#GROWING BEYOND THEIR INTENDED CAPABILITIES)

[undercoverpan]

A mother and a son (don't always fit together)

The day begins as it always does, with the sun shining over Awa'atlu and the ocean breeze gently tickling her face. The wind carried the smell of salt and water to her, like a messenger bringing words of peace and praise.Today was shaping up to be an ordinary day, and how she cherishes days where her life is not wrought with strife and pain.

She blinked the sleep from her eyes, greeted by a highly unfamiliar sight. Spider, sitting with his legs crossed, tending to a fire. Her entire body stiffened, like she was getting ready to fight. But then she remembers herself and tries to relax to the best of her ability. Spider is humming a soft melody, one soft and unfamiliar.

Several moments pass between them. The flame crackles gently, the popping of wood sounding incorrect. It smelled like meat was cooking, but wrong. It was being burnt, wasn't it? The flame was too hot, she could feel it from her place on the mat. 

"You are burning it." She says, breaking the comfortable silence. Spider's eyes snap up and he tenses like he's getting ready to run. But he remembers something, and relaxes. He smiles at her, something more calm than his usual expression towards her. 

"That's what it's supposed to do." He explains, like it was obvious. She rouses from her place, sitting upright, leaning against the woven walls of their marui. Her eyes narrowed from confusion rather than aggression. "No, meat must not be burnt. You are doing this wrong." She scolds.

He turns his gaze from her, shaking his head and laughing, like she is a petulant child who's being stubborn. "No, the meat must be burnt. It already is." 

And no, that can't be right. She would've smelled the meat cooking earlier if it was burnt now. It did not---it was wrong. Something was wrong. The meat smells burnt and wrong. Spider looked wrong as he stoked the flames, the heat growing more unbearable by the second. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

"Stop burning it!" She hissed. The smell was overpowering, staining her nostrils and lungs like smoke. She could practically taste it on her tongue, a bitter and heavy taste. "I can't." He answers back, words even heavier.

She growls, not even understanding what made her so agitated. She gets up, intending to scold the boy, but stops dead in her tracks. 

There are no hot coals nor burning sticks to feed the fire. It burns with no source, unnaturally. It is blindingly hot, like just standing before it was searing her flesh. She hissed, pulling back. Spider flinched instinctively; and some long forgotten voice in her head told her that that was a bad thing. 

"What is this?" She demanded, her voice taking the usual tone it did with Spider; accusatory. He met her eyes with something unrecognisable in his gaze, something she only saw in her father, moments before his death. "The flame is a flame, Neytiri. It's never been more than that." He answers back.

She knows fire, she knows fire better than Spider. She knows how wood and bone crackle in its grasp, how flesh sears and muscles melt. How it drags pain on well into the night, how difficult it is to recover from it. You can't put ashes back together again, no matter how hard you try. Your home, reduced to nothing before your very eyes. Destruction unlike any other, a type of pain you can't take back. A hurt that runs deeper than the scars it leaves behind. Yes, Neytiri knows fire.

"You foolish boy." She says slowly. How dare he welcome destruction into her home? After she had to leave hers because of him? After haunting her son and husband, sinking his sickly claws into her family from beyond the dead? There was a time where she thought Spider could be different, a different strain of demon. But he brought pain nonetheless. Pain, because that is all demons bring. All they are capable of, all they understand.

He brings her pain. Her chest feels tight and her throat feels dry whenever his name is said. She feels like screaming when she thinks of him, like dropping to her knees and just screaming. Maybe smash something, throw something across the room, maybe pulling her hair out and scratching her skin until she bled. Anything to get the pain to stop.

"I'm sorry." He whispers; catching her attention. "I can't…." He trailed off, voice barely caught over the wind, "I don't know how to help you." He says to her, and feels something whisper it back to him. They stay like that for a moment, a mother and a boy; just looking at each other. Unable to fit together like a perfect puzzle piece, unable to help the other, forever watching them drown in the same damned ocean as themselves. 

But perhaps there's solace in not drowning alone. One they couldn't find on dry land.

"Are you…." She hesitates, not even knowing what to say. Are you okay? Are you angry? Are you hurt? Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? Can I help you? Can I fix it? Can I make the pain go away? Can you come back to me? To us?

Her voice catches in her throat, dying at the tip of her tongue. Does it matter? Does asking a dead boy anything….matter? Is this even Spider? Is this how Eywa embraces him? Is this how he truly was or how she wishes to see him? 

“I'm…I'm sorry, Mrs. Sully. I don't know how to help you.” He says; his voice quieter than she'd remembered, the stillness of death carried in his voice like the ocean breeze carrying the working songs of the Metkayina.

“I…don't know how to help you either.” She admits, to both herself and Spider. She could not lessen her grief if she wanted to, could not explain it. She supposed that it was a normal reaction to grieve the death of any child, but Spider had always been different in that regard. A child of the sky, of that demon. A cruel reminder of the past, nothing more; though he tried to create a future for himself. He fought every day to make himself useful, to take up less space, to be nonthreatening, to be part of the People, to be a child of Eywa. 

And now, he never will. 

He never got to do the things he dreamt of. No one does the things they dream of at 16, no one knows what they dream of at 16. And now Spider, like countless others, will….Well, he'll never age. He'll never….go through his iknimaya (granted, there was no chance of that when he was alive), he will never find a mate, he will never find his purpose in the clan. He won't be there for Tuk's iknimaya, for the welcoming ceremonies of children to come, for the dancing, the singing, the laughing and the crying. He won't get to experience any of it; maybe because he's dead, maybe because he was born a human.

She mourns the life that Spider never could've lived in the first place.

“Why are you crying?” He asks suddenly, worriedly. Lifting her blue hand to her face, she found tracks of dampness down her face. She…she hadn't realized. “I…” She takes a deep breath. She didn't know what to say, but she had to speak. She supposed she was a bit like her mate in this regard, speaking without thinking, putting her heart out for all to see in the hopes that they'd understand what she couldn't convey with words.

“I'm…I'm sorry for the life you didn't get to live. I'm sorry I never embraced you as one of the People.” She says quietly, eyes downcast. The Na'vi had no word for this feeling, but she thinks the inglisi word of ‘shame’ fits well. She is ashamed of her behavior, ashamed that after 3 children and a loving mate, she'd never made peace with what had been done to the People all those years before. That she felt that Spider must claim responsibility for crimes he had not committed. To not have found it in herself to forgive him in any capacity. 

“Could you have embraced me as one of the People?” He asks, and she sighs. “Yes.”

“Could you have embraced me as one of your family?” 

“...”

“...No.”

Spider nods in understanding. “I don't blame you. And you shouldn't blame yourself, either. This pain….your pain….it will take years to heal. I just wish…” he looks to her, brown eyes meeting golden ones without fear in either, “...that we had more time. Maybe we could've made it better later in life.”

She nods. The life that he could not lead anymore, that she couldn't lead anymore. That she might have grown to not strain her ears for his footsteps, to not watch him with the stealth of a hunter, but with the observing eye of a Na'vi looking after one of the People. That he might not watch her back from the corners of his eyes, to not ‘walk on eggshells’ around her. That they could've learned to coexist. That maybe they could've learned to care on a deeper level, to not fear eachother, at the very least.

Well, they're not fearful now, are they?

“I understand. I cannot fix…us. I cannot make this hurt less.” She speaks, her shoulders compressed, dragged down by a weight she will carry for the remainder of her life. “That's alright.” Spider sighs, and she closes her eyes. “No, it's not.”

“Maybe, but nothing can change what happened, what was said or what was done. Please, make peace with it. We can't change it.” He says wistfully, and though she understands, she hates the sentiment. Make peace with what she cannot change?

“Just…I have a favour to ask. One…Okay, 2 last things I want you to do for me.” He speaks clearly, casting a look over at Neytiri. She only nods, signalling him to continue. “Get…get better. Heal from what happened. I'm not asking you to forgive humans for what they did but…please don't let it decide how you live.” 

She grits her teeth, taking a deep breath. Her life is great right now. She has her family and a new home. One far from the danger, yes. But her life was still controlled by her fear that one day, everything will once again be torn from her. Living with that fear…she strengthened herself out of necessity. But she mourns the carefree, relaxed woman she could've been, had death and destruction not plagued her life.

“And…and if it's possible, could you….put me to rest? With Eywa? Like how the Omaticaya do when they pass.” He asks softly, eyes shining with unshed tears. 

Without thinking, she places a hand on his shoulder. Before, he would've flinched at her touch, her proximity. But now, he looks up at her with sad eyes. She does not fear him and he doesn't fear her. This moment between them, provided by death, is not one they could've shared before. There was never a lack of fear between them.

This is the first time she's touched him with no fear from him, and it's after he has died. 

“Do you…where is your body?” She asks, and it's a strange question. No one has really asked someone about their dead body. No one has needed to ask for a funeral. These are simply things you are afforded.

“It's with the RDA, I think. They might've thrown it away, they might've…” He turns away from her, looking into the fire. It's bright and smells of burnt flesh, with no smoke. Only the smell of it hung in the air.

The flame dances and flickers.

“I'll see if I can find it. Will you…will you rest, if I do?” She asks tentatively.

He hums in response, neither here nor there in terms of a clear answer.

“I'll…I'll see you around.” He says, slowly getting to his feet. He raises his hand to his forehead in greeting. It was strange to see his hello as goodbye, but a greeting from beyond the grave could only be a farewell from the living.

“I…I see you, Neytiri.” 

She raises a hand to her face.

“I see you, Spider.”

He disappears, like smoke mixing into the open air.

-------

Surprise! I'm back! Neglected my writing for a Lil while, actually a long while.

I've only got the human school au and the recom Tommy and human daughter au. I will be super happy to rant about it in another post maybe??? I do have a math test on Monday so the chances of me posting before then is slim.

Hello mutuals I have risen!!!

Anyhow, even if Neytiri is a mom and Spider is a son, they do not match perfectly. And they could've grown past the trauma but Spider bit the dust so now they must mourn the life the could've lived without knowing if they even could've lived it in the first place. All they have is memories filled with regrets, all of them will be looked back on with a foreign sense of regret and bitterness.

[luimagines]

Ohh, you think Warrior, Four, and Legend would have a dislike for humans? Can you expand more on that? Like the specific attitudes they grew up around that made them feel that way?

(If you want to and aren't too busy, ofc!)

I actually would have thought that Hyrule would like/distrust them the most. He would already come from a turbulent home situation as it is where you're not sure who you can trust and if Hylians are predisposed at this point to not trust/like humans, then he would have the distaste squared.

For Four and Legend, it would just be a product of the society they grew up in, I'd imagine. They don't intend to be malicious but they're warry about letting Reader get close. Between the two, I think that Legend would have it a bit worse than Four purely because of the amount of times he's been bitten by people in general.

Four might be calmer. I remember I wrote once where his Zelda was actually one of the worse one and he was horrified to see it in person. But I don't remember if that before or after his character development in this regard.

Warrior, I think, would be distrustful of people in general. Sure, he can charming and peaceable on the surface, but there's a reason I headcanon him as the best liar of the group. Not only is he also a product of the society he would grow up where Hylians would look down on humans, but he's been stabbed in the back from his own people on the war. And if his people, who are supposed to "better", can do that- what is a lower human capable of?

He'll be real subtle with it though.

It's all in the name of survival and making sure Reader doesn't hurt any of the other boys either.

Time and Wind are more of the middle ground. Time's bias would have to be learned by the time he's spent on the Ranch or while on the War of Eras. He's not fully convinced but he also doesn't really have the foundation to care.

Wind is similar. Like Sky, his world doesn't really have many people to point out the differences. Granted, he would know what a human is and what makes them different beyond their ears but there's just not enough history and prejudice that survived the floor that made the Great Sea.

[king-bumis-armpit]

Separation Anxiety

Written for Maiko Week 2024 - Separation

Summary: Mai takes Izumi to her family’s reunion, and Zuko stays home. It's a horrible time for both of them.

Author’s Note: I really thought I was going to stick to the prompt this time, but then the first part sort of got away from me. And I really had to hold back because my inner Kataang was about to unleash. I was about to write a whole mini-fic about them inside of this one, but I exercised restraint. I did not however exercise restraint on my thoughts about Mai’s upbringing. As a result, this is way longer than I intended. Oh well… I hope you enjoy! :)

TW: Anxiety about being parents and misogyny from Mai’s family members. I made Michi kind of awful. But there’s a happy ending, I promise!

WC: 4,276

Zuko took a deep breath and stared at his large empty bed. It had been a long while since he had to sleep alone. He sat down slowly, as if the bed might vanish at the last second before he made contact. He leaned back and tried to get comfortable, but he ended up tossing and turning until his memories overtook him.

— — 

When he and Mai were newlyweds, they agreed never to spend more than a week apart at a time. Sometimes the obligations of royalty made this vow difficult to keep, but they had managed. In fact, Zuko had been in Yu Dao when Mai found out that she was pregnant. They had been trying for some time, so Mai was ecstatic when she told him. 

Her excitement was contagious, but anxiety quickly infected him as well. He couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened to her while he was away. What if she had fallen ill? Or what if an Ozai loyalist cell re-emerged and attacked her? Thankfully, most of the organized movements had died down after Azula had willingly turned herself in. But that was another consideration, what if Azula tried to get revenge on Mai while he was gone? He knew that Mai was more than capable of protecting herself, and normally that was enough to allay his fears, but the new worry for their child fractured his restraint. 

Zuko doubled Mai’s guard and silently promised himself to stay by her side for the rest of her pregnancy. He knew that his actions would probably annoy his wife, but surprisingly she was not the first to complain.

“Zuko, she’s pregnant, not helpless,” his mother chided him. She had cornered him in one of the hallways about a week after his return from Yu Dao. “There are always going to be circumstances beyond your control, but Mai is fully competent to go about her daily life without a small army. You need to give her space to breathe. Give your baby space to grow.”

Zuko relented and recalled the extra guards he had assigned, but then he added a pair of covert guards to keep watch without being stifling. For her part, Mai found the incident somewhat amusing. 

As they ate dinner together, she commented on the change: “Yesterday, I had a whole coterie. Today all I get are a few extra shadows.”

Zuko sighed. “Mom told me I was being overbearing. But I’m worried about you. What if something happens? You’re my whole world Mai.”

Mai turned red. “I’m impressed that anything you say can still make me blush after you impregnated me, but here we are.” Zuko chuckled, and Mai continued, “Normally I wouldn’t be cool with extra guards out of nowhere. I’m your wife and your equal, so I would like to be included in the conversation the next time you think about changing up my security detail.” 

She gave him a pointed look, and Zuko took her hand. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you first. We can ditch the elite guards if you want.

Mai’s eyes softened and she brought his hand to her cheek. “No, it’s okay. I’m not angry this time, I just want you to talk to me about things like this in the future.” She kissed his palm and set their hands on the table.

Zuko smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I didn’t want to upset you. I’ve never seen you so happy. And I’m happy too! I’m just…”

“Zuko, I’m scared too. I really want this baby to come out healthy. I’ve been carrying this list of foods I can’t have anymore, and I read it at least five times before I eat anything,” she admitted sheepishly. Mai produced said scroll from one of her dart holsters of all places. Zuko felt himself fall even more in love. The whole thing was just so Mai.

After that conversation, the pair discussed their concerns much more openly. In the worst moments, they both feared that they would take on the worst qualities of their parents. Zuko started to feel phantom pains in his scar that hadn’t plagued him since he was a teenager. They made pact after pact to hold each other accountable and to love the baby no matter what and to keep them safe. 

But even talking about their fears in the open helped to lift the burden. The anxiety didn’t dissipate, but it became easier to bear. Zuko loved talking to Mai’s bump when she began to show. Mai teased him for being silly, but he knew she secretly loved it. They redecorated the palace nursery to be less austere and more inviting. And Aang and Katara often visited with their son Bumi. 

When Mai went into labor, Katara helped her through the whole process until Princess Izumi had safely arrived. Aang was on babysitting duty. Not for Bumi, who Aang considered to be his full time sidekick, but for Zuko, who could only watch his wife’s agony for so long until he needed a dad to dad pep talk. 

Thankfully, Zuko managed to collect himself in time to meet his baby girl in her first moments. Mai had suggested the name Izumi, and Zuko immediately knew that it was right when he saw her tiny red face. She captivated his heart from her first breath and– after a brief embrace from Mai– Zuko was the first person to truly hold her. When the nurses took her for her health check, Zuko almost refused. Looking at her perfect little face, he realized that he could never become his father. He swore to himself on that day to always be by her side when she needed him.

— — 

Zuko gave up on trying to sleep and began to pace in his room. Without Mai, his bed was too cold and too big. Michi, his mother in-law, had insisted that she and Izumi attend her family reunion. Zuko had been invited, but his advisors had already scheduled the large annual conference of the provincial governors for the same weekend. He didn’t want to sabotage Mai’s opportunity to see her family, but he had desperately wanted her to stay.

And little Izumi was only four. Would she be sad when he wasn’t there to wake up with her at sunrise as he had been for the past four years? Since his job and his nature as fire-bender necessitated early mornings, when Izzy was a baby they decided that Mai would be in charge of bed time and night-time feedings and Zuko would take over in the wee hours of the morning. This arrangement worked surprisingly well, and continued long after Izzy started eating solid food. Zuko loved that he always had a few hours with his daughter. In the early days, he had a crib installed in his office so he could get a start on the his work after she fell back asleep. Now she was big enough to run through his forms with him. Zuko didn’t want to put any pressure on her to be bender or not, so he would alternate between Firebending forms and other martial arts. Would she practice them without him? She didn’t have any of them committed to memory but she would often try to show off to Mai with gusto. He smiled at the thought.

But he quickly frowned again, knowing he wouldn’t be there to see. “Ugh!” he grabbed his hair and berated himself: “Don’t be such a coward! You’ve slept on the road with nothing but a stolen ostrich horse. You can handle two nights with them.”

He walked over to Mai’s vanity and sat. He picked up a book that she recently finished reading and thumbed through the pages. Then, he picked up her jar of perfume and sprayed it experimentally. He inhaled her signature scent and sighed. 

Truthfully, he was worried about her well-being away from him too. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that she couldn’t go-on without his presence for a few measly days, but he knew how her mother and grandparents could be. Even when she was little, he recalled how Michi would nitpick at her posture or her expression or her word choice. He was ashamed that it took him so long to realize just how conditional her parental affection was. 

In retrospect, it made sense why she loved her uncle just as much as he loved his. When he first met the Warden of the Boiling Rock, he didn’t quite see the appeal. The man was terrifying and brutish and he had a nasty power-complex. But it all fit into place when he saw them together at the wedding. Michi had been chiding Mai for getting her wedding slippers dusty during their first dance, and Zuko was about to ask her to leave. He couldn’t believe that she chose that moment to undercut her daughter, but the Warden stepped in. “Oh knock it off! This is her palace, not a prison yard. How about you go get a drink while I dance with my niece.” And just like that, Mai’s super traditional and stuck-up uncle led her in the camelephant strut. They were both a bit clumsy, especially Mai since her robes were constantly in the way, but their rare and radiant smiles made the moment perfect.

Aunt Mura was another advocate for Mai, but her support was more quiet and diplomatic. A hand on the shoulder here, and words of encouragement there. Mura was so much more gentle and less acerbic than Michi, that it was easy to forget that she had been raised with the same unfair expectations. She approached her sister with more empathy than Zuko was willing to extend.

Zuko hoped that the pair of them would keep Michi in line. Unfortunately, from his limited contact he knew that Mai’s grandparents might also pose a problem. He had a sudden and unpleasant vision of Mai’s grandmother and Michi making comments about Izumi’s behavior. He gritted his teeth. He knew Mai wouldn’t stand for it, but it set him on edge. 

Mai had really come into her own as a Fire Lady. She was always very calm in a crisis, but she spoke passionately about the issues that moved her. She would let her excitement show when her projects came to fruition. She learned how to be vulnerable in order to build trust with their citizens.

His biggest fear was that she would return, and, after their separation, some of that precious progress would be undone. And that Izumi’s light would shine a little dimmer in turn.

He stood from the vanity and shook his head, as if he could dislodge the poisonous thoughts. Normally when something caused him to worry, he would talk about it with his wife. Now he was at a loss. Maybe a nice walk in the cool night air would clear his mind. He could visit Druk in the stables. He muttered to himself as he made his way, “She’s an adult. She doesn’t need you breathing down her neck.” 

— — 

Mai was on the verge of tears. She needed Zuko desperately. 

They had left early that morning in an airship for the Southern region of the Fire Nation where her grandparents lived, and Mai was cautiously optimistic. Since she woke up so early, Izzy slept for the two hours of travel time to the house. It was a lovely opportunity to talk to Tom-Tom, who– at the age of 17– was often busy with school these days.

But everything changed when they landed. Her grandparents greeted her formally, but more warmly than they ever had. And she soon discovered why: this was her first visit to their hometown as the Fire Lady. When she entered their home, she was dismayed to find a throne and a receiving line! Thankfully, Tom-Tom offered to watch Izumi and get her some food, while Mai was forced to meet the Mayor and all of her grandparents' friends. After an hour of accepting well-wishes, backhanded compliments, and personal requests, he uncle arrived. He walked up to her confidently and insisted that she and Izumi take tea with him and Mura. Apparently being the Warden of the Boiling Rock gave him the authority to terminate her indentured servitude.

Tea was a brief affair. However she re-entered the gaggle of distant relatives and vaguely important people with her uncle on her arm, and Tom-Tom again stepped in to watch Izumi as she played with the other children. Mai loved her little brother to bits, but this experience made her appreciate him all the more. She was thirteen when he was born, so she felt fiercely protective of him when he was little. And he was thirteen when Izzy was born, and she could see him return all of that love and shower it on her. The thought made her emotional. 

Dinner came late, well past Izumi’s normal bedtime, but it was a blessedly private affair. Her grandparents; her mother, aunt, and uncle; and herself, Tom-Tom, and Izumi. Oh, and the Mayor, but he spent a significant portion of the night wooing Aunt Mura so he was easy enough to tune out. Uncle showed Izzy magic tricks with his napkin, and Mai smiled. She had nearly forgotten how he used to do the same for her. He would have been a good father if he hadn’t chosen such a demanding profession. She regretted that she had only seen him a handful of times since her wedding.

Mai’s grandparents kept her in conversation. To her surprise, they praised Zuko and his reforms highly. At first she was pleased, but then her mood began to sour. 

“I don’t know how you pulled a match like that. You were always so sullen as a girl,” her grandfather remarked.

Mai felt her mother’s keen stare and tried to laugh it off. “Well… he always said he liked how I hated the world.”

Her grandfather frowned and she worried she misspoke, but her grandmother interjected, “Oh happiness is overrated. True contentment comes with status. You did well to act in a manner pleasing to him.”

Mai felt her stomach turn. She never acted differently for Zuko. He challenged her preconceived notions sometimes and helped her see different points of view, but she didn’t blindly follow him like an animal. Was that how she appeared? Izumi wasn’t hearing this was she? She looked at her daughter, but, no, Uncle was telling her a story about a prison riot. Somehow, that was probably a healthier message for her impressionable child.

Michi joined the conversation, “Oh mother, it’s all thanks to you! I took your advice and got her into the palace early. Her friendship with Princess Azula was most beneficial. She was the natural choice to be Zuko’s consort.”

Mai felt suddenly nauseous. Her friendship with Azula was strained in a lot of ways, but it was built on a genuine foundation. They had both loved sparring as girls, along with Ty Lee of course. They would sneak from the stuffy functions her mother dragged her to. Michi couldn’t take credit for any of that, and she certainly couldn't take credit for her love with Zuko.

Mai gripped the edge of the table, prepared to tell her off. “Actually!” she began confidently, and all of the eyes in the room turned toward her. Apparently her Uncle had finished his story and Mura had politely rebuffed the Mayor. But it was the full and undivided attention of her grandparents that got to her. She remembered why silence and falsity were her friends. Mai quickly thought of an excuse for her outburst. “Zuko wanted me to tell you how sorry he is that he couldn’t make it. He sends his love.” 

“Darling, told us that before.” her grandmother replied. “He is the Fire Lord, you should not expect him to attend your family affairs.”

Mai wilted. “Of course, grandmother. But he asked me to tell you, so I wanted to relay his words.”

Her grandfather smiled, “Yes, a good wife echoes her husband.” 

Mai snuck another look at Izumi, praying that she was not listening. Luck seemed to be on her side, as the little princess was absorbed and– covered in– the noodles on her plate. 

Mai got them out of there as quickly as she deemed socially acceptable  and washed the noodles off of her little girl.. She cursed herself for her cowardice. She was the Fire Lady! She could have left whenever she damn well pleased, but she turned into a child the second she entered that house. 

To make matters worse, as soon as she and Izumi entered their chambers the little girl began having a meltdown.

It started innocently enough: “Where’s dada?”

Mai pursed her lips. She had tried explaining to Izumi before they left that daddy couldn’t come with them this time, but the thought was unimaginable to her. They had always traveled as a family, and she had never had to sleep without a goodnight kiss from daddy before Mai began the bedtime routine.

Mai tried again to explain, “I’m sorry turtleduck, but he’s not here right now. He had to stay at the palace and run the country. We’ll see him in two more sleeps.”

Izumi teared up. “Not here?”

Mai held her, “No. He’s not here, but he’s safe and so are we. You’ll see him soon.”

Then the wailing began in earnest and it did not stop for what felt like hours but was probably minutes. Mai tried to be soothing, but firm. For better or worse, she couldn’t capitulate to her daughter’s request this time. No airships or secure transports were running at this hour. And Zuko would probably spontaneously combust if she rented an animal and attempted the overnight journey alone. 

Mai felt the tears prick in her eyes too. Since her parents were so strict, she had no gauge for how to react to this situation. Was she being too indulgent by letting her daughter cry? How could she stop it? What could she say to make her happy again? All at once, the floodgates of self-loathing had opened. She was the co-ruler of a country, why did she let her grandparents walk all over her in front of her daughter? And how could she foist Izumi on to her baby brother all day? It was his family reunion too. 

She needed Zuko. He would calm Izzy down. Spirits, he would calm her down. 

There was a knock at the door. Shit! Their rooms were in the farthest part of the manor to give the Fire Lady privacy, but someone had obviously overheard and complained. There would be rumors all over the town about how bad of a parent she was. Or it was her guards checking in. The poor guys probably wanted to make sure she was okay. She tucked Izumi behind her, and palmed a knife– just to be safe– and opened the door.

For a second, she thought her brain was deceiving her into seeing what she wanted to see.

“DADA!” Izumi screamed happily.

She ran around Mai and jumped into his arms. “Hello turtleduck.” He laughed and kissed her head as he made his way into the room. “I hope I’m not intruding on girl time.” He smiled at Mai.

She took a deep breath to try to compose herself and smiled back at her husband. “Of course, not. Our princess was just demanding your presence.” 

“Oh!” Zuko seemed genuinely surprised. “Well then, I’m glad I arrived just in time.” He tucked Izumi into her bed, across the room from Mai’s– and now Zuko’s– larger one. She must have been exhausted from her early travels, because, as soon as she knew that both of her parents were in the room, she fell asleep. Mai marveled at her instant calm.

Zuko stroked her hair a few times and then turned his attention to his wife. He walked over to her and delicately pulled her into an embrace. “I’m such a loser,” he whispered, face buried in her neck, and it felt so out-of-the-blue that she nearly snorted.

“What on earth are you talking about? I need more information to know if I disagree,” she retorted.

“Hey!” he protested quietly, and pinched her arm, but she could feel his smile on her skin. His breath tickled as he spoke: “I couldn’t handle one night away from you both. Let alone two.”

Mai caressed his cheek, and guided his face so they were looking into each other's eyes. “Then I must be a loser too because I was about to cry before you got here. Izumi was sobbing because she missed you so much and my family–” she stopped abruptly.

Zuko took hold of her hands and she could feel the fire in his eyes. “What did they say?”

Mai slumped her shoulders and allowed herself to lean against him. “It’s not important.” That dreaded touch of apathy colored her voice, but then, but a glimmer of broke through. “It’s really not important because you’re here now.”

Zuko wrapped his arms around her and kissed her passionately. He finally pulled away, “At least give me a list of names.”

Mai chuckled quietly, she didn’t want to wake their daughter. “The usual suspects.”

That told Zuko all he needed to know. The pair went about their nightly routines, before climbing into bed. Zuko longed to kiss her more, and fill her with reassurance, but he was prevented by the presence of their daughter. He settled for wrapping his arms tightly around Mai and burying his face in her hair.

But suddenly she broke away and sat up. Zuko pouted up at her.

“Wait! Wait a minute! How did you get here?” she looked at him in awe. 

He smiled cheekily. “You know I’ve been practicing flying with Druk.”

Mai crossed her arms. “You did not fly him all the way here from the Caldera! His previous flights were twenty minutes at most. My poor baby is probably exhausted.”

Zuko laughed. Druk may have been bonded to him by the sacred fire, but the dragon was bonded to Mai by something else. The two were so protective of each other that it was almost comical. 

“Oh don’t worry,” Zuko reassured her, and pulled her back into his arms. “Your big old baby loved it, and your family’s servants gave him the best room in their stables.”

Mai huffed. “Okay, but if he’s sore tomorrow, then I’m using you as a pin cushion.”

“It would be my greatest honor.”

Mai rolled her eyes, but she snuggled in closer.

— — 

The next day, Mai checked on Druk first thing. To her own surprise, she was the first member of her immediate family awake. She left Zuko a note. (Her notes always began, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m leaving,” even if she was just taking the five-minute trip to her favorite fire flakes stand. It had become an inside joke between them.) 

Druk truly was in a great mood. Mai’s family ordered the finest cuts from the butcher as a special treat. If there was one thing she could count on her grandparents to do, it was suck up to royalty.

She stopped by the kitchens and put in a special request, and then she made her way to the airship service. By the time she arrived back at the house, breakfast had begun. She slowly took her seat, allowing her mother's glare to linger.

“Young lady,” he grandfather began. “It is bad form to arrive late to a meal. “Especially when royalty is present.”

Mai pretended to be chastened. “Oh, I’m so sorry grandfather. But I wanted to put on a surprise for my dearest husband.” She strongly emphasized the word. “As you and Grandmother were saying, such a visitation to my family is quite beneath him actually.” Zuko whipped his head to his in-laws. Mai could tell he was seething, but this was her moment to reclaim power. She knew he would follow her lead, and so she continued, “As such, I thought it would be a lovely surprise if we all took a trip to the nearby southern beaches.”

Mai’s grandmother scoffed. “Those aren’t nearby. You’d have to take an airship to get there.”

Mai nodded, “Yes and I chartered one. Unfortunately, it’s quite small. They only had ten open seats.”

Mai’s mother tried to cut the tension. “Oh well… That’s still enough for all of us, and we can even bring the Mayor. Perhaps the day can be salvaged, but you really should have asked your grandparents before doing this.” 

Michi didn’t want to look bad in front of her parents, and Mai almost regretted what she was about to do. She replied: “You’re not taking into account the guards. We’ll need four to be safe I would say. I’m so very sorry. I assumed that grandfather and grandmother would be too weary to travel so far, so I didn’t list them on the tickets. And Uncle and Auntie have so few opportunities to see Izumi. I hope you understand, Mother.”

Michi flushed red, but she wouldn’t dare have a dramatic and drawn out argument with Mai so publicly. The Warden chuckled to himself, “Now this is an escape plan I can get behind.”

Zuko looked at his wife with a newfound admiration. He knew there would come a time when they were separated again, but he did not want to dwell on it. In this moment, they were together. And they were stronger because of it.

[dulcewrites]

Fool Me Once (part 6)

Pairing(s): Aemond Targaryen x reader (kind of lol), Aegon ii x reader, Rhaenyra x Alicent if you squint

Summary: You unlock new information as you descend for Dragonstone

A/N: sooo we are getting into the fun part (imo).. the character study and canon divergence! Just fair warning that this story is not going to go exactly like f&b or like the show. There will be elements taken from both. Can go ahead and let y’all know this will not be about who sits in the end, but more the chaos to get there. This also means different povs which is exciting. This chapter is sort of prepping everything for the next phase 😎

Fmo masterlist

“This seems like a convoluted plan, just for end goal for Aegon to be King,” Helaena sits in the middle of you chambers watching you pack.

“It is not about Aegon being king,” you reply, inspecting one your dresses. You scrunch you nose up and put it back in the closet. Perhaps it is best to stay away from green during your stay.

It may not be the story you told the Hand when he gave you the go ahead to leave. He thinks this whole plot is to lure Rhaenyra into a false sense of hope. Have her taste the thing she has wanted for so long before she fails miserably. This goes far beyond Aegon at this point. Him being king would just be a unexpected change. The rightful choice in the eyes of some. The crumbling of the realm in others.

“Upsetting the succession now could lead to upheaval,” Helaena does not seem to believe you.

“Do you really think I care about Rhaenyra’s reign when my kids are involved?”

It comes out more snappy than you intended. Helaena’s shoulders drop a bit. You know Helaena is just as protective over her kids as you are of yours. If there was a chance to strike the people who hurt them, she’d take the same shot. But, you know she is worried about what Aegon being king means for her family. You sigh and run your hand over your face. Putting down the clothes, you walk and sit next to her.

“We have given ourselves enough for this family and for the realm,” you whisper. “I am done with that.”

It sounds bratty, and selfish. You have given up so much, so has Helaena and Alicent, and yet you all are still expected to take things with a smile. Pretty, accommodating, and benevolent that you have the Targaryen name. Or in your case, that you can marry someone with that last name and everything that comes with it.

If you take the swing and miss, so be it. Sitting idle while those walk all over you has done nothing but put you and your children’s safety in danger. Your natural softness taken for weakness.

“And… Queen Helaena does not have bad ring to it,” you nudge her playfully, and she snorts in reply.

“Maybe Aemond will be king, and you’ll be queen,” it’s said in a teasing tone but then she grows a bit serious. “Aegon would probably give it up… if he got something in return.”

An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. Neither of them are ready to rule, but then again who is. Aegon would make a charismatic, even forbearing king; he has a disarming way about him that would work in his favor. Though, his inability to check his emotions would get in the way. He goes by the sound of his heart, and whims of his desires. Aemond, your painfully pragmatic husband, would rule dogmatically. But his inability to emote or to be empathetic would make him volatile… maybe even cruel.

Then you have Rhaenyra, the Realm’s Delight. Even from when you were young, all you ever heard was how lovely she is. Never how smart or capable she is to rule; it always went back to her beauty and her fiery nature. You still do not know if that was her unfortunate lot in life because of her gender or rather no one can praise her readiness, because she simply is not. And her case is not helped in your eyes with someone like Daemon in her corner.

One thing they do share is an incompetent father, so any hopes for learning how it is done was quickly diminished. Sitting on the Iron Throne may not be something that can be taught. Viserys came after Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s long reign. A reign considered to be a successful one, and Viserys seemingly picked up nothing about being proactive.

You take a good look at Helaena. If it someone you will whole heartedly miss while away, it is your good sister. Helaena, who is everything good about the Targaryen name: warm, loyal, and untamed. But also kind, and way more analytical than people give her credit for. Helaena the Dreamer… Helaena the Great.

“We could make it so you could rule.”

She gives your proposition a scrunched up face, and laugher. Sharp and bright. You know she has no desire to rule, but you can not help but think she would be good at it.

“If that is the case, you have to rule with me,” she takes your hand with a soft smile.

You imagine a world where all the men have rode off to fight their war. The women left to rule over a piles of ash, tired small folk, and elusive nobility. Two queens - just you, Helaena, and the children.

What a life to live.

A knock on the door interrupts Aemond’s reading.

“Do not come in,” he does not even look up from the book. Despite his wishes, a head of short silvery hair pops in. “I said do not come in.”

Aegon pays his brother no mind, breezily waltzing into Aemond’s study. He sits in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk with a sigh, as if he was begrudgingly summoned. Aemond tries to go back to reading, but it is hard to when his brother is staring at him expectedly.

Large, expecting eyes boring into him. He hates how much he looks like their mother in certain lights.

“What,” he finally snaps, and Aegon just smiles softly. In that warm way that makes people feel like they can let their guard down. Aegon always had way of making people feel like they are in on the joke he about to tell. Aemond has learned not to fall for the smile; he’s been on the other side of the joke too much to trust it.

“Are you going to see your wife off,” Aegon keeps his tone even, not giving anything away. His voice lifting a bit when he says wife.

Aemond tries equally hard not to let his mask slip. “No, she said it would better to do that behind closed doors.”

Something about him sending you off would defeat the purpose of it looking like you are upset enough to leave. Aemond had felt his eye glaze over a bit when you were explaining everything. When he first lost his eye, he would get head-splitting headaches. He hated taking milk of the poppy for them. Criston would tell him to turn his brain off, try not to think of the pain.

He finds himself still doing it to this day. Whenever he feels that tingle in the back of head, he clears his mind. For someone who constantly has things racing through his mind, he has gotten surprisingly good at it.

He had felt a cool hand on his forehead. You have that look in your eye you had said, hand traveling towards his cheek. You do that to Daella and Alaric too. He does not know if it a mother thing, or just a you thing.

It broke him out of his self-inflicted daze, just like how Aegon’s humming interrupts his thoughts of you now.

“I suppose that is best,” Aegon leans back in the seat casually. Aemond just sighs, waiting for the next stone to turn. He knows his brother did not come just to ask that especially when he could have just asked you himself.

Aegon seems to be lit from within. As each day passes, his brother shifts into a different person. The difference makes it hard for anyone to be upset at the cause of Aegon’s new attitude. A happy Aegon is not something anyone should take for granted.

“Is that all,” Aemond would like to get out of this conversation with his headspace in tact. The disarming charm of Aegon is often followed by deep disappointment.

Even with Aegon’s new disposition, the two of them still cannot see things the same. The deeply hidden flickers of hope Aemond has for reconcilement between him and his brother leave his body slowly but surely. It is better that way. Hold no hope, and the let down never comes.

The mirth that radiates off Aegon switches quickly.

“I just hope it was all worth it in the end,” his tone is sharp, and cold. Aemond instinctively flitches as Aegon’s large eyes bore into him. He hates how much Aegon looks like their mother in certain lights. It feels like he’s being scolded by her.

“But then again, how could it be? You have been living a great love affair that turns out to be a farce,” Aemond’s eye twitches a bit. “It is something I have always loved about you, brother. You always do things with all your might. No half battles for you; even in your fuck ups.”

And he hates how deeply his brother makes him feel. Skin crawling childhood memories rush over him. If it is one thing Aemond hates, it is the feeling of being backed into a corner.

“No whore, and wife and children to descend away with our sister and her bastards.”

For a moment, Aemond thinks about lunging over the desk at Aegon. But he knows exerting strength over Aegon does nothing now, not the way it did many moons ago when Aemond had his growth spurt. Just another notch in the post of things that made the brothers resent each other.

That reason seems silly compared to the others.

He knows Aegon is not just doing this for you, he enjoys the taunting in the way only a brother would. The same way only siblings would worry and focus on what one has over the other. A childish mindset that neither of them grown out of unfortunately.

They will always measure themselves against each other. Aegon with Aemond’s relationship with their mother. Aemond watching Aegon squander and relinquish any want for power or duty that could be attached to his name. And now you.

The words crawl up Aemond’s throat, and itch his tongue. He wants to say it so badly, what he has been thinking about ever since a couple of nights ago.

“You never even wanted her till she was upset with me,” Aemond blurts. He sounds like child. How he did when he would go to Alicent, near tears, when he was younger.

When he was young, he dreamed for the day to be older, more reassured, not to feel so small. Now he is older, and free feeling he wanted still had not come. Sometimes Aemond has to pinch himself. On the arm, on his thigh, or even on the stomach; he must remind himself that he was not one and ten anymore. He is a man grown.

Some days the pinching works. Or he hears Alaric’s babbling in the room, and he brought back to reality. He is painfully grounded to the situation when he looks at his children. Other days, like today, he thinks of you and prays for the days when he was younger and his biggest worry was gaining a dragon.

A thought he never expected to have.

Occasionally, he wishes he were Helaena. His sister has expressed the grief that comes with her visions, but Aemond would gladly switch places. If it is one thing their foolish father was right about, it is that the power of dragons is nothing compared to the power of prophecy. A dragon cannot makeup for the pure magic that has been left behind. Alys taught him that as well.

He pinches himself extra hard at thought of her.

If he could master the magic of his ancestors, he could go back and change so many things. He wonders how much good he could do… or how much damage.

Aegon does not bother to give Aemond a rebuttal to that comment. Just lets the easy smile he had on before reappear on his face. He can tell by the look on Aemond’s face that he is unraveling. Aegon might gotten their mother’s face, but Aemond got her ability to be a prisoner to their own thoughts.

“We just better hope not a single hair on her head is harmed while she is there.”

Aegon gets up and leaves after that. They important part is left unsaid and implied. I’ll come after you if she gets hurt. This is your fault.

Aemond knows his brother will just be one person in a line of people who would want his head if this all blows up in your face. That is alright.

Perhaps the brothers do have one thing in common. If something does happen, he just might beat everyone to the punch on that one.

You had expected Otto to tell Alicent about you going to Dragonstone. But, the worried look she gave you when you mentioned it told you otherwise.

It affirmed to you that he was going to leave his daughter in the dark for as long as possible. You could not decipher if it was for her feelings and safety or because he knew Alicent would shut down any activity that could be seen as treasonous to Rhaenyra’s claim.

It took Rhaenyra, who Alicent had convinced to stay a few more days, telling her that it was Baela and Rhaena’s idea to calm Alicent’s anxious attitude. Reiterating that it would be nice to have you and Daella around to balance out the male energy at Dragonstone. The lie slid out of Rhaenyra’s mouth with ease. She had given you a knowing look.

You knew better than to think Rhaenyra would tell Alicent it was because of Aemond, the reason she believes, but the easy nature in which she deceives Alicent does make you sad.

The easy nature in which everyone deceives Alicent makes you sad. And now even you are not above that.

To get rid of that sick feeling in your stomach, you convince yourself Alicent knows better than to believe everything that comes out of Rhaenyra’s mouth. The same way you believe Rhaenyra knows better than to tell Alicent the whole truth. This is how their relationship is. Half truths and arguments. Pining and pushing. You can tell by the way they smile at one another that in the end it will always be them for each other; lies and all.

Sadism and Masochism in a different kind of way.

“The King and I will miss seeing the kids,” Alicent remarked.

You had to hold back a grimace. Daella and Jaehaera would often go and see their grandsire, at his behest. Hear him ramble on and on about whatever he could remember that day; often old histories. Daella has told you she hated it because he ‘smelled foul’. The statement had made Aegon cry with laughter.

Viserys had only seen Alaric twice since his birth. The first time you had to drag Aemond with you. Juggling two big babies that day.

You had watched Aemond bite back a sneer the entire time. Even Alicent made a face when Viserys mumbled something about Alaric already having a warrior spirit like his father. You supposed you cannot blame them for their apprehension. The jovial tone of his voice nothing like what Aemond heard growing up. It only leaves a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth.

You wanted to say Viserys’ delusions were illness driven, only getting worse with age. But he has always underestimated the damage he did with his kids. Viserys underestimates a lot of things.

The second time he saw Alaric, your sweet boy had decided to spit up all over the King. Then it was Aemond’s turn to laugh.

Viserys is so out of the loop. He seems to think your trip to Dragonstone was a testament to his grand showing for Rhaenyra. That his dinner speech moved you to the point of wanting to connect to the other of your husband’s family.

It is assumed that using Baela and Rhaena as a cover was not fully convincing to Alicent.

“Space can be a treasure at times,” Alicent whispered to you, squeezing your hand. “A new beginning once you get back.”

All you could do was hum in acknowledgment and try to smile. You cannot help but wonder how Alicent will respond if you get tangible proof that Rhaenyra had something to do with Alys. Would it ruin the move to reconciliation? Would it even matter by the time Rhaenyra is to take the throne?

If you cannot dwell too much; one foot in front of the other. The preparations to set sail with Rhaenyra were all prepped.

Your night was interrupted by a knock at the door. The knuckles on the door tapping to the tune of a Braavosi song you like. Aegon.

You have to bite back a smile. The two of you have not talked since the night of the dinner. It is a strange ordeal. Going from purposely ignoring each other’s existences to now a few days of not speaking feeling foreign. He sticks his head in with a sheepish look.

Men will always come back with their tails tucked between their legs when they think it is worth it

Your mother’s words playing your head. Instead of focusing Aegon, your mind drifts to Aemond. You know it is a point of contention for them, but it is hard not to compare them. Especially when they act so differently at times. To see Aemond grovel would be a sight. Perhaps he has before… just not for you.

He says nothing when he comes in, eyes fluttering over your pale blue night gown. You sigh, tying your robe around you. For all Aegon can be when he tries - sweet, observant, loyal to a fault. He’s still same boy in his bones; easily swayed by pretty things.

“Yes, Aegon?”

He still does not say anything, instead, he pulls a small box out of his pocket and hands it to you. Shy like a child trying to evade a scolding. You narrow your eyes at him, but still open the box.

Inside was dainty chain silver. Hanging from it was a bright yellow stone surrounded by pale pink ones. You shoulders slump. It’s beautiful, and entirely too much. Much like the man who is trying to give it to you.

“Is this your attempt at an apology,” you give a weak laugh.

“No,” he waves that notion off. “I am not going to apologize for vocalizing how bad of an idea I think this is. Though I know there is no stopping you once you set your mind to something.”

You know it would be hypocritical to judge Aegon and Aemond’s paranoia towards their older sister. She has not given them a reason to have faith in her. Neither has their uncle, who only seems to show up in moments of chaos. Those feelings are reciprocated by Rhaenyra and her family towards them.

“Think of it as more of a promise,” he walks towards to you, and the box suddenly feels like it weighs as much as a horse.

Chewing on the side of you cheek, you shake your head. “I cannot accept this Aegon. You are very kind but… I cannot.”

You never want to think the worst of people; even Aegon, who you have an admittedly rocky past with. It has never been your nature, till recently. Gifts leading to promises; promises leading to expectations you don’t know if you can handle. The affection of people in the Red Keep, especially the men, constantly wane.

It is hard not to blame your mother for how you feel right now. For every drop of wisdom she instilled in you, she left touches of fragility and fear. She made sure to reiterate the importance of having powerful people, specifically powerful men, in your corner but never explained what do to when the debt comes due.

It may not be what Aegon meant but these thoughts plague you often as loyalties shift. Even the most attentive, and helpful people want something in return. What happens when those expectations can not be met? Does the goodwill dry up?

Sensing your nerves, gently takes your wrist pulling you closer. “You are not alone in this. We are all here if you need to get out of there,” he pauses for a moment before cracking a smile. “Even Aemond would hop on Vhagar if something happened.”

You raise a brow, not knowing if this is him trying to cheer you up or if he genuinely believes it. You actually think the old beast probably likes you more than your husband most days. You hold back a shudder thinking about your first meeting with Vhagar. Beady eyes following you before huffing in approval. You remember the smell of sheep on her breath.

“She likes you!” Aemond seemed so happy she did.

Things were simpler back then. Mindless courting and no pain. You had fooled yourself into thinking everything would work itself out.

As if he heard you two speaking about him, the sounds of heavy boots echo through the halls.

As if a spell had been broken, Aegon lets go of your wrist giving you.

“Remember aim for the jugular or heart, and drive through.”

You laugh and roll your eyes. Criston had preached no mercy during their lessons, and it seems to be the only thing that stuck with Aegon.

Aemond interrupts you two by coming in, stopping in his tracks when he sees you both. He blinks blankly before sighing and going over to sit.

“Have fun with that,” Aegon whispers, before leaving.

You realize he never takes back the necklace. Think of it as a promise. He never told you what that promise was.

———

When Aemond was young, he over heard his grandsire speaking to his mother about him.

“You coddle him too much Alicent,” his voice gravely. “He is never going to grow up hiding beneath your skirts. It’s probably why he had not gained a dragon yet.”

She just stood and took it because that is what his mother always does when it comes to her father, or with Viserys. She had learned the art of taking everything and internalizing it. And then she wonders why he children do the same.

Aemond is master of it. He adds to the list of things he has grown quite good at. Along with his training with the sword, and his ability to retain things he learned through reading. Showing any emotion has only failed him over the years.

The only time he finds reprieve is at night.

The dreams tend to be the same each night. You standing over him, Dark Sister in hand, and unbridled hatred in your eyes. Aemond cannot call them nightmares in good faith; he finds them too entertaining for that. He does not know how you got the sword, but that is just another exciting part about the dreams. His mother did always say he had a morbid sense of humor.

The image of you having blade to him breaks up the monotony of life. In fact, he is sure he likes dream you more than the one he sees everyday. Dream you lacks the shiny luster that the real you carries. There is something so unapologetic about the look of disgust on your face. Some nights you slit his throat, quick and to the point. A merciful kill. Other times you take his other eye. The chambers ablaze; he sees and feels the heat before everything goes dark.

“Aemond, are you listening to me,” you sigh, breaking him out of his thoughts.

All he can do is look at you. You look ethereal, back lit by the fires throughout the room. Unwavering stares is all he can give you these days. In the early days of your marriage, you used to look away when the looks were to much. Now, you just stare back; eyes tired yet soft. Perhaps it is the inability for you harden yourself that makes the dreams so welcomed. He selfishly wants you to debase yourself the way he has. Aemond knows it is in there, but you are too smart to let it show in that way.

Maybe you will come back from Dragonstone, with untamed loathing in your heart, and Dark Sister attached to you. The spirits of the mad Targaryens that roam Dragonstone compelling you to snap. The dream you and the real one will merge into something terrifyingly beautiful.

What a way that would be to go.… in fire and blood.

The departure from King’s Landing went as smoothly as you could hope. Alicent and Helaena saw you off with sad smiles. The ship pulled off, and it felt like a momentary breath of relief. Sometimes you felt locked away in the King’s Landing

“Quite watchful, is she not,” Rhaenyra laughed. At first you thought she was speaking about Alicent. You turned towards the Red Keep to see Vhagar flying a comfortable distance behind. “She will turn back, right?”

You nod perplexed, watching as Daella waves at Vhagar.

You think back to laughing when Aemond asked if Daella would miss him, and she replied with a shrug and reminded him to feed Vhagar extra sheep while she is away. His sour disposition melts when she gives him a kiss on the cheek before she sprinted to say goodbye to her cousins. You try not to shift awkwardly when he kisses you on the cheek and tells you to be safe.

Eventually Vhagar does turn back, after circling the ship a couple of times.

You go to put Alaric down for a nap in one of the bottom room. When you first had him, his silence used to worry you. Often you found yourself leaning over his cot to see if he was still breathing. He sleeps like the dead, and stares as if he knows something you do not. The stare would be slightly menacing if it was not attached to such a cute face.

Ser Quinton comes in, and quietly closes the door. He looks as uneasy as you feel. He seems to share the same skepticism everyone has about this little getaway.

“You were right about Jayne,” his voice is low as he sits on the bed next to you. “She about the tunnels. Said she was a disciple of someone named Mysaria.”

The name is so familiar but you can’t put your finger on it.

“How did you find that out?”

“Do you really want to know that,” he grimaces. The last time you saw Jayne, Quinton had lied to her and said the Queen wanted to see her. You are sure she went to the dungeons, where all the people who are accused of treason go. Your heart feels heavy at the thought of her being tortured.

It was a hard pill swallow. Jayne had been with you since Daella was born. How long had she been watching you for?

“I need you to promise me something,” you whisper to him. “If anything were to happen, I need make sure the kids are you first priority. Their safety is of the upmost importance… even if it means leaving me behind.”

Quinton frown deeply. “I am your protector, I would n-“

“And as my protector, I am asking you do this for me. Think of everything you feel for me, and do this please.”

You squeeze his arm. After a moment of silence, he nods solemnly.

You know when you have reached Dragonstone because smell is like nothing you have encountered before. Putrid almost. You thought the Red Keep was as somber as a place could get; you were terribly wrong.

The bright look that crosses Rhaenyra’s face makes you jealous. You often envious of the way the Targaryens around you moved. Viserys, despite being the king, had little care for things that did not benefit him. Aemond saunters into rooms like he owns it, Aegon followed his own rules to a fault. Rhaenyra seems to revel in the privilege that came with her name. Even Helaena had came into her own, embracing the things people see as odd.

You felt like your good was not good enough, but you think of what your father would tell you when you were young.

The best people are often underestimated, use that to your advantage.

And use it you will.

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[majorasnightmare]

AND NOW IM MOHG POSTING

listen im as glad as anyone that he beat the allegations. like. at least theres THAT cuz despite the jokes i never rly considered that That was the intended characterization.

before the dlc dropped i was slowly putting together something discussing the way the different types of "blasphemers" and "heretics" all embody something the Golden Order either doesnt allow, or tries to control. Rykard and Ambition. Ranni and Autonomy.

Mohg and Love.

The cult of the Mohgwyn Dynasty focuses significantly around the idea of Love. Varre mentions it often, as an explicit contrast to the Golden Order as enforced by the Two Fingers. and its easy to see the comparison there. there is no love lost between the tarnished and the two fingers. Tarnished are to be sent out, chewed up, spit out, until one becomes elden lord, and All Returns To As It Should Be. varre points out that this is a frankly ridiculous expectation of a group of people left on the Orders fringes to get scraps of grace and fight over the leftovers. Rykard points the tarnished towards Ambition, to dreaming of greater heights than what is allowed, of shattering the gods shackles and ascending beyond their permissions, and if the gods only underatand violence then we shall become fluent in their tongue. Ranni points the tarnished towards Autonomy, choosing your own fate beyond what the Two Fingers demand of you, and coming to your own conclusions about what YOU want and what YOU think is important, regardless of her place in it.

Varre, and by extension Mohg, points the tarnished towards Love. A dynasty that rejects no one. A place for everyone. No curses, no outcasts. Family.

In this way, Mohg and Miquella become foils to each other. Mohg and his dynasty are founded on ostensibly the same principles as the Haligtree: a secluded place, far from the orders watching eyes, that accepts everyone, that LOVES everyone. Mohg, deprived of family, hated and rejected and cast aside, learns of love through the formless mother, who teaches him to adore the cursed blood he was born with. But the mother of truth craves wounds and teaches the same to mohg, encouraging him not just to wound himself but others. He kidnaps surgeons and forces his blood on them, and only varre overcomes it. Mohgs love is selfish, possessive, it isnt enough to be family, you must be HIS family, through blood, superceding whatever ties you had before. We must be bound to each other, through blood, the most important ties a family can have, because blood ties determined EVERYTHING about mohgs life. By cursed omen blood was he condemned. By favored royal blood was he spared. Now we all shall Loved, in the Mothers clawing embrace. None shall be spared and the truth she reveals will bring us together.

By contrast, Miquellas only requirement to join the haligtree is to find it, with the implicit request not to bring any harm to it. You give nothing to the Haligtree, only receive its safety. Miquella only sacrifices himself to the Haligtree, watering it with his own blood. Miquellas Love asks nothing of you, demands nothing of you, doesnt ask you to endure pain or suffering to grow closer, it merely offers a reprieve.

Of course such a demigod would be the only suitable consort of the dynasty. Of course, out of all the potential consorts to bring forth his vision for the lands between, Mohg would seek out the Unalloyed, the Kind. The Golden Order tells you who is acceptable to love, thou shalt not love omens, the tarnished are outcasts who must fight and scrape for acceptance, misbegotten and demihumans's rightful place is beneath us as servants. Miquella and Mohg both reject this hierarchy at its core, but its through their methods that they contrast each other.

But instead of being someone capable of having a coherent, if flawed, idealogy who made an intelligent decision on his choice of whom among those capable of enforcing a framework of reality upon the world befitting their goals and ideals, mohg is uhhh guy who got bewitched and then killed and then had his corpse defiled. whats narrative foils idk her

[egg-emperor]

thinking about how Eggman (unintentionally) created Sage to be capable of feeling love and care because of how he specifically created her to protect him first and foremost. and how her first personal feelings beyond intended programming were more positive ones of love and care after observing it between Sonic and friends

vs Metal Sonic who was created to be filled with and fueled by pure hate, a cold violent machine with the objective of killing Sonic and proving himself in power and worth and that's it. and the way even his first personal feeling beyond his programming causing him to act on his own without order was hate, towards Eggman to attempt betrayal

Sage is fueled by feelings of love and loyalty for Eggman and a desire to protect above everything else, while Metal Sonic is fueled by feelings of hate hate hate and a desire to prove himself over his "copy" no matter what. and he can't escape or grow like Sage because Eggman punishes him and restricts his freedom more and more

how different they are in purposes, how they're treated as Metal has received all the worst while Sage has only gotten a small glimpse of the rage he can feel and inflict upon his creations, and how they're viewed and used very differently by their creator despite them both being prized and boasted creations of his is fun to compare and think about

[niuttuc]

Arega: Story Summary up to 2024

Alright, you voted for it, so let's delve in, this will be quite a block of text, but I'll space it with cards to make it a bit less daunting.

Their story starts with a Lorwyn Changeling sparking, and ending up on Ravnica. While Changelings are self-aware and capable of speech, they're fairly simple creatures.

Ravnica was very overwhelming to them, thankfully a kind soul rescued them from the streets, and contacted a local Simic researcher to return what they assumed to be an escaped experiment of some kind, of the name of Jova.

Now, Jova was a relatively private researcher recently recruited as a potential creator for a budding Guardian Project. She's also one that had been experimenting with illegal cytoplasm, the technology passed down to her by her grandmother, who believed the blanket ban on cytoplasm was short-sighted. It is capable of great harm, but also is incredible medicine and bio-technology in the right hands.

(For anyone unaware of original Ravnica block, Cytoplasm was a blue-green goo that could be grafted to anyone and replicate the function of pretty much any body part or organ, better in some cases. It was used as replacement for missing limbs and organs, or augmentations.

Then the leader of the Simic at the time, Momir Vig, called it all back as part of a megalomaniacal plan, fusing it all back into Kraj having "learned" connected to so many people's nervous systems, in an attempt to make the perfect being, killing or injuring thousands if not millions that relied on those cytoplasms. When Zegana rebuilt the guild, cytoplasms were banned and forbidden across the board.)

After growing fond of the little changeling, and trying to understand it and where it came from better (and maybe for other reasons she was more ashamed of later), Jova eventually decided to try to "improve" the changeling's cognition with a cytoplastic augment.

This... Went wrong. While the changeling eventually somewhat stabilized, it was incapable of supporting the cytoplast by itself. Jova saved it by putting it in a Simic nourishing pod that would keep it alive (and sedated, until she figured something else out.)

Her eventual solution was to take advantage of the network of aligned cytoplasms with the one in the changeling's body. In theory, if she lined up artificial bodies with ones connected to it, and with some extra modifications, the changeling would be able to inhabit those different bodies and use them as their own, even when their original one was stuck in that pod.

And it worked! The first body she connected it to was one of her first wholly artificial Guardian designs, one intended (eventually) for reconnaissance and infiltration. It wasn't fully matured yet (and certainly not "aware" in any way. When they first opened their Guardian eyes, they had no memory of their life as a changeling or anything before then.

Jova adopted the young Guardian as a pupil and child, named them Arega, and raised them for a few years. While she kept secret their origins and original body from them, she did teach them about how they worked, cytoplasms, and how that had to stay a secret. To help with that, Jova and Arega intentionally reported inefficient or bad numbers to the Guardian Project, so that Arega's design would be considered a failure and not explored in too much detail.

Arega learned incredibly fast and well, likely partly because of their previous life. Less than four years after Jova took them in, they had most of an education and were capable of assisting Jova with bio projects. But they might not have been fully emotionally mature yet.

Jova died. A lab accident with a Krasis that escaped, nothing to do with Arega. It did bury Jova's lab under it, and with it the pod in which Arega's original body was stored. Arega panicked. Beyond the grief they felt, they'd now be put in the care of another Simic scientist, they were technically property of the guild. Ravnica's laws can be fucked up.

Their "solution" was to pretend Jova didn't die. They quickly cloned a body of Jova laced with cytoplasts for them to control, and "Jova" claimed she was just injured and disoriented in the accident. It was to only be temporary while Arega signed their own emancipation papers, but "just one more day" turned into a number of years, almost having their dead mom back.

This is where Arega was at when they were first created as a character! The starting point. I did warn it'd be a bit of a hike.

During those years, Arega matured a bit and learned even more. Appearing as a human by day did give them a different perspective on things. But the next big development would happen during the one day War of the Spark.

"Jova" died. Unbeknownst to them, Arega was a planeswalker, since the changeling sparked so long ago, and an Eternal tracked the echo of that spark into Jova's body and tried to rip it out. It didn't work, it was just a proxy, but it did destroy the body, and sent Arega in a renewed bout of grief and anger.

They take revenge on a few Eternals in a more combat-focused body, before being approached by another planeswalker. With her help, Arega follows the exposed connection to their spark to the ruins of Jova's old lab (still not cleared out, the Gruul have been keeping construction crews busy and simic labs tend to have long quarantines when they fall.)

There, they discover their original body, and with some help over the next few days, they piece together most of what happened to them. Sadly they aren't the only one to notice everything, and the rest of the Simic finally catches on to their shenanigans. And they didn't like them.

While the specifics remained a secret from most of the Combine (and Ravnica at large), the Speakers, the guild's leadership, debated on what to do with this deceitful creature. Worries about them becoming (or already being) a new Kraj were raised. Zegana championed the side of being careful in those debates, having seen the results of the last Kraj, to put Arega in stasis and remove the cytoplasm from them. Safely if possible, but the chances of that being an option seemed low.

On the other side of the debate, Vannifar was more opportunistic. Not really in defense of Arega, but they turned out to be a planeswalker. War of the Spark made their existence public on Ravnica and heightened the interests of the Guilds in other planes, both as threats and opportunities. Any planeswalker affiliated to the guild was a very precious asset, worth taking some risks for. With Vannifar as Prime Speaker, this side won out at the time. Arega would be monitored and precautions would be taken, but they'd be allowed to remain alive and active, working for the guild.

For the next few years, they'd work at studying other planes and their unique ecosystems and forms of life for the Simic, a few weeks to a few months at a time. There were a number of planes visited: Ikoria, Eldraine, Zendikar, Geonne, Ixalan and more...

Which brings to the forefront the specifics of Arega's planeswalking. While they most of the time defaulted to their Guardian body (and it's in fact the one they recognized as themselves), they didn't think they could planeswalk with it without severing the connection to their original body, essentially killing the Guardian. Their original body was the only one they could planeswalk with, along with some life-supporting technology to set up on the other world on arrival. They'd then set up a covert lab on site while they performed their work, coming back to Ravnica regularly for reports.

Which is also one of the major precautions the Combine had against Arega. While on Ravnica, their original body stayed within armed Simic guard. While in their original body, their Guardian one was kept secured and hostage in the same way.

During that time, a team was put in charge of studying how Arega's connection worked, and determined a few things. First, extracting the cytoplasm from the changeling was impossible without destroying who Arega was pretty much completely. And second, potential ways to affect them with access to an active part of the cytoplastic network, a body they'd currently be using.

Despite the situation, with them being kept partly hostage, Arega still loved the Simic, their ideals and understood the fear that motivated them against the cytoplastic creature. They were happy to help, even if the situation was worrying at times. Of course, they could have planeswalked away during their work at any time, but it would mean abandoning their "real" body. Not that they wanted to anyway. But their mission on Eldraine marked a turning point.

On Eldraine, they set up and worked in the Wilds. They first welcomed Arega, a shapeshifter, a changeling, recognizing it as kindred. But they were also a scientist. Trying to measure, quantify, define. That was antithetical to the chaotic nature of the Wilds, and Arega's experiments never produced any results, certainly not replicable ones.

To put it simply, months of work on Eldraine produced pretty much nothing of worth to report. The reprimands that came next (and a few conversations on Eldraine) did make Arega realize fully the situation they were in, though. Kept hostage, made to work, a disappointment or change of regime away from being deemed too much of a risk and killed. They may have understood why the Combine felt like it had to act like that, but that doesn't mean they thought they should, it went against most of the guild's ideals Arega believed in.

It's after this long work on Eldraine that they started seriously thinking about possibilities to get out of the situation they were in. Most of them ranged from stupid to suicidal, or would have required them leaving their body behind. They did consider leaving it behind, maybe make a new one for themself, but this was a no-go. This body of theirs represented too much for them, mainly as how Jova knew them. Made them.

In those years, that Guardian body also finally pupated into full physical maturity, and while that came with a few changes, most of them didn't help their escape plans much. The planning in general ended up less important than an opportunity that presented itself to them, and they felt like they had to seize: The Phyrexian Invasion!

In the chaos of the Invasion, Arega finalized a risky idea, but a possible one. With the guard over their original body lightened by the war effort (and Arega's general compliance over the years), they took advantage of it to sneak and sedate their way into the complex, steal themselves, and try to planeswalk at once with both their bodies through the openings of other worlds created by Realmbreaker.

It worked! Not without hitch, but they were free. And back on Eldraine, dealing with its own Invasion. They hid in the Wilds, settling and removing the various contingencies the guild had left in their bodies in case of their escape, not wanting to test their luck on whether they'd work across planes.

Hidden back in their field lab, and soon after they settled, it wasn't a Simic affliction that got them. The Wicked Slumber spread, and while it would take months to affect most of Eldraine, Arega was a stranger to the plane, one of the targets for it. Only a couple days after they arrived, they fell to the Slumber until Kellan finally lifted it, months later.

Upon understanding what happened, they were very worried. Any headstart they might have had on people the Simic would have sent after them was long gone. And they couldn't really planeswalk away anymore, so they were stuck on Eldraine for the time being. Of course, exploring and discussing, they learned about Omenpaths, both a relief and a source of concern. This meant that the Combine didn't have to hire planeswalkers to chase them, any agents would do, but it also meant Arega had ways off-plane if they wanted. They set off in search for a way for them to planeswalk more reliably, as a way to be able to evade any pursuers.

(Of course, nobody was actually on Arega's trail. While a few Simic contacts or planeswalkers may have been told to keep an eye out, after the Invasion, the Simic's resources were strained way too thin on rebuilding and gaining back trust. Arega was on another world, and another world's concern, a secondary one for the guild for the time being. And leadership had learned to know the changeling a bit better by then, and thought they were at relatively low risk in the short term. Probably. If whatever plane they ended up on could handle a phyrexian invasion, it could probably handle a rogue Arega)

Arega finally found something that could potentially help them on the plane of Geonne. A local ritual to magically fuse together two organisms, for better survival. It took them a while to study the phenomenon and build confidence, both that it could work in their case and probably wouldn't kill them. But when they finally tried it, it worked, mostly without hitch!

They combined together their Guardian body and their original body (well, with its cytoplasts), into something mostly resembling the former externally (as the changeling body wasn't able to survive on its own exposed to the world already). Their internal biology is probably somewhat closer to changeling? They do not understand it, or what they are now. They can still inhabit other bodies, but they're more interested in experimenting with this one for now. A new form of life is something to be explored and researched!

Their new body appears to slowly shapeshift to adapt to tasks and environments it is put in, which is fascinating to them. Able to planeswalk, confident they can escape capture and eager to rediscover themselves, that's roughly where they are at nowadays!

After this, they wrote a letter to both Zegana and Vannifar they got delivered onto Ravnica, apologizing and pleading them not to come after them, and that maybe someday they'd be able to rejoin the guild? But on more favorable terms? Addressing them differently. Sadly, by the time the letters were delivered, one of their recipients was unable to receive it.

[bunthebreadboy]

I'm so happy I found your blog. I had no idea Azutara was a legitimate ship in the ATLA fandom until today! I love the aesthetic of bloodbending Katara with Azula's blue fire - a kind of inverse of the blue/water character + red/fire character trope. I have an assassin!Katara AU I've been thinking about where both she and Azula are rather morally gray, and they meet during the full moon during an attempted assassination of someone in the Fire Nation royal family (I'm not sure who). I like the idea of Azula, who's used to being in control and in command during conflicts with an enemy, being rendered completely helpless for the first time in her life by Katara's bloodbending. I imagine that it would be terrifying for her, the complete loss of control, and that the moment would stick with her long after Katara is either captured or escapes. Both Azula and Katara are pretty overpowered in this for self-indulgent purposes, and I like the idea of Katara only being captured because Azula stalled her long enough for the sun to rise. They'd definitely want to interrogate her to determine if she's working alone and whether she poses a significant threat. Maybe she's part of a powerful rebel group (the freedom fighters, perhaps? who knows) and the Fire Lord decides to let her live only on the condition that she helps them track down the rest of the resistance. And, of course, Azula gets assigned lead on the mission. So that leaves one month until the next full moon. One month of Katara and Azula begrudgingly working together (Katara, of course, trying her best to steer them down the wrong trail and fuck with their plans) and unwillingly growing closer. The budding friendship(? ish?) encourages some character development on Azula's part, to the point where she gets conflicted about the Fire Nation's part in the war. (Maybe Katara tells her about her mother. Maybe Azula relates to the righteous, indignant anger of desperately wanting something that's rightfully yours and never getting it.) I don't know if Zuko is there or not. I like the idea of him still being on the hunt for Aang and then encountering the Azula/Katara duo somehow. But I for sure want Katara to escape on the next full moon, when the month is up, and for Azula to stay behind despite wanting to run away with her. So when they meet later on the battle field it's the classic, tragic, sapphic-enemies-with-complex-feelings-about-each-other situation. Sorry this got so long! I've been wanting to talk about this and I saw your post asking for asks! Sorry if I overstepped! I love your Azutara content!

OH THIS IS GOOD. definitely beyond my writing capabilities as i am an impatient person and i know something like this would be at least 50k words. if not more. and im also too busy to commit to something i intend on making long.

however if you end up writing this i will 100% read it. provide suggestions. whatever u need. because i am (somewhat unfortunately) a toxic yuri lover. but only when the toxic yuri has a happy ending lmao

[mysticstronomy]

WHAT IS A QUANTUM COMPUTER??

Blog#313

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Welcome back,

It’s fascinating to think about the power in our pocket—today’s smartphones have the computing power of a military computer from 50 years ago that was the size of an entire room. However, even with the phenomenal strides we made in technology and classical computers since the onset of the computer revolution, there remain problems that classical computers just can’t solve. Many believe quantum computers are the answer.

Now that we have made the switching and memory units of computers, known as transistors, almost as small as an atom, we need to find an entirely new way of thinking about and building computers. Even though a classical computer helps us do many amazing things, “under the hood” it’s really just a calculator that uses a sequence of bits—values of 0 and 1 to represent two states (think on and off switch) to makes sense of and decisions about the data we input following a prearranged set of instructions.

Quantum computers are not intended to replace classical computers, they are expected to be a different tool we will use to solve complex problems that are beyond the capabilities of a classical computer.

Basically, as we are entering a big data world in which the information we need to store grows, there is a need for more ones and zeros and transistors to process it. For the most part classical computers are limited to doing one thing at a time, so the more complex the problem, the longer it takes.

A problem that requires more power and time than today’s computers can accommodate is called an intractable problem. These are the problems that quantum computers are predicted to solve.

When you enter the world of atomic and subatomic particles, things begin to behave in unexpected ways. In fact, these particles can exist in more than one state at a time. It’s this ability that quantum computers take advantage of.

Instead of bits, which conventional computers use, a quantum computer uses quantum bits—known as qubits. To illustrate the difference, imagine a sphere. A bit can be at either of the two poles of the sphere, but a qubit can exist at any point on the sphere. So, this means that a computer using qubits can store an enormous amount of information and uses less energy doing so than a classical computer.

By entering into this quantum area of computing where the traditional laws of physics no longer apply, we will be able to create processors that are significantly faster (a million or more times) than the ones we use today. Sounds fantastic, but the challenge is that quantum computing is also incredibly complex.

The pressure is on the computer industry to find ways to make computing more efficient, since we reached the limits of energy efficiency using classical methods. By 2040, according to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association, we will no longer have the capability to power all of the machines around the world.

That’s precisely why the computer industry is racing to make quantum computers work on a commercial scale. No small feat, but one that will pay extraordinary dividends.

Originally published on forbes.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, July 15th, 2023)

"DOES MASS INCREASE WHEN NEARING THE SPEED OF LIGHT??"

[sleeplessdreamer123]

Fanfic Idea! (Lucemond, part 3 of where Lucerys is dead, until he isn't)

Part 2:

Aemond thinks his nephew is strange, so strange in fact he was considering Lucerys either being a Dragon Dreamer, like his half-sister thinks, or someone having succumbed to madness, like his mother thinks whenever he writes to her about him.

Aemond would notice him talking to empty spaces, to the walls, to a tree, hells, he entered his room and saw him talking to the waters in his bath. He would then stop, as if waiting for a reply, before talking again.

Aemond says nothing to Rhaenyra, or to Rhaenys, or Corlys or any of them. He swore to Lucerys, and unless he believes that Lucerys would be harmed in any way (honestly, the way amount of times he hears Lucerys talk to the air makes him wonder if it could be considered an endangerment) he would not say anything.

He is having a bit of trouble with Lucerys. More specifically, his actions beyond speaking to an invisible audience.

Lucerys is odd in many ways, Aemond understands that it might be because he was dead for a few minutes, he might have lost certain thinking capabilities, because there is no other way in the seven hells to explain how Lucerys doesn't understand what he was doing to him.

It started small, Lucerys standing a bit closer to Aemond in certain times, usually after his "talks", as if something spooked him enough to seek Aemond's presence. Aemond can deal with that. After all, he was trained to grab Lucerys and shield him from any possible danger, so having Lucerys instinctively going to him would make his job easier.

Then came the unnecessary touching. One moment Aemond was standing guard behind him, the next second he would feel cool fingers grasping at his cloak, at his arm, at his hands, for no apparent reason. And the way he acts! He's always too close for comfort, face centimeters away from his own. Luckily he outgrew Lucerys enough so he won't be able to practically shove his nose so close to his cheek, (which was easy seeing as he was growing slower than anyone else). And his whispering, hells his whispering!

One moment they were walking along the hallways and the next second Lucerys would be pulling Aemond down and whispering orders. It was fine as a child, he would understand, but he's already almost a grown man, yet he still does it, whispering things in his ear, his breath so close to his neck as he warns him of another assassination attempt down the hall or to order him to capture some assassin dressed as a servant plotting to poison Lord Corlys.

It was uncomfortable enough in the earlier years, but now that he...knows more about himself...in certain terms...of enjoying goose instead of roast ducks...

And having the person of his desire being so close, so unaware that his mere touch was enough to send him reeling for days, well, he was glad he trained himself for self-control, despite Daemon teachings, telling him to do whatever he wished outside of guarding Lucerys (he doubts Daemon would allow him to do whatever he wished with his step-son, so he wisely kept to himself).

Lucerys might be the crazy one, but it was Aemond who was being driven insane. And gods is it hard to keep himself as sane as possible to act as a loyal guard. And the little brat doesn't know. He just doesn't know, and he intends to keep it that way.

Otherwise his half-sister would have his head, and his uncle, though favoring him from time to time, would gladly serve it on a silver platter for his sister to do whatever she pleases.

------------

Hehehe, so this is back. Enjoy😁

[all-things-skylanders]

Could I request some boom bloom headcannons and share one of them (she’s bisexual )

Yeah, looking her over, I can definitely see that Boom Bloom has Bi Energy. This is actually the first requested character I don't have in my collection, so I'm relying on the wiki alone.

Updated Lore:

Boom Bloom was a sentient tree at one point, helpless and yet peaceful. She had no name, and yet everyone in the grove knew her, and she knew everyone else. Of course, that was because her only neighbors were other sentient trees! Boom Bloom lived for over a thousand years, meaning that she had watched the fall of the Arkeyan empire at the hands of the Giants, though she had never learned what it was like to meet the fabled Tree Rex.

After nearly twelve-hundred years of life, Boom Bloom found herself growing increasingly bored of the status quo. She had counted the leaves of every tree in sight a thousand times over, watched blades of grass wither with unwavering focus, and survived locust attacks for generations.

When change finally came, it was in the form of an Ent Ninja and his apprentice. The ent was the supposed Guardian of the Forest, though he mostly stuck to the more populated areas. The grove however, was the perfect spot for him and the little elf girl with him to train. For years, Boom Bloom watched as the elf grew into the future warrior, Stealth Elf. Boom Bloom herself watched the ninja training every day as well, soaking everything that she needed to know up, unlike the other trees who didn't care for learning such frivolities that they would never use.

When Stealth Elf graduated and moved on, the status quo set back in, but only for a short while. The villanous Dr. Krankcase dug up the entire grove of its trees and brought them to his lab for experiments, mutating each of them into what were intended to be his minions. The trees didn't take kindly to this, and were quick to rebel with their new bodies. All of Boom Bloom's old friends quickly were destroyed, as they knew nothing of using their physical forms, but Boom Bloom had learned of combat through watching the ninjas train, so with the help of her mutated powers, she destroyed Krankcase's entire laboratory, where the villain only escaped by a hair.

Boom Bloom's ancient wisdom and prowess rivaling the most decorated skylanders in the team, Boom Bloom was quick to become a Sensei when she sought out the famed Master Eon, teaching giddy recruits in the pursuit of patience.

Other Stuff:

Boom Bloom is Bisexual, though not towards other creatures. Boom Bloom has been caught flirting with flowers and shrubs around the academy, and has yet to exhibit any attraction to something capable of returning those feelings.

Due to their pasts as mutated trees, and similar ages, Boom Bloom and Tree Rex share a connection, and are commonly paired as duos when big guns need to be called in.

Boom Bloom sees Stealth Elf as something like a daughter, and tries to go on bonding activities and hang-outs, only to confuse Stealth Elf more and more, since the elf herself never knew Boom Bloom had been watching, and therefor felt none of the bond that Boom Bloom did.

Boom Bloom has next to zero social understanding. While she talks very formally and is seemingly polite at first, she can be blunt, emotional and easily confused, since she knows very little of her world beyond what she eavesdropped. She also has next to no concept of mortality and time, so she's given quite a few skylanders existential dread over their short lives.

Boom Bloom has severe survivor's guilt, as she knew her grove mates for nearly twelve centuries, and now she is the last one left. On late nights, she may be found in the middle of Life Zones, mourning her kin.

WOAH! That was a lot more than I expected to write, Boom Bloom really spoke to me a lot! She has a really solid concept that lends itself to my favorite brand of angst quite well, so I guess I kinda went overboard.

That's what I could come up with for Boom Bloom. Do you like it? I'm always down for feedback, as long as it's polite ^^

[angelique-fireheart]

In Touch Bible Study Notes "The Blessings of Inadequacy" 08/31/2024

"Paul never said he was capable of doing all that God called him to do. He simply learned to look beyond his own inadequacy to the sufficiency of Christ. And if we adopt the same practice, we'll be able to discover the blessings hidden in our own experiences of inadequacy. So keep in mind:

"Our insufficiency should drive us to God. When we realize a situation is bigger than we can handle, we ought to quickly open the Bible and diligently pray for guidance and power. Inadequacy relieves us of the burden of self-effort and self-reliance, motivating dependency on divine power instead."

"We'll never be adequate until we draw from the Holy Spirit's inexhaustible strength. He does in and through us what God never intended that we do on our own. By using inadequate people, God demonstrates the great things He can do. There's no limit to what He can accomplish through someone willing to give Him full control."

"Inadequacy challenges our faith. Paul says, 'Our adequacy is from God.' (2 Corinthians 3:5) Those who focus on the reliability of this promise and step out in obedience will grow in faith. Let the Lord make you adequate: Rely upon Him and allow Christ to live in and through you."

My thoughts on this study are as follows:

We can't rely on ourselves for the strength to reach the many blessings God has in store for us. That personal strength will only take us so far. We need the might and power of the One true God, our Heavenly Father. We need Jesus to give us freedom and salvation that only He can give. His name is the name above all names. When we stop thinking we have all the strength we need through ourselves, and instead lean on God and Jesus, relying on their strength, as well as the Holy Spirit, then we can be stronger in faith and not feel inadequate. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator, and He longs to have that personal relationship with us. We should also never stop being thankful for this life He's blessed us with. He cares for us, and proved that, not that He needed to, but did, when He sent His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to Calvary, to die for our sins. No one else would have, or could have, done that act of pure love. So remember Him always, pray fervently, and keep Him close inside your heart. He'll never let you down or direct you somewhere He hasn't walked before you.

Verses Read:

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

2nd Corinthians 3:1-6 KJV

[south-of-heaven]

Can I have Eddie Guerrero x Fem reader x Chyna where she gets them together but she falls for both of them and soon they all tell their feelings for each other?

Matchmaker || Eddie Guerrero x Reader x Chyna

Summary: You play matchmaker but you end up falling in love in the process.

You find yourself in an unexpected role – a matchmaker of hearts, orchestrating a love story that you never saw coming. Eddie Guerrero and Chyna, two incredible individuals who deserve happiness, have captured your attention. You see the chemistry between them, the way their personalities complement each other, and you can't help but feel a warm sense of satisfaction.

It starts innocently enough – subtle hints, friendly encouragement, and a bit of teasing. You watch as Eddie and Chyna's interactions grow more meaningful, their laughter echoing through the air as they spend time together. And as you witness their connection deepening, an unforeseen emotion takes root within you – a pang of longing that you can't ignore.

You try to push those feelings aside, focusing on the happiness you're helping to create for Eddie and Chyna. After all, your friendship with them is invaluable, and you would do anything to see them happy. But as days turn into weeks, you find it harder to suppress the truth – you've fallen for them both, and your heart is torn between admiration and affection.

One evening, as you watch Eddie and Chyna sharing a private moment, their laughter mingling with the setting sun, a quiet sigh escapes you. You hadn't intended to catch their attention, but Eddie's perceptive eyes lock onto yours, a knowing smile curving his lips. Chyna follows his gaze, her expression one of curiosity and warmth.

"Hey, you," Eddie calls, his voice carrying a sense of playfulness.

Caught off guard, you meet their gazes, your heart fluttering in your chest. "Hey," you respond, your voice a touch softer than usual.

Chyna's smile widens as she nudges Eddie gently. "Looks like our matchmaker needs a match herself," she teases, her eyes twinkling.

Eddie's grin turns into a knowing smirk, and a blush creeps up your cheeks. "Don't be shy, amiga," he says, using the endearing term he always does. "You're a big part of bringing us together. You're part of this too."

You feel a mixture of surprise and delight as Eddie's words sink in. And then Chyna steps closer, her hand reaching out to gently touch your arm. "We care about you," she says softly, her gaze sincere. "You mean a lot to us."

As their words wrap around you, a sense of warmth fills the air – a warmth that comes not just from the affection they hold for each other, but from the love they feel for you as well. You realize that your feelings for them are reciprocated, that the possibility of being with them is not just a dream, but a reality waiting to unfold.

And as Eddie and Chyna step even closer, their arms encircling you in a comforting embrace, you feel a weight lifting off your shoulders. In their arms, you find a haven of acceptance, a love that extends beyond the boundaries of convention. The realization washes over you – that the heart is capable of loving more than you ever imagined, and that the bonds of friendship can evolve into something beautifully unexpected.

Together, the three of you stand under the canvas of a starlit sky, your hearts entwined in a promise of shared affection and newfound love. And as you look into Eddie and Chyna's eyes, you know that the future holds a journey of companionship, understanding, and a love that defies the ordinary.

[hiskillingjar]

Watersports (Lawrence/MC)

day 19: watersports second person. piss. drink water.

"NGH!"

You grunted harshly as Lawrence tackled you down to the ground, forcing your back hard against the ground as their heavier body pinned you still and caged you down beneath them. 

"Shhh shh shh shh shhh...."

Though their face was flushed and a little frightened-looking (as if they had never done anything like this before), Lawrence shushed you in a quiet, almost sleepy tone, as they leaned forward, their breath shockingly cool against your skin, your cheeks, your lips. 

"Don't fight me, it's so much better if you don't fight, trust me," They asserted, still keeping their voice quiet as they sat up on their knees, keeping you pinned down with their hips and their strong arms pressing their weight into your shoulders. "This can be easy, we can make this so easy , if you don't fight."

"Fuck you," You muttered through grit teeth as you tried to wrestle up against them, trying to free yourself from their strong grip on your body.

"L-Language," They replied with a dirty look, as if you had offended them, before they swallowed hard, their Adam's apple bobbing against their pale throat, and pushed themselves to their feet, suddenly standing tall and towering above you.

Planting a bare foot right at the center of your chest and pressing most of their weight down onto it, Lawrence kept holding you down against the ground, their pale grey eyes locked on yours. Their breathing became shallow and quicker-paced as they stared at you hard, and even down on the ground, you got a sense that they were trembling, still scared of what they were capable of.

It would do you no good to fight against them or to swear at them, but you couldn't help your anger. 

"I, ah..." They started, making an attempt to sound nonchalant as they pushed their shaking fingers through their hair. "I think you should just...relax. A-And calm down, a little."

"Where do you get off telling me to fucking relax?" You demanded, your voice louder than theirs (which they clearly didn't like, from the way their eyes darted to the door of their apartment nervously) as you continued to fight against their body. "Why don't you relax and let me go, you fucking psycho!?"

" Psycho? "

Lawrence's eyes narrowed as they spoke, an expression that gave away their growing anger and annoyance. 

"Now that's just...unnecessary..." They continued to murmur, eyes flitting to the side as they pressed a little more weight into your chest and listened to the gasping wheeze you let out as a response, reaching up to grab and claw at their ankle. "You...you really don't wanna say things like that to me..."

You swallowed hard as your breath felt heavier and harder to get out of your lungs, your teeth gritting and your eyes fluttering at the pressure. 

They could have broken one of your ribs from this angle if they wanted to, quite easily in fact. 

You had to wonder why they weren't doing that yet.

"Or...or what?" You replied through your grit teeth, one eye squeezing shut as another surge of pressure was pressed into your chest, testing your luck beyond all better judgment not to.

Lawrence was quiet for a good moment, their eyes locked on yours before darting to the side nervously, their chapped bottom lip between their teeth. They were still breathing heavily and slowly. 

"I could hurt you." The pressure of their weight on your chest was more intense now, and they let out a brief, quiet growl. “I could really hurt you, and I would enjoy doing it too.”

"You're already hurting me," You replied through your tight frown.

"Am I...? Am I, really?"

Lawrence tilted their head to the side slightly, an expression that was almost mocking and teasing without intending to be (though you really had no idea of Lawrence's true intentions right now, their pale face was so blank and devoid of any true expression).

Their voice was still quiet, almost thoughtful and dreamy, but it was obvious that Lawrence no longer saw you as a person when they stared down at you with their doe wide, grey eyes.

No, you were more of an animal now, a pest to be gotten rid of, a bug to be squashed.

A plant to be plucked from the garden.

You swallowed hard and your body began to thrash when, after a long moment of quiet between the two of you, Lawrence started to tuck down their sweatpants and revealed their naked and...worryingly hard and lengthy cock, without saying a word.

Lawrence smiled, but there was no joy or light-heartedness behind their expression. It was a dead kind of smile that reminded you of a corpse, an ill-fated humour without feeling behind it, their grin refusing to touch their narrowed eyes with any degree of amusement. 

They then shifted their weight once more, easing up on your chest just slightly to focus a little more attention on prying their hefty cock from their sweatpants and holding it above your eyes. 

They were breathing heavily now, and they spoke softy but without any of the previous fear or hesitation, as if they knew now that they had complete control over you. 

And they certainly did, at least for the time being.

"You know...it's so rude of me, but I didn't offer you anything to drink."

Your eyes shot wide.

"Lawrence..." You said, your voice partway between a warning and a plea. "Don't-"

Though you were predictably cut off by a splash of disturbingly warm fluid on your face. 

Lawrence let out a low chuckle as the warm (disgustingly warm, despite how cool their breath had been on your skin before) liquid hit your face, but they said nothing about it, not even to gloat or goad when you immediately squeezed your eyes shut and jerked your head to the side with a shout. 

They only shifted their weight again, watching with a curious, albeit indulgent look as the dark yellow fluid ran down your skin, repulsive and demeaning, and stained the collar of your shirt.

"Is this what you wanted?" They asked, their tone dripping with contempt as the stream finally relented, the smell of ammonia thick and heavy in the humid air of the apartment. "Ah, I see now...you're one of those types that have to be forced to behave. Isn't that right?"

You stared up at them with a grimace, despite the dark flush to your cheeks, shaking your head to throw off the drops of fluid the best you could, cringing as you felt it cling to your skin and soak in your fucking hair, god-

"Are you going to be good?" Lawrence then asked with another condescending tilt of their head, the start of a smile growing on their face.

"Mph," You bit your lip again, peering up wearily towards them, drops of fluid still clinging to your eyelashes. "Y-Yeah...I'll be good."

"Good."

[acatalystrising]

SOOOO I have been on a ROLL with Moth to a Flame, and in a sudden burst of inspiration, I have chapter five already finished! Now we’re getting to the twisty turny fun of this story, but I’m only getting started. This one has much more angst then the previous chapters, so buckle up, buttercups…we’re in for a ride.

This chapter is rated MA for cannon violence, mentions of past trauma, and abuse.

Here is a link to chapter six!

Moth to a Flame Chapter Five

It had been many years since Boba Fett had awoken to a nexu’s distinct call, but waking up to a woman curled against him? Much longer.

In fact, he couldn’t recall if he ever stuck around long enough for any of his flings from his younger years to wake up the morning after. He’d been…different back then. Cold, selfish, and calloused. Uninterested in anything beyond an empty night of carnal pleasure.

Much had changed since those days - he had changed. Perhaps Fennec had been right - there was a chance he’d grown softer. But the years of a hardened life of bounty hunting would do that to anyone - especially to one who almost became sarlacc food.

He hadn’t intended to fall for anyone. Especially not now, heading a gotra, when he was arguably as busy as he’d ever been. Hadn’t ever thought he wanted or needed trivial things as romance. But you had ensnared him - smile as bright as the suns themselves, warming something in his heart that had been cold for so long. And he hadn’t been able to shake you from his mind, try as he had.

A weight of shame settled in his throat as you shifted with a soft groan, plush lips parted ever so slightly, blissfully asleep. But he noted with growing interest that you instinctively shifted closer, nestling yourself against his chest. You were so soft, small, and warm - the exact opposite of him; a man with more blood on his hands then you would hopefully ever know. And yet you trusted him enough that you invited him into your home, into your bed…such intimacies were foreign to him.

Your life couldn’t be more different than his - spending your days caring for others, for the animals so many ignored. It was so…sweet. Another thing he’d never expected his future self to admire in anyone, instead of scorn.

Yet he knew you had your traumas. Pain that had shaped you. There was a certain strength to you, hiding under that warm smile - a strength that only hardship and trials forged.

You shifted again, turning on your stomach so you were resting on his chest, chin tucked against his neck. He tentatively rested a hand on your shoulders and you mumbled something unintelligible, snuggling even closer. He couldn’t stop the small smile from curling his lips, equally unable to stop himself from carding his fingers through your hair. You mumbled again, slowly waking, and his smile broadened. Stars, you were so…perfect. His fingers brushed your hair away from your neck, and the moment it bared your skin, his smile waned, hand freezing in place.

Two long, silvery white scars ran diagonally across the back of your neck.

They were old, a testament to something that happened years ago - but it did not stop a nearly possessive rage from filling his chest. He’d been in his prior profession for many years. Long enough to know the marks of a collar when he saw them. Slavery? Empire? Something else?

Who, or what, would dare to harm someone as kind as you? He took a shuddering breath, willing himself to remain calm, even as his hunter’s mind already was calculating. Wondering who had hurt you. If they were still alive so he could exact his revenge. Because he would, without hesitation.

You only knew him as Daimyo, but Boba knew what he was truly capable of. And for the first time ever in his years, that scared him.

“Boba?” Your voice was thick with sleep, and he blinked, resuming his hand’s gentle caress through your hair as you shifted, blinking, sleepy gaze falling on him.

“I’m here, little one,” he fought to keep his tone soft, gentle. Pushed down the indignant rage he felt at your past pain.

There was nothing he could do to make the past hurt less. But perhaps he could do something, in his own way, to ease the pain of the present.

“Mm, you stayed,” you rested a hand on his chest, fingers brushing over his shirt in a gentle soothing motion. “Didn’t…didn’t wanna inconvenience you.”

Stars above, how could you ever inconvenience him? He chuckled, gathering you into his arms and pulling you closer. Your eyes widened a bit, but you stayed relaxed, leaning into him with a smile.

“You never could. This okay?” He watched your face for any signs of discomfort, relief flooding in his chest when you nodded.

He didn’t know what happened. Didn’t want to treat you any different. But he decided to keep his discovery a secret for now. At least until the time was right, if ever, to broach the subject.

“Mhm. You’re so…warm,” you closed your eyes again, that smile still gracing your lips, as too clung to him tighter. “Haven’t cuddled with anyone in so long.”

“Never have, so I’m not one to judge.”

The words left his lips before he had a chance to ponder them, and they made you start, eyeing him with renewed interest, as well as concern.

“Maker, Boba, I hope I didn’t…” you moved to get up, face flushing an adorable shade of red as you quickly became more awake. “I just…”

“Easy, sweet girl,” he guided you back against his chest, gently twining one of his legs with yours. “First time for everything.”

He didn’t miss the renewed blush that worked its way from your cheeks to your ears, and kept a mental note of that for later. It was interesting how…

“It’s okay, I really haven’t either…” you dipped your head, hiding your face against his neck. “Not like this, anyway. Thank you…for staying. It…means a lot.”

Your voice had grown softer, body language shrinking, as if you were trying to make yourself smaller. That simply wouldn’t do.

“Don’t hide that pretty face, mesh’la,” his fingers found your chin, lifting your gaze to meet his. “No shame in it. We’ll just learn together, hmm?”

“O…okay,” you nodded, still blushing furiously, so soft and warm against him, it nearly drove him mad. “I…I’d like that.”

Stars, Boba wanted to kiss you. Kiss you senseless until you forgot about your insecurities and fears, your sole focus on him. He wanted to take you apart piece by blissful piece, make you feel good, feel safe…

Damn, he was in deep.

Before he had a chance to respond, a series of shrill yowls broke the silence, loud and demanding.

“Oh kriff. The loth cats…ughhhhh…” you groaned, face scrunching up in an adorable frown. “I don’t wanna get up…”

“Me neither, princess. But there are others depending on us.” Boba shifted, pressing a kiss to your forehead before releasing you from his hold, and as you sat up with a groan, he already missed your warmth.

Kriff. For the first time ever, in all the things he’d done and experiences he’d had - Boba Fett had never once been a sap. But, he wagered he’d have to listen to his own advice.

There was a first time for everything.

-

You hadn’t ever expected your life to amount to this.

You, taking a well-earned break after your breakfast rounds, a cup of steaming kaff in your hand…and the Daimyo of Tatooine in your kitchen.

He was back in his armor, though you now knew exactly how muscular he was underneath it, as you’d suspected - a fact that would trigger another blush if you thought about it for too long.

He leaned against your counter, gloved hands resting on the smooth stone surface, looking almost too casual for someone of his reputation.

“I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure you have a lot to do.” You regarded him with a raised brow, finding something altogether fond in his gaze. “Normally I do. It’s just been a slow season.”

He nodded, clearly thinking, gaze almost lazily sweeping your kitchen. Probably a skill picked up from bounty hunting, you surmised, wondering what exactly could be so interesting in your small, humble home. His eyes drifted back to you and stopped, locking you in his gaze, the corner of his lip curling in a grin that was almost sinful.

“Perhaps you’d want to spend more time with the rancor? See how he’s doing?” His shrug was nearly boyish - quite ridiculous looking, really, for someone dressed head to toe in beskar. But his gaze never once left yours. “Sure he’d love the company.”

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and you swallowed hard. He really, really liked you. Him. Boba Fett. Liked you. For some reason, this emboldened you…urging you on in this little game you two had found yourselves playing.

“Oh, just the rancor?” You dared to prop your hands on your hips, shooting him a wink. “Or do you just not want to take your hands off me?”

Boba smirked, pushing himself up from his reclined position, something dark flitting through his gaze. Maker, did he just growl? His approach was quick and near silent despite his broad, armored frame, yet another reminder of exactly who it was you were dealing with. You blinked, heart hammering loudly in your chest, as he stood behind you and leaned down until his face was next to yours.

“You’ve no idea what these hands want to do.” His breath washed over the shell of your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. “Careful, little one. Before you bite off more than you can chew.”

Oh kriffing gods. Maker above.

Every damn curse your poor brain could conjure. You were in trouble. So much so, and you could already feel the heat pooling between your legs, assuredly soaking your underwear. Perhaps he was right…maybe you didn’t know what you were fully getting into, with a man like him.

But contrary to popular belief, you weren’t just a sweet, nice person - all bark, no bite. And he’d learn it, too, if he hadn’t guessed it already.

“I think,” you shifted in your seat to better face him, nearly losing your resolve when you saw the look of absolute hunger in his dark eyes. You swallowed and took a breath before continuing. “I’ll survive. How about this, I need to take care of some of the sick ones before I’ll be free, but I’d love to stop by later if that’s okay?”

Stop by. Stop by?

Sheesh, here you were, taking about visiting the kriffing palace like it was a daily house call. Anxiety wormed in you stomach as Boba regarded you with a smirk, capturing your chin in his gloved fingers and holding your gaze to his.

“You’re always welcome,” he turned to retrieve his helmet, shooting you one last smirk before donning it with practiced ease. When he spoke again, his deep voice was rough, rumbling through the vocorder like the thunder of a promising storm. “See you soon, little one.”

-

The suns were still high in the sky when you walked to the barn, a bucket of feed in one hand and a lead rope in the other. Hopefully your sick bantha was finally well enough to go out to pasture, making that one less thing you had to worry about.

You stifled a yawn as you entered, the familiar smell of hay, sunbaked sand, and the herbs you dried filling the air. The bantha lowed, the deep call making you smile as you saw her horned head peek over the massive stall you’d built for these occasions.

“Hey girl,” you placed the bucket down beside her stall as you looked her over before entering. “Feeling better?”

The bantha called again, shaking her head from side to side, horns rattling against the walls. You sighed, taking the lead rope in both hands, eyeing her with a small frown.

“I know, you want out. Work with me, and you’ll be there quicker.” You pointed a finger at her, pointedly lowering your voice to get the point across. “No bolting, understood?”

The bantha only lowed again, except this time, she shook her horns with a snort, banging the walls with a sharp cry. Unease twisted in your gut and your frown deepened.

“What’s wrong, girl?” You stepped forward, knowing the creature well enough to know something was amiss. “Something scaring you? It’s okay, everything’s alright.”

“I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”

A feminine voice broke the silence, and a pair of hands wrapped around you before you had a chance to react, pulling you away from the stall and onto the ground.

“Stay down, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Kriffing hell, get off me!” You twisted against your attacker, managing to land a punch somewhere before your arms were twisted behind your back. Something slipped around your wrists with a mechanical click, and you finally screamed, lashing out with your legs.

The bantha shrieked behind you, and you heard the walls of the stall rattling as she tried to break free. Maker, was she trying to help? You were not going to go down easy. Whoever was attacking you would soon learn that. You’d been through too much to be killed by some mugger.

You rolled around with a grunt and grabbed the lead rope with your bound hands, readying yourself to spin into a swinging strike…

Until you recognized the person standing behind you, a vibroblade in her hand.

“Kali?” Confusion flooded you in waves, and you stepped back, giving yourself more distance. “What the hell? Is this some kind of joke?”

The woman only smiled sadly, something altogether cold in her normally warm gaze.

“I’m afraid not.” She stepped forward and you narrowed your eyes, gripping the lead rope tighter, grateful for the heavy iron hook dangling at the end. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. “What can I say…”

Something stuck the back of your head so suddenly, you didn’t even register the moment your body hit the ground. But damn, you felt the pain - cascading down your shoulder, aching in your spine…

Kali smirked with a dismissive shrug. “I tried to warn you.”

No. No, no, no…

Panic, true panic set in as another person stepped into your fading line of sight.

Not him. Anyone but him.

“You…” you groaned, spitting out a mixture of blood and saliva, glaring despite the dread that seized your heart with terrifying finality. “You’re…dead. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Some of us don’t like staying dead,” the man in the clean pressed Imperial uniform merely chuckled, a thin, dry sound. “I’d think you of all people should know this…consorting with bounty hunter scum.”

“Go to hell…” you tried to stand, tried to fight, but he merely raised a blaster at your head with a smirk.

“Oh, you’ll be wishing you were there, soon.”

The muzzle flashed, and the man’s icy gaze flared red - the last thing you saw before your world faded to black.

-

“I’m sure she’s fine, boss.” Fennec’s voice was steady as ever as she strode by his side. “Maybe she just needed a night in.”

Boba merely grunted, taking the now familiar path to the veterinarian’s office. He was admittedly worried. He hadn’t heard a thing from you since the morning, and he did his best to push his fears down.

Had he scared you? Gone too far with the teasing? Accidentally triggered you? Maker knew what hell you’d been through…

“Just wanna know she’s safe.” He turned down the following road, your humble clinic appearing around the bend.

But all the lights were out.

A cold chill rippled down his spine, and he instinctually lifted his rifle, Fennec echoing the action. They slowly approached, looking for any sign of a threat, but nothing appeared out of place. That wasn’t always a good sign. He dropped his rangefinder and ran a thermal scan, looking for any sign you were inside…

But aside for the much smaller heat signatures of the animals, the house was empty.

Boba Fett wasn’t accustomed to panic.

He was the hunter, the one who made other people panic. He’d prided himself in his cool, calculated demeanor that had aided in earning his reputation. But this…this was new.

And this was one of the reasons why he’d never let himself fall for anyone. Every single person he’d even shown a shred of kindness too had suffered terrible ends. And the last thing he wanted was for that to happen to you, too.

“Check the barn.” He knew Fennec would follow, always watching his back, even as he nearly ran to the next building with bated breath.

Please be inside. Please be safe.

But even in the dark, he saw the barn’s double doors had been left ajar, the female bantha peering out at them with a lonely groan that nearly resembled a whimper. And he already knew, judging by his scanner, that there weren’t any other life forms inside.

“We’ll find her.” Fennec stoped beside him, but even her voice had dropped, twisted with unease.

“You’re right.” Boba lifted his rangefinder with a snap, gloved fingers nearly shaking as a rage filled his chest - a rage he hadn’t felt in a long time…since the day he’d lost the only other person he’d truly loved. He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm, to remain in control.

To think like the hunter he once had been, and as fate dictated, would be again.

“I will.”

[penguwastaken]

What do you think of the fan theory on ‘Licorne/Lico’ (established as an alias) the androgynous detective from the ‘Danganronpa Kirigiri’ book series being a young Junko, during her ‘homeless’ years between the flashback of ‘Danganronpa Zero’ and even entering the fashion industry at all? While she was still figuring out what to do with her life? It was apparently a semi-common theory in Japan (that people would independently think up of), given how similar the characters are and how it would add new context to why Junko erased almost all of Kyoko’s memories beyond just Hope’s Peak, if they’d really known each other before. I don’t know a huge amount about the books, but on paper the theory sounds very interesting, to inquire as to your thoughts on it.

The "Junko is Licorne" theory is one that I like in concept, but I believe there is a more satisfying connection to them other than "they're the same person." There are undoubtedly a lot of similarities between them, though there are holes in this theory that kinda make it fall apart.

*Spoilers for the Danganronpa series, especially Danganronpa Kirigiri, go read that

Now let's start by going over the evidence for this theory.

Both are motivated by boredom and wanting to entertain themselves

Both have a similar personality

Licorne is androgynous, and while most people refer to him as a boy (hence why I'm using male pronouns), his sex is unknown

The word "despair" is written near a lot of crime scenes in Danganronpa Kirigiri (though it's unknown if Licorne is the one writing it)

Both have a similar eye color, perhaps meaning both are wearing the same contacts

Both are extremely analytical, smart, and capable, which ultimately leads to their boredom

Them being the same would give added context to Junko erasing all of Kyoko's memories

Now on paper, it sounds like a pretty solid theory. They have a lot of similarities after all. Unfortunately, there are some holes in this theory.

If the writers intended for Licorne to be Junko, then why didn't they reveal that? Danganronpa is a series that usually tries to pay off the mysteries it sets up, so why would they leave this seemingly important one just unanswered?

We already know Licorne's identity. Licorne is a child named Rei Mikagami who was sent to an orphanage after his parents died. This immediately contradicts Junko's backstory, who was homeless for a lot of her childhood. Later on, during the events of Kirigiri, he lives with Gekka Ryuzoji. Also since we know his real name is Rei Mikagami, and assuming he is the same person as Junko, then how come Yasuke never calls Junko that? Yasuke and Junko were childhood best friends, he would have known Junko's hypothetical true identity because he knew her as a child. But he never calls Junko Rei because Junko's true identity is simply just Junko. The flashback in Danganronpa Zero tells us one thing, Junko was always the way she is. She never "became" Junko, she just was. Basically, Rei and Junko lived completely separate lives and it's impossible that Kirigiri takes place in between that flashback and Junko joining the fashion industry.

As for giving added context to Junko erasing all of Kyoko's memories, it really doesn't. Trigger Happy Havoc makes it pretty clear that the reason Junko erased all of Kyoko's memories is because Kyoko is a skilled detective with years of experience, and thus would be a threat to the killing game. Kyoko wouldn't have even been able to recognize her as Rei because they both look hardly alike.

So yeah, while it's a neat theory, I think it's pretty safe to say it wasn't intended. But if they're not the same person, then how do you explain why they're so similar?

I believe that Licorne and Junko are supposed to be parallels. They lived similar lives, have similar talents, a similar mindset, etc. But where Junko used her abilities for evil, Licorne used his for good. When Licorne eventually grows tired, we see that he's sad and doesn't know what to do, but goes off into the unknown to find something. I believe Licorne is supposed to represent a Junko where they didn't turn to despair. Thematic parallels basically. And I think that explanation works a lot better than them just being the same person. Those are my thoughts at least.