#I DREW THIS WITH ONE OF THOSE MULTICOLOR PEN THINGS

[syltaxerror]

HELP I JUST FOUND THE FIRST LOTF FANART IVE EVER DONE

Ok so this one is Ralph telling piggy to kill himself w writing above it that says “says smth homophobic, shitting”

And this one is me and kibble shooting Ralph (??????) (I hated Ralph for some reason)

Ok for context this was drawn while the teacher was reading the first chapter out loud. so I had no idea what I was in for-

This piece of paper is an artifact

(Both were drawn before jack even showed up lmao)

[oliveroctavius]

What inspires your art? Like, how did you come up with your art style, how happy you are with it and if there are any other artists that inspire you?

Asking a few people as a way to understand and grow as an artist at a crossroads. Have a good day.

This is a fun ask! Not sure how helpful my answers will be to you, but here they are.

I've honestly put little to no thought into "coming up with" an art style. I'd say that what comes out of my brain and hands is maybe only 1/3 calculated stylistic decisions, with the rest being "what is most fun for me" and "what is easiest for me". I draw a lot of faces because I enjoy caricature; I do most of it in scribbly mechanical pencil on scrap paper because that's what I usually have on hand.

My one big starting point is that when I started drawing at age ~12, I was copying characters out of The Adventures of Tintin. I learned just enough from Hergé to get simplified human figures I didn't hate and then went iteratively on from there. Mostly I just drew short humorous fancomics for myself and never colored them.

In high school I considered going into an art career, so I took art classes. At the time I thought they were fun but mostly irrelevant to the stylized character art I drew in my class notes every day... but looking back my comic art drastically improved 2015-17, so maybe I was wrong. I eventually decided I'd go into tech instead and leave dressing as a hobby, which I think was the right choice for me.

The closest I've ever had to a Style was in the music fanart and OC comics I did in college. The imagery mostly came out of my own brain, and I worked out what tools were easiest and most enjoyable: multicolor sharpie pens and India ink with watercolor washes; binary or hard edged brushes on digital work that I could fill in quickly with the bucket tool. I accepted that I wasn't a great draftsman and got scribblier and more manic.

Since then I've gotten back to the world of fancomics where I try to pastiche the original inking style—I've done Jhonen Vasquez, Steve Purcell, John Romita, Jack Cole, Scott Wegener, and C. C. Beck (though that one was way too ambitious and I may never finish). But I'm not doing this because I want to absorb them into my default style, though I certainly learn things from it. I do it for the project itself, because I feel like there's a lot of characterization and world-rules built into the way different art styles depict their worlds. I have great interest in stories which use restricted or contrasting stylization on purpose to convey meaning.

It's also just fun, which is my first priority. But I do think my technical skills have been regressing a bit from lack of use + perhaps from using others' work as a crutch too often. It's a little embarrassing, but it is what it is. I'm sure the trend will reverse if/when I put more time into full pieces and daily practice again.

Oh, and I did make a list of favorite artists back in 2018 which holds up. If I had to extract some advice from this meandering post, it would be to figure out what methods and tools make your artistic workflow easier and consider how you want to make those part of your "style". That's extra true if this is something you're going to be doing for long periods of time like a job.

[kimtanathegeek]

Two Brothers, Many Paths - Ch 25 & Undertale 5yr Anniversary

Two brothers, many paths

Hand in hand, they mourn their past

 -

Torn from home,

trapped underground

Hiding, fleeing,

scared to be found

 -

Two brothers, many paths

Side by side, they grew up fast

 -

The eldest grins.

“We’ll be fine, brother.

No matter what,

we have each other.”

 -

Two brothers, many paths

Hand in hand, they’ll always last

---

To commemorate Undertale's 5th year anniversary and the 25th chapter of "Two Brothers, Many Paths", I drew and wrote this. Art and poetry are not my strong suit, and I wish I could have done that picture justice, but I hope you guys like it! :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, UNDERTALE! Here's to another 5 awesome years!

Guys, thank you so much for reading "Two Brothers, Many Paths"! I can't believe we're at 25 chapters already!!!

Thank you for reading, for your likes, for your comments, and for your reblogs! It means so much to me to know that you guys are enjoying my story, because I absolutely adore writing it.

There's still so much more to go for Sans and Papyrus, so don't worry, we're not even CLOSE to coming to the end!

Thanks again, I appreciate you all! :)

—

Undertale copyright Toby Fox

Story and original characters by me, Kimtana

Please do not use without both permission and credit.  

Read below, or read it on AO3 here.  

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The thin hen shopkeeper was sitting behind the counter, knitting and humming as Sans approached. When she saw him from the corner of her eye, she laid her work on the counter and smiled at him.

“Good afternoon,” she said warmly, then furrowed her brow, raising her index primary feather to the side of her beak as she looked up into space. “Or is it ‘good evening’? Hmm....” She shook her head, then gave a shudder, ruffling her sooty grey feathers. “I don’t know, it’s so hard to tell time anymore without the sun.... Anywho—Good day!”

Sans grinned, nodding to her. “Good day, miss.”

“Is there anything I can help you find?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Oh, no,” he answered. “I’m just looking to see what you have.”

She gave a gentle smile. “Ok, then. Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”

Sans nodded politely again, and looked up at the shelves on the left of the shop.

There were so many different kinds of things—some items similar to those found in the other shops, and other products he had not seen sold elsewhere in the market. There were beautifully crafted pottery cups, vases, bowls, plates, and teacups, medicinal salves and bandages, candles of various heights and thicknesses, aprons for different needs, tin boxes with and without illustrations on them, gloves for work and for warmth, and so many other items in between. He picked out a small pot holder—they’d need one now that they finally had a pot—and a bar of glycerin soap that smelled of cherries.

In front of the counter were four crates sitting on two large chests. The crates were filled with old books, sheets of parchment made of wood pulp, fabric fibers, or flower petals, and scrolls with useful information such as measurement conversions for cooking, identification of edible and poisonous plants, and even lists of difficult words with their definitions.

Seeing the paper reminded Sans of the bits of parchment he had been aching to use.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said, standing up straight to look over the counter.

The hen stood up, her knitting still in her wings. “Yes, dear?”

Sans saw that she was making a multicolored sock. “Ooh, that’s really good!”

She smiled. “Aww, thank you. I knit things for the orphans, the poor, and the wounded soldiers.”

Sans’ mouth dropped in awe. “That’s really nice of you to do that. I’m sure they love them.”

“I hope they do,” she said, her smile waning as she looked down at the half-finished sock. “It’s not much, and they’ve already gone through such incredible hardships.” The grip on her needles tightened, and she gave another shudder that fluffed her feathers. “I just try to help where I can, make things useful like socks and gloves for those who don’t have any. It can’t make up for their pain, but hopefully it brightens their moment. Even if it’s just a little bit.”

Sans smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure it does, miss. It lets them know that someone really cares about them.”

The thin hen smiled at the sock, then at Sans. “Thank you, that’s really kind of you to say. Sorry, you had a question?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sans answered, blinking. “I was wondering, do you have any pens or writing utensils?”

She frowned sadly. “I’m afraid not.... They go rather quickly, and they’re hard to get. All of my stock comes from other monsters who are selling me items they’ve made, no longer need, or need gold for more important things, like food. So I never know what I’ll get or when I’ll get new things. I’m sorry.”

Sans’ mouth twitched with disappointment, but he understood. “It’s all right. I’ll keep checking each time I come by.”

“I’ll certainly keep an eye out for you, and I’ll hold any aside I come across.”

Sans nodded in gratitude. “Thank you, miss, that’s so kind of you. I really appreciate that.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else you need help with, dear,” she said, smiling as she sat back down, resuming her knitting.

“Actually,” Sans said as he watched her count stitches. “This is a strange question, but.... The hare next door mentioned that there were monsters who collected food for the poor. If I had some food to give them, where would I find them?”

The hen smiled, her heart warming. “Well, aren’t you a dear. You’ll find the monsters who work on the food collections in the domed building in the northeast quadrant of the city.”

Sans looked at her blankly. “Northeast wha?”

She covered her beak with her wing as she laughed softly. “It’s the only domed building in the city.”

Sans looked relieved. “Ah! Yes, miss, I’ve seen it. I should be able to find it now, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she nodded. “I know that they will appreciate anything you can give them.”

Sans smiled sadly. “I know what it’s like to not have enough to eat, so if I can help anyone, I really want to try.”

The hen’s face fell, her heart breaking for the little skeleton at his admission.

“You’re an absolute sweetheart, you know that?” the hen said softly.

Sans felt the embarrassment burning his cheekbones. “Nah, I just...hate seeing anyone hurting.”

He pretended to be extremely interested in the hand towels folded up in a crate on the floor, as the hen beamed at him, then returned to her knitting, humming happily.

Once her gaze was off him, Sans started looking through the rest of the items, making his way towards the right side of the shop. There were clothes on shelves and tables starting near the entryway for adults, and children clothes towards the middle. He found a couple sets for himself and Papyrus in their sizes, ecstatic that he and his brother could finally change out of the clothes they had been wearing since they fled to the mountain.

At the end of the children’s clothes were toys. There were wooden blocks, plush monsters of different species, puzzles, balls, and other various playthings. Sans was looking at a small, red toy cart with working wheels, wondering if Papyrus would like it when he noticed the basket at the end of the toy shelves. The toy cart fell out of his hand onto the table as he gasped.

The basket was filled with teddy bears—all identical. They had soft, plush, brown “fur” and shiny black eyes. Their little smiles were stitched into their faces with dark brown thread, and their arms and legs were floppy, perfect for hugging.

Sans staggered to the basket, tears rolling down his face, his mouth hung open.

“I-it can’t be...,” he whispered in shock.

The hen heard him, and raised her eyes from her work to look over at him.

Sans pulled out one of the bears and looked at it, turning it this way and that in his hands.

“Are...are you all right...?” the hen asked gently, seeing Sans’ tear-soaked face.

Sans stared at the bear in his hands, looking into its eyes as he spoke, his voice shaking with emotion.

“M-my brother.... He had a teddy bear just like this...back home.... He loved that bear, couldn’t sleep without him in his crib.... When...when I packed food to leave...I-I should have...I should have gone upstairs and gotten him.... But I didn’t.... I was too scared, I only grabbed food, I didn’t even think about his bear.... We left him behind, and now.... My brother never complained or mentions him, but I know he misses him a lot.... My brother lost so much that day.... Our home...his teddy bear...Mommy....”

Sans hugged the bear and wept bitterly into it. The hen tossed her knitting on the counter and rushed over to him. He clutched her, weeping into her dress as she enfolded him in her wings. She held him as he cried his eyes out, telling her how he watched their mother fighting the humans, and how he watched her die. How she might still be alive if she hadn’t seen him and run to him. How it was his fault his brother didn’t have their mother any more.

She let him speak until his words were exhausted, then shushed him soothingly, rocking him gently as he cried loudly from his broken soul. It had been too long since Sans had been comforted like this by an adult, too long since he had taken on the adult role for his brother’s sake while still only being a child himself. Being embraced by the caring hen allowed him to drop the walls of false strength and competence he had built up over time, and to grieve like the hurting child he truly was.

After a while, he calmed down, sniffling and stammering out apologies for breaking down like that.

“No, no,” she whispered, wiping his eyes with her pinion feathers. “Don’t apologize. I know how hard it is to lose someone you love so very much.”

“R-really...?” he whimpered, his lower lip still quivering. “Did...did you...?”

He didn’t finish, regretting even asking such an invasive, personal question.

The hen shut her eyes and nodded.

“I was with my best friend at the market buying food for dinner. The Royal Guard came—tried to get everyone to leave quickly. There had been a horde of humans spotted in the area, and it was unsafe. Someone shouted and soon everyone was looking into the sky. Plumes of smoke, rising in different directions—multiple fires all around the area. I panicked—one of the columns of smoke was coming from where my house was. My friend and I, we rushed to my house with a few of the Guards, and....”

She choked back her tears, her body shuddering as her feathers bristled. Then her tears fell freely.

“My house was in flames.... My friend had to hold me back because I tried to run inside to save my family. The Guards—they went in. They went in to try to find my dear husband and my four precious children.... Wh-when they came out, I-I saw their faces, and I knew.... The next day, the evacuation order came out. My friend—she let me stay with her that terrible night, and then we left together for this mountain.... And now, we’re here....”

Sans looked up at her, his face broken with sympathy for the poor hen. When she finished her story, he hugged her tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry....”

She patted him with her wingtips, then dried her eyes on her feathers.

“Thank you,” she said, straining to steady her voice. “This war...this conflict...it has cost us all so much....”

They hugged each other tightly once more. Then the hen pulled back and put on a warm smile. She nudged the teddy bear, still in Sans’ hands.

“The important thing is to rebuild and comfort those who are still with us.”

Sans looked down at the teddy bear and nodded sadly.

With a deep sigh, the hen ruffled Sans’ hooded head and went back behind the counter. Sans placed the teddy bear and the other items—still sitting on the clothes table—onto the counter.

She totaled the items, and gave Sans the amount. He blinked at her.

“But, wait, miss,” he said, confused. “It should be much more than that.”

“I’m not charging you for the teddy bear,” she smiled warmly.

Sans gasped, his eyebrows raised pleadingly. “No, wait! You don’t have to—”

She reached over the counter and ruffled the top of his head again. “My dear, I don’t run this shop to make a profit. I started this shop to help others out. There is no way I could accept gold for your brother’s bear.”

“Th-thank you, miss,” he stammered, stunned. “I-I don’t know what to say....”

“You’re so welcome,” she smiled as he placed the items in his bag. “And, please, call me Ashen.”

Sans smiled back, shouldering the bulging haversack. “Thank you, Ashen. And my name is Sans.”

“Well, Sans,” she said, giving a shudder that sent her sooty grey feathers rippling. “It was so nice to meet you, and I really do hope you come back to see me again soon.”

“I will, Ashen,” he nodded. “I’m so happy to have met you. Thank you for...for everything.”

The two new friends waved goodbye, and Sans left the shop.

 -

 Sans hurried down the road, looking left and right frantically for an empty alleyway. The city was filled with monsters, so finding somewhere unoccupied was difficult. Eventually he found a small path between two buildings that appeared empty, and slipped down it. Making sure no one was in sight, he shut his eyes, then stepped forward.

He felt the frigid air as he opened his eyes, arriving in front of the shelter. He wasted no time in digging out the entrance, calling to his brother so he wouldn’t be afraid someone was invading the shelter.

Sans panicked for a moment when he heard no response, but as soon as he came into the main room, he saw Papyrus, fast asleep on the bed under several fabric scraps.

Poor thing, Sans thought as he unshouldered the bag and put it on the bed.

He nudged his brother gently. “Pap? Wake up, Pap.”

The little skeleton moaned as he was roused, then snapped awake. He gasped and threw himself against his brother, hugging him so tight, Sans’ bones popped.

“I’m so, so sorry that took so long, Pap,” Sans apologized, returning the hug.

“Pa scared mosters take Sas,” Papyrus whimpered, nestling his face in his brother’s chest. “But Pa did what Sas said, waited here, waited for Sas. Sas okay?”

Sans rubbed the top of his brother’s head gently. “Yeah, I’m ok. I’m sorry I scared you. But...well...I have something I’ve got to tell you.”

Papyrus sat back on the bed, a look of utter terror on his face, fearing bad news.

“No, no,” Sans grinned, waggling his hands and shaking his head. “It’s nothing bad or anything. But, well, you see....”

Sans sat on the bed, rubbing the back of his skull as he dreaded his upcoming confession. He couldn’t even look his brother in the eyes.

“I, uh...went...into...the...cavern...,” he murmured, each word getting lower and more mumbled.

Papyrus’ jaw nearly fell off his skull as his eyes grew wider than apples.

“Now, wait, hang on,” Sans said, his eyebrows raised pleadingly. “Before you get upset, let me explain.”

“Sas gonna leave Pa...?” The little skeleton’s whisper was barely audible.

“No! Of course not, Papyrus! I’d never leave you. I snuck in there to get some food!”

Papyrus blinked, his mouth still hanging open.

“Listen,” Sans urged. He then started partially explaining everything—leaving out the part where he planned this trip for the last month and how he had put himself at serious risk of getting caught. “I saw the carts going into the cavern, and I saw them growing the trees with magic, so I thought ‘huh, maybe they’re growing food in there,’ so I jumped on the cart and found out that they have a huge city in there now, with a market, and I got a whole bunch of great food, and now that I’ve been there, I can just use my magic to go back in there anytime we need more!”

Sans grinned winningly at his brother while he panted after spouting out his explanation in a single breath.

Papyrus slowly closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. An eyebrow soon started to rise as the little skeleton frowned. He gave an exasperated sigh that sounded more like a huff.

“Sas go in cav, coulda been taken by mosters! What if Sas caught?!”

Sans shut his eyes, grinning wider. “Then I would have used my magic and come right back here.”

Papyrus grumbled as his expression softened. “Sas really get food?”

Sans opened his eyes, then gave his brother a wink. “Yup. A lot of food.”

The little skeleton’s face brightened more, the risky adventure being forgiven.

Sans jumped up off the bed and went to the foot of the bed where the haversack was. He showed his brother the purchases he made and told him how he used his own gems to buy them. Papyrus gasped at each loaf, vegetable, fruit, and item that emerged from the bag. Sans withheld the cookie as an after-dinner-surprise, but saved the best for last.

“And...,” Sans said, drawing the syllable out as long as he could. “You will never guess who I found looking for you in the cavern!”

Papyrus sat on the bed, looking up at him, curiously.

Sans slowly pulled out the teddy bear.

The little skeleton gasped so sharply, Sans thought his lungs would tear. Papyrus held his hands to his cheekbones as his mouth remained open, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Teddy...?” Papyrus spoke his teddy bear’s name in a high-pitched, breathy gasp that cut Sans right to his soul.

Sans nodded, holding him out to his brother. Papyrus couldn’t believe his eyes, slowly moving closer, as if he was dreaming and afraid to wake up. He reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed the bear by the tummy, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“Teddy! Teddy!” Papyrus wept happily, his eyes shut tight as tears spilled out.

Sans wiped his own tears on his sleeves, the smile on his face unable to wane.

 -

 The two skeleton brothers just stared at it, neither of them able to utter a single word or make the slightest of sounds. They couldn’t move, let alone blink, as they sat, dumbfounded.

It was just too unbelievable.

Their dinner was laid out on their little snow “dining table.” They had prepared it together, cutting, chopping, toasting, combining—enjoying every second of their time making their meal perfect.

Their new wooden bowls were filled with fresh salad, comprised of baby spinach, sliced mouseshroom nightlights, chopped reed stalks, diced tomatoes, pine nuts, and crumbled parmesan cheese, all drizzled with an oil dressing infused with herbs and garlic.

On their new little plates were a couple slices of warmed crusty wheat bread, a small hunk of smoked gouda, a few nuts, and several carrot slices.

Their new wooden cups were filled with ice cold water—Sans had melted some snow in their new pot by the fire, poured the water into the cups, and put chunks of snow in them to chill the water back up. While they didn’t need water to survive—being skeletons, it was impossible for them to suffer thirst or dehydration—it was certainly nice to have something to wash their food down with again.

Sans had set down burlap pieces for placemats, folding up some smaller scraps for napkins and placing their new wooden cutlery on top. Nestled under their bowls and plates were the little parchment pastry bags—Sans insisting that Papyrus not peek inside until after he finished his dinner.

They continued staring in silence, the only sounds in the little shelter being the crackling of the magical flame and the occasional growl of a skeleton stomach.

“This looks amazing,” Sans whispered at last.

“Yeah,” Papyrus breathed in agreement.

Sans gave a small laugh of disbelief, glancing up at his brother. “No more hungry nights, Pap.”

“Yeah,” Papyrus looked up at his brother and smiled.

Sans looked back at their meal and sighed happily. “We should start eating, or we will be going to bed hungry again.”

“Yeah,” Papyrus giggled.

They slowly picked up their utensils and started their salads. The two brothers looked at each other, joyous groans emitting from their chewing mouths at the delicious tastes they were experiencing. Then they went at the food with gusto, savoring every single bite.

 -

 Sans was wiping the last remnant of dressing from his empty bowl with his final bite of wheat bread, as Papyrus had picked up his bowl to his mouth, pushing the last fragments into his open mouth.

Sans finished just before his brother, and couldn’t help but grin as he watched Papyrus, his face hidden behind the tilted bowl. His soul felt fuller than his stomach, knowing that his little brother finally had a proper, healthy meal after so long.

Papyrus licked his bowl clean, then set it back down on the burlap placemat with a satisfied “ahh!” He then looked up at his brother expectantly.

“Can Pa open now?”

Sans grinned and nodded. “Yes, you can open it now. I hope you like it.”

Papyrus cautiously opened the bag, as if a fragile treasure might be within. He peered into it and gasped, looking up at Sans. “Cookie!”

Sans smiled as his brother pulled out the large cookie and gave a huge chomp into it. He took out his own and bit into it, relishing its sweet, chocolaty goodness. They both ate their cookies with the occasional “mmm,” the crunching and munching overpowering the crackling of the fire in the other room.

Not a single piece of snow was consumed that night, for their stomachs were entirely satisfied.

 -

 After dinner, they washed their new dishes in one of the buckets with melted snow water and the glycerin soap. They dried them with burlap, then Sans created another bone shelf in the pantry side boulder, placing the clean wooden dishes up on it.

Sans emptied out the dishwater several feet away from their shelter entrance, scrubbing it out with clean snow, then came back inside to fill it back up with clean water. They changed into their fresh new clothes, and Sans washed their old clothes in the bucket with the soap, rinsed it in another bucket, and, after wringing them out, hung them up on the warming rack bones to dry overnight. The feel of clean, soft, new fabrics felt so comfortable and cozy to both of them. Sans then emptied the dirty water from both buckets outside in a different spot, scrubbed them clean with another handful of snow, then dried them with a scrap of rough cloth.

Sans took the little pot that was melting snow and poured it into the clean water bucket next to the “bowl” dug out of snow, which was filled to overflowing with fruits and vegetables. He stuffed the little pot to the brim with snow from the pile for making snow treats, then placed it back on the bones he had made to dry out the pine cones at the left edge of the fire basin to melt overnight.

Once they were done cleaning up and putting things away, they played together a bit before bedtime. Then they climbed into bed, Papyrus making his blue bones disappear to darken the room. Sans pulled up the fabrics over them as Papyrus snuggled up to his brother, clutching his beloved Teddy in the crook of his arm.

Sans told Papyrus all about the shopkeepers he had met and the things he had seen. He noticed that his brother had fallen asleep somewhere during the part where he was returning home. He nuzzled into his brother’s forehead and followed him into slumber.

The two brothers slept soundly with full bellies and happy souls as the gentle winds outside blew swirls of snowflakes around their hidden shelter.  

[turtletotem]

Breaking the Curse

The last of my Star Bright reward fics, for @covertius-fic! The prompt was--well, telling the whole prompt would give away the entire plot, but it’s a Captive Prince modern AU that involves Damen always falling in love with the worst person at Nikandros’s party. This year, he meets Laurent.

(Also on AO3!)

...

Damen was beginning to wonder if Nik's New Year's Eve party was cursed.

Nikandros had thrown a grand blowout party every New Year's Eve since they graduated law school and got real jobs—Nik at a prestigious corporate firm because he had the talent and intellect to go far, Damen at the state prosecutor's office because he had the desire to fight for justice and the financial ability to focus on his ethics more than his slender paycheck. Even though he and Nikandros still lived in the same city, they moved in different circles and worked very different schedules; it wasn't all that easy for Damen to see his best friend. For that reason, and the fact that the party itself was incredible, with fireworks and performing acrobats and an open bar, Damen did not want to miss it. But he was starting to think he ought to.

Because every year Nikandros threw a New Year's Eve party, and every year Damen fell in love with the worst—or at least worst for him—person there.

The first year had been Erasmus, a shy sweet submissive paralegal whom Damen doted on for ten months… until he reconnected with his high school sweetheart, leaving Damen devastated and on the rebound just in time for the next New Year's Eve party.

That year he'd met the hot and glamorous Kashel, someone else's plus-one who had dumped her boyfriend and torn Damen's clothes off in a closet before midnight—but that went nowhere in a hurry. It turned out that all he and Kashel had in common was sex, which was spectacular but not what Damen wanted in the long term. They parted ways, amicably enough, by April.

Most recently, after a long (for him) dry spell, he'd met Jokaste at the third year's party—a partner from one of Nik's firm's rivals, who hadn't actually been invited. She had proceeded to turn Damen's entire brain inside out for months, before eloping with his brother the day before Thanksgiving. That had made for an awkward family dinner.

"My party is cursed?" Nikandros repeated when Damen told him his theory, pacing his apartment with his phone in one hand and the party invitation in the other. "That's what you're taking away from this? Not, say, an indication that you jump into relationships way too freaking fast?"

"Wow, way to blame the victim," Damen said.

"I'm right and you know it. You always think someone is your soulmate based on warm pants-feelings and a ten-minute conversation in which you don't hate them. And the only time you meet new people is at my parties."

"None of that is true!"

"I think you should definitely come, Damen. You'll meet a new soulmate, or at least a new Kashel—that didn't turn out too badly. Some awesome rebound sex is just what you need."

"No. I don't want a rebound. I don't even want a date. I want to stop getting my heart broken over and over. The woman I wanted to marry blew up my world and my family less than a month ago. I want to rest."

"Well, stay home then, dude," Nikandros said gently. "I'm not gonna get my feelings hurt about it, I promise."

"No. You know what? No!" Damen dropped the invitation to smack one fist into the other. "I'm gonna come, and see my best friend, and have a great time, and not pair off with anybody, and break the stupid curse! It'll be my New Year's resolution—go to your party and fall in love with absolutely no one!"

Nik laughed. "I don't think that's exactly how New Year's resolutions work, but okay, sure! I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Damn straight you will!"

***

A minor emergency at work had Damen late arriving to Nik's party. He stepped out of the elevator into what was a tastefully luxurious apartment on a normal day, and had now been transformed by twinkling lights, multicolored fountains (rented, he assumed) and circulating waitstaff into a revel of high glamour. Jazzy music filled the space between conversations, and people in tuxes and slinky black gowns gathered in knots around the piano, the refreshment table, the bar, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sparkling city.

"Damen!" Nikandros called, waving over the heads of the crowd. "You did make it! Get a drink, I'll be right over!"

Damen waved back, and happily accepted the glass of wine a passing server offered him. He took a swallow, looked up—and caught sight of the most beautiful human being he'd ever seen in his life.

Blond hair, arctic blue eyes, the fine high-cheeked features of an elven prince. His expression was haughty and displeased, but that did nothing to decrease his appeal; it was all too easy to imagine him coolly evaluating the strength of the knots holding Damen to the bed. He took a broody sip from his glass, tipping it up and revealing a pale, elegant neck. Damen felt his mouth fall open.

Cursed, he thought, his stomach going into freefall. This party is definitely cursed. And it was too late to do anything about it. If he turned around and went home right this second, this guy would still be the only thing he thought about the rest of the night.

And then the server who'd given Damen his wine, a dark-haired young man who looked barely out of high school, walked past the arctic beauty. And the arctic beauty tossed his empty glass at him. Surprised and with a tray balanced in his hand, the server couldn't possibly have caught it; instinctively he tried, and in so doing, dropped his entire tray with a shocking crash and shatter of glass.

The arctic beauty looked the devastated server dead in the eye, laughed, and walked away.

As he went, he lifted a vape pen to his lips, and began filling the surrounding air with a cloud of peppermint-scented vapor.

Damen's heart leaped with delight. Yes. This was perfect. The man's behavior was exactly as appalling as his appearance was inviting; Damen had just found the one person at this party who would thoroughly distract him from hooking up with anyone else, while also making it impossible for Damen to fall in love with him. It was the perfect solution.

Other party attendees had already stepped forward to help the server with the mess of his dropped tray; Damen stepped around them and made his way through the crowd toward the jerk, following the cloud of eye-stinging peppermint and the mutters of complaint against it.

By the time he caught up with the jerk, Nikandros had cornered him against one of the windows and was telling him off.

"—and put that thing away right now," Nik said, jabbing a finger at the vape pen. "Don't you have the sense God gave a kindergartener? Any one of them could tell you that's an outside toy."

The beautiful jerk rolled his eyes, taking a deep drag that was equal parts obnoxious and picturesquely sexy, and put away the vape. "Yes, sir," he drawled, in a voice lower than his appearance might indicate, and mocking almost to the point of flirtation. What little of Damen's blood had not headed south started packing for the trip.

"Hey," Damen said, which was all he could think of to say.

"Damen, hey," Nik said, in a tone of abstracted relief. "Um, this is Laurent de Vere, a new junior attorney," he skewered Laurent with a dark glance, "at my firm. Laurent, this is my best friend, Damen. Be nice to him."

"Charmed," Laurent said, and extended his hand.

Instead of shaking it, Damen gave a flourishing bow and pressed a kiss to Laurent's knuckles.

Laurent looked intrigued, his eyebrows climbing. Nikandros looked horrified.

"Nik," somebody called, "there's something wrong with this fountain, it's making a mess…"

Nikandros groaned, made apologetic noises at Damen, and hurried off.

"So what's Nikandros like to work with?" Damen asked.

"You know how some species of water-creature survive being frozen all winter by lowering their brain function to almost undetectable levels?" Laurent said. "Imagine one of those working in law."

Damen choked on a shocked laugh.

"Laurent, I thought that was you!" A middle-aged woman paused on her way past them. "Goodness, I didn't realize you'd been invited!"

"And I didn't realize frosted tips were back, Madeline," Laurent said sweetly. "Oh—oh, you're just going gray. How mortifying. My mistake."

Madeline drew in an outraged breath.

"Er, let's just get another drink, Madeline," said the man at her elbow, whom Damen recognized as a longtime business acquaintance of Nik's.

"Yes, I'm sure another drink is just what you need, sir," Laurent said, which, considering the drunken hijinks the man had committed at last year's party, made Damen bite his lip to keep from cackling. The man turned red, and he and Madeline both slunk away.

"Aren't you just the social butterfly," Damen said.

"Oh yes, my goal in life," Laurent said, "winning the approval of the rich and shallow. I'm just as rich and shallow as any of them, and they know it. I have nothing to prove."

"Let me get you a drink," Damen said.

"Tempting as it is to spend this evening in a haze of alcohol, getting drunk in front of my boss—who is here somewhere—would be even less helpful to my career than skipping this party," Laurent said. "Oh, look, there's Allen Mortimer, whose embezzlement trial recently ended in a hung jury, I simply must say hello…"

Damen followed Laurent around the party, listening in fascination to his seemingly endless supply of cruel and cutting witticisms, both behind the subjects' backs and to their faces. No foible was forgiven, no flaw went unobserved. How Laurent even knew some of these things was a mystery to Damen. Nor did Damen himself escape unscathed; Laurent once introduced him as "Nik's idiot friend, who is hoping to get into my pants," and another time as "my hired escort; the muscles were extra." This last was given, fortunately, to people Damen already knew, who found it uproariously funny.

Every remark—except for the escort one—was both clever and true, and most were hilarious. Laurent was obviously brilliant, and also a remarkably hateful little snot.

"You must be a terror in the courtroom," Damen said.

"I'm sure you are, as well," Laurent replied. "Such moon-faced slow-witted obstinacy is very hard to combat. Like trying to swordfight a glacier." He looked up from the wineglass he'd bullied a server into filling with apple cider. "I'm not going to sleep with you. Why do you keep following me around?"

Before Damen could formulate an answer, a ruckus at the nearest window drew his attention. Several people were gathered at the glass, pointing and exclaiming at something on the other side. Snow suddenly spattered against the glass. A snowball?

He and Laurent reached the window at the same time, pushing their way to the front until they could see what was happening.

A gray tabby cat was tangled in the Christmas lights on the fire escape, thrashing in panic. Some boys, barely visible on the ground below, were hopping around excitedly and throwing snowballs at the cat.

Laurent hissed under his breath, a startling and furious sound, and bodily shoved two people aside to yank the window open. It didn't want to move at first; Damen pulled at the other side, and up it came. Laurent scrambled through onto the fire escape.

"Get away from here or I will make you regret it," he shouted down at the boys, his voice clear and crisp and incensed.

"Up yours," one of the boys shouted back.

Laurent scraped snow off the railing of the fire escape, packed a ball, and pegged that boy in the face hard enough to knock him on his butt—all in less than a second.

Damen was cautiously approaching the cat, making soft shushing noises. It stopped thrashing and stared at him, ears pinned and teeth bared, making the weirdest, scariest bubbling growl he had ever heard.

Below, the boys were laughing at their downed friend, sounds that changed tenor as they noticed Laurent packing another snowball. Their voices and footsteps trailed away as they chose the better part of valor—still laughing, but leaving.

"The lights are around his hips and back leg," Damen said as Laurent turned his attention to the cat. "He's gonna bite me sure as the world if I try to touch him. Maybe if you distract him…"

Laurent made a thoughtful noise, and took off his tuxedo jacket. It was already cold as, well, as a late-December night, fire escape open to the wind and snow, and neither of them were wearing coats, but Laurent showed no sign of discomfort. A minute ago, Damen would have said it was because he was carved of ice himself. Harder to think that now.

"Wrap this around her front half," Laurent said, tossing the jacket to Damen, "and I'll disentangle the back half. Don't let her get away; she's pulled that back leg out of joint. Needs a vet."

Damen looked at the cat's wide-blown freaked-out eyes and glittering claws. "I'll… try," he said. "One, two, three!"

He leaped forward and tackled the cat, throwing the jacket over her head. She screamed pitiably, and her claws went right through the jacket into his arms, but he'd resigned himself to that much. At least the jacket did keep her from biting him.

Laurent had the harder job, trying to hold down her injured leg while she kicked for all she was worth. He swore a blue streak, and came out of it with a score of scratches of his own, but finally the cat was free of the Christmas lights. Laurent shoved the rest of her up into the jacket; Damen did his best to wrap her up.

"Where's the nearest emergency vet?" Laurent called—to someone behind them, Damen realized, and turned his head to see Nikandros staring through the open window. "Or her owner—do you know her owner?"

Nik shook his head. "She's a stray, me and the neighbors have been taking turns feeding her."

"Right. Well, we need to get her in out of the cold, and get her to the vet." Laurent's voice brooked no argument. "Clear us a path to a warm, quiet room, find an emergency vet, and call a cab."

 Damen ended up taking a bit more damage to the skin of his arms, wrestling the cat into a cat-carrier Nik borrowed from the neighbor. They'd taken over the bathroom, he and Laurent and the cat, and Laurent used the antiseptic he found in its cabinets to clean Damen's scratches, silent and expressionless as the cat screamed bloody murder inside the carrier.

"Yowch!" Damen couldn't keep himself from flinching from the sting.

"Baby," Laurent muttered, cleaning his own scratches without a flicker of discomfort. "Her leg hurts a lot worse than your arms."

"I'm sure," Damen muttered, watching the cat clawing at the door to the carrier. "Poor thing, she's so scared."

"She'll be fine," Laurent said shortly, but flinched when the cat gave a particularly heartrending yowl—the only sign that anything he'd experienced all night had bothered him.

There's a lot more to you than I thought. Damen found himself watching Laurent—indirectly, in the mirror—as he crouched in front of the carrier making spspspsp noises, and couldn't make himself look away even when Laurent caught him at it and glared.

 Damen wasn't actually sure how he ended up accompanying Laurent and the cat into the cab. It didn't take two people, surely, to drop a cat at the vet, especially when the vet was expecting them and already knew the situation. But into the cab he went, and into the vet's office he went, and before he knew it he and Laurent were sitting in plastic chairs together, waiting for the cat's initial prognosis. They could hear her howling all the way down the hall.

"I'm really more of a dog person," Laurent said suddenly, after a long silence. "Not that I actually own one. But I get along better with dogs. Cats are… We're too much alike, me and cats."

One corner of Damen's mouth tipped up. "I can believe that."

"You're more like a dog," Laurent said, and then looked away, as if embarrassed by his own words.

"Sloppy and dumb?" Damen said brightly.

"No, that's not what I—I mean, yes, obviously that, but—" Laurent's ears were turning red.

Damen couldn't stop smiling. "I might be more insulted if you hadn't just finished saying how much you like dogs."

"What is this, Jupiter Ascending? I do not like dogs, and I do not like you!"

"But you like Jupiter Ascending," Damen said. "Enough to have parts of the dialogue memorized."

"Well, you recognized it, so—"

"So we have more in common than I thought." Damen continued smiling, and enjoyed watching Laurent flail for a response.

"You have a low opinion of high society," Damen said after a moment. "You've spent enough time in it to have dirt on everybody, so you know whereof you speak. You hate them all, but you have to move among them to do your job, so you cope by channeling Dorothy Parker. I get that much."

"Oh, you've got my number, have you?" Laurent said nastily.

"Not yet," Damen said. "Because what I don't get is how the man that climbed out on a fire escape without a coat and rescued a cat—and gave up his New Year's Eve to bring it here—is the same man that was willfully cruel to the waitstaff for kicks."

Laurent appeared struck by this. "I suppose that looked bad, out of context."

"What possible context could make it look good?"

"Nothing could make it look good," Laurent admitted. "I wanted to hurt and humiliate Aimeric, and I succeeded. Very petty of me. No moral high ground there. But it might help to mention that the last time I saw him, Aimeric wasn't working as a waiter. He was the personal assistant to a very powerful man, and a witness in a child abuse case against that man, a witness I thought we could trust to turn the tide of the case. Instead he lied on the stand, ensuring that man got off scot free." Laurent closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "He's probably a victim himself, frankly. I ought to try to have compassion. But I had to send a little boy back to a nightmare he thought he'd escaped, because of that piece of shit. So yes, I was delighted to see him reduced to serving drinks, and delighted to have a chance to make his life a little more difficult."

"A child abuse case?" Damen said, somewhat inanely, since that was the first of the many surprises Laurent had just hit him with.

"Yes, I'm part of the firm's family law department."

That wasn't what Damen had expected of Laurent at all. But a lot of this conversation was tending that way.

"Mr. de Vere," said a vet tech, coming into the otherwise-empty waiting room. "We've successfully gotten your cat's dislocated leg back into place, which was her only major injury, I'm happy to say. She's under sedation right now and we'll need to keep her under observation for tonight. Once you get her home you'll need to keep her confined and sedentary—as much as you can, I mean—for a few weeks so she can rest and heal without re-injuring herself."

"She's not my," Laurent began, then heaved a deep sigh and rubbed his eyes. "Right. Okay."

"She can stay at my place," Damen said, the words bypassing any common-sense filter he might have possessed. "I have a guest room."

Laurent stared at him. "You don't even know if she's litterbox trained."

Damen shrugged, not about to back down now that he'd made the offer. "It'll be fine."

"I'm sure can work out the details when you come pick her up tomorrow," the tech said. "For tonight, you can rest easy, knowing she's okay and in good hands."

 They turned toward the closest tube station outside the vet clinic, their breaths puffing dragon-like in the cold air.

"I could commit war crimes for a cigarette right now," Laurent muttered, huddling into his coat.

"Cigarette?" Damen said. "I thought you were a vaper."

Laurent sighed. "The vaping is supposed to help me quit. My New Year's resolution last year was to quit smoking, see. So I've spent the last three days desperately pretending I can still pull it off before the end of the year." He gave Damen a sideways look. "I'm probably even bitchier than usual, tonight, due to that." It had the air of an apology.

Damen smiled wryly. "Broken resolutions. I know how that goes. This year I've managed to break my New Year's resolution before the new year even started."

They were walking past a bar; inside, people with goofy year-numbered glasses and hats were cheering and clustering around the TV screens, which showed footage of Times Square and the traditional descending ball. They both stopped to watch.

"I don't think that's how resolutions even work," Laurent said. "What was the resolution?"

"Five! Four! Three!"

"I'll tell you later."

"Two! One!"

"Tell me now," Laurent said, and Damen kissed him.

Laurent's lips were cold at first, but warmed quickly under his, Laurent's gloved hands fumbling with Damen's coat to pull him closer. He kissed Damen back in an artless, innocent, almost clumsy way that was as unexpected as it was charming, and he kept his eyes closed for a second after Damen finally—reluctantly—pulled back.

"Happy New Year," Damen said, leaning their foreheads together.

Laurent tried to speak, cleared his throat, tried again. "Happy New Year. What were you about to tell me?"

"That Nik's New Year's Eve party is cursed. I'm really glad I decided to come."

"You," Laurent said, "do not make any sense. I like that about you." He pulled Damen in for another kiss, and Damen was happy to oblige.

[supernaturalfreewill]

Day 4 Sam waited until you left to go on a supply run and then crossed the threshold into your room.  He needed to do a little recon... You didn’t talk much about your childhood. You were quiet about it--there was obviously pain there from how everything had fallen apart, but he knew enough to know that there were some happy times. He wanted to do something special for you during the holidays... he had an idea but the problem was he didn’t know about any of your holiday traditions and asking you would ruin the surprise. So there he was, feeling a little like he was invading your privacy but justifying that it was with good reason, that his snooping was focused and brief. He knew you kept an old hat box beneath your bed with some of the remains of your old life and he slid it out carefully. He lifted the lid and memorized how everything was set inside before he gently paged through the papers and mixed in photos. Finally he found something. Sam tugged the corner of a photo. He could just make out that there was a Christmas tree in the creased part of the image visible behind the old letters. Sliding it out he saw a beaming child wearing fleece pajamas sitting in front of a coffee table strewn with all kinds of craft supplies. There was a kind woman seated on the couch, beaming with a warm smile and sparkling honey-colored eyes. The Christmas tree in the background was packed with ornaments and glistening with large, multicolored bulbs. 

But the ornaments weren’t the shiny glass bulbs or delicate snowflakes you found in department stores. They were pieced together with cotton balls and glue, popsicle sticks and string, all covered in glitter and buttons and beads. Every single one was homemade. Sam felt a swell of warmth in his chest and knew that this was you and your grandmother who you always talked of so fondly. She had been a nurse in WWII, brought men lost in the trauma of the war and the shells of themselves to a new kind of home and helped them heal, long before anyone knew anything about post-traumatic stress disorder. She had helped them put themselves back together. She had eventually married one of those former patients when she bumped into him years later. They had settled down and eventually had your mom and two other kids. Your eyes always glowed and sparkled when you talked of her and you had once told him that when she had first died you used to wake up at night and see her sitting beside you on the bed in her WWII era nurse’s uniform. She was the reason that you had always known there were things “out there” that you couldn’t understand, couldn’t always see. So, he had his idea. Homemade Christmas ornaments. It’d be a new bunker tradition. And each year, you’d all add some new ones to the tree, and in a few years time, your tree would start to look like your grandmother’s had--covered in homemade ornaments, each made with love and in her memory. * * * “Hey,” Sam said, leaning on the doorframe to your room. You were sitting at your desk, scribbling down some notes in your journal about their latest case. You looked up at him. “Hey,” you said. Suddenly you let out a small laugh and Sam gave you a quizzical look. “Sam, why do you have a bunch of sparkles on your cheek?” “Oh--uhh,” Sam rubbed his fingers across each cheek. “I don’t know.” “I think you just made it worse. Now they’re on both cheeks. Why the heck are your fingers covered in glitter.” Sam didn’t answer, but he smiled like there was an inside joke he hadn’t let you in on yet. “C’mere. I have something I need help with.” You were so curious about what was happening that you put your pen down right then and got up to follow him through the bunker and toward the library. “Okay... What is going on?” Your heart felt a little like it was fluttering. “You’ll see. It’s a surprise,” he said over his shoulder. Soon you followed him into the library and your mouth actually dropped open. There was the Christmas tree you and Dean had picked out earlier and carted home. There was a crackling wood fire in the fireplace and spread out all over the coffee table were bottles of glitter and paint, some paper snowflakes already cut out and ready to be hung on the tree, strands of tinsel, plastic orbs waiting to be painted, cotton balls, buttons and beads... You felt like you had been transported back in time. “What is--how did you--?” Sam wrung his hands. “I did a little recon... Sorry for snooping,” he looked a little guilty. “But--I wanted to do something special for you. Something that would help you feel at home here because--well, because it’s your home now too.” He anxiously rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I thought we could all make some ornaments for the tree. And it’d be a good way for you to remember your gr--” Sam couldn’t finish his sentence. You launched your arms tightly around his neck, balanced on your tip-toes, surprising him and yourself. You hugged him tight. “Thank you,” was all you could say, squeezing your eyes shut tight to stop the tears from leaking out onto your cheeks. You suddenly felt your face blushing hot, surely bright pink and you drew back from him. Sam’s arms slipped from around you too. “This is amazing. But even without all this, I already feel at home here.” Sam smiled warmly at you. “Good.”

[md3artjournal]

It suddenly occurs to me that after all my years of switching from drawing directly with ink, because I was sick of having to ink my pencil drawings (and my ink lines never being as good as my original pencil linework), I'm suddenly growing more interested in digitally tracing my traditional artwork---once I finally open my new touchscreen laptop.

I mean, I keep looking at everyone else's art and how all their different colored lines soften their art, and I want to get that effect too! ;o;! For a few years, I started collecting technical pens with different colored inks, but it turns out a lot of those nibs don't feel right to me for sketching. Definitely fine for outlining and inking pencil drawings, but I didn't want to return to all that tracing inking again. If it wasn't a brushpen, I didn't want to draw with it. But then I discovered that I really like drawing with fountain pens, and fountain pens could have any color ink you wanted, as long as they didn't clog the nib with pigment-based sediments. I was about to invest in a collection of many colored fountain pen inks. I was even considering that Platinum brand of bottle inks, especially made for color mixing. But I had to face it: No matter what I drew with traditionally, I draw so small and my paper is so cheap, that once I scan my artwork and blow it up for merch, it's just so grainy. And I'm too nervous about messing up expensive paper to ever draw with it. If I wanted that clean look that everyone else in artist alley was getting, I needed to learn to draw digitally. At the same time, my current laptop was repeatedly telling me it was on its last legs. So I did my shopping research, I got a new touchscreen laptop with stylus pen for Black Friday, and...It's still sitting in its box. I need to unbox that thing. And at this point, my big motivation to do so, is seeing everyone's fanart every day, and how nice these multicolored lines are. And how smooth and clean everyone's art is! *o* The only way my traditional illustrations could get away with my grainy, blurry paper, is if I went back to watercolors. But I had multiple reasons for dumping that medium. I mean, I love drawing in charcoal and pastels too, but one of the big reasons I stayed with ink/markers is because it's so clean to work with. I procrastinate less, when I know my hands aren't going to get smudgy, I can work anywhere, I don't have to make sure I have level surfaces for cups of water, and brushes, and rags. ---What am I rambling about again? Anyway, I really should get to unboxing my new laptop and practicing digitally tracing all my traditional fanart.

[victorluvsalice]

Forgotten Vows Friday: Fixing You -- Creating A Wonderland

Just wrote what I think is a pretty cute section, so I figured I’d share it with all of you! We all like sneak peeks, right? :) This is set just post the climax, with Victor having defeated the last of his issues and freed one of his mental constructs from a pretty awful fate. He and Alice are discussing why his mental world currently looks like Burtonsville -- Alice suggesting that it might be because he felt that, since all his problems kind of started in Burtonsville, they should end there as well -- and as he expresses the desire for the place to look like it did after he took down the wall in “Remembering You,” he suddenly has a thought. . . (Obviously, some spoilers ahead, but without the full context I don’t think they’re that spoilery.)

"Maybe." Victor ran a finger along the window sill. "It – it kind of reminded me a bit of your Vale of Tears, last time," he added. "When I broke down the wall. That's what I'd like again. A forest full of pine trees, and little white flowers, and a clear flowing stream, and – and all sorts of butterflies–"

For no apparent reason, the skeletal butterfly he'd drawn on his invitation to Alice popped into his head. Victor had expected it to turn his stomach in remembrance of the awful Puppet-Hand Spider, but – there was something a lot lighter about the creature he'd sketched. Well, obviously, it flies, he thought with a little chuckle. But yes, it's more – fun, somehow. Maybe because I drew that with the intent of amusing Alice? Or maybe because it – it reminds me of the Land of the Dead. . . .

Alice tilted her head, watching him curiously. "You seem rather deep in thought all of a sudden."

"I just had an idea," Victor said, turning toward her. "I like the forest my mind came up with the first time – but wouldn't it be so much more interesting if the trees were blue?"

"What – like the forest we saw in the Land of the Dead?"

"Sort of! Only bright blue, just like the people," Victor said, waving his hand at an imaginary figure. "With the trunks twisted into shapes like tangled bones! And the leaves aren't just green – they're pumpkin orange, and royal purple, and lemon orange, and blood red! All those colors that I missed out on growing up! And there could be plants whose flowers grow in the shape of coffins, or mushrooms whose caps resembling grinning skulls. . .and the grass would be this brilliant, almost acid green, and the earth would be split by a huge river, that gathered into smooth pools for bathing, or tumbled down into giant ravines, spraying water everywhere as we jumped and floated down. . .and of course there'd be insects to find, crimson ladybugs and actual darning-needle dragonflies, and those butterflies that look like a pair of skeletal hands. . .oh, Alice, you wouldn't believe how many different kinds of butterflies I came up with when I was a child!" he cried, clasping his hands together.

"Try me," Alice said, grinning at his enthusiasm.

"No, really! You had the bread-and-butterflies, but I had just butter-flies – actual flying sticks of the stuff! And ones that glittered and shimmered in the sunlight like they were covered in tiny mirrors, or ones that glowed like I've heard fireflies do at night, rainbow-winged ones and ones as black as midnight. . . ." He flung his arms wide. "Even ones that were big enough to ride! I always dreamed of one day making my way to the Amazon or the African jungles to find a species no one had seen before – could you imagine that, Alice? A jungle of twisted vines and high leafy trees, absolutely full of butterflies! We could even bring in your nutterflies – and maybe some of the other insects too! Rocking-horse flies and snap-dragonflies – though I think I couldn't resist actual dragon-flies," he confessed with a sheepish rub of his neck.

"So long as they don't set the place on fire, I'm game," Alice said, giggling. "You've put a lot of thought into this."

"Oh, I'm just remembering all the places I used to go as a child – oh hey!" Victor pointed at his counterpart. "What about the old wizard's magic tower? Remember that?"

"Not really," the other Victor said, smiling. "I wasn't around until you were about fourteen."

"It was wonderful – a huge tower reaching high into the sky, surrounded by a swirling vortex of multicolored clouds," Victor elaborated, looking between Alice and the other Victor. "All the plants around grew in funny shapes, and he grew bleeding hearts and roses and other bright red flowers in alchemical circles. There was a big library inside, full of books – sort of like Elder Gutknecht's, only on the bottom couple of floors. And then there were rooms for brewing potions, or practicing spells, or studying magical creatures. . .and at the top, the wizard's personal study, looking out across it all." He wrapped his arms around himself. "I had a big purple blanket I liked to pretend were my official robes – I tried to paint stars and moons on it once, but Miss Johnson caught me and made me scrub them off."

"What a shame," Alice said, patting his arm. "I would have let you do it."

"I know you would. If we'd known each other as children, I bet you would have done it before me."

Alice conceded the point with a giggling nod. "Was there anything for music?" she asked. "Only I know how much you love the piano, and you've compared it to a tamed beast before. . . ."

"Not as a child. . .but why couldn't I have a musical land?" Victor asked the room at large. "You could have weeping willows drooping with piano keys, and violin bushes, and daffodils that really honk! And maybe you could even see the music – it flows through the air like the characters in the Mysterious East. Or you could smell it when you go to sniff a flower, or taste it when you eat a piece of fruit. . .oh, and I've even got the perfect name! Orchestralia!"

Alice snorted. "You and your puns! Though I suppose it's better than my 'this person is a hatter, let's call him Hatter' approach to naming things."

"If it makes you feel better, I can't think of a better name for The Magic Tower," Victor told her, grinning. "And if I have a world for music, I should have one for drawing too. The river could turn to ink there, and maybe all the trees and houses and such are paper pop-ups, and the inhabitants 'talk' by writing their words like annotations around their heads. . .ooh, and if I wanted to do painting as well, I could have big lakes of watercolors, with brush reeds, and birds made from quill pens, and. . . ."

He trailed off, noticing both Alice and his other self were staring out the window. "What?" he asked, following their gaze.

And gasped. The town square, in all its underwhelming gray glory, had vanished, along with any other trace of Burtonsville. Instead, tapping at the glass were bright blue branches tipped with orange and yellow leaves, spreading out above a carpet of grass so green it was almost unreal. Blue roses shared the earth with bleeding hearts and skull-capped mushrooms, with bone butterflies clack-clacking their way from blossom to blossom. A calm little stream gurgled its way through the trees near the horizon, while in the distance, a waterfall roared an invitation to float down it into some mysterious valley. Victor pressed a hand to his heart, almost overcome with joy. "Wow. . . ."

"Very impressive," Alice agreed, taking his hand. "I think you just needed a bit of a run-up to get everything started."

[elf-kid2]

Megamind Soulmate AU

When you write something on your arms, the marks appear on the arms of your soulmate as well. This is known: the soul-bond does not begin at birth; it is only possible with both souls have reached a certain level of maturity. No one knows what triggers the bond; it is not restrained by distance, by language, by contact... but everyone knows that a soulmate is true love, however improbable it may seem. 

Some people develop the mark as young as 14; others begin to find their Soulmate’s marks on their skin when they’re in their 20′s; some never get a mark at all.  In some countries, people bare their arms openly, to better show their art and facilitate the finding of the soulmate (who will of course match). In most of the northwest hemisphere, especially the United States, baring one’s arms in public is considered extremely taboo, even obscene: a cultural norm born of cold weather, left over from outdated arranged-marriage traditions, and puritanism.

Megamind never wrote or drew anything on his arms. There was no point: if he had ever had a soulmate (which wasn’t guaranteed) they had no doubt perished young, lost to the black hole with the rest of his homeworld.

He was never more surprised than the day he discovered a line of colors (black, white, pink, red, yellow, purple, orange, green and, when he looked closer, a shade of blue close to that of his own skin) on his left arm while getting dressed one morning. His first thought was that it must be a bruise- except that he hadn’t hit himself, it didn’t hurt, and the tidy, circular segments of colour didn’t actually look like a bruise at all. His second thought was that he must have spattered himself with paint, except that he had been in the Lair, wearing long sleeves and gloves, and he hadn’t been anywhere near the paint in three days. His third thought was that he needed a plan.

Roxanne Ritchi was not obsessed with finding her soulmate. She didn’t worry, as some did, about ‘missing her chance’ or  She did not decorate her arms with new doodles every day the way some of her friends from middle and high-school claimed to, nor did she spend an excess amount of time or thought looking for a new mark and trying to determine if this or that dot was a freckle or a drop of ink-- but that’s not to say she wasn’t interested.

Every year on her birthday, Roxanne would take out a box of special colored ink-pens (given to her by an aunt for her 15th birthday as a right-of-passage type thing) and draw a multicolored pattern on her arm. She is careful to make bright, clear lines and use a variety of colours-- both light and dark-- because she’s heard too many stories of people missing their chance because they used a shade of ink to close to the color of their Soulmate’s skin, causing the marks to go unnoticed.

The day after her 22nd birthday, Roxanne woke up to find that her right arm was covered in black ink. (Was her soulmate left-handed?). Near the wrist was a pattern of tiny, unfamiliar symbols arranged in a spiral. Below that, a set of Chinese characters. Then a message in arabic. Then a question in German, then French, then Spanish. Finally, close to her shoulder, she could read the message: How did you survive?

She found translations for all of the marks except the ones closest to her wrist: How did you survive?

It took three weeks of communicating at cross-purposes before Megamind figured out that his Soulmate (who was, as it turned out, english-speaking) was in fact native to planet Earth. He felt... The realization... It felt like losing his people all over again. It hurt. He’d known, of course, that even if she (they had confirmed each others pronouns within two days of establishing communication) was also interested in starting a family, one couple was not enough to rebuild a population, even with cloning technology. He also knew that it was probably-- safer-- for both of them this way; the world was not kind so a solitary blue alien, and he could very clearly imagine what people would do if they saw more. An alien was an oddity; Aliens were an invasion or an infestation to be destroyed with extreme prejudice for the good of all humankind. He and Minion had been stockpiling weapons and improving security at the Evil Lair since the soul-bond had appeared, for just that reason. Part of him, some small, cursed part of him, was actually, secretly, a little bit relieved.

Roxanne wondered, sometimes, about his first love. Reading between the lines, Roxanne could tell that he’d initially thought that she, his Soulmate, was a certain childhood sweetheart or previous girlfriend who hadn’t been heard from since died in some sort of accident or natural disaster years ago. It was fairly common in this day and age for people to date before they made contact with their soulmate, and really it would be silly to be jealous of a girl who had died, but. But. Roxanne wondered if she would measure up to her Soulmate’s first love, the girl he had lost. She wondered if they would still have been soulmates if the other girl hadn’t died, or if she would have ended up alone. But there was nothing to be jealous about.

Mostly, it hurt. He was alone on this planet, he and Minion were completely alone hear, and when they died all that was left of his planet, all that was left of his parents’ legacy, would die with them. He had known that for years, but having hope, having a chance and then feeling it ripped away once more in the cruel hands of fate made the facts all the harder to bear. Furthermore, Megamind had somehow become Bonded to a human. She would expecting someone of her own species, probably hoping for someone tall and square-jawed, with good hair and lots of money. What if they met, and she couldn’t stand to look at him? What if she was horrified, or angry, or disappointed, or scared when-- if they met in person?

Roxanne had asked, a few times, about meeting in person, but each time he wrote a note saying that, for now, it was impossible. She understood, really,  she did. Based on their first communication, where he had asked How did you survive? in so many languages, she suspected that he was from another country (most US citizens were not bilingual), and though he wrote in English fluently enough, perhaps he was less comfortable with the spoken language? In any case, if he lived in another country, it could take a lot of time and money before he was able to visit her, or before she was able to visit him. She understood.

Roxanne gave him her phone number instead.

When she gave him her phone number during one of their "evening chats” (sessions in which they would lock themselves in their rooms and exchange notes, sharing jokes, doodles, poetry, and little incidents from the day with the sort of ink that could be easily washed away to make room for more notes), he wasn’t sure what to do. She had a Metro City area code. Megamind hadn’t expected that. He knew he’d mislead her, allowing her to believe that he lived overseas in some far-away country, but he hadn’t actually expected to find out that they lived in the same city.

He wondered who she was

Two days after she’d written her own phone number on her arm (two days of worry and nervousness, because what if really he didn’t like the sound of her voice, what if she said something wrong when he called, what if he never called at all, what if he didn’t ever want to see her, what if...), Roxanne got a text message from an unlisted number: “My Queen, shall we continue our correspondence?” She blushed, smiling in delight: this was how her Soulmate liked to ‘greet’ her in their evening chats. Now they could send messages anytime... and now that she had his number, she could call him.

“Ollo?” She’d called when he was in the middle of building a weaponized tunneling vehicle (the name was also in the works). Somehow, he hadn’t expected her to call

“It’s me. I mean, this is Roxanne Ritchi, I mean... can you spare a minute to talk with your Queen?” she’d called during her lunch break, on an impulse, and she hadn’t planned on telling him her name, hadn’t planned on what to say at all, hadn’t thought that maybe there was a time difference and he was at work or asleep or something, but... she’d wanted to know what his voice sounded like.

“I always have time for you,” he said, making his voice low and smooth. “So, my only Soulmate, did you say you’re name was Roxanne?” He already knew her name of course; he’d tracked her down almost as soon as he had her number. But being able to talk to her, being able to say her beautiful, luscious name outloud, to her...

“Roxanne Ritchi,” she said. Gah, she loved his voice; she should have called him ages ago. “I’m an investigative reporter with the KMCP8 Newstation. What’s your name? What do you do for a living?” It was hard to believe they’d been bonded for months, yet she still didn’t know his name.

“I-” how was he supposed to answer? “Roxanne, I--” How was he supposed to tell Roxanne Ritchi, the smart, witty, beautiful reporter, the woman who had twice discovered his Evil Scheme early and had to be taken hostage, who he’d seen flirting with his most hated rival following both those occasions-- how was he supposed to tell her that her one and only Soulmate was a (skinny, blue, big-headed, short, freakish) notoriously unsuccessful Super Villain?

“I’m really not that interesting,” he whispered. “And Roxanne, my love, I’d much rather talk about you.”

“Come on, don’t tease,” she giggled. “I told you mine, so you tell me yours. What’s your name?” He’d drawn this out as long as possible. He could try to delay again, make it last a little bit longer, but sooner or later she would get sick of waiting; sooner or later she would figure it out.

“My name is Megamind,” he said, his voice holding more confidence than he felt. “Incredibly Handsome Criminal Genius and Master of All Villainy. Roxanne will you-- do you still--- wont you be my Queen?”

“Is this a joke?” Roxanne demanded. “It isn’t funny!” “It’s no joke,” her soul mate Megamind the voice on the other end of the phone replied. “...If you don’t believe me, you can look at your left wrist.”

“I will!” she grabbed her purse and stormed to the privacy of a stall in the Lady’s Room to role up her sleeves. (She was angry, but she wasn’t about to get undressed in public.) There on her arm, in the same handwriting her soulmate always had, was the message. My name is Megamind.

They met in person for the first time that very evening. It went infinitely better than Megamind thought it would.

It went about as well as could be expected.

He wondered if she wished that he were human. She wondered if he wished she were blue. He wanted to know what she thought of his career. She wanted to know why he chose it. He wanted to give her nice things. She wanted to give him a home. He hoped that she would get along with Minion. (Soulmate or not, he wasn’t sure what he’d do if she couldn’t.) She delighted in the thought of how her family would react if when she took him home for Thanksgiving. He offered to conquer the world so that she could truly be Queen. She offered to help him rework his PR until he didn’t have to fight the world.

They kissed for the first time that night.

It was... wonderful.

The debate continued on if Megamind should give up Villainy, or if Roxanne should become his ‘Partner in Crime’.

In the end, both were happy with the decision.

They were married three months later-- after what Megamind described as a torturously long engagement. Roxanne’s family felt that it was scandalously short-- but since they were hoping the groom would die in a lab accident before the wedding, they don’t get to vote.

Roxanne and Megamind Ritchi went on to do great things together. (One of their greatest achievements was successfully creating-- and doing an unusually successful job at maintaining-- a happy family.)