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multisfabulis · 3 years

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Wayfinder’s Voyage

Oceanic (Chapter 1 | 2)

Word Count: 5785

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this! I'm honestly super anxious while I'm typing this because, not only is this my first fic in the KH fandom, this is also my first ship fic so I'm feeling a lot of pressure.

I want to apologize if the characters seem OOC in this, I was mainly going off of memory and a Wiki because I didn't want to sit through an entire LP of BBS just to get a few details accurate. It already took me a month and a half to write all of this and I didn't want to take up more time.

I do have more Terraqua fics in the works, as well as a couple other KH fics in general, but those will probably be posted way later. I just wanted to test the waters with this fic and see how I do so...

So some things to note:

*Both Aqua and Terra's first scenes in this fic were made entirely for the purpose of giving them build-up while not diminishing Ven's importance to them. I was already going to be fucking with canon a lot but I also didn't want to leave Ven to the wayside so I created those scenes. You'll see Terra's in the next chapter.

*I feel the need to apologize for the second half of the second scene because that still feels like word barf, even when I know why I wrote it like that. I hope the intention behind those words is still conveyed clearly but I'll understand if it's not.

*As for the last scene, I completely misremembered the sequence of events leading up to the end. I already knew that scene was going to be changed somewhat just for the context of the ship but I think it's pretty clear which parts I changed on purpose and which parts I was winging it. It's been years since I last watched that scene, it was super late into the night, this was my third rewrite, and I felt satisfied with my work before realizing I fucked up and decided to go along with it.

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Today started out like any other normal day. Aqua woke up, did her morning regimen, and set off for the great hall to begin her studies. She and Terra, her friend/rival, were to train under the watchful eye of their master Eraqus in the hopes of coming one step closer to fulfilling their lifelong dream. They would one day surpass the rank of apprentice and become Keyblade Masters in their own right, something she wished would arrive sooner rather than later.

Then came time for their daily duel. They would often spar with each other as a way of proving their capabilities in battle, seeing what areas they could use improvement in, and showing off the techniques they had learned from past fights. This seemed to be no different from their previous clashes.

She was on the defense, blocking and deflecting each blow Terra threw her way with relative ease. He managed to find an opening she didn’t account for and all but jumped on the opportunity. He charged in, his Keyblade held high, and she only had a split second to raise hers in an attempt to guard against it. Yet, whether it was due to a miscalculation on his part or her just reacting too slow, he ended up hitting her unarmored wrist. She quickly backed away, letting out a cry of pain as both Keyblades were dismissed in a flash of light. Eraqus rushed over to check if she was okay.

Terra was beside her with remorseful apologies spilling out of his mouth but she barely paid them any heed. Her eyes were focused on something much more alarming, something she knew Eraqus saw too. Emanating from Terra’s hand was an aura of Darkness, which vanished as soon as he noticed it. He tried to defend himself to Eraqus but the damage was already done.

Their master had an almost zealous hatred for Darkness, believing it’d bring nothing but destruction in its wake, and sought to rid the Land of Departure of any, even if some laid dormant in his apprentices’ hearts. This was a constant problem for Terra, who always seemed to harbor enough to fall back on, be it consciously or not. For it to flare up during training, that drew Eraqus’s ire.

It was hard not to feel sorry for Terra as he was being harshly scolded. It wasn’t like he was trying to use Darkness, at least not intentionally. She knew that it was only an accident but it wouldn’t help stop the shame he undoubtedly felt. He’ll probably curse himself for being too weak and letting Darkness in yet again once he thought no one was around, an occurrence she’s been privy to more than she had any right to be. She needed to talk with him once she had her wrist taken care of.

With a hand on her back, Eraqus began leading her out of the great hall. She looked over her shoulder to catch one last glimpse of Terra before leaving. He hung his head in shame as he clenched his fists in what she believed to be anger. It was just as she expected. She turned her head back to face forward, hoping he wouldn’t blame himself more than he already was.

They made their way over to the infirmary, where Eraqus gently took hold of her wrist to examine it. She could see now how bruised and swollen it was from the impact as she winced with every slight movement. He was able to determine she had a sprained wrist, which she regarded as a miracle. With the amount of force Terra had in his swing, she was thankful it didn’t result in a break. She was to keep it wrapped and iced for a couple days till it healed, something she had no problem with.

After it was bandaged, she was told to take it easy until then. She asked Eraqus about Terra and he said he’d have a talk with him once enough time had passed for things to settle down. There was an undercurrent of regret in his voice, made even clearer by the expression on his face. Their master may be strict but he still cared for them, similar in the way a father would for his children. This gave her some hope in that he realized what happened was an accident and he’d forgive Terra. Time would only tell.

She spent the rest of the day in the library. She figured she’d get some studying done if she couldn’t practice with her Keyblade for the next few days. Try as she might, though, she could barely focus on the words she was reading and that was if she didn’t reread the sentence to understand it. Her mind kept wandering to Terra, whether he was okay or not, and what he was doing right now. Worry gnawed at her heart until she couldn’t take it anymore. The sun was beginning to cast orange and violet hues across the sky when she decided and rushed out to find him.

He wasn’t in the great hall or his room when she looked in. Searching all around the building yielded no results, either. She wondered where he could be, her anxiety growing as she saw night quickly approaching. He had to still be in the Land of Departure and the only place she hadn’t checked yet was the mountain. She ran out to the Forecourt and then beyond its boundary.

Stars were twinkling into existence by the time she reached the winding path leading up to the mountain. If it weren’t for the lights set alongside the dirt road, she would’ve been stumbling about blindly in the dark. It was when she arrived at the overlook just before the summit she found him.

His back faced her as she saw that he was sitting on the edge of the cliff. Taking a few steps closer revealed him to be looking down below the mountain with an indiscernible expression. It was troubling to see him like this. What happened earlier today had to be weighing heavily on his mind.

Tentatively walking forward, she called out, “Terra?”

He stiffened and quickly turned around to face her, asking a barrage of questions like, “Aqua, are you okay? How’s your wrist? Is it bad? It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, no, it’s all right, see?” she replied, showing him her bandaged wrist. “Master said it was only a sprain and that it should be okay in a couple days as long as I took it easy.”

He let out a sigh of relief, no doubt feeling some of the guilt be lifted off his shoulders. “That’s good. I don’t think I would’ve forgiven myself if I managed to break your wrist.”

“Well, you didn’t, so don’t beat yourself up over it, okay?”

Silence fell between them. She noticed him staring at her wrist with clouded eyes, despite her assurances of being fine. Before she could think of a way to broach the issue at hand, he spoke up.

“Aqua, I’m…I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt you, it was an accident, and---”

“I know, I know! You don’t need to apologize, I know you would never try and hurt me,” she interjected, trying to comfort him. “I’m more worried about you and how you’re doing after Master had those…words with you.”

He averted his eyes from her. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Eraqus scold Terra like he had before and those always left him feeling horrible with himself. She was used to being the one to get him back to normal but something told her this wouldn’t be as easy as previous times.

Turning away from her, he said, “I deserved it. Master was right, I could’ve seriously hurt you.”

“But you didn’t and that’s what matters,” she replied.

“I was wielding Darkness, Aqua!” he exclaimed, taking her aback. He ran a hand through his hair before continuing on, “I thought it was gone. I thought I had it under control but I guess I don’t. Maybe it never left.”

“Terra…” She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay. You’ve gotten rid of Darkness before, you can do it again. You just have to---”

He brushed her off. “What if I don’t? What if I’ll always have Darkness inside me?”

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe I’m not meant to be a Keyblade Master. Maybe I’m just destined to fall into darkness. It’s my fate to lose my heart and become a Heartless.”

“That won’t happen, Terra. You’re strong enough to resist it and---”

“What if I’m not, Aqua? How else would you explain why I keep having Darkness come out of me? You can’t, can you?”

To her horror, he was right. There was no way she could explain why Darkness lingered inside him, even with the numerous attempts to rid himself of it. It wasn’t because he had a weak heart, that much she was certain. So what was the connection between the two? Was Terra right in that he was destined to fall into darkness, either by losing his heart or some other means?

The thought rocked her to the core. She didn’t want to believe his fate was to be lost in a hellish abyss until he was put out of his misery. He was her dear friend and he deserved so much more than being reduced to a lowly Heartless. She refused to accept it, which was why she decided to do something about it.

“You won’t fall into darkness, Terra,” she affirmed, stepping around him to meet his gaze. “I know it.”

“How? How can you be so sure?” he asked.

“Because I won’t let you.” She took hold of his hand in a gentle yet firm grip. “I promise I won’t let you fall into darkness.”

He seemed genuinely shocked by her words. She meant what she said and she planned on upholding her promise. It may be hard and it may even be treacherous at times but it’d all be worth it if he remained in the light.

“And, if you do fall, I promise to always guide you back home,” she added, giving his hand a squeeze.

“...You have that much faith in me, huh?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She cupped his cheek. “You’re my friend, Terra, and I know you’re strong enough to resist its temptation. I’ll just be there to remind you every so often.”

He said nothing, instead deciding to pull her into a hug. She was surprised by this, seeing as how he wasn’t a very affectionate person, at least in the physical aspect. She was about ready to question him on why he was doing this when she heard him whisper in her ear:

“Thank you, Aqua, for believing in me.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest from the sincerity in his voice. She could sometimes be slow on the uptake but this had to be a new record. It was only now she realized just how much her vow must’ve touched him and how badly he must’ve been feeling before she showed up. She was glad to have cheered him up some. Thus, she returned the hug and answered,

“You’re welcome.”

Terra wasn’t going to fall into darkness, not if she had anything to say about it. He won’t be led astray. She’d be his anchor to the realm of light. A promise is a promise, which she wholly planned to keep.

Aqua breathed in deep and touched the tip of her paintbrush on the small piece of glass sitting in front of her. Drawing it upwards left the top half in a pretty shade of cyan blue. She continued to paint with delicate and meticulous strokes until she was satisfied with her work. The bottom half was then covered in a dark blue, which almost matched the ocean she imagined in her mind. Once the piece of glass was completely painted over, she gingerly picked it up and set it aside to dry. One down, four more to go before she moved on to the next phase.

She was in the process of making her Wayfinder. She already crafted two others that happened to be sitting off to the side, one in amber and one in green. She hoped to give them to Terra and Ven soon once she was done creating hers. Seeing as how she and Terra were meant to have their Mark of Mastery exam in the near future, they were meant to be good luck charms and Ven was getting one simply because it’d be unfair if he was left out. They also had another purpose to them, something she thought was rather poignant and was the main reason she wanted them.

Wayfinders were said to be designed after star-shaped fruit called Paopu, which were also said to tie friends together. If they carried these on them, nothing would drive them apart. They’d even help find one’s way back to them if they were ever lost. It may be silly of her to believe in this but it struck a chord within her when she first heard it and, in some ways, she wanted it to be true.

The question of what would happen after she and Terra aced their exam had weighed heavily on her mind for some time. Eraqus had told them they could either travel beyond the Land of Departure and expand their horizons or succeed him and protect their world from Darkness. They hadn’t decided yet but she wondered what the aftermath of her choice would be. Would she choose to leave or stay? Whatever it may be, it meant Terra would have to contend with the other. Maybe the reason this was troubling her so much was because a part of her deep down was afraid of losing the two people she considered to be her best friends.

She knew she had nothing to be scared of yet she worried all the same. It wasn’t like the bonds she shared with Ven and Terra were so weak, they’d break upon setting foot outside their home. Their strength would remain steadfast, even if the three of them were far apart from each other. She just needed to remind herself of that whenever she was lost in her thoughts.

The last glass piece was painted and she put it beside the others to dry. With that out of the way, the next thing to do would be setting the five glass pieces into place and soldering them to the frame so they wouldn’t fall out when she held the Wayfinder facing up. It was too late to do it tonight but she would get straight to it after her training tomorrow.

She glanced over to where the other two Wayfinders were sitting. She stood up from her desk, reached her hand out to grab them, and sat back down. They shone brilliantly under the golden light pouring in from her window. A lot’s happened over the last few years.

She never thought Eraqus would take in another apprentice but it was at the behest of an old friend so that’s how Ventus came into the picture. Fragile was the best word to describe him when they first met, like he could collapse at any moment. It fit him even more when he actually did from Terra’s bombardment of questions, falling into an almost come-like state for several days. Her skepticism as to whether he was capable of becoming a Keyblade Master only grew when Eraqus said he was amnesiac and that was why he fainted. How could someone like him become Master when he was so weak, for lack of a better term?

Yet he managed to prove her wrong. The more time he spent with the two of them, the stronger he got, to the point he was able to keep up with them in battle. He wasn’t as powerful as Terra or as magically gifted as her but he made up for it with swiftness and sheer tenacity. The only reason he wasn’t taking the Mark of Mastery exam along with them was because of his age, though she believed it was also due to him needing to outgrow some things, like his rebellious streak for example. He’d be a great Keyblade Master one day, she was sure of it.

Terra’s changed so much over the years. He was no longer a child struggling to keep his head above water as he flailed his Keyblade about. He’s grown into a strong and capable man she was proud to call her friend and rival. He’d be her fellow Master in due time as well and then they’d stand together to protect both theirs and many other worlds from Heartless someday. At least, that’s what she envisioned before things somehow became different between them.

She couldn’t quite explain what changed between her and Terra. It wasn’t like the way they interacted with each other was different from normal. They still met up every day to talk and train so that couldn’t be it. The only thing she noticed was…well, things she had never really noticed from him before. Not that they were never there but they were only starting to make themselves known to her.

Before Ven, she’d only seen three sides to Terra. The dutiful pupil to their master, the reliable confidant to her, and the introspective self-doubter when he thought he was alone. It was only after Ven entered their circle she saw the kind and protective side of him, almost like he was an older brother to him. She always knew those qualities existed within him but it was different seeing them in action to someone other than her. It’s only now she’s really acknowledged them.

He was still her friend but there was a deeper meaning now. Her feelings towards him were different than her feelings towards Ven and maybe that was because she’s known him practically all her life as opposed to the four years for Ven. Maybe all this was was her growing up and becoming an adult, which meant changing feelings and realizing that things were going to be different for her now, whether she liked it or not. Throw in the anxiety of potentially drifting away from him and she was left with a jumbled up mess of complications she struggled to put a label on.

All this was doing was giving her a headache. She should be focusing on the road ahead instead of thinking herself into a corner and letting her mind run wild. She’s so close to accomplishing her dream and she couldn’t risk anything jeopardizing it. Whatever answers she wanted, she’d find them after becoming Master.

She looked down at the Wayfinders still held in her hands and pressed them close to her chest. She let out a heavy sigh as she tried to calm herself. Different was new but it didn’t have to be bad. Change was a part of everyone’s lives and she and Terra were no exceptions.

Things may be different between them but it didn’t mean they were bad. It could mean they were good and she just couldn’t see how yet. As long as they were together, nothing truly bad would happen. That’s what she hoped.

Aqua sat at the end of the dock, watching the sun set over the horizon. A warm, pleasant breeze was blowing through, carrying with it the strong scent of salt. She could hear the ocean’s waves rolling along the sandy shore and leaves from the trees behind her rustling. This was everything she imagined a beach to be like. The only things missing from it were Terra and Ven.

The Destiny Islands was what this world was called. She only stopped by with the intention of taking a short rest but it was after reality began to sink in she had to give herself something more than that. She needed a moment where she could think clearly, decompress, and just breathe. She needed this before going back out there and starting the whole process over again. That’s where she was now.

Where did it all go wrong? She finally managed to achieve her dream of becoming a Keyblade Master but it felt like a hollow victory when it turned out Terra failed the exam on account of his Darkness flaring up again. Then she was asked by their master to keep an eye on him in case he strayed too close to darkness, which she didn’t agree with but knew it was out of concern for him so she followed. It was through that she learned of the questionable acts seemingly committed by Terra and it caused her to doubt him and his resolve. When she met up with him and Ven at Radiant Garden and she revealed the truth of her being there, their trust in her was shattered.

Then she found out Ven was being hunted down by a masked boy, who had ties to Master Xehanort. He’d been pulling strings behind the scenes and he was dragging Terra along for the ride. An encounter with the masked boy in Neverland left her exhausted yet she still trudged on before arriving here. All she was trying to do was make things right so why did it turn out like this?

Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a Master. They were supposed to keep the balance between light and dark, protect the worlds from malevolent forces. If she couldn’t even protect her best friends, the two people she treasured above all else, then what good was she? Eraqus was wrong in making her a Master, much less his successor. She never should have become one.

She took out her Wayfinder and just held it. The orange hue of the sunset washed away the once vibrant blue into something dull and dark. Her heart grew heavier the longer she looked at it, running her thumb over the token in the center. Nothing would drive them apart, huh?

It was never that she thought of Ven as weak or doubted his capabilities. It was never, ever that. She just wanted him to be safe, to be unharmed because she knew she couldn’t always be there to save him. There was a part of her that still viewed him as the fragile boy she first met who fell comatose from one too many questions. Sure, he’s grown much stronger since then, but she felt the need to protect him regardless. He was her dear friend and she wouldn’t know how to live with herself if he got hurt and she wasn’t there to help him. She’d rather have him hate her for being overbearing than risk losing him because she wasn’t cautious.

She wished she could express how sorry she was to Terra. She vouched for him to Eraqus, swearing he was strong enough to resist the dark temptations, yet hearsay was all it took for her to lose faith in him. Xehanort’s machinations framed him as someone he wasn’t and she fell for it so easily. It honestly pissed her off that he was manipulating and taking advantage of Terra and his trusting nature. While he wasn’t exactly innocent in this, it was clear as to who the real mastermind was. She wanted so badly to apologize to him, to tell him she should never have doubted him.

Her grip on the Wayfinder tightened as she felt her eyes beginning to burn. Did they have theirs still, she wondered. She wanted to believe they did but was it childishly naive of her to cling to that narrow hope?

She was a horrible friend to them. She caused one to lose faith in her and she may as well have betrayed the other. She may have pushed Ven too far away for him to come back and drove Terra further into the darkness. She wouldn’t fault them for wanting nothing to do with her anymore. She wouldn’t, either, if the roles were reversed. Were their bonds now severed?

No, they couldn’t be. The magic she placed on each of their Wayfinders was still active and she could still feel Terra and Ven’s hearts through hers. That had to be her silver lining in this. Even if the cord connecting the three of them together frayed till it was only a thread, that thread was unbreakable.

She needed to protect them. She couldn’t let Xehanort and that masked boy do whatever they wanted with them. They wouldn’t hesitate to save her if she were in the same position so she shouldn’t, either. They were precious to her, she’d do anything, even give her life, if it meant they’d be safe.

She stood up from the dock, Wayfinder still in her hand, and looked up at the now starry sky. She didn’t know where they were but she didn’t need to. Her heart was going to be her guiding key.

They needn’t worry much longer. She was going to find them and the three of them were going to stop whatever Xehanort had planned. Then they would share one more night under the stars, like they had all that time ago.

May they find a way to each other once more.

Aqua watched on in horror as the man in front of her stabbed his Keyblade into his chest. She wanted to cry out his name but she couldn’t find the strength within her to do so, having thoroughly exhausted herself from their fight earlier. His body went slack, his Keyblade vanishing into thin air, as a portal of swirling darkness opened beneath him. He fell back and, quickly realizing where it led to, she dove in after him.

She had to save him. It may not have been Terra, not completely, but his heart was still in his body, she just knew it. Why else would he have let her go when he was so close to finishing her off? She couldn’t leave him to wander in the Realm of Darkness for all eternity. Even if it meant bringing Xehanort back, she’d never forgive herself for doing that to him if he was still in there. She made him a promise and she was damn well going to keep it.

The first thing she noticed was how cold it was. It wasn’t freezing but it was still too chilly for her liking, evident from her shivering. She felt like she was stuck in an empty black void as she searched around for any sign of Terra. She was eventually able to find a dim light just a few meters below her, a light she recognized as his. Summoning her Keyblade, she changed its form to that of her Glider and raced towards the light, not once taking her eyes off it.

It didn’t take long to reach him. The light grew dimmer and dimmer the closer she got before dimming completely upon seeing him. He looked to be just sleeping, even when he was plummeting straight down to what she considered to be hell. She grabbed onto his arm and struggled to lift him onto her Glider, only managing to accomplish that feat by sheer force of will. Giving him a quick once-over revealed no visible wounds and he seemed to be breathing normally. Relieved that he was physically all right, she turned the Glider around and began heading back up.

She had him and he was going to be okay. They would be back in Radiant Garden soon and she was going to fix him. She and whoever else could help her were going to find a way to get Xehanort’s heart out of him. Then she and him would go home and wake Ven up, like she said they would. They’d be together again. Their master may be gone now but they’d have each other to lean on and support. The hope of them being reunited again was the only thing keeping her going at this point. After everything that’s happened, she needed this to come true. She almost wanted to pray to whatever power there be to grant her wish, to give her this.

Well, a deity or some other higher being there was heard her and sneered. Her heart dropped once she saw the portal they came in from starting to close. They were still so far away and it was shrinking with each passing second. It would be gone by the time they reached it, leaving them stuck in the Realm of Darkness with no way out. She looked over at Terra’s unconscious form and, knowing what had to be done, made her choice without any hesitation.

That was when it hit her. She finally found her answer and she wanted to scold herself for taking so long to realize it. She finally knew what Terra was to her and it was so easy, so simple to understand that there was really no excuse. He wasn’t just a friend to her, he was more than that, he deepened beyond that. It was only natural, in some ways, for her to have fallen for him.

She loved him. She loved everything about him, from his ability to want to see the good in people to his devotion to her and Ven. She can scarcely remember a life where he wasn’t a part of it nor did she want such a life. He was irreplaceable, someone she confided in, a man she could talk to about anything without fear of judgment. He was her rock, her dearly beloved. She loved him, which was why she was able to decide on her fate with little regret.

She was going to take his place. Her promise came out of a love different from what it was now but she planned to uphold it all the same. Her love for Terra was stronger than her hatred of the man possessing him and she couldn’t bear to leave him behind to die in a hellish wasteland. It only hurt to know she wouldn’t be there to help guide him back home, to her and Ven.

She disembarked from her Glider and went around to the side. Terra appeared to be holding onto the handles somewhat, which seemed to be the only reason he was staying on it instead of falling. She brushed the back of her hand against his cheek before resting it on his, giving it a gentle squeeze. She was going to miss him when she was gone but this was for the best.

“We’ll meet again someday.” She squeezed his hand again. “Even if so much time has passed, we’ll meet again.” She was giving both him and herself false hope. “I’ll always be with you, okay?” She didn’t believe she would find a way out. “Goodbye, Terra.”

Then she let go and began falling. She didn’t take her eyes off him once as she fell, even when it became too dark for her to see him clearly. She wanted him to be the last thing she saw if she were to possibly die in the next few moments. She only wished she could’ve amended things between her, Terra, and Ven before their grand battle in the Keyblade Graveyard but she was resigned to contend with this. She’d be okay with taking that regret to her grave.

Tears rolled down her cheeks but she smiled through them. She saved him from a fate of wandering the dark realm alone. She hoped Terra would win out in his fight against Xehanort and reclaim his body as the image of him finally disappeared from her sight. Maybe, just maybe, they’d meet again in the next life.

She closed her eyes as she let the darkness overtake her. It was then she heard herself say those three little words that carried with them so much meaning. Whether she said them aloud or she only imagined she did, it didn’t matter. All she wanted was for those words to reach Terra’s heart, to let him know why she did what she did. That was her last thought before succumbing to the cold.

“I love you.”

#airi's writing #terraqua #aqua #terra #ventus #eraqus #fanfiction #kingdom hearts #canon divergence

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loruleanheart · 4 years

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Desired Fate, Chapter 13

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One step closer to Hyrule Castle and one second closer to the Calamity…

And Zelda was no closer to awakening her power than when she began all those years ago.

Zelda cast a side-glance at Astor, who walked beside her. He was being very quiet, almost mirroring her dour mood. What was he thinking? He looked completely absorbed in his own headspace. She wondered what sort of inner demons he must have been fighting. He must have been under a great deal of pressure just as she was. What was it like to serve an ancient evil and be expected to be the perfect instrument to bring about its revival? Not to mention trying to turn away from such a destiny.

He’s changing... I was somehow able to persuade him, and now maybe he could be the key in turning back Calamity Ganon since it seems I won’t be able to… What if I’m being too optimistic? Believing he could change... Or that I had anything to do with it… He’ll always see me as the pathetic royal girl that can’t wield her power. He’ll never see me as anything more. He’ll never love me… Or anyone for that matter... Possibly why he turned to Ganon in the first place... Not that any of us are going to live long enough to worry about that, and it will be my fault...

Astor looked down to Zelda, who seemed as though she were about to break into tears again at any moment.

“I must envision a life after the Calamity, I must...” Zelda said aloud and to herself.

Hylia’s prophecy echoed in Astor’s mind. He wondered if those words could set Zelda’s mind at ease. If so, it seemed almost cruel not to tell her. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words out loud. What if Zelda shut down the same way he had when Hylia had told him? For all he knew Hylia had noticed his weakness and had come up with a lie to tempt him, Ganon’s chosen, exploiting his weakness to gain the advantage in the war against her greatest enemy. There was no way the goddess herself had ordained THAT for the girl that bore her namesake and her blood.

Yet, Zelda had been unreasonably kind to him. She had ordered her knight to spare him, even after he tried to kill her. She had gone above and beyond in reasoning and pleading with him. There was the way she looked at him, spoke to him. She made him feel desired. But how could that be? Astor briefly wondered if this was Hylia’s doing as well, as far-fetched an idea as it was, but Astor was running out of explanations for Zelda’s behavior towards him. Weren’t the royal daughters supposed to be able to hear the voice of the goddess?

“Zelda…” Astor paused, trying to get used to using her given name. “Does the goddess ever speak to you?”

“No… Not really… I’ve had these dreams though... but I can never quite hear her words.”

This answer satisfied him. Zelda seemed to be unaware of anything Hylia had planned. Her actions and words towards him were genuine.

“There’s something I can’t quite wrap my mind around... Why aren’t you afraid of me? Why don’t you hate me or find me repugnant? For all that I am, and all that I’ve done… Anyone else would.”

“There’s something about you… I can’t describe it.”

“I’m not worthy of whatever it is you feel for me…”

“That's not how it works… It just is…”

“But I swore myself to Calamity Ganon for so long… I am damned.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“What about that knight? You must have feelings for him?”

“You mean Link? Why do you say that?”

Astor braced himself for what he would say next, but he knew it couldn’t go unsaid if he wanted to show any kind of true compassion towards Zelda.

“You’re fated to unlock your power because of him. It was a vision given to me by my harbinger.”

Zelda stopped in her tracks. It was a lot to take in. “So I haven’t failed after all? It’s really going to happen? Why would you tell me that?”

“I guess to redeem myself a bit, though what I’ve done up until now is unforgivable... I want to help you because you spared my life and helped me to see the truth about Calamity Ganon, and you seemed like you needed to hear it.”

“That’s surprisingly kind of you… But I don’t know if I believe it… I’ve already had my hopes raised and dashed so many times.” Zelda paused for a long moment. “But if an individual could be the thing to bring out my power, I... I want it to be you.”

“I can’t be that person for you…Fate has already decreed it…” He said in a soft, sullen way.

They walked in silence a bit longer.

Astor thought of the Harbinger. Its absence didn’t bode well. It was likely aware of what its seer was up to and it certainly wouldn't let such grievous disloyalty go unpunished.

Astor’s eyes darted around his surroundings. Astor had never been afraid of his Harbinger before, but now he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was capable of doing something really horrible to him.

After some time, they reached a high cliff overlooking Kakariko Village. She had passed through the village on her way to Mount Lanayru in the early morning hours before anyone would be awake to see her, now the village was bustling.

Astor hadn’t set foot in a village in ages, and as soon as they started to cross paths with other people, Astor remembered why. The Sheikah Villagers were giving them odd looks, and of course they would. This village was pretty closed off from the rest of Hyrule. It was rare for them to see non-Sheikah.

A couple of small children darted past them, laughing, barely acknowledging their presence or personal space as children often did.

A Sheikah woman standing outside of a garment shop smiled at them, trying to wave them down. “Pretty clothes for your girlfriend?” The woman said sweetly.

Astor gave an exasperated, flustered moan, drawing his hood further down his brow.

“No, not today, but thank you,” Zelda responded kindly to the Sheikah shopkeep, beaming and radiating a sense of joy even for a moment. Her smile was like the sun, and any doubts Astor had dried up and disappeared. She loved him, and nothing seemed to be able to sway her. Hylia’s prophecy was one step closer to being realized.

I could tell her the prophecy, and she might just die of happiness…. Astor thought darkly. Loving her. Loathing her. He still couldn’t shake his aversion of Zelda realizing her power. It was too deeply ingrained. Although now he suspected that it was out of jealousy for the knight. And then there was Hylia’s prophecy which filled him with a feeling that had been foreign to him until lately. It was a feeling that both disgusted and thrilled him. But he couldn’t summon the words to tell her. Saying them would breathe them into existence even more so.

They passed houses and other shops, including an inn. Other Sheikah villagers were taking notice of them.

“Isn’t that Princess Zelda?” one of the Sheikah villagers whispered loudly to another.

Astor walked faster, eager to clear the village. Zelda walked a little faster, too, despite that her legs felt heavy from covering so many miles.

They made their way through a wide-open valley known as Sahasra Slope, which boasted a magnificent view of Hyrule Castle.

“Father is going to be so cross with me…”

Astor looked at Zelda strangely. She kept bringing up her father. It was almost like she was afraid of him. More afraid of her own father than she was of him… which really said something. Astor knew just enough about the royal family to make some assumptions.

“Does he believe the same as the people in your court?”

Zelda flinched. “Oh… You know about that…? It feels that way sometimes.”

“I don’t understand. You’re the one with the blood of the goddess. Shouldn’t he be worshiping the ground you walk on?”

“Well… He doesn’t see it that way. Tough love, I suppose…”

“What does he have to be angry about? Aside from you breaking custom to go to the Spring of Wisdom? Not a reason to be angry, if you ask me. This is a war, after all. You’re just doing what you must to have the potential to be victorious.”

Zelda looked at Astor with surprise. “You really believe that?”

“I’m… I was... Ganon’s chosen… I’m not ignorant or blind, although I suppose it would be accurate to say that Ganon kept me blind for so long. It’s important to understand your enemy. Your father is a fool. Trust me on this.”

“Hmm…” Zelda hummed. “What about your parents? What were they like?”

“I never knew them… I grew up in an orphanage in Deya Village.”

“Oh… I’m sorry… Now I feel silly for complaining.”

“It's fine. It stopped bothering me years ago and it’s beyond irrelevant now.”

They crossed the Rebonae bridge, on the last leg of their journey, and passed through a vast apple orchard, slightly off from Zelda’s original course.

The sky grew a vibrant orange as they entered Hyrule Castle Town. Zelda gave an audible exhale. “… Almost home…” She knew she had to prepare herself for anything now.

Astor jolted when Zelda took hold of his hand. She was barely aware of how tightly she held onto him. But he felt her… or rather a time in the future where she would squeeze his hand with such intensity, to the point of pain. Her ragged breath was in his ear, as she braced herself against him. A wave of intense emotion washed over him and he...

...ripped his hand away, Zelda looking at him puzzled and a little hurt.

“Whenever you touch me… I see and feel things.”

“Oh… Do these things displease you?” That wounded expression lingered on her face.

“I… I suppose it doesn’t…” He said, offering his hand to her. The vision didn’t continue, but it still left him stunned and strangely longing for more.

The streets were almost as devoid of life as they had been the night before. No one gave them more than a cursory glance as they passed by.

They walked up the winding brick pathway that led up to the castle, and when they reached the sanctum, all four champions, Impa, and Link turned to them as they appeared in the doorway. All was eerily quiet as they came forward. Zelda’s eyes were red from crying and everyone looked with suspicion at Astor. Link placed his hand on the hilt of the Master Sword.

Urbosa and Impa ran to Zelda.

“Well if this isn’t a fine how do you do?” Said Revali in a dry tone. “We all thought the princess was in danger when in reality she was just off on some tryst. The Calamity is about to occur at any moment, and we’re all miles away from our Divine Beasts with our fingers in our tailfeathers...”

“Oh, Revali. Go suck an egg. This is NOT the time.” Urbosa chastised the rito, and then she turned to Zelda. “Are you alright, little bird? Where were you? And why is HE here?” Urbosa looked at Astor with great dismay and distrust.

“Urbosa, remember when you said you would always support me and to just say the word? This is it... I need your support now more than ever.”

Urbosa considered this, her azure blue lips parting slightly, although at a loss for words.

“Tell me what's going on? I’m all ears.”

“Alright, now that Zelda is safe and sound, can we get back to our Divine Beasts and forget this whole asinine situation.” Revali interrupted again.

Astor spoke up. “That’s exactly where Calamity Ganon wants you when he returns. Ganon’s blights are set to take over the Divine beasts and kill their pilots.

Everyone turned to Astor with a look of disbelief. Mipha reached for Link’s hand for support, but stopped short, growing self-conscious.

“And why should we believe you, vile follower of the Calamity? How do we know you’re not trying to set us up? You may have convinced the Princess, but it’s going to take a lot more to gain our trust.” Urbosa responded curtly.

“Urbosa!” Zelda protested.

“Forgive me, little bird. You may have shown this man mercy, but I won’t…”

“I believe him,” said Daruk.

Urbosa turned to Daruk. “You’re kidding right?”

“I mean, he sounds sincere enough to me.”

Mipha quickly assessed the energy between Princess Zelda and Astor and intervened, speaking. “I believe him as well… Or rather I believe Princess Zelda. Let’s give him a chance before we jump to rash conclusions.”

Urbosa turned her ire back to Astor. “What are you trying to pull?”

“I’m not trying to pull anything. You can take my warning or leave it, for all I care. I just wanted to spare Zelda the heartache of losing her champions.”

Urbosa folded her arms. “I swear if you hurt her I’m going to cut you up piece by piece and feed you to the Molduga. She is precious to me and I must do right by my dear friend, Zelda’s late mother… We Gerudo have our ways of dealing with voe who take advantage of one of our vai, especially when said voe is a member of the Yiga… or an affiliate.”

“Do I make myself clear, Prophet?”

“Crystal…”

King Rhoam appeared on the balcony, alerted by the commotion of the Champions.

“What is the meaning of this…. Zelda? You’ve returned? What were you thinking, running… quite literally running from your duty when the Calamity is nearly at hand?” There was much derision in his voice.

“I did no such thing. I would never.” Zelda’s voice wavered. She wasn’t surprised her father would make this accusation, but it still hurt terribly.

“Then. where. were. you?” Rhoam said evenly, and in a way that shook Zelda to the core.

“I went to the Spring of Wisdom… In a bid to unlock my power. I’ve failed. I’m sorry. I didn’t feel anything. Just like all my other attempts.”

King Rhoam shut his eyes. “That was not your decision to make. You know it is forbidden for you to set foot on Mount Lanayru until you are of age. For all you know your disobedience may have cost all of Hyrule!”

Zelda began to break down. “But…”

“No more excuses, Zelda! You are to spend the rest of the night in prayer, asking the goddess for forgiveness and discernment, and so help me, you WILL unlock your power.”

Zelda clenched her fist. “No, I won’t! I’m not a child anymore. Please stop ordering me around like one. We must prepare to oppose the Calamity in whatever way we can, and I won’t waste another second praying for this cursed power to awaken!”

“Zelda, you are out of line, and I will not tolerate another word from you!” Rhoam raised his voice, almost shouting. “There is no excuse for this behavior. As long as I am King, you will obey me. Your mother would be very disappointed in you, Zelda. What a waste…”

“You should watch your tongue, old man… How could you speak thus of the one who carries the blood of the goddess? Perhaps it is you who should beg forgiveness.”

Everyone went deadly silent as they directed their attention to Astor.

Rhoam glared at the younger man, indignantly, taken aback by his words. He felt a deep sense of suspicion just from the look of him. There was a darkness about the young man that gave Rhoam a great sense of disquiet. “You… You must be the prophet I’ve heard about. What role do you play in all this? And who are you to tell me how to speak to my daughter? You know nothing of the responsibilities I have to my kingdom or of the pressures of raising a daughter of the royal family.”

Astor was about to protest when something violently rocked the very foundation of the castle. Everyone braced themselves, gasping.

Zelda’s eyes widened, horror in her expression. “It cannot be…” Zelda raced outside, already knowing what she would see. Everyone followed her out.

She looked up and sure enough, the worst had come to pass, and it was beyond her worst nightmare. Circling and raging around the highest spire was a purple-red miasma. It was just like the image on the Sheikah Slate, except now Zelda could make out that it resembled a great swine. There was a clap of thunder, and embers of malice floated down all around them.

“Ganon…” Zelda stared up at the being in terrible fear as 100,000 wretched screams of despair rang out across Hyrule.

#Astor #Age of Calamity #hwaoc #Zelast #I apologize for the abundance of Zelast in this chapter #I'm sorry #But alive Astor is a good Astor #Imnotsorry

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pulaasul · 4 years

Text

The Lion, The Badger and the Cup.

Halloween evening, the selection of the Triwizard Tournament Champions were underway, before the first name was spat out by the Goblet of Fire, Professor Sybil Trelawney went into a trance and spoke of a prophecy, how does the prophecy change the plot?

FFN I AO3

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"Now the moment you've all been waiting for, the Champion Selection!"

With the raise of his hand, Dumbledore dimmed the flames that lit the room for some dramatic ambiance.

Hogwarts's headmaster approached the Goblet of Fire when Professor Trelawney got into one of her trances.

Four animals ventured into the forest.

A cup separated the Badger and the Lion from the set

A rat administered lethal injection unto the badger while the lion is subjected to torture.

When all else is done, the dark master rises.

Murmurs erupted from the people present as the Divination Professor snapped out of her trance. She seemed confused as to where she was at the moment.

"Professor Sinistra, could you escort Professor Trelawney back to her quarters?" Dumbledore ordered.

The Astronomy professor obliged and left the great hall while holding unto the Divination Professor.

The muggleborn and half-blood wizards and witches looked at each other as they internalized what Professor Trelawney uttered.

The purebloods on the other hand were simply confused.

"Hey Hermoine," Seamus hissed. "Is it possible?"

"It couldn't be right?" Dean offered. "Considering the confused looks most of them have, they don't have a clue what's going on either."

"Oh please." Hermoine rolled her eyes. "It's Professor Trelawney."

"Besides, this is the Triwizard Cup." Colin offered. "Professor Trelawney clearly said four."

"Exactly!" Hermoine smiled, happy that people knew Professor Trelawney for the fraud that she was.

"Without further delays, the Champion Selection!"

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Everyone was in a state of shock as soon Harry's name was called.

Even the most attentive of student forgot about the prophecy Professor Trelawney due to the shock of having four Triwizard champions for the tournament.

Everyone went to their rooms with a variety of feelings.

The Hufflepuffs felt cheated because a Gryffindor wanted more fame and glory.

Malfoy smirked as an idea formed in his mind.

The Ravenclaws, while not totally affected by the announcement, rolled their eyes at the spotlight hogging Gryffindors.

The Gryffindors were glad that someone in their house managed to get in.

Harry, on the other hand, was conflicted. He didn't want to enter into the tournament. After three consecutive years of having his life threatened, there was one thing he wanted more than anything else.

He just wanted to have a normal academic year, where he would cheer for Hogwarts's champion.

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It wasn't until after the yule ball when Hermoine remembered the prophecy made by Professor Trelawney.

Hermoine woke up with a realization and immediately went down to the common room to talk with some of the half-bloods and muggleborns.

"Seamus! The prophecy!" Hermoine hissed.

"What prophecy?" Dean questioned.

"Granger must be talking about the one Professor Trelawney made before the champions were selected." Colin sat on the couch.

"What about it?"

"Honestly?!" Hermoine rolled her eyes. "Triwizard cup, four animals? Ring any bells?"

"You don't mean?"

"Yes!"

"So the Badger refers to Diggory then?" A sixth year muggleborn asked. "Potter is the lion?"

"I thought you said Professor Trelawney was a fraud?" Seamus questioned.

"I know what I said!" Hermoine hissed. "Honestly, this is the fourth consecutive year since Harry has had to fight for his life!"

"Has Justin even figured out the prophecy?" Seamus questioned.

"Probably not." Dean shook his head. "The Hufflepuffs were understandably angry when Harry's name was called." He sighed. "Considering the Potter stinks badges."

"Malfoy was the one who made them." Colin pointed out.

"Which the Hufflepuffs wear with pride." Dean argued.

Neville, all the Weasleys and a few more students decided to come to the common room when they heard murmurs at the common room.

"I'm sorry, could anyone repeat what Professor Trelawney said?" Ron requested as he sat down on the floor

"Four animals ventured into the forest. A cup separated the Badger and the Lion from the set. A rat administered lethal injection unto the badger while the lion is subjected to torture. When all else is done, the dark master rises." A seventh year quoted.

"You got all that?" Ron questioned.

"NEWTs are coming up." The seventh year shrugged.

"I'm sorry, but what's lethal injection?" Ginny questioned.

Hermoine looked at her fellow muggleborns but all of them simply gulped and didn't want to elaborate on the term.

"Think of it as the muggle's equivalent to the dementor's kiss," Hermoine offered. "But as painless and as deadly as the killing curse."

"Bloody Hell!" Ron exclaimed.

The purebloods in the room looked at the muggleborns and half-bloods who were wincing at Hermoine's blunt explanation.

"Then that means, Harry could go under the Cruciatus curse." Neville gasped.

"So Harry was a target." Ron sagged.

Of course he was!" Hermoine growled at the Weasley. "It's the fourth consecutive year!"

"What are we going to do about it then?" Dean questioned his fellow Gryffindors.

"Let's tell the-"

-head of the house." The Weasley twins suggested.

"Granger you're with me to inform Professor Mcgonagall, Finnigan and Thomas you go inform Finch-Fetchley or Professor Sprout of what we've deciphered in the prophecy, this concerns their house as well." The Gryffindor's head girl declared.

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It wasn't long until all the four champions were made aware of the prophecy and the Hermoine's interpretation.

"I guess, congratulations are in order?" Viktor offered his hand to Hogwarts's champions.

Cedric simply gulped as he mulled over the prophecy's interpretation.

According to the Gryffindors, the badger in the prophecy referred to him, and Potter is the lion. If he got the interpretation right, both he and Potter would be subjected to horrible fates, Potter moreso than him, but it didn't make his fate any less disconcerting.

Cedric was second guessing his reasons for entering the tournament. He had known beforehand that the Triwizard tournament was being revived, courtesy of his father slipping that information one night during dinner.

That slip of tongue immediately clued Cedric in on what his father's expectations were. He resolved to join the tournament and began working on his preparations for the tournament earlier than everybody else.

One of the reasons Cedric even put his name in the Goblet of Fire was for the sake of his house. Hufflepuff house has faced a lot of stereotyping from a lot of people, especially from people who weren't Hufflepuffs to begin with. The tournament was supposed to dispel those stereotypes.

Cedric shook his head. He doesn't have time to second guess everything, especially now that his life was on the line, not that it wasn't before, but the dangers were now more apparent than before.

If there was anything to describe Cedric Diggory it's that he was a true Hufflepuff, hardworking and loyal to the core.

Cedric was doing this for everyone in Hufflepuff.

"Non!" Fleur exclaimed. "Monsieur Diggory could die in ze tournament and Monsieur Potter could be subjected to ze Cruciatus curse!"

Harry simply ignored his fellow champions as he thought over the facts that he knew of the Prophecy and its interpretation.

He had already figured out that this would eventually circle back to Voldemort, even if no one has connected the dots yet. It was the case for the last three years with Professor Quirrel, the Chamber of Secrets and Wormtail's betrayal, everything came back to his parents' killer.

Why should this be any different?

"Nothing is set in stone right?" Cedric offered a strained smile, as if trying to convince himself. "I wouldn't want my victory to hinge over the fact that you didn't give the tournament your all because of some dumb prophecy."

"If you think a prophecy is going to cover me. You do not know me." Viktor declared.

"Oui!" Fleur nodded. "Nozing is set in stone, zerefore I won't stop giving zis tournament my all."

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In the headmaster's room, some of the teachers have gathered to discuss the recent revelations.

"Albus, we need to stop this tournament immediately." Professor Mcgonagal insisted. "It's not just Potter, more people are getting involved!"

"Its war Professor Mcgonagall," Professor Snape argued.

"They're not soldiers! They're merely boys!" The deputy headmistress argued. "Surely you know about that Severus."

"The prophecy came from Trelawney." Professor Snape raised an eyebrow. "Even you admit that her prophecies aren't always accurate, she always says that a student will die every single school year."

"I admit, her prophecies leave much to be desired but it is one thing to predict a death of a student without evidence and it's another when people see the connections between the events and the prophecy."

"What do you suggest we do Minerva?" Dumbledore turned his back on the Penseive.

"Call off the tournament." Professor Mcgonagall insisted.

"How do you suggest we figure out who slipped Potter's name into the goblet then?" Professor Snape challenged.

The deputy headmistress had no alternative solution to the problem. She agreed that the person who put in Harry's name into the goblet must be found as it was in direct violation of the Ministry's rules.

"If I may Headmaster." Professor Moody stood up. "Why don't we invite some aurors and station them inside the school grounds during the duration of the tournament." He stood beside the potions master. "That way we can have an investigation going and ease the headmasters of the guest schools with the security of the school."

"That doesn't address the prophecy." Professor Sprout barged in.

"Pomona." The Headmaster acknowledged the Herbology professor.

"Don't you think it's unfair for Mr. Diggory to continue on with the tournament knowing it'll end in his death?" Professor Sprout challenged the headmaster. "That's not even mentioning that Mr. Potter could undergo the effects of the Cruciatus curse."

"How do you suggest we continue on," Professor Snape challenged. "Both with the tournament and the investigation?"

Professor Sprout had no words to respond. She didn't know any alternatives to proceed, she was just concerned for the students' welfare, especially the one under her care.

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The prophecy's interpretation spread like wildfire during the following days. A lot of the students, particularly the Slytherins, reasoned out that the Gryffindors were simply using scare tactics so that the real Hogwarts's champion wouldn't compete.

"Jokes on them," Draco chuckled. "Professor Dumbledore even said that there's no turning back."

"Potter definitely stinks." Crabbe laughed along.

It wasn't long until the group arrived at the Great Hall and sat down, where everyone was already assembled.

"Your attention please." Professor Mcgonagall rang her goblet.

Headmaster Dumbledore stood up as he addressed the students of Hogwarts and their guests from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang.

"It is with great honor that I award Mr. Seamus Finnigan and Mr. Dean Thomas five points each for letting House Hufflepuff know of Gryffindor's interpretation of the Prophecy."

Everyone from the Gryffindor house clapped with glee with the announcement.

"They both showed compassion, care and worry for their fellow Hogwarts students." The Headmaster explained.

Everyone clapped at the explanation.

"I would also like to award Mr. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Mr. Ernie Mcmillian five points each for showing great loyalty to their house by immediately informing their entire house of the prophecy's interpretation."

The Great Hall was filled with applauses with the awarding of points that happened as this was a rare occurrence.

"However." Dumbledore increased his voice's volume, silencing the hall. "It is because of that prophecy that we, as Hogwarts's teachers and staff, have decided to impose a new rule in overseeing this tournament."

Murmurs erupted from the students.

Many still believed that the supposed interpretation was Gryffindor's way of scaring the Hufflepuffs, especially their champion Cedric Diggory, into cowering from the tournament altogether. Some Hufflepuffs seem believe this to be the case.

"We have decided to invite a few aurors, those that our very own Professor Alastor Moody has trained during his days as an auror." Dumbledore gestured to the teacher in question. "We have also decided to station a teacher from each school inside the vicinity of the tournament however they are not to interfere with the tournament's progression."

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Soon, the second task came and went. The four champions had to save the hostages closest to them from under the lake.

With the champions were a few aurors submerged in the lake, far enough not to be noticed by the merpeople and grindylows but near enough to guard each champion from outside interferences and attacks.

All of the aurors had used the bubblehead charm that Hufflepuff's champion utilized in the second task, as such, it was instrumental in him placing first.

After the second task however, Bartemius Crouch Sr. was found dead at the forbidden forest, which made everyone believe in the prophecy more than ever. Some children had even written to their parents about what has happened.

Some had called for the cancellation of the tournament altogether.

"Albus! This has gone on long enough!" Professor Mcgonagall barged right into the room. "We need to cancel the tournament, lest we lose all four of our contestants!"

"I have already raised this with Minister Fudge." Dumbledore stood up and meet with his deputy. "He remains stubborn with keeping up pretenses."

"The devil with Fudge and his pretenses, why do you accommodate the Ministry anyway? You haven't accommodated them in years."

"I have to agree with Professor Mcgonagall headmaster." Professor Sprout stepped inside the room. "Are we just going to stand by as the prophecy unfolds? Leave Diggory to die and Potter tortured?"

"I fear Fudge is dead set on continuing the tournament with or without Hogwarts." Albus sighed.

"If I may headmaster, Karkaroff has expressed his concerns." Professor Snape stood up. "His Dark Mark has been darkening, so to speak, and is fearful with the consequences that would follow."

"What do you propose Severus?"

"Continue with your last decision for the tournament but have one or two of our own, not Moody, to stand guard with the cup."

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It was no surprise, with the spread of the Prophecy's interpretation, people already knew who would win the Triwizard tournament. The students of Beauxbaton and Durmstrang had certainly done all they can to prevent the prophecy from ever coming to pass.

The two headmasters had their respective students spar with their champions and help them train for the third task.

Finally, the day of the third task came.

The four champions have different thoughts with the task.

As soon as they saw the Hedges that covered the Quidditch Pitch, they immediately thought of the prophecy and the forest.

Despite his father's enthusiastic cheers and words, Cedric still felt like puking right then and there. It was one thing to know about getting past nesting dragons and it was another to know that you were going to die during this task.

Professor Sprout certainly went out of her way to suggest to her sixth years to help Cedric train and hopefully derail the grim fate that awaited him.

Harry was gulping the entire way to the Quidditch Pitch, despite Dumbledore's assurances. He was already dreaming of some graveyard, the traitor and Voldemort himself and with the added pressure of the prophecy, he can't help but feel nervous.

There was one thing he was sure, if it came to his or Cedric's life, he would prioritize the Hufflepuff's life.

Fleur, the French maiden competing in the tournament, had no real stakes apart from losing the eternal glory part. As a competitor, she was determined to change the prophecy.

Krum was also in the same boat, he was determined not to make the prophecy come into play. His pride as a magical athlete was at stake when nonprofessionals, and someone a lot younger than him, were to beat him in this tournament.

Professor Dumbledore had just finished his speech and beckoned for the two Hogwarts champions to their positions.

BANG!

With the cannon's fire, both Cedric and Harry went inside the maze before it closed behind them.

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Cedric and Harry had just conceded on the both of them tying the competition. They figured that Hogwarts would still get the recognition even if the two of them tied in the competition. It'd certainly put some spotlight on Hufflepuff and some of its stereotypes being forgotten.

"On the count of three." Harry stated to Cedric.

Cedric simply nodded as he raised his hands and prepared to grab the cup.

"One."

Cedric looked behind him only to be greeted by the creatures that were chasing him and Harry were coming in close.

"Two."

Cedric focused his eyes on the cup.

"Three!"

Cedric and Harry felt someone hold onto their arms as the both of them grabbed the cup's handles, one for each of them.

They forgot the sensation however as soon as they were unceremoniously dropped unto a graveyard, flinging the Triwizard cup away from them.

The boys took a small breather as they recuperated from the impromptu teleportation the two of them had been subjected to.

Harry looked at his surroundings, the sense of familiarity immediately hit him but he just can't place where.

"Where are we?" Cedric questioned as he looked around.

"I've been here before." Harry stated as the sense of dread was filling him.

Cedric looked at the cup then at his companion.

"The cup is a Portkey." Cedric informed the Potter. "Where'd you think this sent us?"

"I don't know." Harry shook his head. "I just know I've been here before, in a dream."

"Part of the task then?" Cedric questioned.

"I don't think so." Harry denied. "The tournament is supposed to take place at the school."

"Wands out then?"

"Yeah."

Harry and Cedric let out their respective wands and held them tightly, ready to defend themselves from any possible threat.

"Cedric, get back to the cup!" Harry ordered as he traced his wand on the name engraved on the grave – Tom Riddle.

"Wha-?" Cedric rushed to his companion's side. "What are you talking about?!"

"Get back to the cup!" Harry repeated before crumpling to the ground.

Harry was holding his head, the side where his scar was located, as he screamed in pain.

Cedric tried to help his companion when he saw a figure holding a bundle covered with a single robe getting out from the house he hadn't noticed before.

The figure began to menacingly walk towards both boys.

"Who are you?!" Cedric pointed his wand at the figure. "What do you want?!"

"Kill the spare!" A voice that came from the robed bundle, hoarsely ordered.

"Avada Kedavra!”

"No!"

On what was sure to be a lethal attack on the Hufflepuff, did not connect as a stone slab was dropped in front of Cedric, blocking the Killing Curse – shattering it in the process.

As soon as the stone slab shattered, blades of grass rushed towards the attacking figure.

"Wormtail!"

The figure, Harry knew as Peter Pettigrew, cast shield charms on himself as the blades of grass disappeared as soon as they hit his shield.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Cedric blocked the white orb coming at him.

"Impedimenta!"

Harry shot a blue orb at the traitor.

"Careful Cedric, that's Peter Pettigrew!" Harry cautioned. "He's a Death Eater!"

"Wha- Isn't he dead?"

Harry gave Cedric a barebones explanation on Sirius's innocence and how Pettigrew betrayed his parents. As the boys talked, rocks and blades of grass continued to rush at Pettigrew, pelting him with projectile attacks.

Pettigrew managed to erect a few layers of shield charms in front of him, disintegrating all the projectiles coming at him. He even managed to deflect incoming spells despite just casting multiple layers of shield charms.

The Death Eater continued to defend himself and the robed bundle on his person from the myriad of attacks and counter attacks he was receiving from Potter, Diggory and someone invisible.

Pettigrew wasn't stupid, he knew that the killing curse he cast should've killed the spare, but somehow a stone slab inexplicably fell in front of him and intercepted the attack? Diggory was still a boy, inexperienced and that inexperience should've been his downfall.

"Wormtail!" The bundle hoarsely called. "Why's it taking so long to kill a child?!"

"Forgive me master, but we also have an invisible attacker." Wormtail stuttered while deflecting a red orb coming his way.

"Capture Potter."

"Incarcerous!"

Harry had just sent another verbal spell towards the traitorous rat when a piece of rope latched onto his right wrist, and bound it to the nearby angelic statue.

"Harry!" Cedric shouted.

"No Cedric! Get back to the cup!"

"I'm not leaving you here!" Cedric rushed to Harry's aid and tried to pry the rope from the fourth year's wrist.

"They'll kill you!" Harry insisted. "They want me, you have to get out of here!"

"Brachiabindo!"

A long link of chains came out of Pettigrew's wand and latched onto Cedric's arms and looped around his torso, totally binding him.

"Cedric! No!"

Pettigrew apparated beside the bound Diggory, forced the Hufflepuff on his knees and placed his wand onto Cedric's neck.

"Anyone else out there! Yo-you b-better show yourself, o-o-or he g-gets it!" Pettigrew pushed his wand deeper into Cedric's neck.

Professor Sprout shed her invisibility cloak and dropped her wand.

"Good, good."

"Professor Sprout?" Harry questioned. "Wha-Huh?"

"Incendio."

Fire shot out of Wormtail's wand and burned the rope that held Harry in place.

"Now Harry, if you value their lives, you better do as I say."

Harry nodded as he stepped off of the grave as the traitor pointed the wand at the teacher-student pair.

"Hurry!"

Wormtail obliged his master's order and pointed his wand at Harry and immediately deposited him on another angelic statue and trapped the Potter between the statue's scythe and the angelic statue itself.

"Do it! Now!"

Pettigrew dumped the robed bundle into the cauldron of boiling water.

"Bone of the father, unwillingly given." Pettigrew levitated a femur from the grave Harry was in and dumped it inside the boiling cauldron. "You will renew your son."

With Pettigrew busy with the ritual, Professor Sprout immediately picked up her wand and immediately grabbed hold of Cedric.

"Accio: Triwizard Cup!"

The Triwizard Cup rushed towards her and immediately teleported them away from the graveyard.

--------

Cheers and applause greeted Cedric and Professor Sprout as they arrived in front of the crowd.

"Wha-Professor Sprout! What about Harry?!" Cedric struggled against his restraints.

"That's my boy!" Amos cheered alongside the audience. "That's my boy!

The crowd cheered even more alongside the Cedric's parents' exclamation.

"Mr. Diggory! Calm down!" Professor Sprout grabbed her student's shoulders. "Calm down." She urged.

"What about Harry?!" Cedric all but screamed his question, struggling against his restraints. "We left him to die in that graveyard."

"Potter is in good hands Cedric." Professor Sprout assured. "Professor Mcgonagall was also there with us in the graveyard." She added. "You don't have anything to worry about."

"No! I have to go back!" Cedric argued. "The prophecy!"

"It's because of the prophecy that I had to retreat with you." Professor Sprout held unto Cedric's shoulders tightly. "Whatever Potter's facing, Professor Mcgonagall will take care of it."

"Pomona, what happened?" Dumbledore all but jumped down to the arena.

"The cup was a PortKey to a graveyard." Professor Sprout reported. "Moody changed the cup's destination!

The Professor in question tried to escape from the commotion when both Ron and Hermoine noticed him.

"Stupefy!"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Red and White orbs of light shot out of Hermoine's and Ron's respective wands. The spell's effect was instantaneous as Professor Moody was stunned and then collapsed on the bleachers, petrified.

"Severus, get a vial of Veritaserum." Dumbledore ordered. "Bagman, Fudge, and three aurors with me." He pointed at the people in question. "Hagrid, please find the real Moody and Filius, keep everyone in order."

The headmaster knelt down to Cedric's level. "I assure you Mr. Diggory, we will get Harry out of there."

Dumbledore looked at Cedric's worried face and knelt down to his height. "Don't worry Mr. Diggory, we'll save Mr. Potter."

"Emancipare."

The chains that bound Cedric was undone as he himself slumped towards his head of house.

---------

"Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed." Pettigrew cut off his hand over the cauldron.

"Accio: Severed hand."

With the incantation, an unknown presence prevented the severed hand from falling into the boiling cauldron.

"N-no!" Pettigrew exclaimed as his severed hand was unceremoniously fell to the ground.

"This has gone on long enough Pettigrew!" Professor Mcgonagall shed her invisibility cloak and dropped in to the ground. "I am not about to subject Potter anymore to your supposed ritual."

"P-professor Mcgonagall." Harry exclaimed.

Professor Mcgonagall immediately fired a non-verbal spell at the unregistered animagus, stopping him in his tracks, petrified.

"Oh Mr. Potter, I apologize for waiting this long to take action." The deputy headmistress apologized to the trapped boy. "I will get you out of there."

With a wave of her wand, Harry was freed from the clutches of the angelic statue. He collapsed to the ground unable to support himself. Professor Mcgonagall immediately rushed to his side and tended his injuries.

"You intercepted the killing curse." Harry looked at his professor in awe.

"I don't know about you Potter, but we teachers are rather adept with magic." Professor Mcgonagall smirked.

Harry looked at his surroundings and noticed that neither Professor Sprout nor Cedric were around.

"Cedric? Professor Sprout?"

"Don't worry about them." Professor Mcgonagall assured her student. "With the Prophecy's existence, Professor Sprout and I decided to get Diggory out of this place immediately." She helped her student get comfortable on the ground as she waived her wand above him, casting a minor healing spell. "Had we not stood by the cup, the prophecy would have come to pass."

"Y-you were by the cup this whole time?" Harry blushed.

"We were." Professor Mcgonagall smirked. "It was rather sweet to see you both arguing that the other should be the champion."

"I still stand with what I said." Harry pouted. "Cedric was supposed to be the champion for Hogwarts and the goblet just had to spit out my name."

"And you still competed with the best of your abilities and more."

"Crouch said I had to compete."

"That he said, you could have just did poorly, but that wouldn't be Gryffindor-like, now would it?"

Not a moment too soon, Dumbledore alongside Bagman, Fudge and a few aurors arrived at the graveyard by way of the Triwizard cup and immediately secured the area from muggles and undesirable characters.

The aurors with the Headmaster immediately arrested Pettigrew right after closing the open wound from severing his hand.

A few more moments Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape arrived at the scene. The Mediwitch immediately tended to Harry as the Potions master went on to identify the potion the rat animagus was brewing.

"Potion of regeneration." Snape answered. "It's one dark potion brew."

"Who was Pettigrew trying to regenerate?" Came Fudge's question.

"Who else?!" Professor Mcgonagall dryly commented.

"Impossible!" Bagman protested the answer. "He's been dead for thirteen years!"

"Dark Magic." Dumbledore stated

"Come again?"

"When the Chamber of Secrets was opened a couple of years ago, Mr. Potter gave me a curious artifact, a diary that once belonged to Voldemort."

Minister Fudge, Bagman, Mcgonagall and Snape all paid attention to Dumbledore's statement.

"Harry claimed that Voldemort preserved his sixteen year old self inside the diary." Dumbledore informed. "I fear that Voldemort may have created a Horcrux."

"Galloping Gargoyles! A Horcrux?!" Minister Fudge and Bagman exclaimed.

"He's the Darkest Wizard in modern times." Professor Snape stated. "He can stomach killing an infant, he can stomach making Horcruxes."

"That would explain Harry's first encounter with the Dark Lord during his first year."

"Merlin's beard, you mean to tell us that this isn't the second time Harry Potter has encountered the Dark Lord?" Minister Fudge gasped.

"Not even close." Dumbledore shook his head.

"Are you still doubting the story Mr. Bagman?" Professor Mcgonagall questioned.

"You-know-who died thirteen years ago and you tell me he can come back?!"

"We'll commission the services of Amelia Bones for this then." Dumbledore compromised. "Would that be amenable Minister Fudge?"

"Of course."

"If there is still some doubt, of the legitimacy of the claim," Professor Mcgonagall raised her wand and waved it at cauldron.

The cauldron shattered into pieces as its contents spilled to the ground, leaving only a charred bone and what seems to be a mangled body.

"Merlin's beard!" Fudge exclaimed.

-------

While Dumbledore was in the graveyard where Cedric and Harry were sent to, a lot of things happened in Hogwarts. Professor Moody was in fact Barty Crouch Jr., who assaulted the real Alastor Moody and kept him barely alive for the purposes of keeping up his disguise.

As soon as Fudge was made aware, he immediately tried to order a kiss on sight on the Death Eater imposter, but was stopped by the arrival of one Amelia Bones.

"Are we really forgoing a trial Minister?" Amelia questioned the Minister. "One would think that you're trying to hide things with that decision, especially if we repeat the same mistakes as we did for one Sirius Black."

"Everyone would panic!" Minister Fudge exclaimed. "Merlin's most baggy Y-fronts it could spell disaster!"

"Are you really thinking of everyone's wellbeing or simply your self-interests?"

"H-how dare you?!"

Amelia Bones looked directly into the Minister's eyes.

"We prepare them." Madam Bones stated with finality.

Madam Bones looked at the aurors invited to stand guard in the school nodded at them.

"Place both Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr. in a cell and make sure that none of them escape."

---------

"It is with great honor that I present this Triwizard Cup to our winners, Harry James Potter and Cedric Diggory!"

It's been a week since the third and final task of the Triwizard tournament. The week off was given in consideration for the champions who faced lots of challenges during the final task of the tournament, especially Hogwarts's two champions.

Barty Crouch Jr. revealed that he placed Viktor Krum, Durmstrang's champion, under the influence of the Imperious curse and made him use the Cruciatus curse on the other two champions.

"How shall we do this?" Dumbledore questioned the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor who walked on stage. "There's only one cup and two of you."

Cedric and Harry grinned at each other and faced the headmaster.

"Actually Headmaster, Harry and I decided to leave the Triwizard Cup inside the school." Cedric stated.

"The both of us had decided that, in the end Hogwarts would still have the glory of winning the tournament." Harry supplied.

Everyone in the great hall cheered at the champions' declaration. It was a rare case of inter-house unity.

"For this display of unity, I award both Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter 100 points each!" Dumbledore announced.

The cheers and applause only got louder at the announcement.

"I would also like to call on the other champions in front," Dumbledore requested. "And join your fellow champions in their victory."

Fleur and Viktor stood up and congratulated the Hogwarts's students on the win.

The Headmasters of the schools involved also congratulated the champions and the winners for their brilliant display of resourcefulness, courage, intelligence and magical ability. Quite frankly, all four of them were wonderful in the tournament.

"I also present Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter their prize money of 1000 Galleons!"

Professor Mcgonagall and Professor Sprout gave their respective students a bag full of Galleons. Both Professors took the opportunity to congratulate and express how proud they are for the both of them.

"Now, why don't you boys go back to your seats?" Dumbledore smiled at the champions.

As soon as both boys were seated. Dumbledore declared. "Let the feast begin!"

A few minutes of lively discussion between everyone in the Great Hall, Professor Mcgonagall rang her goblet and grabbed everyone's attention.

"In a few hours, our guests from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons will be returning to their homes." Dumbledore announced. "As a special treat, why don't we show them our yearly tradition of awarding the house cup?"

Every Hogwarts student stood up and cheered.

"The current point standing are: In fourth place, Ravenclaw with 410 points; third place, Slytherin with 436 points; in second place, Gryffindor with 529 points; and in first place, with 555 points, Hufflepuff house."

Every Hufflepuff, from the students to the staff, cheered loudly. Some had even lifted their Triwizard champion and hoisted him in the air in pure glee.

"Congratulations Hufflepuff! You win the house cup!" Dumbledore declared.

The Headmaster clasped his hands together and raised them towards the banners that hung from the ceiling of the Great Hall. The Gryffindor banners were now replaced by Hufflepuff colors and insignia.

Every student in Hufflepuff threw their hats in the air in celebration, and those that were carrying Cedric, they opted to jump up high with glee.

----------

At the center of Hogwarts's Trophy Room, Professor Mcgonagall and Professor Sprout placed the Triwizard Cup at the center of the room placed it inside a glass case.

With a wave of their wands, two banners, Gryffindor's and Hufflepuff's, were conjured from the ceiling and fell on both sides of the Cup's glass case. Both banners contained a magical photograph of their respective Triwizard Champion with their names below their respective photographs.

Below the cup was an inscription that read:

'Hogwarts's Triwizard Champions.

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

#harry potter #cedric diggory #fleur delacour #severus snape #viktor krum #albus dumbledore #minerva mcgonagall #pomona sprout #hermoine granger #ron weasley #story

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ldybluerse · 5 years

Text

The Nice and Accurate Tale of Beauty and the Beast

Chapter One: Beauty and the Beast Good Omens AU

“Oh hello again dear.”

Aziraphale gave the young woman who had just burst into his shop a smile that, for the unobservant, would be welcoming and friendly; the truth was that smile was quite forced and strained. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, as she was respectful and kept mostly to herself. It was simply the fact that he had no desire to sell (or loan) his books to a single person on this green Earth. Yet, no matter what he did to deter visitors, she would come back as soon as she finished one book, ready to borrow another. Her tenacity was almost admirable, if only it hadn’t been directed towards the Knight who just wanted his little bookstore to be left alone by others so that he may enjoy his collection of books in peace.

Aziraphale did have to hand it to the girl: she took the utmost care of every book she borrowed and only ever returned one in poor shape. She left that morning, completely happy to borrow a beloved book (for the third time, in fact), only to return moments later with the bottom of her blue dress and white apron covered in mud stains and her big brown eyes drowning in tears. She was so very sorry for what had happened to the book, she said, and that she’d tried to clean it with her dress before rushing back to his shop. Seeing her distress, Aziraphale almost wanted to forget his frustration with her. Almost. Sighing softly, he put his upset on hold to get the girl a calming cup of tea and then looked over the damages. It was only after she’d composed herself and finished her tea that he found out the truth: it hadn’t been the young woman’s fault at all, but the fault of a boisterous young man who (in Aziraphale’s opinion) caused far too much trouble and got away with too much of it. When she saw that the book had been completely cleaned up and that the shopkeeper wasn’t angry with her, she settled down fully and took her leave with the novel under her arm once more (along with a small blessing of protection on the way home).

He huffed softly, looking over his poor, abused book. Someone really should put that boy in his place. Alas, the trouble he caused was not enough to warrant the Knight stepping in and risk blowing his own cover; the boy, after all, was not the monster he was seeking--though, frankly, he did have quite the monstrous personality, even for a young human male. It had taken a minor miracle to restore that book properly, which wouldn’t have been needed if the young man hadn’t purposefully thrown it into the mud when he realized the young woman was giving said book far more attention than his half-baked and vulgar attempts to impress her. There was little to redeem the boy in Aziraphale’s eyes, what with his poor fashion sense (entirely too much flesh showing) and the horrible personality that was only accentuated as he stomped about town and bullied people, especially that one friend who followed about like a whipped puppy. He was certain the young lady felt the same way, which was why she was constantly dodging his advances. Aziraphale had instantly been wary of the young man since he’d arrived, but that feeling grew to a strong dislike when the personal harassment and mockery began (usually over his own fashion standards and the fact that he ran a bookstore). Nothing quite like a local land-owner’s son thinking he’s better than all those around him and grinding those “below” him beneath his boots to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Aziraphale did his best to ignore the young man when he was obliged to leave the shop, but sometimes it was unavoidable when the brute would try to use his large body to block his path and cause trouble. If he had to guess, he’d also say the young man targeted him because the young woman he fancied started spending so much time in his shop. (A ridiculous notion, honestly, as Aziraphale was just as annoyed by her frequent presence there as he was.)

A day or two later, the young woman appeared in his doorway once again. Tucking away a lock of brown hair that had freed itself from her ribbon, she smiled at Aziraphale as he approached from behind the counter.

“Back already?” he said. It sounded friendly enough, it really did, for Aziraphale was not one to be rude. He was ever the gentleman.

“Oh, yes, Monsieur Fell, I could hardly put it down,” she replied with great excitement. “Do you mind if I borrow another?”

Aziraphale was resigned to his fate of letting her borrow books, despite his own desire to keep them all locked away for his own enjoyment, as the girl did not take any polite form of “no” for an answer and he was not the sort to be impolite for no reason (and often when he did have reason, but that was neither here nor there). It was not that he disliked the girl entirely, as he did admire her love of reading and her impeccable manners when she visited his shop.

“You know my rules, Mademoiselle. Feel free to see what piques your interest.”

(His rules were actually “stop taking my books”, but that would be a funny rule to enforce when you’re running a bookshop and expecting it to stay open.)

She was a flighty young lady at times, but at least she was kind company during her blessedly short visits.

“Had you heard about the Baker children?” she remarked as she browsed the shelves. “The youngest fell ill. Coughing something awful for days, the poor dear. The doctor even told her parents they shouldn’t expect her to recover.”

“How dreadful! Are they really so certain of it?”

“That’s just the thing, Monsieur Fell! She’s nearly better now! Madam Baker’s been telling everyone that someone left this strange medicine pouch on their doorstep for the child. She told my father that they were going to lose their child anyway, so they were willing to try anything--and it worked! She says it was a gift from above… which, if you ask me, must be the case because no one saw who delivered it and the doctor is completely baffled.”

“Well, I’m truly grateful the child was saved. A blessing indeed.”

Aziraphale gave her a polite smile, but not one with such friendliness to invite more conversation. It seemed like an utterly foolish idea to give a sick child any kind of randomly-appearing medicine, but who was he to question desperate parents? Besides, if he did remark on his own thoughts, then the young woman might stay longer to gossip (and he very much wished for her to leave so he could get back to his reading). Thankfully she didn’t seem to have much more to say, as she was distracted by looking over books; not long after, she had selected a new book and was out the door, her nose already between pages.

Once the shop was quiet again, he spared another thought on who the mysterious medicine benefactor could be, as it was definitely not himself. Perhaps another Favoured was in the area? Although that made little sense, as the powers-that-be weren’t exactly known for popping in to give a poor family some medicine and then leaving again, and surely if someone like that was visiting the town where Aziraphale was known to be stationed, they would at least stop in to introduce themselves. He shrugged to himself and settled behind the counter again, sipping his tea as he returned to his book--only for the bell over the door to jingle cheerily again! (Blast that thing, and blast these customers!) He hardly ever had more than one visitor a day, and most days it was that young woman. Briefly, Aziraphale fretted that another book had met a muddy fate. The Knight stepped from behind the counter, and his mood soured even more when he saw something he wanted to see even less than a customer: his boss. Aziraphale put on his best professional smile and cheeriest voice as he greeted the two men at his door.

“Prince Gabriel, what an honor to see you! And the Knight Sandalphon as well, yes. Always a pleasure to have you.”

It seemed the two Favoured were attempting to blend in, but doing a shoddy job of it. The prince’s crisp fabrics and pristine cool greys weren’t exactly attire that the average layman would wear in this area. The spotless white and tan outfit of Sandlephon stood out in equal measure; the fabric of one sock alone was worth enough to feed a family in this town for a month.

“No, no, not ‘Prince’ or ‘Knight’, Aziraphale. We’re here undercover!” Gabriel announced, flashing a pearly-white smile that didn’t quite reach his amethyst eyes. (Sandlephon’s echoed smile was more a barely concealed snarl.)

Aziraphale quickly nodded and then approached them cautiously. He wasn’t sure why his superiors were visiting him in person like this, but he would be the gracious host no matter what; he does have standards, even for unwelcome guests.

“Is it safe to speak here? Are we alone?” The prince was still smiling as he looked about the shop, but it looked more fake than the gold in Sandalphon’s front teeth. Aziraphale could take lessons.

“Of course, let me just lock up and adjust the sign,” the Knight replied. “So no one accidentally walks in on us.”

He did just that, sliding the lock into place and feeling quite unnerved at having to turn his back on the two of them… which was just silly, he knew. They were Favored, the Good Guys. It shouldn’t be worrisome to have the good guys behind you, right? Yet, just having them both in the same town (much less right there in his personal space) made Aziraphale very nervous indeed. He flipped the door sign to “Closed” and then turned back to his guests.

“Now. How can I help you, gentlemen?”

His voice was even, calm, keeping the nervousness he felt well hidden.

“We’re just stopping in to see how things are going with the Fallen monster lurking about. Any news?”

Gabriel’s eyes seemed to flash with something that Aziraphale could not name, which tapped him further along the edge of unease.

“I’m afraid not,” he said, with regret. “Not even a shriek in the night. I’ve searched practically everywhere for its lair. Nothing in the usual places like cemeteries, bogs, or ditches… I even looked into one of the supposedly haunted homes at the edge of town. All I found there was some rats. Well, actually a lot of rats. None of them Fallen either, just normal rats.”

Ah--he was babbling. He shut himself up.

“That is most troubling news, Aziraphale!” the prince exclaimed, looking disappointed. “You need to find this Fallen and find out what it’s been doing. I mean, we all know it’s up to no good--it’s a Fallen!”

Gabriel laughed at his own joke, if one could call it a joke. Which, it really wasn’t.

Aziraphale gave a mild fake chuckle so as to not upset Gabriel. Sandalphon managed a sneer.

“I assure you, I will find this Fallen and thwart its evil wiles. The good news is that I’ve settled in peacefully and no one here suspects a thing. They all think I’m just a scholarly old bookseller.”

“Now, that is great news! You can sneak right up on that Fallen!” Gabriel gave his hands a soft clap before rubbing them together, looking pleased. “He won’t suspect a thing!”

“Exactly.”

He had to remind himself to remain cordial. Keep smiling. Act friendly. Just some good old boys discussing murder. No trouble at all. They’d leave him alone soon enough, and Aziraphale could return to what he wanted to do, instead of what he ought to be doing. Frankly, if the Fallen he was sent to “remove” wasn’t causing any trouble, then he didn’t feel the need to bother with it at all. But his superiors didn’t need to know that.

“Well, we’ll just get going so you can get back to work finding that Fallen! The sooner it’s found, the sooner you can come on home,” the Prince told him, like he assumed Aziraphale was as sick of being here as he was. “And don’t you worry, we’ll continue to check in on you from time to time! Make sure everything is going according to plan, that kind of thing.”

“That’s most gracious of you, sir.”

The last thing Aziraphale wanted was them popping in too often and finding out that he was not, in fact, doing his job as correctly as they thought he was. It wasn’t like he was completely ignoring his duties: he watched over the town and made sure everyone in it was safe (reasonably). There were plenty of times when a hungry family would find a basket of food on their doorstep, left there by an unknown benefactor. Others would find a few extra coins in the dirt on the same day the rent was due that would be just enough to cover the amount they lacked. The homeless always seemed to have a soft blanket and a hot drink to keep them warm at night. All of these little ‘coincidences’ were just a few kindnesses he’d done for the townsfolk since his arrival, small but positive changes that surely made a difference for the better. Finding a Fallen who hadn’t made itself known and wasn’t causing any trouble to speak of was not his top priority. The Prince and his Knight moved to leave, and Aziraphale remembered something he’d wanted to ask them.

“Oh! Am I to assume that you were the ones to deliver that special medicine to a sick child a few days ago? The parents are saying it was a blessing and are most thankful.”

Gabriel’s face took on an exaggerated frown as he thought for a moment.

“Nope, wasn’t us, not our department.” He looked to Sandalphon, who nodded in confirmation. “We just arrived this morning and have no interest in… local affairs. That’s your area.”

That was a surprise, and yet not.

“Yes, I... I suppose it is. Must’ve been another kind-hearted fellow who beat me to it,” Aziraphale replied, with what he hoped was a convincing smile.

“It seems your positive influence is leaving its mark on others. Keep up the good work! I’m so pleased you’re able to vigorously hunt for that Fallen and still make time for good deeds.”

Gabriel was beaming at Aziraphale as he and his Knight headed out, and Aziraphale wanted to feel pride in that praise but something behind that smile made Aziraphale want to jump right out of his skin. He waited until the door slammed shut and the shop was empty again to let out a long, slow breath of relief.

There was a reason why Aziraphale accepted positions that took him away from the elevated castle that Her people preferred, a reason why he loved posing as a bookkeeper instead of playing his role as a Favoured Knight: those fake smiles and pleasant voices were never as friendly or happy as they seemed. There was always... something hidden just beneath them that gave Aziraphale pause. He was a Favoured, but didn’t truly belong amongst their numbers and he knew that. In his bones, he hated the cold edge in those looks, the disdain, the disgust, the warning. Stay where you are. Know your place.

There was no reason to threaten him. He was here, and he was doing his job--he was just doing it at his own pace and enjoying what he could along the way. The city had more warmth in strangers then he had ever found in the pristine pillars of the palace.

——————————————————

Just to note, I am posting the full story here and on AO3. Also... still have no idea what I am doing.

HUGE THANK YOU TO @brstudios for her editing, ideas, ear to jabber on, and friendship. She really wanted this AU too, so I hope I am doing her a happy.

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

Text

Candy 37-End

Vriska isn’t wrong when she’s picturing Earth C’s Sky as being like Skaia, where you see in the cloud’s of the sky what is real and canon, which is exactly what’s happening here in this Sky of Earth C, because everything, even the visions in the clouds, are being bent unconsciously to John’s will.

If John were a much more selfish person, willing to take and enjoy everything he ever wanted, this would be a paradise to him, thank god he’s not though, but still sucks to be him

Love the infinite character loop that is the character arc of “Vriska” that she just can’t seem to escape btw

“Asshole teenager does horrible things in the name of role model who she thinks is cool but is actually terrible and another version of herself from another life and its only once she falls into her own bullshit does she realize life could have been different, been better”

Maybe this would all be different if all these Baby Vriska’s didn’t choose asshole versions of themselves as a role model like some kind of terrible self fulfilling prophecy

I don’t messaging Terezi is gonna work, pretty sure she’s dead, but Vriska doesn’t know that, she skipped right past the latest conversation and went to the top didn’t she? yup

Good to see that, from Roxy’s point of view, she didn’t just stop existing, she did just naturally swerve into the kind of person John would like, but from John’s point of view and what he knows, it did make her feel like some kind of ingenuine puppet. Sad to see that once again, she just wanted John to be happy, but her attempts, since they were coming from her, would just be futile in his eyes due to the context of the situation they found themselves in

But hilariously ironic if it was literally just the normal relationship troubles of becoming estranged from him because he was becoming estranged from her because he stopped treating her like a real person because he felt like she wasn't real

when from your own perspective, yourself is always real. From Roxy’s perspective, she could be real while no one else isn’t, it kind of a side effect of reality feeling like it’s being warped, everything gets dilated and stretched to kind of orbit around only your own perspective and you get disconnected to everything else

and of course, you can’t help but think, is Roxy only acting real NOW because John and thus the narrative finally really wants her to be? It’s a circumstantial question without an answer, it really depends on which perspective is being written from and who you ask

but still, the one factor no one can really account for is the house juju, while they are all god tier players with ultimate selves, John has retcon power, and that IS an advantage over everyone else’s wills, whether anyone likes it or is aware of it or not

it just happens that due to John’s non interference policy as much as possible, the changes were more subtle and thus no matter how warped, it was “well written” is the only way to explain it

so even if Roxy is a puppet or a real person, she is indistinguishable from either one

But can’t forget that Skaia is not entirely neutral either, it contains an author with a narrative and an opinion, who may be doing his best to remove himself just like John but did it is still one version of events over others, Hussie himself

that’s the real seemingly inescapable canon that makes things feel right or wrong or real or fake, whatever Hussie thinks is so

and maybe because Hussie was their original creators, some part of their cores will always be tugged back to his vision in some way, that piece of narrative influence that gives an unfair sway to one thing over another

Just like the what the cursor does to John

like Roxy is 100% accurate in what she’s saying in Candy too, IF everything was equal in it’s influence, if Skaia was a pool of everyone’s wills and not the will of just one man doing his best to not be that

Once again, the biggest problem in the story is the plothole of the cursor, but that’s one Hussie can’t be the one to solve or else the problem of influence just continues on in his own work

So it makes sense to do what he’s done so far and give the reigns over in ways to others, have other people write the epilogues, have other people in the hand of creation for things like hiveswap and pesterquest

and yknow of course fandom and audience, but things that come from the audience won’t ever be real and canon, like fanfiction won’t solve this problem either, no one would ever really accept that

it has to be a scenario where the originator entrusts decisions to other people aka Hussie hires an official team to do something and then they take the reigns from there

WhatPumpkin, maybe without Hussie, has to be the one to solve the plothole of the cursor to everything to feel truly “right”

maybe not do everything themselves obviously, but that problem has to be solved by someone who isn’t Hussie, that’s what I feel

That’s what I think, that feels acceptable and satisfying to me

mood whiplash incoming:

OBAMA?? oh my god damn fucking fuck

this is how he shows up in the epilogues, goddammit

I’ll be honest, while this is hilarious as a joke, it’s actually very derailing to the narrative

It feels like something that should be happening in sweet bro and hella jeff, not Homestuck

Like I enjoy it, but I know it’s wrong here, not supposed to be happening

This is absolutely a test for the audience, basically a dare, how much are we willing to accept as “Canon”? outright challenging us to change the narrative now

because if we justify changing this, we can justify changing other things, and then that basically opens the floodgates

That’s honestly probably what a lot of the content in these epilogues was meant to be, each thing presenting more and more of a challenge to swallow as real, how much can we take before we decided enough is enough and start making it different?

I actually hit that a while ago with nearly every implied sexual escapade of Gamzee’s none of them are things I want to be in Homestuck proper straight up I can think of no good sexual relationship Gamzee has ever had in the history of Homestuck

I actually don’t like where this is going though, like it was shock but now it’s getting weird vibes

The fated place of this planet is to be a cherub nest for the big bad (and also Calliope)

Why is Obama so concerned about the fate of where it’s meant to end up at? Nowhere good is the answer. And also his speech is starting to sound vaguely Dirk like or at least Dirk justifying and I don’t like how it’s taking all of Dave’s attention like he’s getting a sudden pump of that Dirk withdrawal.

“OBAMA: Haven’t you been improved by the knowledge of what you grew up to be in my time? Can you really say you’d be what you are today without the memory of him?”

Which “Him”? because if you say Dirk I don’t trust like that

All of this is such a lampshade though about the whole idea of the narrative, that’s so glaringly clear.

Obama was found by Adventuring Grandpa Jake as a kid??? I mean, sure, why not, I guess all of humanity is related to Jake technically just like the rest of the god tiers

Oh wow their just straight up making Obama another “Kid of Jake” story like Jade and Joey, “lonely kid lives on island, distantly related to an old man version of Jake English, turns out the Island holds some secret that unlocks the key to more knowledge.”

Also there making it pretty clear that the rest of the Earth Kids DO have SOME power to influence reality, since John wouldn’t think of this, I really don’t think he would, it’s just that when John is involved his everything outweighs everything

Even now it goes back to the shades John gave him over and over.

“OBAMA: I think Dirk would be proud if he could see how you turned out.

OBAMA: In fact, I know it.“

I DON’T TRUST LIKE THAT I DON’T TRUST LIKE THAT

I’m also really actually uncomfortable with how far this joke is going, like, Obama is a real person outside of homestuck, putting all this shit into his mouth just feels really in bad taste, like it’s taking the joke of how much Dave ironically likes Obama way waaay too far

“OBAMA: Believing is the key to understanding the truth underlying the words, the truth underlying the ideas they represent, and the truth underlying who we are as individuals.

OBAMA: The power of belief, the power of Hope, that’s what endows that which is intangible, ephemeral, or uncertain with a sense of reality.

OBAMA: It brings focus to the insubstantial, the mirages of the mind, the multiplicity of what is possible, of what could be, and isolates it—concentrates it—to turn it into that which is.OBAMA: And the result of that, Dave, is what we call truth.“

This is neat though, basically confirming Hope as a power of Reality has a direct ties to Canonical Truth

“The only thing he knows is he needs to listen carefully to every precious syllable. To listen with his ears, his heart, his entire being.“

Is the Ultimate Self of Dirk actually just extending to like, every person who potentially holds his DNA now??? Like, as one of the ecto progenitors of Mankind itself like how Grandpa Adventure Jake was implying??

Because that’s a terrifying thought

or maybe not, this Obama IS a constructed hologram, I forgot, pull back the reigns, Dirk could have easily constructed a robo-holo version of himself to look and act a fake story of Obama just for Dave’s sake

that makes more sense

“OBAMA: He taught me about many things. Combat, philosophy, life, love... “

Yup there is no way this isn’t some version of Dirk like a strange Obama-fied autoresponder

Okay, bad taste jokes aside about using Obama as a literary device going a bit to far

Dirk using that phrase as like, it seems to be confirmation that Dirk feels a need to “train” his romantic partners and people around him to be the people he wants them to be, servants for him and that’s so gross

“ The sliding panel reveals a recess, and in the recess stands a robot. It’s a gleaming, polished silver replica of Dave, but without shades. It stands totally still, unpowered. Dave struggles to make sense of what he’s looking at. “

IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO INTO THE ROBOT BODY THAT NEVER WORKS OUT FOR ANYONE.

IT IS *LITERALLY* CONSTRUCTING A VERSION OF ANOTHER PERSON TO WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THEM TO BE.

God, you never really get just how control freak and obsessive it is to literally want to remake every single cell of a person and program them obsessively so that they do whatever it is that you want while also seeming indistinguishable from themselves, perfectly programmed and perfectly written

I say this not without missing the irony that doing that is exactly what Hussie wants all of us to do as well, and even I think things could be better written but that’s still hubris too isn’t it?

Calling it a choice for Dave even now rings so entirely hollow, because Dave is being written here like he would never choose anything else, so really when did he ever have a choice?

The fact that Obama seems to actually have hope powers and the way that his backstory included that note about he was related to a version of Jake English though more just makes me think Dirk’s Ultimate self got a hold of Jake’s as well, and this holobama is more just Jake English twisted incomprehensibly into another being by Dirk Strider

"Dave’s eyes widen, his mouth opens as if to scream, but he doesn’t make a sound. Infinite experience flows through his consciousness, an unimpeded torrent of raw potentiality. He sees everything. The roads not taken, the lives not lived, the thoughts, desires, fears all unacted upon. The Doomed Daves, the Davesprites, the Davepetas, life with Jade, life with Karkat, life with both, life with neither. It’s like soaring through the clouds at supersonic speed, too quickly to make out the shape of any single puffy nimbus, like a breakneck jaunt through Skaia. Huge clouds rushing by, small ones, clouds with visions, empty clouds, white clouds, then a great dark one. And then, the briefest possible glimpses—most too fleeting to be noticed—of Dirk. “

You know I just realized something too, In it’s own Messed up Way, I can see how Dirk think’s what he’s doing might be good too

if the natural conclusion I came to is that all the characters themselves need to take a swill of that house cursor thing to all be on equal footing and decide together how they want the story to be

Dirk may think he’s technically doing the same thing by unlocking everyone’s ultimate selves and merging them into his

because then it is technically every version of all of his friends all making a decision together, not just his friends, all the aspects of reality itself

except their all strapped to his will and only his will

theyre not making decisions together, theyre making decisions together for Dirk how Dirk wants is to be

they all have to have equal footing and they all can’t decide how each other’s lives are going to be

If they all get canon imbibing power and want to remake homestuck, they have to only be able to only affect their own lives, nothing more, or we get this problem

and well, Dirk just got Dave’s Ultimate self now

“JADE: as it happens, this projection within me serves as a stable conceptual foothold from which i can sense and resist another growing threat which is determined to jeopardize the canonical plane of reality.”

So again if it hasn’t already been confirmed before, Dirk doesn’t want to uphold Homestuck’s “Canon” he wants to upend it for his own purposes.

Neither Meat or Candy is Canon, but both are affecting it.

Oh cool, Alltie is actually going into with Aradia how the narrative can be condensed in such a way that they can then be applied loosely in multiple different ways, just like how I was talking about before with how Vriska’s arc seems to loop around

haha I wonder if I can do the same thing

“A brat admires an asshole, becomes one, and regrets it.”

wait I can do better

“A brat imitates an asshole and regrets it.”

that was actually a neat little exercise in how entirely strip something of all of it’s context in order to broadly apply it to multiple scenarios. Stripping the cloth in order to create a narrative thread.

“It’s a feather, burnt at the edges, flickering orange and green.”

Oh Ultimate Dirk’s definitely eaten Ultimate Jake

“JADE: consume his body.

JADE: absorb his essence.

JADE: and then using this host, i will generate enough power to move beyond the staggering pull of the event horizon encasing this world.

JADE: a prison of my own making, which can be escaped only through the supreme unification with my other half.

JADE: it is crucial to the cosmos that i succeed.

JADE: the prince of heart has to be stopped.“

Ah, Okay, now I understand that ending part of Meat, that was actually the end of Candy, so now I assume the ending of Meat is gonna happen here on the next page?

Also, Alltie, I dunno if merging with LE is exactly the thing you want to be doing here, unless you think you can win the battle of wills on the ultimate self scale, absorbing Dirk into you instead?

You probably can, I mean, even if Dirk is an especially manipulative human given godlike power to manifest his reality and put his will over countless other only humans so far

You are a Cherub who has a specific biological advantage on this field over overturning wills and you also have godlike cosmic power

Is that why our Callie is so afraid of you? Because your soul and will and ultimate self is just as much of an all consuming black hole as what you physically became? If she gets too close she’ll stop being her, pulled in by your inescapable will?

Alright, so this is Meat PostScript technically

Now I kinda wanna deconstruct the label of Post Script here though

If “Intermission” actually means “oops the story got to long, here’s a break.” but actually continues on with it’s own story not actually providing a break from long winded scripts but instead fighting with it for space and attention

If “Epilogue” actually means “oops, forgot some story, here’s some more.” not actually being an ending chapter but a tell of more to come, a bridge between stories

Does “Post Script” it’s its meaning of “After Story” an addition, a sequel coming after the original story

actually just mean “oops, I wrote the wrong story, here’s a different one”?

after all, a sequel to a story, is actually just writing a different story altogether, but one still related to the original

and why write a different story if the one you already wrote was enough?

so you think a sequel is going to be a sequel, because of the name, a different story, happening after the first, like were leaving what happened in Homestuck behind us

but in actuality it’s the same story, told in a different better way

I’m still harping on that Homestuck 2.0 is just gonna be the story of Homestuck but written differently this time, top to bottom front to end nice and neat using one elegant stroke the whole way through

Anyway one sec while I quickly reread the last actual chapter of meat before I read this postcript because I want it be fresh in my mind

Okay Dirk’s leaving at lightspeed in a spaceship with Rose and the rest of the gang are being directed by essentially a geiger counter/shield for Dirk’s presence in Jade’s body

Oh right, now I’m remembering bloody Jade tearing into flesh (LE’s flesh I guess) while Aradia watches and then her and Robot Dave and Aradia all rocket into that gaping hole, so I guess Robo-Dave might not be all that Dirk influenced? Or that Dirk sent him specifically to keep tabs on Alltie, subtly, they didn’t exactly greet eachother or interact at all or wait for him, so they don’t seem totally allied.

Then following Dirk’s spaceship:

It looks like a shark? Interesting

Considering Void a great Ocean, Shark is fitting a predator of that Ocean

Like how the end of Meat had someone tearing into Meat viciously

and now the end of Candy has someone daintily mowing down on a bowl of Candy, very sour candy it seems

Rose doesn’t seem to happy in a robo-body. It’s pretty clear she’s struggling to hold on to any sort of humanity or normalcy, which is interesting, if she’s so unhappy and doesn’t consider herself Dirk’s servant, why is she still with him?

So something important is needed for her flesh body, something that will have something to do with canon I suppose. Tiara imagery never bodes well, so I’m guessing it’s not just moving her consciousness over its probably also controlling it somehow

It sure makes princess imagery ominous anyway, Rose is a right sleeping beauty, or maybe a snow white if the glass coffin is anything to go by.

Oh, theyre intentionally creating a new session of Sburb?

“New Race” so maybe not humans, trolls or cherubs? Interesting, still could be new human race though

Gotta love how it ends on a dismissive tone from Dirk lol

So, is Rose all in on the idea of starting up a new session for some purpose?

and what does her flesh body have to do with it?

The only thing I can think of is that it’s meant to be a vessel for something, and right now the only person using flesh vessels on Dirk’s radar is Alltie

Do they mean to trap her in Rose’s body for some reason? and through that control her in some way?

I can’t help but think of Callie’s word again, that this is not a purple rose, but a red rose dyed blue, Alltie is certainly Red, and in Rose she’d be a “Red Rose” like how currently in Jade she makes a “Red Jade”

Dying her Blue, using Candy to control her then? Her one weakness was basically her eternal reverence for the CandyPop which if Alltie ever took part of would be the one time she’d basically lose control and think there was no problem with anything, putting her into her own drugged haze of not caring, basically the only thing you could do to stop her if you wanted to

As for this new session of SBURB, I can only guess that it’s importance lies as their attempt to rewrite their own story top to bottom starting from Humanity as a whole, only this time it’s Dirk writing everything not Hussie

So Dirk really is doing the Doc Scratch thing like with Alternia

Again, he thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s just totally wrong about it

That’s it then for the “Epilogues” it was a good read!

Can’t wait for the “Sequel” :)

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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calliecat93 · 5 years

Text

Are we ready for a good ol’ fashioned Grimm fight readers? I hope you are! So this is the final chapter to contain footage from the trailer, and all that’s left from that are the outfits and the fights in the mines. So… this should be an interesting one. The past two chapters have been pretty strong, so can this one continue the streak? Well, let’s take a look~!

Overview

We actually get multiple perspectives in the beginning, so let’s go in chronological order. First is Clover briefing Ruby, Jaune, and Qrow on the upcoming mission, which is to clear the launch site for Amity Colosseum. The plan is to use an abandoned Dust Mine… but it’s Grimm infested, so they gotta get rid of those nasty buggers first. I really like seeing Ruby and Jaune there and being respected as the respective leaders of their teams. They feel like actual Huntsmen now… which if one zooms in on the holo-screen, we see that they’re labeled as active Huntsmen now! Yay~! Anyways, after the briefing, Pietro gives everyone containers containing their upgraded weapons, modified by both requests and based on what he saw in Vytal Festival footage, and new outfits! Everyone preps, including Ruby… but then Oscar approaches her. We’ll go into that one in a bit. For now though, everyone is ready to go, but Oscar remains behind in Atlas. Still, we see everyone use landing strategies, including Jaune. The boy has grown~! Also, new song~! Love it~!!!

So it’s Team RWBY with Marrow and Harriet, JNR with Elm and Vine, and finally Qrow and Clover. We get a cute Bumblebee moment as Ruby feels cold, likely from the very brief amount of Aura she depleted when landing. Which we saw on Blake’s Scroll, which all of those were also updated! But when Blake mentions leaving Oscar behind, Yang stops Ruby to question about her lying to Ironwood. Ruby is clearly uncomfortable with this, but justifies it by bringing up the current state of Atlas and Mantle. Blake and Weiss back her up and agree that for now, they should hold back on revealing everything about Jinn, Oz, and Salem. Ruby even says that she /will/ tell Ironwood eventually… but she goes quiet when Yang asks about how Oscar took it. We flashback to Ruby handing Oscar the Lamp since… well, she’s about to go on a mission and having a Relic/Grimm Magnet out in the open could be a bad thing. But Oscar then asks the million-dollar question; isn’t Ruby doing to Ironwood what Oz did to them? We see Ruby look conflicted… but we don’t see her response.

For now, the mission is underway with all the groups going through different sections of the Mines. We get a few bits like Clover asking Qrow about being on a team before, but Qrow responding that working alone tends to be easier. Ouch. We have Nora trying to compliment Ren’s new look… but he dodges the topic. Because we haven’t seen that kind of scene in everything in existence ever. Over with RWBY, they run into a cave-in… which causes Blake to recognize the Mine that they are in. One where an explosion happened, and while no one says it, likely killed several Faunus. Hmm… could this be the same accident that killed Ilia’s parents perhaps? Anyways, this makes Weiss feel guilty for her father’s horrible actions as well as how complacent about it she used to be. Marrow, who is also a Faunus, even pipes in about how due to Atlas’ system/society, humans always stand back and allow his kind to be mistreated despite benefiting from them while they have to do nothing. Plus there are those who still willingly abuse them, like the Schnee Dust Company. After all, again it isn’t said, but remember what we found out was under Adam’s mask…

Anyways, they’ve found a way through via a gap and send Blake in since she can fit through/see in the dark. At first, it all looks clear and with no Dust around they can just blast their way through. But things quickly change as Blake encounters the Geist Grimm. As such, Harriet breaks the wall with her weapon, which seems to give her cybernetic armor. Nice! Before they can give chase, however, they are confronted by some kind of... ugh… bug Grimm. Centipedes maybe? Evil caterpillars? IDK, but they’re creepy as Hell and with my fear of bugs, you can only imagine how much of a joy this was for me.

Cue the action sequence! We get to see some of the upgrades as Yang can now attach miniature bombs to the Grimm that she punches, while Ruby can turn her scythe blade around which increases her trajectory. JNR, Elm, and Vine also get into a fight and we see that the blades on Ren’s guns now have grappling abilities. But we also get to see what the Ace-Ops can do. Marrow has a boomerang/sword/gun hybrid and seems to be able to freeze things… not like with ice, just stop them from moving. Elm can root herself in place while Vine is more or less Mr. Fantastic from Fantastic Four, but it looks like only with his arms. Harriet has a Speed Semblance, something that Ruby excitedly points out since she too has a Speed Semblance. Make a note of that for the end kids!

Back with Qrow and Clover, they’re facing the Geist as Clover tells everyone to head for his location. Unfortunately, it’s able to possess a boulder-sized chunk of ice and begins to have more form the body. Qrow sees that a metal grate is going to collapse due to this and just barely warns Clover, but the Geist is able to go down further into the mines. Qrow reveals his Bad Luck Semblance as to why he was able to warn Clover as well as how he can’t 100% control it. But Clover reveals his own Semblance, which as we all guessed, is Good Fortune. To say that Qrow looks less than happy about it, well… no, that seems pretty accurate. Less than happy.

Everyone reaches the location, but the Geist has already proceeded to add what I assume is Gravity Dust to its body. So they can’t just smash it the way that RNJR did in V4 since… well… I imagine that exploding Gravity Dust would NOT end well. Before RWBY or JNR can do anything, Ace-Ops is already on the move. It’s a really cool sequence! We get to see how well Ace-Ops works together, seeming to know each others strengths and able to coordinate ad improvise very well off of each other. It’s like with Team RWBY when they coordinate attacks, but there’s this more… professional, higher-skilled atmosphere when watching them in action. They also are able to coordinate knocking off the Dust Crystals and catching them before they hit the ground. It’s an awesome display that clearly has RWBY and JNR awed, and I imagine it’s going to inspire them for later on.

The battle ends with Clover using his fishing line to rip the Grimm straight out of its ice body and Harriet delivering the killing blow. Daaaamn. With the Geist gone though, Dust Crystals start to fall and Ace-Ops starts to round them up. Before Harriet can grab the last one, Ruby beats her to it with the usage of her Petal Burst. But this brings up something… interesting. Harriet helps Ruby up, but she also points out that compared to other Speed Semblances she’s seen, Ruby’s Semblance… doesn’t appear to be Speed Based. Or at least, it’s not the main thing. There may just be something more to it. We don’t get a lot of time to ponder it though as Clover reports the mission as accomplished. But we don’t end on a happy note. We see Forest dropped off back in Mantle… where he runs into Tyrian. Our episode ends with Tyrian striking with his tail, and I think you can figure out Forest’s fate without me needing to say it.

Review

So far… this is my least favorite chapter. But that’s not saying much when we’re only three chapters in. And even then, I really enjoyed this one!

Let’s go over the outfits and upgrades first. It… was a little underwhelming. I was hoping for some more character stuff like Blake debating on cutting her hair and thinking about where she is now compared to back then. Instead… we just have her looking into a mirror. Jaune we at least saw tracing his fingers over his Pyrrha sash. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the sequences fine and I LOVE the results! Everyone looks so good! Even Jaune, who’s new hair I hated the most looks great! I just wanted… well, a little bit more. Still, very least nothing drags like they’d run the risk of if they did extend it, so it is what it is. The upgrades are all fantastic as well! Not sure if we’ve seen all of them, but Ruby, Yang, Jaune, and Ren’s? Love ‘em~!

I also wish that we had more follow-up after the last episode regarding Ruby. I’m happy that Yang and Oscar did question it and I liked Blake and Weiss voicing their support for Ruby. But we don’t get to hear from Ruby about how she feels about her own choices. We can tell that she isn’t happy, but we don’t get to hear her talk about it. I know, that’s kind of her thing and it’s gonna be a matter of when the floodgates finally break open. Still, I just wish that we could hear her perspective about it, but I guess we have to wait. But I did like it being brought up and Oscar asking about it being like what Oz did to them. Take that people who called it bad writing!

Those nitpicks aside, this episode was great! We get to truly see the Ace-Ops in action and they are fantastic! Especially at the end! All of them come off as very likable and have this sense of comradery between them. They work together incredibly well, feeling very coordinated and in tandem with each other. Might be because they’re a military unit, but still. My favorite one so far is probably Harriet since imo she has the most personality with her competitiveness, but has this older sister kind of vibe. Marrow is probably a close second though, especially with how he points out how Faunus are put down by Atlas’ system. It might have been his weird way of making Weiss feel better and not put all the blame about her complacency on her since it’s very much a society issue. It was nice to see someone who seems to be on top despite his status recognize the problem is still very much existent.

Speaking of, there’s a lot of good subtle things in this episode regarding the SDC. We see Weiss push snow off a crate, and her face when she sees the company initials just screams guilt. We see her express this regarding how she used to be and how her father treated the Faunus as she recalls his anger when the accident happens. Speaking of, the possibility of it being where Ilia’s parents died? Nice! Blake’s unnerved reaction as she recognizes where they are and how she clearly feels sad about the lives lost shows how dedicated to Faunus Rights she still is and how much better her and Weiss’ relationship is. We’re likely gonna see the true darkness of the SDC this volume especially after seeing Adam’s scar/brand, and it ain’t gonna be pretty for either girl, so it’s good to have that solidarity between them.

The Mines looked like… well, a mine. So not much to say on the design work, but it was good. The fights were great, especially with Ace-Ops. Music was good, both the score and the new vocal track that played, as brief as it was. I know it's WAAAAY too early, but… SOUNDTRACK NOW PLEASE! The pacing was good. Some nice bits like Bumblebee flirting, Jaune and Nora pouting at Elm’s comment about them not dying, Ruby fangirling over Harriet’s Semblance, Qrow’s still lingering self-loathing about Team STRQ and then meeting a guy who has Good Luck powers. There are just so many good things in this episode. I still have my nitpicks like what I mentioned above, and the ‘Nora compliments Ren and gets mad when he changes the subject’ scene because it’s just so… predictable and not funny, cute, or insightful. I’d have cut it personally. But nothing in this episode was badly done. It was standard RWBY quality, which is great~

Last thing that I can think to note is Ruby’s Semblance. As we learn from Harriet, there’s more to it going on than Ruby may have believed. And… I am all for this! It’s been said multiple times how Semblances constantly grow and evolve over time, and we’ve seen that with people like Weiss. It’s been debated a lot about how it doesn’t seem like Ruby’s Semblance is simple speed with rose petals trailing her since at least Volume 4. What is the true extent of her Semblance? I don’t have an exact idea, but I do believe that the rose petals play a part in it. Especially since my headcanon for a long time is that Summer’s Semblance is being able to turn/scatter into rose petals. Which… has me concerned considering the “Thus Kindly She Scatters” inscription on Summer’s grave. Does Ruby have a similar ability? IDK, but I’m excited to find out~!

Chapter Four Predictions

So as it turns out, the thumbnail/description for this episode came out the same day as the premiere. So I have a good idea of what’s likely going to happen. Going off the title, ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ I think that this is going to mark the return of Jaques Schnee. I know, I hate it too, but it was gonna happen sooner or later. Makes sense since he’s likely going to launch some kind of campaign in Mantle and stir up trouble there that’s likely gonna effect RWBY’s efforts to help the city. Especially for poor Weiss cause as Chapter 2 demonstrated, Mantle does not have a happy view of the Schnee Family. Not sure if we’ll see Mama Schnee or Whitley, though the latter has a good chance, but yeah, asshole dad may very well be making his return. I hope that Weiss kicks him.

But on the upside, due to that and them being in Mantle, I think that we might have a very good chance of Robyn finally appearing. Chapter 4 feels like a very good place to bring her in and let her counter Jaques efforts, as well as letting us see what she and her allies can really do. She is Robin Hood after all, so she’s probably up for some thievery and mischief! We also might hear about Tyrian’s murder spree cause that’s probably gonna cause some tension between Mantle and Atlas. It’s gonna be Beacon all over again kids!

Episode Stats

Favorite Character: Harriet Bree and Marrow Armin Favorite Scene: Ace-Ops vs Geist Least Favorite Scene: Nora and Ren scene in the mines Favorite Voice Actor: Anairis Quinones (Harriet Bree) Favorite Animation: Harriet activating her Semblance against the Grimm Bug things Rating: 7.5/10

Final Thoughts

Overall, competent episode. Not my favorite since I felt it was lacking a lot of the tension and drama of Chapter 2 and the draw-in power of Chapter 1. But by no means is it a bad chapter. It accomplishes all that it set out to do and did it well. It fleshed out the Ace-Ops and made them more interesting characters that you want to see more of. It’s a fun episode that may not progress much in the way of plot or drama outside some minor bits, but it was an enjoyable watch. Which at the end of the day, is all that I could ask for~

#rwby #rwby7 #rwby reviews #callie reviews

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werewolfdays · 5 years

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drabble - Shackled

based off of a prompt from the @whumptober2019 prompt list, Jayde talks to Nadya about the most traumatic part of her past-

My hand automatically placed itself on Nadya’s thigh when I sat back down on the couch by the fireplace. I noticed Nadya’s gaze linger on the subtle scar wrapping around my wrist from the silver shackles that were placed on me when I was captured. She would do that sometimes. Take a special interest in one of the scars that she knew I gained from my years in captivity. But she never mentioned it. Even when I felt her curiosity towards it, she usually kept quiet.

“You never ask.”

She blinked up at me in confusion, “Ask what?”

“You know what I mean.” I said gently.

A moment of silence passed. Nadya stared down at my scar again, reaching out to brush her thumb over it. “I didn’t think it was something I should bring up.”

“But you want to know.” I responded in understanding.

The warmth of her brown eyes settled back on me. “Not bad enough to put you through the pain of remembering.”

I grabbed her hand to play with her fingers, “You can always ask me whatever you want, you know that.” A small crooked smile flashed across my face, “Plus, I heard somewhere that talking about things can sometimes maybe help.”

Nadya smiled briefly too, but then she went into quiet thought for a minute. I watched her contemplate exactly what question she wanted to ask with a mixture of dread and anticipation. I rarely talk about being held captive, figuring my scars were enough of an explanation. Nadya made me feel safe though. She is the only person that I haven’t given boundaries to on the subject. I didn’t feel the need to. Even with that amount of freedom I gave to her, she hasn’t abused it, which just made me love her more.

“What…” Nadya hesitated like she didn’t believe me, “What was it like?”

My eyes wandered around the Den. What little guests there were didn’t seem to care about us or what we were talking about. Toby didn’t even glance in our direction from the bar. Not like I expected anyone to be listening anyway, but I suddenly felt exposed. I took a moment to focus on Nadya’s hand holding mine to ground me. Since I had just told her she could ask, I felt obligated to follow through, but it suddenly made me feel trapped. Then I realized Nadya would never force me to talk about this. If I said the word, she would drop it. No questions asked. No judgement. That reassurance gave me the final push I needed to speak.

“Well, at first it wasn’t so bad if I’m being honest. I mean, I did watch my dad get murdered and I was beaten and taken away from my mom and my home.” Recalling the events was met with some resistance. As soon as my mom and I were taken, I was resigned to our fate. The only light of hope I had was the knowledge that Skye was safe. “But they waited until I was fully recovered. They politely asked questions about my experience as a werewolf and took basic tests. I guess I was a rare find, being a purebred adolescent werewolf. It almost felt like I was getting a physical at the doctor’s. But I was pissed. I didn’t give them shit if I could help it. All I wanted was to see my mom.”

“You were sixteen?” Nadya asked.

“Mhm,” I nodded, “One of them- maybe a scientist, I’m not sure- sat me down and tried to convince me that their work was good. That they were trying to advance medicine and improve the world. She spoke to me like I was a child, telling me that we could work together and that I could be a hero.” I scoffed, wishing that I had bashed that woman’s face in, “Obviously, I didn’t buy into her shit. I think that meeting was my last chance to cooperate, because things changed after that. They put me in a solitary confinement cell and took me out a few times a week to perform tests.”

I heard Nadya’s heart rate begin to pick up, dreading the details as much as I did.

“It started off pretty tame. They would take tons of samples, blood, saliva, that sort of thing. Then they wanted to watch me turn. I must’ve held back a shift for months just to spite them. Ironically, that’s where I learned a lot of my control. Each full moon was horrible. It felt like my blood was going to boil and my skull was going to burst, but I still held it back. So they tried to force a turn.” Nadya’s breath hitched at my emphasis of force, “They tried everything from electric shocks to adrenaline shots. Pretty sure that almost killed me a couple times... I’m not sure what did it though, I just knew that one day it became too much, so I let them have their win.”

I started to worry that I was painting too horrific of a picture, but Nadya didn’t object. Maybe she felt like she needed to hear it. A voice in the back of my head told me to stop. She doesn’t need to know this. It’s hurting her as much as it did you. It told me. The look of pained determination on her face silently urged me to continue. She can handle it. I thought back.

“They tested the limits of my durability, sometimes pushing me to the brink of death to monitor my healing. Also trying out silver, wolfsbane, and anything else that was mentioned in folklore to see how that affected me and my shifting or healing.” I only realized after I broke out that those were mostly weapons tests against my kind, but I didn’t mention that, “Sometimes they would drag me out of my cell and put me under and I would wake up back in my bed however long later with no idea of what they did to me. Just a new scar somewhere.”

Broken memories came back to me. Somewhat detached. Like all of this happened to someone else. The rage and fear that had rooted itself so deep within me during those years wanted to manifest, but it was like I couldn’t muster it. I just felt cold.

“After a while, all the days just… blended together. I couldn’t tell you if it was day or night, there was just these goddamn fluorescent lights on twenty-four seven. And that wasn’t even the most maddening part, because they only asked questions in the beginning. The rest of the time I was there, barely anyone spoke to me. No matter how much I cursed them out- how much I begged. Though, they were feeling nice one day and decided to let me know that my mom didn’t survive the experiments.”

My jaw clenched bitterly, finally feeling the primal rage that I knew was inside me all the time. Sometimes lying dormant, patiently waiting for the right time to be unleashed. And just like that... it faded away to the cold again.

“They all became blank faces with blank stares. That just made it seem even less real. Like I was screaming at faceless people in a nightmare. I didn’t even know how long I was in there until I got out.”

Three years. I still remember how shocked I was when I picked up my first newspaper. Three years had somehow felt like a lifetime. Or more accurately, an endless black pit where time didn’t exist.

“That place, it’s…” I stammered, unsure of how to go about describing it, “I wasn’t alive. And I wasn’t dead either. I was something in between, floating in someplace in between.”

A stillness settled between us when I was finished. My heart was beating slowly, but each thump felt like a kick to the chest. I finally turned to see tears falling freely down Nadya’s cheeks. That in turn made me notice my own. My hand came up in time to catch a tear in its descent, and I pulled it back to stare at the moisture on the tip of my finger in bewilderment. I felt mostly nothing while recounting my horrors, yet my body still reacted. It knew what we should be feeling, but my subconscious was kind enough to spare me. Until now, that is. When I looked to Nadya again, she seemed to notice my internal struggle.

“Let’s get out of here.” She said, wiping her tears off on her sleeve and standing up.

I got up to follow her, her hand fitting perfectly in mine as she pulled me along. Just focus on her. Nadya led me towards the fire pits outside. My breath immediately turned to mist in the freezing night air. The cold was actually a much needed slap to the face. I took a few deep breaths, letting go of Nadya’s hand to lean on the icy railing overlooking the lake that was illuminated by moonlight. She stood beside me and her hand came to rest on my back, moving in soothing circles to settle my mind.

“You were looking a little pale.” Nadya said, keeping up the pace of her light massage, “Thought some fresh air might help.”

An iron grip on the railing turned my knuckles white, but with each breath, my vice loosened. “Is, uh, is that what you were hoping to hear?” I chuckled in a poor attempt at humor.

I regretted it when Nadya’s hand stopped. Thankfully it only lasted a second because her arm went lower to wrap around my waist and lean into me. “Well, I was hoping that it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Foolish, I know.” Her gaze fell, but only so she could run an index finger along my strained knuckles, “Especially since it ended up being worse.”

“It was years ago.” I said like it made it any better. Like time negated all of the trauma when it clearly didn’t. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself it did.

“You’re right,” Nadya shifted to take my hand in both of hers, purposefully tracing the scar she was studying earlier, “But I still see it every day. All over you. And I heard it in your voice even before you told me. You know what else I see?” the way Nadya cradled my hand against her chest put me in some sort of trance as I hung onto every word she spoke. “I see just how strong you are. Jay, you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. I’ve always seen that.”

“You think way too highly of me.” I told her with a bashful smile.

“It’s the truth.” She insisted. Her own playful smile lit up her beautiful face, “I want to be as strong as you when I grow up.”

The laugh I released was such a welcome sensation, pulling me away from the lingering darkness, “You already are.” My arms wrapped around Nadya’s body and she nuzzled her head into my neck. The tip of her nose was already freezing and caused my body to flinch slightly at the shock of feeling it against my skin. “You’re so cold.”

“And you’re so warm.” Nadya remarked, slipping her hands under my shirt, which weren’t as cold as her nose, but still made me tense up until they warmed.

“You guys like freezing your asses off?” I heard Toby say and turned to see him coming towards us with two steaming cups of what smelled like tea in his hands.

“At least once a week so a new one can grow in.” Nadya joked, accepting the cup he handed to her.

Toby shook his head at her in amusement and handed me the other one that was spiked with whiskey. I smelled it from ten feet away. He must’ve sensed that I needed it and I took it gratefully, saying my thanks with a purposeful nod.

“Alright, well I don’t need to grow a new ass, so see you guys later.” Toby quipped and went to go back inside. He hesitated by the door and called, “Try not to stay out too long.”

“We’ll be inside in a few minutes.” I reassured him. He nodded in relief, seemingly satisfied that whatever I was going through wasn’t bad enough to freeze myself to death, and went back to the Den.

I took a long sip of my tea, savoring all the flavors of the various herbs mixing with the alcohol. Letting the hot liquid fill my insides with a warm embrace to relax me. Nadya rested her head on my shoulder while she held her cup in her grasp like a hand warmer. I took in her scent for a few minutes too. It reminded me of the very tea she was drinking, mixed autumn spices that paired perfectly with the cold weather. The kind of scent that made you want to curl up by a fire in your favorite blanket.

“You know, you’ll never have to go back to that place.” She said calmly, “I won’t let anyone take you back there. I promise.”

My smile warmed me as much as she did. “I believe you.”

#ocs #original characters #original writing #original story #whumptober2019 #no.9 #My writing #Jayde #Nadya #Jayde pov

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aleinnilatibae · 5 years

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Trouble in Álfheima, ch 1

Okay so this is my extremely ambitious LazyTown/Benedikt Búálfur crossover fic that I am REALLY excited about, I don´t even have a summary yet but I wanted to put the first part up here for you guys to read bc...i just finished this rewrite and have no self control. I will put it up on AO3 very soon, hope you like it! @greykolla you were certainly a huge inspiration for starting this, and I especially hope you like it <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The carpet was brown this time.

Brown, and close-cropped to the ground like a buzz cut.

Stephanie preferred longer carpet, sinking her fingers into the long strands and pushing them around like wind over a grassy plain.

But, if there was one thing she had learned in her four years of life so far, it was to make the best of changes, so she ran her hands over the new carpet in circles until her fingertips tingled pleasantly.

Taking a look around, the walls were bare, and most likely going to stay that way for the few months they would live there, to make the packing up easier later.

Wait.

Where was Daddy?

She whirled her head around, back and forth, looking in every corner of the one-room apartment, but he was nowhere to be found. Where was he? Daddy was supposed to be WITH her for the WHOLE DAY on the first day of moving in, where did he go?

Suddenly, the door busted open and Daddy came in from the outside, carrying a gigantic box. Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, he was just unpacking more of their stuff! He set the box down by the windowsill and opened it up, pulling potted plant after potted plant out of it.

He looked up to see that Stephanie was looking at him, and he grinned at her. “Hey, my little Pixie,” he said, “Are you ready to ROCK?!”

“Yeeeaaaah!” she said in response, pumping her fist in the air.

“Good, because we got a biiiiig day ahead of us,” he said, spreading his arms out as wide as he could, and pointed out the window.

Out the window, in the night sky, were a million multicolored stars, and Stephanie’s vision zoomed into them, stars whizzing past her vision, and the mundane sounds of the apartment faded as she heard a voice calling her name, people yelling, people screaming, an evil LAUGH-

She awoke with a start and sat up abruptly in bed, heart pounding.

She took stock of the situation.

No brown carpet, no bare walls, only pink furniture and pink bedcovers.

Right. She was NOT in an apartment with her dad.

She was in her own room, in LazyTown, and she was ten years old, not four.

Plus, her dad never owned a big box of potted plants, that was silly.

Even so, the transition really disoriented her. The dream was so…real, right down to the feeling of the carpet under her fingertips, and it’s not every morning that you age six years just by waking up.

Plus…for just a split second, before she was fully awake, she thought she would see her dad when she opened her eyes.

But no.

He was still travelling the world with his job, and she was still in LazyTown without him.

Stephanie sighed, and stood up, trying to shake off the soul-crushing disappointment. Her life before Lazytown involved a lot of packing up her life into the same suitcase or two, moving from daycare to daycare and public school to public school, after school program to after school program, chaos littering the way…she definitely didn’t miss that part.

But she DID really miss her Daddy.

She got dressed, and slipped out the door. Maybe playing with her friends could make her feel better.

She had slept in a little bit late, the rest of the kids were already up and playing when she walked out the door—Trixie and Stingy playing a one-on-one game of basketball, Ziggy sitting on the bench eating candy, and Pixel was…doing some sort of test, both he and Sportacus tapping at their wrist computers.

Intrigued, Stephanie walked up to them.

“Did you get the route?” Sportacus was asking.

“Yep! Locked and loaded!” Pixel said excitedly.

Sportacus put down his goggles, and prepared himself to run.

“On your mark, get set, go!” Pixel yelled, pressing the button on his computer.

Sportacus shot off down the path, jumping and flipping as he went.

“Watcha up to, Pixel?” Stephanie asked.

“Oh, hi Stephanie! I’ve come up with an automatic flip counter!” Pixel said excitedly, “I’m testing its limits on Sportacus right now! Look, it attaches to the software that Sportacus already has, and it can count flips, jump ropes, and anything else numerical that has to do with exercise! That way, we never have to worry about losing count ever again!”

By the time he was done with that sentence, Sportacus was already racing back, doing his last few final flips before he landed, hands on hips, right where he started.

“What number did you get?” he asked, slightly out of breath.

Pixel pressed a few buttons, and gasped. “SEVENTY-FOUR?!”

“Yes!” Sportacus said, fist pumping, “That is what I counted too!”

“You did SEVENTY-FOUR flips just now?!” asked Stephanie, jaw hanging open.

“And Pixel counted them accurately!” Sportacus said, gesturing to the beaming boy, “That is a fantastic invention, you should feel very proud of the work that you have done!”

“Th-thanks, Sportacus,” Pixel said, looking up at him with wide eyes, “I’m gonna go put it in the computer right now! You know what they say about technology, it can always be improved!”

Sportacus chuckled as Pixel ran off, looking fondly after him.

That look suddenly reminded her of her dream, and she deflated again.

“What’s the matter, Stephanie? You look a little down,” asked Sportacus, a note of concern in his voice.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she assured.

“Stephanie, you know you can ALWAYS talk to me, right?” he said, nudging her with his elbow.

She DID know that. And what harm would it be to talk about it? She had come out here in the first place to try to make herself feel better about it, and here Sportacus was, offering to do just that.

Stephanie fiddled with her bracelet. “Sportacus…you aren’t from around here, right?”

Sportacus chuckled.

“Yes, I suppose you could say that. What was your first clue?” he asked, exaggerating his accent for comedic effect.

She giggled, but sobered quickly as she continued her previous line of thought.

“Sportacus…I love it here in Lazytown,” she began, “It’s the only place that I have ever lived in for two years in a row, and it’s the first place that I have ever felt at home.”

“It is a great place,” Sportacus agreed, nodding.

“But…my dad and I, we never settled down in one place for very long. No place ever felt like home, but having HIM always did,” she said, tears coming unbidden to her eyes, “And I know he sent me here because-because his job made it…made it really hard for him to take care of me, and I could be h-happier,” she swallowed hard.

Sportacus put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Go on.”

“What…what do you, um, do when you’re homesick for f-family?” she asked, on the verge of tears.

Sportacus tugged her in for an embrace as the tears spilled over, patting her comfortingly on the back as she sobbed into his chest.

“It is…sad, when you must go somewhere without the family that raised you,” Sportacus said carefully as she continued to hold onto him, “But, if you keep your heart open, I swear that you can find home, and family, anywhere. Then, wherever you go? You will NEVER be alone.”

Stephanie pulled back from him, lip still wobbly.

“Let me put it this way,” Sportacus said, “Is there anyone here in LazyTown that makes you feel welcome, and safe? Is there anyone that you would do anything to help, and that you could count on their help in return?”

Stephanie sniffed. Everyone in this town, in one way or another, was exactly how Sportacus described. Her uncle who always took care of her, Bessie who answered her every social question no matter how stupid it sounded, her friends who always made her feel included in LazyTown since the first day of that fateful summer, even Robbie Rotten, he made sure that none of their days were ever boring.

And here was Sportacus, helping her right now.

“Thanks Sportacus,” she said, wiping her eyes, “Sorry for crying.”

“Oh, no no no NO, Stephanie, it is very important to your health that you express your emotions!” Sportacus encouraged, clasping her hand in both of his, “And, I understand completely. I have not seen my family in many, many years.”

Stephanie was taken aback. “Really?”

Sportacus nodded. “Being without them? Makes me feel very sad, at times. But when I do feel sad, I think about all of the family that I have here, in LazyTown,” he smiled. “And I count myself lucky that I have so MANY family members, in different parts of the world.”

“I guess…I guess we are the lucky ones, having such a big family all over the place,” Stephanie grinned.

“Yeah,” Sportacus said, and they high fived.

“Remember, Stephanie, I, your uncle, and even Bessie are all here if you ever need to talk to somebody. That is what family is for!” he ruffled her hair.

“Yeah, I know that,” Stephanie said, flattening her hair back out.

Suddenly, Sportacus’ crystal went off.

“Someone’s in TROUBLE!” Sportacus gasped, stepping away from Stephanie.

“I will see you later, Stephanie,” he said, and did his signature move. “Be good!” he called, and he raced off, flipping as he went.

Stephanie waved after him as he went, glad she came outside today.

She DID feel better.

“Hey, Stephanie,” said Pixel, walking back over, “Check it out.”

He pointed to his wrist computer’s screen, where a little icon version of Sportacus was rushing across a digitized map of LazyTown, picking up speed as his airship did in real life.

“Nyoooom,” Pixel said, giggling.

AS Sportacus’ airship continued north, Stephanie was struck with a horrible thought.

“Oh no, he’s heading towards the ocean! I hope it’s not Uncle Milford and Bessie on their beach vacation!”

Pixel shrugged. “Even if it was them, we know that Sportacus will take care of it, in a snap!”

It didn’t stop Stephanie from worrying, however, as Sportacus headed towards where she knew the ocean to be.

“Look, his ship is turning! See, it’s not them,” Pixel said, pointing out at the airship making a left turn.

Stephanie exhaled. Of course, Sportacus sometimes went to OTHER towns, saving people that they didn’t even know.

“Sportacus has probably saved somebody from EVERY single town in the country,” Stephanie mused aloud.

“But we are his FAVORITE town!” exclaimed Ziggy, “That’s why he keeps coming back to us!”

“You know what, Ziggy? I think you are right,” said Stephanie, smiling, as she watched the airship turn to a tiny speck in the distance.

Morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon turned to night, and night turned again to morning…and Sportacus was still not back.

That particular morning, Trixie and Stephanie were playing a little one-on-one basketball, while Ziggy, Pixel, and Stingy drew with chalk on the blacktop.

“I can’t believe that Sportacus is STILL gone,” said Trixie, dribbling the basketball and passing it to Stephanie.

“I know,” Stephanie said, looking up at the sky, “That emergency must have been somewhere pretty far away.”

While she was looking, a tiny moving speck caught her eye.

A BLUE speck.

“Hey, is that Sportacus?” she asked, squinting up at it.

Her question got the interest of the boys as well, and they all crowded around to look up at it.

“No, it’s a paper airplane!” Trixie said, as the speck continued to glide downward.

Sure enough, a paper airplane soared through the air above them.

A BLUE paper airplane.

Stephanie dropped the basketball on the ground.

“FOLLOW THAT PLANE!” she yelled, pointing out at it, and they all raced after it.

As it dipped lower and lower, it seemed to move faster and faster. Stephanie ran after it with all of her might, and she was catching up!

“It’s…too…high!” Stephanie panted, as they ran underneath it.

“You gotta…JUMP, Pinkie!” Trixie gasped, holding her side.

Stephanie steeled herself, and prepared to jump as high as she had ever jumped in her entire LIFE-

When a butterfly net swung itself up, caught the paper airplane, and swung back down to the ground.

Stephanie skidded to a stop, seeing a smug Stingy holding the pole of the net.

“Stingy,” Stephanie said, breathing hard, “Why…do YOU have…Robbie’s butterfly net?”

“Oh! It’s not MYYYY fault that he leaves it just…LAYING AROUND for anyone to find!!” he protested in a huff. “All that matters is…we got the letter!”

The kids celebrated with a HOORAY!

Stephanie carefully unfolded the paper airplane, and they peered at the contents inside.

“Ugh, why does Sportacus always have the WORST handwriting?!” Stingy complained. “I don’t even know if those are WORDS!”

“Don’t worry, I can read it,” Stephanie said, waving a hand at him and squinting at the near-illegible scribblings that seemed to be even WORSE than usual.

“This letter is for Robbie Rotten!” Stephanie said in surprise.

“What does it say?” Trixie asked.

“’Robbie,’” Stephanie read aloud, “’I have reason to believe…that there is something very dangerous going on in….alf…heima?’”

“Alf-what?” chorused the other four kids.

“I don’t know, look, the A has a little accent,” She said, showing the weird word “Álfheima“ to the others.

“Ohh, go on, go on, what does the rest say??” asked Stingy, still clutching the butterfly net’s pole with a death grip.

“’If this message reaches you, then that means that…’” Stephanie gasped, heart sinking into her stomach, “’I am in danger as well!’”

A collective gasp came from her audience.

“How could SPORTACUS be in danger, huh?? Is-is that even ALLOWED??” asked Ziggy, genuine worry in his voice.

“Wait, guys, there’s more-'Please, don’t tell the kids. I don’t want them to worry. -Sportacus,’” Stephanie finished, heavy finality in her voice.

“Well, it’s too late for THAT,” Stingy remarked bitterly.

“What…what should we do?” asked Ziggy.

Stephanie put the message on the bench and thought back to what Sportacus had said yesterday.

Is there anyone that you would do anything to help, and that you could count on their help in return?

“We have to go save him,” Stephanie said decisively.

“What?”

“We can’t just…HAVE this information, and then do nothing with it!” she said, voice cracking from emotion, “Sportacus ALWAYS helps us, Sportacus always SAVES us from dangerous situations, and now HE needs help! HE needs to be saved! Sportacus is our FAMILY, and we can’t just leave our family in danger!” Stephanie declared.

“Yeah!” the other kids chorused.

Stephanie felt a fire coursing through her veins.

“Now lets go save Sportacus!” she threw her fist up in the air.

The kids all cheered their agreement.

“Pixel!” Stephanie exclaimed as a through struck her, “can you find out where Sportacus is, right now, with your computer?”

“Yeah!” he said, pressing a few buttons, “Just have to find Sportacus’ last known coordinates…”

They all gathered around him with bated breath as he tracked Sportacus’ movement over the last day.

“Got it! His last known location was…” he watched as the display zoomed in on the map, “here! In the middle of Iceland!”

“ICE-land?”

“Wow, that WAS far away,” Trixie said under her breath.

“Great!” Stephanie said, “Pixel, lock onto those coordinates and find us a route!”

“On it!”

If Sportacus was in another COUNTRY, Stephanie reasoned, they would have to find something that would get them there FAST…

She whirled around and looked at Trixie next.

“Trixie! Go get…the rocket!”

“Yes ma’am!” she saluted, and ran off.

“Ziggy! Take that candy out of your mouth!” Stephanie ordered, “It’s time for business!”

“Right!” he exclaimed, furrowing his brow and tossing the taffy over his shoulder.

“Stingy! Go get our rocket suits!”

He balked for a moment at being told what to do.

“Fiiine, if it will save SPORTACUS,” he said, grumbling. “But what are YOU going to do?”

“Me? I’m gonna…prepare for the WORST,” she said, narrowing her eyes, and dashing over to the nearest apple tree.

There was untold danger waiting for them in this mysterious place called Álfheima.

They were gonna need a LOT of sportscandy.

#lazytown #benedikt búálfur #im so tired but i just...wanted this out there

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aiimaginesbts · 5 years

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What You Never Had: Chapter 13

Seokjin x Reader (ft. Jimin, Taehyung and Namjoon)

Genres: Royalty AU, angst

Word count: 4,163 words

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (M) | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 (M) | 13 | 14 (Final)

A/N: Thanks Ann @godsavemefrombts for beta-ing this!

Disclaimer/Copyright

This cannot be happening.

You wanted to avert your gaze, but your eyes remained locked on Jimin’s, wide with inability to accept reality. Not that it would’ve mattered if you could; there was no taking back what your brother had seen. But when he started striding towards you, it was as if your heart jumped back to life, immediately working into a pace that couldn’t be natural. The rush of adrenaline urged you forward, stumbling clumsily like someone had pushed you from behind, to put as much distance as you could from Jin’s room as you met Jimin halfway through the hall. Not that you wanted to rush towards the inevitable encounter, but anything to distance yourself from Jin’s room. Acting like a thief that had been caught red-handed made you feel awful, but you couldn’t think of anything else in the split second that you had.

“What are you doing here at this time of night?” Jimin’s harsh tone, unfamiliar to your ears, made you shrivel up inside.

It wasn’t as if you’d never considered the likely possibility with which you could get caught visiting Jin, but pushing away the imagination of it happening was nothing like having it actually happen. And you were powerless to evade it now. You couldn’t turn back time. Yet for all the preparations you thought you’d made, you found yourself at a loss. All the excuses you’d thought up in case this happened seemed so feeble in the face of your brother. Weak syllables tumbled from your lips in a stutter, each of them broken from a non-existing word just for the sake of not remaining quiet.

Then Jimin’s eyes flicked in the direction of Jin’s room, and you finally gathered enough wits to say something. “I— I was just ta-taking a stroll.” It wasn’t anything very intelligible, but the idea of Jimin making the connection and figuring out the real reason you were out and about at this time of night sent you into a panic.

However, Jimin wasn’t easy to fool, no matter how much you wished otherwise, just this one time. “Did you go to your Royal Guard’s room?”

Your breath caught, heart squeezed in terror at his accurate guess. With your mind drawing a blank, whatever lie you could think of would be useless at this point, and you had no idea what to do. In the end, all you could say was the only thing that was on your mind; “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

Part of you were afraid that Jimin wouldn't agree to it, even though there was no reason for him to say no. It was just that everything had gone so horribly wrong in just that one second that you expected your unlucky streak would continue. But Jimin was not in a hurry to make a scene, glancing around and remembering where you were. He nodded, then motioned for you to follow him. Knowing that it was useless to run, you trudged after him anxiously, a mixture of negative emotions settling in within you but a strength that remained from being protective of your love towards Jin keeping you from completely giving up.

Yet when he led you inside his chambers, you were still struggling to find a way to hide the truth from him. You were careful to remain several steps behind him all the way there, but after he opened the door for you, he strode over directly in front of you. The door closed shut with a click that was final to your ears. There was nowhere to hide. Still, it was painful to meet Jimin’s eyes. The brother that had always been loving towards you, even though oftentimes hidden behind his teasing ways, was nowhere to be seen. In his place was the handsome man who looked just like him, but with brows you never knew could slant so disapprovingly, with a stare that was cold, with jaw set so stiffly you could imagine his teeth being grounded together, his lips pursed to ready himself to shoot down any excuse you might think of. This Jimin made you feel small. He made you scared. The person you would run to when you wanted comfort was now the same man who made you feel like crying. And you had no one to turn to.

Shaking, you decided that he might be more forgiving if you came forth with the information without further prompting. “I went to check on him because he seemed upset.” You figured that it was best to stick to the truth, as any lie you could think of would not be convincing. Hopefully by omitting most of it out, you could scrape by without getting into too much trouble.

“Why would it concern you that he seemed upset?” A little incredulousness was pricked into Jimin’s tone, but he didn’t sound completely surprised. Which, in turn, was slightly unsettling to you. Shock from seeing you in that corridor late at night aside, he didn’t seem as puzzled as you’d expect him to be.

“Uhm,” you hesitated, unwilling to delve further into this. The more you told Jimin, the higher the possibility that he would be able to gauge how close Jin and you were. However, you couldn’t sidestep or ignore the question. “It was my decision to go to Zinnis, and because of that, he will be exposed to danger with the extra burden of protecting me. I felt bad about it and wanted to make sure that he is not resentful.”

Jimin eyed you closely, making you squirm. You felt like he could see through your soul, and being examined like that when you really did have something to hide was nerve wracking. “It is his duty to protect you regardless of the circumstances. If you need to go and coddle him every time he does not agree with a decision that puts you in danger, then he is not suited for his position.”

Even though his tone was firm rather than mocking, your cheeks coloured at the accusation. “Of course not! The decision to see him was mine, not because anything that he said or did. I went to see him to alleviate my worries, and not his. Jin is perfectly suited for his job.”

Your outburst sent Jimin’s eyebrows up into his fringe, and you instantly knew that you’d messed up. Intentional or not, he’d successfully riled you up, making you slip and told him more that you meant to. Not verbally, but your adamance and calling him not just by his name, but by his nickname gave him more information that you wanted him to know. And it’s hard to believe that it was by accident, when you thought about it again later. Although he was a tease and a half, Jimin wasn’t one to belittle a person, and it was clear from the beginning that you were the one who went out of the way to seek him out. There was no reason to think that Jin was angry for being given a dangerous mission, or he was so reluctant to do it that you needed to go and convince him to. Jimin had deliberately said that to bring out your feelings for Jin to the surface. And you’d fallen into the trap like a deer that had lost all its senses. You wanted to smack yourself silly when the realisation hit you.

“What is going on between the two of you?” Crossing his arms, with his feet apart, made him look more intimidating than before. The look that pierced through you made you think that he already knew the answer to his question, and did not approve. You stared at your feet, blinking back tears as your fingers fiddled uselessly. There was no point in answering him; you wanted his question was a rhetorical one, really. Just because you didn't have the strength to put it into words. You didn’t expect yourself to be so weak, but you couldn’t muster the courage to say anything. You didn’t have the strength to tell him the truth and hear the reality of the situation from him. The silence stretched until Jimin gave up on getting an answer from you with a resigned sigh. “You should go to bed. We have an early morning tomorrow.”

Being let go should fill you with a sense of relief, but you only gave him a small nod, then left with heavy footsteps and a heavier heart. Even though you knew that you should give it more thought now that Jimin had found out about you and Jin, you didn’t want to think about it. As you arrived in your chambers and collapsed face down on your bed, you felt ashamed of yourself as you let the tears fall. The concerned Ji Eun was pushed away, leaving you to berate yourself on your own. There was never any doubt of the sincerity of your feelings for Jin, even now. You were serious about him. This wasn’t just a passing fancy. You loved him. But you’d only realised how unprepared you were when reality hit you in the face.

Jimin was just the first obstacle of many, standing in the way of your happiness with Jin. All along you knew that falling in love with Jin was a foolish thing to do. It wouldn’t lead you anywhere. But these feelings were not something you could control. The fate that tied you with Jin started from the moment he held out his hand to you. With your hand, you surrendered your heart to him, and never looked back. You never wanted to second guess your choice. So stubborn was your love towards him that you broke down his walls, convinced him not to hold back when he had reservations over having romantic feelings towards someone far above his station. And he was right. It was just you who were obstinate. So why were you crumbling now? You hated yourself for being so weak. Presented with the first disapproval of your relationship and you were already buckling under the weight of others’ expectations towards you. You were a princess. You should never have fallen in love with your Royal Guard.

Yet you had. Jimin might have found out, and as painful as that may be, you didn’t regret your actions. Even when morning came, you didn’t find your feelings for Jin fading even slightly. You had no idea what would happen from here on out, but you tried to convince yourself that you would get through it somehow. The last thing you wanted to do was end things with Jin. It would be easier to ask you to stop breathing.

Still, you dreaded heading out and having to face other people. Especially Jimin and Jin, even though the latter had no clue what had happened after your exit from his room. Lack of time only permitted you to apologise to Ji Eun as she helped cover your puffy eyes, but none for explaining the reason behind them. Fortunately the princes chose to ride on the journey through Amaryll, which gave you a little more time to evade Jimin and fill Ji Eun in on the events of last night. Being the good friend that she was, she didn’t scold you, or remind you that she’d been against it from the start. Instead, she sympathised with you, although unable to think of any solution to your current predicament.

“What are you going to do now?” She asked the pertinent question that you’d spent the whole night wondering yourself.

“I have no idea,” you answered dejectedly, slumping slightly in your seat as the carriage moved smoothly forward through the well-paved road of the town.

At first your low-spirited answer caused Ji Eun to purse her lips in frustration. Then, with a sigh that mirrored your mood, she peeked outside the carriage window to look at the entourage that surrounded you. “It does not seem like Prince Jimin has told anyone, though,” she remarked quietly, almost off-handedly, but it made you think.

Ji Eun was right. In the back of your mind, you’d expected pandemonium to ensue this morning the moment you woke up from your brief, restless sleep. Yet everyone had busied about to start moving for Zinnis like nothing had happened. Maybe nothing really did happen. You’d have believed that if it weren’t for your puffy, swollen eyes and Ji Eun’s worried sighs as you prepared for the journey. It was obvious, but you didn’t notice until Ji Eun remarked on it, which spoke volumes about your current state of mind. You shook your head, trying to clear the fog that had clouded your thinking. There had been no doubt in your mind that Jimin would have told someone of this. At least to Namjoon, the eldest brother that you both looked up to. Were they planning to deal with you later? Perhaps this just wasn’t the best time for a confrontation, with the safety of the people at hand.

So you waited. The princes had opted to ride the road up to the border, and you didn’t fault them for their choice. It was stuffy and boring in the carriage. Taking in the view of the passing towns and villages were interesting, but most of the road took you past endless trees. Either way, the small rectangular window of the coach offered you too limited a look, leaving you unsatisfied. Hardly an effective distraction from your troubles. There was nothing you could do. Relating last night’s events to Ji Eun once was more than enough, but your world seemed to come to a standstill as the scenery moves on outside. The wait was long and torturous. Even when the group stopped for meals and rest, you could hardly get an audience with either one of your brothers. Nights spent at inns were an opportunity to seek Namjoon and Jimin out, you supposed, but still you found yourself unable to do so. You had no idea if the eldest prince knew what Jimin had found out. On the other hand, you were too scared to ask Jimin if he’d divulged your secret to anyone else. To do so would be to confirm your relationship with Jin, and you were too cowardly to face Jimin’s thoughts on the matter. Guilt towards your brothers and Jin piled up on top of shame upon yourself, trapping you in an endless nightmare. As you couldn’t talk to the princes or Jin regarding this, Ji Eun was your only solace. You couldn’t even look any of them in the eye. Hopefully no one noticed your withdrawn manner throughout the trip.

Nine days later, there wasn’t a marked change outside that you could see, but the situation within the carriage was different. Bearing the news that the border was less than half a day away, Namjoon and Jimin joined you in the carriage that morning. The air was tense; at least, that was how it felt to you. Anticipation mounted the moment your brothers stepped inside, building until you were jolted as the carriage started moving forward. You waited, gaze darting around the enclosed space, looking everywhere but your brothers' eyes, yet the moment you were dreading never came. Jimin's sigh was restrained, but you could hear the fatigue in it before his eyelids fluttered shut. On the other hand, Namjoon gazed out the window quietly, worry marking the fine lines of his face. After a while he noticed your stare, and shifted to face you properly. "Is something the matter? You seem quite unsettled."

It was so gentle, his question full of love and care for you, like a soft stroke over your hair, tenderly caressing the side of your face. In response, you shook your head, hoping the motion would be enough to cover the fact that you were furiously blinking tears away. While Namjoon had been busy with his duties to the country as the Crown Prince, you had missed him more than you realized. It had been so long since you talked to him about anything other than the pressing matters of running the country. As he played his part as the Prince, and you the Princess, you were deprived of Namjoon as your brother. Now you desperately needed someone to talk to, and he wasn't an option. Ji Eun, while supportive despite her disapproval, wasn't in the position to help much or provide a solution. It was clear that Jimin was not in agreement with your heart.

You glanced up at your eldest brother. Still, it seemed like Jimin hadn't disclosed your secret to Namjoon. Thus it was likely that he hadn't told anyone else, either. As glad as you were about that, the inability to confide in both Namjoon and Jimin left you feeling bereft and alone. There wasn't much time for you to wallow in your loneliness though, as tension — real tension this time — rippled through the carriage as the group approached the border.

This was your first visit to another country — and you were entering it without permission. With Zinnis and Amaryll being hostile towards each other, the procedure to enter legally would be tedious and time-consuming. That was considering they would allow you to enter in the first place. And even by some miracle they did, it would be too late to catch the pirates before their next shipment by then. No, this was the only way. But it all depended on whether you and your brothers could sneak in past the border or not. If you were discovered here, there would be hell to pay. Prince Taehyung was jeopardising his country’s relationship with Zinnis in order to see this through. The Crown Prince of Delphina was riding close to the carriage, under the pretence of enjoying the fresh air. Hopefully the men guarding the border would assume that the coach was for the Prince, and therefore empty, without checking inside. It was a high-risk gamble, but with high reward. The news of the pirates’ hideout city came in the beginning of the month, and you were already approaching mid month with only about halfway through your journey. There wouldn’t be any time to lose once you arrived, as Namjoon had received information that the criminals planned to ship their goods at the end of the month — and this included the people they’d taken to be sold as slaves.

Thankfully, the group managed to pass through the checkpoint without any issues, but some of the unsettling gloom remained even as you moved on. You were no longer on safe soil. Knowing that the lives of the people you love might be in constant danger from that point on didn’t give you any room to relax. While the princes carried themselves with more composure than you did, their tense shoulders didn’t go by unnoticed. It was fortunate, you supposed, that Zinnis was less than a quarter of the size of Amaryll, considering that you needed to travel all the way through the country to get to the port city near the border between Zinnis and Gazan, where the pirates were suspected to ship most of their goods to. And the goods you were concerned about was the people that had been kidnapped or forcefully taken. While it might be impossible to track and find the innocent people already taken and sold as slaves in the past, to brood on that would be useless. You needed to focus on saving the people that you could now.

Your sentiments clearly echoed with the others. Once on Zinnis’ soil, the group started moving faster, and conversations became more serious. Less stops were made, with you and your brothers leaving the carriage only when stopping for the night or when taking a break away from villages and towns. Although you were sure no one in this country had seen you before, Prince Taehyung might be recognised and a noble female presence in his entourage would raise questions. Your brothers, on the other hand, were more well-known; thus they would rather not risk being seen.

It was subtle, but you still noticed the change in the air after about a week of more travelling. A soft knock on the window, followed by Prince Taehyung’s deep voice; “We are here,” explained it. Dying of curiosity and weeks of being cooped up in the small space, you allowed yourself a peek out into your surroundings. The sky was overcast, eerily matching the heavy, humid air of the port city, but most of all, it suited the dismal state that the city was in. Everywhere along the street was bustling with activity, most people moving in haste about their business. It was the first time you’d seen such diversity. While some looked similar to the people of your country, many had features that reminded you that this was a different place than what you were used to. This was truly a busy port with numerous visitors from foreign lands, some further away than you could imagine.

As flourishing as the city might seem at first glance, all it took was a closer look to see that it was not the prosperous place that it should be. The streets were dirty, buildings grimy, and in the shadows sat men and women, some cradling babies, looking dirtier and grimier than their surroundings.

“Beggars,” Namjoon murmured darkly from opposite you. He wasn’t peering out the window as obviously as you were, but Namjoon’s eyes narrowed disapprovingly as he carefully scanned the city with a mere turn of his head towards the outdoors. You started to lean back into your seat, but your eyes caught a sight that lurched you right to the edge of it.

“What is the matter?” Jimin nearly squeaked, startled by your sudden movement.

Of course, at the speed the carriage was moving, what you saw was a fleeting sight. Yet you were still sure of what you had seen, even though it wasn't something you could share with Jimin. "Nothing,” you breathed, brain working furiously to digest what you’d seen.

-•-•-•-

“The place has certainly deteriorated since I was last here,” Prince Taehyung commented when you inquired about the state of the port city later at the inn. “I suppose this is what happens when corrupt officials take over the governing.”

Other than the bribe that the pirates surely gave them for turning a blind eye to their illegal activities, you wondered what other funds they’d pocketed. Fury filled you at the thought of these officials, misusing their authority to feed their greed instead of taking care of their people. It was even more frustrating because none of you were in the position to do anything about it. You had no place here, no power to speak of. The only thing you could do is to focus on the task at hand, and hope that one right would somehow alleviate the other wrongs that had been committed here.

With that in mind, you excused yourself. “If I am not needed at the moment, is it alright if I get some rest?”

Prince Taehyung nodded his assent. “That is a good idea for all of us. There is little we can do anyway, as long as the location of their hideout has not been found.” You had no doubt that the men Prince Taehyung tasked with finding the place did their best to do so, but the people were too afraid of the pirates to say anything and the higher-ups were under their thumb, controlled by the money they were offered. As neither you nor your brothers were supposed to be here, most people weren’t told about your mission. If anything were to happen to any of you, there was little your father could do, even as the King. The longer you stayed here, the higher the risk of being discovered, hence the danger to your safety increased by the minute.

You were not the only one aware of this, as you were sure that the princes remained in Namjoon’s room to discuss the best plan of action to bring this issue to a swift end. Under normal circumstances, you would insist on joining in, but none of this circumstances were normal. Besides, you had your own idea to solve the problem. Turning to Jin, who was walking just behind you, you whispered, “We have to find a way to go back out.”

“What?” His surprise was conveyed almost like an exclamation, even though he was wise enough to keep his response as a whisper. This being a foreign country, he most likely did not expect something like this from you, but you had a reason for — once again — suggesting something so dangerous. As always, when faced with something that concerned others, you tended to dismiss your own safety in favour of looking at the bigger picture.

“I just saw Ki Joon.”

#btssunshinenet #bts writing squad #hyunglinenetwork #armiesnet #bangtan bookclub #networkbangtan #noonanet #jin angst #jin scenarios #taehyung scenarios #jimin scenarios #namjoon scenarios #bts scenarios

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darthkylorevan · 6 years

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Clydeland 90: remember when we were little

“building bridges”-rated t, 1.7k, read on ao3 here!

(please note that this is a sort of sequel to sstensland’s clydeland ficlet here, please read that to get a sense of what’s going on; it isn’t a complete sequel bc i change some small things but otherwise it is)

“Remember when we were little?”

The words were accidental; Stensland hadn’t meant to let them out, still laying in Clyde’s bed (he tried not to think of how it had been their bed, before) not ready to leave just yet, even though he should, even though he should have a whole life ahead of him, one that didn’t include Clyde. Yet here he was.

“Hm?” Clyde shifted next to him, just slightly closer. Stens tried not to pay attention to the points of contact between them, to the heat from skin on skin.

“When we were little.” He turned on his side, against his better judgment, to look at the man next to him. He only just managed to not reach over, to run his hands along his jaw, his neck, his shoulders. He shouldn’t want that, couldn’t want that. This was...this wasn’t supposed to have happened in the first place, but it had, and he couldn’t take it back.

Clyde smiled at him softly, softer than he deserved. “We did a lot of things when we were little.”

A wry smile. Stensland couldn’t deny the truth, however. They’d known each other since elementary school, silent Clyde protecting him from the older kids that wanted to pick on him for his looks, his accent. They’d been inseparable since. The best of friends to high school sweethearts; no one would have ever guessed they would end up like this, just short of divorce.

And here he was, back in Clyde’s bed again, unable to resist him like he always had been.

“When we’d go to the bridge.”

Stensland felt a hand brush along his side, fingers tracing the line of his waist down to his hips. He tried--and failed--to hold in a shiver at the touch, at the gentle way Clyde looked at him, like he used to when they were in high school, in college, before this mess, before he ran. He’d believed he’d never see that look again and yet…

Clyde grinned at him, that large, lazy grin that always had his heart beating a little faster. “When I’d drag you out of school with me to go there, you mean.”

“Does it really count as dragging when I went willingly?”

Stensland tried to look put out when Clyde only laughed at him, but he knew the truth, which was that he wasn't entirely willing to leave the school on their nearly monthly trips to the New River Gorge Bridge. They didn’t always skip school to go, but it was often enough he’d always been sure the administration had noticed their simultaneous absence, sure their parents knew. Nobody had ever said anything, though; had just let them be.

He let Clyde pull him closer, cheek pressed against his shoulder, a hand still running along his side. Stens almost hated how much he missed this, missed him. He shouldn’t want to stay in the bed forever, comfortably nestled at Clyde’s side; he had a life out there, away from him, away from West Virginia. And Clyde...well, Clyde deserved better than him, better than the pathetic person he’d become even when he had left to become a better person. Instead, he’d quickly fallen right back into the comfort of Clyde’s arms, unable to resist him, even after all these years away.

“What made you think of the bridge?” Stens loved his low voice, the way he said each word carefully, his easy accent. He’d always envied him that southern accent, the soft lilt easy to the ears, perfectly encapsulating the southern ideal of hospitality and sweetened iced tea. His own accent was awkward and misplaced comparatively.

“Just...this. When we went there, it was just us. Us versus the world.” His words were soft as a finger trailed circular shapes into Clyde’s collarbone, not daring to look up at him, not knowing--or more accurately not wanting to face--what he would find there. “We were so far up from the river, it was like we were invincible. Nothing could ever touch us. It felt like it was just us, forever. That was what this felt like. It was...you were….everything.”

He wanted to bury himself into the bed and not come out. This wasn’t...none of this was how anything was supposed to go, and here he was, digging a deeper hole for himself the moment he’d started talking again.

“Stens…”

“But then we had to walk back home, Clyde, face the world again. It’s...we can’t do this. I...had, no, I have something beyond here.”

“Beyond us.” It wasn’t a question; Stensland nearly flinched at the implications.

“I...no...yes. But, Clyde, it...it was never about you. Not like that. I didn’t…” He turned then, not able to face him, not able to take in the comfort being freely offered. Instead he faced the walls, still that horrible yellow he’d always complained about. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to leave here, leave your home, just to follow my stupid dreams, it would be unf--”

Stensland’s words were cut off with a squeak as Clyde was suddenly looming over him, knees bracketing his hips as he had, perhaps by a sort of instinct, moved so his back was on the mattress once more. There was now nowhere he could look without feeling like he was losing; his gaze anywhere would be obvious. Resigned to his fate, he looked up into Clyde’s eyes, feeling that pang of hurt and regret with the expression he found there, with how his gaze bored into him.

“Clyde,” he whispered, feeling like he couldn’t--he shouldn’t-- raise his voice above it in that moment, like if he did, he would ruin everything; it would fracture around him.

“Stens, you…,” Clyde sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. When they opened again, Stensland was struck again by the emotions he saw there, coupled with the hurt evident by the draw of his brow, the downturn of his mouth. He felt the urge to kiss that look off his face, as he had so many times in the past. But he couldn’t--that wasn’t his job anymore, hadn’t been for a long time.

“You thought...you really thought I wouldn’t drop everything for you?”

“Clyde, I--”

“No, Stens, just let...let me talk.”

He only nodded, his heart now racing.

“After all this time, after everythin’ I’ve fucking done for you. I know we had to move to Boone to take care of Momma and it was backtracking from what we wanted, having to live in this trailer but I...it was going to get better, I swear. I told you, I had plans, and we were gonna get out of here, you could be wherever you wanted.”

Clyde was shuddering now, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. Stensland wanted to reach up, wipe them away, but really, he didn’t deserve that, did he?

“Dammit, Stens. Everything I’ve done is for you. This may have been my house, where I lived, but you, Stens, you were my home. I didn’t want to be anywhere but with you. Fuck, I’d live in a cardboard box in the city if it meant I was with you.”

Tears were falling now, rolling down his cheeks just slightly before falling off down onto Stensland. He could see the effort Clyde was making to keep himself up, his arm trembling with it. Reaching up, he wiped away a tear beginning to form before pushing at his left shoulder. He got the hint and carefully sunk back down on the bed next to Stens, curling against his side, his arm finding its way under his neck again so his hand could rest against Sten’s arm, thumb rubbing circles into it.

“I want to be selfish again, Stens. I want to demand you take me back, fuck your divorce, fuck whoever made you want it, want to keep you here with me again, or keep you wherever, it doesn’t have to be here, as long as I have you.”

“Clyde…” He rolled over so they were once again facing each other, not able to take this without looking at him, but also just that bit of scared to do so, still scared of what he’d see in Clyde’s expression, not wanting to face the hurt that had been there since he’d shown up in town three days ago.

“But I can’t. I still fucking can’t, not if it risks your happiness. Fuck, I just want you to be happy.”

“I want you to be happy, too,” Stensland rushed out, before Clyde could take over again. “That’s why...I thought you were happier here, would be happier here than in any city. You’re a country boy, Clyde, and I love that about you, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t think you’d like living in the city.”

“ You make me happy. I don’t fucking care where it is, Stens, I just...I just want to be with you. If I can’t..If I don’t make you happy anymore, though, I’ll just...I’ll just deal with it. But I couldn’t just let you go, Stens, not without...not without talking to you. I know we weren’t good at that before, and that’s probably my fault I just...I wanted everything to be okay and I was bullheaded and didn’t see that you weren’t happy and it’s my fault and I’m sorry.”

“No Clyde, I’m sorry. I should have...I should have said something, anything. I just...I got trapped and scared and I didn’t think anything through. Clyde, fuck, I’m sorry. I know it’s ten years too late, but I’m sorry.”

Stensland leaned forward then, pressing his lips to Clyde’s, trying not to get lost in them, knowing it was probably a lost cause. He whispered soft “I’m sorry”s between kisses, savoring the warmth he felt from it, from this.

Clyde finally pulled back, a crooked grin across his reddened lips. “Well, ain’t we two idiots?”

He barely contained his snort. “Just a bit, maybe.”

“We still...I know we still got a lotta talkin’ to do, but...do you want to go for a drive?”

“A drive?” Stensland looked up at him, confused, Clyde’s wide grin only fueling that confusion.

“Yes,” Clyde answered, pressing another kiss to Stensland’s lips, leaving him wanting more, again, wanting to follow him as he drew back. “A drive. I think a certain bridge would be nice to visit.”

#kylux #star wars #kylo ren #armitage hux #clydeland #clyde logan #stensland #my writing #this is a lot sadder than i had intended #i'm sorry #but it has a kind of happy ending??#dressesandcarresses

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analogscum · 6 years

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DON’S PLUM (2001, d. R.D. Robb)

Why is it, my dear Scumbags, that forbidden fruit is the sweetest fruit of all? Why is it that, when we know that we can’t have something, it only makes us want it that much more? This applies to any number of life’s pleasures, but especially to movies. Just think of the number of films that are out there, just waiting to be viewed, but because they’ve either been lost to time, or the powers that be have locked them away somewhere, we may never get to experience. London After Midnight. The Day the Clown Cried. Until recently, anyway, The Other Side of the Wind. Well, tonight, thanks to the magic of illegal YouTube uploads, I’m here to tell you about some of that forbidden fruit. We’re going to talk about a film that its stars do not want you to see (if you live in America or Canada, that is), a film that to this day they continue to try and bury via any legal shenanigans they can. So get ready, because it’s time to take a big juicy bite out of Don’s Plum.

To start, we must talk about the nineties. In the nineties, two big things happened that allowed Don’s Plum to come into existence: the advent of low-budget Indies with cool kids talking in verbose, provocative lingo (see: Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Reality Bites, Kids, etc.), and the teen heartthrob coronation of Leonardo DiCaprio. As an infamous New York magazine profile from 1998 established, young Leo ran with a gang of fellow young thespians who would be immortalized as “the Pussy Posse.” The modus operandi of the Pussy Posse was…well, you can probably guess what it was. These guys were all about scoring chicks and getting loaded and not tipping waitresses, and they lived like goddamn boy kings. Leo was the leader, with his two best friends Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly on either side of the pussy throne. Other members of the Pussy Posse included David Blaine, Lucas Haas, and R.D. Robb, who you undoubtedly remember as the kid who played Schwartz in A Christmas Story. Anyway, around 1995, Robb had a boffo idea: if I could get my hands on a camera and some black and white film, I could shoot my friends doing what we do every night, just hanging out acting like douchebags, and somehow this will magically congeal into a smash indie hit. So Leo and Tobey, who were allegedly under the impression that this was just going to be a short film, gave Robb a bunch of money to make this thing, which he did, casting Leo, Tobey, Kevin Connolly, and a bunch of their other friends, shooting on and off for a two year period, with the young actors improvising almost all of their dialogue. And with that, let’s get into the finished film itself, shall we?

Los Angeles. The mid to late nineties. Everything is in black and white and super fuckin’ suave, because, again, it’s Los Angeles in the mid to late nineties. Jeremy Sisto is driving a pickup truck with leopard print seats. He kicks a hippie chick out of the passenger seat, mumbling something about “I need…pleasure. And…I need…to know that with…BRUTE FORCE, I got you out of my life, mmkay?” So, uh, right off the bat, um, that dialogue. Yikes, right? The hippie chick, for her part, gets very angry and yells, “You were supposed to take me to Vegas!” Don’t worry, we never find out why she was going to Vegas in the first place, or who Jeremy Sisto’s character is, because he then promptly drives out of the movie. Bye, Jeremy Sisto! Beep beep!

Cut to Tobey Maguire, who looks like he just finished going through puberty roughly five minutes before Robb called “action!” He’s got a dopey look on his face, and an unfortunate bowl cut/chin scruff combo that makes him look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He’s sitting in a moody mid to late nineties café, drinking a comically large cappuccino, and half paying attention to the absolute worst goddamn music I have ever heard in my life. The end credits describe this band as “acid jazz,” but I think a more accurate description would be “music to try and swallow your own tongue to.” It’s like a fiendishly unlistenable combination of free jazz, ska, Tom Waits hobo wailing, and beat poetry, and it should’ve been left back in the nineties where it belongs, alongside Olestra and the Kosovo war. Tobey is trying to pick up some ladies to bring to hang out with his friends later, but oddly enough none of these women want to hang out with an arrogant sad sack who has all the charisma and sex appeal of Uncle Joey from Full House. Meanwhile, there’s like a full-on burlesque dance number happening to accompany this zoot suit cacophony, and the director only occasionally cuts to it for a few seconds at a time. I guess, who needs to see a big splashy musical number when you can watch a comic relief wet blanket who just got his first pubes strike out with every woman he talks to, right? Luckily, the café waitress takes pity on him and agrees to accompany him to meet up with his friends, and then does basically nothing else for the rest of the movie. Occasionally the scene will cut to her to remind us that she’s there, but, like, is she really there, though?

Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley is sitting facing a dude who is showing his bare ass to the camera, because that’s how real fuckin’ life just is, maaaaan, not everyone always wears pants, dude! They apparently just had sex, even though she’s fully clothed, and they get into a philosophical argument about nothing and everything, as if they’re in the worst deleted scene from Slacker. Even though they clearly hate each other, the dude, Brad, invites Jenny Lewis to come meet up with his friends, and she makes some overly hostile joke about how he didn’t make her cum earlier, because low-budget indie movie. Next we see Kevin Connolly driving down the street in his Jeep, when he encounters the hippie girl from the beginning of the movie, like a couple of star-crossed blabbedy blahs. Finally, FINALLY, we’re introduced to Leo, when he borrows a comically large mid to late nineties cell phone from this little hood rat kid who insists on telling him some boring story about a brawl at the Viper Room even though Leo is CLEARLY trying to use said comically large mid to late nineties cell phone to call up every fine young female he knows to meet up with him and his friends. This makes the little hood rat kid very very angry, and its supposed to be funny, I guess? Anyway, like they were all fated since time immemorial to do, all of our leads finally converge down at the titular greasy spoon eatery, Don’s Plum.

Now, have you ever been at a restaurant, and you find yourself sitting near a table of people who are so obnoxious, so vapid, so relentlessly annoying and unpleasant, that you can no longer enjoy your food, and just find yourself eavesdropping on every improbably stupid thing that these goddamn condom leaks are rattling on about, slowly being pulled further and further into their vortex of suck? You have? Well, then, congratulations, because that experience is the rest of this fuckin’ movie. Jenny Lewis and Brad are the first to arrive, and what do they do? They start playing a goddamn harmonica. Um, no. Hell no. I’m trying to enjoy my meal in relative peace and quiet, you know what I don’t need? Your shitty ass John Popper impressions, ok? Get that shit all the way outta here. Then, just to really up the insufferability factor, Jenny Lewis starts opining about Bob Dylan, but she only calls him Bob, which, you can take that one away from here right away, and then launches into the following diatribe...

“You know what I’m so sick of though? All that fucking commercial grunge crap. It all sounds alike. It’s like the record companies that are promoting sterile music. I mean, I love Nirvana, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t the Beatles.”

WOOF. Mercifully, Brad interrupts her to tell her that he loves her, even though it’s their like, first or second date. She’s reasonably creeped out by this, and just by how earnest and dark and brooding Brad is in general, until thankfully Tobey and the waitress show up, soon followed by Kevin and the hippie hitchhiker. Leo gets his own grand entrance, checking himself out in the reflection of an aquarium while some mid to late nineties boom bap hip hop blares on the soundtrack, natch. For the next hour or so, the group basically just chain smoke countless cigarettes (remember when restaurants had smoking sections?), harasses their waitress, Flo (hey, it’s a mid to late nineties indie movie, were they supposed to NOT name the waitress Flo?) and talk shit endlessly. They also say the word “bro” a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, way too much. The world’s most date rapey frat dude would tell them to relax with how much they say the word “bro.”

Suddenly, in between all of the cigarettes and “bros,” a morbidly obese lady walks past the table, and Leo mocks her for daring to be morbidly obese. The hippie hitchhiker takes umbrage with this, and Leo, charming guy that he is, calls her a “squatty piece of hippie shit cunt.” This escalates to the point where the hippie hitchhiker storms off, throwing her Birkenstocks at Leo, and then smashes Kevin’s windshield with a bat that she found…somewhere? Anyway, she’s out of the movie now, and replacing her is Jenny Lewis’s friend Constance, who they just happen to run into. So more bullshitting and chain smoking unfolds. Female masturbation is discussed, because mid to late nineties indie movie. They play Never Have I Ever, and Kevin doesn’t understand the rules, which is kinda endearing. They almost get into a fight with some creep in a mechanics outfit and Buddy Holly glasses. A horrible ska cover of the “Menomena” song from The Muppet Show pops up for a minute of your life that you’ll never get back. Leo sends the group into more turmoil when he outs Brad as bisexual and gives Tobey shit for being vegan. He also gropes Jenny Lewis’s breasts countless times, but no one seems to mind. They all fight about this for awhile, but eventually apologies are offered and they’re bros once again. However, upon learning that Brad is into both girls and guys, Jenny Lewis begins freaking out about AIDS, because ugggh. Then she and Constance start making out for absolutely no reason other than mid to late nineties indie movie. At one point, the film fades out for no reason, and then fades up again on the exact same scene just in time to hear one of the ladies ask the table, “do you guys bathe every day and, like, wash yourself with soap?” Meanwhile, the film will occasionally cut to short vignettes of the characters each saying non-sequiturs into the restroom mirror. Why? Again, because mid to late nineties indie movie. DUH.

The absolute weirdest scene occurs when Kevin Connolly notices a lady producer whom he auditioned for the previous week. He calls her “Spielberg with a pussy,” because of course he does, what else would he call her? The rest of the table convinces him to go talk to her. To both our surprise and his, when he tentatively approaches her at the bar, she’s like, Oh my god, Kevin Connolly! It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry you didn’t get that part you auditioned for, but get this, I was just watching your tape again the other day, and I want to cast you in the lead in this other movie that I’m doing! Not only that, I have to admit, I find you and your Cub Scout haircut and thrift store bowling shirt to be super fucking sexy, and later on tonight I wanna fuck your brains out so hard, so take my number and call me, hot stuff.

WHAT?!?! Like, is this supposed to be a fantasy sequence? Is it? If it is, you have to tell me, movie! Shellshocked and erect, Kevin returns to the table and recounts the whole thing, including the line “bro, it was crazy, bro! She was on my dick so hard!” Leo, meanwhile, is wearing some fake redneck dentures, talking in an exaggerated Southern accent, and eating his own boogers. This is all real, you guys, I promise.

Anyway, some more shit happens, and everyone is yapping about some stupid, possibly offensive nonsense when suddenly a lady at the next table over slaps the guy that she’s with. Hard. Slaps him really hard. Our heroes get quiet for less than a second, before remarking on the slap that just took place. Holy shit bro, that bitch slapped that guy so hard bro, bro bro bro bro, etc. When things get back to normal, Leo is suddenly quiet and sullen. Kevin notices, and tries to coax it out of him the best way he knows how, which is by asking, “you fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro?” Leo starts giving all of these cagey, mysterious non-answers, and before long everyone at the table wants to know if he’s fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro. Leo takes a deep drag off of his cigarette, and tells everyone, “my dad committed suicide bro.”

WHAAAT?!?! I’ve gotta say, I honestly did not see this coming. In a mood, Leo storms off for the back bar. Jenny Lewis follows him, and tries to make him feel better by relating her OWN familial sob story: “My dad is gone. And my mom is a junkie. She sells her ass on the corner.”

WHAAAAAAT?!?! All of these sudden dollops of soap opera drama, man! Good gravy. For whatever reason, this turns Leo on, and he tries to bang her. She rebuffs his advances, and they get into an overwrought screaming match that plays out like a Level One improv exercise at the world’s shittiest acting school. Meanwhile, back at the table, Tobey gets mad at Kevin for pushing Leo to reveal the truth about his dead dad, and this escalates into a full on fist fight! BRO!

Now, holy shit, you guys, the last five minutes of this movie. Jenny Lewis runs into the bathroom, and begins lamenting into the mirror about how she let a “perfectly good fuck” get away. As she’s saying all this, she pulls some tinfoil, a straw and a lighter out of her purse and just straight up starts FREEBASING CRACK COCAINE.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Kinda makes all that AIDS talk seem kinda hollow, huh? Then, oh my god, she starts crying and launches into this fucking after school special monologue, screaming into the mirror about how “I was the one that came on to Uncle Jerry! I was the one that was curious!”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Excuse me, waitress, but it seems you got drug abuse and child molestation in my mid to late nineties indie movie! What is ANY OF THAT doing in here?! And in the last five goddamn minutes of the movie, no less! So now Tobey and Kevin’s bro fight has spilled out onto the street, so Leo goes and breaks it up, he and Kevin do a very intricate secret bro handshake, everyone has a good laugh, Brad lights Kevin’s bowling shirt on fire, everyone goes prancing down the street, and the movie ends.

Now, imagine that you’re Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. It’s late 1997, or possibly early 1998. One of you is now the biggest movie star on the planet, thanks to a movie about a big-ass boat. You’ve just seen this Don’s Plum movie that your little buddy R.D. Robb made. First of all, it’s a full-length fucking movie, not a short like you both thought it would be. Second of all, both of you are in there saying terrible things about women, doing terrible things to women, and oh shit, the majority of your fans…wait for it…are women! Bro! But worst of all, our little buddy R.D. Robb, who we thought was our friend, our fellow Pussy Posse member, our BRO, is shopping this fucking movie around to distributors? This fucking movie that could possibly end our careers if anyone ever sees it? Tell me, if you were Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire in late 1997 or early 1998, would you do everything in your power to make sure that Don’s Plum never saw the light of day?

Well, according to a lawsuit filed in 1998 by one of the film’s producers, David Stutman, that’s exactly what Leo and Tobey did. Interestingly enough, according to court documents, apparently it was Tobey who was more concerned with how his performance in the film would negatively affect his nascent stardom, and therefore enlisted his much more famous best friend to help him carry out “a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent the release of the film.” I mean, Leo comes off as WAY more of an asshole than Tobey, who mainly just mopes around and eventually bro fights with Kevin Connolly, but in any case, both parties eventually reached a settlement in which Stutman agreed that Don’s Plum would not be released in the U.S. or Canada. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 10, 2001, and quickly faded into Hollywood lore.

Every few years, talk of this wild, black and white, mostly improvised movie with some big celebrities before they got famous will pop up again. Most recently, back in early 2016, another of the film’s producers, Dale Wheatley, uploaded the film to Vimeo and posted it to his website, freedonsplum.com, where anyone could watch it for free. Within days, Leo and Tobey’s respective legal teams had the video removed. You would think that after more than twenty years, with Leo now a respected Oscar winner, and Tobey having brought Spider-Man to life on the big screen, they’d be willing to let bygones be bygones. But it seems that they’re still legitimately concerned that they would stand to lose their vaunted place amongst the Hollywood elite if North American audiences ever got to see Don’s Plum. They still fear it. They still think it’s dangerous. In reality, it’s just embarrassing, which isn’t the same thing.

Truth is, there are a million movies out there just like Don’s Plum. There are a million other overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing indie movies made by overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people about the lives of overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people out there. I mean, I went to film school, fer chrissakes, I can say with some level of authority that Don’s Plum is the sort of project that my classmates and I poured our hearts and souls Into, only to be embarrassed by its messy, guileless sincerity later. The only thing that distinguishes Don’s Plum from the horde of other cringeworthy embryonic efforts like it is, as I said before, its status as cinematic forbidden fruit. Will its two stars ever allow the audience that it was made for to have a taste? Somehow I doubt it, bro.

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curriebelle · 7 years

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Episode Ignis Feels Like Fanfiction and That’s a Good Thing

Ok so I’m having a Thought.

You know when people say something reads “like fanfiction”, and it’s meant to be a criticism? The phrase is one of those intangibles, one of those agreed-upons, where no one can define it quite accurately but everyone thinks they know what it means. Usually it’s a combination of deviation from the original tone, bleaching out character flaws and complexities, a lack of understanding of nuance, and a reverent or worshipful attitude towards old characters, moments, settings, and iconography (and iconography is just the Stuff. Star Wars iconography is lightsabers, wookies and Jedi robes).

That’s a pretty reductive description of fanfiction of course, because a lot of fanfic - whether it’s well or poorly written - doesn’t necessarily follow those patterns. Weirdly enough, saying a sequel or reboot reads “like fanfiction” often implies that the writer doesn’t understand something about the source material - that they’re oversimplifying, or they’re fanning about while failing to understand what a “good” sequel would actually require. And that’s pretty ironic, because fans - obsessive detail-hoarding, secondary-character-worshipping pastiche-crafters that they are - often know the source material better than anyone, sometimes better than the creators themselves, and they are very aware of what they are erasing or changing when they move Marvel into a fluffy coffee shop AU.

But I’m kind of digressing, because my point is that “this feels like fanfiction” shouldn’t be seen as a criticism, but rather as a gut feeling that we need to unpack. Sometimes it leads to legitimate criticism that, while worth addressing, actually has very little to do with fanfiction. And sometimes it leads to this weird 4:30 am conclusion: Episode Ignis is when “this feels like fanfiction” should be deployed as a compliment. Spoilers onward, for both Episode Ignis and FFXV.

I’m talking specifically about the alternate ending, here, which is tantamount to an FFXV fix-it fic. In this version Ignis averts the tragic ending of FFXV, and though he prepares to sacrifice his own life to do so, it ends up costing nothing. Ignis survives with even prettier hero-scarring than he gets in the regular plot. The episode fills in a sizable story gap after Leviathan knocks Noct out, and closes a few additional plotholes (I wondered what happened to that one obnoxiously overdesigned Imperial guy: turns out Ravus stabbed him). It spends some time with likable characters (Ardyn, yeeee) and underdeveloped characters (again, Ravus). Ignis gets roughed up and drenched, loses the glasses, and I’m 90% sure the animators made his eyes bigger in the cutscenes for extra pretty. He gains maximum plotline power, and Adam Croasdell voice acts the shit out of some sassy comebacks and anguished screaming (ok, this is unrelated, but when he’s doing the regular stormbind combo, it sounds like he screams FUCK in one of his battle grunts and it makes me laugh every time). He can liberate Altissia more or less by himself, and that’s before he drives a goddamn speedboat away from pursuant megarobots. So for anyone calling Mary Sue, yes, Ignis dives headfirst into that. He basically becomes Magic James Bond.

The whole episode is also pretty blatantly queer-coded. We get a very cuddly flashback to kid Noctis, and Ignis’s vow to stand at his side. Ignis is monomaniacal when it comes to finding Noctis. Noctis eiher drops the l-word, referring directly to Ignis and the freshly fridged Lunafreya (I’m still salty about that one, sorry), or says Ignis will always be in his heart depending on the ending. There’s a fantastic gifset going around of the official couples in previous Final Fantasies (Squall and Rinoa, Tidus and Yuna) declaring the exact same thing Ignis does in the alternate ending. “Rinoa, even if the world turns on you, I’ll be your knight”. “There’s no way I’ll let Yuna go”, even if I have to break all the rules of your stupid religion. Even if it costs my own life, I won’t let you take Noctis away. The queer subtext here is one of those things where it’s purposefully vague - just enough emotional evidence and physical contact that you can read romantic feelings there if you want, but just short of an actual romance to leave interpretations open. If you’re convinced Noctis and Luna were in love, Episode Ignis probably won’t debunk that.

So Ignis and his Episode are both powerful, emotional, pretty, potentially kinda gay, and ridiculously awesome.

And honestly, it is phenomenal.

Episode Ignis is a blast to play. His combat style is very fun and quick and fluid and flashy, and the grappling hook in the first portion makes you feel superheroic. Killing Ardyn, meanwhile, makes you feel godlike. It is an incredible surge of adrenaline to take on armies and deities by your lonesome. The gameplay and narrative reflect each other here, just like they do in the base game. FFXV seems happy at first, and the combat is pretty entertaining with all the goofy combo-attacks, but that game is a tragedy. It’s all the more tragic by how fun it is to begin with, and by the end it is painful to play. Characters get older, places fall apart, people die, and you have to escort Ignis around for a chapter while he grows used to being blind and Gladio constantly bitches at you for walking too fast. The photo mechanic is introduced to break your heart later, to show you how fleeting youth and pleasure can truly be under backbreaking destiny.

And in retaliation, Episode Ignis thrives on the power of Fuck You. Long commutes by car, mundane in the moment but peaceful upon reflection decades later? Fuck You, I have a grappling hook. Sections that force you to walk slowly through a dungeon and think about what you’ve done? Fuck You, I’ve got two daggers, lightning teleportation and button-mashing hands. Musings about the ravages of time, and aching nostalgia for youth? Fuck You, Ignis is prettier than ever. A tragic ending pre-ordained by prophecy? Fuck You, Ignis is going to re-write that fate by being clever, patient, and brave enough to sacrifice his life, but double Fuck You, he gets to live as well. Bullets flying, health bar low, multiple explosions and Atlas Ripped decking airships in the background? Fuck. You. It’s time to make some fucking soup.

With all that in mind, it makes sense that people might accuse Episode Ignis of being tone-deaf, of being fanfiction in all the “bad” ways - it neglects the nuance of the original, and papers over complex themes so everything can end up hunky-dory, but I still think that’s too easy.

Here’s the thing: Episode Ignis can only exist as fanfiction - or as alternate-ending DLC, I guess. FFXV is the story of Noctis and his story has an ending and it’s horribly, horribly sad, but it’s also what the story is built around. You might find it too depressing or too grim or you might find it just right, but it is well-structured. FFXV is careful with its themes and patterns and foreshadowing.

Because of that care, Ignis screwing Ardyn’s plans out of whack and saving Noctis from his fate couldn’t occur in the main game. FFXV is not about Ignis. It’s about Noctis. And the gameplay, built as it is around creating nostalgia - photographs, long car rides, camping, friendship - wouldn’t work if the ending wasn’t agonizing enough to make you long for the good old days. Maybe Noctis didn’t have to die or maybe he did, but the ending of FFXV was always going to hurt.

FFXV is an emotional project, and that project is to make the player painfully nostalgic. With that intriguing goal achieved, Episode Ignis exists as a response, and it can never really be more than that. It’s an ending I like better, but it is an alternate ending.

If you think about it, Episode Ignis didn’t need that alternate ending. It could have existed perfectly well as a companion to FFXV, filling in a much-needed blank (and without the alternate ending that’s exactly what it does). But in making a response to FFXV instead, they challenged a lot of assumptions FFXV needed to make in order to tell its story. FFXV assumes its prophecy is the only answer, as do its characters. FFXV yanks a great deal of agency away from Ignis, Prompto and Gladio when it asks them to sit still for a decade and wait for their friend to die without hunting for an alternative

Why can’t they try something else? Why can’t they defeat their nemesis on their own terms? I mean, who the heck does Bahamut think he is, anyway? Who says the ending can’t be happy, and the future can’t be bright?

Those are exactly the questions a fanfiction writer would ask. FFXV created those questions, and Episode Ignis addresses them, but in a way that acts as more of a breach than a closure. It’s one route to a happy ending - so maybe there are more. This is also the reason I brought up the queercoding in Episode Ignis. If there is any genre that needs a complete overhaul from grimdark tragedy into happy endings, it’s the scourge that is the modern queer romance story. There are so many of those bloody stories ending in anguish or separation or suicide or displeasure, and not nearly enough fairytales. Having a tragic ending overturned by the power of queer love is an insanely empowering experience, and that’s probably why you see so many posts about how Ignis’s gay love can pierce the veil of death and save the day. Episode Ignis didn’t need its queercoding any more than it needed its alternate ending, but the two make sense together: both of them are stories that people are absolutely aching for.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like this - a company actively revising their story, overturning its mood, questioning its plot, granting a completely different ending, and then asking fans to pay 6.99 for it. It’s different from alternate film endings, because those are DVD extras and one always wins the theatrical release. It’s different from re-imaginings or adaptations because Episode Ignis is...just not quite that. It can’t exist on its own, unlike most remakes. Video games are always fluid texts to a certain extent, but now developers are even relinquishing the solidity of lore and cutscenes. It’s so odd.

At the decision point of Episode Ignis, you can use R1 and L1 to flip the camera back and forth, moving between a shot of Ardyn and a shot of Ignis. It’s a tiny, insignificant moment, one that almost feels like a mistake - like maybe the developers couldn’t figure out how to stage a normal shot-reverse-shot. But that moment became an oddly powerful synecdoche for what Episode Ignis was to me. If you want to look at this story from a different angle, well, go for it. Here’s another place you can point the camera. Maybe the sun will rise over there too.

#ffxv #episode ignis #what the fuck it's six am #happy 2018

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redditnosleep · 7 years

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My Student Submitted The Most Disturbing "Living History" Project I've Ever Seen

by gretelcat

One of my least favorite parts about being a middle school history teacher is the bullshit “Living History” assignments we give at the end of every school year. Kids are supposed to sit with their grandparents and video tape, voice record, or transcribe their oldest memories for posterity (and for an easy way to bring up their GPA).

I have been doing this for seventeen years, and when I collected the projects this time around, I assumed they would be as dull, if not duller than usual. This had not been a particularly bright class.

So I went home, poured myself a glass of wine, and prepared for a long night of “I only owned two pairs of pants when I was your age” and “My brother got beat with a newspaper for hitting a baseball into a neighbor’s yard.” And of course, these projects were peppered with innocent, old-person comments that were so horribly sexist and racist you just had to laugh.

Now, I had a girl in my class whom I will call Olivia. She was pudgy, quiet, and proved herself a consistent B student. I expected her project to be as unremarkable as her, and perhaps that’s why I was so profoundly disturbed by what I witnessed that night.

Olivia had submitted two discs for some reason, so I began with the one marked “interview.” My screen hiccupped twice before a grainy image of a living room came into view. The place was a hoarder’s hell. Olivia was curled up in an armchair clutching a notebook and looking like a scared animal. Across from her sat a man with a somber countenance, smoking a cigarette and staring at her expectantly.

“Go ahead,” a woman’s voice whispered from behind the camera. Olivia’s owlish eyes flashed towards the screen, then back to the man.

“I am here with my Great Uncle Stephen,” she began almost inaudibly. “He is going to tell us about his oldest memories from being in the army.”

Great Uncle Stephen looked like he’d rather be in a goddamn trench at the moment, but he waited patiently for the questions to begin.

Not surprisingly, Olivia read verbatim from the suggested questions sheet I had handed out to the students. He answered her curtly. Once or twice I heard her mother whisper “speak up, Olivia” from behind the camera. Typical, boring shit.

So I was intrigued when Olivia set down the notebook and asked, “Did you like being in the army?”

That was totally off-script. Great Uncle Stephen emitted a chain smoker’s wheeze. “Nope. Glad to get out of my town though.”

“Where did you go?”

“Balkans.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. I doubted she knew what the Balkans were, and my suspicion was confirmed when she asked, “Was Baukiss very different from here?”

“Yes.”

Mom cleared her throat from behind the camera, perhaps encouraging Great Uncle Stephen to be a little more forthcoming.

But Olivia seemed genuinely interested. “Uncle Stephen,” she asked, “what is your very worst memory from the army?”

The old man crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and then slowly lifted himself out of his chair. “I’ll be back,” he mumbled. The camera cut off.

When the screen flashed back on, everything was the same except Great Uncle Stephen had several pieces of paper in plastic sleeves laid atop all the crap sitting on his coffee table. One, he held in his hand.

“I was a kid when I enlisted,” he said, looking at Olivia. “Your brother’s age,” he told her. Olivia nodded. “I never saw combat. Both of my deployments were to cities in Eastern Europe that had been destroyed by civil wars. Everything was a mess. I felt like a janitor for fuck’s sa-”

“Ahem!” Mom coughed.

Great Uncle Stephen sighed and looked at his paper. “My unit was assigned to a school that had been obliterated by all the violence. Broken windows, caved in rooms – and for some reason, the part that got to me the most was that the school had been like this for years before we got there. No one had lifted a finger to fix it. I saw kids walk by it on their way to go beg for money or whatever shit they did-”

The camera dipped towards the floor as I heard Mom whisper harshly at Great Uncle Stephen. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it wasn’t hard to imagine.

“Do you want to hear this goddamn story or not?” I heard him bark in response. “Then you better let me tell it how I want.”

“Mom,” Olivia chimed. “Please stop interrupting.”

“Are you presenting this in front of the class?”

“No, Mom, we’re just handing it in to the teacher.”

“I’m sure he’s heard the word shit before,” Great Uncle Stephen contributed helpfully. I wasn’t a “he” as a matter of fact, but other than that the statement was accurate.

The camera was lifted and after a couple of blurry focus adjustments, the shot was the same as before.

“Ahh I’m talking too much anyway,” he grumbled. He lifted the piece of paper in his hand close to his face. “In the basement, I found this letter. I didn’t know what it said but I had a buddy of mine translate it. So I’m gonna read it now. And then I’ll tell you what I saw in that basement.”

A chill ran down my spine. Mom zoomed in to Great Uncle Stephen and his letter. His palsied hands trembled as he held up the paper. This is what he read:

Dear Sir,

I never loved my country. So many of these skirmishes are born from patriotism, a power struggle for the shards of a once-great empire, but I do not care what name my home has on a map. This fighting is senseless and I stay as far away from it as I can.

It was not these attacks and disorganized violence that took the lives of my wife and child. It was illness. Mercifully, it happened quickly for the baby. Nadja suffered for longer. I watched in horror knowing I could do nothing for them. My only solace is that I was there for them every step of the way. I stopped going to work one day, and no one came after me. I doubt they noticed I was gone. Since the school was simply across a field, visible from my window, it would have been easy to go for a few hours each day and come home quickly to care for them. But what was the point? All I did was clean floors. I was as useless to the world as I was to my family.

I tried to take Nadja to the hospital, but the journey was too long and taxing. I brought her home and she died that night.

After Nadja and the baby were gone… well, I don’t remember much. I didn’t leave my hovel, barely ate and slept, thought many times of taking my own life. Tempting though it was, I felt paralyzed by my own helplessness.

The one thing that kept me sane was my radio. I never turned it off once. Even though I didn’t listen to the words being said – in fact, the channel I got the clearest was in English (I think) which I don’t speak a lick of. But the voices, the music, and the true knowledge that life existed beyond this violent city sustained me.

I have no idea how long passed before I saw the light of day again. I was dizzy from hunger, so finding food was my priority. My radio came with me, of course. Since I first holed myself up, it has gone everywhere with me. It talks to me as I sleep and as I wake. I don’t know what it’s saying, but I know I would die without it.

Once I had some water and food, it occurred to me that the only thing left to do was go back to work. So I did. The following morning, I simply returned to the school where I was a janitor and got back to work.

Nobody made a big deal out of it. Like I said, Nadja had been sick for a long time, and those who worked at the school knew it. I appreciate that no one had pestered me to come back to work during the hardest days of my life. The teachers never said much to me, but we smiled at each other in the halls and that mutual respect was perhaps the reason I decided to come back at all.

The place had gone to the dogs without me, so I simply grabbed my broom and rags from my closet and set to cleaning. Everyone is grateful to have me back, I know. And the best part is that nobody minds my radio. I bring it with me everywhere and keep the volume low enough not to disrupt the students. No one has ever complained. In fact, I suspect they like it.

The schoolhouse is not very big, but does require a lot of maintenance. The floors are always sticky and stained, so I spend most of my time mopping. Kids make messes – I guess that’s why I’m still in business. Sometimes I have to move things around to make sure I get every spot on the floor beautiful and clean, but I take pride in that.

And the repairs! The school always needs tune-ups here and there, and I am happy to help. Some days I’m reconstructing a desk that broke as I whistle along with the radio, other times I handle more serious, structural issues. Days when I have work like this, I feel truly instrumental, like a cog in a larger machine. How could this school survive without me? It took me a long time, but I once again feel that I have purpose.

There is a larder behind the school that is full of preserved food. In lieu of payment, I am allowed to take as much food as I need. That arrangement is fine – what would I do with money anyway? I used to bring the food back to my home, just one field away from the school, but when I started sleeping in the basement no one seemed to notice. This school is special to me and I cannot leave it unguarded.

When I am besieged with memories of my wife and baby, I turn up the volume on the radio to drown out such thoughts. It works for me every time.

Except this morning.

Because this morning, I woke up to dead silence.

I frantically examined the radio to see what had happened. I honestly cannot tell you how many days in a row I have been using it. Did it simply live out its life and die naturally? I have spent the entire day trying to fix it. Most of this time, I have been crying. I am losing my mind without it.

I have given myself until sundown. If I cannot fix it by then, I am going to take my life. I am writing this because the sunlight is starting to die and I know what my fate shall be.

I have thought about taking one last walk through the halls of my school, saying goodbye to the students and teachers. I know I will be missed. But I cannot bring myself to leave this room. I cannot go anywhere knowing that my radio is dead in here.

There are no more tears in me. It feels now like I can’t catch my breath. I vomited what little food I had in my stomach and I am growing dizzy again, like I did after Nadja died. I am not long for this world.

But before I take my life, I have closed the door to this room and stuck a chair beneath the handle. It is the only room in the basement and has a small casement that lets in just enough light for me to see what I am doing. If anyone is kind enough to come looking for me, they should not be met with this gruesome sight. Perhaps they will see the door is blocked, smell my rotting body, and simply forget I ever existed.

But I have placed both my radio and this note outside the door. Kind sir, if you are reading this, I have one humble request: please fix it. Save my radio. It did not deserve to die in its sleep and I am ashamed that I cannot revive it.

Now I am ready to join Nadja and little Ludmilla in heaven. I hope this school can find another janitor who loves and cares for it the way I do.

The hour is now. Do not forget my radio.

Stanislav

When Mom zoomed back out, Olivia had tears in her eyes. “Thank you for sharing, Uncle Stephen,” Mom said, her voice choked. “I think we have enough.”

“Wait!” Olivia chirped. “He said there’s more. What did you find?”

Before Great Uncle Stephen could open his mouth, the image disappeared. My jaw dropped. Was that it? What did Great Uncle Stephen see?

I promptly remembered that there was a second disc. This one was unmarked, but I hoped it contained the rest of the interview.

There was no video, only audio. The voice that started up was Olivia’s.

“Hi Miss Gerrity. I’m sorry about my mom, but she refused to record the rest of what my uncle was saying. But I asked him to continue and secretly recorded the story as a voice memo on my phone. I remember you said earlier this year that history is written by the people who win wars.” She sucked in a breath and commenced crying. “But everyone’s history is important, even if they are sad, pathetic people and even if they never won a single thing in their life. I haven’t slept through the night since I finished this project, but you have to hear what my uncle has to say.”

There were tears in my eyes, too. The sincerity of her words was beautiful. I was also flattered that she had remembered some trite phrase I threw around because it was what my history teachers said to me.

Before I got too sappy over it, the audio began again.

“Fine,” came Mom’s frustrated voice. “If you want to hear the rest of the story, fine, but this is not appropriate for a school project.”

“Let me finish,” Great Uncle Stephen snapped. “If it’s too much for you, help yourself to a snack in the kitchen. But Olivia wants to know what happened.”

I heard her mother mumble something and walk away. Olivia and her uncle were alone. I imagined her looking at him expectantly.

“So did you find the radio? Or did it get ruined when the school got blown up?”

He rasped and I heard the distinct click of a lighter. “That letter,” he began slowly, “had a date on it.”

“What date?” she inquired hungrily.

“It was dated two weeks before we started rebuilding the school.”

“Didn’t you say the school had been destroyed like two years ago?”

“Yes,” replied Great Uncle Stephen. “It had been.”

There was silence as I felt goosebumps on my arms. The images that came to my mind were almost too overwhelming to express, but Great Uncle Stephen put them into words effortlessly. Clearly he had spent his whole life thinking about it.

“This man, this Stanislav, went to a vandalized, falling apart schoolhouse and cleaned up blood and rubble like it was spilled drinks and dust. He smiled at dead bodies in the hallway and believed they were smiling back at him because they liked his radio. He moved around corpses so he could sweep the ground under them. The roof was half collapsed, so when it rained, he must’ve gotten soaking wet but was so oblivious that he didn’t even feel a thing.” I could hear Olivia crying steadily. “I found the larder he was talking about. It was all pickled, preserved food that probably tasted like shit. Most of the stuff was moldy.”

“Did – did you see the dead body?”

“Yes. Hanging from the ceiling, but still amazingly… lifelike. He wasn’t rotting away. This hadn’t happened years ago.”

“Did he look peaceful?” she asked, a chord of desperation in her voice.

“Couldn’t tell you. The smell was rank, and his face was blue and his eyes were bulging. Like this.” I imagined him demonstrating.

“And the radio?” Olivia wept.

I heard Great Uncle Stephen take a long drag of his cigarette. “It was there, alright. And it was still on.”

#creepy #horror story #gretelcat

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