#you have to see my vision for c!niki and that she was like. everything at school. you know what i'm talking about.

[simplepotatofarmer]

watched the prison break stream, made some alignment memes

[emo-and-confused]

Burning Hill- c!Niki Songfic (Mitski)

Today I will wear my white button-down

Niki throws on her apron, tying a neat bow in the back. She preheats the oven, and starts kneading the dough. It’s familiar, the going through the movements of pressing down and folding, pressing down and folding, pressing down and folding, pressing down and-

I'm tired of wanting more

She sighs. She remembers when it was her and her bakery, when that’s where she grounded sugar kneaded dough. But.. she burned that down. She burned her bakery down. She burned her bakery down because she had to burn the memories, as New L’manberg burned with it. So now she kneads the dough in her city, hidden away underground.

I think I'm finally worn

Her hands don’t get tired, even after kneading for minutes upon minutes. Her hands don’t start to cramp, they don’t start to slow down. They don’t get tired, but the weight of exhaustion settles in her bones. She’s been tired for a long time. Tired of the fighting, of the rebellion, of wanting more. She doesn’t regret most things, her actions and decisions formed her into who she currently is, both good and bad. They gave her strength and muscles, but also exhaustion and scars. They gave her bravery, but also fear.

She’s had to hold on hard to her kindness, but every so often she can feel it slip through her fingers, like a handful of sand that drains through the gaps.

She works at the dough, adding more flour to her work space.

For you have a way of promising things

Things were never easy, were they? She believed in L’manberg, believed in the vision her friends- her past friends saw. It was everything, and it was going far. But they wished for too much. And Wilbur flew too close to the sun.

And I've been a forest fire

Sometimes she burns. Like the tree she burned down on Doomsday. Techno, Phil, and Dream may have blown up the country, but she burned down the heart of it. They couldn’t rebuild if L’mantree was gone. Their values, their memories, their friendships. Maybe it really was never meant to be, if a single tree burning down made everyone lose any grain of hope they had left.

I am a forest fire

So sometimes she burns, like the memories, like the bakery. Like the tree and like L’manberg. Like the forests, like the sun. She burns like fire, and she burns like ice. Her arms burn when she remembers the fire, and her heart burns when she remembers the hope.

And I am the fire and I am the forest

And I am a witness watching it

She had told Tommy and Tubbo, looking out at the sunset, that they needed L’manberg back. “We will figure something out. As long as we stick together,” she had told them.

They didn’t stick together, though, did they? Tubbo went off and built himself a commune, armed with nukes to protect those he cares about from those more physically powerful. And… she and Jack tried to kill Tommy. They didn’t stick together. They had grown apart far before Doomsday, but the destruction of the country— burned so far down to bedrock, blown up and demolished beyond the point of rebuilding— that’s what caused her to snap, isn’t it? Seeing.. seeing ghostbur, who no one had the decency to tell her about, at the time in her life where she burns down the heart of her country, where she watches her home get leveled, that set her off. So she burned the memories, and tried to burn Tommy.

She hasn’t gone after him in a while. It’s been… well she hasn’t been keeping track of time. She thinks she’s done with that. She might not regret most things, but she can figure out when she’s wrong, when she’s made a mistake. Tommy… Tommy’s death will not be her fault. If he can even die.

She might be over-kneading the dough, she realizes. She looks down, seeing the dough so flat and stuck to the countertop. Rolling her eyes, she goes to the fridge to grab the other half of the dough, and adds it to the flattened handful. She can fix this, she’s not an amateur.

I stand in a valley watching it

And so her hands start working again. Kneading and pressing and folding and-

Who’s fault is this really? Is she merely a witness to the wreckage or is this her fault too?

She… she saw the TNT that day. She mined the block, ready to tear the stage down, and she saw it. Explosives, dozens upon dozens, stacked and spread throughout the country. She didn’t know how much at first, but she found out. She trusted Wilbur.

And you are not there at all

Big mistake that turned out to be. Because he blew up the country, and then he died. He asked for death. He.. he left her.

So today I will wear my white button-down

Her apron strings start to fall, so she wipes her flower covered hands on the dish towel next to her and fixes the knot.

I can at least be neat

The dough is done, and the oven has long since beeped to signal it’s been heated to the correct temperature. She lays the dough in the pan, and puts it in the oven. She cleans her workspace, and then leaves the kitchen to braid her hair away from the food. She doesn’t have enough hair to put it all in a braid, but the half up ponytail is beginning to loosen so she braids it back, keeping the hair out of her face.

Walk out and be seen as clean

She hears Jack enter her city, she can tell by his footsteps who it is. Her friend, come to see her, or come to team up. She secures the elastic in her hair.

And I'll go to work and I'll go to sleep

She heads out to meet him, and hears his voice when he’s not too far away. He’s upset, and he wants to plot again. She’s tired.

And I'll love the littler things

He might be her friend, but Niki knows Jack doesn’t truly understand. She’s trying to heal. She’s trying to get better, instead of starving herself and throwing herself off of high elevations in order to regenerate health. She’s trying, she really is. She joined Techno and his group of anarchists. She’s got more friends now, and she’s got a place to belong again. She’s trying.

I'll love some littler things

So she tells Jack she doesn’t want to keep attacking Tommy, and he lashes out. He yells and he threatens to kill the chickens and the cows; and even if he doesn’t understand her, she understands him. She really does. And when he asks what she’s going to do when someone comes in and threatens her, when someone comes in and steals and kills and-

“I don’t know Jack.. I- I don’t know.. I..”

-and all she can do is gesture to a loaf of bread she made yesterday.

“I started baking again.”