#nova thirsts<3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[fortheharbingers]

smt smt abut them having you sit on their cock as they work you with their fingers. spread you further open, massage and pinch, apply pressure when you cannot handle, slow down their pace as you're building up to a peak...

it's not much about cockwarming as it is about filling you up, keeping you warm. making you feel full, hot from the inside out- a sense of fullfillment, a feeling of completeness-- making sure you'll experience this level of satisfaction- of overstimulation and the feeling of full and complete only with them-- and by association will seek them out whenever it is unreachable levels of pleasure that you seek out. and by the time you ask them in little pleas to cum... well, who are they to deny you, or miss the opportunity of making sure you'll think of them hours after, feeling traces of them dripping down your thighs...

[jasontoddsmommyissues]

To be honest, I would let Cassandra Nova do unspeakable things to me.

[akindplace]

List of Brazilian books I would recommend (most of them are considered classics)

1) Let’s start with the most famous/popular classic: Dom Casmurro - it has everything one can love about a book, an unreliable narrator looking back on his own life as an old, lonely and bitter man. He goes against the wishes of his mother and doesn’t become a priest so he can marry his childhood love, but after doing so, becomes increasingly paranoid about being cheated by her with his best friend. It’s a 200 year old debate at this point: did she cheat?

I would recommend anything by Machado de Assis, the man who wrote multiple genres and revolutionized Brazilian literature, but this is his most popular book. He was a genius. But if you don’t want to read it, the mini series Capitu is about this book.

2) The poetical anthology of Vinicius de Moraes, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and one of the men behind the bossa nova movement in Brazil. Have you ever heard the song girl from Ipanema? He fucking wrote it and Tom Jobim composed it.

3) Barren lives (Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos): this is a book about the harsh life of people in the northeast of the country living during the months of drought, suffering with poverty and hunger and thirst. Not an easy read, and it does so as a critique to the politics in Brazil in the 20th century. This one made me cry in the middle of class while I was reading it and I had to try to hide it. Animal death trigger warning.

4) This one might not be so famous, but in my heart, it is famous. Moldy Strawberries (morangos mofados) by an iconic lgbt writer called Caio Fernando Abreu. There are several short stories in it, many of them talking about life in 80s in Brazil during the military dictatorship. The author suffered with censorship as many others did at the time.

Some stories are full of dread and hopelessness but there is a gay short story called “those two” and reading that as I was slowly trying to come out of the closet as a teen living in a conservative area of the country filled me with the hope that yeah, life is hard when you’re not straight, but you can find happiness, and that those filled with hatred are the ones truly unhappy. It’s bittersweet, but it filled me with hope.

I devoured this book and another one of his called Cartas para além do muro, a compilation of his letters. Caio Fernando Abreu died of complications from AIDS in the 90s, but he left us such beautiful writing. He is eternal in this way.

5) Death and life of Severino (morte e vida severina) João Cabral de Melo Neto. About the harsh life of those working in plantations in northeastern Brazil. It’s beautiful. My mom once took me to a theatre performance made exclusively with blind actors on stage. I don’t think she realized how much that would be as a formative experience for me. She knew it was important I saw it, but the words are carved in me ever since that day over 20 years ago, and they are a part of me now. They will be haunting to you too, in a good way, I think.

6) These are not books but are famous/important/favorites: the short story by Clarice Lispector called clandestine happiness, a coming of age story about a girl who loves books. Song of exile by Gonçalves Dias (a poem). I-Juca Pirama (a poem) also by Gonçalves Dias. Memory of dying by Álvares de Azevedo (a poem, this link has a very good translation of it).

Soneto da fidelidade (sonnet of fidelity) is the most famous sonnet by Vinicius de Moraes (mentioned at number 2 on this list)

“I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had):

Be not immortal, since it is flame

But be infinite while it lasts”

It’s incredibly famous and incredibly misinterpreted. The author does not pledge undying love as a lot of people think it does, but a love that will feel eternal but won’t be. But until the very end of this love, the author pledges to be faithful to his lover. It is beautiful nonetheless.

Vinicius de Moraes was a character himself and known for his “bohemian” life.

[yeonzzzn]

🌹straight to me: sim jaeyun

a you complete me series: five / seven

pairing: jake x afab!reader

word count: 1.3k

synopsis: every dead end street lead you straight to him, and all jake wants to do is show you how thankful he is for you…

genre: established relationship, vampire!jake, half-vampire!reader

warnings: mentions of blood, cutie patooie jakey ♡

p1: vampires bleeding mlist

☾ sunghoon(1) | niki(2) | heeseung(3) | jungwon(4) | jake(5) | jay(6) | sunoo(7) ☽

You opened the fridge, a soft sigh escaping your lips at seeing the empty shelves. 

“You okay, baby?” Jake called from your shared living room. The echoes of his fingers button smashing the PS5 controller in his hands at the game displayed on the TV. 

You closed the fridge, “Yeah, there’s just nothing in the fridge. We need to go grocery shopping.” 

Jake paused the game, turning around on the couch to face you, “Or you can let me take you out.” 

You leaned against the countertop, shaking your head, “Jake we don’t need to do that,” his smile on his face quickly frowning. You cleared your throat, “You wouldn’t be able to eat.” 

Jake quickly stood up and was at your side in a second, “I can drink some bags before we go. Baby, you need to eat. We can go to the grocery shop after dinner.”

Your mate pulled you into his arms, the sound of your stomach growling loudly. 

“Baby, please.” Jake rubs your back, “My sweet Luna Nova needs to eat.” 

You finally gave in, nodding your head. 

Jake kissed your head, “Let me go shower, then we can head out.”

“What about you eating?” You asked, worried about your mate getting his own meal in. 

“I’ll drink the bags on the way to a restaurant, don’t worry.”

He kissed you softly on the lips before leaving your side. 

You sat on the couch, hearing your phone text tone go off. It was a message from your twin brother.

You put your phone down into your lap. You were grateful that Archer was keeping an eye out for the stragglers from Dorian’s army, but at the same time, you wished he’d let it go. 

But unfortunately for Archer, he can’t. Not after they captured you. 

Your stomach growled again, putting your thoughts back on your hunger. 

One thing that sucked being a dhampir is having your thirst for blood, but also craving of food. 

It also made you feel bad for Jake. He was always grocery shopping for and with you. Having to deal with the smells of cooking the food and even sometimes cooking for you. 

You knew he didn’t mind, but you still can’t help but feel bad. 

Having to always stay stocked up on not just blood bags, but every food as well. 

You couldn’t help but think and wonder how Jay does it. He knew he cooked all the time in his human life and cooked for __ all the time as well. Jungwon used to say how he didn’t mind it either, but now that __ is a vampire they tossed all their food out. 

Maybe you were just overthinking it. 

The sound of the shower turned off, and Jake was back at your side on the couch, his wet hair dripping onto his bare chest. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” He took your chin between his fingers, “You forget we are bonded, I can tell you’re upset.” 

You shook your head, watching a small drop of water drip from his hair and land onto his sweatpants, “Jaeyun, I am fine.” 

“My Luna Nova…”

“I’m just…I feel bad.” 

Jake tilted his head, confused, furrowing his eyes at you, “Y/N,” oops. He only will call you by your name when he’s serious, “Talk to me.” 

You went into explaining, telling him how you feel bad for always having to deal with food all because he’s paired with you for life. 

“Baby,” he softly said, pressing his lips to yours, “Being bonded to you is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve spent my whole life waiting for you, so you having to eat human food on top of drinking blood doesn’t bother me. You’re half-blooded, and I wouldn’t change any part of it.”

Jake pulled you into his lap, gently laying you back against the couch, kissing your neck, “Let me take you out, go grocery shopping then come back so I can worship every part of you.” 

You giggle into his shoulder, pushing him back, “Okay, that requires you to get dressed first, Jaeyun.” 

He pressed one more kiss to your neck before leaving to change. Coming back out in his favorite black ripped jeans and a gray sweatshirt. 

Jake grabbed a couple of blood bags from the fridge and then rushed you out the door. 

You watched your soulmate as he drove you two to the nearest burger joint, watching as he sipped on his blood bags before pulling into the parking lot. 

Jake had the biggest smile on his face the entire time, even while he was ordering your dinner for you. His arm wrapped around your waist and you were pulled close to him. 

All Jake ever wanted to do was show how thankful he is for you every single day. He worshiped the ground you walked on. 

After Dorian took you from him and used every ounce of magic he had to mask your scent so he couldn’t find you, tore him to pieces. The sleepless nights he got, the days of not drinking any blood, and even the days he and Sunghoon would spend sitting with each other side by side staring off into the distance because they didn’t trust the other to be alone. Jake hated seeing Sunghoon hurting like that but knew he was feeling the same. 

The moment Jake had you back in his arms, he vowed to never let you go so easily again and spend every waking moment possible showing you how thankful and appreciative he was of you. 

You were his main reason for living after all, even if he is the undead. 

Jake also didn’t want to put you through anything you had to deal with before, losing your first mate was bad enough, and he didn’t want to find out what it would feel like to lose you or put you through losing another mate. 

You took a bite of your burger, looking up at your goofy boy, seeing him deep in thought, “Jake?” you called his name, waving a hand in his face. 

Jake focused his attention back on you, giving you the beautiful smile that you loved so much, “Yes, baby?” 

“You okay?” you asked, giving him a small smile, “You looked lost in thought there for a second.” 

Jake took your free hand in his, “Just thinking about how much I love you, and how lucky I am to have you.” 

You couldn’t help but smile wider at him, rubbing your thumb over the top of his hand. 

Every dead-end street, lead you straight to him. Every moment from the time you met him and the pack, to the moment you finally let yourself have that second chance of having a mate, every wrong turn, and every terrible moment, brought you to him. He’s all you need.

Jake watched as you finished eating, taking you by the hand, leading you back to the car, and helping you inside. 

“Next stop is the grocery store!” 

Jake followed behind you pushing the cart as you placed everything you wanted and needed into the cart. 

Jake couldn’t wrap his head around why you would even think grocery shopping and even cooking for you would be any kind of nuisance. You’re a dhampir, you need both substances of humans and vampires to survive and that’s something Jake understood. He even got lessons from Jay on cooking so he could cook for you so you don’t have to always do it. 

But he also saw your side and why it would bother you, you’re a bit different than normal vampires, and dhampirs are rare. 

Jake started thinking about the percentages of dhampirs, curious what would happen if you and himself…conceived. 

Jake leaned against the cart, mindlessly following behind you as he was stuck in this thought. 

You stopped walking, seeing a bag of chips you’d want for a snack later, feeling the cart run into you, a quick “Oh shit,” slipping from Jake’s mouth. 

You softly glared at your mate, raising a brow, “You’re deep in thought again.” 

Jake nervously smiled, “Yeah, I had a random thought.” 

You grabbed the bag of chips and placed them in the cart, “And what is that?” 

Jake made eye contact with you, tucking his lip between his teeth before releasing it and speaking, “What if we created life?” 

You chuckled, thinking he was joking, before seeing he was being serious, “Like actually?” 

Jake nodded, dropping his head into his hands, “My Luna Nova, think about it. Think of our little moons we get to raise.” 

You had to admit, Jake would be a great parent. 

You smiled at him, “We can talk more about it once we finish grocery shopping.”

Jake and you barely walked into the front door before the groceries were dropped to the floor and his hands were on you, lips to your neck. 

“Jake,” you softly whispered, “We need to put the groceries up.”

“Shhh,” he said between the pecks on your skin, “Let’s create life together, my sweet Luna Nova,” Jake ran his hands under your sweater, squeezing your hips, “Let’s create our own moons.” 

You couldn’t say no to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him closer. Creating your own little family didn’t sound so bad.

[firenati0n]

roop's first rwrb fics aka fics that left an impact aka fics that kicked off her rwrb fic love aka fics that make her heart go weeeoooweeeooo <3

hello! this list was quite literally revealed to me in a dream just now...which means now you all have to read it. happy holidays. a gift for you.

i read RWRB when it released, but started reading rwrb fics earlier this year during some tough titty times...and have since discovered a gorgeous community of folks just pouring their hearts out into the fandom fabric, giving me the courage to start putting bits of my work out there as well. here are some of the works that were present in my life at VERY roop-specific moments this year:

First fic I sent kudos to (i caved and made an ao3 after reading this one lmaoooo): With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) by @kiwiana-writes

First fic that forced me to send my first tumblr ask screaming directly at the author for my feelings: also With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) by @kiwiana-writes

First fic I bookmarked with the knowledge that this fic would destroy me: all that glitters (is not gold) by @indomitable-love

First fic I reread immediately after finishing like literally immediately: Going Platinum by @cricketnationrise

First fic I sent to someone not in the rwrb fandom but is a fan of the au so i schemed that this fic would suck them into the rwrb fandom and I was successful: Rogue's Gallery by @orchidscript

First fic(s) I sent to a boy as a bizarre mating ritual that actually worked: lifelines by @indomitable-love, Am I the Asshole? by @everwitch-magiks, and i ask you how you're doing (and i let you lie) by @matherines (his first fics, he loved them btw)

First fic that made me ugly cry not because it was inherently sad but because i achieved emotional catharsis i was not expecting: One Too Many Mornings by @orchidscript

First fic that made me CRY LAUGH until i was wheezing: and history remembered. by @sherryvalli

First fic that was a WIP I followed and screamed with each update: Cold Cases, Lost Causes by @tintagel-or-cockleshells

First fic that made me run laps around my room in sheer stress: Nova, Baby by @cha-melodius

First fic that made me run laps around my room in sheer thirst: Show Me What You're Working With by @clottedcreamfudge

First fic that made me giggle and kick my feet and blush: No Sense or Sensibility by @inexplicablymine

First fic that made me cry buckets in a costco parking lot: i ask you how you're doing (and i let you lie) by @matherines

First fic that made me learn something new about myself and patched up a crack in my heart: Down By The Water, I Saw You by @myheartalivewrites

First fic that taught me something I didn't know and had me doing a deep dive on wikipedia for 3 straight hours: Moonlighting by @orchidscript

First fic that had me writhing on the floor in absolute agony: What Do I Know? by @three-drink-amy

First fic that made me stare tearfully at a wall in quiet contemplation: Help Me Hold On to You by @affectionatelyrs

First fic that had me slamming subscribe to a series faster than I could say "kinktober": Temperature's Up, 'Bout to Erupt by @sparklepocalypse

First fic that opened my eyes to a whole new world of tags and also a new part of my brain: In His Wildest Dreams by @myheartalivewrites

First fic that made me feel such insane amounts of pining and yearning and longing that i had to take a walk: but if you could see us from a distance, you’d know i’ve always been so close to you by @anincompletelist

First fic that made me rethink my life while sitting in a DMV lobby waiting to renew my driver's license: Deep Blue by @myheartalivewrites

First fic that made me stay up all night to comment on each chapter as I read it in one sitting: Omakase by @orchidscript

First fic that I reread and live reacted to the author 3 hours before my dissertation was due instead of finishing the damn paper: to the victor, the spoils by @rmd-writes

First fic that made me feel incredibly homesick and had me looking up flights at 4am: after hours by @dumbpeachjuice

And finally... First fic I ever wrote after reading all of these incredible fics and wanting to also put a little piece of silly roop out into the world: our world, mine and his alone (the midnight train to go) by me :)

if you made it this far, thanks for reading. love you all. <3

xoxo roop

[auspicioustidings]

Hi! I know there are probably a lot of mixed feelings about day 6 of The Kennel but I really really liked today’s installment. Maybe it’s just my insatiable thirst for hurt/comfort, or maybe it’s the dichotomy between Gaz being Price’s most trusted and pushing the line that far. Either way I am very excited to see how Price takes care of us in the next chapter and for Gaz to get on his knees and apologize when we see him next.

Ahem - I mean for your lovely ideas to grace us again in subsequent days. Also thank you for the lore. I know The Kennel is not necessarily plot based but I love Gaz’s perspective on Ghost and Soap’s relationship and a bit more context on what it means to be detained.

Happy kinktober! 🎃

I've been pretty lucky in that nobody has been mean about it, I was just having a super anxiety spiral yesterday so was sure it was truly the worst piece of writing on the internet.

I am so delighted you enjoyed it <3 Please take some lore!

I like to think that Gaz suspicions are right, it was actually Soap that totally fucked a girl up, like he just went into dog mode and nearly fucked her to death before Ghost snapped to his senses and stopped him. Ghost couldn't bear the thought of his boy being caged in by anyone but him so took the fall.

He absolutely has access to Johnny's tracker (because best believe they all have trackers) and is very much still in control of him even when he's not in the Kennel. You are the first person Soap has been allowed to be alone with sexually outside of Ghost since Ghost was detained, he's only permitted sexual encounters on the outside if another person of Ghost's choosing is involved.

There is only one permanent resident who is there voluntarily and we shall get to them! For reference here is the list of all soldiers who are either detained or under observation from the Kennel.

Non-residents - never been detained, can come and go freely Gaz Farah Ale Nik Keegan

Part-time residents - have been detained temporarily at times but otherwise can come and go freely Soap Rudy Alex Nova Calisto

Full-time residents - permanently detained outside of missions Ghost Mace Nikto Konig Velikan Valeria

[leolithe]

Kaya description on [Meet the Protoframes]! "The self-taught genius Kaya Velasco bends space, time, and the patience of her elders with equal disregard. She now brings her ingenuity and thirst for discovery to The Hex, helping her new companions Minerva and Velimir on the hunt for their lost daughter. Though her lack of restraint may put others in danger along the way." <https://www.warframe.com/gemini>

YESSS we saw this + the Meg and Rebb and TacticalPotato interview and it's made us soooo hype to play Kaya when the update releases... Our Nova Prime is forma'd and ready ^_^

Rebb described her story "genre" as "Sixteen Candles meets Breakfast Club"…… which means little to nothing to us as we did not watch these movies (we're "raised on videogames" zoomers sowwy)……. But both of them are Coming-of-Age Comedy movies which are 👀👀👀👀👀👀 basically the elements of what we were hoping for in Kaya's story!!!!!!!

The few seconds of screentime she had in that trailer was enough for us to go YES. YES YES YES. Another hotheaded but very dorky and cute videogame girl fighting for her place in the world?!?!?!! She gave us Kumatora (Mother 3) and Viola (Bayonetta 3) vibes IMMEDIATELY.

WE WANT TO PLAY WITH HER NOW. GIVE GIVE GIVE GIVEEEEE

[novalore]

✎ᝰRULES

Hiya, my name’s Nova. This blog is a discourse-free and creative outlet zone— my safe haven for whenever I have a thought or dream that I just can’t escape. I will not tolerate any hateful speech and inappropriate behavior because of this, I reserve the right to close my inbox and hard block who ever I’d like to ensure this blog remains a safe zone.

Thank you for checking out my rules page prior to interacting, I appreciate it!

Thirsts vs Drabbles vs Long Fics

Thirsts are exactly what you think they’d be— thirsty ideas. Either they’re thoughts passed through my inbox or a third-party source, they’re short pieces I’ll usually write between 100-400 words depending on how much I love the idea.

Drabbles are similar to shorts— inspiration can come from anywhere and everything tbh, they’ll range between 500-900 words. They will always have a prompt or a piece of dialogue as the title that I write to.

Long Fics are any stories I have dedicated a lot of time to— ranging between 1.5k to 4k on average,.I’ll never really write anything more than that on one post because it can be a bit overwhelming for me personally but, if I really like the idea, I’ll write another part or two to make a short series. These stories may include world-building, character development, etc.

Schedule — TBD

I generally try to publish at least two drabbles or one long fic through the week.

Although this blog may contain dark content including but limited to: dub-con/cnc, pseudo/step-cest, knife play, serial killer au; there are some topics I will not write for.

a/b/o, knotting, pet play, age play, master/slave kink, eating disorders, scat, cbt, water sports, vore, zombies, cannibalism, bestiality, necrophilia, wound fucking, character x character, lolicon, m-preg, milf!reader x young!character, high school au, gun play, foot fetish, incest, detransitioning, domestic violence, male or amab reader, self-harm, etc

General depictions in my writing — (1) reader and character will always be in their twenties unless stated otherwise, I will never write anyone younger than 21; (2) I’m short (153cm 😎) so I’m going to write for a shorter, female audience— mainly because I don’t know how to write for tall people unfortunately; (3) no specific physical characteristics will be in the fic unless stated in the content description, I do this to remain as inclusive as possible; (4) all characters I write for are appropriately aged up and written with a canon time-skip in mind.

I draw my inspiration from a lot of things — smutty audio, manga panels, chatbot ideas, otome games, songs, real-life scenarios, etc. I own none of the characters or the worlds I write about. I own none of the manga panels I use in my posts. I own none of the dividers I use unless stated otherwise. I often spend hours at a time on my writing so, please do not copy and paste my writing to any media without my permission. This includes posting to TikTok, AO3/ Quotev/ Wattpad/ Commadful/ Fanfiction.net, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Do not use my writing to create chatbots or use it to make part twos through sites like ChatGPT. I reserve the right to file legal action if I find out that my writing has been reposted without my permission.

At the moment, I am not taking any requests, however any thoughts for a writing piece are appreciated. One to two sentences are acceptable— please try not to horde my inbox with more than just half a paragraph. Also, I reserve the right to simply not write out any request or idea if it makes me uncomfortable.

[smokegem]

Buy SPACE GODS SUPER NOVA THC-A DISPOSABLE VAPE 7000MG 

Embark on an extraordinary journey with the mighty Space Gods Super Nova Disposable Vape! Infused with THC-A Liquid Diamonds, THC-P, and Delta-8, this sleek and powerful vape will transport you to a state of pure relaxation and euphoria. Unleash your inner cosmic explorer with the Space Gods Super Nova Disposable - an exceptional 7g marvel that guarantees an out-of-this-world vaping experience. Immerse yourself in the stellar flavors, scents, and effects of these strains while boldly venturing into the unknown. And with the convenient USB-C charging capability, you'll never have to stress about recharging and can be ready for any mission at all times.

The Space Gods Super Nova guarantees a long journey into relaxation with a hefty 7 grams per disposable. This disposable vape satisfies your appetites for the stars, regardless of your level of experience exploring the cosmos. It is more than just a gadget; it is a storehouse of happiness from space.

Enjoy unmatched bliss and relaxation with SPACE GODS SUPER NOVA THC-A DISPOSABLE VAPE I 7G. Allow the Space Gods to transport you on an unimaginable cosmic adventure. You can rely on this vaporizer to enhance your senses and provide you with heavenly pleasures. Prepare yourself for an incredible, life-changing event!

What Should I Expect From This Super Baked Disposable Vape Blend?

As soon as the user exhales, Delta 10 THC provides a burst of stimulation, mood enhancement, and relaxed focus. The rapid action of this cannabinoid helps the consumer catch up and navigate their high. The Moon Walker series' finely tuned hardware is still present in the Super Baked line. Each gadget features a smooth, discrete, compact box-like design, rounded corners, and a comfortable, soft-touch texture. To make monitoring easier, this design also incorporates a viewing window for the oil reservoir.

Take advantage of this ground-breaking product now to unleash the full power of SPACE GODS SUPER NOVA THC-A DISPOSABLE VAPE 7G! With 7 grams of THC-P, delta 8, and THC-A liquid diamonds, this revolutionary vaporizer offers the best possible experience for every cannabis user. The Space Gods Super Nova Disposable Vape 7G may be ordered from the Smokegem Online Shop in Florida, USA, and delivered right to your door. Do not miss out on this fantastic chance!

SPACE GODS SUPER NOVA DISPOSABLE 7G FEATURES:

CAPACITY: [7G] - 7000mg

BATTERY CAPACITY: Integrated Battery

CANNABINOID: Delta 8, THC-P, THC-A

CONCENTRATE: Liquid Diamonds

HEATING ELEMENT: Dual Ceramic Coil

PREHEATING: Yes

OPERATION: Draw-Activated

CHARGING: USB Type-C

< 0.3% Delta-9 THC

3rd Party Lab Tested

Inhale deeply for 3 seconds.

Take 1-2 puffs initially.

Wait 20 minutes before exploring further to establish tolerance.

2018 Farm Bill Compliant

INCLUDES:

1 Space Gods Super Nova Disposable 7G

AVAILABLE OPTIONS:

Alien Grass (Sativa) - Energize your senses with a sativa that’ll have you feeling like you’re floating among the stars.

Electric Cosmonaut (Sativa) - Unleash the energy of the cosmos with this sativa, perfect for those seeking an electrifying experience.

Mango Multiverse (Hybrid) - Dive into the depths of a hybrid that combines the best of both worlds, leaving you in a state of blissful balance.

Solar Slushy (Sativa) - Quench your thirst for relaxation with Solar Slushy, a sativa that orbits between soothing and uplifting vibes.

Stellar Surprise (Indica) - Conclude your journey with the tranquility of an indica, a surprise of cosmic calmness that wraps you in relaxation.

Consuming this product can expose you to chemicals including beta-myrcene and Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, which is known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.

[fortheharbingers]

Moving up and down his length while his fingers work on your clit, the warm water of the bath enveloping you both in an embrace much inviting, dizzying and slippery…

choosing a thermal water resort for a vacation destination wasn’t the worst of ideas but sharing the room was not the wisest perhaps.

With each movement you manage to do on your own and feel the cold hit against your skin, you recoil further towards Anaxagoras, hiding your face by the crook of his neck. He rewards your display of defeat with open arms, his hand fastening its demonstrations, applying pressure just the way you like it, other hand tracing patterns up and down your back, occasionally palming a little bit of water to have to spill down your spine- to pull you closer to him, lips resting against your skin, listening in and feeling the vibrations of your pleas and mumblings.

Mostly just repeated phrases of satisfaction but one particular roll and you murmur how it feels so good, that you feel ‘complete’— he is unsure how much longer he can hold himself together.

[ink--theory]

supporting the homies parte dos 🔫🦑

[mydarlingdahlia]

Navigation post yippee

Hello and welcome to my lovely little corner of Tumblr! :)

My name is Charlotte, I am African American (mixed for anyone who’s wondering or mulatto for a more technical term), and I am 22 years old!

I encourage everyone on my page to be nice to one another as well as me, that includes when commenting on posts and sending asks as well.

Don’t be shy to send me any requests or asks, in fact I encourage it! I love interacting with people, and would love to even be mutuals with some of you!

(If you don’t mind ofc <3) I write for female and gender neutral reader.

Check out some of these awesome people here here here and here!

I try to balance work, school, and posting on this blog, so posts might not always be daily. 😅 (or even weekly 😭)

But I am open and willing to listen to anyone who would like an emergency request, or just needs a safe place to turn to!

Just let me know. 😊

I write for a small handful of series, such as…

🌙 Demon Slayer

🌙 Honkai : Star Rail

🌙 My Hero Academia

🌙 Obey Me!

🌙 Genshin Impact

🌙 …and more to come!

What I am currently working on!! :)

"Ambrosia Addiction" — a tale set in the times of Ancient Greece, the intertwined fates of a renowned scholar and a feared monsteress. (it's self ship content btw)

“Quiet…” — the story on how I met my wife and our love story. <3

(Works shown above are just some things I’ve decided to work on on my own)

Other blogs! (Either mine or my friends’)

@butterflysnapdragon (my side blog)

@lotties-shimmering-nova , @dazzlinglittledarling , @bubble-n-trouble (my side RP blogs)

@miathelatina (my wife's blog :3)

@shoelacetheace @amelibu (my chaotic childhood besties)

@blakeyisbae (he’s just blake.)

Also just an FYI I will work on (at most) six different requests/projects at a time. If you don’t see your request or ask on this post, don’t worry! I am most likely working on the six before yours, but I will get it out! That is a promise.

Collabs (1)

Submissions (none)

Emergency asks/requests (none)

thirsts (none)

drabbles/HCs(2)

imagines (none)

Let me know if you would like me to write something for you! I’ll try to get it done asap! :)

-C

[246sn]

﹒SUNNY DAYS ˒ ˓ FILES O1 𖥦 yn and her lovers ! 𓈒 ꔛ ˙ ˖

⋆ NEXT ⫾ kim sunoo is a popular student. so popular in fact that he has numerous fan accounts, but he only cares about one: an anonymous user who posts encouraging messages every morning before school. his goal is to figure out who this mysterious person is but what would happen if one betrayal reveals this user’s “true identity”? would they rather fight for love or stay with the person who has been with them since the beginning?

LEE YN aka user sparksfly and secretly sunnydays is an 03 liner and a sophomore in decelis academy. she literally has 4 friends and one of them is her brother 😐✋! she lives & breathes kaomojis, (DOCTOR !!) taylor swift theory enthusiast (“taylor wore red lipstick on her graduation, track 3 of 1989 is style which has the line “i got that red lip classic thing that u like” so that means 1989TV must be next” type vibe), also very very cute & must protect :(

JAKE SIM aka user _sjy is a junior in decelis academy but is more well known as not only heeseung’s #bff 😁💯 but that mf who posts too much thirst traps 🤬!! he’s also the only guy who heeseung allows near yn because he’s basically an honorary member of the lee family… but he’s also kinda obsessed with yn … and layla <3

KANG YEOREUM aka user k_yr is a sophomore in decelis academy. she’s kinda friends with everyone and some say she’s nice but others say there’s something off about her!! only close to yn because of heeseung. she tends to copy peoples styles a lot so it gets annoying :p is an obvious sunoo fan…

LEE HEESEUNG aka user speaknow is a senior in decelis academy but is also yn’s (cool-ish) brother! introduced yn to t.swift and converted her into a swiftie 😁🫶 he also forced yn to have matching taylor swift users and is only obsessed with 2 girls: taylor swift and yn. is the one making the taylor swift theories. he’s also (really) jealous of haewon lol :p

OH HAEWON aka user ohhae03 is a sophomore in decelis academy and is the student body treasurer as well !! she’s been yn’s best friend since kindergarten and they’re practically attached by the hip. she’s only a few months older than yn but she babies her too much 😠! the only one who never gets invited to outings planned by heeseung lol. kind of the only person yn fully trusts though! is jokingly and (secretly) a jenlisa shipper

⋆ NOTE ⫾ click on files o1 for more :] !

TAGLIST ﹑ @ja4hyvn @mymomsdisappointment @acciomylove @staysstrays @soobin-chois @gyufxc @hiqhkey @enhacolor @yizhoutv @butterflyy-ningg @cparqx @heavenforatlas @junhaodni @bearseulgs @yjwnoot @nova-xae @trsrina @kazuhugs @arizejkt19 @lovnayeon @soobins-gf @hokuuusk @callme-kami @thaliese @c9tnoos @y4ngjungw0nz @prince-mingki

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Thousands evacuate from Nova Scotia wildfires (AP) Wildfires in Canada’s Atlantic coast province of Nova Scotia have caused thousands to evacuate. The Halifax Regional Municipality said late Monday that preliminary estimates indicate approximately 200 homes or structures have been damaged, based on initial visual inspections by first responders. Halifax deputy fire Chief David Meldrum said an estimated 14,000 people were told to flee their homes, most of which are about a 30-minute drive northwest of downtown Halifax.

Police agencies are desperate to hire. But they say few want the job. (Washington Post) The San Francisco Police Department is down more than 600 officers, almost 30 percent of its allotment. Phoenix needs about 500 more officers to be fully staffed. The D.C. police force is smaller than it has been in 50 years, despite troubling gun violence and carjackings, as officers leave faster than they can be replaced. Police departments across the country are struggling to fill their ranks, creating what many current and former officials say is a staffing emergency that threatens public safety. They cite an exodus of veteran officers amid new police accountability measures that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd, increased hostility from the communities they police, and criminal justice laws that seek to reduce the number of people in jail. Advocates for police reform see the moment as an opportunity to hire a new generation of officers and reimagine policing. But as agencies seek fresh recruits, they are getting fewer qualified applicants than in past years—leading some to make the risky move of lowering the bar for hiring to fill their ranks.

Gun violence rages with at least 20 mass shootings recorded over Memorial Day Weekend (USA Today) Gun violence erupted across the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend: At least 20 mass shootings left 16 people dead and over 80 injured. The Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings, logged 20 incidents in which at least four people were injured or killed, not including shooters, from Friday afternoon through Monday night. The bloodshed started with a spree in Arizona, where a 20-year-old man was accused of killing four people and injuring one in five different shootings in the Phoenix area. Over the next three days, people were killed and injured in Virginia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Illinois and more. And Monday evening, as Memorial Day revelers in Hollywood Beach, Florida, celebrated the holiday, nine people were injured by gunfire along a boardwalk.

Drought-struck Barcelona quenches thirst with costly desalination (AP) Where once the population of Barcelona drank mostly from its rivers and wells, Spain’s second city now relies upon a labyrinth-like mesh of green, blue and purple pipes inside an industrial plant to keep it from going thirsty amid a prolonged drought. Water is pumped from two kilometers (1.2 miles) into the Mediterranean Sea to where the Llobregat desalination plant sits on an isolated stretch of beach. After journeying through several cleaning and filtering systems it reaches its final stop: the twisting and turning multi-colored channels that squeeze every drop of water free of its salt. Barely used after being built in 2009, Europe’s largest desalination plant for drinking water is running at full throttle to help the greater Barcelona area and some five million people adapt to the impact of climate change, which has contributed to the drying up of southern Europe’s fresh water reserves through heat waves and drought. In April 2021, before the drought, rivers provided 63% of Barcelona’s drinking water, wells provided 34% and desalination just 3%. Two years later desalination makes up 33% of Barcelona’s drinking water, while wells provide 23% and its shrinking rivers just 19%, according to Barcelona’s municipal water company.

Paranoid atmosphere (Washington Post) Parishioners have denounced Russian priests who advocated peace instead of victory in the war on Ukraine. Teachers lost their jobs after children tattled that they opposed the war. Neighbors who bore some trivial grudge for years have snitched on longtime foes. Workers rat on one another to their bosses or directly to the police or the FSB, the Federal Security Service. This is the hostile, paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with one another. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime cracks down on critics of the war and other political dissenters, citizens are policing one another in an echo of the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s repression, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals from work. In March last year, Putin called on the nation to purge itself by spitting out traitors “like gnats.” Since the invasion began, at least 19,718 people have been arrested for their opposition to the war, according to legal rights group OVD-Info, with criminal cases launched against 584 people, and administrative cases mounted against 6,839. Many others faced intimidation or harassment from the authorities, lost jobs, or had relatives targeted, the organization said.

Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack (AP) Russian air defenses stopped eight drones converging on Moscow, officials said Tuesday, in an attack that authorities blamed on Ukraine. The attack caused “insignificant damage” to several buildings, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Two people received medical attention for unspecified injuries but did not need hospitalization, he said. The attacks have raised questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s air defense systems. A senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian business news site RBC that “we have a very big country and there will always be a loophole where the drone can fly around the areas where air defense systems are located.”

30 international peacekeepers injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo (AP) The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised the number of its troops injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs to 30. The Serbs had tried to take over the offices of one of the municipalities in northern Kosovo where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week. A statement said that 11 Italian soldiers and 19 Hungarian ones “sustained multiple injuries, including fractures and burns from improvized explosive incendiary devices.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic spent the night with his troops on the border with Kosovo. They were placed on the highest state of alert on his orders last week. Vucic said 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes, three seriously. Kosovo and Serbia have been foes for decades, with Belgrade refusing to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 sovereignty.

Erdogan continues divisive rhetoric following victory (Washington Post) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sang and smiled, reveling in the applause of the supporters he addressed Sunday after the toughest election of his long career. In victory, though, instead of soothing the nation, he lashed out at a familiar set of villains, in remarks that may set the tone for his next term. He was dismissive of his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. “Bye, bye to Mr. Kemal,” he said. And he ruled out any release for an imprisoned Kurdish political leader, calling him a “terrorist.” As the country moved on from the election, Erdogan would not easily abandon the bitter rhetoric, analysts said, setting Turkey on a divisive and turbulent course for the foreseeable future, even as Erdogan juggled a need to stabilize the economy as well as Turkey’s often stormy relations with allies in the West. In fact, “I think he is going to harden” his rhetoric, said Berk Esen, a professor of political science at Istanbul’s Sabanci University. “We are going to see him adopt a very polarizing discourse using ethno-religious themes” to maintain his “winning coalition” of voters. The value of the Turkish lira sunk to a record low on Tuesday, just days after Erdogan entrenched his authority into a third decade.

Chinese police clash with protesters over plans to demolish mosque (Washington Post) Residents of a majority-Muslim town in southwestern China clashed with police over the weekend as they tried to stop the demolition of a domed roof from a centuries-old mosque, part of the Chinese Communist Party’s expanding effort to control religion. The incident appeared to be related to a court judgment from 2020 that ruled some of the mosque’s most recent renovations were illegal, and ordered demolition. With a history that may stretch as far back as the 13th century, the Najiaying Mosque was expanded many times over the years to add buildings, as well as four minarets and a domed roof. In 2019, part of the structure was listed as a protected cultural relic. In recent years, however, Communist Party restrictions on the pious have escalated sharply. The country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has demanded absolute political loyalty of faith communities and the “Sinicization” of religion. Surveillance of religious leaders has also intensified. A nationwide database of officially approved Islamic, Protestant and Catholic religious teachers was launched this month. The campaign has focused on Islam and Christianity because of the party’s deep-seated fear of faith being a vector for foreign influence.

North Korea says it will launch its first military spy satellite in June (AP) North Korea said Tuesday it would launch its first military spy satellite in June and described space-based reconnaissance as crucial for monitoring the United States’ “reckless” military exercises with South Korea. The statement came a day after North Korea notified Japan’s coast guard that the launch, sometime between May 31 and June 11, might affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of the Philippines’ Luzon Island. Japan’s defense minister warned its forces to shoot down the satellite or debris, if any entered Japanese territory, and its coast guard issued a safety warning for ships that would be in the affected seas during the expected launch, citing a risk of falling debris. While North Korea’s rivals have condemned the country’s planned launch as a banned test of ballistic missile technology, it’s less clear whether the satellite itself is advanced enough to support the North’s stated goals of tracking and monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activities in real time.

Celebrations in Jordan ahead of kingdom’s first major royal wedding in years (AP) Several thousand cheering and flag-waving Jordanians packed a sports stadium for a free concert in the capital of Amman as part of celebrations leading up the kingdom’s first major royal wedding in years. Crown Prince Hussein, 28, is to marry Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif, 29, on Thursday at Zahran Palace in downtown Amman, the same wedding venue previously chosen by the prince’s father, King Abdullah II, and his grandfather, the late King Hussein. The nuptials come after a rough patch for the royals, including a public rift between the king and his half-brother, and are seen as a way of shoring up public support at a time of persistent economic difficulties.

Racers chase cheese wheel down a hill in chaotic UK race (AP) The big cheese of extreme U.K. sports events is back. Hundreds of spectators gathered Monday to watch dozens of reckless racers chase a 7-pound (3 kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down the near-vertical Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in southwest England. The first racer to finish behind the fast-rolling cheese gets to keep it. The cheese-rolling race has been held at Cooper’s Hill, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London, since at least 1826, and the sport of cheese-rolling is believed to be much older. Few competitors manage to stay on their feet all the way down the 200-yard (180 meter) hill, and this year several had to be helped, limping, from the course. Matt Crolla, 28, from Manchester in northwestern England, won the first of several men’s races. Asked how he had prepared, he told reporters: “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.” Delaney Irving managed to cross the finish line first to win the women’s competition, even after having been knocked unconscious. Irving, 19, said the race was “good … now that I remember it.”

[lifeofkaze]

Spring Break Challenge - Day 3

Prompt: Breakfast

A/N: Already Day 3 of @kc-and-co Spring Break Challenge and today we go for breakfast with the lovely ladies from the HPMA Breakfast Club and Saffron has prepared some gifts for her three best friends.

Saffron Summers belongs to @the-al-chemist, Nova Mae to @kc-and-co and Scarlett Tempest to @whatwouldvalerydo

Find all stories for this challenge in the masterpost here.

The wooden wind chime above the door made a warm, melodious sound as Danielle Parkin opened the door to the small café in Hogsmeade Village. She stood in the doorway and looked around her in wonder; a lot had changed since the times of Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop.

The old-fashioned wallpaper with the flowerprint had made way for a deep, yellow colour and the walls were lined with open shelves made from dark wood on which a colourful assortment of pot plants and crystals in every size and form were displayed. But the crystals on the shelves weren’t the only ones in the shop; there were little glass bowls filled with a probably carefully curated collection of them on every table and another big display next to the counter, along with dried plants, candles and what looked like self-made soaps. There were other things there as well, something colourful and sparkly, but from where she was standing she couldn’t make out what it was.

Dana had no time to think on it any further, however, because she had been spotted by the three women sitting at one of the tables next to the window beneath a canopy of low-hanging fern. A wide smile spread on her face as she made her way over to her friends.

There was a hasty shuffle of chairs and a little bickering as Nova Mae, Scarlett Tempest and Saffron Summers - owner of the café - scrambled to give their long lost friend a hug. Dana returned them all, laughing and answering questions all the while, before picking one of Saffron’s bunnies off a chair and sat down at the table.

Dana looked at the handmade cups sitting in front of Nova, Scarlett and Saffron. “You started without me?”

“Did you expect us to die of thirst before you arrive?” Scarlett said. Her tone was snarky but Dana knew from the flashing in her hazel eyes that she wasn’t angry at Dana being almost half an hour late.

“Leave her alone, Scarlett,” Nova said and sipped on her coffee. Her eyes sparkled as they looked Dana up and down. They lingered on the exposed skin of her neck and Dana quickly pulled the collar of her shirt back into place. “I bet Dana had some very important duelling to do.”

“What kind of duelling would she do on a Sunday morning?” Saffron said and frowned.

Scarlett and Nova exchanged glances and grinned while Dana hid her face, which was now as red as the lovebite on the side of her neck, in her hands.

“Can’t believe I missed this,” she muttered from between her fingers and Scarlett laughed out loud.

“I bet you did. France can’t be fun much without us being there.”

France is a bore,” Nova agreed. “How sad we both needed to get out of the country to actually meet up.” She held her finger under her nose as if she had a moustache and continued with a horrific accent. “Non, mademoiselle, I am just a stuck up Frenchman and do not know ‘ow to ‘ave fun. We arr not any better zan your amazing girlfriends from Royaume-Uni, non?”

“Stop it,” Dana giggled. “France is amazing. The work Dylan and I are doing there is important. You would know if you came visiting every once in a while.”

“What, and stay in the mountains? Without proper roads, or showers? Do you even have electricity? Wifi?” Scarlett said and wrinkled her nose.

“We’re living in a normal house, Scarlett,” Dana said and shook her head. “It’s not the middle-ages.” A grin flashed across her face. “The region is quite popular, you know? We might find you some well-situated Frenchman after all.”

Scarlett laughed and leaned forward. “Tell me more. This,” she said and pointed at her face, “is expensive to maintain, after all.”

“Absolutely, but first, I need some coffee,” Dana said and glanced over to Saffron, who took out her wand and waved it through the air, the little beaded appendages hanging from its hilt clanking against each other. A moment later a dark red cup floated towards them and Dana carefully plucked it out of the air when it stopped in front of her. The smell rising from it was delicious.

“Is that a pumpkin spiced latte?” she asked Saffron and wrapped her hand around the hot cup.

“Yes,” Saffron confirmed. “Vegan, naturally.”

“It’s not even autumn yet.”

Saffron smiled widely and tilted her head. “I keep it stocked. In case you swing by.” She sat upright in her chair as if she had suddenly remembered something.

“Wait here,” she said, got up and made her way back to the counter, careful not to step onto any of the many bunnies roaming the shop. Dana, Nova and Scarlett exchanged astounding glances when Saffron came back with three boxes, one red, one blue and one green. She handed their friends one each and when Dana opened it, her eyebrows shot up. Now she saw what the things next to the counter, which she hadn’t been able to identify at first, actually were.

“Saff,” she said slowly, “are these -”

“Nipple tassels!” Nova exclaimed with a giggle and pulled two small, sparkly patches from her blue box. They were made from coloured rhinestones and looked like winking unicorns. “I can’t believe you’re selling nipple tassels now, Saff.”

“Neither can I,” Dana said wryly and examined her own. They were black and white penguins with sparkling orange beaks and feet; they were cute, no doubt, but Dana was rendered speechless for more than one reason. “They are… something, Saff.”

Saffron’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you like them?”

“I do,” Dana said hastily, “it’s just somewhat, um, unexpected.”

“They’re new,” Saffron explained. “A new hobby of mine. I made a pair for each of us to begin with, and it kind of went from there.” She pulled a yellow box from her pocket and presented them with her own tassels; they looked like chickens and strings of colourful eggs were dangling from it.

“Can’t say I’m unimpressed,” Scarlett muttered and turned her tassels - shaped like pouty, scarlet lips with profanities written across them - in the light. “They’re sparkly. I like it.” Saffron beamed at the compliment. “You do know what that means, though? These need a test run.”

The other three girls exchanged glances. Dana swallowed. “I might regret asking, but what did you have in mind?”

“If we’re taking a burlesque class I’m in,” Nova immediately said and Scarlett chuckled.

“I was thinking about a night out, but whatever. Book a class, and off we go.”

Dana looked down at the cute little penguins and then at her coffee. She might need something stronger before the day was over.

[amiedala]

SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 8: Rebecoming Novalise

RATING: Explicit (18+ ONLY!!!)

WARNINGS: canon-compliant violence, sexual content

SUMMARY:  She stands her ground, holding the blue light up like a pearl, and when Nova’s eyes make contact with her reflection in the mirror, she looks like herself again.

Her hands are strong and unshaking. She doesn’t feel the bruises on her belly anymore. The dark circles under her eyes are mostly gone. Her lips are pink and full. The weight she’d lost in the in between has grown again, her arms curved and muscular, her thighs thick and strong. And when Nova looks into her own eyes, they’re as bright as the lightsaber in her hand.

“There you are, Novalise,” she whispers, and despite everything, despite all the hurt and disaster, her smile is finally her own.

If you're a newcomer, my fic "Something More" is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: HELLO EVERYONE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! i hope you love this chapter! if i'm being completely honest, i wrote most of this in one half-asleep sitting because it just spilled right out. the next chapter is going to be BANANAS (i know i away say this, but i mean it this time, i have so much planned). LOVE Y'ALL hope you love this one!!!

*

Hoth is so cold. Nova loves it.

As much as the pleasant warmth of Yavin brings her home, the permafrost in the air here feels purposeful, like she’s standing on some holy site of battle ground. Nova knows that Hoth was a secondary location, that the only reason why the base has changed hands, away from Yavin, is because of the war, but she still stubbornly loves the cold, loves that it makes her nose pink, loves that she has to dress up in fur lined orange jumpsuits and jackets. It’s a strange sense of unity, and yeah, maybe it’s a little masochistic, but it’s reliable, the cold here. A constant. Especially in the face of so much change.

Nova’s up before Din is. Before the sun is, either. She’s used to him laying perfectly still while she’s still asleep, soaking in her silence, but every opportunity she has to reverse the roles and keep him in his peaceful slumber is a chance she’ll take. Extracting herself from Din’s broad, warm arms is always a difficult task. Half of the time, it’s just because it feels so much like home, like nothing else does, but he’s also an expert at trapping her in this nestled cocoon against the wall, in the small bunk they always try to jam into because it has the softest mattress.

Her stomach hurts. Her scar does, too, and her head, and behind her eyes, and of course, the heaviness sinking down across her shoulders. Truthfully, there’s not a day that Nova can remember before she was in at least a little bit of pain, and after she climbs through entangled limbs and twisted, warm bed sheets, she allows herself a tiny sigh, pressing the pads of her fingers down on her aching muscles, tiptoeing across the cold floor, which shoots spikes of ice through the warmth of her socks.

Nova’s still a sight for sore eyes. Her skin, usually so lustrous and brown, is still sickly, fallow, strange. It’s typical for her to flood out under the fluorescents, but this is different. It’s like all of her color was sucked out of her body along with her strength. Nova shivers, blinking her eyes, pressing the cold tips of her fingers around the left one, placating the sharp hurt with a bit of ice. When she’s awake, she cups her hands under the silver faucet, and the water must be near freezing, but she doesn't care. Nova stands there, gulping down handfuls of it until it fully satiates her thirst.

Her stomach still looks somewhat a mess. Nova pulls up the fabric of the warmer sweater she wore to bed, expecting to see the various healing stages of her bruises, ugly and ringed, cursed like a hex. Her scar is still an awful white stripe that rips up her belly, but the skin isn’t nearly as raised or inflamed as it was the last time she checked, and almost all of the bruises that the man on Mandalore left her are fully healed. There’s still ringlets of yellow, but it fades into the smooth, dark tan of her skin, and when she lets her shirt drop, Nova offers her own reflection a small smile in the mirror. It’s not a victory. It’s far from it. But it’s something other than hurt and sleep and nightmares and pain, and that alone gives Novalise just a smidge of relief.

Nova wiggles her toes against the concrete tundra of the ground. The thick wool of her socks is barely doing anything to keep the chill out, but for once, it doesn’t bother her. There’s an orange jumpsuit hanging on the door. Outside is the constant hum of the generators and the whir of mechanics tuning up all the Rebel starfighters. Down the hall, Wedge is asleep in his own bunk room, and Bo-Katan, for all of her griping, hasn’t demanded that they need to split up immediately. She’s barely even mentioned Mandalore. Nova presses her Rebel insignia between her pointer finger and her thumb, letting her eyes travel down to the ring that Din forged for her. The metal is sparkling, flawless. She knows how precious beskar is, especially finding a piece so pure. In the center, there’s the tiny, shimmering stone. Nova can’t figure out what kind of gem it is, if it’s a diamond or an opal or a pearl. Maybe it’s the tiniest chip of a kyber crystal, she can’t be certain. But even here, even under these sickly, flickering lights, it shines.

“Hi,” Nova hears from behind her, and she jumps, making eye contact with a bleary Din in the mirror. “You’re up early.”

Nova smiles, letting her body sag against his. The bottom half of Din’s shirt is ridden up, showing his hip bones, his lower belly, the strong, dark trail of hair that travels down past his belly button, into his pants. When she leans back against Din, Nova feels him hard against her ass, and she closes her eyes, asking the stars and the Maker and all the saints above that Din won’t shy away from her, her body, her bruises, any of it. “So are you,” she whispers, slyly, raising one eyebrow, and Din presses himself into her.

“I want you,” he breathes, his voice heavy and thick with wanting. “I want every part of you.”

Nova stares into the mirror, meeting his eyes. “Then take me,” she whispers, her voice forceful, her expression daring. “Take me. I’m yours.”

Din groans, pushing his pelvis into her. Nova watches as his eyes roll back into his head, and she pulls her pants down to her ankles, daring Din to come forward and take what she’s offering. His expression is pained, wanting. “I don’t want to—”

“You’re not going to hurt me,” she whispers, reaching her hand up to trace over his unmasked, gorgeous face. “Be the man who fucked me on this throne to break it in. Be the man who came back from bounty hunting with a thirst for me. You’re not going to break me, Din Djarin,” Nova breathes, “so fuck me like you mean it.”

It only takes a second of deliberation. Watching his expression in the mirror, Nova sees as something else takes over. Din’s hungry, animalistic, and he can't resist her anymore. Nova leans forward, over the sink, lifting the weight off of her feet so Din can easily sink into her. She watches him in the mirror as he pushes the head of his cock inside of her, big and gasping, and she takes it like she’s meant to. For a second, Nova closes her own eyes, right as Din’s pushing deeper and deeper inside of her, letting her vision flood black and starry. Everything fades away, just for a glorious second, and then Din’s large hands are clenching at her hip bones, slamming himself into her, over and over again.

It’s sacrosanct. This place isn’t a holy place for them to desecrate, but it feels dirty and wet and like it’s forbidden, but Nova doesn’t care. It’s been months since Din has fucked her like this, using every inch of her body to be his own. He’s whispering prayers and promises into the hollow of her neck, the words drifting up like honey in her ears. He’s pleading, he’s screaming, he’s telling Nova how good she feels, how soft, how wet, how warm, and she sighs happily as she takes every inch of him, on the edge just from the noises Din’s making alone.

“Please,” he whispers, low and strained, “I can feel you, cyar’ika. Just let go.”

Nova grinds down against the feeling of Din inside of her, her eyes flickering open. She watches herself in the mirror as Din pounds into her, and as she lets go, she looks at his expression again. It’s adoring and contorted, and as she rides out her orgasm, she looks at Din through heavy lidded eyes, locking onto his gaze, daring him to cum as hard as he can. She doesn’t even say a word. She doesn’t need to. Nova has DIn wrapped around her pinky finger, this big, strong Mandalorian, ruler of a whole planet, the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. He’s hers, weak in the palm of her outstretched hand.

“Who are you?” she breathes, angling her hips so he can get deeper inside of her. Din’s bare arm hooks around her neck, and Nova lets out a moan, high and breathy.

“Yours,” Din grits out, and then he clenches his fingernails against her skin as he lets go, throbbing and twitching inside of her. Nova hides her smile against Din’s broad arm as he goes dizzy and delusional, filling her up, wet and thick. They stay like that for a minute, curled around each other, belonging to each other, and when Din pulls out, Nova feels herself dripping, leaking out more than just starshine and desire. He moves towards the shower, still clearly winded, and she lets her eyes refocus, trying to catch her breath.

Nova sighs. The comedown is always the most blissful part, but when her head clears, she can feel the quiet surge of dread rise up like bile in her throat. She steps into her underclothes, her black, form-fitting pants, the shirt that clings closely to her body. Nova purposefully doesn't look at Din as he piles up his discarded clothes in the corner, turning on the fresher. She stares in the mirror at her own reflection, at the curves that have fallen away from her hips and waist since she started living her unconscious half-life. She hates it. She’s unhealthy. Added to the healing bruises, to the circles under her eyes, to the awful paleness of her skin, Novalise doesn’t look like herself.

“You’re beautiful,” Din calls, over the rush of water and the swirling tendrils of steam that come from the heat of it. Nova flashes him a weak smile, all she can muster, before turning away to hide her troubled expression under the long ringlets of dark hair that swing over her shoulder like a perfectly timed curtain fall.

When Nova looks at her reflection, even fully clothed, even dressed to the brim in Rebel orange, she can see all the places that hurt has carved out. She can feel the raised, inflamed skin that ripples down the left side of her stomach under the thin fabric. She can see the way her eyes look sunken and haunted, even after three straight months of sleep. She’s constantly aching in her shoulders, in the tension collected in angry pockets down her spine.

She looks nothing like Andromeda Maluev. She’s not bright eyed, she’s not a daring pilot, and what probably hurts the most, she doesn’t look like her parents’ daughter.

Nova swallows, trying not to let the familiar tears well up in the corners of her eyes, and when the first one falls, she swipes it away, angry yet again at her body not responding to what she tells it to. Her mother’s beautiful hair, dark and curly, a halo around her vibrant, strong face, looks like a weaker version of itself tumbling down from Nova’s head. Her father’s giddy, big smile, his full pink lips, they look weak and strange on Nova’s mouth. The small, strange smattering of freckles that dance across her nose in sunlight are nonexistent on Hoth’s icy, treacherous tundra. Her hands, her long princess fingers, just seem spidery and dilapidated. Nova shudders quietly, trying to conjure something out of all this darkness, all this hurt, something that she recognizes as her parents’ child while still being Novalise.

It doesn't come. A knock on the door does, though, and Nova startles out of her pitiful reverie, zipping up the fur-lined parka she’s thrown over her jumpsuit, moving toward the door. She’s expecting Wedge, maybe one of the mechanics she grew close with after her last long stint on this planet, but it’s Bo-Katan, red-nosed and shivering.

“Hi,” Nova says, startled, and something in Bo-Katan’s face changes. “Why are you awake?”

Bo-Katan raises an eyebrow. “Why are you awake?”

Nova shrugs, opening up the door enough to let Bo-Katan Kryze, in all of her freezing, angry glory, through the vestibule. It’s cold in here—cold enough to require wool blankets and heavy clothes through the night—but it’s nothing compared to the frigid, icy hallways. Nova shivers, too, turning to face her visitor. “I had three months of sleep. It gets a bit boring.”

Despite everything, Bo-Katan offers Nova a small grin. “Yeah, I figured it might.”

Nova smiles back, and for a beat, neither of them say or do anything. Nova moves over to an empty bed, patting the mattress next to her, but Bo-Katan shakes her head. “What’s up?” Nova asks, tucking a rogue lock of hair behind her ear. Bo-Katan’s shoulders relax, just for a second, and then she inhales and she’s in perfect posture again. Nova unconsciously tries to push her own shoulders back, but they’re much more rounded, an occupational hazard of being a fighter pilot and being kicked around for most of her life. She gives up, curling into herself, pulling one knee in close to her chest.

“I needed to talk to you,” Bo-Katan says, finally, looking around skeptically for Din.

“Shower,” Nova explains, “it’s just us.”

Bo-Katan doesn’t feel totally satisfied with Nova’s answer, but she steps closer anyway. “Mandalore doesn’t like Jedi.”

Nova raises an eyebrow. “We’ve been over this before,” she says, softly, pointing towards her stomach.

“I know,” Bo-Katan sighs, swiping a quick hand through her short, red hair. “But the bad blood goes way back, long before we knew each other. Long before you and I were even born, so it’s been ingrained into the culture for as long as I can remember. I—my sister,” Bo-Katan intercuts, looking pointedly to the right of Nova’s head, swallowing hard, “had a different viewpoint on Jedi. She trusted a few,” Bo-Katan says softly, “and one of them was Kenobi.”

Nova feels her heartbeat accelerating for a reason she can’t quite place. Unable to conjure anything useful to contribute to the conversation, she just nods, hoping it will spur Bo-Katan on.

“I’m a skeptic,” Bo-Katan adds, and when Nova gently pats the bed next to her again, Bo-Katan sinks down on it. Even here, in the chill, she smells like citrus and gunsmoke. It’s different than Din’s metal and cinnamon, but it gives Nova the same sense of security. “You’ve probably noticed that by now.”

“No,” Nova deadpans, grinning at her. “You’re kidding.”

Bo-Katan doesn’t quite smile, but the pinched expression she usually wears is replaced by something else. “I don’t trust a lot of people. And I grew up on Mandalore, and I was involved with a few...unsavory people myself, after my sister died. Getting their viewpoint out of my head was incredibly difficult. Knowing Ahsoka helped that,” Bo-Katan says, looking at Nova head on, “and meeting you did too. I didn’t realize what it really means to be a Mandalorian,” she continues, a pointed tone to her voice, “until I met the two of you.”

Nova holds her gaze. “Bo-Katan—”

“I wanted the Darksaber,” Bo-Katan continues, her words accelerating, “and I wanted the throne. Before I met you, when it was just Din I had to fight for it, I thought that it was easy. He was raised as a religious zealot by people who bastardized what Mandalore had always stood for.” She swallows. “But my Mandalorians are equally as dangerous as the one I thought he was. They conspired against you. They nearly killed you. I guess what I’m trying to say,” Bo-Katan continues, sighing, “is that I was wrong when I told you I couldn’t protect you if you gave up Mandalore. I understand why you did. And,” she considers, a stubborn hardness in her voice, finally looking at Nova again, “...I’m sorry.”

The vulnerable look on Bo-Katan’s face stops Nova in her tracks from making any sort of joke. She blinks, weighing her options, and then decides to just go for it. She gently lays her hand on top of Bo-Katan’s, light enough that she can knock it away. Bo-Katan doesn’t move for a second, and then she relaxes, her fingers laying flat against the mattress. “Bo-Katan Kryze,” Nova continues, smiling at her, “are you trying to say we’re friends?”

“Don’t push it,” Bo-Katan says, but there’s the small shadow of a smile on her lips. “Okay, yeah. We’re friends.”

“Is that what you came here to tell me?” Nova asks, still grinning, but Bo-Katan’s face changes. Her eyes flick in the direction of the shower, where Din is still standing under the hot, running water.

“Not everything,” Bo-Katan says urgently. “Listen, I know that Wedge and Din don’t want you leaving this place until you’re healthy enough. Until you’ve gotten some of your strength back,” she says, her eyes traveling over Nova’s stomach, which still looks concave even under the parka. “But there’s something else I need you to do on Jedha. And you have to be alone.”

Nova startles. “What?” she asks, but as the water from the fresher stops, Bo-Katan immediately jumps to her feet.

“I need to go,” she whispers, and then she’s breezing out of the door. “Meet us in the war room when you can.” She’s gone before Din opens the door.

“Who was that?” Din asks, running the towel over his wet, dark hair.

“Bo-Katan,” Nova murmurs, looking at the indent on the bed where Bo-Katan had just sat.

Din looks over at Nova. “What did she want?”

Nova’s eyebrows furrow together, knitting down the middle. “I...don’t know.”

*

The war room is desolate and empty when Nova and Din arrive. Bo-Katan’s urgency made Nova think they had to hurry, but one’s there except for the two of them. Nova pokes around in the corners of the room, dark and cold, trying to see if there’s anything else stored away here that can give her a clear path to what comes next. Din’s standing at the holotable, posture perfect as always, and Nova glances over at him, offering him a quick smile before she buries her head in the legions of maps and scrolls that have been hastily organized in the far corner. Most of them are antiquated, old war sketches from back when the EMpire still ruled the galaxy. Some are even older, cruder outlines of the Mid Rim and beyond, and Nova’s almost lost interest when one catches her eye.

It’s celestial. It’s drawn from dark blue ink and glittering stars. It’s gorgeous, Nova realizes, staring at the precise lines on the map, the way they arch and cross over the wide span of the galaxy. It’s painstakingly made, something that seems like it’s from a different lifetime. It’s so different from the other ones thrown in the corner here, and there's something so familiar about the way the lines are drawn, the way that the stars sparkle, even here, even on Hoth’s low light. She swallows, her heart in her throat, and then Nova pushes away the papers covering the legend in the corner, and all the dazzling puzzle pieces fall into place.

There, in the corner, is the unmistakable curves of her father’s signature. The A and the M sweep across the corner in Basic, white ink that pales in comparison to the starshine dancing across the map. Underneath, her mother’s signature, less dramatic and more precise, in a light blue color. Nova’s eyes fill with tears, looking across the map, finding the star at the center, the focal point, what all of the other planets seem to be spinning around.

Yavin. And the marker on the planet is the same star she etched into her necklace. The same star that glitters on her ring finger.

If Nova squints, she can pretend she’s signed it, too.

“What are you looking at?”

Wedge’s voice is soft behind her. Nova whirls around, eyes clocking Din in the background first, then her gaze settles on her old friend. She swallows, clutching the map to her chest like a pearl, and there’s something sad and nostalgic behind Wedge’s warm eyes.

“Wedge, I—”

“I’m glad you found it,” he assures her, softly. Nova smiles at him, a ghost of what she wishes she could conjure, but for now, it needs to be enough. She swallows. “I’ve kept it here for you for months, but I just haven’t gotten the chance to give it to you. It’s yours,” Wedge continues, stepping forward. “I can have it preserved for you, framed if you’d like.” Even in the dim light, Nova can see the faintest spray of grey streaks in his brown hair, and she looks all over his face for laughter lines. Wedge is closer in age to Luke Skywalker than he was to her parents, but she can still see the remnants of her father in their old friend’s eyes. It makes her heart ache, yearning yet again for something more.

“Yes please,” Nova manages, feeling familiar tears well up in the corners of her eyes, trying to keep it together. Gently, Wedge pulls it out of her hands, placing it flat against an unused table just to the left to the larger one sprawled out with maps and scrolls, documentation from a time long over.

When Bo-Katan enters the room, it’s like a trance is broken. She walks with such purpose, such certainty. It’s captivating, how tense and ready her body is under the armor, how ready she is for a fight that isn’t even coming. “How did you beat me here?” she asks, looking around, and then when no one has an answer, she sighs, clicking on the blue azure of the holotable. “We need to go through the plan one more time.”

No one speaks, but the four of them oscillate against each other, moving towards the centerpoint of the holotable. Nova winces as she sees her portrait projected into the air, so much more youthful than the picture she’d take now. Even in the strange, blue light, her face is round and full of life. She crosses her arms over her chest and tries her best to not ruminate on everything that’s been drained out of her, letting her gaze focus instead on the map of the galaxy that’s in the highest point in the room.

Her father, Arokel, was more of a linguist than he was a mapmaker. He was fascinated, collecting bits of language from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, trying to puzzle together enough pieces to preserve them. Her mother was more mapmaker, more architect. Piper was kind and intelligent and full of a fire Nova’s chased since she died. But when she was a kid, before the fight against the Empire ramped back up again, Arokel moonlighted as a mapmaker, taking any scraps of paper he could manage and trying to stitch the galaxy together. The one reflected above them, in blue pixels, is a dead ringer for the map that her father made. The lump in Nova’s throat stays there, a haunting, bittersweet thing, and when she notices Bo-Katan’s mouth is moving, she tunes back in.

“It’s essential that when we return to Mandalore,” Bo-Katan says, even the syllables of her words precise, “and that we mourn Novalise. Mandalorians don’t really have a ceremony for grief, because, well, we don’t really have a ceremony for anything. But I think it’s important that we establish what you’ve lost,” Bo-Katan continues, looking over at Din, one raised eyebrow razor-sharp, “and then you keep leading. They’ll respect you for that. The man who attacked Nova is gone. They’ve seen that you’re a warrior. We just need to keep feeding that narrative until it’s safe enough for Nova to come back.”

“You’re good at this,” Wedge murmurs, and Nova’s pretty sure that it comes out a lot louder than he intended. He looks winded, and he clears his throat. “You’re...diplomatic. Smart. Resourceful.”

Bo-Katan stares at him. “Thank you,” she says, finally, like she’s really flattered, like it’s a big compliment. Nova hides her small smile against her hand.

“I just want to go on record saying,” Din says, sighing through the modulator, “that I really don’t like the idea of pretending Nova’s dead.”

Nova’s gaze locks on him. “You’re the one who came up with this plan,” she says, with just a bit more malice than she wants. “The both of you, you thought it would be safer that way. I’d come back to Mandalore with you right now. But there’s still a warrant out for my arrest, I was nearly killed, I can barely keep up enough stamina to stay standing, and I still have the incredible task of saving the galaxy on my shoulders, so—”

“Nova.” She can feel the tractor beam of Din’s eyes on her, even under the visor. She’d know that look in the middle of the night, and she’d know it in death. “This isn’t just your responsibility.”

She swallows. “If not mine,” Nova whispers, “then whose?”

No one speaks.

“Exactly,” Nova continues, running a hand through her loose hair, looking back over at Bo-Katan. “Keep going. Please.”

Bo-Katan flashes her a look, but she doesn’t protest. “The biggest thing we need to accomplish—and it is a big one—is to get Mandalore to trust not only you as their leader, but as someone who they’re willing to fight for. If you don’t have that, we don’t have a chance of them joining in our fight. Because Din’s right,” Bo-Katan continues, “this isn’t just Nova’s responsibility. We have dangerous people willing to bring this galaxy to a war, and we’re largely outnumbered. Whatever the First Order is, and whoever’s after Nova, they’re coming at us in full force. And I think we can win. I know we can win. But we need more than the people in this room working together to make sure that we don’t end up worse than where we started.”

“So while Din and Bo-Katan return to Mandalore,” Wedge says, turning his attention to Nova, “you’ll stay here. With me, and with whoever else is on base. We’re kind of cut down now, because a lot of us are out on long missions, but there’s a handful of people here to make sure you won’t go totally stir-crazy.” Wedge flashes a soft grin in Nova’s direction. “We’ll cook you good, hearty meals, strong ones. You can work on Kicker, or any of the other starfighters parked outside. There’s tons of unused bunkrooms, so we can clear one out for your training. Once you’ve gotten some of your strength back,” Wedge continues, pointing his thumb in the direction of the landing bay, “you can take some of the ships out for test runs around Hoth. We can spar in the air, and you can show me up in every one. It’ll be just like old times.”

Nova smiles over at him. It sounds fun, staying here—eating solid food, putting weight back on, moving her muscles, Jedi training in a room she can use the lightsaber freely in, flying around the planet—but her heart aches for the person she was, standing in here, less than half a year ago. She was brazen and she was ready and she was in love with her life. And Nova’s so glad that she’s not Andromeda anymore, that she’s awake, that she is who she is. But a part of her is still mourning for that determined girl she used to be, standing right here, knowing that she could have everything she wanted. “Just like old times,” she manages, and Wedge nods.

Din looks over at where Nova’s standing, hunched over, her arms still folded over her chest to try to keep the heat in. “It’s not forever,” he says, his voice gentle. “Just until you heal.” When Nova looks over at him, the rest of the room seems to fade away.

“How long?” she asks, and the room is filled with silence.

“Not long,” Din says, and the tone of his voice is steady and secure.

Nova knows he’s lying through his teeth.

As Din’s gathering up most of his belongings out of the bunkroom they shared, Bo-Katan pulls Nova around, into the nearest alcove, barely big enough to fit both of them.

“How top secret is this,” Nova says, but there’s a scared edge to her joke.

Bo-Katan looks utterly unsettled. It’s so different from what she normally looks like that the laugh dies in Nova’s throat. “When you go to Jedha, you need to be alone. I need you to get something for me, and I can’t have anyone else knowing about it.”

Nova swallows, trying to understand what Bo-Katan’s trying to tell her. “Bo-Katan, I don’t know how long it’s going to be before I’m healthy enough to fly again, let alone take a solo trip to the Mid Rim—”

“Please,” Bo-Katan interjects, and the desperation in her voice makes Nova stop in her tracks. “I know it won’t be immediately. I’m okay with that. I can't go myself, so I just need to know that you have it, and then you can give it to me. I would go myself, but I can’t. And if you haven’t figured this out by now, I...trust you. So I need you to do this.”

“What is it?” Nova asks, confused.

Bo-Katan sighs. “It’s a box. That’s all you need to know. Don’t open it,” she says, harshly, jabbing a pointed finger in Nova’s face. “I’m serious. I’m not being secretive for the fun of it, Novalise, what’s inside that box is dangerous.”

Nova swallows. She has a million questions. She’s exhausted. “Okay,” she nods, finally. “Okay. Just tell me what the box looks like, and maybe where it is, and I’ll get it for you.”

Bo-Katan looks pained. “You’ll know it when you see it. It’s made of beskar. It’s not where it’s supposed to be. It’s somewhere in the holy city. I’ll try to find out more information before you go.”

Nova wants to push back, but she knows Bo-Katan is close to her breaking point. Her breath is jagged and irregular, and her usual icy facade has melted down by her eyes. “Thank you,” Bo-Katan says, her voice earnest and genuine, and then she starts walking away, nodding imperceptibly at Nova.

“Hey,” Nova calls, grabbing her wrist gently. “It wasn’t so long ago that you were telling me that if we left Mandalore, you wouldn’t protect me anymore.”

Bo-Katan swallows. Her usually impenetrable exterior is shaken by the cold and by the truth of what she just spoke aloud. “What does that have to do with this?”

Nova releases her grip on Bo-Katan’s wrist. “Everything,” she answers, genuinely. “It means that you’re a good person, Bo-Katan of the clan Kryze. And that I trust you, too.”

There’s something warm and reignited in Bo-Katan’s eyes when she walks away.

Almost immediately, Din finds Nova. She leans back against the freezing wall of the alcove. trying to project confidence and strength. She’s not letting her knees sag, and she’s not letting the exhaustion she feels be written on her face. Even under the helmet, Nova can feel DIi’s careful, endearing gaze, and when he reaches out one gloved hand, she takes it, letting Din lead her out to the landing bay, where Bo-Katan’s sleek ship is waiting.

Nova swallows, staring at it. It’s made of metal, the same kind that the Razor Crest used to be, and if she squints, if she unfocuses her eyes, she can pretend it’s the Crest. Everything else fades away as she stares at it, hand in hand with Din. Inside, Grogu’s waiting in his floating cradle, and they’re flying around the Outer Rim, picking up Din’s bounties. Nova never thought that she’d yearn for the days where they were picking up criminals, but right now, everything feels so heavy. She knows she’s romanticizing it, that the days were long and lonely, and that she was constantly on edge, but if it were between sparring with bounties and having the weight of saving the galaxy on her shoulders, the lesser parts of herself ache for the days where all she had to worry about was fighting them off long enough to freeze her threats away in carbonite.

“Hey,” Din says, startling Nova out of her reverie. “I mean it, cyar’ika. This isn’t forever.”

Nova nods, looking up at the swirling, white sky, watching as snowflakes dance down around her feet. “I know,” she says, gloomy, her voice barely audible.

Din pulls off the helmet so quickly that Nova doesn’t even have a chance to react. “Look at me.”

Nova does, her green eyes into his brown, tracing every single inch of his gorgeous face. It tightens in her throat, her heart aching. “I know it’s not forever,” she whispers, the wind blowing her hair straight back from her face, “and I know you need to, but it still hurts, watching you leave.”

“I’ll be back,” Din vows, and his voice is so strong that it outweighs every negative thought that Nova has in her head. “As soon as I can. Regularly.” He places both his hands on her cheeks, and Nova closes her eyes against the gesture, trying to memorize the way that Din’s hands feel, to conjure them in the darker moments when he’s still gone. “You’re Novalise Djarin,” Din whispers, and Nova looks at him, fighting back the tears. Din pulls her in towards his armored chest, fierce and strong. “Nothing else stands a chance,” he breathes into her ear, quietly enough that even the wind can’t hear.

When Din and Bo-Katan leave, waving as they ascend the gangplank, Nova presses her left hand over her heart, conjuring up the strength she felt last night. It’s a tiny fortification, so small that it barely swells in her heart, but it grounds her.

Din’s right. So was Nova, when she thought it for the first time. Nothing else stands a chance.

*

Hoth is quiet. It’s the coldest Nova’s seen the planet since she was a kid, which is saying something, because no matter where you travel, everything is icy and foreboding. Wedge wasn’t lying—most of the people who Nova’s seen on base are dispersed, all over the Outer Rim and beyond. The first few days, Nova sleeps, wakes only to eat as much food as she can bear, and then falls right back into her slumber. Her dreams are vivid. Her nightmares are even more so.

Wedge checks in on Nova every few hours. He brings her broth from the mess hall, and he frames the map her parents made. She hangs it right over her bed. Even in the darkness, even in sleep, it watches over her, a quiet, persistent sentinel. When Nova gets stir-crazy—and she does, quickly—she looks at the portrait and tries to conjure the feeling of fighting for something important, something more, something deeper. She doesn’t think of the way they fell to their deaths. She doesn’t think of the mess she turned into afterward, how she played right into Jacterr Calican’s dangerous hands. She sits in peace with her parents, the alive, intact versions of them, and Nova lets her imagination run wild.

Din doesn't visit until after a week has passed. When Nova sees the sleek starfighter he touches down in, something ugly and painful flames up inside her stomach. He’s changed his underclothes back to that Mandalorian blue, and even as he kisses her, even in his sleep, Nova can tell he’s preoccupied.

“What are you thinking about?” she chances. It’s not nighttime, but Nova makes her room as dark as possible to simulate the peace that she and Din had here.

Din’s quiet. The air is palpable and heavy, and Nova knows something is bothering him. “I don’t know how to get them to follow us into battle,” he shippers, finally, but there’s still something so incredibly guarded about his voice. Nova swallows, straining her ears. “They hate me.”

Nova feels like a weapon, sharpened and then discarded. She wants to cut straight through all of this, the royalty, the unacceptance, the darkness. She’s gained five pounds back in between sleep and stress, and she’s been going back and forth from the room that Wedge helped her transform into a training facility, but every time she holds Luke’s lightsaber in her hands, Nova can't ignite it. There’s something sacrilegious burning under her skin, and she can’t find the root cause to cut it out. “They hated me more,” Nova breathes, finally, regretting the way her words razor into Din’s. She knows she’s being unfair, that all Din and Bo-Katan and Wedge are trying to do is protect her, but she feels so utterly stuck. Almost abandoned. She wants to put her clothes on, take Kicker in the dead of night, and get out of here. Maybe go to Jedha, finish the mission for Bo-Katan. Maybe head right back out into the Unknown Regions, set a course for Ahch-To, and spend days on end just holding Grogu to her chest, letting his warmth overtake all of this coldness.

“I’m sorry,” Din whispers, and Nova closes her eyes for long enough to drift off. When he shifts underneath her, she pretends she’s still sleeping. She feels Din press a kiss to her forehead, and then he’s out the door, gone back to rule a planet full of people that likely still want her dead. When she’s sure he’s gone, Nova lets herself cry, big, wracking sobs full of grief and anger. She falls back to sleep with her pillow wet, curled up underneath the thickets blankets, trying to retain the warmth of Din long gone.

Another week passes. Nova doesn’t call Din obsessively, and she tries her best to distract herself from counting the minutes he’s been gone. She gets holograms from Bo-Katan, and the pinched expression on her face is still prominent, even in that blue light. Nova swallows, watching the vision of her friend flicker in and out, wanting for Mandalore.

It’s ridiculous. Nova knows it is. When she told Bo-Katan that she didn’t hate Mandalore, it was the truth. She never loved it there, and it never felt like home. Now, stupidly, Nova yearns for the emptiness she felt on Mandalore, wanting to trade this quiet desperation for another one. In between, she eats, she trains, she showers. Still, the lightsaber doesn’t feel like it belongs in her hands, so Nova doesn’t bother igniting it. She’s scared of looking into all of that blue light and seeing her listless reflection staring right back.

Later, Nova’s comm blinks. She stares at it for a minute, and then she sits up in the dark, hunched over so that her head doesn’t bang into the top bunk. “Hello?” Nova breathes, her voice creaky from disuse. It’s dark in here, darker than any starship she’s ever slept in, and it’s like her words hang in the air.

“Hey,” a familiar voice relays back, and Nova breathes a sigh of relief.

“Cara.”

“Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you,” Cara says, earnestly, and then there’s a rustling following a thump, and Nova knows Cara’s put her feet down on top of her desk. “I wanted to investigate the hit fully.”

“What did you find?” Nova asks, curling one knee into her chest.

“Well,” Cara sighs, “not much, unfortunately. We were right. It was sitting dormant in the system, and it was uploaded from Nevarro. But it was uploaded after Din killed Toro, not before.”

Suddenly, everything seems much colder. “What do you mean?” Nova manages, her voice high and breathless.

“It means that either someone was working directly with the Calicans,” Cara answers evenly, “or someone’s stumbled upon something created to sabotage you.” She sounds like she’s carefully considering every word before it comes out of her mouth. “Do you know anyone who might have been in close contact with the Calican brothers?”

“No,” Nova says, honestly. She presses a hand into her aching eyes, hard enough that she sees stars. “People tended to stay away from them. They were dangerous, and they had the reputation to prove it. Even when they...held me captive, I never saw either Jacterr or Merle talking to anyone else that could be in league with them. They were just intimidating and demanding, and no one wanted to be around them.”

Cara’s quiet. “Nova, I’m not going to stop trying to figure out who did this.” Her voice is soft, endearing.

Nova swallows. She wants to scream. After the last conversation they had, when Cara was still on Hoth with the rest of them, she felt fortified, ready to take on the world. Now, she just feels defeated, like she’s taking every single punch to her heart, like she can’t drag herself off the floor. “Cara,” she says finally, “how am I supposed to save anyone when I can’t even protect myself?”

Cara sighs again. “Novalise,” she says finally, her voice clear and strong, “don’t focus on the galaxy right now. Focus on yourself.”

When Nova starts to protest, Cara interrupts her.

“You have an entire army at your back,” Cara says, her words clear and vivid, “and none of us will let anything hurt you, or everyone we’re trying to save. You trust me, right?”

Nova swallows. “Yes,” she answers, closing her eyes.

“I’m going to find out who did this,” Cara promises, her voice a vow. “And when you’re ready, we can confront them together. Understood?”

“Yes,” Nova repeats, letting a small smile work its way across her face, “understood.”

When Cara hangs up, Nova feels a little less alone, even in the darkness, even with nothing to cling to.

Din calls more than he visits. Nova hears the exhaustion in his voice, the frustration behind every single one of his words. She wants to tell him to screw it, to leave Mandalore, to come back to her, but she doesn’t. She lays on her bed, staring at the lightsaber in her hand, trying to will the strength she needs to light it up in her hands, but she doesn’t.

“Novalise,” Din says, and Nova snaps to. “Did you hear me?”

“No,” Nova says, honestly. “But maybe you were right, before. Maybe I should have just stayed out there in the stars.”

“Nova,” Din starts, but Nova’s not listening.

“I’m so tired,” she whispers, finally, her lip wobbling. “You said this wouldn’t be forever, Din, but I feel like I’m wasting away here, and like I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, but no one is even listening to me.”

“I hear you,” Din says, his words sincere and empathetic. “But it won’t be—”

“Forever?” Nova cuts him off. There’s no fire in her voice, no bitterness, no malice. She doesn’t have the energy to fight against it. “I have nothing to show for it, Din. Nothing to show for everything we’ve done. Nothing to show for who the First Order is. Nothing to show for trying to become a Jedi. Nothing to show for the woman in my dreams who keeps showing up trying to kill me—”

“What?” Din asks, startled, and Nova realizes she hasn’t really told him about the blonde woman with the evil in her eyes, the one that chokes her out in the darkness and leaves her bruised. Nova winces, but before she can begin to explain, she hears Bo-Katan’s distinct voice, and the connection to Din blinks off, leaving her in silence.

Nova feels like a petulant child. She feels like a shadow of herself. She feels like she could disappear here, in this bunkroom, and nobody would notice. There are tears forming at the corners of her eyes, wet and hot, and right as she’s about to start yelling, there’s a knock on her door.

She shoves the bedsheets back, storming over to the door, and when she throws it open, Wedge is there with an orange jumpsuit in his outstretched hand, and a knowing look on his face.

“What’s that for?” she asks, and all of the anger and despondency fades out of Nova’s voice.

“I figure you’re going crazy in here by now,” Wedge says, simply, pushing the jumpsuit towards Nova. “I do, too, if I stay inside more than a few days. You have steam to blow off. You need something good. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Nova says, taking the orange fabric out of Wedge’s grip. “You’re not wrong. What’s this for?”

Wedge grins. “We’re going flying.” He turns on his heel, heading towards the landing bay. Nova sticks her legs into the jumpsuit, pulling it over her warm clothes, the curves of her shoulders, jamming her feet in her boots.

“Wedge,” she starts, but he doesn’t seem to hear her. That, or he’s purposely ignoring it, and when the two of them arrive at the airlock doors where the landing bay is, Nova stares out. Kicker’s been repainted. She still has that deep grey of the beskar, but the orange stripes are back where they’re meant to be. Nova swallows, trying not to cry.

“You—?”

“It just didn’t look right,” Wedge says, softly, and Nova can feel his gaze on her. “I know we’re trying to keep it stealthy, but for as long as you’re on the Rebel base, you and your ship should be wearing Alliance colors.”

“Thank you,” Nova whispers, through the tears in her throat. “I didn't realize how much I missed this.”

Wedge just smiles at her, nodding. “Come on,” he says, beckoning Nova across the packed, white ground. When they ascend the gangplank, everything looks the same. There’s the nest of blankets and pillows on the floor, the string of lights hanging above the corner. The dried flowers from back on Naboo all those months ago are hanging, pressed, over the dashboard. Nova swallows again, and when she turns to Wedge, he’s handing her the orange helmet.

“What are we doing?” Nova asks, her voice small.

“You’re going to fly,” Wedge says, abruptly sitting down in the copilot’s seat. “I’m going to sit right here and watch. And when your heart feels a little lighter, we’ll go back to the base.”

“Wedge,” Nova starts, hesitating, “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be flying yet—”

“Yeah, well,” he interrupts, “Bo-Katan and Din aren’t Rebel pilots. They may love to be out in the open air, but you and me? We need it. It gives me myself back, every time I get back up here,” Wedge says evenly, pointing towards the pilot’s chair. “It’ll do the same for you. We don’t have to tell them anything,” he continues, clocking the look on Nova’s face, “but I know you need this.”

Nova takes the helmet out of his hand.

When she pulls it over her head, there’s an incredible rush. All of the energy she’s lost, all of the time that’s been wasted away, it all evaporates. Nova isn’t exhausted. She doesn’t feel like she’s about to scream at any given moment. She’s full of purpose and something reignites inside her heart, the inexplicable feeling of doing what she was born to do. “How far can I go?” she whispers, turning on all the controls, listening to the familiar whir and whine of Kicker starting up. It sounds like music.

“As far as you want,” Wedge says, his voice genuine and clear. “It’s your ship, Commander. I’m just along for the ride.”

When Nova lifts off the ground, it feels like a piece of her soul is flying back to her.

She’s not sure how long they’re out in the open air. For a while, Nova just whizzes back and forth, circling the same few klicks, testing her strength. For the first time, it’s not depleted, and she’s not listless. It feels like she’s becoming Novalise over again, with every single twist and turn. Once Nova knows she’s fine, buoyed by the joy of being proverbially out in the stars, she starts doing tricks. It’s quick dips and turns, at first, but when she gains momentum, something gleeful beckons for her.

The first signature barrel roll feels like coming home. Nova whoops out loud, forgetting that Wedge is there, forgetting that everything outside her starfighter is still heavy and unknown. It doesn’t matter. For this tiny, dazzling, sparkling moment, Nova’s becoming Her Highness Pilotess of the Outer Rim, giddy and unguarded.

When the fuel light starts blinking, just as darkness fades in over the horizon, Nova starts heading back to the Rebel base, grinning from ear to ear.

“There you are,” Wedge says, softly. “I missed you, rebel girl.”

“I missed myself,” Nova says, her words genuine. “Thank you, Wedge,” she continues, earnestly, looking back over her shoulder to meet his eyes. “Seriously. I—I was going a little crazy in there.”

“I know,” Wedge answers, with every inch of it in his voice. “You remind me of someone,” he says, so softly Nova’s not sure he’s really said it.

“Who?” she asks, carefully speeding through glaciers, reacting only on impulse, paying more attention to Wedge than she is her surroundings. It’s muscle memory, second nature.

“Luke,” Wedge says, finally.

Nova looks back at him. “What happened?” she asks, her voice quiet, and gentle as she can possibly make it. “With the two of you?” Wedge sighs, and Nova immediately starts talking again. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“No.” Wedge’s voice is careful and guarded. “No, it’s okay. We—we were close. Pretty much from the second we met. He was so earnest and so kind, and he cared more than anyone else I’ve ever known. It didn’t matter about what. The Alliance, taking down the Empire, rescuing the people he cared about, sure, but also when the mess hall was serving dessert after dinner, and fixing droids that were on their last legs. And he was a talented pilot, and an even better Jedi. But he was idealistic, and he was so sure that killing the enemy with kindness was the best way to go about doing things. He would whine, a lot,” Wedge continues, but Nova can hear the smile in his voice. “He was my best friend, and I lov—but we didn’t see eye to eye on everything. He kept putting himself in danger, reckless but so earnest, and he was different after the Battle of Endor. I always thought it was because of his father,” Wedge sighs, “you know, seeing Vader become the man that he used to be. Luke watched him die, and I think...I think it really got to him. I tried to talk to him about it, but he shut me down. And not long after, we...we fell out. He went off on his own.”

“That must have been hard,” Nova says quietly, eyeing the base on the rapidly darkening horizon. “Seeing him slip away like that.”

“Yeah,” Wedge sighs. “I’ve tried to reach out to him, to convince him to come back. For a long time, only Leia knew where he was, and as close as we were, she was incredibly stubborn. She kept telling me that if Luke wanted to be found, he would make his location known. And for years, I would only see him in holograms, or hear his name in conversation. I tried to bring him home, back to me—back to the Alliance.”

There’s something heavy in Wedge’s voice. Nova pulls Kicker down to the landing bay, barely paying attention to her surroundings. She doesn’t need to. Nova parks, turns the engine off, and then swings around in her chair, looking at Wedge. His face looks transfixed, pained, like he’s stuck in a memory. “You loved him,” Nova whispers, and Wedge snaps out of it. She makes her voice as gentle as possible. “Didn’t you?”

Wedge stares at her. “I did,” he answers, finally. “I still do.”

Nova swallows, trying to think of anything to say that’ll make it easier. She comes up with nothing, but she reaches out her hand, grabs Wedge’s, and squeezes. His eyes are wet and nostalgic, and Nova nods. “If it helps,” she says, choosing her words carefully, “I know he does, too. And I’ve always rooted for both of you.”

Wedge looks at her. “How did you know?”

Nova grins. “Empath,” she answers, shrugging, “and a Jedi in training. I notice everything, Antilles. Your feelings are no different.”

Wedge just stares at her. “Did he say anything about me?”

Nova bites down on her lip. “He misses you,” she says, her eyebrows raising in earnest. “And he still says everything that you do. I don’t think the distance is as big as you think.”

Wedge sighs, closes his eyes, and then squeezes Nova’s hand. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. As they walk back inside the base, silent all the way to the mess hall, Nova tries to envision Luke in her head, to send her conversation over the wire, to bring him home.

Sleep comes easily, but Nova’s fortified by her flight around Hoth. She doesn't fall immediately into the exhaustion, the darkness. She’s laying awake, staring at the map her parents made, finally, for the first time in months, feeling like herself again.

When the dreams start, they’re vivid but pleasant. Nova kicks up yellow leaves on Naator, making flower crowns for herself and DIn and the baby. It smells like honeysuckle and freshness. When the dream changes, it’s of the serenity of Yavin in her youth, the luminescent, purple flowers dancing in the breeze. There’s the constant hum of X-wing engines and the friendly shouts of all of the other Alliance members on the base. When the dream shifts, it’s to the moment on Kashyyyk when she’s flying a starfighter again, zooming over the gorgeous, azure water. Then she’s on the Razor Crest, and then she’s kissing Din for the first time, and then she’s falling onto wet, black earth.

It’s disorienting. Immediately, it’s dark and foreboding, and the chill is waterlogged and palpable. Nova tries to heave air back into her lungs, to get it back from when it slammed her against the ground, but she’s sucking in freezing lungfuls, and nothing’s staying breathable.

“There you are,” Nova hears, and dread collects down her spine, hot and heavy. She doesn't want to turn around. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to go back to the warmth she felt in her dreams, with her husband and son beside her, not in this awful echo chamber with the woman who wants to kill her.

“Please,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. “Please, just let me go.”

She’s yanked off the ground by her hair, forcibly and quickly, and when Nova turns over, the dark, pulsating wickedness that comes off the woman’s smile feels like poison.

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, Andromeda,” she whispers, only inches away from Nova’s face. “I have big plans for you.”

“Cancel them,” Nova manages, pushing herself up on the heels of her hands. “I’m never joining you.”

“Who said,” the woman continues, sneering, “that I want you to join me?”

Nova groans, closing her eyes. She draws on all the strength she has, every happy, elated feeling she just had flying around Hoth. Something furious and full lights up in her chest. “You’re never going to have me,” she says, her eyes snapping open, “alive or dead.”

“You think you’re better than me?” she asks, dripping venom. Her teeth are so white, so pointed. Nova swallows, and then she goes for Nova’s throat.

Novalise anticipates it. She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, determined to not let out a plea, to not choke over her own words. She knows she’ll wake up with bruises. She doesn’t care. “I’m not afraid of you,” Nova manages, her voice high and thin, “and I have enough light in me to chase away every single part of your darkness.”

The woman grins, all malice. She lets go of Nova’s throat. “We’ll see,” she taunts, and then Din appears, chained up and barely breathing. Nova screams, but the woman has her hand around his throat, instead, and Nova charges toward her, using every last inch of her energy to take her down.

Luke’s lightsaber lights up in her hand, blue and pulsing. Nova swipes toward the woman’s neck, and when she falls through into consciousness, she’s on the ground, the lightsaber ignited in her hand.

Exhaustion falls away. Nova grins, staring at the blade, flickering and beckoning. Everything she was afraid of, everything that’s happened, it’s paling in comparison to how natural the lightsaber feels in her hands. She stands her ground, holding the blue light up like a pearl, and when Nova’s eyes make contact with her reflection in the mirror, she looks like herself again.

Her hands are strong and unshaking. She doesn’t feel the bruises on her belly anymore. The dark circles under her eyes are mostly gone. Her lips are pink and full. The weight she’d lost in the in between has grown again, her arms curved and muscular, her thighs thick and strong. And when Nova looks into her own eyes, they’re as bright as the lightsaber in her hand.

“There you are, Novalise,” she whispers, and despite everything, despite all the hurt and disaster, her smile is finally her own.

The knock on the door startles away the reflection on her face. Nova jumps, just for a second, but when she rushes over to throw it open, to show Wedge that she’s ready to fight back again, it isn’t him.

Din’s standing there, helmetless, with mottled bruises forming on his throat.

Nova drops the lightsaber, rushing toward her husband. Everything is strangely blue and distorted, and when she falls into his arms, his voice is so much weaker than it usually is, raspy and full of ache.

“Nova,” he whispers, his eyes strange and unfocused, “can you please explain what the hell happens when that woman is trying to kill you in your dream?”

*

TAGLIST: @myheartisaconstellation | @fuuckyeahdad | @pedrodaddypascal | @misslexilouwho | @theoddcafe | @roxypeanut | @lousyventriloquist | @ilikethoseodds | @strawberryflavourss | @fanomando | @cosmicsierra | @misssilencewritewell | @rainbowfantasyxo |  @thatonedindjarinfan | @theflightytemptressadventure | @tiny-angry-redhead | @cjtopete86 | @chikachika-nahnah | @corvueros | @venusandromedadjarin | @jandra5075 | @berkeleybo | @solonapoleonsolo | @wild-mads | @charmedthoughts | @dindjarinswh0re | @altarsw |  @weirdowithnobeardo | @cosmicsierra | @geannad | @th3gl1tt3rgam3roff1c1al | @burrshottfirstt | @va-guardianhathaway | @starspangledwidow | @casssiopeia | @niiight-dreamerrrr | @ubri812 | @persie33 | @happyxdayxbitch | @sofithewitch | @hxnnsvxns |  @thisshipwillsail316 | @spideysimpossiblegirl | @dobbyjen | @tanzthompson | @tuskens-mando | @pedrosmustache | @goldielocks2004 | @fireghost-x @the-mandalorian-066 | @ka-x-in

as always, reply here or send me a message to be added to the taglist!!! (and if you’ve already asked me and you’re not on it, please message me again!!!)if you would like to be taken off the taglist or put on it, send me a message/ask/comment!! <3

*

AAAAAAAA I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! i finally feel like i'm getting back into the groove :') thank you all so much for being here, and i hope you have an incredible Halloween!!!

CHAPTER 9 WILL BE UP ST 7:30 PM EST ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH!!!

xoxo, amelie