#Lethe's Flow

[flaskoflethe]

Holy shit, pretty much exactly at the 1o the post surgery mark we're finally feeling like we can sort of do things? Today's batch of bread came out amazing, just utterly delightful, even with a few things we need to work on (going to fast/on autopilot :p)... But we COULD do it!

[the-banks-of-lethe]

Orphic Hymn to Hypnus [Hypnos]⋆˚⟡

For the first post in a while, something simple; source: theoi.com

[84] LXXXIV. TO SLEEP [HYPNOS]

The Fumigation from a Poppy. Sleep [Hypnos], king of Gods, and men of mortal birth, sov'reign of all sustain'd by mother Earth; For thy dominion is supreme alone, o'er all extended, and by all things known. 'Tis thine all bodies with benignant mind in other bands than those of brass to bind: Tamer of cares, to weary toil repose, from whom sweet solace in affliction flows. Thy pleasing, gentle chains preserve the soul, and e'en the dreadful cares of death controul; For Death [Thanatos] and Lethe with oblivious stream, mankind thy genuine brothers justly deem. With fav'ring aspect to my pray'r incline, and save thy mystics in their works divine.

divider: @/kodaswrld

[ivvvihours]

Planning a fic for FF6, as you do. I start to scrutinize the World of Balance map regarding the Lethe River System since it features pretty heavily at a certain portion of the story. ...I should not have done this.

Above is the Lethe River System in-game (portion of a map from KeyBlade999 on GameFAQs). Okay, it does that thing a lot of fantasy river systems do where there's a lot of splitting that isn't occurring in likely places for such to happen (e.g. low-lying coastal deltas), but we'll just. Work with that. That's fine. That's not a problem, we can just gloss over that. This is the problem:

This roughly is the path that Banon, Edgar and Terra ultimately take to escape from the Returners' Hideout northwest to Narshe. In-game they are clearly traveling downriver, with the current, and the speed of such travel is part of the point as they're trying to quickly escape. …but. By all accounts that river should be flowing largely southeast, emptying into the sea near Nikeah.

What the hell. I brought up my woes to a friend and they joked that obviously the topology down around the Returners' Hideout and north of Nikeah is WILD. ...okay. Alright. Let's do this. I'm no hydrologist, but let's roll up our sleeves and edit the map a bit and Frankenstein ourselves a solution that lets us have a downriver trip at least most of the way toward Narshe.

So basically we wind up with three separate river systems; the one in red is isolated and basically dumps right out to sea. The yellow one is likewise isolated and empties out into the sea northeast of Nikeah. The pink/orange/coral system is the actual Lethe River System which all empties out at one place only, where Sabin washes up. This is horrific. I'm tracking down my seventh-grade Earth Science teacher and apologizing to them directly. I can only blame this affront to geomorphology on the Warring Triad.

[wildstar25]

"Counselor to the people" ...It's not enough to constrain myself to the needs of the here and now. Time's river moves ever forward; and so too must I keep my focus on the flow. So too is it my duty to guide our collective through the current leading to tomorrow's brightest shore. I know how best to embrace fate's many waters; what storms to weather, what shallows to cross. It is only in it's waves that our being may be eroded away and reshaped into a form capable of achieving what we but only dream of. I will do for every soul what is right. For everything I do is right.

I usually don't have a chance to make Azem posts for April since I focus on MiqoMarch, but I was inspired to make some Azem content since the latest 7.2 patch delivered unto me a perfect Lethe shard. Welcome to the club Calyx! I also wanted to sneak in my version of the deceased Golbez who was Lethe's shard on the 13th!

[lu-is-not-ok]

On topic of one of your reblongs The Wild Hunt/Necromancy ARE NOT extension of Heathcliffs EGO I believe. Sadly I do not have the most in depth argumentation at this moment because I am pulling all of this from my memory, but regardless.

1. - Through Canto 6 we get a few inklings that the line between life and death at Wurthering heights is blurred, most specifically through Josephine who seemingly is able to hear her already dead mistress. If I recall correctly, there's even a direct mention of an underground river flowing underneath WH, which leads me to

1,5. - We are shown several times that Rivers (Simmilar to stars), are places supernatural powers can originate from. River of Oblivion (Lethe), The river from which we pulled abnormalities. Thus, I believe that the river underneath is either Acheron (The river through which the dead are transported) or Cocytus (The river by which the dead wander, unable to go into proper afterlife.) Point is, I believe that the necromancy, and Wild Hunt are tied NOT to the individual of Heathcliff and his EGO, but to powers of the river which flows close to the surface of his home. That is NOT to say that the coffin or Dullahan themselves aren't EGO, rather, I think those two sources of supernatural reinforce each other. 2. There's also the fact that even at the end of Lobotomy Corporation we learned existance of Wild Hunt, and Faust presented it as a phenomenon rather than something applicable only to this. Before White Nights and Darkest Days, the only person who manifested EGO we know of was Kali, so that also implies to me that this phenomenon exists from different means than EGO.

You seem to be missing important bits of information that point towards necromancy being something Heathcliff himself might just have the potential of developing. Whether it's E.G.O or some other kind of ability we have yet to be introduced to is unclear, but it was made clear this is something tied to him.

Wild Hunt Heathcliff's Uptie Story has his narration state the following: "Though its origin is a mystery still, I came to learn how to command loyalty of the dead. Yet I had no teacher. I suppose my transformation was inevitable, as it was for my countless other selves in the infinite worlds."

This ability is reflected in gameplay through him being able to raise his allies from the dead. Because of this, we know that it's not something tied to the Manor, as he can use this ability on any stage of the game.

We also have a potential moment that might be hinting towards our Heathcliff developing similar abilities in Nocturnal Sweeping. He's able to get up and continue fighting despite being wounded in a way that should be fatal. He then comically falls dead once made aware of it. Knowing PM, the fact that it's framed as a joke means there might be foreshadowing hiding here.

Additionally you bring up Faust presenting The Wild Hunt as a phenomenon, but you miss the way she describes it. "They appear to be imperfect Identities, summoned from worlds chosen at random. It is the fate that awaits all those who become thralls to that Heathcliff. A phenomenon in which a Mirror World entity wreaks havoc across the dimensions in pursuit of every Heathcliff… In other words, the 'Wild Hunt'." She explicitly calls out that it's tied to Heathcliff.

[five-rivers]

An anonymous asker requested a fic where Danny was eaten and reborn. Hope you enjoy. :3

.

In the Infinite Realms, the closest thing to death was rebirth. There were, after all, very few things that could die twice, and they could not die permanently.

That being said, there were many ways to be reborn. By forgetting one's past, like those who drank from the Lethe. By being exalted into something higher. By being reduced to something lesser. By changing, as the butterfly in its cocoon, or a larva fed on honey. By the force of one's own awakening power, or by the manipulations of another. By curses. By blessings. By incautious wishes. By consumption.

In the Far Frozen, there was a great dragon. An ice wyrm. It sported elegant horns, proud antlers, a flowing mane, and sharp teeth. Ice like diamonds gleamed from its hide, nestled within fur and feathers both. Its wings and legs were small, compared to its great length, but it had many of them, all of them tipped with talons of ice. It brought clouds and snow in its wake, and, when it was angry, blizzards and thundersnow.

Some stories claimed that it could, if it chose, take the form of a noble-featured man or woman, and speak on things like science and poetry with the ease of one who had studied those disciplines for lifetimes. Others framed the dragon as a monstrosity, a violent beast made for destruction. Still others had it as a simple force of nature, born of the Realms.

Every one hundred years, the fiercest warriors of the Far Frozen would hunt it - an endeavor that might last years in and of itself - carve its meat from its bones, mount the antlers, and feast. Then, they would place those bones on a frozen river and bury them in snow, so that it would reform, gathering that snow and ice and turning it into flesh.

That hunt would begin soon. The dragon had been spotted, and each of its antlers had the requisite one hundred points.

Danny, flying to the Far Frozen because he'd caught a cold that was messing with his powers, knew none of this. Most of the time, he got over colds within a day or so, if he caught anything at all. He was worried that this was some kind of ghost sickness.

But he wasn't thinking about that right now, even as he passed over the floating icebergs that made up the Far Frozen's borders, because he had more immediate problems.

"Whelp!" shouted Skulker from somewhere behind him.

"Ghost boy!" trilled Technus, from not much further behind that.

They'd started chasing him about half an hour ago, and they were persistent. Whenever he thought he'd lost them, they'd found him again within minutes. One of them must have picked up a reliable tracking tool, because they weren't this competent on their own, usually.

Well, Technus might have been. That ghost knew how to think out of the box.

Danny could probably beat them, even with them working together, but he didn’t want to fight. He wasn't in Amity Park, where he had to if he didn't want the city in ruins, and with his powers acting up--

A missile streaked by him and he banked, knowing that wasn't a miss. Sure enough, it exploded ahead of him, knocking him out of the sky and into an iceberg.

"Ha! Soon, I will have your pelt at the foot of my bed!"

"And my plans for WORLD DOMINATION will be unopposed!"

"Oh my God," said Danny, shoving them both back with a wave of snow. "Just because I'm not there downstairs mean people will just let you take over the world! It's like all the times you've attacked me in social studies means nothing to you!"

A net dropped on Danny. Then, it shocked him.

"How do you like my new drone--"

It was like a dam breaking. Danny's control was already frayed thin, and he was always weak against electricity. He screamed, and that scream turned into a frost-touched wail, ice growing into huge crystals around him. He didn't stop wailing so much as he ran out of energy, dropping to the ground, his vision wavering and his transformation rings flickering around him.

No. No, no, no. If he lost consciousness and his transformation both, he'd... Well, he didn't know if he'd freeze to death, but he didn't want to test it. He forced the transformation rings away and his ghost form seemed to... settle, somehow. He slid down to rest among the bases of the enormous ice crystals he'd made and closed his eyes. He'd worry about that... later.

Danny regained consciousness to the feeling of something - someone? - shaking him. No, someone rolling him over. And rolling him over again. He grumbled, not sure why Jazz was so insistent he wake up and less sure why his bed suddenly felt like the floor of a meat locker.

Something cold caught on the collar of his suit, and then there was a ripping sound. Danny flailed himself awake, losing most of the upper half of his suit to the dragon's claws. Then, he froze, trying to process what he was seeing.

That. That was a dragon. A huge dragon.

Unlike what many of Danny's enemies thought, he wasn't an idiot and he knew when to run from a fight he couldn't win. He made the snap decision to turn human and phase through the iceberg so he could get away.

But, when he called for them, his transformation rings didn't come.

Danny's transformation required power. Energy. Usually, when he approached the lower threshold of that energy, his body would flip him back to the lower energy state of 'human.' But he'd resisted that instinctual, automatic flip, this time. If he were not in the Ghost Zone, he would likely be having trouble staying both visible and solid.

He didn't know that, of course. This situation had only been made possible by a combination of poor sleep, illness, his growing ice powers, and incredibly poor luck.

When the dragon resumed its attempt to peel him with its claws, Danny decided to go with plan B: scream for help. However, he only managed a pitiful rasp. He'd wailed too long and too hard and, well, he was sick. Losing one's voice wasn't exactly an unusual symptom of a cold.

Plan C was fight, but that went about as well as Danny had thought it would. That was to say, it didn't. But he had to do something, and he wasn't going to just let the dragon eat him, which had to be what was going on here, right?

It pinned him down and dragged off the rest off what remained of his suit by the boots. Then, it immediately went to work on Danny's t-shirt, pants, and underthings, which were made of far less sturdy material and shredded easily.

Even for a cold core ghost, being naked in the snow like this wasn't pleasant. It was less pleasant when the dragon started licking him. Danny wriggled and squirmed, anything to get out from under the dragon's claws and away from its tongue, but it was through and careful, seeming to want to get every single part of him.

The tongue was wider than Danny was tall and covered with large, knobbly bumps that slid across Danny's skin like ice. It was wet. It dripped with thick, clinging saliva that smelled faintly floral. It stuck to Danny, making his skin feel slimy and tingly everywhere it touched, like some of his parents' more gooey weapons. Whatever it was, it wasn't made mostly of water.

Then, when Danny was completely covered from head to toe, the dragon let go and breathed on him.

The saliva on Danny's skin froze instantly into a hard, clear layer. His cold core - still developing and often forced to be in much warmer environments than it liked - thrilled at the effect, much to Danny's general discomfort and displeasure.

The dragon flipped Danny over and breathed again, making sure that side of him was also frozen. Then, it started licking him again. All over.

Only once three layers of saliva-ice had been deposited did the dragon open its lips wide and close them around Danny.

The dragon was large enough to hold Danny in its mouth easily, trapped between soft tongue and rigid roof. It turned him over several times, and Danny could feel the ice around him continue to build. The tongue licked and touched and almost played with him. And then, it swallowed, pressing him back into the dragon's throat.

So. Danny had been swallowed before. Not when he was also immobilized and so weak, but it had happened. Most ghosts that tried to eat him, he had found, were not actually designed to eat things. Not in the way that living things ate things. Their throats and 'stomachs' were little more than voids, with little structure.

The fact that this wasn't like that, that the dragon's throat was seemingly made of strong, constricting muscle that pushed him down with rippling squeezes was... concerning. The ripples were slow, but steady, and the pressure of each of them was immense. Danny could feel it through the ice.

It was... not soothing, exactly. Being eaten wasn't soothing. But it was sort of like being hugged by something very large, and being held still... being worn from being sick... being in the dark... It was a regular motion, and one that conspired with the temperature to be very physically comfortable.

(If his cold was caused by something like being too hot, Danny was going to throw a fit.)

And then, with little warning, Danny was extruded into a larger pocket of flesh. He dropped a few feet, then hit something liquid and glowing. He sank down into it and floated for a few minutes.

Then, the folds of flesh around him - the dragon's stomach? - contracted and the liquid began to drain.

Once it was empty, the temperature in the dragon's stomach warmed just enough for the layer of ice on Danny's skin to start to slough off... And to take with it a layer of Danny's skin.

In ghost form, Danny was just as plastic as any other ghost, and his skin reformed quickly over his ectoplasmic muscle. It prickled.

But, now that he wasn't frozen solid, Danny was in a position to actually try to escape. He tried to call energy to his hands, but his powers still weren't responding. He tried to kick and punch his way into at least giving the dragon indigestion, but the walls of the stomach absorbed all the attacks. Then he tried to scratch and bite, but the skin was too tough. Before he could try a different method of attack, the walls of the stomach contracted again, forcing him into a fetal position.

And the stomach started to fill up with liquid again.

Now that he was no longer encased in ice, Danny could tell that the liquid was thick, viscous, blue, and far, far below the freezing temperature of water. It made his new skin feel fragile, delicate, almost... crispy. It was freezing, he realized, it, and the layer of muscle immediately under it, trapping him in this position even as the liquid rose and the stomach relaxed and cooled, freezing a thicker layer around him.

Then, the liquid drained away and the stomach contracted again. And Danny lost another layer of ectoplasm, his body morphing to accommodate the loss. This time, he could also detect a pervasive, low-pitched, vibrating hum all around him. The dragon's core, maybe? Even as Danny started to struggle again, the liquid returned and the stomach relaxed.

And it happened again. And again. And again. Each time, Danny lost more of his substance and his struggles became weaker and weaker, until they stopped entirely, his resistance exhausted. He was still half-human, and he needed sleep more than most other ghosts, but even without that, continually reforming himself so that he wasn't just raw meat was tiring, and the hum of the dragon's core had taken on a distinctly hypnotic cadence.

Danny's body's automatic repairs started to grow... lazier, for lack of a better word. Sloppier. Details were left out. Shapes were smoothed over and made simpler.

And then, just when Danny was starting to nod off, the stomach spasmed and pushed Danny - and the stomach liquid he was marinating in - off into a separate, spherical chamber. It was small enough that even Danny's much reduced form felt cramped.

There was a tickle, near his abdomen, and Danny blearily looked down, through the distortion of the liquid, to see a spiderweb-thin line connecting his navel to the outside of the sphere. As he watched, it grew thicker and thicker, and he could feel his remaining strength flowing out of him along its length.

He should break it.

He couldn't make himself move.

He closed his eyes. So. He'd really been eaten. Successfully. This was, he thought, a really annoying way to go.

.

"Hold," said Frostbite, raising his hand. The dragon was nestled in a hollow in the ice far below them, curled in on itself over and over. It seemed to be sleeping, making this the ideal time to attack. Yet, there was something off. Something different from the usual hunt, from the many times Frostbite had seen the dragon before. Then, he spotted it. "We must stop the hunt."

"But Chief--!" protested Sleetfall, the youngest of the tribe's hunters.

"Hush," said Snowdrift. "Listen."

"Look," said Frostbite. "Do you see what it holds between its foreclaws?"

"Ah," said Snowdrift. "Yes. I see."

"What?" asked Sleetfall. "All I see is a ball of ice."

"Ah, you were not yet an adult when this last happened," said Frostbite. Even though Sleetfall was both young and eager, it had been long enough since they come of age that sometimes Frostbite forgot. "It is not a ball of ice. Or, it not only a ball of ice. That is an egg. Someone has been eaten and waits to be reborn within. We must respect the great dragon's role in their rebirth."

He could see in Sleetfall's eyes. They did not want to stop the hunt, the first with such storied prey. But the youth's shoulders slumped and they nodded. "But, Chief, who even would it have eaten? None of the tribe have been missing."

"I have my thoughts," said Frostbite. There were very few visitors to the Far Frozen. "But, come, do not be so grim. A dragon child is cause enough for celebration, even if they do not join the tribe." He patted Sleetfall on the back. "Think about what you could teach them."

Sleetfall brightened. It was well enough. Even if it was Phantom in that egg, he would have much to learn and much to relearn. A rebirth was, after all, still a birth.

[zeroseuniverse]

To Love And To Be Loved

Word Count: 1.3K Summary: And then there was you. You didn’t see a hero. You saw the broken pieces of a man who had long since forgotten how to feel, how to be human. Pairing: Hercules Inspired Gunwook X Fem Reader

Taglist: @zaycie @sh0dor1 @tinyelfperson @lezleeferguson-120 @kunkunlele @llunaticc13 @1daily2lele7 @etaernaluvv @hanninova

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They called him Hercules.

The name echoed across the land like a storm, reverberating with both awe and fear. Some whispered it as a warning, others as a prayer, fingers trembling as they spoke the name of the mighty demigod. Children idolized him as the epitome of strength and valor, their innocent minds believing the stories of his invincibility. Kings, rulers of entire empires, begged for him, for his power could turn the tide of war. And the gods—gods who saw him as a mere tool, a weapon in their divine arsenal—toyed with him, twisting him into something neither man nor god.

But you knew better.

You knew the man behind the myth. Or at least, you would come to.

The first time you met him, he was already broken.

You had been a healer long before the war had come to these lands. Your hands had known the taste of death, stained crimson not by the blood of enemies, but by those whose lives you could not save. Your heart, once soft and full of compassion, had grown calloused in the face of endless suffering. The gods had abandoned this war temple long ago, and with their departure, the last remnants of hope had withered. Still, the desperate came. They came seeking your whispered spells, hoping for the mercy the gods no longer provided.

He appeared at dusk, when the world was painted in shadows, barefoot, broad-shouldered, and silent. His skin was spattered with blood—yet not his own. His eyes, dark and empty, were like the bottom of the river Lethe, a reflection of a soul lost, drowning in its own despair. He didn’t speak, didn’t even make a sound as he collapsed at the entrance of the temple, as if the weight of centuries had finally crushed him.

You rushed to him, expecting to find wounds, to offer your healing hands to a broken body. But when you touched him, his skin was unmarred, smooth as marble, unbroken by the battles he’d fought, unscarred by the wars waged on his soul.

"Are you in pain?" you asked softly, your voice trembling as you tried to make sense of the contradiction before you.

His voice was gravel, worn by time and sorrow. "I don’t feel pain."

You looked into his eyes then—really looked—and you saw it. The truth. The hollow void that lingered there was not from injury, but from something deeper, something that no spell could heal, no herb could soothe. This was not the kind of pain you could fix.

He didn’t tell you his name, not at first. But in time, the stories came.

Hercules.

A name forged by gods, shaped by war, tempered in fire. A demigod who could slay a hydra without hesitation, who once held up a mountain to save the world from ruin. But the stories never told the truth of what lay beneath the legend—the torment of a man who had lived for centuries without ever truly living, without ever feeling.

They said he was a weapon, a tool of war and glory. They never spoke of the man who sat in silence long after the battles had ended, staring at the fire like it held the answers to questions he didn’t know how to ask. They never told of the emptiness that consumed him when the cheers faded, when the blood stopped flowing, and when the gods’ voices fell silent.

And then there was you.

You didn’t see a hero. You saw the broken pieces of a man who had long since forgotten how to feel, how to be human.

One night, as the two of you sat beneath a canopy of stars, he finally spoke, his voice a mere whisper in the quiet dark.

"Why did you come here?" you asked him, the question that had lingered in your mind for days.

His eyes met yours, and for a fleeting moment, you thought you saw something flicker in them—a spark of something forgotten, something fragile.

"I heard you could undo curses."

You froze, the weight of his words pressing down on you.

"You want to feel pain?" you asked carefully, though the answer was already clear.

He nodded, the motion slow, as if he had been preparing himself for this admission for longer than you could understand.

"Why?" you whispered, heart pounding in your chest. "Why would you want that?"

"Because," his voice cracked, "if I can’t feel pain, then I can’t feel anything. Not joy. Not love. Not regret. Not guilt. And I... I want to be human. Just once. Just to feel something real. Even if it breaks me."

The ritual was ancient. Forbidden. It had been passed down in whispers, kept hidden from those who would seek to misuse it. It was a spell that could grant him mortality, could take away his divine invulnerability. It would strip him of everything that made him a god—and leave him with the full weight of what it meant to be human.

You warned him. "The pain will be real. It will take something from you. It might break you."

He said nothing, his gaze unwavering, as if the world could crumble around him and he would still stand, resolute in his choice.

And so, you performed the ritual.

At first, the pain was slow. It was emotional, not physical. Memories surfaced, jagged and sharp. Lovers he had forgotten, faces he had buried in the ashes of his past. The children he could not save, their laughter still echoing in his ears like a distant, unreachable dream. The horrors he had committed under the gods’ command, the bloodshed that haunted him like a specter.

And each night, he would wake, trembling, soaked in sweat, his body shaking not from the wounds that never were, but from the weight of the memories now flooding back.

He would stare at you, his eyes wide and lost.

"You're crying," he whispered once, surprised, his hand reaching up to touch his face, as if he could not believe what he was feeling.

"Because you are," you said softly, your voice raw, and for the first time, he smiled—a broken, shattered thing that stole the breath from your lungs.

You loved him in pieces. Not the hero, not the legend—but the man who had been forgotten in the stories. The one who, despite everything, still believed in the possibility of something real.

He fell in love with you in silence, in the quiet moments when you weren’t looking, when you were busy tending to the wounded or gathering herbs. He fell in love with the way you moved, with the tenderness you showed even to those who had long lost hope.

But the curse demanded its price.

To become fully mortal, to feel the full spectrum of human experience, he would have to give up the last of his divinity. And with it, the immortality that had kept him alive for centuries. He would die.

You begged him to stop, your heart breaking at the thought of losing him.

"You’ll die," you whispered, your voice cracking.

"I know," he said, his thumb brushing your cheek, as if savoring the warmth of your skin one last time. "But I’d rather die free. Free to love you. Free to feel. Even if it’s only for a moment."

"Gunwook, please," you cried, the words raw in your throat. "Don’t do this for me."

He cupped your face, his touch gentle but certain. "I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this because you showed me I could. Because I want to be real. Even if it hurts. Even if it breaks me."

And when the final seal was broken, when the magic faded, and the gods’ hold slipped away—he screamed. His knees buckled, and you caught him in your arms, your heart shattering as you watched him bleed, watched him finally experience what it meant to be human.

And as he sobbed into your shoulder, the pain, the agony, the rawness of it all... you realized something.

This, right here—this was love. Real. Beautiful. Terrifying.

And for the first time in centuries, Hercules became a man. A man who could love. A man who could hurt. A man who could heal.

And with you, he would learn to live.

[biolumien]

when'd you get so cool? (always was)

jo togame x gn!reader pre shishitoren arc, post choji becoming leader mentions of implied violence word count: 1022

“fuck.” 

jo togame, vice captain to the shishitoren, was currently bleeding pretty hard from several gashes on his arms, and one fairly nasty scrape across his face. you’d found him limping back to the ori, his orange jacket draped over his shoulders as he held onto his arm, applying loose pressure over his wounds—and his characteristic orange glasses dangling unevenly against his nose. 

you’d rushed him back to the ori, towards an upper floor where you were less likely to be bothered, and had found the medkit you kept for emergencies like this. shishitoren might be devotees to power, but they didn’t have to be devotees to constant open wounds and injuries. or something like that, 

you held a cotton ball with a set of tweezers, just after you dunked it into some rubbing alcohol, but togame kept jolting—not enough to stop you from being able to disinfect his wounds, but enough that he kept pressing closer and closer towards you. 

“stop moving,” you say, finally exasperated, your cheeks flushed at the proximity. “i’m trying to disinfect your wounds, genius.”

“aww. you think i’m one?” togame’s eyes brightened for a moment as he drawled. “a genius?”

“…” 

the face you made must have been pretty bad, because he snickered, the sound low, almost like a rumbling in his throat. 

“when’d you get so cool?” togame mutters, pressing close to your face. your cheeks are flushed—they must be, and you laugh softly, flicking his forehead. his facial expression falters for a second, wincing in dramatic pain. “mean it. when?” 

in the rundown room of the ori, you feel a sudden rising of chill air, and you shiver, despite the warm heat of togame’s body pressing close to yours. 

“i’ve always been,” you tease. “guess you just haven’t noticed what was right in front of you.” 

bolder than you usually are, at least. you think something curdles in you–shame for saying something so bold, maybe? you worry, for a fleeting, desperate second, that togame’s just going to mock you, but he doesn’t. togame laughs. it’s a nice sound, a slow thing that makes his chest shake with each chuckle. 

“really…” he whistles, the note low. “didn’t realize, then, i guess. my bad.” his nose scrunches when he laughs. your face feels like it’s on fire, and then you realize you have to get back to patching him up—so you cut some gauze with the scissors in your small medkit, gesturing to togame to extend his arm. 

he’s wiry, but you’ve seen this man punch so hard he’s dented metal sheets without even flinching. his arms feel hard. 

“knives do this?” you ask as you tie the gauze tightly around his arm. 

“yeah,” togame says. he stares down at you, a small smirk crossing his face slowly—at the pace of trickling honey. “worried about me?”

you scoff.

“out of everyone, i worry the least about you,” you murmur. and you’re lying, you know it, because you do worry about him–you lie awake in your bed, staring up at your ceiling fan, at ribbons that you’ve tacked up on the blades that flow hypnotically–and you worry and wonder and hope that togame is safe. even though he hits the hardest, he’s built like a truck–he’ll be safe, so long as he plays his cards right. 

“i know you can handle yourself. just wonder if you bite off a little more than you can chew sometimes. with choji, with the rest of them,” you continue, wrapping gauze around his other arm. 

togame’s green eyes darken a little bit–you can see the point at which they harden, like flint. you realize maybe a little belatedly that you’d fucked up–choji was a sensitive subject, even now–you never asked about the depth of togame’s devotion, but he was the self-sacrificing type in the end, too–the kind of man that would wade in the river lethe if it meant that his friends wouldn’t touch the memory-erasing waters.

he’d lose himself if it meant protecting someone else. that’s what scared you, what kept you awake at night. 

“sorry,” you say, picking up the medkit to pull out some bandaids–fabric kinds, that come in a variety of cute patterns. “i know it’s a touchy subject.”

“... s’fine,” togame says, and his eyes stay that strange, dulled color–but the smile’s back, and this time you can realize how fake it is–the edges of his masked facade coming apart at the seams. you fish through patterned bandaids, settling on an orange one with black cats across it. 

“tilt your head,” you murmur. “away from me, so i can put this on. then you’re done.” 

togame does so, his glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he looks away. you press the bandage against his face, carefully making sure it adheres. his skin is warm, and you can almost see the places where he’s shaved at his jaw with a razor, and your thumb brushes against the faintest hint of stubble.

“all done,” you say, pulling back.

“thanks.”

togame’s voice is clipped, strained. he seems to be looking at something far away–further than the walls of the ori. 

“are you sure you’re okay?” you ask as he stands up, pressing away from you.

“me? never better,” togame says, and you can tell it’s a lie from the way his smile strains, too strained to be genuine. “don’t worry about me.” he leans forward, taking your hand in his for a moment–and you’re startled by the feverish warmth of his hand for a moment, as he leans down to press a kiss to the tips of your fingers. 

his lips are warm, too–a little dry, but soft. the kiss itself is almost reverent, and you think your breath gets strangled in your throat for a desperate, wheezing second. 

he smiles, almost sheepishly at you for a moment, before he turns and shrugs his jacket on past his bandaged arms, and leaves.

you raise up the hand that he’d kissed, pressing your fingers to your lips contemplatively for a moment–as if you could, by kissing the faint reminder of his ghost, feel his lips on yours. 

[flaskoflethe]

Sorry for being so quiet, here and elsewhere, lately! We're 3 weeks and change into recovery, and haven't had much in the way of energy lately. What bits we have mostly are going into making sure we aren't overdoing things, and dilation. As we get more and more recovered, we'll be back to our normal self ^^

[foundtherightwords]

Fallen Empires - Chapter 2

Pairing: Geta x OFC

Summary: Having done the unthinkable to secure his throne, Emperor Geta rules with ruthlessness and paranoia. Now, after escaping an assassination attempt, a badly injured Geta is saved by Daphne, a young widow, who takes him back to her remote village without knowing his true identity. As Daphne nurses the former emperor back to health, attraction blooms between them, and Geta discovers a soft side he didn't know he possessed. But can their love survive his thirst for revenge and his desire to reclaim power?

Chapter warnings: none

Chapter word count: 4.2k

Prologue + Chapter 1

Chapter 2

He was burning up. He had gone through the Styx, so this must be Phlegethon, the river of fire that coils around the Earth and flows into the depths of Tartarus. Would that he was in the Lethe, so he could forget all this pain. The twin blades in his shoulder and his ribs were back, and the awkward position of his body only exacerbated them. He was face down, sprawled across some sort of chair or saddle, which lurched and jolted underneath him like a boat over a fierce river. This confused him, for there was no boat across the Phlegethon, only the fiery current that burned the souls of sinners.

And he could spy those souls now, dark shapes that emerged from the flames and rushed at him, trying to drag him down with them. He thought he recognized one of them, a young man who struck him as particularly familiar, even in silhouette. And behind this young man, thousands and thousands more. His victims. But that made no sense. If his victims were here, that meant they were sinners and he had done right to kill them. So why was he here as well? Why were the flames licking at his head and his neck and his body, burning, scorching? And if he belonged here, why were his victims suffering along with him? Who was the righteous?

A jolt of pain shot through his torso, taking his breath away, and he came back to reality. Light was shining into his eyes, hurting them, though it was firelight or sunlight he could not tell. He couldn't lift a hand to shield himself or turn his head away from it. His limbs and even his eyelids appeared to be made of stone, so heavy they were, and a fog had settled over his brain, blurring everything and robbing him of any control over his mind and body. More than anything, it was this loss of control that frightened him. He had always been in full command of himself, and to be unable to speak or move was a terrifying form of torture he wouldn't wish even on his worst enemy.

Then the lurching stopped, and after some violent jolting, he found himself lying on hard ground, on his side, which made breathing less painful. He opened his eyes and saw flames. This really was the Phlegethon then. A dark figure crouched by the fire. One of those lost souls? Charon? No, there was no Charon. No Phlegethon. Only the stream. A horse. And a woman. And those green, green eyes. He couldn't see the eyes of the dark figure, whose face was hidden under a cowl.

The figure moved toward him. An arm slipped under his shoulder, lifting him, which hurt, and he felt a cup pressed to his lips. He closed his teeth against it and turned away, instinctively. He never drank or ate anything without having his taster test it first. But the cup followed his mouth.

"Drink it," a soft voice said. "It will make you feel better."

Better, meaning he would be well again, or better, meaning he would be dead and no longer in pain? He wasn't sure which would be preferable. That terrible burn of anger during his flight had been replaced by a creeping, nagging fear, brought on by his vision of the Phlegethon, and he was afraid that, should he recover, those ghosts in his dream would become too tangible, too real.

"Drink it," the voice repeated, a touch more impatient now. "I haven't gone through all the trouble to rescue you only to poison you. Drink."

He couldn't argue with that. And either way, he was too weak to fight off the cup. He unclenched his teeth, a bitter dose was poured into his mouth, and soon, darkness obscured everything.

But even in this darkness, the ghosts, the lemures, refused to leave him be. The darkness splintered into a million pieces, and each piece became a shadowy spirit that circled him, howling in his ears, clawing at him with their sharp talons and teeth, like a swarm of harpies, and he was too weak to drive them away. Some pieces of darkness coagulated into a bigger, human shape. It was the same figure of the young man he'd seen in the river of fire, now moving toward him with deliberate, inexorable steps. He curled up, trying to shield his eyes from its vengeful stares, but as it often happened in dreams, he found himself unable to move. It moved closer to the fire. Now there was nothing to prevent him from seeing its face—only there was no face. Above the neck, there was just a blank slab of skin, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, nothing at all. Yet somehow, as this abomination bent over him, Geta could still feel hatred radiating from it, like a heat wave over the desert.

He lashed out his arm with a feeble cry.

Something—or rather, someone—caught his arm. A hand slipped into his, a small, cool hand, soft of skin but firm of touch, and a gentle voice murmured something in his ears. The lemures and the shades were driven back, faded away. The dark became as it used to be in his childhood, friendly and restful, and he slept.

That was how it went for the next few days, though in truth he didn't know how much time had passed. Things happened in flashes and flickers, like shadows surrounding a campfire. He would open his eyes and see the dark figure stirring the fire, and a cup would be pressed against his lips, sometimes containing the bitter drink, sometimes containing something else, more palatable. Then sunlight would be hurting his eyes and he would feel coarse hair under his cheek and an animal smell in his nose. The pain in his shoulder and his chest was back, but he was grateful, for it helped him stay awake and avoid the realm of Hades in his dreams. But sometimes the pain was too much and he would slip into the world of darkness and ghosts and fire again, until that soft hand, that gentle voice, and occasionally those green eyes as well, brought him back.

He thought it would never end, this torturous journey with the brief rests that didn't bring much reprieve at all and only worsened the misery. Perhaps this was his punishment in Tartarus, just an endless, painful journey in a guttering dark that led nowhere at all.

At some point, the jolting worsened, and he felt himself sliding off the saddle, until someone caught him and righted him, wrenching a groan of pain out of him. They were going uphill. Then he was half-dragged, half-carried into a thicker darkness, and, thank Jupiter, there was no more bumping or jostling after that.

The journey was over, though the fire in his body, the pain, and the ghosts remained. More liquids were poured down his throat, something slightly sweet, something savory, like a broth. He felt better and then he felt worse. When the fire threatened to burn him, the bitter drink was brought out again, which sent him into a heavy, dreamless state of unconsciousness that was worse than even the ghosts. If he had been able to talk, he would have told whoever was looking after him to stop, to find him those hands and those eyes, which could help him much more effectively than a thousand bitter doses, but the mysterious Hippocrates remained inexorable, and the medicining continued.

Things swam into his view and took shape—a rough wall, a crudely made table, a small window, and a dark, scurrying shape. His mind knew them to be real, even that dark figure, who moved in a human way that was far different than the lemures of his nightmares. But before he could grasp them and form a picture of his surroundings, they were gone again, slipped back into the fire and the darkness. They came back though, more and more often, until one day, the fire finally cooled and the darkness receded. He opened his eyes and saw, clearly, not Hades, but a small, bare room—little more than a cell, really. He searched himself. He was dressed in a linen undertunic, coarse but clean, and there were bandages, smelling pungently of vinegar and some sort of herb, around his torso. His shoulder and ribs still ached, dully, and then sharply when he tried to move, and he was still lightheaded, but his mind was clear for the first time in days.

He sat up, stifling a groan, and discovered that he was lying in a low bed, on a lumpy mattress and pillow stuffed with what felt like raw sheep's wool, and covered with linen sheets. A tiny window gave the room its only source of light. The wooden shutters were closed, so only a few scattered rays came through, but they were enough to show him mud-brick walls with a door set into the far end, earthen floor smoothed by years of footsteps, and all the furniture, which consisted of the bed, a table, and a trunk. His cloak and belt were hung on a nail on the wall, and his boots stood underneath, but there was no sign of his tunic or his dagger. An earthenware jug and cup sat on the table.

So this was where he was. The picture he'd only seen in snatches and fragments was now whole at last.

The sight of the jug made him realize how thirsty he was. He reached for the cup, but his arm was weak as a newborn's and fell short. His hand dropped onto the table, rocking it, and the cup fell over with a clatter.

The door opened. Light poured into the room, momentarily blinding him. A hooded figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. Geta's heart seized as the old superstitious fear came creeping back. Was it Thanatos, coming to claim him at last? Then the figure moved into the room, and he breathed more easily. It was a woman. He peered at her, trying to see if she was his guardian spirit with the green eyes. She lifted a hand to pull down her dark mantle, revealing a long, thin face with sharp features, accentuated by dark hair smoothed back over her brow into a simple knot at the back of her head. Her eyes were green, but they were a muted, pale green, nothing like the brilliant, calming green that had saved him from his nightmares. Could she be the same woman?

"You're awake," the woman said in Greek. Her accent was strange, though it was Syrian or Arabic, he couldn't tell. "Feeling better, I hope?" He tried to match her voice to the murmurs he'd heard in his sleep, but couldn't remember what it had sounded like. He only remembered being soothed by it.

"Who are you?" he asked. His voice only came out as an incoherent rasp. Seeing him struggle to swallow, the woman rushed forward, picked up the fallen cup, poured some water from the jug into it, and held it to his lips. The water was cool and sweet. He gulped mouthful after mouthful, almost without stopping to swallow. As the water slid down his throat, his chest unexpectedly tightened in pain, and he spluttered, spilling water and spit everywhere.

"Slow down," the woman said unnecessarily. "Your wounds are not yet healed."

He coughed and coughed, feeling as though his torso may tear open. It was a long time before the coughing subsided and he lay back on the bed, exhausted. By Jupiter, had he been reduced to such a weakling that a sip of water could hurt him so?

The woman put the cup to his lips again. He took smaller sips this time, letting the water cool his parched mouth and throat.

"Who are you?" he repeated. His voice was still faint, but at least it was audible. "Where am I?"

"My name is Daphne, I'm a healer," the woman said. "This is my hut. I found you floating on a stream in the Balikh Valley and brought you back to my village."

The Balikh! That was near the border between Osroene and Syria! By Jupiter, how long had he floated in that stream? But at least they spoke Greek here, that meant he was still within the Empire and hadn't strayed over to the Parthian side.

"My knife?" he demanded, not caring how brusque he sounded. His chest hurt so much he could only speak in short sentences, politeness be damned.

"I put it away, so you won't injure yourself or others." She glanced at the door, and that was when he noticed a strip of linen tied around her face, covering what looked like a cut. Had he done that?

"Give it back," he said.

"You've no business wielding a knife in your condition."

"Give me my knife!" he growled, and fell into another fit of coughing.

The woman looked at him critically for a moment, then she heaved a sigh of resignation and went into the front room. She returned a moment later with the dagger, still in its sheath, holding it strangely, like one would a kitchen knife, not a weapon. She handed it to him and quickly moved away, as if afraid he would spring out of bed and attack her.

"There," she said, "though I must say there is absolutely no need for it here. You're safe."

Safe? He was far from safe. Even as his body writhed and trembled from pain, his mind was clearing up fast, and memories came flooding back, vivid without the nightmarish haze that had veiled everything during his fever.

He remembered everything now. The march from Edessa to Carrhae to visit the temple of Sin, the Babylonian moon god, to pray for victory in the upcoming war with Parthia. The stop by the side of the road, overlooking a ridge, so he could relieve himself. The sound of furtive footsteps on the gravel behind him. "I've told you men not to follow," he'd grumbled, not bothering to turn around. "I need no attendant just to take a piss." Then the white-hot explosion of pain across his shoulder, spinning him around. The face of his attacker swam in front of his eyes, twisted in hatred. Martialis. One of his most trusted guards. Martialis had been pestering Geta to grant him a centurion position, but Geta had refused, preferring to keep a man he could trust close by. That had been his fatal mistake... or near fatal.

In the shock of the moment, somehow, Geta had had the presence of mind to pull out his own dagger and bury it Martialis's neck with one hand, while with the other hand, he'd grabbed at Martialis's knife as it stabbed into his chest, toward his heart. He had stumbled backward, rolled down the ridge, and then there was a dark, blank space in his mind, only broken up by snatches of memories like an unfinished mosaic—the painful staggering across a rocky landscape, the stream, Charon, the fire, and that hellish trip... He tried not to think of the ghosts.

"What happened to you?" the woman asked. "Was there a battle?"

Clearly, she believed he was a soldier. Good. He had no intention of persuading her otherwise. How lucky it was that he now preferred the simple clothes of a soldier to the elaborate imperial garb he'd once been used to. His intaglio ring, carved with the eagle and wreath that symbolized his power, was still on his finger, but the woman didn't recognize the image. No one would, save for those who were privy to seeing it on the seals of official documents.

"No battle," he said. "I was—attacked."

"By whom?"

He gripped the knife, finding comfort in its weight in his hand, thinking how ironic it was that the dagger that had meant to kill him was now his only weapon. How much should he tell her? He thought of Martialis again. The man couldn't have acted alone. The journey to Carrhae had been spontaneous, suggested by Macrinus, the praetorian prefect, who believed such a visit would bolster the army's failing morale and prepare them for the renewal of their campaign against Parthia. Whoever wanted Geta dead would have had to plan the assassination for a long time in order to seize this opportunity. Martialis didn't—hadn't had it in him—to seize such an opportunity, much less to plan and scheme. That was another reason why Geta hadn't wanted to make him a centurion. He didn't think Martialis would have made a good commander. A soldier through and through, a follower. Then who could have whispered poison in Martialis's ears and turned him against Geta, against his own Emperor?

He motioned to the cup, and the woman obligingly put it to his lips again, before retreating a safe distance away. "How far—are we—from Carrhae?" he asked.

"Five or six days' walk, over the hills. Is that where you came from?"

He shook his head. "Going there," he said. "From Edessa." It was a known fact that the army had been wintering in Edessa; it should be safe to tell her that much.

"Why were you marching on Carrhae?" the woman inquired. "Those two soldiers said the Parthians weren't going to attack us, but I don't like the looks of them. And they mentioned nothing about Carrhae."

This was new. He lifted his head. "What soldiers?"

"They were asking around for you," she said. "The day after I found you. But you said to hide you, so I told them I've seen nothing." She peered at him closely. "Was that wrong?"

So they had been searching for him. But why only two? Why weren't they tearing up the entire province to find him?

"What do they—look like?"

She described them, a rat-faced blonde and a dark-haired one with a scar. "To own the truth, they didn't seem too concerned about finding you," she added.

Geta didn't remember such men from his retinue. That raised his suspicion. He believed the army was loyal to him, but sending only two, seedy-looking and apparently incompetent men to search for him didn't inspire much confidence.

"Did they say anything else?"

"They mentioned someone called Martialis."

So they knew. Of course they had to know; the knife to the neck was enough to kill the traitor, and once they saw Martialis's corpse and discovered the Emperor missing, they should come to the right conclusion immediately. And yet—

"What's the date?" he asked.

"Three days past the ides of April," the woman said, and again he felt a shock. It had been eight days past the calends of April when they set out from Edessa. So for ten days he had been missing, yet there had been no widespread search, no outcry. It confirmed his suspicion that there was a conspiracy.

Who could it be? Could it be Artabanus IV, the Parthian king, wanting to dispatch him by subterfuge rather than facing him on the battlefield? Could it be someone hired by a disgruntled Senator, or by the entire Senate, who was tired of emptying the Empire's coffer for his wars? Could it even be a follower of his brother, someone he'd missed? He had too many enemies to count, and thinking of them made his head pound and his chest hurt. He dropped back on the mattress with labored breaths. One thing was clear: regardless of who was behind this conspiracy, he was in no condition to do anything about it.

The woman, the healer—he hadn't caught her name—was still peering at him. "I understand if you do not wish to tell me what happened to you," she said stiffly. He could tell she was not used to formal speeches. "But I cannot in good conscience let you perish here if there is help and better care elsewhere. If there is anyone you wish to send words to, let me know. The commander of your legion, perhaps, or a magistrate?"

There were only two people he trusted—Macrinus in Edessa, and his mother, currently in Antioch. But before he knew who wanted him dead, it would be too risky to contact them, lest the missive fell into the wrong hands. No doubt Macrinus was even now rousing all forces for a search, and Macrinus would know to proceed with the utmost caution. If the Parthians or any enemy of Rome got wind that the Emperor was missing, it would be the end of the Empire. 

"No," he said at last. "It's best that no one knows I'm here. But if you hear of any talk in your village, you are to inform me immediately." He heard the commanding note in his voice, and realized a simple soldier shouldn't be speaking thus. "I mean, I would be obliged if you let me know of any news or rumors," he corrected himself.

The woman still hesitated, and he thought he understood her concern. "See me through this," he said, "and you'll be handsomely repaid for your trouble."

"I don't need your payment," she said, sounding offended.

He snorted. "Do you heal people out of the goodness of your heart then?"

She ignored his jab. "All I need to know is, will I be in danger for taking you in?" she asked. "Either from you, or the men looking for you?"

He lifted himself up, with difficulty, to look at her. Seeing him struggle, she rushed forward and put her hands under his arms to help him. Her hands were strong, capable. He remembered how they had reached for him through the darkness and the fire and brought him out of hell itself. She had saved his life. And no matter what people called him, tyrant and murderer and worse, let no one say that Publius Septimius Geta was an ingrate.

"You won't come to harm," he said. "I swear it, by Jupiter and Minerva and—"

She shook her head. "I don't need your vow, just your word."

"Then you shall have it."

The woman fixed her gaze on him, her eyes piercing and inquisitive, with none of the softness he remembered from his dreams. But it had to be the same woman; who else could it be? All that nonsense about her eyes being greener than the hills of Caledonia must be the imagination of his fevered brain, no more. And it was nonsense. The hills of Caledonia were a hostile place, cold and craggy and full of hiding Picts waiting to drop boulders onto his men and bury axes in their skulls, not the place of rest and peace he'd dreamed of at all.

The woman weighed his word and seemed to decide that it was good enough. She eased him onto the pillow and got to her feet. "Can you tell me your name, at least?" she asked.

A simple question. He could have given her any name, any at all. Yet the question nagged at him. He had been born Publius Septimius Geta. He had become Severus Antoninus upon his father's ascent to the throne. He had been Caesar and Augustus and Domine. He had been called, both in friendly jest and in sneering mockery, Tarautas, after a famously violent gladiator. Now, he had no idea who he was.

"Romulus," he said eventually, thinking of the first king of Rome. The one who had struck down his brother and built an empire. The one who survived. "You may call me Romulus."

The woman frowned slightly. He held his breath. It was a common enough name, with no connection to his own. Did she suspect something? He put his hand under the pillow, closing his fingers around the hilt of the dagger.

"Just Romulus?" she asked.

"Romulus Publius," he said before he could stop himself. Perhaps it was foolish of him to use his praenomen, but then again, he thought to himself, it was common enough.

Thankfully, the woman raised no further questions or comments about his name. She merely nodded and turned to the door. Geta let out a small, almost imperceptible breath of relief, and released the dagger. 

"I didn't catch your name," he called after her.

"It's Daphne," she said.

"Like the tree?" he asked, puzzled.

She smiled. "My true name is Nysa, after my grandmother, but she called me Daphne because I was always climbing her laurel tree as a child." Her face softened at the memory, and for a moment, Geta could almost recognize the guardian spirit from his dreams.

"Rest," she said. "If you need anything, I'm right outside." She went out, closing the door behind her.

Geta put his head on the pillow and tried to relax. Rest, yes. That was what he needed. Revenge would have to wait.

Chapter 3

Again, I'm sticking with historical facts by keeping Macrinus's office as praetorian prefect, which he held during Caracalla's reign.

Taglist: @sheneedsrocknroll92, @justnobodynothingmore, @barcelonaloverf1life, @myotakureprieve (if you want to be tagged, let me know!)

[yonemurishiroku]

Nico with Italian roots is fun yeah.

but also Nico, who lost his memories, returns to Venice and comes to a heart-breaking realization that he can’t remember the image of blissful childhood that he, Maria, Bianca had once loved; and what fragments the Lethe returns to him, what he does manage to remember, just isn’t there anymore - forever lost to the flow of time.

There’re the things he knows he should recognize. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t belong to the 21st and his home’s gone, gone in the reality and gone in the memories. Down to the last traces.

[sillylotrpolls]

(Notes below poll.)

There is shockingly little information on the Enchanted Stream, which Thorin's company crosses in Mirkwood before being set upon by spiders. We know that it "flowed fast and strong but not very wide right across the way, and it was black, or looked it in the gloom," and that it causes Bombur to sleep for six days, dreaming "beautiful dreams," and that when he wakes up he has temporary amnesia that causes him to forget the last three months (approximately). It originates in the Mountains of Mirkwood and joins up with the Forest River. And... that's it.

I've gotten used to every random bit of geography having a complete backstory with at least one tragedy in it, but no; the Enchanted Stream exists solely in Chapter 8 of The Hobbit. No references in the Silmarillion, nothing in Tolkien's extensive correspondence; heck, it's only in the extended edition of the second Jackson Hobbit movie! The one and only place that seems to care about it whatsoever is Ao3, where plot-convenient amnesia can be a lot of fun for fanfic writers.

[ultrakill-confessions]

It’s Lethe, and I’ve realized something. Hell is great. I love it. Every layer is so, so beautiful, and there’s few things (ahem, estrogen) I would like more than to feel every inch of the winding, ever-shifting walls of Hell. And, through my love of Hell, I’ve neglected to be obsessed and horny over the rest of them, therefore, I’m leaving this for you. I’d love to wander the city on an Earthmover, look through the history of its residents, get to know it closely, get to know it intimately. It’d be orgasmic to get to listen to the surging buzz of electric thrill flowing through the wires of it, hearing the zaps quicken as I slowly inch it towards a monolithic completion, tangling myself in its wires and caressing the twisting cords until I can hear the rumbling of the cooling systems. It would be so nice to surround myself with machines. Wrapping an arm around a Swordsmachine, sitting on its lap and pressing kisses into its face(?) as I help to sharpen its sword. Tying a bow onto the head of a Streetcleaner and help refill its flame oil as I hold its hand. Caressing the plating of a Drone, pressing a kiss to its cold, steel forehead(?) and seeing the light of its lens flare and brighten. Help V2 to tinker with its new fists, running my hand across its jaw(?) (I’m starting to notice machines have very ambiguous anatomy) and leaning towards it, speaking low and quietly, sliding my hand up and down its smooth, blood red chassis, hearing it beep and chirp with anticipation as we get closer and closer until it’s overheating and it’s eye is flickering. It would be heavenly to groom the wings of an angel, feeling the soft, divine light of a Virtue’s wings flow through and over my fingers as I feel the glossy spheres and the tight chains wrapping around it. And, even more so than that, feeling the warm, soft cracks of Gabriel’s armor, feeling the breaths in and out, whispering in his ear everything I could say to him. “You’re beautiful”s, “Don’t worry sweetheart, you did exactly what you should have. You don’t need to regret anything”s, “You’ll kill that bitchass machine next time, darling”s, and “I love you”s. Every reassurance and piece of praise I could deliver as I feel the silver and gold of his helmet heat up, just knowing that, if it could be seen, he would be blushing so adorably. And I would fuck a Mindflayer, I guess.

-

[anjels001]

The Wrath of Styx

Since many people liked the AU idea and mentioned they’d love to read it, I decided to write a test introductory chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

_____

The depths of the Underworld were silent, yet never still. The River Styx flowed like a black serpent through the shadows, its waters carrying ancient whispers and unbreakable oaths. Upon its rocky banks, shrouded in spectral mist that writhed around her, the goddess watched the slow and relentless course of her own essence.Styx had never been merciful. That was never her role. She was the guardian of oaths, the witness of sacred vows, the enforcer of the price of betrayal. And the gods of Olympus, blinded by their own arrogance, had dared to break the promise sealed in her name once again.She had known from the beginning that the Oath of the Big Three was nothing more than an empty promise, dictated by fear and paranoia. Yet, like all things sworn under her dominion, their words had woven themselves into the very fabric of fate, an unbreakable thread spun by the Moirai. This granted her a power the Olympians could never comprehend: the ability to see the chosen futures, to glimpse the paths laid by the Fates. And those paths, inevitably, led to the blood of gods spilled upon mortal soil.The dark waters flowed dense and turbulent, an eternal current of power and ruin. Amidst the treacherous waves, her form rose—ethereal, imposing, inseparable from the river itself. Her eyes, two unfathomable voids of darkness, reflected the secrets of destiny. Her skin was pale as drowned marble, her long, flowing hair writhing like submerged chains. She wore a black mantle speckled with dead stars, and her presence whispered both promises of glory and foretellings of doom.She was furious.For Zeus had broken his word once more. And Poseidon, his brother, had swiftly followed.The king of the gods, in his eternal arrogance, believed himself beyond consequence, that his position would shield him from immutable laws. But he was mistaken. The oath had been sworn by the Big Three, and though the prophecy centered on the Greek aspect of the gods, Zeus and his brothers had been careless in their wording. They had not realized that, by sealing this pact under her domain, they had left room for their own undoing. For Destiny, like the rivers of the Underworld, made no distinction between sides.Her gaze settled upon the threads of fate, weaving and intertwining in endless possibilities. There lay the prophesied children—Thalia, daughter of Zeus, the unborn Roman half-brother, and the other… the one whose future remained uncertain, yet was fated to bathe in her waters.Her lips curved into a cold smile.Then, with the precision of a master weaver, she touched the threads.It was a subtle gesture, almost imperceptible, yet filled with power. The poison spread through the fabric of fate like cracks upon thin ice, invisible until it was far too late. Not even the Fates themselves could undo the damage without completely unraveling those heroes. Their fatal flaws would be magnified, their choices corroded, their destinies entwined in a cycle of suffering from which even time would not set them free.And when all was said and done, the gods would finally feel the weight of the wrath of fate itself.

At the same moment, in another corner of the Underworld, where the rivers of forgetfulness and oath never met, another fate was being shaped. While Styx wove her vengeance into the threads of the future, the waters of Lethe lay still, ready to erase the memories of an ancient soul. But that night, under the shadow of forces even the gods did not fully understand, something would slip beyond control. For destiny, once touched by the wrath of a goddess, would never follow the expected course.

In the silent domain of death, a soul walked through the mists. He had already chosen— a decision made with the weight of centuries upon his shoulders. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, the strategist of a thousand cunning victories, had refused the Elysian Fields, rejected the eternity of the Isle of the Blessed. He wanted to be reborn. He wanted to find her. Penelope. His wife, his anchor, the only constant in a world of capricious gods and endless wars. And so, he approached the waters of Lethe, ready to forget, to begin again.But that day, the river of forgetfulness was restless. Invisible to the eyes of the dead, the shadow of Styx loomed over the currents, her influence already woven into the fabric of fate. When Odysseus' soul touched the waters, something went wrong. Forgetfulness came… but not completely. Fragments remained, like shards of glass beneath the skin. The feeling of battle, the instinct for survival, the memory of bloodstained hands. He emerged from the river without understanding the weight he carried, unaware that the goddess of oaths had tainted his essence, preventing the past from truly dying.And so, he was reborn. Odysseus became Perseus Jackson, son of Sally and Poseidon. A prince of the sea, cursed to fear the waters of his own father. He would grow up without remembering Ithaca, without knowing the name of Penelope, but he would bear invisible scars. Every battle, every betrayal, every loss would echo within him as if he had lived it all before. Because, in the end, fate never forgets. > Next: Chapter 2 Au Post prompt

[netherfeildren]

The Cassandra Complex : Chapter XI : Lethe

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Brief reference to sexual assault (none has or will occur); Hurt/Comfort; Extremely soft Din Djarin

A/N: I kinda just winged all of this, if there are any inaccuracies or any canon divergence, a great and many apologies!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 7.7K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER XI : LETHE

At what point does one say of a man that he has become unreal?

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

Between bouts of wakefulness, you tell him of the things they did to you in the dark. A blooming flower in the dead of winter, stunted and slow, and as if you’re pulling your own teeth in some moments, when other words come like vomit, rushed and hot and putrid but necessary, something not to be held back. And you don’t tell him the whole of it, he knows this, he can see, but you tell him the parts you can bear, and for now, it’s enough. 

You sit in that bed of comfort he’s so meticulously arranged for you in the dim light of the Razor Crest, overheads shut off, only a single warm snake of glowing light falling over you from the cracked open fresher door, navcom set for the desert planet of Tatooine and the spaceport of Mos Eisley, and the thrum of hyperspace buzzes around the two of you. He sits on the opposite side of the hull, wrapped in his armor and his silence and his wanting, and he watches you ebb and flow out of sleep; soft, slow drooping of your eyes into wakefulness and then back into the depths of rest. You need so much of it, he can tell. 

At first, you don’t let him near. No touching, please, you beg in whispers, and although it feels as though his bones are thrashing within the confines of his skin or like his teeth will fall out of his skull from the saccharine sweet flavor of want for you that sits sticky on his tongue, he obeys. So at a distance, with certainly no touching at all, the two of you talk. For hours, and then for days, and although his bones continue to shake, and his teeth continue to ache, he holds himself in temperance and restraint because he knows that to just look upon you is enough, he knows it’s everything. 

The trip to Tatooine takes days, the Crest a little worse for wear than what she’d been when you’d previously been aboard. The hits she’d taken over the years, over his and Grogu’s journey had taken their toll, and her hyperdrive was no longer what it had once been. But she ramained faithful and sturdy, like any good mistress, and she’d get the two of you where you needed to be, to Tatooine and to Peli for some much needed maintenance after the long trip to the Core. And Din knew it wouldn’t only be the ship’s routine upkeep the two of you would find there, but some much needed rest in the sand port, as well, and most importantly, time. Buying himself time during the slow going trip, and then there, to figure out how it was he was going to get you to stay with him, force you if necessary. 

He’d been telling the truth when he’d said you weren’t going anywhere. He would not be left again. 

Din had been a stupid man before. He would not be making the same sorts of mistakes again. 

Two days since he’d brought you aboard now, and you’re still not entirely well. Tired and sluggish, but he tells himself you just need rest and the closely monitored interval feedings he’s been coaxing on you. You’re sleeping again now after he’d gently cooed and shushed you into accepting some broth, and he watches the methodical up and down sway of the wing of your shoulder, hypnotizing, listening to the whistle of your open mouthed breathing that sings a song assuring him you’re alive and well. He’s been sitting at the opposite end of the hull from you, as far as he can get while still remaining in your direct vicinity, attempting to give you whatever measure of peace he can bear, silent and still, enshrouded in the dark for hours now. Counting the minutes between the sporadic opening of your eyes, the brief moments when you come to and grant him access to your gaze.

Those eyes of yours, they’d haunted him for two years. When he was trying to forget you, when he was trying to move on, stupid and horrible, insisting he could only take Omera from behind because he couldn’t bear the sight of a face that wasn’t yours. He had been wrong. He had done wrong. He had been bad. And he didn’t want to admit it, or acknowledge it, or look it directly in the face, but it was regret which lived in him. He couldn’t deny it. 

He’s been scanning your heat signatures every thirty minutes, your core temperature holding normal, your vitals stable, and he’s full of sick paranoia, ravenous want, singing joy. Too many things churning within him to properly digest, and in a way, he’s grateful for this time you’re affording him to gather himself while you sleep and recover. He needs to be well collected, ready and strong and level headed to give you whatever it is you might need when you’re finally ready to leave your restful unconsciousness and come back to him.

You start to shift as he’s scanning your temperature once again. First the hitching of a knee and the nudge of your hips, and then your leg stretching long and lithe, and he watches the arch of your small foot peek out from beneath your blanket, tiny toes splaying wide, spasming and shivering with the stretch of your muscles. He swallows hard, forces the heat in his body that would like to swell to an inferno to remain cool and serene. All this, just from the sight of one small foot. He’s pathetic and ridiculous, and he doesn’t care because he loves you, and you finally know and really, what could matter after that? Nothing. 

His eyes swing back up to your face, and he watches the scrunch of your spikey, dark lashes before you nuzzle your face into the cove of your shoulder, coming awake slowly, slowly, as if you’d not had any real, true and peaceful rest since the last time you’d been on his ship. He watches you with bated breath, the subtle inclination of his body towards you as if he were trying to absorb your presence, and when you finally turn back, eyes blinking open he feels his heart lurch in his chest at the first sight of them. Nothing in the galaxy compares, and he must surely know, he’s seen so much of it. 

He says your name, voice low and graveled with disuse. “How do you feel?”

You stretch your arms out in front of you, wriggling beneath the covers and making the most delicious of little noises he forces himself not to fixate on. Oh, you sigh, eyes opening wide, long lashes fanning across high cheekbones, before you finally find him in the shadows he’s sitting in. Nothing but the still gleam of beskar in the dim light to give him away. 

“You’re so extra shiny now,” little voice and even tinier nose scrunch, so adorable that something soft inside of him aches and snaps its teeth. 

“Yes, well…” he sighs, “new armor.”

You sit up slowly, jaw shifting from side to side as you move with what looks like frightened care, like you’re expecting something to hurt, and then, yes, there it is, tiny and subtle, but a flinch. Infinitesimal scrunch of your brows, your left eye winking shut, the droop of your mouth, all of it happening so fast, but he’s watching so intently, learning forward as if he’d shoot across the space that separates the two of you to take you in hand, fix whatever it is that’s aching, that he catches it all before you can school your features into blankness.  

“Your hair’s longer,” he whispers, and you freeze, arms bracing yourself up on locked elbows, they don’t tremble anymore like before, and he takes this as a good sign. You let your head fall forward to hang between your shoulders, long hair, a curtain concealing your face from him, and he wants to snap at you, for one unhinged moment, that you’re not allowed to keep your eyes from him anymore. He’s already gone too long without them, he can’t bear anymore of it. But he swallows his insanity, keeps his mouth shut. 

You shake your head down at the blankets, before finally looking back up, sitting up all the way and turning to face him. Silent while you settle with your back against the wall so that now the two of you are face to face, separated by dust motes and memories and desire that snaps like lightning between the two of you. There is frision here, pressurized and boiling, and he has to behave. He won’t push you or ask anything of you you’re not ready to give or tell. You’d already shared bits and pieces with him, over your stunted bouts of consciousness over the past two days. A dark hole in the ground, a thieving Twi’lek, breaking of a kind he can’t bear to think of directly, and I hurt like I’m newly made, Din. And now, the first time you’ve been fully awake and lucid, he isn’t going to ruin this with his desperation. 

“Fancy. Looks expensive,” you press about the armor. 

“I did a big job.”

He doesn’t know how to handle the subject of him. He’d told you the most important fact you needed to know, that he isn’t his biological son, that he hadn’t betrayed you in that way. But the rest? The whole of it? There was so much to say, so many things, great and small to tell. Din couldn’t fathom where to start. 

“Oh? What was it?” You’ve wrapped the blanket up high beneath your chin, hiding yourself away from him swathed as you are. Everything and anything you can do to keep yourself apart and protected.

“Are you hungry? You should eat,” he says instead.

You shake your head no. “What was it? Tell me.”

A sigh, and, “Stole the kid for some Imperial remnants.”

“You did what? Your kid?” You screech, surging forward all tangled up in the blankets as you are.

“Yes. Unknowingly,” he huffs. “I collected payment, and then I– I… I don’t know, changed my mind. I went back for him.” His words come to a stuttered halt, unsure and suddenly, unbearably shy, fucking with a small loose seam coming apart at the knee of his pants he’d been meaning to mend for days. There’s a part of him, irrational or untried or overprotective that doesn’t want to tell you about him, his ad’ika, and he can’t understand why when it’s you. The girl he loves, the girl he’s waited for. But it had been so difficult, so precarious, his journey with Grogu, always on the defensive, always looking over his shoulder, waitting for the worst. He’s unused to sharing him without fear or trepidation. And then his loss… for that’s what it feels like, and he’d never admit it aloud, knows he’s where he’s supposed to be, needs to be, now, but there still lives a small, sour seed within Din that whispers that that it’s wrong, that Grogu’s place had always been, and always will be, with him. And when he looks back up at your face, open and patient and lovely, it all spills out anyways. “He was a foundling, as I was. And he’s– he’s special. And after I went back for him, he was… put in my charge of sorts. We struggled so much, trying to evade the Empire, seeking out his people–”

“You found the Jedi?” You gasp.

Murky waters. “We did. He’s with them now. We traveled to Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus, we met a Jedi there by the name of Ahsoka Tano. I thought she’d take him then, help him. He needed to be with his people, and I knew that, I was prepared for that, but along the way… along the way he became– he became–” he clears his throat, for his voice has gone rough, almost choked. He shakes his head, unable to continue but you nod encouragingly, understanding without words all Grogu means to him. You’re sitting at the edge of the nest of blankets now, as if gravitating towards him, holding yourself back, marooned on an island of your own making. 

“I’ve heard of her. A great legend, tragedy…”

“Yes, well… She sensed it in us, in Grogu.”

“That’s his name?” You ask softly. “Grogu?” And Din’s heart, it aches, at the sound of it coming from your mouth, all the gentleness and tenderness his ad’ika needs to be afforded. And unbidden, like flash fire, something he has to look away from immediately for his own self preservation, yours too probably, he thinks: oh, but you’d make the most wonderful mother, cyare.

“Yes,” he breathes, “Grogu.”

“And he– he’s a boy? Where does he come from? How old is he?”

“Not human. No one knows what species he is, but he was born on Coruscant, raised at the Jedi temple before the Great Purge, and then smuggled to safety and hidden away for years before I came to find him. He’s supposed to be about fifty years old.”

“But he’s–” your brow folds in confusion, “He’s a child? You called him–”

“Yes. He’s still young, still a baby. I don’t– I don’t know. He’s special. Green and– and wrinkled, with big eyes and even bigger ears.”

“He sounds… he sounds like someone my– my master spoke to me of, once. Of an unknown species, a great Jedi master. Perhaps the strongest in the galaxy, the strongest that's ever lived. Luke Skywalker was his apprentice.”

“That’s where the kid is now– with Skywalker.”

“You gave him to Luke Skywalker?” And your eyes shutter, your mask slipping briefly, showing your frayed edges.

“Yes.” He says carefully. “Ahsoka, she said she couldn’t take him, that we were too– too connected, that he needed someone more.”

“You seem to have a way with Force users,” you say suddenly, a little bashfully, a small smile spreading across your face in a half moon of laughter. “But it makes sense,” you continue, “That his connection, whatever loyalty to you he may have had,” and the use of the past tense feels like a gut punch, “would be difficult to work around when training someone so young and untried. But if he’s anything like his predecessor, then he has great potential in the Force. He’ll probably grow to unprecedented strength eventually. And from what I’ve heard, the species is very long lived, hundreds and hundreds of years.” Another sucker punch, this one even worse. Grogu would live to be old beyond Din’s years.

He clears his throat, yanks harder on the loose seam so that it splits at the side, revealing a patch of hairy knee. “We found those he belongs to, he’s with his people now. I lost him– or I– I returned him to where he should’ve always been. It’s better like this.” 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper from your perch at the edge of your self imposed island. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

“Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s all the way it’s supposed to be.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Only a few weeks. Like I said, he was taken by Imperial remnants led by a Moff Gideon. Skywalker saved us and took him. He has a temple where he plans to train young Jedi. He’ll be with other children like him now. It’s good for him. I know it is.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of it, he promises he’s not, or doesn’t mean for it to come out like that. 

“I’ve heard of Gideon,” you muse, shifting to lean back, movements still slow, not as smooth as they usually are. The thick mantle of your hair shifts over your shoulder, and Din’s mouth goes dry, desperate to bury his face in all that lush splendor and take in the scent of it, feel the drag of it across his naked chest, over his cock and thighs. 

“What do you know of him?”

“Only his name, and the great ambition tied to it. He took part in the siege on Mandalore… didn’t he?”

“He did. He’s in the custody of the New Republic now. Awaiting trial and judgment.”

“Tell me about the saber,” you say then. 

“I won it from Gideon in battle.”

“It’s the Darksaber, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“It’s legend.” And you look at him strangely at that, mercurial look passing through your eyes, memories or something worse. “Many great and terrible hands have wielded that blade. Clan Vizsla, who forged it, the Sith lord Darth Maul, Sabine Wren.”

He’s shocked by the seemingly great well of knowledge you possess on the figures he’s spent the last two years dealing with. “I’m familiar with the Clan. Paz Vizsla. How do you know all this?” He asks.

“He–” You turn away, brows hitching high, and he watches a swallow pass through the delicate column of your throat. “My master, he was a lover of knowledge, information gathered everywhere, always. He made it his business to know things, and my purpose to collect it for him.”

He wishes you’d let him go to you at the mention of that scum. He wishes he could resurrect him from the dead just to send him back to the deepest pit existing, at the look on your face, small and frightened and childlike. Din’s stomach turns, and he changes the subject. “Wren– she… I think I’ve heard of her from my friend Bo, as well.

“Who?” That brings you back to attention, and he’s grateful for the concealment of the helmet for the small smile he can’t help at the look that comes across your face.

“She’s a Mandalorian. Bo-Katan Kryze.”

“Your friend…?”

“She helped me with the kid. When Moff Gideon captured him, her and her followers aided me in his rescue. It got complicated–”

“Between the two of you?” You cut him off with a little huffing scowl.

“Before Skywalker showed up to help us, little one.”

“Oh,” you huff again, turning your nose up at him haughtily. He can’t help the breath of air he lets out at that. Silly, gorgeous thing. He wants to kiss you so badly. 

“The saber’s rightfully hers.”

“Oh,” again, and he laughs, again. “Oh, yes. Yes. The–” you frown, “The legend is that whoever wields it can rule all of Mandalore. I’ve heard that.”

“And that sure as fuck isn’t me. Her family ruled before the siege, it’s hers.” The entire business of it still scathes and prickles at him.

And you laugh at that, “No?” Head tipping back, that mantle of hair sliding again, provoking him again. “Why not? It could be–”

“No. Definitely not. Never. That isn’t something I’d ever be interested in. I would never suit such a role. And this– this thing…” he motions to the crate where the Darksaber sits discarded. He’d found he hated wearing it on himself for too long. “It doesn't suit me well. It’s difficult to wield, something– something leaden and sucking about it.”

“You wielded it just fine from what I saw.”

“You were doing something.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I could feel you, when you attacked me–”

“I didn’t attack you,” you scoff, affronted. Haughty nose back up in the air, and the soft thing inside Din snaps its teeth together once more. 

“Don’t start,” he admonishes, voice deep and rumbling and speaking of all the things he’d like to do to you that he cannot even give thought to right now. You roll your eyes, and he can’t help but smile. Sass is good, sass means you’re feeling better, more yourself. 

“I could feel you, almost as if you were feeding your energy into me.”

You turn to look at him sharply at that. Tiny frown marring the space between your fine brows he’d like to smooth away with a kiss. “What? I– I didn’t mean to, or– or I didn’t know I was doing that…” You look away again, pressing fingertips to your mouth in concentration. Everything about you, every movement, gesture, frown and sigh and inflection, mesmerizes him. Din didn’t think it possible he could have been worse off than he was before, but he comes to the sudden, startling realization, that he’d had absolutely no idea how much deeper he could fall. The admission that you love him in return, the sound of it, had done something to him, set something off or opened something within him. Some sort of yawning, hungry maw that would only be satisfied once it’d swallowed you whole. 

He needs to bide his time and temper his actions. He won’t scare you off. 

“I was out of control…” you continue in a small whisper. “I didn’t know. I didn’t–” And you look nervous, frightened suddenly. Din leans forward, immediately on alert, ready to rush over to you if you need him, just from the look on your face. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” You’re all wide eyed fright and concern and an innocence about you, about the question, your worry that you’d hurt him. His heart thumps and thumps and thumps, the rush of blood through the mass of organ so hot it burns. 

“Never, cyar’ika. You could never hurt me. I just feel you.” And it’s the truth, it had merely been an extension of yourself feeding him, strengthening him, emboldening him like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Something euphoric about the feeling he was not keen to experience again for the mere fact of how it’d left you, weak and fragile and exhausted, almost at a breaking point. 

The two of you need to be careful, he realizes. There was a connection between the two of you, stronger and more easily traversed than either of you had previously realized, be it fate or love or the Force, but there was something that lived between the two of you and connected you and Din needs to be absolutely sure that whatever it is never becomes a detriment to you in any way. 

You tilt your head sideways, some truth he knows he should fear churning behind your eyes. You bring your knees up to fold tightly against your chest, wrapping your arms around your shins, and lay your cheek against the small cap, hiding away from him again. “I want–” you say in a very small voice, “I want to tell you things, but I’m afraid of–” a swallow of breath. 

“Afraid of what, cyare?”

At the tremble of your spine as you hitch with nerves, Din wants to go to you so badly. This is the most difficult thing he’s ever endured in his life. “Afraid you won’t see me the same again after I tell them.”

“Didn’t I already tell you there isn’t anything you could ever do that I wouldn’t forgive you for?” He presses forward just a millimeter. 

You peer up at him at that, and there are no tears in your eyes which soothes him, in part, but worse, still splintered with so much sadness or hurt or the terror of time, and it’s like he’s bellyful of grief. There is something acutely unfair about the distance sitting between the two of you right now when you’re holding that look in your eyes. 

“But what about respect?” 

“You could never lose that from me either.” You shake your head, propping your chin on your bent knees and wrapping your hands around your feet to pull them up and rock back and then forward, thinking of what it is you're trying to say. 

“Don’t you think there are certain things that a person shouldn’t be forgiven for?”

“Perhaps. But there are certain people the rules don’t apply to. That’s you for me.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“To who?”

“To you!” You say incredulously.

“Why not?”

“You–” And there are tears now, swimming in your eyes, his heart thump, thumping in agitation at the sight of them. He gives a growl of frustration that ends on a choke as you squeeze your eyes shut, a single tear sliding over the slope of your cheekbone. “Maker, Din. This is all wrong.” You sound as full of frustration as he feels, and he wants to say that he’s sure if you’d just let him come to you, you’d find the right way forward within each other. “You want to touch me.” He bites down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood. 

“Are you looking in my head?”

You give a soft laugh. “Don’t need to.” He huffs, well, he isn’t going to deny it. 

You turn away again, laying your cheek back atop your knee, and he can see the tension in your arms as you squeeze yourself tight, tighter. “I– I can’t– I can’t have sex with you,” you say in a smaller voice than he could’ve imagined possible. 

He’s silent for a moment, trying to measure his breathing, and there’s violence thrumming within him at what he’s about to ask, but his voice is nothing but gentleness. “Did they– did they hurt you like that?”

You heave a long sigh, “No, but the feel of skin, I cant– I– I hurt everywhere, Din. Everywhere. Inside and– and–”

“It’s alright. It’s alright, cyar’ika.” He tries to push his voice out in gentle, measured notes. Something that’ll soothe you from afar. And the sight of you, all twisted and squeezed up into a tight little ball like you are– Maker– Din feels afraid, for a moment, of what might become of him, of the sort of violence he feels capable of in your name. “If it hurts, you don’t have to tell me anything now or at all.”

“I want to. Is it–” You look up, brow folding, squinty eyed as if you’re rifling through your head for the words. “How do I– how do I tell you that you deserve to know the full of it, but don’t deserve to carry the burden of it? That I wish I didn’t have to, but that I also want to tell you.”

“Just like that.” He presses another half a millimeter forward, feels like he’s hallucinating the scent of you from over here. “Tell me anything you need just like that. But don’t say it’d be a burden, you could never be anything even close to that to me.”

And still, with your eyes not on him, you say that which he’d already been expecting: “I let them keep me.”

He’d known. 

He’d known. 

“Are they dead?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't leave even one for me?” Your cheek rolls against the hill of your knee, eyes swinging up to spark at him, and Maker, as long as he’s still able to pull that look from you there’s hope. He can fix anything if only you continue to look at him like that. 

The trip to Tatooine takes about ten days. Bouts of sleeping and eating and his gentle but insistent caring for you. He won’t let you pull away or into yourself; kept at a distance, but not pulling away, and the distinction might not be obvious, but he sees it. That’s enough. 

Days later, when you wake again, a little stronger, but still sleepy and soft and beautiful, your hair is even longer. Seeming to grow a yard a day, incredibly. “It’s the Force; healing me, reconnecting with me. It works in strange ways,” you tell him as it pools around your waist. He says nothing, catalogs everything, and later, you come, moving slowly up the ladder into the cockpit to join him in the co-pilot's chair, bundled in a blanket. He’d left some of his socks for you warming on a pipe, just like before, and he sees the thick weave of them droopy over your toes, the part where his heel is supposed to go coming up to your ankle. He swallows and looks away and breathes and breathes and reminds himself he is strong and patient and entirely at your service in any way you might need. Din reminds himself that he must be good. 

Your wounds heal slowly over the days, and he gripes and groans that all your energy is funneling into that damn hair and not the more important bits of you. He perches you on a crate, after having urged you into the fresher, pacing outside anxiously, hands on his hips, a huff and a sigh a minute while he listens for any bump or movement from within, making sure you don’t need him. He sticks a bowl of soup in your hands after, kneeling before you, gloves fitted over his hands so that you won’t have to feel his skin and shows you the bacta patches slowly, movements intentional and measured so that you’re not taken by surprise or touched in any way that you might not like. You eye him suspiciously, brow hitched, nose scrunched when you sniff delicately at the broth and then promptly discarding the bowl beside his medical kit, watching for what he plans to do with you next.

“That bit on your elbow isn’t healing.”

You give him a tiny frown, tucking the sore little wing tight into your side protectively. He presents his palms towards you, moves slowly. “It’s fine,” you pout.

“You know it’s not, little one. I’m going to put a single bacta patch over it. That’s it. No fuss, I promise.” Still moving slowly, watching the look in your eyes, opening the packet gently, he reaches for your arm, index finger and thumb taking hold of you first, a barely there cuff of his fingers just above your joint. He gives one slow stroke of his thumb, feeling you lock up, makes a low noise deep in his chest, something to soothe and coax you as he pulls your arm gently forward, untucking it from your side. “It’s alright, cyar’ika. Just a little bacta, nothing scary.” Your eyes go a little glazed, head tilting sideways to look down at him, mass of your hair shifting around you. That hair and those eyes and that face, Maker, but this is where he belongs, this is where he should always be, at his knees before you. 

You give a soft sigh verging on a breathy little moan, your eyes fluttering shut as he smooths his thumb against the inner slope of your elbow, just there at the vulnerable dip, but when he slowly starts to lift your arm to get at the back side where the wound is, raw and red, a burned and angry looking thing, you wince, a little screech warbling in your throat, before jerking back trying to get away from him, quick and violent in your incoordination. That damned shoulder you haven’t let him look at yet, he knows it’s bad. You flail, little foot coming up to stub your toes against his stomach plate, bum scooting precariously over the edge of the stool. He reaches for you on instinct, his hand cupping the curve of your bottom to keep you seated, shit, hold on, stop, he grunts, but when you shove him away, loud slap of your palm against the curve of his helmet, he loses his balance, momentum taking the both of you toppling, unintentionally taking you with him. He falls splayed on his back, helmet dinging hollowly where his head knocks against the steel floor with a tangled mass of soft limbs and too long hair and lush tits sprawling over him. You wriggle and flail, an indignant squeak of his name, and then you go tense realizing all the places the two of you are suddenly pressed together. He feels a shudder of painful terror lock your limbs into shivers, the trembling hitch of your chest, and he holds frozen still, waiting for you to make the first move. But Maker, the feel of your weight on top of him. He widens the stance of his legs, slowly brings a knee up, trying to keep the heft of you away from his cock. He dips his chin to watch your face, eyes wide, frantically swinging across his chest, to his hands held up in surrender at your shoulders level, up to the face of his helmet. 

You’re full of unsure fear and desire, yes, he can see it just there in the farthest glimmer of your eyes, the one like a scream, bright and hungry. Your brows fold together, confused, a frustrated noise slipping off your tongue before you give one more tense, strained jerk, and then seem to suddenly lose the fight and entirely melt into him. Your temple landing with a soft thump on his chest plate, arms wilting from their tensely held position over the outsides of his arms. Just a melted little thing of a girl, finally letting go of all that anxious strain you’ve held yourself in for two long years. 

Din dares not move, not even breathe. He holds so still for so long he’s able to watch the change in the cadence of your breathing, the rickety little patter of nerves into slow and deep sighs, all relaxation and trust. And the bright light-like realization dawns on him while he lays beneath you, feels your chest press into his, the fire of your heart seeming to melt through beskar, the two of you know each other too well, too intimately. The two of you love each other, and he wants to live in it and experience it so badly. He wants to rush madly through the whole thing of it, live the rest of your lives together fast and in the blink of an eye first, and then be able to go back and do it all again slow and precise, taking each lived detail in his hand and learning the shape of it entirely before he’s able to move on to the next moment. He wants it all, the whole of a life with you.

So he doesn’t touch you, but the two of you lay like that, pressed against each other for hours, and the moment is enough. 

Days later, he asks because he cannot help himself, because if you have to bear the truth of it all, he will too: “Why did you do it all?” And he doesn’t know precisely what the root of the question is.

Why did you leave me?

Why did you stay gone so long?

Why did you hurt yourself as you did?

You don’t answer immediately, and he wonders if he’s stepped where he shouldn’t have, pushed too far too soon, but then your face goes smooth and serene. Honest. “I didn’t think it would happen as it did. I thought I’d see you again, I thought it would all be sooner. I didn't think I’d be gone,” gone, “for so long. I thought I’d get a chance to make up for my mistakes with you.” 

You sit in the co-pilot's chair, slightly behind him, and he doesn’t turn to look back at you, but he can see your reflection in the gleaming curve of the front of the cockpit, the rush of hyperspace zinging around the two of you, it’s quiet and thrumming and he can hear the soft cadence of your breathing. Your tunic is high necked, sitting just below the soft point of your little chin, every square inch of you wrapped away and sealed tightly in dark fabric, little pearlescent buttons that gleam blue crawl up to your throat and seem to strangle you. It’s as if you’d donned your own suit of armor, and he can’t understand how you still look so fucking good after everything. But as if he could peel away the stitching of you to peer beneath, he sees all that is wrong, all that is missing and all that is still echoing hollow. He thinks if he could only fill you with himself, all of everything would be set to rights. 

You rest your head on the seat back, rolling it side to side slowly, thinking on what is is you’ll tell him next. “Because in ways, it felt good, better, than the alternative.”

“To be free?” 

“Yes.” And the truth of that sits heavy and cloying between the two of you. An animal, hurt, will return to what it knows, no matter how badly it’s treated. It’s in its nature to seek out its familiar habitat. “Because I saw no other recourse, nothing better for me to do. Because I was stupid. Because I wanted to see how long I could last.”

He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, thick and metallic rolling over his tongue. “I don’t want to be selfish. I’ve been trying to– to not be that, to not make this about me.”

“It is about you.” Maker.

And he still doesn’t turn, says through his honest shame: “But I have to tell you that I don’t know how I can live with this, knowing this. I feel like– like I… I don’t know. I feel like if I go to sleep tonight knowing this, I won’t wake up tomorrow. Like it’ll crawl up my throat and strangle me in my sleep. And it shouldn’t– it shouldn’t be about me.”

“It’s not selfish, Din. It is about you,” you say again, and he wonders if your intention is to hurt him or yourself. More of that painful honesty like a blade through a lung. 

He finally turns in his seat. “The way you live is the way I live. Do you understand me? The way you live is the way I live and your breath is mine and your hurt is mine.”

Your eyes are heavy lidded, watching him through the thick screen of your dark lashes, one eye seems to glow, the other to swallow him. “That’s why I know it’s about you too now. It started with nothing, with stupidity, and a wanton desire for– I don’t know, for destruction or something. But it ended with the realization that I’d have to tell you of all this one day. That it would be yours too eventually. And I regret it bitterly for that.”

“How am I supposed to move past this? What– what am I supposed to do with it?” He worries he sounds very like a child asking, but he has to anyway. 

You shut your eyes, going so still, made of adamant  and glass and smoke. He knows a thing like you could do nothing but survive, but at the same time, it seems a miracle you did. That you let yourself. He tracks the slope of your nose, the lush of your mouth, dry, you won’t drink enough water and it pisses him off, little chin and delicate throat, all that hair, the round of your breasts and the dip of your waist. Those little blue glowing pearl-for-buttons. He wants to steal them and swallow them away. 

“Do you think,” you start, eyes still closed, face still calm. He leans forward, elbow braced against wide spread knees, and watches closely at the way your mouth forms the shapes of your words. “Do you think that– I don’t know how to say it, I think… but do you think it’s wrong to ask someone you love to just let a thing go? As much as it might’ve hurt them or bothered them or– or I don’t know… ruined everything. But to just ask them, for your sake, to let it go? Forget. Do you think that’s wrong?” Your eyes open. “Or selfish?”

“Is that what you want from me, cyar’ika?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to be selfish with you.”

“Neither do I. You said before that you don’t want me to forgive you. You don’t want forgiveness, you want forget.”

“Yes.”

He nods once. “And I have nothing to forgive you for, and asking me for the things you need is never selfish.”

And you say again, once more like before with your face still calm, “You want to touch me.”

If he were a beast made only of flesh and bone and not a man he would snap his teeth. “Yes.”

You stand slowly, hair a cloak around your shoulders, and step to him, between his wide spread thighs. He should beg, but he only stays frozen, and you bring your hand up to the face of his helmet, palm splaying along the side, he wishes you’d rip the thing off of him. He wishes he had never taken a Creed at all. Your palm on his face would fix everything, like him filling the hollow place within you. It would all be well if only the two of you could come together. Din knows it. 

You lower yourself to perch primly on one thigh, slow like thaw, bringing your knees up to curl into his chest, little socked toes braced against beskar. One hand smoothing up his stomach and chest plate, other curled over the pauldron of his shoulder, you reach the lip of the helmet, close your eyes, and start to lift the weight of it from his face. 

“I’m not going to open my eyes. I’m not going to look.” 

The rush of hyperspace reflects off your skin in silvers and blues, makes you more dream than girl, and then his face is uncovered, and he listens to the symbol of who he is supposed to be, who he has been all his life, roll from your fingers discarded on the ground, the loud clang of history ringing in his ears, but all he cares about is, “You kept them.” He brushes a thumb, careful of your skin, against the glowing gem of your earring. The way it twinkles and sparks and exists as a monument to your shared history. 

“Something shiny to remind me of my shiny.” A tear slides slow and clear down the slope of your cheek, coming to rest at the corner of your mouth, and he watches it quiver and shake there in anticipation, much like his heart does within his chest. You take his face between your hands, animal sound from his tongue, one hand at the curve of his jaw, cradling him like he’d be something precious and fragile if only the two of you let it be so. Not animal, not man, only loved.Your other hand spreads, glides and cups and soothes, his forehead, his brow, little fingertips pressed to the outside dip of his eye socket, running along the rim of bone beneath hot skin. He watches your face, the tear at the corner of your mouth, and you come towards him very slowly, the fold of your hips, stomach, breasts, and then your mouth on his.

And then your mouth on his. 

He takes the tear into his mouth, holds it on the surface of his tongue. He could swallow it like he would the pearls. This is enough. 

It’s soft as a whisper and then hard. Your nails digging suddenly, scratching and searching for a crack in his surface where you’d find purchase to pull him closer, burrow your way inside. You press your closed mouth hard against his, shoulders hitched high, and he grips the arms of his chair so hard his fingers ache. A sob in your throat that turns into a broken sort of moan, giving him permission to break too.

He circles your waist in his hands, takes hold of the shape of you, and it’s just like in his memories and dreams and nightmares. Hands sliding up the slope of your back through all of that glorious hair, still growing, right to the edge of your tunic covered nape. 

“Din.” He swallows the tear. He touches your skin. 

You moan for him, mouth shaky and wet, vibrating into him, the tip of your tongue tasting the edge of his lip, and then he’s swallowing you whole. Shifting you further onto himself, the soft round of your bottom over the thick of his lap, tits pressed against his chest, he needs to taste it all, your nails digging so hard into the skin of his face you’ll surely draw blood, and he will surely thank you for it. “Yes.” He says in return, finally, he draws onto your tongue. Full upper lip slotted between his, and it’s wet tongue and sharp teeth and a very dark place you should have never been, too much time wasted, a promise to forget because that’s what you need of him. 

He hitches you higher, tighter, forces himself not to take it further, press you too hard. Groans rough and ragged when you whine soft and small. Sucking on your tongue, tugging at your lip. And your hands move to his hair, little fingers wrapped in his curls, dragging down the front of his face, over his eyes and nose, finding the seam of a scar there. “What’s this?” You follow the faultline of old hurt, and he grips your wrist, directs your hand to the other, thicker weave of scar tissue along the back curve of his skull, wanting to show you all the places he was broken that you were not there to mend. “Din,” on a frightened little gasp he soothes away with his tongue along the back of your teeth and the drag of his palm down the slope of your spine, stopping just shy of the curve of your ass. 

“Explosion.”

 Din, again, Din. You press your fingers along the rough knit flesh, and he feels your tears slide along his own cheek and perch at the corner of his own mouth now. 

“It’s okay, little love. I’m here with you.” Tugs you back close and safe and tightly pressed, seam of him woven into the seam of you, mouth to mouth. 

“And I understand.” He cups the back of your head, pulls you back, opens you and tastes and tastes and tastes. “I’ll promise to let it go. But you have to promise too.” Changes the angle, the flavor of you still the same, the sound of you still the same, the feel. “That you’ll never do it again.”

“I promise, Din.” It’s enough.

Chapter XII

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[five-rivers]

I would like to know more about ghost wombs in Danny phantom, I really loved the the fics about them and the implications of them. Kinda just one see a fiction of Danny being bombed by Vlad or Pandora or walk and what would happen after that.

Oh, no, my old curse coming back to haunt me. Ahhhhh take a Pandora.

.

Danny hadn't thought much about it when Pandora invited him back to her palace after they'd gotten her box and the Box Ghost squared (heh) away. He'd helped her, and she wanted to say thank you. It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before, even if it wasn't exactly common.

They'd talked for a while, over sandwiches. Pandora seemed interested in what he did as a hero, how his thermos worked, and things like that. They were, she had pointed out, doing similar things, and his thermos was remarkably like her box.

Then, they'd walked through Pandora's gardens. The hedge mazes had seemed higher than they had before, their twists and turns tighter, more frequent, more disorienting. The Labyrinth, she'd explained, responded to need. There had been a need for Danny to get past it, so it had been simpler, the magics in it that kept ghosts passing through earthbound not as strong.

After a while, they'd turned back towards the palace.

"There is something I want to show you," said Pandora, once they had left the maze. "Something important."

Danny looked up at her, confused. He'd thought they'd gotten all of the important stuff out of the way already. "Did something else get stolen?"

"Nothing like that," said Pandora. "But considering how our interests align, it is something you should see."

Danny nodded. He wondered if it was going to be something like the Cave of History in the Far Frozen.

They walked under a columned porch. Water flowed across the marble in what looked like specially cut channels.

"The Lethe," said Pandora. "Be careful, a single drop can make you forget everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

Danny shuddered and pulled his feet up underneath him to float instead of walking. "That sounds dangerous."

"It is," said Pandora, "but some things need to be protected by more than walls."

Hesitantly, Danny nodded. He could understand that.

They crossed into the building proper. The floor was a maze of little streams and a dais rose out of the center like a tiny mountain. Pandora flew ahead of him, towards the dais. Danny hesitated for a moment, then followed, wary of the water.

On the dais was a plinth, and on the plinth was a... It wasn't quite a box. Or, it was a box, but it wasn't cubical. It was cylindrical, with a round lid. The sides were painted in detail.

"Go ahead," said Pandora. "Look inside."

Danny glanced at her, then looked down at the box again. He reached out and touched the lid's handle, offsetting it slightly. There was a rushing sensation, as if the box had been filled with wind. Danny blocked his face with his hands and arms.

When the wind died down, he lowered them and looked around. The room was entirely different. It was small and dark and round, and there was so much ectoplasm in the air that it felt wet. Other than the glow of the ectoplasm, the only light came from an odd, crescent shaped skylight high overhead.

As he watched, the skylight waned away to nothing.

.

Outside, Pandora closed the lid of the box, making sure it had settled into it's proper place. She patted it, gently, thinking of the child inside. Before too long, he would be changed. Remade. Reborn. And then she would let him out into his new, second life.

Taking him was, admittedly, a bit of an impulse decision, but how could she not, when they were so similar? When he had come to help her? When he was so young, so unformed?

But it would take time.

She turned and left.