocky, uneven terrain of Ramshackle’s backyard. Offer it for what? To Floyd for free-use to test ride for his new Blastcycle. You thank your very low population of lucky stars that Jade mentioned offhandedly Floyd was planning to join one trip of the Mountain Lovers Club to test the motorcycle on new environments for tricks. 

You can deal with another deal with an eel! As long as you can avoid seeing the eel you were trying and probably failing to seduce due to a botched potion! Thinking you have Floyd hook-line-and-sinker, you completely stop struggling. 

Until he hums, “Naaaaah!” and you two are jumping through Octavinelle’s mirror in the Hall of Mirrors. If the world has decided to give all its troubles to one person, the world has picked you from the pile. A part of you hates how much this cursed, twisted world has knocked you down repeatedly.

When the bubble pops, Floyd finally lets you walk with him. Though the arm looped around your shoulder feels more like a pillory than a friendly gesture. Devil-toothed, he smiles at you and says, “Sooo you and Jade, huh?”

“Huh!” You shout indignant. 

“Hey, it’s cool. I approve so no sweat. Just unexpected ‘cus I thought this was just an experiment for Jade; then he got serious so I was thinkin’ wooow, weird, ya know?”

Confused, you just blink at Floyd’s words. This contractual agreement between you and Jade is more cat hunting the mouse then cat watching the mouse navigate a maze. It has a very hands-on experiment with you as the main test subject. But serious; why would it be more or less serious now? 

The smile drops off Floyd’s face. “No way you’re this dumb, Shrimpy. I know ya suck at potionology but c’mon.”

“I just don’t understand what you mean by serious.”

“Sevens, you two would be pinin’ till your fourth year without me.”

“Pining?” … That involves your feelings being mutual? Jade doesn’t – “EEK!”

Floyd’s eyes go back to that pin-prick size again. He even halts both of your walk towards his and Jade’s dorm. Without your trio here, you sincerely doubt how much Floyd is going to uphold his decision not to squeeze you. Instead, he just throws back his head and groans. “He owes me a month worth of pickin’ up my shifts after this.”

You have numerous questions on what Floyd is alluding to but you are suddenly pushed into a more brisk walk. Floyd’s hand steers you. “‘Kay, I’ll give ya the rundown so ya don’t act like an idiot. Jade messed up a potion. And, your guys’ contract says you have to be around each other when that happens.” Incorrect but you let him continue. 

“Jade … ya know him, Jade, my brother? Well, he’s the secretive typa-guy. Has a hard time lettin’ people get close. Mama calls him super shy. But, you, got to go hikin’ with him, see our dorm, and even eat a meal with him. Jade doesn’t do that with just anyone.”

Even though there is no botched potion ingested right now, you feel something fluttering around your stomach like a bubbling elixir at Floyd’s words. He continues, “And, right now, my oh-so-tight-lipped brother is under a truth serum potion.”

The world stops. One, because you come to the world-halting epiphany that you have been seeing a side of Jade that no one other than Floyd and Azul might be privy to view it. Two, because Floyd stops steering you in the direction of the dorm due to arriving at the very designation. The guy who keeps his real thoughts tucked behind layers upon layers of purple prose is under a truth serum; the guy who would rather shrivel up like a beached fish than reveal his heart is under a truth serum; the guy whose Unique Magic forces people to tell the truth is under a truth serum. The irony is not lost on you, and thus the world stops.

“Jade’s under a –?”

“Yeah,” Floyd laughs, tickled pink with amusement. 

In sync, you both glance at the dorm’s door like it is a monolith dropped out of the skies. Who knows what might be held inside it? Venturing in might reveal some eldritch secrets that primitive extraterrestrials hid away thousands of moons ago. 

“You can go in there, ya know. Contract says it’s fine.”

A part of you wants to finally clear up the confusion between Floyd and yours and Jade’s contract. Yet, a bigger part of you, oh that part has to see what is behind Curtain Number One more than anything else. An honest Jade Leech is like finding life on Mars. Deluding yourself, you think: Well, the contract never outlined the terms for the other party being compromised by a potion sooo … You glance at Floyd.

“I don’t understand what you get out of this.”

“Hehe, entertainment.”

That tracks well enough that you do open the door. 

Hand on the knob of the monolith, you glance into rather tenebrous darkness like looking under the bed for monsters. Behind you, Floyd flicks up the switch with his index. Light floods the room. On the bed to the right, Jade lies peacefully on his side, hugging a pillow. 

“You’re gonna need to shake him awake. Jade sleeps reeeal deep.” Slack-jawed, you turn around with indignance on your tongue. As a mouse, you refuse to be sent in to poke a slumbering cat. Yet, Floyd has already departed without another word.

“Asshat,” you mumble at the closed door. It is completely unlocked and you know you could leave anytime but … well, let's just say Jade is not the only one who likes to lift up rocks and see what squirms underneath. Besides, you have contractual terms that keep you protected. 

“Okay … okay.” You steel yourself in your resolve. Despite this, you tiptoe your way over to Jade’s bed, hyper aware of what floorboard looks like it could possibly make a creak. Floyd is not under a truth serum; he could be lying about Jade being a deep sleeper.

Jade looks quite innocent when asleep. It is probably the last adjective anyone would ever use to describe him but it is the bone deep truth. Facade and stress melted from his features, there is this alien beauty resting peacefully on pallid skin. His hair is a bit more unruly; teal wisps all still flow in the same direction but they separate more openly. It kind of looks like someone took a balloon to his head and rubbed until static engulfed it. Oh, and his nose is so cute when he has his cheek depressing down on a pillow like that.

Smile stolen, you blink once in surprise from your own thoughts, despite knowing they have become like that overtime. “Aaah forget about it,” you murmur. 

Reaching over, you gently grasp Jade’s shoulder. You have had a question on your mind for a while. Quiet as a mouse, you urge, “Jade. Jade, wake up.”

Nothing. He is sound asleep like a rock. “Jade?” However hesitant, you still try to shake him a bit more forcefully. “Wake up, Jade.” 

Ugh, this is getting you nowhere. Part of you thinks he is putting up another identity and pretending to be a deep sleeper. Jade is rarely truthful. He always speaks in rhymes and half-truths. For a simple potion to untangle his tongue so thoroughly wants you yearn to discover just a bit more about him. 

In this uneasy friendship of mouse and cat, you have found yourself enjoying discovering the hidden, earnest parts of Jade Leech. It is an unexpected development. 

Though, it stings that he only keeps you around for entertainment and abuse.

Cringing, you think you stumbled upon what will finally rouse him from his sleep. You lean down to his ear and lie, “Jade, I was wondering if you would feed me some of the new mushrooms from your hikes? Pretty please?” 

Unamused, you watch Jade’s eyelashes serenely flutter open like he is Sleeping Beauty. Asshat. Groggily, a pair of eyes stare up at you in disbelief, probably anticipating his brother or his housewarden. But, those blissful words you said seem to have him arouse as he stretches from his bed like a rising cat.

“(Name)?” He asks, sitting up in bed. “What are you doing in my room?”

A sheepish hand travels up to cover your pulse. Leaning heavy on your right foot, you lie with a chuckle, “Ah, Floyd dragged me here. Said you were sick with a fever. I’m not sure how he expects me to help though, heh.”

You know you should not … but you want to play with this. A sadistic part of you wants to watch him squirm and wiggle. Under the guise of coming over to assist him with a fever, you can only imagine Jade will try to hide the fact he is under a truth serum. 

“Ah, Floyd is mistaken. I am not sick.”

That response is unusually curt for Jade; it seems he is going to try to conceal this as long as possible. You cannot wait to stretch out his resistrant like it is a stringy ligament you are drawing and quartering until it snaps. “Oh, that’s just unusual because you are sleeping when you should be in class. Slacking off?”

“Yes, I should be in class.” Jade remains firm in his bed, giving you a polite smile. Additionally, he is firm in his resolve to not give up any information. Even under a botched potion, his self control is strong; you wonder if there is anything that could ever make him act out.

Once again ignorant, you do not know that answer is quite simply: you.

However, there is one question you have been burning and yearning to know. Coy, you ask, “Well, that’s no good. Skipping classes like that. Though, you know I was wondering …Did you put mushrooms in that beef wellington a few weeks ago?”

“Yes.”

Something in you snaps. “AH, I knew it! You asshat!” You raise a fist, throwing yourself at Jade. “That’s disgusting, Jade! A violation of friendship! Where was it!”

As Jade bats away your flying fists, he says without much resistance against the truth serum, “In the duxelles sauce.”

You punctuate each time you call him a donkey wearing a tophat with a hit to his shoulder. Stronger than you, as natural of your protector, Jade is able to evade your hits well. The ones that land he lets land. Yet, having had enough, Jade soon grabs your wrist and with a laugh says, “Fufufu, you are so utterly adorable with your instinct to hit things.”

Blank-faced, you blink at Jade. “... Adorable?” It is not a world altering sentence; you bet Jade finds the prey that skitter away from him back home in the Coral Sea pitifully adorable too. Still, the revelation is a bit of a shock to the heart.

“Well, not solely adorable. No, there is a whole library in my soul dedicated to describing you. There are moments when you are irresistible as  –” Whatever poetry Jade was going to wax, he halts it by slamming a hand over his mouth, horrified. Your eyes lock in shared terror.

“Wh-what,” you stammer, pulling away from Jade.

He grabs you by your shoulders before you get too far. With desperation, he pulls you right back to him. Then, Jade appears stricken, dueling in his head whether he should force you to stay or allow you to leave. It is like both of you have stumbled upon something horrifying and left speechless. Speechless at least until Jade grits out, “I … I think you should go.”

Having the upperhand of remembering he is under a truth serum, you ask softly, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I ache when you leave. I wish I had the foresight to length out our contract terms, so I could see you more.” The sheets look like they could tear like paper mache under Jade’s grip. With wobbling lips, he forces a smile full of teeth onto his face. “Don’t you think this humiliation is quite enough?”

To be honest hypotheses have been forming in your head quite some time ago. However, after your last botched potion, embarrassment ate up your speculation on if Jade reciprocated what you felt growing in yourself over time. Now, variables are tipping in your favor. And he has been such a mean cat to you so …

You sit yourself on the edge of Jade’s bed; the first sadistic grin you have ever shown him blooms on your face. “Why, no, I hardly think I’ve done enough.” Leg now up on the mattress, you hook your arms around the body part and lean forward, teasing, “You’re never this honest with anyone, Jade.”

“Best to keep one’s cards close to the chest, don’t you agree? With the way you were acting last time we saw each other, it was like you fumbled the entire deck.”

Your left eye twitches. Cracks appearing in your confidence, you grit out, “Oh, did I? I actually don’t remember all that happened; perhaps you can enlighten me. How did it feel to be so … seduced?”

“I have never known such bliss … Really, (Name), this is painful for me.”

As sheets tear under Jade’s twisting fists, your confidence refuels itself. Being in control like this is exhilarating, you can see why Jade enjoys it so. His squirming is so cute! Smug, you purr, “Oooh I see~” You take in Jade’s grimace with satisfaction and ask, “So, me? Really? When did that start?”

“Since that day in the botanical gardens.”

Your smile drops. “Huh?” Slowly, the landscape of your flesh succumbs to geysering blood. Flustering heat rises and lives on each inch of your face. Because – “Ha … heh, huh?” – you started feeling something naturally after the potion incident where you were turned into a mer. To know his emotions have been kept classified, under lock-and-key for so long; it leaves you dizzy with a blush. Perhaps you aren’t fit for the role of the cat.

However, Jade misjudges your sudden silence for fear. He does not dare to reach out. “Please, don’t be afraid of me.”

“Jade?”

“The very thought that you could makes me sick.” 

You take in Jade’s cumbersome words, speechless. They soak into you like blood to a sponge. Fragile and human, your eyelashes twitch over your eyes, jittery until you half-lid your vision. A charmed chuckle escapes your lips, “oh Jade.”

His skin is so smooth. Cradling his cheek in your metaphorical claws, you smile lovestruck without the love potion. His face starts to beam a light, delicate pink. Cute and delicate and innocent … These are things that Jade is not. But under your warped vision, and through countless new experiments, you can squeeze him to fit the description. 

“I could never be afraid of you. After all you’ve done for me … How you protected me? I don’t care about the teeth; I don’t care about the biology. I don’t need deep sea knowledge to know I like you … and I hope you like me too?” 

You do not let him answer, fearful of the raw truth that could possibly be not what you want to hear, pressing a kiss to his lips. 

His answer –the solution to the hypothesis – is given in his kiss.

[joocomics]

ಬ boyfriend

pairing: bf!hueningkai x fem!reader

genre: smut — mdni! wc: 1.4k

contains: dom/sub dynamics, dry humping, filming, pet names, dirty talk, unprotected sex, established relationship

a/n: i don’t know, i don’t know… it’s been on my mind, what else can i do about it

[ txt masterlist | general masterlist ]

“more?” kai’s lips form a soft grin while he continues to observe you from below as you sit still on his lap.

“more,” you agree, an affectionate smile forming on your own mouth too. “there’s always room for more pictures of my cute boyfriend.”

kai’s cheeks turn warmer from your words or more specifically from the new title he’s earned himself recently - your boyfriend. the ring of it always calls for butterflies in his stomach, because it sounds so special when you say it. yeah, he feels good when he gets to introduce himself as your boyfriend, but it cannot compare to the satisfaction he gets when you do it, and how the whole air in the room shifts from the confidence you speak out the words with. this is my boyfriend… it’s huening kai, my boyfriend…

he looks up at your face again and lets you snap few more pictures without even trying to focus on the camera, to pose or anything like that. he’s smiling lazily, but he hasn’t stopped doing that since the moment you came over. his cheeks might start hurting soon.

you drop your cellphone next to you on the bed after capturing his tender gaze which still has sleepiness in it from the afternoon nap - it’s only making him look more charming, you notice, - his messy bangs that are peeking from his black hoodie, the soft plushie resting on his chest that’s moving up and down steadily with each calm breath he takes.

you cannot resist the tempting look of his lips for long, nor the way he looks at you as if he’s going through your mind.

kai sighs blissfully as you slowly pull away from the gentle kiss, but not too far, because his one hand goes at the back of your neck and pulls you back in. carefully, but with enough persistence which only causes the next kiss to get more intense in no time.

your tongues eventually meet, wet and warm, they glide against each other, making you moan softly just when kai allows his hand to slide down your back. he gets a hold of your hips as you push the plush toy away and unzip his hoodie in need to feel him closer. you both do all of these little things in order to get more from each other without actually having to separate your lips or bodies too much, because the idea sounds unbearable.

“kai—“ you mumble into his mouth, feeling your face, neck and back turning hot as he begins to grind you down on him… as if you’re actually fucking; with a firm grip that turns even tighter every time his lower body jumps up slightly against you for even better friction.

“mmm…” kai squeezes his eyes as this would help him comprehend better whatever you’re about to say. his brows knit together from the nice rush that keeps coming every time you press against him and glide up along his erection which is peeking vividly through his pair of sweatpants.

“this…” he finally speaks before you manage to gather your thoughts, “feels good…”

the last word shakes a little turning his voice more into a whine.

“i was about to say the same.” you reply, tracing the side of his face with your lips; kissing his sharp jawline, then even lower where the skin of his neck is warm and sensitive, sending arousing thrills through his body every time the tip of your tongue touches it.

you feel him growing harder, meanwhile kai feels himself throbbing and leaking inside his underwear. the hot wave washes all over him with each move of your hips that eventually quicken their speed.

you need him - all of him. now. and you want to break the kiss to tell him that, but you can’t seem to force any of this to stop even for a second. having sex with him was all that’s been on your mind this morning while waiting for the hours to pass so you can come over at his place. you haven’t been intimate a lot, because your relationship is still fresh and new, and it all feels so ecstatic, so exciting. every time you do it it only feels better than the last, and you wonder how it would feel now.

however, you just keep grinding on his hard erection, enjoying the delicious sounds slipping from his puffy lips that are glistening with your saliva.

huening kai feels his skin sweating underneath his clothes as the overwhelming pressure in his core starts to feel like it’s about to burst. his moans multiple so much to the point you can’t make out properly anymore. he stays with his mouth open, growing weaker from your hot breathing fanning his face, and occasionally attempts to press his lips to answer your kisses, but he fails. his whimpers elevate in the room as his hands almost take complete control of your lower half, guiding you back and forth until the ecstatic climax hits him.

the sound he makes as he spills into his underwear is the most satisfying sound you’ve ever heard in your life. you pepper his face with praising kisses while he tries to compose himself with empty mind and face contorted from an expression that makes him seem high and so unbelievably attractive.

with hazed eyes, kai follows your next movements - how you remove his stained sweatpants then afterwards his boxers. a wave of shame washes over him like a bucket of cold water at the sight of his own mess, but the emotion quickly fades away once you run your flat pink tongue along his hard cock. you successfully maintain the eye contact while gathering all of the essence that’s sticking on his swollen tip causing him to twitch. you kiss it softly a few times before getting rid of your own pants so you can move your panties to the side and welcome it inside you.

“fuck, y/n—“ kai whimpers, pressing his head back into the mattress. the squeezing, the wet arousal, the suffocating feeling of your walls… the sensation is always so strong and pleasant.

the first few seconds are always challenging because of huening’s size. you still haven’t gotten used to being with someone this big and it takes you some time to adjust. despite the fact you had sex the other day, because it’s all you want to do, the feeling of it still surprises you like it’s the very first time.

your whimpers beautifully blend with his as you begin to move up and down more freely.

“y/n—“ his hands glide along your thighs before grabbing your waist. “a-ah, keep going—“

your skin slaps against his every time you land on his lap, hitting your sweet spot with the head of his cock that feels so hard between your clenching walls.

kai shuts his eyes while biting his lip in order to contain at least some part of his desperate mewls… and he looks so handsome while doing so, your hand acts on his own when you pick up your phone to record just a few seconds of it.

“my charming boyfriend,” you coo at him, placing a palm on his cheek. “you look so hot, baby.”

kai’s mouth opens in awe as you make one really slow move with your hips, rubbing your clit against him nicely. when he blinks up at you and sees your phone again he smiles shyly. a light chuckle escapes his lips before he kisses the inside of your palm.

“you’re so good to me,” he utters almost in a whisper before making another weak noise of pleasure.

after the video caught the red hues that are painting his neck, you tilt kai’s head in your direction by grabbing his chin, and caress his lips with your thumb. they’re more red than usual, slightly swollen from the long kissing; begging to be devoured again.

“am i taking you well, baby?”

your hips keep up the nice steady pace as you drip down his cock. the camera catches your small heavy breaths while the footage of kai’s teeth grazing your two fingers continues.

“i think i am,” you mewl through a cheeky tone, “i want my handsome boyfriend to feel amazing inside me.”

you push your fingers a little bit further on his tongue and you can see on your phone screen that he likes that even more. his hands crawl up beneath your top as his lewd moans wrap around your knuckles. his heavy eyes open for a moment to look at the camera with lust and haziness before they flutter shut again.

you end the video and toss your phone away. you’ll have plenty of time to film your boyfriend. now, you want to make him cum again.

! please do not repost, copy or translate my works

! keep in mind english is not my first language, i apologise in advance for any mistakes i’ve might missed

[nebulaafterdark]

Sooner Or Late

Aegon Targaryen ii x Velaryon(Strong)!Reader

Summary: Y/N flees to the north before the start of the war. When it is over, Aegon will stop at nothing to get her back. Based off this request 18+ ONLY implied dubcon, mental illness & violence

Long before the dragons dance, Y/N is promised to Aegon. As a result, Rhaenyra sends her only daughter to the North in hopes of securing an alliance and to keep her half brother at bay.

His desire for the princess Y/N is deprived, even Alicent could not comprehend it. In the years Y/N is gone, Aegon yearns for her, a longing set deep into his bones.

Y/N finds real love, without sharp edges. His name is Jonathan Stark, after whom their son is named. His body now hangs like a trophy in Aegon’s garden.

The war brought one tragedy after another. Her mother and three, if not four, of her brothers were slain.

As for the greens, only Aegon and Alicent remain.

Y/N was taken back to King’s Landing, upon Aegon’s victory. She is to be his prize. As a warm welcome, he strung up her husband and allowed her to watch the light fade from his eyes.

Jon is spared the sight of his father’s remains, shielding his eyes with his mother’s dress as she whispers to him.

“I love you more than anything in this world.” She tells him, “no matter what becomes of me, you mustn’t be afraid. You must be strong.”

His hold on her tightens as they are forced into the throne room to meet the king. A man his mother has no love for. The man who killed his father.

“Ahh, good, you’re here.” Aegon grins, rising from his perch. “We need to prepare you for dinner.” The front of his robes are stained with blood.

Her husband’s blood.

“I will admit, I was not expecting two guests. Luckily, the coronation will not take place until the morrow. Which gives us time to fit robes for our boy.” The King smiles at Jonathan.

Y/N clutches her son closer as he begins to cry. “Shh.”

“Tell me now, dearest, what is his name?”

“His name is Jonathan.”

“Jonathan.” Aegon looks to the boy, clinging to his mother. “A fine name for a prince.”

“T-thank you, your grace, but I am not a prince.” The boy sniffles.

Aegon bends forward to his eye level. “You are now. In one day’s time, your mother will be crowned queen of the seven kingdoms and you our heir. Now that you are here we will be a proper family.”

“I had a family.” Jonathan reminds him.

Y/N tucks the boy farther against her side.

Aegon sighs, standing to face Y/N. “There, there, my darling.” He dries her tears with a blunt swipe of his hand.

“Please don’t hurt him, he doesn’t understand.”

“I am not going harm him.” Aegon scoffs. “He grew inside your womb, same as our children will.”

“Ours?” Y/N breathes, clutching her son’s hand. Aegon has well and truly lost his mind.

“I’m going to be your father now.” Aegon tells Jonathan. “There will be no more talk of the man who tried to steal your mother from me. Do you understand?”

Jonathan nods, against his mother’s dress.

“Good,” Aegon inhales deeply, wrapping them both in his arms. “Welcome home.”

————————————————————————

“Why are you doing this, Aegon?” Y/N asks, staring out the window to the garden.

“You were promised to me.” He tosses his chalice against the wall, stumbling toward her. “You will marry me. You will love no one but me! That is why Stark is dead, that is why his body will hang until only his bones remain.”

“How can you be so cruel?” Y/N cries, wrapping both arms tightly around herself.

“This is a kindness, my dearest love.” Aegon says draping his arms over hers, “in time you will see. You’ve lost your way. But you will learn, I will teach you.”

She has to get away. “Please-”

He sneers. “You will do a fair share of begging in our lives together, there is no need to start prematurely.”

“What do you want?”

Has he not made it abundantly clear? “You.”

“I am only a woman. You understand that, do you not?” Y/N scoffs. “There is nothing I can give you another cannot. Why chase me? Why hunt me down when you could’ve had anyone?”

“I realize we have our differences, but there is no other woman capable of evoking such passion in my heart. I love you, I loathe you. You frustrate and entice me.” He nips at her neck. “It was always going to be you, sooner or late.”

“I had a life, Aegon.”

“Now you will have a new life, with me.”

————————————————————————

As days pass, Y/N allows her mind to wander. To escape the vessel in which it’s held; far enough that she doesn’t feel. In time, it begins drifting farther and farther out to sea.

Aegon plays with Jonathan, lifting him high on his shoulders, the way her husband used to.

Jonathan takes a liking to him. Anytime he asks about his father, he is met with a sigh.

“Do you see that pretender anywhere around here?”

Jon shakes his head.

“And you never will.” Aegon snickers. “There is no need to keep asking, as you know it upsets me.”

The boy lowers his eyes, “yes, father.”

“You are a Targaryen. Not a Stark.” Aegon taps his chin, “all of this will be yours one day.”

Aegon is a madman, but he does seem to care for them, in his own demented way.

Y/N loathes herself for even thinking it.

A few weeks after, her belly begins to round with Aegon’s child. Y/N nearly forgets why she is here. Why she has to float away.

Aegon is all but tethered to the tiny bump, kissing it each day as it grows.

Jonathan is the only reason Y/N holds onto hope. Though sometimes, she can hear his father calling from the garden.

Aegon is speaking to her then, plush lips moving over perfect teeth.

It catches her off guard, the look of him. A fallen angel, cast out by the gods. So like her mother. Y/N desperately misses her mother.

Aegon smiles as she caresses the side of his face, ignoring her distant gaze. He knew she would come round, eventually.

“Why do you think my mother hasn’t come to see me?” Y/N asks, with wide, sad eyes.

Oh…you poor, poor, thing. Aegon kisses her outstretched hand. She does not remember, nor does it matter. It’s best not to upset her. “I am sure she will turn up sooner or late, my dearest love.”

She believes him, she has to.

Part 2

Aegon Taglist: @niyahnotnia @narwhal-swimmingintheocean

[grunckle]

Qualia and Ascension in Rain World

(To clarify I'm mostly talking about base-game lore and not including Downpour, but honestly most of these things can transfer over)

Qualia

One thing that’s relatively hidden in Rain World’s text and subtext is the concept of qualia. Qualia is described as being, “sensory experiences that have distinctive subjective qualities but lack any meaning or external reference to the objects or events that cause them.” It’s a personal sensory experience that cannot be comprehended by another person other than the individual themself, and are often hard to convey via language.

Qualia is a reoccurring motif in Rain World, but what’s more important is the way in which it’s conveyed to the player. The picture that’s painted is that of a world or civilization that placed a great importance on the individuals’ experience, and it’s shown through pearls or environmental details.

Here are some examples of qualia appearing in the text through pearls.

“It's qualia, or a moment - a very short one. Someone is holding a black stone, and twisting it slightly as they drag their finger across the rough surface. The entire sequence is shorter than a heartbeat, but the resolution is extraordinary.”

“A memory... but not really visual, or even concrete, in its character. It reminds of the feeling of a warm wind, but not the physical feeling but the... inner feeling. I don't think it has much utility unless you are doing some very fringe Regeneraist research.”

“This one... is authored by Five Pebbles, when he was young. There has been an attempt to scramble the data, but it's sloppily done, and most is still somewhat legible. It's written in internal language, or thoughts, so it is hard for me to translate so you would understand.”

But the most prominent examples of qualia and it’s importance in this world are the Memory Crypts and possibly ancient naming conventions. The deep purple pearl (shortened) found in Shaded Citadel states,

“In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids (…) Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane. The assorted memories and qualia include:”

Ancients likely mutated their own neural tissue into the cabinet beasts we see in Shaded, which were used to store their memories and qualia before ascension. Even james said once "how 5 pebs got the rot is a good hint here" in response to someone asking how cabinet beasts work, and how they're made.

Adding on to this, ancient (and iterator) naming conventions seem to be built off of the concept of qualia, with them focusing on individual images or experiences.

Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections

Droplets upon Five Large Droplets

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

Looks to the Moon

Generally, this all points to a world focused on the expression and preservation of the individual experience. You could even consider some of the echo dialogue as more evidence for this running motif, but I already have too many quotes lol.

Ascension

So now time to talk about my interpretation of ascension. In short, you turn into a worm, but I should probably explain more than that.

So its been surfacing on rw-tumblr that the light in the end of the game is called the egg in files. Although file names shouldn't be taken as fact or canon, it is pretty obvious given the birth imagery.

But something a little lesser known is what happens to the worm that takes us down to the void-sea depths. Void worms normally have a bright glowing effect, on their body, which is present for ours as well. But after it unhooks us, it swims down, and when it passes us on it's way back that glowing effect is gone.

To be honest, I don't really think this can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious one and the one I personally subscribe to is that the worm laid the egg. Biology and spirituality really aren't that different in Rain World, it's implied that karma is stored in the brain through Five Pebbles's slideshow. Adding on to that, we see voidspawn after eating an iterator neuron. One's spiritual state is innately tied to their mental state, and that dictates what and what they can't perceive.

And for that reason I decide to take a more biology leaning approach to what happens in the ending. At face value, we are fertilizing the egg of a void worm to be reborn into a voidspawn.

Not only do void spawn and void worms have multiple characteristics in common, (worm like bodies, tendrils/tentacles, glowing heads, void spawn look microbial and void worms are likely some of the oldest "life" in game)

but voidspawn are seen inside egg-like coverings and share the same egg light seen in the end of the game, confirmed to be the same thing by Videocult in a livestream they did.

I believe that all this points to ascension being re-birth into a voidspawn, which eventually undergoes metamorphose into a worm. Higher-dimensional beings, who manifest and give birth to a new world.

So how does this tie in with qualia? Another thing you might know is that the area in which void spawn are most plentiful is Shaded Citadel and areas in Shoreline near Shaded. And shaded is absolutely packed with Cabinet Beasts, even outside Memory Crypts. I believe these qualia-storing creatures are what manifest voidspawn.

From what we see in ascension, it still looks physical and largely based around the real world. Hunter still has his scars and see's an iterator, survivor sees the slug tree in a more mystical and formless state, and monk sees survivor frankly just looking like a normal slugcat. I think that ascension is a product of qualia. We transcend our earthly knowledge via the egg, and our own qualia is used to give birth to a new world. This is why voidspawn appear most in Shaded Citadel.

Now I won't be getting into Void-Worm theories too much here, I'm mostly focused on ascension but I can't ignore the Gnosticism parallels. For those who don't know, Void Worms heavily resemble the Yaldaboath from Gnosticism, along with sharing some similar celestial motifs.

and running with that some people theorize that, like the Yaldabaoth, void worms are responsible for manifesting the material world. Ascension seems to be a mix of the concepts of Gnosis and Nirvana, but I believe it might lean more on Gnosis.

From my limited knowledge, Gnosis is a few things, some of which being a state achieved from experiences or intuitions, and an essential part to salvation is personal knowledge. While researching a bit, I came across this text by Peter Wilberg called "From NEW AGE to NEW GNOSIS" which brings up some comparisons between Gnosticism and qualia as well.

"Gnosis is subjective knowledge of an inner universe made up not of matter, energy, space or time but of countless qualitative spheres or ‘planes’ of awareness – a knowledge obtained directly through inter- subjective resonance. It is the subjective science of this inner universe."

One thing though that has been brought up when discussing this is how this can be consolidated with the tone of the ending. It is pretty un-ambiguously happy, but if we're going with the Void worm Yaldaboath theory then that would put a bit of a sour twist on it right?

I agreed with these for some time, but now I actually think it ties in perfectly with Rain World's core themes as stated by the devs, "overcoming differences and finding empathy." I don't think the void worms are "evil" or malevolent, but I think they (and subsequently us after ascending) play a key role in demonstrating this theme.

By manifesting the physical world, we allow these souls to experience life and develop their own qualia so one day they can ascend themselves. We are shown compassion, and pass it forward.

[idyllic-affections]

little colt.

summary. xianyun cannot help but take in another child. perhaps, in the future, they may become a disciple of hers.

trigger & content warnings. none applicable.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. fluff, found family-ish. xianyun & child!reader. 2k words. they/them pronouns for reader. prev | next.

author's thoughts. bird mom propaganda RAHHHHHH btw if you find a typo no you didn't i'm sleepy but i wanted to post this........

       Cloud Retainer has taken on many disciples in her time, and she has loved each and every one as if they were her own.

       It was, therefore, quite unlikely that she woukd cease to take on disciples anytime within the forseeable future. Her love was extensive, far beyond what most mortals would be able to comprehend, and her capacity for intimate and tight bonds was even moreso. She has taken on many disciples over the years, and she has loved them all like her own children.

       Perhaps it could be attributed to her adeptal instincts; she can recall many a time during which her fellow adepti, upon bonding closely with another being, became exceedingly protective of them. It was only natural—adepti lived for so long and were often affected by their more nonhuman instincts. It wouldn't be improbable to imagine that the need to bond with other beings would grow strong over so many years.

       ...Then again, it could always simply be attributed to her. In her mind, there was little need for any such justification like 'instincts.' She could scoff at the idea—she was no mere animal. 'Instincts' could not begin to fully explain the depth of her love and care; it was surely infinitely more complicated than the mere maternal urges that a simple crane, a wild animal, might have. She was infinitely more intricate and convoluted than an uncomplicated bird.

       (That, however, did not change the fact that she did tend to have bird-like habits. Preening, nesting in her own way... She preferred not to bring attention to that fact, however.)

       Regardless of the reason, the truth was that she was lonely, even if she vehemently denied it whenever someone brought up the idea. Mt. Aocang was... quiet, dreadfully so without the constant presence of Ganyu or Shenhe or any of her other disciples. She enjoyed the silence to an extent, but she could only entertain herself for so long without another being to share her knowledge with. Liyue Harbor was far more lively. Loud and chaotic at times, perhaps, but far less lonely than the empty nest that her adeptal abode had become.

       Maybe that was why she was so immediately invested in the little one who had accidentially bumped into her and was now apologizing profusely.

       "I'm— I'm so sorry, miss! I wasn't watching where I was going! I really didn't mean it, I..."

       'What a swift little thing,' she couldn't help but muse. She'd hardly even spotted them rushing her way before they tumbled into her legs. Their body weight wasn't even enough to make her stumble—if anything, they were the one that ended up getting thrown off balance. It was cute how small they were compared to her, really; it reminded her of Shenhe when she was a child, or even her current disciple, Shuyu.

       Ah... but she shouldn't be so quick to think fondly of them. No, surely this little one had parents of their own—a life of their own—to return to. She did not even know their name. No. Bonds should not be so quick to form.

       With elegant, poised grace akin to a gentle breeze rustling a tree's leaves, she knelt down, the motion putting an end to their sheepish yet hurried apologies. Glossy, innocent eyes stared up at her—even kneeling, Xianyun was still a bit taller than they were—with an amount of awe that would've made her feathers puff out in pride had she been in her illuminated beast form. She was not one to grow embarrassed at admiration, after all.

       "Where are your caregivers, child?"

       "Oh. Um." Their brows furrowed slightly. "...I don't know, actually."

       "Ah, are you lost? Come, then. One— Ahem. I shall reuinte you with them. I am certain they must be quite frantic in your absence."

       Before she could rise and offer her clawed hand to them, they urgently shook their head.

       "Oh, no! It's not like that, miss. Even if it was, I wouldn't want to trouble you at all! I would find my way back!" they insisted politely, waving their hands in front of their body as if to dismiss her concerns (though, Xianyun hardly thought it would be "troubling"; she was a bit surprised that they felt it so, or perhaps they were really just trying to be polite). It was then that she noticed the little wooden chick held carefully in one of their hands, but she did not yet have the opportunity to inquire about it. "I've been on my own for as long as I can remember, that's all."

       Oh?

       Oh.

       "Hm. Is that so?"

       "Uh-huh."

       "In that case, child, I—"

       A man rounding the corner and immediately prevented her from finishing her sentence. He was very clearly furious, approaching the child with such fervent determination that Xianyun could not help but wonder what nature of a troublemaker she must have encountered. Though... she really did not see them that way, which only made her infintely more curious about rhe situation at hand.

       Their expression seemed to fall.

       "You, kid!" he shouted, stopping just a foot or two away from them. "You can't just go around stealing whatever you please! Who raised you?!"

       "No, I..." They could not meet his gaze. "I was gonna bring back more mora to make up for it when I could, I just—!"

       "Don't give me excuses. I want the toy you've stolen returned, you understand? Hand it over!"

       Xianyun sighed, adjusting her glasses.

       "Enough," she said, rising to her feet. "How much mora will suffice? For reparations, of course."

       "Rep— reparations?" the man stuttered, then sighed. "No, no... look. You're the mom? Just teach your kid not to go around stealing. The toy's not worth much, but a kid who starts stealing this young will take far more important things in the future. So, teach 'em not to do it."

       Hiding behind Xianyun's legs, they couldn't help but stare upwards in wonderment. His attitude flipped completely when faced with a woman so much taller than he was, and with an air surrounding her that demanded such an impossible amount of respect. They honestly could not blame him for such an attitude change; they would too, they thought, if they were faced with someone like her.

       "Very well. You have my apologies on their behalf." She turned on her heel, holding out her hand to them. "Let us go, little colt."

       Colt?

       Bewildered but nonetheless beyond awestruck with this strange yet kind woman, they nodded, wordlessly placing their freehand in hers. Her sharp, hooked nails dug slightly into their skin; somehow, though, they couldn't be bothered to care. It didn't hurt much. On the contrary, it was oddly comforting.

       The walk was silent for a few moments, but then, Xianyun's voice demanded their attention:

       "You should pay quite the mind to your behavior in the future. Theivery is a significant offense in a land such as this—a land that regards contracts with the highest of respect. Had I withheld my intervention, it may very well have ended far worse."

       "I really didn't mean to," they whispered, little tears building up in the corners of their eyes. Even though she was someone they had only just met a few moments ago, disappointing her seemed... unbearable. Angering her would have been more tolerable. "Um... steal, that is. I didn't mean it. I just thought it looked really cool. I left whatever mora I had on me to pay for it, and I was going to try and get more so I could pay him the right amount... I swear I wasn't going to just run away with it..."

       She hummed. "Regardless of your intent, I will see to it that you do not do such a thing again."

       "Hu— huh? You will?"

       She scoffed. "Of course. Surely you did not expect me to abandon you on the side of the street again? As an elder, it is only right that I watch over little ones such as yourself, and little ones should not be cruelly left to fend for themselves."

       The tears on their lashes had dried by now. They even offered her a smile, giggling as they said, "Elder? I don't think you're old."

       "Oh? And what, pray tell, has led you to such a bold conclusion, hm?"

       "Well... you! You look very young, miss! I think elder women are very pretty too, but you look... young pretty? Um... what's the word again..?"

       "Youthful, perhaps?"

       "Yeah! Youthful!"

       As they rambled on animatedly, clutching the wooden bird to their chest, Xianyun's lips quirked upwards into an amused smile.

       It, of course, went unnoticed by them.

                       — flower of the universe !! 🌸

       In the few days that had passed since Xianyun welcomed little [Name]—they had bashfully introduced themselves to her in the middle of their rambling once they recalled that she didn't even know their name, and she returned the sentiment with greater confidence—into her home, she had put together a few simple toys for them to amuse themselves with.

       She was an inventor at heart. Even though these designs were not entirely her own, she made them hers with unique additions and more efficient features... of course, all while doing her best to keep the toys simple. They were for a child, after all. Mechanics, Xianyun's mechanics, were complicated enough for adults to understand as it was—a child would surely have even less of a capacity to grasp something too complicated, and her efforts would therefore have been wasted.

       ...But oh, how terribly wrong she now understood herself to be.

       Quietly and motionlessly, as to avoid drawing their attention, she watched with the growing warmth of fondness and excitement in her chest as the young one she took in meticulously pried open the toys she handcrafted.

       They were humming to themselves, gingerly laying out the parts in an organized manner so that nothing got lost or mixed. She was beyond impressed with the careful thought they had blatantly put into keeping track of everything; Xianyun was certain that most children would lose a small part or two, but as she surveyed their layout, she noted that every single piece—big or small, hard to overlook or easy to lose—was accounted for.

       Childish forgetfulness wasn't an inherently bad thing. In fact, it was quite amusing and endearing to those such as herself who had lived for so many millennia.

       However, she was infinitely more endeared by their sheer mindfulness.

       Their sharp gasp snapped her from her internal musings.

       "Oh— Miss... Miss Xianyun! I'm sorry, I—" They stumbled over their words, and they froze up somewhat. It was as if they wanted to hide what they had done but ultimately decided against it; she had clearly already spotted them, and they did not want to risk mixing up all the parts. "Miss Xianyun, I'm so sorry, I— I wasn't trying to destroy them, I just—"

       "—wanted to understand their internal workings, yes?"

       Their eyes went wide with that same wonderment they had displayed towards her a few days prior. "How... how did you know?"

       She almost laughed at their cluelessness. "You have taken them apart with the care and delicacy quite unusual for one of your age. This, one surmises, is only because you sought to sate your curiosity regarding these simple mechanisms and their internal functions."

       The grace with which she carried herself never failed to leave them in astonished silence. Xianyun hummed, sweeping them up into her arms as if they weighed no more than a feather (her utter, raw strength was another astounding feat in their young mind; she was so unimaginably admirable in a multiplicity of ways to them). Then, with steady caution, she kneeled to the floor and situated them comfortably in her lap.

       "Allow one to introduce you, little colt, to the basics of mechanics."

       Xianyun, they concluded, was an odd but genuinely kind woman.

       Though her manner of speech was sometimes strange and formal, and her grace seemed otherworldly in its nature, and her strength was assuredly not a feat that just anyone could achieve...

       She was tender. She was kind. She cared.

       Perhaps the world was not always so kind, but despite that knowledge, they had never felt safer than where they were now.

please consder reblogging with a kind tag or comment, it helps me out quite a lot! mama xianyun series taglist: @zeldadou, @starryshinyskies, @soleillunne, @lillonvia, @nervocat, @dragon-type-nuggetz, @starlit-dianthus. contact me non-anonymously to be added.

[ambros1an]

hsr x gn!reader relationship hcs

warnings: penacony spoilers (2.0+), bug mention (screwllum), angsty (aventurine & acheron), ocd mention (sunday), slight dark content (ie stalking) at end in Sundays but it’s marked in red to avoid if uncomfy

characters: sunday, screwllum, acheron, aventurine

a/n: i feel like it’s so obvious i did like 2 of these a week later 💀 i need more Sunday content in game

sunday

❧ if you manage to get past Sunday’s formal exterior, what lies behind it is a complete “know-it-all.”

❧let him nerd out about the greatest books in the current and past amber eras. he’ll make sure to tell you all about the authors too.

❧if the two of you have liking books in common, congrats! he’ll bring you on a tour to the primal waking library where you can chat all about it.

❧sunday’s compulsions become even worse with you around. is his shirt properly tucked in? he hopes there’s no wrinkles, maybe he should iron all his shirts again. oh gosh-are his shoes untied? you don’t even notice this. he’s used to hiding his true feelings.

❧he definitely confesses first. he’s aware that his status can be a hindrance when forming genuine relationships.

❧ maybe afterwards he’ll let you touch his wings. he loves the feeling of you stroking his feathers. especially when those annoying pin feathers grow in. the biggest sign of trust amongst birds- and sunday of course.

❧ and obviously you always get free vip to robin’s shows.

❧before and after the “Robin incident” are two very different Sundays.

❧the after, is a very possessive Sunday. he can’t have you become like Robin. he uses nightingales to keep watch on you, to make sure you’re safe. he knows it’s unhealthy but he just lost his sister, he can’t lose you too.

-

Aventurine

❧aventurine’s flirty facade fools most people. they think he’s sleazy and untrustworthy, and so do you in the beginning.

❧at first he talks to you because he thinks your reactions are amusing.

❧eventually your relationship gets too deep for comfort.

❧this guy will never open up. if he has feelings for you, you’ll never know. it’s not because he’s ashamed. it’s because he cannot comprehend someone actually liking him.

❧the only way he’ll confess is if you do it first. and even then he plays it off like a joke, something he can’t even believe. it takes a lot of button pressing to get him to admit his feelings.

❧aventurine is a very vulnerable person. he may rub off insults but they still hurt him deep.

❧the first time you hug him, he is baffled. affection has been foreign to him since the extinction event.

❧worming your way into his heart will get you even more riches then before. sure, he hands out money like nothing, but to you? that credit card is unlimited.

❧”what, that’s all?” he encourages you to spend.

❧brings you to casinos for good luck. not as if he needed any, but with you at least his hand doesn’t shake.

-

screwllum

❧ it isn’t uncommon for inorganic species to feel love. just as it isn’t uncommon for organic species not to.

❧ Screwllum, however, hasn’t experienced that feeling.

❧ he sees the way organic species love in a way he hasn’t. as a genius society member and one interested in life itself, how could he not be interested.

❧ which is why when he starts feeling a fluttering in his chest whenever you’re around, he must get to the bottom of it!

❧ confesses instantly. he has zero experience yet remains so confident.

❧ immediately takes time out of his day to interact with you. in whatever way possible.

❧ it could be the busiest day of his life and he’ll still make time for you.

❧ he’s described as a gentlemen by his close companions. this means opening doors for you, taking you out to places, etc.

❧ sounds too good to be true. but it is true.

❧ his one flaw, if you can even call it that, is his love for all life. and that includes bugs! no smashing them on his watch! he’s picking them up before you even get the chance.

❧ if you like bugs, even better. he’ll gently pick them up and talk about them with you. the two of you can take turns.

-

Acheron

❧ the first time you meet her, you think she’s a polite but introverted lady. she claims to be a galaxy ranger and you have no reason to doubt her.

❧ her blunt way of speaking leaves no room for questions.

❧ that is, until you get too entangled in each other’s destines.

❧ your first meeting with acheron, wasn’t actually your first. you’ve met her many times. every time though she seems not to know you.

❧ Acheron lies to protect you. just as she lied about being a galaxy ranger, she lies that she has no feelings whatsoever towards you.

❧ perhaps you remind her of someone she once knew.

❧ on some days, acheron traverses through her memories to look for you. she sees the hurt look in your eyes, but sees your smiles too. the path of a self-annihilater is a lonely one.

❧ ultimately, if you manage to convince her with words and actions that you truly care for her. she will put forth that effort tenfold. she desperately doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

❧ acheron is very protective towards you. if there’s a hint of danger, she’ll encourage you to take her with you. even going on her own to eliminate it herself.

credit to @/miau-meow-miau for first divider 🫶

[lionsoap]

i don’t talk about this aspect of the series much but the portrayal of tohru’s grieving process is so poignant and heartbreaking. like i think it’s one of the things fruits basket did best.

i think that in grief it’s not that they died, because it’s hard to even comprehend that, it’s that they’re gone. Like something was once there and now it’s not. tohru keeps her mom with her at all times, with the picture, the lessons she’s been taught, the anecdotes.

i also think how she interacts with people regarding it is very accurate, she gets insecure in season 2 over discussing her mom too much, because she’s afraid she’s making the zodiac feel bad and making it all about her. i think this resonates with those who have lost people and don’t know how to interact with others over it. she doesn’t want to take away attention from others, but she doesn’t want to never talk about her mother.

and finally, tohru’s need to help isn’t just inherent kindness (the series has said kindness is a choice), while she is kind, she cannot bear more loss. it also allows her to not look inward and think about what she wants for herself, which is why it took her so long to realize her feelings for kyo. one of the most important plot lines and conflicts of the series still stems from the very beginning, because that is how much grief can color your life.

her allowing herself to live for herself, is a form of healing from all she’s been through. and i think her mom would be proud :,)

[sapphiresaphics]

Arcane is an excellent litmus test for your media literacy. Not even joking.

Like I love Arcane, but it is NOT subtle. My favorite example of this is when Ambessa enters into Caitlyn’s room in Season 2 Episode 4. Maddie has been talking Caitlyn down and trying to convince her to call off the martial law and reestablish the council. Ambessa needs HexTech and she needs Caitlyn to get her someone who knows how to use HexTech. So she LITERALLY walks over to the fireplace and begins stoking the embers. She’s LITERALLY stoking Caitlyn’s rage and anger. It’s MASTERFUL storytelling and visual framing. Chefs kiss 🤌 10 outta 10!

You can call Arcane a lot of things… But SUTBLE? No… it is assuredly NOT subtle.

Which is why it’s hilarious to me when I see all these REALLY BAD TAKES from people who are confused or angry at the actions of characters or who really cannot comprehend why a character would do this or that. Which indicates to me that they are either not paying attention, or they’re really bad at understanding how shot composition, framing, dialogue, subtext, and everything else that goes into making media WORKS.

Vi is desperately trying to tell herself that Jinx is dead so that killing her wont hurt at much. You can tell this from the cracks in her voice acting, the way she can’t look people in the eyes when she says it, the way she can’t look at the bullet flying at Jinx, the way she IMMEDIATELY stops the second a kid gets in the way and doesn’t try to take the kid off. Like the framing, the line reads, her actions… it’s ALL telling you that when she says “my sister is dead” she is LYING TO HERSELF. It is NOT TRUE.

And then you’ve got people going on Twitter and Reddit and tumblr freaking out about “how could Vi forgive Jinx so easily? This writing is so inconsistent! Can’t they just stay focused? Why is it all so ham fisted? The plot makes no sense!”

And I’m just here like…. Are you fucking SERIOUS? Are we watching the same show? Are you guys really just this STUPID???

I love Arcane. The story is amazing. The characters are complex. The visual shorthand and framing is exquisite. The montages and animation are unparalleled. The story is nuanced and complex while being accessible to everyone, even people who’ve never played League of Legends before.

But subtle?

No. This show takes its message and beats you over the head with it like a BRICK.

How are people missing this stuff?

Are we that far gone as a people?

Are people today just not savvy at all when it comes to the media they consume?

Are people just this DENSE that they can’t read SUBTEXT?

[lamnwar]

Rivals in bed // Aomine Daiki x Fem!Reader x Kagami Taiga

MDNI 18+ knb kinktober entry!!

A/N: I can't even say I was horny writing that, I was just being a FREAK (I desperately need to be stucked between aokaga I'm beggiiiing)

Context: You've got a masterplan for your two hot friends and they're clearly not prepared for any of it.

Warnings: Threesome, nipple play, blowjob, pussy eating, double penetration (includes anal), rough sex, multiple orgasms, that's all I think?

For as long as you’ve known Daiki Aomine, he’s always been all fussy when you bring up your long-time friend Taiga. Well, it could be a lot of things, really. You’re well aware that they were rivals during their high school basketball days, but that was years ago so surely Daiki has grown out of it, right? Right?

Well, that’s merely the beginning of it. You know for a fact that all this attitude when you bring up the red head is a screen of smoke, truly, because deep down he does like him to a certain extent. But as if being rivals on the court isn’t enough, he can clearly see the way you are with Taiga. You don’t hide it at all, with your giggles and touchiness, or the way you always sit so close to him. He may not be the brightest man, but Daiki can be observant when he wants to. So, he never hesitates to retaliate in his own ways – the hands on your waist, or the not-so-subtle kisses on your neck. Yeah, it’s not like Daiki at all to let Taiga win.

Not on the court, not with you.

And what about you, in all that? That is the question that neither of these clueless men has ever asked. Unbeknownst to them, that situation might be the best entertainment you’ve ever had. There’s something thrilling with watching this rooster fight, two men who ravel in confronting each other because they have yet to understand that there is no stronger one. They can beg you to choose one of them, but you’d be stupid to. Objectively speaking Daiki and Taiga might be the hottest guys you know, so there’s no logical reason for you to opt out of a situation where you can have both all for you.

It can all be read in the sly smile you sport on your face on this week’s movie night, with your head on one’s shoulder and your legs resting on the other’s lap. You shamelessly tempt the both of them, with that tight tank top that you know Daiki loves to see you in, and the cutest shorts that Taiga chose for you that one time you took him shopping. It can make you laugh, knowing that you’ve got both wrapped around your fingers, waiting impatiently to know which one of them will win you over – and really, the answer is none and both at the same time. Not everything is a competition, that is one fact that can hardly be comprehended by these two thick heads. Yet, here they are, minds occupied by the same thought: who will you choose to fuck, at last?

And once again, the answer is quite simple. It all starts with your soft kisses on Daiki’s neck, making him purr like an animal in need, while you feel Taiga’s grasp on your thigh tighten almost painfully as he watches your exchanges with his rival. How can he sit quietly and let those hands that aren’t his roam your sides and hug your waist?

“Fuck, get a room you two” he groans, his annoyance blatant in his tone.

You chuckle, your feet caressing his thigh with the kind of softness that confuses him. He’s truly baffled by your every move – you want him, yet you don’t. Always lighting a fire in the pit of his stomach but never letting the flames consume all of him. For a man so used to being the in control, it is fairly unsettling to find himself in such predicament. But god, you are such a hot thing that he cannot retreat and let it go.

“What’s that, Taiga? Don’t be jealous” you laugh softly. “I have enough lovin’ for the both of you.”

“Not sharing you with that doofus” Daiki clicks his tongue, which amuses you even more.

You lean away from both, a playful pout painted on your pretty face. How can they not get aroused by such a succubus? Eyes innocent, safe for the mischievous glint in them – it feels like a sin to stare into them, but they both can’t help it. It’s an ache that trails their entire body, all the way to their cocks that just need to feel you, even if it’s just once.

“What if I want you both? Can’t you even do it for me?”

Fuck. You know how to play your cards well, because that’s the one thing that can get both of them to put their egos aside and fold already. It’s almost pitiful how easy you get them to eat right in the palm of your hands, making them puppets that you toy with at your whim. For you? Shit, for you, they’d even jump from a bridge.

“You… you mean a threesome?” asks the red-haired man with a slight blush on his face.

“Uh-huh”, you nod, the sweetest smile on your lips, “call me greedy but there’s nothing that I want more than my two favourite boys.”

“You’re a freak, doll!”

Daiki’s laugh echoes around the room, the grin on his face being anything but a good omen. You’ve figured that he’d be the one who’d be more willing to agree to your plan. From time to time, he only thinks with his dick; and his dick has been in probation for so long waiting for you. So yeah, fuck that, he will have a threesome with his longtime rival if that means he finally gets a taste of you.

“Think of it as a compliment” you point, settling back between the two Adonis. “I literally can’t think of any other guys I want just as much as you two.”

“That’s insane…” Taiga lets out a sigh, but that doesn’t stop you.

You’ve known him long enough to know that the intention is there, and honestly, it was only going to take that long before someone, at last, tap into his freakiest side. It only takes your pretty face and your sweet voice in his ear to work the magic. Kisses at the corner of his lips when you purr your spell.

“Say what you will, I know the idea makes you hard.”

He can’t bother to deny it – he’s been longing for you, so much that the little that you give him is way too much already. You feel your clit ache at the sight of the tent in his loose pants, and it gets worse when you look back at the dark-skinned beauty that stares at you with a carnal smile. He is a hungry man, and you are the meal he’s been waiting for like a man starving.

Here you are, letting your lips do all the convincing with Taiga. He can’t help but fall for your kisses, the taste of your tongue against his. He’s been waiting for so long just to get that much, strong body pushing you back against Daiki. You groan, falling against his toned chest as his hands go straight to your breasts.

“Fuck…”

You’re a dream, truly. The best tits he’s ever touched, soft and warm in his hold. Head buried in the crook of your neck as he gropes you shamelessly, while another man messily makes out with you. You let out a giggle, euphoric from the scene. That might be the result of months of work, trying to get them both so deep into you that they cannot refuse you a thing. Isn’t that the summum of pleasure, being nestled between two men that crave you like flowers crave the sun and rivers crave the rain?

You can’t help the moan that leaves your throat when Daiki tugs at your nipples, his malicious fingers having found the route to your sensitive buds; and feeling Taiga’s erection press against your thigh doesn’t help either. You can only lay back and let them have their fun. Two pairs of hands that roam your body in full worship, taking in every inch, every curve. You grind back against them, panties soaked from the god-sent feeling of two dicks poking at you.

“Babe, you’re making me so fucking hard I might just come from seeing you” you hear a grunt in your ear.

You laugh, taking in the compliment. Who would have thought that it can be so easy to make them fall? You’re amused, shamelessly expressing your joy as Daiki pulls your top over your breasts, letting his hands squeeze and tease them as if he’s never touched a woman before. But what really gets you is Taiga’s hungry mouth, previously on your neck and now wrapped around your nipple to give it a hard suck. You gasp, surprised to even see your body being so sensitive. Daiki sucks his teeth, one of his hands leaving your breast to find the other man’s face.

“D’you really gotta take what’s mine?”

“Like you got all rights reserved on her tits.”

“Should I pity you? Even your dumbass knows it’ll take nothing from me to make her come.”

You sit there, stuck in another one of their childish dispute – although this one might be a new one. You can’t place in any word, watching them fight while they touch you, body squirming and mind confused.

“Bet your ass, idiot” groans Taiga. “I’ll make her come first.”

“You fucking…” strong hands hoist you up by the waist, and before you can even figure what is happening, you find yourself thrown other the basketball player’ shoulder as his rival trails behind you. “Game on, but just know that you can’t beat me on that field.”

You’re thrown on your bed, the two men rushing to strip in an almost comical way before they come back to you. Taiga’s fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts, pulling them down after you give him an eager nod. He watches as you give them the delicious sight of your pussy in those pretty panties, a visible wet spot at the centre.

“Drenched already? That’s sweet.” He chuckles, kissing the shell of your ear as curious fingers run across the spot. “Say, I did that to you?”

You hear a cackle beside you, eyes meeting Daiki’s cock before you get them to look at his face.

“That’s my doing, yeah.”

“Actually – “

Your sentence is cut short by the feeling of the fresh air against your pussy, making you realise that you’ve been discarded of your panties. You look between your legs, finding Taiga’s cheek squished against the plump of your thigh while he looks at your cunt. Gorgeous, he thinks, watching your honey-soaked folds, and that cute hole that begs for some touch.

“Say that you want me to eat you out.”

You nod without hesitation, huffing out an impatient “yeah”, to which he laughs softly. As if it’s not enough that you are the most beautiful and sexy being he’s ever encountered, you have to be the cutest too. You bite your lip, his hot breath fanning over your erected clitoris. Prayers run through your mind for time to pass at once, and let you feel his mouth against your cunt. The first stroke of his tongue makes your eyelashes flutter, head thrown back to meet Daiki again.

“Say you wanna suck my cock, too.”

Damn. How can you say overwise and don’t lie? Your eyes roam over his length, and you find yourself almost salivating at the sight of what might be the biggest dick you’ve ever seen. Thick and long, so fucking hard that it feels immoral not to take care of it.

“Of course I do” you mewl, your hand finding its way to his shaft.

Your caresses are torturous, yet so divine. He swears, unconsciously pushing his hips closer to your face. Your giggles fall on his angry tip, just a mere second before you wrap your lips around it. He swears, pushing into your mouth as slowly as he can, but hell, Daiki Aomine has never been a patient man.

You groan, the movements of your tongue being mirrored by Taiga’s between your leg. You can’t concentrate on either – partly drunk on the taste of the blue-haired man’s cock and partly melting under the red-haired man’s tongue. It’s insane and overwhelming, burying Taiga’s face further in your cunt so he can quench his thirst with your nectar, all while you drool on Daiki’s dick.

You make a mess, saliva dripping down your chin and arousal dripping down your thighs. Taiga can’t even feel a thing except your exquisite taste on his tastebuds and the pain of his erection in his boxers. Oh, how he wishes to get his cock so deep into you that it’s impossible to pull out. It doesn’t help when you squirm and whimper, unable to restrain your upcoming orgasm. He groans against your cunt, sucking on your clit to take you where he wants you to go.

“Fuck! Ah…” you mumble around Daiki’s cock, making him twitch in your mouth.

There’s a blank in your mind for a few seconds, and next thing you know, you’re swallowing a load of cum while you try to get your pussy away from the starving man between your legs.

“D’you come for me? Shit, too soon. I wanna feast on that pussy” Taiga grunts, reluctantly leaving the comfort of being between your legs.

Daiki chuckles, pulling his dick out of your mouth. It’s a drunk laugh, one that doesn’t find any justification. He surprises himself with how much he’s let out down your throat, but nothing amazes him more than you.

“Sweet mouth” he coos, leaving a kiss on your swollen lips, “she’s a swallower, huh?”

Taiga scoffs, finding a land of agreement with his rival. There is no doubt that you are a special one. Your taste lingers on his tongue, a drug that he already craves but he has no choice but to hold back to let you get over your orgasm. You face is a whiteboard on which your sensations write their names.

Pleasure. Desire. Overwhelmed. Aroused. Euphoric. Hungry. Desperate. Please, for fuck’s sake, can they dick you down already?!

You whimper needily the moment Taiga finally leaves his underwear to lay somewhere on the floor of your room, giving you a full view of what God gifted him with. It’s longer than Daiki’s, maybe not as thick, but surely monstruous. Enough to make both your mouth and your cunt salivate. You are high on your lust, hands stroking him as you look between them both.

“Say what you wanna Taiga, but I’m craving that pussy more than you ever can.”

“Fuck off” he grunts when you run your thumb over his tip, “either way we gotta find a way for this to work.”

The other man hums in agreement, his eyebrows furrowed as he seems deep in thoughts. To be fair, he’s never found himself in a situation where he has to share a pussy with another guy, let alone his biggest competitor. For all he cares, he’ll take you right here and now and have things go his way. But this isn’t about him, no, it’s about you. He can see clearly in your eyes that you want both of them to fill you up, and it’ll be incredibly selfish to ask you to choose.

“Can you take both, pretty?” he asks, tilting his face towards his.

The attentive look in his eyes takes you aback – he’s never looked so considerate, yet you can’t help but curse at yourself. Surely, in other circumstances, you would have replied yes to his question. But you have to face the fact that these two have the biggest dicks you’ve ever seen, and it’ll be insane to even try to take both at the same time.

“No…” you shake your head with a pout, “but I have another hole, don’t I?”

Your response gets the two men to exchange a startled look. Have they heard you well? But there is no denying it, you look all serious about this. An incredulous laugh leaves Taiga’s lips as he looks at your face.

“No shit… I’ve always wanted that ass of yours.” He chuckles, fingers running through your hair tenderly. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. I can take it, not my first time.”

“Hm, I bet it isn’t.”

They smile at you, before you find yourself flipped to your stomach. You’re lost for a minute, wondering what’s going on before you look over your shoulder, finding them both looking at your ass. It is, indeed, a tempting sight. Those cheeks so plump, and that tight little hole that glistens from your arousal that has dripped down to it. It’s so tempting, that it feels like a blessing that you’ve even brought the subject on the table.

“Can I? Gotta prep you if you’re gonna take either of us there.”

“Please…”

Your begging doesn’t happen in vain, as you feel a thick finger slowly push past the rim of your hole, the sensation foreign yet familiar. It’s a particular sting that progressively fades to pleasure, making your back arch and your ass push back to meet the finger that thrusts into you.

“You have lube, pretty?”

You nod, pointing to your bedside table so Daiki can get the bottle out. It’s all a daze before you find yourself lifted on the man’s body, Taiga settling behind you. Two hard and leaking cocks pressed against each of your holes, waiting for the opportunity to push inside of you and make you feel good. You used to be the one making all the decisions, yet here you are one the verge of begging for any of them to stick it in. Your desperate sighs don’t fall on deaf ears, the kisses on your face and on your back easing you up before you finally feel Daiki’s tip push between your folds.

“Ngh! Fuck…”

His moves are languid and slow, the harsh grip of his hands on your hips driving you insane. He can’t help but dig deeper in your tight walls, just so he can see your tits jiggle in his face as you take him. You gasp, your pleasure multiplied when you feel Taiga’s lube covered dick at your other entrance, painfully teasing. You whine, need tainting all your sweet noises and it doesn’t take long before he finally fills your tight hole, watching you moan like a slut from the inches he’s been giving you.

Here you are, both holes stretched like they’ve never been before, as they both ram into you in a lewd song of groans and moans. You are losing your mind, fantasies that you’ve been having for months around your two friends finally unfolding in a reality that feels way better than you could have imagined. Your sweat dripping on Daiki’s skin while Taiga’s hot breath kisses your nape.

“Fuck that Daiki, I’m gonna fill her up” you hear the red-haired man groan behind you.

“Jesus, you’re not the only one… shit, pussy too good…”

“Yeah! Please… want you to come inside of me.”

Your shameless mewl is almost all it takes to bring them both over the edge. You can feel yourself on the brink of explosion, your body aching so good that you might pass out from it. You are properly fucked, impaled on two of the best dicks to ever exist. Meanwhile, it’s a race to who gets to fill you with cum the fastest. You’re quickly washed over by a mind-blowing orgasm, mind lost in an intoxicating fume of lust. You can barely process it that their thrusts become messier. You are squished between their bodies, crying their names when they finally burst inside of you.

The moment is followed by a silence that is only bothered by your tired pants. The moment they pull out leaves you feeling empty all of the sudden. But your heart is quickly filled when they pull you in their arms, sweet caresses to your overworked body as praises fall in your ear.

“So... who won this one?” one of them asks.

You laugh tiredly, leaving two slaps on both of their chests.

“I did, dumbasses.”