#Fetch stole one of the ball pit balls

[komodocomics]

Ballpit

Squeak! Squeak!

[peaches-writes]

super random prompts for today bc im feeling nostalgic~

tw // death

at 1100 years of you fulfilling your punishment as a human turned grim reaper, no one could blame you when you confess that you don’t really know yourself now if the promise you swore to chan before he died by your sword in his first life is still serious or holds meaning to you. it was a long long time ago, already muddled in your failing memories, when you swore to the joseon era prince that you would ‘find and torture him in every life he gets’ because he invaded your village and branded you as a criminal (which ultimately led to you doing the things that got you landed with your current spiritual punishment). at present, having already met different versions of him in his subsequent lives and delivering him to the afterlife each time without fail, you’re not sure anymore if you can still hold onto this promise and cause him trouble. after all, every version of him that pops up on your radar throughout the centuries never remembers what he did in his first life, let alone remember you. plus, the only time he sees you now as a grim reaper is on his death bed, when you come to fetch him and confess to causing some of the misfortunes he’s experienced in the life that he’s lived. 

so imagine your surprise when the gods inform you that chan only has one reincarnation left to spend and that he’ll spend it in the 21st century seoul, right where everything started. you’re then furthermore petrified when this version you meet not only has the ability to see and interact with ghosts by his 3rd eye but also finds the journal you unknowingly drop at his neighbor’s funeral: filled with notes on him and his previous lives as well as the confusing feelings you’ve unconsciously developed over the years. the final nail in the coffin, however, is that he’s not smug about it when he eventually finds you at the local graveyard, unlike how you expected of the chan from the joseon era. instead, he asks you all about his past lives, your punishment, and what he should expect in his next life if he has any. this time, with no means of escaping from his 3rd eye and his dangerously fast biking skills, you’re forced to confront the soul of the person you once called your enemy. 

more of the kids under the cut!

minho receives a google form link from you at the strike of midnight on your 1st anniversary as a couple, initially opening it on the assumption that it’s the survey form you previously coerced him into agreeing to answer for your senior thesis. the computer science major is then thoroughly surprised when the link opens to a red and pink-themed form titled, “y/n’s boyfriend application!” with questions ranging from, “full name so i can flames it with my name” to “rate my annoying habits from ‘i love them dw’ to ‘this is probably going to be one of the future reasons why we’ll break-up.’” he messages you first before anything else, asking you just exactly ‘what the fuck is this application for, babe?’ to which you only reply with a spam of winking emojis. actually, you only reply with winking emojis and actual winks when he decides to videocall you into answering him, leading minho to answer the form while you’re peeking over on a small browser on his laptop screen. your boyfriend mainly answers the questions lightheartedly, even reading his answers aloud to you after (”what number on the fan do i like? four, of course!” “minho, you’re a monster.”). that is until the last question which he only smiles at before spending the last five minutes of your videocall typing continuously then ending the call after submitting, preventing you from interrogating him and his sudden change in behavior. 

it’s only after the call that you see his answer to the last question (”why do you love me”), an entire eight paragraphs of him just mindlessly rambling about whatever comes at the top of his head to answer the question: ranging from his favourite and least favourite memories of you together, the things he loves about you coupled with the things he claims to not like about you (before shyly admitting towards the end that he still finds things to love about them), and an “overall there’s a lot of reasons why i love you: some i’ve mentioned, some i haven’t, some i’ve discovered, and some i will find out about in the future when we celebrate our 2nd year anniversary, 3rd, 4th, and the ones we’ll eventually forget what number they’re supposed to be because we’ll probably be married and busy with a lot of other things ;) there’s just no one definitive answer to this question, to be honest, but this is what comes at the top of my head. happy one year, baby <3″ 

when the fabric of reality that blankets seoul is reported to have been ripped at the seams, you start mysteriously losing some of your personal belongings to the parallel dimension’s version of your apartment. at first you blame it on your public enemy no. 1 and roommate, changbin, who does have a habit of borrowing things without permission and forgetting to return them. when you find a blue-haired and heavily tattooed changbin using your hair dryer in the bathroom one day (clearly looking very different from the roommate you’ve been living with for 6 months who has blonde hair and piercings only), however, only then do you realize that it’s been your roommate’s parallel version who’s been unknowingly receiving your things. what’s more surprising is him getting visibly confused at you initially throwing a fit at him when you mistook him as your real roommate, explaining to you later on that he and your parallel version are dating. you purposely avoid parallel dimension changbin for a few days in embarrassment from the latter, that is until he sits you down in the living room a week later (while your dimension’s changbin is out at his part-time job) and asks you, “so, what’s your problem with my parallel self? maybe i can help!”  

only parallel dimension changbin proves himself to be unhelpful when all he comments on your subsequent ramblings is a cheesy grin and, “your roommate’s probably in love with you. god, i can’t believe that even in your reality i’m stupid.” 

in a world where the person who doesn’t reciprocate an individual’s strong feelings instead of the other way around, hyunjin’s had his own fair share of sick days and pharmacy runs to suppress the flowers that bloom in him from admirers who fall way too deep into his charms. he’s slightly grown desensitized to it, having already memorized what to do and what to say to the people who are forced to confront and apologize to him each and every time. when it’s you who’s suddenly confessing your sudden feelings to him, promising that you’ll get over it in a month and even stay away for a while for his sake, only then does he feel a strange mix of dread, worry, and fear at the pit of his stomach. he doesn’t want you, his best friend, to ever leave his side but at the same time he can’t find it in himself to reciprocate your feelings for you to stay. for the first time, he doesn’t know what to do nor what to say to you, the daffodils suddenly feeling heavier in his lungs the more you try and distance yourself and see new people.

 jisung, unlike how the cliche trope goes, always bets everything on him missing his shot at your subdivision’s basketball court. he always says something along the lines of, “if i miss this shot, let’s go the movies!” or “if the ball falls off the rim after 5 seconds, you’ll go to the beach party with me!” despite being the star player of your high school basketball team himself. he always purposely misses for fun and gets his reward, of course, even when you remind him to shoot properly through flustered expressions and feigned huffs. this has then caused you your entire summer time and allowance, all spent glued to jisung’s hip and buying him all sorts of things from ice cream, extended time to borrow surf boards at the beach, and even a ride ticket to the travelling carnival’s ferris wheel (where he stole a kiss from you at the top like the cheesy little shit that he is). 

whenever you ask him why he bets in reverse each and every time, however, only then does his confident smirk disappears into his blush and he turns his entire face away from you; too shy to admit that you make him a little too nervous whenever it’s just you watching him shoot hoops. give him a rest, he just wants more full assurance that he’ll get to spend more time with you, as boyish as that sounds. 

you probably should’ve known better than to provoke chenle and wooyoung when you told them over the student council meeting that a marriage booth probably wouldn’t give you a lot of revenue since your school festival this year doesn’t fall on valentine’s day week. you probably should’ve expected that the first thing they’d do after the student assembly, when the festival is formally opened, is to drag you into said marriage booth—your english classroom decorated from top to bottom in cheap white cloth, plastic flowers, and an edit of your senior alumni bang chan as jesus—and put you into one of the flower crown veils they probably got at someone’s baptism, explaining that they need someone to kickstart the booth and attract more customers. but most of all, you probably should’ve expected that these two troublemaking vice president and secretary of yours wouldn’t hesitate to take this opportunity to torment you even further because suddenly you’re getting fake married to felix, your chem lab partner and long-time crush, who also has his own ‘sins’ to atone to chenle and wooyoung (something about ditching them at a party because he saw an injured cat stuck up on a tree on the way to the venue). the two of you stand in front of the “bang chan altar” for 10 minutes with han jisung in a questionable pope costume, the two of you attracting passersby who are mostly your classmates murmuring “oh my god, y/n and felix?” or “i knew it! those two are so cute together!” as the two of you are forced into exchanging cereal box rings and saying impromptu vows. 

what you didn’t expect from this experience, however, is felix suddenly confessing in his vows, clearing his throat awkwardly while sliding the purple plastic ring on your ring finger and saying, “this isn’t how i imagined it to go but we’re both here, all of our classmates are here, and you’re looking really pretty today so, uh...y/n, i just want to say that i’ve really liked you for a long time.” 

your grandmother shows you her first look of disapproval over your weaved fabrics when you start creating pieces that seem to resemble the aura of a boy. as much as you don’t want to see her disappointed, tradition still stands that you have to design your fabrics according to how you would interpret your dreams and since you turned 18, all you’ve been dreaming about is your potential soulmate. of all 7 billion in the world, you just have to be one of the rare ones with the ability to interpret your dreams on textile and have these said dreams be your soulmate bond to someone else as well. instead of arbitrary colors or shapes resembling nature like your grandmother and everyone else, you’re trying to recreate the face of a boy your age with the kindest smile you’ve ever seen and the prettiest brown eyes; instead of putting the sounds of the ocean or the chirping of birds as they would be usually heard in dreams onto colorful fabric, you’re trying to mix red, orange, and yellow dyes on threads just to try and capture seungmin’s golden voice whenever he would sing to you in your dreams. your soulmate becomes your muse, the lasting impressions he makes on you in the 3 real-time seconds of dreaming that you spend with him embedding themselves into the blanket you’ve been tasked to make for the winter. 

seungmin is more than flattered of course, finding genuine fascination in what you do and excitement to see you in person once university allows him. it’s only at the end of the year, however, right on christmas day, when he finally sees you on vacation in your town with his family—finding you at the beach party his new friend hyunjin invites him to where you dance around the bonfire with your own friends, wrapped in the blanket made of warm colors that just scream his very soul and aura. your eyes meet almost as soon as he arrives because of your soulmate pull, causing you to become flustered at realizing that you’re wearing the blanket design that’s been inspired by him, and before he knows it, kim seungmin is running to you and grabbing your arm. “hi.” he pants breathlessly, his relieved smile shining brightly against the orange glow of the fire to your side. “finally. it’s you!” 

jeongin stares at his laptop for a solid 5 minutes in complete and utter confusion before his roommate seungmin pokes him on the side of his head and asks if he passed his dream university, snapping him out of reality. it’s not that he didn’t pass the entrance exam, definitely not because he’s still feeling confident from answering it from almost 6 months ago. rather, it’s that the acceptance e-mail sent to him by the university is for a completely different name, your name out of all applicants out there—that one person he sat next to at cram school and turned down at the end of the summer. logging into his social media accounts, he sees people voicing out their concerns for similar incidents, that they’re getting acceptance or rejection e-mails of other applicants instead of their own, and posts that aim to track down who’s gotten who to remedy this. when seungmin hears this, he simply shrugs and urges jeongin to simply message you and get over it since the two of you are connected on social media anyway. but still, jeongin takes another hour to message you with a simple, “hi, i got your e-mail. should i forward it to you?” even closing his laptop in a hurry and running back into the comfort of his blanket as soon as he hears the dreadful ping of the messenger app. he knows he shouldn’t be flustered to message you, especially with something as important as your acceptance letter, but he can’t help but feel weak in the knees at the thought of having to talk to you again after almost a year because all he can think about is that he really shouldn’t have rejected you in that offer to go to the movies in the first place. 

what’s worse is that, since he sent the message over online, his thoughts can’t help but overthink your simple “really? here’s my e-mail” reply that comes not even a second after he sends his message—even more your follow-up reply of “i got yours too btw! i’ll forward it to you when you forward mine” when he doesn’t reply immediately. jeongin’s fingers uncontrollably shake as he musters up the courage to reply, face blushing red the entire time as he e-mails you your acceptance letter. all this time, considering how the two of you haven’t talked in a long time, he only thinks about one ambitious thought: “is it a bad time? to bring up that movie offer again?” 

[official-michael-afton]

The answers to this hell-post under the cut, I’m too lazy to fetch my books to find the specific page numbers but I WILL say which books these scenes are all in and a brief explanation on what’s going on

uh- general tw for... for Fazfrights. Just. Just the shit Fazfrights gets up to.

INTO THE PIT - “Spring bonnie pretended to be a kid’s father. Like- the animatronic. And it worked. Every adult believed that, yep that’s just his dad.” Basically, the Main Character, Oswald, finds out he can travel between the modern day and the 80s Freddy’s pizzeria through a supernatural ball pit. At one point, though, Oz’s dad gets dragged through and Spring Bonnie steps out in his place. Everyone else seems to treat Springbon as if he were just Oz’s dad, and only Oz seems to notice that his dad was replaced.

ROOM FOR ONE MORE - “Vore” Okay so this one’s a bit of a joke, but the main character, I forget his name but fuck that guy, keeps falling asleep while on night shift in a Sister Location-esque place, and while asleep, more and more Minireenas climb inside of him to just- live in him. It’s supposed to be body horror but I’ve read enough weird fetish fics that my alarm was raised towards the ending of this book.

TO BE BEAUTIFUL - “A girl’s necklace fell off and she turned into a bunch of bicycle parts as a result” So the main character, Sarah, has self image problems and basically strikes a deal with an animatronic to make her more “beautiful”. The animatronic, Eleanor, tells Sarah to wear a special necklace and tells her to NEVER take it off in exchange for her beauty. Every day, another piece of Sarah seems to become more physically attractive. One day, though, she trips and her necklace breaks off, and that’s when the illusion drops. Turns out Eleanor was actually stealing her body parts in the night, replacing them with junk(i specifically remember bicycle parts mentioned), and the necklace was the illusion tech that made her look “prettier”

SCATTER MADE THIS UP - “A kid was literally so distracted by the animatronics performing that he tripped, hit his head on the corner of an arcade table, and fuckin died right then and there” Idk man I just tried to come up with something that COULD happen but wasn’t crazy enough for you guys to be like “c’mon that can’t be real”... unfortunately some of you caught on that it was actually something that could happen therefore not absurd enough to be real XD

THE FOURTH CLOSET - “Charlie has a literal doll inside of her” So most of you know by this point that in the TSE trilogy, Charlie was murdered as a child but Henry made an animatronic in her likeness. Well if memory serves right, he first started constructing Charlie’s AI into her doll, Ella, before her animatronic body was built. When Charliebot finally got built, Henry put the Ella doll into her so her AI would transfer over. There were multiple Charliebots, representing Charlie as she grew up, which is why Ella had to be removeable, so Henry could place her into an “older” body as she grew up.

COMING HOME - “A child deals with the trauma of seeing her murdered sister’s ghost” Okay this one was one of the few really good stories that I actually enjoyed reading- long story short Susie was one of the victims and is having trouble moving on and her sister, Samantha, eventually ends up helping as they both try to cope with their traumas and it’s a good story if you’re gonna read one read this one

COUNT THE WAYS - “Freddy is way too into executions” So the main character, Millie, is way too into death as a concept(she’s the stereotypical goth chick), and long story short ends up getting trapped inside of the chest cavity of a Freddy animatronic. I think it’s implied to be a Funtime Freddy but I forget honestly. As she’s there, the Freddy taunts her, basically explaining that she did deserve an execution for the way she treated her friends and family, and starts just listing off every way he could go about killing her

THE TWISTED ONES - “Clay Burke doesn’t take the divorce well” After the events of TSE, Clay Burke and his wife have some arguments over how the whole “Carlton got kidnapped and nearly murdered” scenario went. This eventually leads to a divorce and Clay isn’t taking it well. He’s drinking, his house is a mess, it’s sad :( 

DANCE WITH ME - “Ballora is the ultimate disappointed mom” After robbing a mother of her purse outside of a Freddy’s, local thief Kasey finds a pair of cardboard glasses that belonged to the child of the mom she just stole from. She sees an image of Ballora spinning in a pirouette, but it appears Ballora gets closer and closer over time as Kasey continues her life of crime. Kasey tries moving away and starting over, but Ballora follows her(much like her past). Ballora is like a manifestation of Kasey’s problems and guilt over her life of thievery. Kasey eventually decides to right some of her wrongs and returns the purse to the mother (and the glasses to the child) that she stole from, relieving her conscience of the guilt.

THE NEW KID - “A kid murdered another kid and tried to hide the evidence, convincing another kid to be his alibi so they don’t get arrested” So after being awfully jealous of the new kid(Kelsey), Devon decides to play a prank on him at a local abandoned Freddy’s they found. Devon basically convinced Kelsey to put on an old Golden Freddy springlock suit, in hopes of just leaving him there to scare him for a couple hours, but turns out the springlocks go off and Kelsey is implied dead. Devon supposedly didn’t intend for it to happen... but Devon also shows a lot of budding serial-killer traits earlier in the book (purposely killing a bird and having no emotional response to that, maybe even proud if i remember right :c), and seems more afraid of being caught then of MURDERING A GUY

[angstyaches]

I'm literally gonna scream this is sooo cool - also shayne would show up in his docs 100% but he'd rock the look so there is that lmao

would you write a drabble with that scenario maybe?? rin in that dress has to become reality aaaah

-em

This was after I made a post about an idea I had, for Charlie and Shayne to match their ties to Rin’s dress so she wouldn’t feel like she was alone.

It’s not exactly a drabble and there may end up being a part two; but here it is! In my country, we have a party called a debs instead of prom, but for StW, I’m just going to call it their grad ball.

___

Rin woke with a heavy ache in her gut that she couldn’t quite place straight away. There was none of the buzzing electricity in her veins like when she woke up nervous before an exam, so it couldn’t be that.

Through the heavy fog of sleep, she reached out to slap the snooze option on her phone as it buzzed, and shoved it further away on her bedside locker.

There was movement in the house; by now, the kitchen was probably smelling like coffee and toast, her mother would have opened all the curtains, and her father would be playing the news on the vintage-style radio they’d gotten him last Christmas.

The day would be in full swing by now.

Rin grunted and tugged the duvet up over her head, pulling her knees closer to her chest, the swell of fear rising up in her belly with every passing second.

Because this wasn’t a normal day.

It was the day of the grad ball.

Jeez, Rin thought to herself as she felt how hard her heart was beating, how much of a wreck am I going to be on my freaking wedding day? The thought made the dread so much worse that she had to quickly shake it out of her head. The comparison didn’t seem to make today any easier to face into, however.

The knock at her door made her jump, and the fright made any chance of an extra few minutes of sleep slip away.

“You up, love?” Claire called through the door. “We should be at Caitlin’s by ten.”

Rin groaned and lifted her head. “I thought the appointment was at eleven?”

“It is, but she’s going to be slammed today! If we’re late, we’re out.”

And god forbid I went to the ball without any bobby pins or glitter spray in my hair, Rin thought, heavily throwing back the duvet. It was already weighing enough on her mother that she was going to the ball without a date. She was the only one in her friend group who didn’t have a boyfriend, aside from Katie, and even Katie had roped one of the hurling team guys into being her date. Rin had opted to show up alone rather than force herself to link up with someone for the entire night; however, now that the day had come, she was starting to second-guess herself.

Just stop thinking about it, she told herself. You’re gonna psyche yourself out.

She felt her way around her room on muscle memory alone, not wanting to engage her brain in any more thought until she absolutely had to. She wrestled herself into a pair of black leggings and a striped jump with a wide neckline, and stopped by her mirror.

She was reaching for her eyeliner before she remembered she would be getting her makeup done professionally after she’d had her hair done, which made her want to curl up and die.

Leaving the eyeliner pen where it was, Rin forced a smile in the mirror and headed downstairs.

“Morning, Dad,” she mumbled as she went into the kitchen.

“Good morning! Nutella or jam today?” Drew asked, plating up two slices of toast that had just popped up.

Rin’s throat and stomach clenched in unison at the thought of how either of the options would taste. Still, she’d need some kind of energy boost to get her through the afternoon.

“I’m not hungry, Dad,” she said, hopefully quickly enough that he wouldn’t have time to notice anything was wrong. “Can I take some coffee though?”

“’Course. Milk’s still in the fridge.”

Rin nodded and turned to fetch it.

“I’ll put it in a travel cup for you,” Drew added with a grin as he reached for the pot. “Your mam’s like a headless chicken this morning, so I don’t know if you’ll have time to drink it before she’s bundling you into the car.”

By the time Rin had carried the milk carton to the countertop, there was a jingling of keys in the hallway, and Claire’s voice calling out;

“Are you right, love?”

Drew’s grin deepened as he handed over the Thermos cup to Rin. “What’d I say?”

“Coming, Mam,” Rin called back, making a face at her dad and mouthing Kill me. The heavy sensation in the pit of her stomach came back with a vengeance as she grabbed her jacket from the front hall. It was going to be a long damn day.

_

Rin couldn’t decide which was more overpowering; the lingering fog of hairspray that just didn’t seem to leave the circumference of her skull, or the smell of her mother’s perfume. If her mood had been just the slightest bit worse, she might have snapped and demanded to know who on earth put on perfume for a photograph; the lipstick and eyeliner that Claire had slapped on could be understood, but perfume?

“Smile, Rin,” Drew chuckled from behind the chunky camera. “Let’s see those teeth. Or were those four years of orthodontist visits just for fun?”

Rin sighed and melted into a smile, tilting her head a little closer to Claire’s as the camera clicked a flashed. She loved her parents, she really did; she just sometimes wished they weren’t so damn conventional.

“We done?” she asked.

“Done,” Drew said.

Rin grunted and let her posture fall a little slack. The damn shoes were already killing her, and if she hadn’t been wearing mostly black, she’d have been worried about pit stains. She could practically feel the foundation melting off of her face as her mother leaned in for one last hug before she had to run.

“Have fun, love,” Claire instructed, scooping her work bag up from the hallway floor. “I can’t wait to hear all about it tomorrow.”

Rin nodded. “Have a good night at work.”

Claire blew a kiss as she was going out the door. Rin glanced through to the kitchen, to where Drew was already engrossed in reviewing the pictures he’d taken on the camera’s little screen. The clock on the wall behind him told her that she had about fifteen minutes before she had to leave.

Her knees suddenly felt weak, and her stomach – not that it hadn’t been bothering her all day – lurched dangerously close to her throat. All she’d had that day was a toasted cheese sandwich and the latte, when Claire had dragged her to a little café once her hair and make-up appointments were finished with. She could suddenly taste the slightly charred crusts of the bread, and the rich, frothy coffee burned deep in her chest.

She stole one last glance to see that her father was still preoccupied before letting herself bring a hand to her mouth. Breathe, she told herself, drawing air in through her nose even though it was still somehow thick with hairspray. The breath seemed to catch in her throat, and the pain in her stomach seemed to drop lower and rise higher all at once.

Rin’s knees had all but buckled by the time she’d kicked off the lacey heeled shoes. The layers of black and pink tulle in her dress rustled as she turned and hurried up the stairs, feet thumping lightly in their delicate, sheer black tights.

The first retch caught her by surprise, before she’d made it to the toilet. She clapped her other hand to her mouth, hoping to create a vacuum and prevent anything from dripping down onto her dress. The sick was hot, and with nowhere else to go, she felt it smear against her lips and the end of her nose.

The sensation and the smell were enough to draw out another deep heave, accompanied by a belch this time. Luckily, she’d just about made it to the toilet, so she let herself double over and yanked her hands away with a quick prayer that her dress was out of the splash zone.

Rin coughed and let another wave of puke stream into the toilet, and then she clenched her teeth. She reached for the toilet paper and got her hands as clean as she could before taking off her glasses and gathering up the tulle skirts. She held the fabric in as tight a knot as she could. Her belly ached and gurgled as it waited for her to get into position again. As it shot another reminder of her lunch into her mouth, Rin couldn’t help but feel relieved that she’d decided on having her hair put into an updo; things would have been ten times worse if she’d also been attempting to keep hair out of her face too.

“Shit,” she whimpered to herself as she managed to straighten up. She was a little dizzy, but most of the pain in her belly seemed to ease off. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands and inspected herself for mess. All that was out of place was some ruined foundation around her mouth, and a little leakage in her eyeliner. Luckily the lash glue had stayed in place when her eyes had started watering.

She brushed her teeth, raced to her bedroom, and touched her makeup up as best she could with her own eyeliner and a powder foundation she hadn’t used in months. Her eyes were still a little bloodshot, but at least she had a little longer to recover before she got to the venue and had to smile for more photographs.

_

“Docs.”

When Shayne had seen Charlie emerge from the passenger side of Ingrid’s car, he’d looked down, starting to kick softly at the kerb. There was a feeling in his stomach he couldn’t put words to, and he had to focus carefully on his breathing. That was when he’d heard Charlie’s voice, and his head had snapped up.

Charlie’s hair was freshly cut and gelled perfectly in place, and his suit jacket and pants almost matched the deep navy of the night sky. He’d stopped a few metres away, lingering on the path, looking a bit like he’d just seen a plague of locusts heading their way.

“You wore your Docs?”

Shayne glanced down at his feet. It hadn’t occurred to him to get new shoes to go with the simple black suit that Nancy had bought for him. He now realised he should have at least taken out the rainbow laces in the right boot and put the original black ones in for the night, but it was too late for that now.

He felt heat gather in his cheeks as he cleared his throat. “You look nice enough for both of us, Charlie.”

“I never said you didn’t -” Charlie blinked as he fought back a smile, the slightest hint of a blush crossing his cheeks too. “Thanks. I - I’m glad you remembered the tie.”

“’Course I remembered the tie,” Shayne mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and feeling like a teenager getting scolded. “You only mentioned it about sixty times and threatened to cut my head off.”

“I would never.” Charlie put a hand on the back of Shayne’s head, pulling it closer to he could kiss his forehead. “I like this head too much.”

Shayne’s stomach did a little flip. He leaned into the kiss, resting his forehead on Charlie’s shoulder as soon as he was allowed. “I’m so nervous.”

“That’s okay,” Charlie sighed. “You should have felt how fast my heart was pounding when I first saw you.”

_

Drew looked up from sweeping the kitchen floor, laying the brush against the countertop, as Rin walked towards the kitchen, carrying her shoes with her fingers looped through the backs of them. She stood in the doorway to the front hall, one hand on the doorframe, the other smoothing down the side of her dress.

He frowned as he noticed her expression. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he pulled out a kitchen chair, desperately trying to deduce if she was paler than usual under all that makeup.

“Dad, I...” Rin gave a slight shake of her head, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. “I don’t feel right.”

“Here, come and sit down. Do you want some water?”

Rin nodded as she scooped as much fabric into her lap as she could, and sat down sideways at the table. She rubbed at the side of her head, hoping at the last second that she wasn’t pulling her hair loose from its pins and spray.

Her stomach had mostly calmed, at least, but the sense of impending doom hadn’t been lifted. She’d made the mistake of checking her phone before coming back downstairs, and had been met with pictures of Katie and Ashley taking selfies with their dates, looking like movie stars getting ready for the red carpet. And here she was, feeling queasy and pathetic and lonely.

“There you go, love,” Drew said evenly as he laid a glass of water close to her elbow. He pulled out a chair for himself so he could sit at an angle to her front, folding his hands awkwardly across his knees. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Not unless you can cancel out the last year of my life, or better yet the last eight years, so that I was never friends with Katie, or the rest of them, and maybe make it so that I was home-schooled instead, so I don’t have to go to this stupid tradition on my own and be embarrassed and awkward and –

Rin folded her arms around her waist and held back a sob. “No, Dad, it’s – it’s okay, I just…”

“Just what, love?”

Rin covered her mouth and shook her head. The words on her tongue were too strong, and she could already feel them echo down through the years of the rest of her life. “I don’t – I don’t want to go.”

Drew shifted his weight. “Well, why don’t we take a few minutes, and really think about this, and if that’s still what you want –”

“I don’t want a few minutes,” Rin said quickly, knowing she’d change her mind if she was given the chance to think too much. “I really don’t want to go, Dad. Tonight’s supposed to be about celebrating with your friends, and I don’t have... I don’t have those. If I go, I’m just going to have to hear them all laughing, and having a great time, and –”

Rin’s spiralling train of thought was cut short by a knock on the front door, which was in clear view of where she was sat. She frowned as she saw movement either side of the fogged glass surrounding the door, and she glanced at her dad, wondering why he hadn’t gotten up to see who was there.

Instead of that, he had taken on a shy smile.

“You might want to answer that, love.”

Rin blinked harshly, reaching up under the rims of her glasses in case she’d let any tears slip out while she’d been panicking. Her ankles wobbled slightly as she made her way to the door, hands trembling as she opened it.

The first thing she saw was the corsage being held out to her. A pale lily on a band on pearl-esque beads. Rin looked up in shock at Charlie’s face, which gave off an uncharacteristically shy grin.

“Evening, my lady,” he said.

“Ch-Charlie Bear?” Rin’s jaw fell open as he took her hand. No, it wasn’t him taking her hand, it was Shayne. She looked at him too, thinking surely, she must have hit her head or dehydrated or something.

As Shayne lifted her arm, Charlie slipped the corsage onto her wrist. As soon as it was in place, Rin pressed both hands to her face, quickly removing her glasses so she could dab at the fresh wave of tears.

“Thank – thank you, it’s – it’s lovely, it –”

“Hey – oh no, Rin,” Charlie cooed, gently easing her hands down from her face. “You’re going to smudge your makeup –”

“What’re – what’re you two even doing here?” Rin half-laughed, half-sobbed, finally feeling as though she could use her vocal cords.

She slipped her glasses back on, the strangled sounds quickly dissolving into giggles as she took in the sight of them both – Shayne in black and Charlie in deep blue – standing on her doorstep. She managed to focus on the one thing they had matching, which were the widely-cut, silky ties in a shade of pale-yet-vibrant pink.

“Why are – oh my god, do both your ties match my dress?”

Charlie’s grin only deepened as Rin reached out to playfully slap him on the arm. When she looked at Shayne, she couldn’t bring herself to even pretend to hit him, so instead she threw her arms around his neck. He tensed a little, and she felt him draw a sharp breath, so she didn’t hold onto him for too long.

“Oh my god, you two,” she gasped as she stepped back, fanning her eyes and hoping somehow that would dry up the tears that kept seeming to spring up. “You’re two absolute babes, you know that?”

“Two Prince Charmings, huh?” Drew laughed, rocking up behind Rin and planting a hand on her shoulder. “Both here to take Rinderella to the ball.”

Shayne made a sound that might have been a nervous laugh if he’d let it develop, but he quickly covered his mouth to stop it as Charlie and Rin both threw him curious looks.

“Oh my god, the ties,” Rin whimpered as she looked at the pink ties yet again. She jabbed Charlie in the arm. “No wonder you were showing so much interest in what my dress looked like.”

“How are you feeling, love?” Drew asked sincerely. He showed her that he’d taken her clutch bag from the hallway, so she wouldn’t have to go look for anything before she had to leave. Rin took it gratefully and turned back to kiss her dad on the cheek.

Rin looked at the two boys and sniffled. “I’m good, I – I’m good to go.”

[dutybcund]

@astrificare​ said: [ SECRET ] kate

one of the perks of being a viscount, he had long ago decided, was that one could avoid any social event if one chose to. even those held by one’s own wife. perhaps especially those. there was only so much patience anthony could muster for a ball or a house party these days. of course, if kate wished him to attend, he would do so -- with only mild complaining. but they both knew he would relent if she asked, which is why she rarely ever did. they were more than happy to find each other at the end of the day, as their guests began to retire, relishing their privacy far from prying eyes. 

but, of course, that was not always enough. the years of marriage, the children, the familiar routines of daily life -- none of it had lessened how much he wanted her. and this afternoon, on his way into the house as he returned from a meeting with his steward, he felt the need especially strongly. He had been tracing his usual steps to his study, when the familiar sound of her laugh floated from the drawing room. he stopped, enjoying the pleasant pull he always felt in the pit of his stomach when he heard the sound. anthony smiled to himself as he quickly came to a decision. 

hurrying into his office, he ordered a passing servant to fetch lady bridgerton.    “  tell her it is a matter of some urgency.  ”    he leaned back against the edge of his desk to wait. it was not long before he heard her unmistakable footsteps in the hall and a smug smile stole across his lips. when she entered, she hurried to him, a look of question and concern in her eyes. but by the time she noted his sly expression, she was too close. and it was too late. he reached out, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her flush against him.    “  you see? very urgent business indeed,  ”    he said casually before pressing his lips to hers in a deep kiss. he might have known every nuance of her touch, her taste -- but it still made his head spin. his arms tightened around her, preventing her escape before he at last came up for air. 

“  surely your guests can spare you for an hour?  ”    there was a hungry gleam in his eye as he bent his head to trail a few feather-light kisses along her neck.    “  i have no wish to scandalize them by announcing i intend to ravish you, but... if needs must...  ”

[long-cosmos-overhead]

I would like to request a Dwalin x Ori x Reader. The reader has had a dream of meeting her soulmate. All she sees is a hand grabbing for her own, stopping her from falling into the darkness. Sometimes her left hand and sometimes her right hand. Never both, it never occurred to her that it was two different people.

You were slipping. The abyss of darkness below waiting to swallow you whole and toss you aside like you were one single pebble in a huge colony residing at the bottom of a river. Your fingers clawed and the Earth beneath you dirt piling up underneath your fingernails. You were falling now. Limbs flailing in the air trying desperately to grasp a hold of anything to stop your fall. Dirt fell beside you almost in slow motion, falling deeper into darknesses eternal slumber until they were no longer Just witnessing a twisted example of your fait made your stomach twist in fear you couldn’t wish to any other.

You were so close to the darkness you could almost feel it’s cold hand wrapping its fingers around you. It was toying with you leaving its grip loose enough for your nerves to eat you alive. Air flew past you caressing your falling body rippling through your clothes and dancing up your skin. Tears spilled from your eyes leaving tracks so cold and rich in raw emotion. Your heart pounded against your chest for what would’ve been the last time before your inevitable death. You were practically touching the dark, your feet moments from being snatched by its gruelling hand dragging the rest of you with it. You closed your eyes unwilling to bear witness of the fall that would break you.

Fingers grasped around your right hand stopping you from falling. The grip so tight and unwilling to let go it turned your fingertips red. The darkness beneath you subsided growing smaller and smaller until it had completely vanished in defeat. It’s cold grip that hovered around you ceased to be present. You wanted to scream out in relief. The fall constricted your bodies every ability so greatly talking was an impossibility.

The fingers suffocating your hand were rough and weathered yet held an amount of comfort it made you feel a way you had never felt before. Somewhat safe and assured but also something deeper something that made your heart pound, not of fear but a mix of warmth and affection. A spark ran through your body encasing you in bliss despite almost falling into the pit of darkness. You shifted your head to peer up a little still shaken you decided not to make big movements.

The hand was clearly that of a man. Short finger nails rimmed with dirt and grime, somewhat muscly; the hands of heavy labour, veins rising against the lightly tanned skin and littered in tattoos of various shapes and markings ones you could not make out yet made sense. Normally body markings didn’t affect your perception on appearance but the ones engraved on the hand that held you were strangely captivating you felt your eyes resting on them unable to shift your gaze. You found them right as if if they weren’t there it wouldn’t look right.

The day following was confusing. Waking up was even more so. You had been so immersed in your thoughts even Thorin threw you a few glances. You barely uttered a word.

“Lass you seem distracted.” Dwalin sat beside you shifting the log you too resided on. The sun’s last rays dipping below the horizon leaving the trees shadows creeping further up the ground. A moment ago one lay atop your foot but had since seemed to crawl back a little. You thought nothing of it, your thoughts quickly wrapping you in a steel grip.

“Just been thinking about some things.”

Dwalin hummed in understanding. He always seemed to be the one to understand you providing quiet support. When you first joined the company you were rather lonely often hanging back with the brothers Fili and Kili. To say you were intimidated by the axe wielding dwarf was an understatement the first time you saw him you could’ve sworn he disapproved of your existence. However, in a short amount of time you became one of the few people he trusted and he became one of your closest friends.

“If you need anything don’t hesitate to ask lass, I’ll fetch you some food you could do with some.” He patted your shoulder and you felt a familiar spark course through your body. You jolted in shock causing Dwalin to quickly remove his hand.

“You sure you’re alright lass?” You looked up to meeting his eyes. The confusion and worry that glassed over his blue ones made you feel a sense of uneasiness. Seeing such emotions were rare coming from him. You swallowed thickly nodding your head unable to form words. His eyes narrowed as if he had caught you out on a lie but whatever he was thinking he dropped for your sake.

“Come let’s get you to bed, I’ll sleep nearby if you need anything.” He offered you his hand to help you rise from the log. Admittedly it wasn’t terribly comfy the bark had scratched into the back of your legs leaving the skin undoubtedly irritated and red. You raised your hand to grasp his but stopped midway. The dying embers of the suns rays fell gracefully upon his hand illuminating his short nails layered in dirt, the way his veins rose slightly above his skin, the toned edges of his muscles reaching up his arm and out of sight underneath his sleeves and finally his tattoos each section of inked skin matching up exacting to the ones you had dreamt about.

Everything was happening so suddenly the links your brain drew fuelled the panic rising in your chest. The shadows growing on you causing your heart to beat wildly against your chest. The deja vu was overwhelmingly identical. Your breathing became shallow and almost rapid. Looking again into the blue eyes of the dwarf you only managed one word.

“Dwalin.”

You were easily hoisted up into his arms. To Dwalin you felt awfully light. He’d never seen you so lost and consumed in your own thoughts that you lost touch with the world around you. He had witnessed people seriously overwhelmed before he took pity on them and continued about his activities however upon seeing you, a brave and powerful women become reduced to your most vulnerable in his arms shook him to his core.

You felt the wind whisper in your ear as Dwalin ran to the area Thorin had set up for the night. Dead leaves and twigs crunched under his heavy boots alerting everyone of your presence. The company drew silent. Thorin had sat upright against the rock he laid on seemingly more awake, Fili and Kili stopped sharpening their weapons offering you a worried, sympathetic look, Bilbo had looked up from tending to the horses his brow creasing in confusion. Bombur had jumped up in fright. Your face was buried in Dwalin’s chest still panicked, the reaction from the company didn’t even hold place in your mind.

“Y/n what happened?” A gentle voice rang from beside you. Ori had been your best friend and fiercest protector alongside Dwalin. He always managed to soothe your every thought that bled you dry with anxiety or anger. Despite being the youngest of the group he still remained grounded and ever so polite no matter the situation. Just his voice simply asking you a question felt as blissful as a warm summers day. The company reeled their heads in a little awaiting the answer to your current state unwilling to pry open your personal thoughts they held their tongue.

“The lass is worn out, Ori, take her to bed and set up our rolls near should she wake and need anything I’ll fetch some food she could do with a little to eat.”

Ori took you from Dwalin’s warm embrace entering you into his. Reality slowly began enticing you back into its clutches. Cold gusts of wind clashed with your shaking figure, subconsciously you curled up into a ball. You were tired. So tired, it were as if you had been conscious for weeks on end. Your stomach ached for food but your body yearned for sleep so desperately. Your eyelids gradually got heavier and heavier until the forest around you transfered from beautiful scenery to a blur of greens and greys. Your body succumbed to the allure of slumber in Ori’s warm arms.

It was the same dream that haunted you. You were falling, quicker than last time. It was as if you grew tired of watching the same scene, the same emotions that you decided to race forward in time. The dirt around you only paused to entertain your vision for a few seconds. You anticipated the cold, malicious hand slowly suffocating you taking your every will, ambition and achievement in its wake and in quick time it came. It was almost more agonising the second time. You fell deeper and deeper into the dark. The shadow crawling up your skin until it had reached your midsection. You drew one final breath.

You should’ve known a hand would catch you right before the hand of darkness grasped you fully. Your left hand ached in pain upon supporting your whole body weight. Your feet swayed upon your sudden departure from falling. The dark pit of fear below shrunk in defeat until it ceased to exist once again. You had to know the person that saved you a second time.

The hand clinging to yours was frail yet firm. Rather small yet masculine. His fingernails were well kept, clean and short. His fingers so thin it made his knuckles protrude outwards allowing them to easily account for the magority of his hands distinguishable features. The hand holding you up was soothingly soft and you couldn’t help but feel familiar with the touch. Despite hanging meters from your death you were pulled into such a rich sense of security courtesy of the contact you were blessed with. You dared to look up just a little more. A blinding white light stole the face of your saviour whisking you back into consciousness.

Your body automatically jolted upwards and you gasped for air as if you had been starved of it all your life. Light beads of sweat populated your forehead while cold chills shuddered down your body. A rough hand clasped upon your shoulder pulling you into their lap.

“Lass what’s been going on with you?” Dwalin spoke his voice softer and quieter than usual.

You couldn’t hold back the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes any longer. You clung to Dwalin seeking any sort of comfort you could. His other hand found its way to your back rubbing circles in your skin and easing the painful tension that knotted your shoulders together. Faintly you heard him shushing you, trying to calm your shaking, tired body.

“Y/n?”

Ori questioned beside you. He rubbed his eyes clearly having woken up from the commotion. His hand placed over yours. The feeling was too familiar resurfacing every detail of the horror your mind had conjured just moments ago. You stared blankly at him for a moment almost scared to look down having already anticipated what you would see.

His hand matched each fraction of the one that caught you. Not one tiny marking was out of place.

“Ori I..I..”

It took a while to calm you down; the sun had since risen over the horizon it previously fell below. Finally you fell back asleep again. Ori and Dwalin had decided to leave you to rest a while longer after the company had awoken. Mid morning slowly passed by the suns golden rays hitting your body as you lay asleep now in Ori’s lap. Never once did his grip falter on you. Dwalin made sure of that too, informing Thorin of your hectic nightmare.

For once there was no cold hand constricting you. You only felt warmth and safety laying in the arms of your two dearest dwarves. Some day you’d figure out everything but for now you were happy.

@swoopswishsward I am so so sorry for being so late for this one. Please forgive me I hope I did a good enough job

[arakhiin]

Skyrim Romance Review

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, took the world by storm in 2011 with its free-roam method, legendary music, and dynamic environment; the game did pretty well despite being released in the same year as Batman: Arkham City, Portal 2, Dark Souls, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution; titles that are critically acclaimed and far superior in graphics, animation, and gameplay compared to the most recent Elder Scroll installment. Less than a couple of months after its release, Bethesda introduced the Creation Kit which allowed players to modify the game to their liking.

The Skyrim community has never been more alive with the accumulation of talented writers, programmers, modders, and designers; banding together to create free AND high quality content that enhances the user experience on the game. SKSE, RaceMenu, SkyUI, patches, and FNIS are essential mods to download as most aesthetic and immersion-enhancing mods support them, some would even require SexLab that can be downloaded from a separate site (Loverslab.com). One of the most downloaded mod of Skyrim is ‘Alternate Start – Live Another Life’ where the long introduction of Skyrim is replaced by the Racemenu, and the player beginning at a locked cell where they have to approach a medium-sized Mara statue to choose their origin story. ENBs may not be the most downloaded mod, but, everyone who has downloaded one can agree that it can improve people’s Skyrim experience, why not many people download ENBs is due to the complexity of having to download a third-party application, and altering the SkyrimPrefs folder, unlike the RealVision ENB where you simply have to download via NMM or Mod Organizer and voila. There are many impressive and large quest mods such as Bruma and Enderal that completely changes Skyrim, and there are the fair-sized quest mods such as Helgen Reborn and it is equally as amazing. The Skyrim modding community is also famous for unique custom-voiced followers, some hot and some that looks badass, most of these follower mods have personal quests that allows the player to better understand the characters like Inigo and Vilja. In 2014, a small team of ambitious Skyrim modders decides to create Skyrim’s largest follower mod focusing on character development and romance.

Despite having a marriage system in Skyrim, the game failed to deliver character and relationship developments between the player and NPC, a point in which the Skyrim Romance team focused on producing for this mod. Skyrim Romance has been founded by Mara (not the Skyrim Goddess Mara though), the newest (and  their biggest) update on the mod was on May 2017 called Skyrim Romance 3.0 where they fully released an upgraded Bishop: new voice actor, outfit; added three major NPCs, post-marriage content, post-Alduin content, animations, and much more! The mod’s target audience is Skyrim’s female community and therefore all 100 newly added NPCs of the mod refers to the Dragonborn as “she” and would cat-call or address your player as a feminine i.e. princess. The mod completes every female fantasy such as: going to a magnificent ball with a handsome knight/(in this case) Paladin who pays for the expensive ballgown of your choice, a handsome and flirty bard that dedicates a song to you during his concert, and a ragged ranger who accompanies you which is the biggest mistake of his life due to the never-ending jealousy, and torment of not being able to bed your sexy ass-that is until after you’ve visited at least three main town and she finally agrees. The mod requires (like many major mods) SKSE, SkyUI, FNIS, Racemenu, SexLab, plus Realistic Ragdolls with Force, XP32 (mainly for physics and skeleton), Shape Atlas for Men/Schlongs of Skyrim, and UNP/CBBE (the last two are mainly for better experience of SexLab).  There are sex options in the mod, however the player can simply turn Bishop down if they do not want to participate. There are always three choices for the player when responding to the characters of Skyrim Romance, this is to allow the player freedom to create the personality of their character and see how Bishop reacts to a sarcastic, nice or flirty Dragonborn.

To begin the mod, the player must meet Bishop outside the Sleeping Giant Inn at Riverwood and accept his request to help him find his companion, Karnwyr, a beautiful brown wolf with custom textures. The player can flirt, ask questions, speak, trade items, and disband with Bishop, however, the player cannot ask him to do something because it is against his nature. To progress the mod, the player must speak to Bishop recurrently and trigger events found in different cities of Skyrim. The player can show interest but not pursue romance of any npc from the mod except for Bishop. Over the course of your journey, Bishop realizes his growing feelings and tries to deny it though eventually he lets his lust for the player trickle out: complimenting her, kissing her, sleeping with her; eventually he admits that he “love[s] you”, and he wants something more than casual sex. On the 3.0 update, Bishop marries the Dragonborn and has a child with her, Bishop is still recruitable but the son, Julian (named after someone dear to him) is not. To prevent incompatibilities and problems in the marriage system, the mod does not replace the player’s current spouse (if they had one) or force the player to kill or divorce their spouse, instead it has a new NPC to wed the two characters in a private wedding ceremony at a chosen custom location completed with a bittersweet atmosphere, and sweet music. Upon having a child, the player can watch Bishop bond with the son through short cutscenes, the player can interact with the kid such as speaking to him, asking him questions, or getting him to go to bed. Outside the mod, Bishop reacts when the player leaves to defeat Alduin, you can find him back at the Sleeping Giant Inn after the quest where he will drunkenly patronize you. The following paragraph will contain spoilers on the mod.

Bishop is a rugged ranger who travels only with his trusty wolf. Not much is known about him except that he is sharp-mouthed, handsome, charismatic, and over-powered with the bow and dagger. Trust comes hard to the ranger considering that he grew up surviving for himself and his siblings with no support from his parents. He stole a dagger-the one he currently uses- when he was a kid, joined banditry, made trouble for a renowned Paladin, and crossed paths with a sadistic band led by Thorne -who you later stumble upon in a dungeon near Falkreath-. Upon marriage, he reveals that his parents cared little for his siblings and him, his father going as far as sleeping with one of his brother’s (Jack) fiancé then murdering the him after he tried to duel the father. Bishop trained so once he was 17 he avenged Jack along with the help of his half-brother, Jules; freeing himself and his nine siblings-who were none too pleased- Jules was the only one that truly followed Bishop away from the nightmare and stayed with him. The two brothers lived a life in poverty, they developed their charisma-which you’ll be able to observe when he barters for a room at whiterun- through days and days of bartering for food and money, used their skills in battle to become mercenaries and eventually banditry. One fateful day, Jules betrayed Bishop and their bandit group for the sake of his own family, unfortunately, it was too late that by the time Bishop realized his brother’s intention…he was gone, killed by the bandits, killed by him. The only memento of Jules that Bishop had was the wolf ring that he made; and when Bishop parted with it to the player, it’s a symbol of a new beginning for him.

There’s more to Bishop than meets the eye, he’s your typical Coodere guy; at first he is cold and distant, later he tries to act cool and rebellious, just to impress you. He does not understand the purpose of helping other people and ticks him off whenever you attempt to do pointless quests such as killing random npcs, or fetching heirlooms, this leads to him trying to seduce you into leaving Skyrim with him just to avoid the War and your fate as Dragonborn. Bishop is not just another Batman, he has his flaws such as being a terrible drunk, openly-jealous, always picks a fight, and has “Florence” for his middle name. To you he can be your knight in shining armour, your guy next door, your best friend, your guardian, he can be the light when you are at your darkest pit of loneliness and depression, he can be who you need him to be. But think what he can be to your child, a loving father who is willing to provide everything for his kid even if he has nothing, he spends his free days at home nurturing your child, he would make sure that he grows up to be modest, strong, smart, generous, and better than himself. That is who Bishop is, because he would never wish upon anyone to experience what he had when he was a kid, a childhood devoid of happiness, and surrounded only by the harsh realities that life would ever offer.

For the last three years, the Skyrim Romance community have grown to thousands of active followers on their website (SkyrimRomance.com) creating amazing stories, beautiful screenshots, and artworks. With Skyrim Romance finally fully released, the following updates related to the mod are simply bug fixes, the team announces a long-time planned mod that centres one of the major NPCs in the Skyrim Romance mod, Cael, a young forsworn man and the chief’s son. The mod, called Forbidden Love, is currently in the works with the team looking for extra helping hands in writing, voice acting, art, animation, video editing, and textures. The SR team aims for the Forbidden Love mod to be “five times larger” than Skyrim Romance, with new enemies, music, locations, armour, and races being announced in the span of 2 weeks. If you prefer the knight, another team has taken upon themselves to join the Skyrim Romance community to work on a Casavir Romance mod which is currently on 50% completion, they are also looking for volunteers for graphics art and voice actors. With Skyrim Romance’s success, the team pushes on with greater motivation and innovation to expand the world of Bishop and Skyrim Romance, there is no doubt that the future of Skyrim Romance will strive.

Skyrim Romance mod website|Join the fantastic community!

[madgodintherain]

5. Yrgenzol

Series: Five Ways the Cardhouse Never Touched Avinlor - Masterpost Characters:

Cobweb - Maitos (one of mine - Avinlor’s apprentice)

Mustard Seed - Tsefida (also one of mine, although not a part of Avinlor’s story)

Moth - Alice (as herself - the/a central character of Cardhouse and the Cage)

Peaseblossom Flower - Anemone (the bitchiest star)

Yrgenzol - Avinlor (a denizen)

Logus, Jezebel, the Cardmaster (referenced); Oskyod (referenced); two unnamed stars

Notes: see this post for a lot more than you probably want to know about gender and the perception thereof in this fic

-- --

Maitos, known as the Cobweb to the rest of his coterie, turned left as the corridor took yet another corner, and promptly spun up the wall and settled into the fork of one of the lower branches of a leafless tree. He was not altogether certain where the roof had gone, but he was willing to hypothesize that it was at least partly responsible for the floor's decision to forego being a useful structure and relocate to the bottom of a pit—assuming the pits here had bottoms. The rattling of a few last pebbles gave way to a series of small splashes, so the Cobweb supposed there was some kind of liquid not too far down the pit. Yrgenzol had said the labyrinth was old, but when asked to elaborate, he had not said 'ruinously-crumbling old', but merely 'old as balls'. The Cobweb supposed he should have made the logical assumption.

Yrgenzol had also indicated that their task required some degree of haste (though all the more care for that), but had the Cobweb's team all entered the labyrinth at the same point? No, they had not. Now he had to waste precious time finding the rest of his cohort and, apparently, dodging disagreeable pieces of maze. The tree seemed sturdy enough—more dormant than dead—so the Cobweb climbed higher for a better view.

From his new vantage, the Cobweb could see that the stone corridors were mostly subterranean, only appearing here and there, where either the dirt of ages had not yet buried them, or where the ground had partially eroded from them. In one direction lay something like a hedge maze—if the hedges were predominately briars and weeds—and some curious earthworks that overlapped partially with the stone tunnels. Off in another direction stood a grove of trees, gnarled and twisted, but decidedly unspooky. The Cobweb distrusted his instinctive trust of it. Climbing down, the Cobweb set off toward the bramble maze: something in that direction caused his fingertips to tingle in a familiar way that always made him want to sneeze.

He was just skirting the earthworks when the ground gave way beneath him again. He dangled, swinging, from the jutting edge, and then scurried across the ceiling to nest comfortably in a corner of roof and wall. Beneath him, a dense fog drifted about on the floor of the tunnel. Maitos had heard of bad air that sank to the bottom of hollows, but such things were supposed to be invisible. This fog was a sickening orange-black and would probably do something much nastier than merely suffocate him if he got caught in it. As he watched, it stopped billowing to and fro, and began streaming into the shadows down one arm of the corridor. At the same time, something poked the Cobweb in the side, and he looked back to the hole in the tunnel's roof to see the Mustard Seed peering over the rim of the hole, holding a stick in one hand and waving at him with the other.

'You look like you could use a hand up,' the Mustard Seed said, and poked at him again. The Cobweb took the hint and clung onto the stick. With a tug and flick, he was standing once more on solid ground and beside one of his fellow Stars.

'Thanks,' he said, and, 'do you know where the rest of our team are?'

The Mustard Seed shrugged. 'Knowing's not my concern: they'll come to me. You did, after all.'

'I wish them better luck than me. That's the second collapse I've triggered.' He nodded toward the hole, where the vile haze had entirely vanished. 'I wouldn't have thought I was that heavy-footed.'

The Mustard Seed frowned down into the open tunnel. 'I suppose I could have left you after all. Where'd it all go?' A girl stepped into view below them: a girl with feathered antennae, powdery wings, and a grin full of sharp teeth—several of which still had shreds of orange-black mist caught in them. 'Oh, of course.'

'Jezebel's,' the Cobweb muttered.

'Easy enough to see why Yrgenzol took you, Cobweb,' the Moth said. 'They say she was Fall once.'

'Fly up here, Moth, and take that back!'

'I am rubber, you are glue: whatever bounces off of me sticks to you!' the Moth sang back at him. 'You're not catching me today, Cobweb!'

'Stop dawdling, Moth,' came a new voice, and a Flower emerged from the corridor. She looked up at the Cobweb and the Mustard Seed and said, 'Boys,' with such venomous disdain that everyone present could hear the ugh, even though the Flower did not demean herself by uttering it.

Maitos was pretty sure the remark strictly applied only to him, since his teammate seemed to be a girl today as far as he could tell. The Mustard Seed simply flicked a finger at the two stars beneath them and the Moth and the Flower were engulfed in another cloud—dull yellow this time. In a moment, though, that too had disappeared, and the Moth was licking her lips. 'Delicious,' she smirked.

'Vermin,' the Mustard Seed grumbled.

The Flower sniffed. 'Yrgenzol clearly takes any riffraff she happens upon. I wonder what the Cardmaster will say when he hears her team is stealing our assignment?'

'Who's going to tell him, Flower? You?' The Mustard Seed laughed. 'You know better than that. You'll tell Jezebel, we'll tell Yrgenzol, and whoever's team doesn't complete the task will slink around the corners of the Cardhouse, scrounging for scraps of glory until they actually do something right. Come on, Cobweb. Jezebel's flutterbunch can keep their nasty tunnels. Give them a sense of purpose, maybe.' The Mustard Seed led the way toward the meeting of the bramble maze and the earthworks.

'Yrgenzol wouldn't actually steal an assignment though, would he?' the Cobweb asked his companion. 'Not generally, at least, and not from Jezebel since they're . . . well, since they have a loose rapport, I suppose.'

'Not generally, no, but I think she might—yes, alright, he might—if it were important to him. Personally, that is; not necessarily within the Cardhouse. Unless you're suggesting Jezebel stole from Yrgenzol?'

'Actually, I was thinking we'd been double-assigned. Possibly even more so, if a lot of teams really have failed at this before.'

'Hmmmm. I don't like the sound of that. Well, we knew we couldn't go directly (or we should have known), but we'd better pay extra attention to being devious now. We'll come up with something.'

Something turned out to be a sort of tunnel-bridge between the earthworks and the hedge maze that took them over an eerily clear, blue pond and into the grove of gnarled trees. At this point, the team had a very important debate over whether to call the territory the Non-, Un-, or Post- Haunted Forest. The Cobweb's suggestion—Familiarless Familiar Forest—had been eliminated early on. The trees had neither leaves nor needles on them, nor any at their feet, and the ground was bare packed dirt with not a sign of leaf mould or indeed that anything ever had decayed there. For all its unnaturalness, however, it kept reminding the Cobweb of something, though he was sure he had never seen a stand of trees anything like it. Once only did the Cobweb find any kind of foliage as he explored beneath the bare branches: a single leaf of a shape he had never seen—lobed and toothed—rich green in hue, with veins just faintly shading towards teal or turquoise. He watched it for a long moment, and when it seemed to be no more than just a leaf, he picked it up, and placed it gently in a safe pocket. Intellectually, he still did not trust the forest, or anything in it, but he was done with fighting the intuition that assured him there was nothing to fear.

Once the Post-Haunted Forest was appropriately named, the Cobweb and his fellow stars set about coercing its past into existence. This turned out to be a shrine, which made the Mustard Seed pout. 'Shrines in strange forests are just so cliché,' she complained. On further inspection, however, the shrine turned out to be a tomb, and the Mustard Seed brightened up again.

'What? Tombs aren't cliché?' the Cobweb asked.

'They are a logical extension, of course,' she retorted. 'Even so, elaborately crafted burial sites do not actually figure into literature and folklore to remotely the same degree.'

'"Fetch a rock,"' one of their companions grumbled. 'The entire thing is made of rock. There's a dozen fancy rocks inside of it. How do we even begin to test which one's right, if even the Cardmaster hasn't decided how he's going to use it?'

'If you recall, Yrgenzol said we were to fetch a stone,' the Mustard Seed corrected.

'Stone, rock, what difference does it make what he said?'

'Honestly, am I the only person who knows the difference between a stone and a rock? Stone designates a function or a purpose; rock is simply a state of being!'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted the Cobweb, who had learned the distinction from Yrgenzol some time ago, though he suspected that the Mustard Seed had been given the type of education that just taught people those obscure sorts of things. 'But even if we did somehow name-test everything, we still need to know what we're testing for. Even the structural stuff will answer 'stone' if we ask it about building.'

'No good arguing about it until we have a look,' the fourth Star said, which turned out to be the best plan possible. After a thorough investigation, the entire team unanimously agreed that the green disk, with rings like a tree slice and a jagged hole in its center, was the stone they had been sent to find.

'It's odd, though,' the Cobweb remarked. 'I would have thought we'd have run into Jezebel's team again.'

'Flutterbunch,' the Mustard Seed said, and shrugged.

In due course, they presented their stone to Yrgenzol, who congratulated them on having all survived the labyrinth and went to deliver it to the Cardmaster, leaving them to argue over how serious their patron was about their survival. Meanwhile, word filtered through the Cardhouse that Jezebel's team had also returned with a stone, as had Logus' and Oskyod's and—

'Enough already!' the Mustard Seed snapped. 'You were right, Cobweb. We were clearly all sent out, one against another.' The Mustard Seed managed to accept the eventual verdict that their stone was not the right one with minimal bitterness—probably, the Cobweb thought, because Jezebel's had already been declared false as well. Logus began to look more and more smug as time went on and one stone after another was rejected, until, quite suddenly, he was not to be seen around at all.

The Cobweb went in search of the Mustard Seed, and found him lying, belly-down, in the dirt of an unweeded garden. 'I don't think we'll see much of Logus or those stars around for a while,' the Cobweb said. 'Word is, their stone—discovered by the most systematic and precise techniques—blew up at the Cardmaster.'

The Mustard Seed laughed. 'Put a bunch of twigs in the dish of noodles, and what do you expect?' he said. The Cobweb laughed as well, and sat down beside his friend.

It was sometime after that (or, perhaps, not yet so late as Logus' disgrace) that Yrgenzol came to see the Cobweb where the latter hovered amongst the rafters. 'I believe that there is one other thing you found in the labyrinth,' Yrgenzol said.

Maitos started, but nodded, and carefully took out the leaf he had picked up in the Post-Haunted Forest—lobed and toothed, rich green in hue, with veins just faintly shading towards teal or turquoise. Yrgenzol stared at it, tilted his head, and stared at it some more. 'May I?' he asked, and Maitos nodded again.

Yrgenzol picked up the leaf and, holding it in the palm of one hand, traced the veins with the fingers of the other, and smiled at it.

Though wary of interrupting the denizen, Maitos presently gathered the courage to ask, 'This . . . this isn't what the Cardmaster was looking for, is it?'

'Does it look like a stone?'

Maitos knew a stone from a rock. 'It has a function.'

'If everything that had a function were a stone, then everything would be a stone.'

Maitos tried to piece that one out, but gave up and set it aside as a logic puzzle for later.

'Don't worry. This isn't at all what our Lord was looking for in that labyrinth.' Yrgenzol cupped her hands around the leaf and placed it into a safe pocket. 'Thank you, little Cobweb,' he said.