#you can tell he's a martial class boy through and through

[thespoonisvictory]

zac in calorum is peak performance he understands genre and tone and character in this type of story and also he is so baby girl

[book--brackets]

Summaries under the cut

Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter

Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school—that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but it's really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"—but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

Trespassers will be turned to stone

For centuries, mystical creatures of all description were gathered to a hidden refuge called Fablehaven to prevent their extinction. The sanctuary is one of the last strongholds of true magic. Enchanting? Absolutely. Exciting? You bet. Safe? Well, actually, quite the opposite . . .

Kendra and her brother, Seth, have no idea their grandfather is the current caretaker of Fablehaven. Inside the gated woods, ancient laws keep order among greedy trolls, mischievous satyrs, plotting witches, spiteful imps, and jealous fairies. However, when the rules get broken, powerful forces of evil are unleashed, forcing Kendra and Seth to face the greatest challenge of their lives, to save their family, Fablehaven, and perhaps even the world.

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330. Nearly seven hundred years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty and Nicholas Flamel lives. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects—the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. And that's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it. Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

Out of My Mind by Shannon Draper

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom - the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she's determined to let everyone know it - somehow.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale

She was born with her eyes closed and a word on her tongue, a word she could not taste.

Her name was Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she spent the first years of her life listening to her aunt’s stories and learning the language of the birds, especially the swans. And when she was older, she watched as a colt was born, and she heard the first word on his tongue, his name, Falada.

From the Grimm’s fairy tale of the princess who became a goose girl before she could become queen, Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original, and magical tale of a girl who must find her own unusual talents before she can lead the people she has made her own.

Fudge by Judy Blume

Life with his little brother, Fudge, makes Peter Hatcher feel like a fourth grade nothing. Whether Fudge is throwing a temper tantrum in a shoe store, smearing mashed potatoes on the walls at Hamburger Heaven, or trying to fly, he's never far from trouble. He's an almost three-year-old terror who gets away with everything, and Peter's had it up to here! When Fudge walks off with Dribble, Peter's pet turtle, it's the last straw. Peter has put up with Fudge for too long. Way too long! How can he get his parents to pay attention to him for a change?

Bartimaeus by Jonathan Stroud

Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the "ultimate sacrifice" for a "noble destiny."

If leaving his parents and erasing his past life isn't tough enough, Nathaniel's master, Arthur Underwood, is a cold, condescending, and cruel middle-ranking magician in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The boy's only saving grace is the master's wife, Martha Underwood, who shows him genuine affection that he rewards with fierce devotion. Nathaniel gets along tolerably well over the years in the Underwood household until the summer before his eleventh birthday. Everything changes when he is publicly humiliated by the ruthless magician Simon Lovelace and betrayed by his cowardly master who does not defend him.

Nathaniel vows revenge. In a Faustian fever, he devours magical texts and hones his magic skills, all the while trying to appear subservient to his master. When he musters the strength to summon the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus to avenge Lovelace by stealing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, the boy magician plunges into a situation more dangerous and deadly than anything he could ever imagine.

Shadow Children by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend.

Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside.

Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows - does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess.

Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

[yatagarasuhonyaku]

The Raven of the Empty Coffin: Chapter 1 "Shigemaru" Part 3

Disclaimer: This is a fan-translation japanese-english of the original novel. The events of this novel follow after what's already covered by the anime. For an easier understanding, I recommend first reading the few scenes of previous books I've already translated.

Blog version

For the Index, you can find it HERE

Previously: Shigemaru (Part 2)

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Chapter 1: Shigemaru (Part 3)

As they advanced through the practical courses, the instructors relentlessly rejected the skills Shigemaru and his fellow commoners had. In Archery, they asked them to fix their stance, denying them the chance to even nock an arrow, and this was hardly the only subject where their basics—or lack thereof—got them scolded: they were stuck practicing blocking in Martial Arts, and in Swordsmanship all they did was relearning how to stand and hold their sword from zero.

Day after day, all they got were corrections. It was all how to hold their bows, the proper methods to block, and sword practice swings. Understandably enough, it had taken a toll on everyone’s motivation.

“...... You know, I’m really starting to suspect they're discriminating against us.”

The moment was after having gone through all practical courses at least once. By that point, their group study sessions had become a nightly event. To call it that was, however, a bit of an overstatement—in practice, they just came together to copy Yukiya's homework. They had gathered in Shigemaru and Yukiya’s dormitory room at first, but the number of petitioners had just kept on growing. Once the new additions to their group became more than three, they had no option but to change locations to an empty room instead.

Their little gathering was strictly composed of commoners from all kinds of places. There, facing his blank homework with a sullen look, was Kitsupei, a boy from the Eastern Region and the one who had just voiced his suspicions about discrimination. He had been the target of more corrections than anyone else during Swordsmanship that very day.

“What's up, all of a sudden?” Shigemaru looked up from his own homework, dropping his brush on the inkstone.

“There's nothing sudden about it!” Kitsupei complained. He seemed incapable of holding it in any longer. “I've thought about it from the start. Theory? I can still accept it, you know. After being in the same class, I can tell how smart Akeru and the others are.”

The problem lied in the practical courses. Commoners like them came to the Monastery because someone had recognized their sword skills or their physical prowess. Yet, in truth, they hadn’t even been given a chance to shine and just got reprimanded nonstop. It made him suspect—what if this was just silent harassment? What if they were trying to make them quit?

“But the instructors aren’t saying anything to Akeru and his followers. This is just unfair!”

Immediately, the other trainees jumped at the chance to air out their grievances, all in unanimous agreement.

“I’ve been thinking that as well.”

“Me too!”

“I was the best with a sword back home, and here I am! Stuck on simple practice swings!” Hisaya, quite prone to outbursts himself, pouted.

“If only they let us join free training, we could show them all we are capable of,” even Tatsuto, who wasn’t usually the kind to complain, joined in on the conversation.

“I bet Kashin is actually ridiculing us behind our backs!” a furious Kitsupei interjected again.

If they kept going like that, things would surely end badly. Struck by such a premonition and concerned about the consequences this little venting session would have if left unchecked, Shigemaru clapped his hands in an attempt to clear the room’s heavy atmosphere.

“Come on, come on! If you have the energy to complain, start moving those hands instead. As long as you have the skill, it’s just a matter of waiting to show it to them once we start with matches.”

“But Shige! We don't even know if they'll let us participate in the first place.”

“Does it really not bother you too, Shige?”

The entire group turned to stare at him all gloomily, and Shigemaru was at a loss on what to do next. He hadn’t ever intended it to work this way, but ever since everyone started to imitate Yukiya’s nickname for him, he had, in practice, become the group’s unofficial leader and mediator. While with power came responsibility and the last thing he wanted was to provoke a fight with the Court Ravens, he was the first one to have concerns on the matter.

At the same time as Shigemaru’s group struggled with their assignments, those from noble families were apparently handling both theory and practice with marked ease, and of them all, Akeru, who acted as the year’s Court Ravens representative, stood out as particularly talented. Horsemanship aside, Shigemaru still had yet to ever see him get reprimanded even once, so the boy had started to become a target of resentment and jealousy among the suffering commoners.

Meanwhile, Shigemaru and the other commoners were being constantly put on blast by the instructors. Even if he didn’t believe it to be out of prejudice, there had to be some reason for it. One they just weren’t seeing.

Shigemaru was thinking, trying to somehow find a good answer to the situation, when someone’s oblivious, carefree voice interrupted the scene. 

“Good job, everyone!” Yukiya, who had been absent until a moment ago, had just returned. “I just went to the kitchen to get some tea leaves. I even ended up picking up some dried sweet potato to go with it, so how about taking a short break?”

Yukiya greeted them with a bright smile on his lips. Up until a moment ago, the rest of the group had all been bad-mouthing Court Ravens, yet now they found themselves looking away out of sheer embarrassment. Yukiya had been helping them so much that nobody in the room was about to say anything against him, not willingly at least.

“...... Is something wrong?” Yukiya soon asked them. It seemed he hadn’t missed the room’s odd atmosphere.

As a panicked Hisaya jumped to deny the notion, Shigemaru stopped him. Thinking about it, asking for Yukiya’s opinion was probably the best thing they could do given the circumstances. Indeed, once Shigemaru told him the truth of what had happened, Yukiya didn’t even seem bothered by the group’s criticism of Court Ravens.

“Oh, I see. But I think you’re misunderstanding something,” he calmly denied their suspicions. “Right now, what they’re teaching us are all techniques geared towards official tournaments.”

“Official tournaments? Why would they do that?”

“This is the Unbending Reed Monastery, remember? You can’t have the Imperial Family’s private guard acting like hooligans, can you? That’s why they’re teaching us how to battle in a respectable manner, not fight like thugs. Your average Yatagarasu, who’s had no formal training, is not going to know how to do that. Corrections are bound to happen. I really get why you’re so angry,” Yukiya answered as if to mediate. “But, over anything else, bad habits could ultimately lead to injury, so to obey now is for your own future’s sake as well. Sure, Instructor Kashin may be bad-mouthed, but there hasn’t been anything wrong with his corrections.”

“...... Really?”

Recognizing if there was anything off with the corrections they got was beyond the capabilities of Shigemaru and the others—their shared confusion must have been obvious, because Yukiya turned to them once more.

“There’s no need to worry,” he added in a bright tone. “Akeru wasn’t scolded at all, that’s true, but it has nothing to do with his status as a scion of the Western House. I would bet he had a very good master who trained him even before coming here.”

Which meant that Akeru didn’t get any corrections simply because there wasn’t any need for them in the first place. While it was a relief to know the instructors weren’t playing favorites, the group couldn’t help but to panic as well at the therefore unknown skill gap.

They all had difficult expressions on their faces, yet Yukiya didn’t seem particularly concerned about it. “I take it you're worried about the existing gap with the nobles, aren’t you? But, you know, your ability to perform some exercises in a dojo doesn’t determine your strength in actual combat. I’m sure that if you went against them in a match right now, you would be the clear winners.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I mean, they clearly aren’t used to fighting. You can tell just by looking at them,” Yukiya’s eyes partially closed and the corners of his mouth moved upwards, yet one couldn’t in good faith call that expression a ‘smile’. “I’ve been watching everyone long enough to tell how much potential everyone actually has. It shows, you know? That all of you were selected for your skills in arms. Few could surpass you as far as sheer physical capability goes.”

“Wait—you’ve spent all this time watching others during lessons!? And here I am completely overwhelmed just dealing with my own stuff!” Kitsupei exclaimed, equally amazed and exasperated. 

“Anyway, let’s put aside those who, like me, come from warrior families and are Court Ravens in name only. I have a strong suspicion that Akeru and his followers will show their true colors very soon,” Yukiya confidently affirmed.

In answer, the entire group glanced at each other.

“Fine. Then, let’s just trust Yukiya and work hard for now. How about that?” Shigemaru asked.

“Let’s do that!”

“Sure, let’s.” Even those who had been strongly complaining just a moment ago nodded along. Leaving aside the matter of how trustworthy Yukiya was on the subject, Shigemaru just found himself tremendously relieved after seeing everyone agree and calm down for the time being.

But then, it only took a few days for the group to discover that Yukiya’s predictions had been mostly correct.

First of all, it became obvious that the instructors weren’t discriminating against anyone. As soon as they learned how to move as taught, the commoners started to join free training as well. The wooden swords they used to practice their swings were henceforth replaced by bamboo ones instead. It brought Shigemaru joy to see his friends holding them, looking entirely revitalized. However, this was also when reality came in to prove Yukiya's guesswork fallible.

While Akeru’s followers were losing against his friends one after another, the boy himself managed to protect his position at the top. Those who held animosity against him went to challenge him as soon as they were deemed worthy to join, yet none of them proved capable of winning against him with any form of consistency. 

“He may not be accustomed to fighting, but he seems quite used to dojo swordfighting,” Shigemaru commented to Yukiya during one of their breaks while he wiped away his sweat.

Yukiya forced a smile. “It seems like it. At the very least, it’s clear he trained quite a lot before coming here.”

At the moment, their topic of conversation himself looked to be extremely angry. Shigemaru couldn’t quite tell why, maybe because of his followers’ terribly poor showing?

“I may have underestimated him.” 

There was an air of superiority to Yukiya as he said that, one which gave Shigemaru quite the urge to point out something. “You sure act like you’re above him, but you didn’t even make a good showing in your own matches.”

“Ah, were you watching me?”

“When waiting in between turns, yes. Won’t it be a problem for you if things keep going like that?” 

Even though Yukiya had been talking big behind others’ backs, his skills with a sword weren’t anything to write home about. His basics were just fine and he moved well and fast, so Shigemaru hadn’t had any cause for concern before they started free training instead. Then, when it came to the moment of truth, Yukiya didn’t try to attack even once. Even when instructors loudly scolded him for going on the defensive like that, Yukiya would only laugh and make no noticeable attempt to fix his ways whatsoever.

——Maybe, in reality, it was Yukiya who wasn’t used to fighting.

Most importantly, practical courses mattered a lot more than theory in the Monastery Trials. Shigemaru had been too worried about himself to pay any mind to others up until then, but, when he realized that Yukiya may be the one in danger of dropping out, it became his main concern instead.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry! I’ll figure it out by the Trial of Gale.” And yet the boy himself couldn’t be more happy-go-lucky.

With their break over, they went back to the dojo as they chatted. No matter how much they tried to ventilate it, the place still reeked of sweat but, fortunately, they had all gotten used to it by that point. Once inside, they put on protective equipment for their knees and elbows and covered their heads with newly woven feather robes, all before they were even told to do so.

What awaited them, despite Shigemaru’s expectations on the contrary, wasn't free training as before. Instead, the instructors announced that they would be moving on to proper, formal matches instead. In such a format, the victor was usually determined on a best of three basis but, to build up the trainees’ endurance and to get them used to it, they had decided to have three rounds no matter who took the points this time around.

The assistants moved to stand in the middle of the dojo, forming a square with their bodies to mark the limits of the venue. Meanwhile, Shigemaru and Yukiya sat together in the front row as spectators, just slightly behind the line formed by the instructors. 

Kashin took on the role of referee and stood right in the center as he started to call for different trainees.

“Red, 3-2’s Akeru. Come forward.”

Akeru immediately stepped forwards, taking the red strap, with an overflowing air of superiority. He must have been expecting Kashin’s call.

“White, 1-1’s Chihaya. Come forward.”

Shigemaru wasn’t particularly familiar with Akeru’s opponent. He could remember crossing paths with him during classes, but they had never actually talked and he had no memory of the boy saying anything during any of the many different self-introductions either. Chihaya hadn’t left much of an impression on him, that was for sure.

As Shigemaru reflected on that, he gave Chihaya a look. One could tell just from appearance alone that he was a man of few words. His mouth was sealed in one thin, straight line, so tightly attached together that one couldn’t be blamed for thinking he may have never opened it even once ever since he was born.

He was tall and had a good, firm build, yet, perhaps because of his long face and sharp cheekbones, he instead gave off the impression of being overly thin and sickly. He had long bangs covering his face, and sharp eyes with characteristic small irises(1) peeked through from under them.

The two of them being chosen for the first formal match most likely meant that they were the most skilled trainees at present, at least according to the instructors. Chihaya tied the white strap on his hips and went to stand in front of Akeru, who was already waiting for him at the starting line. Once both trainees were ready to proceed, Kashin exchanged looks with his assistants. They all nodded.

“Start!”

The moment the match began, Akeru raised his voice as he prepared to attack. On the other hand, Chihaya stood there motionless and silent, watching him. Akeru seemed to hesitate for a second, unnerved by something, only to ultimately still go on the offensive immediately after. For a trainee, Akeru was nimble. He moved remarkably fast as he closed in and slashed downwards with his bamboo sword.

And yet, the next second, that same sword was cutting air.

It all happened in a second. Chihaya had twisted his body ever so slightly to dodge the hit and, with his bamboo sword held only in his left hand, he struck Akeru’s torso. The blow was strong enough for the sound of it to fill the entire room. Two of the assistants raised their left arms simultaneously—white straps in their hands.

“White, one point!”

——It had been so fast, Shigemaru’s eyes were unable to keep up.

Finally, the main referee raised his left arm as well and, having confirmed his victory, Chihaya simply fixed the neck of his kimono. It wasn’t particularly out of place to begin with. Meanwhile, Akeru just stood there, in complete shock, for a while before he returned to the starting line. His expression was clearly strained.

“Start!”

This time around, Akeru didn’t raise his voice or rush to the offensive the moment the match started. He instead opted for slight movements, carefully swaying the tip of his sword as he watched for Chihaya to attack first.

After a while, Chihaya moved. He stepped forward with ease, so much so that it was hard to believe he could pull it off during an actual match. He had been initially holding his sword with both hands, but it was now only held in his right hand. Akeru tried to defend himself, but his sword was snapped away from him by an upwards swing.

The bamboo sword spun in midair as it flew in the direction of the spectating trainees. By the time it fell to the ground—the boys around it dodging it in a panic—Chihaya had taken another point with ease by hitting a weaponless Akeru’s head.

“What was that…?” Shigemaru heard someone murmur. Not like he had any idea either—the difference between the two was just too stark.

After losing two points in such rapid succession, Akeru was pale as a sheet and, while this would have been the end of it in a normal three-point match, he had no option but to go through another round due to the circumstances.

Once Akeru had taken back his sword, both opponents returned to their starting positions. At that point, their expressions couldn’t be more different from one another. While the determination in Akeru's face made it clear he wouldn't be satisfied unless he could get at least one hit in, Chihaya seemed to be completely indifferent towards his opponent either way.

“Start!” 

Akeru went for a stab with a loud yell the second the third duel commenced. Yet, Chihaya hadn’t even bothered to get into a proper stance anymore, and instead of making any big effort to dodge Akeru's sword, he opted for barely moving his neck to elude the attack. With his sword held only in his left hand, Chihaya immediately went for a slash and landed a hit on his opponent's temple.

It was enough to send Akeru flying, and he ended up falling harshly to the ground with no chance to do a proper landing. The exact kind of crash that tended to cause more worry for the spectator than the victim.

“White, one point! Hey, are you alright?”

As soon as he announced the initial verdict, a panicking Kashin rushed to Akeru's side. The boy soon sat up and, even though he seemed unharmed, the expression on his face made it obvious that he couldn't understand what had just happened to him. In the meantime, Chihaya merely returned to the starting line without even glancing in Akeru’s direction, as inexpressive as always. Afterwards, they both bowed to each other, marking the end of the match.

It was clear the instructors hadn't expected this kind of unilateral result. Although, after a short discussion between them, they finally started to call trainees again, and neither Chihaya nor Akeru took part in another match that day.

“You're amazing!”

“I had no idea you were that strong!”

“Who the hell taught you how to use a sword like that!?”

After the match, Chihaya became a bit of a celebrity.

A group of trainees had gathered around him, all trying to strike up a conversation at once. Although many of them seemed to be driven by their dislike of Akeru, as one could have guessed, plenty had simply been taken by his skill with a sword from the looks of it, and while Chihaya himself gave no sign whatsoever of answering any of their many rapid questions, the people surrounding him proved to be too excited to care about that.

The evening classes had reached their end, so the trainees were on their way back from the dojo. A good distance behind Chihaya and his group of admirers were the study group regulars, all walking together.

“Dammit. I wanted to be the first to crush Akeru.”

“Nonono. I could have won against him, I just had to land another hit on him.”

As Kitsupei and Hisaya said that, grinding their teeth, Tatsuto sighed. “So you two were also incapable of defeating him……”

“Shut up!”

“What the hell are you going on about? You didn’t get a proper win against him either, Tatsuto.”

Shigemaru, pointedly ignoring his friends’ argument, glanced in Akeru's direction instead. “That aside, is Akeru truly okay after that?”

Although Akeru himself was silent, simply holding a wet towel to his temple, Shigemaru could see his followers staring daggers towards Chihaya’s enthusiastic group of admirers. 

“Well, it may look otherwise, but Chihaya was almost certainly holding back. I doubt there's any real concern for injury. The actual problem is—” Yukiya started to explain something before stopping all of a sudden, noticeably blinking. 

“What's wrong?” Shigemaru followed Yukiya's gaze. Upon realizing, he let out an unconscious ‘yikes’.

“Chihaya! I've heard you got quite the achievement today.”

Silence fell upon the entire group of Seeds once they saw who was coming towards them. Nobody knew how he had learned about the recent events, but Kimichika of Minami-Tachibana was nevertheless approaching them from the direction of the dining hall. Even Chihaya’s admirers retreated one step, scared of the Sapling closing in. Kimichika, however, paid them no mind and amiably patted Chihaya's shoulder instead. 

“And on top of that, you thoroughly crushed that Western House brat! Is that true?” As Chihaya himself didn't say anything in answer, Kimichika instead looked up towards a certain group of trainees who, pointedly ignoring him, had tried to move along. “Hey, Akeru, is it true?”

At his call, Akeru stopped in his tracks. He turned around towards Kimichika with barely concealed rage. “......Yes, I lost. So what.”

“I see, I see. That's amazing. You seem to be unaware, my Lord, but Chihaya, the one to defeat you, is a Hill Raven working for my House.” Kimichika pointed at Chihaya with his chin, while Chihaya only stood there without uttering a single word. But then, if he served Kimichika's house, that only meant one thing—he was part of the Animiya faction. “For someone like you, who put on airs over being Wakamiya's faithful servant, that must be the last person you would want to lose against. Oh, what a shame for you, both as a Court Raven and a faction representative.”

Kimichika let out an unpleasant laugh. Meanwhile, Akeru remained expressionless, his lips trembling, before finally sighing quietly. All things considered, he had recovered his composure surprisingly fast.

“I'm sorry to say this when you're enjoying my loss so much, but this may be your last chance to do so.”

“Huh?”

“Well, His Majesty the Emperor is going to abdicate the throne in favor of His Highness. It has been decided already.”

“——What!?”

“There should be an official announcement very soon. Now I wonder—for how much longer will the South still be able to act like pretentious fools?” Akeru spoke decisively.

Clear shock replaced the boastful look on Kimichika's face. This must have been news to him. He wasn’t the only one—even the onlookers, incapable of containing themselves any longer, stopped holding their breaths and started a ruckus.

Seeing that from the corner of his eyes, Akeru smiled ever so slightly. “It’s just the truth of the matter. It’s why His Highness couldn't attend the entrance ceremony. The imperial council on the matter took longer than expected, it seems.”

Instead of targeting Kimichika, who was speechless and seemingly deep in thought, Akeru turned towards the so-far mute Chihaya immediately afterwards.

“Chihaya. What a shame. To get kicked out over politics with your master here despite your enormous talent. Luck sure doesn’t seem to favor you, tying you to someone like him. If only you were serving someone in the Wakamiya faction,” Akeru said sardonically.

Chihaya’s gaze was still downcast, fixed on the ground. Finally, he murmured something. “...... I don’t care about either faction.”

Although Akeru's eyes widened from surprise as well, it was Kimichika who seemed the most shocked by his words. “Hey! What the fuck are you saying? Come here, right now!”

Kimichika grabbed him and dragged Chihaya away from everyone without even giving him a chance to say his farewells. Having watched both of them disappear in the distance, a still dumbfounded Shigemaru let out a groan before speaking. “...... The situation is about to get real weird, ain't it?”

As a witness of those two’s relationship and their obvious lack of anything even resembling trust, Shigemaru was overcome by the most terrible feeling. And, just one hour(2) later, it too proved to be a reality at dinnertime.

“——You shit, would you stop with the damn attitude already!?”

The trainees were in the middle of cleanup when a furious scream resonated through the dining hall. Everyone immediately turned to the direction it came from.

“What's going on?”

“A fight?”

Usually, the instructors were the first ones to take care of their trays, followed by Evergreens and Saplings in that order, so by that point the only ones still present were Seeds. And yet, Shigemaru saw a familiar someone with a characteristic hooked nose striking a pose in the distance.

“Isn't that Chihaya and Kimichika?”

“Huh, where did Kimichika's followers go?”

“Useless when it truly matters.” As Shigemaru and Yukiya whispered among themselves, the conversation between Kimichika and Chihaya took yet another turn for the worse.

“I'll say it once more, Chihaya. Clean. My. Tray.” Kimichika’s voice was trembling, barely holding in the desire to scream at Chihaya.

Meanwhile, Chihaya remained seated, motionless and completely unfazed by Kimichika's overbearing attitude. “I refuse.”

“Why!?”

“No reason.” While Chihaya wasn't someone one would call talkative, that had been enough to grasp the situation. As Kimichika tried to drop his tray where Chihaya was, the other only refused stubbornly.

“I'm ordering you as your senior! You are supposed to listen to me, no matter what!” Kimichika yelled again.

Chihaya briefly looked up at him and snorted. Kimichika's face was twisted in pure rage—they must have repeated this particular exchange a bunch of times already. Shigemaru expected him to yell once more, yet Kimichika's expression suddenly changed into one of abnormal calm.

“You know what'll happen if you disobey me, right? You haven't forgotten, by any chance?”

Chihaya glanced back questioningly, and Kimichika’s lips curved. “It's not only a you problem, you know—or should I give you a reminder of that?” 

Kimichika’s words were dripping with confidence. That very second, the look in Chihaya’s eyes drastically changed. His until then characteristic indifference had been quickly replaced by unbridled anger. Even though Kimichika had been the one to provoke him first, he found himself balking at the abnormal atmosphere surrounding Chihaya.

“...... What. Do you plan to defy me?”

Chihaya stood up. He moved effortlessly and silently.

——Shit, things were about to get real bad.

At the realization, Shigemaru’s eyes darted around the hall and found everyone else standing frozen in place. Left with no alternative, Shigemaru finally steeled his resolve—just as someone else beside him moved first.

“Ooops, my bad, I slipped!”

A mix of grilled eggplant, chilled wheat noodles and miso soup splashed all over Kimichika's nape. As for who had screamed, it was none other than Yukiya, who had somehow managed to sneak behind him without making any noise. On top of that—and this couldn't just be Shigemaru's imagination—he had actually made a point to gather all of his leftovers before slipping unnoticed and throwing his entire bowl's contents on Kimichika.

Yukiya, you bastard, you did it! Shigemaru barely restrained himself from laughing out loud as he ran in their direction as well.

“Aah, I'm sorry! What a bad idea, though, to stand idly in the middle of the room. The other Saplings have already cleaned their trays and left, so what keeps you here?” Yukiya tried to apologize, but the delivery was the very picture of stiffness. He used his own sleeve to clean Kimichika’s face, or so he made it look. In practice, he was just smearing the mashed eggplant even further.

Incapable of comprehending the sudden development, Kimichika and Chihaya stood there as unmoving as statues for a while.

“You, fucking little runt!” As Kimichika finally came to his senses, he shook off Yukiya's hand and screamed in indignation. Truth be told, not even Shigemaru could blame him for that. This wasn’t the moment to laugh at Kimichika’s hysterics, however, so he instead rushed to the group and put himself in the middle.

“Now, now, please calm down. My friend here didn't mean to do anything bad! He's just tired from the practical courses, you see, so his footing wasn't that good. Right, Yukiya?”

“Yes, exactly! I didn't intend to do it,” Yukiya said as he meekly bowed in apology.

Understandably, Kimichika wasn't fooled by that. “Don't fuck with me! If you didn't intend to do it, then why were you here of all places!?”

The dining hall was huge. There was quite the distance from the spot of the incident to the place where everyone left their trays. Around nine meters(3), in fact.

Shigemaru and Yukiya exchanged glances. “Why were you here?”

“Taking a walk.”

“Taking a walk, he says.”

“Do you two fuckers want to die by my hand that badly?” Kimichika's tone was low, and one could see blue veins bulging in his forehead. Then, just as Shigemaru was wondering how to dodge the question, Kimichika took a better look at their faces out of the blue. “Ah, you two are from the North, right? Well, you Hill Ravens from the countryside may not know it, but the Minami-Tachibana are quite influential even in the Center.”

Stunned by the out of nowhere bragging, Shigemaru stared blankly at him.

“So?” It was just Shigemaru’s honest reaction, but the corners of Kimichika's lips twitched.

“...... You don’t even know that? Rokon, one of Lord Natsuka's first and most important retainers, was known by a different name before(4). None other than Michichika of Minami-Tachibana. He’s, in other words, my older brother. I wonder what kinds of inconveniences await you once he learns you made fun of his little brother?”

“Even if that may be the case, we won’t exactly come asking for your mercy. There’s no need for you to worry.” Before Shigemaru even got a chance to talk, Yukiya had already resolutely dismissed him. “Still, you sure are crude and boring, aren't you? Who brings up his brother's influence that easily? And just to bully a couple of juniors! Don't you have, I don't know, any better options?”

From Yukiya’s tone, he sounded as if he was about to sigh and, just like that, Kimichika's air of importance crumbled away.

“What’s a lowly servant like you doing talking back to me!? As if you know anything!” Kimichika grabbed him by the collar and raised his fist as if to hit him, yet Yukiya stared back at him as if the entire situation wasn't even his problem. Shigemaru could tell Yukiya was fully planning to take the incoming punch—but it never came.

The second before it came to happen, Shigemaru intercepted Kimichika's arm. “Could you wait a moment, please?”

With his arm seized, Kimichika stared at him in confusion. He wasn’t the only one—Yukiya, who had been quite accepting of his fate, did so as well.

“Why did you grab me!?”

“You see, had this been a senior fed up with his junior's attitude, I would get it. However, I can't just stand aside when you make it about status.” The Unbending Reed Monastery was a place where might makes right. Within its walls, one's family status had no bearing whatsoever. They had been told that much very recently. “What’s the point of coming here if we're going to be ridiculed for our birth!? And, of all people, you definitely have no right to do so!”

Shigemaru's shout resounded like thunder as it traveled through the entire hall. Kimichika gulped ever so slightly, but stubbornly stared back at him instead of balking. “Let me go.”

“First let Yukiya go.” Shigemaru was still a Seed, but he was larger than Kimichika. Admittedly, he had no idea how long he could keep up against a Sapling, someone with an extra year of experience over him, but he hoped to at least give him a scare if it came down to blows.

Then, in the middle of such a tense atmosphere, support came from the unlikeliest of places. “Sapling Kimichika, I would recommend you stop right there.”

“Huuh?” Kimichika’s natural enemy had arrived along with his followers. “Akeru, you shit, coming to talk back to your seniors as well?”

“It looked to me as if you were speaking not as their senior but as a Court Raven, or am I mistaken? So, as a fellow Court Raven, let me warn you about something.”

“About what?”

“The person you just derogatively called a ‘lowly servant’ and attempted to punch isn't who you think—but a legitimate scion of the Northern House.”

Shigemaru turned in astonishment to Yukiya, whose face looked like he had just eaten something foul. Akeru casted a glance at his reaction as well, yet he didn’t seem to care as he kept on dispassionately disclosing the details.

“He's the grandson of the man at the very top of all warrior families—the Northern Lord, Great General Gen'ya. Within the Northern House, he’s fourth in rank, only behind the Heir and his firstborn son. Truly a Court Raven among Court Ravens.”

“This guy…?” Kimichika blurted out, completely dumbfounded.

Yukiya, meanwhile, seemed to be completely done with the entire situation. “Eh, that may be the case, yes, I guess.”

Upon the sudden discovery of an unknown high noble among their midst, shock ran through the Seeds, who had been watching with bated breath. Whispers soon spread like ripples throughout the entire hall. However, as the murmurs continued, a figure appeared from the hallway—it was none other than Seiken. Someone had to have gone to call for him.

Kimichika softly clicked his tongue.

“What's happening here?”

That was a question with no easy answer.

They all went silent for a while. In the end, the first one to raise his hand was Yukiya. “I tripped and dropped some miso soup on my senior here.”

“Oh,” Seiken didn’t react at all beyond a murmur, his expression unchanged. He turned towards Kimichika. “Is that correct?”

Being the actual source of the problem as he was, Kimichika was left in no position to disagree or argue. He made a bitter face. “It is, yes.”

Seiken gave them a small nod. “I see, I get it now. First of all, Yukiya. A warrior shouldn’t be tripping and causing others harm. Apologize to your senior.”

“Yes. My apologies, Sapling Kimichika,” Yukiya obediently bowed towards him.

Seiken watched Kimichika as the boy looked down on Yukiya with a very sour face. As he proceeded, his manner of speech remained matter-of-factly. “Now, Kimichika. You should have been able to dodge something like that, I hope you realize. To explode like that and raise your voice against a Seed is also unbecoming of you.”

“...... I apologize.”

“Both sides were in the wrong, so it should be fine to leave it at that. Any issues?” Seiken said. Then, he just quietly watched both trainees.

“None.”

“It’s fine with me.”

So neither side had complaints. “Very well. You two, better learn from this. Your punishment shall be to work together to clean this mess. Understood?”

——In short, Seiken let them all go scot-free.

Both boys immediately agreed and saluted their instructor. Seiken gave them a pleased smile and, with that matter settled, he turned his gaze towards Akeru instead. “Good job mediating.”

“Oh, I couldn't simply stand aside as a Court Raven in the same faction as Yukiya,” Akeru calmly answered in turn.

“I won’t deny that but,” Seiken continued with his usual smile, “I don't recommend bringing up house matters like that in the Monastery. It may have worked here, but it wasn't really your place to reveal Yukiya’s status like that.”

Akeru was clearly not used to getting any warnings from the instructors. His eyes widened, caught by surprise, before he frowned and looked up at Seiken in defiance.

“...... Instructor Seiken, who do you side with? The Animiya Faction, or Wakamiya's?”

Prompted by Akeru's question, Kimichika’s gaze became piercing. He wasn't the only one either—all the trainees in the hall turned towards Seiken at once. Yet the man didn't hesitate—not even for a second—, that faint smile of his unshaken. Not even a situation like this was enough to break through his usual gentle demeanor.

“There's not much meaning in such a question. Lord Natsuka has expressed his wish to serve His Highness Wakamiya, so I don’t think such factions are a good fit for the current state of affairs.”

“That's just officially, isn't it? In practice, the Imperial Court is divided into them.”

“Even if that's the case,” Seiken calmly looked at the increasingly emotional Akeru, “The Monastery is a facility to raise members of the Yamauchi Guard, those who shall serve the Imperial Family. It would be wrong to pay undue attention to factions or any hierarchy beyond that of the Golden Raven himself. Even if the person is part of the Imperial Family. Besides, first and foremost, I'm an instructor here at the Monastery.”

Seiken's tone was no different whatsoever from what he used during lessons. “Whatever the state of politics may be, my duty is to support this facility's trainees.” Akeru was left with no arguments, and Seiken gave him a concerned look. “If you obsess so much over what's going on outside, you'll miss what's happening around you. Do be careful.”

“——So? Can someone explain to me what's going on?” Ichiryuu asked, his eye twitching.

“Well, as Instructor Seiken told us to do, we were cleaning the dining hall until a moment ago. Kimichika left early despite being told to do it too, though. It's honestly already a miracle we received no real punishment, which is why we have no intention to tell on him, all things considered. It was truly lucky for us that it was Instructor Seiken,” Shigemaru replied.

“No, no, I don't care about that part,” Ichiryuu grumbled. “What I actually want to know is why exactly this room has an additional Seed now!”

There were actually three boys sitting squarely in front of the scowling Ichiryuu. Yukiya, Shigemaru—and Chihaya.

“Oh, that’s because of Kimichika! He was the one in charge of mentoring Chihaya, but he went and kicked him out of their room.”

He had been the cause of the entire incident, yet Chihaya ended up being completely ignored midway through. As Shigemaru was painfully aware they had just made matters worse for him, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore his plight.

“As long as we make it in time for the morning roll call, I've heard that the instructors don't care what we do outside of lessons. Sapling Ichiryuu, he truly has nowhere to go. Won't you let him remain here in the tenth room with us?”

“No freaking way. The room is already tiny as-is, and you're asking me for permission to make it worse?” The main interested party, Chihaya, kept up his glum silence in a corner of the room, unwilling to cooperate. Meanwhile, the obviously dissatisfied Ichiryuu was at his wit’s end, holding his head. “Don't you get it? Mind to remember that due to your size, Shigemaru, my own space is already reduced to only a quarter of the entire? I'm a Sapling, I'm not supposed to have so little space to sleep!”

“Don't be so stingy! You're our senior, right?”

“Then tell me, juniors, who exactly are the ones forcing their senior to go through such a humiliation?”

“We just have to take the partition screen away, don't we?” Yukiya said, a rather blatant attempt to poke fun at him.

“No fucking way,” Ichiryuu growled in response before, finally, covering his face with his hands. “Besides, this entire mess was because of Kimichika, right? I told you not to get involved with him! I knew it already, somehow, but I see you truly don't listen to what I say,” Ichiryuu lamented to himself.

“Is Kimichika unpopular even among the Saplings?” Shigemaru asked him.

“Huh? Ah, yes……” Ichiryuu responded bitterly. “There are rumors that he only passed last year's trial because some instructor with ties to the South is playing favorites with him. His personality is awful and he's as dumb as a brick, so nobody outside his circle of Southern people likes him. He’s somewhat strong though, I’ll give him that.”

“Stronger than you, Sapling Ichiryuu?”

“Cut it out! Anyway, he's someone who you would expect to get kicked out because of his personality alone.”

That kind of insolent behavior was a constant of his and he was always surrounded by his own Southern followers, according to Ichiryuu. Taking care of their own trays after dinner was a rule that applied to everyone, be it instructor or trainee. Kimichika’s disrespect for the rules was, ultimately, the actual source of the problem.

——Disregarding the Monastery's rules was a massive issue in itself, so the house he came from didn't even matter. At that moment, just as that thought crossed his mind, Shigemaru happened to remember something else—the real identity of the boy sitting right beside him, Yukiya.

“Actually, now that we’re talking about that—so you were an actual young master,” Shigemaru nonchalantly said to him.

“Wait a moment!” Yukiya, on the other hand, panicked all of a sudden. “I didn’t lie per se when I said I was from Taruhi. It's just—my birth mother is from the Northern House. That's all! So, you see……” Yukiya's voice started to fizzle out until it completely died off. He looked at Shigemaru with an upwards gaze. “Are you angry?”

From the looks of it, Yukiya was genuinely scared of his reaction.

“Why would I be?” Shigemaru, puzzled, asked back. “I said it before, remember? I have no intention to judge others over the circumstances of their birth. If I hated you simply because you're a noble, then I wouldn't be any different from Kimichika, would I?”

“Shige!” Yukiya exclaimed. The boy was oddly yet clearly moved by his words and, to Shigemaru, that made for quite the amusing reaction.

“Ah, but don't ask me to treat you with that kind of respect after all this time. It won't happen,” Shigemaru took his chance to tease him.

“Who would say an idiotic thing like that!?” Yukiya shouted. “I'm actually glad to hear that.”

“And I thought you would say so! So, business as usual for us.”

After spectating the entire conversation with plain concern in his eyes, Ichiryuu finally sighed in relief. With that problem solved, he instead turned his head slightly, glancing at Chihaya, who hadn't uttered a word ever since he had arrived.

“...... Well, if there's no alternative, fine. Listen, Chihaya, I don't mind if you spend the nights here, but you better not cause any further issues. No fights and, please, let's coexist in peace.” Otherwise, Ichiryuu’s utter failure as a mentor would catch even the instructors’ attention.

However, Chihaya's answer was as blunt as it was cold. “I refuse.”

At first, Ichiryuu wasn't able to grasp what Chihaya had just said.

“W-What?” His voice shook. He hadn’t said anything strange as the room's senior, it could even be said to have been the absolute bare minimum. Why would Chihaya refuse like that? He couldn’t figure it out.

“Chihaya?” Yukiya too called out to him.

In the meantime, Chihaya’s sharp eyes were fixed dangerously on Ichiryuu and Yukiya.

“You and the runt. You're nobles, right?”

“Even if you call us nobles… Yukiya aside, I'm just from the rural nobility,” a stunned Ichiryuu answered.

“Then you have horses.”

“Eh? Well, yes.”

A Township Lord's residence couldn't even begin to function without horses. It would greatly affect the officers’ work. Shigemaru had visited the Shimaki Lord’s residence once, and he remembered seeing some impressive stables there. He truly doubted Taruhi was in any way different. It was all simply a given, yet Chihaya's gaze got even colder once he heard that.

“I hate Court Ravens. We can't get along then.” He glared at them, all stunned into silence, before rushing to the exit and leaving the room altogether.

“Wait, Chihaya!” Yukiya tried to follow after him, but Shigemaru quickly stopped him.

Once he got him to stop, Shigemaru turned towards a shocked Ichiryuu and deeply bowed his head. “I'm sorry, senior, but could you wait for a bit?”

“Wait, why are you apologizing in the first place?”

“As a fellow Hill Raven, it’s not as if I can't understand how he feels. Would you leave this to me?”

Unlike Court Raven, Hill Raven was often used to talk about commoners in a derogatory way. Making a point out of using those words in specific was apparently enough for Ichiryuu to get the gist of the problem. There was clear tension on his face as he gave him a still dazed nod.

“——Fine, I'll leave it to you. Bring him back here immediately.”

“Thank you.” Shigemaru took his ornamented blade and flew out of the room.

It didn’t take him long to find Chihaya. He was right behind the building, sitting with his back against the wall. The light leaking from the inside dimly illuminated him, and there was a small bundle of belongings at his feet. Kimichika had thrown it at him when he kicked him out. It was all of Chihaya’s luggage, a shockingly small amount even for a commoner.

“..... Both Ichiryuu and Yukiya were at a loss.” Shigemaru called out to him as he made sure to keep his distance. Chihaya glanced at him for a second, before dropping his gaze back to the ground.

“I don't care.”

“Well, you should be a bit more humble if you plan to secure a place to sleep. Don't tell me you plan to pass the night out here?”

“That was the idea, yes.”

“Wait, wait—are you for real?”

Shigemaru had been fully intending to bring Chihaya back to the tenth room, yet he had never imagined Chihaya was truly planning to sleep outside otherwise. After thinking for a while, Shigemaru leaned on the wall by Chihaya’s side with enough space between them that it was impossible to reach the other even if they extended their arms.

“I doubt Yukiya and Ichiryuu have ever considered how much the Yatagarasu who end up as horses must truly hate it, you know,” Shigemaru mused as he looked up to the sky.

There was the waning moon, floating dimly over the dormitories’ lined up roofs. Soft moonlight shone over the persimmon trees, already covered in young green leaves, leaving shadows all over the ground. Shigemaru inhaled deeply—the air was different now than when they had first joined. One could feel the approaching summer in it.

“....... And, if you think about it, the most likely reason they can't imagine it at all is because they haven't ever mistreated one, right?”

He heard Chihaya quietly laugh at his side. “If that’s enough for them to ignore the problem, isn't that more cruel than actual mockery?”

“Maybe it is,” Shigemaru felt Chihaya relaxing beside him, so he intentionally employed a nonchalant tone as he spoke. “You know, during a famine long ago, my grandpa on my mother's side was left with no options to survive. He refused to sell my mom to the Red Light District, so he chose to become a horse for the local landlord. I wouldn’t have even been born if he hadn't made that sacrifice.”

Chihaya didn't say a word in answer, but he changed his pose. He was listening to what Shigemaru had to say. “He made the decision himself, so he turned into quite the well-behaved horse. It seems his owners were very gentle with him too, so much so that the entire family took personal care of him in his last moments. Is it cruel? Yes, maybe, but I'm glad my grandpa wasn't whipped or didn’t have to suffer unnecessarily at least. I would rather have it that way.”

“...... He protected his daughter.”

Chihaya was still very much a man of few words, but Shigemaru nevertheless understood what he meant—that he found his grandpa admirable.

“Thank you,” Shigemaru softly laughed. “If I had to make a guess, both Yukiya and Ichiryuu are ‘good owners’ as well and haven't ever had a family member become a horse. They're nice people, but I very much doubt there's any fixing that. There are things you can't truly understand until you experience them yourself.”

Chihaya didn’t speak at all, but he made a point out of his own lack of reaction.

“But, even if that’s the case, I think it would also be your loss to reject them altogether over that. Just as we cannot become Court Ravens because we want to, it’s not like they have ever experienced the life of a Hill Raven either,” Shigemaru stretched as he said that. “I’m fine if we don't understand each other perfectly. I don’t care for the kind of person who will force said understanding. You know, what actually matters to me is whether they comprehend that there's no reason to ridicule or look down on others over the world they live in.”

“So you’re saying I should remain silent to the Court Ravens’ abuse?” Chihaya spouted sarcastically.

“No way!” Shigemaru laughed. “Mock those small-minded enough to accept only their own worldviews all you want. But if you sneer at people just because they happen to be Court Ravens, you aren’t really any different from them.”

Finally, Chihaya sighed weakly, his eyes still fixed on his feet. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“Good, that should be enough.”

They stayed there for a long while. Shigemaru gazed at the night sky and Chihaya at the ground, his arms crossed inside his sleeves.

“...... People like family to me were falsely accused of stealing. They had their legs cut. The son of the landlord at the farm they worked at was the actual perpetrator,” Chihaya murmured.

“I see,” was Shigemaru’s only response. Chihaya probably meant the third leg that appeared in bird form, given the context.

——Someone close to Chihaya was falsely incriminated and Disarticulated.

While those who became horses by contract had their third leg bound with a special cord by their owners, and they couldn't transform back to human form without permission, there was no going back for those who had their leg cut, their other form forever out of reach.

For the first time since their conversation had started, Chihaya raised his head to look at Shigemaru.

“Don't—”

“Say anything, right? I won't, don't worry. I'll wait until you're ready to tell them yourself.”

“Will that day ever come?” 

While Chihaya seemed to have no such expectations, Shigemaru nodded with full confidence. “It will. At the very least, I believe so.”

Next: Akeru (Part 1)

—————————————

1: Sanpaku eyes or three whites eyes (三白目) refer to cases in which the sclera around the iris is also visible due to it being comparatively tiny.

2: The time measurement here is actually done in koku (刻). Historically, koku has meant many things, with a day being divided differently depending on time period and area. Probably the most well known form of koku has night and day divided in 6 koku each, for a total of 12 koku, each one named after one of the animals of the chinese zodiac. While, in practice, this meant the length of a koku changed depending on the time of the year and whether it was a night koku or a day koku, the overall average length would be that of two of our modern hours. As far as I know, this and koku-as-half-an-hour are the most well-known standards, but due to pure narrative logic I'm interpreting the koku in Yamauchi as 12-koku-a-day. Finishing dinner and cleaning in 15 minutes for so many people is unrealistic.

3: Once more, ancient forms of measurement are used here. In this case, it's the Ken (間). Unlike the Koku and its flexible nature, a Ken is precisely 1,818 meters.

4: Rokon is what we would call a 'dharma name' (戒名), which are either given to buddhist monks after taking their vows or, within japanese culture at least, given to the dead posthumously. The first category is the one that applies here. This is also the case for other characters who have taken vows like, for example, Natsuka. The men aside, Masuho no Susuki most likely got a dharma name as well once she became a nun, but as she uses her alias or karina (仮名) we never get to learn about it. As one would expect of a setting based on the Heian era, when one could say Zen Buddhism was most influential, a lot of details are affected by it.

[lucysgraybird]

part 2 of modern!uni!coriolanus x fem!reader. part 1 here, part 3 here. as promised, reader's a lil cuckoo which i hope yall are into because it's here to stay. on this, if anyone feels like offering thoughts -- would longer updates be preferable, or does it make no difference? the only tradeoff would be that they'd come out less frequently (once a week vs every 2-3 days). warnings: blood mention, minor suggestive material. this is not a healthy relationship but BOY is it fun

Coriolanus Snow, as it turns out, is wonderful to date, at least for you. You've been back from the winter holiday for a month, and though you've yet to make anything official with him, things are going very well. He doesn't text constantly, but there will always be a good morning text when you get back from the gym, and a good night text when you check your phone after hours at the library. He makes it clear that you're together when you're out with an arm around your waist or a hand over yours on the table, or with the faint bruises that trail across your collarbone and down your shirt. That's your favourite mark of your relationship: it's illicit, obvious. You know it makes other people a little uncomfortable, and you like that they can't seem to look away. 

He's also fascinating. Orphaned when he was quite young and raised by his grandmother and cousin, you've learned that while he obviously has money now, he didn't always. He had a stint in the military to pay for school, and got a job for his best friend’s father as a thank-you for saving the boy’s life in battle. Apparently the friend had been court-martialed for something – Coriolanus wouldn't go into detail – and now they weren't as close. He now makes more money than most people would dream of twenty years out of school, and though it means he's almost always busy, you like that he's so dedicated. 

Right now, you're bent over a sheet of stats equations at a table on the quad when Coriolanus sneaks up behind you. He drops a kiss on your head and settles in an open seat at your table.

“Hello,” you say, setting down your pen. 

“Don't let me distract you,” he replies, pulling a book out of his bag. “I'll wait until you're done to talk.”

This is another thing you appreciate about Coriolanus. Besides that first date, he understands how much you value school and your grades – he actually seems to like it – and never expects to come first. You blow through the last few problems, check your work, and clip the paper neatly into your binder.

Coriolanus looks up from his book. “Finished?”

“Mhm.”

“Good,” he says. “How's that class going, by the way?”

You keep apprised of each other’s academic performances – you're both shooting to graduate valedictorian next year, so you've got a little bit of competition going. As far as you can tell, it only serves to push both of you further, as winning seems more of a reward if there's been a real challenge for it. This being said, he knows that your statistics class is giving you a little bit of trouble, just like you know that his Victorian literature class is driving him up the wall. You're going to win, but you'll let him hope.

“Not as badly as you might hope,” you tease. “I'm on track for a decent A. How goes the adventures in Victorian lit?”

He lifts his book miserably, revealing the cover of Middlemarch. You wince.

“Rough. Don't make winning too easy on me, though.”

“Wouldn't dream of it, sweetheart.”

You smile at the pet name, however targeted it is. “So did you come to make fun of my homework, or did you have something you wanted to talk about?”

“Right, yes. We've been going out for a little over a month now.”

“This is true.”

“And I think it's time we make some decisions. I'm not looking for something casual. Between school and studying for the LSAT and work, I don't really have the time to devote to something that's definitely not going anywhere.”

“I hope you're not proposing, Coriolanus.”

“Not at all. But I am asking if you would like to be my girlfriend, officially.”

“Oh! Yes.”

“Yes?” He seems surprised. 

“I'm not particularly interested in anything casual either,” you say. “I’ve tried it and it doesn't work. I just get jealous.”

“I wouldn't have pegged you for the jealous type.”

“You haven't given me any reason to be. Believe me, if I'm jealous, I'll make sure you know.”

You regret saying that the minute you do – not because it's not true, but because it could be a little off-putting. But it seems to have the opposite effect for Coriolanus, who bares his teeth in a smile. The wider his smile gets, the more he looks like a wolf, the more you feel like he is waiting for the perfect moment to sink his teeth into your neck. Perhaps it should scare you, but it doesn't. It thrills you. It makes you want to tilt your head back and let him take hold, because you want to see your blood on his teeth and trickling down his chin, staining the starched white of his collar. You want to ruin this boy, which you would feel worse about thinking if you didn't get the sense that he wants to destroy you, too.  

“I hope you would,” he says, lifting you from your reverie. “As long as it's okay that it goes both ways.”

“Of course.” Perfect.

“Are you free tonight?” 

“I have a class that ends at 6, but after that, yes.”

“Would you like to meet my family? You'll love my cousin, and my grandmother…well. She doesn't like anyone, but she's interesting.”

“That sounds lovely,” you say, a thrill flooding you at going from occasional dates and make-out sessions to meeting his family in the course of an afternoon.

“Fine, then. I'll pick you up at 7.”

–

The Snow apartment is incredible. There's a sterility to its modernity that should be disquieting but isn't: you can't imagine Coriolanus growing up anywhere else. You're sitting with his cousin, Tigris, while he disappears to make drinks. The fabled grandmother was apparently refusing to make an appearance. Tigris seems anxious, fiddling with her floral skirt.

“So you're dating Coriolanus?” She asks finally. Your brows knit together – is she daft? Coriolanus introduced you as his girlfriend. 

“Mhm. We've been going out for a little over a month.”

“Oh.”

When she doesn't say anything else, you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

“Coriolanus tells me you basically raised him,” you say, wanting to fill the silence.

Tigris nods. “He was such a kind little boy. I worry I didn't do enough sometimes, you know?”

What a weird thing to say. “I'm sure you did your best. I can't imagine it's easy bringing someone else up when you're a kid yourself. And he's turned out well, from what I can tell.”

“He can just be…intense. I'm sorry, I know this is strange, I just want you to know what you're getting into.”

You laugh lightly. “Maybe I need to find someone to give him this speech about me. I'll be okay, Tigris. I can be a lot too; I think we'll be good for each other.”

Coriolanus returns just at that moment.

“I think we'll be good for each other too,” he says, handing you and Tigris each a glass of red wine. “I hope my cousin hasn't been telling you too many embarrassing baby stories.” 

Something passes over Tigris’ face – grief, maybe, or fear – before she settles into a demure smile. 

“Not at all, Coriolanus. Your girlfriend is so sweet.”

He sits next to you and puts his free hand on your knee. “She's perfect, isn't she? I knew you guys would get along.”

Tigris gives him a tight smile, then lets her eyes go unfocused into space. 

–

The rest of the night passes with much of the same uncomfortable conversation, until Coriolanus finally decides that it'd be best if he drove you home before it got too late. It's the first time you've seen him drive, and you just enjoy the way the streetlights cast shadows on the angles of his face and the way his hand sits hot and heavy on your thigh.

“I'm sorry if Tigris said anything strange to you,” he says finally. “She's been odd ever since I got back from being deployed.”

“She was fine. I think she was worried you'd be too much for me.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. “She doesn't approve of my job. Or my ‘work-life balance’, as she calls it.”

“Sounds like she cares about you.” It's hard to say more, because you don't really know what he does for work. Something with national security or defense tech, but beyond that, you're in the dark. It also seems like there was more to the way Tigris was acting than just complaints about Coriolanus working too hard, but it's not your place to pry. Nor do you really care.

“No, you're right. She does. I just wish she'd keep her opinions to herself.”

“That’s fair. I'm still glad I got to meet her.”

“I am too. And I'm always glad to spend time with you.”

To say that, he takes his eyes off the road for a moment and gives you a sweet, close-lipped smile. You return it and place your hand over his on your thigh. His fingers dig in a little too hard, and you curl your nails like claws into his skin in reply. He pulls the car into a parking space in front of your apartment.

“Here you are.”

You turn to him and take in the way he's looking at you, the way his eyes have gone murky in the dark of the night and trail across the scooping neckline of your top. The skin on your neck is pristine again, and you need him to fix that.

“Would you like to come upstairs?”

“I was hoping you'd say that.”

[scarletsaphire]

For his entire nine years of life, Danny has had incredible dreams. Featured in every one is a patch of stars, staying just in the corner of his vision, just out of reach. It is only after his first nightmare that the stars appear as what they truly are; a ghost, here to make a deal.

--

This is my Big Boy fic I've been planning for over a year. I hope you guys enjoy.

Danny had always dreamed of stars. It wasn't necessarily that he always dreamed of the stars, but they were always there. Sometimes he'd dream that he was a pirate, fighting glowing green sea creatures that came up from the bottom of the ocean, tentacles grappling on the sides of his pirate ship. Sometimes he would dream of a world made entirely of smudges of color, and he had to save it from the evil people who wanted to erase it all. Sometimes he would dream of exploring other planets, of the taste of space dust on his tongue and a ground that made him bounce like a trampoline. Danny dreamed a lot of things, but no matter what he dreamed about, the stars were always there, just out of reach. They were different then the ones that appeared in the sky; they seemed to flow and ripple like water, and they always seemed to move to the corner of his vision no matter how hard he tried to see them.

For a while, Danny tried to catch the stars. Every time he got close, he'd wake up. But his parents had taught him that Fentons don't give up, and Danny wouldn't be the one to break that streak. So he swore to himself, after what felt like the millionth time waking up in the dead of night, that he'd get to hold those stars someday, even if he needed to go to space to get them. He spent every night that summer trying to catch them, every night waking up disappointed and going through the next day so tired his mom brought him to the doctor's for a check up.

Danny didn't try and catch the stars the night before third grade. In between teaching Danny the correct way to weld, his dad had talked all about how he'd need all his energy to learn the new things that tomorrow would bring. His mom had stolen Danny away to show him the new and improved Fenton Folders she'd finished for him, designed to be able to hold not only the papers for his class, but any textbooks or other supplies he might need as well. They were bulky, and the combination of metal and mesh wasn't the prettiest, but Danny loved them; he'd helped her make them, after all. Jazz had told him while helping him pack that he needed to prepare himself. 

"Third grade is where the real school starts," she said while trying to fit his pack of #2 pencils in the backpack without disrupting the spots she'd already put his other supplies. "I can help you prepare physically, because I'm the best big sister ever, but you've gotta make sure you're prepared mentally. It's a lot of responsibility."

"I don't know what that means," Danny admitted.

Jazz grinned at him, showing off the gap in her teeth. "Yeah, well you're gonna. That's something third grade will teach you."

Danny did not pout. He was nine now, which was basically double digits. He was above pouting. "Why don't you just tell me now?"

Jazz zipped up the backpack and left it on the hook next to the front door. "I can't do that, it's against the laws of third grade. Everyone has to go through a ritual at the start, to make sure they're fit to be a third grader."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

"Would I ever lie to you?"

"Yes."

Jazz stuck her tongue out at him, and Danny did it right back. "I'm surprised Mom and Dad didn't tell you about the third grade ritual. What else do you think they've been having us do those martial arts classes for?"

"Ghost fighting?" Danny said slowly.

"And who says the challenge isn't a ghost?" Jazz was smiling at him in the same way she had when she said she didn't hide his cookies on the top shelf.

"You're definitely lying."

Jazz shrugged and turned around towards the stairs. "Believe what you want. I just know that if I was you, I would listen to your big sister who’s already beaten the ghosts. You don't want to fight them by yourself, do you?" With that she went upstairs, leaving Danny by himself. Jazz was lying to him. She had to be. But...

Danny grabbed one of the half finished inventions laying on the end table in the living room and slipped it into the side pocket of his backpack. It was better safe than sorry.

That morning Danny woke well-rested, having slept better than he had all summer. He’d had a dream about constructing fish bowls out of clouds, wringing the water from them like you would a towel. It had been a good dream, even if the stars still hung in the corner of his vision, taunting him. It would have been a pleasant way to wake up, if the first thing he was aware of wasn't the bellowing of his name from the doorway.

"Danno!" Jack repeated at a volume that only made his ears ring a little bit. "Hurry up kiddo, you're gonna be late!"

Danny blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he tried to interpret the numbers on his clock. 7:10. "Dad, you were supposed to wake me up at 6:20!" Danny yelled, jumping out of his bed, blankets falling in a twisted knot to the floor. "The bus is going to be here in 10 minutes!"

"Sorry, son," Jack said. "You don't have to worry about the bus, your old man can drive you."

"No, I'm sure I can catch the bus."

---

Danny walked out of the GAV at precisely 7:24, with only his nine years of experience keeping him from vomiting. He'd missed the bus by thirty seconds at most. 

"You've got this, kiddo! Face those challenges head on!" Jack called from the open window. "Love you, good luck!"

Danny waved back, and Jack drove away. His mention of challenges reminded him of Jazz's words yesterday. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to take the unfinished device with him to school; his mom had ended up grabbing it to work on, and with how late he'd woken up, he didn't have a chance to grab a new one. That was okay. Jazz was just kidding. Probably. He tightened his grip on his backpack straps and made his way into the school yard.

Danny's plan was to find Tucker. His parents hadn't let him hang out the past week. They'd said something about summer reading stuff that Tucker still hadn't done, and that he was grounded until he got it finished or school started back up. It was completely unfair, and it meant that the couple minutes before they had to go inside were crucial for catching up about all the exciting things that they had done since the last time they'd hung out. Unfortunately, the first person Danny found was not Tucker. It was Dash.

"Are your parents still adding weapons to that hunk of junk you call a car?" he called out from his spot on the stairs. Dash was mean and a bully, and he had been since kindergarten, but he wasn't persistent. Danny had learned early on that the best thing to do was ignore him and walk away, ideally into the sight of a teacher. Danny tried to do this now, but Dash got up and started to follow him. "What are you running away from? Gonna go hunt down some ghosts to talk to? It’s not like any of us want to."

Danny's grip tightened around the straps of his backpack. "Leave me alone Dash."

"What are you gonna do if I don't?" Dash spat. Danny's next step was halted by Dash's grip on his backpack, forcing him to stumble backwards to keep from falling. "Are you gonna tell your weirdo parents? You'd probably have to lie to get them to care." 

Danny spun to face Dash, the force of his twist breaking the taller boy’s grasp. Despite their height difference, Danny didn't back down.

"Stop it," he spat.

Dash sneered. "Oh, I'm so scared." He leaned down until Danny could smell his breath, warm and gross on his face. "Your whole family is a joke, and everyone knows it. You're no different."

There were a number of things that happened in those few seconds. The first was that Danny realized that, whether intentional or not, Jazz had been right about needing to fight a monster. He wouldn't tell her that, of course. She was already insufferable. 

The second was that Danny's hand had let go of his backpack, clenched into a fist, and flew at Dash's jaw with all the speed and might Danny's nine year old body could muster. 

The third thing, which was by far the worst, was the door to the school yard flying open only a few feet from where Dash and Danny stood. This meant that the teacher got front row seats to Dash's tooth flying out of his mouth.

"Daniel James Fenton!" she called, but her voice sounded distant under the rush of Danny's blood in his ears and Dash's blubbering. He only fully processed that his name had been said when he felt her grab his arm. "Just what do you think you are doing?"

Danny flushed red from embarrassment as he realized that the teacher's yelling had attracted the attention of the whole school yard. "He started it," he mumbled under his breath.

"I don't care who started it, young man, that's no excuse for violence!" she snapped. "I'm going to need to call your parents, do you understand that? In all my years of teaching, I've never had to call anyone about something like this so early in the school year." She moved towards the building, Danny dragging along behind her. 

She stopped briefly near the door to point at a student Danny didn't recognize; a 5th grader, by the looks of it. "Would you be a dear and escort Dash to the nurse’s office?" The student nodded.

The teacher led Danny through the halls of the school to the main office. "You are going to sit right here," she said to Danny, leading him to one of the waiting chairs, "-and you aren't going to move a single muscle, do you understand? I'm going to talk to the principal, and then she is going to talk to you." Danny nodded, and the woman disappeared behind the adjacent door.

Danny would not cry. He wanted to, and his eyes burnt with hot, angry tears, but he did not cry. He was nine. That was almost double digits, and someone who is double digits doesn't cry. Danny focused on one spot on the worn, dirty, carpeted floors, trying to get the heat of his anger to burn a hole through it.

It didn't work. Danny cried quietly.

When the teacher walked back into the room, he wiped away his tears as quickly and discreetly as he could before getting out of his chair and following her into the principal's office. Danny had seen Principal Caulfield a couple of times before; she would give announcements in the cafeteria sometimes, and would lead fire drills. He'd never been called to her office before. He'd never wanted to.

She smiled at him warmly, a stark contrast to the teacher's steely gaze he could still feel burrowing into the back of his head like knives. "Hello, Daniel. I assume Mrs. Robertson explained why you're here." Danny nodded. "Mrs. Robertson explained what happened to me, but I want to hear it from your perspective. Can you do that for me?" 

Danny shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Principal Caulfield's eyes. "She can leave, if that would make you more comfortable." Principal Caulfield nodded to her, and Mrs. Robertson took her leave.

"Dash was making fun of my family," Danny mumbled. "I tried to walk away, but he grabbed me and wouldn't let me go."

Principal Caulfield nodded. "So you decided to hit him?" 

Danny nodded. 

"Why don't you take a seat?" Slowly, Danny sat down in the chair opposite of hers. "We try very hard to teach our students that violence isn't the answer here, and it never is. You should've called for a teacher, or tried to settle the issue with words. Do you understand that?" 

Danny nodded again. 

"Now, I'm going to call your parents. I'm going to have a long discussion with, and you will be sent home early. I know that the first day of school has a lot of fun activities, and with your behavior today, I think a fair punishment is missing out on them. If this happens again, however, you will be in far more trouble. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Danny said. He focused on keeping his voice from wobbling.

"Good. Now, let me see here..." Principal Caulfield stood up and made her way over to her filing cabinet, rifling through one of the drawers and pulling out a folder with a label that read "D. J. Fenton." She flipped through it, traced her finger down one of the pages, and started dialing a number on the phone. Just as Danny had expected, it went to voicemail. A voicemail that was completely full.

Principal Caulfield frowned down at the phone. She looked through the file again, before looking up at Danny. "Are your parents busy right now?"

"My mom's down in the lab," he said. "If Dad's home by now, he's down there with her. If not, he's in the car."

Her face twisted in confusion, probably trying to figure out what Danny meant by lab, before it settled on an expression Danny had become very familiar with over the years. It was the mixed horror and understanding that most adults got when they realized that those two jumpsuit-wearing ghost hunting weirdos did in fact have children, and one of them was standing in front of them. Danny braced himself for the conversation that almost always followed, even as Principal Caulfield's expression faded into a professional veneer of kindness.

"I didn't realize that your parents had a laboratory in your house," she said. "What type of things do they do in the lab?"

"They build things, mostly," Danny said. That was a major simplification; even though Danny wasn't allowed to help with a lot of the things they did, he helped with enough to know a lot more than that they just 'built things.' More importantly, he knew that Principal Caulfield wasn't actually interested in hearing about his parents’ work, no matter how interesting it truly was. She was poking and prodding around the house to make sure Danny and Jazz were safe. He'd gone through it many times. It was never a pleasant conversation but it didn't normally bother Danny. "They don't let me or my sister into the lab unsupervised, they have all the proper PPE for both themselves and us, and anything they think will hurt us, or that they don't know whether it will or not is locked away where we can't get it," Danny recited.

Slowly, Principal Caulfield nodded. "It sounds like that's something you've practiced."

Danny shrugged. "I just get asked things like that a lot."

"Daniel." Her voice was hard. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Danny," she said, and her voice softer this time. She reached her hands out on her desk and folded them over each other. "You understand that that's not normal right? That you shouldn’t be in a house where your safety is questioned by everyone?"

That was also something he heard a lot. It wasn't like any of them were wrong. His parents weren't normal, and he knew that; what did it matter that everyone else knew that too? But Dash's words from before whirled in his head, mixing with Principal Caulfield's concern and the remaining whispers of the dozens of other people who'd said it. Danny bit his tongue to keep from either crying or shouting. He wasn't sure which was more likely. 

It took a few seconds before he managed to get out the response he wanted. "I am safe."

Principal Caulfield sighed. "Do you have any other way to get in contact with your parents?" Danny shook his head, and she pursed her lips. "Ok. Do they let you walk home alone?" Danny nodded. "Since I'm not going to be able to get in contact with them, what we're going to do instead is you're going to walk home. Straight home, no detours. You’re going to give them a letter explaining the whole situation, and then they are going to call me back. If I don't get a call back from them by -" she glanced at the clock on the wall next to her "- by nine o'clock, you are going to be in a lot more trouble. Do you understand?" Danny nodded again.

The next few minutes passed in tense silence as Principal Caulfield wrote out the note for Danny's parents. Finally, she handed the paper over to Danny. "You're free to leave." Danny shoved the note into his backpack and stood up. 

Just as he was about to walk out of the room, she spoke again. "Daniel?" He turned back to look at her. "Let's make sure this doesn't happen again, ok?" 

All he could do was nod.

---

It was almost 8:30 by the time he walked through the front door, his face red and puffy from anger, tears, and the rising August heat. As he had guessed, the sounds of clinking metal echoed up from the lab. He threw his backpack on the couch, and crouched to untie his shoes. He needed to gather his bravery to face his parents. He'd gotten in trouble in school before; even Jazz had gotten in trouble a couple of times, and she was as goody two shoes as they got. It was just that most of the time when he got in trouble, it was for something that his parents were more lenient about; they didn't care about him missing homework assignments when he had spent most of the time with them in the lab. They didn't care about him not paying attention in class because neither of them could pay attention to much of anything not related to ghosts or science; they claimed it was a Fenton Family trait. 

Danny knew that they would care about this.

He took a deep breath and started down the basement stairs. "Mom? Dad?" he called out as soon as he reached the bottom, peeking his head around the corner.

"Danny? Is it three o'clock already?" Maddie said, glancing over at him in confusion.

"I could've sworn that I only just got started!" Jack said, sitting upright from where he was hunched over his workbench. 

"Time sure flies when we're working," Maddie replied with a laugh.

"Um..." Danny shuffled from one foot to the other. "It's not."

"What was that sweetie?" Maddie asked. 

"It's not three yet. I got sent home from school early," Danny said. He started to explain everything, the words falling out of his mouth as he talked. When he finished explaining what Principal Caulfield had said to him, he pulled out the note and held it out to his parents. They'd both moved to stand next to Danny while he was talking. 

Maddie took the paper and opened it to begin reading, while Jack lowered himself to one knee to get on Danny's level. "I'm disappointed in you, son. I thought we had raised you to know better than resorting to violence."

"Unless it’s against a ghost," Maddie added quietly as she continued to read.

"Unless it’s a ghost," Jack amended. "Then your old man can show you how to shoot the sorry spook right between the eyes!" Jack bounced to his feet, pointing his hands into finger guns, and imitating the sounds of shooting and explosions. That went on until Maddie finished reading the note.

"Jack dear, you've gotten distracted again," she said, folding the note back up and slipping it into her jumpsuit pocket before turning to Danny. "What your father is trying to say is that we're proud of you for trying to stick up for us, but you should know better than to start fights."

"I'm sorry…" 

"You don't have to apologize to us," Maddie said. "You need to apologize to Dash. And that's what you're going to do, right now. You're going to go up to your room and write an apology note to him, and then you are going to go right to bed. No games, no TV, no books, no toys. I think that's a fair punishment, don't you honey?"

"Sounds right to me."

"But he started it!" Danny protested. 

"I don't want to hear it, young man," Maddie chided. "We can be a lot meaner about this if you make us."

Danny bit his lip. "Fine."

"Good. Now, you go upstairs, and I'll give your principal a call."

Danny and Maddie made their way out of the basement together. She stopped at the phone to wave Danny along. "And I'll be coming up to check on you soon, so don't think you can sneak out of the punishment." Danny gave a curt nod in response, not stopping his trek upstairs. 

Danny sat down at his desk in his bedroom, grabbing one of his new school notebooks. He and Jazz had talked their parents into buying a bunch of stickers, and the two of them had spent an entire afternoon customizing their new school notebooks. Danny had, of course, covered his in stars, rocket ships, planets, and astronauts. 

Danny’s lungs and eyes burned with anger as he realized that the very first thing he was going to have to put in his new notebooks was an apology letter to Dash, of all people. But he didn't have any of his notebooks from last year, so he didn't have much of a choice.

He flipped to the first page and lifted his pencil to start writing. The first couple of words were dark and shaky. The pencil tip snapped from the force he used. Danny let his head fall to the desk, and groaned into his arms. "Why do I have to apologize?" he complained to himself, not lifting his head from the desk. "He doesn't deserve it. He's been nothing but mean for years." 

The burning feeling in his throat got more intense. Hot tears ran down his eyes onto the notebook, smearing the few words he’d managed to write.

Danny turned over and glared at the door. His mom had said that she'd come and check on him, but he had grown up with her. There was the chance that she'd make good on her word, sure, but it was far more likely that something would call her back to the lab and she'd forget all about Danny, at least until Jazz got home. 

Danny didn't want to risk the offhand chance of her coming up and catching him doing something she said not to, but that didn't mean he had to write the letter. Not yet, anyway. Danny pushed his chair back from the desk with a squeak, and made his way over to his bed, flopping onto the mattress. With his pillow muffling him, Danny let the tears flow freely.

---

Danny sat in class, the teacher at the front of the room droning on about something. He wasn't paying attention. How could he, when he could feel the weight of his classmates’ stares on his shoulders? Their whispers joined together in a cacophony of noise, getting louder and louder with every passing moment until Danny couldn't even hear himself think. The sound persisted even when he covered his ears with his hands, pushing against his head until it hurt. "Please, stop," he begged. Like a switch, everyone stopped whispering. Danny opened his eyes to see the teacher from the playground standing above his desk. 

"What was that, Fenton?" she said, her voice dripping with venom. 

"I just..." Danny looked around at his classmates, but he couldn't focus on any of them, not under the heat of the teacher's gaze. "I wanted them to stop talking."

"How dare you interrupt their conversation!" Spittle flew from her mouth, bright green, and splattered against Danny's desk where it sizzled, chewing through the wood. He flinched back. "Apologize. To all of them. And then it's straight to the principal with you!" 

"But I didn't do anything!" Danny protested. 

"And you're talking back? If you're ever allowed back in this school again, you can apologize then. But I think the principal might put a stop to that."

Danny tried to stand up, but his legs were glued to the chair. He strained against the force holding him down until his muscles burned, but no matter what he did, he couldn't move. 

"What do you think you're doing, young man?" The teacher said, and she bared her glistening fangs at him. "You are about to be in a world of trouble!"

"What, are you too weak to get out of your chair, Fenturd?" Dash's voice overlapped the teacher’s. "Or is a ghost holding you down? We gonna have to call your crazy parents?"

They didn’t stop talking even as the rest of the class started again, an echoing cacophony of every horrible thing Danny had ever heard about him and his parents and his sister and his house and everything. All he could do was struggle against the chair even as his legs burned from the effort and his head pounded and his eyes leaked hot tears and- 

Danny sat upright in his bed, gasping for air. His school clothes, which he had fallen asleep in, stuck to the skin, and the blanket he'd been sleeping on top of was soaked with cold sweat. He grabbed at his chest, trying to slow down the frantic beating of his heart. 

"It was just a dream," he said to himself, still breathless. "It wasn't real."

Danny'd had nightmares before, but they'd always been full of fantastical beasts and monsters and ghosts. He’d never felt trapped; any time that he'd get too scared, he'd reach to the stars. Their ever-present shimmering would block out whatever terrors plagued his mind, and he'd wake up calm.

The stars weren’t there to save him this time, and that was almost scarier than the nightmare had been.

---

"Did you get the note finished like I asked?" Maddie asked over their Chinese takeout. (Surprisingly, Jack had tried to cook dinner. Emphasis on the tried. He claimed that the hot dogs started the fire in the kitchen, but they had been peaceful since the Great Toaster War, so Danny was pretty sure that Jack just burned the water he'd been boiling. And the stove he'd been boiling it on.)

"Mhm," Danny answered around his mouthful of pork fried rice. He hadn't even started the letter. Every time he did, the cutting words of his dream flooded his mind. It wasn't like she'd check it anyway.

"Good. Make sure to give it to him tomorrow when you go back to school," she said. 

"I still can't believe you got into a fight!" Jazz said. "I didn't get into any fights when I was your age."

"You're only two years older than me," Danny grumbled, shoveling another bite into his mouth.

"And those two years make quite the difference, obviously," she replied. She twirled the noodle around her fork. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that-"

Danny cut her off before she could get started. "Can I be excused?"

Maddie and Jack shared a look before Maddie nodded. "Don’t forget you’re still grounded, mister!" Jack called out after him as Danny shoveled one last spoonful into his mouth and retreated to his room. 

The day had passed slowly and painfully, with Danny spending a lot of time staring at his wall. He'd tried going down to the lab to help his parents, but they had made him go back upstairs to his room. It had taken an hour for them to remember to do so, in which they had told him all about the newest ecto-filtration system they were working on developing, but that hour hadn't done much to help with the other ten hours of extreme boredom. That, and the skin crawling grossness from the dream had yet to leave him.

Despite the fact that Danny had done less than nothing today, he was tired. He may have left the dinner table to avoid Jazz's rambling, but he probably would've done that anyway. In spite of the sun still streaming through the window, he made his way through his bedtime routine, before laying down in his bed, this time in his comfortable pajamas.

Apparently, it didn't matter that Danny's exhaustion seemed to run bone deep; no matter how he twisted and turned, he couldn't get comfortable. Every time he thought he'd found a nice position, his hand, head, or legs would throb. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the teacher from his nightmare with the venom filled fangs, or the disappointed faces of his parents and Principal Caulfield. 

Something told him that if he fell asleep, he would be met by similar dreams. No matter how tired he was, he didn't want to go through that again. He tried to keep his hands busy, and when he was too tired to move them with any more grace then a baby, he moved to keeping his mind occupied.

Despite how much he fought it, the soft ticking sound of his clock lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

—

Danny knew that he was dreaming because of the stars. The stars that had hovered at the edges of his vision in every dream but the last now covered everything, as if they were making up for lost time.

"Woah..." he whispered. He'd dreamed of standing in a field of stars before, but this felt...different. Before, there’d always been that one patch that stood out from the rest, his constant companion, a spot inconsistent with the rest of them. It had always felt more real, more physical, then the rest of them. This time, that patch made up everything around him. 

He dropped to his knees to touch one, an exceptionally bright star that pulsed with the beating of his heart. He cupped it in his hands, pulling it out from the inky blackness that surrounded it. It stayed where he held it, with most of the darkness dripping off like water, only a thin strand keeping it connected to the rest of the starscape. It wasn't warm like he'd expected; in fact, it was cold. So cold that it almost hurt to hold it, but he didn't put it down. He'd been dreaming of this moment, literally, for his entire life.

He stared down at the glowing ball, enraptured by its flickering lights, before he realized that it was… wrong. He knew stars; he had begged his parents to bring him to the space museum so often over the summer the people working there knew him by name. Stars were not just balls of light, they were balls of fire that moved and changed. Whatever he held in his hand was nothing but pure light, perfectly frozen, completely unchanging. 

He let the not-star fall from his hands, slipping back into its place in the inky void.

"Is it not living up to your expectations, little dreamer?" Danny whirled around to try and find the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere, echoing endlessly. The sound traveled in ripples across the not-quite liquid floor, and the echoes only started to fade when the ripples did.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, continuing to scan his surroundings unsuccessfully. "Where are you?"

"You may call me Nocturne," the voice said. "And you already know the answer to the last question."

"I do?" Danny asked, confused. He spun around in a circle slowly. 

"You do. We're in a dream."

"This doesn't feel like my dreams..." Danny said. 

"That's because it isn't one of your dreams," Nocturne said. The surrounding darkness coalesced into one being, the starry cloak extending endlessly into the rest of the surroundings. One cluster of stars became a horned mask, with sunken eyes that seemed to be staring straight through Danny. "It's one of mine. I've brought you here to make a deal."

Nearly every alarm bell Danny had started ringing at once. Despite this, he did not feel scared, just wrong. Something was wrong. He tried to figure out what, but failed. Nocturne was still staring at him expectantly. He had to answer, even if he couldn’t figure it out. “My parents say I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Nocturne's laughter rang out through the dream, even though his mask remained perfectly stationary, his eyes never leaving Danny. "Dearest Daniel, I am many things, but I am no stranger." He moved closer to Danny. Or, Danny moved closer to him, the ground beneath his feet folding over itself as if the world was being moved around him.. "You've known me for many, many years now."

"I don't..." Danny started to say, but he cut himself off with a hard swallow. He did know Nocturne, even if he didn't understand how. "What are you?" Danny asked instead.

"I am a ghost," Nocturne said, and Danny’s alarm bells worsened as a cold dread settled on his shoulders. Maybe he was in danger. "You don't need to be afraid, little dreamer. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it a very long time ago." 

For some reason, that didn't make Danny any less afraid.

He tried to stumble backwards, only to find that the cold liquid of the pool had hardened around his ankles, locking him in place. "What do you want with me?" Danny said, and his voice was barely over a whisper.

Nocturne tilted his head to the side. "I think a better question is how can we help each other? As I said before, I am offering you a deal. All I want from you for now is to listen." Nocturne laughed again. "I suppose in this case your question ended up just as good as any other." He held his hand out to Danny. "Now, shall we?"

Danny struggled to tear his gaze away from Nocturne's piercing eyes, but he managed to. The ghost's hands were barely visible, blending in almost perfectly to the inky blackness surrounding them, but Danny could still make out the vague outline of claws connected to a hand nearly the size of his face. He knew he should say no; he'd spent his whole life listening to his parents talk about ghosts. They were heartless creatures, a sad mixture of energy and ectoplasm and nothing more. They were more dangerous than anything Danny could ever dream up, had the ability to kill him with nothing more than a thought, and may do something even worse with only a little bit more. He should not take Nocturne's hand.

He tried to move again, but his foot was still stuck in the pool, the cold liquid clinging to him like tar. It didn't look like Danny had much of a choice. Hesitantly, Danny reached out and took hold of one of Nocturne's claws, touching as little of him as he could. Nocturne's expression did not change, but Danny could still feel the satisfaction rolling off of him in waves.

Danny could not remember blinking, but he must have, because one second they were in the star-studded abyss, and the next they were standing at the rear end of Danny's classroom. Danny looked around, confused, and his confusion only grew when he saw himself sitting in the middle seat. His doppelganger was hunched in on himself, visibly uncomfortable.

"You recognize this scene, do you not?" Nocturne asked.

Slowly, Danny nodded. "My nightmare. From earlier today."

"Very good. Tell me, what do you think of it?"

"Um, I don't like it?" Danny answered.

"And why is that?"

Danny shrugged. "I mean, no one likes nightmares."

"Yes, but you've had plenty of nightmares before. Why was this one different?"

Danny bit his lip and took a shot in the dark. "It reminded me of my bad day?"

"Excellent, little dreamer," Nocturne said, his voice laced with pride. "The bad things that have happened, or the bad things that might. Everyone gets them, at some point or another. And yet, for a very long time, yours were special. You were never truly afraid of the things that might happen, but created new things to be afraid of. Isn't that right?"

Danny gave a small nod. It felt like the answer Nocturne was looking for.

"Tell me," Nocturne continued. "Do you want to have more dreams like this one? Do you want for them to be built on the ugly truth of your reality?"

This time, Danny shook his head.

"I didn't think you would," Nocturne said. "Which is why I am offering you an escape from it. I can make it so that you never have these dreams, or any like it, ever again. All you need to do is help me in turn."

Danny narrowed his eyes. He may not have been the smartest Fenton, but he wasn't an idiot. And he had grown up with an older sister. "How would I be helping you?" he asked. "Cause my parents have talked a lot about fairy stories, and they say it’s really bad to make a deal with a fairy, and that fairies are just ghosts that have been mislabeled."

"The details are somewhat complex."

Danny crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not making any deal unless I know what it’s about."

The stars in Nocturne's cloak twinkled brighter. "There is an issue within my home, the Infinite Realms, that requires someone special like you to fix. It is, of course, more complicated than that, but that is the important part."

"And what would I need to do to fix it?" Danny asked.

"It is my understanding that you would simply need to be present," Nocturne replied. "As for the how, that comes back to your side of the offer. Instead of having dreams like this," Nocturne swept his hand across the room. "...you would instead spend your dreaming nights in the Realms. In the morning, you would wake up in your bed as if nothing had happened."

"It won't be any kind of sleeping forever thing, right?" Danny asked.

"It could be if you would like," Nocturne said. "Unless you request it, however, no. It would last just as long as any of your other dreams."

"So you want me to agree to let you take me into the world of ghosts, every night, instead of having the occasional bad dream?" Danny asked slowly. "That doesn't seem very fair to me."

"It would not be the occasional bad dream," Nocturne said. "Dreams are my realm. I know them very, very well. And your dreams have been... tainted. It does not matter whether you take this deal or not, you will never return to the dreams you had for so long. I am simply offering you an alternative to this mundanity."

"Why should I trust you?" Danny asked.

"You shouldn't," Nocturne answered easily. "But you don't need to trust me to agree to the deal."

"And if I don't agree to it?"

"Then you will wake up with no memory of ever seeing me, and go back to a life where you can't escape the horrors of the real world even in the comfort of sleep."

Danny took a deep breath through his nose, and looked around the room. He couldn't hear anything that was happening, but his memory worked to fill in the gaps. The teacher was nearly frothing at the mouth with her green, acidic spit, the other kids in the class were either whispering or laughing at him, and the dream Danny was sitting at his desk. His face was a patchy red, tears streaming down his face. He remembered how helpless he had felt sitting there, and he couldn't imagine feeling like that for who knows how long.

Danny turned back to Nocturne, whose gaze had never once strayed from him. "Okay." His voice didn't shake, despite how nervous he felt. "I agree."

"Wonderful." Nocturne reached his hand out to Danny. This time Danny didn't hesitate to take it, and then the world shifted around him.

[iolypse]

qsmp eggs as D&D characters because I can't help but fuse both of my current fixations together

Chayanne — Ive decided that every single egg is a dragonborn for the sake of simplicity, so that just brings me to figuring out class and subclass for each of them. I originally was thinking a simple fighter for Chayanne, but then, upon remembering what was quite literally an oath to protect everyone, decided he'd make a rather good paladin, particularly oath of devotion. he's devoted to keeping everybody safe, no matter the cost. if I were to give him a breath weapon, it'd be fire. he's a dragonborn paladin (devotion)!

Tallulah — Tallulah was always going to be a bard, are you kidding me? from there, looking through all the bard subclasses, I figured lore suited her best. she collects info! she gave qwil that book full of info about marigolds, she asks questions so she can know more about the world. yeah. she's a smart girl. dragonborn bard (lore).

Dapper — this is THE artificer. this autistic fuck (/affectionate bc me too buddy, me too) loves everything machinery, and he's fuckin good at it, too. considering his additional love for collecting animals, I've decided to make him a battle smith so he can have a steel defender. he would take very good care of it. I considered armorer due to the unique sets of armor I've seen him wear, but battle smith suited him just a tad better. he's a dragonborn artificer (battle smith).

Ramón — Ramón is also THE artificer! they are artificer pals. while Dapper focuses more on combat-ready mechanics, Ramon's been doing a lot of work on his elevator. also, bombs! fuck, he and qfit have so many bombs, they're practically their first line of defense. therefore, artillerist. he's good at throwing shit across the battlefield, staying stationary and hunkered down. dragonborn artificer (artillerist).

Leonarda — Leo was a little difficult. from the beginning, I knew I wanted her to be a primarily martial class, but I didn't want to leave her without any magic, either. so I figured a monk could be fitting due to their innate ki. considering. you know. dragon. I just had to give her ascendant dragon. dragonborn monk (ascendant dragon).

Bobby — oh yeah, this boy's a fighter alright. I considered barbarian for his tendency to sometimes throw tantrums, but it just wasn't right for him. I definitely considered gunslinger, but he's not particularly known for his guns, and I was eventually led to banneret, aka the purple dragon knights. he's definitely one of the braver kids, and I think his bold deeds could definitely inspire those around him. Bobby is a dragonborn fighter (banneret).

Richarlyson — he was kind of difficult! Richarlyson has picked up a number of skills from all six of his dads, making him fairly versatile and all-around skilled. I was, however, leaning a more martial class, and looked to monk first. none of the subclasses felt right, so I went bard due to their jack of all trades thing. wasn't right, so I thought about ranger, and that seemed like it could work due to their wide range of specialization. looking through subclasses, I picked monster slayer out of the bunch. just about all of his dads are terrorized by cucurucho in one way or another. he's practically got a sixth sense for the fucker now. Richarlyson's a dragonborn ranger (monster slayer).

Tilín — that's a rogue. yeah. that's a rogue. qQ himself taught them all about lying to other people to get what you want, and you're gonna tell me that's not a fucking rogue? right. rogue has a ton of interesting subclasses, but I felt like soulknife was a really interesting pick for her. soulknife rogues focus on the manipulation of the mind, fucking with a person's head to change their perception or easily slip by them. felt like they could use a little bit of magic, too, so he's got the psionic abilities that come with it. this is a dragonborn rogue (soulknife).

Juanaflippa — considered fighter gunslinger, but this is also a rogue! not a particularly magical one, though. Juanaflippa never really had much, always too busy shooting guns and coping with her parents' numerous divorces. HOWEVER, when you consider the whole necromancy element of her character (died, came back, fucking died again) on top of all the headcanons of her haunting the island, she's a pretty fun phantom. she's got an innate connection to death and the undead, and she knows what's dead when she sees it. I debated scout, but phantom was too cool to pass up. dragonborn rogue (phantom) for her.

Trump — I don't know shit about trump, but I like to think that if he survived longer, he would've taken after the crazy science aspect of both his dads, giving it a magical twist and going wizard. figured either evocation or abjuration would be good subclasses for him. decided on abjuration because damn, that's what this kid needed. dragonborn wizard (abjuration).

bonus:

gegg — plasmoid/changeling bard (valor). if you can find my other post on the English speakers as D&D classes, he's literally just slimecicle. nothing too special here. gegg.

[dustofthedailylife]

hi i have a funny roommate idea!

martial artist!reader brings a lot of potentially comedic scenarios to mind tee hee

-reader coming home covered in bruises and kaveh FREAKS the fuck out while alhaitham has vivid visions of how to best ruin someone's life

-a friend from their class/team/idk whatever sees them in public and starts a friendly sparring session out of nowhere (my instructor used to tell us that if he saw us in public he would put us in a chokehold and see if the training kicks in, lol)

-them inviting a friend over and one or more of the boys walks in on someone being pinned

-them offering to teach one of the boys some moves and the other walks in on someone being pinned

-hey why do you have so many weapons in your closet?

-some npc harrasses reader and they get to see the the poor soul either get kicked into a wall or thrown down so hard it realigns their spine

-a little bit of friendly roughhousing aND WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SO STRONG???

-and my favorite trope, doesn't even have to be martial artist reader: they grab onto one of the boys in their sleep and good luck, bc reader is a bear trap. you're staying here until they wake up.

-oh, how can i forget, the classic "oh my god i've never seen them in revealing clothing and they are ?!?!??"

-crushing a watermelon between their thighs also

[-> Roommate AU brainrots]

omg this is too funny 😂😭

Kaveh would totally be hysteric when you come home with bruises and Alhaitham would just watch the entire thing and listens in. 100% thinking about who he needs to murder and already trying to formulate a plan lol!

And if someone attacked you in public like that Kaveh would freak the fuck out, probably just throwing Mehrak in the way. And Alhaitham would already summon his sword and some light mirrors - you'd probably have to calm him down and tell him it's okay. Or you just kick ass and indirectly tell them that they don't need to protect you with that 😂

Being pinned by your training partner and they think they walk into a compromising situation and then noping out of the room. Kaveh would 100% ask you about who that was later though. Alhaitham would try to find out on his own through connections.

The friendly roughhousing makes me think of Alhaitham jokingly putting you in a chokehold after you've been teasing him all day. Fast forward to him getting flung over your shoulder and on the carpet in the blink of an eye. You can't stop saying sorry while he lies on the floor groaning while Kaveh is laughing his ass off in the background.

And with the sleeping hugs? They'd both get flustered, let's be real. Alahaitham is hard to fluster but, dang even he would be red in the face. And Kaveh... he's a cinnamon roll, of course, he is a blushing mess.

And yes, imagine just wearing a loose shirt in the morning and not wearing any pants (except for underwear) and it just fries their brain. Or some clothes you go out with (Reader's choice what it is) and it shows your collarbones/chest partly and they just completely lose their mind. Your outfit and you are on their mind for the rest of the night. They might just throw you a compliment for it later in the hopes you'd wear something like that more often.

[phoenix-manga]

Jinlong Esi

CV: Kawasumi Ayako

Biographical Information

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Birthday: July 27

Starsign: Leo

Height: 184 cm

Eye Color: Atlantis Green

Hair Color: Copper Rust & Gold

Professional Status

Dorm: Dragonstone

School Year: 3rd Year

Class: 3-B | Student no. 16

Occupation: Student | Dorm Leader

Club: Aviary Club

Best Subject: Magic History

Fun Facts

Favorite Food: Various Teas

Least Favorite Food: Porridge

Dislikes: Unorganized spaces

Hobby: Forging

Talents: Acrobatics

Idol Stats

Performance: Has excellent vocal range used for traditional songs and Chinese opera. Prefers to sing a story rather than just sing out her emotions.

Choreography: Mixes cultural dance with modern choreography. Sometimes incorporates fighting styles

Styling Jewel Outfits: Cultural | Cool | Gothic

Jinlong tends to try new things along with a sense of adventure, in which often gets her scolded by her father about how unladylike it was.

It doesn’t help that she was stubborn and she always ends up getting punished if she defies him. It took quite a lot of punishments for her to realize she had to keep everything she does a secret from almost all the men in her family.

Due to her unfavorable home life, Jinlong has developed a sharp tone towards the opposite gender. This may be judgmental on her part but growing up in a place where the men all think you should be placed in a box made her assume that she would be looked down upon even outside of the Valley of Clouds.

But she is much more toned down towards the girls. Although, she feels weirded out by the fact that there were girls who chose to embrace femininity.

After some time at DCA, Jinlong took a while to be a bit more accepting of the daintier girls and the fact that some women don’t like to be adventurous as her.

Jinlong was taught proper etiquette so much that it shows through her body language and habits. The lessons were hammered into her since childhood and are not easy to change.

Hometown: Valley of Clouds

Family Life

Jinlong grew up in a community where women are expected to be elegant and fragile. Their role in society was to be pretty and give birth to offspring. This kind of strict tradition was not for Jinlong, she’s been different from the other girls in the valley.

She wanted to do things that boys usually would, like climb trees and roughhouse. But her father would put a stop to her “outlandish” behavior by physical punishments such as kneeling on the floor for a few hours or being struck.

He even employed strict tutors to engrain etiquette into her. The tutors themselves were quite harsh and Jinlong couldn’t confide in anyone about her troubles.

Jinlong has 3 elder brothers and 2 younger brothers. The eldest often argues with her because he is the family’s golden child in terms of martial art strength and intelligence. He would agree with whatever father said, at times even using his strength to push his other siblings around to follow what he thinks is right for the family.

It didn’t help that when Jinlong snuck out, she was snitched on by most of her brothers. Especially the eldest brother who threatened the second eldest if he didn’t tell on her, but Jinlong didn’t blame the second eldest, Ying was scary strong that her father would probably take his side all the time.

She becomes less trusting of her brothers because she knows they’ll snitch on her, with the exception of the youngest and second eldest brother. She often ignores them and makes sure they don’t know what she’s doing behind her father’s back.

She started to keep secrets from her father, she sneaks out when no one was looking. She’s learned to memorize all their routines and is always back at the house on time and doesn’t look disheveled at all.

Jinlong’s mother tries to pretend she doesn’t notice her daughter doing what is considered to be “boy’s activity”. Knowing that it can be suffocating to constantly be told what to do.

Childhood Memories

Jinlong remembers the furious look on her father’s face the moment he saw her all muddied up and trying to play swords with boys. He harshly scolded her and ended up grounding her for weeks, she wasn’t allowed to play inside or outside the house and must be with an etiquette tutor. Ying taunted her for being so “unladylike” and even had the gall to try and rile her up to get her to act out and be punished some more.

One day, while out in town, she meets an old man who was known for being a lone wolf and is always cooped up in his smithy forge. Jinlong was curious and purposely let go of her mother’s hand while they were nearing a crowd to go see what he was doing.

She’s heard how this old man was rumored to be a warrior who fought in the Great War against the enemy who tried to invade the valley but not a lot would believe that rumor. Ever since that day, she secretly came to meet up with the old dragon and learned a lot from him. The most prominent skill he taught her were marital arts and blacksmithing.

As Jinlong grew up, she manages to perfect her skills in keeping up with her etiquette lessons as well as her secret training. Often times she is left alone by most of her brothers but she has also developed a hobby of nitpicking her eldest brother for every little mistake to try and knock him down a peg.

It’s petty of her to do so but she’s spent her life being told she can’t do this and that due to her gender, this was her way of getting back at him for telling her to stay in her “place”.

One day, the ivory carriage came to her house and everyone in the neighborhood was curious. Usually there were ebony carriages but here it was at her house, at first they thought it was from RSA until the coachman announced that Jinlong was chosen to attend.

The neighbors were happy for her but her father insisted that her education is perfectly fine at home. Of course, he had something to say! If it was the ebony carriage he’d had her brother’s packing already.

The carriage didn’t leave though, her father just had everyone stay in the house until it leaves. But Jinlong knew better, she had enough of this life and secretly packed all her things to leave for the academy.

She panicked when she heard her name being called, it was her mother. To her shock, she let her go and even covered for her. There, her mother confessed that she felt caged like her but there was nothing she could do for herself, but she didn’t want this life for Jinlong.

That night, she left the house for the academy, on her nightstand is her declaration of rebelling by leaving the floral pin that she was gifted by her father on her coming of age ceremony, as a way to tell him that she will no longer be told what to do by anyone.

 Jinlong is a 3rd Year Dragonstone student and is the current dorm leader.

At first, she wasn’t comfortable with other girls seeing as how most of them dress rather doll-like. But upon realizing that the pastel walls of the academy are merely aesthetic and that the education system allows for almost any field of study regardless of whether it was feminine or not, Jinlong loosened up and was able to embrace her athleticism.

Soon enough, she felt freer especially when she is allowed to go all out during her PE lessons. It felt refreshing to be praised instead of being chastised for it.

She slowly opened up and became a model student amongst the students who find her determination inspiring.

During magift tournaments, Jinlong is considered the ace player due to how she is able to come up with a plan on the spot. Sometimes even using her opponent’s strengths against them.

Though she had quite a hard time learning new subjects that are usually reserved for men, or were just not taught in the valley at all, she took the opportunity to focus and gain more knowledge than her brother ever could achieve back home.

She has high grades in most subjects, her performance in etiquette were also exceptional but she dislikes such class due to how she is reminded of the etiquette classes she took back home, even though this class wasn’t as restrictive. It just had too many rules and details to keep track of.

School Relationships

Jinlong would be often seen around Cerule, Rozeline, Evonie and Vidya. She’s felt really close with these girls throughout her school years of studying at DCA.

Cerule was the first mermaid she has met and Jinlong almost mistook her for a sea dragon when they saw each other. The two share sentiments of wanting freedom, though she does envy Cerule a little bit seeing as how her father was just worried about his daughter, something her own father reserved for the golden child.

Rozeline was a curios case for Jinlong, she can sense that she has tremendous power but for some reason she keeps it sealed away which cannot be healthy for her. Though she doesn’t pry since it would be too forward of her.

She admits that Rozeline has quite the extensive intellectual library and she would always consult her on historical objects. Jinlong appreciates the gift basket she gets from her on occasions. Her eyes were opened to the taste of foreign food that her father always thought wasn’t even worth tasting. He’s missing out on so much!

Evonie and Vidya are the girls she can admit would be worthy of becoming rivals with. Evonie was tenacious, though her determinations gets her to be a bit rash sometimes. But she’s got sprit!

Vidya was clever and will catch her off guard if she doesn’t pay close attention. She’s beaten her a few times during sparring matches.

The three started their friendship through rivalry but they do hang out when they aren’t sparring during PE. The three like to vent to each other about their issues whether it be about school or at home, they needed to vent their bottled up emotions.

Cinder has a fierce but clumsy personality. The fairy is strong, no doubt but she tends to trip over her own tail a few times. But this does allow Jinlong to let down her guard and enjoy life as it is. Cinder’s form is from Jinlong’s desire to live and laugh to her heart’s content.

Cinder, despite her clumsiness, has her wise moments too. She has lived for a long time after all, it wouldn’t be surprising if she spouts words of wisdom when it’s needed.

Rongyu

He is a Komodo dragon that Jinlong found in the wild, she begged her father to let her keep the little guy. Her mother managed to convince him by simply stating that Komodo dragons fit quite well with their dragon-like appearance and it technically follows the draconic image they have all over the valley.

Unlike normal humans who can have fatal injuries from the Komodo dragon’s saliva, Dragonkin are immune to poisons and fire. So, having Rongyu was not a problem.

Rongyu’s pampered life at the valley made him docile and have more refined tastes for culinary cuisine rather than just raw meat. He’s grateful for Jinlong and so he knows who she likes and dislikes, he often goes potty in Ying’s room and he can’t do anything about it because it plays dumb and does his “business” in places one wouldn’t notice.

People would just assume it was mold, painting Ying as someone who has a moldy room. Jinlong cackles internally at the sight of her brother gagging in disgust.

When Jinlong was away, Hou is the next person that Rongyu goes to. Hou always wanted a pet lizard, so getting to look after him for a while is always welcome.

Yinglong

He is a Holsteiner horse and Jinlong actually bought the horse from the stables. Horses aren’t kept in the Valley due to the steep terrain, she was curious about riding horses.

Yinglong used to trek through hills and rocky terrain. But Jinlong loves to use him in an obstacle course. With how fast and flexible he is, he can jump high enough.

Yinglong is a fan of gossip, anything he hears he wants to share with everyone. Better keep secrets away from this horse if you don’t want the stables getting noisy afterwards.

Her Unique Magic is called, “Gold Dragon Fire”, she can melt her target but not the surrounding area in gold fire. Recently, she’s learned to control her temperature and she would use this technique in smelting ores and fixing antiques that are made of minerals.

Magic usage is rather minimal outside of showing off in competitions or festivals compared to the Valley of Thorns.

Guang Esi

The father of the Esi family, he is a traditional man who will not tolerate breaking the concept of what he considers normal. He views the world outside of the Valley of Clouds as inferior and uncouth even if they had high standing. He shows favor for the eldest son, Ying and casually compares the other brothers to him.

Liling Esi

The mother who was engaged to Guang by her parents. She tries to stay out of his way and tries to live comfortably, but when Jinlong was born she realized that she didn’t want this life for her daughter. So, from behind the scenes, she helps keep Jinlong’s secret within her authority.

She was like Jinlong, a headstrong girl who was pushed into a box by rules and was forced to follow.

Ying Esi (26)

The firstborn son and the eldest sibling. A very strong martial artist who is prideful of his skills. He would remind Jinlong to know her place as a daughter of the household, he thinks that going against tradition is equivalent to bringing shame to the family.

While he wasn’t violent all the time, he does use a bit of force to get his point across, he injured the second eldest when he dared to raise his voice against him when he tried to stand up for Jinlong.

But despite his skill, he is rather immature where he will complain if he happened to lose fairly. Choosing to blame the opponent rather than reflect and be better.

He admires his father and would stick close to him rather than his mother.

Ushi Esi (24)

The second-born son. He doesn’t possess a slim yet muscular figure like the rest of his brothers, he is more buff and heavy with toned muscles. He works as an architect, building houses and fixing gardens.

He’s friendlier to Jinlong but is a bit of a coward when it comes to confronting Ying since he was injured by the eldest when he dared to go against him one time.

He has a soft side he hides away from his brothers and father, he wanted to make hairpins ever since he was young. He just finds the beauty of them so mesmerizing. He tends to stick closer to his mother because she was so understanding.

Gou Esi (20)

The third-born son. Although he is quite charming to the girls in his hometown, he is also a cunning lad. Jinlong doesn’t trust him since he’ll ask for favors in exchange for his silence.

He doesn’t pick sides but will take the opportunity to find entertainment even if it meant instigating drama. And Jinlong is careful not to let him catch wind of what she does in secret.

His flirtatious habits and penchant for causing drama stems from his insecurity for not meeting his father’s expectations. If he can’t get his approval, then he looks for it in women who easily give it to him.

Tuzi Esi (17)

The fourth son and fifth sibling. He is known for being quick on his feet. A bit of a troublemaker in the family, always running fast without a care in the world. He would skip out on lessons when he’s bored.

He is neutral with Jinlong and he thinks she’s boring so he barely interacts with her. Jinlong knows not to judge but she can’t help but be frustrated that he takes a lot of things for granted because he a boy, while she has limited options and her future is held in chains.

His unwillingness to cooperate with educators also stem from his father’s favoritism. If he can’t compare to Ying then why bother, was his reason.

Hou Esi (15)

The fifth son and sixth sibling. He spends his time reading books and holds discussions with his teachers about philosophy. He looks up to Jinlong when she took care of him while he was sick.

He decides to support Jinlong using his privileges to make sure that she no longer has to feel sad. He doesn’t care about his father since he was more of a momma’s boy. He plans on becoming a scholar instead and of what his father wants for him.

The character’s name, “Jinlong”, derives from the word “Golden Dragon” while the last name, “Esi” was taken from a name generator. It does not have a Chinese meaning tied to it. The artist took notes from Leona’s last name and named the character in a similar manner.

Jinlong is another fusion idea like Rozeline, she is both Mulan and Mushu.

Just like how Mushu is looked down upon by the ancestors, Jinlong is also looked down upon my most of the males in her family.

The names of her brothers derive from the temple guardians from the movie, the statues represent an animal guardian and the artist tried their best to figure out the names to fit the brothers. Some of them aren’t based on the statues due to how it didn’t sound right.

Ying – means “hero” but half is only used in the Chinese word “Yīngxióng”.

Ushi – means “cattle” in Japanese. The reason for Ushi’s name being Japanese just sounded better.

Tuzi – means “rabbit” in Chinese.

Gou – means “dog” in Chinese.

Hou – means “monkey” in Chinese.

[holly-fixation]

Three Guards: Ch15

Summary: Tifa finds Cloud at the train station in Sector Seven. It’s the first time she’s seen him in seven years. But he’s not alone. Three silver haired boys protected him. Three silver haired boys that triggered memories of her hometown. Of steel through her chest. Of SOLDIER First Class. Of Him.

It was time to recall the memories of Him, accurate or otherwise.

Please Enjoy!

Inspired by the prompt by @im-totally-not-an-alien

Chapter 15: History

Genesis dismissed himself from the group for what he assumed would only be a few minutes to himself. However, though the middle remnant of his former friend returned to camp, Strife remained out in the land. It didn’t take long to discover why. The Crimson Soldier aided Strife in the task immediately, running every apology and gratitude through his mind. Genesis removed his own SOLDIER plackart to mark the final resting place of the man who gave him a second chance at life. Neither spoke a word.

The night came and left without another event, but by morning, Shinra security flew into the very town they planned on entering. The group decided to stay in the wasteland until the last aircraft returned to Midgar.

At sundown, they entered the quaint little town. The architecture, the roads, even the citizens were far different than the slums. Tension remained in the air from the unsuccessful threat of martial law, but as more time passed so did the stress of Shinra’s policing. Harsh and rapid whispers smoothed to chattering gossip. Children’s attempt at muffling cries diminished to laughter and pouting about their latest made up game. 

It was nice to finally breathe again, even if their massive party stuck out like a sore thumb among the average folk. They wove their way to the nearest inn, being careful of what they pointed out to each other as they went. 

Through the doors, Loz approached the counter and hit the bell immediately. 

The dark haired man in a vest behind the counter turned to the group, quickly skimming them over. “Welcome to the Inn at Kalm. What can I do for you today?”

“Two rooms for the night,” Cloud selected, wallet in hand. 

The concierge clearly counted again but didn't judge, offering the price which Cloud accepted without hesitation. They didn’t have much. As the blond took the keys, he gave a nod of appreciation. Small ‘thank you’s and little nods littered the group as they passed the desk on their way to the second floor. 

Strife stayed behind for a moment. “One question. Your eyes. SOLDIER, right?”

The man's mako blue orbs closed. “Once a SOLDIER, always a SOLDIER. You know the drill.” 

“So what are your thoughts on Shinra?” 

Another scan from shoes to spiky hair. “Controversial.” 

Strife nodded, beginning to walk away. “Then we'll get along just fine. Call me Fenrir.” He held out a hand. 

The other man shook it. “Broden. I own the place. The lobby's open all night to guests if you need a break. You might want to hide that hair when you head back out.”

Now Strife was confused. 

“You fit the description of a terrorist on the news. Don’t want anything to happen to you. Be careful.”

Another nod. “I'll keep it in mind.” The older blond climbed the stairs and met in his group's room. 

It was cramped to say the least. Tifa, Aerith, and the two older brothers squeezed onto the couch. Barret and Genesis took two of the chairs at the table, one sitting normally while the other had his legs crossed and a book in his hand. Red laid on the ground, catching a bit of the rug from beneath the couch. Cloud leaned against the windowsill with his arms crossed, the youngest brother glued to his side. Strife let out a soft sigh before taking a seat at the opposite end of the table. 

“So,” Barret spoke up, “It's about time you tell us what happened between you and Sephiroth.”

Cloud looked at his older self. Kadaj clung to his leg, silent. “You didn't tell them?”

Strife shook his head. “It's not fair to hear it from me.”

The younger blond relented and told the story with Tifa chiming in with little tidbits and her own perspective. 

The stormy ride in. The dragon. The strength of the First Class SOLDIER. The reaction from the town. Sephiroth recognizing the landscape. Tifa being their guide. His eagerness to fight. The bridge collapsing before they could reach the reactor. But there were differences too: a river below the bridge, Sephiroth attempting to save then find the missing cadet, an elevator in Shinra manor. The fire wasn’t different enough. None beyond Strife and Tifa seemed to know though. 

It was odd. Since Strife wasn’t telling the tale, he watched everyone’s reactions. Red’s anger at the experiments. Barret’s wincing at the mention of a town burning at Shinra’s hands. Tifa’s concealed reactions. Aerith’s sadness and almost pity for the man that lost his mind do to faults not his own. But he expected those reactions. He didn’t expect the solemn silence from Genesis or the full attention of the two larger boys, eyes wide as they absorbed every detail his younger self revealed, truthful or otherwise. 

The reactor. Tifa’s father on the ground. Tifa trying and failing to attack Sephiroth. Jenova. The chosen one. The revered Silver Soldier vanishing before his very eyes. A monster taking its place. Blades raised on guard for battle. 

“And… that’s it. That’s all I remember.”

Barret stood, leaning closer. “The hell it is! What happened?!”

“Come on! Please?” Loz actually begged. 

“There has to be more…” Yazoo mumbled. 

“It was all over the news,” Aerith took over, her head lowered. “I remember watching it with my mom. They said he went missing during a training exercise. But then…the story changed. A couple days later, they started reporting that he was killed in action. Yeah, that was it.”

“Ha! ‘The news’...” Genesis scoffed in time with Barret's groan. “Shinra controls every word out of their mouths. They claimed I was KIA before even locating me.” 

“And only morons believe what Shinra says!”

Aerith raised her hand. “Question: does that make me a moron?”

Barret scratched the back of his head. “Well- uhh… what I meant was-” 

“Shinra is a bunch of liars but any honest person would believe them,” Strife saved, gaining a grateful look from the one armed father. 

“It doesn't matter,” Cloud regained everyone's attention. “Sephiroth's still out there. He flat out told us this isn't over.”

“But why come back after five years?” Tifa tilted her head in sorrow. “Why now?”

Cloud and Kadaj winced before Cloud answered. “He wants to finish what he started. He wants to rule The Planet with Jenova at his side.”

“But why now? It's just, really bothering me…”

“If I may,” Genesis interrupted, dusting off his red coat, “Sephiroth never left the reactor in Nibelhiem.”

Young mako blue eyes rose through blond hair. “What? How? How would you know that?”

Before the Crimson Soldier answered, he gained a hard glare from the wolf. A fraction of a second passed. “I was going to recruit Sephiroth to my cause when I saw the fire. I kept an eye on the reactor but he never returned. At least not before-”

“Before every survivor left and never looked back,” Strife hijacked, tightening his crossed arms. 

“But how did Mother end up in Midgar?” Loz questioned genuinely. 

“Shinra….” Yazoo assumed. 

“But how will He rule with Mother if-” all slit mako eyes fell to the ground. “S-since Mother is dead…?”

No one answered, inquisitive expressions donning the entire party. 

But Aerith yawned, loudly, suddenly, arms stretching in the little space she had on the couch with the boys and Tifa. “Oops! Excuse me! Guess I'm more tired than I thought. My back's stiff as a board.” 

“Here. Boys, scooch. Aerith, let me see.”

The older brothers hopped down. 

“Is this like preeing?” Loz asked the dark haired woman. 

“Not exactly. It's less about moving hair as it is finding the right-” 

Aerith jerked. 

“...spot. Wow, you weren't kidding!”

“Can't you just heal it…?” The long haired child gestured to the materia in her weapon. 

“It doesn't work like that. This needs to heal naturally.”

“Come on. I think it's time to turn in for the night. All in favor?” 

“Well, it’s not like guessing’s gonna get us anywhere.” Barret stretched in his seat.

“Wait,” the man in red stood. “Rooms. You haven't decided on anything.”

Aerith glanced at Tifa. “Boys and girls?” 

All eight of the men in the room glared. The girls laughed. 

“Okay, okay, how about this-” the woman with the bow spoke through giggles. “We'll take Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo since they listen to us.” Red eyes met her but she gave a small smile and a nod.

The older children pouted, but the youngest stared daggers and tried to hide behind the ex-SOLDIER. 

Cloud placed a hand on Kadaj's back. “I've got him. But take Red.” 

“Huh?” The beast barely sounded like himself before regulating his voice. “Why?”

“There should be another couch in there. We’re already low on spots.”

Red grumbled a bit more maturely than the boys.

“He should go with the others,” Strife glanced from the boy to his younger self. 

Kadaj squeezed Cloud. “He won’t cause any trouble.”

“You don’t know what he is.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“You don’t know what he’s done. He might look innocent to you but he-”

“If you can’t handle it, you can leave.”

Strife almost stepped back.

“Right now, in this time, he has done nothing wrong. And unless you feel like spilling whatever he did, I’m not punishing him.”

The wolf glanced away, unable to reveal any truth in his mind. “...Fine. I’ll be in the lobby.”

Half of their party left the single room before Genesis retired as well, saying he needed some air. Barret immediately claimed a bed before the wolf or the pompous redhead had the chance to return, laying back and enjoying the comfort of a real mattress. 

Confident that no one would return just yet, Cloud kneeled down and held Kadaj's shoulder. “I won't make you leave, but I want you to get used to sleeping alone again.”

Kadaj rapidly shook his head. 

“Look, here,” Cloud stood, the silver child immediately clinging to his leg as he walked to the unclaimed bed and grabbed the comforter. “I'm gonna wrap you in this. I'll stay right by your side all night. I know you're tired. You should be comfortable enough to sleep.”

The begging in his kitten-like eyes didn't change Cloud's mind. 

“Come on. Let's go sit on the bed.” 

His reluctance and delay didn't sway Cloud either. He sat on the bed with his arms across his chest, shaking every so lightly before Cloud burritoed him. He could barely move.

“How's that?”

Barret glanced over and saw the desire to protest in the boy's eyes. Marlene did it all the time back in Midgar when she didn't want him to be right. 

Cloud slowly leaned Kadaj against a pillow. The small child struggled to keep his eyes open. 

The blonde didn't say another word as he jammed himself on the opposite side of the bed. It was time to rest, even if it was just for a short while.

* * * 

Aerith and Tifa claimed the bed. No one had the chance to sit on the couch before Red covered it in his entire body. The two boys sat on the large rug above the cold hard wood floor. 

“Aha!” Aerith cheered as she searched through the closet, revealing a clear bag with white blankets and pillows. “Found them!”

The boys barely moved. 

“Okay so you take these,” She handed Yazoo a blanket and a pillow. “And you take this,” she handed Loz a sheet and a decorative pillow. “And now we can all get some rest.”

“Thank you, Miss Aerith.” The boys looked around the room, but the glare in red eyes forced their decision for them. Yazoo draped his pillow at the foot of Aerith’s bed while Loz dropped his in the lane between women. 

It didn't take long for them all to enjoy what would be their best rest for an unknown amount of time. It also didn't take long for Tifa’s constant tossing and turning, fluffing blanket, and glances around the room to gain a reaction. 

“Is something on your mind…?” the long haired child questioned, slightly rousing the other roommates. 

She deliberately turned away. “No. Nothing at all.”

Yazoo almost sighed. “That doesn’t seem true…”

“I said it's nothing.”

He sat up criss cross applesauce on the ground with the blanket over his legs. “We heard your discussion with Cloud back at Stargazer Heights… You can say what you truly think of us… It changes nothing…”

“Did you really hear that?”

The snippiness made him flinch. “The walls were very thin…”

“And since he always finds Mother, we couldn't afford separating from Big Brother…” Loz added without turning to her, curling into the sheet and wiping his face with it. “Not like it matters now…” 

“...If you guys listen to our private conversations again, you're in big trouble.”

The middle child looked away. “We apologize…”

“Sorry, Miss Tifa…”

She closed her eyes but they still twitched. It was too much. “Don't take my bed,” she specifically commanded the boys who both nodded in agreement. She pushed out of bed and opened the door. 

She immediately came face to face with a black sweater adorned with wolves, a covered arm held up in a loose fist as if about to knock. She almost jumped back, shaking her head to regain her thoughts. “Strife, what are you doing here?”

“Can we talk?”

She glanced at the room. 

“I've got them, Tifa. Go ahead,” Aerith spoke with a yawn. “We'll be alright.”

Strife couldn't even look at the girl in pink as Tifa hesitantly agreed. 

The balcony on the roof of the inn held the most beautiful view of the town. Clouds above hid the stars, but the clock tower stood tall regardless, and the vague sound of street musicians carried through the air. 

Tifa leaned against the railing and observed the city, her eyes twinkling with the reflections of lit windows. 

Strife joined her, though he remained an odd distance away. It was silent for a few moments, the tunes followed by occasional clapping crystal clear. 

“So… what did you want to talk about?”

He looked away. “Just… I thought you'd like a moment away from them.”

Was it that obvious? “It's just… seeing them, knowing what they did… knowing what they are…”

“And to have to pretend you don't for your Cloud's sake. It's…tough.”

“Why can't we just tell him? After everything they did. You're here. He has to believe you.”

Strife took a breath. “It's not that simple. Every truth will hurt him. I know you see it too.”

“Did hiding it work in your time?”

Mako eyes fell. “...Until Sephiroth got close, well enough…” 

She grasped her own hands. 

He took a breath. “Unless we physically stop him, your Cloud will follow Sephiroth to the ends of The Planet.”

“And the Remnants?”

“...I don't know.”

“Can't we just… leave them here? Find an orphanage and-”

“Absolutely not.”

She held her head in her hands. “Then maybe-”

“Zack saved me in my time, but I couldn't remember it from the mako poisoning. Zack saved your Cloud too but all he remembers is them. It's… too much to let go of.”

She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. 

“...I'm-” Strife turned away, his head of dandelion hair low. “...You're not alone this time. Just talk to me when you need a break.”

Tifa nodded, silently thankful for the company. 

“...Is that Genesis?”

“What?”

The wolf gestured to the street, where the Crimson Soldier placed a thick pile of gil into the bucket by the musicians. They had absolutely no idea how he got it, but they knew it would've been enough for a third room at the Inn. 

.

.

.

.

To be continued…

Three Guards Chapter List

Thanks for reading!

[euniexenoblade]

hey, on your old blog you had a list of your favorite books. Do you think you could make another post like that?

Yeah totes, so if we just stick specifically to novels and no comics or manga, here ya go:

The Alchemists of Loom (trilogy) by Elise Kova: It's a weird story that I can only describe as a traditional fantasy and steampunk combine. The exposition is there was this world of people called the Fenthri who achieve achieve steampunk level of tech, finally inventing a flying machine and going beyond the clouds that surround their planet, to find floating patches of land where they discover a race of people that call themselves Dragons, who have magic. The dragons invade the planet and oppress its people. The main character is this woman known as The White Wraith, a Fenthri who is known for killing Dragons and harvesting their organs (source of their magic), her lesbian protege that leads a revolution, and a Dragon royal that betrays his people to help attempt dethrone the king. Shit's great. I love it. Please read it. That first book is outstanding.

Goth by Otsuichi: A Japanese horror novel about a boy who has impulses to kill and a girl who is suicidal. Both of them are attracted to death and interested in the grotesque and macabre. Endless trigger warnings for this, from animal abuse to obvi murder. It's one of my favorite horror novels, if not my absolute favorite horror novel. The story is unique, and uniquely Japanese in it's telling. I reread it every October.

Another by Yukito Ayatsuji: The other horror novel I reread every October, another uniquely Japanese story about a class that's cursed, where a dead kid ends up in the class every year, but no one can identify who it is that's dead. And, the more they interact with the dead student, the more likely everyone is to die. There's an anime adaptation of this, it's pretty decent though it feels more like "Final Destination: The Anime" than the novel does. There's also a manga, I know nothing about the manga. But yeah, read the novel, it's fun.

Mordred, Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg: One of my favorite Arthurian stories, it retells the King Arthur story from a perspective of Mordred, who in this rendition is a very kind hearted gay man. I don't like the portrayal of King Arthur in it really, but that's all of like, 5 sentences. The story really hovers on our protag Gay Mordred and the shit he goes through. Pretty sure it won an award for gay literature. The downside is it's a cliff hanger ending an the author never released the follow up (it's been almost two decades, idk if we're getting it). Book is like, 40% of where my name comes from.

Pretty much any Nisioisin book. He just has a really clever wit, and a story telling style that feels very fun and vibrant. My favorite of his books is probably Kizumonogatari, which is a prequel of Bakemonogatari, follows Koyomi Araragi saving a vampire and in turn becoming a vampire himself. I additionally love his book Zaregoto, which is a locked room mystery, and his books Katanagatari, martial artist goes on a journey to collect mystical swords. He's a fantastic writer, look into a book from him.

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde: I haven't read this in over a decade, but I've claimed it to be my favorite book since. I really should reread it. It takes place in a post apocalyptic world where humans eye sight has devolved and a caste system has formed around what colors people can see.

Some other novels I really like are Insomnia and The Dead Zone by Stephen King, Phantoms by Dean Koontz, Feed by M.T. Anderson, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino, and the Spice & Wolf series by Isuna Hasekura.

[moonchild-in-blue]

Sleep Token X D&D

An expansion of this post because je suis trés unhinged and I miss playing DnD. I'm not including homebrew content for simplicity sake, guiding myself through this website. Feel free to add or change as you will. I'll leave some links for each class specs in case you wanna read more, or aren't super familiar with it.

At first it would make sense for all of them to be different types of Warlocks or Sorcerers, with Sleep as their common patron. BUT I think that would be an easy cop-out, and I want to make things interesting. This is just my headcanon so yeah, don't mean, don't be weird. Let me know how you'd do it!!

(and if there are any DnD players who happen to come across this post and want to take inspiration on it, you're more than welcome to do so!)

Let's get to it, nerds 🎲2️⃣0️⃣

[cut because this is LONG]

Vessel

Race: Tiefling. A lot of room for inventiveness here, and you can change his appearance as you'd prefer. Maybe that's why he's always cloaked and masked. Maybe he gets even more disfigured every time he connects with Sleep. Class/Sub-Class: Warlock, The Great Old One (mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality). Obviously Sleep would be his patron. I like to think Vessel had an encounter with Sleep whilst not knowing who or what They were, and eventually became their servant. For the pacts, I had thought of Pact of the Tome, where the Book of Shadows would be his lyrics, but Pact of the Talisman is also great, because of the mask. @a-s-levynn had suggested The Fathomless for his sub-class, which is also AMAZING, especially if you want to lean into the whole tentacle/water horror aesthetic. Alternatively, Sorcerer, Divine Soul is an EXCELENT class for Vessel (actually, now that I'm editing this, I kinda prefer this one lmao). Read this and tell me this isn't exactly what Vessel is: Sometimes the spark of magic that fuels a sorcerer comes from a divine source that glimmers within the soul. Having such a blessed soul is a sign that your innate magic might come from a distant but powerful familial connection to a divine being. Perhaps your ancestor was an angel, transformed into a mortal and sent to fight in a god’s name. Or your birth might align with an ancient prophecy, marking you as a servant of the gods or a chosen vessel of divine magic. Yeah.

ii

Race: Lightfoot Halfling (yes I'm making him a hobbit, what about it?) Fire Genasi is also very apt. Class/Sub-Class: Druid, Circle of Wildfire (these druids bond with a primal spirit that harbors both destructive and creative power, allowing the druids to create controlled flames that burn away one thing but give life to another). This primal spirit, of course, would be Sleep. They are a bit of a mysterious entity. ii was the hardest to come up with. I knew I wanted him to be somehow connected to the land/elements, because I think that would be the best translation for his rhythmic prowess (drums wouldn't make much sense as a Bard). And that photo of him with the painted red fingertips reminds me of fire, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Some other alternatives: Druid, Circle of Dreams or Monk, Way of the Four Elements (monk would be SO good because of his silence, like LoZ Link, and the ability to harness his energy).

iii

Race: Obviously a Dark Elf. Obsidian-black polished skin, pale blond hair, pale blue eyes, slim figure. Need I say more? Earth Genasi could also be a good option, due to his golden vein-like paint. Class/Sub-Class: Ranger, Fey Wanderer (a ranger who represents both the mortal and the fey realms. As you wander the multiverse, your joyful laughter brightens the hearts of the downtrodden, and your martial prowess strikes terror in your foes, for great is the mirth of the fey and dreadful is their fury.) I quite like this because the options of how you acquire the magic are endless, and can be traced to Sleep or even Vessel (maybe he granted them?). iii is our favourite chaotic boy, but he can be so intimidating at times, this one plays off his duality quite well. Plus you get Otherworldly Glamour similar to iv which makes sense. A cool alternative could be Sorcerer, Wild Magic, as it has a similar base to Vessel and it draws magic out of chaos.

iv

Race: I thought about making him a Genasi or Half-Elf, but honestly I love him as a Human. I just love the idea that this human is sooo charming and talented, that even all these supernatural creatures can't help but be enthralled by him. Changeling or even Eladrin could also work. Class/Sub-Class: Bard, College of Glamour (these bards are so eloquent that a speech or song that one of them performs can cause captors to release the bard unharmed and can lull a furious dragon into complacency). I like that iv appears to be super low-key, but is actually insanely seductive (I see you mask pulling) and talented. So out of all of them, he was my obvious choice for a bard.

The Vesselettes

I think they could either be sort of like a greek chorus or muses but for Sleep, that appeared at key moments to help the party, or actual campaign members. Race: Aetherborn Class/Sub-Class: Clerics, Twilight Domain (The twilit transition from light into darkness often brings calm and even joy, as the day's labors end and the hours of rest begin. The darkness can also bring terrors, but the gods of twilight guard against the horrors of the night). It would be awesome to have them as healers and protectors of the party, who serve Sleep directly (if Sleep is evil, they could also be secret spies? To make sure the party does as Sleep intents). Or maybe they are protecting the party from Sleep (they can never sever their connection to them, but they will do everything they can to make sure the vessels won't go too far).

I'm not sure how they would all get together, but my [abridged] story would place them all as servants of this magical deity, called Sleep. Vessel was the first to encounter Them and lives as an actual, living vessel for them. They believe that Sleep, albeit mysterious, is a benevolent creature, who was wrongfully cast away from Their plane/stripped of their powers or divinity.

As the one closest to Sleep, Vessel can sense that something isn't quite right, but he's already so entangled and manipulated by them, that he doesn't even care.

So they fight all these people and creatures, believing they're doing something Good, but then it turns out that Sleep was evil all along? The people they have conquered and killed were actually good, trying to stop them from giving this awful, terrible being their power.

Sleep basically uses them to defeat their enemies and get back to whatever place or power they no longer have access to. Maybe the vessels turn their back on them? Maybe Vessel doesn't want to and they fight with each other? Or maybe they just keep serving Sleep?

Or, you know, Sleep could also be an actual helpful deity, and they are genuinely doing good by fighting in Their name. But maybe in the end Vessel can't let go of Them and drama ensues and everybody cries.

I don't know, this is just an idea. I spent WAY too much time researching for this, but it was fuuun. I love talking DnD.

[redrage71890]

I have some AU ideas for you!

Period au: Twisted wonderland only has European culture, while Yuu lives in Asian culture so when they go to Twisted Wonderland. Yuu would be so confused about the culture in Twisted Wonderland and so are the boys with Asian culture

Singing au: Basically, everyone in Twisted Wonderland always sings and so does Yuu

Thank you so much for requesting!

Yuu may be more focused on the Chinese side of culture as I am Chinese and its just easier for me d=====(￣▽￣*)b

I'll see if I can do the singing AU another time

But small WARNING for a little bit of Asian Stereotypes being portrayed, specifically jokes from Youtubers of Steven He, mrnigelng, TwoSetViolin, Jeenie Weenie, Nathan Don and probably more creators, I find them really funny as an Asian person

{Edit: I think I accidentally made this too dramatic for an Asian person, but this is like a mixture of stereotypes and experience I've seen and done before.}

༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻

𝘼𝙨𝙞𝙖�� 𝙔𝙪𝙪 𝙑𝙨 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙒𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙

Asian! Yuu comes from a strict family that only wants the best from them, which leads them to be strict on careers and work in both school and home.

On a day of normality with studying, cooking, piano practise, violin practise, martial arts practise and etc.

They get sucked into a mirror and ends up in a coffin, slamming the door open and scaring Grim.

Shenanigans ensue and lead back to the Mirror Chamber.

When the Dark Mirror says that Yuu has no magic and is not assigned to any dorm:

'I haven't even been here for an hour and I'm already hearing the yelling of my parents for being a failure at something I never asked for or knew....(┬┬﹏┬┬)'

As soon as they were given the Ramshackle Dorm, they were tired and pissed at its condition. Like why would you not bother to care of a building that's on your campus/property?!

"What?! I'm not helping clean!"

*Summons a pair of slippers out of nowhere with a deadly glare*

Grim immediately starts using a broom to sweep the floor with a terrified look in his eyes.

"Yeah that's what I thought..."

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When they became a student, they're quite different from what Ace, Deuce and Grim to expect.

For starters, they're quite different to how they act around everyone. Putting their head down and head in the books. In a short span of time, they managed to become top of the class with high marks despite being from another world.

This goes without saying that many students go to them for advice and tutoring sessions about the work. They're even getting paid to do so!

Ace and Deuce don't hesitate to ask for help, which Yuu does since they're friends.

Yuu even going as far as asking Trey, Cater and Riddle what's in their curriculums so they could study more. They're clearly taken aback from that but still tell non-the less.

And now people of all years are asking Yuu for help and tutoring.

"Yuu, y-you know you can take a break from all of this right?"

"Ahhh Deuce, yeah I know. Its just force of habit."

"Wait, force of habit?"

"Yeah! I always studied the higher levels in my school, it was a way for me to stay prepared and more understanding of the curriculum."

༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻

*Tears flowing from Yuu's eyes* "AAAAAHAHA RIDDLE!!! I'VE BEEN THROUGH EXACALY WHAT YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH!!!"

Yuu cries hugging Riddle tightly, the other boys give such concerned looks towards Yuu. Even Riddle was taken aback from this outburst of tears from Yuu, but he returned the hug as a way for Yuu to calm down.

"So are your parents like Riddle's?" Ace asks.

"Oh yeah. They came from a foreign country and wanted the best financially for myself in the future, so they got me to do a bunch of hobbies and aim for career paths with high pay. My dad constantly said that he had to swim a river every morning to go to school and that I should be thankful of what I have, but I think he's exaggerating. Though, this goes without saying that they have high expectations for me to the point that anything below an A is an automatic 'I'm on the streets' kind of response."

This goes without saying that Yuu is overworking themselves at hobbies they were forced to do from the Heartslabyul boys perspectives.

In reality they don't wanna be a disappointment to their family. Also cause they don't wanna be thrown on the streets and working at a fast-food chain for the rest of their lives.

༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻༺═──────═༻

When the Dorm was fully fixed, with the combination of Yuu tutoring students, assisting at Monstro Lounge and doing jobs around the school for money, fixing and cleaning the dorm themselves and Crowley giving money (with the help from the teachers forcing him to help)

Yuu now has become set on keeping some house rules to prevent any dirtiness from all the hard work they've done.

The first years had a sleepover at Ramshackle one night, Yuu did inform them that they imputed some house rules. To which Ace and Epel grown at.

"Welcome guys! Please come in."

The boys greet Yuu as they enter the dorm.

HOWEVER

THEY

HAD

SHOES

ON

INSIDE

"You really fixed up this place Yuu! How did you-"

*Yuu wielding a wooden spatula in their hands with murderous intent*

"TAKE. OFF. YOUR. SHOES!! I JUST CLEANED THE BLOODY FLOOR!!"

Yeah. Ace, Deuce and Epel looked absolutely terrified at Yuu. Even Sebek and Jack looked scared at Yuu.

Yuu did apologise for their outburst and explained that they really hated shoes on inside unless it’s slippers. Taught by their parents.

"My parents raised me..... You can't blame me for acting like this... ╯︿╰"

"And it doesn't help that I agree with what they say because its so damn reasonable to consider and actually helps me... I try not to be like my parents but I may as well be!"

Yuu proceeding to go on a side tangent about themselves and their parents and just straight up sobs on the floor at their own pathetic self.

The boys just awkwardly hold them as they sob at themselves.

[mysteriouschar]

Finally part 1

also available on wattpad here

She had had enough, she had endured their verbal abuse thinking that they would realise the truth but she couldn't have been more wrong if she tried.

She realised that most of her classmates were just greedy people who would be kind to the person who could make them more rich or famous or preferably both except chloe and adrian cause they were both already rich.

When they cornered her after school they must have thought that they would teach her a lesson but boy they couldn't be more wrong.

This was the finale even though it may have been unplanned. She checked this corner and got what she was looking for a cct v camera. She would have to time it just right.

All of the class was present except chloe. They cornered marinette and ivan and kim held her while others were beating her after 2-3 minutes Marinette escaped from their hold and attacked everyone present, it took the class by surprise as they hadn't thought Marinette could harm them.

But this was just the beginning Marinette took out her phone called the police  but after that she called nadja chamack and the media and told them to come here. The police and media reached at the same time they hadn't known what to expect but whatever they expected this wasn't it. the class was lying on the floor with injured limbs and were more surprised to find the media and police there, but before lie-la could start with waterwork Marinette started.

"These people tried assaulting me but because i know some martial arts i defended  myself I called because i thought they would start again." said Marinette.

And to the class's surprise Marinette was crying and bruises were forming where they had hit her. the policer officer took the scene in and found though these children were on the floor there were any bruising or anything except on two large boys.

"Miss why don't you sit and tell those officers there your parents number. And if you won't mind do you think you could tell us what happened here. You can write a complaint and we can restraint these people in the office until we find further evidence." said the police officer.

"o-o-ofcourse sir, t-t-they won't beat me again wil-l-ll they" said Marinette while sniffling and crying.

now how to bring his attention to the camera without making him suspicious

"sir, there is a camera at the wall and its on maybe it has recorded what happened here." said one of the officers.

"right you are well I guess this makes our work easier and contact these people's parents as I believe they are minors." said the head officer.

the class who had heard all this paled. This wasn't supposed to happen Marinette was supposed to learn a lesson but these police were trying to arrest them.

At the police station 

All the Parents including Gabriel and lie-la's mother were present. They knew what had happened as the media was going live and therefore everyone in Paris knew of this.

"What do you think you are doing arresting my son do you know who he is?" Shouted Gabriel.

"I request you to calm down. We haven't arrested anyone yet. But with what we have seen of the video footage everyone here was responsible and they will surely be arrested after we question them thoroughly." said the head officer.

"My daughter would never do anything like this and everyone here are children surely you aren't thinking of arresting them." said lie-la's mother

"Well I guess you should see the video footage yourself with a few more additional details that we acquired through the school board."

The parents were shocked with what they saw how could their children do this to someone let alone their friend Marinette. Then they were even more shocked to see another footage(this was from school) where their children were verbally abusing the poor girl.

"where is Ms dupain cheng ?" asked Gabriel. He knew that if he wanted to stop the police from arresting his son he would have to speak with her there was no other way to save his son. The head officer of this case was someone who took his duties seriously and wouldn't be bribed.

"she is at the hospital with her parents. She has to be hospitalised for atleast a week. She is also suffering from trauma. And she has already said that she doesn't wanna meet anyone related to this fiasco including the parents." said the head officer.

[sunlightandsuffering]

Good girl Mikasa and bad boy Eren is such a great dynamic for EM. I've seen multiple highschool au's of them with that dynamic and I think it fits so well in modern au's.

Mikasa being such a good girl, so prim and proper which makes Sasha and all her friends think she'll end up dating someone similar, a smart and sensible boy like her best friend Armin. Only for her friends to one day sneak a look at her phone when she's not in the room and they find a photo album titled something cheesy like "❤🥰😚My Most Beloved😻💋❤" and expect their suspicions of her dating Armin to be true.

But then they open the album and the man they see is the last thing they expect. Some super tall guy with long rockstar hair, multiple tattoos, and a chiseled body that resembles a Greek god. They get more than a good look at it since there's tons of shirtless snapchats he's sent her. Him at the gym, him at raves, him fighting in some form of professional martial arts, him getting high, etc. The exact opposite of the type of guy they expected Mikasa to be dating.

The last photo they see as they're scrolling through her gallery is a snap from him asking her to come over, a pic he took while lying down in bed so you can see most of his abs, but for once they're not the focus since below them he's wearing grey sweatpants and has a very noticeable bulge stretching down his leg that he's gripping with one of his hands. The girls gawk at the sheer size of him which is when Mikasa comes back into the room and catches them in the act.

Besides being really embarrassed her friends had discovered her secret boyfriend she first has to assure them that she's not dating a thug, or some dangerous criminal based on the unsavoury assumptions they made based off the pics they saw, that he's not some douchey fuckboy and is actually extremely sweet, protective and loyal.

But once those concerns are out of the way it's all about teasing Mikasa for apparently being into hot bad boys, how they never expected her first boyfriend to be anything like this and confess that they kinda thought she was secretly dating Armin based on how much they hang out which shocks Mikasa. Also pure disbelief about how big her boyfriends cock is and how she's able to take all those inches which has Mikasa blushing immensely but also makes her swell with pride when all the girls agree that they've never slept with a man that big.

ok! Do I finally have time to answer this!! Yes!! I hope! Ugh u know how much fun i find it to incorporate other characters in their romance lol, it's a fave trope I like, the outside looking in!!!

"Sasha," Annie hisses, "Give me back Mikasa's phone!" "No," Sasha tells her petulantly, already typing in the very well known passcode, '0330'. Mikasa had told them it was a lucky number, but they suspect it's the birthday of someone close to her. Despite her vehemence against it, even Annie herself thinks the '03' must have to do with Armin, Mikasa's best friend and possible boyfriend.

She feels a sharp pang in her heart at the thought, Mikasa had been friends with Armin first, and therefore of course it would make sense that they might date. They’ve known each other longer, been friends for longer.

So the possibility they're dating is something Annie has long come to accept, especially with Sasha encouraging it so vehemently. So Annie will concede the blonde boy she has a crush on without complaint, but only to Mikasa.

"Sasha," Annie persists, trying to snatch the phone from the gleeful girl but to no avail. Sasha easily evades, lounging herself across Mikasa's bed, already sleuthing through their friend's phone with ease.

"It's scary how naturally this comes to you." Sasha shrugs, "It's a gift, I've been stalking Mikasa's phone since the seventh grade when she had a crush on this Eren guy in our class and she wouldn't tell me about him." Sasha gives her a serious look over the phone, "It's necessary Annie, I'd never know anything about Miki if I didn't snoop." Annie resigns herself to the fact that this is happening no matter what she does, she just hopes Armin will forgive her for discovering their relationship this way.

Sasha makes disgruntled noises for a few moments as she scrolls through Mikasa's phone, and Annie very reluctantly comes around to see what she's doing, at the very least she can police her.

Sasha is whipping through apps at the speed of light, throwing them up into cyberspace aggressively when they don't yield the results she wants.

"What's wrong?" Annie asks curiously when Sasha makes an irritated noise, "She's gotten better at hiding her shit."

Annie sighs, she doesn't want to think about how many times Sasha has done this. "Aha!" Sasha yells in triumph as she taps into the photos app, "Jackpot." Annie looks over to find a hidden photo album mysteriously labelled, " 'Ren 💜".

By itself the photo album isn't too suspicious, but combined with the emoji and the fact that it's locked, there's no way it isn't incriminating.

Sasha guesses the password on the third try, the same as her phone passcode and despite Annie's misgivings about the whole thing she looks on with Sasha eagerly.

There are a few hundred photos in the album, all very obviously containing a guy, and at first, her and Sasha internally celebrate, assuming it must be Armin, but upon further inspection it is most definitely not their kind blonde friend.

It takes them a solid minute or so to really digest the images they're met with, Sasha clicking on the most recent one in the album and Annie gasps audibly as her brain finally puts together what she's looking at. It's a penis, a very large, very erect, very monstrous penis. "Holy fuck," Sasha whispers, "There's no way this is Armin." Most certainly not, not with a dick like that.

"Stop looking at it," Annie hisses, "At least go to the next one." Sasha reluctantly obeys and they finally get a glimpse of the boy packing so much heat in his pants, and he's hot she'll give Mikasa that, hot in the kind of way she'd never expected prim, proper Mikasa to go for.

He's tall, taller than Armin, probably six feet and with tattoos winding down his wrist into one sleeve, a handsome face complete with green eyes and a smirk that's downright wicked as he looks into the camera, his hand cupping the heavy weight of his cock through his boxers. Whoever, had been holding the camera, which she can only assume was Mikasa had definitely gotten some that night, his eyes promising dirty dirty things to the girl behind the lens.

And as Sasha scrolls farther, their fears are finally confirmed, picture upon picture of the two of them together, cuddled up in bed, half naked, the boy's hand cupping her boobs, nibbling at her neck, sleepy from too many orgasms, and Mikasa, the most shocking part.

She looks nothing like the friend they're used to, covered in hickeys, her body relaxed into his, face twisted in pleasure as she takes selfies while getting railed from behind. It's so explicit she has to look away sometimes, never expecting this of their prim and proper best friend. "We should really stop looking at these." "I can't look away!" Sasha responds in horror, "Is this even Mikasa, are you sure it's not some doppelganger?" Involuntarily, her eyes flash back down to the phone, where a more innocent photo is being displayed, Mikasa, all smiles, beaming at the camera, dolled up in a cute maxi skirt and a crop top while the boy behind her takes the photo, his form engulfing her own, arm clamped around her waist, lips pressed to her cheek. He looks utterly devoted to her too, it's actually kinda cute. "Okay i can't do it, we have to go back to look at his dick again there's no way Mikasa is--" Sasha is cut off as Mikasa opens the door, carrying a tray of cookies and milk, excitedly chattering about the different cookie varieties she's brought up from her collection. She almost drops the plate as she notices her phone in Sasha's hand, her face going white. "Shit," she curses, "How much did you see?" "MIKASA HOW BIG IS HIS DICK?" The normally calm Mikasa's face scrunches up in annoyance as she resigns herself to it, "It's like 8 inches at least." Sasha lets out an erratic squee next to her and Annie explodes, "What about Armin?" Mikasa sets her cookies down, snatching the phone from her friend and locking it firmly, "What about him?" "Aren't you two dating?" Sasha questions and Mikasa makes an immediate noise of disgust, "No way, he's like my brother."

Annie hates herself for feeling instantly relieved by the news, and Mikasa sighs, "That's Eren you were looking at, he's umm, my--" "Fuckbuddy?" "Boyfriend," Mikasa corrects and Sasha makes a noise of surprise, "No way, that's not boyfriend material, Mika, no, he's going to play you like a fiddle." Mikasa huffs in irritation, their prim, proper friend showing one of her rare hints of genuine emotion, genuine rage, always so calm and collected, "No, he's my boyfriend and we've been dating for like two years now Sasha." "WHAT!?" "You remember Eren? My seventh grade crush," Mikasa shrugs, absentmindedly unlocking her phone to admire her photo album of them, "We never really stopped talking and the rest is history."

She absently traces his face on the screen and both Annie and Sasha almost explode with the truth of her answer. Not only has their innocent friend hid a boyfriend for close to two years, but she's also dating one of the sketchiest looking guys they've ever seen.

Well, at least it's not Armin she supposes, maybe she finally has a chance!

[muaythaimasturbation]

☆ Hello! Tis I, @underratedcockblock769 !! If you can't tell, I made a Tumblr for my beautiful boy, Shanx :) Everything here (except what's in the stars) will be in character! Feel free to ask questions, look through for fics and art, and just generally enjoy yourself. I hope this blog ends up doing alright, and, so I don't keep rambling, I'll put Shanx's info on here! Enjoy! ☆

☆ Edit: Asks are now open! Please feel free to ask anything at all, and as long as I'm comfortable, I'll make sure they're answered! Anonymous asks are on, so don't be shy! ☆

Name: Shanx (Gabriella) Tagaloa

Height: 5'11

Age: 20 (upon his death)

Birthday: April 22nd, 1997

Gender/Gender Expression: Male, transgender FTM

Parents: Aputi Tagaloa (American Samoan) (Father)

Amelia Gomez (Caucasian/Mexican) (Mother)

Death: Burned Alive/Motorcycle crash

Personality: Shanx is reserved and relatively quiet, only speaking when he is spoken to. When he does speak, he tends to be a little brash at times, but it's not out of malice. He is as patient as he can be, but certain persistent antagonistic/egotistical behaviors can be quick to rile him up. He typically doesn't start fights, trying to de-escalate if possible, but he will finish one if need be.

He is closed off upon first meeting someone, stand-offish even, but if you stick around and slowly get him to warm up to you, he has a tendency to go on small tangents about little things. Perhaps you'll even get a laugh or two out of him, if you're lucky.

Backstory (this is a very rough version, I apologize in advance):

Shanx grew up in a loving family as Gabriella Tagaloa, with two loving parents. He always looked up to his dad, and he wanted more than anything to be like him. Upon his request, his father enrolled him in martial arts classes as a child and would pick him up after lessons. Tragically, his father died on the way to pick him up from these lessons when Shanx was seven years old, leaving him and his mother behind. HIs mother changed almost instantly, as if a switch were flipped, going from warm and compassionate to getting rid of anything that reminded her of her late husband, and keeping Shanx distant and treating him as if he barely existed. She started dating a man soon after the funeral (perhaps a little too quickly to not be suspicious), moving him in a year later after a quick elopement. Shanx did not like the man, constantly butting heads with him as he grew older, and things started to get physical after Shanx turned ten. The lack of a warm mother and his loving father caused Shanx to withdraw into himself, and his stepfather's temper and treatment rubbed off on him, making him reactive and defensive. At age sixteen, he was kicked out of martial arts after a violent outburst in a tournament, resulting in the hospitalization of his opponent, the injury of a teacher, and a year and a half in Juvenile Detention. It was after this that Shanx changed his name from Gabriella to Shanx, wanting to shed what he could of his mother from himself. Upon returning home, Shanx saved up and bought himself a small motorcycle to get a little freedom to roam, barely staying at his house except for to sleep and using his motorcycle to get away after arguments with his step-father. A few short weeks after his twentieth birthday, Shanx and his stepfather got into a heated argument, and Shanx took off on his bike. However, this time, his stepfather followed, taking off after him in his mothers car. In an attempt to get Shanx to stop, and admittedly to scare him, Shanx's stepfather pulled beside him on a long stretch of road, swerving towards him. This caused Shanx to veer off of the asphalt road, crashing his bike into a ditch alongside the road, mangling him and his bike. Upon seeing what had happened and what he had done, Shanx's stepfather panicked, grabbing a spare jug of gasoline from the back of the car and dousing Shanx despite his pleas for help, lighting the mangled mess of man and machine ablaze before speeding away. Shanx died painfully in the blaze, but through his own hatred and thirst for vengeance (and perhaps some sort of intervention by a certain dark, demonic entity), he was resurrected, lurking on the highway and striking down any driver in a car that even faintly resembled the one his stepfather was driving. After a stroke of gruesome luck that led to him finally killing his stepfather years later and coming to his senses, Shanx wandered until he was found by The Operator, who gladly took him in. Now he (begrudgingly) kills for The Operator, feeling as if he owes the entity for taking him in a giving him a sick sense of purpose, no matter how sick and guilty his action make him feel.

☆ Okay! I hope I covered all needed bases for my dear boy, and feel free to send in an ask if you have questions! Enjoy! ☆

[adamwatchesmovies]

Sky High (2005)

If you’re making a movie about a high schooler torn between his friends and the popular clique, you’re not going to beat Mean Girls - so what can you do? Add an extra element to make it different. On their own, the high school and superhero elements of Sky High would be forgettable. Together, they make this the kind of movie you’d enjoy as a kid, fondly remember for years, revisit later on and be pleased to see that it holds up.

Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) is the non-powered son of The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston), the world’s most popular superheroes. He hopes his first day at Sky High - a school for superheroes - will unlock his potential. Although he and his friends are relegated to the “Hero Support” (sidekick) department, he catches the eye of beautiful Gwen Grayson (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). When his powers finally manifest, he begins hanging out with Gwen and the popular crowd, just as Royal Pain - his parents' nemesis presumed dead for 16 years - reemerges.

You can probably see where this story is going. At the end of the day, the “cool kids” are not the people Will can depend upon; it’s his childhood friend Layla (Danielle Panabaker) who is secretly in love with him and can manipulate plants along, with the sidekick misfits: Ethan “Popsicle” Bank (Dee Jay Daniels) who can melt into a puddle of goo, Magenta Lewis (Kelly Vitz) who can turn into a guinea pig, and Zach Braun (Nicholas Braun) who glows in the dark. If Sky High deviated from the formula more, had richer characters, or took a few more chances, it would be a better film. The movie can tell us that sidekicks and heroes should be treated equally all it wants, but Puddle Kid won’t be saving the day anytime soon and the story fails to make him cool by showing him use his ability to crawl beneath doors to spy on people or combining his skills with smarts or martial arts. Similarly, it’s not like Will confronts his father and persuades him to apologize to Royal Pain for the anguish he made them feel while they were in school together; Royal Pain is just evil and needs to be dealt with the old-fashioned way. There’s another layer of depth and intelligence that could’ve been unlocked.

With that said, the movie has a good number of jokes and when the high school and superhero genre are blended, it works well. Bruce Campbell has a small role as Coach Boomer. He provides some big laughs as he puts the new recruits through trials and comments on their potential - or lack thereof. Equally funny are the scenes in “superhero support” class. The teacher, All-American Boy (Dave Foley) is so lame he deserves no respect. The dubiously useful skills he teaches are showcased in a couple of montages that prove this movie knows the superhero genre and has fun both referencing it and poking fun at a few aspects too.

Sky High is at its best when it’s making you laugh but the teenage drama stuff works fairly well too. In the cafeteria, Will has to contest with Warren Peace (Steven Strait) who holds a grudge against the Stronghold family for imprisoning his supervillain father. The story by Paul Hernandez, Bob Schooley & Mark McCorkle makes him more than just a bad guy. Not that the one-dimensional bullies (played by Will Harris and Jake Sandvig) are bad. Actually, they’re fun in a Bulk and Skull kind of way. I just wish the film blended its two genres more consistently in the second and third acts. There is substance in the scenes of Will and his father talking. His heroic abilities are our world's equivalent of being a star football player but the further we go on, the more detached from reality the characters and the story becomes. There are some twists along the way that make the conclusion quite a lot of fun, however.

While Sky High lacks originality, it uses its tried-and-true elements well. It’s good, family-friendly entertainment with a fair number of smartly written bits and some good character moments. (January 8, 2021)