#AS THE HERO'S LIGHT GREW SO TOO DID HIS SHADOW

[jumpscaregoose]

so I was casually making a pot of tea when my brain decided it was a good time to randomly

"the hero and the warrior were like the sun and the moon"

which is all well and good that happens a lot

EXCEPT I WAS STRUCK DOWN BY VISIONS

I don't know where I'm going with this but it's somewhere

[bloodlust-1]

︶꒦꒷ A Night of Blood ꒷꒦︶

Astarion x fem Tav — 18+ Explicit

Summary: Tav finds herself in a dangerous situation, completely taken over until Astarion saves her. Astarion would do anything for her. He’d Kill for her.

T/W: blood, death, assault, nudity, angst

Note: my first post here, and I plan on writing up more stories like this. So stay tuned to those. Hope you give it a read <3

The latest Astarion fic (Ballroom dance)

🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

As the temperature drops, the cold night of the bustling city of Baldurs Gate took on a different character. One that was serene and uncomfortably dark. Ever since the victory of defeating the elder brain, the urge for crime decreased and most foul play was done in the shadows. Which was the Perfect time for trouble in the streets, one that Tav was unlucky to be in.

She usually never traveled alone, especially at night because Astarion was always by her side. The relationship between the two grew stronger after the fall of the Elder brain. The elf was learning to love life, love Tav, and…to love himself. However old habits die hard, Astarion was still extremely possessive over her, and it hurt his ego a bit that Tav felt safe to walk the streets alone at night after a drink with the girls at the tavern. 

The contrast between the stillness of the night and the movement of the city can be quite captivating. Tav bundled up in warm clothing, her breath visible in the chilly air. The city lights casted a soft glow on the streets, creating an ethereal atmosphere. The sound of distant laughter and occasional footsteps echoed through the empty streets, adding to the sense of solitude. The distant banter of drunken orcs, elves, and drows of all kinds of races filled empty spaces of the streets. 

As Tav walked her way home she noticed the beauty of her surroundings that she overlooked during the busy daytime hours. The architecture of buildings stands out against the dark sky, their details illuminated by streetlights. The thought of Tav’s adventures and the history she made with her new found friends and companion. Her heart fluttered on the walk home. 

All too deep in her memories of first meeting Astarion, a shiver runs down her spine. Tav becomes all too aware of her surroundings and her senses become heightened as she looks behind her shoulder for danger lurking nearby. Her surroundings showed no signs of danger, but her senses spiraled all too familiar with fear. 

Tav began walking quicker, then her breathing became quicker, and the only thought was to fight back, “Who ever is there I will fucking ripe your throat out!” She turned back to the ally and pulled out a pocket knife. 

A pair of glowing red eyes sparkled in the shadows. Never did it break eye contact, they didn’t even blink before a masculine voices chimes out, “And here I thought this was going to be easy.” 

A man’s body emerged from a dark shadow and the light perfect hit his face. An elf, one that you never seen before. His eye color was nothing but a hint that he was a vampire. He was much bigger in stature to Tav, and his black hair flopped over his face. 

“A vampire. What a lovely surprise. If you hadn’t caught me a little tipsy I would’ve been had your blood spilled on the floor.” Tav sarcastically chimed yet there was still a hint of intimidation in her voice. She meant what she said, but anyone would be a fool to challenge her, the hero of baldurs gate. 

Tav kept her composure, knife in hand, and furrowed her eyebrows, “I think it would be best if you walk away and find yourself a nice animal to feed on outside the gate.” 

“But that wouldn’t be a challenge, now would it? The hunter and the prey— the adrenaline rush of getting your next meal. I wouldn’t expect a mere mortal like you to understand.” He took in a deep breath and took a step closer to Tav. 

She took a step back, “I warn you now…You don’t know who you are fucking with.” 

“Oh! But I think I do— the hero, the beauty of Baldurs Gate, you know people can’t stop gossiping about you. How a beauty can fight against such a force. I didn’t believe it until I saw you for myself. How the rumors don’t compare to you in person..and how soft your skin looks. How it exciting it would be to see your lovely neck.” He tilted his head and his stare become uncomfortably…sensual? 

What a vampire thing to say. She went through this already with Astarion but never did he make Tav feel like a piece of meat. “Okay, cut the shit. I don’t want to spoil my night so let’s make an agreement to part ways and never see each other again.” 

He started to walk closer to her so much so that she could see his cold breaths in the air. How calmly he was breathing compared to Tav’s made the hair on her arms stand. Her fight or flight kicked in and she took one good swipe at his face. 

“AGHH!” The vampire grabbed his cheek, the blood flowed between his fingers like oil, “You bitch!” He used the weight of his shoulders to push Tav onto the floor, causing her to drop her knife. 

The struggle began. The vampire pounced on her limp body, holding her hands over her head on the cold concrete floor. His eyes glowed in lust, maybe for something more than blood. 

Tav screamed and struggled under his grasp, but he was much larger in size and the only person she thought of was Astarion. 

Tav cried out Astarion’s name. A plea, the sound of sadness rasped from her throat and a single tear rolled down her face. Her voiced echoed the walls yet no one came. 

His attention became suddenly pleased, “Astarion— is it? Oh where is he now…? I know he’s been sleezing around with you. How unfortunate it wasn’t me.” A wicked laughter left the unknown man’s lips. Tav kicked and squirmed, attempting to push him off. 

“I am going to enjoy this more if you keep this up…I might even make you a spawn of my own.” his voice like pins and needles from the stone tone. 

Tav could feel the heat of his breath as his lips got closer and closer to the side of her neck. She closed her eyes so tightly, just anticipating the sharp sensation of fangs. 

Suddenly, a noise of a grunts mixed with slicing filled the ally. It was Astarion stabbing the back of her attacker. It was a sight she only seen when Astarion killed Cazador. The pure rage in Astarion’s eyes was chilling, his face was splattered with foreign blood. Astarion let out a scream each time his knife pulled out of his back. Each stab caused more blood to spill on Tav until the body became limp and fell over to its side. Lifeless. 

Both Tav and Astarion hyperventilating, clouds huffed out their mouth. Astarion reached out for Tav and picked her up bridal style,”Gods! Are you hurt!?” He was frantic and Tav couldn’t help but feel guilty. Pure hurt from his voice piecered her heart. A tone she wished to never hear again the day he killed Cazador. 

“I-I’m not hurt…” her voice was shakened. Clearly she was frightened from the encounter considering she was stripped of her weapon. How things would’ve been different if Astarion didn’t show up. 

“We’re leaving now.” He clutched her body and brought Tav to their home. He was quiet on the journey there. Tav wasn’t sure if he was mad, sad, or scared. Maybe all. All she could do was bask in the comfort of his protection. 

Astarion placed Tav on her feet, “What in the hells were you thinking?! This is why I fear you being out there alone! I know all too well of what lurks the shadows, looking for a pretty little snack to sink my teeth in!” He rubbed his temples to reduce his stress. His loud tone hit Tav like a ton of bricks. To hear him yelling so harshly, but she knew it was only out of concern.

Astarion let out a long single sigh, ”I’m going to make a bath for you, you’re covered in blood.” He reached over for a towel and handed it to her. “Meet me there when you’ve settled in.” 

Tav got undressed and went over to the bathing room. Astarion was already inside the tub and when she caught his eyes, he reached out his hand for her to join. His facial expression were softer now. 

She dropped her towel to the ground, but she couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t even break eye contact with her. Usually he’d awe at Tav’s naked body, but not this time. He was more concerned with her well being. 

“That’s it..one foot at a time..” His voice gentle, he guided her in the warm water and started to clean her stained skin. His hands washed Tav’s skin as if she were fine china. Each stroke was filled with care and love. 

“Turn around, love.” He whispered and she did exactly that. Tav turned her back to him as he cleaned her skin. It smelled of fresh floral and vanilla. Tav admits, he was talented in perfumery. 

Then, she felt arms wrap around her body, his head rested against her shoulder as he planted a kiss on her neck, “I’m sorry I yelled at you…I’ll try not to be so— hostile. Next time please let me know a time so I could come get you.” 

She nodded her head. Tav knew he was being sincere. She also felt Terrible for proving him right. It was stupid of her and now she felt like the biggest burden to him.

“I’m so sorry I thought I could take him on myself. I swear I almost had him. He was just…so big and it was hard to shake him off and I —“

Astarion cut her off with a gentle squeeze, “You don’t have to explain yourself. Just be grateful you have a wonderful vampire spawn that could find your sweet scent anywhere in this city.” 

“I suppose I do.” She placed her hands over his and squeezed them. 

A peaceful silence filled the room and she couldn’t help but replay the sight of that vampire slumped dead next to her body. It was intense, scary, and surreal. Tav then thought of a question that had popped up. 

“Star..?” 

“Yes my love?” 

“Why haven’t you turn me into a vampire yet?” She held her breath to this question. It felt like a sensitive topic but she couldn’t help but remember that the vampire wanted to turn her back there. 

Astarion’s body went tense. He slowly peeled his body away from her back and turned her shoulders to look at him, “I fell in love with everything you are. I love that your blood runs warm, the way you make me feel alive. To take away these things I love about you. Not even to selfishly make you understand a curse like mine. We are perfectly different and I couldn’t bring myself to turn you. Not unless it’s something we truly compromise on, but that feels unnecessary now..” 

“Wow…I didn’t know you felt like that.” Tav couldn’t help but feel her lips tug into a smile. “That’s was so sweet, I can’t wait to tell our future kids about this.” She joked in hopes she’d get a reaction. And that she did. 

His eyes widened,”Ah! Dear, don’t you think that’s for the very, very, VERY, far distant long time away future? I mean look at me, I can’t walk to streets without getting stares, imagine walking the streets with a baby strapped to my chest! Hah! I can’t imagine that.” He finished by flicking water at Tav with a pouty expression. 

It made her giggle, she knows he’s trying his hardest to warm up to feeling loving emotions. He didn’t even see himself as a good person, and there’s no way he’d see himself as a good dad any time soon. He needed time to figure out what he wants in life, and Tav was going to be there every step of the way. 

Tav hooked her arms around his neck. She planted a passionate kiss on his lips. The kiss was soft at first, loving with every push of their lips. It grew more intense and her warm tongue twirled against his cold one. The temperature difference between their bodies was intoxicating. It was thrilling and made their hearts race. 

Astarion pulled away between kisses, “I can hear..feel your heart beating.” he grabbed Tav’s thighs and pulled them on top of his groin.

She could feel his hard shaft press against her stomach as they sloppily kisses each other. Small moans and grunts filled the room as Astarion teased, groped, and rubbed every part of her body. 

Tav ran her fingers through his white curls and tugged his hair into her palms. His eyes sparkled in hunger and Tav spotted him staring at her neck in awe. 

“Why don’t you—“ she pulled her hair away from the nape of her neck,”bite me..” 

Her offer brought a smile to his face. He brushed his fingers over her neck, tickling her skin. Her skin crawled in goose bumps, but it felt amazingly sensitive. 

His movement were so gentle yet sensual. Astarion placed a trail of kisses against her skin. A shiver ran up her back and his shaft twitched in excitement with every squirm she made under his control. 

His fangs grazed over her neck. He loved the way she surrendered her body for him. Astarion Never had control, and this new found control over Tav was so addicting. He pressed his fangs into her skin. A wince of pleasure left her lips and they both held each other harder now. The pain and pleasure was all too exciting and Tav started to drop her head. Astarion clutched a hand full of her hair and pulled her head back to expose her neck even more. 

His jaw clenched, his mouth filled with the sweet slick of blood. His body instantly rejuvenated itself. Whenever Tav was so kind to give blood it was when Astarion was at his peak of strength, dexterity, and energy. 

“You’re perfect every single time.” He growled. He placed his hands over her hips as he licked up the trail of blood over her collar bones. 

“Mph..” Tav winced but the Icy sensation of Astarion’s tongue was an experience she was all too familiar with. 

Astarion pulled away, “I really don’t want to hurt you.. but I hope I live 1,000 more years with you so I can continue to keep doing this. You were my first ever taste of human blood, and you’ll be my last.” A hint of authority left his lips. It was loving yet firm, he was telling her she was his, forever. 

Tav sank her head into his chest. Astarion was possessive, yes but…She didn’t mind it all at despite the little red flags. Apart of her always wanted to be needed and cherished, and Astarion was giving all that to her. 

She let out a sigh,” I love you.” 

Astarion twirled a piece of her hair between his fingers. He stared up at the ceiling. Accepting what his life is now and not for what it was with Cazador. The sense of family that didn’t want to spill his blood was something…new. Refreshing even. “Till death do us part, my sun. I love you forever.” 

Any thoughts? Comment 👇🏼 I love to engage !

[defectivehero]

Hi recently found your blog it’s so good! But was wondering if you could one where the hero lost there glasses in a fight maybe or just at home and the villain sees them idk take your pick possibly m x m? Ty even if not have a good day!

your wish is my command! (not really, but this is a great idea and you asked very nicely!) here you go, hope you have a great day <3

The hero has grown accustomed to working late night hours at the agency. He's grown used to being the last person in the office, to shutting the lights off and locking the door behind him once he leaves. The hero always feels guilty leaving right at his scheduled time, especially when his job can determine if a person lives as a bystander to a horrible event or dies as a victim. He begins to stay later and later into the night, and it becomes increasingly hard for him to tear himself away from the agency and his hero mask.

This overtime habit is how the hero finds himself hunched over his desk with rather painful crooked posture as he compulsively checks his computer for messages. His agency is one of the first to adopt a sophisticated messaging system that converts audio from emergency calls to text, which are sent as alerts straight to their inbox. The idea sounded morbid at first—the hero didn't want to equate life-saving to checking his email. But the system grew on him. It's convenient and easy to use, drastically improving the agency’s response time.

He squints at the screen in front of him, rubbing his eyes roughly when his vision begins to blur. He's tired.

Perhaps the hero’s exhaustion is the reason why he fails to notice a figure standing in the corner of the room, watching him. “Your eyesight is terrible.” The hero hears, stiffening in his seat and turning around to find his enemy, the villain, lurking in the shadows. It takes him a few moments to process the statement.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” the hero then huffs, blinking a few times as he realizes his eyes feel incredibly dry. His close-up vision is passable, so he's still able to do his job. His distance vision, on the other hand...

The hero has worn glasses since fourth grade. He experimented with contacts but eventually went back to wearing glasses. He's spent an ungodly amount of time in his life wiping his glasses clean with a cloth or pushing his frames further up his nose.

“I’m serious,” the villain sighs. “How can you even see out of these?” At that, the villain steps forward and holds out his hand, revealing a pair of glasses. The hero immediately recognizes the telltale blue gleam that distinguishes his glasses, and reaches out to his enemy. He almost expects the villain not to hand them over, so when the glasses hit the hero's palm, he raises his eyebrows.

"Thank you," the hero feels the need to say, when the silence stretches on to a painful tension. When he puts on his glasses, the blurriness around his vision clears and he can see the words displayed on his screen in sharp, clean strokes. The hero then stares at the villain, several questions on the tip of his tongue. How did the villain remember the hero had lost his glasses? Did he go back to retrieve them? And if so... why?

"It took me a few days to realize why you hadn't shown your face since our fight," the villain answers, as if reading his mind. The hero has to wonder how he grew so predictable. "After that, it didn't take long for me to remember that blow I dealt you—rather powerful, if I do say so myself—and the ensuing clatter of your glasses falling to the ground. So... I went back to the rooftop and grabbed them."

That answers the hero's first two questions. He is still left with the most important query of all: why?

The villain seems to telepathically understand this question too. He takes a slow breath in and ambles around the office in a carefree manner that makes it seem as if he owns the space.

"A win is more enjoyable if it's a complete victory," the villain drawls, tapping his fingers along a nearby desk. The hero has to wonder if his enemy has his power activated—if charred fingerprints will be left as remnants (as tangible evidence) of their encounter. "That means no cheap advantages or hinderances."

Ah. The villain wanted a fair fight—one unimpeded by the hero's poor vision. He supposes he can understand that. The villain is honorable above all else. The hero knows this about his enemy, has grown to accept it. Perhaps he should've intuited that motivation before bothering to ask.

The villain is still lingering, as if waiting for something. The hero's patience only lasts a few minutes. “Well, was there another reason for your visit, or…?” The hero asks, looking at him with sharpened vision. His glasses now provide him with a glimpse of the nuance written in the villain's form—the minuscule pull to his lips, the faded scars tangled around his hands. The hero is suddenly thankful to have his glasses again—but for entirely different reasons than before.

“That was it,” the villain says, his gaze turning scrutinizing. "Why are you in such a rush? Got a hot date?" The latter statement is spoken with a surprising amount of venom.

The hero raises his eyebrows. "A date?" He hums casually, his heart racing in his chest. He didn't expect the conversation to take such a sharp turn into such a convoluted and confusing subject. "At this hour? Of course not."

Something settles in the villain's expression. "Right," he says, something close to relief coloring his tone. "Then, I'll be seeing you." He remarks, turning on his heel and walking out the door. The hero watches him leave, a multitude of different emotions battling in his chest.

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[bromcommie]

the beloved name, exiled free verse poem (?) for @catws-anniversary, day 8 | april 2nd theme: bucky barnes | prompts: ghost story, memories, revenge | on ao3 here

Listen: this is a ghost story. Are you listening?

Good. Let me set the scene: here we are at the beginning of our path, here we are at the mouth of the river, still cool and smelling of salt and rotten fish and not gasoline. And here we have our protagonist who is like all other protagonists, which is to say he is handsome, maybe, or he used to be and he is young, maybe, or he used to be  and he is unimportant and mundane and utterly  human, maybe, or he used to be.

What about a name? This can get confusing, so let's call him Yuri or Yevgeny or Yakub, let's call him Joe or Jack or Jimmy— overplayed, overused, there's too many of those just running around all over the place, trust me. Let's just call him the universal name of all history, meaning let's not call him anything at all. Most of the real protagonists are nameless, and all history ever does is pile them atop each other, dead faceless weight on neat numbered lists, pour them out into shallow unmarked graves, send them home as bits of hammered metal and pairs of over-mended socks, meaning: 31 GOVT=WUX WASHINGTON DC 845PM 3-8-45

THE SECRETARY OF WAR WISHES ME TO EXPRESS— Hello? Everybody home? Are you sitting  down? Sorry for your loss, ma'am. Sorry about the caked blood on his boots, about all the ugly, festering parts that nestled in the chest and grew outwards, stretching towards the sun. You should probably make it a closed-casket funeral, you should probably make it a nice picture on the mantle, a gilded frame for grief, because you won't like the thing the search party digs up from the snow.  Sorry for your loss, ma'am, truly, but know this: никто не забыт и ничто не забыто, meaning vechnaya pamyat, memory eternal, meaning we will forever honor your unnamed hero of a son on neat numbered lists and in the worn, earmarked pages of history. And don't that just beat all. Except for the ones that make it. Except for the rare ones deserving of a title, the ones left to carry history's weight, left to tell the story; left to be immortalized as the writing on the wall. They get to keep their names. You saw it, too. Not really, not the fleshy, messy parts between the syllables, not in a way that counts, and we're not here to talk about him, anyway. I'm the one calling the shots, I'm the one telling this story, so listen. If you say so. So we have our protagonist— tell me about the monster, then. Every good story needs a monster. Except I didn't say monster, did I, I said ghost: something caught in the  doorway but never fully in either room,  something that has a body which is never whole but always wants to be. The body which knows without knowing, which occupies the space between awareness and understanding; the nuclear shadow of longing.

But you don't want that, do you. You want something with clean-cut lines, something with teeth and a mean streak that adds up to more than just the disjointed sum of its parts. I don't blame you for that. So here: have your handsome young unnamed hero while he was still handsome and young and without the weight of a title for a name breaking over his back, sweating in summer heat. Have a scene drawn by a boy on a fire escape with a red-bellied bird over blue water that hasn't caught on fire yet; have a scene in which all the lights add up, in which there are no creeping shadows and the scenery makes sense.

Here is your kindhearted hero who walks tall and straight and shares his chocolate with the children sheltering in the basement of the shattered house, the thousands of children on whose bony backs the mythos of Leningrad was built— which is a thing our protagonist doesn't know then but will learn in time, with  practice and repetition beaten raw into the skin: pain, the mother and father and  inheritor of all earthly knowledge. And here is the monster which is, of course, a house with one too many locked doors, one too many broken windows and not enough light getting in to see his face clearly, to map into memory the places  where the glittering armor's cracked, where the boy's expression bleeds into the  bird on the page. The edges all crooked. The spine tilting to the side. The bird's not flying.

How can it, the boy who is not a boy but a man says, when its wing's broken? And our protagonist says: you're the artist here. Can't you make up a better story,  for a change?

I'm sorry. I tried to keep it simple. Let me start over.

There's something about the house you're keeping out of the picture. How did they get in if all the doors are locked? Where did they come from? Where did the overlap come from? The other side of the river Lethe, maybe, except that's just another myth our protagonist doesn't remember learning but knows anyway. Head stuffed full of stories, passed on in hope and bread and blood head stuffed full of cotton, gasoline-soaked waiting decades for something to  spark, except someone's cut the connecting strings, you see. Someone's hacked off the fuse. A lighter's useless if you can't even light a candle with it. A tool loses its value when it stops doing its job well, when it becomes nothing but the disjointed, disloyal sum of its parts and bites the hand wielding it, which is usually when the hand tends to get pissed. You know. I don't need to tell you this. The voltage wasn't high enough to burn out the fear of failure. If someone's cut the fuse, where's the flame coming from, then? Shut up, I'm getting there. We were talking about the scenery, about the roses next to the blown out window, pink on red on tablecloth white; we were talking about the dark-eyed girl in the basement with the one-sided dimple, the one-sided shyness, the handful of picked wildflowers when he walked back through the door, wanting to go back to a time when his body was a gentler sum of its parts.

What color were the wildflowers? Now you're getting somewhere. Pink, white, yellow; blue, maybe, the color of kindness. That is what they were fighting for, you understand, one and all: a kinder world, a world where little girls never end up hungry in basements again. That's what they were told over and over again by the same men in different suits.

I know what you're about to ask. No, the children never got out of the basement, and yes, the girl's eyes were blue back then, not brown a mirror of belonging, and in another version of events her hair was red, but that's a story for a different time. And the world? Well. Depends on who you ask. Anyway, we were talking about the boy on the fire escape and the boy in the shattered house drawing the same bird. Mythology carries weight even without proof of it ever happening, but this is different. Is it? What makes you say that? Well the birds looked alike, and the two boys didn't look alike at all except for all the ways in which they did, the lip caught between teeth and the line cutting between brows and the soft scritch-scritch-scritch of stubby pencil on cheap paper, a faint looping sound that should've driven our protagonist mad but didn't. Echo of a life repeated, of a sound as familiar as his own heart, which is the closest thing to proof of existence you can get.  I beat, therefore I exist. I am  beaten, therefore: there's still something permanent about this body that can't be taken away.

The boy's body wasn't permanent, or at least it turned out malleable despite its innate unbreakability, despite the hard-earned slouch of the shoulders and the same old broken nose and the twist to the mouth; not smiling, but close.  The eyes; not looking at, but not looking away.

Maybe it's not the boy that changed, but the looking. Maybe that's the part the protagonist made up after: the looking back. Explain the flame then, explain the devil in the details, explain the hunger cutting through the ribs, spilling the contents out into the world to be pecked at. If none of it was real, explain how all this light is getting in. Oy vey iz mir, I'll never get to the end if you keep this up. You sure ask a lot of questions, don't you? I don't like when you do that, just repeat words you heard once or twice— or a thousand times. Isn't that all storytelling is? Do you even know what they mean? Do you? They mean, enough already They mean, didn't I tell you to buzz off? They mean you've been at the wheel too long but I've been here longer, so let me talk for once, let me set some roots down in this shifting landscape you're running from and be more than just a collection of wild old hungers. I thought you said this is a ghost story. That's all ghosts ever are.

I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about our hero and I'm just trying to prove a point here, anyway. I'm trying to say maybe the birds weren't the same bird, maybe the bird wasn't even a bird and maybe the boy was something he made up, too, clinging onto hope like a thing with too many feathers, like a rope that could very well hang him. Maybe it's still enough on its own, anyway, the feeling that flutters through at the not-story, a robin's broken wing against the windowsill, the aftermath of a struggle; tender and violent and utterly unkillable. Sounds like a nice story. So why are you so angry?

Am I? Well, fear can sometimes cause an irrational reaction. Fear can make people dangerous, make them behave unpredictably. This is all empty rhetoric, of course, but you should understand. You're not people, either. Your lethality is not irrational. It's been hammered into a precise shape, like all things born out of a binary are— I know this story, too. It goes: Yes or no. Success or failure. Dot or dash. You finger's on the trigger: you pull it or you don't. What's your choice? Report. Never mind, I don't want to talk about this. 

Report status. Dot or dash? The choice of a small, bloody animal backed into a corner, which is to say no choice at all. The choice of go fuck yourself with the constant  interruptions, I was telling a story here.

That's not one of the options. Your finger is still on the trigger. The house is still on fire. What do you save?  What are you trying to pull? You know how this story goes so why rehash it why poke at  infected tissue, why— Because you won't talk to me plainly, you won't look at the thing head on, because I'm trying to be helpful, like I've always tried to be helpful, because the story goes:  We want to help you, you have to let us help you, you have to let us, so:  report.  I was getting there, why did you have to— Report. Answer the question.  You know, sometimes I think you liked it when they— Sometimes I think you like getting— Answer. Sometimes I think you— .-. . .--. --- .-. - two GSWs one to the stomach one to the thigh critical condition - .... -.-- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -... . / -.. --- -. . broken ribs shattered cheekbone pneumo thorax 32557038 you’ve known me your whole life exfil at 38° 46' 57.50" -77° 00' 54.22" you hear that assholes home by christmas and lying dead asleep on the couch lying dead sinking in the water lying strapped to a table when война закончена, слава героям Красной армии subject uncooperative try it again 32557038 sergeant 191 pts in most recent drill recommendation for additional training 3255 --- -. / . .- .-. - .... / I said .- ... / .. - / .. ... try it again / .. -. / .... . .- ...- . -.  he’s still talking  7038 initial report stated the body pulled from the Potomac was nonresponsive stated subject’s cardiac arrest lasted 176.83 seconds so try it again stated edelweiss, ein kleines edelweiss stated I give thanks before you for you have mercifully returned my soul within me stated 32557—

.-. . .--. --- .-. - Record skip. There's fuzz on the damn needle again. Where's it keep coming from? What was I talking about, again? You were about to tell me where the light keeps coming from. The light is irrelevant, the light casts shadows that don't make any sense, I told you, the light's just there for dramatic effect. Our protagonist is not an artist, he's not thinking about the light.

You're lying. You're leaving the important parts out again. You're ignoring what's happening in the house, you're ignoring the red string that's supposed to be leading the way, time-adherent. Of course. That's because all strings can be cut, all strings can wind up dead ends, all things can be taken away, including time. The string's not red because of the poetry of it all, bub. It's red because someone's bled all over it. We both know this, so  what's the point in reopening old wounds? That's how people hemorrhage. That's how the needle starts to skip. That's not how stories work. Why won't you tell me what he's thinking about? Fine. Fine then: he's thinking about the damn light, how it makes him look all translucent and tired and too human this man that used to be a boy that used to be a David long before they turned him into a Samson, and he tries not to think about how that story ends. He thinks about the light and he wants to say, keep your temples standing—the world's had more than its fair share of heroes and legends, and look  where that got us. Nothing good ever came from making a fallible man a myth. He wants to say: if there's someone who could knock them down blind it'd be this boy, but he'd rather look at him in this ghost light until the day he bites it than read his name in history books and over the tombstone of a hero's grave.

He wants, but that's not something fit to send back with the socks and the hammered metal, that's about as useless as crying over spilt milk, about as useless as the thoughts that lead nowhere but deeper into the pit our hero keeps crawling out of. And so he goes back to the numbers and the angles, to the sounds right outside the door, to the piece of metal in his hands because he was always so much better at that kind of thing, anyway. Things that can be taken apart and put back together, new from the old; things that can be forced into a form or a binary are so much easier to control. You know this, too. You're living, breathing proof of it.

Anyway, that's what he's thinking about at that time: speed, math, probability. Gravity, maybe. He drifted— wandered— walked purposefully so close to the edges of this man that he ended up wanting inside him, close enough to know him like his blood knows him, close enough to get warm and to shield from the draft through the broken windows snuffing the light out of them both. He'd ended up afraid of pushing too hard and ending up on the other side of him, afraid of falling off one hell of a cliff. And the boy who hasn't been  a boy in a while looked at him and said, Are you— and our man with no face said: Let's not do this again.  And they both carried on dealing with  things easier to handle, like smart numbers and smart maps and smart hands that did things they were good at but tried not to think about too hard at night.

He still ended up falling, of course. And then, well— a shot bird can't fly if its wings've been broken, a shot bird can't fly if its been fucking shot.

Someone lied to our protagonist, you see. It was a long time ago, but it still stuck.

But what about the light? 

Why the rush? Look, whichever end I tell the story from, we'll end up at the foot of the same cliff, the same river. I just don't know what more you want from me.

I want you to stop dropping the thread, I want you to stop playing dead already— that shattered house is on fire, and you keep trying to put it out with buckets full of bullet holes while I'm not looking and the water's all gone before you can even see it evaporate. The house is still on fire, the house is caught in a thunderstorm too many charged particles too close to the eye socket and the smell of crackling ozone and burning flesh and you need to get out— That's enough. Change the topic, I'm not doing this again. Please. Look, I'm  being nice about it. Fine. Do you remember who first told our unnamed hero that old Lie? No, but it starts like this: dulce et decorum est, except there's nothing decorous about flies on too-thin bodies, about the taste of fear like iron at the scraped roof of the mouth, about the things you saw your hands do; there's nothing about our hero that makes him a hero. Blood under the fingernails. White little petals high up in the pale mountains, white little petals on lapels, crushed to bits. You still remember how brown his eyes were, how young how quick the light behind them was snuffed out when all your muscles locked up, animal instinct. Mind you, it wasn't unwarranted— the motherfucker's knife was in your stomach. The pretty pale mountains were a screen for a world set on raging fire. Mind you, this was before the invention of a gun out of living flesh, before they gave you a title instead of a name. You were bleeding then, too.

I thought we were talking about the story.

We are, pay attention: Do you remember when you first realized the awful Truth? I know you don't, but it goes like this: you don't remember giving your life and you don't remember believing in something bigger than yourself, but your trigger finger does. Picturebook blue and gold over the river's surface, stretching yourself too thin towards the sun. Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori. (Only one part of this sentence is a lie.)

You still haven’t told me where the light is coming from. And you still haven't told me why you want the answer so bad. I don't know. Is that what you've been wanting to hear? I don't know. You don't want to know. There's a difference. You're scared shitless is what you are, you sorry old thing. Falling back on old habits. I want to know how our protagonist ends up.

I’m working on it, alright. The road is long and potholed and roundabout and the story’s not much better, you see: the pictures are all there but the colors are too bright, the linework's all off, I still can't get the shadows to make any goddamn sense. Too many different mythologies, I think; too much static on the channel to pick the thread of the drama up clearly, and someone keeps cutting the transmission lines, anyway. It's downright sabotage, is what it is. Friendly fire. But our protagonist is getting weary, he needs a moment to lay his head down, so let me wrap up, will you, let me get a word in edgewise and put it in a way you will understand. Stop asking questions and let yourself sit in the house with one too many doors that you didn't notice before, one too many rooms and not enough hallways to connect them all. Make a place for yourself by the warmth of the fire in the burning house, and pay attention:

The doors are there for a reason. Did you hear what I said? Have you been listening? Someone's cut all the strings. Someone's left them to smolder in the ash, someone's bitten the hand that used to hold them raw, and now the monster's asking questions. Now the monster's off its leash, and it wants what all angry, abused abandoned things want, which is someone to be afraid of it for once, which is a way out of the maze, a clear path into the sunlight. It wants its due. I thought you said it was a ghost. Gimme a break— there's no place for semantics in this discussion, there's no place for a discussion at all. I'm telling you now: ghost, monster they're all just different words to say— something that's other, something on the outside looking in, something with no belonging. All different words to say: something that used to be something else once.

That's why our hero is no hero, you see: no Samson, no Oisín, no Theseus; at best, he's the minotaur. At worst, he's the ship. Something new from something old, over and over until it's unrecognizable. A gilded frame for grief masquerading as an honor. That's where the light is coming from, you understand. That's where all the strange old hunger is coming from: the blue of the wildflowers carved into bone; the beloved name exiled to the other side of the river Lethe. That's what the monster wants. A way back home. Monsters don't get to make demands. Only heroes do. You think? You still haven't figured it out yet, have you? You're still thinking in binaries. Who do you think I've been flapping my gums at all this time, who do you think our tired nameless protagonist with all that blood on his boots is? And who's the one out of the two of us here asking all the goddamned questions? Open your eyes. Put your ear to the ground. Listen: I lied. This isn't a story. This is a warning. Someone's cut all your red strings and that someone was you, pushed out of a century of quiet by the wrong dead body in the wrong burning river and a feeling you didn't understand in the shape of a name cutting your ribcage open to the sun; which is why you're so angry, which is why you're  scared shitless, which is why you've got more questions than answers. The needle's still skipping, so we’re flipping the whole thing over to B-side. Can you hear it? Can you mouth along to the crackling words? It seems to me you've heard that song before, so: wipe the record and start over. Maybe this time the melody'll actually stick.

And then? And then, you get your due. No gods, no mythologies, no more fucking stories, just this: you, blowing up the burning house and clawing your way out into the sunlight.

[racheloleo]

Cave of Wonders

Zevlor x Tav, NSFW

Zevlor smiled to himself as he saw the others relax and enjoy their evenings. Alfira strummed idly, giggling with Lakrissa about their personal victories over the goblins and what kind of tale the bard should weave through song. Cal and Lia continued to rib Rolan, who had had perhaps too much wine and was ready to blast his siblings backward, if only to stop their hooting laughter. Bex and Danis snuggled by the fire, petting and whistling to the camp's canine companion, a scruffy white hound named Scratch.

The goblin threat had been eradicated, thanks to an intrepid band of heroic adventurers lead by a human woman names Tavalia. Gods knew there was no one else with the wherewithal to corral the rag-tag team: a Githyank warrior, The Blade of the Frontiers, a secretive cleric, a former archmage, a tiefling attack dog, and a foppish vampire. Zevlor shook his head; how she did it, he couldn't begin to fathom.

As the revelry continued, the tiefling commander took one last sip from his goblet before setting it down. He nodded in farewell to Halsin, the archdruid the adventurers had rescued from the goblin encampment, and made his way back towards the Emerald Grove, away from Tavalia's camp. Zevlor had a few more crates to finish packing before morning, and he could use a moment to himself after all of the noise and merriment of the evening's celebrations.

Zevlor quietly walked through the gate of the Grove and made his way through The Hollow towards the chambers that had been his during the refugees' stay. Rocks crunched under his boots as he strode confidently to his quarters. A few druids were up and about, but the place still felt strangely still after all the chanting had stopped. Kagha had been in league with the Shadow Druids, it had seemed, until Tavalia had talked some sense into her and the interim archdruid put an end to the Rite of Thorns.

He walked through the stone passageway, the door closing behind him. He replenished a few candles before carefully doffing his armor. Gods, but it felt good to have that weight off of his shoulders, literally and figuratively. He stretched and flexed his back, taking pleasure in the little pops and cracks that told the story of a loosening body.

Zevlor let out a soft groan. He found an empty crate and brought it to his desk, where he began to slowly and carefully pack away his many books for the next leg of their journey. The Shadow-Cursed Lands, gods, how was he ever going to -

A gentle rumble of the stone door marked the entry of another. Quickly and quietly, Zevlor set down the book he had been holding and reached for his crossbow, eyes on the entryway to his sanctum. He heard the stone door shut again, and a rustling sounds drew his attention. He deftly loaded the crossbow and positioned himself near an alcove, the perfect spot to lodge an attack should one also be aimed at him.

A shadow grew on the walls in the candlelight, soft and feminine.

"Zevlor?" A tremulous voice called out, the shadow edging closer to the commander's lair.

Zevlor almost dropped the crossbow. "Tavalia?" He asked, shocked and shaken, horrified that he could have so easily pulled the trigger against the hero of the hour had she not made her presence known.

"Yes, it's me. Did I startle you? And please, again, call me Tav. Everyone else does, there's no need to stand on ceremony." She walked slowly into the soft light of the numerous candles Zevlor had lit not but half an hour before.

She was nude, he saw, his mind not comprehending. Or, nearly nude, it appeared that she maintained some cover for the sake of modesty, but only around her hips; her breasts were bared to the world. No, not to the world: bared for him. He shook his head, still confused.

Tav's eyes adjusted to the lighting, scanning the room. When her gaze fell upon him, her lips curled into a smile that reached to her eyes, so happy was she to find him.

His body was in a state of panic, wanting to avert his gaze and drink her in all at once. Why was she here? And nearly naked? She didn't seem hurt or afraid, there should be no reason for this state of undress, unless -

The rustling. She had removed her garments after she had entered his quarters. The confidence made him wet his lips, blood pulsing in his face and below his belt. He could not deny that she was a beautiful woman, that he had not thought of what she might feel like in his arms, soft and warm and spent, but this...

She closed the gap between them, her hands alighting carefully on his shoulders. Her bare feet had been almost soundless in the dirt. She glanced up at him, eyes twinkling with the small flames that lined the room. Tav leaned into Zevlor, her mouth grazing his neck, as she whispered his name against his flesh. Small goose-pimples rose along the back of his neck.

His hands moved to her hips, and he felt them, full and round beneath his touch. Her skin was softer than he could have ever dreamed, and he was suddenly very aware of his talons, hard and sharp at the tips of his fingers. He made to move them away, but she caught him and held him to her. "No," she whispered gently, still nuzzling against his neck. "Please, stay with me. I have imagined this a thousand times, and yet nothing could compare to the here and now." The tip of her tongue delicately traced the muscles in his neck, and his breath caught in his throat.

"Tavalia, please, do not misunderstand me. You are a very beautiful woman, but I am nothing but an old, disgraced paladin. Surely there are others far more worthy to share your bed than the likes of me?"

She hummed quietly, her nose gently caressing the underside of his jaw, the hand that once held his now at his cheek. Her thumb carefully followed the ridge pattern of his cheekbone, and he could feel her smile against his skin.

"Says you," she murmured. "I can freely choose whom I have in my bed, yes, and I can confidently say that I have desired no one else since meeting you. You are strong, courageous, empathetic, and handsome. You have bewitched me, Hellrider, and I only hope that you will have me as well." The thought lingered in the air, both carefully waiting to see what the other would do.

Zevlor's heart was likely to fly out of his chest, and he had no doubt that Tavalia could feel that, just like she could no doubt feel his arousal pressed against her thigh. He sighed slowly, afraid he would not be able to follow through. He pulled his head back long enough to look at her beautiful, glowing eyes, before wrapping a hand behind her head and pulling her in for a deep, sensual kiss.

Tav brought her arms to Zevlor's neck and pressed herself into him. Her tongue darted out of her mouth and played with his bottom lip, which drove him into a deeper frenzy. Their mouths melded together, their sighs intertwined, breaths becoming one. Tav's hands moved to Zevlor's face, cradling his jaw as she drank him in.

His hands moved to her waist, and he began to carefully roll his fingers down the curve that flared into her hips and rounded, pert bottom. These undergarments would prove to be a future problem, and he pulled them down and off. He cupped her ass and lifted her up, leading her to straddle his waist with her thighs. She acquiesced, and linked her ankles together at the base of his tail. A jolt of electricity shot through him at this touch, and he moved his tail to encircle one of her calfs. Tav tightened her thighs against Zevlor's taut center, her sex wetting the front of trousers.

Her warmth spilled onto him, and he deepened his kiss. His tongue tentatively moved in askance against her lips before she opened her mouth and invited him in, sucking playfully. A low moan escaped his throat as he moved towards a wall and gently balanced Tavalia's back against the rough-hewn stone.

In one motion, he transferred her thighs from his midsection to his shoulders and fell to his knees. Tav's back scraped against the rock, but the sensation barely registered as Zevlor's breath hit the sensitive place at her center.

His hands gripping her hips, Zevlor gently nuzzled his nose into her soft, damp curls. Her breath hitched and her legs tightened in anticipation. His tongue flicked out cautiously, probing her slit to find the hard little bud tucked in between.

As he ran the flat of his tongue over her pleasure, Tav gasped with joy. He continued to lick and flick and tease, circling her nub until she was leaking with arousal and panting heavily.

Like a man starved, Zevlor continued to work his mouth against her sex. Slowly, he moved one finger to her entrance before working it inside. Tav cried out, her walls clamping down on his finger, which soon became two.

He stroked her carefully, beckoning her to come for him as he whispered sweet, loving words to her core. "My darling, let yourself go. I am here to catch you, and I would never let you fall too far."

At that, she felt the coils in her belly tighten before springing to a quick release. She cried out his name, sobbing, hands holding onto his horns, grasping to stay afloat. He held firm, his hands cupped around her bottom and lower back. Her thighs tensed so firmly around his face that he thought he was likely to be a dead man, but that there may be no better death in all of Faerûn.

He stood slowly, easing her into his arms, one arm under her knees, the other under her neck. She stared up at him, dazed.

"That's not what I came here to do," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I was meant to be worshipping at your altar, not you at mine."

"All in good time, my love," his whispered back, moving towards the various travel gear he had already packed.

"Do you think you can stand?" He asked, tentatively testing her weight on her feet. "Only for a moment, and only to make you more comfortable."

Tav nodded against his chest as he tipped her feet towards the ground. She stood on shaky legs, keeping one arm on his.

Zevlor unfurled a bedroll and straightened it out against the hard floor of the chamber. Carefully, he eased Tavalia to her back and onto the bedroll.

She sat, and began working at his shirt as he moved to sit next to her. Tugging, she pulled it free from the band of his pants and moved to pull it over his head. Zevlor stopped her.

"Please, if you don't mind. I am... I am not proud of what lies underneath, and I would not want to taint your memories of this evening with the view."

Tav looked hurt and startled. "Zevlor," she whispered, eyes large and round, "there is nothing about you, ever, that would make me turn away from you. Is it a scar? A burn?"

"My heritage," he mumbled, lifting the corner of his shirt. Underneath, Tav saw more of the infernal ridges, like the ones that marked his face and tail. Her eyes softened.

"Oh, Zevlor, no. Not in a hundred, thousand, thousand years would that ruin tonight. It doesn't ruin you, nor does it define you. Nothing about your infernal heritage alarms me, and I love you because of it, not in spite of it. My love, you are wholly beautiful to me, and I would see all of you as you have seen all of me. Besides, your heritage is as plain as your horns and tail. If that were ever to deter me, I would not be here now."

Gingerly, she helped him lift his shirt over his head, smiling briefly as the collar gets snagged on one of his horns. As he tosses the shirt to the side, Tav begins working on the laces to his pants. His arousal pushes against them, undeterred by these few moments of inaction.

Zevlor stands and finishes undoing the laces. His sex, hard and girthy, stands ready as he removes the pants and small clothes. He eases back to the bedroll where he is immediately met with a deep kiss as Tav climbs onto his thighs and straddles them.

His heat meets hers with a rush of sensation, both of them forgetting to breathe in that moment. Tav arches her back, grinding her center to his. He can feel her sex against him, still wet and inviting.

His tail wraps around one of her ankles, securing her. Her arms encircle his neck as she breathes into his ear. "Please," she begs, "please let me have you as you have had me." His hands move up her sides until they find her breasts, and he begins to massage them and gently pinch her nipples. He ducks his head to carefully pull one of her nipples into her mouth, where he gently licks and sucks until it becomes firm under his tongue.

"Dearest," he nuzzles against her neck, "if I allow that, then this night ends much too quickly for either of our likings. Besides, I do not deserve such attentions."

Tav snaps her head to face him, hips still grinding against his. "To the Hells, what do you mean! 'Deserve?' As if this is not an act of love, freely given? Lie down." Her grinding has stopped, and she lightly pushes him onto the bedroll before kissing and licking her way down his chest.

He has never been harder in his life than he is the moment she breathes against him. A liquid pearl sits at the tip of his member, and Tavalia is quick to duck her head and lick it off in one quick flash of her firm tongue. Zevlor moans, louder than he would have liked, but too ensorcelled by this beautiful creature to care.

As quickly as her tongue is there, it is gone again. Zevlor takes a moment of respite, the briefest of seconds, before his pleasure is deepened by the flat of a tongue on the underside of his member. A long, hot stroke goes up the shaft to the tip before Tav takes him into her mouth and begins working on sustaining his bliss.

He cannot think, he cannot breathe, he cannot remember his own name. He focuses on the wet heat that has engulfed him, that threatens to be his undoing. Tavalia licks and teases, suckles and massages at him until he finds himself on the edge.

Sensing the loss of control, Tav stops and pulls herself up to Zevlor's face, smashing her mouth into his with pure passion and possession. "Take me," she whispers to his lips. "Make me yours. There is nothing more I desire to be than yours."

Gently, he rotates her to her back and slides a knee between her legs. She opens easily for him, expectantly. "I would look upon your lovely face, my darling," Zevlor says, eyes full of love and lust. Tav nods and sighs, pressing her hips to his as she moves a hand down to guide him into the entrance of her core.

They both moan loudly as they become one. Zevlor thrusts slowly, cautiously, easing into her, that she may be able to take all of him. She is slick with her own love and has no trouble receiving all that he can give her.

She moves her hips in time with his, their tempos slowly increasing as their pleasure reaches a fever pitch. Tav takes his hand and wetly sucks his thumb before moving it between her legs. "Please, again, please," she whimpers, and he dutifully begins creating small circles around her hard, taut button.

A moan of pleasure escapes her lips, quickly turning into a scream of delight. He calls out as he finds his own release, pumping his spend into her until it trickles out from between them.

He watches her face and then pulls her in for a tender, delicate kiss. She returns, gently, sighing into his arms as they disentangle their legs and his tail.

They lie together on the bedroll, foreheads together, eyes heavy with love and sleep. Drowsily, Tav opens her eyes and stares up at Zevlor. A hand comes up, slow and soft, to stroke his cheek.

"We must depart in the morning. We have duties to fulfill, people who need us. But here and now, tonight, we have each other, and that is all I need." She kisses him tenderly, smiling into his lips.

"My darling, I could die now a happy man. I did not know that it would be possible for a man my age to find a love like this, so true, yet here I lie, you in my arms." He kisses her back, a strong, low purr beginning to emanate from his chest. "May your love and faith see me through the undoubtedly dark times ahead."

"And may we find each other once more in Baldur's Gate, with tasks complete and victories won, to begin a new journey, a quieter one, just the two of us."

They fall asleep, arm in arm and facing each other. Zevlor's tail drapes protectively around Tavalia's waist, and her soft snores lull him into a deeper peace than he has known in quite some time.

[porty-clone-king]

The Hero and the Warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them, either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the Hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the Hero's light grew, so too did his shadow, and soon, the Warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero...

[inlocusmads]

I had this thought about how Blades MC can be openly affectionate. like sure, even if you don't go down the "flirt w everyone" option, they are still warm and nurturing even to strangers. even to valax, who's a sworn enemy and maybe it has something to do with riverbend.

riverbend falls into the category of "every fantasy town ever" because it has quirky lil traditions, hero ceremonies and is the village in the proverb 'it takes a village to raise a kid'. i also suspect they'd have these fun pride-and-prejudice-esque balls and dance scenes where it is customary to kiss a person on their cheek and be just visibly affectionate, give them hugs and that stuck with mc and kade as they grew up.

and it also explains the kind of role they play in their friend groups and bringing about change. kade becomes an archivist, purely due to the interest making up stories has given him. telling stories in a pub in riverbend nurtured that interest that he's just more than a "sick, weak kid" and how the small pub audience who were just so keen on listening to him, as they danced, sang till dawn helped build that career he longed for.

and mc too. their openness and affection might just save morella. it did, the first time but in small ways. mc helped imtura gain closure in her relationship with her mother, being empathetic. mc helped nia battle with her own beliefs through kindness. mc gave so much back - especially in the scene where they chase down the kid to the orphanage where they were treated horribly, it helped mal put his coin into an orphanage business and bring life into his dormant realisation. mc helped tyril break through to kaya, help him rebuild the relationship w his family and enforce a conversation, even though it wasn't their business.

and what happened? they became great fighters against the shadow court. they were strong and secure on their emotional side. imtura never had to depend on her mother anymore or worry about what she had to say. tyril is secure enough to leave his house's future in adrina's hands. mal knows that if he ever comes back, he's going to open up that orphanage - make sure no kid has to go through what he did. nia harnessed her power of Light to do good - to do serious good and be encouraged to unlearn what the temple of light had brainwashed her with and to avenge the death of her mentor's.

and now it's with aerin and valax. aerin is still wrestling with a second chance, escaping and evading because he thinks he isn't deserving and mc gives him all the time to recoup. valax has never experienced actual human emotion, which makes her feel different and ostracized (i highly suggest you read @normal-thoughts-official's post about valax and her mother) and it makes her want to learn why mc is the way they are and mc understands; mc gives them a chance to experience it - offering an alliance where they can both get what they need without having to run and chase after each other.

mc might have a dozen million skills - archery, sword fighting, alchemy but it is ultimately their kindness that triumphs and ultimately, riverbend's kindness upon them that reinforces this and i think PB should acknowledge this instead of treating their "kindness" as something vulnerable and have characters dish on it every five fucking seconds.

[imminent-danger-came]

MK+ Reflections

(1x00 A Hero is Born)

-

MK: “I just...I don’t want to let my friends down, you know? [...] But it’s too hard! I’m just one guy.” (1x02 Duplicatnation)

-

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

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Mirror MK: “Ugh, Stop that! Listen, every time we get in trouble we turn to Monkie King or our friends or someone—they tell us a story and we find that smidge of motivation we need. Well! Now we’re on our own. It’s just you.” (2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

“I gained a new power!”

“The power...of self-reflection”

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen) (This one is an honorary mention)

-

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

(2x02 Dumpling Destruction)

-

Lady Bone Demon: “Whatever she’s planning, it’s all to do with that. I- I’ve seen you use your staff, surely you could use it to smash that thing?”

(2x05 Minor Scale)

-

Mirror MK: “No, stop! What are you doing!”

(2x05 Minor Scale)

-

MK: “This is the trigram furnace, from the celestial realm! How is this-”

“...Trust your instincts.”

(2x05 Minor Scale)

-

(2x05 Minor Scale)

-

Totally Not Macaque: “The Hero and the Warrior were like the sun and the moon, their light like a protective glow shining upon the world. As the hero’s light grew, so too did his shadow—and soon, the Warrior was cast into that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the Hero.”

(2x07 Shadow Play)

-

(2x10 This is the End)

-

Lady Bone Demon: “This is your destiny.”

(2x10 This is the End) (This isn’t MK, however MK’s self reflection is so closely tied to the celestial furnace, and LBD appears in a trigram furnace reflection so many times with MK that I am obligated to include it)

-

Tang: “Um, MK? I get the feeling you aren’t telling us something.”

(2x10 This is the End)

-

Tang: “My mother was right! Associate with the wrong people and see where you end up.”

(3x02 Great Grand Dragon of the East)

-

MK: “It’s like a whole new me!”

(3x02 Great Grand Dragon of the East)

-

Sandy: “Are we sure we’re going in the right direction?” Tang: “Not a clue. All Monkey King said to do was head west, so-”

(3x03 Smartie Kid)

-

MK: “UGH. How am I meant to fight the lady bone demon?”

(3x04 The Winning Side)

-

(3x06 The First Ring)

-

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

Sun Wukong: “You actually might have done more for this world than I ever have!”

(4x01 Familiar Tales)

-

(4x02 New Adventures)

-

MK: “Remind me how this ‘game’ is supposed to convince me I’m not destined to turn into an evil demon monkey thing again? Cause, EVERY option I pick brings me to this! Same! Screen!”

(4x10 The Jade Emperor)

-

Oh reflection motif, how I love you.

Interesting to note, MK’s reflection never shows up in the Demon Revealing Mirror (something that is actually, you know, a mirror). Very intriguing to think about, isn’t it?

[ajwild220]

How to see a Villain (Hero x Villain)

"Oh, so let me guess," the hero spat, tensing against the rough cords that bound them to their chair. "your girl left you and it blackened your heart so much you can't be blamed for turning phycotic?"

Villain's eyes swept over hero's tense form, their posture calm, as if it was every day he faced someone tied to a chair in a dark room. Which, in all honesty, was a reasonable possibility. The faintest hint of a smile edged onto his lips. "I suppose you could call it her fault."

Hero scoffed.

"But really," Villian continued measuredly, scrapping a chair up opposite his victim, "I thank her for it."

Hero lurched in the restraints, only earning a growing smile from Villian. Anger edged Hero's voice as they sent words that sought to bite. "I see why she left you. Who could love a monster like you?"

Villian cocked an eyebrow in dangerous amusement.

"You assume she left me."

"Who wouldn't leave you?"

"Her."

He paused, voice deep, slowly sounding out the words as if Hero was too dumb to understand.

"You forget, little Hero. I'm irresistible."

The grin that followed was sickening, laced with secrets and ill intent. If Hero weren't so worked up, they might have recoiled at the mere quirk of Villians lips.

Silence reigned as Villian pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pristine suit jacket. Lighting one, he took a deep breath blowing smoke out through his nostrils, eyes unmoving like a predator finding the weakness in his prey. "We have time Hero. Would you like to hear a story?"

"No."

"Unfortunate for you then." He stood purposefully, flicking the burnt match into the corner in a small wisp of smoke. "She was beautiful; her laugh could fill the room--"

"She was a fool!"

Villian didn't move. No trace of anger, nothing to acknowledge he had heard hero save the pause in his story.

"Yes, a great a fool as she was beautiful." He sucked in another breath of smoke. "Do not interrupt me again." Hero did not need to look into Villians eyes to know the threat that lay behind his words.

"She watched me turn. Way before Superhero sensed anything amiss. She knew my villainous nature." His eyes clouded in memory. "She grew to love my darkness."

Villian licked his bottom lip in thought and chuckled. "I came home every single day, and every single day she would wait to throw herself into my arms." His eyes met Hero, and a chill went down Hero's spine. "I hated that as much as I loved her. It gnawed at me, for it showed me that my darkness was but a shadow, a greyness she could grow accustomed to. As long as she loved me, I was a villain and not a monster. Her love showed me I was weak!" he growled menacingly, glaring at Hero.

Hero froze in place. They had never quite understood why Villian was so feared. They had heard rumors, sure, but it was an entirely different thing to see played out before their very eyes. The madness that danced so freely and cared for behind the clear blue expanse of Villian's irises. Hero has no more time for contemplation as Villian continued, eyes blazing with an animalistic wrath.

"I could not rest with her coming back to me. Not until I saw pure fear and disgust. Not until I stopped being the hero in her eyes!!" His voice had risen to a yell as he slammed his fist upon the small table, sending a small glass ashtray to shatter into thousands of pieces on the unforgiving concrete floor.

His breathing began to grow labored as he threw his cigarette into the shards.

"You know how to make a monster, Hero?" He paused, madness playing in his eyes as he stalked forwards, polished shoes crunching on the broken glass. Hero suddenly wished this whole confrontation was a bad dream as Villain closed the small gap between them. Villian's breath reeked of smoke as their face hovered inches from Heros before he barely whispered. "You show a villain what's left of their humanity and let their mind consume it in their ravenous hunger for blackness."

Then he stopped. The fire left his eyes as he once again stood, becoming much the villain he was at the start. No trace of the person who had stood there moments before. Hero was vastly unsettled, still recovering from Villians outburst. Villian, however merely retrieved his fallen matchbook from the glass shards strewn about the floor and lit a new cigarette.

"So yes, I do thank her. She made me the monster."

Hero didn't know what to say, their mouth had gone dry, and any words seemed to catch in their throat. One question grew stronger with a morbid curiosity.

Villian answered without being asked.

"Yes, she's gone."

Hero swallowed.

"So, she finally left?" "It is no business of yours why she is gone."

He once again placed himself in the chair opposite Hero, calmly blowing smoke. "I do regret that she is gone though." And for the first time that night, Hero saw something that looked like a human emotion pass over Villian's features.

"You see Hero, I realized after she left, some people can love a monster."

[zerohirrotries]

The Hero and the Warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the Hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the Hero's light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the Warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero...

[bloomandcorey]

Hey!

How are you? I hope you drank enough water today

In this post, we're going to introduce you to the main characters in our story.

Oh, a note before we start, you can tell which one of us is talking by weather the writing is italicized or not! (L.B normal, Amour italicized)

All right, all right, let's get to the point. I hope you love them as much as we do!

Let's start with the Hero of our story, Corey.

In a quiet country home, amidst the shadows of a well-tended forest thicket, in a family of artisans, the soul of a boy named Corey was conceived. Early in his journey through life, he discovered a fondness for literature, nature, and the great stories of the past. However, a shadow of isolation and anxiety crept into his heart due to his difficulty in communicating with others. Often the boy went into the deep woods, carried away by his books, seeking solitude to read and immerse himself in the world of words.

With each passing year, Corey's reticence grew deeper and deeper, and insecurity and anxiety became an integral part of his being. Yet even in his darkest moments, his soul carried the germ of a desire for protection and a desire to be brave.

And so, at the turn of his ninth year, he met Bloom, a girl whose kindness and light penetrated through his gray thicket of anxiety, changing his life. She became not only his friend but also his inspiration, awakening his courage and determination. Bloom, albeit unknowingly, became his soul's guide to a unique world where fears gave way to courage and protection.

Fun Fact: When we started out on this idea, before Corey had a name, he was known between the two of us as "The Hero of Anxiety"! (True)

Now, a little bit about our darling princess, Bloom!

Bloom is the only child to the royal family, and is very sheltered and protected. As a child, she had a big mouth, and loved to talk and be around people. This was not the kind of perfect princess her parents wanted. They believe in a strict social ladder, and did not appreciate her chatting with guards and servents. As she grew older, she became more and more curious, inquiring about things her parents were trying so hard to keep from her. Her parents dreams of having a perfect princess to represent the royal family were crumbling.

So, one day they had enough, and permitted her to explore the forest outside the castle garden, so long as she's not bothering them in the castle. She loved it out there, it was freedom she'd never had before. Still, being the sweet, naive girl she was, she would always come home without question.

One day, when she was eight, she wandered further than usual, and stumbled upon a boy reading a book. Being the social butterfly she was, she was quick to try and talk to him.. and at first, her friendliness was not reciprocated.

But they warmed up to each other and became inseparable. She has never met another child before, he was freeing to be around. Corey had so much knowledge that she didn't know she had been longing for. She was attached to him in a way that she had never been before. They made the perfect match.

Fun fact: I used the Bloom palette when creating the Nightbloom Lily (and yes, the flower's name contains "bloom" for a reason)

Well, that's it! I hope we didn't give you too much of a rambling recap. Of course, in the future there will be more information about behavior, character, etc., but we decided to start here. I hope you will love them

Thank you for reading! <3

Bye!

[dany-elwen-ffxiv]

To the Past

What kind of questions did I have? What could I even say? Ask? Think? Feel?

I imagined my mother sitting across from me as I settled back into my room in Sharlayan, the fireplace roaring. Alone, but embracing the temporary solitude, I sank onto the floor and stared at the rose-colored cushion adjacent to me.

Imagining my mother was sitting there, with me, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the crackling of the wood.

What questions would I even ask her?

Korven and I had enjoyed our time in Foundation. It was a great way for us to bond, and I loved seeing where he grew up and learning all about his family. But Arslan's visit weighed heavily on my mind, and even though I had to tell Korven about it, it still didn't feel like it came out of my mouth in a normal way.

Because nothing about Arslan's visit was normal.

The illness that he had described my father dying from...was the same illness my mother died from as well. A rapid loss of memory, lucidity, and mobility...pale yellow skin...and then death.

Is that my fate? To die like my parents before me?

Holding onto fear wasn't healthy, but it was the only feeling I had. Arslan wanted me to go to Dalmasca - he wanted to bring me back to the resistance, to the people who had loved my parents. He wanted me to experience the culture I'd never known.

And he'd had my portrait.

Standing up, I went to my dressing table, on which lay the tiny portrait Arslan had given me. It was unmistakably me. My father had carried the portrait around with him all this time.

Why didn't you tell me, Mother? Why didn't you tell me that my father was a hero? That I was the daughter of two heroes?

At that moment, there was a knock on my door, and it was the AEON clerk that manned the front desk. "Madam," he said with a light bow, "your mysterious Au Ra friend is here to see you again. He's waiting outside."

Arslan. Speak of the devil. "I'm coming," I said hastily, grabbing my shawl and wrapping it around my shoulders before rushing outside, where that looming, familiar shadow stood at the gate, just like previously.

"Arslan," I said in greeting as he bowed and kissed my hand. "I was just thinking about you."

"And I you," he said with a kind smile, a little sparkle in his eyes. "I hope you've decided to join me to Dalmasca. We leave in three days."

"Yes," I said quickly, not even hesitating. "But I have someone who wants to join me," I added, speaking of Korven. "I also may...I also may request that other members of AEON join me."

At that, Arslan's brow shot up. "Surely, there's no reason to alert your friends," he assured. "It is a long journey, and there's no danger. Garlemald is no more."

"Yes, but..." I paused, hating myself for pausing. I was unable to describe what I was feeling.

Fear. Fear, fear, fear.

He seemed to have read my mind. "I know you have so many questions, and only those in Dalmasca can answer them," he soothed. "And we can find a way to bury your parents together."

"I'll need help exhuming her," I stammered.

"Of course," he said, his voice still soothing. "I'm sure your friends at AEON can help with that, too."

I nodded, my mind whirling. "I don't like the thought of my mother being on a different continent than me," I admitted weakly.

He paused, clearly choosing his words carefully. "We do not have to bury them together," he said softly. "There's no need to disturb her current grave if it is not your desire. YOU, and YOU alone, are Yyelexi's child."

I wrinkled my brow. The thought of my mother lying buried for all eternity on a different continent from her love made me feel sick. Surely, she would rather be buried in her homeland, where she grew up, where she fought against the empire, where she gave birth to her daughter.

"We'll exhume her," I said decidedly, rubbing my nose. "I just will miss her."

"Of course," he said quickly, leaning against a nearby pillar and studying me. "And make no mistake, you can bring as many friends as you like. This is your personal journey, a journey into a past that you don't remember or know at all. If bringing friends would ease your worries, then of course they can come."

I nodded, swallowing, and then looked into his eyes. Kind eyes. They were so concerned. "I'll assemble AEON and those willing will meet you at the Sharlayan port in three days," I said quietly.

He smiled brightly at that. "Good!" He gestured to the AEON headquarters behind us. "I look forward to our journey together, Danaela. There will be so many questions, and hopefully more answers." He paused and then grinned wider. "And worry not about airfare - I will cover every penny."

I blinked. The generosity of this man was astounding. "Thank you," I whispered in shock.

"No, thank you, Danaela," he said with a deep bow before turning on his heel to leave. "You have given my life purpose again."

And as he disappeared into the foggy afternoon, I stared at the place where he'd vanished for some time, before heading back to my room, my mind awhirl.

And I took out my linkshell, and made a call.

[jerrylewis-thekid]

.

Hello, I was writing and deleting an hour ago because I don't know how to ask a question and also because of my anger, so simply how did Jerry deal with the fact that Dean preferred Mak over him for thirty years and the possibility that they were a couple... How did Jerry continue to love him?! How did he continue to love a man who did not care about his feelings and knew that he had been replaced!! I can't believe Dean preferred this idiot over Jerry!!!

Everything about Dean and Jerry is very complicated. I'm sure Dean loved Jerry but more than anything he loved "the Kid". The emotional addict with light feminine features who looked at him with adoring eyes and who had put him at the center of her world. Dean, perhaps for the first time in his life, was a "hero" to someone. But Jerry grew up year after year. He was a wild colt, he had his dreams (directing) and he had to fulfill his dreams. As it should be. And year after year he lost his adorable feminine characteristics and his sweetness as a child and became more and more manly and more masculine. And he had started to think a little more about himself, I REPEAT, AS IT SHOULD BE. Mack Gray was no idiot. He had worked for twenty years for George Raft, a domineering and arrogant narcissist with a hint of the mafia. Mack Gray had learned full submission with Raft. He never married. He has practically lived as Dean Martin's shadow since 1952, the year in which he officially began working for Dean, but since 1948, the year in which they met, Mack was all too present in Dean's life. I've written several posts about this. There's too much to write now… but the fact that that man was so close to Dean, so present in his public and private life (Mack Gray went on holiday with Dean and his whole family. After the breakup with Jerry It was as if he was part of Dean's family in all respects) and above all Dean's reaction to the death of Mack Gray (he was practically committing suicide with alcohol and drugs) and Deana Martin's words when she wrote in her book that " without Mack Gray my father's life was no longer the same" which makes me fear. Very. Dean Martin has argued with everyone at one time or another. Even with Sinatra. With Mack Gray NO. I'll write a more complete post as soon as I can.

Jerry at a certain point stopped totally submitting to Dean. Mack Gray always submitted to Dean and had no talent. He was physically ugly and untalented, without physical beauty Mack Gray could NEVER have outshined Dean. By the mid-1960s Jerry had become overwhelmingly beautiful. Next to each other Jerry would appear the adonis. Dean was nine years older than Jerry. And Dean didn't want to be overshadowed by anyone. And there were certainly those who fueled his insecurities. And I'm sure a certain blonde woman did it day after day.

[hauntinghyrule]

h/c list #25, Red and Shadow? 👀

"Stop! Thief!"

"It's the arsonist!"

"Get him!"

Shadow smirked. And my work here is complete.

He was about to step back, let his disguise fade, and disappear into darkness, when Red gave a yelp of alarm and grabbed him by the wrist. Too startled to react, Shadow was hauled with him, stumbling along behind the hero as he fled.

They crashed through underbrush, jumped a small stream, and scrambled over fallen logs. Behind them, the sounds of shouting and glow of torches grew fainter. Finally, Red slid down the side of a dry stream bed and sat down hard, pulling Shadow to the ground beside him.

"I think—" Red gasped, breathing heavily. "I think we lost them."

Shadow stared at him. "Why did you bring me."

Red gave him a weird look. "They were after you, too."

"Yeah but I stole— I mean, you thought I stole your sword."

"And you said you didn't. I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions." The wide-eyed earnestness of the Light Worlder made Shadow's skin crawl. "And besides, even if you were a thief, I don't think that mob looked interested in a fair trial. I'm a knight; rescuing people is my job!"

He beamed so brightly Shadow had to grimace and turn away.

The hero must have misinterpreted his expression, because he leaned in closer, frowning in concern. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine," Shadow grumbled. He realized his wrist was still loosely wrapped in Red's grip, and he tugged it away.

"Everything's gonna be okay," Red said, still in that sappy-saccharine earnest tone. "We just need to stay positive. Can you smile for me?"

Ugh. He had meant to make his disguise look a little younger, to be less suspicious, but surely he hadn't taken it that far. The hero was speaking to him like he was a small child.

He curled his upper lip at Red in something that was more sneer than smile. It only occurred to him as he was doing it that he wasn't sure he'd remembered to round out the shape of his teeth.

He must have, though, because Red only said, cheerfully, "that's a start!"

Somewhere in the bushes, a twig snapped. Red whipped around to look, and Shadow took that momentary distraction to make his escape, fading back into the darkness.

One hero disarmed, three more to go.

He caught himself holding onto his own wrist and yanked his hand away, scowling.

[doc42]

Slayer of Lies

(continued from Part 1)

So, let’s go through all these and try to give them meanings.

three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt . . . Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . .

In this framework of connecting the original triple threes descriptions to their vision counterparts all three images are of course false dragons in some sense, antagonists to our heroes and their pale shadows — Mr Writer talks of dragons as a manifestation of fire, "fire made flesh" in the story, "and there's something magical about the fire" in the bts for House of the Dragon, and the true fire beats the false ones.

After all, why would the Undying from their eternalist perspective see these three key fires she lights as especially noteworthy, what do they do in the great chain of cause and effect as seen from above time itself? 

They slay lies. 

So they show her lies as a suggestion of her three key fires, helpfully.

Fire for life... Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow.

Mr Writer is fucking with us the readers by throwing the "red sword" in there, like how he likes to switch from literal to symbolic meanings back through literal here and there — it's a fairly literal description of Stannis that stands for an archetypical paperback fantasy-style image of Azor Ahai that gets subverted by Daenerys a bit earlier in the story than Stannis himself appears, and once you click the whole shadows=dragons=a flaming sword connection together, yeah, it's about dragons, too, the fire needed to live out the Winter, and she slays the lie of him by lighting the pyre under the red comet that gives life to her true red sword, “mother of dragons”.

three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath. . . .  Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

The “three mounts must you ride, mother of dragons, bride of fire” connection shows us how these work; again, Mr Writer likes to switch between the meanings so no threes are exactly the same — there we have a horse, a wooden horse, and no horse at all but simply a suggestion of Jon Snow with the “blue flower”, Jon Snow, who is, of course, a reincarnation of Lyanna Stark and a half-wolf half-dragon. So it stands to reason each of the three fires must be of a different kind, too, some literal, some metaphorical. Some for life, and some...

Fire for death... A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd.

A cloth dragon is Aegon VI a false Targaryen promised prince, a typical character of historical fiction, and let’s say she slays the lie of him by proving him a Blackfyre. But this second fire is “the fire for death”, which sounds rather more literal than that and does not spell anything good for the pretender prince as he sets his sights on a city sitting on top of a giant stash of green wildfire, a hidden legacy of his purported grandfather. 

"A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"

"A cloth dragon on poles," Dany explained. "Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight."

And perhaps once upon a time Mr Writer really did want to clash Daenerys with a pretender character directly, as juicy as it sounds, but the way “A Dance With Dragons” is arranged suggests to me this is no longer in the cards, as it spends a lot of time setting up a deadly, long dragonfight between the characters of Euron Crow’s Eye, Cersei Lannister, Young Griff/Jon Connington, and the Martells, replacing the original sprawling game of thrones from the first three books with a multitude of echoes of the Dance of the Dragons and all the Blackfyre Rebellions and the Sack of King’s Landing all rolled into one and layered on top of each other like a big, rotten onion — and directly teasing the boy’s sad final fate.

“And everywhere the dragons danced the people died."

But Daenerys would still consider herself the cause of all this and feel responsible if the fire for death is set off by any of her stolen dragons, the green one in particular.

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. 

The dragons are an extension of her, as she herself as the Mother of Dragons is a three-headed dragon in her own right, and it would be a bitter sting of the decades-long pay off to her long lingering stay in Essos to fight for freedom (and Mr Writer entangling himself in the Meereenese Knot, and then adding Volantis’ plea for her to come and help on top of it, just like how the Wolf King pleaded to her once in these very same visions of the Undying) if she had finally returned home to find a ghost city, as she does at the beginning of “A Clash of Kings”, and a throne standing atop the burned bones and ash, Ozymandias-style.

(a lesser known bts tidbit is D&D took full credit for the idea of the Iron Throne’s destructuon for themselves in the same documentary where they claim the entirety of the Breaking Bad-ish throne room scene concluding the TV show as their own invention and their final glory, so perhaps Mr Writer does actually want the Throne to remain, for times to come, “Round the decay, of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare...”)

(the scene at the beginning of “Clash” where Rakharo journeys to one of the three ends of the Red Waste and finds the old bones of an immense dragon feels like another Ozymandias riff to me)

Fire to love... From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire... 

And the last one is a twisted dragon, which, way, way before FeastDance I'd say the wording conjures up an image of the Tower of Joy with a bunch of connections to the Azor Ahai Reborn prophecy, smoke-stone-fire, Daenerys slaying the lie of Jon Snow being simply “Jon Snow”, lighting his fire, the images suggesting him hatch out of his own secret origin story. But Mr Writer has made a lot of effort since then to connect the vision very directly to Euron Crow’s Eye, going to Oldtown to leap from a very tall tower and be reborn to fly, a very Lovecraftian image where the dragon is so unrecognizable it looks like a beast — and there’s a precedent for Mr Writer using an eerily similar wording when describing dreams of things to come in his other Westerosi-set work: 

"You said that at the inn."

"Did I? Well, it's so. My dreams are not like yours, Ser Duncan. Mine are true. They frighten me. You frighten me. I dreamed of you and a dead dragon, you see. A great beast, huge, with wings so large they could cover this meadow. It had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead."

"Did I kill it?"

Now would you look at that, a dead dragon! So perhaps she slays Euron by somehow "lighting a fire" to the truth of Jon Snow, half-dragon half-wolf represented by the blue flower, the king of the damned who dreams of crypts where there’s no place for him, as he dies and rises once more like Daenerys did before him walking into her fire for life, who then beats the blue-lipped undead king of the drowned that damns the whole world to Winter to prove he is above all gods? Prometheus-style, fire as knowledge (and, heh, the Citadel is there) — and fire as love.

"Fire to love", the fact that Mr Writer changed it to "to" all those years ago suggests to me he felt he knew exactly what he wanted to do back then — and him talking about it like, "fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor", this makes "fire to love" a tautology, "love to love", a person to love.

“Three fires must you light, mother of dragons, slayer of lies.” So we have a pyre, a wildfire, and love — red, green, blue — cleansing the lies of a paperback fantasy Azor Ahai, a histfic pretender prince, and a Lovecraftian twisted dragon.

[cutthroatcarnival]

Febuwhump Day 6: “You Lied To Me”

Tags/Warnings: Major character death, blood, self-sacrifice, canon-typical violence

Separated from the others, Wind and Four find themselves in a dungeon with traps, enemies, falling floors, and a rule.

Read it on AO3!

Fallen Down

Wind groaned, waking at the feeling of hands patting at his cheeks. Sluggishly, he pushed the hands away, hearing someone chuckle.

He forced his eyes to open, focusing on the dirt-smudged smith hovering above him. Four had crusted blood on his temple, but looked otherwise unharmed. With a groan, Wind pushed himself up, feeling Four help him up with a hand on his back.

“You’re awake! Thank the Three, I feared I was going to have to drag you around!” Four stood, holding a hand out for Wind to take, helping the younger hero to his feet. He took in the area, the entirety of it was ruins, spanning every direction.

As he turned back to Four, the smith held out his sword and shield, his own already strapped to his back, a lantern swung on his belt. Wind took his items, swiftly latching them on. He leaned to take a look at the tablet Four was blocking, only to be spun around as the smith grabbed his hand and began walking down the corridor.

“Where are the others?” Darkness surrounded them, the only light being Four’s lantern, casting dancing shadows as it swung with his gait.

“It’s just the two of us.” Something in Four’s voice didn’t sound right, but the darkness blocked out his face. Wind tucked himself closer to the smithy- they would get out of this.

The corridor finally opened into a lowly lit room, the walls looked eerie, sporting holes that looked vaguely like eyes. Wind dropped Four’s hand, pulling away to read the stone tablet.

“‘Take flight with boots of wings’? What does that-“ The sound of hundreds of arrows being shot cut Wind off. He whipped his head around to see Four standing by the edge of the small platform, arm posed as if he had thrown something.

Wind ran over to Four, who snapped his arm out to stop him from going beyond the lip, “I know how we cross this.” The smith began quickly digging through his bag, muttering under his breath quicker than Wind could keep up with.

With a ‘aha!’ Four pulled out the item he had been rooting for- his power bracelets. Wind jumped as the smith whirled around, already slipping the items on, holding his arms out towards the sailor, an expectant look on his face. He squinted at the smith- what was Four expecting him to do? The shorter hero rolled his eyes.

“I’m going to carry you,” Wind shuffled forward, “wrap your arms around my neck.” He did as instructed, and yelped as he felt his feet leave the ground, squeezing his arms around Four’s neck as the smith turned. The arms around him tightened and they shot off, racing across the open space as arrows launched across the room behind them.

On the other side, they skidded to a stop, entering a new room. Wind wriggled out of Four’s hold, falling to the ground. The door behind them slammed shut. Flopping his head to the side, Wind examined the room; it was barren, the only thing in it the stone tablet and weirdly designed floor tiles. As he pushed himself up, he saw Four approach the stone tablet.

“Follow the birds,” Wind watched as the smith’s eyes swirled purple for a moment before the normal gray returned, “The tiles! The bird tiles!” He watched with fear as Four jumped onto one of the tiles, tensing up as he awaited another trap.

Nothing. It seemed safe enough for a dungeon filled with dangerous traps. Taking a deep breath, Wind jumped to the tile, landing next to Four who hopped to the next tile. They continued across the room, narrowly avoiding stepping on the wrong tile as they grew smaller. Wind felt something uncomfortable settle in his gut- this dungeon had been too easy, scarily so. Four didn’t look bothered, so he chalked up to general unease, but the feeling couldn’t quite be shaken off.

The next room brought a bridge that had definitely seen better days, Wind could only just see the bottom of the chasm it crossed. Growls made him whip around, seeing bokoblins pour into the room from nowhere. Four shifted to cover his back, the two of them forming a tight stance. The smith had brought out a cane, sending the monsters flipping into the chasm, their shrieks echoing off of the stone. Wind slashed and stabbed at the seemingly endless wave, he could Four behind him clashing with metal.

Unfortunately, the ‘blins managed to split them apart after a while. Wind had his focus on the group that kept pushing him down the bridge, they had dwindled the numbers down greatly. The sailor had brought out his Skull Hammer, swinging it to send the enemies flying off the edge. When one remained, Wind slammed his hammer down over its head, rejoicing at the puff of purple smoke.

The bridge under him shifted as the hammer connected to stone, making a loud cracking and crumbling noise. Wind froze as he felt the stone beneath him move violently, almost shaking.

A weight slammed into him, sending him back a couple of paces. He landed flat on his back, groaning as his head connected with the stone. The sound of stone scraping together echoed in the cavern, making Wind’s head snap up. Four! Where was he? Was he still on the other side? Oh Goddesses, Four, there were still monsters-

Wind’s racing thoughts screeched to a halt as it finally clicked what- or who, rather- was in front of him. Four stood where he had been seconds ago, wearing an unreadable expression. He could feel time slow as the bridge finally collapsed, the smith disappearing from his view with a scream.

Scrambling to the edge, Wind peeked over, trying to see any sign of Four. He sniffled, fighting back tears that threatened to blur his vision. Fighting back a sob, the sailor made out a figure resting at the bottom. The familiar colors of Four’s tunic were distinguishable against the stone. He wailed, the area surrounding his unmoving body was dark, and growing larger by the second.

The sailor stumbled back, sobbing and heaving. Four had lied- right to his face, he sounded so sure when saying that they would both survive. Wind shivered violently. A grating sound made him turn around, seeing the wall split in two and open, letting sunlight pour in. Hiccups tore from his throat, body shaking and wracked with sobs. This is what it took to escape?