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smiling-laughing-hating · 4 days ago

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I saw you too have kpop demon hunters brainrot, and so, I am here to request!

Can I have some dating headcannons of the main girls (with like gender neutral or AFAB)?? I have a huge crush on mira rn and there's like no content of her, only jinu and the saja boys-

summary: what is it like to date the Huntrix girls and dealing with their insecurities

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Rumi

Let's just say that to get with this girl you had to go through alot

She surrounded herself with walls all the time cause of her patterns

And she won't tell you about them even when you get together forget

How you figure it out must have been her letting down her guard (which one it's on is hard)

You were sleeping over at the Huntrix and currently were in Rumi's room; on her bed

Your girlfriend walks in with her coat on something that you always question about her is why she always wears a coat inside who does that?

"Hi baby what are you doing?"

You shrugged scrolling some more on your phone "nothing much"

She sits besides youand snatch your phone "hey!" You grin and jump at her causing you both to collapse on the bed you on top of her

You giggle as you start to tickle her relentlessly

"Wait- no- HAHAHAHAHAHA"

"Surrender for i-...?" You stop and raise a brow as you see the marking on her arms that were exposed as a result of her squirming

she was confused at first before she realised you saw it and froze in shock

Yea after that she explained everything and how it is only 'temporarily' until they can seal The Honmon and she was surprised to hear you say that even if she stays like this you will always love her

Yea that was an emotional night for her

Oh and btw after this you are the most important person to her no one can top you

She became more open more romantic and oh she is touch starved

Now that she feels safe around you you better expect that you will be cuddling every night

Mira

Sweet sweet Mira here is your no.1 fan of anything you do she supports 100℅ she knows what it's like to not be accepted she would for you to feel that way

She maybe a little hesitant to talk about her past and family and every time you bring it up she always dodges it like a bullet

She may snap at you sometime and say hurtful things but she never really mean any of it

Well that fact doesn't make it hurt any less does it?

You were leaning against the Huntrix balcony

You and Mira fought, again

This week was rough it seems like any disagreement between you two cause a full blown fight, it was alot

you understand that Mira's parents contacted her and that's what is making her so on edge but it doesn't exactly soothe the ache in your chest

Your thoughts are interrupted by a pair of arms wrapping around you

"You have every right to be angry i shouldn't have lashed out like that...forgive me please"

You don't answer you simply put your hand on hers and you both basket in the comfortable silence

After that night she became more careful with her words

And now instead of fighting eachother you fight the problem while cuddling to get rid of any possible argument

Zoey

We already know how much of a worrier this girl is when she confessed to you it was so exaggerat that you thought she may as well ask you to marry her (i mean-)

But while it can be endearing it can also be too much on both of you

For everything she does she looks to please you and everyone around her even is she doesn't realise it

To the point where it becomes suffocating

"i made your favourite dish"

"What do you think of ---?"

"Are mad at me?"

" i am sorry"

"You love me right?"

And so on and so forth

That is a normal day between you two you were ready to quell all her fear you cared you really did

But this was too much

"Zoey! Dear you don't have to try so much for me i love you for you!"

She blinks up at you and smiles sheepishly

"I am so-"

"No! No more of that come here" she looked at you confused as you pulled her at you and started to squeeze her as tight as you can

You threw yourself on the couch still holding her, you then start to whisper sweet nothing in her ear such as 'i love you' 'you are worth everything' 'you are enough' and more

You guys stayed like that all night

She smiles as she nuzzles into your neck "thank you..."

thankfully after that day she seemed to calm alot more about her habit of overpleasing you

She is more comfortable around you she now tells you everything

Ans i mean everything :D

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#kpdh x reader #kpop demon hunters #kpop demon hunters x reader #kpdh rumi #kpdh zoey #kpdh mira #•smiley writes :) •

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randomfandomworks · 10 hours ago

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You pushed the eyeshadow palette to the side as Rumi laid below you, watching you decide on what to do next. You’d been bugging her for a while now about designing her show makeup and it was on this dull day in the middle of their break that she had finally agreed.

It wasn’t professional, or high effort, it was simply an idol and her partner sprawled out in bed. The weight of your chest laid on hers, your elbows propping you up just enough to look down at her as you created your masterpiece. You placed some blush to her cheeks, a light dust of color to finish off what you’d been working so hard on.

You set the blush aside, readjusting your weight to look down at Rumi once more, your eyes wandering over her features to take in what you had created. Halfway through your observations you stopped, your gaze lingering on her patterns. Slowly you brought your hand up, brushing your fingers over the patterns that spread across her forehead. Your eyes traced the movement memorizing the shape as your fingers ran along her skin.

“I’m glad you don’t cover them up.” You spoke softly, your fingers moving further up to tuck back some of her loose hairs.

She looked at you silently for a moment, watching you focus, holding onto the gentleness within your stare. “Yeah?” She responded, her voice barely above a whisper.

You smiled, bringing your hand down to cup her cheek, “Yeah.” You finalized meeting her gaze.

A warmth settled in her chest, something about you, your acceptance of what she’d tried to hide for so long, made her fall even harder for you.

And maybe, she thought after a moment, you’d have to do her makeup more often.

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driftwoodpony · 2 months ago

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another previous thing i did

#doodle #unorganized relationship rundown yes #was mostly for me to use in writing #and to show zoey #which i hope only she knew about up until this point #NUMBER 9 IS KISSING AND I WONT SHOW KISSING IN THIS HOUSEHOLD❌️❌️❌️

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writeywritey-o3o · 5 days ago

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Free

My personal version of Jinu’s POV the moment Rumi stepped into the arena till his sacrifice

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Rumi stepped into the arena, putting a pause on our performance. The bracelet she gave me was weighing heavily on my wrist. Gwi-ma was behind me, taunting her about the honmoon and her patterns. It pained me to hear her agree with him. She couldnt, was she… giving up?

In a flash her resolve seem to return and she stepped forward. She sounds beautiful. Her voice stronger than she ever sounded on stage or in a recording. Her hair was messed up and all her patterns were out in the open, and she never looked more breathtaking than in this moment.

In a sea of burning red out of the corner of my eye was a flash of blue. Then another. Her girls. They were here and they hear her.

I was motionless watching gwi-ma send hoards of demons after them. The four demons beside me sprung into action as well… so why didnt i? Gwi-ma was definitely controlling the rest of them. So why arent i moving as well?

I waited for a command, a word, for my body to spring into action against my will… but - nothing. I didnt move. I watched the girls fight. the moment seemed to last forever, but I didnt hear a thing. Only their voices singing through the battle. No Gwi-ma. No commands. No repeated whispers of the shame id carried with me for the last 400 years.

I felt… light. I was free.

The sudden beam of demonic fire above my head snapped me out of whatever trans i was in. It was aimed directly at Rumi. I felt my body start to move as it hit her and she held it back with her sword. She was losing. I’d never moved so fast before. In a flash i was in front of her, seconds before she was incinerated by the blast. She looked up at me when she noticed the blast was off of her. She looks so beautiful.

Her brows twisted up in worry, telling me she wanted to free me. But oh how could she not realise, she already did. And it feels so much better than i ever could have imagined, even with the fire of Gwi-ma incinerating me from behind. I had so much i wanted to tell her. I wanted to say that For the first time in a long time, i felt warmth. I felt at peace. I wanted to tell her how proud i was of her. How amazing she looked with her patterns out in the open like that. How i wish we had more time…

I knew it was running out fast, so i settle on telling her that my soul was hers. It was hers the moment i realised she was a demon. And maybe i spent the last of my energy brushing the hair off her face and straightening it out. And maybe, just maybe, in another life i’d find her again.

I closed my eyes and felt better than i had in 400 years.

Fearless and undefined.

#kdh #jinumi #zoey kpdh #rumi kpdh #mira kpdh #huntrix #saja boys #kpdh #kpop demon hunters #rujinu #jinu #rumi #my writing

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nepenthe-of-the-nutcracker · 16 days ago

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Halt drills into Will the importance of blending in with the shadows and other typical Ranger lessons throughout his apprenticeship, and then once Will gets his mandola, completely shifts gears and is like “go attract the attention of this entire establishment with your lute while me and Horace (the notably unsneaky knight) remain inconspicuous and gather information.”

And Will is just like “cool!! I love playing my mandola :)”

I love them your honour!!

#this was once again rotting in my drafts #from two months ago i think.... dunno what she was hiding but okay. go off. thanks for the secret little treat ig #the lute/mandola thing is one of the best things to come out of this series and you can fight me on that #ranger’s apprentice #halt o'carrick #will treaty #my posts #my cat is staring intensly at my screen as i write this. everyone say hello zoey

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toasterdrake · 3 days ago

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guys this movie has pulled me back into the x reader trenches 🧍‍♂️

saja boys are cool and all but i'm a womanliker so its huntr/x timeee. tentatively open to requests now that i have more free time if anyone wants to send some my way for the gals 💪

Better Late Than Never - Zoey x gn!Reader

summary: you're late for your first date with Zoey. painfully late.

word count: 1K

warnings: panic attack, implication of injury

The idol life demanded a lot. Time, most of all. Outside commitments were hard to schedule around promo, shows, rehearsals, songwriting, and spending precious time off with her girls.

It had been a small miracle to find a spare few hours when she was free at the same time as you. But after all that -- shuffling timetables, apologising to organisers, reassuring Mira and Rumi and Bobby she would stay hidden -- after all that... you hadn't shown.

Her phone screen stared back at her, icy blue of unanswered messages washing over her face. Pulling in a shaky breath, Zoey switched it off and dropped it on the bench beside her.

Just once, she thought she had found a romantic prospect who actually cared. Who wanted to know more, who wanted to know her, instead of the girl on the posters.

Of course you hadn't.

Of course she wasn't worth the time, the effort.

Of course she wasn't going to waste another moment of that precious currency! Still sitting on the bench, hoping, hoping, waiting, in case you were just around the corner.

She was too optimistic for her own good. Too ready to dish out more chances, when every time it turned out like this.

And yet, she couldn't move.

Zoey's hands balled into fists in her lap. Twilight fading into dusk, a streetlamp flickered to life above her as the shadows deepened.

She fought it, trembling quietly, but her vision blurred, and her head bowed.

She bit her lip, hard. It did nothing to stay the flood.

Alone in a deserted alley, she hunched over, sobbing into her hands under a cold spotlight. She lost herself in the agony tightening like a coiled snake in her chest, lost herself trying desperately to pull in air through heaving sobs, lost herself in the knowledge it was always going to be like this.

"--ey? Zoey!"

Someone was calling her name, tugging her hands away from her face.

Before she could blink away the haze in her eyes, arms were pulling her in close. A steady warmth enveloped her. One hand folded into the back of her jacket; the other cradled her head.

A soft hum emerged amid the ringing in her ears, rumbling deep in the chest holding her. Zoey turned a little to press closer to the vibrations. Somehow, it drowned out the voices inside. The hand on her head began stroking her hair in time with the melody.

Slowly reclaiming a clear rhythm as her mind cleared, she followed the swell and fall of the chest with her own breath. Whoever it was smelt nice, she thought. Like ginseng in the home remedies her mom used to make. Like home.

Eventually, she pulled away a little -- just enough to dry her eyes. Not to mention getting a look at her consoler. Catching the streetlamp's light, the subtle features of your frown greeted her, your hair glowing faintly.

''Are you okay?'' You murmured, voice so quiet she barely heard it stutter and break.

Pushing further from you (instantly missing your warmth now that night had fallen), Zoey wiped her face more vigorously with her sleeves. Embarrassment shot harsh through her. Her makeup must've been horrifically smeared. And, God, what happened to 'your faults and fears must never be seen'?

''I'm sorry, I'm sorry -- I-I must look a mess, I--''

Bewildered, you caught her hands. ''Why are you apologising?''

While her mouth worked to produce an answer, you stood from where you had been kneeling before her. Only to step back and sink to the floor, forehead touching stone by her feet.

''I'm very sorry for my lateness. I did everything I could to be here, but it's inexcusable.'' Sheepish, you rose to your knees. ''I thought you would've been gone by now.''

''I…'' Glancing away, Zoey rubbed her arm. ''I thought I would be too.'' She risked a look at you from the corner of her eye. ''What was it, that kept you?''

An odd, toothy smile stretched your face awkwardly. Your hand slipped beneath your jacket to cover your abdomen. Though her eyes were puffy, her vision was clear now, but your dark clothes were fuzzy against the dim street behind you. She couldn't make out what was there.

''Um… it's a long story.''

She crossed her arms, fixing you with a glare to get her point across. ''I've been waiting a long time to hear it.''

Grimacing, you conceded. ''You're right. Sorry.''

Zoey watched you expectantly. Shifting a little where you still knelt on the ground, you cleared your throat.

''While I was getting ready to meet you, my aunt had some -- visitors. Not the kind you want to welcome in, if you catch my drift. They wanted something from her. Something she couldn't afford to part with. I, uh, put a stop to it, but they got to my aunt first. So,'' you sighed shakily, then pulled in a breath. ''I've been at the hospital with her.''

Gasping, her hands flew to cover her mouth. Frankly, that was her worst nightmare. To not be able to protect a loved one, and for that failure to threaten their life.

''My phone was broken in the fight,'' you pulled it from a pocket, waving the blank cracked screen, ''or I would've let you know. I just… couldn't leave until I knew she'd be okay.''

''That's horrible! Out of all the excuses you could've had, I mean -- that takes the cake!''

You stared at her like you'd fully expected her to scream in your face that she hated you. ''You're not mad?''

Zoey's heart ached at the fragility in your voice. ''How could I be?''

Wringing them in your lap, you looked at your hands. ''I let you down.''

Laying a hand on your shoulder, she urged you to look at her, raising your head with a finger under your chin. ''For a good reason.'' She leaned forward and pressed her lips to your forehead. ''You're forgiven,'' she promised, taking your hands in hers.

Shoulders shaking, laughter bubbled in your chest. Confused, she blinked at you.

''Hey, I was the one comforting you! Uh -- speaking of, how are you feeling?''

Seeing the concern now written on your face, your hands gently squeezing hers, the faint lipstick mark she'd left behind: a smile tugged at the corners of Zoey's lips. ''Better, now.''

~[Z]~

- love, toasty

did ya get my hint that reader knows about demons? did ya did ya? *evil laughter* i have another scenario planned... maybe for all 3 girls...

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enerofairy · 4 days ago

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I've just had a thought, I've never seen k-pop demon hunters but everything is Wonderful and I'm enjoying some fanfics about it but just hear me out, what if the reader was a soloist maybe she'd debut a month or weeks after the Saja boys and maybe the Huntr/x wasn't allowed to eliminate them yet because of a contract by the company?(I don't really know hahaha just to make this long or a series) While I've read that the Saja boy's songs do take a part of the soul? While performing what if the company then decided to like let the reader perform after as she obliviously heals people through her songs like fill that void? And maybe it could also restore some parts of the soul hunters? Or demons? and this arrangement is due to keep money flowing as the reader who is oblivious bout demons and who or what she really is and the Saja boys are in the same agency? The Huntr/x do everything they can to put a stop to this but finding a hard time to do this legally? And to save reader as I've said before she is oblivious to anything demons, demon hunters, angels? (Idk maybe that's what she is) And like Jinu x reader something? . It's like a modern life of kpop idols fighting or trying to live life while doing what their goals are. Idk just a thought, make it a series or something. I just want to read😭

#kpdh #jinu x reader #fanfic #k pop demon hunters #rumi #rumi kpdh #zoey kpdh #writing ideas #help #just a thought #jinu kpdh

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emo-nova · 5 days ago

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THE SOCIAL MEDIAS HAS INFLUENCED ME INTO WATCHING KPOP DEMON HUNTERS AND IT HAS ME IN A CHOKEHOLD??? I DONT LISTEN TO KPOP, I WENT IN FOR THE FOUND FAMILY AND APPARENTLY DOOMED STRAIGHT COUPLE?

GOT THE FOUND FAMILY, BUT I THAT WAS THE MOST YEARNING NOT EVEN COUPLE. I GOT STRAIGHT BAITED? WHAT DIMENSION AM I IN??

WHAT

#kpop demon hunters #rumi kpop demon hunters #mira kpop demon hunters #zoey kpop demon hunters #mira kpdh #rumi kpdh #zoey kpdh #rumi x jinu #??#please im begging #for them to be together to do taxes and write hopeful duets :<#jinu kpdh #jinu kpop demon hunters

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sinnerzoey · 24 days ago

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dragon staring into my eyes, softly huffing out of her nostrils as her wings loom over me. her tail gently runs up my thigh, pushing my skirt aside as it nestles inside of my panties. she presses her damp snout against my nose and chirps. i reach out and put my palm against her snout, closing my eyes as the tips of her wings caress my back.

#zoey writes #teratophillia #mtf nsft

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mcdbutichangedit · 4 months ago

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Aphmau would 100% leave her diary wide opened in a very visible spot of the house.

I imagine she sometimes leaves it on a page with Laurance or Garroth's name on it and they have to do their best not to snoop because, on one hand, "what does Aphmau think of me? Is it possible she might ever feel the same?" but also "I can't look at Lady Aphmau's journal! I am her guard! She trusts me!!"

Garroth chooses the latter nearly every time (for plot reasons he might not one time, who knows 👻). Maybe, he's trying his best to cope after Lilian did the hologram thingy and then he catches sight of Laurance's name and can't help but run away or something.

Laurance teases her about it at least once but never fully pries (he already understands this love is forever one-sided). He also notes how she's spells his name wrong 66% of the time. Maybe he finds her diary when he's blind and gets sad that he can't tease her about it anymore.

At one point, Zoey finds the page opened to something really depressing about how stressful being a mother and lord is or how she was never meant for a full blown war between kingdoms twice their size, etc etc. And Zoey comforts her about it (after apologizing for reading it, of course, something the other two didn't do).

#aphmau mcd #minecraft diaries #aphmau minecraft diaries #mcd but different #notes on writing #notes on guards #notes on laurance #notes on garroth #notes on aphmau #notes on zoey #putting the diaries in minecraft diaries

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longlostlibrary · 4 days ago

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OKAY OKAY OKAY

ALL OTHER FIC IS ON HOLD NEW OBSESSION JUST DROPPED

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kurithedweeb · 1 year ago

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I know we always talk about Garroth ending up looking exactly like his father, but what about Dante growing up to look eerily like Gene.

When he joins up with Phoenix Drop, he's still young. He's a little on the short side, still a bit too thin from life in the wild and imprisonment, and he's a little anxious and shaky around so many people after having grown unused to living in a village. The smiling faces of the citizens remind you of your old home, of clamoring crowds and standing frozen in the plaza as your brother . . .

Anyway, it's good here. It's easy to fit in. The guards joke around with you and make sure you're healthy. They don't know a thing about dual wielding, but you get plenty of sparring partners out of helping the local baker practice her magick, and you maybe make a friend too. You're not too sure how you feel about the Lord, but she's a kind soul and does her best to make sure you're comfortable here in town, and her kids are great. Babysitting the boys is easily your favorite duty. Yeah, it's good here. For the first time in a long while, you feel like you're doing good.

Then the war comes. The children and non-combatants are sent away. The jovial atmosphere of the guard tower has soured into solemn silence as you make your final preparations. In the morning, you step into the battlefield and you go to war for the first time in your life. You have a horrible feeling in your gut that it won’t be the last.

You, Sir Laurance and Sir Garroth make a good team. It makes you sick. The three of you cross the battlefield at a slow and inevitable pace, cutting down any soldier that dares stray too close, and together you cleave the enemy forces in half, scattering them. The killing comes easy to you. You had hoped that in this peaceful new village, with time, you would become unfamiliar to how easily you were once able to take a life, but right then you’re glad your body never forgot the motions of death. Glad for the blood that stains your hands—how can you be glad?

You can’t remember how long you fought for. Days, weeks? Surely not months, or so you think. Yours is a small force, and though Miss Lucinda is a good healer, she grows tired while the other army’s numbers are replenished time and again. You remember the bags under her eyes as she tipped a potion sip by sip into your mouth the time you were shot through the face.

You remember sneaking into the enemy camp in the dead of night, skirting around the edges of it to the back line where the archers rested. You quietly slit five of their throats before you were noticed, and managed to slash another across the belly before the arrow caught you in the side of the face, in one cheek and out the other. The wood of the shaft cracked when you bit down. It was everything you could do not to scream as you fled. Dale thought you were a fiend when you first stepped out of the shadows, face obscured in blood and cradling your jaw as you cupped a hand beneath your mouth in an effort to catch more blood before it left a trail. Laurance held you while Garroth split the arrowhead from the rest of it with a knife and pulled the shaft out the other side of your face, your jaw gripped tight in one hand to keep you from struggling. It took hours to pull the splinters from your cheeks and tongue before they sent you to wake the healer. The whole ordeal had been excruciating. You might have cried. You remember that a lot more clearly than most other times at war. After a while, it’s hard to tell which side spills more blood when so much is shed that red squishes out of the earth wherever you step.

Every day, you fought dawn to dusk. And then one day you won. By Nicole literally knocking some sense into her father, of all things! You find a quiet corner to throw up in and for a beautiful moment, you think life in this little town you’ve started thinking of as home will go back to being good. Until your Lord tells you to guard the village as she races past the gates, and she doesn’t come back. None who followed her do either.

For days, you stand waiting at the gates. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep. O’khasis is gone, Scaleswind has made a refuge of the plaza, and still there is no sign of your Lord or your brothers-in-arms. You won’t even leave to have your wounds seen to. Nicole has to drag a doctor to the gates to treat you, and the entire time you watch the forest hoping that any moment they will reappear. You only step away when someone brings you news that the ship that took the children away has returned. You should be the one to tell them.

Zoey knows something is wrong the moment she sees you. Levin and Malachi smile and ask where their mother is—they call you ‘uncle’ while they do. You get down on your knees before them, and you gather them close in your arms, and you cry as you tell them their mother has been missing since the day the war ended. You’re still holding them when the exhaustion catches up with you.

Zoey is with you when you wake. She tells you you’ve been out nearly two days. She fusses over you, and you know you’ve worried her because that’s what she does when she’s worried. You’re a mess anyway, so you let her fuss. You drink the broth she makes you, you change into the clothes she provides, you sit still while she cuts the unruly mats of your hair and shaves your face. You used to cut yourself shaving all the time, no one ever taught you how and you were only six or so when Gene was learning to; you don’t remember now how he showed you each step or the laugh in his voice at the face of disgust you made when you slapped a little hand into the lather on his face and left behind a tiny palmprint. Zoey doesn’t cut you once. When she’s done with you, she takes you by the arm and guides you back into civilization, where everyone who remained has decided already on search parties to go out looking for your missing friends.

You head each expedition. Dale brings himself out of retirement to watch over the town while you’re gone, and asks only that you also look for his son. Does he know you used to be a tracker, used to spend days in the woods trailing coyotes and runaways for enough coin to carry you through the cold months? You try for him, but the ground is soft still and every step anyone takes leaves a print, all overlapping and muddled. You keep an eye out as you circle the same stretches of woods for days, but you find nothing. Your group goes further and faster than any other, the first to find and dismantle bandit camps and dens of fiends, but no matter how far you go you find not a sign of anyone who has disappeared that day. It’s as though they vanished into thin air. Every time you return home, Dale looks at you with hopeful eyes, and every time you must take him aside and break his heart a little more. Eventually, he stops asking.

For a year, you search. The area has never been safer. You have never felt so alone as when people start to suggest that a funeral may be in order.

You feel like a monster for the rage in your voice when you denounce these people. You know they aren’t dead—you would have felt such a thing, you know, you would have felt pieces of yourself snapping like wire pulled too taut, you would have felt the sharp edges tangling inside you—it would have felt like it did when the brother you killed rose from the grave to slit your throat and cut your very existence from the memory of Boboros. You hear white noise rumbling in your ears when the first brave soul says Sir Dante, there’s been no sign for a year now, and your blood is boiling when you slap their comforting hand off your shoulder. You spit that you’re not giving up just because everyone else has taken no evidence of life to mean the surety of death, and with their pitying looks burning into your back to return to the woods. You scream into the trees until you can’t anymore. When it doesn’t help, you use your considerable tracking skills to hunt something, anything, until you feel human again.

You crawl back home the day before the funeral with your cape stained with blood; they held it back so you could attend. You polish your armor and swords until they shine, and the warped reflection of your own face makes you feel sick the way waging war did. You stand at attention the entire ceremony without moving a muscle. When Dale reads the names of the deceased at the end, offering their souls into the embrace of the Matron, you salute, and the clatter of your armor silences the crowd.

Everyone who fought in the war salutes with you. So do your Lord’s sons. You’re too tired to cry. You hold your salute long after everyone else has left.

The remaining forces of Scaleswind return home. One by one, family by family, the streets of your home empty. Without your Lord, without your guard, the citizens trickle out the front gates and never turn back. Some apologize to you as they say their goodbyes, and some of them you actually believe. You close the gate behind each of them until all that remains is you, Zoey, and your Lord’s sons. Then Zoey tells you she’s taking the boys to the Yggdrasil Forest. She holds you tight for too long and kisses your brow when you show them to the gate for the last time.

You can’t believe you ever thought you knew what loneliness was before this.

For five years, you are completely and utterly alone. You search and you patrol and you do your best to maintain the village. You don’t believe in Irene, but every day before dawn you stand before her statue and look down down down over the cliff’s edge and pray that this won’t be the rest of your life. That you haven’t deluded yourself into believing a fantasy, that you haven’t made such an incredible fool of yourself that people can’t bear to be around you, that you haven’t been forgotten. For five years, you pray that someone, somewhere, remembers that you exist. You look down down down over the cliff’s edge and have the terrible thought that you don’t know what you’d do if you were forgotten again.

The gate is falling apart. You don’t know how to repair the damage the weather’s done to it, you tried to patch the cracks but it never holds. With each year, you’ve been pushed further and further outtowards the coast. The only places you have the energy to maintain anymore are the guard tower and your Lord’s home. You blockaded the gates when the mechanism broke, you check it on occasion to be sure no bandits get in, and one day you hear voices from the other side. Familiar voices. You scramble up the wall and look over the other side at a boy you don’t recognize looking back up at you. He says, Is that Uncle Dante? and you climb down as fast as you can to embrace Malachi.

He’s nearly the age you were when you first met his mother. He’s grown tall, and strong enough to carry his brother on his back. Levin is fevered when you first see him, flush and hurting even as he dozes, and Malachi tells you he can’t walk from how bad he hurts. You remember how Zoey fretted over him when he was young, how sometimes he’d scream for seemingly no reason, and once you show them to their mother’s home Malachi refuses to leave his bedside.

You sit with them and ask where Zoey is. Malachi tells you of her obsession, and the relief that you are not alone in the belief that those who disappeared are alive feels like a hint of betrayal. You’re relieved that she’s driving herself into a downward spiral because of what? Because it makes you feel like you were reasonable to fight not to let their souls be put to rest?

You wait for her at the gates deep into the night and take her to her boys when she bursts from the woods, frantic that she’d lost them, and safe if your Lord’s home she holds you so tight your ribs hurt from the force of her grip. After so long, you’re not alone anymore.

You wake before dawn and strap your swords to your back. For the first time in a long time, you feel safe enough to go without your armor. You hike up the steep cliff to the Irene statue. You kneel before her to offer your thanks. You look into the pool at her feet and fear grips you by the throat.

Your brother’s face looks back at you.

You wear your swords the way he did. Your hair falls like his, dark in the shadow of Irene. Your face is gaunt and pale from old habits, eating only enough to sustain yourself so rations will stretch long enough for you to find more—do you remember how they starved Gene before they killed him? How they weakened him so he wouldn’t have the energy to fight? How pale and gaunt he was, dirt streaking over the side of his face, blood and grime drying in his hair, shaking and sweaty with how hard he fought back? Do you remember the scar that twisted around his throat when he returned from the dead to get his vengeance? Your collar is open over the scar he left twisting across your own, and it matches his own so very well. In the shadows of your eyes, you see his own staring back.

You think of the war. You think of how easy the killing was. You think of how easily Gene cut through the guards, the Lord, the memories of Boboros. The rage in his voice when he denounced you as his brother, the twist of his smile when he told you he would leave you to rot, Dante. No one will ever remember you. You can see that twist in the corners of your own smile, pushed into shape by the deep scars on your cheeks. You and your brother are the same.

You’re shaking too much to stand. You never go without your armor again.

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