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#And it might be an entirely inconsequential detail
saltpepperbeard · 1 year
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so are y’all like me and fixate on the fact that stede has two pillows/an open space available every time you see a shot of his bed or are you normal
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kisakis-boyfriend · 5 months
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I have a Halloween-esque Bennett request. He lives in a really superstitious village that hates him bc of his bad luck. So on Halloween they try to sacrifice him in a ritual. They wind up summoning Incubus!Reader and we decide to keep him as a pampered pet. And maybe we use the power we gain from Bennett’s pleasure to get revenge on those fuckers who hurt him
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Sacrificial Lamb
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Pairings: Bennett x reader
Warnings: Male!reader, dom/top!reader, incubus!reader, sub/bottom!Bennett, blowjob, descriptions of violence, descriptions of gore at the end, implied deaths at the end
Genre/Format: Smut, hurt/comfort; Oneshot
Author's Note: Bennett is 18-19 in this story! — Hell yeah, incubi!! This is such an intriguing concept, it was super fun to brainstorm for this one :3
Please check my blog title to verify whether requests are closed or not! Thank you!
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This child is cursed, they all thought. This child is a curse sent to destroy our village from the inside, they all said. This child, no...this thing must be removed before it brings total calamity upon us all, they screamed
The booming voices of the townspeople echoed within the church walls during an emergency meeting. A meeting that was held during one of the young boy's daily journeys into a neighboring town, sent out there to collect several items for his own town. They knew that Bennett wouldn't return until nearly nightfall, so there was more than enough time to conjure up a plan to remove the young boy from their village
During all of that commotion, the young boy known as Bennett traveled on foot to the other town, tripping several times on the way to and back. His usual bad luck never leaves his side even for a second. Sometimes the bad luck was inconsequential, only affecting him or the other townsfolk in small ways. Other times the bad luck caused the entire village to panic as their water supply became contaminated once again, or as a horrific accident occured during Bennett's watch
Whatever the case, these things always circled back to Bennett. The entire village blamed him for any wrongs or catastrophes, even when they didn't have any evidence of Bennett, or his bad luck rather, being the culprit. It was always his fault in their eyes
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So just what was their brilliant plan to remove the bad seed from their pristine town? Why, they would simply kill the poison before it could spread any further. The conclusion of their secret meeting was the local witch agreeing to search for a spell that would summon a demon that they could all sacrifice Bennett to, removing him without ever getting a single drop of blood on their hands
Weeks went by until the witch called for another meeting, announcing their proposed plan based on the information that they had gathered. The date of this sacrifice would be Halloween night, when the veil would be at its thinnest and it might be a bit easier to reach the demonic underworld. The townspeople agreed upon this date and worked out several details before dispersing back to their nightly activities
Months passed until the fated month of the young man's untimely death would approach. Spring came and went, Bennett's eighteenth birthday flew by, summer scorched the land and autumn soothed the previous heat wave. Then, the end of October arrived, and every soul within the village grew antsy as that day inched closer and closer. They continued with every last autumnal festivity as if they weren't plotting the murder of an innocent young man, their minds completely corrupt by selfishness and arrogance
-
On the night of the thirty-first, a restless Bennett tossed and turned in the small bed situated against the wall of his tiny wooden house. He lived alone, with no relatives or friends or even livestock to accompany himself, and was forced to occupy the smallest structure within the village. He knew better than to complain though, after all he did at least have a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in. Even if it wasn't luxury, it was preferable to sleeping outside on the hard ground or under a tarp that would so easily blow away during a harsh storm
Sighing as he rolled over for the nth time this night, Bennett tried to distract himself from the uneasy feeling that filled his gut. It was probably just because it was Halloween and this holiday always seemed eerie compared to all of the other celebratory days of the year, what with that ‘thinning of the veil’ schtick and the townsfolk reciting all manner of terrifying tales to the kids. Everything about this time of the year centered around spookiness and horror, and the combined atmosphere of that and the townsfolk being extra cruel to Bennett around this time was the most likely cause of his uneasiness...
...Or so he thought. Just when Bennett had begun to drift off to sleep, his front door was kicked open with a loud bang, startling the poor boy awake. He had little time to react as several of the men from his village stomped towards his bed and roughly grabbed him, squeezing his frail arms while they dragged him outside and towards the dark forest
Upon arriving at the prepared space, they threw him onto the dirt, circling around him so that he had no means of escaping his fate. Their many faces scowled at the young man, spitting curses and harsh accusations while he trembled in confusion, salty tears quickly pricking the corners of his eyes
“W-wait! What are you doing?! What's going o-on?!” Bennett whimpered, instinctually curling in on himself. Some of the people laughed at his fearful expressions, others just grew angrier for reasons that he couldn't understand. One of the village blacksmiths stepped forward and swiftly kicked Bennett over, landing another strong kick to his ribs and causing the boy to cry out in pain. Another large man joined in, grabbed the collar of Bennett's shirt and forced the boy to face him, lifting his torso so that he was almost sitting up
Tears slid down Bennett's cheeks as he stared at the man, confusion swirling behind those emerald green eyes as he tried to make sense of this. “Please...why are you doing this?!” The question was ignored as a heavy punch landed square in his face, causing him to fall onto the ground with a loud thud as blood trickled out of his nose. The boy's hands quickly fly up to hold his nose in agony, crying out harder while the menacing people watch on in amusement
While cruel laughter flooded his ears, the two men began to remove his clothes, stripping him of everything and pushing him back down once they were finished. He lay there humiliated and shivering as the cold night air nipped at his bare skin painfully
“Tie him up.” Said one voice; the town's mayor. Tossing rope to one of the larger men so that they could bind Bennett's arms and legs together tightly, not caring about the rope burns already forming on his tender skin because of how harshly they bound him. The same men then carried the young boy over somewhere else, over to a magic circle drawn on the dirt and surrounded by torches where they planned on carrying out their deed
Bennett's head spun after being thrown back onto the ground, with no clue what was happening or why, he simply cried harder. Broken sobs spilling forth while the chanting of the townspeople drowned him out. Though tears clouded his vision, the poor boy still noticed when the torches changed colour, the flames growing impossibly high as the chants of the people grew quiet
The next thing he knew, the ground had begun to swallow him up, the strange circle he had been placed on sank into the earth slowly while the purple flames flared up dangerously, blinding his vision. Bennett screamed for help, desperately hoping that anyone would hear him and have mercy. Once again, luck was not on his side since the loud roars of the people still in the village drowned out his screams, their celebratory cheering covered up the vile acts committed within the forest next to the town conveniently
-
When Bennett finally awoke it felt as though many hours had passed. His mind was still a bit hazy as he lazily turned his head to check the environment around him. This is...a room? Ugh...where am I? Aah–!!
A sharp inhale alerted you to the fact that the human had finally woken up. You excitedly rushed into the room that he had been resting in, stopping yourself from slamming the door open so that you wouldn't scare him though
“Hi~” Your sweet voice whispered while you poked your head into the room, cracking the door open just enough to allow the human to see your face. His eyes immediately snapped open in fear and his breathing sped up while he tried to scoot away, the effort unsuccessful since he hit a wall almost instantly
“No no, relax. I'm not here to hurt you, little one!” Attempting to make yourself appear as docile as possible, you chose not to move closer until he had given you permission. “Can I come in? I promise I'm friendly.”
Bennett contemplated your question. His mind was racing as he tried to recall everything that had happened to him before he woke up here, the memories of what happened in the forest slowly crept back into his mind and brought a single tear rolling down his cheek. This detail caused you to frown, clearly this boy has been through something terrible. You really didn't want to upset him further, but you wanted to understand what had happened for him to get sent to your abode in the state that he was in when he arrived
Carefully leaning into the room a bit further, you tried to talk to him again, to get even a single word out of him. “Are you in pain? You look pretty beat up... I'd like to help you, if that's alright.”
“Y-you...you can...come in.” Bennett sniffled, averting your gaze as his head hung down. With the softest steps that you could possibly take, you entered the room and stood next to the bed that the boy had been sleeping on
“Mind if I sit?” He nodded, his entire body tensing up when he felt the mattress shift under your weight. “My name is y/n. Do you have a name, dear?” Silence. The human was probably still shaken up from whatever had happened to him previously to trust you yet, though you were more than willing to ease the information out of him and gain his trust. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm sure you're still confused as to what's going on...”
“–ennett.”
“Hm? I didn't quite catch that, darling. Can you repeat that for me?” You asked, leaning over just the slightest bit to hear him better
“Bennett....my name is Bennett...” He repeated meekly. His knees were tucked into his chest while he sat there, curled in on himself and still obviously frightened by everything
A smile found its way onto your lips at the mention of his name, “That's a lovely name. How old are you, Bennett?” The next hour or so was spent coaxing answers to simple questions out of the nervous human. You learned that his name was Bennett, that he had turned eighteen around six months ago, he had no family and he lived alone in a village just south of some mountains. Trying your best not to bombard the boy with questions and allowing him to answer each one at whatever pace he felt comfortable with
As gently as you could, you explained who and what you were; a type of demon known as an incubus. While the human was nervous at first he did eventually relax after you assured him that you wouldn't touch him without his explicit consent. Eventually you coaxed him off of the bed so that you could tend to his wounds, tenderly rubbing soothing ointment onto his burns and wiping some more blood from his nose
-
Over the course of the next few months you managed to earn Bennett's trust. You did everything that you could to treat the little human like royalty; cooking foods that he loved, buying him only the most comfortable clothing, talking about anything and everything with him and becoming fast friends. In the beginning, you had explained that Bennett could provide a certain type of energy that your kind feeds off of, and that you would require that energy at some point. Though you promised not to throw him into the deep end right away
Being inexperienced as he was, Bennett would need to be eased into this new life of his. It began with gentle touches; brushing your fingers against his when you were hanging out or taking a walk in nature, moving on to holding his hand, eventually giving him a peck on the cheek before bedtime. All sorts of small things that got him used to physical affection in general
Then it escalated to things such as pulling the human into your lap, though he still squirmed a bit within your grasp. The way he became so flustered at simple things was too cute. A light shade of pink would blossom on his soft skin as you leaned in to steal his first kiss, breathing words of encouragement and praising him for his sweet reactions
It wasn't long before your darling decided that he was ready for his first time... nervous, yet eager to relinquish his virginity to someone that he trusted. You questioned him, just to make sure that he was truly ready, and he insisted that it was time
You began as always, pulling him in for a gentle kiss and placing your hands on his hips while he wrapped his around your neck shakily. A whimper escaping from him when you licked his bottom lip, asking for permission to take this one step further, which Bennett granted. His soft moans slowly filled the silence of the bedroom while your groans complimented them as you slipped one hand under his shirt and began to feel him up. Exploring the expanse of your darling's chest and soon playing with his nipples, earning more cute whines against your lips
Eventually, you had to part so that you could breathe, giggling in between chaste kisses to each other's faces. “Can I touch a little lower, Benny?” You asked, brushing your fingers through his soft hair while your forehead rested against his. The human nodded with a breathy ‘uh-huh’, his hands now resting on your shoulders
With another kiss to the tip of his nose, you gently slid your hand down until you reached between his legs, feeling just how much this was turning your pet on as his dick was already pretty hard. Bennett gasped at the unfamiliar contact, growing warmer with every new touch to his sensitive body. When you began rubbing him through his clothing, he humped your hand hungrily, chasing the electric pleasure from your touch down there
You took this as a sign to speed it up and be a bit rougher, to which the human responded with a wanton moan directly in your ear. “Oho? Did that feel good, Benny?” You purred, causing another moan to fall from his lips as he nodded again. Taking it another step forward, you helped Bennett remove his shirt and pants, then your own swiftly joined them on the floor
The boy's hips jerked when you returned to stroking him, spreading the strings of precum along his shaft as your hand glided up and down, kissing Bennett with a new hunger as you, too, grew excited. Staring into his emerald eyes while you jerked him off roughly nearly caused the human's legs to give out. The fire behind your eyes spurred Bennett on, enticing him to let go and release every sound that bubbled to the surface
Your next move surprised Bennett a little bit as a small 'wha–!!' escaped from him. His back came in contact with the soft sheets on his bed, legs naturally spreading open when you crawled on top and hovered over him. The nervous boy breathed another beautiful moan when your hardening cock brushed against his virgin hole, the tiniest taste of what was to come soon
An insatiable need to taste your pet took over and you leaned down to take him into your mouth, licking the shaft before swallowing every inch greedily. Bennett's hands flew to the sheets above him, clenching them within his fists as you bobbed up and down his length like a starving man. His cock kissed the back of your throat and the feeling was as close to heaven as a demon could experience; precum dribbled down your esophagus with every downward movement of your head, causing tears to gather in the corners of your eyes as his decadent taste filled your mouth. You couldn't help yourself when your hips began grinding against the end of the bed, humping the mattress like a horny dog while you did everything within your power to make Bennett cum
“Gghh! W-wait I'm...Hah! That feels too good, y/n—!! ” Your pet screamed as you massaged his balls, gagging on his cock until he finally shot his load into your mouth. He nearly began to cry when you refused to pop off and continued sucking more drops of cum from his aching dick
When you were a bit more satisfied, you let his dick slide out of your mouth with a loud plop when it hit his stomach. You licked your lips and complimented your darling, telling him “You did so good, Benny! How did that feel?”
With a heaving chest Bennett gasped out an answer, bucking his hips when you rubbed little circles into his skin. But that wasn't where you intended to stop. Oh no, you hadn't even touched on the main event yet
“I'm so glad you enjoyed that, lovely. Mm but now it's my turn, you're going to make me cum too, right?” You said, faking a pout while your finger trailed up Bennett's pale chest. The boy eagerly nodded, beginning to sit up on the bed and maneuver himself so that he could suck you off as well. Though you swiftly pushed him back down with a dull thud against the cloth. “Where are you going, sweetie?”
Bennett blinked at you as he said, “G-going to put yours in my mouth? Isn't that what you want me to do?”
His misunderstanding was kind of sweet and you couldn't help kissing his pretty lips before correcting him, “Aw baby, that's very sweet of you...but you're not giving me a blowjob yet, not tonight at least.” Your hands traveled downwards, gliding over his nipples, then abs, then over his hips before finally reaching his inner thighs
“No, love, you're going to take me riiiight here~ ” You drawled, tapping on his hole and then rubbing the pads of your fingers around it. Bennett's response was a pretty arch of his back accompanied by a shuddering inhale, rolling his hips into the air as his dick twitched at the idea. Truly a sight to behold, especially with that look on his face. A mixture of excitement and uncertainty, eager to experience his first penetration yet nervous all the same
“Hold your legs up for me, 'kay?” You winked, retreating for a second to grab some lube so that you would slide into Bennett a little more easily. Squeezing a bit of the substance onto your fingers and rubbing them together before you pushed in a single digit, slowly pumping in and out, then adding a second finger. Curling your fingers and hitting that spot that made the pretty boy's back arch again, accompanied by moans as his ass was touched for the first time
After scissoring your digits for a bit and drawing more beads of precum from Bennett's dick, you removed them from his hole and gave your own cock a few pumps to slick yourself up. Spreading more lube on your shaft while you stare into your darling's eyes, asking one more time if he was ready for this
A confident ‘yes’ was all that was needed for you to breach the orifice. Bennett's eyes widened when the head pushed past his ring of muscles, stretching him further than your fingers did a minute ago. Pushing in a bit more drew out the sweetest noises from your pet as your thick shaft stretched him even more, filling his tight hole so much that it caused an embarrassing bulge in his little stomach. His insides were forced to accept the new object as they squeezed around it and molded to its shape, a sensation that would happen countless more times within the young man's lifetime from now on
“B-big...so big...aaah...” Bennett whimpered, weakly thrusting his hips to take more of your length. Though it was a little hard to take something so thick when he had never taken anything before, your hands lovingly caressing his body, carding through his hair, and your words of encouragement compelled the eager man to take more. To push himself more and be good for you. And then your velvety lips made contact with his again, warm and so gentle in contrast with the speeding up of your thrusts as you chased the pleasure that his hole brought you
Your cock drooled within Bennett's walls, desperate to release all of the cum built up inside of you. It was just part of your nature to fuck adorable humans like this; to fuck and breed and cum until your partner was exhausted. To absorb the sexual energy that a human releases whenever an incubus or succubus ravages them. To devour that energy and become even stronger so that you could, in turn, give your human more pleasure. Creating an endless feedback loop of pleasure and power
“Aa-aahh! Y/n...it feels...feels good– ” He screamed, bucking wildly into the air as his own dick leaked all over his pretty skin, neglected while you were busy losing yourself in the feeling of his insides clenching around your cock
“Ah...I'm sorry, my love. Didn't...oh fffuuuck... didn't mean to forget you like that.” Swiftly bringing a hand up to his sensitive member, you stroked his little dick with a skilled hand. Your palm smeared the precum around before returning to pumping his full length while you fucked into him a bit harder, throwing your head back in ecstasy as you moaned out, “Cum for me again, Bennett. I know you can give me one more, yeah? Oh fuck...mmm uh-huh~ ”
Bennett's fingers wrapped around your forearms as his second orgasm drew near, desperate for anything to ground himself with while he shot another load of cum all over his chest. Meanwhile, you were so lost in pleasure that you roughly snapped your hips into his while continuing to pump his dick long after he came, overstimulating the poor thing. It wasn't until you spilled inside Bennett that you stopped stroking his soft cock, growling as your cum flooded his ass with a sticky warmth that was all too new to him
-
Several more months passed by and the boy had grown accustomed to sex being a part of his daily life. You were well aware that a human's stamina was not endless, so you were kind enough to give him frequent breaks. Oftentimes you'd spend an entire week simply spoiling your pet with non-sexual sentiments
The days would start off either cooking breakfast together or you cooking for him and serving it in bed, sharing giggles and kisses as you placed a tiny bit of syrup on Bennett's nose and he returned the playful gesture. After cleaning up you would brainstorm activities to do together; practicing new skills or hobbies, finding games to play together, or simply cuddling for a bit while music softly played in the background. Some days you might offer to give your lover a massage to ease his aches from your recent rough endeavors, kneading his body with your skilled hands until Bennett felt weightless and drowsy from the treatment. Then as nighttime took over, you'd draw the loveliest, most romantic bath to settle down in. Complete with candles and anything that would make your darling happy while the warm water melted away everything except pure bliss, surrounding your bodies as they pressed together inside of the bathtub
Nothing could make you happier than this sweet young man that was gifted to you, albeit under horrific circumstances. No matter how many times you attempted to suppress those feelings, they would always bubble up again. The horror stories that Bennett related to you regarding his time in that village...that god-forsaken village full of heathens...
It's not like the human would be able to go back to that village...not that he wanted to anyway. No one would care if something horrendous happened, right? Certainly no one would be able to tie it back to you; a mere incubus that only those deemed the town's heretics, drunkards, and witches had even a sliver of knowledge of
With that in mind from day one, you decided to store up portions of the energy that Bennett frequently provided your demon self with. Stockpiling small amounts — and spending the week prior fucking the boy into oblivion, therefore gaining large bursts of sexual energy right before your big plan — everything was set for your little revenge plot
They never saw it coming. The whirlwind that was your anger and resentment towards every last soul confined to that land. It was once again hallow's eve; an entire year after a young man with beautiful yet terrified green eyes and the prettiest face you had ever laid eyes on fell into your grasp. An entire year filled with such lovely memories, the brightest smile you'd ever seen from a human, and countless intimate moments had taken place. None of these heartless creatures could ever guess that one whole year of boiling anger — from a demon, no less — would come back to haunt them
-
Light footsteps paraded through the dirt roads that ran through the town, a small bounce in your step, though it was more twisted, manic excitement than happiness. Your little wings twitched behind you while your (e/c) eyes glowed dangerously, drowning out even the brightest harvest moon shining above the destroyed houses that lined the roads
Deep, sadistic laughter fell from your lips as they curled upwards into a smile. The sight of your signature purple flames engulfing the many crumbling buildings filled your demonic heart with glee, unable to hide your feelings of disgust towards the village responsible for such atrocities as the ones they have committed
Screams pierced the chilly night air all around you, harmonizing together with the howls of distant wolves and the many crows that passed overhead in large flocks. The sources of the screaming would pass by you, begging for help that fell on deaf ears. “Help? Where was the help that you so desperately crave when an innocent boy was beaten and sacrificed?! Where were you when those sins took place?! All of you are stained with guilt, and you will pay for the crimes enacted here one year ago. I will make damn sure of that.” You spat, immediately flicking a tiny ember onto the crying human as they became consumed by blinding flames. Falling into a pile of ash within seconds and blowing away from a strong breeze as you walked past them without even blinking
Continuing on until your grand prize practically ran into you, slamming into your chest and falling onto the ground with a painful thud. His fearful, cowardly, angry gaze met your stone-cold stare as his head tilted up. “Wh-what...what are you? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!”
You couldn't stop the enraged chuckle that escaped from your lips. “Funny... that's exactly what I heard him say while you sacrificed him. The faintest, broken voice that cried out for help. Begging for an answer or a reason behind the cruelty inflicted upon him.” You paused to lean down, hovering just inches away from the man's face before spitting, “But, tell me...did you ever feel an ounce of remorse for your sins?”
The selfish rage burning behind his eyes had already given you the answer to that. You never even expected an answer in the first place. As if someone like this, who was consumed by his own ego long, long ago, would ever feel guilt or shame for his actions. You knew better than to believe that there was a single kind bone in this one's body
“You FREAK!! Begone, foul demon! In the name of the Lor–” One swift kick shut him up real quick, nearly breaking his jaw with the amount of strength that you packed behind the motion. Blood trickled from your clenched hands as you slowly walked towards the man
Crouching down to his level, your hand latched onto the back of his neck and yanked him up, twisting his body so that he couldn't look away. “I am going to enjoy breaking you, human. Every millisecond of your suffering will become my pleasure~ ” A heavy poison dripped from your lips with each word, a dangerous glint in your eye complimented the promise as sharp nails tore at the human's flesh. His pathetic wails filled the center of the village as you took your time dismantling the weak body. Blood staining your skin and splattering across your deranged features
Slimy entrails were ripped painfully from the mayor's stomach one by one, torn in half right before his eyes. Meanwhile onlookers gasped and choked up bile while the gorey scene played out before them. Occasionally your gaze would snap over to one of them, challenging a single word to come out so that you could rip their tongue out and shove it elsewhere in their disgusting corpse
By the time you were done no one would even recognize the pile of meat and viscera as human. Not that there would be anyone left to recognize anything, of course. The history of this village would become forever stained with crimson, wrapped inside of a mystery as to how hundreds of people died in gruesome ways all in a single night
Who knows how long the bodies would rot there; left to be picked apart by wild animals or buried by nature. It didn't really matter to you. They were history. The only thing concerning you now was a nice bath to calm your mind and cleanse the gore off of your body, and returning to a sleeping Bennett that you could snuggle up to
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Reblogs are extremely appreciated <3
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ddarker-dreams · 2 years
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Yan Genshin Boys / Overhearing Darling Say They Dislike Them.
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Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, some feelings have been hurt on this day, implied stalking/eavesdropping. 
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Childe
Not the best idea on your part, even if you were taking care to keep the admission on the down low. Childe is beaming as he strolls up to you. Greets you like an old friend, but turns his back to your company, making it clear that he’s here to whisk you away whether you like it or not. Whispers in the most lifeless tone you’ve ever heard him take to come up with an excuse to leave or he’ll think of something. The following walk is the most nerve-wracking you’ve ever experienced — he purposefully stays quiet so you’re forced to awkwardly fill the air. 
Diluc
This isn’t a report he was expecting (or wanting) to receive. Those in his information network that shadow him seemed rightfully hesitant to provide this in their accounts, but Diluc was stern about what he wanted; including transcripts of your conversations. He stays planted at his desk for some time, shrouded in darkness as the light from his candle went out hours prior. His self-righteous beliefs about “looking after you”, no strings attached, and confronted directly. This isn’t altruism. It never was. Diluc wants from you more than you’re willing to give. Which leaves him with the unfortunate alternative of taking what he wants instead of waiting for reciprocation that’ll never come.
Kaeya
Kaeya isn’t going to drag you away, oh no, not when you’re speaking your heart out like this! As a shadow leans over you from behind, he tells you that he wants in on all the details. Implores you to start from the top and to leave nothing out. He doesn’t mind working with this antipathy of yours, it must mean he’s on your mind more often than he’s not. What stings his pride a little bit is that you’re openly sharing this information with others. Now that just won’t do, he can’t have any loose ends lying around should he ever have to take you into his custody. He’ll need a way to smooth over this blip lest an unfortunate fate befell the one who learned this.
Zhongli
Zhongli feels little reason to intervene when the person you revealed this to isn’t giving it much credence. His reputation precedes him, they’re singing his praises while you stand there, unsure of how to articulate what is technically an unfounded hunch. If there’s anything the archaic god understands well, it’s negotiation. He doesn’t consider his previous conversations with you to be negotiations gone wrong, oh no, not with his meticulous planning. He took into account that you might not respond kindly to his thinly veiled threats and coercions. This just means that when you inevitably budge due to circumstance, he’ll have more to work with. That was the offer then, he’ll tell you. Matters are different now. I expect more in return. Zhongli’s patience makes it so waiting for that day is no straining matter. 
Albedo
Albedo likes to think himself above holding petty grievances. He returns to his workshop without issue, picks up where he left off, only realizing moments later that he mixed the wrong contents together in his reverie. The ensuing explosion’s residue is still refusing to come off his coat to this day. Albedo struggles to concentrate on anything the rest of the day and eventually comes to terms with the fact nothing will be getting done in this state. Human instinct is a deviant variable he could never account for, he decides. His performance around you could be immaculate and your intuition would still steer you toward caution. He decides to lay off his direct interactions with you for the near future and focus his efforts on observation.
Xiao
Xiao doesn’t really comprehend it at first, not when he’s too preoccupied with making sure the paths you’ll be using shortly are safe for travel. It might not be until days later that the entire weight of your words hits him like a ton of bricks. Frustration mounts more than anything — what do the inconsequential musings of a mortal mean to him? Xiao tells himself this despite dwelling on the issue frequently. He can’t help but look at those you do see to like with disdain. The word envy is foreign to his vocabulary and he wants to keep it that way. There’s comfort to be found that in the company you do keep, his abilities far eclipse whatever puny resistance they could muster. When it matters most, he will be indispensable to you. 
Scaramouche
No, he’s not upset about it, he’s not even bothered by it. It’s whatever, honestly. Your taste is abysmal. If anything, this is probably a compliment, he’s seen the simpletons you call ‘friends’ and would rather perish than be grouped into any category with them. Expect thunderclouds overhead even if it was a sunny day minutes prior. What truthfully bothers Scaramouche the most about this is that deep down, he already knew, yet was managing to convince himself otherwise. Hearing it from your lips means he can’t feign ignorance any longer. He comes to the conclusion that the word like is inconsequential to his designs anyway. He’s going to have you loving him, no, worshipping him. 
Kazuha 
Kazuha drops whatever he’s holding and just stands there, while those behind him grunt impatiently, pushing him along. The tightness in his chest is unlike anything he’s ever experienced — it’s a wonder he has enough wits about him to leave and find refuge in nature. He comes to the conclusion that he’s been coming off too strong. It’s a tricky, uphill battle in his view, there are so many praises for you that he wants to sing that he rarely holds his tongue. Does this mean he should perhaps examine his ways and change them? He thinks not. There must be another, more suitable solution for him to find, such as making it so he’s your only choice for company...
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anthurak · 7 months
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Something that I’ve found makes theorizing for Loona a lot of fun is that for the most part, her entire background is one big black-box up to when Blitzo adopted her. Like we have no idea how long Loona was in that orphanage, or WHAT landed her in that orphanage, or what she was doing BEFORE that. The only thing we can say for certain is that things were BAD for her. As in, right up there with what we’ve seen from Blitzo and Moxxie in the fucked-up department. Possibly even worse.
Now sure, we can see some similarities to Blitzo in Loona, such as how she uses an abrasive personality to keep people at a safe distance, which could be a clue that Loona went through something similar to her father. But the thing is, we can just as easily point to most similarities as things Loona has picked up from Blitzo in the four-ish years since he adopted her.
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It's also worth noting that Blitzo has almost certainly sees a lot of similarities between himself and Loona. BUT, it's worth keeping in mind that this is likewise almost certainly simply due to their first meeting absolutely SLAMMING Blitzo's sympathetic trauma response button. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out that many of the seeming parallels between these two are largely surface level, and the deeper we dive into Loona's past, the more differences we'll find.
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At this point, I’d say the only specific hint we might have towards something in Loona’s background is her oddly detailed and specific hypothetical shitty family she describes in Murder Family. After all, we now have two cases of seemingly inconsequential lines from that episode ("Maybe like a shitty dad... or a mob family. That's understandable", "We're just killing a mother. We're ruining a family") turning out to be major hints to a character’s background.
And the funny thing is, I get the feeling that this is all quite deliberate as a writing choice. As in, nobody else both in-series and the audience is meant to actually know anything about Loona’s background. Like I think it’s a pretty safe bet that not even Blitzo actually knows anything specific about Loona’s past before he adopted her. Loona has always been closed-off, and I get the sense that Loona starting to bond/open-up to Blitzo is something VERY recent. So I really doubt Loona has ever felt comfortable letting anything slip to Blitzo about her past.
Which all gives me the since that Loona’s backstory is going to make for a significant reveal both in and out of universe. Particularly given that at this point we have a pretty good sense of Blitzo’s, Moxxie’s and Millie’s backgrounds, but barely more than a HINT at Loona’s. It all gives me the vibe of something Vivzie and co. are keeping under-wraps in the background before springing it on us when we least expect it.
As far as specific theories/headcanons go, I’ve personally got two in mind:
Theory 1: EXTREMELY Shitty Family. Loona was given up by her parents pretty much at birth for adoption, and the family that took her in was actually super abusive. Tying into her line in Murder Family, Loona got set on fire a lot. Eventually, Loona either got away or outright killed her tormentors to escape, after which she ended up in the orphanage system.
Theory 2: Freaky Cult Shit. Loona was born into some really messed up cult and got subjected to some pretty fucked-up shit before she managed to get away, probably killing quite a few people in the process. Personally, I prefer this one as it has more potential as a plotline in the present of the show, and could tie nicely into a few of the subtler details of Loona’s character, such as her being a clear prodigy when it comes to magic, and her oddly specific thematic ties to the Goetic Grimoire...
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lesbianalanwake · 4 months
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Re: dark presence rehabilitation, I was wondering... like, what's the goal? (this is based on my personal understanding which might be wrong.)
overall its goal seems to be to escape the dark place? but at the same time it seems like it wants to turn the outside world into something similar to the dark place, a neverending nightmare fueled by people's subconscious. specifically Scratch seems like a bit of a megalomaniac (I will make the entire world worship Alan's (my) writing forever!) (so much fun, geez...) - but... what's the point of escaping then? Scratch himself says in AN smth along the lines of a drop of darkness being absolutely inconsequential in the dark place, but so noticeable and fun in our mostly light world.
so, my suggestion is that the dark presence can stay outside but it ?should limit itself to smaller horrors. spice of life. a nightmare here, a nightmare there. Cats 2 (2025).
FHGHSKGHS drip-feeding the Dark Presence with minor horror allowances to keep it happy. it can ruin Hollywood. for Barry's sake.
it depends on what the Dark Presence and the Dark Place actually are. that could go a couple of ways. I could not even begin to guess which direction. scattered thoughts:
I prefer an explanation like "x entity became corrupted" over anything "inherent." it is man who is evil.
I'm continually wondering if the Dark Presence is, or is part of, a greater entity that got lost/corrupted.
AW2 describes the Dark Place as a mirror. I think the place that we see and experience might only be a sliver - a cracked and corrupted shard, if you will, because it doesn't always produce only suffering and misery and madness. just most of the time. so maybe Presence and Place are both parts of some greater ocean that got metaphysically landlocked.
maybe the Dark Presence is some kind of spirit of the Dark Place, and corruption in one leads to corruption in the other. so where did it start, if they weren't always like that?
the green/red Polaris/Hiss color scheme is all over AW2. Scratch is red like the Hiss. why is the Dark Presence so similar to the Hiss. what does it FUCKING mean, Sam.
(I have been thinking "the Hiss wasn't originally Like That" since I first played Control. something something the Hiss being embodied in Dylan who wasn't originally Like That either. so that makes me wonder even more about the Dark Presence, when they share those similarities. I cannot stop thinking about the apparently dead world that Hedron et al. came from. about the implication that something is eating away at the Oldest House, that its roots are withering. about the apparently empty world of the Quarry and the City. about how empty and occasionally extraordinarily violent the Astral Plane is when we see how full of life and personality the Altered Items are and how many of them don't really mean harm. about what might have made the Dark Place like that. what the fuck is happening out there in the conceptual reality behind this reality.)
there is the possible implication that the Diver had some hand in creating Scratch? maybe? but that goes back to the question of what the Diver is - Zane, the light/Bright Presence, something else. and what the goal is there. who knows.
I've said this elsewhere but I think Scratch in AWAN is more like. a ghoulish sliver of the Dark Presence mimicking reality like Jagger does, a finger of a giant hand trying to manipulate things. whereas Scratch in AW2 is the Dark Presence more fully embodied and also lost in the sauce. and it has fucked up big time by trying to use Alan to escape, tying itself too closely to him, to the point that even its grand escape is distorted by details of Alan's life. I don't think Evil Deerfest is necessarily what it might have originally wanted, but rather a sign that Dark Presence and Alan have overlapped to the point that Alan is changing it. like it's stuck in the Scratch persona now. has put on a skin that it struggles to take off. (but that's just a game theor--)
like. maybe it wasn't always a rabid beast of an entity and the Dark Place wasn't always a nightmare hell world, or maybe it's always wanted to get out of the Dark Place and doesn't necessarily have roots there. but over time Dark Presence/Place have absorbed and reflected so much of whatever corruption is going on that now Presence/Place want to make a distorted fun house mirror out of everything.
except. now the Dark Presence is not solely mirroring and reflecting corruption and "darkness" anymore. it's starting to mirror Alan even after it jumps out of his body, and, like Dylan being the narrative focus of physical embodiment for the Hiss, Alan is a (relatively) normal person who has been trapped and isolated for a very long time, which does strange things to a person. Barbara was just a sweet woman who got very unlucky. maybe the Dark Presence used to be similar. Evil Deerfest is strangely bright. we've seen it change, a little bit. something is going on there.
so I would like to see something a little more nuanced than "killing the evil" or whatever. (especially when it was all that Jesse and Polaris could do just to shut the door on the Hiss. ain't no way it's that easy.)
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So I finished The Faithless a bit ago and I've been putting off writing about it because, to my great disappointment, I didn't like it very much. I don't think it's necessarily bad by it's own merits (mostly), but as a sequel to The Unbroken, it was deeply disappointing. Spoilers to follow.
So there were a couple of things that I didn't love back when I first read the Unbroken. I thought the use of Unremarkable Queerness was a disappointing missed opportunity, that an exploration of the differences in cultural attitudes towards sex and gender would've enriched the book's thesis as well as Touraine's own journey as a queer woman raised under one culture reconnecting with the one she was stolen from. I also thought that, while using magic to represent culture - and specifically to use Luca's hunger for Shal magic as a critique of "well-intentioned" cultural appropriation, and Balladaire's lack of magic to represent the way culture is flattened by Empire - was a strong choice, choosing to make magic the exclusive domain of religion created the implication, deliberate or otherwise, that what was really wrong with Balladaire was that they'd turned their back on their traditional faith, which was not a message I cared for. All that being said, I found these issues pretty easy to ignore, because the book had a much more powerful central idea to explore, and its examination of a stolen, abused, indoctrinated victim of colonialism reconnecting with her homeland, as well as its exploration of the ways even genuinely kind-hearted and well-meaning colonialists inflict monumental atrocities, were extremely compelling. The Unbroken had ideas to share, question to pose and answer, and a message powerful enough to render my critiques inconsequential.
The same cannot be said for The Faithless. Based on the framing of the book, I expected to get an exploration of the political relationship between a colonizing nation and it's newly independent ex-colony. I thought we might get some examination of the difficulty of establishing international credibility for a new nation, of arranging favorable partnerships and trade deals in a world where you are seen as not just potentially unstable and with little of value economically, but as literal lesser people. I expected whatever approach it took to this framing device, it would be sharp, incisive, and timely. But it wasn't. Ultimately, the framing device was just a framing device, and the majority of the page count was spent on trying to learn the truth about Balladairen magic and Luca's bid to keep the throne, with the question of economic and political relations hung entirely on whether she or her uncle ended up in charge.
There were some details which gestured at the kind of themes that I'd been looking forward to, but the key words there are "details" and "gestured". Touraine's uncomfortable socializing with Balladairen nobles; cool, we already knew that! How does that discomfort affect her ability as an ambassador to make favorable connections and advance the interests of the people she represents? Don't know, she doesn't really try, beyond reminding Luca occasionally that her interest in getting Luca on the throne isn't altruistic. There's a Balladairen revolutionary movement born of economic disenfranchisement and the fear of free Shalans "stealing" resources. Okay that's interesting! What does their organizational structure look like? How many people can they mobilize? What are their economic and political aims, what's their plan for enacting it? How does Touraine feel about a bunch of people who share many of the same grievances as her people, but that unjustly blame her people for their problems? Don't know, none of that comes up. Their only plot function is to try to kill Luca and make her paranoid about her uncle. There's the Droitist school system that traumatized and conditioned Touraine! They take down one school, but acknowledge that it's a problem that can't be solved on an individual level. What kind of systemic changes need to be made? What obstacles are there? How can they be overcome or subverted? All of that gets pushed firmly onto the "once I'm queen" plate. I could go on. Ultimately, the elements that should have been the core of the story and themes become backdrop to a personal drama between Luca, Nicholas, Touraine, and Sabine. And it's functional enough, but it doesn't have anywhere near the originality or emotional resonance or drive that the plot of the previous book did.
Also, without a strong plot to take center stage, my nitpicks took up more of my attention, and the continuation of the story exacerbated some of the problems I had with them. With regards to unremarkable queerness: the central struggle of this book is over who is going to take over the throne of a hereditary monarchy. Am I supposed to believe that the fact that Luca regularly has sex with different partners, has no interest in getting a consort, and has no blood heir, compared to her uncle, who has a recognized blood heir, is of no consequence in a power struggle over a hereditary monarchy? And if there are cultural values or structure that make that a non issue, I would love to see them explored! I'd be fascinated to know where they come from and how they impact the rest of society! The conflation of magic, culture, and religion didn't end up going the direction I was concerned about, but it also became extremely muddy about what exactly it was trying to say. We learn that Balladairen magic still exists amongst the commons, but we also learn that the large scale type of magic that ensured good harvests was powered by human sacrifice, which is something that no one, including our antagonists, want to resume. So if Balladaire killed its religion for good, justifiable reasons, how does that square with the previous book's presentation as magic being a deeply integral part of culture, with its theft or suppression being an act of near genocide? It muddies the waters, and it ends up feeling like the author wanted to just treat this book as more conventional speculative fantasy fiction rather than a continuation of the themes explored in the first book. Ultimately, I think, that's what I'm really disappointed about. I came to The Faithless excited for a continuation of the deep exploration of colonialism in The Unbroken, and I got a much less grounded piece of speculative fantasy fiction.
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colorfuldream · 4 months
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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is genuinely the best version that has come out apart from maybe the game. It's funny, well-done, has the same themes but done better, it's fresh, anyone can watch it, etc. It's a better experience than the rest. Whatever you could criticize the original story and movie for, it's been "fixed".
If you were out off by the pacing of the first episode, it gets better and almost completely disappear by the second episode and never comes back! I don't know why it was paced like this. It didn't work. It felt like a drag and made the animation look and feel a lot worse. It wasn't made to be like this so it's at its worse for an entire half-hour. It's not even mimicking the strange pacing of the movie. It might have attempted to but if so, it utterly failed. It sucks because the entire thing is very, very good. It's like they weren't sure how to pull off the stylization and tried to do something new with the pacing again but messed up which dragged both down. At least, they figured it out almost immediately and fixed it early on!
Spoilers ahead:
The exes are also a delight and wonderfully dramatic and pathetic. They're over the top but in an endearing way and we get interactions never seen before and that would only be in fanfics and seem like a stretch but here they're seamless. They just make sense. Plus Ramona actually making amends and healing is amazing to see. She never got to have that. Now, she gets to go beyond the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope she's the poster girl of. We know she is one, and it's obvious in the way her exes see her, but she gets her own agency. She ends up being the protagonist and that somehow makes the plot function a lot better and interesting.
Knives also becomes her own character and grows into her own WITHOUT SCOTT. This time, she's truly past him for most of the anime.
The only thing that I miss, from the top of my head, is the "Scott has perceived his past and his previous actions wildly differently from what actually happened and is a bigger asshole than he and we thought" part that sort of paralleled Ramona who thought that everything was no big deal and that they had all moved on from the inconsequential thing that was their relationship with her too. Here, Ramona is a lot more self-aware, maybe because she's forced to be and is confronted with her past more directly, and makes quick amends. She might have been a terrible partner before but she's not bad at emotional stuff when she doesn't shrug it off. It's a neat detail that would have been even better if the Scott aspect remained and it bounced off the whole "Scott is a terrible partner who does care but is very stupid and would rather die than talk about feelings". Crazy how a simple flashback sequence, barely a few lines, changed a lot of things. Or maybe I missed the point of the scene only known to ultra fans and Kim was just being nice and graceful to Scott especially because she thought he fucking died. Liked how she seemed a lot more over him too, it always almost felt ambiguous before to me.
So yeah, it's a very good show and the best Scott Pilgrim thing. Bet people went crazy over the game and movie references too.
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noodleblade · 10 months
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Chance and Unlikely Circumstance 4/6
(chapter centered around the episode The Human Factor)
Previous Part AO3 Link
Smokescreen watched the slow, steady tick of his chronometer in absolute silence. At night, along the dusty stretch of highway, there was not a single sound save for the occasional gust of wind kicking up the arid sand. It hissed as it dragged along his frame, leaving microscopic scratches in his finish. 
“Premium grade liquid wax would help sustain the integrity of your finish; the skinjobs have mastered that, at least. You could do with a buff or two. Maybe a repaint. White is awfully boring. Have you considered orange? Maybe just continue on with the blue.”
Smokescreen let out a heavy exvent as the words echoed in his processor. 
Three nights had passed since K.O.’s abrupt departure. There had been no sign of the other mech since. In truth, not an exorbitant amount of time had passed, but after meeting up every night cycle for nearly an entire Earth month, the sudden break in their routine was…jolting. 
As much as Smokescreen had thought he’d prepare himself for K.O.’s eventual farewell, it did little to soften the blow of his absence. Perhaps he had fooled himself into thinking their arrangement could last forever. Perhaps he had grown too reliant on the easy, comfortable friendship that had formed. Perhaps he had been mistaken in thinking the feeling was mutual.
Smokescreen pushed those thoughts away forcefully. He shouldn’t let doubt sully their friendship. All those races and each and every conversation were not for nothing . He had to have some faith that those meant as much to K.O. as they did to him. He couldn’t let his own downward spiraling thoughts take him down that road when K.O.’s absence might be something simple and inconsequential and have nothing to do with Smokescreen.
Maybe K.O. had to deal with something important and it was just taking time. Maybe K.O. needed to stay low for a while and couldn’t risk meeting again. Maybe K.O.’s elusive partner returned. If it were any of those options, Smokescreen hoped it was the latter. K.O. did promise they could meet once his partner returned.
Well, okay. Maybe not promise , but he didn’t seem opposed when Smokescreen had suggested it! If anything, there had been interest and hope in K.O.’s field that one day that could be a possibility. 
Smokescreen decided that must be the reason. K.O. was too busy being reunited with his partner. He attempted to picture the unnamed mech, but K.O. had been pretty lax on the details, only calling him bulky. Whatever he looked like, Smokescreen hoped they were both barreling down a long stretch of highway together. The very thought of it lightened his spark greatly.
A gentle ping came from his HUD and Smokescreen immediately felt his tanks drop at Ratchet’s designation. It was never a good sign when he was called in the midst of patrol. 
::Smokescreen, where are you? Return to base, ASAP. We got a situation.:: 
Perhaps it was for the best K.O. and his partner were together tonight. Afterall, a “situation” almost certainly meant Decepticons and Smokescreen was itching for the chance to kick some aft.
--
A heavy energy hung over the Autobots. 
Smokescreen felt antsy, his wheels aching to spin and his doorwings twitching. After the night they just had, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to recharge peacefully for quite some time, despite Ratchet’s insistence that he get some rest. Adrenaline still pulsed through his circuits, his processor still trying to understand what he had witnessed. 
He waited until the base grew quiet, waited for the flurry of activity to settle and everyone separated. Bee was quick to volunteer to go out for patrol, Acree disappeared to watch over the Darby residence, and Ratchet and Optimus had excused themselves into a private hab for a meeting. Only Bulkhead remained; his optics staring off into the distance, unfocused and deep in thought. 
Quietly, Smokescreen saddled up to the larger mech. He perched himself on a crate beside him and tentatively let his field brush against his. A weak, barely there flicker was returned and Smokescreen took that as good as any sign that his presence was welcomed. Since their fight with the human-mech monstrosity, Bulkhead had been quiet. Smokescreen was still trying to wrap his processor around it but at least he hadn’t known the bot personally. Not like Bulkhead did. 
“Were you friends?” 
He asked the question softly, simply letting the words hang in the air. He didn’t want to press or bother Bulkhead, but curiosity was killing him. 
Bulkhead swiveled his helm, almost surprised to see Smokescreen beside him. His field pressed back against Smokescreen’s purposefully, awareness and familiarity mingling in the space between. A heavy exvent left the mech’s intake, his frame sagging in exhaustion, almost painfully so. 
“Once. Long time ago.” 
Bulkhead scrubbed at his optics with the heel of his servo as he returned his gaze straight ahead. Smokescreen followed his example and kept his optics focused on the wall before them. 
After a lengthy silence, Smokescreen hesitantly asked, “What happened?”
“When you pick different sides, it tends to ruin friendships. Like I said, it was a long time ago. Probably knew him longer as an enemy and a ‘con than a friend. He…made a lot of mistakes, did some things I can never really forgive but…doesn’t really matter, still ain’t right what happened to him.” A moment of heavy silence hung between them. The air around them was heavy, pressing against his helm. Smokescreen barely caught the muttering of, “I wonder if his partner knows.”
Dread seeped into Smokescreen’s lines as he tried not to react to that word. 
Partner . 
He couldn’t help but think of the red speedster along the dusty stretch of road, alone and his missing partner, field awash in anger, grief, desperation. Smokescreen wanted to chalk it up as a coincidence, that there are two pairs of mechs missing their partners. Surely it was fluke, surely what he experienced tonight had nothing to do with K.O. 
“Partner?” Smokescreen asked quietly. Maybe if he whispered, then Bulkhead wouldn’t hear him and then he wouldn’t have to hear an answer and maybe he’d never have to find out-
“Flashy, red speedster.” Bulkhead spat each word out in anger, each word piercing Smokescreen’s spark. “Breakdown was smitten with him from the moment he laid eyes on him. I told him a mech like that was only going to get him in trouble. But he was stubborn as Pits and scrap at listening.” Bulkhead covered his optics with his servo and leaned back. Another heavy exvent rattled his frame before he continued, the anger absent from his words and replaced with solemn resignation. “Guess they were happy for a while. I didn’t think a mech like Knock Out would stick around long term but from what I gathered they never parted since. I’d almost feel bad if he weren’t a ‘con.”
Knock Out…K.O.
There was no more convincing himself of this being purely coincidence. Not anymore. There were too many points of connection, too much evidence stacking up. Smokescreen wasn’t sure what was worse: unknowingly, unwittingly befriending a Decepticon this whole time or feeling the painful grief in his spark knowing the loss K.O. was experiencing. 
Befriending. 
They probably were never friends. The Decepticon probably knew who he was the whole time and was just playing him like a fool. Probably was hoping Smokescreen would be dumb enough to drop some key intel. Who knows! Maybe he would have too, a couple more races there, a few more sentimental conversations there. Smokescreen probably would have played right into his servo like the bumbling fool he was.
“See kid, too trusting. It’s going to bite you in the aft one day, just you wait.”
K.O.- Knock Out - had even warned him. Smokescreen wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Strangely enough, neither option felt particularly worthwhile. 
He wanted to feel worse about it. He wanted to be angry; he wanted to be hurt; he wanted to feel the acidic sting betrayal…but all Smokescreen felt was sympathy and sorrow. Even if Knock Out was playing him this whole time, the mech still lost his partner. Smokescreen could still remember the pain in his field, the ire, the isolation, the loneliness. Knock Out may have fabricated his relationship with Smokescreen, but his feelings for his partner, for Breakdown , had been real and earnest. 
“You think he knows?” Smokescreen finally asked. Last time they had talked, Knock Out didn't know where his partner was at all. No one else had seemed to even care. 
“You know what’s funny? You are the first one to offer, to even ask.”
“If Knock Out didn’t before, he is most definitely aware now,” Bulkhead grimaced. “I’m sure the ‘cons are dealing with it as we speak.”
“At least, he can give him funeral rites.” 
Smokescreen remembered reading about them all. Each city had its own traditions from the flypasts of Vos to ceremonial recordings of Iacon. Whatever the city, they all boiled down to the same thing: a time for mourning and remembrance. Surely, Decepticons would still uphold those values. Especially in regards to fallen partners. 
Bulkhead laughed, surprisingly jovial despite the grotesque monstrosity they had witnessed. “I’m sure Knock Out will give Silas and Breakdown what they deserve.” Upon seeing Smokescreen’s confusion, Bulkhead leaned in. “Knock Out is a possessive, controlling, selfish glitch. If anyone was going to give Silas righteous punishment, then it’ll be that horrible, violent chop-shop medic.”
Smokescreen grimaced. He tried to imagine Knock Out as an evil surgeon, saw in servo and manic glee in his optics. Instead, all he saw was a lonely mech, crushed with a loss Smokescreen hoped he would never understand. 
“You think it’ll help him?”
Bulkhead raised an optic ridge, meeting Smokescreen’s gaze for the first time since this conversation began. “Should we care?”
It was a pointed question, asking something deeper than the words stated. Smokescreen simply shrugged, ducking his helm. 
“Doesn’t make what happened right.”
Bulkhead’s field softened. A heavy servo made its way to Smokescreen’s shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. 
“No, it doesn’t. Breakdown was a lot of things but he never deserved that. No one does. And as horrible as Knock Out is, they were close.” Bulkhead gave his shoulder another squeeze. “Ain’t much we can do about it. At least, despite everything Knock Out is, he’ll put Breakdown to rest. I have got no doubts about that.”
Smokescreen nodded his helm as silence came once more. His spark still hurt. He could hear Knock Out’s words echoing in his helm.
“He’s not dead.”
Knock Out had been so sure, so furious at even the mere suggestion. He must be devastated. 
Smokescreen wished there was a way he could contact Knock Out. Even if they were to never meet again, to just let him know he was sorry for everything. He knew his words were meaningless. 
 “I don’t need your sympathies .”
Nothing he could say would make things right. Nothing he could do would turn back time. Nothing he had to offer would fix what was beyond repair. And even if he had the chance to see Knock Out again, Smokescreen had the sinking suspicion the red speedster would be on the other side of enemy lines.
--
Rage could only carry him for so long. Knock Out peered down at the parasite living in the husk with his partner with complete and utter disgust. 
Oh, he had been more than tempted to cut the infestation away. The buzzing urge beneath his plating to take the rotary saw and cut and cut and cut until it was all removed. He considered disposal by fire, burning away any lasting attempts the disease may have to survive. The airlock was also tempting. Rumor had it the flesh bags didn’t dwell too well in the cold grasp of space.
Revenge, however, kept his servos at bay. If the human got to see what the inner components of a Cybertronian really were, it was only fair Knock Out was allowed reciprocal exploration of the organic frame and there were many, many tests to run.
What was the earthly saying? “What’s yours is mine, body and soul.” Well, the soul was the human’s spark and Breakdown’s was long gone and snatched away. But Knock Out still had ownership of the body and all it possessed. A stale kindness from Megatron after accepting this gruesome nightmare into their fold.
The very thought of it burned in Knock Out’s spark chamber. Megatron had allowed this festering sickness into their rank, welcomed it with open arms while it puppeteered Breakdown’s corpse in a sick and twisted mimicry of life. Megatron had left Breakdown for dead before, and hadn't even been concerned when he had gone missing again. No one had. No one had even spared him a second thought. Only Knock Out.
“Want to look for him? I could help! I know the area pretty good and two mechs are better than one.”
And a lone, foolish Autobot.
Knock Out could still feel Smokescreen’s field, too honest and earnest in his emotions. He can’t help but wonder if he took the kid up on his offer if things may have been different. Emphatically, he knew that was not true. The human’s integration into the Cybertronian form was weeks old. By the time Smokescreen had offered, Breakdown was already gone. He would have been too late either way, but at least then he would have had agency. He wouldn’t have had to watch the corpse of his partner ambulate and move. He could have ripped out the pathetic, weak flesh and blood spark right then and there and then-
And then.
Knock Out felt a full body tremor rake through his frame, his plating shuddering. He was alone either way. 
“You have me too.”
The overly optimistic and earnest image of Smokescreen centered in his processor. He’d only see the naive little Autobot in his root mode once, but he could picture it well enough. Classic Paxian frame with every idealistic Autobot propaganda drenched in his processor. 
According to Silas, Smokescreen had aided good Ol’ Bulkhead in sending him to his defeat. Knock Out wondered if the kid had realized who he was yet. For all his naivety, Smokescreen was smarter than he gave himself credit for. Foolish and perhaps a tad too excitable, sure, but once he took a moment to think, Smokescreen would piece it all together and then…well, he definitely couldn’t continue meeting with the kid now. 
If he turned up now, he’d surely find Arcee or Bulkhead waiting for him instead. Or worse, Smokescreen would be waiting with yet another offer to join the Autobots. He could hear him now, feel his warm field of genuine sympathy. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
Knock Out let out a hollow, empty laugh. 
It echoed in his lonely medbay. Knock Out had temporarily gotten used to the still quiet during Breakdown’s disappearance, but now that Breakdown’s absence was permanent , the silence was unbearable. Gone was the deep rumble of a warm, familiar engine; absent were the deep laughs and the gruff words, the whispered jokes and the murmuring of sweet nothings. Nothing remained of his partner, except his shell, tainted and destroyed at the hands of meddling skinjobs. 
They should have never landed on his vile planet, just ignored Starscream’s call and continued gallivanting across the stars. Breakdown had suggested it once, a quiet midnight musing about maybe taking off on their own and fending for themselves. Knock Out had waved it away instantly. The protection and security of the Decepticons was too great an offer to pass out. How foolish he had been to put trust into that. 
“That naivety of yours is going to get you killed.”
He should have heeded his own advice. Instead of getting himself killed, it-
Knock Out stopped that train of thought immediately, shuttering his optics and forcing air to cycle through his vents. 
It didn’t matter anymore. 
Nothing did.
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Heyyyy
If Daemon and Babeys first kid is a boy how will Otto deal with this perceived threat to his grandsons position? Also, will daemon fetishise Babeys swelling belly/baby bump? I wonder if she'll feel self conscious about it?
Hey hey!
Otto is definitely going to be irritated by Babey's new son (IF that is what happens), but I imagine he's also quite arrogant; by this point, he's so positive that the high lords would support Aegon's claim because of male primogeniture and the consolidation of power through marriage to Helaena, so the King's second daughter having a son is relatively inconsequential to him. That would likely be his undoing, honestly!
Daemon's gonna have all the squicko kinks, haha - DEFINITELY gonna love on dat bump, make everyone uncomfortable as hell, no doubt. Babey might feel a bit self-conscious (I feel it'll be less about 'I'm fat' and more about 'my body is host to an alien right now, WTF'), but Daemon's... obsession... is sure to alleviate at least some of that, haha!
I WOULD add a little more detail to this, but honestly, I haven't thought some of the logistics through entirely yet as a lot of what I write happens in the moment. Planning is usually pretty pointless, haha!
Thank you so much for the ask!
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lillianofliterature · 4 months
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Hello, just came in to ask if you have any tips or things to keep in mind when writing LOTR or The Hobbit characters? I'm fairly new to the fandom, and I get distracted during movies easily so I miss things a lot 😅 hope you've had a good day so far!
Hi there Anon! I'm so sorry I didn't get to you sooner, I've been online quite sporadically (and inconsistently) since my last fic was posted.
I think the best advice I can offer is to try to picture the characters saying or doing the things you're writing them saying and doing. Sometimes I'll write a pretty generic set of dialogue in a rough draft and can't figure out what's wrong with it, and it usually ends up being out of character. In some cases, it might definitely be something they would believe or say, but just not written in their voice (simply not worded the way they would say it).
Thus comes reworking the verbiage, adding the time-period or societal effect of the speech (for instance, Frodo Baggins will not talk the same way Harry Potter will due to their being from different realms AND different time periods; medieval-esque characters won't speak like modern characters; and in the same vein, elves (i.e. Thranduil, Legolas, Elrond, and so on) will tend to have a more eloquent and graceful speech with bigger, fancier words than men/dwarves/hobbits (Aragorn, Eowyn, Samwise, etc.) who will speak with simpler words and language as they do in the films). Now, in the books, the old english language is always very intelligent and intricate, as was TOlkien's style, but the films are easier to replicate.
Sometimes I just look up specific scenes online to get a refreshment on their tone/speech/quirks so I don't have to wait and comb through the films entirely.
The best advice I can give you is to not be hard on yourself by trying to capture everyone perfectly. Even the most straight-forward and rigid character can do something unexpected! As a simple (and silly) example, Aragorn might like the taste of cotton candy and have a sweet tooth that rivals the hobbits, despite seeming like the stew-and-mead kind of fellow. Frodo might be terrible at cooking, despite being a hobbit, because perhaps his best friend Samwise always cooks for him anyway. Gimli might love cats despite them having a similar disposition as elves (they're furry and they purr! even Gimli can't resist).
Those little details are so inconsequential (although adorable) that it can fit all their known traits while also not being expressed by Tolkien himself. As long as you're adding something that doesn't directly go against the basics of that character and their foundational motives, beliefs, and morals, you will write and express them very well.
I hope this helped and made sense! A lot of my characterization comes from having watched the films quite obsessively since I was twelve and it just kind of happens naturally the more you work (and obsess) with the characters. They tend to tell you what to say or write after a while.
I fully believe in you and your skill, and hope for the best!
Xx Lillian <3
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late-to-the-fandom · 1 year
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Find the Word/Manuscript Tag
Thank you to the illustrious @mrsmungus for the tag. My words were literal, instruct, pour, spell, mouth
Tagging: @shipping-through-eternity @mrsmungus (I’m going to just hit you back on these till you say you’re bored), @winterandwords @elvisparklewriting @cljordan-imperium @tananaphone @mrsd-writes @witchcraft-in-wonderland
Your words are: Share, Soul, Speak, Stay, Strength
LITERAL - from Mortal Reminders: What are you hiding? The anima swirled and reformed, and the despair Renathal unwillingly shared suddenly swelled into violent, burning elation. Grief transformed into fire; literal fire. The Maw Walker was engulfed in flames.
INSTRUCT - from Mortal Reminders: What are you hiding? Renathal began carefully rolling back his sleeves, more to provide himself a few minutes of frantic recollection than because they would be in his way. Truthfully, he had next to no idea what he was doing. He had, of course, been theoretically instructed in Revendreth's proprietary rituals, but if he had ever performed this particular one himself it was too long ago to remember. At the moment, however, he considered this a wholly inconsequential detail. The atonement of souls might not technically be his purview, but the Maw Walker's well-being was.
POUR - from Mortal Reminders: An Illusion Thus unburdened, she drained the glass in one, then held it out to Renathal again. He eyed it hesitantly, unsure if he ought to refill it or take it away.  "These sorts of affairs were a regular pastime at home," the Maw Walker added. Renathal hastened to pour her more wine.
SPELL - from my current (and final!) WIP in this series, The Threads of Fate "Stay." It was equal parts plea and demand. He took her hands and brought them reverently to his lips, drawing strength from their warmth; murmuring the word against them like a spell that would bind her to him.
MOUTH - also from my current (and final!) WIP in this series, The Threads of Fate The Dark Prince’s mouth devoured whatever her next words would have been; a kiss entirely uninterested in what the Maw Walker thought her love was not. It was everything.
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Text
Sightholder
A short story for Zelink Week 2022’s ‘Rituals’ prompt (see end for notes). ~3,500 words. (Tagged nsfw for implied sexual relationship. Does not contain explicit sexual content).
‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~
“We’ll get the crown set just right, Princess,” Ria says.  “Last time, it pulled and broke some hair.”
“It’s of little importance, Ria.” How typical of her lady’s maid to perfect the inconsequential.  Those attending the Blessing Ceremony will be too far from her to observe the minutia of her hair (and her power’s awakening ought to outweigh her appearance).
As for her appointed knight, he will see what he wishes to see and no more, as always when he looks at Zelda.
“Broken hairs become flyaway.  Better to avoid it.”
Were Zelda invested in the length of her hair, she would concur—but for her, flyaway hairs matter only when the wind plasters them to her eye sockets (an inconvenience when working the slate, to be sure).  Clips keep the worst offenders in order.
“There… is that comfortable, Princess?”
“Yes, thank you, Ria.  I appreciate your help.”  She’d appreciate speed to a greater degree, but she omits that detail in favor of preserving their recently-cordial relationship.
“…You’re welcome, Princess.”
Zelda swivels her head at Ria’s hesitation. Her maid’s face confirms her suspicion; Ria, unlike Link, knows when Zelda hides something from her.  Link… he is her lover in all but the act, deep in the throes of unfettered adoration.  It blinds him.
Ria has no such rose-colored filter for Zelda, but she’s not immune to distraction.  “Perhaps we’ll see Myrri next time?”
A deeply-lined grin blossoms on Ria’s face at the sound of her daughter’s name.  “It may be, Princess.  I haven’t told her yet.  I rather thought today, it was important to get an early start."
“Of course.  Thank you again.”  Zelda supposes a small child in her bedchamber would slow the dressing process considerably.  Well—there’ll be other days.  She hopes to hear Link’s rhyming games with the little girl, for too few of his plays on words ever pass his lips.  She’d not have known he had a sense of humor at all were it not for the Sheikah Slate.
She sighs, reaching for the slate as Ria makes her exit, eyes alighting on the blank screen twice as her other hand grasps her satchel’s shoulder-strap.  “Well, Zelda.  Nothing for it.  Do not look at the slate.”  Link had likely been mulling over his words for the ceremony.  She fears what he might say (for his sake, not hers, for he tends toward discomfort in public… to put it mildly), but she doesn’t want to spoil the moment: she’d like his words to be exactly that, and not echoes of thoughts she’s eavesdropped upon.
“Do not look.” Her fingers twitch.
She very nearly taps the screen.
“Later.”
The pad of one finger feather-brushes the slate’s surface and it chimes on, but Zelda averts her vision from its glow and the words splayed across its screen.  Those would be Link’s most recent thoughts.  The corner of her eye sees the text scroll upward toward the ‘Log’ heading, and she presses the screen against her chest.
No.  “Much later.”
Every word within his mind, entirely unfiltered—bare to her.
“Satchel for now.”
She’d fallen in love with those words—with a self he’d struggled to keep private.
He thinks it still is.
Her grip tightens on the slate.
“I truly ought to tell him.  I ought to.”
Once she does, he may be disillusioned of her.  She’s seen what he thinks of her—all brilliance, beauty, and strength of all kinds.  She doesn’t recognize that woman.  He loves an incomplete version of her.
She must tell him soon.
“…Not now, though.”
They’ve a ritual to complete first.
“Satchel.” She places the darkened slate inside it, her grip firm.  “Door.”
A chorus of greetings meet her in the hallway where her guards and Link’s family wait, but his sister’s rises easily audible above the others: “Wow! Your sleeves are so long!”
Zelda giggles.  Link’s straw-haired, gangly young sister is a welcome reprieve from the usual mix of vacant flattery and ‘discrete’ disapproval Zelda tends to encounter.  “Indeed, Chee.  These sleeves are quite impractical.  Not at all my usual choice of dress.”
Zelda officially greets her two night guards, then turns a wide smile on Link’s mother (she’s so like her son in appearance, how could Zelda resist?).  “Junilla.  I take it Link is preparing?”
“Yes, Princess,” Junilla says with her ever-present warmth (it had already evoked memories, mostly-forgotten and entirely blurred, of Zelda’s own mother humming).
“He takes FOR. EH. VER making his hair all pretty,” Chee says with a forcefully-emoted eye-roll and slumped shoulders.  A brief pang runs through Zelda’s chest—she’d never been free to behave that way.
Zelda hums a little laugh despite it.  “I’ll be sure to examine it thoroughly when he emerges.”  (It’s an excellent excuse for a few moments’ indulgence.  It wouldn’t do to stare at her appointed knight without reason—not yet).
“If you look really carefully, you’ll see all the lines by his ears where he’s tried different places to pull it back.”
“Enough, Chee,” Junilla says with a light brush of her daughter’s arm.  “Don’t make fun of your brother, especially as these two gentlemen report to him.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Sir Oron says with the smallest hint of a smile.  “He has our respect.  And… we’d already noticed the hair.”
“HA!  See, mom?”
Chee’s giggles spread to Sir Oron and Zelda joins them.  Her knight’s foibles are among her favorite things about him.
The door just past them opens, a rather trepidatious-looking Link emerging in a champion’s tunic hanging slightly off-kilter at the shoulders—her fault, not his—his newest pair of tan trousers and his usual boots, slightly scuffed.  She hadn’t considered that.  She ought to have suggested a new pair for the ceremony.
She’s not sure why the state of his boots concerns her more than her own hair.
As for his hair, he’s made even more of an effort than usual—every strand in its proper place, pulled without a single deviant wave or furrow into the hairband at the top of his spine.  He’s left a good deal of it to hang free as always, framing his face.  A sudden curiosity strikes her, for it isn’t a style adopted by most Hylian men.  Her fingers itch to check the slate.  What crosses his mind when parting it just so?
“Oh!  Oh, look at you, Link.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so handsome,” Junilla says.
Her knight’s eyes go wide as they flick around the hallway, and though his expression remains still, an upward jerk of his chin gives his surprise away (at least to Zelda).
It’s clear Link’s embarrassed, and while his mother apologizes for it (and Link insists he’s not embarrassed, which, of course, he is—which of course threatens to set the night guards laughing, which in turn leads to further embarrassment), his eyes find Zelda, initially communicating a single word: help!
Then, those eyes of his change.
They settle unwaveringly on hers (despite what she knows it does to him—Zelda feels she can sense his rapid pulse, his chest constricting).  His lips part and he visibly struggles not to examine her entire form—Zelda sees it in quickly tamped movements in his neck and shoulders, and even in his cheek-muscles.
She has to act today.  She must make her affection for him public.
If she doesn’t do so intentionally, the vicious gossip will explode again (especially if Link keeps turning those poe-fire eyes on her)—but a single kiss in public should metamorphose rumors about illicit activities into tales of courtly romance.  The Blessing Ceremony provides the perfect opportunity to do so in front of a large crowd.
She… should have told him of the slate last night. The order of her actions will worsen the consequences, won't it, if her transgression changes his feelings for her?
Last night, she'd lost herself in his love-blind eyes and lacked the resolution to confess.  She lacks it now, as she struggles not to study the flecks of blue topaz in his irises.
“You actually look pretty nice, Link!” Chee says, returning Zelda to the present.
Zelda thinks Link’s gaze will leave her, then, but it doesn't.
“…Thaaaaanks, Chee,” Link says, eyes flickering blue flames on hers.  How is it possible for him to speak so frankly with that directed toward Zelda?  Two weeks ago, she doubts he could have managed it.
Chee clearly does not notice.  “What?!  You do!”
A small huff leaves him.  “It’s not that, Chee,” he says, even voice at utter odds with those furnace-flares.  Zelda’s heart gives a single, sudden lurch against her ribcage, but she has long practiced her statuesque stance.  She gives no outward sign at all.
Link’s sister seems to notice (finally) that Zelda is part of the equation (she’s swiveling her neck back and forth between them).  “What is it, then?!”
Zelda focuses on keeping her breathing serene as Link’s mother expertly diverts her daughter.  She stops processing the words, though.
Link’s eyes are still on her.
Perhaps, had he not warmed her shivering hands, arms, and mouth with his own yesterday morning, or had she not drawn him into the curtain wall for a hurried, anguished kiss that afternoon, or had he not knelt at her window last night and left her wanting with whispered assurances of desire, she could continue to remain composed under that stare—but its intensity is as the weight of a falling star, magnified by its singularity (for it is hers and hers alone) and by the emptiness he’d left her with yesterday.
She can’t bear it much longer—not in public.  (She couldn't in private, either, but there she'd have more options than to calm herself).
“Well, Sir Link,” she says, stepping further into the hallway, the movement an excuse to blink at the floor and breathe.  “We’re prepared quite early.”
“We could head to the sanctum now if you like, Princess,” Link says, “so we don’t have to fight our way through throngs of people to the sanctum.  We can pick up Mipha on the way if she’s ready.”
Of course, they should pick up Mipha—of course, they should.  They would be remiss not to.
‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~
The Blessing Ceremony is so unlike the Champions’ Ceremony, Zelda may as well be in another castle. Her father speaks with renewed vigor and the crowd buzzes with hushed excitement.  The change exhilarates her.  Weeks ago, the sensation of Link’s stare on her back would have set her jaw and fists clenching.  Today, it tethers her to hope, not only against the Calamity but for herself.  With her power discovered, they stand far more ready.
She allows that hope to overtake her, even returning her father’s smile.  Perhaps doing so would feel more natural someday.
When Link kneels before her, an echo of that first blessing at the ceremonial ground rings in her mind’s silence.  She hears her own voice as it was then: resigned, hesitant, and while not insincere, lacking in that power of tone which conveys true faith—she’d had nothing righteous within her to express.  Link keeps his face downturned—invisible—now as he had then, but the depth of his prostration bridges the space between them, speaking his love for her with a clarity rivaling his fevered words the night before.  He’d sworn his fealty all those months ago, and he’d meant it—but today he holds every muscle in his body prone as possible without unbalancing himself entirely: a message written in form and the tranquility of his breath.
Zelda extends her hand, and as she does she feels the force of Link’s love for her as a tangible sensation.  It’s as though it strikes her fingertips, traverses her arm, entwines with each muscle fiber, transmuting her to living steel.  A flutter of thought—that Link has re-forged her, a woman of tempered metal—precedes her voice as she blesses him with the full might of blatant truth.  He is her Hero, chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness.  He has shown unflinching bravery and skill in the face of darkness and adversity.  (He’s shown himself far more worthy of Hylia’s blessing than she).  He and his sword will undoubtedly grow stronger as one, and her own voice ringing effortlessly through the Sanctum stokes an ember which had long cooled, blackening in her sequestered heart, air-tight before Link breached its walls: the hope she, too, will grow with him, and the Calamity itself will suffer swift defeat before their combined might.
The audience’s awe as she lowers her hand echoes her own, and the realization strikes that her steel and her ember are not hers alone.  They shine, they burn, for all of Hyrule.
Link remains prostrate, woven into the tapestry of her words.  The need to stir him from his silent reverie shoots a twinge of loss through the left side of her chest. She feels tethered to the ardor expressed in the curve of his back and bow of his head, but no flawless moment can last forever; time will always tarnish it, demanding new forms of perfection as the world changes around them, even if they remain still. “Sir Link?” she whispers. “You may rise, now.”
He doesn’t.
His neck cranes back with measured deliberation and his eyes of the open sky lock to hers once more with a hope-struck smile, fueling her ember, a glow of shared joys warming the inside of her skin: of cranberry scones, too many children climbing on Link, racing through the bailey, moments stolen to spread a far more physical type of heat as they worshiped each other’s skin, and wishful futures glimpsed each time they stood too close or lingered on each other’s fingertips too long.
“This is exactly where I should be, Princess.”
A short exhale escapes her—a heat-sink.  “Usually, the one kneeling is the one being blessed,” she says.
“This’ll be a little different.”
Her mouth quirks at his language, so at odds with his fervent devotion in her court-centered experience.   “Hmm.  Very well, Sir Knight.”
Zelda attempts to keep her face encouraging as her extraordinary knight begins to tremble.  It had taken him such effort to speak to her in private; she imagines how unnerving it must be for him to orate before a large audience, particularly as the words are of his own making.  He releases an uneven breath and swallows, and for a moment she wonders if he can’t continue.
Then, his speech comes: the softness and warmth of his voice somehow echoing throughout the chamber with clarity despite the tremor in his frame.
“Princess… the Goddess incarnate… you are the light of dawn that shatters the twilight.”
Zelda’s heart thrusts itself against her ribcage; her lips fall just slightly open.
“No blessing I can bestow could make you greater.  You are already the light that shines on this world.  You illuminate my path.”
Dear Holy Goddess—she has never heard or imagined the existence of such words directed at her.
Her rational mind reminds her with logical cruelty that a blind man cannot recognize illumination.
“You already have my blessing, and you have since the moment we met.”
Her lower lip moves to tremble.  Tears attempt to well out.  She will not allow it.
“We were already bound by magic and by fate.  Then we were bound by the sword.”
It seems her heart cannot resist full immersion in his adoration for her.  She wants him too badly--him and his words.
“So… today, what I offer isn’t a blessing, exactly… because my- blessing- wouldn’t be anything new.”
Her mind can resist.  Her mind must, or she shall never tell him the truth.  He mustn’t love her sightless.
“…Instead, I offer a gift.  The one thing I haven’t freely given, Princess—my courage to speak.”
It does take courage.  She sees it in his twitching fingers and vibrating form, even through the salt water blurring her vision.
“You had my faith.  My belief that you will light the way even if I falter.”
She must try to have equal faith in him and his love for her—that it would not be easily broken.
“You had my loyalty.  My pledge to follow wherever you lead.  To serve you in all things.”
He already does so—her ever-present knight.
“You had my protection.  My sword is your instrument.  I wield it for you.”
He’s already done that, too.
“And now, you have my voice.  That you may know my thoughts.”
That she may… know his thoughts?
“And that you may speak through me.”
That she may know his thoughts!
“In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I offer this to you… and you alone.”
The vacuum left by the absence of Link’s voice fills with hushed sounds of stifled emotion, their sources scattered all about them.  His love for her leaves no vacancy to fill.  It remains as present as it had been while he spoke.
It would be so effortless to lose herself in his reality of unconditional devotion, for she loves him as he is; of that, she has no doubt.  She so desperately wants the gift he offers, the ardency of it evident in his carefully-chosen words, far beyond the aspects permissible in public.  She wants his hands to speak his love for her in the language of caresses, the warmth of his mouth on her skin as the vibrations of his voice flow through her, an act as intimate as she imagines the fullness of lovemaking to be.  And by the Goddess, she wants that—his body above hers with his intertwined confessions of love and desire in her ear.
Yet she knows the woman he loves is illusory.  She’s far more certain of it now than she had been before Link’s beautiful words.
The real Zelda had already taken the gift he would freely give her.  She already knows his thoughts.  She’d read them secretly, sometimes repeatedly.  Could any betrayal be so complete as that?  To unlock a secret place only to find its contents pilfered by the very person they were intended for?
She cannot allow her tears to fall here and now, but must tell him, and soon.  He must see her for who she is. He must love her for who she is, or he must not love her at all.
Please, please, Hylia, let him still love her.
“R-rise, Sir Link.  I… humbly accept your gift.  Be assured I shall treasure it as my most valued possession.”
She already does.
As Link rises, as his knees shake beneath him, as his eyes search hers (perhaps for approval or a sign of what the tears in them mean) she gathers her courtly demeanor about her.  The ceremony has not yet concluded.
“I-it so happens I also have a gift for you,” Zelda says, calling the seamstress to bring it forward.
Her knight blinks in surprise, and she can’t resist the touch of a fond smile despite her worried musings.  Zelda thanks the seamstress as she accepts two freshly-made Champion’s Tunics from her: one to replace the tunic bloodied in defense of her, the other in apology for the poorly stitched seam resting on Link’s shoulder.  She has something else to tell him—something she needs him to know right now (before later when she might ruin everything), for the words of his blessing and his gift to her had so clearly said, ‘I love you.’
Zelda takes a deep breath.
She lets it out in words.  “Sir Link, I bestow upon you this sacred garb… again.”
There’s his sweet, silly, lopsided smile reserved only for her—just a shadow of it.  (He’s right, isn’t he?  Her gift of shirts is rather funny).
She thinks her next sentence will not be.
“This time… it was made with love.”
She’d thought she’d already seen pure devotion on Link’s face.
Perhaps she had.
If so, it pales before the look he turns on her now.
Her message, it seems, has been received.
She holds the cloth out to him.  He hurriedly moves to accept it, and once he does, she cups his face, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.  She kisses him chastely but lingers long as a murmur of emotion ripples through the crowd, as his cautious breath warms her neck.  When she pulls back, she sees her knight’s face momentarily unguarded, and a vision of it, exactly so, as he expresses his love for her physically flashes in her imagination.
She mustn’t.  She mustn’t think of that.
He must love her for who she is, or not love her at all.
If she is to illuminate his path, he must first be able to see.
The true gift she must give him is sight.
She must tell him of the slate.
She must tell him tonight.
Would it be wrong to kiss him just once more before she does?
Please.
Please, Hylia.
Let him still love me in the light.
‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~‿⋰⩹~
[Notes: Sightholder isn't in the dictionary. Zelda has been witholding the truth (that she's completely invaded Link's privacy with the slate's log feature), and she feels like she sees herself much more clearly than Link does--like she's sighted and Link's not. She feels as if she holds the power to give him that same sight.]
[Note: Zelda is so conflicted here with so many different concurrent emotions that the narrative ends up conflicted, flip-flopping between them. It might be jarring! (But I feel it's true to Zelda's state of mind in these moments).]
[Note: This fic is part of the Adventure Log+ AU which you can find on my fic masterlist. It’s concurrent with a chapter in Link’s Thought Brambles.]
Here's my fic post list for Zelink Week 2022.
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28 notes · View notes
squashfics · 2 years
Text
Observations (Mithanberg)
So it turns out I had to make very little changes and I was just being a bitch. Anyway it’s Chris finding out his friends are in a polycule. This has literally been sitting around for months I didn’t think I had actually let it live but it lives so I might as well post it.
-
Karl Heisenberg is couch surfing at Ethan and Mia’s place. That’s the story they tell Chris, keep him off their backs. When he visits, rings are removed and the third pillow on the bed gets rearranged among several others, a bit much, but that’s besides the point. One time Chris had to retrieve something from upstairs for Mia, and he’d seen on top of the pillow pile three same-sized pillows, all in a row. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but then things started happening that made him go back to it.
That was the first sign. The second sign is the second ring on Mia’s finger, right above her wedding ring.
“New ring?” Chris asks during dinner.
Ethan’s in the middle of a sip of soda and he ends up spitting it back out into his glass. Karl pushes his shades up his face and reached for a crescent roll. He immediately stuffs it in his mouth. No manners.
“Oh, this?” Mia asks nervously. “It’s my old engagement ring. Ethan proposed to me with this one, but we got rings specifically for the wedding.”
“I… see,” Chris says. “Not sure why you’re being so weird about it.”
Ethan changes the subject. “So you said Leon just got out of the hospital. How’s his leg doing?”
It would have been an inconsequential detail on its own, if not for the fact that three days later, Ethan also sports two rings, and a week after that, he catches Karl removing two rings from his finger and stuffing them into his pocket.
“Are those rings?”
“I stole ‘em in ‘79,” Karl says quickly.
“Do you normally wear them on your left hand?” Chris asks.
“I’m right-handed. I’m not gonna risk breaking them!” Karl says, a bit defensive.
“Yeah…”
A bit odd, but Chris comes to like Karl. He starts to feel a bit more comfortable about letting this bioweapon live freely on the grounds that he never causes trouble, a rule he’s been following, and he’s even willing to hang out with the guy! Since Karl never really got to go anywhere, Chris starts inviting him along to the bar with his friends.
They don’t know what he is, of course, for the sake of not alarming them he requests that Karl never so much as mention Miranda, but they’re all nice and pleasant to him and he gets along with them just fine.
Chris even offers to help him get a date. One night they’re talking and Jill suggests Chris set Karl up with one of their friends.
“I could set you and someone else up on a blind date, all you’d have to do is just go to the restaurant at the right time or something—“
“Why does it matter that your friend’s blind?” Karl asks.
Jill nearly chokes on her drink and Leon laughs so hard his own drink comes out his nose.
“He means without having met the other person!” he cackles, clutching his nose. “Oh, fuck, that hurts. That’s whiskey.”
“Right, you’re not up on things like that,” Chris realizes. “But that’s basically it.”
Karl looks uncomfortable.
“No thanks. I couldn’t do it like that,” he says.
Chris shrugs. “Okay, we don’t have to make it a blind date. I could introduce you two and you see where things go from there.”
“I… I’ll think about it.”
“He’d probably set you up with his sister anyway,” Jill comments. “Since this guy gets cold feet about expanding the Redfield bloodline.” She gestures to Leon, who’s been wiping his nose on his sleeve and cursing the entire time.
“Hey!” Leon snaps.
“Do I want to know?” Karl asks.
“No, you don’t,” Leon says.
Karl scoots away from them. “You guys are weird.”
Karl does get laid a few days later, as evidenced by the cluster of hickeys on his neck. He doesn’t say who, but he looks like whoever he had sex with brought twice the action to the bedroom. He’s sore all over, in his words, and at some point he mentions his back getting a good clawing. It reminds him of the time Ethan mentioned Mia absolutely raking her nails down his back and still feeling the sting the next morning. He’d ended up stopping the conversation just to go out and lay down in the snow, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Damn, Karl! I knew you’d get your chance!” Chris says. “So when are you gonna introduce her?”
Karl blinks.
“We’ll see,” he says.
The pieces of the puzzle don’t really start to fall into place until Chris catches Karl looking at Mia with this lovestruck gaze. Chris chuckles at how flustered and enamored Karl looks, which startles Karl.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ethan,” Chris promises.
“What?”
“Aren’t you and Ethan basically best friends at this point?” Chris explains. “And you’re making eyes at his wife?”
“Listen—“
“I’ll admit it’s funny to see you get a crush on someone. But Mia? Oh, man! I’d hate to be you right now.”
“Shut up, she’s pretty, okay?” Karl huffs. “Besides, I doubt Mia would go behind Ethan’s back like that.”
“You’re right, they seem pretty loyal to one another. But that’s gotta sting. The rejection’s basically already happened.”
“Yeah, sucks to be me…”
In the other room, they can hear Ethan howling with laughter. They go in and see him laughing so hard he’s struggling to breathe.
“Are you quite alright?” Chris asks.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ethan says, trying to compose himself. There are tears in his eyes and he clutches his stomach like it’s hurting. “I just remembered this hilarious thing that happened last night.”
“Let me hear it,” Chris says.
“Um…”
Karl chimes in.
“I was… helping make dinner, and I asked if either of them could give me a hand with the salad,” he says. “So Mia takes the biggest knife from the knife block, turns to Ethan, grabs his hand, and says, ‘Hold still, I’ll reattach it later!’”
Chris laughs. “Oh, Jesus.”
“And he places his hand down on the cutting board!” Karl continues. “He goes along with it! For a second I thought they’d actually do it! They’re fucking crazy.”
The rings, the fact that Karl hesitates about dating new people, the apparent crush he has on Mia, the weird explanation for Ethan’s sudden hysterical laughter over a joke he had a part in…
It’s obvious at this point. Karl’s with both of them. They’re all in a relationship with each other.
Chris assumes they’re keeping it under wraps because dating a bioweapon would cause controversy on its own, but now it’s laughable how they try to hide it.
In fact, the only people who think nobody’s noticed are Ethan, Mia, and Karl themselves.
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tockamybeloved · 9 months
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Five things that first drew you to Ronghao.
Thank you for the ask! (sends detailed note later) AND thank you for narrowing it down to 'first drew'. I found myself writing a tangent late last night. I hope this answers your question.
(Long answer)
1) Episode 2
A single figure appears in a painting, colors washed and muted by a broad stroke of sepia. But that was me looking at it from a Western view. I had to switch off my mind to those associations. It is not the color sepia- it is yellow. Yellow, the balanced color, the one that tells the viewer you are entering a place of freedom and earth and royalty. We are being told this man is peaceful, calm. He travels a river whose waters are ruled by the melancholy notes he plays. (Is he the only one to use music this way? Question for another post.)
The painting is a real space. Chang Heng appears standing behind him on the punt. 
The music stops. The man who is alone no longer turns to greet his visitor - and smiles. After being teasingly accused of arrogance, he smiles! 
Life for Rong Hao, Fairy Lord, is reflected in the colors around him: His face outlines beauty; the clarity in his eyes a longing for peace implied in the calm landscape. 
Dressed in white I immediately thought “death”. But it is also a symbol of renewal and innocence. 
This is a world away from everything. He desires to be separate from the noise and crowd. A purposeful introvert. 
Both the inhabitant and the artist of the painting, here he is his own master. Confident, secluded, and peaceful.
2) Observant. And clever. Discovery of the orchid on the handkerchief, done by exposing a secret without permission, seemed not to be malicious. 
I thought, here is a man who cares enough for his friend that he notices the love-sick face and because he also knows Chang Heng will not speak what is on his heart forces him to open up. Who but a true friend sees their vulnerable heart? Who but a long time and honest friend wants to help carry the worries and sorrows of another? 
3) The Green Flame Wine. In an instant my impression of Rong Hao as a one note (!) character is pushed away. A clear - unknown to us - deep bond exists. And yet Rong Hao never puts his lips to the bottle. I asked myself why. The act is subtle and I wonder why Rong Hao doesn’t trust the current god of War fully. 
There is pain or betrayal lurking beneath the perfect lines. Who caused the rift?
4) Episode 6 (Episode 3 for a moment. Anytime I’m presented with a masked character I’m going to use all my skills to try and predict who it is. I second guessed myself on this one, but I shouldn’t have. The form of his lips gave it away.)
At the Soul Transformation Grounds we see the masked persona: Rong Hao, Lord of Haishi. Dressed in black he wears on his shoulder splashes of all the colors. I am dissecting the why of all! Why all the colors? The answer is exactly in those colors but I was now also invested in this second world he exists in. It’s destruction, chaos, everything opposed to the painting. 
He is stern, direct. An opposed feeling of safety rises because of his power to influence. 
5) How quickly he figured out who Orchid is! Clever again. A constant gatherer of information he intelligently uses that information to further and succeed in his plan. 
Who is the true self? The man with the peaceful heart, or the one who coldly commands?
I am going to mention a sixth because in this moment I knew I could not break free. It is a brief dialog and might easily be brushed aside as inconsequential but like the entire show every detail is important.   
6) Episode 7
Rong Hao does something very father-like: He guides her vision away from the others and leans down eye to eye distracting her from watching the gathering of the evil qi. The movement is reminiscent of redirecting a child when there is an intensely emotional situation and the adult needs them to remain calm. 
But it’s not a single act. There are multiple things happening here. 
He is meeting her on his own terms without suspicion to gain knowledge. 
To Chang Heng, it appears that maybe Rong Hao will embarrass him in front of all, maybe giving away his secret feelings. Rong Hao doesn’t though, and gives a knowing smile furthering Chang Heng’s trust in him. 
The others see his questioning as curiosity or as I said, an elder or father being concerned for a child. 
It’s devious, self-serving, and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. As he speaks of his master, a distant gaze as he dwells on moments of happiness playing before his vision. There is a heart. 
Will he choose destruction, or peace?
Now for the irrational part told in pictures because I have lost the ability to speak sense.
This Smirk. Playful and familiar. Instantly I smile in return because I understand the thoughts behind such a look. He’s absolutely out of reach and untouchable which makes me want to do exactly that. Terrible.
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2. So thoughtful. Much intelligence. Teach me this game?
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3. The mask. Look at the distorted hand cradling his chin. I want to be that hand. The MOUTH. He speaks and all I can do is stare. I am a mess. THE HEAD TILT. YES YES! Analyze the fuck out of me with your eyes!
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4. Poor immortal looks like he’s been stabbed in the heart. Who dares betray him? What foolish thing has been done to thwart his perfect plan?!
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5. Now I am being stabbed in the heart. I CARE!! Aaaghghaghh
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Yes, I know. He’s the villain - the one who will destroy everything to make his happiness be reality. In the end, he destroys even himself. Love over duty; love distorted as time passes. The way to keep his love alive is tainted with selfishness and becomes poison.
BUT THAT LOOK.
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phosphophyi · 8 months
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(Not Mad For Any Of This): PLEASE Tell Me About The "The Meteor Man's Daughter" Story! It Has Been On My Mind Since 2019, I NEED To Know More!
Ohhhh I love an excuse to talk about my stories buckle up!
(General CW: The story involves child abuse/neglect, and child death. Putting the info under a read more so people can avoid if need be.)
So, I haven't really touched the story in a while so if I ever finally write the album I want to write for this story, some details might change.
The story follows Millie, a young child (somewhere between 7-11 years old, I'm indecisive.) Her father died before she was born and her sister died shortly before the story begins.
With both of them dead, the only people left in the family are Millie and her mom. Her mom very rapidly becomes consumed by her grief, and becomes obsessed with finding a way to travel to a new reality where her family is completely intact. As this obsession grows, she begins to believe that her current reality is inconsequential compared to the one she's determined to find, and so she begins to neglect Millie completely while she builds a machine that will take her to this new world. She figures "Hey, I'll treat Millie well in the new reality, so it doesn't matter what happens in this world."
Millie only passively watches as her mom spirals like this. In a very short span of time, Millie goes from having a completely normal life to being locked in her own home, with the windows (and eventually the doors) boarded up. Her mom becomes so avoidant of the current world that she avoids it at all costs, trying to forget anything outside of their home exists. Millie is left alone, in a dark house, with no food and has no means to change any of this.
Millie's perception of her mom begins to shift, and she starts referring to her as "the Mother." Millie is simultaneously detached from everything that's happening and desperate to escape it. She spends a lot of time just staring through a gap in the boards covering her bedroom window, fantasizing about being able to leave and be in the real world again. Over time, she begins to believe that two stars in the night sky are the spirits of her father and sister, and she believes that these stars are communicating with her. They tell her that the neglect she's experiencing is okay, because once she dies, she'll be away from the Mother and will live in peace with her true family.
So, at this point, Millie is torn between two beliefs: One that says the Mother is doing her a favor, and another that the Mother is a horrible person who is essentially torturing her own child. She's torn between peaceful resignation and fury. And as a result, even when she's gone so long without food that she should be dead, her inconsolable rage keeps her alive, much to her dismay. And so she is now torn between two beliefs and two states of existence - she's essentially a living ghost at this point. At this point, she begins to see apparitions in her house that she believes are spirits, and these spirits also communicate with her. These spirits tell her that the Mother's machine will fail, destroying this entire reality the once it's activated. Then - and only then - will Millie be brought to live with her true family.
It's around this point that Millie notices that the world outside of her home is disappearing. She couldn't really notice before, because her view of the outside world is so limited, but now so much has disappeared that she can see where reality begins and ends. She realizes that things disappear when she no longer considers them real - reality is based entirely upon her perceptions. Millie gets even more upset at this realization, because now she considers the Mother's abuse to be her own fault. She can't believe strongly enough that the Mother loves her, and so the Mother does not love her.
And finally, after an indeterminate but torturously long amount of time, the Mother declares that her machine is finally complete. The Mother doesn't even acknowledge Millie anymore, to the point where Millie wonders if she even exists to the Mother, but the Mother still knows that Millie will exist in the new world. To Millie's joy, though, the Mother's machine failed just as the apparitions said it would, and it creates a tear in reality that functions kind of like a very slow black hole. The Mother is sucked in basically immediately because of her proximity to the machine, and the tear begins to slowly eat Millie's home (and entire world) from the center out. Millie's instinctual self-preservation kicks in as she suddenly "snaps out of it," and starts doubting everything she was told would happen. She hides in a closet in the furthest corner of the house with a portable radio and listens to the music on it while awaiting her fate. Eventually, the tear in reality creeps into the closet, and in the moments before she's consumed by it she sees her father and sister waiting for her, just like they promised. Her final moments before reality disappears are moments of relief, acceptance, and joy.
The story is intentionally pretty surreal and weird, and the ending is purposefully vague, and that's partially because this whole story is (loosely) based on a dream I had around 2015 :P The story also intentionally leans pretty heavily into themes of psychosis, but I also tried to make it seem uncertain whether Millie was experiencing psychosis or of all of this was real.
Fun fact - I don't remember if I ever said this somewhere - but "Under the Final Star's Light" was written to be the song Millie was listening to at the end of the story. I imagine that song as the final song to the hypothetical TMMD album, or at least the second to last song with one more ambient/distorted instrumental following after it.
I do really want to finish that album some day or turn this into a novel or something! I'm really flattered that the story stuck with you for so long, I'm always happy to answer questions about it if you have any :P
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Text
DWC Day 3 Sentimental/Feral
CW: Violence, Blood, Torture.
{Music}
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You might call it brutality, I call it justice.
Mitharios was a man about the work, his new station in the Lady Shadowfel's organization came with opportunities aplenty, and he was hungry for it all. It was a rare thing, in his experience, for such a high and lofty person like the Boss to get their hands dirty, typically leaving the gruesome details to the underlings to deal with, but this was a whole new world.
The call came in the late night hours, the Sparrows had collected a target for questioning, and they were to gather to soften his meat before the Boss arrived. "Delightful." Mitharios responded, gathering his things and heading to the storehouse to join in the fun.
A seemingly inconsequential building on the shady side of Stormwind, appearing like all the rest, but containing its own precious cargo; Mitharios rapped on the heavy wooden door, awaiting the slot to open and admittance to be granted.
Dusty crates lined the path, creating a barrier between the entrance and the dimly lit room, and an elven man was restrained in the single chair below the low-hanging light.
"Thorn," The lead Sparrow spoke in greeting, the young world-weary woman stood before him with a deadpan look upon her face, cheeks gaunt and hair of ashen violet. "The target is still unconscious, figured you'd rather be the first face he sees."
"Well done, Amytheisa. You and the others are dismissed if that is your wish." Mitharios replied, removing his black leather gloves and moving toward the imprisoned man.
A single heavy-handed slap across the man's face was all it took to wake him from his state, gasping in shock as he looked around to find the peril he had fallen into, pulling at his binds to find escape was impossible. "Morning Sunshine," Mitharios spoke in a mocking tone, leaning down to meet the man's eye with a wide and cheeky smirk. "Comfortable? No? Good."
"W-why am I here?! Who are you?!" The man shouted, his tone filled with terror.
"Now now, you should know better than to demand things of your host. Bit rude, I think?" Mitharios asked the surrounding Sparrows who chose to stay back and witness.
"Aye, rude it is." A muscular man chimed in from the corner, a cigar smoldering in the corner of his mouth.
"Wouldn't want to be rude, it's not the Elven way." Mitharios snickered with a snort of derision. "Now then, I know you are all too curious as to why you've been taken from your safe little home and brought to such a strange and light-forsaken place. To put it simply, the woman you work for is far worse than any of us, an impressive thing but it puts you in quite the pickle."
"The Baroness is a good woma-" The man tried to stand up for his Mistress but was cut off by the slamming of Mitharios's fist into his jaw.
"So loyal, I wonder if that'll stand as our night progresses, I myself quite doubt it." Mitharios was barely even warming up, the man would either give in or face a night of brutal terror. "Nothing about your bitch of a Noblewoman is good, or we wouldn't be here. Now, we have been following her every move for weeks and suddenly she and her lot are nowhere to be found. How could that be I wonder?"
"Must be some kind of trickery." A lanky Nightelf man spoke, coming to stand next to the hulking mass of a man who chewed his cigar.
"Witchcraft." Amytheisa spoke, her tone flat as if she was bored of the situation.
"Aye, Witchcraft." Mitharios chuckled. "But you and I both know that isn't the case, don't we Mister?"
"I have no idea what you mean." The man remained steadfast, unafraid of the actions of these roughens.
"Oh, of course, a personal guard oblivious to the comings and goings of the bitch he protects. That sounds logical." Mitharios's fist slammed into the nose of the man, drawing forth blood. "Listen, I'd rather not spend my entire night here, so either you tell us what we want to know or I escalate far faster than the norm. Your choice."
"I'll tell you nothing scum!" The man shouted, blood pouring from his nose into his mouth.
"I thought as much." With this defiant response, Mitharios slipped a brass knuckle onto his right hand, slamming the spiked rings into the gut of the bound man, bringing forth a deep guttural cry of pain. Just as the man began to catch his breath another hard punch slammed into his abdomen, taking the air out of him as blood seeped through his clothing. "Consider this, the amount of pain you will experience from me is a fraction of what you'll receive from the Boss once she gets here. Answer the questions now and save yourself from inventive and excruciating agony, it's really your best choice. She's a feral Bitch."
Hours passed, leaving the man battered and bloody. Mitharios stood tall, his right hand dripping with the weakened man's blood as a knock came from the opposite side of the door. "Ah, that'll be the Boss. Poor sod, you'll miss me when I'm gone." Mitharios laughed callously as Valanthriell entered the storehouse.
{Mentioned: @ethereal-and-vaguely-threatening}
@daily-writing-challenge
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