#part two tomorrow

[daily-memory-of-touch]

Day 214: Almost Almost

[radioactivepeasant]

Oops the Free Day Thursday got Long, so you get multiple parts

Part 1

Part Two Here

(Warnings for Angst and brief description of injuries)

To be the king of Spargus was to all but ensure a violent death eventually. Whether by the hands of a challenger, a metalhead, or simply the desert herself turning her back on one who previously had her favor, all kings met their end one way or another. Most took a blasé approach to their own mortality, so long as they could ensure they died in battle like any Spargan worth remembering.

Damas son of Arez was no different.

All things considered, there were far worse deaths -- not that this one was very pleasant. He'd successfully defended his city against corrupted minor deities, and he'd taken out so many in the rescue of the boys that the Dark Makers had resorted to a missile to ultimately kill him. That was the kind of thing that made it into songs and legends. Especially when the most important reason to fight walked away from the crash unharmed.

Having followed his gut, and subsequently having had the opportunity to watch Jak blossom into one of the most formidable Wastelanders the continent had ever seen, Damas felt he could die with fewer regrets than most.

What father worth his water wouldn't be at peace knowing he got to see his son surpass him before he died?

Even if they'd never acknowledged it aloud.

Jak knew, in his heart. He knew what the armor meant, and he'd accepted it without reservation. Damas had seen in his eyes that Jak understood, he understood what he'd left unsaid, but he feared saying it out loud lest it all vanish like a broken spell. And to think the boy had worried about not having a gift for him! As if it was not gift enough that he accepted the bond between them!

Damas heard Jak shout his name, even as he knew his time was growing short. But here, in the razor-sharp margin between life and death, something had changed. Perhaps it was their proximity to the catacombs. Or perhaps it was because he carried the blood of Mar. Perhaps there was no reason at all, mere happenstance. But as he lay crushed beneath the Slam Dozer, Damas felt eco tug at his body with a strength he had never experienced before. Ironic that he should find the power his ancestors wielded at the moment of death.

Light swirled through the earth beneath him, far below the blighted soil. Pure time, stretched into thread and unspooled into the wells of the earth to bring life and healing to whatever it touched.

"I'm...very proud to have been by your side, in the end. Proud of you." Damas pushed the words out of lungs that could barely expand. He took his previous assessment back: this was one of the most irritating ways to go he could think of.

Jak started to get up, promising help -- he was panicking. Damas had never seen Jak panic before. But he didn't blame him. Instead, he caught Jak's hand and pulled him back down. Jak hissed in pain, and Damas realized the boy wasn't as unscathed as he'd thought. He was favoring his left arm and his ribs, and blood ran down his face.

The eco of the planet hummed in Damas’s ears, deafeningly loud. Waiting, just within reach.

The choice was almost too easy to make.

"Promise me one thing, please," he said, tightening his grip on Jak’s hand even as his trapped fingers dug deep into the soil. "Promise me you'll find your brother."

He ignored Jak's sharp intake of breath. "Find my son, Mar. You'll know him when you s- see this-"

For just one moment, Damas released his adopted son's hand to retrieve his old amulet from his belt, doing his best to push through the sharp agony that shot through his chest and torso at even that much movement. He placed the amulet in Jak’s hand, but did not let go.

Just five seconds. That's all I need.

"He's wearing an amulet just like this. A symbol of our family: the House of Mar."

Through the gray stealing across the corners of his vision, Damas saw Jak's face twist, first in confusion, then recognition. He recognized the amulet! But Damas never wore it publicly. Then-

Hope spread through the wreck of Damas’s body, shuttling the pain away to a distant corner of his mind. He knows something! He's seen Mar!

In that moment of elation, the light eco at last responded to his call. In a flood, it poured from the earth and into his body. It could have healed him, it would have been simple. But Damas’s focus was elsewhere. He poured the pocket of life through the amulet and into Jak. It burned through their veins like fever, but once it passed there was vacuum. Void. And Damas could feel it tugging greedily at his mind.

"Stop! You- you don't have a focus ring, it's too much!" Jak gripped his hand, skin steadily darkening to match the sky as he tried to diffuse the eco.

Around them, tiny blades of grass began to push up through the polluted dirt as the damage to the soil began to rewind. Daxter let out a panicked yell that sounded a little deeper than normal.

"What are you doing?!"

"When you find your little brother, tell him we never gave up looking for him."

Damas’s voice buzzed oddly as the raw energy seeped into his throat.

He smiled softly.

"He's...going to love you. And Daxter."

Even that many words were a struggle. He could barely make out anything around him. He couldn't feel his body. He couldn't see. He barely made out one word before the world splintered into starlight.

"Father!"

_____________<><><><><><>______________

Being dead, Damas decided, was very disorienting. If he was dead. He didn't see any ancestors yelling at him for losing Haven city, or Precursors, anyway. He followed the twisting, glittering lights -- not through any will of his own, but drawn along in their wake. Time, if it existed in this plane, was fully out of joint. He saw islands floating in a sickly green sky, just beyond the flickering vortex he seemed to be inside. He would have shuddered if he'd had a body.

Now and then he heard voices -- mostly unintelligible, and none he recognized. But he drifted towards them nonetheless. The light eco seemed to have set him on a predetermined path like a cart on a rail, and his consciousness would not settle into place until it had stopped rewinding...whatever was left to undo when he was no more than a disembodied spirit.

"Damas? Come on, speak to me! Damas!"

Hm. That wasn't Jak. In fact, it almost sounded like-

"Don't you do this to me, boss. I'm not losing both of you in the same month! Snap out of it!"

The ghost of a sensation -- Daxter would have appreciated the pun that crossed his mind -- brushed against where Damas’s shoulders ought to have been. As the light drew him inexorably further down the vortex, the voice grew clearer, and the pressure on his spirit more tangible.

"Seem, get over here! He just- he just flatlined! Don't you dare, Damas, don't you dare die on me-!"

"But I'm already dead?" Damas murmured in confusion. Somehow, this one-sided conversation seemed familiar. A memory, something he'd been half conscious for.

Something struck him in the chest.

He had a chest now?

Damas coughed, and stars burst into his eyes, blinding him again.

The world rushed back like a whirlwind, ripping away the vortex without pity or pause. He was cold, and in pain -- not as much as when the Dozer landed on him, at least -- and one of his shoulders felt wrong.

He coughed again and felt his lungs expand for the first time in -- in what? Minutes? Days? Eons?

Damas opened his eyes and regretted it. Light stabbed into them as he gasped for air, greedily sucking in lungful after lungful. He heard beeping, and smelled antiseptic. A hospital ward?

"My lord!" Seem breathed, obviously relieved, "We feared the concentrated eco would be too strong for your body to handle. Thank the Precursors you live!"

Reaching up slowly to clutch his head, Damas was confused to feel bandages. He'd had his torso crushed, not his head! Slowly, he turned his head to squint up at Sig.

"Ja- Jak," he rasped, "Where's...Jak?"

He knew the answer before Sig opened his mouth. Shock doused him like ice water as he took in the medicated eco patch plastered over Sig’s right eye socket. It had only just been changed, and the smell of antibiotic lingered. The scars on his brow weren't scars, they were raw, red, furrows. Not reopened wounds, wounds that had not yet been given enough time to heal.

Sig tried to raise his brows, then cursed hotly as the movement sent him curling inward with pain.

"Uh...who's Jak?"

It was the Summer of the Long Fog.

Mar had just been kidnapped. Damas had given chase, and nearly been killed for his efforts. Sig had lost an eye, Korah an arm. Several more lost their lives.

That had happened three years ago.

This was impossible! Surely light eco couldn't-

And what do you know of light eco? You've seen it transform Jak into a kind of Precursor himself! Who's to say it cannot transport the mind through time?

But if he was simply reliving this memory, wouldn't Sig have ignored his query? And why would he feel, and breathe, if this was merely an echo?

"What...what day is it?" he wheezed.

Concerned, Sig frowned, stretching his facial muscles as little as possible.

"Sol eleventh, Se'enday," he answered.

Sol eleventh. A week and a half after the kidnapping.

And six days before -- if Daxter's math was correct -- Jak was kidnapped by Praxis.

One of his sons was either on his way to, or already within Haven's forbidding walls, and the other would arrive in mere days to a nightmare he could not escape. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

It wasn't set in stone. Not if he could help it.

Slowly, painfully, Damas pushed himself into a sitting position. The heart monitor shrieked scoldingly at him, and he conceded as he rested against the headboard, dizzy.

"We have to get to Haven," he said between pauses for breath. "L- low profile. If anyone has information..." He let it hang in the air.

"...it's Krew," Sig finished slowly.

He sighed and hung his head.

"I hate that you're right. Who you gonna send? Kleiver isn't exactly "low profile"."

Damas barely twitched his head to the side. "Not Kleiver. Someone Mar would recognize and feel safe with."

Sig leaned forward. "Then send me."

Damas remembered this. Hearing the desperation in Sig’s voice a second time still hurt. It hadn't been Sig’s fault, he understood that better now. It was no one's fault but the soothsayer who betrayed them. Sig did not need to "redeem himself" as he seemed to believe. Damas just needed him to be his eyes and ears.

"No risks," he said. "I'm not losing you too."

Anguish filled Sig’s remaining eye. He reached out to grip Damas’s hand.

"Please! I can do this, Damas. I won't fail you again!"

He reminded Damas of Jak, blaming himself for someone else's betrayal. Damas tightened his fingers around Sig’s and barely shook his head again.

"Fail me? You survived a shot to the eye, Sig. How is that failure?"

"But I-"

"Sig, I trust you." Damas caught his breath. Being temporarily dead had done his lung capacity no favors. "Just- heal first. Mar is alive, and he's- he's so smart-"

Don't break down, keep it together!

"Time is of the essence, I know. But until you've been fitted with the new eye, you're not to take any risks. Just insinuate yourself into Krew's circle. The old shark makes enough enemies to be in the market for a bodyguard. I'll go with you-"

Sig jolted upright. "Hey! No!" He pointed at the king sternly. "You almost died, man! What happens to Spargus if we lose you? You want Kleiver in charge?"

Seem blanched beneath their face paint. "Don't do that to us, sire," they begged, "We can't have committed a sin bad enough to warrant that!"

And Damas laughed. He couldn't help it, it sounded like something Daxter would've said.

Will I find Daxter too? He said they were separated when they landed...

"I told you, we're not taking any risks," he lied, "I'm pursuing a lead, that's all."

Seem frowned. "A lead on Mar? What information can you have gleaned from an eco coma, sire?"

Oh you would be surprised, young one, Damas thought, but kept it to himself. The jury was still out on whether any of this was real, after all. But if it was all some hallucination of a wandering spirit, what could be the harm?

"Not Mar." Damas leaned back and closed his eyes. "Something Praxis is working on. He's laid a trap for-" he paused. "...for someone else. Perhaps a rival gambit to whoever took my son."

He knew it was obvious that he knew more than he was saying. But no matter. This time, he would hobble Praxis's Dark Warrior Program before it ever had its first success. This time, Jak would never know the night terrors that so often drove him to avoid sleep. And if he found Mar while he was sabotaging the machinations of Precursors and Seers, so much the better.

"We foil this trap, snatch the intended victim from the jaws of the Krimzon Guard, and Praxis will flounder. We have five days to foil his ambush."

Damas opened his eyes.

"Prepare accordingly. If you are not ready in five days, I leave without you and you will meet me in Haven's forest. Understood?"

The monk and the warrior stared at him as if he was speaking complete gibberish.

"You're needed in Spargus-!" Seem began to protest, but Sig just groaned.

"Oh no. He's doing The Face. I don't think we can stop him, kid."

"But-! But if Praxis learns that the Heir of Mar is in the city-!"

"Then it would mean Onin betrayed me again and won't live to do so a third time," Damas answered smoothly.

"She was chosen by the Precursors!" the young monk cried, appalled.

"So was I. Yet I have consigned no children to unconscionable suffering for the "greater good". Even prophets can fall."

Damas felt strength beginning to return to his limbs. His body was finally processing the massive dose of eco properly. If this was a dream, it was a satisfyingly vivid one.

"Go. I have much to prepare."

Soon, Jak. You're coming home soon. I'll be waiting.

[thesmallersnow]

⋆⭒˚.⋆Quand le Directeur n'est pas là ( les acteurs dansent )⋆.˚⭒⋆

> ACT 3

Loop says they try not to look the Fighter's way, and that he's never going to see them anyway, so it doesn't matter. Well... What happens when he does look their way?

First | Previous | Next

[starwrighter]

( I made something and I’m not sorry about it lmao. Danny deserves the chance to become a mad scientist as a little treat.) (part two in the drafts)

Okay, so there’s zombies now. That’s completely fine. No, Danny’s doing great! He’s totally chill with the dimension he’s stranded in. Everything’s completely and totally fine, he’s not freaking out at all! Why do you ask? It’s not like there a giant hoard of zombies, with peeling flesh and rotting teeth trying to maul him right now.

Oh Wait!

Danny held a broom tightly in his arms pushing away their almost skeletal forms. Intangibility stopping the walking corpses from yanking him into a mosh pit of gnashing teeth and writhing maggots.

Ancients’ what did he do to deserve this? It was supposed to be a quick errand for clockwork. Travel through the realms, grab what he was sent to grab and go home. Simple! It should’ve been obvious he’d taken a wrong turn when everything went quiet. Maybe if he’d turned back when a the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his ghost sense began to choke him he’d be safe at home right now?

Probably. But it’s too late for that now. Now he had to figure out how to go home and looking at the destitute destruction of the world around him he felt like it’d be a while. He hadn’t seen a single non rotting human since he got here. Everything was looted and ransacked. Ivy crept up crumbling building weeds overtaking every crack in crumbling payment.

Danny flew through the streets eye’s scanning the area for any sign of non zombie life. Hope swelled in his chest when he saw the form of a teenager like him standing idly on a roof top. His clothes were tattered but whose wouldn’t be in a literal zombie apocalypse? He stared down at the hoards below him shuffling awkwardly as Danny approached, a sword gripped loosely in his hand.

“Ghr- tch,” The boy clicked his tongue the noise faint and shakey as he kept his back turned.

“Hey-“ The boy shrieked, turning to lunge at Danny within a split second. Arms flailing, hands still clasping onto sword. By the skin of his teeth Danny just barely managed to go intangible on time.

The other boy’s face looked… Normal? Baby fat still clung to his cheeks his nose scrunched up in a half disgusted expression. Danny might’ve believed he’d just startled him if it weren’t for the stagger when he stood. The gurgled remains of words dying on the zombies lips. Danny stared into those lifeless eyes the boy reaching out before freezing when his blade clattered to the floor.

He turned away from him staring at the ground. Stumbling onto the floor running his hands over the area, hand convulsing. Open. Close. Open. Close. Searching for the sword’s handle an need for a weapon instinctual.

Danny snatched the sword of the ground lean away as he dropped the blade in front of the zombie. Watching those trembling hand grasp the sword’s handle.

“You’re not so far gone after all are you?” He whispered. The boy lunged once again screaming so loud it made his ears ring. Danny thinks that’s a yes.

Danny, through dimensional travel, ends up in the DC universe. But when he arrived he noticed something was very wrong—everyone on this Earth was zombies and he was stranded. And well, apparently being dead didn’t stop the zombies from trying to eat him.

[nipuni]

Timelock 🕰️

A speedpaint video of this will be available at my Patreon on december 1st!

[keferon]

Monster hunter au part 9

I wanted to cook a bit more fluff before I get back to drama hehe

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[bluuscreen]

on being a hero and the irrational guilt that comes with being imperfect — part 1/2

part 2 | headcanon/au being referenced

[theo-lizzy]

LIZZY AND THEO The Buccaneers | 2.05 A Whole Love

[xoxochb]

——— ౨ৎ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

“I missed your stupid face.”

percy sighs and lays back on the sand tiredly. “oh yeah? gonna kiss it?”

you grimace playfully. “I didn’t miss it that much.”

he shrugs and places his sunglasses back over his eyes to shield the green seas from the bright sun. with one arm, the percy snakes a hand around your waist and pulls you to lay on top of him.

it’s suddenly one billion degrees hotter outside.

“percy, it’s too hot for this.”

“never.” he kisses your sunscreen-veiled shoulder, wrinkling his nose once realizing what he’d just consumed.

“perce…” you sit up and wipe your shoulder with your hand. “I didn’t know you liked to eat sunscreen.”

“yeah, it’s pretty great.”

he sits up alongside you and begins to wipe his tongue with his fingers. you don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t do anything to help.

“has a nice bitter taste to it. try some, sweet girl, you’ll love it.”

“you… are not funny.”

you hand percy your water and he begins to chug it. odds are he’d leave again in the next ten minutes to use the bathroom again.

he takes the cover off and begins sticking his hands inside to take out the ice cubes. “I love these stupid shapes.”

hearts and stars. he bought you the molds for your birthday two years ago.

percy begins to chew on a star, nodding as he believes it’s delicious. you take the cup back before he eats the rest.

“I’m gonna swim again, are you coming with?” you stand from the towel and begin to wipe off your sticky skin of the sand that had lingered.

“and miss out on the sight of your bikini sticking—”

“a simple yes would’ve sufficed.”

“yes ma’am.”

you huff and take his hand, pulling him up. “if you push my head underwater, you will be sent out of the water.”

“that’s not fair— water is apart of me, it’s my thing.”

“water is apart of everyone.”

“but I’m the son of poseidon, it’s different, sweet girl, there’s a huge difference.”

you can’t think of a counter argument so you begin walking to the shore. percy follows close behind, hovering almost.

once your feet touch the water you stop and intertwined your fingers with percy’s. “ready?”

he squeezes your hand three times. “born.”

you believe he’s almost serious about that sometimes. really, he’s ready to do anything as long as it involves you.

“then to the water we go.”

[maybeehd]

Deltarune SoulSusie AU #1

PREV // ALL // NEXT

[sergle]

Knock on wood for my sake, so things don't go awry in the coming days before their adoptions, but I've NEVER had such quick turnaround with rehoming kittens, and it's such a huge relief.

[books-books-smolderinglooks]

Young Royals 3.01

[traumawhomst]

Mer Dad

Mer Dad with Mer Reader (1,500 words)

Life had not been, well, the kindest to you thus far. You’d been the only one hatched from your clutch, and a single hatching was almost always a bad omen. You’d be lucky that the Matriarch at the time didn’t believe it and you were accepted into your pod. Maybe things would have been better if that Matriarch didn’t die a few short years after your hatching, you weren’t fully grown when the new Matriarch ordered that you were old enough to hunt for yourself, not even bothering to hide her disdain for you. You were the reason the last Matriarch died.

Your last few years of growing were filled with hunger and loneliness. It left you as always the skinniest in the group, your bones poking out and always cold. No one bothered to teach you to hunt, and well, even with years of practice you still weren’t amazing. But you couldn’t practice as much as you like, the others in the pod quickly running you off ‘their’ hunting grounds, the best spots to catch anything. You’d had more than your fair share of nights unable to sleep with an empty belly because you couldn’t catch enough.

After a particular bad set of months were you couldn’t to manage to even pick up your usual meager offerings the Matriarch snapped and drove you off. The rest quickly joined in, chasing you swiping if you dared to even attempt to slow or hide until you were far away from the place you’d spent your whole life. You found a small cave just big enough to hide in you quietly purred trying to give yourself some sense of comfort as even the terrible life you had lead seemed better than this.

You spent longer in the cave than you would have liked to admit nursing your wounds and wondering what it might be like to never leave your cave. But hunger poked at you and the shine of fish scales pulled you out.

It was odd, being able to just eat whatever you caught, you’d only ever been allowed some of what you caught, if any at all. It was odd not to have someone else place judgement. If you wanted to eat you just hunted, it was oddly nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time. You half expected your pod to show up and judge you for daring to waste so much food on yourself. You still weren’t eating as much as you could, the injuries from being driven away ached and were slow to heal, most likely because of the stress before even receiving them. Your body was always slow to heal.

You began to venture further from your little cave trying to take on bigger prey. You’d gone decently far one day, when you found a mostly eaten fish carcass on the ocean floor. The fish was almost your size and as you examined it closer studying the way the meat had been taken off the bone, you realized it couldn’t been some other ocean animal, no this was the work of a mer, a very strong one. A low booming noise cracked through the water, and it spooked you so bad you dashed off as fast as you could. Your panic didn’t abate until you’d spent hours in your in your cave and nothing had come after you. You panicked like a hatchling over nothing.

Then you starting finding injured fish just outside of your little cave. The first one you assumed was uncharacteristic streak of luck. It was bigger than anything you’d ever caught, about the length of your arm. You gleefully ripped it to shreds forcing yourself to finish it even though it’d be more food you’d ever had. You were sure when you curled up in your cave you’d wake up and it was all a dream. But then it happened a few days after, and then again, and again after that. This was on purpose.

Was there a Mer that just liked to injury fish, for the fun of it? Even in your pod that was seen as unnecessarily cruel. Maybe it was even worse than that, maybe this was a warning, what could happen to you if you angered them. Maybe this was their hunting grounds and they were trying to tell you to leave. No matter what it was nothing good you were sure. You had to leave, you had to get away from this other Mer.

The Mer in question was wondering why you had decided to spend your next rest in an entirely new cave, miles away from your usually spot. You’d never done that before in his weeks of watching you. He’d seen you alone and half healed staring at the carcass and tried to speak with you. But he was roughly three times your size and a completely different subtype of Mer, which he didn’t think about when he vocalized to you. He watched you dash off and assumed you were heading back to your pod and he followed you wanting to apologize to your Matriarch for scaring you. His pod migrated and their usual hunting grounds were far enough away that they didn’t bump into stationary pods. He soon realized as he watched you dive for your cramped little cave that you were alone. He sat for hours out of sight as you hide, waiting to hear any other Mer, for someone to come and check on you.

It explained why you were so small, and the half healing injuries that you had. He knew that some types of Mer did cast out their runty hatchlings and it certainly looked like it had happened to you. He knew he should probably leave well enough alone, knew that you probably wouldn’t want his help if he offered it. But he couldn’t just leave you after scaring you. So he caught a fish injuring it to make it easy for you to catch and waited.

He told himself that after you ate it he’d leave. But the delight on your face when you saw it, the glee as you tore it apart, the high happy chirps as you ate. It was the cutest thing he’d seen in such a long time. He found himself judging your past pod, couldn’t they see what a sweet thing you were? He came back a few days later just to watch it again. By the third time he couldn’t deny he was attached. He’d already told his pod about you, and they were trying to get him to bring you with him. But he’d already seen how you reacted to him simply trying to speak to you, so he planned on slowly gaining your trust.

And then you decided to swim so far that you were about to run into a completely different pod’s territory. A pod that he knew wouldn’t let even a strange Mer into near their pod.

You thought you were about to die. You were swimming making progress when an arm the size of your body appeared in front of you and pulled you into the larger Mer. You panicked screeching and clawing at the arm. You’d never even seen another type of Mer before and this one was keeping you trapped as it swam in the opposite direction It didn’t even care as you did your best to make them bleed, biting, it didn’t make a sound. If you had attacked a Mer in your pod they would have screeched back at you but to be met with only silence, it was more terrifying. It stopped swimming seemingly at random, and for a few moments just stared at you as you fought.

He was just trying to figure out how to communicate with you without scaring you further. If you had been one of his pod’s hatchlings he’d just have clicked at you to stop fussing but he had a feeling that would not have the intended affect. He needed you to calm down so he started purring. It was so loud that you felt it in your bone, and you covered your ears making high pitched short squeaks. He’d never thought of quieting it before, but he managed it lowering it until your hands fell away from your ears and you stopped squirming.

You felt his body relax not long after yours did, the purr a steady thrum against your entire body. When you felt a webbed hand pet your hair you snuck a peak at his face to be greeted with a warm relieved smile, you eventually feel asleep in his arms. He swam keeping you tucked close as he tried to imagine how his pod would react to you.

[moonsart]

Part two of my gift for @berivokcs for the @isat-secretsanta-2024 !!!!! Some post-canon isafrin hugs for you!!! Hope you like it ^^

[sarcasticscribbles]

my legacy

[fluffydeoxys]

happy pride !! idk who that guy on the far right is he seems scary