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starr-fall-knight-rise · 3 years

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HASO, “Perfect Timing.”

Alright everyone. I am beginning to realize that maybe expecting myself to write a story every week day with a job and trying to get into grad school and writing a second novel might be a bit..... excessive?

So I am going to try for three times a week. I hope you all stick around :)

And I hope you enjoy today’s story as well.

Adam stood with his hands behind his back, feet spread to shoulder width. He would never have noticed by himself, but the men and women around him stood a little straighter and stepped a little faster under his watchful eye. Once upon a time they might have only hastened their work if he directly asked them too, but just his mere presence these days could send his crew scurrying to do their work. He hadn’t really changed anything about the way he commanded his men. He was firm when he needed to be but allowed for brevity when it would suit the situation.

However, a few years and some tough lessons was slowly shaping him into the kind of man who could command thousands, sharp posture, calm confidence, and a keen eye.

But then again anyone who could appear professional while wearing high top heelies was a man to be reckoned with.

Sunny walked up next to him her pearlescent white armor glowing under the light as she leaned on the shade of her matching spear. Her head was held high like his. Where once she had been locked up, and defensive, she now stood with the calm confidence of someone who understood what control meant.

Together they had come a long way.

She tilted her head, “You really think he’s going to let you race this…. It’s a million dollar piece of military hardware, they don’t stand a chance.”

Adam didn’t move, hands still clasped behind his back as he stared up at the F-90 Darkfire he was preparing for the race, “I wouldn’t be so sure…. I’ll be lucky to come in last place.”

Sunny frowned confused, “I saw those shuttles, they were junk shows.”

He lifted his head as the F-90 was rolled across the deck.

“This is a race, it isn’t combat. She was built for dogfights which means she is going to be heavier than the others. Wing tip to wing tip she is also going to be a little longer than the other shuttles and jets making maneuvering around obstacles more difficult. Sure she likely has a more powerful engine, but that can be as much of a detriment as it is a leg up.” He gestured in the vague direction of the race course, “We are going to be racing through the planet’s smaller rocky ring. It has an unusual amount of larger, thick chunks which we are going to have to manuver around: the kind of conditions you might see in science fiction movies when they talk about an asteroid field. Asteroid fields are generally too far apart to cause any real issue, but here the rocks are dense, and my flying is going to have to be on pont, having a more powerful engine is going to make her more touchy, and my fitness on the controls is going to have to be absolute.”

Sunny tilted her head listening as he continued. She liked it when this side of him came out. There was something about the analytical, logical side of Adam she found….. Very appealing.

He walked forward to examine the jet himself, “Furthermore, I don’t know if you noticed, but there were a few jets there that weren’t exactly junk shows. A few of them were pretty top of the line, and most of them were built for racing. Lighter, sleeker, faster, and with more engine control than mine.

A lot of my maneuverability is lost out of the atmosphere. This isn’t about how well you can manipulate wind currents, this is going to be all about the very minute rotation of the rear and and wing engines. Their wings are smaller and closer in meaning they are going to rotate more easily than me.

She walked up with him and put a hand on his shoulder, “You forgot to fact in one thing.”

He frowned and looked up, “Oh, what did I miss.”

She smiled slightly, “The skill of the pilot, and I know for a fact that we have the best pilot this side of Andromeda. You can have the best plane in the world, but if you have a shit pilot, then a good pilot in a flying trash can has a chance of winning.”

He Smiled, “Thanks, I needed that.”

He stepped back, “Still it doesn't pay to be too cocky. I have a feeling these people have raced this before, they are going to know what they are dealing with, and I am going tinto this completely blind. This is a test to see if my instincts are better than their practice…. Who knows it could be a very close run thing.”

He moved forward to do an extra check on the outside of the ship despite having a whole team of people to do it for him. Adam had learned to delegate a lot of his responsibilities onto others to avoid burnout, but this was one thing he never left to other people. He came back after a thorough check of the ship and stopped next to her.

His head was tilted to one side as he looked at the machine sitting before him.

“It is missing something.”

Sunny turned her head to look at him, “What?”

He smiled, “Do we have anyone here who has experience with graffiti?”

***

Donavan Red met him when he entered the hanger, wearing his flight suit and holding his helmet under one arm. He had gone for some of his more simple equipment. Didn’t want to give the guy an excuse to blame his skill on technology.

Red looked him over.

“Nice suit, princess.”

Adam just smiled thinly looking around at the other pilots, “I see I might be under-dressed.”

To be far though, he wasn’t exactly sure what he would have described the dress code, if he had to put it on an invitation.

The most apt description seemed to have been.

Dress for Pissing contest.

The men and women wore their uniforms in the same way NASCAR drivers might, covered in logos and patterns. Some of them were clearly custom ordered with personal designs on the backs or the helmets, some sporting flames, others cartoon animals, one guy was just covered in black and white skulls.

The affect up close was ok, but from a distance he just looked like an over excited dalmatian, or maybe some kind of flamboyant cow.

A few of them went for color themes, neon red on black. Neon green on blue.

Most of them tried to coordinate with the matching colors on their ship, each trying to outdo the next.

Red smirked.

The docking bay light began to blink red as the airlock was engaged, and the all turned to watch as the doors opened, and Adam’s jet rolled into the docking bay. She was simultaneously both very impressive and very not impressive. She was an instrument of war, and he rockets lined up on either side of her wings said as much. Adam had once considered her rather sleek in comparison to other jets of the day, but looking at her now in comparison with the racing planes and he couldn’t help but compare her to a pitbull or a bulldog next to greyhounds or whippets.

She rolled up slowly and Red raised an eyebrow.

“A whose guy huh?”

Adam smirked, “I don’t know, I kind of like it.”

They both looked up as the F-90 stopped in place, and along her side in delicate blue cursive script was the name Cinderella. The man who had done the graffiti had even taken the time to add some stylized pink roses to the front and end of the word giving it a finished look.

Donavan seemed both amused and annoyed at the same time.

The men and women around him turned to look over ridicule dying on their lips as they saw the smirk on his face.

It was made pretty clear.

He was going to beat them, and when he beat them, he was going to have a princess logo on the side of his jet, never mind all of their cool paint jobs.

Donavan frowned but then turned to everyone, “Alright load up!.” Adam did as ordered, switching seats with the young pilot in the cockpit and strapping himself in. he adjusted his controls, did a quick once over, and then pulled some power from his engine. There was going to be an overwhelming desire to go fast, but he knew that speed wasn’t going to win him this race.

The jets began lining up next to each other, and to his surprise, one of the sleek racing models sidled up next to him, and when he looked over, he saw Donovan Red cambering into the cockpit.

That didn’t exactly bode well, but what was there to do about it.

He felt cool oxygen spilling onto his mouth and nose as the orange tinted visor dropped down over his eyes. He opted not to use the heads up display preferring to see everything around him as he was flying.

They were all in a line now, and up ahead a large projection appeared on the docking bay doors.

Red lights began to blink as the docking bay was cleared of everyone except for the jets.

The image of a woman appeared on the screen before them.

It was one of the women he had seen before in her cut off jean shorts and tight tank top.

“Ladies and gentlemen start - your - ENGINES!”

All around him the room was filled with a roar as the group of people pushed their engines to an idle.

He could feel the jet underneath him as it thrummed and whined vibrating into his gloves and down into his skin.

His very bones could feel the trembling.

“The course is simple, one lap around the rocky interior ring of the planet. Rules are only this, no leaving the ring, no weapons, and no teams, every man for himself. If the race moderators see any of this, you will be thrown from the race.”

She smiled and leaned back to reveal two green flags in either hand.

She began to wave them.

“On your mark!”

He took a deep calming breath forcing his hand to relax.

“Get set.”

He felt his heart beating hard against his ribcage, his stomach crawled up into his throat, and he felt the sudden and overwhelming need to pee.

“GO!”

THe airlock doors shot open faster than they should have been able, a clear sign someone had bypassed safety protocols. Caught off guard by this, Adam shot out of the gate slower than he would have liked. Already the racing jets streaked ahead, their quicker sleeker designs looking right at home against the blackness of space.

He had to remind himself that in space, without wind resistance, sleek didn’t mean shit.

If he was good enough he could have piloted a brick to win.

He gave more joice to the engine and shot forward. He cut under one of his other opponents and then cythed up next to a second.

He was there for only a moment when he saw something coming in from his right.

Instincts had him move fast, and he turned horizontal shooting upwards just as another jet tried to push him out. He was flying over the two of them now, and gave another burst shooting forward and past them.

This open stretch was the only time he was going to be able to use the power of his engine to his advantage, so he gave her a little more juice and shot forward catching up quickly with the racing models at the front. Two of them cut sideways attempting to block his path. He cursed, forced to fire his engines backwards so as not to go crashing into them.

The ring was approaching quickly now, and he could see very clearly that they had not been kidding. The belt was dense, less mate out of fine sand, and instead made up of billions of rocks some the size of him, others the size of cars, and even some the size of large houses. It was the strangest sort of formation he had ever seen around a planet, and he wondered idly how they stayed in orbit.

The two jets ahead of him cut right and then left as a rock came barreling towards him.

He shouted and rolled to the side barely avoiding a head on collision, his instincts saving him where his active brain could not.

He snarled.

“Pull it together.”

There was no time to be thinking, there was only time for flying.

WIth a practiced hand he toggled a switch on the side of his thumb, and his helmet was suddenly filled with the sound of music and drums. His brain focused inward and stopped thinking. He shot over and then under rolling between rocks just inches away on either side. Off to his right the planet below was glowing with the light of it’s star, a lightning blue halo around it where the atmosphere glowed.

He cut the left dove down and then rolled up.

He could see the other jets ahead of him cutting in and out through the rocks. His breathing grew even, his body relaxed, his brain heard nothing but the beat of the music and saw nothing but the obstacles ahead of him.

One of the jets pulled up next to him from behind recklessly rolling around one of the rocks. They were racing wing tip to wing tip now.

They cut right and left under and over he rolled left they rolled right. They were shaky just hanging on, but his flying was smooth.

Up ahead one of the other jets lit up with glowing orange as a set of flares broke from it’s back end shatting against the debris behind it. Rocks were thrown off their normal course and went smashing into each other turning the rock field ahead of them into a meat grinder. Adam shot forward and dived downward while rolling tight, behind him the racer was unable to replicate the move and a piece of rock caught their wing sending them spinning off to the side and out of the ring.

Adam dodged a piece of debris coming in from his left, flipped upside down and shot diving upward and then righting himself just under the jet up front.

He could see the leader now, and recognized it as Red himself .

The jet above him attempted to drop down and knock him out of position, but he gave a burst to the engine and shot forward.

The jet behind him punched downward and nearly collided into a rock before pulling back into the palace.

Adam took their place in second.

Red could see him coming.

Another set of flares was released.

He checked his forward momentum and rolled three or four times to his right. G forces tugged at his consciousness forcing blackness to the edge of his vision. He tightened the muscles of his chest and stomach forcing blood back up into his head as he breathed out in short controlled bursts.

A rock flew overhead, he cut low, bumped up and then executed a rolling turn over a massive rock pulling in behind red and just up to the right to avoid another burst of flares.

The two of them were fighting for the front now.

And red was good, he knew how to handle a jet, but so did Adam.

They roared past a field of rocks splitting apart as a massive chunk came between them. Adam roared forward, and panicked for a single moment as he saw an impenetrable wall of rock appear just before him. Then a crack appeared. He fired the forward engine and cut horizontal passing through an opening that left him only feet to spare. Rock rose up to meet him, and he rotated his engine up dropping vertically before cutting sideways and passing under a rock. Teeth gritted, he punched upward passing through a gap just as it closed behind him.

A yell of exertain escaped his lips as he pulled straight up cutting up the side of a massive mansion-sized rock before diving right back down into the thick of it.

Red was gone, he didn’t see him anymore.

Was he up front?

And then the sleek black jet dropped down from above cutting him off.

He cursed and swerved low past another rock forced to cut diagonal back into line.

He pulled up wing to wing with the men again.

They dove, they pulled up and they took a wide turn ac coordinated together as a military formation never more than four feet apart.

They were going faster than they probably should have reacted. second by second he rolled left Red went right. They both met in a dive rolling past each other, wings almost touching before cutting upwards mirroring each other in opposite directions. The sound of the music melded with the path of his flight.

They were racing side by side just as one of the other jets roared over them careening out of control in a desperate attempt t o reach front. They watched him dive pull up cut left, and then a rock rolled right into their path. The two of them barely had time to react as the rock hit their right wing and then sent them slamming into the next boulder. There was an eruption and a brief ball of fire as oxygen was consumed from inside the cockpit. Debris blossomed up around them in a miniature explosion.

Adam greeted his teeth, eyes wide .

What was once a race suddenly turned into a battlezone. He and Red dove together rolling around the debris desperately trying to avoid getting cut in two. At these speeds, one hit would be the death of them. His heart raced in his chest as he pulled forward cutting in the triangle made by three boulders side by side. Red mirrored him below.

A chunk of metal shot towards him, and he toggled his right wing burst just in time, lowering his left side just in time for the chunk to go flying past him. He pulled up with a gasp as a massive chunk of rock cut up before him. Red shot below and he rolled over the top coming into second place.

Up ahead a mining barge ascended through the line of rocks.

Adam roared with exertion as he pulled up and leveled out shooting right under the attached arm of the barge. Red lights erupted over it’s hull in a proximity warning as he went just inches overhead.

The barge driver, clearly spooked twisted to the side and the arm of the barge rolled with it, catching a boulder and sending it flying towards the grouping next to it, there was a sudden explosion of rock and again he was forced to roll to the side. Up down, over and under, cything between lines of rock.

He was almost hit once, then twice.

He toggled the forward engines, slowing himself down and then shooting straight up before continuing forward.

The rocks around him were rolling unpredictably colliding and then exploding into smaller pieces. There was no way he was making it through that alive.

He was rolling diving spinning twisting, and then, he felt it…. Something he had only felt on occasion. The world around him went silent, everything seemed to slow, and he was filled with…. With a feeling. It was like light, bursting out from his chest, rolling up through his skin and into his head.

He entered a moment of perfect execution. He cut into a tight roll his wings cything through the minute gaps between debris with timing so perfect it shouldn't have been humanly possible. Rocks passed by him at hundreds of miles an hour inches away from the glass of his canopy, one wrong move and he’d be dead. He cut through a gap that gave him inches on either side rolld right dove down, turned left, spun once and then twice, and made a completely vertical ascent. Rocks flew past him on his right and on his left.

Up ahead he could see a gap slowly closing before him. He opened up his engine and shot forward so fast everything was a blur.

The rocks collided behind him as they snapped shut, and he flew into the clear firing forward to slow himself, and then red was there too descending from above spinning and wobbling, almost out of control and careening directly towards a house sized boulder.

He panicked firing up and down at the same time and sending him into a spin.

He was heading directly towards the rock .

WIthout thinking Adam locked onto the rock, and fired. A rocket under his wing detached and shot forward exploding violently just in time for Red to pass through unharmed. Red jolted awkwardly and rolled to one side. Adam cut past under from right to left and rolled straight over red to avoid a rock.

There was a moment where the two of them were staring at each other through the clear canopy.

Eyes met for an instant, and Adam could see the wide eyed fear on the man’s face., Then Adam rolled ahead ducking under the last rock and then bursting out into space.

He let the F-90 have her moment, and completely opened the engine shooting forward and cutting through the finish line which flashed bright green. In that moment He was hit with such a sense of exhilaration and joy that he couldn't imagine anything better. Who needed drugs, who needed love, who needed any of that when you could fly.

Hed did a triumphant loop whooping the whole way.

Of course, a feeling like that can never last long and slowly began to fade away. THe reality of what he had just done was both terrifying and amazing to the point he felt his body begging to shake. The tension and fear he had been holding back exploded inside him just like that joy and he found his hands trembling on the joystick.

He let it overtake him. He had been like this since he was young and fighting it would only make things worse. Despite his shaking hands he flew back to the docking bay and landed his jet with the precision of a surgeon. Finally when the engine was off and the flood stable underneath him he slumped back in his seat shaking and racked with rolling tremors. He closed his eyes and breathed long and slow.

Behind him the others came limping in.

None of them were completely unscathed, at least one person was dead. His hands continued to shake as the airlock doors shut, and as soon as the room was pressurized, he opened the cockpit. As soon as it did, Sunny came running into the room and up the ladder. SHeleft her spear on the floor and helped him to climb out. His legs were shaking and he almost fell if it weren’t for her support.

She knew him too well, sitting him down on the lowest step and kneeling next to him.

“Are you ok?”

He grinned at her, “That was…. Holy shit.”

He held up his hand to watch the shaking, “I’m having an earthquake.”

It was just then that Red jumped out of his jet onto the floor. He staggered when he did but pushed away the men who tried to help, “What the ever loving FUCK just happened. The field had NEVER been like that. Jaz DIED out there, what the FUCK.”

The people milled around in confusion.

Red turned to him, eyes narrowing as he stalked over. Adam sighed and looked up as the man stopped to stand over him

“I’m sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.”

The man paused confused, “What?”

“I broke the rules. Means I forfeit.”

Red looked almost nonplussed, “What are you on about?”

Adam slowly took to his feet taking a few more deep wreaths to steady himself before drawing to his full height. He was stead now and looked down at Red with an unwavering gaze. He held out a hand, “I used weapons during the race, that was against the rules. These weren’t flares to move the rocks. I used a targeted missile during the race and that means I broke the rules.”

Red stared at him.

Then he snorted, “Damn the rules. You saved my ass.” he turned to look at his people, “I am more than man enough to acknowledge that.” HE turned back to Adam, “You saved my life you crazy bastard. I am not even sure how you are still alive ….. Because that flying…. That was….. Holy fuck.” He grinned and took Adam by the shoulder, “you shaking, man.” He held up his hand to show a tremor, “Me too, now let's go get some drinks and talk this out. I owe you after all.”

The two of them walked off through the forest of shaken pilots, “You are the kind of man I can see myself doing business with.”

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aphrodisians · 3 years

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◜ choi yerim , ciswoman , twenty . ◞ ┈ through her all - seeing crystal ball, [ 𝚁𝙴𝙳𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝙳 ] has her winking eye trained on hestia jones. the ever - enigmatic fifth year is infamous for her righteous ways, but something new seems to be weighing our resident au courant down. a rumor is spreading through these ancient halls like fiendfyre, & even their erudite face can't save them from the flames. she can try to drown out their sorrows to the tune of goddess, but xana can't fix everything ⏤ much less something as grim as [ 𝚁𝙴𝙳𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝙳 ]. but ten points to ravenclaw for trying.

hey besties <3 i’m cc & i’m super excited 2 be here! i’m writing your local hater, hestia jones, who i’ve actually never written before but i’m really excited for her. anywhomstdve, i’d love to plot w all of you & i’m ecstatic for this!

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬.⠀ ⠀

an accidental crack of a book spine that echoes throughout an otherwise silent library, never letting anything pass you by – never letting yourself be unaware, unwelcome surprises that you greet with flushed cheeks and clenched fists, a collection of skirts stolen from a mother that has seemed to have forgotten you, bruises forming next to the scrapes on almost - broken knees, passing tears off as just ‘my eyes are sweating’ & heavy, heavy, bags underneath eyes that just never seem to sleep.

⠀ ﹟𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲

birth name. jeong hyun - ae nickname(s) / alias(es). hestia jones. preferred name. hestia jones, only hyun - ae to family + very close friends age + dob. twenty + dec. 23 hometown. belfast, ireland blood status. half - blood house. ravenclaw activities. fifth year prefect, ravenclaw chaser, chess + duelling label. au courant – aware of what is going on; well informed ethnicity. korean nationality. irish gender. cis woman pronouns. she + her face claim. choi yerim

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝.⠀ ⠀

height. five feet, seven inches / 170cm tattoos. none piercings. earlobes only scars. a two cm line that lays horizontally above her left eyebrow from falling off her broomstick during her third year at hogwarts hair. never dyed, meticulously taken care of but rarely styled. naturally falls straight and is often left down eyes. round and dark, accompanied often by dark bags underneath and an absence of makeup usual expression. stressed. just like, if you look at her you can tell she’s going through it ( and has been for like the past three years ),,, she needs a break but she will not be getting one <3 distinguishing features. cheeks that always seem to be flushed a rosy hue of pink, bags underneath her eyes that are haphazardly covered with fake glasses or makeup, brown - hued hair that just always falls correctly

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀

( + ) positive. erudite, bluestocking, intuitive, heedful ( - ) negative. righteous, hubristic, zealous, moralistic natal chart. triple capricorn, pour one out mbti. istj - a, investigator moral alignment. neutral good godly parent. athena languages spoken. korean + english likes. quiet - the kind of quiet that comes only in the early hours of the morning + in restricted access zones where it’s close to silence ( but not quite ), victory in all forms, feeling appreciated tbh, sleeping but genuinely hasn’t gotten a good night of sleep in years, the color yellow, scarves that are long enough to wrap her entire head <3, being a hater dislikes. attention ( though she is overjoyed / obsessed with winning ), losing - a notoriously sore loser, being out of control in any situation - even if she can have no humanly control over it, nail polish ( because she bites her nails :/ ), actually reading i’ll be honest, staircases quirks. as mentioned above, bites her nails often, doodles when stressed ( which is all the time ) - is halfway decent at it too thanks to all of the practice, can fall asleep in two seconds if given the opportunity, taps her foot a lot hobbies. being a hater, being obnoxious enough to have attention ( aka dramatic ) n then having the audacity to complain about the stress

⠀ ﹟𝐝𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫

when he meets your mother, he tells you it’s like the world stopped turning. she was enchanting, he says, like a rose blooming in the dead of winter, a blossom of red among a blanket of white - and he swears that he has never loved anyone more. their romance is swift, a bouquet of flowers traded for an engagement ring and a passionate kiss exchanged for the start of a family. your father never says anything bad about your mother, raising you on his own with a faint line on his ring finger. she will be back soon, he says with glazed eyes and love-flushed cheeks that you seem to inherit. she will come back soon, he tucks you in with a faraway look on his features and you realize with a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars that he isn’t okay. but, you hold his hand when crossing the streets with you leading and you let him dawdle about your mother and you pat the top of his head when he falls asleep waiting for your mother. she’ll be back, he says, unaware that she only visits when he’s not around. she will come back soon, he waits for her, a stranger in his own body.

you yearn for control the way your peers yearn for freedom. freedom, you have enough of, but everything in your life is just out of reach. for your entire childhood, you grasp at everything and nothing, your fingers brushing past the things you desire most. you are a young girl with magic in your blood, but you watch from the end of your driveway as life seems to spin so wildly out of control. your father isn’t okay, but you don’t understand why. your mother comes around wearing guilt like one wears a birthmark and you can’t fathom why. you are left alone on playgrounds and with scrapes on your knees and people whisper about you but you don’t understand why. life goes on with or without you, and you think it unacceptable. it’s infuriating being in the backseat, unable to control, unable to know. when a letter falls into your hands, you swear to use it to your advantage. you refuse to ever be in the dark again.

you arrive on your own, a year older than your peers, a sheltered girl from a muggle world and you look around, determined to change your life. it’s obvious to anyone early on that you’re a bright girl, ambition tied into your intelligence, potential pouring over every single one of your edges. for a while, it comes easily. you know things, you understand things; most of all, you learn how terribly things can go wrong. you swear to never let that happen to you, but of course, life has bigger plans for you. the first few years fly by quick and your hands build up a reputation that you’re eager to upkeep. you wipe the sweat off of your palms onto your skirts, you might use magic to make sure your hair always looks good, you always know the latest news, you always pass your classes. then, you go home during your third year to an empty house and your father is gone.

when you return after the winter holidays, it’s obvious that something is - wrong, but you do your thing and you pretend everything is okay. your mother in all of her magic and love writes you a letter, telling you that you’ll be in her care and that only stresses you out more, giving you gray hair and bags underneath your eyes that never seem to away from that point on. every blink is heavier now, every sliver of information repeated as least three more times, everything you learn adds a little more weight to your shoulders. but you soldier on. you become more and more high strung, more sharp, more wretched with stress that shouldn’t be yours to shoulder. you are still an intelligent girl, still a bright witch, still gleaming with potential; but you almost permanently look like you’ve been handled an impossible task and worse, you wear your flushed cheeks almost as your father did, a fact that you dislike whenever you see yourself in the mirror.

⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ has a relatively tough exterior, but wow, words hurt and hestia is a lot more sensitive than she cares to admit. say one off thing about her and she’ll be all “i can’t stand it here!” and storm off angrily, but she’s really just gonna go cry in the owlery and talk to the owls as if they can understand her through her snot bubbles.

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ is this genius of a witch, right, but is the messiest person ever. her area in her dorm is just . . . yeah, it’s messy. she comes to the library, throws seven books down, loses ten pages of notes; is disorganized and completely messy, but at least she always looks put together.

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ coming right off of the last one, because she cares most about her image + her reputation than she does anything else, mostly because it’s all that she thinks she has. so, yeah, she may be consistently stressed out and on the brink of a breakdown, but at least she looks GOOD.

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ her style is a little . . . amateur, if i’m being honest. very season one rachel berry. always looks in uniform even if she’s out of uniform and it’s because she has no personality than being a ravenclaw prefect idk what you want me to tell you. she has never been normal once.

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ i laugh and kid, but she’s genuinely a genius. might have a bit of dyslexia, but is just,,, a smart kid. also makes it her entire personality though, so i’m not sure what to do about that.

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ also, not to be That Girl that’s so quirk n clumsy, but hestia is always injured. not gravely, but a scrape on her knee, a cut on her cheek, tape around her fingers, etc. etc. she’s a problem, to say the least, and always hastily takes care of herself ( aka, cleans it, leaves it ).

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ in general, is a hater, but is so STRESSED from having a #missing father that she’s just like :| in every situation. i wouldn’t call her awkward per se, but she definitely just says what she wants when she wants cause there’s “no point in quieting myself for someone’s comfort” idk?

⠀ ⠀ ﹟𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧.⠀ ⠀ in MY canon, hestia actually conjures up a fox patronus, but it’s non corporeal for now simply because she literally cannot focus long enough to cast the charm correctly – in fact, a lot of her magic has been suffering for the past few years due to her stress, something that really only stresses her out more rip in pieces.

⠀ ﹟𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

academic rival: personally, i’d love for someone who’s just naturally good at academia to be her rival, like the person who doesn’t study and “doesn’t care” but always just manages to beat her in scores; yeah, i think that’d be fun to watch her spontaneously combust.

significant annoyance: someone who really just is the person to tell hestia she’s wound up too tight all the time and tries to get her to live her life, but she just sees them as someone who’s ANNOYING HER because maybe her entire life is being uptight, ever think of that? rabastan

quidditch rival: because quidditch is really the only time she lets her hair down per se, this rivalry is more friendly than it is serious like the academic rival, but there’s still a lot of trash talk involved and meet ups in the corridors to talk shit <3

best friend: the one person who she’s like . . . super grateful for because they’re always there, no matter what she goes through or does to them through her stress induced breakdowns. you know. they’re bffs and always eat together and spend time together n gossip together. eloise

tutee: someone that either hestia’s offered to help or has been forced to help, either way, she’s as strict as any professor and takes her job completely seriously. as in, will approach them in the great hall and ask if they’ve done the work they’re supposed to do.

stress reliever: imagine�� this - hestia comes up to your muse and is like we need to talk, but they just find a nice seat underneath one of the archways and talk into the night, they make hestia laugh, hestia makes them laugh, they have flushed cheeks by the end of it and she doesn’t speak to them otherwise. xenophilius

their biggest anti: ur muse’s #1 hater??? hestia jones <3 why? probably because they’re better than she is and she’s a nightmare of a person so it’s just her being their biggest anti, probably runs a hate account dedicated toward them tbh <3 rodolphus

The Ex: you know. the ex. didn’t end the way they wanted it to so there’s A Lot There. longing glances, awkward bumps, lots of what-ifs . . . a lot of sad headcanons, a lot of wholesome headcanons. yeah

like family: just someone who hestia is so comfortable with that it feels like they’re family. and by family, i mean like the kind to tackle her on sight just for fun, the sort to tease her and make everyone believe it’s her birthday. you know?

also a barely filled tag here n anything u can possibly brainstorm i’d love <3 thank u love u

#ww.intro #SORRY THIS IS REALLY LONG NOBODY LOOP #LOOK*

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madeyed · 3 years

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( * 💀 / aria shahghasemi, cis man, he / him ) — is that alastor moody i just saw rushing down the corridor ? i hear they’re a twenty-one year old hufflepuff, returning for their seventh school year, but their friends would tell you that they are protective & astute as well as paranoid & disagreeable. if you want to know more about them, i guess i could tell you that they’re pureblood, and from what i hear, they’re currently allying with the order. when our divination professor looks into their crystal ball, they see: a well-worn journal, locked & spelled shut; empty firewhisky bottles lined up along the windowsill; dark circles beneath suspicious eyes; the fading shadow of youthful bravado; a supple leather coat that still smells like home. — ( kit, she / they, 23, cet. )

tw — parental death ( murder ), assault & violence, mourning, alcohol mentions, allusions to mental health issues & addiction, hospital mentions.

basics ,

full name. alastor jawed moody. known as. alastor, moody, al only to select friends. age / date of birth. twenty-one / september 19th, 1958. year. seventh year. blood status. pureblood. house. hufflepuff. alliance. the order. gender / pronouns. cis man, he / him. orientation. bisexual. extracurriculars. beater for the hufflepuff quidditch team; member of the charms and toothill duelling clubs. additional stats. click here. pinterest. click here.

early life ,

alastor moody is born at home, in a small brick house by the seaside that has been in the family for generations; the yard is quaint, if somewhat overgrown, the wooden window frames spiderwebbed and peeling white paint, the chimney billowing smoke in the winters. although he often longs for a sibling, he remains an only child all his life. at the time of his birth, his parents are early in their careers as aurors, and thoughful, foresightful people above all; with their demanding schedules they think no more than one child is best. it’s not a terrible decision, by any means, and there is enough love in the household to go around.

he is raised with strong values, and a strong sense of duty, family, and respect; he is made aware of the weight of the world at a young age. or, his parents try to impress this upon him, making the world appear darker and heavier than it seems to the young boy. he loves and respects his parents, but he tends to disregard their warnings, to play more recklessly than they might like.

although his parents always make time for the shabbat, for birthdays and holidays, their job is by necessity demanding, and alastor learns independence at a young age. an only child, he longs for meaningful friendships, but struggles to make friends with muggle children in the village; instead, though he does his best, he spends much of his time alone or with children of his parents’ friends.

he thinks almost all his life that he is ready for death. it was a simple and honest truth in the moody household that their work, though important and necessary, was dangerous. he sees narrow brushes with danger all his young life, accompanying his parents to too many funerals to count; he learns protection charms before he learns to tie his shoes. and so he thinks of death as a family friend, a familiar acquaintance, and foolishly pats himself on the back for being so well-adjusted, for accepting reality instead of fearing it.

hogwarts ,

when he first arrives at hogwarts, he is calm, unassuming; he doesn’t arrive, like so many purebloods do, with the weight of countless expectations upon his shoulders. nor does he feel like he is escaping some restriction, and finally free; if anything, he is less independent here, under the watchful eyes of prefects and professors, and he grates a little against rules he thinks are foolish or unnecessary.

when it’s his turn to be sorted, the sorting hat only hesitates for a moment between gryffindor and hufflepuff; he is brave, yes, fearless to the point of recklessness, but when the hat poses the question, all alastor can do is shrug. his mother was a slytherin, his father a hufflepuff, and so he doesn’t really mind either way; he knows who he is, regardless of what house colors he wears, and that is enough for the sorting hat to know where he belongs.

he fits in well in hufflepuff, but doesn’t restrict himself to just that; he’s never felt particularly inclined to draw harsh lines in the sand, and makes friends across houses and even years. it helps that his name commands some respect — not from some purebloods, who sneer and consider him and his family all blood traitors, but from the rest, who read the headlines about aurors apprehending dark wizards and are pleased.

in his second year, though, the headlines change. he is called out of history of magic class — something he had almost enjoyed, at the time, and still hates himself for — and brought to the headmaster’s office, where he’s made to wait until his mother arrives. he’s sixteen when he hears of his father’s death, and it feels like the unshakeable world comes crashing in. he thinks he can prepare for death, steel himself against the pain and struggle through mourning with a straight spine and dry eyes, but he’s a fool, and just a boy at that.

he’s outgrown his childhood funeral suit, so he wears his father’s mourning robes to the funeral; they’re well-worn, mended at the hems, and alastor finds two knuts and a sickle in the pockets. he leans on his mother, and she leans on him, and she seems both stronger and more vulnerable than he’s ever seen her. they sit shiva together, the two of them in their little seaside home. alastor’s always felt distant from the muggle locals and neighbors, friendly but unable to connect, but they show up all the same. in twos and threes they arrive with their food, condolences, well-wishes, their offers to weed the yard or pick up groceries for the mourning family; it’s their good will that helps the moodys through their grief, more than the ministry’s stiff condolences and posthumous honours.

he returns to hogwarts changed; more anxious, more wary. his heart leaps in his throat every time he receives a letter, fearful it will be news of his mother’s death. he grows harder, less tolerant of snide anti-muggle comments even when they’re almost innocuous. he’s always been a relatively serious boy, but now he hardly laughs at all, and when he does, there’s a bite to it. he excels in school, working doubly hard, already certain he must become an auror and insistent upon achieving it, but there’s no pride in it, no competition; he just knows what needs to be done.

but as months turn to years the passing time lulls him into a false sense of security; at some point, the pain of loss turns from a sharp agony to an ever-present but dull ache. alastor joins the quidditch team, the duelling club ( where he quickly gains a formidable reputation ), has his first of many hogsmeades dates, and feels, foolishly, that life might simply carry on, without too much effort on his behalf. even as war brews on the horizon he assures himself it will be an easy victory, that strength and righteousness will always win out. he prepares, but with a youthful foolishness; he thinks this might be the chance to avenge his father, to protect the weak, to prove himself a warrior.

the summer between his sixth and seventh year, his mother is so busy she’s barely in the house; when she is, it’s never long before she’s called to yet another meeting, yet another raid. he visits her office often, tea and sandwiches in tow, memorizing the names and faces that are pinned up around the auror office, the most wanted, the suspected conspirators, the known associates. the writing is on the wall: danger approaches. the house is reinforced, protection charms everywhere, locks re-spelled, alarms at all entrances, but at the same time, life goes on.

it’s a rare evening when the two of them are home together, barbecuing kebab in the yard in the late summer sun, a moment of peace among all the concern. they share a bottle of firewhiskey, reminiscing, and laughing together, and making plans to weed the front yard, paint the window frames, and mend the fence — helpful little things alastor can do over the summer while his mother is so very busy at work.

he crawls into bed drunk and at peace, thinking about paint swatches, warm breeze through the open window, the cat curled up at the foot of his bed — and startles awake hours later, still half-drunk to the sound of crashing, glass shattering, the very foundations of the house trembling. the smell of something burning rises from the stairs, and despite his fear he jumps up instantly. there are death eaters in the house ( alastor counts four but thinks there may have been more ), in their black robes and silver masks, and by the time he’s halfway down the stairs his mother is already dead. he fights back as well as he can, but he’s alone, unprepared, and is hit with a curse before he can do much of anything.

they leave him there, unconscious in the slow-smoking ruins of the sitting room. something about not unnecessarily spilling pure blood, and he’s only a boy, and clearly no threat. he is awakened as other aurors arrive, his parents’ colleagues and friends, and he’s so out of sorts he must be petrified and sedated before he can be taken to st. mungos. this time, he is drunk at the funeral, hiding red eyes behind sunglasses, and he sits his shiva alone, permitting no visitors. he takes what he needs from home: clothes, books, heirlooms, the sneakoscope and foe glass and his father’s old coat, and leaves, renting a room at the leaky cauldron for the rest of the summer.

he returns to hogwarts changed once more; furious, pained, burning the candle at both ends trying to find a way to win a war that hasn’t even truly started yet.

personality , hcs , etc. ,

alastor has always been confident, wavering between self-assured and simply cocky, depending on who you ask. he was raised to respect and value everyone, and that includes himself, but he has always also thought of himself as a little more clued in, a little more worldly, than most others. this is in part because his parents confronted him with the reality of the world at quite a young age, and in part because of the horrors he has himself witnessed. although he isn’t usually a dick about it, he does tend to think he’s the most aware, clued in person in the room, or the only one who really knows how the world works.

he’s also quite concerned with projecting the image of strength, not because he’s really that concerned with what other people think, but more because he believes pretty strongly in the whole ‘fake it till ya make it’ idea, and feels like showing weakness means you are weak. plus it makes you a target.

has a fat orange cat named fried egg, or just fry for short; she’s four years old, and the grandchild of the same cat his father had when he was at hogwarts. she’s a hellish little demon cat who does her best to catch rats, frogs, small owls, bowtruckles, bag charms, and pretty much anything else she can get her little paws on. can and will claim a whole couch in the common room by stretching out right in the middle. if there’s a small dead creature in the hufflepuff common room or dorms you know who to blame.

alastor enjoys quidditch, but isn’t particularly competitive; he likes playing beater as it’s a pretty good release for aggression. he plays an aggressive match especially against slytherins, and will more use quidditch as an outlet for his personal vendettas, rather than that it informs them. absolutely fearless on the pitch, and has broken multiple bones, including his nose. don’t play chicken with him, he can and will run straight into you just to prove a point.

although he’s something of a duelling prodigy ( or rather, he’s been well trained since a young age ) and excels at defense against the dark arts and transfiguration, alastor’s top favorite class is care of magical creatures. he just thinks they’re neat. is he a bit of a dragon fanboy ? maybe so.

deeply paranoid, suspicious, and untrusting, especially now. he keeps a notebook of notes, newspaper clippings, observations and overheard conversations, helpful spells and countercurses, and a running list of which classmates and families he suspects of being death eaters, and of which students he fears might become targets. it’s well-spelled to keep out prying eyes, but you can often find him scribbling in it when he should be taking notes in class.

more to be added !

plots ,

just wanted to say first of all that i love plotting, hc’ing, brainstorming, etc. so please hit me up ! if nothing here works i’m super happy to think of something else. also, every single one of these is open to all genders unless specified ! i also especially love plotting based on other connections ( i.e. muse a and muse b are friends, muse b and muse c are exes, therefore muse a and muse c do not get along, or smth ) idk i just have a lot of ideas !

best friends. any house, but preferably for seventh years ? should be either order aligned or neutral but sympathetic to the order. these would be the very few people in the world alastor is still somewhat vulnerable around, and the few who can still get him to smile these days. also the only people he will take any shit from. the people he considers family, now that he has none of his own left.

other order members. the options here are so many ! people who fully share his convictions and with whom he can share his theories, who problem-solve and discuss together. people ( particularly muggleborns or younger students ) whom alastor feels very protective of and worried about. can be annoying and overbearing or he’s just keeping an eye on them from a distance, or maybe helping them train. or people who are in the order but whom alastor doesn’t trust; pretty much any pureblood / slytherin / anyone with death eater family would fall under this. lots of options !

family friends. alastor’s parents were very well-respected in the wizarding community, upstanding citizens, well-known and talented aurors, and all around good people; they could have gone to hogwarts with your muse’s parents or otherwise gotten to know them from work or through pretty much any other avenue ! this could go a few different ways, either they can be good long-term childhood friends, or perhaps they never got along but had to suck it up because their parents were friends, etc.

enemies. listen, i’m sure alastor has a ton of these ! gimme all the baby death eaters, slytherins, and pureblood supremacists. or even just characters who are just neutral but tangentially related to anyone who might be a death eater. alastor doesn’t discriminate between hatefulness and cowardice, it’s all the same to him: two sides of the same self-serving coin that gets other people killed. he can and will cause problems for them on purpose. absolutely will not hesitate to cause physical injury, or curse someone if they are out of line; you use the word mudblood in his presence and he can and will hex your tongue in a knot or, idk, turn you into a ferret.

people involved in his family’s deaths. ok this would definitely be quite a heavy plot and would need to be discussed quite a bit, but i think it could be neat ? alastor’s father died in the line of duty and may or may not have been targeted, but his mother was explicitly killed by death eaters because of the threat she posed. that could have been your muse’s death eater parents, or the hit could have been part of your character’s death eater initiation ( and maybe even the reason why al was allowed to live ? idk man just gimme the drama ) but either way ! alastor is investigating, angry, suspicious, and there will be hell to pay if he figures it out. think it could b a cute terrible dramatic plot.

exes. gimme a handful of these, with a bit of variety, please, i love them. something short-lived and intense over the course of one semester, that ends when one or both of them gets a little too far into their feelings ! something sweet and quaint in their early years, with first little hogsmeade dates and hand-holding ! a former fwb thing with bad communication that falls apart and leaves them both with some hard feelings ! good friends that think they have feelings for each other, date for two weeks, and then give it up and go back to just being pals ! honestly especially when he was slightly younger and less paranoid, depressed, etc. alastor was definitely weak as fuck for a pretty face.

the one bad ex-ish. listen i just very specifically love the idea of alastor having some insanely intense chemistry with a death eater aligned character, that enemies to lovers ( who are still definitely enemies ) vibe. every time they hook up they both regret it intensely, and are to embarrassed to ever tell their friends. they both kinda think they hate the other person, and know they’re on different sides of a brewing war, but also. brain empty very sexy.

crushes / unrequited / un-acted-upon feelings. ok listen, correct me if i’m wrong, call me out, etc. but alastor’s a whole 6′2″ of broad shoulders, gorgeous hair, green eyes, he’s all tall dark and handsome and also tortured, also a quidditch player, intimidating, etc. and i love the idea of people having crushes on him bc he’d be either annoyed or oblivious and that amuses me greatly. what a man tbh. also love the idea of him having feelings for someone, perhaps even over a longer period of time, but absolutely not wanting to tell them bc he has a bit of a martyr complex, is afraid of losing the people he loves, and also thinks he’s no good and gonna get them killed ! also could just be someone he had a crush on earlier and no longer does, but still thinks they’re just incredibly cool and admires them. could go lots of ways tbh.

study buddy. so, honestly, alastor’s not concerned that much with school beyond needing the qualifications to become an auror. this would probably be someone with similar aspirations/goals; someone who wants to get the grade but spends more time researching obscure defensive spells and countercurses and hex reversals which will never be on the test, because those are ultimately more important. they both just help support each other academically to make sure they get where they need to be, and practice and work on more advanced combat magic together as well.

neighbors. kind of, not really ? after his mother’s death alastor’s been living in a rented room in diagon alley, avoiding his family home at all costs. this could be someone who either lives there or in london more generally who he keeps running into over that summer. he’s probably deeply unpleasant particularly at that time so forgive him in advance pls.

drinking buddies. does alastor have a drinking problem ? maybe. but he also has much, much bigger problems he has to solve first, hence the drinking. he’ll manage just fine on his own too, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to sit in relative silence next to someone. he prefers the quiet and general Bad Vibes at the hog’s head over the three broomsticks, but isn’t that picky.

duelling rival. a member of the duelling club who alastor absolutely hates, and who hates him. they absolutely drive each other to perform better and push each other hard, but that’s not because they’re trying to help the other improve; it’s because when they duel they are actually straight up trying to kill each other, while making it seem like an accident.

#revelio.intro #⧽ constant vigilance ∖ development .#parental death tw /#death tw /#murder tw /#alcoholism tw /#assault tw /#mourning tw /#wow lots of tags for this one oops #also this is ... not great and def will be edited/added to but i just wanted to get smth out so i can also get started plotting !

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cinaja · 3 years

Text

Before the Wall part 37

Masterlist

TW: Hallucinations (heavier then last time), panic attacks (or something similar) Please skip the third scene (scenes separated by these lines ----) if these things are triggering for you!

A/N: This chapter is only Miryam's pov for once because it seemed to fit best, the next chapter will go back to being multiple pov

----

“Before we proceed with this,” Miryam tells the human councilmembers a day after she finished her spell, “there are two problems we need to discuss.”

They are meeting in one of the southern human-owned palaces that they already used once, which is a good thing, since Miryam isn’t sure if she could have managed to create any wards today. She spent the entire night tossing from one side to another in bed, too nervous to sleep. Her power has been acting up as well, flaring and ceasing seemingly at random.

“The first problem is that the spell needs to be cast as soon as possible, but can’t take effect immediately because it’s meant as a security measure,” she says. The others are watching her in silence, all of them tense. They all spent the past years waiting for this, and now, Miryam has the attention of the entire room. “This means that there needs to be a way to activate the spell at any given point at time after it has been cast, and it can’t be just me who is able to do it, since that would leave the spell useless should I die. I’ll get to the solution for that in a moment.”

Now, Nakia does interrupt after all. “If you already solved the problem, why are we discussing this? Isn’t it enough that the spell works?”

“Unfortunately not. Because the second problem is that I don’t have enough power to make the spell work.”

That earns her some dismayed looks, but it is true. Even if she combined every trick she knows – the strongest grounding spells, bones and gemstones and blood to draw more power – it wouldn’t be enough. She could cast the damned spell during a solar eclipse and still wouldn’t even come close to the level of power necessary to as good as split the world in two.

“Remember how I said this is impossible?” She asks. “Well, this is what I meant.”

“And your solution is…” Andromache leaves the end of the sentence hanging in the air and looks at Miryam expectantly.

Miryam has to resist the urge to fidget. “There is another way for a witch to get power. It’s called Sacrifice.”

Jurian and the queens tense in their seats, staring at Miryam like she just suggested they jump off a cliff.

“What kind of sacrifices?” One of the independent human generals asks.

“It means…” Miryam hesitates. “It means that you use up another person’s life force. Or their soul, as some might call it. The person who gets Sacrificed dies in the process, their very essence gets destroyed, but the power it generates…” She shakes her head, trying to shut down the memories. A circle on the ground, Artax smiling. Her mother looking at her. “I’ve seen it happen,” she says tightly, “but I’ve never done it myself – and I’ve sworn I never would. But if we want this spell to work, it’s the only way.”

For a moment, silence reins around the table. People exchange uncomfortable looks. Miryam almost hopes they’ll reject the idea, call it monstrous and tell her that it’s not worth it.

“How many…” Andromache begins, but cuts herself off. “I mean, theoretically. If we were to do this. How many people are we talking about?”

“Six.”

Together with the caster – Miryam, in this case – that makes it seven people involved in the spell, which is a good number. Artax usually goes one further, using forty-eight Sacrifices, making it two times seven people involved, but Miryam could never bring herself to Sacrifice this many people, even if such a huge number of People wasn’t too unwieldy for this particular spell. Even the idea of using six is horrifying.

“Well,” Jurian says, “At the danger of sounding like an asshole, but is this a problem? We take prisoner after each victory and most of them get killed either way. Why not use them?”

Murmurs of agreement rise around the table. Miryam feels sick. This entire discussion is wrong. She doesn’t want to do this, not at all.

“Because I need to tie the spell’s activation to the Sacrifices, and I don’t know how to do this if they aren’t willing.”

This gets her confused looks. Miryam sighs and begins to explain.

“The Sacrifices won’t happen when the spell is cast, but when – if – we actually activate it. They will have to be the ones to say the final words, since we can’t count on me being around to do it, and because of that, they will have to participate willingly.”

Again, silence follows. “So we need volunteers,” Andromache says finally, “This means humans.”

Miryam nods slowly, staring down at her hands. “With families, preferably. It’s a blood spell, so if one of the people we pick dies, close relatives will work as well.”

She can’t believe she’s saying this. She despises herself for it. Hasn’t she sworn to never do it? She’s going to murder people, damnit. Worse than murder, actually. Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. This is just what all these other witches do. What Artax does.

“Six people you say,” Nakia says softly. “Then the matter is clear.”

Andromache catches on before Miryam does. “You mean…”

Nakia simply nods. “It needs to be someone from this room, if only for secrecy reasons. And really, what types of rulers would we be if we asked anyone else to step in for us?”

Miryam opens her mouth to object, then closes it again. She doesn’t know what to say, what to feel. She is torn between newfound respect for Nakia and horror at the fact that they expect her to as good as kill some of her closest friends. But would it be better if they were strangers?

Please, she thinks, begging Jurian, Andromache, anyone. Please, stop this. Don’t ask me to do this. I can’t, please don’t make me.

But Andromache nods slowly. “Then it’s decided.” She turns to Miryam. “You tie the spell to the six of us.”

----

“I can’t do this,” Miryam whispers.

In an hour she will meet the human queens in a clearing outside of Telique. The timing is perfect so that she can cast the spell at noon when the sun is at its peak and so is the power. She took every precaution, but she’s still scared out of her mind. Her fingers are shaking and the shadows have been around all day, lurking at the edge of her vision.

“What?” Jurian asks. They are both sitting in his tent, he on the table, she on the bed. “I thought the spell worked.”

“It does.” Miryam wraps her arms around herself like she can keep herself from falling apart that way. “But I… I can’t do this, Jur.”

She’s so scared. Scared of what is happening to her, and absolutely terrified of what casting that spell might do. She doesn’t want to do this. Just for once, she wants to be allowed to be scared. She wants to sit down on the floor and cry, and for Jurian to put an arm around her and tell her that everything will be alright. That he understands, that she doesn’t have to do this if she doesn’t want to.

Instead, he glares at her. “I just don’t understand you, Miryam. This spell could save millions of people, you have been working on it for years, and now you say that you can’t?”

One of the shadows lets out a shrill laugh. Miryam feels tears burning in her eyes and furiously wipes them away, but the tears just keep coming.

Jurian sighs. “Sorry. I just…” He puts a hand on her arm. “Are you scared of having to cast the spell? You don’t need to be. Come on, Miryam, you’re brilliant at this.”

That just makes her cry harder. Did she truly lie so well? But she doesn’t want him to not know. They always solved everything together, so maybe they could find a solution for this, too. Maybe Jurian will say just the right thing to make it better, or he will even find a way to get her out of this. She just needs to tell him.

“No,” she says, stumbling over the words. How is she supposed to explain? “I’m not…” She hesitates and Jurian frowns at her. “These problems I’ve been having with my power, they’re bigger than – “

The door to the tent opens and Miryam flinches, but it’s just a soldier who enters. He inclines his head and passes Jurian a note. Jurian quickly scans the contents, then looks back up at Miryam.

“Amarantha’s army is on the move.” Miryam knows what he’s about to say next, even though she desperately hopes he will not. But Jurian only looks conflicted for a moment, then says, “They’ll be passing through a forest – it’s perfect terrain for an ambush. I need to go make a plan, we don’t have much time.”

“But what about the spell?” Miryam asks. She hates how small her voice sounds. “You promised you would come along.”

“I know.” Jurian sighs and takes her hands in his. “But I can’t really help with the spell anyways. I’ll be useless there, but here, I could win us a real victory.”

His eyes search her face. Clearly he’s hoping for her to agree, but she can’t. Jurian wouldn’t be useless if he came along, because him being there would make the spell at least a little less terrifying. And he promised that he would come, but now, he’s going to go chasing after Amarantha once again and leave her to cast this spell alone. She has no idea what’s going to happen to her once she casts the spell and now, Jurian isn’t even going to there with her. For all she knows, casting it might kill her and if that happens, she wants him to be with her.

“You understand this, don’t you?” Jurian asks, voice pleading.

And just this once, Miryam wants nothing more than to tell him no, she does not understand. Just this once, she wants to beg him to choose her over his revenge, and see what he will do. But she can’t bring herself to say the words. Because no matter what Jurian might once have told her, they both will always be bound to this war first. It’s why Jurian will go to fight Amarantha once again instead of staying behind to help Miryam. And it’s why she will let him go and go to cast the spell alone, even if it kills her to do it.

----

Miryam’s fingers shake so badly that she has trouble drawing the circle. She keeps having to redo symbols and is much slower than usual; it takes her almost an hour to draw the main circle and the six smaller ones at the sides, one for each of the queens, who stand by and watch her work in silence. The shadows watch as well. They are closer than ever before and their presence terrifies Miryam.

“Alright.” She straightens and pushes an unruly strand of hair out of her eyes. “You need to – “ One of the shadows shrieks and she flinches. “Go stand in the smaller circles please.” Now, her voice is trembling ever so slightly. “I’ll activate the circles now.”

The queens follow her request without a word. Miryam wonders if they are as nervous as she is, or if they simply believe that an important moment like this should be greeted in silence. Miryam would have preferred for them to talk, the silence is nearly unbearable.

All too soon, everyone is in place and Miryam has inspected the circle one final time. There is no excuse to delay this any further.

Step by step, she tells herself, gripping the paper with the spell so hard she crumples it, Just activate the circle, then keep going from there. This is okay, you can do this.

Slowly, carefully pronouncing each word, she begins to speak. The strings thicken around her immediately, new ones appear for her to hold onto. The candles she put up around the circle flicker to life, flames dance around her. For a moment, everything is going well.

Then, her power flares so hard it nearly slips her grip. The flames are suddenly reaching far too high. The shadows move closer. They dance around her, mingling with the strings, and scream her name in a thousand voices.

“Stop,” Miryam whispers. “Stop.”

She has enough control left to clamp down on her power. It protests, cutting through her like a knife, but the flames die down. Tears run down her cheeks and she is shaking so badly that the paper slips out of her grip and falls to the ground.

“Miryam?” Andromache asks softly. She is still standing in her circle and watching her from dark, worried eyes.

“I can’t do this,” Miryam manages.

Stumbling, she takes a step backwards, then another, until she is out of the circle.

“Miryam.” Andromache reaches out for her, but she doesn’t seem to dare to leave her circle. “What’s wrong?”

Miryam can’t answer. The shadows are still there, lurking between the trees and she just can’t do this. Can’t face this. Sobbing, she turns around and runs into the forest. She is still crying, tears reducing the trees to shades. She doesn’t know how long she’s been running when her foot catches on something and she ends up sprawled on the forest floor. Pain races through her foot, but it’s nothing compared to what her power is doing to her.

With shaking arms, Miryam pulls herself into a sitting position, back leaning against a tree. But then, the shadows are back. They press in on her, screaming, whispering, crying out for her. Miryam presses her hands against her ears but the voices only grow louder.

“Go away!” She screams. That makes them laugh. Her power flares, but she won’t let it out, so it just keeps rebounding through her body and it hurts.

“I most certainly will not,” a new voice says, cutting through the noise.

It startles Miryam enough that she looks up, only to come face to face with Nakia. The old queen is frowning at her. Around them, the shadows pull back, their whispers growing fainter as if they are curious what the queen wants from her.

“Get up,” Nakia says. Her voice clangs through the forest like a whip.

“I can’t.” Miryam is still crying. She tries to wipe the tears away, but her hands are shaking too badly.

“You are the leader of this Alliance.” Nakia’s voice is iron, cold and unyielding. “Unsuited as you are to the positions, you chose it. You don’t get to lay down and cry about all the things you can’t do. And now get up.”

Miryam shakes her head. “I never wanted this,” she whispers. Her magic flares again and she curls up on herself, whimpering. “I never wanted to lead the Alliance, I just…” Her voice breaks.

“Bullshit.” There is not a hint of sympathy in Nakia’s voice. “Of course you chose this, or do you want to convince me that you somehow failed to notice what you’ve been doing these past few years.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “We had decided that this war was madness, but you couldn’t accept that, could you? You thought you knew better, so you dragged the entire Continent into a war without ever thinking that if we lost, millions might die.”

This makes Miryam cry even harder, but Nakia isn’t finished.

“And afterwards – did you ever stand back? Did you ever, just for one moment, think that maybe a little girl like you has no business telling a bunch of adults what to do?” She snorts. “But no, not the great Miryam. You just never shut up, do you?”

Miryam shakes her head. The pain is nearly unbearable and the shadows are moving in again. “I only ever wanted to save them,” she whispers. “Everything I did…”

“What you did,” Nakia cuts her off, “dragged an entire Continent into war. What you did risked the life of every human on this Continent. And now you have the nerve to sit down and cry because you can’t?”

Nakia reaches out and grabs her by the arms, dragging her to her feet with more strength than Miryam thought she had.

When they are almost face to face, Nakia says, “And now, you will go back to this clearing and you will make this right. You will cast that stupid spell, and if it kills you. You owe my people this much.”

Miryam stares at her, trembling. She wants to object, but she can’t think of a way to defend herself. After all, she did cause this war without truly thinking about what might happen if they lost. The queens had decided not to join the fighting and Miryam forced them to. And if she’s entirely honest, she is also the one to blame for her position with the Council. She had every chance to stand back, but chose not to. Maybe this is punishment.

With shaking fingers, Miryam wipes her tears away. “Alright,” she whispers. “I’ll try.”

“Good.”

On the way back to the clearing, Miryam keeps stumbling over her own feet, but when Nakia offers her a hand, she shakes her head and keeps walking on her own. The other queens are still standing in their circles, varying degrees of worry on their faces.

“Is everything alright?” Andromache asks.

Miryam nods, but keeps her eyes trained on the ground. The paper with her spell is still lying on the ground where she dropped it, but by now, the sun has almost reached its zenith. She’ll need to hurry if she doesn’t want to miss the correct moment to cast the spell. At least the circles are still active.

“Good,” she says, mostly to calm herself. “This is fine.” The shadows seem to disagree since they move in more closely, but Miryam does her best to ignore them and instead turns to the queens. “Don’t leave your circles until the spell is finished,” she says. “I’ll be using a lot of power and you might get scared, but no matter how the spell goes, there are security measures at place to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Usually, circles like this are keyed to transfer power to the outer circle and protect only the caster in case anything goes wrong, but Miryam changed it around to work the opposite way. Risking other lives to save her own isn’t her style. At least this way, she’ll be the only one who ends up dead if she messes up.

She carefully straightens the paper with the spell. “I’m starting now,” she says. Right about now, she could really use someone telling her that everything will be fine, but no one seems inclined to offer words of reassurance.

The first words are always the most difficult. They burn and cut in her throat and Miryam has to watch out to pronounce them properly. Her power rises, circling higher with each word until it fills the air around them and Miryam has to yank at it to keep it focused on the task she wants it to fulfil. The words come easier now, more natural.

Still, her power keeps rising, higher and higher. She has never gone this far before and soon, it is nearly impossible to keep it in check. Voice trembling, Miryam keeps going, calling power from the air and sky. The sun is shining high above her, its light drawing beams of light into the air.

The power twists in her grip, lashes out. Miryam pulls it back and redirects it towards the net of strings she is weaving, the tear through the world she is instructing it to lay the basis for. The shadows move closer again, screaming, but Miryam is almost finished not. Just a few. More. Words.

But as the spell reaches its climax, so does her power. It strains against her hold and this time, a tendril manages to break free. The strings she was so carefully weaving together tremble and begin to drift apart.

“Sheje,” Miryam hisses.

Her power snaps back to her grip, but now, it is moving around her, shooting through her body. Miryam grits her teeth and continues with the spell. Slowly, the strings fall back into formation.

The last line. Her power builds up, towering over her like a wave about to break. Miryam finishes the last words, voice barely more than a whisper. For a moment, the world seems to hang in a strange balance, suspended in the air. Miryam sees the sunlight glinting through the air, the fear in the eyes of the queens.

Then, her power comes crashing down. It rushes through her, burning like fire, freezing like ice. Before she even has the chance to scream, it is gone again, rushing into the sky, strings scattering and forming anew in its wake. The spell takes form, a tightly woven net of strings, shimmering in a hundred colours.

Miryam’s legs give out from under her and she drops to her knees.

Fire in her veins. Ice and fire, rushing through her. Someone is screaming – maybe her, she can’t tell. Her throat is so sore it feels like it’s bleeding, so it might well be her. The screaming increases, more voices joining in. That definitely isn’t her.

“Miryam?” Someone asks, panicked. “Can you hear me?”

Yes, she wants to say, but her tongue won’t form the word. Her power flares again and now, she is sure that she is screaming, screaming and screaming. The pain simply won’t fade and she can’t breathe.

“What’s wrong with her?” Another voice asks.

Finally, Miryam manages to open her eyes, but all she can see are the shadows, pressing in close against her. They are laughing, crying, screaming at her. She tries to crawls back, away from them, but her arms won’t hold her weight and then there are hands grabbing her, holding her in place. She tries to push them away, but the world tilts sidewards and everything around her begins to spin.

For what might as well be a second as a year, there is only pain, and darkness, and incoherent screaming. Miryam is drowning in it, pulled down as if weighed down by stones. Finally, she manages to fight her way back to the surface. She opens her eyes, gasping for air.

She’s lying on her back, and a woman is kneeling over her. Dark, curly hair, brown skin and a kind smile. Miryam stares at her, too stunned truly understand.

“Mom?” She finally whispers, voice breaking.

Her mother reaches out for her, still smiling, but as she does, her hand begins to dissolve into smoke, first the fingers, then the entire arm.

“No!” Miryam makes to grab her, trying to stop her from vanishing entirely, but she has already dissolved into smoke.

Artax appears in her place, staring down at her. Miryam screams and scrambles backwards. Suddenly, the ground is gone from under her, she’s falling, but only for a moment, then she lands hard on the ground.

“Miryam, calm down.” Suddenly, Andromache is kneeling over her, frowning. “You’re safe, nothing can happen to you.”

She reaches out for Miryam, but as she does, her face begins to change and then, it’s not Andromache but Ravenia who is kneeling over her. Miryam lifts her hand, trying to call her power, but it won’t come. Instead, a sharp pain shoots through her chest.

“You need to calm down,” Ravenia says with Andromache’s voice.

“Get away from me,” Miryam gasps.

She tries to crawl away, but her back pushes against something hard. The world is spinning again, and the shadows are back, surrounding her.

“What happened?” A new voice asks, cutting through the general noise.

Miryam tries to focus on it. Someone is talking, she knows, but the words don’t reach her. She groans in pain.

“I don’t know why - ,” someone begins. Then, there’s more talking, but she doesn’t understand the words over the roaring in her ears.

“Where the fuck is Jurian?”

Jurian. Miryam tries to hold onto the name, but it doesn’t work and he isn’t here anyways and she’s caught alone in the dark. It hurts so badly. She tries to move, to somehow escape the pain, but it won’t leave her alone. The shadows are still screaming.

“We need to do something!” Someone snaps, and that’s the last thing she hears before the world goes mercifully silent.

----

Miryam wakes up in a bed that isn’t her own. She blinks up at the ceiling of the tent – a different colour than hers – for a few moments while her still-slow mind tries to catch up. She attempts to sit up, but her body seizes up and she falls back into the pillows, gasping.

“Miryam.” Before she can truly panic, Drakon appears next to her bed. “It’s alright,” he tells her, “You’re safe.”

Miryam stares at him, trying to figure out if he is actually here. Maybe she’s seeing things again. He did seem to appear rather abruptly.

“Are you in pain?” Drakon asks. “I can get a healer if you need one.” When Miryam doesn’t reply immediately, he turns to the door and she decides that a hallucination likely wouldn’t try calling a healer.

“It’s alright,” she says, although it technically isn’t. Everything hurts so badly she can barely lift her arms and when she tries to reach for her powers, there’s no response.

Drakon hesitates for a moment, watching her as if he’s trying to decide if he needs to get a healer in spite of her reassurance. When he seems satisfied that she isn’t in immediate danger, he pulls a chair that was standing by the beside closer and sits down.

“Here.” He takes a small glass vial from the nightstand and hands it to her. “For the pain.”

Miryam nods in thanks, but when she tries to take the vial, her fingers shake so badly that she can’t grab it. Without commenting, Drakon opens it for her and holds it to her mouth so that she can swallow. The liquid burns in her throat.

“What happened?” Miryam asks.

“I don’t know,” he says. His face is grave. “Andromache refused to tell me, and she only had someone get me after you were already…” He breaks. Miryam shudders at the memory. She remembers all too well what state she was in. The pain, the absolute helplessness. “We decided it would be best to take you to a Fae healer,” Drakon continues, “so I brought you to my camp. That was yesterday.”

Miryam nods. She doesn’t bother to ask if the healer found anything. If the book she read is anything to go by, they won’t be able to help her.

“And Jurian?” She asks. “Does he know where I am?”

Drakon’s face tightens further. Miryam can only imagine that he’s thinking about Jurian’s notable absence during her breakdown, but he doesn’t comment. “Andromache says she’d tell him.”

Miryam nods and leans back into her pillows.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Drakon asks. His voice still sounds strange and for once, Miryam can’t place the emotions in his tone.

“No.” She knows he deserves better than that, but even if she wanted to, she couldn’t tell him about the spell she cast and she doesn’t know how she should explain the other things that happened.

“Then allow me to take a guess.”

Miryam’s bed shifts as something lands on the matrass next to her. She turns and finds a book lying next to her – once she recognizes immediately. Her stomach twists even further.

“You went to the library,” she says.

“Yes. Since you had told me you had your powers under control, I was rather confused when the healers told me you were basically tearing yourself to shreds with it. So I decided to take a look at what had been written in that book you said had helped you.” Anger – that’s what it is. He’s angry, but trying hard to conceal it. “I think you know what I found.”

Miryam pushes herself back in her bed, trying to get into a sitting position. She can’t have this conversation while lying in bed. It’s bad enough that her entire body aches. It takes her embarrassingly long and by the time she is at least somewhat upright, she’s out of breath, but she manages to sit up.

Drakon is still watching her. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” He asks.

“I don’t know what,” Miryam admits. She doesn’t want him to be angry with her, but she can’t take back the lies she told, or stop herself from dying slowly.

“Maybe you could explain why you spent the past year lying to me.” He still sounds calm, doesn’t raise his voice even a bit, but she can feel that he’s angry. And disappointed, which is worse.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” she says, “I knew there was nothing to be done, and fretting over it seemed pointless.”

“Nothing to be done?” Drakon repeats. “We tried to find a solution for one day, Miryam. There were a million things we could still have done if only you had said something!”

“And what?” This argument, Miryam decides, would go way better if she wasn’t lying in bed. Or at least if her head stopped hurting this much. “What could we have done? Because the only people who would truly be able to help me are other witches, and the Guild would rather kill me than help me.” She crosses her arms. “We could have done nothing and I wasn’t about to let you waste time used trying to find a solution that isn’t there. Not in the middle of this war.”

Drakon jumps to his feet so quickly that his wings brush against the nightstand. He begins to pace before Miryam’s bed. Miryam watches in silence, without interrupting. Let him come to the conclusion that this is hopeless himself, that will be easier.

“No,” he finally says. He stops walking and turns around to face Miryam. “No, this has nothing to do with the war. You had every option to try and find a solution to this problem. You had over a year to figure something out, but you chose to do nothing.”

Miryam presses her lips together. “The war is more important, I need to – “

“You won’t be able to do it if you’re dead!” Drakon snaps. He shakes a head and runs a hand through his hair. He looks tired, like he hasn’t slept all night. “I promised you that you would survive this war, remember?” He asks softly, anger gone. “Well, I intend to keep that promise, even if you seem hell-bent on making it difficult.”

Miryam can’t meet his eyes. He’s right, she realizes. She chose to do nothing not because of the war, but because she was scared. That’s what it always came down to, from the very beginning. Too scared to face her power, too scared to face her past. Deep down, she knew that, and maybe some part of her indeed chose to die rather than confront her fears.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “But there’s nothing you can do.”

Drakon taps his foot against the ground. Looks around the tent like he’s hoping to find the answer there.

“There might be something,” he finally says, “But I’m not sure. I need to go check.” He steps towards the door. “I’ll ask Nephelle to keep you company while I’m gone,” he says, already halfway out of the tent.

“Wait.”

For a moment, Miryam forgets all about her pain and tries to sit up. She immediately regrets it. Groaning in pain, she lets herself drop back into the pillows. Drakon is immediately beside her.

“Do you truly have a solution for this?” Miryam asks. Her mind is still moving to slowly for her to entirely understand what he is saying, but this, she understood.

“I don’t know. Like I said, I need to check.” He begins fidgeting around with the hem of his coat. “And I’m technically not allowed to talk to you about this. About any of this. Just…” He sighs. “I know this is a stupid thing to say, but please just trust me that I would tell you if I could. And that I’ll do whatever I can.”

Miryam doesn’t want Drakon to leave. Chances are he won’t be able to find a solution, anyways. Why would he, if those scholars at the university couldn’t? She doesn’t want him going on some wild chase all alone, trying to find answers that aren’t there. But if it makes him feel better about the fact that there’s nothing to be done about what’s happening to her if he tried, then she won’t stop him.

“Okay,” she says, “Go on. I’ll be waiting.”

Drakon nods tightly. He stands around awkwardly for a moment, as if trying to decide if he should do or say something else.

“I’ll find something,” he finally says and turns for the door.

“Drakon.” She calls him back again. “What did the healers say?” She asks. “How long do I have?”

Drakon pauses in the door, fingers curling and uncurling at his side. “They don’t know for sure,” he says softly, “A month. If you’re lucky.”

----

Tags: @croissantcitysucks @sjm-things

#I can't believe I wrote this entire chapter in 3 days #thanks to early holidays I guess #before the wall #miryam #jurian #drakon #tw hallucinations #tw panic attack

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snarwor · 3 years

Text

moon and old stars - chapter 3

Din/Boba Daddy Kink Yay!! As always link to AO3 at the bottom.

Part 1 | Part 2

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Reward?

“You think you don’t deserve a reward?” Fett asked, curious.

Din shook his head, but spoke his confusion. “I wasn’t aware that was...part of this.”

“Anything you like can be part of this,” Fett said calmly. “Would you rather be punished for a job well done?”

“I’m not even…” Din gestured at Fett’s prick, still an almost angry-red, slick with spit. “You’re not…”

“You’ve been good, is all that matters to me. I want you to know that.”

Din ducked his head, shy from the praise, the talk of rewards, and...punishment. Just the idea had him shivering in anticipation, wanting to know what the end of Fett’s tether looked like. Surely the man’s fuse wasn’t that long. But…

“I want to finish the job first. You told me—”

“I know what I told you.” Fett’s hand came back to his head from the back of his neck. “You want to make me come for you?”

“Yes,” Din whispered. He’d never been more sure of anything, but it was still a bit of a thrill to acknowledge it.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, daddy.” It was becoming easier for Din to say it, to think it, since he’d first stumbled over the word at the beginning of all this.

“That’s my good boy.” Din cut off the whine building in his throat by swallowing Fett’s cock back down again, eager to please him, to win his approval and feel like he’d earned it. “You want me to finish in your mouth or on your face?”

Din moaned around the thick length in his mouth, eyes rolling back again with a helpless shift of his hips to accompany it. He pulled off to rasp, “You choose,” while still pumping Fett’s dick in his hand.

“On your face, then. I want to see you marked as mine, I want you to feel it every time you look in the mirror. I want you to give yourself over to the need and let me mark you up how I want. Because good boys know who they belong to, don’t they?”

Din moaned again, and nodded, still sucking down more than he had before. It was becoming easier to do, his mouth getting used to the stretch, the intrusion, the taste, the texture. It was almost trance-like, with its rhythm and repetitive movements. He took his time, though, knowing Fett would want this drawn out, knowing it was his first time. It gave him the chance to think about what it would feel like when Fett came. If his prick is this hot now, how hot would his come be, all over his face?

He moved faster, spurred at the thought of being told how good he was again. It was why he’d even said yes to this second time, wasn’t it? He was helpless under Fett’s words and watch, and he loved the feeling that came with it.

No matter what he did here, if he followed the rules, no matter what, he still belonged to Fett, and that was all that mattered. Something clicked in Din’s brain, like a switch being thrown on a faraway wall, and a tingly, heavy feeling draped over him, like few dozen blankets at once. He whimpered and felt his support arm wobble, ready to give out.

“Jate, ad’ika. Ja—!”

Fett held him up in one hand, stroking off his prick in the other. He groaned again, still cursing in Mando’a, as he came. The first splash against the side of Din’s cheek hit him almost like an afterthought. He made a soft noise and his mouth fell open, slack and wanting. Another spurt of come, hot as sin, landed across his mouth, some getting in his mouth. He found he didn’t mind the taste, or if he did, he was in too subdued a mindset to really know. Fett smeared the last of his release across Din’s other cheek, marking him up just as promised.

Din, as an effect of never taking his helmet off and only really caring about his face when he absolutely had to, had fairly sensitive skin, and couldn’t not think about the spunk on him. It was the same effect as a hand around his throat. He knew he was fucked, and there was nowhere else he wanted to be but this moment.

He darted his tongue out to lap up a little more of the come on his lip, a sight which made Fett practically purr. The hand on his face shifted, a thumb wiping off the rest of the come on one cheek and feeding it to the boy. Din dutifully cleaned the digit in his mouth, sucking softly and leaning into the touch. Fett did the same for the other side.

Din finally collapsed onto the bed, arms giving out at long last. His head rested on Fett’s thigh, how it had not a few hours earlier, though that context was incredibly different than how they were now.

Everything about Din’s life was incredibly different now.

He made a gentle noise in the back of his throat, frowning at the soreness in his mouth and tongue. “Rest easy, ad’ika.” The hand returned to his hair, gently petting him. “Is there something you’d like as reward?”

“I don’t know what to ask for,” Din said honestly. “Forgiveness? I was acting cold, like you said.”

“You need not ask for that here, my boy. There’s no—”

“If not in here, then out there. Forgiveness for the shame I’ve brought to our people. The dishonor.” Din wasn’t usually this mopey, but his emotions were keyed up and mercurial. “There is no repentance for what I’ve done, the shame I’ve brought.”

“There’s no defined rules for sinners, either.” Fett frowned down at the man. “Creeds are different from man to man.”

“Honor and dishonor need no writing down for me to know what it means.” And Din felt a lot of it in the last several days. What was it Mayfeld said? Seems to me like your rules start to change when you get desperate. That’s not the Way he was raised with.

“We are Mandalorian. We exist in the gray area because we are righteous and downright cruel at times but we finish the job because we gave our word. Any honor you bring is brought. And it is not something to be lost.”

“I broke the tenet on—“

“Tenets for a creed with no route of forgiveness or nuance to them are flawed. Not evil by nature, but still. Flawed.” Fett was not going to let Din talk himself in circles about philosophy and logic, which would have rankled him outside of this room, but something told Din that he was silencing the topic out of genuine care for how Din felt. “Do you know the difference between a distraction and a solution?”

“They’re completely different, if you’re trying to make a point about nuance.”

“Then know what it is you’re asking for. What’s required in a distraction is different than what is required in a solution. Both of which are options I have on the table, but you will have to make that choice, ad’ika.”

Din’s breath caught in his throat, how it did every time Fett used the endearment. It was a bit heavier now, though. “What is the solution, then?”

“Until you get your footing back, when you aren’t spiraling without purpose and drowning in shame, you listen to me, you follow me, you take my lead. I am not a man used to luxury, but I am used to being alone in the galaxy.”

“And when your debt to me is repaid?” Din asked, thinking it all sounded a bit too good to be true.

“Then we will renegotiate. Until then, you need straightening out of the lines someone’s crossed in your head.” He followed his words with another slow pass of his hand over Din’s hair. “Come up here. You might feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

Fett shot him another look, one that echoed don’t think I was asking. Din crawled up, unsure of where he was wanted until Fett put him in his lap, curled up with his legs all tangled together to the side. His head was gently guided to the crook of Fett’s neck, and for some reason, it felt more comforting than Din had anticipated. He breathed Fett’s scent in, just that skin smell and the general scent of Slave I, but it was enough for Din to be caught off-guard when a hand went to the fly of his pants.

“What are you doing?” Din asked, heartrate jacking up again.

“Don’t think you’re going to get out of a reward just because you made those eyes at me.” It was a little insane, Din thought, that he was wording the promise of a reward as if it was something Din was avoiding.

Was he?

“Okay,” Din said, shifting a little. He’d never...done this with another person. In the times he’d managed to get a hand on himself, it wasn’t to any fantasy of writhing bodies or hot skin. Embarrassingly, some of his fantasies had played out a little something like this:

He’d be safe, first of all. The how wasn’t important, nor was the where. Din would know he was secure enough to let his guard down and indulge in a few minutes of pleasure, something to numb the edge of tragedy that had its arrowhead aimed at Din’s heart. Before he did something too dumb like think about it too hard, he’d move on to the rest of his fantasy. Unseen hands, on an unknown person, would undress him and pet down his body. Checking for injuries, in an almost clinical manner, if it weren’t for the lingering touches to the broad scars and freckles that never really seemed to go away.

The hands would curl around his bare waist, and he would be lifted - really. He’d be lifted up and brought higher, held aloft, like even gravity couldn’t touch him. Din would have his back against some cloud or something - didn’t matter. In no part of his fantasies did he expect a sense of reality, because this was always something he could never have. Then those hands would take their time, taking him apart and touching him in the secret places he’d only dared to caress in his most careless moments. It would coalesce into a climax, spilling into his hand with a strangled moan, but it was always, always over too soon.

Fett moved like he had all the time in the world with Din, moving his pants down to his knees. Din groaned into his neck at the feeling. He’d been hard this whole time, but was flagging a little when he’d started questioning his own honor. Fett’s determined grasp around his prick dispelled that whole notion, though, and most other thoughts Din still had hanging on in his brain. He whined a little at the feeling. He couldn’t ever get into the feeling of being touched by his own hands, which was probably why he reacted so desperately to kneeling and being pet earlier. Fett’s hands were weathered and calloused from ship repair, blaster pistols, and hard life, yet every touch he gave Din was with a reverent sweetness that brought a flutter to Din’s chest.

The hand on his back, keeping him upright, left for a moment, and reached to the side. Fett opened something one-handed, and Din almost jolted at the feeling of slick wetness around his cock. He gave a choked-off gasp and looked. Fett had poured some kind of lube, smelling faintly of cloves and leather. It made the glide of his hand that much easier, and allowed him to add more pressure in his grip. Din’s hips stuttered helplessly, his cock already leaking at the feeling. He wouldn’t last long.

“Come on, ad’ika, just let me make you feel good. You’ve been so good for me, haven’t you?” Fett rumbled in his ear.

“Daddy!” Din choked, tensing all over, and jerking in his arms as he spilled into Fett’s hand. He heard some whining noise, and realized belatedly that it was him making the noise. He choked on another moan, aftershocks of pleasure breaking through his nerves like a sledgehammer to glass. He shook apart in Fett’s arms, until his breathing evened out and he melted, boneless, into the embrace.

“Good boy, that’s my good boy. Come for daddy. That’s it.” Fett wiped his hand on the bedsheet, and cleaned off Din’s cock as well as possible before turning them to the side. “Just close your eyes, and rest for me. I’ll take care of you and keep you safe.”

“Th’nk you, daddy. Vor’e. Vor’e.”

“Draar entye.”

Like that, curled together, Din slept for the first time since the kid had been taken.

Read on AO3. | Part 4

#din djarin/boba fett #the mandalorian fanfiction #moon and old stars #star wars fanfiction #my writing

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ratonnhhaketon · 4 years

Text

Revenge is a Fool’s Game (Chapter 1)

Read on Ao3 | Next Chapter

Summary: Born to two Assassins in the Colonial Brotherhood, Eleanor Price was destined for great things. That is, until the disaster at the Davenport Homestead leaves her family in hiding and her parents' pasts long forgotten. She is determined to find and kill the men responsible for her father's death, no matter the cost. Revenge may be a fool's game, but Ellie plays to win. And the prize might just be a blossoming relationship with the boy training alongside her.

A/N: This is the completely rewritten and revamped version of my previous fic involving Connor and my oc Eleanor Price, Iron. Same characters, different plot, a lot better writing. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 - The General Store

The city of Boston was bustling despite the chilling winter that was beginning to slowly come to an end. Civil unrest had been getting heavier during recent days and everyone could sense that something big would happen if it was not taken care of.

The general store was particularly cold that day, and the occasional burst of frozen air that would rush in with a customer trying to escape the harsh temperature outside was especially chilling. The only sounds occupying the small building were light murmurs escaping the back room and the steady brush of a broom across the front room’s floor.

The door to the store opened, and a boy about 14 walked in. He wore tan clothing, made of some animal hide, and was donning several weapons. As he pulled the door closed behind him his amber eyes wandered to the girl sweeping the front of the store. She spared him a small glance at first, before looking back up in wonder at him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to start.

He seemed just as unsure of his presence as she was.

Before he had a chance to speak, a woman exited the back room and walked behind the counter. She had on a typical pale pink dress with a white apron tied around her waist. Her hair was twisted up underneath a bonnet, with only a few curls sticking out around her face. “Can I help you, sir?” She spoke up in a sweet tone.

The boy walked over to the counter and pulled a pouch of coins and a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I need the items on this list.”

The woman picked up the list and read it over. “Yes, well.. we can get you the tool, pitch, and nails. Lumber is hard to come by these days, as our supplier seemingly vanished.” She poured out some of the coins and counted them before giving the pouch back to the boy. “Now, where did you want these delivered?”

“Our wagon is just outside, by the statehouse.” His voice was smooth and calm, like each syllable was carefully thought over before speaking. As he walked towards the door he and the girl shared one final glance.

“Eleanor, come help me gather these supplies.” The woman behind the counter spoke up. The girl gave her mother a quick glance to acknowledge what she had said and immediately turned back towards the door. The boy had left in a flash.

Begrudgingly, she propped her broom up against the doorframe and followed her mother into the back of the store.

Fifteen minutes and a few splinters later, all of the ordered supplies had been packed into crates and boxes and were ready to be delivered to the boy’s carriage. Ellie and her sister, Peggy, were tasked with the job of moving the supplies while their mother stayed back in the store tending to customers.

When they returned through the back door of the store, Peggy noticed their mother deep in conversation in the front room.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She spoke up with an uncertain tone. The two girls quickly hid around the corner of the door frame to further listen-in on the discussion.

“Not really, no, but I have faith in the boy.” A familiar voice that they knew belonged to Achilles Davenport responded. “He has a lot to learn before he is ready, but he is showing signs of improvement each day.” A gruff sigh. “Have you considered talking about The Creed with the girls?”

“Absolutely not.” Alice spoke up a little too quickly.

“Alice, don’t you think the girls deserve to know what really happened to their father? You cannot keep telling this lie in hopes-“

“No, Achilles, listen to me!” She cut him off. “I can’t go back to that life, I can’t put my girls in danger like that!” A few seconds of silence before Alice spoke up again, this time in a much quieter voice. “I can’t relive what happened to James-“

A gunshot rang out on a street very close to the store, stunning her into silence.

The two girls peeked out from behind the wall and Peggy spoke up with a very concerned tone. “Mother?!”

“Girls, make sure the back door is locked and the curtains are drawn over every widow.” The girls wasted no time in retreating back out of sight to the back room of the store.

“The Templars are behind this.” Achilles spoke in a serious tone.

Alice’s head whipped back over to face him. Her jaw was tense and there were tears forming in her eyes. “How do you know?”

“I saw Haytham with my own two eyes.” Alice felt her heart drop at those words.

“He is in Boston?” The older man only replied with a nod. “Oh god, no..”

“Go and keep your family safe. I have matters to attend to.” He turned and started to walk towards the door, with Alice following close behind him.

She opened the door and held it open for him. “Safety and peace, Achilles.”

He gave her a nod and a light smile. “To you as well.”

~~~~~

It had been nearly a week since the horrible events in Boston had conspired. After finding out that Haytham had orchestrated the massacre Alice had felt nothing but stress and worry. She was constantly checking the town around her while outside of the store or their home and had started carrying a small knife on her person for self defense.

Eleanor and Peggy were left alone in the store for the time being, as Alice was on her way back from helping a customer bring their order to their home a few buildings down the street.

As she was walking back she noticed a familiar figure open the door to the store. Tall, dark hair tightly pulled back, and donning a long black cloak with red accents and numerous weapons slung around the torso. Alice felt her heart shoot up into her neck as she realized who the figure was.

He had finally found them.

After grabbing handfuls of her skirts and hoisting them up, she ran the rest of the way down the road and practically ripped the door off of its hinges as she bursted into the building. Her daughter and the man immediately forgot their conversation to turn their attention towards her. “She’s actually not in at the mo- Oh, mother! Are you alright?” Panting and out of breath, Alice only nodded in reply while desperately swallowing down gulps of air. “Well, this gentleman here was actually looking for you.”

She stood up straight and let out one final ragged breath. “Darling, could you give us some privacy?”

“Oh, uhh, of course! Absolutely.” The girl quickly disappeared into the back room, making sure to shut the door behind her. However, that didn’t stop her from pulling her sister from her work to listen in to the conversation through the wall.

“Well, you found me. I’m surprised it took you all this long, considering we never even left the northern colonies. So, are you here to kill me? Take me hostage? Throw me in front of a firing line like you did to all those poor citizens last week?”

The man looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Alice, I.. I’m not here to hurt you. And I had nothing to do with the massacre, I only read about it in the paper and wanted to make sure you were all okay. What are you talking about?”

Alice crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a stern look. “Your mentor and his associates were behind it.”

“I swear on my daughter’s life that I am not lying to you.”

Alice felt her blood begin to boil and heat creep up her face. “Shay, I’m sorry but I have not seen you in seven years and suddenly you show up, hoping everything will just be fine and that I will just suddenly trust you? You killed my husband and then went silent up until now. This whole time I thought something had happened to you, or that you had gone off and gotten yourself killed.”

“Alice-“

"You have some nerve showing your face to me, Shay Cormac!"

"Alice, please!" She let out a huff before looking at the man in front of her in the eyes, anger still present on her face. Shay sighed before continuing, "I tried to get him to go with the three of you but Haytham.. had other plans. I had to watch him get shot in the back." Alice looked away and tried to blink back the tears that threatened to fall. "I never wanted to hurt anyone in your family, you know that."

“Shay," Alice spoke with a shaky voice. "Have you been keeping in contact with Haytham?”

“No. The last time we spoke was after.. everything at the Homestead. I was angry at what he did and we had a falling out. I haven’t received word from him in years.”

"So how do you know where we’ve been but he doesn’t? A man that smart would know to send scouts searching."

Shay let out a breath before answering. “He.. did. But the report was sent to Fort Arsenal and we made a deal. I will make sure no harm comes to his son as long as he does not harm any of you. That was actually the last conversation we had before he took his leave to Boston.” He put a cautious hand on her arm and, when she didn’t recoil, he relaxed and rubbed his thumb over the soft material of her sleeve. “I know you’ve all done just fine for yourselves for this long, but if you would allow it I’d like to be there for you if at all possible. I owe it to you for being absent this whole time.”

Alice thought over the idea for a moment before nodding. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Anything you need, I’ll provide for you. Money, supplies, weapons, you name it and I can get it.

The younger of the two girls pulled her sister by the hand away from the door and into the middle of the room, earning a surprised “Hey!” from her older sibling.

“I have an idea, but I need your help.” She looked at the closed door quickly before continuing. “I want the key to the study.”

Peggy looked at her with wide eyes. “What? Ellie, are you crazy?! It’s off limits, you know we can’t go in there.”

“Come on, please!” Ellie shot back with pleading eyes. “Don’t you want to know what mother is hiding from us? Especially after the weird conversations she had with Achilles and this Mr. Cormac out there now?” She sighed, “What if it’s information about father’s death?”

Her sister let out a huff before nodding. “I suppose. But if we get in trouble it’s your fault!”

~~~~~

The girls knew that Alice kept all her important keys together on the same ring. The store’s front and back, house, and study room keys were always in the same place. Locating them was not difficult, but acquiring them without their mother noticing was.

When they returned home that night, Alice slipped the keys into her cloak after unlocking the door.

Alright, now just to get it away from her.

She crossed the small room to the fireplace and immediately got to work on getting a fire started for the evening. As she worked the two girls shared a knowing look, signaling that they were going to try and execute their plan before the night was over.

After a few minutes of work the room was lit by the orange glow of a fireplace and the house was warming up. Alice finally shed the thick cloak she was wearing and slung it over the chair by the door. “Girls,” she called into the sitting room where her daughters were seated by the fire. “I’m going to start supper. It should be ready in about 30 minutes or so.”

The girls nodded at their mother before she disappeared into the kitchen. After waiting a minute or so to make sure she was preoccupied, Ellie made a beeline to where Alice had left the cloak. She fished the keyring out of the outerwear’s pocket and flashed it to her sister. Peggy looked up, gave her a knowing smirk, and set off for the study down the hall with Ellie following close behind her.

Of course, all three of the keys looked the same so they had to try each of them to find the correct one. After getting the door open, Ellie stepped in cautiously and looked around with a look of wonder. The room had two tall bookshelves completely filled to the brim with old books as well as a large desk with chairs on either side.

Peggy glanced out the door of the study and down the hall before speaking in a low voice, “Just hurry up and grab something.”

Ellie approached the desk in the middle of the room and picked up a large red, leather-bound book and opened it. Peggy walked over and peered over her sister’s shoulder to read the first page of the book with her.

“What do you two think you are doing?” Alice’s angry voice ripped them from their thoughts.

The two girls shot back from the desk, terror written all over their faces. Ellie immediately tried to hide the worn out book behind her back. “We-uh, I…”

“It was her idea!” Peggy shot an accusatory finger towards her sister, earning a hard smack to the shoulder.

Alice approached them menacingly and snatched the book out of Ellie’s grasp before placing it down a little too aggressively on the table next to them. “Haven’t I told you girls that this area is off limits?!” She turned to look at the girls, anger and worry raging in her green eyes. “The information in these books is not for the two of you to be learning. It could cost you your lives.”

Ellie straightened her back and looked her mother in the eyes. “What are you hiding from us? I heard your conversations with Achilles and Mr. Cormac. What really happened to our father?”

Alice’s voice shrank and her threatening posture fell. “Girls, please.. we’ve been over this.”

Ellie felt tears start to glaze over her eyes. “No we haven’t! We deserve to know what truly happened to him! To our father!” As she grew increasingly upset she felt tears start to steadily roll down her face.

Peggy stepped forward next to her sister and spoke up. “What if something happened to us. Wouldn’t you want to know who was responsible?”

Alice looked down at her feet and struggled to find the right words. “I..” A frustrated sigh. “Yes. Yes, I would.” She walked over to the door and gestured for the girls to exit the room. “Go on. We have a lot to discuss over dinner.”

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emybain · 4 years

Note

For the kiss prompts. Maybe 42 or 3 for nodrian💙

why not both hehe. no joke ive been trying to post this for two days now. i finished it the other night but i just keep forgetting to post lol. these are NOT connected in any way and they are both post supernova. The first one is a little aged up and fair warning, it’s a bit on the pg-13 side (im so sorry to all my cinnamon followers just LOOK AWAY)

3-a breathy demand:”kiss me” - and what the other person does to respond

42-distracting kisses from someone that are meant to stop the other person from finishing their work, and give them kisses instead

ao3

Nova peeked into the art studio of Adrian’s town house, pushing the door open enough so she could see him. Yep. He was still at his easel. At least he had chosen to pull up a barstool instead of continuing to stand; he had been painting for hours.

Times like this weren’t uncommon. For both of them. It was normal for them to not see one another for hours whenever Nova came over or vice versa, and there was nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, it was just comforting to be in each other’s presence. And it wasn’t like how they used to be, co-depending on one another after the supernova and inseparable. No, after a mutual decision to give one another a break, here they were four years later, going on a stable three years together. They were better now, after both receiving much needed therapy and time to think over everything. It wasn’t easy, especially for Nova, who felt as though she had no one to go to after the supernova, but it gradually got more attainable.

Except for now, when Nova was getting an itch for, well…special attention, and she hadn’t seen Adrian since their early dinner. Before he had let her know he was going to go work on a project, she was going to subtly suggest they extend their date night a couple hours. It was fine, Nova was fine. She figured he would only disappear for a little while and rejoin her in the living room, where she decided to pick up a book from his bookcase. Except he didn’t. So now she had to take things into her own hands.

“Hey, Babe,” she greeted softly, entering the room slowly. Sometimes, he got so caught up in his work that he didn’t notice Nova until she touched him, which, based on past occurrences, messed him up. “I brought you some water.”

She stepped into his line of sight and set the glass down on the small table beside him. He didn’t respond, though from the tilt of his head, she could tell he heard her. Sigh.

“You’ve been working really hard, you know. Maybe it’s time for a break?” She took a step toward him, biting her lip and bringing her hand up to the cotton button down she was wearing, fingering the top button. He grunted in response, quietly thanking her for the water. Nova rolled her eyes. Come on. She knew she got like this, too, but tonight, she decided it was ridiculous. She wanted attention, damn it.

Walking behind him, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned down. He tensed at first, but relaxed just as quickly. He even turned his head around and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. Well, it was something.

“Come to bed,” she murmured in his ear, lips brushing against the top. “I miss you.” To prove it, she kissed behind his ear. She felt him stiffen again, even as he continued painting. Her lips trailed down his neck, holding back a smile.

“I’ll come in a little bit.” The satisfaction she got from his shaky voice was delicious. “Let me just finish this one section and I’ll be there, okay?”

Oh, that wouldn’t do. He cursed when she nipped at the hollow in his throat, making sure her hair hung over to expose her neck. Just to tease him. “Why not now, though?” she hummed against his skin, deepening every kiss. His name escaped from her mouth in a sigh, a desperate need. She couldn’t help herself.

“Shit, Nova.” He leaned back a little, much to her delight, as her hands went up his shirt, nails scraping against his chest. She stopped her caresses for a moment to blink at him innocently. A warm feeling washed over her at how dark his eyes were, a deeper brown than usual. They were breathtaking.

Nova wiped at a dried paint spot on his cheek. “What?”

He let out a long sigh, took one look at the unfinished painting, and set down his supplies. Nova grinned. She moved to sit in his lap, not really caring where she got attention as long as she just got it. But Adrian had other plans.

Nova screeched as he stood suddenly and scooped her up into his arms. Their laughter echoed down the dark hallway and into Adrian’s bedroom, where it continued well into the night.

__________

They were the only ones in the training hall, save for a few runners or weightlifters with earbuds in. Nova ducked as Adrian threw a punch at her, rolling to her left and pouncing back up, landing a kick to his side. He grimaced. Nova would’ve felt bad, except he had been the one to suggest a quick hand-to-hand combat fight. She pushed her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. Feeling generous, she took a few steps back to give Adrian a moment to collect himself. His eyes followed her as she circled him, knees bent at the ready. When he smirked at her and motioned her forward, she scrunched her face up.

With a battle cry impressive enough for long-dead gods, she charged him. He blocked her blow and grabbed her forearm, twisting her around to hold her in a choke-hold. But Nova saw it coming. She rammed her heel into his foot, causing him to let her go. Nova rolled away, landing in a crouch. While he was distracted, she swept her leg out, knocking him to the ground. Before he could get back up, she had him pinned down, holding his wrists down with her knees.

They were both breathing hard, staring at one another in silence. A dull pain rose up in Nova’s side where Adrian had got her earlier. It was worsening slowly, no doubt forming into a nasty bruise. A fight less than ten minutes had stolen all of her energy.

“I win.” She grinned at him, leaning over and patting his cheek with a gloved hand. Ever since the supernova a few months ago, Nova made an effort to wear gloves whenever she was training with another prodigy. Adrian was the only one who said she didn’t have to around him, that he trusted her, but they still helped her feel more at ease. The rest of her team was still wary around her, and Nova only wanted them to be more comfortable. Sure she could still knock them out with any skin contact, but her hands were her biggest weapon. She hadn’t even been on patrols with them since the supernova, choosing instead to do jobs around headquarters. Just something to keep her busy, and to show the Renegades that she was on their side, for real this time. Some of her jobs may have been made up, like going to bother the Council about anything she thought would help in the process of transitioning into a more democratic government. It was a very, very slow process, but at least she was beginning to see progress. See what her father had envisioned so many years ago.

Adrian interrupted her thoughts by managing to flip them over. Nova’s back hit the foam mat, air rushing out of her body. He held both of her arms over her head with one of his. “No, I think I do.”

“Asshole,” she grumbled, squirming under his weight that only seemed to get heavier the more she moved. “That doesn’t count.”

Her heart raced as he brought his head closer, eyebrows raised. She could smell his cologne, that wonderful pine scent. She chastised herself for breathing in just a little deeper so she could catch more of that intoxicating fragrance. Tilted her head a bit to the side to avoid his intense gaze. Because, well, they were broken up. Nova knew they needed it, that choosing to continue a relationship after what happened would only end in flames. Much as she hated to admit it, it was unhealthy. Adrian had been the first person to truly see Nova for who she was instead of just a pawn on the chessboard or a lie or whatever the media liked to come up with every morning after they had their coffee. He understood her and her trauma. To just…let him go like that…was agonizing. But she knew it was only temporary, that they still both harbored deep feelings for one another. Maybe in a few months and after dozens of therapy appointments, they would be able to talk about getting back together. At least now, after a couple months of coming to terms with the break up, she could handle being alone with him again. Being friends, laughing and spending time together. Well, for the most part.

To put things simply, Nova was very thankful at that moment that the Council had changed the rule that uniforms are mandatory even in the training hall. And she was very thankful that Adrian had discarded his shirt two minutes into their five mile run earlier that morning.

“Someone’s just bitter they owe me breakfast.” Nova scoffed, remembering their deal earlier. She jumped suddenly, eyes widening at his hand on her cheek, caressing it. His brows were furrowed. “I didn’t know I got your face. I’m sorry about that.”

Holding her breath, Nova placed her hand over his. He met her eyes and blinked. “It’s fine. Probably just from the mat.” Her voice was barely over a whisper.

She definitely saw his eyes dip down and focus on her lips for a moment; she couldn’t help but do the same. Somehow, all of her weaknesses regarding him, weaknesses that she had been suppressing for months, were all laid out in front of her. She wanted nothing more than to just…just…

“Kiss me,” she breathed, only slightly noticing how demanding she sounded in that moment.

He stilled. “Nova, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Yet his voice was gruff. Yet he didn’t move from his position over her.

“It’s not.” She licked her lips.

His eyes softened and he bent his head down. Nova raised hers up greedily to meet him. It had been an eternity since she had tasted his soft lips.

But just as their lips brushed, sending a current of electricity down Nova’s spine, Adrian was gone.

Nova sat up and could only watch as he walked away, grabbing his shirt and roughly pulling it over his head. He didn’t look back.

#nova artino #adrian everhart #ruby tucker #oscar silva #danna bell #narcissa cronin #nodrian #tuckva #osby #danissa #renegades #archenemies #supernova #supernova spoilers #asks #my writing

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sluttyopinions · 4 years

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The Blunt Reality of Attack on Titan

August 4, 2020

Written by Samantha, Slutty Opinions

OPENING

People usually tend to associate anime and manga with being crazy over the top action packed experiences. Attack on Titan is a series full of exactly that. It’s a hugely popular franchise known for having insanely cool action and bombastic music. People flying around doing impossible feats and fighting fantastical enemies that are larger than life are common. Despite all this flash and excitement, the series never lets you forget the harsh reality of the world itself in a unique way, effectively separating it from many of its peers.

This grim reality is basically used to beat the audience over the head over and over, at times too liberally and too often as some would argue. I personally think how the original author of the manga that started it all, Hajime Isayama, entwines every aspect of his story with cynicism and grimness is one of the major reasons why I love the series, and I’m willing to bet it’s a big reason for a lot of fans whether they know it or not. Before I get into the details, I will say that I won’t be putting in any real spoilers of either the manga or the anime so if you’re just curious about what I may have to say, you can keep going. I’d also like to mention that I am more of a recent fan, but still a big one. I’ve seen the entire anime and have been trying to catch up on the source material, so my knowledge and opinions will be limited to that amount of content.

THE TITANS

For anyone unaware of the basic premise of Attack on Titan, the last remnant of the human race has been trapped by huge humanoid beasts in an expansive settlement surrounded by walls. It is humanity’s job to fight off these mindless monsters and survive behind the walls. The titans are a large part of what creates the identity of the series. Seems kind of obvious since it’s literally the title and all. The way these titans are integrated into the action and the story of the show is a large part of what prevents Attack on Titan from simply being another generic action series that ends up forgotten as a flavor of the month. It seems like I’m not giving the series enough credit because there is a LOT it does right otherwise such as pacing, story structure, characters, and so on that combine to make an incredible experience that has captivated many. However, I still stand by the idea that the titans help make the franchise feel truly one of a kind.

Everyone who’s ever seen the titans has probably noticed how grotesquely and uncannily they are designed. In the manga, the whole world and the way many things and people are drawn especially all have very creepy vibes to it all. While it would be a huge stretch to claim Attack on Titan is a horror manga, it’s common sense to acknowledge it’s strongly influenced by horror. The absolute sense of uncertainty and powerlessness these monsters present nearly every time they’re on screen is overpowering to both the characters that must deal with them and the audience as well.

Isayama creates a feeling of dread involving these beasts insanely effectively. Any encounter with them even if it is merely 1 or 2 of them can always lead to sudden death. There is never safety in the presence of the titans even for the most skilled. Their pure size and physical ability is nearly never downplayed. While the humans have their own special weapons and crazy abilities, the titans are hardly ever presented as mere battle fodder or mulch. Titans happen to be very good at killing people and the delivery of it all makes it feel believable. Keeping the antagonists intimidating and serious is very important for the overall feeling of Attack on Titan.

At times it can even feel like too much. The idea of any character dropping dead at any time can be very discouraging when you’re trying to get invested in a cast or just getting started. Sure that amount of pure “edge” in itself is appealing to a lot of people, but edge without purpose or substance makes for very bad entertainment in my eyes. It’s honestly in fact one of my pet peeves. I did not expect to like Attack on Titan for a long time due to this reputation it had for being brutal and random. Just not my style. When I actually gave it a shot however, I realized the writing is a lot more purposeful and I’d even say forgiving than I expected. While at times being an emotionally exhausting experience and definitely pessimistic in many ways, this series treats the terrible events that occur left and right with proper gravity and maturity.

THE NATURE OF WAR

Attack on Titan has a lot to say about a variety of subjects. It’s honestly much more subtle and intelligent than I even thought with my initial blind viewing of the anime. Reading the manga through the same events really gave me an appreciation for the thought and detail that goes into Isayama’s writing. The most obvious subject he focuses on is something that is probably less than subtle however and can be spotted quickly by anyone who has seen or read even a bit of the series.

That subject happens to be the horrors of war. On the surface the story seems to be just a simple story of man vs beast and it wouldn’t make much sense for it to have anything to say about war. While the circumstances involved are very fantasy-themed and at times ridiculous, it still at its heart is a narrative about war and how humans cope with it, both those on the front lines and those who watch from afar.

The grim and serious nature of the series is the way it is directly thanks to that theme. If life wasn’t always at risk, if it wasn’t treated as fragile, if death wasn’t respected and dwelled on and treated with the utmost permanence and seriousness, this theme would not work the way it does. Anything less runs the risk of just looking like glorification while merely saying the opposite. Admittedly there’s a lot of people who still somehow think Attack on Titan glorifies war but that’s a whole other subject. A very impactful and relevant part of the story is one early on where humanity wins a huge battle, yet no one bothers to celebrate merely because the overwhelming weight of the dead hangs heavier than any related relief ever could. This kind of grim and depressing, yet honest storytelling about war is very common throughout the plot.

What it means to be a soldier, the intricate overlap of society, media, government, and economics on war, the will and the reason to fight, the sanctity of human life and the nature of sacrifice and finding meaning in meaningless and constant death are all discussed often and in detail in Attack on Titan and the grim realness of everything that happens in the story and the overall feeling of being unsafe it conveys are deeply important to allowing these themes and discussions to work as well as they do.

PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

The last major aspect of the story that I think benefits greatly from the unrestrained reality and brutality of the series is the very unique philosophy and psychology that Isayama presents. Most of the points and lessons the characters learn through the story are not pleasant ones. Everything the characters go through and the utter bleakness of Attack on Titan’s world shapes everyone’s worldviews. People take small steps and make concessions to have hope in this world. Optimism is present plenty, but the way the characters experience optimism is still rife with sacrifice and harsh undeniable truths.

This very unique perspective compared to a lot of similar media is refreshing in its own way and kept me questioning what I knew. You couldn’t often easily predict the conclusions characters would come to because they are not what you may have come to expect from other media. One major character, Erwin Smith, is a great example of the kind of ideas Attack on Titan will throw around. His character is labeled as a demon by some, but a hero by the same people as well. The necessity of pain and sacrifice underlies all progress and achievement and he knows it and so do many others, even if it’s hard to accept. Having to create guidelines bound by the rules and expectations of reality only makes them that much more applicable to real life and real war.

Despite all this, the series never feels outright preachy. Characters dwelling on the meaning of what’s happening to them is specific to which character and which circumstances. It doesn’t feel nearly like the author is writing an essay about the way things are or should be while using characters as mouthpieces and more just people in a hard situation trying to make meaning out of the meaningless suffering around them. Agreeing or disagreeing with any point as a reader or viewer isn’t portrayed as wrong in any case it’s more a vehicle for thought as well as phenomenal character building. Like real war, none of the questions presented have a genuine correct answer. The character Levi himself at some point in the story even admits that as a veteran in battle, he can never be truly sure of his choices.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

The amount of respect and purpose Attack on Titan treats its frequent suffering with is key to the experience as a whole. While a series with just good writing all around and good reasons for its fame, something that in my opinion makes it feel like something special and something that captivated me is the overall gravity of the story. Without being effective at intensity and discomfort as well as in dealing with said discomfort, the story just wouldn’t feel real. And if it doesn’t feel real, it won’t feel like it matters. This series matters quite a lot to myself and many others and I hope this is at least a glimpse as to why.

#attack on titan #psychology #article #manga #anime #hajime isayama #analysis #reality #no spoilers

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ohbells-a · 3 years

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——— BASICS! ♡

NAME! ♡ faith, but i go by ariel here because i am a disney goblin

PRONOUNS! ♡ she / her

ZODIAC SIGN! ♡ cancer

TAKEN OR SINGLE! ♡ what am i if i’m engaged to my best friend for tax purposes?

——— THREE FACTS! ♡

1! ♡ i grew up in washington and used to go to la push ever single summer. the whole reason i read twilight was because it took place in forks and i’m weak for washington content.

2! ♡ while i have never ridden a horse, i tend to exude horse girl energy. it’s only gotten worse since i’ve become an aggressive crafter and card maker.

3! ♡ despite being 29, i still pretend i’m a mermaid whenever i go swimming. it’s something i’ll never grow out of i’m sure.

——— EXPERIENCE! ♡

PLATFORMS USED! ♡ only tumblr, sometimes on discord but that’s very rare and also only with people i’m like uber comfortable with.

——— MUSE PREFERENCE! ♡

GENDER! ♡ ladies...........it’s very rare for me to write a dude, i don’t know why, i’ve just always been like this lmao

LEAST FAVOURITE FACE(S)! ♡ oh gracious i don’t know tbh. i think i’d have to say liz gillies, which i hate that for me because i actually like her a lot, but i had an overwhelming negative experience with someone who used her face back in an rpg and i can’t see that fc without thinking about it.

MULTI OR SINGLE! ♡ multi in theory, but i never end up really enjoying them because i don’t ever feel like i can properly focus on a muse.

——— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡

FLUFF! ♡ i’m very here for fluff, but also i tend to mostly like plotting/talking about the fluffy times because writing it can become a wee bit tedious if it’s not leading to something, or if it’s not in the aftermath of something.

ANGST! ♡ look, i’m a ho for angst and am deadass at my happiest writing it. while i don’t want it to be everything i write, i do enjoy it very much. just delving in to that heavier stuff and seeing what it can do to my muse and the relationships, like i’m a big fan lmao

SMUT! ♡ sooooo okay like in theory i’m chill with it. however i have to be comfortable with the person because i need to be able to like check where the line is. my friend and i tend to write on the kinkier side in out 1x1 space, we’ve known each other for years and have just found the comfort levels easily. so yeah in theory smut is chill, but only if i know i can speak to the mun and it’s chill lmao

PLOT / MEMES! ♡ plotting is my jam. while i love memes and like having them on hand, i do struggle a bit more with them if we’ve never plotted, so overall plotting in general is a winning ticket with me.

tagged by : stolen from @underestimateher

tagging : all y’all

#↟ ❝ eternally crying about twilight and taylor swift ❞ ⸢ ooc ⸥

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tainbocuailnge · 5 years

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ive played all the story chapters and a bunch of side missions and tried out a handful of characters so now it’s time for The Official Lance Tainbocuailnge Review Of Fate/Extella Link if you’re like me and were kinda on the fence about buying it after extella massively let you down

tldr; gameplay is actually fun and varied with loads of different objectives and the same servant can be played in different ways so it doesn’t get boring. main story is a bit disjointed and most servants only have a quick cameo but it gets charlemagne’s plot beats down well enough and the silly everyone-knows-everyone banter is delightful. everything looks better, the world actually feels populated, and there’s a lot of care put into special interactions. link will not disappoint you like extella did

the gameplay has much more variation than just press button use moon drive repeat. you’ve got a mix of regular attacks that lead into various combos and active skills with cooldowns. each servant has like 7 of them, generally some combination of damage skills buffs and debuffs, and you can set 4 at once so there’s a degree of customisability to how you play each servant even within the fighting style they’re inherently geared towards. servants with similar regular movesets (like cu and scathach) still have decidedly different active skills so they don’t feel interchangeable. certain moves from servants that were already in extella are generally reused either at the end of some combo or as an active skill which for me goes a long way in still making it feel like the same game, just better

attacking builds moon drive meter, and fighting enemies while moon drive is active earns you np meter. this means you can use your np as often as you can charge it instead of the pathetic One time it was in extella and you can just blow up a whole sector without remorse. you can also end moon drive early with a weaker version of your noble phantasm. some active skills are labelled as class skills and if you use those in a combo against a servant you get the button mash attack that extella had. altogether it really gives the sense of an all-out servant battle

allied servants are much much much more proactive. they’ll actively go out and conquer sectors for you and will try to join you wherever you’re fighting the boss servant. if your allies are nearby more of your active skills will get the class skill property and they’ll join you in the button mash attack. before the battle you also set two support troops, who will randomly join in on your combos or defend you when you’re in a pinch. hakuno is also out on the field, so combat is much more a team effort than before

stage objectives are varied too, there’s field effects, map jamming, hunting down messengers before they can call for reinforcements, escorting allies to specific locations, waves of shadow servants, lancelot disguising himself, robin or lishu going invisible, iskandar or darius with endless armies, drake or gilles bombarding from afar, all often used in various combinations too. on top of that the extra stages will provide random additional challenges so even replaying the same stage will be different every time.

there are four difficulties (that I’ve unlocked) but I haven’t tried any of the higher ones yet so I don’t know what they change to make it more difficult other than enemy level. there are like. i think at least 50 maybe even 100 extra stages to play after you’ve cleared the ~30 main story battles that continue until servant level 200 or something so there’s a lot to do even after you’ve gone through the story. servants unlock by clearing story battles and I didn’t realize this until very late and was very pissed off that the game wouldn’t let me use cu but that’s on me. the money is power system is still in place so you don’t have to manually train any new servant you want to try out you can just powerlevel them. install skills are also still in place and you do need to level servant bond if you want to use any decent number of those

there’s a pvp mode too but I haven’t tried it yet so no comment on that beyond i bet skilled lancelot players are The most annoying motherfuckers to fight against

graphics are a huge step up from extella. reused areas got a complete visual makeover while retaining the same feel. everyone’s models got spruced up and now they don’t look plastic anymore. there is an unreal amount of care put into sculpting karna’s asscrack. the ost actually slaps beyond the main theme this time as well as featuring some ol reliable CCC tracks. everything looks much more polished

the story is somewhat disjointed because of both the large cast and the splitting routes. the story splits up at various points to create an excuse to make different battles but it means a lot of things happen at approximately the same time in slightly different ways and it can be confusing to keep up with what happens in which order. for that reason I suggest looking closely at what path leads to which ending and playing all the quests of each converging branch before moving to the next day. the story seems to go out of its way to be ambiguous in when what happens exactly and how it’s even supposed to follow the events of extella so I think it’s best to look for the themes and the fun lore details over the linear coherence

overall the atmosphere is pretty silly and servants constantly banter back and forth even during tense situations, but it lands the occasional serious moment well enough imo. charlemagne and karl are the only ones who have any significant story focus but since they’re the only newcomers it’s not like the other guys particularly need the screentime. charlemagne himself is a pretty silly and lighthearted guy so he goes along well with the general feeling and it actually works in favour of his heavier plot beats because of the contrast. I grew attached to him incredibly quickly, not in the last place because he gets hyped about every single person he meets and it’s hard not to get excited too

the servants who weren’t already in extella generally get to show up more in the main story than the already familiar faces but most of them don’t have much more than a cameo. having a lot of people just randomly roam around with no idea what’s going on goes a really long way in making the moon cell feel populated beyond the people directly involved in the story so I actually like it a lot. they came up with like 3 different convenient plot devices to give you servants to fight without worrying about what that means for the alliances and it gives room for a lot of cool character moments

a good chunk of the extra stages come with their own mini stories told through the combat dialogue which adds to the liveliness of the setting. my favourite so far is the one where liz and nero try to hold a concert and hakuno frantically tries to explain to charlemagne in the middle of combat why it’s absolutely vital to keep them from doing that

everyone seems to know everyone so a lot of story dialogue is banter in varying degrees of playful versus vicious between both likely and unlikely combinations of servants and there’s a lot and i mean a LOT of care put into specific interactions. if two servants even remotely have an opinion on each other there’s special dialogue for it, and I even picked up unique dialogue for when archer acts as support troop for cu which no doubt means it exists for other combinations too (altho that’s not subtitled so i dont know what they’re saying there i could just tell it was the usual bickering because of the tone lol). some servants have unique win quotes from hakuno, she calls gilgamesh by his nickname ‘gorgeous’ for example. servants will sit around your home base and have a default line to say but sometimes they have lines that refer to each other instead. compared to how barren extella was, link is overflowing with the sense that these people have lives outside the current conflict and se.ra.ph is a thriving and vibrant world for them to live in

there’s a scene where karna and arjuna use their noble phantasms against each other in mutual destruction and it fucking RULES

#lance link tag

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